Today's Tweet

There must be consequences. We make noise about law and order, and how no one's above the law, but then what do we do when it comes time to follow our own credo?

This is a remarkable work of art. This picture is made from the faces of 670 soldiers who died in the Iraq War. pic.twitter.com/6ENRbJ0ECJ

— Stone Cold (@stonecold2050) November 17, 2018

We didn't hold Nixon fully accountable for Watergate - and a host of other shit - and we got Reagan.

We didn't hold Reagan fully accountable for Iran-Contra - and a host of other shit - and we got W43.

We didn't hold W43 fully accountable for Iraq - and a host of other shit - and we got Cult45.

What is it we're thinking about doing this time?

Podcast

On why we can't let 'em off the fucking hook this time.

- how clean water and succession planning fit together.

- why the Press Poodles are salivating over a return to Speaker Pelosi, and the fight inside the Dem Party.

Plus a quote from the darkest days of the Watergate era:

"Knit on with confidence and hope through every crisis" 

--Elizabeth Zimmerman

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A Lesson In Perception

An awful lot of what we see and hear, is what we're taught to see and hear.

We usually don't even know it's happening - we don't know we're being programmed to think a certain way.

This is not representative of the way we vote:

This is what is actually looks like:

Because it says "We the people", not "we the acreage".

The Dems' wins in the 2018 midterms should go a long way in fixing the gerrymandering problem on the House side. But we still have a very long haul to figure out what to do about the ratfuckery that can (and does) happen because of the way we do the Senate and the Electoral College.

Today's Pix

Click it

Bell Canyon CA

Refuge - California Fires

California Nov 2018

So Simple

It still makes my head hurt

Porn Today

So, I start up my new porn DVD, and all I see is a dark image of some fat old idiot sitting on a couch with his dick in his hand.

Then I noticed the TV wasn't on.

Real Blue

Maybe the Press Poodles could start asking what's wrong with a GOP that finds it so difficult to hold a seat in congress outside the friendly confines of Pokacuzzin West Virginia or Sisterfuck Arkansas*.

The Hill:

Democrat Jared Golden defeated incumbent Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine) in a ranked-choice runoff Thursday morning, more than a week after the election.

State election officials declared Golden the winner in Maine's 2nd District race shortly after noon on Thursday. It was the first use of ranked balloting in a congressional election, according to The Associated Press.

* thanks, Driftglass

Rawr

...it doesn't mean "I love you" in this case.

We always think we should wonder whether or not this kind of thing means something other than a FLOTUS getting her feathers a little ruffled by hard-ass political appointees telling her to do things that she really doesn't want to do, or treating her like she's just some ditzy broad (which, unfortunately, is the best bet) who is little more than arm candy for the boss.

WaPo:

A transoceanic personnel crisis that engulfed the National Security Council this week is partly rooted in a bureaucratic dispute over the seating arrangements aboard first lady Melania Trump’s plane to Africa last month during her maiden solo trip abroad.

As the East Wing prepared the flight manifest for the marquee trip, deputy national security adviser Mira Ricardel became angry that seats on the first lady’s government jet were assigned to a larger-than-usual security entourage and a small press corps with none for Ricardel or another NSC staffer, according to current U.S. officials and others familiar with the trip and its aftermath.

Policy experts from the NSC and State Department were advised to fly separately and to meet the first lady’s party on the ground, a practice the State Department had often used, but Ricardel objected strenuously, those people said. She threatened to revoke NSC resources associated with the trip, meaning no policy staff would advise the first lady during her visits to Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Egypt.

Bad blood between Ricardel and Melania Trump and her staff continued for weeks after the trip, with the first lady privately arguing that the NSC’s No. 2 official was a corrosive influence in the White House and should be dismissed. But national security adviser John Bolton rebuffed the first lady and protected his deputy, prompting the first lady’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, to issue an extraordinary statement to reporters Tuesday effectively calling for Ricardel’s firing.

“It is the position of the Office of the first lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House,” Grisham said of Ricardel in the statement.

After an uncomfortable day of limbo, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced Wednesday evening that Ricardel was leaving the White House.

“Mira Ricardel will continue to support the President as she departs the White House to transition to a new role within the Administration,” she said in a statement.

An NSC spokesman declined to elaborate.

And the story just gets weirder as it goes - no real surprise there - but the upshot seems to be that Melania's telling John Bolton to go fuck himself.

Today's Quote

The gods that we've made are exactly the gods you'd expect to be made by a species that's about half a chromosome away from being chimpanzee.

--Christopher Hitchins

hat tip = DCRapier, Facebook

Today's Tweet

This one may require a new addition to the Daddy State Awareness Rules - I'll think on it.

1: Warning, heavy speculation below:

The currently unfolding Avenatti story, published by TMZ, has the indicators of reflexive control.

Make up a story, get him arrested, it’s true/false, doesn’t matter.

Reaction from social media: burn Avenatti. pic.twitter.com/wHZZBUGB6D

— Operation Wolverines 🇺🇸 (@OpWolverines) November 15, 2018