Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

~~~

~~~

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Trump's Filling The Swamp With Terrific Sludge




"Donald Trump said the system is rigged. He said hedge fund managers are “getting away with murder.” He said that he’d “tax Wall Street.” He called Washington D.C. corrupt and promised to “drain the swamp.” He said his opponent Hillary Clinton was too cozy with the banks, as epitomized by her closed-door paid speeches. He said Clinton’s vice presidential nominee, Tim Kaine, was “owned by the banks” and that he, Trump, would break them up. Trump closed his campaign with an ad bashing Goldman Sachs and George Soros, using classically anti-Semitic phrases.

 And now, according to The New York Times, ABC and CBS, the president-elect has chosen a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner who worked for George Soros before starting a hedge fund and buying IndyMac, a failing California bank that made billions while foreclosing on homeowners after the financial crisis.

 Steven Mnuchin’s takeover of IndyMac is a story about everything Americans have come to hate about how the financial crisis was allowed to unfold ― ordinary people panicking, savvy investors pouncing, a government guarantee that saved a bank but didn’t even try to keep people in their homes, a clever rebranding, rampant foreclosures, billions of dollars in profits.

And now, the cruel punchline: The man behind it is being nominated for treasury secretary by a self-proclaimed billionaire populist."

Tuesday, November 29, 2016


When one factors in the third party candidate votes, a stunning 54% of the American electorate rejected Donald J. Trump. Trump is a minority president. A majority of American voters did not want him.



George Lakoff

Hillary Clinton won the majority of votes in this year’s presidential election.

The loser, for the majority of voters, will now be a minority president-elect. Don’t let anyone forget it. Keep referring to Trump as the minority president, Mr. Minority and the overall Loser. 

Constant repetition, with discussion in the media and over social media, questions the legitimacy of the minority president to ignore the values of the majority.

The majority, at the very least, needs to keep its values in the public eye and view the minority president’s action through majority American values. 





So in Trumps America if you burn a flag you should be jailed but if you burn a cross you should be in his administration. Got it.

Trump's Egregious Stupidity

via Huffington Post:

It would be nice if the incoming preznit knew something about the U.S. Constitution and our laws.


President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed violating the U.S. Constitution and a landmark Supreme Court case when he said there should be “consequences” for people who burn the American flag.

Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!
Burning the flag is completely legal in the U.S. As the Supreme Court ruled in 1989’s Texas v. Johnson, it’s protected as free speech under the First Amendment.
The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who Trump often praises, joined the majority opinion in that case. 
So the guy whom millions of duped Americans chose to lead the country knows nothing about First Amendment rights and is now proposing punishment and even exile for Americans who exercise their Constitutionally guaranteed rights. 

 This is the talk of a dangerous dictator, not a U.S. president. All patriots must resist him.

Monday, November 28, 2016

The Liar-elect is at it again.




Image via Daily Kos





Trump won according to the rules, but if I were his team, I'd go ixnay on "the people have spoken" bit. Reality is just the reverse
 WaPo headline was better:
Trump pushes conspiracy theory that ‘millions’ voted illegally for Clinton
It’s going to be a long four years.
Politico was even better:
Trump's baseless assertions of voter fraud called 'stunning'
Without putting forth any evidence, the president-elect says he actually won the popular vote.
We warned you about Trump, but you were too busy trying to prove Hillary once ran an email server that was also a notorious serial killer.

















That's all for now. Off to the hospital.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

"A Prehensile Halfwit"

Mr. Shaw Kenawe is still in hospital and will be there for a while longer. 

As my P.E. friends can imagine, I've received several comments from Trump supporters who wish for Mr. Shaw Kenawe's death (last comment @the link) and who are happy that our family is going through this difficult time. I'm not surprised nor discouraged by their bottomless inhumanity, after all, they showed the world their depravity on November 8. We're a strong family, and we will get through this.








P.E. Carpenter is among the many bloggers I check in with daily (Infidel753 and RN USA are others), Carpenter's sentiments in this post are exactly the same as mine:



"The Clinton campaign has now joined Stein's efforts. 'Now that a recount is underway, we believe we have an obligation to the more than 64 million Americans who cast ballots for Hillary Clinton to participate in ongoing proceedings to ensure that an accurate vote count will be reported,' announced the campaign's general counsel in an online statement yesterday.

 Notwithstanding their almost certain fruitlessness, both efforts are as they should be, since the pissant asked for them. For weeks he refused to say he would accept the election's results, unless he won. A loss, he insisted, would demonstrate a rigged system — and perversely, he was right. In their head-to-head November 8 matchup, Clinton defeated Trump roughly 51 percent to 49 percent; the real winner went down only because of an archaically rigged system.

We can be sure that had the loser actually lost, he'd be demanding recounts and filing lawsuits and whipping his primeval rabble to an obstinate and probably violent frenzy. Thank you, you knuckledragging horror of a slouching demagogue, for showing us how to accept defeat in the Age of Trump:  We don't.

Even though we may not genuinely believe in conspiracy theories of electoral corruption and vote-hacking and all that, we are free to sling whatever outrageous accusations strike our fancy, for such is the pathogenic behavior that Trump introduced to American politics with a magnitude never before seen — the malevolent, mendacious little jackass.

Trump's tweet yesterday brimmed with projection: 'The Green Party scam to fill up their coffers by asking for impossible recounts is now being joined by the badly defeated & demoralized Dems.' 

One must be heavily saturated with bourbon and branch water to be at all insensitive to the bottomless farce of Trump accusing any others of scamming. As for his charge that Democrats are 'defeated and demoralized,' he was at least half right. Clinton was undefeated in the vote count, which, in any other civilized democracy, would have settled the election in her favor. But demoralized we are. What responsible citizen wouldn't be, what with a prehensile halfwit about to become commander in chief."





"Prehensile halfwit." I must remember to use that to describe Donnie Little Hands as we go forward with Our American Farce.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Saturday Night Music

Fidel Castro is Dead



Here are the responses to Castro's death.

One from an intelligent, decent, statesman, President Obama. The other from a clueless clown, an American embarrassment.

The clueless clown will, in 50+ days, be representing the United States of America to the rest of the world.

Darwin help us!









TRUMP CONTINUES TO APPOINT INEXPERIENCED PEOPLE TO OUR NEW KAKISTOCRACY



Welcome to Donald Trump's Kakistocracy of America:


Friday, November 25, 2016

Your Preznit-elect



Man-child President-elect Trump in 2013:








Man-child President-elect Trump in 2012:











 Donald Trump’s Words And Tweets Are About To Become Global News. All of Them. 

What was once just random noise could now trigger troop movements and market turmoil.




From Digby:


 "...we have an unqualified, cretinous white nationalist demagogue as president now, and millions more people voted against him than for him. And there were warnings in the major papers prior to the election about just such possibilities."

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

The Electorate's Holiday From Conscience


Because of a medical emergency at our house, I don't have time for my usual Wednesday Trump Hump Day, so here is a terrifying post from PM Carpenter's blog. 

I will try to check in to see your comments and publish them as well.

Tomorrow is a day for family and friends and giving thanks. I hope you all have a peaceful Thanksgiving. I will be at the hospital with Mr. Shaw Kenawe.

Peace.

From PM Carpenter's blog:


"(I don’t care about anything having to do with anything having to do with anything other than the country," eloquently said the sexual predator who just effectively lost a $25 million fraud case, as well as the popular vote, who has defrauded the IRS, who has encouraged domestic violence, who wants to "bomb the shit" out of civilians overseas, who has insulted every minority and assorted others, and who won't release his tax returns.) The revealed workings, as it were, of DJT's shambolic mind are even more horrifying than they were a year ago, before American democracy decided to take an extended break from prudence and rationality.

The following presidential "thinking" is what the electorate's holiday from conscience has earned them. It's so absurd, no interjected comments are necessary.

TRUMP: As far as the, you know, potential conflict of interests, though, I mean I know that from the standpoint, the law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest. That’s been reported very widely. Despite that, I don’t want there to be a conflict of interest anyway. And the laws, the president can’t. And I understand why the president can’t have a conflict of interest now because everything a president does in some ways is like a conflict of interest…. [T]he president of the United States is allowed to have whatever conflicts he wants.


 And there was this:

 REPORTER: The Times [reported] in the past 24 hours about meeting with leaders of Brexit about wind farms …

 TRUMP: About meeting with who?

 REPORTER: Leaders of Brexit about wind farms that might interfere with the views of your golf course …

 TRUMP: Was I involved with the wind farms recently? Or, not that I know of. I mean, I have a problem with wind …

 REPORTER: But you brought it up in the meeting, didn’t you?

TRUMP: Which meeting? I don’t know. I might have.

 REPORTER: With leaders of Brexit.

 MANY VOICES: With Farage.

TRUMP: Oh, I see. I might have brought it up. But not having to do with me, just I mean, the wind is a very deceiving thing…. I don’t think they work at all without subsidy, and that bothers me, and they kill all the birds.


 And this:

REPORTER: What do you make of the website [that Steve Bannon] ran, Breitbart?

TRUMP: The which?

 REPORTER: Breitbart.

 TRUMP: Well, Breitbart’s different. Breitbart cover things, I mean like The New York Times covers things.


 And, this:

 REPORTER: And on torture? Where are you — and waterboarding?

TRUMP: So, I met with General Mattis, who is a very respected guy. In fact, I met with a number of other generals, they say he’s the finest there is. He is being seriously, seriously considered for secretary of defense, which is — I think it’s time maybe, it’s time for a general…. I met with him at length and I asked him that question. I said, what do you think of waterboarding? He said — I was surprised — he said, "I’ve never found it to be useful." He said, "I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture." And I was very impressed by that answer. I was surprised, because he’s known as being like the toughest guy. And when he said that, I’m not saying it changed my [mind].

Look, we have people that are chopping off heads and drowning people in steel cages and we’re not allowed to waterboard. But I’ll tell you what, I was impressed by that answer. It certainly does not — it’s not going to make the kind of a difference that maybe a lot of people think.

If it’s so important to the American people, I would go for it. I would be guided by that. But General Mattis found it to be very less important, much less important than I thought he would say.

*** 

 Congratulations, America. Your singular achievement of 2016 has been to make James Buchanan look decisive, and George W. Bush look like a genius."

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

This is What the Election of Trump Has Brought to America


And every person who voted for Donald Trump is part of this. Why? Because people who voted for Trump never pressured him to disassociate himself from these Nazi pigs.

Yesterday, Trump had a meeting with various media, and apparently he had a screaming fit because, he claims, they're "unfair" to the little wuss and they ran photos that made the man-child look unpretty. 

Trump had time to lambast the media but except for a weak slap on the write, he's said nothing about the White Nationalists/Supremacists who celebrated Trump's election with Nazi salutes and "Heils!"

If you support Trump you support this:



White Nationalists Chant 'Heil Victory,' Rail Against Jews At DC Meeting



To celebrate Donald Trump’s presidential victory, dozens of white nationalists descended on the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, D.C. on Saturday to share glasses of wine and make Nazi salutes for the cameras.

 The event, organized by the white nationalist National Policy Institute, was part of the movement’s ongoing effort to normalize their brand of “pro-white,” anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant nationalism.

Yet there were deep cracks in the facade. The New York Times reported that by the eleventh hour of speeches and panel discussions cheering Trump’s win and decrying the marginalization of white Americans in coded language, the rhetoric took a blatantly anti-Semitic turn.

In his closing speech, Richard Spencer, NPI president and figurehead of the so-called “alt-right” movement, said that white people, whom he called the “children of the sun,” were “awakening to their own identity” in the Trump era. Spencer ranted about the mainstream media and asked the audience if they should be referred to “in the original German,” according to the Times.

The audience screamed back, “Lügenpresse,” a Nazi-era word that means “lying press” and appeared on signs at several Trump rallies during his campaign. Spencer also reportedly suggested that the media criticized Trump during the 2016 race to protect Jewish interests.

 By the end of his speech, a number of audience members had their arms stretched out in Nazi salutes and cheers of “Heil the people! Heil victory” broke out, according to the report. Former reality TV star Tila Tequila was part of the crowd, and posted a photo on Twitter of her and several other attendees making Nazi salutes.




"One wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem," Spencer told the crowd.
On CNN's The Lead, host Jim Sciutto asked Rebecca Berg of Real Clear Politics and Matt Viser of the Boston Globe whether Trump should be expected to publicly denounce comments like these. Sciutto, Berg, and Viser all vigorously condemned the comments and suggested that if Trump were to address these types of comments, it would only act to legitimize bigots. Still, it was not long before screenshots of the clip circulated like wildfire.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Sunday Night Funnies


The President-elect of the United States of America, instead of attending to the crucial and important business of finding people to fill the thousands of vacancies from the outgoing administration, actually took the time to watch the Saturday Night Live cold open satire of Trump's incoming administration. Not liking what he saw, Trump had a hissy fit, complained about the satire, and demanded equal time.

This prissy little cry-baby shows America and the world every day what a ridiculous little man he is because he can't take criticism or satire about himself, unlike every other president in this country's history. 

Continuing with his idea that he should be granted special dispensation from enduring actual criticism, the man-child Trump expects, what? Equal time to go on a teevee show to tell America and the world that the SNL actors and producers are meanie meanies to him? Does this little man need a safe place so his fee-fees won't be hurt? Y'know, with "trigger warnings" so that his fragile ego will not suffer the slings and arrows of his outrageous fortune?

Trump signed up for and broke every rule to get to be the POTUS. Now he must man-up to what that means. Trump may need to take some instruction from a manly man, Barack Hussein Obama, who's leaving that office on January 20, 2017, and who for 8 years endured, with grace and dignity, every slur, smear, and slander the rabid right threw at him, and not just from satirical productions on teevee and other media, but from the very man who hopes to fill Mr. Obama's very big shoes. For years and years, Trump smeared our first African-American president by trying to delegitimize his presidency over a trumped-up birth certificate slur. Had Trump faced the same onslaught of malignant lies and defamation, he would have disintegrated into a puddle of blubbering oily foam. His petulant complaint over a mild little comedy skit confirms this.

The only way to fight a thin-skinned bully is to continue to ridicule him.


Jason Easley:

A slight comedic jab at  the President-Elect brought a chilling reply from Trump on Twitter: 

 Follow Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump I watched parts of @nbcsnl Saturday Night Live last night. It is a totally one-sided, biased show - nothing funny at all. Equal time for us? 8:26 AM - 20 Nov 2016  

There are several problems with Trump’s tweet. What is the President-elect doing monitoring Saturday Night Live? He is supposed to be preparing for the most challenging job on Earth. He or his staff should not be wasting a second of their time on a late night comedy show. 

 The bigger problem is that the incoming Trump administration has open disdain for the First Amendment. There is no Fairness Doctrine, thanks to Republicans. If a Fairness Doctrine did exist, it would not cover comedy and satire. Donald Trump is not entitled to equal time because he thinks that Saturday Night Live was mean to him. That isn’t how the First Amendment works in any way, shape, or form. 





 Here's the SNL video. Watch it and laugh!



Sunday Science Blog -- Planet Earth, A Video





Trump Supporters Tell America How to Deal With Being Offended by the Cast of Hamilton



To the people who are "appalled" and "offended" that the audience attending "Hamilton" on Friday night booed Mike Pence and that the cast asked him to assure America that he'd be vice president to ALL Americans, here's what the people who made trump POTUS think about Pence's and trump's reaction:


Saturday, November 19, 2016

Saturday Night History

You don't need to know a word of Italian to understand this:


(h/t Digby) 
"It's the affect. Strutting dominance. But we knew that. Important to remember it though. As the press, eager to curry favor, makes him normal, we should guard against forgetting what he actually is. A fascist."


Donald "I Never Settle" Trump Settles His Racketeering and Fraud Lawsuit

Remember when Trump bragged about not settling the fraud lawsuit against Trump University? Remember when Trump bragged about how he never settles?  

Well trump settled. But with no "admission of guilt."  So he settled with $25 million, plus other costs, just so he wouldn't have to testify in court for racketeering and fraud just before being inaugurated as POTUS. 

Even though he "settled" that doesn't take away the stigma of Trump being the first president-elect in American history to have had to face a lawsuit for fraud and racketeering So he avoided that embarrassment and possible conviction. Not bad for a self-admitted sexual predator, eh? 

So much for America to feel proud about: Our president-elect settled out of court in a fraud case!


The phony lawsuit against Trump U could have been easily settled by me but I want to go to court. 98% approval rating by students. Easy win


Then there’s this comment made that same month.
“I don’t settle cases,” he told MSNBC, later adding, “You know what happens? When you start settling lawsuits, everybody sues you.”



My Favorite Scene in Hamilton.

darth™ @darth my favorite scene in hamilton is where the president elect has to pay $25 million for defrauding 6,000 college students 
11:01 AM - 19 Nov 2016