The art of Michael Rubino
Nov 17, 2018
Still Waiting
Wondering when we're going to get some followup analysis on this one, now that the numbers are in.
NBC News - Guns In America (11-1-18):
NRA slashes campaign spending, lowers profile in midterms. Why?
The gun group has put $11 million into midterm races this year — less than half what it spent four years ago.
The National Rifle Association — long seen as a kingmaker in Republican politics — is taking a lower profile in this year's high-stakes midterm campaign, a sign of the shifting dynamics of the gun debate as the GOP fights to maintain its grip on Congress.
The NRA has put $11 million into midterm races this year — less than half what it spent four years ago in an election that gave Republicans full control of Congress. This year's totals are also far below the $54 million the group spent in 2016 on both the presidential and congressional races.
NBC News - Guns In America (11-1-18):
NRA slashes campaign spending, lowers profile in midterms. Why?
The gun group has put $11 million into midterm races this year — less than half what it spent four years ago.
The NRA has put $11 million into midterm races this year — less than half what it spent four years ago in an election that gave Republicans full control of Congress. This year's totals are also far below the $54 million the group spent in 2016 on both the presidential and congressional races.
- and -
It's the first time under current campaign finance laws that the NRA might be outspent by gun control groups, though the organization often ramps up spending late in the campaign. That money won't show up in federal financial reports until after Election Day.
BTW - here's a picture from the time Repubs in the House voted to fuck over 20,000,000 Americans by passing ACA Repeal:
BTW - here's a picture from the time Repubs in the House voted to fuck over 20,000,000 Americans by passing ACA Repeal:
A) Guess what the ❌ means
B) Guess which Gun Makers' Trade Group didn't donate as much as usual to most of those people in the picture
Getting the excessive amounts of dark money out of politics will do wonders for the process.
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:
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.
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.
Nov 16, 2018
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.
Then I noticed the TV wasn't on.
Nov 15, 2018
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:
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.
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.
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