Ari Nails It

Jim Comey is another one of those weird figures in American politics who's basically a rich mixture of Truth-Teller and Scolding Prig - and it's going to take quite a while to know just what the fuck has been going on.

But here's a fair stab at a beginning from Ari Melber, The Beat on MSNBC:

And for right now anyway, if anybody needs to sit down and shut the fuck up, it's Jim Comey.

Maybe he could take up knitting.

The Real Story

Crooks & Liars has unearthed the truth - straight from Hannity's own mouth, and in his own words.

John Oliver

April 15, 2018

The ol' Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich:

We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.

Today's Tweet

Madeleine Albright is not particularly good at being a party politician - at least not out in the open.

"There's a special place in hell for women who don't support women" is a solid standup thing to say; except when your candidate's been working really hard to countervail the "Vote With Your Vagina" thing - then it's one of the dumbest fuckin' things anybody ever said.

That said, Ms Albright is pretty good at the kind of international politics that made her a decent choice for (the first female) Sec'y of State, even if she was a little spotty on the war thing.

Anyway, she's had a closeup view of Daddy State shit, and it usually pays to listen to people with that kind of experience.

“You pluck the chicken one feather at a time, and people don’t really notice.” — Benito Mussolini, quoted by Madeleine Albright. Remember that as you watch our Chicken-Plucker-in-Chief and are tempted to just flip the bird 🖕🏽and move on. Yelling at your screen isn’t enough.

— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) April 15, 2018

Today's GIF

Beginning to wonder about this whole Google Earth thingie.

And holy shit, man - what if we really are just a buncha syms in a Cosmic Gamer's imagination!?!

Your Weekly Amy

Amy Siskind, The Weekly List - Week 74:

This week, Trump became angry and stormy after the office and hotel room of his longtime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen were raided by the FBI. The country stood on edge as Trump threatened to fire Mueller, Sessions, and Rosenstein. Other than a few hollow warnings, Republicans in leadership did nothing by way of passing legislation or any other measures to block Trump from taking steps to dull or end the Mueller probe. And as Speaker Paul Ryan became the latest Republican leader to announce he will not seek re-election in November, increasingly it appears the party will abdicate its responsibility to counter Trump.

In a week without any real focus, policy, or direction, Trump careened on trade and on Syria. After spending much of week attacking and discrediting institutions and familiar targets like Obama, Hillary, McCabe, and Comey, Trump ended the week late Friday by addressing the nation on a US missile attack on Syria, which, unlike a year ago, will be an open-ended military engagement. With a non-functioning and unstaffed State Department, many senior national security roles vacated, and disagreement voiced by Secretary Mattis, the decision to strike — as with most decisions in recent weeks — was made by one man.
5. WAPO reported on repeated clashes between Trump and chief of staff John Kelly, and Kelly’s downward arc of influence in the White House. Kelly’s credibility has also suffered amid misstatements, including his handling of the Rob Porter scandal.

6. Kelly has instituted “Policy Time” sessions once or twice a day where advisers would address Trump on specific issues and bi-monthly cabinet meetings. Kelly’s efforts to create an atmosphere of discipline clashed with Trump’s freewheeling impulses.

7. Reportedly, Kelly has threatened to resign multiple times — one senior White House official jokingly called it “a weekly event.” Trump has told friends recently he likes rallies where he can escape Kelly’s shackles.

15. On Thursday, Gov. Jerry Brown of California heeded Trump’s call to send the National Guard to the Mexico border, but said his 400 troops will have nothing to do with immigration enforcement.

17. Brennan Walker, a 14 year-old black teen in Rochester Hills, Michigan who missed his school bus and stopped at a neighbor’s house while walking to school to ask for directions, was shot by homeowner Jeffrey Ziegler, whose wife initially answered the door and yelled at Walker.

28. On Monday, La Prensa reported Trump Panama Hotel Management has pressured the Panamanian government to step in to its dispute with Orestes Fintiklis over control of the hotel formerly named after Trump.

Number 28 is exactly the problem when a President refuses to divest. How do we know federal resources are being spent on National Interests, and not in support of the President's own pocketbook?

The Emoluments Clause (aka: Title Of Nobility Clause) is kind of a big deal around here.

The Title of Nobility Clause is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution,[1] that prohibits the federal government from granting titles of nobility, and restricts members of the government from receiving gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states without the consent of the United States Congress. Also known as the Emoluments Clause, it was designed to shield the republican character of the United States against so-called "corrupting foreign influences."

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

A Thinker

If you were god, what would you do?

You are morally superior to a god who sees this and does nothing.

Why would you worship that god?

On This Day

On this day in 1980, Jean-Paul Sartre died.

Not that it matters.

Not that anything matters.

Exodus Explained

There was no conversation like this - it's pure fiction

The transcript you have is false - you're making it all up

It was just a joke

There's a real probability that the pile of evidence pointing at complicity on the parts of many high-ranking Republicans has become so massive as to be impossible for even the true believers to deny and ignore.

The number of Repubs ducking out is closing in on 40 - kinda hard to pin it down because it changes just about every week or so.

Today's GIF

Here's a taste of good ol' American ingenuity. 

Fighting the power and resisting the rise of SkyNet while making it look totally nonchalant.

So Much OCD

So many reasons to drink

Today's GIF

From HoldMyCosmo - reddit

HMC while I twerk on this door from r/holdmycosmo

Adventures In Good Government

Constituent Service - services provided by the government - paid for by those constituents - in service to the community - the way it's supposed to be.

What a grand idea.

The Baltimore Sun, Luke Broadwater:

In Baltimore’s most crime-ridden zones, city officials are conducting an experiment in government. They started last year by targeting four small, deeply troubled areas to be flooded with more police patrols and city services. They called them “Transformation Zones,” at first, then rebranded them as “Violence Reduction Zones.” They’ve since added three more zones, bringing the total to seven.

Each zone gets several dedicated police officers, called Neighborhood Coordination Officers, and an extra focus across city government for ramped-up services. Mayor Catherine Pugh has put $1.6 million in the city’s budget for two “rapid response” crews from the Department of Public Works to quickly clean up these areas, three more housing inspectors to enforce code violations such as peeling lead paint and extend hours at local recreation centers.

The idea is simple: If it can be rightly said that these areas were for far too long over-policed and under-served — and if this punitive style of government did not produce lasting crime declines — then officials should try the opposite: The zones should be drowning in services, from job training to street cleaning.

Everything costs something

So if you want this:

You'll have to stop doing this:

Today's Today

It's like a bad movie franchise - we can hope anyway.

Privatizers Gone Wild

The best political maneuvers are the ones that stand a fair chance of accomplishing something positive for your agenda no matter the outcome.

So here we go - 45*'s attempts to manufacture a little dust-up with Amazon and USPS are intended (I think) to further dismantle good government while bashing Unions, and lining the pockets of Congress Critters and their Cronies.

WaPo:

Trump issued an executive order forming an administration task force, to be chaired by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and directed it to evaluate the Postal Service’s finances and operations. The order also directs the task force to issue a report outlining proposed changes within 120 days.

The order states that the Postal Service has incurred $65 billion of cumulative losses since the Great Recession ended in 2009 and that it must make changes so that it operates under “a sustainable business model.”

Trump’s order stipulates that “the steep decline in First-Class Mail volume, coupled with legal mandates that compel the USPS to incur substantial and inflexible costs, have resulted in a structural deficit where revenues are no longer sufficient to fund the pension liabilities and retiree health obligations owed to current employees.”
The libertarians in Congress can't stand thinking anything the government does might actually succeed or do something good for people without turning a profit for some Rent-Seeking Crony. And since a lot of them believe it's all good and proper for them to behave like Coin-Operated Politicians, they'll do what UPS or FedX tell them to do.

So 45* gets to bash WaPo (he thinks) by voicing his deep concern for the solvency of USPS, in order to fuck over Jeff Bezos, while ordering an audit of USPS, partly to punish them for being all Government-y and shit, and to make sure they're not involved in any dirty dealing because, well, you know how those union people are, and besides that, we need to make sure that the tax money that USPS doesn't get  is being spent wisely and blah blah blah, and what the fuck is anybody even talking about!?!

45* throws all the shit up in the air, which is intended to keep everybody busy while he does whatever he wants us not to be able to see because of all the shit in the air.

The Union Busters and Privatizers go right along with him because in confusion there is opportunity.

And the kicker is that USPS is not really part of the federal government. They own a monopoly on the use of your mailbox, and that's really about it.

But "conservatives" like to build it into a very useful Straw Man and score big political points at the expense of people just trying to do job for us - which of course has become what the GOP is pretty much all about.