11.17.2018

Today In The Banana Republic of Georgia

11.16.2018

What's A Little Cover-up Among Friends

R.I.P., William Goldman

Interesting remembrance here. Among other stories—
I sat with Bill for the last time Monday, in New York City. His friend of 80 years, John Kander, was there, too. With his lyricist Fred Ebb, Kander wrote "Cabaret" and "Chicago" and the song "New York, New York." They had shared an apartment in the 1950s on West 72nd Street along with Bill's older brother, James Goldman, who wrote "A Lion in Winter" and the book for "Follies." Imagine the magic in that apartment, when they were all young and everything was ahead of them.

Today In Good News

Repeal And Replace

11.15.2018

Quantifying and Compounding

A Little Deal Among Friends


If weapons deals aren't his thing, they'll do for paying off backers. More to the point: a lot of Saudi money is dropped at a certain DC hotel. And there was that mysterious "miracle" of Jared's $1.2 billion bailout.

11.14.2018

Hillary Demanded, Hillary Supplied

Of course they demanded one. As for the previous version, GOP Central Casting has worked for years on supplying her.Broadcast "journalists": the blankest slates in America. How could they possibly be expected to remember that it's merely every fucking election that Republicans across this great and exceptional land run against Nancy Pelosi...

11.13.2018

Today In The Banana Republic Of Ohio

When it's the GOP's long game, the familiar players are always brought back.

Ohio, and this again.Thread.

11.08.2018

Today In The Banana Republic of Florida

Hey, you use the tools you've got... Not to mention this: suing counties where count is not finished, demanding Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigate ballot counting, and using whatever other means of spaghetti flinging Scott finds.

Today In The Banana Republic of Georgia

Why, he does declay-ah: Secretary of State? Goodness, gracious not when he is Guvnah! Now that this "resolves" everything...

11.07.2018

Today In The Banana Republic of Georgia

And so it continues; thread on
the Abrams campaign's continued efforts to confront Kemp's election tampering.

11.04.2018

Today In The Banana Republic Of Georgia

11.03.2018

Fox Viewer-in-Chief

Full Resources Of The US Government

11.02.2018

A Brilliant Plan of Unfathomably Stable Genius

9.30.2018

The Tell

Marcy Wheeler: "After complaining about how the nomination has destroyed his family, he accuses a shady, largely fictional, mirror image of the Right Wing Noise Machine of seeking revenge." Kavanaugh's tell being that the Clintons are avenging themselves against him.
The guy who insisted that–
I am strongly opposed to giving the President any 'break' in the questioning regarding the details of the Lewinsky relationship — unless before questioning on Monday, he either (i) resigns or (ii) confesses perjury and issues a public apology to [sexual assault cover-up expert Ken Starr].
That guy thinks the scrutiny of his own sexual past is just "revenge on behalf of the Clintons," plural. Not just Hillary for — as he explicitly mentions — "President Trump and the 2016 election." But also Bill Clinton, the man whom Kavanaugh demanded describe details of his use of sex toys and enjoyment of blowjobs under oath, and perhaps even Chelsea, the young girl who had to watch her parents be humiliated before the entire nation.

In spite of Kavanaugh's suggestion that this imagined campaign would have consequences for decades, his admission that it might be revenge means it must be revenge for something. For something done to the Clintons. Hillary. And Bill.
And he's foaming at the mouth, waiting to be where he can really punish all enemies.

Under Cover of Darkness

From the Times' description—
In shelters from Kansas to New York, hundreds of migrant children have been roused in the middle of the night in recent weeks and loaded onto buses with backpacks and snacks for a cross-country journey to their new home: a barren tent city on a sprawling patch of desert in West Texas.

Until now, most undocumented children being held by federal immigration authorities had been housed in private foster homes or shelters, sleeping two or three to a room. They received formal schooling and regular visits with legal representatives assigned to their immigration cases.

But in the rows of sand-colored tents in Tornillo, Tex., children in groups of 20, separated by gender, sleep lined up in bunks. There is no school: The children are given workbooks that they have no obligation to complete. Access to legal services is limited.

9.29.2018

We Return You to Our Scheduled Program

Just another campaign rally.

Strange Interlude

By way of a taking a break—from the year we just went through this week—I picked up the Berenice Abbott biography I had started. Getting up to Abbott's New York work in the 1930s led me to leaf through my copy of this.

A photo from the book (and that's on wiki)—
Something jumped out—to the left of the broom, in the window of this "Union Store"—

9.25.2018

Target Audience

9.24.2018

Tonight on State-run Media

Today in Media Strategy

7.31.2018

Dress For Success

7.29.2018

Today In Palace Stenography


But isn't it simply the case that it was time to do this again?
Updated...

7.17.2018

Disagree

"... agreement ..."

7.09.2018

Wretchxit


In short...

7.05.2018

Lady Liberty, 2018


Fourth of July Liberty Island tourism does not mix with protest... against persecution of immigrants. Just to be sure of overreacting, law enforcement evacuated the island yesterday.

Today, very heavy artillery was brought out.

7.04.2018

America

1858.
2018.

7.03.2018

The Last Word

6.14.2018

OMG

6.13.2018

A New Tune In The Repertoire?

Thread on the latest statements being vomited out.

He's said this kind of stuff all along. His line on Xi is also a rerun: "He's an incredible guy. You know, essentially president for life. That's pretty good."

Exactly the same as his previous line about Putin is here applied to Kim: "A lot of other people have done some really bad things"...

Loathesome it is, but always full of the same tells. In particular, there's Trump's recognition that his interlocutors expect him to endorse such conventions as, "dictatorship is bad." He pays quick and unconvincing lip service, before moving on to how much the dictator under discussion excites him.

But this one seemed novel...
Make that, centenarian parents. Who previously knew so many "thousands and thousands" of centenarians had attended his rage fests? Perhaps they were camouflaged in "Fuck your feelings," and "Trump that bitch" shirts.

At first I thought Trump sounded even more unhinged than usual, to have retroactively seized on "return of remains" as a rationale for meeting Kim. On second thought, I suspect the very concept of "The Korean War" suddenly prompted Trump to remember the war in Viet Nam, and particularly, the "POW/MIA" furor. Public rage was inflamed when remains of some casualties had not been returned, which was the case simply because bodies could not always be recovered from the jungle. Anger over this was fueled in the 1970s, Trump's formative period. Surely, he recalls the public emotion, and he must remember how politically useful claims of government conspiracy were.

Trump's Korean War arithmetic may be a howler, but his base will believe he's always planned to do something for families that traitor Obama refused.

6.12.2018

Speaking Truth To Money

"New York Times bad takes"? An institution now gets its own richly deserved production number.

6.07.2018

It Takes A Comedian

6.03.2018

It'll Be The Biggest, Most Beautiful Axis You've Ever Seen

6.02.2018

Footnotes Critiqued

The Guilty Act Is Sure to Prove His Innocence

Aren't leakers supposed to be the sent to the dungeon? All this was sent in January, so the purposes of the sudden release are yet to be known. Surely, to claim Mueller's team leaked, and to set talking points for Magats. In other speculation, because Trumps other than Melania and Barron left for a trip to Camp David, is the gathering to coordinate stories?Sure, this is within the normal run of criminal behavior...... Then there's the more ground-breaking stuff... From "Emptywheel's Putin Theory":
Right in the middle of this heated effort to respond to the NYT, Trump bizarrely spent an hour chatting Vladimir Putin up over dinner at the G-20.... The question here is not just "why did you release such a partial statement that the documentary record proves is inaccurate?" Nor is it, "why did you emphasize adoptions — Russian code for sanctions — rather than the sanctions that were at the core of the meeting?"

It's also the unstated question: "Did you dictate that statement? Or did Vladimir Putin?"

Here's the nutty bit. We don't actually have to speculate about whether that spin — adoptions rather than sanctions — came up in the chat between Putin and Trump. In an interview not long after news of the June 9 meeting broke, Trump actually told the NYT he and Putin were talking about adoptions.
TRUMP: We talked about Russian adoption. Yeah. I always found that interesting. Because, you know, he ended that years ago. And I actually talked about Russian adoption with him, which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don [Jr., Mr. Trump’s son] had in that meeting. As I’ve said — most other people, you know, when they call up and say, "By the way, we have information on your opponent," I think most politicians — I was just with a lot of people, they said [inaudible], "Who wouldn't have taken a meeting like that?" They just said——

HABERMAN: The senators downstairs?

TRUMP: A lot of them. They said, "Who wouldn't have taken a meeting like that?"
By his own admission, Trump went from the July 7 dinner chat about adoptions with Putin and "dictated" a statement that just happened to focus, misleadingly, on adoptions.

So, yeah, the big question in this entire list is the unstated one: did you dictate that statement? Or did Putin?

5.22.2018

Winning

5.01.2018

Plays Well To The Base

When there's no bottom to just how base they are.
The concentration camp deaths and suicides, the contempt, the felony conviction play particularly well to the Law and Order crowd.

4.30.2018

Today In Pruitt Job Security

4.25.2018

The Godly Party

4.10.2018

Short-sighted Meet Weak-minded

The leading questions are part of an instinct to gin up drama. And, in response to the Trump creature, they undertake this effort to shape his babbling into a narrative that fits how a president is believed to behave.

The questions serve as lifelines; the worst offenders toss them to Trump, as he flails in his special blend of grandiosity and incoherence. And they are not well-intended lifelines, but assists intended to make him talk tough. Like their subject, these journos betray a public trust.

4.09.2018

Good Old Party Values


The Longest Month Is Called "Monday"

But we can hope it feels even longer to all those not as yet indicted.

Department Of...


Uh-OMFG...

Trade War For Thee

Doing The Old Overlord Shuffle

Employee Of The Month?

April is young, and there always will be heavy competition. Yet he already seems like a strong contender.

No Knowledge, No Problems

Latest Domino

4.08.2018

Back To The Old Pivot

In other words, in the eyes of pundits, ready to again be presidential.

All In A Day's Presidenting

No time for condolences to the family of the Trump Tower victim, when the vital business of the country is waiting to be done.

He Could Kill Someone on Fifth Avenue


4.05.2018

That Old Dark Money Magic That They Weave So Well

EXCLUSIVE: Robert Mercer backed a secretive group that worked with Facebook, Google to target anti-Muslim ads at swing voters

In weeks close to the election, writes Robert Maguire, "voters in swing states like Nevada and North Carolina began seeing eerie promotional travel ads as they scrolled through their Facebook feeds or clicked through Google sites."

"Travel ads," for "The Islamic State of France," and
Another, for the "Islamic State of Germany," invited visitors to "celebrate the arranged marriages of future jihadi soldiers" at a pork-and alcohol-free Oktoberfest.

"You can even sell your daughter or sister to be married," the ad notes enthusiastically while showing the covered face of a woman wearing a black burka.

And just to bring it all home, days before the election, the group made an "Islamic States of America" travel promo, where Syrian refugees have overtaken America. In the ad, the iconic Hollywood sign reads "Allahu Akbar," and the Statue of Liberty wears a burka and holds a star and crescent. In the video, Ground Zero in New York City is shown as place where citizens can "celebrate our Islamic victories."
The lurid videos (posted in Maguire's piece) were underwitten by a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, Secure America Now. Maguire obtained tax records for the group, showing $2 million donated by pro-Trump dark money groups, and two large individual contributors: Mercer($2 million) and Ronald Laude ($1.1 million).
SAN reported more than $1 million in political spending to the Federal Election Commission in 2016 — in the form of "independent expenditures," which means they appealed directly to voters, asking them to support or oppose specific candidates for office.

While there are some differences between what the FEC and the IRS consider political spending, such direct calls for voters to support or oppose candidates are generally considered to be unambiguously political. Yet, in filing their tax returns, SAN told the IRS it only spent $124,192 on politics.
Whatever chicanery is being slipped past supposed regulators, there still seems to be a nice surplus for next time.

3.29.2018

In News of Indicted Conspirators

3.28.2018

Long-Term Commitment

Student activism, again. This time, the authors who've graduated continue working toward passage of their bill, as current students enlist in the cause.