If there was one useful feature of Duh Big Speech last night, it's that it sorted out the actual journamalists from the useless theater critics. Hacks from Chris Cillizza to Van Jones fell all over themselves praising Clownstick's uncharacteristically sober teleprompter reading. All of it bore the same damning whiff of faint praise, of a bar lowered well below sea level. Grampa Walnuts didn't make a boom-boom in his Depends this time! Yaaayyyy!
And of course, Clownstick garnered the most praise for what may be one of the most transparently cynical (even for these stupid pageant events) ploys in some time -- the eulogizing of Navy SEAL Senior Officer William "Ryan" Owens, who was killed in the recent Yemen raid.
Bringing up Officer Owens in and of itself is fine and good; obviously such things are a staple of these events. But there are a lot of issues boiling right under the surface of Clownstick's bluster about the yuge success of the mission that killed Officer Owens. It was reported just a few days ago that Owens' father refused to meet with Clownstick, and is calling for a full investigation. Questions about the raid being botched have been raised, as has been the possibility that Owens met with a fate not unlike that of Pat Tillman.
Whatever the case, no reportable intel has been gleaned from the mission (contra Clownstick's claim in the speech); the success of the mission is highly debatable (especially in the cold calculations of whether the loss of a SEAL Officer, which represents millions of dollars invested in training, offsets the gain of killing a dozen al-Qaeda scrubs that probably could have been nailed with a drone strike); and in fact Clownstick had spent the first part of the week trying the push the buck over to the generals, Obama, whoever, anything to distract from the fact that he, Clownstick, approved the mission while having dinner with Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner, and later that night resumed his favorite hobby of troll-tweeting the failing New York Times.
That has been his behavior his entire miserable life -- vain, impulsive, short-sighted, utterly lacking both in basic human empathy and even low-level strategic thinking. Those traits were, of course, enhanced once he descended the golden escalator and inflicted himself on an unsuspecting populace. They have only become enhanced further since the election, and since the inauguration. And throughout he has made combative, even threatening comments about the media and their nerve in reporting the things he says and does, including rhetoric and phrasing literally used by Stalin ("enemy of the people"). There is a clear, unmistakable pattern of these actions, and other actions of the type.
And he breaks the pattern for a one-hour speech -- on the same day that he gutted the Clean Water Act, the same day that he bickered with his military advisors over the death of Senior Officer Ryan Owens -- and these fucking lackeys line up to nibble on his shriveled sausage. These whores are both cheap and easy -- all you have to do is tone down the dick-waving jabber a couple notches, and they're all over it.
The media -- even Fixed Noise -- are not the enemy of the people, but it should be clear that they are not your friends, either. They are employees of corporations, first and foremost, and it so happens that NBC (and obviously MSNBC and CNBC) are owned by Comcast, the telecom black hole currently lobbying the same gubmint it reports on to get rid of net neutrality. You can bet that in our vertically integrated corporate universe of transnational merchant princes, the other media companies have their vested interests as well.
Now, despite all that, there is reason for hope. The fact is that there are still real reporters who want to do more than be click-whores. Another fact is that Clownstick is genuinely stupid, as stupid as only someone who says out loud in 2017, Nobody knew health care could be so complicated!, and that he is way too arrogant to ever understand just how ignorant he really is on just about any subject.
Put in classic Rumsfeldian terms, Clownstick doesn't know what he doesn't know, which is considerable, and compounding the problem, his ego will never let him even see those gaps, much less acknowledge them or attempt improvement. He seriously thinks he's the smartest and best at everything, and by definition cannot be improved upon.
So. Arrogant and stupid, arrogant and stupid, in equal measures as long as a June afternoon at the North Pole. As I've been saying in recent posts, this is a potent combination, both as an almost guaranteed recipe for massive organizational failure, and as an open invitation for that sub-class of real reporters to find the piles of incompetence lying around anywhere and everywhere.
Which brings us to this:
See, that's the thing with all these Russia stories -- there's just enough to them that you figure there must be at least some fire to all that smoke. And indeed the Clownstick pick for National Security Advisor lasted all of three weeks for that very reason.
It's easier to let the man-baby's wittle speech go, when you see what the medium and long games appear to have in store. These motherfuckers are corrupt in every fiber of their beings. Once you add on the arrogance to think they can get away with anything, and the incompetence of actually being able to pull it off without getting caught, it starts to add up. It's no longer a sideshow. Every one of these assholes is in it up to his eyeballs, possibly including Pence, and maybe even Ryan and McConnell (though it's probably too much to hope for to get solid proof on the last two).
But the racist leprechaun Sessions is probably done for now, and it's really just up to him and them whether they want to make it fast and try to minimize the damage, or stretch it on out until he drags them all down with him. Twitter Nixon knows the score on that, and is chronicling ably, in real time. Getcha popcorn, the show is just beginning.
And of course, Clownstick garnered the most praise for what may be one of the most transparently cynical (even for these stupid pageant events) ploys in some time -- the eulogizing of Navy SEAL Senior Officer William "Ryan" Owens, who was killed in the recent Yemen raid.
Bringing up Officer Owens in and of itself is fine and good; obviously such things are a staple of these events. But there are a lot of issues boiling right under the surface of Clownstick's bluster about the yuge success of the mission that killed Officer Owens. It was reported just a few days ago that Owens' father refused to meet with Clownstick, and is calling for a full investigation. Questions about the raid being botched have been raised, as has been the possibility that Owens met with a fate not unlike that of Pat Tillman.
Whatever the case, no reportable intel has been gleaned from the mission (contra Clownstick's claim in the speech); the success of the mission is highly debatable (especially in the cold calculations of whether the loss of a SEAL Officer, which represents millions of dollars invested in training, offsets the gain of killing a dozen al-Qaeda scrubs that probably could have been nailed with a drone strike); and in fact Clownstick had spent the first part of the week trying the push the buck over to the generals, Obama, whoever, anything to distract from the fact that he, Clownstick, approved the mission while having dinner with Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner, and later that night resumed his favorite hobby of troll-tweeting the failing New York Times.
That has been his behavior his entire miserable life -- vain, impulsive, short-sighted, utterly lacking both in basic human empathy and even low-level strategic thinking. Those traits were, of course, enhanced once he descended the golden escalator and inflicted himself on an unsuspecting populace. They have only become enhanced further since the election, and since the inauguration. And throughout he has made combative, even threatening comments about the media and their nerve in reporting the things he says and does, including rhetoric and phrasing literally used by Stalin ("enemy of the people"). There is a clear, unmistakable pattern of these actions, and other actions of the type.
And he breaks the pattern for a one-hour speech -- on the same day that he gutted the Clean Water Act, the same day that he bickered with his military advisors over the death of Senior Officer Ryan Owens -- and these fucking lackeys line up to nibble on his shriveled sausage. These whores are both cheap and easy -- all you have to do is tone down the dick-waving jabber a couple notches, and they're all over it.
The media -- even Fixed Noise -- are not the enemy of the people, but it should be clear that they are not your friends, either. They are employees of corporations, first and foremost, and it so happens that NBC (and obviously MSNBC and CNBC) are owned by Comcast, the telecom black hole currently lobbying the same gubmint it reports on to get rid of net neutrality. You can bet that in our vertically integrated corporate universe of transnational merchant princes, the other media companies have their vested interests as well.
Now, despite all that, there is reason for hope. The fact is that there are still real reporters who want to do more than be click-whores. Another fact is that Clownstick is genuinely stupid, as stupid as only someone who says out loud in 2017, Nobody knew health care could be so complicated!, and that he is way too arrogant to ever understand just how ignorant he really is on just about any subject.
Put in classic Rumsfeldian terms, Clownstick doesn't know what he doesn't know, which is considerable, and compounding the problem, his ego will never let him even see those gaps, much less acknowledge them or attempt improvement. He seriously thinks he's the smartest and best at everything, and by definition cannot be improved upon.
So. Arrogant and stupid, arrogant and stupid, in equal measures as long as a June afternoon at the North Pole. As I've been saying in recent posts, this is a potent combination, both as an almost guaranteed recipe for massive organizational failure, and as an open invitation for that sub-class of real reporters to find the piles of incompetence lying around anywhere and everywhere.
Which brings us to this:
Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Justice Department officials said, encounters he did not disclose when asked about possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow during Sessions’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general.
One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, at the height of what U.S. intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential race.
The previously undisclosed discussions could fuel new congressional calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 presidential election. As attorney general, Sessions oversees the Justice Department and the FBI, which have been leading investigations into Russian meddling and any links to Trump’s associates. He has so far resisted calls to recuse himself.
See, that's the thing with all these Russia stories -- there's just enough to them that you figure there must be at least some fire to all that smoke. And indeed the Clownstick pick for National Security Advisor lasted all of three weeks for that very reason.
It's easier to let the man-baby's wittle speech go, when you see what the medium and long games appear to have in store. These motherfuckers are corrupt in every fiber of their beings. Once you add on the arrogance to think they can get away with anything, and the incompetence of actually being able to pull it off without getting caught, it starts to add up. It's no longer a sideshow. Every one of these assholes is in it up to his eyeballs, possibly including Pence, and maybe even Ryan and McConnell (though it's probably too much to hope for to get solid proof on the last two).
But the racist leprechaun Sessions is probably done for now, and it's really just up to him and them whether they want to make it fast and try to minimize the damage, or stretch it on out until he drags them all down with him. Twitter Nixon knows the score on that, and is chronicling ably, in real time. Getcha popcorn, the show is just beginning.
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