Baby, it’s cold outside.
Still no snow here in the Duke City as the Thanksgiving weekend lurches to an overstuffed close. But it’s cold out there — 29 degrees as of java time — and there’s white stuff in the forecast, if not yet on the ground.
Elsewhere, things are heating up a tad. Having sold the rubes a bill of goods, the national media are now gleefully pointing out the dings, dents, leaks and creaks in the gold-plated machinery that is the Pestilence-Elect.
Seems he’s a liar, and a walking, tweeting conflict of interest with his short-fingered paws in some very questionable pockets. His chief adviser is a white-nationalist propagandist and political opportunist. And he’s larding up his administration with the sort of rich, connected honkies you’d expect from pretty much any ol’ rich, connected honky the GOP managed to shoehorn into the White House.
Huh. Who knew? Only anyone who’d been paying attention, is all.
Turns out that if you want to drain a swamp, it’s probably a bad idea to hire the guy who likes the swamp, knows everyone who lives there, and owns a fair chunk of it.
As another famous swamp-dweller once noted, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Tags: Pogo, The Pestilence-Elect
Mad Blog Media 
November 28, 2016 at 8:27 am |
He’s the slime in the swamp. Bought a home subscription to New York Times. I had forgotten how much I missed the long reads for the really important stories. Still get the Austin paper, but NYT needs my donation to keep digging, because there’s so much dirt piling up everywhere. Just a small way to support a bright shining light to be on all the time. Also made a big donation to Planned Parenthood, the organization that helped out every girl I knew when I was in college. We didn’t know anything about planning.
November 28, 2016 at 9:32 am |
The NYT is one of the few outfits that strives to maintain a global presence and is definitely worth supporting. They make mistakes, as well all do, but I think it remains a good investment. I subscribe to the NYT and the WaPo, though the latter’s editorial page gives me a case of the ass.
November 28, 2016 at 8:52 am |
I think his name was POGO. As a guilty white guy who’s been living his life off off the sweat and toil of the underprivileged I see you have decided to donate all your worldly possessions to the government and live in a paper box, thus creating more equanimity in the system.
Since I really like your columns I think it would be ‘just fair’ that all of your columns be inspected and edited by the state and federal government because obviously we wouldn’t want anyone to be offended or hurt by casual words.
And since I can’t afford to buy a “Old guys who get fat in winter jersey” I think it would be better for the state to manage all your business decisions. Because I know they can do a much better job thus making sure that everyone can get such a jersey, right?
November 28, 2016 at 9:34 am |
Mike, you’re not making any sense. Have another go at it.
November 28, 2016 at 11:13 pm |
Patrick O’Grady AKA Mad dog is a valuable creator of content (and he draws cool cartoons) some of the things that he espouses could have gotten him locked up or executed in a less liberal( in a classic since) society.
I believe that he is entitled to receive the benefits of those creations. and should not be subjected to any state or local government censorship. These things are written into the Constitution. I believe under freedom of the press.
Government is not our friend. if you can find a way to screw something totally up nine times out of ten It will Be a Government function. Anyone Who wants to Increase the size of Government regardless of party Is in my feelings a enemy to the People.
November 29, 2016 at 7:17 am |
I think what Mike is trying to say is “Socialism bad, Capitalism good”. Yet the happiest, healthiest people with the highest standard of living are in Socialist countries. How can that be? “Socialism is bad. They taught me that in public school.”
November 29, 2016 at 7:41 am |
Good morning all. I generally agree with Mike that more government is not the solution for problems. An example would be the clear violation of the 4th amendment to the Constitution by the NSA mass meta-data collection and analysis. In some case more government is good. An example would be the Clean Air Act of 1990. We are all experiencing the benefits of that whenever we go for a ride. Concerning the first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion, the president elect has attacked all of those freedoms in his rhetoric, and probably will in practice when he takes office. So, he is dangerous to many of our basic bill of right freedoms. That is one reason of many that I think he is unfit for the office.
November 29, 2016 at 8:06 am |
Mike, you had me nodding along with you for the first two paragraphs, but lost me on the third.
Government is us. Not “us vs. them.” Us, pure and simple. We can make it work better if we choose to, but we have left oversight largely in the hands of others, to the detriment of the Republic.
Governments from the local to the federal level achieve amazing things, when we give them the tools (i.e., enough money to keep up our collective property). Roads, bridges, sewer systems, electrical utilities, trash pickup, school systems, mass transit, and elections are just a few of the things we do for ourselves in our guise as government.
Just yesterday the local government successfully collected our trash and recycling while simultaneously tackling a water-main break up the road. The utilities functioned as required. The USPS delivered a check. I call that service.
I would like to see the federal government’s role greatly expanded in some areas (such as universal health care) and greatly curtailed in others (such as weapons acquisition/deployment and domestic surveillance). You may see things differently. Thus we have elections, back opposing candidates, sometimes we win, other times we lose. But the guiding light should be “to form a more perfect Union,” etc.
I think we faced a poor choice at the top of the ballot in this most recent election, in large part because “we the People” have not pressed the parties to present us with better candidates. That’s on us.
But once this choice was set before us, in my mind, at least, there was no choice at all. I voted for Clinton, reasoning that at least she had the experience, the connections, the work ethic and the focus to keep the creaky machinery groaning along for another four years (or until she was impeached and convicted, anyway).
In the meantime, I hoped, we could continue to press her from the left to be stronger on civil liberties and even less adventurous militarily than her predecessor. It seemed unlikely that she’d be able to accomplish much given the composition of the Congress (see impeachment, conviction, above). But at least we might see the Supreme Court tilt a little more to the left.
Well, we all know how that turned out. Trump lost the popular vote but “won” in the Electoral College with a little help from the Russians, the FBI, and the sizable number of eligible voters who stayed home. Nobody knows how they might have affected the final electoral tally.
As a consequence, I believe that we face what could be the most dangerous presidency in American history. A 70-year-old trust funder with a Twitter addiction, the attention span of a border-collie pup, and a skin so thin you can see his innards roiling.
“Drain the swamp?” He’s expanding it. First Amendment? He doesn’t know what it is (free speech for me, but not for thee, seems to be the extent of his thoughts on the topic). Shrinking the size of government and curtailing its free-spending ways? Have you seen his plans for the Pentagon?
Mind you, Trump would be bad enough on his own. Buttressed with the right-wing idelogues who have hitched their wagons to his, he will give the nation a very rough ride indeed.
Louis C.K. was pretty close to the bullseye when he had one of his characters in the web series “Horace and Pete” say that Trump supporters didn’t want to fix the system, they wanted to burn it down.
What they’re actually going to get is an administration that basically puts the government up on blocks and strips it for parts to be sold to its cronies.
You think government is dysfunctional? Bumped up against the private sector lately? Just wait till Samsung is in charge of Social Security.
“Thank you for your patience. All our service specialists are assisting other customers. Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold. …
November 28, 2016 at 11:07 am |
The only good thing about that dipstick is that he’s scaring the shit out of the oligarchy. And when someone, anyone, says he lost a contest, this case being the popular vote, he goes off the Alex Jones deep end and fires the late night tweets. Narcissistic sociopath was the amateur diagnosis going around before the election.
November 28, 2016 at 12:03 pm |
I can’t decide whether the other actors on the global stage are gonna tiptoe around him or poke him with sticks just to see what happens. Should be interesting either way.
You notice how little you’re hearing from the institutional Pachyderms and Donks? Crickets, is what. They either think they got this, that they can control him, or they’re shitting broken bottles.
November 28, 2016 at 2:18 pm |
Borken bottles is my guess. If there is justice in the world those bottles are covered with “Blair’s Sudden Death” hot sauce.
On a side note, my Dad had a bet going with the nursing home chef who could eat the hottest food. This contest went on for months with no clear winner. I finally sent Dad a bottle of “Sudden Death”, with the appropriate disclaimers, and at the next meal the chef and Dad faced off. Dad won, the chef quit the contest, and Dad said it was no longer necessary to send him any hot sauce. Said he would buy his own, thank you.
November 28, 2016 at 2:41 pm |
I learned my lesson about hot at a Thai restaurant in the Greater L.A. Clusterplex, when I was applying for a copy-editing gig. Lord, I thought Colorado Mexican food was hot until I got myself overmatched there.
November 28, 2016 at 12:57 pm |
Odd (not really) that ol’ Donnie hisself claimed the election was rigged, but now that someone wants to check up on it, he’s got his panties all in a bunch. Comedians all over the world have been handed a priceless 4 year gift if this clown actually gets into the White House.
November 28, 2016 at 2:45 pm |
This guy is just an embarrassment. We’ve had wankers, liars and crooks in the White House before, but Jesus, this trouser stain won’t even do us the courtesy of telling a defensible falsehood. A middle-schooler can debunk his lame bullshit in milliseconds. Sad!