Wednesday, May 03, 2017

Open thread Wednesday.

TWEET MEIt's open thread Wednesday field hands, and I need to know what's on your mind.

I will tell you what's on mine.

Right-wingnuts doing whatever they can just to get a win. They don't care what's in their healthcare "bill" or how it will hurt the lives of millions of people, they just need to pass something, anything, to make Mr. Orange Hair look good.

 The cluelessness of Sean Spicer. Seriously, how does this man still have a job? 

How good the right-wingnuts  are in this country at manufacturing outrage.

And  how will trump's American Taliban move play with the American people?





43 comments:

mike from iowa said...

It's (another) rainy night in iowa. Lord I feel its raining all over the world. Chilly, too. Hope wingnuts get wet and freeze and I mean that in the nicest possible mean way.

I noticed Drumpf has a golf course on the Potomac and he claims it was the sight of a major civil war battle so he has a rock and a plaque commemorating it. Historians say the battle was fought over 10 miles away and Drumpf had no part in winning or losing it. Neither did Ol' Hickory cuz he was dead before then.

To all you war mongering wingnuts- give pizza chants.

dinthebeast said...

Spicer has that job in the upper echelons of wingnut welfare because some poor schmuck has to do it, and he seems to lack any detrimental qualities to the performance of the lie-into-the-camera-with-a-straight-face job description such as ethics, morals, or human decency. Sort of like Kellyanne Conway, but stupider and not as creepy.

Trump's threat of a Christian Taliban EO isn't surprising, it's common practice for imbeciles out of their depths to run to the sky god when they get scared or get their asses kicked. I don't think he believes any of that bullshit, but that wouldn't stop him from lying about it to get the pig-people to line up for buggering.

And as for Colbert, he may have used the wrong term for Trump's mouth: It's really more of a testicle cozy, and I doubt that would have gotten him in as much trouble.

-Doug in Oakland

Aaron Weber said...

I just want to say thank you for writing. I really appreciate your perspective. You have a really wonderful voice and the world is better for hearing what you have to say.

Lilacpr said...

mike from iowa said...

It's (another) rainy night in iowa. Lord I feel its raining all over the world.

10:47 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here too, a whole lot, every day :( and it starts the mold spores proliferating, which gives me bad asthma. So I'm on the therapy machine and all sorts of meds :(

PX said...

Barack was in Chicago today and was protected by CPD. Wasn't he supposed to be going to jail?

dinthebeast said...

"Barack was in Chicago today and was protected by CPD. Wasn't he supposed to be going to jail?"

And apparently he and Michelle are giving a couple of million dollars to summer jobs programs there, kinda doing what he said he hoped he could do to build on the work he did there a long time ago.

So why is it that Republicans freak the fuck out and run away from the Flynn investigation? I was gonna add "and lie" to that, but that part's obvious: they lie about it because they're Republicans and what else are they gonna do? Admit the truth and get stomped into the dirt? Not likely. It might be fun to see what Sally Yates has to say Monday when she testifies.

I feel for you guys getting rained on, we got it all winter here, more rain than any year ever, but we're kinda having a mini heat-wave here right now. It was 86F today, and into the 90s yesterday. The little black girls were out in their sun dresses today, and all in all it was a pretty good day in this neighborhood.

-Doug in Oakland

Wake Up! said...

If you can't destroy a country militarily, you do it from within, deploying a Trojan Horse.

How many in the Trump administration, including Trump himself, are compromised apparatchiks for Putin, carrying out his bidding while pretending to be loyal Americans?

mike from iowa said...

Wake Up- I have mentioned a time or two that at this point it would be easier to identify Drumpf campaign members that did not have Russia connections.

Don't get me wrong, I love the rain. It is a necessary part of my gardening and the farming I did before going on disability. I worry about friends and neighbors who have struggled with high costs/low crop prices the past few years. The Hillary-ous part is many of my friends and neighbors are of the Republican persuasion-just not the bat-shit crazy wingnut tribe.

As for it feels like its raining all over the world, I miss being able to listen to Brook Benton singing as my hearing is about gone. I regret not spending more time as a youth involved with music and singers/musicians. I must confess I don't care for rap or hip-hop-at least what little I have been exposed to.

Brigade Fifteen said...

James Comey testified before a congressional committee yesterday on why he made his unnecessary announcement, two weeks before the election, about reopening the bogus-from-the-outset investigation into Hillary's emails.

Infuriatingly, his explanation was that he would have been unethically "concealing" something from the public if he had not made that announcement. It's absurd. His department had already pored over thousands and thousands of emails from Hillary's server and come to the conclusion that there was no intent to compromise national security or to give unauthorized access to classified documents (the Supreme Court long ago ruled that violation of the Espionage Act requires intent to pass along secrets to enemy parties). Hell, this was absolutely obvious before they reviewed ANY emails! So was it at all likely that a few more emails found on Anthony Weiner's laptop -- which were virtually all forwarded copies of the ones from Hillary Clinton's server anyway, which had already been reviewed -- would change that assessment of intent? Clearly, no.

Comey says he feels "mildly nauseous" that he could have changed the outcome of an election. And that could easily could be true, since Trump won Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by razor-thin margins of less than 1 percentage point each, and together they carry enough Electoral College votes to have taken away his victory.

So thanks again, Comey, you fucking dickhead, for helping give us this embarrassing joke of a president. I hope you get hit by a bus.

Anonymous said...

Hillary 2020!

mike from iowa said...

Comey did throw ChafedButtz under the bus, so there's that.

Jersey McJones said...

Conservative voters are getting very uncomfortable. All the crazy promises made to them, one by one, are being shown to be unrealistic, unpopular, and/or just not passable. In the end, Trump and this latest wave of right wingers, are going to be the best thing that could have happened to progressivism and liberalism. Not even all those years of Gerrymandering and dividing will save them from the inevitable failures they, and we all, will suffer. Hang in there guys and gals! Real change is coming. Let's just hope the damage is as little as possible before we get to cleaning it up.

JMJ

Brigade Fifteen said...

The French presidential election is weirdly looking like a sort of weird, alternate-universe rerun of the US presidential election.

It's a Clintonesque center-left figure, former banker Emmanuel Macron, who has now been formally endorsed by Obama, up against crypto-Nazi Marine Le Pen, who counts as one of her fans the Big Orange Dunce in the White House.

Since they would never vote for her in any event, Le Pen is now trying to convince a segment of the supporters of unsuccessful left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon (the Bernie Sanders figure in this saga) to pitch a sulky tantrum and vote for nobody in the election on the grounds that Macron's agenda doesn't perfectly align with theirs. We'll see if it works.

This all sounds pretty reminiscent of how politics in the US have gone lately, with the left constantly engaging in dumb internal battles and "purity tests" and insisting that candidates be perfectly left-wing and never, ever compromise on any matter of principle, or else they mustn't be supported. This brilliant approach usually just results some awful right-winger winning instead.

I am thinking of white economic lefties like Tom Frank, or anti-racism lefties like Cornel West, or civil libertarian/peacenik lefties like Glenn Greenwald, all of whom spent the entire Obama administration ripping harder on their own side than the people with views diametrically opposed to theirs. And also all the foolish voters who pointlessly pulled the lever for Jill Stein or simply sat out the 2016 election because they'd convinced themselves Hillary Clinton was the Antichrist.

anotherbozo said...

Buying coffee beans this morning I engaged with a 20-something salesman with an even bleaker outlook than mine.

I said, "well, I doubt Trump will last four years. There's that."

"Just another puppet," he said.

"True," I said weakly.

But since buying and brewing a cup I have thought, "No, he's not just another puppet. He's a spectacularly BAD puppet. Who has spawned a whole movement against him, which calls itself collectively "The Resistance." Even Hillary has signed up.

Is the population "woke?" I've lived through the idealistic 60s, but maybe this is different. I couldn't tell the black coffee salesman that I got a free college education and a lot of breaks growing up, because chances are he didn't, but that doesn't mean his kids couldn't, if the ship ever gets partly turned around again. My breaks were supported by taxes on the wealthy and on corporations, and his kids' could, too. It will take quite a revolt at this point, but there's a lot of realism in unexpected places these days. Like coffee stores.

mike from iowa said...

Poor,elderly.disbled and children hating haters got a yooge celebration lined up in the Rose Garden if ACA repeal is successful in the house today. Buses are waiting already.

I imagine jeebus smiling down on his adherents who make people's lives as miserable as possible and then throw a big celebration. Gawd I hate wingnuts and everything about them.

Chad Pergram

@ChadPergram

Fleet of buses/vans now parked on Capitol plaza to prospectively bus GOPers to WH should health care bill pass
12:35 PM - 4 May 2017

mike from iowa said...

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/04/obamacare-repeal-house-vote-decision-237972

wingnuts celebrating the destruction of the poor and elderly, disabled, kids etc.

dinthebeast said...

I'm hoping that the French are somewhat hipper to the con than the pig-people were, but we'll see. Putin is in there just buggering away, so even if they are, the metric tons of Euros he's dropping on the race could still swing it. I hope not, though, because if Le Pen wins, the European Union could fall apart. I mean, the whole "one currency, 27 governments" thing is dumb, and their "Germany has trade surpluses so everyone else gets austerity" fetish is incredibly destructive, but neither of them are as destructive as world wars one or two, so the Union does serve a larger purpose.

Shorter Comey: I was covering my ass, and I'd cover it again in a heartbeat, even if getting president four-year-old elected is kinda icky.
Yeah, fuck you Comey, I hope your balls drop off into your shoe and you step on them.

-Doug in Oakland

mike from iowa said...

Rape is once again a pre-existing condition.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/05/under-new-healthcare-bill-rape-is-a-pre-existing-condition.html

Brigade Fifteen said...

"I'm hoping that the French are somewhat hipper to the con than the pig-people were, but we'll see. Putin is in there just buggering away, so even if they are, the metric tons of Euros he's dropping on the race could still swing it."

I haven't heard much of Putin sabotaging the French election with dirty tricks; as of yet, there are no hacking reports. But Vlad is bankrolling Le Pen's campaign.

I hope the Mélenchon people are smarter than the worst of the Sanders sore losers, but at this point, it's not so clear. A poll of Mélenchon activists came back with the results that only 34.83% supported a vote for Macron, with 36.12% preferring to turn in a spoiled ballot paper and 29.05% opting to abstain from voting.

That Voltaire quote that Obama's so fond of: "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good"? They evidently don't subscribe to it. Bunch of stubborn, self-harming donkeys.

dinthebeast said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
dinthebeast said...

There have been hacking reports:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/04/25/cyberattack-on-french-presidential-front-runner-bears-russian-fingerprints-research-group-says/?utm_term=.1f9703306b18

And Le Pen was photographed with Putin, so he's not making it a secret. Europe is closer to Russia, so this is arguably even more important to him than taking the somewhat more powerful US down a peg or two.

So now the house has passed their monstrosity of a health care tax cut.
So now we beat them with it, nonstop, until we take over in the midterms, just like they did with the ACA.
Only we have at least the advantage of telling the truth about it that they didn't have in 2010, if that's even an advantage any more.
I know as well as anyone how infinitely reprogrammable the Republican base has become, but even so, I have a hard time believing the murder of one's constituents is a winning strategy.
And it's not a strategy, it's an ever tightening circle they are trapped in by their eight years of responsibility-free, thoughtless, opposition to everything Obama did. They see it as a promise they made that they must keep at all costs, when in reality, nobody cares about it but them. The ACA has much better favorable numbers than president four-year-old, but they don't care that people are more concerned with staying alive than keeping in line with a destructive, bullshit ideology.
Except for the 27% dead-ender crazy pig-people, who will cheerfully chew their own legs off (if they have the teeth) if they think it will piss off a liberal. Those fuckers deserve what they get, but we are still trying to help them along with everyone else.
In fact, this garbage probably couldn't have passed if not for the progress we have made for them; when your healthcare is not a constant worry, you are less likely to freak out when your own team tells you they want to fuck it up.

-Doug in Oakland

Brigade Fifteen said...

"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/04/25/cyberattack-on-french-presidential-front-runner-bears-russian-fingerprints-research-group-says/?utm_term=.1f9703306b18"

Oh really? Hadn't heard that. I guess I'm not surprised.

The Purple Cow said...

4th May 2017. Meters of wall built = 0.

Yisheng is a Genius said...

I truly miss having a beautiful, elegant, highly educated, respectable FLOTUS like Michelle Obama in the WH.


dinthebeast said...

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-quorum-of-motherfuckers-observations.html

-Doug in Oakland

Anonymous said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWkKzo6jb70

James Brown said it so well.

Doug, Chicago isn't being hit so bad with the weather but my friends in St. Louis and Arkansas are starting to build an ark.

PX

Hail the Trumpenreich said...

All your base are belong to us.

The Fixer said...

No one misses having a vain, arrogant, Affirmative Action admission, resentful POS like Michelle Obama in the WH.

CenterPuke88 said...

Let's see...firing up the translator...

Input: "No one misses having a vain, arrogant, Affirmative Action admission, resentful POS like Michelle Obama in the WH."

Input language identified: American English, Limbaugh dialect

Output: I'm happy that upitty nigress is gone.

Cool, now we know where The Fixer stands.

Hate Fact™ said...

So far in 2017 Jews have been perpetrating "anti-Semitic incidents" in the US at more than 19,000% the rate that non-Jews have been doing so.

AQ said...

Trayvon Martin gets more attention for getting magdumped after he assaulted some hispanic guy than the UT Austin victim who got stabbed in the head just walking to class.

Clown World.

Brigade Fifteen said...

The movement to remove Confederate statues is reminiscent of communist and Islamic iconoclasm and erasure of history.

Fake News Update said...

Shocker: Church Vandalized with “Heil Trump” and “Fag Church” Graffiti Was Done by Gay Church Member:

http://www.jammiewf.com/2017/shocker-church-vandalized-with-heil-trump-and-fag-church-graffiti-was-done-by-gay-church-member/

If it weren’t for phony “hate crimes” there wouldn’t be any “hate crimes” at all. Seriously, has there been even one so-called “hate crime” since the 2016 election that hasn’t been proven to be bogus?

dinthebeast said...

PX: Maybe they can borrow the one they built in Kentucky. I read that the Amish they hired did a remarkable job building it.

The James Brown song reminds me a little of my friend Saul, who cut up some bumper stickers in '92 and made one that said "George Clinton '92." No word on whether he wanted Bootsy as AG or Secretary of State...

-Doug in Oakland

Dead Ambassador said...

Does Hillary Clinton take "absolute personal responsibility" for her lead role in the destruction of Libya and the resulting refugee crisis?

The Fixer ™ said...

We all miss having a beautiful, elegant, highly educated, respectable FLOTUS like Michelle Obama in the WH.

There, fixed it correctly.

Winning said...

Yeah! Trump celebrates the 58th passage of a Obamacare repeal. Oy vey. Too much winning.

Brigade Fifteen said...

"The movement to remove Confederate statues is reminiscent of communist and Islamic iconoclasm and erasure of history."

Nope. I love the smell of burning redneck icons in the morning.

Smells like ... victory.

Brigade Fifteen said...

"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWkKzo6jb70

James Brown said it so well."


These guys, too.

Anonymous said...

"Smells like ... victory."

Smells like ... Taliban.

dinthebeast said...

Now if we could just remove the confederate monument currently serving as Attorney General... Maybe to a nice farm upstate where he could play with all of the other neo-klansmen who have gone missing.

-Doug in Oakland

Flying Junior said...

Now that I have binge-watched all ten episodes of Season I of Dear White People...

It is a very fun show. It must be terribly easy to make fun of. I mean, on so many levels. But it rocks. Several of the characters are not only believable, but sort of crazy wonderful. The frat boy who likes to pretend that he has black friends is a bit over the top with his gratuitous racism. But actually that is the new norm, sadly enough. Troy is the coolest. He smokes as much weed in college as I did. His Dad looks a little bit like Sharpton, but bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to any black leader from the past or otherwise. Troy is not afraid to solo reefers. He gets high in the bathroom every morning. Later, he fucks all of the beautiful women at the college halfway to death in his bedroom, while his man-crush, somewhat gay, roommate, Lionel, the only true hero-everyman in the entire show, succumbs to the urge to fantasize.

I gotta get some more of this. I love this show.

Anonymous said...

"But actually that is the new norm, sadly enough"

What's sad is how deluded you are to think that this program is anything other than a fantasy offering for weak-minded anti-white racists that, apparently for you, you can jerk off to.

Have fun staying in.