While We Wait for Trump's Arrest, The IPCC Report is Dire

 

I never wanted to spend my senior years on a dying planet, but that's what it looks like to me. The supposed leadership of the most industrialized countries are doing the very least to curb global warming, and have even decided, it seems, to promote the short-term benefits of fossil fuel usage for their electoral cycle (yes, I'm criticizing Biden over the Willow project). 

We're looking at the results of climate change in the eye all the time--take the weird winter of California's discontent: that isn't some freak global cooling, but a predictable weirding of the weather because patterns are disrupted. But we are still stuck with the effects of warming in the usually cooler places. We can see the devastation of our ecosystems in the deaths of fish due to heat waves in Australia. The southern hemisphere has been through it this past season. 

Climate change isn't predicting the future, but describing our present, now. And we are still jaded and in denial. Lives will be lost if action is not taken, but a look around social media indicates that loads of people still believe climate science is some kind of hoax. A conspiracy theory. 

I'm just a D-list blogger--I don't expect what I say to gain any traction and actually, my climate-related posts aren't even the ones that do any numbers. But what I do know is, changing people's POV via messaging and "flooding the zone" can be done--because the denialists have been doing it all this time. Solutions exist and funding them (like actually just fully comping changeover to solar energy or heat pumps) are within the reach of government actions. (Programs totally exist and are inadequate for many homeowners.) 

We can do more, and more aggressively. The political will has to be there, and the idea that the fossil fuel industry and the denialist-propagandist complex (like Fox News, who are known liars) needs to be called out for being the problem that they are. 

I think we still have the opportunity to make a better future. But that opportunity can't be pissed away--it must be vigorously and intelligently seized. 

Twenty Years Ago, the US Invaded Iraq

 

Saddam Hussein was no hero and his statue rightfully was toppled ending an anti-democratic regime so many years ago, but the invasion 20 years ago was a war of choice and the US often blows off our dumbest choices, refusing to understand the how and why of our clearest fuckups. But our basis for war then was thin.  The US made choices during that war that impacted the country very negatively, and the US failed to understand why or how until it was too late. The cost was high. 

To me, the worst thing about it was the war of choice also lead to horrible choices at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere--the dehumanization of populations, the broken faith that we were supposed to be the good guys. That even now, we have a potential US Presidential candidate who sanctioned rectal feedings at Gitmo should appall us. He rose up in the GOP bestride a very horrific steed--the willingness to not just follow a multitude to do evil, but to lead a pack. Iraq was a proving ground of what was the worst in us. Our attempts to manage the government of Iraq by crisis, to use their tragedy to make bank should be taught in every classroom. It won't be, but it should. 

TWGB: Tuesday, He Says

 

Trump says Tuesday is when he's supposed to get arrested, and he also wants his little fan club to show out and protest his comeuppance, and none of the public info regarding the Manhattan case seems to be about to be announced and they are still sorting out the advance-work on possible Trump fuckery, because they are expecting fuckery.  So maybe Tuesday isn't the day.

As for me, I've got no idea when Trump will get arrested, and only know he really ought to be. Am I excited for Trump getting arrested Tuesday because Trump says that's when they are trying it? Are you mad? If Trump names a date, what does that mean? Does he want his redneck militia surrounding Mar-A-Lago expecting a siege situation? Does he want them lining the streets in front of the courthouse?

Probably all of the above. But is any of that likely knowing what the J6 arrestees so far have experienced and what more agitators on behalf of Trump are liable to expect?  Look, I think he just said a specific day because he wants to get his Insurection.2  Pointless Civil War Boogaloo stuff on. He doesn't know the day but is tired of waiting and won't do the obvious thing of turning himself in because he hasn't acceded to how fucked he already is. 

Ol' Pudding Fingers Got Trump Nervous

 

Trump says Russia is not a threat, our greatest threat is our American representatives, we need to reevaluate the purpose of NATO, and most of the people in the State Dept, DOD and Intel Services need to be fired so he can put the right people in. pic.twitter.com/9PC6PrONM9

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) March 16, 2023

When Ron DeSantis did his little turnabout to say he doesn't think Ukraine's sovereignty is a priority for the US and that the war was a "territorial dispute",  I guess Trump realized he had to twirl on the pole for Daddy Vladdy to try and let him know who really was going to earn his sugardaddy's love. 

I mean, can little Ol' Pudding Fingers deliver the goods, by which we mean surrendering Ukraine territory to Russia like the US had any business doing that?  Trump, who sees treaties as contracts and contracts as optional, totally is open to that. He's basically admitting to being a disaster at foreign policy--but can Ron DeSantis do any better than be a disaster in Trump's shuffling footsteps? 

Because he certainly isn't trying to distance himself from Trump--and even Nikki Haley figured out this was the right route. 

But what's really funny (not funny) about this is Trump is offering up his complete submissiveness to what Putin wants while still whinging away on his failing Truth Social (from a media company laundering Russian money?) that the "Russia Russia Russia" thing is a hoax. And yet here he is, verifying where his loyalties really lie: Hate America First, and support the guy who might assist him by meddling in the 2024 election. 

He's an utter disgrace. And I appreciate the thorough investigation he is undergoing regarding the classified documents and elsewhere. How he was trusted with one term as president alarms me--he should not be permitted to gain another. 

Russia? You Don't Say!

 

Trump’s Truth Social reportedly kept afloat by $8 million of illicitly laundered Russian money with connections to Putin.

Brings new meaning to Pravda. https://t.co/jatjKjSunI

— Pete Strzok (@petestrzok) March 15, 2023

Say it isn't so! No, wait. Actually, I'm just being sarcastic, and no surprises at all:

Prosecutors appear to have also taken a special interest in the payments because the off-shore Paxum Bank has a history of providing banking services for the pornography and sex worker industries, which makes it higher risk of engaging in money laundering and other illicit financing. 

There appears to have been some awareness at Trump Media that the first $2m was to come through because Trump’s eldest son Don Jr, who joined the board with Trump ally Kash Patel and former Republican turned Trump Media chief executive Devin Nunes, had confirmed to the company’s lawyers to proceed with the transaction. 

“Just want to keep you in the loop – no guaranty that these will get signed and funded, but we remain hopeful,” John Haley, outside counsel for Trump Media said in a 24 December 2021 email seen by the Guardian, to which Don Jr replied: “Thanks john much appreciated. d.”

Don Jr. knows the Russians are just trying to be helpful. It's the family's open secret. A little Russian money laundering is just another day in TrumpWorld.  And do I need to add, if it looks bad, it's because it is bad?

Jesse Singal's Twitter Account Died in a Helicopter Incident

 

I've ignored Jesse Singal's reporting about trans people because he seemed to me to be a tetchy dolt--someone writing with no particular expertise on a subject he was unqualified to write about, who was righteously roasted frequently for same, and then, nonetheless, persisted. He occupies a kind of twilight centrist space, on one hand, understanding that anti-woke is basically bigoted, but also being himself anti-woke about trans issues. How long can you report badly about a whole marginalized group and still think you are not the problem?

Singal has deactivated his Twitter account after a story that was dumb as hell. He relied on a "whistleblower" who related stories as a former employee of a pediatric gender clinic who really had a lot to say about the patients and their treatment because she was keeping a little list. A little list she never needed to be keeping, because it was a HIPAA violation. But one of the funny anecdotes she recounted to gullible Jesse and that he repeated, was that one of the youthful patients related identifying as a helicopter. 

Holy shit. The only trans joke conservatives know, and Jesse Singal--didn't recognize it? Like, he didn't smell a rat? He didn't realize he was being taken for a ride by the trans clinic equivalent of Abby Johnson? 

Yikes on bikes, Jesse. Are you a professional out here or what? 

Trump Doesn't Get Out Much

 

Trump thinks you need an I.D. to buy groceries pic.twitter.com/4pzPQPeyT4

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) March 13, 2023

I snarkily suggested on Twitter that this was because he's that senior citizen buying groceries with a check but you know he has people who buy his groceries--he hasn't gone into a store to buy stuff any more than he has done any number of regular person things in his life.

But I've noticed his recent video offerings are kind of dark. Like, the visual is candlelight, not regular room brightness. And Trump seems to not be using the same makeup he usually does. He looks darker.

It's like he ran out of his usual bronzer and went with wood stain from Home Depot. It really shows his natural grain. Is there a problem here? Is there some reason he can't daywalk? Why is he slinking about in lowlight? 

I'm not saying he's a vampire who made an unholy bargain to continue on this mortal plane while being himself immortal, I'm just asking questions like any normal person would. Because this brown butter basted ass looks like special directions for the parlor before his nibs homegoing more than anything you would normally see in life. 

I hope that doesn't forebode anything bad for his health. He should enjoy what is in front of him with rude good health, if anything, 

Especially if anything.