Today's Other Tweet

Sheriff tells Trump that state senator is doing something he doesn't like

Trump: "Do you want to give his name? We'll destroy his career." pic.twitter.com/75y3t9zc54

— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) February 7, 2017

It's not particularly unreasonable to be afraid.

Outwardly Cranky

Gary, who graduated high school with a smokin' 2.0 GPA, is complaining loudly about how Majeed (a Neurologist) wants to steal his job.

Ever notice how a lotta these job-stealing immigrants are coming from countries where they help kids with the cost of college and shit?

I wonder if that might work here.

hat tip = Vicki W-E

The So Called President

WaPo has a bit today about 45* saying he'll blame the Press Poodles and The Judiciary if there's a terrorist attack in USAmerica Inc.

President Trump appears to be laying the groundwork to preemptively shift blame for any future terrorist attack on U.S. soil from his administration to the federal judiciary, as well as to the media.

In recent tweets, Trump personally attacked James L. Robart, a U.S. district judge in Washington state, for putting “our country in such peril” with his ruling that temporarily blocked enforcement of the administration’s ban on all refugees as well as citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States.

“If something happens blame him and the court system. People pouring in. Bad!” Trump wrote in a tweet Sunday.

Then on Monday, Trump seemed to spread that blame to include news organizations. In a speech to the U.S. Central Command, the president accused the media of failing to report on some terrorist attacks for what he implied were nefarious reasons.

First of all, the piece makes it clear that we should all know by now that this is a guy who'll do anything to duck his responsibilities.

Second, anybody in any position to know something about such things is fully aware that an attack on US soil is the proverbial "when-not-if" proposition. 

But also too, since every attack in the US in the last 15 years or so can be attributed either to homegrown assholes or other assholes who're here legally, we have to conclude the system is working well enough to have been 100% effective in keeping Bad-Apple Refugees outa this joint.  So this is a very obvious and very standard play for power.

45* knows people fall for Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc assertions all the time. He's already taken credit for the Santa Claus Rally in December, and more recently, the good jobs report from Obama's last month in office.  So he can take credit for "preventing terror attacks" if his Muslim Ban sticks, and he's setting the stage for blaming Refugees for the attack he knows is coming eventually, as well as shifting his own responsibility onto his designated enemies when it does happen.

The only question is - are there enough rubes out there willing to Etch-A-Sketch their way into accepting this bullshit? Well, if November 8, 2017 was any indication - yeah, plenty of rubes. Still plenty of rubes.

And there're plenty of Republican (and other "conservative") office-holders willing to stay quiet while Trump plays the rubes for suckers because they reap nice fat bennies too.

And they're getting plenty of inadvertent assistance from "Progressives" willing to be kept  out of the game by going along with guys like Thom Hartman as he slags the US with the generous and freedom-loving assistance of Putin's version of DumFux News, aka Russia Today.  Paralysis By Analysis works wonders on reasonable people who feel a little reluctant to jump in and offer a full-throated defense of (eg) politicians they feel are less-than-fully-honorable.

And and and

So the question is - will there be enough people willing to stand up and defend against these assholes in six or eight months when the Outrage Fatigue really starts to kick in?

Today's Tweet

The hilarious part is, dude, they’re a major company, focus grouped this, got metrics, and concluded your demo was too small to worry about. pic.twitter.com/SnUG6MlEGF

— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) February 6, 2017

Ka-boom

Black History Month 7 of 7

From Atlanta Black Star - 7 Lies Taught In American Schools

Slavery Should Be Separated From the Rest of American Capitalism

This popularly taught myth says that as an economic system — a way of producing and trading commodities — American slavery was fundamentally different from the rest of the modern economy and separate from it, notes historian Edward Baptist. He claims the widely disseminated stories about industrialization emphasize white immigrants and clever inventors, but they leave out cotton fields and slave labor, implying that slavery and enslaved African-Americans had little long-term influence on the rise of the United States during the 19th century, a period in which the nation went from being a minor European trading partner to becoming the world’s largest economy — one of the central stories of American history. Baptist explains why this thinking became popular: “If slavery was outside of US history, for instance — if indeed it was a drag and not a rocket booster to American economic growth — then slavery was not implicated in US growth, success, power, and wealth,” he wrote on Salon.com last September. “Therefore none of the massive quantities of wealth and treasure piled by that economic growth is owed to African Americans.”

Ad

This one dropped this morning.

.@realDonaldTrump, we’re debuting this ad on @Morning_Joe, and taking it to other morning shows you watch, too! pic.twitter.com/LVINhUenaV

— VoteVets (@votevets) February 6, 2017

@VoteVets

votevets.org

The Coming Purge

And we thought the Tea Party was bad?  We ain't seen nothin' yet, bubba.

McKay Coppins, in The Atlantic:

“The question is not whether he’s vengeful,” conservative columnist Ben Shapiro told me. “The question is how willing he is to use the levers of government to exact that revenge.”

He goes on to talk about Glen Beck, and his paranoia, and his worry that people have taken what he said too seriously.

This isn't a fucking game.  "The Left" has been trying to warn those idiots for a good long time that they're playing with a loaded gun.

These assholes spent almost 30 years taking a giant shit in their audiences' brains and now they fret because people have done exactly what people do - they came to believe what they were told every day by somebody speaking in a confident authoritative tone.

You can see it every day in the comments sections and on Facebook etc. The arrogance of deliberate ignorance is tough and fibrous and persistent and malignant.

Today's Tweet

Openly bananas

Ah I see we've shifted swiftly into the "openly bananas dictator" phase. Happy Monday, America! pic.twitter.com/FxCudtoGdO

— Hadley Freeman (@HadleyFreeman) February 6, 2017

Today's Quote

So now we have in power a man who represents the very worst of the plutocrats - one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. I shudder to think where this nightmare will end. Even if you voted for Donald Trump for a reason that truly is from your heart, I cannot believe you voted for this. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me whose side are you really on? The people of America or the cynics and predators at the very top who would climb atop the ruins of the republic for a better view of the sunset?

-- Bill Moyers

It Was A Metaphor After All

So OK, congrats to the Patriots for a pretty amazing comeback win last night.  

Tom Brady is probably the best ever at quarterback.  And maybe it's because he cheats. Or maybe not.

And you can argue that Bill Belichick is the best coach ever. And maybe it's because he cheats. Or maybe not.

And maybe New England is the best franchise ever. And maybe it's because they cheat. Or maybe not.

I say, "Teach the controversy".

Anyway, the top trending hashtag on Twitter this morning is #NotMySuperBowlChamps, and it's all about setting the game as a metaphor for the election and gloating about it.

Breaking: Jill Stein announces demand for a re-match because Russia hacked the football. Send her lots of money. #NotMySuperBowlChamps

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) February 6, 2017

#NotMySuperBowlChamps https://t.co/69yNWU2WNs

— Yashar (@yashar) February 6, 2017

We're all so clever.

It's the spectacle that's important - especially to The Daddy State.  Bread and Circuses. It gets the blood up and inspires us ever forward.

And yes, I know - the whole bit about drawing the parallels with Rome and the Gladiators is old and tired. But y'know what? If it wasn't so fucking obvious all the fucking time, maybe we could stop doing it. Or maybe not.

I'm just glad I can put it down and walk away again -  for a while.