No Surrender: Donald Trump Wants the Republicans to Go Fuck Themselves...Slowly

Never got to this earlier, and could save it for the inevitable link-dump, but I do quite love this picture of Donald Trump having signed one of the bullshit pledges to the RNC (was the extra copy in case he didn't like the way his signature looked on the first try ?).  The make-me-look-smarter reading-glasses à la Rick Perry...the appropriate distance down his nose...The green tint that may or may not be an accident of white-balance...The unreadable savage blur of a signature coinciding with the almost Comic Sans. of his 'print' writing...The insane, 'I'm-not-balding' dead-animal-on-my-head comb-forward...And then...that look...

This is not the look of capitulation, Rand.  (Here, I'll sign ya shitty little piece o' paper...if, it'll make y'feel better...)  This is the look of a privileged and pampered sixty-nine-year-old teahadist maniac getting to live out a childhood fantasy at the expense of probably the entire world as his aging brain melts.  And we, in the media, the blogosphere, and social media, celebrate this lunacy at the possible expense of the survival of our own species

<Checks name of this blog>  Oh yeah...we're all fucked anyway !  Go for it Donnie ! Wha'the'hell ?!!

Occam's Razor

A few words on ole' Donnie Boy.  Earlier on this blog, I alluded to certain conspiracy-theories about Trump's candidacy.

But, the more I see and hear Mister Trump, something I have hitherto studiously avoided, since, oh, the 'eighties or so, the more I'm convinced that Trump is not just appealing to your crazy older relatives & in-laws, who marinate their brains in a steady intake of Fox News, Drudge, and AM talk-radio...Rather, he is them.  He is that crazy uncle who will start ranting on at the dinnertable about Saul Alinsky & Rules for Radicals, and then get angry and frustrated that everyone else is 'pretending' not to have a clue what the fuck he's talking about.

The difference is that your crazy uncle will likely end up in a mental institution, homeless, shooting up a movie-theatre, or, more likely, dead of an aneurysm, after angrily shouting at the 'Muslim interloper' on the teevee-set one time too many.  He doesn't have the self-confidence, the hubris, or, more importantly, the money and contacts to run for president.  Trump does.

Think about it.  An eccentric nearly seventy-year-old white man, who, never mind the right-wing media-bubble, factor as that is, has spent his whole life in a bubble of his own making, hobnobbing with only the richest*, the most famous, coming otherwise into contact only with the most expertly craven bootlickers and yes-men.  A man who stamps his name in massive capital letters on every property he touches, who refers to himself in the third person, who exaggerates his own wealth and accomplishments.  And who stokes publicly for years a fantasy about his running for president.  Only to end up here at the tail-end of 'the worst presidency ever', with apparently apocalyptic consequences if good decent-minded white folk can't take back the White House from the perverts and communists who have infiltrated it...to, er, make America great again, as it were.

If you were naïve enough to believe the ridiculous hyperbolic crap that come out of the likes of Fox News, if you heard the Republican base crying out for a messiah, and if you were Donald Trump, why wouldn't you run for president ?  He can afford it.  His ego is seemingly untouchable, and allows him to easily spin any loss as a victory, even to himself.  And if there were ever a time in a man's life, assuming Trump considers himself mortal, for a true legacy-moment, going on threescore years and ten is about it.  The man has nothing to lose.

Nothing.  Trump goes bankrupt, he wins.  Trump helps elect Hillary Clinton, he wins.  Trump destroys the GOP for generations, he wins.  Trump brings on the coming of the Antichrist, he wins.  Trump invites an alien invasion of Earth, he wins.  Trump always wins...even when he loses.

And the man would seem to be as utterly deluded as the right-wing Tea Partiers whose votes he would court.  Outside of the conspiracy-theories, it's the only thing that makes sense.  He just is that crazy.  Which, if he takes this all the way, could just be America's salvation.


For a reminder of Trump's background, pre-Apprentice, do yourself a favour and go watch Trump: What's the Deal?** (Don't be put off by the cheesy music by Queen in the opening credits.).  It's a pretty good window into the origins of and the person that is one Donald J Trump.


* In case you were wondering whether there were consequences to living in such a bubble generally: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/28/rich-people-surrounded-by-other-rich-people-think-america-is-richer-than-it-really-is/

** Also on YT, here.

Jade Helm 15

So, years of the GOP and the right-wing media in the United States fomenting irrational fears about the Federal government and Barack Obama, led some of their followers to actually believe that a routine training-exercise by the US military represented some sort of threat of invasion/illegal takeover by the Federal government.  To the degree that actual sitting Congressmen expressed concern publicly, and the actual Governor of Texas, ordered the State Guard to monitor the activity, being carried out by...the military of the United States of America.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it.  But what could actually go wrong ?

Other than shots being fired by two white guys in a pickup, at soldiers in training.

Or a bunch of anti-government nuts hoarding guns and making explosives, to use apparently in defence against said non-existent federal takeover.

And the exercise isn't even halfway over yet, so who knows what more might be in the pipeline ?

Not that the conclusion of the exercise in September with the US somehow miraculously not under martial law will do squat to ease the paranoia of the nuts in question (ie, a huge swath of the GOP's electorate).  'No', they'll say, 'what really happened is that we spooked 'em.  We showed Obama and those other UN New World Order-types that we knew what they was up to and they warn't gonna mess with Texas**.  You wanna come here, 'n' take our, guns, then suck on this !'  Followed by the explosive sound of a gunshot as one of them accidentally blows off their own head, or that of their dog, or their child.  But they died free, see, and that Commie Muslim Kenyan interloper didn't get 'em after all.


* I didn't intend to say a word on this idiocy, but it...just...won't...go away...And now we're getting close to people actually being killed over this nonsense.

** I know, I know, these two cases in question weren't in Texas...Oh that it were only the population of one state that had gone batshit-insane.

That Is All

DefundPlannedParenthoodSanctuaryCitiesHillaryClintonsEmailKatesLawISISCrossingtheMexicanBorderSellingFetalBodyPartsJadeHelmObamaTakingAwayYourGunsCreepingSocialismIRSPersecutingTheTeaPartyObamaIsNevilleChamberlainWorseThanSlaveryWorseThantheHolocaustDeathPanelsAmeroDemocratsBetrayingIsraelFomentingClassWarfareDenyingAmericanExceptionalismMostDangerousPlaceforaBlackBabyisintheWombVinceFosterSecuretheBorderFirstSoonPeoplesWillBeMarryingAnimalsCriminalizingChristianityFakeBirthCertificateSolyndraAcornReverendWrightBillAyersDemocratsaretheRealRacistsEricHolderGroundZeroMosqueSecretMuslimObamaAteDogsFastandFuriousVAScandalObamaPlanningIllegalThirdTermGroverNorquistisaMuslimSpyWhiteyTapeSecretFEMAReeducationCampsBlackPanthersResetButtonCommunityOrganizerSaulAlinskyObamaBowingSurrenderingtoIranLoveChildofMalcolmXMichelleObamaRuinedMySchoolLunchRulesforRadicalsWhyDoesObamaHateAmericaForcedtoMakeGayWeddingCakeWorstPresidentEverGlobalWarmingisaHoaxSupportingCubanDictatorsChristianNationStandwithIsraelWorsethanHitlerWhichSymbolKilledMoreBlackBabiesShariaLawinAmericaBadDealBenghazi!!!!!

In Defence of Dumbfuckery

Er, Digby...just why exactly would you assume the young lady in question is confusing  her 'pseudo-scandals' ?  And wait, is Watergate a 'pseudo-scandal' now or 'the greatest political scandal in American history' ?

Really, there's three questions to ask here:

1. Was Hillary involved in the Watergate hearings ?
2. Did Hillary lie at the Watergate hearings ?
3. Is a self-confessed fan of Ted Cruz likely to care about the actual facts regarding 1 or 2 if they support a current right-wing meme ?

We could answer our first question with a quick trip to Wikipedia, but hey, 'anyone can edit Wikipedia' right ?  (Well, sorta...)  So how about a reference to oh, I don't know...The William J. Clinton Presidential Library say ?

After graduating from Wellesley College in 1969, Hillary entered Yale Law School where she met Bill Clinton. In 1974, at the height of the Watergate scandal, Hillary worked on the staff assisting the House Judiciary Committee with its investigation of the Nixon administration.

So, yeah.

Hillary Rodham (center), a lawyer for the Rodino Committee and John Doar (left), chief counsel for the committee, bring impeachment charges against President Richard Nixon in the Judiciary Committee hearing room at the U.S. Capitol in 1974 in Washington.

Short answer to our second question is that no-one knows for sure except perhaps Hillary.  But it does seem to be quite the right-wing meme that Hillary was fired from the Watergate hearings by Jerry Zeifman for lying, based on an article by one Dan Calabrese.  Snopes calls it False, and says that in fact Mister Zeifman had no authority to fire her (...but would if he could...), but it does sound like his recollections on the subject over the years have been changeable.

And again in 1998, Zeifman was undeniably quoted in a Scripps Howard News Service article as confirming that not only did he not "fire" Hillary, but that it was not even within his power to do so:

Jerome Zeifman, chief Democratic counsel on the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 ... does not have flattering memories of Rodham's work on the committee. "If I had the power to fire her, I would have fired her," he said.

So, she wasn't actually fired, and we certainly can't prove she lied, but that's not really important, because one guy said she's a liar...and...we get to link Hillary's name in a negative way to another famous political scandal.  Which leads us to...

Pregunta número tres.  Well, who are you going to believe ?  Snopes ?  'The Liberal Media' ?
Or Daily Kos...sorry, Fox News, Hot Air, Breitbart, and Rush Limbaugh ?

I think you already know the answer to that.  And you know what, Amber *Liberty Girl* is free to believe what she wants, even if that's that Vince Foster was murdered to prevent him talking about a secret deal with the UN to take away everyone's guns and/or a secret lesbian tryst between Hillary and Janet Reno.  And she's young, so she may yet one day evolve out of the right-wing media bubble.

Give her a chance maybe ?  After all, I'm making an awful lot of assumptions about her political background (as is Digby) based on a quick perusal of her Twitter feed.  It may be that she just genuinely doesn't trust Auntie Hill.  I don't blame her for that if that's the score.  I don't either.