Comment

Comment by Grinning Cat on January 31, 2017 at 10:42pm

More satire from the Borowitz Report:

Trump Fires Attorney General After Copy of Constitution Is Found on Her Computer

[...] According to the Trump Administration’s code of ethics, established by Steve Bannon [...] “possessing, reading, or referring to the United States Constitution” is a violation that is punishable by termination. [...]

“Sally Yates was hatching a covert plot to require my actions to be in accordance with the Constitution,” Trump said. “We caught her red-handed.” [...]

(read more)

Comment by Bertold Brautigan on January 30, 2017 at 4:23pm

[Medium - Yonatan Zunger]

Trial Balloon for a Coup?
Analyzing the news of the past 24 hours

. . . (4) The Guardian is reporting (heavily sourced) that the “mass resignations” of nearly all senior staff at the State Department on Thursday were not, in fact, resignations, but a purge ordered by the White House. As the diagram below (by Emily Roslin v Praze) shows, this leaves almost nobody in the entire senior staff of the State Department at this point.

. . . Combining all of these facts, we have a fairly clear picture in play.

Trump was, indeed, perfectly honest during the campaign; he intends to do everything he said, and more. This should not be reassuring to you.

The regime’s main organizational goal right now is to transfer all effective power to a tight inner circle, eliminating any possible checks from either the Federal bureaucracy, Congress, or the Courts. Departments are being reorganized or purged to effect this.

The inner circle is actively probing the means by which they can seize unchallenged power; yesterday’s moves should be read as the first part of that.

The aims of crushing various groups — Muslims, Latinos, the black and trans communities, academics, the press — are very much primary aims of the regime, and are likely to be acted on with much greater speed than was earlier suspected. The secondary aim of personal enrichment is also very much in play, and clever people will find ways to play these two goals off each other.

Comment by tom sarbeck on January 30, 2017 at 3:00pm

My wifi connection probly failed briefly. which it occasionally does. By the time I started my Kindle to test the connection, wifi started again.

Comment by Joseph P on January 30, 2017 at 1:59pm

Yeah, you just have to hit the little x in the top right corner of your post, though.  Don't you love failed page-loads, in which the send went through properly, but you don't know that, since the receive didn't come through?

At least we have a delete function here, unlike lots of blog comment-sections.

Comment by tom sarbeck on January 30, 2017 at 1:48pm

Daniel, I enjoy using the words 'imply' and 'infer'.

Do I correctly infer that you dislike democracy?

Comment by tom sarbeck on January 30, 2017 at 1:40pm

Not at all, Daniel; I'm implying that people tell the lie "our democracy" and asking who in pluperfect hell atarted it.

Comment by Daniel W on January 30, 2017 at 12:09pm

Tom, are you saying that because the history of the USA does not meet the ideal of democracy and has often been more like oligarchy, that we shouldn't bother?

Comment by tom sarbeck on January 30, 2017 at 10:46am

Who in pluperfect hell upgraded the US from Alexander Hamilton's plutocratic oligarchy to democracy?

What better describes a government of what Hamilton said were "the rich and well born"?

Comment by Daniel W on January 30, 2017 at 10:12am

US Downgraded from full democracy to flawed democracy. Via 'The Economist" - too expensive for me to read directly except at the library.

Our ranking falls between Japan and the Republic of Cabo Verte.    The ratings show a long term trend, not just the ascendancy of His magnificence, Caligula II.  The ratings are based on "measures of the electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation and political culture."

One thing I like about the article is that the author goes beyond "the end is near", and proposes a path to improvement:  Resistance, Solidarity, Embrace movements that fight to remove big money from, and restore ethics to, government, Defend voting rights, make it easier to vote, Reform media to sustain a truly free press.  I would add, Inclusion - for all, not solely those who fall into complex categories of privilege - lor lack thereof - based on painful parsing of their identity traits.

Resistance, solidarity, money, ethics, voting, press.

I support writing to legislators, congressional reps, senators, and informing all contacts with political parties that without total reform, they have no support from me regardless of their political persuasion.  Our politicians are corporate poodles, addicted to their big money, and only strong tactics will bring about change and credibility.

Comment by Loren Miller on January 30, 2017 at 10:04am

I got a poser for Conway: all sorts of people over on Fox were critical of Obama, yet neither he nor anyone on his staff called for the ousting of any of their personnel.  Why should Drumpf get any more slack than Barry did?

Sauce for the goose, Kellyanne...

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 39
• 40
• 41
• 42
• 43
• …
• 198
• Next ›
• Page