Bag Man Podcast

If you haven't done this yet, it's time you got to it.

1. An Unsettling Secret


2. Crawling In


3. Hang In There, Baby


4.Turn It Off


5. Double-Header


6. Disappearing Act


7. You can't Fire Me - I Quit


I remember a lot of this, but there are many new things and details in this story that blew me up completely.

And I'll say it again - history does not repeat itself, but it sure as fuck rhymes.

One final note: As far as my kinda neutral assessment of Poppy Bush - uh, yeah - fuck that guy.

Today's Tweet

#facethenation Stephen Miller sporting the worst case of spray-on hair I have ever seen.
The glory and horror of HDTV. pic.twitter.com/KqhVfzRPWf

— Futuropolist (@futuropolist) December 16, 2018

Notice how we never see Stephen Miller and Gwyllm Griffiths in the same room at the same time.

Today's GIF

Dear Mr Roberts,

Thank you for your recent correspondence via the new Congressional Fax-O-Gram System.

We value the input from our constituents.

On Dots And Lines

An awful lot of dots have been connected over the last several months, revealing the various pieces of the Trump/Russia machinery.

We're getting a better look at the scope of it, and with the Butina plea, now we know there's a solid link between the Kremlin and the GOP, running through the NRA.

So another big part of the framework is in place, and they've hung a big ol' chunk of flesh on it.

Simply put, there's all but solid proof that the NRA has been laundering Russian money and pouring it into our government's policy apparatus, as well as our elections, via (mostly) GOP politicians and their campaigns.

Don't assume I'm giving an asshole like 45* any props for being some kinda anti-hero, but in my brain right now, there are echoes of Butch & Sundance - the scene where Paul Newman is ranting about everything EH Harriman is doing to keep the Hole In The Wall Gang from robbing his trains. "If he'd pay me what he's spendin' to make me stop robbin' him, I'd stop robbin' him."

Since everything 45* does has everything to do with some kinda cash transaction, I can imagine him thinking all he really has to do is make a deal that gets him out of this.

When the Republicans finally manage to find their balls, and to tell him he has to go, I can hear him saying, "What's it worth to you for me to make this easier for everybody?"

"Pay me what it's costing you to make me stop being president, and I'll stop being president."

And a really interesting little wrinkle - like the shit that's falling on Michael Cohen's head, Maria Butina's case is not directly attached to the Mueller investigation. It goes wherever it goes; it exposes whatever it exposes; it links to whoever it links to - and Cult45 can't fuck with any of it.

And then -


Starting at about 01:25

So we don't know what all that secrecy at the DC Circuit Court was about today, but we kinda do know because we're not putting up dots so we can draw lines later. We don't have to do so much of that anymore - now we're adding more dots to the lines that are already drawn, making those lines stronger as we go.

'Bout That Time

Have a happy, with GOP Jesus:

Today's Tweet

I love the intertoobz

STOP!! I'm dying.. 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/MUo5oUMlsZ

— Molly (@MsMollyRachael) December 13, 2018

Oh, Melania

In case you've started to think more kindly towards FLOTUS - uhhhm - no, don't.

Today's Tweet

Post-Truth assholes will say anything as they try to make the world fit their fantasies.

"Heather Heyer died of a heart attack."

"It was a Michigan man who drove the car that killed her, not Fields."

"Fields was under attack."

All false. All debunked by Fields' trial. He's been convicted of first-degree murder. https://t.co/nzXl0BX5Rh

— Southern Poverty Law Center (@splcenter) December 12, 2018

Like A Boss

I'm not a Nancy Pelosi fan. She takes a back seat to no one when it comes to that weird and semi-phony politician thing they all do on occasion.

But she delivers in the clutch. And given a chance in the oval office the other day, she put an epic bitch slap on that big orange fuck that I hope portends what he can expect from all of us from now on.

Jennifer Rubin, WaPo:

For all those Americans who have pined for moments when someone would say to President Trump, “That’s just false, Mr. President” or “Excuse me, but you’ve been fact-checked on that repeatedly,” Tuesday brought moral vindication. If you’ve found yourself defending the concept of objective truth or furious that the conservative movement has entered some postmodernist moment when facts are whatever you say they are, soon-to-be-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) delivered in a face-to-face confrontation over funding for Trump’s border wall. (As an aside, I’m at a loss to understand how any Democrat could oppose literally the only elected Democrat who has publicly called out the president to his face, scoring a direct hit.)

She ferociously held her ground in an Oval Office showdown, daring him to make good on his boast that he had the votes in the House for his wall. Pelosi declared that “there are no votes in the House, a majority of votes, for a wall — no matter where you start.” Trump insisted that he’d have the votes if he wanted them. " Well, then go do it. Go do it," she said confidently. Wham!

- and -

Nevertheless, it was Pelosi who did what the media has not done — interject, fact-check to his face and refuse to allow him to operate in a parallel reality. It’s not just that Trump has blurred the difference between facts and lies, but that so few have stood up to him in the moment for all the public to see. Perhaps Pelosi will start a trend.

She managed to get under Trump’s skin. Eli Stokols of the Los Angeles Times later reported, "It sort of spiraled out of control, and when the President left the Oval Office after Pelosi and Schumer left, a number of people saw him, he stormed out of the Oval, walked into an anteroom just off the Oval Office, and had in his hand a folder of briefing papers, and he just scattered them out of frustration, threw them across the room and expressed frustration to the people who were present.”

It would seem The Once And Future Speaker has taken my advice and brushed up on her Sun Tzu:

When your adversary is of choleric temperament, aggravate him.

Bait him until he becomes arrogant and he overreaches - then crush him.

She set the bar back where it belongs - like a fuckin' boss.

In Search Of Real Americans

The people at our southern border have come here because deep inside, they have a strong desire for freedom, a reasonable expectation of justice and a powerful instinct for democracy.

I think that says quite a bit about them - but it says even more about the people who see them as enemies, and want to keep them out.

Jesus Rodriguez, Politico Magazine:

The caravan migrants who arrived at the border nearly a month ago don’t have a country. But they do have a government.

In the time since the caravan left Honduras in mid-October, the asylum-seekers have fashioned a proto-democracy out of their group of some 6,000 migrants overwhelmingly from Central America, most of whom have walked for most of the trip, at times hitching rides in the backs of cars or trucks.

To hear President Donald Trump tell it, the caravan is nothing more than a “lawless” mob of potentially violent criminals. But dozens of phone interviews and WhatsApp conversations with advocacy groups and migrants, as well as social media updates from groups on the ground, show that the migrants have organized a surprisingly sophisticated ruling structure, complete with everything from a press shop to a department of public works.

When the migrants needed to make public announcements, debate the best routes and vote on different plans, they established a nightly general assembly as a forum open to all, Athens-style. Their legislative floor was an abandoned truck parking lot or an unused sports stadium. Some of the migrants even took turns as communications directors, drafting press statements that were transmitted through a media group of more than 370 journalists on WhatsApp.


- and -

Ask some on the right to define the caravan and they might conspire about highly organized hordes of criminals funded by the Venezuelan state or billionaire philanthropist George Soros who want to rush the American border. (“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Trump said Oct. 31 in reference to the Soros claim, one day after the migrants elected their Governance and Dialogue Council.) Some liberals, on the other hand, will try to convince you that this is a hapless, hopeless lot with no agency, no rights and no recourse for help.

- and -

The only U.S. government representative who has taken action so far has been Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who traveled to the border in early December and helped broker the passage of five asylum-seekers across the border. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) swiftly criticized Jayapal, blasting her as a “congressional coyote.”

(Walter) Coello, the Honduran migrant who once had to negotiate for his life with MS-13, thinks he could rise above the classic Washington mudslinging and appeal to a higher sense of humanity. He knows exactly how he would lobby Trump if he was sitting across from him.

“First, may God bless you,” Coello would say. “We want work. We are not criminals. We hope that God will soften your heart.”

You know we're going to see The Ten Commandments at some point between now and Year Year's Day. And you know I'm about to reference the scenes where Chuck Heston's saying let my people go and Ann Baxter's fucking with Yul Brynner "hardeneing Pharoah's heart", right?  And I knew you knew that.