More Than One Way

At last count, the number of Congress Critters who've said they won't attend the inauguration is pushin' towards 60.

Cummings nails the point when he says it's about the need to defend our institutions, and he's doing it his way while everybody else does it their way.

It sucks that this is where are are now.

It sucks that we're just kinda stuck with this particular battle.

It sucks that, by default, we have to own this bit of history.

It just sucks.

All we can be expected to do is to what we're able to do,

Hoping to be surprised at how able we are.

Embrace the suck

Do what you can do

Stay in the fight

resist

...but take a break once in a while too

Inside Out

I can't keep up. The twists and turns just in this one angle of this one story is enough to overload my circuits - which I think is mostly the point.  And unfortunately, it seems to be working pretty well.

HuffPo:

Two brief quotes from Breitbart’s interview with Prince should suffice:

Prince claimed he had insider knowledge of the investigation that could help explain why FBI Director James Comey had to announce he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s email server last week....”[NYPD] found a lot of other really damning criminal information [on Weiner’s computer], including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than twenty times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times,” he said. “The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress, was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI, and they said, ‘We’re going to go public with this if you don’t reopen the investigation and you don’t do the right thing with timely indictments,’” Prince explained. “I believe—I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at One Police Plaza in New York—the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making in this investigation, and they’ve gotten huge pushback, to the point of coercion, from the Justice Department.”

Virtually all of this is untrue. Prince continued:

“So NYPD first gets that computer. They see how disgusting it is. They keep a copy of everything, and they pass a copy on to the FBI, which finally pushes the FBI off their chairs, making Comey reopen that investigation, which was indicated in the letter last week. The point being, NYPD has all the information, and they will pursue justice within their rights if the FBI doesn’t. There is all kinds of criminal culpability through all the emails they’ve seen of that 650,000, including money laundering, underage sex, pay-for-play, and, of course, plenty of proof of inappropriate handling, sending/receiving of classified information, up to Special Access Programs....The point being, fortunately, it’s not just the FBI; five different offices are in the hunt for justice, but the NYPD has it as well....From what I understand, up to the commissioner or at least the chief level in NYPD, they wanted to have a press conference, and DOJ, Washington people, political appointees have been exerting all kinds of undue pressure on them to back down....This kind of evil, this kind of true dirt on Hillary Clinton—look, you don’t have to make any judgments. Just release the emails. Just dump them. Let them out there. Let people see the light of truth.”

Prince’s statements of November 4th—whether given with the knowledge that they were untrue or without any knowledge of their accuracy whatsoever—underscore the sort of disinformation Comey feared would be given to voters, and, more importantly, believed by voters, if he did not complete his investigation into the duplicate emails and announce his findings before Election Day. This alone explains his deviation from FBI protocol prohibiting discussion of open cases (and announcements regarding major investigations within two months of a general election).

While I guess you could make the point that this has happened more than once before, if you're making that argument as a way to shrug it off and rationalize your indifference to it - well, to be as polite and as diplomatic and as non-threatening as I think the situation requires - go fuck yourself with a dry pinecone.

Today's GIF

There's at least some minimal probability that Trump isn't the first president to harbor such proclivities, but I think it's a safe bet that this is the first time it's been so widely known.

And yeah OK, there's also a fair probability that he isn't really into that, but c'mon - it's Donald-fucking-Trump. What thoroughly horrible thing is there about the guy that we're supposed to think just couldn't possibly be true at this point?  He invites that impression as a means of attracting our attention - we wouldn't wanna be rude by denying him, would we?

Today's Tweet

Why are millions of PEOPLE UNFOLLOWING TRUMP?
BOYCOTTING THE INAUGURATION#RESISTANCE pic.twitter.com/IeD2lMiMWG

— stan maloney (@YerOpinion) January 19, 2017

Thank Goodness It Wasn't Me

On Trump's plan for the White House press corps:

Watch this video on The Scene.

So Here We All Are

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.

Wilbur Ross will oversee #Trump's business patents. He'll help Trump profit from the presidency. #RiggedCabinet pic.twitter.com/uaRNzemZff

— American Bridge (@American_Bridge) January 18, 2017

They don't even bother to pretend they're trying to hide it from us anymore.

As If It Matters Now

CNN:

Last year was officially the Earth's warmest since record-keeping began in the 1880s, the World Meteorological Organization announced Wednesday morning.

That means 2016 set a global heat record for the third year in a row according to NOAA and NASA, who held a joint press conference on Wednesday to discuss the record.

 

Kaboom

Bernie's right where we need him to be, doing exactly what we need him to do. 

And sometimes, I'd just like to be there to hold the guy's coat while he fucks 'em up.

It's a simple question, @RepTomPrice. Do you believe that health care is a right of all Americans, whether rich or poor? #PriceIsWrong pic.twitter.com/7IkfgWfauF

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 18, 2017

That's A Bit Much

I'm trying hard not to think of this as a harbinger, but I'm plenty old enough to remember when a Buddhist monk in Saigon did this very thing in protest of an oppressive Daddy State  (I think it may have been in my Weekly Reader in about 5th or 6th grade); and there was a regular guy named Norman Morrison who did it just outside the Pentagon to protest the war.

They succeeded in killing themselves but we went forward with the Vietnam project anyway and a coupla million people died; at least partly because we chose to ignore the warnings.

Paraphrasing MLK, violent protest is the language of people whose voices are unheard. Maybe we could listen to what's being said this time?

#BREAKING: Man lights fire near #TrumpInternationalHotel. Employees call police. Man told me he's from CA & protesting #TrumpInauguration pic.twitter.com/noUwttKRL5

— Shomari Stone (@shomaristone) January 18, 2017

via Raw Story

A man who attempted to set himself on fire Tuesday night in front Trump International as part of a protest against the incoming president was rushed to a hospital with burns, reports NBC4.

According to DC police, they were called to the newly opened hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue hotel after receiving a report of a person “in distress.”

Speaking with reporters, the unidentified man claimed he was attempting to set himself on fire to protest the election of businessman Donald Trump, whose inauguration is set for this Friday.

“I was trying to light myself on fire as an act of protest,” the man explained before he was taken to a nearby hospital. “To protest the fact that we’ve elected someone who is completely incapable of respecting the Constitution of the United States.”

There was no report on the extent of his injuries.

Today's Podcast

Bob and Chez:



On Press Poodles and Trump's "plan" to do what Trump always does - make nice with Daddy or Daddy will fuck you up.

Starting at about 25:00, we get to the meat of the matter as the guys illustrate what looks a lot like Trump's attempt to dismantle the tattered remains of the 4th Estate - ie: consider your exile a gift, because then you'll have practically nothing more to lose and that gives you the freedom to do your job the way it's meant to be done.  You're the receiver going over the middle - there's a safety or a linebacker looking to hammer somebody.  And make no mistake, he's gonna pound your ass whether you catch the ball or not - so catch the fuckin' football.