Stuff to Read

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Good, in-depth article in Salon, “Chris Christie’s era of misrule in Jersey: The empty swamp mall and the canceled tunnel.” Christie will be leaving New Jersey in much worse shape than it was before he became governor. Unfortunately, the New Jersey Democratic Party is totally useless, also. I have no idea where New Jersey will go from here.

The Washington Post reports that when he’s not on a foreign trip, Trump sits around the White House watching television. At least he puts on a suit and isn’t in his bathrobe all day. He appears to have checked out of the job of being President, except for rallies and trips.

 

11 thoughts on “Stuff to Read”

  1. The cancelled tunnel was particularly stupid. When the Federal Government is trying to give you money, you take the money.

  4. t-RUMPLE-THIN-sKKKin declared this, “Made in America” week!
    HUZZAH!!!!!

    Kinda ironic coming from a family whose “Trump” branded-shit is made anywhere BUT in America!

    “Irony” is dead.
    Or, if not dead, then it’s rusted shut…

  5. “He appears to have checked out of the job of being President, except for rallies and trips”

    What else is there, you don’t expect him to actually develop policy do you? I read somewhere that one of his aids said he wasn’t interested in going to France until he heard their would be a parade, with soldiers marching in his honor. Sound familiar!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LKa2vzRDHQ

  6. Hey, c u n d gulag! efgoldman over at BalloonJuice was inquiring if anybody knew how you’re doing. Various folks there started reporting having sighted your comments around the blogs, to reassure those concerned.

  7. Some brooks babble and sometimes make or find some sense.  Today the David was more of a not so babbling Brook.  He found a French Sociologist that inspired his impaled elitism, and ongoing disappointment with what has become the republican party.  The following tease gives today’s  flavor of his column’s tone

    “I’m not in the habit of recommending left-wing French intellectuals, but I’m beginning to think that Pierre Bourdieu is helpful reading in the age of Trump…

    His great subject was the struggle for power in society, especially cultural and social power. We all possess, he argued, certain forms of social capital. A person might have academic capital (the right degrees from the right schools), linguistic capital (a facility with words), cultural capital (knowledge of cuisine or music or some such) or symbolic capital (awards or markers of prestige). These are all forms of wealth you bring to the social marketplace.”

    Social capital is quite the notion.  In America’s pre-revulsion days, before November 2016, we were well on our way to a neocrassiful society if I might coin a word. This cultural groundswell is perhaps a cause of our present woes. That our leader spends his time on the Twitter and watching TV is no surprise.  Would you expect him to attend the opera or even a string quartet?  He would lose his base as base is the social capital of his supporters.  Crass is the new class and he knew how to exploit this grass root phenomenon.  Let us hope this is just a passing fad.  I liked it better when the elite supported the fine arts and science.  I think David Brooks and others think they liked the republican party better when they did too. 

  8. @bernie, a parallel in Charles Pierce, Mitch McConnell Has Weaponized Cynicism. We’ll All Pay the Price.

    …But McConnell’s banking on the kind of beaten-down cynicism that blinds politicians to their public duties and blinds their constituents to their own self-interest. That’s been a pretty good bet over the past few decades. The more the latter phenomenon prevails, the more the former course of action makes sense to the people who run for office. It’s easier to answer to a constituency of donors and PAC rats than it is to a constituency of people who’ve simply given up. That’s what Mitch McConnell is counting on.

    You can tell this by the reaction of Republicans in Congress to the folks back home. They’re ducking town halls; Speaker Paul Ryan has been a conspicuous poltroon in this regard. They are profoundly unfamiliar with the concept of seriously unfriendly pushback and seriously unfriendly citizen involvement, because the Republican triumphalism of the past 30-odd years has been based on churning up their base with lies while using the instruments of government and their own pet media octopus to suppress the vote and the energy for self-government on the other side. Shoe on the other foot now, and it’s pinching just a little…

  9. Steve Bannon reportedly called House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) “a limp-dick motherfucker who was born in a petri dish at the Heritage Foundation,” referring to the think tank whose fiscal conservative policies the representative espouses.

    I’m no admirer of Bannon, but his assessment of Ryan seems pretty accurate to me.

  10. Aimee in OKC,
    Tell eveyone I’m ok, but I am having some tests done for various ailments.

    As for fewer comments, I guess I’m still reeling from the horrors of what t-RUMPLE-THIN-sKKKin and his KKKabal of KKKeystone KKKrazies, and the sociopaths and psychopaths in the Republican Party are doing to this country and our reputation around the world.

    I read my favorite blogs and then spend the whole day in the fog of depression and shock. I think I’ve had one good night’s sleep since the Election Day debacle.
    Oy…

  11. I think Donnie is past the point of no return in salvaging his presidency ..Instead of sitting around the White House I suspect he’s now pacing like a caged animal trying to figure out how he can slip the noose he’s managed to put around his own neck.. His tweets are losing their efficacy. His credibility is down to zero
    Maybe it’s time for a retelling of my Lion and the Hyenas analogy with the press representing the hyenas rather than the Congress.

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