Posts Tagged ‘Bannon’
1600 DC-1 Trainer…
Posted on: February 24, 2017
Sometimes the greatest ideas crawl out from under the most bizarre rocks. Here’s how I got to yesterday’s greatest idea of all time. While surfing the intertubz, I happened upon a list for what makes a dog breed dumb.
He was great with Cher in “Mask”…
Listed among the characteristics for an intellectually challenged dog are: Difficulty in training, bad memory, inability to distinguish what’s real, and a general confusion about who’s in charge. As I read the list I realized it pretty accurately described Dolt 45 and the pack of feral animals he’s brought in to sniff his rather ample butt.
His pack of dogs is a varied lot. There’s the huge BannonMastiff. Typically it has a completely disheveled, dirty appearance like it has been sleeping under an overpass. The BannonMastiff drools a lot! Strange things trigger the drooling like obscure references to European ethno-nationalistic philosophers. This breed has a strong dislike and mistrust for others. It will attack other dogs especially mongrels.
Then there’s the Siberian Flynnsky – a very lively breed. It acts out and is often bored since it lives in a general confusion as to who’s in charge. At times it is almost as if it hears distant Russian voices. It is a working breed, but you can never be quite sure for whom it is working.
When it comes to territorial breeds, there is the Chinese Shar-Pence. The Shar-Pence is very aggressive toward LBGT, hungry people, or pregnant women. The Shar-Pence will not share. This breed suffers from health problems, but when it comes to veterinary care, it is a dog eat dog world where only the fittest and most righteous will survive.
There’s also the Speagle – a breed with a little Spicey mixed in with the Beagle. The Speagle is a piss poor listener and loves to bark. They are very difficult to train and can be dangerous because they can be confused easily. Unfamiliar scents cause them to get angry and chase their tails. They often chase shadows. Dog clothes never seem to fit the Speagle.
Last, but certainly not least, there is the perceived pack leader, the Toy Teacup Trumpoodle. This breed can be very amusing, but can be very high-strung. They can be extremely temperamental. They snap if they are teased or surprised. Often they develop the “small dog syndrome” where they believe they are the pack leader. This syndrome leads to snapping, growling, demanding behavior, and incessant barking. The Teacup Trumpoodle often has mental stability problems if not trained early.
What got me thinking was how often this ragtag pack wanders off the reservation. For instance, just yesterday Secretaries Tillerson and Kelly were in Mexico trying to clean up some of the messes of the Teacup Trumpoodle. While on their way to clean things up, the Trumpoodle laid a whole new pile of dog turds at their feet.
This pack is trying a fear-based approach to issues like immigration and overall personal rights. For instance, children will be treated differently in different states. In short, where you live will determine your happiness and socialization. If your parents happen to live in an enlightened state (both mentally and physically), your constitutional protections will be greater than your poor cousin living in a red state where they are clawing their way back to 1950.
It truly seems if our future is being mapped out by a pack of dogs. When it comes to budgeting, these grifters aren’t starting with real economic assumptions; they are making claims and then back-filling with magical hyperbole – a similar exercise to baying at the moon on an overcast night.
Then there are all these dogs hanging at the edges of the pack. These dogs were originally hanging around the Siberian Flynnsky, but now it seems like more butts than his were sniffed during the campaign. In fact, many more butts. There are many questions.
So what’s my idea? The best dog shock collar is supposed to be Dogtra’s 1900 NCP Field Star. So my idea is to outfit Dolt 45 and the cabinet with modified shock collars. But shock collar would show and look unseemly. That’s when I thought about shock broziers – you know that little extra bit of support for man boobs.
When Dolt 45 and his pack of feral cabinet dogs are acting crazier than outhouse rats, we could shock them with 1600 DC-1 Trainer Broziers. We’ve already cut a promo ad.
Here’s the way I look at it. It makes no difference if this pack of wild dogs running the country is dumb or viciously evil. The end result is the same. Lots of fear, lots of peeing on things we once thought were sacred, and hoping against hope the political pack of wolves will turn on the Teacup Trumpoodle.
What’s on your mind today?
Brown M&Ms…
Posted on: February 13, 2017
- In: Congress | Current Events | Open Thread | Republicans
- 117 Comments
That’s what we’re relegated to – brown M&Ms – a steady diet of nothing but brown M&Ms. Expect nothing more for the foreseeable future.
When I saw the official poster of Dolt 45, that’s what I thought about – brown M&Ms.
A bit of explanation is in order. In the heyday of Van Halen, they had a rider in their contract forbidding brown M&Ms. For you whippersnappers, Van Halen was a very popular pop/rock band in the 1970s.
While the rider looked like an eccentric indulgence of entitled first-worlders, it was really a stalking horse provision. Since Van Halen used massive, ear-piercing amps, there was always the fear older venues could not accommodate the weight of the massive equipment. If there was a failure, it would endanger everyone – band, crew, fans alike.
The rider was placed in the contract as a signal. If the crew found brown M&Ms backstage, they knew someone didn’t read the contract and more importantly, didn’t read the technical requirements of the riders. Brown M&Ms meant: Danger Will Robinson – check out the equipment, electricity, performance rigging. In short, watch for haphazard, half-assed preparation leading to dangerous sub par performance.
So far, these first three weeks of Dolt 45’s administration has been nothing but brown M&Ms. (Forgive me for linking to an Andrew Sullivan essay, but it does have a couple of brilliant observations.)
Just spit ballin’ here, but if you were going to say, “throw a huuuuuuge inauguration,” wouldn’t you take the time to proofread the official poster? To do otherwise, would be “unpresidented”!
It’s just like the list of fabricated “terrorist attacks” where attack was spelled “attak,” attacker was spelled “attaker,” San Bernardino lost an “r” during an “attak” of the letterists, and there’s a new country called “Denmakr” that our map-lover-in-chief will never be able to find.
If the greatest mistake represented here was just a typo. Although the hair is similar, this isn’t a before and after of David Lee Roth…
If you can’t do the little things like let spell check win, you can bet the big things like Yemeni raids aren’t getting the attention they demand. What can you expect though since it seems the White House is just a weigh station between golf outings at Mar-a-lago? This latest weekend jaunt was just product placement for selling memberships to well-to-do Japanese.
By this time in my life I should realize that intellectual consistency is too great a burden to expect from politicians. Who can expect them to remember the issues to which they swear fealty as they bark and bray?
For instance, remember all those times McTurtle and any number of other no-chinned, pillowish, chalk drones warbled, “Consistency! We must have consistency! Business growth demands consistency! Obamacare and job programs and immigration reform do not lead to consistency! We must have consistency!”
Heard any of those voices recently? Not a one dares cross Lord Commander Marmalade. They live in fear of his tweets. Like an electronic Typhoid Mary, they quiver and quake at Twittering Donald.
And remember Obama’s apologizing to the world causing the U.S. to be seen as weak? Now we just apologize as we turn the lights out on U.S. leadership worldwide. The most alarming thing I have read is that Darth Bannon sees inevitable existential conflicts in both the Middle East and Asia. Dolt 45’s ineptitude is driving stalwart allies like Australia toward China.
I’m going to just keep using this question…
While the disappointment of the stolen election is still painful to us as we settle in to the Putin/Bannon/Drumpf administration, we can take solace in the fact a woman is leading the free world. If only it was Hillary. It looks as if Chancellor Angela Merkel is the hope of global progressive democracy.
Until we grow tired of our lying national security incompetents, our war hungry puppeteers, and our Russian overlord, we will just have to stomach those brown M&Ms.
Take the conversation in any direction you might like. I sincerely hope everyone is feeling better and Contrask, your surgery will be topmost in our thoughts and prayers. We look forward to when you can again — Jump!
Breaking Bad to Worse…
Posted on: February 10, 2017
- In: Open Thread | Politics
- 43 Comments
Rebellion isn’t the worst thing, or so says Frederick Douglass. The worst thing is what causes the rebellion. 
And I hear, “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.”
Not knowing can be excused. Not caring can’t. Gross incompetence coupled with evil intent has inspired rebellions since the pharaohs. The one brewing now around the Yamikaze is different only because we are fortunate enough to have constitutional guard rails.
Knowledgeable observers are beginning to figure out incompetence isn’t a Bannon trademarked grand strategic plan. Signing highly secretive executive orders without any semblance of interagency vetting is the stuff from which rebellions explode.
Several issues are fraying around the edges to a point where pulling on any of the threads leads to disaster. There’s the Yemeni raid approved over dinner and a dare that, “Obama wouldn’t have the balls to do it.” There’s going to CentCom in Tampa and instead of mentioning the longest war in U.S. history, “Dolt 45” attacked the press based upon a lie – one of the freedoms for which soldiers die.
Keeping a running tally of the lies, miscues, and mistakes is a daily computation requiring proficiency with Excel. Politifact decreed only 4% of the Trumpanzee’s statements are true. Four percent – one more than three percent and one less than five percent. Think about that.
Ultimately, the incompetence and the lies are lodestones that will drown any leader especially one whose credibility is built around bluster and bravado. Bannon’s grand scheme of overwhelming the media by insurrectionist disruption is falling flat. Last night’s 9th Circuit decision might have stuck the fork in that pig.
None of the Trumpeters have noticed that the heavens didn’t open on the first day of the new administration with a flurry of activity on such things as repealing Obamacare or breaking ground for a “big, beautiful southern wall.” In fact, no one is yet tired of winning. So far if there weren’t broken promises, there wouldn’t be any promises at all.
Kleptocracy is a word being bandied about with frequency these days. It essentially means, “government by thieves,” – self-enrichment by action and deed.
Another word you haven’t heard yet, and only political science nerds really study such things, is kraterocracy. In my humble opinion, it is much closer to what is happening. Kraterocracy is a government by those who are strong enough to seize power through force or cunning. Morality is determined by those with the power. Social Darwinism is the normative state.
Since Congress cut a deal with Lord Commander Marmalade it seems as though they are willing subjects of the kraterocracy. As long as there are tax cuts and fewer services for the poor and elderly, the Republicans can continue to swell with pride each time they get a whiff of a Cheeto or an orange Tic Tac.
Social Darwinism accounts for no one being the least bit outraged that it costs $1,240,600 a day for Melanomia and Barron to live separately from Dolt 45. The monthly cost of over $30 million is more than the cost of Section 8 housing for 15,856 NYC homeless families. Not to be outdone, the Pentagon is even chipping in on the Trump self-enrichment scam.
Anger at such waste and extravagance has caused Democrats to be scattered and unfocused in their demands. A thousand different “asks” is not asking anything. The constant torrent of Bannon-esque fear-mongering washes away supercilious edicts from the puritanical Brogressives.
Narrowing the “asks” needs to be the goal. The “asks” need to be easy to understand – no explanation or translation needed. The message must be clear and “bumper stickerable.” Here are my two:
- Demand Trump’s tax returns; and a
- Congressional Commission on the 2016 Election.
Answering either of these demands will impugn this bunch of moronic hate mongers, if not lead to impeachment. As odious and olid as Pence is, he is predictably feculent in his beliefs. We can deal with the stench of his theocracy. Unlike the Trumpanzee, he’s not an existential threat to the Republic.
Twenty days in and it seems as if the wheels are already coming off. From General Nutjob Flynn lying about his tongue-bathing of the Russian Ambassador to Kellyanne Conjob breaking the law from the Brady Briefing Room, the incompetence meter is pegged. Both of those violations were in the last 24-hours.
Pretending you are an accomplished businessman on teevee is easy because there’s always a second or third or fiftieth take. World events don’t forgive and neither should we. The rebellion will cure its cause – if we persist.
What’s on your mind today? First letter, each paragraph is what I imagine the skeevy, unctuous Steve Bannon smells like.
Etymologically deciphering…
Posted on: February 3, 2017
- In: 2016 Election | Open Thread | racism
- 157 Comments
I love words – especially words that convey a feeling. Recently the German Embassy introduced me to my new favorite word:
Muffensausen! It isn’t a thing. It’s a condition. You can find yourself in a state of muffensausen. The term consists of the word muffe, meaning a sleeve or piping. The sausen means to “rapidly flow out” or “to swoosh by”. So if you are having muffensausen it means you are so scared you’ve lost control of your bowels.
Paradoxically, never before had I thought about the true meaning of being “scared sh!tless,” but our German friends have given us the perfect word for the reign of Lord Commander Marmalade. These days I’m in a constant state of muffensausen.
Everything Lord Dampnut (anagram of Donald Trump) has touched with his freakishly small paws has turned exquisitely FUBAR. First, we have the Mango Meerkat drunk-dialing, or better said crazy-dialing, long-term allies and yelling at them. Europe is actually asking if the U.S. has morphed into an existential threat. From a NYT article:
A European official, Donald Tusk, created a stir this week when he wrote a letter to 27 leaders of the bloc’s 28 member states suggesting that the Trump administration presented a threat on a par with a newly assertive China, an aggressive Russia and “wars, terror and anarchy in the Middle East and Africa.”
Coincidentally, the White House is leaking like an incontinent colander at a watermelon eating contest. There are quite detailed accounts of phone calls and even transcripts being thrown over the transom for an abused press to feast upon and feast they are.
His crazy doctor, who looks like Bannon with greasier hair, but better skin, is even leaking about the Trumpanzee’s prostate medication. In case you’re wondering, the way to get that fresh kangaroo scrotum look for your hair is right through your prostate or so says his doctor whose business cards have, “very famous doctor” under his name.
The guy who looks like the product of an inflamed hemorrhoid having had make-up sex with a more disgusting inflamed hemorrhoid is at the epicenter of all this mishegas (another great word). Around here we’ve known Bannon was trouble from the get-go. People are catching on and the cross-hairs are trained on him. Foreign Policy magazine even called him out.
He’s got a bootlicking henchman, Stephen Miller, who has a resume resplendent with the paragons of conservative thought – Michele Bachmann, Beauregard Jefferson Sessions, and Tea Party ding-a-ling David Brat. At 31 or 32, no one is quite sure from which rat mischief he creeps (a group of rats is called a “mischief” and is there any more appropriate word for this White House infestation).
Effectively, it seems Bannon and Miller masterminded the travel ban, kept it secret, and made sure it was legally and administratively worthless through their bumbling. Of course, there are those who are wholehearted believers — the people we decent folks call “deplorables”. These deplorables even had a “DeploraBall” around the inauguration. Representative of this mélange of madness is Cassandra Fairbanks, first a BernBrain, who then settled on Trump:
“[M]yself I thought, his message makes sense.” She appreciated Trump’s opposition to political correctness… “I started saying a few pro-Trump things on Twitter, and people absolutely lost their sh!t,” she said. “I got called a literal Nazi so many times, I eventually went, Fu*k it, I’ll just go all in.” She now writes for Sputnik, a news site funded by the Russian government.
Fairbanks joined up the night of the DeploraBall with a group of like-minded “Proud Boys,” a pro-Western fraternal organization for men who “refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.” Aside from drinking Budweiser on a rooftop, their other challenge for the evening was figuring out how to put on their Pepe pins.
Each time I read about people like Ms. Fairbanks and the Proud Boys, I wonder: Can it get any worse? And I’m sorry to say, yes it can. Excising the Jews from the Holocaust Remembrance is too thoughtless even for these brain-dead illiberal xenophobes.
Referencing this new avenue of Holocaust denial from the White House is the epitome of disgusting. It is so disgusting I have no words to describe the muffensausen engulfing me. But, if you take the first letters of each of my paragraphs, somehow I have found the chutzpah for a special message to Lord Commander Marmalade.
What’s on your mind today?
Sorta thankful…
Posted on: November 23, 2016
- In: 2016 Election | Holidays | Open Thread
- 101 Comments
Coming up with a theme wasn’t easy this year. I thought about doing a takeoff on Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children and entitling it Miss Melania’s Tower for Beastly Boys, but there weren’t enough arrows in that quiver. 
So here are some things for which I’m backhandedly thankful.
Thanks to Donald Trump for single-handedly spurring sales for doomsday gear, creating years of work for ethics lawyers, and bringing about the end of the Republican Party.
Thanks to Mike Pence for proving Hoosier hypocrisy is second to none when it comes to the disclosure of emails.
Also, thanks to Mr. Pence for ensuring Donald Trump will be safe for four years as he works on the destruction of the Republican Party.
Thanks to Jefferson Beauregard Sessions for proving racism isn’t just a job requirement for Alabama Senator, but it can also be an asset for the highest law enforcement officer in the country.
Thanks to Steve Bannon for proving to middle-aged Coke addicts there’s always a second act.
Thanks to Donald Trump for not saying “just kidding” after telling white supremacists to “stop it” on 60 Minutes and then naming Bannon and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions to Administration positions.
Thanks to Rudy Giuliani for proving that the extortion of millions of dollars and poor dental hygiene are not mutually exclusive.
Thanks to bankers for proving an entire industry can be into submissiveness in S & M relationships.
As for white supremacists, thanks to the Alt-right for proving you can’t be too crazy to have a platform. Also, thanks to the Alt-right for single-handedly making great strides in turning the country bilingual by translating their speeches from the original German.
Thanks to the Judge in Texas who saved accountants the trouble of calculating paycheck increases for millions of working class Americans by enjoining the raises proposed by President Obama and the Democrats in Congress. Make America great again by working overtime at the same hourly rate.
Thanks to the pundits for using “angry white working class” when “angry white” was enough.
Thanks to Sherwin-Williams for the new spring color, “Angry White”, it is a retro-color that can only be used in areas where time stopped in the 1950s and lady parts are only discussed at the beauty parlor.
Thanks to all those voters who proved no one likes a quitter by voting for an economic policy that has provided thirty years of wage stagnation and diminished social mobility.
Thanks to Donald Trump for creating a market for old pictures of German World War II soldiers by tweeting them out superimposed over the American flag.
Thanks to the Trump Transition Team for draining the swamp by replacing old lobbyist swamp creatures with new lobbyist swamp creatures.
Thanks to the press for not bothering us with the intricacies of the tax-dodging, law-breaking Trump Foundation since it was so much easier to understand than the contrivance around the non-existent conflicts of the Clinton Foundation in keeping eleven million people alive.
And also, thanks to the press for the temporary amnesia around the ten thousand or so articles during the election about the “forgotten white working class man” since all it would have taken was one more article to prove the anger had nothing to do with racism.
One last thanks to the press for not confusing us with any investigative analysis proving that the manufacturing jobs the “forgotten white working class men” were always complaining about were never in the rural areas where these “forgotten angry voters” were.
Thanks to the Robert Mercer family for proving in America any old multi-billionaire can buy an election if you launder your money hard enough.
Thanks to Kris Kobach for not knowing about cover sheets or folders because we wouldn’t want his plan to round-up 3 million people to be a surprise for everyone.
Thanks to Chris Christie for proving lap-band surgery does nothing to reduce one’s ego.
Thanks to Ben Carson for being a fast learner since H.U.D. is only a half a trillion dollar generator and last week he said he wasn’t qualified to run an agency, but since he grew up in a house in a city he believes he’s got the housing, urban, and development parts covered.
Thanks to Donald Trump for reminding everyone what emoluments are and that people still read the Constitution.
Thanks to Lt. General Flynn for reminding us that he always uses the bathroom stall because he doesn’t like anyone bigger than him around.
Thanks to James Comey for proving a paranoid, subversive, cross-dressing Director isn’t the worst thing or biggest embarrassment that can happen to the F.B.I.
And a final thanks to Hillary Clinton for being too good for America and proving the Harvard research correct that found there is always a backlash against women in leadership positions, no matter how qualified, no matter how experienced, and no matter how extraordinarily capable they are.
Friends, 2016 has sucked. Hard. But, I am thankful we made this journey together. We are more clear-eyed, resilient, and defiant. For those things we can be truly thankful.
Your thankfulness thoughts or just your thoughts will be gratefully appreciated.
The Widdershins 
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