Everybody Wants In On The Act

Reuters:

The German government has approved several arms export deals with countries in the Middle East, including delivery of 23 Airbus helicopters to Saudi Arabia, according to an Economy Ministry letter seen by Reuters on Monday.

On the one hand, there's something odd about being pretty sure that selling weapons to people in the Middle East is a pretty stoopid thing to do; while seeing it happen and starting to think maybe this is just what we do. Like stoopid is the new normal.

But then of course, I won't argue that Stoopid is somehow new, or that it's not particularly normal.

Anyway - it still looked like this was all about "small arms", so that's not as bad as it could be.  But then, Financial Times:

The minister cited a €1.6bn contract to sell Leopard 2 battle tanks to Qatar, “which I unfortunately can’t undo”. The deal, which received the government’s green light in 2013, was sharply criticised within Germany because of Qatar’s bombing of Yemen and its alleged support for Islamist groups in the Middle East.

I can't shake that queasy feeling whenever I see a tank with a Maltese Cross painted on it, y'know?

And the only thing worse is when one of the guys who's supposed to know what's going on just shrugs and says, "Oops - oh well, nuthin we can do about it now."

We are so fucked.

Today's Tweet

Reince Priebus: We can finally start playing offense!
Trump: Saddam Hussein was a great leader:
Reince Priebus: pic.twitter.com/7HIWJTIFgX

— jj (@TonyWay31) July 6, 2016

Today's Pix

Today's Today

It's Kinda Haunting

 

HuffPo:

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) had a hard time coming up with a reason why he supports presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump when pressed by Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning.

Cotton, a leading proponent of an aggressive neoconservative foreign policy, was asked by Todd whether he is closer in foreign policy terms to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton than Trump, who, while promoting a bombastic and confrontational foreign policy for the United States, has also called for the country to pull back from some international conflicts and commitments. Cotton had a hard time mustering up an answer.

Paul Ryan has had similar trouble trying to come up with something that wasn't too ridiculous when asked about his endorsement for Trump.

So these guys have had a hard time finding good answers for why they support a Trump candidacy, but not the candidate's policy positions.  Not a lot that's brand new in that - this shit can often come down to My Team vs Your Team, and this Trump thing just takes it out the Logical Extreme in a bigger hurry than most.

What really intrigues me is - how come two of the shiniest of the GOP's shiny new stars bear such an uncanny resemblance to Mr Bean with a beard?

Ah, But For Wales

It's a Welsh thing - there's no way for you to understand (hey - you do Ethnic your way, and I'll do it mine)

If only it didn't explain so well what's goin' on with the Trumpkinite Rubes.

Compare And Contrast

Tomorrow, on the day we commemorate the beginning of our experiment in self-government, it may be of some value to look at where we started, and try to gauge the probabilities of where we may be headed.

Here's the bedroom of King George III as it is supposed to have looked in the 18th century:

And now, the bedroom of a certain Populist "Billionaire", masquerading as a champion of the American Workin' Guy:

Questions? 

Scoreboard, Bitches

Today's Tweet

Donald's blatant anti-Semitic tweet----Bad!! pic.twitter.com/VkuUydh8b2

— Calyban (@Calybancalyban) July 2, 2016

The Trump Campaign later fixed the graphic, replacing the Star of David with a circle, and then deleting the original tweet.

This of course, accomplishes two things.  First, the original tweet got the message out to the people it was supposed to reach, and the controversy amps up the attention.

But the main thing is that now, they have a little plausible deniability.  They can claim the original was PhotoShopped to make them look bad because The Left is just that diabolical and they'll stop at nothing to destroy America's Truly Noble Conservatives blah blah blah. And that keeps things rolling with even more free media.

This shit doesn't happen by accident.

Yikes (NSFW)

Courtroom Transcript Reeactment Theater