First Draft

I wondered how long we’d have to wait for the “she’s-hot-so-not-guilty” trope…

Free Republic, Stupid Republican Tricks, Teabaggery, Terrorism, The Darnold, Tommy T

Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – random vandals edition

Hi, all – a bunch of bits and pieces this week. Let’s get right into it with – Bimb? Oh No?

Ex-Playboy Model Karen McDougal Sues to Break Silence on Trump
New York Times ^ | 03/20/2018 | By JIM RUTENBERG

Posted on 3/20/2018, 2:08:04 PM by SeekAndFind

A former Playboy model who claimed she had an affair with Donald J. Trump sued on Tuesday to be released from a 2016 legal agreement requiring her silence, becoming the second woman this month to challenge Trump allies’ efforts during the presidential campaign to bury stories about extramarital relationships.

The model, Karen McDougal, is suing the company that owns The National Enquirer, American Media Inc., which paid her $150,000 and whose chief executive is a friend of President Trump’s. The other woman, the adult entertainment star Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, was paid $130,000 to stay quiet by the president’s personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen. She filed suit earlier this month.

Both women, who argue that their contracts are invalid, are trying to get around clauses requiring them to resolve disputes in secretive arbitration proceedings rather than in open court. Mr. Trump has denied the affairs.

Ms. McDougal, in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims that Mr. Cohen was secretly involved in her talks with A.M.I., and that the media company and her lawyer at the time misled her about the deal. She also asserts that after she spoke with The New Yorker last month after it obtained notes she kept on Mr. Trump, A.M.I. warned that “any further disclosures would breach Karen’s contract” and “cause considerable monetary damages.”

In an email to The New York Times, her new lawyer, Peter K. Stris, accused A.M.I. of “a multifaceted effort to silence Karen McDougal.”

1 posted on 3/20/2018, 2:08:04 PM by SeekAndFind

To: DIRTYSECRET

What is the whole point, was there a rape or sexual assault committed, if not who cares.

11 posted on 3/20/2018, 2:12:48 PM by the_individual2014

To: SeekAndFind

What’s the beef? Trump was a rich successful playboy, that’s no secret. Besides, she is hot!

12 posted on3/20/2018, 2:13:28 PM by JoSixChip (He is Batman!)

To: SeekAndFind

Not guilty!

20 posted on 3/20/2018, 2:15:26 PM by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)

To: albie

She wants everyone to know she’s a pig who screws married men. I don’t have a problem with the president. That’s between him and his wife.

44 posted on 3/20/2018, 3:03:44 PM by Peeps47 (Democrats are as corrupt as they are incompetent)

Ah, the Freeperati – always ready to forgive and forget.

Well, ALMOST always…

Let the Bimbo Eruptions Commence! Is Bill Clinton back in predatory mode? NY POST ^ | 10/13/06 | Richard Johnson Posted on 10/13/2006, 8:48:49 AM by MAD-AS-HELL

Hillary Fans Took No Chances

SAVVY Democrats pushing Sen. Hillary Clinton for president were so worried last year about a possible “bimbo eruption” involving Bill Clinton, they had his friend, former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, confront him, according to a new book. In “The Way to Win,” authors Mark Halperin of ABC News and John Harris of the Washington Post report that rumors swept political circles last year that Clinton had resumed the wayward habits that nearly brought down his presidency in 1998. Concern among his allies grew so intense that McAuliffe was tapped for the delicate assignment of confronting him at his Chappaqua home, according to Democrats briefed on the awkward encounter. “The former president assured McAuliffe that there was nothing to the rumors, although Clinton had been known to make such promises in the past,” Halperin and Harris write. They add that others around the senator believe her husband “has learned from his errors” and is so determined that she become president that he’ll “bring only support and good behavior to a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.”

*******

Oh how I would love to see an avalanche of woman come out and accuse Bill of unwanted advances

Yeah – that would really suck, wouldn’t it?

on the eve of the Democratic National Convention where Hitlery is to accept the nomination. Or even better, Hillary and her goon squad intimidating those same women in order to keep them quiet about the BENTONE.

Maybe Michael Cohen is available?

To: MAD-AS-HELL

“The former president assured McAuliffe that there was nothing to the rumors”

Yea, right. Once a whorehound, always a whorehound. Bubba is as addicted to chasing women as an alcoholic is to booze.

17 posted on 10/13/2006, 9:01:28 AM by Polyxene (For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel – Martin Luther)

Yeah – but is she hot?

To: MAD-AS-HELL

In the past Hillary was in charge of putting down “Bimbo Eruptions”. Now who’s going to do it?

40 posted on 10/13/2006, 10:26:31 AM by TruthWillWin

Steve Bannon Is A Moron

Sloppy Steve’s pinky promise.

We already knew that Steve Bannon was an extremist and looks like an unmade bed at a thrift shop, but last night we had proof positive that he’s a moron, or as my man Rex would say: A FUCKING MORON.

Sloppy Steve is trying to worm his way back into Trump’s good graces by proposing a ridiculous “plan” to dispose of the Mueller probe:

The first step, these people say, would be for Trump to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who oversees the work of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and in recent days signed off on a search warrant of Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen.

Bannon is also recommending the White House cease its cooperation with Mueller, reversing the policy of Trump’s legal team to provide information to the special counsel’s team and to allow staff members to sit for interviews.

And he is telling associates inside and outside the administration that the president should create a new legal battleground to protect himself from the investigation by asserting executive privilege — and arguing that Mueller’s interviews with White House officials over the past year should now be null and void.

This is a hare-brained scheme worthy of Wile E. Coyote and is apt to work as well as this:

If Bannon were a lawyer, which he most assuredly is not, he’d know that our legal system disfavors ideas such as “retroactive” executive privilege. If Team Trump refused to allow staffers to grant witnesses, prosecutors would simply issue grand jury subpoenas to compel their testimony. If they declined, they’d be held in contempt, fined, and clapped in jail. This White House is sufficiently incompetent without having staffers in the slammer.

Bannon is, of course, pandering to the Insult Comedian by proposing a “plan” that gives him an excuse do what he wants to do anyway. It is not, however, as simple as the feeble minds of Bannon and Trump would have you believe. If Rosenstein and Mueller were removed tomorrow, the investigation would continue. The press and public tend to view these things as duels between individuals when the battle is institutional in nature. The referral of the Cohen search to New York proves that. Repeat after me: the investigation would continue.

A quick sidebar. I wish the press would stop asking Trump if he’s going to “fire Mueller.” It comes off as a taunt, dare, or challenge to his manhood. And we all know that arrested adolescents are insecure about their teeny, tiny wangers.

I have no idea where this thing is going or what will happen next. Anyone who says they do has been smoking weed with former Speaker Boehner. We can dream that there are more like this anonymous Republican Congressman whose hilariously profane grocery store rant was quoted by Erick Erickson.

“It’s like Forrest Gump won the presidency, but an evil, really fucking stupid Forrest Gump. He can’t help himself. He’s just a fucking idiot who thinks he’s winning when people are bitching about him. He really does see the world as ratings and attention. I hate Forrest Gump. I listen to your podcast and heard you hate it too. What an overrated piece of sh*t movie. Can you believe it beat the Shawshank Redemption?”

<SNIP>

“I say a lot of shit on TV defending him, even over this. But honestly, I wish the motherfucker would just go away. We’re going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose a bunch of states because of him. All his supporters will blame us for what we have or have not done, but he hasn’t led. He wakes up in the morning, shits all over Twitter, shits all over us, shits all over his staff, then hits golf balls. F*ck him. Of course, I can’t say that in public or I’d get run out of town.”

The cowardly Congresscritter *claims* many House GOPers would vote to impeach *after* their primaries but who the hell knows? As entertaining as this rant is, I agree with former Republican Congressman David Jolly:

Memo to the growing number of GOPers speaking on background about Trump's increasing instability and his destruction of the party:

It means nothing if you won't go on the record; it actually makes you look weaker in the shadow of Trump, not stronger.

— David Jolly (@DavidJollyFL) April 12, 2018

That was a jolly good quote, eh wot?

Back to Steve Bannon. His trial balloon was leaked so that it could be shot down. The worst possible thing Trump could do is to make like the Queen of Hearts and chop off everyone’s head. It would make today’s feverish and overheated environment look like a garden party. Of course, Trump loves disorder and confusion. That’s why I call him the Kaiser of Chaos.

Steve Bannon is a moron in a party of morons and the president* is the biggest moron of all.

Repeat after me: the investigation will continue even if Bannon pinky swears that it won’t.

Apr 09 2018

From the Charleston Post & Courier’s Palmetto Politics section:

Adrastos, Congress, Fog Of History, Guns, Malakatude, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks

Malaka Of The Week: Ralph Norman

addtext_com_MTAzMjQ4Mjk1MQ

A friend asked me the other day why I’m doing fewer malaka of week posts. Surely, he said, malakatude is not decreasing. It is not. There’s been an explosion of malakatude in the Trump ~~error~~ era. Norms are being discarded willy nilly, especially on the subject of guns and that is why Congressman Ralph Norman of South Carolina is malaka of the week. Yeah, it happened last week but let’s not be pedantic about dates. Genuine malakatude is timeless.

It’s a pity that the Congressman’s parents didn’t name him Norman Norman. Not only would that get him a shout-out at Cheers, I could call him Norm Norman while pointing out the pulling out a loaded gun in a room full of constituents is not normal, Norman.

A South Carolina Republican congressman is not backing down from critics after he pulled out his own personal — and loaded — .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun during a meeting with constituents Friday.

U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-Rock Hill, told The Post and Courier he pulled out the weapon and placed it on a table for several minutes in attempt to make a point that guns are only dangerous in the hands of criminals.

“I’m not going to be a Gabby Giffords,” Norman said afterward, referring to the former Arizona Democratic congresswoman who was shot outside a Tucson-area grocery store during a constituent gathering in 2011.

That was a real low country low blow as Malaka Norman seems to imply that it was Ms. Giffords’ own fault that she was shot. A scathingly polite reaction to that came from Jeff Flake who served in the House with Giffords:

I sincerely hope you never have to experience what my friend @gabbygiffords experienced. But to suggest that she might have avoided being shot had she carried a weapon as she spoke to constituents that morning is inappropriate and inconsiderate. https://t.co/gnuSko0qcB

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) April 7, 2018

Palmetto state pols have long been known for their bravado, bluster, and bullshit. Who among us can forget Joe (You Lie) Wilson? Then there was that Southern charmer Congressman Preston Brooks who attacked Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in 1856:

That may be a low country low blow but Malaka Norman deserves whatever he gets for mocking Gabby Giffords and for this bit of Palmetto state poo-poo:

Norman said he pulled out the gun, pointed it away from the meeting attendees and put it on a table for about five minutes while they continued their conversation over breakfast.

The move, Norman said, was intended to prove “guns don’t shoot people; people shoot guns.”

Norman is a state concealed carry permit holder and said he regularly brings his gun with him when out in public.

If anyone walked into the diner and started shooting, Norman told the attendees, he would be able to protect them because of his gun.

“I don’t mind dying, but whoever shoots me better shoot well or I’m shooting back,” he told The Post and Courier.

I’m not sure if that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard but it’s on the list. Repeat after me: gun nuttery is an ideology and the NRA is a cult. What would this bozo do if an angry white man with an assault weapon came after him? It’s unclear if Norman can do anything but shoot off his mouth. He’s good at that. In my experience, braggarts are rarely heroic. Remember the last politician who waved a gun around in public?

Norman may not be a pervert like Roy Moore but he *is* a real estate developer. That figures: they’re world-class assholes who make car dealers look honest. Exhibit A is the Insult Comedian, the braggingest man on the planet. Norman is on that list as well. And that is why Ralph Norman is malaka of the week.

Apr 09 2018

Free Republic, Immoral Values, Stupid Republican Tricks, Tommy T

Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – reach out and touch someone edition

Hi, good people – not much to offer this week, I’m afraid. The “The Messicans Is Comin’ To Git Us” threads are boring. You could just play the bridge massacre scene from “The Death Of Stalin” and get the gist of what they want to do.

I would like to expound on one thing, though. I see a lot of doo-dah about “Reach out to Trump voters” like an olive branch and a kumbayah will somehow turn them into functioning human beings with a soul and stuff like that.

Forget it. Na Ga Ha Pen. The only thing they care about is themselves, and nothing will magically make them switch sides. We’ll see if The Darnold’s little trade war will hurt them badly enough by the fall elections, but it may not. This economic ship is like a cruise liner – it takes quite some time to stop it, or even change course.

How much of a lost cause is trying to win over Trump voters? Freeperville, a look into the collective id of the right-wing, has the answer. Strangely enough (or not) I found the answer in one of the Stormy Daniels threads.

I scrolled past one of the deleted comments, wondering (as I tend to do) what could have prompted its removal. On the next page, I got my answer, as someone there responded to the deleted post and quoted the content of it.

The mod squad quickly deleted the response (to try to kill the remainder of the quoted post), but like the Ghostbusters say, “We be fast, and they be slow!”

The content? Glad you asked.

To: WashingtonFire

“Trump is an alpha male, if he gets a fine piece of ass , he doesn’t mess around, he bangs the ass off it!”

This is the dialog you bring to a conservative Christian owned forum? Really?

28 posted on 4/2/2018, 3:29:43 PM by itsahoot (Welcome to the New USA where Islam is a religion of peace and Christianity is a mental disorder.)

See?

They don’t give a flying fuck. The only thing they regret is that they’re not the ones banging the ass off that fine piece of ass. What their wives don’t know won’t hurt them.

The “This is the dialog you bring to a conservative Christian owned forum?” bullshit is just duck-and-cover. It’s the response of someone who just got caught doing something repulsive by their wife. “Oh baby, I was just fooling around.”.

No you weren’t. You’re just embarrassed that you got caught saying what all of them feel.

“Trump is an alpha male, if he gets a fine piece of ass , he doesn’t mess around, he bangs the ass off it!”

“Alpha male”. Only gorilla troupes and wild dog packs have “alpha males”.

This is what they are. This is what they believe.

Pardon me if I don’t waste my time trying to reach out to these subhumans, and concentrate on registering voters for the Democratic Party.

See you good people next Monday.

And here’s the obligatory Trump meme:

Trump Strip Club

Tagged Clown shoes, Free Republic, Freeperati, Freepers, the stupid it burns, Tommy T, Wingnuts

Mar 23 2018

Adrastos, Law/Justice, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold

March Madness On The Potomac

Yesterday’s septuagenarian smackdown was just a prelude to the crazy that was March 22, 2018. Mark the day, it was when it became obvious that the president* has decided to entrust his political and legal fate as well as our national security to his gut impulses.

For the better part of the last month, Donald Trump has been winging it. His standoff with his chief of staff, John Kelly, appears to be resolved for the time being, with Trump having decided to return to the seat-of-the-pants decision-making that he believes won him the presidency. That doesn’t mean he has fully given up the idea of firing Kelly, though. One outside adviser to the White House said Trump has recently mulled the concept of creating a new West Wing structure without a chief of staff, one that would instead have four co-equal principals reporting directly to him. Trump seems to be loving his new freedom. “He was fucking excited and jubilant,” said one Trump friend who spoke to him in recent days. “He was like, everything’s great and these fuckers in the media are beside themselves.”

Everything’s great? Who knew? I certainly didn’t. This is what happens when the dumbest guy in the room thinks he the smartest.

All presidents live inside a bubble but for Trumpy to think everything’s great as the Mueller probe closes in, Stephanie/Stormy is slated to appear on 60 Minutes on Sunday, and he maniacally fires people is crazy even for him. The March madness mantra at the White House is let Trump be Trump.

John Dowd is out as Trump’s personal lawyer to be replaced by a married pair of Fox News contributors and the possible return of Marc Kasowitz. It’s the legal equivalent of going to the mattresses and preparing for a PR war against the Special Counsel and his crack team. In contrast, Trump’s team is full of crackpots. Believe me.

I’ll miss mocking Dowdy, which is why I’m posting this Separated at Birth-style tweet:

John Dowd will be played by Timothy Spall. pic.twitter.com/qFTR0BTrJW

— Brannon McAllister (@brannonmc) March 22, 2018

There’s nothing funny about Thursday’s other big news. The McMaster baiting finally ended and he was fired. His replacement is the war monger’s war monger, John Bolton. Trump purportedly decided not to give Bolton a job before this because he didn’t like his mustache. I am not making any of this up. I wish I were, but March madness is in the air.

The Bolton appointment is a reminder of how bad the Bush Junior administration was. Bolton and his mustache came to public prominence during the Beavis-Duce years. He was unconfirmable as UN ambassador and was given a recess appointment. At the UN, he alienated friends, poured gasoline on fires, and made Dick Cheney look like a peacenik.

Bolton has inverted the Churchillian aphorism to “better war, war, war than jaw, jaw, jaw.” He makes John McCain look like George McGovern.

Long-time readers know that I’m usually a glass half full kind of guy. The Bolton appointment makes that well-nigh impossible. Bolton never met a war that he didn’t like or a treaty that he didn’t want to tear up. The Iran nuclear deal is dead and war with Iran is more than just Bibi Netanyahu’s wet dream. It’s a possibility.

The Trump presidency* seems to have reached its Hitler in the bunker moment. It’s March madness on the Potomac writ large. The ascendancy of Bolton and Pompeo means that the country is fucked unless Trump decides to ignore their advice in the same way he’s ignored the so-called national security “grown-ups.” That means we’re subject to the whims of the Kaiser of Chaos, which is not a place any of us wants to be.

The last word goes to the usually calm national security/foreign policy writer Fred Kaplan:

It's time to panic now. John Bolton's rise to power puts us on a path to war–and, since Trump appointed him while knowing his views, it means Trump wants to be on that path. My @Slate column: https://t.co/7Rv7Gn5mVS

— Fred Kaplan (@fmkaplan) March 22, 2018

Mar 21 2018

Adrastos, Film, Fog Of History, Law/Justice, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, Television, The Darnold, Twitter

When Scandals Collide

I’ve considered starting a regular feature: the scandal of the week. The problem with that notion is that it’s more like the scandal of the day, hour, or second. There are so many Trump administration* scandals, that my head is spinning like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist:

We’ll skip the projectile vomiting GIF even though Team Trump makes me wanna hurl.

One of the funnier minor scandals is brain-dead retired brain surgeon Dr. Ben Carson’s $31K table at HUD. He’s acting like a character in a sitcom and blaming his wife. You cannot make this shit up, y’all.

This tweet from a Herriman biographer and Laissez Boy Michael Tisserand sums it up:

Waddaya mean you spent $31,000 on a kitchen table! pic.twitter.com/2CGzTpB8jn

— Michael Tisserand (@m_tisserand) March 21, 2018

Of course, Ralph Kramden was smarter than Ben Carson. I’ve decided Dr. Ben is a surgical savant. The man is a blithering idiot in the rest of life. He should heed my advice in this post from 2015: Brain Surgeon, Heal Thyself. I lied about the advice thing. I mocked him relentlessly in that piece. Trumper mendacity appears to be contagious.

Looks like I got sidetracked by what is best described as a brain surgeon fart. The focus of this post is *supposed* to be the two scandals that are consuming the president*: Kremlingate and the Stephanie Clifford Shitstormy. You can tell that Trumpy has retreated to the panic room of his mind when he attacks Hillary Clinton and tweets WITCH HUNT, WITCH HUNT. Insult Comedian meet Kaiser of Chaos.

Trump knows from witch hunters, his mentor the dread, as well as dead, Roy Cohn was Tailgunner Joe McCarthy’s sidekick. Cohn may have been an evil asshole but he was an excellent lawyer as opposed to the misfits, has-beens, never-wases, and wannabes Trump has assembled. There’s been tremendous turmoil and tumult on Trump’s legal team: they’re playing T-Ball while Team Mueller is playing hardball. It’s been hilarious to watch Dowdy, the Mustache Man, and company bumble. Making matters worse, Trump has added Fox News conspiracy theorist Joseph diGenova to the team; mostly because he saw him lying on Fox and Friends or some such shit. Shit meet storm.

In the Stormy Daniels case, Trump’s mouthy fixer, Michael Cohen, is up against a superb lawyer, Michael Avenatti. Cohen and his idiot client have stumbled into every trap laid by the cunning Avenatti. The non-disclosure agreement was supposed to keep Trump out of it by calling him David Dennison: chili magnet. Instead, Trumpy filed a massive counter-suit thereby outing himself. Dumbass.

Like Putin, Stormy/Stephanie must have some serious dirt on Trump or he wouldn’t be fighting back so hard. We all know that the overgrown, brain addled frat boys who make up much of Trump’s base envy his affairs with porn stars and Playboy playmates. My hunch is that he’s one of those rich guys who’s submissive and likes his bum bashed. That would not go down well with his debased base who mysteriously think this whiny baby man is a stud. Once again, weak lawyering makes Trump’s situation worse: Michael Cohen is a fixer, not a litigator. He’s in quite a fix right now.

The Stormy/Stephanie shit storm is a mere sideshow to the main event: Kremlingate. Trump is thrashing about, threatening people, and acting like a methy teenager. For the moment, he seems to have abandoned the “be nice to the wolf at your door” approach preferred by Cobby and Dowdy. That does not mean he plans to fire Bobby Three Sticks. Plan is a word that is not in the Insult Comedian’s vocabulary. Anyone who tells you that the Kaiser of Chaos is either going to fire or not fire Mueller is talking through their hat as a character in a Thirties Warner Brothers film would surely say at this pont. Nobody knows. Deranged people are unpredictable. He’s likely to do anything. Right now, he’s dangerous because he’s cornered. I have studied this president* very closely and cannot say for certain what will happen next. Believe me.

We had something confirmed last week with the firing of Andrew McCabe. In addition to liking blondes with big boobs, Donald Trump is a sadist and Jeff Sessions is a weakling. Firing McCabe at 10PM right before he planned to retire is an act of petty vengeance that will backfire. It’s called witness tampering and it’s something that Roy Cohn and your basic mob lawyers are adept at. Cohn would not have done it openly and never would have bragged about it on twitter. Of course, he died in 1986 but maybe they have social media in hell.

The Congressional Republican leadership continues to pretend all is well and that Trumpy is normal and worthy of defending. If the president* were not guilty, he would not be trying to derail the Mueller investigation both publicly and privately. He’s acting guilty because he is. The good news is that his efforts are clumsy and stupid. The bad news is that this criminal was elected at all.

Watching scandals collide is not pretty. It’s what Gret Stet Senator John Neely Kennedy would call “as ugly as boiled sin.” Stay tuned. The worst is yet to come.

Mar 14 2018

The best description of the Rexit “process” came from New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait:

Adrastos, Fog Of History, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold

Poison Tea For The Tillerson

I’ve enjoyed my Tea for the Tillerson series and will miss having Rex Tillerson to kick around. Having said that, he was a rotten Secretary of State who hollowed out his department and did lasting damage to the foreign service.

Tillerson’s tenure at Foggy Bottom is proof positive that guvmint should NOT be run like a business. Tillerson was convinced he knew better than the area experts who populate the department. He tried to run it with a small cadre of loyalists and had no support at State when the crunch came. He was right on many policies but had no influence at the White House or in Congress. But the next guy is worse.

It’s been obvious for quite some time that Tillerson was not long for the job, especially after the “fucking moron” incident. Coming after he blamed Russia for the London spook poisoning, the timing made him look better than he deserved. Anyone who associates with Trump is diminished by the experience. Tillerson is just the latest in a series of dignity wraiths whose reputation has been damaged. But the next guy is worse.

Every Trump administration personnel shake-up is a noir story of terrible, incompetent people squabbling with other terrible, incompetent people.

It’s a nightmare for the American people, but the Kaiser of Chaos is building the administration of his dreams: populated by yes men, ass kissers, courtiers, and sycophants. The incoming Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is a former Tea Party Congressman who ran the CIA in an overtly partisan manner. That should have been disqualifying since the head spook should be sneaky and able to play his cards discreetly. As far as Pompeo is concerned, pleasing Trump is all the matters. But the next CIA director is worse.

The MSM is forlorn since their narrative of the “grown-ups restraining Trump” has been shattered by John Kelly’s malakatude, Rexit, and the rumored departure of the National Security Advisor who is still not McMaster of his domain. General Mattis is the lone remaining adult in the room. The rest of the crew fit this president’s definition of loyalty:

“I don’t want loyalty. I want loyalty! I want him to kiss my ass in Macy’s window at high noon and tell me it smells like roses. I want his pecker in my pocket.”

The president in question was Lyndon Johnson and he only half-way meant it. He had many strong people in his administration but he liked having yes men on the White House staff, especially as the intractable Vietnam conflict destroyed his administration. Unlike LBJ, Trump is an unqualified fucking moron who wants lackeys everywhere.

We’re on our own now.

Mar 07 2018

Adrastos, Law/Justice, Malakatude, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, Television, The Darnold

Malaka Of The Week: Sam Nunberg

Former Trump adviser and Roger Stone protegé Sam Nunberg had a manic Monday. I’m uncertain if it was performance art, an emotional meltdown or both, but it was a spectacular spectacle. And that is why Sam Nunberg is malaka of the week.

Nunberg worked for Trump for five years. He was ousted when the dread Corey Lewandowski became campaign manager. Nunberg blames Lewandowski and Hope Hicks for drawing attention to a bigoted tweet that proved to be his undoing. Ironic, innit? Half of the Insult Comedian’s tweets are bigoted and he won the electoral college. It’s good to be quasi king.

A subpoena from Team Mueller triggered Nunberg’s epic meltdown/publicity stunt. He did four, count ’em four, cable news interviews: two with CNN and MSNBC each. The craziest of the bunch was the one he did with Ari Melber on The Beat. The beat did indeed go on and on and on and on as did Nunberg.

Nunberg spent the segment asking for legal advice and bragging about how he planned to defy the subpoena because he didn’t have time to comply. Additionally, he called Trump stupid and the “most disloyal person you’ll ever meet.” My favorite bit was when he told Sarah Huckabee Sanders to shut up. The entire White House press corps has wanted to do so but have bit their collective tongues until they bled.

Despite the attacks, I wonder if Nunberg was trying to impress the president* with his brash bluster and bravado. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s method to Nunberg’s malakatude, not madness. That’s what New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi and the Atlantic’s McKay Coppins think and they know him better that the twitteratti. Here’s what the man with the Dickensian name wrote about Nunberg Monday:

But as anyone who’s known Nunberg for a while can attest, his behavior Monday doesn’t necessarily require special explanation. He’s been pulling stunts like this for years—this is just the first time he’s gotten the kind of audience he’s always craved.

I think that’s right. It was a tabloid stunt worthy of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. It’s just a pity that Nunberg didn’t flip a table: he might have gotten a rise out of CNN’s Jake Tapper or Erin Burnett. The latter insisted Nunberg had boozy breath, which wouldn’t surprise me in the least. He denied it, but who believes anything he says?

In the end, Nunberg appears ready to comply after his enormous meltdown/publicity stunt. Wise choice: Bobby Three Sticks will insist. I’m sure Numberg impressed Roger Stone, which doubtless was one of his goals. And that is why Sam Nunberg is malaka of the week.

The Nunbergian stunt gave me an earworm. He’ll have to comply with the subpoena or go to jail. They’ll give him no choice in the matter. The last word goes to Aimee Mann:

Feb 26 2018

Adrastos, Elections, Guns, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, Twitter

Tweet Of The Week: Senator For Sale

Like the rest of you, I’m thrilled by the Parkland students’ activism. They’re pretty darn good at snark too:

We should change the names of AR-15s to “Marco Rubio” because they are so easy to buy.

— Sarah Chadwick// #NEVERAGAIN (@sarahchad_) February 23, 2018

Admittedly, Marco Rubio is an easy target. He’s as soulless, inauthentic, and robotic as Willard Mittbot Romney. The NRA has bought and paid for his thoughts and prayers.

Florida is a fascinating place for the gun control/safety (whatever you want to call it) debate to happen. Justice Brandeis famously called the states “laboratories for democracy” and Florida is where the NRA carries out its nuttiest experiments. That’s why it’s so bloody easy to buy a “Marco Rubio” in the Sunshine State.

NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer is often called the real governor of Florida. Her power and influence with the lege is based on money and the power of single issue voters. Here’s how Mike Spies describes it in the New Yorker:

Hammer is the National Rifle Association’s Florida lobbyist. At seventy-eight years old, she is nearing four decades as the most influential gun lobbyist in the United States. Her policies have elevated Florida’s gun owners to a uniquely privileged status, and made the public carrying of firearms a fact of daily life in the state. Daley was referring to a law that Hammer worked to enact in 2011, during Governor Rick Scott’s first year in office. The statute punishes local officials who attempt to establish gun regulations stricter than those imposed at the state level. Officials can be fined thousands of dollars and removed from office.

Marion has the hammer and she uses it. The struggle between the NRA and the passionately aggrieved Parkland students will be a wonder to behold. Florida is holding statewide elections this year and it’s an excellent opportunity for voters to break the NRA’s spell. If they can defeat pro-NRA members and elect pro-gun control legislators, it would go a long way to breaking the NRA’s hammer lock on the Florida lege.

The NRA more resembles a cult than a special interest group. Its members, pet politicians, and leadership recite stale talking points about freedom and the Second Amendment; instead of Hail Marys, one could call them Hail Gunnies.

The NRA’s deep pockets have helped them sell a lot of toxic Kool-Aid to members of Congress and state legislators across the country. The spell will not be broken by some companies bailing out on doing business with Wayne LaPierre and company. It can only be broken at the ballot box.

Here’s hoping that the Parkland students have as much persistence as pluck. They have a golden opportunity to spill the NRA’s toxic Kool-Aid by breaking the hold of the gun lobby over the Florida lege and governor’s mansion. It’s time to take the hammer away from Marion Hammer and bring some sanity to Florida politics. I know that’s a tall order but the kids are alright.

Feb 26 2018

4 Comments

"Q", Free Republic, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold, Tommy T

Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – bytes and pieces edition

Good morning, everybody. They’re coming fast and frumious lately, so today – a little of everything.

Let’s start with – WHAT special election???

Kentucky Special Election – this is what complacency looks like
https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/966329920338190338 ^ | Feb 21, 2018 | G. Elliott Morris

Posted on 2/21/2018, 9:56:45 AM by mooncoin

Turnout numbers from last night’s special election in KY #HD49, which swung 86%pt toward Democrats and flipped a district from red to blue:

Total turnout: 25% of 2016 ballots cast Dem.: 74% of 2016 Rep.: 11% of 2016

***************

The only reason why dems won was that only 11% of 2016 GOP voters showed up yesterday while 74% of Dem voters showed up

1 posted on 2/21/2018, 9:56:45 AM by mooncoin

Sucks to be you.

Freeper get-out-the-vote team – assemble!

To: mooncoin

I live in KY. What special election?

2 posted on 2/21/2018, 9:57:40 AM by robroys woman (So you’re not confused, I’m male.)

One Freeper dares to say it:

To: SMGFan

A year of “draining the swamp”, by the 4d chess playing grandmaster of politics, has yielded, in over a year … a memo. This is not surprising. Trump is getting his political butt handed to him, his supporters are too starry-eyed to hold his feet to the fire, and an almost unbelievably miraculous opportunity is being squandered. Oh, in addition to a 4-page memo, we have also gotten a number of snarky, albeit incoherent, tweets. And, possibly, Q, although that remains to be seen.

Oh yeah – we’ll get to “Q” a little later in this Obsession….

We are going to lose. Badly. And the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of Trump, and those who act as cheerleaders, and not true supporters (true supporters know that sometimes you have to speak up when the “leader” is making grievous mistakes — as Trump has done, in not seriously following through on his promise to drain the swamp).

38 posted on 2/20/2018, 7:10:31 PM by jjsheridan5

Otherwise, OK?

“ilgipper” (he needs to change his handle to “deadgipper”) finds a graveyard to whistle past :

To: jjsheridan5

We’ve lost zero House seats in these special elections. We’ve retained every one. These state level seats are not garnering any interest on our side. That’s not relevant to national politics. We have an even game on generic congressional polling which leads to minimal changes. It’s an off year election so we face normal cycles of opposition during a presidency but nothing shows it as a big swing.

48 posted on 2/20/2018, 7:25:43 PM by ilgipper

Pay no attention to those voters behind the curtain!

To: ilgipper

We won over 1000 of them the previous 8 years in all the states. We are giving them all back. How dump are the Republicans? I have to laugh at the thread where every excuse is given in the book. I guess Conservatives just don’t give a care.

Almost FIFY.

Very evident that is true. Every week we are losing and losing and all we get are excuses.

66 posted on 2/20/2018, 7:55:43 PM by napscoordinator (Trump/Hunter, jr for President/Vice President 2016)

But they’re the BEST excuses!

Follow below the fold for some more short takes….

Continue reading →

Tagged Clown shoes, Free Republic, Freeperati, Freepers, Mitt Romney's flaccid penis, The Darnold, the stupid it burns, Tommy T, Wingnuts

Feb 23 2018

Adrastos, Guns, Law/Justice, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold

Meme Of The Week: Teacher Of Fortune

The country has been buzzing this week over the notion of arming teachers. Let’s clear something up: it’s not Trump’s idea. The NRA has been floating this misguided and downright moronic idea for years. If the Insult Comedian ever had an original thought, his brain would explode thereby injuring the dead nutria atop his head.

This ridiculous idea is based on the “good guy with a gun” myth, which, in turn, comes from the movies as Michael F pointed out yesterday. Wayne LaPierre and Dana Loesch have obviously seen too many action movies: vigilante flicks have long been a Hollywood staple. Things don’t work like that in real life as we learned from the story of the terrified deputy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High.

I won’t go into the practical problems with this ludicrous idea because I don’t feel like writing a 2,000 word post on this subject. I think that this meme from my friend Michael Styborski sums up how preposterous the arm the teachers notion is:

Feb 21 2018

Adrastos, Elections, Malakatude, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold

Malaka Of The Week: Willard Mittbot Romney

CyeY3LTXcAAgZx2

Remember all the MSM pundits who swore that the robot who wanted to be president would run for the Senate as an anti-Trump Republican? They were, as usual, wrong. Willard Mittbot Romney remains the flip floppingest, panderingist pol in the game and that is why he is malaka of the week.

Willard Mittbot Romney blows with the wind and in the GOP the wind is generated by the blowhard president* who endorsed Willard this week. Other than a few diehards, the #NeverTrump bubble seems to have burst. Willard isn’t the only one crawling back to the Insult Comedian. There’s a swell piece in the Failing New York Times about how Republican pols are forgetting about “decency” and coming to grips with the fact that Trump is popular among their tribe. Bob Corker is one of the rats returning to the sinking ship alongside Willard. Remember when Corker was lionized by the MSM? His head is back up Trump’s rump.

Nobody should be surprised that a man who changes home states like others change underwear has caved in to the pressure to conform. Willard is a born conformist who never sticks his neck out when he doesn’t have to. So much for the brave words in his “Trump is a con man” speech. Like the man himself, the words were as hollow as a cheap chocolate Easter bunny.

As we enjoy mocking the MSM for getting something wrong again, let’s not forget that Willard could flip back to the #NeverTrump side if the Insult Comedian’s grip on the GOP base loosens. He’s such an opportunist that anything is possible. I’m not sure I buy the arguments made by Max Perry Mueller in Slate that Romney is on a Mormon mission to fulfill some goofy prophecy made by Joseph Smith.

The first rumors of a possible “Senator Romney,” which began to swirl in April 2017, brought new life to the long-whispered “White Horse Prophecy” that combines this messianic constitutionalism with Mormon politics. Depending on whom you ask, the White Horse Prophecy holds either that Mormons will one day save the American constitutional system in its darkest hour, or that Mormons will overthrow American democracy to create a latter-day theocracy. The prophecy is attributed to Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith Jr. In 1843, Smith purportedly told his followers that on the day when “the Constitution of the United States is almost destroyed… hang[ing] like a thread,” out of the “Rocky Mountains” the “great and mighty” Mormon people will, like the “White Horse” of the Book of Revelation, rush east to save the Constitution.

The last thing we need is a Mittbot on a white horse to save us. He’ll have to make up his mind as to whether his distaste for Trump’s table manners will turn into genuine opposition. It depends on what happens in November, which is why Democrats need to redouble efforts to flip the House and Senate. A blue wave could result in another epic Romney flip flop. Believe me.

Mitt Romney looks and sounds like a president. But he lacks the backbone to take on a president* of his own party until a challenge polls well. That’s a fact even if it’s a revelation to much of the MSM. And that is why Willard Mittbot Romney is malaka of the week.

The last word goes to Tom Petty with a tune that could be the theme song for Willard, Corker, and their craven ilk:

Feb 19 2018

Adrastos, Art, Law/Justice, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold, Twitter, Your President Speaks

Your President* Speaks: Dumbbell Caveman Edition

It’s President’s Day. The Current Occupant is currently at his Florida pad and there’s a tweet storm brewing. Who am I kidding? He’s been watching Fox News, hanging out with his idiot sons, and whining about the cards life dealt him all weekend. Self pity is never pretty and when it comes from an Insult Comedian with a dead nutria atop his head it’s uglier than Steve Bannon’s wardrobe. What’s the deal with the shirt layering, Steverino?

A note about the featured image/meme. I was searching for a Magritte painting for Odds & Sods when I came across Perpetual Motion. This image of a caveman with a dumbbell head screams Donald Trump. The analogy breaks down somewhat since the caveman dumbbell is svelte and fit but what’s not to like about the bone in his hand? Trump is boning the country, after all. Bigly.

The Kremlingate indictments obtained by Team Mueller have the Kaiser of Chaos flailing and ranting. His is not the leadership that doesn’t let one see him sweat. The flop sweat has been rolling in rivulets across the Tweeter Tube.

I picked three of the Trumpiest tweets ever to quote and dissect. By Trumpiest I mean self-serving, self-pitying, and reprehensible as he blames everyone but himself for his latest woes.

Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018

This tirade is factually challenged even for Lyin’ Donny. The FBI’s Miami office is the one that dropped the ball on Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter. It has nothing to do with investigating Kremlingate. The president* claims to love local law enforcement, especially those who beat the shit out of suspects, but they fucked up in this instance as well.

More importantly, the murder of 17 students and teachers is not about Donald Trump. He thinks he’s the sun, the stars, and the moon when he’s really just a black hole of suck. If Trump were a planet, he’d be Uranus. Believe me.

The main event on Trump’s twitter feed this weekend was, of course, Kremlingate. Trump’s national security adviser may not be the McMaster of his domain but he seized upon the indictments to tell the truth about Russian interference in the 2016 election. His boss was not happy with his statement. McMaster forgot to lie, which is a Bozo no-no in the Trump administration.

General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018

I doubt if the Insult Comedian read the indictment but I did. It makes a plausible case that the election results were influenced by the drumbeat of anti-Clinton propaganda. We all know ostensibly liberal people who swallowed whole what turned out to be Russian disinformation. The most gullible among them sat out the election or voted for useful idiot, failed folkie, and Crunchy Granola Machiavelli, Jill Stein.

The charge of collusion between Democrats and Russia is absurd but predictable in the fact free zone that is Trumpworld. The Russians were out to get the former Secretary of State and help the Kaiser of Chaos. Speaking of chaos:

If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018

Trump *is* the chaos the Russians were hoping to create. The federal government is dysfunctional, understaffed and at war with itself. They helped elect a president* who has so many scandals going that some of them cannot break through the wall of white nationalist noise and corruption erected by Team Trump. It’s the only wall they’ve built thus far.

As a veteran political observer, I still believe the country can move past this catastrophic presidency*. We’ve had terrible presidents before but none of them deliberately set out to damage the country and its institutions; not even Tricky Dick. Once again, Trump is worse than Nixon.

Ever since finding the dumbbell caveman painting, Perpetual Motion, I’ve had a classic Yessong in my head. Perpetual Change is what we need right now as an antidote to the selfish nihilism of Trump and what I dubbed the Me Party in 2013. They need to be drubbed up and down the ballot in 2018 to give the country a better chance to recover from the misrule of the Dumbbell Caveman and his wrecking crew. Believe me.

Yes gets the last word:

Feb 01 2018

It comes from former Justice Department spokesman, Matthew Miller on the damage done by GOP attacks on reality:

Adrastos, Law/Justice, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold

Quote Of The Day: GOP Fantasy Camp Edition

The first one they went after, starting decades ago, was the media. Now Republicans don’t believe what they hear on any channel other than Fox News. Then they moved to scientists … and now you see in polls Republicans who just don’t believe in scientists. They’ve turned on universities, and you see this rising discontent among conservatives about university. They are now turning on federal law enforcement.

And if a significant percentage of the population — 35, 40 per cent — believes that federal law enforcement is biased, you’ll see those people less likely to co-operate with investigations, less likely to blow the whistle, and less likely to believe DOJ prosecutors when they sit on juries. It is extremely damaging to the long-term ability of those institutions to do their jobs.

This is all about saving Donald Trump’s ass. I am horrified that they’re willing to go such extreme lengths so save his skin but I’m not surprised. The GOP has been running a political fantasy camp since Reagan who often confused real life with old movies. The Beavis-Duce administration amped up the fantasy quotient by lying us into war and attacking members of the “reality based” community. I wish people would stop saying the Bushies weren’t as bad as those of us with memories longer than a nano-second think they were. They were horrible.

Another thing that alarms me is the erosion of the oversight functions established after Watergate. We learned that the FBI and CIA abused their power, and Congress clamped down on them. There was NO oversight of the CIA until the 1970’s and J Edgar Hee Haw was a law unto himself. The oversight functions ain’t what they used to be, but under Trump they may disappear.

Remember when the Republicans were the law and order party? You can’t have law and order without law enforcement and for all its flaws the FBI is one of the premier law enforcement agencies in the world. It’s beyond insane to damage it in the name of protecting the criminal who currently lives in the White House, especially since the FBI’s culture is conservative and predominantly Republican.

As a member of the reality based community, I hope the “Nunes report” blows up in his and the president’s* face. Of course, the Alex Joneses of the world will believe that the FBI released a letter that damaged Hillary Clinton but was really designed to hurt Trump. That’s what Fox News and the GOP fantasy camp has led us to.

The last word goes to Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton. Rock-n-roll can’t cure what ails the country but it can’t hurt it either.

Jan 22 2018

Adrastos, Congress, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, Teabaggery, Television, The Darnold

America Held Hostage Day Three

If Yogi Berra were still with us, he’d say it was “deja vu all over again.” The last federal government shutdown was in 2013, which was when I inaugurated the first incarnation of this feature with this opening paragraph:

I keep dating myself (I kiss and tell too) on this blog but I do it for a good cause. I remember when ABC News launched a late night newscast after bored students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and took a bunch of hostages to avoid studying for finals. The show was originally called America Held Hostage before morphing into Nightline, which is apparently still airing but I haven’t seen it in eons. A late night network news show is now kinda quaint but it was cutting edge in 1979.

This could be called the Stupid Shutdown since the Republicans control both houses of Congress and the executive branch. Stupid is on brand for the Trumpified, post-Tea Party GOP as is the whole notion of a government shutdown. Anything that is the brain child of N Leroy Gingrich is presumed stupid until proven otherwise.

Since government shutdowns have been part of the GOP brand since 1995, Democrats should hold firm on their demands. A closely divided Senate gives them leverage on DACA, which is an idea everyone but the dimmer people on the White House staff claim to support. Despite Trump’s urging, Chinless Mitch ain’t nuking the filibuster. He’s been in the minority before and will be again, hopefully in 2019. Veteran senators take the long view on the filibuster. Besides, the filibuster was the Turtle’s best friend when he was minority leader.

As to the White House, I call Trump the Kaiser of Chaos for a reason. He thrives on chaos, disorder, and instability: they’re part of his brand. As far as he’s concerned, this is Congress’ problem, he’ll sign whatever they send over. Some leader, some leadership.

The White House has provided some unintentional comedy relief as you can see in this tweet from Krazy author Michael Tisserand:

a brief history of phone gags pic.twitter.com/1g0oSIstVV

— Michael Tisserand (@m_tisserand) January 21, 2018

I am, however, disappointed that Michael missed the Get Smart shoe phone:

As Agent 86 would surely say at this point: “Missed it by that much.”

FYI, the bad guy spooks in Get Smart were Chaos. Sound familiar? I hear they have a Kaiser, not a Tsar.

The bumbling in Washington would be funnier if the real life implications weren’t so potentially terrible. Republicans expect Democrats to behave as responsible adults and cave. It hasn’t quite worked out that way in the past but it’s their expectation. What tends to happen is bi-partisan caving. Repeat after me: moderates always cave.

The joker in the 2018 shutdown deck is the Insult Comedian. Other that his stupid wall, he doesn’t believe in anything or care about anyone, he just wants a win. Every time he opens his mouth or unleashes his itchy twitter trigger finger he upsets an apple cart. I figured I should use an arcane phrase because he’s trying to take us back to the pre-civil rights, pre-feminist era. What he wants to do when he gets there is beyond me. Chaos is the result.

The teabagger driven 2013 shutdown lasted 16 days. The 2018 shutdown is driven by stupidity and Trump’s love of disorder. That’s why I call him the Kaiser of Chaos. Right now, he’s stupidly happy:

Repeat after me: the Kaiser of Chaos is stupidly happy.

Jan 18 2018

Adrastos, Congress, Fog Of History, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold

Bedlam

Bedlam was originally the nickname for an early psychiatric hospital in London. The word has subsequently become synonymous with madness, chaos, and disorder as well as this swell 1946 movie:

In the Trump era, our nation’s capital has become the world’s largest loony bin even if the president* passed a cognitive test administered by his doctor. He may not have early signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s, but he’s a fucking moron with a short attention span and impulse control issues. Boris Karloff might have said that he’s nuttier than a fruitcake. I concur: he’s every bit as nasty as one too; his “incredible genes” notwithstanding.

The Kaiser of Chaos has no idea what his policies are or how to argue for them. Congressional Republicans want to use CHIP as a weapon against Democrats to blame them for a shutdown. Such subtleties are lost on the Insult Comedian who blew up this strategy on the Tweeter Tube:

CHIP should be part of a long term solution, not a 30 Day, or short term, extension!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018

He’s already tweeted against bills that his administration proposed and is likely to continue doing so. His position on DACA shifts hourly depending who he last spoke to. The result is chaos, confusion, and bedlam.

Trump has convinced himself that a 2018 government shutdown will be a “good shutdown.” There ain’t no such thing. The notion that voters will blame the party that controls none of the political branches of government fails the smell test. It’s the Insult Comedian pandering to a diminished base who are the only ones who still believe anything he says. The result is chaos, confusion, and bedlam.

Well-meaning personally decent Republicans like Jeff Flake are speaking out against the bedlam. Flake’s recent speech comparing the Trump to Uncle Joe Stalin was a good one BUT fine words aren’t enough in this situation. Flake has voted the Trump party line 90% of the time. Flake’s critique is increasingly reminiscent of someone who corrects your grammar or table manners. It’s all style and no substance. It contributes to the chaos, confusion, and bedlam.

Things are so bad that reports about Trump’s affair with Gret Stet born porn star Stormy Daniels are getting no traction. This is the sort of story that the Beltway press corps used to live for, but now they seem to have scandal fatigue. They’re increasingly numb to the chaos, confusion, and bedlam. (Parenthetical aside: Stormy threatened to run for the Senate against Diaper Dave in 2010. There’s a swell account of this by Mitch Rabalais at the Bayou Brief. Y’all know how much I love sub-plots and this is a juicy one.)

The country has been battered, beaten, and abused before, but we’ve never had an administration with so many scandals that the press has a hard time prioritizing which one to cover. The extent and scope of the Trump administration’s crimes dwarf anything we’ve seen in our history. Teapot Dome was a tempest in an oily teacup compared to the Trump scandals. The result is chaos, confusion, and bedlam.

Jan 12 2018

4 Comments

Big Damn Heroes, Current Affairs, Diary, Do Something, Doc, Immigration, Stupid Republican Tricks, Uncategorized, Your President Speaks

A nation of shitholes

GreatGrandpa

This is my great-grandfather. A farmer by birth, a carpenter by trade, a factory worker by necessity.

He came to this country in his early 20s, leaving behind his family and everything he ever knew to start a better life in America. Shortly after he left Bohemia, it no longer existed, as it was swallowed up through the consolidation of what became Czechoslovakia. He lived to be 100 and died when I was 12. His wife, my great-grandmother, lived to be 96 and they were married for more than 70 years. They had four children who lived and never moved from the house he built for them shortly before my grandfather was born.

WeddingGreatGrandparents

These are my mother’s grandparents, immigrants from Poland. I never knew them, other than through the tales my grandfather and mother would tell me. They would tell stories about family members back in the old country and have half the family rolling on the floor with side-splitting laughter. The other half? They didn’t speak Polish.

Factory workers, farmers, carpenters, barbers, artists and homemakers. These are my roots. Poland, Bohemia, maybe pre-1900s Germany. These are my lands.

These people were not the countries’ “best people” sent as emissaries, but rather as hard-working, hardscrabble people who wanted to make better lives for themselves. This country gave them hope. It gave them help. It gave them a new home.

Today? It never would have given them a chance.

A lot has been made of our president’s question about why we’re getting people from all these “shithole countries.” His indignation, venom and disgust flow freely in that two-word phrase and it represents how many people feel about these “Johnny Come Lately” immigrants who are just stealing from the “real Americans.” A lot of people believe this because they can’t see back far enough (or they just don’t want to) to understand that every, single person out there came from somewhere else (except for the Native Americans, who we shuffled around like the queen in a game of three-card monte). And every, single person who came here from elsewhere came from a shithole somewhere.

And the people who were here already had no problem letting them know that.

You had the “thieving wops and dagos.”

You had the “drunk, lazy Micks.”

You had the “stupid Poles.”

You name a group, you can guarantee the group that got here six minutes earlier already had a disparaging name for it and a “there goes the country” attitude about it.

People in this country essentially live this paradox:

I know where I came from and I know that it took a lot for us to get here and become who we are. My father, who in his later years has become more introspective, has noted to me a few times recent, “We were poor. I never thought about it at the time, but we were really poor.” My mother’s grandparents survived through the Depression because my great-grandmother rented rooms in her upstairs to workers from the slaughter house and the foundry. Her husband was a barber, and there wasn’t a lot of hair being cut at 25 cents a head back then.

They came at a time when I’m sure many in this country wanted to turn on the “No Vacancy” sign or at least they didn’t want “those people” here. To say now to the next group, “Sorry. We’re not taking any of you shithole immigrants” is unconscionable.

Those of us who came here from shithole countries need to stand up to this shit-talk from this asshole and speak to him in his native tongue.

“Pardon me, Mr. President, but fuck you.”

Jan 08 2018

4 Comments

Adrastos, Diary, Fog Of History, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks, The Darnold

A Very Stable Genius or a Horse’s Ass?

That’s a rhetorical question. I think you know where I come down. I’ll skip the jokes about cleaning out the Augean Stables but it’s what the next Oval One will have to do. That’s recent American history in a nusthell: Democratic presidents cleaning up messes made by their Republican predecessors. The Insult Comedian will leave steaming piles of shit everywhere. So much for skipping the stable jokes. I was not up to the Herculean task of restraining myself.

There was a parade of crazy, no make that a freak parade, last week. I’m glad that the president* raised the subject of his mental incapacity in the wake of the Wolff book because the MSM has been reluctant to do so. At a minimum, he’s extremely insecure about his intelligence. Nobody who is secure in their intelligence talks about their “very good brain” or calls themselves a “very stable genius.” That’s a sign of raging insecurity and, in this instance, horse’s assery and downright lunacy. Believe me.

Genius is one of those words that is overused and misapplied. Genuine geniuses are few and far between in any field of endeavor. When I was a kid, I tested at the genius level IQ-wise. Was I then or have I ever been a genius? Absolutely not. I used to get solicitations from MENSA and I always threw them away. The group sounds like a self-congratulatory circle jerk to me.

Donald Trump is not a very stable genius, he’s a very unstable menace. I think he’s mentally ill but I agree with something Josh Marshall wrote the other day:

That brings us back to the point. It’s really only the behavior that matters to us as citizens. A diagnosis would only be helpful to learn about behavior we don’t know about or predict future endangering behavior. Since we know about the behavior we’re talking about, none of that matters or applies. In common sense, every day rather than clinical language Trump is clearly unstable, erratic, impulsive. In a word, he’s nuts and not well. As citizens, we are entirely able and entitled to make these determinations. They are ordinary English language descriptors that the psychiatric profession doesn’t control and shouldn’t want to control. The entire debate over whether Trump is “mentally ill” is simply a diversion, premised on the idea that we need either permission or dictation to say he is not able to safely or competently fulfill the job of President. We don’t. The observed behavior is really all that is necessary and all that matters. It’s very clear.

It is indeed. Josh has a “very good brain” but he’s not a “very stable genius.” Believe me.

Repeat after me: it’s the behavior, not the diagnosis that matters.

Speaking of freak parades, the last word goes to Todd Rundgren and Utopia:

Jan 08 2018