The Fail

When the rubes are a bit unclear on the concept - because the "leader" is not fully competent, and fails to explain it well.

Today's Quote

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
-To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
-To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
-To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
-To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

-- Octavia Butler

Rise Of The Machines

Under the general heading: Oddly - And A Bit Disturbingly - Satisfying.

A Step Forward

Negotiating without framing the outcome as winners and losers.

If we have an argument instead of a fist fight, that's called progress. But we've allowed our attitude to backslide into looking at the debate as a battle.

If I learn something new and I change my mind about the issue we're debating, the current way we see these things requires me to be labeled the loser, which makes me more likely to rationalize a point of view that almost has to evolve into something totally radical and unworthy of support.

You Are Not So Smart Podcast:

Today's Tweet

This is the only award anyone at DumFux News is likely ever to get.

Sean Hannity got his award for his coverage of Donald Trump! pic.twitter.com/LFrQ6KP1gR

— Hear Me Roar (@Stop_Trump20) December 28, 2018

Weekly Address

If you're still willing to say the Dems lack a message - or to believe someone else when they say it - please do us all a favor and fuck the fuck off.

116th Congress - HR 1:

• Voting
• Transparency of campaign money
• Ethical standards

"...a more perfect union..."

There was a wave. It was blue. Shut the fuck up and get to work.

Today's Beau

Beau Of The 5th Column

Today's GIF

Today's Quote

Looking at life from a different perspective makes you realize that it's not the deer that's crossing the road - it's the road that's crossing the forrest.

-- Muhammad Ali

Ruh-oh, Reorge

This time for sure.

Peter Stone and Greg Gordon, McClatchy DC:

A mobile phone traced to President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen briefly sent signals ricocheting off cell towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign, leaving an electronic record to support claims that Cohen met secretly there with Russian officials, four people with knowledge of the matter say.

During the same period of late August or early September, electronic eavesdropping by an Eastern European intelligence agency picked up a conversation among Russians, one of whom remarked that Cohen was in Prague, two people familiar with the incident said.

The phone and surveillance data, which have not previously been disclosed, lend new credence to a key part of a former British spy’s dossier of Kremlin intelligence describing purported coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russia’s election meddling operation.

But Cohen continues to lie about it, tweeting recently that he's never been to Prague, or to the Czech Republic.

And then - just in case you were afraid it wouldn't get any weirder or uglier - we get this from Michael Burke, The Hill:

A lawyer for a Russian company that has been indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller said Mueller has "collected a nude selfie" as part of his probe into the Russian company.

In the court filing, Eric Dubelier — an attorney for Concord Management and Consulting — accused Mueller's team of illegally keeping information from the company.

Dubelier also said in the filing that among the millions of records that the special counsel has collected as evidence in the case is a "nude selfie."

“Could the manner in which he collected a nude selfie really threaten the national security of the United States?” Dubelier wrote.

Concord Management and Consulting is among the Russian entities and Russian nationals that Mueller indicted earlier this year, accusing them of participating in a Russian troll farm's effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the election as well as possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.