This Week's List

Amy Siskind at The Medium:

This week Trump threatened to take away media credentials, equating negative coverage to fake news. Trump and his surrogates continued to publicly undermine the Mueller probe, pressing for its completion and questioning the validity of its outcome; yet, seemed unprepared to handle the fallout of information made public by Stephanie Clifford’s attorney, Michael Avenatti.

This was another week of resignations and disquiet within Trump’s cabinet as he continues to bully dissent and turn a blind eye to kleptocracy, incompetence, and ethics violations. Against the advice of former senior officials, Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, further isolating America on the world stage. Acts of hate and distrust of “others” continue to escalate, as does the regime’s cruelty towards those not white, straight, and male. While Trump remains popular with his base, increasingly Americans are worried about aspects of everyday life that are forebodingly shifting ever-so subtly.

Week 78 "Hi-Lites"

1. The Guardian reported the Trump regime hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to conduct a “dirty ops” campaign against Obama diplomats who negotiated the deal with Tehran.

2. Individuals targeted include Ben Rhodes, a top national security adviser, and Colin Kahl, deputy assistant to Obama. Trump has a May 12 deadlinedecide whether to scrap or continue the Iran nuclear program.

3. The New Yorker reported the intel firm was Black Cube, the same retained by Harvey Weinstein in 2016 to investigate the women and journalists who might come forward against him for sexual misconduct.

6. On Sunday, NYT reported Sen. John McCain, as part of his final wishes,has told his inner circle does not want Trump to attend his funeral. McCain would however like Obama and George W. Bush to deliver eulogies.

8. On Monday, Trump called on Congress to pull back more than $15 billion in spending approved in the recent budget, half of which would come from two accounts within the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

9. HuffPost reported after several years of dramatic decline, the uninsured rate rose to 12.2% last year, up from 10.9% at the end of 2016, as Trump’s efforts to undermine Obamacare continue.

16. On Tuesday, Axios reported an annual study of 18–24 year-olds in 16 Arab states found a sharp spike in negative sentiment against the US: 57% see the US as the enemy (up from 32% in 2016) versus 35% who view the country as an ally.

17. Further, 73% of Arab youth said Trump’s election has had a negative impact on their view of the US. Arab youth view Russia more favorably than the US, as the US fell out of the top five spots for the first time.

22. BuzzFeed reported only families of Parkland shooting victims who are Trump supporters have received condolence letters or any sort of communication from Trump or the White House.

23. On Thursday, Oliver North, the newly elected National Rifle Association President, said that gun control activists like the students from Parkland, are “civil terrorists.”

72. Foreign Policy reported Richard Johnson, a career civil servant and one of the State Department’s top experts on nuclear proliferation, resigned this week after Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal.

73. The resignation is a part of a brain drain officials warn about across the government, and especially in the State Department. The office Johnson led has gone from seven full-time staffers when Trump took office to none.

Today's Tweet

Oddly enough, almost exactly what "the libruls" have been trying to tell us for 40 years.

"I voted for Trump because I thought he would hurt OTHER people, not me!" is a flourishing genre. https://t.co/x2SfZge7hQ

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) May 13, 2018

Today's Quote

"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish."

--A Lincoln - 2nd Inaugural

hat tip = driftglass

Mr Lincoln was breaking the rules. He was supposed to say something stupidly passive - something like:

"The south keeps yelling about how white people are just better than black people, and slavery is what the good lord intended so the masters could prosper while improving the negroes' debased and inferior nature (a bit - let's not get carried away)."

"While the north is yelling that slavery is cruel and sinful, and it's not OK for southerners to come north hunting runaways, and sometimes kidnapping free men and selling them as chattel."

"So the only real problem is that both sides are yelling."

Mr Lincoln would never make it in USAmerica Inc these days.

Hold My Beer

Cocky schmocky - I got this.

Popping one hell of a wheelie on your quad to impress the squad.#ItsNotGoneWell pic.twitter.com/012xx9dANi

— Its Not Gone Well (@itsnotgonewell) April 30, 2018

 

Just Wondering

Why has 45* not gotten around to slagging Michael Avenatti on Twitter?

Today's Pix

(click to embiggen)

Today's Tweet

It's just an Obama kinda day.

A wiseman once said... pic.twitter.com/rZKDvYkCGN

— UnsilentMajority 🌹 (@The_UnSilent_) May 12, 2018

Today's GIF

"When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk."

--Barack Obama

It's The History, Stoopid.

The Professional Left

Republicans delivered a tax cut to Sheldon Adelson worth about 3/4 of a billion dollars in a single quarter, and of course he writes a check to the House GOP SuperPAC for $30 million. But there's no quid pro quo.

And on the immigration thing - John Kelly points out that "most immigrants" coming to USAmerica Inc aren't gang members and criminals, but they are "rural" and "poorly educated". 

In other words, they're all potentially either Crooks or Rubes - aka: TRUMP SUPPORTERS.

So why are you trying to keep them out?

About That Voter Anxiety

WaPo ran an "exposé" on how the voters got 'disenchanted' during the Obama years:

Eight days before Trump took the oath of office, Kurt Glazier, now 50, was in the dining room of his home in Sterling, Ill. Wearing a John Deere hoodie, he offered a measured view of the road ahead. ***Glazier is a state worker, a union member and serves as chairman of the Republican Party in Whiteside County. He also sits on the county board. He is a thoughtful person who speaks deliberately and chooses his words carefully.

(*** in a state where the GOP governor has steadfastly refused to pass a budget, which is widely understood to be Gov Rauner's way of using the "budget problem" to kill Public Employees' Unions, cut Medicaid, and generally drive down wages in order to make Illinois more "Business-Friendly")

1. Fuck something up
2. Wait a bit
3. Point at it and say, "Oh look - it's fucked up"
4. Run on a platform of, "It's All Fucked Up So You Better Vote For Me Cuz Only I Can Fix It"

Sorry not sorry, kids. You fell for it. You got snookered.

- and -

Although he had not seen Trump’s victory coming, he said that it hadn’t been difficult to interest people in Trump’s candidacy. “I think Trump brought out the fact that — I mean, as crude and callous as he was at times — so many people had been almost discriminated against because they were Republicans and not Democrats that we felt inferior.”

- and -

Bruening, 41, understood Trump’s success in Clayton County despite the earlier string of Democratic victories. “I think one [reason] is that it is exhausting to have to edit yourself all the time, and Trump was completely the opposite of that,” he said. “I think Trump allowed . . . people to not have to feel bad about holding, say, anti-immigrant views or something. That’s one of the things I really noticed. People are way less afraid to say what they really think about a host of different things.”

Trump, he said, also was like a mirror that reflected on people what they wanted to see and hear. “What people are talking about is what he gives back to them, and I think because of that, that’s a good way to really reach people on a visceral level,” he said. “. . . So there’s this feedback loop, which I think he’s, like, a genius at, legitimately. And so people got the impression that he was hearing them on a personal level.”

Call it the Archie Bunker Effect. Archie starts out as the penultimate bad example - the guy who embarrasses everybody almost every time he speaks, but ends up being some hero of the Culture Wars because "really, Archie just says what we're all thinking".

And speaking your mind is generally cool, of course, but when what you're thinking is a buncha racist shit that's been manufactured for you to the point where it feels like a custom fit, then we've got a problem. 

Because y'know what, Sparky? It's not unreasonable for me to expect you to sit politely at the dinner table and resist any and all temptation to call your grandmother a worthless stupid cunt just to see her get mad enough to cry.

And, as usual, the Press Poodles continue to ignore the GOP's hand in creating these problems. McConnell & Co spent 8 years fucking it all up, but that little tidbit never factors in to any of the questions when the Poodles go out there and mingle with the simple folk.