Today's Pix

This Just In

It can now be reported that we're getting the first of the photographic evidence of people having been paid to turn out for the Town Hall meetings that have been so boisterous and potentially riotous.

hat tip = @JoshSchwerin

The Cost Of Things

Jeff Scon at Moyers & Company

After the most recent Super Bowl, I read an article that estimated it cost employers $1 billion in lost productivity on the Monday afterward — a mix of people calling in sick, showing up late and spending time discussing the top commercials (46 percent), the halftime show (12 percent), and the game play and strategy (12 percent).

Ask yourself: How much time during the last week did you spend ‘on’ Trump?

This article got me thinking about how much the Trump presidency will cost the US economy during the next four years due to similar losses in productivity.

Trump’s narcissistic behavior — manifested in his unfiltered and uncontrolled Twitter communications and his preoccupation with being the center of attention — has created an unrelenting daily media frenzy. Every day brings a new crisis, new accusations, insults and lies that suck us into spending time “on” Trump.

Ask yourself: How much time during the last week did you spend “on” Trump?

Here's a snapshot of Schon's quickie pass at the math:

 

And what do you think we might be able to do with that kinda money? Go check the end of his piece.

Pushing Back

WaPo:

A new poll from Quinnipiac University suggests that while people may be broadly unhappy with the mainstream media, they still think it's more credible than Trump. The president regularly accuses the press of “fake news,” but people see more “fake news” coming out of his own mouth.

The poll asked who registered voters “trust more to tell you the truth about important issues.” A majority — 52 percent — picked the media. Just 37 percent picked Trump.

The poll did find that registered voters by a narrow margin think the media has treated Trump unfairly, with 50 percent saying they disapproved of the coverage of Trump and 45 percent approving. But voters are even more critical of Trump's treatment of the media, with 61 percent disapproving and 35 percent approving.

Even 23 percent of Republicans say Trump is mistreating the media, and independents disapprove 59-35.

And in case you missed it, WaPo quietly added a little something to it's banner:

 

Which brings us to Three Things About The Daddy State

1. Every government needs to do certain things without telling us about it, but the Daddy State needs the dark more than any other. There are way too many things they can't afford to let us see - a lot more than in anything resembling a democracy. Leakers and the Press are light-shiners; Daddy Staters hate them, and spend a shitload of time and energy covering their own asses and fighting disclosure - because they're always up to no good, and they know it.
2. The greatest threat to the Daddy State is anybody with a functioning memory. 45* is always carping about the Press because they write things down and compare what he says today with what he said before - sometimes moments before.  Creating the illusion of near-infallibility is a key element in any cult. Pointing out mistakes and contradictions makes you their enemy. And boy oh boy do they love having enemies.
3. Citizens who insist on being involved in the decision-making process comprise the best possible preventative measure and the best remedy.

That last one sounds like a very old and very tired cliché because we always assume we get to make up our minds and freely express our opinions and go out and vote once in a while.

But we've internalized the Rent-Seeker's ambition - sit on your ass enjoying the benefits while everybody else does the work.  Anywhere from 40% to 60% of the people who could vote don't vote.

Because we've also internalized the bullshit (fed to us all the time) that government sucks; they're all the same anyway; both parties are corrupt; the major candidates are just two sides of the same coin so why bother blah blah fuckin' blah.

Get past it.

You want better choices? Get your ass out to a Caucus; or vote in the primary.  And take somebody with you. And stop being so damned polite to people who won't help. When you refuse to be part of the solution you become part of the problem. ie: If you think it's shitty but you refuse to make even the simplest effort to improve it, then you're helping the buttheads who're making it shitty. Silence implies consent.

Or you could run for office yourself.  Have you not seen some of these bozos? Look who's in the White House right now.  It is - for all practical purposes and by every modern standard - impossible for you to be any worse than what we've got now.

Cutting to the chase: Bullet point 3a is real simple. When everybody votes, the Daddy State loses - by definition the Daddy State loses and Democracy wins when we all take part in this little experiment called Self-Government.

Feel The Love

This world map shows who feels most threatened by whom.

hat tip = Facebook bud Doug R

Keith

And holy fuck, Batman.

Watch this video on The Scene.

Look, Olbermann can be a little nutty and top-heavy at times.  But when was the last time he ran with real news that wasn't properly sourced and vetted?

I've had to watch it 3 or 4 times. This is totally fucked up, but it kinda makes a little sense in an enormously perverse way.

Suddenly, it doesn't seem quite so weird that Trump doesn't really do anything, and Congress doesn't do anything, and how there are over 500 Senate-confirmable vacancies that span every department for which nominees haven't even been put up yet.

WaPo:

Of 549 key positions requiring Senate confirmation…

515 - Awaiting nomination

20 - Awaiting confirmation

14 - Confirmed

It's been 4 months since the election and over a month since inauguration - so what's the hold up here? This is just too fucking weird.  Not looking forward to it, but if they're gonna pull the trigger, I sure wish they'd go ahead and do it.

Today's Quote

Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie.

--Miyamoto Musashi

Hat tip = Linda M-M, Facebook

Keith

The suicide of a presidency

Watch this video on The Scene.

Reuters Polling

Reuters Polling Explorer

Still Waiting

45* said he'd order up a plan for "Defeating ISIS" within 30 days. We're 2 days past that now.  Not 2 days past the deadline for getting a plan - 2 days past when 45* said he'd order the plan.  Nice plan.

And the silence is deafening - again.

Tragedy Du Jour

Breaking news this morning:

It can now be reported that President Trump's personal library has been destroyed in a fire.

It appears to be a total loss, as both books were burned, and in a cruel twist, he hadn't finished coloring the second one.

hat tip = FB pal Linda M-M

Perspective

You're a collection of biochemical reactions creating electrical impulses, ambulating around in a meat-covered skeleton, riding on a massive rock that's already on the downside of the existence bell curve, falling through space towards certain annihilation and a return to the very same stardust everything is made from.

There's no reason to be afraid of anything.

Today's Tweet

Being scolded by an alleged rapist defending a Nazi promoting pedophilia is like getting your Tom Ford tuxedo blazer dissed by a crack whore https://t.co/TSmbRTr6lh

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) February 21, 2017

White Rise

The Atlantic:

Across the United States, Jewish communities are struggling to deal with this new wave of threats. While none of the bomb threats have led to violence, Monday’s calls came around the same time as another attack: Roughly 170 Jewish graves in a Missouri cemetery were desecrated over the weekend, according to The Washington Post. The calls may be a novel form of intimidation, but the context around them is not. American Jews are victims of more reported hate crimes than any other group in the United States, and have been subject to the majority of religiously motivated offenses every year since 1995, when the FBI first started reporting these statistics. The phone calls may not result in violence, but they contribute to an atmosphere of anti-Semitism already well-established in the United States.

You can't draw a line between any one thing 45* has said that goes straight to any given incident.

President Bannon knows that, because he knows about Stochastic Probability, so he knows he and his merry band have a nice fat lot of plausible deniability.

But this is some more of that shit that doesn't happen by accident, even though it really does, even though it doesn't because Bannon never told anybody to do anything.

In the presence of English Barons, Henry II—who is now utterly vexed by Becket's actions—cries out: Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? Believing the King meant for Becket to be murdered, four knights ride to Canterbury Cathedral and kill Becket on December 29, 1170.

CO2 Cycle

From NASA - in 3D - as of Dec 2016.

I can't confirm that this is the kind of thing negatively effected under 45*'s Executive Order that purportedly reduced or eliminated the part of NASA's mission that included research on weather and Climate Change, but with Pruitt at EPA, Sessions at AG and Tillerson at State, am I s'posed to be surprised if that's the case?

Theres a good rendition of this with some decent narration at Vox

It pays to track those pesky Executive Orders

Yeah - It's That Bad

From Right Wing Watch

Wiles asserted that “devil-worshiping, Luciferian, demon-possessed maniacs” have formed a “criminal cabal [that is] running this nation and much of the world” that allows them to engage in “child trafficking, child molestation, child rape, [and] child murder.”

Gotta wonder - why is the Great and Powerful Donald of Oz unable to mount an effective resistance to this evil cabal? 

Why would 45* fire Flynn for knowing the truth, when he (45*) could use it to seal the deal on prosecuting Hillary?  And what's keeping Flynn from speaking this truth now?

What about god's noble warriors of a GOP that's been in control of Congress for 6 years? They're all powerless against these devil-worshipers?

I also wonder about the morality of someone who just takes this crap at face value, and seems not to care whether it's true or not. But I think always testing for truth ends up being a threat to their faith.  They've been trained not to question certain things. They already accept the big absurdity on faith (and they pay handsomely for that), so why not look for other opportunities to trade fairy tales for tribute?

My favorite political fantasy right now is that somebody out of office takes one of these greasy slugs to court. Not to spank 'em or collapse their phony little fiefdoms financially (although that'd be one very enjoyable side effect), but to force them out into the open and expose them as the lying sacks of shit they are by requiring them to present the "evidence" they're basing these crazy-fuck ideas on as they peddle their huge steaming piles of bullshit to the rubes.

Of course, you can't do that because of the whole Free Speech thing and 200 years of precedent allowing anybody to say anything about a public figure with near-absolute impunity.

So what can you say about a system that protects even the lowest and shittiest of the muck divers?

You say, "I give them the benefit of law for my own safety's sake".

And then you say "God bless America"

But still - y'know?

Today's Charlie

Esquire's Charlie Pierce is a fucking god:

I do not feel compelled to respect a president any more or less than I respect somebody I hire to fix my roof or paint my house. Whomever gets elected works for me. As to the office, well, I understand how it is a single unifying figure within the government, and how he—again, theoretically—represents the whole country. But, in my lifetime, the Oval Office has seen coups, burglaries, and illegal arms sales planned. It has been the venue for criminal mischief and illicit canoodling. That it is also the place where the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were signed is the great paradox. But the idea that I have to respect The Presidency qua The Presidency is something that raises the hackles in my democratic conscience.

First of all, there's this commander-in-chief business. By constitutional mandate, the president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Period. He is not my commander-in-chief. Neither is he yours. Neither is he the commander-in-chief of the civilian government. The Congress can tell him to go whistle. The Supreme Court can slap his agenda back in his face. Nobody outside the military has to salute him. But, in every presidency, there's a temptation to push the commander-in-chief prerogatives a little further into the civilian sphere, and this is powerfully dangerous. To his credit, Garry Wills has been railing against this for years. He points out that, when Richard Nixon decapitated the Watergate Special Counsel's office, Alexander Haig presumed to tell assistant attorney-general William Ruckelshaus that Ruckelshaus' "commander-in-chief" had given him an order. Ruckelshaus told Haig to pound sand and got fired. Nixon wasn't Ruckelshaus' commander-in-chief. He was just his boss.

Always go back and read your Charlie. It's not like vegetables at all - it's good and it's for ya too.

Today I Learned:
18th century Pamphleteer Mercy Otis Warren

Too Typical

The dopes who had to cast the Purity Protest Votes didn't help, but as usual, the main problem is the fact that so many of us can't bring ourselves to vote at all.

America - land of the free and the home of the sit on your ass while everybody else does the work.

Today's Podcast

Marc Maron - What The Fuck

Episode 787 - Lena Dunham & then Trae Crowder

About That "Deeply Divided" Thing

Wanna see the real difference between them and us?

They actually believe this shit (or say they do so what's difference?):

And we know better:

I won't be able to reconcile myself with, or pair up with, or find commonality with anybody who insists on being ignorant - especially at a time when there actually are vast resources  they can use to find out about stuff.

I just can't.