Steve Mnuchin is an Imbecile

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says in a new interview that it is "very hard" to avoid cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans when engineering tax cuts for the middle class.

In a Politico podcast released Wednesday, Mnuchin said avoiding a tax cut for wealthy Americans was impossible, due to how much the rich pay in taxes.

“The top 20 percent of the people pay 95 percent of the taxes. The top 10 percent of the people pay 81 percent of the taxes,” Mnuchin told Politico. “So when you’re cutting taxes across the board, it’s very hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy with tax cuts to the middle class.

Then don't cut taxes "across the board", you syphilitic git.

The only two reasons to propose an across-the-board tax cut is because he's either a lazy and stupid fool or because cutting taxes to the rich is the whole point of the game.

But that's the entire point of the Trump Oligarchy: To shift the costs of government onto those least able to pay. And to preserve the dynastic transfer of wealth via the Lucky Sperm Lotto.

Trump to Soldier's Family: "Your Husband, Whatzizname, Knew the Job Was Dangerous When He Took It."

The mother of a soldier killed in an ambush in Niger said Wednesday that President* Trump disrespected her family during a call with the man’s widow by saying the soldier “knew what he signed up for.”

President Trump denied he said those words to Sgt. La David T. Johnson’s wife during a Tuesday phone call and escalated his dispute with Representative Frederica Wilson, Democrat of Florida, who first described the exchange on Tuesday.

Speaking before a meeting with members of the Senate Finance Committee, Mr. Trump said, “I had a very nice conversation with the woman, with the wife, who sounded like a wonderful woman.” He also asserted, “I didn’t say what that congresswoman said. Didn’t say it at all, she knows it.”

Yet when asked about Ms. Wilson’s account of the call on Wednesday, Mr. Johnson’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, backed the congresswoman’s version. “Yes, he did state that comment,” Ms. Jones-Johnson said.
...
Ms. Wilson said that during the call, the president told Ms. Johnson “something to the fact that he knew what he was getting into when he signed up,” the congresswoman said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday.

“But that’s not the worst part,” Ms. Wilson said. “She was crying the whole time and when she hung up the phone she looked at me and said ‘he didn’t even remember his name.’ That’s the hurting part.”

Trump is such a narcissistic sociopath that he can't even fake caring about another person. To believe Trump's version of events, you'd have to believe that Trump isn't a liar. And since the evidence is massive that Trump only tells the truth on days that don't end in the letter "y", then it's a safe bet that he's lying about this, as well.

Languages

A phrase in one language can associate differently in another.

For instance, in French, "ma petitie aime" means "my girlfriend"

In American English:

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

While normally I'd have something to say about Trump's appointee to the FCC subtly lecturing Trump about the First Amendment, the fact of the matter is that I'm not up to it at the moment.

Be kind to one another.

I'll be back.

"As G-d is My Witness...."

To some it’s an Ozark Mountain Mardi Gras that includes live turkeys being dropped from a low-flying plane to an eager crowd below. To others, it’s just animal abuse.

The 72nd Yellville Turkey Trot opened Friday with questions over whether the turkey drop portion would continue. The Chamber of Commerce for the small northern Arkansas city has distanced itself from the tradition it once endorsed and is hoping a “phantom pilot” won’t fly over this weekend. But that hasn’t stopped thousands of people from emailing the chamber about doing more to protect the birds.

But you know, of course, it was going to happen.

The Federal Aviation Administration says it will check to see whether any laws or regulations were broken when a low-flying pilot dropped live turkeys onto an Arkansas festival over the weekend.
...
The FAA said Monday it was aware of Saturday’s drop. The agency hasn’t intervened in past years because the birds aren’t considered projectiles.

In case you didn't get the title reference.

Murder Will Out

Heather Coggins was 6 years old when her Uncle Tim was killed in what police say was a vicious, racially motivated murder in the tiny hamlet of Sunny Side, Georgia.
...
On Friday, authorities arrested five people -- two of them law enforcement officers charged with obstruction -- in Timothy Coggins' death, closing the cold case almost 34 years to the day after he was "brutally murdered and his body abandoned," Spalding County Sheriff Darrell Dix said.

Bravo.

I'm old enough to remember the days when cops in much of Dixie would not have regarded that as much of a crime and, if they had, the juries would not convict.

It's good to see that things change in that regard.

No Doubt That John Gotti Felt the Same Way When He Was Investigated.

Trump said that he wants the Russia probe to end.

Well, no fucking shit.

Trump Lies Stupidly

President* Trump on Monday claimed former President Obama and other past presidents didn't call the families of fallen soldiers.

Trump made the remark after being asked about the four U.S. soldiers killed in Niger last week.

That is such a stupid thing to lie about, and one that can be so easily called out.

George W. Bush, in particular, spent a lot of time visiting the wounded. As far as I know, Bush was smart enough not to offer congratulations to a soldier to whom he had awarded the Purple Heart.

Unlike Donald Trump, Boor-in-Chief.

Blade Runner 2049

I saw it this afternoon.

It could have been a good movie, if they had not let their taste for designing sets that are as subtle as using a 16lb maul to drive nails. A lot of doctoring could have easily cut 30 to 45 minutes from the movie without harming a hair on the story line.

For the sound alone, somebody should never work again. The sound levels went from "conversational" to "permanent ear damage". I keep a set of corded earplugs in my purse; I was popping them in and out all during the movie.

If you are going to see this one, I suggest that you see it in a manner where you have access to a fast-forward button.

Riot Act; Reading

To everyone involved in the comment kerfuffle in the "Casual Ignorance of Trump" post:

I was not able to pay attention to things for about 24 hours. In that time, things got out of hand.

If you were one of the players in that fight, if you haven't received and email from me and you'd like to, then scroll down to the bottom right, grab my email and send one.

This is not a blog where I scrub comments based on ideology. With a few limited exceptions, everyone is welcome to comment. I don't moderate comments.

However, I insist that everyone who comments treat everyone else who comments with respect for others as people. Treat people as adults. In other words, follow the Jewish version of the Golden Rule: Do not do unto others that which is hateful to yourself.

Play nice here, people. If you don't want to abide by that, then either feel free to go to your echo-chamber of choice or I will go to full moderation to control those who cannot control themselves. In short, it's up to you which way it goes.

EMB.

Your Sunday Morning Whatever Noise

Oddities on the Mach Loop.

Caturday

"Ma, again with the camera?"

For a Change of Pace

The Casual Ignorance of Donald Trump

Neither Trump nor his Energy Secretary (Rick "I look smarter with glasses" Perry) know that the U.S. Virgin Islands are American territory.

One has to wonder how far into the pools of ignorance Trump has to take the government before the Republicans realize that they are being indelibly stained by Trump as The Party of Stupid.

White Privilege; Terrorist Edition

Some asswipe tried to walk into the airport in Asheville, NC with an ANFO nail bomb. He dropped the bag and fled, but was caught later.

So, why didn't you read about an attempted terrorist attack on an American airport, you wonder?

This is the asswipe:

You can make your own supposition as to why this story hasn't blown up on places like Fox News, not to mention the rest of the news media.

Because It's Friday

Note that the Johnson Bar isn't all the way forward.

"Assumes Facts Not in Evidence"-- Trump Ed

One of Trump's oldest friends, Thomas J. Barrack, Jr., has been dismayed by what Trump has been doing:

Barrack, in interviews with The Washington Post, said he has been “shocked” and “stunned” by some of the president’s rhetoric and inflammatory tweets. He disagrees with some of Trump’s proposals, including his efforts to ban immigrants from certain Muslim countries and his push for a border wall with Mexico. He wonders why his longtime friend spends so much of his time appealing to the fringes of American politics.

“He thinks he has to be loyal to his base,” Barrack said. “I keep on saying, ‘But who is your base? You don’t have a natural base. Your base now is the world and America, so you have all these constituencies; show them who you really are.’ In my opinion, he’s better than this.”

I don't see any evidence to support that. Trump has been pandering to his Nazi base all along. He's also going full-on racist in that he's threatening to cut off help to Puerto Rico, but he's made no such threats to Texas or Florida.

Trump's been presidenting like a spoiled toddler. His operating principle has been to find everything that his predecessor was for and then reflexively go the other way, without a bit of thought or consideration as to the merits.

It's at the point, now, that if Obama had set up a task force to crack down on child prostitution, Trump would sign an executive order making prostitution mandatory for middle-school students.

White House IQ Testing

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In an I.Q.-test tournament devised by Donald Trump to determine the smartest person in his Administration, Trump suffered a humiliating defeat on Tuesday, getting knocked out in the first round by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
...
Trump’s son Eric did not participate in the tournament. “That would have been cruel,” the source said.

A Quick Lesson in the Electoral System for Conservatives

Senators represent their states. Congressmen represent their districts. They do not represent your particular ideology.

An influential array of ultra-conservative leaders is calling on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to resign, calling him a “failure” who “has cost Republicans almost a year of victories.”

McConnell is sort of signaling that they can go fuck themselves.

What those imbeciles on the Right are ignoring is that McConnell spent many years sabotaging Obama's agenda and now the Democrats have turned the tables. The Batshit-Wingnuts want McConnell to scrap the tools that he used so effectively. Which McConnell won't do because he knows that the worm always turns. If he scraps the tools of obstruction, then the day will come when the Democrats have control and the GOP won't be able to do anything to slow things down.

Being able to slow shit down in the Senate is exactly what the Founders intended. The ultra-right isn't "conservative", they're fascists. They have no loyalty to the Constitution (which, by the way, is the one thing that sitting presidents, senators and congressmen are sworn to defend).

Just like the Old Toddler who is sitting in the Oval Office, who knows as much about the Constitution as your average long-eared equine draft animal.

Why Trump is Really Mad at the NFL

The teams have not staying at the Trump Dumps:Until recently, the Trump SoHo hotel served as a kind of luxe clubhouse for NBA teams visiting New York.

At least 12 teams — more than a third of the league — had stayed there since it opened in 2010. ... All but one of the 12 teams said they have stopped patronizing the Trump SoHo since Donald Trump launched his presidential bid in 2015, according to team officials. ... In all, The Post found that 17 teams from across the four major sports had stayed at Trump properties in recent years. Now, at least 16 are no longer customers.

Money talks.

Musings on Columbus Day

(Since today is the real Columbus Day)

First off, I'd like to make the point that, no matter how people bash Christopher Columbus, it is nonetheless true that if not for Columbus, it would have been somebody else to land in the Western Hemisphere and stay there.

The Vikings came early in the Eleventh Century and possibly Chinese Admiral Zheng did in the early Fifteenth. The Vikings did not have the technology for crossing the ocean in large numbers, nor did they have the weapons necessary to defeat a larger foe. The Chinese have not traditionally been maritime powers. But the Europeans were and had been for centuries.

By the end of the Fifteenth Century, the Europeans had far better and larger ships as well as better weaponry. If Columbus had not made the trek, others would have. There was knowledge of the rich fisheries in the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. Whether to set up fish-processing colonies or look for treasure, the Europeans were going to come to the Western Hemisphere.

The two hemispheres had been separate for thousands of years. The people in one hemisphere were immunologically unfamiliar with the diseases of the other. The Western people gave the Easterners syphilis. The Easterners gave the Westerners smallpox. The exchange was largely accidental, at least at first. The fatality rate in some areas, whether from smallpox or from the collateral effects depopulated much of the Western Hemisphere, with population reductions of 90% or more. The population that remained was not large enough to fight off the European invasions.

At least of large numbers of Europeans. Things might have been different in the local tribes had diligently wiped out the European settlements once the initial transport ships had sailed back to Europe. Once the Europeans had gained a foothold, the game was effectively over. For it would be a few more centuries before the "civilized world" rejected the right of conquest.[1] Back then, the rule was that if you could take land from another nation and hold it, it was yours. Some areas changed hands a lot.

So it could be argued that the Euros did unto the Native Peoples what they repeatedly did unto each other. To paraphrase Jack Vance in "The Grey Prince", control of a country or region derived from a war, no matter how remote in time, and control of that territory depended on the willingness of the authorities and the people to defend it by force. The moanings of those defeated were futile.
______________________________________________
[1] Kellogg-Briand Pact. Which is why many nations do not formally recognize Chinese control of Tibet or Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

Cal Fires

From an email from a relative who likely doesn't live terribly far from a regular reader/commentator of this blog:

You should see it around here, it looks like it’s snowing. We have ash falling and the air quality is incredibly bad. I’ve been having asthma attacks (have never had them before). Walking to work this morning (going in late) but wearing a mask. It’s a fucking mess.

I've come to the conclusion that no matter where you live, at one time or another, it sucks to be there.

"I'm So Smart!" -- Donald Trump

As you probably know, Trump tells people, over and over, that he's smart.

I have my doubts, but in this case, it's because Trump keeps claiming to be smart. Truly intelligent people don't go around telling everyone else how smart they are. Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk and Richard Feynman didn't go around telling people "you ought to listen to me because I'm smart." You don't hear Stephen Hawking saying "I'm the smartest guy you'll ever meet."

That's pretty much true in almost every field, from astrophysics to gunfighting: The best don't need to brag about it. Those that do brag about it, aren't.