eVille Times

Jul 6, 2016

A Poem

Trumpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king's horses

And all the king's men

Were just glad they didn't have to worry about that bigoted little prick anymore.

hat tip = unattributed from my Twitter feed

Everybody Wants In On The Act

Reuters:

The German government has approved several arms export deals with countries in the Middle East, including delivery of 23 Airbus helicopters to Saudi Arabia, according to an Economy Ministry letter seen by Reuters on Monday.

On the one hand, there's something odd about being pretty sure that selling weapons to people in the Middle East is a pretty stoopid thing to do; while seeing it happen and starting to think maybe this is just what we do. Like stoopid is the new normal.

But then of course, I won't argue that Stoopid is somehow new, or that it's not particularly normal.

Anyway - it still looked like this was all about "small arms", so that's not as bad as it could be. But then, Financial Times:

The minister cited a €1.6bn contract to sell Leopard 2 battle tanks to Qatar, “which I unfortunately can’t undo”. The deal, which received the government’s green light in 2013, was sharply criticised within Germany because of Qatar’s bombing of Yemen and its alleged support for Islamist groups in the Middle East.

I can't shake that queasy feeling whenever I see a tank with a Maltese Cross painted on it, y'know?

And the only thing worse is when one of the guys who's supposed to know what's going on just shrugs and says, "Oops - oh well, nuthin we can do about it now."

We are so fucked.

Today's Tweet

Reince Priebus: We can finally start playing offense!
Trump: Saddam Hussein was a great leader:
Reince Priebus: pic.twitter.com/7HIWJTIFgX
— jj (@TonyWay31) July 6, 2016

Today's Pix

Jul 4, 2016

Today's Today

Jul 3, 2016

It's Kinda Haunting

HuffPo:

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) had a hard time coming up with a reason why he supports presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump when pressed by Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning.

Cotton, a leading proponent of an aggressive neoconservative foreign policy, was asked by Todd whether he is closer in foreign policy terms to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton than Trump, who, while promoting a bombastic and confrontational foreign policy for the United States, has also called for the country to pull back from some international conflicts and commitments. Cotton had a hard time mustering up an answer.

Paul Ryan has had similar trouble trying to come up with something that wasn't too ridiculous when asked about his endorsement for Trump.

So these guys have had a hard time finding good answers for why they support a Trump candidacy, but not the candidate's policy positions. Not a lot that's brand new in that - this shit can often come down to My Team vs Your Team, and this Trump thing just takes it out the Logical Extreme in a bigger hurry than most.

What really intrigues me is - how come two of the shiniest of the GOP's shiny new stars bear such an uncanny resemblance to Mr Bean with a beard?

Ah, But For Wales

It's a Welsh thing - there's no way for you to understand (hey - you do Ethnic your way, and I'll do it mine)

If only it didn't explain so well what's goin' on with the Trumpkinite Rubes.

Compare And Contrast

Tomorrow, on the day we commemorate the beginning of our experiment in self-government, it may be of some value to look at where we started, and try to gauge the probabilities of where we may be headed.

Here's the bedroom of King George III as it is supposed to have looked in the 18th century:

And now, the bedroom of a certain Populist "Billionaire", masquerading as a champion of the American Workin' Guy:

Questions?

Jul 2, 2016

Scoreboard, Bitches

Today's Tweet

Donald's blatant anti-Semitic tweet----Bad!! pic.twitter.com/VkuUydh8b2
— Calyban (@Calybancalyban) July 2, 2016

The Trump Campaign later fixed the graphic, replacing the Star of David with a circle, and then deleting the original tweet.

This of course, accomplishes two things. First, the original tweet got the message out to the people it was supposed to reach, and the controversy amps up the attention.

But the main thing is that now, they have a little plausible deniability. They can claim the original was PhotoShopped to make them look bad because The Left is just that diabolical and they'll stop at nothing to destroy America's Truly Noble Conservatives blah blah blah. And that keeps things rolling with even more free media.

This shit doesn't happen by accident.

Jul 1, 2016

Yikes (NSFW)

Courtroom Transcript Reeactment Theater

Today's Tweet

At the Jefferson Memorial and this quote should be applied against all #2A arguments. #nra #tcot pic.twitter.com/8gb9GVYX6I
— MATTY ICE (@MattyIceAZ) July 1, 2016

Start The Weekend

Whatever your thing is. Whatever you're into. Whatever turns your crank. But let's remember to be just a tiny bit careful too, OK?

Jun 29, 2016

Not For Nothing

via HuffPo:

Still not convinced the Earth is rapidly warming? Consider this: The last time the global monthly temperature was below average was February 1985.

That means if you are 30 years old or younger, there has not been a single month in your entire life that was colder than average.

“It’s a completely different world we’re already living in,” Mark Eakin, coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, told scientists gathered this week for the International Coral Reef Symposium in Honolulu. He added it likely won’t be long before that same age bracket has experienced only above-average temperatures.

“It’s happening that fast,” Eakin said.

Today's Weird Irony

I guess I'm only partly glad to be reminded that Stoopid is not exclusive to USAmerica Inc.

But - that clip also serves as a happy reminder that Monty Python's Life Of Brian continues to inspire some pretty great thinking.

Jun 28, 2016

Something Of A Change

The story at HuffPo is that Trump's flipflops on his immigration "policy" pronouncements (aka: standard ranch stash bullshit) is confusing for his supporters.

Donald Trump has spent the week pedaling backward and forward on his immigration positions, leaving immigration hawks — and some of his biggest boosters — worried about the strength of his support for mass deportations and a blanket ban on Muslim immigrants.

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a prominent Trump supporter and immigration hawk, told HuffPost he was perplexed by Trump’s series of unfolding positions.
“He initially said he wanted to deport the 11 million people,” Arpaio said. “So you’re saying he’s now saying he’s not going to deport everybody who’s been here illegally?”

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an influential think tank that calls for stricter immigration laws, said he was similarly concerned.

“His instincts on a lot of these issues are correct. Unfortunately, since he doesn’t know much about the issue, won’t listen to his own advisers, and won’t read his own immigration platform, he ends up veering from one thing to the next,” said Krikorian, who plans to vote for Trump. “This is just another example of Trump’s weakness when it comes to policy.”

But I'm kinda wondering how many of Trump's loyal Base Voters will start to bail on him now that it appears he's trying to polish himself up for the general election. The story and that video clip make it pretty obvious that he's being managed a lot differently now. He's not up there just running his mouth - he's trying to focus a more generally palatable rhetoric on the immigration issue, which is what has put his Knob-Gobbler Chorus Boys into a tizzy. How does a Joe (America's Own Sheriff of Nottingham) Arpaio and that Nazi Heimbach dude stay with him now?

What does that cost him? Standard Operating Procedure says you can expect to lose some support from the wingnuts, but it doesn't matter because you have to appeal to the middle now, and what you lose on the right you'll more than make up for... and those rubes aren't gonna vote for anybody else anyway... and and and ... but how does that not make Trump look like "just another politician"? And how does that not tarnish him big time with all the people who got him this far because he's not just another politician?

What really jumps out at me though is that somebody (Manafort?) has convinced him that if he's going to be more consistent, and better able to stay on message, then he has to use a TelePrompter, and holy fuck, boys and girls, he really sucks at it.

This continues to be something to watch with great interest - like something grotesque and horrific that some teenager caught on video; I can't stop watching it; I can't stop hating that I'm watching it, and I can't stop wanting to see more.