Geoff > Status Update

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "The excuse for the Dem's losing remains squarely on the Dems. Like when they lost (twice!) to W. "

Lest we forget brother Jeb handing GWB Fla and the electoral college despite Gore winning the popular. Somehow one party seems to keep losing with the most votes...

Also, when you have an ex-professional wrestling guy as the president, congressmen who body slam journalists is the next logical step...

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/24/media...

This is just perfect:

https://twitter.com/PeterSHall/status...

Jonathan wrote: "This is just perfect:

https://twitter.com/PeterSHall/status..."

Ahahaha! so good

If Trump is impeached, you would have President Pence, unless he too lands in hot water in which case it would be President Ryan, so there's a Hobson's Choice if ever there was one. Here's journalist Doug Henwood on a Pence presidency:

"If Pence were president, the entire Republican dream agenda would sail through Congress in like three weeks. Pence spent a dozen years in Congress (Tea Party branch) and four years as governor of Indiana; he’s an appalling figure but he knows how things work. [...]
Pence is a horror—fiscal sadist, misogynist, homophobe, lover of the carceral state. He’s repeatedly described himself as 'a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order,' though given today’s modern GOP, it’s not clear there’s much of a difference among these features. (He should have said he’s a reactionary Christian; there are plenty of other kinds.) He’s a creationist who rejects climate change, thinks stem cell research is 'obsolete,' and once actually said that 'smoking doesn’t kill.' His anti-abortion law was the most extreme in the country. His cuts to Planned Parenthood led to a rural HIV epidemic. Like Sessions, Pence is a maximalist on drugs, including weed. He’s hot to privatize Social Security. He likened the Supreme Court’s upholding of Obamacare to 9/11...."
https://lbo-news.com/2017/05/17/the-p...

W.D. wrote: "If Trump is impeached, you would have President Pence, unless he too lands in hot water in which case it would be President Ryan, so there's a Hobson's Choice if ever there was one. Here's journali..."

This is the delimma - efficient radical conservative or nihilistic authoritarian demagogue? Interesting times, friends.

An impeachment of the president halts the agenda, gives dems a chance to win either senate or house in 2018 and block any real damage a Pence presidency would do.

Republicans, however, will not move to impeach the president until they "get something" out of him, I feel. They think they're owed a classic GOP ideal from this prez, and once they get it, then they can turn on the heat.

Maybe none of them ever read Faust?

Ian wrote: "Lest we forget brother Jeb handing GWB Fla and the electoral college despite Gore winning the popular. Somehow one party seems to keep losing with the most votes... "

We certainly won't forget that. But that's a technicality ; total esoteria. That it even came that close is a scandal.

And a Trump presidency serving as a breakwater against a Pence presidency? I can't go down that lesser evil road. I mean, of course Pence is evil too ; but taking down one of a dozen evil men is better than having a dozen evil men.... something something. I'll take my chances. I mean, wouldn't impeachment be about the biggest indictment of the Repubo's possible before '18?

I think the real downside of impeachment would be the false endorsement of the Dem's neoliberalism. I doubt very much they'll turn themselves into, like, what would've won them the election in the first place, ie, Bernie-ism. Ie, we'll still have the Dem's to deal with.

Eating a late lunch here at work, minding my own business when a little news alert pops up. "President Trump pushes fellow world leader at NATO". It wasn't for a few moments that I realized I actually stopped chewing.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/25/politic...

Corbyn is such a boss. I'm going to cry tears of joy if he somehow manages to pull this off, 11/8 in reverse.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/...

David wrote: "Corbyn is such a boss. I'm going to cry tears of joy if he somehow manages to pull this off, 11/8 in reverse.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/......"

I know. I seriously doubt he will, but even narrowing the margin is a huge achievement - particularly in light of the media bias against him etc.

Aaaaand we're withdrawing from the Paris climate accord for no discernible reason other than spite. May his whole bloodline burn in hell, sooner rather than later.

Fuck yeah Rebecca Solnit
http://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-the-...

Geoff wrote: "Aaaaand we're withdrawing from the Paris climate accord for no discernible reason other than spite. May his whole bloodline burn in hell, sooner rather than later."

Joining the enlightened leaders of Syria and Nicaragua.

(No seriously that's it. Even the Somalis and North Koreans signed this one.)

Hadrian wrote: "Geoff wrote: "Aaaaand we're withdrawing from the Paris climate accord for no discernible reason other than spite. May his whole bloodline burn in hell, sooner rather than later."

Joining the enlig..."

Holy shit.

Alfred wrote: "This is tortuous. Can the guy just say the official word and exit the Paris climate accord already, so that every other sane nation can regroup and move on definitively without the US.

Since yeste..."

Ha! Zero chance, but that would be amazing

Geoff, just wanted to say I love this status update.

It really annoys me to no end how people are like "he's our president now. deal with it" or "wanting our president to fail is like wanting our country to fail. We have to stand together." Ummmmmm....yeah no. Donald fucking Trump is the president. He hasn't the slightest idea what he's doing, and he's destroying progress we've made. This isn't even a political thing. This isn't a Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian thing (although I stand by what I've always said, Republicans and the right-wing are regressive to the point of ridiculousness, xenophobic, and usually just uneducated. Not to mention I think corruption runs several veins deeper on the Republican side, although there's plenty of corporatist democrats, don't get me wrong). This is a humanity thing. This is the bottom line: any individual still supporting Trump and his "regime" at this point is either uneducated, doesn't wanna face the music, or both. There's simply no other way to explain it.

Michael wrote: "Geoff, just wanted to say I love this status update.

It really annoys me to no end how people are like "he's our president now. deal with it" or "wanting our president to fail is like wanting our..."

I think a lot of people who still support Trump are doing so because they believe they are going to personally benefit from it. Like, their job will come back, or their paycheck will be larger when he cuts taxes, or they will be safer because he talks tough on terrorism, crime, and international power struggles. Too bad they don't see they've been conned. Cuz none of that is happening, esp. if he starts getting his policies through. His incompetence is the only thing helping us thus far. Sad part is a lot of working class rural people are going to be waiting for 4 or 8 years (or until his removal) for things that just are never going to come. They're just more victims of Trump's continual scamming his way through life for his own aggrandizement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_co...

Ironically, this proves that American officials aren't stupid.

So Donald wants out of the Paris agreement. As it turns out, Nicaragua is not in the deal because it's not good enough - they're going for 90% renewables by 2020.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/e...

So it's just us and the Syrians then. And Syria's a bit preoccupied at the moment.

Why is he leaving this agreement, when there aren't even enforcement mechanisms? Spite? Playing to the base? Financial interests? Is he just stupid?

Hadrian wrote: "So Donald wants out of the Paris agreement. As it turns out, Nicaragua is not in the deal because it's not good enough - they're going for 90% renewables by 2020.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/n..."

I'm going for spite/stupid.

Honesty I'm so outraged by this I have trouble communicating about it. This decision embodies the mean-spirited, reactionary, idiotic, primate-level, drooling, world-level destructive, purposeless nonsense the Republican Party calls "policy" and has come to embrace on so many levels. We are a universal embarrassment as a country and Republicans just double down on the stupid/spite. I hope they all die from excruciating diarrhea - every last one.

Seriously, all Trump supporters out there listening, I hope you all die from painful diarrhea.

If he opens up the coal mines, they'll be dying from black lung.

Geoff wrote: "Honesty I'm so outraged by this I have trouble communicating about it. This decision embodies the mean-spirited, reactionary, idiotic, primate-level, drooling, world-level destructive, purposeless ..."

Are you listening to his justification for withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord right now? Like you I can't articulate my rage.

Hadrian wrote: "If he opens up the coal mines, they'll be dying from black lung."

Now they're calling that "winning from freedom lung"

ATJG wrote: "Geoff wrote: "Honesty I'm so outraged by this I have trouble communicating about it. This decision embodies the mean-spirited, reactionary, idiotic, primate-level, drooling, world-level destructive..."

Seriously. My rage has rendered me incapable of expressing anything except "I hope you all die from pooping yourselves to death"

GOP needs to come to terms with its tribalism in the party and base and recognize how corrosive it is for dialogue and progress and "making America great." Time and time again, Republicans in office pose existential and personal threat to Americans, much more so than any act of terrorism has or ever will. The impetus for most of their policy and positions seem to stem from "well, if librals are behind it, it's a fucked proposition, so we must do anything to win."

The problem we face here is that the tribalists on the right will cheer this on, not because it does anything to benefit America (it weakens America on a systemic level, in fact), but because it rejects the left's positions. If the left took the position that crushing peoples' fingers with hammers was morally reprehensible and action needed to be taken to stop it, I literally could see the base on the right (and elected officials) take up the position that to take action would burden the hammer-making industry, simply for the mere fact that it started as a position on the left.

TV News Media coverage fuels this shit (all of them, not just Fox, but CNN and MSNBC can be just downright awful at times), pitting "sides against each other" like fucking sports coverage, with a bunch of explosive yelling, where whoever gets off the pithiest remark gets a news cycle built around it, perpetuating more rooting for the "side" rather than the ideas and policies. Media and the way we consume it as humans is so fucking warped and distorted. I don't know what the correction is, to be honest, but it really seems like there is another civil war brewing, with this deep, cosmic rift of tribalist politicking.

Ian wrote: "GOP needs to come to terms with its tribalism in the party and base and recognize how corrosive it is for dialogue and progress and "making America great." Time and time again, Republicans in offic..."

Amen, Ian.

Listening to Mike Lee trying to justify this - hope that dude dies of painful diarrhea.

Geoff wrote: "Listening to Mike Lee trying to justify this - hope that dude dies of painful diarrhea."

Here's another charming explanation AND another candidate for shitting unto lifelessness:

https://twitter.com/AlexanderEmmons/s...

The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son. If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination—or whatever—to leave their mine. They don’t have ‘it.’

-Donald, 1990

"We want fair treatment," Trump said. "We don't want other countries and other leaders to laugh at us anymore."

More projection. At the NATO meeting, other leaders laughed at HIM (sad!), not at us .

Lolz at all these dumb hypocrites. Shit thyselves unto death!

I am continuing with my policy, which I've had in place since Nov 8, of not visiting the US, not knowingly buying US products when I have a choice, not submitting any papers to US conferences, and in general giving as little money as possible to the US.

Manny wrote: "I am continuing with my policy, which I've had in place since Nov 8, of not visiting the US, not knowingly buying US products when I have a choice, not submitting any papers to US conferences, and ..."

It is just to boycott evil corporations.

We should also never forget, when this administration does completely nonsensical, seemingly arbitrarily destructive things, most of this is simply about the imperative to undue a black man's historical legacy on our country. Fuckin' racist ass Trump DIE OF SHITTING

I am struggling to understand the so-called outrage sparked by Kathy Griffin's recent performance piece. What exactly is controversial about the implication that the world would be a better place if Trump's head were to be cut off? It seems far more controversial to claim that a living Trump is something positive.

But hey, I don't want to offend any Buddhists who happen to be reading this. I know, all life is sacred and it is not for us to decide who lives and who dies. I am just not enlightened enough yet. Forgive me.

Manny wrote: "I am struggling to understand the so-called outrage sparked by Kathy Griffin's recent performance piece. What exactly is controversial about the implication that the world would be a better place i..."

The Kathy Griffin thing doesn't pass the "if they did this to someone on our side it would be okay" test - so, yeah, I'm against that. But, yeah, Trump, please die of painful diarrhea immediately. Mike Lee too. And Paul Ryan.

Geoff wrote: "The Kathy Griffin thing doesn't pass the "if they did this to someone on our side it would be okay" test - so, yeah, I'm against that."

I dunno. Like many people, I read this as a reference to the story of Judith and Holofernes. Trump likes using his power to get random sex from women. Probably Griffin is just messing with his mind and telling him that the next pussy he grabs might, like Judith, regard it as her patriotic duty to cut off the oppressor's head. If the fear that this might happen ruins his sex life, I don't exactly see it as a tragedy.

Dunno guys, maybe it's time to call it? To have done with it - just admit it ain't working, dissolve the union. We gave it a go since the civil war and reconstruction, but maybe this is it. Red states and blue states go their separate ways, blue states remain in the global project, red states create their Mad Max dystopian thugocracies they fantasize about and are slowly making real... Maybe we just aren't the same deep down, don't share the same values, don't really have common goals or interests... We obviously hate and distrust each other. I feel only disgust and embarrassment at being a US citizen at this point, I'd be happy to have another passport, nationality, etc. so maybe it's time we go it on our own, the nation of Maryland, the nation of New York, California, etc. We take our fates into our own hands and away from a people, Trumpists, who share none of our morals, values, or interests. We turn our back and move forward. Borders, nations change all the time, nothing sacred about ours. Dissolve the union.

The country is like a big disfunctional family. Unfortunately, every day is Thanksgiving.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...

“My handshake was not innocent,” Macron said. He likened Trump to a pair of authoritarian strongmen — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — and said that he was purposefully forceful because he believed his encounter with Trump was “a moment of truth.”

Hearing smack-talk from the Frenchman 31 years his junior irritated and bewildered Trump, aides said.

A few days later, Trump got his revenge. He proclaimed from the Rose Garden, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”

He's a fucking child.

Geoff wrote: "Dunno guys, maybe it's time to call it? To have done with it - just admit it ain't working, dissolve the union. We gave it a go since the civil war and reconstruction, but maybe this is it. Red sta..."

Time to mobilize and arm the left for that violent insurrection discussed earlier in this thread?

Jimmy wrote: "The country is like a big disfunctional family. Unfortunately, every day is Thanksgiving."

That's a great way to think of it - actually makes it seem a lot more tolerable. Thanks, Jimmy! Also, once again I'm saved from total despair simply by hearing verses from Dylan:

The world is old
The world is gray
Lessons of life
Can't be learned in a day
I watch and I wait
And I listen while I stand
To the music that comes
From a far better land

It's the last day's last hour
Of the last happy year
I feel that the unknown
World is so dear
Pride will vanish
And glory will rot
But virtue lives
And cannot be forgot

The bells
Of evening have rung
There's blasphemy
On every tongue
Let them say that I walked
In fair nature's light
And that I was loyal
To truth and to right

Serve God and be cheerful
Look upward beyond
Beyond the darkness that masks
The surprises of dawn
In the deep green grasses
And the blood stained woods
They never dreamed of surrendering
They fell where they stood

Stars fell over Alabama
And I saw each star
You're walking in dreams
Whoever you are
Chilled as the skies
Keen as the frost
The ground's froze hard
And the morning is lost...

I'm ten miles outside the city
And I'm lifted away
In an ancient light
That is not of day
They were calm they were blunt
We knew them all too well
We loved each other more than
We ever dared to tell

-Cross the Green Mountain (2003)

(I almost tear up every time I hear this song - sometimes I really do...)

Ian wrote: "Geoff wrote: "Dunno guys, maybe it's time to call it? To have done with it - just admit it ain't working, dissolve the union. We gave it a go since the civil war and reconstruction, but maybe this ..."

Nah, check my last post. We gon' be alright.

Jessaka wrote: "Geoff wrote: "Dunno guys, maybe it's time to call it? To have done with it - just admit it ain't working, dissolve the union. We gave it a go since the civil war and reconstruction, but maybe this ..."

Is no one reading my very next post after that?

Geoff wrote: "simply by hearing verses from Dylan"

Love this song, Geoff. And good call. I'm feeling better already.

ATJG wrote: "Geoff wrote: "simply by hearing verses from Dylan"

Love this song, Geoff. And good call. I'm feeling better already."

Yeah - "serve God and be cheerful, look upward beyond the darkness that masks the surprises of dawn" is constant reassurance for me when I'm feeling the weight of existence heavily.

My love for the British people knows no limits, but permit me to say that Theresa May seems like a parody of a harsh English school mistress/dominitrax.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.indepe...

Time for our British friends to do something crazy and elect Noam Chomsky for prime minister. A rather heartwarming article on the subject

https://www.theguardian.com/commentis...