Aug 3, 2017
Today's Tweet
DONALD TRUMP is the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES and we're really supposed to believe mediocre white people aren't getting a fair shake— Emily (@emilydawnlove) August 2, 2017
Aug 2, 2017
Spit Ballin'
Looking for something that explains why "conservatives" are so dead set against policies aimed at equalizing treatment (ie: rights, opportunities, etc) for women and minorities under the law, we always eventually bump into an underlying thingie that translates to:
"What if black people treat us like we've always treated them?"
-or-
"If we give gays the same rights as the rest of us, we're afraid they'll treat us just like we've always treated women".
So let's take that as a template, and overlay the shitty attitude held by so many "conservatives" towards immigrants.
OK so far?
Now consider this - the American population is at an average of 56 years old.
In 15 or 20 years, those "conservatives" are looking at an increasing probability of being taken care of by women and minorities and - wait for it - immigrants!!!
"What if black people treat us like we've always treated them?"
-or-
"If we give gays the same rights as the rest of us, we're afraid they'll treat us just like we've always treated women".
So let's take that as a template, and overlay the shitty attitude held by so many "conservatives" towards immigrants.
OK so far?
Now consider this - the American population is at an average of 56 years old.
In 15 or 20 years, those "conservatives" are looking at an increasing probability of being taken care of by women and minorities and - wait for it - immigrants!!!
Karma's a bitch, motherfucker.
You Know What They Say
"Well, y'know [insert any compliment about anybody here], but he cheats at golf, so...yeah - fuck that guy"
Starting with Dana Milbank at WaPo:
Golf is a game of humility: Even the best players are brought low by nature and chance. And it’s a game of honor: You keep your own score and are often unseen by other players.
Starting with Dana Milbank at WaPo:
Then there is Trump golf. He breaks rules, exaggerates scores and ignores the game’s decorum. Sound familiar? He is, Sports Illustrated asserted, “easily the best golfer” ever to occupy the White House. Likewise, he is an enormously talented politician, with a genius for marketing. Yet in golf, as in life, he doesn’t leave it at that. He gilds the lily with dishonesty.
Golf.com - With special reporting by Michael Bamberger, Ben Baskin and Pete Madden.
[This article appears in the Aug. 7, 2017, edition of Sports Illustrated.]
Trump will sometimes respond to a shot he duffed by simply playing a second ball and carrying on as if the first shot never happened. In the parlance of the game, Trump takes floating mulligans, usually more than one during a round. Because of them it is impossible to say what he has actually shot on any given day, according to 18 people who have teed it up with Trump over the last decade, including SI senior writer Michael Bamberger, who has done so nine times. In 2007, Trump called Bamberger to brag about a 68 he had shot at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles. Trump's handicap index is officially 2.8, but he has posted only three scores since '14. Els, a South Florida resident who has known Trump for many years, estimates he is "an eight or a nine." For Trump to shoot 68 on a tough course like Bel-Air would require him to play nearly perfectly from tee to green while making a number of substantial putts. One of his playing partners that day confirmed that Trump played "good," but that he took all the usual liberties common among everyday golfers: mulligans, gimmes, improved lies, etc. There was no mention of the 68 in a subsequent story, and Bamberger heard about it from Trump.
-and-
Here Trump interjected, "It's a crazy—no, I actually I said I was the best golfer of all the rich people, to be exact, and then I got a hole in one. So it was sort of cool."
That little slice of a story is probably not totally untrue - it's likely as close to "the truth" as 45* will ever get - but the point here is that I'll bet you dollars to dingleberries he's said exactly the same thing on many many occasions just before stepping up and shanking one into the lake.
Golf.com - With special reporting by Michael Bamberger, Ben Baskin and Pete Madden.
[This article appears in the Aug. 7, 2017, edition of Sports Illustrated.]
Trump will sometimes respond to a shot he duffed by simply playing a second ball and carrying on as if the first shot never happened. In the parlance of the game, Trump takes floating mulligans, usually more than one during a round. Because of them it is impossible to say what he has actually shot on any given day, according to 18 people who have teed it up with Trump over the last decade, including SI senior writer Michael Bamberger, who has done so nine times. In 2007, Trump called Bamberger to brag about a 68 he had shot at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles. Trump's handicap index is officially 2.8, but he has posted only three scores since '14. Els, a South Florida resident who has known Trump for many years, estimates he is "an eight or a nine." For Trump to shoot 68 on a tough course like Bel-Air would require him to play nearly perfectly from tee to green while making a number of substantial putts. One of his playing partners that day confirmed that Trump played "good," but that he took all the usual liberties common among everyday golfers: mulligans, gimmes, improved lies, etc. There was no mention of the 68 in a subsequent story, and Bamberger heard about it from Trump.
-and-
In a 2013 tweet aimed at entrepreneur Mark Cuban, Trump wrote, "Golf match? I've won 18 Club Championships including this weekend. @mcuban swings like a little girl with no power or talent. Mark's a loser." Trump has never made public a list of his club titles, and fact-checking calls to all of the Trump properties on this subject went universally un-returned. Winged Foot is the one non-Trump club at which the President is a member, and his name does not appear on any of the honor boards in the old clubhouse.
It seems the guy is simply not capable of telling the truth abut anything.
Bonus BTW:
But it paid off that one time, so he throws up a little variation on a Logical Fallacy called The Texas Sharpshooter.
Lawrence
The Last Word - Lawrence O'Donnell
It seems a bit overblown. It's easy to assume a pathology with a guy like 45*. And fake lord knows he gives us plenty of reason to believe he's fuckin' nuts.
But I think 45*'s "incoherence" - eg: saying he has no comment in the middle of making a comment, and then not giving a real answer on whether he'll try to fire Mueller or not - is just 45*'s instinct always to keep everybody guessing; never giving anyone a good solid place to stand in opposition.
The real point though - 2 points actually:
1) Words do indeed mean nothing to 45*. But that's a little too simple. Actually, he thinks he can make words mean whatever he needs them to mean in any given situation.
If the facts don't support your conclusion, change the facts.
So he says whatever he thinks will get him past this particular moment, and/or whatever puts people off-balance so he can look for something that might get him some advantage a little later on. And he knows the rubes are Etch-A-Sketchable pretty much on the fly, so it doesn't matter if everything he says today contradicts everything he said yesterday.
Classic Shitty Salesman behavior, on triple-shot Red Bull with a side of steroids. And nuclear-fucking-weapons - let's not forget that little wrinkle.
2) Press Poodles are short-handing this daily bizarro shit. It's not so much they're accepting it all as "just the way the guy is" - I think they've caught on that this is dangerous and scary; and they're starting to remember what the old-timers tried to tell them about this weird archaic practice called Journalism.
What gives me heartburn is that an awful lot of people are not able to be tuned in very closely.
But there's a "but" - and it's a big one. The audience numbers continue to shift away from DumFux News, and towards MSNBC and CNN and some of the traditional print outlets.
So I go out with this hopeful little thought, from Mr Churchill:
“You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”
It seems a bit overblown. It's easy to assume a pathology with a guy like 45*. And fake lord knows he gives us plenty of reason to believe he's fuckin' nuts.
But I think 45*'s "incoherence" - eg: saying he has no comment in the middle of making a comment, and then not giving a real answer on whether he'll try to fire Mueller or not - is just 45*'s instinct always to keep everybody guessing; never giving anyone a good solid place to stand in opposition.
The real point though - 2 points actually:
1) Words do indeed mean nothing to 45*. But that's a little too simple. Actually, he thinks he can make words mean whatever he needs them to mean in any given situation.
If the facts don't support your conclusion, change the facts.
So he says whatever he thinks will get him past this particular moment, and/or whatever puts people off-balance so he can look for something that might get him some advantage a little later on. And he knows the rubes are Etch-A-Sketchable pretty much on the fly, so it doesn't matter if everything he says today contradicts everything he said yesterday.
Classic Shitty Salesman behavior, on triple-shot Red Bull with a side of steroids. And nuclear-fucking-weapons - let's not forget that little wrinkle.
2) Press Poodles are short-handing this daily bizarro shit. It's not so much they're accepting it all as "just the way the guy is" - I think they've caught on that this is dangerous and scary; and they're starting to remember what the old-timers tried to tell them about this weird archaic practice called Journalism.
What gives me heartburn is that an awful lot of people are not able to be tuned in very closely.
But there's a "but" - and it's a big one. The audience numbers continue to shift away from DumFux News, and towards MSNBC and CNN and some of the traditional print outlets.
So I go out with this hopeful little thought, from Mr Churchill:
“You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”
Today's Tweet
...and GIF
ok, this gif made my entire evening. pic.twitter.com/z5SefC3UFf— Swedish Spaceman (@SwedishSpaceman) July 30, 2017
Aug 1, 2017
Dots
... sometimes they lead to some interesting places.
45* ... The Mooch ... BayRock ... Felix Sater ... Russian Mob.
Citing Maduro’s “outrageous seizure of absolute power,” the U.S. government froze any American assets he may have and banned Americans from doing business with him. The move came after Maduro heralded the Sunday vote creating a new super-congress made up entirely of government backers. The newly cast legislators included his wife and son. The body will have sweeping powers to rewrite the constitution and redraw Venezuela’s governing system.
45* ... The Mooch ... BayRock ... Felix Sater ... Russian Mob.
BTW - Nicolas Maduro moves Venezuela into the Asshole Dictatorship column, and 45* himself has nothing to say one way or another. So maybe that can be seen as 45* making some kind of "progress" cuz at least he isn't standing and cheering for the prick - the way he's done with almost every other Asshole Dictator.
WaPo:
Citing Maduro’s “outrageous seizure of absolute power,” the U.S. government froze any American assets he may have and banned Americans from doing business with him. The move came after Maduro heralded the Sunday vote creating a new super-congress made up entirely of government backers. The newly cast legislators included his wife and son. The body will have sweeping powers to rewrite the constitution and redraw Venezuela’s governing system.
“Maduro is not just a bad leader,” said President Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster. “He is now a dictator.”
But BTW BTW - Where the fuck is Rex Tillerson?
Sir John of Oliver
I think I understand the impulse to "keep a civil tongue in your head". Taking steps to prevent rhetorical violence turning into physical violence is an important part of the foundation of American Democracy.
But when a legitimate news item has that violent rhetoric at its core, I think I'd prefer to hear it straight out.
That's why we're better served when the "news" is presented to us by John Oliver and Samantha Bee and Bill Maher, et al.
And that's why I bitch about having to rely on half-hour comedy shows to get something approaching the real story.
But when a legitimate news item has that violent rhetoric at its core, I think I'd prefer to hear it straight out.
That's why we're better served when the "news" is presented to us by John Oliver and Samantha Bee and Bill Maher, et al.
And that's why I bitch about having to rely on half-hour comedy shows to get something approaching the real story.
C'mon, Press Poodles - dial it up a little.
Keith
By the time I get a blog post ready to go, the "news" I'm posting about has already gone outa date. Glad to know it's happening to somebody else too.
Today's GIF
There's always a dark and sinister side to populism, but as long as we have people who can stand off and make fun of it all, we'll have the best of checks-n-balances.
And when it comes to the issues of Net Neutrality, that's kinda the whole fuckin' point. Fight for it.
Because "Checks and Balances" is a metaphor, not a mechanism. It doesn't work if we don't work it.
Today's Tweet
Almost exactly 9 hours apart. pic.twitter.com/O2MyQSSvwA— Conrad Close (@conradclose) July 31, 2017
Jul 31, 2017
Res Ipsa Loquitor
"The occurrence of an accident implies neglect"
When something shitty happens - terrorists or a hurricane or whatever - remember that Cult45 has been awfully slow about getting people in place who oughta be working hard so we'll be ready for the shit when the shit happens.
It's not at all certain that we're being set up to accept Daddy State rule, but how do we dismiss the probability given our current "leadership"?
hat tip = Foreign Policy (pay wall)
Today's Deep Thoughts
Facts:
- Liberals love them because they make you smarter.
- Conservatives hate them because they make you liberal.
Today's Tweet
BREAKING: Scaramucci deserts wife & new born baby for the love of another man- @realDonaldTrump Don't tell @MikePenceVP pic.twitter.com/PDkGsOY5PS— RichardNixonZombie (@RNixonZombie) July 30, 2017
Jul 30, 2017
Today's Mind Fuck
New Scientist - Joshua Sokol
Please welcome to the stage a master illusionist. An energy beam that stabs out of galaxy M87 like a toothpick in a cocktail olive is pulling off the ultimate magic trick: seeming to move faster than the speed of light.
Almost five times faster, in fact, as measured by the Hubble Space Telescope. This feat was first observed in 1995 in galaxy M87, and has been seen in many other galaxies since. It might have you questioning your entire reality. Nothing can break the cosmic speed limit, right? You can’t just flaunt the laws of physics… can you?
If you want to just enjoy the illusion from your seat in the audience, stop reading. Otherwise, I welcome you backstage for a look at how the trick works – and how it’s helping astronomers to understand the fate of entire galaxies.
If you want to just enjoy the illusion from your seat in the audience, stop reading. Otherwise, I welcome you backstage for a look at how the trick works – and how it’s helping astronomers to understand the fate of entire galaxies.
Blobs faster than light?
We’ve known about the jet of plasma shooting from the core of M87 since 1918, when astronomer Heber Curtis saw a ray of light connected to the galaxy. To be visible from so far away, it had to be huge – about 6000 light years long.
As modern astronomers now know, pretty much all galaxies have a central black hole that periodically draws in stars and gas clouds. When gas begins to swirl down the drain, it heats up and magnetic fields focus some of it into jets of hot plasma. These jets shoot out at velocities near to – but not faster than – the speed of light.
The GOP Steps Up?
Hard to imagine lately, but Repubs may be getting their chops back in shape, just in time to put 45* in the dumpster as another failed experiment of political evolution.
WaPo Editorial Board:
President Trump’s rise tests the American system because he was elected on the strength of radical protest against it — the claim that it’s all “rigged” — and because his party dominated Congress as well as the White House. The erratic disrupter-in-chief came to power with a political escort of enablers. And so any hope that checks and balances would work to constrain Mr. Trump’s worst impulses hinged, in part, on the willingness of Republicans in Congress to act in defense of values higher than short-term political advantage, or at least to interpret their short-term political interest as requiring them to counter Mr. Trump.
What GOP lawmakers’ first serious steps toward checking and balancing Mr. Trump showed this week, however, is that there is a middle ground, which members of his own party are no longer afraid to explore.
All together now - well it's about fuckin' time, you guys.
WaPo Editorial Board:
President Trump’s rise tests the American system because he was elected on the strength of radical protest against it — the claim that it’s all “rigged” — and because his party dominated Congress as well as the White House. The erratic disrupter-in-chief came to power with a political escort of enablers. And so any hope that checks and balances would work to constrain Mr. Trump’s worst impulses hinged, in part, on the willingness of Republicans in Congress to act in defense of values higher than short-term political advantage, or at least to interpret their short-term political interest as requiring them to counter Mr. Trump.
-and-
What GOP lawmakers’ first serious steps toward checking and balancing Mr. Trump showed this week, however, is that there is a middle ground, which members of his own party are no longer afraid to explore.
All together now - well it's about fuckin' time, you guys.
Today's Tweet
That one might leave a mark.
"No Mr @POTUS, you cannot have the Mango!" - Anthony Scara-Mango pic.twitter.com/oWeeurOdKH— Pin Head (@PiercedSkull) July 24, 2017
Jul 29, 2017
Let's Review
Trump: Grab em by the pussy.
Scaramucci: Steve Bannon sucks his own cock.
Bannon: Paul Ryan is a limp dick.
But we should stay good and pissed off at Hillary for calling these assholes Deplorables.
Today's Bonus Tweet
I get it - imminent demise tends to focus the mind. So it's like McCain suddenly noticed he'd been lost and wandering for a while, and he really really really needed a shot at redemption.
And what're "them gals" so very good at, John? Yeah - forgiving; and being gracious and good-natured; or whatever it is that moves them so often to put the needs of others before their own.
Murkowski and Collins did the same job as McCain, facing twice the hostility for half the credit— Charlotte Alter (@CharlotteAlter) July 28, 2017
And while I don't presume to speak for anyone but myself - and fake lord knows Collins and Murkowski don't need my help - here's a great big You're Welcome. Asshole
When Will It Be Enough?
Another OpEd in another major paper, pointing out just how craven political power can make some folks.
Jennifer Rubin, WaPo, 7-28-17:
What about Trump, exactly, reflects their values? (Taking Medicaid away from millions and separating families to deport law-abiding immigrants?) The Trump administration is a clown show — but it’s the evangelicals who supplied the tent, the red noses and the floppy shoes. Each day presents a new insult to the office of the presidency and a repudiation of civilized behavior.
Sounds Mildly Important
As driftglass puts it: Isn't that what they call mutiny?
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley says, while holding a glass of wine, he too found out about Trump's transgender ban through the news pic.twitter.com/MKInvXsIRh— Natalie Johnson (@nataliejohnsonn) July 27, 2017
Vox:
President Donald Trump said his decision to ban transgender people from serving in the military, announced via Twitter on Wednesday morning, came “after consultation with my generals and military experts.” It’s becoming clearer and clearer that he was lying.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis was on vacation when the decision was announced, and privately opposed the move. The Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. James Dunford, said Thursday that the military wouldn’t implement the ban absent a formal, non-tweeted order from the commander in chief.
And then there were the remarkable remarks that Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley made during a luncheon at the National Press Club.
During the lunch, Milley told reporters that he found out about the ban "the same way everybody else did — on the news." At the time, he was holding a glass of wine.
-and-
These policy points are not details. Without answers to them, it’s literally impossible to figure out what Trump wants the military to do.
And also too don't forget to remember - if it doesn't say specifically that he can't do it, then he'll probably try to do it. That's what he does; he's always looking for the loophole - the SmarmSpace.
BTW, there can't possibly be anyone anywhere who doesn't recognize this as 45* throwing more chaff in the air. He keeps looking for crazier-n-crazier shit he can pull as it gets harder to distract us from his Russia problem, and he can always do with a little help from the ChristoCons, so he "punched a queer" for them.
The guy has always benefited from creating chaos. Of course, now there's real potential for what he thinks is a little bit of his usual self-serving chaos to turn into a fullblown Constitutional Crisis all by itself.
The law of unintended consequences is a real thing.
A Podcast
For the tip jar - make checks payable to:
The Professional Left Podcast
PO Box 9133
Springfield IL 62791
Today's Tweet
Fake Lord love the nerds
Why you never wear GREEN on TV🤗 pic.twitter.com/IsC8TuE3Ei— Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) July 28, 2017
Jul 28, 2017
McCain's Big Moment
Grampy McDumfuck has a moment in the sun as he does the right thing (also the revenge-fuck-you-45* thing) by voting no on Skinny Repeal.
Watch Chuck Schumer (grey suit, center aisle, down front) tell his troops to STFU when they start to applaud.
The moment McCain votes no and the Democrats cheer pic.twitter.com/UiJXnC1VFE— Michael Del Moro (@MikeDelMoro) July 28, 2017
Plugging Those Leaks
Mr Scaramucci hard at work in service to his
What It Is
Call it the Rube-ification of America. And to borrow from Bill Maher: "Why do we always have to be the stoopid country?"
Paul Waldman, WaPo:
What’s truly remarkable isn’t that a bunch of cynical politicians thought they could ride their base voters’ anger into control of Congress by lying to them about what they could actually accomplish; it’s that their voters actually believed it. And then those voters got even angrier when it turned out that the president had the ability to veto bills passed by a Congress controlled by the other party. Who knew! So instead of looking for a presidential candidate who would treat them like adults, they elected Donald Trump, a man who would pander to their gullibility even more.
Paul Waldman, WaPo:
What’s truly remarkable isn’t that a bunch of cynical politicians thought they could ride their base voters’ anger into control of Congress by lying to them about what they could actually accomplish; it’s that their voters actually believed it. And then those voters got even angrier when it turned out that the president had the ability to veto bills passed by a Congress controlled by the other party. Who knew! So instead of looking for a presidential candidate who would treat them like adults, they elected Donald Trump, a man who would pander to their gullibility even more.
Which brings us to where we are today. Republicans couldn’t be bothered for seven years to actually think about what repealing and replacing the ACA might involve, or whether there would be trade-offs and choices to make, or whether setting up a system that accorded with their conservative philosophy might not actually solve the problems of the health-care system. They thought it would be enough to tell their voters to get mad, and worry later about what it would take to keep the promises they made.
-and-
That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty of outright malice in what Republicans are doing, because there is. Their contempt for people who struggle economically is boundless. They’ve wanted to destroy Medicaid for decades, and they just might be able to do it. But their strongest motivation right now is fear, fear of the voters they regard as too dim-witted to be able to make a rational judgment about the most consequential policy question one can imagine.
We dodged one big-ass bullet at about 2:00 this morning, thanks partly to Collins, Murkowski and McCain - but thanks mostly to the simple fact that an awful lot of us have been up on our hind legs pushing back. Makes me proud.
BTW, it ain't over. Both McConnell and 45* issued the standard Daddy State threat - warning us we'd be sorry.
When they say "Obamacare is failing" and "let Obamacare implode", they mean "we'll continue to sabotage Obamacare to punish you for not going along with us".
So don't get happy.
-and-
That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty of outright malice in what Republicans are doing, because there is. Their contempt for people who struggle economically is boundless. They’ve wanted to destroy Medicaid for decades, and they just might be able to do it. But their strongest motivation right now is fear, fear of the voters they regard as too dim-witted to be able to make a rational judgment about the most consequential policy question one can imagine.
We dodged one big-ass bullet at about 2:00 this morning, thanks partly to Collins, Murkowski and McCain - but thanks mostly to the simple fact that an awful lot of us have been up on our hind legs pushing back. Makes me proud.
BTW, it ain't over. Both McConnell and 45* issued the standard Daddy State threat - warning us we'd be sorry.
When they say "Obamacare is failing" and "let Obamacare implode", they mean "we'll continue to sabotage Obamacare to punish you for not going along with us".
So don't get happy.
Today's Tweet
Politics 101— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) July 25, 2017
When GOP controls government, you get fascism.
When DEMs control government, you get health insurance.
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