What We're Talking About

Maybe I'm trying to be a little too much of a Big-Brain, but I've had to push back against "liberals" who've been taking shots at Chris Coons for doing this - not the fact that he's doing it, but the way he does it - "very dry and sterile".

Criticism of someone's style is legit. If you don't like the way the message is presented, it's less likely you'll take the message in and fully absorb it. But if we're just indulging ourselves in Anti-Intellectualism, we risk missing the point entirely, and that's decidedly unhelpful. The other side is quite accomplished when it comes to dumping on the Dems - they don't need our assistance.

And I don't need some kind of School House Rock version, if that's what you're getting at. I'm not a fucking child - I don't require spoon-feeding by way of entertainment.

On Chickens And Roosting

Ari Melber's The Beat on MSNBC, via Crooks & Liars:



Ari Melber covered a topic that would be getting national attention, were it not for the frenetic 24/7 news cycle coming out of the Trump administration.

Just after Mike Pompeo stepped down from CIA, Trump declared that he was promoting Gina Haspel to run the CIA, touting her as a great choice. Well, many Americans have a different opinion. Both Democrats and Republicans have reservations leading back to Haspel's past history as the person who had oversight over a CIA "black site" in Thailand. While an open investigation into torture was underway, evidence was destroyed. Haspel claims to not have given the order for tapes to be destroyed, though.

Ari Melber discussed this in an extensive segment on his nightly show, The Beat, on Tuesday night. It was hard hitting, deep dive into what Haspel's confirmation could mean for our country, as well as how we would be viewed by the world.
Olbermann, Special Comment, 11-05-2007:



(paraphrasing) Torture causes people to plead, and to break, and to provide the most authentic-sounding fiction - it does not cause them to tell us the truth.

Gina Haspel is implicated in the effort to cover up the crimes of the CIA. It's not unreasonable to think she's looking to complete that project, and if she's willing to go that far, there's nothing to keep me from thinking she'd be willing to let 45* use the CIA against American citizens on American soil.

I hope she's just intending to polish up the CIA's image and to protect its standing in the federal power structure. But she's compromised, which can be a very bad thing in itself, and could easily mean she'll be further compromised, feeling the need to do more bad things as she tries to compensate for all those other bad things - and on and on and on.

That's the kind of geometric expansion of shit that happens when we refuse to hold government accountable because we've become comfortably numb and we only really care about "our team" winning.

Of Guns And Skateboards

I don't know what to make of this.

Bad guys good guys pic.twitter.com/jAwmoii0q7

— someone (@Sadenss) February 12, 2018

 

This Slope Seems So Slippery

GOP base interviewing one of their prime candidates

A New(ish) Wrinkle

Ol' Doc Maddow lined this out quite a while ago, talking about conflicts of interest and such.

And then, boom - there it is.

Abha Bhataria at WaPo:

Guests at 14 Trump properties, including hotels in Washington, New York and Vancouver, have had their credit card information exposed, marking the third time in as many years that a months-long security breach has affected customers of the chain of luxury hotels.

The latest instance occurred between August 2016 and March 2017, according to a notice on the company’s website, and included guest names, addresses and phone numbers, as well as credit card numbers and expiration dates. The breach took place on the systems of Sabre Hospitality Solutions, a reservation booking service used by Trump Hotels, but did not compromise the Trump Hotels’ systems.

1. The (Russian?) mob loves credit card shit - it's easy pickin's
2. Why 45*'s hotels specifically?
3. Is this an attack on the hotels, or is this an attack on US interests?
4. How do we tell the difference?
5. If there's a response, what will that response be?
6. If there's no response - or a nominal/weak shit response - what can we reasonably surmise from that in itself?

BTW - remember that F-35 bullshit I posted about earlier? It seems we're not addressing a pretty important question - 

When we know the Russians are attacking us in Cyberspace, why the fuck are we beefing up on hardware to fight a battle in Meatspace?

- and it seems we're avoiding that question with increased vigor since January 20th this year.

The GOP Plan

Coming soon to an America near you.

The two party system in America... pic.twitter.com/QkGtbTUrOH

— Timothy Tingley (@timothy_tingley) January 5, 2017

Cuz I can. Cuz you can't stop me. Cuz if you stop me, I'll find another way to fuck you over. 

Cuz that's how we do things now.

I get to do whatever you can't force me to stop doing.

Cuz fuck you, that's why.

Today's Tweet

It's one big freak show and we're Front-Row-Center

CRAZY SURVEILLANCE VIDEO: Sex store employees fight off armed robber by throwing adult toys at him. @ABC7 at 4pm pic.twitter.com/E8QbuxJkEX

— Rob McMillan (@abc7robmcmillan) December 15, 2016

hat tip = MockPaperScissors

Pay It Heed, Dummy

And remember that while the Dems have been pretty much too quiet and too absent for too fucking long, the GOP is nothing but Guns-Everywhere-Kill-'Em-All-Let-God-Sort-It-Out.

You don't like it? Get up on your hind legs and do something about it.

Dangerously Silly

From Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone

The Bundy militiamen are like a Black September version of an Iron John forest retreat: a bunch of weepy middle-aged guys who dressed up in crisply pressed outdoorswear and took over a bird sanctuary so they could play outlaw for a few days while they "worked on themselves."

They gathered around a bonfire (there really was a bonfire) and presumably engaged in Robert Bly-style mythopoetic healing, getting back to their manly roots by stroking their rifles, wearing camo undies, and complaining about all the wrongs done to them by women/the federal government/wild birds/whoever.
About the camo: yes, the following actually happened. One of the militiamen, Melvin Lee, posted a video on Facebook (these guys are on social media more than most teenagers) where he complained about the popular misconceptions of the movement. "There's nobody in camouflage," said Lee, who was wearing a camouflage jacket. "Well, except for my jacket."

And yes, it did happen that Ritzheimer, who did remember to bring his paperback copy of the Constitution, actually sent out a tweet asking for care packages for things his compadres forgot to pack for their armed dude-seminar. They asked for socks, snacks, energy drinks (!), equipment for cold weather, snow camo, and "gear."

This was after Bundy had told reporters that the group was prepared to stay for "years" and had enough supplies to see them through. "We have food planned and prepared," he said.

Today's Gun Nut

A guy named Keith Ratliff was a major player on YouTube, advocating the glories of guns and fun-with-a-gun and the importance of having a gun for personal protection, etc.

Mr Ratliff was found dead of a single gunshot wound to the head last week in Georgia.

kentucky.com:

A Frankfort man who was a business partner of the popular YouTube video channel personality known as FPSRussia was found shot to death last week at their firearms business in Carnesville, Ga., a sheriff there said Tuesday.
Franklin County, Ga., Sheriff Steve Thomas said he was investigating the death of Keith Ratliff, 32, as a homicide. Ratliff, who his family said commuted between Frankfort and Georgia, was found Thursday with a single gunshot wound to the head.

Thomas said Tuesday that no arrests had been made. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also is investigating, he said.

So, we can just let all that sink in for a short moment.

It really sucks for his family; and his friends; and for whoever else is affected by the ripples created whenever anybody connected to any other human is suddenly gone.

I didn't know Ratliff, and while I won't be celebrating his death, I'm not gonna be shy about pointing out the simple fact that the irony here is thick enough to choke a fuckin' hippo.

ad more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/01/08/2468950/frankfort-man-who-died-in-georgia.html#storylink=cpy