Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

So cool that a Black prosecutor nailed his ass.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

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Archives for February 2019

Trump Videos Surfacing

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Today I saw two older videos of Donald Trump in a Russian connection.

Might be interesting to know who that fellow is who is facilitating the meeting.

 

 

Might be interesting to know who the other folks are. Also why these videos showed up over the last few days.

 

Open thread!

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Time To Do a Good Deed: Get Your Pens Out!

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https://twitter.com/McKayMSmith/status/1091816145198505986

From NewsChannel5:

MARLOW, Ok. (WIBW) — A World War II veteran from Marlow, Oklahoma is turning 93 on April 17th and his family is trying to get cards sent to him for his birthday as a surprise.

Daughter Liz Anderson tells CBS affiliate WIBW her dad Recil Troxel loves getting any kind of mail, and is obsessed with checking the mailbox.

“He sits here in his chair looking out the window every day,” Anderson said. “When the mail is here, he’s like the mail is here, we better go get the mail.”

But, it’s not very often Troxel finds something in there for him.

While Troxel’s birthday is in April, his family wanted to start his celebration early so he can get enjoyment from one of his favorite things.

The WWII veteran is currently undergoing cancer treatment, and his family just wants to make him happy.

If you’d like to send him a card, you can mail it to:

2684 North Highway 81
Marlow, Oklahoma 73055

So let’s get those pens out, get some cards, a postage stamp or two, and make someone’s day a wee bit brighter!

Open thread.

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More than Russian or Estonian: Narva through the eyes of its own people

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You’ve probably read about how Russia is going to send “little green men” into Estonia and pull another Donbas. Well, it’s going to be harder than that. Here’s a very good long read, with interviews of people who live in Narva.

The northeastern part of Estonia was industrial, with a uranium yellow cake (and later rare earths) production plant at Sillamäe and oil-shale mining around Kohtla-Järve. Both functions were felt by the government of the Soviet Union to be essential to the state, so they brought in ethnic Russians and a few others. Sillamäe was a closed town until the end of the Soviet Union.

Many ethnic Russians in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic went back to Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed, but many stayed. Many have become Estonian citizens, but one of the requirements for Estonian citizenship is being able to answer questions about Estonian history in Estonian, so some of the ethnic Russians, particularly older people, decided not to become citizens. They are sometimes referred to as stateless people, but they live in Estonia pretty much as they always have.

Vladimir Putin has posed himself as a protector of Russian people wherever they may be, and Russian rhetoric sometimes includes the Russian speakers in Estonia.

I have found most American reporting on this subject to be inadequate, since the reporters fly in and fly out, and most don’t even do that. So this is a great article if you want to know more.

When people talk about Narva’s “Russian-Estonians,” are they talking about native Russian-speakers? Native bilinguals? Those from mixed families? Bilingual households? Are they talking about those forcibly relocated to Narva from other parts of the Soviet Union during the occupation? Their descendants? Or recent voluntary immigrants who have come to Estonia in search of higher wages, better living conditions and better future prospects for their children? Someone who can be described as Russian-Estonian could easily be a Russian citizen, an Estonian citizen, or a stateless person, known in Estonian as a grey passport-holder, referring to the colour of Estonia’s alien’s passports.

And unsurprisingly, all of the above live in Narva together, and based on conversations I had with representatives of various aforementioned categories, none of them are terribly pressed on a daily basis to fuss over existential questions of who they are or what label fits them best. Many echoed similar sentiments that the desire to label them tends to come from the outside, whether from politicians in Tallinn or the media.

The photo is of Narva Castle, with Ivangorod Fortress in the background, across the Narva River in Russia. From the article.

 

Open thread!

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You’re Not Dying You Just Feel Like It (although technically we are *ALL* dying)

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Day 2 or 3 of strep- when do you start counting, when you start the antibiotics? At any rate, I still feel like hammered shit and now the temperature is 60 degrees outside and my sinuses have gone kablooey. Forced myself to eat a banana and have been drinking lots of fluids and sleeping constantly.

Second, I feel triggered:

Beats the hell out of me.

Third: Barbara Ehrenreich has lost her shit:

Somewhere around seventy, I think a lot of people just get to the point where they don’t give two fucks about think highly cultivated persona anymore and think “fuck it I’ll be dead soon.” This happened to me at 17.

Fourth: This piece about author Dan Mallory is pretty amazing in an Abducted in Plain Sight kind of way. And if you have not seen Abducted in Plain Sight, you need to strap in and watch it.

Currently on season 3 of GoT, and I might pause after they kill all the Starks and watch Russian Doll, which is supposed to be spectacular.

Finally, pets:

Please note the dirty paw prints on the freshly laundered blanket- thank you Thurston. No Rosie pics because Rosie doesn’t have time for the weak.

I’m going back to bed.

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The Line of Succession for the Governorship of Virginia: Lieutenant Governor Fairfax Comes Under Fire

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Even as Governor Northam huddles with his cabinet as an attempt to maintain his governorship of Virginian, the same fine folks that thought Breitbart was too liberal have decided to direct fire against Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax.

From 13NewsNow:

Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax denies 2004 sexual assault allegation

The allegation involves an unsubstantiated claim of sexual assault against Fairfax during the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

RICHMOND, Va. — As Virginia Governor Ralph Northam faces increasing pressure to resign over a racist photograph from his 1984 medical school yearbook, the man who would take his place — Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax — is responding to accusations of his own.

The allegation involves an unsubstantiated claim of sexual assault against Fairfax during the Democratic National Convention in 2004. The claim was posted Sunday night on the same website that first published the racist photo from Gov. Northam’s yearbook.

The Washington Post, as well as our sister station WUSA9 in Washington D.C., have known about the claim for months, but have not been able to corroborate the allegations.

“Lt. Governor Fairfax has an outstanding and well-earned reputation for treating people with dignity and respect,” read the statement released on Twitter.

“He has never assaulted anyone – ever – in any way, shape or form.”

A post on the conservative website Big League Politics went live just as the Super Bowl ended late Sunday. Allies of the likely heir apparent to embattled Gov. Northam called the development a clear smear tactic, as Fairfax’s profile rises.

“This is part of the sad and dark politics that the Lt. Governor has dedicated himself to helping Virginia and the nation rise above,” the overnight statement read.

“The Lt. Governor will take appropriate legal action against those attempting to spread this defamatory and false allegation.”

WUSA9 is refraining from publishing further details of the claim, as key elements have not been able to be verified. Broad outlines of the claim are only being published after Fairfax’s office released an official statement now in public view.

The full details of the allegation are on Big League Politics.

This allegation was previously investigated by both local Virginia news outlets and The Washington Post last year and they could not substantiate it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true, or parts of it aren’t, but that the allegations couldn’t be corroborated and/or substantiated.

Here’s Lieutenant Governor Fairfax’s statement:

Longtime Republican campaign strategist and strategic communication professional Rick Wilson thinks something here stinks in regards to how the allegations against Lieutenant Governor Fairfax came to light just after a “concerned citizen” discovered Governor Northam’s yearbook page.

The problem here is that it doesn’t really make a lot of political sense to do all of this so far from the Virginia state elections that are coming up later this year. If either and/or both of these stories play out, with Northam ultimately resigning or being forced out by the Democrats in Virginia – and there is a process to do that – and Fairfax also having to step aside, it isn’t going to make the Democrats look like they didn’t take either and/or both of these problems seriously. Nor would it hand the governorship to a Republican as the next in the line of succession is Mark Herring, who is Virginia’s Attorney General and a Democrat. (emphasis mine below)

In the case of the removal of the Governor from office or in the case of his disqualification, death, or resignation, the Lieutenant Governor shall become Governor.

If a vacancy exists in the office of Lieutenant Governor when the Lieutenant Governor is to succeed to the office of Governor or to serve as Acting Governor, the Attorney General, if he is eligible to serve as Governor, shall succeed to the office of Governor for the unexpired term or serve as Acting Governor. If the Attorney General is ineligible to serve as Governor, the Speaker of the House of Delegates, if he is eligible to serve as Governor, shall succeed to the office of Governor for the unexpired term or serve as Acting Governor. If a vacancy exists in the office of the Speaker of the House of Delegates or if the Speaker of the House of Delegates is ineligible to serve as Governor, the House of Delegates shall convene and fill the vacancy.

If this is an attempt to place the Virginia governorship in Republican hands, sort of a coup by scandal, it won’t work unless there’s a scandalous story involving Virginia Attorney General Herring teed up and ready to be deployed because the only Republican in the line of succession is the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates is Republican William J. Howell.

What is unclear right now is what, in the larger political sense, specifically of partisan political warfare, is actually going on. If this is a coordinated attempt to remove the Democratic leadership of Virginia’s executive branch through selected news reports of opposition research that was either overlooked or never previously released because it couldn’t be verified, then expect Big League Politics or some other similar outlet to drop a story on Virginia Attorney General Herring in the next few days, especially if other news outlets give the allegations against Lieutenant Governor Fairfax serious coverage and the pressure builds on him to resign as well.

This much coincidence, long buried inappropriate behavior by Virginia’s Democratic governor and lieutenant governor that one would have expected to have been put forward as oppo research much earlier in their political careers, takes a lot of work. That it doesn’t seem to really be a coincidence doesn’t excuse Governor Northam’s admission he dressed in blackface to go to a theme party as Michael Jackson, even as he disputes that he is either the person in blackface or the person in the Klan costume pictured on his yearbook page. Nor would it excuse Lieutenant Governor Fairfax if the allegations that have surfaced regarding sexual assault are substantiated. That it would all surface right now seems much too convenient.

Once is chance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action.

Lieutenant Governor Fairfax is giving a press conference right now where he is both addressing the issues around Governor Northam and the resurfaced allegations against himself. I can’t find a live stream. If I do, I’ll update the post.

Open thread!

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Show & Tell

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Since the earliest days of the Trump administration, we’ve heard tales of the lengths to which aides and briefers must go to try to capture and hold the attention of their distracted, dumb, lazy, self-absorbed boss. As the Dothraki say, “It is known.”

But for some reason, this anecdote from a Time article describing how an intel agency tried to keep Trump from buying Kim Jong-un’s denuclearization bamboozle really brings it home:

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGIA), which oversees the spy satellites that map and photograph key areas, had tried to impress upon Trump the size and complexity of the North Korean site. In preparing one briefing for the President on the issue early in his administration, the NGIA built a model of the facility with a removable roof, according to two officials. To help Trump grasp the size of the facility, the NGIA briefers built a miniature version New York’s Statue of Liberty to scale and put it inside the model.

Mind-boggling. Maybe McConnell got Trump to cave on the shutdown with a demonstration in the White House driveway involving a steamroller labeled “Pelosi” and a stale circus peanut labeled “Trump.”

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