Sunday, July 28, 2019
That Baltimore Thing
Simply put, there is nothing redeeming (or redeemable) about that dipwad currently occupying the oval office.
Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA......— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2019
The Baltimore Sun: (the whole banana)
In case anyone missed it, the president of the United States had some choice words to describe Maryland’s 7th congressional district on Saturday morning. Here are the key phrases: “no human being would want to live there,” it is a “very dangerous & filthy place,” “Worst in the USA” and, our personal favorite: It is a “rat and rodent infested mess.” He wasn’t really speaking of the 7th as a whole. He failed to mention Ellicott City, for example, or Baldwin or Monkton or Prettyboy, all of which are contained in the sprawling yet oddly-shaped district that runs from western Howard County to southern Harford County. No, Donald Trump’s wrath was directed at Baltimore and specifically at Rep. Elijah Cummings, the 68-year-old son of a former South Carolina sharecropper who has represented the district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1996.
It’s not hard to see what’s going on here. The congressman has been a thorn in this president’s side, and Mr. Trump sees attacking African American members of Congress as good politics, as it both warms the cockles of the white supremacists who love him and causes so many of the thoughtful people who don’t to scream. President Trump bad-mouthed Baltimore in order to make a point that the border camps are “clean, efficient & well run," which, of course, they are not — unless you are fine with all the overcrowding, squalor, cages and deprivation to be found in what the Department of Homeland Security’s own inspector-general recently called “a ticking time bomb."
In pointing to the 7th, the president wasn’t hoping his supporters would recognize landmarks like Johns Hopkins Hospital, perhaps the nation’s leading medical center. He wasn’t conjuring images of the U.S. Social Security Administration, where they write the checks that so many retired and disabled Americans depend upon. It wasn’t about the beauty of the Inner Harbor or the proud history of Fort McHenry. And it surely wasn’t about the economic standing of a district where the median income is actually above the national average. No, he was returning to an old standby of attacking an African American lawmaker from a majority black district on the most emotional and bigoted of arguments. It was only surprising that there wasn’t room for a few classic phrases like “you people” or “welfare queens” or “crime-ridden ghettos” or a suggestion that the congressman “go back” to where he came from.
This is a president who will happily debase himself at the slightest provocation. And given Mr. Cummings’ criticisms of U.S. border policy, the various investigations he has launched as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, his willingness to call Mr. Trump a racist for his recent attacks on the freshmen congresswomen, and the fact that “Fox & Friends” had recently aired a segment critical of the city, slamming Baltimore must have been irresistible in a Pavlovian way. Fox News rang the bell, the president salivated and his thumbs moved across his cell phone into action.
As heartening as it has been to witness public figures rise to Charm City’s defense on Saturday, from native daughter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, we would above all remind Mr. Trump that the 7th District, Baltimore included, is part of the United States that he is supposedly governing. The White House has far more power to effect change in this city, for good or ill, than any single member of Congress including Mr. Cummings. If there are problems here, rodents included, they are as much his responsibility as anyone’s, perhaps more because he holds the most powerful office in the land.
Finally, while we would not sink to name-calling in the Trumpian manner — or ruefully point out that he failed to spell the congressman’s name correctly (it’s Cummings, not Cumming) — we would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are “good people” among murderous neo-Nazis that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post. Or that he possesses a scintilla of integrity. Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one.
The Moon
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Defining
We've been having this fight for quite a while.
A libertarian is an anarchist who expects the police to protect him from this slaves.
The Paterson Strike
The 1913 Paterson silk strike was a work stoppage involving silk mill workers in Paterson, New Jersey. The strike involved demands for establishment of an eight-hour day and improved working conditions. The strike began in February, 1913, and ended five months later, on July 28th. During the course of the strike, approximately 1,850 strikers were arrested, including Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leaders William Dudley Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
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| 1913 Paterson Strike |
The Paterson Strike
The 1913 Paterson silk strike was a work stoppage involving silk mill workers in Paterson, New Jersey. The strike involved demands for establishment of an eight-hour day and improved working conditions. The strike began in February, 1913, and ended five months later, on July 28th. During the course of the strike, approximately 1,850 strikers were arrested, including Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leaders William Dudley Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
Spotted Friendly Foot - Shot Same.
Right now, the only thing the Repubs think they have going for them (they're flacking the shit out of it anyway) is an economy that they portray as being the best ever and the reason you should all run out and vote for rich white people to get richer and even more purebred-white-bread.
So what does 45* do?
BBC News:
US President Donald Trump has accused French President Emmanuel Macron of "foolishness" over a digital services tax, and hinted that he would tax French wine in retaliation.
So what does 45* do?
BBC News:
Mr Trump voiced his anger in a Tweet on Friday, in response to French plans to tax multinational firms like Google.
French authorities argue that the firms pay little or no corporate tax in countries where they are not based.
The Trump administration has said the tax unfairly targets US tech giants.
"France just put a digital tax on our great American technology companies. If anybody taxes them, it should be their home Country, the US," Mr Trump wrote on Twitter.
"We will announce a substantial reciprocal action on Macron's foolishness shortly. I've always said American wine is better than French wine!"
Asked about the issue in the Oval Office later, Mr Trump, who is teetotal, said: "I've always liked American wines better than French wines. Even though I don't drink wine. I just like the way they look."
45*'s tariffs so far have cost us in the 100s of billions of dollars in trade, plus the nearly $30 billion he's throwing at American farmers to buy their continued support, plus the fact that the slowdown in international trade has created an additional drag on GDP growth, which was already slowing, and is set to come in at a rather anemic 2.1% for 2019 - on top of the fears that we tip into full blown recession by this time 2020.
All of which makes 45*'s "promise" of 3 or even 4% growth pretty much another great example of a guy trying to convince me the 1985 Yugo is a great car at a great price.
Bless Their Hearts
Rich white and over-privileged.
HuffPo:
A federal judge on Friday dismissed a $250 million lawsuit against The Washington Post from the attorneys of Nick Sandmann, the MAGA hat-wearing teen captured in a viral video with Native American activist Nathan Phillips in January.
HuffPo:
A federal judge on Friday dismissed a $250 million lawsuit against The Washington Post from the attorneys of Nick Sandmann, the MAGA hat-wearing teen captured in a viral video with Native American activist Nathan Phillips in January.
A student at Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, Sandmann was part of a group of teens filmed surrounding Phillips while he performed an American Indian Movement song on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial early this year.
Rich white people who're looking for a nice fat payday at the expense of other rich white people have to stop making shit up about "lazy brown people always looking for a handout at the expense of rich white people."
Rich white people who're looking for a nice fat payday at the expense of other rich white people have to stop making shit up about "lazy brown people always looking for a handout at the expense of rich white people."
Buncha fuckin' moochers
Friday, July 26, 2019
Part Of The Bernie Problem
Mimi Rocah's taking some heat about her comments on MSNBC, saying "Bernie makes my skin crawl."
That seems a bit harsh, but there's something that's always bugged me about Bernie too.
I voted for him in the Virginia primary in 2016, but the bloom is off that rose now. It's not that he's become something bad, it's just that I think he's served his purpose - he's made it OK for Dems to show themselves taking the "lefty" positions they need to take.
That's what I've always thought Bernie's job was. It's what I think Hillary and Debbie and Donna figured would be part of a good way to move "left", but maintain the option to do the usual "hippie-punching" whenever they needed to calm the more conservative elements of the Dem Party - the Claire McCaskills and Joe Manchins.
Anyway, I think it mostly worked, even though the Bernie Bros wouldn't let it go when it was time to get back together and make things happen in the general election.
BTW - we know now that a lot of those Bernie Bros may well have been largely spurred on by Bernie Bots, assuming most of them weren't actually Bernie Bots and Trolls and Ghost Accounts. We don't know nearly enough about that shit yet.
But back to Mimi and the "something ain't quite right with that Bernie guy" meme.
Behold, a GIF:
Bernie gets all gesture-y and Abby Huntsman tries to get him out of her space. Bernie's reaction to her objection has the earmarks of a guy who's being dismissive of her, as he seems to be playing the victim, and then trying to recover by blowing it all off with a smile - almost like he's trying to be self-deprecating, but failing at it.
It ends up as: Bernie, rebutting some nonsense from Stephen Moore, and basically telling Huntsman she doesn't matter.
It's a very bad look in retrospect. I didn't see it that way at the time. Rocah's tweet prompted me to go back and re-watch some stuff, and apply some context.
We're in a different place now. Our "manly" behavior is far more closely scrutinized, and we're just gonna hafta get used to the fact that women aren't putting up with that shit now, and many more of them are willing to get in your face because of it.
On the whole - I'll call it progress and try to figure out how to go with it.
That seems a bit harsh, but there's something that's always bugged me about Bernie too.
I voted for him in the Virginia primary in 2016, but the bloom is off that rose now. It's not that he's become something bad, it's just that I think he's served his purpose - he's made it OK for Dems to show themselves taking the "lefty" positions they need to take.
That's what I've always thought Bernie's job was. It's what I think Hillary and Debbie and Donna figured would be part of a good way to move "left", but maintain the option to do the usual "hippie-punching" whenever they needed to calm the more conservative elements of the Dem Party - the Claire McCaskills and Joe Manchins.
Anyway, I think it mostly worked, even though the Bernie Bros wouldn't let it go when it was time to get back together and make things happen in the general election.
BTW - we know now that a lot of those Bernie Bros may well have been largely spurred on by Bernie Bots, assuming most of them weren't actually Bernie Bots and Trolls and Ghost Accounts. We don't know nearly enough about that shit yet.
But back to Mimi and the "something ain't quite right with that Bernie guy" meme.
Behold, a GIF:
Bernie gets all gesture-y and Abby Huntsman tries to get him out of her space. Bernie's reaction to her objection has the earmarks of a guy who's being dismissive of her, as he seems to be playing the victim, and then trying to recover by blowing it all off with a smile - almost like he's trying to be self-deprecating, but failing at it.
It ends up as: Bernie, rebutting some nonsense from Stephen Moore, and basically telling Huntsman she doesn't matter.
It's a very bad look in retrospect. I didn't see it that way at the time. Rocah's tweet prompted me to go back and re-watch some stuff, and apply some context.
We're in a different place now. Our "manly" behavior is far more closely scrutinized, and we're just gonna hafta get used to the fact that women aren't putting up with that shit now, and many more of them are willing to get in your face because of it.
On the whole - I'll call it progress and try to figure out how to go with it.
Thursday, July 25, 2019
On Getting Woke
Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column.
There's a very important space between healthy skepticism and self-destructive cynicism.
"Don't be so woke that you can't dream"
There's a very important space between healthy skepticism and self-destructive cynicism.
Trolling In Real Time
This is just too fucking sweet. Seems to be a real thing.
Vox:
As President Donald Trump spoke in front of a crowd of young conservatives at Turning Point USA’s student summit on Tuesday, nobody took a second glance at the presidential seal projected behind him. They probably should have, considering that it was altered to poke fun at the president.
The photoshopped seal contains several details that are meant to troll the president for his friendliness with Russian President Vladimir Putin and expensive golfing habits. The bald eagle in the center has two heads instead of one, and its shield is swapped out for a more rectangular symbol that resembles Russia’s coat of arms. A two-headed eagle is also a symbol of empire and dominance and is featured on the flags of Serbia, Albania, and Montenegro, according to the Washington Post, which first reported on the incident.
The letters on the banner the eagle holds in its mouth are also altered: Rather than the Latin phrase “E pluribus unum” — “Out of many, one” — it says “45 es un tÃtere,” a Spanish phrase that translates to “45 is a puppet.” And the eagle is holding cash in its talons instead of an olive branch.
Bless you, unknown graphics intern person - you are a true American hero.
Vox:
As President Donald Trump spoke in front of a crowd of young conservatives at Turning Point USA’s student summit on Tuesday, nobody took a second glance at the presidential seal projected behind him. They probably should have, considering that it was altered to poke fun at the president.
The photoshopped seal contains several details that are meant to troll the president for his friendliness with Russian President Vladimir Putin and expensive golfing habits. The bald eagle in the center has two heads instead of one, and its shield is swapped out for a more rectangular symbol that resembles Russia’s coat of arms. A two-headed eagle is also a symbol of empire and dominance and is featured on the flags of Serbia, Albania, and Montenegro, according to the Washington Post, which first reported on the incident.
The letters on the banner the eagle holds in its mouth are also altered: Rather than the Latin phrase “E pluribus unum” — “Out of many, one” — it says “45 es un tÃtere,” a Spanish phrase that translates to “45 is a puppet.” And the eagle is holding cash in its talons instead of an olive branch.
Bless you, unknown graphics intern person - you are a true American hero.
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