The Dogs That Didn’t Bark

We would do anything to rule. And we would do that. Oh hell, and we would do that.

–Meatloaf GOP 2016

President Twitter Troll regularly spouts Kremlin propaganda and just named the Exxon CEO and possible Russian agent to be Secretary of State. Nope, nuthin’ 2 C here.

Trump Names Cancer to Lead Department of Health and Human Services.

@¡Andrew!:
Named developmentally challenged doofus as Sec of Energy.

And Secretary Exxon/Friend of Putin all but official, pending GOP blowback. We’ll see if they all roll over during the confirmation hearings.

If ISIS were hand-selecting a team to destroy the United States government and its people, they couldn’t have chosen a better gang of greedy, hateful, aggressively ignorant assholes.

One thing’s for sure: This train wreck will go off the rails almost instantaneously in January. The Twitter Troll administration will implode due to their own avarice, infighting, and incompetence.

@ManchuCandidate: That’s unfair to developmentally challenged people. Perry is willfully ignorant.

@mellbell:
True, I was mean. They’re also smarter and better human beings than Perry.

@nojo: Rubio, McCain, and Graham are now all on record as having varying degrees of misgivings about Tillerson, but I can’t tell if they’re blowing smoke or what. Rubio and McCain were both just reelected easily, and Graham was reelected in 2014 with over 50 percent of the vote in a 4-way race, so it’s not clear to me why they feel the need to preemptively create daylight between themselves and Trump. Not to mention that the 2018 Senate elections should be a cakewalk for Republicans (with the possible exception of Heller in Nevada). All told, it’s hard to imagine the hearings being particularly contentious for anyone.

@mellbell: Rand Paul may raise a fuss, unless I’m confusing his comments with some other nominee.

Rubio I don’t trust at all, but I’m curious to see how McCain and Lindsey play out on this and other issues. They haven’t shown an inclination to roll — yet — but words now are easily forgotten a month from now. We’ll have to see.

FSM knows we could all use some laughs:

Disney World Opens New Ordeal Kingdom For Family Meltdowns

BAY LAKE, FL—Touting the new property’s wide variety of unique and imaginative attractions, representatives from the Walt Disney World Resort announced Monday the opening of Ordeal Kingdom, a new theme park specifically designed for full-scale family meltdowns.

Situated between Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, the 350-acre property reportedly incorporates many of the most aggravating elements of Disney’s other parks and expands them into a creative and fully immersive world of irritation, which is said to include the longest lines in the entire resort, a convoluted layout that is only depicted in indecipherable cartoon maps that are not to scale, and 150 percent higher prices. According to park director Jacob Bartlett, Ordeal Kingdom’s specialized combination of features will ensure a slowly building resentment among visiting families, eventually resulting in a dramatic public outburst followed by a silent walk back to the car.

“No trip to Disney is complete without everyone in your party losing all emotional self-control,” Bartlett continued. “And at Ordeal Kingdom, we promise that all your wildest family blowups will come to life!”

I’m addicted to Empire, and Sierra McClain recently rocked the best song of the season. Cannot. Stop. Dancin’. I wonder what it must be like to be this insanely talented.

Sierra McClain – Black Girl Magic

Did the US government ever have a contingency plan in case a psychopathic demagogue were elected president? That seems like something they would’ve cooked up in the paranoia-crazed 1950s, though it would’ve been anti-communist at the time. A casual internet search has revealed nothing.

@¡Andrew!: Well, Nixon, but as you note, they would have been looking for Lefty Demagogues. Hoover/MLK comes to mind.

What’s going on in North Carolina is interesting. The legislature is stripping the power of the Governor before the new Dem Governor is sworn in. They seem to be going after control of the elections first followed by some other powers.

@DElurker: By any means necessary.

Meaning: Screw Saul Alinsky, time for some Malcolm X.

Dahlia Lithwick’s op-ed in the NYT yesterday made the point clearly that Democrats play by the rules whereas Republicans ignore the rules. Or, IOW, Dems bring a wiffle-bat to a gun battle. Where’s a hard-ass fighter or pit-bull like LBJ? Even Schumer has been silent.

@¡Andrew!: The contingency plan was/is the Electoral College. Unfortunately they seem to think their role is to be a rubber stamp.

In addition to financial contributions to the ACLU and other groups, this week I donated my car to the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. A company out of California actually coordinates the process, and they made it super easy. They arrange for the car to be auctioned, so the charity receives a check for the proceeds and we get a tax deduction. If you’ve ever considered this as another method to help those that need it most, I highly recommend it.

I’ve gone on a news break again for my own mental health. It’s been really sickening seeing one national figure after another kiss President Twitter Troll’s ass instead of speaking out against him on behalf of those of us who have the most to lose under the kleptocratic RepubliKKKan dictatorship.

Bill Gates’ comparison of Trump–a sleazy, lying, fascist, racist, sexist, xenophobic moron–to JFK, one of our greatest Democratic presidents, was especially despicable.

Unless of course that was some kind of Illuminati signal code for You-Know-What, in which case I take it back.

@SanFranLefty: Schumer has his head so far up Wall Street’s a$$ that trying to reason with him will be like sending signals to a sunken diving bell. I expect that the Dems will be pathetic quislings once again, with a few notable yet ultimately ineffective exceptions.

Goldman Sachs makes munnie by goading suckers to invest all of their life savings at the top of a fraud for huge fees, then betting against them and making a bundle when the scam implodes. The fact that they’ll be running the Treasury and the entire eCONomy like history’s greatest pump-and-dump scheme is the worst of all. Save every dollar that you can, cuz we’re in for a wild ride enseguida.

On a positive note Joe Apraio announced that he was dropping his investigation of Obama’s citizenship. Thought you might like to know.

@¡Andrew!: At least my governor Moonbeam is putting up a fight. This speech is classic Jerry – he’s ignoring his written speech (throwing it on the ground around 13:00), making off-the-cuff remarks complete with Latin references, and showing off his stylish 1983 $5 Casio digital watch when he waves his arm. Mr. SFL was at this conference and said that Jerry had the earth scientists all fired up.

@DElurker: One of the few bright spots of this 2016 election was him finally losing.

@SanFranLefty: I would prefer that Jerry not taunt the feds, but instead quietly sabotage them.

@Dodgerblue: True that but never underestimate the energy of previously politically apathetic earth scientists who finally got a ginormous fire lit under their collective asses.

@SanFranLefty: Governor Jay Inslee, along with a host of Democratic lawmakers and human rights activists, held a press conference in which they declared Washington state a Hate Free Zone. He also proposed a carbon tax and a capital gains tax. It may not seem like much, but words matter and every little bit helps.