The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Trump: The Hour of Reckoning is Approaching

    By NCD on Tue, 08/28/2018 - 7:46pm |

    Our Leader President Trump commands the faithful:

    "This November 6 election is very much a referendum on not only me, it's a referendum on your religion, it's a referendum on free speech and the First Amendment. It's a referendum on so much," Trump told the assemblage of pastors and other Christian leaders gathered in the State Dining Room, according to a recording from people in the room.
    "It's not a question of like or dislike, it's a question that they will overturn everything that we've done and they will do it quickly and violently. And violently. There is violence," Trump said, describing what would happen should his voters fail to cast ballots. "The level of hatred, the level of anger is very unbelievable."
     
    Republicans respond to the President's dire warnings:
     
    Vice-President Pence:
     
    If the President calls and commands, each of us must obey without question, whatever he may say. With President Trump, we are everything, without him we are nothing.
     
    Pastor Joshua Kink:
     
    You who carry the flags and Bibles, and who march to the voting booth, remember that you are fighting for the greatest cause that has ever been fought for in two thousand years, the Christian religion and the survival of our families, lives and culture!
     
    Ted Cruz:
     
    The highest that a man can reach on this earth is to give his name to an historic era, stamping it indelibly with his personality. That is true in the broadest sense with our leader, President Trump. The present world is unimaginable without him.
     
    James Dobson:
     
    Never before has God bound a person so closely with a holy cause, and a nation, as it has with Donald Trump and America.
     
    Mitch McConnell:
     
    Great men of history are rare. The historically great are those few personalities who stamp a whole epoch with their will, which changes the political order. Our leader has done that but his work is threatened by the violent haters.  Google President Trump and you will not find that truth. I promise you we will be relentless in dealing with such crimes if you keep us in power in November.
     
    Devin Nunes:
     
    With enormous determination and clear knowledge of the way things must be, President Trump is proceeding to end the carnage and make America great again. There are thunderclouds of violence and hate that seek to destroy his vision, our sacred nation and you, his people.  You must have iron nerves and unswerving dedication to face down those who would destroy you in November.
     
    Paul Ryan:
     
    We ourselves are witnessing the collapse of the old system, we ourselves have fought in a numerically inferior army that defeated overwhelming numbers of illegal voters. We learned the passion of our leader's will, and we long for walls of steel and concrete to protect our leader, his achievements and our blood and soil.

    Comments

    Illegal voters et.al. is a meme I am definitely seeing. I was just getting depressed thinking that ironically we may be going through months of hell with blue wave results in Nov. being challenged allover the place as illegitimate because of supposed hacking. That which the GOP currently is doing little about. On purpose.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 4:22am

    Election losses will be like the German 1918 "stab in the back".... by the usual scapegoats, evil "subversives, haters, disgusting people not like "us"   etc..."

    The "numerically inferior" line is actually from the linked page on the 1942 Hitler's birthday accolades, the hero always heroically surmounts unimaginable odds in achieving historic victory.


    by NCD on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 10:04am

    Well, Cruz kind of got it, so to speak.

    The world would be unimaginable without spanky?

    WHAT?


    by Richard Day on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 8:20am

    Thanks hahaha.

    I thought the Pence line fit Pence completely "we are nothing without you ..."...at Hitler's birthday from the link that was a line, also, by Hitler's #1 bootlicker -   Reichsmarschall Goring.


    by NCD on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 10:16am

    A significant portion of the country is clinically insane. Trump merely appealed to their psychosis. 

    Vote


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 9:20am

    True. Remarkable how the psychology and sickening adulation of the disciples of a leadership cult never changes. And the end is never kind to a nation so afflicted.

    NYT adds these recorded meeting comments from the flock Trump was talking to:

    “Now we have a warrior at the helm who is willing to stand up and fight. Amen. Sir, I commend you for your courage. It is an amazing thing. So, team — let’s fight and we’ll win. God bless you.”

    “In the meeting today, we all got down on our knees and we prayed for you because we can’t imagine the pain, You are human beings and when people are lying constantly, accusing constantly, attacking constantly, it hurts."

     


    by NCD on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 9:57am

    There are multiple Biblical verses about following false prophets. What these Evangelicals are doing is close to  the evil done by a Catholic Church that turned a blind eye to harming children.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 10:05am

    Good point. The NYT article notes how Trump has issued an executive order to allow minister's to preach politics and support specific candidates from the tax free pulpit. One thing the Founding Fathers got right was keeping religion out of politics. Trump and his cult want to bring back the Middle Ages, bond religion and the state. Very bad for both.


    by NCD on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 10:15am

    Though I am very sympathetic to your plaints about what is happening to the country and the world, and get depressed about it happening and don't know how long it will last, I also think it helps to always consider that all of this that we are going through probably is a last gasp of a dying dinosaur population. This is a good thread I just ran across that gets that across pretty succinctly, click through on the timestamp to get the entire thread of comments

    I think most of conservative anxiety over being excluded from respectable debate is due to the fact that the three big pillars of Reagan-era conservatism - Christian conservatism, laissez-faire economics, and muscular interventionism - all failed simultaneously in the 2000s. https://t.co/ruNBIojELX

    — Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) August 29, 2018

    by artappraiser on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 2:37pm

    Nobody knows what is happening to this country least of all yours truly.

    What I have discovered is the effectiveness of lies, racism, hate, scapegoating, division and fear mongering by a "charismatic leadership cult" demagogue can still be very effective at gaining and holding power in a supposedly advanced democracy, even one with a healthy economy. We will see how long it lasts. History cautions things may not end well.

    As to Noah, Republicans and "conservatives" are still on TV and have their own multibillion $$ propaganda networks and radio shows.  The central pillar for the GOP for decades had been racism, $$, and power.  So Trump, being the most racist of the bunch, now controls the Party.


    by NCD on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 5:21pm

    Hopefully,  Progressive whites, Independents, and ethnic minorities will come out in droves. Hopefully, white women will vote Democratic. Republicans are lost to us. Talking to them , deep down they know things aren’t right But........abortion and judges.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 5:33pm

    Trump, for the distracted, naive or apathetic, has at least exposed the Republican Party as rotten liars and hypocrites, to their warped ideological core. 

    Hopefully, it will wake people up. It's encouraging to see new faces running as Democrats, and the huge marches and protests at Trump's hideous acts.


    by NCD on Wed, 08/29/2018 - 6:00pm

    Though I am sympathetic to your soothing words of encouragement, I'm not totally convinced. I like your Max Planckian idea that new politics triumph not by convincing their opponents and making them see the light, but because its opponents eventually die. But two problems arise: one is that we keep being disappointed with every new wave of old people who gravitate towards angry hostile conservatism of the pry-my-freedom-from-cold-dead-hands variety. That is just what old people do. The second is that there is no 'new politics'. Unless that is the Pelosi say-nothing, do-nothing, point-at-Trump strategy. Or unless it is Bernie Sanders' retro-progressivism ("onward to the past!"). I mean, either of those is certainly better than Trump, but they aren't really selling some overarching idea of a new city on a hill. Sanders to his credit does acknowledge that the country is on the wrong track economically and socially, quite apart from the culture wars. But his solutions ain't new. 

    That said, there is much to be said for an non-revolutionary blue wave in November. There is a weird disconnect in voters' aggregate attitude overall. Trump's poll numbers are at their lowest point ever. Yet the country's "right-track" polling is at its highest since the financial crisis. That combination is pretty astounding. To my amateur eyes, and, yes, sure, the devil is in the details, but it suggests people are pretty much happy with things, they just want to see and hear less of the asshole in the White House. 

    And if I follow this line of reasoning to its - to me - depressing conclusion, Pelosi's strategy seems spot on. I'm sure there will be a few Berniac wins on the fringes, but overall it looks like the Democrats can take the House by just not being Trump. That is all people really want. Not-that-guy. 


    by Obey on Sat, 09/01/2018 - 4:59am

    well I said within the context without expectations of perfect liberal world., i.e., an Obama world or Bill Clinton world is good enough for me. Yes of course there's always going to be conservatives and people get more conservative as they age.

    What I meant was more along the lines of a temporary cultural counterreaction worldwide to too rapid change of global communication and globalization. The problem first exhibited in the mideast with Arab spring type things, stemming from the ease of global communication, the majority just couldn't handle that kind of rapid change. I saw the same thing happen as a kid, the counterreaction of the "silent majority" against the youthquake that wasn't all youth. Couple decades later the majority is no longer offended but has appropriated nearly everything that was pushed too fast just fine.

    Here's a perfect example: I remember long threads on another forum back in like 2004 about prejudice against gays. We all concluded that we wouldn't see gay marriage in the U.S. in our lifetime. Basing it on how long other similar changes took, i.e women's right to vote. When there's too much change to deal with, the majority becomes more "conservative", as in please slow down, let's stick with some of the old ways for a while.

    I really do see Trump and probably most similar xenophobic cohorts getting just enough extra support to win beyond any society's naturally conservative segment from those with change anxiety. Don't know about other countries (like say, Egypt) but I see those who voted for him out of change anxiety being sorry now that they did.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 09/01/2018 - 11:01am

    I really do see Trump and probably most similar xenophobic cohorts getting just enough extra support to win beyond any society's naturally conservative segment from those with change anxiety.

    Here is a different angle: a politico friend who was with Geneva's mayor at a citizenship ceremony for 200 new immigrants said that at the end of the ceremony the mayor quipped, "well that's another 200 votes for the UDC (extreme right party)". The last person through the door is always the most eager to close it behind them: the most virulently anti-immigrant are the most recent immigrant generation. 

    In general, you are happy with the status quo as long as you see yourself on the inside, as part of those who have a say or get a piece of the pie. I think the current zeitgeist has to do with more and more people feeling as though they aren't on the inside. It isn't so much change vs status quo, nor even change vs restoration of a golden age. It is more a sense of enfranchisement vs a sense of powerlessness. Many decisions or explanations of political decisions and, more importantly of political omissions, are formulated in terms of the inevitable demands of globalization or the economy or the bond market or : the experts say this is what must be done and anything else would be a catastrophe. I don't think this frustration that gets vented through protest votes is a wave that just subsides with time. It gets worse if the prevailing establishment attitude is to just blow it off and ride it out by, say, waiting a couple of years and throwing out Trump or reversing the Brexit mandate. It's more akin to rising pressure in a limited space with no relief valve and no one making adjustments so that that pressure actually moves things in a productive direction. 


    by Obey on Sat, 09/01/2018 - 12:18pm

    The "rising pressure with no relief valve" is an ideal environment for scapegoating.  It leads to dividing the population, distraction and misdirection of attention, and is instrumental in reducing rights and in increasing authoritarianism. All of which abets the mission of anti-democratic oligarchs in controlling government, and looting the country.

    I've posted before the Republicans don't care if they make things worse, they are so successful at exploiting resentments and grievances making things worse aids their cause.

    It's why Republican politicians don't compromise or enter into serious discussions on issues, they don't want to solve national problems, they need them to wield and exploit in campaigns.

    If you don't understand that, you don't understand much about what the GOP has been up to for the last 25 years.

    Jean LeCarre, 9/17 Fresh Air:

    There are oligarchs in the West who are so far to the right that they make a kind of natural cause with those on the other side of the world. Both of them have in common a great contempt for the ordinary conduct of democracy.

    They want to diminish it. They see it as their enemy. They see - they've made a dirty word of liberalism - one of the most inviting words in politics. They've - and so they're closing in on the same target from different points of view. 


    by NCD on Sat, 09/01/2018 - 2:17pm

    I have to plop something that just hit me like a bomb on the anxiety of change thing, this was just 19 years ago:

    The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, in his executive office back in 1999. pic.twitter.com/o8QJh2Gk7W

    — History In Pictures (@HistoryInPix) September 1, 2018

    and now shopping malls and retail stores are basically disappearing! This is more along the lines of what I meant. Just massive culture change, where society and the skills needed to negotiate it, just change so rapidly as to make the average person's head spin.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 7:00am

    What a pic! 

    I still remember rolling my eyes when friends at college went off to the computer room to send people electronic mail. that seemed like the dumbest idea. Until the same friends started using "mobile" phones. the idiots. 

    I'm trying to think whether other 20 year periods have seen as massive change. the introduction of trains, cars and planes were slower. How about the massive societal changes between the 40s and 60s? Dunno. You think these last changes are so unique? 

    Another tangent. After meeting through friends in Italy, I became Facebook friends with a nice genial worldly knowledgeable ex-accountant who was now an Uber driver on the Ligurian coast. Turns out he has a very different persona on Facebook. Many angry rants against opponents of Salvini and especially of his immigration policy. I was kind of shocked but now try to always read what he says to see the arguments. Mostly it is isn't so much defending the policy of letting refugees drown in the sea as much as attacking the hypocrisy of other European governments and Radical chic virtue signaling. The world stamped on his dream of a nice middle class life and a respectable job. It's not an inchoate change anxiety to me. could be but doesn't strike me that way. It's a pretty concrete sense that his concerns are dismissed. I don't think people are freaked out about digitalization and technological progress nor even the mixing of ethnicities and cultures. This guy certainly isn't. He just doesn't want to be financially f*cked in the process. 


    by Obey on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 9:00am

    Think electricity & refrigeration, along with the evolving & spreading telegraph/telephone.
    And those pneumatic tubes to move paper around, plus the creation of the first elevators -
    suddenly buildings >3 stories were practical. Suddenly near-instantaneous planning across
    oceans....


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 9:04am

    and then two world wars and then "god is dead"....not that I'm suggesting any correlation to current times


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 3:32pm

    Trump supporters are the fearless agents of change today with Trump leading the charge. The snowflake/deep state alliance are the ones living in fear of this change away from the liberal globalist agenda that has undermined our republic and freedom everywhere. The enemies of the people are displaying their fear and hysteria daily for all to see as their power ebbs and a new direction in foreign and domestic policies is rapidly becoming reality. PC Newspeak at home and appeasement diplomacy abroad are headed for the dustbin of history where they belong.

    by Peter (not verified) on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 1:15pm

    Who are these people you speak of and who are their enemies? It's true that many people like me consider people like you the enemy.  But in all polling a majority of the people claim to disapprove of Trump. Trump got 3 million less votes of the people than his opponent. By any account in this fight the enemies of the majority of the people are the minority of the people who still support Trump.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 1:43pm

    The Trump movement has from its beginning acted in that way to master the many crises it faced and overcame. The Trump administration has acted decisively when faced by a threat. Trump supporters are brave enough to look danger in the face, to coolly and ruthlessly take its measure, then act decisively with our heads held high. Both as a movement and as a nation, we have always been at our best when we needed fanatic, determined wills to overcome and eliminate danger, or a strength of character sufficient to overcome every obstacle, or bitter determination to reach our goal, or an iron heart capable of withstanding every internal and external battle. 

    5 words changed. Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, his address to the nation, 1943.

    Nation, Rise Up, and Let the Storm Break Loose


    by NCD on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 2:40pm

    A quibble. Peter's agitprop always sounds the most similar to Mao-speak, early 1970's. Very much has that raging pitchfork proletariat edge to it, making his frequent use of "commie" as a derogative extra absurd.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 3:07pm

    Got a sample to compare?

    Leadership cults and demagogues always follow similar methods, but Trump's are white supremacists, give Nazi salutes and chant blood and soul. The bootlicking sycophants, fanaticism and nonstop propaganda, are about as close as you can get, he even has a non-aggression pact with Putin.


    by NCD on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 4:41pm

    If I think of a good sample later I'll try to remember to post it. I wasn't arguing about Trump talk, I agree that generally is more fascist. But Peter's agitprop is a little different, he really borrows a lot from commie far left totalitarianism, I recognize it. A lot of it is like SDS and Weathermen from the late 60's and early 70's as well as Mao. (Moat in the past has pointed out websites he's seen where Peter's language is common. it is where the farout Bernie fanatics intersect with Trumpies, along the lines of Hal C....)


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 5:05pm

    Something else to consider is that the message offered here is not delivered to true soldiers of the faith but to those who will soon be defeated. There is a Tokyo Rose quality to it. The war is over, boys. The news of the defeat has not reached you yet.
    And then there is Baghdad Bob. Not as much confidence as the Rose but not bad for someone having the crap bombed out of them.
    It mostly resembles the pedestrian spam put out by the Russians on social networks. The goal is for an overall increase in the amount of division and despair that can be introduced into the system rather than expanding a circle of followers.


    by moat on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 5:44pm

    Oh yes! Light bulb! You pegged it better than me! He is definitely doing a Tokyo Rose thing when he turns on this this agitprop mode! The weird thing though if you tease him enough about it,  he talks to us like a real person sometimes. So that makes me think he is a believer who has hung out so much on sites with Russian trolls that their agitprop has sunk into his brain. Leading to split personality. (Or there's this other image I have: he starts communicating like a real person and the boss man catches him at it and starts whipping him so that he gets back to work and he spits out more pieces of cut and paste agitprop at various websites assigned. Or like Baghdad Bob did a couple times breaking kafaybe and joking with the press pack....which was also probably at risk of his job)


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 6:28pm

    Know it's not the Third Reich, but the demagoguery, leadership cult, racism and "enemy of the people, believe only in the Fuhrer" business is just too.....much...

    Ian Kershaw in The End, the last 12 months of the Third Reich, mentions that after Hitler's suicide, Admiral Donitz, who was the designated successor, had meetings at offices under Allied control after the capitulation where the surviving fanatic Reich ministers debated issues like where to hang their Hitler pictures, and whether or not to keep using the Heil Hitler salute.

    The delusions of power ended when they were all arrested and locked up. Might be in the cards with Trump at some future point.


    by NCD on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 7:50pm

    You are being too clever by half Tovsrisch and your cloak of victimhood is wearing thin. Didn't Gobbels also say that repeating fake news enough would lead people to believe the Big Lie?

    by Peter (not verified) on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 7:12pm

    You're evidence that it works with the poorly educated. But people who read sufficiently aren't fooled.

    That's why Trump said, "I love the poorly educated."


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 7:19pm

    ah,  using a term of endearment to evoke superiority, I see! clever!


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 8:34pm

    It is Russian for "comrade"
    The Bolsheviks made it less endearing.


    by moat on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 9:16pm

    Oh look, Peter (not verified) turned on the robotic agit-spew recording again When that happens, I am reminded of when the Trumptweeter starts spewing simple two-word screams like WITCH HUNT! and NO COLLUSION! (Translation: I'm freaking out.)


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 3:05pm

    Comrade Art (verified) you are confusing my Libertarian Left style polemic, refuting your BS about who is afraid of change, with your own commie style agit-spew which is typical liberal/commie projection. Your constant and endless machine like linking to proven fake news sources and fabricated gossip is textbook agitprop.

    by Peter (not verified) on Mon, 09/03/2018 - 10:28am

    Peter, I normally prefer not to spend precious time on slogging insults at other anonymous people on the internet. Just don't see the benefit in doing that for me, myself and I. And I normally prefer to spend it instead reading and sharing the "fake news" as you call it, from a mixture of various professional sources and then analyzing with input from others. In order to try to figure out what's going on in the world to make decisions about things like wise future activities, where to spend time and money and resources in a changing world. No matter who or what is in charge. I don't pretend to be able to effect what happens.

    ALL THAT SAID, I consider it an interesting diversion to get a human response from you by giving you the higher-than-normal level of return ridicule you seem to require to break out of the auto didact mode. Take it as a compliment. But I am not going to spend a lot of precious time on it, especially as it becomes a very tiresome diversion rather quickly.

    What I don't get is how you think what you are doing will benefit you. Unless you are getting paid. Or you get pleasure out of name calling. Even if, unlike me, you think posting comments internet forums can affect political outcome, It's not like you are winning converts here. Clearly you are not here to win converts. You cannot actually physical benefit by spending time on insults. So why do you post those kind of political insult comments? Why just not share analysis? And keep private what you do with the info. Don't really know you, don't care what you do with it.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 09/03/2018 - 1:46pm

    I've been thinking about the puzzle of the motivation of trolls ever since a group of them destroyed my favorite discussion site about ten years ago. None of the explanations I've seen seem to fully explain it. This one doesn't either but it's an explanation I can relate to from my own experience.

    Like most people here, I suppose, I was bored by school. I was a bookish introvert in elementary school, nicknamed Poindexter by my classmates, and in junior high I became a class clown. I was bored and it was better than being beat up. I challenged the teachers and insulted my peers. Carlin would call it playing the "dozens" and it became a staple of the rap genre. Like most class clowns I did it for ego reasons, to impress my peers. I couldn't win a physical fight but I could beat them senseless with my wit. But one has to be good at it. The insults have to be funny or at least clever or complex. They have to be better than the insults that come at you. Of course by the time I reached senior high I had grown out of that stage.

    It could be that trolls never matured beyond that early teen phase and they're doing it to impress their equally immature friends. That's a good explanation for the destruction of the last group I was on. There was a group of trolls and they supported and cheered each other on. There was a rumor at the time that the goal was to destroy as many Google Groups as they could. I did a little checking on a few other Google groups and that story seemed to be supported.

    But it doesn't really explain peter. Unless he has a group of friends he's showing his posts to no one here is impressed nor does anyone admire his insults. How could that gratify his ego? They're not even funny, clever, or complex. They're all rather generic, not the sort of hard hitting jabs that could cause even an enemy to grudgingly admit he got in a good hit.

    So it remains a mystery. He's not gaining any followers. He's not changing anyone's mind. He's not impressing anyone with a witty insult. Perhaps he's just lonely and doesn't know how to make friends. So he resorts to making enemies.

     


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 09/03/2018 - 5:02pm

    that's why he looks like a lazy paid troll, his heart is not into it, it's just doing the minimal necessary, i.e., instructions are to paste this agitprop on this many liberal forums a day. And instead of a big one where he would supposedly have "causing chaos" effect, one of them he choses to fill his quota is this one. Where he knows it has no effect but helps fill quota. So there's the "just phoning it in" comments.  And once he's done with those, sometimes we end up tempting him into some real discussion.

    I don't mind saying this where he can see it. So he can see how what he writes comes across to this one reader. Maybe it will help him be a better paid troll, who knows.cheeky

    Myself, I've come to appreciate over the years how participating on forums like this--even just watching how others react to each other and interpret what each other says and looks for motive, etc--has helped me hone my communication skills for real life, to better get across whatever I want to get across. Especially as I'm a natural loner like you. It's an extra added benefit of sharing an addiction.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 09/03/2018 - 5:33pm

    That really is a plausible motivation. The reason I keep rejecting it is I can't imagine that anyone would actually pay someone to do it. If true I want to know where to apply. I'm certain with my experience in junior high school that I can be a much better right wing troll. And I've got a lot of free time to fill when I'm working, but not really working. I sometimes have trouble finding things to do to fill up all that free time given there's certain constrains on what I can do.


    by ocean-kat on Mon, 09/03/2018 - 5:53pm

    Hate is the key for hard core Trump supporters. A paid troll would laud the Trump economy, the illegals deportations, the "great" border security etc.

    Peter just expresses an obsessive rage and hate against target groups - warmers, clintonites, liberals. Never mentioning any positive or not so positive things Trump has done. Some personal grievance, and/or 25 years of right wing hate radio/Fox News indoctrination can do that to some.


    by NCD on Mon, 09/03/2018 - 7:28pm

    Comrade Art, you must know you aren't important enough to attract paid opposition. I confront your propaganda and gossip not to change minds but to prod you and others to expose what hides behind the liberal facade. This is to satisfy my own autodidactic curiosity. You and others here produce the predictable liberal fear and hate responses when confronted by nonbelievers and you add the artful dodger routine to avoid responding to the content of my comments. Your prodigious output here compared with my limited responses makes me wonder who might be being paid for leading a groupthink echochamber agenda.

    by Peter (not verified) on Tue, 09/04/2018 - 12:49pm

    Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia!


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 09/04/2018 - 2:27pm

    1) your keyboard stroked suggestions to god's ears, please, $ would be nice

    2) as always it depends upon what one's definition of agitprop is. But back to the point you are avoiding: you like to post insults, I do not


    by artappraiser on Tue, 09/04/2018 - 2:34pm

    P.S. Here's a gift for ya, leaving the world of "fake news" posting, as you put it, to post this nugget of truthiness for you that I know you will much prefer, just because that's the kinda gal I am:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 09/03/2018 - 2:30pm

    I like that Noah Smith thread. This sub-thread sums up the debate beautifully (the Canadian sub-tweet and the two american responses immediately below)


    by Obey on Sat, 09/01/2018 - 5:18am

    3 hrs. ago Trump tweeted this Aug. 29 story link from Breitbart.com, complete with picture, and it is sitting at the top of his feed overnight, just thought you might like to know

    Watch: Kanye West Says Trump Wants to Be the ‘Greatest President’ for Black Americans

    By Jerome Hudson

    Fashion mogul and Grammy-winner Kanye West told WGCI 107.5 Radio hosts in an interview Wednesday that President Donald Trump is going to do whatever it takes to “do the work” to be a great president for black voters.

    “I know black people that voted for Trump that were scared to say out loud. Now that’s some 1984 though-control programming shit,” West said when asked about comments he made earlier this year about his support for President Trump and slavery being more a mindset in contemporary America.

    West said he understood people who “would rather have a female president” and supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, “I just don’t agree with it.”

    The “Ye” rapper told the radio hosts that the facilities housing illegal aliens and children separated from adults was “something that was happening through a lot of different president eras — but now we’re seeing it.” West said Trump’s election gave black Americans the opportunity “as an entire community to see things that we weren’t seeing when Obama was in office. We as a collective wasn’t woke. Now everybody is woke.” [....]

    Asked if he thinks President Trump care about black people, Kanye West paused for several seconds before saying:

    I feel that he cares about the way black people feel about him, and he would like for black people to like him like they did when he was cool in the rap songs and all this [....]


    by artappraiser on Thu, 08/30/2018 - 1:33am

    Meanwhile the anonymice are saying:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 08/30/2018 - 9:35pm

    Plus on choreographing the rally:

    after checking out the photo, I guess Maggie is basically saying Mussolini would never have let the situation get to that point?


    by artappraiser on Thu, 08/30/2018 - 9:40pm

    Trump can't figure why he can't get the best lawyers. The lawyers he does have have to get their own lawyers.


    by NCD on Thu, 08/30/2018 - 9:53pm

    FWIW, Maggie Haberman just "liked" this on Twitter. I know you know this Buchanan stuff so I thought you might like to see it, too, whatever you think of it. Note The Mooch directed the tweet to her and other Trump White House reporters Jonathan Swan and Jennifer Jacobs.

    This was written in 2004 and is the base elements of Trumpism, forming a decade and a half ago due to bad establishment policy. Love or hate the man, heed the message: many have felt left out and want back in. @jonathanvswan @maggieNYT @JenniferJJacobs https://t.co/p8HLyu8rqK

    — Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) September 2, 2018

    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/02/2018 - 9:53pm

    This is typical "both sides" malarkey. 

    The use of force Iraq Resolution only passed because of overwhelming Republican support, Dems voted it down. It also wasn't a declaration of war, Republican Prez GWB started the war, so it was a Republican President, Republican administration, Republican voter/establishment failure.

    The Republican Base re-elected Bush in 2004, and didn't abandon voting for Republican establishment candidates across the board until the crash of 2008.

    Then the GOP Base went right back to electing radical, but establishment supported, Republicans in 2010,  some who rebranded themselves the Tea Party, and set about collectively obstructing Obama from the saving of the auto industry and economy.

    Now Trump is the favored son of the Republican Base, owns what is left of the Party, and will be the top GOP leader until he crashes the economy, or loses in 2020.


    by NCD on Mon, 09/03/2018 - 12:24am

    Ha, this began long before 2004 and goes far deeper than the Iraq War. Pat Buchanan has been publicly tilting against the establishment since 1992. Remember Pitchfork Pat? Even during the Nixon administration, he was attacking "the liberal, academic, intellectual Democratic elite" and advocating race-baiting tactics to appeal to the white working class. From an internal memo to Nixon:

    If the President would become the visible and outspoken champion of the Forgotten American, the working people of this country -- and assert that the welfare types have been taken care of for years; it would force a division in the Democratic Party, would align the media against us -- but methinks it both divides them and assists us.

    It was not "bad establishment policy" that created this monster. It was a sinister but effective strategy by right-wing insurgents to make white, Christian, socially-conservative voters into a potent political block.

    PS Why are we paying attention to political-historical analysis from the Mooch?


    by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 09/04/2018 - 9:14am

    On your p.s. I was paying attention because he was pushing the meme directly to a select few major White House reporters. Who retweeted his efforts in order to reveal them. Basically I think they were asking: wassup with this? why is he sending this to me? why is he pushing this now? One thing he knows: P.R. messaging, when and how to.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 09/04/2018 - 3:08pm

    Trump's supporters like people like the Mooch because he's authentic, like Trump. Remember when he said Bannon can suck his own cock? No regular politician would say that. It shows how real he is. Doesn't matter if he's authentically smart or an authentic dumb ass. It just matters that he's authentic.


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 09/04/2018 - 3:21pm

    Oh I get that some people did the Mooch, but I don't think any of them live around here. Except maybe Peter the Anonymous.


    by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 09/04/2018 - 9:06pm

    i didn't even know Doing the Mooch was a Thing, and I've been around since before Things were Things.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 09/04/2018 - 11:14pm

    Pruitt was growing the things in his EPA chamber:


    by NCD on Tue, 09/04/2018 - 11:34pm

    Worse than the Nutty Professor - looks like group chess - with sprouts. Do you think the White House is inhabited by Pod People? Are they mtiplying?


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 09/10/2018 - 5:42pm