Saintperle

5/18/18

What's thepoint of #metoo if pissants like the president reinforces the standard of disrespect?


While it is certainly unpleasant for a women to have some guy grab her butt (or pussy) without her permission, it's not as rude and insulting as telling EVERY woman in America that not only will her government deny her the legal procedure of abortion if it becomes necessary, but refuse to allow any organization which receives government funding to even mention it as an option, let alone refer her to another organization which is allowed to offer the option.

And let's get this straight right away -- this isn't about abortion -- this is about the right of some male asshole to tell all women "Do this" "Don't do that" "Do what I'm telling you or I'll punish you, because I'm the law and what I say goes and what you think doesn't matter." 
Same thing it's always been about. With an ugly bit of "I hate mommy" in it.

And to have this reinforced example of disrespect announced by a lowlife like Donald Trump, who hasn't even got the intelligence to be able to mansplain the reason for it, is just appalling.

We all know that the people who think this is a good thing to do -- deny women some of their legal rights -- also are anti-birth control, and will eliminate those options from any organization which receives some government funding as soon as they can get away from it. Just keep those ladies barefoot and pregnant, and most of all, silent.

But it's ok for those Fantasy Factories that call themselves religion to get govt money (despite the constitution) so they can spread their authoritarian bullshit with impunity.

Ahh, perhaps Trump and his arrogant rich kids are bad enough (they're certainly dumb enough) to exacerbate the circumstances so far it triggers an end to any tolerance for their insanely cruel dictatorial dimwittedness and with that we will no longer have to hear the whining of the ruling class "But you don't have any tolerance for OUR ideas!"

Why the hell should we? Their ideas are all cruel and mean and the product of their fears -- men too weak and too selfish to allow women to live their own lives.

There's a difference in the very nature of things between ideas that add possibilities to peoples' lives and idiocies that  only take things away from peoples' lives.

Oooops, except they do add to rich people's lives, with tax cuts.
And ok, the other side -- my side -- does take away things like the ability to poison our water, our air, and out electoral process with impunity.

The only thing that's hard to understand is why we need to keep pretending the Trump-esque world is anything but the fantasy of a mean little 9-year-old spoiled brat rich boy's fantasy of being King of the World.


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5/16/18

One more screw up -- premature celebration


I guess maybe it takes more than an "OK I'll meet you" to get a Nobel Peace Prize.

Whether or not his reign in D.C. brings an indictment, an impeaching, or anything else. I think the retrospect of this guy's time in the oval office -- every bit of it -- would fit the comment usually attributed to Talleyrand  (but said by some other guy):
"It's worse than a crime -- it's a blunder."
 His blunder, because really he's a fuckup -- every deal he ever did involved getting away before the sheriff or the lynch mob got there  -- people believing he has all the money he says he has or that his threat of lawsuit will actually happen, or other threats more personally said -- or bankruptcy.

And our blunder -- for not getting around to ending the Slave State Perk called the Electoral College, for Democrats not recognizing that while Hillary could be a fine president, she didn't know how to do the poetry and dance of campaigning, not seeing their own lack of enthusiasm was pretty widespread: "Ok ok I'll vote for her," while the party itself conspired to stop Bernie -- for whom a lot of people were really cheering -- because they didn't realize Americans were willing to defy all logic and choose the person they loved. It wasn't only the Russians who took the choice out of the last election.

And to be honest, if Hillary had won, the insane opposition to her would have been suffocating -- maybe those white guys fear their mommies more than they fear an educated black man.
But at least we'd have a president who wasn't hell bent on destroying everything that fulfilled some of the American Dream for fairness and justice and civil rights and civil liberties and personal rights and liberties and clean waiter and air and medical care.
Things long time coming and only recently hard won.

There's a scene in a porn movie called Blow Off in which Ron Jeremy is a state congressman, and has sex with Lisa De Leeuw, at the end of which he looks at his watch and jumps up and says: "Got a meeting." She says, disparagingly: "Politicians." And he says in response: "Sure beats being a Republican."

It's a movie I watched to find the source of a quote from it, one I used on occasion referring to Poppa Trump:  "He's like a turkey stuffed with sexual indiscretions."

Nuff said.


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Why is it a surprise that Kim Young'un is backing off of meeting Trump


It's not as if no one knew that John Bolton's only talent was pissing off pretty much everyone with his rabid right wing "kill 'em all and let God sort it out" political view of the world.

So when Bolton is running around, even moderated from his insane advocacy of doing a pre-emptive strike on North Korea, openly stating that we need to do to North Korea what we did to Libya, got Khadafi to give up all his nuclear stuff... and then we killed him.

Even someone as dumb as President Trump might make the connection: "if they did it to him... are they planning to do it to me?"

I mean getting nuclear weapons if part of the sick insanity that our leader and so many others seem to have: "Mommy, he scares me -- please can we kill him?"

No way anyone with a functioning brain couldn't see what Kim Young'un saw -- that we (all the white guys) hated him and the Family Business Political Structure of North Korea that it was only a matter of time until our own bullshit hit the fan.

I'm not saying that he might have been a real threat. He certainly played it for that. You don't say you have nuclear weapons AND missiles that can hit America unless you want to make someone nervous.

But the art of the deal doesn't mean you can actually pull off:
"You give up everything and I give you nothing but a handshake."
(And one of those creepy ones that Trump does to make himself feel tough.)

I've said many times, that in the area of intelligence and toughness, Trump couldn't run a street gang of the kind that were around in the 50's in Philly, where I grew up.
He's not smart enough, not tough enough, not aware enough of other people's points of view to get and keep their loyalty.
Jeezus -- he's got the power of the presidency and he can't even keep his own employees loyal enough to go along with his insane overwhelming neediness.

Like an old Johnny Carson bit:
"How needy IS the president, Johnny?"
"He's so needy he makes Liza Minelli look like Lee Marvin."
"Are you dissing Liza Minelli?"
"NO! She gives everyone in the audience something wonderful before feeding her need for approval. Trump demands approval just because he thinks he's wonderful."

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Some Thoughts on the fateful meeting in Trump Tower on June 9, 2016

---an immodest pat on my own back -- when the meeting was first made public and the 3 Stooges (Donnie Junior, Big Paul and Jared) said: "We were only talking about adoptions."  I said -- "Talking about adoptions means talking about sanctions." 
Living in the moment doesn't mean total ignorance of the past. (And that also goes for modern  journalists -- great and crappy alike, who never studied history but turned their college years into a Trade School for Journalism.-- It was a difficult moment for me when one of my few favorites said: "Bill Clinton was almost impeached." AIYEEE!)

 This is what I wrote on 10/28/2017.

1 -- I'm thinking think Putin is giving up on Trump and doing as he is reputed to always do when someone is no longer useful  -- throwing him to the dogs. Because Trump couldn't lift the sanctions, instead, was so ham-handed and over-confidently arrogant, his behavior prompted the Sleeping Beauties of Congress to wake up from their dream of no taxes for the rich or health insurance for the poor long enough to pass a bill increasing sanctions.  
Underneath it all, Putin's smarter than Trump (Well -- duhh).
He realized that sooner or later, Trump would turn on him, as he does to anyone who no longer professes love for him, and if still in the oval office, could do his typical petty denunciations through a huge megaphone. Putin is almost infinitely smarter than Trump, but just as pathologically unable to accept blame for anything, or allow anyone to criticize him.
It would explain why Natalia Veselnitskaya, mob lawyer for Putin's Cosa Nostra, just confirmed that the fateful Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016-- the meeting with Donnie Junior, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort  was "to lift sanctions." It would then put all three in violation of the Logan Act of 1799, which makes it a felony to negotiate with foreign governments.
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
When Little Donnie came out and said "We were only talking about adoption," he prompted Stephen Colbert to walk toward the camera on his opening monologue and say he apologized to Eric Trump for "always thinking HE was the dumb one."
Adoptions?
Because "talking about adoptions" meant talking about sanctions, and now the round-faced Russian lawyer has confirmed that it was a test to see if he was willing to meet -- along with Jared and Manafort -- and even if it didn't go any further, the act itself of going to a meeting in which the agenda would be to discuss getting "Russian government dirt on Hillary Clinton," was an act of collusion with the Russian government. Just showing up crossed the line whether they got to actually conspiring with them to influence the 2016 election. And perhaps also a test to see how far the President's son would go to get his father's approval, even commit a felony.
Why was "just talking about adoptions" a violation of the Logan Act? The refusal to allow Americans to adopt Russian orphans was Putin's response to the sanctions placed on Russia with the Magnitsky Act, which punished the high Russian officials involved in Magnitsky's death by refusing to allow them entry to the United States or use of our banking system. (High Russian officials =  Pals of Putin)
Putin's counter-punch to that was to suspend all American adoption of Russian orphans and punish Trump supporters, since, unlike Chinese orphans, Russian orphans are white.
(Putin and Trump -- neither can let anyone else ever have the last word -- would be justice on a higher than usual plane  to lock the two of them in a basement in the Kremlin and let them kiss and hug and/or beat each other to death while each one shouts: "YOU started it!" "No. YOU started it."

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5/12/18

How smart/clever is Kim Yung'un? Don't let the bad haircut fool us.


First -- pretty much most, if not all, world leaders know how to handle Trump -- blow some smoke up his ass...tell him 
"Oh you're so pretty!"
"Oh, your hands are so BIG!"
"Oh, we want to throw a party/parade in your honor."
"Oh you're so tough."

Yeah -- but Li'l Kim is going farther, pulling off the hat trick PLUS --
and we can expect Donnie to roll over like a puppy and widdle all over himself, the way he does with Putin.
Hat trick is 3 quick wins -- in hockey or soccer it's 3 goals in one game. 

Mr. Kim has got that and more:

1. He started with "You're so strong!!"  (Oh you scared me so much I had to build nuclear weapons and ICBMs.)
2  He went on to gush: "Oh you're so kind -- you're willing to meet me and treat me as a head of state!"
3. He went on to say "Whatever you want to do on our date" (Get rid of MY nukes? Sure.")
4 -- the PLUS -- Go beyond the ass kissing -- Give Trump a WIN even before the meeting:
"I'll release those prisoners right now and send them home so you can brag about it
and give your poll numbers a boost at home and good election fodder for the fall."
5. And when they meet, maybe a little bit of one-up: 

"You know, I get to kill people who disrespect me. Can you do that, too?"

In a system where you have to kill off your family members to secure your place as the head of state, Kim knows Realpolitik.
Trump? He couldn't last 10 minutes leading a street gang unless he had money and lawyers doing it for him.
 

Kim knows how to do what Trump does -- say anything -- whatever works in the moment, and which most world leaders, who know their word counts for something, don't do. (Unless they're able to kill anyone who disrespects them, like Kim or Putin.)

Kim seems to know Trump's number as well as Putin does.
Even more, because he doesn't LOOK tough.
But we can expect to see Kim wave goodbye after their meeting with Trump's lunch money in his pocket, after he promises to do a whole lot of stuff.

We know that Trump is an asshole, a sadistic prick, a pissant know-it-all. We also know he's a fool. So does Kim

But Trump's not the usual kind of movie fool that ends up winning it all. He's more like Charlie Chaplin's Adenoid Hynckel in The Great Dictator.
(Even to doing a sort of scary replication of Hynckel's game with the globe of the world, when in Arabia and they all photo-op'd putting their hands onto the lighted world globe which said it clearly: "This is ours and we own it all.")

A mean-spirited, self-indulgent, greedy greedy greedy fool -- never enough to fill the hole in his soul, altho Trump is a good model for atheists and others who say "There is no such thing as a soul."

People keep saying that we have to hope he's successful because it's our country,

and America's success depends on Trump's success.
Bullshit. KelleyAnne Conway Alternative Truth.
Only in Trump's
tiny l'etat c'est moi brain, does his success equal America's. 

Trump's failure will be America's success.

Trump's successes destroy our society --- destroy environmental protections, kill consumer protections, overthrow voting and civil rights protections, appoint federal judges who the ABA say are as unqualified as Jared bringing peace to the Middle East (even while Trump is scheming with Baby Nothing Yahoo to set up a war with Iran...)


And the people who are around him are afraid to criticize him, not only for their own jobs,
 but because they've seen him overreact to criticism over and over again, going into his fugue state -- insane totentanz with monomaniacally obsessive attacks on that tar baby who refuses to answer him because it's trying to bring him down.

He'll give away the store to that cute little Korean monster, because Kim knows how to play the monster game, and Trump only knows how to hire people who might know how to do it.

Kim will set him up.


(And, meanwhile, in another part of town, Smokey Daniels and her lawyer will bring him down, spank him on the ass with his photo-on-the-cover "grab 'em by the pussy" mental disability.)

And that WILL make America great again.

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5/11/18

Enough!


The hideously soulless and despicable comments made by members of the administration about John McCain has made me rescind my belief that, no matter how vile, how low and mean-spirited, how despicable this orange-haired piece of shit that shuffles and shambles like something supposed to be a man, rescind my belief that I hope no one will go so far as to kill him.
  I had refused to accept the usual post-mortem praises which are given to those made suddenly dead and which would be made in his name even though ripped from bitter mouths by customs and courtesy and allowed to pollute the air. Even those would be acceptable to having to endure his repeated vandalism of basic decency.


AND you, General John Kelly, USMC -- you are a man who has served in war and peace and knows what a measure of a man actually is -- you, sir are a shame and a disgrace to your uniform and your country to allow the repeated attacks by your superior officer
and his staff
without public comment, an officer whose torture and punishment was so extreme that even a description of it is painful to endure, and almost impossible to understand how, through all of it, he remained  steadfast, always faithful.

  I finally accept as Saki said:
"This is a man who would be much improved by death."
 

Even as our country might be much improved by a small black hole devouring the White House with all Trump staff and appointees present, leaving behind only an empty space and bitter memories of injustice.

I am not a person who is or has been sentimental about military service or flag-waving,
a 75 year old man whose time in the Marines ended as an injury compounded  during recovery by a loose tongue brought me to no more than a hair's breadth distance from
a Court Marital for Sedition, and who was only delivered from a future of federal imprisonment by the Colonel in charge of the Court, who, reading my single statement in 1964 that "I don't think our government knows what the hell it's doing in this place called Vietnam," laughed, and having established the fact that it was the only statement I had made, dismissed the charges before they were entered into record, saying: 

"I'm not prosecuting a private for saying the same thing I say every day.": 

I have never been what might be called a gung ho patriot, but Senator McCain is the only public figure who,watching clips today of him talking about his love for country, can bring tears to my eyes...

There is a quote which, like most quotes is only a partial piece of entire thought, for example, Carl Schurz's more poetic redaction of an existing quote previously made by Stephen Decatur:
"My country, right or wrong..."
and leaving out the rest: 

"...if right, to be kept right, and if wrong, to be set right."

 There is another quote about love of country, a quote which I googled today to be sure I had it right, and in doing so, found it was part of a longer poem by Sir Walter Scott,  referring to a man who had been away from his homeland and is returning, the first verse of which could have been written for and about Donald Trump....  


Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 
    This is my own, my native land!  

 -------that's the part we all know but it goes on: 

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, 
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd, 
    From wandering on a foreign strand! 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well; 
For him no Minstrel raptures swell; 
High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; 
Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 
The wretch, concentred all in self, 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And, doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung. 

Walter Scott, a wordslinger who could turn an immortal phrase or two ---
words which could be written in today specifically about
Mr. Trump and all his Swamp Predator appointees:


High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; 
Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 
The wretch, concentred all in self, 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And, doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung. 

Fuck him and fuck all the self-indulgent angry assholes he rode in on, people whose intelligence -- if ever having been present before -- was diminished in inverse proportion to the amount of anger they allowed themselves to enjoy.
Even as -- I admit it -- I am allowing my own anger to make me even dumber than I usually am. 

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5/2/18

Am I the only one who, regarding Trump et al, is just TIRED of it all


 The Trump presidency is like a TV show that hits its 5th season and has to promote itself to hold onto viewers with ads that say: The Last Season!!!
And during that interminable season has to keep the viewers with:
"Only 5 more episodes!"

"Only 2 more episodes until the ending you won't believe!!"

And oh god I am now wishing for the ending I will or won't believe and just don't give a fuck about at all...doesn't matter if it's indictment, impeachment, or Ivanka stabbing him to death as recovered memories overwhelm her and ...

Oh Trump's last remaining lawyer,Ty Cobb, just quit  (I always thought if he were as much a racist, anti-semitic, hateful gynophobic sonofabitch as his famous baseball forebear, then that made him perfect for Trump's inner circle.)

I hit the wall today when the tv news turned to Trump introducing the ceremony at Pompeo's  confirmation and saying "This man is a great patriot..." and all alone  in my front room, I actually spoke out loud: "Yeah, like you'd know what that is."

And as I see TV journalists still hoping that this giant orange tarantula will do the right thing about anything, I am once again reminded of the Joe Landsale quote that closed one Hap and Leonard story:

"Hate makes you blind.
Love makes you free.
Hope breaks your heart."

 Right now the best wow finish I can imagine to this endless tour thru the tackiest levels of hell would be for him and Kim to meet where they said they might, in the DMZ, to shake hands and agree with each other ("We're both insane megalomaniacal assholes so we should  be allies.") and take a walk after or before the signing of something or other, and both step on one of the thousands if mines still there, and with the cameras (of course) still running, we could see the pieces of each blown sky high, rising up like our hopes, and falling down to ground like a gift to Demeter to fertilize the earth for new crops to grow where the venomous monsters fell --  and FINALLY --  give us some entertainment we can applaud.

Just tired of it and him and his plundering bedbug Cabinet Secretaries and his dimwit Press Person Sarah Huckster (to whom Michelle Wolff was exceedingly more kind than she deserved) and especially tired of waking up everyday hating the president and the  granddaughter of a Murder Inc monster the other mafioso called "The Brute," KelleyAnne Conjob, and the Jewish Nazi Steven Miller (how silly and dimwitted  of PC TV journalists who say "I can't call him a nazi because he's Jewish." No swastika, but hell, there's Netanyahu squirting out his entitled venom just like the Obersturmfueher he emulates, spitting venom at us because we finally realize HE has abused and destroyed the primacy we have given to Israel and done something no one figured could be done after WWII -- resurrect worldwide antisemitism based on people looking at him and thinking "That's what a Jew is."

And realizing that life is too short to spend any more of it paying any attention to this .... this THING that has enraptured the worst of all possible Americans.

There are real heroes to think about -- the sort of humans who inspire us to become more than we were -- John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace, Smedley Butler who Wrote War is a Racket, Daniel Ellsberg who published the Pentagon papers, Nathaniel Greene, Rhode Island Quaker who won the Revolutionary War for George Washington, leading the Southern Campaign until he forced Cornwallis to give it up at Yorktown, Martin Luther King Jr who showed the world that Ghandi had it right, and a whole lot more... Welfare workers who risk imprisonment by getting part-time apprenticeships in places like auto repair shops and plumbing businesses (which can always use extra help) so their people can learn and earn enough in transition to provide food and shelter for their families instead of being cut off without any way to make a living. Schoolteachers who stick with it. There are a lot of people with values and sincerity and good intentions. 

And not just a boy's club, this place of heroes, how about Mother Teresa, the Albanian nun from Kosovo who, when everyone had fled Beirut because it had come to snipers shooting people going to the corner store for milk, drove a large van into the center of town, to an orphanage which had been abandoned with dozens of small children still in it, all facing starvation, drove right to the front door and led and carried all the children out to the van and took them to a safer place. Or Sister Ann Lee who founder the religious group known as the Shakers, the only religious founder I know of who KNEW from the beginning, that religions become uptight, rusty, rigid, staid and so included dancing and "shaking" to keep remind all that moving and staying open and flexible were important values. And it was the Shaker Community in Maine which produced the song Simple Gifts* written by Elder Joseph, a song that has offered clarity and centering since 1848.

 .   Or Clara Barton or Rosa Parks, or Harriet Tubman or Odette Hallowes or Violette Szabo, Emmeline Pankhurst, or, for that matter, Frida Kahlo and Josephine Baker.

People with sincere values and good intentions and a lot of courage to do what they know is right, because some people -- like the Resident of the United States who has none of those values, principles or ethics -- those people always feel they must attack those who follow an unselfish vision.
   
And as for demons and monsters -- there are a whole lot of them in history who were better at it than Trump, like John Wilmot, 2d Earl of Rochester who -- unlike Trump -- took full personal responsibility for his crimes and was aware of the cost of that ("Any man who calls things by their rightful name will surely be hanged.")...or the mythical and famous Sam Hall who stood on the gallows with a rope around his neck and told those assembled that he hatred them one and all and see them all in Hell, because to be a monster ALSO takes some courage.

Trump -- just second rate -- a low class rich kid 71-year-old spoiled brat -- he's got the venality and the vicious racism and the gynophobic terror of women -- but he's still just a cheap imitation of a bad man. The kind that might be featured a second rate local drama like the 50's- 60;s one in Philly, filmed in the WCAU parking lot, "Action in the Afternoon."

In short -- boring, too stupid too even pretend he'll ever be anything but a waste of time.

And yeah, he's president but that's only important for what that tells us about our country and our election process and the horrible human ability to forget everything of value when someone pushes the 'WHO SHOULD I HATE" button. 


And it is to our shame that we even try to pretend he might have any character values worth knowing. Michelle Wolff was right -- the only real way to insult him is the way she did -- attack his only character value, i.e., that he doesn't have the money he says, which is why he won't show his tax returns, because being richer than other people is the ONLY thing that's important to him, and serves as a substitute for having principles or ethics.
And not just a boy's club, this place of heroes, how about Mother Teresa, the Albanian nun from Kosovo who, when everyone had fled Beirut because it had come to snipers shooting people going to the corner store for milk, drove a large van into the center of town, to an orphanage which had been abandoned with dozens of small children still in it, all facing starvation, drove right to the front door and led and carried all the children out to the van and took them to a safer place. Or Sister Ann Lee who founder the religious group known as the Shakers, and which community produced the song Simple Gifts* written in the Shaker community in Maine  by Elder Joseph, a song that has offered clarity and centering since 1848. 

So fuck him and all the horse's asses he rode in on.  None of them worth pissing on.**
 
*Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, 
And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.


---  a note, these lyrics seemed -- at the time --  to be expressly written asa universal tool for people taking acid, back in the days when people took acid "to get straight" (i.e., "to come down where we ought to be.") and before taking acid was spoken of as a way "to get fucked up," which was a disturbing linguistic shift and proved that Sister Lee knew whereof she spoke, about what can happen to visionary movements.
 -------------------

And my thanks to Shelley Singer for reminding me that there might be a lot of people who feel the same way, and that this should be available to to them, and at the very least, I think, people who know Michelle Wolff was right... nervous, but as they say "Speak the truth even in your voice trembles." So despite my fears of repeated hacking by assholes with opposable thumbs-- thanks Shelley.


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1/12/18

Now we know what Paul Ryan meant

So we now know what Paul Ryan meant that day, the day of the appalling White House back garden cluster smooch of Trump's flabby ass,
 what he meant when he said the wonderful tax bill was only possible because of Trump's
"exquisite leadership."

When you're in a doctor's office or a hospital, and they're trying to diagnose your situation they ask "How bad is the pain, from one to ten?"
 

When you get past 8, to 9 or 10, the pain is what they call: "exquisite"
meaning unbearable, intolerable, too painful to stand for one more moment, etc.

And Mr. Shithole's leadership really is "Exquisite" in that sense.

Sidenote -- that night some late night comic was mocking Trump's claim that the Dems were making America a laughingstock, saying no, it was Trump who was making America a laughingstock --- not really, not any longer -- that was last year...

Now Trump is making America the object of worldwide contempt.

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1/7/18

The question was raised recently why celebrity sex molesters don't seem able to know how to apologize.
(I'm answering the question assuming the subject is a male molester who abused a female, which is not always the case.)
 
If they were (able to apologize), they would not have been sexual molesters.
When their date, employee, acquaintance, etc  said  "No, don't do that," the correct response of any decent civilized person in that situation would be: "Oh I'm sorry. My mistake."

They can't do that -- they can never admit they were or did something wrong.

So they need to
(1) Insist, "C'mon you know you like it."
or
(2) Diss the person: "What are you, some kind of a (a,b,c,d...) bitch, tease, crybaby, religious fanatic, man-hating lesbian, etc.

It doesn't matter why or how they got that way, but ok, my best guess is it may be something in their upbringing, something that mommy did that makes him think to EVER admit he did ANYTHING wrong would  be followed by hideous punishment.
I once heard a woman, a mother, tell her son: "If you ever do something bad with a girl, I will cut your thing off."

Yikes.
But it doesn't matter why --
it's about whether or not they can control themselves and, if not, at least apologize.
They can't apologize because they're mental moral cripples.
Which is why they couldn't stop when she asked/told him in the first place.
They're so wounded they're total jerks. And they say it's not their fault.
Which, in that case means they can never be allowed to be free to smear their disease on every woman they encounter.

The cure might be help him to develop some empathy, probably in something like a prison where a person or persons who are larger and stronger and more aggressive than he is will take the time to provide a tutorial in which it is demonstrated to them just how that woman felt when she said "Please stop."
And as with anything to be learned, the repetition of the lesson over and over again will fulfill the principle that practice makes perfect.

As my late father used to say, slightly sarcastically: "It couldn't happen to a nicer guy."


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There's a quote that's been rattling thru my brain lately


I read it many years ago as a frontispiece epigram in (maybe) Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene or some other book of that particular focus in that particular time period -- sociobiology. 

Just one category and version of the kind of science/ sociology/ psychology, book which posits an interesting theory, one worth considering, but ends up being used by some people to justify and prove that being the mean, selfish, cruel gold-plated sonofabitch he or she has become is OK, and also a very very good thing for him or her to have become.


It prompts the kind of self-justificational claptrap with which some people try to prove they shouldn't be criticized for their behavior, as in "I'm ok, you're ok," a statement of supposed scientific validity which, when made, makes us so pleased to be found to be ok, we slide over noticing that the person putting it forth is seriously NOT ok in any way.
 (My ex-wife of many many years ago put it well: 
"If people like that like you, you need to worry about what you are.")


It's not enough for that study to be used as self- justificational but self-aggrandizing too, as if it's not only ok to exhibit the sort of behavior that every religious, ethical, social standard in the world eschews, and demands that person be excluded from decent human company whether by exile, being sent to Coventry, put in prison, tarred and feathered or shot immediately as a rabid dog --asserting that the particular behavior is not only OK, but it is an admirable thing and to be aspired to by the BEST people...

And having something like documentation to prove oneself THE BEST is essential, whether it's having gone to the best college ("If it weren't  the best why would the richest most powerful people send their children there?") or having gotten the most money either from inheritance or highway robbery or proving that the people one dislikes are actually as bad or worse than what we see the person in question being. 

Same thing is also used to prove that we -- whoever we may be -- have the right to disparage other cultures, customs, religions, or social organizations without first acknowledging that one's own group belief makes no more sense, and possibly less than that which is being crapped on. 


Anyway, I make no aspersion on Richard Dawkins, or for that matter, the late Arthur Janov, Wilhelm Reich,  Lev Trotsky or G.I. Gurdjieff. This is only about the people who use such thinkers' work for the purposes I mentioned.


A book is not responsible for the behavior of its readers any more than any idea is responsible for its followers, and this one had an interesting quote to start itself off...

I'm being approximate, because if I still have it -- and it is, in fact, THAT book -- I can't find it in any of the stacks and boxes of books around here.

BUT, in essence, the quote was something like:

"People think the process of science is 
finding and proving things that are true forever.
But the process of science is actually involved in 

finding and proving things that are false forever."

Worth thinking about.
 

"We don't see things as they are -- we see things as we are."
Moses Maimonides

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