It's All For Show

45* sweats bullets thinking his presidency isn't legit - to the point where he's willing to spin complete bullshit like "massive voter fraud", and "we oughta have a nice parade to show everybody how much the military loves me".

And of course, Bobby Three Sticks gives him nightmares even when he's not officially asleep (we may see him walking around with his eyes open, but that don't mean he's actually awake, y'know?)

That moment when your wife resists holding your hand... PRICELESS. 🤣🤣 @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/hDpPddTv5C

— BetsyBits (@BetsyBits) April 24, 2018

 

Melania's been kinda FLOTUS-ey lately, and it makes me wonder what that's costing him. 

Remember, this is a guy who's had to pay practically every woman in his life to do the things he wants them to do.

Did they negotiate a price list?

Per Appearance, solo....................................$ 50,000

Per Appearance, w/ POTUS.........................$100,000

w/ Hat, add....................................................$    2,500

w/ Physical Contact, add...............................$250,000

After Business Hours (eg: State Dinners).....call for quote

It's almost literally nothing but a show. And I know we've been saying that for years, but there're people in this country who tell us they believe this shit's real. Or that they think this shit's OK because what we really need is somebody who'll get in there and just disrupt the fuck out of it - and besides, if it makes some Librul mad enough to cry, then it's Mission Accomplished.

Privatizers Gone Wild

The best political maneuvers are the ones that stand a fair chance of accomplishing something positive for your agenda no matter the outcome.

So here we go - 45*'s attempts to manufacture a little dust-up with Amazon and USPS are intended (I think) to further dismantle good government while bashing Unions, and lining the pockets of Congress Critters and their Cronies.

WaPo:

Trump issued an executive order forming an administration task force, to be chaired by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and directed it to evaluate the Postal Service’s finances and operations. The order also directs the task force to issue a report outlining proposed changes within 120 days.

The order states that the Postal Service has incurred $65 billion of cumulative losses since the Great Recession ended in 2009 and that it must make changes so that it operates under “a sustainable business model.”

Trump’s order stipulates that “the steep decline in First-Class Mail volume, coupled with legal mandates that compel the USPS to incur substantial and inflexible costs, have resulted in a structural deficit where revenues are no longer sufficient to fund the pension liabilities and retiree health obligations owed to current employees.”
The libertarians in Congress can't stand thinking anything the government does might actually succeed or do something good for people without turning a profit for some Rent-Seeking Crony. And since a lot of them believe it's all good and proper for them to behave like Coin-Operated Politicians, they'll do what UPS or FedX tell them to do.

So 45* gets to bash WaPo (he thinks) by voicing his deep concern for the solvency of USPS, in order to fuck over Jeff Bezos, while ordering an audit of USPS, partly to punish them for being all Government-y and shit, and to make sure they're not involved in any dirty dealing because, well, you know how those union people are, and besides that, we need to make sure that the tax money that USPS doesn't get  is being spent wisely and blah blah blah, and what the fuck is anybody even talking about!?!

45* throws all the shit up in the air, which is intended to keep everybody busy while he does whatever he wants us not to be able to see because of all the shit in the air.

The Union Busters and Privatizers go right along with him because in confusion there is opportunity.

And the kicker is that USPS is not really part of the federal government. They own a monopoly on the use of your mailbox, and that's really about it.

But "conservatives" like to build it into a very useful Straw Man and score big political points at the expense of people just trying to do job for us - which of course has become what the GOP is pretty much all about.

Today's Quote

(Pass this one along to your congress critters)

"If you can't take their money, drink their liquor, fuck their women, and then come in here the next day and vote against them, you don't belong here."

--California Treasurer Jesse (Big Daddy) Unruh, referring to lobbyists

Blood Money

Just spoke to Broward School Superintendent. Today is that terrible day you pray never comes.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 14, 2018

Rubio = $3.3 Million from NRA

I am heartbroken for the students & family of those involved in this horrible tragedy & I'm praying for our first responders as they act swiftly to contain the situation. https://t.co/rCn5lFYhHP

— Cory Gardner (@SenCoryGardner) February 14, 2018

Gardner = $3.8 Million from NRA

Heartbreaking news out of Florida. Jane and I send our prayers to the school, the community, and the victims of this tragedy.

— Rob Portman (@senrobportman) February 14, 2018

Rob Portman = $3 Million from NRA

Praying for the students, teachers and first responders affected by the tragic shooting in Florida. Our hearts go out to the victims and their families.

— Bill Cassidy (@BillCassidy) February 14, 2018

Bill Cassidy = $2.9 Million from NRA

Tragic news out of Florida. Please keep the victims, their families, first responders and the community in your thoughts and prayers.

— Senator Thom Tillis (@SenThomTillis) February 14, 2018

Thom Tills = $4.4 Million from NRA

I'm devastated to hear about the tragedy in Florida. Praying today for the students and all those impacted.

— Congressman Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) February 14, 2018

Ken Buck = $800K

Please join me in praying for the students, faculty, and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, as well as their loved ones. Let us also show our gratitude to the courageous first responders.

— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) February 14, 2018

Joni Ernst = $3.1 Million

My heart breaks for all the families, teachers, and students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Praying for all affected by the tragic shooting in Florida today.

— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) February 14, 2018

RNC and GOP Candidates = $17.4 Million

My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting. No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 14, 2018

45* = $21 million from NRA

BTW - take a look at The Dunblane Massacre, Scotland, 1996.

The Big Score

MapLight:

U.S.-based multinational corporations that stand to benefit from a system that gives preferential treatment to foreign income have spent more than $82 million on lobbying in Washington since the beginning of the year.

The arithmetic:

Each YES vote in Congress cost these guys an average of $295,000. 

And the really big ones could realize a tax windfall in the billions of dollars over the next 10 years.

It's not a bad idea to look like a single-issue voter - telling every candidate you're most likely to vote for the ones who want to push back hard against Citizens United.

These people have to spend hours on the phone every day begging for money - and most of them say they hate it.

So at least put it at or near the top of your list of issues, and mention it every time you say anything about politics.

Citizen's United

Gerrymandering

Voter ID

Take your country back from the Rent-Seekers and their Coin-Operated Politicians.

Kimmel Fighting Back

Seems a little weird, but I think there's something happening with Libruls - they're getting up on their hind legs again.

Maybe Jimmy Kimmel isn't really "Liberal". Maybe he's just a guy who knows we need to try driving it down the middle - and in this ridiculous environment, he looks like a loonie leftie when he says anything of substance, or calls out a Ratpublican for lying to him - and now he's started to see that you don't get anything but fucked over when you play nice with some of these douche buckets.

A smiling hyena will still eat your kids

High Level Fuckery

...of the lowest order.

First, I gotta bail on my general editorial tenet of not playing the same bullshit game the GOP plays when referring (eg) to the "Democrat Party". 

Now, most of ya'll know I have no problem calling lots of folks names - bonehead, rube, fuckwad or whatever.  But I've always referred to the parties as Dems and Repubs - maybe it's just my quiet still voice telling me, "You never go full dickhead", dickhead.

I dunno, but at this point, I'm suspending that particular standard, and going with my new nickname for the GOP:

Ratpublicans

Cuz holy fuck, kids, this Graham-Cassidy thing is nothing but the most cynical piece of shit to come down the pike in a good long time.

Vox, Jeff Stein:

In interviews with Vox on Tuesday, nine Republican senators primarily argued that their “Hail Mary” bill — spearheaded by Sens. Lindsey Graham (SC) and Bill Cassidy (LA) — would return federal power to the states, giving them greater flexibility to improve their health systems locally. “The heart of the legislation takes the policymaking role of Washington and sends it to the states,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said.

Far less clear is exactly how Graham-Cassidy would pull off this feat without resulting in millions of Americans losing their insurance — and the number of millions is still unknown, since any vote would likely have to come before the Congressional Budget Office completes its analysis of the bill. The GOP senators insisted that the tens of billions in cuts to federal health spending proposed in the bill would not result in coverage losses because, they said, the states would have more flexibility.

“They can do it with less money,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who was unable to explain how or why.

Other Republican senators, meanwhile, fell back on political explanations for a bill that experts warn could result in millions losing their insurance. “If we do nothing, it has a tremendous impact on the 2018 elections,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS). “And whether or not Republicans still maintain control and we have the gavel.”

This is classic Argument By Assertion (or Repetition)

Imhofe says it saves lots of money, but he can't tell us how.

Cruz hits the old standby - premiums are skyrocketing under Obamacare.

And Special Pleading

Kennedy, arguing the states' rights angle, and trying to explain his proposed amendment to prohibit states setting up their own single-payer system: "We have plenty of federal rules that apply to every state, but we still agree with states’ rights."

And in case you missed it, The Koch Bros et al, have told the RNC the 2018 money well is dry unless Obamacare is repealed (see Pat Roberts above).

By STEVE PEOPLES, Associated Press

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — At least one influential donor has informed congressional Republicans that the "Dallas piggy bank" is closed until he sees major action on health care and taxes.

Texas-based donor Doug Deason has already refused to host a fundraiser for two members of Congress and informed House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., his checkbook is closed as well.

"Get Obamacare repealed and replaced, get tax reform passed," Deason said in a pointed message to GOP leaders. "You control the Senate. You control the House. You have the presidency. There's no reason you can't get this done. Get it done and we'll open it back up."

Corporatocracy

Lobbyists, Coin-Operated Politicians and self-subjugating citizens.

Newsweek, DAVID SIROTA, ALEX KOTCH, JAY CASSANO AND JOSH KEEFE:

The French company that says its Houston-area chemical plant is spewing "noxious" smoke—and may explode—successfully pressed federal regulators to delay new regulations designed to improve safety procedures at chemical plants, according to federal records reviewed by International Business Times.The rules, which were set to go into effect this year, were halted by the Trump administration after a furious lobbying campaign by plant owner Arkema and its affiliated trade association, the American Chemistry Council, which represents a chemical industry that has poured tens of millions of dollars into federal elections.

The effort to stop the chemical plant safety rules was backed by top Texas Republican lawmakers, who have received big campaign donations from chemical industry donors.

Representatives from Arkema Americas and the American Chemistry Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Today's Political Fuckery

Straight out of the Daddy State Playbook:

If everyone is guilty, then no one can be held to account.

Dallas Morning News, Ruth May:

Donald Trump and the political action committees for Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and John McCain accepted $7.35 million in contributions from a Ukrainian-born oligarch who is the business partner of two of Russian president Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs and a Russian government bank.

During the 2015-2016 election season, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonid "Len" Blavatnik contributed $6.35 million to leading Republican candidates and incumbent senators. Mitch McConnell was the top recipient of Blavatnik's donations, collecting $2.5 million for his GOP Senate Leadership Fund under the names of two of Blavatnik's holding companies, Access Industries and AI Altep Holdings, according to Federal Election Commission documents and OpenSecrets.org.

The shit is apparently wider than I thought, and it runs way deeper. 

Some probables:

• It'll take a good long time to get it sorted out and squared up
• we won't ever know but maybe half of the real story
• the loudest voices will belong to the dirtiest culprits

And don't forget there's a (continuing) concerted effort coming out of the Wingnut Dis-Infotainment Complex to gloss it over.

Fox Politics:

WOULD YOU EVEN CARE IF HE WAS GUILTY?

The stock market is up, unemployment is down and the economy seems to be picking up some steam. The streets are mostly safe, the nation is mostly secure and the world is mostly at peace.

So does it matter to you whether or not the president is a crook? The answer for a lot of Americans may be no.

With the revelation that a grand jury is looking at evidence against members of President Trump’s 2016 campaign team, we move closer still to the possibility that someone could be in very big trouble.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his squad are moving fast, and the likelihood that some charges will be brought can no longer be ignored. It is not hard to imagine a moment in the very near future where some associate of the president is in the dock, charged with misdeeds relating to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

But, again, we ask: Would it matter to you?

Deep And Dirty

Nico Hines, Daily Beast:

Members of the team of Russians who secured a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner also attempted to stage a show trial of anti-Putin campaigner Bill Browder on Capitol Hill.

The trial, which would have come in the form of a congressional hearing, was scheduled for mid-June 2016 by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), a long-standing Russia ally who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe. During the hearing, Rohrabacher had planned to confront Browder with a feature-length pro-Kremlin propaganda movie that viciously attacks him—as well as at least two witnesses linked to the Russian authorities, including lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
Rosie Gray, The Atlantic:

Paul Behrends, a top aide to Representative Dana Rohrabacher, has been ousted from his role as staff director for the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that Rohrabacher chairs, after stories appeared in the press highlighting his relationships with pro-Russia lobbyists.

“Paul Behrends no longer works at the committee,” a House Foreign Affairs Committee spokesperson said on Wednesday evening.

Behrends accompanied Rohrabacher on a 2016 trip to Moscow in which Rohrabacher said he received anti-Magnitsky Act materials from prosecutors. The Magnitsky Act is a 2012 bill that imposes sanctions on Russian officials associated with the 2009 death in prison of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had been investigating tax fraud. Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian attorney and lobbyist who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower last year, reportedly brought up the Magintsky Act during the meeting.

Seems like Russian fuckery via Congress Critter fuckery just gets wider and deeper at every turn.

Small "c" Conservative

The Senate Appropriations Committee reports that the F-35 testing program is coming along nicely.

Gotta remember to remember that a rapacious and opportunistic Congress is still in session, hiding behind the rationalization that they have to stay at "work" and give the people the business do the people's business.

Dan Grazier at The American Conservative:

Despite warnings of poor performance and spiraling costs from at least three oversight agencies, both Congressional armed services committees voted to add new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft to the president’s appropriations request and approved a three-year block buy.

The final number has yet to be hashed out, but if the Senate gets its way, taxpayers will buy 94 F-35s in 2018. That would mean more than 800 F-35s would be purchased before the design has been fully tested.

Congress’s actions here are disappointing. What is even more disturbing is the justification provided for those actions in the House. (The Senate language is not yet available.) Buried deep within Rep. Mac Thornberry’s (R-Texas) “Chairman’s Mark” of the FY18 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), is a lengthy rationalization of the F-35 double-down plan. The authors of the offending appendix include lots of details, but they failed to give a complete picture. The full story, of course, would have undermined the current appeal for digging farther into the F-35 hole.

Rachel

Rachel Maddow via Stitcher (audio only) - the A Block is good and long and ties things together pretty well:

AHCA

75% of us are on record saying we don't want ACA repealed. We want it fixed and strengthened.

What's the big bugbear according to Business "conservatives"?  Uncertainty.  

You really can't make a case that AHCA does anything at all to make Americans feel more certain. Especially the way the Repubs are going about it.

But, hey at least they've given us a chance to see it before they jam it up our collective ass. 

The AHCA was released today - in all it's 142 page glory.

I haven't slogged all the way thru it yet, but so far, it's a little like the old bit about watching the original Star Trek - everybody knows the young guy you don't recognize (usually a Red Shirt) will be dead before the opening credits.  And 4 or 5 minutes after that first commercial, you'll know the gist of the story because there's only a handful of themes (kinda like this little blog here), and it always works out just fine for the Executive Elite (not at all like this little blog).  Which frees you up so you can go do something worthwhile - like picking fly shit outa your pepper shaker.

Anyway, so it is with practically everything these GOP boneheads come up with.  They put a nice face on it, but it's pretty much always about taking tax dollars from you and me, and putting them into the pockets of their in-laws, their lobby pals, and their campaign contributors.

It's money laundering. Why do you think the GOP in congress is doing nothing about 45*?  When it comes to washing money, he's one of the best - they're too busy taking lessons from this jagoff.

If you wanna know about a problem here in USAmerica Inc, look to who benefits from the continuing existence of the problem, or who profits from "solving" it. 

If you work it just right, you can get a 2-fer, like The War On Drugs and Coin-Operated Prisons.

AHCA is off to a good start in that regard. The Insurers get to go back to the bad ol' days of a Pick-n-Choose customer base, plus they get to siphon bunches of dollars out of the Treasury by playing in the High Risk Pool.  And that's just the shit I can see from here.

The rich get richer and the rest of us get fucked with our pants on.

Big Fat Loser

WaPo is (finally) starting to get after it in the bigly kinda way we've been needing them to do for - well, let's just say, "For a long fucking time!"

Catherine Rampell:

A month ago, House Republicans — at the White House’s urging — shoved a terrible health-care bill through to a vote. They did so without knowing how much it would cost, how many people would lose insurance under the bill, whether it would meet Senate rules required for a budget reconciliation vote or even what was in the legislation. Some legislators admitted that they had not read it before voting.

This collective ignorance was deliberate. They didn’t want to know the verdict on any of these matters, because if they did, they might have to admit to the public — and to themselves — that they’d come up short. Better to celebrate that they did something than learn how shoddy that something was.

We have a dysfunctional federal government in place, and the reasons for that dysfunction - while not solely the fault of one of our major parties - is largely because Repubs have been winning seats in congress using a tried-n-true formula:

1) Fuck something up

2) Point at it and say, "Hey look, that's all fucked up."

3) Campaign on "fixing" the problem 

4) Once in office, it's "Wow - this is worse than I thought - but I'm willing to make the sacrifice and stay here doing the people's work blah blah cha-ching blah blah".

Remember now - St Ronnie Rayguns always told us the problem is the government, so for a fat slice of the American pie made up of the rubes who swallow any little piece of shit that floats by, plus a bunch of Watch-It-Burn types, somehow it makes sense to put people in charge who say they'll fix it while they stay there for a good long time getting richer by looking for the next opportunity to fuck something up so they can stay on the gravy train that they've convinced their voters is awful and so they need to re-elect them to keep fighting the good fight to shut the whole thing down.

Throw in a negligent (sometimes deliberately complicit) Press, and it really is just a ginormous Reality TV show.

People with living thinking brains don't accept this nonsense as the way it needs to be.

Sonny Perdue

Sonny Perdue is our new Sec'y of Agriculture (by a vote of 87-11).

Follow the Wikipedia link and read the bio, because I'm not gonna spend much time here bitchin' about his "commitment to the American farmer", which is code for "take good care of ADM and Monsanto, and the little guys will be plenty grateful for the crumbs".

What I dislike most is that a guy born 70 years ago, and named George Ervin Perdue III - a full-sized adult grown-ass man - is still called Sonny.

That's what I really don't love about The South.

Here's the Washington Post piece on it.

Daily Outrage

Because, apparently, they are the assholes we've suspected they are for 35 years.

Vox:

Republican legislators liked this policy well enough to offer it in a new amendment. They do not, however, seem to like it enough to have it apply to themselves and their staff. A spokesperson for Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) who authored this amendment confirmed this was the case: members of Congress and their staff would get the guarantee of keeping this Obamacare regulations. Health law expert Tim Jost flagged me to this particular issue.

A bit of background is helpful here. Obamacare requires all members of Congress and their staff to purchase coverage on the individual market, just like Obamacare enrollees. The politics of that plank were simple enough, meant to demonstrate that if the coverage in this law were good enough for Americans than it should be good enough for their representations in Washington.

That’s been happening for the past four years now. Fast-forward to this new amendment, which would allow states to waive out of key Obamacare protections like the ban on pre-existing conditions or the requirement to cover things like maternity care and mental health services.

If Congressional aides lived in a state that decided to waive these protections, the aides who were sick could be vulnerable to higher premiums than the aides that are healthy. Their benefits package could get skimpier as Obamacare’s essential health benefits requirement may no longer apply either.

Pimping The Obvious

WaPo:

The nation’s opioid epidemic is changing the way law enforcement does its job, with police officers acting as drug counselors and medical workers and shifting from law-and-order tactics to approaches more akin to social work.

Departments accustomed to arresting drug abusers are spearheading programs to get them into treatment, convinced that their old strategies weren’t working. They’re administering medication that reverses overdoses, allowing users to turn in drugs in exchange for treatment, and partnering with hospitals to intervene before abuse turns fatal.

“A lot of the officers are resistant to what we call social work. They want to go out and fight crime, put people in jail,” said Capt. Ron Meyers of the police department in Chillicothe, Ohio, a 21-year veteran who is convinced that punitive tactics no longer work against drugs. “We need to make sure the officers understand this is what is going to stop the epidemic.”

Officers are finding children who were barricaded in rooms while their parents got high, and they are responding to the same homes for the same problems. Feelings of exasperation course through some departments in which officers are interacting with the same drug users over and over again, sometimes saving their lives repeatedly with naloxone, a drug that reverses an opiate overdose.

How much more are we going to expect the cops to do? I like it better that they're helping people instead of shooting them, but we can't just keep piling more tasks on them because we're not willing to be inconvenienced by it all.

Anyway, isn't it amazing how "the drug problem" can move so suddenly from, "government handouts and mollycoddling won't make up for the moral deficiency of those people", to something more like, "maybe we should start looking at this as a public health issue".

And gee - it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the enormously powerful circle jerk of Coin-Operated Politicians, and their buddies in the Rent-a-Prison bidness, and the DEA as an organization of Confiscation For Fun and Profit with guns and permission to fuck you out of everything you own.

The truly obvious though, is simply that the drug thing really hasn't mattered as long as it was "an urban problem", and we were just fucking over the brown people. Now that it's come to the great American Cracker Barrel, we should try something that might be a better approach? Something we could've been doing this whole time? Because it works better? And we've always known that?

Two things:

1. I wonder how many well-connected leeches will suddenly discover their life-long passion for providing Re-Hab services - as a proper Market-Based solution, you understand -  and of course financed by taxpayers.
2. This is another one of those things the hippies have been trying to get the cement heads to understand for a very long time.

And you can color me un-fucking-surprised.

We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men

Predicting disaster
Expecting disaster
Wanting disaster
Facilitating disaster
Causing disaster

When we stop believing people in positions of leadership can deliver on promises of hope and progress, we get this weird protection racket thing going - where we're told evermore frightening tales of how the bad guys are trying get us - and eventually, that means the people who get the most attention are the ones who have the darkest imaginations, driven by their own paranoia &/or ambition for power.

We put 'em in charge, and sometimes they start to think "keeping their promises" means they at least have to give us a taste of the misery and destruction that they warned us about, and that they alone can save us from.

And suddenly, we have to figure out how to protect ourselves from our protectors.

Here's the thing: I refuse to cower behind the Daddy State while Lobbyists and their Coin-Operated Politicians continue lining their pockets with my tax dollars.

And also too, Best of the Left podcast:

Framing

The Trump Scampaign®

Aside from a few - Jeb, Kasich, McCain, and some others - Repubs "running" for POTUS have had a distinct aroma. Take it, John:

It's been said before, by people smarter than me - and as such, bears repeating as long as the grass grows and the wind blows - Trump is not some kind of weird anomaly. Trump is doing what the GOP has spent 30 years telling their voters to look for, and prodding them to vote for.

And BTW - try not to think about the fact that Nu-Skin is very much the reason Jason Chaffetz is in office:

Accused in several states of operating an illegal pyramid scheme, the Provo-based multilevel marketing firm has decided to mount an offensive. Nu Skin takes issue with the way national and local media have portrayed the company."Enough is enough," said Jason Chaffetz, Nu Skin administrative assistant for public relations. "We're frustrated and disturbed that a number of inaccuracies continue to be perpetuated."