Are You Ready?

If you're not ready, then you'd best be gettin' ready because I think we'll eventually be told to accept Mike Pence as the guy who rides in and saves us from the clutches of Donald Trump, Evil Super-Genius.

WaPo:

BRUSSELS — Vice President Pence said Monday that he “fully supported” Michael Flynn’s ouster last week as national security adviser, setting himself firmly against the former general, who told untruths about his contacts with Russian officials.

“I was disappointed to learn that the facts that have been conveyed to me by Gen. Flynn were inaccurate,” Pence told reporters during a visit to NATO headquarters in his first public comments about a scandal that has rocked the young Trump administration.

Pence pushed for Flynn’s ouster after learning from The Washington Post that the national security adviser had been captured on tape speaking to Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak on the topic of sanctions. The conversation happened the day the Obama administration announced measures against Russia to retaliate for what U.S. intelligence services say was the Kremlin’s efforts to influence November’s presidential election. Flynn told Pence that he had not spoken about sanctions with Kislyak, an assertion Pence went on to repeat on television.

That performance looked like standard Mike Pence - serenely confident (to the point of condescension) that he'll handle all our troubles if we can just have a little faith in the Jesus-ey goodness of The Lord's America (ie: Mike Pence).

At this point, almost anything beats 45*, and Pence will have to do because the process only requires a few more steps before we're looking at President Rex Tillerson, and then we really are just another oil company with nuclear weapons.

Don't get me wrong, I'm under no illusion that Pence isn't another Daddy State fuck wearing a slightly different uniform. But at least I get the impression the guy has a sense of decency and honor about him where 45* has none.

Also gotta remember there's no provision in the Constitution for a do-over so there's no chance at a President Hillary in store for us. We have rules, and it's usual-and-customary in our little experiment in self-government that we do things by the fucking rules - not just the letter, but the spirit as well.  And the spirit of the law? Aye, there's the rub.

We have a guy in office who figured out how to exploit all the loop holes. Everything that's not spelled out in the words of the documents requires people to behave in an honorable way; to act in good faith in accordance with the spirit of the law; to not take unfair advantage.

45*'s built his whole thing on two simple premises:
1) If it doesn't say I can't do it, then that's my opportunity, and that's what I'll do.
2) And if it says I have to do it, then my opportunity is in not doing it until or unless somebody can force me to do it.

It's not that 45* is immoral - he's amoral. There's no Good and there's no Bad - there's only what works for him.

The guy has no soul and no honor.

A Man Like Putin

John Oliver, Feb 19, 2017

Feelin' Kinda Cynical

In a democracy, you're the customer and the boss. 

As a customer, you pay money in and you get services out.  

As the boss you hire managers to run the joint for you - what we still like to call elections.

In this Oligarchy/Corporatocracy, you're no longer considered the customer. If you're the customer, they'd listen to your input. Now  the only time you get to talk to them is when they give you a chance to agree with decisions they've already made - a lot like those company meetings we all love so much.

And whatever else you may be, you're sure as fuck not the boss anymore.

So if you're not the customer and you're not the boss, I think that makes you the product. 

They're farming you for your tax dollars.  They harvest your money and divvy it up with their buddies and their campaign donors.

Because Contributors get them elected, not voters.

Today's Tweet

I'm on the fence as far as whether or not I even care if it's true. Sometimes you fight fire with fire.

My friend @mfab69 was driving home from work, looked up and saw this pic.twitter.com/zTFL2DG4I6

— Beth,TheNaziSlayer (@BethW_NoTrump) February 18, 2017

Charlie Brings It

Charlie Pierce at Esquire

How many more of these whackadoo performance pieces does he have to present before somebody throws sand in the gears? If four Republican senators—say, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Ben Sasse, and Susan Collins—would agree to caucus with the Democrats under Chuck Schumer, the whole thing would grind to a halt until we could catch our breath and see if we really want to live in the madhouse of this president*'s mind for the next four years. Bold speeches in Munich and chest-thumping on Twitter won't cut it. It's put up or shut up time.

And, please, for the love of god, ye editors and news directors throughout the land, enough with the expeditions into the heartland to talk to people who helped bring this down upon themselves and on us. These folks have nothing new to say. They voted their id and their spleen and they're still on a high from that. Some guy in a café in Dubuque wants to say that he voted for this president* because he "tells it like it is," or because he thinks the steel mills are coming back? Can you watch that rally in Florida and believe that these opinions have any real merit?

hat tip = Karoli, Crooks & Liars

Fake And Alt-Fake News

Beware the double negative - and the triple and the fourple.

Don Lemon gets up and slaps back.

Yay Don. You are earning your way out of Press Poodle status. Ya did us proud right there, son.

Today's Tweet

Donald Trump is so incredibly not racist that all major racist groups endorsed him purely out of ironic spite.

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) February 18, 2017

Just In Case

...that Pruitt schmuck actually kills the EPA, I wanted to put up some tiny little tribute to some of the reasons we managed to clean up after ourselves.

Pollution --Tom Lehrer

Garbage --Biff Rose

The story goes that LBJ liked to work with the windows open when the weather was nice, but he couldn't because the prevailing winds brought the stench of the Potomac into the Oval Office and he wanted something done about it.

Two years after Johnson was gone, people had pressured their Congress Critters enough to finally move Nixon to issue an Executive Order in 1970 creating the agency, which was followed by the legislation that would flesh it out and basically create a cop who was supposed to keep the bad guys from poisoning us.

The air got less shitty, the water got better, there was less crap in the soil that ended up on our dinner plates. The Cuyahoga river stopped catching fire. And Lake Erie went back to being something less like a sewer and more like a reason to move to Cleveland (OK, that one's a bit of a stretch - but hey, LeBron likes it there).

Here's the thing: The infrastructure of good government never comes easy, and once it's gone it can be even harder to get it back.

And BTW, a cleaner environment is really good for the economy.

There's no sense in having a job that makes you too sick to work.

And how big does a paycheck have to be to make up for the lousy feeling you get watching your kid gasp for air, and realizing the work you do could be causing that kid's asthma to get worse?

Like they say - the guys who put Scott Pruitt where he is don't like having the EPA around for the same reason muggers and thieves don't like having cops on the beat.

Here It Comes

The Daddy State is rolling along in spite of what we can see on the surface.

Vox:

Report: Trump transition ordered government economists to cook up rosy growth forecasts

The Trump University economics department strikes again.

Updated by Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias matt@vox.com

Feb 17, 2017, 2:19pm EST

As the White House staff tries to put together a budget for President Donald Trump, they face a fundamental problem. Trump has promised to cut taxes, increase spending on the military and infrastructure, and avoid cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The only way to do that without producing an exploding budget deficit is to assume a big increase in economic growth.

And Nick Timiraos at the Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is planning to do just that — by making things up.

Deep into his story about Trump budget hijinks, Timiraos reveals that “what’s unusual about the administration’s forecasts isn’t just their relative optimism but also the process by which they were derived.” Specifically, what’s unusual about them is that they weren’t derived by any process at all. Instead of letting economists build a forecast, Trump’s budget was put together with “transition officials telling the CEA staff the growth targets that their budget would produce and asking them to backfill other estimates off those figures.”

And all that crapola falling out of 45*'s Putin Receptacle about Fake News?

Isolate your devotees from outside influence. Give them a comforting substitute for reality.

I'm not going to indulge the ridiculous notion that 45* is playing some amazing 8-Dimensional Chess - that's not something Obama could do, and it sure as fuck ain't something 45* could handle.

That's not to say this shit happens by accident, or that he's not capable of subtlety - just that 45* does what he does with a purpose in mind and it all ends up pretty much out in the open because he can't help bragging about it. And that's the key. 

The Authoritarian has to keep score. He has to be able to point to what he's done and count something (rally attendance, Electoral Votes, dead Jews) because he has to show you how great he is as a boss, or to show the boss what a good little follower he is.

And when he runs up against the contradictions he creates (which always in turn create massive fuckups), he just makes shit up so the "facts" will fit around the required outcome.

Keep watching. Keep pushing back.

Today's Tweet

I have no clue why Trump voters imagine I'd care about their opinions of me. They're clearly horrendous judges of character.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 16, 2017

And this goes along with a tweet thread from a guy (Georgetown Law Adjunct, and Fellow at a DC Think Tank) observing the FUBAR attempts to fill 45*'s NSA spot, to wit:

"Harward just gave cover for every NatSec Pro who wants to pass on it."

"Offers and refusals for spots at NSC at every level, including DAS & Sched C" (Dept of Administrative Services - Sched C = Policy and Support Staff)

"The feeling is that wanting the job proves you're unsuitable for it."

Fine-tuned machine my fat wobbly ass. 

Professional Left Podcast

Episode 376: The Trump White House Is Splunge!

The Professional Left

Buy some stuff and support the podcast

Syria Today

 Warning - this is not pleasant 

Just a little something to fuck up your weekend in case you're contemplating supporting 45*'s possible intention to throw in with Putin and Assad.

This is the shittiest thing I've seen since the Nick Berg beheading - don't watch it if you're not prepared for the worst.

Not kidding.

This is bad.

"Pick me up daddy, pick me up" cries child, both legs amputated at knees, in #SyAF barrel bomb strike at #Habeet, #Idlib. pic.twitter.com/kYQpqW2uY0

— Riam Dalati (@Dalatrm) February 16, 2017

A barrel bomb is a type of improvised explosive device used extensively by the Syrian Air Force during the Syrian civil war. They are typically made from a barrel that has been filled with High Explosives, along with shrapnel and/or oil. In Syria they are typically dropped from a helicopter.

Today's Quote

"There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Neither is independent of the other or more important than the other. Without art science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous."

--Raymond Chandler

hat tip = FB friend Mikell Hanes

Back To The Roots

WaPo

A million more votes for Democrats.  Thirty-three more seats for Repubs. That's not democracy.

Today's Wingnut

Well, that's a little scary.