Self-Evident

 

Macron publicly humiliated Trump at the White House, shutting down his false claim that Europe was loaning Ukraine aid.

In reality, France gave billions—Trump just didn’t do his homework.

Another day, another world leader treating him like a clueless intern. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/ZeGETlnYPB

— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) February 24, 2025

Yesterday, the government of President Trump sided with a horrific evil, a war criminal, an invader, and enemy of democracy, and Trump himself tried to tell his little lies about why he thought it was all right for him to do so.

And was corrected.

It is, after all, a little thing, an OBVIOUS thing, to tell the truth. But it isn't done often enough, and still less to his stupid, mulish face.  

Trump tried to say that why he did what he did was self-evident. It's an opaque answer hiding a basic truth--Trump is unfit for whatever reason you care to name, but among them, the truth is not with him. And a nation that would be "great" cannot be afraid of the truth. 

Macron also pointed out yesterday that they ceased talking with Putin after Bucha, to rub Trump's face in what it is he is trying to make a deal with, like a stupid boy signing his soul away to the devil. Does it make any impact of Trump? Probably not. But it should affect the conscience of people who still have one of those dusty, put-away with the good china things. 

As with truth, we could stand to use that a little more, as well. 

Show Me Where on this Body of Christ the Gospel Hurt You

I don't know why Bishop Mariann Budde asking Trump to "Be Best" blew so many MAGA's little minds, but I think it has to do with the idea that while Christ might have told people that whatever you do to the least of these, you do to him--but like, what does that have to do with Christianity?  It gets read not as a plea to the better angels of Trump's nature, but a call out, because they understand he has no such better angels--

And that is exactly what they like about him. It doesn't just say something about him--but themselves. And if it made them feel bad or less than what their professed faith actively calls them to be in so many words, they would rather lash out at being made to feel bad, than actually reconsider the morality of brutalizing other people, doing actual harm to them.

Which sounds weak and insecure to me.

Just a thought. 

Trump's Major Announcement is Super Cringe

 

When the former president said he had a major announcement coming up today, the mind reeled: what constitutes "major"? Could it be he was offering himself for Speaker of the House in case Kevin McCarthy couldn't get the votes? Was he announcing a very premature running mate pick? Did it have to do with his campaign?

And it was none of the above--just a commercial for a fun new grift: NFTs! Or as I like to think of them, Magic JPEGS. It's the kind of thing that literally never goes down in value. You know, because it's kind of hard to put a value on a thing like that.

Anyway, maybe it isn't something thunderously important in the political world, but it is something the Trump family already knows a little bit about, as Melania Trump had her own NFT offerings earlier this year. Also, in a world of Trumpy Bears and Trump commemorative coins, why shouldn't Trump capitalize on his own digitized, Photoshopped likeness?

And of course, the intent is to make money:

While the purchase of a Trump digital card enters one into a sweepstakes to win a prize (like a round of golf or Zoom call with Trump) which is definitely a thing he did with his fundraising stuff--this is all Trump profit. 

That's one way to pay the bills, I guess. 

Who is the likely Trump NFT customer? Marks.  Obvs.

Anyway, the images are really quite something:

Which makes me wonder how I can get in on this:

UPDATE: They sold out in 12 hours. If I understand the elements of this hustle, there will be a new offering of NFT's at a higher price point and an underlying "ACT  NOW!" urgency. Still very interested in who the "customers" are, and to what extent access to Trump is a part of the exchange. 

Welcome to 2021

 

So we have bid a not-so-find farewell to 2020, but let's get real for the New Year as at least one of our resolutions: the problem, you guys, was not so much in the stars as in ourselves, that 2020 was, to put it in a word, suboptimal. The secret word isn't "plastics" or even "biotin" (that's a Wonder Woman 1984 reference)--it's got to be "truth". 

Honesty is such a lonely word, everyone is so untrue--songwriter and historian, Billy Joel.

We live in an age of sincere falsehood and earnest fraud and it fucking sucks. Unless critical thinking becomes a trend and the laying down of a hard truth pipeline becomes a part of our social "infrastructure week" (as if Rome itself was ever built in a week, let alone a day), we're all screwed. People doubt one another, they doubt institutions, they doubt science, they doubt politics--they have reasons, but we need to look at the environment not with belief as a signifier of tribal belonging, but with judgment as a tool to actually survive.

The truth isn't always popular, but it's necessary. We can't go on pretending the lead in the water is good, actually, that the dead canary in the mineshaft probably doesn't mean a thing, that the virus isn't that deadly and the vaccine wouldn't have worked anyway. We can't litigate away reality; but once we understand what is true, we can understand what choices make sense and will have better outcomes. Those choices aren't always easy but success doesn't come by way of shortcuts. There isn't a pill for it, just a path made of the right decisions. 

Anyway, I just had a satisfying plate of cotecchino and ceci (that's a Philadelphia Italian take on the southern black-eyed peas repast--maybe you could call it a "Hoppin Jawn") and some tasty beer* to get my year started right, and look forward to just telling it as close to how it is and how I see it as I can on the blog for the coming year. 

The year can be a good one, but it's on us. It's always on us.

* The other word for this year, for me, will be "moderation". Because I don't have to like it, but it is also true that I need to remember to be moderate in all things.

They Let off Philando Castile's Killer

I thought they would let off the officer who fatally shot Philando Castile, just like they let off the killer of Alton Sterling.  I don't like it, but that's how it was.

What is a man's life? These men were and then were not. Lived and then did not. I feel like this is not justice and I do not know where his people can go to find it. I think of that baby who watched a man shoot Philando Castile, and I can't get beyond mad. Because that innocent baby watched an innocent man die, and lives a life knowing this is a thing that happens, to innocent people. Like law isn't even for everyone.

It should be. But this decision says otherwise.

HATAWL 4: Sessions, Flynn, Pompeo

It's almost impossible for me to do more than the LA Times editorial board in saying that yep--this is what you'd basically expect a Trump cabinet to have, if you listened to his rhetoric. Rep. Mike Pompeo is pro-torture and the surveillance state, and anti-Iran to the point of wanting to roll back a plan that actually is working to contain possible (not that I've ever bought it) nuclear ambitions on Iran's part. Sen. Jeff Sessions is a person who I think should never be in a position to mess with the Civil Rights Division at DOJ, since he doesn't seem to especially believe in the value of civil rights. And Gen. Mike Flynn is in a category of his own--a "right wing nutty" (to use Gen. Colin Powell's phrase) registered Democrat (who says there is no such thing as outreach across the aisle?) who has precariously enough (as the late lamented Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan might have noted) entitled himself to his own facts. And is a creature of the "swamp". (For what it's worth, Rep. Pompeo owes not a little of his success to the Koch brothers, and Sen. Sessions--well?  It appears the Heritage Foundation likes him very much.)

They are of such a piece with the totality of Trumpian logic I must, dejectedly, admit no further comment is necessary, nor for my part, even possible.

*How A Trump Administration Will Look= HATAWL

O'Reilly's War

FOX Mushroom Farm is probably not doing star manure-shoveler Bill O'Reilly any favors by not putting him on a bullshit short-term temporary suspension--just throwing that out there. At present count, he has about seven or eight former colleagues calling b.s. on his accounting of his experiences covering the Falklands War. He's gone so far as to threaten a NYT reporter with "everything I have" over the issue.  A time-out might defuse attention on this issue for the network and their star, but right now, he is totally being a story. Journalists (real or FOX News) tell stories--but it isn't helpful for them to become them.

Steve M. describes the wagon-circling that conservative media are engaging in--I think this is very awkward of them (and really--Alger Hiss?*) O'Reilly's fault in recounting his Argentinian experiences doesn't really have an ideological basis, and his reporting in the "No-Spin Zone" should certainly account for something if the byword of "Fair and Balanced" is to have any meaning at all, no? He's simply being called an inaccurate reporter who is exaggerating and got on everyone's nerves. That's not about politics. That's about their experience of working with him.

If aliens came?

Via MoveOn.org.

Robert Reich Debunks the 7 Biggest Lies about the Economy

This needs to be spread everywhere--it's short but well done:

Pious Frauds: Not intended to be a Factual Government

A funny thing happened recently on the floor of the Senate: a sitting US Senator told a bald-faced lie during a serious discussion about funding for women's heath. I know, I know, we just aren't thick-skinned enough if we don't take it for granted that our elected officials dissemble, prevaricate, fib, and even bear false witness every now and then, but what Sen. Jon Kyl said was unique for two reasons--make it three:

1) He said the 90% of what Planned Parenthood did was abortions when it's really about 3%. That's really quite different from the truth isn't it? When this was pointed out, one of his aides said that his statement was "not intended to be....factual."

2) He actually got grief from it in the media, especially from Stephen Colbert, whose hashtag #NotIntendedToBeaFactualStatement highlighted the fun fact that things that aren't factual....are made-up.

3) So Sen. Kyl actually got the Congressional Record changed to simply say "If you want an abortion you go to Planned Parenthood and that is what Planned Parenthood does".  And it's true, for certain facilities. But actually changing his remarks is something of what I believe is called a lie of omission, no?

The point of his contrafactual statement strikes me as two-fold: it was emotionally true, to him, that the actual percentage of abortions simply didn't matter--any was too many; but also, the lie served the greater purpose of damning Planned Parenthood in the eyes of the people who believed what he told them. It wasn't true, but it felt right.  It was a pious fraud.