All This, All Of It, Cannot End Well

Abrupt Termination

Our Leader: Stark, Stoltz u. Richtig, On The Day Of His Ascension To Power

Three figures stand out prominently among all those whom Trump has fired since appearing in Washington. While The Leader has fired many lesser figures, these three are particularly deserving of attention for what they appear to have in common.

Sally Yates (fired Jan. 30, 2017): Acting Attorney General. Ordered the DOJ not to defend Trump's travel ban, issued within days of his taking office. As acting AG, Yates was a principal figure in the investigation into Trump's circle and potential connections to Russia; she was investigating the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and members of the Trump campaign team he had been in contact with. Yates warned the White House and was ignored, then fired -- ostensibly for her refusal to carry out Trump's travel ban order. 

Preet Bharara (fired March 11, 2017): U.S. Attorney for the District Of Manhattan. While Bharara had been criticized for not more aggressively pursuing 2008-Crash-era financial oligarchs, he was still a capable and respected prosecutor. He refused to resign after Trump announced he wanted all U.S. attorneys to do so, and demanded to be fired; Trump fired him. At the time, Bharara was investigating Trump's HHS Secretary Tom Price's financial investments. He was also investigating corrupt Russian businessmen and officials. A Russian attorney in one of the cases Bharara investigated fell or was pushed from a window the day before he was set to testify in another matter.

James Comey (fired May 9, 2017): FBI Director. Comey revealed on March 20th that there are ongoing, multiple criminal investigations in connection with Russian government officials' tampering with or attempting to influence the 2016 election.

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...[Understand events in the context of] the Family, Brand-driven, Kleptocratic nature of the Trump White House. The core aim is for the President to be popular, to succeed, a goal in key ways even more important to the thirty-something Kushner/Trumps than the 70 year old President.

Politics or policy and ideology, whatever you want to call it, is changeable and secondary, just as Trump can shift from authoritarian isolationist to faux values driven internationalist in a day and a half.  This is precisely what you’d expect from people who [execute political and policy about-faces] ... Words and policy have no meaning.

What matters is protecting and maximizing the value of the new family acquisition: the presidency.

Chas Danner, In The Intelligencer, New York Magazine, April 2017; "Fragile Peace Accord Reached In The White House's Bannon-Kushner War" [Paragraphing added]

(Courtesy of Soul Of America)

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There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.

-- Herman Mellville / "Moby-Dick, or, The Whale"

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UN AUCH NOCH IMMER MEHR MIT GOEBBELS:

Yesterday, some 24 hours after the compelling testimony of Sally Yates and James Clapper made his shady Russia ties impossible to deny, Donald Trump fired James Comey, the FBI director leading the investigation into said ties. Today, Trump will meet with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian diplomat who the Steele dossier claims is his handler for Russian intelligence...

Firing Comey was, simply put, the stuff of banana republics. If this is allowed to stand, if Republicans in Congress laugh this off, it means that we no longer live in a functioning democracy. Yesterday, a journalist was arrested in West Virginia for shouting questions to Trump’s odious HHS secretary, Tom Price. Stephen Colbert was attacked via the FCC, a fancy federal way of threatening his First Amendment rights. Laws are being written to criminalize protest, and paid alt-right goons are appearing at events to stir up trouble and create the impetus for doing so. Oh, and the New York Fucking Times now has a feature in which we’re supposed to write nice things about our Great Leader.

This is Fascism, guys. As some of us said months ago. ...

Multiple sources have reported that there are tapes, audio tapes, of the Russian ambassador offering money and help to Trump, to Jeff Sessions, and to Paul Ryan. I’ve heard there is also audio of multiple Trump family members engaging in illicit conversations, recorded by foreign intelligence services. If these tapes exist, will they be leaked? ...

...This is going to be the end of Trump, or the end of democracy in this country. This is not a hyperbole and not a joke. This is the gravest threat to our way of life since the Civil War.

Greg Olear / The Weeklings, May 10,2017; "After Comey: Will Democracy Die In Darkness?"

 (Also courtesy of Soul Of America. All links in the original)

MEHR, MIT ZEITGEIST: I have been asked to explain what the Blog Category, "Kicking The Baby", means. It's a 2011 reference to then-Senator Jon Kyl of (aber natürlich) Nebraska, a fool and a poltroon, who made public comments in the Senate about "90% of all funding for Planned Parenthood" being used to provide abortion services -- what we once called a gross and distorted lie, but now refer to as "alternate facts". 

[Note: Poltroon -- 1. An abject or contemptible coward. adjective. 2. a rare word for cowardly.]

Herr Kyl later said his remarks were not intended to be "factual", but only to emphasize and illustrate his point. Not too sure what that point was, now, but I'll bet it was a real Corker.

But: Kicking The Baby. As seen on South Park, Kyle has fun by "Kicking The Baby" -- booting his little brother, Ike, through a window. Ike -- not Kyle -- is then scolded by their mother for breaking the window.

Kicking The Baby makes it appear as if Ike was to blame. It is ascribing qualities or behavior to Ike that were not accurate, in order to portray The Baby in the worst possible light -- or, if you prefer, it's Lying In Order To Defame And Demonize Ike The Baby. Or, Planned Parenthood.

Almost any position can be made to appear defensible -- so long as you grossly distort and lie, and later state you only did so to illustrate and underline your main point. Whatever it was.

MONGO: You know, [Fill In Blank With Name Of Anyone You Dislike] is an unindicted pederast who continues to be one of the largest distributors of child pornography in North America.

NOT MONGO: Are you insane?? There isn't a shred of truth in any of that! Everything you just said is a lie !!!

MONGO: Oh, I'm sorry. That wasn't intended to be a factual statement.

Do I need to explain further?  No? Ausgezeichnet, Kinder.

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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)

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...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"

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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"

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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"

 

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Right Action

Adolfo Kaminsky, Forger

Courtesy of The Paper Of Record (please god never let the Ruperts 'acquire' it, as they lust to do): An amazing story, told principally in silhouette animations; almost like Javanese shadow-puppets -- which if you think about it isn't a bad analogy for whatever this is that we inhabit. Some people I know will understand why this story resonates.

A  small meditation on our ability, with a single act, to change the direction of the lives of others whom we will never see. Never let anyone say that art has no power.  Enjoy.

(If for any reason you can't see the embedded video, go here.)

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Can't You See That I Am Not Afraid

C'mon C'mon C'mon C'mon C'mon Touch Me Babe

 

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MEHR; MIT DER BOOM, UND DER BING, 

UND DER BING BING BOOM BOOM BANG:

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Sleep

More Random Barking

We read stuff, and we learn things.

You yearn, you hunger, for Daddy to take care of you, to give you candy, and an occasional afternoon off. And, to beat you whenever it pleases them you deserve it.

And -- admit it, now -- you do deserve it. You know that you do lots of stupid stuff. You have to be watched carefully, all the time, so that you don't lie, or slack off, or 'borrow' things that don't belong to you. Or touch each other in places where you shouldn't. Or ask questions like Why do Mom and Dad and their friends have it so soft, with treats? How come the police open our emails and listen to our mobile calls? How come boys get fifty cents an hour and girls only get thirty? Will there be another war? Why do the brown people next door get taken away by the police? How come they shoot black people? What's that little helicopter thing flying over our neighborhood?

See, the world is really big. You just don't know enough to figure it all out. It's all so confusing! And tell the truth, now -- who wants to rubberfy their little heads with all that? But Daddy, and Mommy, Do know. Jared Kushner knows. And they Care; they really do. They'll take care of everything.

So, sleep now. Sleep. There's candy for you, tomorrow, after all your work is done. If you're good.

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If you followed the link (be advised, you may have to take a Google test; that's what you get for accessing sites that know better than you and went to an Oxbridge college, too), the article is "Angry Voters Are Nostalgic For Powerful Elites", by Janan Ganesh in the online Financial Times.

Similar themes were being discussed by Very Serious people out on the Intertubes, even before the U.S. election. In Austria, it was "Faced With Angry Voters, The Elites Sour On Democracy." Glenn Greenwald noted that the Brexit was just one more proof "Of The Insularity And Failure Of Western Establishment Institutions." And Jeff Bezos' Washington Post quipped that "Everyone Hates The Elites. Even The Elites."

Ganesh is, outwardly, a member of the Labor Party in Britain who once declined to attend local Party meetings because they were "too dominated by Trots". Ganesh describes himself as essentially liberal on social affairs, center-right on economics; he co-authored a book in 2006 with a dyed-in-the-wool Tory, entitled Compassionate Conservatism.

That was all before The Crash, however, when conservatives could afford to ignore The Peasantry, which was besotted on ARM loans and cheap refinancing to turn their homes into ATMs. After the Crash, governments were unable to pay for their whining (or much else), and as a result turned the failure of private banks into public debt the Peasants would have to pay. And there would be Austerity for at least 99% of everyone. Yay!

Ganesh's thesis is simple: So long as Elites actively use their power for the material betterment of the people, "voters do not mind elites."

[They] do not want a putsch against elitism. If anything, they want its restoration. They want the ordered world they grew up in, when a measure of central direction kept jobs secure and neighborhoods familiar... The West is not in revolt against elites. The people who voted Britain out of the EU and Donald Trump into the White House ... are nostalgic for a time when elites were more, not less, powerful.

...To read about the architects of [that era] is to bathe in shameless, seigneurial elitism. ...They were extreme in their isolation from normal people. Some had beliefs that touched on the pre-democratic. But that was the point: it was their expert imposition of order on chaos that was so prized, and so missed when that order turned to flux in the 1980s and beyond.

...The trouble is that “oligarchy” is a serviceable description of the social system that angry voters miss. A system of large companies with implicit political duties to maintain jobs onshore, of government as a screen between worker and market, of the armed forces as a large employer and source of cultural mores, of immigration levels set by tight diktat rather the interplay of supply and demand, of free exchange as a curbed and conditional thing.

The masses deferred to elites as long as the elites managed the masses’ exposure to the brute realities of the market. The fraying of that contract led to the bitterness of today. ... In 2016, voters did not ask elites to abdicate their power. They punished elites for [abdicating it].

This assumes that the world, so complicated a place, filled with human folly, can only be tamed and controlled by the Barons and Dukes of Capital which literally and figuratively litter the planet. Genesh's perspective is a love letter to the world Our global HNWIs want -- a New Feudalism, one more financial Crash away.

This perspective also assumes that 'voters' (read: human beings) are children, or chattel, who need to be managed -- sometimes sternly -- rather than addressed and enabled as equals. That government is not a compact between citizens and the representatives they elect; that it is supposed to elevate only the interests of a few over the rest of the population; and that government holds property to be sacred over persons. It's a perspective which seems to suggest that the 'voters' don't have to be considered as human beings at all.

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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.

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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)

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Up

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And, courtesy of First Dog On The Moon at the UK Guardian online (Click To Enlarge! Easy! Fun!):

 

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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. 

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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.

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When In These Coarse Current Events

Nothing To See Here

(Original Foto, Courtesy Danny Dutch, That Guy, via The Soul Of America)

Sad Vlad, The Putin (called 'Pooti-Poot' by George "Lil' Boots" Bush, in that bizarre, Mitfordian slang his Familia di Criminale use to describe other people), is like that guy who claims not to have a dinosaur.

Vlad does, in fact, have a dinosaur. He has Ted the T-Rex in his barn -- I mean, we can hear Ted bellowing all the way down to County Road 47; hell, we can hear him down to the Interstate. Some nights, Ted spots cars full of joyriding teenagers, out cruising the Rural Routes between the farms, and chases them all over the place. He doesn't ever catch them -- probably, he just likes running after them -- and there are big three-toed footprints, afterwards, everywhere. Plenty of kids have had big dents put in the roofs of their cars, by something, out on those dark roads -- but the two auto-body places we've got don't mind the business.

Cattle are missing in eight counties, and plenty of people haven't seen their pets for a while -- and piles of shit, seven feet tall, appear here and there almost every day. What Vlad doesn't plow under, he sells as fertilizer -- and he's been selling that shit to just about the whole damn state for a long time, now. Some people from Monsanto were sniffing around Vlad's farm, trying to figure out where that manure was coming from, but they just kind of -- disappeared.

Vlad and his family are constantly getting people stopping by the house, asking about that damn dinosaur. He explains, patiently, with that flat-fish expression of his that no, they do not have a dinosaur. Vlad claims to be so tired of this, all the folks from Des Moines and Ystaad and Tunbridge Wells and Saskatoon with their kids, piling out of overloaded station wagons and asking to use the restroom -- that finally, he made himself a sign, right there, on the hood of an old 1949 Vonyets tractor: We Do Not Have A Dinosaur.

If you continue to insist he does, Vlad will take a step back and look at you. Dinosaur? You been out in the sun a while? Ridiculous. Those things've been extinct for a good, long time ("Just like my old buddy, Alex," Vlad says with a sly grin). If you can hold it, there's a Tastee-Freeze a couple miles up the road with a bathroom, Vlad says. We got a farm to run, here; you all have a nice day.

Except, this is where he gets his cake and sells you dinosaur shit, too: There Is A Fucking T-Rex In Vlad's Barn. You know it. He knows it. You can't really prove it -- I mean, no one has actually seen Ted -- but when you put together that noise coming out of Vlad's barn, all those footprints, lebenty-billion pounds of crap all over the place and a whole bunch of missing cattle ... remember Ossie's Tazer, or whatever they call that: When all's said and done, the simplest explanation is pretty much gonna be right.

And the folks at the County Seat claim to know nothing about it. Vlad's been a good friend to the County folks -- lot of that fertilizer money went to see them get elected last fall. And there were those big piles of shit that appeared every morning on the front lawns of their opponents' homes.  Vlad had some problems with that previous administration -- some back taxes; not addressing his land rights issues, questions about how he runs his fertilizer trade. But now the election's done, word is that all may disappear. And, the County Commissioner has a new John Deere Combine -- he claims it's a lease. Others aren't so sure.

There are plenty of people out there who will tell you that Vlad's a good guy. He means well, runs a tight farm and, up front, always treats you with respect. But there's no denying that his neighbors -- the ones who bring their cattle into the barns every night, the ones they've spent a biggly amount of cash reinforcing with steel -- are a little nervous about Vlad.

Some of them say he has funny ideas about expanding his farm -- that he has some kind of Plan, and Ted The T-Rex is a big part of it. Others say he likes doing crazy-ass things just out of pure, human fuckery.

All I know is, Vlad has that sign, We Do Not Have A Dinosaur, and almost every night I hear that big lizard, bellowing to beat the band as he chases some car full of teenagers, having a helluva good time. You can complain, but the County Commissioner will just tell you -- probably on Twitter -- what a silly goose you are and you best shut up now. Sad!

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Random Barking: Days Of Wonderboy

Chewing On This

Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark: I have another conversation with Archibald "Harry" Tuttle, which summed up the feelings both of us have on Day 24 of our Republic's new, mandatory 24 X 7 Soap, Rule Of The Buffoons. We agreed the bar of our expectations for this Clown-Car government is set so low you couldn't slide a photon under it.

"I'm sitting there, watching television, when this Fool shows up like he does," Harry says (and, in a slight digression, we agree henceforth to refer to Il Duce as 'Wonderboy'). "To me, he's 'Trump the Entertainer' 'Trump the Businessman' -- spouting some kinda bullshit, like he always does -- and then it hits me: This man is 'the president'!"  Harry brushes his face, forehead to chin, two-handed in rapid succession, as if he were doing the introduction to the Curly Shuffle, or brushing off a poisonous insect.

"I mean: I still can't get my hands around this!" He says. "Wonderboy, this motherfuckin' jackass, is 'the president' ??!! You'd expect it would've sunk in, by now -- but, Nooooooo.

"And, this white power asshole who helps run Wonderboy -- Bannon," Harry spread his hands. "I was reading that this fuck is pretty much lovin' him some Hitler!!" (While not 100% accurate, it's close enough. Harry was reading this article, which he had gotten to via The Soul Of America. And yes; we talk in italics a lot.)

"Does nobody on your side of the street [Harry means: White People] get it? This man will not be happy until he owns our ass. You all don't think that can happen, but it's simple: You'll wake up one morning, head off to work, and there's a Humvee at the intersection and three guys in fatigues with AR-15's who have their orders. You want to pass, and you meet whatever profile is in their orders, you're gonna hear Sir I need you to step out of your vehicle. We know this drill. Isn't anything new for us.

"Bannon and Wonderboy want to own the country," Harry continued. "Own it right up front; none of this slinking around in the shadows. Trump just wants to own things, like the stupid Richie Rich he is. But Bannon? He want to own people's souls, man. He wants to make it impossible to think about Freedom, the way we do now. He wants that to be illegal. But both of them wants a country where it's obvious who runs things, and you'll bow and scrape to your betters. All they want from us is yes massa, no massa; three bags full, massa, and if you step outta line there's jail for you, or something worse.

"He'll throw the statue of liberty across the hood of a 1963 Chevrolet, and put it to her without the benefit of Vaseline -- after he and Wonderboy, and Wonderboy's friends, steal everything what ain't nailed down.

"And I still can't believe this is what's happening," Harry sighed. "I just can't."

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It's as if a symbol of America -- the Flag; the Bald Eagle; the Great Seal -- has been replaced with a coupon, good for one small soda at a god-fearing, hatin'-them-fags-and abortion-doctors franchise like [Name Of Chicken Place Redacted; But, You Know].

(These items are manifestations of what we hope for, living in community. What we assume America means. Those visions tend to leave out slavery and genocide, misogyny, the baked-in rule by Persons Of Property, and the occasional Terror -- such as 1894, 1917; 1932, 1941; 1947; 1968; 2001; and now 2017).

Because organizations run by a crowd of smiling, intolerant evangelicals who have prayed their entire lives for the chance to punish punish punish the sinful liberal hellbound hippie assholes, in the name of the living god -- is what America is all about becoming now. Don't believe it? Just remember the monstrous, stupid drivel Mikey Pence signed into law in Indiana.

A travel ban by executive fiat today becomes denying other rights tomorrow -- at the stroke of a pen, along with an order to a compliant Congress to rubber-stamp whatever Wonderboy desires. Join the Party; join the mob. Sieg Heil, y'all.

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And, aber natürlich, the wealthy are making plans to split this scene when Der Tag comes -- whatever form The Day takes. Having despoiled and looted, they'll flee; because they are special, and valuable. Not like you disposable labor and consumer resource units out there. What are you good for, if you're not working for the Owners, or purchasing their companies' wares and services?

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People talk to each other. I have other conversations -- with my Dog Trainer, with The Best Friend. The portion of Dog Trainer Talk to which I will own up publicly settled on that sense of unreality around the fact of Wonderboy, his Parteigenossen, and their Glorious Reign over everything.

"I see it," said my Trainer. "So many people have been profoundly affected, even clinically affected, by what's happened." He shook his head. "I still can't quite believe it, either."

The Best Friend won't even discuss Wonderboy. "I just can't. I turn the sound off on the television whenever he appears. I can't listen to the sound of his voice."

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When we talk, we get to that point in the conversation where one or the other of us asks What Next? We talk through many different scenarios, none of which seem so ludicrous any longer and include impeachment; another military incursion or limited war; a trigger event which will allow a State Of Emergency and extraordinary Executive powers; possible economic secession; civil war.

Aber Das Tea Partei Muss Sein.

(What's more likely is a continued, slow erosion of respect for a central government, environmental controls, fiscal regulation. An America First economic policy will please the Faithful, and a massive public works project will be fine misdirection for a few years -- until the rest of the world begins using AI and automation, and our Made In USA goods will be too expensive for export; the Parteigenossen who voted for Wonderboy will love that. 

(I dislike globalism and automated factories as ultimately enriching the few and making a return to The Peasantry likely for so many of the rest of us -- but that technological tide isn't going to be reversed unless the entire System collapses. 

(It seems Trump, Bannon and the Tea Partei may not be the bringers of Ragnarok. They're just opportunistic thieves with a good patter, and just enough veneer of conservative progress to distract the Rubes as they concentrate on pouring Quatloos into their private coffers. Our quality of life, education, medical care, food and water safety may be allowed to decline, while requirements for ideological purity, christian values and obedience increase. 

(After Wonderboy and Stevie are gone, The Real Monsters may rise up as they have waited so long to do. And it will be clear that Wonderboy was just one of a series of Suits occupying the White House who made Chtulu's homecoming more of a possibility.)

The possibilities we discussed were all American-centric -- which don't take into account the uncoordinated and completely unpredictable response of Wonderboy, Stevie, Ugly Big Nose and the Billionaire cabinet to an actual crisis generated by external events (such as meeting, in a public restaurant, to discuss the launching of a missile by Kim Jong Fat Boy's North Korea). It's assumed they won't care very much what happens to a bunch of non-white people in one of Those Countries. Besides, having to pay attention to that means less time to steal, connive, and deal; oh my yes. Times are so good.

While we can't agree on the likelihood of any one thing happening, we do agree: There appears to be no good outcome to the apotheosis of Wonderboy and Friends. This cannot end well.

Resist.

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