Ready For Another?

Every time we turn around, there's another exploding example of Cult45 fuckery, and GOP shruggery.

At one of those town hall meet-your-Senator things, someone asked where we might expect certain congress critters to draw the line.

And Ernst did that bullshit limp-arm thing where instead of addressing the question - instead of addressing the problem that the questioner is pointing out - Ernst throws a blanket over it, saying, "Well, all corruption should be ferreted out no matter where it occurs..."

Nobody's going to disagree with it, but that kind of statement coming from someone who is supposed to be among the leaders of our democracy is dismissive and condescending. It says there's no problem with the fuckery as long as it's my guy doing it, and "What makes you peons think you can question your betters anyway?"

And now we have the next shoe to drop.

Business Insider:

With Washington, DC, embroiled in the fallout from a whistleblower's revelations that President Donald Trump pressured Ukraine's president to investigate a Democratic rival, another whistleblower scandal has received scant attention.

But experts say the second complaint could prove just as damaging for the president as the Ukraine controversy.

In a letter recently filed as part of his bid to obtain six years' worth of the president's tax returns, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal, wrote that he received a credible complaint from a whistleblower at the end of July.

The complaint, Neal wrote, alleges "inappropriate efforts to influence" the IRS audit of Trump's tax returns.

At this stage, details are sparse. The identity of the whistleblower is unknown, as are the specifics of the complaint.

But experts and former prosecutors told Insider the complaint could land the president in legal jeopardy — and, just as important, lead to the release of the tax returns Trump has long shielded from public view.

It's not unreasonable to start with the premise that 45* keeps making it worse for himself because he's always having to make a calculation on what outrageous shit he can pull today in order to cover for the outrageous shit he pulled yesterday. That's not a fully adequate explanation, but it goes a good bit of the way in trying to get a handle on the lizard brain machinations of this guy.

I guess my hypothesis is that he's running around waving his arms yelling, "Look at me, look at me - I'm breaking the law right out in the open" for a couple of reasons.

First, so that we won't have time or energy to see the other shit that's going on - especially the shit that's hidden in his tax returns.

And 2nd, because if he can get "the base" to normalize this, he's that much closer to the unchecked power he craves.

There's gotta be some pretty amazing shit buried in those tax documents.

25%

Scottish Wildcat - on the brink

Claire Marshall, BBC:

More than a quarter of mammals are facing extinction, according to a detailed and devastating report on the state of the natural world in the UK.

It also said one in seven species were threatened with extinction, and 41% of species studied have experienced decline since 1970.

Providing the clearest picture to date, the State of Nature report examined data from almost 7,000 species.

It drew on expertise from more than 70 different organisations.

These included wildlife organisations and government agencies.

The report said 26% of mammal species were at risk of disappearing altogether.

A separate report outlined the picture in Scotland, where the abundance and distribution of species has also declined.

Scotland saw a 24% decline in average species abundance, and about one in 10 species threatened with extinction.

The State of Nature report shows, in grim detail, that almost one in five plants are classified as being at risk of extinction, along with 15% of fungi and lichens, 40% of vertebrates and 12% of invertebrates.

It paints a picture of what conservationists call "the great thinning", with 60% of "priority species" having declined since 1970.

Is It Parody?

G.I. Schmo

That Deep State Thing

Yes, there's a conspiracy against 45*.

Just as there was a conspiracy against Nixon.

And a conspiracy against McCarthy.

(And Al Capone and Ted Bundy - but that's a slightly different angle on the story)

If we're to have any hope of surviving as a republic, we have to insist on a government planted thick with career professionals "conspiring against" the liars crooks and losers who intend to use the law (specifically, the loopholes in the law - the Smarmspace) in order to rule over us instead of serving the greater good.

I've made plenty of noise about entrenched bureaucracies, but my beef is about people in government who get too cozy with the people they're supposed to be regulating - too much of an interlocking-interests kinda thing.

As Cult45 devotees continue to remove the support structure, we're seeing the implosion of our system of self-goverment, and it seems to be rapidly accelerating towards collapse - at which time we can either regenerate it, or kiss it goodbye forever.

The New Yorker:

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, told me that the Administration is propagating a long-held conspiracy theory to justify its behavior. “My understanding is that Trump, Giuliani, and others in the Administration believe that there is a deep-state conspiracy in the State Department against the President and that Masha Yovanovitch was part of this.” Her recall from Kiev, he said, “was a consequence of that conspiracy theory.”

The Deep State conspiracy theory is hardly confined to the West Wing, Murphy went on: “I hear this, too, from my Republican Senate colleagues. There is a belief that there is a group in every corner of the government that is out to get Trump. There really are morally centered people who find him deeply distasteful, and it is required of them to raise questions of corruption if they see it. The Trump Administration sees that as a conspiracy.”

I may be indulging in a simple Argument From Ignorance, but when I look at what has to be obvious - Trump's corruption and outright law-breaking - and I see a Republican party hellbent on maintaining solidarity with him - and perpetrating all manner of anti-democracy rat-fuckery - how do I conclude anything other than this being a deliberate effort to tear down the republic in order to replace it with plutocracy?

A Poem

Lobocraspis Griseifusa

This is the tiny moth who lives on tears,
who drinks like a deer at the gleaming pool
at the edge of the sleeper's eye, the touch
of its mouth as light as a cloud's reflection.

In your dream, a moonlit figure appears
at your bedside and touches your face.
He asks if he might share the poor bread
of your sorrow. You show him the table.

The two of you talk long into the night,
but by morning the words are forgotten.
You awaken serene, in a sunny room,
rubbing the dust of his wings from your eyes.

-- Ted Kooser

Today's Quote

If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be between Masons and Dixons, but between patriotism and intelligence on one side, and superstition ambition and ignorance on the other.

-- Ulysses S Grant, 1875

Today's Pix

click to embiggen

Today's Tweet

Everything old is new again.

Sounds familiar doesn't it?? pic.twitter.com/LdqrqqeSKP

— Hear Me Roar (@Stop_Trump20) October 2, 2019

Do Something Nice

Humans can really fuck things up - and that's exactly what we've been doing.

But we have the capacity to make things right too. Maybe we should do that more often.

I will never be in the camp with people who say idiotic things like "Well, maybe electing Trump was actually a good thing because the backlash against him will give us a great chance to make things better when he's gone."

Fuck that shit. I'm not stupid enough to think it's OK for some kid to die horribly in a car crash so we can feel righteously motivated to make the improvements in passenger safety that we knew all along would prevent that kid from being killed in the first fuckin' place.

We know what to do.

We know how to do it.

So let's get it done.

Today's Tweet

Cult45's phone calls to Ukraine are not about some valiant effort to help them drain their swamp.

Would anyone saying POTUS held up aide to Ukraine due to “corruption” like the names of at least 10 countries we provide more funds to that are more corrupt? That’s pretty easy to do.

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) September 25, 2019

Here's that list (low score wins - like golf):

The top 25 most corrupt countries according to the CPI are:

1. Somalia (Corruption Perception Index Score: 9) 
2. South Sudan (Corruption Perception Index Score: 12) 
3. Syria (Corruption Perception Index Score: 14) 
4. Afghanistan (Corruption Perception Index Score: 15) 
5. Yemen (Corruption Perception Index Score: 16) 
6. Sudan (Corruption Perception Index Score: 16) 
7. Libya (Corruption Perception Index Score: 17) 
8. North Korea (Corruption Perception Index Score: 17) 
9. Venezuela (Corruption Perception Index Score: 18) 
10. Iraq (Corruption Perception Index Score: 18) 
11. Turkmenistan (Corruption Perception Index Score: 19) 
12. Angola (Corruption Perception Index Score: 19) 
13. Eritrea (Corruption Perception Index Score: 20) 
14. Chad (Corruption Perception Index Score: 20) 
15. Tajikistan (Corruption Perception Index Score: 21) 
16. Republic of Congo (Corruption Perception Index Score: 21) 
17. Democratic Republic of Congo (Corruption Perception Index Score: 21) 
18. Cambodia (Corruption Perception Index Score: 21) 
19. Zimbabwe (Corruption Perception Index Score: 22) 
20. Haiti (Corruption Perception Index Score: 22) 
21. Burundi (Corruption Perception Index Score: 22) 
22. Central African Republic (Corruption Perception Index Score: 23) 
23. Madagascar (Corruption Perception Index Score: 24) 
24. Guinea-Bissau (Corruption Perception Index Score: 27) 
25. Equatorial Guinea (Corruption Perception Index Score: 27)

However, there are other surveys available that provide different rankings. The 2018 Best Countries rankings from U.S. News and World Report takes a look at survey data from over 21,000 citizens. Eighty countries are featured on this list. This survey shows that Nigeria is seen as the most corrupt nation. Colombia and Pakistan round out the top three.

The top 10 most corrupt nations according to the 2018 U.S. News and World Report rankings are:

1. Nigeria
2. Colombia
3. Pakistan
4. Iran
5. Mexico
6. Ghana
7. Angola
8. Russia
9. Kenya
10. Guatemala