As If It Matters Now

CNN:

Last year was officially the Earth's warmest since record-keeping began in the 1880s, the World Meteorological Organization announced Wednesday morning.

That means 2016 set a global heat record for the third year in a row according to NOAA and NASA, who held a joint press conference on Wednesday to discuss the record.

 

Kaboom

Bernie's right where we need him to be, doing exactly what we need him to do. 

And sometimes, I'd just like to be there to hold the guy's coat while he fucks 'em up.

It's a simple question, @RepTomPrice. Do you believe that health care is a right of all Americans, whether rich or poor? #PriceIsWrong pic.twitter.com/7IkfgWfauF

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 18, 2017

That's A Bit Much

I'm trying hard not to think of this as a harbinger, but I'm plenty old enough to remember when a Buddhist monk in Saigon did this very thing in protest of an oppressive Daddy State  (I think it may have been in my Weekly Reader in about 5th or 6th grade); and there was a regular guy named Norman Morrison who did it just outside the Pentagon to protest the war.

They succeeded in killing themselves but we went forward with the Vietnam project anyway and a coupla million people died; at least partly because we chose to ignore the warnings.

Paraphrasing MLK, violent protest is the language of people whose voices are unheard. Maybe we could listen to what's being said this time?

#BREAKING: Man lights fire near #TrumpInternationalHotel. Employees call police. Man told me he's from CA & protesting #TrumpInauguration pic.twitter.com/noUwttKRL5

— Shomari Stone (@shomaristone) January 18, 2017

via Raw Story

A man who attempted to set himself on fire Tuesday night in front Trump International as part of a protest against the incoming president was rushed to a hospital with burns, reports NBC4.

According to DC police, they were called to the newly opened hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue hotel after receiving a report of a person “in distress.”

Speaking with reporters, the unidentified man claimed he was attempting to set himself on fire to protest the election of businessman Donald Trump, whose inauguration is set for this Friday.

“I was trying to light myself on fire as an act of protest,” the man explained before he was taken to a nearby hospital. “To protest the fact that we’ve elected someone who is completely incapable of respecting the Constitution of the United States.”

There was no report on the extent of his injuries.

Today's Podcast

Bob and Chez:



On Press Poodles and Trump's "plan" to do what Trump always does - make nice with Daddy or Daddy will fuck you up.

Starting at about 25:00, we get to the meat of the matter as the guys illustrate what looks a lot like Trump's attempt to dismantle the tattered remains of the 4th Estate - ie: consider your exile a gift, because then you'll have practically nothing more to lose and that gives you the freedom to do your job the way it's meant to be done.  You're the receiver going over the middle - there's a safety or a linebacker looking to hammer somebody.  And make no mistake, he's gonna pound your ass whether you catch the ball or not - so catch the fuckin' football.

Telling

GOP voters are begging the people they voted into office not to fuck 'em over by repealing ACA, and those representatives are high-fiving each other for moving to repeal it anyway.

What does that tell us about the GOP?

What does it tell us about ourselves?

What does it say about how fucked up it has to get before we figure out that it's fucked up?

Trump's The Chump

Donald Trump projects his own shit onto everyone else.  I realize that's not exactly news, but that is actually the point - that he just keeps hammering on it until you throw up your hands and give in.

Blue Gal and driftglass call it a Denial Of Service Attack. 
Bob and Chez call it the Tennis Ball Machine. 
Olbermann calls it Chaff.

And I can tell you, I'm struggling not to blow it all off and walk away.  For the 69 days since the election, this whole thing has felt the way I image it feels to be stuck in a war zone.

Unfortunately, I think it might just get worse after Friday.

There's no indication this guy will feel constrained in any way on anything at any time.

Here's a quick scorecard from Dana Milbank at WaPo - talking about why The Peddler-in-Chief don't get no respect:

To Trump’s many self-assigned superlatives, he can now add another: the sorest winner. With charity for none and with malice toward all but his supporters, he has in the past two months set a new standard for gracelessness in victory.

When a well-heeled practitioner of Both-Siderism like Dana Milbank puts up a column that never once says, "...but the Democrats...", maybe there's been a bit of a shift.  I won't hold my breath, but wouldn't that be nice?

Anyway, Trump likes to throw shit, and the method to this madness is to keep us from seeing the shenanigans he's really up to because we're trying to deal with all the flying shit.

Apply that to Washington, and you've got a US Congress using Trump's shit-flinging as cover for their skullduggery too.

And of course, when they think he's no longer useful, they can impeach Trump, selling that little project to us like they're a bunch of fucking heroes righting a terrible wrong and bringing the country together and blah blah blah.

With a few minor tweaks, it fits too perfectly with the usual GOP formula:

1) Fuck it up.

2) Point at it and say, "Oh look - it's fucked up".

3) Propose your "solution".

And won't that be a kick in the head? We'll be rid of Trump, and it'll only cost us our Healthcare Coverage, Social Security, Medicare and a whole package of rollbacks of basic protections on Civil Rights, Environment, Consumer Finance, etc -  plus we get President Mike Pence in the bargain. Lucky us.

Grease up and bend over, America - nobody goes unfucked.

Today's Tweet

PEOTUS is a seriously-deranged bag of poorly-executed low-end dildos.

Another horrible night porch drinking & grilling in #fifthdistrict Thanks @repjohnlewis @ajc #defendthe5th #Riseup #swatl #atl #atlanta pic.twitter.com/GE0kGRwJMt

— Dantes Rameau (@DantesRameau) January 15, 2017

Jay Smooth

Today's Today

Things were pretty lousy way back then.

So much better now.

no justice - no peace

Know Justice - Know Peace

Today's Pix

Today's Jiggery Pokery

Start Making Sense

They count on us being dumb enough to believe the crap story about a phony conspiracy like PizzaGate, so we won't be smart enough to believe the true story about the real conspiracy of Putin & his partly-trained orangutan.

Yes, It's Really Happening

Today's Tweet

Rubber, meet Road
Road, this is Rubber

My dad starts chemo Monday. Here's just ONE prescription he needs. It's really very simple: without Obamacare, within 8 months he'd be dead. pic.twitter.com/VpW3zgPYli

— Megh Wright (@megh_wright) January 14, 2017

It Won't Be OK

Widewalls - Protest Art 

What is the scope and impact of protest art? As Adorno famously wrote, ‘all art is an uncommitted crime’, meaning that art challenges the status quo by its very nature. Thus it can be argued that all art is political in the sense that it takes place in a public space and engages with an already existing ideology and dominant discourse. Yet, art can often become dangerously and explicitly political and serve as a powerful weapon. Throughout the history of social movements and social revolt, art has always reacted against oppression, violence, injustice and inequalities. Addressing socio-political issues and challenging the traditional boundaries and hierarchies imposed by those in power, art can open up the space for the marginalized to be seen and heard and contribute to the social change by producing knowledge and solidarity or simply raising awareness. In this way, the personal life and work of the artist transcends the individual and speak meaningfully to a larger audience bringing together the political and human functions of art.

NYT:

...Nadya Tolokonnikova of the Russian punk band and activist art collective Pussy Riot. The group’s 2012 guerrilla performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, which viciously mocked Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, resulted in a two-year prison sentence for Ms. Tolokonnikova and another of its members.

--and--

Leading up to Ms. Tolokonnikova’s trial, Russian news reports carried suggestions that she and her bandmates were pawns of Hillary Clinton’s State Department or witches working with a global satanic conspiracy — perhaps linked to the one that was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, as lawyers for one of their offended accusers put it. This is what we now call “fake news.”

Pussy Riot became an international symbol of Mr. Putin’s crackdown on free speech; of how his regime uses falsehood and deflection to sow confusion and undermine critics.

Now that the political-media environment that we smugly thought to be “over there” seems to be arriving over here, Ms. Tolokonnikova has a message: “It’s important not to say to yourself, ‘Oh, it’s O.K.,’” she told me. “It’s important to remember that, for example, in Russia, for the first year of when Vladimir Putin came to power, everybody was thinking that it will be O.K.”

 

resist