Repeal and Replace Reality

Every day it seems we are experiencing life through the looking glass. And this week was no different. Here's a quick and random lighthearted romping roundup on some of the High Ridiculousness that holds our nation in its thrall.

The fate of the Trump Administration may end up depending on the testimony of this guy.

A Democratic Senator got called out by a nation for his stupid "joke" and boorish behavior on a USO tour. The President decided to ride herd by shooting off a couple of tweets as if to lecture Sen. Franken on moral propriety. What was once the kiss of political death - the disrobing and sexual fondling of a 14-year-old - is now a rallying point for God-fearing Republicans. Of course, there's no mention by Trump of Roy Moore's Major Serial Sex Problems in Alabama, or even his own 12+ sexual harassment and assault accusers. And everyone is still waiting for Trump to launch his year-long-promised lawsuits against these accusers!

Lying lies by lying liars who lie! Who are you going to believe - Trump, or everyone else who he says are lying.

Everyone is lying about Trump! Lies! Lies! But of course it's the inverse that is true. Check out Michael Gerson's take on the "spectacular accumulation of lies" that Trump & Co. have amassed. Gerson is no bleeding heart - he was George W. Bush's speechwriter and came up with the "Axis of Evil" catchphrase, something he now regrets. He's been around the block a few times, and what he sees happening is so flippy-flop unreal that he can hardly believe it. "This is, with a few exceptions, a group of people for whom truth, political honor, ethics and integrity mean nothing." Believe it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-russia-investigations-spectacular-accumulation-of-lies/2017/11/16/741024bc-cb0e-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?utm_term=.cbc164b09831

It's a constant - all Presidents lie at some point or other. Usually, it's for National Security reasons. Sometimes it's for Political Expediency. But most Presidents have honored their positions by, at the very least,  purveying a pretense towards truthful discourse. However, this President does not. This week, and every week, he keeps the firehose of Falsehoods flowing at full blast. Also, remember that Trump really doesn't think he lies: whatever he says he 1) Believes it is true, or 2) Believes it should be true. 

Here is one of our favorites - The Washington Post has an ongoing chart of the number of lies, the type of lies, and the categories of lies that emanate from the White House. It's a lot of fun - try it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?utm_term=.15dc5fd7d1fd

Why it's enough to make a man holler, throw up both his hands, as Marvin Gaye once sang. Perhaps it was enough to drive this Navy jet pilot to create a Phallic Sky Art piece over the Washington DC area the other day:

Yup, ya don't see that up in the clouds every day. A gigantic FU over our seat of government. Maybe the pilot was expressing his dismay over Trump's insistence that 3 to 5 million illegal voters did not vote for him.

Each Secretary of the Treasury gets to sign off on US money. It's a perk of the job to see your signature on all the new ones/fives/tens/twenties/etc. that roll off the Money Printing Press. This week was Steve Mnuchin's chance to shine, and he didn't disappoint. Neither did his amazing wife. In a first, the Treasury Secretary's signature was not in cursive. It wasn't in Mayan hieroglyph, either, just block style print. Now why this traditional photo op for the head of Treasury should include his avaricious wife is one for others to contemplate - but it's another first!!

"This wallpaper will be perfect for the servants' bathroom!"

Speaking of dollar bills, it was revealed this week that the Trump Administration's Department of Justice has 10 lawyers and staff working against various lawsuits filed against Trump. "... the taxpayer-funded lawyers are making the case that it is not unconstitutional for the president's private companies to earn profits from foreign governments and officials while he's in office."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/11/15/taxpayers-pay-legal-bill-protect-trump-business-profits/848354001/

Holy Emoluments Clause, Batman! It's just another first - a President defending his ability to profit from being President, with his legal team being government lawyers, paid for by you.

In other week's news, it was announced (shortly after a military coup in Zimbabwe), that the US Department of Interior is abandoning its Obama-era ban on African wildlife trophies, such as lions and elephants. It really is a classic in upside-down rhetoric:

"Killing elephants will enhance their survival"

"We had to destroy the village in order to save it" was once said in Vietnam. As one who has spent time in Zimbabwe, The Daily Kibitz can assure that the rate of poaching these magnificent creatures will now skyrocket. Poverty-stricken villagers will expand their cooperation with the new wave of wealthy trophy-seekers and ivory collectors.

On left, a dead rare leopard with Trumps. On right, Donald Jr. is holding a severed elephant tail

Meanwhile, the tax "reform" bill advanced.  Among other high blood pressure howlers, it allows Corporations to deduct unending expenses, like a Private Jet Deduction, but won't allow teachers to deduct expenses for buying their own classroom supplies.  It demolishes the Estate Tax ("the Death Tax"), which plays well for H.L. Mencken's "boobouisee" (Trump Base) who think it affects them - when it really affects 0.2% of the population. Oh, and that percent is the wealthiest in the US. Of course! Within a few years, nearly all tax cut benefits will have trickled up to the 1%. Yep, "trickle down economics" is really "trickle up". For more, here's the great Dana Milbank presenting the Alternative Facts Reality we live in:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/forget-alternative-facts-were-now-in-an-alternate-reality/2017/11/17/52e53a56-cba0-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?utm_term=.611414034076

"Ignore the rules and disqualify the referees who were put in place to enforce standards of integrity." Yes, that's our new socio-political reality as evidenced by those actions from the Republican Congress and White House. Standards for lifetime-term Federal judges? Ha ha! Behold the latest Trump nominee for the Federal bench - Brian Talley. He is the 4th Trump nominee to receive a unanimous "Not Qualified" judgment from the American Bar Association. In fact, since 1989 there have been four judges placed on the bench who received this unanimous "Not Qualified" status. Two of them have been put there by Trump.

Talley has been a lawyer for three years. Never tried a court case in his life. But he is a Paranormal Investigator and has written fiction and non-fiction about his work in this field. Oh! And he is married to the White House Counsel's Chief of Staff, who has been interviewed by Robert Mueller in the ongoing Russia investigation.  Is this what Trump meant when he said he was going to Drain The Swamp?
Forget it, Jake... it's Americatown:

http://www.businessinsider.com/brett-talley-trump-judge-ghost-hunter-wife-2017-11

On a slightly more serious note, the fantastic Sarah Kendzior weighs in on this week's amazing testimony by Attorney General Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions. Noting the changes in memory and evasions that Sessions employed, Kendzior determines that,

"Eroding the law may well be the point... dilute the value of truth - both to sooth Trump's ego, but also because the value of truth is closely linked to the integrity of law... (it's) part of a purposeful dissolution of legal norms. When truth erodes, and the law crumbles, an independent judiciary loses its rigor. In this formulation, Trump does not serve the law; Trump is the law, and Sessions is Trump's willing servant." Please read her whole article, it's that good:

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna821141

Finally, as we struggle through this morass of upside-down alternate reality, let's take a good look at the whole of what's been happening. It ain't pretty at all, but Mother Jones has been quite excellent at documenting all the nonsense and long-lasting damage inflicted by the Trump Administration onto our country. Read it weep:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/creeping-authoritarianism-trump-trumpocracy-300/#

Oh, for cry-yi. Our President is a Bullshit Artist and his Administration is filled with folks who seek to grift for themselves, and/or to dismantle institutions and demolish social and political norms for their own extreme ideological purposes. It's quicker to destroy a building than it is to build it up. With the powerful help of State TV Fox News and Radio Hot Breaths like Rush and Mark Levin, nearly half of the country has been "gaslighted" over the last generation. Our upside down world may seem like a new experience, but it has been a long time in the making. Gaslighted? Why, yes. Here is the piece from Teen Vogue (of all places) that got the ball rolling on this idea last year:

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/donald-trump-is-gaslighting-america

We've gone through the looking glass and have tumbled down the rabbit hole. Remember, though, in our inverted world, everything that falls down comes back up. Let's take a quick musical moment to remember another time when America had fallen down a rabbit hole. Our old friend Grace Slick is here to give testimony:

Yes, feed your head. With facts. Verifiable facts.