Quote Of The Day: John Kerry Edition

Athenae’s boy friend was on Meet The Press discussing the Paris Accord yesterday:

“When Donald Trump says, well, we’re going to negotiate a better deal, you know, he’s going to go out and find a better deal? That’s like O.J. Simpson saying he’s going to go out and find the real killer. Everybody knows he isn’t going to do that because he doesn’t believe in it.”

The longer Trump is in office, the more I miss the competence of Team Obama, especially his Secretaries of State. The appointment of Clinton and Kerry was a sign of maturity and security, two qualities Current Occupant lacks. Rex Tillerson remains a cipher who does what he’s told. I bet he misses Exxon. I miss John Kerry.

Everything In The World

It was confirmed  this weekend that everything in the world is about Donald Trump. The London bombings were somehow about his immigration policies. I’m not sure how that works anywhere but in his tiny mind. The Insult Comedian also decided it was time to go another round with London Mayor Sadiq Khan. I call it kicking someone when they’re down, but it’s just another day for the WWE/reality teevee president*. Khan’s staff kicked back and got the best of the exchange. It’s usually easy to outargue idiots except in the minds of other idiots. Too many people are worried about placating those idiots. Fuck them.

I spent quite a bit of time in London when the IRA was still actively bombing British targets during The Troubles. I don’t recall people blaming all Catholics for the Provos terrorist campaign. I recall some bad Pat and Mike-style Irish jokes but no calls for internment. Most Brits don’t scare that easily: memories of the Blitz are part of their DNA. That old school stiff upper lip comes in mighty handy at times like this, eh wot? We’ll leave the bed wetting to Trump sycophant Nigel Farage.

Let’s not kid ourselves that Trump’s clumsy attempt to manipulate public opinion after a terrorist attack is anything new. The Bush-Cheney administration waved the bloody flag of 9/11 until the bitter end. It worked during the first term, but eventually people started tuning them out except the same idiots who take Trump seriously. Repeat after me: fuck them.

My favorite response to Trump’s twitter antics came from Never Trump Republican and WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin:

One is prompted to ask if he is off his rocker. But this is vintage Trump — impulsive and cruel, without an ounce of class or human decency. His behavior no longer surprises us, but it should offend and disturb us, first, that he remains the face and voice of America in the world and, second, that his fans hoot and holler, seeing this as inconsequential or acceptable conduct.

You may recall that Ms Rubin was so pro-Romney in 2012 that we called her his girl friend. I’m not sure if the worm has turned or she woke up and smelled the coffee, but I take special delight in the Never Trump conservatives who refused to sell their souls to the Orange Devil. Most Republican office holders have been binge drinking Trump’s orange Kool-Aid. I eagerly await the hangover.

I officially apologize for the string of cliches in the previous paragraph. It’s what happens when you spend too much time analyzing the Darnold’s thought process. Besides, they worked; certainly harder than the golfer-in-chief.

Just remember, folks: it’s Trump’s world. We only live in it. Since Difford and Tilbrook provided the post title, Squeeze gets the last word:

Instant Update: Trump has attacked Mayor Khan again. The Mayor is, of course, trying to keep his people calm. The Insult Comedian prefers panic in the streets.

 

 

Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – ISIS what you did there edition

Hey gang – looks like The Darnold finally got someone to think that he’s funny.

TrumpManila

The Freeperati, of course, were all over it like terrorism on rice :

HOTEL UNDER ATTACK Manila hotel shooting – ‘ISIS’ gunmen storm hotel in Philippine’s capital
www.thesun.co.uk ^ | 1st June 2017, 6:57 pm | By Maryse Godden

Posted on 6/1/2017, 1:00:01 PM by Red Badger

DOZENS of tourists have been injured – with fears Brits are among those hurt – after gunshots and explosions were heard outside a resort in Manila, initial reports say.

The shooting took place at Resorts World Manila in Pasay City, Philippines, around midnight local time.

1 posted on 6/1/2017, 1:00:01 PM by Red Badger

 

The Red Badger Of Courage?

 

To: Red Badger

 

Muslims freely exercising their religion……….

11 posted on 6/1/2017, 1:14:55 PM by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents – Know Islam, No Peace -No Islam, Know Peace)

AND WE HAVE A WINNER!!!
To: samtheman

 

It’s Ramadan, time for a Bombathon.

13 posted on 6/1/2017, 1:16:36 PM by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents – Know Islam, No Peace -No Islam, Know Peace)

To: caww

 

islam
scum

Two different spellings of the same word.

17 posted on 6/1/2017, 1:20:15 PM by samtheman (Trump++)

One Freeper cautions the other lemmings that jumping off the cliff isn’t all that great an idea :
To: Red Badger

 

Let’s not jump to conclusions.

8 posted on 6/1/2017, 1:13:42 PM by samtheman (Trump++)

ThatShipHasSailed
But otherwise, they’re all like –
To: Red Badger
22 posted on 6/1/2017, 1:28:20 PM by RightGeek (FUBO and the donkey you rode in on)
Ooh – I recognize that – it’s from Vietnam.
How exactly did the “kill them all” doctrine work out in that one?  I forget.
So – after a few dozen more pages of the usual “exterminate the muzzies” stuff…
To: dadgum

 

So far, here is what I have heard:

Caucasian, English-speaking, patron of the hotel, entered the foyer, with an AR and gasoline, security guard(s) ran away, entered the casino gaming room and used the gas to set fires, doused himself with gas, set it on fire, shot himself in the head, and there are up to 30 casualties (presumably from smoke inhalation)

61 posted on 6/1/2017, 11:26:26 PM by dadgum (Overjoyed to be the Pariah.)

Can’t possibly be true!  Muzzies! Amish! Religion Of Peace(tm) !  Ramalamadingdong!

(CNN)

The lone gunman behind the casino attack that left 37 dead in Manila last week was in debt and had a gambling problem, Philippine police say.

Jessie Carlos Javier, a 42-year-old man from the Philippines, was identified as the suspect in last week’s attack in the Philippines capital, said Oscar Albayalde, police chief for the Manila area.

Carlos was separated from his wife and had been laid off from his job. Recently, he was banned from entering all casinos at the request of his wife, according to Southern Police District Chief Tomas Apolinario Jr.

Police believe Carlos, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, acted alone. ISIS had claimed responsibility for the attack Friday, but officials have repeatedly denied it was terror-related.

“This is the truth. This is all the truth,” Albayalde told reporters as authorities gave details of the lone assailant.

Freeperati reaction?
Funny you should ask.
The above post # 61 was the very last post on this.
No more after that.
.
None.
Zip.
Zilch.
Nada.
Why, it’s almost as if it never happened.
More after the thingy..
.

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The Environment Is For Pussies

When did not wanting to strip-mine Mt. Rushmore become a tacit offer of same-sex fellatio?

The answer? AS SOON AS IT NEEDED TO BE FOR REPUBLICANS TO MAKE BANK.

The president himself said it on Twitter, in a message aimed not at anybody in real life but

And the thing is, like most of what came out of Trump’s mouth during the campaign, of course it seems sensible to care more about Pittsburgh than Paris, more about yourself than the rest of the world. I myself like the polar bears fine, and I recycle and take public transit to work, but environmental causes aren’t my nearest and dearest, so if you ask me if I should take away somebody’s job for a polar bear of COURSE I’m gonna say no. Those furry fuckers have claws, let them fend for themselves.

But come on. Do we really not know this by now? This isn’t about jobs. If it was we’d be building factories to manufacture solar batteries and funding scientific research like we pay for soccer stadiums. Cities and towns across America would be competing to offer the best programs for environmental research in their public universities, and making the results part of our cultural heritage so that no one company could own them. If this was about jobs we would spend on jobs like we once spent on the WPA and the Tennessee Valley Authority and the interstate highway system and the Marshall Plan.

If this was about creating jobs or literally anything else we cared about at all, we’d pretend it was a ground war in the Middle East and we’d fund it forever.

This isn’t about jobs, and to keep arguing that yes, the GOP wants to burn down the world but the Democrats need to be less faggy about it is a dumbassed (and not a little homophobic) waste of our time.

So let’s not climb down in the muck with them and argue that we came to fuck fat-bottomed big-tittied American girls also, just as much if not MORE. We will fuck them more! Harder! Possibly we will recycle the bottle of beer we break off to jam into our own foreheads to prove our manliness, but we’ll still cut ourselves just to show you our red blood! Look at the size of our trucks!

Let’s not do that. It’s gross.

Worse, it’s ineffective.

Let’s dismantle the propaganda network that says this is what we have to talk about in the first place, that this is the only way to have an argument. I’ve gotten just absolutely full up the past year on listening to people I mostly agree with talking about how Democrats and liberals and city elites look down on “working people.” Let me ask you this: Who told those working people Democrats and liberals and city elites look down on them? 

Who said, you are forgotten, and the Republican Party will remember you?

Who said, you’ve been counted out, in favor of the environment, and we’ll count you back in?

Someone must have. I doubt Middle American white people just all woke up one day and intuited that all universities and large cities are full of egghead liberal treehuggers who hate them. That sort of seems like the kind of thing a 24 HOUR “NEWS” NETWORK ON TV AND TALK RADIO would have to tell them.

So we can change our messaging all we want. We can talk about how if we see a polar bear, we’re gonna beat it senseless and then bite its dick off in a show of manly dominance. We can go up to the ice shelf and stage Burning Man.

Or, in the opposite direction, we can propose policies (we had a presidential candidate who did quite a bit of that, actually, in our recent past) that will help the ever-loving shit out of working poor people, stuff like free college and higher minimum wages and strengthening organized labor and rebuilding public schools and oh yeah, a health insurance plan to at least help a few people not go bankrupt.

It’s not gonna matter until we break the stranglehold Fox and its cowardly enablers in cable news have on information in this country. Nothing we’re saying is getting out NOW. What’s the point of continuing to re-write the position papers if it’s all gonna come down to who’s yelling the loudest. Anyone who wants anything lasting to change has gotta fight like hell not just to change politics but to change who talks about it on TV.

I don’t see any other way out of this. Do you?

And if you do, can you tell the polar bears? They’re getting kind of freaked out.

A.

Sunday Morning Video: Larry Graham & Graham Central Station Live

I originally planned to post this 2011 set on the Sunday after their first album was featured on ACAW. Better late than never.

 

Saturday Odds & Sods: Eight Miles High

A New Frontier by Alan Bean.

It’s been a wet week in New Orleans. The rain, however, hasn’t stopped the Lost Causers from sitting hillbilly shiva. They’re down to the dead enders as I pointed out in this tweet last week:

One of the banners was a Trump for President flag. Now that’s one I’d consider burning…

Speaking of the Insult Comedian, he made news on Thursday. As usual, it was the bad kind. Bowing out of the Paris Climate Accord will be reversible when we have a sane and asterisk free president again. His “reasoning” was the bigger problem with this move. First, Trump wanted a “win,” he promised his supporters constant winning. Instead there’s been constant losing. He’s abandoned most of  his other promises, so he kept this one. The Russia scandal makes keeping the MAGA maggots happy paramount. Second, his baby man feelings were hurt by the mean old Europeans. They didn’t kiss his ass. The Darnold doesn’t like that. He was pouting over Merkel’s speech and Macron’s handshake victory so he lashed out and did something stupid and short-sighted.  This president* has made petulance the centerpiece of what passes for his foreign policy. Trump’s Razor remains in effect.

This week’s theme song was inspired by the featured painting by Apollo astronaut, Alan Bean. Eight Miles High was written by Gene Clark, Roger McGuinn, and David Crosby for the Byrds 5th Dimension album. I have three very different versions for your enjoyment. First, the Byrds original followed by spirited covers from Roxy Music and Husker Du.

Now that we’ve flown Eight Miles High, we’ll touch down after the break.

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Rummage sales are life. The rest is just details.

The reason this post is late is because I spent the last hour and a half looking up everything I could find on Carry-Lite Duck Decoys manufactured in Milwaukee.

Am I a hunter? No.

Do I care about becoming a hunter? No.

What the hell is wrong with me? A lot, it turns out.

I picked up six of these decoys at a rummage sale today, so duck decoys have become my obsession of the moment. A friend in California is a hunter and mentioned how to locate interesting and valuable decoys at one point. A friend here noted that a neighbor of his sold some for a pretty high price once.

A woman about my grandmother’s age had dumped a dusty box full of these things at the end of her driveway just as I drove up. She said she had no idea what they were, but her husband used them a long time ago. A price of six for $20, made of paper mache with a “Patent 1941” stamp on the bottom seemed like too good a bargain to pass up.

I scoured the Internet looking for various types of duck decoys and places to find them. I have yet to find one stamped like mine, so I either have a rare find or a box of shit. Eventually, I found myself going crazy so I stopped to write this post (Side note: I’ve stopped writing this a few times to go back to Google with the hope that maybe THIS set of search terms would yield an answer about who made these and when.).

It was at this point that a realization hit me: Rummage sale season is officially upon us.

This is a sacred time of year in Wisconsin, due in large part (I suspect) to the fact we spend nine months of the year housebound by snow and ice, so anything that gets us outside in sunny weather is worth doing. Neighborhoods get together to host 30, 40 and 50-family sales, in hopes of drawing massive amounts of traffic to their neck of the woods. Subdivisions are packed with trucks, vans and SUVs creeping along the winding roads in search of the next sale on the map someone at the last sale handed out.

Certain cities and towns are “known” for having certain citywide sales during certain weekends. Winneconne was two weeks ago, Omro was last weekend… I still have yet to attend the infamous “Irish Road Rummage” which is a cross between an insane asylum and an endurance test.

Rummaging was pretty much tattooed onto my DNA as a child, long before the “American Pickers” crowd made it trendy. Each summer, Mom would have off from teaching and I’d have off from school, so off we’d go every day we could find a sale. Estate sales, rummage sales, moving sales… It didn’t matter. If we were looking for bargains, at least she wasn’t making me scrape and paint the storms and screens around the house.

I still remember one find she made in the basement of a house that smelled like mold and cat pee: A 1950s-style grocery cart with two detachable wire baskets. The asking price was something like $12, so she had me haul that thing out of the cobwebs and somehow stuff it into the backseat of our 1979 Ford Thunderbird.

When we got it home, my father saw it and bitched up a storm: “The hell do you need that for? What the hell did you pay for that? Where the hell do you think you’re going to put that?”

Mom had an answer: She was going to have me spray paint it a couple bright colors and she was going to use it to shuttle stuff around her classroom. I think I was 16 at the time we bought the cart and I was more than 40 when she finally retired. The grocery cart was an integral part of her classroom for the quarter century in between.

To be fair, Dad wasn’t anti-garage sale. He just had his own way of valuing things that came from the sales. If you want to watch a 73-year-old man outrun Usain Bolt, just put some sports shit at a rummage sale and mark it “FREE!” I can’t tell you how many times we bought something on a Saturday and sold it for a profit on a Sunday at the card show.

My first and favorite big score was when I was 11. I rode my bike to a sale a couple miles from our house. I found a really cool flag I wanted and when I picked it up, I noticed a bunch of paper placemats under it with the box scores from Milwaukee Braves games. I asked the lady how much for each placemat.

“Take them all for $2.” So I did.

I had no idea what they were worth, but it was something I could show my Dad, so I tucked them carefully into a sack and rode home. He’d never seen one, so he went to one of “his guys” who happened to run a sports card place on Lincoln Avenue.

“They’re not worth much,” Leroy told my dad. “Maybe $5-6 bucks each…”

The next show, we put four of them in the auction. I watched as two guys went after these things until they finally sold for $26. The next month, we did it again. Same result.

I was thrilled to be getting $26 a month, but Dad had a better angle. He found the guy who lost the auction and asked if he wanted to buy some. We took him out to the car where we had the rest of them and Dad negotiated a price. I walked away with another $185 and a hyper-inflated lust for rummaging.

Over the years, we’d found a few things like that: Dad would see something of value, he’d ask what it would cost for all of the stuff there and then we’d resell the stuff at a profit. Still, nothing will ever top the Saga of the Beer Cans.

It was the weekend of my wife’s baby shower and we had come up from Indiana to Milwaukee so all of our family could attend. My mother took my wife for a spa day, leaving Dad and I to our own devices.

We decided to “take a walk” which usually led to us walking past rummage sales. At one in particular, we started poking around when a woman asked, “Hey, do you guys wanna buy a beer can collection?”

To this day, neither Dad nor I can figure what it was about us that said, “Hey, ask us about your beer can collection,” but there we were, looking at hundreds of cans stacked up in a row.

As if we knew the difference, the woman tossed in this pot sweetener, “I’ve even got some cone tops in there.”

Neither Dad nor I would have known a cone top from a Conehead, but for some reason, Dad asked, “How much?”

“Fifty bucks.”

“Nah.”

We started walking back home when I noticed we were both really quiet.

“Dad, I know you’re thinking about those cans,” I told him. “I can hear that gerbil on the treadmill in your head.”

“That’s only because I know you’re thinking about them too,” he told me.

We went home, looked up what the hell a “cone top” was and then decided to drive back. Just as we pulled up, a collector was there talking to the lady.

“No, no,” she said to the guy, as she pointed at us. “I promised these guys first.”

So, we essentially bought a beer can collection at that point, having no idea what we were going to do or how to sell it. Still, it seemed like we could make the money back even if we just scrapped the damned things, so we had that going for us. We had the entire SUV filled with several cases resting near Dad’s feet, when the lady said, “Don’t forget the ones on the side of the house.”

When we looked down the side of the house, we saw cardboard beer cases stacked four high as deep as the entire length of the house. It took us three trips to get all that stuff back to my parents’ house and it filled the whole garage stall.

Cutting to the end of the story, it took two trips with two SUVs to get all the stuff down to Indiana and we made more than $1,500 together from it.

Also, it was a miracle my wife didn’t murder me, even after I said, “I hope you get a lot of gift cards so we can take some of these cans home with us right away.”

Sorry, honey, but there are no “sacred cows” when it comes to rummaging.

I was once running late for church when I spotted a guy closing up a rummage sale. He had a lawn mower and a beer sign for sale, so I pulled a bootlegger turn in front of his house. He asked $3 for the beer sign and said the mower didn’t work. “Take the damned thing,” he pleaded. “Just get it out of here before my wife comes home.”

This led to me wrestling a push mower into the back of my SUV and spending an hour-long mass smelling like gasoline.

Mom and I will often be late for something but spot a sale and have to pull over. On Thursday, we were taking some furniture to a friend of hers when we noticed a sale. We almost tossed the stuff out of the truck on the lady’s lawn so we could get back there and look at the sale. I ended up with a liquor cabinet, a bench and a cuckoo clock. I also grabbed this gorgeous antique table that was about the size of dinner plate. It had an oval top with pressed flowers under a broken glass top. The top also flipped up so you could just display the art. I bought it for $12 and was thinking about how I could redo it and display it at our antique booth. As I was loading it into the car, Mom noted, “I want that. Can you refinish it for me?”

Again, no sacred cows. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up pulling out of a funeral procession at some point because Dad spotted some bobble heads for sale.

Still, it’s not all about making money when it comes to garage sales. I can’t tell you how many times I ended up with a piece of furniture or something else because Dad found it at a yard sale and proclaimed, “I couldn’t buy the WOOD to make it for that cost!” My Mom loves to pick up cross-stitched pillowcases because nobody does that stuff anymore and she loves the details. Dad finds golf stuff and other stuff he already has three of but just “couldn’t pass it up at that price.” Eventually, when he stockpiles enough of the “had to have it” bargains, we do our own sales.

Each year, we have two sales: One up at my house and one down by my folks. I usually have tons of refinished furniture, sports memorabilia and rebuilt lawnmowers for sale, most of which came to me in damaged format from other rummage sales. It’s a good gig if you get a nice weekend, as people tend to flock to us in droves when it’s sunny out. Rainy weekends kill you and make you wish you’d never thought about doing one of these things.

This weekend is what we call a “half and half” sale: Friday is gorgeous without a cloud in the sky, but Saturday is supposed to bring torrential downpours. This leads to a great amount of self-deceiving justification on the part of people like me. I was headed to work at around 8:30 when I saw a sign for a “60-house rummage” in a subdivision. I was planning to do some writing for a book I’m finishing, submit my annual report information to my department chairperson and write this post.

Yeah, but… See… Rummage!

Obviously, the best stuff is available earliest on the first day and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so it’s clear I can’t go out tomorrow and it’s a beautiful day… Besides, I can do that shit later…

Thus, I spent the next four hours wandering through a subdivision, buying tons of stuff I might or might not need. A Blackhawks hoodie for my wife, a dresser to refinish for $10, a set of chairs for my buddy who has a buyer for a table we own if we could find chairs, a 1973 Bucky Badger Boxing decanter (sans booze), a couple tools and, of course, the ducks.

I had to have the furniture people hold the furniture for me after I paid them because I was driving Betsy and there was no way I’d get any of that stuff into her trunk. I was having an existential argument about buying a second dresser when someone else bought it first, so that ended up going that way.

Still, I eventually got the truck, got the furniture, got to work and got everything done, including this post, so no harm, no foul.

Speaking of fowl, time to figure out these ducks…

 

P.S. — Just for darrelplant

Friday Catblogging: Bar Stool Kitties

There are times that Oscar and Della Street resemble one cat with two heads. This is one of them or is that two?

 

Quote Of The Day: Slumlord Jared Edition

I’m still rolling out my new nickname for the Trumper Tsarevich: Slumlord Jared. If you haven’t read the Pro Publica/NYT piece about his shameful slumlord antics in Baltimore, click on this link. He’s the sort of landlord who lets his properties fall apart, blames the tenants, evicts them, then raises the rent. A slumlords gotta slumlord…

The QOTD comes from a Politico article. They quoted his former digital maven at the New York Observer, Harleen Kahlon:

“We’re talking about a guy who isn’t particularly bright or hard-working, doesn’t actually know anything, has bought his way into everything ever (with money he got from his criminal father), who is deeply insecure and obsessed with fame (you don’t buy the NYO, marry Ivanka Trump, or constantly talk about the phone calls you get from celebrities if it’s in your nature to ‘shun the spotlight’), and who is basically a shithead.”

In short, he’s a Trump clone with better hair. No wonder Ivanka married this little shit. Slumlord Jared sounds almost as insecure as her idiot father.

The good news is that their insecurity, stupidity, and arrogance will be their eventual undoing. These Banana Republicans believe they’re above societal norms and rules. That’s why they constantly violate the first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging, Twitter is Trump’s hole. His bluster there will bury him. Jeez, now I sound like Nikita Khrushchev. I have no plans, however, to pound on a table with a shoe. I’ll leave the tantrums to Trumpy.

 

Professional Courtesy?

The_Scream_Trump_550

OK, professional for lack of a better term, but for now it looks as if one orange-hued ball of hot gas, hell bent on global destruction, will do what he can to facilitate another

Three administration officials with direct knowledge of the intense White House debate said early Wednesday morning that Mr. Trump was expected to withdraw the United States from the 2015 climate change accord that committed nearly every nation to take action to curb the warming of the planet.

More here, and here.

Allegedly it’s not a done deal, which I guess means Jared and Ivanka could be engaged in some last minute attempts to yank Trump’s foot out of his mouth to the extent they’re able. Or maybe–as with all things to which the boy king finally applies his rudimentary mental processes–he came to the realization that “nobody knew it could be so complicated.” But I wouldn’t bet on that. Maybe it’s more just a case of Orange Narcissus insisting, once again, on being the center of attention for as long as he can.

It’s enough to make you want to scream.

Pulp Fiction Thursday: Tropical Disturbance

I wasn’t planning to post another Robert McGinnis cover. I stumbled into this one because it’s the first day of hurricane season. So it goes.

The Americans Thread: The First Cut Is The Deepest

Season 5 of The Americans was about family as well as the innocents whose lives were affected by Philip and Elizabeth’s secret lives. The finale, The Soviet Division, was no exception. I do, however, take exception to some of the reactions to Season 5. It moved at a somewhat slower pace than past seasons BUT it has never been a Bond or Bourne-type spy extravaganza. Its closest kin is the work of John Le Carre; somber meditations on the lives of spies. The penultimate season was no different. Was it my favorite season? No, but it’s setting the stage for a wilder ride next season.

It’s time to dismount my soapbox and go to our spoiler break *after* playing a song that’s dedicated to Pascha and his soon to be divided family. It’s the first of five hit versions of a song written by Cat Stevens:

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Glengarry Glen Ross On The Potomac

I didn’t take part in the #covfefe war on Twitter.  It’s another meme that got beaten to death by conformists trying to be cool kids. I prefer to be as original as possible instead of joining in a dog pile over a typo by an idiot. It will all be forgotten in 48 hours. And Putin’s Pawn will still be president*. That concludes this rumination on the folkways of social media.

I’ve been pondering  movie/literary analogies for the news that Team Trump is starting a war room to deal with the escalating and multi-faceted Russian scandal. Since Slumlord Jared  is involved, it should be dubbed the cover up room.  The proposed war room is already down a body as David Bossie of B3 fame is begging out but Corey Lewandowski is still likely to bring his unique brand of malakatude to the cover up. He’s good at roughing up reporters, which seems to be a qualification for admission to Trumpistan’s inner circle. The fact that it was a chick reporter gives him bonus points with the pussygrabber-in-chief. Believe me.

The Trumpers claim that they’re going gangster. Movie:

The proposed war room, Axios reported, will be filled with “experienced veterans from the campaign trail who recognize the gravity of the situation.” In an apparent acknowledgment of the seriousness of the situation, Trump staffers have reportedly begun using the phrase, “Go to the mattresses,” a line from “The Godfather,” meaning to go to or prepare for war.

Godfather buffs should recall that  going to the mattresses was ordered by the ill-tempered fathead Sonny Corleone. It resulted in a protracted, futile, and downright stupid war with the Barzini and Tattaglia families. Downright stupid *is* a word associated with Team Trump but not one they should invoke themselves. The Insult Comedian is no Vito, and Jared is no Michael. Imagine anyone calling Michael naive? They’d get it in the eyeball like Moe Greene. Jared does have a Fredo air about him. Of course, there’s a lot of competition for the title of stupidest Trump. It’s a family of Fredos headed by a Sonny who lacks Santino’s violent bravado and good hair.

It strikes me that a better analogy for the war/cover up room is David Fucking Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. This play about sleazy real estate salesmen won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1984. The 1992 film version had an astonishing cast including Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Jonathan Pryce, Alan Arkin, and Alec Baldwin. Yeah, the same guy who plays Trump on Saturday Night Live. Believe me.

Glengarry Glen Ross is set in a real estate boiler room where all that matters is closing the sale. Deceit is not only commonplace, it’s expected by the bosses.  They’re con men practicing egregious flim-flammery. Sound familiar? It’s Trump and Kushner’s world complete with exploding F-bombs. In my experience, real estate developers swear like sailors or Mamet characters. Fuck yeah.

I can just imagine Trump/Baldwin giving the war/cover up roomers a pep talk and telling them to do whatever it takes to fucking close the fucking story. Lewandowski will sucker punch a reporter and  Slumlord Jared will squeeze his tenants to inspire their war/cover up roomery. Is that a word? If not, it should be. It’s tremendous. Believe me.

There’s only one person to give the last word to: Alec Baldwin. First as asshole real estate developer Blake meeting his salesmen then as asshole real estate developer/president* Trump meeting his supporters.

Put that covfefe down, it’s only for closers. Another day, another last word fib.

Album Cover Art Wednesday: In Our Lifetime

In Our Lifetime was Marvin Gaye’s sixteenth and last Motown/Tamla album. It came at  a low point for the artist commercially, personally, and artistically. It represented something of an artistic comeback. He was ready to leave his ex-brother-in-law Berry Gordy’s stable of artists and gave it his best effort on his way out in 1981.

The deeply weird cover was designed and executed by Neil Breeden with input from Gaye. Marvin frequently spoke of the two Marvins: one angelic, the other demonic. The cover is particularly creepy because Marvin was shot dead by his father in 1984; a mere three years later.

There’s an odd but interesting essay about the cover art at Reading Vessel. This image comes from that post:

I’m pretty sure Breeden and Gaye were not predicting events that took place in the 21st Century. As Athenae said the other day, the world has always been on fire.

In Our Lifetime is only available on YouTube in the playlist format. It’s worth a listen:

Profanity = State Sanctioned Violence Against Minorities

Every time I think we’ve reached Peak Both Sides, another mountain rears up in the distance: 

But now it isn’t just Mr. Trump. In their new “resistance” mode, Democrats have become just as nasty. Tom Perez, the Democrats’ new national chairman, has already earned notoriety for his use of profanity at rallies. At some of them, he has trouble speaking because the anti-Trump heckling is so loud.

Does no one have an editor anymore? Doesn’t someone in the newsroom say something like, hey, I read your piece, and I was just thinking that the power differential is so vast between “heckler at a rally” and PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED FUCKING STATES that applying laughably malleable “standards” to both is like asking your 8th grader and your dog to do math homework and getting mad when Fido pisses on the long division? I mean what the SHIT.

Whoops. More profanity. It’s just like I herded two dozen foreigners into a concentration camp with my filthy word hole.

For those of you not lucky enough to live through this during the early days of both the Iraq War and liberal political blogging, this was the entirety of the argument against us: Yes, you may be right, but you are right in a way that makes me feel bad, so therefore you are wrong. Because you smell. Hippie.

Like there were entire protests that got invalidated because someone wore the wrong T-shirt.

It was infuriating then and it’s infuriating now, for lots of reasons the very least of which was that nobody was chiding wingnuts to stop burning Obama in effigy and making birth certificate jokes and waving Confederate flags around because it would make THEM look bad, albeit for actually being bad, not for being right. Just fuck these people, is my point. Fuck them for a lot of things, but mostly for only being able to get offended by the word fuck.

A.

‘This is someone’s child’

It’s important to know that somebody fought back: 

“I was saying, ‘Creator – provide comfort to his family who don’t know you’re here,” she recalled.

An officer called out to her: “You did what you could, it’s time to come off the train.”

[snip]

The next night, Macy met Namkai-Meche’s mother and father at a vigil held by the train stop. She handed his father a purple-painted, heart-shaped rock, her prayer rock.  She said the victim’s parents thanked her for being with their son, telling her that she was “a mamma to our boy in that moment.”

Macy, a single mother of five children who rides the MAX to and from her community college courses at least three times a week, said she just did “what had to be done.”

“I just kept thinking this is someone’s child,” she said.

I read this right after Trump’s election, the idea that if you’re one of those people who loudly fantasizes about killing baby Hitler or whatever, you don’t need to go back in time to figure out who you would have been in the war. You’re in the war. Whatever you’re doing right now is what you would have done then.

(‘Twas ever thus, of course. The world has always been burning. I felt like this after 9/11, all those people talking about how a crisis made them realize what they wanted to be, like the fuck is wrong with you you don’t know what you want to be already? Sometimes my inner pissed-off 19-year-old gets the talking stick.)

So if you’re writing letters, calling reps, volunteering, working, creating spaces for people to think and breathe and be free, if you’re using your power to help others with less, if you’re trying every single day to be kind, to overcome paralysis and exhaustion and worry and reach out to someone else, if you’re doing even a little more than you think you can, that’s who you are in the war. You’re someone’s child too.

A.

With Friends Like Trump, Who Needs Enemies?

My preference as a pundit is to mock and skewer those in power. From time-to-time  I switch my tone to righteous indignation. This is one of those times despite the zany image above. Why? Donald Trump’s horrendous conduct on his overseas trip. It’s not because I’m surprised but out of indignation at his desire to blow up NATO to please his master in the Kremlin. Mad and/or Time got it right, y’all.

We knew Trump liked dictators more than democrats but it reached sickening levels on this trip. The Saudis did everything but publicly fellate his miniscule member and he fell for it. But when it came time for him to deal with our allies: he publicly dressed them down, threatened them, and even literally pushed one of them out-of-the-way. I guess he thought the Montenegrin PM was a waiter named Monty Negro or some such shit.  The help is always abused in the racist alternate reality known as Trumpistan.

Here’s the deal: NATO is our baby. It has kept the peace since it was founded in 1949. Thanks to NATO and the EU, Germany and France have gone from mortal enemies to friends and allies. Why would anyone want to blow that up? Obviously, the president* knows nothing about history but peace between those key nations means peace in Europe. The only ones who want to blow up NATO are extreme nationalists and the Russians. People around Trump speak of Russia as though it is not the successor state to the Soviet Union. It is. And they’re up to their old tricks. Only an idiot would want France and Germany at each other’s throats. Trump is a moron. It’s increasingly apparent that he’s either owned by Russian intelligence or is Putin’s useful idiot. Either way he’s the dipshit’s dipshit.

The Insult Comedian’s recent comments about NATO prove that he has earthly idea how an alliance works:

TRUMP: “I will tell you, a big difference over the last year, money is actually starting to pour into NATO from countries that would not have been doing what they’re doing now had I not been elected, I can tell you that. Money is starting to pour in.” — speech to U.S. troops in Sicily on Saturday

TRUMP tweet: “Many NATO countries have agreed to step up payments considerably, as they should. Money is beginning to pour in.”

THE FACTS: First, no money is pouring in and countries do not pay the U.S. Nor do they pay NATO directly, apart from administrative expenses, which are not the issue.

The issue is how much each NATO member country spends on its own defense.

<SNIP>

TRUMP: “But 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they are supposed to be paying for their defense. This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States and many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years, and not paying in those past years.” — remarks to NATO on Thursday

THE FACTS: Members of the alliance are not in arrears in their military spending. They are not in debt to the United States, or failing to meet a current standard, and Washington is not trying to collect anything, despite the president’s contention that they “owe massive amounts of money.” They merely committed in 2014 to work toward the goal of 2 percent of GDP by 2024.

Thanks to the AP for the fact check. It proves that Trumpy really thinks an alliance is a protection racket and that giving a political speech to the troops is appropriate. It is customary for a President to talk about the troops, not about themselves. Trump would rather brag about his phantom accomplishments than praise them for their service. Repeat after me: NATO does not “collect” money. Paulie Walnuts will not be knocking on the door at 10 Downing Street any time soon.

It saddens me that Chancellor Merkel feels she has to distance herself from the United States. It is also completely understandable. Donald Trump prefers palling around with dictators to having good relations with our allies. It’s stark raving bonkers but it’s where we find ourselves in 2017. As I’ve said before: the fate of liberal democracy is in the hands of a German Chancellor who was born behind the Iron Curtain.

It’s appalling but not surprising that national security-minded Republicans remain silent over Trump’s comments about NATO. I have a theory: the Bush-Cheney administration was big on unilateral action and did their share of undermining our alliances. Team Trump has taken that to its radical extreme in the wake of 8 years of temperate, moderate governance by President Obama. Heaven help the fool as Mr. T or Bob Weir would say at this point.

One more point about Trumper stupidity: the Kushner affair. The wispy slumlord is supposed to be in charge of a White House “war room.” They haven’t a clue as to how this looks. He’s under investigation himself. They should call it the “cover-up room” instead. And what is being described by the MSM as a “back channel” is actually espionage because it involved American citizens using a hostile power’s communication system. Sounds like they have something to hide; when there’s this much smoke, there’s always fire.

Back to the post title. There are always strains in any alliance but there’s never been anything like this in NATO’S past. I don’t recall an American President insulting a German Chancellor FTF before. Hell, even Bush and Gerhard Schroder  kinda, sorta kept up appearances for the sake of the alliance. It’s all about Trump in 2017. As far as he concerned, we all live in Trumpistan.

Since I prefer to be a “glass is half full” kind of guy, I’ll give the last word to Todd Rundgren and Daryl Hall:

 

 

 

Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – Catchup and Flies edition

OK, good people – something old, something new this week.

Actually, it’s ALL old, because the Freeperati never change their pants stripes.

In brief – GiganticAsshole body-slams reporters – good.

Other gigantic asshole pushes to the front of group of world leaders – he should have body slammed them.

Think I’m kidding?

Out of my way, I’m in front! Trump shoves European leader aside to find his place at the center
daily mail ^ | 5/25/2017

Posted on 5/25/2017, 1:44:04 PM by RummyChick

A Trump moment went viral for the wrong reason on Thursday as he and the leaders of 27 other NATO member countries assembled for a photo at the treaty organization’s gleaming new Brussels, Belgium headquarters. As Trump made his way through the group to take his position in the front row next to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Montenegro’s Prime Minister Duško Marković was in his way. So Trump put his hand on Marković’s upper arm and shoved him aside.

1 posted on 5/25/2017, 1:44:04 PM by RummyChick

To: RummyChick

That’s how alpha males roll!

No, it’s how an asshole rolls.

Alpha males (which are dogs, BTW) would bite anyone in front of them.

Too bad it wasn’t a muslim! or Merkel! (that would have really had their panties in a twist!)

7 posted on 5/25/2017, 1:49:04 PM by Pilgrim’s Progress (http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/BYTOPICS/tabid/335/Default.aspx D)

Too bad Markovic didn’t just elbow The Darnold in the solar plexus.
And, of course:
To: RummyChick

A body slam would’ve been much better.

19 posted on 5/25/2017, 2:09:58 PM by TexasCruzin (Trump is the man. #TrumpPence16)

..and just as classy.
 .
Like I said – nothing new to see here. Same shit, different week.
 .
Follow below the fold for the Freeperati reaction to The Darnold wishing Mooslimes everywhere a happy Ramadan.
 .
HUH?????
 .

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Memorial Day: Who I Remember

There’s nothing like a national holiday to make one feel ritualistic.This post was written in 2010 and is making its eighth annual appearance at First Draft. It was also published in our anthology, Our Fate Is Your Fate.

I realize it *should* be posted on Veterans Day since my remembered soldier survived the war BUT old habits are hard to break. Besides, I would face the wrath of both Athenae and Dr. A if I didn’t post it. So, here we go again:

The veteran I’d like to remember on this solemn holiday is the late Sgt. Eddie Couvillion.

Soldier Boy

My family tree is far too tangled and gnarly to describe here but suffice it to say that Eddie was my second father. He served in Europe during World War II, not in combat but in the Army Quartermaster Corps. In short, he was a supply Sergeant, one of those guys who won the war by keeping the troops fed, clad, and shod. Eddie was what was called in those days a scrounger; not unlike Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22 or James Garner’s character in The Great Escape. 

Eddie’s favorite military exploit was running an army approved bordello in France after hostilities ended. He always called it a cat house and bragged that it was the best little whorehouse in Europe. One can serve one’s country in manifold ways…

Eddie died 5 years ago [2005] and I still miss him. He was a remarkable man because he changed so much as he aged. When I met him, he was a hardcore Texas/Louisiana conservative with old South racial views and attitudes. At an age when many people close their minds, Eddie opened his and stopped thinking of black folks as a collective entity that he didn’t care for and started thinking of them as individuals. Eddie was a genuine Southern gentleman so he’d never done or said an unkind thing to anyone but confided to me that the only one he’d ever hurt by being prejudiced was himself. I was briefly speechless because we’d had more than a few rows over that very subject. Then he laughed, shook his head and said: “Aren’t you going to tell me how proud you are of me? You goddamn liberals are hard to satisfy.”

Actually, I’m easily satisfied. In 2004, Eddie had some astonishing news for me: he’d not only turned against the Iraq War but planned to vote for John Kerry because “Bush Junior is a lying weasel and a draft dodger.” That time he didn’t need to ask me if I was proud of him, it was written all over my face. It was the first and only time he ever voted for a Democrat for President.

I salute you, Sgt. Couvillion. I only wish that I could pour you a glass of bourbon on the rocks and we could raise our glasses in a Memorial Day toast.

The Gods Lift Those Who Lift Each Other

Two quick hits.

One: 

Oklahoma stands out for the velocity with which districts have turned to a shorter school week in the past several years, one of the most visible signs of a budget crisis that has also shuttered rural hospitals, led to overcrowded prisons and forced state troopers to abide by a 100-mile daily driving limit.

Democrats helped pass bipartisan income tax cuts from 2004 to 2008. Republicans — who have controlled the legislature since 2009 and governorship since 2011 — have cut income taxes further and also significantly lowered taxes on oil and gas production.

“The problems facing Oklahoma are our own doing. There’s not some outside force that is causing our schools not to be able to stay open,” said state Sen. John Sparks, the chamber’s top Democrat. “These are all the result of a bad public policy and a lack of public-sector investment.”

Two:

I’ve been thinking about the latter since first reading it, because it articulates so perfectly what we’ve lost in the last 60 years (lost, never forget, at the hands of racist rich men who found the GOP eager to provide a political “philosophy” to sell their hate and selfishness). We’ve lost not the idea of kindness but the ability to clearly articulate the benefits of community. Not that helping others is some abstract good for which we will be rewarded in heaven, but that it directly benefits us right now today.

White Male America didn’t succeed in the 1950s as a result of keeping black men and women down. White Male America succeeded because of public policies designed to enhance the lives of many. The GI Bill, robust and widespread public schooling, infrastructure improvements that started before WWII and affordable public college provided by land grant universities all lifted vastly more people than tax cuts ever would have. Wild amounts of government spending, union jobs, pensions, and honest-to-god public assistance without ponderous and intrusive means-testing bullshit, all provided a framework for everyone to succeed.

And then a bunch of people came along and said this can’t continue, because it’s starting to benefit black and brown people, and if they win you lose. If you talk about the collective good you’re a commie. If you want to be fairly paid you’re a feminazi. If you criticize foreign wars you’re an egghead elitist SJW coastal fifth columnist who loves terrorism and hates America. If you’re different in any way, you’re a threat.

Who did that? Who’s responsible? Who sold that line, and who bought it? We still can’t identify the perpetrators in public. We talk all day long about how “Washington” is “broken,” how “politics” is “broken.” We talk about “the age of Trump” like it’s a tornado that just descended from the clouds. Someone MADE US THIS WAY and made money from it, and we can’t even bring ourselves to name the force that did it.

If Democrats are going to articulate a policy that is about helping ourselves, instead of helping “others,” because of course they’re the same thing, then they need to get real about what they’re fighting and why. A return to New Deal/Great Society rhetoric isn’t going to cut it in the face of the GOP puke funnel. I don’t think the concept of pity is the main problem here.

A.