I'm calling it the WHITEWASH HOUSE

"Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a <country> every day?"


I can't bear to lend any legitimacy to SCROTUS's occupancy of such a vaulted domicile.  So, for the current period until SCROTUS is terminated, it shall be known on this blog as the Whitewash House.

"Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else."

How will this end?

I've been thinking about how this Alternative Administration will end. Will SCROTUS occupy the White House for four years? Will he be impeached? Will he resign? Will he die? And when?

Bookies are pegging resignation or impeachment at 48%. Read more at Politico.


Resignation.

Not gonna happen, with this man's ego. There are good signs that SCROTUS should resign, however. The leaks from the first few weeks indicate that he is overwhelmed and out of touch. He has been overwhelmed from Day 1, when he met with President Obama. At that time, the reports were that he didn't quite understand the scope of the job, or even that he had to fill thousands of staffers' jobs. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Cream Faced Loon "seemed surprised by the scope," and his aides were also "unaware that the entire presidential staff working in the West Wing had to be replaced at the end of Mr. Obama's term." As was widely reported, President Obama offered extra help to ease the transition.

Even today, three weeks in, there are reports of his being overwhelmed and out of touch. There are reports that he doesn't like being SCROTUS. The White House is chaotic and full of leaks. Even the Intelligence Community is keeping information from him because of security concerns.

There are plenty of reports that he just doesn't understand the workings of the government, the economy (Is a strong dollar the good one? Or a weak dollar? And who is the right person to ask?), foreign policy, or even international decorum. He doesn't seem to care to understand, either. He doesn't like to read briefs; he wants information presented to him in short bullet-point memos. He's learning on the job --if you can call steering a burning ship into a wall of rocks learning--and it's scary.

We all know that he is unfit for the job, but will there come a time when he throws up his hands and agrees? We could hope that he would recognize that he's just not cut out for it, but I just don't see that happening, given his massive ego. 

Though this may be the very way to bring him down: keep insulting his ego. we know that he is quite fragile. He is obsessed with polls and his perceived popularity. After just one week, there were reports that he was becoming demoralized already. If there is one way to force a resignation, it may be to keep chipping away at his ego until it breaks. (Enter the Resistance!)

Impeachment

Nearly a year ago, even before he got the nomination, there was talk about impeachment of SCROTUS. This article by Politico from April, 2016 is on point with its prediction of the election results and the description of the early days of the Bigly Mistake's administration. The article quotes Rush Limbaugh as having the thought that talk of  impeachment would take two days. Ha, ha. It didn't take two minutes. On Inaguration Day, there were calls to impeach.

Reality has brought impeachment a bit closer. Some call for impeachment for SCROTUS's violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause, which prohibits a President from benefiting monetarily from a foreign leader or government. Given that we don't exactly know if he is, given that he won't release his tax returns, there is still strong evidence for this. He refuses to divest, and he has numerous businesses and hotels profiting around the world, possibly profiting from a foreign leader or government.

Here is an article from Huffington Post detailing the Emoluments Clause and concluding that it is probably not a very strong course of action to use it as a basis for impeachment with what we know at this time.

(Side note: I'm trying very hard to read and cite unbiased news sources, and Huffington Post has come out on many lists as biased too far to the left. However, I have found them to have good summary articles with links to more centered media. And, well, I'm biased to the Left, so I'll probably continue to cite them. For the record, I'm striving for unbiased news sources in general).

Undoubtedly as SCROTUS continues his ham-fisted style of Alternative Leadership, there will be other grounds for impeachment. I'd love to have his tax returns found. Wikileaks has vowed to find them. Maybe they'll rise to the challenge.  The Russian thing will surely implode very soon and there may be good reason not only to impeach TЯUMP but to jail him.

Congressmen are stepping up and pushing the impeachment issue, on other grounds. Indeed, last week on Tuesday, February 7, Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) filed a resolution, the first step toward a SCROTUS impeachment, after the Muslim Travel ban executive order. That order was overturned by our wonderful system of checks and balances, this time embodied by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Two days later, on Thursday, February 9, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) also filed a “resolution of inquiry” for impeachment.  His gets closer to the meat of the matter, which is the Russia situation.

If more Members of Congress step forward, maybe one of their resolutions will progress and will stick. Impeachment may be a hard sell to the Republicans (Esquire figures the Republicans won't do it), but SCROTUS's ratings are falling fast, and the mid-term elections are just around the corner.

Rebellion

Could America be subject to a new Revolution? 


Death 

That could happen. I'll leave it there as a possibility.


In an earlier post, I estimated 200 days before he is gone from office. I'll further predict it will be by impeachment. I think it makes political sense for Republicans to join our Democratic leaders to make it happen. The Republicans will be better able to get on to their business at hand under a President Pence <shudder> and their jobs will have a better chance of withstanding the next election.

President Nixon's own lawyer, John Dean, an expert in Presidential endings, has stated that it will end "in calamity." He doesn't specify the flavor of calamity, but I tend to agree. It's already been a calamity for our country. This Alternative Administration deserves to end in calamity. 

 Then, we can exit stage Left and find our new entrance.

SCROTUS is my moniker for the beast!

So "SCROTUS" has popped up on Twitter and such in the last day or two.

I thought it up all by myself!  I know this blog doesn't go far, but hey!  I coined the phrase and my ego needs the validation that it is my word!

https://littlesisterresister.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-name.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/debra-jane-campbell/its-the-little-things-fro_b_13642952.html

I ate four cans of alphabet soup yesterday...

...Today I had probably the biggest vowel movement ever.

Have you ever noticed that in every picture of SCROTUS smiling he has the same look as a toddler when he's hiding behind the couch doing his business...?

War is Peace. Slavery Is Freedom. Ignorance is Strength.

Image source

This age of misinformation is truly perplexing. What a mind trip. It is so confusing and confounding. It is crazy-making. It comes right out of the story books, 1984, or Harry Potter's Office of Misinformation in the Ministry of Magic.

It's our New Orwellian Reality.

First came the fake news.  Obvious satire like The Onion gave way to complex fake news sites from people who like to write and make up stuff. I guess there's money to be made there. As was true all along in the information age, people read and believe what they read on the internet. One such writer, who made a lot of money in the fake news industry, believes that due to his fake news, he may be irresponsible for the election results.  See an article here.

What is also concerning, is that it appears that we can be manipulated into reading what others --potentially powerful others-- want us to read. Big data and psychometrics are being used to analyze us, practically down to the color of our socks.  There is a lot of information out there about each of us, even without the obvious Silver Platter o' Personal Information that is Facebook. And people are using it to feed us stuff.  This is a long article, but really worth digesting. Scary, scary shit.

(As an aside, I took part in the analysis the article linked to. The analysis they did with only 29 of my public Facebook "likes" pegged me to a "T" -- it was astounding)

And then there is confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency of us all to search for, attend to. and interpret information that confirms our beliefs. Read about confirmation bias in this good article about it, or on Wikipedia.  We are all influenced by confirmation bias, but my hope is that if we read and learn about it and become aware, we may be able to combat it in our attempts to become better informed citizens.

How much do you think you are influenced by confirmation bias?  Take a quick test here.

Add fake news to confirmation bias, mix in some disdain and dissatisfaction, top with a dollop of force-feeding by outside forces, and you have a recipe for disaster, served up hot on November 8, 2016.


And then..... And then.....

Most troubling of all......

The gas-lighting.

There are outright LIES.  LIES from Bannon's Bitch and his minions. There is so much misinformation, deception, and fabrication flowing directly from that elvish-mark’d, abortive, rooting hog that it makes your ears bleed.

It's too depressing, and frankly overwhelming, to try to outline all the lies from just the first two weeks since Inauguration Day. (Gawd, as I write this, it's only been two weeks.  TWO WEEKS.  It feels like a lifetime.)  There are plenty of sites that keep track. If you have a strong stomach, and a lot of time, you can read about Li'l Adolph's lies, including plenty of lies you don't even know about. Here are a few sites that keep track:

Politifact.com

Buzzfeed.com

thestar.com


Since the election, TeenVogue has come into the role of media hero.  Who knew?!  Go, TeenVogue!  Here is one excellent article about the gas-lighting of America by Hair Hitler.  The writers at Teen Vogue are calling it like it is.  Good for our girls. Good for us.

(Look to TeenVogue for fact-checkig, too!)

It is emotionally and psychologically exhausting to be confronted with lies at such frequency and intensity. SCROTUS really does want to discredit the Press. This is terrifying. People are starting to believe that all news is fake news. SCROTUS wants to smear responsible journalists. The Press is us, the public.  They are our eyes and ears. By bashing the press, SCROTUS is attacking each of us.  It is astounding and alarming.

Another Catch-22: Repeating a lie, even with the statement, "SCROTUS's claims of rainbows flying out of his butt has no evidence" gives the lie legitimacy and makes the lie easier to remember. So,  how do we refute it?  It's enough to make a person absolutely nuts.  For an interesting analysis of this phonomenon and the psychology of being bombarded with lies, read this article from POLITICO.

But sometimes you really do gotta laugh to keep from crying.  Or going crazy. Saturday Night Live to the rescue.




Buck Fuglie is not only challenging the veracity of the press (don't like the story or the poll numbers?  Make up your own!), but even fact-checkers like Snopes.com are falling into the trap of "suspect" sites. Factcheck.org fact-checked allegations about snopes.com and found that snopes.com is on the up-and-up, apolitical, and unbiased. Yet, I see over and over comments on Facebook that say,  "Snopes.com itself has a problem with the facts" -- from right-wingers.  sigh. The nightmare Catch-22 continues.  It is sickening.

Of course SCROTUS and the Office of Misinformation that want the public to mistrust even the trusted sources.  It's a horrible, rising wave of ugly deception.

What can we do?

Consume Healthy Media.  Be aware that there is "fake news" on both sides. There is a good source for sorting out bias and fake stuff.  Look for the broccoli and beans of the media sources. Reject the Doritos and Cheez-Whiz. That stuff ain't healthy. Here are sources that can help sort out fake news:

FakeNewsWatch.com

Snopes.com

This image made its rounds on Facebook.  It may be a good starting point.

I submit that print journalism is a different kind of journalism than 24-hour news-ertainment, with it's churning vortex of spin, speculation and s'pundits. Turn off the TV and pick up a newspaper.  OK, if you must, read a trusted newspaper on-line.  But really.  Go to the end of your driveway in the morning, pick up the newspaper, and read it. Every day. And go talk to your co-workers, friends, and neighbors about what your read.

The upside to this fiasco is that perhaps we'll have a better-informed populace in the end.  If enough of us understand these issues and work to overcome them, maybe we'll have an improved collective knowledge.  Maybe young people will be inspired to become journalists. Maybe print journalism will have a resurgence.

Given the complexity of this mix of fakery, bias, and lies, in addition to the fact that we are also fed information that tries to manipulate us, in the most pervasive ways, it is imperative that we stay alert, read and learn. We need to work hard to be open-minded enough to let many sources of information in.

What can you do?

Avoid Being Fooled. 

Read. A lot. Question what you read. Be aware of the source of what you read. Check other sources. Check with fact-checking websites. Talk to people in real life about issues. Carefully consume information on the internet.  Subscribe to a newspaper. Support the freedom of the press. Believe in science. Think critically. Step out of your comfort zone and read viewpoints from "the other side." Read for information, not confirmation. Be skeptical. THINK FOR YOURSELF.

And when confronted by untruths, speak up. Say it's hogwash. Give sources. Put them in their place.

Be a better citizen.



Oh. And that gorgeous woman at the top of this page?  That's a man. Beautiful deception. I want more of that kind.

"We have art in order not to die of the truth." --Nietzsche

I truly believe that there is actually a lot of good that will come out of this fiasco in America.  In this blog I hope to touch on the positives. I believe deeply that love and kindness WILL win, and if we keep the positive vibe in our hearts we will find a way through this, and actually come out stronger for it.

One huge positive: It is bringing out the best in us. Citizens are using their skills to contribute.  We are energized and ready to apply our gifts to the resistance.  Organizers are organizing; people with money are donating; writers are writing.  And artists are making art.

Like during other movements in our history, such as the Civil Rights movement or the Vietnam era, visual and performing artists are using their art to give us a voice and a vision.

Here are a very few examples that have struck me just in the last week or so.

Rosie Re-imaginged.  Cool story from this Huffington Post Article 

This artist is giving a face to the marginalized. Read the story also in The Huffington Post.

Here is an interesting article about California artists and their role in the resistance. Explore the links in the article for more wonderful art, including the posters that Shepard Fairey has shared for free. 

And of course there are political cartoons! One of the best artisitic expressions in the Land!  I adore political cartoons. Here is a collection of cartoons from around the World on Imgur.

These are some of my favorite from the collection. They all portray SCROTUS in his true light.

Even artists like the lovable Sarah Boynton are getting into the act.

I attended a wonderful performance by Sarah Jones at UCSB just a few days after the inauguration. Ms. Jones is an amazing actress. She is able to put on characters like the rest of us put on a jacket. She became the characters from the top of her head to the tip of her toes.  Some of her characters had been with her at the Women's March in Washington, DC, and their commentary on the event was wise, poignant, and touching. Please explore her website and her videos, and if you ever get to see her perform, GO!



We are going to need to escape from reality in the next four years. I think that we are on the brink of having a ton of wonderful films produced. Just like in the 40s, we will need to escape to other worlds. Hollywood will not only comment on current events, but will take us away from them. 

Here are a couple of film-lets.

Budweiser created a touching ad:




And I will leave you with another film that inspires us to be at our best now and always.

This week, at the opening night of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, they showed an ad made by the Anti-Defamation League. It was powerful in any circumstance, but particularly today when people's freedoms and safety are at stake. 

Imagine.



Go.  Make art. Share it. Inspire us!

The Name!

"If you can't answer a man's arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names."  --Elbert Hubbard

Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions for names for the Icky One.

For the primary name, I have decided to use one that I thought up!

SCROTUS:   Soft Corrupt Ruskie Oligarch of The United States

But in the end, I decided to use a grab-bag approach. Everyone was so creative, so I'll use names from my friends and me from this list as they fit!

From my imagination and borrowed from Shakespeare:

• Alternate Leader 
• TЯUMP
• Bigly Mistake (BM)
• Bannon's Bitch     

Shakespeare has so many!

• Three-inch fool
• Plague sore
• Cream Faced Loon
• Elvish-mark’d, abortive, rooting hog
• Lump of foul deformity
• Foot Licker

From my friends:

• Rabid Yam

• Cheeto Messiah

• Cheeto McFuckface

• Mango Mussolini

• Hair Hitler

• Twidiot

• Twitler

• Li'l Adolph

• Tiny Puppet (TP)

• Tiny

• Faustus, Jr.

• Asshat Littlefingers

• 45 (ONLY if I'm feeling extremely generous)

• Kommendant in Chief

 From Samantha Bee:

• America's Burst Appendix   

•  Agent Orange 

• Crotch-fondling Slab of Rancid Meatloaf 

From citypages.com:

• Genghis Can't
• K-Mart Caesar
• Vanilla Isis (VISIS)
• The White Kanye