By PatD, a Trail Mix Contributor
What with White house surprises springing forth daily, even two and three times daily, it’s hard to focus on what we should be focusing on — but, confusingly, which distractions are supposed to be distracting us from whatever it is that’s distractedly going on?
There is an art to doing distraction, a well-settled art at that. It has a lot to do with perception. Listen to a pro, distraction artist Apollo Robbins, explain in his presentation at TED the art of misdirection and learn how easy we can be misled and never know it.
More Posts by PatD
another distraction on another distraction
from wapo Jeff Sessions just got in more trouble — and now he’s put Trump in a box, too
Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s bad week just got worse. And while his new problems would appear to threaten his job, they also put President Trump in a box when it comes to his apparent desire to be rid of Sessions.
The Washington Post is reporting that Russia’s ambassador has said he and Sessions discussed the 2016 campaign during two meetings last year. That is contrary to multiple public comments made by Sessions in March, when he recused himself from oversight of the Russia investigation.
a french farce is a potted plant compared to this stuff. a real life mix of laurel & hardy, buster keaton popping out of wh doors and the keystone kops running into each other.
are we there yet?
Republican Leadership intentionally did everything it could to obstruct a legitimately elected Democratic President, boiling down trust in government to a toxic goo. After 8+ years of this, how many citizens just don’t give a damn? Every day this administration holds on may be due as much to citizen fatigue as distractions.
Sjwny,
Re your 6:36AM.
Etch it in stone. Truer words may have never been spoken.
celebrate july 22nd
your choice:
national hammock day
or in keeping with what’s happening in d.c.
ratcatchers day
excerpts from bbc’s “Anthony Scaramucci: Who is the new White House communications director?”
Firstly, Anthony Scaramucci, 52, is a long-standing Trump supporter who has known the president for years.
A major Republican donor and founder of investment firm SkyBridge Capital, he served as an adviser on the presidential transition team.
Mr Scaramucci is currently a senior vice-president and chief strategy officer at the Export-Import Bank – the US government’s export credit agency.
[….]
Mr Scaramucci is nicknamed “The Mooch”, except by former President George W Bush, who reportedly calls him “Gucci Scaramucci”.
The well-groomed banker previously hosted a financial television show, Wall Street Week, on Fox Business.
He is the author of three books, entitled Hopping Over the Rabbit Hole: How Entrepreneurs Turn Failure Into Success; Goodbye Gordon Gekko: How to Find Your Fortune without Losing Your Soul; and The Little Book of Hedge Funds (Little Books. Big Profits).
[….]
In November 2016, when he was vice chair of the presidential inaugural committee, he told the BBC that Sir Elton John would be performing at Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The singer’s spokesperson called the claim “completely untrue”.
In the same interview, Mr Scaramucci said he was “a gay rights activist” who had donated financially to the pro-gay rights group American Unity PAC, and supported marriage equality.
In 2010 he told the New York Times: “I’m pro-gay marriage. Pro-choice. Against the death penalty. I have no problem if the government raises my taxes.”
Parliamentarian finds major discrepancies in GOP healthcare bill that require 60 votes not just 50
Byrd Rule Decisions
Daughter Alice, when traveling cross country, used to ask, “Are we here yet?”
My first thought when I heard last night about the Russian ambassador claiming that he and Sessions did discuss about SFB’s campaign was…. he’s saying that to help SFB. After all, I’m sure the Russians would love to have Sessions gone and his replacement fire Mueller. They don’t care how drumpf stays in power… they just want him to remain their puppet.
making tons of popcorn this morning….
Trump’s sole reason for a trip to London: To claim George III’s crown and scepter as war booty.
renee, that same thought crossed my mind.
flatus, his real desire is to ride in the queen’s golden coach. from the hill in april: President Trump has requested a ride with Queen Elizabeth II in a gold-plated carriage during his visit to the United Kingdom this October, according to a report by The Times of London.
hopefully, like Cinderella, midnight will turn it back to a pumpkin, his steeds will change to the rats they’ve always been and scurry away
Pat, I recall a response to that wish which, in its distilled essence, said “No way in Hell!!”
flatus & sturge, what do you think of what Lindsey said recently?
“To the people who object to this, I don’t want you to vote for me because I cannot serve you well,” he said in a Capitol Hill press conference July 20. He continued:
Creative post Pat. Not since Orson’s War of the Worlds has the public been so fooled.
pogo, he-who-thinks-he-knows-it-all hath spoken:
In tweet storm, Trump decries ‘illegal leaks’ and asserts ‘all agree’ he has complete power to pardon
case closed 🙂
Patd,
Lindsey is about to run afoul of republican right wing orthodoxy.
Those 11 million so called illegals will one day be able to vote. Can’t have that.
He’s finally acting on my mail:
I didn’t spend a career on active duty to screw over Dreamers and their parents who want nothing more than the peace of the American Dream.
boss, thanks for the kind words and for the editing.
President Trump has requested a ride with Queen Elizabeth II in a gold-plated carriage during his visit to the United Kingdom this October, according to a report by The Times of London.
To which I would reply, Bring your own damn carriage . Gutter snipes do not ride with the Queen!
‘Look at him, a prisoner of the gutter. Condemned by every syllable he utters’.
jace, ‘enry ‘iggins I presume?
Patd,
Yes, little did Henry know that he was describing Trump.
With every new tweet, Trump proves the dear professor right
Arnold sometimes makes sense… particularly here on the problems caused by gerrymandering
Former Obama spy chiefs upbraid Trump for his remarks about his intelligence agencies
My nickname for the new communications director is Pauli Gatto
“Mooch, the Mouth, Purveyor of Sadness”
So, Sessions perjured himself, eh? Our nation’s top cop lies under oath- fantastic.
You should be focusing on removing the puppet-government controlled by a hostile foreign state and that’s it.
You are talking about removing Pussy G from office, right?
Uh, him, all his cronies, all his family, all his friends, and every complicit Congressional Republican. How fucking dare anyone discuss policy with sincerity, honestly.
“Sessions perjured himself, eh?”
bink, under oath he denied discussing “interference” and, as is noted here according to reuters Sydney morning herald
The newspaper reported a former official said the intelligence indicated Mr Sessions and Mr Kislyak had “substantive” discussions on matters including Mr Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for US-Russia relations in a Trump administration.
The report stated that Mr Sessions did not discuss interference in the election.
why would kislyak talk so openly and in detail about this stuff knowing full well that his conversation was on a line routinely listened to by intel? he/they wanted this to be heard. so how much is credible and how much is this from the svr/fsb playbook?
do not confuse fsb (Russian f***ing slimy bastards) with sfb (sh*t for brains twit). one is an intelligence entity and the other….
is not
The offer was prime rib roast. SFB won by a few thousand votes across certain districts. He has given his cult nothing and instead over cooked the prime rib and ate it, his cult believing they ate it.
What to make of SFB and his administration? I have not completely decided if he actually plans anything, except how to screw America into paying for his play time. It is plain to see he hates being in D.C. and the WH. Although he is staying in the WH instead of hiding out somewhere else. It is also plain to see he is completely incompetent at all endevours. His hangers on are around him to be able to say there are with him. He also is only capable of superficial thinking on anything. One guess about his $12 “insurance” maybe from the Gerber baby insurance program which advertises on faux nooze. Which means he has no idea or even the concept of insurance (just like many other republicans).
The issue of him doing pardons as a preventative measure is short sighted. Say he pardons Flynn, who in turn opens his mouth to crash SFB because he faces no punishment and would like to fry SFB. Could happen.
The so called shake up of the WH comm group is a real nothing burger. The fool quit and should write his memoirs of 180 days in hell. The Mooch and whats her name make a good team. Garbage out, nothing in. SFB is the comm staff, the others are there as shiny objects for the WH press team. The big shake up will be when the Marshalls walk in and perp walk out the old shit.
Garrison Keillor column: The last of the pygmy mastodons
The big news last week was that giraffes and lions are approaching extinction because we humans are turning their habitat into farms and senior high-rises. I read the story and of course thought of the lion who killed a giraffe and brought the corpse back to the den and his wife said, “You can’t leave that lyin’ there,” and he said, “That’s not a lion, it’s a giraffe.”
The truth is that people who love jokes like that — joke jokes, not mere sarcasm, but the How Many Talking Dogs Walking Into a Bar Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb sort of joke — are facing extinction. Women wince at those jokes, men edge away, afraid the joker is an aluminum siding salesman. If you like jokes, you find yourself sitting at the children’s table at Sunday dinner. (What did the fish say when it hit the wall? Dam.)
Giraffes are dying out because they are a joke, an ungainly mythological-looking amalgamation of a horse and a stepladder.
God is not proud of the giraffe. In Scripture, He refers to horses, sheep, cattle, swine, snakes, camels, but nothing about this oddity. Isaiah did not write, “All we like giraffes have gone astray” — their problem isn’t a willful nature, it’s bad design.
[….]
Giraffes are gentle creatures who, scientists tell us, travel loosely in groups but without clear leadership, and communicate with each other by humming. In this respect, they resemble Congress, which itself faces extinction at the hands of a golden-haired pygmy mastodon, a species that was extinguished long ago but there is still one left. They are ungainly, communicate by twittering, have no sense of direction and no lack of self-confidence.
The giraffes are waiting for a lion to come along and de-mast the mastodon and meanwhile you have the buzzing and chirring of the media.
Mere insects, and yet hard-shelled and able to survive extreme heat and cold, and many are the mastodons whom the media have feasted on. The grasshopper who gets in the elephant’s ear and drives him mad so that he runs off the precipice. It’s a good story and it’s happening again.
Here we go again. Clinton: It depends on what the definition of is is. Sessions: it depends on what the definition of interference is.
.
Did I miss a posting … How did we get “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in the top picture field? Prepping for total eclipse of the sun next month?
Binge watching Will. It’s really forcing me to brush up on my Elizabethan history with Richard Burbage, Richard Topcliffe, Christopher Marlowe, and Robert Southwell. The writers are doing an excellent job of bringing the late 1500s back to life. Talk about saints and sinners.
“How did we get “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in the top picture field?” -Jamie
That’s actually a total eclipse of the sun, by a heart. It has been bothering me- glad you mentioned it.
Edit- actually, it’s only a partial eclipse
patd, I beg to differ. ?
The total eclipse thing-ee was the title of my Post. So glad it made a memorable impression 🙁
Patd, my previous post was differing with SFB’s assertion that everybody believes he has absolute power to pardon has expressed in your 10:34 AM post.
Jamie,
pogo, but to differ with the twit-in-chief is an unpardonable sin!
how darest you 🙂
Patd ftw