Today's Tweet

Lots of speculation on why 45* is going to such great lengths to shut her up, while having absolutely nothing to say about it in public.

As usual, there's a collective shrug coming from "the base". 

Because the MAGA rubes don't care about anything but ruffling Librul feathers.

And the Christo-freaks don't care because "god is using this evil man to do good things for our agenda."

And the Daddy State donors are fine with anything that keeps the Torch-n-Pitchfork mobs from forming while they loot the joint.

There's something of a consensus forming around the theory: If there's proof of adultery, then it triggers a clause in the PreNup that says Melania gets a much bigger slice of the "Trump fortune" when they split.

Which (supposedly) poses another major threat of 45* having to reveal his financial records.

So let's notice - 45* never bad-mouths Walt Putin - because we assume there's kompromat(?)

Is he staying quiet about Stormy Daniels for the same basic reason?

If Trump blocks Stormy Daniels from appearing on 60 Minutes, he will have imposed more sanctions on a porn actress than on Russia.

— Resistance Girl ✊🏿 (@LaChristie) March 11, 2018

 

Today's GIF

Stepping into oblivion

Another One I Missed

Trae Crowder on MRFF

"...because fuck the divine right of kings."

Follow The Smarm

Cult45* lives in the Smarm Space. I've talked about this before - it's that little gap between what you say you'll do and what you actually do. A bit more finely-pointed - and more suited to 45*: it's the space between what people heard you say (and tho't you meant) and what you plan on denying having said later on, if you need to bail on it.

"Jared and Ivanka are working at the White House for free".

I think 45* believes he can hide in that Smarm Space.  If Jared isn't getting paid for his work on behalf of the President, then how could he be working for the President when he's out doing these deals? That's the kinda shit that makes sense to these boneheads.

And besides, you people never made much of a squawk about that guy over at EPA who was moonlighting, did ya?  Why are you begrudging a guy who's just trying to make a living?

And also too - the Pace of Wacky has picked up a little. It could be that the perception of Mueller getting even closer is making Cult45* really antsy and so they're starting to get sloppy.

They've always been pretty brazen - hiding their shit in plain sight - but they seem to be rushing now.

One more: They need billions, and the people they're trying to put the bite on could turn out to be playing them really big - possibly to the point that the "foreigners" are part of Mueller's trap. And wouldn't that be cool AF?

Missed One

It's a problem everywhere.

The Stormy Thing

I'd like to know how it's kosher for people to use pseudonyms on a binding contract.

Whoever got that one to square up with the courts is a fuckin' genius, and I'm just trying to decide whether I want him on retainer or a barbecue spit.

Anyway, 2 things:

1) Stormy Daniels used Peggy Peterson as her alias. PP - pee pee - whenever the subject is 45*'s sex preferences, it seems like everything keeps pointing back to water sports. 

2) Like the man said: Who're you gonna believe, a porn star who has nothing to lose by telling the truth, or a Trump who has everything to lose by telling the truth?

Gene Robinson, WaPo:

Thanks to Daniels, her lawyer and an unforced error by Sanders, the story Trump has tried so hard to squelch is out. Take a minute and think about it.

The personal lawyer of Donald Trump, days before the election, paid $130,000 to apparently buy the silence of a porn star. Said porn star credibly describes an affair she had with the president and the ham-fisted attempts by his lawyer to keep her from talking about it. All of this unquestionably speaks volumes about the president’s character and morals.
How many mulligans does this guy get?

Today's GIF

Something about a bright idea.

This New Episode

... in what has already become a very old and very stale White House Reality Show.

Reuters:

For at least two decades, leaders in North Korea have been seeking a personal meeting with an American president.

Now, as a summit unexpectedly appears possible, analysts fear U.S. President Donald Trump’s understaffed administration may lack the expertise to successfully turn a political spectacle long sought by Pyongyang into a meaningful opportunity to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

South Korean officials said Friday Trump almost immediately agreed to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, without preconditions, by the end of May. Even proponents of a diplomatic approach towards North Korea worry the administration could be rushing into a summit with little time to prepare.

Such a summit - the first time sitting American and North Korean leaders have ever met - would typically happen after each side had made at least some concrete agreements, said Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow at the New America think tank, who has engaged North Korean officials at unofficial discussions.

“It will have to be managed carefully with a great deal of prep work,” she said on Twitter. “Otherwise, it runs the risk of being more spectacle than substance. Right now, Kim Jong Un is setting the agenda and the pace, and the Trump administration is reacting. The administration needs to move quickly to change this dynamic.”
It runs the risk of being all can and no beans? There's just a bit of a risk here?

One of the things you never ever do is lend your entire nation's standing and prestige to a 3rd rate tin-plated phony by jumping into negotiations with him - what the hell was Kim Jong Un thinking?

And oh yeah - I've asked you before, Press Poodles - please stop trying to report on Cult45*'s weird little shit show by gunning it all through your Presumption of Regularity filter.

There's nothing regular about this. There's nothing that's even real about anything this putz is doing.

So stop reporting on how different all this shit is, and start concentrating on how thoroughly fucked up it is.

Today's Tweet

And some history:

Barbara Rose Johns Powell (March 6, 1935 – September 25, 1991) was a young, American civil rights leader-pioneer and the niece of one of the "fathers of the Civil Rights Movement," Vernon Johns.[1] On April 23, 1951, at the age of 16, Powell led a student strike for equal education at R.R. Moton High School in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia. After securing NAACP legal support, the Moton students filed Davis v. Prince Edward County, the largest and only student initiated case consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring "separate but equal" public schools unconstitutional.

“IT SEEMED LIKE REACHING FOR THE MOON.” -Barbara Johns pic.twitter.com/TMYudewnYN

— John Schu (@MrSchuReads) March 8, 2018

 

Samantha Bee

Vote against the kind of Healthcare policy that might help, and then bitch about mental health being "the real problem".

Today's Today

Wanna make your economy hum? Take the shackles off of 50% of your talent pool, dummy.

Want your political system to work better? (see answer above)

Wanna fix what's wrong with the culture? (see answer above)

Get 'em, ladies. We need you.

The Guardian has a rundown on International Women's Day:

Kosovo

Turkey

Ukraine

Another School Attack

This time, it was in The Netherlands.

But nutballs have a very difficult time getting guns in The Netherlands, so the guy took a beating from his would-be victims.

Dumbass brought a knife to a backpack fight.

Today's Tweet

On this holy day - as on all others - The Dude abides.

(actually, it was yesterday, but The Dude is chill and flexible)

You have to watch The Big Lebowski 2-3 times to move from “meh” to “I now know who I am and will quote this movie every day until I die.” pic.twitter.com/rTS0s8ZUMk

— TheBloggess (@TheBloggess) March 6, 2018

Random Shots

(...and cheap ones at that)

The good news is that Billy Graham is still dead.

The bad news is that Franklin Graham still isn't.

The good news is that Billy Graham recently discovered there is no god.

The bad news is that we have to live in this fucked up world without George Carlin.

Good Neighbor Sam

More smoke.
More mud in the water.
More confusion and chaos.

The point is to make people think there's no such thing as 'objective reality'. There are no 'facts'. Nobody's capable of either telling the truth, or knowing the truth when they hear it.

This part of the plan - at its core - is to make it look like there's no plan.

But there is a plan, and it's about Power & Money. Because there's always a plan, and it's always about power & money.

The closer Mueller gets to showing us the enormity of this crime, the bigger the spectacle has to be to keep us entertained.

The crime gets wider & deeper & bigger & uglier, so now it's Sam Nunberg's turn to go on national TV and set himself on fire for our amusement.

Are you not entertained.
WaPo, Aaron Blake:

Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg had a surreal day Monday. After deciding he wouldn't cooperate with a grand jury subpoena from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's Russia investigation, he went on a media blitz to, well, air some things. Each interview seemed intent upon out-shocking the last.

By the end, he had suggested that President Trump may have worked with the Russians, dared Mueller to throw him in jail, repeatedly inquired as to what journalists thought his fate might be, and said he thought Trump knew about that Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer. Nunberg did no fewer than three separate interviews with CNN, two with MSNBC and several others.

So what on earth was all that about? Below are some ideas. (And it bears noting that not all of these are mutually exclusive.)

It was an elaborate, Roger Stone-ian show

- and -

During Monday's interviews, Nunberg oscillated between saying Trump hadn't colluded and suggesting he might have had some arrangement with Russia. He at one point said Trump was too smart to fall victim to Russian blackmail, only to later say that Trump “caused this, because he’s an idiot.” He also said that “there is nobody who hates [Trump] more than me.”

“I'm not a Donald Trump fan, as I told you before, okay?” Nunberg told CNN. “He treated me like crap.”
Stay focused , and remember - the guy can say he's your enemy's enemy, but that don't make him your friend.

You want a friend? Buy a dog.