WTHIGOH?

By Pogo, a Trail Mix Contributor

I have had the opportunity this past week to drive around to hearings in other counties and have spent a considerable amount of time listening to talk radio. I have to admit I’ve listened to about two minutes of Fox, and the rest of it was pretty much MSNBC with a little sprinkling of Progress radio, all on Sirius XM. And of course, my opening salvo of the day is the Washington Post, where I check back periodically during the day,and a few minutes (if I can stand it) of Morning Joe.

So what’s all this lead me to? It leads me to the acronym posted at the top of this post. What The Hell Is Going On Here? I frankly can’t make sense of it any longer. What have we heard this week?

– A healthcare insurance plan that will likely lead to the loss of more people having insurance than Obamacare added to the insurance rolls. A plan that Lyin’ Paul Ryan is trying to pass through Congress within a week without the CBO score and without any real debate – by the party who complained that Obamacare was rammed down their throat after nine months of debate.

– We have Trump surrogates admitting that they met with the Russian ambassador. I think the count’s up to about 10 now.

– We have drrumpf’s past national security advisor nominee Michael Flynn registering as a foreign agent, because he took money -$500,000 – from Turkey while he was campaigning for drumpf.

– We have Trump proposing to cut the budgets of the Coast Guard TSA and FEMA in order to finance a meaningless border wall.

Frankly, it’s exhausting.

But this being a conversation starter, I’m sure there are also other things that all of you have paid attention to not listed above. Feel free to chime in.

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121 thoughts on “WTHIGOH?”

  3. Watching the morning shows blather on about Bannon control of President, collusion with Russians and Assange & Wikileaks, GOP bumbling of health care, right wing ideologues, Neo-nazis, antisemites blah blah blah.  It would seem that the whole of our government has been taken over by either traitors, incompetents, or some wild eyed combination of same.

    I’m gradually turning into a conspiracy theorist or depressive.  Need to go read a good book.

     

  5. the bank story according to salon:  Trump’s alleged computer server connection with a Russian bank continues to be investigated

    An alleged computer server connection between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, an influential financial institution in Russia with connections to both the Russian and Ukrainian elite, is still being investigated by the FBI, according to a new report by CNN.

     

    The FBI’s counterintelligence team, which is also looking into Russia’s suspected hacking of Democratic National Committee servers and the email account of her campaign chairman, is investigating why a computer server owned by Alfa Bank repeatedly looked up a computer server owned by the Trump Organization in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Eighty percent of the attempts to look up that Trump computer server were performed by Alfa Bank — 2,820 in total — with almost all of the rest being conducted by Spectrum Health, a medical facility chain owned by the husband of Trump’s education secretary Betsy DeVos.

    Although Alfa Bank insists that this unusual activity is probably the result of a spam campaign (an explanation they provided Salon in November), Indiana University computer scientist L. Jean Camp told CNN after studying the data, “If it were spam, then a lot of other organizations would be doing DNS lookups. There would be evidence of widespread connectivity with devices.”

    As CNN reported, “The corporations involved have different theories to explain the server activity. But they haven’t provided proof — and they don’t agree.”

    Paul Vixie, who designed the DNS system used by the modern internet, previously told Slate that the most likely explanation for the interactivity between the Alfa Bank and Trump Organization servers is that they “were communicating in a secretive fashion.” Even cybersecurity expert Robert Graham, who has criticized other computer scientists for speculating as the meaning of those servers, admitted to CNN that “it’s indicative of communication between Trump, the health organization and the bank outside these servers. There is some sort of connection I can’t explain, and only they are doing it. It could be completely innocent.”

    When Alfa Bank contacted Salon in November, it insisted that “Alfa Bank wishes to make clear that there is no connection between Alfa Bank and Donald Trump, the Trump campaign, or the Trump organization. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”

  6. pogo, thanks to Jamie we have a well described list in vanity fair of some of “the other things” that’s been noticed

    …..we can’t overlook that we have a president who acts like a nut job: euphoric at midnight, paranoid a few hours later about phantom prowlers on the roof. Let’s leave aside the debate over how much of a point Trump may have had when he accused Barack Obama of being a “Bad (or sick) guy” who had overseen efforts to “tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process.” (As they say on Twitter, huge if true.) Even if the accusation were perfectly accurate—which no one, including Trump, seems to believe—the manner in which he chose to reveal it was less that of a president than that of a dementia patient screaming that his clothes have been stolen by the nursing staff. There’s no way that a series of misspelled four A.M. tweets, sandwiched next to a lament about The Apprentice, is the work of someone playing 28-dimensional chess. It’s the work of someone who found a chess set and had to go to the hospital after swallowing two rooks and a knight.

  7. I agree so much about the exhaustion factor, Pogo. Which I fear is how he could get away with a lot, wear us out until we don’t pay attention.

  8. My stack of unread magazines is now three feet high. I suppose I should go through them and separate those qualifying as reference materials and then recycle all the rest.

    Undoubtedly, my failure to read is a sign of depression brought about by our total inability to control our futures in the face of the dismal political situation in which we are held captive.

    I must reindoctrinate myself in the Code of Conduct

  9. flatus, pogo’s thread title probably is shorthand for all that’s covered in your 3 foot high stack…. might as well recycle.  save your sanity.

  10. Well, when I was a bit younger and worked at Outward Bound (aside from living in abject poverty that job was much more fun than helping people discard unwanted spouses) I learned to juggle a little bit.  I was pretty good juggling two balls with one hand and three balls with two.  When I tried to add that fourth ball I spent all my time dropping and picking up balls.  Between the nonsense of the drumpf administration and Lyin’ Ryan’s congress I feel like I’m in four ball territory again.

  11. One bullet I neglected to add is the unfounded lies of trump about Obama allegedly tapping his phones in drumpf Tower.

  12. Yeah…  I’m getting tired of all the bullshit too.  But I agree with Craig…  this is being done by design.  They wear you out and then they can do whatever they want.

    Now I remember why I don’t watch morning joe…   Joe was describing about how much frump is lying to everyone…  especially those that voted for him.  Then he compared frump’s lying to B. Clinton’s lying….  said they were essentially the same thing.  Gee…  I don’t remember Clinton wanting to destroy the government and handing it over to Russia.  Did I miss something?

    Hey BlondeW….   great hat!

  13. Joe is insufferable.  Remember, he and Mika gave drumpf airtime almost every morning for months. After Joe got his nose out of joint because on one issue drumpf wouldn’t answer his question with a yes or no, Joe finally hung up on him.  That was the end of their bromance for a while.

  14. The Goopers are in a bad way.   When they had relatively little ability to actually do anything they could posture all they wanted to.  Now that they have to govern – all their  stupidity is on display.

    Important to remember that Goopers hate the poor and the disabled and old people especially if they fit in the other categories as well

  15. At the end of the movie The Buddy Holly Story, Gary Busey as Buddy sits in front of a concert audience and says that since it’s been so long since he’s played live, he’s going to play the hardest thing he knows. The song he sings is True Love Ways, which I have always loved.

    I have no idea if that is what really happened on the fatal night. After the concert, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and JP Richardson died in a plane crash. You all know that part.

    I bring this up because as an avid reader, I’ve barely picked up a book since 11/9. Wanting to get back into the habit, I picked up one of the hardest things I could find – a 1600 page tome by Vincent Bugliosi entitled Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F Kennedy. I was born 5 months after the assassination in April 1964, but I’ve learned more than enough over the years to firmly find myself in the camp of lone gunman. Lee Harvey Oswald killed the president. End of story for me.

    In his book, Mr Bugliosi will debunk every piece of CT “evidence” espoused by those who believe in a conspiracy. I haven’t gotten to that part yet. I’ve just gotten to the description of the murder of Oswald. I’m looking forward to the debunking pages, as I’ve gathered quite a bit of observational evidence on my own throughout the years and I’m anxious to see how my opinions stack up.

    My point is, throwing out a CT is easy. Debunking a CT takes forever and is rarely successful. There are certainly true conspiracies in the world. I think we are witnessing those in this current regime.

    If the alleged conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy is still going strong 53+ years later, how long is it going to take to totally unravel what’s going on today, even as we see evidence of real conspiracy in some of the things going on. Truly depressing thoughts. So I’m reading this very difficult book to try and distract from the daily grind, but still keeping an ear to the ground so I don’t become passive about current events. I think real crimes are being committed. We shall see if there is ever an account made of them.

    Maybe I should have chosen a comic book instead.

  16. Travis, Great point on conspiracy theories. Yep they’re easy to float, and hard to sink. The folks who believe them don’t want to hear the the debunking of them. We had a secretary up until about a year ago who was with us for quite a few years, and she believed any conspiracy theory that she heard. Never read a book never read a newspaper, nothing. And confronting her with contrary facts was a useless exercise.  In my experience, she’s a pretty typical CTer. You know, stupid and gullible.

  17. If you want a difficult book   Big Trouble  Anthony Lucas…he finished it and then killed himself.

    I’ve been reading for years.  When I can’t sleep I get it out

  18. pogo, by any chance her name grace? sounds like your old secretary transplanted herself to florida and works with our trail friend tony.

  19. Great post, pogo!  Cuts to the Coast Guard?   The already stressed service will only have enough money to guard Mar-a-lago going forward.  We are paying a fortune which could be used for healthcare to keep this guy and his extended family safe.

    Agreed…keep the sunlight on the gang…the leaky goodship lollipop may go down.  comey has dealt with his dirty NY trumpland office and is building his case on russia.   The server to the russian bank along with all of this other info has been out for months and I doubt most cops have ignored this.   I hope they are  building a bullet proof case, otherwise, we will be stuck with this gang for some time…hopefully not for eight years.

  21. the disrupt, distract, deflect and digitally control the narrative…pure nationalist crap.  it is how they won the election…whooping-up hate and dividing — just like some end-time game.  gamer bannon is also a strict catholic and righteously feels all women need to be punished…take away their birth control, education and wellness healthcare.   trump stated there needs to be some sort of punishment for women having abortions.    Destroy planned parenthood.

  22. bw, perhaps the death panels  under TrumpDontCare are there to make room for all those babies

  23. and if those death panels don’t do enough clearing out the sick and dying, these guys will help take up the slack.

    wapo: First-year doctors will be allowed to work 24-hour shifts starting in July

    The controversial decision ends the latest phase in a decades-old discussion over how to balance physician training with the safety and needs of patients whose care is sometimes handled by young, sleep-deprived doctors — a practice that a consumer group and a medical students’ organization oppose as dangerous. The council said Friday that under the amended standards, the physicians’ mental and physical health actually will be bolstered by requiring their supervisors to more closely monitor their well-being.

    Those standards will allow four hours to transition patients from one doctor to the next, so first-year residents could work as long as 28 straight hours, the same as more senior medical residents.

    [….]

    But one consumer group, which has opposed lifting the cap every step of the way, rejected the rationale for Friday’s announcement. Michael Carome, a doctor who heads Public Citizen’s health research group, called the move “a dangerous step backwards.”

    “We know from extensive research, multiple studies, that sleep-deprived residents are a danger to themselves, their patients and the public,” Carome said. Sleep-deprived residents are at greater risk of car accidents, needle-stick injuries and depression, the organization contends. In recent years, the medical profession has acknowledged the high rate of burnout and depression among physicians overall.

  24. patd…fertility clinics dump tons of eggs everyday….where are the protests? Perhaps because it is used by mostly rich humans.  Just like the idea of baby hatches where humans could dump unwanted newborns?   Methods to deal with wanted and unwanted pregnancies.  But to punish the women for having the vajayjay?  It is just a biological fact we bear the children.  However, we have it better here in the US of AA.  Poor women in Africa need HIV drugs to ward-off disease from the multiple rapes…birth control is also necessary, but forced sex can kill.  All women except non-menopausal white women take a hit in a nationalist society…only young white women need to be protected.

  27. If folks in Trump country lose their Obamacare (my employer has us on an ACA-compatible plan & it’s worthless compared to what we had before Obamacare was created), the shit in the WH will lose his shine with them.

    If they don’t get decent jobs and if infrastructure isn’t rebuilt, those folks will join the revolt.

     

  28. True, his habit of going to FL every, stinkin’ weekend & keeping a second home for the wife & child is costing a fortune.   Beat that drum, Colbert, Bee, Oliver, MSM.   How unconservative.

    I hope Ryan gets his ass handed to him on this health-prevention plan. Maybe those who vote for it will get incurable diseases.  Maybe their good healthcare coverage will allow them to throw lots of money at their diseases & it won’t matter. One can hope.

    “An act of malice.” Colbert needs to book Joe Kennedy III.

     

  32. It’s all pretty disgusting, Pogo, and the people who knew how to prevent it, yet failed to do so, make we want to vomit, also!

     

    The right-wing conspiracy theorists loved blaming the Jews and the Illuminati for everything, and now we have an actual documented international cabal of the Trump Gang, the Putinists, Nigel Farage, Julian Assange, and whoever else I don’t know about waging a war against compassion and humanity.  The Republicans are all treasonous cowards and so are their gun-toting hick constituents.

  33. Where’s virtuous Jim Webb and his leadership that America so desperately needed, in all of this?

    Where’s HRC? The island of Elba?

    What’s Obama doing? Trump defamed him, for Christ’s sake- gloves off.

  34. The propaganda and lies conservatives are feeding their children does not bode well for the future.  I talk to those kids, and they are frighteningly miseducated, and are being taught to hate any one but white Christians (even though they all hate each other- they are misanthropes, after all) and mock liberalism. America will be a 2nd-world hell-hole, like Russia and Brazil in 20 years, or less.

  35. No Bink, let’s forget Jim Webb.

    When I made my earlier comment I linked the Code of Conduct that folks in the Armed Forces are expected to live (and die) by. In turn, doing that caused me to remember Col Bud Day and his sacrifices as a POW and, more topically, Adm James Stockdale who led the POWs through their captivity and later ran as Perot’s VP choice. That pair personified leadership and sacrifice to the nth degree.

  37. Jamie – I wrote a blog post about Don McLean and the meaning of American Pie back in 2007. After extensive review of theories, I found Bob Dearborn penned what is widely considered to be the definitive analysis of the lyric. Unfortunately Mr McLean has never commented. But those who either lived or are at least aware of history think that Mr Dearborn has done the best work on the lyrics.

    It’s a bit of a long read, but worth it to any who love the song and have always wondered about the lyrics. It’s also kind of fun to compare what you think the lyrics mean, to what someone else thinks.

    Enjoy!

  38. Where’s HRC? The island of Elba?  What’s Obama doing? Trump defamed him, for Christ’s sake- gloves off.  Bink
    THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.  Thomas Paine

    I wish just once I was important enough to have people who know people.  It is so very obvious that something is going on and even those of us vaguely aware that something is going on don’t have a clue what the machinations might be.  I guess we can only hope there are jail sentences involved for Trump and gang.

  39. “…we can only hope there are jail sentences involved for Trump and gang.”

     

    They own the jails.

    …and the Justice Dpt.

    …and the FBI.

  40. Patd, no, her name isn’t Grace, but they have much in common. ?

    Aside from the circumstances under which she left her employment with us, what I most vividly remember as far as stupid conversations with her was a discussion about seatbelts. She was violently opposed to using them, to the point that she got tickets on at least three occasions for not having herself or her kids restrained. She said she didn’t want to be stuck in the car if she had an accident and the car caught on fire. Well so one day she doesn’t come to work claiming that she has a sick kid.  We get a call from her about mid morning saying that she’s at the urgent care nearby. Of course we assumed the kid was sick so she took her there. Turns out she was taking her dog to the vet and had an accident because she was distracted by the dog trying to jump out the window and trying to smack her rotten son in the backseat and she rear ended a car. She sprained her wrist and her kid got a nasty gash on her forehead from pitching forward over the seat into the dashboard. Stupid and gullible.

    Flatus I wholeheartedly agree with your posts above. And by the way I also agree with your observation spring is here. Mrs. P made me drive her over to Elkins today for a hearing, and we got out of the car into thunder snow.

  42. trevor noah: “If you don’t count most people, Donald Trump’s ratings are at a record high,”

    from the Hollywood reporter:

    On Thursday’s Daily Show, Trevor Noah played clips of Trump’s promises and performed a song that suggested that Trump’s policies may be at odds of the interests of these “forgotten” people.

    “That’s right,” Noah said. “Trump and his people will not forget you, unless you’re a Russian ambassador. Then, that never happened.”

    He then donned a cowboy outfit and sang a country song with the chorus, “The forgotten man, the forgotten

    man, Donald Trump is your friend,” adding “You’ll never be forgotten again.”

    The Daily Show host interspersed news clips with the tune, specifically reports on how Trump is deregulating the finance industry, letting coal pollution occur and other news that might be detrimental to the “forgotten” people Trump talked about.

    “I would have started with the people myself, but lobbyists are people too,” Noah sang. He also sang, “More pollution, means more coal, more coal means more jobs, so who cares if they poison the streams?”

    As the song continued, Noah became more skeptical. “I’m starting to think Trump’s pulling a con and he don’t have the forgotten in mind,” he crooned.

    you can see video at

    http://www.cc.com/video-clips/iorx65/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-does-trump-remember–the-forgotten-man–

  44. I think that trump meant the fur-gotten man, ie the man who can afford beaver and sable coats.

  45. Re Jamie’s alarming post, I haven’t heard of a good republican attorney for a over a decade.
    But maybe lousy attorneys are what the trump junta wants.

  46. Welcome to the 1850’s and wild wild America where it’s every living thing for itself.

  47. Republican view of the world is whites only, and rich only.  How much pain will the floater’s voters accept before coming to understand they are being screwed?  And being screwed with out lube?

  48. From what I see, the Republicans, deep in their hearts, believe that people without means do not deserve health care / health, etc. and should fend for themselves.  But alas, they cannot stand up and say that lest – they be creamed at the polls.

    So – they now have enough stuff on Trump that unless he signs this abomination of a health care bill / tax break for the uber-rich – they’ll buy him and take him out.

    Surprisingly this looks to be turning out not to be about a foreign government having the goods on Trump and trying to manipulate him, but rather his own party.  And it just might work.

  52. My all time favorite tune – the one that puts me in the best mood – came out in 1971…Sweet City Woman by the Stampeders.

    Jack – I like all three tunes you posted. I won’t say they are better than American Pie. To my mind, “better” is subjective. But I do agree that a ton of great music was released in 1971, including American Pie.

  53. I regret that I must disagree with my distinguished colleague and fellow Trail Hand, Mr.300. The deadbeat would sign whatever the dastards in the Congress lay before him, as long as he gets tax breaks and acquiescence in his work of accomplishing the tsar’s desires. They could pass Obamromnecare, calling it ryancare and he’d sign it, ‘cuz it’s ryancare, not Obamromnecare.

    Just my opinion, and we all know how wrong I can be.

  54. XREP – you may just be right.  My reasoning is that, once the public uproar rises about this (as it becomes a reality), and crazy starts to see his polls drop further and further and further – once he sees the common Trump voter in Michigan, Wisconsin, etc. burning his likeness at the stake  – his mental disease of Narcissism will kick in and he’ll try to revolt against the Ryan and Pence machine.  And then comes the blackmail!

  55. ’71 was a huge year for music. To give you an idea, the Doors’ Riders on the Storm was no. 99 of 100. It was 92 behind Donny Osmond’s Go Away Little Girl. (I need a drink.)

    But for me, Janis’ Me and Bobby McGee tops a very good list.

  57. I agree about 71 being a great year.  The only reason for American Pie posting was the intricacies of the lyrics from an historical point.  Pogo Me and Bobby McGee is wonderful with Janis in top form, but still prefer the songwriter Kristofferson’s version.  As top 100’s in a single year.  It’s almost unbeatable 

    For songs containing lists of events, there is always 1989’s We Didn’t Start The Fire with 50 years of Boomer history.  Can’t help but wonder how many of the younger folks would even be able to identify the people and happenings.

     

  58. Travis, no. 58.

    So if you wanna drift back through time here’s a site that gives the chart toppers by year. Kinda fun to look back. 1964 & 65 do it for me.

  59. Pogo,

    I have a book of hit music that has lists of top 100s. I’ll definitely check out the site you posted. My Lady forgives your blasphemy re: Donny Osmond. She was, is, and always shall be a fan girl. Ooops…I’ve just been warned to watch my phraseology.

    Let me restate: My Lady was, is, and always shall be an aficionado of all things Donny and Osmonds. (Really, she’s a fan girl. She got all silly during Donny’s Dancing with the Stars run. I found her squees during his routines very sexy.)

    (I also must admit to still having a tremendous crush on dear Marie Osmond. She and Valerie Bertinelli are my forever school boy loves. My most fervent entertainment wish is that Val comes on DWTS someday. Alas, until she does I shall be content to watch her on Kids Baking Championship and on her weekend cooking show.)

    Oh, just about anything from the 1960s does it for me. My default XM radio station is 60s on 6.

  60. As a boomer the transformation from music my parents liked to music I like came as a wave from 64  until about 68. By 68 nothing my dad liked made the billboard top 100 any longer. 71 was a great year, but 64 & 65 saw the Beatles and Stones and Byrds and  Beach Boys and Supremes and James Brown come onto the music scene to influence everything that came after (that I cared about at all).

  61. Travis, apologize to your lady for me. (He’s a little bit rock & roll I guess)! ?

    My Sirius default channel is Classic Vinyl with Deep Tracks a close second.

    And as for 71 it was bittersweet for me. – the first year nothing by the Beatles made the top 100 but the first year McCartney made the list as a solo artist.

  63. I’m with you on Classic Vinyl. I think I have it on button 3. I haven’t listened to Deep Tracks. I’ll have to give that one a try.

    The Beatles were ending just as I was discovering their music. If you can believe this, my mom really wasn’t much of a fan. She liked their early British invasion stuff, along with most of the other invasion pop, but she didn’t care for the way Beatles music evolved. I, on the other hand, went nutty over that later stuff, and came to appreciate the early stuff as I searched for more of it.

    Of course, Mom was a teen in the 50s raised on the big band sound of the 30s and 40s, so I guess the evolution of music in the 60s was just too different-sounding to her ear. I have the same problem with non-standard time in jazz and over-the-top guitar distortion. Yes, that means I do not care for Jimi Hendrix because my ear can’t comprehend it.

  64. Sorry about your ear. Hendrix was the next thing for me after the Beatles. Are You Experienced blew me away and Electric Ladyland absolutely astounded me. And Axis Bold as Love, there are no words. I play a little guitar and ironically enough I am working on the fills and solo (such as it is) on Fire. It’s easy, fun stuff within even my limited skill set.

  65. Bink,  The Who…among the top 5 of the greats of rock. Townsend has a swagger and talent that 99.99% of musicians would kill for.

  66. I think it was in the nineties that I got burned out on American pie. It became a nostalgia hit at every bar I went too, complete with half the bar singing along . I started calling it “nostalgia squared”  Before then I used to belt out terrible renditions of it with the best of them. But in reality it wasn’t my nostalgia. So I moved on

    The other over played song from that year and the greatest rock song of all time (it didn’t get my vote)  Stairway to Heaven. ” There’s a lady who’s sure / All that glitters is gold / And she’s buying a stairway to heaven. ”

    My favorite from that year? John Lennon’s , Imagine.  although Janis is good.

    Jack

  69. My favorite musical event of 1971 has to be the performance of the Brewer and Shipley song “One toke over the line” by the Lawrence Welk show. Lawrence called it a modern gospel song.

     

  71. Maddow is wrecking mike pence. She just laid out enough to impeach and prosecute on misprision and violation of oath of office.

  72. Oh, Jack, you had to remind me. Bad enough that someone mentioned Stairway to Heaven.

    The Gambler ?

  73. xrep

    Yep, kinda makes one sick.

    My remedy, I went over to youtube and started listening to some Shel Silverstein. Not the childrens stuff

    The good stuff, adults only ,

    A bit of  Preacher Craigs finest improved my mood too. Nothing like good sour mash to help you through hard times.

    Jack

  74. but but but what about great masterpieces like “mairszy doats” and “three little fishes” and “hut sut ralston”… right up there with “puff the magic dragon” and”froggy went a courtin”

    music for the ages.  or should that be paraphrased for the aging ears?

  75. Carrying on, here’s the Rolling Stone list of the top 500 songs. The link is to the top 50, and drops you into number 2 – the Stones’s Satisfaction – but you can navigate in groups of 50 with the ribbon up by the banner. Have fun.

    And for what it’s worth, IMHO 1974 marked the end of the rock & soul era. It is the year that disco entered the top 100. There certainly was a whole shit ton of good rock made after that, …. , but disco sucked. (I had the tee shirt).

  77. speaking of tunes, David got one of those amazon echo toys as a birthday present. Must say it’s really fun calling up tunes. This morning I asked “Alexa” to play music to wake up to, and she played Beatles “Here Comes The Sun” — excellent choice. Funniest thing is that when you ask her to Play Bill Clinton she plays an oral sex routine by Lewis Black.

  78. Patd, it should  ?

    The bright spot Of 1974 is it drove me to put a cassette player in my car. After that I controlled my music since I could record my own. Couldn’t do that with 8 tracks.

  80. Hey, slow down on the killing the lawyers stuff.

    The  firing of the US attorneys doesn’t bother me. Happens almost every time the White House changes hands. I have two friends who each served as US attorney in this district, one under a Democrat (Clinton) and one under a Republican (W).  Prospect of unemployment comes with the job. The discharged USAs are prime picks for very lucrative employment after their DOJ stints.

  81. it’s not the firing in itself being unusual. it’s the not allowing time for orderly transition that’s unusual.  but that seems to be the pattern for this bunch.

  82. from diane Feinstein’s statement:

    “Under previous administrations, orderly transitions allowed U.S. attorneys to leave gradually as their replacements were chosen. This was done to protect the independence of our prosecutors and avoid disrupting ongoing federal cases.

    “In January, I met with Vice President Pence and White House Counsel Donald McGahn and asked specifically whether all U.S. attorneys would be fired at once. Mr. McGahn told me that the transition would be done in an orderly fashion to preserve continuity. Clearly this is not the case. I’m very concerned about the effect of this sudden and unexpected decision on federal law enforcement.”

  83. the wrap

    Netflix’s “House of Cards” epically trolled White House press secretary Sean Spicer after it was spotted he wore his U.S. flag pin upside-down at Friday’s press conference.

    “Your loyalty has not gone unnoticed,” posted “House of Cards”‘ Twitter account. The tweet’s in reference to the show’s logo, which features an inverted American flag.

  85. Well, when Clinton replaced all the US attorneys, it was very abrupt. But I don’t think they had to read in the newspaper though or hear it on television.

  86. Oh, Alexa. Ha!

    Radio was staticky in my little town.  I received a transistor radio (about 1/2 the size of a shoebox) in the early 70s.   I had only 3 albums: Osmonds; a Broadway soundtrack featuring Carol Burnette (“Fade In/Fade Out”); The Carpenters.

    My dad had some great vinyl; Stan Freberg’s “First Family.”   It was my first exposure to the Kennedy family, but even without an point of reference, Jackie giving a tour of the WH was hilarious. Dad had another record of Andy Griffith’s, “What It was, Was Football.” Great stuff.

  87. A little later in the 70s, as set forward by the Southern Poverty Law Center this morning:

    “Last April, long before Stephen K. Bannon became the chief strategist to President Trump and the architect of one of the president’s most draconian executive orders, the SPLC’s investigative blog Hatewatch published an analysis of Breitbart News, where Bannon was executive chairman, and its drift to the radical right.

    The question that served as our headline “Is Breitbart Becoming the Media Arm of the Alt-Right?” was answered by Bannon himself when he told a Mother Jones reporter in July that Breitbart was, indeed, “the platform for the alt-right.”

    Our recent research confirmed just how bad it was. Under Bannon, the comment section became infested with anti-Semitic language while their inflammatory coverage of migrants made it the radical right’s favorite daily news source.

    Last week, The Huffington Post published a major article about Bannon’s affection for an obscure and disturbing novel released in 1973 that helped shape his worldview.

    The French novel, authored by Jean Raspail, is “The Camp of the Saints,” with a subtitle reading “[a] chilling novel about the end of the white world.”

    Bannon repeatedly referenced the novel on his Breitbart radio show, arguing that the migrant crisis in Europe is exactly what the novel foretold.

    “It’s not a migration,” he said in January 2016. “It’s really an invasion. I call it the Camp of the Saints.”

    As The Huffington Post summarized:
    The plot of The Camp of the Saints follows a poor Indian demagogue, named “the turd-eater” because he literally eats s***, and the deformed, apparently psychic child who sits on his shoulders. Together, they lead an “armada” of 800,000 impoverished Indians sailing to France. Dithering European politicians, bureaucrats and religious leaders, including a liberal pope from Latin America, debate whether to let the ships land and accept the Indians or to do the right thing — in the book’s vision — by recognizing the threat the migrants pose and killing them all.
    One man responsible for promoting the novel throughout the 1990s was John Tanton, the architect of the modern anti-immigrant movement. In 1994, Tanton’s Social Contract Press published the novel that featured an afterword by Raspail who wrote:
    [T]he proliferation of other races dooms our race, my race, to extinction.
    That the right-hand man to President Trump is a fan of this novel should deeply disturb Americans if they aren’t already. Linda Chavez, a Republican commentator interviewed by The Huffington Post for the story, said that while she supported some of Trump’s economic policies, his immigration policies were “extremely dangerous.”

    As for Bannon and his affection for this racist novel, Chavez said he “wants to make America white again.”

    As always, thank you for reading.

  88. many espouse “killing all the lawyers”  but always excepting their OWN lawyers……

     

     

  89. Methinks those responsible for anti-Semitic words and actions perhaps do not realize that the Jewish persons of today ( to make an admittedly broad generalization) are no longer the same people as those in the 1930’s.

    jews everywhere there are any are well aware of the cancerous re-rise of the “blame the Jews” movement in America.
    And Bannon’s tribe have invited the sun to shine full upon themselves.
    Sol invictus

  90. I think Pussy Grabber’s Plan is to deport all American Jews to colonies on the west bank

    I guess he will tell Ivanka and Jared that they are the new permanent ambassadors to Israel

  91. pogo, but they weren’t all so abruptly replaced.  this from politico:

    President Bill Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno, asked for resignations in March 1993, but allowed U.S. attorneys to stay in place until their replacements could be confirmed.

  92. Been away trying to get some graphics done for Easter. It is nice to have an outlet during these WTHIGOH times LOL! Just had to order a new mouse from Amazon last night cause I killed my mouse. I so need to get a graphics tablet because it’s much more difficult to create or manipulate graphics with a mouse 🙁

    Love the music nostalgia. Another nice break from insanitrump! American Pie brings back fond memories of car trips with my boys. It was one of our favorite singing in the car songs. We had quite a repertoire, everything from Three Dog Night, Beatles, Beach Boys, John Denver, plus some oldies. And Pat we even did some of the old “silly songs” that you mentioned. Do people do singing in the car anymore?

     

  94. Carol Kaye…..bassist on many of the songs mentioned here and there

    it’s worth the watch…..

  95. Pogo – I like the site.  I use Billboard to build playlists. Now I can build better playlists.

    I like to put 1964 t0 1974 as the greatest pop music era.  Much experimentation by groups and mixing of styles.  Individuals and groups might have a country song on an album of rock, or a folk song mixed in.

    One of my A/V receivers failed, it was from around 2010 and in use daily.  I went shopping and came home with a Onkyo tx-nr656.  The surprise was a phono in jack.  My turntable for the room is hooked up to a nice preamp with a USB line out for attaching to a computer to record so for most of the time I do not need the phono in, but some time I will try it out.  The sales people said more a/v receivers are putting the phono jack back on the units.

     

  97. BB, I have a Sony 5+1 receiver with phono jacks. I intensely dislike the ‘tone’ related controls on the front panel that are difficult to null out. I want a completely flat sound, with compensation for the phono input per the RIAA curve, that allows my superb speakers to reproduce the sound as recorded.

    My primary (front) speakers are AR3a’s that I purchased back in the early 70s. I refoam the cones (myself) periodically to keep them properly suspended. The rears are AR4ax’s of the same vintage. The sub-woofer is a 15″ Cerwin-Vega that I’ve only had for about a dozen years.

  98. Flatus – my primary speakers are Sansui SP-200’s, sub woofer is a Sony something.  I like to listen to most music in the direct stereo mode, unless it is a mono recording, for those I use a mono cartridge (78’s) or a head wired to be mono (33 1/3 mono).

    For size reference the bass is 1″ X 12″. These are nice, old timey, speakers. I do need to replace the caps some day.

     

  100. Jamie – if you have Netflix search on Greenwich Village: Music that defined a generation.  It is a fun look at folk music in the Village.  Netflix has a nice selection of music themed flicks.

    One that used to be in Netflix is a technical thing is titled I Dream of Wires.  Electronic music and the history of the Moog synthesizer.  Trailer.

  101. flatus & bbronc, what you gonna do with that equipment when you lose your hearing?  can’t imagine hearing aid compatibility with such hi-fi fallootin’ stuff.

  102. I’m back home.  Just catching up and you guys bring up a bad memory.  I got my driving license in 71 and my parents made me take my baby sister to a Donny Osmond concert.  I almost threw up.   The only way I got through it was by doing a doobie out in the parking lot when I told her I had to go to the bathroom.

  103. huffpo:

    Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and one of the most high profile federal prosecutors in the country said he had been fired Saturday after refusing to resign his post.

    [….]

    By Friday evening it was becoming less clear if Bharara would hand in his resignation letter. And on Saturday, both the New York Times and CNN reported that he had no intention of doing so. The move could force the Trump administration to publicly fire Bharara, who is charged with overseeing prosecutions against Wall Street and has brought down multiple high profile New York elected officials on corruption charges while in office. Bharara is also conducting an investigation into Fox News. And as New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman noted, a candidate to replace Bharara is Marc Mukasey, a lawyer for former Fox CEO Roger Ailes, who resigned last summer amidst a number of sexual assault allegations.

     

    Though it is within his power to dismiss Bharara, doing so at this juncture contains political peril for Trump, to the extent that it suggests he’s immunizing himself from potential investigations. The Southern District of New York ― Bharara’s jurisdiction ― includes Trump Towers, the home and office of Trump and the headquarters of his presidential campaign.

    [….]

    And while CNN reported on Saturday that Trump had agreed to keep Bharara at Schumer’s request, a person familiar with the call said that wasn’t true.

     

    “It was Trump who proposed keeping Preet to Schumer, not the other way around. Trump people are spinning that this is a result of the deteriorating relationship, but this was not a favor Schumer asked of Trump. Trump proposed it, Schumer endorsed and facilitated it,” the person said.

     

    A request for comment to the White House on who initially asked for Bharara to stay on board was not immediately returned, though Schumer’s office put out a statement shortly after the news broke on Friday expressed concern with the decision.

     

    “I’m troubled to learn of reports of requests for resignations from the remaining U.S. Attorneys, particularly that of Preet Bharara, after the President initiated a call to me in November and assured me he wanted Mr. Bharara to continue to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District,” Schumer said in a statement.

     

    This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

  104. A little more New York and cultural news:  We spend more (in 6 months) to keep Melania Trump in NYC than we do on all federal arts programming for a year.

  105. BB

    I’m starting to watch it now.  Did you ever see the film Inside Llewyn Davis loosely based on the life of Dave Von Ronk?

    Just realized I’ve been listening to Dylan since December of 1963.

  106. btw, remember that facetious name for the Obamacare replacement? well, someone has reserved/registered a domain name now called http://www.trumpdontcare.com  and I wonder if it belongs to one of us trail mixers or one of our lurkers and what delightful goodies will come from it.

  108. I guess if you sit in the right place and turn it up really loud, say eleven, maybe you don’t need a hearing aid…….

  111. “Yes, that means I do not care for Jimi Hendrix because my ear can’t comprehend it.”

    …tell your ear that Hendrix wasn’t playing guitar, he was singing through it.

  112. That bill has nothing to do with Trump.  Call it “How Republicans Get the Rest of Your Money Before You Die From Inadequate Care”.

  114. “The best and brightest results might come if and when Trump commits troops somewhere without a declaration of war. A disrespected president, especially among his own party’s lawmakers, might just give Congress the will to reclaim its voluntarily abandoned war powers.”-CC

    While you wrote that, they were being deployed.

  115. The US is now propping up dictators at the behest of other dictators while it transitions to its own brand of totalitarianism.  Fantastic!

     

    Fin.

     

  116. Jimi was a graduate of what was known as the Chitlin’ Circuit…….

    jimi and Wilson Pickett

     

  118. XR, I’d like to claim credit but I didn’t come up with trumpdontcare. Mighta bee patd, bink, KGC … with my CRS I don’t remember.

  119. Jimi paved the way for the couple generations of guitarists since. Between him and Clapton there’s not a lot new to be played.

  120. Sorry to post something that’s not on topic – but I just came across this and it’s so wonderful.

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