Today's Tweet

It's the new American dream - which is pretty much the same old dream of aristocracies everywhere.

If you don't like income inequality, stop whining & buy yourself some Senators.

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) January 23, 2018

 

Today's Pix

Today's Deep Thought

Listen is an anagram of Silent.

Today's Tweet(s)

#ThingsThatAreProbablyTrueAboutMikePence

#ThingsThatAreProbablyTrueAboutMikePence

Mike Pence plucks his chest hair out in penance for having ever become a grown man with manish needs in the first place.

— EdgarOfTheMoors (@EdgarOfTheMoors) January 22, 2018

#ThingsThatAreProbablyTrueAboutMikePence

Mike calls his wife "Mother."

She calls Mike Pence "Unfuckable."

— EdgarOfTheMoors (@EdgarOfTheMoors) January 22, 2018

 

#ThingsThatAreProbablyTrueAboutMikePence

Wears his tightie whities in the shower

— WhyzGuy (@_WhyzGuy_) January 22, 2018

 

#ThingsThatAreProbablyTrueAboutMikePence

Mike Pence avoids all kitchens because he can't see basic cooking utensils as anything other than sex toys begging him silently to be played with.

— EdgarOfTheMoors (@EdgarOfTheMoors) January 22, 2018

 

Turnout

I was a little worried that this year's Women's March numbers might be down, and it would indicate that we're sliding into normalization due to Trump Fatigue.

Looks like I didn't have to be concerned at all - except that I haven't seen a great level of solid confirmation, but that could be a priority conflict with the Press Poodles having to decide between the protests and the shutdown.

Still, marches went off as planned, and (apparently) exceeded my expectations.

Vox:

Crowd estimates from Women’s Marches on Saturday now tally over 4 million and political scientists think we may have just witnessed the largest day of demonstrations in American history.

According to data collected by Erica Chenoweth at the University of Denver and Jeremy Pressman at the University of Connecticut, marches held in more than 600 US cities were attended by at least 4.2 million people.

- and -

The turnout at events outside the US was significant, too. Chenoweth and Pressman have recorded over 200 international Women’s Marches with an estimated attendance of more than 307,000.

Half the town of Stanley, Idaho (pop. 63) came out in a snowstorm to march in peace & solidarity w/ men, women, & children on 7 continents. pic.twitter.com/tLPCognu2t

— Carole King (@Carole_King) January 22, 2017

The Nation, John Nichols (pay wall):

A review of the president’s approval ratings from the states that provided Trump with the narrow margin he gained in the Electoral College found across-the-board evidence of decay in enthusiasm. With 55 percent disapproval of Trump in Michigan, 53 percent disapproval in Wisconsin, and 51 percent disapproval in Pennsylvania, a credible case could be made that, were Trump on the ballot today, he would lose both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote by considerable margins.

But Trump is not on the ballot today, or even this year.

If Trump is ever on the ballot again, it will not be until 2020.

What matters now is who else is on the ballot. The 2018 mid-term elections will be a critical test for the president’s Republican Party and, if patterns hold, they could see a turn in the electoral math sufficient to check and balance the president in Washington while removing his allies in the states. That’s an essential combination because it is not just Trump but Trumpism–as practiced by presidential allies such as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker–that must be addressed if the crisis of conservative hegemony is going to ease.

This Week With Amy

Amy Siskind's list of 45*'s Daddy State bullshit - Week 62:

Trump marked his one-year anniversary in office with a government shutdown, the first shutdown in history when a single party is in control of the House, Senate, and White House. Trump’s erratic behavior and fluid positions on issues were fuel on the flames of a country and Congress torn and divided. Conversely, the anniversary of the Women’s March celebrated millions marching in 250 cities across the country, and marked a record number of women running for office and becoming politically involved.

This week new evidence emerged of Russia’s effort to financially support Trump’s 2016 campaign, while the Mueller probe engulfed more Trump insiders quoted in Wolff’s book. With all the noise and chaos, it was again easy to miss the continued dismantling of our federal agencies, and disappearing rules and protections for women and marginalized communities.

6. On Saturday, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted a meme, “Fake news is at it again!” accusing the Wall Street Journal of misquoting Trump. The Journal quoted Trump as saying, “I probably have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un.”

7. Late Saturday, the WSJ released the tape of the interview via a tweet. The Journal stated they have reviewed the audio “as well as the transcript provided by an external service, and stand by what we reported.”

8. On Sunday morning, Trump attacked the WSJ, tweeting, “Obviously I didn’t say that,” and in a second tweet, “and they knew exactly what I said and meant. They just wanted a story. FAKE NEWS!”

9. On Sunday, the WSJ issued a statement, again refuting Trump and saying the Journal stands by what was reported.

- and -

13. Economic Policy Institute said if Trump’s Department of Labor proposed rule allowing employers to pocket tips so long as they pay minimum wagegoes into effect, women workers would lose $4.6 billion, 80% of the $5.8 billion lost.

14. Politico reported Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services is planning to expand “conscience” protections for those who do not want to perform abortions or treat transgender patients based on their gender identity on the basis of moral objections.

15. Intercept reported on a prosecutor in Whatcom County, Washington who sought a warrant to get Facebook to disclose names of anti-pipeline activists. The first two attempts were fought and won by the ACLU and Facebook.

16. Facebook advised the prosecutor to seek formal guidance from the Department of Justice, and on the third request, using a DOJ template, the prosecutor was successful in obtaining a warrant and gained access tomessages to and from the page and a list of everyone “invited” to the protest event.
- and -

27. On Wednesday, 10 of the 12 members of the National Park Service advisory board resigned. In May 2017, Zinke suspended all outside committees while he reviewed their work. No meetings have taken place.
- and -

34. The Washington Post reported Trump has yet to put forth a nominee for 245 of the 633 key roles in the executive branch which require Senate confirmation, including the role of ambassador to South Korea.
132 items on this week's list.

Like Deja Vu All Over Again

History does not repeat - but it sure as fuck rhymes.

The Daily Beast, Betsy Woodruff:

The FBI has not been permitted to see the memo Rep. Devin Nunes and his staff wrote about alleged abuses by the intelligence community, The Daily Beast has learned.

"The FBI has requested to receive a copy of the memo in order to evaluate the information and take appropriate steps if necessary. To date, the request has been declined,” said Andrew Ames, a spokesperson for the FBI.


-and-

The fact that Republicans refuse to show the memo to FBI, which characterizes the intelligence they shared with Nunes, has Democrats concerned. One aide told The Daily Beast it means Nunes’ efforts are just politics.

“If this is about FBI abuses, why wouldn’t they share it with the Trump-appointed director who wasn't at the bureau when the abuses supposedly occurred?” the aide said. “If this is about cleaning up the FBI like they claim, wouldn't they want Wray as an ally?”
McClatchy's Day In History:

During a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican-Wisconsin) claims that he has a list with the names of over 200 members of the Department of State that are “known communists.” The speech vaulted McCarthy to national prominence and sparked a nationwide hysteria about subversives in the American government.

Speaking before the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator McCarthy waved before his audience a piece of paper. According to the only published newspaper account of the speech, McCarthy said that, “I have here in my hand a list of 205 [State Department employees] that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.” In the next few weeks, the number fluctuated wildly, with McCarthy stating at various times that there were 57, or 81, or 10 communists in the Department of State. In fact, McCarthy never produced any solid evidence that there was even one communist in the State Department.

Despite McCarthy’s inconsistency, his refusal to provide any of the names of the “known communists,” and his inability to produce any coherent or reasonable evidence, his charges struck a chord with the American people. The months leading up to his February speech had been trying ones for America’s Cold War policies. China had fallen to a communist revolution. The Soviets had detonated an atomic device. McCarthy’s wild charges provided a ready explanation for these foreign policy disasters: communist subversives were working within the very bowels of the American government.

Breaking News

This just in:
Preliminary results of the president's colonoscopy indicate they've found rather large traces of Mike Pence and Devin Nunes.
More details as we learn them.

One Year Ago

We are one year past Trump's inauguration, and here are a few numbers from Jan 2017 for comparison:

Also:

Federal Budget Deficit: $441 Billion

Federal Debt: $19.9 Trillion

Median Income: $56,500

Minimum Wage: $7.50/hr

Median price of an existing home: $188,900

Median Rental: $1231/mo

CPI (unadjusted as of 12-31-2017): 2.1

Today's Tweet

So lemme see if I've got this straight - according to the Repubs, the DACA kids and the CHIP kids are bullying the world's greatest military machine. Is that about it?

The Brunch Scene:
Dem: "Let's order some eggs for breakfast."
GOP: "I'm not ordering food until you get folks at the next table to eat some Tide Pods. Those things look delicious."
Dem: "No way. Tide Pods aren't food."
GOP: "Well I guess you don't really want eggs, then."

— reconstructed pat (@panarmstrong) January 20, 2018

 

The Basics

Too many people who should know better keep telling us the Dems don't have a message - that they don't have a platform the average guy can understand and relate to.

Bullshit.

Get your swag on at the OFA Store

It's The GOP, Stupid.

The Professional Left

We have a Republican Senate, and a Republican House, and a Republican President - and a Republican Judiciary to back it all up - and we get a Republican Shutdown because the Republican Senate Majority Leader can't figure out what the Republican White House means when they "articulate" their "policy" because nobody fucking knows what this numbskull POTUS means when he says anything.



(paraphrasing): 45*'s wall has nothing to do with stopping people from entering the US illegally - it's a monument to White Supremacy.

It's The Daddy State

...but (so far) without the usual efficiencies that go along with such evil-doing.

Charlie Pierce:

So, as two frenzied days begin here, we see that the substantial Republican majorities in both Houses of the Congress have completely abdicated their constitutional functions simply because the Republican Party can’t get out of its own way, and because the president* is a grandiose simpleton who could be talked into cutting off his own head. Both McConnell, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from Wisconsin, theoretically could get pretty much anything they want passed. But Ryan has the Freedom Caucus leading him around by the nose, and McConnell is pretending that the White House has to move first, which turns the constitutional order on its head.

What the GOP is doing is not governance - they hate government, remember? What they're doing is called extortion.

They believe if they cause us enough pain and anxiety, we'll knuckle under and go along with whatever Daddy State bullshit they feel like dictating to us - because of course, it's for our own good.

Nobody deserves to feel like they're being forced to live their lives at the broken end of a bottle.

GOP:

The assholes who make my mom cry almost every day because she's scared of the shit they threaten to do.

hat tip = driftglass & Blue Gal

Today's Tweet

Knowing a little something about yesterday helps prevent people like Paul Ryan fucking us over today.

“What’s that you say, statue?”
[silence]
“Starve the poor? Oh gosh...”
[silence]
“AND take their health care? Oh wow...”
[silence]
“Well, if you INSIST.” pic.twitter.com/qLLFimehuz

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) January 15, 2018

 

Jeff Flake

Good, Senator, but y'know what?  Pick a cliché:

• Put up or shut up 
• Step up or step aside 
• Put your money where your mouth is

One of the things that bugs the fuck outa me about this is that it's so little traction. Seems like he's saying some important things, and it also seems like the Press Poodles oughta be picking it up and running with it.

The other thing is that Mr Flake continues to vote for the policies that give 45* the "wins" he needs to let him keep doing the shitty things Mr Flake wants him to stop doing.

So I don't wanna just shit on Flake's attempts (honest, I don't), but if he wants any of it to stick, he has to make it plain - "I'm not going along with that asshole in the White House until  or unless he gets real, and I'm not doing anything the Republican Caucus wants me to do until they stop being the same kinda assholes as that asshole."