Random Barking

Boner

(Photo: Screenshot / Politico; Cincinatti Enquirer, January 2018)

Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
--  Thomas Hardy, Notebooks

Dateline / Washingtown (Cheese Star): John Boner, former President Republican speaker of the House of Representatives who, rather than be shamed, ran away; a dweller of smoke-filled rooms and possessed of spectacular hairpieces; announced today that he is joining the "advisory board" of  a company which owns "cannabis licenses and assets" in the 30 states where marijuana is approved for medical or recreational use. 

Boner waived away his previous Republican Metanoid, tight-ass, send-druggies-to-prison, Buzz Killington position regarding use and sale of cannabis. "Dude, that was then," the former House Speaker-To-Animals said. "s'like, you know, what's happening now." 

Via a social media monetizing system, Boner said he was making his move because, after retiring from public service, his 'thinking on cannabis has evolved' to embrace selling drugs for money. "I’m convinced de-scheduling [marijuana] is needed so we can do research, help our veterans, and reverse the opioid epidemic ravaging our communities," Boner said. "And I just don't want to get upset by all the [expletive] going down with Donny -- 'Donny The Downer'. He needs to relax, man." 

Reminded that sales of marijuana are still illegal at the Federal level, and that the drug is labeled a Schedule I substance alongside heroin and LSD, Boner said, "Whoa; that's harsh, dude." 

Boner went on to say that Federal prohibition has made it hard for the fledgling marijuana industry in America to evolve as 'those who handle the substance' are unable to open business accounts at banks which are part of the federal reserve system. "You can't handle the substance!!" Boner observed, squinting at a reporter. 

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo summed up the feelings of many observers, noting, "one day you're Speaker of the House, next you're selling dime bags."

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Revenge Of The Giant Face

Random Barking, With Music

Billy And White Jesus.  A fixture lurking in the shadows of my time, like Coca-Cola logos and Huntley-Brinkley and Uncle Walter; cigarettes, bourbon at the backyard barbecues; airstrikes; racism, so fully baked-in you wouldn't know it was there ("Who, me? I'm not racist"), and the notion that your primary juice must be testosterone if you are to be considered fully hu-man.  But, since I wasn't a believer in White Jesus, I don't notice much of a vacuum, now he's gone.

Billy tried to do as he perceived the Truth and The Way to be, but Christian Leadership became fat men in suits on television, purring for dollars, always; determined to bring The Message Of The White Jesus.

Those Christian Leaders have ended as corrupt, publicly worshiping at the altar of Power, and the more private altar of Themselves. God shows his favor to the Elect. And, what of faith, for those who do? The message by example is, Pray To Grow Rich.

We're supposed to say nice things about the dead. But for all of us, the sum of our actions, words and thoughts is what remains. The effect which you had on others. But Billy wasn't like us, no mean little player, barely seen at extreme Stage Right in the Crowd Scene.  He was a player on center stage, and so responsible for a much larger percentage Effect on the world than the average person.

Now he knows what we do not. Now he knows what he did not expect.

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Gunz And Actors.  The most recent gun violence: Facing off against Murrikan Leader, against Florida politicians. The metaphor of a ship, foundering on well-known reefs of corrupt and more corrupt, and Freedom and Jesus, and right-wing Inchoate Rage At Living In This World.

Survivors, their families, may have hoped what happened in Florida would be the watershed moment, the tipping point. But as a topic of debate; as a political issue (as opposed to personal tragedy, unspeakable grief), I'm concerned the event has already lost some of its specific resonance in the eye and ear of the public.

It's being watered down by the obfuscation and temporizing of politicians like Our Leader and Mark Rubio. It's being twisted in the insane echo chamber created by 34 years of Murdoch's Fox and right-wing radio. A textbook example:

Congressperson Claudia Tenney (R-NY) said in recent public remarks regarding gun violence that

“Obviously there’s a lot of politics in [the subject]. And it’s interesting that so many of these people that commit the mass murders end up being Democrats. But the media doesn’t talk about that either.”

(Bonus 'Fuck Off To The Sea' For Lil' Claudia: Tenney is up for reelection this year. She is opposed by a Democrat, Anthony Brindisi.  

(I'm not a New York resident. From a geographic perspective, I have, uh, No Dog In This Fight. And I'm not a cheerleader for the Democratic Party (whatever it may be now). But Tenney gave a textbook example of a right-wing scumbag who lies -- is a liar. 

(And, she should be told to Fuck Off To The Sea [which I believe is a Big Marine Mammal Avatar Creator reference, but I could be wrong]. I'm aware some have concerns about ActBlue -- but if so moved you can go show Anthony the love. Anything is better than having what Tenney is in office)

And, UTub videos of Florida shooting survivor David Hogg's comments the day after the massacre had gone viral. In response, a UTubber known as mike m. ("not his real name") posted a clip of Hogg, with comments insinuating the teenager's demeanor and delivery were proof that Hogg was "an actor", hired to make anti-gun remarks to the media.

It turned out that "mike m." was, by his own description to the New York Times, a 51-year-old man "living in Idaho", and whose other UTubb uploads all had a similar, conspiracist flavor. UTubb pulled his videos critical of Hogg and threatened, per their 'three strikes' rule, to cancel his account -- but

Anonymous and remorseless, “mike m” was undeterred. “There is more to this kid than appears on MSM,” he said ...  Asked if he would think twice about posting such videos in the future, he said, “No not at all.” 

He said he was worried about his [UTubb] account getting deleted, adding: “But I am not going to stop.”

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Everyone Look At Me.  She will make everything pretty, before the bombings. Because her Daddy is the CEO of Murrika, and she's so pretty. Don't you think? Of course you do.

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Soft Life; Smug Life; Treats.

What are the lives of the planet's wealthiest people really like? ... [they] are so different from those of the rest of us, it's almost literally unimaginable. National borders are nothing to them. They might as well not exist. The laws are nothing to them. They might as well not exist. 

-- Brooke Harrington, sociologist; To Parth Shah, NPR: "What's It Like To Be Rich? Ask The People Who Manage Billionaires' Money", February 19, 2018

“Have we not become the isolated thing-for-yourself in the middle of similar beings?”
-- Peter Sloterdijk, in “The Critique of Cynical Reason" (1983)

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Resist. The reasons, in the face of authoritarian rule, do not change.

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At Last; Just Music.

Dunno about the movie, but Thomas Newman is one of My Guys. 

Liked the teevee show; an attempt to ask the right questions, while wearing a bourgeois support costume -- one of the great contradictions about creating certain kinds of art, and propaganda. And, fuck it; Jeff Daniels does good.

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Not In The Stars, But Ourselves

Random Barking:  Oprah

Annual programs, like the Golden Globes earlier this week, celebrate the entertainment industry. It's a way for the public to vicariously experience an event honoring the work of familiar actors and actresses.

I like movies, but avoid watching self-congratulatory presentations like the Globes (the last Oscars I watched were sometime in the late 1980's). They're ways of participating in the American film and television celebrity culture which dominates our public entertainment. I opt out.

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Every summer, there was an annual celebration held in my home town, with a parade down our two main streets. Every year, the organizing committee found some entertainment star to make the parade's 'Grand Marshal'. My father had something to do with organizing these parades, and by my adolescence had spent some time observing a number of film and television notables.

(I won't list them, except to mention in the early Sixties, I was stunned to meet Grand Marshal "Aunt Jemima" -- a heavy-set black woman, smiling and pleasant as she shook my hand, playing the iconic namesake for a brand of high-fructose corn syrup.

(On television just days before, I'd seen news film footage of police, dogs and water hoses attacking civil rights marchers in Mississippi. Even as a kid, I knew in my bones that was ugly and wrong, and remember thinking as this actress shook my hand: how could she stand, smiling, head bound up in what used to be referred to in the majority culture as a 'pickaninny' kerchief, wearing a calico dress with a shawl over her shoulders, smiling, surrounded by a room full white people -- with things like that happening? Well... it was an acting job.)

The characters these actors portrayed on the big or small screen were acceptable -- it was their talent to make us believe the make-believe. But (with a few exceptions) as I watched them interact with other adults from their 'public personas', I began to believe the idea of "celebrity" was about artifice, pretense, in the real world -- and to me, not acceptable, because as a kid, I was constantly getting in trouble for play-acting, "not being yourself" -- but every child can recognize that as typical, and double-standard, adult behavior.

It took much longer to learn that, in the larger world, acting from a persona as an adult is not only expected, it's often supported behavior -- particularly in entertainment, or politics. These days, the difference between the two is so slight as to be trivial.

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The difference between entertainment and politics is that art has power -- but only a politician can arrange to deport 200,000 Salvadorians, initiate Kill Drone Tuesday, authorize mass surveillance of all Americans' personal communications or the invasion of a middle eastern country based on manufactured evidence.

So as I read about the possibility being 'floated' for an Oprah Winfrey run for President in 2020, my immediate visceral reaction was negative: this was more celebrity-politics, reality teevee bullshit. Do we need another billionaire running for office? I thought; do we need another figurehead, utterly without experience in government, allegedly running the country? And, who will run them?

Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire, a competent business person; an entertainer; a black woman who has struggled through prejudice, misogyny and ignorance to succeed, in the way Americans are taught to accept and value 'success'. I understand all this, and (beyond my knee-jerk dislike of wealth and the wealthy) offer no criticism of her achievements.

The UK Guardian this morning referred to Winfrey as "one of the world's best neoliberal capitalist thinkers" -- but is that what we want? Is another neoliberal capitalist what the citizens of America need? I asked myself.

Online, there was a lot of verbiage about Hoping For Oprah, tossed into the air like confetti at a national convention. The pundits and even Our Leader were all a-twitter, literally -- and it isn't as if  we don't have bigger, real things, to worry about. One post by Ian Welch noted that

[None of  the possible Left candidates for U.S. President in 2020] have more star power and fundraising ability than someone like Oprah. ([who] does run a company, and does it competently.)...  Then we add in the billionaires, like Facebook CEO Zuckerberg. What other billionaire is now thinking “screw buying politicians, they can’t be trusted. I’ll just run myself?”...

2020 isn’t going to be a normal election. It is going to be far crazier than 20[16].

And heck, if I had a vote, I’d vote for Oprah (or Clooney) before most Democratic politicians, especially if they say “universal healthcare, fuck the bankers and no wars” like they mean it.

I suspect many Americans would too.

Remember, Trump won, in the end, because enough people were sick of regular politicians to take a flyer on him. A celebrity with more charisma and brains is entirely viable and will be considered seriously.

I foamed a bit more, reading this, until I was finally able to focus on what I thought was his main point: Given where Americans are, a candidate who appears competent and believes in at least baseline progressive policy ideas, is worth voting for. 

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As The new year opens, the notion of a wealthy, (presumed) progressive celebrity, with no experience in government, becoming President of the United States matters less than the direction of Left politics in America. Our fortunes, our families and our lives are in danger. It is that serious. No joke.

If we do not have a political party whose stated aims are people first, not profit; real representation in government; real inclusion; real equality; healthcare; fuck the banksters; and no war -- if we don't have a political movement which says this, first, and a lot else besides -- then which celebrity Liberal figurehead runs for President won't matter. 

If having that kind of political party is possible, then we should ask that its standard-bearer support those aims, and not be owned by the same status quo groups which believe they own all of us. That candidate could be Oprah, or Clooney, or Gillibrand, Warren, or Sanders -- as long as they talk the talk, and mean it. Policy first, then Celebrity.

But we don't have this, now. The Democratic party is (presumably) the most well-organized and well-funded liberal / progressive political organization in America. But it's wounded, adrift, and the list of Democratic politicians not career collaborators in a corrupt system is very short. 

Whether the Democratic party is even relevant in 2018 is an open question; just being the only big Liberal game in town isn't a definition of relevancy. Being the party of more Centrist is not relevancy. Just to survive, we cannot stand in the Center -- that time is long past. The Democratic party needs to be shaken down to its foundations and rebuilt to meet real demands of our times and our people. 

If we can't rebuild the Democratic party, or develop a political organization which represents the future we want and need, then America is done. 

Electing another billionaire celebrity, without massive changes in our national priorities, is no more sustainable than the path being chosen by the current billionaire celebrity in office. The future is ours to lose, or to fight for. 

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Tank Onslaught At El Alamein

Nazis Forced To Standstill As Attack Fails

Local Residents Refuse To Allow Uber Service (Associated Press, 1942)

DEEP SOUTH (CHEESE STAR NEWS)  In the bright white depths of the Murrikan South, teams of dedicated journalists crowded around the fortress compound of "Judge" Royo More, in the wake of his defeat by Democratic candidate Doug Jones in yesterday's closely-watched election to fill the Murrikan Senate seat left vacant by Jeffrey Stonewall Beauregard Bonnie Blue Forrest Hill Kiss My Porcelain Sink Sessions. Luther, Strange, was busy nailing ninety-five feces to the door of a Megachurch and could not comment.

The crowd of reporters waited in vain for Royo to appear, and announce anything. After the official results had declared Jones the winner, media teams turned off their microphones so that the White Nation would not hear More, inside his compound, sobbing like a little girl who was denied her Savior Pony.

In Washing Tong, Murrikan Leader was swift to deflect prior remarks and congratulate Jones. "Something is happening here but I don't know what it is! Congratulations, Mister Jones! It doesn't matter because very soon we will take his seat! I'm feeling great about it!"

"I knew all along that Royo could not win," said Our Leader from the Offal Office. "He was old, and hinkey, and there was this smell. I know all about that smell, let me tell you... Smell -- not gonna make it. I knew it. There oughta be a law, against you comin' around, and maybe I'll make one. Thank you."

The WhyHouse Home-Room Teacher, Missy Sarah, ate doughnuts and echoed her master's sentiments. "Stop lookin' at me! All right. The Prestident has said all he's going to say. The Murrikan people voted for him, all of them, and frankly it's typical of the fake media to make up things for him to smell. You're all just rude," she said. "Don't look at my doughnuts."

Asked to comment on the results of the Alabama contest, Senate Majority Leader, Yertle The Turtle, said, "Silence!! 'You hush up your mouth. You have no right to talk to me, such an especial turtle! I rule from this pulpit, overall; can't you see?? There's nothing, no nothing, that's higher than me!' "

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Instructions Pour Populations Dans La Zone Occupée

Random Barking

Now is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
--  Winston Churchill, November 1942

Hey-- I know you, man; you're famous.
-- Tom Petty (1950 - 2017) Cameo Appearance; 'The Postman', 1997

(I began this post before the most recent mass shooting episode [link via Digby], and though much of its focus is on our Dear Leader, what follows should also be read with recent events in mind. And the Tom Petty quote, because another Mensch, et al.; and as is said at the Soul Of America, the Fuck, Man?)

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Obligatory Tubby Animal Photo At Beginning Of Blog Thing

It's hard going in These Days. The quote from Churchill is occasionally used to sound a positive note in the midst of a struggle -- a way of saying, as Gandhi did, that the upward progress of Humankind continues. That Truth will triumph and Justice, eventually, will be done.

I have conversations about The State Of Things. One thing I hear continually repeated is, This Can't Continue. Some think a Deep State will remove Trump. Or Robert Mueller and 'The Russia Thing' will uncover enough to force him from office. And, it's always possible that [mention of extremely bad thing redacted].

But it isn't even about this bloated peacock of a man; he's just a symptom, it's deeper than that. Our politics are an illusion of choice. Everyone I talk with at some point will shake their heads: the America we see isn't sustainable and has not been for some time now. Surely this can't go on.

But what if it can? What if, like the citizens of occupied Europe seventy-seven years ago, we come awake to the sounds of loudspeakers, broadcasting instructions of the new authorities? That like the Danes, Belgians, Norwegians, the Dutch and the French, we're at the beginning of over fifteen hundred days of being at the mercy of persons who are simple as children in their greed, and a desire that all America satisfy their every whim?

YOSSARIAN: We're never gonna see those replacements. We're never gonna see those coconuts. They're just gonna keep making us fly until we're all dead.
DOBBS:  Aw; Cathcart wouldn't dare raise the number of missions again!
YOSSARIAN: Who's gonna stop him?
DOBBS: [Pauses] Somebody will.

-- Alan Arkin (Yossarian) and Martin Sheen (Dobbs) / Catch-22 (1970)

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The executive branch of the American government is bent to the ego and whimsy of a seventy-year-old child. All that occasionally blunts his narcissistic tantrums are three former U.S. Generals (until he decides to fire them). Their influence is limited by Trump's character, but it's worth noting that their military perspective will be a serious factor in how the Executive functions: When every problem they see is a nail, the only solution they'll offer is a hammer. 

As Trump has done things since January 20th, journalists and commentators have reacted with expressions of social opprobrium -- the nerve; the unspeakable rudeness! A President can't do that! --  as if collective social disapproval will force Trump to behave differently, even leave office.

Additional Obligatory Tubby Animal Photo

I've joked that Trump could have sex with a goat on live television, and no one would be surprised: nothing would happen. Now, I actually wonder if that might be true.

Trump and the creatures which slouched into government behind him are dismantling the political structure of the United States in ways the Right has dreamed of doing for generations. Pundits report it; neutral analysts detail their budgeting plans for education, healthcare, taxation, human rights. All are disastrous, everyone can see it coming -- and nothing happens.

Read Charles Blow's outrage at Trump's racism. Read Paul Krugman's outrage at Trump's fiscal incoherence. Read the reports in Jeff Bezos' Washington Post about mendacity and malfeasance in Trump's cabinet, and about Robert Mueller's investigations. There have been a tidal surge of reports, invective, observations and opinion about him since the inauguration. His popularity is the worst of any president in America's history -- and still, nothing happens.

But what if all the outrage no longer matters? After just eight months, the country appears to be getting used to the idea of Trump; what if he's the 'new normal'? The collective disapproval of the majority of America's adult population doesn't appear to matter.

I read or hear news commentary about Trump that now seems to carry an almost an apologetic note, as if saying Ah; whadya gonna do, huh? Even with the sheer volume of evidence showing Trump a witless sociopath, unfit to hold office, having no empathy for others, even when Puerto Rico almost literally writhes at his feet -- nothing happens.

Some people say, Just wait until the midterms -- but in key states, nearly twenty years of gerrymandering (Karl Rove's blueprint for a Forever GOP majority) has ensured that even if we had a third party in the country, nothing will happen.

No matter how many rallies Bernie holds to push single-payer healthcare, how many interviews Hillary gives, no matter how much gets said about changing the demographics of America's allegedly Left party -- it's plain the Republicans and Democrats are whores of the Rich. 'Bipartisan cooperation' is just a code for maintenance of the status quo, in service to Our Owners.

It's true that the worst Democratic politician doesn't sink to the level of the worst Republican, but their whoring is no less true. It's the reason the Democrats can't effectively combat fascism -- they are morally impotent because their core values have already been compromised. There is no organized, viable political alternative to the Racist, -phobic, lovin'-our-guns Nationalism of the American Right, or the Neoliberal Globalism of what passes for the American Left.

Unless (and perhaps, even if) future events take a different turn, the collective American Right will continue to throw their feces into our faces and revel in our sputtering responses. Trump will remain The Leader; the outrages will continue, and the dismantling of society. And, with the assistance of Democrats, our politics will continue to reflect an engineered inequality, the obvious rule of Wealth.

Borrowing an image from Orwell -- imagine a $38,000 pair of A.Testoni monk-strap loafers, stomping on a human face, forever.

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But, things are happening -- all on the political right. The apotheosis of Trump is occurring against a backdrop of what amounts to two groups of Klansmen, fighting over who gets to paint a huge Starz-n-Barz flag on the White House.

The Left and Center of our politics don't control any branch of government. Because they're in the minority, they seem even more fragmented than the Right, which is saying something -- because America's government is dominated by a GOP in the middle of a civil war between old-school Crazy Right, and the Crazier Alt-Right. 

The old-school Right wants privatization of everything, including education; an end to 'coddling of welfare queens'; an end to regulation of business and the financial markets; larger Pentagon budgets (a bigger stick, because China); more Austerity for everyone (except the Fabled Rich), and more of the Surveillance State. It's a Chamber Of Commerce, Country-Club America.

The Crazier Alt-Right wants all that, too -- but they want a Breitbart America, where you can't tell fact from fiction. The Alt-Right wants Muslims to leave, and all other non-white people will only be seen occasionally (in a hotel corridor, or a vegetable field) and not heard. Get uppity with the Po-lice and see what happens. Women? Well of course they will be "seen", but they'd better submit to Men in all ways, as the bible teaches. There will be no gay people, ever, anywhere; get in the right bathroom and get right with god. Remember so-called 'rights' can be changed by friendly Justices.  And, the Alt-Right must have Guns, and their Jesus. More Jesus. And more Guns. Amen.

 Perfect Teeth: All The Better To Chew You Up With

Actually, the Crazier Alt-Right is what the Kochbrudern, and other aging, Bundist billionaires, want. The old-school GOP was not conservative enough, not responsive to The Bundist's desires (and you piss off Oligarchs like them at your peril), so the Oligarchs paid to create the Tea Party, fund the Alternate Right, and conduct a hostile takeover of the Republican party and American conservatism. Expect to see more right-wing politicians of the stripe of Texas' Ted Cruz or Alabama's Roy Moore at an election near you.

They've paid billions into this effort since the early 2000's, and people with teeth that perfect want a return on their investment: setting fire to the GOP, replacing it with Bannon and Breitbart and the Tea Partei or all manner of smoke and mirrors. This isn't about Trump, some rust-belt 'forgotten Americans', or any Americans; The Brothers don't care about you. This is all about the Great Game -- manipulating an entire nation's politics, just because they can. Because they wish it.

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MEHR: This Just In:

After seeing yet another deranged gorilla just burst into a public place and start killing people, I decided I need to make sure something like that never happens to me... It just gives me peace of mind knowing that if I’m ever in that situation, I won’t have to just watch helplessly as my torso is ripped in half and my face is chewed off. I’ll be able to use my gorilla to defend myself. Law enforcement and animal control can only get there so quickly, and you never know when you’ll need to use a gorilla to save your life.
--  "Gorilla Sales Skyrocket After Latest Gorilla Attack", The Onion, 1/10/13

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MEHR, Mit Blutwurst:  Just go here and give this your attention. It's easy and fun! 

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Random Barking: Burning Down The House

After Harvey

 Previously Flooded Houston Neighborhood; September 1, 2017

It is hot in Kiddietown. Baking hot. Pipin' hot. The kind of Hot where Dogs get under things, in the shade, and just watch stuff happen. And smell things. We bark randomly at what appears to be nothing.

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The media coverage of Harvey's hitting Texas seemed to fall into neat categories, from the relative safety of Kiddietown: pre-game warnings and warmup as the storm approached land; cellphone video of the effects of high winds, before-and-after photos showing effects of unbelievably torrential rain; and, in Harvey's wake, the brave pluck with which those affected, and the rescuers, soldier on. Cut to commercial.

A good example of this last -- Thursday's ABC World News Tonight (A Walt Disney Production) aired a segment  showing one ABC reporter on-scene in Houston, 'embedded' with a helicopter unit. They lift off -- and suddenly, are diverted to evacuate people sheltering in a Middle School -- dry at that moment, but threatened by rising flood levels. The people had to be airlifted out -- quickly!

The helicopter lands near the school. The ABC reporter was filmed assisting in the evacuation, even at one point appearing to give orders to someone off-camera; okay, let's go! Rapid cuts between shots makes for rising tension; will they make it? Will they have enough time?

All those at the school (including Dogs; film crews love photographing Dogs in emergency situations) were airlifted to another shelter. We watch them, dazed, walking into another building -- brave evacuees! -- and presumably all was a happy ending.

I'm bothered by this, as I am about the sensationalism of news reporting generally, the demand for a happy ending before the last commercial break. And, what's being reported has to conform to that story arc. Real conditions on the ground can't be controlled --  they're messy, and prompt some to ask uncomfortable questions. Can't have that.

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A friend has family in Texas; the texts fly back and forth. Both have their own families; all live in / around Houston. One has lost their home and very probably everything in it -- and, because they relied on the information from the City of Houston, didn't purchase flood insurance. The chance of that would be a "once-in-500-year" event in their part of the city.

The other family member and their people are dry so far but surrounded by flood zones. They've spoken with others in their area, who watched armed men commandeering boats from their Coast Guard crews at gunpoint. and those same people and boats were seen systematically looting neighborhood homes. They've heard sporadic gunfire.

They live in Katy, near a reservoir which may breach, and have to be ready to evacuate within 30 minutes of notice -- but, have been given no instructions on how they are to leave an area surrounded by flood waters, or where they are to go.

Over at The Soul Of America, there was a link to a similar take on what Harvey means, in spite of the media coverage:

...an air of unreality hangs about the flooding of Houston. Those of you with memories of the 00s will remember how Gore was mocked for his animations of oceans flooding cities. ...

The press so far has -- understandably -- concentrated on happy rescues, people doing things for people. Underneath this news is a sort of failure to express the probable extent of the casualties and what this means economically.

...We gotta change our infrastructure. We gotta severely reshape our economy. Capitalism isn't built to solve this problem. That isn't even to say we abolish capitalism, it is simply a call for recognizing its limits and acting accordingly.

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And in the midst of it all, Our Leader's appearance in Texas. He never spoke about the People with any empathy, never said how he recognized their fear and loss; he only spoke about them in relation to himself. The focus must be on Him, the magnificent one -- the vengeful one (reminding FEMA in a Tweet, "The world is watching!" Don't fuck this up or you'll deal with me). At his side, the Faithful Melania, in six-inch [redacted]-me high-heeled pumps, off to see how the peasantry is faring in this icky weather -- like her husband, tasteful; classy.

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Bad things are happening. Nearly every sentient human senses that hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning and other storms are becoming more and more powerful, destructive, and that climate change (I heard the term, "climate breakdown," yesterday) is a principal factor.

But, we know what our Leader's feelings are about that. Fake news; fake science. USA. USA. Climate breakdown isn't real to the Leader. Perhaps it will be when Mor-e-Lego is submerged by another hurricane hitting Florida, but I doubt it. He'll find a way to make the country pick up the tab for it. We already pay for his many jaunts. And his golf.

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The mainstream media's presentation of Harvey's landfall and aftermath is a reminder of how much more of things, iceberg-like, are out of our sight below the waterline. Not only things which we don't see, but which by some collective, unspoken agreement we aren't allowed to see.

It is, if we look, a way of judging how much difference there is between comfortable assumptions of how life In These Times is, and the real. If you look closely enough, you might see a nation fracturing along lines of race and class, net worth and age; and it seems God's away on business.

Heading off to work early each morning, I see more homeless, broken, addicted and profoundly, heartbreakingly disturbed human beings on the streets than ever before. A friend, working in Tech in Kiddietown, had his first-ever anxiety attack and ended up in an Urgent Care ER in the Tenderloin; being there for several hours was a cultural eye-opener.

And around the corner from where network news is filming a man carrying a Dog to safety, our national politics is teetering between two different visions.  One, identified as liberal, believes a strong Federal government is essential to ensuring all of The People are served, and protected from the excesses of Capital. It's a compact between a government and its people: You are our highest priority. We are here for you. The spirit of the New Deal.

(It's worth noting: there is a body of opinion that [no matter what laws have been passed making some provisions for our citizens] the New Deal was window-dressing, a band-aid -- in the early 1930's, it saved and perpetuated systematized inequality, that same structure of power and class that has existed in America for generations.)

But there's another group in our national politics which sees that same power and class structure as being too unbalanced  -- towards the poor. That in true Randian spirit, the poor are responsible for their own poverty. That the 'business of America is business', not foreign nonsense. That the country is only a loose confederation of fifty regions and doesn't need a Federal government messing in the business of the States: America, circa 1860. And, if some wealthy person believes we should change the number of states, why not?

And if some States want to declare that -- slavery, say; or 'separate but equal' clauses, are legal -- along with lower wages for women; healthcare determined by "market forces"; relying on corporations to determine 'safe' levels of chemicals in air and water -- well, the States should be able to do that.

The High School Civics Class Version of America is what the media and networks assume is the surveyor's mark, the fixed assumption we share about the world we live in. But that vision doesn't allow for boats taken at gunpoint, looting, nazis marching in the the Old South, robotics, and poverty. It doesn't allow for a Tech industry poised for a great leap forward, which will enrich some, and leave others unable to afford the pretty toys and wonderful services yet to come.

The High School Civics Class Version doesn't allow for the rise of an unstable, corrupt leader, with both major political parties explaining that their continual Fluffing of Corporations and The Rich is just a necessary pragmatism. It doesn't allow for Ferguson, or Charlottesville, or the picture of Hillary Clinton as she warmly embraces Henry Kissinger.

And The High School Civics Class Version doesn't allow for that unstable leader to be a potential target in an investigation for corruption and potential treason. It also doesn't allow for that same Leader to be at the helm of the Joint Chiefs, his principal advisors all four-star generals, as he decides how to deal with a nuclear North Korea backed up by the People's Republic of China.

_____________________________

 
None of this is any great surprise, and my observations are not unique. Just more tears in the rain.

Hurricane Irma is developing in the Atlantic. It was just declared a category 3 storm (Harvey was a 4 when it slammed into Texas), and, all things being equal, NASA has predicted it could make landfall in Maryland -- that the District of Columbia will be right in its path.

Other meteorologists predict a track to send it slicing across Florida, not too far from Mor-e-Lego, and some have it sliding across the Caribbean to strike Texas. Again. We'll see -- because we're not going anywhere. The hurricanes will come to us.

_____________________________

MEHR, MIT WASSER:  

 2 hurricanes in ten days and the mother fucker in the White House still says climate change is a hoax   #Irma  #Harvey
--  Tweet, via Red painter @Redpainter1; 31 August 2017
(From TomClarkBlog)

_____________________________

Prisoners Of The Bloated, Raving Clown

You Shall Inherit The Debasement Of The Nation

Abschaum-Saugen Schweinhund *

>> We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets [sic] come together as one!  10:19 AM  8/12/17

>> Am in Bedminster for meetings & press conference on V.A. & all that we have done, and are doing, to make it better - but Charlottesville sad!  11:00 AM  8/12/17

We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence -- on many sides -- on many sides. It has been going on for a long time in our country -- not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America.

... Our country is doing very well in so many ways. We have record -- just absolute, record unemployment, the lowest it's been in almost 17 years. we have companies, and so many others; they're coming back to our country. We're renegotiating trade deals to make them great for our country and great for the American worker. We have so many incredible things happening in our country. So when I watch Charlottesville, to me, it's very, very sad.
--  Statement Made At Bedminster (Questions From The Press Were Ignored).

>> What is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives.  1:23 PM  8/12/17

>> We must remember this truth: No matter our color, creed, religion or political party, we are ALL AMERICANS FIRST.  2:19 PM  8/12/17

>> We will continue to follow developments in Charlottesville, and will provide whatever assistance is needed. We are ready, willing and able.  2:49 PM  8/12/17

>> Deepest condolences to the families & fellow officers of the VA State Police who died [in a helicopter crash] today. You're all among the best this nation produces.  3:50 PM  8/12/17

>> Condolences to the family of the young woman killed today, and best rgards to all of those injured, in Charlottesville, Virginia. So sad!  4:25 PM  8/12/17

This bloated, raving clown is happy to shove the country down a road of bloody division in order to appease the very Alt-Right Brownshirts who rallied in Charlottesville. He will not disown them; he wants them. It is the behavior of an opportunistic, depraved, corrupt bigot.

... And in weeks to come, he'll blow apart any backchannel negotiation with North Korea in a ten-second, bombastic, sputtering performance in front of the media, pushing the country into war just to divert attention from criminal wrongdoing, and his complete insufficiency as a national leader.

___________________________

* Scum-Sucking Pig-Dog.

___________________________

HÖREN SIE, AUS UNSER VERRÜCKTZEIT:

>>  Made additional remarks on Charlottesville and realize once again that the #Fake News Media will never be truly satisfied ... truly bad people!  3:29 PM  8/14/17

___________________________

Scum-Sucking Pig-Dog.

 

Random Barking: The Daze Of Wonderboy

And A Child Shall Lead Them

Being President doesn't change who you are. Being President reveals who you are.
-- Michelle Obama; September, 2012 Speech, Democratic Nominating Convention

Yesterday they were ruffians; today they control our lives. Tomorrow they will wind up as keepers of the public lavatories.
-- Juvenal, The Satires; 2nd Century, A.D. 

These days, consistent with the magnitude of the Ruh-Roh, it's easy to gravitate between an addled hope and a bitter apathy.  And somewhere in there one must labor, and eat Kibble; look at art; read other things, sniff other Dogs.

1.)  What Atrios (And Others) Said

“This is now a consistent pattern of obstruction [of justice] by the President,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI special agent ... “The loyalty oath dinner, the request to squash the Flynn investigation and Comey’s firing over Russia all point to a President Trump who has no respect for the rule of law, and doesn’t realize that he should not run the country the way he ran his businesses.”

--  Markay, Suebsaeng, Winter; Daily Beast, May 16, 2017:  "Trump Officials On Comey Memo: 'Don't See How Trump Isn't Completely F*cked' 

 2.)  What Digby Said:

For me, none of what he has said or done over the past four months as president comes as a surprise. The way he has behaved over the past week — firing FBI Director James B. Comey, undercutting his own aides as they tried to explain the decision and then disclosing sensitive information to Russian officials — is also entirely predictable...

Early on, I recognized that Trump’s sense of self-worth is forever at risk. When he feels aggrieved, he reacts impulsively and defensively, constructing a self-justifying story that doesn’t depend on facts and always directs the blame to others.

To survive... Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. It was a binary, zero-sum choice for him: You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear or you succumbed to it — as he thought his older brother had. This narrow, defensive worldview took hold at a very early age, and it never evolved. “When I look at myself today and I look at myself in the first grade,” he told a recent biographer, “I’m basically the same.”

--  Tony Schwarz (Trump's [Co-]Author of  'Art Of The Deal'), "I Wrote 'The Art Of The Deal' With Trump. His Self-Sabotage Is Rooted In His Past," The Washington Post, May 16, 2017
(Quoted by Digby)

3.)  Little Davy Brooks Has A Sad

 At base, Trump is an infantalist... Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif... Trump seems to need perpetual outside approval to stabilize his sense of self, so he is perpetually desperate for approval, telling heroic fabulist tales about himself.

...Other people are black boxes that supply either affirmation or disapproval. As a result, he is weirdly transparent. He wants people to love him, so he is constantly telling interviewers that he is widely loved. In Trump’s telling, every meeting was scheduled for 15 minutes but his guests stayed two hours because they liked him so much.

...We’ve got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar.

--  David ("Bucky The Beaver") Brooks; The New York Times, May 15, 2017; "The World Is Led By A Child" (Column)

4.) Führertreu In The Bunker

The president’s appetite for chaos, coupled with his disregard for the self-protective conventions of the presidency, has left his staff confused and squabbling. And his own mood, according to two advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, has become sour and dark, and he has turned against most of his aides — even his son-in-law, Jared Kushner — describing them in a fury as “incompetent,” according to one of those advisers...

... Late Monday, reporters could hear senior aides shouting from behind closed doors as they discussed how to respond after Washington Post reporters informed them of an article they were writing that first reported the news about the president’s divulging of intelligence.

--  Thrush, Haberman; "At A Besieged White House, Tempers Flare And Confusion Swirls"; The New York Times, May 16, 2017

5.)  Nasty Penguin's Friend Breaks It Down For You

Right in public and everything, where people can see.

6.)  What Chris Hedges Said:

Forget the firing of James Comey. Forget the paralysis in Congress. Forget the idiocy of a press that covers our descent into tyranny as if it were a sports contest between corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats or a reality show starring our maniacal president and the idiots that surround him. Forget the noise. 

The crisis we face is not embodied in the public images of the politicians that run our dysfunctional government. The crisis we face is the result of a four-decade-long, slow-motion corporate coup that has rendered the citizen impotent, left us without any authentic democratic institutions and allowed corporate and military power to become omnipotent. 

This crisis has spawned a corrupt electoral system of legalized bribery and empowered those public figures that master the arts of entertainment and artifice. And if we do not overthrow the neoliberal, corporate forces that have destroyed our democracy we will continue to vomit up more monstrosities as dangerous as Donald Trump. Trump is the symptom, not the disease. 

-- Chris Hedges, "Trump Is The Symptom, Not The Disease", TruthDig, May 14, 2017

7.)  Then, There Is That Odd Resemblance

Between Wonderboy and Slim Pickens as Major "King" Kong, in Stanley Kubrick's 1963 Doctor Strangelove.  You will of course recall Maj. Kong's actions in the last five minutes of the film, and what that led to.

The U.S. is prepared to launch a preemptive strike with conventional weapons against North Korea should officials become convinced that North Korea is about to follow through with a nuclear weapons test, multiple senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.  [Note: This was April 13, 2017; two guided-missile frigates were in the South China Sea at the time. Chinese officials were apparently able to dissuade the North Koreans from conducting the test.] -- NBC News

Any questions?

_________________________________

MEHR, AUSSER DEM HUND-TRAINER:  My Dog Trainer is a Red-Diaper Baby. He's (apparently) Buddhist-leaning, but hasn't forgotten where he came from; ironically, he makes a more than comfortable living helping HNWIs deal with serious emotional issues -- he believes it's a responsibility to do this, even for the rich, and he's very good at it.

I'm not a HNWI; part of his practice are people like myself, a financial lightweight managing 48-year-old PTSD that Group at the VA didn't budge very much. Intrigued enough with my individual circumstances, he accepted me a a client, charges me about a third his normal rate, and I owe him a debt I can't repay.

Some days, we just talk, as two Old Guys headed down La Chute will do; this week, looking at the current bread-and-circuses Clown Car Government, I asked him for a professional appraisal of Wonderboy.

He'd read the Brooks' column quoted upstream in this post, and the Schwarz article (where he'd recalled Trump claiming not to have changed much from the boy he was in First Grade). "[Brooks'] description of Trump, like a child desperate for approval to stabilize his sense of self, is right. But, all children are like that. The difference is, Trump is a 70-year-old man still behaving like a six-year-old boy. And that comment about First Grade is right in line with that.

"How does it end? Resignation is always a possibility, but not likely. You heard him speak to the Coast Guard academy graduates today?  'You have to keep fighting; you can't give in' -- all very familiar stuff for someone with his pathology. 

"When you equate behaving in a certain way with survival, and that's linked to very old, deep stuff -- then he'd rather die than give up. In fact, to do so would be capitulation -- in his case, to his father, who from all accounts was not a very nice guy."

___________________________________

And Reduce The Surplus Population

Sickness

Here is what the bill actually does:

Takes a machete to Medicaid. The bill would cut $880 billion over 10 years from Medicaid, the program that provides health care to about 74 million poor, disabled and elderly Americans. That’s one-fourth of its budget. As a result, 14 million fewer people would have access to health care by 2026, according to a C.B.O. analysis of the earlier bill, which contained similar Medicaid provisions... [and] special education programs, which receive about $4 billion from Medicaid every year.

Slashes insurance subsidies. It would provide $300 billion less over 10 years to help people who do not get insurance through employers and have to buy their own policies. This would hurt lower-income and older people the hardest. For example, a 60-year-old living in Phoenix and earning $40,000 would have to pay an additional $12,370 a year to buy a policy, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Many people who find themselves in this situation would have no choice but to forgo insurance.

Eliminates the individual mandate. Many people hate that the A.C.A. requires people to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. But without the mandate, fewer younger and healthier people would buy coverage. This would lead to what health experts call a “death spiral” as insurers raise rates because they are left covering people who are older and sicker, leading to even more people dropping coverage. Eventually, companies could stop selling policies directly to individuals in much of the country.

Guts protections for people with pre-existing conditions. An amendment by Representative Tom MacArthur of New Jersey would allow states to waive the requirement that insurers sell policies to people with prior health problems and not charge them higher rates. The chief executive of Blue Shield of California said the bill “could return us to a time when people who were born with a birth defect or who became sick could not purchase or afford insurance.” Republicans say they will require that states with waivers offer high-risk pools and find other ways to help treat these people. The bill offers $138 billion over 10 years to help states pay for such programs. Health experts say this is far too little; Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Foundation estimates that at least $25 billion a year would be needed.

Makes insurance less comprehensive. The bill would also let states waive a requirement under Obamacare that insurers cover a list of essential services. This means people in some places might not have access to maternity care or cancer treatment. This provision could also hurt people who get insurance through work, because federal regulations allow employers to opt into the rules of any state for the purposes of determining annual and lifetime limits on coverage, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution.

Defunds Planned Parenthood. Republicans have included a provision that takes federal money away from the organization, which provides birth control, cancer screenings and other health services to 2.5 million people, mainly women. About 60 percent of people who use Planned Parenthood depend on government programs like Medicaid.

--  New York Time Editorial, 5/4/17: "The Trumpcare Disaster" 
    (All Links Above In Original)

_________________________

...In in the summer of 2009, Ryan argued that the healthcare bill was moving too quickly through Congress without an adequate CBO estimate and a full understanding of the legislation. "If you rush this through before anyone even knows what it is, that's not good democracy," he explained... "I don't think we should pass bills that we haven't read that we don't know what they cost."

-- Time Magazine 5/4/17; "5 Quotes Haunting Republicans As They Vote On Healthcare"

_________________________ 

Just a few hours before a scheduled vote on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the House voted 429-0 to strip out a provision in that legislation that would have exempted members of Congress and their staffers from some of the most radical changes to health care law...

“They planned to exempt themselves from Trumpcare until they got caught,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) accused Republicans from the House floor.
-- Alice Ollstein, TPM, "House Votes To Eliminate Congress Carve-Out From O’Care Repeal Bill"

_________________________ 

Today, I hope there is a hell. If such a place has a use, it is to house people who celebrate with a cold beer after voting to endanger the lives of millions to enrich the already wealthy. These people should be trembling in fear before the justice and wrath of God. But since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to [do] things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practise such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practise them.
--  Adam Kotsko / An und für sich: "A Theological Reflection On The Obamacare Repeal Vote"

 

_________________________ 

Id's Of March

Random Barking

JFK In Berlin, June 1963 (AFP / Esquire)

At Amherst College in late October, 1963, President John F. Kennedy gave a short speech in honor of  Robert Frost, but in a broader context of the Arts, and Artists (you can listen to it here). Roughly five weeks later, JFK was dead.

When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.

In the same speech, Kennedy also observed that A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.

(Kennedy made another, longer and more formal speech -- this time about science and the environment -- in October, 1963; read a transcript here. Then compare it with this.)

So, just a question: Whom do we honor, as a nation and a culture? What kind of persons are held up (and, by whom?) in America as examples of right choices and right action -- those who we hope our children will emulate and become? The values and behaviors we promote as the "content of our character"?

Insane Murderous Clowns :  ©2016, Victor Juhasz / Rolling Stone

The failure to bring Trumpcare to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote was a blow to Wonderboy and the Clown Car government. Nearly every media organization (beyond Fox, the Washington Times, and Breitbart, now the White House's propaganda mouthpiece) used headlines  with some variation on "Republicans Pull Healthcare Bill; Sharp Rebuke To Trump".

Make no mistake: the Ryan/Trump plan would have created chaotic disaster. It would have thrown 16 million people, at a minimum, under a Trump In 2020 campaign bus, and directly caused physical pain and real misery. The healthcare industry would have gone into a competitive frenzy -- an inconvenience for the wealthy, but a catastrophe for the sick, the chronically ill, and the poor.

But, make no mistake about this, either: The largest factor leading to the bill's being pulled was not an overwhelming rejection of it in the Congress -- but because a key number of House Republicans, the self-styled 'Freedom Caucus' (whose Kangaroo Court-membership is secret) believed Ryan/Trump's legislation was insufficient. That the cuts and changes weren't severe enough.

Media organizations and any number of liberal pundits can crow about how terrible a blow this all is to Wonderboy, and Little Paulie Ryan. If it were due to a concerted and organized resistance to Trump and his cabal, we should be celebrating.  But it isn't: Trumpcare never made it to the floor because of the continuing struggle between traditional Beltway insider Republicans, and Alt-Right teabag, Evangelical crazies, for control of the Republican party.

That internecine war is far from over.  But no matter what your political analysis of all this is, once one side or the other in that conflict is dominant, or both sides make a truce in order to save the GOP from possible Midterm election losses -- the next time, there will be nothing (let me repeat that; there will be nothing) standing in their way.

After the bill was pulled, Schumer and Pelosi crowed about 'victory' -- but the Democrats had little to do with it. There is no organized Resistance. Paris is occupied and the Germans are free to go anywhere, say anything, take anything. They will lock down your borders -- no one can get in, but (depending on what happens in future) it's also harder to get out. Their judges will sit in your courtrooms. Their teachers in for-profit schools will build a curriculum around 'Alternative Facts'. They will pump chemicals in your rivers, CFC's into the air. And one day, they will come in trucks for your Communists and Jews -- they've already come for Latinos and Muslims.

And there will be nothing to stand in their way, until the Resistance is real, and not simply a pretty graphic or soundbite used to sell trendy clothing or music or tickets to an event -- and not until there is a real alternative to a political structure which benefits so few and takes from so many.

___________________________________  

MEHR, MIT EIN SCHLAG IM GESICHT:  Will Marshall is president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute, which (according to SourceWatch) was founded before Bill Clinton's run for the to become the Democratic candidate for President, "and after the 1992 election gained notoriety as [his] 'idea mill'."  

The PPI is the think-tank for the Democratic Leadership Council, a group founded by primarily conservative southern Democrats, which essentially believes Republicans are people, too also, and that we should learn to compromise with them in order to, you know -- get stuff. Some things.  A few. One?  

Okay -- we'll let them take things from us, but they have to promise to think very, very seriously about giving us some things, too. How about maybe just 'lend' us stuff? 

Will Marshall contributed an op-ed piece for yesterday's The Paper Of Record, titled "Why Democrats Should Work With Trump".  The title says it all.  

This little crayon-written missive attracted 1,288 replies; no I did not read them all, but those which said, in essence Are you fucking kidding me? What planet are you living on, dude? were overwhelmingly in the majority.  My favorite:

[Peter, In Connecticut]

If someone is punching you in the face, try to get them to slow down, or maybe not hit so hard. Compromise is a wonderful thing.

(100 Recommend)

________________________________________

One More Voice

The Beaver Speaks For His Kind

(Photo: William Ploughman / NBC)

Never did I ever think I'd be grabbing quotes from Davey ("Bucky The Beaver") Brooks, unindicted war criminal, but these are strange times.

Bucky is really an old-line conservative, out of Kristol, by way of  Buckley and Podhoretz. Like many pundits of any political stripe, he supports the status quo (ultimately, rule-by-the-0.01%), but from the Right. He's carved out a niche in Right wingnutostan as the voice of traditional conservative values; a reading of his columns in the Paper Of Record seem to indicate his perfect world looks a lot like Saskatoon around 1958, as Bucky was born and raised North Of The Border.

While many pundits frequently hedge their bets, while the contest for a Republican candidate ground on, Bucky sided with that party's old-line leadership in declaring Trump a menace, and said plainly This Is Bad when Wonderboy became the nominee.

Still, for the sake of preserving a Republican party, through the summer he tried to find some silver lining in the sow's ear as Trump faced off against She in the clash of worlds. With the election, Bucky was as stunned as the rest of us, offering jumbled conservative credos that amounted to a 'How Can This Be Happening??'

Wonderboy, Speaking To A Room Of Dishonest Lying Haters (Photo: Andrew Harnik / AP)

Bucky is one bellwether of mood among status quo conservatives. Not long before the inauguration and America's renaming as Trumplandia, he said plainly that he wouldn't take a Trump presidency lying down.  And after watching the 77 unscripted minutes of Wonderboy's free association press conference yesterday, Bucky typed:

I still have trouble seeing how the Trump administration survives a full term. Judging by his Thursday press conference, President Trump’s mental state is like a train that long ago left freewheeling and iconoclastic, has raced through indulgent, chaotic and unnerving, and is now careening past unhinged, unmoored and unglued.

Trump’s White House staff is at war with itself. His poll ratings are falling at unprecedented speed. His policy agenda is stalled. F.B.I. investigations are just beginning. This does not feel like a sustainable operation.

One way or another, we're all feeling this. Bucky, on the other hand, is a well-known right-wing cheerleader with impeccable (for those people, anyway) credentials -- and even he is verbalizing the same WTF and "this can't end well" which we're all feeling. And, what next?

On the other hand, I have trouble seeing exactly how this administration ends. Many of the institutions that would normally ease out or remove a failing president no longer exist.

There are no longer moral arbiters in Congress like Howard Baker and Sam Ervin to lead a resignation or impeachment process. There is no longer a single media establishment that shapes how the country sees the president. This is no longer a country in which everybody experiences the same reality.

... The Civil Service has a thousand ways to ignore or sit on any presidential order. The court system has given itself carte blanche to overturn any Trump initiative, even on the flimsiest legal grounds. The intelligence community has only just begun to undermine this president.

President Trump can push all the pretty buttons on the command deck of the Starship Enterprise, but don’t expect anything to actually happen, because they are not attached.

So far as the USA goes, this is a good description of the internal political landscape as of February 17, 2017.  However, this ignores the possibility of something -- an external threat, but most likely something happening within our own border -- to change the game.

We're one terrorist (or false flag) incident away from Wonderboy -- insecure, narcissistic, child-man led by Stevie Bannon -- declaring a State Of Emergency and locking the country down. It will be a massive overreaction designed simply to match the paranoid, delusional world Trump and Bannon inhabit, a "War Of The Worlds" radio broadcast -- the results of which will be impossible to predict once it's been put in motion. At that point the nation will find all the buttons on Trump's command deck are fully connected and operate very well. 

_____________________________

MEHR, MIT MEHR VON BUCKY!  On this evening's PBS New Hour -- following a segment showing interviews with Trump supporters and critics in Bellville, and Austin, Texas -- Bucky made a few observations [warning: paraphrased quotes].

"What's at the core [of the divide between Americans]? Why is the chasm so wide?  Is there some cultural or racial divide?  Whether it's some identity politics thing or something else... that's the world we're in."

Bucky said he saw Trump's news 'conference' performance as "mildly deranged", then questioned what of substance Trump was actually doing. He noted that relatively few of the total number of presidential appointees had actually been made. "On the substantive picks, he doesn't have nominees [in place]... nothing is happening."

Asked if he believed Trump was 'mildly deranged', Bucky made a trademark non-demurral demurral: "I'll walk that back a little... he was 'unmoored'... he's not speaking as a president giving orders and leading the American people... [his] attack on the press... saying that they are enemies of the people... [that's] to take [direction] right out of the fascist playbook..."

Trump's actions "offends 65 to  70 per cent of the American people," Bucky added later. "It pleases 35 per cent of the people," he said, noting that the Republican leadership was not in any hurry to put distance between themselves and Trump "anytime soon. Among Republicans, 82 per cent support Trump, a higher [percentage] than Reagan got."
 

Finally, Bucky said the Republican leadership are "living in a hermetically-sealed universe, as are the democrats; so they're going to [support Trump] even at the risk of electoral downfall..."

And that's Jenga.

_____________________________________