Why Is It ...

… that people need to learn that trying to talk to me on Messenger is like trying to talk to a wall in your house.

… that most days I want  to put an ‘Out of Order’ sticker on my head and call it a day.

… that when we were younger we wanted to be adults so badly and now look at us. Just fucking look at us!

… that whatever you’re heard about me, know that I can be way worse.

… that the other day I heard a guy in a store on his cell phone saying, “Susan, I’m in the car right now on my way home,” and I yelled, “No, he’s not. He’s at the store.” Nobody lies to Susan in front of me.

… that if you think money doesn’t bring happiness, transfer some to my account.

… that my sister once said that I didn’t respect her privacy, and I only know that because I read it in her diary.

… that I don’t know why, but I love to mess around and find out sometimes.

… that I like to say to someone, when I meet them for the first time, “You’re exactly what I expected.”Ah, establishing dominance.

… that I hate it when I lose things at work … like my favorite pen or my fucking will to live.

Be Like MacKenzie Scott ... Cuz It's Pisses Off Elonia Musk

I laugh at Elon Musk because, while he’s super-rich he has never created anything; he has just copied someone else’s homework, or bought it, and then passed it off as his . And that’s why I love it when he gets schooled … like this:

In a post on X—the social media platform he did not design or build but bought and slapped an X onto—that he has since deleted he cagily mentioned MacKenzie Scott, former spouse of Amazon Asshat Jeff Bezos:

“Super-rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse [should be listed among] reasons that Western Civilization died.”

In response, MacKenzie Scott spoke softly and carried her big wallet and announced that she is donating $640 million to 361 different charitable organizations this year, well more than twice the $250 million she pledged to give away last year. The open call for applications initially planned for 250 awards of $1 million each but according to Yield Giving, the foundation Scott created:

In light of the incredible work of these organizations, as judged by their peers and external panelists, the donor team decided to expand the awardee pool and the award amount.

The 279 organizations in the top tier of scores received $2 million each and the 82 organizations in the next tier received $1 million each.

This year’s awards bring Scott’s total lifetime philanthropic giving over the past five years to approximately $17.2 billion, close to half the $36 billion in Amazon stock she received in her divorce settlement.

BAM!

And this is what MacKenzie Scott had to say about her wealth in 2019:

In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me, I have a disproportionate amount of money to share. My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won’t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.

Good for her, because how she elects to spend her money is up to her—though I’m sure Elon subscribes to the “your bank account, my choice” bull shit: I mean wonder how Elon would respond if anyone, and god forbid a woman, were to tell him how to spend his money.

Now, perhaps Elon disagrees with her  approach, or with some of the organizations chosen to receive donations, and that’s his right, as it is his right to express how he feels. But then Elon also said this at one point:

“Constantly seek criticism. A well-thought-out critique of what you’re doing is as valuable as gold.”

But “super-rich ex-wives blah blah blah” is not a well-thought-out critique; it’s more of a butt hurt man whimpering about a woman with money which may be why Scott didn’t respond. Instead of dwelling on negative emotions from some asshat who, again, has never built anything and offers up no good deeds with his coins ever, Scott knows she cannot control Musk though she can control her response.

Which clearly was not just to stay the course and keep on donating and donating, but to literally double down on her donations, not in response to Elon because he is not worthy of it, but because she believes in what she’s doing, and in the work of the organizations her foundation chose to fund.

“And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”

In a world of Elon Musks, whose business venture he did not create, but bought and watched them explode on the highways or catch fire in the driveways or implode of the internet, be a MacKenzie Scott.

Why Is It ...

… that I need 10 incomes for the lifestyle I have in my head.

… that people who abhor swearing get angry with me because I can formulate an intelligent sentence and still throw a motherfucker in just for the Hell of it. Learn to juggle people.

… that people don’t get it when I say I can’t go out because the cats expect me home at a certain hour.

… that you may call them ‘Red Flags’ but I call them Ten Fun Facts you don’t know about me.

… that my car will be on Empty and I’ll drive past 4 gas stations and just go home.

… that I always see adults pour a glass of wine and fill it only halfway and I think, ‘One of us is doing this wrong and I think it’s you.’

… that holding back my sarcastic replies takes nearly all my inner strength.

… that I’ve been feeling a little moody and run down lately, so I looked up my symptoms online. It’s adulthood … I have adulthood.

… that when people wonder if I can be any more annoying, I always say, “Oh god, yes!”

… that they say right before you die your life flashes before your eyes. If that’s true, I hope it includes the blackouts because that would be like bonus footage and deleted scenes on a DVD.

Tuesday Thought #2

President-elect _____’s Many ... Many Conflicts of Interest

You wanted him, now you got him ... and if you think for one second he’ll be working to help you out, Middle America, think again.

The Donald _____ presidency is littered with conflicts of interest that will no doubt go unchecked by the GOP-controlled Congress, especially since they’ll be busy doing mostly nothing except continuing to investigate Hillary Clinton for her ALLEGED conflicts.

No matter then that _____’s conflicts of interest range from small matters like his investment in the Dakota Pipeline ... 

Donald _____ is a small investor in Energy Transfer Partners—one of the business interests behind the Dakota Access Pipeline—and the decision on the pipeline could be made by ... yes, president Donald _____. And does anyone, even those of you stupid enough to vote for him, think that Donald ____ will rule against an investment that will make private citizen _____ more money?

And then there’s the Bank of China, which has a financial interest in at least two of _____’s large real estate properties. Candidate _____ campaigned on the promise that he’d consider trade sanctions on China in an effort to promote American business interests but if he does that those Bank of China loans to his business interests might be negatively affected. Again, does anyone think that President _____ will do anything to negatively affect the wealth of private citizen _____?

I hope not because 59 million of you voted for him.

Oh sure, the media might investigate, but they have proven over the course of the campaign to not investigate too much into _____ and his dealings.

And remember _____’s rallies, where he riled up the crowd about Crooked Hillary and lead them in shouts of “Lock her up”? Funny, then, that the very things he accused Secretary Clinton of doing are the very things he can, and will, do for himself from the Oval Office.

And he’ll have his rabid little lapdog Rudy Giuliani by his side to continue the blasting of Clinton even though, as of now, she’s basically returned to a life of privacy.

Isn’t it ironic that Giuliani, who never missed a chance to foam at the mouth in front of a TV camera and demand that Clinton be prosecuted, who might become Secretary of State, has his own conflicts of interest that should be investigated but probably won’t be.

Giuliani has business contracts with the government of Qatar as well as the Canadian company behind the Keystone XL pipeline and paid speeches to groups with financial interests in countries that he would deal with as secretary of State.

Odd, because those are the very things they accused Clinton of while campaigning, but I guess for the GOP it doesn’t really make a difference because these are rich white men using the government to enrich their own lives at the expense of the country and of the very people who stupidly sent them into Washington in the first place.

So how do we fix this? Well, start by getting involved in politics; raise your voice; demand that _____ and his Cabinet of Deplorables be held accountable; demand that the media investigate any improprieties in the _____ White House; demand that something be done by voting out the GOP-controlled House and Senate, who you just know will do nothing to check _____ and his cohorts, and replace them with people who will work for you, rather than for themselves and against you.

Time

The Houston Police Department Is Not As Smart As An Eighth Grader

Daneisha Neal, an eighth grader at Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Houston, Texas, was very nearly arrested for trying to pay for her school lunch with counterfeit money.

Except the bill wasn’t counterfeit; it was a $2 bill that the police assumed was fake because … hell, I can’t even figure this one out.

At Daneisha’s school the vast majority of the students come from low-income homes so they qualify for reduced or free lunch, but one day her grandmother gave Daneisha the two-dollar bill and when she tried to pay for her chicken tenders, the lunch lady freaked out and called the campus police officer.

Daneisha, who had never been in any trouble in her life, says:

“I went to the lunch line and they said my $2 bill was fake. They gave it to the police. Then they sent me to the police office. A police officer said I could be in big trouble.”

The “big trouble”? A potential third-degree felony because neither the lunch lady nor the police knew that a two-dollar bill is legal tender.

The school even went as far as to call Daneisha’s grandmother, Sharon Kay Joseph: 

“She’s never in trouble, so I was nervous going in there.  The officials asked, “Did you give Daneisha a $2 bill for lunch?’ He told me it was fake.”

And even after Joseph told the school she’d given Daneisha the money, the Fort Bend Independent School District police started an investigation into the origins of the suspect cash.

Um, perhaps the origin was the  Bureau of Engraving and Printing [BEP]?

But I guess that call to the BEP was never made; instead, a campus police officer went to the convenience store where Sharon Kay Joseph said she gotten the $2 bill as change. The store owners confirmed it was a real bill, but, still, the officer took the bill to store’s bank where they also confirmed that the “funny money” was real.

After the officer finished his investigation he returned to the school to apologize to both Daneisha and her grandmother and … oh wait, no he didn’t apologize; no one did.

“He brought me my two dollar bill back. He didn’t apologize. He should have and the school should have because they pulled Daneisha out of lunch and she didn’t eat lunch that day because they took her money.” — Sharon Kay Joseph

Is this a case of a lunch lady not knowing about a $2 bill? Maybe, but then no one at the school knew either, and no one at the campus police office knew; and then no one at the Fort Bend ISD seemed to know about a two-dollar bill.

Or, and this might seem more likely, was this entire mess created because Daneisha committed the crime of being poor and black?

This case was just one of eight counterfeit charges investigated by Fort Bend ISD police since the beginning of the 2013 school year. In fact, police reports dating back to 2013 show that at least 40 cases dealt with students suspected of trying to pass counterfeit currency at Houston area schools.

And, in the vast majority of those cases the students were black; in three cases the students were Hispanic. But in cases where a white student was suspected of passing a counterfeit bill there was not one single investigation.

Yeah, it’s buying a school lunch while black … or Hispanic … that might be considered criminal.

If You Only News

The Funny Papers

Clay Bennett, Steve Benson, Nate Beeler, Mike Luckovich, John Cole, Bill Day, Mike Smith