Is It Parody?

G.I. Schmo

That Deep State Thing

Yes, there's a conspiracy against 45*.

Just as there was a conspiracy against Nixon.

And a conspiracy against McCarthy.

(And Al Capone and Ted Bundy - but that's a slightly different angle on the story)

If we're to have any hope of surviving as a republic, we have to insist on a government planted thick with career professionals "conspiring against" the liars crooks and losers who intend to use the law (specifically, the loopholes in the law - the Smarmspace) in order to rule over us instead of serving the greater good.

I've made plenty of noise about entrenched bureaucracies, but my beef is about people in government who get too cozy with the people they're supposed to be regulating - too much of an interlocking-interests kinda thing.

As Cult45 devotees continue to remove the support structure, we're seeing the implosion of our system of self-goverment, and it seems to be rapidly accelerating towards collapse - at which time we can either regenerate it, or kiss it goodbye forever.

The New Yorker:

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, told me that the Administration is propagating a long-held conspiracy theory to justify its behavior. “My understanding is that Trump, Giuliani, and others in the Administration believe that there is a deep-state conspiracy in the State Department against the President and that Masha Yovanovitch was part of this.” Her recall from Kiev, he said, “was a consequence of that conspiracy theory.”

The Deep State conspiracy theory is hardly confined to the West Wing, Murphy went on: “I hear this, too, from my Republican Senate colleagues. There is a belief that there is a group in every corner of the government that is out to get Trump. There really are morally centered people who find him deeply distasteful, and it is required of them to raise questions of corruption if they see it. The Trump Administration sees that as a conspiracy.”

I may be indulging in a simple Argument From Ignorance, but when I look at what has to be obvious - Trump's corruption and outright law-breaking - and I see a Republican party hellbent on maintaining solidarity with him - and perpetrating all manner of anti-democracy rat-fuckery - how do I conclude anything other than this being a deliberate effort to tear down the republic in order to replace it with plutocracy?

A Poem

Lobocraspis Griseifusa

This is the tiny moth who lives on tears,
who drinks like a deer at the gleaming pool
at the edge of the sleeper's eye, the touch
of its mouth as light as a cloud's reflection.

In your dream, a moonlit figure appears
at your bedside and touches your face.
He asks if he might share the poor bread
of your sorrow. You show him the table.

The two of you talk long into the night,
but by morning the words are forgotten.
You awaken serene, in a sunny room,
rubbing the dust of his wings from your eyes.

-- Ted Kooser

Today's Quote

If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be between Masons and Dixons, but between patriotism and intelligence on one side, and superstition ambition and ignorance on the other.

-- Ulysses S Grant, 1875

Today's Pix

click to embiggen

Today's Tweet

Everything old is new again.

Sounds familiar doesn't it?? pic.twitter.com/LdqrqqeSKP

— Hear Me Roar (@Stop_Trump20) October 2, 2019

Do Something Nice

Humans can really fuck things up - and that's exactly what we've been doing.

But we have the capacity to make things right too. Maybe we should do that more often.

I will never be in the camp with people who say idiotic things like "Well, maybe electing Trump was actually a good thing because the backlash against him will give us a great chance to make things better when he's gone."

Fuck that shit. I'm not stupid enough to think it's OK for some kid to die horribly in a car crash so we can feel righteously motivated to make the improvements in passenger safety that we knew all along would prevent that kid from being killed in the first fuckin' place.

We know what to do.

We know how to do it.

So let's get it done.

Today's Tweet

Cult45's phone calls to Ukraine are not about some valiant effort to help them drain their swamp.

Would anyone saying POTUS held up aide to Ukraine due to “corruption” like the names of at least 10 countries we provide more funds to that are more corrupt? That’s pretty easy to do.

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) September 25, 2019

Here's that list (low score wins - like golf):

The top 25 most corrupt countries according to the CPI are:

1. Somalia (Corruption Perception Index Score: 9) 
2. South Sudan (Corruption Perception Index Score: 12) 
3. Syria (Corruption Perception Index Score: 14) 
4. Afghanistan (Corruption Perception Index Score: 15) 
5. Yemen (Corruption Perception Index Score: 16) 
6. Sudan (Corruption Perception Index Score: 16) 
7. Libya (Corruption Perception Index Score: 17) 
8. North Korea (Corruption Perception Index Score: 17) 
9. Venezuela (Corruption Perception Index Score: 18) 
10. Iraq (Corruption Perception Index Score: 18) 
11. Turkmenistan (Corruption Perception Index Score: 19) 
12. Angola (Corruption Perception Index Score: 19) 
13. Eritrea (Corruption Perception Index Score: 20) 
14. Chad (Corruption Perception Index Score: 20) 
15. Tajikistan (Corruption Perception Index Score: 21) 
16. Republic of Congo (Corruption Perception Index Score: 21) 
17. Democratic Republic of Congo (Corruption Perception Index Score: 21) 
18. Cambodia (Corruption Perception Index Score: 21) 
19. Zimbabwe (Corruption Perception Index Score: 22) 
20. Haiti (Corruption Perception Index Score: 22) 
21. Burundi (Corruption Perception Index Score: 22) 
22. Central African Republic (Corruption Perception Index Score: 23) 
23. Madagascar (Corruption Perception Index Score: 24) 
24. Guinea-Bissau (Corruption Perception Index Score: 27) 
25. Equatorial Guinea (Corruption Perception Index Score: 27)

However, there are other surveys available that provide different rankings. The 2018 Best Countries rankings from U.S. News and World Report takes a look at survey data from over 21,000 citizens. Eighty countries are featured on this list. This survey shows that Nigeria is seen as the most corrupt nation. Colombia and Pakistan round out the top three.

The top 10 most corrupt nations according to the 2018 U.S. News and World Report rankings are:

1. Nigeria
2. Colombia
3. Pakistan
4. Iran
5. Mexico
6. Ghana
7. Angola
8. Russia
9. Kenya
10. Guatemala

GOP Fuckery

WaPo:

DETROIT — Poor people in Michigan with asthma and diabetes were admitted to the hospital less often after they joined Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. More than 25,000 Ohio smokers got help through the state’s Medicaid expansion that led them to quit. And around the country, patients with advanced kidney disease who went on dialysis were more likely to be alive a year later if they lived in a Medicaid-expansion state.

Such findings are part of an emerging mosaic of evidence that, nearly a decade after it became one of the most polarizing health-care laws in U.S. history, the ACA is making some Americans healthier — and less likely to die.

The evidence is accumulating just as the ACA’s future is, once again, being cast into doubt. 

The most immediate threat arises from a federal lawsuit, brought by a group of Republican state attorneys general, that challenges the law’s constitutionality. A trial court judge in Texas ruled late last year that the entire law is invalid, and an opinion on the case is expected at any time from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The case could well put the ACA before the Supreme Court for a third time.

Dirty Tricks

My favorite new "conservative" trigger?
Tell 'em you think Trump is too stupid to commit treason and watch as they try to figure out which side to defend.