Any less tragic and this shit ain't funny.
Version 2.0.— Steve Marmel (@Marmel) May 13, 2018
By popular demand. pic.twitter.com/BoSVZm78Zl
May 15, 2018
Today's Tweet
Any less tragic and this shit ain't funny.
May 14, 2018
This Week's List
Amy Siskind at The Medium:
This week Trump threatened to take away media credentials, equating negative coverage to fake news. Trump and his surrogates continued to publicly undermine the Mueller probe, pressing for its completion and questioning the validity of its outcome; yet, seemed unprepared to handle the fallout of information made public by Stephanie Clifford’s attorney, Michael Avenatti.
This was another week of resignations and disquiet within Trump’s cabinet as he continues to bully dissent and turn a blind eye to kleptocracy, incompetence, and ethics violations. Against the advice of former senior officials, Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, further isolating America on the world stage. Acts of hate and distrust of “others” continue to escalate, as does the regime’s cruelty towards those not white, straight, and male. While Trump remains popular with his base, increasingly Americans are worried about aspects of everyday life that are forebodingly shifting ever-so subtly.
Week 78 "Hi-Lites"
1. The Guardian reported the Trump regime hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to conduct a “dirty ops” campaign against Obama diplomats who negotiated the deal with Tehran.
2. Individuals targeted include Ben Rhodes, a top national security adviser, and Colin Kahl, deputy assistant to Obama. Trump has a May 12 deadlinedecide whether to scrap or continue the Iran nuclear program.
3. The New Yorker reported the intel firm was Black Cube, the same retained by Harvey Weinstein in 2016 to investigate the women and journalists who might come forward against him for sexual misconduct.
6. On Sunday, NYT reported Sen. John McCain, as part of his final wishes,has told his inner circle does not want Trump to attend his funeral. McCain would however like Obama and George W. Bush to deliver eulogies.
8. On Monday, Trump called on Congress to pull back more than $15 billion in spending approved in the recent budget, half of which would come from two accounts within the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
16. On Tuesday, Axios reported an annual study of 18–24 year-olds in 16 Arab states found a sharp spike in negative sentiment against the US: 57% see the US as the enemy (up from 32% in 2016) versus 35% who view the country as an ally.
17. Further, 73% of Arab youth said Trump’s election has had a negative impact on their view of the US. Arab youth view Russia more favorably than the US, as the US fell out of the top five spots for the first time.
23. On Thursday, Oliver North, the newly elected National Rifle Association President, said that gun control activists like the students from Parkland, are “civil terrorists.”
73. The resignation is a part of a brain drain officials warn about across the government, and especially in the State Department. The office Johnson led has gone from seven full-time staffers when Trump took office to none.
Today's Tweet
Oddly enough, almost exactly what "the libruls" have been trying to tell us for 40 years.
"I voted for Trump because I thought he would hurt OTHER people, not me!" is a flourishing genre. https://t.co/x2SfZge7hQ— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) May 13, 2018
Today's Quote
"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish."
hat tip = driftglass
Mr Lincoln was breaking the rules. He was supposed to say something stupidly passive - something like:
"The south keeps yelling about how white people are just better than black people, and slavery is what the good lord intended so the masters could prosper while improving the negroes' debased and inferior nature (a bit - let's not get carried away)."
"While the north is yelling that slavery is cruel and sinful, and it's not OK for southerners to come north hunting runaways, and sometimes kidnapping free men and selling them as chattel."
"So the only real problem is that both sides are yelling."
Mr Lincoln would never make it in USAmerica Inc these days.
--A Lincoln - 2nd Inaugural
hat tip = driftglass
Mr Lincoln was breaking the rules. He was supposed to say something stupidly passive - something like:
"The south keeps yelling about how white people are just better than black people, and slavery is what the good lord intended so the masters could prosper while improving the negroes' debased and inferior nature (a bit - let's not get carried away)."
"While the north is yelling that slavery is cruel and sinful, and it's not OK for southerners to come north hunting runaways, and sometimes kidnapping free men and selling them as chattel."
"So the only real problem is that both sides are yelling."
Mr Lincoln would never make it in USAmerica Inc these days.
May 13, 2018
Hold My Beer
Cocky schmocky - I got this.
Popping one hell of a wheelie on your quad to impress the squad.#ItsNotGoneWell pic.twitter.com/012xx9dANi— Its Not Gone Well (@itsnotgonewell) April 30, 2018
Today's Tweet
It's just an Obama kinda day.
A wiseman once said... pic.twitter.com/rZKDvYkCGN— UnsilentMajority 🌹 (@The_UnSilent_) May 12, 2018
Today's GIF
"When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk."
--Barack Obama
May 12, 2018
It's The History, Stoopid.
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| The Professional Left |
Republicans delivered a tax cut to Sheldon Adelson worth about 3/4 of a billion dollars in a single quarter, and of course he writes a check to the House GOP SuperPAC for $30 million. But there's no quid pro quo.
And on the immigration thing - John Kelly points out that "most immigrants" coming to USAmerica Inc aren't gang members and criminals, but they are "rural" and "poorly educated".
In other words, they're all potentially either Crooks or Rubes - aka: TRUMP SUPPORTERS.
So why are you trying to keep them out?
May 11, 2018
About That Voter Anxiety
WaPo ran an "exposé" on how the voters got 'disenchanted' during the Obama years:
Eight days before Trump took the oath of office, Kurt Glazier, now 50, was in the dining room of his home in Sterling, Ill. Wearing a John Deere hoodie, he offered a measured view of the road ahead. ***Glazier is a state worker, a union member and serves as chairman of the Republican Party in Whiteside County. He also sits on the county board. He is a thoughtful person who speaks deliberately and chooses his words carefully.
(*** in a state where the GOP governor has steadfastly refused to pass a budget, which is widely understood to be Gov Rauner's way of using the "budget problem" to kill Public Employees' Unions, cut Medicaid, and generally drive down wages in order to make Illinois more "Business-Friendly")
Bruening, 41, understood Trump’s success in Clayton County despite the earlier string of Democratic victories. “I think one [reason] is that it is exhausting to have to edit yourself all the time, and Trump was completely the opposite of that,” he said. “I think Trump allowed . . . people to not have to feel bad about holding, say, anti-immigrant views or something. That’s one of the things I really noticed. People are way less afraid to say what they really think about a host of different things.”
Trump, he said, also was like a mirror that reflected on people what they wanted to see and hear. “What people are talking about is what he gives back to them, and I think because of that, that’s a good way to really reach people on a visceral level,” he said. “. . . So there’s this feedback loop, which I think he’s, like, a genius at, legitimately. And so people got the impression that he was hearing them on a personal level.”
Eight days before Trump took the oath of office, Kurt Glazier, now 50, was in the dining room of his home in Sterling, Ill. Wearing a John Deere hoodie, he offered a measured view of the road ahead. ***Glazier is a state worker, a union member and serves as chairman of the Republican Party in Whiteside County. He also sits on the county board. He is a thoughtful person who speaks deliberately and chooses his words carefully.
(*** in a state where the GOP governor has steadfastly refused to pass a budget, which is widely understood to be Gov Rauner's way of using the "budget problem" to kill Public Employees' Unions, cut Medicaid, and generally drive down wages in order to make Illinois more "Business-Friendly")
- Fuck something up
- Wait a bit
- Point at it and say, "Oh look - it's fucked up"
- Run on a platform of, "It's All Fucked Up So You Better Vote For Me Cuz Only I Can Fix It"
Sorry not sorry, kids. You fell for it. You got snookered.
- and -
Although he had not seen Trump’s victory coming, he said that it hadn’t been difficult to interest people in Trump’s candidacy. “I think Trump brought out the fact that — I mean, as crude and callous as he was at times — so many people had been almost discriminated against because they were Republicans and not Democrats that we felt inferior.”
Although he had not seen Trump’s victory coming, he said that it hadn’t been difficult to interest people in Trump’s candidacy. “I think Trump brought out the fact that — I mean, as crude and callous as he was at times — so many people had been almost discriminated against because they were Republicans and not Democrats that we felt inferior.”
- and -
Trump, he said, also was like a mirror that reflected on people what they wanted to see and hear. “What people are talking about is what he gives back to them, and I think because of that, that’s a good way to really reach people on a visceral level,” he said. “. . . So there’s this feedback loop, which I think he’s, like, a genius at, legitimately. And so people got the impression that he was hearing them on a personal level.”
Call it the Archie Bunker Effect. Archie starts out as the penultimate bad example - the guy who embarrasses everybody almost every time he speaks, but ends up being some hero of the Culture Wars because "really, Archie just says what we're all thinking".
And speaking your mind is generally cool, of course, but when what you're thinking is a buncha racist shit that's been manufactured for you to the point where it feels like a custom fit, then we've got a problem.
Because y'know what, Sparky? It's not unreasonable for me to expect you to sit politely at the dinner table and resist any and all temptation to call your grandmother a worthless stupid cunt just to see her get mad enough to cry.
And, as usual, the Press Poodles continue to ignore the GOP's hand in creating these problems. McConnell & Co spent 8 years fucking it all up, but that little tidbit never factors in to any of the questions when the Poodles go out there and mingle with the simple folk.
When Even George Will...
George Will is years past his freshness date, but just as a blind hog roots up an acorn once in a while, so Mr Will can still bring it on rare occasions.
On Lawrence O'Donnell's show last night:
Money quote: "... Mr Pence is surface all the way through."
Be mindful that Mr Will can trash 45* and his trained monkeys, but still miss the broader point that it's the GOP that's been putting these assholes up front for a solid 30 years.
The party built these monsters. The party owns that responsibility, and a guy like George Will bought 3 or 4 houses and took nice long vacations in Europe on the money he was paid to animate the monster.
So it gives us a Warm-n-Fuzzy to hear ol' George say those things about Cult45, but we've been here before. We had that same feeling when Will trashed Bush43 about 15 years ago.
He tries to make it sound like he's widening out his criticism by saying Pence has given in to tribalism, but that word - "Tribal" - is great example of ducking the issue by using vague terms to invite the inference that it's a Both Sides problem, and therefor everything is equal and therefor we can go on pretending that it's not the GOP that's the fucking problem.
On Lawrence O'Donnell's show last night:
Money quote: "... Mr Pence is surface all the way through."
Be mindful that Mr Will can trash 45* and his trained monkeys, but still miss the broader point that it's the GOP that's been putting these assholes up front for a solid 30 years.
The party built these monsters. The party owns that responsibility, and a guy like George Will bought 3 or 4 houses and took nice long vacations in Europe on the money he was paid to animate the monster.
So it gives us a Warm-n-Fuzzy to hear ol' George say those things about Cult45, but we've been here before. We had that same feeling when Will trashed Bush43 about 15 years ago.
He tries to make it sound like he's widening out his criticism by saying Pence has given in to tribalism, but that word - "Tribal" - is great example of ducking the issue by using vague terms to invite the inference that it's a Both Sides problem, and therefor everything is equal and therefor we can go on pretending that it's not the GOP that's the fucking problem.
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| Read your driftglass |
May 10, 2018
Today's Tweet
Three American detainees returned home after being held captive by North Korea.— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) May 10, 2018
Overheard: "It's great to be back, but why is the asshole from The Apprentice meeting us at the airport?"
You Are Not So Smart
David McRaney's podcast looks at rationalization - particularly how we rationalize our way around an innate fear of change, and how that explains a few things about why 35 - 45% of us seem to be OK with Cult45.
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