Greeting and Salutations. Welcome to another meeting of the committee to abolish the Republican Party and their demented mascot Donnie the Dimwit.
Are you getting worn down by the constant three-year assault on out sensibilities?
Are you tired of the daily display of republican depravity?
Does open unapologetic hypocrisy get on your last nerve?
Does bothsiderism, horseracerism or other media normalization make you want to scream?
Do the gloom and doom crowd give you a headache?
Well, GET OVER IT!
The American Revolution lasted 8 years; the Civil War last 4 years. It took 87 years from the founding to end slavery. The resurgence of American Apartheid as practiced by the current administration doesn’t have that kind of staying power. There are too many people appalled, angry and actively resisting for tRumperism to succeed. Just like tRump’s constant overreaching has diminished what little political credibility he started with, his very existence at the top of the republican/conservative hierarchy derails any hope the republicans have for capturing a lasting majority.
Persistence and commitment are the costs we must be willing to pay in order to effect positive change. Our job is to inspire each other and continue to bring in new voices and new voters. Sure, there’s a portion of the population that’s unreachable. We already know they are deplorable and despicable. They are also delusional. There is no other way to reconcile Christianity and children in cages. Gratuitous cruelty has become one of the hallmarks of today’s Republican Party. A purported person of faith who professes admiration for tRumpublican policies has forsaken that faith for a pocketful of mumbles. Staying on point and refusing to normalize the crimes is one of the best ways to continue to flake away their support.
Keep your chin up, your eyes forward. Don’t let the bastards get you down. And above all, never give up, never give in. We are all in this together and we need each of us to make sure Putin’s little puppet and all of his treasonous minions will not continue to stain our national psyche.
We open with Operatico Politico on Climate Change.
On to the news (note: I was feeling a bit under the weather so I wasn’t quite as diligent as usual finding stories to share with you. That just means more for karij to cover tomorrow and more for the rest of you to chime in with in the comments)
Coal Booted.
Looks like the harmony magic between Donnie’s charred briquet of a soul and the coal industry isn’t going to be enough to keep his coal promise. What a shame.
Scientific Ameerican: Coal’s Days in Navajo Country Are Numbered
Before the arrival of the U.S. Army in the mid-1800s, four mountains marked the boundary of the Navajo’s ancestral homeland. Today, the tribe could draw a line around its reservation with coal.
But coal’s days in Navajo country are increasingly numbered.
Two of the four plants are scheduled to close by 2025. The fate of the third rests upon a longshot bid to keep it open beyond 2022. And the fourth faces growing uncertainty, as one of its owners plans to divest from the plant in 2031.
The wave of retirements represents a watershed moment for the Navajo and a test case for America’s wider transition away from coal. Tribal leaders are increasingly looking to wind and solar to fill the gap left by the fossil fuel. Navajo renewable developers talk of a second chance to reap the riches of the energy industry.
It’s About Damn Time
Let's make sure we get all the kits involving Der Gropingfuror tested.
The Atlantic: A New System to Ensure Sexual-Assault Cases Aren’t Forgotten
After assaults are reported, survivors’ bodies are treated like crime scenes and, if they so choose, searched, swabbed, and photographed, along with their clothes and other personal belongings, to find possible DNA evidence left by an attacker. Whatever evidence is found is then sealed in a sexual-assault evidence kit. The DNA can often be a crucial tool in prosecuting sexual assault. But that requires the kits to be tested by a police crime lab. Before 2016, forensic nurses didn’t always know what happened to the kits after they left their custody.
But the cycle was broken three years ago in Idaho. The state launched the first statewide sexual-assault-kit tracking system in the country. After their examination, survivors are now given their kit’s tracking number, like one they might get with a FedEx or UPS package. They can log in to a portal that tracks their kit’s progress through the criminal-justice system. Survivors can see when the kit enters the custody of law enforcement. They can see when it’s sent to the lab for testing. They can see when DNA evidence is entered into the Combined DNA Index System, and when it comes back with a match. And if the kit stalls, they can advocate and push to have the test completed. The portal includes no names, to prioritize confidentiality, but using the tracking number, survivors, medical professionals, and law enforcement can all know the status of the kit. The law mandates that most kits must be preserved for 55 years. The kits will be tracked the whole time. Now law enforcement can prioritize kits whose cases are nearing the end of their statute of limitations. If a kit is taken from a survivor who doesn’t want to give her name, she is still given that kit’s tracking number. If she decides later that she wants to report the assault, she’ll be able to know where the evidence is.
Now that the system is up and running, Gamette has offered to share it with any state that’s interested, free of charge. Many have taken him up on the offer: Since the system’s creation, Idaho has received inquiries about it from 25 states and three major cities. Some, including Utah and Arkansas, have then modeled their system on Idaho’s. Gamette has spent the past year working with other cities and states. When I spoke with him, he had just traveled to Puerto Rico to help establish a tracking system on the island. He explained that while he’ll give his system to anyone for free, he understands that some jurisdictions, especially the more populous ones, prefer using outside companies that have more resources, such as round-the-clock technical support.
Grifty McGrafterson’s a Really Shifty Slimy Excuse for a Person, Isn’t He?
I want Mitch and the enablers to be forced to silently watch on automatic replay when this comes back to bite a huge chunk out of Two-Scoop’s sorry ass
Wonkette: Mar-A-Lago: It's Not A Bribe, It's Membership Dues
Being president is HARD. It's a constant tension between serving the American people and selling your saggy orange ass to every Ivan, Chang, and Harry that bellies up to the bar waving a couple crumpled dollar bills. But Donald Trump is up to the challenge. He only gets to keep a little of the $3.4 million each of his 22 visits to Mar-a-Lago (so far) cost the American taxpayer, so he has to supplement that golf cart money with people willing to fork over thousands of dollars to be in his spray-tanned presence. It's kind of like selling access to the Lincoln Bedroom, but for the Loehmann's crowd.
Trump's insistence on monetizing the presidential brand presents a unique security challenge for the Secret Service. Other presidents would vacation at Camp David or their own personal residences, which could be easily locked down. Even when the Obamas went to Hawaii, the family rented a house with a perimeter that could be secured. But Donald Trump needs to show his face in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster to keep those membership dollars rolling in. And after the Very Fine Nazis debacle, all the normal charities noped out, so he needed to fill those ballrooms with howler monkeys in their glorious finery.
Trump has nominated at least eight paying club members for diplomatic jobs and has reportedly outsourced large swathes of the Veteran's Administration to the foursome on the next tee at Mar-a-Lago. The domestic corruption is horrifying, but the national security implications may be even worse. Because the president's private clubs are a soft target for every spy and scammer on the planet. And the real problem isn't some low-rent massage parlor owner selling Mar-a-Lago party tickets to Chinese executives hot to get their photographs taken with members of the Trump family; it's actual spies who just pay the $200,000 initiation fee and start hanging around. The fact that club staff eventually managed to stop a Chinese national from gaining full access to the property when she showed up Saturday with four cellphones, two passports, a laptop, and a malware-infected thumb drive is really not comforting. The woman was practically wearing a sandwich board that said I AM A SPY, and she still made it through three layers of security.
This Is a Case of the Pot Calling the Bully Out
Apparently the grass is making a difference.
The Hill: Colorado town funds anti-bullying program with marijuana sales taxes
Lamar, Colo., funds an anti-bullying program for public school students in kindergarten through high school using money collected from sales taxes on marijuana.
The rural school district in Lamar, a town in southeastern Colorado with a population of about 7,000, spends over $100,000 annually on the anti-bullying curriculum. The money comes from marijuana sales taxes provided by the state.
The anti-bullying program is in its third year, according to the Lamar Ledger. CBS News reported bullying incidents have been cut by 23 percent since the program began.
Frivolity Reigns
After sponsoring legislation meant to reign in frivolous lawsuits, out lil’ buddy Devon is making sure that we have something to reign in. His mom and his cow are going to be udderly upset with him. Now if we can just get a few more of his constituents to realize just how sour the milk he produces is, maybe we can shut down the dairy and send him to the packing plant.
Splinter: Devin Nunes Is a Lawsuit-Filing Machine
Rep. Devin Nunes, one of the biggest Trump stans in Congress, has filed another lawsuit against his haters. This time, the target is the media organization The McClatchy Company and Republican consultant Liz Mair, who, Nunes alleges in the $150 million suit, conspired to undermine his oversight work on the Hillary Clinton campaign and Russian election interference, according to Fox News. Wild!
Nunes is the Congressman who has led the charge on allegations that the FBI and the Department of Justice conducted a biased investigation into Donald Trump’s campaign and abused the FISA court. Just yesterday, Nunes announced that he is sending eight criminal referrals to Attorney General William Barr regarding these allegations.
This is the second major lawsuit Nunes has filed in a month that names Mair as a defendant. The other one is directed at Twitter, and specific Twitter users including Mair, alleging that the platform tried to silence him and allowed harassment against him by parody accounts including “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’ Cow.”
Musical Interlude
Recapping a Day in the Life
I’m getting kind of tired of the all Donald all the time news coverage, so here’s a way to keep up on the coverage without actually watching the coverage.
- tRump said something exceedingly stupid that included at least three embedded lies.
- He lied six more times doubling down on the initial lies.
- Pushback against something he said the day before yesterday led to him walking back and denying whatever he said before.
- Squawking from the more hopelessly inebriated of his base caused him to reverse yesterday’s reversal of last week’s insane utterances
- He peed on his tie again.
- Either a judge ruled against him; a whistleblower whistled against him; a former administration official released a tell all book; an official resigned or was subpoenaed (or both); the NYT/WaPo released another exposé
- He did something glaringly unpresidential.
- He threatened to do something illegal, unconstitutional, immoral and unethical.
- He incited some of his followers to do something violent.
- Any or all of the above we decried by the left, ignored by the media and embraced by the right.
Now when anyone asks what happened in tRumpworld today, you can answer without having to check.
Short Takes
There are fatheads and then there are rancid congealed fatheads. You have three chances to decide which category Mitch belongs to (and the first two don’t count).
What are the oranges of the obvious cognitive decline? Soon, we’ll learn about the blues of his degenerative disease. His defenders will just claim he’s yellowing with age. He’ll pink to new lows. His black of credibility with lead him to white for his convictions. We’ll see him purplitrate new crimes proving he’s a greeny grasping crook. It’s all a part of his judgement becoming more and more colored by his descent from grays.
If tRump’s daycare staff ever exposed him to a day’s worth of the unexpurgated vitriol directed at him, there’d be a 239 lb. puddle waiting for cleanup on aisle 3.
This country needs an enema. We have a tRump stuck in our colon.
Our country has come full circle. George Washington could not tell a lie. Donald tRump cannot tell the truth.
Nobody ever told the Victim-in-Chief you can’t be a victim when you are running the show (or at least attempting to overcome your staggering incompetence to do so).
The Surgeon General has reported that tRump dislocated his brain during the convoluted mental gyrations he’s undergone regarding the release of the Mueller Report.
Snidely Whiplash and Dishonest John have filed suit in Federal Court charging Donald tRump with intellectual property theft over his effort to become the most cruel, evil and cartoonish villain in history.
Donald tRump — Proof that the road apple doesn’t fall far from the horse’s ass.
Another Song to Fill the Air
The Tuesday Limerick Challenge
Here are two more incomplete limericks for you to finish up. We an out of good prizes so we’ll just laugh and say thank you.
The scrotum of Marco is lacking
The testes he should have been packing
and
Washington harbors a slimeball named Mitch
Who slavishly panders for men filthy rich
Required Pet Photo
All our best wishes to {{{oldhippiedude}}} and {{{niftywriter}}} during their respective recoveries.
Don’t forget to check out Yosef 52’s latest advice on recapturing our country.
It’s time to play us out fellows.
Dislcaimer: Not insane, not responsible.