This is Tyler Childers, and he has some profound words.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.
Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.
Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.
Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?
Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.
I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.
Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.
Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.
“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”
Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.
You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.
Nothing worth doing is easy.
Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.
There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.
Peak wingnut was a lie.
That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.
He really is that stupid.
Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.
Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.
Fight them, without becoming them!
We’re not going back!
Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.
Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.
Baud
I hope it seeps through to some people.
Quinerly
Probably not the appropriate thread… But… Trump was so taken with the “Fill the Seat” chant that started “spontaneously” at his NC superspreader event that he turned to his campaign and said “get that slogan on shirts, etc.” Campaign is now selling items with the “slogan.”
I can’t even…..
debbie
@Quinerly:
Bastard.
Jane2
Childers is one of the most talented and intelligent singers to come along in some time. I can’t wait to purchase his latest music.
Emma from FL
@Quinerly: He’s also telling crowds that RBG’s last words were invented by Pelosi and Schumer.
patrick II
Quite a contrast with “Fuck Your Feelings”.
Quinerly
I’m on my phone. I’ll just leave this new Jane Mayer piece here. Holy shit. A young Kennedy was a volunteer on Kushner’s Covid Task Force. He’s a whistleblower. Just read it. Hard to pull out quotes from it on my phone.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/28/a-young-kennedy-in-kushnerland-turned-whistle-blower
debbie
I’m too old to know who this guy is, but his words brought me to tears. Hope his fans hear him.
zhena gogolia
That’s an impressive statement. I’ll look him up.
debbie
@Emma from FL:
I knew his kind words about waiting until after her funeral were bullshit. He’s been practicing this for weeks.
Quinerly
@Emma from FL: that kind of shit I kinda expect from him. I guess the merchandising stuff too. On a scale of poor taste… I guess it could have been worse…. “Fill Her Seat” and she was still on her deathbed. I’m numb.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Well, Trump is running a fear based campaign but that does seem absurdly crude to be that explicit about soiling one’s pants? I suppose it’s really inappropriate to say his base will eat it up.
Omnes Omnibus
It’s a great sentiment. It would be great if people would do it. I am afraid that many who need to hear it will turn a deaf ear. And, until I see some evidence of it from the right…. Well, let’s say I won’t be counting chickens.
daryljfontaine
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: They already dine quite happily on the excrement he vomits forth from his other orifice, so…
D
Kent
I read the article. But also step back for a second. WTF was a 26 year old Kennedy with no experience in public health or supply chain management even doing on a pandemic supply chain related task force in the first place
It’s kind of like a young Democrat joining Bush’s coalition provisional authority running Iraq and then discovering to their surprise…corruption and incompetence. You think?
germy
@Kent: His pedigree?
Quinerly
@Kent: pretty much the point of it. That was my first “holy shit.”
My second “holy shit” was Kushner et al were even more stupid and self absorbed than I initially thought. Why on earth take a Kennedy on as a volunteer? And to expect him to abide by a NDA…..
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: The fucking first paragraph of the article answers your question. People really do need to answer phones, make copies, proofread documents, and all sorts of other things.
Kent
The fact that at this late date we still have people who think they can walk into a Trump Administration project and (1) make any difference, and (2) affect policy in any positive way shows a breathtaking lack of awareness of the world we live in.
It’s like the old adage in poker. If look around the table and don’t know who the mark is, then it’s you.
oldster
That’s impressive. He wrote an excellent essay, and read it really well, too.
If you want to cheer yourself up a bit, go over to the Act Blue page and watch the counter. The dollars are rolling in so fast it will make your head spin. I watch 1 million dollars come in in less than 10 minutes. (Then at other times, it slows down so much you can watch the tens’ counter tick over — and then it speeds up again and the 1000’s counter flies by.)
Democrats are fired up. Good people are putting their money where their mouths are.
Bluegirlfromwyo
His song is beautiful, haunting, and perfect for these times. Finding out about things like this is one of many reasons I keep coming here.
J R in WV
Cole,
It would be helpful to tell us a little bit about Tyler Childress along with providing the moving video he made about his intentions in his new album. I’m pretty fond of mountain music, but was unaware of him. I’m working to fix that now!
Thanks for posting this!
JR
Ruckus
@Kent:
Young Jarad at work.
Fucking up with the best of them for privilege and cash. Do you think young jarad even knows who the Kennedy clan is? It was a body he could blame for whatever. I’d wonder if he even had any idea that nothing was going to be done. But their ideal is that government is bad, any government so outside people are going to do a better job. But this entire family has no idea how anything other than grift works. Look at the family that raised him and tell me different. trumps run for the presidency/his time in office was/is a grift, how to gain the most for the least amount of any effort.
RedDirtGirl
@oldster: Thank you. I just did that. Pretty cool. I know money isn’t everything, but when we have it pouring in and they are pulling their TV ads I get a little schadenfreud-y.
Mallard Filmore
@Quinerly:
Hmmm. A small group of unpaid non-government non-experts are signed up (by who? what department?) and work in a government facility (authorized by who?) to take orders from random civilians, to distribute government property.
All this was done off the books?
I bet Barr’s people will ignore any laws that were broken and focus exclusively on violating the NDA. Anything that is not relevant to the specific NDA violation will be thrown out. And there will be shopping for a judge that will issue a gag order.
Can motive be ignored in a court case? Sometimes I wish, in my youth, I realized how important studying the law would be. But then, as the country falls apart, knowing the law really doesn’t mean much.
Kent
Of course Jared and the Trumps know who all the Kennedy’s are. That’s who they wish they were and never will be. Not that I’m a Kennedy-phile or whatever. But the extended clan has actually done things with their lives and many have been elected to public office. I don’t see any of the Trump-spawn ever accomplishing that. In what jurisdiction would a Trump-spawn ever run for and win a Congressional seat? They gonna do the GW Bush thing and move to Midland Texas and dive into the oil business? I fucking doubt it.
Another Scott
Just excellent. Thanks for the pointer.
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@Quinerly: I had read a few months ago in the Washington Post about one of the task force members blowing the whistle. This article provides a lot more detail, including names. It is almost inconceivable to imagine a group of unqualified volunteers being put in charge of directing the government’s primary means of protecting health care workers. Many of the workers who died have been identified. If only New York City could banish Jared Kushner and the entire Trump family from ever setting foot there again.
Ruckus
@Kent:
You are missing the point. None of the people are anything but grifters. They don’t produce anything whatsoever. They don’t provide any labor whatsoever. They don’t provide anything other than a place to put money that they don’t earn. And all of this is because they are not smart enough to do any of that. What they are is grifters. The entirety of them. You may, but shouldn’t, think they are smart or deserving of the money they have because they got that by any means other than being in any way productive for society. They are thieves. Full Stop. The people in the WH now are second/third generation thieves, living off the thievery of their parents. Or people who think that is normal, that all money is stolen so get yours while the getting is good. These are not normal people, who have skills that society needs and is willing to trade dollars for. Me I trade skills as a machinist for a paycheck. Some teach, or do accounting, or lawyering, or any number of things that society actually has a use for. These people steal from those productive people. trumps money is all stolen from people who actually earned it – OK some of it is stolen from people who likely stole it from people that earned it. There is an entire class of people who do this, who use capitalism to steal from people. There are smart people who do this as well, they are the people that have convinced a lot of people that government is the entire problem, because government has made it more difficult to steal from the rest. But they are now the government, they did a top down coup. They have tried to control the government and that only worked part way but now they own a lot of the police and fill the top tier of the federal government. This is an overthrowing of the government of the US. Not to control you, but to steal everything from you.
Benw
The song to which Tyler is referring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_I3Rp1CQak
It’s quite lovely
The whole album “Long Violent History” is tip top
mrmoshpotato
Six minutes very well spent.
Thanks for posting this, John.
Quinerly
@Barbara: I hadn’t seen anything with actual names until this piece. It still blows my mind that Kushner et al would let Robert Kennedy’s grandson “inside.”
J R in WV
@J R in WV:
And here’s an article from NPR about Tyler Childress
It tells us a little more about him.
Redshift
Wow.
James E Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
I would like to video a focus group of Trump voters – a dozen randomly selected diner denizens – and get their reactions to that video. Then I’d show that video to a dozen national political reporters and get their reactions to the RealAmerican® Heartland Economically Anxious Values Voters expressing their thoughts on racial justice.
I’m not saying it would do anything more than confirm what we already know, but I’d still like to see it.
Redshift
@Kent:
I recall remarking, maybe about Pence’s task force or maybe about some earlier cluster, that the Iraqis could take some grim pleasure in the fact that now the US was being run by the Coalition Provisional Authority…
ET
Comedian Drew Morgan had some good and pointed words of support for Childers.
gvg
@Kent: He spells it out. He thought he would be a helper to the real actual expert team. My take is he thought he would be a glorified gofer and that can be good experience for a newby. Then he found out they were the team. Doesn’t sound like he lasted long…
What is notable is he blew the whistle months ago…possibly because in his family they actually know how things are supposed to work. Congress seems not to have done anything with the info.
WaterGirl
@ET: I have never heard of this guy, but that was great.
West of the Rockies
@Omnes Omnibus:
You are probably correct about the message falling on deaf ears… But if 3 or 10 out of a hundred people hear some of the message, well, that is a start. Arc of history bending slowly towards justice stuff… One hopes.
Aleta
@West of the Rockies: Yes. Supportive to kids and grandkids in the racists’ homes. Music is powerful on more than one level, and its meanings go beyond rigid interpretations.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
This is really powerful. I don’t know this guy or his music, but I’m going to find out. That’s some barely restrained very strong feeling, and I felt like he was going to jump right through my screen. I’m going to go listen to him right now.
Miss Bianca
Well, I don’t know who Tyler Childers is, but if he’s half as good a fiddler as he is a speaker, I know I am going to enjoy his music. Putting “Long Violent History” on my CD wish list.
prostratedragon
A Tyler Childers set on Mountain Stage.
Ella in New Mexico
This was a beautiful testimony. I’m so grateful you lead me to this really decent human being who apparently, is also an awesome musician.
Again, this is why I’m here at Balloon Juice: Genuineness and compassion and intelligent conversations
Oh, and great artists across the spectrum.
Thanks, John. <3
wenchacha
@Barbara: it reminds me of the failed Iraq team, led by Dan Senor or somebody equally unpleasant. They took over interns and bright young things who had no experience, and they were going to rebuild Iraq as a modern capitalist playground for industry.