Nicely Said

This makes me feel a little better. Just a little.

Is this really who we are? pic.twitter.com/88BERFm2XY

— Late Night with Seth Meyers (@LateNightSeth) June 24, 2018

Well said, Seth.

Hi! We're doomed!

Today sucked. The Supreme Court has been issuing terrible decisions for the past week and today was no exception. But Trump getting a new Supreme Court pick is just . . .

His stupid supporters cheering for something that's going to make life objectively worse for most Americans, limiting civil rights, exacerbating income inequality, eliminating women's right to choose, refusing to check an out of control autocrat, just makes me ill. These people are too stupid to know they've been scammed. Are we great yet?

All we can do is RESIST.  And VOTE.

Everything depends on November.

Everything.

(Oh, and Mitch McConnell is a traitor to this country and the Constitution and I hope Hell actually exists so he can burn in it forever.)

A test of your humanity

Here's the test.

Are you opposed to the Trump policy of separating children from families at the United States border?

It's that simple.

What the Administration is doing is monstrous, a violation of human rights akin to early Nazi actions against the Jews. They're not only terrorizing children and hurting families, but they're lying about it, scapegoating the Democrats and the families themselves, and ignoring the wishes of the vast majority of Americans.

Republicans have always called themselves the party of "family values", "Christians" who "value life", but they have been complicit in every facet of this nightmare. A MAJORITY of Republican voters APPROVE of ICE's actions. Let that sink in. A pollster calls your home, describes what's happening, and you tell them that you APPROVE. That says something about the Republicans and their "morality".

If you can justify this in your own mind. If you can argue that they deserve it. Or that they're criminals. Or that they're responsible for this atrocity committed against themselves, you have failed the basic test of your humanity: understanding, empathy and compassion. If you do not oppose this, you have embraced evil.

It's that simple.

This action will go down in history alongside the Trail of Tears, slavery, Japanese-American Internment, and syphilis experiments on black men.

We are monsters if we allow this to continue.

Incredibles 2

You may have noticed that I haven't posted my thoughts on Incredibles 2 yet. Honestly, it's because I'm still thinking about the experience. 

(VERY MINOR SPOILERS BELOW)

I *think* the movie was brilliant. A direct continuation of the original, it continues on with the story from the very moment the first Incredibles ended. And right away I loved how the encounter with the Underminer really surprised me; I didn't expect it to go the way it did.

The rest of the story hits some of the same story beats as the original, but from a different perspective. And I really loved certain elements of the villain storyline, but I won't say more because I don't want to ruin anything if you haven't seen it.

I should also point out that the action scenes were really well done and the animation what you expect from Pixar. The characters are more expressive here, which takes some getting used to, and the look of the film is decidedly more dark, which I really appreciated.

I may post more once I've seen it again. And, yes, I will definitely be seeing it again soon.

Cinemus Interruptus

Uh, okay. The 5:40PM showing was sold out. First time that's happened in a long time. So now we have tickets for 7:45PM.

For a little bit longer, there will still be only one The Incredibles in my head.

Sorry for the delay.

An historic moment in Ipecac history

I am now in the last hour of my life, where there aren't two The Incredibles movies in my head.

See you on the other side.

Michael Scott would be better

While there's nothing funny about a murderous dictator gaining legitimacy by meeting with a wannabe dictator, I did find this pretty funny.

The most “The Office” thing that has happened on TV since the show ended. pic.twitter.com/3ZnoVa6Jtc

— Benj Haisch (@benjhaisch) June 12, 2018

State media and deals that aren't deals

I apologize for asking you to watch this.

Stop what you’re doing and watch how Fox News covered Obama’s comments saying he would be willing to meet with North Korea on the campaign trail in ‘08 with how they covered Trump.

Fox. News. Is. State. TV.pic.twitter.com/SNkRoBO5T2

— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) June 12, 2018

State TV indeed.

I would also like to point out that the recently cancelled Iran Agreement that Trump killed because it was the "worst deal ever":

- Took years to negotiate
- Involved the United States, Iran, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the E.U.
- Eliminated all of Iran's weapons grade uranium
- Disallows further refinement of uranium to weapons grade

- Includes rigorous and ongoing monitoring and verification protocols

- Removed sanctions on Iran as their compliance was verified

- IS WORKING

Despite all of the above resulting in Iran halting the research and development of their NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM, the Republicans have attacked it since day one and Trump pulled the U.S. out of it.

On the other hand, Republicans and Trump are cheering his five hour "summit" with Kim Jung Un that produced a one page general outline of recycled, stale talking points that North Korea has been promoting for about twenty years while violating the same talking points.

And all we had to give up was everything North Korea wanted.

Heckuva job, Trumpie.

Oh, and if you didn't see the North Korean White House propaganda film aired at the summit, you really should.  (I apologize for asking you to watch this as well.)

Reminder: this was produced by the White House (of the United States of America).

In which I agree with Fox News

Below is from Fox & Friends co-host Abby Huntsman.

See if you can spot the mistake.

“This is history,” Huntsman said over video showing Trump arriving in Singapore ahead of Tuesday’s meeting with Kim.

“Regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators, what we are seeing right now ― this is history,” she continued.  Link

When you're right, you're right.

This Week in Dumb-Stupid - June 8, 2018

Damn but this was an especially exhausting week.

Dumb-Stupid the First

First up, The Pr*sident of the United States thinks that Canada burned down the White House during the War of 1812!

When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Trump why he would consider Canada a "national security threat" (Trump's excuse for the escalating trade war with OUR ALLIES), Trump "quipped":

"Didn't you guys burn down the White House?"  Link

In fact, they did not. Canada wasn't even its own country until 1931.

For the record, the British burned down the White House. Since we were at war with Great Britain during the War of 1812, that makes perfect sense.

Dumb-Stupid the Second

Next up, you may be aware that next week, Trump will be meeting with Kim Jong Un of North Korea for a circle-jerk photo op summit. South and North Korea have a long and bitter history and one would think that it will take a thorough knowledge of that history, as well as knowing the goals and strategies of the various stakeholders in the region like China, Japan, and Russia, to be successful.

Or you could, you know, just wing it.

“I think I'm very well prepared, I don't think I have to prepare very much. It's about attitude. It's about willingness to get things done.”  Link

This, ladies and gentleman, is the man that a minority of Americans chose to represent us on the world stage. A guy so lazy and intellectually deficient that he won't even do his homework for a summit with a rogue nuclear power who threatens millions of lives in South Korea, most of Asia and even Hawaii. 

Dumb-Stupid the Third

You may recall how we had a particularly nasty hurricane season in 2017 (thanks, climate change!) where hurricanes devastated Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. Due to the incompetence and criminal negligence of the Administration, Puerto Rico is, in fact, still reeling with around 5,000 deaths, hundreds of thousands still without power, and another hurricane season fast approaching.

But not to worry! Trump went to FEMA to discuss hurricane preparedness and brought along his entire cabinet! Problem solved! They won't drop the ball this year!

President Trump had a lot else on his mind, turning the closed-door discussion into soliloquies on his prowess in negotiating airplane deals, his popularity, the effectiveness of his political endorsements, the Republican Party’s fortunes, the vagaries of Defense Department purchasing guidelines, his dislike of magnetized launch equipment on aircraft carriers, his unending love of coal and his breezy optimism about his planned Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Link

To be fair, who DOESN'T love coal? He apparently hijacked the meeting so badly that there was no actual discussion of FEMA readiness.

Here he is talking about magnetized launch equipment on aircraft carriers, because it's super relevant to hurricane prep.

"Part of it is, they want to have all new. Instead of having the system that throws the aircraft off the [ship], which was always steam. They now have magnets. They’re using magnets instead of steam. . . . They spent hundreds of millions of dollars, I’m hearing not great things about it. It’s frankly ridiculous.”  Link

I cannot wait for him to solve this one. These magnetic launchers have really been keeping me up at night. Ridiculous is an understatement, am I right? WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!?

I feel so much better, just knowing he's in charge of our safety. Indeed, our very lives rest in his tiny, tiny hands.

Dumb-Stupid the Last

When Trump first took over the White House, he called it a "dump". Now we may know why.

Mika Brzezinski, who has herself been a target of Donald Trump’s misogynistic attacks, revealed one more hypocritical tidbit about the serial philandering, sexual assaulter-in-chief: his #1 complaint about living in the White House is he cannot access porn.  Link

This is the man supported by Christian evangelicals. This is the man supported by the "Family Values" party. This is the man that the red states have turned into their very own Orange Jesus.

I would imagine he can't access porn because the White House has a secure, government wifi network and there are government and security regs about what can be accessed. So no porn for Trump. I certainly don't care whether or not he accesses porn, but the hypocrisy of his supporters is noted, again and again.

No wonder he spends so much time at Mar a Lago.


And that's this week in Dumb-Stupid. Please shoot me.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

A short review, before it leaves theaters.

I enjoyed it. Solo was a fun adventure tale that was different from every previous Star Wars movie. The story was just a tad heavy on the fan service, but I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel. I'm sad that it's not doing very well.

And Donald Glover as Lando was awesome.

Most Patriotic President Ever Says Patriotic Things!

Yesterday, at his seven minute long, mostly attended by Republican staffers, pity-party that the Super Bowl Champs, the Philadelphia Eagles, didn't want to attend, he said this:

And our country has never done better than it’s doing right now. Never. Record numbers at every outpost. You take a look at what’s going on: Lowest unemployment numbers we’ve had. Lowest African American unemployment in the history of our country. Lowest Hispanic numbers in the history of our country. Lowest numbers for women in 21 years.

We’ve created $7 trillion of value in our country since the election. We’re the largest economy in the world, and getting a lot larger, and fast. It’s happened very quickly. Actually, quicker than I even thought.

Now, to be fair, there was a point where Black unemployment was zero. But, don't worry, Republicans are doing everything they can to return us to those days!

Let's check on those numbers.

Guess there's only one thing to say.

Roseanne versus Samantha Bee

Samantha Bee drew criticism from Republicans this week when she called Ivanka Trump a " feckless cunt" on her show, Full Frontal. Republicans gleefully compared her to Roseanne Barr, whose show was cancelled after she made a racist tweet. They have demanded that Bee's show be cancelled too.

Note to Republicans, something all sensible people know: The two things are NOT the same.

Samantha Bee was criticizing Ivanka for posting a tone-deaf picture of herself and her little boy, while ignoring the ongoing human rights crisis at our southern border where U.S. government agents are ripping children away from their parents. Ivanka is supposed to be the rational, calming influence on her father and she has apparently done nothing to prevent other families from being ripped apart, while advertising her privileged life.

What Ivanka did was the equivalent of this.

NAZI propaganda celebrating "Aryan" families
while they were destroying non-Aryan families.

Samantha Bee was right to call Ivanka out on it, and while her language may not have been PG-13, if you get more outraged by the word "cunt" than you do that children are being taken away from their parents, you need to reevaluate your priorities and, in the meantime, shut the hell up.

What Roseanne did was out and out racist. Her victim didn't deserve it, nor did millions of African Americans. She deserved to lose her show.

Samantha Bee was trying to get the attention of someone standing by while atrocities are being committed. She doesn't deserve to lose her show. In fact, while you may not like her language, she deserves to be applauded for using her platform to try and change terrible U.S. policy.

Republicans, learn how to differentiate between someone punching up to criticize an individual who deserves it, and being a stinking racist. They're not the same thing.

In the Navy

The position of President of the U.S. is supposed to be one of dignity, integrity, and representing the 300+ million Americans in the best traditions of the country.

Then there's the Trump way.

President Donald Trump misrepresented what he’s doing for members of the armed forces when he spoke Friday to graduates of the United States Naval Academy.  Link

Keep in mind that he's talking to Naval Academy graduates, young women and men who have volunteered to serve this country at risk of their lives and who live up to very strict moral standards.

“Going to have new equipment and well-deserved pay raises. We just got you a big pay raise. First time in 10 years. We got you a big pay increase. First time in over 10 years. I fought for you. That was the hardest one to get, but you never had a chance of losing.”

This is an out and out baldfaced LIE.

Here's the AP:

THE FACTS: That’s not right. U.S. military members have gotten a pay raise every year for the past 10 years and several have been larger than this year’s 2.6 percent increase. Pay increases in 2008, 2009 and 2010, for example, were all 3.4 percent or more.

But wait, there's more!

“We have now the lowest number of ships that we’ve had since World War I, and very soon you’re going to get to 355 beautiful ships. 355. That’s almost a couple of hundred more ships.”

This is stupid as well as a LIE. It's stupid because comparing the number of modern, sophisticated warships we have today to the number of our WWI ships is just moronic and has been so every time the Republicans have done it over the past ten years. Our modern ships are a little more capable than those of a century ago.

As for the LIE, here's AP again.

THE FACTS: No it isn’t [a couple hundred more]. The Navy now has 283 ships.

And a 355-vessel battle fleet is not going to be achieved “very soon.” The Navy plans to reach 355 in the 2050s while saying that could happen in the 2030s if it gets more money and extends the normal life of ships in the fleet.

This is the Commander-in-Chief, the man who holds these graduates lives in his minuscule little hands, and he's either straight up lying to them, or too stupid to know that he's wrong.

Either way it's appalling and an affront to the service to which these graduates have dedicated their lives.

Racist asshats don't deserve a TV show (your daily dose of schadenfreude)

Not cool:

(She's calling Obama Administration official and African American, Valerie Jarrett, an ape).

Cool:

From Channing Dungey, President of ABC Entertainment: "Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show."
There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing.

— Robert Iger (@RobertIger) May 29, 2018

Puerto Whoco?

Remember Puerto Rico, where every resident is an American citizen and Trump tossed paper towels at them after hurricane Maria while bragging about how few people were killed?

"Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here, with a storm that was really, totally overpowering — nobody's ever seen anything like this — and what is your death count as of this moment? Seventeen?"

"Sixteen." 

"You can be very proud, 16 people versus in the thousands,"

Cross included in background for extra dose of hypocrisy.

Turns out, estimating death counts before the emergency is over isn't very accurate.

Over 4,600 people died in Puerto Rico during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria ― more than 70 times the official death toll ― according to a new Harvard study released Tuesday.  Link

Those ingrates! Don't they know that dying on Trump's watch makes him look bad? How dare they!

Ha! I'm kidding. No one's paying attention to Puerto Rico any more so those 4,600 dead people can't make Trump look bad!

Of course, many of those deaths can be directly attributable to the piss poor response of the federal government under Trump's direction. President George W. Bush took a huge political hit because of his incompetent handling of hurricane Katrina, but Trump's many, many, many scandals have shifted attention away from the abandonment of these American citizens by their elected representatives.

Which leads to this.

Link to interactive timer.

Puerto Rico, call us when you're a "real catastrophe".

Too lazy to Tweet

Oh for the . . .

When a White House employee wants the president to tweet about a topic, the official writes a memo to the president that includes three or four sample tweets, according to those familiar with the process.

Trump then picks the one he likes best, according to the two people, neither of whom wanted to be named because they’re not authorized to talk about the operations. Sometimes Trump will edit the wording and sometimes he’ll just pick his favorite for blasting out to his 52 million Twitter followers.  Link

I really am sick of all the winning.

This is what corruption looks like

Let's imagine for a moment that President Obama had done this.

A mere 72 hours after the Chinese government agreed to put a half-billion dollars into an Indonesian project that will personally enrich Donald Trump, the president ordered a bailout for a Chinese-government-owned cellphone maker.

“President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast,” Trump announced on Twitter Sunday morning. “Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”

Trump did not mention in that tweet or its follow-ups that on Thursday, the developer of a theme park resort outside of Jakarta had signed a deal to receive as much as $500 million in Chinese government loans, as well as another $500 million from Chinese banks, according to Agence France-Presse. Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, has a deal to license the Trump name to the resort, which includes a golf course and hotels.

Let's just make this clear.

• Trump calls for a trade war with China and proposes tariffs
• The US government bans Chinese company ZTE from selling its products in the US because the company was spying on Americans.
• China loans up to $500 million to a Trump-related business.
• Trump instructs the Commerce Dept. to give ZTE a break because of "jobs in China."

Yeah. But it's okay for him to accept payoffs from foreign powers because he's the President, right?

Home town stupid

This week, Trump and Pence held a political rally in my hometown, Elkhart, Indiana.

Elkhart, a manufacturing center for the recreational vehicle industry, was hit hard by the great recession. President Obama made Elkhart an example of how his policies could help the economic recovery. He visited the town four times during his administration and steered stimulus money directly to Elkhart. Did it work?

That's the unemployment rate in Elkhart. It hit a high of 20% at the height of the recession and during the Obama years steadily fell to less than 3% at the end of the Obama Administration.

Thanks, Obama.

Elkhart was also lifted out of the recession by a large wave of Mexican immigrants who came to town because of the manufacturing capacity. These immigrants became part of the community and brought millions of dollars with them.

And yet, most of the population supports President Trump, who has attacked the very immigrants who helped Elkhart and is sabotaging the healthcare on which many residents depend. Republicans' only legislative achievement, the tax cut for the rich, won't help Elkhart one bit. Trump also pushes policies that hurt working men and women and will start reversing those unemployment numbers.

The ingratitude is galling to me and the lack of perspective frustrating. Democratic policies helped the town recover and they've turned their backs to support a guy who doesn't give a damn about them and is actively attacking their neighbors.

Then there's this.

Yes, I remember how Republicans separated the President's personal life and his job during Democratic administrations. They completely ignored Clinton's consensual affair with a non-porn star. They did such a good job they even ignored fictional issues with the President's personal life, like, say, whether or not he was born in the United States.

The hypocrisy is stunning, but not surprising.

Obama didn't free the Iranian hostages, either

Good news this week as North Korea freed three imprisoned Americans in anticipation of the Trump/Kim meeting scheduled for June. As usual, for our Pr*sident, it was all about him.








Because if he can't compare himself to Obama, then what's the point?

But here's the thing.

The "past" Administration couldn't have been asking for the return of the three hostages because two of them had been imprisoned since Trump became President. Yes, he couldn't even tell the truth about something that was positive without wrongly slamming President Obama.

What's more, during the Obama Administration, eleven Americans were released from North Korea. But President Obama didn't have TV events to publicize it. Why? Because past Presidents have felt that subjecting newly freed prisoners to public scrutiny could be traumatic.

But Trump doesn't care about them, it's all about him. He had a three AM tarmac meeting to greet them, of course with the cameras rolling. Because without the cameras, there's no point.

This is going to cost us

The Pr*sident of the United States made the world a much more dangerous and unpredictable place today. By pulling the United States out of the Iran nuclear agreement, he not only put Iran back on track to a nuclear weapon, but he demonstrated that the U.S. won't stand up to its obligations or stand by its allies.

Let's review, shall we.

The agreement with Iran took about a decade to negotiate. Signing parties were Iran, the U.S., France, Great Britain, Germany, Russia and China.

As part of the agreement, Iran agreed to stop processing uranium for the development of nuclear weapons and agreed to a strict inspection regime to enforce that agreement.

According to the U.N. inspectors, our allies in Europe, and the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Iran has been in compliance with the agreement.

Under the agreement, Iran couldn't start back on the road to a nuclear weapon until 2030 at the earliest.

What Iran got was a return of about $2 billion that we froze decades ago (their own money), a loosening of sanctions, and a chance to normalize relations with the West. This was an unequivocally good thing.

But Trump threw all of that away for no reason other than he hates Obama. It's clear that he doesn't understand the agreement or what it means. All he knows is that he had a chance to dismantle something President Obama did. In his speech today announcing his decision, he gave no actual information on why this is a good idea or cited any facts that support pulling us out.

This decision greatly increased the possibility of us going to war in the Middle East. Again.

This will also affect the economy as it will likely drive gas prices up and new sanctions will disrupt the world economy.

Certification of the Iran agreement is one of the most important thing the U.S. President has to do, and we left the decision to a thin-skinned, ignorant, unfaithful, narcissistic, likely criminal, bully who doesn't have any idea what he's doing.

We are really stupid.

Chief of Staff honors women

Trump's Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, is supposed to be the adult in the White House.

The White House spokespeople said they haven't seen Kelly have a negative effect on the morale of women staffers. If anything, they said during meetings Kelly is the "bigger gentleman" who steps in when aides use foul language to note "a lady is present" and similarly says he shouldn't use foul language in front of a lady if he's used an expletive. The spokespeople, who would not speak for the record, said it's possible Kelly may have said women are more emotional than men, with one of them agreeing that "generally speaking, women are more emotional than men.” Link

WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE AHEAD

Fuck that noise.

Being the "bigger gentleman" by treating women like they're delicate flowers removes them from important deliberative and decision-making opportunities. Putting women on a pedestal neither honors nor dignifies women, it isolates them and perpetuates the same paternalistic attitudes that keep women from leadership positions and true equality. It's patronizing, outdated, stupid and useless. I don't care if Kelly is an old guy who pines for the "good old days". It's the 21st century, grow the hell up.

And I won't even go into the obvious idiocy of "women are more emotional than men."

Seriously, fuck that noise.

The Tweet speaks for itself

Surreal that on the same day he acknowledges that he lied to the nation about paying hush money to a porn star, @POTUS Tweets out footage of his National Prayer Day event in the Rose Garden. https://t.co/ELNUoRsQRs

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) May 3, 2018

I'm sorry, farmers, but this is what you deserve if you voted for him

I have to admit, this news is bad, but I'm feeling a little schadenfreude for those dumbasses in red farm states who voted for the orange moron.

The world’s biggest oilseed processor just confirmed one of the soybean market’s biggest fears: China has essentially stopped buying U.S. supplies amid the brewing trade war.

“Whatever they’re buying is non-U.S.,” Bunge Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Soren Schroder said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “They’re buying beans in Canada, in Brazil, mostly Brazil, but very deliberately not buying anything from the U.S.” […]

It’s “very clear” that the trade tensions have already stopped China from buying U.S. supplies, Schroder said. “How long that will last, who knows? But so long as there is this big cloud of uncertainty, that’s likely to continue.”

The Chinese are kicking our asses in Trump's stupid trade war because we need them more than they need us.

By the middle of April, China had cancelled a net 62,690 metric tons of soybean purchases according to USDA data for the current market year, which ends August 31. Our loss will apparently be Brazil's gain, "as it sells 73.1 million tons abroad versus 56.2 million from the U.S., the USDA estimates." China is the second largest market for agricultural exports from the U.S., with soybeans being one of the top products.  Link

Gee, who would have thought?


Note to farmers: Trump is NOT a good business man and doesn't understand basic economics. Get that through your heads.

Today in DUH.

Do you remember that crazy letter written by Trump's doctor before the election that said Trump's test results were "astonishingly excellent" and that his physical strength and stamina "are extraordinary" and that if Trump was elected he would be "the healthiest individual ever elected to the Presidency?"

Yeah, that doctor totally didn't write that letter.

"He [Trump] dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter," Bornstein told CNN on Tuesday. "I just made it up as I went along." [...]

He said Trump read out the language as Bornstein and his wife were driving across Central Park.

"(Trump) dictated the letter and I would tell him what he couldn't put in there," he said. "They came to pick up their letter at 4 o'clock or something."  Link

No word on why this goofball would risk his personal and professional reputation to lie for a jackass who was clearly none of the superlatives above. I'm guessing he was paid a lot. Well, at least promised to be paid.

No word on when former White House doctor and former nominee to head the Veterans Administration, Ronny Jackson, will admit to lying earlier this year after Trump's physical.