Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

So many bastards, so little time.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

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Gotta Appreciate a Good Grudge Carrier

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This is interesting:

WASHINGTON — Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s massive campaign apparatus and an army of some 500 staffers will march on through the general election in November even if he loses the Democratic nomination, campaign officials tell NBC News, shifting their efforts toward working to elect whomever the party selects to face President Donald Trump.

Bloomberg’s vast tech operation will also be redirected to help the eventual nominee, as Democrats struggle to compete with the vaunted digital operation built by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. Hawkfish, a digital company started by Bloomberg that’s carrying out his $100 million online ad campaign, will be retained through Election Day to help defeat Trump, the officials said.

There are a bunch of obvious issues with this (billionaires shouldn’t elect presidents, what’s he going to want in return, etc.). That said, having been raised by a woman with a titanium grudge carrier, I have to throw a little respect his way. He clearly hates Trump and he isn’t letting go.

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The Media Take A Few Small Steps

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It seems to me that I’ve been seeing some small movement of the media toward honest coverage. More people (not necessarily media) are speaking out about media failures to cover politics in an age when one of our political parties has gone full propaganda.

Jamelle Bouie has an outstanding column in the New York Times, “The Trump We Did Not Want To See.” He argues that the reality of the Trump presidency is so abnormal that journalists’ minds recoil. I find this convincing, because when I write some of my tweets or posts I can feel my mind recoiling. You can see it when people say “This is not my America.”

But yes, it is our America today. We may change it next November, or Congress may change it before then, but if we are to deal with what we have, we must look it in the eye. Read the whole thing.

Dan Froomkin has a kit of background facts that reporters should use to give context to Trump comments. It’s very good and simple enough that reporters might use it.

Margaret Sullivan suggests that “The media should spotlight a different kind of war expert: Those who voted ‘no’ on Iraq” rather than OMG Judy Miller and Joe Lieberman. She’s good, as usual.

Fareed Zakharia is saying it out loud.

Trump does not have a foreign policy. He has a series of impulses — isolationism, unilateralism, bellicosity — some of them contradictory. One might surge at any particular moment, triggered usually by Trump’s sense that he might look weak or foolish. They are often unleashed without any consultation, and then his yes men line up to defend him, supporting the president’s every move with North Korean-style enthusiasm, no matter how incoherent.

And John Kerry is calling a liar a liar.

A few small steps. It’s a long slog, and we need to keep pounding on the journalists and our congresscritters.

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Monday You Can Fall Apart, Tuesday, Wednesday Break My Heart

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Mike Lee – or should I say Wednesday’s Brave Mike Lee – said so many bad things about the useless briefing that the Trump Administration provided to Congress. He “tore into” the Trump Administration. He said the briefing was ” un-American. It’s unconstitutional. And it’s wrong.” He was so mad that he inspired a “Why Mike Lee Might Vote to Remove Trump” analysis piece at Bloomberg.

I think we can all agree, in a bi-partisan and fair-minded way, that we want more Wednesday Mike Lee Republicans in the Senate, and it sure sounds like Wednesday Mike is not in love with Donald Trump.

But that was Wednesday. Thursday, he went on Fox News and revised and extended his remarks:

“Those assigned to come and brief us yesterday from the administration didn’t share this president’s view that has been very respectful toward his commander-in-chief power.”

“I applaud this president. I support this president. This president has been fantastic. He’s been unprecedentedly deferential to the American people, and restrained in his use of the commander in chief power, more than any other president in my lifetime.”

“The briefers yesterday didn’t exhibit the same level of respect and deference and restraint that president trump has shown, and I think that’s unfortunate.”

So, Thursday never looking back, and Friday, Mike’s in love.

Mike’s a great example of a Senator throwing down a few “I was reasonable back then” cards at the right time and place. This motherfucker is the god damned chairman of Trump’s re-elect campaign in Utah. (Warning, the lede of that story will make you want to vomit.) He’s as much of a fucking coward as the rest of them, and the first question at that news conference should have been “In light of your anger, are you going to resign your position as Trump’s campaign chair?”

We should be issuing a deck of cards to the DC Press that has the Trump affiliations of each Senator on it, so they can pull out their own card when a Senator tries to play an “I was reasonable” card, and ask them about their Trump affiliations.

Speaking of reasonable cards, is there anyone throwing down more of them than Rob Portman? He got so much press and adulation for his gay marriage stance, which he based on happening to have a gay son. (If he didn’t, of course he’d be a bigot like the rest of them.) Today in my hobby news feeds, my place of respite, that fucker pops up in a puff piece about his love for the outdoors. One of Trump’s first acts was the largest national monument reduction in history. A Trump committee wants to privatize national park campgrounds and (this one is really awful) revoke some of the benefits of the lifetime Senior Pass. At least Jennifer Rubin sees through his bullshit.

If we ever get rid of Trump, the backlash needs to include people like these two, otherwise they’ll teach a lesson to others like them.

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On The Road – Albatrossity – Winter Hawks

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One of the benefits of living in flyover country is that lots of interesting birds fly over as well. And some even spend time here. The most prominent winter visitors are hawks, specifically Red-tailed Hawks, which come in an astonishing variety of plumages. Here are a few, from last winter and this winter, to give you a taste of what you could see in Kansas or Oklahoma during the winter months.

And if you like these images, several more like them can be found in my 2020 calendar, The other is Hawks and Owls of Kansas at http://bit.ly/2OHjJVF. If raptors aren’t your cup of tea, you might like Iconic Birds of the World, with birds from Tanzania, Ecuador, Brazil, New Zealand & the good ol’ USA. at http://bit.ly/2qXi3i5

And if you want to see a bird image every day in your twitter feed, just follow me, Albatrossity, at https://twitter.com/DaveRintoul01

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On The Road - Albatrossity - Winter Hawks 7
Near Manhattan KSDecember 3, 2019

One of the keys to deciphering the plumages of Red-tailed Hawks is to first determine if the bird is an adult, or a youngster hatched last summer. Best clue is the yellow iris, seen well on this young bird of the eastern (borealis) subspecies.

Friday Morning Open Thread: Speaker Pelosi Does Not Negotiate with Terrorists

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… such as #MoscowMitch McConnell

… McConnell has his own problems. The denizens of Bedlam want a piece, too. And they have a fan at the other end of The Avenue.

It is an open secret that, as useful as they find them at times, Senate Republicans generally look at their House colleagues as bad seeds. That this split could open up here should come as no surprise, because the denizens of Bedlam don’t owe McConnell and his leadership team a damn thing…

The longer Pelosi holds the articles, the more we see how closely every single Republican is tied to the president*, and the lengths to which they all would go to protect him from any kind of oversight and from the faintest consequences. I don’t think this can go on forever, but there is one thing I am sure of: If McConnell goes ahead with the trial on his own, his days as a Majority Leader are numbered.

And she has the support of the best people in Congress, against the worst people in Congress.

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Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: IOC Pretends It Can Stick to Sports

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Because ‘banning Russian participation‘ while permitting Russian athletes to participate has already done so much to quiet controversy, the elderly greedheads in charge of window-dressing the Olympics has laid down its markers to soothe the other authoritarian regimes. Per the Guardian:

Politicians and athletes should keep politics out of this year’s Tokyo Olympic Games to protect the event’s neutrality and its status as a peaceful meeting place, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has said.

The Games have seen both political protests by athletes in the past as well as boycotts of nations and Bach said any infusion of politics into the Games in Tokyo starting on 24 July would not be welcome.

The IOC’s guidelines specify which types of athlete protests will not be allowed. Athletes are prohibited by the Olympic Charter’s Rule 50 from taking a political stand in the field of play – like the raised fists by American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Games.

Today’s Olympians now know more about which acts of “divisive disruption” will lead to disciplinary action in Tokyo. They can still express political opinions in official media settings or on social media accounts.

“The mission of the Olympics is to unite and not to divide. We are the only event in the world that gets the entire world together in a peaceful competition,” Bach told reporters after a meeting with the IOC athletes’ commission chief Kirsty Coventry…

Athletes who break protest rules in Tokyo face three rounds of disciplinary action – by the IOC, a sport’s governing body and a national Olympic body.

The new guidelines come after two American athletes were reprimanded by the US Olympic Committee for medal podium protests at the Pan-American Games in August in Lima, Peru. Fencer Race Imboden kneeled and hammer thrower Gwen Berry raised a fist in protest. Both were put on probation for 12 months, a period that covers the Tokyo Olympics.

Other protests in 2019 included swimmers from Australia and Britain refusing to join world championship gold medallist Sun Yang on the podium because the Chinese star has been implicated in doping violations…

Actually, I suppose the highlighted section, exempting ‘official media settings’ and social media accounts, could actually be considered a positive step… if the IOC keeps its word.

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