By SJWNY, a Trail Mix Contributor
Lately events have me thinking about a Special Comment Keith Olbermann gave in late October, 2010, just before the midterm elections. Remember then? The Tea Party had arisen & was fielding candidates.
Going back over Mr Olbermann’s (incredibly) prophetic words I couldn’t help but think how they apply today. The following is taken from “If the Tea Party Wins, America Loses” & appeared on Countdown. Read, heed, remember.
It is as if a group of moderately talented performers has walked on stage at a comedy club on Improv night. Each hears a shout from the audience, consisting of a bizarre but just barely plausible fear or hatred or neurosis or prejudice …
… And the instructions are not to improvise a comedy sketch, but to elect a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get, backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the ’30s, or backward to hanging union organizers, or backward to the Trusts and the Robber Barons …
… You are willing to let these people run this country? This is the America you want? This is the America you are willing to permit? These are the kind of cranks, menaces, mercenaries and authoritarians you will turn this country over to?
If you sit there next Tuesday and let this happen, whose fault will that be? Not really theirs. They are taught that freedom is to be seized and rationed. They can sleep at night having advanced themselves and their puppeteers and to hell with everybody else.
They see the greatness of America not in its people but in its corporations. They see the success of America not in hard work but in business swindles. They see the worthiness of America not in its quality of life but in its quality of investing. They see the future of America not in progress, but in revolution to establish a theocracy for white males, with dissent caged and individuality suppressed.
They see America not for what it is, nor what it can be. They see delusions, specters, fantasies; they see communists under every bed and a gun in every hand. They see tax breaks for the rich and delayed retirement for everyone else. They fight the redistribution of wealth not because they oppose redistribution, but because their sole purpose is to protect wealth and keep it where they think it belongs – in the bank accounts of the wealthy.
They want to make the world safe for Bernie Madoff. But you know better. If you sit there next Tuesday – if you sit there tomorrow, and the rest of this week – and you let this cataclysm unfold, you have enabled this.
It is one thing to be attacked by those who would destroy America from without. It is a worse thing to be attacked by those who would destroy America from within.
But it is the worst thing to sit back and let it happen, to not find the time and the means to convince just one other sane voter to put aside the disappointment of the last two years and look to the future and vote …
This is the week in which the Three Card Monte dealers hope to take over the government – the candidates who want their own way, who will say anything to make palatable their real identities as agents of regression, repression and corporate sovereignty. They are here, they have energized the self-serving and the greedy and the proudly ill-informed.
*********
Those words were written almost seven years ago.
Wow.
Wow. Indeed. Thanks SJ
and finally, someone serious voices nuclear code worries, my pet peeve for weeks…
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_599d1d09e4b0d97c3ffff602
I’m off to Southern Command now. Catch ya later.
SJ, Keith is definitely smarter than the average bear.
Have a safe drive, Mr Crawford. All the best to your father & Toby dog.
Really enjoying reading about the history of the people of Sunrise, WY on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SunriseMine/
Having missed another exhibition of a mentally challenged man-child, I still do not care. He needs help and a padded room.
I do know from reading the articles this morning that the man-child really is a nazi and kkk follower. I do think KO is close to the way it ends. I will look forward to hearing the federal, state and local charges that SFB faces.
Pogo,
Mr Olbermann is smarter than [ fill in anything here ]. He also writes with intelligence, passion & emotion. A singular talent. His Comment on Marriage Equality is simply beautiful.
He asked the pertinent questions & was not afraid in having the “smartest people in the room” as guests. He continues to respect his viewers’ intelligence with The Resistance, which draws more views weekly than the current Primetime on msnbc.
Watching MSNBC who thankfully just dipped in and out of the speech. Watching 45 in full huckster mode was nauseating. Watching the hypnotized swallow the swill whole was even more sickening. I would feel sorry for the deluded if they weren’t helping to destroy the country I love that this ignorant version of Elmer Gantry is taking down the drain.
sjwny, thanks for remembering ko’s prophecy. these lines are of particular importance:
If you sit there next Tuesday and let this happen, whose fault will that be? Not really theirs. They are taught that freedom is to be seized and rationed. They can sleep at night having advanced themselves and their puppeteers and to hell with everybody else.
[….]
It is one thing to be attacked by those who would destroy America from without. It is a worse thing to be attacked by those who would destroy America from within.
But it is the worst thing to sit back and let it happen, to not find the time and the means to convince just one other sane voter to put aside the disappointment of the last two years and look to the future and vote …
hope he’s just as spot on right this time…. a resignation in our future?
Published on Aug 22, 2017
When it ends, Trump’s presidency is going to end quicker than we think.
sooner than that I hope, keith.
Pure fun. You enter your job and it tells you what occupation would be the exact opposite in skills. For instance a writer/author is the opposite of Mobile Home Installer in skills required.
Memo to Craig: Don’t look for a job at the local RV dealer.
The Upshot
trevor is good on the secret service lack of funds first part of this, but the bulk of the vid is an informative interview with sen klobuchar and a funny bit on new afghan plan the last 3 minutes.
https://youtu.be/Yx9v_yusYb4
pogo, the final option they had on Afghanistan (due to its guns and god folk) was to make it a state and call it “very very west virginia”
patd,
“… just one other sane voter to put aside the disappointment of the last two years and look to the future and vote …”
Oh 2016, if only. We become more selfish & insular yearly despite the future bopping us over the head.
an in case you wondered story…
wapo: The strange story of that ‘Blacks for Trump’ guy standing behind POTUS at his Phoenix rally
At a number of political rallies over the year, a character calling himself “Michael the Black Man” has appeared in the crowd directly behind Donald Trump, impossible to miss and possibly planted.
He holds signs that scream “BLACKS FOR TRUMP” and wears a T-shirt proclaiming with equal conviction that “TRUMP & Republicans Are Not Racist.”
[…]
The presence of Michael — variously known as Michael Symonette, Maurice Woodside and Mikael Israel — has inspired not only trending Twitter hashtags but a great deal of curiosity and Google searches. Internet sleuths find the man’s bizarre URL, a easily accessible gateway to his strange and checkered past.
The radical fringe activist from Miami once belonged to a violent black supremacist religious cult, and he runs a handful of amateur, unintelligible conspiracy websites. He has called Barack Obama “The Beast” and Hillary Clinton a Ku Klux Klan member. Oprah Winfrey, he says, is the devil.
Most curiously, in the 1990s, he was charged, then acquitted, with conspiracy to commit two murders.
But Michael the Black Man loves President Trump. And President Trump’s campaign apparently loves him right back.
[….story continues….]
of importance also in wapo today: James Clapper questions Trump’s fitness, worries about his access to nuclear codes
James R. Clapper Jr., former national intelligence director, questioned President Trump’s fitness for office following his freewheeling speech in Phoenix on Tuesday night, which Clapper labeled “downright scary and disturbing.”
“I really question his ability to be — his fitness to be — in this office,” Clapper told CNN’s Don Lemon early Wednesday morning. “I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for it — maybe he is looking for a way out.”
[…story goes on from there…]
hope readers (especially those who have power to do something re impeachment) note that this comes from a man whose title contains the word “intelligence”
must repeat from above story on the clapper concerned about the twit having the code:
…such a statement about a president by a lifelong military and intelligence professional — who has served at the highest levels of government under Republicans and Democrats alike — is extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented.
wapo: Hillary Clinton calls Donald Trump a ‘creep,’ says her ‘skin crawled’ during debate
Hillary Clinton said her “skin crawled” as Donald Trump loomed behind her at a presidential debate in St. Louis, and added that she wished she could have pressed pause and asked America, “Well, what would you do?”
[….]
“This is not okay, I thought,” Clinton said, reading from her book. “It was the second presidential debate and Donald Trump was looming behind me. Two days before, the world heard him brag about groping woman. Now we were on a small stage and no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces.
“It was incredibly uncomfortable. He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled. It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, ‘Well, what would you do?’ Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say loudly and clearly, ‘Back up, you creep. Get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.’”
[….]
Trump’s actions during the debate were viewed as bullying even before the moment that Clinton recounted.
As The Post’s Sarah L. Kaufman wrote, Trump “paced and rocked and grimaced as [Clinton] spoke; he broke into her time by shouting over her. When she protested that she had not done the same to him, he shot back with all the finesse you’d hear in a middle school gym: ‘That’s ’cause you got nothin’ to say.’
“When it was his turn to speak, Trump got angry, pointed at her, swung his arms around with alarming force.”
His actions were widely mocked and criticized after the debate, and even featured in a “Saturday Night Live” skit that showed him zooming toward an unsuspecting Clinton.
“If a man did that to me on the street … I’d call 911,” political commentator and former Republican strategist Nicolle Wallace said, according to NBC News.
sj…. excellent post… thanks!
I did not watch last night. There’s only so much of SFB that I can take in any given week. But after reading around on the net… it appears that he is indeed coming unhinged. As Mueller gets closer and closer SFB must be feeling like a cornered rat…. good! I can’t stand Mike Pence…. but at least I don’t think he’s insane.
Pogo… keep having a great time!
You think a man who believes he can’t be alone with a woman not his wife is sane
Pencea-costal is nuts – he is a religious nut so many excuse that ..look what he did in Indiana –even they didn’t want him anymore
He’s one of the guys Keif is talking about
And really why isn’t more being said about Carl Icansteal what a creep and so typical of Trump appointees
Here’s another ugh…Ben Carson has his creepy son (not employed by the dept) hanging around looking for ways to scam money
And Betsy Devolved the worst
Pogo is on a dream trip to NYC that I will probably never get to take, so I thought a very old joke was sufficient revenge
A maintenance man passed away and found himself in hades. The devil looked over his dossier and said, “I don’t know why you’re here, but since you are, let’s get started with the eternal torment.”
The maintenance man chimed in and said, “You know, I couldn’t help but notice everything in here is a shambles. Half the burners are broken, everything is filthy, most of the torture equipment is broken…”
“And you can fix all this?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
A few weeks later, God calls down to the Devil and asks how things are going.
“Fantastic! Everything is running great since we got that maintenance man down here!”
“Whoa! You’re not supposed to get a maintenance man. All the maintenance men are supposed to come up here! Send him up right now!”
“No way! He’s here and I’m keeping him”
God says, “Send him up or I’ll sue!”
The devil scoffs and says, “Where are YOU going to find a lawyer?”
Cracker Barrel pit stop at GA/FL linre
Excellent reminder SJ. We’ve been warned time and time again. Is it that we aren’t paying attention or we don’t know what to do?
Craig, when Kumcho and I would stop at the Cracker Barrel while on our way to visit my parents on Sanibel we’d order a breakfast such as yours along with an extra plate. One of those meals was more than enough for the two of us.
I wonder if Pence is staying at Trump’s side to help protect us from his cracking the cookies; if necessary, to pull the 25th amendment from his jacket pocket, declare the president ‘ill,’ and then order the individual carrying the suitcase to leave the room. If that’s the case, we’ll need rethink his role in history.
We have a good friend that’s a retired truck driver (very liberal.. enthusiastically voted for Hillary). He constantly talks about how much he loves Cracker Barrel. Last month he and his wife picked Rick and I up and brought us to a CB just outside of Manchester. We both thought it was a lot of food…. but not very good food… and certainly not worth the more than an hour’s drive to get there. We did enjoy socializing with them though. Maybe the ones in the south are much better.
Craig… I echo sj… enjoy your father and enjoy little Toby!
While in the service, I spent a lot of time on the road. I knew where the good mess halls were. As an example, the best one in Seoul was in small Quonset hut at VUNC (Voice of United Nations Command.) The worst one was in the 7th Inf Div division artillery area. It was an ugly damned place with cooks that didn’t care. Rain water dripped on our food as we walked the line because of the leaky roof. And then there were cooks that could and would make C-rations look and taste good. Cracker Barrels are the same way.
Daniel m kammen
huffpo about above letter:
A science envoy for the Department of State sent a resignation letter to President Donald Trump on Wednesday with a not-so-subtle secret message: “IMPEACH.”
Daniel Kammen, a professor of energy at the University of California, Berkeley, told Trump in a letter dated Wednesday that his decision to quit his State Department post is “in response to your attacks on core values of the United States.” As one example, he cited Trump’s reaction to the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, calling the response “consistent with a broader pattern of behavior that enables sexism and racism.”
But it’s Kammen’s acrostic — the first letter of each paragraph spelling out a word — that sends a blunter message to Trump: IMPEACH.
[…pic of letter and tweets….]
Spokespeople for the White House and the State Department could not immediately be reached for comment, nor could Kammen.
He noted in his letter that he has served the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the State Department in a number of roles since 1996. The Science Envoy program , which he was a member of, brings together U.S. scientists and engineers to “identify opportunities for sustained international cooperation.”
Kammen also wrote in his letter that Trump’s “actions to date have, sadly, harmed the quality of life in the United States, our standing abroad, and the sustainability of the planet.”
nytimes via msn:
McConnell, in Private, Doubts if Trump Can Save Presidency
[….]
In offhand remarks, Mr. McConnell has expressed a sense of bewilderment about where Mr. Trump’s presidency may be headed, and has mused about whether Mr. Trump will be in a position to lead the Republican Party into next year’s elections and beyond, according to people who have spoken to him directly.
While maintaining a pose of public reserve, Mr. McConnell expressed horror to advisers last week after Mr. Trump’s comments equating white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., with protesters who rallied against them. Mr. Trump’s most explosive remarks came at a news conference in Manhattan, where he stood beside Ms. Chao. (Ms. Chao, deflecting a question about the tensions between her husband and the president she serves, told reporters, “I stand by my man — both of them.”)
Mr. McConnell signaled to business leaders that he was deeply uncomfortable with Mr. Trump’s comments: Several who resigned advisory roles in the Trump administration contacted Mr. McConnell’s office after the fact, and were told that Mr. McConnell fully understood their choices, three people briefed on the conversations said.
Mr. Trump has also continued to badger and threaten Mr. McConnell’s Senate colleagues, including Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, whose Republican primary challenger was praised by Mr. Trump last week.
Mr. Trump was set to hold a campaign rally on Tuesday night in Phoenix, and Republicans feared he would use the event to savage Mr. Flake again.
If he does, senior Republican officials said the party’s senators would stand up for their colleague. A Republican “super PAC” aligned with Mr. McConnell released a web ad on Tuesday assailing Mr. Flake’s Republican rival, Kelli Ward, as a fringe-dwelling conspiracy theorist.
“When it comes to the Senate, there’s an Article 5 understanding: An attack against one is an attack against all,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who has found himself in Mr. Trump’s sights many times, invoking the NATO alliance’s mutual defense doctrine.
[….]
Others in the party divide blame between Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell. Al Hoffman, a former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee who has been supportive of Mr. McConnell, said Mr. McConnell was culpable because he has failed to deliver legislative victories. “Ultimately, it’s been Mitch’s responsibility, and I don’t think he’s done much,” Mr. Hoffman said.
But Mr. Hoffman predicted that Mr. McConnell would likely outlast the president.
“I think he’s going to blow up, self-implode,” Mr. Hoffman said of Mr. Trump. “I wouldn’t be surprised if McConnell pulls back his support of Trump and tries to go it alone.”
[….story continues….]
here’s that ad described above in the line “ Republican “super PAC” aligned with Mr. McConnell released a web ad on Tuesday assailing Mr. Flake’s Republican rival, Kelli Ward, as a fringe-dwelling conspiracy theorist.”
A great resignation letter. Sad, though.
Jamie, I didn’t get the joke. ?
Lawyers don’t believe in heaven- can’t see it, and even if it exists no way for lawyers to verify that since they wouldn’t be allowed.
Haven’t eaten at Cracker Barrel since LP was about 10 – and that’s 10 years ago. I’ve got to admit I like pancakes and the cute little maple syrup bottles, but mine are better.
Crackle Barrel was big road doin’s with me little girl…..when I went to rescue her from LSU in Baton Rouge we loaded up and she says as we pull out…..could……
long pause, I say Crackle Barrel?
she gives me that dottir look and says yeah and the world was right.
We was on the road a lot when she was a baby…….as a petulant type teenager she might at times complain, why didn’t we just stay on the road? You know like as if she actually remembered it……
She only remembered the Crackle Barrel.
Does SFB understand the difference between his daily word spews? I do not think he does. He may have mental issues so severe that no one will ever get him to recognize reality. The world we live in and experience. Most of the his world is obviously only in his head.
She’s gettin married in the Catskills to a guy who could not be more betterer and I’m going to sit in with the band. It’s a long way from the nearest Crackle Barrel……..but the 3 of us might hit one on the way up.
She’s flying down we’re driving back……our last crackle barrel before she’s not our little Boosie any more.
Of course, if a young woman is like, 33 yrs old and is gainfully employed with Forbes, the Boosie phase might have long passed..,,,,
You couldna axed for a greater Boosie……and she’s stone liberal…..I didn’t teach her what to think…….but I helped a lot with HOW to think.
I took a developmental psych course in college and it came in handy but the main thing I taught her was that it was possible to think your way thru the headache part of thinking……like if you’ve memorized what one and one is and someone says what’s one plus 3……you might be tempted to throw a tantrum rather than think about it……..but if you’re led thru the process you can see that your brain can work it out……
Sturg – Blessings to your dottir on her impending nuptials.
Dat’s de way i look at it
Have you told er that you’re charging scale for playing in the band?
I mentioned it and she gave me that dottir look
Wait until she has daughters. It changes to, “Oh, Grandpa…” It’s simply no contest; which is the way it should be
The great grand daughters are intimidated by their moms who don’t want the kids muscling in on their territory.
This one first.
Then I call up her and her friend and her cousin and they help me with this one……..
Boosie on her own land.
Sturgeon
You daughter is lovely and she looks like a happy person.
So what’s with the coffee cups — did someone make them?
I bought 108 coffee cups..at goodwill…..and made a cabinet for them………
But I swear I don’t remember posting a picture of the cups……Christ…….damn cups drove me crazy…….
They had to be perfect or they met their maker………The Other Don’t accept no trash…..
Is there a special meaning to it or just a great wedding gift
I wish someone would give us 108 mugs at the rate we break them it would be perfect
They are having a coffee station and the 108 cups are going to be in the cabinet I made for them and I can’t much imagine that 108 people are going to be drinking coffee, but if they fucking DO……..they got cups.
Mine not to reason why
They don’t call this the low country for nothing, by golly……
You know, it’s always been so…….you got the low country and then you got the rest of South Carolina…..it was those fools upstate caused the great conflagration which sent 500,000 souls to the dead world.
Check it out……
Trey howdy……upstate
Strom Thurmond………upstate
Lindsay……..Upstate
Mark Sanford……come from upstate
Olin D Johnson…..upstate
Only one worth schnozzola was Fritz Hollings,,, from the low country.
Oh…… And L Mendel Rivers.
I can almost guarantee that every serviceman of a certain age is familiar with the name L Mendel Rivers……..from the low country.
We don’t have that many coffee cups but we do have more than will fit in the cupboard. A few are in the pickup , more with week old coffee are out in the shop. When we start to run out of them I round them up and stick them in the dish washer(pronounced “dish warsher, strong on the R )
Jack
It is an interesting world, stuff that was beyond the ability or pocket book of an ordinary person is available for a little dab of nothing. While it does help if you have a member of “the bad poets society”(me) and a marketing genius(Mrs Jack), the animation and construction of this video was dirt cheap. It’s the gig economy, what was $1000 or more is pocket change.
BTW Fund raising starts the 25th.
Also, this is the first draft.
https://youtu.be/dwNGJ1CEKyA
safely here at Southern Command since 3pm, then off to Publix with Dad (love their free coffee). A swim, played squeak ball with Toby all day and right now we’re having a blast chasing night critters (she scares the hell out of racoons). Tomorrow a full day at VA with Dad for routine checkups. Love that place, not a dull creature there. Next week he gets skin cancers removed.
Will be here 3 weeks. David flying down at tail end, then we drive to cousin Carolyn in Charleston and then to her “other” in Wilmington before heading back to DC.
Keep those contributor posts coming. Thanks. Obviously I’m a bit distracted.
the genius of Cracker Barrel on a tight schedule road trip? You can get a semi genuine country breakfast in 30 minutes or less (only about 10 minutes more than a McDonald’s Styrofoam breakfast when as usual they didn’t make enough of their ridiculous hash brown “cookies”). Trouble is it made me so sleepy I had to stop in St. Augustine for a drive thru venti, that cost 20 minutes.
Me and Toby just closed the porch door, agreeing to let night critters be, but they got the message.
Congrats to you and yours, Sturge; nice work, Jack.
Do we need to check with Enchanted Chocolates?
Congratulations Sturgeone. One consolation, the Boosie phase never ceases between a daughter and a well loved dad. Enjoy the celebrations and all the best to you and the family.
Whiskey Jack
Great video. Blogspot URL doesn’t seem to work. Hope the video generates scads of dollars. Idea: If you need books and supplies, can also put up a “wish list” on Amazon where people can go to buy the items for you.
Found it. There is only one “C” in the URL Address
http://mcoyfriendsyamigos.blogspot.com/
sturge, sing this at the wedding reception…. but maybe after a few or more toasts have toasted everybody