Monday, May 1, 2017

Trump the Grifter In Chief

Excellent 3min video:



Trump the Chickenshit

Trump ran away from the fight in Vietnam while groveling for several deferments and he continues to run away from any semi-difficult situation.

Once a chickenshit, always a chickenshit.

Republicans love a coward.

Sunday, April 30, 2017

Trump's 100 Days - Summarized





Tuesday, March 28, 2017

I'm Looking At You, Fox News.


As is NewsCorp, and Rush Limbaugh's "EIB", and Cumulus Networks, and Premiere Networks, and and Breitbart BS, and the rest of the right-wing extremist propaganda outlets.

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Get Back on the USSR




Saturday, March 25, 2017

Snowflakes




NO! On Gorsuch.

A president who is under FBI investigation should not be submitting nominees for lifetime appointments to the SCOTUS.



One question for Gorsuch: If the president is found guilty of crimes agains the United States, will you step down from the bench?

Republicans have shown they can be very patient while allowing the SCOTUS to operate with only 8 justices for several months. Democrats should assert their patience for at least as long, and certainly should block any SCOTUS submissions until the clouds over this White House have been cleared up.

Friday, March 24, 2017

Trump Dumped

This is a BFD:


Yeah, you just got kicked in the ass. And no one is impressed with the velvet Elvis you have hanging on your wall either.

Along with a lot of other folks, I've been busy making calls and other things for several days to help keep this crap from being turned into law. Waiting now for the next GOP turd to drop (aka "Gorsuch") and don't think that situation will turn out as well. Fingers crossed.


Fun fact: Of the "poetry" that the pussy-grabbing un-indicted Republican co-conspirator Donald Trump counts as his favorites, they all begin with, "There once was a man from Nantucket..."

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

I'm with Liz



Tell Trump to STFU


The GOP’s rush to approval all things Trump in 24 hours or less (Price, deVss, Tillerson, ACA, Gorsuch, et al) always seemed like a cash/power grab to cause as much damage as possible before impeachment proceedings begin - like a gang of drunken teenagers with baseball bats who’ve broken into the school after hours. The idea of holding off on Gorsuch for a few months makes sense anyway as the GOP clearly sees long stretches of time with only 8 justices as no big problem. Plus, there’s the other not too crazy idea that by slowing down these approvals, we’ll help ensure that Putin’s picks at least get a bit more scrutiny. 

Sign the petition: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/shut-down-and-investigate



Friday, March 17, 2017

GOP: The UN-Americans



Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Scaredy Trump! Scaredy Trump!

These guys are really afraid of reporters?

Amazing what a chicken shit this Trump guy is.



Oh, yeah:




Republicans are generally chicken shits anyway, so no real surprise there.

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as IT EVER WAS.

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.





SSDD


Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Women's Day: Deborah Sampson



In 1782, as the Revolutionary war raged on, the patriotic Sampson disguised herself as a man named Robert Shurtleff and joined the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment. At West Point, New York, she was assigned to Captain George Webb’s Company of Light Infantry. She was given the dangerous task of scouting neutral territory to assess British buildup of men and materiel in Manhattan, which General George Washington contemplated attacking. In June of 1782, Sampson and two sergeants led about 30 infantrymen on an expedition that ended with a confrontation – often one-on-one – with Tories. She led a raid on a Tory home that resulted in the capture of 15 men. At the siege of Yorktown, she dug trenches, helped storm a British redoubt, and endured canon fire.
For over two years, Sampson’s true sex had escaped detection, despite close calls. When she received a gash in her forehead from a sword and was shot in her left thigh, she extracted the pistol ball herself. She was ultimately discovered – a year and a half into her service – in Philadelphia, when she became ill during an epidemic, was taken to a hospital and lost consciousness. 

Read more at: https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/deborah-sampson/

Monday, March 6, 2017

Analogy Of The Day

And probably for as long as the Republicans and Trump are in power.




Americans cheer. 

Republicans weep. 

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Q: Are All Republicans Liars?

A: The Magic 8-Ball says, "All signs point to YES".


But to be fair, we'll post all the submissions for those Republicans who have proven themselves honest and trustworthy below:

1.              

















Hello?



Any one?



Bueler?


Thursday, March 2, 2017

Sessions on Sessions

Merely "recusing onesself" for the crime of perjury is an IOKIYAR joke. Sessions needs to resign and there needs to be a special prosecutor assigned to investigate the allegations of Sessions' perjuring himself.

Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions states the reasons why a special prosecutor should be assigned to investigate perjury allegations against Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions:
(Kermit has kindly agreed to defer his debut here so that Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions can speak on Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions.)

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Il Douché Reads

Trump reads. iParse.


Recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week's shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms.

Not only does Il Douché fail to directly condemn the actions of attacking Jewish cemeteries, the phrasing is so ambiguous that a Pepe Pooper can read this "condemnation" as being directed towards the Jews themselves and not the vandals. The neo-fascists see "hate and evil" as being the Jews, so this might just as well be a dogwhistle pat-on-the-back for them.

We have begun to drain the swamp of government corruption by imposing a five-year ban on lobbying by executive branch officials, and a lifetime ban on becoming lobbyists for a foreign government. 


As Pro-Publica points out, this is smoke and mirrors B.S.
Burr is the first publicly known example of a former lobbyist who was able to take a job in the government as a result of President Donald Trump’s watering down of ethics rules in place during the Obama administration.As a candidate, Trump regularly railed against lobbyists and led crowds in chants of “Drain the swamp!” But as president, Trump last month signed an executive order that weakened significant aspects of the Obama ethics policy, including scrapping a ban on lobbyists joining agencies they had recently lobbied.Ethics experts say Burr’s hiring is a troubling example of how the new administration has greased the revolving door.“A lobbyist like Burr may de-register on Monday and enter the Trump Administration on Tuesday,” said Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen. “The very same agency Burr has been lobbying as a hired gun is now Burr’s to help run. This is a grave problem for the public because the agency may well represent the special interest rather than the public interest.” - https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-watered-down-ethics-rules-let-lobbyist-help-run-agency-he-lobbied


And we are imposing a new rule which mandates that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated.

This is just asinine on the face of it. To put a regulation on driverless cars in place, we’ll just get rid of those pesky regulations on seat belts in cars as well as those requiring sprinkler safety systems in public buildings. Sheer demagogic idiocy.

We have cleared the way for the construction of the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines. Thereby creating tens of thousands of jobs, and I’ve issued a new directive that new American pipelines be made with American steel.
More smoke and mirrors. The vast majority of the 21,050 jobs to which Il Douché refers are temporary, and not involved directly with the pipeline at all. To inflate his numbers, Trump has thrown in estimates of those restaurant workers, convenience store attendants, shoe-shine boys, etc., who would serve the actual pipeline employees. The REAL number of people estimated by the State Department to be directly employed in constructing the pipeline is 1,950. And the vast majority of those are temporary jobs that will disappear after just two years. How many? Of the 1,950 pipeline jobs, only 35 will be permanent and last beyond the two years of construction.

The real beneficiaries of the pipeline is not the American worker, but a handful of oil executives. No surprises there.

We want all Americans to succeed, but that can’t happen in an environment of lawless chaos. We must restore integrity and the rule of law at our borders. For that reason, we will soon begin the construction of a great, great wall along our southern border.
From a wall, to a great wall, now to a "great, great wall". Trump doubles down. Maybe next year he'll be promising "a great, great, great wall, and Mexico will pay for it and they'll also pay for it's upkeep and painting it a classy shade of gold as well!"


According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offense since 9/11 came here from outside of our country. We have seen the attacks at home, from Boston to San Bernardino, to the Pentagon, and yes, even the World Trade Center. We have seen the attacks in France, in Belgium, in Germany, and all over the world. It is not compassion but reckless to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur.
Interesting that Trump has gone from "extreme vetting" to "proper vetting", which in his mind is the same thing. Or possibly a variation of "kill them all and let God sort them out."

In another nod to his alt-right base, he conspicuously omits their brethren in the KKK and other reich-wing terror groups who have committed murders and coordinated attacks on various non-WASP peoples in America.


Finally, I have kept my promise to appoint a justice to the United States Supreme Court, from my list of 20 judges, who will defend our Constitution... we have chosen judge Neil Gorsuch, a man of incredible skill and deep devotion to the law. He was confirmed unanimously by the court of appeals, and I am asking the Senate to swiftly approve his nomination.

Yeah, that Neil Gorsuch. The one who jokes about fascism and subverting the Constitution:

Can you imagine a Democrat trying to get a SCOTUS justice nominated with this class clown's penchant for anti-democratic humor? Limbaugh's skull would implode and Hannity's would explode.

More than one in five people in their prime working years are not working. We have the worst financial recovery and 65 years.
("And"? Shouldn't that be "in"?) The claim is dubious at best as "recovery" can be measured in a myriad of ways, But it is a recovery, after The Great Republican Recession Of 2008, and certainly not the worst by most important measures:




And when you consider the fact that once in power the Republicans implemented their policy of tying cinder blocks around the ankles of the recovery in their attempt to make Obama a one-term president,  you understand that the fiscally-challenged GOP is what prevented the recovery from improving. For power-hungry, anti-American Republicans, this was a feature, not a bug:



I just met with officials and workers from a great American company, Harley Davidson. In fact, they proudly displayed five of their magnificent motorcycles, made in the U.S.A., on the front lawn of the White House. And they wanted me to ride one, and I said, no thank you.
Maybe a trike would be more appropriate? Afraid of bikes, afraid of stairs, afraid of dogs. What planet is this buffoon from?

I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, as long as we focus on the following goals: To improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nation's security, and to restore respect for our laws. If we are guided by the well-being of American citizens, then I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades.
This is the ongoing lie he's told to stoke the fears of the chicken-hearted right-wingers (and others) in America. It's a common nationalistic and rhetorical trope going back to many authoritarian dictators over the centuries. Trump bangs that drum as skillfully as any of them.


Another Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, initiated the last truly great national infrastructure program, the building of the interstate highway system. The time has come for a new program of national rebuilding.
To launch our national rebuilding, I will be asking the Congress to approve legislation that produces a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure of the United States financed through both, public and private capital, creating millions of new jobs.

The Democrats have pushed for bigger infrastructure for eons, and the Republicans have fought that for almost as long, notably the infrastructure improvements proposed by Obama to help lift us out of The Great Republican Recession of 2008. Eisenhower was able to accomplish his plans without implementing a crony-prone "public-private" angle.

This is the first time the president has suggested public financing will be needed in addition to private investment to fix and rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, but it is still unclear where that money will come from. There is significant opposition within Trump’s own party in Congress to raising gasoline and diesel taxes, and there is some opposition in his own party to increasing tolling on the nation’s highways, bridges and other infrastructure — a key way to leverage private funding for infrastructure.
If Congress approves spending $1 trillion on the nation’s infrastructure, that would be a much bigger investment than what lawmakers approved to address the Great Recession in the early days of the Obama administration. The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act spent $787 billion in a much broader way — including tax cuts and tax credits, and aid to state governments and school districts to shore up their budgets and prevent layoffs — in addition to investments in public infrastructure, including what President Obama called “shovel ready” projects.
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/28/516717981/watch-live-trump-addresses-joint-session-of-congress?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

As for healthcare, well, Republicans hate the very idea of healthcare. Asking a Republican to come up with a plan for healthcare is like asking a vegan to cook your steak dinner for you. As such (and since the GOP healthcare "plan" is essentially to flush healthcare down the toilet), I'll let Il Douché respond to Il Douché:

Tonight I am also calling on this Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs, and at the same time, provide better healthcare.


Mandating every American to buy government-approved health insurance was never the right solution for our country.


Here are the principles that should guide Congress as we move to create a better healthcare system for all Americans. First, we should ensure that Americans with pre-existing conditions have access to coverage, and that we have a stable transition for Americans currently enrolled in the health care exchanges.


Secondly, we should help Americans purchase their own coverage, through the use of tax credits and expanded health savings accounts, but it must be the plan they want, not the plan forced on them by our government.


Thirdly, we should give our state governors the resources and flexibility they need with Medicaid to make sure no one is left out.


Fourth, we should implement legal reforms that protect patients and doctors from unnecessary costs that drive up the price of insurance and work to bring down the artificially high price of drugs and bring them down immediately.


And finally, the time has come to give Americans the freedom to purchase health insurance across state lines. Which will create a truly competitive national marketplace that will bring cost way down and provide far better care. 


There is just so much BS shoveled here by Trump and the Republicans that has already been pointed out elsewhere and would take additional time to compile and post, so the tl;dr version is:

Republicans have had 7 years to come up with a plan to "expand choice, increase access, lower costs, and at the same time, provide better healthcare" and Republicans have failed completely. They have come up with exactly squat.

Universal Single-Payer is the best, most-cost effective, most efficient, and healthiest way to healthcare. Period.

1st - Republican claims that they will "ensure that Americans with pre-existing conditions have access to coverage" is more GOP snake-oil B.S. As has been pointed out, I have access to a Mercedes-Benz, but if I cannot afford it, it does me no good.

2nd - More sleazy Republican snake-oil bait-and-switch. "We'll give you the right to buy your own insurance" - that's the same BS "Chaos-Care" we had before the ACA.

3rd - Giving governors the "flexibility" to gut medicare is not a healthcare plan.

4th - Holding doctors accountable for their actions and holding medical device companies accountable for their products is not controversial. Restricting American citizens access to the full and unfettered processes of the justice system to hold these groups accountable is unAmerican at its core.

5th - More Republican B.S. -
Individual insurance coverage is regulated by states, not the federal government, so insurers have to have their plans approved state by state. However, the Affordable Care Act [already] permits states to join together to sell insurance across state lines, and at least three states now allow some form of cross-border sales of health insurance. So far, however, no insurers have shown interest in selling [health insurance] plans across state lines. Many analysts say that some consumers might see some savings but could also end up with fewer protections — and fewer guaranteed benefits — than they have in their own state. Selling/buying insurance across state lines is mostly a theory, so far not proved to work.
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/28/516717981/watch-live-trump-addresses-joint-session-of-congress

Megan was diagnosed with Pompe disease, a rare and serious illness, when she was 15 months old. She was not expected to live past five. On receiving this news, Megan's dad, John, fought with everything he had to save the life of his precious child. He founded a company to look for a cure and helped develop the drug that saved Megan's life. 

Great idea! If you learn you have cancer or diabetes, just start a company to invent a cure! Easy peasy! Why have Republicans kept this secret away from us for so long?

[F]amilies should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them.

Fine. Just don't ask the American taxpayer to fund these.

I am sending the Congress a budget that rebuilds the military, eliminates the defense sequester, and calls for one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.

The Pentagon is not wanting for money. Crony capitalism at work. Overtime.



We are blessed to be joined tonight by Carryn Owens, the widow of a U.S. Navy Special Operator, Senior Chief William "Ryan" Owens.  Ryan died as he lived:  a warrior, and a hero –- battling against terrorism and securing our nation.
Trump is the quintessential Republican: An asshole and a chickenhawk -
What followed was clearly a powerful moment in the speech, referencing Owen’s death in a raid in Yemen. But though Owens’ widow was there, it was notable who wasn’t — Owens’ parents. This week, Owens’ father called for an investigation and refused to meet with Trump when the president met his son’s body at Dover Air Force Base. “I told them I didn’t want to make a scene about it, but my conscience wouldn’t let me talk to him,” Owens’ father, Bill, a veteran who said he did not vote for Trump, told the Miami Herald. Irritated with the White House’s using his son’s death as cover against those who criticize the raid, Bill Owens said, “Don’t hide behind my son’s death to prevent an investigation. I want an investigation. … The government owes my son an investigation.”
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/28/516717981/watch-live-trump-addresses-joint-session-of-congress

Trump then has the gall to clumsily close his speech by paraphrasing a truly great president, a Democratic president, John F. Kennedy, in his speech at American University just days before his assassination.


More on this speech an a later post.



Will Republicans Fulfill Their Constitutional Duty?

Ha! A joke, folks. Of course they won't, and everybody knows it.


Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Monday, February 27, 2017

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Friday, February 24, 2017

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

I KILLED BREITBART!!!



Andrew Breitbart was a fascistic asshole whose main claim to fame was to have been responsible for spreading anti-American lies for profit during most of his allegedly adult life. Truth, justice, and the American way, were anathema to Andrew Breitbart. It is rumored that anyone speaking the truth and reciting facts, even at a distance, would cause Breitbart to twitch and jerk as though being stuck with a pin. voodoo-style. At 43, the sheer number of these facts and truthful statements proved too much for the Asshole Breitbart, and his heart exploded. Everyone who spoke the truth in contradicting the lies that Asshole Breitbart spread, shares responsibility for his death. Congratulations. 
As Asshole Breitbart burns in Hell, the website that Asshole Breitbart started has continued to be a breeding ground for some of the most despicable, vile, dishonest, disgusting, putrid, foul, unAmerican, and intellectually gangrenous BS stories and BS individuals known to the USA. The list of anti-Americans from the Asshole Breitbart web site includes convicted and confessed liar, James O'Keefe, pedophile-pusher, Milo Yiannopoulos, and unconvicted coconspirator, fascist, all-around sleezeball and thus high-ranking sleezeball of the "Trump administration", Steve Bannon. Trump loves the work that comes out of Asshole Breitbart's web site, and so do the Republican Party.



The company you keep.

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

CPAC Scums Of A Feather



The company you keep...




Sunday, February 19, 2017

Worth Repeating

The video is a must-see. Maher's comments hit the nail on the head.


Saturday, February 18, 2017

Bill Maher Plagiarizes Cogitari Safari

But that's ok. Not an original observation anyway. Calling Republicans unAmerican is about as insightful as announcing that water is wet.

The video is a must-see. Maher's comments hit the nail on the head.

Oh, and on Maher's Andy Kaufman comparison - Been there, done that:





Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Republicans Only Confess After Being Caught




Republican Normal



Washington (CNN)If President-elect Donald Trump taps former Gen. David Petraeus to be his secretary of state, Petraeus has three days to notify his probation officer about his new job. He also needs to tell the probation officer before he leaves North Carolina -- and his work travel would have to be approved by his probation officer, too.
Petraeus, once a widely celebrated military leader who oversaw operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, was sentenced on April 23, 2015, to serve two years of probation and pay a $100,000 fine for sharing classified information with his biographer and lover, Paula Broadwell.
"The defendant shall notify the probation officer within 72 hours of any change in residence or employment," read a court judgment, which was reported first by USA Today.David Petraeus shared classified info. Now can he be secretary of state?"The defendant shall not leave the Western District of North Carolina without the permission of the Court or probation officer. Travel allowed for work as approved by US probation office," the document also said.
Additionally, if Petraeus were to become secretary of state, he would be subject to warrantless searches by his probation officer -- including the possibility of searching a work device such as a laptop or a phone.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/30/politics/david-petraeus-donald-trump-secretary-of-state-probation-officer/index.html


    Tuesday, February 14, 2017

    Q: Are All Republicans Crooks?

    A:


    I see this morning that we’ve already moved into the Nixonian “what did he know and when did he know it” phase. After less than a month I doubt there's much to shred à la Ollie North, but I suspect they’re shifting into “plausible deniability” mode and the “I don’t recall” repetitions won’t be far behind. This does fit the GOP M.O. though. 




    Fool me once, shame on you.
    Fool me twice*, I must be a Republican voter.

    *or more

    Sunday, February 12, 2017

    Q: Are All Republicans Fascists?


    A: They're not sending their best. ... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems to us. They're theocrats. They're bringing crime. They're racists. And some, I assume, are good people.

    Friday, February 10, 2017

    Thursday, February 9, 2017

    "Who Goes Nazi?" - A Question For Our Time

    An excellent and timely read from 75 years ago relayed via Balloon Juice:

    Dorothy Celene Thompson (9 July 1893 – 30 January 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who in 1939 was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential woman in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt.[1] She is notable as the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 and as one of the few women news commentators on radio during the 1930s.[2] She is regarded by some as the "First Lady of American Journalism."[3]




    #ThrowBackThursday: “Who Goes Nazi?”


    “The past is never dead; it’s not even past.” Via Tom Scocca’s twitter feed, a Dorothy Thompson Harper’s article from 1941:
    It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis…
    Mr. B has risen beyond his real abilities by virtue of health, good looks, and being a good mixer. He married for money and he has done lots of other things for money. His code is not his own; it is that of his class—no worse, no better, He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value—success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.
    The saturnine man over there talking with a lovely French emigree is already a Nazi. Mr. C is a brilliant and embittered intellectual. He was a poor white-trash Southern boy, a scholarship student at two universities where he took all the scholastic honors but was never invited to join a fraternity. His brilliant gifts won for him successively government positions, partnership in a prominent law firm, and eventually a highly paid job as a Wall Street adviser. He has always moved among important people and always been socially on the periphery. His colleagues have admired his brains and exploited them, but they have seldom invited him—or his wife—to dinner.
    He is a snob, loathing his own snobbery. He despises the men about him—he despises, for instance, Mr. B—because he knows that what he has had to achieve by relentless work men like B have won by knowing the right people. But his contempt is inextricably mingled with envy. Even more than he hates the class into which he has insecurely risen, does he hate the people from whom he came. He hates his mother and his father for being his parents. He loathes everything that reminds him of his origins and his humiliations. He is bitterly anti-Semitic because the social insecurity of the Jews reminds him of his own psychological insecurity.
    Pity he has utterly erased from his nature, and joy he has never known. He has an ambition, bitter and burning. It is to rise to such an eminence that no one can ever again humiliate him. Not to rule but to be the secret ruler, pulling the strings of puppets created by his brains. Already some of them are talking his language—though they have never met him…
    I think young D over there is the only born Nazi in the room. Young D is the spoiled only son of a doting mother. He has never been crossed in his life. He spends his time at the game of seeing what he can get away with. He is constantly arrested for speeding and his mother pays the fines. He has been ruthless toward two wives and his mother pays the alimony. His life is spent in sensation-seeking and theatricality. He is utterly inconsiderate of everybody. He is very good-looking, in a vacuous, cavalier way, and inordinately vain. He would certainly fancy himself in a uniform that gave him a chance to swagger and lord it over others…
    Mr. G is a very intellectual young man who was an infant prodigy. He has been concerned with general ideas since the age of ten and has one of those minds that can scintillatingly rationalize everything. I have known him for ten years and in that time have heard him enthusiastically explain Marx, social credit, technocracy, Keynesian economics, Chestertonian distributism, and everything else one can imagine. Mr. G will never be a Nazi, because he will never be anything. His brain operates quite apart from the rest of his apparatus. He will certainly be able, however, fully to explain and apologize for Nazism if it ever comes along. But Mr. G is always a “deviationist.” When he played with communism he was a Trotskyist; when he talked of Keynes it was to suggest improvement; Chesterton’s economic ideas were all right but he was too bound to Catholic philosophy. So we may be sure that Mr. G would be a Nazi with purse-lipped qualifications. He would certainly be purged…


    Even more chilling is Thompson's earlier work in Germany, "Good-by to Germany", where she chronicles the entrenchment of the Nazism and a couple of the Nazi's early atrocities on her 1934 trip to Germany. For her efforts, Goering ordered her to leave the country within 48 hours (this older article is only available as a PDF).






    It makes the Republican cries of "lügenpresse" at Trump's rallies even more starkly sinister. And of course, in the same way that the words "crap" and "shit" mean exactly the same thing, but for some reason, the spelling of "crap" makes it more socially acceptable, the words "fake news" and "lügenpresse" mean exactly same thing, but for some reason, the spelling of "fake news" makes it more socially acceptable as well. When will the press call Trump and the Republicans out on this?

    Both full articles require a subscription to Harper's for access but this is well worth it as I have been a subscriber for years.

    About Harper’s MagazineHarper’s Magazine, the oldest general-interest monthly in America, explores the issues that drive our national conversation, through long-form narrative journalism and essays, and such celebrated features as the iconic Harper’s Index. With its emphasis on fine writing and original thought Harper’s provides readers with a unique perspective on politics, society, the environment, and culture. The essays, fiction, and reporting in the magazine’s pages come from promising new voices, as well as some of the most distinguished names in American letters, among them Annie Dillard, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jonathan Franzen, Mary Gaitskill, David Foster Wallace, and Tom Wolfe.

    History
    Harper’s Magazine made its debut in June 1850, the brainchild of the prominent New York book-publishing firm Harper & Brothers. The initial press run of 7,500 copies sold out immediately, and within six months circulation had reached 50,000. 
    Although the earliest issues consisted largely of material that had already been published in England, the magazine soon began to print the work of American artists and writers—among them Horatio Alger, Stephen A. Douglas, Theodore Dreiser, Horace Greeley, Winslow Homer, William Dean Howells, Henry James, Jack London, John Muir, Frederic Remington, Booth Tarkington, and Mark Twain. Several departments served to note regularly important events of the day, such as the publication of Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick, the laying of the first trans-Atlantic cable, the latest discoveries from Thomas Edison’s workshop, and the progress of the crusade for women’s rights. 
    In more recent years, the magazine published Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill long before either man became a political leader. Theodore Roosevelt wrote for Harper’s, as did Henry L. Stimson when he defended the bombing of Hiroshima. In the 1970s, Harper’s Magazinebroke Seymour Hersh’s account of the My Lai massacre and devoted a full issue to Norman Mailer’s “The Prisoner of Sex.” 
    Over the years, the magazine’s format has been revamped, its general appearance has evolved considerably, and ownership has changed hands. In 1962, Harper & Brothers merged with Row, Peterson, & Company to become Harper & Row (now HarperCollins). Some years later the magazine became a separate corporation and a division of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune Company. In 1980, when the parent company announced that Harper’s Magazine would cease publication, John R. (Rick) MacArthur and his father, Roderick, urged the boards of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Atlantic Richfield Company to make a grant of assets and funds to form the Harper’s Magazine Foundation. The Foundation is today an entirely independent organization—unaffiliated with other philanthropies, and solely dedicated to promoting Harper’s Magazine as an independent voice in American culture. 
    In 1984, Harper’s Magazine was completely redesigned by editor Lewis H. Lapham and MacArthur, who had become publisher of Harper’s and president of the Foundation. Recognizing the time constraints of the modern reader, the revived magazine introduced such original journalistic forms as the Harper’s Index, Readings, and the Annotation to complement its acclaimed fiction, essays, and reporting. Over the years Harper’s has received nineteen National Magazine Awards, among many other journalistic and literary honors. 
    The year 2000 marked the sesquicentennial of Harper’s Magazine and, to celebrate, the magazine introduced several new editorial inventions and restorations: Archive, Map, and Review. It has also published An American Album: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Harper’s Magazine, a cloth-bound, 712-page illustrated anthology—with an introduction by Lewis H. Lapham and a foreword by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.—that offers a unique perspective on American life, distilled from the pages of the nation’s oldest continuously published monthly magazine.

    And one last note on Dorothy Thompson:
    Thompson's most significant work abroad took place in Germany in the early 1930s. While working in Munich, Thompson met and interviewed Adolf Hitler for the first time in 1931. This would be the basis for her subsequent book, I Saw Hitler. She wrote about the dangers of Hitler winning power in Germany.[2] Thompson described Hitler in the following terms: "He is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature, a man whose framework seems cartilaginous, without bones. He is inconsequent and voluble, ill poised and insecure. He is the very prototype of the little man."[6] 
    Later, when the full force of Nazism had crashed over Europe, Thompson was asked to defend her "Little Man" remarks; it seemed she had underestimated Hitler.[5] The National Socialists considered both the book and her articles offensive and in August 1934, Thompson was expelled from Germany. She was the first journalist to be kicked out.[7]