MINUTIA & INCONSEQUENTIA ~ AUG 28, 2017

Before we delve into all the links and stuff that make up the bulk of this "Minutia and Inconsequentia" edition of the DDD, I'd like to point out a few things, just to give any future readers a sense of what the situation is on the ground here in late August 2017.

On Friday, as hurricane Harvey, a category 4 storm, was bearing down on the Texas gulf coast, pushing an insane volume of water ahead of it--thanks in large part, according to experts, to the effects of climate change--President* Donald Trump took time out of what should have been an incredibly busy schedule to do three things.

BUH-BYE!

First, he--or, more likely, John Kelly--finally kicked that ridiculously under-qualified, potato-headed Nazi-loving fraud Sebastian Gorka out of the White House... and if you believe he left willingly, then I've got some Alex Jones brand powdered bone supplement that I can give you an excellent deal on. With Gorka's exit following hot on the heels of his fellow Breitbart co-conspirator Steve Bannon's ouster, that leaves only one man standing in the White House's Triumvirate of Alt Right Twats: Stephen Miller. Watch for that H.P. Lovecraft look-alike's departure in the coming days or, at most, weeks.

"HAHA! FOOLED YA!"

Second, he followed through on his earlier promise to ban transgender troops from serving in the American military by issuing a memo ordering the secretaries of defense and homeland security to lay the groundwork for the implementation of this policy by February 2018 at the latest.

Finally, with ZERO Department of Justice involvement, he issue a historically unprecedented Presidential pardon to the second most unambiguously evil lawman in postwar American history after Alabama's Bull Connor: the former, long-serving sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa county, Joe Arpaio.

It seems obvious at this point that Trump pardoning one of America's most prominent racist folk heroes a mere two weeks after the Far Right's deadly show of force in Charlottesville, Virginia was no coincidence, nor was it evidence of him being oblivious to the symbolism of it all. He knew full well how this pardon would play with the Trumpnik Redcaps. And, even more important to a revenge-obsessed hate-monger like Trump, he knew full well how much it would enrage and disturb his "enemies". Pardoning his fellow racist/Birther buddy Arpaio was a total win/win, with no downside.

It also didn't hurt that the two men have so much in common. For instance, they're both self-pitying narcissists who can't stop complaining about how hard done by they are.

Go ahead and see how long you can watch Trump's pool-boy Sean Hannity tongue-scrubbing Arpaio's butthole clean on FOX News before you have to run off somewhere to puke. If you make it to the part where the scrotum-faced toad whines, ever so ironically: “If they can go after me, they can go after ANYONE in this country!”, then give yourself a Gold Star.

Let's see, what else do Trump and Arpaio share? Oh yes! Their fondness for “watersports” and scat, as evidenced by Trump's notorious Russian “kompromat” pee tape, and Arpaio's online prison shitter porn cam. And then there's the fact that they both have zero respect for the norms, standards, and institutions of good governance, constitutional guarantees, and the law, as evidenced by both of them frequently trying to intimidate judges and attack investigators who dare to look into whatever shenanigans it is they're trying to get away with on any given day. 

Speaking of criminally negligent and/or dangerously insane law enforcement officers, Trump spent much of the weekend angrily tweeting his usual measure of nonsense and vitriol, this time threatening to terminate NAFTA, trying to bully Mexico into paying for his stupid wall, obsessing over the 2016 election... and hawking deranged Milwaukee county sheriff David Clarke's new book.

Meanwhile, this was happening:

***

As #HurricaneHarvey intensifies - remember to #PlanAhead.
☑️https://t.co/FMdmvohypy
☑️https://t.co/YL56ldeqoW
☑️https://t.co/t1s4AL3B47 pic.twitter.com/tpXmOK70ug

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2017

As long as we're still on the topic of Hurricane Harvey, it was while watching this disturbing and ridiculous Trump PSA about it that I came to a sudden realization about which world leader Trump most reminds me of. No, it isn't North Korea's boy king Kim Jong Un, as many have declared. To me, Trump acts like the former leader of Uganda: Idi Amin! There's a scene in a famous documentary about Amin, entitled Idi Amin Dada, where the former African dictator lectures a room full of doctors about how they should be doing their jobs. Absolutely full of himself, a clueless buffoon bloviating at length about a subject in which he has zero training or expertise... and yet he's being treated like the Buddha himself all the while. To me, Amin is a far better fit than Kim Jong Un.

And finally for today, here are a bunch of links to stories you may or may not find interesting.

• For a number of reasons, some of which are just as scuzzy and gross as you might have imagined, Canada's own version of Breitbart, The Rebel Media, is in the process of collapsing! Good riddance to bad rubbish is all that we here at the Daily Dirt Diaspora media family have to say about that.
• In case you were wondering about the image at the top of today's edition, that just happens to be an artist's recreation of a 540-million-year-old, anus-mouthed creature that is, quite possibly, mankind's most ancient shared ancestor! If this turns out to be confirmed, it sure will explain a lot about the past few decades, I'll tell you what.
• And last, but not least, this Atlantic essay by Julie Beck hopes to prove to you that the incredible amount of personal anxiety you're feeling over the state of the world these days is absolutely and categorically useless, in every sense of the word. So you'd might as well try to develop a sense of humor about it. 

***

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I'd like to address myself to those people ... who waited for hours in 105-degree heat so that they could have the G-spot of their irrationality properly stroked for them. You're all suckers. You're dim and you're ignorant and you can't even feel yourself sliding toward something that will surprise even you with its fundamental ugliness, something that everybody who can see past the veil of their emotions can see as plain as a church by daylight, to borrow a phrase from that Willie Shakespeare fella. The problem, of course, is that you, in your pathetic desire to be loved by a guy who wouldn't have 15 seconds for you on the street, are dragging the rest of us toward that end, too.”

- The always eloquent Charles P. Pierce, in his Esquire essay “I Have No More Patience for Trump Supporters”, waxes poetic.

TRUMP CABINET SING HIS PRAISES ON TV

I saw a lot of people poking fun at Trump's weird televised cabinet meeting on Monday, in which his underlings all tripped over each other for a chance to lick the bossman's butthole clean. Even a senior US Senator got in on the act.

Then I went and watched it for myself. And you know what? 

It's not funny. 

Not one bit. 

It's fucking terrifying.

DDD EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ~ MARCH 31, 2017

HOLY FUCKING CRAP!!!

THE "OUTLANDISH" AND "RIDICULOUS" AND "PATENTLY FALSE" RUMORS WERE TRUE... MIKE FLYNN HAS OFFERED TO COOPERATE WITH FBI RE: TRUMP/RUSSIA CONNECTIONS IN EXCHANGE FOR IMMUNITY!

IN THE MEANTIME...

Hey guys! Yer old pal Jerky scored a professional illustration gig with a company here in Toronto, and it's going to be taking up a few hours a day for at least the next five days, which means my blogging will be somewhat more sparse and haphazard for the foreseeable near future. 

Oh, I'll still be posting! But it'll probably most likely be links to other people's stuff (and guest editorials should any of you lazy fuckers decide to participate like in the good old days). 

Anyway, y'all should still check back periodically, as there is some kuh-RAY-zee shit going down after a couple of relatively slow news days, and I'll be focused on bringing you the unheralded side-news and connecting the rogue dots that the mainstream media love to shove aside in the service of their ongoing Master Narratives. They've ALL got one. 

Cheers!

yer old pal Jerky

***

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. We've all heard of White Lies, but have you ever heard of Blue Lies? Apparently, that's the relatively new psychiatric terminology for the very specific type of lies that Trump likes to tell, as explained in this Scientific American blog post. It begins:

Donald Trump tells lies. 

His deceptions and misleading statements are easy to unmask. In the latest example—after hundreds of well-documented lies—FBI director James Comey told Congress this week that there is “no information that supports” Trump’s claim that President Obama tapped his phone. 

But Trump’s political path presents a paradox. Far from slowing his momentum, his deceit seemed only to strengthen his support through the primary and national election. Now, every time a lie is exposed, his support among Republicans doesn’t seem to waver very much. In the wake of the Comey revelations, his average approval rating held at 40 percent. 

This has led many people to ask themselves: How does the former reality-TV star get away with it? How can he tell so many lies and still win support from many Americans?
Journalists and researchers have suggested many answers, from hyper-biased, segmented media to simple ignorance on the part of GOP voters. But there is another explanation that no one seems to have entertained. It is that Trump is telling “blue” lies—a psychologist’s term for falsehoods, told on behalf of a group, that can actually strengthen the bonds among the members of that group. 

Children start to tell selfish lies at about age three, as they discover adults cannot read their minds: I didn’t steal that toy, Daddy said I could, He hit me first. At around age seven, they begin to tell white lies motivated by feelings of empathy and compassion: That’s a good drawing, I love socks for Christmas, You’re funny. 

Blue lies are a different category altogether, simultaneously selfish and beneficial to others—but only to those who belong to your group. As University of Toronto psychologist Kang Lee explains, blue lies fall in between generous white lies and selfish “black” ones. “You can tell a blue lie against another group,” he says, which makes it simultaneously selfless and self-serving. “For example, you can lie about your team's cheating in a game, which is antisocial, but helps your team.”

Sound like anything you've heard on the news recently? It sure does to yer old pal Jerky. Keep reading. There's lots of brainy goodness to be had in the rest of the article.

2. Yeah, so all those snooty, snotty, alt.left muckety-mucks who go around saying shit like: "I'll believe that the Trump administration and/or the Trump Family and/or the Trump Organization have a wide variety of deeply entrenched and most likely highly illegal connections with the Kremlin and/or with Putin-affiliated oligarchs and/or with Russian organized crime, ONLY WHEN AND IF I am personally hand delivered irrefutable evidence of said accusations by Eva Green (or Michael Fassbender) while they feed me grapes and tell me what a good and smart little boy or girl I've been for maintaining my saintly, above-it-all skepticism despite the intolerable torture of having the neo-McCarthyite Faux Left say hurtful things about me, day in and day out." This article on WHY the FBI can't reveal everything they currently know about Trump and Russia is for THAT bunch of fucking goofs. It begins:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation cannot tell us what we need to know about Donald Trump’s contacts with Russia. Why? Because doing so would jeopardize a long-running, ultra-sensitive operation targeting mobsters tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and to Trump.

It gets more in depth, of course, but the gist--which, quite frankly, was obvious to anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together--is all any civilian really needs to know at this point. And yes, I'm being serious.

3. "Psychic Sexual Time Travel! Evil Reptilian Overlords! That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the greatest conspiracy theory of all time: The Redhawk Project!" As the inaugural edition of the DDD's new promise to bring you, the reader, works and creators that are simply TOO GOOD FOR YOUTUBETM, I bring +you the inimitable Bowser Vids, and his beautifully true-to-form take on the kind of shitty conspiritard "documentary" videos that people used to VHS tape off the TV back in the late 80's early 90's.  I guarantee you'll enjoy this short but sweet video, as well as the vast majority of Bowser's output, which includes a strong stable of recurring characters and fresh takes on shopworn sketchcom tropes!

***
QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I didn't hear a word she said. I was looking at her James Brown wig. Do we have a picture of James? It's the same wig!”

- Listen folks... I take a backseat to no one when it comes to despising the odious booze-drenched sex pest that is Bill O'Reilly. And I admire Representative Maxine Waters (D-Cali) and her fearless willingness to always speak truth to power. I truly do. But even I have to admit... that James Brown diss was pretty fuckin' funny.

***
DDD EXTRAS

• If you want to learn about some cool and/or weird things that happened on whatever day of history that it happens to be when you're reading this, why not check out our sister-site, Useless Eater Blog? You're sure to find something of interest, guaranteed!
• At the Kubrick U blog, you can viddy some very horrosho, very 70's Clockwork Orange bubble gum collector's cards!

***
A REMEMBRANCE

This week, I learned that a beloved resident of my adopted neighborhood of Parkdale, Toronto, had passed away under a troubling set of circumstances early in the month of March. The community's sadness at having lost our unofficial "greeter" was sufficiently great that news of Nav's passing made its way all the way up to the CBC, Canada's national public broadcasting corporation. 

Nav was one of those cursed/blessed martyrs who, in their refusal to acknowledge the terrible truth of cosmic futility, make up the volunteer workforce through whose sacrifice the very fabric of the universe is held together. 

As it is my sincerely held belief that said aforementioned universe is a singularity--that it is one thing, which means that, to ever have lived is to be, in a very real sense, immortal--I would like to share a poem with you all, in Nav's memory... 

1=0=INFINITY

The universe is one.

Nothing that is, is not.

All that is, is.

The universe is infinite.

Infinity contains infinite infinities.

Everything that is, is repeated, infinitely.

Thus, infinity is one.

Because the universe is infinite,

And because the universe is one,

The universe does not exist.

It cannot begin until it is finished.

It is finished before it can begin.

One = Infinity = Zero.

Now is the arrow that cuts the air.

We are the air, split by the arrow.

We are not now.

Because we are not infinite.

Because we are not one.

And because we exist.

***

HERE'S HOW THIS WILL END FOR TRUMP (THREE OPTIONS)

DDD EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ~ MARCH 28, 2017

We all know how this White House just HATES to jump to conclusions...

DID YOU KNOW?

• Did you know that, when asked for the White House's reaction to news that a race terrorist (James Jackson) had traveled to New York City and murdered someone (Timothy Caughman) with a sword, spokesman Sean Spicer chose instead to complain about how the biased media had failed to predict that the idiot who called in hundreds of bomb threats to Jewish schools and community centers would turn out to be Jewish, himself? Fucking incredible, ain't it?
• Did you know that over 200 men, women and children were blown to pieces on Thursday during an American bombing raid in Mosul, Iraq? And that military officials are hinting that this may be the fruit of Trump demanding that Obama era "restrictions", designed to lessen the chance and impact of civilian casualties, be dropped?
• Did you know that while White House leakers were planting the story that Trump was "very upset" with son-in-law Jared Kushner for jetting off to Aspen for a family ski vacation during the final days in the disastrous campaign to pass Trumpcare, evidence has emerged that there may be a whole lot more to that Aspen trip than just skiing? Considering some of the other stuff this Eric Rosenwald cat has uncovered recently--and considering who's involved--I'd be avoiding small aircraft and packing heat at all times if I were him.
• Did you know that Alex Jones' apology for helping to spread the incredibly stupid alt.right conspiracy theory-cum-Fascist International psychological operation known as PizzaGate was totally sincere, legit, and above board? Here! Watch and listen for yourself!

• Did you know that Donald Trump supporters in Ohio don't just know that the man they voted for is lying to them on the regular... nor do they simply accept it... but that they've actually grown to ENJOY being lied to and taken for suckers?
• Did you know that Trump's recent meeting with German chancelor Angela Merkel was even more awkward and humiliating than we'd been lead to believe? Aside from the infamous handshake refusal incident, we've since learned that, during their private meeting behind closed doors, Trump handed Merkel a literal, paper and ink, printed out invoice for $374,000,000,000.00?! This, allegedly, is the amount that Trump and his minions have calculated that Germany owes to NATO... you know... for 'protection'. Ah... another totally diplomatic, above board, and not at all thuggish gesture from Trump!
• And finally, did you know that those upstart lefties over at (ahem) Business Insider have put together a month-by-month timeline of events that unfolded during the election that seem to support the FBI's investigation into Trump colluding with the Russians? To paraphrase one of our age's great statesmen: "It's true! It's really true! Bad (or sick) guy!"

***

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Are you ready for an incredibly information-dense serving of food for thought? Iain Sinclair's The Last London, derived from his February 10 presentation of the first of the London Review of Books' Winter Lecture series for 2017, serves as a meal and a half to those ready, willing and able to digest it. Half pre-Apocalyptic post-Modern fantasia and half hauntological mystery tour, it begins:

So: the last London. It has to be said with a climbing inflection at the end. Every statement is provisional here. Nothing is fixed or grounded. Come back tomorrow and the British Museum will be an ice rink, a boutique hotel, a fashion hub. The familiar streets outside will have vanished into walls of curved glass and progressive holes in the ground. The darkened showroom of the Brick Lane monumental mason with the Jewish headstones will be an art gallery. 

So? The Victorian theatre on Dalston Lane is already a windblown concrete slab with optional water jets propping up a reef of speculative towers nobody can afford on a buttress of failed enterprises, themed restaurants forever changing their allegiance and retail opportunities nobody is rushing to take up, despite those elegantly faded CGI panoramas of satisfied customers who never lived in the world as we know it. 

So? I’m trying to teach myself the grammar of a terminated city in which every sentence begins with a confident clearing of the throat: ‘So …’ That’s the entry code. It’s as if you’ve been shoved onstage, without lines, in a play you’ve never read. Smile brightly. Bluff like a politician in a glass booth being manipulated by semaphoring black-suited attendants with clipboards. 

So? ‘All for the best in the best of all possible Londons,’ says the mayor, says the minister, says Joanna Lumley. ‘All for the best,’ say the entitled, the connected, the stakeholders, the investors and the profit-takers. That insignificant ‘so’ has moved with the times. When my children were teenagers, ‘so’ meant ‘so’. 

So!!! So what? A hormonal challenge. Now it’s a signifier, a warning bleep letting the recipient know that nothing that follows has any billable consequence. The speaker, the spokesperson, the hireling expert, is not accountable. Language in the last London is a negotiation, a spin of terminological inexactitudes. 

We are losing the ground beneath our feet. Slipping and sliding on subordinating conjunctions, we are disorientated. We feel as if we are falling as we walk, reaching out for anything cold and hard and more than a week old. In his book Vertical: The City from Satellites to Bunkers, the geographer Stephen Graham quotes Hito Steyerl, a German video artist: ‘Many contemporary philosophers have pointed out that the present moment is distinguished by a prevailing condition of groundlessness.’ 

Call it ground-zero vertigo. Non-specific paranoia. Territory, as soon as it can be adequately surveyed by drones, or hard-hat visionaries in helicopters, from heights where even the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park looks great, is only there to be explained, improved, colonised and captured. So? 

So? So what?

I realize that sounds like the end of the thing, but trust me, it's only just the beginning. Sinclair goes on, bringing in everyone from Thatcher and Reagan to J.G. Ballard and Michael Moorcock to Punk Rock and Fu Manchu. Also, there's an audio version at the link that serves as both a running commentary to the text and an augmentation of it (differing very much from the work it's allegedly an audio version of, for some reason). If you're sincerely interested in broadening your intellectual horizons and you've got an Internet connection and 90 minutes to kill, you could certainly do worse than read, and listen to, Sinclair's epic editorial peregrinations.

2. While it should in no way be viewed as the final word on the subject, practicing clinical psychologist Bruce Levine's Alternet essay "How Ayn Rand Helped Turn the U.S. into a Selfish, Greedy Nation" is one of the best things I've read about this noxious author in a very long time, and could definitely serve as a very fine critical introduction to--and thus, a good inoculation against--some of the more pernicious elements of her work, her "philosophy", and her cult. After an epigram by Gore Vidal, it begins:

Only rarely in U.S. history do writers transform us to become a more caring or less caring nation. In the 1850s, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was a strong force in making the United States a more humane nation, one that would abolish slavery of African Americans. A century later, Ayn Rand (1905-1982) helped make the United States into one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world, a neo-Dickensian society where healthcare is only for those who can afford it, and where young people are coerced into huge student-loan debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. 

Rand’s impact has been widespread and deep. At the iceberg’s visible tip is the influence she’s had over major political figures who have shaped American society. In the 1950s, Ayn Rand read aloud drafts of what was later to become Atlas Shrugged to her “Collective,” Rand’s ironic nickname for her inner circle of young individualists, which included Alan Greenspan, who would serve as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1987 to 2006. 

In 1966, Ronald Reagan wrote in a personal letter, “Am an admirer of Ayn Rand.” Today, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) credits Rand for inspiring him to go into politics, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) calls Atlas Shrugged his “foundation book.” Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) says Ayn Rand had a major influence on him, and his son Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is an even bigger fan. A short list of other Rand fans includes Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Christopher Cox, chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission in George W. Bush’s second administration; and former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford. 

But Rand’s impact on U.S. society and culture goes even deeper.

Levine has done yeoman's work, bringing us his specialist's take on Rand's peculiarly popular psychopathologies. If you've got any committed Randroids in your entourage, don't bother sending this to them. But DO send it to anyone you think that Randroid might possibly infect. And remember: Friends don't let Friends read Ayn Rand!

3. Yer old pal Jerky loves him some Mystery Science Theater 3000. In fact, I think it's one of the greatest--and definitely among the funniest--television programs in the history of the medium. I've been down about MST3K's cancellation since 1999 for Torgo's sake! So when news emerged that Joel was doing a Kickstarter for a new version of the show, I was like, YEAH! And then, when they broke all Kickstarter records for a TV show, I was like, HELL's YEAH! And then, when I found out it was gonna be on Netflix, which means all the first season episodes are gonna drop simultaneously, I was like, FRICKEN' ACE! And then, when I found out that the new season of MST3K was basically popping into existence ON MY BIRTHDAY, I was like, PPFFRREAAAAHHRRGGHH!!! Anyway, Today's Suggested Readings are pretty heavy, so here's a 48 second commercial for the new season of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Huzzah!

***
QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I think that sooner or later the white working-class constituency will recognize, and in fact, much of the rural population will come to recognize, that [Trump's] promises are built on sand. There is nothing there. And then what happens becomes significant. In order to maintain his popularity, the Trump administration will have to try to find some means of rallying the support and changing the discourse from the policies that they are carrying out, which are basically a wrecking ball to something else. ... And that can turn out to be very ugly. I think that we shouldn't put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly.”

- Oh, so now the world's most widely respected public intellectual, Professor Noam Fucking Chomsky, is willing to "go there", is he? Welcome to the Parapolitical Science Club, Noam. Sure fuckin' took you long enough to get here.

DDD EXTRAS

• If you want to learn about some cool and/or weird things that happened on whatever day of history that it happens to be when you're reading this, why not check out our sister-site, Useless Eater Blog? You're sure to find something of interest, guaranteed!
• At the Kubrick U blog, you can viddy some very horrosho, very 70's Clockwork Orange bubble gum collector's cards!

THE TAKEAWAY

I have reformulated my image from the last DDD Executive Summary in order to more accurately reflect the way Trump backed off from his repeal and replace of Obamacare... and to add a tattered American flag. I think this way is better, frankly, because the original invests Trump's self-destruction with far too much conscious agency.

DDD EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ~ MARCH 25, 2017

THINK TRUMP IS TIRED OF WINNING YET?

Watching the Trumpcare debacle play itself out the way it did left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied... kind of hollow inside, like we'd been denied some truly cleansing, calamitous conclusion, instead of what happened, which was essentially a slow rolling stop, followed by a beeping noise as the whole thing ignominiously ground its gears into reverse... and went away under a sulking cloud of We Give Up.

Don't get me wrong! Watching Trump suckle at the teat of failure is always nothing less than divine. But let’s pause for a moment and consider the implications of Trump failing to pass his first piece of signature legislative business: the repeal and replacement of that dreaded bugaboo, Obamacare. And no, it was not all just a part of some brilliant scheme by Steve Bannon to smoke out disloyal Republicans in order to identify them so that they might be targeted for future removal, as some right wingers have begun to speculate.

No, two things are immediately plain to see. First, up until early Friday afternoon, Trump actually thought he had the political capital to bull this thing trough Congress. Second, it's obvious that Trump's first order of business since Friday afternoon's unprecedented humiliation has been to find someone, ANYONE, to soak up the blame for his total, abject failure. 

So... who has Trump tried to blame so far?

The Democrats were his first target, of course, as anyone could have told you they were going to be. But even a blind man could see that it isn’t the Democrats who pooped in Trump’s metaphorical punch bowl this time. No, this was clearly a friendly fire incident. It was a couple dozen Republicans who refused to back Trump's dead-on-arrival legislative loser of a healthcare package. 

One interesting aspect of this phenomenon is trying to suss out exactly why so many Republican House members refused to back both their President and their Speaker. I mean, it's hard to quantify just exactly how big of a deal this is... how bad it makes the GOP look. 

Rhetorically, the Republican nay-sayers are all publicly criticizing AHCA from the right; saying that it does, and costs, too much. This is to be expected, as the modern GOP is a rigid and doctrinaire conservative movementarian party. 

However, the way yer old pal Jerky sees it, I think the real reason these "Freedom Caucus" cuckoos buckled and joined the Dems is because deep down, they knew it was a terrible piece of legislation. And even if, as philosophically rigid conservative movementarians, they couldn't give less of a shit about millions of Americans losing their healthcare coverage... they do give a shit about keeping their jobs, and all the perks and power that come with their political careers.

Which brings us to Saturday afternoon, when Trump took time out from his no doubt hectic schedule to take to Twitter and make a television viewing suggestion to all his many followers and fans:

Watch @JudgeJeanine on @FoxNews tonight at 9:00 P.M.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2017

Gee, after such a bruising couple of days, I wonder why Trump could possibly think it was important for his followers to tune into that walking, talking, plastic surgery disaster's show? Let's tune in and find out! 

Oooh... NOW I get it! Trump has settled on his scapegoat! He's decided Wisconsin's own Paul Ryan (R-Munster) is going to be the one to absorb all the blame for Trumpcare’s failure! And he's chosen Jeanine Pirro, the Wicked Witch of Westchester, to serve as his Creeping Death!

Personally, yer old pal Jerky's favorite moment from the above video is when this reptilian scorpion-woman disingenuously hisses through her pursed buccal sphincter: "Now, I certainly have not spoken with the President about ANY of this!" CLASSIC!

You know, there's just something so nakedly transparent about all this, so pathetically desperate and pathologically deceitful… it's just so fucking AWESOME!!!

MINUTIA AND INCONSEQUENTIA

• Did y'all catch former CIA Director James Woolsey tattling on disgraced National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, giving details about how he was there for the highly troubling White House meetings during which Flynn and his gaggle of Turkish paymasters tried to convince Trump to approve their plan to kidnap exiled cleric Fetulah Gulen from his compound in the Poconos and whisk him back to Turkey for... (ahem) "questioning" by the Erdogan regime? Wasn't it cute the way Woolsey backed away with his hands held up in front of him while shakily explaining how he, himself, had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with those profoundly illegal plans? 
• And did you hear that Flynn might... MIGHT!!! ...have turned state witness against Trump, striking a deal with the FBI in their whole ongoing probe into the connections between the Trump administration and Trump private interests with the Kremlin, Russian oligarchs, and Russian organized crime? If true... Yowza.
• One of the many delightful political ironies that took place last week was when the United States Supreme Court unanimously concluded that Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, who was at that very moment being interviewed for the job by the Senate Judiciary Committee, really shit the metaphotical bed in his 2008 decision involving the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. As if that wasn't enough, Gorsuch was later taken to the woodshed by Minesotta's Al Franken, the man who will soon become America's first Jewish President, according to yer old pal Jerky's crystal ball. 
• Remember back in our March 19 edition, when I suggested you read the Washington Post's really pretty funny satirical defense of what was being described as Trump's "hard power" budget? It was titled "Trump's Budget Makes Perfect Sense and Will Fix American and I'll Tell You Why", and it described how cutting Meals on Wheels was just the thing to whip our fat, crippled seniors back into fighting trim... you know, stuff like that. It was pretty obvious that the budget was being mocked. Obvious to everyone... except the White House, apparently, who decided to chalk it up as a win in their daily release of pro-Trump knob-polishing drivel from the fart-catching likes of FOX "News" and Breitbart. Oopsie!
• Did you know that, in Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko (who's been in power since 1994 for fuck's sake) recently implemented a $230 "social parasite tax" that you have to pay if you go six months without working a job of some sort? The citizens of Belarus don't like it, but Lukashenko, like Trump, takes his ruling style cues from fellow strongman Vladimir Putin. Which is also why Americans should probably take note. With Trump's key, signature legislative effort now reduced to a mouthful of smoldering ash, he's probably going to be looking overseas for innovative new ways to pay for all those military increases he wants so badly. Because, let's face it, firing Big Bird might prove popular with his base, but it's small beans in terms of savings. Considering Lukashenko already has the Putin seal of approval, can a tax on, oh... say, speaking Spanish in public, or having "overly melenated skin" be far behind?
• And finally for today, on the very same day that Conspiritard-in-Chief Alex Jones attempted to weasel his way out of a lawsuit by publicly apologizing for the role he played in spreading all that PizzaGate nonsense over the past few months, dozens of the self-same people he'd helped to inspire gathered in Washington to "demand PizzaGate justice" or some other such bullshit. How did we get to the point where perfect idiots who literally know nothing about anything all of a sudden think that they know everything there is to know about everything, without even having to crack a book?! Fucking Internet has doomed us all, folks.

***

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Gotta admit, of all the stories I've run across in the last couple of days' websurfing, the one that caught me most off-guard was "Trafficked and Enslaved: The Teenagers Tending UK Cannabis Farms" in The Guardian, by Amelia Gentleman. She presents the harrowing tales of Vietnamese teens who are hoodwinked into "tending Britain's makeshift drug factories in empty buildings from suburban homes to a nuclear bunker." Gentleman writes:

The story of how much of the UK’s cannabis is grown sounds too far-fetched to be true: an international network of traffickers brings teenage boys from Vietnam to become enslaved gardeners in British suburbs. Yet every few weeks, another farm is discovered and new arrests are made. 

Local newspapers offer fleeting insights into the industry, with scant facts: that police raided a red-brick terrace house on a suburban road in Liverpool after neighbours complained of the smell, and found the house stripped of furniture and converted into a cannabis farm, with two teenage boys hiding, terrified, beneath the floorboards. That a cannabis gardener in County Armagh was found living on tins of dog food. Or that police visited a two-storey house in Plymouth and found cannabis plants in every room, cellar to attic, tended by a Vietnamese boy with injuries to his face, who said he was 13; he was put in the care of social services while investigations were launched, but within days he had disappeared.

This is some incredibly dark shit that Gentleman is exposing, here, and she's doing great work by bringing the stories of individual victims to the public's attention. Please give her story a read.

2. If you've been reading my work for any amount of time, you're likely very much aware that yer old pal Jerky worships unabashedly at the Temple of Floyd. You're also likely very much aware that I am a huge fan of progressive rock in general, and that, as a proud French Canadian, I take great delight in my people's wholehearted embracing of a musical genre that is considered by Anglo music snobs to be the worst of the worst of the worst. And so you might think I'd be totally on board for composer Julien Bilodeau's re-imagining of Roger Waters' rock opera The Wall, as performed by the world renowned Opera de Montreal, under the title Another Brick in the Wall. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons including but not limited to the fact that there's already a nearly fatal dose of pomposity in the original, rock opera version... I'm not. Not that it's going to matter to the promoters. It's been such a success in Montreal, they're taking the show on the road. In any case, you can check out the link provided above for a sense of how Bilodeau "improved" upon the source material for his project.

3. Check out this absolutely bonkers trailer for a new "extreme horror" film called The Evil Within, which you can watch via Video on Demand at Amazon (sorry, but I'm having trouble finding a Canadian VOD source at the moment)...

Pretty cuckoo, right? Well guess what? The back story on how this film got made is even more bonkers than this trailer makes the movie out to be. The Evil Within was the fifteen years in the making passion project of millionaire meth addict (and cinematic neophyte) Andrew Rork Getty (of the GETTY Gettys), who died before he could see his project be released. Which is kind of sad, because by the looks of things, The Evil Within has the makings to be a lasting and legit cult classic. Once I've found a way to pay for and download it up here in the Great White North, I'll publish my review over at The Mediavore!

***
QUOTE OF THE DAY

“This, to us, is something that we're not going to give up on. We're not going to give up on destroying the healthcare system for the American people.”

- Paul Ryan (R-Munster) lets loose with the mother of all Freudian slips after the humiliating friendly fire downfall of his and Trump's signature piece of conservative movementarian pseudo-legislation. By the way, if you're interested in finding out what could possibly be the quintessential Trump administration quote uttered so far, the Washington Post has a real groovy tournament going on to figure out that very thing!

DDD EXTRAS

• If you want to learn about some cool and/or weird things that happened on whatever day of history that it happens to be when you're reading this, why not check out our sister-site, Useless Eater Blog? You're sure to find something of interest, guaranteed!
• Did you see the video I linked to yesterday, featuring Samantha Bee's hilarious extended take-down of Nazi-sympathizing Hungarian wannabe alpha male Sebastian Gorka? If you didn't, you should go back and check it out!
• Over at The Mediavore, I serve up a steaming slice of Satanic 70's Made-for-TV goodness! Yer gonna love it!

THE TAKEAWAY

All in all it's just another day filled with what feels like an unprecedented wave of insults and injuries, great and small. I mean, am I crazy, or does it seem as though the foundations of Western civilization are crumbling beneath our collective feet as we marvel (and, occasionally, blog) about it all?

KEITH OLBERMANN WANTS TO TELL YOU SOMETHING...

Our old pal Keith Olbermann is never one to hold his tongue, but this particular bit of oratory might go down in future history books as being particularly illustrative of the current crisis of American democracy. Whether it does so as an example of the hyperbole that some of our more "passionate" pundits occasionally indulge in, or as a howling jeremiad screamed into the apparent void of an inexplicably unresponsive political establishment as the world goes to pieces all around them, only time will tell.

Meanwhile, over at Google News, their analytics propose that the top Trump-related news item for the day is the fact that Kanye West paid the Preznit-Elect a visit in the lobby of Trump Tower. I would normally finish off this post with a flourish of snark, but in this case, it somehow feels inappropriate. So insert your own snark here, if you wish.

INTERESTING TWEET STORM BY @ezlusztig

Twitter Titan Elliott Lusztig recently tweeted out a linked tweet-set (I realize there are probably proper nouns for such things, but please forgive my sad lack of Twitter slang savoir fair) that simultaneously serves as a nice introduction to the work of Hannah Arendt (for those who don't already know of her), an important historical lesson, and an ominous warning for the future. 

As you read it, it might be a good idea to take notes for future reading and research. In fact, it's probably a good idea to be doing that from hereon out. I'll be publishing a little something about how to go forward from here soon, but I want to get my ducks in a row, my blogs organized, and my readership in order first. 

In the meantime, keep your eyes and mind wide open, be careful out there, and take the lesson outlined below to heart.  I think Elliott's distillation of Arendt serves as a great lesson as to why let your righteous fury get the best of you, no matter how justified.

Cheers!
YOPJ

LUSZTIG ON ARENDT ON DECODING FASCIST LANGUAGE

1. Hannah Arendt in her book The Origin of Totalitarianism provides a helpful guide for interpreting the language of fascists. 
2. She noted how decent liberals of 1930s Germany would "fact check" the Nazis' bizarre claims about Jews like they were meant to be factual. 
3. What they failed to understand, Arendt suggests, is that the Nazi Jew hating was not a statement of fact but a declaration of intent. 
4. So when someone would blame the Jews for Germany's defeat in WW1, naive people would counter by saying there's no evidence of that. 
5. What the Nazis were doing was not describing what was true, but what would have to be true to justify what they planned to do next. 
6. Did 3 million "illegals" cast votes in this election? Clearly not. But fact checking is just a way of playing along with their game. 
7. What Trump is saying is not that 3m illegals voted. What he's saying is: I'm going to steal the voting rights of millions of Americans. 
8. Fascism is the opposite of conservatism because it refuses to acknowledge reality as a limitation on the scope of human will. 
9. Unfortunately most conservatives in America today only have an eye for that phenomenon when they see communists doing it. 
10. No harm ever came from overestimating the danger of a political situation. Whole civilizations have been lost from underestimating it.

SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ NOV 19, 2016

1. I figured it wouldn’t be long before Donald Trump’s purloined “victory” seeped into the nether recesses of our collective online hive mind, like creeping tendrils of psychic mycelium, and began manifesting throughout the culture in odd and unexpected ways. And lo, it has come to pass!

Just take a gander at the next-level bullshit contained in the advertising copy for LIT: How to Get Your Soul Back, a sub-Iron John, no girls allowed, vaguely New Age-sounding self-help book that aspires to teach you how to defeat your mortal enemies so you can finally be the manly man that you’ve always known, in your heart of hearts, you were BORN to be!

And who might those enemies be, you ask? Here's a handy-dandy list of them, provided on page two:

Wall Street robbed us of our future when they raped and pillaged our retirement accounts. 

Feminists robbed us of love and affection when they poisoned women's hearts against us. 

Washington robbed us of our freedom when they legislated away our God-given rights one by one.

I think they hit the trifecta! No mention of George Soros or Anita Sarkeesian so far, but it appears to be a pretty thick book, so they're probably mentioned in there somewhere. 

Not since perusing the works of L.Ron Hubbard have I encountered such a hilariously transparent, ham-fisted, lowest common denominator attempt to get fools to part with their money. And yet, while it might be tempting to dismiss this as merely the product of a semi-literate SEO bro’s attempt to massage buzzwords nicked from MRA and Pick Up Artist reddits into a serviceable sales pitch, I think there’s more to it.

To elaborate upon the fungal metaphor initiated in the first paragraph, I see the appearance of this idiocy in my Facebook feed as nothing less than a fruiting body finally bursting, cordyceps-like, into view - already poisonous and swollen with corruption - after years spent hidden away in the spore-choked, obsessive-compulsive darkness of the alt.right noosphere, where it was unconsciously cultivated by countless mycologists of the mind.

Or maybe it’s just another shitty sales pitch, with a handful of reactionary ideas thrown in to make it stand out. You be the judge. Either way, I think it’s unintentional comedy GOLD! 

2. To those of you who hear about so-called "voter ID laws" being implemented by Republican legislators across the USA and wonder "What's the big deal?", please take the time to read about Eddie Holloway Jr's experience in Wisconsin, where one of these laws recently went into effect. Ari Berman's article for The Nation begins with an overview of Holloway's odyssey, as explained during sworn testimony before a court of law, on penalty of perjury:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said his state’s strict new voter-ID requirement worked “just fine” in the April 5 primary, but thousands of Wisconsinites were unable to cast a ballot because of the new law. One of them was Eddie Lee Holloway Jr. 

Holloway, a 58-year-old African-American man, moved from Illinois to Wisconsin in 2008 and voted without problems, until Wisconsin passed its voter-ID law in 2011. “I never miss voting,” he said. He brought his expired Illinois photo ID, birth certificate, and Social Security card to get a photo ID for voting, but the DMV in Milwaukee rejected his application because the name on his birth certificate read “Eddie Junior Holloway,” the result of a clerical error when it was issued. 

Holloway, who worked as a cook in Illinois but is now unemployed and disabled, living with his family in Milwaukee, got a ride downtown to the Vital Records System to try to fix his birth certificate. Vital Records said it would cost between $400 and $600, which Holloway could not afford. 

He then called the Illinois Vital Records Division, who said he had to personally come to Springfield, the state capital, to amend his birth certificate. So Holloway bought a $180 round-trip bus ticket and traveled four hours back to his home state. Once in Springfield, the division said it needed a copy of his high-school and vaccination records. Holloway went to his hometown of Decatur to get his school records, paying $20 to his friend for gas money, but after returning to Springfield, Vital Records said it needed his full Social Security statement, which he didn’t have. He also visited the Illinois DMV, but had no luck there either. He left Illinois without getting the documents he needed to vote in Wisconsin. 

Back in Milwaukee, Holloway got two copies of his Social Security statement and asked Illinois Vital Records if he could e-mail or fax them over. They said he’d have to appear in person again. But Holloway didn’t have the money to make another trip to Illinois and gave up trying to get a voter ID. He’d spent $200, visited two states, and made seven trips to different public institutions, but still couldn’t vote in Wisconsin.

And THAT, dear reader, is why, if you've ever poo-poo'd the efforts of Republicans to make it as difficult as possible for minorities and other Democratic-leaning constituencies to cast their votes during elections, you are either severely disinformed, or you're a vile piece of irredeemable shit for whom a special room in Hell awaits, all burny and hurty with bright flaming justice.

3. And, finally for today, let's polish things off with a beautiful live performance by my good friend, Canadian stage and screen treasure Brad Brackenridge. In this video, Brad performs Bernie Martin's short play, "Life Comes To Resemble Unimaginative Literature: Or, The Moment Of My Death", a piece combining a monologue, some puppetry, and a lovely musical score. This performance was part of a recent evening of one act plays at The Theatre On King in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, as part of a festival celebrating Martin's work. Enjoy!

***

Yer Old Pal Jerky's Words of Wisdom #331

"If the Presidency went to those capable of drawing the biggest crowds, the candidates would have been Bruce Springsteen and Roger Waters. If it went to whoever has the most Twitter followers, say hello to President Bieber."

SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ NOV 17, 2016

Look, folks, I realize things aren't quite "normal" at this point, if they ever were. And I realize that, more likely than not, the Republicans are getting away with stealing yet another election (about which much, MUCH more in future editions). But what are we gonna do... kill ourselves? Oh, they'd love that, wouldn't they? So no, suicide is not an option at this point, even if only to deny those fuckers the pleasure.

In fact, if there's one thing keeping yer old pal Jerky going at this point*, it's the promise of a day soon to come... a day upon which I will get to witness one or more of these pridefully ignorant, fascist fecal golems - these Satanically animated piles of festering moral rot conjured to rancid life via some obscure Nazi witchcraft - get what's coming to them. The incredulous look in Stephen Bannon's rheumy, bloodshot eyes as he's being dragged out of his home by the authorities due to his penchant for [REDACTED] and his [REDACTED] "hobby" will be indescribably glorious.  

Good times are coming. All we have to do is wait. The bad guys have cornered themselves at the top, and there's nowhere for them to go... but down.  In the meantime, here are some interesting links to help while away the wait! - YOPJ

***

1. Okay, so now that I've tried to lift your spirits a bit with the promise of juicy scandals to come, above, along comes Neal Gabler with possibly the most depressing, despairing, and accurate post-election summary that I've read so far. You must read it, and you must pass it along to your friends, whom you must get to read it. It reads in part:

If there is a single sentence that characterizes the election, it is this: “He says the things I’m thinking.” That may be what is so terrifying. Who knew that so many tens of millions of white Americans were thinking unconscionable things about their fellow Americans? Who knew that tens of millions of white men felt so emasculated by women and challenged by minorities? Who knew that after years of seeming progress on race and gender, tens of millions of white Americans lived in seething resentment, waiting for a demagogue to arrive who would legitimize their worst selves and channel them into political power? Perhaps we had been living in a fool’s paradise. Now we aren’t. 

This country has survived a civil war, two world wars, and a great depression. There are many who say we will survive this, too. Maybe we will, but we won’t survive unscathed. We know too much about each other to heal. No more can we pretend that we are exceptional or good or progressive or united. We are none of those things. Nor can we pretend that democracy works and that elections have more or less happy endings. Democracy only functions when its participants abide by certain conventions, certain codes of conduct and a respect for the process. 

The virus that kills democracy is extremism because extremism disables those codes. Republicans have disrespected the process for decades. They have regarded any Democratic president as illegitimate. They have proudly boasted of preventing popularly elected Democrats from effecting policy and have asserted that only Republicans have the right to determine the nation’s course. They have worked tirelessly to make sure that the government cannot govern and to redefine the purpose of government as prevention rather than effectuation. In short, they haven’t believed in democracy for a long time, and the media never called them out on it.

Democracy can’t cope with extremism. Only violence and time can defeat it. 

Read the rest. Then read it again. Then forward it to everyone you think needs to read it, and make sure they do. Talk about it, quiz them on it, shit like that. 

***

2. One of Deadspin's sub-blogs, Concourse, has a magically delirious array of photographs from Donald Trump's first day as President Elect, photos that prove he doesn't like this any more than we do! Seriously, the man looks positively petrified... that is, when he isn't putting on one of his other two favorite post-election faces: profoundly confused, or deeply disinterested. As article author Ashley Feinberg puts it:

Donald Trump likes going to rallies. He likes hearing people scream his name in ecstasy while calling for the imprisonment and death of his enemies. He likes going on TV. He likes hearing about how high the ratings were after he goes on TV. He likes grabbing women by the pussy and moving on them “like a bitch.” 

What Donald Trump does not like, however, is keeping his promises, sitting still for more than five minutes at a time, or doing any kind of work whatsoever, tedious or otherwise. It’s probably why so many of his business ventures were spectacular, blistering failures over the years. 

But unfortunately for Donald Trump and everyone else in the world save Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump is about to be the president. And as miserable as it is for us, there is one small, saving grace amidst the despair: Donald Trump looks like he wants to die.

She's not even remotely joking about this; the man looks like he's aged half a decade in a couple of days. His hair is whiter, his skin is translucent, he's just generally lumpier and blotchier... it's not a good look. As he might himself tweet: "Not good. Not good."

***

3. And finally for today, I bring you a couple of short films by District 9 director Neil Blomkamp in honor of Donald Trump's election! Unfortunately, the films are on his Instagram, and I can't figure out how to embed them here. They're among the most recent items on the page, though, so they're easy enough to find. Then I went to Youtube and found a couple different versions of his videos (embedded below) but these have different music, so I'm assuming they're the product of someone who is unaffiliated with Mr Blomkamp, and who is using his content without permission. I like the bootlegger's music choices, though, gotta admit! Anyway, to find out more about this ongoing project, check out this AV Club link. Ciao for now.

* Two if you count the new Kong: Skull Island trailer.

DAILY DIRT FLASHBACK! NOV 10, 2002

I created this info-graphic in the wake of the United States' 2002 midterm elections, the first since the five activist conservative members of the United States Supreme Court - aka the November Criminals - treasonously ended the recount in Florida, effectively handing the White House to the loser of both the popular AND true electoral college votes. 

The 2002 election, some of you will recall, featured two of the most devastating blows ever delivered to America's failing democracy.  

First, and most tragically, was the assassination of incumbent Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone, which itself was an eerie replay of the assassination of Democratic Governor of Missouri, Mel Carnahan, two years earlier. With Wellstone, however, The Powers That Be didn't make the mistake of letting a spouse survive, or leaving enough time to change the ballots, like they did with Carnahan. Having the man's widow step in and snatch away the Missouri governorship from Bush Crime Family consigliere John Ashcroft was a lesson the Bad Guys took to heart, so Wellstone's family was wiped out in the hit.

The second blow was the panicked disbanding of the Voter News Service consortium smack dab in the middle of election day. The VNS had, for decades, conducted exit polling nationwide. But in 2002, for some "unexplained" reason, there were massive discrepancies between exit polls and the "real" results... all in the Republicans' favor, of course. Statistics experts called it "Red Shift", and basically declared it impossible. But hey, if the last couple decades have taught us anything, it's that experts don't know shit. Am I right? Yeah, you know it. Fucking eggheads.

This pro-Republican "discrepancy" in exit polls, by the way, has held true for every election since touch screen electronic voting machines have gone into service. 

More on this subject soon. But for now, enjoy this trip down memory lane as, in his own flailing inconsequential time-wasting way, yer old pal Jerky helps to educate you about...