All the Dress Shops.

kaminesky-blog-nyc-dress-shop-lower-east-side

© Ken Kaminesky.

The Pendejo-elect is still all a-twitter over Ms. Streep’s speech. Naturally, he insists he did not watch the Globes, and did not see or hear the speech, he’s just having this massive over-reaction over nothing at all. Donny also added that that he was “not surprised” that he had come under attack from “liberal movie people.” Oooh, those nasty liberal movie people. All that said, Team Trump isn’t having much luck with the nasty liberal music people, either, but a stupid denial has been issued:

Mr. Trump said that, Ms. Streep and her allies aside, he was confident that celebrities and others would turn out in strong numbers for his inauguration.

“We are going to have an unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout for the inauguration, and there will be plenty of movie and entertainment stars,” Mr. Trump said. “All the dress shops are sold out in Washington. It’s hard to find a great dress for this inauguration.”

Interesting how focused Donny is on dresses. Perhaps he has pussy grabbing on his mind. I guess there’s no suit a/o tuxedo shortage in Washington. As Trump continues, ineffectually, to appear unruffled by all those nasty liberal types, his team is still trying to gather any talent at all for the inauguration. The latest reach out was to Charlotte Church:

@realDonaldTrump Your staff have asked me to sing at your inauguration, a simple internet search would show I think you’re a tyrant. Bye [followed by 4 shit icons.]

Via NY Times and Raw Story.

The Red Wave.

Creatas Images / Getty Images.

Creatas Images / Getty Images.

Another journalist has gone running to the nazi side, in this case, the co-founder of Politico, Mike Allen, who is described as one of the most powerful journalists in D.C. Allen has apparently decided to do everything in his power to normalise the fascist state we now find ourselves in, to the point of praising Breitbart’s journalism to the skies. Why yes, made up bullshit is just great journalism, didn’t you know? Just this tiny snippet, because the whole damn things sickens me.

Describing how he approached a speaking engagement in front of a Trump-friendly audience in Wyoming shortly after the election, Allen said he decided to “shut up” so he could “listen to you about what you liked about Trump, how you came to your decision, what your inputs were.”

“A lot of it is also psychic and sociological and social. The anti-PC thing I think is a huge part of it,” he said, before going on to recount a conversation he had with a Trump-supporting friend on a train shortly after the election.

“People in America [were] just living their lives as they always have, and things were just changing too fast. ‘I’m living my life the way I always have and all of the sudden I’m the bigot, I’m a bad guy,’ and I think that was a huge part of this red wave.”

All of a sudden you’re the bigot, the bad guy. Well, if you are a bigot, yes, that makes you a bad guy. Right here in the open is why people voted for Trump – they want to be able to stay on top of the people pile, being bigoted assholes with the ability to make other people miserable. It’s disgusting. Repulsive. Sickening. Bad guy isn’t enough. Evil asshole, perhaps.

Full story at Think Progress.

Nuclear Safety? What’s That?

Credit: Getty.

Credit: Getty.

According to an official within the Department of Energy, this past Friday, the President-elect’s team instructed the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration and his deputy to clean out their desks when Trump takes office on January 20th.

The NNSA is the $12 billion-a-year agency that “maintains and enhances the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.” It’s unclear when the two officials will be replaced.

[…]

Trump, however, appears determined to immediately push out everyone who was appointed by Obama, regardless of whether or not he has anyone in line for the job. Or, as our source put it: “It’s a shocking disregard for process and continuity of government.”

Just as with Obama’s soon-to-be-removed international envoys, Trump has ordered Under Secretary for Nuclear Security Frank Klotz and his deputy, Madelyn Creedon—both Obama appointees—to leave their posts, even if it means no one is in charge of maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons. According to our Energy Department source, Trump’s team has yet to nominate anyone to succeed them. Since both positions require Senate confirmation, if could be months before their chairs are filled. And the vacancies may extend beyond the leadership roles.

“There are scores more appointees within the department,” our source told us. “Secretarial and administration appointments that don’t require Senate confirmation, mostly performing policy, liaison, and strategic advisory capacities in support of the agency they’re at. They serve at the will of the head of their agency. Those people are, theoretically, also out on inauguration day unless otherwise directed, which hasn’t happened yet to my knowledge.”

The source later added, “I’m more and more coming around to the idea that we’re so very very fucked.”

Yes, we certainly are fucked. Probably much more than we know. A government run on spite. That ought to work out just great. Fuck.

Gizmodo has the full story.

“You Always Want to Go With What He Says!”

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ABC News.

Meryl Streep delivered one hell of a takedown on Trump without ever mentioning him. Naturally, the thin-skinned narcissist hasn’t been able to cope, blurting out nastiness all over twitter while his henchperson tells people to “look in his heart”. I don’t want to look at Donny’s heart, it’s 70 years old and no doubt not terribly pretty. Oh wait…yeah, I don’t want to look at that heart either. It’s a chaotic, malice filled nest of narcissism.

Receiving a lifetime achievement award Sunday night at the Golden Globes, actress Meryl Streep expressed her concern about President-elect Donald Trump, focusing in on the moment during the campaign in which he mocked a reporter’s disability. Doing damage control Monday morning, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway pleaded that people ignore Trump’s words and the video of Trump obviously mocking the reporter, and instead look at “his heart.”

“You can’t give him the benefit of the doubt on this and he’s telling you what was in his heart?” Conway asked CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “You always want to go by what’s come out of his mouth rather than look at what’s in his heart.”

Generally speaking, Ms. Conway, going by what people say is the standard by which we judge. Perhaps you should work a bit harder on shutting Donny up, because so far, all his words, they reflect what’s in his “heart”, and it’s an ugly landscape.

Just an hour earlier, Conway had been on Fox and Friends, attacking Meryl Streep for “inciting people’s worst instincts.” Streep gave an eloquent speech about rejecting bullying and encouraged everyone to feel empathy for others.

That sounds about right. Every single person who has compassion, we’re operating on our worst instincts. That definitely fits in with Donny’s reality. (There’s video of this at the link.)

…Conway’s argument is that no matter what Trump might do or say that is actually wrong or objectionable, it doesn’t matter so long as people believe he meant well. Streep, on the other hand, must be held accountable for promoting division by not standing by the President-elect.

Ah, intentions. I don’t believe Trump meant well, I don’t think he ever means well. What’s that old saying about good intentions?

Full story at Think Progress.

Ethics & Team Trump: Never the Twain Shall Meet.

ethics

The Office of Government Ethics has been attempting to chase down Team Trump, who are doing everything in their power to evade, so far, successfully. Is “people who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear” still a thing? If so, it would appear that Team Trump has everything to fear.

New emails reveal that the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) reportedly “lost contact” with President-elect Donald Trump’s team during the ongoing transition to power, despite efforts to warn officials about ethical issues posed by nominees and “blind trusts.”

According to emails uncovered by MSNBC, OGE director Director Walter Shaub contacted Trump aides in November expressing deep frustration with the lack of cooperation between his organization and the president-elect’s team. Shaub reportedly cautioned Trump against creating a blind trust of his business holdings without speaking to the OGE first, noting that the ethics office only considers something a blind trust if its assets have “been sold off”—a very different standard that the “half-blind” trust floated by Trump’s own team. (To date, Trump has not suggested that he will sell off his assets.)

MSNBC noted that the emails, which it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, included few details regarding any efforts by the president-elect to divest from assets that could result in potential conflicts of interest during his presidency.

[…]

Shaub also argued that Trump’s staff was risking “embarrassment” by refusing to allow the ethics office to review the financial records of potential cabinet selections before they were announced, saying some could potentially violate federal law.

“They run the risk of having inadvertently violated the criminal conflicts of interest restriction at 18 USC 208,” Shaub wrote. “If we don’t get involved early to prevent problems, we won’t be able to help them after the fact.”

The tension may explain the OGE’s effort to troll Trump on Twitter in late November.

Look, a bonus Sunday Facepalm! The only way to maybe get the Pendejo-elect’s attention is to troll him on Twitter. For fuck’s sake. Even some conservatives are appalled:

Yes. And not only that, but McConnell’s deep hypocrisy is on show as well:

The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate plans to rush forward this week with confirmation hearings for many of Donald Trump’s nominees for cabinet and other key executive positions. Though many of the picks have not yet completed the customarily required ethics clearances and background checks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has shown no willingness to delay.

[…]

But back in 2009, McConnell took the exact opposite view. A letter to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), posted on Twitter by Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington co-founder and former Obama administration ethics adviser Norm Eisen on Sunday, shows he demanded that “financial disclosures must be complete” before any confirmation hearings be scheduled.

How things change, eh?

Think Progress has the full stories: Government Ethics and McConnell.

ALEC: We Can Do Whatever We Want.

Scott Walker, ALEC marionette. Credit: Donkey

Scott Walker, ALEC marionette. Credit: DonkeyHotey.

The American Legislative Exchange Council — a nonprofit better known as ALEC — briefed its members and allied groups on the bright future for its agenda now that Republicans will effectively control 68 of the nation’s 99 state legislative bodies, as well as 33 governor’s mansions. Among other things, group members said they would push bills to reduce corporate taxes, weaken unions, privatize schooling and influence the ideological debate on college campuses.

“We can pretty much do whatever we want to right now,” said Rep. Jim DeCesare, a Republican state legislator in Kentucky, where the party gained the state House for the first time in nearly a century.

DeCesare, who had been minority whip, described plans for “a pretty intense agenda” including a so-called right-to-work law allowing employees who are covered by collective bargaining agreements to opt out of joining labor unions. Another, he said, would be repealing rules that require government contractors to pay employees more than the minimum wage. Neighboring states competing for new businesses, he said, had already gutted such regulations.

“We’ve got some catching up to do, but we plan to make up a lot of ground in a very short time,” DeCesare said. “This is our time to shine.”

[…]

Inez Feltscher, director of ALEC’s education task force, outlined plans to advocate for legislation giving money to parents who take their children out of public schools — stipends they could use for private schooling or other educational expenses. Critics of these “education savings accounts” say they’re a drain on public-school funding, while proponents argue they give parents a chance to pick the best situation for their kids.

Feltscher acknowledged another motivation: “To break the monopoly on one of the most important institutions in America.” Conservatives have long been at odds with teachers unions over the structure and curriculum of public schools. “We’ve let the left take over almost all of the cultural institutions of this country,” she said.

Another ALEC target, Feltscher said, would be the state of “free debate on American universities,” which conservatives say are largely dominated by left-leaning faculty, courses and speakers. For example, she said, lawmakers could use a range of tactics to press administrators to include multiple ideologies during on-campus public policy talks, such as demanding an annual count of campus events that included more than one perspective. Simply requiring measurement and public reporting would apply pressure, she said, but legislators could also take it to “the nuclear level” and threaten to pull funding from schools that are perceived to be limiting discourse.

“There’s going to be a lot more aggression on this,” Feltscher said.

Corporate rule. Oh, joy. They’ll get all the money and cozy breaks, friendly legislation, and all the people working? Screwed. And no more education, we prefer ignorant dumbfucks!  Oh, we are beyond fucked.

ProPublica has the full story.

A Week of Trump Failures and Lies.

Just the highlights here, head over to Alternet for all the gory details.

1. Calling for an investigation of NBC instead of the Russian hacks.

2. Making personal calls instead of doing his friggin’ job.

3. Accepting Julian Assange’s word over 17 intelligence agencies.

4. Admitting he duped his no-nothing voter base on the border wall, then lying again.

5. Lying about having a hand in every job-saving deal.

6. But refusing to take credit for job losses.

7. Calling Democratic senator Chuck Shumer a ‘clown,’ then saying we need to unite 9 minutes later.

8. Throwing Obama’s political ambassadors and their families out on short notice.

9. Scheduling a news conference to distract from his appointee hearings.

10. Still publicly smarting about being dissed by all the cool-kid pop stars for his little inauguration thing.

Pretty sure that’s barely the top layer of lies, it’s harder and harder to keep up, what with all the lies, obfuscation, and never ending tantrums.

Repealing ACA Will Cost $350 Billion.

aca_flag

As most people should be aware by now, the scum-sucking assholes who will be in charge just can’t wait to kill off “Obamacare” for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Oh, except for spite. Pretty soon, a whole lot of people are going to find themselves without healthcare, and they’ll be looking at dying much sooner than they planned, because that’s what happens when you don’t have healthcare. The republican thugs want you to believe it’s about saving money, but that really couldn’t be further from the truth. They have no replacement plan, and dismantling the ACA will be costly.

An analysis by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget reveals that repealing the Affordable Care Act will likely cost the federal government at least $350 billion, and that doesn’t include the cost of replacing it.

“Repealing the entire ACA would leave no funds available for ‘replace’ legislation, and in fact would require further deficit reduction to avoid adding to the debt,” the report notes.

The analysis also focuses only on the net cost to the federal government and doesn’t consider the economic burden (which CNBC calls “the far bigger economic impact”) that will face insurers, hospitals, doctors, drug companies, and others in the existing health system. And of course, it doesn’t include an estimate of the financial impact on the 23 million Americans who will lose their health coverage if the ACA is repealed and not replaced.

The Advocate has the full, in-depth story.

Missing Out On $50 Trillion and Millions of High Wage Jobs.

chart

CREDIT: Department of Energy (DOE).

Clean energy. It’s the only possible way to go right now, and there’s more promise in clean energy than anything else, but Pendejo-elect Trump is making sure that America will not only miss out on all the money clean energy can bring, but the millions of jobs which go with it. No, much better to commit to filthy energy, which can stuff a few select, already overflowing pockets with more money, making sure that the environment gets destroyed, and to keep on denying climate change. Oh yes, that’s just so much better, by golly, that will make America great again, you betcha. :insert near-fatal eyeroll here.:

A few days ago, Joe Romm at Think Progress had an article up about the clean energy, and how it will be a $50 trillion industry, and how Trump has determined that the U.S. will not be a part of it.

The best charts of 2016 reveal the clean energy revolution is unstoppable. At least, it is unstoppable globally.

But if the United States makes a historic blunder and shifts its focus back toward dirty energy just when the rest of the world has made a $50 trillion (or higher) commitment to a carbon-free future, then it won’t reap the vast job-creating benefits of the remarkable ongoing cost reductions shown in chart above.

That article is here.

Today, there’s an article about all the jobs created by clean energy.

Renewable energy jobs in select countries (excluding large hydropower). CREDIT: IRENA.

Renewable energy jobs in select countries (excluding large hydropower). CREDIT: IRENA.

China is preparing to go big on the only major new source of sustainable high-wage employment in the coming decades.

Beijing’s newest 5-year energy development plan invests a stunning 2.5 trillion yuan ($360 billion) in renewable generation by 2020. Of that, $144 billion will go to solar, about $100 billion to wind, $70 billion to hydropower, and the rest to sources like tidal and geothermal power.

The Chinese National Energy Administration said in a statement Thursday the resulting “employment will be more than 13 million people.”

China is already doing way better than the U.S. in this regard, and President-elect Trump’s commitment to opposing clean energy will not make things any better. As the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reported last year, China already has over 40 percent of all jobs in renewables, globally, while the U.S. has under 10 percent (see chart above).

We know clean energy jobs are the only major new source of sustainable high-wage employment in the coming decades for several reasons.

If you’re one of those Americans who fell for Trump’s “jobs!” bullshit, perhaps you should look into moving to China, I hear they are hiring. The full article is at Think Progress.

The Trump Wall: Taxpayer Funded.

© Richard Misrach. Border Cantos.

© Richard Misrach. Border Cantos.

It seems that Trump is still determined to waste an insane amount of money on a wall, but as Mexico has rightly refused the offer to foot the bill, eyes are looking elsewhere, to the American taxpayer, specifically. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I do not want one cent of my earnings to go for this gargantuan stupidity. This whole idea is bad, all the way around, and on top of all the bad, makes me feel very claustrophobic, like I might not be able to get out.

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is working on making his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, the cornerstone of his 2016 presidential campaign, a reality. However, there is a slight change in plans.

The team told GOP officials the real estate mogul had signaled that the building of the wall be funded by American tax dollars and not by Mexico, as he had previously claimed, CNN reported Thursday citing House Republicans. Officials are looking to fund the construction using the appropriations process as early as April.

[…]

The 2006 law allowed the construction of a “physical barrier” running for 700 miles on the country’s southern border, Politico reported earlier Thursday. The law was never fully implemented and did not include a sunset provision allowing Trump to continue where Bush left off using the funds Congress would allocate for the project.

“It was not done in the Obama administration, so by funding the authorization that’s already happened a decade ago, we could start the process of meeting Mr. Trump’s campaign pledge to secure the border,” Indiana Rep. Luke Messer told CNN on Thursday.

[…]

Republicans would have to add millions to the spending bill — which needs to pass by the end of April — to keep the government open, should Mexico refuse to pay for the wall. But the move could irk House Democrats who might threaten the GOP with a government shutdown.

Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, a senior GOP leader in the House, did not say if Congress will pay for the construction of the wall.

“We want President Trump to have all the tools he needs to build the wall,” Scalise reportedly said. “We’re in talks with him on the details of it as they’re still putting together their team. We still got a few months before there’s another funding bill that’s going to move. We’re going to work with him to make sure we can get it done. We want to build a wall. He wants to build a wall.”

The GOP lawmaker said the project would involve “big dollars, but it’s a question of priorities,” citing Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul’s $10 billion border security bill that he proposed last year.

“Democrats may well find themselves in the position to shut down all of government to stop the buildout of a wall, or of a barrier, or of a fence,” Messer added.

America: excels in stupid, like building a gigantic wall; never builds bridges.

Via Raw Story.

The Holman Rule.

© Getty Images.

© Getty Images.

House Republicans this week reinstated a procedural rule created in 1876 that allows lawmakers to cut the pay of individual federal workers down to $1, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The Holman Rule allows members of Congress to propose amendments to appropriations bills that target specific government employees or programs in an effort to cut spending.

Under the rule passed this week in larger rules package, any such amendment that would target an employee or program would have to be passed by a majority of the House and Senate. That makes it unlikely, albeit possible, for lawmakers to reduce a federal worker’s pay.

Democrats and federal employees who worry about how President-elect Donald Trump could use it blasted the rule.

Resurrecting a very old rule is never good news, you know people are planning to do very bad things, and this has one hell of a chill factor:

“This is a big rule change inside there that allows people to get at places they hadn’t before,” he told reporters.

The new rule follows requests by the Trump transition team for lists of the names of employees involved in specific programs, such as Energy Department scientists who have worked on climate change.

The ability to legally reduce someone’s salary to a dollar is a good way to get rid of people, isn’t it? Or just using it as a threat, fall in line, or…

Via The Hill.

Ineligibility of 50 Electoral College Voters.

Getty Images.

Getty Images.

More than 50 Electoral College members who voted for Donald Trump were ineligible to serve as presidential electors because they did not live in the congressional districts they represented or held elective office in states legally barring dual officeholders.

That stunning finding is among the conclusions of an extensive 1,000-plus page legal briefing prepared by a bipartisan nationwide legal team for members of Congress who are being urged to object to certifying the 2016 Electoral College results on Friday.

“Trump’s ascension to the presidency is completely illegitimate,” said Ryan Clayton of Americans Take Action, who is promoting the effort. “It’s not just Russians hacking our democracy. It’s not just voter suppression at unprecedented levels. It is also [that] there are Republicans illegally casting ballots in the Electoral College, and in a sufficient number that the results of the Electoral College proceedings are illegitimate as well.”

[…]

It may be that the efforts to convince Congress to challenge the ratification of the 2016 Electoral College amounts to little more than a Hail Mary aimed at derailing a Trump presidency. As of late Wednesday, Clayton thought there would be House members willing to object to certifying the Electoral College vote, but he was less certain about finding a senator willing to go along.

But even if a challenge is mounted and fails, it underscores the illegitimate basis of Trump’s presidency and the deep opposition to it, and refutes the GOP’s outrageous claim that it has a mandate for dismantling government programs across the board.

“We have a list of 50 illegal electors,” Clayton said. “That puts Donald Trump below the threshold that he needs to be elected president. Let’s debate it in an open session. According to the Constitution, the Congress, if nobody wins on the first round of balloting, picks from the top three candidates. That will be Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Colin Powell.”

I won’t be holding my breath here, everyone knew that the Bush jr presidency was illegitimate, but it didn’t matter. I don’t think it will matter this time, either. This is, however, yet another reason to dismantle the electoral college.

Full story at Alternet.