It’s the stupidity, Stupid 100.1: So it begins. Trump picks Climate Change denier to lead the EPA transition

We knew this crap would happen.  Many Most of the Trump  followers are climate change deniers.  Followers such as the big corporate farmers that grace the local landscape with whatever crop suits them.  Where I live, it’s mostly Almond Trees.  We are still mired in a four year, going on five year drought in California, and these harvesters of water hogging almond orchards want their water. 

Drought?  Not in their vocabulary.  Climate Change?  Not around these parts.  It’s just all one big California conspiracy to deny them the water they need so that we can have Almond Joy bars from now until the end of eternity.  I even saw one farm with a big sign blaming Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for not turning on their secret spigot, even though Republicans hold control of both the House and the Senate.  Well, I guess you have to blame somebody.

But now that Donald Trump is president, I have no doubt that they expect he will turn on the big heavenly water spigot in the sky and all will be right with the world.  Uh…huh.  How does that Joni Mitchell song go? 

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

With the harvest from one particular local farm bringing in 20,000,000 dollars, I guess it pays to keep denying the obvious.  Trump has taken his first step in giving them a helping hand by doing what we all knew he would do. 

Gut the EPA and fill it with Climate Deniers so that he and all his other buddies can drain the fuck out of Lake Meade so they can take a shower in their Vegas Hotel Suites.  Remember the name when you go to flush your toilet and that turd just sort of lays there kind of helpless like: Myron Ebell.

From Scientific America:

In a biography submitted when he testified before Congress, he listed among his recognitions that he had been featured in a Greenpeace “Field Guide to Climate Criminals,” dubbed a “misleader” on global warming by Rolling Stone and was the subject of a motion to censure in the British House of Commons after Ebell criticized the United Kingdom’s chief scientific adviser for his views on global warming.

More recently, Ebell has called the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for greenhouse gases illegal and said that Obama joining the Paris climate treaty “is clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate’s authority.”

He told Vanity Fair in 2007, “There has been a little bit of warming ... but it’s been very modest and well within the range for natural variability, and whether it’s caused by human beings or not, it’s nothing to worry about.”

But whatever. So I guess Climate change isn't real, and with the GOP will be in control, I'm sure they'll be turning on those super secret water hoses they have stashed away at the White House just in time for spring. Meanwhile, here's Joni Mitchell while we wait. But just remember this: It's the stupidity, Stupid.

Marsha Blackburn–R, Tennessee. Telecommunications Industry Whore

Here’s a blatant example as to why some congress people like Marsha Blackburn think you're a clueless dolt who will never get the fact that her ass has been bought and paid for by the cable/satellite/telecommunications industry.

Like a good GOP servant of their corporate masters, she thinks competition is a good thing....up until the point she is paid to think otherwise.  And when GOP whores like Marsha Blackburn are drowning and Comcast and Telecommunications lobbyist’s cash, that’s all the time.

Marsha Blackburn-R, from Tennessee knows that the mindless drones in her district will vote for her regardless as long as she carries the GOP symbol of mediocrity next to her name.  In essence, she gets to screw them over and they’ll beg for more.  Blackburn can get away with what anyone else with a modicum of common sense knows is a blatant sellout in an effort to make sure that the telecommunications industry can continue to rule over us with no real competition and she can continue to fill her coffers with the endless funds shower her in.  Nothing like a lot of Comcast Cash to bathe yourself with.

A little bit of brief history of what has happened over the past few years.

Cable and internet service providers in most cities and towns face no competition whatsoever. Therefore, since you have no alternative, they charge exorbitant prices for everything, have the world's shittiest service, and feel absolutely no need to upgrade their system.

Some communities and towns finally got fed up with the bullshit and started their own municipal ISP's so that the citizens (that's us in case you forgot) would have an alternative. And since they don't need to make a huge obscene profit, these systems would be genuine alternatives and competition for the cable companies that have most of us by the balls.
And if there's one thing these companies hate, it's competition. Because competing means they have to do such mundane boring things as charge what is fair, give better service, and upgrade their rundown crappy utilities that are supposed to hold the thing together.  And the money you pay to these Municipal systems?  It goes right back into the maintenance and infrastucture instead of the endlessly deep pockets of companies like Comcast, Time Warner, etc.

So they have tried to do an end around in order to get cities, counties, towns, and states to pass laws making it illegal for cities to have their own telecommunications service. They achieve this object by buying off the GOP and representatives like Blackburn who understand that if she places a pile of shit in front of her voters in Tennessee and calls it a Rose, they’ll swear up and down it’s a rose.

From Ars Technica:

Blackburn received $10,000 from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association this year and last year, according to OpenSecrets.org. She received $12,500 in contributions from Verizon, $10,000 from AT&T, $7,500 from Comcast, and $7,000 from representatives of Time Warner Cable. (These donations come from the companies' political action committees, employees, or owners.)

The bill—H.R. 5016, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act of 2015—was left as unfinished business yesterday. A roll call vote on Blackburn's amendment "was postponed, but it initially appeared to have enough votes for passage," according to the news site Broadcasting & Cable.

The National League of Cities, National Association of Counties, and National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors yesterday sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to defeat Blackburn's amendment.
"[S]tate laws that prohibit or restrict public and public/private broadband projects... harm both the public and private sectors, stifle economic growth, prevent the creation or retention of thousands of jobs, and hamper work force development," the letter said. "The private sector alone cannot enable the United States to take full advantage of the opportunities that advanced communications networks can create in virtually every area of life.

As a result, federal, state, and local efforts are taking place across the Nation to deploy both private and public broadband infrastructure to stimulate and support economic development and job creation, especially in economically distressed areas. But such efforts are being thwarted in some areas by State laws that prohibit or restrict municipalities from working with private broadband providers, or developing themselves, if necessary, the advanced broadband infrastructure that will stimulate local businesses development, foster work force retraining, and boost employment in economically underachieving areas."

But at least Birdbrain Blackburn is consistent. She's always been against anything and everything that is for the working class and anybody who can't ejaculate cash into her campaign coffers. Blackburn is against equal pay for women, against raising the minimum wage, against the ACA, against relief for Sandy victims, against sensible gun control, against Planned Parenthood, against public education, against feeding hungry children, against veteran benefits.

One thing Blackburn does stand for (or is it lie down for?) and always will is the Corporate Sugar Daddies whom she sold her ass to a long long long time ago.  I guess that’s why she’s from The Volunteer State.  She’ll volunteer to let anyone be her pimp for the right amount of $$$$$$$$.