Giving them Aid and Comfort

Comrade Trump

In light of Robert Mueller's indictment of 13 Russian nationals for conspiracy against the United States, we now know that there is at least a chance that the President of the United States committed treason (as defined in Article Three of the U.S. Constitution).  We also know that he is being aided and abetted by the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, and the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell.

From what I've read (and I freely admit to not being a Constitutional scholar), treason is exceedingly hard to prove in a court of law, but given that there's even a chance the President of the United States colluded with a a known foreign adversary, why is it that this is not being broadcast and parsed as far and wide as is every idiotic tweet that Comrade Trump foists upon the citizens of this country?

As the dust settles from the Mueller probe, do not forget for one minute that our media was asleep at the wheel in 2003 when we were given out and out false reasons for the invasion of Iraq, completely missed the boat when our economy collapsed in the fall of 2008, and were more than happy to gloss over the fact that in the Presidential election of 2016 the republican candidate was an unqualified, unstable, racist, misogynistic dupe of America's richest 1%.

And remember that our media has shown again and again since Comrade Trump's election that the voices of the 30% of Americans who support Trump, the GOP base that has no problem with a foreign power interfering in our elections as long as their white nationalist agenda is pushed forward, are given much more credence than the voices of the 70% of us who think the man is a danger and an embarrassment to everything our nation stands for.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

The enemy within

Et tu, Chuck?

With Dianne Feinstein's release of the GPS fusion transcripts this week it is becoming increasingly obvious that republicans are trying to do everything they can to undermine American democracy and are flirting with, if not actually guilty of, treason.

And when the republican temple comes tumbling down, it's important that not just Donald Trump be removed from office, but also all of those who undermined the Russian collusion investigations--from Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan to Devin Nunes and Chuck Grassley--are removed from office as well.  They have all obfuscated, diverted, and outright lied about investigations that are proving more and more each day that a hostile nation colluded with the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 election.

These people are traitors to our country and should be treated as such.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Someday soon...

Vive la revolution!

So the donor class got republicans to pass their tax cuts--just means it's one day sooner until we go medieval on their rich asses....

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Tales from the soulless

We're living in soulless times...

Just when you thought you couldn't feel any more disgust for republicans, along comes Paul Ryan to tell us that we should forgive Donald Trump for his obstruction of justice and sheer incompetence because he's new at this whole being the President gig, and doesn't understand the protocol.

Imagine for just one second that Nancy Pelosi had tried to pass off this bullshit in the first five months that Barack Obama was President.  Can you imagine the republican backlash?  Or that the press would have given her a free pass for pronouncing such idiocy?

It's truly hard to overstate the complete and total contempt for Americans, and by extension, for America itself, that Paul Ryan has in his heart.  As long as his wealthy benefactors are taken care of, the man just doesn't care about us or our country.

Here's hoping that we all live long enough to see him reap the just rewards of his Faustian bargain.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

The kids are alright

Paul "Jughead" Ryan

Looking for a little hope in the wasteland that is American politics these days?  Here's some:  more than half of the eighth graders at a school in New Jersey refused to participate in a photo-op with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, most of them citing that they didn't want to be photographed with a man who put his party before his country.

Out of the mouths of babes, eh?

And these kids don't live in a vacuum--keep in mind that "more than half" is more than enough to win elections.  Republicans have not only succeeded in energizing the left, they're starting to energize the center as well.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

The U.S.S.(R.) Trump

The worst laid plans...

The day after Hitler/Trump was elected, I told the Beautiful Girl that I never believed for a minute that the powers that be in the republican party wanted Trump anywhere near the Presidency and that's why they worked their magic and got Trump to pick Pence--beloved by both the religious right and Corporate America--as his VP.  The minute Trump ran into trouble they'd either force him to resign or impeach his ass and let the right wing wet dream becomes President #46.

Never in a million years did I dream they'd actually sink to the bottom of the ocean floor with the mother fucker, but that's what they're on their way to doing.  McConnell, Ryan, the lot of them--dancing around a ticking time bomb like he's a pocketful of posies.  Unscrupulous, heartless, ruthless...but I never would have pegged republicans for being foolish.

And I for one can't help but think...good for us.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

The sound of silence

What is this racism of which you speak?

Can we please once and for all end the charade that not all republicans are racists?

In the wake of Iowa Rep. Steve King's tweet in support of comments by Geerts Wilder, a white nationalist from Denmark, which he followed up by saying that white babies are more important to the future of the United States than any other baby of color, the response from republican leaders--or just republicans in general--has been about as loud as a scream in outer space.  The only republican to comment has been Paul Ryan, who gave merely the party line trope that he hoped Rep. King had misspoke knowing full well that King had already stood behind his remarks.

Rep. King continued to ride the crazy train later by claiming that African-Americans and Latinos would be at each other's throats before white folks in America would become a minority.

After a few more years of Donald Trump, my guess is the throats African-Americans and Latinos are going at won't be each others', but more likely the throats of white nationalists like Steve King and his republican enablers.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Sssssss.....

Pop! Pop! Pop!

And that sound you hear is the sound of millions of Democratic bubbles bursting...

Keeping in mind that I'm the guy who predicted Sarah Palin would be the republican Presidential nominee in 2012, and that Hillary Clinton was going to win in a rout, it's hard to see how Donald Trump's speech to Congress last night isn't anything but bad news for Democrats.  Coming on the heels of the uninspired choice of Tom Perez to head the DNC (yes, he's better than Wasserman-
Schulz, but he's not the candidate who is going to fire up the young folks that we're going to so desperately need in 2018 and 2020), Trump seems to have figured out what Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Charles Grassley, and numerous other republicans have known for some time:  you can say the craziest shit imaginable as long as while you're doing it you don't come across as an insane, hateful asshole.  Now it remains to be seen if Trump is capable of doing it consistently, but I'll be mighty surprised if his approval ratings don't improve and Democrats do their usual backpedaling and sell us out as they've done so many times before.

Trump's selling the same bullshit ideas as he had the day before, but as long as he looks rational doing it, the media and most Americans are going to shrug their shoulders and move on.

Fuck Donald Trump,

emaycee

On day one

Here's hoping that on Hillary Clinton's first day as President she invites Mitch McConnell and his stooges, and Paul Ryan and his flunkies for a meet and greet at the White House, and after they've been seated and have their cakes and tea in front of them she promptly raises her hand, gives them the finger, and tells them not to let the White House doors hit them in the ass on their way out before she turns her back to them and exits.

Bipartisanship is vastly overrated.

Peace,
emaycee

Amateur hour for republicans

Am I the only one who noticed that in addition to having the moral high ground, the John Lewis led sit-in over gun control yesterday in the House of Representatives absolutely schooled republicans in what it means to be part of a political party?

While Democrats were literally fighting to save American lives, republicans led by Paul Ryan were puckering their lips to place them on Wall Street's ass.  It was like watching the Avengers do battle with the Three Stooges.

And after yesterday's doings in the House, it should be perfectly obvious to most Americans that the Democratic Party is the most fit to govern.

Peace,
emaycee

Water is wet

It's not surprising that so many have piled on Paul Ryan for forgoing his "principles" in deciding to endorse Donald Trump--Trump is a terrible candidate and it's in Democrats' best interests to tie every single republican they can to the man who will not be king.  But what is surprising is the assumption that it was ever going to be any different.

Paul Ryan is all about Paul Ryan, and if he is to have any chance to be the republican nominee in 2024 (I figure he's smart enough not to challenge a sitting President, barring an unforeseen disaster), he has to have the republican base behind him and there's no way they would ever forget that he failed to endorse their chosen candidate.  Ever.

In short, it was an unprincipled move by an unprincipled politician--unless that principle is spelled P-A-U-L-R-Y-A-N.

Peace,
emaycee

If it's Ryan he's lyin'

In case you missed it, the Obama Administration issued an executive order this week which raises the threshold for salaried workers to be eligible for overtime pay from $23,660 a year to $47,476, which is expected to affect over four million workers.  What this means is that millions of working class Americans will no longer be slave labor for Big Business--they're going to have to pay for our time (as well they should).

Naturally, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced later this week that he's committed to fighting the new rule.

What the fuck is it with republicans not wanting poor and working class families to make more money?  They certainly don't have any problems with CEOs and hedge fund managers making more money.

One can only suppose that the stink from republicans having their noses so far up Corporate America's ass is affecting their ability to think.

Peace,
emaycee

Those pesky kids

Paul Ryan this week criticized President Obama's executive actions on gun control, saying that his tears over twenty dead children were a distraction from what should be Obama's primary focus, ISIS.

Think about that for a second:  Ryan thinks that twenty six and seven year old kids being shot to death by a madman is a "distraction."

Leaving aside the fact that it's down right psychopathic, Ryan has once again proven that the republican party doesn't give a good goddamn about any American once they've exited the womb.

Peace,
emaycee

A nitwit is still a nitwit

Watching the republicans celebrate sending an Obamacare repeal to the President's desk so he can veto it faster than Flash Gordon can circle the globe is a bit like watching cows perform a ballet--it might make the cows feel good but it doesn't do jackshit for humanity.

And isn't doing nothing for America really what the republican party is all about?

Peace,
emaycee

True colors

Not happy with just calling out parents of poor children for not loving their children enough, Rep. Paul Ryan, the man who would not be Vice-President, declared earlier this week that poverty is the result of lazy inner city men.

No shit.

Ryan spokespersons later tried to defend his comments by citing some data that did nothing of the sort (turns out that most of the poverty in America occurs in rural areas), and Ryan later backtracked on his comments saying he did not intend to demean an entire community (read:  African-American).

Yes, yes he did.  The republicans' Southern Strategy is well-documented and this is just another case of a republican assuring the base in an election year that all would be well in American if it just wasn't for those darn colored folks.

As Barbara Ehrenreich has famously noted, poverty is not a character flaw, it is a shortage of money.  But it's a lot easier for republicans to blame somebody than to fix the problem--and blaming people gets them a lot more votes than showing compassion for America's poor.

Peace,
emaycee

R-CRAP

Highlights (and judging from the usual lunacy, you'd think republicans were actually high) from this past weekend's CPAC convention:

• Ted Cruz claiming that President Obama was no longer President because...I guess you have to be a republican to get it.  No one else fucking does.
• Wayne LaPierre saying that American is fucked up, but all our problems can be solved with more guns.  With the anger most Americans feel toward them, wonder how the 1% feel about that....
• Paul Ryan told us a story with the moral that the parents of poor kids don't love their kids as much as the parents of middle class and rich kids do.  Not particularly surprisingly, it turns out the story was, well, a lie.
• Mitch McConnel walked on stage carrying a gun that looked like it was used on Little House on the Prairie to prove how bitchin' he was.  Note to McConnell:  only law enforcement personnel look good carrying a rifle while wearing a suit.
• Not really sure who they hope to impress with this, but republicans sure love fellating Vladimir Putin.
• For whatever reason, the republicans chose to use political heavyweight Sarah Palin to close their convention.  Not really sure why they'd want to use someone with all the gravitas of a cat fart, but it's good for us.
• The yearly CPAC straw poll for President chose Rand Paul out of a long list of mental defectives as its choice for 2016.  Also good for us:  Rand Paul has as much chance of being the next President of the United States as I do.  Zero.

The only thing missing (near as I can tell) was Ted Nugent shitting his pants and chasing fourteen-year-old girls.

Can anyone explain to me how we ever lose an election to these imbeciles?

Peace,
emaycee

Except the Human being

"Why does Every Thing have Exceptional Value.  Except the Human being--why are we reduced to poverty and starving and anxiety and Sorrow So quickly under your administration as Chief Executor can not you find a quicker way of executing us than to starve us to death?"--From a letter to Herbert Hoover, 1930

From President Hoover right on through Bush the Lesser there is one thing the poor can expect from republican leaders:  to make their suffering even worse.  Now, their feckless economic dunce, Paul Ryan, has vowed to take on such successful programs as Head Start and Medicaid just to see how much higher he can drive poverty rates in America and how many more children he can leave hungry each and every night.  It is not in their DNA to help those in need--they're the type of folks who would walk past a sleeping beggar and steal the money in the hat at his feet, feeling it's just a case of you snooze, you lose.  His thinking (if you can call it that) is as President Obama stresses the need to lessen income inequality, republicans will stress the positives of turning America into Bangladesh of 1974.

Mr. Ryan, who is a big fan of the laissez-capitalist writer Ayn Rand (one of the few writers who make Mitch Albom read like a Nobel Laureate), would do well to heed the works of  Suzanne Collins:  in her books, the poor folks eventually got sick of suffering at the hands of the rich folks and killed them.

Peace,
emaycee

The American idea

“Too many people don’t know what the American idea is anymore,” the Wisconsin Republican said, calling for a more streamlined federal government and a family-and-community-oriented approach to fighting poverty.

That's Paul Ryan, the latest republican Vice-Presidential candidate to get his clock cleaned by the Democrats, trying to convince his party's base of what they already believe (all evidence to the contrary): that the War on Poverty has failed.

Contrary to Rep.Ryan's musings (if you can call them that), I think most Americans are far too familiar with what he thinks the American idea is:  letting the least among us suffer while the government funnels more dollars to those at the top; working for wages that leave us in poverty so corporate leaders can feed at the caviar trough; engorging the military-industrial complex while American children go hungry; looking out for Wall Street instead of Main Street.

You get the idea.  So to speak.

And thanks, but no fucking thanks to that idea.  Streamline the government and make believe that there's enough community organizations that can combat poverty and next thing you know, we're Somalia.

That might be republican's idea of the ideal America, but it's not mine.

Peace,
emaycee

Sweet dreams aren't made of this

Bishop Shirley Holloway, the leader of an anti-poverty group that Rep. Paul Ryan (he of the Randian groupthink on the hungry, "let them starve") supports recently had this to say:

“Paul wants people to dream again,” Holloway said of Ryan. “You don’t dream when you’ve got food stamps."

Considering our system provides for about $1.40 per meal per person for food stamp recipients, you don't suppose it has anything to do with it being awfully hard to dream when you're fucking starving, do you?

Peace,
emaycee

Twenty-five reasons to vote for Obama: #9--Medicare

Ever since its inception in 1965, republicans have been hell bent on ending Medicare.  God only knows why--it's a program that has helped to keep people over the age of 65 healthier and is one of the best run programs the U.S. government has ever had.  It has kept costs lower and has played a major part in Americans living longer.  Yes, it will sink into deficit spending soon, but that's not a reason to end it; it's a reason to tweak it.

To the republicans, though, this is their chance to turn our healthcare over to the markets (because it's worked out so well thus far--both in terms of cost and results).  I don't know if President Obama will make a "grand bargain" on Medicare, but I am positive Daddy Warbucks and Jughead are determined to turn it into a voucher plan and wreak further havoc on our collective health and the economy.  Despite their "just trust us" mantra as to their plan, republicans are not to be trusted on this one--especially after their riddled with errors "claims" on Obama's cuttting $700 million from Medicare when it does nothing of the sort.

This is probably one of the most personal issues for me.  I am twelve years (for you republicans who suffer from artihmetic problems, that makes me fifty-three), from being eligible for Medicare and with the nightmare that is our current health system (very expensive, yearly exorbitant increases, dealing with the layers of bureaucracy, a basic right being controlled by corporations more concerned with profit than care) I am literally counting the minutes until I am eligible.

And don't let anyone call it an "entitlement"--that is a bullshit misnomer.  There are none of us who do not pay into Medicare with every check you earn.  Medicare is as much an entitlement as a 401k plan.

And equally as important to all of our retirement years.

Peace,
emaycee