Hang on a minute while I set up this soap box. Now for the sound system. Can everybody back there hear? Ok, we’re all set. Let’s get going.
There are a lot of reasons for us being saddled with tRump and his new Axis of Evil. There is no excuse. If we get the chance to kick his sorry ass to the curb before next November, let’s do it. If those craven Republican lickspittles in the Senate refuse to convict, then they need to go as well.
Either way, we need to stay laser focused on the elections. 20/20 is not just for literal vision anymore. tRump or no tRump, 2020 is about the future of our planet.
We’ve been systematically lied to for generations now. It’s time to rear up on our hind legs and scream at the moon — NO MORE!
From #MoscowMitch’s cynical destruction of the Senate to that loudmouthed asshole at the end of the bar regurgitating Limbaugh’s practiced brand of deceit.
From Tucker’s white supremacist apologia to the Mercer Family’s bring-on-the-end-times faithless pretend Christianity.
From Big Oil’s organized denial of science to Big Pharma’s unconscionable thirst for profit.
From putting children in cages to bribing foreign countries for personal gain.
The list of their crimes (attempted and successful) is damn near endless. We haven’t even really scratched the surface of the unethical, immoral and dishonorable behavior emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Given any binary decision, Pompous Pinhead’s choice is always selfish, heartless, criminal or dishonest. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a more transparently bad actor polluting our national stage. To know him is to loathe him.
Currently, the spotlight is on impeaching tRump for his attempts to coerce the government of the Ukraine into smearing Joe Biden. If it was up to me, the Bill of Impeachment would have one count for every distinct tRump lie, one count for every act of obstruction, one count for every financial crime, one count for every racist statement, one count for every law ignored, one count for every unethical act and around 1000 fill-in-the-blank counts for the stuff he’s sure to do while the impeachment proceeds.
So every time someone tries to normalize the Great Orange Disaster or tries to justify supporting him, just rear up and shout — NO MORE!
Seth did a summary of the Ukraine scandal that puts most of the MSM to shame.
And it’s on to the news
Congress Can Learn from Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolón
We fired a black guy for arresting two little children. The white guy is still getting away with caging thousands of them.
CBS News: Florida police officer fired after arresting pair of 6-year-olds
Authorities say a Florida police officer has been fired and is being investigated after arresting two six-year-olds for separate incidents at their schools. CBS Orlando affiliate WKMG-TV reports that Officer Dennis Turner was previously suspended pending the outcome of an internal investigation by the Orlando Police Department.
The arrests were on unrelated misdemeanor charges, authorities said. All charges against the children have since been dropped. Police clarified Monday that both of the children were 6 after initially describing one of them as 8 years old.
What a Real High Court Looks Like
I really hope John Roberts is paying attention. History sure as hell is.
CNN: Boris Johnson's suspension of Parliament is unlawful Supreme Court rules
Lady Hale, President of the UK Supreme Court, said in her ruling this morning that the prorogation came about in “exceptional circumstances.”
Parliament “has a right to a voice” as to how a rise in its sitting comes about, she added.
She said the effect on democracy of the prorogation was “extreme,” and that no evidence showed why such a long suspension was necessary.
Boris Johnson’s advice to the Queen was “unlawful, void and has no effect,” and so is the prorogation, she said.
“Parliament has not been prorogued,” she added -- a unanimous judgement by all 11 judges.
#MoscowMitch Is Feeling the Heat
Rolling Stone: Mitch McConnell: The Man Who Sold America
After 40 years of scorched-earth politics and bowing to special interests, will Mitch McConnell finally pay the price?
Fittingly enough, it was hot as blazes in Kentucky when Mitch McConnell slunk back home for Congress’ annual summer recess. One week earlier, Robert Mueller had testified that Russia was meddling in the 2020 U.S. elections. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, responded by shooting down Democrats’ efforts to bring two election-security bills to a vote — bills that McConnell, in his familiar fashion, had previously sentenced to quiet deaths after they passed the House. In the hailstorm of opprobrium that followed, McConnell had been tagged by “Morning Joe” Scarborough with the indelible nickname “Moscow Mitch.” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank called him a “Russian asset.” Twitter couldn’t decide whether he was #putinsbitch or #trumpsbitch. The Kentucky Democratic Party was selling red “Just Say Nyet to Moscow Mitch” T-shirts, emblazoned with an image of the senator’s jowly visage in a Cossack hat, as fast as they could print them up.
McConnell would undoubtedly have preferred to cool his heels in his Louisville home and let the storm subside. But he couldn’t afford that luxury. The biggest political event of the year in Kentucky, the Fancy Farm Picnic, happens on the first Saturday every August, and McConnell knew he had to show his face and speak. Fancy Farm, a 139-year tradition in the tiny western Kentucky town (population 458) it’s named for, is simultaneously one of America’s most charming political gatherings and one of its most brutal. On the one hand, it’s a pint-size Iowa State Fair in a prettier setting with better food, raising money for the local St. Jerome’s Catholic Church. The smoke from hundreds of pounds of pit-cooked mutton and pork barbecue wafts over a small carnival with bands plunking out bluegrass and country standards. Thousands of folks mingle, waving themselves with fans provided by the local candidates who glad-hand their way around the festivities.
But the mood shifts around 2 p.m., when the day’s main entertainment — the “political speaking” — begins. Under a big corrugated shelter, hooting and hollering Republican partisans assemble on the right, Democrats on the left, and candidates for office — joined, almost always, by McConnell — enter to cheers and jeers and seat themselves on a makeshift platform while trying to remember their most cutting quips about their opponents. Speakers at Fancy Farm aren’t supposed to persuade or inform; here, they’re expected to demonstrate, in the finest tradition of old-style Southern politics, that they can deliver zingers that cut the opposition down to size. Heather Henry, the Democrats’ candidate for secretary of state this year, puts it aptly when it’s her turn to face the mob: “It is no coincidence that Fancy Farm happens during Shark Week.”
As Only a Teenager Can
Speaking truth to power is so refreshing.
CNN: Angry Greta Thunberg tells global leaders she 'will never forgive' them for failing on climate change
Greta Thunberg doesn't mince words. Not even when addressing the world's most powerful people.
"We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth," the
Swedish climate activist told the United Nations General Assembly on Monday. "How dare you?"
Speaking during the
UN Climate Action Summit in New York, the 16-year-old was visibly frustrated with her audience and at times appeared to be holding back tears of anger.
"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words and yet, I'm one of the lucky ones," Thunberg told the assembly, her signature long braid swept to the side. "People are suffering, people are dying."
The Atlantic: Why Greta Makes Adults Uncomfortable
Astroturf Movements Just Don’t Last
The 200 teabaggers were almost outnumbered by the (R) congressweasels who came out to pander.
RightWingWatch: Trying to Find the Tea Party at its 10th Anniversary Rally
Fewer than 200 Tea Party activists gathered on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building on Thursday for a rally declaring socialism its top enemy.
Yesterday’s event was meant to celebrate the Tea Party movement’s 10-year anniversary. In September 2009, tens of thousands of protesters marched under the Tea Party banner in Washington, reported Fox News at the time; the Tea Party’s “Taxpayer March on Washington” demonstration was the conclusion of a “34-city, 7,000-mile bus tour” that began in California. But the size of the crowd at yesterday’s rally in front of the U.S. Capitol was a tiny fraction of the turnout the movement mobilized a decade ago.
We Need More of This — Lots More
If they all retired because they are just too spineless to stand up to evil, I wouldn’t complain.
Mother Jones: GOP Lawmakers Are Retiring in Droves. Trump Is Partly to Blame.
Since Donald Trump took office in January 2017, Republican lawmakers have left the House of Representatives in droves. A Washington Post analysis found that 40 percent of the 241 Republicans who have been in office since January 2017 have departed or retired.
Forty-one have announced they wouldn’t seek reelection or left national politics altogether since Trump took office, more than the two dozen Democrats who left during Obama’s first term in office. But why? “The vast turnover is a reminder of just how much Trump has remade the GOP—and of the purge of those who dare to oppose him,” the Post reported.
Though many have publicly cited family as the reason, the Post reported that privately, there’s some frustration about the party’s future direction under Trump. “I think a lot of members are pretty nervous that Trump doesn’t win reelection. And then we’re in the minority and we have a Democrat in the White House,” a Republican leadership aide told the Post. “We’re in the wilderness right now, but if you lose the White House, then that is the extreme wilderness.”
Extended Musical Interlude
Playing on the banks of the Thames more than 50 years ago (when they were just kids themselves) and in honor of last Friday’s Climate Strike.
Sir Paul had something to say about the climate (and the denier-in-chief).
Bonus Video
In keeping with the NNNE Service Charter™ we are obliged to bring you tips to help you blend in with the usurpers. This handy guide will help you pass security at orange events.
Short Takes
It is important to recognize our inconsistencies. For example, I oppose capital punishment, except in cases of political malfeasance and littering.
While the major accomplishment of tRump’s day circles the drain, think how nice it would be if they changed places.
In 1845, either John O’Sullivan or Jane Cazneau introduced the term Manifest Destiny into the American lexicon. In 2015, tRump manifested stupidity on the American political stage.
In today’s lesson in tRumpspeak, we learned that he’s three bricks short of a happy meal.
We will impeach no tRumps before its time. It’s time.
Here at the NNNE Institute for the Unmasking of Shenanigans, Skullduggery and Hypocrisy in Politics™ we have awarded our 2019 prize for Badly Attempted Swiftboating to Rudy Guiliani, Donald tRump and William Barr. Winners are expected to spend the next 10 to 20 years answering for their crimes.
Part of why tRump is so messed up is he believes the Bronx Cheer was invented to describe him.
tRump has promoted so many debunked conspiracy theories he’s finally achieved something real. He recently entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most gullible twit on the planet. People are saying he believes his farts are communications from God ordering him to stink up the entire planet.
tRump is the reason for powerful exhaust fans in restaurants. If his stench was allowed to linker, no one would be able to stomach their food.
In another well-deserved singular honor for tRump, the bacterium treponema pallidum (the spirochetes that cause syphilis) are being renamed tRumpenema absurdium.
To call tRump a deeply unpopular president is akin to calling Everest a tiny hill.
Today’s Quote
The time is always right to do what’s right. — Martin Luther King, Jr
Required Pet Photo
Closing Notes
Continuing good wishes to {{{{oldhippiedude}}}} and {{{{Msdude}}}}
Continued speedy recovery to {{{{niftywriter}}}} my every other Tuesday partner.
This week we’ll get played out from Egypt in 1978.
Disclaimer: No Republicans were consulted in the preparation of this roundup. They suck.