Today's Poodle-ry

Press Poodles continue to pimp the myth that says the history of the Republican Party began with an escalator ride in Trump Tower in 2015.

Michael Edison Hayden, Newsweek:

Overt anti-Semites have been slowly creeping into Republican politics in the aftermath of President Trump’s successful, populist candidacy, and now one of them has a fighting chance of representing the Republican Party in a Senate race.
No, doofus - shit-heels like Patrick Little have felt very much at home in the GOP for decades. 45* just pried up the rock they live under, gave them a sense that they're not really the inveterate racist assholes they are, and turned 'em loose.

This is not Trumpism. He has not remade the GOP in his image. 

45* is the near-perfect reflection of what the GOP is now - and has been for a good long time.

hat tip = driftglass

Today's Tweet

Check small things
Follow up
Play to the whistle
Cuz it ain't over til it's over.

When you only do interviews with friendly outlets, but you still manage to screw your legal defense pic.twitter.com/opE1h2XqGp

— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) April 26, 2018

 

A Brief Observation

The Popemobile is bulletproof.

Is this really the best example of faith in action?

hat tip = Bill Hicks

Middle Age Riot

This is one of my favorite Tweeters - @middleageriot

Some hi-lites:

If you sat a hundred monkeys at a hundred typewriters for a hundred years, none of them would write a Trump tweet because monkeys aren't stupid.

— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) April 17, 2018

a haiku for Sean Hannity:

you are an asshole
asshole asshole asshole ass
hole asshole asshole

— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) April 18, 2018

There is nothing more temporary than the new low Donald Trump reaches every day.

— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) April 15, 2018

Today's Today

It's April 28 - happy International Work Safety Day, everybody.

Overheard

Michael Cohen will plead the 5th because he's afraid the ordeal of his questioning will break him down and he'll look bad and Trump will tweet unkind things about him and that means Daddy doesn't love me anymore and and and.

Hillary testified under oath for 11 hours. Then she raised $4M for the DNC and broke up a chain fight at a biker bar while opening a coupla stuck pickle jars with her vagina.

Today's Quote

Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him god?

--Epicurus

Before vs After

45* had another public "meltdown" on DumFux News yesterday. I put the word 'meltdown' in quotes because I think at this point we have to consider the probability that 'meltdown' is this clown's default mode.

About 40 seconds in

Starting about 4 minutes in - with 25 minutes to go

The really intriguing part was that 45* ranted and raved for almost 30 minutes about things the DumFux News audience never hears on WingNut Media.

So the gang at Good Morning Couch Tumors, realizing they had no chance to get him on topic, were left scrambling to get 45* off their air, so they could go to a nice long commercial break in order to figure out how to spin it back to the shit they're always pimping.

But apparently they couldn't do it, because they spent the rest of the show alternating between pretending nobody had heard what they had just heard, and changing what 45* had actually said.

The Best God Is No God

Real tired of spending money time or effort on anything having to do with anybody's brand of religion - especially when it's government employees wrangling over who gets to mumble entreaties to non-existent deities on my fucking dime.

The Hill:

House Chaplain Patrick Conroy’s sudden resignation has sparked a furor on Capitol Hill, with sources in both parties saying he was pushed out by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

Conroy’s own resignation announcement stated that it was done at Ryan’s request.

“As you have requested, I hereby offer my resignation as the 60th Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives,” the April 15 letter to Ryan, obtained by The Hill, states.

Through his office, Conroy, who has served as chaplain since 2011, declined to comment on Thursday. His resignation is effective May 24.
- and -

A second Democratic aide said Conroy’s ouster was “largely driven by a speech on the tax bill that the Speaker didn't like.” But the source also offered a second reason.

“Some of the more conservative evangelical Republicans didn't like that the Father had invited a Muslim person to give the opening prayer,” the source said.
Having an official chaplain of any stripe working for any branch of my government is an offense to the US Constitution. Fire 'em all.

1. Leave your imaginary friends in the cloak room. 
2. Put your asses in those chairs.
3. And get some fuckin' work done.

Primped And Ready

Michael Cohen says he took out an equity loan on his house to get the $130K for Stormy Daniels.

Michael Cohen (and his father-in-law) loaned $26M to a guy in Vegas, who wants to transition from the taxi business to the marijuana business.

The Hill:

President Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen and Cohen's father-in-law reportedly loaned at least $26 million in recent years to a taxi mogul who is shifting his business to selling legal marijuana, The Associated Press reports.

The AP obtained documents showing that Cohen and his father-in-law have loaned millions to Semyon “Sam” Shtayner, a longtime Nevada business associate of Cohen's father-in-law who is transitioning from the business of owning taxi medallions to a business built around selling marijuana edibles.

CNBC:

The Shtayners, like Cohen's father-in-law, are immigrants from Ukraine.

Cohen owns 32 taxicab medallions in New York.

His father-in-law, Shusterman, was charged with two other men in 1993with conspiring to defraud the IRS in connection with his own New York taxi business. He pleaded guilty to a related charge that same year, and was placed on probation for two years.
There may be a reasonable-sounding explanation - even for this one - but it just keeps getting harder to reconcile all the weird and sketchy shit that goes on in and around Cult45.

The Commish

WaPo:

There is, of course, no official manual on how to use an official government position to get officers to tear up a ticket, but for any enterprising self-help author looking to write one, a dash-cam video featuring a purple-vest-wearing, recently resigned Caren Z. Turner might prove insightful.

During an Easter weekend traffic stop that involved her daughter, Turner flashed her gold “Port Authority of New York and New Jersey” badge and demanded that the law officers call her by her title: “Don’t call me ‘Miss.’ It’s ‘Commissioner.’ ”

She said, early and often, that she is a friend of the Tenafly, N.J., mayor and also happens to be a personal acquaintance of the police chief. She may have even been invited to attend the officers’ police academy graduation, she told them.

She made sure the officers knew they were dealing with the cream of Tenafly society, not riffraff. She is an attorney, she told them. Her daughter, she said, is a student at Yale, and the younger woman’s friends attend MIT — and the officers were ruining what had been a nice Easter weekend hike.

And when all that failed, she cursed at the officers and told them to shut up.
(actually, she told 'em to "shut the fuck up", but WaPo is still trying to get us to think the world of politics is somehow marked by decorum, and inhabited by well-mannered people)

But anyway:

We can't know exactly what was going on inside her head of course, but this looks an awful lot like Privilege Working Overtime.

And the kicker? In the public statement she released to The Englewood Daily Voice, she shifts the blame, suggesting it's the cops who need to "...review best practices with respect to tone and de-escalation, so that incidents like this do not recur."

Fake lord, have mercy.
hat tip = FB pal Vicki W-E

Today's Pix

Some of these pix may be NSFW

About That Macron Dude

Mr Macron:

Emmanuel Marcon just delivered the State of the Union Trump should have. Watch. pic.twitter.com/gfP9Tsso9t

— Millennial Politics (@MillenPolitics) April 26, 2018

 

I have to push back on one tiny point - we're not killing the planet.

What we're doing is making it far more probable that the planet will end up killing us.

It's not all that complicated.

Today's Tweet

We should all be so weird

I just saw the phrase
“Naziphobic Bigot” used in a non ironic fashion and now I want to punch a nazi.
Then again, I always want to punch a nazi.
I’m weird that way.

— Dave The Great and Powerful (@_Mr_Merrick) April 24, 2018

 

It's All For Show

45* sweats bullets thinking his presidency isn't legit - to the point where he's willing to spin complete bullshit like "massive voter fraud", and "we oughta have a nice parade to show everybody how much the military loves me".

And of course, Bobby Three Sticks gives him nightmares even when he's not officially asleep (we may see him walking around with his eyes open, but that don't mean he's actually awake, y'know?)

That moment when your wife resists holding your hand... PRICELESS. 🤣🤣 @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/hDpPddTv5C

— BetsyBits (@BetsyBits) April 24, 2018

 

Melania's been kinda FLOTUS-ey lately, and it makes me wonder what that's costing him. 

Remember, this is a guy who's had to pay practically every woman in his life to do the things he wants them to do.

Did they negotiate a price list?

Per Appearance, solo....................................$ 50,000

Per Appearance, w/ POTUS.........................$100,000

w/ Hat, add....................................................$    2,500

w/ Physical Contact, add...............................$250,000

After Business Hours (eg: State Dinners).....call for quote

It's almost literally nothing but a show. And I know we've been saying that for years, but there're people in this country who tell us they believe this shit's real. Or that they think this shit's OK because what we really need is somebody who'll get in there and just disrupt the fuck out of it - and besides, if it makes some Librul mad enough to cry, then it's Mission Accomplished.