Spatters from the rotating blades

Week One: Pillaging is hard these days.

Behind closed doors, Republican lawmakers fret about how to repeal Obamacare
Mike Debonis / Washington Post

  —  PHILADELPHIA — Republican lawmakers aired sharp concerns about their party’s quick push to repeal the Affordable Care Act inside a closed-door meeting Thursday, according to a recording of the session obtained by The Washington Post.

It has taken precisely one week for the dominoes to have fallen in the manner that we all knew they would fall.  Trumplethinskin is about to launch an investigation into the voter fraud in the election that “legitimately” elected him, of which nothing has yet been heard from The Man Who Filibustered Himself™ although Paul Ryan, “Ayn You Glad I’m In Charge®” of the lower house has undoubtedly said something brave, common-sense and tersely meaningless. 

Has he nominated his horse to the Senate yet?

Trump believes millions voted illegally, WH says — but provides no proof

Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump believes millions of votes were cast illegally in last year’s election, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday, but he wouldn’t provide any concrete evidence for the claim, which has long been debunked.

Character is Destiny, said the Greeks. (And WHAT a character this Trump fellow is! [RIM SHOT] )

Everything you and I have learned about existing in this “real” world devolves down to one basic fact: experience and expertise matter. A LOT. We don’t pick an EMT to do brain surgery, nor do we put a fast-food worker in charge of a rocket launch.  But we have, for reasons best left unspoken, handed a mental toddler the most lethal hand-gun of all time … loaded. Go figure.

Predicting the (Predicted) Bloodbath at MSNBC

Digital Visualization of a Violin

Once upon a time, children, there was a  “liberal” television cable channel called MSNBC, which, after floundering for years as M(icro)S(oft)N(ational)B(roadcasting)C(Company), a partnership for the digital future that never actually went anywhere and which was, as General Electric’s poor little brother media property (GE being the largest defense contractor in the world) sometimes an embarrassment but generally not worth noticing, since the GE brass was usually watching CNBC, the business channel that they were VERY happy with. And, in the early G.W. Bush term, after Nine ‘Lebbin, MSNBC fired Phil Donahue, their top-rated host, for daring to question the upcoming Invasion of Iraq. And Joe Scarborough cheerled the invasion and the war and conveniently slithered away to become MSNBC’s LOWEST-rated host.

And Keith Olbermann had the temerity to question the election results in 2004, when no one else dared, even though it was the second consecutive election with serious questions about outcomes and exit polls. And MSNBC found an identity. And following Keith came Rachel Maddow, came Lawrence O’Donnell, came Chris Hayes, came the “liberal” tint to the network.

And then GE sold MSNBC to Comcast, who put the infotainment division under a Bush Bundler™ .

Of Chickens and Democracy

And the corruption of one of the most corrupt ages in living human memory continues, apace:

First on CNN: Trump’s cabinet pick invested in company, then introduced a bill to help it
Manu Raju / CNN

  — Washington (CNN) Rep. Tom Price last year purchased shares in a medical device manufacturer days before introducing legislation that would have directly benefited the company, raising new ethics concerns for President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary.…

Let’s face it, kids, there have now been more scandals in the prospective Trump (Mal)Administration with slightly less than a week to go BEFORE taking office than there have been in the ENTIRE Obama Administration, perhaps even eclipsing the number of FAKE scandals as well. 

Previewing the Upcoming Barbarian Apocalypse

The three pillars of the science fiction story are, traditionally, “What if?”, “If only,” and “If this goes on.”

The first two have embraced in the irrational proposition that if only all regulations and laws were suspended and greed is enshrined as our sole engine of governance, an Ayn Rand Utopia of strong individualists progressing civilization into an unsullied paradise will ensue.

It is the third we are concerned with herein:

House Republicans revive obscure rule that could allow them to slash the pay of individual federal workers to $1
Washington Post, January 5 at 9:59 AM
By Jenna Portnoy and Lisa Rein

House Republicans this week reinstated an arcane procedural rule that enables lawmakers to reach deep into the budget and slash the pay of an individual federal worker — down to a $1 — a move that threatens to upend the 130-year-old civil service. The Holman Rule, named after an Indiana congressman who devised it in 1876, empowers any member of Congress to offer an amendment to an appropriations bill that targets a specific government employee or program….

Though the House and Senate must vote to accept the amendment, we know that these sorts of riders are added all the time in the middle of the night. Therein lies the rub.

The Skepticism of Trump and Assange

Sean Hannity traveled to London to interview Julian Assange about why Assange is NOT a Kremlin cats-paw and why Obama is actually the villain here. Politics (and rationalizations) make for strange bedfellows:

WikiLeaks founder: Obama admin trying to ‘delegitimize’ Trump
Jennifer Calfas / The Hill

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says there’s an “obvious” reason the Obama administration has focused on Russia’s alleged role in Democratic hacks leading up to Donald Trump‘s election. “They’re trying to delegitimize the Trump administration as it goes into the White House,” Assange said during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity …

In other words, the 17 professional intelligence agencies we pay to find out these sorts of things are all lying and the convenient truth (arrived at by sheer skepticism and ad hominem arguments) is a warped version of Socrates’ proposition that “all I know is that I know nothing.”