Speaker

I am going to suggest you read this interview with John Boehner.

There is some insight to the machinations inside our capitol, first hand accounts, that are beyond the typical curated speaking point that swirl around it.
There is also context from his friends and some foes.
Some thought of his place in history, as well...

...The triumph of John Boehner is that he achieved reform and ascended to the speakership and often rose above the uncompromising dogma of both parties; the tragedy is that he came to Congress an insurgent only to be swallowed by the insurgency...

I know, John Boehner...

You don't have to read it.
What else have you got going on though?


That link, again.

Slippery Slopes

An article covering a gathering of political scientists and theorists sounds fun, right?

I meant to link to this Vox bit before, but instead just went on living my life without thinking of posting something for you...

Basically, this poli-sci convention was kind of a downer.
Lots of scholarly types thinking total bummer stuff about the state of democracy in America...

Stuff like this-

Nancy Bermeo, a politics professor at Princeton and Harvard, began her talk with a jarring reminder: Democracies don’t merely collapse, as that “implies a process devoid of will.” Democracies die because of deliberate decisions made by human beings. 

Usually, it’s because the people in power take democratic institutions for granted. They become disconnected from the citizenry. They develop interests separate and apart from the voters. They push policies that benefit themselves and harm the broader population. Do that long enough, Bermeo says, and you’ll cultivate an angry, divided society that pulls apart at the seams.

I do think the story is worth a few minutes, if you have a few to spare.

There is a particularly interesting bit about the function of time in the language of campaigning/politics...
If you go for that sort of thing.


Link, again.

Healthcare

This is from some years back, but worth a watch...

Leaker

So, he came in and went off about firing the leakers...
Treasonous, evil, behind the back whisperers.


And then he quits/gets canned.

Was he a leaker, then realized it and self fired?
I think that could be a usable narrative going forward.


This pace of absurdity is brutal...


So, just random cabinet members are doing press conferences now?
Send out the seemingly sane people, tell them to look dour...
(Try to tune out the sound of the whole world laughing.)

Maverick (Pt II)

And McConnell has a sad...

McCain actually went maverick.
Didn't see the coming...
But it does kinda seem like it was an orchestrated flipping of the bird.
What  with McCain inviting reporters to watch the show, on his way to the vote.


And with all of this the hard right folks expose the purity of faith, with exhalations that the source of McCain's cancer is none other than God...
A punishment for the impurity of his conservatism, or something.
That is nice, isn't it?


So, what do you think...
Maybe two months before they give some repeal effort another go?

Maverick

I am still marveling at the machinations of the Senate, over the past few days.
The whole of it is stunning...


This guy rides in on his high horse to deliver a speech about bipartisanship.

Votes along party lines to move to debate.

Announces that he won't vote for the bill.

Then votes for the fucking bill...


I mean that seems a lot like some party line bullshit, right there.
War hero, brain cancer, whatever credit you care to give the guy...
That reads more hack than maverick...

MTP

So, senators just voted for a bill with no knowledge of what was in the actual bill...



I mean, that is just good governance right there.

Collusion Tease

So, I guess today's narrative is that there is no collusion...

But this guy was really hoping to get the chance to do colluding with the super secret, ruskie lawyer gal.
Plus his bro-in-law and his dad's buddy, who actually was on Putin's payroll for a while.

And she left him with some pamphlets about adopting Russian babushkas and blue balled them on the colludifacation.


Is that the story they are going with, today?  Am I getting this right?

Rhodey

How about a longish read on the history of democracy in the early days of Rhode Island and what it reveals about our modern political state?

Sounds super fun, right?

Rhode Island’s experiment in egalitarian democracy emerged from economic and political conditions that troubled all the newly independent American states during the 1780s. This is the moment that most textbook accounts of the founding skip quickly over. Ordinary citizens faced a combination of tax hikes and a scarcity of currency, as governments stretched to pay off wartime debts and urban elites passed the costs onto the underrepresented inhabitants of the rural hinterlands. In every state, the postwar economic slump sparked calls for reduced taxation and emissions of paper money to ease the impact of the crisis — measures that would redistribute economic burdens away from ordinary people and towards the wealthy.

If that gets your gears turning, the whole article is over here.

Yup

Have a good weekend, y'all.

Don't blow your digits off, or anything...




(Yes, I am aware that the sloth-astronaut depicted is probably an immigrant.  We are a nation of those, you know.  Hopefully, the sloth's presence in this image doesn't upset any protectionist ideals you may have and diminish the pleasantness of this post's intentions.  It occurs to me that those wolves may also be Canadian, which takes us to healthcare.  You will need that if you blast a finger off, won't you?  The wolves will, if they lose protected status, for sure.  Suddenly this post has gone from a dumb picture to political commentary.  It was just supposed to be a dumb post with an eagle and flag, along with some nonsense.  Sorry about that, my bad.  Anyway, stay safe and cool this weekend.  Oh shit, now I am thinking about the EPA getting gutted in the name of climate change denial.  Goddamnit, it's just everything isn't it?  Just fucked by those fucking fuckers, the whole lot of it.  Damnit man...)

Cruelty

Right

What is this?

A voice from the right, confirming we are taking a stroll down a shit covered sidewalk?

Trump has been ruled by compulsions, obsessions and vindictiveness, expressed nearly daily on Twitter. He has demonstrated an egotism that borders on solipsism. His political skills as president have been close to nonexistent. His White House is divided, incompetent and chaotic, and key administration jobs remain unfilled. His legislative agenda has gone nowhere. He has told constant, childish, refuted, uncorrected lies, and demanded and habituated deception among his underlings. He has humiliated and undercut his staff while requiring and rewarding flattery. He has promoted self-serving conspiracy theories. He has displayed pathetic, even frightening, ignorance on policy matters foreign and domestic. He has inflicted his ethically challenged associates on the nation. He is dead to the poetry of language and to the nobility of the political enterprise, viewing politics as conquest rather than as service.

Full piece/prose found here.

Written by one of W's top guys, so the WaPo fake news bit struggles to stick.


Unless this dude was "gotten" by the shape shifting lizard lib's, who run the pizzagate place...

Because, you know, that is the world we live in now.

Hot

Here is a startling bit, regarding clime change-

Climate Central looked at the monthly data using the earlier baseline and found that “if you were born after December 1964, you’ve never experienced a month cooler than average on this planet.”

That is probably not indicative of any trend at all, huh?
Probably should think about that for a minute.


Crap, man...

That is some perspective.


Source article here.

Sure

Lead with your strengths, they say.










I could write a post on current events, but I would guess you are at saturation with that stuff.

Personally, my response to a news alert on my phone has gone from "I wonder what's happening" to "what the fuck did he do now" and will probably stay that way for a bit...

Never

Wait, what?

He goes to Israel, meets up with the PM of Israel, then at a photo-op for the press he say he never mentioned Israel to the Russians?

Regarding the source for classified information he spilled to the Russians...

Dude, you are doing it right now, you are mentioning Israel right now, while you say you never mentioned Israel, from Israel

Ha!

via GIPHY


In what has to be the most comedic global political move in history, Putin is offering to provide transcripts of Russia's diplomatic meeting with Trump to congressional investigators.

“If the administration of the United States deems this possible, we will be ready to provide a transcript of the Lavrov-Trump meeting to the U.S. Senate and Congress,” Putin told reporters during a news conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. Putin added, “it will happen if the U.S. administration wishes so.”

That is from the WaPo, here is the story.


Of course the caveat is that the administration has to ask for them.
Which is just another layer of comedy gold...

Good stuff Vlad, seriously.

C'mon

So, Yates, Flynn, Comey...

A reporter was arrested for asking questions of a cabinet member.

The press secretary answering late night questions from behind a hedge.

Scientist fired from the EPA review board...

White House folks deleting old press releases from the internet (like that works).

Nepotism amok.




Pick your bitch and add it to the list, because it can go on, and on.



I mean, seriously...
Is this what we are reduced to?


That shining city on a hill sounds more like a burning dumpster in a back alley, huh.

May Day

Yeah, so it's May Day.

Are you more of a dance around the Maypole kind of person?
Or an International Workers Day type?


Do people even do that Maypole thing anymore?
Somebody must be doing that somewhere, right?
Twirling ribbons while wearing special, little outfits and whatever.

How about that Workers Day bit?
You don't see too many marches for the working stiffs, really.
Maybe those Fight for $15 deals count?
I guess those count.

I think Trump declared today Loyalty Day, as well.
Given the measure of the first one hundred with that guy...
The application of May Day as a distress call seems to also work, today.
Stop trying to make Loyalty Day a thing, dude.


So, happy May Day...

If you are down with the May Day thing.

Death Panels

You know, after all these years with the GOP trashing the Affordable Care Act, railing about how broken it is...

Pointing out that Obamacare has Death Panels.
Death Panels who will decide when the health care for your grandparents costs too much...
Death Panels that will force you to pull the plug on loved ones...

I am kinda surprised that the newly announced replacement for the ACA does not include any mention of the repeal of that whole Death Panel enterprise.
That seems like something Republicans would talk about getting rid of, after so many years talking it up.


Does that mean that the Death Panels are actually OK, after all...

Or does that mean that they never existed in the first place?

LOL

How about an update on the murder of that North Korean dude, in Malaysia?

Another arrest and more details on the whole deal over here.




Admit it, it's a good distraction from our own political pussy power grab.


And from dwelling on the terrible things going on in Sweden...