It seems the GOP might be down in the Trumps this month......

So about a month back I wrote a 4 part blog trying to explain why the GOP field was full of jokes this time around. Turns out I should have waited. Because now I can do it in a single sentence:

Donald Trump is the Republican Frontrunner.

If your a republican that sentence should send chills up and down your spine.

Especially since the polls that made Trump the frontrunner were conducted AFTER he decided all Mexicans were rapists.

Actually its worse than that. See Trump went on CNN not long after declaring Mexican's rapists and the following exchange took place:

Basically if I understand Trumps point (always a risky premise) something like 80% of the women who enter this country illegally are rapists.......because they were victims of rape. Cause yea it appears Trump doesnt actually understand the difference between rapists and rape victims.

I mean he kind of maybe gets it at the end....he understands at least someone is doing the raping.....but just assumes it could in no way be Americans exploiting the illegals, border patrol officers, Mexicans bringing them to the border but not crossing themselves, ect. None of these other options are possibilities for Trump.

Trump seems to think there is a sign on the border that says "Welcome to America...please be prepard to rape to pay entry fee"........


Oh and then theres the bit about Jeb Bush's wife Columbia in which he retweeted this:

""@RobHeilbron: @realDonaldTrump #JebBush has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife.""

Now admittedly its a retweet, but still kinda awkward for a guy who just called all Mexicans rapists. also, might be worth noting Mrs Bush came here legally something like 40 years ago....so yea assuming she was illegal...also awkward.

Granted he's paying some price for this shit and it looks a bit like this:

First it was the largest Hispanic television network in the US, Univision, that refused to broadcast his Miss Universe pageant (also worth noting the hosts of the pageant and some of the competitors also quit).

In response, Trump banned them from his golf courses (no joke).....oh and included this statement: 
"Please congratulate your Mexican Government officials for having made such outstanding trade deals with the United States. However, inform them that should I become President, those days are over."

Ah yes, because the network caters to Hispanic's they must be mexican....except that they are owned by NBCUniversal, decidedly an american company...


Speaking of NBC....NBC fired him too by kicking him off the apprentice tv show.

Also somewhat ironically he was fired by Televisa...a mexican based TV network that HAD been the carrier of the Miss Universe pageant in that country....and no, they werent banned from his Golf Courses or asked to congratulate their government....possibly because all Spanish speaking TV networks look the same to Trump so he didnt realize they fired him.

And then  Farouk Systems fired him, for those who never heard of them (like me) they make hair care products. So actually this one might be unrelated to his mexican rapists comments....its possible they just now got a good look at that thing on his head.

And then Macy's piled on as they announced plans to stop selling his clothing line.....followed by the manufacturer PVH Corp announcing they are going to stop producing his clothing line. Oh and his
perfume line....also finished says manufacturer Perfumania

  

And they in turn were followed by Nascar, the PGA, and ESPN all of which announced they would not be holding major events at trump owned properties.

Then Serta got in on the fun, ending Trump's line of mattresses.

Then Trumps soon to be opened new hotel in DC started taking hits as a major high class restaurant owner and a celebrity chief both pulled out of a deal to open locations inside the hotel.

Then Trump was "fired" by the FAA. Apparently the FAA had named some navigational locations after him.......but no more.

Finally and lastly for now, HuffingtonPost a major online news site made the decision not to cover Trumps campaign as politics, but instead as entertainment.

Now given HuffingtonPost's liberal bias, I'd bet the conservatives are pissed off as hell about this clear attack on the legitimacy of a republican presidential candidate....

Well according to well know right wing talking head, and son of Former president Ronald Reagan, Michael Reagan: "You can't really disagree with The Huffington Post -- he is entertaining."

or the chairman of the Republican Fundraising arm GOPAC who said that HuffingtonPost is a private company, they can choose to report or not on whoever they like, and if trump doesnt like it he can attempt to buy them"

So yea.....it seems a lot of republicans really arnt that concerned with Trump being divorced from their politics.

THEN and only then, after all this happened, did the Donald become the frontrunner.

And how is Trump celebrating his new status? Sucker Punching the guy who lost 8 years ago...John McCain See when someone mentioned that the former POW was a war hero, well Trump had this to say the other day:

“He’s not a war hero, He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

For those who are wondering by the way, during the 5 years McCain was being held and tortured to the point of still suffering from those injuries today....Donald Trump was enjoying his 4 deferments.....one of which was for a bone spur so bad he doenst actually remember which foot it was in.

By the way, thats not the only attack Trump made on McCain this week, as he took to twitter to say that the Senator who is running for reelection

".@SenJohnMcCain should be defeated in the primaries. Graduated last in his class at Annapolis--dummy!"

So yea, not only is that insulting.....its also not true. McCain was NEAR the bottom of his class, but not the bottom. As were Ulysses S. Grant, James Longstreet, Hap Arnold, Philip Sheridan, George Custer, and even if we allow for bottom half Dwight Eisenhower, and John J. Pershing,

proving their is clearly no way to be successful in life if your near the bottom of your class at a military academy *sarcasm*

FINALLY though these comments appear to have woken the sleeping dragon of the RNC.....who seem kinda shocked they have a problem given they never said anything about the rape comments but released this statement anyways.

"Senator McCain is an American hero because he served his country and sacrificed more than most can imagine. Period, There is no place in our party or our country for comments that disparage those who have served honorably.”

So yea, even the RNC now kinda wants trump out of the party.

Course none of this is going to actually matter because the problem here isnt Trump. The problem is the GOP has degraded so much that they are actually now the pro racist rape anti troop party.

For example a FOX news poll released this week says that 68% of the GOP agrees with trump on his immigration and rapist comments......

And who could forget this from the last election:

Which means dont expect a draft dodger attacking a POW to have much impact with his poll standing....except maybe to sky rocket them.

Speaking of the last election, this isnt the first time Trump has managed to expose the core problems with the Republican Base. Cause last time once trump started getting stirring up the issue, polls showed 72% of the GOP either didnt believe Obama was born here (51%) or didnt know (21%).

And then that number pretty rapidly dropped off the map....right after trump did, and the sane side of the GOP was able to step in.

But of course Trump never actually ran last time......so this time I dont think the GOP will get so lucky. This time the GOP seems destined for a reckoning with the far far far right that controls their parties primaries.

And given that this is the same far right that gave them Palin and screwed them on the 2008 elections, the 2010 and 2012 senate elections, and of course the weak sauce field in 2012 (in which Romney won mostly by default cause the other candidates were right wing crazy's)  maybe a head long collusion is what the GOP needs to fix the problem for real this time.

In the meantime though, it appears the GOP is destined to stay down in the trumps for a while.....and I would suggest my republican friends start looking for a 3rd party candidate. 

Happy 239th Birthday America. Here are your 5 best flags ever.

Happy July 4th everyone. Unless your British in which case fuck you! (to any British readers , Im kidding....its in the spirit of the holiday)

So yesterday we did the 5 ugliest god damn flags in american history.....well today, in honor of telling a country with a pretty cool flag, who's colors we totally stole, to bugger off, we have the 5 best flags America has every come up with.

Leading off the pack:

#5

The Great State of Arkansas

Lot of people dont like this flag, and at some level I get that. Im not usually a fan of flags with the state names on them (as you might have noticed yesterday), and it does look vaguely like the confederate flag. (in the sense of having the blue band of stars and a red background)

Which is ironic since the Arkansas flag was designed by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

It's also one of the most symbol laden flags we have, which is why I like it.

Ok so first up we have the 25 stars  in the blue part, Arkansas was state number 25. And the stars are in a diamond shape because Arkansas is the only state with diamonds [at the time the flag was made].

Which brings us to the other 4 stars in the white part, and this is where the symbolism really gets cool.

The 3 stars on the bottom have a triple meaning. First they signify the Louisiana Purchase...in 1803 (3 stars for '03) Second they signify Arkansas being the 3rd state created from the Purchase.

And finally, the 3 stars represent the three countries that have owned Arkansas, Spain, France, and the US.

As to the top star that was added 11 years later, when someone finally noticed that Arkansas had technically been part of another country...the Confederacy. But that star was added apart from the others, so as to not screw up the other meanings.....also possibly due to the Confederacy's country status being disputable. (by the way, Mississippi and Georgia, if you want to do a tribute to the Confederacy in a non offensive way, THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT)

So yea, like I said incredibly laden with symbolism. Also one of only two flags in the US to be predominately red (Tennessee is the other), which makes it stand out a bit, which is something I like in my flags.

#4

Arizona

Another flag with some great symbolism. The blue on the bottom is for the Colorado River (AKA the river that cutout the Grand Canyon), the Copper Star is for  states history as a major Copper mining state. And the top part? again this is where it gets fun: the 13 stripes for the 13 original colonies....but the colors are Hapsburg Spain, representing Arizona's long Spanish history.

There are almost no flags that change that much color wise from the top of the flag to the bottom, in fact maryland is about the only other one I can think of, and all due respect to my birth state, Arizona does it better.  Oh and yes, that is supposed to look like a sunrise or sunset....two things Arizona is known for.

(Sedona is in Arizona, obviously) 

#3

The flag of Washington DC

So given how patriotic and uptight Americans are about our flag, if there was ever a flag you would totally expect to look like the result of a massive orgy with the colors red, white, blue, the statue of liberty, a baseball, apple pie and a bald eagle, it would likely be the flag of our nations capitol.

Which as you can see is about as far from what they actually have as you can get. Which is a good chunk of the reason I like that flag. Its more subdued than youd expect, and still looks classy and powerful.

Granted unlike the others on the list, it doesnt have much in the way of symbolism, its design is the coat of arms of George Washington (who for non americans the city is named after) But hey at least they didnt just slap his face on the damn thing (looking at you Washington State, especially since your flag came first) .

It also happens to be the only predominately white flag I actually like, and that alone would get it a spot on this list

#2

American Samoa

So perhaps surprising to many Americans, Puerto Rico isnt our only territory, we have a few more.
Granted your forgiven for not being familiar with American Samoa, its a tiny island, and its really only famous for one thing, being the birthplace of the Anoai Family. Never heard of them? lets try it this way, the birthplace of WWE Hall of Famers, High Chief Peter Maivia and the Wild Samoan's Afa and Siki, and of course their prodigy WWE Hall of Famers Yokozuna and Rikishi, and current WWE superstars Jimmy and Jey Uso and Roman Reigns.....oh and I almost forgot Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson, and a dozen others who didnt make it as big.  So yea, Basically American Samoa been ruling american wrestling for almost 50 years.

But thats really the only thing noteworthy about American Samoa....other than that flag of course.

I like for two reasons: 1) only flag in the US to use the triangle so it stands out in a crowd.

2) That eagle. Take a good look at that thing, thats not your typical american bald eagle. Because that one isnt holding arrows or an olive branch.....that thing is holding traditional Samoan power symbols of a club and a whip. Cause that eagle is coming to fight.

And actually on a slightly more serious note, the direction the eagle is flying is symbolic, its flying towards the flag pole and therefore towards American Samoa, so that eagle is supposed to represent the US protection of Samoa.  So it looks unique, has symbolism and looks bad ass.

Thats how you make a good flag.

But finally our winner:

New Mexico

So again this is a very unique flag, its one of only 4 in the US not to have the color blue on it. And its the only American flag to be predominantly yellow, so it definitely stands out

But what most impresses me about it, is you dont have to know jack-shit about it to "get it"

See that red thing in the center looks native american, and kinda like a sun. Which combined with the color yellow suggests something really hot...as New Mexico is.

And it turns out,  after looking into the meaning of the flag....thats basically it.

The symbol in the center is the holy symbol of New Mexico's native pueblo people, and it actually does represent the sun. Now it should be pointed out New Mexico has one of the largest (both in terms of % of the population and straight numeric) native populations in the country. So clearly this is a symbol that means something to that state beyond other states symbols. And as to the red and yellow, not only do those suggest the heat of the sun, they are, as was the case with the Arizona flag, the colors of Hapsburg Spain, the original European settlers of New Mexico.
 

So for being, not only a flag that stands out, but for being the only american flag that can get its "message" across without needing to research symbolism or state history, New Mexico is the winner of the Best American Flag of all times.  

And now, this has nothing to do with the flags, but since I figured I needed to end on a patriotic note:

   

     

The 5 ugliest flags in American History

So I admit, normally I like to do these things "best" first then the "worst", because I think people are more interested in starting with good, then talking about suckage. But given what tomorrow is, and the fact that the other part of this will go up tomorrow I figured for pure patriotism I might want to reverse the order this time.

Which means this time we start off with 5 of the god damned ugliest flags America has ever created.

#5

The State of Idaho. The State of Idaho.

To be honest, this actually isnt a bad flag.....especially if you are suffering from chronic short term memory loss and forget what state you were in in the 1/2 inch it took to move down to the next part of the flag.

I assume the explanation here is that Idaho took the whole "so nice they named it twice" thing and said "well shit if it works for new york..." either that or they are real serious about the state motto Esto perpetua (Let it be perpetual)

#4

The flag of Nevada (original)

This is yet another flag that seemingly got hit over the head with the obvious stick. This one likely owes its design to someone going "hey, what if people dont get the star color imagery? why would they want to come to Nevada" and the rest of the room assuming people really are that stupid and everything must be spelling out in giant ass letters.  Which probably explains why it was redesigned 10 years later

On the upside, its a good thing this flag was designed before Las Vegas really took off,  Otherwise the word Nevada would likely be stuck between the words "MONEY" and "SEX" and the stars replaced by pictures of famous hookers.

#3

The State of South Dakota.

So what happens when you combine the short term memory loss issues of Idaho with the need to openly justify our existence/reason any one would ever come here issues of Nevada?

You get this monstrosity. Oh and by the way, those yellow triangles? well before Mt Rushmore existed South Dakota was called the "Sunshine State" so thats what it put on the flag. And instead of the seal in the center, they had a yellow sun. They just apparently forgot to remove the suns rays when they removed the rest of it.....oops.

But hey in all fairness it could have been worse, they could have actually included an image of Mt Rushmore in the center. Oh shit, I probably just accidentally designed their new flag for them

#2

The flag of retired folks everywhere....I mean Florida. 

So people might wonder how it is that Florida makes this list and Alabama doesnt. See Alabama's flag looks exactly the same as Florida's except without the seal in the center. But the saving grace of Alabama in this case is that, as lazy as that design is, they did it first.

Alabama

Thats right Alabama approved their flag in 1895. Florida meanwhile was looking for a flag at the same time and finally came up with their design in 1900....5 years later.

Which means that, much like Modern republicans and Obamacare, even given half a decade the brain trust in Florida couldn't come up with a flag of any kind....so they finally settled basically stealing the original idea (Alabama) and claiming it was actually something different.

I image the decision to add the someone said "what if we slapped our state seal on it? then it would look like a totally original and uniquely Floridian idea, and no one will ever notice we stole the whole thing from someone else?" "GENIUS!"



#1

Hawaii State Flag

So if you chugged cans of red white and blue paint until you threw up, this is what I imagine the end result would look like.

Its actually amazing to me how bad this flag looks, given how close it is to the original american flags, which didnt look nearly this bad. Its all due to the two blue stripes (apparently there is actually a reason all the red white and blue flags of the world dont put the red and blue sections together) and the canton (the upper left corner) being placed on a red stripe, giving the image of the bottom of the union jack running into that stripe and moving across the flag.

Plus the fact that this thing literally had nothing but lines in every direction means there is way to damn much going on in the flag, and at the edge of the canton the cross of the union jack and the red and blue stripes it runs into looks like graphical tearing on a computer when the image display cant keep up with the lines moving.

This flag may avoid the pithy criticisms of its predecessors on this list but its still ugly as fuck.

And that concludes the top 5 ugliest flags of the United States.....BUT not this blog as its now time for the bonus round:

This are flags that are still bad, but for various reasons I didnt want to include above:

Ladies and Gentlemen the state flag of Georgia:

The new flag of Georgia (since 2003)

So even before the controversy in South Carolina, the state of Mississippi gets a lot of crap (and justifiably so) for having the confederate flag in their state flag. Georgia used to get the same kind of crap, until 2003 when they removed the confederate flag from their flag and replaced the flag with the above one, to widespread acclaim.

Georgia flag before 2003

And to be honest, its not a bad flag. in fact its a very good design in my opinion.,......except for one small problem. The flag everyone thinks about when I say "confederate flag" the one on the flag of mississippi, the one that was flying in south carolina, the one that had been on the Georgia flag, isnt the real confederate flag. Its the flag of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. 

So what did the real confederate flag look like? Glad you asked it looked like this: 

Look familiar? thats right its now the official flag of Georgia (with the seal added). Although I guess at some level you got to give Georgia credit for ballsiest move ever, given that they removed a confederate battle flag from their flag, replaced it with the ACTUAL confederate flag, and did it in such a way that they actually got praised for it,

Still if you didnt like the implications of the pre 2003 design, you really should have an even bigger problem with this one.....just saying.

Finally one last flag, This just missed being on the list by virtue of being impossible to find a good image of so I felt it was a bit unfair to hold it to the same standard:

The confederate era flag of Mississippi

Look say what you will about the current Mississippi flag, but at least it looks like a flag...a racist flag, but still a damn flag.

This thing looks like something a preschooler would draw. "so why is there a tree?" "cause I like trees" "Ok well what about the blue star" "I like blue stars" "well dont you want to color in the rest of it red?" "no I'm bored...can I play with legos?"

Even cutting that thing some slack for being made of cloth and not a more modern image(unlike the other pictures I'm using...couldnt do that for this flag the all white disappered into the background) this is still an amateur hour flag. Even if you hate the current flag.....at least now you understand why they felt the need to change it.....