As far as I’m concerned RBG’s death puts the capper on an unbelievably shitty year. 2020 can launch itself into dead outer space while simultaneously fucking itself and setting itself on fire. But the image of Mark Meadows putting on an apron before he wipes cocaine off the Resolute Desk made things seem a little better, so thanks for that, Roy.
I try not to be a pessimist, but I agree with you 100%, Manqueman.
Slavery was, of course, the original sin of the United States, but tied into that was capitulation to the slave states. Every time "we" tried to compromise and find common ground with "them," they took advantage. It eventually led to a civil war, which we won, but then the abrupt end of reconstruction because we again fell back on capitulation. Lincoln thought it was better to reconcile a divided nation, and he was repaid with a bullet in the head.
Our compromises with slave states have saddled us with a "representative government" where a person in Wyoming gets 2 senators and an electoral vote for every 143k people vs New York with the same amount of senators and an electoral vote for every 519k people (one Wyoming voter has roughly the same vote power as four New York voters even though cattle outnumber citizens in Wyoming).
Every year is going to be worse because we never bothered to fix the flaws in the system despite having nearly 233 years to fix the constitution and only amending it 27 times, one of which was to correct an earlier amendment that was full of shit - you can't make people live in this country and also be sober. Fuck off!
Every year is going to get worse because 2016 was the most important election in our lifetime, and the voters thought the guy who should run things is the same damn fool who puts scotch tape on his neckties and glue in his hair while running every single business he's touched into the red.
My only hope is that when we burn to the ground, we don't take the rest of the world with us.
And I thought *my* outlook was bleak, LOL. I wish I could substantively disagree with you but I can’t. But a good start would be PR and DC statehood to begin to rebalance the scales. And packing the courts, of course. But Biden is old school and I fear he will be too timid to make the sweeping changes the times demand. Of course no remedy is even remotely possible if Trump finds a way to steal the election. Dark times.
And thanks to Willard, the outlook just got bleaker. A possible silver lining (I hope!) is that the end of the day, an all blue Congress would keep Donnie in check. I’d dare say Donnie with a blue senate would be better than Biden with a red senate.
Then again:
The Founders were clearly opposed to much of a democracy. What they designed was a hugely limited right to vote and a tyranny of the minority.
And Ben Franklin’s famous quote about having to act to keep a republic, well, the majority of voters have been electing leaders opposed to a republic for decades and here we are.
Why should we give a crap about what the Founders thought. They are long dead and we are less so. If we can get the moderates onboard we have a chance to remake our country into something much more worthwhile. Unfortunately, many moderates are more enamored of tax cuts than justice
Because our heritage is an undeserved claim of being something of a democracy. And they ensured it will remain a tyranny of the minority with the Electoral College and the design of the senate.
Helps to know how we in fact started off on the wrong foot.
I've been pessimistic this week, as if the bad guys have the election in the bag. Some "disqualified" ballots in Florida, a break right in Michigan because of a "vaccine" or "riot," some court-ordered halt to vote-counting in PA... voila. Red Senate and Trump. But if we win? If we win, 13 Justices, no more lifetime appointments. If we win, a new apportionment act for the House so it's not capped at 435. If we win, DC and PR statehood. Old-school Biden is going to have his hands full restoring the Executive branch and international alliances, and marshaling investigations into the previous admin. It's up to Pelosi and whoever we replace Schumer with (please, how did this guy get here) to put great bills on his desk.
Even if the GOP somehow fucks up replacing RBG, I think PR and DC statehood should still go forward. Then something needs to happen with our other populated territories/colonies. Maybe American Samoa,
Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands could become a "state" consisting of 3 "districts" - or make them all states, to hell with it. And make the Virgin Islands a state, too.
And since I leaked that pessimism, Willard announced that he’s all in on confirming Donnie’s SCOTUS pick. And there’s your vote rigging: when the make or break case reaches SCOTUS, there’s five GOP hacks ready to appoint Donnie to a second term.
We don’t need any further proof we’re in the darkest possible timeline than having any fleeting hope hinge on the thought “perhaps Mitt Romney will save us.”
Roy, from reading this today, I'd say that you were not in the best of moods when you wrote this. I'm just guessing here, of course, and I'm prepared to be corrected.
She has, but not under oath as far as I know. To the publisher of Harry Hurt's biography, on Fox&Friends, and in a Time interview where she explained, "“That was all just the lawyers' talk”... after having previously clarified she did not accuse him in “a literal or criminal sense”.
Also it may have been worth $14 million: "Hurt said that he considers the note a non-denial denial, and believes that Ivana agreed to amend her words in order to secure the divorce settlement, in which she reportedly received fourteen million dollars in cash."
Oh, Yas, you're true trusting in the honesty and truthfulness of depositions. (This is based on a couple of decades of professional experience.) Can't presume she was telling the truth while under oath and not when she walked it back. Au contraire: my professional judgment is that the statement not under oath is probably the factually correct one.
The Toupee of Donald Trump by Olivia Wilde ... A modern retelling of Oscar Wilde's fine book featuring our current President as a 21st Century Dorian Grey who uses his phony hair to cover the scars on his soul
I like how these WH scenes seem to be getting crazier and crazier, or at least the Trump character is, so therefore you're approaching pure realism, Roy. Watching Trump relish the physical injury of a national reporter, give himself an A+ for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, accuse Biden for getting drugs shot in his ass, and so on ad nauseum, and doing it all in public no less, shows that you're definitely on the right track. But as we watch Trump expose more of his putrid, decayed id for all to see, feeding on the adulating psychosis of his infected fans, I'm afraid it may become too hard for you to keep up. I hope you're eating right and getting plenty of sleep, because the next few months are going to be a challenge.
My bad. I misremembered how the fit Othello has in Act IV, scene 1 is treated in Shakespeare as the version in the Verdi opera. In Shakespeare, Iago uses the interval of Othello's unconsciousness, after everyone else has left the stage and there are no witnesses, to insult him verbally. In the opera Iago presses his heel onto the unconscious Othello's head during the fit and after everyone else has left the stage. It's the opera version that reminded me of Meadows messing with Trump's hair while he was unconscious.
No one would think to say "Ecco il leone di Venezia" over Trump's slumped form in sarcastic contempt, because who among even his base thinks of him as any sort of lion? Trump just gets vanilla contempt.
[MEADOWS goes to the corner breakfront, pulls an apron, a bottle of Windex, and a bar mop from behind it, puts on the apron and starts cleaning off the desk.]
As far as I’m concerned RBG’s death puts the capper on an unbelievably shitty year. 2020 can launch itself into dead outer space while simultaneously fucking itself and setting itself on fire. But the image of Mark Meadows putting on an apron before he wipes cocaine off the Resolute Desk made things seem a little better, so thanks for that, Roy.
Capper???
It's going to get worse before it gets better.
And I'm not sure that 2021's going to get better.
I try not to be a pessimist, but I agree with you 100%, Manqueman.
Slavery was, of course, the original sin of the United States, but tied into that was capitulation to the slave states. Every time "we" tried to compromise and find common ground with "them," they took advantage. It eventually led to a civil war, which we won, but then the abrupt end of reconstruction because we again fell back on capitulation. Lincoln thought it was better to reconcile a divided nation, and he was repaid with a bullet in the head.
Our compromises with slave states have saddled us with a "representative government" where a person in Wyoming gets 2 senators and an electoral vote for every 143k people vs New York with the same amount of senators and an electoral vote for every 519k people (one Wyoming voter has roughly the same vote power as four New York voters even though cattle outnumber citizens in Wyoming).
Every year is going to be worse because we never bothered to fix the flaws in the system despite having nearly 233 years to fix the constitution and only amending it 27 times, one of which was to correct an earlier amendment that was full of shit - you can't make people live in this country and also be sober. Fuck off!
Every year is going to get worse because 2016 was the most important election in our lifetime, and the voters thought the guy who should run things is the same damn fool who puts scotch tape on his neckties and glue in his hair while running every single business he's touched into the red.
My only hope is that when we burn to the ground, we don't take the rest of the world with us.
And I thought *my* outlook was bleak, LOL. I wish I could substantively disagree with you but I can’t. But a good start would be PR and DC statehood to begin to rebalance the scales. And packing the courts, of course. But Biden is old school and I fear he will be too timid to make the sweeping changes the times demand. Of course no remedy is even remotely possible if Trump finds a way to steal the election. Dark times.
And thanks to Willard, the outlook just got bleaker. A possible silver lining (I hope!) is that the end of the day, an all blue Congress would keep Donnie in check. I’d dare say Donnie with a blue senate would be better than Biden with a red senate.
Then again:
The Founders were clearly opposed to much of a democracy. What they designed was a hugely limited right to vote and a tyranny of the minority.
And Ben Franklin’s famous quote about having to act to keep a republic, well, the majority of voters have been electing leaders opposed to a republic for decades and here we are.
Why should we give a crap about what the Founders thought. They are long dead and we are less so. If we can get the moderates onboard we have a chance to remake our country into something much more worthwhile. Unfortunately, many moderates are more enamored of tax cuts than justice
Because our heritage is an undeserved claim of being something of a democracy. And they ensured it will remain a tyranny of the minority with the Electoral College and the design of the senate.
Helps to know how we in fact started off on the wrong foot.
But, yeah, for the most part, fuck the Founders.
I've been pessimistic this week, as if the bad guys have the election in the bag. Some "disqualified" ballots in Florida, a break right in Michigan because of a "vaccine" or "riot," some court-ordered halt to vote-counting in PA... voila. Red Senate and Trump. But if we win? If we win, 13 Justices, no more lifetime appointments. If we win, a new apportionment act for the House so it's not capped at 435. If we win, DC and PR statehood. Old-school Biden is going to have his hands full restoring the Executive branch and international alliances, and marshaling investigations into the previous admin. It's up to Pelosi and whoever we replace Schumer with (please, how did this guy get here) to put great bills on his desk.
Even if the GOP somehow fucks up replacing RBG, I think PR and DC statehood should still go forward. Then something needs to happen with our other populated territories/colonies. Maybe American Samoa,
Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands could become a "state" consisting of 3 "districts" - or make them all states, to hell with it. And make the Virgin Islands a state, too.
Or at least give them the option to become a state. I don't want to force them to do something they don't actually want.
Does Puerto Rico want to become a state?
And since I leaked that pessimism, Willard announced that he’s all in on confirming Donnie’s SCOTUS pick. And there’s your vote rigging: when the make or break case reaches SCOTUS, there’s five GOP hacks ready to appoint Donnie to a second term.
We don’t need any further proof we’re in the darkest possible timeline than having any fleeting hope hinge on the thought “perhaps Mitt Romney will save us.”
We have to not just win, but win big. If Florida is called on election night, that would be swell. See? A little, teeny bit of optimism. Sorta.
No. Team Donnie just needs a case that requires SCOTUS to pick a winner -- "or make a selection" -- al a Gore v. Bush and then game over.
That said, the gambit probably won't work for any other race.
Meanwhile, the GOP has to be removed from power.
Thug (Pro) Life Presidency: A Continuing Series
'milk out of a crowbar'. that made ME snort!
Yet, what are the odds Donnie has a crowbar, IYKWIMAITYD?
or any milk, for that matter
You may not believe me, but I have enough respect for Barron’s privacy that I wouldn’t note that he maybe proves the quality of the Don’s milk.
may be the only milk of trump's that didn't spoil, and that was many years ago.
Peut etre, li prudome n'i fist fier ne cleu
[Perhaps the gentleman did not hammer that nail] (more or less)
I'd like to believe that but Barron kind of, sort of, resembles the claimed dotard father.
Roy, from reading this today, I'd say that you were not in the best of moods when you wrote this. I'm just guessing here, of course, and I'm prepared to be corrected.
Writing these stories is therapy for Roy. Reading them is therapy for us.
According to Michael Cohen, Trump’s scalp is full of scars from failed hair transplant surgery. Sort of a metaphor for his soul, eh?
There was a claim that Donnie slugged Ivana because of a shit job done to his scalp by the plastic surgeon to whom she sent him.
raped. he raped her over that. it's in her divorce deposition, so under oath https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/24/documenting-trumps-abuse-of-women
What I just said: Ivana walked back the rape claim.
But what Donnie is is a documented killer of Americans.
That's true too, and if you want to say it's more important, nobody's going to fight you.
Nah, I want a fight on that because it helps me with my very fucked up women issues.
And then IRCC Ivan’s walked it back. For sure, Donnie had a huge hissy fit. And whoever last worked on him also did shitty work.
She has, but not under oath as far as I know. To the publisher of Harry Hurt's biography, on Fox&Friends, and in a Time interview where she explained, "“That was all just the lawyers' talk”... after having previously clarified she did not accuse him in “a literal or criminal sense”.
Also it may have been worth $14 million: "Hurt said that he considers the note a non-denial denial, and believes that Ivana agreed to amend her words in order to secure the divorce settlement, in which she reportedly received fourteen million dollars in cash."
Oh, Yas, you're true trusting in the honesty and truthfulness of depositions. (This is based on a couple of decades of professional experience.) Can't presume she was telling the truth while under oath and not when she walked it back. Au contraire: my professional judgment is that the statement not under oath is probably the factually correct one.
If Ivana invented that story I sure wish she'd write a novel. I'd read it.
You think he has a soul?
The Toupee of Donald Trump by Olivia Wilde ... A modern retelling of Oscar Wilde's fine book featuring our current President as a 21st Century Dorian Grey who uses his phony hair to cover the scars on his soul
So many great lines... (besides the ones Donnie snorts).
My favorite is: “GRAHAM: I wanna piss on him.”
I like how these WH scenes seem to be getting crazier and crazier, or at least the Trump character is, so therefore you're approaching pure realism, Roy. Watching Trump relish the physical injury of a national reporter, give himself an A+ for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, accuse Biden for getting drugs shot in his ass, and so on ad nauseum, and doing it all in public no less, shows that you're definitely on the right track. But as we watch Trump expose more of his putrid, decayed id for all to see, feeding on the adulating psychosis of his infected fans, I'm afraid it may become too hard for you to keep up. I hope you're eating right and getting plenty of sleep, because the next few months are going to be a challenge.
Challenge accepted.
[Can't remember, so frantically googles 'Heather Nauert' . Decides, "Meh". ]
Blonde, vaguely attractive to a certain demographic, no discernible talent. Like an HGTV show host.
As for that ending there, sorry, I don't think Meadows is up to being Iago.
Well, he did wait 'til he was unconscious.
My bad. I misremembered how the fit Othello has in Act IV, scene 1 is treated in Shakespeare as the version in the Verdi opera. In Shakespeare, Iago uses the interval of Othello's unconsciousness, after everyone else has left the stage and there are no witnesses, to insult him verbally. In the opera Iago presses his heel onto the unconscious Othello's head during the fit and after everyone else has left the stage. It's the opera version that reminded me of Meadows messing with Trump's hair while he was unconscious.
No one would think to say "Ecco il leone di Venezia" over Trump's slumped form in sarcastic contempt, because who among even his base thinks of him as any sort of lion? Trump just gets vanilla contempt.
[MEADOWS goes to the corner breakfront, pulls an apron, a bottle of Windex, and a bar mop from behind it, puts on the apron and starts cleaning off the desk.]
Now THAT'S what a chief of staff to Trump is for.