;)
Thursday
Dec292022
December 30, 2022
Afternoon Update:
Friday Is Trumpty Dumpty Day:
Alan Rappeport & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "House Democrats on Friday released six years of ... Donald J. Trump's tax records, making the closely guarded documents public after years of legal battles and speculation about Mr. Trump's wealth and his financial entanglements.... While much of the information in the tax returns has already come to light, including through the two reports released last week [by the House Ways & Means Committee], the full records from 2015 through 2020 are expected to provide a rare window into the complexity of Mr. Trump's finances and whether he may have profited from tax policies he signed into law as president. Those include the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which provided a series of tax breaks and cuts for businesses and wealthy people.... 'The "Trump" tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises,' [Trump wrote in a statement]." The story is developing. The AP's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Jim Tankersley, et al., of the New York Times: "The documents contain new details not revealed in those earlier releases. New York Times reporters are combing the pages for key takeaways. Here is a running list.... [For instance:] As a presidential candidate in 2015, Mr. Trump said he would not take 'even one dollar' of the $400,000 salary that comes with the job.... In his first three years in office, Mr. Trump said he donated his salary quarterly. But in 2020, his last full year in office, the documents show that Mr. Trump reported $0 in charitable giving. Also in 2020, as the pandemic recession swiftly descended, Mr. Trump reported heavy business losses and no federal tax liability.... The tax law Mr. Trump signed in late 2017, which took effect the next year, contained some provisions that most likely gave him an advantage at tax time -- including the scaling back of the alternative minimum tax on high earners. But one provision in particular drastically reduced the income tax deductions Mr. Trump could claim in 2018 and beyond: limits that Republicans placed on deductions for state and local taxes paid.... Republicans ... warned Democrats that they had started down a dangerous road [by releasing Trump's returns], and that public pressure could push the incoming majority to release returns from President Biden's family or a wide range of other private individuals." ~~~
Judy Weil & Eugene Scott of the Washington Post also report some takeaways: "Trump's charitable contributions declined over the course of his presidency. He donated $1.8 million in 2017 and about half a million dollars in each of the next two years. In 2020, as many nonprofits intensified their calls for donations as they scrambled to help victims of the coronavirus pandemic and the associated unemployment, the Trumps reported giving no money to charity." MB: IOW, Trump treated charitable donations as tax deductions; in 2020, he claimed negative adjusted gross income, so no need for so-called charitable giving. CNN's key takeaways are here.
The House January 6 Select Committee released more witness transcripts Friday. Links to the transcripts are here.
Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Biden on Friday pardoned six people, most of them for minor drug or alcohol offenses, continuing a series of drug-related reprieves this year.... The pardon list also included Beverly Ann Ibn-Tamas, 80, of Columbus, Ohio, who was convicted of second-degree murder for shooting her abusive husband nearly a half-century ago. Ms. Ibn-Tamas was pregnant at the time of the killing and testified that her husband had beaten her throughout her pregnancy, including shortly before she shot him. Her case focused new attention on battered woman syndrome. In each case, White House officials stressed that Mr. Biden was issuing pardons to people who had served their sentences and become upstanding members of their communities." CNN's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Here's the clemency recipient list, via the White House.
Marie: Despite appearances, I have not decided to link NYT stories only if Jim Tankersley wrote them.
~~~~~~~~~~
Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Biden signed a $1.7 trillion spending bill into law on Thursday, averting a shutdown and keeping the government funded through September while adding to his legacy of expanding federal programs as president.... Mr. Biden wielded his pen on the island of St. Croix, where he is vacationing through the new year. White House officials received the more than 4,000-page bill from Congress late on Wednesday afternoon and sent it to the Virgin Islands on Thursday on a commercial flight." The AP's report is here.
Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The Senate Finance Committee is preparing to launch a broad, bipartisan inquiry into the Social Security Administration's watchdog division, officials said, as lawmakers grow concerned that management failures are compromising its oversight mission. The committee is likely to concentrate on allegations of retaliation against whistleblowers, plummeting morale, staff attrition, hiring decisions and a declining number of investigations into fraud in the massive disability benefits program, one of the inspector general's core missions, congressional aides said.... Senate Finance Committee investigators in both parties summoned senior attorneys on the staff of Inspector General Gail S. Ennis to a briefing earlier this month to learn more about the tumult inside her office, which includes some 500 auditors, criminal investigators and attorneys, several participants said."
Luke Broadwater, et al., of the New York Times: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol released on Thursday 19 more transcripts of its interviews, bringing its total number of transcripts published to about 120.... Here are some takeaways from the hundreds of pages of transcripts released this week, including details of police intelligence failures before the Capitol attack and insight into the delay in the response of the National Guard." ~~~
~~~ "Just Give Me Five Dead Voters." Jeremy Herb, et al., of CNN, outline some of the highlights of the transcripts released Thursday. "After the 2020 election, Sen. Lindsey Graham pledged to become a 'champion' of then-President Trump's election fraud claims -- if only Trump's advisers would give him information about dead voters, according to an account given to the January 6 committee. 'Senator Graham was saying, "Get me your information,"' Trump lawyer Christina Bobb relayed to the committee about what Graham said in a meeting days before the January 6, 2021, insurrection. 'Just give me five dead voters,' Bobb said Graham told then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and others in Meadows' office at the White House.... Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary and chief of staff to Melania Trump, said ... 'I heard from several people in the West Wing, more on the military aide or Secret Service side, and then a couple just people, but that he was sitting in the dining room, and he was just watching it all unfold, and that a couple of his comments -- some of his comments were that these people looked very trashy, but also look at what fighters they were.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: It seems there was a lot Donald Junior couldn't remember. But, in Junior's defense, of all the witnesses with convenient memory lapses, I find Junior's most plausible in view of the videos we've seen in which he appears to be coked-up. ~~~
~~~ The House January 6 committee has released another batch of witness transcripts. Links to the newly-released transcripts are here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Here Some Fraud, There Some Fraud, Everywhere Some Fraud. Allegedly! Grace Ashford & Dana Rubinstein of the New York Times: A company called "Cleaner 123" received nearly $11,000 in payments from Rep.-elect George Santos' (R) campaign. "The expenditures were listed as 'apartment rental for staff' on Mr. Santos's campaign disclosure forms and gave the address of a modest suburban house on Long Island. But one neighbor said Mr. Santos himself had been living there for months, and two others said that they had seen Mr. Santos and his husband coming and going, a possible violation of the rule prohibiting the use of campaign funds for personal expenses. The payments to Cleaner 123 were among a litany of unusual disbursements documented in Mr. Santos's campaign filings that experts say could warrant further scrutiny. There are also dozens of expenses pegged at $199.99 -- one cent below the threshold at which federal law requires receipts. The travel expenses include more than $40,000 for air travel...." ~~~
~~~ Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post: "Months before the New York Times published a December article suggesting Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) had fabricated much of his résumé and biography, a tiny publication on Long Island was ringing alarm bells about its local candidate. The North Shore Leader wrote in September, when few others were covering Santos, about his 'inexplicable rise' in reported net worth -- from essentially nothing in 2020 to as much as $11 million two years later. The story noted other oddities about the self-described gay Trump supporter with Jewish heritage, who would go on to flip New York's 3rd Congressional District from blue to red.... 'Interestingly, Santos shows no U.S. real property in his financial disclosure, although he has repeatedly claimed to own "a mansion in Oyster Bay Cove" on Tiffany Road; and "a mansion in the Hamptons" on Dune Road,' managing editor Maureen Daly wrote in the Leader. 'For a man of such alleged wealth, campaign records show that Santos and his husband live in a rented apartment, in an attached rowhouse in Queens.'... It was the stuff national headlines are supposed to be built on: A hyperlocal outlet like the Leader does the leg work, regional papers verify and amplify the story, and before long an emerging political scandal is being broadcast coast-to-coast. But that system, which has atrophied for decades amid the destruction of news economies, appears to have failed completely this time." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Not that you needed any more evidence, but it's abundantly clear that Republican "leaders" don't care who is in their caucus. A candidate need only have an "R" after her name, meet the Constitutional minimal requirements for office, & be able to win election by any means, including massive fraud. Santos has lied about every aspect of his life, right down to his family name (he claims to be the son of a woman whose "real name" was Zabrovsky -- it wasn't). And so what? ~~~
~~~ Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "Sooner or later, the Republican Party's devolution was bound to saddle GOP leaders with someone exactly like Rep.-elect George Santos of New York: a glib, successful candidate for high office who turns out to be pure fantasy with zero substance.... The most honest thing House Republicans could do, in my view, is welcome Santos with open arms. The party embarked on the path of make-believe politics long before Santos came onto the scene. All he did was expand the frontier.... We've had lots of metaphorical empty suits in Congress over the years. Now comes the emptiest yet."
Morgan Watson of the Louisville Courier Journal: "Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and her husband, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, generally have stayed mum when ... Donald Trump slams them online, but on Thursday she responded after her ex-boss repeated a racist nickname he has used for her before. When asked about it during a televised interview with CNN, Chao called it a 'racist taunt' and said he's 'trying to get a rise out of us.... He says all sorts of outrageous things, and I don't make a point of answering any one of them,' said Chao, who was on CNN talking about Southwest Airlines' widespread and disastrous cancellations of flights this week.... Chao said Thursday it's 'helpful if the media does not repeat' the racist comment he keeps making about her."
Elon's Austerity Program: BYO Toilet Paper. Kate Conger, et al., of the New York Times: "Early on Christmas Eve, members of [Elon Musk]'s staff flew to Sacramento -- the site of one of Twitter's three main computing storage facilities -- to disconnect servers that had kept the social network running smoothly.... Over the past few weeks, Twitter had stopped paying millions of dollars in rent and services, and Mr. Musk had told his subordinates to renegotiate those agreements or simply end them. The company has stopped paying rent at its Seattle office, leading it to face eviction, two people familiar with the matter said. Janitorial and security services have been cut, and in some cases employees have resorted to bringing their own toilet paper to the office.... Since early November, Mr. Musk has sought to save about $500 million in nonlabor costs, according to an internal document seen by The New York Times. He has also laid off or fired nearly 75 percent of the company's work force since completing the purchase.... On Wednesday, users around the world reported service interruptions with Twitter."
Beyond the Beltway
Arizona. Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "Kris Mayes, the Democratic candidate for attorney general in Arizona, prevailed on Thursday in a recount by a razor-thin margin over Abraham Hamadeh, a Republican, bringing clarity to one of the last undecided races of the midterms. The margin of victory for Ms. Mayes was 280 votes out of about 2.5 million ballots cast in the November election, said Judge Timothy J. Thomason of the Maricopa County Superior Court, who announced the recount's results in a brief judicial hearing. The recount reduced the margin between the two candidates by about half, with the Election Day results showing Mr. Hamadeh trailing Ms. Mayes by 511 votes. Mr. Hamadeh, whose legal effort to have himself declared the winner was dismissed by a judge on Friday, continued to sow doubt in the election results, saying in a post on Twitter that "we must get to the bottom of this election" and calling for ballots to be inspected. But during closing arguments in last week's trial, Mr. Hamadeh's lawyer, Timothy La Sota, acknowledged that he did not have any evidence of intentional misconduct or any vote discrepancies that would make up the gap between the candidates." CNN's report is here.
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Friday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefing for Friday is here: "Ukraine's air force said all 16 self-detonating drones that attacked the country were destroyed overnight. The Kyiv region's governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, also said early Friday that Ukrainian forces repelled a drone raid during the night, and air raid sirens wailed in the capital early Friday.... The conflict in Ukraine is deadlocked, according to the country's head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov. 'We can't defeat [Russia] in all directions comprehensively. Neither can they,' he told the BBC in an interview. 'We're very much looking forward to new weapons supplies, and to the arrival of more advanced weapons.'"
Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "A swarm of drones and a volley of cruise missiles rocked towns and cities across Ukraine on Thursday, the biggest assault in weeks and the latest in a wave of ever more sophisticated aerial duels pitting Russia's evolving tactics against Ukraine's growing arsenal of air defense weapons.... Ukraine's air defenses were at times overwhelmed. Iranian-made exploding drones, which Russia began acquiring last summer, were launched in a first wave, apparently to bog down air defenses before the cruise missile strikes, the Ukrainian air force said.... After the strikes, Russia's Defense Ministry released a picture on its official channel on Telegram, the social messaging app, showing a Kalibr cruise missile and a message: 'Kalibrs will never run out.' The White House condemned the strikes as part of Russia's 'barbaric war' and pledged to continue to help Ukraine defend itself."
Michael Biesecker & Erika Kinetz of the AP: "Ten months into Russia's latest invasion of Ukraine, overwhelming evidence shows the Kremlin's troops have waged total war, with disregard for international laws governing the treatment of civilians and conduct on the battlefield. Ukraine is investigating more than 58,000 potential Russian war crimes -- killings, kidnappings, indiscriminate bombings and sexual assaults. Reporting by The Associated Press and 'Frontline,' recorded in a public database, has independently verified more than 600 incidents that appear to violate the laws of war. Some of those attacks were massacres that killed dozens or hundreds of civilians and as a totality it could account for thousands of individual war crimes. As Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, told the AP, 'Ukraine is a crime scene." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I have thought for months that Vladimir Putin should be tried, in absentia, at the Hague. If he is found guilty, as he should be, he will never again be able to travel to a country that recognizes the International Criminal Court. That's not enough, but it's something.
Francesca Ebel of the Washington Post: "Russian Presiden Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met remotely via video link Friday -- an indication of Moscow's latest efforts to strengthen ties with Beijing as Russia's international isolation grows in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.... Xi said that the leaders were regularly 'in close, strategic contact' and noted that bilateral relations between Moscow and Beijing had expanded significantly this year.
Myanmar. Mike Ives & Matt Stevens of the New York Times: "Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's ousted civilian leader, was found guilty of corruption on Friday and sentenced to seven years in prison, almost two years after she was first detained by the military in a coup. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, a Nobel laureate, had already begun serving a 26-year prison sentence in connection with more than a dozen charges she has faced since being detained." The Guardian's report is here.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Police arrested a 28-year-old man on Friday and charged him with murder in connection with the brutal killing of four University of Idaho college students who were found stabbed to death overnight in a home near their campus last month. The man, Bryan C. Kohberger, was arrested in Chestnuthill Township in the Pocono Mountains region of Pennsylvania. He was scheduled to appear at an extradition hearing next week, and the police in Moscow, Idaho, scheduled a news conference for later on Friday. Mr. Kohberger was listed as a Ph.D. student at Washington State University, which is less than 10 miles from the site of the murders, and had been studying criminal justice and criminology, according to the school's website."
The Washington Post includes photos of houses along Lake Erie that were encrusted in ice during the recent storm. Yahoo! News has some of the same photos here. Once they thaw out their homes & assess the damage, the homeowners will probably never want to see another adorable white ceramic Christmas village. Anyway, the photos depict a pretty amazing scene; the Post calls the pictures "surreal," & that's right.
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Then and Now
The mention of Elaine Chao, Mrs. Evil Turtle and former Trump Transportation Person, reminds me that her time in the Fatty Administration was spent having her staff, at taxpayer expense, run errands for her and helping her father and sisters run the family shipping and finance business, which, she claimed, with perfect McConnell arrogance and smirking cynicism, was good for the American economy.
Coordinating with her husband’s office, she gave special treatment to Kentucky businesses, all the better for helping the Evil Turtle collect votes and donor money to stay in power. Sound unethical? It is. But that was the entire Trump Administration. Fuck the nation. How can I use my position to help myself?
In stark contrast, we have the current Biden Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg. Mayor Pete is currently looking into the Southwest debacle, which somehow, Fox and the National Review are claiming is his fault. Wonder if they ever looked into Mrs. Turtle’s criminality while in office.
Nah.
But Southwest is Mayor Pete’s fault. Right. Got it.
Whatever happens, you can be sure that Buttigieg’s first question in investigating Southwest’s self-inflicted implosion won’t be “How can I make some money off this situation, or help my family or my husband’s pals?”
https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/elaine-chaos-family-business-and-kentucky-favoritism
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/was-buttigieg-asleep-at-the-switch-for-southwest-airlines-holiday-implosion/
THEN:
August 31, 2016
If given a choice between walking over hot coals and listening to an entire Trump speech I might just choose the hot coals. I had never before last night listened to a Trump speech in its entirety. When Trump began with coining the Obama administration as "This current corrupt administration" throwing in Hillary for good measure I knew I'd be in for the long slog of vitriol. If you didn't know he was talking about human beings you might just think he was referring to "thousands and thousands" of rats whose infestation has ruined this country, has devoured small children, cleaned out everyone's cupboards while leaving their ugly smelly pellets strewn across hither and yon. And Hillary loves rats–-she lets them roam freely, raping, murdering, she is like the queen of rats. "Believe me, folks"––the ubiquitous plea always at the end of another lie.
At the end I felt dirty. The dangerous, unbridled rhetoric from this man–-this Pied Piper who really believes he can lead his followers into a glorified future is so pathetic, so very wrong headed and scary that I dread the night they bring him down. What happens to all those believers who bought all his tunes hook, line and sinker.
NOW: Having saved many of my and other's posts (it's my own little history) I continue to be amazed at how we let one man unleash so much of the detritus that has permeated our political landscape. It's as though so many were waiting for exactly that kind of "leader" to do the unleashing. What have we learned? How will we prepare for the future? We are finally through with this year and the "Happy New Year" greetings always hold that promise, but hold onto your seats, someone said, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
@Akhilleus: Yes, I'm sorry I'm not a Republican, because if I were, I could get rich just running an "outrage" service for Republican politicians. Every day, I'd privately publish an Outrage of the Day, for the exclusive use of Republican candidates & elected officials, along with a list of lesser outrages.
Besides today's outrageous Buttigieg "scandal," just running down today's news, there would be these:
Biden abandons Buffalo, vacations in tropical paradise as brave crews pull frozen corpses from stranded vehicles in frozen New York State.
Senate Democrats attack Social Security watchdog because Donald Trump appointed her.
Democrats release secret testimony of honest Republicans trying to ensure the homeland is safe.
Democrats attack Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham for trying to expose Democrat election fraud.
Democrats attack Long Island Republican Congressman-elect because he's not Jew-ish enough.
Liberal media attack President Trump for appointing an ethnic minority to a Cabinet post.
Liberal New York Times attacks Elon Musk for initiating good management practices at Twitter.
Arizona Democrat election officials install Democrat as state attorney general even though she lost the election by a landslide.
Liberal media attack President Putin for his attempt to save Ukraine from Nazis.
Ka-ching!
@P.D. Pepe: I can understand why you were in the mood for a hot shower. You got me to thinking, and I have to admit I've never listened to an entire Trump speech. I'm planning to keep it that way.
How things change....
We need a new word. "Conservative" doesn't begin to describe today's Right, and when used today it certainly doesn't those "conservatives" I knew and remember from fifty or sixty years ago.
The conservatives I knew and now picture were mostly men. They went to church, wore suit and tie on Sunday, had regular haircuts, were careful with their money, projected rectitude and were generally pleased with themselves and their world. That's why they wished to conserve it. Main Street types, mostly, whom the world treated well. I remember thinking "Babbitt" got it right.
Today's conservatives don't like their world at all. They don't like what they perceive the world is doing to them. They are unsettled, paranoid, angry. Their world is changing too fast for them to keep up or comprehend, which makes them particularly prone to leaping into the latest "they're out to get me" conspiracy theory. No wonder they often lash out senselessly. They don't think the world is treating them well at all. Nothing about it is fair. They want to blow it up.
Whatever that is (rebellious?) it sure ain't conservative, and the media does a great disservice by recycling that old word to label them. It gentles and disguises the real danger of the violence they represent.
Of course, if Sec. B had pried into Southwest's shoestring computing infrastructure, that would have been government interference in a maverick "outside of the box" operation.
Heads... tails...
I read somewhere that Southwest Airlines received something like
50 billion dollars in covid relief funds.
What did they do with it? Didn't upgrade their infrastructure like
their union members warned numerous times, didn't hire more
employees.
They had a stock buy back. With our tax money. And probably
some of those million dollar bonuses for a select few.
Hope we find out how Santos came by 12 million dollars suddenly.
That's a lot of Rubles.
Nisky Guy,
My thoughts exactly. Had Buttigieg looked into Southwest and issued a decree that they fix their software problems, as the National Review currently rips him for not doing, the story would have been “Aieee! Guv’mint overreach! How dare Comrade Biden’s Transpo guy interfere with the sacred and necessarily recondite doings of capitalism!! Do we live in the Soviet Union, or RED CHINA!?!?”
My favorite line in that POS article is about how Ted Cruz noticed some problems (likely when he was flying to Cancun to get away from a extreme weather conditions affecting his constituents) but Buttigieg couldn’t be bothered because unlike Real ‘mericans, he flies private jets everywhere. So let me get this straight, had he flown on United or American or any other airline, he’d know right away that Southwest was going to have a scheduling software meltdown.
Got it.
This is perfectly in line with the sort of bullshit that Marie alludes to, stuff like Dr. Anthony Fauci is to blame for millions of Covid deaths. NOT Donald Trump, who ordered that Covid be ignored until after half a million Americans had died.
Because of course.
Hey, while we’re on the subject, why hasn’t Mayor Pete fixed all the bridges in the country and filled in all the potholes? Who does he think he is, not doing anything? A Republican? Only we get to sit around and blame others for everything imaginable.
Look! Up in the sky! An asteroid 500 million light years away, headed right for us! Why isn’t Biden doing anything about it? Oooohhh…he’s ON VACATION! Too bad Donald Trump never took vacation time like that.
@Ken Winkes: Several years ago, I asked the same question, and Monoloco came up with the suggestion "confederate" to replace "conservative." I thought that was quite the brilliant solution, and I've stuck with it. Like you, I've thought of "conservatives" as Babbitts, and that certainly ain't Miss Margie Greene or Jungle Gym Jordan.
Hey kids, here’s something fun to do as the old year wanes.
Blow shit up!
This very cool site, Asteroid Launcher, allows you to create an asteroid, pick the size, speed at which it enters the atmosphere, angle of impact, and best of all…impact site!
I just blew up Marred-a-Lardo. Yippee! What fun!
So after you launch your asteroid, you can check all the scientific data connected to the impact. Crater width and depth, how many people get vaporized on contact (50,000 for my Marred-a-Lardo rock—except for Junior. Cockroaches survive anything.). You can check the fireball stats (clothing catches fire up to 300 miles away. Trees are cooked). Pressure: eardrums shattered 250 miles away. Wind: my asteroid caused a wind storm measured at 13,000 mph. Buildings 400 miles away collapse.
Great fun! If you drop it in the ocean you can create tsunamis.
Butt blasting Trump’s gaudy mausoleum was my fave so far. Now I gotta find out where the National Review have their offices.
https://neal.fun/asteroid-launcher/
How about just dropping the 'servative' and labeling them 'con'
as in against anything and everything that would help millions of us,
or con, meaning to swindle.
Have conservatives been know to swindle? Occasionally.
Asteroid reminds me of that Meryl Streep movie of a couple years
ago "Don't Look Up".
It's a parody of the Donald. An asteroid is aimed at Earth. As
President Streep, she has hats printed with the logo "Don't Look Up"
as in 'Make America Great Again'.
That should solve the problem. If you don't look up you won't know
there's a problem.
As with the Donald, it doesn't have a happy ending.
@Akhilleus: That was fun, but I kept blowing up too many people. I just wanted to get the one guy.
Marie,
Unless "Confederate" defines, as it once did, an organized movement to secede from a union that didn't support slavery (which I don't think it does), I don't think it covers what we're experiencing.
Today's Right is less of an organized movement. It's far more childish. An amalgam of undifferentiated angry people who just don't want to be told what to do, by anyone, for any purpose, schooled only in saying "No."
No to the laws they don't like, no to facts they'd prefer to ignore, no to people who don't approve of them or their behavior, no to common decency, even common sense...no...no...
Their leaders, interested in only money and power, use them as an army of barbarians to threaten the rest of the nation and as marks for our continuing con. If we don't get our way, whatever it is, we'll loose more of the chaos we've created on the world.
In the meantime, we'll keep the pot boiling.
Goths? Vandals? Maybe.
We agree "conservative" is a misnomer. I just don't think "confederate" satisfies.
@Ken: Sounds like you are aiming for “contrarian.”
NiskyGuy,
Yeah, there seems to be a "con" in everything we come up with and the "agin" of "con" does fit.
But I'm currently partial to some descriptor that pinpoints the childishness of it all: the arrested development of those who always want their own way and want it now, yet become resentful and angry when no one rushes to take care of all their problems, even those they have created themselves.
I'll keep working on it.
Ken,
There’s always “traitors”.
Thanks so much for your educational tool, Akhilleus. I've sent it to all the under 18 year olds in my family. And to one childish adult.
How about a new word: "malconingrate".
Portmanteauing "malcontent", "conman" and "ingrate."
The "ingrate" represents their desire to have someone take care of their problems, but not to acknowledge the general need for systems that do that, or that the system doesn't provide enough/fast enough for them. And when the "wrong people" get the help, that's just not right.
Back when Marie asked for names, years ago, I suggested "redeemers", who were the KKK types right after the Civil War, during Reconstruction. They were seriously nasty Jim Crow type people, who thought they were saving the South. Or, just liked to shoot, burn and lynch. But, since the name has fallen from recognition, it is probably too nice a name to give to the sheet-wearing red hatted masses.
I like your portmanteau, Patrick, tho' I wish it tripped off the tongue more easily.
And, Akhilleus, I get "traitors," but that word always leaves me wondering traitors against whom or what....
If you never think beyond yourself, it's kinda hard to identify. Seems it's just anything you don't like at the moment...certainly anyone telling you what to do...
For many of these yokels, God's telling them, but they have no trouble ignoring Him, too..
And, for many reasons, "Lord of the Flies" comes to mind.
Those flies need to be swatted.
Trump's failure to voluntarily release his tax returns suggested that he was either hiding some fraudulent activity or merely didn't want to reveal his not so impressive wealth coupled with quite impressive losses.
What I never understood was his excuse for not releasing his returns, namely that he was being audited. Why didn't reporters ask the IRS if this was true? (It wasn't.)
Now that we've learned that the returns of all presidents were supposed to be annually reviewed, this question becomes even more important. Why was this not done?
Furthermore, given the numerous suits filed against him in years past, many successful, why wasn't he audited? Tax payers who have been found guilty of business fraud are normally prime candidates for tax audit.
I recall that Trump said he made campaign donations to politicians on both sides of the aisle in exchange for favors. Might this explain why he wasn't audited?
Frankly I'm more interested in why he wasn't audited than what his returns may reveal. Had there been evidence of fraudulent tax evasion he would have been charged long ago, no? But maybe not. This is the question I'd like answered.
Does conpatriots work? Similar to compatriots, but com/with changing to con/against.
Let's just simplify it: Crooks and Liars.
Victoria,
You are most welcome. And as I like to say, you’re only young once but you can always be immature.
And now you can do it under the cover of sciencey-type stuff.
Happy asteroiding,