Sometimes Celebrities are Stupid People

 

Today, the artist currently known as "Ye" went on Alex Jones' show and made a man who owes about a trillion dollars in defamation money and has only ever doubled down on his assholery actually become very uncomfortable like "Okay Jewish space lasers and Jewish weather machines we can takl about, but this shit--this is too far!" 

And just like with the infamous dinner with notorious edge lord former president Trump, Ye brought Nick Fuentes, who the Balenciaga-balaclava'd rapper really seems to like. 

But not as much as he likes Hitler, amirite? I mean, we have known this, but he was just blossoming with love for the guy who apparently invented highways and microphones.  And whose culpability for the Holocaust is just, like, your opinion. 

Don't get too deep into this. Yes, this is a racist man who happens to be Black. This is a conspiracy theorist spouting nonsense. This is a disturbing glimpse into the faux-cancellation/Streisand-effect pipeline, where admonition raises a profile enormously among the exact people you would rather not be subject to 1) disinfo and 2) anymore reason to ignorantly pill themselves over some bullshit. 

But I don't think I'm reaching too hard to point this one idea out: Ye is obviously grasping onto fascism/Hitler/Trump as a way to express where he is right now--hating. He wants disapprobation. He wants revilement. 

And as for me, Wilco. 

But to get where he is, you have got to be astoundingly uninformed. Like mind-bogglingly dumb. Like flat-earth-accepting, how the fuck do magnets work dumb. 

And it's okay. the dumbasses walk among us all the time. It's when people live their whole lives and never read Clockwork Orange or know what the movie is about and decide it's about something it isn't and don't know Stanley Kubrick is Jewish. 

Or maybe he knows better and decided not to care. Fash aren't fans of facts. 

People can excuse what Kanye West is doing by talking about his apparent mental illness or divorce or whatever. I think he's just dumb and recognizes he gets attention for being dumb out loud and on purpose.

But this is really not a long-term pose and also, too, nice job giving up on Parler--after the careful cultivation by Candace Owens.  I don't think we need to see or talk about him anymore.

How A Trump Administration Will Look

As the President-elect Trump has not yet been sworn in, I'm trying to take the chatter about what his cabinet will look like with a grain of salt--I'm not saying I've never given in to speculation about it before, of course. It's just that some of what I'm hearing is so, so...really seriously awful.  I mean, we're looking at Rudy Giuliani or John Bolton for Secretary of State. One (Giuliani) I've regularly castigated as an abject racist, and the other (Bolton) I've whole-heartedly called a "blood-thirsty loon".  This is a picture that doesn't make me hopeful that we will see a Trump cabinet that is full of win.

I'm basically gritting my teeth about Trump settling for the "guys (mostly male) that he can get". So, take the idea that Steve Bannon of Breitbart moves from his position as the Trump Campaign CEO to senior advisor and Chief Strategist. There is this little problem called "He's known as a white supremacist". Like, this is a staffing decision the KKK and American Nazi Party endorse.  And whom one former Speaker of the House decided to say was not either anti-Semitic because he worked in finance and the media, which actually is itself kind of anti-Semitic.

But maybe Trump might feel beholden to someone who gave so much free internets publicity to his campaign and mitigated the other right-wing opposition against him?  Of course, Trump is going to think about rewarding his friends. Like Sen. Jeff Sessions.  You could probably try to complain that he doesn't even know exactly how his presidential responsibilities work--but he's going to catch on, you know. Executive experience and all that.

I just tend to think that a Trump Administration will look like the Trump Campaign. And even though it won the electoral college, gosh! I think it will be terrible. There are exactly zero things that make me think it could be otherwise.

Jeb Bush is Stuck on Stupid Regarding Women's Health

So, Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida, decided to weigh in on Planned Parenthood to opine that he did not think the organization had anything to do with women's health.

Wow. Wow. Just, wow. I guess the organization really did fall down on the job since Jeb's granddaddy was the treasurer for PP and all that, and since his own Poppy was a big proponent of birth control.

I don't know how it is that Jeb Bush doesn't recognize pap smears, breast exams, pregnancy tests, prenatal care, and a host of other medical services Planned Parenthood does as falling under the umbrella of well-woman care, even though my insurance considers these examinations as a part of my annual well-woman examination coverage. There's quite a lot that can go into women's health screening. Us lady-folks are complicated. It's possible that he doesn't actually realize that we little uterus-having angels are also physically human with all the likelihood of being susceptible to disease and all that. But I think it's far more likely that he realizes we can have sickness in even our lady parts and have complications from being, among other things, all the way with child in those lady parts, and does not give a damn .

Jeb Bush is a loser candidate for all the possible reasons going, including embracing his brothers' disastrous foreign policy team and taking the time to give another "Attaboy" to the useless "Brownie", to tout his disaster management skills .

There is no bottom to the Jeb Bush campaign. Every dollar sunk into it only prolongs the stupidity of it. And Great Cthulhu is it stupid.

Jeb Bush and the "Pretty Good Deal"

When hearing that Gov. Jeb Bush referred to getting rid of Saddam Hussein as a "pretty good deal", I immediately thought of his mother. Ten years ago, after Hurricane Katrina, she had made staggeringly insensitive comments about the victims:

"Almost everyone I've talked to says: 'We're going to move to Houston,' " Mrs Bush said late on Monday after visiting evacuees at the Astrodome with her husband, former president George Bush.

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this - this is working very well for them."

It's the same kind of insensitivity--a family resemblance, you could say. Sure, over four thousand US service members lost their lives, tens of thousands were maimed, over three thousand military contractors were killed, and so on, the country of Iraq was completely destabilized and not only was al Qaeda brought there and ISIS born there in what many people have called the worst foreign policy decision ever, but hey, the war got rid of Saddam Hussein so, that's one thing!

Regarding the Iraq War, he's basically wrong on everything. He's wrong about what happened and he's wrong about what he's fixing to do about it. And yes, he's also leaving torture on the table as something he might be all about when he inevitably gets the US enmeshed in an open-ended boot-on-the ground military conflict.

I really don't think Jeb sounds like a "pretty good deal", himself.

A Thought Experiment for Senator Cotton

Of course, Senator Tom Cotton thinks that strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities would be over in a matter of days. I'm pretty sure that's what the folks who donated big bucks to his campaign have to say about the matter, and the only thing I wonder is how long it took him to stop nodding his head after they took leave of him.

But I think a bit of a thought experiment is in order. Let's say a nation we weren't on really great terms with decided to take out some of our nuclear capacity, like, well, Arkansas One. (Sure, they'll take out Peach Bottom and Limerick, too, but we're just talking about Russellville right now.)

What would his constituents want him to do if the Bad Guys melted a nuclear power plant right in the vicinity of a town of about 30K?

My bet is, they'd want him to vote to go to war with those people until the land they're sitting on doesn't get printed on any future maps.

So, what in the merry hell does he think Iran would do about 5 or six days of playing shoot'em up with their centrifuges? I don't wonder about that part, myself.

A Solid Framework to Build On

Today we heard good news about an agreement regarding the framework of a deal to prevent the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon, and it sounds like it might be pretty comprehensive in terms of inspections and making sure things are working, and it seems like there are many Iranians who are happy about it-not including the hardliners but they can stick it, anyway.

For what it's worth, I think our hardliners can stick it if they don't like it, too. And I am really hoping they listen to some anti-proliferation experts and not op-ed columnists for a backgrounder. But I seriously do not expect much from the bright boys and girls who wanted to really, really let the Iranian government in on the little secret that US leadership changes, like as a popularly-elected democracy and all. (Which we've been for over 200 years--so maybe they have got the idea, already?)

FOX Mushroom Farm Terrorism Expert Might Be Sorry

There's something entirely too easy to slam about a "terrorism expert" appearing on Jeanine Pirro's FOX News program absolutely fudging up a demographic fact like the proportion of Muslim people in Birmingham, UK. The funny old thing is, his particular overestimation of the number of Muslims or immigrants is sort of a weird example of a study done recently regarding the tendency of people to wildly overstate the number of immigrants or Muslims, and understate the number of Christians, in their home nation.

Jeanine Pirro, whose presence on the FOX network utterly obviates the entire concept of "sober as a judge", devolved into a rant upon the killing of Muslims because they apparently freak her out by existing.   To hear old Jeanine blow it, the 1% of Muslims in the United States have led to the likelihood that the First Amendment will be altered (without congressional ratification?) to somehow not be mean to Muslims, and praying with them is weird and she doesn't like it. And also--"We need to kill them".  Nope--listen to it in all its sick glory. She really is hot about genocide.

Now, Steve Emerson is sorry about his comments, and realizes his credibility is in a bit of jeopardy.  Would Jeanine Pirro feel anything like the same thing over her genocidal and ill-informed rant, I wonder? Or even feel that her utter journalistic failure and immoral bigotry against an entire religion sort of disqualifies her from being a judge or you know--a reliable journalist?

Forget it, Jake, it's FOX Mushroom Farm. She's doing her real job, don't you know?

What's the Worst that Could Happen?

So, I guess the obvious answer to Weekly Standard editor (he lose a bet?) and best argument against the heritability of intelligence, Bill Kristol, when he asks the question, "What's the harm?" in bombing ISIS for a few weeks is "We'll find out" because we have been bombing them. 

He doesn't seem to be aware of this. It's either that mentioning this fact would mess up the narrative that President Obama is doing nothing, or he geniunely does not pay attention to current events. And I would not be in a hurry to discount the latter notion. After all, he somehow was unaware that sectarian differences in Iraq would be a "thing", so it's possible the odd incredibly pertinent fact might get by him then and again.

But I feel comfortable in speculating that the "harm" would be in the possibility of large numbers of lost lives and destroyed infrastructure adding to the existing instability in the area, contributing to the disaffection of even more local people who would feel inclined to support any other faction, not necessarily because of hopes of good government, but because they've found another set of thugs who might be able to offer temporary protection. In the short-term sense of degrading ISIS' capabilities and possibly pushing back on the area they are able to control, sure, bombing is an option. (And I'm not opposed to those outcomes, frankly.) But let's not be glib. It won't be a long-term fix to the long-term screw-ups that resulted in a fractured and fractious region.

And that's just Iraq. Syria's government has amusingly advised Obama that the US should be very careful about unilaterally helping them with the wolf at their backdoor (and they will help! us! help! them!). Is it likely that Kristol's question has a much more complex answer than he seems to be comtemplating?

In a word: Damn.  As in, people are still listening to Bill Kristol?

Mike Huckabee Recommends Lara Logan into Wingnut Valhalla

When I expressed early on my reservations about Lara Logan's 60 Minutes piece regarding the derring-do of Dylan Davies, I was already concerned that once a story, however flawed, is out there--it simply does not go away. Contra once-and-possibly future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (no, I do not kid, what do we think he's leaving his radio show for--spending time with his family?) who may laud Logan as a hero journalist, there is some question whether it takes any especial heroism to fail to Google one's source, or even consider that source all that much, or allege that one has spent a year on a story that falls apart in days.

Perhaps what he means is not so much "heroism" as "commitment. " What media watchers might view as a failure of craft, might be viewed as a triumph of will elsewhere. And Mike Huckabee knows the values of that elsewhere quite well.

It is my hope that this nomination to the halls of Wingnut Valhalla and the specter of endless raising of tankards to a journalistic failure are enough to prompt what integrity remains in the journalist to make use of the leave time coming up to reflect on how not to be a fringe legend, but retain (or regain) the respect of people who want critically valid information. Because the Mike Huckabee Seal of Approval is a contentious honor at best.

Huh--It's Like John McCain isn't Actually President (Or Knowledgable about Foreign Policy, Even)

So, here's Rachel Maddow's takedown of overrated Sunday Chat Show regular foreign policy hack, Sen. John McCain and the party for which he stands:



(The takedown bit starts to kick in about 10 minutes in.)

Now, McCain is starting to back off from the Benghazi Conspiracy --but I say it isn't enough.  I agree with my Rumproast co-blogger, Bette Noir, that actually, for trying to clown the Obama Administration by smearing a good, knowledgable actual foreign policy hand, UN Ambassador Susan Rice,  he really should apologize.

Note that I with great restraint did not indicate he should FOAD, already. Although retiring might be a good plan for him, as it would have been after he lost in 2008, instead of sinking into bitter dumb-stupidness. Seriously--if McCain is so bummed he's going to be stuck with the Indian Affairs Committee, and his one "amigo", Joe Lieberman is retiring, and the other, Linsay Graham, is sure to be primaried and lose in 2014--what keeps him there? The attention? The love? The beckoning of the tv cameras that even drowned out his ability to hear when that intelligence briefing that he missed had been? Bitterness? Cluelessness? The rare properties that he, in his tenacity, shares with catpee smell on anything you've aver loved that a cat has peed on?

But let's just get down to the kicker to all this attention the Benghazi concern-trolling McCain has semi-led:

McCain has also said he would block the nomination of Rice for Secretary of State, should the President choose her, saying he would “do everything in my power to block her,” that Rice is “not qualified” for the position and that “she should have known better.” He subsequently said he would bock any nominee Obama put forward, 

But now that every angle of McCain’s attacks have been completely debunked, all he has left is to complain about not being told that intelligence officials didn’t give him this information sooner.

Huh--maybe some of that information was "need to know". As in--McCain isn't president, and he didn't need to know. Or he just couldn't be arsed to actually pay attention and find out things the old-fashiond way--by listening. In the meanwhile, he's still on record as about to disrupt Obama's important business of getting a new Secretary of State--seriously Sen. McCain? Stop all that that, thanks.

Maddow: At 2:30 in--you'll holler Re: Military Spending

That level of spending is stupid and won't "keep us safe" in the way that having people in charge who know what the hell they are doing will.

Romney does not know what he's talking about. He thinks if you throw money at the defense budget and simply offer "no apologies", other countries and groups will think we're just badass and leave us alone. You know who spent a lot on Cold War spending and talked tough? GOP patron saint Ronnie Raygun, and Poppy Bush, ex-CIA chief, was a tough-talking son of a gun, too.  So how about those attacks upon our diplomatic stations abroad?

Right. Even during the GWOT, we didn't experience the same siege like we saw under Reagan and Bush. The answer has always been to do intelligence better--smarter, not pre-emptively or precipitously.  Just, get smart.

With respect to Romney's bizarre idea that Russia is our greatest geopolitical threat (recalling the Cold War)--um, no. He's not even going to throw money at real problems.

This is a conservative? This is a businessman who knows where to invest?  Bullshit.  This is a guy who got told to pimp neoconservatism if he wanted to win the GOP base. Otherwise, he has nothin'. He'd rather be president than be right.

Hmmm...With just a word?

"What a disgrace that this man is leader of the free world; and at such a point in history. If he had put America stoutly behind the protesters and championed them against the regime, by now they might have toppled it."

Melanie Philips

"If he had been talking a little tougher even a few days ago, we might not have been seeing the violence and bloodshed of this repressive regime in Tehran over the last few days."

CA Rep. Dana Rohrabacher


They sound pissed that he's not being the Messiah for them. He only needed to have been more "stern-worded" and this whole thing would be over? Only if! (And they say libs have unrealistic expectations!)