Link Bundle: Things Trump Has Been Doing

... when he's not extorting money and election favors from other countries, that is.

He's also arranging sweetheart deals with foreign countries for businessmen who are members of his resorts.

He's trying to cover up or deny his scheme to pay off and silence his mistresses.

He's pocketing millions in cash when Republicans hold events at his hotels and resorts, even when the rooms aren't actually slept in by anybody.

He's embarrassing America on his trips abroad.

He's blocking members of the International Criminal Court from entering the US and freezing their assets here.

His tax cuts are lining his pockets (and those of other billionaires) while utterly failing to create jobs.

And while he's helping billionaires get richer, he's looking for new ways to make the poor poorer.

In fact, he's considering creating concentration camps for the homeless.

He's looting other programs (including support for our soldiers) and violating the Constitution and the express will of Congress in order to fund a wall that won't work.

He's blocking data collection on climate change.

He's protecting carcinogenic, nerve-damaging pesticides which almost all other civilized countries have banned.

He's helping protect violent white supremacists by blaming mass shootings on the political left.

He uses workers as political props.
 
He runs the White House like a mafia family don.

And, just as a reminder, he successfully obstructed justice by suborning perjury and withholding of evidence and interfering in the Mueller investigation. And although proving it in court will be almost impossible, it's all but certain he made himself a pawn of Russian intelligence.

And he's willing to do absolutely anything- even destroy the American republic- to avoid the consequences.

In this struggle, he will have the total support of most elected Republicans... and virtually all Republican voters.

Link Bundle #3

Clearing out yet more old tabs on the browser.

Cop catches his supervisor on video demanding to know why he hasn't arrested enough black people. 

Different cops beat the hell out of a black man, then claim self-defense, not knowing surveillance cameras would prove their lie.

North Carolina Republicans were working to systematically make it difficult if not impossible for Democratic-leaning people to vote.

North Carolina isn't alone in working to disenfranchise voters. Republicans are using wild claims of illegal voters to justify voter purges- despite the fact that the people making the claims are known liars and con men.

A concise description of what the alt-right is. Short: cowardly fascists. 

Another reminder: the alt-right is not about free speech. It's not about tolerance. It's not about anything else except racism, bigotry, and evil. To say "alt-right" is the same thing as to say "KKK", "White Citizens Committee," and "Nazi." It's all the same thing, just wearing a fancy suit and waving a Kekistan flag.

And Trump, let it be always remembered, is their man. He's proven it by his words, his deeds, and the company he keeps. (Note: Ben Rodriguez, a former creative collaborator of mine, has become an ardent follower of Castalia House publisher and Rabid Puppies fascist troll Vox Day, the man quoted in the first linked article for saying, "There is no more Republican vs. Democrat. It is now whites vs. non-whites and white quislings.")

Speaking of Kekistan: How alt-right trolls took an obscure, poorly drawn cartoon and made it the face of hate, racism, and sadism on the Internet.

A common tactic of abusers is to tell their victim, "What's the matter with you? I'm just playing with you!" It's a common lie, and the alt-right uses the "I'm joking" defense for the exact same reasons. The idea is to get the victims to let them continue, to let them grow stronger, to get a tighter grip on them, until escape becomes impossible.

 Written a year ago, before Trump's election, this article is a lot more sympathetic than most would be today. What I take from it: the well-off despise those with less than they have, and the poor whites generally despise non-whites who appear to get government help they themselves are too proud to accept. Oh, and both sides are fervent believers in conspiracies.

Short version: when wealth concentrates, it ceases to circulate, choking the economy. The more concentrated the wealth, the more it tends to concentrate even more, squeezing everyone else.

Short version: self-control is a total myth. Any system that relies on it to function WILL fail.

I must remember to seek out and buy some Penzey's spices.

A thorough coverage of the history of Presidential disability in office, and how government coped- or failed to cope.

A reminder that the world has seen rich businessmen elected to executive office before. The trend is, the richer the businessman, the MORE corrupt his administration.

We are in a new cold war with Vladmir Putin's Russia, even if few in Washington want to admit it. Putin is deliberately spreading misinformation to influence elections around the world. His end goal: to discredit democracy, weaken Russia's enemies, and bring about a world order of totalitarian, white-supremacist regimes. And Putin's support of Trump's campaign, about which more facts come out every day, was part and parcel of that.

And I think I'll stop there for now.

Mass Link Bundle

I really need to use this blog more often.

One of the problems with Facebook is that it makes it easy to just "share link", say a little bit about a thing, and then forget about it... and Facebook's magic makes it impossibe to find that link ever, ever again.

Another problem I have, not connected to Facebook, is that I will often read a link, think, "I want to say something about this, but I need to think about it," and then... just... let it sit there... in the tabs on my browser...

... which, at the moment, are up to something like a hundred tabs.

So, this is me, clearing out some (not all) of those tabs, and at the same time archiving the links in a place where they can be found. Some of these go back quite some time- they've been building up.

Starting with the most recent and moving backwards through my tabs row:

On how direct cash aid to individuals is the most effective means of ending poverty and boosting the economy, but envy and hatred of the poor sabotages it.

I like parts of this proposal, but I agree more explanation needs to happen.

Democratic leadership is still pro-business, anti-worker, and deaf as a post to what people are actually asking for- specifically, that corporations be reined in and that people get a decent wage and conditions at their jobs.

Of course, mechanization is on course to eliminate most human jobs, leaving the majority of mankind unemployable unless we do something about it.

White people forget that the Detroit Riots were a reaction to decades of police brutality and public segregation against black people.

This guy was the first: as of this week, three or four other top cybersecurity people have bailed out of executive-branch departments. Wonder why?

Brian Babin, my Congressman, wants to make it illegal to extend civil rights protection over transsexual people.

If you were wondering how Donald Trump won (despite the ten kazillion opinions on that subject expressed since the election), here's one clue: Hillary Clinton is even more disliked than he is.

Re: Trump-Russia collusion: How much more smoke does there have to be until we can safely assume there's a fire?


... and, well, I've run out of room in the tags. Guess I'll do more of this tomorrow.

Nixonian government is back in Washington.

Well, yes, the obvious sign tells us all that...

President Trump has fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, the White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Tuesday. ...

Senior White House and Justice Department officials had been working on building a case against Mr. Comey since at least last week, according to administration officials. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had been charged with coming up with reasons to fire him, the officials said. ...

Since the news came out, a lot of Democrats have called the firing a blatant interference in the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia. Which it is, obviously. (Trump claims the investigation doesn't even exist in the open letter of termination he sent to Comey.) But the first Democratic voice, and the one which will likely win the day, was that of long-time Democratic Party leader Dianne Feinstein:

"President Trump called me at 5:30 p.m. and indicated he would be removing Director Comey, saying the FBI needed a change,” Feinstein said. “The next FBI director must be strong and independent and will receive a fair hearing in the Judiciary Committee."

And Hillary Clinton? A very loud, strong, "no comment."

So the Democrats, after a little puffing and posturing, will cave, and the Republicans will successfully block the investigation, and Trump will accomplish what Nixon couldn't. It's this sort of thing that had me propose a "Gonzales Amendment" back when Dubya was president. We need it now more than ever.

But that isn't the only news out today that makes me refer to the current government as Nixonian.

On Monday the president nominated 10 people for federal judgeships. Thanks to an unusually large number of vacancies on the bench, there could be many more to come.

"This is just a down payment," said John Malcolm of the Heritage Foundation. He noted there are more than 100 open seats on the federal district courts and appeals courts.

. . .

All of the nominees appear to be cut from similar judicial cloth.

"They are all highly regarded in conservative legal circles and by practitioners in the states where they reside," Malcolm said.

 The thing is? Barack Obama nominated liberals, moderates, and even conservatives to the federal bench, often taking requests from hard-right Republican Senators.

Trump, like George W. Bush, is appointing and will appoint nothing but hard-line, far-right-wing conservatives to the bench, because conservatives don't believe in things like "playing fair" or "balance of power" or "including all viewpoints in the discussion"- concepts which Democrats have idolized to the point of nullity.

For the past thirty years- since the Democratic Leadership Caucus and Bill Clinton took control of the party- the Dems, unwilling to unite as the liberal party, have been playing softball. Republicans, centered on conservatism, have played hardball. Like Nixon, they will stoop to anything to get their way- and as Democrats have yet to learn, dirtiest fighter always wins.

The government we have now, sliding into fascism and dictatorship, is what happens when one political party is more interested in scoring political points, playing defense, and seeking compromise for its own sake than in actually standing up to overt evil. If this republic is to be saved, the Democrats need to grow a spine and take a stand for the people, rather than cowering in fear for their offices.

I don't have high hopes.