Here's A Tho't

Wondering why Congress is being so stealthy as they try to strip away everything the "conservatives" hate about this country instead of addressing the Trump/Russia thing?

Wonder no more:

1. Know what's coming
2. Get outside - disobey
3. Know your history
4. Follow the money
5. Have a Counter-Plan ready

This is not governance - this is a fucking robbery.

And BTW - what's the big hurry, Mitch?  Is 45* in greater jeopardy than you can admit?

The Big Turnaround

Here's the visual from the Rachel Maddow thing I posted yesterday - worth repeating a few times.

Watch for it starting at about 6:50 - Rachel lays out the probability that the GOP will use the very heavy layers of guilt as a shield. DumFux news has already started putting up the "Don Jr is the real victim here" defense.

Cult45* is employing a variation on a basic tactic of the Daddy State: Accusation = Confession.

It can work the other way as well. You can use your confession as a weapon against your opponent - turning it into an accusation.

The shitty part is that the rubes will buy it.

The really shitty part is that the Press Poodles will give the rubes reason to think it's legit by covering it in that Both-Sides bullshit way.

The really really shitty part is that this is fucking dangerous.

And the really really really shitty part is that this is prob'ly not as dangerous as it gets.

Fake Lord have mercy.

Cult45*

Aptly named Senator Strange:

Of course it's not just the south, but down here, these guys are thick as flies on cow shit.

And we're not gonna get it fixed in 1 or 2 elections - it's a long hard road just to get back to where we can see something that looks like Regular Order on the horizon.

Small "c" Conservative

The Senate Appropriations Committee reports that the F-35 testing program is coming along nicely.

Gotta remember to remember that a rapacious and opportunistic Congress is still in session, hiding behind the rationalization that they have to stay at "work" and give the people the business do the people's business.

Dan Grazier at The American Conservative:

Despite warnings of poor performance and spiraling costs from at least three oversight agencies, both Congressional armed services committees voted to add new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft to the president’s appropriations request and approved a three-year block buy.

The final number has yet to be hashed out, but if the Senate gets its way, taxpayers will buy 94 F-35s in 2018. That would mean more than 800 F-35s would be purchased before the design has been fully tested.

Congress’s actions here are disappointing. What is even more disturbing is the justification provided for those actions in the House. (The Senate language is not yet available.) Buried deep within Rep. Mac Thornberry’s (R-Texas) “Chairman’s Mark” of the FY18 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), is a lengthy rationalization of the F-35 double-down plan. The authors of the offending appendix include lots of details, but they failed to give a complete picture. The full story, of course, would have undermined the current appeal for digging farther into the F-35 hole.

Today's Intertubes Winner

Overheard on Facebook:

If Trump is the answer, 

then you've been asking some really stoopid questions.

Keith

Gee - it's like something hit a fan or something.

Today's Tweet

"I have never even heard of Donald Trump Jr." pic.twitter.com/OpSS2z5uSe

— Diane N. Sevenay (@Diane_7A) July 11, 2017

Rachel

Ol' Doc Maddow's podcast (audio only) at Stitcher:

She's careful to remind us that even with all that smoke, there's no real fire yet.  Which plays to 45*'s default M.O. He operates at the margins; always looking for the grey areas; the loopiest of loopholes - "If it doesn't specifically say I can't do it, then that's what I'm gonna do".

And that works against us as a 4th-n-5th-Amendment-Kinda-Joint - which is what works to the advantage of the 45*s and the Putins of the world. And the rubes will never bail on those guys, because they just wanna think, for once in their whole miserable existence, they're in on the real deal - the inside; the right sight; the winning side.

In 1972, the movie smash of the year was The Godfather - a story of the good guy criminals versus the bad guy everybody else.

And Dick Nixon was re-elected in an historic landslide.

And Ford sold 350,000 Pintos.

And the CMA's #1 single was "The Happiest Girl In The Whole USA", Donna Fargo.

Nobody ever failed by underestimating the taste or intelligence of the American rube.

Quick Reminder

BTW - a little review of Daddy State rules:

• Every accusation is a confession
• Every boast is an admission of inadequacy or an attempt to take credit for someone's else's work
• Every warning of coming disaster is a statement of policy - a threat to cause that disaster (if they haven't already started it), in order to punish us for not going along with the agenda.

Lawrence O'Donnell: (starting at about 15:30, Don Jr goes into full Daddy State mode)

A House of Vipers - listen for the part where they speculate on throwing Don Jr off the train to divert the attention from Kushner, who is in turn expendable in order to insulate 45*.

Keith

Dot, meet Dot - Dot, this is Dot.