What I will never understand, if I live to be 100, is how the media in this country has fallen apart to the level that we actually have a criminal regaining office in January and he will be taking his criminal accomplices with him — and this is fine, just fine. There is no way that Richard Nixon would have been able to stay in office after his shenanigans were exposed — and it was the Republicans that made that decision. No mas. Nowadays Nixon wouldn’t have been asked to leave office and had he been in a position to run again, Pat Nixon’s chief of staff would have been one of the White House plumbers.
But in this day and age, with twin information silos droning out different narratives of reality, somebody like Donald Trump can exist. Exist, hell, flourish. Proliferate in fact. Dominate the information ecosphere and in so doing dominate politics. I saw a post on Twitter the other day that MAGAs had voted for the end of the ACA, thinking that “they didn’t need the ACA because they were set up with Obamacare.” I don’t know if that’s true. But if it is, that shows you precisely how stupid America is and I don’t need any more convincing. I charitably thought that people were *fooled* in 2016. No. Nobody was fooled. Americans are that stupid.
The moral of the story of the 2024 election? “You can be as corrupt as all get out but if you’ve got a good right-wing media organ cranking out a tune that makes it all sound okay, the rubes will vote for what sounds okay, not reality, every time.” Trump knows the rubes. He knows what P.T. Barnum said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”
And with poor taste as the watchword, Melania Trump will have a chief of staff in the White House. She won’t be there much, but she’ll have a COS. Great. I wonder who will do the fukking Creesmuss decorations this year. Anybody know? Meidas Touch:
Melania Trump announced today that Hayley Harrison will be appointed as her Chief of Staff as First Lady in the White House. Harrison was named in Donald Trump’s classified documents indictment as ‘Trump Aide 1’.
A written statement from “The Office of Melania Trump” said “Mrs. Harrison has maintained an integral role and exceptional leadership on the First Lady’s team over the past 7 years. She has a strong understanding of White House operations, and as Chief of Staff she will oversee and manage the East Wing’s team while strategically liaising with other parts of the government.”
“Strategically liaising”? That’s a new one.
I’m not sure what Melania’s “team” has done for the past four years that would be related to serving as First Lady. She did 3-4 speaking engagements for $250,000 a pop, and sold a bunch of jewelry, Christmas ornaments, and NFTs. I suppose Harrison may have helped arrange all that.
Melania has already announced that she will not be moving back to the White House and will maintain NYC and Palm Beach as her primary residences this time. No surprise there, she has barely been seen at all with her beloved husband over the last four years. So it seems likely that Harrison’s job will be more like Chief of Staff for a First Lady In Name Only. In absentia.
In the Trump classified documents case, Harrison was named in the indictment as ‘Trump Aide 1’. The indictment alleged that Harrison texted another aide asking that person to move classified documents into a small room in the shower at a time when the FBI was seeking to have them returned.
This is the kind of aide that a mob boss and his moll need to have, somebody who will move the booty and even bury the bodies, if need be. (Not to breathe life into the conspiracy theory that Ivana’s casket doesn’t contain Ivana’s remains, but I would not put literal body burying past this crew.)
Now the taxpayers are paying for this Chief of Staff but who needs a COS if she’s not going to live in the White House? I guess we’re going to find out. And again, I admit to a grudging admiration for Melania that she’s not even pretending like she’s married to Trump other than on paper. Duplicity stinks, truth is a breath of fresh air. Let’s see how often she actually travels with Trump, shows up for White House functions, any of it. Queen Elizabeth thought they “had an arrangement” and Her Majesty had been around a long time and seen quite a lot. She called the shot.
And it’s just as well. The Trump White House was never a White House that diplomats of yore wanted to be invited to. Not like they wanted to be invited to other White Houses. The world community is not fooled by this. They see the Trump show for what it is, exactly that, a show, that unfortunately entertains enough Americans to where they vote for it against their own best interests. To paraphrase an old Turkish proverb, “If you send a clown to the White House, he doesn’t become a president. The White House becomes a circus.” And the sequel is going to be worse.
I heard one of those folks being asked about Obamacare and they said that it was going to go away and it didn’t bother them as they had ACA. They REALLY are that STUPID!
Yeah, TikTok and YouTube are overflowing with videos detailing the varying forms of Voters’ Remorse over the potential for even higher inflation than we’ve been dealing with once the Bronze Bozo’s tariffs work their magic, how they never knew Obamacare and the ACA were the same thing, how former friends and relatives reacted to their voting red, and how the votes they now know were huge mistakes can’t be undone.
Viewing these are currently the sardonic high points of my days.
can’t fix stupid
But you can vote it in.
“What I will never understand, if I live to be 100, is how the media in this country has fallen apart to the level that we actually have a criminal regaining office in January and he will be taking his criminal accomplices with him — and this is fine, just fine”
It’s all about headlines, clicks, MONEY
Thank you, Ronald Reagan, for ending the Media Fairness Doctrine!!!!!
Heads of other countries may not like him but they are falling all over themselves to be the first to host him or be invited to DC. I believe putin will again be first to be invited but it will be interesting to see what country bids the highest to get him to visit their country. The bidding commences…..now
The changes in the media are directly related to the repeal of the limits on ownership promoted by Ronald Reagan and etched in stone by, of all people, Bill Clinton, who finalized the demise of the fairness doctrine and created the corporate media conglomerate that have now become propaganda machines for the oligarchy. The CEO’s of all those so-called media corporations, including the NY Times, contributed to Trump’s campaign. And the media outlets became a part of the campaign machine, maximizing negative coverage of Biden/Harris, while minimizing the danger of Donald To the nation, indeed to the world. Those poor chumps who might like to be good journalists are having to sacrifice their ethics of the want to keep their jobs. These are the reasons why what passes for mainstream media these days is a serious threat to the integrity of the US Government and to democracy generally.
It’s gone wayyyyyyy beyond the threat stage. Over a million bodies piled up during his first run…I expect the same this time around. 66,000 viruses floating around and we only vaccinate for a few, and many, like covid, keep evolving when 30% of 330 million people decide to become petri dishes. I’m sure RFK Jr. will be there for us. God what a country of phucking morons. I wonder who the oligarchs will blame? Antifa? Black Lives Matter? The boogie man?
Stupid is,as stupid does. The clown car has arrived.
Has anyone noticed thats cabnet nominations are going like this… billionaire A has been nominated for blank, billionaire B has been nominated for blank, billionare C has been nominated for blank, wife of billionaire D has been nominated for blank. Is it just me or is it plain as day these positions are being sold to the highest bidders?
Grifters grift.