BUFFOONERY! [DOT 3/9/22]

3/9/22 bryanlsplinter 31

One of my absolute favorite words is “buffoon.” I just love the way it rolls off the tongue, and how applicable it is to a variety of situations. I declare that the theme of today’s DOT is BUFFOONERY, because I can. Today we shall feature egregious examples of utter buffoonery (say that three times fast). I bet you know where this is going!

I’ll start with a local (to me) example of buffoonery. We’ve got a scandal going on in Florida (well, we have lots, let’s be real), but this one is about “ghost candidates.” Ghost candidates are people that the Republican Party (maybe some Democrats do this but no examples spring to mind) pay to run for office as Democrats. Why? Because they then siphon off votes that the main Democrat would otherwise get, guaranteeing that the Republican wins! Clever, eh? Well, maybe not so much.

Jury finds Seminole GOP chair guilty in โ€˜ghostโ€™ candidate case

But wait! It gets better! Disgraced Seminole County tax collector, Joel Greenberg, also erstwhile associate and sexual trafficking pal of Matt Gaetz, testified that the Republican who benefited from the scam knew about it all along. I mean, of course he knew about it — you knew that without me telling you, just as we all did — but Joel Greenberg is the gift that keeps on giving up his criminal associates! These people are buffoons!

Joel Greenberg told investigators Brodeur knew of spoiler plot, transcript shows

Let’s look at some national buffooning. Is that a word? I hereby declare it a word. Seems that Republicans don’t like being called fascists. I mean, Uncle Joe delivered a ripping speech, y’all. So of course the fascists (excuse me, Republicans) must strike back with withering denunciations that would be devastating if they hadn’t already lowered the level of national discourse to approximately that of mud-wrestling smack talk during the Orange Administration.

GOP’sย pearl-clutchingย over Biden’s ‘soul of the nation’ speech tests the limits of hypocrisy (again)

I was going to add some commentary here, but really, do I need to?

Kevin McCarthy Referred To The ‘Electric Cord Of Liberty,’ And People Are Confused

Okay, I mean, we’ve all been here. You’re a Republican candidate for governor of Wisconsin, and the liberal media (aka the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) happens to mention that you’re using a personal foundation to fund anti-gay and anti-abortion groups. So what do you do?

Wisconsin GOP candidate calls for โ€˜pitchforks and torchesโ€™

Oh, shut up. You don’t even live in Alaska, so fuck right off.

After Sarah Palin’s election loss, Sen. Tom Cotton calls ranked-choice voting ‘a scam’

Back to some Florida buffoonery. Oops.

Alligator Bites Arm Off Florida Wildlife Director During Training Session

Non-turtle content. Remember how I told you turtles could sprint? Check out this crocodile at full gallop.

WATCH: Crocodile Chases Man Inside Florida Park Enclosure

So there you go. Repeated examples of top-flight buffoonery. Do share your own, Deadsplinterites. I have faith in you.

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31 Comments

  1. I’m fond of the term jackass, which sadly seems to have fallen out of favor. I suppose because it contains the term “ass” and so is considered a mild obscenity, but it’s not, they’re both perfectly good English words for donkey. (A jackass is a male donkey.)

    The Floridians with their ghost candidates are rank amateurs. What you really want to do is pluck candidates from obscurity who have the same or very similar names as the candidate you want to defeat. A much more effective way to split the vote. Here’s a fairly recent example, but the practice has been going on forever. I know that in cities with large Irish-American populations this used to go on all the time.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/24/nyregion/seeing-double-on-ballot-similar-names-sow-confusion.html

  2. I’m out of town visiting a friend and I feel like crap. My heart has been racing and bad headache since yesterday. I’m worried I fucking have covid again.

    I guess I’ll text them to ask for a thermometer once the rest of the house is awake. I might be the worst houseguest ever. Fuck.

    • My alternate comment was:

      Republicans embrace fascism while objecting to being called fascists, remaining completely on-brand.

      Or as dear old Granny used to say:

      A hit dog will holler.

      Sorry, Ellie, no actual dogs were struck in the composition of this comment.

  5. Meanwhile, up in Syracuse, the New York State Fair is in full swing! Fun for the whole family, especially those who choose to escape the heat in a largely deserted $63 million air-conditioned structure.

    https://www.newyorkupstate.com/nys-fair/2022/09/taxpayers-spent-63-million-for-the-ny-state-fair-expo-center-are-we-getting-our-moneys-worth.html

    Imagine if New York State was responsible for your wedding reception. They’d rent a VFW hall for four hours in the afternoon, get the catering from Taco Bell, and it would still cost in the mid-six figures and you’d have to push your wedding date back three or four times because of “unforeseen delays.”

  6. For once I’m ahead of my life… a rare moment.

    All my important tasks have been done during the week (car maintenance, confirmation of certain financial info, laundry, house cleaning)… except for cooking/food shopping.

    Paid most of my bills for this month.ย  Very little money leftover sadly.

    Time to do all the nothing I want.

  7. its the weekend,…..news doesnt excist to me

    did someone say buffoon?

     

    i dont know what they put in the water over ther….but i want some

    …

    also thats panteras walk being used as a background rif

  8. Since it’s the Saturday of a long weekend I’ll clutter the comments with this:

    https://robbreport.com/shelter/spaces/nyc-building-new-private-jet-partnership-transfer-1234745217/

    Isn’t that civilized? I wonder if they throw in free annual passes to MoMA? That’ll save you $65 a year right there.

    I’ll draw your attention the photo showing the kitchen on the 65th floor. Note the double oven to the right. I did. The view through the window is the Citicorp building. I have great affection for that building because when I first moved to New York I worked in that area and it had a Conran’s and a Barnes & Noble at its base so it fulfilled all my shopping needs. Who knows what’s there now. Probably a couple of cellphone stores and a McDonald’s. Maybe a Foot Locker outlet.

  10. I am fond of the word kerfuffle: a disturbance or commotion typically caused by a dispute or conflict. I use it at work, as it is rather more polite than what I am thinking. As to what I am thinking? Well, it involves soliloquies on cat herding and the use of words banned in professional discourse.

      • Speaking of South Africa, did you hear about Meghan Markle’s disastrous interview in The Cut, which is a magazine within a magazine of New York Magazine? In it, she claimed that at The Lion King premiere in London a South African cast member said to her, “He looked at me, and heโ€™s just like light,โ€ Markle explained. โ€œHe said, โ€˜I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison.โ€™”

        Oh my God. This of course did not happen. The only South African cast member raced to the media to confirm that he was not at The Lion King premiere in London. Nelson Mandela’s grandson had a few choice words in response.

        Anyway, in South Africa #VoetsekMeghanMarkle has taken off on Twitter. Voetsek is Afrikaans. I’ve always wondered how close Dutch still is to Afrikaans. I imagine it’s like French is to Quรฉbรฉcois. Have you ever heard Afrikaans and can you understand it? And, perhaps most importantly, do you know how you would say Voetsek in Dutch?

        • afrikaans is close enough to dutch that i can understand it

          but it has a whole bunch of words i dont know….voetsek is one of them

          having now googled it…i dont think we have a word for that one as we adopted the polite english fuck off over here

      • …damn…was rooting for that to go the other way…but I hope you at least get to not feel to dreadful & it doesn’t completely screw things up to the point you wish you hadn’t made the trip?

        …either way you have my sympathies & I hope you feel better as soon as humanly possible

         

        • I was supposed to fly home tomorrow so I just changed the flights to today. I’ve got an N95 mask ratcheted on and it won’t come off. I don’t have another option, I can’t drive home from here and today I feel reasonably normal. Who knows about tomorrow. Not to mention the longer I stay the more likely I’ll get my friends sick.

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