Tag MSNBC

…and hope never to see again

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

I saw the worst show on TV tonight…but couldn’t turn away.  Someone suggested taking a drink every time the lead character said “like no one’s ever seen before” and it just got harder and harder to work the remote control.  Almost as bad as when you had to take a shot each time a character on The Bob Newhart Show said “Hi, Bob.”  (Oh, college days.)

Did our president really just say that military recruiting offices “are having among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services”?  (What about the days after Pearl Harbor?)  Or that we will get Greenland “one way or the other, we’re going to get it”?  In what race can one break the old record time by five hours?  He did say DOGE is “headed by Elon Musk,” directly contradicting his own staff’s efforts to convince a judge that someone else is really in charge.

If you enjoy a good fact-checking of TFG – and who doesn’t – here (in no particular order) are a few from which you can choose.  (Sorry, couldn’t find the one from Fox News…you know, where they used to promise to report so we could decide.)

NPRWashington Post
New York TimesCBS
MSNBCPolitiFact
CNNABC

Also:

  • Isn’t he just the worst public speaker, in the sense of classic oratory?  For all his criticism of others being tied to the teleprompter, he’d have been totally lost if that thing had died…never even opened the binder in front of him.  He can read OK, but he conveys no sense of what the words really mean.
  • Why did we even have this speech anyway?  It was not a State of the Union speech, even if he seemed to think it was.  I guess his ego is as fragile as they say for such a self-gratifying performance piece to be required.
  • Good for you, Al Green (my own representative in Congress)…I couldn’t hear what you were saying, but it was good to see someone literally standing up to this doofus.

There is a difference

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

Among the new, never-before-tried things I’ve done over the years that have left me physically and mentally drained: I left home to go to college, I got married, I started exciting new jobs (more than once), and now I’m retired and focused on near-daily time on the driving range to improve my golf game.  None of that compares, though, to how I feel watching President Musk remake the U.S. government, in many cases without the benefit of the law to support his actions.  It’s exhausting.

I firmly belief that he and his little friend – uh, I mean TFG, not the literally “little guy” on his shoulders – are trying to do as much as they possibly can as quickly as they can so that we can’t keep track or keep up, to breed fear and confusion, and to cover up the graft and corruption.  The scope of what is laid out in Project 2025 is no small task; they don’t want to wait until the other team is ready to go before they start the game.

“There’s too much going on. It’s overwhelming.” If that sounds familiar, this piece is for you. Jay Kuo breaks up Donald's latest power plays into three categories: bad, worse, and worst. It may sound heavy, but understanding them makes it easier to stay informed without feeling buried.

— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) 2025-02-20T22:12:49.649Z

The smug ones love to grin and remind us with a tsk tsk that “elections have consequences.”  That is so, and even if I don’t like it Trump won the election (although not with the “mandate” for a such radical remaking of the government as they claim) and got right to work doing some of the things he promised.  He’s also doing some things that he never ever said a word about, and some of his voters are already expressing regret about their election choice.

(BTW, as far as him “working” is concerned: have you ever seen a cleaner president’s Oval Office desk in your life?  Two big phones, a Diet Coke button, and a large box of big fat Sharpies to etch his scribble onto another Executive Order.  But not one thing for him to read, digest and understand before making a decision.)

Yes, so far some of it seems to violate the law and/or the Constitution, but this is not the first president to do something not permitted under law.  In the past, Congress and the courts, the other two branches of government designed to provide the checks and the balances to the Executive, have taken steps to rein in a president, and already there are a number of lawsuits seeking court action to rule against this Administration.

But where is Congress?  Yes, I know, the president’s party controls both the House and the Senate and so those members are not going to be quick to challenge the leader of their own party.  But, c’mon: this Congress has turned into the three blind mice and is not even standing up for itself and its prerogatives, and that is highly unusual.  A body full of folks who have never been accused of being shy, retiring wallflowers, who are generally quite assertive when it comes to their own high-and-mightiness and the rights and privileges thereto appertaining, are acting like they have no part to play.  I get it that the Republicans are scared of MAGA nation being mobilized to challenge them in the next party primary election, but that excuse doesn’t explain what happened to the Democrats.  The Democrats are only four seats shy of a majority in both the House and the Senate; “divided government” isn’t much of a hindrance to the majority when the minority goes into hiding.  There’s a difference between being a member of Congress supporting the president of your party, and abdicating your responsibility under the Constitution: “Congress has not authorized [Trump’s] radical overhaul [of the federal government], and the protocols of the Constitution do not permit statutorily mandated agencies and programs to be transformed — or reorganized out of existence — without congressional authorization.”

"there is no reading of the Constitution that allows any president to claim that a political mandate, or a political promise made, obviates or supersedes the role for Congress."wapo.st/4hSE7Ox

— Pat Ryan (@patryan12.bsky.social) 2025-02-12T06:25:52.462Z

Trump says he is fighting to defeat the un-American actions from within the government undertaken by elements of “the deep state,” a self-generated boogie man (boogeyman?  bogeyman?) that can be blamed whenever no responsible party can be identified for something the MAGAs don’t like.  But I think it’s very important for all of us to remember, it is not only not true just because Trump says it, in fact it is very likely not true because Trump said it, because he is the most prolific and shameless liar of our lifetime.

There’s a difference between bad policy and illegal activity.  There’s a difference between a guy you didn’t vote for doing things you think shouldn’t be done, and that same guy breaking the law—with a smirk on his face—and daring anyone to do anything about it.

There’s a difference between being the leader of the free world, and presuming to dictate to the rest of the world what they are to do.  Or to do a thing yourself and tell them to get used to it, as in the case of I’ll negotiate an end to your war, Ukraine, you don’t get to be there.  That is just the kind of thing that makes the rest of the world hate America.  By the way, you really shouldn’t accuse the leader of a country that should be our ally of being a dictator, and accuse his country of being responsible for being attacked by Russia when that is so obviously not true.  What it is is helping spread Russian propaganda and disinformation, and making the rest of the world nervous thinking they can’t trust this American president, and maybe not the United States at all, about anything.

THIS JUST IN: I just ran across another possible reason for all the members of Congress to be afraid to challenge TFG. Gabriel Sherman writes in Vanity Fair that many are “scared shitless” that they will face physical violence from MAGA Nation. Sounds about right.

Say the truth

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

It feels like it’s been going soooo slooooowly, but maybe we’re going to see some movement.  Chairman Bennie Thompson says the first public hearings on what the House January 6 committee has learned will be held in early June, and committee member Jamie Raskin is describing what they have learned this way: “This was a coup organized by the president (Donald Trump) against the vice-president (Mike Pence) and against the Congress in order to overturn the 2020 presidential election” and “We’re going to tell the whole story of everything that happened. There was a violent insurrection and an attempted coup and we were saved by Mike Pence’s refusal to go along with that plan.”

Wait, what?  Saved by Mike Pence?

To be fair, I can remember feeling sort of satisfied at the time that Pence had finally stood up to his boss (I think there was some mention of overcoming obsequiousness in there) and refused to take part in such a blatantly illegal plan—a coup.  But I hadn’t considered that maybe we all owe Pence more of a debt than we realized.  Earlier this week MSNBC’s Chris Hayes laid out this interpretation.

I’m eager to see the evidence.  I’m eager to get on with it!  Not to rush to judgment, mind you, but it’s been almost 16 months: the legislative branch and the Justice Department and the court system have got to nail the people responsible for this illegal power grab, and do it soon…or we may find those traitors may be back in power in Washington and in a position to protect themselves forever.  We’ve got to take action to punish those who deserve punishment, and stand up to the haters.

None of the mechanisms to deter a rogue president would work to restrain a reelected Trump.

On that note, I was invigorated last week to stumble across a speech by Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow.  In retaliation for her support of LGBTQ issues, one of her “colleagues” embraced the popular new right-wing slur by accusing McMorrow of “grooming” children for sexual exploitation.  In a fundraising message.  No evidence provided, of course.  But McMorrow didn’t just take it, or shrug it off; in less than five minutes she sent a positive message that hits the haters right between the eyes.

https://twitter.com/MalloryMcMorrow/status/1516453738403143681

“Hate will only win if people like me stand by and let it happen.”

I want to take a lesson from Mallory McMorrow, and not to afraid to call them like I see them.  We need to make it OK again to say the truth that we see.  It’s how we can defeat the haters.

Democrats Ask if They Should Hit Back Harder Against the G.O.P.

Five weeks

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

The job of president of the United States was meant to be a manager who would lead the executive branch to efficiently carry out the business of the nation’s government.  It still is that, but it’s also become a symbol of the battle between competing claims to exercise a moral imperative: on one side, those who want government to enforce upon the rest of us their idea of the one right way Americans should live their lives, and on the other those who have a broader view of the meaning of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  The situation is tedious, and divisive, and destructive of our ability to get along with those of our fellow citizens who have different opinions of the proper role of government in our lives.  What’s worse is, the campaign for the job never stops—thank you, sir, may I have another!

Right now, five weeks before the election, is when we should be starting the campaign.  That’s time enough to review information about the candidates, time for reflection…and after election day it would be time to go back to regular life, where if you choose to you could escape the obsession with the daily minutiae of politics.  Time enough to make a reasoned decision, and move on.

The two major party candidates for president have their first side-by-side appearance tomorrow night (I’ll be surprised if they actually engage in debate), to talk about issues and make the case why we should give him the responsibility of managing—just for starters—our national defense; our response to global pandemics and natural disasters; our relationships with our allies and with our enemies; the delivery of our mail!  Someone we can trust to look out for our country’s best interests, and to obey its laws.

So, I’ll watch the debate tomorrow and I’ll think, which of these guys do I want representing us…me…for the next four years?  Will it be the guy who

(There are plenty more where those came from.)

No, it will not be that guy.

You get to make your own choice, and you’re pretty smart, and there are five weeks left to think it over…before you get to make a secret choice, and no one will ever know who you voted for unless you tell them.  Just sayin’…

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1309949193348435969

https://twitter.com/TheRock/status/1310198847835000834

A peek of sun

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

This is a miserable day: there’s a small hurricane a few hundred miles to the south that is shooting enough rain over my area that the golf course has actually closed, and they rarely do that; I’m finishing four months mostly stuck at home doing my tiny part to stifle the spread of COVID-19, which has a renewed outbreak here in southeast Texas thanks mostly to simple impatience encouraged by misguided state and national political leadership; and while the Major League Baseball season finally began in Houston last night I found from watching just a bit of it on television that the lack of fan excitement in the ballpark compounded my disinterest arising from the off-season report that my team cheated.

But there is good news: support for Donald Trump among Republicans is starting to crack!  Finally.

I do not understand—have never understood—the attraction of Donald Trump to the American people, beyond the fact that he is not Hillary Clinton and that was enough for many.  Trump has no guiding philosophical principles (beyond self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement) that might attract like-minded people, and even if he did, you’d think the cold, clear reality that Trump lies (about everything) should be enough to persuade those people that he cannot be trusted in anything that he says.  Even his TV catchphrase “You’re fired” was misleading, in that we’ve now seen that he doesn’t have the courage to fire anyone to their face, no matter how much they may deserve it.  He’s a con man; a fraud.  He’s also an incredible whiner, obsessed with whether people have been “fair” and “nice” to him—why didn’t he ever learn that life is not fair, and people are not always nice?  (Has he looked in a mirror?)

He’s also proven himself to be conspicuously susceptible to praise—he thrives on having others tell him how great he is.  Don’t think the leaders of Russia, China and North Korea haven’t noticed.  I’ve never seen anything as demeaning as those Cabinet meetings and other gatherings at which Trump kicks it off by going around the table “giving” everyone the chance to open up their Roget’s and find new ways to kiss his ass—in public!  Like they had a choice…I do not understand why, after the first one of those, the people around that table ever came back.

Actually, I think I do understand, at least to an extent: leaders of the Republican Party in and out of government are willing to put up with all the hideous and despicable behaviors of Trump because that’s the price to pay for getting what they want from having their party in power.  What other reason could there be for men and women who have demonstrated their skill in the system and risen to these positions of power to now debase themselves without public complaint to the same man most of them strongly dismissed and ridiculed right up to the minute he secured their party’s nomination?

The “what” of “what do they want?” from Trump differs, of course.  It could be as simple as political spoils, personal appointments or government contracts.  It could be as clear as being part of the plan to advance a philosophical agenda, either by, for example, enabling racists to control the levers of power, or by installing a generation of judges to lifetime appointments to influence the nation’s laws.  But in supporting him as president, they have also enabled all that we get from Trump: the disinterest in properly handling the government’s response to a pandemic, the misguided policy priorities, the self-inflicted trade wars, the attempts to use the government to enrich himself and to punish his enemies, the damage to relations with our allies as well as our enemies, including the attempt to blackmail a foreign leader for his personal and political gain that led to his impeachment.  (Don’t forget impeachment!)  And despite all that, the polls have been showing that Republicans still support him.

But if you look carefully, as Greg Sargent did in the Washington Post this week, you can see some cracks in that wall of support.

https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1286674902276243458

In a revealing aside, President Trump told chief propagandist Sean Hannity on Thursday night that he traces much of the overwhelming enthusiasm for his reelection now sweeping the country back to his Mount Rushmore speech commemorating Independence Day.

“Since that time, it’s been really something,” Trump told Hannity, before raging that fake polls are deliberately obscuring the mighty depth and reach of his support.

In that speech, Trump offered his canonical statement on the unleashing of federal law enforcement into cities, conflating protests against police brutality and systemic racism with a “far-left fascism” out to “take” our “national heritage” away from the “American people.”

At around the time Trump appeared on “Hannity,” all four Major League Baseball teams playing Opening Day games took a knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matter before the national anthem, flatly defying Trump’s relentless disparaging of the protests, and more broadly, the vision outlined in that speech.

In all kinds of ways, Trump’s depiction of this national moment, as enshrined in that speech, is losing its grip on the country. In some cases, Trump’s own officials are defying his efforts to carry that depiction to the authoritarian climax he so craves.

Meanwhile, Trump’s sinking popularity — which is linked to that loosening grip, as his efforts to impose that understanding on us are surely helping drive his numbers down — is leading to open defiance among his own party.

Players taking a knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, Republicans standing up to Trump on Confederacy issues and on vote by mail: Sargent cites these among seven examples where, across the country and including Republicans, people may finally be getting so tired of Trump and his constant drama that they are ready to tell him to shove it.  I hope he’s right.

Another example: Republican Congressional candidates in the Houston area who recently won their party primary runoffs by trumpeting their support of Trump are kicking off the general election campaign by…toning it down.  A lot.

Of course, I wonder why it’s taken so long, especially for elected officials who generally consider themselves, each and every one of them, the bright center of the universe around which all else revolves.  After swallowing their pride and kowtowing to this spoiled child for so long, they would not be abandoning ship now if they thought he was going to win in November.  Maybe they’ve finally seen the light and are doing what’s right for it’s own sake.  (Right.)  You decide.

Now.  For.  The.  Twitter.  Fun.

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1286687854823903232

https://twitter.com/ecasco424/status/1286446541171863552

https://twitter.com/Timodc/status/1286382009909039104

Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV!