Today in lingering shreds of self-respect...

At the risk of falling back on the tired internet cliche of linking to something and just saying 'this,' without further explanation, I say to you now: This. I mean, holy shit. Did you click on it?

Because you're going to want to see this for yourself.

The cabinet rap battles in Hamilton
are less rehearsed than today's meeting.

I'll sum up just in case you don't, but you should really click on it and marvel at today's cabinet meeting. It wasn't so much a cabinet meeting as it was a thinly-veiled press event wherein everyone in the room burst out into completely unprompted and surprisingly un-ironic praise for President Trump. It's...what's the phrase? Stomach-churning? Each one in turn blubbers about how great he is at presidenting and how lucky and thrilled America is to have him which is kind of weird since most of us didn't vote for him and more of us than ever think he's doing a shitty, terrifying job. Like, the worst.

It's eleven minutes of sycophantic gushing and begs the question, 'how stupid does he think the American people are?' 

Oh, right. Incredibly...

"Pwahahahha!"

-Me, listening to DeVos

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley hails this as '...a new day at the United Nations, Tom Price called it an incredible honor to be in change of the Department of Health and Human Serves under Trump's exciting leadership and Betsy DeVos went on about what a great privilege it is to serve the children of this country and make sure that everyone has an equal shot at a great education which is hilarious coming from her. Eric Mulvaney just straight-up launched into an completely un-selfconscious political ad about the budget:

Either Eric Mulvaney actually believes
the bullshit he's spewing or he missed his
true calling on the stage, because goddamn.

"Thank you Mr. President for your kind words about the budget, you're absolutely right, we are going to be able to take care of the people who really need it. And at the same time, with your direction we were also able to focus on the forgotten man and woman who are the folks who are paying those taxes. And we appreciate your direction and support in putting that budget together."

-Eric Mulvaney, Office of

Management and Budget

Above: Chief of Staff Reince Priebus
staring lovingly upon the golden visage
of our most gracious President.

But the cherry on this preposterous shit sundae that I can not fathom anyone, anyone taking seriously in any way, had to be when Reince Priebus actually says with a straight face:

"We thank you for the opportunity and blessing to serve your agenda."

-Words that actually came out of

Reince Priebus's his word-face

"Blah! I must feed upon the constant
validation and approval of others..."

On one hand I'm insulted by these people and their transparent attempt to convince the rest of us that the shitshow of a Presidency that is the Trump administration is actually awesome. That the angry tweet factory we've had foisted upon us is, in truth a bold new leader who totally won't destroy whatever remains of America's credibility. But I'm also embarrassed, deeply embarrassed at the way they each gushed about the former host of The Apprentice while he sat there, soaking it in like some kind of depressing emotional vampire who can only subsist on the adoration of idiots.

So I guess my question is do you suppose the cabinet members still possess the ability to feel shame and are just really good at forcing it down or do you think they take some kind of pill that suppresses the part of the brain responsible for self-evaluation?

Pictured: The President basking in effusive praise of the people that work for him.
Not pictured: the last lingering shred of self-respect of anyone in the room.

Today in not the craziest thing in politics...

So last time I promised that the next post would be about Star Trek and not politics because holy shit am I sick of talking about the death spiral that is American politics. And today I'm going to keep that promise. Partially. John Hertzler, an actor of all things, is challenging Representative Tom Reed for New York's 23rd district.

Pictured: Noted actor Ronald Reagan seen here with his costar, a chimp, would go on to be
Governor of California and then President before being posthumously trotted out whenever
Republicans want to remind everyone of a time when they weren't universally reviled.

Ever get the feeling that our political
system is heading this way?

What's that got to do with Star Trek? I'm going to pretend you asked. Hertzler played a number of characters on a number of Star Trek spin-offs over the years. Those number being nine and three respectively, but since he was under a ton of make-up and forehead appliances, most people didn't notice. He's probably most familiar to fans as the one-eyed Klingon General Martok on Deep Space Nine, a character who himself gets into politics when (spoilers for a twenty year-old TV show) Worf murders his political rival and then crowns him leader of the Klingon Empire.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, we have elections and not bat'leth duels but that doesn't mean that this tiny, seemingly insignificant election in Western New York isn't going to be bananas. Bananas foster even. How come? Because get this: Hertzler is going to be running in character. Specifically as Mark Twain.

I think you'll agree that this is an accurate level of bananas.

Someone once ran as a belligerent,
misogynistic gameshow host, but he's
right, no one's done Twain before.

Say what now? Yeah. Hertzler, who announced his decision to run Friday night, is going to run for office as American humorist Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain. Why? Got me. Apparently because it's a challenge and because this sort of thing hasn't been done before.

"To my knowledge, it's never been done before."

-John Hertzler, goddamn 

right about that

I think the take-away here is never
google 'Deep Throat Mark Twain.'

Ok, so on the surface this sounds pretty preposterous, but if you dig deeper, you'll find that it gets even more preposterous. According to the article from the local news site, Hertzler also said that the Twain thing is also a tribute to Hal Holbrook, who played Deep Throat in All the President's Men and is also famous for his Mark Twain one man show. But don't confuse him with Jerry Hardin, who also played a character called Deep Throat (on The X-Files) and also does a Clemens/Twain one man show and in fact played the 19th century writer on Star Trek. Right. So where was I? The election.

Don't look at me like that, you voted
for, and continue to support, a goon.
You've got no room. No room at all.

So while I, as recently as one paragraph ago, referred to Hertzler's plan as preposterous, I'm actually going to go ahead and get behind it. Dramatic twist, right? Not at all. Samuel Clemens cosplay aside, he's been in politics for years now and has even spent the last three years on the local town board giving him three years more political experience than the President. And his opponent, Tom Reed, can't complain that Hertzler isn't taking the election seriously given that Reed has been a vocal supporter of Trump. So why not?

I mean, I guess what I'm getting at is that he's an intelligent, thoughtful person* with experience, passion and a desire to change things for the better. Besides, the political scene is, right now, basically a circus. It's divisive and angry and I say if an actor wants to run for office in character as a writer who wrote under an assumed name, is that really all that out there? Like, for real.

To clear up that point, Samuel Clemens was a riverboat pilot and borrowed his pen name from the phrase
 'Mark Twain,' which meant that the water's depth was a safe two fathoms. When asked why pilots didn't
just say 'two fathoms,' Twain, with his trademark wit, once famously replied: 'Because shut up, that's why.'

It's klingon for 'success' with overtones
of wading in the blood of your foes.

*Just to be upfront, I should mention that in addition to being biased towards anyone whose resume includes being Chancellor of the Klingon Empire, I also met John Hertzler once when he did Death of a Salesman at the theatre I used to work at. I trekkie'd out at him pretty bad, but remarkably he didn't take out a restraining order. He's a delight and you should totally vote for him. You know, if you happen to live in the NY 23rd-which very few people do, but even if you don't, I hope you'll join me in wishing him a hearty q'pla in the coming election.

Astology for Plutocrats

Hey, did you see the thing Trump's son said? No this is one of his other sons, who also said something ridiculous on Sean Hannity's show. It happens a lot.

I guess that's a helpful description if the name and smug
expression of contempt for all we hold dear wasn't a tip off.

Well, on the pulse of Americans who
move imaginary money around instead
of doing actual work, to be specific.

Yeah, we're talking about this bullshit agin. Sorry, the next post will be about Star Trek or something. Promise. Anyway, Donald Trump the Younger said:

"When the Dow hits another all time record right during the testimony, you know he's been exonerated. The markets basically said this has been nonsense."

-Donald Trump Jr, with his
finger on the pulse of America

"Go ahead, call the cops...pfft...narc."

-Some thieves,
flipping the script

He's referring to former FBI director James Comey's testimony yesterday which everybody who doesn't own a red 'Make America Great Again' hat agrees looks pretty bad for Trump, but which the President sees as incontrovertible proof of his total innocence. He went on to denounce Comey as a leaker for leaking details about their conversations in which the President might have been trying to pressure him to drop an investigation. Which seems a little like robbing someone's house and then calling them a narc for calling 911.

"To income inequality and its
indefinite continuation!"

-some wealthy jerks

So Trump's son thinks the stock market is saying that the President is innocent. Cool. Whatever. Like, I'm not a stock market guy, but even I know that Federal investigations don't hinge on the goddamn Dow. Sure, politics totally have an influence on the market, but so do natural disasters, wars and how Dutch people feel about tulips. The point is it's complicated and if anything, just shows that Wall Street really digs Trump, which of course they do. He loves money and doesn't give a shit about poor people, which is their thing.

Donald Jr.'s preposterous suggestion came during an equally preposterous six minutes of Hannity and he circle jerking each other over how mistreated the President has been at the hands of the Democrats and the media and the two of them-huh? Settle down, I mean circle jerking in the figurative sense.

What? Don't look at me like that. They might as well have been jer-huh?
What's that? Oh, your problem is with a two person circle...ok, that's fair.

I'm being unfair. Donald Jr. and Eric worked
very hard be the sons of a guy who inherited a
fortune from someone who worked very hard.

The important thing is that Trump Jr.'s comments point to a serious divide between how he sees the world, and how the rest of us see it. Like, he's measuring success in things like corporations turning profits and regulations being dismantled, not by things like whether or not people have health insurance, or where the sea level will be in fifty years. And he never will. He's part of a segment of the population who will never have to spend the rest of their lives paying off student debt or start a GoFundMe for life-saving medical care.

Look, I don't know if there's a causal link between market upticks and Comey's testimony and I don't think Donald Jr. does either. I think that's crazy rich person astrology and he's bringing it up because Republicans are sexually aroused by the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I do think however that we're in for some serious problems when the right looks at this unfolding shitshow and sees Trump as a victim and not like the guy that's going to drag everyone else down with him.

Pictured: This, except with out of touch plutocrats.

Let's get those hopes up!

Today's the day everyone! Our long national nightmare is soon to be over. James Comey, the former head of the FBI who said Trump pressured him to stop looking into all the collusion stuff and then fired him, is as we speak delivering damning testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Pictured: Huffington Post's countdown clock which may be
the single most dramatic countdown clock ever to countdown
to a guy giving testimony whose content we already know.

"What, so we're going to give the job to the
person with the most votes? How novel."

-Clinton

Following Comey's testimony, we can expect the President to make a humble and articulate statement on the lawn of the White House wherein he admits that trying to influence an FBI investigation was a gross violation of America's separation of powers, apologizes for not only his reckless and rude behavior these last few months but also everything he's ever said and done publicly in his entire life before handing the Presidency over to Hillary Clinton, boarding a helicopter and flying off, never to be heard from again.

Right? I mean that's where this whole shitshow is going right? An immediate end to the divisiveness and national embarrassment that was visited upon us by November's election? A national Yub Nub with fireworks and Ewoks playing crude xylophones made from the severed heads of their enemies?

Which, holy shit, right? I mean the Ewoks were prepared to roast Luke, Han and
Chewie and feed them to Leia, so yeah, pretty sure those helmets aren't empty.

"Sir, I must say with all due respect
that I disagree with your view
in the strongest possible terms!"

Like, I don't want to be a bummer here, but it kind of seems like we're about to settle into a long, drawn out period of bitterness, name calling and vitriol the likes of which we've yet to experience in American politics. At least during the Civil War people were still (swear to God, no pun intended here) civil to one another. I mean, I'm glad we're not shooting-well, most of us aren't shooting at each other, but we are staring down the barrel of months and months if not years of angry tweets, resurgent hate-groups and Facebook posts about how everyone's a stupid idiot except us. 

I'm sorry, is a Trump seriously lecturing
us on morality? Because, um, Trump...

Did you see this thing Donald Trump's son Eric said?

"I've never seen hatred like this. To me, they're not even people. It's so, so sad. I mean, morality's just gone, morals have just flown out the window and we deserve so much better than this as a country. And you know, it's so sad."

-Eric Trump speaking to Sean Hannity seemingly 

without the even slightest whiff of irony

Above: Obama's Supreme Court nominee,
Merrick Garland. But please, do go
on about Democratic obstructionism.

He then went on to describe the DNC as an imploding party of whack job obstructionists with no message of their own who are resorting to sabotage because they're bitter at having been crushed so thoroughly in last year's election by his dad. Yikes, right? And sure, I'm going to pick an example of someone on the right being a dick while remaining conveniently silent on say, Kathy Griffin or whomever, but that's just because I, like everyone right now, am hugely biased and besides, whatever you think of Kathy Griffin, she's not super-likely to tweet us into a war with North Korea. 

So buckle up everybody, today promises to be a thrill-ride of damning allegations, nakedly partisan spin and dramatic red 'breaking news' banners coming to, let's be real here, absolutely nothing. At least until everybody puts politics aside and agrees to examine the evidence of obstruction of justice, collusion and corruption with cold detachment and with nothing but the best interests of the country in mind. So like, never, right?

"Yeah, we're pretty fucked."

-James Comey

giving us the gist

Today in how not to be a person...

Can we not go a day? One day without the guy we've been saddled with as president making an Omega-level ass of himself on Twitter and embarrassing all 300 million of us?

"Evidently not..." 

-all 300 million of us

Although I fail to see how British police
could unnerve anyone in those adorable
hats. I'm mean, they're just precious.

That's the president we currently have tweeting at goddamn 4:30 in the morning about not at all what
the Mayor of London actually said. Which was:

"Londoners will see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days-no reason to be alarmed. One of the things police and all of us need to do is to make sure we're as safe as we can possibly be."

-London Mayor Sadiq Khan doing

his job thank you very much

Yes, worse than Buchanan and he kinda
let the Civil War happen. So, low bar...

You, I and any other rational human being would interpret this as the mayor alerting people to the fact that the city is crawling with police and letting them know that this isn't in response to any specific new threat, but rather a precautionary measure, so please don't freak out and do something ridiculous. The President however decided that he would be an asshat and suggest that Shadiq Khan doesn't know how to mayor, which is something coming from Trump who is, and I'll be kind here, terrible at being president. Like, the worst. But instead of having his press secretary try and walk it back, he decided to lean into the asshattery.

Khan of course, not wanting to engage, let his spokesperson handle Trump's accusations by pointing out the thing Khan actually said. But Trump, unwilling to admit that maybe he jumped to the wrong conclusion shot back with:

Hey, fun fact: in the 2016 London Mayoral election,
Sadiq Khan won the popular vote. Like, by a lot.

Frankness, racism, xenophobia,
 misogyny...it's a rich tapestry. 

Which, look, is it really that hard to be a person here? I know he made his fortune by-well, inheriting it, but whatever, he's a business guy and business can be impersonal. In fact we usually use the expression 'business is business' after screwing someone over for no reason other than it's convenient or profitable. The point is I'm not surprised that the President can sometimes come off as abrasive. In fact, I think his frankness, regardless of its resemblance to reality, was part of why people voted for him, but holy shit.

I mean, I don't want to tell the President how to do his job (ok, yes I do) but are the hours and days after a horrendous terrorist attack really the best time to chime in with cajoling and arm chair mayor-ing? Especially when the criticism is about an idiotic mis-interpretation of what Khan actually said? I mean, people have been killed and injured and he's using it as an opportunity to score political points and sell his racist-ass Muslim travel ban. What a preposterous goon this guy is...

And look at this staff. Is there not one of them
with the wherewithal to take his tweeter away?

You don't suppose he's Putin us on?*

*sorry, but as I've indicated before, I'm not better than that.

Hey, you know who's never going to give you a straight answer as to whether or not he interfered with the U.S. election? Not even if you're Megyn Kelly? Give up?

I'll give you a hint, he's the former head of the KGB, an
organization devoted entirely to clandestine operations.

"Maybe your little girl hacked email, but did you
accuse her? No, you just blame old Vlad..."

-Putin, turning the tables

Because it's Vladimir Putin. And it turns out he's kind of a dick. When Kelley asked him about interfering in our election during some kind of forum thing on Friday and he just sort of sat in his chair smirking while she explained that there's like, a shit ton of evidence pointing to Russia. And when she was finished, he launched into a rant about how easy it is to create fake IP addresses and how even Kelly's three year old daughter could have hacked the election and 'pfft' we don't have any proof it was Russia anyway and maybe American hackers framed Russia, ever think of that?

"This just in, Hillary Clinton hunts puppies
for sport, so maybe stay home on Tuesday."

So again, what a dick. But also did Kelly think he was going to crack here? Like, he's famous for being a strong man...as in the unchallenged ruler of 144 million Russians, not like a physically strong man. He's not going to admit masterminding the DNC hacking, bullshit Facebook posts, and the thinly veiled pro-Moscow RT news stories as part of a petty revenge scheme against Hillary Clinton for calling him out on irregularities in the 2011 Russian parliamentary elections.  

And then he called Megyn Kelly out on America's moralizing hypocrisy-which, yeah ok he sort of has us there. Specifically he was referring to times in the past when American intelligence operatives might have...shall we say massaged elections in other countries? And not just once, but like, lots of times in some cases helping autocratic murdering shitheads overthrow democratically elected leaders?

Pictured: Noted murdering shithead Augusto Pinochet,
seen here cosplaying M. Bison, murdered some 3,000
political enemies and tortured tens of thousand more.

"...yes, I suppose our computer god is
vulnerable to phaser-fire, why do you ask?"

Ok, so we don't have any room to talk when it comes to free and democratic elections, like at all, and it's a serious problem that we're not more outraged about it which I think has a lot to do with Captain Kirk. Go with me on this: Starfleet has the Prime Directive, right? It's an inviolable rule that says you don't interfere with alien planets, which Captain Kirk does anytime he doesn't agree with a primitive species being ruled by a machine god, or gangsters or whatever. And he's the hero. We root for the guy breaking the highest law, because that's what badasses do and laws are dumb.

I don't care what we, as a country
have done, no one deserves this.

Great, cool, but this is real life and our super-shady past with election interference doesn't mean we have to be cool with the doughy ex-head of the KGB screwing with ours. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm thinking that something 99.9% of Americans have never tampered in a foreign election, so yeah, I do think we have a right to be outraged when it happens to us. Again, not a right to the high ground, but a right to be pissed.

Gross hypocrisy aside, this is still about investigating collusion between a game show host and a foreign, sometimes adversarial government and we deserve some answers. What we don't need is to be lectured to by the smarmy, Crimea-annexing homophobic former spymaster who got where he is today through intimidation and making his enemies disappear.

You heard me. 

He knows Americans breathe air, right?

Iraq, whose entire economy is based
on fossil fuels is on board with the
Paris Agreement. Iraq. But not us. 

So as you probably heard, the technical winner of last year's election is pulling us out of the Paris Agreement making us one of four countries in the world-yes, the entire world who are not a part of it. Those other countries are the Vatican, which is an observer state, but fully supports it, Syria which, in their defense, has been on fire since 2011 and Nicaragua who feels the international agreement to curb carbon emissions doesn't go far enough to push the world's biggest polluters (hello!) to do something about our planet's rapid spiral towards inhabitability. So I'm going to give'em a pass.

What's our excuse? Uh, coal industry jobs and the firm belief on the part of Trump voters that climate change is an elaborate hoax on the part of the entire scientific community, China and oh, let's say Satan. Because if there's one thing we should be basing environmental policy on it's the viability of the 19th century's most important energy source.

I suppose future generations living in the waterless wasteland of the future
can take solace in the fact that the coal industry didn't have to budge.

Why are these people applauding?
Are they listening to some other speech?

"...in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and it's citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord-(holds for applause, no really)-but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris Accord or really an entirely new transaction (wai-wah?) on terms that are fair to the United States' businesses, its workers, its people, its tax payers."

-Trump speaking to what I presume is a carefully

vetted crowd of sycophants and coal company execs

Because I'm not sure fine is the word...

He went on callously dismiss the agreement upon which the fate of life on Earth may well rest saying:

"So we're getting out, but we will start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that's fair. If we can, that's great. And if we can't that's fine."

-Donald Trump on the 

possibility of re-negotiating the-

wait, is it though? Fine I mean? 

Above: Donald Trump forever
yielding any claim on solemnity. 

Ok, couple of things. First of all there is nothing, literally nothing Donald Trump has done or ever will do in his life that anyone would consider solemn. Secondly, I'm not a business guy but you can't just drop out of an agreement and then drop back in on better terms. Also, the leaders of France, Germany and Italy who, just a few decades ago were busy waging war on one another have released a joint statement saying that ok no, they're not going to re-negotiate because that's not how massive international climate accords work.

And then we returned the favor.

In fact, France's President and noted Trump hand-crusher Emmanuel Macron had some encouraging words for the millions of Americans who think this is some bullshit:

"Tonight I wish to tell the United States: France believes in you, the world believes in you. I know that you are a great nation. I know your history, our common history."

-French President Emmanuel Macron referring

to that time they helped us kick out the British

Packed. You think I'm joking but...

He went on:

"To all scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, responsible citizens who were disappointed by the decision of the president of the United States, I want to say that they will find in France a second homeland..."

-Emmanuel Macron saying 

that-hold the phone, did he 

just invite us all to France?

Holy shit, really? Sure, sudden influxes of immigrants into France haven't gone over super well with that country's xenophobe-crowd, but fuck them, they lost the election to Macron. Of course, he probably means 'second home' in some kind of metaphorical sense...right?

But just in case he's serious, what's French for dibs?

"I don't see what everyone's problem is,
I mean climate change will take years..."

-Donald Trump, age 70

Like most responsible Americans, I am disappointed (but not surprised) by the president's reckless decision. I also like breathing and am not a coal miner so I could give a shit about Trump's reasons. I mean, I'm not deaf to the possibility of coal industry jobs going away, I mean, that's terrible, it really is, but it kind of pales in comparison to prospect of rendering the planet uninhabitable because the guy most of us didn't vote for is hoping to pick up a few electoral votes in Pennsylvania. And to be clear, re-negotiation isn't an option. That's horseshit.

Other countries aren't going to bend on this issue just because our technical president is throwing a tantrum. And while moving to France sounds pretty awesome, and I totally appreciate President Macron's completely serious invite, I think I'm going to stick around, at least for the time being. I mean, Trump is the one who's under investigation for collusion with Russia, trying to dismantle everyone's health insurance and today just alienated everyone who isn't a coal miner or an idiot. So I don't know, maybe we can just wait him out?

Although if the GOP manages to restrict voting to coal
miners and idiots, we might be in trouble next election.