Slouching Towards Oblivion

Saturday, August 20, 2016

Ms Conway

In her own words:



As far as she's concerned, it's nothing but a can of beans on the shelf, or a bag of chips in the machine in the break room - waiting for somebody to wander by with a coupla bucks to spend.

Kellyanne Conway says what she says because she gets paid to say it.  She'll say whatever it is you want her to say if you pay her enough.  There's a word for that, but I won't use that word for Ms Conway because I have too much respect for honest, hard-working whores.

No soul and no honor.

America's Sheriff

Contradictions exist, but they cannot prevail.

via HuffPo:
PHOENIX, Aug 19 (Reuters) - A federal judge recommended on Friday that prosecutors bring criminal contempt charges against Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio, finding that the controversial sheriff had violated court orders stemming from a 2007 racial profiling case.
--and--
“When a federal court finds that a law enforcement official has lied under oath and willfully flouted court orders, that official must be held to account,” said Cecillia Wang, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project.
So here's the thing: When you're trying to preserve and protect what you believe to be "American" by employing strategies and tactics that are decidedly Un-American, then you've got a monster contradiction on your hands that has to be resolved.

And like I've said a time or two before -

I hear "Arpaio", I think "Sheriff"
And when I hear "Maricopa", I think "Nottingham"

Today's Tweet

Friday, August 19, 2016

They Call Me Mr Troll

The race for US Rep (VA-05) is between a GOP State Senator from Lynchburg (Tom Garrett) and the Dem from here in Charlottesville, Jane Dittmar.

Here's a little exercise in what I guess we can call digital campaigning.

The title of the Facebook post was "Chivalry is not dead".  And of course, Mr Garrett thinks he's not being at all dismissive and condescending.  So I couldn't resist.



I guess I kinda hit a nerve, cuz they came out to meet me:



Then they split and left me to play without them:



They're On Fire

The Professional Left Podcast:



A take-away for me is that while we shouldn't be afraid, we need to be vigilant.

One More Kellyanne Thing

Do the guys who're always bitchin' about Hillary's focus groups know that Trump's new campaign manager is tailoring his message style according to the polls that she gets paid a shitload of money to conduct?

About Kellyanne

Just to be clear on who this lady is:



This is a fair look at what I mean when I bitch about how everything is fungible now.

As long as she was doing her free-lance thing, she was saying things she (prob'ly) thought might get her hired by one of the campaigns.  That's what she does and I'm not slagging her for that.

What I'm willing to slag her for is this: she was a Ted Cruz supporter when she said basically "Ted Cruz is pretty bad, but that Trump guy is way worse."

Or maybe we can infer a whole load of whatever we want from it. It's a pretty good prospecting pitch at the very least because it can mean many different things - that's kinda my point on that one.

Anyway, now she's pimping for Donald Trump. So here I am, slagging away - and happy to do it.

I get it - you have to make choices.  Sometimes it's like, "I'd rather share my toothbrush with a Leper than throw in with that guy".  And the bullshit about "none of the above" just takes you outa the process and leaves all the choices up to people you wouldn't put in charge of a high school carwash.  And then your guy drops out and you're left thinking, "Well - maybe if I gargle some Clorox...?"

But that's all about being a voter.  Kellyanne Conway's a pro.

I guess it just seems a little dirty that Ms Conway switches her loyalties to Trump because he's the guy willing to write her a nice fat check, so everything she was saying last spring that was wrong with him is suddenly everything that's right with him now.

Right or wrong; fact or fiction; true or false - doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the reward or the penalty.

And that's pretty fucked up right there.

Shoes-A-Droppin'

Not to get too Both-Sides-ery here, but now that Manafort's been dumped because of the Russian money thing, Hillary needs to come clean and at the very least get out in front of this thing and talk about her decision-making process regarding John Podesta (this links to RedState - don't say I didn't warn ya).

And maybe she could tell us a little something about that all-but-totally-fucked-up decision to put Ken (they call me Mr Frack) Salazar in charge of her Transition Team.

Bi-Partisan Fuckery isn't quite the Bi-Partisan thing most of us had in mind, guys.




Bye, Larry

Things change because they have to change, but we've lost a strong clear voice.




I only hope the suits will eventually come to understand that the revenue they seem to prize more than life itself means practically nothing compared with what a guy like Larry Wilmore's been trying to do.  And if they had anything on the ball that's anywhere near what they think they have on the ball, they'd have figured out a way to make it work.  As it is, all they're left with is a copyright on some content that they think is valuable enough to hoard while making sure nobody ever gets to see it again.

Seriously - sometimes the "smart guys" are the dumbest fuckin' people.  More Larry - less MBA Spreadsheet bullshit.

Piling On

Donald Trump spent a little time in front of a TelePrompter yesterday, and suddenly - to hear some of the Press Poodles tell it, the last 14 months disappeared; gone; pfffft; never happened.

The Squint Squad seemed to struggle with it a little too, tho' I'll say they did come up with a better level of appropriate skepticism than usual.

Media Matters:



Donny Deutsch nailed it with "I will always tell you the truth..." as the perfect lead-in to a very good set of ads that show Trump lying about everything.

And Katty Kay pulled it all back to normal by pointing out that Trump still has to own everything he's said, plus she hits on what I think should be the main theme here, which is a little something I'm calling - Trump's Artificial Authenticity.

So who's The Real Trump? Screaming Asshole Guy; the one we've all seen for several years, or Mister Swell Guy who can be schmoozey and charming, but who's only been seen by his buddies?  Y'know what?  Fuck 'em both.



The lies Trump told this week: from opposing the Iraq war to San Bernardino
Trump shares more false memories from the Iraq war and Middle Eastern politics and welcomes Nato’s ‘new’ terrorism division – which has existed since 2004

Today's Tweet

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Today's Pix













The Company You Keep



A former ambassador to Russia.  I'm thinking this is a guy who knows a little something.  

Today's Today

Happy Bad Poetry Day, everybody!

TOAST --Joseph V. Viray, ©1995
this is your mind.
this is your mind on TOAST.
this is your TOAST.
This is your TOAST on my mind.


THE SONG ABOUT THE SONG --Bryan Higgins, ©2000
This is the song about the show!
And it's a show with a song about
The Songs we're gonna sing
We'll sing you the songs about
The song about the show!
Songs about the singing we'll do!
Songs about the songs about
The song about the show!
Songs that we'll be singing to you!
You'll hear us singing songs about
The songs about the songs,
The songs about the songs about the songs--
Songs about the songs about
The songs about the songs,
The songs about the songs about the show!


So, that's a good 40 seconds of your life you will never ever get back.*

*your wastage may vary - depending on your reading speed, where you fall on the OCD spectrum, how long it took you to figure how to make this shit big enough to see it clearly, etc. And now you've wasted even more of your valuable time.
You're welcome.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

About Today's Trump Thing

Just by way of introduction, here's a bit from TPM
Call it a match made in right-wing heaven.
Donald Trump’s hiring of Breitbart chairman Steve Bannon on Wednesday to be his campaign CEO marks the consummation of a months-long courtship with the conservative news and commentary site, which, under Bannon’s leadership, became Trump’s strongest media ally. Bannon will step down from his role at Breitbart to work with Trump, according to the campaign.
Trump sidelining Paul Manafort, who injected the campaign with a dose of seasoned professionalism, in favor of Bannon, once called the “most dangerous political operative in America,” also shows the real estate mogul firmly embracing the right-wing, establishment-hating fever swamps that fueled his candidacy since the beginning.
While the late Andrew Breitbart perhaps prophetically warned that Trump isn’t a conservative, his news site's love affair with the New York real estate mogul started years before Trump was a candidate. The site feverishly covered Trump’s relentless self-promotion and zest for stirring up speculation he might run for office.
So, I'm thinking this isn't some kind of "shakeup of a troubled campaign".  It's a corporate merger.

Trump needs an Information Division, and it turns out Fox isn't available - and Fox is pretty much old-hat now anyway - so Breitbart fits pretty well.

This seems like it's simply the latest development in the story of Trump Campaign Inc, and maybe we just got a new clue as to where all the campaign's money has been going - since it's obviously not getting spent on field operations or advertising. 

Sure would love to get a peek at the details of that artful little deal.