Russian Spy Traitor Trump has concealed details of his face-to-face encounters with Putin from senior officials in administration

Resident Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. U.S. officials learned of Trump’s actions when a White House adviser and a senior State Department official sought information from the interpreter beyond a readout shared by Tillerson.

The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-has-concealed-details-of-his-face-to-face-encounters-with-putin-from-senior-officials-in-administration/2019/01/12/65f6686c-1434-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html

Jesse talks about the latest reporting from the New York Times and the Washington Post which reveals that not only has Donald Trump gone to great lengths to keep secret (even from the United States Intelligence community) the content of his private conversations with Vladimir Putin, but that in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey, the FBI opened a counter intelligence probe into Donald Trump to determine whether or not he was a witting/unwitting Russian intel asset.

Congressional Black Caucus Calls For White Supremacist Steve King To Face Consequences

CBC Chair Karen Bass called on Republicans to make clear the Iowa congressman is “no longer welcomed in their party” after his repeated racism.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-caucus-calls-for-white-supremacist-steve-king-to-face-consequences-for-his-racism_us_5c3a5ee3e4b0922a21d5642d

Did '50s TV show feature a con artist named Trump promising to build a wall?

By Mike Moffitt, SFGATE

It certainly sounds like an urban legend — an episode of a 1950's western TV series featured a snake oil salesman named Trump who claimed that only he could save a community from destruction by building a wall.

But the debunking site Snopes says the show, part of the "Trackdown" series starring Oakland native Robert Culp, did in fact air on CBS in 1958.

A clip from the episode was uploaded to YouTube, captioned "Predicted Donald Trump," in November 2016.

The "End of the World" show features actor Lawrence Dobkin as Walter Trump, a con man who predicts a firestorm would rain down on the Texas town of Talpa unless he intervenes to save it. Culp, playing Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman, calls Trump's bluff and eventually arrests him for "stealing."

Trump sold the townspeople force-field umbrellas to deflect meteors.

Interestingly, the character's speech is so similar to the resident, it almost seems as if Donald Trump borrowed some catchphrases from Walter Trump. A portion of the dialog follows:

Narrator: Hoby had checked the town. The people were ready to believe. Like sheep they ran to the slaughterhouse. And waiting for them was the high priest of fraud.

Trump: I am the only one. Trust me. I can build a wall around your homes that nothing can penetrate.

Townperson: What do we do? How can we save ourselves?

Trump: You ask how do you build that wall. You ask, and I'm here to tell you.

During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump declared, "Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything. I will give you what you've been looking for for 50 years. I'm the only one."

On June 16, 2015, Trump said, "I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I'll build them very inexpensively,"


https://www.sfgate.com/tv/article/Did-50s-TV-show-feature-a-con-artist-named-Trump-10848356.php

F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working On Behalf Of Russia

By Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt and Nicholas Fando

WASHINGTON — In the days after resident Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the resident’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the resident’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the resident’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/us/politics/fbi-trump-russia-inquiry.html

Trump tried to sell his wall on QVC last night like it was a mailorder frozen steak at Sharper Image

By Snake Plissken

And the only person who called in on the order line was someone wanting to know why Mexico isn't paying for it.

The People VS Donald J. Trump

He is demonstrably unfit for office. What are we waiting for?

By David Leonhardt

Opinion Columnist

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/opinion/sunday/trump-impeachment.html

HE'S TOAST!!! Congress Is Getting Donald Trump's Tax Returns!

The incoming Democratic Congress looks like it's going to use its majority to stand up for the American people and hold Donald Trump accountable, starting with requesting his tax returns (as allowed by U.S. Code › Title 26 › Subtitle F › Chapter 61 › Subchapter B › § 6103) from the Secretary of the Treasury.

The game's afoot!

Doomsday Bomb

GOP Congressman: Trump Is 'A Wealthy Man' & if He Wants A Wall He Should Fork Over Some Cash For It

By David Badash

. Rep. Walter Jones is calling on resident Trump to put his money where his mouth is – at least where the wall is concerned. The North Carolina Republican says it's "morally irresponsible" to build the wall by increasing the debt, and wants Trump to pay for at least part of it.

"As a wealthy man, the resident might consider pledging some of his own funds," Congressman Jones said in a statement on his government website, as Roll Call first reported. "Whatever it takes, just so long as we don’t add to the debt that is bankrupting our great country."

Jones says a "fiscally responsible plan to pay for" improved security on the southern border, and insists any compromise "should be paid for without adding to the deficit or the debt."

“America’s national debt is nearly $22 trillion. Next year our annual deficit is projected to top $1 trillion. We can’t afford to keep financing the provision of government services by borrowing more and more money. It’s morally irresponsible and it’s got to stop,” Jones added.

“If Mexico isn’t going to be made to pay for a wall, that means funds must be found internally.

Options could include cutting other wasteful federal spending. Foreign aid and the war in Afghanistan would be good places to start."

DoubleTree hotel fires two employees who called police on black guest

A DoubleTree hotel in Portland, Ore., has fired two employees involved in an incident in which a black guest had police called on him while he was talking on the phone in the hotel lobby.

A message posted on the DoubleTree Portland's Twitter account Saturday said the treatment of Jermaine Massey, who was staying at the hotel while visiting the area from Washington state, was "inconsistent" with the hotel chain's "standards & values."

"We have terminated the employment of the two men involved in the mistreatment of Mr. Massey. Their actions were inconsistent with our standards & values. We reiterate our sincere apology for what he endured & will work with diversity experts to ensure this never happens again," read the message.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/doubletree-hotel-fires-two-employees-who-called-police-on-black-guest/ar-BBRzHCA

Could Trump lose the 2020 nomination contest?

By Lara M. Brown

Resident Trump is politically more vulnerable than he ever has been, despite the enthusiastic support he enjoys from his (shrinking) base of white, evangelical voters.

His state-by-state job approval numbers suggest that if the 2020 election were held today and he won every state where he has a net positive or tied approval rating (25 states), he would garner 242 electoral votes, 28 votes short of the 270 needed to win the White House. Further, a multitude of criminal investigations surround nearly every aspect of Trump and the organizations he ran with his family.

To make matters worse, on Jan. 3, Democrats will become the majority in the House of Representatives and, aside from continuing to fight against Trump’s (largely unpopular) $5 billion demand to pay for the construction of a southern border wall, they plan to wield their oversight authority aggressively. The Trump administration is poorly prepared for the volume of congressional requests that soon will arrive to the White House.

  
Given these facts, it’s hard to imagine that Republican leaders are sanguine about Trump’s pursuit of a second presidential term. Whether the candidate is outgoing Ohio Gov. John Kasich, outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, or Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, rumblings about serious nomination challenges are emanating from many Republican quarters.

Still, as Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson recently noted, “Toppling a sitting president of your own party is a maneuver with the highest degree of difficulty.” While Gerson is right in describing the challenge, he goes on to argue that the “most relevant historical model is probably Eugene McCarthy’s race against President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968.” But this isn’t quite true.

From the modern era, the better analogy is 1980, and the fight that was waged by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) against President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination. Like Trump, Carter in 1976 had surprised his party and many of the presidential “favorites” then serving in the Senate by winning the nomination as an “outsider.” Also, like Trump, when Carter won the White House, he had a difficult time working with those in his party who held the majority in Congress. Many of his fellow partisans disagreed with his fiscally conservative approach, which they saw as contributing to the faltering economy. In November 1979, shortly after the Iranian hostage crisis began, Kennedy officially jumped into the Democratic nomination race, touting the need for “new leadership.”

Though Kennedy made several missteps, including a rambling television interview where he failed to explain why he was running, he managed to win pledged delegates across the country and to lead a ferocious effort to upset the nomination balloting at the Democratic National Convention. But Carter had been prepared for the challenge from Kennedy — and from California Gov. Jerry Brown. For months, Carter’s team had worked to burnish his policy accomplishments, elevate his position as the incumbent, and lay down the tracks for a state-by-state primary campaign, which included raising millions of dollars and hiring field staff.

This historical precedent reminds us of two things that are not true today when we consider Trump and the Republicans who may mount a nomination campaign against him. First, Carter’s primary opponents were viewed more as “show horses” than “work horses.” Brown and Kennedy both were perceived as shallow and overly confident media hounds. Many of the names being floated as potential challengers to Trump are the opposite. They are more substantive, experienced and discerning — all-around more morally-grounded men than Trump. Second, Carter could be both a savvy and disciplined candidate when it was required. Trump can’t seem to stop either his bombast or his lying.

Whether Trump would lose his party’s nomination remains unclear because today’s political polarization has fostered such a blind devotion to the leaders of one’s party. Still, with Trump’s latest approval rating again below 40 percent, his weakness seems to be increasing, rather than abating, and a nomination challenge seems in the offing.

As former Rep. Mo Udall (D-Ariz.) cogently explained in relation to the possibility with Carter:

“There are only two conditions when a party challenges its own incumbent president. One is where major elements of the party feel so intensely and so bitterly about one issue that they oppose him no matter what the consequences. They don't care if it costs the presidency. That’s what happened to Lyndon Johnson in 1966 over Vietnam. The other time is when their own president looks so weak, runs so persistently and significantly behind opposition candidates in the polls, that others in the party begin fearing he’s a loser and they’ll lose, too — if they stick with him.”

The ball hasn’t yet dropped in Times Square, but already 2019 is shaping up to look like 1979. 

Happy New Year, Mr. Trump.  
  
Lara M. Brown, Ph.D., is an associate professor and director of the Graduate School of Political Management at the George Washington University, and formerly was an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University. She frequently appears on TV and radio programs as an expert on American political history, party development and national elections. Follow her on Twitter @LaraMBrownPhD.

SADLY PREDICTABLE! Donald Trump Shamelessly Lies And Endangers Troops Overseas!

Jesse Dollemore talks about how after over SEVEN HUNDRED DAYS in office Donald Trump decided to FINALLY visit troops who are serving in the thick of it.

In the process of desperately trying to make everything about him and his Twitter feed, he exposed the identities and location of members of Navy SEAL Team 5 as well as told insane lies in a speech to the troops about the paychecks!

Black Voters, A Force In Democratic Politics, Are Ready To Make Themselves Heard

A graduating student at Morgan State University cheered Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, during her commencement address this month. 

Credit: Erin Schaff for The New York Times

By Astead W. Herndon

BALTIMORE — The first “Amen!” rang out after a couple of minutes, as Senator Elizabeth Warren, speaking to an almost all-black audience at Morgan State University’s winter commencement, described how America has “systematically discriminated against black people.”

Heads nodded as she mentioned “redlining,” the discriminatory practice of denying mortgages, usually in poor and nonwhite areas. There was applause when the Massachusetts Democrat declared the country has “two sets of rules: one for white families and one for everybody else.”

Still, if her speech at the historically black college in Baltimore was a preview of a possible presidential campaign, she did better at opening the door than at closing the sale. “She didn’t sugarcoat anything, but my question is: Will she keep black issues on the forefront?” asked Kerrianne Largie, a 39 year old woman who backed Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the last Democratic primary.

The first votes of the Democratic presidential primary remain more than a year away, but black voters are keenly aware of the prominent role they will play in choosing the next nominee. In 2016, Mr. Sanders’s “political revolution” flamed out with black voters, and Hillary Clinton fell short of the robust black turnout she needed to defeat Donald J. Trump.

This time around, Democrats are weighing how to reach out to the black community in the primary without losing the ability to appeal to the suburban and working class whites who propelled Mr. Trump to victory. As the party searches for a candidate who can combine those messages — from a field likely to include several racial minorities — many black voters want to be engaged in a manner that reflects their electoral power, and not passed over in favor of a strategy that prioritizes Mr. Trump’s heavily white coalition.

With that in mind, potential Democratic candidates interested in the 2020 nomination have begun reaching out to black leaders and are testing messages for black voter outreach. This courting is particularly critical for white, liberal Democrats like Ms. Warren, Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and lesser-known figures like Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

Senator Bernie Sanders failed to gain traction in minority communities, and particularly among black voters in the South, during his 2016 presidential bid. 

Credit: Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times

Some of the early black outreach efforts so far have been public, like Ms. Warren’s three recent speeches at historically black colleges or Mr. O’Rourke’s appearance on “Pod Save the People,” the podcast led by racial justice activist DeRay Mckesson.

Other overtures were made in private. Mr. O’Rourke has held calls with the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader, and made repeated contact with senior members of the N.A.A.C.P. In recent months, Mr. Merkley and Texas Democrat Julián Castro have reached out to Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, the progressive civil rights advocacy group that has positioned itself as a go-to sounding board for prospective candidates.

Ms. Warren has stood out in her aggressive wooing of black leaders, according to several people who have spoken with members of her team. During a trip to New York City, she arranged a sit-down meeting with Mr. Robinson to discuss issues popular with social justice activists, including the elimination of cash bail and sweeping criminal justice reform.

“The person that is able to beat Trump won’t be running against Trump per se, they’ll be running for a vision of America that’s bigger than him. And that vision of America will have to speak to black voters, explicitly,” Mr. Mckesson said in a statement. Several prospective candidates reached out to Mr. Mckesson in order to appear on his podcast, including Mr. O’Rourke and lesser known presidential candidates such as Representative John Delaney of Maryland.

Mr. Robinson, the head of Color of Change, said candidates seeking to run in 2020 are not asking for endorsements or statements of support at this time. He said his meeting with Ms. Warren and others was more about discussing policy issues, rather than campaign strategy. The meetings come as several possible presidential campaigns, including that of Mr. Sanders, have made hiring more diverse campaign staffers a top priority.

“I think some of the candidates don’t get that they’re going to have to actually come with a bold agenda,” Mr. Robinson said. “If candidates think that this is just about who can beat Trump, they’re going to have a rude awakening. People can hate Trump and not love the opposition. It actually has to be about putting out something that allows people to feel like they are connected and their community’s issues are being addressed.”

The behind-the-scenes activity signals just how different this upcoming primary stands to be for Democrats. Not only are multiple black candidates expected to run, including Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California, but several white candidates are confident they can successfully compete for minority votes.

This includes people like Ms. Warren and Mr. Merkley, but also Mitch Landrieu, the former New Orleans mayor, who is also said to be mulling a presidential run. Mr. Landrieu burst onto the national stage with a well-received speech about institutional racism and the Confederate monuments in 2017.

 

Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey is one of multiple potential black and Latino presidential candidates. 

Credit: Erin Schaff for The New York Times

Mr. Brown, the Ohio Democrat also considering a presidential campaign, said it’s important that Democratic progressives make a distinction between President Trump’s “phony populism” and a true populist message, which does not divide on racial or religious lines.

In an interview, Mr. Brown said those who characterize him as a politician for the “white working class” are missing the point, because his message on the “dignity of work” — which is inspired by a speech from Martin Luther King Jr. — specifically acknowledges the existence of discrimination and has support throughout Ohio’s minority communities.

“I never talked about the “white working class” — I talk about workers,” Mr. Brown said. “If we talk about the minimum wage increase, or if we fight against tax cuts for the rich or if we passed better trade policy — that will help black workers every bit as much as it will help white workers. And in many cases, it will probably help them more.”

“My message is never to segment white workers and black workers except when talking about discrimination against black workers,” he said.

The road forward will not be easy. In 2016, even as Mrs. Clinton enjoyed widespread support from black political leaders and won an overwhelming share of black votes in the primary and general elections, she was plagued by accusations that her political persona was inauthentic.

Images of Mrs. Clinton performing hip-hop dances like the Whip and the Nae Nae on national television or talking about her love of hot sauce remain punch lines for many black voters, some of whom took such instances as evidence Mrs. Clinton was “pandering” for minority votes. (Mrs. Clinton does, in fact, love hot sauce).

There was also a significant generational gap among black voters in the 2016 Democratic primary, with younger black voters significantly more likely to be open to the populist message of Mr. Sanders than older generations, who overwhelmingly backed Mrs. Clinton.

In 2020, progressives need to do a better job of tailoring their message to older black voters, said Yvette Simpson, incoming head of Democracy For America, the progressive political group that backed Mr. Sanders in 2016. These are the voters — particularly in the South and the urban Midwest — who dictate the party’s future agenda and candidate, she said.

Ms. Warren has stood out in her aggressive wooing of black progressive leaders, according to several people who have spoken with members of her team. 

Credit: Erin Schaff for The New York Times

“Black and brown voters are done with you showing up at my church right before the elections,” Ms. Simpson said. The candidates who will be successful with black voters, she said, are the “ones who have strong local presences, who are setting up offices and hiring local people in those offices. It will be the ones constantly asking, ‘What can we do?’ and showing a commitment to come back and do that work over and over again.”

Ms. Simpson said she has not heard from any prospective candidates, and fears too many are taking advice from the wrong voices.

“You can’t just have the one or two black or brown validators as your only connection to the community.”

In Baltimore, many of those interviewed expressed excitement about the broad range of potential Democratic candidates.

Les Levi, a commodities trader and Morgan State alumnus who attended the graduation, said he was looking for someone with “mass appeal,” because the country is currently so divided. Esther Sakyi, a 23 year old graduate, said she wants someone who will inspire the next generation.

Sherry Clemons, 60, said she appreciated when Ms. Warren said “I am not a person of color,” in her Morgan State speech, because it made clear she was operating from different life experiences.

“She made clear she recognized what’s going on, but also she made clear that she’s white, and she doesn’t understand everything,” Ms. Clemons said.

But they were also clear that special attention would be given to black candidates like Ms. Harris and Mr. Booker — if they became viable.

“I liked Hillary. I like Warren,’’ Mr. Levi said. “But if there’s a black person, I’m voting black 100 percent,” he said. “Because that’s how the white people do us.”

 

A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 26, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: For 2020 Nominee, Black Voters Demand More. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Mattis's "Go Fuck Yourself, Donald" Resignation Letter

Posted by Rude One

Soon-to-be-ex-Secretary of Defense James Mattis finally decided that the spontaneous withdrawal of troops from Syria was a turd too far and that he had finally reached his limit of the shit he would eat working for Donald Trump. Mattis had been gobbling Trump's shit for over two years and vomiting up something closer to a sane foreign policy.

If nothing else, despite being Trump's loyal janitor, cleaning up the messes that Trump made with each idiotic tweet, each trashy treachery, each foolish twist in the world order, Mattis kept U.S. soldiers from being sent in large numbers to another stupid war fought by stupid leaders. For that reason alone, we should understand why he stayed on as long as he did.

I'm not gonna delve into Mattis's problematic legacy. There are many reasons to say, "Fuck that guy."

But we do need to pause and take in his delicious resignation letter, as clear a "Go fuck yourself, Donald Trump" as you're gonna get from a cabinet member on their way out. Mattis knows where the United States stands in the world, where it oughta stand, and where the fuck Trump is leading both this country and its allies. He's fucking pissed.

First off, Mattis was never one to participate in the circle jerk of praise for Trump whenever other cabinet members were forced to awkwardly declare loyalty to the idiot king. So it's not surprising that he doesn't fluff or even thank Trump beyond saying, "I very much appreciate this opportunity to serve the nation and our men and women in uniform." Otherwise, you know, Trump can shove it up his orange asshole.

The focus of the letter is how very fucking wrong Trump is about, well, everything. "While the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world," Mattis writes, "we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies." You'd think not shitting on your allies would be sort of the basic thing that any leader would do, but not our resident, who is too busy shoving toy soldiers into his nose to care.

Mattis praises NATO (which he had no small role in keeping the U.S. part of), and he calls out China and Russia for trying to piss in the peace punch. They "want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model." His advice is simple: "That is why we must use all the tools of American power to provide for the common defense." And he means our fuckin' allies.

Then comes the shiv: "My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues."

"Yeah, motherfucker," he's saying, "I've walked the motherfucking walk. What the fuck have you done besides steal from suckers, fuck around on your wives, kiss Putin's ass, and lust after your daughter?"

Goddamn, how Mattis must have punched himself in the balls every time Trump said he knew better than the generals, that no one understands NATO or North Korea or, fuck, anything better than him.

In the letter, Mattis continues, "We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances." You're either with your allies or you're with their (and our) enemies.

Trump's a fucking traitor, and Mattis knows it. It's really that simple.

Look, you know that the only reason Trump wanted Mattis is because someone, probably Jared, told him that Mattis's nickname was "Mad Dog." Trump probably thought he was getting some savage murder-monster who would sit around with Trump and giggle as they bombed shitholes out of existence, jacking each other off to video feeds of starving Yemenis getting turned into a red mist by drone missiles, eating Big Macs while hearing about the torture of detainees.

Instead, he got the opposite: a thoughtful soldier who acutally gave a fuck about the future. In the context of Trump's cabinet of thieves, whores, ghouls, and Ben Carson, Mattis was a shining damn beacon of sanity. If we were heading towards the cliff before, we just hit the gas.

Of course, another way we're going to judge Mattis is by what he does once he's free next year. If he goes silent and refuses to step up to stop the mad resident, then he is complicit in whatever happens next.

(Note: I was gonna write about Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's pussy fart of a farewell address, but fuck that guy forever.)

Trump really thinks he can keep the money he's stiffing federal employees

By SemDem

I didn’t believe it, but here it is.

Trump just said that he can treat the federal workforce exactly like he treated all of his real estate contractors:

The Wall is different than the 25 Billion Dollars in Border Security. The complete Wall will be built with the Shutdown money plus funds already in hand. The reporting has been inaccurate on the point. The problem is, without the Wall, much of the rest of Dollars are wasted!
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2018

“The complete Wall will be built with the Shutdown money plus funds already in hand.”

First of all, is there NO ONE left in the White House who can explain to this complete dolt that you don’t make money from a shutdown?  It’s costing us money---and for hundreds of thousands of families with small children and mortgages, it’s costing them personally.

Second of all, and I can’t believe I have to explain this, YOU CANNOT withhold a government employee’s wages and keep it.

Trump is so delusional that he thinks the money he’s not paying them is going into some sort of slush fund that he can then use to build the entire pointy wall.  Perhaps in his warped mind, he is fantasizing about using his “crack” attorneys to intimidate 800,000 federal workers in court out of the back pay they are owed. (I’m sure Giuliani would at least try, if asked.)

This horrible tweet showcases everything about Trump: his dishonesty, his cruelty, and his stupidity. 

Somehow, he managed to make this tweet even more narcissistic than his previous one, where he literally whined that he was “all alone (poor me)”, because he can’t go to Mar-a-Lago.

FUCK YOU:

My husband is a Park Ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and he had to sign his furlough papers. We have a 4 yr old and a 4 month old, and we don't know when his next check will come. Mortgage is due, Christmas 2 days away. #ShutdownStories
Taylor Futch (@TaylorFutch1) December 24, 2018

My husband is active duty Coast Guard. Everyone thinks the military is getting paid during the shutdown, but the Coast Guard is facing no pay on the 1st due to being DHS and not DoD. We live in NYC, pay over $2K/month in rent, have a toddler and one on the way.#ShutdownStories
 Katy (@katyjb88) December 24, 2018

What a freaking monster.

What’s next? Telling a kid on Christmas Eve there’s no Santa? (Wait, he did what?!?!)

Rest assured, republican reps and senators are still getting paid, so they don’t care. Some are even championing this shutdown because they are monsters as well. The only silver lining I can think of is that several cruel ICE agents who torment migrants will have to suffer along with the rest of us. Food stamp recipients will also suffer, and unlike what conservatives believe, the majority of recipients are rural whites—Trump’s base. They are about to feel the same pain that the farmers Trump screwed over have felt the past few months.
 
Trump has really painted himself into a corner, and he’ll cave like he always does.  Unfortunately, a Iot of good, innocent people are also going to suffer.
 
Until this nightmare is over, Senator Schumer and Rep. Pelosi should be calling the CEO's of mortgage lenders to give some leeway. It may not work, but it’s clear that the people suffering can only count on one party to try to help. 

I’m so sorry our resident is an asshole.

Merry Christmas.

Responses

You Own This, Republicans

By NanceGreggs

You own all of it.

You knew who Trump was when you nominated him, when you elected him, when you supported him – when you enabled him.

Trump didn’t appear out of nowhere, with no history to be looked to as a measure of his worth. You knew about the bankruptcies, the endless lawsuits, the scams that bilked people of their money, the shady business dealings – you knew all of it.

You knew he was a pathological liar, a racist, a bigot, a misogynist. You knew he was an incompetent blowhard, with no concept of how government operates – and absolutely no desire to learn.

You knew he had the attention span of a gnat, the temperament of a tantrum-prone child, the intellect of an idiot, and the maturity of a spoiled, indulged frat boy.

You knew he was selfish and self-serving. You knew he had no morals, no empathy, no concept of any reality that didn't acknowledge him as the center of the universe. You knew he lacked the mental capacity to govern a nation, and the emotional stability to lead.

You knew he was appallingly lazy, physically unfit to deal with pressures of the presidency, and emotionally unfit to make decisions that affect not only the US citizenry, but the entire world.

You elected him. And once installed in the Oval Office, you looked the other way while he insulted our allies and kow-towed to our enemies. You sat in silence as he ignored the best interests of our country in order to pursue relationships and policies whose only purpose was to enrich him personally. You sat mute as he disparaged and demeaned our judiciary, our intelligence community, and the very concept of a free press.

You said nothing as children were torn from their parents and locked in cages, as our military was sent to the border as a political stunt, as he declared certain nations to be “shithole countries”, as he called Nazis and white supremacists “very fine people”, as he sowed division and encouraged violence.

And throughout this so-called “residency”, you have defended his idiocy, made excuses for his apparent stupidity, and have attempted to Trump-‘splain everything from his lack of even a modicum of common sense to his endless litany of ridiculous lies.

Given the revelations over the past two years – and especially over the past few weeks – it is now abundantly clear to anyone with a functioning brain that collusion between your “pResident”, his family, his associates and his “trusted advisors” and our nation’s enemies is not a theory, but an indisputable fact.

And what have the American people gained in all of this? An economy that’s great if you’re a multi-millionaire, stagnant wages, an exploded deficit, tariffs that are damaging businesses, a chaotic stock market – and a party that wants to cut social security and Medicaid, prevent citizens from voting, take affordable healthcare away from millions, and systematically destroy the principles our nation was founded upon

And you own it – every cofveve-laden tweet, every crime, every treachery, every corruption, every lie, every immorality, every inane statement, every self-serving action, every stubborn defiance of the facts – you own it all.

You have aided and abetted every crime your “pResident”, his associates, his “advisors”, his “best people”, his crooked lawyers, and his family members have committed. You had a chance to pick a side – and you chose to side with a traitor.

There’s no walking away from this, my friends across the aisle. We are in a place tonight where our democracy is teetering on the edge due to your “pResident” being Putin’s puppet, blatantly willing to do whatever necessary to please our enemy – the same enemy who went to great lengths to ensure his puppet’s election.

The only silver lining in all of this is the fact that every action your “pResident” has taken has served to destroy your party. You were once a political force – now you are nothing more than collateral damage.

Be assured that those of us who have witnessed your complete disregard for the well-being of our citizens, the survival of our values, and the upholding of our principles will never stop reminding the populace of your cowardice, your subservience to a madman, and your complicity with a traitor.

The “Trump” brand-name is already toxic. The “Republican” brand-name is about to suffer the same fate. And you brought this all on yourselves.

You own it. You own all of it. And we’re going to nail that to your ass every time you take a breath from now on.

On The Need To Drop Stephen Miller Naked Into Guatemala

Posted by Rude One

Put aside for a moment that White House senior adviser Stephen Miller looks like what happens when a Mr. Potato Head becomes human-sized and mean. Put aside that he has the facial expression of a man who knows the pleasure of using a disembodied head for fellatio. Put aside that, for his appearance on CBS's Face the Nation yesterday, he seemed to have pasted Sarah Sanders's shaved pubic stubble onto his forehead. Put aside all that shallow but hilarious stuff about Stephen Miller, whose head, it should be noted, looks like a scrotum stretched over a hard-boiled egg.

Instead, let's talk about why he should be stripped naked and dropped into the middle of Guatemala. Somewhere really fucking poor.  Just drop his pasty, bare white ass right there.

Because if we learned anything in his interview with Margaret Brennan on Sunday, it's that this vicious motherfucker won't rest until he has personally watched children from Mexico and Central America die horribly. Sure, Miller paid lip service to the objective tragedy that is the death of 7 year-old Jakelin Caal while in the custody of the Border Patrol. But then he made sure to blame everyone except the people running the goddamn federal government. "Hundreds die on the dangerous trek up. Smuggling organizations profit off death and misery. They are vicious, vile organizations," he said, which is true, but he could at least have fucking said that the death was being investigated, which you do, if you care.

When Brennan brought up that the Border Patrol itself said it wasn't adequately prepared for the number of immigrants that arrived and asked why, Miller went to the pass-the-buck well again: "One of the great tragedies that is going on in our country today is the loopholes in our immigration laws and the deficiencies in our immigration laws. And left wing, activist judicial rulings that incentivize the most vulnerable populations to come to our country."

Asked about Democratic opposition to funding the bullshit wall, Miller went full apeshit and said, "If the Democrat Party wants to go down the road of continuing to preserve a model that enriches smuggling organizations, that spreads misery on both sides of the border, that kills 300 Americans a week through heroin overdoses alone." Yeah, most heroin comes from Mexico and not Central America, where many of the refugees are traveling from.

And you know what would fucking help Americans with heroin addiction? A goddamn national health insurance, but earlier in the segment, Miller celebrated the worthless decision by that asshole judge in Texas that declared the whole Affordable Care Act unconstitutional (funny how that judge isn't an "activist," but I guess that's in the short-eyes of the beholder). Then he made vague promises about how the mighty Donald Trump is going to come up with a better insurance program even though, you know, our president, who is 500 pounds of shit in a 300 pound bag, wouldn't understand health care if Ronald McDonald taught it to him.

But, of course, as every member of this administration has to do when they speak to anyone in the media, Miller licked Trump's orange asshole: "This resident has taken historic action to stem the tide of illegal immigration and to fight for working people in this country." Except, of course, he hasn't done dick except make it possible for shitty people like him come up with a way to justify the death of a child in U.S. custody.

Let's say that Miller is dropped naked, with no passport, no i.d., no phone, no money, into a small town, like, hey, what about Raxruha, which is in the middle of fucking nowhere Guatemala. It's also the incredibly poor place where Jakelin Caal and her father left to head for the U.S.

There is a kind part of me that hopes that nude Miller would seek out help in one of the thatched roof huts with a dirt floor and a fire pit for cooking. And that the family there, where they earn $5 a day harvesting beans, would take him in and share their ragged clothes and meager food, caring for him the way that strangers often take care of those in strange lands who need help. And that kind part of me extends to a sort of redemption, that Miller would learn that the people that he thinks are so terrible, are so violent, are such burdens to this nation are none of those things, that they are simply humans who want a better life for their children. And in my most generous moments, I see Miller having a change of heart; I see him being taken to the American embassy in Guatemala City, of him coming back and giving up the white nationalism that has ruined his hairline and his soul; I see him transformed and demanding a transformation of the policies of the United States. Yes, that part of me exists.

Mostly, though, I hope they just put a collar on him and make him their pet. 

Conspiracy Theories

UNPRECEDENTED! Several Trump Orgs Now Under Criminal Investigation - Many Indictments To Come!

Jesse Dollemore discusses the latest news of the federal investigations (including criminal) into the Trump Organization, the Trump Foundation, the Trump 2016 residential Campaign, the Trump Transition Team, The Trump Inaugural Committee, and the Trump Administration in general. Also outlined are the many guilty pleas and convictions, as well as several indictments likely in the coming days and weeks.

Trump Fans Are Starting To See The Writing On The Wall

Why Is Tyson Foods STILL Supporting Steve King? #BoycottTyson

Jesse Dollemore discusses the campaign contributions and support given to Iowa Congressman Steve King from Tyson Foods.

You have a choice when shopping for your holiday meals, now you have the information to make an informed decision on what NOT TO BUY!

 #SteveKing #TysonFoods #Thanksgiving

Serving Trump Revealed Who John Kelly Always Was

Some who enter this resident’s service are changed for the worse. Others have been that way all along.

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/577708/

Impeach The Motherfucker

Posted by Rude One

So much discussion is going on about whether or not Democrats should go forward with the impeachment of resident Donald Trump, who is actually a bulging tower of rotting cantaloupes in a terrible-fitting suit. Many in the punditocracy are telling the incoming House majority to avoid impeachment and not even speak of it. Obviously, the chances of removing Trump from office in a trial after the House impeaches are slim to none, considering that the Senate will be made of 47 Democrats and 53 puking shit demons from the GOP. We know that the puking shit demons aren't going to vote against their puking shit demon leader, and Democrats would need 20 of those vile fuckers to toss Trump into the toilet of history.

On WNYC this morning, Mara Liasson was making that point: why bother even talking about it when it's not gonna happen? She said that Democrats are worried that "if they go hellbent toward impeachment instead of passing legislation - even if that legislation goes nowhere in the Senate, it won't be signed by resident Trump, at least they want to lay out an agenda for the voters - there will be a political backlash."

Then she used the well-worn point that the Bill Clinton impeachment led to Democratic gains in the 1998 midterms. Except we're not talking a massive tide here. Democrats gained 5 seats in the House and didn't lose any in the Senate. Yeah, that was a big deal compared to the 1994 ass-reaming the GOP gave to Democrats. But Republicans still ran Congress in 1999. And they still "won" the presidency in 2000 and kept control of Congress, at least until Senator Jim Jeffords left the GOP in May of 2001. The GOP won the Senate back in 2002. (Note: George W. Bush didn't really win in 2000, but we have been damned to pretend as if he did.)

So this idea that somehow Republicans suffered electorally is just a goddamn lie. Then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich suffered because he was forced out of the House for lots of hinky shit. Next in line for Speaker, Republican Bob Livingston, suffered because he resigned after he was caught fucking around on his wife. That's how we got child fucker Dennis Hastert for Speaker. Oh, the late 1990s were so charming. As far as elections go, though, Republicans lost a little bit, but not enough to drive them away. Not enough to make them stop being scandal-mongering, hypocritical ass-worms.

Besides, the reason the Clinton impeachment was such a fuckin' farce was that no one could point to anything that President Clinton got out of his lie, other than that his wife might have believed he wasn't fucking around this one time (despite the fact that we all knew he fucked around). There was no use of his office for financial or political gain, and Kenneth Starr desperately fucking tried to find something. Clearly, Trump is doing shit for financial and political gain, that bloated sleazeball.

Sure, Clinton lied under oath, which, yes, is a crime. But he lied under oath for purely personal reasons that had nothing to do with his ability to do his job defending the Constitution. (Yes, I get the irony of saying that a perjurer is defending the Constitution. You are very smart for thinking that. Pat yourself on the back and shut the fuck up.) People realized that this was bullshit and a rigged investigation after a series of bullshit investigations by lying Republicans, and they stood by Clinton.

See, the other big factor was that Bill Clinton's job approval was hovering around 60% throughout the sex scandal period, going up to 66% near the 1998 midterms. It was enough stop Republicans from getting the usual midterm gains for the party opposite the president. That's the "loss" you hear about. They fucked themselves even that much because they were obsessed with Clinton's penis and the American people were not.

But, again, that's not the whole story. Americans didn't start supporting Clinton because of impeachment. Indeed, after his 1996 inauguration, he never went below 50% for the rest of his presidency.  Now, I may not be a math whiz, but it seems like anything from 60-66% is a bigger number than 40%, which is where Donald Trump hovers in approval. And on disapproval? Clinton rarely went above 40% and mostly stayed in the low-to-mid 30s. Trump is high 50s to 60%. In other words, the majority of Americans were fucking fine with Bill Clinton. The majority of Americans are far from fucking okay with Donald Trump.

And they'll be fine with impeachment.

Next: Why it doesn't matter if Trump can be removed from office right now. 

Taking them for a ride

Silent Sam, George H.W. Bush, And Ross Douthat's WASPs: Nostalgia For A Time That Never Was

Posted by Rude One

I'm so fucking weary of assholes talking about how great the past was.

I get the human instinct to make the past suit one's present. It's one of the amazing ways that we delude ourselves, and some are more deluded than others. For instance, if you're someone who fancies himself an amazing lover, you might be willing to admit, "Yeah, I was pretty goddamn rotten those first few years. Major apologies to all those who put up with me." Or you've just put on hazy goggles that allow you to willfully ignore the truth and you can say, "Oh, man, every dude I ever fucked practically hemorrhaged from cumming. And the chicks? Their heads almost popped off their necks when I gave them screaming orgasms." Sure, pal. Sure. Why don't we ask those dudes and chicks what they think?

The past was never The Past.

Last night, on her Fox "news" show The Ingrown Toenail, Laura Ingraham raged against the college students who are protesting the vote to restore a Confederate soldier statue at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. It's nicknamed "Silent Sam," which sounds like Slenderman's sidekick, and it was knocked down by students in August of this year. The UNC board of trustees voted to spend $5 million for a new building that would house the statue, and, yes, students marched peacefully to protest.

Ingraham was having none of those fuckin' students acting all uppity: "There is a movement, particularly among the young, to hate the past and eradicate anything they find objectionable or troubling." She compared those who toppled Sam to the ISIS terrorists who destroyed ancient ruins at Palmyra. No shit. She really did that.

Then she continued, "No matter what one thinks of the Civil War or those who supported the Confederacy, it happened. And we owe it to the future to leave history undisturbed." She suggested that perhaps a statue commemorating slaves adjacent to Sam could be erected. And she concluded, "But to destroy, instead of engage, to defy the law instead of respect it, is no way to honor the past or the future."

A couple of things deserve comment in this. First, a statue is not history. Indeed, it's denying history to leave the statue of a Confederate soldier fucking standing. Yeah, 1000 UNC students fought for the Confederacy, but that means they were traitors to the United States and fought to keep other people as slaves. It'd be like erecting a statue to Thanos for his population control efforts. And this didn't spring out of the blue. There have been 50 years of protests against Silent Sam.

The movement isn't to "eradicate" what's "objectionable," despite the slavering lap dog words that Ingraham yips. The movement is to be honest about history and about not honoring the goddamn enemy. I've said it a million fuckin' times: If your family fought for the South in the Civil War, they were either suckers fighting for the rich plantation owners or true believers in the slavery-based economy, and that means your ancestors are assholes who don't deserve monuments. They deserve scorn and degradation. Any other way to see it is utter bullshit.

Over on the editorial page of the New York Times (motto: "Every shithole town of Trump voters is more important than the big cities that voted against him"), resident conservative Ross Hat of Douche, wallowing in the oil pool of panegyrics for dead President George Bush, explains, "Why We Miss the WASPs." For the young 'uns, those are "white Anglo-Saxon Protestants," or, you know, pasty-ass white people.

"Americans miss Bush because we miss the WASPs — because we feel, at some level, that their more meritocratic and diverse and secular successors rule us neither as wisely nor as well," Douthat tells us. Yes, we need to recognize that once our betters led us and, boy, howdy, they were just so much better: "[S]omehow the combination of pious obligation joined to cosmopolitanism gave the old establishment a distinctive competence and effectiveness in statesmanship."

He goes on to talk about how now we've failed in replacing this ruling class because "almost all the discussion of our meritocracy’s vices assumes the system’s basic post-WASP premises, and hopes that either more inclusion (the pro-diversity left’s fixation) or a greater emphasis on academic merit (the anti-affirmative right’s hobbyhorse) will cure our establishment’s all-too-apparent ills." Good god, why can't we go back to those oh-so-noble leaders, the notion that they were great simply because they told us they were great.

Put aside the cowardly racism here. Forget asking, "Who the fuck is this 'we' you're jacking off about?" Instead, focus on the idea that Douthat actually believes this masturbatory fantasy of dominance is true. So then who fucked that up? Who fucked it all up? It was the Republican WASPs who did because after the election of Bill Clinton, that country bumpkin who smoked weed and fucked, they lost their goddamn narrow minds and set out to destroy him, destroy the presidency, and destroy the nation, if they had to, to demonstrate their superiority. They did it before with Jimmy Carter. And that's how you get the inbred Bush, Jr. in there next to fuck things even more royally in order to make the ruling class's dreams of wanton war and financial excess possible. And that's why Barack Obama had to be wrecked.

When they hell was the ruling class filled with "pious obligation" to anything but greed? And how the fuck is this ruling class out of power? They seem pretty much to still control almost everything. Is it because they have to acknowledge women and non-whites and LGBT people as being equal under the law? Inclusion is a problem only if you think exclusion is necessary to maintain power. But while you're mourning for the passing of a white male ruling class, I'm thinking about all those women and non-whites and LGBT people who were denied power for so very long and how much potential was lost because of it.

Right now, Bush 41 is being memorialized. He is being praised as being one of our greatest presidents, except he wasn't. A quick scan of his failures demonstrates that. By whitewashing our past (literally and figuratively), we aren't honoring anyone or anything. We are lying about the past. We are saying that we refuse to learn from our horrific mistakes.

(Note: By the way, the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill is filled with buildings named after slaveowners, white supremacists, and Confederate soldiers. One is named for a slave, and that was dedicated in 2002. You never escape the Confederacy on campus. Removing a statue won't change that.)

(Note 2: Yes, I know the law says they can't remove the statue. Laws can be challenged.) 

NO COLLUSION!

They All Lied. They’re All Guilty.

TPM composite

By Josh Marshall

November 29, 2018 8:42 pm

Sometimes it’s worth stepping back and stating the obvious. Over the course of these thirty months of cover-ups, every player in the Trump/Russia story has lied about their role in the conspiracy. And not hedging and spinning fibs but straight up lies about the core nature of their involvement, their overt acts. Most – though here what we know is a bit more tentative – seem to have lied under oath, whether to congressional committees or a grand jury. Not a single one of them told a story that wasn’t eventually contradicted and disproved. Not a single one.


Who? Well, let’s see. Donald Trump, Jr., Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Donald Trump, Jerome Corsi, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Carter Page, Jared Kushner.

These are ones who lied, the ones we can state definitively. I’m not including the marginal players, folks like Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan. I’m not including those who just never spoke at all – at least not in public.

We can now see documentation and confessions that outline some of what has always seemed probable. During the campaign – for roughly the first year of the campaign! – Donald Trump was actively trying to strike business deals in Russia with the help of Vladimir Putin’s government and working closely with members of the Russian intelligence services. Felix Sater was working with all these people. Trump’s deal-maker and Russian money channel handler, Michael Cohen, literally reached out to Putin’s press office and spoke to a member of the staff to enlist the Russian government’s assistance. This was while Trump was already the clear front runner for the nomination.

As this was happening, Putin’s intelligence services were stealing emails and documents from various arms of the Democratic party. They were mounting various information operations within the United States. As this was happening a bankrupt and desperate political fixer who’d been working for a Putin loyalist for a decade showed up wanting to work for the campaign for free. That’s Paul Manafort, a longtime business partner of Roger Stone, another member of the conspiracy.

Did they work with Wikileaks? Yes, there was a back channel between Trump and Wikileaks murkily conducted through Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi and likely others – requests for help in one direction, information and assistance in the other.

resident Trump has been at war with the Russia investigation from the get-go for an obvious and totally logical reason: the depth of his personal involvement in and knowledge of the conspiracy amounts to a devastating indictment of him and his residency. It all makes perfect sense.

Historian finds German decree banishing Trump's grandfather from Germany

Historian finds German decree banishing Trump's grandfather | US news | The Guardian https://t.co/zzmpmAm6Iv

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) November 27, 2018

Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith Is A Shit Human

Posted by Rude One

Look, I have no doubt that Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi believed she was joking when she praised a supporter by saying that "if he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row." (She had started her remarks with the bizarrely bloody compliment "I would fight a circle saw for him.") I have no doubt that she never thought twice about the history of lynching of black people in her state. I have no doubt that she saw nothing wrong with what she was saying, that it was one of those things that she's heard and perhaps repeated a few times. We have a lot of phrases and sayings that are based on appalling shit. You wanna know the history of "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo"? The word "gyp"?

Of course, Hyde-Smith, being Southern and white and a Republican, refused to acknowledge there was something fucked up with what she said, aside from the anodyne bullshit of "Sorry if I offended you." She could have quickly come out and made a statement like, "I understand that some of the things we say come from a time when we did terrible things to people. I apologize for saying it, and we all need to learn to do better." But, you know, she didn't. She couldn't. She dug in her heels and said that anyone who thought she was racist was a damn liar.

It was a signal to those Southern, white Republicans who will vote for her that she has their racist, Confederacy-humping backs. "You don't have to move beyond your barbaric prejudices, you dumb fucks," she's telling them. "Your bigotry and ignorance is safe with me."

And thus, their economic anxiety soothed, the white working class went about its business of telling everyone how the Civil War wasn't about slavery.

We have learned since that moment that Cindy Hyde-Smith is not only a racist piece of shit (even if we pretty much knew that prior to the lynching remark) but that she's a shit human all around. For instance, the rest of that little talk in Tupelo on November 2 is filled with stuff that shit humans say.

There's one Planned Parenthood in all of Mississippi, in Hattiesburg, and it doesn't do abortions, but Hyde-Smith still whined, "Planned Parenthood is one of the worst things that has ever happened to us." She praised "distant relative" Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois (now quite gratifyingly dead) for the budget amendment that prevents any federal funds from being used for abortion, except the way she described him: "Many of you may have heard of Sen. Henry Hyde from Oklahoma."

And she's totally willing to use a closer relative for a political prop: "My daughter, on her second birthday, got a lifetime membership to the NRA." Yes, that's what every toddler wants. Fuck Tickle-Me-Elmo with the barrel of a shotgun. Baby loves 2A, motherfuckers.

You throw in the other things we've learned about and heard about Hyde-Smith - like dressing up like a Confederate soldier while visiting Jefferson Davis's house and declaring it "Mississippi history at its best" or "joking" again that there are "liberal folks" at historically black colleges and universities "who maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult" to the revelation that she attended an all-white school that was created to get around integration laws (the fucking school mascot was a Confederate officer and that fucking flag of the defeated traitors flew there) to the fact that she sent the aforementioned NRA member daughter there - and she's just fucking awful, with a fucked up, constantly degrading and violent sense of humor, like every heinous stereotype of the dumbass, racist, hateful Southerner wrapped into one cynical package of the polite Southern belle who sounds kind and moral but is secretly poisoning the sweet tea she serves to her husband so she can get the life insurance.

How cynical? As pointed out by a whole bunch of Republicans who wanted her to lose in the primary, she was a Democrat until 2010. Yeah, she won election twice as a Democrat in the state senate in a once-Democratic district. When she decided to run for statewide office, Commissioner of Agriculture, she switched to the GOP.  Republicans are so fucking terrible in Mississippi that they accused Hyde-Smith of voting for Hillary Clinton in 2008, a scarlet H that she denied.

But the worst Republican is often a born-again Republican, and Hyde-Smith has embraced the most virulent, hurtful side of the party. Wait...that's the whole party. Anyways, she has essentially become another one of Donald Trump's ass remoras, suctioned on to his corpulent buttocks and hanging on no matter how erratically he moves. Want us to vote against pre-existing condition coverage? Sure, suck, suck, suck. Want me to degrade women by voting for Brett Kavanaugh? You bet, suck, suck, suck. She's just devouring away on Trump's ass, downing dead skin scraps and parasites that she hopes will get her a few more votes.

Jesus fuckballs Christ, tonight's rally with Trump is gonna be a sight, with Hyde-Smith just stuck on Trump's pants as he bitches and preens and yells and does the rest of his tiresome shtick.

C'mon, Mississippi. You don't have to be this anymore. You can step into the goddamn light of the present with Mike Espy. You can follow Alabama, which, at least for one brief election, demonstrated that the past can fucking die. You don't have to vote for a shit human like Cindy Hyde-Smith. You can evolve.

(Note: Don't hold your breath.)