Venting Steam

After 35 days of building pressure, Individual 1 finally agreed to turn down the heat and let some steam escape by reopening the government without any wall money.

Collectively, America took a breath.

Unfortunately, the pot has gone right back on the stove because the resolution only bought three weeks’ time before there’s another impasse. Republicans and Democrats can sit down and solve a simple problem like stemming illegal immigration in three weeks, right?

Right?

Yeah, probably not. These guys can’t agree on lunch without a continuing resolution.

But for the time being, at least we can get some people paid, (assuming it doesn’t take three weeks to get Payroll functioning again). I bet this won’t help those who are suffering from the downstream effect… you know, retailers and contractors who rely on federal employees to spend money with them.

I know if I were a federal employee, I would have all projects on hold until there was certainty on the “getting paid” front. Nobody’s talking about this crowd though. I don’t see any programs designed to make these people whole again.

Poor Donald ran afoul of his puppet-masters, though, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. They were not amused by their guy caving in. But for the life of me, I don’t understand why anyone gives a fig about what those two ghouls have to say. Obama never gave Rachael Maddow veto power over his decisions.

It's easy to screech at people from the sidelines, without having to actually DO anything.  I guarantee you this though. If some major disaster were to befall the country because of the shutdown, like a plane crash due to insufficient traffic control personnel or a terrorist who got a bomb on board due to the TSA sick-out, these two clowns would be out there going, “Not my fault… I’m not the President. I don’t have a vote in Congress.”

Buck-passing motherfuckers... They stir up a mountain of shit and then point fingers at everyone else. Of course, they’ll be the first to take a bow should anything (they consider) good happen. They’re just like Trump, now that you think about it.

The fact that Trump didn’t get the one thing for which he was holding out makes you wonder what it finally took. I mean, he obviously didn’t care about forcing 800,000 people to go without their paychecks.

“Leadership” my ass.

The horror stories abounded, which makes one wonder, how good can this economy possibly be if missing one paycheck causes so much strife? Even people with “good jobs,” like those who work for the federal government, are barely making ends meet, let alone saving for the future and/or retirement.

But it seems that temporarily shutting down New York’s Laguardia Airport plus the one in Newark got his attention. That was his turf and now his friends were being inconvenienced.

I say that if they try another shutdown, the first thing we do is have the air traffic controllers at Dulles and Reagan International start calling out. Let Congress stew in their own juices for a while.

Or maybe the cynics are right and Trump opened the government to get the Roger Stone indictments off the front page. He does seem to be a master of misdirection, doesn’t he? That’s the thing with this guy. There are so many outrages, no single event can fully play out before the next one is unleashed. And the next and the next. Who knows how many atrocities are taking place without anyone noticing?

Speaking of atrocities, or at least giant bumble-fucks, I have one observation about the Covington Catholic Boys. That “sneer” everyone was talking about? There’s a reason that look sets people on edge.

That’s the look of a bully when he knows there are lots of his friends around and only one target. He knew he was 100% safe because he was surrounded by his boys. He could be as obnoxious as he wanted to, so he chose to crowd the old guy and try to make him uncomfortable. Same with the rest of the punks in the crew.

I know there were layers of this story that spooled out over time, but none of them change my opinion that these were entitled little pricks bent on mocking a lone Native American man. Hell, they were already on film mocking female passersby.

Please spare me the apologies that the poor children were all unnerved by the Black Israelites, who taunted them. I guarantee they’ve taunted others in even more graphic terms. The only thing that shook them up was being called out on a national stage for their Asshole-ish behavior.

And what did the parents do? Made excuses for them, of course, making damned sure that they learned not a single lesson from their sudden notoriety.

They can sleep in comfort knowing that even entitled obnoxious bastards can grow up to be anything.

Like a Supreme Court justice.

Odd Bits - The Cherry-Picked Edition

I’m Offended That You Think I Offended You by Banning you from School

Word came out last week that VP Mike Pence’s wife is working for a Christian school who denies entry to LGBT students and employment to LGBT job candidates, which produced the expected uproar.

The funny part was how upset the VEEP got, claiming the press was attacking Christian education.

He’s giving the students a tremendous “Christian education” right now, by showing them how to claim offense whenever they are called out for their discriminatory beliefs. Always the claim of “religious freedom” whenever the “holy” people want to put the screws to the minority of choice. They did it with African-Americans in the 50s and 60s and they’re doing it now with gays.

What I want to know is when this school is going to ban shrimp eaters, money borrowers, horoscope readers, football players and those who wear multi-fabric clothes. All those (and more ridiculous stuff) are banned under Leviticus, the same source they go to banish or deny service to gays.

Funny how it’s only the gay stuff that gets pulled out to demonstrate one’s deeply held religious beliefs?

Or maybe they just cherry pick the parts of the Bible that back up their own prejudices, to take seriously.

If your deeply held faith entails discriminating against anyone on the basis of qualities or traits with which they were born, your religion is neither righteous nor honorable and no one should cut you any slack for it.

Buzzfeed Buzz

What looked like a cut and dried slam dunk on Trump last week has started to unravel this week.

Buzzfeed reported, to much uproar, that Trump directed his attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie about his plans to build a large hotel in Moscow.

Then a Mueller spokesman released a statement saying that the report was not correct. (It did not specify what was incorrect.)

That naturally led to Trump claiming exoneration for the eleven-thousandth time. And on the surface, it looks like he’s right.

BUT.

There are other possibilities here. Maybe Mueller and his team aren’t ready to make this case right now or have Congressional inquiries sidetrack the investigation.

Maybe it’s a minor point of contention among larger, more incriminating points. Like it’s just one piece of a bigger puzzle that he doesn’t want to be singled out right now.

Or maybe a Republican operative intentionally fed Buzzfeed false information to prevent anyone else from looking at that issue.

The one thing I take away is to pay no attention to Trump’s claims about Michael Cohen lying about it. If true, the report notes that there were emails and texts that the investigation has, which makes anything Cohen has to say irrelevant. Authenticated documents don’t lie. That makes a disgruntled, lying, ex-attorney a non-factor.

Same thing goes with new Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani (or anyone else) saying he hasn’t seen any emails or texts. Doesn’t matter. Mueller is under no obligation to turn over any incriminating documents to a suspect’s attorney at this time. Just because Rudy hasn’t seen them doesn’t mean Mueller doesn’t have them.

And that goes for all the other commenters and writers in the press and otherwise who talk about, “There is no proof” that Trump did whatever.

There’s no proof that they know of. The Mueller investigation has been very good about keeping a lid on what they have and showing us only what they want us to see. (Like in filing papers and whatnot.) We don’t know jack shit right now.

Mueller’s investigation can have veritable bombs for evidence and no one outside his team knows otherwise. Once he releases his report, then, Attorney General Barr permitting, we’ll know the truth.

And I’m guessing that even if Barr suppresses the most incriminating parts of the Mueller Report, someone in or around Congress will leak it. A secret like that will never stay secret.

Winging It

Trump might have had a leg to stand on when he kiboshed Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Europe and Afghanistan on military aircraft, but it didn’t last long. Sure, it was childish tit for tat after she suggested postponing his State of the Union address. She used security as a reason to postpone, he did the same regarding her trip.

But then he took it to a new level when his Administration leaked the travel plans they made to fly commercial. Besides vindictive, that’s just plain reckless. It’s a boy-king, jeopardizing the lives of everyone on that plane just because they displeased him, and because he can.

And then, of course, he has his wife use a military jet to go to Mir-a-Lago on vacation. That’s the rubbing of salt into the wound.

Personally, if the SOTU is postponed for real, I’d like to thank Speaker Pelosi for sparing me from hearing (or reading about) how this blowhard is going to blame everyone else for the mess he made. The fewer speeches he makes, the better.

I, for one, am glad he only spent two minutes at the MLK shrine. Did you really think he’d be capable of making a statement that was sensitive to the time and place? Donald Trump doesn’t pay tribute to anyone other than himself. If he were to speak more expansively, he would have ended up claiming his marches got better ratings.

If only he could spend MORE time not speaking. This country would be better for it.

Continental Drift

Republicans have found themselves a new boogieman this winter, in the name of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or “AOC” for short. I’m not sure if it’s because of her politics or that her name is so long (and Latin). They should consider themselves lucky because it could be worse. Both Ocasio and Cortez are relatively short. What if her last name was something like Rodriguez-Dominguez de Jesus?

Sorry, I don’t mean to lead with a tangent…

Ever since she won her House of Representative’s race, the knives have been out for her more than anyone else, even the Muslim woman who called Trump a motherfucker. She won by campaigning on income inequality and representing the needs of the middle and lower classes. For real, not just lip service, and that’s why conservatives are scared.

Source

The last thing they want is for the country to start coalescing around a charismatic populist, then turning out in numbers to vote for their own financial interest. That would spell the end of Republican control of anything.

So naturally, anything she does becomes fodder for attack, from clips of her in high school dancing to what clothes she wears, to where she used to live.

Now, I don’t know that all of her ideas should be adopted right away. She campaigned as a Socialist and has a lot of grand ideas for how to reshape the country.

The country will not move easily or without a fight from those vested in the status quo. But hard-left politicians like AOC (and Bernie Sanders in the Senate) are necessary if we are to move to the left at all. (And by “moving to the left,” I mean focusing the government’s interest finding ways to benefit the many rather than the richest few.)

Like a seasoned negotiator, one doesn’t “open” with their final demand. There will always be push-back, and in this case, by those with the most resources. If progress is to be made, we have to accept that it might be one step at a time. No one is going to be allowed to sweep in and institute single-payer health care, free college, and a ban on coal mining.

For example, we may not be able to create, a single-payer health care system this term, but we can at least start moving incrementally to a more equitable system. The monied few are not going to give up their influence without a bloody fight so they will oppose any efforts to repair the ACA. And the better the ACA works, the less distance there is to jump to single-payer.

I think she’s going to be the more effective force for change in the long run, because she is a candidate of these times. She’s young, proficient with social media, and able to relate to other Millennials and Gen-Xers. She’s been handling the Twitter trolls with class, wit, facts, and a biting edge. If she can draw out more candidates like herself, then we have the basis of a movement.

And we all know how nice it feels after a good movement!

She is the living embodiment of what Trump pretends to be; with apologies to Coke, she’s the Real Thing. He poses as a populist but every significant action he’s taken has been to benefit the rich. (Or racists or religious zealots.) He acts like he’s a “man of the people,” while having his silver spoon gilded in Trumpian gold.

Speaking of the Current Occupant, did you see how he claimed that the Democrats “could solve the shutdown in 15 minutes” if they’d “come back from their vacations and get back to work.”

Yes, HE, of all people, is complaining about other politicians’ vacations. [massive eye roll]

Anyway, do you see how easy he’s making it for the Democrats? All they have to do is give in to his demands and the shutdown is over. What a dealmaker!

As Stephen Colbert once characterized the Republican negotiating philosophy, “You scratch my back… and I get my back scratched.”

He doesn’t want a deal, he wants the fight, so he can be seen as a fighter by his base (and Fox “News”). I think having the longest shutdown on record occur on his watch is a goal of his, not a problem… that way he can go on about how his shutdown (that’s totally the Democrats’ fault) is the biggest and longest of all time.

And the Democrats can’t cave; they’ve got significant leverage for the first time in 2 years. They can’t just roll over, even to get everyone paid. Or else this will become the new normal.

That’s why I think we better buckle in because it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Meet the New Year, Same as the Old Year

Nope, not much different yet in 2019, still chaos. Let’s look at a couple of points of agitation.

A Couple of Pitches from the On-Deck Batters

I’m sure everyone knows about Mitt Romney’s op-ed in the Washington Post last week. Romney leveled pointed criticism at the president’s foreign policy and general character. It’s unusual that you’d hear that from an incoming senator; that’s more likely heard from legislators who are heading out the door. Yes, they were hard words, followed by falling in line with Trump’s wall, conservative judges and the rest.

The Salt Lake Tribune thinks it was because according to their poll, 64% of Utah voters and half of Romney voters wanted to see him stand up to the President. Romney is nothing if not a consummate wind direction checker, but I wonder if there’s more.

I think he might be thinking of running for President again. Now that Americans elected a crass silver-spoon baby, maybe he thinks he would do better as a smoother, more genteel silver-spoon baby. (Except where it comes to canine transport. I don’t think he’ll ever live that down.) But maybe he’s thinking, “I’ll give you all the upper-crust aura without the bothersome boastfulness and porn-star shagging.”

It would be a real pisser of a thing to do to his constituency though. Utah just elected him for a 6-year Senate term. He’d have to start running for president almost immediately, thus shortchanging everyone who voted for him. Maybe he’s hoping they’ll forgive if he makes it to the White House.

On the other side of the country, Lindsey Graham is suddenly frothing at the mouth and going all hardcore on the wall issue. He used to be one of the few level heads on the right, but hell, he’s been barking it up ever since the Kavanaugh hearing.

Maybe he’s having presidential aspirations again as well. Sounds to me like he knows Trump may not finish this term and is trying to commandeer his base racists, isolationists, and gun nuts for a run of his own.

I think he should turn his attention to his own state. Doesn’t he know he’s got 187 miles of unfenced coastline right under his nose?

Shutdown

The partial government shutdown really could go on for months, if the Democrats don’t cave. Trump and the Republicans? They live for this shit. A shut down government is a conservative pipe dream. They just needed some people who are impervious to public pressure, like Trump and McConnell.

They probably think that if things get bad enough, the private sector will take over some areas and rid the government of having to maintain national parks and such.

Forget Yellowstone, sell the land rights to the Koch Brothers, let them rebrand the place and turn it into a giant canned-hunt facility… at least in the parts they’re not digging up or using to store toxic waste. Hire one of those Haliburton defense contractors to run the TSA. With fewer active wars going on, they should have some spare mercenary personnel to scan bags. And anyone caught smuggling contraband can be shot on the spot.

The thing is, Republicans have demonstrated over and over that they don’t recognize empathy, especially the president. (Exceptions: Anti-rich sentiment and reverse racism. There’s plenty of empathy for that!)

Trump even thinks federal workers are happy to forego their paychecks in exchange for leverage on a wall. He has no idea about the hardship he’s applying to these Americans. He hasn’t had to want for a single thing during his entire life. He doesn’t understand not getting what he wants immediately.

So Democrats are caught in a bind. They want to end this thing and help federal employees get back in the game. But if they do, they only empower Trump to shut down the government again and again. Plus, we waste $5 billion on a vanity wall that doesn’t solve the problem it’s designed to address.

I’m hoping cooler heads can prevail with some kind of work-around and reopen parts of the government bit by bit via narrow legislation. I’m not optimistic, though. Any such action would have to be blessed by Mitch McConnell, who takes his orders direct from GOP donors. Maybe if the Koch Brothers start missing their social security checks, they’ll prevail upon Mitch to break the logjam.

In addition to empathy, the Kochs also fail to recognize the concept of “enough.”

Strictly Redistricting

The Supreme Court agreed to take on redistricting cases from North Carolina and (right here in) Maryland. I have extremely mixed feelings about this.

On one hand, I would love to see the districting process be taken out of partisan hands, (if that’s even possible.) Just draw the lines straight up, without political factors. And as a resident, I realize that Maryland is heavily gerrymandered in the Democrats’ favor, which is rare. I would be happy to give that up, under one condition…

Which brings us to the other hand… it has to be everyone, not just Maryland. That’s how you’ll know if the fix is in… if the court somehow finds that Maryland has to be ungerrymandered but North Carolina doesn’t. And that could be a likely result if they find narrowly in each case. I think that’s more likely than finding broadly and invalidating district maps all across the country. I don’t think you’ll see this court vote against the benefactors who installed them on the court for this express purpose in the first place.

A couple of years ago, the justices split 4-4 on the legality of North Carolina’s repressive voter ID law, which was found to have been drawn up with surgical precision to suppress minority voting. Now take away Kennedy and add Gorsuch and the frat boy, and what do you think we’ll get?

A Republican death-grip on power-consolidating dirty tricks.