Jan 19, 2019

Jan 18, 2019

Beau Tells Us

Beau Of The Fifth Column - on arming teachers in the classroom.

Today's Tweet



Sometimes, though, a little applied capitalism is the solution.

About That Wall Thingie


45* insists on getting money for his wall, and has taken 800,000 hostages, trying to force us into going along with it, saying he made a promise to his Red Hats and he needs to come through for them.

First, keeping a promise is a totally foreign concept to that clown, so we all know this is about something else.

I think the "something else" has everything to do with putting the US into a chaotic state so he and his minions can further loot the treasury, and consolidate their power.

Repubs in congress are standing by letting him do all this because he's furthering their intentions of moving us away from the model of democratic self-governance towards the Daddy State.

We're fixated on 45*'s antics, while the GOP believes they're using him as a cat's paw, planning to dump him once they're done with him.

There are of course, a jillion other threads tangled up in this ridiculous knotted snarl, but I think it always comes back down to a fight between people who just want a fair shake for as many as possible, versus people looking for an unfair advantage for themselves.

Which brings me back to the wall.

The wall is not the point - he didn't promise to build a wall. He promised to get Mexico to pay us to build the wall.

He promised the rubes they'd get something for nothing. They voted for free stuff.

And the kicker: the wall as metaphor means they've completely bought into the notion that the policies they support have no cost attached, and that their personal bigotry - their animus towards anyone "different" from them - will never exact payment from them.

The depth of depravity to which the rubes have fallen can be gauged in simple terms:

They sit passively, watching their family and neighbors - and sometimes they themselves - being ordered back on the job where they're forced to work for nothing.

Mandatory labor without compensation - seems like we've tried that before, and it didn't pan out so good.

Jan 16, 2019

Today's Tweet



From an interview in 1999.

In Our Faces


Were you continuing to wonder what Cult45's corruption actually looks like?

I knew you were, so here ya go.

John LeGere, CEO T-Mobile

Jonathan O'Connell and David Fahrenthold, WaPo:

Last April, telecom giant T-Mobile announced a megadeal: a $26 billion merger with rival Sprint, which would more than double T-Mobile’s value and give it a huge new chunk of the cellphone market.

But for T-Mobile, one hurdle remained: Its deal needed approval from the Trump administration.

The next day, in Washington, staffers at the Trump International Hotel were handed a list of incoming “VIP Arrivals.” That day’s list included nine of T-Mobile’s top executives — including its chief operating officer, chief technology officer, chief strategy officer, chief financial officer and its outspoken celebrity chief executive, John Legere.

They were scheduled to stay between one and three days. But it was not their last visit.

Instead, T-Mobile executives have returned to President Trump’s hotel repeatedly since then, according to eyewitnesses and hotel documents obtained by The Washington Post.

By mid-June, seven weeks after the announcement of the merger, hotel records indicated that one T-Mobile executive was making his 10th visit to the hotel. Legere appears to have made at least four visits to the Trump hotel, walking the lobby in his T-Mobile gear.

These visits highlight a stark reality in Washington, unprecedented in modern American history. Trump the president works at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump the businessman owns a hotel at 1100 Pennsylvania.

Countries, interest groups and companies like T-Mobile — whose future will be shaped by the administration’s choices — are free to stop at both and pay the president’s company while also meeting with officials in his government. Such visits raise questions about whether patronizing Trump’s private business is viewed as a way to influence public policy, critics said.

Today's Quote


A blast from the past - Driftglass ages well.

Most newly minted "Independents" seem to be little more than Republicans who are fleeing the scene of their crime, but at the same time still desperately want to believe in the inerrant wisdom of Rush Limbaugh. They are completely incapable of facing the horrifying reality that they have gotten every single major political opinion and decision of their adult lives completely wrong, so instead, they double-down on their hatred of women and/or gays and/or brown people and/or liberals, and blame them for the miserable fuckpit their leaders and their policies have made of their lives and futures.

Like German soldiers after the fall of Berlin, they've stopped running away from the catastrophe they created only long enough to burn their uniforms.


Toxic Masculinity

The Trigger:



The Emotional Reaction:



If I say: "There's too many assholes being assholes - we need assholes to stop being such assholes"

And you respond: "How dare you call me an asshole!?!"

Then it's not unreasonable for me to conclude that you've self-identified as one of the assholes who need to stop being such assholes.

And the Man-splaining aspects of the reactions? Don't get me started.

The sensible perspective:




Jan 15, 2019

One Good Sign


Charlie Pierce, Esquire Magazine:

So Kevin McCarthy, the Minority Leader of the House, moved on King, which gives us another chance to toss an elbow at former Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from the state of Wisconsin. Ryan was perfectly fine with having an outright white-supremacist in his caucus for more than a decade because Ryan never found the political gumption to bring the wild kingdom there under control.

As Charlie points out, some Repubs have decided - finally - to get on that little bandwagon, and say something about the once and future white nationalist always known as Steve King.

And may I add - this doesn't happen if we don't put Dems back in charge of at least part of the legislative branch.

Repubs are no longer in full command, so their need for the support of a Steve King and his hordes of racist assholes is outweighed by their need to cut their losses - pretty much proving the Blue Wave was in fact a wave; that those "hordes" were fictitious to begin with, and if they don't do something quick and rather drastic, people will see what a fucking sham "the Republican Majority" has been for at least 7 or 8 years.

I'm also betting dollars to dingleberries that Nancy Pelosi told McCarthy that he needed to stomp King's ass or she'd do it for him.



You don't fuck with Aunt Nancy.