stillshimpy

The only interest they might have in getting rid of Twitler is that he's antagonistic towards countries that they actually don't want to royally piss off. That's it. So a Night of the Long Knives scenario, presumably with fewer actual murders (one would freaking hope) is within the realm of possibility. They needed thugs (aka Brownshirts) to help get them into power and to the point where those checks and balances have lost all power. It's been happening with the obstructionist government of the last 8 years. So they've already stuck a few "let's see what happens when we do this outrageously undemocratic thing...." toes into the water and what happened was not a giant loss of power because they were able to deflect all blame onto to the democrats. But the problem with those braying fools who bullying and spray paint is that they aren't useful to them for anything else. So there is actually a fairly strong possibility that they will want to herd Trump towards some sort of sea....because he's not smart, he's not capable and he has a child's understanding of the world stage. It won't help us any but it remains a strong possibility because he's just that bad.

Well, there's simply no diplomatic way to say this, but the GOP for all that they act as fluffers to alleged family values doesn't truly have any interest in people without means after they have served their usefulness. Far from being more likely that they'll want to nurse senior citizens who don't have many means along for long period, the most obvious "we're trying to limit healthcare available to people who are anything other than upper-middle class and above" is that they want to wring the life's blood out of people while they are still working and then have them politely shuffle off the mortal coil rather promptly after that. That's part of the point of gutting regulatory agencies so that there are tons of ways to make obscene amounts of money. Social Security is a relatively recent addition to our society and the GOP really only has interest in rich old people. Again, the whole "fake news" "oh please, that isn't even happening" propaganda blitz is that people won't believe what is happening to others. The whole, "the average family" is also what forms the proletariat. Historically, oligarchies just want the proles to die swiftly after they've broken their backs for the rich. The term "the death of democracy" gets thrown around a lot in these last weeks but it isn't an inaccurate description. It does not bode well for anyone.

Then to top it all off? They've been taught and encouraged to disdain higher education which is, at its very core, about gaining knowledge that lead to more advanced skill sets. WASF, indeed, but oh my goodness, they think they are getting the America of '50s back in which America had a strong middle-class rooted deeply in manufacturing. For all the reasons outlined, that is dead in the water and again, they've seemingly never grasped the nefarious reasons behind encouraging swaths of the country to view critical thinking and advanced education as being....god help them, because they will need it...stupid as a pursuit. I've said it before, I'm likely to say it over and over, but I have honest pity for those people. The depth and scope of how screwed they are almost can't occur to them because the only workers's history they remember is the "man, it's great to be a white guy!" post WWII economy. But that is not what they've set themselves up to experience. Food stamps "entitlements" (oh Jesus wept) and all the other social programs they sneer at -- you know, like Head Start -- were also in place to help them and they want them gutted. It gets so much worse in that soon they will be back to not having access to healthcare, so they'll live shortened, hard-scrabble lives and they've so thoroughly flipped off the very people who have fought for them over the course of our history that we're unlikely to care what happens to them. In part because we'll be too fucking busy trying to protect other segments of the population they've just finished pissing all over to even notice until it is too late.

There are a couple of things with this that Trump-voters in the "I have economic anxiety! Bring our manufacturing jobs back!" have never fully grasped: there's no way for those jobs to come back because they never left because of "corporate taxes" ....they left because people in Malaysia and other such places work for next to nothing comparatively. There's simply no way to reconcile the difference between paying someone from a much poorer country somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 dollars a day (and holy shit, am I ever overstating that) with paying an American $20 an hour to do the exact same thing. That math can never swing in their favor for incredibly obvious reasons. Then they've also carefully inoculated the entire population from caring about police and power abuses when directed at the poor via the treatment of the African-American community. Sure, those yehaws have guns practically sticking out of their ears, but recall Ferguson and remember, a lot of local police units have military-grade equipment available to them. They don't need to be afraid of the citizen's armed militias, even with their devotion to assault weapons because the police have actual, not kidding, tanks. Then on top of all that, the only reason that places like Ruby Ridge, etc. weren't immediately resolved with a massive show of force is that there was expected pushback for abuse of power against citizens. So they've broken that outrage machine and alienated (pretty much permanently) the people most likely to raise the alarm and try to push back on their behalf, liberals....why do you think murdering a concept of social justice has been of prime importance for ten years or more? Then for the wealthy conservatives, already the tax cuts favor them which is so clearly a way of making sure that people with more power in the land of capitalism will look the other way....and these self-same more powerful conservatives are easily persuaded of positively insane theories. When people started talking about Sandy Hook being a government conspiracy that never happened, it seemingly failed to occur to these daft fuckers that they could also be slotted into the "I deny that reality" position. In all of this, part of the reason I have relatively little animosity towards the people largely responsible for this is that the bulk of them have no clue how that worm can turn on them. They've served their purpose, democracy is being gutted, election interference is dismissed as the paranoid sour-grapes of the losing side. They have almost nothing to protect them and their stupid love of guns will be the very thing that can justify the use of incredibly deadly force against them. Trump and his ilk have never cared even a tiny bit how much those people suffer and now they've succeeded in making themselves pretty much entirely disposable to achieving that power structure. The inability to look to history by the right is almost amusingly tragic: The days of the robber barons are coming back and back then? No one gave a good god damn what happened to the working poor. It took a heatwave that was literally causing the poor to die like flies in New York for anyone to even suggest "We should let them at least sleep in the park so they don't croak, right? I mean, we can do that much!" (people were literally roasting alive in those brick tenements, the police would kick them out of the parks and they would essentially cook to actual death, trying to sleep on the tar-covered roofs of the tenements in which they lived). They want their country back, eh? Well, congratulations. Pity you didn't know much about it to start. It's never been kind to the working poor.

Good to know, good to know. I admire Michelle Obama as much as I admire her husband -- which is to say, quite a bit (I say in a rare fit of restraint) -- so I will take that as glad tidings indeed. I hope they are having a beautiful season together, all of them, planning for all the adventures and time they will all spend together. They deserve all the peace, quiet and happiness that this world can offer them.

Oh OrigamiNightmare, I'm so sorry. I'm not going to try and talk you out of your fears, I wouldn't ever deny your reality that way. I can say this though, there are plenty of us who will do our best to make sure that doesn't happen. If you can, get to one of the states that has already vowed to do everything within its power to protect everything in your life.

That was entirely delightful, thank you for linking to it. Those were some of the purest laughs I've had in a while, only slightly marred by how much I will miss seeing him on my TV regularly.

Thank you, but also? It kind of figures, the poor man.

Hey, does anyone know if Barrack Obama is a Cubs fan, by any chance? I'm asking, because seeing as we're in Obama's thread, I thought I'd try and figure out if there was anything nice that happened in 2016 from his perspective. That was pretty much the only thing I could come up with after several minutes of searching my memory banks for something that didn't suck for him. I mean, other than his cute dogs, lovely family, beautiful wife, good soul and soon-to-be retirement, that is.

That is true, but what is also true is that Pence, if he has any sense, has his own reasons for wanting Trump out of the way because he is dangerous and hampers Pence's end goals simply by virtue of being a fucking unstable lunatic who has already flipped the fucking bird to a country that could end us in a huge variety of ways, but the most likely is a murdered economy. Gigantic recessions don't do much to help any party hold onto power. So there's even reason to believe that it is a "before the midterm elections" menu item. So he would have actual reasons to promise it to someone would could be instrumental in pushing the entire process through. We could all yet have reason to fill a glass with despair, make a bride of hopelessness, while treating Dante's Inferno as a travel guide with helpful tortuous tips on what demons are likely to snack on our souls, but unless someone has a crystal ball they are bogarting, we're not there yet.

They could (sadly for all of us) still accomplish all of that with Pence which is why it remains a possibility despite the Republican control in both branches. Sure, they are giddy that they have such control over so much at the moment but the one good thing about Trump's instability and unfitness is that it actually doesn't serve their cause. China could crash our economy. Most of those creatures are incredibly self-serving and since Trump doesn't even understand the scope of the presidency hopefully (and again, hopes may be dashed and we could all be so fucked we might as well open houses of ill repute) they are still capable of being predictable brands of assholes. I hate Twitler, but he is actually unstable, unpredictable and dangerous....and they can accomplish all their end goals with that woman-hating Puritan, Pence. Plus, Paul Ryan has a lot of reason to want Trump out because he's a self-serving, disgusting piece of shit as a human being. Self-interest, not decency, may still save the day.

They are grounds for impeachment.   if not resolved. He has not resolved them. If he is not impeached then you will be right and the constitution will have failed but at this point, the Tangerine Tool will have grounds for impeachment upon inauguration. It would be impressive if it wasn't so sickening but we have a lot of "well, we're well and truly screwed" things to go through before abandoning any hope of getting rid of that fucker is warranted. It truly isn't that I'm trying to downplay how screwed we are if the laws of the land are not upheld but by those laws, there ought to be a way out of this. Admittedly, then we're stuck with that hateful ghoul, Pence but for as awful as he is, I do think he's not such a fool as to piss off China.

Yeah, I can accept that there are people who are simply lifelong Republicans who believe that the government should have a really tiny role in their lives, who simply couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton because she's a democrat. I can even accept that otherwise decent human beings were able to convince themselves that the bile Trump spewed was about trying to pin down the Duck Dynasty vote (kindest way I could think to put that) and that he didn't mean all the hateful, terrible, awful, etc. etc. he actually said and claimed. I just am not going to waste my breath, or typing time trying to talk people out of believing patently absurd falsehoods about Hillary Clinton because it isn't within my power to introduce sense and reason to those that embrace absurdity and falsehood at that level. But I do think that the otherwise good, "I managed to convince myself it was all blow and bluster to appeal to the lowest mindsets and voted my party because we simply have differing views about the role of government in a life" (although the Republican party has long been the party trying to force their choices on everyone else via law) vote for Trump holding their nose the entire time. It's just by now it has to have reached "Oh ....shit. What have I done?" moment because one of the first things he did was start appointing people who are not-so-secret cross-burners, hood wearers and hate mongers. Those cabinet picks are not about trying to woo people with IQs equal to bulb wattages. I'm assuming that the "oh ....no" revelation will be followed either by "I admit it, I made the wrong choice" or by "I will now engage in a marathon of rationalization" and again, nothing I can do, or say in either instance will ever alter anything. But I accept that there are people who simply believe in different things, like small government, mainly run at the state level and that they are not evil, or unkind or stupid or anything of the sort. I just don't have anything to say to them. To the other people who enthusiastically voted for Trump, I genuinely have nothing in common with them other than being a fellow carbon-based lifeform. As for Hillary Clinton, my goodness, do I ever hope she simply retires and enjoys her life as she willingly took on the role of being American's Whipping Thing to try and help others. I have a lot of admiration for that, even though I know she isn't perfect. A life spent in politics requires compromise and choosing to do three good things while accepting the necessity of the fourth unpalatable thing. But anyone still attempting to kick her is just doing it because they like to kick things since she's out of the picture now. It strikes me as a very odd hobby. It won't prove the choice to vote for Trump right, the only thing that will do that is his actions and they certainly aren't looking promising. [/understatement meter just died from overuse]

I respect President Obama tremendously as a person and a human being. There have been times when his great faith in democracy, our country and the people in it have made him an ineffectual leader because people need a rallying cry. Both Hillary Clinton and President Obama, as well as the democrats in general, made such a key tactical error: they seemed to believe that if they just stood back and let Trump and his ilk speak long enough, they would provide more than enough rope to hang themselves and truly, they ought to have been right. But it turns out people are so entrenched in their foolish beliefs about boogeymen and the made-up nefarious schemes of the most qualified person to ever run for President, Hillary Clinton, that the only ones left dangling from the scaffolding were the American people. Do I still believe something will save us? Yes, I do, but I don't think it is the calvary. I think it is the constitution. That Orange Misanthrope is in violation of a lot conflict of interest problems. Believing in the law of the land is not some childish "I watch movies, so I think a hero will rise!" belief. It may still fail us because we really may be that lost as a country but by the very rules upon which this country was formed, we should be saved from that fucking drain clog with the curdled soul.

I'm not an atheist, I'm an agnostic. Never been much for defining things rigidly but I do think the bible is some blatantly absurd stuff even if ye olde teachings of Christ are just solid rules to live by....despite the fact that so many Christians seem to interpret them as an invitation to do some kind of antithetical "I'm better than you 'cause I'm saved!" dance (from the imaginary eternal torment, made up as a tool to subjugate and control the populace back before the age of reason. ) I went to a Quaker farm camp as a kid, was raised in a very liberal Episcopal church, and my dad actually got his PhD from Trinity, in Dublin Ireland. He once told me something that I think is valuable enough to share: Do not confuse people who claim to be Christians with those living the actual teachings of Christ because there are many people who live them with, or without religion, "don't throw out Christians with the bible banger's bathwater." The more someone talks about how very Christian they are, the less likely they are to be followers of Christ. I've found it to be pretty darned true. People conflate faith and religion all the time. They are not the same thing although the former can be present in the latter, it isn't always. Religion is a man-made structure, always. Always. Some people who practice a religion have faith, others simply are participating in a power structure without having absorbed any of the actual teachings of tolerance, love, and acceptance. Those teachings are not solely contained in the Christian religion, most religions have, at their roots, rules about being decent and kind as a way of life. Religion has done great harm in the world, now and in the past. Faith, no matter what it is in, other people, their goodness, their decency, our ability to be each other's salvation is a different matter entirely and it doesn't necessarily have a thing to do with amusingly childish renderings of an afterlife in either direction. Atheists can have tremendous faith, they just have that faith in others, not in figureheads. Or they can simply be awesome people because they know and have faith in their actual, own selves. Trump and his supporters, screaming about walls and threatening others with all manner of hostility, while trying to grind them under some disgusting boot heel are not Christians. No one who engages in those behaviors can accurately claim to be so.

Got Troubles? Stick 'em under Oscar's paw and squash those bad boys away:

Monday Morning Soul-Shoring:

It makes perfect sense, aradia22 :-) Feel free to share! That was a great way to approach the day. Do stuff, fun stuff, small stuff, stuff that shows people just being people. Hang in there, we are all in this together and whenever it feels like you're alone with it, give a shout and someone here can shout back. Whenever I'm around, I will, I promise.

Left out a key use of the words " the wrath of" didn't he?

From the NPR article above: I cheered aloud at that sentence. Fuck wait and see. He's filling a cabinet White Nationalists, open bigots, proven misogynists, anti-science climate-change-deniers (in charge of the fucking EPA). I don't need to be an oracle, a soothsayer or even a two-bit tarot card reader to suss out what the plans are here. I am so glad I live in California.

Because Evangelicals interpret the bible literally. Oh sure, they ignore the teachings of Christ, but they love, love, love the vengeful old testament. Hence: fundamental, but mostly it's because "fundamentalist" is something they rightly interpret as an insult and it compares them to both Islam and then the thing they hate almost as much: Mormons.

There has always been a very sinister reason that internalized misogyny is very important to perpetuate for their long term goal of making sure only white males have any kind of power in this country: One is that people who are constantly terrified aren't much of a threat to power structures. So if we go back to the bad old days where women constantly live in terror of an unwanted pregnancy it's a method of control. Remember, the laws people like Pence wants will disallow abortion even in cases of rape. What better way to make sure that women are too busy being scared to death of their uteruses than making sure that a woman HAS to bear a child they do not want. People like Pence and people from the far-right want to limit women's access to birth control also, hence the laws about "employers aren't required to cover it because of their religious beliefs". This accomplishes two misogynist bird killings with one law: Only women who can afford their own birth control, or tubal ligations will be able to fully defend against an unwanted pregnancy. Then there's the fact that no birth control is actually 100% accurate. This whole "abstinence only!" stuff is damned near farcical. That's a really handy way of consigning scores of women to poverty for their entire lives because note that these laws don't run towards forcing the fathers to be caretakers. There are hardly any consequences for the people impregnating these women. In all of these "we are obsessed with controlling your reproductive rights" laws, none of them address men. One of my friends was an ADA in Chicago for years and he was in charge of trying to collect child support from deadbeat dads. To put it mildly, whereas the laws about obligatory support are important, they do next to nothing. Plus, since sex is one of the few free pleasures allowed to people without many means, the numbers are disproportionately weighted towards the poor. Support laws are great but if there is no money to be had, that's the end of that and we don't actually have the resources to chase down these deadbeats. It usually falls to the actual family to try and do that for the system. I could just blather on here, but that's the obsession, no matter what religious bullshit people sling, it is about trying to enslave women in poverty. This is the same political party that wants "entitlement" programs cut. Not to be gross, but I spend more money on dog treats each month than people who are in need of food assistance are given. This party literally cares nothing about the children produced from these "every life is precious and god, gods, monster, space lizards love us all!" as witnessed by the fact that they think nothing, nothing at all of taking a scythe to the programs that would help. These are the same people who don't want sex education taught in schools. Sensing a pattern? As for why women would do this to other women, again, internalized misogyny is promoted in this country as a reasonable thing to engage in. We are encouraged to view each other as competition, rather than allies. Plus, it's also about being self-righteous and judgemental. In a society that encourages women to feel less-than, at all turns, then the only way to feel better-than is to create sub-classes within that second-class-citizen grouping. ETA: "Fundamentalist Christian" is both accurate and has the added bonus of making them practically foam at the mouth.

Mosquitoes that could carry away small children!! :-) Also, not quite a Softy Kitty, but here's a Buzzfeed listicle that will help. We're going to be okay, I don't know how yet, but Number 17 was what made me realize, this is not over.   ETA: Thank you, PastyandEddie, back at you :-) I feel very fortunate for the company I keep around here.