One advantage to keeping younger friends around is, they are acquainted with things you never knew, or have long forgotten. So it was that one of mine was demanding, after Trump’s statement yesterday, why more people aren’t investigating why the president of the United States was OBVIOUSLY ON SPEED during his Mar-a-Lago speech.
The sniffing, the dry mouth, the slurring — it’s all very obvious to a person who sees these symptoms from time to time in his own social circle. Just because the president is a 70something gramps doesn’t mean he doesn’t know his way around an Adderall script.
On the other hand, I saw Rick Wilson has taken to calling him Sniffles the Clown, so: Upside.
The end of the first full week of the new year, and I’m managing to get this blog updated three times, whaddaya know. We had a breakfast-dinner, however, because sometimes in January you trudge home and just aren’t feelin’ it, and there is no law whatsoever against pancakes, eggs and bacon for dinner, is there? There was a little excitement tonight because Kate’s band’s record got played on the BBC Radio 6, which they didn’t know until they started getting Facebook messages from new fans using words like “brilliant.”
You can find them on Spotify, if so inclined. Search for “Shadow Show.”
It’s been interesting to track the reaction to Harry and Meghan’s semi-abdication, don’t you think? Those two are really spilling the tea:
With gauzy photos and corporate-style language, the site sets out the couple’s rationale for scaling back their duties, defends their sources of funding and serves notice that they will no longer engage with the news media in the way Buckingham Palace traditionally has.
Among its features is an explanation of who pays for their upkeep, complete with a graphic showing how money flows from the crown estate through the Treasury and back to the queen. But it raises as many questions as it answers.
The couple say, for example, that they will forgo money from the Sovereign Grant, the public purse that pays for lodgings and offices for the royal family. But they note that it accounts for only 5 percent of their expenses. The other 95 percent comes from Prince Charles, through the proceeds he gets from the Duchy of Cornwall, a vast private estate established by King Edward III in 1337.
I always wondered about the cash flow in that arrangement. And then there’s this:
If the media paid more attention to Britain’s communities of color, perhaps it would find the announcement far less surprising. With a new prime minister whose track record includes overtly racist statements, some of which would make even Donald Trump blush, a Brexit project linked to native nationalism and a desire to rid Britain of large numbers of immigrants, and an ever thickening loom of imperial nostalgia, many of us are also thinking about moving.
From the very first headline about her being “(almost) straight outta Compton” and having “exotic” DNA, the racist treatment of Meghan has been impossible to ignore. Princess Michael of Kent wore an overtly racist brooch in the duchess’s company. A BBC host compared the couple’s newborn baby to a chimpanzee. Then there was the sublimely ludicrous suggestion that Meghan’s avocado consumption is responsible for mass murder, while her charity cookbook was portrayed as somehow helping terrorists.
A …chimpanzee? Good lord, I had no idea it was that bad.
But it’s not all about the attractive young couple. It’s also about…him:
The Trump administration has for nearly two years ignored mounting evidence that Russian operatives and other foreign actors were deliberately targeting U.S. troops and veterans with online disinformation amplified on a massive scale, a leading veterans group said.
American veterans and service members enjoy a high degree of social respect, and ongoing manipulation campaigns aimed at them could be weaponized to sow social discord in their communities, Vietnam Veterans of America warned officials at the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments in March 2018, among other agencies.
God bless America, and let’s make it great again.
Have a good weekend, all.
Joe Kobiela said on January 9, 2020 at 11:13 pm
Must be very exciting for young Kate.
Congrats!
✈️Joe
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Deborah said on January 9, 2020 at 11:25 pm
Very cool about Kate’s band’s recognition.
On another completely off topic note, here is the listing for uncle J’s “ranch” in Tubac, AZ. I can let you know as an insider that they’ll take way (way) less than the asking price even though uncle J paid a lot more for it. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1052-Morning-Star-Dr-Tubac-AZ-85646/2081958468_zpid/
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Cathie from Canada said on January 10, 2020 at 2:25 am
The racist, harping, sniping British tabloid coverage of Markle is extraordinary – everything from her shoes to her dresses to her pregnancy to her liking for avocado toast gets criticized, not to mention constant stories about her whining father and half-sister.
And now the tabs really have something to be mad about – they are absolutely outraged that she isn’t going to talk to them anymore! I guess Britain has something called the Royal Rota, like the White House press pool, but in this case, the royal family isn’t even supposed to talk to any other media outlets at all, except for this Gang of Six, and the most virulent Markle haters are in this group. So it sounds like Meghan and Harry have basically just said, F*ck This, we’re outta here.
I hope they enjoy Canada, if this is where they settle — we would be happy to have them! Or, Markle’s mother lives in LA, so maybe that’s where they will land instead. (I presume they won’t have to wait in Mexico for a refugee interview, though who knows?)
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Dexter Friend said on January 10, 2020 at 2:56 am
It took a full reconstruction of the bits of TWA 800’s wreckage, in summer 1996, to determine, many months later, that all the many eyewitness reports of a missile taking down that plane were optical illusions, said the authorities. The Ukraine jet blow-up has already been decided: Iran shot it down. Except Iran says bullshit, did not did not did not. A plane exploding all to hell like that is rare, so maybe the truth will settle in eventually.
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Linda said on January 10, 2020 at 4:54 am
The media’s lack of commentary on Trump’s obvious impairment is not stifling social media. Check out the Twitter hashtag #SniffyMcAdderal.
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Brandon said on January 10, 2020 at 4:59 am
The Daily Mail article on avocados.
Importing avocados to the UK results in a Will Perdue-sized carbon footprint. According to PeacefulDumpling.com: “A few forward-thinking establishments in the UK are now shunning avocados in favour of more sustainable alternatives. …” Such as lemony pea mash.
Another recipe for mashed-pea toast.
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Suzanne said on January 10, 2020 at 8:52 am
Not a fan of peas, so that mashed pea toast is not likely in my future.
I am appalled as well that the media is so silent on Trump’s impairment. Are they afraid of bullying from the right? He gave another speech or press conference yesterday and had blackish bags under his eyes. And nobody in the administration can get their stories straight on the threat Suleimani posed. They say it was imminent but then say we don’t know when or where. So I would say that’s not imminent.
I got hooked on Netflix’s The Crown. When I heard that Harry & Megan didn’t consult the Queen on their decision, all I could think was how very much that would upset her having watched all 3 seasons.
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Dorothy said on January 10, 2020 at 9:07 am
Jeez Louise, Deborah. If I hit the lottery the first (well, maybe fifth) phone call I think I’d make would be to the real estate agent and buy that house. It’s breathtaking!
Guess I’ll have to sign up to Spotify now. Will do that on my lunch break.
Anyone have any idea how to extricate the ugliness out of Trump supporters (I know – not all of them act like degenerates) after he’s gone from office? https://twitter.com/ConnieSchultz/status/1215435023710593025
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Deborah said on January 10, 2020 at 9:13 am
I love mashed pea dip with Trader Joe’s pita crackers. The dip has to be made with fresh peas though. I also like eating fresh peas right from the shell, first had this in Finland, you can buy the peas in shells from carts on the streets of Helsinki in season.
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Jeff Borden said on January 10, 2020 at 9:34 am
I began my journalism career as a high school kid writing sports for a small daily in NE Ohio while Richard M. Nixon was president. Even then, there was a constant cry from Republicans and Nixon supporters that the media was biased against them and their policies, a tactic that accelerated over the years as conservatives sought to “work the refs.”
Today, the so-called ultra liberal Washington Post offers prime real estate to such grease stains as Marc A. Theissen, best remembered as the most vocal advocate for torture and extreme rendition while in the W. administration; Michael Gerson, W.’s chief speechwriter; Gary Abernathy, a small town Ohio newspaper editor and “tRump whisperer” who explains why all the “real Americans” adore the preznit; Megan McArdle, a rightwing libertarian; Jennifer Rubin, who while a prominent “never tRumper” is extremely conservative; and the ol’ eminence country club conservative himself, George Will, who once helped prep St. Ronald of Reagan for debates against Jimmy Carter. The NYT, too, has a sizable stable of conservative, rightwing voices on its editorial pages.
This means nothing to those on the right. Any story from these publications or others that is unflattering to Dear Leader will be dismissed with the sneering “fake news” from “liberal papers.” Perhaps this is why there is virtually no speculation on why the Orange King seems to be spiraling downward both mentally and physically? His speech this week was an absolute horror and he looked like shit. The slurring and sniffing were impossible to ignore. But the only place I’ve seen it discussed is online.
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Jenine said on January 10, 2020 at 9:59 am
@Deborah, those Finns really know how to live the good life. I love the idea of buying sweet peas in the pod from a street vendor.
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LAMary said on January 10, 2020 at 10:22 am
They sell peas in the pod on the street in Denmark as well. Peas and small hot dog type sausages with a biscuit. But Deborah, you were deprived raw fresh peas as a child? Didn’t some adult recruit you to help shell peas? I was always willing to help with that because I could eat as many as I tossed into the colander. Fresh green beans too.
And I don’t think it’s a generational thing to recognize Trump’s sniffing and effed up behavior. I think you just haven’t hung out with as speed addict losers as I have. I had a boss once..a roommate once…a neighbor…another boss…
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Dorothy said on January 10, 2020 at 10:24 am
This is a sad story, and someone should make a movie about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/nyregion/faith-hope-consolo.html
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Deborah said on January 10, 2020 at 10:41 am
Are you kidding LA Mary, I don’t think I ever had a fresh vegetable until I was in my 20s. My mother was a lousy cook and every veggie we had came from a can, later frozen (after my mom died my sister and I switched to frozen, because canned vegs taste gross).
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ROGirl said on January 10, 2020 at 10:45 am
They have been remarking on his erratic and contradictory behavior, and that he went after Iran to distract from the looming impeachment trial. Whether that’s due to drugs or Nancy Pelosi has gotten under his skin, who knows?
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alex said on January 10, 2020 at 11:22 am
Adderall might be more fun to speculate about but the frontotemporal dementia theory strikes me as more likely. Of course both things could be going on.
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Sherri said on January 10, 2020 at 11:42 am
Yet another article trying to understand why trump supporters support him no matter what. I think it’s quite simple, and have said this from the beginning: he hates all the right people. The resentment and sense of aggrievment from trump supporters has been stoked so high that they are absolutely convinced, all evidence to the contrary, that they are at the bottom of the pile.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/01/09/trump-support-impeachment-096606
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Jakash said on January 10, 2020 at 12:53 pm
“a Will Perdue-sized carbon footprint”
Wow, Brandon, that’s a lovely way to usher in a new decade — with a reference that hearkens back to at least the beginning of the millennium! 😉
“he hates all the right people” Indeed, Sherri. You know, Chicagoans, and Illini in general, have a pretty solid familiarity with political corruption. I voted for Rod Blagojevich twice, myself. By the second time, fer sure, I knew it was a deal with the devil. So, I’m not proud of it, but I did it. The thing is, when the facts came out and he was eventually indicted for abuse of power (why that sounds kinda like a certain dotard in the news these days!), neither I nor any large groundswell of folks at all rose up to say “Hey, that’s our guy, leave him alone.” The main thing debated was how much time he should spend in prison.
So, I marvel at the way the Republican leadership and their Fox News enablers have kept the 40%-line of support holding for such an obviously crooked and incompetent president. It’s almost as if Republicans know they have to cheat to win. Propping up a traitor and felon is just where they find themselves at this point.
To wit: https://twitter.com/travisakers/status/1215595452004995073
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Deborah said on January 10, 2020 at 1:41 pm
Jakash, I don’t remember exactly but I think I probably voted for Bloggo too, but after I found out he did the pay to play thing he was dead to me.
My husband arrived in NM this morning and we’re going out to Abiquiu this afternoon for the first time since mid October. It’s going to get down in the low teens tonight, looking forward to a warm and cozy cabin with the wood burning stove revved up. There’s always lots to do when we get there after having been away this long.
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Suzanne said on January 10, 2020 at 1:43 pm
I am currently reading “Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad” and besides learning a great deal about the Stalin era, I am being struck by the similarities between Stalin and Trump. Both share(d) a love chaos, erratic behavior, a failure to trust or listen to anyone’s advice, an admiration of other dictators, a complete inability to see their own flaws, and both incredibly mean.
It’s depressing.
I still don’t really understand Trump supporters although I know many. Mostly, I’d say, work is what gives them meaning. They put all their energy into their jobs and their homes, they work hard and play hard and most are very, very naive and have almost no interest in anything intellectual. Our public library stocks mostly popular DVDs and Christian fiction or so-called “cozy mysteries” which are often benign and bland. I am told often that I read odd books because I read a lot of non-fiction & books that make me think. They can travel the world but come back to the rural midwest with no appreciation or admiration for other cultures because they are not like our own culture. The mindset is almost always that it’s too bad they are not like us! They defend their religious beliefs although if you try to pin them down, most don’t really have any idea what their church’s doctrines are, but they know what the local Christian rock station plays and why the liberals are bad (abortion & guns) and that is good enough for them.
I know people who will not take a walk on a rural road alone because of fear but don’t lock their doors at night. They fear what they don’t know (which is a lot), but don’t make much effort to find out. They will tell a city person that they could never live in a big city because cities are crime filled, cold, and crowded but will be very offended if a city dweller says he or she could never live in their rural area. And they see no contradiction in any of this.
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Bitter Scribe said on January 10, 2020 at 1:52 pm
…overtly racist statements, some of which would make even Donald Trump blush…
I don’t believe any racist statement would. And even if it did, how would anyone tell?
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alex said on January 10, 2020 at 6:31 pm
I don’t believe any racist statement would. And even if it did, how would anyone tell?
Bitter Scribe for the win!
I voted for Blago too back in the day. He was never terribly impressive but better than anything the Republicans were offering up for governor. That he would attempt to sell Obama’s Senate seat made me realize what a dumbass he was and if he deserves fourteen years for that, Trump deserves a date with Old Sparky.
I have yet to read a Cletus safari travelogue that has any real resonance for me. Suzanne recognizes the kind of intransigently ignorant people we live amongst in our little corner of semi-rural America, people fearful of their own shadows and gullible as all get-out. They have long resented educated people and a popular culture that eschews racism and ignorance. They finally feel like they’re having their day in the sun and that the rest of us want to rain on it.
I remember seeing a wacko bumper sticker back in 2005 when I first moved back to Indiana from Chicago. It said “__________ Hillary. Annoy a Liberal!” I forget what it said to do to Hillary, but remember the second part vividly. And this was years before Hillary even ran for president. “Owning the libs” is really what the election of 2016 was all about and what fealty to Trump is all about too.
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alex said on January 10, 2020 at 7:07 pm
And sterling example Pilot Joe admitted as much when he nanna-boobooed us back in November of 2016.
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Deborah said on January 10, 2020 at 7:44 pm
Have you ever tried to speak with a human being at Amazon? It took me forever to find a “contact us” button on their website. I ordered a floor lamp, it came today without the base. I didn’t want to go through the hassle of returning it, I just wanted them to send the base. But of course that can’t be done. Grrrrrrr.
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Deborah said on January 10, 2020 at 7:51 pm
And we ended up not going to the cabin because my husband has a sore throat/cough so better to stay in the Santa Fe condo tonight, we’ll see about tomorrow.
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Colleen said on January 10, 2020 at 7:59 pm
I think Suzanne hit it on the head. Scared of what they don’t know, and that’s a lot. It’s so flipping sad, really. The suspicion and disdain shown for people with any intellectual curiosity is discouraging.
Sigh. I’m just so stressed about what’s going on in this country.
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Suzanne said on January 10, 2020 at 10:04 pm
This pretty well sums it up
https://twitter.com/nypapajoe/status/1215645448989564928?s=21
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alex said on January 10, 2020 at 10:04 pm
I found the photo I took of that bumper sticker in February of 2005. It had a picture of Hillary on it and it said:
“Annoy a Liberal! Work, Succeed, Be Happy”
You have to wonder if the Russians were at work doing agitprop pre-Internet. The sensibility seems a little “off” somehow.
When I moved here from Chicago I got interrogated endlessly about how I managed to dodge bullets for 20 years and look so unscathed and mentally healthy after living in such a dangerous hellhole. (And such a dangerous hellhole despite gun laws!) I explained that I was never a crime victim the entire time I lived there and neither are most people. It’s a huge fucking city and so densely populated that the streets are busy 24/7 and I felt safer there walking around at night than I do here because there were always so many people around. Gangland murders there are like gangland murders here–just proportionate in number to the size of the city and confined to places where you would never go anyway.
I was also amazed at the amount of alarmism in general about everything and I recognize that this is a very different place now than when I left it in the 1980s. It was still Bumpkin Junction back then just as it is now but people weren’t in such a tizzy about ludicrously impossible dangers.
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Colleen said on January 10, 2020 at 11:47 pm
I used to roll my eyes back inside my skull in the days of discussion about a downtown baseball stadium. So many comments from people who wouldn’t go downtown at night because it was too dangerous. I used to work nights at the new Parkview, and I lived across town, on the infamous south side…don’t get me started. Anyway…I used to drive through downtown every night around 11:30 on my way home. I don’t recall ever seeing anything scary or feeling fearful while stopped at a light. I would even hit the Taco Bell drive thru now and again.
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Dexter Friend said on January 11, 2020 at 1:44 am
Raw peas snapped off the vine and split open …there’s hardly anything better. Cooking corn in the husk, on the cob, is also a summer treat. Most people strip off the husk and silk and boil the hell out of it, which is sacrilege. Leave it alone and either microwave it a few minutes or roast in the oven until the corn steams a little when you husk it. Why boil the goodness out of it? I have met many people who take my method as a crime; they eat corn raw off the cob. I also always drizzle the ears with butter or EVOO, never that damn margarine. I was raised on margarine and we only got butter for Grandma’s dinners. I have not used that shit for 25 years.
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beb said on January 11, 2020 at 3:12 am
I’ve tried eating corn cooked with the husk on. Wasn’t impressed. But then in our household Corn was pick just before cooking and blanched only before serving. But mostly you have to get fresh, just ripe corn. Anything else ages poorly and tastes like it.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 11, 2020 at 8:00 am
I think husk-on is only for roasting over fire/heat. Which is wonderful . . . and so far away. Plus you can use the folded back husks as a handle.
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basset said on January 11, 2020 at 8:18 am
Microwave the ears for six minutes, then cut the thick end off and squeeze the ear out of the husk, silk stays behind. Or pull the silk out, soak the ear in water, and roast it on the grill.
Will Perdue… when he was playing for the Bulls and was asked how he felt about mostly sitting on the bench, his reply was something like “for what they’re paying me, I’ll sit wherever they want me to.”
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nancy said on January 11, 2020 at 10:53 am
Someone stop me if I’ve told this story before, but:
Shortly after the Parkland mass shooting, I had lunch with a smart friend who’s in a gun-adjacent business — he sells a bulletproof vest for the masses — and owns quite a few weapons. I know he’s smart and sane, and I recorded the conversation with his consent, with the idea of maybe pitching it as a Q&A down the road. It didn’t work out quite that way, but I stumbled across the transcript a while ago and reread it. What struck me is what he said about preppers. He’d recently been to a prepper convention of sorts, hoping to sell some vests. He didn’t, but he learned a lot about the prepper mindset. I’ll just cut and paste from my transcript. The bold is me:
The average prepper was very polite, very nice. They’re well-off. I walked the parking lot and looked at the cars. F-150, $50K pickup trucks. Then I talked to them: Where are you from, where do you grow up? And they were from where they grew up. Hometown types. These aren’t foreign-country traveler types. These are people who, if you tell them Paris is a dangerous place, believe you. We were going on vacation to Paris, and people would say to me, “Are you going to be safe there?” Are you kidding me? Paris, France? We live in Detroit. Probably statistically 100 percent safer there.
They’ve heard about the no-go zones, the Muslims.
They were successful, family-oriented, not necessarily religious. And they were going through a checklist. Very scientific approach to it — I need six months’ of food, water, six months of guns and ammo, but not a lot of vests. They were OK with us, but it seemed very clear we were on a second tier of the hierarchy. Water was No. 1. They weren’t stocking for a war. They were stocking for a meltdown of the law. They were nice people, but they needed to get out a little more. Be more worldly.
That’s the fear we’re discussing. Instead of spending money on a giant pickup truck and shelter, why not…go to Paris? Go to London? Hell, we spent two weeks in Morocco and I didn’t feel unsafe once, anywhere, and we didn’t stay in the tourist zones.
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David C. said on January 11, 2020 at 11:45 am
It doesn’t even have to be Paris, Detroit, or Milwaukee. I hear people at work talking about the slums here in Oshkosh. There are no slums in Oshkosh. There are places that are mostly older houses like anywhere else. But here, the really run down places are around the university and are all occupied by students. We also have refugees here – Somali Muslim refugees. But good God, people from all the little towns around think of Oshkosh as something near to hell. Little, population 60,000 Oshkosh is the scary big city. Yeah, they need to get out more.
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Sherri said on January 11, 2020 at 12:04 pm
I ended up on a FB group of local preppers (it wasn’t obvious it was populated by preppers until I was on it.) Maybe these are quasi-preppers; they aren’t full-blown Idaho-style total breakdown of society types, but still way beyond the usual emergency preparedness types. One of them even ran for mayor this last time, with statistics and graphs “proving” that Redmond’s crime rate was terrible and complaining about our lack of emergency preparedness.
Meanwhile, our Planning Commission just had a briefing from our city’s emergency manager, and I think she’s awesome. She gets that emergency preparedness for a city is not just about checklists, it’s about relationships, especially in a diverse community like ours. And diverse not just In the usual ways you think: we almost double in size during the day, so we could have thousands of people who don’t live here trapped here due to a disaster. Our first responders are the same number that the resident population supports, we don’t have double the first responders to deal with this transient population.
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Jeff Borden said on January 11, 2020 at 12:12 pm
My wife and I stopped into a shop on the Via Veneto in Rome some 15 years ago, when President George W. Bush appeared to be setting the bar for foreign policy lunacy. (How naive we were!) While my wife browsed, I spoke with the English-speaking owner, who had a question for me: How did W. ever get elected? Every American he met had nothing but scorn for the president, he said. I didn’t have an answer then, but as illustrated by the posts above, it was pretty clear conservatives simply weren’t traveling to Rome, despite its encyclopedia of history, art and culture.
Alex is right about the views on Chicago from rural America. At my 50th high school reunion, I was peppered with questions from folks who wanted to know how we survived the daily carnage. After all, they’d heard *president tiny hands declare our city more dangerous than Afghanistan. I’m not sure they believed us when we told them we felt we had an idyllic life in a wonderful neighborhood where everything was in walking distance; that we lived a half-mile from two separate parks sprawling over multiple city blocks that would rival or outdo any kind of park they had near them; that is was fun to hear Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean and Polish spoken around us every day; that we all looked out for each other and did the usual neighborly things generally associated with Mayberry, etc.
Mark Twain, as usual, put it best: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
If only the Magats would travel more. . .
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basset said on January 11, 2020 at 1:32 pm
>>fun to hear Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean and Polish spoken around us every day
That’s what I like about Chicago, that it’s so much a collection of communities rather than one amorphous blob.
Back to the preppers for a minute… Mrs. B and I ran up on a prepper’s estate sale in Alabama last summer. He had the dehydrators, five-gallon buckets of vacuum-packed grain, all that stuff, and one bedroom of the house was full of canned goods on shelves. Every one we looked at had expired in either 2007 or 08.
Turned out the prepper hadn’t died, just moved suddenly and left a bunch of stuff he wanted the estate sale company to take care of. So, hunter and outdoor guy that I am, I asked about guns… no, he had a bunch but took those with him, they said.
Deer season ended yesterday, normal sleeping pattern can now resume.
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Deborah said on January 11, 2020 at 5:07 pm
Greetings from Abiquiu where the skies are sunny, temps are brisk, fire in the stove and sipping a bourbon after all of the setup work is done.
When we first got a place in Santa Fe 7 years ago LB and I used to think nothing of walking around at night because we did it all the time in Chicago. But now we never do because we realized there’s no one else on the streets and half the street lights don’t work. It’s dark and spooky compared to bustling, bright Chicago.
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basset said on January 11, 2020 at 5:42 pm
Sherri, around here the word is “resilience”… comes up often in planning initiatives, or at least it did before I retired last year. Way out of the loop now but I think there’s a “resilience officer” in city government somewhere.
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alex said on January 12, 2020 at 11:51 am
Frank Rich still manages to inform and entertain…
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/what-will-happen-to-trumps-republican-collaborators.html
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Suzanne said on January 12, 2020 at 1:16 pm
Good article, Alex.
This stuck out to me:
“Trump’s enablers and collaborators are more Londonderry than Hogan. It is too late for them to save their reputations. We must hope that it is not too late to save the country they have betrayed.”
I don’t give a rat’s behind about Trump enablers’ reputations and I don’t think they do either. I am still in the camp that it is possible we won’t have a 2020 election but if Trump is re-elected, the 2024 election will be like the sham elections in the Soviet Union that we heard about as kids. So little has been done to put a stop on him thus far and the more he gets away with, the worse he gets. He won’t stop because he has no incentive to do so.
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Jakash said on January 12, 2020 at 2:04 pm
It is a fine piece, Alex. But I just wonder if he’s citing a vanished world, where people’s past actions actually mattered, eventually, and to some extent. These days, it doesn’t seem like many from the W Bush gang have paid too much of a price for their lying to get us into a war and their financial mismanagement, for example.
On a lighter note — if one didn’t actually live in this country and have to face the consequences of watching a boob and charlatan follow directly after a dignified statesman in the Oval Office, this would be even funnier.
“We mashed up @BarackObama’s Bin Laden speech with Trump’s al-Baghdadi speech, and the results are amazing…”
https://twitter.com/LeeHolly81/status/1189163294122303488
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Suzanne said on January 12, 2020 at 2:17 pm
Because there are things like this:
https://twitter.com/adamdavidson/status/1216340422492139520?s=21
Read the whole thread. As author Sarah Kendzior keeps reminding us, what we are dealing with in Trump is a multi-national crime syndicate, not a politician.
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