Amy Siskind - Week 65

February 10, 2018

This week the chaos in our country infected Trump’s beloved stock market, which suffered its most volatile week since the financial crisis of 2008, as the Republican Party of Trump abandoned yet another of its guiding principles, fiscal responsibility. The regime suffered multiple resignations from its thinly staffed White House, as well as resignation of the third-ranking official at the Department of Justice amid escalating attacks on our institutions by Trump and his allies.

Troubling signs that Russia never left, and plans to meddle in our midterms emerged, although an increasingly autocratic Trump has conveniently yet to acknowledge Russian interference in our 2016 election. The whitewashing of America continues with statements and actions by Trump and his regime which are antithetical to American values. Trump also continues his pattern of siding with men facing allegations of abuse, ignoring victims’ suffering and accusing them of telling lies, despite Steve Bannon’s warnings that the “anti-patriarchy movement” is changing the US power structure.
13. On Tuesday, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was “clearly joking” when he made the comment about Democrats. Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley added that the remark was “tongue-in-cheek.”

I think it might be OK at this point to ask Ms Huckleberry how we're supposed to know when 45*'s just kidding and when he's not.

It seems clear now (and mildly important) that we need a little guidance as to when he's being truthful, and when he's straight up lying, and when he's just fuckin' with us.

16. Robert J. O’Neill, a Fox News contributor and former Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden, tweeted that Trump’s parade idea is “third world bullshit,” saying a “First World” country doesn’t do such things.
19. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported released a report, “The Alt-Right is Killing People.” Of 12 incidents which led to death or injuries, nine of those incidents occurred during 2017.
43. On Thursday, the two largest teachers union were blocked from entering the Education Department building to deliver complaints in the form of 80,000 report cards to DeVos, because they did not have an appointment.
44. A three-month study conducted by Oxford, as part of the school’s Computational Propaganda Research Project, found Trump supporters consume and share the most fake news on Twitter and Facebook.

New To Me

NSFW

Chrystyna Hutchinson - with today's lesson (ie: Cautionary Tale) in Relationship Management and Sexual Politics.

An Observation

First - why the fuck do we still have to worry about Catholic Clergy?

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." --Thomas Paine
I think if anybody gets around to declaring a Word Of The Year, we'll have to default to "Abuse".

White people abusing their power over Brown people.

Men abusing their power over Women.

45* abusing his power over the government.

"Conservatives" abusing their power in general - even now, when they're clearly in the minority.

"When men imagine a female uprising, they imagine a world in which women rule men as men have ruled women." --Sally Kempton

It boils down to the same old bit that can be expressed a variety of ways:

Men fear Gender Equality because they're afraid women will treat them the same as they've treated women.

White people fear Minority Rights because they're afraid POC will treat them the same as they've always treated POC.

The Christian Majority claims persecution because they're afraid they'll be treated the same as they've always treated everybody.

Same goes with LGBTQ, and Unions, and Immigrants and and and.

It's not about Red vs Blue; it's not about Gay vs Straight; it's not about Men vs Women - it's not about any of that except as a means to serve the interest of someone looking to gain and/or maintain power.

Because it's always about the power first.

Today's Pix

(click a pic)

New Rule - Bill Maher

"The man is an after school special waiting to happen."

Today's Podcast

The Professional Left

with driftglass and Blue Gal

"...Jeb Bush Republicans looking for a place to land."

Continuing the theme of making your bed and then setting fire to it.



Don't get fooled again.

Today's Tweet

But I think I might be ready for the 6th parade. Do you think they'll still be doing it?

"I have to do my hair that day..." pic.twitter.com/9er6IosRIX

— Hydrump (@Hydrump) February 9, 2018

 

Today's Quote

If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove they should value it?

If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument would you provide to show the importance of logic?

--Sam Harris

A Little Reminder

The guy in the oval office knew he didn't have any real shot at it; he knows he didn't earn it; and he knows he shouldn't be there.

Politicus:

Being that Trump won the election by less than 90,000 votes in three states, it wouldn’t take much Russian meddling in a few states to change the outcome of the presidential election. Until the truth is known about the Trump/Russia relationship, and Russia’s role in the 2016 election, Trump will occupy the White House under a cloud of illegitimacy.

Today's Tweet

Don't wanna get all Frankenstein Villager-ey on this, but Jesus you guys.  Have we retired the whole "Cautionary Tale" thing?

And under this particular administration?  What the fuck, fellas.

A Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted https://t.co/sZwqhIvovV Every science fiction and horror writer on the planet just collectively headdesked themselves into a concussion.

— N. K. Jemisin (@nkjemisin) February 7, 2018

Samantha Bee

Let's talk Nuclear Family!

Now let's get into why everything I grew up with is a whole big pile of racist shit - and that's always a little scary, but always always always something we have to face up to, because we don't get anywhere if we stop learning new things.

Today's Pix

Take a little break - then get back at it.

(click on it)

Today's Tweet

In his defense, this is a recording from a time well before Mr Pence became Senior White House Fluffer.

And besides, everybody (ie: every Republican) gets a Perpetual-Motion Mulligan, because apparently, all those "immutable religious tenets" are situational now. So you can bend them and shape them and pound them into any configuration necessary, in order to smash-fit them around any given political circumstance.

WATCH: "Is adultery no longer a big deal in Indiana and in America? I for one believe the 7th commandment is STILL a big deal. It's the most important promise you'll ever make. And holding people accountable to those promises...what could possibly be a BIGGER deal?" Mike Pence pic.twitter.com/tixVisZvaP

— Scott Dworkin (@funder) February 8, 2018

 

These people have no soul and no honor.

This Is It

I don't like it, but here it is.

Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes in The Atlantic:

A few days after the Democratic electoral sweep this past November in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere, The Washington Post asked a random Virginia man to explain his vote. The man, a marketing executive named Toren Beasley, replied that his calculus was simply to refuse to calculate. “It could have been Dr. Seuss or the Berenstain Bears on the ballot and I would have voted for them if they were a Democrat,” he said. “I might do more analyses in other years. But in this case, no. No one else gets any consideration because what’s going on with the Republicans—I’m talking about Trump and his cast of characters—is stupid, stupid, stupid. I can’t say stupid enough times.”

This, then, is the article we thought we would never write: a frank statement that a certain form of partisanship is now a moral necessity. The Republican Party, as an institution, has become a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy. The problem is not just Donald Trump; it’s the larger political apparatus that made a conscious decision to enable him. In a two-party system, nonpartisanship works only if both parties are consistent democratic actors. If one of them is not predictably so, the space for nonpartisans evaporates. We’re thus driven to believe that the best hope of defending the country from Trump’s Republican enablers, and of saving the Republican Party from itself, is to do as Toren Beasley did: vote mindlessly and mechanically against Republicans at every opportunity, until the party either rights itself or implodes (very preferably the former).


Two things up at the front:

People doing things mindlessly is a big reason we're in this jam to begin with. But it seems that's how the Republican brain works now, and so maybe these two guys figure, "if that's what got us here, that's what gets outa here" (?)

Second, it's important to remind these guys (guys like Rauch and Wittes) that maybe if they hadn't been sitting on their hands for the last 30 years, we wouldn't be quite so deep in the shit now.

On we go:

One more nonreason for our stance: that we are horrified by the president. To be sure, we are horrified by much that Trump has said and done. But many members of his party are likewise horrified. Republicans such as Senators John McCain and Bob Corker and Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse, as well as former Governors Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, have spoken out and conducted themselves with integrity.
"...conducted themselves with integrity."  Except that those first 4 guys have voted to fuck over millions of us, practically at every opportunity.  Every one of them is All In on the policies - they just don't like 45*'s Trailer Trash Approach. An approach, btw, the Right Wing Dis-InfoTainment Complex has been pimping for those same 30 years.

I'm certainly not the first to point any of this out (see: driftglass and Blue Gal), but we have to keep repeating it until it starts to sink in - what these guys are trying to do is to build lifeboats. They're already rebranding the shitty monster they've allowed the GOP to become by calling it "Trumpism". They intend to set fire to it and escape, watching it sink, as they sidle up to the rest of us and pretend they had nothing to do with any of it.

AKA: The arsonist wants credit for his courageous efforts in fighting the fire.

And get this:

 Abandoning an entire party means abandoning many brave and honorable people. We would not do that based simply on rot at the top.

Uhh - fellas, that "rot" didn't get to the top without a shitload of support from the bottom, and the bottom doesn't support the Rot-At-The-Top without a shitload of support and direction coming from The Rot At The Top.

Then this (which goes to the very heart of the problem):

Future generations of scholars will scrutinize the many weird ways that Trump has twisted the GOP.

No.

Ah, hell no.

And No fuckin' way.

Trump hasn't twisted anything. A twisted GOP made Trump not just possible or probable - but inevitable.

But since even a blind hog roots up an acorn once in a while, these guys are making one thing very clear - we still have a decent chance to start putting things right.

SHOW UP OR SHUT UP

Today's Tweet

I'm certainly not crazy about adding to the orbital junk heap, but this is pretty cool.

View from SpaceX Launch Control. Apparently, there is a car in orbit around Earth. pic.twitter.com/QljN2VnL1O

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2018