Too Sexy

For those still waiting for the Golden Shower video to surface, here's a little sneak preview.

WARNING: Yikes. If this pic ever does surface, I'd be sure to get out my solar eclipse glasses while trying to view it. Otherwise you'll have that image seared into your mind's eye...for-EVER. And folks, it ain't gonna be pretty, let me tell ya.

Truthfully, there's nothing much newsworthy here. Just one more opportunity for me to poke fun at our arrested adolescent Mooner-In-Chief. If I had to weigh in with something meaningful, I would point out once again the the GOP's low bar for moral depravity. Just this past year, we had (the now Justice) Brett "Kegger" Kavanaugh remind us just how much he enjoys beer...and the occasional sexual assault; Stormy Daniels inform us about the president's proclivities whilst in bed (T-M-I); and yet another example of how when you appoint yourself as the judge, jury and prosecutor of your fellows, the arc of the universe is long but it bends towards kicking your hypocritical, sanctimonious keister.

Ah, hypocrisy...the fertile ground of all editorial cartoons...and the proverbial glass house of the powerful. Who needs mirrors in a place like that? I know someone who does. None other than the T-Rump-asaurus Rex, the terrible lizard himself. I tell you what he clearly doesn't need - his shirt. As this pic, once it surfaces, will eventually show us: he's just too darn sexy for it.

The Circus Is Coming to Town

Just when you thought you could exhale after a heinous 2018 campaign that featured Donald Trump and his merry band of GOP enablers playing to the cruelest, most vile tendencies of White American racism and xenophobia, it's time for the 2020 campaign! What better to kick off this election cycle than giving a tacit thumbs up to the murder of two innocent asylum seeking children. Not that anything like that would ever cause the white supremacist GOP to pause just for a minute...just for a minute...to consider their utter lack of morality in executing their Auslander Raüs! immigration policy, as custom crafted by Trump's favorite Fake Jew, Stephen Miller. Certainly not after Homeland Storm trooper Barbie Kristjen Nielsen reassured us through clenched teeth and pursed lips that the blame for these innocents' deaths laid with the victims themselves: 

“Our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders,” she said. “Smugglers, traffickers, and their own parents put these minors at risk by embarking on the dangerous and arduous journey north.”

Pretty astonishing when you consider that the U.S. remains party to international treaties (read: U.S. laws) that obligate our government to provide safe, dignified treatment to all asylum seekers, regardless of where they're coming from or where they enter the U.S.. Why are Central Americans seeking asylum, anyway? I don't know. Maybe it's because their countries have devolved into a living hell after more than a century of U.S. imperialistic interference and commercial domination to secure transnational corporations' unfettered access to and exploitation of Central American labor, land and other natural resources. Used to be that the U.S. would offer just enough foreign aid to provide a veneer of "Giving a sh!t," a palliative band aid on the societal kneecaps we had smashed with our militaristic lead pipes (and phosphorus bombs and other military weapons, training and materiel).

And before anyone might start clucking their tongue and tsk-tsking me for picking on the Republicans, let's not forget about the role played by the party of the former Deporter-In-Chief, Barack Obama. Nancy "the Best Speaker of the House (EVER!)" and her affable slouch of a sidekick, Senate Minority Leader Chuck "Facebook is Our Friend" Schumer, have extended their "Stay on Message" discipline to squash any serious talk about the crimes against humanity being committed by ICE and the CBP. Remember, it's more important to stay focused on health care and jobs for disaffected (read: racist) working class white men than to bother yourself with any moral dilemmas you might encounter over the treatment of brown folks trying to exercise their basic human rights. 

I'll pause and dispense with the snark just for a minute to remind folks that any reasonably objective read of recent American political history will show that people of color and the poor are only marginally less worse off under Democratic Party rule than that of the GOP. The Democratic Party, in response to getting its fanny regularly spanked by the GOP during the 1980s embraced a Neo-liberal policy agenda that shifted its moral center from representative government to the free market (Thank you, Bill, Hill and all the DLC corporate sellouts!).  Basically, what the Democratic Party has been offering up for the past 30 years has been a gentler, kinder version of Milt Friedman's trickle down economics with a feeble embrace of the need to preserve some form of a social safety net and modicum of environmental protections. 

How that translates into immigration policy has been to appease economically insecure whites with border crackdowns while still mouthing fidelity to international humanitarian norms. No wonder the GOP is so much better at staying on message. It's not hampered by having to talk out both sides of its mouth. It's enough to make you cry, but I'd prefer to laugh. And what better place to do that than the circus. The big tent awaits! Bring on the clowns!

Darth Respirator

Amidst all the hubbub of other important news - Trump declaring premature victory over ISIS in Syria, tanking the stock market with his infantile whining, letting go of the one cabinet member who could put his pants on correctly, and allowing his jack-booted ICE storm troopers to murder yet another asylum-seeking child, there's this important policy development: 

The EPA will soon announce a terrible proposed rule that will start the process to rollback the 2011 rules to clean up mercury and air toxins from coal and oil fired power plants. Electric generators were and are still complying with the rule, which makes it a good example of effective environmental policy.

Oh, right, but it was "that guy's" rule. And anything he did must be bad, especially for Trump's beloved base, most members of which would gladly take cut off their noses to spite their faces.  The fact that this rule actually helps them, their children and their well-being is meaningless. That eliminating the rule only benefits Acting EPA Administrator Andy Wheeler, the Coal Barons like Bob Murray simply does not figure into their equation.

Just a bit of science so that folks can appreciate what's going on here. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that, when it gets in the food chain and poisons baby's and children's brains results in low IQ and other irreparable neurological harm.  Pollution controls to clean up toxic acid gases also reduce direct PM2.5 emissions and SO2 that forms lethal PM2.5 in the atmosphere. When EPA adopted the rule  in 2011 they estimated it would prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths each year. No wonder Trump is eliminating the rule. After all, he loves the poorly educated people. This must all be some ploy to kill off people with IQs over 70 and replace them poorly educated who will form the next generations of Trump voters!

Where's my tinfoil hat? 

Trumpster Fire

It's that time of the year...actually, it's always that time of the year with the Trump administration. Out with the not quite so new, and in with the...wait, is there anybody left. We've seen this play out many times before. Somebody in the Trump Administration gets the boot - or piles up so many investigations into their conduct while in office - and then they go slinking off into the night back into the swamp from whence they came. Then the mad scramble begins to find some other halfwit, goose stepping bottom - o'- the-barrel scraper to fill in, either as "acting," "pretending" or whatever...

For this round it was Ryan Zinke, the Secretary of the Interior who was conveniently able to operate in the shadows of Greg Pruitt's sh#t show and wreak as much havoc and destruction on our country's greatest assets as he could in his brief tenure. Eliminate and/or reduce our national monuments? Sure! Open them and other public lands up to extractive industries? Why not? Kneecap and push out career scientists who served as the department's technical leaders and institutional memory? Absolutely! Fish for some sweet development deals from said extractive industries on land he and his family owns? Show me the money!!!

Just another day in the office for the Trumster Fire Misadminsitration...

Where's Smokey the Bear when you need him? Oh yeah. The U.S. Forest Service is part of the Department of Agriculture, not Interior. I kinda doubt Smokey would be willing to break out of that bureaucratic silo, certainly not to put out Zinke's hot mess of corruption and cronyism. He's too busy putting out real forest fires, caused by all of those lazy good for nothing eco-terrorists, who were just too lazy to rake between the trees they're so insistent on hugging.

As Smokey would say, "Only you can make Trump retire."

Lil' Donnie's New Toy

Ever since I took "Global View," a class on international history from a Global Southern perspective, in my sophomore year of college I've been hooked on international development. After college I joined the Peace Corps and since then I've devoted the last 30 years to bringing the best that the United States has to offer to the rest of the world, learning from what folks overseas have to offer to us, and then sharing that with my fellow Americans. I guess it's been a bit of a vocation for me.

So when Donald Trump decided to nominate the eminently unqualified Heather Nauert to replace Nikki Haley and become the next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations I thought, wait for it....

"Well, that makes sense."

Think about it. Donald Trump is nothing if not consistent, especially when it comes to trashing institutions that don't fit neatly into is crayon-colored black and white (mostly white) dystopian picture of the world. He takes great delight in hiring folks to lead these institutions (or in Nauert's case, represent the United States) the very people who can best serve as human wrecking balls to smash to smithereens the credibility of said institutions. The list is long and is only growing longer as Trump scrapes the bottom of the barrel to find some random right-wing clown to fill these critical posts: Scott Pruitt (and now Andrew Wheeler), EPA; Ben Carson, HUD; Betsy DeVos, Education; Ryan Zinke, Interior; Jared Kushner, Saudi Tyrant Whisperer; and Ivanka Trump, ...????.

And if denigrating the institutions weren't enough, Trump insults the very class of people from which he has selected his nominee. Of course, it's important to nominate women to the highest levels of the executive branch. I don't need to remind any of you of just how woefully inadequate Trump has been with respect to diversity and inclusion in his cabinet. But can anyone tell me with a straight face that Heather Nauert is the most qualified person, never mind woman, available for this post? She brings... let's see...wait a minute, let me think...hold on...well, she once...no, that's not relevant. Ah, right! She worked at the U.S. State Department where then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson thought so much of her as a spokesperson for the department that he refused to let her tag along on his official trips overseas.

It reminds me of how former President George H.W. Bush (RIP) chose to replace Thurgood Marshall, one of the greatest lawyers of the 20th century, with "Fifteen Cents," aka, Clarence Thomas. N.B. My wife corrected me, Clarence Thomas was a worse choice and has probably done more damage to the credibility of the Supreme Court as an institution than Heather Nauert is likely to do at the U.N. But (don't tell my wife I disagree) it isn't just the United Nations that she'll be trashing, it's the institution of diplomacy and international relations. What message does Trump send the rest of the world by nominating someone who clearly is way out of her depth, has had no relevant experience and whose only credential is her unwavering commitment to repeat and forcefully advocate for whatever nonsensical lie comes of Trump's combed-over, empty head?

Hint: It probably won't get him invited over to the UN Secretary General's for Xmas dinner.

No the real answer is that this decision is yet another move by Trump and his white nationalist brain trust (bust?) to intentionally undermine the U.S.'s global leadership.

I'm now officially tired of winning.

Kaep's Got Nothing on Me!

Hey, Sportsfans! It's been a month since my last 'toon. Work travel and the holidays, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada...Whatever.

Ever since my family moved to the Washington DC area in 1972, I've been a diehard 'Skins fan. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, the Skins were actually good, in fact, really good under Joe Gibbs, winning three Super Bowls. After a lost decade in the 90s, something akin to football purgatory, we wound up in football hell when Dan "the Danny" Snyder bought the team and proceeded to gut it while turning it into a mostly winless money making plaything for himself.

I won't rehash all of the boneheaded moves the team has made over the past two decades. Professional sportswriters - my favorites being Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser - have already documented the rapid descent of the team to the depths of mediocrity. What I will highlight today is the extent to which the team has lost its soul.

Now, before we get too much further, let's be brutally honest about this franchise. First, back in the day it was first owned by George Preston Marshall, an unrepentant racist, until Baalzebub saw fit to bring him back home. Thanks to that SOB, the Redskins were the last team in the NFL/AFL to integrate, resulting in the many Washingtonians becoming fans of the much-hated Dallas Cowboys, which was the first to do so.

Second, there's the name, which has to be the most vile, racist name of any major franchise in professional sports here in the U.S. To make matters worse, the Danny has dropped major coin to fight legal battles to protect the team's right to retain it, which the vast majority of Native American nations have rightfully insisted to be a grievous insult on top of the injury of their peoples' genocide at the hands of white European colonists.

Okay, I think we've established that this franchise is obnoxious and repugnant. Why do I still root for them? That'll be the subject of another post. The Point Is...Just when you thought the 'Skins couldn't go any lower, they went ahead and claimed Ruben Foster, who is currently charged with multiple counts of domestic violence, off of waivers. And, yes, let's back it up a bit. The 'Skins already are starting a known child abuser, Adrian Peterson, as their star running back.

Just top this crap sundae off with a chunky cherry-flavored nugget, the 'Skins have repeatedly, publicly made clear that they will never sign Colin Kapernick, a very good quarterback, despite having lost their starting quarterback to a gruesome leg injury.

All that is just to point out the obvious fetid, shameless hypocrisy on the part of the Redskins:

Child abuser? No problemo!
Wife/girlfriend beater? Hakuna matata!
Principled protester against racial injustice? Never!

I truly wish that all of this revolting behavior was enough for me to swear off watching this team or any football team for that matter - concussions anyone? it's not as if the rest of the NFL is made up of saints - but it probably isn't. I'm sadly stuck as diehard fan and I'll most likely watch them again and again and again. But that won't stop me for registering my disgust with how this franchise continues to plumb new depths in rotten, inexcusable behavior. It's enough to make me feel all (black and) blue.