So tired.
Had a really good time.
But SO tired.
Have cosplay.
Tag: 2018
Fuck Mel Hall, Chapter 4: Never Mind, Fuck Everybody
There was another anti-Jackie Walorski flyer, paid for by the Indiana Democratic Party, in my mailbox when I got home this afternoon. Once again, the flyer makes no mention of who the flyer-ers think you should vote for, only that you should not vote for Jackie Walorski. Now, the last time this happened, I was kind of wondering just how much Hall’s people had had to do with it, since he was never mentioned. Well, his radio ads are all about “Washington Walorski,” so even in his own stuff for his campaign he can’t avoid using Republican frames. I’m not going to bother talking about the entire flyer. Let’s just talk about this part of it:
The general theme of the ad is that Walorski voted for the tax bill without knowing what was in it, so she’s “voting blindly.” Get it? She’s covering her face? Or at least someone’s manly hands have been photoshopped over her face? It’s the exact same hand in a different image on the other side, so this isn’t even a good photoshop, and don’t think that I haven’t noticed that it appears to be a man’s hand they used– rumors about Walorski’s sexuality (she’s married, to a man) have been floating around for literally as long as she’s been in office.
And then there’s that fucking gesture again.
Let me be one hundred percent clear: that image is photoshopped. It is not real. Even if it is an actual image of her using that gesture and only the right arm is added on, it’s still a photoshopped image and therefore by definition the entire thing is suspect. Which means one of two things:
- That somebody affiliated with the Indiana Democratic Party deliberately decided to use an image of Jackie Walorski making a white power gesture in an ad and then not call attention to it, basically just doing it as a dogwhistle to both white supremacists and antiracist leftists; or
- That they were unaware of what they were doing. In September of 2018, just a couple of weeks (how the fucking hell has it only been a couple of weeks??) after Brett Kavanaugh’s asshole assistant caused a rather substantial brouhaha by making the same gesture behind him at his confirmation hearing.
One of these possibilities is disgustingly cynical at best and actively slanderous at worst. The other possibility is proof of utter fucking incompetence. And neither of them are fucking okay. I hate these people. I hate this fucking election, and I hate the fact that I’ve now had to spend two fucking posts defending Jackie Fucking Walorski, who is also an asshole, but who still doesn’t deserve this shit.
A pox on the lot of these fuckers.
Fuck Mel Hall, part 3 of an endless series
You may recall parts one and two of a series that wasn’t originally called “Fuck Mel Hall,” but to hell with it, this is my blog and I get to rename stuff if I want to, plus: fuck Mel Hall. Mel, if you’re not aware, is one of two Republicans who is running for my district’s House seat, IN-02. The incumbent, Jackie Walorski, is a Republican who says she is a Republican. Mr. Hall, who received barely 40% of the vote in the primary, somehow is the Democratic nominee, but is not a Democrat. He has made it repeatedly clear that he has no interest whatsoever in advancing the goals of the Democratic party and has never identified himself as a member of the party in any advertisement– radio, TV or print– that I have ever seen.
I will not be voting for him. I think he’s a prick. I vote for Democrats; he isn’t one. If I’m going to be represented by a Republican I want to be represented by one who is honest about it.
Now, an interesting fact about Ms. Walorski: she only got about 3/4 of the vote in her primary, and the person she was running against literally had no campaign at all. Not a website, did no campaigning, nothing. But he was a dude, so 25% of the Republican primary voters voted for someone who they literally knew nothing at all about other than that he had a penis and their current representative didn’t. Mel Hall supposedly got 40% of the vote in the Democratic primary; the other two candidates running were significantly more progressive than he was and he has continued to run as a Republican anyway. I pay attention; there was no enthusiasm for this man anywhere during the primary and the lack of enthusiasm remains today. He will lose and lose badly.
Anyway, take a look at that flyer up there. My wife got one; I didn’t. That’s unusual– neither of us ever miss an election, so generally whenever we get any election-related flyers, we get two of them.
Take a close look and see if you can figure out what’s going on here.
Also: be aware that an election cycle or two ago, faced with no significant races in the Democratic primary, my wife cast a vote for the least objectionable candidate in the Republican primary. All you have to do in Indiana is ask for a ballot and they give you one.
This flyer, paid for by the Indiana Democratic party, appears to be trying to peel Republican voters away from Jackie Walorski, but never once mentions who they ought to vote for instead. The entire damn flyer is Republican-framed: Democrats tend to believe government is actually good for something, so the bullshit “Washington Walorski” nonsense isn’t really going to get any traction with us. I want my representatives to be experienced and good at their jobs, goddammit, and Walorski has been in office for six years, not thirty. I don’t even like her and I recognize a bullshit attack when I see it. Another tell? Every person in the ad is white. Democrats don’t send out ads like that. Republicans, who know good and fucking well that their base mostly doesn’t see people of color as human beings, do. And apparently we’re not above buying into their racist asshole framing if we think it’ll get, well, somebody some votes.
Fuck every single thing about this flyer, in case that isn’t clear. Fuck the cynicism embedded in it, fuck the racism, fuck the sexism, fuck the candidate that it doesn’t bother to mention, fuck the bullshit nickname, which comes from the same asshole impulses that led the Republicans to call Joe Donnelly “Mexico Joe” in some of their bullshit ads, fuck every single thing about it.
I need better fucking representation around here, across the goddamned board.
UPDATE: In which I’m not voting for at least one asshole
Last week I had some things to say about my House and Senate race. I remain powerfully conflicted about my Senator, and am very carefully monitoring everything he says and does regarding a certain Supreme Court candidate; if he votes to confirm, he loses my vote and will not be regaining it. I’ll send some money to Beto O’Rourke instead and see if him beating Ted Cruz can offset Donnelly losing his seat.
As for Mel Hall, as of this mailing today, that ship has officially sailed. I will probably be just leaving the House line on my ballot blank, but part of me is seriously thinking about voting for Jackie Walorski because I would rather have a Republican in office who is honest about her party affiliation than a “Democrat” who is going to stab the party in the back at the earliest opportunity.
That last paragraph? Nope. I’m done with you, Mel. You don’t get to run as a fucking Democrat and guarantee that you’re going to vote against Nancy Goddamn Pelosi and still think I’m going to vote for you. Newsflash, asshole: I’d rather have her in office than you. And “personal responsibility” is what Republicans talk about when they feel like they can’t say that poor people deserve to be poor. Fuck “personal responsibility.” It’s a dogwhistle. And fuck you.
The flipside of the flyer is all about Jesus:
So, yeah: rich, white, male, old, CEO, Jesusy, and anti-Pelosi. All that says Republican to me. And once again the word “Democrat” doesn’t appear anywhere on the flyer except for the part where they talk about who paid for it.
I am not voting for Mel Hall, because I vote for Democrats. He isn’t one.
EDIT: Having thought about it for a few more minutes, I’m making the somewhat more obvious choice and writing in Pat Hackett’s name for IN-02. I’m going to vote for someone I actually want in office.
VENTING: In which I’m going to vote for assholes
I live in Indiana. I live in one of the bluest parts of Indiana, don’t get me wrong, but I was born and raised in this state and for whatever the hell it’s worth I’m likely to die here. I am, as a mostly-lifelong Hoosier (I lived in Chicago for nine years in there, and still occasionally refer to myself as a Chicagoan when the mood and necessity strike me) used to being ruled by Republicans, although Indiana is not remotely as monolithically red as most people who live outside the state think. I’ve had a Democrat as a Senator for most of my life, a couple of Democratic governors, and most of my House representatives have been Democrats. In fact, Joe Donnelly, my current Senator, used to be my House rep. He is only my Senator because he read the writing on the wall after redistricting and decided he would lose his seat and then lucked out against a truly abysmal Republican opponent.
Jackie Walorski became my Congresscritter after that election and has been re-elected a couple of times since then. She’s running against a guy named Mel Hall right now. I didn’t want Mel Hall to be the Democratic nominee. I didn’t want to vote for another old white guy, I could detect no enthusiasm anywhere for his candidacy, and of the three he seemed to be spending the least effort trying to be my candidate. Pat Hackett, who I voted for, and Yatish Joshi, who I didn’t vote for but wasn’t at all unhappy with, were everywhere, and they were both visibly working for votes. Mel Hall was just the default old white guy. I seriously thought, judging from what I’d seen, and in the absence of polling, that he was going to come in third, and I was shocked when he won.
My problem with Mel Hall, now that he’s officially the candidate, is that it’s becoming increasingly clear that Mel Hall doesn’t want to be the Democratic nominee either. None of his TV ads mention being a Democrat, and we just got a flier from him today and the only place the word “Democrat” appears on it anywhere is the legally-required little line in the corner about who paid for the damn thing. Instead, it talks about how he used to be a minister.
I don’t vote for ministers. I sure as hell don’t vote for ex-ministers who decided to go show the poor people of Detroit the way and the light until he and his wife had kids and then decided that being a missionary wasn’t important any longer. You were already a shitty minister and then you stopped for a shitty reason– and then got rich as a businessman, so fuck your religion one way or another. Not one single thing Mel Hall has released as a political candidate has given me a reason to consider voting for him. If I wasn’t the type to pay attention, I would think that we had two Republicans running for office. Which is what he wants.
And Jackie Walorski is going to spend the entire campaign calling him a fucking liberal anyway. Everyone to the left of any Republican is a liberal. That’s how it works. There is no such thing as a centrist to Republicans. There is them, and there is the demonrat liberals, and that’s it. And Mel Hall’s TV ad, which doesn’t mention the fact that he’s supposedly the Democratic nominee, does find time for him to say that “both parties are to blame” for Washington’s dysfunction.
Fuck you, Mel. We have a center-right party in Washington and we have a party that is rapidly degenerating into fucking fascism if it’s not already goddamn there and I don’t wanna hear shit from you about “both fucking sides” right now.
Which brings me to Joe fucking Donnelly. This fucking asshole is actually running an ad right now with video footage of the person claiming to be the President praising him. Meanwhile, I can’t watch a fucking home renovation show on Hulu without seeing six dozen ads about how he’s a filthy liberal who wants open borders and hordes of illegal Mexicans to come rape all of our pristine pure white women. One of their ads actually calls him “Mexico Joe.” That’s not an exaggeration.
These fucking assholes are not going to vote for you, Joe. And it would be a really good idea for both of these two shitbirds to realize who their goddamn base is and maybe try to goddamned motivate us to vote for them. Because here’s the thing: as much as I piss and moan about it, and as much as I’m going to hate doing it, we’re not in a position right now where I am capable of not voting for the Democrat on the ballot. America is in too much fucking trouble for me not to. I’ve said “fuck your conscience” on this blog and on Twitter a whole bunch of times, and “fuck your conscience” applies to my ass too, as much as I don’t want it to. Hall, as much as I hate to admit it, might have an outside chance if enough sexist assholes look at him and look at Jackie and decide that even a shriveled white librul Demonrat penis is better than no penis at all. Maybe. But I kind of doubt it. But Donnelly? Donnelly has nothing to offer to Republicans that his opponent doesn’t offer more of.
Gimme a reason to vote for you, you assholes. Just one. Some fucking thing I can hold on to when I vote. Because the thing is, there are a lot of us out there, and while I’m going to be in that ballot box come November there are a lot of people who just might not bother if they see no one who represents them. And frankly, if either of these two loses, they kind of deserve it. I’d hate for control of the Senate to hang on whether Joe fucking Donnelly gets re-elected in Indiana or not, but it very well fucking could.
So get out there and act like you want the goddamn job, you milquetoast pricks.
EDIT: I should make something clear here, actually: while I would really like to vote for someone who is at least as far left, if not farther, than I am, I am aware that the majority of this state and even this district are more conservative than me. I’m well used to voting for people more conservative than me, and I’m not even that bothered by it. It’s actively working to avoid representing the party that you’re running as a member of that is pissing me off so much about these two.
Everything sucks and I’m trying to ignore it
I spent most of the day today in the car, driving from here to Fort Wayne and back (two hours each way) to get something done for work that I wouldn’t have had to do were I possessed of even a minor understanding of how geography works and the difference between west and east. I spent yesterday mostly being exhausted into incomprehension and yet somehow still didn’t manage to get into bed until after midnight.
I have these crazy ideas that tomorrow I’ll get something useful done around the house, but I don’t think anyone nearby should hold their breath about it. It’s supposed to be about a hundred and thirty degrees outside for the next couple of days so one thing I do know is that the lawn’s not getting mowed anytime soon. The neighbors are just gonna have to look upon our jungle and despair; I’m not worrying about it.
One definite advantage about spending four hours in the car, he thought to himself before leaving on his road trip, is that it keeps me off Twitter and thus away from the news. I can’t handle how fucked the world is right now and I’m trying to take a couple of days’ sabbatical from horror until I get my head back on straight. So naturally all I did was listen to politics podcasts in the car.
I am not very good at news sabbaticals, apparently. But I’m gonna keep trying. If I can go three weeks without ingesting any carbs I ought to be able to ignore current events for just a few days, right? You’d think.
Back to Dark Souls. Anything I should be downloading or binge-watching that I don’t know about? Tell me in comments.
Busy morning
It was official before, but it’s officialer now: I’m going to be at IndyPopCon again in a few weeks, from June 8-10, in Booth 1213, right next to Artists’ Alley. I think I’m sharing a booth with someone– space sold out way faster than I anticipated this year, and I only got into the con at the last minute, but I don’t know who my booth buddy is going to be yet. (EDIT: Never mind! The email came through this afternoon!) At any rate, I’ve spent the morning ordering books and bookmarks for the con, including the new one to the right, based on the cover for Tales: The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 3.
(That book could really use some more reviews. I know some of y’all read it. Please? Pretty please?)
I suspect I’m going to regret putting that Prostetnic logo at the bottom there– I think it’s gonna wash out– but we’ll see.
At any rate, this is the first of three conventions I’m doing this year– one in Indianapolis, one in Kokomo, and one in Elkhart, so I’m trying to mentally justify the ridiculous amount of money I just spent by reminding myself that it’s covering all three of the cons. We’ll see if that works or not; the money’s out of my bank account nonetheless. Popcon was a lot of fun the last time I went so I have high hopes for this one. Wil Wheaton and Levar Burton are both going to be there. I may try to see if I can use Twitter to get Wil to swing by my booth at some point. It probably won’t work– I imagine if the celebs go to the vendor floor at things like that they tend to get mobbed– but you never know, right? I sorta had Timothy Zahn at my booth once; this isn’t much different, is it?
There are movies we need to see coming out each of the next two weekends, so my wife took the afternoon off so we can go see Deadpool 2. So maybe you’ll get a bonus post tonight. I think it’s probably safe to say I’m gonna like the movie, right?
A thought
I’ve talked about the Democratic primary here a few times, but what I haven’t mentioned is that Indiana’s Republicans are in quite a kerfluffle about whether they want to be represented by anthrax, syphilis or mad cow disease come this fall. And it hit me this morning: South Bend is a Dem stronghold, or at least the Indiana equivalent of one, but it’s not like Republicans are hard to find around here.
I have seen ONE house with a sign out front for any of the current Republican candidates. I drove past a bunch of polling places on my way to work. Not one sign for the Senate primary.
That is not normal.
I mean, it’s awesome, but it’s definitely not normal.
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