"Frozen Pluto has wind-blown dunes made of methane sand." (Grokked from John)
"Comedian Samantha Bee has apologized for a vulgar epithet she used to describe the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, saying she 'crossed a line' earlier this week on an episode of her TBS show." Please don't try and tell me you think calling the president's daughter a cunt while pointing out her public hypocrisy when it comes to her personal convictions and her either unwillingness or inability to confront her father for exhibiting the worst behaviors that are counter to those convictions is equal to Roseanne's racial attack on Valerie Jarrett. First I will counter on the difference between punching up and punching down. Should Samantha Bee have used "cunt"? No. But misogynistic vile swill is slightly less objectionable than racist and misogynistic vile swill, punching up (politically) is Samantha Bee's whole show where as Roseanne Barr's comment was in a personal context and unnecessary against someone who has little sway, and Disney is a very different company (and brand) than TBS. Also, as I pointed out on Twitter, Roseanne's second episode drew 25 million viewers, that was down to 15 million in the middle of May, and was just 10 million at the end of May. Ten million is decent numbers for the time slot on broadcast TV, but overall not for a new show (most of the competition was in reruns). And losing roughly 5 million viewers a week is not a good trajectory.
"Wushu has got to be the most dangerous team sport in the world." Uh, yeah. (Grokked from Dan)
Poor Michael Cohen, so much pressure for just being the president's lawyer. Yeah, that's complete bullshit. "For the first time, audio recordings of Cohen's legal threats, from a 2015 Daily Beast interview, are being published." Cohen is one of those people who finally did what they do to exactly the wrong person. Sure, Avenatti is playing it for all he can (while making his own star in the legal field) and could fumble it, but that won't help Cohen and his legal troubles. And no, I don't believe the spin that Cohen is only doing the pressure thing because Trump is making him. He's a smart guy. He could have left. He's doing it because he can and he's getting a lot (comparative term) of money to be that way. Well, don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Cohen (and most of Trump's circle as well as Trump himself) thought they could do this the old fashioned way, out of the spotlight. Well, Bucko, welcome to the big league. And about the loyalty question, dudes, seriously, there is no loyalty amongst thieves.
"Migrants who enter the U.S. illegally shouldn’t be surprised by recent reports of children being separated from their parents at the border — they should expect it, a top immigration official said Thursday." Jack-Booted thug is well-spoken and sounds reasonable, all while remaining a jack-booted thug. We have this picture in our head of authoritarians screaming at people which comes from our WWII propaganda and Hitler's speeches (well, and to all accounts Hitler had an explosive temper). Most authoritarians are calm and sound reasonable. They wear suits and dresses, have board room meetings, office lunches, drinks over dinner, tell acceptable (and unacceptable) jokes, and they'll calmly, and reasonably, discuss how they're horrible humans. Germans, Serbians, and Khmer Rouge picnicked while they exterminated people they felt were undesirable and less than humans (sometimes having picnics at the camps and places of extermination). Public lynchings in the South often were accompanied by pot-lucks, community events, speeches. Hell, some people sold refreshments to the crowds. And afterwards there were "auctions" for souvenirs. Abusive personalities are well behaved in public. This is what disarms most people (and why most abusive households look "normal" from the outside). Pedophiles buy their kids Christmas and birthday presents, because that's "normal." The evil overlord never thinks they're evil.
The pardons are just a "softening up" maneuver to get us used to another break with tradition while Trump prepares us for him pardoning the majority of people Mueller has indicted (which won't work with Cohen because those are state crimes, not federal crimes).
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