Anthony Atamanuik - The President Show, Comedy Central
Hello, America. Think you understand this country better than the president? Think again. pic.twitter.com/ObTPwPfCu2— The President Show (@PresidentShow) October 23, 2018
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Today's Tweet
Anthony Atamanuik - The President Show, Comedy Central
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Comin' Down To It
What we're seeing today are indications of Cult45 in its death throes.
So predicted one Eliot Cohen in a piece in The Atlantic dated August 2018:
But to really get the feel for the Trump administration’s end, we must turn to the finest political psychologist of them all, William Shakespeare. The text is in the final act of what superstitious actors only refer to as the “Scottish play.” One of the nobles who has turned on their murderous usurper king describes Macbeth’s predicament:
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
And so it will be for Trump. To be clear, these are very different people. Macbeth is an utterly absorbing, troubling, tragic, and compelling figure. Unlike America’s germaphobic president, who copped five draft deferments and has yet to visit the thousands of American soldiers on the front lines in Afghanistan or Iraq, he is physically brave. In fact, the first thing we hear about him is that in the heat of battle with a rebel against King Duncan (whom he later murders) Macbeth “unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops.” He is apparently faithful to his wife, has a conscience (that he overcomes), knows guilt and remorse, and has self-knowledge. He also has a pretty good command of the English language. In all these respects he is as unlike Trump as one can be.
But in the moment of losing power, the two will be alike. A tyrant is unloved, and although the laws and institutions of the United States have proven a brake on Trump, his spirit remains tyrannical—that is, utterly self-absorbed and self-concerned, indifferent to the suffering of others, knowing no moral restraint. He expects fealty and gives none. Such people can exert power for a long time, by playing on the fear and cupidity, the gullibility and the hatreds of those around them. Ideological fervor can substitute for personal affection and attachment for a time, and so too can blind terror and sheer stupidity, but in the end, these fall away as well.
We'll see what we see, but the Daddy State project has been in process for 50 years, and the purveyors are so close to their goal, they're all but out in the open with it.
We know that assholes like these guys don't stop for reasons of honor and good fellowship with their countrymen. They stop when they're stopped - and only when they've been smashed into small bits.
It didn't get all fucked up yesterday, and we're not going to get it unfucked by midnight on the 6th of November.
There's a fair probability that people my age won't live to see the end of this shit - assuming we can end it at all.
So predicted one Eliot Cohen in a piece in The Atlantic dated August 2018:
But to really get the feel for the Trump administration’s end, we must turn to the finest political psychologist of them all, William Shakespeare. The text is in the final act of what superstitious actors only refer to as the “Scottish play.” One of the nobles who has turned on their murderous usurper king describes Macbeth’s predicament:
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
And so it will be for Trump. To be clear, these are very different people. Macbeth is an utterly absorbing, troubling, tragic, and compelling figure. Unlike America’s germaphobic president, who copped five draft deferments and has yet to visit the thousands of American soldiers on the front lines in Afghanistan or Iraq, he is physically brave. In fact, the first thing we hear about him is that in the heat of battle with a rebel against King Duncan (whom he later murders) Macbeth “unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops.” He is apparently faithful to his wife, has a conscience (that he overcomes), knows guilt and remorse, and has self-knowledge. He also has a pretty good command of the English language. In all these respects he is as unlike Trump as one can be.
But in the moment of losing power, the two will be alike. A tyrant is unloved, and although the laws and institutions of the United States have proven a brake on Trump, his spirit remains tyrannical—that is, utterly self-absorbed and self-concerned, indifferent to the suffering of others, knowing no moral restraint. He expects fealty and gives none. Such people can exert power for a long time, by playing on the fear and cupidity, the gullibility and the hatreds of those around them. Ideological fervor can substitute for personal affection and attachment for a time, and so too can blind terror and sheer stupidity, but in the end, these fall away as well.
We'll see what we see, but the Daddy State project has been in process for 50 years, and the purveyors are so close to their goal, they're all but out in the open with it.
We know that assholes like these guys don't stop for reasons of honor and good fellowship with their countrymen. They stop when they're stopped - and only when they've been smashed into small bits.
It didn't get all fucked up yesterday, and we're not going to get it unfucked by midnight on the 6th of November.
There's a fair probability that people my age won't live to see the end of this shit - assuming we can end it at all.
embrace the suck
stay in the fight
Today's Quote
"I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny - Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear."
Smith was the first one in either party, and the first in all of Congress, to denounce Joe McCarthy.
Women will save us - we should let them do that.
Smith was the first one in either party, and the first in all of Congress, to denounce Joe McCarthy.
 |
| Jen Ray - (untitled) Chorus Line - water color |
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Overheard
...on the intertoobz recently:
No, 45* is not just like Adolf Hitler.
No, 45* is not just like Adolf Hitler.
- Hitler served honorably in the military
- Hitler was faithful to his wife
- Hitler wrote his own book
The past does not repeat itself - but it sure as fuck rhymes.
The Green Spot
Environmentalists refer to a problem with the basic mindset of people who don't get the concept of The Commons, and more particularly, The Tragedy Of The Commons - where people move to a place that has "plenty to go around" (land, resources, etc), and immediately start ruining it all for everybody by trying to monopolize whatever they can. When it's all used up - when it's depleted and brown - they move on, looking for the next Green Spot.
Considering Economics and Politics, there's never a shortage of Brown Spots - places where Plutocrats and their coin-operated politicians have turned the joint into a wasteland - little more than a system of lords and serfs.
(ed note: I wish there was another way to characterize the phenomenon, because I don't want to associate the "brown" in Brown Spots when I talk about environmental stuff, with the "brown" in Brown People when I talk about Econ and Politics)
So here we are again, faced with having to deal with some of our own shit coming back to haunt us (a hundred years of Gunboat Diplomacy, Shock Doctrine Economics, and Ollie North-style fuckery) all through Latin America.
We've helped to make it very difficult for brown people to survive in their own countries, so they're migrating to the Green Spot here in USAmerica Inc, and we're so freaked out that we're actually in process of turning this joint into the kind of Brown Spot that would be less attractive to them.
At the very least, we're doing everything we can think of to send the message that we're no different than the assholes they're risking their lives to escape.
We're the bartender at some redneck dive at 2am. "Closin' time - you don't have to go home, but ya can't stay here." Then he turns on the light, and you make a mental note to get a tetanus booster, but that takes me off towards a slightly different rant.
The New Yorker:
Donald Trump, who’s been stumping for congressional Republicans, is now calling the November midterms the “election of the caravan,” and says that the Democrats support the “illegal immigration onslaught” because they “figure everybody coming in is going to vote Democrat.” For his Administration, the political rhetoric and the policy agenda are effectively indistinguishable. In the last several months, over the objections of regional experts and diplomatic staff, officials at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have wound down a number of programs meant to provide legal relief to those seeking refuge in the U.S. This summer, Attorney General Jeff Sessions unilaterally redrew decades of jurisprudence to make it significantly more difficult for migrants fleeing gang violence and domestic abuse to seek asylum. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of migrants from Central America continue to stream north, fleeing conditions that the Trump Administration has dismissedas irrelevant.
For all the Administration’s avowals of toughness, none of its strategies has helped stem the flow. According to unpublished government data obtained by the Washington Post, Border Patrol has apprehended more than a hundred thousand migrant family members in the last year, which is about thirty thousand more arrests than the previous peak, in 2016. The rationale for the President’s harshest measures, from the indefinite detention of asylum seekers to the separation of families at the border, was that they would deter other migrants from making the trip. The government’s own data contradicts that, and so Trump’s enforcement policy is stuck in a feedback loop: he’s been defending actions that haven’t changed migration patterns, while simultaneously citing a “border crisis” as the reason to double down.
In the end - and we have news about it today - we'll do our usual bullshit "conservative" thing ('specially now that Cult45 is in charge) by announcing our intentions to punish those countries.
We'll cut Foreign Aid. Because we're all about retribution, and the GOP likes nothing more than making people suffer.
We have a problem with immigration because people want to get away from the shit in their lives, but we refuse to do what needs done in order to make those people stronger in their own countries - so they have a real chance to make their own lives better wherever they are - so we don't have to sponsor them here.
(*) GOP politicians are always pushing to cut Foreign Aid
- for farmers, which means they have to resort to growing drug crops instead of food crops.
- for local schools, which means they fall further into the cycle of ignorance poverty and crime.
- for governments, which makes them vulnerable to the influence of terrorists.
Republicans are weak on Drugs
Republicans are weak on Crime
Republicans are weak on Terrorism
And it should be easier and easier now to see how weak Republicans are on Immigration.
In the end - and we have news about it today - we'll do our usual bullshit "conservative" thing ('specially now that Cult45 is in charge) by announcing our intentions to punish those countries.
We'll cut Foreign Aid. Because we're all about retribution, and the GOP likes nothing more than making people suffer.
We have a problem with immigration because people want to get away from the shit in their lives, but we refuse to do what needs done in order to make those people stronger in their own countries - so they have a real chance to make their own lives better wherever they are - so we don't have to sponsor them here.
(*) GOP politicians are always pushing to cut Foreign Aid
- for farmers, which means they have to resort to growing drug crops instead of food crops.
- for local schools, which means they fall further into the cycle of ignorance poverty and crime.
- for governments, which makes them vulnerable to the influence of terrorists.
Republicans are weak on Drugs
Republicans are weak on Crime
Republicans are weak on Terrorism
And it should be easier and easier now to see how weak Republicans are on Immigration.
(*) hat tip = The West Wing
Karma, Bitch
A bible museum. In Washington DC. With a view of the Capitol.
CNN:
The Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC says five of its most valuable artifacts -- once thought to be part of the historic Dead Sea Scrolls -- are fake and will not be displayed anymore.
German-based scholars tested the fragments and found that five "show characteristics inconsistent with ancient origin and therefore will no longer be displayed at the museum."
CNN raised questions about the museum's Dead Sea Scroll fragments in an article published last November, as the Green family prepared to unveil their new, $500 million museum. At 430,000 square feet, and with views of the Capitol, the Bible museum represents a significant investment for its evangelical founders.
And the kicker -
"Though we had hoped the testing would render different results, this is an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of verifying the authenticity of rare biblical artifacts, the elaborate testing process undertaken and our commitment to transparency," said Jeffrey Kloha, the chief curatorial officer for Museum of the Bible.
Excuse me, Mr Kloha, but if you knuckleheads cared about "verifying the authenticity" of any-damned-thing at all, you wouldn't be religious in the first place.
CNN:
The Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC says five of its most valuable artifacts -- once thought to be part of the historic Dead Sea Scrolls -- are fake and will not be displayed anymore.
German-based scholars tested the fragments and found that five "show characteristics inconsistent with ancient origin and therefore will no longer be displayed at the museum."
CNN raised questions about the museum's Dead Sea Scroll fragments in an article published last November, as the Green family prepared to unveil their new, $500 million museum. At 430,000 square feet, and with views of the Capitol, the Bible museum represents a significant investment for its evangelical founders.
And the kicker -
"Though we had hoped the testing would render different results, this is an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of verifying the authenticity of rare biblical artifacts, the elaborate testing process undertaken and our commitment to transparency," said Jeffrey Kloha, the chief curatorial officer for Museum of the Bible.
When you 're willing to believe in a pixie that lives in the sky - who'll do magic tricks for you if you suck up to it just right - you can't be surprised when somebody pulls some scammy shit on your gullible ass.
Monday, October 22, 2018
Today's Tweet
"I want you to be nice. Until it's time to not be nice." --Dalton, in Roadhouse
Just gonna say it.— David Jolly (@DavidJollyFL) October 21, 2018
I don't think there's anything wrong with confronting elected officials in public. Nothing. Zero. We should do more of it.
It is who we are as Americans.
Channel Thoreau. Do it.
No politician was conscripted to serve. They asked for the opportunity.
Sunday, October 21, 2018
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