Tongue Lashing: SCROTUSese Part 2

Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis, 7-27-2017

"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." -- George Orwell

In my last post I looked at some aspects of the language of the Twitiot.  I looked mostly at the incredulity of it: the bizarre discourse, the tweeting, the nonsense.

Today, in Part 2, I look at the ways in which the language of the Rabid Yam is changing our very language, the way we use it and the words we use.

SCROTUS is using a whole new kind of language, different from any President before and different than most government officials. I'm calling it Ugly Talk. It's the language that demeans, disparages, and incites hate against groups, particularly Mexicans, women, and Muslims.

Ugly Talk is becoming the new normal.

This week he described Mexicans this way:

The predators and criminal aliens who poison our communities with drugs and prey on innocent young people — these beautiful, beautiful, innocent young people — will find no safe haven anywhere in our country. 

And you've seen the stories about some of these animals. They don't want to use guns, because it's too fast and it's not painful enough. So they'll take a young, beautiful girl, 16, 15, and others, and they slice them and dice them with a knife, because they want them to go through excruciating pain before they die. And these are the animals that we've been protecting for so long. Well, they're not being protected any longer, folks.

The one time he can string words together in Standard American English, he uses horrendous imagery to disparage Mexicans. This quote is so packed with unpleasantness, it is hard to absorb.

This week he also spoke to a group of police officers. He encouraged them to go ahead and be rough. Here is some Ugly Talk to police officers:

Now, we’re getting them out anyway, but we’d like to get them out a lot faster. And when you see these towns, and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough — I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice.’ 

Like, when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put your hand over their head. Like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody. Don’t hit their head. I said, ‘You can take the hand away, O.K.?’

We all know about his hateful language toward women. There are dozens of examples and I really don't want to present them here. You know what they are and where to find them.  His language about women is some of the ugliest of Ugly Talk.

With him as a role model and thereby an appover of Ugly Talk, his staff also has started using detestable language. The new Whitewash House Communications Director, --communications director-- smarm-master Anthony Scaramucci, in an interview with the New York Times, said these things that follow. I'm sorry for this language on my blog. It is bigly Ugly Talk. Our government officials now communicate this way.

What I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President's agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people.

 I'm not Steve Bannon, I'm not trying to suck my own cock.

Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac..."Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months."

What is becoming of us?!

It's scary to think that this bullying language is becoming the new normal. We can't let this become normal.


Not only is Ugly Talk becoming the normal government style, language is becoming meaningless. Lies are alternative facts.  News is fake.

"Fake News."  Now that's a loaded phrase, isn't it?  It used to be relegated to the likes of tabloids like The National Enquirer or Weekly World News, both of which enticed us at supermarket checkout counters with blazing headlines claiming, Elvis Is Alive! or  Ted Kennedy Secret Love Child!

<As an aside, I find it surreally ironic that one of SCROTUS's allies in the press is the freaking National Enquirer, the Grand-daddy of Fake News.>

Legitimately fake news became part of the national consciousness around election time, when it was brought to light that news stories on social media were made up, meant to mislead, misdirect, and incite. It was shown that big data could be used to target individuals with news that would influence them. I explored this subject in depth in one of my early posts.

After Hair Hitler won, the definition of "fake news" simply became "news that SCROTUS doesn't like."  There's real power in those two words. The phrase undermines the legitimate press, a institution that is important to the very core of our Nation's identity and security. We depend on the press to be the eyes and ears of the People. To call them "fake" is to de-legitimize them, to de-legitimize us, the Citizens. It upends one of our very basic tenants of our Republic - the First Amendment of the United States Constitution! And that is disturbing. And not normal. And it shows that language can be powerful and dangerous.

Read this article from NPR, which, with linguist George Lakeoff, parses the phrase "fake news" and illustrates the real danger of this concept becoming the norm.

Bigly. Sad! Tremendous. Yuuuuuge. These SCROTUS-isms are slithering into our vernacular.  The New York Times used a SCROTUS-tweet-style headline recently:   Trump: Trapped in his Lies, Keeps Lying. Sad! 

Even before the election, his catch-phrases crept into advertisements. His style is mimicked by comedians, cartoonists,  and the man on the street. TЯUMP-isms have found their way into our fabric. And they may be changing political discourse forever, in all the ways that I've outlined here.

Watch this excellent video about how SCROTUS-ims are changing our language, quickly and bigly.

So, Little Sister Resister, are there any positive ways that SCROTUS's language usage is changing us?

I'm glad you asked! You know that Little Sister Resister tries to find the positives in this nightmare we are living through.  And, acutually, yes, there are some tremendous positives!

45 is making dictionaries great again! People are becoming more tuned in, listening closer, and they are looking up words more often. People are looking to Dictionaries to be a trustworthy source to lead them the Truth. ...And the more Truth in these weird Orwellian times, the better. 

Another positive. Nascent English-as-a-second-langauge learners are using TЯUMP speeches to help them learn the language.  His simplistic, repetitive style, it turns out, is a perfect place to learn English. Kind of scary, yes, I admit it.....but any learning is good learning in my book! 

OK. That's all the positives I could find.  Oh, maybe one more.  His language is fodder for our comedians. I leave you with Samantha Bee, in an avant-garde short film rendering of the wonders of SCROTUS-ese. 

As always, thank you for reading. And keep up the Resistance!

The Language Butcher

"The Portrait of a Blinking Idiot"

--Arragon, The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare

Little Sister Resister is a language person, and always has been. Language has been my avocation and also my vocation. So, I find the unique new-found language of SCROTUSese fascinating. It's also disgusting and frustrating and confounding.

The Linguist in me wants to look at his language scientifically. There is nothing I'd love better than to analyze his speech myself. But I don't have the time, nor truthfully, the expertise. But luckily there have been plenty of language scientists analyzing his language for us. 

SCROTUS himself has said “I love the poorly educated!” -- and we know he loves himself most of all. So, let's look at this Language Butcher, shall we?

One of the first probes into his language that I found interesting was this analysis, posted on YouTube a full year before the election.  It's an interesting theory, that he is a salesman and uses language to that end.

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The video analysis above points out that other analyists have pegged SCROTUS's language at a 4th grade level.

A different analysis (cited here by the Washington Post) that looks at Presidential language complexity throughout history, pegs SCROTUS at 6th grade level. Or at times, he sinks to the 3rd-grade level. Whichever it is, it is low, one of the lowest in our history. And I submit that this low-complexity by itself can account for his appeal to his base. In general, however, most recent Presidents have had low-level speech, between 6th and 7th grades, as Carnegie-Mellon researchers have discovered.  There is much more to SCROTUS's language than just the low level of complexity.

When he has a teleprompter in front of him, or a script, he does OK. Mostly OK.  

He sounded pretty darn Presidential when he read his February 28 address to the joint houses of Congress, didn't he? He had a decent speech writer, and he read the words real good. Many of us came away from that speech thinking, "Well, damn! He can sound like a President!"  It was short-lived. 

Even when he has a script, he interjects his own nonsense. And I mean nonsense in the true sense of the word. NON-sense.  

One example. In March, 2017 he interviewed Dr. Peggy Annette Whitson, a record-setting astronaut, and it was painful to watch. He could barely read the script, and his ad-libs were cringe-worthy.

He performed well reading his inaugural speech, I've heard. I haven't been able to bring myself to listen to it, but here it is for reference.

This speech itself has been analyzed front to back. Here is a brief analysis of the inaugural address, which compares it to all 57 other inaugural speeches. SCROTUS's speech is in the running for the simplest speech, which is the trend in modern times, and wins the shortest-sentence category. 

This analysis looks at the use of the language in the inaugural speech to the end of promoting a victim mentality, which goes directly to SCROTUS's frequent fervent appeals to his base.

Here is an annotated version by the New York Times that is more of a socio-political analysis, still interesting, so I include it.

And then there is his spontaneous speech. Train wreck. A train wreck of language. Not even language. There is barely syntax. There are strings of words without much of anything else. I posted before, about his interviews with Time and with the Associated Press. Almost every spontaneous utterance he spouts is unintelligibile.

Here is a clip from the Summer of 2015, right around the time he announced his candidacy.

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Here's the transcript of this "sentence," if you don't care to watch the foul lump of deformity spout his gross concoction of word-like substances:

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist  and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart —you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it's true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it's four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians  are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

If you understand this, please let us know in the comments!

In an earlier blog post I pointed you to the transcript of a couple press interviews, one with Time magazine and one with the Associated Press. Both organizations printed the entire transcript of the interviews, in all their fatuous flapdoodle. 

Here they are again. Read them if you dare. You may feel like you are in a parallel universe after reading them. It's English, and yet..... it's not!

Time Magazine transcript, March 22, 2017

AP Interview transcript, April 23, 2017

If you think it's bad for us native English speakers, you can imagine that his incoherence has been a problem with interpreters. They have bigly difficulty translating SCROTUSese. This article from The Independent describes the mighty struggle that Japanese translators suffer, and the anxiety they feel over sounding "stupid." Hindi translators don't bother translating the whole, but resort to summarizing and offering sound bites. The effect is that it is easier for their readers to understand, and it makes him sound intelligible. Read The Guardian's article for more. Fascinating stuff.

Newsweek also outlined the struggles that translators, particularly Japanese translators, have. The pain is real. 

NPR has a good interview with a Persian interpreter, who described his problems as a SCROTUSese-to-Persian translator.

As alarming as non-sensical he sounds, to us and to foreigners, his base perceives this differently than we do. This article from Scientific American delves into their differing perceptions. His supporters see him as "a straight shooter" who "doesn't mince words." And they are right. He doesn't mince words. He puts them in his VitaMix and turns the dial to 11. 

This analysis from ThinkProgress also opines that his use of language makes him seem more anti-politician, which is what his base likes about him.

"I have the best words." --SCROTUS

So, what about his words? Without an analysis of the whole of his language, we can look at just the words.

Vanity Fair describes an artificial intelligence analysis that compares the Candidate Cheeto's most frequent words with Candidate Clinton's. Interesting read.

Cogito, another artificial intelligence beast, looked at a few different classes of words during his inaugural speech as part of a bigger analysis. Follow their links for more.

Your Dictionary outlines his 20 most used words in a slide show with examples. Here are the 20 most-used words:

Win/winning

Stupid 

Weak 

Loser 

We 

They 

Politcally correct 

Moron 

Smart 

Tough 

Dangerous 

Bad 

Lightweight 

Amazing 

Huge 

Tremendous 

Terrific 

Zero 

Out of control

Sounds like a schoolyard bully to me.

And then....and then.... there's the whole Twitterverse. Oh my goodness, that is a whole bowl of linguistic soup, right there. Not only is Twitter a dialect unto itself (or set of dialects), SCROTUS's reliance on it as his chief method of communicating to the masses is *ahem* unpresidented! And wow! does he mangle things there!

He has gifted us grammar nerds a wonderful treasure trove of bigly gaffes. I've said it again and again to third graders: You, too, can become President! Just have a look. It's enough to make a grammarian covfefe on the spot!

Here's another complication of Twitter gaffes, compiled by Business Insider. And even FAUX News has a list.

Face it, he's an idiot.

(An aside: Just for fun, here is a good link. It archives every single SCROTUS tweet. Beautifully searchable. The TЯUMP Twitter Archive)

All of this brings us to the original article that my friend Karen shared with me, Trump’s Degradation of the Language, when she asked me to blog about his language. He degrades language and makes it superfluous. Lies become alternative facts. The salesman becomes the shyster. The language itself doesn't matter anymore.

SCROTUS's language does not stand on its own, and it's not in a bubble. It is having an impact on our greater language evolution. Language is a leaving, breathing beast, always evolving. SCROTUS's interesting use of language and all the talk of it, is effecting a change in our language. But that's the stuff of another blog post. Part II to come. 

(sorry, Karen, Part II may have been what you were after!)

In the end, all of this may all simply be the reflection of a man falling down the rabbit hole of dementia. None of it is intentional, and all the analysis in the world doesn't change the fact that his language is not normal. In the least. Not any part of it. All of the reading that I've done for this post -- and I've done a lot, as you have if you clicked through to some of those links -- brings me around to the dementia angle. There is something very wrong with him. I outlined this theory in an earlier post from April, and I'm cemented in my belief that he is suffering from dementia. Or rather, we are all suffering from his dementia. Other writers are bringing this issue to light. Statnews recently published an excellent analysis and comparison.

If it's true, it could go very bad. We're in real trouble. 

Thanks for reading. Keep up the Resistance!

Who said it? Don Corolone or Don Scrotolone?

"A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for not going to church on Sunday." -- Russell Baker

Who said it? Mob Boss or Toddler Boss? (answers below)

1. "Goddamn FBI don't respect nothin'."

2. "A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults."

3. "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty."

4. "Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family."

5. "Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut."

6. "The only one who can do what I do is me."

7. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it"

8. "I'm just a businessman, giving the people what they want."

9.“I never lie to any man because I don’t fear anyone. The only time you lie is when you are afraid.”

10. "You know what else they say about my people? The polls, they say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s like incredible."

11. "Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family again. Ever.”

12. “It has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me. I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars."

13. "The best way to enter our business is to be born into it."

14. "They better be careful or I will unleash big time on them."

15. "Maybe he should have been roughed up."

16. “I can’t stand squealers, hit that guy!"

17. "I'll beat the crap out of you!"

18. "You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people!" 

19. "To me being a gangster was better than being President of the United States."


And I'm just gonna leave these right here.....

The Cabinet Love-Fest (video)

*  

The Don demands loyalty (video)

Who said it?

1. "Goddamn FBI don't respect nothin'."  Sonny Corelone, The Godfather

2. "A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults." Don Vito Corelone, The Godfather

3. "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty." SCROTUS

4. "Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family."  Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather

5. "Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut."  James Conway, Goodfellas

6. "The only one who can do what I do is me."  Frank Costello, The Departed

7. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it" SCROTUS

8. "I'm just a businessman, giving the people what they want." Al Capone, American gangster

9.“I never lie to any man because I don’t fear anyone. The only time you lie is when you are afraid.” John Gotti, American Mafia Boss

10. "You know what else they say about my people? The polls, they say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s like incredible." SCROTUS

11. "Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family again. Ever.” Sonny Corolone, The Godfather

12. “It has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me. I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars." SCROTUS

13. "The best way to enter our business is to be born into it."  Joseph Massino, American mobster

14. "They better be careful or I will unleash big time on them." SCROTUS

15. "Maybe he should have been roughed up." SCROTUS

16. “I can’t stand squealers, hit that guy!" Albert Anastasia, American mafia boss

17. "I'll beat the crap out of you!" SCROTUS

18. "You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people!" SCROTUS

19. "To me being a gangster was better than being President of the United States."   Henry Hill, Goodfellas

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today's topic was suggested by a good friend, another Sister Resister. Thanks, Karen!


One of the blights upon our country is racism and hate violence. This horrid set of behaviors has been around as long as people began to congregate into groups. In America, hate, unfortunately, has a thread in the underpinning of our nation's history. Much has been written about the increase in hate acts since November 8, 2016. Has there really been an increase? And what does it look like?

The topic is in the forefront of our minds. Just a couple weeks ago, two brave men died defending two young women, one black, one wearing a hijab, on a Portland train who were being harassed by a hateful man. The murderer was spouting hateful, racist remarks before three men confronted him. The murderer began stabbing. He killed two and seriously injured a third.. The city of Portland was wounded deeply by this hate crime, including my friend who asked me to write about it.

Portraits of Three Heroes: Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23; Micah David-Cole Fletcher, 21, who survived the attack; and Rick Best, 53

The Portland incident is just one of a large number of hate crimes committed since the election.

As Vox has reported, it is hard to measure the increase in hate crimes, as the FBI and other police organizations do not keep good statsitics on hate crimes. It is hard to track hate crimes for a variety of reasons, including the fact that police agencies vary on how they categorize crimes; the fact that some states don't have hate crime laws at all; as well as the fact that hate crime victims underreport the crimes against them.  As hard as it is to measure the increase in hate crimes, I conclude that such crimes are probably vastly underreported, if anything.

Despite the difficulty in pinpointing hate crimes, there are some statistics that we can look to. The Southern Poverty Law Center has determined that there is an increase in hate groups. The Right should be able to agree to that fact: even Faux News reported the SPLC's findings.  SLPC reports that hate groups against Muslims in particular tripled between 2015 and 2016.

If there is an increase in hate groups, it follows logically that there is an increase in hate violence. Peeple who convene on the basis of hating a group of fellow human beings are not sitting around crocheting doilies. The SPLC's report outlines an increase in hate crimes as well, citing FBI statistics, including a 67% increase in the number of hate crimes against Muslims in 2015 alone. The excellent article gives additional links to issues surrounding hate groups.

Before we go to too far into the effects, let us look at the source of the hate.  The authority figure, the permission-giver: the Hater-in-Chief.

SCROTUS does not shy away from hateful rhetoric. He does not always reproach hateful rhetoric. In fact, he embraces it. He is, quite simply, a purveyor of hateful rhetoric.  He has insulted Mexicans left and right, calling them rapists; he asserted that a federal judge with Mexican heritage could not be impartial because "he's a Mexican;" and, of course, he has his dream to build a wall.

His hatred toward Muslims, in words and actions, is well-documented. In words, for example, he insulted a Gold Star Family, who happened to be Muslim, when the soldier's father spoke about their hero son at the Democratic National Convention. And of course, his most famous action of Muslim hatred: his two executive orders -- luckily deemed illegal by the courts -- banning Muslims from certain countries. He targeted seven countries from which to ban Muslims, though no violent act in the US has been at the hands of any citizen of any of the targeted countries,. "Coincidentally,"  the countries who HAVE exported violent criminals to commit violent acts in the US but who do business with SCROTUS, are conspicuously off the ban list.  Luckily, we have checks and balances, Bitch, and that sh*t won't fly in the courts!

I am not even going to touch his misogynstic rhetoric and actions in this post.

The man is a violent man. SCROTUS himself directly promoted violence at many of his campaign rallies. Washable has a ton of videos here, where the Orange Mussolini fosters violence against protesters. A wise Federal Judge has allowed a lawsuit to go ahead against SCROTUS which alleges he incited violence at one of his rallies.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a comprehensive article about what they call The Trump Effect, emboldening haters to act out their hate. Read it here.

There are many, many instances where SCROTUS inflamed his supporters and emboldened them to act out. There have been plenty of reports of violence in the name of The Tiny-Fisted Cheeto.  It is really overwhelming how many hate crimes have been committed since the election. There are way too many to even give a representative few here.  It's actually staggering, and quite sobering. There are groups tracking hate crimes, however, and I've included links below.

ThinkProgress has also compiled statistics more narrow than the SPLC's, but still alarming. They include an accounting of the increase in hate violence in our great land directly referenced to SCROTUS.  From ThinkProgress:

And while Trump has done little to quell the rise in hate, the connection between many of these occurrences and his presidency is clear: 109 (42 percent) of the incidents we tracked over the past three months included specific references to Trump, his election, or his policies.

Slate.com has an updating list of hate crimes reported across the country.

ProPublica is also tracking hate crimes across America.

These are difficult to read, but it is important that we do, and that we do not stick our heads in the sand, and that we do not let TЯUMP supporters whitewash the facts.

When your SCROTUS-supporting "friends" cry out about violence against TЯUMP supporters, you can cite ThinkProgress's statistics. They include an "other" category. Of the 261 hate crimes they documented in their report, 40 were against "others," which include  "women, immigrants, Trump supporters, anti-Trump protestors and other individuals."  Violence against SCROTUS supporters happens in very small numbers. So small that I had trouble finding incidents reported by reputable sources. One source I found was from Breitbart, which reported ten (10).  Ahem. Breitbart. Ten.  The SPLC reported 27.

Compare that to the 867 bias-reacted acts complied by the SPLC in the first 10 days after the election.

In the end, the fact of the matter is, our #AlternateLeader is horribly hateful. He is racist and misogynistic, and he advances those views among his followers. But even if he weren't, even if he didn't spew hateful remarks and incite violence, his silence in the face of violence is deafening. He has been slow to condemn violent acts, or quiet altogether, including being very slow to respond to the Portland train attacks.

Eldridge Cleaver remarked, "You either have to be part of the solution, or you're going to be part of the problem."  SCROTUS is not only part of the problem; he is the problem.

There may not be an increase in hate itself in America.  Hate has been around since the dawn of man. But in 2017,  there is a well-documented  increase in the boldness of haters to express their noxious viewpoints. That is a fact.


And so what do we do, brother and sister resisters?  We continue on our path of love. We commit frequent Acts of Love. We engage people in conversation. We continue to be the ones who stand up to harassment. We urge our representatives to create legislation that punishes hate crimes and fosters love and acceptance, or at least tolerance. We continue to protest peacefully. We donate to organizations that resist hate, such as the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League. We love, fiercely and with abandon, every person that strives to live in peace within our great country's shores.  And we drive out hate. 

While I've Been Gone

"I dote on (her) very absence." Portia, The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare

Wow! I didn't realize how long Little Sister Resister had been gone. Between getting ready for a vacation, having the vacation (and basking in a country without News), recovering from the vacation, and getting back to the routines of life -- including getting ready for a wedding -- I haven't had the time to sit and write. But wow! our country continues to be in a crisis, with a Whitewash House administration in chaos. Every day there spin new fantastical -- or what I wish were fantastical -- happenings in Washington DC.

Today, a brief summary of some of the events, for the sake of documenting this journey, and hopefully soon I'll be able to get back to regular blogging.

SCROTUS fired FBI James Comey.  He fired him hoping that his Russia problems would magically disappear the minute Jim made the walk of shame with his box of staplers and paperweights out the door.  The Rabid Cheeto admitted on National TV that he fired him for the reason of making the Russia Thing go away. Boom. Obstruction of Justice. The Republicans got a tiny twinge, but not enough to be in an uproar.

I never cared one way or the other about Mr. Comey and never really believed that he was politically motivated, but I do think he made some grave mistakes before the election.  But I really respect that as a lawman he was astute enough to keep meticulous notes after his meetings with the Rabid Yam. And I loved that he tried to blend in with the curtains whenever he was in the Whitewash House!

A Special Investigator was named to investigate RussiaGate. Hallelujah! Robert Meuller, a highly respected former FBI director who was appointed under Bush II and reconfirmed 100-0 under Obama.  It is very good news for the country, though the House Investigation Committee and the Senate Investigation Committee are still conducting their own investigations. I can't figure out why they all need to do their own investigations. Let the Special Investigator handle it, and get back to the business of Congress! On second thought, nah, go ahead and play with your nesting dolls..... we can wait for new legislation!

Congress is nearly at a standstill. Nothing much is going on with all the fires that need to be put out.  But they did one thing: the sneaky, hasty passage of the new iteration of the American Health Care Act.  The House Republicans wrote it and passed it within a couple days. I'm convinced most of them didn't even read it. They passed it before the Congressional Budget Office could look at it. All of California's Republican Members of Congress voted yes.  I am going to work hard to help remove those indivdiuals from office come election time.  Thankfully, the Senate has more sense than the House, and the bill looks dead in the water in their esteemed chamber.

While I've been gone, the Idiot Carrot also gave highly sensitive intelligence to the Russians. In the Oval Office.  Didn't even use the "back channels" that son-in-law set up.  Just tied up a highly classified ("code word" level) piece of intel with a big red bow, invited them in for tea, and while the Russian press documented the event (US press was not allowed), he presented the gift..... excitedly tearing open the wrapper himself, because WHO CAN WAIT FOR SUCH A GREAT PRESENT??!!


Mike Flynn won't go away and his name dominated the news mid-May. He asked for immunity in exchange for his testimony, but no one took him up on that. Sally Yates testified in public and stated that they believed that he was compromised.  He continues to be at the center of the Russia Thing.

SCROTUS took a trip abroad and it was.....  awkward.  No one likes him.  I don't think he did huge amounts of damage while in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Rome, NATO, and at the G7 summit. It was mostly the same steady stream of embarrassment. A few images that sum up the trip and how the rest of the world views us.

OK. Weird glowing-orb ritual.  Check.

The Memes Are Strong with this One!

Handshakes were big news. Thrity-nine year old French President Emmanuel Macron is my new hero.  First, when he sat with SCROTUS for a photo op, Macron made a huge non-verbal statement when he did not let Asshat Littlefingers get the upper hand --literally-- when they met.  Later that day, as Mr. Macron approached a group of world leaders, he did a Psych move on SCROTUS when he appeared to approach him and then swerved last minute to greet Angela Merkel instead.  Best.game.of.Chicken.ever.

When he did finally shake hands with the elvish-mark’d, abortive, rooting hog, he had another epic battle, which by the look on SCROTUS's face, Macron won decisively. Touché!



Here is an explanation by Mr. Macron that his handiwork was intentional.

SCROTUS's bullying tendencies were well on display at the NATO meeting, when he shoved Prime Minister Montenegro to be front and center at a photo op. This man makes me so sick.




At the end of the day, we understand that the world continues to, sadly, lose respect for our great nation as this buffoon continues to work the carnival ride. It makes me sad.  Angela Merkel made some telling remarks at the end of the G7 Summit, saying, "The times in which we could rely fully on others — they are somewhat over." This makes me sad that we have, as our face to the world, the Angry Creamsicle that makes us a laughingstock.

When the glowing orbs were put away and he had iced his tiny fingers, SCROTUS came back to Washington to face the firestorm at home. First up: his sweet-faced (Two-Faced!) son-in-law Jared Kuschner is facing scrutiny. Though "he has not been accused of wrong-doing," Kuschner is being looked at as a "person of interest."  Some are calling for his security clearance to be reviewed. Some say he has been compromised and should be considered a Russian mole. Little Sister Resister says that he, and his boss, should get on their ponies and ride out of town.


Other tidbits from the past month:

Kelly Anne has been strangely silent.

Melania was seen at least twice swatting away the Gross One's hand when he reached for hers.

Little Sister Resister got a hit from a computer in Moscow! I'm very proud that a little slice of me has made it into the fabric of our times. They found the post I made about SCROTUS having dementia.  I wish I knew what search terms they use, but my stat counter cannot tell me.

Which brings me to.....

My Big Sister Resister sent me this article. SCROTUS is King Lear. Yes!  The bizarre behavior, the demand for loyalty, the unchecked fall into a maelstrom of crises.  And to further the comparison, there have been theories that King Lear, like our own resident Embossed Carbuncle, may have suffered from dementia.  The similarities are striking, but somehow the King garners a little bit of sympathy.  SCROTUS: none.

Thanks as always for reading. I won't be gone so long next time!

101 Days

"SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!" --SCROTUS

(the above tweet was noted by an Associated Press analysis to be his top tweet of the first 100 days) 

Yesterday was the 100th Day of President Asterisk's administration. (name stolen shamelessly from somewhere or other)

Instead of blogging about the landmark (or lack thereof) day, I thought I'd just let others -- and there were a lot of them -- speak about it.  Happy Watching!


I'm beginning to like Seth Meyers a lot these days. This one is my favorite.



Stephen Colbert:




Count-down compilation from HuffPost:




Another complilation:



A countdown from Stephen Colbert:



....aaaannnnnd Spicey counting down:




Day 100 was also the day of the Annual White House Correspondents Dinner, which SCROTUS not only didn't attend, he acted like a d*ck about it:




Here is Samantha Bee on the day:




At the Real Correspondents  Dinner,  Hasan Minhaj was quite funny and also poignant:




It's still my prediction (as I stated earlier in this blog), that we're half-way through this mess.  I predict that the Republican leadership will ask him to resign by 200 days.  Keep the energy in the resistance, and we can make it happen!

A Lot of Little Things That Would be Big Things if There Weren't so many Big Things Already

“We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.


WE MUST RESIST!

We know a lot of the Big Things that SCROTUS and his cronies have done that erode our freedoms, our protections, and our security.  I won't cover those here.

No, today I'm writing about some of the Little Things. These things are flying under the radar, primarily because there are so many Big Things taking the attention.  We ought to pay attention to the little things, too.


The Right to Protest
The Right to Protest is literally under attack.  The United Nations is concerned that at least 19 states have laws in the works that would increase the criminalization of peaceful protests, including laws that would increase punishments for certain types of activities during protests, such as wearing masks or robes during a protest or blocking traffic during a protest; making it legal to run over protesters "as long as the crash was accidental;" and making it a crime to heckle lawmakers. WTF??  Heckling lawmakers is guaranteed by the Constitution. In fact, we have a DUTY to heckle lawmakers!!  Read this article from The Washington Post, Keep in touch with your state representatives and protest these types of laws from being implemented.

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” ― Elie Wiesel


Energy Star
You've heard that Agent Orange wants to gut the Environmental Protection Agency, cutting its budget by 30%.  You may not have heard that Energy Star --the beloved program that costs so little but makes a huge impact in consumer energy savings-- is slated to be eliminated outright. Really? Why?


Altering Websites
Government websites have been dismantled or pared down. On Day 1 of the administration, the official whitewash.gov website eliminated pages on climate change, LGBQ issues, and civil rights. Within days of the inauguration, the EPA's website began to remove its scientific information.  This week, there are reports that data, initially rumored to be removed, will not be taken down.  Go, Brother and Sister Resisters!  Incredibly, the State Department advertised Mar-A-Lago resort on its official page (since taken down).  And as if to raise the middle finger to all lovers of nature, the Bureau of Land Management website replaced its banner photo from a man and boy hiking to a vein of coal ready to be mined. This has since been changed, no doubt in response to outrage by us resisters!

One of the most exciting evolutions of the resistance came about when SCROTUS started to limit the National Park Service's social media output, leading to the birth of AltNationalParkService, a group of anonymous rouge park employees speaking out on social media: Twitter and Facebook. YES!  Park Rangers leading the resistance!


The Election Assistance Commission
The Election Assistance Commission, a body formed after the disastrous 2000 Election Sham, helps improve voting machines and helps resist hacking, supports election bodies and poll workers, as well as promotes voter registration and voting in general.  Guess who wants to do away with the EAC?  Of course, the Republicans, who do all they can to suppress voting.  Grrrrr. Contact your MoCs to encourage them to vote no on H.R.634 - Election Assistance Commission Termination Act.


The National Forensic Commission
Also eliminated from the Federal Government is The National Forensic Commission, a body within the Department of Justice, which included independent scientists. It was ordered by Jeff Sessions to be dissolved this month.  Now, Forensic Science is near and dear to my heart, and we need to support and promote good scientific practices for justice to prevail.  It's just another casualty in the War on Science. Really troubling. These people weaken our country with every turn.


Surgeon General
You may not have heard that the Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, was fired.  Now a nurse, Rear Adm. Sylvia Trent-Adams, holds the position.


Ok, just one big thing.......

So there is one issue that is not flying under the radar, but is egregious and must be mentioned! This is an outrage, and the Resistance must rise up to prevent this from happening!

The National Park System!  The Infinite and Endless Liar wants to open up our precious public lands for drilling, mining, raping!  Our National Parks and National Monuments are some of the most incredible protected lands in the world. The National Parks are gems, and is is outrageous that he is considering undoing some 40 parks created over the last 20 years! Read the thorough write-up in National Geographic. Patagonia, for one, is threatening to sue if SCROTUS tries to un-do these National Parks. If you want to help, the Alt National Park Service suggests this:



In addition, consider donating to a charity that works to protect the earth.  I have just donated to EarthJustice (motto: "Because the Earth needs a good lawyer"), which has a 4/4 (90%+) rating on Charity Navigator.

Thanks for reading, and keep up the resistance!