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Showing posts from January, 2018

Wingnut Wrapup- Dog that Didn't Bark Edition

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And what do I mean by that?  Well, for those of you that may be unfamiliar with the expression, I will explain it a little later. So, can they spin the State of the Union Address as something positive?  Let's take a look: Matt Vespa, Town Hall:  "Joe Kennedy’s Rebuttal to Trump’s State of the Union Sort Of Went Straight Into The Pond" The lead story at Town Hall today, and even this pathetic excuse for a news source couldn't bring itself to make it about Trump's actual speech, so they had to fall back on the tried and true strategy of ridiculing a Democrat.  No comment on Trump's speech going straight into the sewer, but maybe that's because Trump couldn't do that, having started out in the sewer to begin with. And then there's this sort of thing.  Credit, Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune Matt Vespa, Town Hall:  "Oh, So That's What The DNC Tried to Bury During Trump's State Of The Union" The number two story at Town H

Boring

The State of the Union Address, in which a deranged maniac was forced to try to appear sane for eighty minutes. Not that I watched it, to be honest.  I went out and had some Cajun fried catfish with red beans and rice instead- a much better use of my time- but that doesn't stop Green Eagle from shooting his mouth off, does it?  Because in truth, whenever Republicans do anything, they know almost nobody is actually going to watch the event, and those people will be outnumbered by a hundred or a thousand to one by the Republican propaganda machine playing their endless game of lying to the American people about what happened.  So it's far more important to see how the speech is spun than to waste an hour of our lives actually watching this malignant traitor read a teleprompter. Trump has turned around!  Now his real Presidency begins!  That's the story, isn't it? Oops... with a few exceptions, like the ever-dependable New York Times, no one seems to have fallen for

Mueller- The Next Chapter

Well, what do you know?  Today we learned that last summer, Donald Trump tried to force the White House Counsel to fire Robert Mueller.  It's early days in this particular episode in the abomination that is Donald Trump, but of course the press is already on it.  I want to make two observations which I have not heard anyone make yet. Of course, everyone is comparing this to the Saturday Night Massacre, in which the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General resigned rather than carry out Richard Nixon's orders to fire the special counsel, who was in the process of uncovering the misconduct that destroyed Nixon.  But there is another historical precedent that is equally important- the firing of Robert Fiske as the special counsel  leading the bogus persecution of Bill and Hillary Clinton.  Fiske had concluded that there was nothing to any of the myriad Republican charges against the Clintons, so he was removed and replaced by the corrupt hatchet man, Ken Starr, who was a rig

Another Ground For Impeachment

Yesterday, Donald Trump imposed a 30% tariff on foreign components of solar energy systems, which currently make up 80% of the parts in these systems.  This unilateral action on his part is about to result in a huge increase in the cost of these systems. This action in itself is an abomination, forcing many to continue to rely on fossil fuels, which are destroying our world.  However, there is another side to this which I have not seen anyone mention. This constitutes the use of the Presidency to favor a segment of industry which has massively contributed to his campaign and to the campaigns of other Republicans.  It is the use of government power to favor one business over another, and is the most blatant sort of corruption that you could ever imagine. Of course, Trump has literally provided hundreds of grounds that would clearly call for his impeachment, but his corrupt fellow Republicans do not give a God damn about them, and they won't care about this either. By the way,

If Green Eagle Were Chuck Schumer

Schumer is such a putz.  He makes the Republicans shut down the government, and then essentially asks them to promise to give him a candy bar in return for opening it back up again.  The biggest chance he has had in a year, and he threw it in the wastebasket. Here's what Green Eagle would have done.  First, shut the government down.  Second, pick out the five or six most sickening giveaways to the Republicans' rich backers that were in the recent tax ripoff.  Then go on national TV and tell the American people that the Democrats would never vote to stop the shutdown until every single thing on the list was repealed, and the money put into financing Medicare for all.  He should have stated unequivocally that every Democrat would vote for a bill that included the above, and none of them would vote for anything else. And then just go home and sit it out. That's how you play hardball, buddy. Perhaps he could have included a demand for the resignation of Donald Trump in

Cave

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I present you with this picture of a cave, which I am putting forth to replace the donkey as the official symbol of the Democratic party.  So, we have two things going on here.  First of all, the Senate Democrats put all of their power in the hands of the Senator from Wall Street, who has no mandate except to keep business going, and that means ending the Republican shutdown as fast as possible.  Second, the classic gutlessness of Congressional Democrats who, even though they are riding on a guaranteed winning ticket, cannot stand up to two days of the press screaming that somehow the public is suddenly going to change its demonstrated opinion and hold the Democrats responsible for a situation which every single sentient person on earth knows was carefully crafted through a year of Republican dedication and effort. The result?  Schumer and the Democrats ended the shutdown, and pulled out the knife which the Republicans had stabbed into their own hearts, resuscitated them and sent

The Country Has Gone Insane

From the New York Times today: "Irritated to have missed his big event in Florida, Mr. Trump spent much of his day watching old TV clips of him berating President Barack Obama for a lack of leadership during the 2013 government shutdown" Most of the day.  And this is apparently okay with the American people.  Remember when it caused a month-long freakout when Barack Obama wore a tan suit in the oval office? We're fucked, people. Link courtesy of Mock Paper Scissors.   Damned if I am going to provide a link to the original at the New York Times, which barely has a right to call itself above Gateway Pundit at this point.

Republicans and the Press- Together Again

Just a small sample- today's coverage of the Republican shutdown of the government, courtesy of the Washington Post, which currently passes for the leader of the nation's liberal press.  Here are the three lead stories at the Post as of midday today: "Moderates race to strike deal and end shutdown before workweek...Trump, Ryan lean on Senate to break logjam on spending deal" Trump and Ryan, in one of the most preposterous statements ever to appear in the media, are apparently what passes for moderates these days.  No Democrats at all are listed as "moderates-" apparently insisting on positions that 90% of the American people support makes them left wing lunatics. "Shutdown could hurt Democrats seeking reelection in Trump states" Not a word on how the shutdown might hurt the Republican party that spent the last year deliberately building the shutdown, and is the only party that can do a damned thing to end it...that is, except for the De

Ha Ha, Too Bad Donald

Liberals may have established a well-earned reputation for doing just about everything wrong, but I have to give them credit for their timing in totally devastating the nauseating display of belligerent egomania that Donald Trump undoubtedly had planned for the first anniversary of his inauguration.  Between seeing to it that the government shut down right on time, and the huge turnouts at marches all around the country today, they ruined his weekend of golf, made it impossible to go to his for-profit love fest at Mar-a-Lago, and basically made him look like, well, the worst deal maker in human history.  Yeah, he is still President, and only a few percent of the hate filled idiots that supported him a year ago have faced reality, but at least we were saved from the spectacle of Trump going on TV and claiming responsibility for every good thing that has ever happened in the history of the world, and going on to demand more racism and more greed in the coming years.  Not much, but it is

Shithole Countries

I actually don't think a word of comment about this incident is necessary.  Let's just not forget that it happened today.

Liberal Delusion Of The Day

From the normally rational Digby: "The released transcript of Simpson's testimony contains a good deal of interesting information, all of which will be gone over with a fine-toothed comb in the press." Ha ha.  Whatever on the face of the earth could make you think that, Digby?  I mean, the long existence of your blog proves you weren't born yesterday. In fact, it's only a day later, and this smoking gun proof of massive treason by the White House, and a concerted effort by Congressional Republicans to destroy the evidence, something that would have once rightly been regarded as the worst political crime in our nation's history, has almost vanished from press coverage.  Instead, the press is devoting itself to hailing the President's one hour phony televised meeting yesterday, as a masterpiece of governing, and can't shut up about how great he is. The mainstream media don't care any more about treason than the Republican commit, because at t

Bannon and Breitbart

So the press is just full of the news that Bannon has left Breitbart.  What does it mean?  What does it portend?  And as usual, the result, at least on the talk shows this afternoon, emanates from an utter lack of comprehension of the subject, coupled with the kind of knee-jerk inside the beltway answers that are all we can ever expect from the mainstream press. People who read this blog know that I have read Breitbart, along with most of the other major right wing websites, on an essentially daily basis for over a decade now.  And based on this experience, let me tell you that Steve Bannon was terrible for Breitbart. The day that Bannon seized on the notion that he could turn himself into a mainstream political power, he began systematically watering down the belligerence and the extreme views that gave Breitbart whatever appeal it ever had, both to its true-believer followers and to, shall we say, connoisseurs of lunacy such as Green Eagle.  I found myself incorporating fewer and

Oprah!!!

Haven't these fucking morons learned anything?  Oh well, it seems obvious that this particular piece of insanity is subsiding already, praise the lord.

The Most Unlikely to be Accepted Counter-Offer of All Time

In response to indications that Mueller is going to require an interview with Donald Trump, the White House has offered to provide Mueller with a letter from Trump personally attesting that he has never broken any laws of any kind. I kid you not.  That's their offer.  Well, that should pretty much set everything straight, right? I just want to say something that I have believed for months now:  The Republicans in the White House and Congress are never going to allow the actual record of Trump's behavior made public.  Instead they are going to hide the testimony from Fusion GPS, and "leak," or to speak plainly, lie in public about what came out at that testimony, which they have already done on numerous occasions.  The people in the White House, up to their necks in treason, are of course going to lie every chance they get.  And as we know damned well, the minute Muller really gets close to releasing his results, he is going to be terminated, possibly with a bullet

Wingnut Wrapup

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Yeah, they're still here, and so is Green Eagle.  Which one of those facts is a worse portent for the future of the country, I leave to you to decide. I want to start out with the most monumental act of self-delusion that any Trump supporter ever thought of, and that is quite a feat: Liz Crokin:  "Mueller & President Trump are Pulling the Biggest Sting in History...Trump’s famous “because you’d be in jail” line is constantly rotated throughout the Internet via memes and videos on social media to this day; however, what many seem to have forgotten is the first part of Trump’s statement: he promised to assign a special prosecutor to look into Clinton’s crimes.   Fast forward to May 16, President Trump is now in the White House and meets with Robert Mueller...Trump was finalizing his decision to appoint Mueller as his special prosecutor to investigate Clinton.  The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct an investigation including “any links and/or coordination bet

The CEO President

Man, if there is anything good that comes out of the Trump nightmare, at least let it be that we never again have to hear Republicans' endless yearning for the "CEO President," the guy who is going to run the country the way he runs his business, and won't that be great? What is a CEO, after all?  He wasn't elected by his employees, that's for sure, and he doesn't make decisions on the basis of what is good for them.  He does what is good for himself, and a few of his rich corporate buddies, and if the employees don't like it, they can get the hell out.  They have zero say in how he runs the company or who benefits from it.  The company exists for his benefit and that of his fellow owners, and not one single other person on earth. In brief, the kind of national leader that is like a CEO is a dictator.  Being a CEO is training to run a dictatorship, not a democratic country, and I hope at this point that is bloody obvious to everyone.  If you want t

And Here We Go

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"North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the 'Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times,'" Trump tweeted. "Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!" - President of the United States Donald Trump And his party, which represents the only possibility of stopping this literal madness, will do nothing, because they are, every single one of them, as crazed and treasonous as he is.  Whoopee, here we go!

FORGOTTEN HEROES OF CONSERVATISM Chapter 1- Westbrook Pegler

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"My hates have always occupied my mind much more actively and have given greater spiritual satisfactions than my friendships."- Westbrook Pegler This post is intended to be the first in a short series covering the careers of several twentieth century Conservative opinion leaders.  I am writing this because of the dangerous notion that the miserable state of the Republican party today is the product of the cleverness of Donald Trump, or of the current generation of Republican leaders, such as Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, or even of recent Republican demagogues like Newt Gingrich or Ronald Reagan.  In fact the miserable excuse for an ideology that defines modern Conservatism has been building for at least a century in this country, and at this point cannot be rooted out without destroying the Republican party and its leaders. My choice for the first article is one Westbrook Pegler, who was the first columnist in the country to win the Pulitzer prize, and was a massively