annals of sociopathy -- updaed

"I'd like to punch him in the face" Donald Trump says of a heckler at a Vegas rally, as the man is escorted out by security.




See video of Trump boiling over @ Youtube.

Any body who thinks this Sociopath or any one like him,  should ever be allowed within a mile of the Oval Office should have his or her head examined.

UPDATE:s The Sociopath destroyed what passes for his competition last night in Nevada's caucuses, taking 46% if the votes cast, and proving that among the states,  Nevada wears the mask of sanity.

с ума кошка (krazy kat)

Item: Contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden told the New Hampshire Liberty Forum on Saturday he would return to America if the government guaranteed him a fair trial and allowed the jury to distinguish between “right and wrong.” 

[From Russia Today: https://www.rt.com/usa/333162-new-hampshire-snowden-trial/]

He must be one krazy Kat if he actually trusts a US "guarantee." It's the same mistake Augusto Sandino & Emiliano Zapata made, & I don't think Snowden is naive enough to fall for it.

piketty fences

Thomas Piketty, the French rock-star economist & now a columnist for the Guardian (UK), makes a convincing argument that whether Bernie Sanders wins or loses the presidency this year, a new era of progressive politics in the US has already begun.

In his Guardian column on Tuesday, Piketty wrote that * From the 1930s until the 1970s, the US were at the forefront of an ambitious set of policies aiming to reduce social inequalities. Partly to avoid any resemblance with Old Europe, seen then as extremely unequal and contrary to the American democratic spirit, in the inter-war years the country invented a highly progressive income and estate tax and set up levels of fiscal progressiveness never used on our side of the Atlantic. From 1930 to 1980 – for half a century – the rate for the highest US income (over $1m per year) was on average 82%, with peaks of 91% from the 1940s to 1960s (from Roosevelt to Kennedy), and still as high as 70% during Reagan’s election in 1980.*

He then explains why confiscatory income tax rates on incomes over $1m/yr as well as high estate taxes are necessary for any society wishing to avoid concentration of wealth and widespread poverty. Piketty uses standard academic scholarship to make his argument, backing it up with facts as in the quoted paragraph.  This technique isn't original, but it seems brilliant coming at a time when for decades, economic theory in this country has consisted mostly of platitudes and bromides about *freedom.*

And the facts are as well known as any other history. We've known for some time that if our goal is to redistribute income in a society, then an income tax devised for that purpose is the simple and easy way to do it. The money derived from the tax is then distributed to those in need, as health care benefits         and government pensions, housing subsidies, child care for working mothers, etc.

EZ-PZ, & it ain't rocket science. The only thing missing in the US, keeping us from achieving this goal, is the loud and insistent voice of the people, who up until now have been incredibly passive & complacent, at times even participating in political schemes that lead to their own impoverishment.

The arrival of Senator Sanders on the national scene has hopefully put an end to our collective helplessness. We need to make demands on those who rule, starting today, 

unavoidable absences

I knew I'd be offline over the 3-day weekend, because my wife wanted to take me 2 the ocean down by Sandy Eggo.

As I suspected, it was not the greatest idea because everyone else's wife wanted 2 do the same. And as usual, we went without a reservation or a plan -- just flyin by the proverbial seats of our metaphorical pants.

Next time, besides bein the navigator, I'LL B the planner. Armed with a Rand-McNalley road atlas rather than a skeevy map in a phone, there*s no contingency I won't B able to plan 4, except nuclear war or being abducted by extraerrestrial aliens, or that sort of thing. 

After 3 days stuck in traffic, it's great 2 B home and blogging again. I'll B back tomorrow, and try not to skip more than a day at a time, for the election season is upon us, and at long last there's actually something at stake this time.      

ex'posions of bernieism

Since The New Hampshire primaries last thursday, with their dramatic & emphatic results, there's been a swelling & tangible tidal wave of enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders.. It's growing very rapidly now. I never knew so many Freekish folks ready to blow their corks.

.


I can just about smell it when I go outside. zyt smells like freedom, and also blood. 

I hope it is not ours. 



.

dueling in durham

It was knock-'m-down bare knuckles in Durham, NH Thursday evening as the forced absconding of the marshmallowy Martin O'Malley finally opened things up, & provided the fireworks between the two viable presidential candidates I'd hoped for from the beginning.

When Sec'ty Clinton accused Sanders of conducting an *artful smear* against her personally, it was on. The *smear* consists of factual information regarding the 650K piasters she got from Goldman Sachs for speaking fees, usually accompanied by a reminder that she voted for unleashing Dubya 4 the Iraq War.

Sen. Sanders countered that he's able to *not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. I am very proud to be the only candidate up here that does not have a super PAC.*

I was glad 2 see it, since we are at long last in  the year of the giant election. So never vote for anyone who voted to let Geo W Bush rummage about in the mideast, & laissez les bons temps rouler.

...and so...on to nuevo hemp, sire

Ye Newes from Neuvo Hemp, Sire, is that every one is there -- from zoup 2 nuts, or vrom Bernie's chicken soup 4-D  soul 2 Mr.T's (Ted's) Cruznuts.

Zair iss notting left, my lad, 4 2 contend 4, excepting plain & UN-surpris'd rebellion, or what some would call  *political revolution.*

Ye American Revolution was such a type, for any one who possessed real power in those days wanted to abstain from attacking the fk dato-pms pain center (or in udder wurds) Ovum ozoo'm, as ye tater tytt  fren--zeeee OK?! 


so, ikan go ();j) wid. it  (g/)0-[widdit]-0.
iike I kan go widdit, o widout. 
But I prefer Wiffit, ooo00h 000h o0 yeh,
Cuz it's so much nicer than widout one
oh Man, it's Nice.







]

Айова Кавказ

What happened in Iowa Monday evening was very significant. Hillary C. celebrated a dead heat with an over-the-top victory speech that showed just how scared she is. 

Bernie was much calmer, of course. With New Hampshire in his hip pocket, he's got the inside track @ the moment.

Trump is getting swarmed by all the other Rehooligans now after losing to Ted Cruz. How they hate him for not playing by the rules.

late!

I looked at my blog this moning and realized with consternation that I haven't posted here for a week.

For which i can offer only the usual vague excuse -- I've been really busy, sleeping mostly. For the last two weeks I've been taking radiation therapy for cancer, and it makes a person very sleepy, which is OK if you don't have to go to work or something ridiculous like that.

Plus the greatest accomplishment of my life -- my daughter -- was here last week, and we got to deal with her manic energy due to ADHD -- a lot of fun, but a bit wearing for a couple of old people. She used 2 B tortured by the condition, but now enjoys it.

But enuff of my boring excuses. I'll be back domani, woth my own take on the Iowa cock-asses. 

sick puppies

Syphilis has always been somebody else's fault.

When Diego Rivera painted the conqueror of Mexico, Hernan Cortez, he portrayed him as a deformed syphilitic monster, the origin of the disease both in the New World and Europa. He conveniently leaves out that if Cortez had syphilis he got it from somebody else.

The English called it the French disease. The French called it the Spanish disease. The Russians called it the Polish disease.

Personally, I call it the blue dog Democrat disease.

trumpery:

Obsequeious Sycophants and Servile Subjects

1. Is Kindaloser Ricepuffs giving AIDS and Comfits to the enema? "I whish that we could of recive strong massages of sopport from the US so we don't give some boost to the terrist and mak dem feel zat dey might of achiv sockcess," said the Grand Poobah of Montenegro 2day, in the whake of Ricepuffs's camel-toad bizkit.

2. There is knew legilslation in Congerss witch would require Pres. Whatshisface to get Congerssional apporval before he goes to war with Iran. And good for Wally "Friddom Frys" Jones who is pushing it. He's gones from friddom frys to friddom of spitch.

3. Converzation herd in a Congerssional herring this weak: Senator Spectator sez: Now wait a minute, wait a minute, please, Mr. Postman.

The Contistution says you can't take it away. Except in the case. Of invasion or rebellion. Doesn't that minn you have the rite of habeas corpus?

And Abu Gsonxalez sez: I meant by that cement that the Contistution doesn't say that every individual in the United States or avery citizen has or is assured the rite of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says that the rite of habeas corpus shall not be supsended. Thass wot I ment by that remark, Senator Spectator.

Glad you cleered that up for us, Abu.

4. Ted Nugent Ted Nugent

The aging roker appeared on stage at Texass gobernor Rik Parry's second inuageral. Using machin gones a propos, Nugent, 58, appeared on stage as the finale act of the inuageral ball wharing a cut off "T" shirt embalzoned with the Confaderate flog and shouting in cohairant remarks about non-English speakers, according to people who were their.

violent souls

I walked out this morning on my way to the bank and the store. The street was quiet and peaceful. There was sunshine, a light breeze, and the occasional car going by. A young mother walked by with her two little kids in tow. 

What kind of world are those kids going to live in? Better than the one they're living in now, I hope, but I doubt it. 

I was thinking about the war. Not the Iraq War, although that's part of it. I thought of the bloodshed, the violence, the bombs, the desperate struggle of men to stay alive in a burning hell of bullets and 
explosions, and wondered why. 

When I think about the wars of the last 100 years, from World War I to Iraq, the primary feature of all of them is senselessness. There were excuses for all those wars and all that violent death, but no real reasons. 



The terrifying slaughter of World War I was deliberately set off by childish colonial and commercial rivalries among the ruling classes of Europe. Hitler ignited the worst war the world has ever seen using the fantastic pretext of a perceived need for Germany to expand her territory. His rage and thirst for blood were not  satisfied with a world-wide conflagration, and he compounded his crimes by murdering millions of innocents in death factories. 

In this country the last two generations have seen the pointless bloodletting and violent, deep-soul trauma of the imbecile Vietnam campaign, and most recently in Iraq, the muddled, violent attempt of a failing empire to secure supplies of a diminishing resource halfway around the world, in an ill-advised attempt to prop up a way of life scheduled for extinction. 

All these conflicts except the first saw the violent deaths of as many civilians as combatants, and the blood of the innocent, in the words of Genesis, cries up from the ground for retribution. 

Why did these things happen, and continue to happen? Those who started these wars always blamed the enemy -- if only he had been willing to listen to reason...if only they were less like themselves and more like us, pure, virtuous, and good -- and anyway He attacked Us first... 

But the real reason, the inescapable truth about these pointless convulsions of bloodshed and violence over the past century is that they were expressions of violent rage perpetrated by violent, fearful, and enraged men. Look at our highest-level politicians and our captains of industry. You can see the violence in their eyes. You can hear it in their words. Turn on the TV to any cable news channel, and you find yourself in direct confrontation with the pathology of violent souls. 

For the United States, which spends as much money on the means of violence, bloodshed, and destruction as the rest of the world combined, the responsibility for the level of violence in this beaten and traumatized world rests especially heavy. We have the world's biggest war machine, and that makes us the most violent. 

What we're dealing with here isn't really politics, but medicine. Sick minds and sick souls need treatment. Instead, the sickest among us are talking about the need to do violence to the Iranians. 

We don't need to worry about the Iranians. What we need to worry about is the state of our souls, and really, sincerely, to stop acting like we're out of our minds. 

Attacking Iran -- that's what I'd call a little hair of the dog that bit you.

капитан трусы

Lately I've been noticing how much Senator John McCain looks like CaptainUnderpants, or *Captain Briefs* as he's called in Russia, Probably B-cause he's one of our AZ senators & is on TV even more here than he is in the rest of the country.

Or maybe I've got that upside down. Maybe it's Captain Underpants who looks like John McCain. 

moonglow

la lune

What you think dear reader?

Sunrise or moonrise?What's happening here is the full wolf moon is rising in the east, while the sun still hangs in the west.

We took several shots of this phenom about 5:30 last evening.

you doesn't has to be Ph.D

Bring back the WPA. Bring back the CCC. 

Bring back the B&O and the AT&SF. 

Drop a depth charge on the GWOT. 

Downsize the FBI and the CIA. 

Try a little LSD. 

Kick out the SOB's. And let's get it done, PDQ, or we'll all be SOL.

yadda yadda again & again

8 years ago I wrote

Clinton went into Avenging Durga mode and attacked Obama (but only verbally) for misrepresenting her. She was in a very high dudgeon. I heard it on the telly. She's desperate.

Then this morning I rolled aut at 4 a.m. and ye 1st thing me eye fell on was ye very loud 24-pt headline at CNN: 

Clinton attacks as polls show Sanders winning in Iowa, New Hampshire

The story below the headline told how Mrs. Clinton, being 5 pts behind Sen Sanders in Iowa & double-digits behind in New Hampshire has  gone into avenging Durga mode, & in extremely high dudgeon, is attacking him continuously,  with proxies such as daughter Chelsea duplicating the effort.

Read it or watch it here.

War, Inc.

(From 2008 @ US NEWS & POLITICS, Beliefnet.)

catboxer Posts: 14,069

I've already referred to Bob Herbert's December 4 column in the New York Times, in which he discusses the true costs of the Iraq War. His analysis was so good that I believe it merits a second look. A DailyKos correspondent called "Forgiven" provides that second look, reminding us that "The truth is that the cost of a war is more than the money spent on men and material, as if it were some business venture that can be tallied with a nice spreadsheet and budget. In today’s world, war is packaged like a corporate enterprise complete with sanitized videos and reporting to make it more palatable to the disinterested masses." I'm sure everyone remembers the sophisticated advertising campaign that preceded the war and how it was carried gratis and enthusiastically by the broadcast networks and major newspapers, and the many appearances of Cheney and Rumsfeld and Kindaloser Ricepuffs on "Meet the Press" and the other bobblehead interview shows, softening up the wide-eyed, innocent masses with their well-calibrated propaganda about "mushroom clouds" and WMD. What we saw then was actually phase I of the Iraq War -- that preliminary campaign in which the public is manipulated and bullied into accepting the murderous plans of our biggest and most blatantly evil corporation: War, Inc., mostly through the efforts of our servile and sycophantic mass media. We've seen the nefarious operations of War, Inc. many times before, most notably in Vietnam and Central America during the '80's, but they've never marketed such a  blatantly destructive product as this Iraq War, involving as it does brazen violations of international law. In addition, as Herbert's column emphasized with a quote from Nobel-prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, "Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits. The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war, and of this, almost $1 trillion is due directly to the war itself ... By 2017, we estimate that the national debt will have increased, just because of the war, by some $2 trillion." War, Inc. has now taken this country perilously close to insolvency, and transformed Iraq into a smoking, stinking ruin in the process. It has gutted the future of our  Social Security, formerly one of the most reliable bases of our prosperity, as well as sabotaging the possibility of rational, universal health care for all U.S. citizens. In doing so, War, Inc. has made war not just against "the terrorists," but against us as well. When it had barely begun oir plucky commander-in-chief strode the carrier deck with his codpiece leading the way and declared the "Mission Accomplished!". How many would still be willing to do so today, as we gaze on the shattered ruins of this war? most of us swallowed the Kool-Aid, internalized War, Inc.'s lies, and cheered on, just a few short years ago. our glittering prospects for the future. How many of us still think war is good?  As Forgiven explains, "Why is war good? It is good because it fuels the transfer of wealth from the middle-class to the wealthiest. It fuels the military-industrial complex and the war profiteers who in turn feed the lobbyists, who in turn purchase the politicians. You can’t spend all that money on war material and preparation and not use it."  Hence, Vietnam. Hence, Iraq. And I'm telling you, this is going to change. War, Inc. must die. It's economically non-negotiable, for starters. The money is gone, and our credit is blown. Have you ever seen a war foreclosed upon?  Obama says change is coming. He doesn't know the half of it.

worse every time

Charlie Pierce at Esquire dot com describes the 2012 Republican convention:

That night marked the entire convention as a lunatic burlesque put on to entertain and terrify elderly Caucasian shut-ins all across the nation.

BONUS LINK: THE REAL CURMUDGEON

alll the way fom sout kalina

The announcer said a few minootas ago that 

Clemson if she had the lead going into the 4th 

they didn’t lose it  — 51 timas in a row.

& now in the 4th they were ahead  24--21, & 

now they losing.

=30=

friday cat blogging, saturday edition

Took this shot a couple weeks ago when we still had  a little AZ sunshine occasionally. It shows that even felines have got to stop &  smell  the roses. Life gets boring in a hurry when you can't.