QOTD -- MAGA And ICE

 

"...For MAGA America, ICE is an instrument for cleansing violence. Visit ICE social-media accounts and you’ll see, again and again, videos of armed force against unarmed individuals, against a soundtrack of pumping music. There’s a montage of aggressive arrests in Minnesota of unarmed, nonwhite men, many of them thrown to the ground and cuffed, set to the 1977 hit 'Cold as Ice': 'Someday you’ll pay the price.' A dozen heavily armed and armored agents round up a single unarmed woman in a T-shirt and two similarly defenseless men in California. In Indiana, armored agents throw handcuffs and ankle chains on a big haul of men and shove them in a cell, where they can be seen pacing, weeping, or with their heads plunged in their hands.

"Rarely do these videos present a situation that couldn’t be managed with a couple of plainclothes officers bearing holstered sidearms. The point is to prove that the fearsome power of the American state is being wielded by righteous MAGA hands against despised MAGA targets..."-- David Frum, The Atlantic, on what ICE's Gestapo tactics mean to the Malignant Fascist's MAGA base.

Meanwhile, 

Note not just the overall numbers, but also that the majority of Independents lining up with Democrats on these issues.

QOTD -- No Exemptions!

 

"... If a farm family voted for Trump, believing that his policies were good, it seems strange that they would then demand that they, and only they, should be spared the full consequences of those policies.  Tariffs are the dish that rural America ordered for everyone. Now the dish has arrived at the table. For some reason, they do not want to partake themselves or pay their share of the bill. That’s not how it should work. What you serve to others you should eat yourself. And if rural America cannot choke down its portion, why must other Americans stomach theirs?" -- David Frum, in The Atlantic ($), on why Trumpers in the farm community need to eat the results of the tariffs their votes brought on.  They shouldn't be bailed out any more than any other sector, in our opinion.  Unfortunately, the full glory of Trumpism needs to be felt by all, innocent and guilty.

QOTD -- "Ukraine Won, Trump Lost"

 

"... As defeat loomed for his anti-Ukraine allies, Trump shifted his message a little. On April 18, he posted on Truth Social claiming that he, too, favored helping Ukraine. “As everyone agrees, Ukrainian Survival and Strength should be much more important to Europe than to us, but it is also important to us!” But that was after-the-fact face-saving, jumping to the winning side after his side was about to lose.  [snip]

"To make an avalanche takes more than one tumbling rock. Still, the pro-Ukraine, anti-Trump vote in the House is a very, very big rock. On something that mattered intensely to him—that had become a badge of pro-Trump identity—Trump’s own party worked with Democrats in the House and Senate to hand him a stinging defeat. This example could become contagious..."  -- neocon never-Trumper David Frum, writing in The Atlantic, citing yesterday's vote in the House (following an earlier rebellion among some Senate Republicans) defying the Malignant Loser's Putin- issued instructions not to vote for Ukraine aid.  Frum cites other examples of "tumbling rocks" auguring poorly for the Malignant Loser (we'll be less optimistic for a change and say, at this point, he'll be in a close race with President Biden come November).  But, this was a victory for Ukraine and democracy, two things the Malignant Loser has no use for, and it was accomplished in a fairly extraordinary way considering the nature of the cult and what happens to people who defy the cult leader.

QOTD -- The Trump-Russia Connections

 

"The Steele dossier undertook to answer the question “What the hell is going on with Trump and Russia?” The Senate Intelligence Committee found that the FBI investigation gave the Steele dossier “unjustified credence.” But the disintegration of the dossier’s answers has not silenced the power of its question.

"It was to silence that question that the outgoing Trump administration appointed a special counsel of its own to investigate its investigators. John Durham has now issued three indictments, all for lying to the FBI about various aspects of the Steele dossier. None of these indictments vindicates Trump’s claims in any way. It remains fact that Russian hackers and spies helped his campaign. It remains fact that the Trump campaign welcomed the help. It remains fact that Trump’s campaign chairman sought to share proprietary campaign information with a person whom the Senate report identified as a “Russian intelligence officer.” It remains fact that Trump hoped to score a huge payday in Russia even as he ran for president. It remains fact that Trump and those around him lied, and lied, and lied again about their connections to Russia."  -- neo-con anti-Trumper David Frum in The Atlantic, cautioning everyone, but especially the media, from participating in selling a Big Lie about the Malignant Loser's Russia connections based on discredited Steele dossier raw intelligence.  Check out his 12 facts about the Trump-Russia connection that still have credence.

 

Doing Putin's Job For Him

This past weekend's G7 summit in Canada was bookended by two events. First was neo-fascist Putin asset Donald "Rump" Trump's statement before departing Washington that imperialist Russia should be allowed back into the G7, despite having invaded and waged war on its neighbors (Ukraine in 2014 and Georgia in 2008), engaging in the sabotage of elections in the West, and political assassinations on Western soil.  Second, his petulant statements following the summit that blamed Canada, perhaps our closest friend on Earth, for the summit coming apart at the seams, after he refused to sign a joint communique. This is supposed to be the way one deals with adversaries, not with our closest allies. The Atlantic's conservative David Frum writes of the summit's ending:

"Like some nightmare family Thanksgiving from which the most difficult relative departs first, everybody breathed easier when the president at last left. Perhaps after all, it was sort of a success?

Then, something happened. From Air Force One, the president emitted a vituperative series of tweets aimed at his Canadian counterpart. What had triggered him? Had he belatedly seen that photograph of Angela Merkel looming over him? As many have said: Trump thinks in images, not ideas. Who could ever know? Trump probably does not know himself." (our emphasis)

It also may have been a foolish gambit to impress Kim Jong-un with his "toughness," when in fact it will signal to Kim that not only is Rump an unreliable partner, but he's burning bridges to his allies and is therefore in a weakened position internationally. After all, if Rump's touchy-feely meeting with Kim is a bust, which of our allies will rush to our side if Rump plans more sanctions on North Korea?

All of this trashing of our alliances and walking away from international agreements is following Moscow's script for us to the "t." Rump made it clear before and during the summit that he's Putin's man, and he's not even trying to hide it. The money that Russia poured into the Trump Organization in the past is paying dividends to Putin beyond his wildest imagination. Rump knows if they pull the money out, he's toast.

Monday Reading

Here are a few of the good reads this morning (as always, please take the links to the full article).

Tired of those mainstream media safaris to observe the rustics in "Trump country?" So is the Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch:

There are no sooty coal mines underneath the steep, foliage-shrouded streets of Mount Airy, no Formica-wrapped diner where men in flannel shirts and steel-toed boots load up on painfully bitter coffee and heaping platters of cholesterol while dissecting last night’s Hannity, no driveways where an unemployed factory worker parks his Chevy truck next to a “Make America Great Again” yard sign. [snip]

...Behind ancient stone walls, on the narrow, sloping yards, stand the signs of resistance at home after home: “Impeach Trump,” or “Black Lives Matter/Philly Children’s March,” with more than a smattering of “Hillary” yard signs that owners refuse to take down, and one that declares: “In This House, We Believe: Black Lives Matter/Women’s Rights Are Human Rights/No Human Is Illegal/Science Is Real/Love Is Love/No Matter Your Faith Or Ability/Kindness Is Everything.” 

Welcome to the throbbing heart of Anti-Trump Country, a land where — if you believe in polls — the majority of Americans reside, and yet a place that the mainstream media seem determined to ignore.  (our emphasis)

Of course, the mainstream media's fascination with the Trump malignancy also includes its almost pathological desire to convince itself that "It'll all be all right/ just take a deep breath and act like everything's normal."  A couple of Republican never- Trumpers have some words of caution, like David Frum on CNN who previews tomorrow's State of the Union address:

“Look, if President Trump gets through the hour without putting a fork in somebody’s eye he will be praised as the most presidential president since the most presidential president,” he said. [snip] 

Substitute co-host Poppy Harlow clarified that if Trump merely sticks to the teleprompter he’d gain critical acclaim. 

“Just for not doing something hideous,” Frum agreed. “There is a special Trump scale where he is graded differently from any other president. If he just behaves like a functioning human being for an hour, we think he’s done a great job.” [snip] 

“I don’t have any questions left about Donald Trump,” Frum said about the possibility of Trump’s polling increasing. “He has answered every question I have. And I think we all know who he is. We all know what he is, we all know why he’s president, and what got him into that job. So, I think the question for all of us is how do we protect the country during the remainder of the presidency. There are no serious questions left about what kind of person he is.”  (our emphasis)

And John Weaver on Twitter:

Caution: Trump will read from a teleprompter at the SOTU. It will be passable, though extreme. Yet, members of the mainstream media will once again say he's turned the corner, he's met the minimum threshold, etc & normalize his behavior. Don't fall for it. Not for 1 second.

— John Weaver (@JWGOP) January 28, 2018

Here's an example of what Frum and Weaver are talking about. Repeat offender Fareed "Not Woke" Zakaria (who imagined Rump "became President" when he lobbed some cruise missiles into Syria last year) is impressed by Rump's performance among the plutocrats and oligarchs at Davos last week (his op/ ed is entitled "The Trump We Saw in Davos Should Leave Us Encouraged").Why?

On Friday at the World Economic Forum, Trump gave a good speech that was forthright, intelligent and conciliatory, embracing the world rather than condemning it. The address was extremely well received here at the World Economic Forum by both American business leaders and even non-American attendees, who are overwhelmingly skeptical of Trump overall. [snip] 

But whatever you think of the policies, the larger point is that Trump the conventional Republican is working within the American system rather than trying to destroy it.

So, we're supposed to overlook the destructive, "America First" policies and take heart ... that he reads words others have written for him, and he's acting like a "conventional Republican"?!  You mean "conventional Republicans" like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan?  Or Devin Nunes? Or Steve Mnuchin?  Or [plutocratic party- before- country name here]?  Is he angling for an interview with someone at the White (Supremacist) House? Count on Zakaria being one of those who will "fall for it" tomorrow night.

Last but not least, check out the link round- up that Infidel has put together, once again capturing the Zeitgeist for the week.

Monday Reading - The Incoherent Trump Regime And Its Dangerous Normalizers

As a few days have now passed since the boom boom flash bang look over there strike on Syria, some are reflecting on the danger posed by a beleaguered, inept regime, in the midst of major staff infighting and turnover, suddenly dropping into a Middle Eastern quagmire with no plan or exit strategy. All the while, clueless media provide exactly the wrong incentives to a narcissistic nitwit who's constantly looking for approval and validation. Here's some worthwhile Monday reading along those lines.

Republican #NeverTrump strategist Rick Wilson analyzes the trouble with the White (Supremacist) House of unfit shitgibbon Donald "Rump" Trump:

It took Donald Trump 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles to buy himself one day of kind coverage at the end of another otherwise terrible week. But what the president himself described as an impulsive reaction to heartrending photos of Syrian children gassed by Assad on his watch isn’t a coherent strategy to punish Assad for using chemical weapons. 

Even supporters who hoped the strike would show Trump as a he-man leader willing to grasp the saber of state in his tiny hands and rattle it firmly, it failed to paper over the political crisis consuming his White House as his staff and family have become warring factions seeking his favor so that the story has become not about the president’s goals, policies, or accomplishments, but a group of people around him who make the Borgias look like the Brady Bunch.

Trump is faced with terrible options when it comes to rearranging the deck chairs on the SS White House, and those of us who warned you this was inevitable are ordering popcorn. The cancer in the presidency isn’t his staff—though they reflect his shoddy intellect, his shallow impulsiveness, his loose grasp of reality, and Chinese-menu ideology. The problem is Trump himself, and nothing and no one can change that. (our emphasis)

Another #NeverTrumper, neo- con David Frum takes us through "Seven Lessons From Trump's Syria Strike," also focusing on the ad hoc, impetuous nature of Rump's boom boom distraction:

But here’s one thing we already know: There can have been no proper interagency process before the strike, because none of the relevant agencies of government other than the Department of Defense is properly staffed to join such a process. You can’t have a deputies’ meeting without deputies. 

Every decision presents risks and costs, and any responsible decision maker insists on a detailed itemization of those risks and those costs. That cannot have happened here. Trump has walked into a military confrontation that implicates regional and global security with only the haziest notion of what might go wrong. One friend of mine has warned: “If it were good foreign policy, Trump wouldn’t be doing it.” Foreign policy is hard, and even the best process does not guarantee good outcomes. Sometimes you get lucky, and can escape the consequences of a bad process. But the odds are the odds. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, bad processes lead to ugly results. (our emphasis)

Paul Krugman takes aim at the Rump regime's lack of policy coherence before taking this shot at our shallow, shiny- object- obsessed media:

Mr. Trump may like to claim that the media are biased against him, but the truth is that they’ve bent over backward in his favor. They want to seem balanced, even when there is no balance; they have been desperate for excuses to ignore the dubious circumstances of his election and his erratic behavior in office, and start treating him as a normal president. 

You may recall how, a month and a half ago, pundits eagerly declared that Mr. Trump “became the president of the United States today” because he managed to read a speech off a teleprompter without going off script. Then he started tweeting again. 

One might have expected that experience to serve as a lesson. But no: The U.S. fired off some missiles, and once again Mr. Trump “became president.” Aside from everything else, think about the incentives this creates. The Trump administration now knows that it can always crowd out reporting about its scandals and failures by bombing someone. (our emphasis)

All of these analyses are worth the read. In the meantime, stay focused and Resist.

(Photo: "Plan? My only plan is to drag the country down with me if I have to.")

Quote Of The Day - Putin's Willing Accomplice

"Without Trump’s own willingness to make false claims and misuse Russian-provided information, the Wikileaks material would have deflated of its own boringness. The Russian-hacked material did damage because, and only because, Russia found a willing accomplice in the person of Donald J. Trump." -- Conservative David Frum on neo- fascist Putin poodle Donald "Rump" Trump's willing collaboration with Russia's intelligence services (and its stooge Wikileaks) to distort largely innocuous leaked material (with the help, let us not forget, of the puerile mainstream media).

Time To Talk And Act

As many have pointed out, when we have mass slaughters involving guns, the first thing we're told is it's "too soon to talk about gun control laws". Often it's the Beltway media that enforces the "too soon" rule, enabled by professional gun proliferation advocates. Here are two takes on the situation written on Friday, one from progressive political operative Robert Shrum, and the other from conservative writer David Frum:

"We as a society are hostage to the thugs of the NRA—which actually stands for the National Rampage Association....Republicans who claim to defend the 'right to life' profit politically by defending the moral wrong of a wholesale arsenal of death inflicted on the already living.... And on the other side, politicians who know better, including most Democrats, cower before the threat of electoral retaliation—and invoke the rationalization that it is too hard to pass anything in Congress, even a ban on assault weapons or closing the gun-show loophole that lets criminals and the deranged shop for firearms without any background check....Let us resolve that half a century and more of this country as a killing field is more than enough. Let us refuse to let this day of dying fade into memory and the malaise of resignation to things as they are. Let us stand against the odds so that countless others who otherwise would never even know the cause of their slaying or the name of their executioner may instead live, laugh, and find love and not hate." -- Robert Shrum

"And I'll say: I'll accept no lectures about 'sensitivity' on days of tragedy like today from people who work the other 364 days of the year against any attempt to prevent such tragedies.

It's bad enough to have a gun lobby. It's the last straw when that lobby also sets up itself as the civility police. It may not be politically possible to do anything about the prevalence of weapons of mass murder. But it damn well ought to be possible to complain about them - and about the people who condone them."-- David Frum

If the duo of (yes) Shrum and Frum can agree that it's time not only to talk but to act, will it ever be a better time?

Wingnut Purity Purge

You've got to watch what you say in Wingnuttia, especially if you hope to keep your wingnut welfare. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum, who compellingly wrote about the capture of the Rethug Party by extremists after passage of health insurance reform legislation (calling it the Rethugs' Waterloo), has parted ways with the American Enterprise Institute. Calling it "unexpected", Frum's resignation/ termination may mean yet another right-wing light has decided not to follow the Rethugs over the cliff (others of note being Charles Johnson, Christopher Buckley and Andrew Sullivan).

Welcome to reality, Mr. Frum!

Worth Noting

1. Frank Schaeffer takes the Rethuglicans to the woodshed and whips them good for their obstructionism and blind partisanship in a stinging Huffington Post article. Schaeffer, a former Rethug himself, was part of the religious right movement, which his evangelical parents helped to create, until he saw the damage it was doing to the country. He spares no words in describing the Rethug political establishment as treasonous and corrupt:

"You Republicans were the arsonists who burned down our national home. . .you do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created."

A good read on a Monday morning.

2. David Frum, a conservative former speechwriter for Dumbya, levels a barrage in Newsweek against the current Rethuglican Dear Leader, Pills Limpballs. Frum believes that the far right direction the current Rethuglican Party is heading in will result in the Party's marginalization. We can only hope.