The Beginning of the End

National anxiety levels have spiked in the last couple weeks, but there is one person who is showing signs of strain more than anyone else. The Captain of the Ship.

The end is nigh. He can feel it. We can all feel it!

He was never cut out for the job, and as much as his he and his base love to remind us of the fact that a non-politician "common man" got the job to "drain the swamp," it is a failed experiment. This one is about to go into the history books.


This is what has been on our minds, and what is leading to the End of Times.

The new Congress arrives in just a few days, ready to re-start investigations and issue subpoenas -- good for our country, lethal for the presidency.

Mueller's report is expected to be released in the near future -- good for our country, lethal for the presidency. Some say the report will never be made public, while others say it's already been made public -- we just need to know how to read it. In any case, more indictments are to be made, I'm sure. The judge that was set to sentence Michael Flynn hinted strongly to him that he should postpone sentencing and keep talking... all the while throwing around the T-word (Treason).

45 alone is responsible for a government shutdown, closing in on a week's duration. A couple weeks ago, he said he would be "proud" to take responsibility for a shutdown. Republicans in Congress, those who could try to bail him out, shrugged and went home for Christmas. Nothing's getting done til the new Congress. By the way, today SCROTUS inexplicably said that most of the furloughed people are Democrats and that his ever-present "many people" (those voices in his head) have told him that federal workers embrace the shutdown so that we may get our wall. What the bloody hell?

The stock market has been highly volatile. The Dow dropped 2,805 points between December 13 and December 24, then gained back almost half of that the last two days, when Wednesday the Dow gained 1,050 points, the largest 1-day point gain in history, and today after dropping 600 points, by day's end the Dow ended 260 points higher. The volatility is directly due to SCROTUS's mouth noises about firing the Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and then sending Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to talk about banks' liquidity, causing concern about a problem that wasn't a problem. The New York Times calls 45 "King Minus."

Talking head are sounding the alarm that this presidency is in a downward spiral,  including MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews, as well as conservative commentator David Brooks, who said the "membrane around Trump is failing" and we see "Trump really hurting himself, and maybe not serving out the term."

Republicans are turning their backs on him; and he is literally "all alone," since Gen. Mattis, the best man that still stood with him, finally reached his limit, as so many have.

The AP published an analysis that shows his core is starting to crack. And it's not only voters he is losing. The GOP leadership is backing away as well. The Mattis resignation, among other issues, bothered a lot of Republican leaders -- even the most staunch TЯUMP supporters like Sens. McConnell (R-KY) and Rubio (R-FL). Meet the Press's Chuck Todd asserted that we're looking at "the beginning of the functional end of presidency."

Meet the Press moderator @chucktodd looks at Republican lawmakers' response to the government shutdown and the importance of Gen. Mattis resigning. "We may look back on the Mattis resignation as the beginning of the functional end of this presidency," Todd says. pic.twitter.com/h4X9EU5xEi

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 23, 2018

The Toddler-in-Chief is showing the strain. He has been acting increasingly erratic. His tweets are all over the place. Though he was all bluff and bluster saying that he's not concerned and that "the people would revolt" if he were impeached, there are reports that secretly is quite concerned about the possibility.

And the possibility is real. If there was any case for impeachment of a president  in our nation's history, it's this one. Two presidents before were impeached and later acquitted by the Senate: Andrew Johnson in 1868, for violating the Tenure of Office Act, and Bill Clinton in 1998, for lying about a dalliance with an intern. Both were acquitted. Though never formally charged with a crime himself, Nixon was threatened with impeachment in 1974, but resigned before proceedings.

Nixon counsel John Dean, who was convicted of obstruction of justice during Watergate, has been critical of 45 since day one. His prediction back in January 2017 was that the presidency would end "in calamity." He now compares the current administration to Nixon's being a "brief idyllic daydream."

Trump’s is making the long nightmare of Nixon’s Watergate seem like a brief idyllic daydream. History will treat Nixon’s moral failures as relatively less troubling than Trump’s sustained and growing decadence, deviousness and self-delusive behavior. Nixon=corrupt; Trump=evil.

— John Dean (@JohnWDean) November 4, 2018

And Dean has recently asserted that the new Congress will have "little choice" but to start impeachment proceedings.

Elizabeth Drew, who covered Watergate for the New Yorker wrote in an Op/Ed that impeachment is inevitable.

Just how will this end, Little Sister Resister? Waaaay back at the beginning of this blog, I laid out how it might end. Let me update my predictions, worth all the pixels used to write them.

I think impeachment proceedings will begin, and with the greater numbers of Republicans turning their backs on him, there is a possibility of the Senate having the numbers who would vote to impeach.

I don't think this man has the smarts or the grace to bow out and resign before impeachment can happen. He is not a quitter, and all his lies and delusions are not going to go away. He'll just gain more "enemies." He won't resign. BUT ol' Cadet Bone-Spurs has found ways of getting out of sticky situations before in the name of health. A doctor made up something to get him out of going to Vietnam. A doctor made up something to help get him elected. A doctor made up something to help keep him in office. A doctor can make up something to help him resign for "health reasons." This would give him the out he needs.


Meanwhile, we are chilling the champagne.

Happy 2019, Brother and Sister Resisters! It will be a good year. A very good year.

Daryl Cagle

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And lastly, a couple other tidbits from this week.

What the bleep? He revealed the faces and location of Seal Team 5 in Iraq?? What a maroon!

And what's this noise? A nude selfie? Only in TЯUMP's America will those two words go together in a Federal legal document.

...And for grins and giggles. A review. Trump's Best Words: 2018 edition.

"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up."

We've had some blows this week.

The week's middle 72 hours can be counted as one of the worst periods in our nation's history. Not the worst 72 hours of the week, Not the worst 72 hours of the year, or of the last two years. Not exaggerating. This is bad for us. We've been thrown into chaos. Truly.

Don't we all feel like we've suffered whiplash from all the antics of our own KAOS agent? It's been hard to keep up with the developments.

SCROTUS campaigned on a promise that there would be a southern border wall and that "Mexico will pay for it." He hasn't been able to get that to happen, and now suddenly it's two years later and he's about to lose the party monopoly. Last week, just 10 days ago, he sat with the Democratic leadership and told them that he would shut down the government and be "proud" to do it if he didn't get $5 billion for his flocking wall.

Tuesday, it seemed like there was an agreement for a stop-gap budget deal and 45 reportedly agreed to sign it. Of course, the bill didn't have funding for the wall. There are not enough votes for funding the wall. But Sarah Sanders hinted that the'd sign the budget bill and find "other ways" to fund the wall.

Wednesday, a couple whiney conservative talk radio hosts belittled their puppet in the Whitewash House. Rush Limbaugh lambasted him with, "It looks like a lot of people’s worst fears may be realized and that the president is getting ready to cave on getting any money for the wall in the current budget. ... Trump’s gonna get less than nothing because this compromise strips out the $1.6 billion for the wall that the Senate Appropriations Committee had already approved weeks ago. That’s gone too. Not only, is there not gonna be five billion, there isn’t gonna be $1.6 billion that was already allocated. So it’s an even better compromise in the minds of the Drive-By Media and the denizens of the swamp. Not a penny. Forget wall."

The slimy Ann Coulter called him "gutless," and in true 8th grade fashion, SCROTUS un-followed her on Twitter. And then capitulated.

He just can't bear to see his besties be mad at him! On Thursday, he threw a tantrum and demanded the funding for the wall again and forced a government shutdown. In a bow to him, the House passed a bill with funding for the wall, but it was just procedural. The Senate does not have the votes.

So, here it is, Friday night, as I write this, Congress has adjourned and we have a partial shutdown (thank goodness this essential service will be staffed no matter what!). Hundreds of thousands of government employees are furloughed or working without pay. And Christmas is in three days. yay.


Right punch.

And concurrently with that mess, the Fomenter-in-Chief decided to announce "Mission Accomplished" via Twitter. Guess what? The war with ISIS is over, we won, let's pick up our toys and go home!

Monday: TЯUMP talks to Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan who complains about US involvement in Syria. 45 shrugs and says, "You know what? It’s yours. I’m leaving.”

Wednesday morning:

We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2018

He ordered the immediate withdrawal of troops from Syria. Here's another non-sensical speech (and side note, there is an interesting distortion of the phoneme /k/ in "American" at :43  ....adding this to my bag o' speech evidence).

After historic victories against ISIS, it’s time to bring our great young people home! pic.twitter.com/xoNjFzQFTp

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2018

My first thought --and I imagine the thought of many-- was that it is just another gift to Putie. It throws the area back into destabilization and lets Assad conspire unchecked with Putin. I'm very much a dove and I just hate the thought of war. On the surface, it seems like it's a good thing to bring troops home and out of harm's way. But this idiot didn't think it through. He didn't consult with any of his expert advisors. This is a dangerous act. It's a gift to ISIS. ABC News explains more.

Soon after, on Thursday, he ordered the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. This 17-year-long war is horrible, and withdrawal is a long time coming. But this way? Now? Without input from military advisers?

Left punch. 

Thursday afternoon, General "Mad Dog" Mattis delivered his letter of resignation as Secretary of Defense and provided a copy to the public. Just before that, SCROTUS tried to spin his resignation as "retirement." Ummmm.....nope. The letter is poignant and powerful and deserves a read.

Dear Mr. President: 

I have been privileged to serve as our country’s 26th Secretary of Defense which has allowed me to serve alongside our men and women of the Department in defense of our citizens and our ideals. 

I am proud of the progress that has been made over the past two years on some of the key goals articulated in our National Defense Strategy: putting the Department on a more sound budgetary footing, improving readiness and lethality in our forces, and reforming the Department’s business practices for greater performance. Our troops continue to provide the capabilities needed to prevail in conflict and sustain strong U.S. global influence. 

One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships. While the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies. Like you, I have said from the beginning that the armed forces of the United States should not be the policeman of the world. Instead, we must use all tools of American power to provide for the common defense, including providing effective leadership to our alliances. NATO’s 29 democracies demonstrated that strength in their commitment to fighting alongside us following the 9-11 attack on America. The Defeat-ISIS coalition of 74 nations is further proof. 

Similarly, I believe we must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours. It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model — gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions — to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies. That is why we must use all the tools of American power to provide for the common defense.

My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues. We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances. 

Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position. The end date for my tenure is February 28, 2019, a date that should allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed as well as to make sure the Department’s interests are properly articulated and protected at upcoming events to include Congressional posture hearings and the NATO Defense Ministerial meeting in February. Further, that a full transition to a new Secretary of Defense occurs well in advance of the transition of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September in order to ensure stability within the Department.

I pledge my full effort to a smooth transition that ensures the needs and interests of the 2.15 million Service Members and 732,079 DoD civilians receive undistracted attention of the Department at all times so that they can fulfill their critical, round-the-clock mission to protect the American people. 

I very much appreciate this opportunity to serve the nation and our men and women in uniform.

Signed, 

...And we're down.

Everyone, right and left, was shocked and stunned of the news that Gen. Mattis is resigning over irreconcilable differences. Read some reactions from GOP leaders. He was one stable person in the cabinet. But sadly he, too, reached his breaking point. The message it sends is sobering.

And just in case anyone thought the nation was going to be able to push off the mat, we get the news that RBG had surgery today (Friday) for malignant lung nodules. The surgery was deemed a success, and no further treatment is expected, and knowing her, she'll kick cancer's ass AGAIN, cuz she kicks ass at will. But the thought of her leaving the bench anytime soon is just too much to bear.

We've been hit hard this week. And yet, Sister and Brother Resisters, I entreat you. Let's get back up. We can't lay down and give up. Dig deep, keep the hope, work together, and talk to your Members of Congress. There are signs that the GOP is finally reaching for the towel. We must persist! 

"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up." -- Vince Lombardi

"My! People come and go so quickly here!"

"My! People come and go so quickly here!"  -- Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz

The Witch Hunt is heating up. Houses are coming down left and right!

So far, 33 witches and three companies have been indicted or have entered guilty pleas. Five criminals directly associated with the Criminal-In-Chief have made deals: George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser; Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair; Rick Gates, a former Trump campaign aide and Manafort’s longtime junior business partner; Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, and most recently, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer for the last decade.

The biggest news this week was Michael Cohen's legal woes. Details came out about the Southern District of New York's charges against Cohen, who pleaded guilty in a plea deal and was sentenced to three years.

Cohen once said that he was so loyal to the President* that he would take a bullet for him. He remained loyal.... until he didn't. I've always been impressed with Mikey CocoPuffs. When FBI agents raided his offices back in April, 2018, he was calm and collected, polite to agents, and highly cooperative. At the time, SCROTUS was supportive, calling the raid, a “disgraceful situation” and an “attack on our country in a true sense.”

TЯUMP fully supported Cohen early on. For example:

....it means lying or making up stories. Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2018

How times have changed! Here eight months later, the rabid yam called him "a weak person and not a very smart person" and has said that Cohen lied and "should serve a full and complete sentence." Theoretically, Cohen could've gotten 70+ years for all of his charges. He ended up being sentenced this week to three years. Here is his plea deal and his sentence.

And Cohen is still fully cooperating with Mueller. He wants to undo all his wrongs. He seems sincerely remorseful and embarrassed that he put himself in the position. He must've been in a world of hurt, as he has said that going to jail brings him freedom.

The most fun part about Cohen's case was that in his court documents, he is described as the personal attorney of a certain Individual-1. After the first document was released, people speculated about who that Individual could be, until later, in a Mueller sentencing memo, Individual-1 was described as some mysterious person, who at that point "had become the President of the United States." Hmmmm.... who oh who could that be??

(Side note: Does anybody else revel in the fact that our courts are open and public, and we can all see the documents free and easily? I ♥ the rule of law!)

In any case, the Non-Reader-In-Chief missed ("I didn't read it") the part in the document  about Individual-1's role as basically a unindicted co-conpirator, and in true Cheeto Head fashion tweeted:

Totally clears the President. Thank you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018

Twitter had a field day with that one! Read the responses!


As usual, late-night comedians summarized the situation better than anyone:





In addition to Cohen's admissions, the other big player in the payoff of mistresses, SCROTUS friend and conspirator, National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, is also cooperating.

Obviously, Trump is in serious legal trouble. The question now is, what will happen if he is found to have committed indictable offenses? There are a couple possible paths. As of now, the Justice Department has asserted that a sitting president can not be criminally indicted, but our rule of law is clear that no one is above the law. Plenty of talking heads are speculating about his being indicted after he leaves office, but if he were to win re-election and stayed unindicted, the statute of limitations would run out on the campaign finance crimes. This article from The Economist outlines the possibilities pretty well.

But some say this is just this is just small election-campaign-violation potatoes. Some, like dear old pal Rudy, have said that it's not such a big crime, since "nobody got killed." Ugh. Is it Take A Pistol to Fifth Avenue Day already? ...I think it's just the beginning. If it's truly small potatoes, I'm convinced there's big ol' meaty ones yet to be unearthed.

The fact that we are even talking about the President* being an unindicted conspirator and likely facing charges at some point is astounding. The last two years have battered us so much that we are becoming numb to Trump's outrageousness, but this really reaches a new level of outrageousness. This man must resign or be impeached. We mustn't allow him to continue!

Other recent events:

Maria Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Russia, and although her activities started before the 2016 election mess, it's an interesting case. She is also cooperating with the investigators and may be another thorn in Trump's side in the Mueller investigation.

Trump met publicly with the Democratic Leadership with cameras rolling in the Oval Office, had a tantrum, and got PWNED by Plsi! Just watch:

I made a meme!

The revolving door of staff continues to turn, with the most troubling casualty being Chief of Staff John Kelly. Since Trump's announcement of Kelly's departure, it is evident that SCROTUS can't  buy a new chief of staff. His first pick, Nick Ayers, who had been announced as a given for the post, turned down the job. Several others publicly took their names out of the hat as well, including former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), former NJ Governor and Trump lackey Chris Christie, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), and Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. Right now, speculation is that Jared Kuschner will take the job. Hey, why not.

Not sure he'd be much more effective than the ficus, though.

In the meantime, Trump has named Mick Mulvaney, who once called Trump a "terrible human being," as "acting Chief of Staff."

Ryan Zinke has also announced his resignation as Secretary of the Interior, as he faces several federal investigations.

Betsy DeVos was ordered by a federal judge to cancel student loans to the tune of $150M. Le's hear it again for checks and balances!!


All of that has happened just in the last week or so.

And of course, his legal woes do not begin and end with the Mueller investigation into possible meddling in the 2016 election. He has legal problems surrounding everything he touches: his campaign funding, his inaugural committee funds, his "charities," some emoluments lawsuits, the New York State investigations into his businesses and his taxes, and problems with the Trump Foundation.

In the face of all that fan-flung shit, SCROTUS is becoming yet more isolated, reporting to the Oval Office at noon or later, according to reports, and preparing to trek to Florida to lick his wounds.

In less than a month, Trump loses his all-Republican Congress when the Democrats take over the House. Not only will he have an even harder time pushing through his mostly-failed agenda, he faces real prospects of more of his cronies being subpoenaed as well as impeachment proceedings initiated.

Whew that's a lot for the last couple weeks!

Yes, it's overwhelming, and we're getting tired. Let's rest among the poppies for a couple weeks, but come January we must push on. Can't wait to see what's next!

We will Resist! We will persist! 

The War On Intellectuals

"Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power." -- John Adams

Clay Bennett

There's a war on intellectualism. The right shoves us liberals ALL into the "intellectual" box. And not only that, they portray the intellectual elite as disdainful of the "common man." I just don't get it. I am the most liberalish, snowflakey, leftist there is, and how they portray us all as Socrates-reading, Latin-fluent, escargot-and-champagne-eating blue bloods beating down a truck driver just doesn't resonate with me.

Anti-intellectualism is a trademark of totalitarianism, and its uprising is concerning in the face of the specter of fascism that we have. Back in June, I outlined the hallmarks of fascism one by one, with examples of fascist behavior from the Apricot Pol Pot. The one trait I deferred giving evidence about was "Disdain for Intellectuals." Now I give the subject a little more attention.

According to Wikipedia, anti-intellectualism is, "hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism commonly expressed as deprecation of education and philosophy, and the dismissal of art, literature, and science as impractical and even contemptible human pursuits. Anti-intellectuals present themselves and are perceived as champions of common folk—populists against political and academic elitism—and tend to see educated people as a status class detached from the concerns of most people, and feel that intellectuals dominate political discourse and control higher education."

Anti-intellectualism had perplexed me. It hadn't been on my radar before, but now it's everywhere. I have intelligent, kind friends on the right, who share items that ring of the belief that the "intellectual elite" are bad and are going to ruin the country.

This was one.

The Real Reason They Hate Trump by David Gelernter. Dr. Gelernter has B.A. and MA from uber-elite Yale. He studied ancient Hebrew literature and has a Ph.D. in Computer Science. He is a professor of Computer Science at Yale. Smart guy, highly educated. He is a writer, philosopher, artist. He's really intelligent; he's one of the pioneering computer engineers of the 20th century. A real intellectual, yes? No. He is one of the most fervent anti-intellectuals in the country. He has railed often against academics and the intellectual elite, including in his book, America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered In the Obamacrats).

This essay recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal (here is link to the op/ed on Outline, where you can read the whole essay without subscribing to WSJ), where he wrote, "The difference between citizens who hate Mr. Trump and those who can live with him—whether they love or merely tolerate him—comes down to their views of the typical American: the farmer, factory hand, auto mechanic, machinist, teamster, shop owner, clerk, software engineer, infantryman, truck driver, housewife. The leftist intellectuals I know say they dislike such people insofar as they tend to be conservative Republicans." (By the way, in the same essay, this anti-intellectualist equated U.S. foreign policy to what "Machiavelli advised princes five centuries ago: Don’t seek to be loved, seek to be feared." Intellectual much, Mr. Gelernter?)

And then I ran into this video, posted by a friend on Facebook. It's another anti-intellectual rant, this time by a self-described Blue Collar guy, but this one is mostly superlatives and ad hominem attacks outlining "deep psychological triggers" that we libtards, who are "finally free of the jocks and cheerleaders that ran our high school," suffer in the face of having Dumb Don as President*. The reasoning is really hard to follow. My favorite line about why we intellectual elite hate 45 is when he says that it's because Donny is "no worse than anybody else. He just refuses to pretend that he's any better. Of course he constantly brags about being better, but this just makes him look worse, which proves that he doesn't care about looking like he's any better."

Wow. What linguistic gymnastics it took to get that thought into a set of sentences!

Though it is new to me, disdain for the intellectual is not new among the right. It turns out that anti-intellectualism is at best, a tactic for the right to connect with the common man and at worst, a propaganda weapon by dictators to demonize thinkers and people of reason.

Looking back, it's now obvious that it was a tactic used by the conservatives in America to folksy-up and dumb-down some actual elites, like Ronald Reagan and George W Bush.

Reagan, in a 1964 speech supporting Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, said,  "This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."

And most of us remember W in a commencement speech, talking about his days at Yale. Awwww, yeah, he's just a dum-dum, not at all a Yale elite who gained admittance due to legacy status.




But now, we have TЯUMP. He is not faking stupidity (or should I say facking stupidity?). He is stupid, and proud of it. And he's also fascist to boot. The war on intellectuals from his camp is front and center today, and it's a constant rallying cry. This new breed of anti-intellectuals is contemptuous of the thinkers on the left and implies that all of us on the left are indeed an evil that will destroy America. They are using anti-intellectualism as a propaganda tool.

"Intellectual elite" doesn't describe me, or my friends, most of whom are on the left fringes. We are typical working folks. Yes, many of us have educations, but most of us aren't in the ivory tower of academia, sitting at our desks plotting ways to overthrow the right (OK, we are doing that, but we're not in the ivory tower--we're out on the streets!). But why is intellectualism bad? It's true that education helps to promote liberal ideas, because an education promotes reasoning, problem-solving, science, and critical thought.

..........OOOooooooh! Yeah. OK. I just described the Right's worst enemy. Knowledge. Critical thought. The search for truth. Making judgements based on evidence. On merit. Okay, okay, I'm getting it now.

And their other argument. That we somehow all hate all blue-collar workers, that we look down on the common man. What the heck? Look up the definition of "liberal" you silly anti-intellectuals! Liberals by definition want to help blue-collar workers by organizing unions; increasing minimum wage; getting them healthcare; providing federal assistance; gaining the tax breaks that they, and not the 1%, deserve; and by protecting their civil liberties. But the lie that the left is somehow out to get them helps to rally them.

Why are "intellectuals" like me bad?  I do not hate or fear blue-collar workers. I don't even think they are all--or even mostly-- conservatives. I don't think uneducated people are bad. I do think willfully ignorant (aka stupid) people are bad, ones like Individual-1. So why do they think "intellectuals" like me are evil?

The right likes to point out that education is evil because it makes people more liberal. And they're not wrong. Engaging in critical thought naturally leads one to progressive ideas. FiveThirtyEight found that education, more than income, was the better predictor of who would vote for SCROTUS. And Pew found that there is a widening ideological gap when there is more education.

The educated left is evil simply because we have educations! We are critical thinkers. We search for the truth. We question authority. And the "intellectuals" who are the true ivory-tower academics have the job of finding that truth through science and critical thought, and to disseminate information and encourage further critical thought. All of this is antithetical (look at her and her $10 words!) to the mission of many on the right, especially the far-right. The far right wants their minions to make up their minds about the facts based on what they assert the facts to be, to unquestionably follow, to distrust the truth, and to stay weak and scared. The far-right is full of hatred for the truth about climate change, gun violence, and equal protection under the law.

The left's best leaders have been intellectuals, people like John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama. If Obama was an intellectual, intellectuals must be bad!

Totalitarianism depends on anti-intellectualism to quash dissent, and it has been true through the ages, from Stalin to the Nazis, to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to Mao. This is where anti-intellectualism is at its worst: when it is used to intimidate, harass, and foster hate and intolerance while suppressing dissent.

And so today some on the right are acting out against the educated and the educators. We're entering an era of particularly nasty and dangerous attitudes and behaviors toward intellectuals. The right has websites like "Professor Watchlist," run by the far-right organization Turning Point USA, a decidedly odious group. The watch list is designed to target "liberal" professors. And this kind of targeting can be dangerous. This professor of psychology at the University of North Georgia was severely cyber-harassed, and it went on an on. It's a sobering read. Here's a thorough essay and interview from Salon that lists several other right-wing attacks on academics.

The current fascist government is so disdainful of education that it is trying to make it harder for people to get an education while at the same time making education available only to the financial elite. Betsy DeVos, the non-educator Secretary of Education, is ironically making education even more elite by defunding public schools and giving breaks to private schools, all while stripping civil rights from at-risk students, and at the same time making higher education more difficult to achieve by reversing student loan protections.

Trump's base is largely uneducated, but not necessarily stupid. Unfortunately, they've fallen for his lies that he will help them, when in reality he will make their problems worse. He brags about not being able to read and that he "loves the poorly educated." They love him back, but don't understand that he and his policies are actually dangerous to them.

The saving grace: The voting populace is becoming more liberal, more diverse, as well as younger and more educated. The Republican party is more white, older, and less educated. Their numbers are shrinking. So I predict that the "power" that the anti-intellectuals have will diminish. We can more readily do the work to truly help the problems that the poor and uneducated suffer. And we can beat back the fascist tendencies. We've already begun, by electing the representatives that we did for the new Congress. With them, we will fight for critical thought and the search for the truth.

And then we can begin to fight the real enemy of the people. The real enemy isn't the intellectual elite. Our enemies are fascism itself and the financial elite. We've had warnings about impeding fascism from many sources. And the 1% have infiltrated our government, when corporations have been given status as people and poured money into the pockets of those who are supposed to be representing us. Those are the ones who profit from ignorance, distrust, fear, hatred, and unquestioning acquiescence. They are the real enemy of the people.

Tom Toles

Keep thinking, Sister and Brother Resisters! Think, search, and RESIST! Our Liberty depends on it! 

The Resistance Has Gained Some Very Strange Bedfellows

"Politics makes strange bedfellows." -- Charles Dudley Warner


Individual-1 continues to lose friends. No, I don't mean all the indictments. I mean defectors. The Grand Old Party is losing people!

Thom Glick

Back during the campaign and early days of the administration, plenty of conservatives left the party and distanced themselves from the emperor with no clothes.

George Will, the well-known columnist and conservative mouthpiece of several media outlets, not only didn't support TЯUMP but fled from the Republican party altogether early on, and recently urged folks to vote against the Republican party in the midterms. Another conservative writer, Max Boot, also left the party. And so did Republican strategist Steve Schmidt.

Bush 41 was famously vocal about his vote for Hillary in 2016.

And there ware lesser-known, non-politically powered, folks who also fled, like Tom Nichols.

Joe Scarborough of FAUX News left the GOP, while his colleague Shep Smith has been a frequent critic of the MAGA-lomanic, lashing out frequently. Shep was one of the earliest FAUX-sters to call out the crap:





There were a whole lotta conservatives who opposed the campaign.

(As a side note, the right's answer to this trend was the recent #WalkAway campaign, bot-driven and spearheaded by a millennial no-name. The right was eager to embrace his story, but the campaign kind of sputtered. In my search, I  saw mostly the rightest of right-wing media covering it. This WaPo article explained it.)

But these days, even the shriekiest Trumpeters are slowly backing away. Who are we kidding? The back-pedaling is so furious that there's red skid marks all over the nation.

Just look at this. Woke Bill Kristol:

Woke Bill Kristol is perhaps one of the most jarring aspects of Trump’s tenure in office. https://t.co/p4iNk8pIho

— We're Stronger Together (@CharlieReece) August 5, 2018

Kristol is organizing a campaign to find a Republican candidate that can beat 45.


Now even the most stauch of FAUX news cheerleaders have somehow seen the light and are speaking out. Recently, Geraldo Rivera had an emotional plea about the migrants being tear-gassed at the border.

It’s about time one of the Fox News mouth pieces became so rattled that they broke the narrative on air. Never would have guessed it would be Geraldo. pic.twitter.com/0yicl0sJmZ

— Timothy Michael Jennings (@TheTimJennings) November 27, 2018

And what?! Even Tucker Carlson, another FAUX news comrade, turned on his messiah. The snide, sarcastic windbag recently gave an interview to Swiss magazine Die Weitwoche. He lamented 45's lack of ability to realize his promises, and incredibly said, "I don't think he's capable. I don't think he's capable of sustained focus. I don't think he understands the system." (As an aside, I found him much more reasonable in written words. The few times I've seen him on TV I've wanted to barf.)


And just this week. This.

Ammon freaking Bundy?! Remember him? He and his cronies occupied a bird refuge in Oregon and kept the Feds at bay for a month (one man was killed). And before that, his militia group occupied some grazing land in Nevada. Now, the infamous leader of the militia movement quit the movement and came out in solidarity with the migrant caravan! Though it's in his nature to just plain hate the federal government (though the group identifies with the far-right of American politics), he waxed poetic about the migrants when he said in his interview with BuzzFeed News,  “To group them all up like, frankly, our president has done — you know, trying to speak respectfully — but he has basically called them all criminals and said they’re not coming in here. What about individuals, those who have come for reasons of need for their families, you know, the fathers and mothers and children that come here and were willing to go through the process to apply for asylum so they can come into this country and benefit from not having to be oppressed continually?” He continued, "I believe President Trump, the best way I could explain it, is that he's a nationalist, and a nationalist in my view makes the decision that best benefits the nation, not the individual. That is not freedom, and that is not what America was built upon."

<Little Sister Resister picks her jaw off the floor>

I count all of these defections in my "Positives" file. The Resistance will take all comers. If these far-right folks have any inkling of soul, all is not lost. So keep talking to your conservative friends and family. Evoke national interests and the founding fathers in your discussions. Use moral framing when you talk to them. Keep working on them. The Resistance is winning.

Brain Dump

Time for a brain dump. So much sh*t piles up in our country that it becomes overwhelming. It's been sparse blogging lately, so here is a re-cap of recent atrocities. Picking up the shovel and getting to work to shovel the piles.

Bill Watterson

Is 45 decompensating?

There have been suggestions that TЯUMP is on a downward spiral and is decompensating. It seems to have accelerated since he got trumped in the election.

Decompensation: (from Alley Dog.com) "Decompensation is when someone with a mental illness, who was maintaining their mental illness well, starts to worsen. Signs that decompensation is occurring are a worsening of symptoms, inability to cope with stress and change, and difficulty with normal life situations like social situations and financial issues."

Washington Monthly published an essay speculating that he is depressed and decompensating, based on several events during the days after the election. He showed signs of depression, irritability, and he cancelled several important appearances, including the Armistice Day event in France and the Veteran's Day event at Arlington Cemetery.

But his worsening mental state has been noted by several writers in the past year: Back in July 2018, his Art of the Deal ghostwriter sounded alarms. And before that, in February 2017, psychologists started raising red flags, despite deep reservations that mental health professionals should refrain from diagnosis without personally examining the patient.

Is it really worsening or just more of the same? This week's interview with the Washington Post was similar to other off-the-rails interviews he has done, for example his truly bizarre interviews with Time Magazine on March 22, 2017 and with the AP on April 23, 2017.

The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times outline several indications that there's a meltdown happening, with more firings and a definite bitter mood from Mrs. Putin.

Indeed, he has looked terribly depressed lately.

For example, at the G20 Summit last week:

Poor Donny!

But his mood was brightened when Putie arrived in France.

I still subscribe to the notion that he possibly has frontotemporal dementia. In an earlier post, I noted subtle motor symptoms that my indicate a motor neuron disease, such as ALS. And since then, I haven't seen any more little tics or fasciculations, though I would LOVE to have a look at his tongue. He had another weird wandering episode at the G20 when he wandered off the stage where leaders were going to take a group photo. He left his host hanging. An aide had to run after him. Just like we had to do in the memory care unit.


The sour mood may be attributable to some big blows he's felt in the last few weeks.

The Russia Investigation is heating up. More guilty pleas came in. Another raid on a Trump associate was made, his former tax attorney Ed Burke. There's no indication that the raid was directly related to the Rabid Yam, but he's gotta be nervous when one of his attorney's offices gets raided by the Feds! Paul Manafort lost his plea deal when it was determined that he lied to investigators. Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about a Trump Tower deal in Moscow. I can't help it; I feel for Mikey CocoPuffs. Of all of the criminals who surround SCROTUS, he seems like the one who is truly trying to do the right thing now. And he must be doing the right thing, cuz his former baby boss is livid with him, saying Cohen should serve "a full and complete sentence."  No pardon for him!

Here's a good summary of the timeline of the attempted Moscow tower deal and the election from Washington Monthly. Note the date of publications: this was from back in May! There are indications that Donny Jr. may be under the microscope. There will be more coming out about Dolt 45's business dealings in Russia, or more about whatever Putin is holding over him. We'll learn more once the 116th Congress convenes in January and the House re-starts its own investigation and when we see Mueller's report, which is predicted to be released soon.

The final election results were tabulated. Though the Senate actually gained some seats for Republicans, who now have a 53-seat majority, the House decisively turned toward the Democrats, with a pickup of 39 seats.

What was really surprising was that Orange County, California flipped blue. This stalwart conservative county is sending Democrats to occupy all seven of its House seats in the 116th Congress.

Voter turnout was the highest for a midterm election in over a century. Democrats received over 60 million votes, which is an astounding number. It approaches the number of votes 45 got in the
Presidential election (63 million votes). As Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight said, "There's not any precedent for an opposition party coming this close to matching the president's vote total from 2 years earlier." This, even in the face of the right's voter suppression efforts.

All of that means trouble for Trump in 2020.


The government committed more atrocities against immigrants and asylum seekers. It quickly became apparent that the White Pride Piper's decision to send thousands of troops to the border just before the election was a political stunt. He couldn't stop talking about the "invasion" of "illegals" marching through Mexico toward the U.S. He couldn't stop, that is, until the election was over.

Last week the group of migrants arrived at the border. They were gassed with tear gas, including women and children. We saw disturbing images. Most humans on the planet were viscerally upset. Even this human is beginning to understand the atrocities:

It’s about time one of the Fox News mouth pieces became so rattled that they broke the narrative on air. Never would have guessed it would be Geraldo. pic.twitter.com/0yicl0sJmZ

— Timothy Michael Jennings (@TheTimJennings) November 27, 2018

Kevin Siers

It was determined by the CIA that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia ordered the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But the Orange Moron doesn't believe our agency's conclusions. He handled it with a shrug appropriate for his basketball team losing the game because he missed a layup. "It is what it is." "Maybe he did, maybe he didn't."

This image was just shocking and probably illustrates the underpinnings of SCROTUS's ball-handling.






Leave it to SNL to spin it for us:





A report was published from 13 federal agencies and the White House out about Climate Change. And it ain't looking good. Here is the 1600 page report, Fourth National Climate Assessment, if you'd like to review it! It's a sobering report. There are dire warnings. But the President* shrugs and says, "I don't believe it."

It reminded me of another report that came out several years ago. I was so struck by the original article that I read in April, 2011, that I went to the newspaper archives to find it. A group of scientists skeptical of climate change reviewed the data in a Koch Brothers-financed study, hoping to show that there was no global warming trend. But their conclusion was, yep, the data is sound. Climate change is happening. You can read that article below. More readable text is below the clippings


Climate change Mon, Apr 4, 2011 – Page 14 · The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America) · Newspapers.com

Review Backs Climate Findings
Margot Roosevelt
Los Angeles Times
April 4, 2011

A team of UC Berkeley physicists and statisticians that set out to challenge the scientific consensus on global warming is finding that its data-crunching effort is producing results nearly identical to those underlying the prevailing view. The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project was launched by physics professor Richard Muller,a longtime critic of government-led climate studies, to address what he called “the legitimate concerns” of skeptics who believe global warming is exaggerated.
   But Muller unexpectedly told a congressional hearing last week that the work of the three principal groups that have analyzed the temperature trends underlying climate science is “excellent.... We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.”
The hearing was called by GOP leaders of the House Science and Technology committee,who have expressed doubts about the integrity of climate science. It was one of several inquiries in recent weeks as the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to curb planet-heating emissions from industrial plants and motor vehicles have come under strenuous attack in Congress.
   Muller said his group was surprised by its findings, but he cautioned that the initial assessment is based on only 2% of the 1.6 billion measurements that will eventually be examined.
The Berkeley project’s biggest private backer, at $150,000, is the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch are the nation’s most prominent funders of efforts to prevent curbs on the burning of fossil fuels, the largest contributor to planet-warming greenhouse gases.
   The $620,000 project is also partly funded by the federal Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where Muller is a senior scientist. Muller said theKoch foundation and other contributors will have no influence over the results, which he plans to submit to peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Review backs climate findings A team challenging temperature data says its early results support the prevailing view. Ken Caldeira,an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science,which contributed some funding to the Berkeley effort, said Muller’s statement to Congress was “honorable” in recognizing that “previous temperature reconstructions basically got it right…. Willingness to revise views in the face of empirical data is the hallmark of the good scientific process.”
   But conservative critics who had expected Muller’s group to demonstrate a bias among climate scientists reacted with disappointment.
Anthony Watts,a former TV weatherman who runs the skeptic blog WattsUp- WithThat.com, wrote that the Berkeley group is releasing results that are not “fully working and debugged yet.... But, post normal science political theater is like that.”
Over the years, Muller has praised Watts’ efforts to show that weather station data in official studies are untrustworthy because of the urban heat island effect, which boosts temperature readings in areas that have been encroached on by cities and suburbs.
   But leading climatologists said the previous studies accounted for the effect, and the Berkeley analysis is confirming that, Muller acknowledged. “Did such poor station quality exaggerate the estimates of global warming?” he asked in his written testimony. “We’ve studied this issue, and our preliminary answer is no.”
Temperature data are gathered from tens of thousands of weather stations around the globe, many of which have incomplete records. Over the last two decades, three independent groups have used different combinations of stations and varying statistical methods and yet arrived at nearly identical conclusions: The planet’s surface, on average, has warmed about 0.75 degrees centigrade (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) since the beginning of the 20th century.
   Temperature data were the focus of the so-called 2009 Climategate controversy,in which opponents of greenhouse gas regulation alleged that leaked emails from a British climate laboratory showed manipulation of weather station records. Five U.S. and British government and university investigations have refuted the charges.
   “For those who wish to discredit the science, this [temperature] record is the holy grail,” said Peter Thorne, a leading expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. “They figure if they can discredit this, then society would have significant doubts about all of climate science.”
   Thorne said scientists who contributed to the three main studies — by NOAA, NASA and Britain’s Met Office— welcome new peer-reviewed research. But he said the Berkeley team had been “seriously compromised” by publicizing its work before publishing any vetted papers.
   On the project’s website, in a public lecture and in statements to the media, Muller had portrayed the Berkeley effort as rectifying the “biases” of previous studies, a task he compared with“Hercules cleaning out the Augean stables.” He said his study would be “more precise,” analyzing data from 39,000 stations — more than any other study — and offering “transparent,” rather than “homogenized” data.
   Kevin Trenberth,who heads the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a university consortium, said he was“highly skeptical of the hype and claims” surrounding the Berkeley effort. “The team has some good people,” he said, “but not the expertise required in certain areas, and purely statistical approaches are naive.”
   The project team includes UC Berkeley statistician David Brillinger and UC Berkeley physicists Don Groom,Robert Jacobsen, Saul Perlmutter,Arthur Rosenfeld and Jonathan Wurtele. The group’s atmospheric scientist is Judith Curry,chairwoman of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Science at Georgia Tech,who has suggested that temperature data were “airbrushed” by other scientists.
   One full-time staffer, Richard Rohde,who recently earned a doctorate in statistics, is doing most of the work, Muller said.
   Although in his testimony Muller praised the “integrity” of previous studies, he said estimates of human- caused warming need to be “improved.” And despite his preliminary praise for earlier studies, he said further data-crunching “could bring our current agreement into disagreement.”
   Other scientists noted that temperature is only one factor in climate change. “Even if the thermometer had never been invented, the evidence is there from deep ocean changes, from receding glaciers, from rising sea levels and receding sea ice and spring snow cover,” Thorne said. “All the physical indicators are consistent with a warming world. There is no doubt the trend of temperature is upwards since the early 20th century. And that trend is accelerating.” margot.roosevelt@ latimes.com

And some other tidbits from my reading and perusing....
Comics from 11/29/18. The way 45 is changing our language:

Adding to my last post about fact checkers. Last week CNN ran split-scene fact-checks in real time during a Sarah Sanders press conference. Brilliant.

Sanders claims that the climate report by the Trump administration is "not based on facts" pic.twitter.com/Ga6peti5OB

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) November 27, 2018

More about lying: A Newsweek op/ed about Don the Con's lying and its relationship to fascism.


A Yale Professor sounds another warning about fascism.

A quite disturbing report that Trumpty Dumpty considered letting Turkey kill a US resident in order to placate Erdogan about Khashoggi’s murder. What the royal f∩ck?!

Too late for Thanksgiving dinner, but Amanda Marcotte, on Salon, suggests ways of interacting with the fact-free conservatives, something that I've been struggling with and writing about on this blog.

And I love this conversation: Are Civics Lessons a Constitutional Right? This Student is Suing for Them. We have civics test for new citizens. Why are our schools falling behind?

Thanks for letting my mind wander, friends! Keep resisting out there!