KerleyQ

I was thinking last night about the whole Make America Great Again thing as it relates to Trump's Russian ties. I think the general consensus is that, when Trump's slogan is generally referencing a period in our history where, coincidentally, we had kids in schools doing bomb drills the same way current day children do lockdown drills in school. Fear of Russia was a big thing at that point in time. So it seems really bizarre to me that the same people who are looking back at that time as a time when things were good (and, by that, they mean that anyone who wasn't a white, Christian male knew their place), are, so far, just peachy keen with Putin's attempts to influence our electoral process and the possibility that he may wield some influence over our incoming POTUS. Because it seems like the Russian threat was, to them, the only real fly in the ointment of those "good old days." But, now, they may really be getting the full scope of their good old days, Russian threat, and all.

My son and I watched Michael Che's stand up special on Netflix last night, and he talked about this very thing in one segment of it. He talks about how the way to fight racism (or similar issues like homophobia) is through honesty and not biting people's heads off the second they say something racist. One of the lines he had was about how he has a friend who is a trans woman, and she finally told him one day that his use of the term "tranny" was offensive. He responded with "but, it's just adding a y. How is a y offensive?" Her response was "so you'd be OK if I started calling you 'blacky'?" Honest conversation is a far more effective way of getting people to understand why something they do or say is offensive. Like your example, there are a lot of good people out there who, for various reasons, including things like what they grew up around, what area they live in, or what different groups they've been around, may have some ideas, words, or behaviors in them that they don't realize are offensive. They're going to naturally bristle when they feel like you're trying to lump them in with people like the KKK, nazis, or Westboro Baptist Church. When they are lumped in with those groups because of the use of one word, then they're going to have more sympathy for someone like Trump when he is lumped in with them. For so much in life, I believe that education is the answer. And it isn't always formal education. Education comes from sitting down and having a conversation with someone who can contribute their life experience and knowledge to your own. Of course, there are those who are happily racist. They're not going to change their opinions or behavior no matter how many honest conversations you have with them, because they know they're racist. They're happy to be racist, and they genuinely believe that they are, by virtue of the color of skin they were born with, better than those who were born with a different skin color. I'm not under any illusion that sitting down with them to talk about why the N word is offensive is going to create any change in their attitude. (And, honestly, the N word is one which falls outside of my "have an honest discussion with them about why the word is offensive" theory. Anyone who has heard that word more than once knows exactly what the word is. They know it's racist. They know it's offensive, and they know the power it has to hurt. If they choose to use it anyway, they're making a conscious decision to engage in racist behavior.) But there is a whole range of people in between those groups and those who never say or do something that is racist/phobic. I believe that the people in that middle ground are capable of understanding and changing, but that can't happen if they aren't given the chance to do so.

GH was really guilty of this under Guza. Everyone who left had to die, and it was so short-sighted. Plus, when everyone who leaves dies, it gives all of the deaths less impact. For one, as soon as you heard an actor was leaving, you knew their character was going to die, so there was no shock. And, with so many deaths, it just became "eh, look, someone else died" on some level, especially when you know that the show is more than happy to go to the "back from the dead" well whenever they feel like it. Deaths should mean something, and they should be shocking. I still vividly remember Jenny, on AMC, blowing up on that jet ski. There isn't a single death in the past decade or longer on GH that is so vivid to me, because they all just kind of blend together, and the impact of many of those deaths has been dulled by subsequent resurrections. Oh, and another reason they don't have as much impact is because they're not having impact on screen. We need to see funerals, not just see people gathering right before or right after them. We need to see the whole damn thing. That's rare these days.

I think I know why he asked John Legend. John and Chrissy have been very vocally against Trump from the start, and one of the specific things I've seen them say is that his economic policies would be very financially beneficial to them, but, they don't want the financial benefits when it comes to the trade off of having this assclown as their POTUS. Asking John to perform may have been some attempt by Trump to show that he can, in fact, be bought. We all know how petty he is. So the inauguration performance invite may have been like his dangling the SoS post in front of Mitt to prove he could get him to come around for the right price (the price being the highest profile cabinet position in Mitt's case). I think they can definitely find a balance for the right time to use "lie." Like you said, he has repeated many "facts" that have been proven false. No need to sugarcoat it at that point. It's also totally appropriate when it comes to things that we know he knows - like when he denies saying things he said. There's no reason to not call that out as a lie. Those aren't cases of him being ill-informed or mis-stating something. I agree, the short attention span that has been created by the whole 24/7 face in phones thing contributes to the problem. The most terrifying example is driving. It's disturbing to see how many of your fellow drivers are texting, taking pictures, posting on social media, etc while driving. The worst part is that the worst offenders seem to be my demographic - women in their 30's-40's. I'm looking at them and thinking "come on, I know you have lived a good deal of life without cellphones/texting/social media. You know damn well it's entirely possible to drive without having a phone plastered in your hand." I ended up contacting the police about a woman who works at my son's school. The drive to his school is about 15-20 minutes, depending on traffic, and this woman lives near us, so we often end up near her on the road in the morning. Every time we were by her, you could see her taking driving selfies, texting, doing her makeup (including mascara, who the hell does mascara while driving??). And she was swerving all over the road, fully into the oncoming lane at times. Thank God we never saw her get into an accident, but she was also doing this while in the school neighborhood, where there are a lot of kids who walk. I finally talked to the police for the city the school is in, since the school zone use is what alarmed me most of the whole scary mess. They used her license plate to track her down and had a talk with her. Then they told me "whenever you see someone driving unsafely like that, call 911 and report it, so we can send an officer out to handle it." I told the officer "honestly, if I was to do that every time I saw someone swerving all over, using their phones, you'd need to triple your officer staffing levels. All you'd be doing is responding to calls about swerving drivers." Yep. You can almost guarantee that, whenever he makes this big announcement about the stuff he "knows" about the hacking, it will be similar to that scam press conference about the birther shit that was really a commercial for his new hotel. We'll get next to no information on the hacking (because whatever he does know is stuff he won't admit to, since it implicates him and his buddy Putin), and the real gist of the announcement will be something self-promotional. I think I can even guess what his announcement will be. There's a former UK diplomat who has been working with Assange or years. He claims that he was in the US in September, and a member of the DNC personally handed him the emails in question. I've seen his story described by journalists as "disorganized and implausible." More than likely, Assange deployed him to push his "Putin is innocent, and we obtained these emails from someone who had legal access to them, so no crime has been committed" narrative. Trump would absolutely promote that angle. If cost is an issue, you could always just rubber band your comments to the leg of a passing bird. Tell them it's for the PTV Trump forum. Just don't use a blue bird. Those are for twitter use. Older people are weird about the whole credit card security thing. I've had to explain to more than one older relative that the whole "I don't sign the back of my credit card so a thief can't copy my signature if they steal my card" thing actually makes things easier on the thief. If they get your credit card and it's blank in the signature line? They just get to make up their own signature for you, and the store clerk will be none the wiser (if a store clerk even bothers to look at the back of your card in the first place). The takeaway here? 44 percent of the people polled aren't very smart. The man is a walking scandal. Hell, I think he'll be disappointed if he doesn't manage a scandal or two during his reign. He loves that stuff. It's all attention, and any attention is good.

RM is way too metrosexual pretty boy for my tastes. I'll take a TK any day over that (well, there are times that TK's hair really decreases his appeal, but good hair TK with just a little stubble? Any day over RM.) Although honestly right now, the best looking guy on the show is probably JMc/Eric.

Oh, for fuck's sake. Come on, show. Really???

I'm still flabbergasted by the quote I saw from the editor-in-chief of the WSJ today. He believes that, if they were to report the stories (and headlines) as "Donald Trump lied and said (insert lie of the hour here)," that it would be unfair and they would be making a moral judgement to use the word "lie." No, asshat, you use the word lie when someone lies, and you let your readers make their own moral evaluation of the situation based on the facts. If your readers think Trump is an immoral assclown because he lied, then that's what they think. If he doesn't want them to see him as an immoral assclown, he can always, oh, I don't know, stop lying? I saw a list on Twitter today of some of the A-list entertainers Trump allegedly asked to perform who turned him down. Among them? John Legend and The Dixie Chicks. I don't know which one of those was a more arrogantly stupid ask on his part. Did he really think either would say "yes"?

It really makes you wonder how many of the current field of "journalists" got into the field from a real desire to be a journalist (and all of the integrity in delivering the truth, no matter how complicated that goes with that) vs. a desire to be famous. Of course, along with that goes the issue that so many of the corporations who run the media are more interested in ratings and page clicks than any integrity in their reporting. They're more interested in telling people what they want to hear than telling them the truth. That "I know stuff you don't know" plays right into his authoritarian thing. It's just like "only I can save you/fix things."

I swear, earlier today I was talking with my husband about that story, and we were joking around saying (in our best cheesy Putin imitations) "he fell...seventeen times." I should have known that it would actually be an excuse they'd try to float.

It's like we've moved past "post-truth" (and, God, I loathe that term, because, really??) to post-truth on steroids. Now it's not only perfectly acceptable to spout lies, but it's become a situation where the person trying to cut through the lies or asking for evidence to support the lies is the asshole, while the liar is the perfectly reasonable one. It's just so damn bizarre and scary. And his "off the record" meetings with the press. Has any other POTUS ever insisted on so much off the record interaction while simultaneously shunning any on the record gatherings? And have any hidden behind surrogates like this? I know every POTUS has his press secretary and all, but they all still get out there in front of the press and speak live and on the record. Could you imagine the outcry if President Obama had steadfastly refused to speak, on the record, to the press, but instead deployed various staffers to go carry his water on the cable networks? I know Trump hasn't officially taken office yet, but there is little to indicate that he has any intention of changing the way he does things. He's said more than once (most recently about the idea that he can't keep having his victory rallies after he's sworn in) things to the effect of "I've done everything else the opposite of how they say it should be, so why stop now?" I'm kind of amazed that it's actually OK for the wife of the Senate Majority Leader to be appointed to a position like this. A few years ago, a member of our school board resigned because the district was looking for a new superintendent, and her husband wanted to apply for the position. That made sense to me. Mitch being in a position where he not only has input into his wife's appointment, but also has a position where he has a certain level of "authority" over his colleagues who approve appointments is super shady. Exactly. What has been released to the public is enough for me to get that they have proof. When you add in that there is absolutely information that we can't see but that President Obama, Congress, and Trump can see that is likely definitive proof, it's definitely, to me, treasonous for Trump to sit there not only pretending that he hasn't been offered substantial proof, but also supporting the man responsible for the hacking. But, it goes right back to that whole post-truth thing. Trump can sit there and pretend that he hasn't been offered proof, that no such proof exists, and people buy it, hook, line, and sinker. I can't count how many people I've seen who are calling this a Dem conspiracy and swearing up and down that there is no proof. It's like people have no concept of the fact that our intelligence people can't just release everything they have to the public. Not to mention that, if, as they keep saying, this is just President Obama and there really is no proof, why are GOP members of Congress backing him up here? They've spent 8 years trying to undermine everything he does, and now, he's supposedly imposing sanctions on another country, including expelling their diplomats from our country, with "no evidence," and they're not only not fighting him, they're supporting him? Sure, that makes sense. And, of course, Assange is saying Putin had nothing to do with it. He's not an idiot. He's not going to turn on Putin unless his ultimate survival depends on it. But, as things stand right now, Putin and Trump are his best shot at getting the charges against him dropped, so he can get out of the Embassy and move around freely. Not to mention that if he sticks to his story that someone at the DNC sent him the files, it covers a few problems for him. First - if he simply had the information sent to him and had no role in the hacking itself or in soliciting the hacking, then he's not in the same kind of deep legal shit he'd be in if he had an active role in the hacking. Second, it's out there that the RNC was hacked, too. It serves Putin and Trump for that to not be believed. If it serves them, it serves him, so the lie that the DNC emails came to him via a source in the DNC gives him cover there to pretend that the RNC hack was just a rumor. On a Russian related note (and, hell, it may have something to do with this), there was a story I saw linked on Twitter last night that I do not remember seeing when it was originally reported in March. The founder of the Kremlin media RT was found dead in a hotel in DC last year. At the time, RT put out the word, pretty much as soon as his body was discovered, that he'd suffered a heart attack. However, the autopsy revealed that he'd been beaten to death, but that was kept quiet until some reporter got their hands on the information in March. Even more interesting? Nobody knew why he was in DC. Apparently he was under investigation by the FBI for some corruption and money laundering charges. Speculation is that he was in DC to cut a deal with the FBI, possibly turning over evidence on bigger fish. It's not a huge leap to believe that, as the guy who ran the state run media, it's possible that he knew something about the hacking. Because if he had that kind of information - evidence that Putin was hacking our system to actively influence the Presidential election - that's the kind of evidence that would have gotten him a good deal.

I had forgotten how bad of an actor RM was. Did he always rely on that pseudo-growl thing as his sole means of portraying anger/tension?

I said last night that it's time for me to make a list of my friends and family who have full home generators and the yard space to build a fallout shelter. Thankfully, my parents are at the top of that list with both. My Dad is always looking for a project to do with my son, so maybe when we go over there tomorrow, I should get the two of them working on that fallout shelter in the backyard. Stone was publicly calling Putin's shot for him more than once. I can remember at least two times where, within two days of him hinting something was coming, WL released more emails. It's mind boggling that it isn't getting more attention as this Russian hacking stuff becomes a bigger and bigger story. Cheetos may not have been directly involved in the planning, but he was surrounded by people who absolutely were. I wouldn't be surprised if the RNC side of the hacking was his camp's idea, because there was always a question as to whether the party would fully support him as nominee. It certainly wouldn't hurt their cause if they had dirt on Ryan and other prominent GOP members who were hesitant to enthusiastically support him in public. I remember that, at some point after he got the nom, Ryan and some other prominent party members who hadn't endorsed yet met with Trump and his people. Right after that meeting, Ryan was suddenly praising Trump, talking about what a productive meeting it was. Makes you wonder if the products of the RNC hack were "discussed." I'm the same. I don't agree on every policy with him, but he's a good guy who's willing to speak out. There are some liberals and progressives giving him a hard time because they don't agree with his policy, so, therefore, they just lump him in as part of the problem. What they don't get is that we need all hands on deck if we are going to stop Trump. We can't do it if the GOP and conservative leaning independents don't join us.

At this point, I wouldn't even be mad if she and Jake teamed up to burn the whole damn town down.

I still think that at least part of the problem was that she would have been the first female POTUS following the first African-American POTUS. Two big changes like that back to back were just too much for those who fear that the poor white men are being marginalized or some such shit. I have asked this so many times of people who support the bakers in these cases - why is it only gay weddings? What about if a couple comes looking for a wedding cake and one or both of them has been married and divorced already? Or a couple who is planning on having an "open" marriage? A couple who has been living together "in sin" before marriage? Pregnant bride? An atheist couple? A couple of different faiths? There are so many engaged couples who could come looking for a wedding cake who are considered to be sinning based on how any one person interprets the Bible. So why is it solely the same sex couples who it would be a sin for the baker to "participate" in the wedding by providing a cake (that is consumed at a party, not at any marital ceremony, typically)? And the thing is, the couple almost certainly isn't receiving the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony, unless they've found a progressive church. Most same sex marriages occur outside the church, and some may be spiritual, but are not a Priest bestowing the Sacrament. So, they're applying their beliefs about the Sacrament to a legal entity, which is not the same thing. (And that's also why churches are not legally required to bestow the Sacrament on any couple who comes calling if the church doesn't feel the couple aligns with the church's beliefs on Matrimony.) I remain amazed by how completely OK with Trump slobbering all over Putin his cult is. It's amazing. Before the election, a woman told me that she was voting for Trump because Putin said there would be war if Hillary won. I said "so you're comfortable with a hostile foreign leader attempting to influence our electoral process like that? And you think that it's in our country's best interests to deal with other nations from a position of fear?" What happened to the "patriots" believing that we're the alpha dog of nations? Now we have to kiss Putin's ass so he won't get mad at us? When did this happen? And when, in the name of all that is holy, did a dumpy orange 70 something year old man who rolls over for Putin and whose Daddy paid a doctor to get him excused from fighting for this country, become the alpha dog who is going to fight for our country? Have I just been running a 104 fever for the past year+, and this shit has all been a fever dream?

This. I want to see them being direct and honest. The lead in should be things like "Donald Trump lied today, saying..." Then go on and present the actual facts that show why it's a lie. Stop leaving it at "Donald Trump said..." When he lies, stop mincing words and go for it.

And this is why I don't get his pissy attitude towards the press and his belief that the First Amendment is too lenient on the press. They've been enabling his ass since day one of this campaign. And when it comes time for someone to report the real shit on him, most of them flake out and either half ass it or allow one of his various mouthpieces to grab the mic and justify, lie, and deflect so that anybody who is listening has zero idea what the hell is going on. This reminds me of one of the new things I saw from the more extreme Trump cult (the Alex Jones segment of the crowd) - apparently, in their minds, all of that overly touchy shit Cheetos was doing with young Ivanka was because he knew all about the existence of PizzaGate, and the "elite pedophiles," and he was making sure she was always in his grasp so they wouldn't get his Ivanka. (Apparently Don, Jr and Eric were meant to fend for themselves?)

Sun-In for his hair, and some circa early 80's QT self tanner on his skin.

Well, I mean, he hasn't murdered any of her friends since she last saw him.

And, I mean, we know that they all know that his win was not a landslide by any means, and it's only historic in terms of how badly he lost in winning. But, they keep telling him that because he's their useful idiot, and they need to pat him on the head and give him a cookie so that he'll keep listening to them. They can't let him be exposed to reality.

I think there are some who would be happy to perform for him, but they're not high profile enough for his tastes. I think he had visions of people like Beyonce, and that was just never going to happen. Now, to save face, he's going to go with this "small, low-key, intimate" angle, and pretend it was what he - the man who needs every single surface around him covered in gold - really wanted all along.

It's really kind of sickening to see the comments from the Trump cult on various articles about the Russia sanctions and Putin's vow to retaliate. They flat out refuse to believe the FBI, CIA, DHS, and every other agency. They swear up and down that we can't trust our intelligence agencies, and are very "the ends justify the means." They're even accusing President Obama of trying to start WW3 to make Trump look bad. Right now, at this moment in history, it is so easy to see how Hitler happened. And it's frightening and depressing to see it happening all over again here.

I've seen it speculated that Putin has some dirt on him outside of just business. Now, I'm not saying that he is on tape with, say, an underage Russian prostitute, but, well, some people are saying it. (That is how we do it these days, right?)

Geez, how much did he take? When I was a teenager, I had some serious issues with ovarian cysts, and it wasn't uncommon for me to just dump an indeterminate number of Nuprin in my hand and toss them all back when the pain got unbearable. I'm guessing BryDog weighs about twice what I weighed at that time. Did he take the whole damn bottle?

Now his official job description is, I believe, "Everyone's Buddy." I completely agree. There should be some acknowledgement from someone close to him that they had hoped to see him straighten things out, become the man they believed he could be. Jason would be ideal for this, because he's never really seen anyone with rose colored glasses. He may forgive and/or put up with a lot of shit, but he never really kids himself about who the people in his life are or sugarcoats it. If he wasn't so busy being Everyone's Buddy, he could have a conversation with Sam about how, when Morgan was a little kid, he seemed like he was going to grow up away from the business, get an education, be more like Jax (an acknowledgement that Jason would grudgingly make, because he's always been good at those regretful grudging acknowledgements after someone dies). It would be very in character for Jason to blame himself for not getting to Morgan quickly enough that night, not getting him away from the car fast enough, and he'd feel guilty that Morgan didn't get a chance to get a hold of his bipolar and straighten out his life.

Watching my local news a few minutes ago, and I wanted to throw things. There were two instances, in one little blurb on him, where they let him get away with complete bullshit. First, the clip they played happened to have him bragging about the "5,000 Sprint jobs that are coming just because of me." No comment from the news desk that the Sprint jobs were actually announced prior to his election. Then, they finished up with some bullshit about how Trump says he doesn't want his supporters sitting out in the cold for his inauguration. Oh, bullshit. He's pre-excusing the potentially historically tiny (like his hands) inauguration day crowd with that "I'm concerned for my supporters, please don't come out if it's too cold for you" bullshit. If the media is just going to roll over and let him lie every time he opens his mouth, what is their purpose? His cult members can breathlessly report his every word on Twitter for him. Why do we need a media if they're just going to function as his PR army?