Tuesday, December 27, 2016

A Very Trumpy Christmas

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Donald Trump posted a bizarre official Christmas Card on Twitter that frankly looks like it was done with Paint on a Windows 95 computer from Radio Shack. And that's not all - he thinks Americans spent more money on Christmas because he was elected.





















RNC Proclaims Trump is King

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In honor of Christmas (maybe) the RNC has proclaimed that Trump is not only President, he is King of Kings, and comparable to Jesus.

Really. Read the RNC Statement:
WASHINGTON - Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus and Co-Chair Sharon Day released the following statement celebrating Christmas:

“Merry Christmas to all! Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King. We hope Americans celebrating Christmas today will enjoy a day of festivities and a renewed closeness with family and friends.

“Even as we celebrate, we must also remember those among us who are less fortunate. Many on this day are without hope, and need the kindness and compassion of those around them. It is our prayer we will rise to meet the material, emotional, and spiritual needs of individuals all around us, and what better day is there to love our fellow man than today?

“As we open presents, enjoy Christmas dinner, and celebrate our own family traditions, we are mindful of our men and women in uniform. Many are stationed around the world today protecting our freedoms, and cannot be with their own spouses, children, parents, and siblings. We express the deepest gratitude for service that takes them away from celebrating with loved ones, and we ought to remember them in our thoughts and prayers not just on Christmas Day, but the whole year round.”

The backlash was instant and fierce:

From the Palmer Report:
It’s the “this Christmas” and “new King” in the same sentence that have gotten Priebus in trouble, in a seemingly obvious reference to Donald Trump currently being on the verge of taking office and effectively taking over the United States. But now he’s insisting to CNN that he was in fact referring to Christ, even though the RNC Christmas message he sent out last year made no mention of any “King” one way or the other.















Our Tweet @SnarkAmendment:



Wednesday, December 21, 2016

The Center Cannot Hold ~ Trump Confirmed

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The Electoral College voted to confirm Donald Trump as President. The world didn't end, even though "the falcon cannot hear the falconer" anymore, and the center did not hold.

Trump isn't the only bad President we've had in the United States, and he's certainly not the only President I've been depressed about in my lifetime. Nixon was horrible,and because of Watergate I refused to watch the TV news for about ten years while growing up. Reagan beat out Jimmy Carter and we were stuck with Ronny and Mommy in the White House, yet that almost seems like a golden age to me now. George W. Bush caused havoc in the country by stealing the election from Al Gore, and letting warmongers like Cheney and Rumsfeld drag us into a forever war over oil. Yet we survived and moved into the Age of Obama, the first black President of the United States and a great statesman. We beat the odds for eight years, in spite of everything the "worst of us" could do.

However, Trump is in a category by himself, and we are down the rabbit hole and into the Upside-Down, as they call it in the Netflix series "Stranger Things." Trump is a lunatic, a sex maniac, a racist, and a tax cheat. Clearly he conspired with Putin's Russian hackers, Comey at the FBI, and fake news pushers such as Breitbart to defeat Hillary Clinton. What we see of his corruption is only the tip of the iceberg. If not the Anti-Christ or "rough beast" from Yeats's poem, he is the Demogorgon from Dungeons and Dragons lurking in the dark who has managed to pull us all to the Upside Down.

Still, the world didn't end - not yet, anyway. True that these are dark days for Democrats while the best and brightest among us just want to hibernate and lick our wounds for the next four years. Yet hope still remains. Our party was strong this past year and we made sense to the rest of world. Obama and Hillary are almost universally praised outside of the United States. But we need heroes to step up now so we can survive Trump, and what form they will take in the future is up to God, Fate, and the Wheel of Karma. The falcon may have escaped the falconer and Trump may have escaped the Electoral College, but something else - an eagle, a lightning bolt, the Truth ... something - may keep Trump from completely destroying our country.

President Obama was too good for us, and we'll probably never have a better President. But our country is better than Trump, and maybe - just maybe - even the cowards and toadies in his own party won't let things completely fall apart.

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Monday, December 12, 2016

Trump is Putin's Pawn and Puppet

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pic via @realsocktrump

Previous Related Posts:
Final Trump Vs. Clinton Debate
Trump and the Russian - DNC - Wikileaks Connection
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So the election happened over a month ago now. Trump pulled out a victory by winning states that every single pollster said he wouldn't win. Jill Stein tried to get recounts for shady dealings in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, but the courts overruled everything except Wisconsin, which isn't enough for a Hillary win.

Hillary is leading in the popular vote by almost 3 million, one of the largest margins in history.

A month after the worst election in U.S. history, journalists and pundits are right back to wondering whether:
  • The Election was Stolen by Comey and Russian Hackers
  • Trump is unfit to serve, since he has already insulted China and won't take Intel briefings
  • We are screwed and democracy is over

These are things I've asked myself many times in the aftermath of the storm that was Election 2016.

But let's just go back to the last debate with Hillary Clinton in October, shall we? Trump says quite plainly that "Putin doesn't respect" Hillary Clinton, which is why she should lose. I guess to Trump, having the respect of a similar Narcissistic Dictator type like Putin is important. That's what Trump is aspiring to be, after all.

When Hillary stood up to him and called Trump a puppet of Putin's, Trump started screaming "You're the puppet, You're the puppet.NO Puppet! You're the Puppet!!!" Much fun was made of this on Twitter, and cartoonists had a field day, so it is easy to find examples. And that's a big reason why the news media and GOP cannot just shrug off accusations now that "no one saw" a Russian Connection to Trump before the election.





























Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Clinton Leads With One Day Left

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It's all over but the final voting now. Most pollsters say Hillary Clinton will win by a landslide. Meanwhile, the entire human race holds their collective breath.

































Saturday, November 5, 2016

The Pro-Trump FBI

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Previous Related Posts:
FBI Director Comey Drops Unethical Email Bomb on Dems
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why is the FBI meddling in a United States election? Did they coordinate with the Trump campaign when FBI Director James Comey announced vague accusations at Hillary Clinton just a week before a major election? Is the FBI Pro-Trump because they are Clinton-hating,gun-loving institution full of white men?

From The Guardian.com: "The FBI is Trumpland"
“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent.
. . . Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”

Daily Beast: Did Rudy Giuliani know about the Comey announcement ahead of time?
Two days before FBI director James Comey rocked the world last week, Rudy Giuliani was on Fox, where he volunteered, un-prodded by any question: “I think he’s [Donald Trump] got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.”
Pressed for specifics, he said: “We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around.”
. . . Back in August, during a contentious CNN interview about Comey’s July announcement clearing Hillary Clinton of criminal charges, Giuliani advertised his illicit FBI sources, who circumvented bureau guidelines to discuss a case with a public partisan. “The decision perplexes me. It perplexes Jim Kallstrom, who worked for him. It perplexes numerous FBI agents who talk to me all the time. And it embarrasses some FBI agents.”
Kallstrom is the former head of the New York FBI office, installed in that post in the ’90s by then-FBI director Louis Freeh, one of Giuliani’s longtime friends. Kallstrom has, like Giuliani, been on an anti-Comey romp for months, most often on Fox, where he’s called the Clintons as a “crime family.”

Daily Beast: Dems Need to Investigate FBI Leaks to Giuliani
Giuliani appeared on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning and confirmed that he had heard about Comey’s letter before it was sent, though he denied he had tried to disseminate the information.
“I did nothing to get it out, and I had no role in it,” he said. But he continued, “Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it, and I can’t even repeat the language that I heard from the former FBI agents.”
Reps. Elijah Cummings and John Conyers, respectively the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Judiciary Committee, wrote to the Justice Department inspector general on Friday afternoon asking him to investigate the source of the information to Giuliani.

From Huffington Post:
White men are overwhelmingly likely to support Donald Trump, and the FBI is a culturally conservative law enforcement agency that is overwhelmingly white and male.
The FBI has actually gotten whiter in recent years. As of Aug. 1, 83.2 percent of FBI special agents were white, according to internal statistics. That’s a higher percentage than in 2008. More than 80 percent of FBI special agents are men. Last year, FBI director James Comey joked that the fictional FBI depicted on the television show “Quantico” made FBI agents look more “attractive and diverse” than they did real life.



Giuliani backtracks on speaking to current FBI agents:














The Pro-Trump FBI

 photo fbi_logo_twitter.jpg

Previous Related Posts:
FBI Director Comey Drops Unethical Email Bomb on Dems
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why is the FBI meddling in a United States election? Did they coordinate with the Trump campaign when FBI Director James Comey announced vague accusations at Hillary Clinton just a week before a major election? Is the FBI Pro-Trump because they are Clinton-hating,gun-loving institution full of white men?

From The Guardian.com: "The FBI is Trumpland"
“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent.
. . . Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”

Daily Beast: Did Rudy Giuliani know about the Comey announcement ahead of time?
Two days before FBI director James Comey rocked the world last week, Rudy Giuliani was on Fox, where he volunteered, un-prodded by any question: “I think he’s [Donald Trump] got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.”
Pressed for specifics, he said: “We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around.”
. . . Back in August, during a contentious CNN interview about Comey’s July announcement clearing Hillary Clinton of criminal charges, Giuliani advertised his illicit FBI sources, who circumvented bureau guidelines to discuss a case with a public partisan. “The decision perplexes me. It perplexes Jim Kallstrom, who worked for him. It perplexes numerous FBI agents who talk to me all the time. And it embarrasses some FBI agents.”
Kallstrom is the former head of the New York FBI office, installed in that post in the ’90s by then-FBI director Louis Freeh, one of Giuliani’s longtime friends. Kallstrom has, like Giuliani, been on an anti-Comey romp for months, most often on Fox, where he’s called the Clintons as a “crime family.”

Daily Beast: Dems Need to Investigate FBI Leaks to Giuliani
Giuliani appeared on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning and confirmed that he had heard about Comey’s letter before it was sent, though he denied he had tried to disseminate the information.
“I did nothing to get it out, and I had no role in it,” he said. But he continued, “Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it, and I can’t even repeat the language that I heard from the former FBI agents.”
Reps. Elijah Cummings and John Conyers, respectively the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Judiciary Committee, wrote to the Justice Department inspector general on Friday afternoon asking him to investigate the source of the information to Giuliani.

From Huffington Post:
White men are overwhelmingly likely to support Donald Trump, and the FBI is a culturally conservative law enforcement agency that is overwhelmingly white and male.
The FBI has actually gotten whiter in recent years. As of Aug. 1, 83.2 percent of FBI special agents were white, according to internal statistics. That’s a higher percentage than in 2008. More than 80 percent of FBI special agents are men. Last year, FBI director James Comey joked that the fictional FBI depicted on the television show “Quantico” made FBI agents look more “attractive and diverse” than they did real life.





Giuliani backtracks on speaking to current FBI agents:














Tuesday, November 1, 2016

FBI Director Comey Drops Unethical Email Bomb

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FBI Director James Comey decided last Friday to drop an unethical and possibly illegal bombshell one week before we elect the President of the United States.

As if we haven't heard enough about Hillary Clinton's emails, he suddenly announced that the FBI had found more of them on - wait for it - Anthony Weiner's computer. Yes, "Carlos Danger" had some of Hillary's emails on a computer he shared with his estranged wife, Huma Abedin, an assistant to Clinton.

Why was it necessary to announce this? Were these emails illegal or relevant in any way? Well, that's funny - the FBI didn't even have a search warrant for them until yesterday.

Is Comey trying to help Trump get elected? Everyone believed Hillary was cleared of wrongdoing in the email scandal last summer - by James Comey - and he was praised at the time for being "non-partisan" in his investigation. So what is he now? Um . . . he's in deep manure. Even Republicans are calling for his resignation and Harry Reid says that he has broken the law.

And even worse - Comey is said to have avoided making announcements about the FBI looking into Trump's ties with Putin and Russian banks because he didn't want to influence the election. Well, uh, why only make announcements about one side if you are a non-partisan public official???!!!

From NPR
...Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid says Comey may have violated a law known as the Hatch Act by making the investigation public this late in the election season. In a letter to Comey, Reid said the move revealed a "clear double standard" and accused Comey of using his position as FBI director to influence the election.
"In tarring Secretary Clinton with thin innuendo, you overruled longstanding tradition and the explicit guidance of your own Department. You rushed to take this step eleven days before a presidential election, despite the fact that for all you know, the information you possess could be entirely duplicative of the information you already examined which exonerated Secretary Clinton."
To further his claim of a double standard, Reid also accused Comey of sitting on evidence of ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from using their official authority or influence to affect the result of an election.

From Charles Blow on The New York Times
On Friday, the F.B.I. director, James Comey, took the outrageous and unprecedented step of sending a letter to Congress announcing that the bureau has “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent” to the inquiry into Clinton’s personal email server that apparently had been uncovered as part of an Anthony Weiner sexting investigation.

. . . In a letter to F.B.I. employees, he pointed out that “of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations,” but feebly tried to explain that he was doing so this time, at this crucial moment, so as not to mislead the American people and to “supplement the record.” Then he wrote: “At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.”
“Risk of being misunderstood” is one of the most appalling understatements of this presidential cycle. Comey clearly knew that his ill-advised actions could implicate Clinton by insinuation and he proceeded anyway, presenting his vague letter as an act of valor when in fact it was an act of vacuity. The irony here is that the man who blasted Clinton for being “extremely careless” for her use of a private email server was himself “extremely careless” for inserting himself and his agency into an election with that letter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Donald Trump still hasn't released his tax returns, 12 women have accused him of sexual assault, and he's going on trial for fraud for Trump University in November. But now, the only thing the media is talking about is emails. It's like during the O.J. Trial if everyone was focused on whether or not the Ford Bronco had up-to-date registration."
~~ Comedian Seth Meyers on Late Night





















Sunday, October 23, 2016

Final Trump vs. Clinton Debate 2016

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And the whole country sighed with relief when it was over.

However, Trump gave a caveat when asked if he would accept the results of the election in November if he loses, as most polls tell us that he will:

Via NPR
When first asked, Trump refused to say yes, replying in part, "I will look at it [the election results] at the time." When pushed on the issue, Trump told Wallace, "I'll keep you in suspense."



Stephen Colbert let him have it on Trump's "suspense":

Oh my God. That's...uh...what's the word?
(Shows tape of Hillary saying "horrifying" during the debate)
That's it! Thank you! Thank you!
(Stephen blows kiss to Hillary/camera - crowd cheers)
I want to make sure I heard that correctly.
(Plays Trump saying "I'll keep you in suspense")
Oh! Oh - Suspense! Democracy's going to end with a cliffhanger. I guess we're all going to have to wait until November 9th to find out if we still have a country! If Donald Trump is in the "mood" for a peaceful transfer of power. Or if he's just going to wipe is fat ass with the Constitution!



The day after the debate, Donald doubled down, saying he would only accept a win, not a loss:

Via NPR
In front of an exuberant crowd Thursday in Delaware, Ohio, Donald Trump again addressed whether he would accept the outcome of the November election.

"Ladies and gentleman I want to make a major announcement today," Trump said, continuing, "I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters, and to all of the people of the United States, that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election - if I win"



































Monday, October 17, 2016

End Times: Trump Killing the GOP

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In the never-ending dumpster fire that is the modern GOP, Donald Trump has found new and unique ways to throw gasoline on everything. And no one seems able to stop the conflagration, although voters are running from the Republican Party in droves, not to mention the donors who are now asking for their money back. Fundraisers are also being cancelled due to "lack of interest." He's even lost the Mormons of Utah thanks to his porn-laced comments about women, and they are flocking to Mormon alternative candidate Evan McMullin who could make Trump irrelevant in several Western states.

Is this the end of the Republican Party as we know it? As they say in the musical Oklahoma, have they "gone about as fur as they kin go?" We can hope!

Of course, Trump himself is pushing back by squalling like a cranky toddler without about rigged elections, unfavorable Saturday Night Live skits, and accusations that Hillary is on drugs. I would call that "classic projection" myself. Trump would love to rig elections himself, he vilifies and puts down everyone, and he sniffed like a Coke addict through the first two debates. So, who is what?























Wednesday, October 12, 2016

That Repulsive Trump Tape

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A tape was released last week on which Donald Trump talked about assaulting women and grabbing them "by the p***y." Over the weekend his own party members began to flee the sinking Trump Ship, but that wasn't enough to force any regret out of the candidate. In fact, during his second debate with Hillary Clinton on Monday night, Trump waved it all off as "locker room talk," as if that makes everything okay.

Original Tape: Warning, Offensive Language








Via The Atlantic
“Grab them by the p***y. You can do anything.”
. . . The Trump video features a long list of offensive comments.
“I moved on her like a bi*ch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” Trump says. “Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”
As actress Arianne Zucker approaches to lead them on to the set, Trump continues, “I’ve gotta use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”










































Trump Apologists















Fallout? Trump Will Lose in November!