Right along with lots of others, I've been pissin' and moanin' about the Culture of Corruption and the fact that we've evolved a system of Legalized Bribery for quite a while.
In late October, just weeks ahead of the election, President-elect Donald Trump made a quick detour to Washington for the official opening of his new five-star hotel, just a few blocks from the White House.
During a ribbon-cutting ceremony, Trump told the crowd that the two-year, roughly $200 million renovation project at the historic Old Post Office Building was done ahead of schedule and under budget, thanks to what he called an incredible team of people — "including hundreds of construction workers, electricians, maintenance workers and so many others who helped make this project a reality. They're really the important ones."
Now some of those companies would like final payment for their work. Documents obtained by NPR show three Washington-area companies have filed liens against Trump International Hotel totaling more than $5 million.
--and--
Sterling, Va-based A&D Construction filed a lien in November saying it was owed $79,700. The firm's lawyer, Richard Sissman, says A&D is a small, Hispanic-owned company that was subcontracting on the Trump hotel project.
"The nature of the work was ... trim and casework and architectural millwork, wall base, crown molding; this is all fine carpentry," he says.
Sissman says A&D's lien is relatively small compared to the other two, but it's a lot of money to his client.
"On these big jobs these should be paid. It's ridiculous that a small-time operator has to beg for its money," he says. "It's put him in a very bad situation right now."
This has been Trump's whole history - Over-Promise and Under-Deliver. Trump is the embodiment of the same old Autocratic Hyper-Predatory Capitalism that the founders risked everything fighting to get rid of (it's just been updated to fit our "modern" version of a very old paradigm), ie: "I don't owe you according to our contract - I only owe you what my lawyers can't prevent your lawyers from forcing me to pay you."
Guess what happens as of January 20th, when Trump thinks he owns it all, and that he can do whatever he wants to do because he's convinced there's nobody left who can force him to do what's right, and nobody to force him not to do what's wrong. In the end, the only thing that really stands against the impulse to do shitty things to people is a man's sense of honor - and there is no honor in that man.
On Friday morning, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted a request for House and Senate intelligence committees to investigate the leak of a classified intelligence report to NBC News reporters.
“I am asking the chairs of the House and Senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it,” he tweeted. "Before I, or anyone, saw the classified and/or highly confidential hacking intelligence report, it was leaked out to @NBCNews. So serious!" he added on Sunday.
But how likely is such an investigation to happen, and what would happen if it did? Attorneys that have represented journalists and government employees say that such an investigation would be extremely unusual, with only one comparable hearing, held in 1976.
So, for now, a move against NBC is unlikely - the Congress Critters know they can't spank reporters without getting their own tits caught in the wringer - the usual political reality of Safety By Mutual Culpability - but Trump doesn't really care about that. It may look like a Drain The Swamp opportunity, but he just uses that as cover to further his own ends. It's another chance for him to stand in the middle and play the factions against each other. He doesn't care about the leak, and he doesn't care about the info. He cares about whether or not he can use the situation to (eg) punish "The Lugenpresse" for being mean to him, while keeping the option to hit back against "enemies" on Capitol Hill by threatening to torch a few of their staffers etc etc etc. Because it's not about right or wrong - legal vs illegal - to a guy like Trump, these things are of no value in themselves; they're fungible. Their value is determined only by their usefulness as trade goods in The Marketplace of Power. It's always and only about the simple binary: Pro-Trump vs Anti-Trump. That's his strength and that's what makes him very very dangerous. Not because he plays the same ol' game (and he is playing the same old game), but because he plays that game while pretending he's not playing it - or he can not play it while pretending he is playing it - or any combination that he thinks suits his purpose at any given moment. And since the rubes have been sold on the idea that there is no objective reality anyway, they just get in line and away we go.
According to a Gallup poll released Monday, Americans have significantly less faith in Trump than they had in his predecessors. Only 44% said they are confident Trump will avoid major scandals in his Administration, 46% said they are confident in Trump’s ability to handle an international crisis, and 47% said they trust him to use military force wisely. When the same questions were asked at the start of Barack Obama’s, George W. Bush’s and Bill Clinton’s terms, roughly three-quarters of Americans said they had confidence in the newly elected President in these areas.
When compared with Gallup’s averages of confidence polling in his predecessors, Trump comes up short: he has a 32-point confidence deficit in his ability to avoid scandals in his Administration, a 29-point deficit in his ability to use military force well and a 28-point deficit in his ability to manage the Executive Branch. Most Americans (60%) believe Trump will be able to get things done with Congress, but even there he comes up far behind his predecessors — the average number of Americans with confidence in Obama, Bush and Clinton to work with Congress was 82%.
The main thing (for me), is that Trump has benefited greatly from Low Expectations. And that's become kind of a standard play with the GOP in the last 25 years or so - The Empty Vessel; the guy with no experience and no practical know-how or training; coming in to do a job that he's woefully unprepared to do. We've become so dis-enamored with politicians that we've gone completely the opposite direction, arriving at a point where we've adopted a straight-up contradiction as our guiding principle:
Anybody with the right qualifications for the job is obviously unqualified.
That weird sound you hear is Ayn Rand doing a series of over-exaggerated zombie face palms.
It's hard to miss Gingrich's deft use of the passive voice. He is a master at getting the listener to think he's just talking about stuff in very general non-threatening terms, and that he's far above any of the mundane power-grubbing shenanigans that go on down there in the swamp. And that's what Trump needs him for - Newt's role is to teach the Trumpkinites all the Media Relations tricks they need to normalize the shit storm. The point that really stands out for me: Gingrich saying Trump can use a very broad application of the Presidential Pardon in order to get around the fact that he plans on ordering people to do things that're obviously illegal. Let that one percolate for just a bit.
The bearer has done what was done in the name of the king and for the good of the state. --Richelieu
I guess when Newton Leroy Gingrich read The Three Musketeers, he concluded that Cardinal Richelieu was the good guy(?) We are so fucked.
There is something kind of appealing to the notion of just blowing it all up and starting over. But you almost never get anything straightened out or settled that way. What you wanted the new thing to look like when you started the destruction is never what you end up with. Revolutionaries always come in promising bread and freedom, and they always fail to deliver anything but a very long period of even greater suffering, because all that really happens is an exchange of one Ruling Elite for another.
That's about all it takes. The lady repeats the assertions she's heard her authority figures make, and she tries to back up those assertions by repeating the "supporting arguments" she's heard from those same figures, but as each bit of "evidence" is challenged and refuted, she eventually retreats all the way back to "I believe".
Once you have the Authoritarian Frame in place, all you have to do is make assertions and the true believers will fall in line. It's not as simple as it seems of course, but if I have to boil it down to baseline premises, that's why the God-Knobbers make such good Republicans.
This was a simple exercise in Asserting Dominance. Because Donald Trump is a fucking dog that has to piss on the food so all the other dogs know who it belongs to.
I'll give Romney some props tho' - just for making even this feeble attempt at bringing something a bit more honorable to the shit show.
Know this tho', every one of these "establishmentarians" (who aren't out on the wingnut fringe) is auditioning for the part of Franz von Papen.
I sure as fuck hope this ends better than I think it's gonna end.
Charlie Pierce always refers to Reince Priebus as "Obvious Anagram Reince Priebus", and all I could ever got was "Rubes Epic Rein". That's pretty close, but not quite as satisfying as the one Samantha Bee came up with. BTW - If you haven't already, start listening for the standard "Know Nothing" signals. There's a really good one from Paul Ryan in this clip at about 2:10 when Sam goes to the CNN bit. And it continues with Newt saying he's never even heard of The Alt-Right.
My inclination right now is to tell Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon (eg) - and everybody else who sat on their asses complaining about Hillary instead of chopping the wood and carrying the water - my first inclination is tell y'all to fuck off.
Show the fuck up or shut the fuck up.
I'm nowhere near as calm or as gracious as either Hillary (or Kate pretending to be Hillary).
It may be a while before I'm at all pleasant to be around. And I'm not begging your indulgence here. I'm not asking anybody for anything - not your patience, not your understanding, nothin'. Ya pays your money and ya takes your chances.
I'll try to suck it up; rub some dirt on it; walk it off and get back in there. Just know that if you say anything that sounds like "Told-Ya-So" or the fantasy bullshit about Bernie and unicorns and rainbows and free puppies, I'm likely to tell you to take a flying fuck at a rollin' donut.
Large percentages of American voters believe in angels and talking snakes. They think Creationism isn't much different from Evolution. Half or more of the US population can't name the 3 branches of government. 40% can't identify North America on a map. And about a third don't know that the Earth orbits the sun.
They were convinced Hillary would abolish the 2nd amendment, outlaw Christianity and convert the US to Sharia law by importing millions of Muslims from Syria to slaughter her Christian enemies. And just because she could, she'd go ahead and suspend the rest of the Constitution because Presidents don't really need that shit anyway. (I'm not making any of that up, btw - that's all from actual conversations with actual rubes over the last several months - and there's plenty more where that came from)
I think I finally get what driftglass has been saying for quite a while.
Get over the idea that a well-reasoned argument will bring the "conservatives" over to your side. You can tell 'em your Democrat or that other Democrat or this Socialist or that Independent thinks just like they do, and that if they could just listen for a minute, maybe we could make some common cause and blah blah fucking blah.
"Conservatives" have become Informationally Isolated. Guess what happens when part of a species is totally isolated from the rest of that species?
In a small simplistic nutshell, here's what it comes down to, Lefties: - You Are The Liberal Elite as far as the rubes are concerned. You can make as much noise as you want. You can stomp and stumble and trash the jungle, but there it is - they believe you're no different from Hillary, so You.Are.The.Liberal.Elite.
You wanna tell everybody what they can eat and what kinda exercise they hafta do and what cars they can drive and what light bulbs they're allowed to own and on and on and on.
It doesn't matter that you're not trying to dictate anything to them - it doesn't matter that all you wanna do is convince them to give it a shot and see for themselves...what did I just say?!
They don't fucking care what's true - they only care about what they believe
Here's the kicker - as far as I'm concerned, you just handed it all over to them because you were too busy breathing your own farts, and so you didn't show up.
I'll keep hoping the really shitty parts of this nightmare don't materialize, but now the GOP is one simple-majority vote away from changing the filibuster rule in the Senate - and then the game is fucking over. The Republic dies. And if that's how it works out, then all we're doing right now is arguing over who gets to do what with the corpse.
'Course, I'm sure you'll have a grand old time finally getting your chance to lie down in front of that tank.
Like I said, I keep hoping - and if there's any chance down the road, I suspect I'll be right back chopping wood and carrying water again, but yeah - not gonna be very pleasant for a while.
“Imagine that you are a mortgage lender. Are you going to lend people money for 30 years if they don’t have the security of employment?” Johnston said, offering an example of how the successful push by the technology sector to undermine and overturn the labor laws created during the New Deal are tilting too far toward piecemeal purveyors and will create new instability.
“People are working without salary, benefits, and the stability to buy a house and raise a family,” he said, saying that the blame can be placed at the foot of high-tech lobbyists who have donated to congressional campaigns and federal officeholders who subsequently loosened federal laws to their benefit.
Meanwhile, according to Pew’s New Digital Economy report, 61 percent of Americans have never heard of “crowdfunding,” 73 percent are not familiar with the “sharing economy,” and 89 percent have never heard of the “gig economy.”
The big picture painted by Johnston, who is a registered Republican but schooled in the belief that business prospers when wages and benefits are reliable and income is spent locally, was the fundamentals of middle-class stability are being further eroded by a new technology-based oligarchy. Despite all the hip apps and marketing, gig economy profits are only going to executives while the jobs offered are intrinsically unstable, fiscally unpredictable and most of the risk and expense are placed on contract workers.
But not to worry, Oligarchs - the great American Intellect Deficit is forever on your side:
Meanwhile, according to Pew’s New Digital Economy report, 61 percent of Americans have never heard of “crowdfunding,” 73 percent are not familiar with the “sharing economy,” and 89 percent have never heard of the “gig economy.”
Bathroom bills aren't about bathrooms. And they're not just about amping up the rubes to GOTV.
1st, they know these stoopid laws will be struck down, even tho' it'll take a good bit of time before somebody puts up a solid challenge. (remember, the money's on the side of Authoritarian Jesus) So they'll get to use it as a wedge for another cycle or two.
But 2nd, assuming the thing does get slammed eventually, there will be pieces left over. There're bits in the NC version that forbid county and municipal bodies putting up Anti-Discrimination Laws that run counter to what the state puts in place, and that torpedo people's right's to petition the courts.
To wit:
§ 95-25.1. Short title and legislative purpose. purpose; local governments preempted.
(c) The General Assembly declares that the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment is properly an issue of general, statewide concern, such that this Article and other applicable provisions of the General Statutes supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government or other political subdivision of the State that regulates or imposes any requirement upon an employer pertaining to the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment, except such regulations applicable to personnel employed by that body that are not otherwise in conflict with State law."
And:
§ 143-422.13. Investigations; conciliations.
"This Article does not create, and shall not be construed to create or support, a statutory or common law private right of action, and no person may bring any civil action based upon the public policy expressed herein."
And: § 143-422.2. Legislative declaration. "(a) It is the public policy of this State to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain and hold employment without discrimination or abridgement on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers which regularly employ 15 or more employees."
(notice anything missing from that last bit about discrimination?)
And:
PART IV. SEVERABILITY"SECTION 4. If any provision of this act or its application is held invalid, the invalidity does not affect other provisions or applications of this act that can be given effect without the invalid provisions or application, and to this end the provisions of this act are severable. If any provision of this act is temporarily or permanently restrained or enjoined by judicial order, this act shall be enforced as though such restrained or enjoined provisions had not been adopted, provided that whenever such temporary or permanent restraining order or injunction is stayed, dissolved, or otherwise ceases to have effect, such provisions shall have full force and effect.
So businesses and governments in NC have the legal right to discriminate against LGBTQ, and nobody has the right to go outside the state's Human Relations Commission for remedy. Isn't that just too fucking convenient?
Stop thinking this is about GOP foolishness and shenanigans-as-usual.
Start understanding how fucked up it is by recognizing it as another piece in a widening and increasingly effective assault on the Redress Clause of the 1st Amendment (at least that) - and prob'ly a whole lot more than that, because what kind of government do we get if citizens don't have access to the courts? - when we don't have the right to petition that government for redress?
Former Virginia Governor Robert (Vaginal Bob) McDonnell will stay out of federal prison for a bit longer. HuffPo:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up the case of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), who in October urged the justices to review his multiple convictions on federal corruption charges.
The justices' decision to hear the case effectively allows McDonnell to remain out of prison at least until the court issues a decision -- which could arrive as late as June.
McDonnell's lawyers are trying to convince the court that the kind of "official action" federal law treats as corruption -- and that a jury agreed McDonnell committed while governor -- was no more than "routine political courtesies," including activities such as "arranging meetings, asking questions, and attending events."
"This is the first time in our history that a public official has been convicted of corruption despite never agreeing to put a thumb on the scales of any government decision," McDonnell's lawyers wrote in their appeal to the Supreme Court. "Officials routinely arrange meetings for donors, take their calls, and politely listen to their ideas."
I think we need to be ready for the Roberts Court to use this case to strengthen the link between Money and Speech. It seems like these guys need to establish precedents that reinforce the system of Legalized Bribery that's been evolving from what continues to look more and more like our failed experiment in self-government.
Once upon a time we decided we'd do a little governmentin' to get Dow Chemical and Standard Oil and Honeywell (et al) to stop dumping all their shit into the water, and to stop filling the skies with lead and mercury and sulfur (et al) - we needed Gubmint to help defend us against Big Bidness. (remember now - Dick Nixon put the EPA together, but it was Johnson's idea because he loved working with the windows open on a spring day in DC, but he couldn't stand the stench of the Potomac wafting in on the breeze) Anyway, then we decided that was just too restrictive and job-kill-y, so we wanted Big Bidness to defend us against Big Gubmint, and we got all Animal Instinct-y and Free Market-y, and gee - looks like we're kinda back to where we started. 'Cept that now, it seems we'll be fighting to the death to decide whether Big Bidness or Big Gubmint will defend us against an evermore hostile environment. Good luck, kids. BTW - I'm in the market for some old aluminum cookware, hoping to push my Alzheimer's onset up by a decade or two so I don't hafta watch this shit happen.
Average global levels of carbon dioxide stayed above 400 parts per million, or ppm, through all of March 2015 -- the first time that has happened for an entire month since record keeping first began, according to data released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Scientists with NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory have called the news a "significant milestone" in the growing scourge of man-made climate change.
“This marks the fact that humans burning fossil fuels have caused global carbon dioxide concentrations to rise more than 120ppm since pre-industrial times,” Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA's greenhouse gas network, told The Guardian on Wednesday. “Half of that rise has occurred since 1980.”
Lotsa people spend lotsa time worrying about and wondering why it seems "The Millennial's" are so self-absorbed and uncaring. If ya get a chance to sit down and talk with a few of 'em, ask a coupla questions about the way we're runnin' the joint and what they think the future holds for them. And then try not to fuck up your knuckles too bad punching the mirror when you get home. They are the way we've taught them to be.
Conventional wisdom has it that Hillary's all set to waltz thru the primaries, and then stomp the fuck outa whatever poor slob the Repubs decide to throw into the jaws of Vagina Dentata dela Clintonia.
And this must not happen - "this" being a race that's not particularly exciting or close or competitive (ie: not conducive to lots of fat and juicy Ad Revenues for the Press Poodles to wallow in), so Scabrous Joe and Mika the Attack Bunny go to work to make sure we get that reassuring Both Sides pacifier shoved back into our maws before we get too mewly about it, and start asking the questions they can't afford to let us ask.
So let's allow my ridiculous imagination to run a little wild, and play it out to its logical extreme - what if electing the first woman POTUS is the latest in a string of The Mother of All Amber Alert Stories? And while we're busy playing grab-ass games over the prospect of President Hillary Clinton, the rest of what passes for freedom is neatly disposed of by a "government" being run by the dictates of corporate board members, not accountable to anyone for anything. Just wondering, and worth pondering.
...sounds a lot like 'other people's money', don't it? As long as I can count on all those rubes to follow along blindly and get their shots like the sheeple they are, then I can skip it and still be cool because I'm special and I don't have to do what you say because you're not the boss of me. The whole point is to grab all the benefits for myself (in this case Herd Immunity), and get everybody else to take the "risks" (which are ridiculously tiny, but pumped up by useful idiots in order to distract the rubes from the fact that I'm fuckin' 'em with their pants on in a thousand other ways that have not-one-fucking-thing to do with vaccinations). That's how we do it here in USAmerica Inc. I'm hard-pressed to come up with anything that could be a better example of Over-Privileged Ass-Hatted Self-Serving Fuckery. yeah, yeah, I said I wanted to stop with the Anti-Vax thing. But sometimes I think of something I shoulda thunk up before and I have to circle back. Besides - this shit's free, remember?
