That's the thing - even in a column that's hard-hitting like this, you DO insert a bit of humor. "Because fuck you, that's why" is hilarious and yet the perfect response to these things.
I had to turn notifications off just because of the dopamine rush. But thankfully the designers of social media didn't design it specifically that way, eh? l🙄l Just like food 'scientists' didn't design Doritos' savory taste to be addictive and full of empty calories, thus craving more of just such foods. {Steps down off soapbox.}
I can't stand the faces of some of the supreme court in fact I don't think I've ever seen a single photo of Clarence Thomas smiling never mind cracking up laughing
his stone cold smuggafucka face is all I ever knew
So I thank you for bringing all of us some fascinating and hilarious moments from our fucked up and fucked out supreme court!!
If you do ever find one of him laughing, I would bet his mom's house that he's belly laughing at all the gullible po' people he enjoys fucking over because they don't have rich sugar daddies.
a couple points. a) if scrotus rules in favor of Moore I am filing a suit to not pay property tax because that tax is totally and completely a tax on unrealized gains. b) why on god's green earth are Democrats not loudly and every damn day yelling about outright bribes being a fantastic reason to expand (or contract IDGAF) scrotus? can't anybody here play this game!
Amen! Our little cottage has been taxed as tho it suddenly expanded and became worth ever so much more $$. The realtors rule our community. Folks are being taxed out of their homes. Fucking greedy mongrels!
I don’t mind either because they go to getting things done (like infrastructure) and social programs. I had a friend who used to get snarky when I said that. I told her if even if I dislike someone I want them to have a safety net if necessary because it’s good for the country as a whole. That shut her up.
I'm ok with taxes as a necessary fact of life, but I sure as hell mind the regressive taxes that are a requirement in TX. No state income tax! but housing, utilities, everything else but basic groceries are taxed as high as the lege can get by with. So the people in the state who make the least -- if they want basic utilities -- have to pay a much larger percentage of their income for those services than anyone who makes more than they do. Because fuck you, that's why.
Same 3% cap in Florida. But woe to anyone buying a house within the last few years - home prices rocketed up and the property tax is solely based on the most recent purchase price. Neighbors with houses of equal value if put on the market today are paying wildly different property tax based on their original purchase price. Public Service Announcement : For recent home buyers, Florida does not have low taxes!
Realtors are the problem? Realtors in my area work their asses off. It’s not just stick a sign out in front of a house and collect a commission. It’s prepping, staging, facilitating inspections and repairs, psychological help with overwhelmed sellers, marketing and expenses, open houses, negotiations, liabilities, insurance, working with lenders and deadlines, getting the best price for a seller and finally closing. It’s working tirelessly with buyers, showing properties sometimes for months until they find a house they love, reviewing inspections with buyers, scheduling any other that are needed and looking for red flags, educating buyers on the offer process and reviewing the contract, writing a competitive offer only to be outbid, dealing with buyers’ disappointment and starting the process all over again. Realtors put in hours of unpaid work and are only paid once the escrow closes unlike any other job. Realtors only get paid on results and there is a lot of overhead. So spare me the disdain for Realtors.
My realtor worked her ass off when I sold my house, dealing with all kinds of kooks (and that included other realtors sorry to say). However, a friend who sold several years earlier had just the kind you mentioned, basically sticking a sign out front. My friend actually did more work than the realtor. I’m sure the different types of realtors runs the gamut.
It's possible that realtors aren't ruling the community so much as trying to protect themselves because homeowners who can't afford to pay really burdensome taxes can't easily afford real estate. Not defending the realtors in your area and their practices, but unless they're also in gov't, it may be that shit is rolling downhill and they're just passing it along.
Now you’re making me wonder - is property tax (and income tax) even constitutional for anyone? Not if you’re a libertarian- which I’m not. The top 10% should get no tax breaks So many politicians are years in arrears in taxes, you can defer for years without a penalty. And hey Scrotus: Corporations are not people my friend!
I. JUST. CAN'T. It makes me so angry I can't even speak, I just sputter. Greedy does not begin to describe these super villains. Rapacious comes to mind. As in they are RAPING the US tax payers who don't make a gazillion dollars a year.
You know what's so weird? There are all these guys being accused/convicted of rape or at least sexual assault of some kind, and yet, to my knowledge, I have never had a single male family member or friend who is so inclined. Oh wait--except my late not-lamented ex-stepfather, who was the only psychopath I've known personally. Is that just another aspect of psychopathy? Along with the "skills" needed to make it to the top of a chosen profession? (like, um, politics)
I believe you are correct. Disregard for the wants and needs of others, especially women, seems to be a part of the psychopathy of getting ahead. Thankfully the men in my life are decent hardworking people, but then again, they're not CEOs, federal level politicians, etc.
The majority have been bought by the wealthiest people in the country and we should be surprised? They are a very large part of the attack on Democracy. Time to get rid of lifetime appointments, which we can do when Democrats win back the majority in Congress and the White House. Because Fuck Them, that’s why.
Republicans are simply ruining the country. As we all sail toward the extinction horizon, we'll at least know who to blame. What do most Americans think? Not much. To quote George Carlin: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
When I retired I sold my house and downsized to a much smaller one. Even with being old enough to get some capital gains relief, I made “too much money” that year and got walloped with taxes and paying much higher Medicare premiums, so received much less in SS than I was counting on (that will change in 2024, yay!). I’m not even close to having the kind of money the Moores have and I made do. Fucking them and their whiny assess.
I hoped oligarchs existed only in Russia but since we’re part of Vlads Grand Plan, here we are. It makes me sick to my stomach. The middle class who does all the work gets crapped on again. Fuck these people. 🙄
SS and Medicare have been on the GQP hit list for years and now they're closer than they've ever been to getting rid of them. Given that a large part of their constituency (in sheer numbers, if not in financial support) is old people on SS or about to be on SS, if they kill SS/Medicare, a good majority of their voters are going to become homeless and die off early due to lack of medical care and basic subsistence.
Probably why they're hoping to install the "dictator for life" this next election cycle. Then the oligarchs can tell the rest of us to go ahead and fuck off & die -- except for those of us needed to do the grunt work. Enough to make you wonder if that's what the whole forced-birth thing is about, too...
This is antithetical to any meaningful form of democracy (even the pretend kind which the United States has largely embraced). The unabated concentration of wealth, especially post "Citizens United" -another decision in which Alito and Thomas were delighted to do the bidding of their wealthy benefactors, means that money can effectively drown the thought of "one person, one vote". When someone, for example, like Phil Knight can drop millions of dollars in an attempt to flip Oregon to the GOP, SCOTUS is effectively saying not everyone is created equal. When the remaining Koch, Robert Mercer, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or Larry Ellison can take the wealth they've amassed and drop millions into a Senate, House, or Presidential race -it effectively takes massive people organizing efforts to even have a chance to displace someone like a Mitch McConnell, Scott Perry, or other electeds that are happy to do the bidding of the obscenely wealthy.
It extinguishes any thought of democracy, pretend or otherwise. The only difference in subverting government to protect the extreme concentration of wealth in this case is that no bullets are fired. Other than that, make no mistake -it is a violent takeover of U.S. Government and the subversion (and perversion) of the American experiment.
Until ordinary people rise up and join together for one common cause, “We’re tired of getting fucked by the rich and are not going to take it anymore” it will never end and will only get worse.
Yes Lorraine, divide and conquer is the preventative for ordinary people rising up. Next step is “You and them fight”. In other words the divideds will fight each other. Great, eh? More for the conquerors.
Clarence Thomas still fails to understand he is going to the concentration camps, no matter how many favors he gives from the Supreme Court of disillusionment and genocide.
I feel like the National Guard should be called out to attack the traitors and terrorists for unconstitutional acts that threaten society and the law! SCOTUS cannot be expanded without enough Congressional support so we know where we are on that.
It seems anyone in politics would prefer violent civil protest over criminal consequences for the right wing Fascist/theocratic Mafia of the US. How comforting! 🙄
It seems absurd, but we can't ever get anything changed unless you can get 60 senators to approve it. But we can't even get 51 senators to back changing that filibuster rule that requires the 60 votes. What an impotent system we have inherited. The Senate is PERMANENTLY designed to accomodate the small population states' wishes.
This why cheating and using the electoral college is so useful to republicans. Just get 2 plants to run on the Democratic ticket and they win the game.
We must correct this by consolidating the vote behind Biden/Harris. No other complaints- we cannot afford that!
It's all so infuriating and depressing
I know, right? sorry for not bringing much funny today
That's the thing - even in a column that's hard-hitting like this, you DO insert a bit of humor. "Because fuck you, that's why" is hilarious and yet the perfect response to these things.
It’s okay Jeff-you’ll have enough to laugh about by the end of the week, I’m sure!
I know, I'm just addicted to the dopamine hit every time the "like" counter increases
Did you feel that one? It was me pushing the ❤️ Button
That stuff is addictive... but so much fun! :D
I had to turn notifications off just because of the dopamine rush. But thankfully the designers of social media didn't design it specifically that way, eh? l🙄l Just like food 'scientists' didn't design Doritos' savory taste to be addictive and full of empty calories, thus craving more of just such foods. {Steps down off soapbox.}
Jeff
I can't stand the faces of some of the supreme court in fact I don't think I've ever seen a single photo of Clarence Thomas smiling never mind cracking up laughing
his stone cold smuggafucka face is all I ever knew
So I thank you for bringing all of us some fascinating and hilarious moments from our fucked up and fucked out supreme court!!
Bonus points for smuggafucka face.
If you do ever find one of him laughing, I would bet his mom's house that he's belly laughing at all the gullible po' people he enjoys fucking over because they don't have rich sugar daddies.
TRUTH!!!!!!
You’re not expected to be fucking hilarious every day. We can commiserate and gritch together. Tomorrow’s a new day!
Wingy, wingy, we cry now but we are made stronger with our outrage which provides fuel for the fight!
Another kick in the nutsacķ. Someone's laughing, no doubt, yet. Our elite untouchables think they are immune.
Be nervous with that greed and keep looking over shoulder because
what goes around,comes around.
I don’t know
Boxcar full of rotting skunks did it for me today!
(Other than that, yes it’s all depressing - & depressingly familiar)
Funny or not, we appreciate the info about what these corrupt assholes are up to.
Better to know the truth and be sad, than to ignore the truth and be fooled.
Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.
~James Baldwin
No apologies necessary. I’m fond of making jokes about everything, but sometimes outrage gets us to where we need to be.
You did have me laughing at Blackout Brett 🤣🤣🤣
I don't know, Jeff. The "boxcar ful of rotting skunks" gave me a chuckle 🤭
Truth is better than funny however, love the funny.
These guys make the Taney court look like a shining beacon of integrity and justice.
a couple points. a) if scrotus rules in favor of Moore I am filing a suit to not pay property tax because that tax is totally and completely a tax on unrealized gains. b) why on god's green earth are Democrats not loudly and every damn day yelling about outright bribes being a fantastic reason to expand (or contract IDGAF) scrotus? can't anybody here play this game!
SCROTUS. I read scrotum🙃
Sucking Cash Right Out of The US
Are you a Kath? That's my wife's name!
Yep, 6 little nuts, is it, in a nutsack?
Amen! Our little cottage has been taxed as tho it suddenly expanded and became worth ever so much more $$. The realtors rule our community. Folks are being taxed out of their homes. Fucking greedy mongrels!
To be fair I like to pay my taxes. But in the immortal words of The Dude this aggression shall not stand!
I don’t mind either because they go to getting things done (like infrastructure) and social programs. I had a friend who used to get snarky when I said that. I told her if even if I dislike someone I want them to have a safety net if necessary because it’s good for the country as a whole. That shut her up.
Exactly! It’s what a good citizen does!
I'm ok with taxes as a necessary fact of life, but I sure as hell mind the regressive taxes that are a requirement in TX. No state income tax! but housing, utilities, everything else but basic groceries are taxed as high as the lege can get by with. So the people in the state who make the least -- if they want basic utilities -- have to pay a much larger percentage of their income for those services than anyone who makes more than they do. Because fuck you, that's why.
Yeah, I get it. No sales tax here and my SS isn’t taxed but state tax rate is among the highest in the nation apparently.
Oregon passed Measure 5 years ago. Caps property tax annual increases. Life saver.
Blue; Yes Oregon can’t increase property taxes more than 3% per year unless we vote for bond measures.
Same 3% cap in Florida. But woe to anyone buying a house within the last few years - home prices rocketed up and the property tax is solely based on the most recent purchase price. Neighbors with houses of equal value if put on the market today are paying wildly different property tax based on their original purchase price. Public Service Announcement : For recent home buyers, Florida does not have low taxes!
Same is true for CA when I lived there.
California home prices strike me as otherworldly!
Realtors are the problem? Realtors in my area work their asses off. It’s not just stick a sign out in front of a house and collect a commission. It’s prepping, staging, facilitating inspections and repairs, psychological help with overwhelmed sellers, marketing and expenses, open houses, negotiations, liabilities, insurance, working with lenders and deadlines, getting the best price for a seller and finally closing. It’s working tirelessly with buyers, showing properties sometimes for months until they find a house they love, reviewing inspections with buyers, scheduling any other that are needed and looking for red flags, educating buyers on the offer process and reviewing the contract, writing a competitive offer only to be outbid, dealing with buyers’ disappointment and starting the process all over again. Realtors put in hours of unpaid work and are only paid once the escrow closes unlike any other job. Realtors only get paid on results and there is a lot of overhead. So spare me the disdain for Realtors.
My realtor worked her ass off when I sold my house, dealing with all kinds of kooks (and that included other realtors sorry to say). However, a friend who sold several years earlier had just the kind you mentioned, basically sticking a sign out front. My friend actually did more work than the realtor. I’m sure the different types of realtors runs the gamut.
It's possible that realtors aren't ruling the community so much as trying to protect themselves because homeowners who can't afford to pay really burdensome taxes can't easily afford real estate. Not defending the realtors in your area and their practices, but unless they're also in gov't, it may be that shit is rolling downhill and they're just passing it along.
Anything is possible these days. Bottom line, greedy decisions make things tough for many
Now you’re making me wonder - is property tax (and income tax) even constitutional for anyone? Not if you’re a libertarian- which I’m not. The top 10% should get no tax breaks So many politicians are years in arrears in taxes, you can defer for years without a penalty. And hey Scrotus: Corporations are not people my friend!
I. JUST. CAN'T. It makes me so angry I can't even speak, I just sputter. Greedy does not begin to describe these super villains. Rapacious comes to mind. As in they are RAPING the US tax payers who don't make a gazillion dollars a year.
Clarence knows about the rape part.
As does Brett and who knows who else.
Got that right.
You know what's so weird? There are all these guys being accused/convicted of rape or at least sexual assault of some kind, and yet, to my knowledge, I have never had a single male family member or friend who is so inclined. Oh wait--except my late not-lamented ex-stepfather, who was the only psychopath I've known personally. Is that just another aspect of psychopathy? Along with the "skills" needed to make it to the top of a chosen profession? (like, um, politics)
I believe you are correct. Disregard for the wants and needs of others, especially women, seems to be a part of the psychopathy of getting ahead. Thankfully the men in my life are decent hardworking people, but then again, they're not CEOs, federal level politicians, etc.
The majority have been bought by the wealthiest people in the country and we should be surprised? They are a very large part of the attack on Democracy. Time to get rid of lifetime appointments, which we can do when Democrats win back the majority in Congress and the White House. Because Fuck Them, that’s why.
So says the Constitution.
No words. Sadly it feels more hopeless all the time, and of course that’s how fascism works.
Can’t sink that low, that’s exactly what MAGA does. Stick their heads in the sand when they hear any sort of facts.
Laura;
Actually, they stick their heads somewhere else.
Absolutely 💯
Republicans are simply ruining the country. As we all sail toward the extinction horizon, we'll at least know who to blame. What do most Americans think? Not much. To quote George Carlin: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
I had never heard that quote, LOVE IT!!
That also reminds me of "It's a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the blig club!"
I think what you really mean is that we have the best Supreme Court the filthy rich can buy. It's clearly out of my price range.
Just like free speech
Huh??
You have to spend big to be heard.
When I retired I sold my house and downsized to a much smaller one. Even with being old enough to get some capital gains relief, I made “too much money” that year and got walloped with taxes and paying much higher Medicare premiums, so received much less in SS than I was counting on (that will change in 2024, yay!). I’m not even close to having the kind of money the Moores have and I made do. Fucking them and their whiny assess.
Bummer! Fuck the Moores!
I hoped oligarchs existed only in Russia but since we’re part of Vlads Grand Plan, here we are. It makes me sick to my stomach. The middle class who does all the work gets crapped on again. Fuck these people. 🙄
Read Fay Reid today: “Do Not Grow Old”
https://fayreid.substack.com/p/do-not-grow-old
Well, that's all scary as fuck. And our SSA & Medicare can go, too, if the GOP win elections.
I earned the Social Security and Medicare that I'm collecting. So did everyone else. Get the torches and pitchforks ready.
I hope you aren't kidding. Torches and pitchforks and boots, oh my!
SS and Medicare have been on the GQP hit list for years and now they're closer than they've ever been to getting rid of them. Given that a large part of their constituency (in sheer numbers, if not in financial support) is old people on SS or about to be on SS, if they kill SS/Medicare, a good majority of their voters are going to become homeless and die off early due to lack of medical care and basic subsistence.
Probably why they're hoping to install the "dictator for life" this next election cycle. Then the oligarchs can tell the rest of us to go ahead and fuck off & die -- except for those of us needed to do the grunt work. Enough to make you wonder if that's what the whole forced-birth thing is about, too...
I already have to work until I drop, so...*shrug*
This is antithetical to any meaningful form of democracy (even the pretend kind which the United States has largely embraced). The unabated concentration of wealth, especially post "Citizens United" -another decision in which Alito and Thomas were delighted to do the bidding of their wealthy benefactors, means that money can effectively drown the thought of "one person, one vote". When someone, for example, like Phil Knight can drop millions of dollars in an attempt to flip Oregon to the GOP, SCOTUS is effectively saying not everyone is created equal. When the remaining Koch, Robert Mercer, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or Larry Ellison can take the wealth they've amassed and drop millions into a Senate, House, or Presidential race -it effectively takes massive people organizing efforts to even have a chance to displace someone like a Mitch McConnell, Scott Perry, or other electeds that are happy to do the bidding of the obscenely wealthy.
It extinguishes any thought of democracy, pretend or otherwise. The only difference in subverting government to protect the extreme concentration of wealth in this case is that no bullets are fired. Other than that, make no mistake -it is a violent takeover of U.S. Government and the subversion (and perversion) of the American experiment.
No question.
Until ordinary people rise up and join together for one common cause, “We’re tired of getting fucked by the rich and are not going to take it anymore” it will never end and will only get worse.
Yes Lorraine, divide and conquer is the preventative for ordinary people rising up. Next step is “You and them fight”. In other words the divideds will fight each other. Great, eh? More for the conquerors.
Exactly right.
Laws and taxes are for the poor. Curiously, they're also against the poor.
Sales tax on food and other bare essentials is the worst. I was shocked on how high it is in the poorest states.
Fuck the poor? Eat the rich.
Indeed!
Clarence Thomas still fails to understand he is going to the concentration camps, no matter how many favors he gives from the Supreme Court of disillusionment and genocide.
My anger is palpable. SCOTUS is a fucking disgrace!!!
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Strange days indeed
Most peculiar, mama
- John Lennon
Imagine...if he were still alive.
The man was prescient beyond belief
Yes. I try to imagine if so many people who died too young were still alive. Him, JFK, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X.
I feel like the National Guard should be called out to attack the traitors and terrorists for unconstitutional acts that threaten society and the law! SCOTUS cannot be expanded without enough Congressional support so we know where we are on that.
It seems anyone in politics would prefer violent civil protest over criminal consequences for the right wing Fascist/theocratic Mafia of the US. How comforting! 🙄
It seems absurd, but we can't ever get anything changed unless you can get 60 senators to approve it. But we can't even get 51 senators to back changing that filibuster rule that requires the 60 votes. What an impotent system we have inherited. The Senate is PERMANENTLY designed to accomodate the small population states' wishes.
This why cheating and using the electoral college is so useful to republicans. Just get 2 plants to run on the Democratic ticket and they win the game.
We must correct this by consolidating the vote behind Biden/Harris. No other complaints- we cannot afford that!
I’ve thought the same.