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Bad Lip Reading at Trump’s Inauguration

This is pretty funny!

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1984, Knocking at Your Door

Sales of the novel 1984 by George Orwell have surged in the last few days, ever since Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway started talking about “Alternative Facts”. 1984 is currently the fifth best-selling book on Amazon.com.

On Sunday, Conway defended the White House’s statements about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration by referring to it “alternative facts”. What are alternative facts? They are the new phrase used by the Trump administration to explain how White House press secretary Sean Spicer can insist that Trump’s swearing in was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period” when multiple sources (photos, subway rides, traffic counts) clearly show that it wasn’t even close.

Conway then came up with her own alternative facts, saying “There’s no way to really quantify crowds. We all know that.” Well, if that is true, then why is she insisting that Trump’s was the largest?

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The Netherlands Welcomes Trump in his Own Words

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The Country of Woebegon

Garrison Keillor is searching for a new religion, because he is appaled at all the supposed Christians who voted for Donald Trump.

And so the Boy President heads for Washington to be sworn into office, pumping his fist, mooning the media, giving the stinky finger to whomever irks him, doing his end-zone dance, promising to build the wall, cut taxes, create jobs, provide great health insurance for EVERYONE and send his son-in-law to the Middle East to solve that little problem, and the rest of us will sit in a barn and keep ourselves warm and hide our heads under our wings, poor things. Discouraging.

So I’ve been shopping around for a new religion to see me through the next four years. Too many of my fellow Christians voted for selfishness and for degradation of the beautiful world God created. I guess they figured that by the time the planet was a smoky wasteland, they’d be nice and comfy in heaven, so wotthehell. Anyhow, I’m looking around for other options.

The whole article is a good read.

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The Next Gen of Cool

Malia Obama recently spent 82 days on an arduous trek in Bolivia and Peru.

Even the guides didn’t know who she was. Malia received no special treatment, and “performed chores, including cooking, along with her fellow travelers”. The purpose of the trip was to “examine current political trends, social movements and environmental conservation efforts in the mountains and jungles of Bolivia and Peru.”

Then-president Obama personally called the Bolivian president Evo Morales to ensure discretion and security for the trip.

I’m going to miss the Obamas.

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Putin on the Inaugeration

Saturday Night Live is on a roll:

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82 Lies

Politico put together a list of the 82 worst lies told by Donald Trump during the time (71 days) he was president-elect.

And now that he is actually president, he shows no sign of slowing down in his prodigious ability to lie, even about things that are trivially easy to prove are false.

For example, Trump keeps claiming that his inauguration drew the largest crowd in history, which is absolutely false. Not only that, but far more people attended the Women’s Protest the day after his inauguration.

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Telling Transition

What kind of marriage does our new president have anyway? They barely acknowledged each other. What a contrast from the Obamas.

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The People Are Speaking

Initial estimates (including official ones) indicate that far more people attended the Women’s March on Washington today than attended Trump’s inauguration yesterday.

And that doesn’t include marches today all across the US (and around the world), which reportedly far exceeded attendance projections.

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The Decline in Abortion

You might not believe it if you listen to conservatives, but the US abortion rate has been declining recently — dropping 14% in the last three years — and now has hit a historic low. The rate is now the lowest it has been since abortion became legal in 1973 (we don’t have a precise idea of the abortion rate before that because, of course, it was illegal).

The obvious question is why. Why are fewer women getting abortions? Is it because some states have passed laws making it more difficult to get abortions? After all, the Texas legislature just introduced a bill that would make receiving or providing an abortion a felony, which if passed (it won’t) would have the added feature of taking away the right to vote from women who get an abortion.

No, that’s not it. The abortion rate has been going down in virtually all states, regardless of whether they have passed anti-abortion laws.

The real reason is because one of the features of Obamacare was that it mandated that health insurance had to cover contraception. It’s simple really: fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer abortions.

And yet, conservatives hate that mandate, and will almost certainly eliminate it as soon as they can. Which puts conservatives in the hypocritical position of doing something that will dramatically increase the number of abortions in the US.

Some people might say that they aren’t really against abortions, they just want to punish women for having sex. Not men of course, since they just elected a man who brags about sexually assaulting women.

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How did this Happen?

Several posts in today’s edition of Electoral Vote try to answer the question of “How did this happen”. Or more directly, how did so many people vote for Donald Trump, especially working-class voters and women, when he appears to be the embodiment of everything they profess to hate. I recommend you give these a read if you are still shaking your head about the election. We can’t win elections if we don’t understand what motivates voters.

In a separate, but related article, the Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star questioned a range of Trump supporters who traveled to DC to attend Trump’s inauguration. In particular, he asked them what they liked about Trump the most, and also what they would change about Trump if they could. Tellingly, the most popular answer to the second question was they would have him stop tweeting so much. Apparently, that is annoying even his most ardent supporters.

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Helen Philpot is an Elitist

[From Margaret and Helen. I admit it — I love them.]

Trump has skin thinner than his wife and an ego bigger than my ass.

Margaret, somebody called me an elitist because I think Trump and his supporters are morons. I wasn’t’ quite sure what being an elitist means these days and I am pretty sure most people using that as an insult probably don’t either so I looked it up. After all, I’m just a little ole’ gal born in Georgia and I am not sure I qualify to be an elitist.

Now the Oxford Dictionary says an elitist is someone who supports the view that a society or system should be led by an elite. Well that just begged the question: What is an elite? I got confused at first because evidently an Elite is a size of letter in typewriting, with 12 characters to an inch. Of course, for this particular scenario it also means a select group that is superior in terms of their ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society such as an elite athlete or an elite armed forces. My favorite definition of elite, however, is from Merriam-Webster: the choice part or the best of a class. So I guess I am an elitist after all, because I want the best candidate for the job and I know for damn sure I want an elite President and not this orange man-child who is about to take office.

And I am in good company. They said Meryl Streep was an elitist after her speech at the Golden Globes. You remember, don’t you? That moving speech she gave where she dared to say that we shouldn’t mock the disabled and a free press was vital to our democracy… What an elitist that Meryl is. How dare she make speeches about standing up for the disabled and defending the Constitution! Wait… what’s an elitist again?

You know Margaret, I was feeling lower than a snake’s belly in a ditch after a rain shower about this election. Kellyanne Conway is so good at lying… I mean telling us what is in Donald’s heart. And I thought to myself that maybe I should give the man a break. Maybe Trump deserves a second look. Maybe I should show some respect for the office to which he has been elected. But then I thought, nah he’s a moron and I’m an elitist who doesn’t think a society or a system should ever be led by a moron.

For goodness sakes, he’s not even trying to rise to the occasion. The man is tweeting about national intelligence agencies one minute and Saturday Night Live the next. And shockingly he is paying attention to the latter and ignoring the former. Damn right I’m an elitist because I actually do think society should be run by someone with superior abilities instead of an idiot who can’t prioritize security briefings over comedy sketches.

And he is surrounding himself with idiots too. Are you really telling me that of all the people he could have nominated for Attorney General, he didn’t know even one without racist attitudes? What does that say? Think about it. What does that say about this man? He appointed a known plagiarist to be a senior communications strategist. And then he asked Omarosa to be… actually I don’t know what he asked her to be. But Omarosa for anything? What does that say? And incoming Press Secretary Sean Spicer actually whined to the media, that Saturday Night Live wasn’t being funny, they were being “mean-spirited”. Oh Really? You know what’s mean-spirited, Sean? Mocking a disabled person. You know what else is mean-spirited? Laughing about sexually assaulting women. You know what else is mean-spirited? Suggesting most immigrants from Mexico are rapist and drug dealers. Also, mocking a disabled person. And yes. I know I said that already.

An elite athlete knows how to win a game. An elite army knows how to win a war. An elite President knows how to put down his smart phone and look the nation in the eye and apologize for his inappropriate behavior. Hell. You don’t even have to be elite. You just have to be decent. Decent enough to admit that it was wrong to make fun of the disabled. Admit that it was wrong to have disrespected and then denigrate women that way. Decent enough to tell the American people that you’re not perfect but you’ll strive to be a better president than you were a man. But we don’t have an elite as President-elect. We don’t even have a decent person about to hold the highest office in the land. We have a buffoon, man-child with skin thinner than that size 2 model/pin-up immigrant he’s married to. And even she doesn’t want to live in the same house with him.

Call me an elitist. It’s a badge I will wear proudly. I’d rather be an elitist than the racist, misogynist, mouth-breathers who voted for Trump. That’s right. I said it. I insulted Trump voters and I won’t apologize for it. We all knew what he did and what he said and what he stood for. There was no mistaking what you were voting for. I have no intentions of pulling punches. You people elected a moron and the rest of us “elitists” get to look down our noses and point our fingers and ask you to explain yourselves. Is it OK to make fun of the disabled? Yes or no? Is it OK to sexually assault women? Yes or no? Is it OK to commit fraud? Is it OK to discriminate against minorities? Is it OK to refer to your daughter as a nice piece of ass? Is it OK to vote for someone who did? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you can kiss my elitist ass.

Trump is not my president. I will challenge him at every turn. I will hold him accountable for every ignorant, vapid tweet. I will hold him to the very highest of standards and ridicule him when he comes up short. Why? You ask. How dare I? You say. Because he made fun of a disabled person and that’s all I ever needed to know about Donald J. Trump. I mean it. Really.

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Gold Lining


© Jen Sorensen

This is exactly how I feel. Every time I feel like we should give Trump a chance, he does something so stupid or petty or just plain horrible that it scares the shit out of me trying to imagine how we can possibly survive the next four years with anything intact.

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Go Allred Go!

From Electoral Vote:

“Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.” In 1996, when Paula Jones sued then-president Bill Clinton for inappropriate sexual conduct, Republicans were rooting that the Supreme Court would rule that no one was above the law, not even the president, and that private citizens could sue the president. They got what they wanted when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the president could be sued. Jones’ lawyer was George Conway III, the husband of Kellyanne Conway [Trump’s campaign manager and pollster].

Now that precedent is about to come back and hit Donald Trump hard, because yesterday Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” sued Trump for defamation. In October she said publicly that he attacked her in a hotel room in 2007. Trump denied that he ever met Zervos in a hotel room and called her a liar. She is suing him for defamation to restore her reputation. Zervos is represented by celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who has handled many high-profile cases before. Allred is no doubt excited about getting the opportunity to depose Trump under oath, knowing full well that Bill Clinton’s lies under oath in the Paula Jones case were the basis for his impeachment. Just in case anyone doubts what Allred thinks about Trump, she once said to him: “You are nothing but a fourth rate politician and a fifth rate human being …”

I’m really looking forward to hearing how Trump and the Republicans deal with this. Will they claim that the president’s private life is nobody’s business? Will Trump keep attacking Summer Zervos, making her defamation suit even stronger?

The “pussy grabbing” video was bad enough, but it was just talk. These are actions. How will Americans react if they learn that we have elected a sexual predator as president?

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Trump’s MLK Weekend

Stephen Colbert shows that you can still get comedy gold from Trump:

Many great quotes from Colbert’s monologue:

Well said. John Lewis is all “talk talk talk”, but a real leader like Trump is all “tweet tweet tweet”.

PT Barnum is famous for saying “There’s a sucker born every minute”, but Donald Trump is famous for proving it.

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