Autocracy!

Refugees Welcome Back!

Flying very low under the radar, news came this week that the US State Department, overseen by Donald Trump, is now doubling the amount of refugees allowed in the country. It looks like we will be back up to the Obama-era levels of 1500 refugees allowed in a week.

I'm wondering how this sits with Trump's supporters...

The Sivil War

Change Anxiety

Get 'Er Done

Over the next day or two, much will be written about President Trump's first 100 days in office. Many will say that he hasn't done anything really and they would be correct. But that doesn't matter to the GOP voter. Why?

Neil Gorsuch.

If there was ever a campaign that was single issue, 2016 was it. Conservatives held their nose and voted for a guy that is repugnant for one simple reason. They wanted a conservative, not a liberal, on SCOTUS and they got it. Anything else he does can be explained away and/or stymied (e.g. health care repeal/replace). Trump "got 'er done"

What Democrats need to understand is that even though Republicans are a dying party, they are a dying party that votes. They don't stay home because of single issues like Supreme Court nominees. So, this begs the question...what turns out Democrats? Solid candidates with populist streaks and connections to ordinary citizens. This is why Bill Clinton and Barack Obama won by such large margins.

Get people out to vote. Get local candidates to run. It's just that simple.

Making His Mark

Here's a pretty sobering piece from Politico regarding Trump's climate policies. I think that this is the one area where he pissed me off the most. It's the whole "fuck you, we can do what we want and you can't make us do nothing!" adolescent attitude of him and his followers that is potentially going to add billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

Unless, of course, the free market stops them.

Not wanting smug liberal elites and smart people telling you what to do isn't a policy. Neither is pretending that this stuff isn't real.

Grow the fuck up and let's deal with this challenge.

Why Clinton But Not Trump?

James Comey continues to befuddle me and today's very long piece in the New York Times does nothing to clear things up.

What he did not say was that the F.B.I. was also investigating the campaign of Donald J. Trump. Just weeks before, Mr. Comey had declined to answer a question from Congress about whether there was such an investigation. Only in March, long after the election, did Mr. Comey confirm that there was one.

Why? Why tell them about Clinton but not Trump? I refuse to accept that Comey was in the tank for the Republicans. He's just not that kind of guy. Perhaps he thought that since the Clinton investigation was closed (and he probably thought she was going to win anyway) he had an obligation to tell Congress. The Trump investigation was ongoing so that would mean no comment. As the article notes, what if he said nothing and she won? Then it would appear as if he was colluding...which it ended up looking like anyway but for Trump.

No matter which way you cut it, it all sucks.

Make Sure Those Ships Are Heading In The Right Direction!

He reminds me more and more of Kim Jong Un everday...

Which Party Again Are The Adults?

Donald Trump invited Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent and Kid Rock to the White House in what has to be the clearest example that we are literally in the film Idiocracy. Like the adolescents they are, they took the time to pose under a photo of Hillary Clinton and mock it. Which party has the adults in it again?

Oh, that's right. It would be this party.

Tax Bill=Dead

Donald Trump is never going to get a deal done on tax reform as long as he doesn't release his income tax returns. The voters don't want it. Check out this recent town hall put on by Tom Cotton, junior senator from Arkansas.

FBI used dossier allegations to bolster Trump-Russia investigation

The FBI used the infamous MI-6 dossier as justification for a whole host of investigations, including the most recent one into Carter Page, a senior Trump campaign official. Much as the president would like the Russian stuff to go away, it won't. There is simply too much evidence out there that demands an investigation.

It's incredibly obvious to the thinking world where this is headed. Let's hope this happens sooner rather than later.

Defining The Trump Voter

What are the best ways to characterize the Trump voter? It's certainly something that has been up for debate since the Donald won office last November. I think the best place to start is the man himself. He can easily be characterized by two words: childish tantrum.

This characterization can easily be extended to the people who voted for him but they are having their childish tantrums for different reasons. As I have stated previously, the right wing blogger/commenter crowd is always in childish tantrum mode because they can't stand the reality of liberals being right most of the time. All of their envy, insecurity and inferiority comes out in one fell swoop when they foam at the mouth about "smug liberal elites." They failed in life so they are taking it out on the rest of us.

Worse, they apparently think that the rules of being nice and being respectful only apply to liberals. They get to say whatever the fuck they want and no one is more perfect for this than Trump himself. For proof of this, watch what happens when a liberal calls a Trump voter ignorant or uninformed. It's the end of the frikkin' universe or something much like it. Yet, calling liberals "libtards" is just dandy!

A good chunk of Trump voters voted for him merely because they were having a childish tantrum about Hillary Clinton. I'm still trying to figure out what it is about her that makes grown men...particularly grown older men...descend into fits that are worse than a crying four year old at Wal Mart acting out to get his mom's attention. Is it just because she's a woman? A successful liberal who is intelligent? Both? Regardless, these are the voters that propelled him over the top.

And this group includes the mouth foamers on the left who voted for Jill Stein...

I think a majority of people who voted for Trump are merely folks who always pull the lever for the Republican candidate. They would never vote for any Democrat under any circumstances and merely went along. I liken these folks to the German citizens who just went along in the 1930s...

So, it's a mixed bag of angry malcontents, nihilists, and sheep that define the Trump voter. It's a really bad combination and one that is ripe for solidifying a dictatorship assuming their dear leader was competent enough. He's not at all. Given this fact, he's had to rely on more conventional folks like James Mattis, Rex Tillerson, and HR McMaster. And the GOP Congress isn't competent either. For years, they bitched and bitched about the Affordable Care Act only to fall completely flat in their efforts to repeal it.

All of this makes me realize that there is another way beyond "childish tantrum" to characterize the Trump voter.

Spineless Ineffectives.

Is Trump's base turning on him?

That's the question posed by Politico recently. I can certainly see why they would. He's starting to govern in pretty much the same way Hillary Clinton would have governed. He's reversed himself on NATO, China, Russia, and more.

"Donald Trump dropped an emotional anchor. He captured how Americans feel," said Tania Vojvodic, a fervent Trump supporter who founded one of his first campaign volunteer networks. "We expect him to keep his word, and right now he's not keeping his word." 

Earlier this week, Vojvodic launched a Facebook group called, “The concerned support base of President Trump,” which quickly drew several dozen sign-ups. She also changed the banner on her Facebook page to a picture of Bannon accompanied by the declaration: “Mr. President: I stand with Steve Bannon.”

Hell hath no "fury" like the right wing blogger/commenter...hee hee hee...

As someone who recognizes the reality of the world and how to function in it, I applaud Donald Trump's reversal on all these positions. I'm also hoping that Bannon's days are numbered. It looks like they might be. Someone with such a fictitious view of the world bound by ideologically intransigence (aka right wing blogger/commenter) has no business implementing policy.

So, reality has hit Donald Trump smack in the forehead. Who would have guessed being the president would be so hard?

Under A Cloud

Rewriting History

While I fully support President Trump's recent attack on a Syrian airbase in response to the Assad government's chemical weapons attack on its own people, I find myself confused. Is this the same Donald Trump who said this just a few years ago?

AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA - IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2013

Or all of this. 

Here's my personal favorite.

The only reason President Obama wants to attack Syria is to save face over his very dumb RED LINE statement. Do NOT attack Syria,fix U.S.A.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2013

Ah, yes...the red line lie. That would be the one where our much missed and highly successful former president actually went to Congress to ask permission to attack Syria. The result?

Congress, especially the Republicans, told President Obama NO. Now, of course, all those same Republicans are loving themselves some Syrian air strikes. What a bunch of hypocritical assholes.

As usual, the Christian Science Monitor has the best coverage of this story.

“We should not invest the limited American military attack with any strategic connotations so far,” says Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert at the London School of Economics (LSE). “It’s an attack divorced from any strategic political vision. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration has any concrete ideas to find a political solution. I’m very skeptical.”

Yep.

Another Buh Bye!

Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has stepped aside as chairman citing evil liberals as the cause. The actual cause was his own unethical and possibly illegal behavior in handling the investigation into ties between Russian intelligence. Worse, he appeared to be Trump Flunky #89, regurgitating information about the investigation from the White House itself.

Flynn, Bannon, Nunes...the arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice...

Buh Bye

Guess who just got booted off of the National Security Council?

Steve Bannon.

As I have said a few times on here, the best way to deal with the right wing blogger mindset is to not give them the attention they so desperately need. If they see liberals freaking out, they pop boners and are all super happy that the smug liberal elite are getting payback. Just let shit work itself it out. Boy, it sure did with this situation.

As soon as Flynn was gone and McMaster took over, I knew things were going to be set right. I suspect he had little tolerance for right wing blogger buffoonery. That ideology simply has no place in the real world so it was buh bye to Bannon!

Tantrum!

So Right Wing Blogger/Commenter President 8 Year Old was supposed to sign another one of his imperial declarations (which actually mean nothing) but some person with a fat face asked him a poopy question so he stomped off down the hallway without doing nuthin!

Check it out!

The 38%

President Trump's approval rating continues to fall as he struggles to explain his connections to the Russian government, the Russian mafia and Russian oligarchs. He has likely settled down to his core base of around 38 percent of voters who will believe anything he says and NOTHING that anyone who is remotely against the president says.

Trump himself isn't really the problem. It's this 38%. We know from various studies over the last 15 years or so that the demographics that are the Trump voter aren't rational and allow emotion to drive their reasoning process. If Trump is impeached and driven from office on the basis of facts, this reality will be ignored and a new one will be formed in which liberals conspired with the elites and the media to destroy their savior. How on earth do we get these folks to recognize how warped this is?

Perhaps we can't. It may just be that we simply have to get more people to vote against this view. More importantly, we have go get more people to run against this view.

More women...more minorities...

The Enablers