What if there are no more elections?
I'm just sayin'. There's lots of excitement in the media about the angry crowds at Town Hall meetings as people from the House of Reprehensibles meet with their constituents to discuss recent votes, particularly the Healthcare /Tax Cut travesty. "Boy," we say, rubbing our hands together, "aren't those bastards gonna be sorry when elections roll around in 2018 and they have to face these angry voters at actual polling places? Boy, won't that show 'em?"
Well, what's the simplest way to get around that, around consequences that so displease the rabble? Take away the rabble's voice. What could be simpler--find some pretext that says that voting would threaten The National Interest or some other sacrosanct-sounding mumbo-jumbo, and cancel or, better yet, postpone them until the non-existent crisis passed, AND IT NEVER WOULD! How beautiful is that? I just read that Merriam-Webster is adding "sheeple" to its pages, which describes too many Americans too well.
What, you don't think that Trump and his henchmen could pull such a thing off? If Jim Comey can get fired on such a blatantly Trumped-up charge--treating Hillary wrongly as the last election (and was it?) neared--as if the "Lock Her Uppers" suddenly saw the error of their ways, they can sell anything to the American sheeple. Do you really think that Sessions, Cruz, Kennedy of Louisiana, et al couldn't do that? Did you see their questioning of Sally Yates and Jim Clapper? They weren't interested in anything to do with Russia or Russian connections: they wanted to know about leaks, about who let the dirty little secrets out, so they might prevent them in the future and thus draw closer the cloaks of secrecy guarding what they're really doing. Just 'cause they've been stumbling all over themselves in the first few months doesn't mean that they don't have long-term plans that they'll eventually get right. Hitler had his brown shirts, Trump has his white. A fascist by any other color....
Read Sinclair Lewis: it can happen here and in fact may already be underway. Someone once said "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty (oh, look it up yourself)." Now's not the time to let our guards down when our unduly elected government is just getting theirs up. Are these just the 4 AM rantings of some long-haired hill-dwelling hippie? 'S possible, I guess. 'S possible otherwise, too: even paranoids have real enemies. Watch what happens in the coming days, weeks and months. Eternal vigilance is our only hope.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Comey? Comey's Down, Doobie Doo Down Down...
Holy Archibald Cox, Batman! In a dramatic midday massacre, President Pro Tempore Donald Drumpf fired FBI Director James Comey today for his mishandling of several prominent cases, not least of which is the release of the potentially incriminating emails containing pics of Hillary Clinton's aide's husband's dick.
Yes, that's right, one of the main reasons cited for the firing was the way Comey publicized and maybe politicized emails that may have directly affected the 2016 Presidential Election. In Drumpf's favor. Welcome to the ultimate see-through self-serving sleaze. Which Drumpf family member becomes the new head of the FBI? I'm betting on 11-year-old Barron; as the youngest member of the family he'll have the longest opportunity to serve and thus affect Trump family business interests and Russian money laundering. Just as the longest-reigning members of the Stewart/Windsor family head into the English sunset America begins to set up its own Royal Family of short-fingered, greasy-haired, extra-long-tied vulgarians. Long live Queens.
...Waking up is hard to do....
Yes, that's right, one of the main reasons cited for the firing was the way Comey publicized and maybe politicized emails that may have directly affected the 2016 Presidential Election. In Drumpf's favor. Welcome to the ultimate see-through self-serving sleaze. Which Drumpf family member becomes the new head of the FBI? I'm betting on 11-year-old Barron; as the youngest member of the family he'll have the longest opportunity to serve and thus affect Trump family business interests and Russian money laundering. Just as the longest-reigning members of the Stewart/Windsor family head into the English sunset America begins to set up its own Royal Family of short-fingered, greasy-haired, extra-long-tied vulgarians. Long live Queens.
...Waking up is hard to do....
Sunday, April 9, 2017
SCROTUS Raises Its Ugly--Er--Head
I don't know about you, but I was really just getting comfortable with the acronyms POTUS (President Of The United States) and SCOTUS (Supreme Court Of The United States) as briefly describing those two branches of our government. Now comes those cutting-edge Repugnicants with yet another term for every schoolkid to learn: SCROTUS (Supreme Court [Republican Only] Tramples United States). Trust them to add a new wrinkle (all puns and innuendo intended) to an already-ugly situation.
During a week in which Drumpf realized that some situations called for a more complicated answer than "NO!" or a flat-out-lying-tweet, Bashar al-Assad provided invaluable cover for the swearing-in of Neil Gorbasuch (He must be a Rooskie, right? That's who we deal with now, after all), which went by almost unnoticed in a hail of Tomahawk missiles. Which will be the more important event in two weeks, let alone twenty years?
A position on The Supreme Court is essentially, of course, a lifetime appointment, which is why Mitch McConnell (R-Obstructionist) considers as his greatest achievement the fact that he was able to deny President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, even a meeting, let alone a hearing, in one of the most egregious abuses of power in US history. So we get Gorbasuch, who will likely take a position to the right of the Thomas/Alito/Roberts wing of the Court, which is to say that they'll have to add on to the room in order for him to be able to sit far enough to the right. If The Heritage Foundation lobbied for him he's no Louis Brandeis, or even Henry David Souter.
We must find a better system of appointing Justices to, and removing them from, the Court. Rick Perry, of all people, has proposed what seems to me a great idea: Justices would serve 18-year terms, and there would be a turnover at two year intervals. That way every POTUS would get to seat at least two Justices on the SCOTUS, and there would be less of a chance of a SCROTUS, having to wait till death do us part in order to make change. It would also likely skew the Court younger, which would not be a bad thing. Rick Perry suggested that! Hey, take it where you find it....
In the meantime we're left with a seriously flawed system whereby, now that the so-called "nuclear (or nucular, to Repugs) option" has been employed will ensure an ever more partisan court, totally politicized. There is no need for the parties to work together, as the party with the most votes in the Senate will always run their nominee through, with no need for any bipartisan cooperation or dealing. No longer are 60 votes required for confirmation. 51 will do, with the Vice president of the party in power casting a tie-breaking vote as necessary. Drumpf could conceivably get to appoint two or three more Justices, changing the course of history for a generation, and there's nothing to be done about it. Which leads me to one last acronym: SCREWEDUS. Senate Court Regulators Easily Wasted Endless Days Undermining Society.
During a week in which Drumpf realized that some situations called for a more complicated answer than "NO!" or a flat-out-lying-tweet, Bashar al-Assad provided invaluable cover for the swearing-in of Neil Gorbasuch (He must be a Rooskie, right? That's who we deal with now, after all), which went by almost unnoticed in a hail of Tomahawk missiles. Which will be the more important event in two weeks, let alone twenty years?
A position on The Supreme Court is essentially, of course, a lifetime appointment, which is why Mitch McConnell (R-Obstructionist) considers as his greatest achievement the fact that he was able to deny President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, even a meeting, let alone a hearing, in one of the most egregious abuses of power in US history. So we get Gorbasuch, who will likely take a position to the right of the Thomas/Alito/Roberts wing of the Court, which is to say that they'll have to add on to the room in order for him to be able to sit far enough to the right. If The Heritage Foundation lobbied for him he's no Louis Brandeis, or even Henry David Souter.
We must find a better system of appointing Justices to, and removing them from, the Court. Rick Perry, of all people, has proposed what seems to me a great idea: Justices would serve 18-year terms, and there would be a turnover at two year intervals. That way every POTUS would get to seat at least two Justices on the SCOTUS, and there would be less of a chance of a SCROTUS, having to wait till death do us part in order to make change. It would also likely skew the Court younger, which would not be a bad thing. Rick Perry suggested that! Hey, take it where you find it....
In the meantime we're left with a seriously flawed system whereby, now that the so-called "nuclear (or nucular, to Repugs) option" has been employed will ensure an ever more partisan court, totally politicized. There is no need for the parties to work together, as the party with the most votes in the Senate will always run their nominee through, with no need for any bipartisan cooperation or dealing. No longer are 60 votes required for confirmation. 51 will do, with the Vice president of the party in power casting a tie-breaking vote as necessary. Drumpf could conceivably get to appoint two or three more Justices, changing the course of history for a generation, and there's nothing to be done about it. Which leads me to one last acronym: SCREWEDUS. Senate Court Regulators Easily Wasted Endless Days Undermining Society.
Saturday, March 25, 2017
"Send Lawyers, Guns And Money" Yet Again
Oh Warren Zevon, gone far, far too soon, wouldn't you love what's happening now? His song "Lawyers, Guns and Money" concerns a spoiled rich kid who keeps getting into "scrapes" in places such as Havana and Honduras and pleading with his Dad to "Get me out of this one." Now "President" Trump (rhymes with "impeach") no longer has a daddy to bail him out and he's long since blown through the fortune that his father left him for seed money (crops failed frequently), but it appears as if he may again need the help of that titular trio.
As the elation at the inability of the Repugnicants in the House of Reprehensibles to kill the Affordable Care Act and replace it with--surprise, surprise: TryanrumpCare, a scheme to further step on the backsides of the poor and middle-class while lining the pockets of billionaires even more--fades, America will turn its lonely eyes back to the growing Trump/Russia money-makes-strange-bedfellows scandal. If Devin Nunes (rhymes with "inept lackey") doesn't completely foul the House "Intelligence" Committee's investigation, in the coming days and weeks we're likely to read and hear lots about Cyprus, Russia's favorite money-laundering spot, and Deutsche Bank, and Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Roger Stone and, maybe most interesting, Wilbur Ross. Mr. Ross, it turns out, is a former Vice (how appropriate) Chairman of the Bank of Cyprus; in that capacity he oversaw or brokered many deals involving Russian oligarchs (rhymes with mobsters) and enormous sums of money flowing into and out of Cyprus. Ross is currently Donald Trump's (rhymes with "inmate") Commerce Secretary.
Joan Baez famously and smarmily said, of Live Aid : "This is your Woodstock." Well, of course it wasn't, but what's happening now may be this generation's Watergate, except on an unimaginably grander scale. These guys did hijack a Presidential election, unlike what came of the "third-rate burglary" at the Watergate Hotel. That election was already in the bag for Nixon; this one was not, and was greatly influenced by Russia. And remember Deep Throat's advice to Woodward and Bernstein: "Follow the money." In this caper there's money everywhere, which will probably make it both easier and harder to follow. But, as is usually the case, he said, trying to be optimistic, "truth will out." Let's hope that what Willie the Shake said in The Merchant of Venice still holds true in the Age of Information.
And by the way, the opening stanza in "Lawyers, Guns and Money" is "Well, I went home with the waitress/ The way I always do/How was I to know/ She was with the Russians too?"....
As the elation at the inability of the Repugnicants in the House of Reprehensibles to kill the Affordable Care Act and replace it with--surprise, surprise: TryanrumpCare, a scheme to further step on the backsides of the poor and middle-class while lining the pockets of billionaires even more--fades, America will turn its lonely eyes back to the growing Trump/Russia money-makes-strange-bedfellows scandal. If Devin Nunes (rhymes with "inept lackey") doesn't completely foul the House "Intelligence" Committee's investigation, in the coming days and weeks we're likely to read and hear lots about Cyprus, Russia's favorite money-laundering spot, and Deutsche Bank, and Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Roger Stone and, maybe most interesting, Wilbur Ross. Mr. Ross, it turns out, is a former Vice (how appropriate) Chairman of the Bank of Cyprus; in that capacity he oversaw or brokered many deals involving Russian oligarchs (rhymes with mobsters) and enormous sums of money flowing into and out of Cyprus. Ross is currently Donald Trump's (rhymes with "inmate") Commerce Secretary.
Joan Baez famously and smarmily said, of Live Aid : "This is your Woodstock." Well, of course it wasn't, but what's happening now may be this generation's Watergate, except on an unimaginably grander scale. These guys did hijack a Presidential election, unlike what came of the "third-rate burglary" at the Watergate Hotel. That election was already in the bag for Nixon; this one was not, and was greatly influenced by Russia. And remember Deep Throat's advice to Woodward and Bernstein: "Follow the money." In this caper there's money everywhere, which will probably make it both easier and harder to follow. But, as is usually the case, he said, trying to be optimistic, "truth will out." Let's hope that what Willie the Shake said in The Merchant of Venice still holds true in the Age of Information.
And by the way, the opening stanza in "Lawyers, Guns and Money" is "Well, I went home with the waitress/ The way I always do/How was I to know/ She was with the Russians too?"....
Monday, March 20, 2017
What Goes 99 Trump, 98 Trump, 97 Trump, And So On?
Why, a Trumpipede dropping its shoes, of course. And boy, are they gonna continue to drop in the days, weeks and months to come as, as the Trumpipede loses its shoes, we see that it is actually wholly clothes-less. "Sometimes even the President of the United States must have to stand naked," indeed.
Given the extraordinary circumstances coming to light by the minute, I'm here to say that I hope my blog is back. At any rate I wanted to be the first kid on the block to use the name "Gorbasuch" for the nascently ex-President's Supreme Court nominee. No evidence whatsoever that he should be tainted by the burgeoning scandal? Hey, if you roll around in sties you're gonna smell like pig shit, right?
What's the Russian word for "Watergate," do you s'pose?
See you later.
Given the extraordinary circumstances coming to light by the minute, I'm here to say that I hope my blog is back. At any rate I wanted to be the first kid on the block to use the name "Gorbasuch" for the nascently ex-President's Supreme Court nominee. No evidence whatsoever that he should be tainted by the burgeoning scandal? Hey, if you roll around in sties you're gonna smell like pig shit, right?
What's the Russian word for "Watergate," do you s'pose?
See you later.
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