Happy Resistance Recess--meet my new BFF: Resistbot!
13 April 2017 update: in yet another desperate flail to distract from how close the tRump-Russia investigations are getting, tRump does another wag-the-dog attack
Hello again, friends--didja miss me?
And here I was, thinking today would be a slow n00z day what with Congress on yet another vacation, but n-o-o-o-o-o-o-o...
Today's biggest story is that, thanks to the Brits, US investigators have in hand specific "concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion" between tRump's campaign and Russia, per The Guardian: British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia.
That, dear ones, is the bombshell.
Predictably, this bombshell prompted a more literal bombshell...
It made tRump nervous enough to launch the second wag-the-dog attack this week by dropping the biggest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal on Afghanistan per The Guardian: Trump picks the biggest bomb on the menu.
You read that right, friends--the mother of all morons just dropped the mother of all bombs.
And then he flew to Barf-a-lago to play golf--again!--after awl that hawd wowk.
Of course, one could easily argue that tRump didn't really know what he was doing because he is old, low-energy, senile, confused...
Given his orgasmic product placement ad for Barf-a-Lago's shitty, stale, school-cafeteria "chocolate" cake--which tRump remembered better and spoke with more zeal about than which country he shot 59 Tomahawk missiles into--maybe he thot he was ordering not a bomb but a bombe...
Friends, the 59 Tomahawk missiles cost us, what a cool million a piece? Well, this juicy li'l Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bunker buster just cost us over $300 million...whoop, better get out yer checkbook again! So, lemme see...do I count it as a hundred times what tRump wants cut from Meals on Wheels, or do I count it as a hundred of his weekly vacations to Barf-a-Lago?
The MOAB bomb is YUGE.
It weighs over 22,000 lbs; the fury it unleashes is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT.
In other words, it's the kind of bomb that sends shockwaves for miles. Beyond the radius of bodies and buildings it incinerates extends the radius within which the bodies and buildings remain but are shattered. Beyond that, if you're lucky enough to survive getting knocked off your ass, you're left with bleeding eardrums and permanent deafness.
Yes, folks--this li'l beauty is just the thing to make you look preznidential (who gnu preznidenting was so complicated?)...not only that, but it will trim your silhouette and make your treason just disappear!
...Yeah, I don't think so.
Ready for a few more bombshells in the cluster
Here's one from Foreign Policy: Why Surveillance of Carter Page Is Such a Bombshell
...Why? Because Carter Page was under sufficient suspicion of acting as a foreign agent (to Russia) that the FBI was able to show enough probable cause to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil him.
Depending on what the FBI has on Page, they may just let him register retroactively as a foreign agent, like they did for Flynn (~8 March 2017) and Manafort ("considering" it as of 13 April 2017)...which tells me that the FBI has bigger fish to fry on/than them.
But wait--there's moar n00z!
***
On 11 April 2017, Stephen King won teh Internetz with this tweet: "With President Forrest Trump, every day is like a rancid box of chocolates. You never know what kind of shit you're going to get next."
Spicey Sphincter's "Assad is worse than Hitler because Hitler never gassed his own people" "gaffe" earned him a nice review article from The Guardian: A history of Sean Spicer's gaffes as White House press.
Honestly, who even needs SNL to write anything at this point?
***
It's official: EVERY Republican in the North Carolina legislature is GAY.
If this were not true, then they wouldn't be fighting marriage equality with such seething passion.
Of course, they wouldn't be fighting marriage equality either if they realized that, if you really think about what it means to build a second human out of the first one's rib, God really did make Adam and Steve, not Adam and Eve! (Get it? They have the same DNA...Adam is male with XY chromosomes in his DNA, so the clone that God made from his rib is also male with XY chromosomes in his DNA. QED.)
***
At least it isn't only gay people whom the North Carolina Republicans hate.
Turns out that they still hate teh blax.
Yup--Rep Larry Pittman compared President Abraham Lincoln to Hitler, calling him a tyrant.
They've never forgiven or forgotten the Civil War...and they have the nerve to tell us to get over the election, which was rigged by our adversary?!??
***
Per Allan Nairn speaking on today's Democracy Now!, tRump has already murdered over 1000 civilians in the Middle East.
***
Per RawStory, Anti-gay pastor who cheered Orlando nightclub massacre found guilty of sexually abusing minors.
Ah, yes--those good ol' fashioned Republican, Christian family values...
I'll bet tRump, who's been accused of raping a teenage girl himself, probably doesn't think that Pastor Kenneth Adkins did anything wrong, either.
***
The Bipartisan Report has this: FEC Blindsides Trump With Illegal Campaign Contribution Scandal
Per PoliticusUSA's article, Reeling Republicans Rocked As Evidence Surfaces That Trump Took Illegal Contributions, preznit ban'em was paid illegally with super-PAC money while leading tRump's campaign.
And you thot these people had no integrity!
***
From the "you can't make this shit up" department, four days after demanding to zero out PBS's funding, the tRumptards in the White House asked to have the Muppets entertain the kiddies for Easter.
They're going to need something--they were so disorganized and uncaring that they didn't even start ordering the Easter eggs for the traditional Easter Egg Roll until the last minute, meaning that they'll be lucky to get half of the eggs they should have for an expected attendance of, what, 4000+ kids.
The late shows had a field day taking cracks at the White House's disorganization and chaos that threaten to doom this year's Easter festivities for the first time since the tradition began in 1878.
***
Imma just leave these here...The Guardian: Trump's Mar-a-Lago club cited for serious food safety violations
...Now you know why I call it "Barf-a-Lago" now.
The Village Voice: Jared Kushner: Top White House Adviser and NYC Rat Lord
...As in, Jared Kushner's NYC building is rat-infested. No wonder Jared and Donnsie-wonsie get along so well.
The Guardian: Michigan doctor charged with carrying out female genital mutilation
...Christians routinely do male genital mutilation. It's called "circumcision," and they don't even bat an eyelash. And you wonder why I think religion is irrational and dangerous...!
The Guardian: Is business starting to get spooked about Donald Trump?
...As in, the stock market rose after orange twAtler got in, expecting immediate showers of...gold. But as the captains and the kings of industry see the chaos and flailing, they've learned that what tRump has to offer isn't bullish but bullshit. (Meh, they were only off by a "t.")
***
The people who rescued Brainless Ben Carson when he got stuck in the housing project elevator did not do him any favors. They should have let him get himself out by his own bootstraps instead of creating a culture of dependency.
***
Moar m00bies!
Flynn, Sessions, Kushner--they all LIED about their Russian contacts on their forms so they could illegally obtain security clearances!!! Who's to say they're not all Russian spies? I mean, if you want a clearance so badly that you're willing to LIE about all your Russian connections, then it stands to reason that your Russian connections are more important to you than your American ones. That tells me you're not above using your new position to feed those precious Russian connections all of our most sensitive information. Who am I to say that that isn't the reason you took the job?
Mailbag
(Thot I forgot, didn'cha?
Well, neener neener neener!)
Before I let you get on with the rest of your day, Imma put this petition here. It came between me and my sleep, I tells ya!
There’s a new development on Russia I want to make sure you’re aware of:
A Russian state-controlled oil company may be about to take over key
energy infrastructure in the U.S. Rosneft, which is run by cronies of
none other than Vladimir Putin, may acquire energy giant CITGO, which
operates 48 oil terminals, nine pipelines and three refineries within
the U.S., and has more than 6,000 franchise locations across the
country.
In light of Russia’s cyberattacks against America during the 2016
election, allowing a company with close ties to Putin to control major
components of America's energy infrastructure is a major national
security risk.
I have serious concerns about handing over key pieces of our energy
infrastructure to a company with such close ties to the Russian
government. It could lead to higher prices and gas shortages for
Americans, or even expose us to more grave national security threats.
That’s why I’m calling on the Treasury Secretary to closely monitor the
situation, and at a minimum, conduct a thorough national security
review before the acquisition takes place.
My best,
Dick Durbin
Hey, you made it all the way down here! Have some Samantha Bee as a treat!
Be good to yourselves and your loved ones, and have a wonderful weekend!
-- Dot Calm's shadow
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
11 April 2017 post: meet Resistbot!
Greetings, fellow Dot Calm Readers, Freedom Fighters, and Truth Crusaders!
Walp, today's gonna be a shortie pot pourri of this and that, so grab yourself some chocolate and a tasty beverage and let's get tuit.
First on the list is my new BFF and partner in crime for Resistance Recess: Resistbot.
Friends, this is why I follow George Takei on Twitter--he pointed me to a one-stop-source for everything I needed tor the Women's March, including the place to text after the march with our attendance so they could count us, and he pointed me to Resistbot.
So, what is Resistbot?
I'll answer that after I give you a hint:
text "Resist" to 50409
and find out for yourself...!
At least, that was what I did the minute I saw George Takei's tweet...George is SOOOO my hero that I'd kiss him on the lips if I ever got to meet him...!
So, what happens when you text "Resist" to Resistbot?
It takes your text message and FAXES or snail-mails it to your elected officials!
It will ask for your zip code to identify your Senators, and it will fax them with whatever you text it to. It will keep asking you if you have anything else to say so that, if you like, you can make each text into a paragraph and just keep adding until you have the letter you want to send.
The more messages you send, the more commands Resistbot "unlocks" for you. This is a lot of fun because it's like a new toy, and it teaches you each new command slowly instead of just dumping them all on your head from the get-go.
So, once you prepare your message to your Senators, Resistbot will ask if you'd like to give your full address so you can send it to your congress-critter, too.
Just plain "Send" sends your message to your Senators and congress-critter; "Senate" sends just to your Senators; "Senior" sends just to your senior Senator; "Junior" sends just to your junior Senator; and "House" sends just to your Representative.
Once you send a few such faxes, Resistbot "unlocks" the "postalmail" command--meaning that your text will be printed as hard copy, put into an envelope, stamped, and sent to whichever of your elected officials you want. It prompts for a signature, which you can give it easily if you have an iPhone running iOS 10. I used a stylus rather than my finger to do my signature--all those years of "gradual school" destroyed my already-wonky handwriting....
Friends, Dot Calm wouldn't have been able to keep her thumbs off Resistbot if she'd had it--she'd have been on it 24/7, faxing and mailing away at all hours. She was at her most creative after 2 a.m.; sadly, her MS often kept her awake that late and later. Man, she'd have had a field day with this.
Hell, I'm having a field day with this.
I only found out about it yesterday, and I've already sent over 30 faxes (and one postal mail) with it--and was rewarded with a "Congratulations" and shower of very fun confetti.
In fact, Resistbot offered to make my latest message into a letter to the editor. How cool is that?!??
Resistbot even asks for feedback. I've offered a few suggestions that would be wicked cool to have...bwuh huh huh huh!
My goal is to send so many Resistbot messages during Resistance Recess that my Senators' and congress-critter's fax machines all run out of paper.
What I love about sending faxes this way rather than e-mails is that faxes, unlike e-mails, can't be brushed off or ignored. A fax means paper coming out of the machine into the official's office, where it must be read and responded to. And the aides have to make sure to keep paper in the machines. Faxes mean more effort on our elected officials' parts, which means that they have to pay more attention to what we're sending them.
I think the whole thing is just brilliant.
So, what makes Resistbot tick?
It's run by a merry band of progressive Patriots who want more than anything to save our poor country from the cesspool the trumpanzees and trumptards have recklessly, fecklessly, and vengefully cast us into.
The Resistbot team needs donations for electricity, Internet service, paper, and postage--the Patriots are highly dedicated volunteers who don't ask a dime for what they do. All they want is to restore law, order, peace, and justice...oh, and a little accountability.
That and be as YUGE a thorn as possible in trump's double-wide ass.
My only complaint is that I don't want to put a credit card number into my cell phone to make a donation, and when I look up the Resistbot website, my Norton gives me a big "don't click through to that site" gray question mark. I told Resistbot all of this using the feedback command--I sure hope the Patriot volunteers give me a viable option to send them money soon! I can't wait!
You can follow and interact with Resistbot on Twitter at @botresist (hum, just looked that up and will have to add it to my feed).
Happy resisting, dear ones!
*****
*****
As Ellen DeGeneres says, "Flying United is a drag."
Like everyone else, I'm up in arms about United Airlines forcibly ejecting a paying passenger who'd already boarded the plane--which I hear is illegal--so they could "ship" their own employees instead of putting said employees on a later flight like normal, non-violent airlines do.
Part of the issue: the greedy practice of overbooking, which should be illegal.
The passenger in question who was beaten up and hauled, bloody and looking semiconscious at best, off the airplane was a 69-year-old medical doctor of Chinese descent.
He believes that he was chosen for ejection because he wasn't white. I agree--orange twAtler's seething hatred of all minorities has emboldened countless hateful hoards to do their worst.
Those brown-shirt bastards could have killed the poor man--a highly (and very expensively) trained professional and valuable member of society whose business is saving lives.
I hope the man sets up a GoFundMe page for initial legal expenses and sues the living shit out of United Airlines--and I hope he wins millions and millions of dollars and that, between the lawsuit and all the boycotts, chicken-shit United Airlines goes out of business.
I know I'll never "fly United" again--even if it means not taking a trip, paying more, or paying for work-related travel out of my own pocket.
But there is some good news:
1. At least United won't have to worry about overbookings any more
2. At least the daughters of the United employees being shipped around like cargo weren't wearing teh ebill leggings.
*****
Three Public Relations disasters in how many days?!
Stacy Spencer left this comment on FB God's page...
Pepsi: Oh no, this is a PR nightmare.
United Airlines: Hold my beer.
To which I add...
"Spicey" Sean Sphincter: Pfft--amateurs. Hold MY beer.
By now, you've heard that Sean Spicer accused Assad of being worse than Hitler, saying that at least Hitler never gassed his own innocent people.
Um, whiskey tango foxtrot?!??
I guess ol' sphincter-boi forgot that Zyklon B is gas...the gas that Hitler used to murder his own innocent people, who happened to be Jews, by the millions.
6 million.
But, hey, what would you expect from an administration that studiously refused to mention the holocaust on Holocaust Remembrance Day?
What I want to know is this: was this yet another tRump "I hire the best people" lump of raving, rancid incompetence, or was it a juicy piece of raw meat to throw to tRump's base of ignorant, misogynist, racist, bigoted, superstitious, holocaust-and-science-denying anti-Semites (aka the alt-right)?
Inquiring minds want to know!
*****
Seen on FB:
If tRump had wanted
to damage that airstrip,
he'd have bought it
and run it like one of his businesses!
*****
Excuse tRump while he wags...
If you've been following the blawg, you already know that PEWtin ordered Assad to gas several dozen of his own people so he could order tRump to make his wag-the-dog "attack" on the now-famous airstrip in Syria.
PEWtin did this to help tRump: to try to boost tRump's worst-in-living-memory 34% approval ratings and to create a pretense of tRump and PEWtin not being butt-buddies in a steamy bromance.
PEWtin is also helping himself, too, lest we forget--propping up Assad in Syria has become a financial albatross for PEWtin; he wants to get out without looking weak.
So...
Cue the gas...
Cue tRump telling PEWtin of the impending airstrikes so he could clear out and warn Assad...
Cue PEWtin and Assad clearing out before the airstrikes...
Cue tRump's wag-the-dog launch of 59 Tomahawk missiles that damaged nothing important--except for murdering a few "worthless" men, women, and children--and left the airfield ready for Assad to use the next day to bomb more of his own innocent people...
Cue PEWtin bombing the hospital where they took the survivors and cadavers so that no one could do an autopsy for gas...
Cue the pundits' orgasms of how "presidential" tRump is for bombing brown people in the Middle East...
Cue tRump helping himself by driving his own Raytheon stocks up (Raytheon makes the Tomahawk missiles, which cost $1 million each and must now be replaced--get out your checkbooks, America)...
Cue Rexxon and PEWtin pretending to have a spat and the tRump administration "ordering" their owner, PEWtin, to "choose" between allying with Assad and allying with the US...
Friends, this is nothing more than political kabuki theater. Don't be fooled, and don't be distracted from pestering your congress-critters from investigating tRump's and his administration's Russian connections, collusion, and TREASON and prosecuting to the maximum extent of the law.
...When Rexxon and PEWtin meet next, watch for PEWtin to pretend he's sorry to have to dump dead-weight Assad like the lead balloon he is.
What a down-the-rabbit-hole situation we're in, friends...
tRump is throwing PEWtin into dat briar patch, but tRump is too clueless to realize that, by bombing Syria and having sphincter-boi promise more attacks, he's just punched de tar baby.
I fear that this whole steaming hot mess is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. And I fear that innocent Americans will be sent to die for tRump's approval ratings and PEWtin's wallet.
One thing I know for sure: nobody with half a working neuron between his or her ears buys Ivanka's crocodile tears "for the babies." The only "babies" Republicans care about are the ones in utero that haven't been born yet...the rest can go to hell.
*****
Tulsi Gabbard must resign NOW
for endorsing Assad!!!!!
for endorsing Assad!!!!!
*****
Moar war
So. tRump is rattling his saber at North Korea and China.
Kim Jong-un is only slightly less crazy and volatile than tRump.
What could possibly go wrong?
*****
Good thing this week's
San Bernardino shooter
had his gun...
He was mentally unstable, after all...
Exactly the demographic
the NRA wants to have guns!
the NRA wants to have guns!
*****
tRump isn't indifferent to global warming--he embraces it.
He WANTS it...the sooner, the moar, the better.
What could possibly go wrong?
*****
Just two headlines for y'all today...
From BuzzFeed
Meet Mango, The Adorable Pomeranian Who Will Just Melt Your Heart
...Friends, I hadta share this sweet li'l tidbit after all the bullshit, bad news, lies, violence, and murder. Here's a sneak preview...or should I say "here's a SQUEE preview"?
From Democracy Now!
|
*****
M00bies!
So brilliant...so yummy...!
Damn, son--this man is teh FUNNEH!!!!!
Watching these SNL vids is like eating potato chips...
Something else to take you out of yourself after all this shit news...and, yes, they are a cappella
*****
Don't forget NOT to share
this image PEWtin hates
this image PEWtin hates
...or this one orange twAtler hates
...Yikes!
That's so disgusting
it'll come between
me and my dreams tonight!
Blerch!!
*****
And don't forget to check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website so you can protect your online privacy:
https://www.eff.org/
...and don't forget to read Dot Calm's shadow's favorite independent sources of news and information:
Michael Moore's FB page -- go here first and do whatever activism he suggests
Daily Kos
AlterNet
Democracy Now!
Democratic Underground
Boing Boing
Vox
Conservatives are Destroying our Future
Conservative Clown Car
God, the Good Lord Above
...skip the media outlets in the boycott list unless you want trump propaganda. And TELL their advertisers WHY you are boycotting those media outlets!
On the lighter side:
McSweeney's Internet Tendency
And check out these great channels:
Randi Rhodes Air Force
Keith Olbermann: The Resistance
Thom Hartmann
Late Night with Seth Meyers
LastWeekTonight
Secular Talk
The Young Turks
The Thinking Atheist
MisterDeity
NonStampCollector
Also, don't forget to add these to your Twitter feed if you haven't already:
@joyannreid
@georgetakei
Peas, friends. Take care of yourselves for me. Trust me--you're worth it! And go have a Fireball and some chocolate while you still can, will ya? Time is short now that the mouth of
- Dot Calm's shadow
Consider the preemptive Blogger phuqued-up phormatting disclaimer to be in effect. Grrr.
-- Dot Calm's shadow
posted by Dot Calm @ 10:07 PM
