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.) 

Hey, Democrats – Don’t Try To Play Nice With Republicans!

Now that Democrats will be the majority in the House of Representatives they have to remember one very important thing – Republicans will NEVER agree to any progressive ideals and compromise is no longer an option. The American public put Democrats back in the House for a reason, and if the Party forgets this, they can kiss 2020 goodbye. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.



https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/11/13/democrats-dont-compromise-trump

"I am resident! Everyone HAS To Believe What I Say" - by Tom Tomorrow

'Morning Blow' hosts Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski tie the knot

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/morning-joe-hosts-joe-scarborough-mika-brzezinski-tie-the-knot

Trump on his knees to the Saudis

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1815018

Trump's Completely Batshit And Evil Statement About Saudi Arabia And The Murder Of Jamal Khashoggi

Posted by Rude One

(Note: There were about 20 other things I was thinking of writing about today, but when you're living in times of fast-paced dumbfuckery, sometimes the newest, shittiest object has to be discussed.)

The White House released a statement today that is the rhetorical equivalent of resident Donald Trump performing analingus on Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince (seriously, fuck that title) Mohammad bin Salman while bin Salman jacks off on Stephen Miller's bald head. Essentially, Trump is telling the world that Saudi Arabia and bin Salman have bought their way out of any culpability. And he's telling the intelligence agencies of the United States that they can go fuck themselves with their assessments.

It's an honestly stunning document, one that actually seems as if Trump was involved in writing because of its psychotic combination of ignorance, blindness, and apathy, like a bunch of his tweets strung together. Also, it reads like fucking moron dictated it to Stephen Miller, who added his special sauce of dickishness.

For one, it's got sentences that end in exclamation points. Who the fuck does that in an official release about anything, let alone a murder? The thing is titled (or epigraphed - who can tell?), no shit, "America First!" That's followed by the idiot bray of "The world is a very dangerous place!" Thanks for that update.

Trump starts by saying that Iran is the worst of the worst of the worstest worsts that every worsted worstness. It's a paragraph filled with easily proven lies, like "the Iranians have killed many Americans." No, they haven't. And then Trump goes on about how Saudi Arabia is a peace-loving nation that just wants to end the war in Yemen if only those mean Iranians would let it happen: "Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave." The Iranian military is not in Yemen. There is some support of the Houthi rebels. But when the Houthis wanted to calm shit down, Saudi Arabia responded by bombing the fuck out of them some more with U.S.-made weapons, which they are gonna need to buy more of from us.

Hey, did you know that Saudi Arabia has promised to spend shit-tons of money, according to Trump? Yeah, he repeats the lie that the Saudis are gonna "invest $450 billion in the United States" which "will create hundreds of thousands of jobs." What are we gonna do? Let China and Russia get all that filthy lucre? How can a motherfucker get a kickback if that happens?

Getting down on his knees and Chapstiking up his lips, Trump finally gets to the savage murder of American resident Jamal Khashoggi's murder at the Saudi embassy in Turkey. Trump shits all over Khashoggi, who, one might be reminded, can't defend himself since he's in multiple pieces somewhere. See, though, it's not Trump saying it. He's just quoting the Saudis, who are saying Khashoggi "was an 'enemy of the state' and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood" and, what else, a werewolf, that's right - a fuckin' werewolf. Can you blame anyone for killing a werewolf?

Once again, though, Trump goes to his usual postmodern take on truth (with another fucking exclamation point, the vape pen of punctuation): "It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!"

Who can ever know truth in a crime? What kind of magic would that involve? It's unpossible. Besides, Trump says, fuck you: "The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region." And if anyone, like, say, some dickhole members of Congress, wants to do something about it, well, "As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!" (Yes, one more exclamation point because goddamn imbeciles only understand you when you yell.)

There you go. The resident of the United States told a country of medieval barbarians that everything's cool as long as Donald gets paid. "America First!" means we are no longer going to even pretend to be a beacon for freedom and justice. We are fine with the extra-judiciary murders of legal residents as long as it's done by someone who Trump wants to curry favor with for whatever obscene project Don, Jr. or Jared are working on. American capitalism first, really.

The rule of law has always meant nothing to these awful people. It merely gets in the way of grotesque profit-mongering. These fuckers would sell the kidneys of their children if they thought it would net them a buck. The rest of us don't stand a chance. This is evil shit right here.

The pathetic hope I have now is that the IC is so fucking pissed off at this fucker that they finally go apeshit on him. "You wanna see the Deep State in action, motherfucker? Buckle up, buttercup!" 

Ivanka Trump used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails about government business last year

By Carol D. Leonnig and

Josh Dawsey

November 19 at 6:56 PM

Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules, according to people familiar with a White House examination of her correspondence.

White House ethics officials learned of Trump’s repeated use of personal email when reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit. That review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner.

The discovery alarmed some advisers to resident Trump, who feared that his daughter’s prac­tices bore similarities to the personal email use of Hillary Clinton, an issue he made a focus of his 2016 campaign. He attacked his Democratic challenger as untrustworthy and dubbed her “Crooked Hillary” for using a personal email account as secretary of state.

Some aides were startled by the volume of Ivanka Trump’s personal emails — and taken aback by her response when questioned about the practice. She said she was not familiar with some details of the rules, according to people with knowledge of her reaction.

The White House referred requests for comment to Ivanka Trump’s attorney and ethics counsel, Abbe Lowell.

In a statement, Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Lowell, acknowledged that the resident’s daughter occasionally used her private email before she was briefed on the rules, but he said none of her messages contained classified information.

20 Brutally Hilarious Memes Mocking Trump’s Raking Solution

A roundup of the funniest memes and tweets skewering resident Donald Trump for claiming that California’s wildfires could have been prevented by raking the forest floor like he said they do in Finland.

See Also: 25 Brutally Hilarious Memes Proving Trump Is A Moron

 

 

Next > 25 Brutally Hilarious Memes Proving Trump Is A Joke

Source

Trump Calls Adam Schiff ‘Schitt’ After Criticism Of Whitaker Appointment

Criticism Of Whitaker Appointment

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Group

By Matt Shuham

November 18, 2018 1:34 pm

resident Donald Trump on Sunday referred to Rep. Adam Schiff, the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee “Adam Schitt” after Schiff criticized the appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general.

So funny to see little Adam Schitt (D-CA) talking about the fact that Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was not approved by the Senate, but not mentioning the fact that Bob Mueller (who is highly conflicted) was not approved by the Senate!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2018

“Good one,” Schiff responded.

Wow, Mr. resident, that’s a good one.

Was that like your answers to Mr. Mueller’s questions, or did you write this one yourself? https://t.co/Yd27sayt7C
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 18, 2018

Speaking to Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week” earlier Sunday, Schiff said he thought Whitaker’s appointment was “unconstitutional”: “He’s clearly a principal officer, and the fact that he is a temporary principal officer doesn’t mean that that is any less subject to Senate confirmation. Constitutionally, it has to be subject to confirmation.”
“There’s a succession statute for the Justice Department, which makes it different from other departments,” Schiff asserted.
The state of Maryland has argued that Whitaker’s appointment is unconstitutional. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel put out a memo defending the appointment. 

Rep. Adam Schiff says Democrats could challenge the appointment of acting AG Matt Whitaker: "The biggest flaw from my point of view is that he was chosen for the purpose of interfering with the Mueller investigation." https://t.co/ijfB3mnjEb #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/aaddBnJ5Nj

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 18, 2018

In Pathetic Op Ed, Mitch McConnell Begs For Bipartisanship After Years Of GOP Obstruction

Mitch McConnell – maybe even the entire Republican Party – appear to be completely immune to the concept of irony.

This week, McConnell penned an op-ed for Fox News where he begged the Democrats to work with Republicans in the spirit of bipartisanship.

This is coming from the man who once said that the goal of his Party after regaining power in 2010 was to make Obama a one-term President.

There is no honor in working with a liar and cheat like Mitch McConnell, as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains.

Hillary Will Run Again!

Rep. Mia Love, trailing in her race, sues to stop vote count

File photo: Rep. Mia Love is trailing Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams, D, by about 1,200 votes, or a little more than half a percentage point, in the race in Utah's 4th Congressional District.

By Felicia Sonmez | Washington Post

Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, is filing a lawsuit against the Salt Lake County Clerk in a bid to stop the counting of votes until her campaign is allowed to challenge whether signatures on ballot envelopes match those on file, a move that Love’s Democratic opponent said Wednesday “smacks of desperation.”

Love is trailing Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams, D, by about 1,200 votes, or a little more than half a percentage point, in the race in Utah’s 4th Congressional District. That margin is narrower than the 6,700 votes by which McAdams was leading Nov. 8. Utah law allows candidates to request a recount when the margin of victory is 0.25 percentage point or less.

In the lawsuit, news of which was first reported by the Salt Lake Tribune, Love’s campaign argues that the Salt Lake County Clerk has allowed poll monitors to observe the ballot-counting process but has denied them the ability to challenge signatures on ballot envelopes.

Voting by mail is popular in Utah; in the state’s primary elections earlier this year, 90 percent of ballots were cast by mail.

The lawsuit states that Love and her campaign “do not anticipate a large number of challenges” but claims that poll monitors “have observed myriad instances where a county worker verified a signature on a ballot envelope that did not appear to match the signature on file with the County.”

The Salt Lake County Clerk’s office did not respond to a request for comment. County clerks have until Nov. 20 to finish counting ballots, and the state’s election results are set to be finalized on Nov. 26.

In a tweet Wednesday afternoon, McAdams denounced Love’s move, saying “Utah voters deserve better than this.” He took aim at the fact that Love’s lawsuit targets Salt Lake County, McAdams’ home base.

“It is the job of election officials to decide what votes count, not political candidates,” McAdams said. “Rep. Love’s decision to sue only in [Salt Lake County] as she continues to trail in this race is unfortunate and smacks of desperation.”

Robert Harrington, the attorney representing Love, said in a statement that the campaign is “not accusing anyone of anything” but submitted the petition with the goal of improving the election process.

“We have great respect for the critical and at times, complex, ballot counting process,” Harrington said. “As we’ve spent hours observing these efforts, we’ve found a few instances where increased transparency and scrutiny are needed.”

The race is one of a handful across the country that remain unresolved more than a week after Election Day. Others include Florida’s Senate and gubernatorial contests as well as the race for the Georgia governor’s mansion.

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Matthew Whitaker, we’re watching you

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/adam-schiff-matthew-whitaker-were-watching-you/2018/11/12/996bcdf2-e696-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html

On A Rampage

DISGRACEFUL!!! Donald Trump Is A NO SHOW At Event To Honor Fallen Marines!

Jesse Dollemore talks about Veterans Day and the United States Marine Corps birthday which coincided with Donald Trump's trip to France where he disrespected WWI Marines in a cowardly act!

Watch Lindsey Graham Own Himself While Pandering To Trump

By KelleyKramer

This includes a nice little montage of Huckleberry being the most epic hypocrite.....

Senator Lindsey Graham said there would be “holy hell to pay” if Jeff Sessions was fired. Ari Melber breaks down how Graham has reversed so many of his positions on Trump that it has descended into a “hollowing out” of Republican leadership.

Fox News STUNS Lindsey Graham By Reminding Him He Defended Jeff Sessions

Lindsey Graham was left confused and startled after a recent appearance on Fox News where they reminded him that he had once said that firing Jeff Sessions would mark the beginning of the end of the Trump administration. 

Obviously he doesn’t feel this way anymore, but his stupid face when they showed him the clip apparently reminded him that everything online lives forever. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

 

blogslut (32,480 posts)

Spreadsheet fans! All of Matt Whitaker's tweets before he locked his account: Get em here!

Link to tweet

THE DANDY WOHLHOLES
‏ @fiondavision

Members of the Press! Especially you, @Acosta & @CNNPR: since @MattWhitaker46 locked his account, here is a nice Google Spreadsheet of every tweet he has ever made! Please also share with the DOJ Ethics Department, and Members of the Judiciary Committees!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-k41kbn0agdzJ-O575Vofl0Xf6trLQIpwWRw4c4tqVY/edit?usp=drivesdk

H/T @RVAwonk

Cornered and raging, Trump begins his coverup. Here’s how Democrats can respond.

By Greg Sargent

Opinion writer

November 8 at 10:25 AM

 

resident Trump has forced out his attorney general and replaced him with a loyalist who will now oversee special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. Speculation is rampant: Will the new acting attorney general fire Mueller? Constrain his investigation? Block Mueller’s findings from going public? 

 

We don’t know whether Matthew Whitaker, Trump’s replacement for Jeff Sessions, will go through with these things. But here’s something we can conclude right now: Trump surely picked Whitaker, Sessions’s chief of staff, expressly to put him in the position of being able to do any and all of them.

Unlike Sessions, who recused himself from the probe, Whitaker will oversee it, whereas before, that had fallen to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein. Whitaker can theoretically fire Mueller by invoking some rationale that fulfills the relevant regulations’ requirement for “cause,” or he can revoke those regulations. Or he can severely limit the scope of the investigation, or starve it of funds.

Ask yourself: What would this look like if Republicans had held the House? We would be concluding that Trump is taking steps to close down or limit the probe, or keep its findings covered up, in the full knowledge that congressional Republicans will let him get away with it. Which is why it’s a good thing that Democrats did capture the House.

At his news conference on Wednesday in the wake of the Democratic victory, Trump raged over the investigation. He said that if House Democrats investigate his administration — an activity known as congressional oversight —  that the White House can retaliate by investigating Democrats. Trump vowed a “warlike posture.” This lays the groundwork to dramatically resist whatever Democrats do in response to Trump’s moves against the Mueller probe.

So what can Democrats do in these scenarios, once they’re in the majority? Here’s a rundown:

House Democrats can investigate the firing of Sessions. The question of whether Trump fired Sessions or whether Sessions merely resigned is critical. If Trump fired Sessions, it might not be legit that Trump replaced him with an acting attorney general (Whitaker) who didn’t require Senate confirmation (which Trump may have wanted to do to insulate the replacement from questioning from senators about his intention toward the Mueller probe). Mueller could conceivably challenge the appointment in court if Whitaker does try to shut down or severely constrain the probe.

Though the White House claims Sessions resigned at Trump’s “request,” it seems obvious that Trump did fire him. The Post reports that Sessions thought staying would protect “the investigation’s integrity,” which would leave the country “better served,” as its findings will be “more credible to the American public.” So House Democrats can try to investigate the circumstances leading up to Sessions’s “resignation,” to determine whether Sessions did resist it and was fired.

“The rationale would be that they were investigating to determine whether Sessions was fired as part of a conspiracy to obstruct justice,” Josh Chafetz, a professor at Cornell Law School, told me. “This could entail requests for documents and witness testimony.”

Subpoena Sessions himself. House Democrats can try to question Sessions himself, both about the circumstances surrounding his firing and, more broadly, about the repeated private meetings in which Trump raged at him for failing to protect him from the investigation. Sessions would likely assert executive privilege regarding his conversations with Trump.

But Democrats have recourse. They can “haul Sessions in and make him refuse to answer questions live, on TV,” Chafetz told me. “Then, after some arguing back and forth, if Democrats decide that the assertion of privilege is improper, they can hold him in contempt.” Whether that would do much is anybody’s guess, but at least the spectacle of Sessions refusing to say whether Trump forced him out and why would be dramatized for the country.

Subpoena Mueller’s findings. Under the regulations governing the special counsel, he is to provide a “confidential” report explaining his conclusions to the person overseeing the probe — who would have been Rosenstein but now will be Whitaker. It is Whitaker who is then supposed to provide a report to the bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate judiciary committees, which gives him a great deal of discretion to decide how much to put in that report.

Whitaker could theoretically report little to nothing, in effect covering up what Mueller learned. “Democrats could subpoena Mueller’s findings,” Chafetz tells me. “But expect the White House to put up a fight in response to the subpoena.” Other legal experts think that if the White House defied such a subpoena, the courts would rule against them, meaning Congress would get Mueller’s findings.

As Chafetz has written elsewhere, one key thing Democrats must think hard about is how to use such proceedings to inform the public about what’s happening, both for political and substantive reasons.

Impeach the acting attorney general. This is a far-fetched scenario, but it’s not an impossibility. As it is, Whitaker has publicly opined that Mueller has gone too far in probing Trump’s finances and has openly suggested that one option is to de-fund the investigation. On these grounds, Democrats have called for his recusal.

Here an irony kicks in. A handful of House Republicans loyal to Trump tried to impeach Rosenstein earlier this year on grounds so specious that even many Republicans, including the leadership, rejected it. It’s hard to say what circumstances might justify such a move against Whitaker, if any, but if he shuts down the Mueller probe without good cause, that might be seen as extremely serious misconduct — far more serious than what Republicans alleged against Rosenstein.

Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western University, points out that there are other forms of misconduct Whitaker could commit. Whether or not his public opinions merit recusal, he should still solicit a Justice Department ethics opinion on whether he should oversee the probe. “Rosenstein did this, and some Republicans still called for his impeachment,” Adler notes. “If Whitaker fails to take the same prudent step, it would be inexcusable.”

It seems obvious that once Democrats take over the House, we are headed for a major escalation in hostilities. Trump is already testing to see what he can get away with, so it’s good that leading Democrats just responded with a letter calling on Republicans to hold emergency hearings on Trump’s move, arguing that the appointment of Whitaker is precipitating a “constitutional crisis.” 

Republicans will shrug, but this suggests Democrats recognize the gravity of the moment and are organizing to respond accordingly.

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III Is Forced Out As Attorney General As Trump Installs Loyalist

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jeff-sessions-is-forced-out-as-attorney-general-as-trump-installs-loyalist/ar-BBPshQH

Random Observations On The Democrats Getting A Win And Trump Losing

Posted by Rude One

1. Democrats won. Don't let any motherfuckers spin it any other way. It's that simple. No, Democrats didn't win as much as we would have wanted. Yes, they lost a couple of seats in the Senate. Yes, there were some heartbreakers, like Beto O'Rourke losing to the desert skink in a human skin suit, Ted Cruz.

But, in the light of day, after all the counting is done, Democrats began Tuesday by having no power in federal government (beyond the Senate filibuster) and ended it with full subpoena and investigative power as the majority in the House of Representatives. That's a fucking unequivocal win, taking some longtime seats from the filthy hands of the GOP.

And bathe yourself in the blood of the deaths of the political careers of Kris Kobach, Dana Rohrbacher, and Scott Walker, among so many other fucknuts. So quit bitching about the losses, hang in there for the recounts, get jazzed about the local and state victories, and get ready for the coming war.

2. We all want Nancy Pelosi to put on the deluxe spiked strap-on and ream the assholes of the Trump Administration. God, their yowls of pain would be like sweet music for the next two years. Lemme lay out a better strategy.

- Target the most corrupt cockmites in the White House, like Ryan Zinke and Wilbur Ross (although look for their resignations soon).

- Wreck the scumfucks in the GOP caucus, like Devin Nunes, Steve King, and Chris Collins, with ethics investigations. Demonstrate that we don't want traitors and Nazis and thieves in power.

- Shove a hearing enema into the sphincter of things like white nationalism, voter suppression, immigration fuckery, and anything that can shine a light on the shitpile of cruelty, negligence, and outright evil committed by the GOP and conservative nutzoids.

- And release the fuckin' hounds on judicial nominees. Yeah, the House doesn't vote on 'em, but it can sure as shit investigate if someone's a damn sexual predator.

3a. But pick the battles with Trump. Goddamn, I want him to suffer subpoena and arrests so fucking much that I can taste the orange tanning spray dripping off his sweaty face. I want him to watch his horrible jizzstain children sent to prison. I want him to see his fake empire burned to the fucking ground with lawsuits and bankruptcies until he is just another pathetic, poor old racist, mumbling to himself in some stinking room that he used to be someone. But the risk is turning Trump into a martyr because he loves playing the victim who needs his idiot hordes to defend him. Start with his taxes. Find out if he's really under "continuous audit," as he said today (Note: He's not because that's not a thing). Use that info to say he's a lying dickhole and should release his taxes. Then subpoena them. Then have a fuckin' fight. And when the Mueller report is issued (well, if it's issued now), use that as the basis for an investigation into how the Russians own Trump.

3b. The counter to this is that Trump is gonna whine and attack Democrats for any investigating at all, so, fuck it, may as well go whole hog. Go after all of 'em, from dumb thug Eric to skeevy thug Don, Jr. to incest model Ivanka, and make Jared cry. Go after Trump's finances, from his money-laundering to his hotels used as bribe machines to his dicking over of investors. Scorched earth this motherfucker. Fuck it. What do you think Trump's gonna do? Play nice? Make deals? Democrats won the House precisely to be a check on Trump. So fuckin' check away. And impeach the bitch.

4. Trump was a quivering, desperate little jelly man today at whatever the fuck that press conference was. He was lashing out at any reporters who dared to challenge him, going so far as calling an African American reporter "racist" for asking him about racism. You know he wanted to send goons to break CNN's Jim Acosta's legs. He was ranting and sweating and threatening and then trying to say he'd work with Democrats. He praised himself endlessly, going so far as to say that the only lesson he learned from the midterms was that "People really like me." He really said, "God plays a big role in my life." He claimed that candidates who he campaigned for won, despite the fact that that is objectively not true (he went to Montana four times, but Jon Tester won, for example). What we were watching were the wheels coming off the wagon as he realized that Democrats would now be able to show the Americans people that he really is just a tiny mushroom dick.

5. Shit's gonna get crazy pretty quickly. More on that tomorrow.

Random Observations... (Part 2): How Crazy Will Shit Get?

As we tumble and twist to the end of the year and into the new one with Democrats having a whole fuckload of power more than they've had since the end of 2016, you gotta understand that shit's about to go fuckin' crazy. We have a crazy motherfucker in the White House who is getting crazier and crankier every day. He's surrounded by crazy motherfuckers, and the people who believe in him are crazy motherfuckers. And, as I've said so many times before, a motherfucker will fuck mothers. That is a motherfucker's primary purpose. So a whole bunch of mothers are about to get fucked in a motherfucking rage orgy. And when Democrats take over the House, it's gonna get even fuckier.

1. Shit's gonna get crazy in the lame duck session of Congress. The Republicans get to keep the House for four weeks of scheduled sessions before the Christmas break. You can bet that Paul Ryan and the Trump spunk gobblers in his caucus are gonna try to ram through an Affordable Care Act repeal, more tax cuts (or more permanent tax cuts), and whatever else they can. The honest-to-fuck shock is that there are some bipartisan bills that might pass, like criminal justice reform and the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Hell, things might be just bizarro enough that they make a deal on immigration: DACA kids for the funding for the bullshit wall (the same deal that was negotiated before that Trump walked away from). But the Senate is gonna amp up the judge approvals, and they'll rubber stamp the asses of anyone Trump nominates to any post. He could send Roy Cohn's skull up for Attorney General, and Lindsey Graham would screech about how qualified it is and how Democrats are jerks for pointing out that it's not alive, Jeff Flake would sigh and tweet how wrong it is, and Orrin Hatch would tongue fuck the eyeholes, all before making Roy Cohn's skull AG.

2. Shit's gonna get crazy in the Justice Department. Right now, with the firing of America's most racist leprechaun, Jeff Sessions, we have a bugfuck insane, walking cockknob as Attorney General. Matthew Whitaker is a repulsive idiot, a filthy con man,  and another Trump dick lamprey. Not only does the nation have to deal with the fallout of Sessions' bullshit approach to criminal justice, like ignoring the threat of far-right violence and gutting consent decrees on police brutality, but now we've got an asshole in there who is a walking conflict of interest. Whether or not the investigation of Robert Mueller gets to continue is now in the hands of Kingpin the AG. This is not to mention that we get to look forward to the confirmation hearing of, perhaps, Chris Christie, which will primarily consist of Republicans fighting each other to suckle at his man teats while Christie insults Democrats.

3. Shit's gonna get crazy with Trump's voters. The MAGA chodes have been told over and over that they will always be winning. Like monkeys who just had their favorite toy taken away, they're going to be confused by Democrats being able to subpoena their orange dolt god and force officials to testify under oath. Monkeys will break shit. They are in full death threat mode already, against Christine Blasey Ford, who dared to tell her story of sexual abuse by Brett Kavanaugh, and against any reporter that Trump calls out, especially April Ryan and Jim Acosta. You might have forgotten, but a MAGA puke sent a dozen bombs to Democrats and liberals opposed to the resident just a week or so ago. These assholes have no chill. They are itching for the chance to take down some libtards. I promise you that right now, they're breaking out their ape memes to attack Michelle Obama for daring to say that Trump was full of shit about birther nonsense. I would lay money down that some piece of shit is locked and loaded and ready to go to Florida (or, more likely, is already living there) to stop the counting of ballots.

4. Trump's gonna go full apeshit. Or he's already doing it. Jesus, at that press conference thing, he mocked Republicans who lost, he shit-talked the media constantly when not being outright abusive, and his self-aggrandizement was the kind of ego rant that one usually associates with a high school student council member who wants more credit for putting together the homecoming dance decorations. One quick example: On North Korea, he said, "We made more progress in that four or five months than they’ve made in 70 years. And nobody else could have done what I’ve done." Bitch, we had actual deals with North Korea and they fell apart. You haven't done shit but put your tiny hand in Kim Jong-un's tiny hand and traded palm sweat. But watch for Trump to lash out even more harshly, as he did today, calling a reporter's question on the Mueller investigation "stupid," and look for executive orders piling up. Frankly, if we're not in a war by the end of 2019, I'll be surprised. Trump is a coward at heart. It's why he has always crumbled whenever he's been questioned under oath. He talks a good game about fighting, but he's one of those punk-ass mob bosses who never got his hands dirty. He's always had goons and lackeys do his bidding. When his family starts being arrested, he's gonna scream and throw shit around and demand his idiot horde battle for his honor.

5. How do you respond to shit going crazy? Simple: You keep poking the crazy until their crazy is clear. Trump and the GOP are gonna say that Democrats are "harassing" them by investigating. It won't matter if Democrats are probing the most obvious shit, like voter suppression. The second some official is forced to produce documents, Trump will say how "no man was ever treated worse." It won't matter. Every Democratic bill will be labeled "socialism." Every opposition to a nominee will be called "obstruction." He is going to war. So be in a war posture. Go on the offense (and I talked how to do that Wednesday), ignore the right-wing noise machine, and bring a modicum of sanity back.

Gird yer loins, sweet Americans. If you thought times have been intense already, we're about to barrel into maelstrom.

Republicans, have a miserable evening

By milestogo

Dems will kick your ass tonight, and we will do it without cheating or fraud.

How to make sure your vote gets counted on Election Day

https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article221026570.html

Oprah Winfrey campaigns with Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams

Oprah Winfrey is joining the campaign trail canvassing for Democrat Stacey Abrams in the Georgia gubernatorial election. Abrams is locked in a tight race with Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp.