So now the Republicans, who are so desperate to win at all costs that they'll even cheat in states where their victories are already all but assured, are trying to criminalizegiving people a ride to the polls in Texas.
Essentially, an evil state senator by the name of Bryan Hughes (who also happens to be a big fan of gay conversion therapy, of course) is pushing a bill through the Texas legislature that would, among other anti-democratic atrocities, outlaw carpooling or ride-sharing, if the ride being shared happens to bring people to a polling place on election day.
This is NOT an exaggeration.
Check it out for yourself. Pay particular attention to SECTION 2.11. Section 64.009, which reads in part:
"The Election Code, is amended by adding Subsections (e), (f), and (g) to read as follows: (e) A person who assists at least three voters voting under this section at the same time by providing the voters with transportation to the polling place must complete and sign a form that: (1) requires the person to affirm that the voters are physically unable to enter the polling place without personal assistance or likelihood of injuring their health; and (2) contains the following information: (A) the person's name and address; and (B) whether the person is providing assistance solely under this section or under both this section and Subchapter B. (f) The secretary of state shall prescribe the form described by Subsection (e).
SECTION 2.12. Subchapter B, Chapter 64, Election Code, is amended by adding Section 64.0322 to read as follows: Sec. 64.0322. SUBMISSION OF FORM BY ASSISTANT. (a) A person, other than an election officer, who assists a voter in accordance with this chapter is required to complete a form stating: (1) the name and address of the person assisting the voter; (2) the manner in which the person assisted the voter; (3) the reason the assistance was necessary; and (4) the relationship of the assistant to the voter. (b) The secretary of state shall prescribe the form required by this section. The form must be incorporated into the official carrier envelope if the voter is voting an early voting ballot by mail and receives assistance under Section 86.010, or must be submitted to an election officer at the time the voter casts a ballot if the voter is voting at a polling place or under Section 64.009.
Keep an eye out for more like this from the Republicans, who have long since given up trying to hide the fact that they're a criminal-gang-slash-doomsday-cult who only pretend to be a political party anymore.
The Republicans' (and thus America's) "Fascism Problem" isn't a fever dream cooked up by some old hippies or blue haired pansexual campus coeds. It's very real, and in some cases, very in-your-face. Let Samantha Bee clue you in with this helpful little video presentation!
***
Remember back a couple weeks ago, when Preznit Trump revoked former CIA chief John Brennan's security clearance because he didn't like what the man had to say about how he was running the country? Of course you do. The constant churn of the international shit-storm that's been brewing ever since the greasy Beast slithered into the office that was stolen on his behalf makes an awful lot of background noise, it's true, but this particular treachery was the kind of act that leaves a lasting impression no matter what else might be going on at the time.
The thing about it that really stuck with yer old pal Jerky, however, was that, in his press release about the situation, Trump accused Brennan of “erratic conduct and behavior”, of making “frenzied commentary”, and of making “wild outbursts on the Internet and television.”
Talk about the pot calling the snowball black! Exactly how deaf to the sound of his own farts does Trump have to be to say such things and not realize that he's providing us all with a perfect, world class example of that favorite right-wing self-own tactic, projection? He's literally screaming into a mirror, shaking a fist at his own fucking shadow.
***
Another news nugget that speaks to the cancer gnawing away at the heart of the Spirit of the Age... Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and current official sower of calculated confusion on any of the dozens of illegalities in which Preznit Trump and his criminal enterprise are currently ensnared, sat down for an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo and... well... check out the transcript for yourselves:
CUOMO: I think it's a little early on that. And if fact [checking] is anything, we've never had anybody with the level of mendacity that he has. Not even close. GIULIANI: It's in the eye of the beholder. CUOMO: No, facts are not in the eye of the beholder. GIULIANI: Yes it is -- yes they are. Nowadays they are. Truth is not Truth.
So there you have it. If you've ever wondered where whence that semi-permanent, cold, nauseous, flip-floppy feeling in the pit of your stomach came from -- that feeling like you can't tell which way is up anymore -- you need look no further.
***
I realize it's been a few weeks, and I realize that the story was only ever added to the ongoing media churn as a kind of flavor additive, to spice up the data meal one way if you're a conservative and another way if you're a liberal -- with only the Far Right/Fascists and Ultra Left loons making a feast of it -- but hopefully most of you will remember the Sarah Jeong controversy, in which the New York Times' latest tech section hire had some right-wing provocateurs dig up some (this again?!) "controversial tweets" that she'd made, ostensibly disparaging "white people", over the past half-decade or so.
I'm not going to bother going into much detail on the story itself, because it's quite obvious to anyone with at least half a functioning brain what happened here: A bunch of actual racist shit-lords made a bad faith effort to get Jeong fired from the Times by smearing her as a racist, using obviously sarcastic tweets that she'd posted in reaction to actual racist attacks that she'd endured on Twitter, and it didn't work. The Times immediately cottoned to what was up and shut that shit down. End of story (minus the still ongoing low level aftershock of whining from D-level Youtube accounts and the disappointed murmurs of sand-kicking incels clogging reddit and 4Chan and the comments sections of any newspaper that's been linked to by the Drudge Report over the last five years). See the link above for a pretty good rundown of what the assault on Jeong represents in terms of the Far Right's evolving War on Reality, itself.
However, if you will indulge me, I would like to spend just a tiny bit of time on one social observer's published reaction to this cultural event, and that would be the ever reliable Andrew "Give Phrenology a Chance" Sullivan, contributor for New York Magazine and gay conservative gadfly since forever. Hell, the man kicked off his "groundbreaking" political blog a mere TWO YEARS AFTER yer old pal Jerky began his run on the late, lamented Daily Dirt, so you know the chances are good that his will be a take worthy of your time!
Sadly, you should have taken those odds, because Sullivan's piece, "When Racism is Fit to Print", for the Daily Intelligencer, isn't fit to wrap virtual fish in.
First off, Sully pretends not to know that Jeong was engaging in a game of racist tit-for-tat, throwing a mutated form of the racism daily hurled her way by the angry, frustrated meat-whites right back in their puffy, squinched up faces, in order to make them see how THEY like it, especially when coming from an intelligent and creative young woman with a playful mean streak a mile wide. Note that I'm giving Sully the benefit of the doubt, here, and assuming that he knows he's full of shit on this count, but carrying forth with it for purely partisan point-scoring. After all, what conservative is a fan of the New York Times, right?
I mean, at one point, he seriously seems to be suggesting that there might be some insight to be gleaned by "replacing the word white" in Jeong's tweets "with any other racial group"! As if precisely this variety of honking racialist cant doesn't already make up a full two-thirds of all online communication! And as if that wasn't precisely what Jeong was/is reacting to in the FIRST fucking place!
And finally, I think it is also worth noting that despite reading dozens of "think" pieces on the Jeong "scandal", I have yet to encounter anything that even comes within shooting distance of the strawman constructs Sullivan conjures up here -- "Asians CAN'T be racist claim lefties!" -- nor have I noticed anyone in real life making such a claim. And I know a LOT of very gabby, opinionated lefties.
So Sully, please... a little more effort next time, okay luvvie?
***
So there's this former CIA guy who's got some opinions you might want to know about. His name is Michael Scheuer, and he thinks... well, why not let him speak for himself? Here goes...
As this week’s end, it seems likely that it is quite near time for killing those involved in the multiple and clearly delineated attempts to stage a coup d’état against the legitimately elected Trump government and thereby kill our republic.
Finally, this week saw a significant and quickening advance toward the moment when those millions of well-armed citizens who voted for Trump, and who have been abused or wounded by Democrats, their Antifa-thugs, and their thug-civil servants for exercising their franchise to elect Trump, cannot be, in good conscience, patient for much longer.
Fortunately, they have in hand a long and very precise list of the names and photographs of those who hate and threaten them, their families, their way-of-life, their liberty, their livelihoods and their republic. No self-respecting and determined-to-remain-independent citizenry can let themselves forever be held hostage by thug-civil-servants like Strzok, Comey, McCabe, Page, and Rosenstein; worshipers of tyranny, like the Democratic members of Congress, the Clintons, the FBI, and the Obamas; apparent traitors like Brennan, Hayden, and Clapper; all of the mainstream media; and the tens of thousands of government-admitted-and-protected, violent, criminal, and illegal immigrants.
American patriots have so far, praise God, been remarkably disciplined in not responding to tyranny and violence with violence. For now they must remain so, armed but steady. But the time for such patience is fast slipping away; indeed, that patience is quickly becoming an obviously rank and self-destructive foolishness. If Trump does not act soon to erase the above noted tyranny and tyrants, the armed citizenry must step in and eliminate them.
It is, of course, far better if Trump does so, and I pray and believe he will. That said, the sheer, nay, utter joy and satisfaction to be derived from beholding great piles of dead U.S.-citizen tyrants is not one that will be missed if Trump does not soon do the necessary to save the republic. But if he fails, the citizenry must act to ensure that Hillary’s predictive words are proven correct. “If Trump wins,” she apparently said, “we will all hang.”
This is the same guy who used to head up the Osama bin Laden task-force up until 1999. So sleep well, America! All the best people have got things under control! On the other hand, if you feel that you just can't shake that spooky feeling you've got, and you're having a hard time keeping your eyes closed, then you might want to read Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone feature on Surviving America's Kill List, featuring the harrowing true-life story of citizen journalist (and bonafide American citizen) Bilal Abdul Kareem!
The fallout from the Helsinki summit has been so spectacularly awful for Donald Trump and his cult, it almost feels as though we are approaching a turning point of some kind. Can the American theater of New Fascist International's war on liberal democracy be experiencing the first serious rumbles of the existential doom it so richly deserves?
I probably don't have to go over all the ways in which the summit was a disaster, as I assume most of you follow the news pretty much as closely as I do, and from as wide a variety of sources. Suffice it to say that, for the first time since his election, even his fellow Republicans were aghast at how he (to paraphrase notoriously Trump-skeptic Senator John McCain) "abased himself abjectly before a tyrant" like no President in living memory.
Here's a CNN report that contains McCain's full statement, and further reporting on how other Republicans, including many Trump partisans, reacted to this pathetic, humiliating debacle:
If the Helsinki summit was the only thing that happened last week, it would still have been the worst week of Trump's regime by far... for Trump personally, as well as for his criminal enterprise. But it wasn't the only thing that happened. Not by a long shot.
Then, the world found out that Trump's long-time fix-it man, Michael Cohen--once a bonafide MAGA cultist who vowed to take a bullet for Trump, but who seems to have flipped once he realized that Trump wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire--was taping their conversations for years, creating a treasure trove of audio recordings... potentially devastating recordings that are now in the hands of the closest thing that the USA has to a superhero, special counsel Robert Mueller. No wonder Stormy Daniels' lawyer (and all around pain in Trump's ass) Michael Avennati can't seem to wipe the satisfied smirk off his handsome face lately.
He's also a professional race car driver!
Cohen flipping has a lot more potential fall-out than just exposing what everybody already knew about the Stormy Daniels case: that Trump did, indeed, cheat on Melania just days after she'd given birth to his son; that he knew all about the hush money payments and ordered them personally; that he lied his ass off about it and tried to hide his tracks via the creation of multiple LLCs (fraud and obstruction and, most likely, serious campaign finance crimes and potential felony tax code violations). It has the potential to expose so much more. Such as the fact that he's gone through the same cycle over and over again, with multiple women--including one we already know of, Playboy model Karen McDougal--some of whom got pregnant and were paid to "take care of it".
Trump with trophy wife, daughter-wife, and Karen McDougal (r)
And then of course there's Cohen's assertion that he was in the room when Trump gave the go-ahead for Don Jr and Jared K to meet with a Kremlin-connected lawyer who had promised to provide some ill-gotten dirt on Hillary Clinton, contradicting two years of the President's constant denials and lies about every aspect of that meeting. No wonder Trump threw one of his patented POTUS Twitter tantrums over the mildest of provocations by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani:
To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!
Look folks, those are only the very biggest of the developments that have come down the pike over the last week and a half or so. I've skipped over a number of important stories, like how Trump laughably attempted to claim that he meant to say "wouldn't" when he said "would" regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election, or his disastrous, slapdash "trade war" tariffs, which have led to his having to cough up a $12 billion dollar deficit bailout to offset the damage being done to farmers by his idiotic policies. There was his attempt to claim that Russia was no longer targeting US elections, his tampering with the official White House transcript of the Helsinki press conference (only corrected after a week of outrage) to hide the fact that Putin confessed to wanting Trump to win the 2016 election (which, when combined with everything else we know, is essentially a confession to election rigging). This particular "gaffe" added a soupcon of bitter irony to Trump's later claim that yes, he believed the Russians might well try to mess with the 2018 mid-terms... but on behalf of DEMOCRATS! Then he invited Putin to Washington, only to have Putin say "No thanks... but you should come to Russia though", a total power play further exposing Trump's bitch-boy status. The list just goes on and on.
But as bad as the Big Picture story of the Helsinki summit was, there was even worse crap tucked away in the details. Those of you who've been following American politics with any degree of depth beyond just the surface stories over the past two years will understand exactly how awful the implications in this unrolled Tweet-storm are, and those of you who don't, should take the time to make it so you do. READ AND GROK!!!
So there you have it, folks. Only time will tell if this was a bad week for Trump, or for the American experiment, itself.
By the way, if you're active on Twitter and you're a sincere, legitimate Trump fan, and you're a real human being, and not a stage-managed fake persona or a bot, you should probably be aware of the fact that you are in a tiny and dwindling minority, and that you're being made to feel a false sense of 'safety in numbers' because of the huge amount of stage managed fake personas and bots currently polluting social media like meme rats spreading the MAGA plague.
The Electoral College has now finally made it officially, officially, official: Donald Trump "won" the election. When a small number of Democratic House Members, in response to a scathing bipartisan investigation that found at least 50 Trump electors voted illegally, attempted to enter their objections into the public record, the Republicans cut off their microphones. Expect a lot more of this.
You should also expect a lot more things like what happened after Trump's intel briefing on Friday about how Russia helped get him elected. After spending most of this week crowing that he knew something others didn't, now the only thing he wants to know is how come somebody at NBC might have known something he didn't know before he even got a chance to know it! It's all so confusing... only it's not. It's actually really fucking simple. And obvious. And potentially catastrophic. Also, see our Quote of the Day for more irresponsible speculation on my part.
A US military veteran apparently opened fire at an airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, killing five and wounding eight before being shot, then taken alive, by police. Others were wounded in the ensuing chaos, which lasted for hours. Not to be dismissive or cynical or anything but to be perfectly honest? Big fuckin' whoop.
We had a brief DDD update earlier today about how Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have revealed themselves to be utterly lacking in both credibility and honor when it comes to Trump and Putin.
Conservatism as Serious Mental Illness, Exhibit #534,510: Dan Close, the Dewey, Oklahoma high school history teacher who has spent the last few years publicly calling for a genocide against Muslims, spouting and inciting hatred against LGBTQ people and damning them to Hell, alleging President Obama is a secret Muslim, and accusing First Lady Michelle Obama of secretly being a man in drag. Yeah, I know... "shaming culture" can have shitty unintended consequences. But surely everyone can agree that someone publicly professing beliefs like these should not be allowed to teach history to children? Click on the link and look in his eyes. This fucker is a danger to himself and others, PERIOD.
***
A SINGLE CONTRAST CAN REVEAL A LOT ABOUT CHARACTER
***
SUGGESTED READINGS
1. I won't even pretend to understand most of what Paul Schmelzing says about how bond market trends might indicate a looming fiscal disaster in his essay, Venetians, Volcker, and Value-At-Risk: 88 Years of Bond Market Reversals, but some very smart people tell me it's pretty great, and maybe important. So yer old pal Jerky is going to take their word for it, and pass the savi- I mean the wisdom, along to you!
2. In case you weren't sufficiently disgusted by all of the above, here's a heart-warming little piece of investigative journalism looking into the increasingly popular practice of locking up the children of parents who are financially incapable of paying fines levied against them in the juvenile court system. Yes, that's right... America now has debtor's prison. For kids. SMHFMLSPSMITGDF.
3. Our old pal Keith Olbermann has a calm, collected, measured message for any of his fellow American citizens who may have cast their vote for Trump for some reason, and it's about what it feels like to realize when you're wrong about someone, and what it takes to prepare for that eventuality. It's actually kind of thoughtful and nice.
*** QUOTE OF THE DAY
"While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democratic National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines."
- This part of Donald Trump's reaction to Friday's intel briefing feels like the part in the movie where everybody slowly looks at each other, their eyes growing wide, as someone says out loud what everyone is already thinking: "Hold on... WE never said anything about voting machines..." And Trump, realizing what he's just done, stands frozen with an invisible cock in his mouth--as he is oft wont to do--praying nobody starts looking too closely at recent financial transactions made by certain election supervisors working in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, and North Carolina this past November.
DDD EXTRAS
If you want to learn about some cool and/or weird things that happened on this day in history, whether it's on Friday the 6th, Saturday the 7th or Sunday the 8th of January, check out our sister-site, Useless Eater Blog.
THE TAKEAWAY
The shit is flying fast and thick right now in this, the lead-up to what may ultimately prove to be the most disastrous work-week in modern American history. It's getting very tough to stay on top of everything.
PS - Send any messages, requests for advice, hate mail and other stuff to jerkyleboeuf@gmail.com. I'll be reinstating ASK JERKY and the FIRST AMENDMENT ZONE in the next few days.
American reactions to Putin's response to the Obama administration's decision to enact sanctions and expel a number of Russian diplomats in response to Russian interference in this year's Presidential elections come in two very distinct flavors. On the one hand, you have Putin's increasingly unabashed Trumpnik/alt.right cheerleaders, who see it as nothing less than DEVASTATING 1000+++ Double-KEK PWNAGE!!! Seriously, check out those Tweets and just try to imagine how Kremlin propagandists could possibly lay it on any thicker. Meanwhile, over in the reality-based community, a more nuanced take is developing...
It is in the role of concerned observer, and not in that of satirical prankster, that I propose the Democratic Party give some serious thought to having Howard Stern run as their candidate in the 2020 Presidential election. His positives are higher than Trump's and his negatives far lower. He's far more intelligent, and his closet doors were flung wide open years ago, so there's no way he could be undone by opposition research. The Republicans would have to rely on going low and attacking his strengths--not unlike when draft-dodging coke-head Dubya Bush "Swiftboated" decorated Vietnam War veteran John Kerry--and that tactic simply would not work on Stern. What's more, I think he would relish the opportunity. And you know what else? I think he has the makings of a pretty good post-modern President. I am, of course, willing to entertain any arguments against in the comments section, below.
While the apparent outrage over the UN's recent condemnation of Israel's ongoing construction of illegal settlements on Palestinian land might look like much ado about nothing--after all, it's not like it's going to kink the one-way pipeline funneling endless gobs of American taxpayer money to "the Middle East's Only Functioning DemocracyTM"--the Likudnik reaction might actually be signaling a potential sea-change for US/Israel relations. I mean, most of the anti-Semites in Trump's entourage are also ardent Zionists, but with a cohort this volatile, you never can tell.
Speaking of future candidates for public office, how many of you Yanks were aware that Canada has a Donald Trump of it's very own? Former IT industry "titan" and current TV personality Kevin O'Leary even boasts a business track record that is almost as disastrous as The Donald's! So of course he wants to be Prime Minister of the Great White North. Just what Canada needs... more warmed over copycatting of an All American phenomenon.
A DEEPER DIVE
Sorry this weekend's Executive Summary is so late, but I wanted to be able to report on who won tonight's UFC 207 championship fight in this, the final edition for the year 2016. So congratulations, Amanda Nunes, on retaining your title belt! I don't really care all that much either way, but I know a lot of other folks do, so kudos!
Amazon.com has filed a patent for "flying warehouses". They would hover inventory high above areas where corporate metrics would show a high demand, and drones would fly back and forth delivering orders. Insert generic "truly these are the End Times" joke here.
A lot of you emailed to ask about the art at the top of last Wednesday's Guest Editorial; you know, the image depicting Trump in a beshitted diaper about to knock a globe off a table? Turns out the artist who created the image in question is a Norwegian fellow by the name of Christian Bloom. You can check out more of his artwork (an example is at the top of today's Executive Summary, directly above) at his professional website, which--despite being in Norwegian--is easy on the eyes and not too difficult to navigate. I was particularly impressed by the "kommentarfeltet" section. Enyoy!
SUGGESTED READINGS
1. According to this grim journalistic account by Emily Jane Fox, Trump's Washington DC hotel is already doomed to fail. The piece also serves as a savage review of the facilities, detailing a level of narcissistic hubris that would put Ozymandius to shame. Well worth the read.
2. Charlie Brooker's "year in review" specials are a yearly tradition at Chateau LeBoeuf, where Brooker has enjoyed Favored Nation status since way before Black Mirror, or even before anybody knew what he looks like. For cryin' out loud, I still have a first edition copy of his TV Go Home book after multiple moves, multiple mass sell-offs of personal property, and a couple of serious health crises! And so here's Charlie Brooker's 2016 Wipe, temporarily available on Youtube (if it disappears, just search, someone else will put it up). Enjoy!
3. If you desperately want to understand exactly how the Republican Party and their enablers in the conservative movement paved the way for Donald J. Trump's legally dubious and morally bankrupt election "victory" in November, but you have trouble digesting the vast amount of data generated by the multiple journalistic investigations that helped uncover it, why not try downloading a free, handsomely illustrated, information packed comic book that presents all the most important, key information relating to this national tragedy in a format that is easy to digest, remember, and pass along to others (if you use Gmail, be sure to check your "promotions" folder for the download, cuz that's where the assholes at Google sent mine). While you're doing so, maybe toss a couple shekels in author Greg Palast's beggin' cup. It's not required, but much appreciated. You are a rebel soldier standing against an Evil Axis that is waging a Total War on Reality, so you might as well be armed to the teeth with TRUTH.
*** QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Never read the first 10 links on Google."
- Sandro Pasquali, bona fide software genius and a personal friend, thinks it's "sad and amusing" how people crow about Google and Facebook being such great and intelligent tools to find the information you need. He therefore offers up the above strategy, to which I, yer old pal Jerky, offer up a whole-hearted seconding. He also wrote Embraceable You, an essay detailing the real-world factors that go into how Google and Facebook decide what to serve you up next.
DDD EXTRAS
Read all about non-Trumpnik GOP strategist Rick Wilson's take on the grotesque spectacle of Trump and his toad army kneeling down to Putin's Russia in this epic Tweet stormpublished on Friday morning right here in the DDD.
Saddam Hussein is executed on this day in 2006, in one of the ugliest, cowardly, most shameful chapters in a metaphorical book that is clogged to the choking with ugly, cowardly, shameful chapters. Find out more in Friday's Paracultural Calendar, over at the Useless Eater Blog.
On this day in 1999, the first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor. Read all about it, and more, in Saturday's Paracultural Calendar, over at the Useless Eater Blog.
Haiti gains its independence on this day in 1804 after the first, and to date only, successful slave rebellion in world history. The Powers That Be have been punishing them ever since. Check out Sunday's Paracultural Calendar, over at the Useless Eater Blog, for more intriguing parapolitical facts.
THE TAKEAWAY
Good riddance to 2016, a truly putrid, Satanic bitch-whore of a year. The only possible way 2017 could be any worse is if we all had to get into a time machine and go back a year, which means we'd have to spend that time experiencing 2016 all over again. Not sure how that'd work, exactly, but anyway, don't drink and drive. But if you have to... drive real slow!
As one of the few non-Trumpnik Republicans left standing alongside the increasingly impressive Evan McMullin, media wonk Rick Wilsontook to Twitter yesterday to promote his latest story for The Daily Beast and to call out Trump loyalists and Russian trolls (both witting and unwitting) for what appears to be a complete lack of political consistency, historical perspective, concern for the possible consequences, or sense of shame. It's short, but all the more effective for its succinctness.
Take it away, Rick!
In the course of the 2016 campaign I don't know how many times I was called a traitor to America for not supporting Trump.
Of course, these intellectual giants never bothered to understand the specific definition of treason. All opposition to Trump was treason
What's closer to treason? Political opposition to a candidate, or siding with a hostile foreign power in the Intel war?
Make no mistake; Trump and his lackeys, ball-washers and toadies today clearly demonstrated their allegiance is to Putin.
This wasn't Obama playing a game. This was him responding to the IC's rising certainty and fury at the extent of Russia's meddling.
Trump is getting sworn in. He's going to be President. If you are more concerned that his wittle feels are hurt that the truth of...
RUS intel services and leadership wanted Trump, hacked to help Trump, and have deep ties to him and his team then you're the ones...
flirting with disloyalty to the security of this country well beyond a political disagreement.
You believe in absurd, baroque conspiracy horseshit like Pizzagate, but can't conceive RUS leaders could seek to disrupt an election?
You buy into the wildest, darkest, lunatic theories ("Hillary is a pedophile cannibal!") but ignore the conclusions of the ENTIRE IC.
You're accepting an ongoing, state-sponsored set of attacks on Americans, American institutions and American security because...
...you don't want Trump's presidency to have an asterisk next to it, like a ball player with a home run count fueled by steroids and HGH
Tough. It's already there. So here's my question for Trump defenders; how much RUS intervention in our elections is ok with you?
Oh, just FYI, "IC" means "Intelligence Community". Follow Rick (and Evan) on Twitter via the links above for an intriguing, "adult" conservative perspective on the tragedies of 2016, which are certain to leak all over the next few years, like a gutshot buck trailing its innards on the far side of the river, waiting on death to claim it in the cold dark night.
After wrapping up the evacuation of civilians and rebels, Assad's forces have moved into and begun securing the devastated Syrian city of Aleppo.
The death toll following a chain of explosions at a popular fireworks market on the outskirts of Mexico City has risen to 35. Mexican fireworks are no joke, guys.
As police in Berlin identify Tunisian immigrant Anis Amri as the prime suspect for the recent deadly vehicular terror attack on a popular Christmas Market, police in Melbourne, Australia, claim to have disrupted an ISIS-inspired terror plot to bomb multiple targets there on Christmas Day. Seven are in custody.
A DEEPER DIVE
Actor/director Lena Dunham cracked a joke about wishing she'd had an abortion, and conservative pundits -- for whom whining about the overly sensitive and politically correct delicate snowflakes of "the Left" makes up approximately half their shtick -- collectively losttheirfuckingminds. Not that they had much to lose in the first place, but still. Meanwhile, as a withering torrent of abuse was hurled her way from both her Right and Left flanks, Dunham responded in the worst possible way: She apologized.
Global Warming has shifted into overdrive up at the roof of the world, in the Arctic region, with numerous records being shattered this year, and scientists are declaring that there will be increasingly grave consequences that will soon be impossible to ignore.
Among the countless ways in which Trump's ascendancy to the White House has been, and continues to be, unprecedented, perhaps the most ominous break with tradition is his insistence on maintaining his own private security force instead of relying on the Secret Service, as basically every modern President has done. For students of history, the ominous parallels should be plainly obvious.
Donald Trump with his finger on the nuclear trigger. Donald Trump with the nuclear “football,” the so-called black briefcase of doom, always within reach. The briefcase with the nuclear targeting codes: China yes? Moscow no?
Donald Trump with the power to destroy life on earth. At the heart of the near hysterical (and mostly justified) Fear of Trump that escalates as he approaches the Republican nomination is the Fear of Trump With the Trigger. That explosive temperament combined with that explosive capability.
But it has largely been forgotten that Trump is not new to nuclear matters. He has been thinking about how he’d handle nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation for more than a quarter-century, at least since 1987, when he claimed to me that he was “dealing at a very high level” with people in the White House (that would have been the Reagan White House) on doomsday questions.
It seemed like a joke, when I first heard of it back then. But at the very peak of the Cold War, when the U.S. and the then Soviet Union had an estimated 25,000 nukes to target at each other, thousands of them on hair-trigger alert (no Trump jokes about “hair trigger” please), Donald Trump announced that he had the know-how to solve the world’s nuclear problems.
Trump … to the rescue? ... I used to laugh when I thought back on Trump and me in "21" talking nukes. I'm not laughing anymore.
And his preamble was written before Trump's purloined victory in November. Anyway, it makes for fascinating reading, particularly if you're a masochist.
2. In case you were curious, the image at the top of today's Executive Summary, created by Twitter's ChrisTheBarker, features many of the celebrities who died in the year 2016 -- the shittiest year within living memory for most -- along with a few other non-death-related markers, such as a BREXIT floral arrangement and a bright red MAGA ballcap. See if you can identify all the corpses, or any of the other in-jokes included in the above image!
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"You've been hearing me say it's a rigged system but now I don't say it anymore because I won, okay? It's true. You know? Now I don't care! I don't care."
- Trump isn't even in the White House yet, and he's already begun alerting his poor, deluded followers that they got cucked, and hard, by a fast-talking fat-headed arrogant member of the East Coast Establishment elite. Man, somewhere deep down inside, you know that's gotta hurt.
DDD EXTRAS
Savanah falls! The Dreyfus Affair begins! Bernie Goetz lets loose! And the Shoe Bomber makes a fool of himself! Read all about it in today's Paracultural Calendar, over at the Useless Eater Blog!
Documentarian LuLu Friesdat shares her short, disturbing new video released on Friday, revealing what appear to be machine mistallies noted by observers during the statewide "recount" of ballots by computer optical-scanners in Racine County, WI, and a stymied attempt by one observer there, Liz Whitlock, to get a hand-count of the paper ballots in question. Citing the 5% error rate by the machines that observers tallied in one small precinct in WI, Friesdat notes: "A similar error rate applied across all of Wisconsin’s 2,976,150 votes --- could produce an error of 140,000 votes. Trump won Wisconsin by 22,000 votes."
"In order to believe that the official vote tallies are legitimate, you have to accept that all of the above legitimately happened: African-Americans in the south went from turning out in droves for Hillary Clinton in the primary to not caring if she won the general election. Donald Trump got sixty-something percent of the same-day voting in Florida. The polling averages were wrong for the first time in modern history. Trump beat his poll numbers despite having spent the primary season tending to fall below them. Clinton fell below her poll numbers despite having spent the primary season tending to beat them. In every state where Trump pulled off a shocking upset victory, he just happened to do it with one percent of the vote. And in an election that everyone cared particularly deeply about, no one really turned out to vote at all. I can accept any one of the above things happening as an isolated fluke. I cannot accept all the above happening. And so for once in my evidence-driven career, I’m left to believe that the conspiracy theorists are right: the vote tallies are rigged."
- Bill Palmer, senior editor at the independent news outlet The Palmer Report, in an article entitled You're Not Imagining It, The Election Results DO Look Rigged. Bill goes into detail on a number of the above-mentioned discrepancies. The horrible thing is, his list barely scratches the surface. In any case, we will continue to post evidence of the 2016 Presidential elections being stolen here at the DDD, even if only for posterity's sake.
A Tweeter who goes by the handle (((STOP))) TRUMPNADO has provided us with an intriguing tweet storm, in response/appendix to the latest Newsweek offering by Kurt Eichenwald, that details why it will basically be impossible for Preznit-elect Trump to divest himself of his business dealings in time for his inauguration... or, quite probably, ever.
I'm really liking the way Twitter forces people to get to the meat of their arguments and proceed in a methodical, orderly fashion. It's so limiting, but it's an interesting alternate communication technique, that's for sure.
Anyway, here's the storm, minus a few scans of key documents (leases, tax returns, etc) to bolster the point, but you should be subscribing to (((STOP))) TRUMPNADO's Twitter to see those, anyway. Basically, if you're interested in understanding why Trump refuses to release his tax returns, this is as good a starting point as any I've seen.
And it's by a layman. UP YOUR GAME, MSM!!!
Alright, so here we go...
The Trump Org is NOT a corporation. It is a mess of personally owned LLC's on Donald's personal income tax return.
Because of the way Trump set up his biz, to personally benefit from tax losses, he CAN NOT disentangle personally.
Trump's massive tax loss carry-forward was on his personal tax return, thus all income must ...
... must remain as personal income for Donald to be able to take advantage of this massive tax break.
so even if Donald wanted to, Trump can not afford to disentangle as personal owner of 500+ personal LLC's.
NO ONE has been asking why he would have 500+ sole proprietorships/partnerships. It is the only way he can use these massive tax breaks.
There are huge advantages of efficiency & capital to operate as a large real corporation, so Donald made this decision for this purpose.
after decades of running his biz as 500+ LLC's, it would be financially impossible to untangle. Taking many years, if even possible.
Trump CAN NOT untangle from personally benefiting from every deal made by Trump Org entities. He owns each one personally.
most of these LLC's carry large debt from different banks, tied to that asset. Most have more debt than the asset is worth.
with such massive debt, there is really no way to untangle this LLC mess of companies from Donald personally.
further even if bankers allowed him to sell these biz's, he could not afford the massive tax payments that would result.
selling these personal assets, even if saddled with massive debt would incur huge tax payments for Trump. He simply can't afford it.
Trump also has massive annual expenses. Over $20 mil just for the Trump Tower retail condo. He must generate massive cash flow.
And Wells Fargo owns the mortgage on Trump Tower retail condo, so yet another conflict of interest.
Trump claims ownership of the Nike Store, but yet another lie, he only owns a land lease of questionable value. Block 1292 Lots 8,64,66
NONE of the LLC's that own Nike Store are on Trump's FEC form. He rents the land from others.
if you combine debt Trump has on Nike Store & 3 Trump Tower condos he owns, he's underwater, by a lot! Trump DOES NOT own Trump Tower
Trump DOES NOT own 40 Wall St. He owns a land lease that is worth less than the debt he has on the property.
When a land leases expires, all buildings/improvements on the property revert to property owner.
Christian Hinneberg et al & other German partners OWN 40 Wall St. Trump just rents it from them.
Trump has to get permission from the owner, Christian Hinneberg, to turn on the water at 40 Wall St.
over 400 Trump LLC's are registered under highly secretive Delaware Corp laws. We have no idea who his partners are, or what debt
Trump has set up a highly unusual labyrinth of secretive DE LLC's. There is no way he can, or will, disentangle his personal ownership.
Trump requires a huge influx of new cash deals to service his massive existing expenses & debts, must make new deals or risk bankruptcy.
No business journal has done a comprehensive estimate of Trump income/balance sheet/profit loss. It can be done, but has not.
Hotels & golf courses are notorious for marginal profits or losses, yet Trump is claiming massive unrealistic income from these biz's.
Trump is lying. Trump biz's historically ALWAYS lose money. He profits from govt zoning gifts & condo deals we know are mostly dark money.
Trump could not run a golf course or hotel at a profit, simply impossible based on his horrible management record.
Equitable Life Insurance of the USA developed Trump Tower & owned the land. Trump profited by bringing govt zoning gifts & ...
... being the front man for Equitable to partner with the mob, get ridiculous tax breaks & destroy a historic façade of Bonwitt Teller.
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.
The last time I read an attempt at realpolitik analysis that jibed so completely with my own take on things as Eric Garland's epic Tweet-storm outlining an all-too-plausible wide-angle view of both where we stand and how we got there... was never.
As I continue to work on my own wide-angle take of the PizzaGate psy-op, this gives me some serious food for thought, and a plethora of new angles to contemplate. Thanks for making a difficult job all the tougher, Eric...
<THREAD>
I’m now hearing this meme that says Obama, Clinton, et al. are doing nothing, just gave up. Guys. It’s time for some game theory.
ACTOR ANALYSIS: The Russians enter the Game with a broad objective, flexible tactics, and several acceptable outcomes.
Russian interests have been, for many years now, the subversion of Western institutions, principally NATO, but any will do.
This subversion can take many forms: driving wedges between US-Commonwealth-Euro intel cooperation, break up NATO, create chaos.
This game has been developing for many years, is asymmetrical, and much cheaper than building a decent aircraft carrier.
Plus, the Russians f**king rule at covert shit. Always have. Ask a cold warrior. Mucho respect for our adversaries. They do clever work!
Post-communism, they're reduced to Drunk Uncle status in the global balance of power. Mouthy, smart, degraded, much reduced in stature.
Russians as *people* are civilized, artistic, enamored of brilliance and tragedy, and generally proud. And should be. They do not like this.
From this position launches an initiative from an old hand at the KGB, now solidified in influence: Subvert for the throat. Go big. Go hard.
While the West is frivolous and lazy and "Post-History," the clever take advantage. And here begins our present story.
Let's skip ahead to "Wikileaks." BRILLIANT. Ingratiate the Left into this anti-establishment distrust of Western intel.
George W Bush and Dick Cheney being slovenly, reckless idiots, the moral authority of Iraq and US intel is nil. In step "journalists.
Stealing hard drives from US intel and dumping them to foreign agents? That's *snicker* "journalism!" FREE SPEECH! ROFLMAO.
Oh, and such grand characters, so well run: Manning, Greenwald. So righteous, yet fragile! And feisty! Try a Twitter war with Glenn!
OH YOU PHILISTINE, YOU JUST HATE JOURNALISM! *sigh* *swigs something strong* And Moscow must have been doubling over.
THEN, OMG, that worked so well that the pièce de résistance was next: SNOWDEN!!! BOOYAH! THE BIG GAME! NSA! PRISM! SPASM!
(incidentally, the NSA was about the only agency the Russians took seriously) But then this EARNEST young man. He tells THE TROOTH!
DID YOU KNOW YOUR TOASTER IS SPYING ON YOU? THE GUBMINT! IT IS EVERYWHERE! THEY SPY ON (*controls snickering*) ALLIES! ALL BAD!
And still hungover from the rotten venality of the Iraq War and Bush's perversion of the IC as reliable, Wikileaks journalisms the NSA!
DON'T YOU CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE. HARD DRIVES FROM THE NSA IZ JOURNALISM! Even when you take the files to Brazil! Honest! Ask Glenn!
And then, automagically, our man Ed ends up...what's this now? In Russia? Well, they are such welcoming folks! How...nice!
Langley and Fort Meade run out of bourbon in about three hours, and every intel guy in Russia is drunk, dancing on the desks, and LAFFING.
AND THE LEFT! HOLY F**KING ADORABLE BATMAN! Honi soit qui mal y pense! How dare you suggest untoward Russian involvement! Journamalisms!!!!
US intel snorts all of the Robotussin in the DC/MD/VA area. Putin calls Snowden "A weird guy." LOLZ. Moving on to the current chapter.
MEANWHILE, AT THE FOX NATION FORUMS: The other part of this impressive op is percolating - the buttress of the Alt-Right.
ONCE UPON A TIME, Dan Rather chased Nixon around a room asking him questions VERY HARSHLY and the notion of the Evil Media Elite was born.
See, because Nixon got impeached, that meant the media was in on it! WaPo! NYT! Traitors! We look bad! And the media hate begins.
Never mind that to know something in Topeka, somebody's gotta send you a newspaper or a radio signal or whatevs: The Media Is Lying.
Now, it's true, high level journalists and editors don't always see the world like Johnny Lunchpail in Missouri. True facts. But. Trouble.
Republicans decide to create a whole new layer of think tanks and media outlets in the 1980s dedicated to The Other Side.
The think tanks have a POV, but some are quite good, Cato in particular. Heritage came up with what's now Obamacare. AEI...ehhh. 2 outta 3.
But then the media play comes in. The cranky insane tent pastors on AM radio get...a makeover. They become Legitimate. Embraced.
Magnates start investing in outlets. Brand new pundits get huge audiences yelling about The Way Things Ought to Be (for White People).
And it's more successful than free chicken and beer. The money flows, the ratings swell. An Australian starts a TV network in the US.
What develops is an attractive, well-produced alternate universe. You no longer need an alternate take. You have alternate facts.
Al Gore mutters and bores his way out of a presidency in a race against a guy who spoke English like he learned it from Rosetta Stone.
And now, the stage is set for a metastasis of batshit nuttery, jingoism, and irrational autocratic fervor. A party becomes a cult.
September 11, 2001 occurs. A buncha guys are in DC who couldn't wait to go to Iraq. And the right wing media is shiny and tuned-up.
We go kick a bunch of barbarian ass in Afghanistan, as well we should have. They were beating women and destroying Buddhas. F**k 'em.
But then, The Axis of Evil Speech. And all the analysts in DC I know collectively go, "Oh, fuuuuu...they're not serious, are they?"
Bill Clinton spent most of his years pounding the living snot out of Hussein. Dude built anything funny lookin', in came the rockets.
There was one concerning nation-state for most, and - hint - it's in Asia. The other threat was non-state actors. *ahem* Which played out.
And now - *headdesk* - they're going to Iraq. With bullshit intel. Goddamn it. GODDAMN IT. This is going to suck, said smart people.
And there's the entire right-wing think tank and media machine blaring, careening, gloating. From the gov't itself, and from every outlet.
HOW DARE YOU BE SKEPTICAL? WE HAVE AGENCIES! INTEL! IT'S SECRET! DO YOU WANT MORE PLANES IN YOUR NOSTRILS, UP YOUR BUTTS? BE PATRIOTIC!
And goddamn, did those media outlets sell a lot of ads for trucks, pain killers, pharmaceuticals and financial services. $$$$$$
Many earnest patriots also pointed out, hey, um, there apparently are no weapons that could have blown up Cleveland, so...
But now, this whole thing has morphed into tribalism. YES THEY DID TOO FIND WEAPONS OF MASS DEPRESSION AND YOU SUCK BUSH ROCKS PUSSY
Ann Coulter comes on TV to talk over B-roll of rusty munitions WE SOLD HUSSEIN and said, well look, there they are. Total. Propaganda.
America looks like shit. Our intel services take a helluva beating. Iraq's invasion - which was basically unplanned - results in chaos.
Katrina. Bush. Looking out the window. Confused. Hey, but in intel news, the National Geospatial-Intel Agency helps critically.
2008. The housing Ponzi we used to get out of the DotComBust-9/11-era recession has now gone pear-shaped. Utterly nuclear.
America's banks, the one thing other than movies and video games we do reliably, all shit the bed simultaneously.
We then elect a cappuccino-colored president whose middle name is Hussein. The Right goes completely over the f**king cliff into insane.
They start the TEA PARTY! YO REMEMBER BOSTON! PAAAATRIOTS SOMETHING SOMETHING! TEA PARTY! NOTHING MATTERS TAKE IT ALL BACK YAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
This political movement happens when the only thing Obama has really said with conviction is "Fired up! Ready to go!" In late November 2008.
But ON GEORGE WASHINGTON'S GRAVE THIS HAS GONE TOO FAR!!! And the entire right-wing media gets its next several years of revenue LOCKED.
Now, we've got a really, reaaaally fertile field in which former KGB agents can make a long play. And Moscow gets to work.
America's at this weird nihilistic place, which is one thing for France and Russia, but NOT for earnest midwesterners who are agape.
Now the American Left has got some juice back again. But the Right is just apoplectic from pure suffering. Both are ripe for subversion.
The Left is out of love with American business and military-industrial, the Right foams at the mouth against legitimate government.
And the guys who have been twisting minds from Vladivostok to Havana and back get to work building an "alt" media structure.
We've already covered the genius of that who Wikileaks op on the Left. SCORE! Now for the perversion of the formerly nationalist Right.
JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST THERE'S A BLACK DUDE IN THE WHITE HOUSE! LIVING THERE! It's not hard to convince Southerners this is insane.
But put a little elbow grease in on some internet forums, and pretty soon you can have Northern John Adams-type conservatives, too.
A whole generation of disaffect Rush Limbaugh fans (WE LISTENED AND DITTOED SO HARD WHY IS THERE A BLACK DUDE THERE?) is ripe for picking.
In addition to alt-finance sites and "Russia Today" a new TV network, they start infiltrating "social media."
Disclosure: Because I'm mouthy all the time like this, RT had me on as a guest. They prop up US "subversives." And they don't edit you!
Fun fact: Al Jazeera and RT just let me talk. US media almost always wants some hand in your final product before booking you. Ironic, no?
But from about 2009 to the 2016 election, a madness is being brewed and slowly poured down the throats of increasingly hysterical Americans.
When you imbibe from this potion, everything is awful and everyone official is lying to you. Only other members of the cult are with you!
US media, which is complicit in many of our problems, is portrayed for the extremists as conspiratorial liars. All the time.
Formerly sane members of US society start sounding like my schizophrenic grandfather, who said Government was keeping him from His Mission.
Only the Gubmint knew the Archangel Gabriel was sending him to find the next Jesus. So, cut it out, CIA! Stop it, Giant Conspiracy!
And then people you knew from Functional Daily Life started talking that way. People with car dealerships. Dentists. Regular folk.
They started with CONSPIRACY, especially after 2012, because DAMMIT NO THERE SHOULDN'T BE A BLACK DUDE TWO TERMS NOOOO! NO NO NO NO NO NO
THEY ARE ALL IN ON IT. THE CORPORATIONS. THE MEDIA WHORES. THE GOVERNMENT! (except for my Medicare, don't touch that) ALL OF THEM!
A CABAL CALLED The Pentaveret: The Queen. The Pope. The Gettys. The Rothschilds. AND COLONEL SANDERS, BEFORE HE WENT TITS UP!
If you haven't unfollowed by now, 1. You're nuts and 2. Thank you for indulging my So I Married an Axe Murderer reference.
MOVING ON. The conspiratorial fever at about 108, we begin the 2016 election - AGAINST EVERYTHING HOLY - in 2015.
The Republicans debate over 712 times, discussing topics such as who hated Obamacare more, and who had a large penis. Jesus, that happened.
The Democrats all debate who's going to get out of Hillary's way first, except for VERMONT'S OWN BERNIE SANDERS, who...gets popular?
I'm from Vermont and have known Bernie forever, so I'm very surprised, but everyone kinda likes it. Hillary wins anyhow.
And now, the target for electoral mischief is enormous. Hillary is the most known quantity in America, with huge backstory.
Creating a conspiracy narrative around the Clintons is like creating a "southern" narrative around NASCAR and grits.
Now - with Trump as the non-conformist, not-like-all-the-other-rotten-conspiratorial-assholes paragon, the Russians go into overdrive.
The Russians didn't create Trump - only New York City and American gullibility could have done that. But they've got a SWEETHEART outcome.
Trump - a moron - is probably unlikely to take the whole enchilada, but that's perfect. If he gets close enough, he can cry UNFAIR! forever.
Amazing scenario for Russia - instead of RT, they get an institutional nihilist chowderhead with American credentials. They butter him up.
Hell, to hear many tell of it, the have kompromat on him. But anyhow, they invest in his stuff. He was there in 2013. They have a lever.
IF on the off chance, Trump actually (and who could guess this) wins, then...wow, they've got quite an opening.
Either way, on the run-up to Nov 2016, Russian involvement was as subtle as a fart in a spacesuit. Scroll down my TL for details.
The U.S. IC had its hair on fire. This situation was incredibly dangerous. A paranoid U.S. faction backing a rogue with ties to Russia.
OK, Jesus, at LONG LAST, back to my initial premise. Why didn't Obama and Clinton "do something?" JESUS, WHAT CAN YOU DO?
You come out and have the CIA enter the goddamn race for Clinton? True or not, we look like some weird cryptofascist state.
Or, you let the Russkis laugh and taunt and infiltrate Facebook with majillions of propaganda tales for idiots? Just let them run around?
Do you come out the day after this totally weird-smelling abomination of an election with all its technical difficulties?
Do you tell America the day after the election that Russia spearfished all of our think tanks in brazen fashion?
Hillary, for her part, gives a brief and all-too-calm speech and goes hiking. Probably the best move on the board.
Obama WELCOMES! Mr. Trump in an intense, welcoming welcome. To the White House. Mr. Big Winner Guy! Welcome! Fellow American!
Trump looks like he swallowed a goldfish and stares at the floor a bit too long. As if maybe a joke has gone too far.
In the next month, a small band of propagandists run in a circle and try to look like they're forming a government. It's ungainly.
And now, it's December 11th. Trump says he don't need no stinkin' intel agencies. Russia (BWA HAHAHAHAAAA) blames Ukraine! LOLOLOLOLZZZ
A lot of Republicans stare into the middle distance, except for McCain and Graham who are NOT HAVING THIS SHIT. (I salute you, gentlemen.)
And here we are. Americans. Hopefully soon united. This isn't a partisan issue. Obama isn't late to the party. People are doing their jobs.
If you think any of this is easy, you're ignorant and delusional. Tonight, though, I write to you with great hope.
This may be America's finest hour, as we act together with unshakable resolve to deal with enemies foreign and domestic.
We have done so in the past and come out a stronger, more just, more pluralistic nation. We will do so now. And for me? Or die trying.
America is the steward of a genius system entrusted to flawed stewards whose descendants seem to act on the right side of history.
This system is not rotten, not beyond repair, not exiled from the future. We have been infiltrated by agents who would drive us mad.
This is a nation built on civilization, humanity, and reason, rejecting the febrile superstitions of the past. It must stand. And will.
We are at present in a place of danger where some of our fellow citizens have forgotten our most cherished values. We've been here before.
America, reluctantly but dutifully, recognizes its internal contradictions and failings. Slavery. Racism. Internment. Classism.
The genius documents that gave rise to noble American sentiments were themselves authored by those who failed them. (h/t @ Mr. Jefferson)
We spilled the blood of our brothers to resolve the contradictions of slavery and then abandoned the project while killing Indians.
Americans proclaimed the equality of all men while treating women as chattel and all non-whites as lesser. We are indeed hypocrites.
But to be American is to accept that unflinchingly and to soldier forth for future generations, and DO BETTER, GODDAMN IT.
There are those who would mire us in worldly cynicism, to anchor us in a world where our institutions betray forever, where values perish.
And to be American is to face that intellectual, moral, and spiritual assault with the unshakeable devotion to something more lofty.
And when that loftiness fails, as it so often does, to be American is to seize it again and again, knowing that our Creator desire Progress.
Progress can come from Traditionalists or Labor Unionists or mystics or musicians or doctors or Senators or journalists. All are exhorted.
The Progress demanded by our Creator can be achieved by immigrants and natives, skeptics and believers, the elite and the humble alike.
That is America. That is the promise that Americans oft ignore and which more cynical nations would defile for their own gain.
More
That America will last long after I have died, long after new people have picked the torch. Long after we betray it again, as we will.
But America will go on, even if by another name, unless all who have heard her name are extinguished. This is just the locus of promise.
America came from the olive groves of Italy and the shipyard of Plymouth and the islands of the Philippines. Indivisible.
America came from the Torah and Voltaire's Candide and Adam Smith and zen koans and Greek mathematics and Rumi's poetry.
America is all these things, and should yet another absolutist demagogue, foreign or domestic seize her, it will be far from the end.
Now is a time for patriots. It's also Sunday afternoon. I'm gonna get a beer and watch football. God Bless America, and all nations.
I wonder how many Americans know that in Michigan, where Trump's margin is under 10K, touch screen voting machines report that SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND VOTERS CAST THEIR BALLOTS WITHOUT A CHOICE FOR PRESIDENT ON IT?
Apparently, the working theory is that they wanted to vote in Congressional and local office elections, but hated the Presidential candidates so much that they just declined to vote. Mostly in Detroit.
Does that sound realistic or reasonable to you?
Anyway, our main man on electoral issues, Brad Friedman, lays it all out for you on his indispensable and incredibly important website. You should sign up for his daily emails, listen to his daily audio show, and contribute to his work. This guy is the real deal.
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
Hannah Arendt in her book The Origin of Totalitarianism provides a helpful guide for interpreting the language of fascists.
She noted how decent liberals of 1930s Germany would "fact check" the Nazis' bizarre claims about Jews like they were meant to be factual.
What they failed to understand, Arendt suggests, is that the Nazi Jew hating was not a statement of fact but a declaration of intent.
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.
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.
Did 3 million "illegals" cast votes in this election? Clearly not. But fact checking is just a way of playing along with their game.
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.
Fascism is the opposite of conservatism because it refuses to acknowledge reality as a limitation on the scope of human will.
Unfortunately most conservatives in America today only have an eye for that phenomenon when they see communists doing it.
No harm ever came from overestimating the danger of a political situation. Whole civilizations have been lost from underestimating it.
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.
