Open Thread Nov. 30: Lies and Lunacy
No, it’s not just you. Trump has been especially loony the past several days. Evidence of bad news on the way, according to pal-turned-critic Joe Scarborough. Evidence of a deteriorating mental state, says ghostwriter Tony Schwartz. Evidence that Trump is not doing this strategically, that he really is this fucked up, says David Graham.
It’s one thing for a single person, even if it’s the president, lose the ability to tell reality from his own delusions. That can happen to anyone, though of course the responsible thing for those around him would be to remove such a person from office. But what do you do when the mass delusion affects an entire political party? That’s where we are with the GOP Congress, which is ignoring warnings from Kansas Republicans about how GOP tax policies work in reality, as opposed to Ayn Rand’s fiction.
No problem, though. Apparently the entire party has figured out that, with their own “news” sources willing to carry and amplify their lies, they can tell them with impunity. So it was that, while the press chased the latest misbehaving penis, Sam Brownback, the governor who engineered the Kansas disaster, stood before his former Senate colleagues and lied his pious ass off, claiming that the Kansas experiment “worked.”
Spreading lies brings us right back to Trump, who yesterday tweeted out truly fake news — anti-Muslim videos from a far-right British fringe group that were debunked by the end of the day. The fringe group was thrilled at the publicity, but also reacted to the shout-out by frantically deleting pro-Putin material from its Facebook page. Funny how those grass roots smell of vodka.
Have you noticed that, unlike the presidencies of both G.W. Bush and Obama, nobody seems to care that we’re getting no news from the government about the wars we’re fighting? Well, a few have, so the Daily Beast went digging and found evidence that U.S. special forces might have massacred civilians in Somalia.
Someone yesterday complained about all the things I didn’t write about. That’s the point of the open thread, folks. Add anything I didn’t talk about, and talk about it yourself. Give us some links. You don’t have to attack what we do write about to bring it up yourself.
Tillerson!!!!!!!!!
What’d he do?
Ah, here it is: https: Trump prepared to fire Tillerson, move Pompeo from CIA to State, Tom Cotton to head of CIA.
Guess this is payback for not sending someone to help Ivanka move product in India.
All this to enact disastrous policies that will be reversed the second Democrats win back the government.
Josh Marshall points out that Tom Cotton is about as hawkish on the Middle East as anyone in the Senate, so if Trump goes through with this apparently John Kelly-hatched plan, all that campaign stuff about ending foreign nation-building would get flushed down the toilet like all the other campaign promises. All that’s left, Marshall says, is the racism.
Totally expected..after Tillerson called Trump a moron and couldn’t deny it publicly because he actually said it , you knew he’d be gone by Christmas…now Rex is getting shivved by leaks that he’s being pushed out. Hes yearning for his days at Exxon, golden parachutes and all!
Afraid I got pretty cranky yesterday on another thread. But Melania’s tasteful new Christmas display has lifted my spirits! Production by Tim Burton. Or maybe Dr. Caligari. God bless us every one.
I don’t do this to myself very often anymore, but I looked up the betting odds on “GOPS Keeps Control of the Senate”.
Bettors are making the call that the “yes” bet on that question is a stone cold lock.
The greater issue at this juncture is not the lies and lunacy, it is what will it take for the citizenry to decide that the lies and lunacy are unacceptable. I suppose the first step would be for them to determine that ignorance is an unacceptable condition. Unfortunately they have been conditioned by parties or organizations, to allow those same organizations and parties to do their thinking for them. In effect, they have assigned their proxies away because it is either too difficult to do the critical thinking necessary or because the subject matter is too complex.
To look at it another way, we require drivers education and testing before you are allowed to drive a car, but making elective decisions that affects the fate of the entire planet? Well, no need to even speak the language must less have to read or know what, who and why you are voting.
The dumbing down of the electorate is costing the nation its future. I don’t blame Trump, I blame the people who voted for him. We, the people, bear the responsibility.
And of course our educational system also bears some responsibility. We don’t train and educate citizens. We just assume they will know what to do when the time comes. But, guess what? They don’t and didn’t. It’s too bad we don’t have programs that teach what it means to be a citizen, a nation, and a society.