Whether the Democrats manage to eke out a hopelessly debilitated slight majority unable to pass anything ’cause 1 Democrat doesn’t like it or leave a slight Republican majority that will spend the next 2 years trolling Democrats & also not getting anything done, we can all agree that we have a victory for photography from The Rolling Stone:
I don’t know if they just take video & pick out the best clips or if they’re just that good @ getting the perfectly awkward photos, but chef’s kiss, either way.
& he has good reason to cheer ( I think that face he’s making might be cheering ): by his own count — since these are certainly not the #s anyone else sees in our mortal realm — he received 219 all-caps “WINS”, which are quadruple the value o’ lowercase “wins” & 175% the value o’ titlecase “Wins” & only 16 titlecase “Losses”:
This gives me the great opportunity to do what I neglected to do in 2020:
Apparently Boebert didn’t lose quite yet, & may end up winning, which means that all the news stories I read were full o’ lies. You can tell how shocked I am.
I have to say, beyond the pure joy o’ seeing conservatives angry, which, admittedly, is worth cheering ’nough, I don’t know why Democrats are so excited. It looks like Republicans may still take both the house & the senate, & the claims that the Republicans failing to do well during a year like 2022, when there should be a wave, & thus this means they’ll do e’en worse in 2024, shows a remarkable lack o’ self-awareness: if 2022 can be a ne’er-seen-that-before-greetings-from-Germany-kick-cancer’s-butt election year, ¿why can’t 2024? After all, e’eryone expected Democrats to cream Republicans in 2016 & they failed miserably. I don’t see how the outcome o’ this election means shit for 2024, other than mo’ Democrat governors & mo’ Democrats in state legislatures means electoral advantages for Democrats in future elections.
Boebert has been wrong ’bout many things, but she’s right here — we are calling them losers.
While it’s still round, I’m just going to put this here, which, 538, to their honesty, still keeps up, so we can laugh @ them if they’re wrong. Or, if they turn out correct after all, laugh @ the armchair theorists who constantly whine ’bout polls. Either way, we get to dunk on people.
But regardless o’ how relatively well Democrats do this year, we can still say a’least that New York Centrist Democrats known for pragmatism are utter failures. Considering this is the same wonderful state that gave us Trump, Rudi Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg, or hell, e’en Hillary Clinton, since she deserves half the blame for the disaster that was 2016, I can’t say I’m surprised that they would find mo’ terrible politicos with which to self-own themselves.
I received a wondrous omen yesterday when I decided, out o’ curiosity, to make my yearly peek into DailyKos & was greeted with this powerful combination:
I knew it’d be a suckerpop anime girl who would finally save US democracy.
All the signs indicate that the forewarned red tsunami — not the sexy communist 1, but the fake fascist 1 masquerading in blood — will not come, but that the house will turn red, but the senate may stay blue. To be truthful, I’ve mostly ignored the polls, since polls ain’t shit, & e’en mo’ than polls, I’ve ignored armchair-theorizing pundit hacks who mistake their own petty hatred o’ Democrats ’cause Sanders, given a role in the current Democratic regime, was robbed o’ his rightful primary victory lost ’cause most young people are dumb & lazy & don’t bother to vote in primaries with the general sentiment of ordinary Americans who don’t give a rats ass ’bout Sanders or socialism & probably blame some vague form o’ Sorosian socialism they were told is causing all this inflation by their favorite YouTube channel or they mistake the general sentiments of ordinary Americans as being sick o’ all this mean civility ’tween mildly patronizing Democrats & murderously crazy Republicans, ignorant o’ the fact that most Americans don’t give a shit, they’d probably love to see government officials bash each others’ brains out with hammers. If these liars truly believed in bipartisanship & bothsidesism, they would advocate for sacrificing Mitch McConnel’s wife to the hammer, too, but as it turns out, e’eryone lies when they say they support bipartisanship ’cause, as it turns out, bipartisanship is the dumbest thing in the world.
Much mo’ fascinating is the statistic I found that 60% o’ Americans have election deniers on their ballots, which is to say that only 60% o’ candidates have finally reached enlightenment & have realized that till the Engelsist Magical Socialist Party’s candidates win e’ery election, e’ery election is a fraud. I can only assume that when the deniers win they’ll attempt to insurrect themselves, since surely they wouldn’t only deny election results where they don’t win — no, not my honest pals, the Republicans.
The 1 e’eryone had been looking @, to the point that apparently a New Yorker tried to vote for Dr. Oz: unsurprisingly, real candidate whose only major electoral flaw was having a stroke, & thus having their clearness o’ speech only slightly better than the average Republican, beats clownshow TV doctor.
Many are noting that wacky Trump-favored candidates like Oz are losing in places where a sane Republican would’ve won, which leads me to reconsider e’eryone’s claim that Democrats deliberately funding these crazy candidates was typical bad Dem strategy.
I still fret that I didn’t make optimal use o’ my most recent Halloween Break, including wasting a day working on that weird Voter’s Pamphlet post that wasn’t that clever; but I can a’least feel better that I didn’t waste the most important day, Halloween itself, publishing the most revolting form o’ COVID-denial apologetics from 1 o’ the most deranged economists — & we’re talking ’bout economists, the realm that gave us such serious ideas as that forcing woman to let incels rape them ( or giving incels sexbots ) is the same as income redistribution — in the world.
That article is “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty”, written by some economist named Emily Oster, who I will ’ventually show you has o’erthrown Noah Smith as emperor o’ troll economists.
In April 2020, with nothing else to do, my family took an enormous number of hikes.
I want to remind you that this is s’posedly an “economist”. I spent COVIDtime reading books, which you can do very easily inside, ’cause that’s how you learn ’bout things, something this “economist” should have tried.
We had a family hand signal, which the person in the front would use if someone was approaching on the trail and we needed to put on our masks.
¿So this person’s family are such idiot-savants when it comes to visual abilities that they can see a tiny hand signal before them, but not full-sized humans approaching them?
¿What relevance does this ridiculously contrived fable have to do with anything?
Once, when another child got too close to my then-4-year-old son on a bridge, he yelled at her “SOCIAL DISTANCING!”
Check off on the bingo card, “Makes up bullshit exaggerated story wherein the protagonist runs into Jack-Chick-worthy strawmen who want to disembowel anyone who doesn’t obey the tribal ways o’ The Mask”. I live round Seattle, 1 o’ the most leftwing places in the US, & people didn’t say shit if they encountered someone without a mask — probably ’cause they presumed they were right-wing extremists & didn’t want to hear them start ranting ’bout the Illuminati. E’en if most people round you do think you’re assholes for not wearing masks, they were probably smart ’nough to realize that yelling @ you wasn’t going to magically make you not assholes anymo’, but would probably make you dig your heels in further — as the existence o’ this article proves.
These precautions were totally misguided. In April 2020, no one got the coronavirus from passing someone else hiking.
I’m going to need a big, fat, fucking citation needed for that. ( Fun fact: if you compare newspapers like The Atlantic to my stoner blog you will find to your shock & horror that I oft cite sources mo’ than they do, ’cause newspapers oft like to just coast on their pretend authority than follow basic academic standards ).
Our cloth masks made out of old bandanas wouldn’t have done anything, anyway.
Yes, that’s ’cause you weren’t wearing real masks, you fuckface.
But the thing is: We didn’t know.
“¡It’s Fauci’s fault my family were all hopeless dumbasses!”.
I have been reflecting on this lack of knowledge thanks to a class I’m co-teaching at Brown University on COVID.
If she had any self-awareness, such reflection would have been, “Wow, it sure is impressive that they hired me to teach a class on a subject I know absolutely nothing about. The US sure is a meritocracy”.
We’ve spent several lectures reliving the first year of the pandemic, discussing the many important choices we had to make under conditions of tremendous uncertainty.
Read: “I wasted my class’s time & money talking ’bout shit that has nothing to do with science”.
To take an example close to my own work, there is an emerging (if not universal) consensus that schools in the U.S. were closed for too long: The health risks of in-school spread were relatively low, whereas the costs to students’ well-being and educational progress were high.
This writer shows herself to be just as ignorant o’ linguistics as biology: a consensus is universal — it’s an inherent part o’ its definition. If it’s not universal, it’s mere majority, not consensus.
2nd, e’en a fervent supporter o’ democracy like me has the awareness to realize the unfortunate truth that objective, materialist science isn’t based on fucking elections. The fact that the average slackjawed moron, fed junkfood misinformation like The Atlantic, thinks children have magic COVID immunity doesn’t make it true, anymo’ than the fact that 81% o’ Americans believe there’s an invisible man in the sky who runs e’erything makes it true. Americans are dumb: their opinion is worth less than a coin flip.
Nowhere does this “economist” e’en try to look into alternatives that could serve both problems, which would’ve been real compromise, ’cause that would require some semblance o’ curiosity & independent thought, which almost all economists lack. People ( read: right-wing hacks ) assume that falling education came from children not being physically next to each other, & not the lack o’ preparedness or lack o’ resources from skinflint governments drugged up on the religion o’ “Fuck the Poor” capitalism. Hell, the psychological trauma o’ COVID could’ve by itself caused the decline; there’s no proof that the decline wouldn’t have happened if schools didn’t close, or that it wouldn’t have been worsened by children’s fears — whether based on realistic facts or exaggerated — o’ getting COVID themselves. Indeed, the fact that schools that stayed closed longer didn’t have worse effects than those that didn’t & the Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics’s own conclusion on the data imply this. This is specially since the worst effect was on math, which is the subject that should need physical presence the least & can most easily be handled with computers. Also, Americans have always been hopeless @ math — which is amazing when you consider what a STEMlord country it is & that Americans are e’en worse @ liberal arts like sociology, philosophy ( I can’t name a single good American philosopher ), &, as seen here, economists ( also no good American economists — all the English greats, like Adam Smith, Keynes, & Joan Robinson, are from the UK, while we’re stuck with Paul Samuelson, Milton Fucking Friedman, & Paul Krugman, which is like comparing bands like Nirvana & Alice in Chains to Nickelback & Creed ).
But, yeah, it would have made mo’ sense to cost mo’ lives so Americans can become slightly less terrible @ math.
Another example: When the vaccines came out, we lacked definitive data on the relative efficacies of the Johnson & Johnson shot versus the mRNA options from Pfizer and Moderna. The mRNA vaccines have won out. But at the time, many people in public health were either neutral or expressed a J&J preference. This misstep wasn’t nefarious. It was the result of uncertainty.
This is the lamest o’ Appeal to Perfection fallacies e’er. Either way people were @ risk, so this was a case o’ the “least bad scenario”. The FDA themselves continued recommending the J&J vaccine as better than nothing. Only a mental child would think that during a deadly pandemic nobody should e’er have risks or make mistakes when rushing e’er.
Misinformation was, and remains, a huge problem. But most errors were made by people who were working in earnest for the good of society.
Also an unproven claim & irrelevant: people who are “working in earnest” but know they know nothing o’ biology are still dangerously irresponsible. If I hijacked a a tank “for the good o’ society”, nobody’s going to give a shit how earnest I am, other than whether or not to have me sent to an asylum.
Given the amount of uncertainty, almost every position was taken on every topic. And on every topic, someone was eventually proved right, and someone else was proved wrong. In some instances, the right people were right for the wrong reasons. In other instances, they had a prescient understanding of the available information.
The people who got it right, for whatever reason, may want to gloat.
I can’t fucking believe this tremendous misunderstanding o’ how both objective reality & humans work. That’s right, all ideas are a guessing game: people who used their knowledge o’ biology, which is based on peer-reviewed studies & centuries o’ information, just “guessed right”. When I make a website @ work, it’s not ’cause I studied programming for years & know how the web works; I just happened to be lucky that day & can maybe feel the reason to gloat for my good gut instinct. This is the kind o’ idea only someone with no knowledge or skill in anything could think — pathetic & spiteful. The idea that this smug asshole trying to manufacture a “truce” when her side is clearly the wrong side o’ history is accusing people who were trying to prevent deaths o’ just wanting to gloat is colossal projection.
Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
“Me, for instance”.
All of this gloating and defensiveness continues to gobble up a lot of social energy and to drive the culture wars, especially on the internet.
Yes, policies that are life & death for millions is just culture war bullshit, but empty civility & decorum are vital.
& you yourself are writing on the internet. But sure, it’s e’eryone else who’s a crybaby.
These discussions are heated, unpleasant and, ultimately, unproductive.
You’re right, but you decided to write this article &, e’en mo’ perplexing, The Atlantic decided to publish it, so here we are.
And, similarly, getting something wrong wasn’t a moral failing.
No, but it is a mental failing, &, mo’ importantly, insisting you’re right with whate’er disarray o’ propaganda articles you wrote or whate’er inklings you made up in your head when you know you have less knowledge than experts who spent decades studying this subject is a moral failing, as you’re putting your pride as a “free thinker” ’bove actually helping society.
Treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people racked up more points than others is preventing us from moving forward.
This is completely contradictory: by this writer’s own perspective, all decisions are based on luck, there is no free will, & therefore whether or not we move forward is out of our control, just as whether or not taking a vaccine was apparently a coin flip. In these times o’ uncertainty, whether or not “treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people racked up more points than others” prevents us from moving forward could be right or could be wrong, & those o’ us who think that insulting idiots like this writer will help us “move forward” could be right, & if we’re not, well, we’re not to blame, ¿’cause how could we know? ¡There’s too much uncertainty! I love this implication that complex sociopolitical philosophical issues are far simpler than hard, materialist sciences like biology. Yes, this idiot’s simplistic, trite moralizing is rock solid, but how viruses & vaccines work is pure witchcraft.
We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty.
¿Why not? ¿Is officially pardoning an insentient disease any worse than Roger Stone? No, ’course not — they’re the same thing.
We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation [—]
As we will see, this writer is 1 o’ them.
[—] while forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge.
Nope, ’cause they had a very easy choice: listen to the people who did have knowledge. Their preference for listening to charlatans o’er actual scientists is a social failing, & the kind o’ person who makes this mistake is going to make the same mistake ’gain & ’gain & will continue to be a burden on society, evident by the fact that this idiot, having not been content to cause harm in the world by their idiocy, is still writing articles.
Los Angeles County closed its beaches in summer 2020. Ex post facto, this makes no more sense than my family’s masked hiking trips.
¿What? That’s a very hard accomplishment, since your family’s hiking tricks made no sense other than that you were bored & couldn’t be bothered to read real science.
But we need to learn from our mistakes and then let them go.
Keep in mind, e’en if we accept the assertion that the spread o’ COVID outside is mitigated by wind ( which is not the same as impossible ), we’re comparing the mistake o’ killing people to the mistake o’ not letting people enjoy the beach. The latter is sad, but hardly criminal. The fact that this writer thinks people who might have cost people time in the rays might have just as much to apologize for as people who helped people die is deranged & I’m amazed that this writer can have such lack o’ sense o’ shame that she can show her face in public, much less write for a newspaper, without having to wear a paper bag o’er her face. ( ¿But are paper bags truly effective @ protecting disgraceful people from their deep shame? There’s a lot o’ uncertainty ).
Because I thought schools should reopen and argued that kids as a group were not at high risk, I was called a “teacher killer” and a “génocidaire.”
Note that she only argued that kids were not @ high risk, so she made this recommendation with the full consciousness that she was putting teachers, specially ol’ teachers, @ risk o’ dying, & therefore, it is, in fact, accurate to call her a “teacher killer”, since she admits right here to knowingly recommending a scenario that would lead to mo’ deaths o’ teachers. But, ’gain, since COVID-deniers have no free will due to all that magical postmodern uncertainty, she can’t be a teacher killer, or anything, truly, since e’erything is in our minds.
It wasn’t pleasant, but feelings were high.
It is much mo’ important that we pay our respects to the dead feelings o’ this rich, spoiled fauxeconomist who has no place writing ’bout biology @ all than the people who died, declares virulent narcissist.
And I certainly don’t need to dissect and rehash that time for the rest of my days.
Then maybe you shouldn’t have written this article.
Student test scores have shown historic declines, more so in math than in reading, and more so for students who were disadvantaged at the start. We need to collect data, experiment, and invest. Is high-dosage tutoring more or less cost-effective than extended school years? Why have some states recovered faster than others? We should focus on questions like these, because answering them is how we will help our children recover.
“Anyway, fuck the millions who died & the millions mo’ with lifelong health problems. Let’s focus on my personal bugbear”. I specially love how irrelevant high-dosage tutoring vs. extended school years is & how it’s focused on “cost-effectiveness”, rather than efficacy. Any halfway knowledgeable economist should know that the US wastes their money on the stupidest shit right & left & that any talk o’ “cost-effectiveness” is futile.
Notably, routine vaccination rates for children (for measles, pertussis, etc.) are way down. Rather than debating the role that messaging about COVID vaccines had in this decline, we need to put all our energy into bringing these rates back up.
Yes, let’s try to solve a problem by deliberately refusing to examine the roots o’ said problem. To be fair, that is how economists typically try to solve economic problems, which is why they suck @ that, too.
Pediatricians and public-health officials will need to work together on community outreach[.]
They can start by recommending all their patients to stay ’way from The Atlantic & only read actually informative news sources.
The standard saying is that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. But dwelling on the mistakes of history can lead to a repetitive doom loop as well.
There’s a reason this 2nd sentence isn’t a standard saying: it’s complete nonsense. It’s only doom for the jackasses who made these “mistakes”. After all, ostracizing these people & news sources will create disincentives from fostering misinformation in the future, thereby making it less likely to happen in the future. You’d think an economist would know that, but as we’ve discussed many times, economists only understand personal responsibility when it comes to lowerclass people. Normal people should, ’course, be fired for bad results, but when an economist makes “mistakes”, we shouldn’t fire that economist from e’er writing for our paper, but continue giving them opportunities ( & thereby taking that opportunity from others ), despite doing nothing to merit it. This is the kind o’ meritocratic capitalist system that economists like this, who benefit quite well from it, strangely support a lot.
But despite its prominence, Oster’s work on COVID in schools has attracted little scrutiny—even though it has been funded since last summer by organizations that, without exception, have explicit commitments to opposing teacher’s unions, supporting charter schools, and expanding corporate freedom. In addition to grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Walton Family Foundation, and Arnold Ventures, Oster has received funding from far-right billionaire Peter Thiel. The Thiel grant awarded to Oster was administered by the Mercatus Center, the think tank founded and financed by the Koch family.
¡Le shock! ¡An economist accepting bribes awards for their studied work from rich, “libertarian” organizations — which, in their hate for government involvement, obsessively spend their money on influencing government; “laissez-faire” isn’t French for “rich people control people like dictators” for no reason — to give false authority to pseudoscience that benefits them! ¡But Volcker told me that the only asset economists had was their credibility! Well, Oster sold hers for a quick quid.
Note that liberal fascist The Atlantic ’gain gives a voice to someone under the patronage o’ the far-right — “liberal” media @ its finest.
Still, that’s hardly the worst thing one could —
But the headline statement in the new AAP report is the oft-repeated mantra that “no amount of alcohol should be considered safe in pregnancy.” Media reports have seized on this statement to renew a debate about the dangers of light drinking during pregnancy. Rather than acknowledging the obvious dangers of heavier drinking and working to address the circumstances that lead to it, we are back to discussing whether pregnant women should be shamed for having a half a glass of wine on their anniversary—or any old night.
To me, this highlights the very real downside of recommendations like this one, which do not involve any nuance. The bottom line is that while there is clear evidence of the dangers of heavy drinking—especially binge drinking—in pregnancy, the same cannot be said for low levels of alcohol consumption. As even the AAP report acknowledges, there is consensus on this issue. A large share of OBs in the U.S. report telling their pregnant patients that some alcohol is fine.
OK, that was a weird opinion to die on her sword for, but —
Emily Oster re-examines the stats on AIDS in Africa from an economic perspective and reaches a stunning conclusion: Everything we know about the spread of HIV on the continent is wrong.
O… O, dear god, no…
[T]to understand this you need to think about health the way than an economist does — as an investment. So if you’re a software engineer and you’re trying to think about whether to add some new functionality to your program, it’s important to think about how much it costs. It’s also important to think about what the benefit is. And one part of that benefit is how much longer you think this program is going to be active. If version 10 is coming out next week, there’s no point in adding more functionality into version nine.
I want to note that she isn’t e’en right ’bout software versioning here: for most software, version 9 would continue to receive updates, mainly security updates, for plenty o’ time after version 10 comes out, ’cause people don’t all update to the next version right ’way. Some can’t ’cause new versions usually introduce incompatibilities with other software. Considering the newsworthy controversies o’er decades-ol’ Windows operating systems finally having their support ended e’ery time it happens, I’m surprised she didn’t know this.
But your health decisions are the same. Every time you have a carrot instead of a cookie, every time you go to the gym instead of going to the movies, that’s a costly investment in your health.
I wish I were surprised, but, yes, this truly is how many economists think. This is what happens when economists think economics is nothing but math & whate’er gut instincts they come up with, ignoring all other sciences. Yes, eating a cookie ’stead o’ a carrot is just like having sex with someone who might have AIDS, ’cept all the many biological ways it’s completely different.
Actually, despite what many online have been gossiping ’bout, this talk isn’t ’bout how spending money on AIDS treatment is a waste o’ money, but spending money on AIDS education is a waste o’ money compared to… decreasing trade — which is, admittedly, a shocking admission from a mainstream economist, who usually consider trade to be the best thing e’er fore’er. There seems to be no talk o’ decreasing spending on the general problem o’ AIDS in Africa. TED Talks probably demand far higher taste than vulgar The Atlantic & Time, so she couldn’t go full mask-off ( pun not intended ).
That said, the talk does end rather tastelessly:
But more than anything, you know, I’m an academic. And when I leave here, I’m going to go back and sit in my tiny office, and my computer, and my data. And the thing that’s most exciting about that is every time I think about research, there are more questions. There are more things that I think that I want to do. And what’s really, really great about being here is I’m sure that the questions that you guys have are very, very different than the questions that I think up myself. And I can’t wait to hear about what they are. So thank you very much.
I have ne’er seen someone so excited & eager ’bout people dying o’ AIDS.
Anyway, her arguments are debatable, considering the simplistic assumptions in this admittedly short talk —
This shift in focus raises the question: Is treatment the right solution? In my work I have assumed that our goal in the face of the epidemic is to maximize life. In other words, to save the most years of life with the funding available. Once I decided this, the cost-benefit calculations that economists are so familiar with told me how.
As cold and callous as this may sound, after comparing the number of years saved by antiretrovirals with years saved by other interventions like education, I found that treatment is not an effective way to combat the epidemic. It may be that my conclusions are best laid aside in the name of morality and compassion. But in making the tough decisions about how to spend limited resources, we should understand the economic consequences of our choices.
Ah, here we go. Now, Forbes, they allow you to go full sociopath. There can be no nobler death than to sacrifice yourself to capitalist efficiency, specially if you’re poor.
That’s obviously a wrenching question. But if we choose treatment, we must know what we are giving up. The tradeoffs are there whether we want to face them or not. What economics can do is tell us–in numbers, in black and white–what we give up and what we gain.
We recently developed a simple, easy solution: give up dumbass loser Elon Musk throwing his money down the drain on Twitter so he can shitpost Bill Gates pregnant memes, pour Twitter down the drain like rancid milk, & give that $44 billion to AIDS treatment. I love how economists try to contrive these imaginary tough decisions as if the world doesn’t waste 99% o’ its resources on the dumbest shit. Economists would make their jobs a lot easier if they just recommended giving up shit like Elon Musk — hell, that’s a win-win.
Anyway, I’m intrigued by this new development o’ 4chan Science, clearly meant purely to troll & bolster itself on its clickbaiting audacity rather than any serious thought ’hind them. I thought the era o’ edgelordism might’ve been o’er, but I was wrong. ¡There was just too much uncertainty! Hopefully we can agree to an amnesty toward those who mistakenly believed that the era o’ edgelordism was o’er & that ’twas safe for us to leave our homes without being subjected to cringe.
Unlike the average American forced to stand in line for hours like a common animal, I’m lucky ’nough to receive my ballots in the mail, & thus have already voted & can just spend next Tuesday doing my brave American duty: making unfunny jokes ’bout people round the internet babbling ’bout the election & ’ventually making fun o’ Democrats when they fail yet ’gain. But that’s for next week. Accompanying these ballots are these pamphlets full o’ ads for the various politicos running. Normally I ignore these the same way I ignore Coke when they assure me that their product is sweeter than all the others, we pinky swear; but out o’ morbid curiosity I decided to look thru them this time, mainly to laugh @ how inane they are.
The main pamphlet starts not with candidates, but with “advisory votes”. Let me lightly translate the pamphlet’s own description in Mezunese:
Advisory votes are the result of Initiative 960, approved by [idiots] in 2007.
Advisory votes are non-binding. The results will not change the law [& are completely useless].
They always pass anyway, ’cause most people know how inane these votes are. They all follow the general pattern o’, “The legislature increased, without a vote of the people, a tax on ______, costing _____ for government spending”. It is, indeed, strange that these here “representatives” as they call them that we elect to “represent” us go round making decisions without a vote from the people — ’cept the votes they received when they won their role as representative in the 1st place, ’course. Sounds undemocratic to me.
& yet somehow I doubt the people ’hind this initiative would’ve been all that concerned ’bout the legislature making decisions regarding, say, criminal law, without asking the whole population their opinion 1st, e’en tho the consequences there are far greater than idle rich landowners having to pay an extra $2 a month on their $700,000 McMansions, specially since taxes & economic issues are, if anything, mo’ technical &, being so math-intensive, require better integration with other policies to not cause problems. Also note that there are no advisories for cutting taxes, e’en tho that could seriously impact other policies. Children getting bad educations, limiting their earning potentials or e’en their ability to avoid being preyed ’pon by scams, due to cuts in school funding or poor people becoming homeless ’cause their government assistance was cut is far less dire than that extra $2 on idle rich landowners’ taxes. It’s almost as if these advisories aren’t based on any logical or just principles & are just a part o’ a political-economic religion constantly shoved into our faces by a media dominated by rich people who just-so-happen to benefit from said religion.
Anyway, these advisory votes are boring & nugatory, anyway, so we’ll skip them for the meat o’ the candidates. That’s right: get your tierlist sheets ready.
But before we start, I made this drinking game:
Take a drink any time:
A candidate mentions “common sense”.
A candidate mentions “strong community”.
A candidate jerks off parents, & not in a sexy way.
A candidate talks ’bout crime, gas prices, or their inflation fetish.
A candidate fails to mention any concrete solutions for solving these 3 problems.
A candidate complains ’bout “partisanship” or brags ’bout being “bipartisan”.
A candidate mentions that they have kids & run a small business
A Republican candidate has no electoral experience, but “runs a small business”, which is what I also like to say when I waste a weekend smoking weed & writing blog posts.
1st we have the only senate race this year, Patty Murray vs. Tiffany Smiley — yes, her last name is truly “Smiley”. Patty Murray has been senator since I was 1 years ol’ & is a boring Democrat, so we won’t talk ’bout her, but ’stead talk ’bout her competitor “Smiley”:
Elected Experience
No prior elected experience, but —
Ah, a good start. OK, I’ll let them finish:
No prior elected experience, but an extensive background building coalitions and working with members from both parties to enact legislation reforming the Veterans Administration and improving veterans’ health care.
Well, that makes up for the lack o’ experience. I totally want my state to use up 1 o’ their only 2 Senate seats on someone who only cares or has experience with veterans’ issues — certainly an important issue, but not worth trading, say, economic expertise.
Other Professional Experience
Triage nurse, full-time caregiver, President and Co-Founder of “Hope Unseen,” veteran’s advocate, mother of three growing boys.
I’m glad that she specified that her sons were growing; otherwise I’d worry that her children had some rare growth disease that probably really does exist & makes me look like an asshole for making a joke ’bout it. I don’t vote for candidates who don’t have children with pristine genes.
But I’m most glad that they listed “traige nurse” 1st. You know, like how they’ll be nursing this government, ¿amirite? ¿Right…?
Education
Whitworth College- Bachelor of Science in Nursing
¿What the fuck is this sad ’scuse for a dash here? It’s just a hyphen & it’s attached to the left side but has a space on the right? ¿Did that college not teach you proper punctuation? They taught me, which is why I go all the way & use the utmost correct punctuation, like always starting my questions with an upside-down question mark.
These credentials are also inconsistent in punctuation: the 1st 2 end in periods, but the 2nd 2 don’t. Contrast that with Patty Murray, who consistently forgets to end her credentials with periods. Murray’s only flaw is her weird decision to write “&” in the ol’ fashioned way, “and”. This is what happens when your government is full of ol’ dinosaurs.
Anyway, let’s get to the picturesque statement:
Tiffany Smiley grew up on a farm in rural Washington and dreamed of becoming a nurse. When she married her high school sweetheart, Scotty Smiley, and achieved her goal of becoming a triage nurse it seemed she’d achieved her version of the American Dream. That dream was shattered in April of 2005 when she was informed that her husband had been blinded by a suicide car bomber in Mosul, Iraq. At 23, Tiffany quit her nursing job and flew to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to be by Scotty’s side.
People have been talking this & that ’bout the risks o’ voter fraud ( this is always & only true when the Englesist Magical Socialist candidate doesn’t win, ’course, which ne’er happens ’cause they’re drunkards the bourgeosie has sabotaged their fate down to their atoms ); ¿but who’s going to investigate the troll who snuck this blurb for a Dean Koontz novel in as a “candidate” for the Washington state senate1?
At Walter Reed, Tiffany had to stand up to the federal government and fight for Scotty, his dreams and the care he had earned. For Tiffany, her experience with the military bureaucracy highlighted the challenges facing many service members and their families. Tiffany became their voice, going to Capitol Hill and meeting with anyone who would listen to her. She built coalitions with members from both sides of the aisle which ultimately resulted in real reform of the VA to help the catastrophically injured and their caregivers.
This is all very vague. ¿What was the federal government doing to Scotty Smiley that he needed to be fought o’er, as well as his dreams? ¿Was it just half-assed health care? The whole US has that — that’s not a veteran’s thing. You’d think Smiley could “triage” this criticism o’ the shoddy health care her husband received with the shoddy health care Americans all o’er receive in “infamous country with worse health care than vile communist Cuba”, but strangely candidate who prefers a political party that has expressed nothing but indifference toward the US’s health care problems would rather babble on ’bout cliché topics like “spiraling gas prices” ( no mention o’ the spiraling ecological calamity tied to that very same gas — a much bigger cost ) & inflation, 2 complex economic topics this nurse knows nothing ’bout, hence why nurses don’t make the best senators — tho, to be fair, they’re probably better than TV celebrities as presidents:
Drawing on her experiences as a veteran’s advocate, Tiffany will build coalitions and work for policies that improve public safety and protect Washington families, combat spiraling gas prices and the inflation that’s hurting the middle class and address the homeless crisis plaguing our communities. Tiffany will be a strong supporter of our men and women in law enforcement whose sacrifices keep our streets safe and allow Washington communities to thrive.
I didn’t know experience in being a veteran’s advocate was related to “public safety” & “protect[ing] Washington families”, which translates to “will whiteknight & abuse their government influence to shelter from the law lawless police who commit racially-targeted extralegal murder”.
I would also love to know the specifics for how she will “address the homeless crisis plaguing our communities”. I’m sure by the way she uses disease-laden language that it will be with great sympathy toward the homeless & won’t just be forcing them onto buses to California so it’s their problem now.
From a small farm in Eastern Washington to the nation’s capital, Tiffany will be a voice for all of Washington.
No she won’t, ’cause there’s no chance in hell this idiot’s winning.
While I appreciate the effort to write this airport novel blurb, which does stand out a bit from the other candidates, Smiley loses many points for devolving back into the same talking points as the other Republicans, which is made worse by the fact that they’re irrelevant to the original scene.
Tier: C
Next, we have the representitve seat for district 7. The Democrat candidate is Pramila Jayapal. She has not held her seat for as long as Patty Murray, but she’s just as competent, if not moreso, & therefore is boring.
’Stead, we want to talk ’bout the exciting Republican challenger, Cliff Moon — yes, that’s really his fucking name; this is the same state that once had a candidate named “GoodSpaceGuy”, who is apparently notable ’nough to have a Wikipedia article.
Elected Experience:
None
Well, a’least he’s honest & to the point here. ¿Aren’t people without experience s’posed to a’least make a half-assed attempt @ trying to twist their lack o’ experience in some positive way on their résumé?
Other Professional Experience
Consulting Oceanographer, Water Resource Engineer, Corporate President of Moon Construction Company
All vital skills for being a senator.
All right, let’s just get to the statement:
I am running for Congress because someone needs to represent normal, everyday, hardworking Americans. I am a hard worker and have always provided for my family in the greater Seattle area.
¿You know that joke where ol’-ass Steve Buscemi puts on a backward cap & says, “Hello, fellow kids”, & nobody takes him seriously? We need a version where it’s some rich guy dressed in a Levis & a checkered shirt, like Mike Rowe or “Joe the Plumber”, saying, “Hello, fellow working class Americans”.
Which is to say, no, Mr. Moon, you are not a hard worker, you’re a lazy corporate president. You’re not fooling anyone.
I am frustrated with the current situation. Our moral compass has been displaced.
Just retrace your steps to where you last had it or check under the couch cushions. We don’t need to waste a representitve on such a petty task.
Common sense has been exchanged for political correctness.
This guy’s so ol’ he’s posting dank memes like “political correctness”, when the term e’eryone uses now is “woke”. I can’t wait till 2025 when he discovers the term “SJW” & is shocked when all the hipster fascists are using some new inane term for the basic concept o’ “not fascist”.
I am a normal American who thinks families are the foundation of a strong community.
BEEP BOOP. THE REPUBLICANBOT IS FUNCTIONING CORRECTLY. I AM NORMAL AMERICAN WHO LOVES FAMILY & FLAG.
I believe that parents have a right to know what their children are being taught.
¿Why don’t they just ask their children? Maybe it’s their own children who don’t want them to know ’cause it’s embarrassing to be learing cool shit ’bout dinosaurs & evolution & grampa tries to interfere ’cause their favorite fantasy novel — which, let’s be fair, is a literary classic that deserves its renowned; but the genre has evolved since then & grampa needs to expand his reading & start reading Discworld, Earthsea, & N.K. Jemisin — insists that humans came before animals — or afterward: The Bible kinda goes back & forth on the subject. Next thing you know these woke schools will be blaspheming on Lord Shakespeare by trying to teach children that Bohemia is landlocked & doesn’t have a coast & making Othello black & having men dress like women — all the ways modern, “enlightened” liberalism has been destroying western society.
Schools should celebrate real diversity, not Progressive ideology, should encourage critical thinking over indoctrination, and should show how America is a force for good in the world.
The latter 2 are literally contradictory, since nobody with critical thought thinks the US is good @ anything but inventing a billion types o’ butter & winning heart disease competitions. Then ’gain, maybe he means the rest o’ America & that we should just acknowledge the US as an exception. I guess Canada & Brazil did a few good things in their lives.
I am a normal American who thinks [—]
Nothing shows critical thinking like repeating “I am a normal American” like an obedient zombie from the 50s. American brains are so polluted by their fascist flagworshipping that they mix up “independent thought” with “servile nation worshipper that would make Hitler jealous”.
[—] that the price of basic goods is just too high. We have seen the cost of gas, groceries and medications eat away at our incomes.
“Back in my day we got milk for only a quarter & a quarter for only a nickel & we walked 45 hours to school e’eryday in the snow & fought mountain lions with our bare feet…”.
This man has such an “ol’ man shouts @ clouds” vibe that he doesn’t e’en recognize that he’s a living Simpsons meme.
The costs have gone up because the ideologues have decided what you should drive, what you should eat, how you should live.
Give this man a PhD in economics, he’s figured out all the problems. Yes, the shadow spirits in their underground liberally-biased caves are brainwashing us to buy o’erpriced cars simply ’cause they were made in America ( that is, Canada ) when smart people know the cheaper Japanese cars are better. That’s why Mr. Moon always makes sure to wear his tinfoil top hat to protect himself from the brainwaves. When he becomes king congress representative o’ the Christian world he will decree that all must wear the tinfoil top hat & that e’eryone will drive SUVs that will cost a nickel each.
I am a normal American who thinks freedom matters.
But doesn’t quite understand what it actually is.
We should be free to say what we want, free to hold unpopular opinions without fear of losing our jobs or be attacked, [—]
Unless you’re 1 o’ those dirty communists, ’course.
[—] free to choose what we listen to, what we read, and when or where we pray.
Note that nowhere in here does he include the freedom to not pray,
Some want to take away our freedoms in the name of safety and diversity.
“I want to take away your freedoms in the name of a celebrity TV show host president emperor king. ¿Isn’t that much better?”.
I am a normal American who desires to represent people that want to raise their kids, work hard, have money left at the end of every paycheck, and who know they can be friends with people who don’t look like them or pray like them.
You ne’er will, tho, ’cause you’re not an ordinary working American, but a pampered spoiled rich person.
This was a boring advertisement that tried as hard as it could be to be generic & repetitive, which doesn’t fit with his last name, Moon @ all. ¡You’re a disgrace to moons!
Tier: D
Next we have district 8’s representative seat. The Democrat candidate is Kim Schrier, ’nother competent, experienced, & therefore boring candidate. Competing gainst her will by Matt Larkin:
Elected Experience
I’m not a career politician. I’ll bring fresh perspectives and private sector experience when representing the 8th District in Congress.
See, this is the kind o’ bullshit spin I’m talking ’bout. Not only does he present his lack o’ experience as not a problem, he tries to pass it off as an advantage. & since Republicans hate competency, since it drills into their minds the truth o’ their inferiority, it would probably work, too, if Washington State wasn’t super blue & didn’t normally elect boring, sane, ol’-school grifter conservatives like Dave Reichert, who are just interested in tax cuts.
No perspective is fresher in a capitalist theocracy like the US than that o’ a business owner, coincidentally what all the Republican candidates are.
Other Professional Experience
Business Owner of a 3rd Generation Manufacturing Company; Associate Director of Presidential Speechwriting in the White House for a former U.S. President; Veteran Attorney licensed in Washington and Oregon; Criminal Prosecutor in Pierce County
Note that he doesn’t specify for whom he wrote his presidential speeches — probably ’cause, as a Republican, ’twas either Trump or Bush, both notorious wordsmiths, & therefore he was too humble to brag ’bout possibly writing the kind o’ Proustian gold as, “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we”, or the historic, “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!”.
Statement
I’m running for Congress because we all deserve a better, safer, Washington to raise our families in. As a father of 4 young children, Christian, business owner, former White House staffer, and prosecutor, I have a uniquely qualified perspective on the problems plaguing our state.
Yes, no perspective is mo’ unique in the US than a white Christian business owner. To be fair, Christianity is, indeed, a fascinating, exotic religion, which worships a god who is both 1 & 3 @ the same time & is his own son, whom they worship in an arcane faux-cannibalistic ritual wherein they feast on the flesh & blood o’ their god’s fallen mortal carcass. But he’s not going to talk ’bout cool shit like this or that Israelite who chopped his murdered wife’s body into 11 pieces & sent them to the other tribes o’ Israel. The only Christian I will e’er vote for will promise to turn the white house into 1 o’ those badass hell houses — e’en if they’re just a lowly state representative. The President must accept the wishes o’ the people ( o’ only 1/50th o’ states ).
My roots run deep in Washington‐‐‐I was born and raised here.
Hold on, shut the fuck up. ¿What the fuck is that dash? ¿3 hyphens? I’ve seen bootleg-ass 2-hyphens masquerading as a sweet, elagant “—”, ¿but 3? Get the fuck out o’ here. That’s blasphemy. You end up in the 8th circle o’ hell for that sin.
My family has lived here for 165 years. We own a 3rd generation, manufacturing company, employing over 600 people, making products in the USA which bring clean water to people globally.
Lemme guess, ¿is it o’erpriced bottled water the US tries to scam on the Latin Americas after their companies polluted their natural waters?
Washington is heading in the wrong direction. Enabling policies and our crisis at the border have led to skyrocketing crime, homelessness, and drug abuse. Our state desperately needs a leader to tackle these issues.
Yes, Washington state’s border with Canada is a major issue. You have no idea how many o’ those Mounties come in, smoking their legal weed ( which is also legal here ), shiving people in the stomach or tying women to train tracks while wearing a twirly moustache & ranting ’bout Dudley Doo-Right.
We need to give parents back their voices in their children’s education.
They already have voices in their children’s education: it’s called their home, where they raise their children. But they’re too lazy to take care o’ their own children, so what they actually want to do is browbeat underpaid teachers into becoming their parents ’stead, so now ’stead o’ teachers teaching historical facts they have to become their children’s preacher & moralizer & now e’eryone else’s children has to suffer.
We need to lower inflation so families can pay bills and fill their gas tanks.
No, the government needs to ban gas ’cause it’s literally destroying the planet & Americans need to get off their fat asses & walk for once so the US doesn’t win the “Most Heart Attacks” award for the 60th year in a row.
We need to ensure free, fair elections and a strong national defense which starts with energy independence.
None o’ these 3 things are relevant. The 1st 2 may be relevant in a sinister “I will support using the national defense to help Trump pull off a coup”. ’Course, he doesn’t go into detail ’bout the specifics o’ what a “free, fair election” looks like, ’cause it’s a dogwhistle for “I’m a loon who refuses to believe that hasbeen TV celebrity who was perennially under 50% approval rating could lose reelection after he made himself so popular letting people die o’ a disease he refused to believe in”.
Together we will reign in federal spending,
To hell we will.
Make Crime Illegal Again,
No, ¡fuck off! Conservatives are so fucking lame with the billions o’ dad jokes they spew ’stead o’ actual coherent ideas. Here, let me try: “We need policies for folks, not wokes. D-d’ya get it. See, ’cause it rhymes. See, it’s folks, & then wokes — I’ll be here all night, guys, ¡don’t worry!”. I can’t wait till conservatives start talking ’bout fucking “wokeswagons” & bringing up that they’re made by Nazis, & therefore le wokes are the real Nazis, not realizing that in German it’s pronounced “vokehsvahgun”, which sounds badass, I want that car right now & I hate cars.
Maybe to solve the energy crisis & ecological catastrophe we should start the slogan “Make Americans Walk Again”.
If you truly want to “make crime illegal again”, then you’ll surely support the Justice Department arresting the ex-president for his many crimes in office, including inciting an insurrection.
( Psst, “make crime illegal again” is just a dogwhistle for “arrest the blacks” ).
I’m a hard worker
’Nother pampered business owner who doesn’t know what real work is.
it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work!
How ’bout you actually roll up your sleeves & get a real job like shoveling dirt ’stead o’ trying to use your inherited blood money to buy the government. O, wait, that would take actual effort & skill, & you just want to look cool like a worker, not actually be 1.
Larkin almost got me with the beginning clever way o’ twisting his failures as accomplishments, but then pissed ’way all that goodwill with his bootleg em dashes & dad joke slogan.
Tier: E
Next we have the 9th district representative election ’tween Democrat Adam Smith — not to be confused with the OG Adam Smith father o’ liberal economics — & Republican Doug Basler. Adam Smith is a warmonger who’s on the House Armed Services Committee; but all Americans are war criminals, — or as the hip anarchists say in the burbs, AAAWC, which is pronounced like a crow squawk — so Adam Smith, who can’t squawk like a crow, is still boring. So let’s move on to Doug Basler:
Nobody fucking cares ’bout his lack o’ experience — tho I will bring up, to be fair, that he does claim to have supported homeless people with food as part o’ his church, so he is 1 o’ the few Republicans who doesn’t utterly despise the homeless. Maybe.
Anyway, let’s hurry this up, the election’s coming & my 5 readers who don’t live in Washington State won’t know who to illegally vote 20 times for without my unfunny jokes.
Statement
Career politicians are the biggest problem in government today, promising they’ll fix your problems and then, when elected, they ignore you until they need your vote again.
That’s a terrible way to hold a career, since in order to keep that career you need to keep being elected, which is hard when people get pissed @ you & don’t vote for you after your clever li’l trick.
¿Who is the alternative to a “career politician”? ¿A politician who’s honest ’nough to admit out loud that they don’t give a fuck ’bout being reelected & don’t bother not pissing off their constituents?
The 9th District deserves more than a longtime incumbent and tired promises.
“We deserve mo’ than someone with proven experience. We need some rando we found off the street who has no idea what they’re doing”.
¿What promises has Adam Smith failed to keep? It’s not as if Washington State’s Democrats masquerade as conservatives to trick some imaginary conservative majority to vote for them.
When we lose our voice, we can also lose our opportunity at the American Dream.
I’m starting to think these hopeless Republican joke candidates are here only so they can say they’ve technically had their doggerel poetry published.
We elect representatives to maintain a safe environment for our families and children, to protect our borders, our economy, and our constitutional rights.
Nope. Maybe some Washingtonians do, but not ’nough o’ them that their candidates don’t lose. “We, the privileged minority, keep voting for things that the majority have no interest in ’cause it screws them o’er, & then the majority o’erride us & vote for free gay weed & open borders with Canada so they can sneak in when the fascists inevitably take o’er Washington II. That’s undemocratic. Make Democrats Democratic Again”.
…
You know, to be honest, e’en this Republican candidate’s boring & just spews clichés ’bout “food on the table” & “gas in your car” & “dicks in my ass”. Dicks in my ass are ol’, the new hip, wokeness is “vaginas in my ass”. Get with the times, ol’ man.
Tier: Zzzzz…
The Secretary of State are both boring. Any Washingtonian reading this should vote for 1 o’ them, ’course, but that doesn’t mean we should read their statements.
I don’t e’en know who the fuck Bill Ramos is & I don’t think I e’en got to vote for this position, so I’m not sure why this is in my pamphlet, which is specific to my district. But I’m going to assume by his short blurb ’bout “commonsense solutions” ( ¡god damn it, now the Democrats are making me drink! ), public safety ( ¡hey, that’s a Republican bingo phrase! ), housing, reproductive rights, & the like, that he is boring.
As for Ken Moninski…
As a husband, father of two young girls and a small business owner, I understand the struggles many families face.
Moninski was reportedly sued for plagiarism by e’ery other Republican candidate on the planet.
We have watched as our neighborhoods have become less safe, our children have fallen behind in their education, and basic essentials have become more expensive.
When Democrats in Olympia voted to restrict policing, crime increased; when Democrats voted to raise taxes again, families suffered. We need a change. I am running to bring common sense solutions to Olympia that produce real results.
Republicans have a strange conception o’ “common sense”. To me common sense, as well as basic mathematics, is that if you cut the taxes that fund the schools, they will get e’en worse, or a’least not get better. & if not, well, then we shouldn’t care whether or not people lose more or less tax $, since apparently $ isn’t all that useful. It seems arbitrary to assert that schools, & only schools, have the magical property o’ not getting any value out o’ $. Similarly, it’s counterintuitive to think that cutting assistance to the poor, which is paid with tax $, will make it easier for them to get basic essentials.
Anyone who pays attention to the halfway intelligent capitalist economists understand the contradiction: the main conservative policy for driving down inflation, in the conservative Federal Reserve chair’s own words, is driving down spending by making it so that poor people can’t afford to buy things, the very thing this politician is complaining ’bout. This is also the outcome o’ decreasing spending: the only way government spending can logically create inflation is by buying things ( almost certainly for poor people, specially since that’s the spending that conservatives target the most ), so to drive down inflation is, ’gain, to drive down poor spending. I would love to know his magic solution, that doesn’t contradict all conservative economics, for decreasing inflation without decreasing poor spending. Now, I know a way to decrease inflation without decreasing poor spending: redistribute income so that rich people are buying less useless shit without hurting poor people’s ability to buy necessities. But this requires mo’ taxation ( which, by itself, I should add, should logically cut inflation, since it should cut spending by rich people ) & mo’ government spending, so this doesn’t fit in with this politician’s goals.
I should add that I doubt cutting poor spending will decrease inflation, anyway, since by cutting spending, you’re also cutting demand, which drives production, thereby cutting production, as well, which is the main impediment to inflation. The aforementioned conservative Federal Reserve chair & his fellow “serious economists” basically outright admitted that their main goal for driving down inflation is a manufactured recession. Granted, the other major cause for inflation are monopolies, which neither Republicans nor e’en Democrats seem fit to talk ’bout, since the idea o’ markets being competitive — you know, the thing that makes neoliberal distinguish “market” economies from “socialism”, which they merely define as a “government monopoly” — is an alien concept to our economically-incompetent politicians. In fact, breaking up monopolies would probably be the absolute best way to cut inflation, as competition is the main thing that drives prices downward & it wouldn’t dampen demand. But that’s “communist”, which is also “woke”, so a recession it is. That is what the serious people call “capitalist efficiency”: rich people deliberately weakening the economy’s productive capabilities, & their ability to gain profits, just so they can avoid paying probably less than they lose from this productivity loss, just to spite poor people.
Then ’gain, it’s doubtful this mediocre politician has e’en thought 10% o’ these things & just wants to have a ’scuse for cutting taxes & spending so rich people will give him lobby money. I’m embarrassed to just realize that I put mo’ effort & time & detail in that economic analysis I just shit out — which is surely full o’ simplifications & arm-chair theorizing — in a quick joke blog article than this professional politician did for their fucking election blurb. Not only is Moninski not qualified to be representative; he’s not e’en qualified to be published by Penguin Books.
Anyway, Moninski has gotten way mo’ attention from me than he deserves from e’eryone, so let’s move on.
Tier: Zzzzz…
Next we have Lisa Callan vs. Chad Magendaz. Callan talks ’bout keeping neighborhoods safe & helping small businesses & how she doesn’t like partisanship, so she’s basically a sane Republican, which is an exotic way to say “Democrat”, & is a way o’ saying she’s boring. Let’s talk ’bout Chad ’stead:
In an era of hyper-partisan politics, Chad has earned a reputation for building bridges.
Yeah, & he’ll sell it to you if you’re gullible ’nough.
An education champion in Olympia, he doubled school funding while reducing property tax rates for 44% of school districts.
Bullshit. Well, since this person has magically broken the laws o’ math & have increased funding while decreasing spending, surely he’s brimming with excitement to explain his brilliant strategy in detail…
He formed bipartisan coalitions passing landmark legislation on computer science education, innovative schools, electric vehicles, and cybercrime.
¿O? ¿No? ¿We’re just going to talk ’bout irrelevant other shit now? OK. Maybe it’s a trade secret.
The Seattle Times endorsed Chad in all his previous House races, calling him “one of the clearest thinkers in the Legislature” who “brings much-needed moderation and intellectual rigor to Olympia.
Well, they have shit taste, so we can ignore their endorsement.
If this cracker’s so good, ¿why did his ass get unelected in 2017? ¿Where’s his genius math formula to explain that problem?
Hold on, I almost missed this:
Other Professional Experience Computer science teacher (Bellevue SD); Software developer (Microsoft, Nike, Panasonic, etc.); U.S. Navy submarine officer
Nobody should e’er let programmers be politicians, since they’re socially incompetent, specially Microsoft programmers, who aren’t e’en good programmers. He must’ve learned his fudging bullshit #s skill show ’bove from Microsoft.
Ah, ¿but what does the Progressive Voter’s Guide say ’bout him that he modestly forget to mention?
Magendanz was proud of his “A” rating from the National Rifle Association during his last campaign, which raises questions about his willingness to keep our communities safe from gun violence.
A gun nut ( surprisingly, no talk o’ gun control anywhere in this pamphlet, ’cause e’en Republicans know gunhumping isn’t popular in Washington ). Nice try, Chad. It’s time to put down your 1st-person-shooters & get serious.
Tier: 🤓
OK, but fuck this nerd, ’cause we finally have an exciting candidate in Republican Stephanie Peters:
Elected Experience
Renton PCO since 2007. No War-Full Stop.
A PCO is basically just a Republican intern. I have no idea what “No War-Full Stop” is s’posed to be, specially what a “war-full” is. I think this is ’nother bastard em dash. I tried looking it up, but couldn’t find any organization with that name, so I think Peters just got so excited to give her opinion that she just spewed it in her experience section for an early treat.
Other Professional Experience
33 years in resource and finance management, auditing, implementing efficiency measures, turning problems into solutions.
This is the same empty padding that e’ery entry-level manager puts on their résumé to pretend like they’ve accomplished anything or have any skills.
Only that which is measured can be improved.
This sounds like something a dictator from a creepy dystopian work would say. Well, happiness can’t be measured, so I guess it must be expunged.
Government is no different. All the money spent in this state needs audited and any felonious usage recaptured and returned. Accountability in government – no matter who!
BEEP BOOP. I WILL FIND ALL THE OFFICIALS WHO ARE SNEAKING PENS HOME & WILL EXTERMINATE THEM.
Government is different in that it’s government & not business, & therefore requires different skills. For instance, what is “efficient” when it comes to running a laundry business turns into “violations o’ international law” when it comes to, say, military managing.
Statement
You have a right to assurance of election security and integrity, and our elected officials have an obligation to provide verifiable information so you can pursue and obtain that assurance.
So tell me, person who has no experience or expertise when it comes to the complex matters o’ elections, what assurances you provide in terms o’ “security” ( ¿does this include security from harrassment by pollwatchers? ) & “integrity” & what “verification” process elected officials are “obligated” to provide.
WA Voters are expected to “Trust the system,” yet we cannot verify that our voter rolls are clean, that our ballot chain-of-custody is sound, that our tabulation process has integrity, that our routers aren’t vulnerable to exploitation, that our systems aren’t being misused, or that our election management system is secure enough to withstand cyber attacks.
I mean, in a way, this in true, in the same way that postmodernists are right when they say that we don’t truly know anything, that all knowledge is merely an interpretation o’ senses. So I guess we should just give up on all elections, since our election system isn’t 100% verified to be proven mathematically correct thru objective science & this genius intern & bookkeeper can’t seem to provide any example for a “verification process” for our voter rolls that they are “clean” — clean o’ what, I don’t know. Call me radical, but I think that all votes matter, e’en those with cumstains on them. Cumstains on your ballot means you love democracy, so if you’re gainst cumstains on ballots, you’re gainst democracy.
Basically, this is all FUD by & for people who must experience this feeling a lot, since there is much unknown to their uneducated asses. I feel like actually reading a book or 2 & not being a moron is a far better solution to their crippling anxiety & uncertainty in this complex, technological world than trying to run for government.
Stand with me…demand change. Trust, but verify.
I think this last sentence came from some political speech generator.
Tier: 🤪
Next we have Steve Bergquist vs. Jeanette Burrage. Bergquist is an ordinary man in an ordinary flannel shirt & is boring. As for Burrage…
Community Service
Currently: Assisting a disabled man with shopping, bill paying and home maintenance[…]
The most entertainment I will get from this blurb is imagining this candidate thumbing this blurb out while standing in checkout.
Statement
Jeanette believes restoring safety in our communities needs to be a higher priority.
Jeanette is wrong: danger builds character, & as e’ery cartoon rich man will tell you, disruption is the lifeblood o’ dynamic capitalism.
She believes we need to restore respect for the role of parents concerning their children.
This is impossible, not the least o’ which ’cause the average parent is too half-assed to respect the role for themselves, much less will anyone else respect these slobs when they just sit there & let their brat scream & kick people on an 8-hour flight.
The State legislature passed a bill requiring all public school personnel to learn oppression-victim identity principles so they can be taught to students.
That sounds like bootleg Marxism, & I am aghast. ¿How much funding must we give these schools till they can afford to teach the real thing? I won’t have my kids learning anything but authentic, homegrown, GMO-free, American-made Marxism. Accept no substitutes ( ’cept teachers — they’re cool ).
¿Why do I have a feeling that this is something this idiot made up ’cause they’re an idiot & a liar? — such an idiotic liar that they couldn’t e’en come up with halfway convincing fake leftist concept. ¿“Oppression-victim identity principle”? That’s not a sociological concept — that’s a mathematical law.
Our children will be taught that their racial identity will determine their lot in life.
“¡They’re not teaching my kids happy lies & now they won’t end up as delusional as I am!”.
Parents should have a greater choice.
“I believe children are possessions, mere objects & slaves, to their parents & have no rights to an indendent life outside their parents & their parents’ tiny cult communes & should be kept ’hind iron curtains ’way from any alien knowledge like a North Korean citizen”. I love the hypocrisy o’ religious nuts who complain ’bout Marxism, e’en tho none o’ these tools could e’en comprehend a page o’ Das Kapital if their lives depended on it, but are in favor o’ forcing children to be subjected to lame-ass religious communes. Imagine choosing lame-ass religious communes o’er badass worker communes where e’eryone smokes weed & speaks German. Conservatives truly have no culture.
Jeanette Burrage will seek out root causes of problems and work with integrity for long term solutions to keep our district a thriving place to live for everyone.
Well, since the root cause o’ all problems, including heartburn, is capitalism, that means she’s going to o’erthrow it. ¡Radical!
This was mediocre, other than the slight spice o’ the CPR — also known as Capricious Pastry Rhino [ update: “CRT” has become such an empty conservameme that I legit forgot its initials & mixed it up with CPR ] — conspiracymongering, which put it down a tier, ’cause she couldn’t e’en be exotic with her mongering.
Tier: D
All right, next is Claire Wilson vs. Linda Kockmar. Wilson wants you to know that she loves “public safety” ( for white people ) so much that she italicized it & actually provided a realistic # & a specific economic policy she implemented, which many studies say is effective for fueling employment & decreasing poverty, & therefore wrote a better blurb than e’eryone else, & therefor is boring. As for Linda Kochmar…
Do you feel safe? We have vehicles being stolen, rampant shoplifting, drug-addicted homelessness, repeat criminals not being arrested, drive-by shootings, and violence in our schools.
¡Fuck that nerdy shit when we can talk ’bout shootings & crimes &… ¿drug-addicted homelessness? I didn’t know concepts could be addicted to drugs, but apparently Seattle’s love for drugs is so immense that it’s gone to that extent. It’s time to boycott Rockstar if they don’t make a Grand Theft Auto game in a Seattle parody already. I mean it — quit fucking around.
We can’t live this way!
Speak for yourself: I’m doing just fine. After the last mission I accomplished I already got my own car spray lot & finally got those pigs from blocking me from accessing Bainbridge.
Do you feel your current Legislators have let you down?
No — that would require me to have expectations o’ some kind, which is a strange thing to have for government officials.
My opponent voted for many of the failed policies that have brought us to this current chaos.
Um, ¿are you not e’en going to address the study I just linked to? You’ll ne’er win our debate this way.
I’ve fought for public safety, attracting living-wage jobs, and educational opportunities for you.
Unfortunately, you win these kind o’ positives thru the right economic policies, not thru hand-to-hand combat, so none o’ this fighting accomplished anything.
I’ve fought for common sense solutions to the problems affecting our community.
They’re so commonsense, she doesn’t e’en have to list them.
I’ve fought against raising taxes and for government living within its means.
Yes, I’m sure this noble representative’s living in a slum & living off ramen noodle with all that lobby money they make & “government living within its means” doesn’t totally mean “poor people get fucked while I get rich”.
Government must be transparent and accountable to the people.
What she means is “transparently full o’ shit” & “accountable for giving me lots o’ money”.
The hard-working families in the 30th District deserve better than rising inflation and soaring crime.
MezunFact Corp judges this as “Pants on Fire” lie.
When I am elected again to the Legislature, my heart and soul, my experience, and determination will be to represent you!
¿But will her run be pacifist or genocide?
I want to point out that her opponent is also a frail ol’ woman, so the opening screed ’bout Grandma Wilson’s radical antifa drugcrimelordism is specially funny.
Tier: D
Next we have Jamilia E. Taylor vs. Casey Jones. Taylor isn’t a hockey-mask wearing vigilante who hangs out with mutant ninja turtles, so she’s boring. As for Casey Jones…
Elected Experience
Not a career politician. Endorsed by Stand Up Federal Way, Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs, Federal Way Police Officers’ Guild, Federal Way Police Lieutenant Association, Des Moines Police Officers Guild.
Yeah, he’s not 1 o’ those filthy politicians, but a police officer, who solve problems not thru underhanded tactics but thru violence, which is much better. Well, I have good news for you, Casey Jones: once the militia Qanons finally bother to topple o’er the Democrats Jenga tower & set themselves up as Dictators for Life, we won’t have any more o’ these filthy career politicians anymo’ as the police will just run e’erything for us in what we call a “police state”. ¿Now doesn’t that sound nice?
Other Professional Experience
Current police commander. Prior police lieutenant, detective, and officer with assignments as a school resource officer, SWAT member, and bicycle officer.
This guy is jizzing so hard on all things police that he e’en mentions being an officer o’ bicycles. I, too, am sick o’ all these bike gangs, running o’er citizens e’erywhere, not staying on their side o’ the street, & honking loudly.
Almost certainly, you or someone you know has experienced increased levels of crime [—]
This is, in fact, 100% wrong.
[—] such as open-air drug use [—]
That’s only a “crime” if you’re a fucking square.
Radical groups have taken over policy development in Olympia.
¡Awesome!
These same groups have prevented officers from arresting criminals who needed to be arrested.
Clearly they didn’t need to be arrested if they weren’t arrested & the world hasn’t blown up, so you’re clearly being o’erdramatic.
Let’s send a first responder to Olympia to fix this mess.
Let’s send a loudly biased man to steal our tax $ & give them to his buddies in the police.
Tier: 💀
OK, I’m getting tired o’ these clones, so I’m just going to skip ’head to Chris Vance, who has no party preference. Let’s see what exotic stands he takes:
I’m running for the State Senate as a moderate independent because extremism and partisanship is out of control in our political system, too many politicians in both parties have let us down, and voters deserve more choices.
Unfortunately, I only vote for radical independents.
State revenues are up; we don’t need to raise taxes. But schools are still dependent on local levies. Our school funding system is unstable and unfair. Crime rates are increasing while police, prosecutors, jails and courts are underfunded. And there are major gaps in our transportation system.
Remember, this is an “indepedent”, which means, “liar”, which means, “Republican”.
Not only was this as lame as almost all the other blurbs, ’twas a dishonest bait-&-switch. & I can’t abide by a dishonest politician.
Tier: E
OK, here’s an interesting 1: Karen Keiser vs. Marliza Melzer. Keiser has been a state senator for 26 years & is competent & boring. ¿But what ’bout Melzer?
Our current career politicians have no problems lying, destroying our economy, taxing us out of our homes and vehicles, supporting pro-crime policies, and policies that sexually groom our young children while at the same time labeling concerned parents as domestic terrorists [emphasis mine].
To paraphrase the wise Kurt Cobain: if you think teaching kids sex ed is “grooming”, you are a closet paedophile.
Tier: 😬
After a bunch o’ unopposed candidates, who we don’t need to discuss, we have Democrat Sharon Tomiko Santos vs. Republican John Dickinson. Sharon Tomiko Santos has been state representative since 1998 & is competent & boring. As for John Dickinson…
Take big steps to legalize cannabis; restore Comet Lodge graveyard; develop the LoWay on ADA compliant Chief Si’ahl trail as passed by City and community in 08231999, for less advantaged. Big steps for only one term as term limits for elected officials are needed.
¿Who would vote no to restoring graveyards & mountain trails thru cities?
Unfortunately, Dickinson got so high he missed out on the fact that cannabis has already been legalized in Washington State. Also, 1-term limits is 1 o’ those ideas that sound cool to edgelords who hate government but is laughably disastrous.
Pro life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness driven by a trust in truth, justice, and reconciliation without the current Animal Farm Speak that destroys our representative government, guides this campaign to fix our woke, broke, and a joke of an education system while giving six thousand dollar credits to each household.
& then he loses me. I love how he complains ’bout “Animal Farm Speak”, but then spews literal government propaganda from the Declaration of Independence ( much as halfhearted atheists think Jesus, who wants to destroy the world in a cataclysmic holocaust o’ literal hellfire, was Way Cool™, faux-libertarians think George Washington, slaveholder, was Way Cool™ ). I’m sure George Orwell, who hated empty phrases that get repeated ad nauseum by people o’ the same party would have loved the word “woke”, specially when used as a ’scuse to plunder school funds for regressive economic policies that sound cool if you’ve ne’er read an economics book in your life but thought Milton Friedman was Way Cool™ ’cause he liked, like, freedom, man, & hated that Federal Reserve he heavily inspired.
Tier: 🎄
Next we have Tana Senn vs. Mike Nykreim. Democrat Tana Senn spends ¼th o’ her tiny blurb talking ’bout her brats nobody wants to hear ’bout & is competent & boring. Mike Nykreim o’ the Election Integrity Party doesn’t wait till you’re done reading their party affiliation to let you know that they’re a lunatic.
Other Professional Experience
Just “Bing” my name, plenty there on the web. Just please take the time to read our statement below.
Perfect proof that this is a mad man is that they think anyone uses Bing anymore or that anyone talks ’bout “binging” people in these here burbs we’re rocking. I’d Yahoo somebody before I Bing someone — fuck, I’d Dogpile someone before I Bing someone. Nobody’s binging anyone round here.
Also, I don’t feel like quoting the whole thing, but he lists his marriage as “community service”. I’m not sure if that’s his alien understanding o’ being “cute” or a hackneyed “marriage, ¿whattayagonnadoboutit?” Honeymooners granddad joke.
You have a right to assurance of election security and integrity, and our elected officials have an obligation to provide verifiable information so you can pursue and obtain that assurance. Washington voters are expected to “Trust” the system, yet we cannot verify that our voter rolls are clean, that our ballot chain-of-custody is sound, that our tabulation process has integrity, that our routers aren’t vulnerable to exploitation, that our systems aren’t being misused, or that our election management system is secure enough to withstand cyber attacks.
Stand with us….. demand change. Trust, but verify!
Wait a fucking minute… ¿Am I feeling déjà vu?
Stephanie Peters:
WA Voters are expected to “Trust the system,” yet we cannot verify that our voter rolls are clean, that our ballot chain-of-custody is sound, that our tabulation process has integrity, that our routers aren’t vulnerable to exploitation, that our systems aren’t being misused, or that our election management system is secure enough to withstand cyber attacks.
Stand with me…demand change. Trust, but verify.
He e’en copypasted the slogan “Trust, but verify” & used scarequotes round “trusting” the system like some boomer who listens to Rage Against the Machine & doesn’t understand their politics. I guess he did add 3 periods to his elipses.
That confirms it: these are Twitterbots set up by Trump to troll the Washington State election. I don’t see any checkmark anywhere on this pamphlet.
Tier: 🤖
That’s all I care ’bout writing ’bout now. I’d make a funny tier list graphic with the candidates’ goofy faces, but most o’ the tiers I used aren’t e’en real tiers & I have 1 hour to post this before antifa shoots me & burns my house down & inflates my prices.
Democrats are going to have to give up their “biggest losers” hats to the Ukrainians who wanted to stay a part o’ Ukraine in Donetsk, Luhansk People’s Republics, Zaporizhzhia, & Kherson, who lost greater than Ralph Nader did in US elections with only 2% o’ the vote in the former 2, 7% o’ the vote in Zaporizhzhia, & a slightly better score than Nader, 13% in Kherson, in totally valid, genuine referendums that would determine whether or not these places would voluntarily join the Federation that just-so-happens to be militarily occupying them. In normal times you would think a vote gainst your own nation would a’least be a somewhat close race, — for example, Americans are so delusionally patriotic that they’re willing to risk their lives so their beloved country can swipe oil & not e’en lower said oil’s price for ordinary consumers, & Britains will so earnestly sacrifice themselves for patriotism that they’re willing to eat British food — much less in favor o’ a country that is invading you & killed many people you knew.
These #s are interesting in that it shows that the Russian government isn’t e’en trying to hide what a sham this referendum is — presumably as a show o’ mocking force. A halfway competent organization trying to genuinely fake a referendum would have the modicum o’ subtlety to make the election close. After all, this is how Dark Brando Sando the Bando — a word just as totally valid as these referendums — stole Light Trump the Pump’s massive dumps with his underground magnets & USB slots. They — the Russian government, not Dark Brando Sando the Bando — might as well have declared the results as the infinity symbol or the poop emoji. It’s basically a shitpost.
Still, the US midterms are only a li’l mo’ than a month from now. Democrats may take back their crown & somehow lose the house, & maybe e’en the senate if they’re truly on their F game, to the lamest insurrectionists in the world.
I should add an addendum too long to not make an obnoxiously long title ( as if I were e’er allergic to such a thing ), that I am not saying “why I vote Democrat now that ‘democracy’, as the US calls their arbitrary electoral system, is in peril”, but “why I have voted Democrat e’ery election I could since I became an adult”. For 1, unlike the many bandwagonning moderate liberals & centrists who have just now noticed, I, as well as many leftists who were actually paying attention, was well aware o’ the US’s creepin’ an’ a crawlin’ toward fascism since the early 2000s, & since I actually have longterm memory, I remember that W. Bush succeeded where Trump failed when the Brooks Brothers managed to successfully Stop the Vote™.
One may be surprised that such a cynical person who memes ’bout Smashing Capitalism™ ( but not thru any actual physical means, ¡’cause that would be tiring! ), writes such extreme-to-the-max claims as the 100% accurate assertion that the US is not & has ne’er been a valid democracy, but is effectively an oligarchy, due to its electoral college, which gives states votes ’stead o’ people; its minority-rule senate, which is also voted in by states, not people; its supreme court for life, who can not only unilaterally eliminate any laws they want, but can also effectively create laws, making them defacto dictators for life, with no o’ersight & almost no practical means for reigning them in, & whose only theoretical boundary is that they have to vaguely fit some ol’ document that the living public ne’er voted on, making the US also effectively a constitutional theocracy; its legalized bribery; the fact that in Soviet America politicians choose voters thru gerrymandering; the stringent voter laws that intentionally make it difficult for ordinary people to vote, including the lack o’ a national holiday for voting, despite the existence o’ dozens o’ useless national holidays,which is unquestionable fact that the US only lacks a voting holiday ’cause the US hates the idea o’ people voting, ’mong many other wacky hijinks that ensue, & who yearly writes an article dunking on Democrats for constantly failing to make meaningful electoral victories despite consistently having many mo’ party members than Republicans for the past century ( it might have something to do with the US not being actually democratic, & therefore popularity is irrelevant to electoral success… ) would be as disgustingly mainstream as to vote for Demo-rats in, like, elections & stuff. I might as well listen to Imagine Dragons & play Among Us. Here are a few reasons:
1. As stated, the US itself hates the idea o’ its plebs voting, since it only begrudgingly taped together a fake democracy to ’scuse their coup gainst the English crown, since it’d be awfully stupid if the US fought a war to “free” themselves from the British monarchy just to become servile to ’nother & ’cause their aristocrats, who were actually s’posed to hold power, needed some means to orderly share power without everyone going to war with each other ( which was the threat that the weaker government set up by the Articles of Confederation was vulnerable to ). That by itself is a good reason to vote: to spite the US.
2. Republicans hate the idea o’ people voting for Democrats. Similarly, making Republicans feel spiteful is in itself a reward. Some may counter, “but then you give up the ability to make Democrats feel spiteful”, but making Democrats spiteful isn’t nearly as fun, tho the urge is tempting whene’er I hear them blame their voting demographic for their failure to make people want to vote for them. The truth is that Democrats spite themselves by their own self-loathing existence, so trying to make them feel spite is just a waste o’ time, whereas Republicans love themselves way too much — probably ’cause they’re the only ones who love them — & could use some spite to round out their character. As per my Pulitzer-winning Satiric Function for Determining Value o’ Mockery for Particular Participants, since Republicans have a higher ratio of opinion o’ their own intelligence vs. their actual intelligence than Democrats, spiting them is mo’ efficient, & therefore the mo’ rational choice.
3. Ironically, my greater cynicism makes me less susceptible to the reasons leftists make for not voting. Since I’ve already established that the US election is a farce, there’s no reason for me to feel any qualms gainst “voting” — that is to say, exploiting what feeble means the US gives me for having influence o’er US power as a form o’ compromise to prevent the plebs from revolting — for a Democrat, who, say, doesn’t shut down Guantanamo Bay ( ¿Why bother? The public has already forgotten it’s still up & keeping people locked up without trial ) or stop drone striking terrorists children & aid workers or mo’ importantly doesn’t raise his fist in the air & proclaim, <¡Down with the bourgeoisie!>, which would be useless, but a’least hilariously awesome to see, c’mon Biden, stop being a coward, since I’m not “voting” for them — I don’t get to choose who gets to be President, much less actually get to choose the specific details o’ policy — but merely flicking a 2-way switch in the direction less likely to lead to dead people. I’m utterly indifferent — actually I hold contempt for — pure-heart leftists who have ne’er soiled their imaginary soul “voting” for a war criminal, ’cause they hold the delusion that makes them not a collaborator to fascists, when the fact is that they still pay taxes & still obey the US government. The fact is that all US citizens are collaborators to fascism, end o’ discussion. It’s better that one acknowledges & accepts this fact & a’least tries to act in an underhanded manner that is most likely to end said fascism & a’least weakens the effects o’ said fascism than act in a purely symbolic manner that will solve nothing other than maybe ending up in Leftist Jesus’s book o’ pure souls & end up in Communist Heaven.
I mean, I guess I could storm the white house in my Super Squirtle Bros. T-shirt & no weapons ( as a sophisticated leftist who supports gun control, I, ’course, don’t have any vulgar guns or military training, which are insignificant in revolutions, which succeed based on how righteous & romantic they are, not based on such tedious vulgarities as tactics, support, & material ), but that would require leaving my house, & I can barely force myself to get out o’ bed. Someone else can do it, K. I’m sure all those savvy politicos who see thru the charade o’ the 2 corporate wings o’ the same party are prepping for that sexy communist revolution that’s going to happen any moment now, just you wait, & aren’t just sitting round whining & doing nothing.
4. It’s not e’en all that accurate to describe me as a “communist”, or anything, tho it certainly wouldn’t be accurate to call me pro-capitalist ( tho I’m sure there are plenty o’ people who will insist I am either-or ’cause I lack the 100% conviction necessary to not be a part o’ the other side ). This is not ’cause I’m an enlightened centrist who both-sides & thinks we should compromise & make poor people only half-slaves to the rich, but ’cause labeling people as political systems is stupid. If you live in a capitalist system, by definition you are not a communist, as you have to act like a capitalist to stay ’live. Only brain-dead libertarians ( ¡but I repeat myself! ) or the sheltered rich think acting 100% by one’s beliefs is the most practical means by which one makes those beliefs successful. For instance, a rich communist who gives all their money ’way to the poor is, perhaps, truer to their beliefs in an abstract, symbolic way ( read: in a religious way ), but they may have actually helped their cause better if they used that power to influence culture & politics toward communism — for example, by bribing politicians ( ¡they’re cheaper than you think! ) or spreading propaganda. Radicals who refuse to vote to stay “true” to their views are accomplishing nothing but self-owning.
The most accurate truth is that I, like any other rational person, am a consequentialist & utilitarian who doesn’t fret so much o’er some fantasy world I’d like to see, but based on the choices I can make in the present real world & what are the likely effects o’ those choices, both short-term & long-term ( the long-term point is important: 1 reason I do criticize filthy moderate “intellectuals” for watering down their opinions for the sake o’ not scaring people & gaining immediate influence on them is that it procrastinates teaching people inevitable reality, which has worse long-term effects; we could’ve avoided the political problems we’re having now if liberals acknowledged from the start that the US electoral system is broken @ its core & worked to solve it, rather than wait till its brokenness became obvious to e’eryone & it became too late to fix it. Unlike voting, where your choices are limited, you have no limits on what you can say, so there’s no reason for me to not go full radical with my pontifications, e’en while voting moderate ). When voting, I don’t think o’ such abstract dreams as “communism”; I think merely in terms o’ the effects o’ voting & not voting, & it turns out that voting Democrat leads to the most efficient outcome out o’ all choices.
5. Voting doesn’t compete with radical action in any way. It’s not like there’s some universal unbreakable law o’ physics that says you can’t vote & revolt @ the same time.
6. I don’t harbor as strong an aversion to “failure” as many mo’ idealistic leftists, mainly ’cause that “failure” barely lost me anything. ’Gain, it’s not as if not voting would’ve created an opportunity for sexy radical communism that I gambled ’way by voting. As obvious from my yearly articles ’bout it, I take Democrats failing for granted. It’s weird seeing so many young people express such disillusionment after voting, like, once, & then seeing Biden, ¡gasp!, didn’t fulfill his promise to erase all student debt. The fact that they expected much from Democrats, specially Democrats who only hold the presidency, the house, & half o’ the senate ( many wrongly claim the Democrats hold all 3 branches, which is obviously wrong: the 3 branches aren’t president, house, & senate; they’re the presidency, legislature, — including both the house & senate — & the supreme court; Democrats only unquestionably control 1 o’ these, arguably controls ’nother, & unquestionably doesn’t control the supreme court, who can just declare anything the other branches pass “unconstitutional”, anyway ), when they don’t e’en accomplish much when they do fully control the government, shows a level o’ political incompetence that is both immense & embarrassing. Like, they actually thought checking a bunch o’ boxes a few times once should’ve guaranteed them all their wishes fulfilled. It makes me wonder if these same people gave up on having jobs after being rejected from 1 job application & then just decided that applying for jobs is a waste o’ time. I thought ’twas obvious to e’eryone that in capitalism if you’re not born rich & powerful you have to fail ’gain & ’gain & ’gain & if you’re extremely lucky the 10,000th time you try you might manage to claw back for yourself a meager crumb o’ success. I don’t know how anyone can e’en survive living without having a strong tolerance for failure. Then ’gain, many o’ these people may be upper-middle-class people who ne’er had to struggle that much to get their material needs &, dabbling in politics, are bewildered by the fact that e’en moderately wealthy people have to try & fail many times to achieve any kind o’ success in politics — which is why they’re so idealistic & not as cynical as I am. Maybe after their family falls into poverty after the middle class collapses & they find they’re ineligible for food stamps ’cause the Republicans cut its funding they’ll discover a potent difference ’tween Democrats & Republicans.
7. In fairness to other leftists who may live in places where it’s hard or nigh impossible to vote, I live in a civilized state where you get your form in the mail, fill it out, & then put it in the mailbox. I probably spend mo’ time ordering groceries for the week than I do voting every half year ( I also understand that primaries are a thing & play a key role in making Democrats less lame, fellow young people who didn’t bother to vote in the 2020 Presidential primary & were “shocked” that their bro boi Bernie Sanders didn’t win & ’stead boring white ol’ inferior Obama whose best accomplishment is still playing as Luigi in Mario Kart won. Thanks, idiots ), which is just the right time investment that voting is worth in the US. I can understand people in 3rd-world US like Texas, where you have to register by mail or in-person ( apparently no one in Texas’s government knows how to use the internet or they think that Bill Gates will hack their computers & replace all their registrations with Bill Gates so he can trick the Texan government into letting him vote millions o’ times ); go thru the tedious rigmarole for getting an ID, which the US government should just send to you without needing to go to the DMV, since they already collect info on every conversation you’re having, anyway ( to be fair, Washington State still requires this if you want to get a job, which is still savagery ); & worse, ’less your ol’ or physically disabled, you have to wait in line for several hours @ some fucking elementary school like some beast. I could understand why somebody wouldn’t consider such degradation worth voting for some Democrat who calls Republicans “pro-rich socialists”, whate’er that is.
8. E’en if I’m cynical ’bout the US’s present electoral system, it’s obvious that I have a morbid curiosity for it in the same way I have a morbid curiosity for modern Nintendo games, e’en tho most o’ them aren’t good & I only play them for like an hour. A’least the US government doesn’t expect me to pay $60 — well, not yet, a’least. Unlike my mo’ idealistic, pure-@-heart fellow leftist who touches no evil, I have no qualms with getting dirty & moving a token with my grubby prole hands, e’en if I only get to move a pawn buried far ’hind giant queens.
CNN, who I have been informed have only just recently become “centrists”, really want us to feel bad for rich, Republican ( which apparently didn’t stop the Democrat President from nominating him for a 2nd term ) Federal Reserve chair, Jay Powell, who had the “iron stomach” to provide “shock therapy” ( as if this writer is giggling ’hind their mouth while glancing @ Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine ), AKA suffering & destitution for others, while he takes no economic risks if he makes any mistakes, a perfect example o’ the US’s “meritocracy”, where only the lower classes have to accept the consequences for their actions — or for the actions o’ their superiors, as they get laid off for economic & business policies that they had nothing to do with:
Part of the reason Volcker is remembered so favorably by Powell and others is that it required a savvy mind and an iron stomach to a) understand the problem of rampant inflation, and b) implement the painful shock therapy of interest rate hikes that cost millions of people their jobs. Volcker’s plan worked, but it really sucked for a while. There was indeed some pain, to borrow Powell’s euphemistic phrasing.
Considering povertyrose in the 80s, I want to ask how Volcker’s plan ”worked”, but unlike CNN’s writers, I don’t need to pretend to be too stupid to understand what Volcker’s main goals were. One might wonder why the government would want to sabotage the economy for the many for the sake o’ keeping a tiny minority o’ rich people’s hoarded gold stacks still valuable & able to borrow money @ the cheap right before midterms, but we have to remember that Powell is a Republican, so the answer is probably that he wants to screw o’er Democrats. The better question is why Biden would nominate a Republican for a 2nd term ’stead o’, say, Janet Yellen, who led the US to have the lowest unemployment rate since 1970. The best answer is that Democrats are idiots ( specifically, it’s probably for the sake o’ “decorum” o’ following the long-held pattern o’ always giving Federal Reserve chairs 2 terms, which Trump broke when he only gave Yellen 1 term, as Republicans understand that having mo’ power is always better than following made-up rituals that only help the other side ).
“Volcker’s mantra, one he told me again and again through 2008-9, was that in a crisis the only asset you have is your credibility,” Austan Goolsbee, an economist who advised the Obama administration, wrote in 2019 just after Volcker died at age 92.
“¡The only thing that matters is that we keep the scam ’live!”.
But, wait, we have a bonus bit from CNN:
Congrats, rich people — you ranks are multiplying. Thanks to gains in the stock market and soaring home prices, the world got another 5.2 million millionaires last year, nearly half of whom are in the United States. It’s the largest increase in millionaire numbers for any country in any year this century, according to Credit Suisse, which published its annual global wealth report this week.
Well, it’s good to see we have some good news in this dire economy for on —
Meanwhile, the pandemic has pushed about 100 million people into extreme poverty, raising that global total to 711 million in 2021, according to the World Bank.
O… Right… & there’s ’bout 20 times as many people now in destitution. But “congrats”, I guess. Thank the Invisible Hand for that stock market that, nonetheless, is still not high ’nough, so we need to raise those rates & throw some mo’ people out onto the street. A real human being with any semblance o’ empathy would put the massive increase o’ poverty @ the top & be much mo’ morose, but as we’ve established time & time ’gain, US news organizations aren’t staffed by humans, but by sheltered sociopaths.
It’s that time ’gain: time for ’nother example that proves we live in a postparody world where the most ridiculous satire is, in fact, reality.
Yes, in our hypercapitalist dystopian world, this is real headline I read from Reuters, a news organization people keep telling me is s’posedly 1 o’ the best sources for information: “Gen Z poses a problem for the luxury industry”. As you can see, the zoomzooms have grown up ’nough to join an ol’ tradition that millennials have been a part o’ ( & are still a part o’ ) for decades now: newspapers whining ’bout young people not buying ’nough stupid shit. Thruout the past 2 decades there were way mo’ news articles than I e’er needed to read in my lifetime whining ’bout how millennials were too good with their money to invest in housing bubble schemes to buy shitty, o’ervalued McMansions in suburban wastelands so they can be surrounded by illiterate yokels with houses painted entirely in MAGA election stickers, unlike their parents who went bankrupt buying useless houses in 2007. &, ’course, we can’t forget that unforgettable article we looked @ in my Pulitzer-winning treatise on equisquiliology, “A Year o’ Yuppie Inanity with Mozilla’s Pocket ( An Unpublished Classic )”: “The Raisin Situation”, wherein the fucking The New York Times ( Jesus, what a dogshit ’scuse for a newspaper ) described the valiant efforts o’ some rich guy to bring enlightenment to the savage millennials like Promethean fire & manipulate convince them to buy mo’ raisins.
From $300 bucket hats to $900 sneakers and $700 t-shirts, the high-flying luxury sector is fretting over the appetite among financially stretched Gen Z consumers for such “aspirational” purchases.
If you didn’t catch it, “aspirational” here is a euphemism for “stupid & pointless”.
If you pay close attention you might catch the words “financially stretched” & be curious ’bout the point o’ view o’ the Gen Z people & how they feel ’bout their own financial struggles. Well, you’ll have to use your imagination, as Reuters could only find time in their busy schedules to examine the financial struggles o’ billionaires trying to make up for that li’l bit o’ extra gold they won’t be able to add to their Scrooge McDuck swimming pools o’ gold.
Whereas in North America and Europe, inflation and a rising cost-of-living are hitting discretionary incomes of young consumers especially hard, China’s problem is different.
“In the U.S., inflation is a huge issue, the major focus of a lot of luxury companies … In China, it’s the youth unemployment rate that’s alarming right now,” Kenneth Chow, principal at consultancy Oliver Wyman said.
You selfish proletarians probably thought that unemployment is only a problem for you & your inability to afford basic needs like food & rent, but you forgot to consider the harm this causes for luxury sellers: if you can barely afford to buy food or pay rent, ¿how will you e’er pay them for $300 bucket hats?
Government data for July registers the unemployment rate of China’s urban population aged 16 to 24 at a record 19.9%, exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns and a crackdown on big tech firms that traditionally hired droves of graduates.
“This might be the first time that a lot of young adults (in China) are facing (such an) economic impact, so it will be a testing ground on how these consumers are going to spend on luxury items going forward,” Chow said.
Yes, Chow certainly has his word cut out for him, figuring out the magical mathematical equation to get people without money in a deeply dysfunctional economy devastated by a deadly pandemic & the pall o’ rising authoritarian politics to buy mo’ $700 T-shirts with the words “Ne’er Trust a Taco Tuesday Fart” on it. My thoughts & prayers are out there for our brave luxury sellers.
“If a recession happens, then I will 100% buy less or maybe even stop buying altogether,” said U.S.-based luxury lifestyle and travel TikToker Jeffrey Huang, 28, who shares his Louis Vuitton shopping trips and hauls with his 150,000 followers.
The cancellation o’ Pokémon Card Unboxing #243,143 was mo’ tragic than the premature cancellation o’ Firefly.
And big brands have signaled their intention to grow top end sales of $10,000 handbags and $5,000 coats rather than focus on attracting new entrants onto the bottom rung of the ladder.
This is a smart plan: in economies where the total amount o’ money isn’t shrinking, but the # o’ people who have money are shrinking, with those few gaining much mo’ money, it makes sense to rely less on selling several affordable goods to the masses o’ people going broke & rely more on trying to get as much money out o’ the few goods they sell to the shrinking % o’ rich people, relying on their psychological need for conspicuous consumption to reinforce their economic superiority.
“As the prices are rising, I’m becoming more and more cautious because I feel like I did do a good amount of spending in the last year,” said Sara Yogi, a 26-year-old San Francisco, California resident, adding that she may hold off buying a $2,900 Prada bag and one costing $3,200 from Bottega Veneta which are both on her wish list.
You can tell things are dire when people are reducing themselves to the level o’ caveman savagery by withholding from themselves, like water from a parched throat in a desert, $2,900 bags — which is ’bout $2,900 mo’ expensive than the bags you can just cadge from your local Walmart’s self-checkout stations.
This shift to focus on core luxury consumers also encompasses a cohort of wealthy Gen Z consumers less likely to be impacted by inflation or unemployment.
“1% o’ Gen Z consumers are reported to have said, ‘Fuck you, I’ve got mine’”.
But the concern is over would-be buyers who were meant to help Gen Z account for a fifth of all spending in the luxury goods sector globally by 2025.
You other failures, on the other hand, are shirking what you’re meant to do, which is raise your peoples’ abstract # up to 20%. ¿Have you no shame, poor people? ¿Have you no concern for your responsibility to luxury sellers?
Some luxury labels, including Balenciaga and Dior, are embracing the metaverse —
¡Nope! ¡Stop! ¡I’ve heard ’nough!
This is why Marxism is outdated: imagine wasting so much o’ your time writing 3 volumes attempting to critique capitalism in detail when nowadays you could just say, “Look, guys, capitalism led to the metaverse. ¿What mo’ proof do you need?”.
Virtual sneakers from brands like Gucci have already proved wildly popular, with a price point of $17.99.
Who wants to bet that these virtual sneakers can’t be bought with virtual money.
Whether in the real or virtual world, entry-level products call for high levels of creative investment.
“Creative investment” is an interesting way to say “stupidity”.
“There is this young crowd of consumers that are entering into the market that requires a lot of creativity at more affordable price points,” said Bain partner Claudia D’Arpizio, adding that not all brands are equipped for this.
Yes, I can imagine it takes a lot o’ imagination to convince people to spend money on shit that doesn’t e’en exist ’stead o’, you know, stuff that actually exists & has a use. & by “imagination”, I mean “lying”.
There is good news for brands, however.
Well, that calms my breathing a lot. When unemployment is almost 1/5th o’ the youth population, my greatest concern is always how Tony the fucking Tiger is weathering the storm.
If they do find the right offering of entry-level products, or if the economic situation of Gen Z consumers improves, the desire for luxury products remains undimmed.
This is idiotic. If people don’t have money, they can’t buy shit, no matter how “right” the offering — well, ’less they buy on credit, which will ’ventually run out, & would just be a short-lived bubble if many people did that & would lead to many o’ you idiotic companies going out o’ business. That’s basic math. They keep hammering in the importance o’ some vague “solution”, mostly revolving round inspiring or convincing consumers, when the problem isn’t a lack o’ desire, but a lack o’ money. ¿Are they so stupid that they think poor people can be convinced into becoming richer by enticing them with luxuries?
& the situation for Gen Z consumers won’t improve: if fewer people are buying things, then fewer things will need to be produced, & thus fewer jobs are needed, which will only cause unemployment to rise, & therefore fewer people with money & fewer people buying things. This is also basic math & the basics o’ how recessions work.
“Young people in China are enthusiastic about luxury products,” Yi said. “Lockdowns, or the temporary unemployment rate won’t change their long-term preferences.”
What Reuters fails to mention is the obvious solution to this seemingly inharmonious contradiction ’tween unemployed youth’s desire for expensive, useless junk & their lack o’ money to buy said junk: have the government tax these luxury sellers’ excess money & redistribute to the poor youth so they can buy this junk. Or better yet, only redistribute to people not dumb ’nough to want virtual sneakers & let the luxury sellers go bankrupt, ’cause, now that I think ’bout it, these luxury sellers provide no value to society whatsoe’er & the world would be better off if they were gone. In short: no, Reuters, I don’t give a shit ’bout the problems o’ businesses who don’t belong in any halfway meritocratic or productive economy. A bigger question is why Reuters does & why anyone would consider Reuters a news organization worth taking seriously.
While posting some haiku to Twitter I happened to spy “#BoycottCNN” ’mong the typical adspam that covers that website &, being someone who doesn’t watch CNN, ’cause I have some semblance o’ taste, I was curious ’bout what salacious scandal happened @ the most boring, milquetoast news show out there:
It’s things like this that convince me that I’m the only American who lives on planet earth. ¿How dense do you have to be to call CNN a “new” corporate oligarchy. ¿@ what point weren’t they? ¿& centrist move? ¿What were they before? ¿Liberal? Decades ago I remember them pumping out union-bashing shit. ¿Wasn’t their most prominent anchor before Erin Brunett, a conservative?
“Good morning and Happy Sunday to everyone who agrees that if CNN has consciously decided to push Republican positions, it’s time to #BoycottCNN,” one user tweeted. “I’m watching @MSNBC exclusively now.”
This is how moronic Americans are. Yes, in Soviet America pushing Republican positions is “centrist” — being biased in favor o’ 1 side in the most blatant way is “centrism”. This isn’t e’en taking into consideration the demographic to the left o’ Democrats, far larger & mo’ diverse than what few maniacs are to the right o’ fascist Republicans. Apparently the overton window has moved so much that no longer does supporting merely a pseudodemocratic republic, as opposed to a genuinely democratic republic without the electoral college, & you’ve read this rant before, count as “centrist”: now “centrism” is outright opposing democracy. The US has gone all the way back to medieval times & supporting democracy is a radical leftist agenda. This is why nobody should e’er take the word “centrist” seriously & anyone who uses it unironically is a moron. Also, nobody should take mainstream US politics seriously or Americans as people seriously.
& ’stead o’ going to an actual serious left-wing news show, like Democracy Now!, or learning how to read & reading the various left-wing newspapers out there, like The Nation, or, hell, watching the fucking Daily Show would be better than god damn CNN, they ’scape the cOrPOraTE oLIgArCHy by going to Microsoft NBC, famed community-oriented small press. What a depressing existence these failson “leftists” live. That’s like being a gamer & only playing mobile lootbox games or being a music fan who only listens to tiktok songs. I can’t fathom any reason why someone should punish themselves by watching either news show. To put it into perspective, as much contempt as I have for The New York Times & fucking The Guardian, e’en they are mountains ’bove CNN & MSNBC. Fucking YouTubers like Big Joel giving Marxist analyses o’ The Bee Movie are ’bove their level. You’d be better off not getting any news @ all & being completely oblivious, since I’m pretty sure CNN & MSNBC are like Fox News & make people less informed than an alien’s guesswork.
Some left-leaning CNN fans —
Nope. This doesn’t exist. You might as well start with “Some dry water”. ¿How much are they leaning left? ¿1°?
Many pointed out Malone and his companies’ support of Trump might reflect CNN’s centrist move.
& I point out that “support for fascist who tried to set himself as dictator for life = centrism” is proof that the entire American conception o’ politics is a black hole o’ mental cancer.
Similarly, many also criticized CNN’s Jake Tapper for not pushing back against lies about the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search in an interview with Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw on Sunday’s “State of the Union.”
After Crenshaw said that he hasn’t seen “any evidence that Trump was even give these documents back,” Tapper did not correct this unsubstantiated claim, despite CNN’s timeline on the probe that reported the DOJ served a subpoenaed at Mar-a-Lago in June.
Also: in the US “centrism” means literally fucking lying. If you are biased in favor o’ truth itself, you are a far-left communist. If you believe in journalism that does its actual job & doesn’t lie, you are a far-left communist. Cool country you have here.
The only thing that can make CNN relevant again is a massive boycott.
Nothing will make CNN — or TV news in general, since only ol’ people watch TV — relevant ’gain. Which means this boycott is as meaningful as boycotting a newspaper or COBOL: they’re already way less influential than the average incel on Facebook & are already on their way out.
But a’least the article ends on a high note:
You don't "both sides" it in journalism. You don't give fascists and Nazis equal time.
If one side says "water is wet" and the other says "no, water is dry" you don't have guests on taking up valuable time telling people how dry water is. You report the facts. #BoycottCNN
The only other American who isn’t lobotomized is a man named “Pants McShirt”. This is objective, 100% scientific proof that the US was a mistake & ne’er should’ve happened.
