BREAKING: Iris goes woo! Read my first psychic prediction!

Yes, friends, I hereby renounce my atheism, anti-theism, skepticism, anti-supernaturalism, all of it. I’ve gone all woo on you guys, and have hung out my own shingle as a Professional Psychic! My first Official Prediction: some peoples’ president, Donald Trump, will fire another federal watchdog very, very soon.*

And to be honest, I kinda get it: I’m not really much of a dog person myself. Anyway, YOU READ IT HERE FIRST!

That’ll be $300, please. CASH ONLY.

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*What? No! Of course not! My impressive psychic prediction has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this email alert I just got from the New York Daily News:

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AG Barr: Crip Dyke is a “violent rioter and anarchist” hijacking the Portland protests!

[CONTENT NOTE: police violence, white supremacist tropes and victim-blaming (“black-on-black crime”), lethal levels of sarcasm and snark.]

OMG YOU GUYS! The Attorney General of the United States stated in sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee that my friend and FtB colleague Crip Dyke is a “violent rioter and anarchist” hijacking the Portland Black Lives Matter protests! I HAD NO IDEA.

I mean it’s not like anyone connected to the Trump administration would ever lie to Congress or government officials, so obviously AG Barr is telling us the truth! Q.E.D.

Clearly Barr and his merry band of like-minded stable geniuses know how to decrypt and decode the sooper seekrit violent anarchist messages in Crip Dyke’s posts propaganda, including the most recent entry (as of this writing). Therein, Crip Dyke merely pretends to be an incredibly thoughtful, compassionate (white) ally who has gone to Portland to stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters, to use her platform and privilege to amplify their voices, and to help counter false and misleading media narratives (and U.S. Attorney General statements) about the protests – and at considerable personal risk. FFS Crip Dyke is disabled and on crutches.

ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR IS ON TO YOU CRIP DYKE!

Now let’s see what other Truth Bombs™ AG Barr dropped on us!

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SIGNAL BOOSTING: Crip Dyke in Portland.

I have been viewing reports of the federal response to protests in Portland, Oregon with mounting horror, terror, disgust and rage. My sources have been mainly mainstream media reports, as well as emails/social media posts from Democratic congresscritters and Democratic-allied NPOs. Of course all my sources – actually, all sources – have built-in biases and agendas; some I tend to agree with at least on certain issues, and some I do not.

If only I had a connection to someone reporting from ground zero in Portland, someone I trust implicitly, and who I know for a fact shares my social justice perspective and leftist values! Wouldn’t that be fucking amazing?! Well it’s Christmas in July here, people! My brilliant and righteous FreethoughtBlogs colleague (and longtime friend) Crip Dyke is there now, posting updates and pictures to her blog Pervert Justice.

Not only am I eagerly reading them, I am sharing them here so you can easily read them too. Here is what we’ve got so far, and I will make every effort to keep updating.

I am in Portland. I am acting.

Pictures from Portland

A few more pics from Portland

I have questions, Marriott and Enterprise.

99% of Portland Moms “Not angry, just disappointed”

The chaos of tear gas

The Story of July 21: Three offensives

Please spread these posts as far and wide as you are willing and able.

RELATED:

One of my aforementioned sources whose messaging on this issue (and others) I find particularly spot-on is VoteVets. On Monday they released this ad, and it ran for the first time nationally on Morning Joe today.

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Medicare for All right f***ing now motherf***ckers.

I was just trawling my Twitter feed for stuff to steal, when I came across a story I just had to retweet to @JoeBiden. You see, Mr. Biden does not support single payer healthcare, for reasons (*cough* conservative *cough* corrupt *cough*).

Here’s the story:

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I hate the New York Times, reason #6,858,944.

Hey, remember that one time I invented the world’s bestest ever and also most useful ever acronym ever? You know: #muschniwogdowis?

Of course you remember! It is simply unforgettable! And, it just rolls off the tongue like the smoothest chocolate ganache. Prediction: #muschniwogdowis will continue to be of critical importance to our national discourse until it is no longer true that Most US Citizens Have No Idea What Our Government Does Or Who It Serves.

There are many reasons for this sad state of affairs. One of them is, indisputably, the fucking New York Times. [Read more…]

I have become a global trendsetter/lifestyle guru/influencer!

[CONTENT NOTE: anti-LBGTQi bigotry and harassment; language most foul.]

You know, I really hate to toot my own horn, people. But it remains a simple fact that I was housebound, taking paranoia-level precautions against infection risk, gorging myself on Netflix, hoarding unconscionable amounts of toilet paper, following the news and shitting myself* long before damn near everyone** on the planet recently decided to live exactly as I do!

You might think that by now, I’d have some timely wisdom to impart to you, hard won over these past few years while I’ve been consigned to countless stretches of involuntary isolation. Maybe I’d be servin’ up some pithy, practical tips-’n-tricks to help you navigate these perilous, life-changing, life-threatening times within the context of a “healthcare system” deliberately designed to generate wealth, in direct opposition to health.

Alas, nope. I got nuthin’. Except:

WELCOME TO MY WORLD, EVERYONE.

Also: good luck with that.__________

*What?! No! I am not going to admit publicly on my blog to literally shitting myself after my (second) ileostomy reversal! I used that phrase only figuratively…yep.

**Oh, I am exquisitely aware that not “everyone” is following my groundbreaking life choices. Just look at these @$$holes popping up today in my morning news scan:

“People filled bars like one in Appleton, Wis., on Wednesday night after the state’s Supreme Court struck down the governor’s stay-at-home restrictions.” (William Glasheen/Post-Crescent/AP)

And by “people,” I think it’s fair to say that The Washington Post editors mean “white dudes” because of course they do. (And because of course they are.)

But there are @$$holes a lot closer to home, too. Take this @$$hole for instance, as seen through my fire escape:

“@$$hole on Hudson Street, 5.13.20”
©Iris Vander Pluym

Now you may have heard that every night at 7pm New Yorkers collectively gather at their windows to make an enormous racket, banging pots and whooping it up, just like when it’s midnight on New Years but waaaaay too cold to leave the apartment. In fact you may have actually heard the noise yourself, because that shit is motherfucking loud. The cacophonous chaos is my beloved city’s daily ritual in appreciation of nurses, doctors, first responders and essential workers of all kinds. No one else here may know what day it is, but we sure as shit know what time it is.

Apparently so does the @$$hole. (And his @$$hole friends, too, who stood on the near corner out of range of my shot). Right on cue at 7 last night, the Maskless Minion of Mindless Misery began waving around his “TRUMP 2020 – KEEP AMERICA GREAT” sign 40 feet from my window.

As the raucous din died down, thence began his spittle-flecked shouting of this message in every direction for all to hear, whilst shoving his sign at the faces of passing people and at the windows of passing vehicles. My neighbors were shouting back things like “Go home!” and “You don’t belong here!” This last, of course, is not only a reference to the infamously liberal borough of Manhattan as a whole, but to the West Village in particular – you know: home of the 1969 Stonewall uprising and the world’s undisputed epicenter of LGBTQi culture and civil rights activism before AIDS decimated the local population and then a monsoon of straight white rich yuppies and super-rich absentee “residents” flooded the neighborhood and drove real estate prices right through the fucking stratosphere.

But this being New York and all, the neighborhood still stubbornly maintains its gritty grip on queerness, which is precisely why the @$$hole brigade was here in the first place – and not pulling this shit in…oh, say, Brownsville. If this were not plainly obvious already, it became crystal clear once their feckless leader began taunting my neighbors with “SISSY BOYS!!!” and “LOSER SOY BOYS, ALL Y’ALL!!!” and “YEAH I’M NOT LIVING HERE WHERE THE SOY BOYS LIVE, LITTLE GIRL!!! LITTLE GIRLY MEN!!! NEIGHBORHOOD FULL OF GIRLY-GIRLS!!!” (I do apologize to readers, but the man was speaking entirely in all caps and with multiple, non-ironic exclamation points.)

The rhetorical heat had risen, though not nearly to the high voltage I prefer when I fuck with conservatives. That’s when I decided to contribute my $0.02 to the verbal volleys and began shouting “Run him over!” at the passing cars and buses, and whining loudly with bitter disappointment as they missed him. Up until this point during his one-man troll show he seemed to be enjoying the back-and-forth jabbing and jeering, but at that he shut up for a moment, lowered his sign and spun around in my direction. “RUN ME OVER, THAT’S NICE,” he harrumphed. Well if anyone would know about “nice” it would be this dude amirite?

There were many, many witty and original zingers like:

“YOU’RE LOSERS!!! LOSER!!! LOSER!!! LOSER!!! LOSER!!! LOSER!!! YOU’RE AAAAALLLLL LOSERS!!!”

“WINNING!!! ALWAYS WINNING!!!”

“LOSERS KEEP WALKING!!! WINNERS CAN STOP HERE AND SHAKE MY [ungloved] HAND!!!”

He did get awfully quiet when a large black man on a bicycle stopped to engage him. Gosh, I wonder why that is?

“Do something else,” I heard someone say. “We’re getting bored.”

As we all know, conservatives are nothing if not boring, and so I would soon turn my attention back to my current Netflix binge.

Today I learned via my upstairs neighbor that these tools also made an appearance at the liquor store around the corner. That’s right: my liquor store. Not to buy booze though, just to taunt the extremely essential worker running the register with more tedious and unoriginal anti-queer barbs. And one of the @$$holes got himself arrested for spitting on a woman who told him to put on a mask.

Good times.

My first thought was I’m so happy these particular people are doing exactly the right things to catch COVID-19. Obviously our world would be a far better place without them in it. Unfortunately, that’s not how the virus or conservatives work. They cannot help but do their worst damage to the most vulnerable and defenseless among us. Kovid Karrying Konservatives are bound to infect not just each other at their junior fascist circle jerks, but other people upon whom they inflict themselves, many of whom have no choice in the matter.

Have a nice day.

I don’t understand their objection to “shithole countries.”

Trump attacks protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries in Oval Office meeting

President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they floated restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to two people briefed on the meeting.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to African countries and Haiti. He then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway, whose prime minister he met yesterday.

…and whose population is overwhelmingly Nordic/North German white?

Naaaaaaah. A US President could never mean something that so blatantly disqualifies him from holding public office, amirite?

Anyway, I really don’t understand how Republicans could possibly object to “shithole countries,” when they are so very committed and determined to turning the country into one.

Let’s see: destroying the safety net at every opportunity, unleashing Big Polluters on our air and water, increasing maternal and infant mortality rates, increasing the devastating effects of the climate crisis, militarizing police forces, increasing extreme wealth inequality, squeezing the poor and middle class to fund tax cuts for their benefactors, running prisons for profit, eviscerating health care access for millions of people, undermining quality public education [I could go on all day but I already have a fucking headache]… Seriously, the only conclusion that can be drawn from their actions is that Republicans fucking LOVE “shithole counties” so much that they are eagerly remaking the US into one.