You can't move the needle when it's already pinned.

[berg80]

We live in a constant state of astonishment. Like a person suffering from sensory overload, at some point our senses essentially shut down, no longer able to react. Such is the case with respect to the news cycle reporting the relentless swings of the orange hued, human wrecking ball.

Consider, if you can, at a recent rally he once again used Paul Pelosi's skull fracture, an injury inflicted by a man charged with attempted murder, as a punchline.




He also used the platform at a rally to say the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs should be executed for disloyalty to him. Rather than being booed off the stage his adoring followers laughed.


Contemplate that before moving on.


Or maybe it's just too much.


Can't manage it? I understand.


His older sister recently passed away. I was reminded she resigned her lifetime position on the federal bench just days after it was announced her role in the Trump family tax fraud scheme, reported by the NYT, was being investigated by a panel reviewing judicial conduct. An otherwise major scandal lost in the deluge of scandals.


Contemplate that before moving on. Or maybe it's just too much.



We recently learned plans are being made for a second term. They include turning the Justice Dept. in to a personal vendetta machine worthy of banana republics. Also, authorizing the military to crush any protests that may ensue from arrests of political enemies. Storylines associated with dictatorships. Having a hard time processing them coming from the US about the presumptive POT nominee for the presidency? I don't blame you. This can't be happening here, right? WRONG.




Take a moment. Or maybe it's just too much.




Experiencing disbelief? I have an idea about why.




Being social animals, we sometimes take our behavioral cues from those around us. Today is Thursday. Folks are getting their kids ready for school, eating breakfast, walking the dog. Things feel normal. Leaders of the POT, both official and titular, conservative pundits, the editorial pages of right wing newspapers, our neighbors, are not denouncing him......and the fawning sycophants who surround him......in the strongest possible ways. Not on their side of the aisle at least. The suggestion of having soldiers in our midst, putting down and or arresting protestors reacting to dictatorial practices, making jokes about an attack on an 82 year old man, proposing the execution of a decorated general, are met by the aforementioned pols and neighbors with a collective shrug. How can this be? How can they not be outraged? Maybe they're too busy watching The Masked Singer. Or maybe they just don't mind.

 

[Mac1958]

Or maybe they just don't mind.

We have become numb to this, and that may be the worst part of this whole disaster.

The country has allowed itself to be led into the sewer by the most obvious con man we've ever seen. This is a self-inflicted wound.

This is about us, not him.

 

[postman]

His older sister recently passed away. I was reminded she resigned her lifetime position on the federal bench just days after it was announced her role in the Trump family tax fraud scheme, reported by the NYT, was being investigated by a panel reviewing judicial conduct. An otherwise major scandal lost in the deluge of scandals.

It is quite unusual for a sitting federal judge to suddenly resigned from the bench for no apparent reason. But what it did was stop a federal judicial investigation, as she was no longer a judge.

 

[Oddball]

tl;dr

 

[Libby von H]

We live in a constant state of astonishment. Like a person suffering from sensory overload, at some point our senses essentially shut down, no longer able to react. Such is the case with respect to the news cycle reporting the relentless swings of the orange hued, human wrecking ball.

Consider, if you can, at a recent rally he once again used Paul Pelosi's skull fracture, an injury inflicted by a man charged with attempted murder, as a punchline.




He also used the platform at a rally to say the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs should be executed for disloyalty to him. Rather than being booed off the stage his adoring followers laughed.


Contemplate that before moving on.


Or maybe it's just too much.


Can't manage it? I understand.


His older sister recently passed away. I was reminded she resigned her lifetime position on the federal bench just days after it was announced her role in the Trump family tax fraud scheme, reported by the NYT, was being investigated by a panel reviewing judicial conduct. An otherwise major scandal lost in the deluge of scandals.


Contemplate that before moving on. Or maybe it's just too much.



We recently learned plans are being made for a second term. They include turning the Justice Dept. in to a personal vendetta machine worthy of banana republics. Also, authorizing the military to crush any protests that may ensue from arrests of political enemies. Storylines associated with dictatorships. Having a hard time processing them coming from the US about the presumptive POT nominee for the presidency? I don't blame you. This can't be happening here, right? WRONG.




Take a moment. Or maybe it's just too much.




Experiencing disbelief? I have an idea about why.




Being social animals, we sometimes take our behavioral cues from those around us. Today is Thursday. Folks are getting their kids ready for school, eating breakfast, walking the dog. Things feel normal. Leaders of the POT, both official and titular, conservative pundits, the editorial pages of right wing newspapers, our neighbors, are not denouncing him......and the fawning sycophants who surround him......in the strongest possible ways. Not on their side of the aisle at least. The suggestion of having soldiers in our midst, putting down and or arresting protestors reacting to dictatorial practices, making jokes about an attack on an 82 year old man, proposing the execution of a decorated general, are met by the aforementioned pols and neighbors with a collective shrug. How can this be? How can they not be outraged? Maybe they're too busy watching The Masked Singer. Or maybe they just don't mind.

The reason I don't take you seriously at all is, IF millions are following this sick, and in your opinion, excusably abnormal man -- if you believed that you would be concerned not about him but with the millions. So I do not take you seriously.

And you end with "Maybe they don't mind' -- and THAT is analysis ????

 

[Blues Man]

We live in a constant state of astonishment. Like a person suffering from sensory overload, at some point our senses essentially shut down, no longer able to react. Such is the case with respect to the news cycle reporting the relentless swings of the orange hued, human wrecking ball.

Consider, if you can, at a recent rally he once again used Paul Pelosi's skull fracture, an injury inflicted by a man charged with attempted murder, as a punchline.




He also used the platform at a rally to say the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs should be executed for disloyalty to him. Rather than being booed off the stage his adoring followers laughed.


Contemplate that before moving on.


Or maybe it's just too much.


Can't manage it? I understand.


His older sister recently passed away. I was reminded she resigned her lifetime position on the federal bench just days after it was announced her role in the Trump family tax fraud scheme, reported by the NYT, was being investigated by a panel reviewing judicial conduct. An otherwise major scandal lost in the deluge of scandals.


Contemplate that before moving on. Or maybe it's just too much.



We recently learned plans are being made for a second term. They include turning the Justice Dept. in to a personal vendetta machine worthy of banana republics. Also, authorizing the military to crush any protests that may ensue from arrests of political enemies. Storylines associated with dictatorships. Having a hard time processing them coming from the US about the presumptive POT nominee for the presidency? I don't blame you. This can't be happening here, right? WRONG.




Take a moment. Or maybe it's just too much.




Experiencing disbelief? I have an idea about why.




Being social animals, we sometimes take our behavioral cues from those around us. Today is Thursday. Folks are getting their kids ready for school, eating breakfast, walking the dog. Things feel normal. Leaders of the POT, both official and titular, conservative pundits, the editorial pages of right wing newspapers, our neighbors, are not denouncing him......and the fawning sycophants who surround him......in the strongest possible ways. Not on their side of the aisle at least. The suggestion of having soldiers in our midst, putting down and or arresting protestors reacting to dictatorial practices, making jokes about an attack on an 82 year old man, proposing the execution of a decorated general, are met by the aforementioned pols and neighbors with a collective shrug. How can this be? How can they not be outraged? Maybe they're too busy watching The Masked Singer. Or maybe they just don't mind.

I don't know if it's astonishment.

In fact I think it's just the opposite ; numbness from sensory overload.

People have to realize that the media news outlets are not interested in truth and all they care about is ratings and advertising revenue. And the best way to do that is to focus on the fringes and the loudest most outrageous people get the most air time because that gets the most viewers.

 

[postman]

We have become numb to this, and that may be the worst part of this whole disaster.

The country has allowed itself to be led into the sewer by the most obvious con man we've ever seen. This is a self-inflicted wound.

This is about us, not him.

The founding fathers even imagined such a thing happening, and put in the constitution a safety valve from "the people" being so fooled or enamored by a huckster. They put the election of the president, not in the peoples hands, but in the hands of their elected state representatives.

And back when there were no political parties, the electors weren't chosen for their knowledge, not their allegiance.

Under the original system, a P.T. Barnum could never wiggle his way into the white house.

 

[Mac1958]

The founding fathers even imagined such a thing happening, and put in the constitution a safety valve from "the people" being so fooled or enamored by a huckster. They put the election of the president, not in the peoples hands, but in the hands of their elected state representatives.

And back when there were no political parties, the electors weren't chosen for their knowledge, not their allegiance.

Under the original system, a P.T. Barnum could never wiggle his way into the white house.

I suspect they placed a bit more faith in the electorate, as well.

 

[berg80]

We have become numb to this, and that may be the worst part of this whole disaster.

The country has allowed itself to be led into the sewer by the most obvious con man we've ever seen. This is a self-inflicted wound.

This is about us, not him.

That's an opinion I share. It's easy to put the blame on Trump, or right wing media, or even the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, for our dysfunction. Our inability to act on curing the nation's problems because we can't agree on their causes.
It's a mistake to blame Rupert Murdoch for flinging shit on the wall if he can profit by doing so. The blame is more appropriately assigned to those willingly eating it.

 

[Oddball]

I don't know if it's astonishment.

In fact I think it's just the opposite ; numbness from sensory overload.

People have to realize that the media news outlets are not interested in truth and all they care about is ratings and advertising revenue. And the best way to do that is to focus on the fringes and the loudest most outrageous people get the most air time because that gets the most viewers.

This may well go back to what Rush said about the media not being able to destroy that which they didn't create....Said, of course, in the context that not only didn't the media make him, but he made it swimming upstream of the media sewage line.

But this is different....The media -to a great extent- did make Trump, and they're all now completely out of their head trying to figure out why they haven't destroyed him yet, and are unembarrassed at the entirely absurd lengths they're willing to go to, in order to try doing so.

 

[Oddball]

The blame is more appropriately assigned to those willingly eating it.

Says the stooge who'd eat a wheelbarrow of shit, if it had a "I hate Trump" sign hanging on it.

 

[postman]

I suspect they placed a bit more faith in the electorate, as well.

Only for the purse strings. The senate and the president were chosen by the state legislatures.

 

[berg80]

People have to realize that the media news outlets are not interested in truth and all they care about is ratings and advertising revenue. And the best way to do that is to focus on the fringes and the loudest most outrageous people get the most air time because that gets the most viewers.

But the larger point is not so much the radicalization of fringe elements. It's how mainstream Repubs hear Trump calling for Milley's execution and eat their toast without missing a beat.

 

[22lcidw]

We have become numb to this, and that may be the worst part of this whole disaster.

The country has allowed itself to be led into the sewer by the most obvious con man we've ever seen. This is a self-inflicted wound.

This is about us, not him.

There are men and women who were taught before the schools were infected with communist propaganda. What Trump backed is rarely talked about. It is Trump himself that is aways in the news as Progs like yourself viciously defame him. Near all of the terrorists and insurrectionists are of your political party. During real violence, trust is difficult for humans. To depend on someone else to be there for survival. Progs are shallow and really have not been tested even though they live off the results of protests/riots/terrorism/insurrections and are the most violent people in American history. The people taught before the infection know right and wrong who were not radicals. How they vote is personal and for many to their advantage.

 

[postman]

It's a mistake to blame Rupert Murdoch for flinging shit on the wall if he can profit by doing so. The blame is more appropriately assigned to those willingly eating it.

This is where part 1 comes in

That's an opinion I share. It's easy to put the blame on Trump, or right wing media, or even the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, for our dysfunction. Our inability to act on curing the nation's problems because we can't agree on their causes.

The fairness doctrine served a useful purpose. It always gave both sides a more equal voice. Now elections are constrained only by the money doctrine. And corporations, are now allowed to sell politics like they do laundry detergent.

 

[Blues Man]

But the larger point is not so much the radicalization of fringe elements. It's how mainstream Repubs hear Trump calling for Milley's execution and eat their toast without missing a beat.

Desensitized to all the rhetoric.

It's the same way that severe PTSD is treated. The patient is made to tell and retell the trauma he suffered until he is numb to it.

Sooner or later the media will have to move on to the next thing that can create "outrage" in a population so desensitized to sensationalism and noise and will have to create a bigger louder more outrageous narrative.

 

[postman]

But the larger point is not so much the radicalization of fringe elements. It's how mainstream Repubs hear Trump calling for Milley's execution and eat their toast without missing a beat.

Trump has tapped into anti-government sentiment. The little man, vs big government. Classic, us vs "the man".

Everybody has some gripe against the government, and Trump taps into that anger and fear.

 

[Oddball]

But the larger point is not so much the radicalization of fringe elements. It's how mainstream Repubs hear Trump calling for Milley's execution and eat their toast without missing a beat.

All the while hack turds like you hear absurdities like "we have to pass the bill beofre we find out what's in it", "I voted for it before I voted against it", and "it depends upon what your meaning of the word 'is' is" and eat your toast without missing a beat.

 

[berg80]

It is Trump himself that is aways in the news as Progs like yourself viciously defame him.

Let's talk about that. Did he or did he not intimate Milley should be executed? Is reporting what he said defaming him?

Milley says he’ll ensure family safety after Trump’s execution remark

Gen. Mark Milley said he'll take steps to protect himself and his family after comments by former President Donald Trump.

www.militarytimes.com

 

[Mac1958]

That's an opinion I share. It's easy to put the blame on Trump, or right wing media, or even the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, for our dysfunction. Our inability to act on curing the nation's problems because we can't agree on their causes.
It's a mistake to blame Rupert Murdoch for flinging shit on the wall if he can profit by doing so. The blame is more appropriately assigned to those willingly eating it.

There is another element to this that I don't see discussed: My guess is that this really isn't Trump. I think it's more likely people close to him, like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, the true 30's throwbacks. They know he is sick, but they know how much power he has accrued.

I think they're just taking advantage of his mental illness, and playing to his brittle ego. If this is the way for him to soothe his ego, then he's willing to do it, and they're guiding him step by step. He doesn't have the intelligence to do this. He clearly doesn't write those speeches. He's just a sick, needy puppet.

Just a hunch.