On and on...

When the world gets especially depressing, as it is now, it is very hard for we chronic depressives to update our blogs.  I guess it's time for more "short subjects."

Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling

Two racists in the news, one a hero to Fox commentators and the other a recipient of awards from the NAACP, are a lot less depressing than some of the other shit going on.

Bundy has stolen over a million dollars in grazing fees from the American public over the past ten years, but because he's stolen it from the government, it was okay by Fox.  When he started blowing off about how blacks would be better off in slavery, Fox thought it best to back off.  Oops!

Sterling, who changed his name from Tokowitz, probably is a self-hating Jew as well as a racist.  Well, who cares?  It's just sports, after all, and the NBA has kicked him to the curb.  It took a little too long for the NAACP to suspend his latest recognition after the shit hit the fan, but he'd given the group a hell of a lot of money.  Gag me with a spoon.

Apartheid

John Kerry's use of the work "apartheid" was right as rain.  All Mahmoud Abbas has to do is dissolve the Palestinian Authority, and leave Israel in total control.  That would be apartheid, no matter what AIPAC has to say about it.

Ukraine

Honestly, I'm not sure why the Kiev "authorities" should have any more authority than than the pro-Russian "groups" in the east.  Neither bunch was elected, and they're both occupying government buildings.

That is not to say that the Yanokovich kleptocrats were especially legitimate, given how they  looted a couple of billion bucks from a country that didn't have it to spare.  Well, money is money, and nothing else much matters.

Odds and Ends

McCutcheon

Personally, I couldn't care less how many $5200 contributions fat cats pass around to Congressional candidates.  $5200 is chump change, and I'd rather see it publicly donated than filtered anonymously through a  501(c)(4).

Affirmative Action

Also, I couldn't care less whether or not the Obama children or the grandchildren of Stanley O'Neal get preference for college admission.  Let the top schools tap their endowments and bring in students, of whatever race, who never could afford to attend a top school otherwise.  The poor will be overrepresented by blacks and Latinos, but if the Ivy League can pull in some unemployed West Virginia miner's kids, that's great.

Iraq and Afghanistan

Elections do not mean a country is democratic.  In classically corrupt Iraq and Afghanistan, it's pretty obvious.  In the United States, it's less obvious, but just as true.

More Short Subjects

 Ukraine

Russian troops at the border!  NATO jets patrolling the Baltic states!  The Donetsk People's Republic!  Be afraid!  Well, don't be that afraid unless you're an Ukrainian who soon will be living with IMF imposed austerity measures while paying more for Russian natural gas.

All I see is a lot of posturing.  There is no way in hell Russia and NATO will slug it out physically over some antiquated manufacturing plants and wheat fields.

India

It looks like Narendra Modi's BJP party will be pushing the Gandhi family's Congress party aside in the current election cycle, despite Modi's previously undisclosed wife and that little matter of the slaughter of Muslims up in Gujarat back in 2002.  Will Modi govern as the consummate capitalist, the Hindu nationalist, or some combination of the two?  We'll wait and see.

Speaking of Gujarat, I like to point out to people that Muslims often are victims as well as perps (and not only to each other.)  In the Central African Republic, the Christians seem to be the real crazies, for example.  Then there's Cambodia, where the Buddhists are the bad guys.  Then again, there's Palestine.  'Nuff said.

Flight 370

I've read that the missing Malaysian airliner has done more for CNN's ratings than anything since Bush bombed Baghdad.  I will admit I'm curious to know what actually happened (my personal crazy hypothesis involves hacking the airliner's software), but sometimes it happens that you just don't get to know what you want to know.

Short Subjects

The Ryan Budget

Evil.  What else is there to say?

Okay, there's a little more to say.  Ryan claims that eviscerating SNAP and turning Medicare and Medicaid into block grants to the states will generate enormous economic growth.  Needless to say, even he knows he's wrong.  He's not stupid.  He's just evil.

The Supremes

The most recent decision in favor of plutocracy (McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission) really does not do too much more to empower the oligarchs, because they already had all the power.  On the other hand, it makes the very richest of our plutocrats a bit more powerful than the others — and to that I say, "So what?"

If Clarence Thomas (like so many black men of his age) dropped dead tomorrow, it probably wouldn't matter.  Obama would feel obliged to nominate a "moderate," and what the hell good is that?  (Even the ACLU seems to believe that money equals speech.)

Andrew Cuomo

If I had Mario Cuomo's personal email address, I would advise him to slap his boy around a bit.  Here in New York, it's pretty obvious that Andrew is pursuing the Clinton (Bill, mostly) route to the White House (which mostly involves right turns.)

Andy-Boy has been fucking over Bill DeBlasio (that shameless liberal) while sucking up to Wall Street and the hedge fund managers who no longer have any real limits on how much they can funnel to his eventual campaign.  I wouldn't vote for him if he were running against Rush Limbaugh.  (No, I wouldn't vote for Rush.  I guess I'd go Green again, for all the good that does.)