By PatD, a Trail Mix Contributor
True both rich and led lives
Of well-to-do good looking young men
Both with beautiful wives
Handsome family
And ladies on the side.
Both had a connection to the Mob and to Roy Cohn. Both whose fathers were, shall we say, more autocrat than aristocrat, no way were they blue bloods. And both succeeded to the presidency with the assistance of an adoring press, or at least a media obsessed with them.
But there the parallel tale of the two ends. Do not look for high minded public service to be invoked in this inauguration speech, nor for young people to flock enthusiastically to go to the ends of the earth and out into space to do good for humanity.
No, we are no longer in, nor even near, that simply “more congenial spot for happily ever after than … Camelot”
More Posts by PatD
love that last line in the movie. makes me think of patsi sparkling and probably spitting fire right now.
“….it’s what we all are, less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea,
but it means that some of the drops sparkle… some of them do sparkle…”
I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.
We’re more Cabaret than Camelot.
Me no Leica.
“Don’t quit your cattle on a stormy night.”
today’s profundity courtesy of the uk football coach yesterday
This is less like camelot, more like Wagner the ring.
wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t some establishment goper vips out there plotting to have a swift impeachment* party come spring to rid themselves of the loose cannon asap and to elevate known quantity pence as prez and install ryan as veep.
*based on fraud trial testimony
Toby on duty on her throne this morning.
Reality. Bites.
Yeah Toby!
wagner? does that mean it won’t be over until the horn hatted Christie sings?
the jersey boy sings
“like a bridge over troubled waters…”
yep SJ, she has established a no fly zone for Trumpsters
The Way It REALLY Is: Epilogue to the Unknowing, Unintended Release of the World-Wide Radioactive Cloud
so i’m not alone in one of my grasping for straws conspiracy theories. here’s the fix at wapo:
‘Prediction professor’ who called Trump’s big win also made another forecast: Trump will be impeached
….a Washington, D.C.-based professor insisted that Trump was lined up for a win — based on the idea that elections are “primarily a reflection on the performance of the party in power.”
Allan Lichtman uses a historically based system of what he calls “keys” to predict election results ahead of time. The keys are explained in-depth in Lichtman’s book, “Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2016.” In our conversations in September and October, he outlined how President Obama’s second term set the Democrats up for a tight race, and his keys tipped the balance in Trump’s favor, even if just barely.
At the end of our September conversation, Lichtman made another call: that if elected, Trump would eventually be impeached by a Republican Congress that would prefer a President Mike Pence — someone whom establishment Republicans know and trust.
“I’m going to make another prediction,” he said. “This one is not based on a system; it’s just my gut. They don’t want Trump as president, because they can’t control him. He’s unpredictable. They’d love to have Pence — an absolutely down-the-line, conservative, controllable Republican. And I’m quite certain Trump will give someone grounds for impeachment, either by doing something that endangers national security or because it helps his pocketbook.”
[….]
… (Lichtman actually isn’t the only person to predict a Trump impeachment; this morning, the New York Times’s David Brooks suggested that a Trump impeachment or resignation was “probably” in the cards sometime within the next year.)
Alexandra Petri – Five Stages of Trump Grief
#5 Acceptance: NO! Not That! Never That!
the atlantic:
Clinton’s Popular-Vote Lead Will Grow, and Grow, and Grow
Millions of mail-in and absentee ballots haven’t been counted yet. They won’t change anything, though.
“We probably have about 7 million votes left to count,” said David Wasserman, an editor at Cook Political Report who is tracking turnout. “A majority of them are on the coasts, in New York, California, and Washington. She should be able to win those votes, probably 2-1.” By mid-December, when the Electoral College officially casts its ballots, Wasserman estimates that Clinton could be ahead by 2 percentage points in the popular vote.
[….]
David Leip is the one-man band behind The Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, a website cataloging vote totals all the way back to the early days of the Republic. He remembers seeing much of the same vote-counting hysteria after Election Day in 2012, when it appeared Obama would fall far short of his 2008 total. “They did the same thing—‘Oh my goodness, look at all those missing votes,’” he said. From the numbers he’s seeing, California is due for a record turnout, and possibly other states are as well. It’s too soon to tell, he cautions, if Clinton’s total haul, which currently sits at 60.6 million, will match or surpass the 66 million votes Obama received in 2012.
But let’s be clear: While these uncounted votes may grow Clinton’s popular lead, they absolutely will not change the course of the election. That math is settled; Trump holds an insurmountable lead in swing states, which turned his popular defeat into a sizable electoral victory.
There are still more than 75 suits outstanding against Trump. The notoriously miserly, deadbeat might have to actually settle financially to make them go away. Wherever he gets the money to do, stands a good chance of being illegal.
Jamie, well he won’t have to worry about a place to live rent free with utilities and food provided plus transportation, 4 yr job security with a steady income, medical, vacation and retirement benies.
and he has a few things he can sell…. starting with couple of hotels and an airline.
The surprisingly realistic path to eliminating the Electoral College by 2020
Patd
You can’t sell what you don’t own. Trump actually “OWNS” very few of those properties. Even his NY Penthouse is his only by grace of the banks that actually own it since they deemed it good for their image. NY apartment buildings are petitioning the owners to remove the name from their buildings. The name leasing & administration of bank owned properties is the main business of the Trump organization. I firmly believe he wouldn’t release his taxes for the simple reason that while he might be a rich man it is along the lines of the 14 million daddy gave him in the first place not the billionaire he claims to be.
It’s strange, I’ve had no one ask me why I wear a paper clip on the wide-brimmed hat mandated by my dermadoc. If I add a safety pin will people think I’m kooky or will they understand that I grieve.
We are all Haitians now...we elected the equivalent of this guy
Jamie, sooo the drumpf really might literally be dependent on the free 4yr housing hospitality, salary +benefits provided by the taxpayers (of which he is not one). you may be right on his fear of the taxes release exposing him as a deadbeat relatively speaking but I now think it has more to do with the lawsuits and complications of irs documentation vs contracts, accounts and statements contrary-wise.
Yuuuuuge question: Will Alec Baldwin play Trump on ‘SNL’ tonight?
The sooner he is gone the better. I hope Lichtman is right …again.
One of the sad things about Trump supporters …if you ask them – they would deny being a hater of some kind.
But go a little deeper and there it is.
And here is California…when he goes low we get high!
Heading back to DC shortly to see if anything is left.
XR,
During the 2008 election, Obama promised us hope and change, recovery and prosperity. When Barack Obama was elected with strong majorities in both houses of Congress, he had an unprecedented opportunity to shape American history by bringing the country’s financial oligarchy under control. Obama could have done great things. Instead, he gave us deterioration, poverty, despair and steadfastness.
Hillary represented just more of the same old crap. Trump and Sanders represented change like Obama did in 2008. The people want change! They didn’t get it; they got the same old crap from Obama.
Now to the Economic issue. Keynesian Economic Tradition argues that during economic downturns, including recessions, the government should replace the drop in private sector spending with deficit spending that includes increased public spending and tax reductions to save jobs and reduce economic decline. During economic prosperity the government pays off the deficit with decreased public spending and tax increases.
Democrats have a major problem with the decreased public spending. Republicans have a major problem with the tax increases and, during the Reagan and both Bush Administrations, public spending reductions.
Therefore the Keynesian Economic Model is never followed to its proper conclusion.
Every President since Carter, espouse the Neoliberalism Economic Model. All of the Economists that you mention all espouse the Neoliberalism Economic Model. Remember that Christina Romer projected that with the stimulus unemployment would not exceed 8%, it went to 10%. Alan Krueger, Austan Goolsbee, Christina Romer, Laura D’Andrea Tyson wrote the memo on Fabruary 17, 2016. Bill Black did not join the Sanders Team until April 9, 2016. Was Sanders over optimistic with over a 5% GDP growth? I think so, but then I am just a nobody. But The Nation says “Liberal critics like Paul Krugman argue that Sanders’s economic platform is unrealistic. They are dead wrong.”
Though no one will believe it, economics is a technical and difficult subject. Economics is not a hard science like Physics it is a social science about how people feel and act. Good luck creating accurate and consistent equations for that. Theoretical Physics has major problems with dark matter and dark energy, but they still try to describe them with mathematics. Good luck!
Love Toby!
For all the people being called a crybaby or worse, you might remind them the protestors are not being even half as offensive as 2012 during the Obama inauguration
D.C. has been like a funeral parlor. If communication is necessary, a whisper behind a shielding hand is used. No need to let the invaders know who we are and what we talk about.
Of interest was a report that the floater might not actually live in the WH, but at his own place in New York City. Although it might come in to town for a few weekdays, the people’s business will not need his full time attention especially on weekends. (numerous reports)
Something wonderful is happening now that I no longer watch anything except public television entertainment shows and streaming Netflix or Amazon, I have returned to writing. At first a little, now a good hour or more each day. Beyond therapy, I no longer have a writers block. Oh, that and a very young dog who needs plenty of attention and outside running around.
Nothing like sitting down and typing out two thousand words to make the day start with a bang.
Purple,
I was very disappointed with President Obama’s performance in his 1st 6 years – especially that 1st biennium. His desire to get rip uplicans on board was interesting but ineffective the first few days. After that the urge to deal with the rippers devolved into a tremendous waste of time and political clout.
Expanding Medicare to cover everyone would have subsidized large manufacturers, businesses that can be exported – as opposed to plumbers and pool boys. That would have eased the pressure to move factories off shore, besides helping poor families.
If the bankers and fund managers (and their families and mistresses) had been forced to the max to restore the damage they’d done to the economy, it would have had a salient effect on future generations of bakers and fund managers. It would also have saved the rest of us from the interest payments on a $TR!LL!ON.
And yes, the Stimulus should have been used to the help little peons rather than the Fuggers. The dollars would have moved much faster, pulling us out of the hole a year earlier.
Fourth, the Prez should have had the DoJ investigate the the babybush Admin’s stampeding of America into Iraq. There should have been war crimes trials to instruct future presidents against making war for ulterior motives.
Using the blank check Congress voted for the ‘War on Terrorism,’ President Obama should have pressed America’s transition from carbon energy to solar, wind, and geothermal energy. Coal country in particular could have used jobs in alternative power facilities.
I’ve been busy: The Rape Book review mixed unexpectedly with current events.
Obama was not a profile in courage and too many bygones coming into office for the sake of working with Republicans
who had no intention of working with him.
XRepub,
I haven’t put it all together re Obama. He did do a lot as President and rode the economy out of the recession – despite the thugs. After all, once he took office it was a lot like that scene in Blazing Saddles, where the little old lady looks at Cleavon Little and says “Up Yours N$#%$%!. It’s amazing he got done what he did.
He did get healthcare reform – something Clinton, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy etc. couldn’t pull off.
But he also grossly underestimated the Republicans and their bigoted nastiness. While he did have a Democratic house and Senate, he had the Blue Dogs in his face trying to save their collectives a$$es – such as Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, Mark Begich and Mary Landrieu.
And – he spent most of his Presidency afraid to shoot the big republican dog that was digging in his back yard.
Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, Mark Begich and Mary Landrieu
How quickly we forget
It is true he has to be judged on the mess he inherited
KGC – and the Donald will be judged on the mess he creates!
I figured Trump would overstep his boundaries & be shown the door within his first 100 days, if elected. Pence heading up the transition team just ensures he has things just the way he wants them.
I’m enjoying Hillary’s supporters getting a taste of how Bernie’s supporters felt after the primary. I’m enjoying watching the left say “not my president,” just like the right did to Obama. People are people.
It’s been a strange election cycle & it ain’t over yet. I expect to see more unusual things between now & January 20th.
Nice thoughts BID! I wonder how Congress will react to President Pence’s proposal for federally subsidized conversion therapy!
We are all playing by Trump/gooper rules now
Helpful Instagram:
THERE IT’S FIXED
I think I’m played out on talking about the election tragedy. I’ve gone the gamut in the grief process, back and forth through stages #1-#4 but, like someone else said, I will never reach stage #5-acceptance. I think I’ve moved on to depressed for a while. 🙁
Jamie: Well I am a Canuck so that map works fine for me. My son will be happy when I tell him we may not have to move LOL!
Pat: Thank you for the Camelot reminders. I teared up as I recalled it. I was a teen when it ended and I wrote a poem that got passed around quite a bit. I was heartbroken and my heart & words poured out to John-John. I got a lovely thank you card from Jackie and the envelope had her signature in the corner in place of a stamp. I thought that was pretty cool!
Pence of the no birth control and climate change is a hoax among other irrationalities.
Of course, the Prez inherited a catastrophe on top of a disaster. And he was no FDR or LBJ. He kept trying to compromise, and compromised all his friends’ issues away.
Health reform ? It was only insurance reform. It’s a Byzantine mess, modeled on the heritage foundation’s romneycare. ACA started years late, didn’t protect everyone, and was a goldmine for the big insurance companies at first. Now that it isn’t a goldmine (or, so they say) they want to slice up the country into insurance monopoly zones, each serving a different insurance company, and none serving people.
Obama let Public Option slip away, hoping to get rippers on board. They conned him, and now ACA is in trouble, and about to be repealed in January.