Unopened
But you can slip a mad man
Water
From the well he's poisoned.
-- Grant Peeples
Nov 9, 2018
Today's Poem
You'll never change a mind
Unopened
But you can slip a mad man
Water
From the well he's poisoned.
Unopened
But you can slip a mad man
Water
From the well he's poisoned.
Today's Tweet
He's a cornered wounded animal.
Spock (Star Trek S02, E03): "Your logic was impeccable, Captain - we are in grave danger."
A disrespectful sloth who degrades the institution of the American Presidency.— Billy Baldwin (@BillyBaldwin) November 9, 2018
Guys gotta go... pic.twitter.com/jILzqRM0QZ
Be Amazed
Maybe 52,000 years ago.
Sarah Kaplan, WaPo:
Radio isotope dating of a calcite crust that covers part of the image revealed that it is more than 40,000 years old, and possibly as old as 52,000 years. Even the more recent date would make the image older than any painted representation of an animal that has been found.
- and -
“Maybe it’s universal,” said Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist at Griffith University in Australia. “Art ... is something that we as humans just do."
Sarah Kaplan, WaPo:
- and -
“Maybe it’s universal,” said Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist at Griffith University in Australia. “Art ... is something that we as humans just do."
Turning Of The Worms
The Press Poodles have been feeling their oats lately. There's still plenty of reflexive Both Sides nonsense, but it seems like the editors and producers are showing signs of reading their Driftglass ('bout fuckin' time), and are starting to accelerate their organizations' movement in a much better direction.
(Along those lines, I need to make a sincere plea to the bosses at NPR: Please, guys, fire Mara Liason at your earliest opportunity. She's just fucking awful.)
Anyway, Cult45 put on a little circus the other day, which turned into quite the spectacle.
Vox:
Press secretary Sarah Sanders shared an altered video on Wednesday evening that appears to have originated with far-right conspiracy site Infowars to justify banning CNN reporter Jim Acosta from the White House after a tense exchange with President Donald Trump.
- and -
But Trump’s attacks on Acosta during the news conference weren’t enough for the White House. Later in the day, Sanders posted a string of tweets in which she accused Acosta of “placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern.”
When Trump insulted Acosta at the press conference, a White House intern approached him and tried to physically remove a microphone from his hands. Their arms touched as the woman reached across Acosta’s body to grab the microphone he was holding in his hand.
Looking back at the video, it does not in fact show Acosta “placing his hands” on the woman. But about 90 minutes after she posted her string of tweets, Infowars editor Paul Joseph Watson tweeted out a video of the incident that was doctored to make it look like Acosta chopped the woman’s arm with his hand.
There's a long tradition of government skullduggery when it comes to the "optics" of their operations.1) Took @PressSec Sarah Sanders' video of briefing— Rafael Shimunov 🔥 (@rafaelshimunov) November 8, 2018
2) Tinted red and made transparent over CSPAN video
3) Red motion is when they doctored video speed
4) Sped up to make Jim Acosta's motion look like a chop
5) I've edited video for 15+ years
6) The White House doctored it pic.twitter.com/q6arkYSx0V
Here are a few examples from a book called "The Commissar Vanishes":
The Daddy State is always with us. Even in times we consider some kind of "golden age of democracy", there are people who feel the need to dictate instead of compromise - who insist on manipulating our belief instead of showing us what's real.
Nov 8, 2018
The Scores
Doctor Maddow knows her shit.
Quick note: Dave Bratt taught economics, with a hardcore Unfettered Free Market bias, at Randolph-Macon (a branch office of Koch Brothers Universities Inc) before winning his seat in 2014. The guy's as phony as chicken lips.
Quick note: Dave Bratt taught economics, with a hardcore Unfettered Free Market bias, at Randolph-Macon (a branch office of Koch Brothers Universities Inc) before winning his seat in 2014. The guy's as phony as chicken lips.
Sam's Wrap-Up
Samantha Bee
And here's the graphic:
This is a weirdness of the bicameral thing built into the Constitution. Small states were supposed to get outsized representation in order to balance their power against the big states - Separation of Powers and Minority Rights and all that.
Repubs have taken it to mean they get to rule from the minority instead of governing in partnership with the majority.
I don't know how to fix it, but there's much to be done.
And I think it's fairly obvious that we won't get anywhere without a GOP that's a shitload more honorable than what we've seen from them in the last 30 years or so.
And here's the graphic:
Repubs have taken it to mean they get to rule from the minority instead of governing in partnership with the majority.
I don't know how to fix it, but there's much to be done.
And I think it's fairly obvious that we won't get anywhere without a GOP that's a shitload more honorable than what we've seen from them in the last 30 years or so.
Today's Tweet
We got reasons
NYT is projecting Democrats win a ~9% margin in the House popular vote. The last time we saw a margin like that was 08, amidst a collapsing economy and a loathed war.— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) November 7, 2018
Unemployment is 3.7% right now. America isn't at war. A margin this big is nuts — a pure repudiation of Trump.
Nov 7, 2018
A Poem
We took a pretty big step last night, turning the House back over to the Dems, but don't forget what we're trying to do here - "...to form a more perfect union..."
Justin Blackburn lays out of a few things that I think we should try to keep in mind:
We're up against a very stubborn (and very natural) resistance to change.
So we stay focused and we keep fighting. We can't revert to the usual - where we automatically start whining about how the Dems didn't get us every last thing our pea-pickin' little hearts desired.
I'm not saying we have to fall in line and march lockstep towards somebody else's false dreams of utopia. Be critical; hold the Dems to account, but understand there's a difference between a healthy skeptical critique and self-destructive carping.
We can't afford to indulge ourselves in the kind of pinch-faced puritanism that requires constant bitching about Pelosi and how the Dems aren't living up to our granular expectations because really, they're just GOP Lite and blah blah blah. When we fall back into that pattern, we're doing the GOP's work for them.
Stop doin' that.
Here's the working metaphor:
When your first flight was delayed to where you missed your connection, don't stand there screaming at the poor slob at the Passenger Service counter. All you're doing is taking a giant shit on the only guy in the whole fucking airport who can do something for you.
If we wanna help, then we chop the wood and we carry the water.
If we win, we chop the wood and we carry the water.
If we lose, we chop the fucking wood and we carry the fucking water.
Tired? Feeling a little worn out and frazzled? OK, take a break. 15 minutes - then it's back to work.
We've got some pretty important shit left to do here.
Justin Blackburn lays out of a few things that I think we should try to keep in mind:
We're up against a very stubborn (and very natural) resistance to change.
So we stay focused and we keep fighting. We can't revert to the usual - where we automatically start whining about how the Dems didn't get us every last thing our pea-pickin' little hearts desired.
I'm not saying we have to fall in line and march lockstep towards somebody else's false dreams of utopia. Be critical; hold the Dems to account, but understand there's a difference between a healthy skeptical critique and self-destructive carping.
We can't afford to indulge ourselves in the kind of pinch-faced puritanism that requires constant bitching about Pelosi and how the Dems aren't living up to our granular expectations because really, they're just GOP Lite and blah blah blah. When we fall back into that pattern, we're doing the GOP's work for them.
Stop doin' that.
Here's the working metaphor:
When your first flight was delayed to where you missed your connection, don't stand there screaming at the poor slob at the Passenger Service counter. All you're doing is taking a giant shit on the only guy in the whole fucking airport who can do something for you.
If we wanna help, then we chop the wood and we carry the water.
If we win, we chop the wood and we carry the water.
If we lose, we chop the fucking wood and we carry the fucking water.
Tired? Feeling a little worn out and frazzled? OK, take a break. 15 minutes - then it's back to work.
We've got some pretty important shit left to do here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)