Christmas Day Funnies

Christmas Eve Funnies

Trump's 24 hours

It's going to be a long four years, people.

President-elect Donald Trump long ago earned a reputation for being unpredictable in his statements, but he outdid himself on Thursday.

In the span of just a few hours, Trump shook international relations by undercutting the Obama administration over a UN resolution on Israeli settlements, indicated he would ramp up nuclear competition with Russia and then jolted a major defense contractor -- and its shareholders -- by suggesting he would ask Boeing to replace a fighter jet being made by Lockheed Martin.

Here's the best response to that last eruption.

if Trump read his briefings
he would know the huge difference
between the F-18 and F-35
hope someone's getting model airplanes from Santa

— BROKEN PROMISELAND (@VoteAngryNow) December 23, 2016

This is going to spoil my Festivus party.  Although we'll have a few extra grievances to air.

Jake Novak at CNBC suggests Trump's disrupting of the weapons procurement process is going to involve some bilateral back-scratching.

(T)he Air Force is starting the process of replacing America's Minuteman nuclear arsenal. More than 400 of those ICBMs, most built in the 1960s, now sit in missile silos across the U.S.

And, not coincidentally, the three companies bidding to get the replacement contract are Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin. Of course, the CEOs of Boeing and Lockheed just met with Trump in Florida yesterday. While Boeing came out of that meeting promising to keep the costs of replacing Air Force One below $4 billion, that's chickenfeed compared to the $60 billion to $86 billion estimated cost of replacing the Minuteman program.

Was some kind of quid pro quo discussed in Mar a Lago Wednesday? Perhaps we'll never know, but if Boeing gets the contract that will be a prevailing suspicion for years to come.

Is this what all those Trumpets meant when they said -- and voted -- for Trump to shake up Washington?  Did "shakeup" include World War III?  Of less concern: how are they going to structure a defense contract so that President Trump gets his kickback without the GSA finding out about it?  And what will the GOP Congress critters do when they find out?  Crap themselves or impeach?

Should we encounter a 'water landing', your seat cushions may be used as a flotation device.

Scattershooting Electors and Obama's pardons

-- In hopefully the last epic fail of the Hillbots (at least for 2016) it looks like they succeeded in getting Electors to be faithless.  To Hillary Clinton.

More photos from the Chron here

While there was a lot of buzz about faithless Republican electors dumping Trump, it turns out that more Democratic electors dumped Clinton.  Specifically, two Republican Texas electors voted for candidates other than Trump:  one voted for John Kasich and one voted for Ron Paul.

I relish the irony of Ron Paul having earned more EC votes -- well, vote -- than Gary Johnson.  And anything that angers Greg Abbott would delight me, no matter what it was.

But four Democratic electors voted for candidates other than Hillary Clinton:

Only eight of 12 Democratic electors in Washington cast their votes for Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the state in November. In an act of symbolic protest, three electors voted for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and one cast a vote for Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native American elder from South Dakota.

It’s the first time in four decades that any Washington electors have broken from the state’s popular vote for president.

Emphasis theirs.  Three Washington state Democratic Electors, pledged to Her, appear to have conspired to vote for a Republican who refused to run for the office and was never seriously considered for it by the Republicans.  You can't make this stuff up.  If there's hope for abolishing the Electoral College -- and there isn't very much IMHO -- it has a little seed germinating in the aftermath of this impotent act of defiance.

Democrats that choose Tom Perez over Keith Ellison will extend the losing streak in 2018.  That's my early bet, and I'm bookmarking me for future gloating.

-- I believe Barack Obama's acts of clemency -- more than the previous eleven presidents combined, 50 times the number of his most recent predecessor, George Walker Bush -- are the very best thing he has done as president of the United States.

Just weeks before leaving office, President Obama on Monday issued 78 pardons and commuted the sentences of 153 prisoners, extending his acts of clemency to a total of 1,324 individuals, by far the largest use of the presidential power to show mercy in the nation’s history.

Of the 231 people who received a pardon or a reduced sentence from Obama, virtually all had been serving sentences under tough anti-drug laws, including those convicted of low-level, nonviolent crimes like possession of cocaine.

Those who received pardons had completed their sentences and are, in the words of Neil Eggleston, the White House counsel, now leading “a productive and law-abiding post-conviction life, including by contributing to the community in a meaningful way.” The pardons wipe away any legal liabilities from a conviction.

I stepped away from this president in 2009, when he did not show any commitment to getting the legislation passed that has long borne his name.  I was incensed by his replacing the torture of the Bush administration with unadjudicated assassination of suspected terrorists by drone, a legacy of fomenting the very thing he pledged to eradicate.  This legacy will live on long after him.  Not just after he leaves office, but after he is dead and gone.

However ...

The president has said he has been motivated to exercise his clemency power by a belief that the sentencing system in the United States was used to lock up minor criminals — often minorities — for excessively long periods of time.

At the end of 2015, as he commuted the sentences of 95 federal prisoners, Obama said it was “another step forward in upholding our ideals of justice and fairness” and added that “if we can show at the federal level that we can be smart on crime, more cost effective, more just, more proportionate, then we can set a trend for other states to follow as well. And that’s our hope.”

Tens of thousands of inmates, mostly young African-American or Hispanic men, were locked up in the effort to combat drug violence during the past three decades. Many of those men were sentenced under federal guidelines that required them to serve decades or longer in prison.

During the past several years, a bipartisan coalition emerged to overhaul that system. The unlikely allies included conservatives like Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire brothers, and the Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy organization with close connections to Hillary Clinton.

But hopes for a legislative deal to overhaul the nation’s sentencing system failed to materialize during the bitter 2016 presidential campaign. That left Obama with one option: to use his clemency power case by case.

Emphasis above is mine.  I applaud this action and I hope the president will pardon more individuals before he leaves office.

The Week-Before-Xmas Wrangle

With the last weekly blog post roundup before Christmas, the Texas Progressive Alliance would like to enlist in the annual 'War' on Christmas, but can't find a recruiting station.

Off the Kuff analyzed Fort Bend election results with an eye on 2018.

Socratic Gadfly looked at the ongoing post-election Wikileaks fallout, and addressed issues about what constitutes both journalism and democratic process, along with side issues about elitism.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is tired of Texas Republicans harassing and humiliating women and the poor. Fake abortion requirements and drug testing of benefit recipients serve no other purpose than to make Texas white nationalists feel superior.

Neil at All People Have Value said it is a mistake to follow the bright lights while ignoring the abyss beyond. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

jobsanger points out the irony that a relative of LBJ, US Rep. Sam Johnson of Texas, has already introduced legislation to make Social Security less secure for retirees.

With Rick Perry and Rex Tillerson tapped to join Trump's cabinet, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs found the two Texans too oily for his taste.

The Lewisville Texan Journal writes about falling into, and rising out of, homelessness in that city.

The Houston Press takes note of one of the first items on new Harris County DA Kim Ogg's agenda: fire a whole bunch of staff.

And Politifact Texas names Fake News as the Lie of the Year.

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And here's more from other Texas blogs and news outlets!

The Texas Election Law Blog shares some thoughts on today's Electoral College vote.

Chris Hooks at the Texas Observer went to see the five candidates running for DNC chair, who all spoke in Austin this past Saturday.

The FWST presents episode 18 of 'Titletown, TX', also known as Aledo, as their high school football team pursues its sixth state championship in eight seasons.

BOR looks at the coming legislative attack on Texas unions.

Adam Tutor suggests giving the gift of non-profit support this holiday season.

Better Texas Blog highlights income inequality in Texas.

The TSTA Blog calls Greg Abbott "clueless" on special education needs.

Murray Newman eulogizes longtime Harris County courthouse figure Rick Johnson.

And the Salon of Somervell County has some big plans for 2017.

Sunday Unpresidented Funnies

Just Putin this here

Too Oily

Finally there's some news about Texas that is bloggable.  As usual, it's something Republican and excessively awful.

The tapping of Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, and Secretary of Energy-designate Rick Perry (a Dancing With the Stars contestant) truly suggests -- as many others have long ago noticed -- that Trump is just trolling us all now.

Rick Perry for the Department of Energy? Perry will be running an organization he doesn’t even think should exist. By that logic, I should be the CEO of Citigroup. Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, for Secretary of State? Negotiating a peace treaty requires a different skill set than getting a permit to drill in the Black Sea.

The New York Times published a thoughtful op-ed by physicist Lawrence M. Krauss noting that the current energy secretary is also a physicist (a Nobel Prize-winning one) and outlining a number of critical issues facing the department. It was headlined, “Rick Perry is the Wrong Choice for Energy Secretary.”

The wrong choice? It’s hard to view these nominations as anything but the deliberate mockery of their departments, and of government itself.

Trump is filling a vacancy previously occupied by two nuclear scientists with Rick Perry, a guy who failed chemistry at Texas A&M.  He did earn a D in a course named Meats, however.  It is worth noting that the DOE has more to do these days with regulating nuclear energy than it does fossil fuels.  Which leaves very little room for mistakes of the cerebral variety.

As with the EPA-head-to-be, these people are no friends of the Earth.

Perry comes across as a likable goofball, but make no mistake: He’ll do a lot of harm in his new role. He’s very close to the oil and gas industry, and he denies the reality of climate change. In addition to steering energy policy, he’ll also be in charge of our nuclear stockpile and responsible for major counter-terrorism efforts.

Worried yet?

After living through and blogging about Perry's terms as governor -- his cronyism, his corruption, his re-election in 2006 with 39% of the vote, the persistent rumors of him being firmly in the closet, his indictments, his skating past his indictments, his Lordapolooza at Reliant/NRG stadium, his inability to find the vagina on an anatomical doll (the 2nd-most clicked post in this blog's fourteen-year history), his outrage at cartoon explosions as opposed to actual ones (in West, TX; the 5th-highest clicked post here) his cuddling a small bottle of maple syrup -- what is there left for me to say about him?

This: assuming there's a United States left after Trump starts WWIII with China, Rick Perry is going to hear God telling him to run for president again some day, and he might just be smart enough to have learned from his mistakes.  For the sake of a God I will never believe in, I hope I'm dead before I see Rick Perry elected president of the US.  Surely there's at least one more shitty neoliberal Democrat that can get in between him and Trump, yes?  No?

As for Tillerson, he's unlikely to survive the confirmation process, with John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, and Tony Perkins all lined up against him.

(Tillerson) made his career by trading with Russia and was now-famously awarded the Kremlin’s “Order of Friendship.”

Even some Republicans are worried about him. “Based upon his extensive business dealings with the Putin government and his opposition of efforts to impose sanctions on the Russian government,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, “there are many questions which must be answered.”

These Republicans don’t mention ExxonMobil’s suppression of scientific data that showed carbon fuels contributed to harmful climate change. For decades it denied that its own products were harming the planet. ExxonMobil spent more than $30 million on think tanks that denied the reality of climate change, despite its own groundbreaking but secret research from the 1970s onward that proved the opposite.

To be fair, Tillerson originally supported Jeb Bush for president, which means the fossil-fuel tycoon isn’t always opposed to “low-energy” alternatives.

Mwahahaha.  If your primary objection to the man is that he turned the Boy Scouts gay, you might just be the most unhinged Christian extremist in the country.

“Trump calls Rex a 'world class player and deal-maker,' but if these are the kinds of deals Tillerson makes — sending dollars to an abortion business that's just been referred for criminal prosecution and risking the well-being of young boys under his charge in an attempt to placate radical homosexual activists — then who knows what sort of 'diplomacy' he would champion at DOS?” Perkins wrote on the Family Research Council’s website, where he serves as president.

Update: Some "hey, it could be worse" than Tillerson from Vox.  There have been many poor choices made by this president-elect to date; it's hard to pick a 'worst'.  But these two Texans are absolutely in the top five.

Trump’s appointees constitute an ‘anti-government,’ to use Eugene Robinson’s resonant phrase. But let’s be clear about what that really means: Trump’s appointees will lead institutions whose functions they fundamentally oppose.

Tillerson has displayed no interest in diplomacy. Rick Perry is the ultimate ‘anti-government’ appointee. His desire to extinguish his new department is matched only by his ability to forget that it even exists. Neither seems to value government’s role in balancing public and private interests.

Trump isn’t just making “wrong choices” for these jobs. He’s displaying his contempt for the positions themselves. He’s showing himself and his friends just how much he can get away with.

Those of us who can see Trump for who he is should stop acting as if he’s unique. His pitch is as stale as an old carny’s. His con is as dated as three-card monte.

Trump voters don’t seem to have figured out yet that they’re being trolled and scammed. They will. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time - not when the world falls into chaos and the air turns dark with poison.

Too dramatic?  You'd better hope so.

Recount 2016 dies quietly, and a way forward

With Michigan's recount ended by federal by court order last Friday (despite some severe irregularities), the conclusion and subsequent certification of Wisconsin's vote, and the scolding rejection by a federal judge of the recounting in Pennsylvania this past Monday, the 2016 presidential election is to be finally determined by the Electors meeting in College on December 19.  There's some question as to how that might turn out, about which you've likely heard.  Don't get your hopes up is all I'm sayin'.  Jill Stein announced day before yesterday that any funds remaining from her effort would be donated to "groups dedicated to election reform and voting rights".  There are election lawyers disturbed by the outcomes of the erstwhile recounting, and there are bloggers happy/not happy about it, and the strife it caused within the Greens themselves.  Gadfly did his post-mortem a month ago; David Collins' is a week old, taking stock of the ending and looking ahead.

Jeffrey Koterba, above, perhaps speaks for the Greens on the other side of the internal divide from me.  Since the GP has not demonstrated they can raise large amounts of money from a donor base in small amounts (as both Stein and Bernie Sanders proved is possible, but only if you cater to Democrats' whims) then they're not going to grow.

I supported the recount and Jill Stein, still do and will going forward because, as blogged three weeks ago, I'm not so much of a purist as some.  I believe that with a shrinking electorate (Texas will be an exception, as I'll show in the next paragraphs) and thanks to the combined efforts of people like Trump's eventual Supreme Court nominee, Greg Abbott, Catherine Englebrecht, Kris Kobach, and many others -- the fastest way to greater relevance for US Greens (as blogged a month ago) is going to be to convince former Democrats like me, and more significantly some electeds, to come over and bring some of their professional campaign skills and tools with them.

The scale of the task remains massive: here in the Lone Star, Greens nearly tripled their share of the presidential vote in 2016 over 2012, but that translated into just 71,558 votes, or 0.80% (compared to 24,657 and 0.31%).  As you might already know, the next Green who bids for statewide office -- on the party line that must be secured via petition following the 2018 major party primaries -- must capture 5% of the statewide vote in order to hold that line in 2020.  That's easily done if the Texas Democrats fail to run in all the races, and impossible if they do not.

Using the same TXSoS numbers as above, and at the link here, the Texas electorate grew over the past four years from 7.993 to 8.969 million voters, or a 12% increase.  But despite the most favorable climate for third party growth in at least sixteen years, Jill Stein's share managed just a bit more than a 2.5% gain.  With an assumption that there will be another million Texans voting four years from now, and in order to reach 5% of that projected ten million voters in 2020, the next Green presidential candidate would have to earn -- not siphon -- 500,000 votes in Texas just to keep ballot access for the party in the 2022 midterm elections.

That's simply not going to happen absent a full collapse of the national Democrats, an extinction event long overdue but certainly more possible than it was on November 7, 2016.  Waiting for that Godot, however -- as the Democrats have helpfully demonstrated with the mythical Latino surge voter -- is folly.  If in the short term the DNC chooses soon-to-be-ex-Labor Secretary Tom Perez as chair instead of Sanders-supported Keith Ellison, there will be more erosion from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.  How much, quantifiably, can best be answered today with the words "not much" and "not enough".  All you need to do is look at Sanders' 33% share of the Democratic primary vote last spring to see that the Sandernistas in Texas were dutifully sheperded onto the Clinton bandwagon in time for November.

So as left-leaning bitter-enders agitate for something resembling reform with hopes the Democrats can engineer at least a White House comeback, the rest of us continue to endure the status quo: full GOP control, with Texas (and many other states, mind you) statewide races determined in the GOP primary and not the general, a state Democratic party apparatus moribund, unfunded, and at less than a 40% share and sinking.  Twenty-eighteen stands woefully small chances of moving that needle.

And as long as Texas Democrats can employ a recruiter like Cliff Walker and judicial candidates like Betsy Johnson, they can keep their finger in the dyke and prevent less than one percent of their potential vote leaking out to the Greens.  I say 'potential' because this is what Democrats believe: Green votes all belong to them, and no facts seem able to crack that shibboleth.  Maybe some day, but Team Donkey remains content to sell shit sandwiches as hope and change for the foreseeable future.

A pretty dim view of US progressivism generally and Texas particularly, irrespective of your being blue, green, or red, but an accurate one.  There is now a model for progressive populist activism, including electoral gains, but it will be necessary for those of us on the left to stop fighting with each other and work together, across party and even left-ideological lines.  A tall order, but at least there's some evidence it can be accomplished.

" ... I think the success of the Richmond Progressive Alliance as an electoral force really is due to the fact that it has taken an exceptionally ecumenical approach. It has welcomed people who are left-leaning Democrats, who are independents, who are registered members of third party like the California Greens or the California Peace and Freedom Party. There are members of different socialist groups. But it’s a broad charge, and under the banner of a local progressive movement, people have agreed to set aside disagreements that they or the organizations they belong to nationally might have about some issues in the interest of getting things done in a kind of united front at the local level. And that’s, as I’m sure you know, not characteristic left behavior in this country. Too often, people can’t get beyond their petty factional squabbles and ideological differences and [corroborate rather than compete]. So creating that kind of united front and kind of rebranding as the Richmond Progressive Alliance and welcoming people with different views and organizational affiliations on a left-liberal spectrum was really important."

More at the link from Steve Early, quoted above, and his book.

The Russians came *updates

And did ... something.  Precisely what is a matter even the CIA and FBI cannot agree upon.

With fairly conclusive evidence that something electronic, computer-related, was done by some folks in Russia, it remains circumstantial that the Russian government was actually directing those efforts (the FBI's mandate being what can be proved in a court of law, as we saw with the original decision of theirs not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for sloppy handling of her electronic mail).  This despite the fact that the Russian government seems delighted with the appearance (the CIA's conclusion, which underscores how that agency weights inference) of their having played some role -- something to do with -- electing Donald Trump president.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the CIA, has not endorsed their conclusion either.

"ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can't prove intent," said one of the three U.S. officials. "Of course they can't, absent agents in on the decision-making in Moscow."

Two other parties could not agree, either: Jill Stein, et.al., associated with the presidential recount effort and the Pennsylvania federal judge who asserted, in stopping the recount in that state yesterday, that her claim of 'foreign interference' was something that "border(ed) on the irrational".  Not particularly unusual when you are aware that even the Green Party's steering committee did not want to go forward with the recounting (but for reasons unrelated to alleged hacking).  And beyond the rationality or lack thereof associated with the Russian business, US District Judge Paul S. Diamond strongly denounced the recount effort despite glaring evidence that Pennsylvania has probably the most fucked-up election machines -- not to mention election laws -- in a nation chock full of the same.  But before I digress to the ending of the recount that occurred yesterday (the subject of a future post) let's finish with the Russians.

This 'something' that some Russians did with their computers lends itself to a broad range of -- to use Judge Diamond's word -- irrational conclusions, as Trump himself and more recently Keith Olbermann have demonstrated.  FTR I believe both of these men are as crazy as shithouse rats.

There are additional minor questions, such as whether or not the Russians 'hacked' the election by staging a barrage of 'fake news' that, in more subtle and thus immeasurable detail, swayed the electorate to Trump.  And even whether it was a leak, and not a hack.

Personally I remain disinclined to believe that the Russians hacked anything but John Podesta's and some RNC official's email.  Julian Assange -- or the Russians -- did indeed post RNC emails online, in August and despite recent reports to the contrary, so the suggestion that someone was attempting to push the election one way or another doesn't hold water.  But the fact remains that it was the content of the DNC emails that were damaging, although I can buy the counter-argument that they revealed precisely what the DNC and Hillary Clinton were already known to be: corrupt.  Rigging a primary in her favor despite her obvious and politically fatal flaws as a candidate.

That failure is on the Clinton Democrats.  Alone.  If you want it said a little nicer, read this.

Update: Don't feel bad if you still don't understand; not even Obama gets it.

“What is it about our political ecosystem, what is it about the state of our democracy where the leaks of what were frankly not very interesting emails that didn’t have any explosive information in them [...] ended up being an obsession, and the fact that the Russians were doing this was not an obsession?”

Update II: Despite new and ominous revelations, there still appears to be some disconnect between 'the Russians did it' and 'why did you write that in an e-mail'.

Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and a key Clinton supporter, recalls walking into the busy Clinton transition offices, humiliated to see her face on television screens as pundits discussed a leaked email in which she had called Mrs. Clinton’s instincts “suboptimal.”

“It was just a sucker punch to the gut every day,” Ms. Tanden said. “It was the worst professional experience of my life.”

Update III: More 'the Russians came all over the RNC, too" from The Smoking Gun, and this from Ann Althouse about how John Podesta originally got phished is priceless.

The Weekly Wrangle

With this week's blog post roundup, the Texas Progressive Alliance can remember a time when Republicans thought Russian meddling in our affairs was a bad thing.

Off the Kuff notes that businesses have calculated the cost of Dan Patrick's bathroom bill, but wonders if they have calculated the cost of Dan Patrick.  And Libby Shaw at Daily Kos is grateful to a Houston Chronicle business reporter for exposing Patrick’s rationale for his bathroom obsession. Practicing bigotry to mask fiscal and ethical failures. How we can expose this malpractice?

Socratic Gadfly looks at Trump's so-called "generals' cabinet," and suggests some additional generals, and CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is also alarmed over Trump's military cabinet choices. This is how a junta starts. He did promise regime change.

The December 7th anniversary nobody in Southeast Texas wants to commemorate was shared by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Dos Centavos applauds Houston's mayor, Sylvester Turner, signing the letter supporting the DACA policy and hosting an event organized by TOP this morning declaring Houston a 'welcoming city'.

The Lewisville city council reviews its legislative priorities as the 86th session approaches, and local control is going to take a hit, according to Rep. Burt Solomons and the Texan-Journal.

Bonddad's -- also known as New Deal Democrat -- weekly economic forecast spotlights a developing negative trifecta of gasoline usage, rising interest rates and the US dollar's volatility.

Neil at All People Have Value said Oakland warehouse fire victims used alienation to create rather than to attack. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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And here's more news from around Texas.

The Great God Pan Is Dead contemplates fire codes and art spaces in the wake of the tragedy in Oakland.

Leah Binkovitz takes note of the potential common ground between incoming HUD Secretary Ben Carson and Houston mayor Turner.

After arrests made in the wake of anti-Trump protests, the Houston Press sees that the ACLU of Texas will be sending legal teams to monitor the cops at future Houston protests.

Grits for Breakfast observes that asset forfeiture to the government now takes more money from people than burglars, and the number of heroin deaths has surpassed gun homicides.  (Can't blame Donald Trump for either of those, can we?)

Lone Star Ma calls for action to help the women and children released from family detention centers.

Naveena Sadasivam talks to retiring environmental lobbyist Tom "Smitty" Smith.

Juanita Jean gets mad about the latest governmental intrusion into uteruses.

The Lunch Tray notes the likely demise of the pending Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR).

Better Texas Blog highlights how much Texas will lose if the Affordable Care Act is repealed.

And The Dallas News reports that the Killeen ISD has gotten themselves in hot water over a showing poster from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Lame Ass Funnies

Lots of excuses.  Similar musings to the toon below from bzemsky at Daily Kos (but no mention of blame there for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, thankfully).

Lots of 'still not getting it' ...

Some communication breakdowns ...

Populism indeed was defeated, switched out for fascism.  But help, in the form of high mounds of daily manure, is on the way.