Slouching Towards Oblivion

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Today's Today







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Your Daily Schmuck

Mike Flynn railed against Hillary for "putting national security at extreme risk", possibly while he was committing treason.

 Your modern GOP.
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Today's Quote

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends? 
--Abraham Lincoln
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Monday, February 13, 2017

Keith

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Uh - What Now?

Abe Lincoln was the father of the GOP and the savior of our great nation. 

 White southern Republicans honor his many achievements and his commitments to equality and unity by proudly displaying the flag of the Confederacy.
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Today's Tweet

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John Oliver

Feb 12, 2017

 "We have a president capable of standing in the rain and saying it was sunny day."
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Today's Featured Artist

Ladies and Gents, a recent work from Chuck Williams:

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Rachel Brings It

For the most part, I can go without my Daily Rachel. It just takes her too long to get there ("Land the fucking plane, lady." --driftglass).

 Anyway, I check in once in a while, and this one has to be seen and acknowledged for it's big-fucking-deal-ness.

 Unfortunately, my Blogger Tools have a hard time embedding MSNBC video, so here's the link to that story in URL form so you can paste it into your browser if need be:

 http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/magnitude-of-trump-adviser-flynn-s-russia-scandal-gains-clarity-874908739801
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It's Not Working For Them

Editorial Board, Sacramento Bee:
President Donald Trump’s chaotic first weeks have generated wide disapproval, and not all the protests have been placid. But U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock needs to stop insisting that the seniors, families and middle-aged picketers at his town hall this past weekend were an “anarchist element.”
As The Sacramento Bee’s Angela Hart reported Saturday, the unhappy crowd that greeted the Sierra Nevada’s man in Congress was anti-Trump and noisy. But McClintock’s claims to outside media afterward that “anarchists” had gathered to “disrupt” his meeting was true only if by “anarchists” you mean “neighbors and grandparents.”
Interviews revealed a lot of gray-haired retirees worried about Medicare and workers fearful of the Republican plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Some said they had driven hours through the Sierra to hear the congressman speak in downtown Roseville; others said they had never demonstrated before, but wanted to register their dismay at Trump’s ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries and his efforts to roll back environmental rules.
As someone whose district includes Yosemite National Park, and who gleefully embraced the tea party after the election of President Barack Obama, one might think McClintock would be alert to environmental issues and savvy enough to recognize a gathering grassroots firestorm.




Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article131123304.html#storylink=cpy

As always, we can expect politicians to try to shape the debate first by "defining down" the opponent - calling the protesters "anarchists" for example. I always liked that one.  People gathered in large groups on a specifically planned date at a specifically planned time for a specifically planned purpose may be many different things, but "anarchists" they are not.

Like the man said: Anarchy never really caught on because nobody shows up at the meetings.

But that wasn't anarchy, Congressman. That was opposition and that's what democracy looks like. Of course, you being Republican and all, it doesn't surprise me that you didn't recognize it when you saw it.

Anyway, denigrating the opposition is tried-n-true.  If you can count on your own political clique to show up in greater numbers than the other guy's, then it doesn't matter what weird outrageous thing falls outa your tater trap. You say it, Press Poodles print it and we can all go on pretending we're not living in a minority-ruled Oligarchy. Or Plutocracy. Or whatever other shitty system that isn't the Representative Democracy this fucking joint's supposed to be, goddammit.

And a solid pat on the shoulder goes to The Sacramento Bee for doing the job of the 4th Estate in pretty good shape this time.
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Sunday, February 12, 2017

We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men

Predicting disaster
Expecting disaster
Wanting disaster
Facilitating disaster
Causing disaster
When we stop believing people in positions of leadership can deliver on promises of hope and progress, we get this weird protection racket thing going - where we're told evermore frightening tales of how the bad guys are trying get us - and eventually, that means the people who get the most attention are the ones who have the darkest imaginations, driven by their own paranoia &/or ambition for power.

We put 'em in charge, and sometimes they start to think "keeping their promises" means they at least have to give us a taste of the misery and destruction that they warned us about, and that they alone can save us from.

And suddenly, we have to figure out how to protect ourselves from our protectors.


Here's the thing: I refuse to cower behind the Daddy State while Lobbyists and their Coin-Operated Politicians continue lining their pockets with my tax dollars.

And also too, Best of the Left podcast:

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Most Famous Chicken


Congressman Mo Brooks returned to Alabama, where he planned to have a town hall meeting in Huntsville. But a funny thing happened to Brooks. Like all Republican (and most Democratic) members of Congress lately, he suddenly found his “open to the public” meeting was “sold out”—so he promptly canceled it altogether. Brooks and his tea party pals gave a variety of nonsensical excuses, including, they “didn’t want to meet until all the president’s nominees were confirmed.”
So imagine the surprise of Huntsville-area constituents when they showed up at the “canceled” meeting last night and there was Congressman Mo Brooks, meeting with his conservative supporters. Check out this account from Left in Alabama and be sure to watch the video below to you can see Mo Brooks, his staff, and his conservative supporters scatter like cockroaches when the lights get turned on. Note that Brooks hid in the church somewhere until they were sure no other constituents (which he calls protesters) showed up:
But not “on time.” Those suspicious individuals who attended “just in case” were told that Brooks’ appearance had been canceled. Fortunately, they stayed long enough to send out a confirmed sighting of our district’s most famous chicken.
Earlier in the evening, the Tea Party folks made a great show of complaining about how many extra hot dogs they had, and waved off the hired police presence, since “no protests” were expected.
Once the coast was clear (he thought), Rep. Brooks strolled casually into his native habitat: a Tea Party meeting hosted in a Baptist church. Oh, but word quickly went forth. Fortuitously, Madison County Democrats were meeting just a few miles away, and they quickly headed for the Tea Party event.
Amazingly, it ended as soon as they arrived and began trying to ask questions.
Brooks was looking to create some weasel room and kinda fucked it up.

The staffer leaving the voicemail says the event was scheduled as a Tea Party meeting all along, and then canceled - and gosh, we can't imagine how y'all got the idea it was a Town Hall, but then the congressman just blah blah blah. Big billowing clouds of octopus ink.

And of course, it was never intended to be a Town Hall meeting because they know they can expect protesters and disruption. So they make it a Tea Party meeting and keep it as secret as possible so constituents in opposition to them won't be heard, and then obviously they won't be represented.

But - changing it from Town Hall to Tea Party makes it partisan, and you don't get to do that in a church unless that church is ready to surrender it's tax exemption.

BTW - Most Famous Chicken - MFC - extra credit for catching the double entendre.
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Poetry Sunday








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Today's Tweet

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Saturday, February 11, 2017

The Long Fight Ahead

Episode 375 - The Long Fight Ahead (That We Will Win)



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Inching Ever Closer

Rosa Brooks at Moyers & Co
Here’s how lynch mobs form, in the age of the alt-right and “alternative facts.”
First, you inadvertently wave a red flag at an arena full of bulls. Then you sit back and wait for the internet to do its dark magic.
In my case, the red flag was a few paragraphs at the end of a recent column, speculating on what would happen if Donald Trump truly and dangerously lost his marbles. I wondered about one “possibility … that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders”:
The principle of civilian control of the military has been deeply internalized by the US military, which prides itself on its nonpartisan professionalism.… But Trump … [is] thin-skinned, erratic, and unconstrained — and his unexpected, self-indulgent pronouncements are reportedly sending shivers through even his closest aides.
What would top US military leaders do if given an order that struck them as not merely ill-advised, but dangerously unhinged? An order that wasn’t along the lines of “Prepare a plan to invade Iraq if Congress authorizes it based on questionable intelligence,” but “Prepare to invade Mexico tomorrow!” or “Start rounding up Muslim Americans and sending them to Guantanamo!” or “I’m going to teach China a lesson — with nukes!”
It’s impossible to say, of course. The prospect of American military leaders responding to a presidential order with open defiance is frightening — but so, too, is the prospect of military obedience to an insane order. After all, military officers swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not the president. For the first time in my life, I can imagine plausible scenarios in which senior military officials might simply tell the president: “No, sir. We’re not doing that,” to thunderous applause from the New York Times editorial board.
- and -
...a few days passed quietly by after the column’s publication. Then, on Thursday morning, Breitbart — the “news” site previously run by Steve Bannon, now Donald Trump’s top political adviser — ran a story about my column, headlined “Ex-Obama Official Suggests ‘Military Coup’ Against Trump.”
By mid-afternoon, I was getting death threats.
Within a few hours, the alt-right internet was on fire. The trickle of critical email messages turned into a gush, then a geyser, and the polite emails of the first few days were quickly displaced by obscenity-laced screeds, many in all capital letters. My Twitter feed filled up with trolls.
The Alt-Right can be whipped into a rich creamy lather with a few triggering bumper sticker phrases, and then it moves, almost automatically, with surprising speed and accuracy. As long as it's more or less confined to the "dark corners of the internet", it's an occasional law enforcement issue. But when the thing is installed as an arm of a Daddy State Federal Government, we've got a big fuckin' problem that so far has never ended well.

Like Blue Gal and driftglass said - we have to fight this fight as best we can, understanding that it's likely to be a long slog that could take more time than some of us have left. Teach your children well.

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good-bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.
And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.
Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
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Resistance Report 02-10-2017

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The Barny Frank Handbook

Barny Frank in Policy Mic:
After 32 years in the House of Representatives, here is my advice on how people opposed to President Donald Trump’s assault on our basic values — a majority of those who voted last November — can best influence members of Congress. Done the right way, communications from citizens can have a significant impact on legislators, even when they claim to be immune to “pressure.” (“Pressure,” in legislative jargon, is the expression of views with which legislators disagree, as opposed to “public opinion” — the term used for sentiments that reinforce their own.)
The key to doing it right is being clear about the goal, which is to persuade the Senator or Representative receiving the communication that how he or she votes on the issue in question will affect how the sender will vote the next time the legislator is on the ballot. 
This means the following:

Make sure you’re registered to vote — lawmakers check. 

Many office holders will check this, especially for people who write to them frequently. Elected officials pay as much attention to those who are not registered to vote as butchers do to the food preferences of vegetarians.

Lawmakers don’t care about people outside of their district. 

You can only have an impact on legislators for or against whom you will have a chance to vote the next time they run. In almost all cases, this means only people in whose state or district you live. Senators or representatives whose names will not be on the ballot you cast are immune to your pressure. There is a small set of exceptions — representatives who want to run for a statewide office in the next election will be sensitives of voters throughout their states. 

Your signature — physical or electronic — on a mass petition will mean little.

You are trying to persuade the recipient of your communication that you care enough about an issue for it to motivate your voting behavior. Simply agreeing to put your name on a list does not convey this. I have had several experiences of writing back to the signer of a petition to give my view on an issue only to be answered by someone who wondered why I thought he or she cared. 
The communication must be individual. It can be an email, physical letter, a phone call or an office visit. It need not be elaborate or eloquent — it is an opinion to be counted, not an essay. But it will not have an impact unless it shows some individual initiative.

Know where your representative stands. 

If you have contact with an organization that is working on this issue, try to learn if the recipient of your opinion has taken a position on it. When I received letters from people urging me to vote for a bill of which I was the prominent main sponsor, I was skeptical that the writer would be watching how I voted.

Communicate — even if you and your representative disagree. 

On the other hand, even where you are represented by people whom you know oppose you on an issue, communicate anyway. Legislators do not simply vote yes or no on every issue. If enough people in a legislator’s voting constituency express strong opposition to a measure to which that legislator is ideologically or politically committed, it might lead him or her to ask the relevant leadership not to bring the bill up. Conflict avoidance is a cherished goal of many elected officials.

Say “thank you.” 

Even if your Representative and Senators are committed to your causes, you should write or call to thank them — not frequently, but enough for them to feel reinforced.

Enlist the help of friends in other districts. 

Your direct communication with legislators outside your voting area will have no impact. But you do have friends, relatives, associates etc. Find out who the potentially influenceable legislators are on issues of prime importance to you, think about people you may know in their constituencies, and ask those who share your views to communicate with those who represent them. On an extremely important issue, get out the list to who you mail holidays cards or important invitations and ask them to communicate with their legislators.
To repeat the essence of point 5, if a legislator who you might have expected to vote differently — e.g. a Republican who votes no on a Trump priority — votes as you have urged, send a thank you.
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Me, Me, I Do

Trump
Cheats his investors
Cheats his contractors
Cheats on his wives
Cheats his customers
Cheats on his taxes

Who's got next?
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Today's Tweet

Overheard on Twitter:

In Trump world, Sen Blumenthal is a liar because he didn’t fight in Vietnam & John McCain is a loser because he did.
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