The Color Purple . . .

Sigh and fuck.

Gadfly still can't believe Prince is goddamn dead.  So many fuckers in this world who are so much more deserving of being in dirt nap eternity . . . . . yeah, Gadfly knows .... not a nice thing to say, but fuck it .. it's true.

Anyhow, a few awesome rockers paid their tribute to the Purple One:


The Boss:



(Gawd --- if that didn't bring a single tear to your eye, you're fucking heartless.)



David Gilmour of Pink Floyd (fast fwd to the 4:25 mark):





Eric Clapton:

"I'm so sad about the death of Prince, he was a true genius, and a huge inspiration for me, in a very real way. In the the '80s, I was out on the road in a massive downward spiral with drink and drugs [when] I saw Purple Rain in a cinema in Canada. I had no idea who he was, it was like a bolt of lightning!...

"In the middle of my depression, and the dreadful state of the music culture at that time, it gave me hope. He was like a light in the darkness. I went back to my hotel, and surrounded by empty beer cans, wrote 'Holy Mother.'

"I can't believe he's gone."

http://www.kshe95.com/news/real-rock-news/eric-clapton-remembers-prince



And finally --- The Frolicking Gadfly (Prince was a huge Minnesota Vikings fan so this song is appropriate):




No doubt there will be a  major tribute concert to come .... cathartic as it may be.

Anyhow --- Gadfly's personal mourning is over --- until the next icon of his youth checks out . .  .



----TFG

The Boy King That Would Be - and All His Horses and Men . . .

Jeebus . . . .

Trump’s pronouncements on foreign policy, combined with his years of broadsides, have set off a very real fear within military circles about what might happen were he to become president. In the last two months, I spoke with dozens of people in the national security realm—current and retired officers, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and former White House, State Department, Pentagon and CIA officials. The words they used to describe their mood: Terrified. Shocked. Appalled. Never before, they say, has a candidate gotten so close to the White House with such little respect for the military.

One former Marine infantry officer described Trump as a “fake-bake-ing chicken hawk.”

“He completely misunderstands the military profession that he would head if he were the president,” said Robert Killebrew, a retired colonel who served in the Army for more than 30 years. Others were less polite. In a pair of ads produced by the American Future Fund, a retired Special Forces commander named Michael Waltz calls Trump a draft-dodger who “hasn’t served this country a day in his life,” and a Vietnam veteran, Tom Hanton, says that Trump’s quip about POWs was “the most infuriating comment I think I’ve heard from a politician in my entire life.” One former Marine infantry officer described Trump to me as a “fake-bake-ing chicken hawk” whose “knowledge of the Middle East could be trumped (sorry) by your average Georgetown sophomore.”

Trump’s chosen foreign policy advisers—which include a 2009 college graduate who touted his experience in the Model U.N. on his online résumé and another who used Kanye West lyrics to make arguments on his foreign policy blog—have only stoked these anxieties. “Weirdo nobodies,” was how one military historian characterized them to me. “They’re probably the least qualified group of foreign policy and national security advisers I’ve ever seen or even heard of,” said Richard Kohn, an expert in civil-military relations and retired professor at the University of North Carolina. A source with firsthand knowledge told me that Trump’s campaign pursued retired General David Petraeus, Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, but all three men declined. In a TV appearance not long afterward, Trump said he wouldn’t hesitate to replace the members of his military team if they didn’t agree with him.

http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/trump-at-war/

If you honestly, sincerely, seriously .... love this country .... read this article.  Then ask yourself if you are truly ready to put yours, your family's and your fellow American's lives in to the hands of this rich daddy's boy goofball.

That's all.



----TFG

And The Oscar For Best Comedic Performance Goes To . . .

Hahahahaha! . . .

[ click pic to enlarge ]

Some of you may have heard about the meeting that Drumpf's new campaign manager Paul Manafort had with the RNC this past week where he basically sang like a canary in telling them that Drumpf and his neo-Nazi dog and pony show basically is phonier than a $3 dollar bill:

Trump’s chief strategist Paul Manafort told members of the Republican National Committee in a closed-door briefing here Thursday afternoon that his candidate has been playing a “part” on the campaign trail, but is starting to pivot toward presenting a more businesslike and presidential “persona.”

“He gets it,” Manafort told RNC members. “The part that he’s been playing is now evolving into the part that you’ve been expecting. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/04/22/donald-trump-and-his-aides-admit-that-its-all-an-act/

The Gadfly "gets it" too.  Drumpf has been baiting the right wing base -- Tea Party nuts, KKK crowd, xenophobes, militia gun goon guys and the rest of that sorry ass bunch of economic dunces and hateful pricks by pretending to be one of them --- all in order to rile 'em up and get 'em to the polls come November.

In simplistic terms, what Manafort is saying to the RNC is -- don't worry, Drumpf really isn't like those right wing goons he's been so cynically courting, but he needs them to pull that voting booth lever.  However, after he's elected, he'll fall in to line -- just like any other military-industrial complex, bought and paid for lackey politician.

The Gadfly honestly wonders if the right wingers have any clue whatsoever how Drumpf is playing them like a fiddle and is going set them adrift in an ocean of ratfucking betrayal once he ascends to his cherished Presidential throne?

Frankly, as far as The Gadfly is concerned, if Drumpf does win come November, the ratfucking that is headed the right's way will be the glorious fucking deliverance of the Karma that they have had coming to them for a very, very long time.



----TFG

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath . . .

[click pic to enlarge]

Ahhh yes -- no better way to demonstrate one's faith in a loving God then to pump a few bullets in to the chest of a fellow parishioner at Sunday mass . . . .

A church member is dead and another member is cooperating with authorities after an altercation between the two turned into a deadly shooting at the Keystone Fellowship Church in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, this morning, officials said.

The victim, 27-year-old Robert Braxton, was shot in the chest during "a disturbance that escalated into an altercation between two church members," at today's 11 a.m. service, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said. Braxton died at a local hospital, Steele said.

Steele said the suspected shooter has not been charged at this point and is cooperating as the investigators work "to determine whether this shooting was fired under the law."

He added, "We are still interviewing witnesses and the autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow at the Montgomery County Corner's Office."

The shooter had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, which was believed to be a semi-automatic handgun, Steele said.

The relationship between the church members was not clear, Steele said.
Hundreds of people were at the Keystone Fellowship Church service, Steele said.

The church said in a statement: "One man was shot and another is being questioned by police; no one was else was hurt."

The church added, "Our congregation is in prayer for everyone involved."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/suspect-charged-deadly-shooting-church/story?id=38635734

Would that they pray instead for and end to the madness of this country's mentally ill fetish with gun-goonery --- but The Gadfly knows that ain't gonna happen --- and so the senseless bloodletting goes merrily on . . . . Could be your church next . . . . The Gadfly truly hopes not...truly.



----TFG

Purple Pain . . . .

Well Fuck.  It's only April and the world has lost some true musical giants this suck-ass year.

And now Prince is gone.

The Gadfly usually doesn't expound much on the passing of music stars, other than the courtesy R.I.P.  comment and perhaps the sharing of a music video or two.  But Prince is different.

The Gadfly is a Minnesota native, Prince's home state.  The Gadfly was actually in the infamous nightclub First Avenue on a night back around 1983-84 timeframe when Prince was on stage - and The Gadfly had no clue who he was, and in fact, was too busy trying to pick up babes and win some billiard matches at the front bar area to care much about the stage show going on at the time.

But The Gadfly came to discover Prince and his music, oh yes he did.  And it really was kind of accidental -- The Gadfly turned on the radio one day just as there was this searing guitar solo playing, and when The Gadfly says searing, he means searing as in molten hot shards of metal ripping through your skull cap at high velocity.  And for someone whose musical world at that time revolved almost exclusively around hard rock like Led Zeppelin, Kiss, early Van Halen -- and the like -- that badass to the bone screaming guitar sound coming out of those Pioneer 3-way car speakers was heaven to The Gadfly's ears.  The Gadfly listened to the remainder of the song and only at the end did he find out it was Prince on his signature tune, Purple Rain from the soundtrack album of the same name.  That fucking monstrous guitar solo starts around the 5 minute mark of that song and it lasts about 2 and half minutes.  It's fucking brilliant and breathtaking.  It was so good that The Gadfly ran right out and bought a cassette copy of 'Purple Rain' and for about the next 2 weeks played that cassette from beginning to end over and over and over and over and over again until he was purple in the face.  At one point, The Gadfly recalls sitting outside a nightclub after a night of prowling in his car with a good friend of his and he popped that cassette in and told his friend, who was also a hard rock guy, to listen to it.  The friend was skeptical at having to listen to a black dude named Prince's music, but when The Gadfly played Purple Rain, the friend's eyes widened and something clicked in his little lizard brain --- and he got it.

Oh -- and just so you all know, The Gadfly's favorite song off that Purple Rain album wasn't Purple Rain actually, it was Darling Nikki.  When The Gadfly first listened to that song he didn't care for it much, but then he listed to it again, and then a few more times, but also paid serious attention to the lyrics -- and The Gadfly was smitten.  Who the fuck else could come up with the opening lyrics to a song like this? -- and get away with it??:

I knew a girl named Nikki
I guess you could say she was a sex fiend
I met her in a hotel lobby
Masturbating with a magazine
She said how'd you like to waste some time
And I could not resist when I saw little Nikki grind

That song is musically and lyrically a scream.  The Gadfly's first reaction was to be taken aback by the brash raunchiness of it, but as The Gadfly listened repeatedly to it, it dawned on him that Prince was just playfully fucking with our minds and his weapon was his naughty wit.

Nonetheless, that's just a truncated tale of how Prince and his art, because that is precisely what it is - art, had a major influence on The Gadfly's love of music.

And so as far as the obligatory R.I.P video ... here's one many of you probably haven't seen.  Watch as the master shreds a version of the Rolling Stones' 'Honky Tonk Woman' ... wow...




https://youtu.be/MpHtwa8YGBU



. . . man that guy's genius is gonna be sadly missed.



----TFG

In The Annals of Not So Intelligent Ideas . . . . .

In the legendary words of the inimitable Flounder . . . . "Oh boy...is this Great!"

A petition to allow the open carry of firearms at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland had more than 25,000 signatures Saturday evening.

Ohio is an open-carry state, but Quicken Loans Arena, where the convention is set to be held, bans all weapons on the property. Ohio's concealed carry law allows private entities from banning firearms on their property, according to the arena's policies.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/25-000-sign-petition-allow-guns-republican-national-convention-cleveland-n546076

The Gadfly is all for this wonderful idea.  In fact - they ought also to make it open bar night --- free booze for all!  And one can only pray that when the first drunk redneck drops one of his precious cap pistols and it fires off a round, all 25,000 yahoos will instantly whip out their toys and begin madly slinging lead at each other in a circular firing squad formation until every last round is spent.

The Gadfly tells you one thing dear readers, if such a scenario were to play out, the collective IQ of this nation would rise instantly by about 30 points.

Just sayin' . . . .



----TFG

Feel The Berdie! . . . . .

Bernie Sanders was giving a speech in Portland, OR today and mother nature sent him a precious little heart-warming gift, and hopefully an encouraging message along with it . . . .

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/26/471958688/bird-visits-bernie-sanders-rally-sparks-delight-on-twitter





The Gadfly eagerly awaits mother nature sending a stinky, ugly carnivorous buzzard to land on the podium of Donny Drumpf's next speech - - this one will do . . . .

----TFG

The Hellbound Soul of Joseph McCarthy is Dancing a Joyous Jig . . .

Here's something a bit off of the sordid topic of the short-fingered, vulgar Oompa-loompa -- Herr Drumpf:


If any of you have friends or family members - perhaps even good friends with family members - who are suffering from the ravages of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, eyesight degeneration or Alzheimer's, in addition to a myriad of other life ruining and life threatening illnesses -- this information, providing that the love and care which you profess to have for said friends or family members is sincere, ought to make you hair-on-fire infuriated.

You see dear readers, there is this "special" little congressional committee that has been quietly assembled and is preparing to issue a blizzard of subpoenas to American medical laboratories and medical supply companies to force them to hand over the names of all of the medical and scientific researchers, lab technicians, medical graduate students, and pretty much all administrative personnel who are in way, shape or form connected to the medical and scientific activities of fetal tissue research.

On it's face this would be disconcerting enough but when you find out who is running this nasty cabal of Joe McCarthy revivalism run amok, and you have an ounce of sanity in you, your blood should not only curdle, it should spurt in violent gobs from your eyeballs.

The individual in charge of this kangaroo court is Tennessee Tea Party, ultra wingnut, bible thumping, loony tunes congress critter Marsha Blackburn.

This is what Blackburn said about what her justification is for conducting her little witch hunt.

"We are going to review the business practices of these procurement organizations and do some investigating of how they have constructed a for-profit business model from selling baby body parts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/us/politics/house-seeks-names-of-fetal-tissue-researchers-prompting-claims-of-intimidation.html?_r=1

No -- really -- believe that she said it!  Believe that she said that bilious, duplicitous load of smug, doctrinaire horse shit!!

Even after every state, up to this point, that has investigated, and exonerated Planned Parenthood over the FAKE and DOCTORED Planned Parenthood videos, including the state of Texas who not only rejected the FAKE claims of the people who manufactured those videos to the extent they indicted the video makers themselves, Marsha Blackburn still had the fucking unmitigated gall to infer that fetal tissue research is the activity which consists of "selling baby body parts" for profit.

Charlie Pierce over at Esquire online put it succinctly enough:

This is dangerous stuff. The "business model" of the anti-choice movement thus far has been to identify people involved in helping women exercise their reproductive freedom, harass them at home and on the job, make their lives utterly miserable, and, on occasion, shoot them dead in their kitchens. Now, they've moved on from the people who actually perform abortions to the people who use fetal tissue in medical research. Imagine that you're some underpaid lab tech, or some poor post-doc, buried under student loans, and one day you get a subpoena to testify in front of Congress. You have to hire a lawyer, and not somebody who pitches himself on late-night cable access, either. And, even with all that stress, you know that you're now being pursued by the respectable face of a political movement that kills people.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a43323/anti-abortion-republicans-medical-research/


This supremely self-serving moron of a woman is using her own interpretation of her chosen religion to make the lives of other human beings infinitely more miserable and unbearable by using her governmental powers (Btw - The Gadfly was under the impression that these Tea Party assholes were against government overreach - hmm - apparently that only applies only if it involves Democrats legislating to protect Americans and our natural resources from the corporate vultures) to intimidate and harass the medical and scientific professional men and women who are doing vital work in the area of trying to understand and find medicines and cures for some of theses truly horrible diseases that afflict mankind.

The Gadfly would ask his dear readers this question --- how is what Marsha Blackburn and her committee of Torquemada goons are doing by using her religion to destroy people's lives, any fucking different and revolting than what Islamic extremists are doing with their interpretation of their chosen religion to destroy lives?  And that is not a fucking rhetorical question either.  It's a fair, straight up question which deserves a fair straight up answer.

The day that a clear majority of Americans can look themselves in the mirror and give a fair, straight up answer to that question, and then have the courage to speak up and do something about it, is the day this nation can at long last permanently marginalize these fundamentalist, American religious assholes to the point that their extremism is no longer a threat to the republic and it's citizenry.


----TFG

It's Long Past Time For The Adults to Step In and Deal With This Asshole . . .

Looks like someone left Little Donny Drumpf unattended in his Twitter sandbox a bit too long today . . .

Right out of the gate, Drumpf got right down to his creepy business by smugly insulting Ted Cruz's wife's looks:

After trashing Mrs. Cruz, Donny then went on a Twitter rantalooza:

[click to enlarge]

[click to enlarge]

[click to enlarge]

And that was just a sampling of today's musings from little Donny.

The Gadfly's favorite is this one:

"Just announced that as many as 5000 ISIS fighters have infiltrated Europe. Also, many in U.S. I TOLD YOU SO! I alone can fix this problem!"

Imagine that!  Emperor Drumpf, once he is in power, "alone" is going take care of ISIS.  All by his self.  And of course he found it imperative to inform everyone that -- ISIS is "in U.S." . . . . run for your lives!!!!, but not before casting a vote for Emperor Drumpf, whom all by his magnificent self, is going to save you and your families from the imminent beheadings of the Mooslim savages!

Good lord you Trump supporters --- this is the lunatic's hands you are ready to put your country's future in to?  What in God's fucking name is wrong with you people??  Pull your goddamn ridiculous heads out of your collective assholes and ponder what it is you are considering doing to the country that you "supposedly" love by electing this vulgar, hateful ignoramus to be the leader of the greatest democracy in history.

The Gadfly begs you - please consider the repercussions that your vote for this prepubescent man-child are going to have on this nation and it's people, and even if you really don't give a shit about this nation's people, at least think about your own children's and grandchildren's futures living with the fallout (possibly literally) from the domestic and foreign policy decisions that this pompous, blustering fool is going to foist upon them.



----TFG

And By His Friends, Ye Shall Know Him . . .

Ok -- so there's this guy named Alex Jones -- some of you may know of him.  He's a mentally unhinged, conspiracy obsessed AM hate radio screecher who is on the record as believing that the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was fake -- that it was staged by an army of Obama hired actors.

Alex Jones had something to say this week about his savior Donald Drumpf.  Observe:

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/03/alex-jones-freaks-out-about-alien-invasion

JONES: I'm trying to save humanity, I'm trying to have a future for my kids. The globalists are trying to build a world where normal human life is over. it's a total revolution against the planet itself. it's an elite playing God. And I've done my research...it's the devil.

And the churches aren't going to tell you. It's an alien force, not of this world - attacking humanity - like the bible and every other ancient text says...It's not of this world. I don't know exactly what it is or what it's doing, but this is not human intelligence, OK?

IT'S NOT HUMAN INTELLIGENCE WE"RE FACING! I REFUSE TO FIGHT WITH EVERYBODY. ALL THE STUPID RACIST WHITE PEOPLE, ALL THE STUPID RACIST BLACK PEOPLE , ALL THE STUPID RACIST MEXICANS. ALL OF YOU.
I CAN'T STAND YOU, YOU'RE IDIOTS. WE'RE UNDER ATTACK. EVERYBODY'S UNDER ATTACK.

The elite hate Trump. If he is a psy-op, he's the most sophisticated one I ever saw.

Humanity has got to get off world. We have access to life extension technologies. talk about discrimination...I want the advanced life extension!

I WANT TO GO TO SPACE. I WANT TO SEE INTERDIMENSIONAL TRAVEL. I WANT WHAT GOD PROMISED US. AND i WON'T SIT HERE AND WATCH SATAN STEAL IT!!! THAT'S THE FIGHT, THAT'S THE KEY!!

Drumpf was on this guy's show just a few months ago and had this to say to Alex Jones....

Washington (CNN)  Donald Trump is heaping praise on a radio host who has asserted that the U.S. government was involved in the Oklahoma City bombing and the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down," Trump told Alex Jones during a Wednesday afternoon appearance on the Infowars.com proprietor's show.

Jones shared the love, telling Trump that "my audience, 90% of them, they support you."

Jones, who has advanced a number of conspiracy theories, gained prominence as a 9/11 "truther."

He has previously asserted on his radio show that there is a "98% chance this was a government-orchestrated controlled bombing.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/donald-trump-praises-9-11-truther-alex-jones/

So Donald Drumpf told a whacked out of his mind wingnut radio host, who believes the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing, the 9/11 attacks and the Sandy Hook massacre were all government staged events in order to take your freedom and your guns from you, that his "reputation is amazing,  I will not let you down."

The Gadfly implores his dear readers ---- the Presidency of the United States of America requires a man, or woman, with the intellectual and mental capacity to make decisions that are in the best interests of this nation's continued existence, as well as the competent welfare of the nation's economy and the social and political stability of it's citizens.

Do you Drumpf supporters truly believe that someone who has publicly declared that the mental institute escapee Alex Jones is an individual with an "amazing reputation" should be in charge of the world's greatest democracy and most powerful military?  Fucking really?????

Much more importantly though for those who still have at least half of a brain to think with -- do you trust a man with such judgement skills to orchestrate the future quality of economic and social life of your children and grandchildren?

Look in the closest mirror and ask yourself that question.  The quicker, the better.



----TFG