It Gets Worse

Institutional Memory is an important thing, but keep a coupla points in mind:

Sometimes it's something that ties us in with tradition so tightly it's hard to make changes that become more and more desperately needed.

Sometimes it can keep us from repeating certain mistakes that can easily prove fatal.

Sweet dreams, kids.

A Toon

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste or intelligence of the American consumer.

It'll Never Fly

The Guardian:

If money amplifies the voices of wealthy Americans in politics, Seattle is trying something that aims to give low-income and middle-class voters a signal boost.

The city’s new ‘Democracy Voucher’ program, the first of its kind in the US, provides every eligible Seattle resident with $100 in taxpayer-funded vouchers to donate to the candidates of their choice. The goal is to incentivize candidates to take heed of a broad range of residents – homeless people, minimum-wage workers, seniors on fixed incomes – as well as the big-dollar donors who often dictate the political conversation.

This August’s primary is the trial run for the program. But before Seattle can crow about having re-enfranchised long-overlooked voters, it must contend with conservative opposition.

It makes too much sense in an era of "Things aren't fair? Nobody gives a fuck about fair, Snowflake".

And it provides some pretty obvious opportunity for abuse and/or manipulation.  But we gotta start somewhere with something.

Especially considering the fight we're in now.

The Brennan Center:

On May 11, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating the “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.” The Commission is charged with studying “the registration and voting processes used in Federal elections” and identifying “vulnerabilities in voting systems” that could lead to voter fraud. Vice President Mike Pence is the chair, and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach—a known promoter of voting restrictions and the myth of voter fraud—is the vice chair.

The executive order comes on the heels of President Trump’s repeated assertions that millions voted illegally in the 2016 election. For years, claims of fraud have been used to justify unwarranted voting restrictions. There is strong reason to suspect this Commission is not a legitimate attempt to study elections, but rather a tool for enabling voter suppression.

Today's Pix

Today's GIF

Full automation of the workplace is a bad idea because it denies us the genius of creative fuck-around-ery.

via GIPHY

It's Not Hypocrisy

Let's call it a Flexible Multi-Tiered Moral Code.

CNN:

Hobby Lobby agreed to forfeit thousands of artifacts from modern-day Iraq and pay a $3 million fine to resolve a civil action the Justice Department brought against the company, according to court documents.

The DOJ said the company received the falsely labeled artifacts from a United Arab Emirates-based supplier.

The artifacts, ancient cuneiform tablets and clay bullae, were smuggled into the United States through the United Arab Emirates and Israel, Justice officials said. Cuneiform is an ancient system of writing on clay tablets that was used in Mesopotamia, and clay bullae are balls of clay on which seals have been imprinted.

That whole 6th commandment thing - OK for thee but not for me.

Today's Tweet

tapes pic.twitter.com/EYKHaGE1Lh

— Trump Draws (@TrumpDraws) June 22, 2017

A Simple Question

How was your 4th of July, Mr President?

Some Of What We Lose

Claire Kelly at Melville House

The Mark Twain branch of the Detroit Public Library opened to the public on February 22, 1940 with over 20,000 books. The building’s architect was the prolific and celebrated Wirt C. Rowland, who was known as an “avid modernist and supporter of the Arts and Crafts movement…best known for contributing Art Deco-style skyscrapers to Detroit’s skyline.”

The library was referred to as a “regional library” and was designed to be larger than other neighborhood libraries. It included space for members of the community to not only sit and read books and periodicals, but also hold events and social gatherings...

We bitch about the loss of "community", and ignore the fact we've pissed it away because we don't have one fuckin' clue what the word actually means to us.

From urbanex.com:

 

Today's Liberal Redneck

Trae Crowder - We've been thru worse shit than this

45* Theater

The eternal semantic struggle: Is it "real"?

Ok Twitter- let's see if this wrestling meme can get MORE RETWEETS that the president's wrestling meme. pic.twitter.com/bTWJhttCAo

— Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) July 2, 2017

Physics And A Crow

An Atmosphere Of Animal Instinct

They seem to be inching closer to being able to blow through the chaff and zero in on reality, but still - this is a fairly decent example of Press Poodles poodling away.

C'mon, you guys.

You are NEVER going to understand any of this Trump shit until you ditch your Presumption Of Regularity.

Stop trying to shoehorn this bullshit into the normal set of rules you've been taught.

Take everything you think you know about covering "The US Presidency" and flush it down the crapper - do this every morning right after your post-pilates latté.

Trump has always said he cultivates an atmosphere of animal instinct - he wants to surround himself with killers (he's said as much when talking about raising his kids) - he expects everybody to operate on his level.

Lose your expectations of decorum and tradition and even common courtesy - these people have no soul and no honor. They will eat dead burnt babies to get what they want.

That Purity Thing

I've never really understood the apparent need for some people to think of themselves as some kind of Pure Bred critter.

It's possible that the Out Of Africa thing isn't quite as accurate as they thought, but we do know for an almost absolute fact that we all share common ancestry in one form or another. And when it's proven that an awful lot of us have that Neanderthal strain as well, there's just no way to make the case for anything as deliberately ignorant as Racial Purity.

Quick Reminder

45*'s been in office for a little over 5 months, and he's spent more than 20% of that time - a full month - at one golf club or another.

And we don't really have to talk about the tax dollars he's pouring into his own pockets because of it, do we?