Sep 14, 2019

Today's Tweet



I'm kinda partial to anthrax and ricin myself - why aren't they standing up for my god-given right to keep and bear those arms?

Sep 12, 2019

Today's Tweet



This may be a rerun - don't care. Doesn't matter if she's a Poe or not, it's just spooky AF thinking these knuckleheads are all around us.

A Matter Of Management Style


WaPo:

President Trump told his staff that the nation’s leading weather forecasting agency needed to correct a statement that contradicted a tweet the president had sent wrongly claiming that Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama, senior administration officials said.

That led White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to call Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to tell him to fix the issue, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the issue. Trump had complained for several days that forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration contradicted his Sept. 1 Alabama tweet, the officials said.

Mulvaney then called Ross, who was traveling in Greece, and told him that the agency needed to fix things immediately, the officials said. Mulvaney did not instruct Ross to threaten any firings or offer punitive actions. But Ross then called NOAA acting administrator Neil Jacobs, the officials said. That led to an unusual, unsigned statement from NOAA released on Sept. 6 that backed Trump’s false claim about Alabama and admonished the National Weather Service’s Birmingham, Ala., division for speaking “in absolute terms” that there would not be “any” impacts from Dorian in the state. The Weather Service is an arm of NOAA, which is an agency within the Commerce Department. The New York Times first reported some elements of the White House involvement.


Most of us have worked in a shop where it's "Management By Shit Rolling Downhill".

Everybody has to become either a snitch or the invisible man just to survive, which makes for a god-awful place to work, as that environment never leads to good outcomes for your business. Ever.

It's The Corruption, Stoopid

Nothing fails like prayer, but Republican rationalization is running a very close 2nd.

MSNBC, Steve Benen:

House GOP leader tries, fails to defend Trump profiting from presidency

At a Capitol Hill press conference yesterday, a reporter asked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a close White House ally, if “the federal government should be spending money at the president’s resorts, especially when he is not staying at them.” According to CQ Newsmaker Transcripts, this was the GOP leader’s response:
“The president’s resorts are hotels that he owns. If people are traveling, it’s just like any other hotel. I know people will look at it. I don’t know that that’s different than anything else.
“Is it different than if I go and stay or eat at a Marriott here or eat at the Trump? The president isn’t asking me to. He’s competing in a private enterprise. It’s nothing, something that he controls in that process.”
I appreciate the fact that McCarthy didn’t just dodge the question. This appears to be an issue to which McCarthy has given some thought, and for those of us wondering whether Republicans care about allegations of presidential self-dealing, it’s good to hear a GOP articulate the party’s perspective.

The trouble, of course, is that McCarthy’s argument is woefully inadequate.

There were attempts to suggest McCarthy was just "playing dumb", but I think you'd have to be pretty dumb to think we'd buy the shit he was trying to peddle.

It's interesting that McCarthy's loud braying about "The Trump Economy" (the only thing Repubs have that might boost their favorables) gets drowned out by the ridiculous things 45* pulls out of his ass almost every day.

And don't forget that the GOP can't win anything if we all get to vote.

They reiterated that yesterday in NC.

Vox:

September 11 was supposed to be an uneventful day in North Carolina’s state capitol. Instead, it became a case study in the lengths Republican lawmakers in the state are willing to go to push through their agenda.

The state legislature was in session Wednesday morning, but Democrats were told there wouldn’t be any votes. So some lawmakers joined Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper at a ceremony for the victims of 9/11. Others stayed in their districts. Democrat state Rep. Grier Martin told me he took the time to go on a run.

Only nine Democrats went to the floor of the General Assembly. They were met with 55 Republicans ready to stage what Democrats are now calling a political ambush.

Republican leaders scheduled a surprise vote to override Cooper’s budget veto, an unprecedented partisan play that blindsided the state Democrats. Cooper called it “trickery, deception, and lies.”

North Carolina has a Democratic governor. But the state legislature is controlled by Republicans. Since late June, the state has been stuck in a legislative impasse; Cooper vetoed a two-year budget bill, arguing it underpaid teachers, awarded unnecessary giveaways to corporations and failed to include a Medicaid expansion. Republicans have been itching to override his veto ever since, unwilling to negotiate health care for low income North Carolinians.

But as of last November, state Republicans lost their veto-proof majorities in the state legislature, when Democrats flipped 16 seats across the state Assembly and Senate. On September 11, Republicans in the General Assembly saw their opportunity. Half of the chamber was empty. They voted to override Cooper’s veto. Now it goes to the state senate, where Republicans need one Democrat to join their ranks to officially override the veto.

“Basically, we have to stand guard on the floor,” Democratic state Sen. Jeff Jackson said.

Republicans are liars crooks and losers - they have no honor.

Sep 11, 2019

Something A Man Once Said

Listen for the part about living in chaos (near the end at about 7:15), and how it's not sustainable.


- and "we've already won".

Today's Eternal Sadness


Christina-Taylor Green was born September 11, 2001.

She died January 8, 2011 - shot to death, along with 5 others, at a campaign rally for Gabby Giffords in Tucson.

Fuck the NRA and their coin-operated politicians.

Emoluments

Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm so there'd be no suggestion of self-dealing.
Article 1, section 9:

“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Article 2, Section 1:

"The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them."


Here's a list of people have been reported at some Trump property or another, which means they've put money in Trump's pockets. And since these assholes don't operate on their own dimes, it means they've put my tax dollars in Trump's pockets:

Sen. Gardner 
Sen. Inhofe 
Rep. Jordan 
Rep. Meadows 
Sen. Alexander 
Sen. Crapo 
Rep. Scalise 
Sen. Paul 
Sen. Blunt 
Rep. Duffy 
Sen. Tillis 
Sen. Cotton 
Sen. T Scott
Rep. Rodgers 
Rep. Kinzinger 
Rep. Mooney 
Rep. Barr 
Rep. Biggs 
Rep. A Scott 
Sen. Cassidy 
Rep. B Johnson 
Rep. Posey 
Rep. Byrne 
Rep. Guthrie 
Rep. Babin 
Rep. Westerman 
Rep. C Collins 
Rep. LaHood 
Rep. McKinley 
Sen. Perdue 
Rep. Lamborn 
Rep. Hunter 
Rep. Lucas 
Rep. Upton
Rep. Pence 
Rep. Walden 
Rep. Bilirakis 
Rep. Bergman 
Rep. Walorski 
Rep. Fitzpatrick 
Rep. J Smith 
Rep. Banks 
Sen. Barrasso 
Sen. Boozman 
Rep. J Carter 
Sen. Kennedy 
Sen. Thune 
Rep. Calvert 
Rep. Marchant 
Rep. Brady 
Rep. McCarthy 
Rep. Zeldin 
Rep. Smucker
Rep. Gohmert 
Rep. Walker 
Rep. Burgess 
Rep. McCaul 
Rep. M Johnson 
Rep. M Kelly 
Sen. Rounds 
Rep. Turner 
Rep. B Carter 
Rep. P King 
Rep. Allen 
Rep. Crawford 
Rep. Aderholt 
Rep. Marshall 
Rep. Williams 
Rep. Estes
Sen. Daines 
Rep. S Graves 
Rep. Palazzo 
Rep. Yoho 
Rep. T Graves 
Rep. Reed 
Rep. T Rice 
Rep. Balderson 
Rep. Timmons 
Rep. D Collins 
Rep. Holding 
Rep. Bost

Today's Today

That was a bad one.







Sep 10, 2019

First Step

45* crows about moving on Criminal Justice Reform - signing the First Step Act, and parading Kim and Kanye through the White House to celebrate. But then, of course, he doesn't follow thru, making sure the thing is funded.


And at this point - of course again - we have to consider the probability that the funding is being withheld on purpose. He wanted the optics. He wanted nothing but the appearance of being the guy who helps all those unfortunates and blah blah blah.

It was just an episode on the little reality TV show that he runs in his head.

My suspicion is that the Prisons-For-Profit guys got in his ear, reminding him that their campaign contributions might have to diminish if the program ends up costing them money.

And it becomes nothing but another cheap paint job.

Today's Pix

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