Sadly, No!

It is early in the AM at the hunkered down Midwestern Regional Offices™ for the once and hopefully future industrial-grade snark dispensary: Sadly,No! And I just got up. As in, (is there still coffee in the pot?) cool! Might as well get up, heat some up and listen to the sounds of a spring morning in a charming University town in Gilead in the state from which comes our once and future king Penceslas™!

On a morning like this, well most of them recently, to be perfectly honest, start this way…Heat up or make some effing coffee and catch up on any fresh hell that might have transpired while off the clock (my nickname for sleep, when she will have me, that is); which means getting on line and discovering that the Internet still works, the lights are still on; and if lucky: Finding the adolescent feline beast a-purr in bed next to me as happened to be the case a few some odd minutes ago. Following that a quick dash across the ‘trons is in order and a catchup and cleanup of previous threads in which I may have left traces or questions unanswered when I bounced.

That finished I decided to look in on Mr Edroso, as it had been a couple of days and whenever we happen to luck into his graces is a good day whether at the Voice or at his own Place. Which is where this morning started with a post titled: YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL ME EASY? Graced with a picture of Olivier from his turn in a movie that I believe is called the Marathon man, a mid seventies think piece and possibly one of the better films of the era and a veritable South African Diamond mine or Memetic Trope-ulon if you will for that late 20th century Cold War catch in our collective throat, that we thought we might clear out with a healthy cough that phlegmed out Reagan, and since that didn’t work and because we have gone round the bend once again we Try, once again Hacking and Wheezing and finally coughing up Trump.

So I manage to get to the front page, see the picture of Olivier and get this far before firing up this tab

Don’t get your hopes up. As I keep saying, he gives them the policies they want, and they let him grift; that’s the arrangement. Why would they blow the deal now?

I know, Pence; but the American people — or at least a near-plurality of them — didn’t vote for Barebones Feargod; most of them findsmall-smiling Mother-wived Bible creeps like him as repulsive as you do; if they didn’t, they’d have nominated Ted Cruz.

The whole thing is a well engineered delivery system for a finely…not gonna get that one to port sings! But this small-smiling Mother-wived bible creeps along with Barebones Feargod are two for the ages in one clause. They stopped me in my tracks and motivated me to pen this nonsense…So I should probably finish the piece, get back to sleep, give this one a look or walk through upon waking. I swear to dog, if that had been my only exposure to the wonder that is Roy, coming across a reminder would always bring a smile to my face….Thanks man!

Hello Good WhatevertimeofdayitmightbewhenIgetthisonethroughtheslousegates Friends, SadlyNauts, and other Passengers of Earth I thought you might enjoy a visit from these adorable little critters because they are adorable, and also happen to each be wearing the expression that I do upon waking in the morning and realizing that yet another un-plated serving of fail, awaits my discovery for consumption and analysis of its impact on my immediate future.

Four little heads, eight piercing eyes one depression in the sand waiting in rapt attention for their mother and or father to bring home something to break the fast.

And with that palate cleanser on the table, let us see what Dear Leader has managed to do to get David Brooks lathered up, because if that professional cannot muck Trump’s Stable and come out with a bar of Gold, then we might have a problem…

At certain times Donald Trump has seemed like a budding authoritarian, a corrupt Nixon, a rabble-rousing populist or a big business corporatist.

But as Trump has settled into his White House role, he has given a series of long interviews, and when you study the transcripts it becomes clear that fundamentally he is none of these things.

At base, Trump is an infantalist. There are three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out by the time they hit 25., Trump has mastered none of them. Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif.
First, most adults have learned to sit still. But mentally, Trump is still a 7-year-old boy who is bouncing around the classroom. Trump’s answers in these interviews are not very long — 200 words at the high end — but he will typically flit through four or five topics before ending up with how unfair the press is to him.

Remember, this is David Brooks ‘Britzing’ in the Paper of Record on possibly the most prestigious piece of editorial Real Estate in the Country in what might be considered trumps own home town rag going on like he does when he is on one of his tours of the heartland examining the ways of people of the salted earth…Examining the subject like something unknown, unrecognizable, as if he had never before seen this person in the wild….. Or never had a cup of coffee within sight of the tower on which Trump’s name is plastered. I mean I get it, he is talking past these shoulders and speaking to a heartland Golem, quite possibly one who I might have crossed paths with within the last week, or seen in these wilds with my own two eyes, but he is not talking about me, he can’t be.

For one: I have been out of Fritters Indiana on more than one occasion, I also have something that passes for an education, if only of the hardscrabble kind, and I have ridden a bicycle down fifth avenue in Manhattan, right past Trump Tower in fact, and to be honest, I did not appreciate it at the time, being concerned with traffic and what not, but later it was pointed out to me and the next time I approached I made sure to take a look at the magnificence of its creation, and marvel at the gilt appointments, opulent splendor, knowing that my laughter would fill the foyer should I cross the threshold because it could only be more tasteless inside….(Bring it back to Brooks)

He is thus the all-time record-holder of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the phenomenon in which the incompetent person is too incompetent to understand his own incompetence.

Which is like saying someone is the world record holder for “The Kleptomania effect.” As in, if I did not just pull that one out of my ass, and it was a real thing, as in, a psychological conditional reality, there still would still be no world records, for there is a) no competition involved, b) not an Olympic sport or c) a Guinness category. But if I had to guess, Brooksie might just be setting a trap, or taking this opportunity phone it in, knowing, or suspecting as he must, that he must find a good distance in which to take cover, so he is out of the way when the walls fall down, and can be on the ground floor running, when the Conservative Siren song calls from the rubble…

Trump thought he’d be celebrated for firing James Comey. He thought his press coverage would grow wildly positive once he won the nomination. He is perpetually surprised because reality does not comport with his fantasies.

It would have been helpful if Trump had been a real mastermind at anything other than winning the lottery and being an entertaining buffoon…

Third, by adulthood most people can perceive how others are thinking. For example, they learn subtle arts such as false modesty so they won’t be perceived as obnoxious.

I picture that last bit as his glasses talking to him as he puts them on after shaving in the morning, so that he makes it to his desk without getting beat by a random dude on the street.

I came across this series of Tweets from Dear Leader this morning and after /ratchet jack with jaw gag, ala Bugs and Elmer/ wondered again, if this was another salvo in this re-production of a mashup of mid twentieth century absurdist Theatre.

What rendered this rant necessary was stumbling across a series of Tweets from Dear Leader that demonstrate a level of understanding that would probably been challenged in scope and accurracy by my seven year old self:

Donald J. Trump ? @realDonaldTrump
As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!….

And a nation, at least the sentient portion of it whose paths these have crossed one of these tweets may have required one of these to aid the lifting and relocating of the jaw to its proper place…But we might need something of even more industrial quality, because I keep looking back at the tweet and find my jaw hitting the ground again…Yes, that guy, is still demonstrating his Executive acumen as well as his telling* abilities…(*telling in this case refers to those times that a toddler in your life who has just discovered one of the great truths of the world wishes to share it with you with the urgency that such a discovery demands.)

One might be inclined to believe that he has just now begun to understand that Presidenting is Hard. And the fact that he does not even have the sense, as have all of his predecessors, of hiding that fact from everybody if only as a matter of national security, as has every president before him has done…Because to be real, every last president during the last 100 years or so, has had to deal with what, has to be a substantial learning curve, and like students everywhere
It is taking time to process, and like narcissists everywhere he has to demonstrate a certainty of acumen, while at the same time suggesting that the job is actually beneath him. And he is terrified of everything and at all times that he will finally be discovered to be the fraud that his money has always been round to provide cover.

I remember a night in early November 1972…Staying up a bit later than would normally be usual for that seven and a half year old me, but my parents were restless, and by then I had demonstrated a precocious and very curious nature and by then had an idea about the importance of the Presidential election, and that my parents who had worked quite hard on McGovern’s behalf, often with me in tow allowed me to stay up past my bedtime to watch the returns come in in what finished up being a relatively early evening that ended in an air of disappointment…More than that, because while Watergate was yet to be uncovered to dominate the news, it was clear at the time that Nixon was, or had, a series of problems though nobody at the time thought that they might bring the whole thing down…

Fast forward fourty five years and we have yet another paranoid, immature authoritarian
man-child in office whose goat is so easily acquired and whose skin is so damn thin as to be nearly transluscent, that I wonder how exactly he made all his money……Yeah I know If I started out standing on an enormous pile of money and Rental property left to me by my father in the richest market in the world, even the avatar I use, Cletus could have managed to remain a millionaire, as would any random goat on the street. So, for that, I will give Donald a little bit of credit, backhanded though it might be, which brings me to another first week in may tradition, the Kentucky Derby, which I happened to catch a bit of yesterday.

As I was watching some of the Pre-game run-up I discovered that one of the contenders was a one eyed guy named ‘Patch’. He would have become one I would have rooted for at any year in the past, before I lost an eye myself, because I have always had a thing for underdogs and broken things, especially the triumphant and beautiful and again as far as I am concerned a horse is just a very large container filled with kittens and having a very skittish mien so of course, I am drawn to them when I have the opportunity to meet one or more up close and personal (and if I know in advance of a meeting opportunity, a box of sugar cubes or a small portion thereof accompanies me on the trip, because I am not opposed to bribery when i comes to luring and or securing the confidence of the skittish!

Anyhoo I just woke up about 20 minutes ago (0400) heated up the last of the coffee and realized that I might want to make some more room in the freezer by finishing off one of the 3 bins of Ice-cream in the fridge in order to one: to make room for another, two to have some early morning Ice-cream and enjoy it with impunity because I can, three because it tastes so very delicious and finally, because i am back on the bike and if I have made it back to my fighting weight (150lbs give or take a couple, with appetite returned, being able to eat with impunity is a pleasure) if I am being generous I would be surprised. Without a scale handy and judging from previous experience I would bet that I am sitting at about 142-146lbs about now…And I can assure you that curiosity will demand that I check and pedantry will assure you that I will share…

Among the last things that I wanted to get off of my chest was a mention of my ‘Clatch of Bitches’! Over the years, I have managed to develop some very deep and enduring friendships with women who were young ladies when we initially met some of them had been co-workers or roommates or friends of friends to whom I became very close and one of them is married to my drummer Al…Danielle and I crossed paths when I was working at a bakery and she was working on a BFA and dating another old friend of mine. eventually she started working at the same bakery and we became closer eventually getting to become really good friends and then we became housemates…Around this time I had recently become adept at playing the bass guitar and before I knew it I was gigging regularly with two bands and in one of them was a drummer who I knew from highschool, but had gone to the other of two such schools in my town, but fortunately there was a certain amount of cross pollination among circles and the magic of venn put the two of us in overlapping portions of the same and it was made clear to me at one point that my buddy Al fancied my buddy Danielle (who had also made some positive statements regarding my buddy) Now I am not a yenta, and at the time managed to have a crippling difficulty in managing to summon the courage to ask a lady for a cup of coffee or a lunchdate, but Dan and I were working in a Bakery together and Al and I were in a band together and both had indicated to me an interest in the other, so I had no choice but to set it up, especially knowing that Al was a bit shy when it came to the ladies As was I, but I was fairly certain that this one would be a good match so I did what I felt necessary…And ended up in the wedding party, and the two of them are still married, have raised two wonderful young adults, and remain among my best friends…

Apologies for the detour from our regular fair but if I had to guess the anniversary is closing in and I feel I should do something nice for them, and this represents a start…

To Alexander and Danielle, I will always love you guys!!!

 

A single click will get you the big one…….If you wondered where the white on your rice got off to……

It has been found!

Now right there in all its aged-flaccid and whiter than wonder bread glory is a picture of Endgame Amerika…There is something about that image that is utterly fascinating, mesmerizing, and most definitely terrifying…Something ugly lurched out of the ground and demanded that progress must come to an immediate halt and that business must absolutely without any question be returned to normal with absolutely no hesitation, nor any line crossed to see this pass…I will leave us with this: Uncle Bens will probably have to hit up some of those pictured if it wants to continue offering white as a product. Or perhaps in anticipation they have diversified into a wild rice version of their product…

Another observation, or two….There has not been a picture that I have seen lately in which Paul Ryan does not have a glint in his eye suggestive of something…Or as someone who probably has the Oval office window measurements in his blackberry and the material and patterns already selected for the drapery he plans to have installed. Pence has the look of someone who also feels that he is less than a heartbeat away himself also having no idea that the long knives will be waiting for him as well Just about the time he feels that Gilead is within his grasp…

I thought about another round of ‘Spot the Brother’ because I thought that the dude in the distance might have been black…Oh well. Spotting a black dude within a mile of trump that is not in the secret service will be like spying a unicorn in flight…And with that enjoy a lovely spring day!

Now I don’t know, or more accurately can’t remember if the title of this piece has been employed in this Venue or not, but it has a long and enduring history of use among Bloggers of a Liberal bent, because the wonder that we know now as Heather Digby Parton, has always been among the most articulate and cogent commentators on Politics during my time on the Internet.

I remember fondly of the day I found out that this Digby person was a girl, pardon me, a Woman! I remember that for me it was in the comments at the Eschaton, where the discovery was met with surprise, and if possible even more respect, for nobody weighing in on the subject had thought for a moment about the sex of the person whose writing we all respected, but if pressed admitted an assumption that she was a he! I believe my own response was some variation of “Digby is a Girl?!?!? Awesome!!!

The idea that someone had been capable of writing reams of political opinion with intelligence wit and flair, and being so damn good at it and with such grace and charm was for some of us, Ok I will speak only for myself, for me astonishing in a way that excited and bothered me…Why did I assume that Digby was a man? Because it was the picture of the person sitting in front of the keyboard that I had in mind at the time, I am sure there are a number of reasons, but I was bothered, just a little bit, and simultaneously overjoyed to find out otherwise…

Preamble over, let us examine the beatings: And in this case she titles the piece: “What he said”

The New York Times Charles Blow that is

And begins with a quote from his piece:

Trumpian language is a thing unto itself: some manner of sophistry peppered with superlatives. It is a way of speech that defies the Reed-Kellogg sentence diagram. It is a jumble of incomplete thoughts stitched together with arrogance and ignorance. America is suffering under the tyranny of gibberish spouted by the lord of his faithful 46 percent.

For a Sophist who peppers his writing with superlative hyperbole™, I can’t but sit in awe of that sentence, nor wait to find out what the hell a Reed-Kellogg sentence diagram is, (though it suddenly occurs to me that he might be talking about something I last saw on the blackboard of a middle school English class) But to me that is like the rhetorical shiv that slips into the back of the target in a dark alley on an early morning which leaves its victim stumbling home, then lurching to a collapse on the porch in front of his door; ultimately choking to death on the blood pooling in his lungs. I mean I have just managed to use twice the words to say half as much. But then I am writing this not for the Times, but for a Liberal Snark Concern of questionable repute! He continues:

Trump’s employment of reduced rhetoric is not without precedent and is in fact a well-documented tool of history’s strongmen

And anyone who has spent any amount of time reading, writing, or otherwise attempting to process the unprecedented events of last fall may have come across a few references here and there to Mussolini or Twit-ler in various liberal haunts still extant and teeming with righteous indignation over the aforementioned circumvention of Democracy…And once again in some of those spaces and here as well, we are treated to prideful puffer-y and the Triumphal pounding of Chests as A strongman arrives to clean up the mess created by the Darkness, that Up-Jumped Uppity who presided over a peaceful eight years (mostly anyway) and managed to provide Millions with access to Health Care, they would not have managed to obtain under the previous implementation: A system not designed to secure the benefits of health, when life and liberty itself, might depend on them, but to extract rents under threat of suffering!

But Herr twitler™ is gonna remove that yoke, that burden of security from the shoulders of the man working overtime, in order to provide tax relief to parties that sneeze money when they encounter a bit too much pollen. In other words he is gonna do what all plutocrats do and take care of his own, who in his mind and their own, own it all and should suffer no burden, save occasionally having to put up with over eager assistance from the hired help. And for the vast numbers of those of us unwashed in the blood of grace those are burdons that not only would we fail to understand, but ones that we could in no fashion ever presume to undertake with the requisite grace or aplomb…

And she finishes:

It’s Orwellian, but I think we are having a hard time grappling with that because we assumed that an Orwellian world would spring from someone or a group of someones who planned it with ruthless efficiency. I don’t think it ever occurred to us that it would come about because our institutions would bend to a perceived necessity of propping up a celebrity imbecile and we’d all be sitting at home watching it happen on TV.

We should be happy with the scraps that our betters choose to pass on to us and we should strive to embrace, when our end comes, our dear leader: “And we loved Big Brother”

/shudders

I saw this earlier last evening and thought that I must share it with you all for it is brilliant, hilarious and poignant all at the same time. And if for no other reason It is now going to be in a location easily found from now on…Enjoy

“Another night up and down, up and down, up and down, like a literal elevator in here…”

Failing with tremendous aplomb to allow Circe the goddess of dreams Mythology to take control of the ship and take her out for a, hell, a three hour tour, would be appreciated at this point…And whip up some tiresome entertainment leaving me spent and ready for sleep when I disembarked….But for some reason I suck, am out of favor with the gods, or who knows, currently under some Odyssey or somesuch so here we are.

Among the shit racing through my mind chiefly among them looms like a poorly fitted suit crumpled up in the chair in the corner that I see in a flash out of the corner of my eye upon waking with a shock and realize that it is a pile of my clothes, and that I am alone in bed, and that a quick check with the hand indicates that I do indeed still have a full head of curly hair, and that I am not a shirtless, balding, bespectacled, short, fat guy, from queens, just a very tired opposite of all that, dude in recovery from a shitload of trauma with an unstoppable train of gears spinning a’skull…

I wouldn’t call ’em Trumpmares exactly, because to be honest, the continued bucket footing and clomping around in arguably the least presidential fashion in the course of history still has its charms, and so far the bucket brigade that followed him into congress are led by two morrass-ons more concerned currently, with their legacy, than with burning the place to the ground…I would imagine that some phones have been burning up in certain district offices about taking away grannies healthcare, and that they are feeling the heat that that wily negro had baked into the system when he did that most Hitlarian thing in the history of the misuse of Hitler metaphors, and gave everybody, and the poors included, a chance to enjoy that modicum of security that health care as a right provides…You know, the same one enjoyed by every other civilized nation on this Planet of Earth!

So that Wily Wabbit has Elmer Trump bucket footing through the wood with loaded shotgun preceded by the cloud of woodland fowl this horror alights in front of him giving bugs enough warning to provide time to set up staging, a stage itself for the denouement, sell tickets and pack the house, because he knows that everybody loves seeing Elmer be-sooted after he has managed, once again to shoot himself in the face and destroy yet another gun at the same time.

So far this one is the best of the bunch, though there was a momentary thread that had one in which Trump was George Costanza’s younger brother, but I could not bring that one to shore, nor find a good image of Fudd with destroyed gun, but I am sure you know what I am talking about…
…

I caught a bit of the head moving its mouth on my teebee screen this morning and there is just something about it that captures my attention…In some ways and on some days I just cant look away, but then he is one of them, well heeled, republican, and wholly without merit or taste, he manages to bestride the world like the underpants gnome hiding in the underwear of a child wearing a costume of a Collossus, the person to whom I refer is one Jeffrey Lord: Behold, his magnificence.

Yeah that guy.

The one once spotted usually means its time for that Seinfeld rerun or any other dvd that might already be in the player. And I will leave you with this to bask in!

And also I would like to move from steerage to the top of the page a comment that in its own way, something, something, from commenter *sad* who shares “If it works then it’s not stupid.”

And I realize that I cant argue with that, for I fail the subterranean acumen required to even cypher the meaning, let alone a stick of length that would allow me to properly and safely probe it without fear of blowback….

I thought that the title would be difficult to type, and then I thought it might be difficult to look at, but then realized that I have finally come to terms with the result of the selection past and must embrace an even more horrifying reality than the previous one which would keep me up at night. The idea that we might have to deal with preznit MoneyBooBoo™ for the foreseeable future, while praying that the Republicons™ got their brand protecting-impeachment-related, activities under way, leading of course, to a charming Blue eyed dreamy, Black-haired minx™* to be installed in the White-House has not been among the most comforting scenarios to contemplate, but did seem like the best possible case scenario only if it meant that I would not have to look old pursed-lipped, pussy grabber, in the face, nor listen to that shit-marsh be called President on my teebee screen…

As soon as the election was finished and that it quickly became clear that there were irregularities discovered that seemed to lack precedence and managed to uniquely favor on candidate over the other, I had my doubts. It may be that I am simply a partisan hack, or it may be that I am  a Historian and remember paying rapt attention to the TV screen as it was well past my bedtime awaiting the results of the 1972 election with my parents, whose anxiety was palpable…I was in second grade at the time and one of two McGovern Voters in the mock election held in our class, the other guy, was my best bud at the time…I believe that I delivered my first speech in front of class in favor of McGovern…It was for whom my parents were voting, not necessarily an act of honor or independence.

The point of that vignette is that I have paid particular attention to presidential election year politics from a very young age, and close attention to all of it earlier than most are inclined…Which I guess makes me somewhat unusual or not, but definitely an active consumer of news (the real stuff) since then, and in a way it is kind of funny that this existential dread I feel, reminds me of the mood after Nixon won term two, that permeated the house of my childhood, as my parents had done quite a bit of work with the local democratic party that year…

So now 44 years later we have yet another, this time gilded, fox looking after the hen-house and this one might just be the ApocalyptiFox™ the one with:

“eyes like steel, cold and hard, and a shock of hair, yellow, like the fires from hell”

 

*Paul Ryan
…