ChairmanAgnostic
ChairmanAgnostic's JournalBald eagles returning to Virginia. Those poor birds.
Imagine going through life being bald. Maybe we could fix them up with trumpian feather coverings for their heads?
The Texas Secession Movement
According to friends who still suffer in the Austin heat, the Houston humidity, and the Dallas' modesty, Brexit has been a real shot in the arm for those who wish to leave the union.
The Texas Nationalist Movement was first given a boost by Rick Perry, who on one hand pissed on the Obama administration at every possible turn, while at the same time he was seeking federal aid in times of drought and other disasters. He even suggested that Texas leave the union in several public appearances. Makes you wonder why he wanted to be president - but like so many Tea bangers who hated the federal government, while they ran for national office, rationality and consistency is not a strong point in that group of people.
Texit, as some now name that bowel movement, has the secessionists all in a dither, excited as a fat kid finding the key to candy shop after hours. Obviously, those who seek to leave our country haven't really thought things out.
MILITARY
There are 32 active Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard bases in Texas. Not including the Coast Guard, there are 126,000 military in Texas, by far the most in the country, with North Carolina the next highest at 112,000. Add to that another 50,000 civilians who are directly employed by the Military, and you could see that secession would have an immediate, adverse impact on the employment picture and the state's economy.
NASA, AEROSPACE, AVIATION
Texas boasts that it is the largest employer in the aviation and aerospace industries, with more than 153,000 employed there. Imagine how many would leave if Texas was no longer a part of the USA. Probably the vast majority.
CULTURE
Outside of Austin, there is none, so no great loss either to Texas or the US.
Even Trump has weighed in on Texit. He claimed that he understands how and why Texans are upset at the federal government, and that things would change once he is elected.
Texit is a pipe dream of some demented, short-sighted, irrational folks who hate anyone who is ejumicated, doesn't wear cowboy boots, or a 10 gallon hat. But, then, I thought the same thing about a Trump presidential run.
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On edit,
There is another boost to the Texit movement - today's Supreme Court decision affirming a woman's right to chooses, unfettered by some bible beating, christianist Texans who give two shits about a woman's real health issues. I don't think we can discount just how crazy some of those bible beaters are in Texas, given how they seem to seed and grow mega churches down there.
Corey Leandowski on CNN
I suspect that CNN is already having buyer's remorse after hiring this royal POS.
He remains a loyal trumpette, he is proud of what he did, and he barely - barely - admitted that he signed a non-disclosure agreement with Trump, his companies, his kids, his kids' companies, and the campaign.
The whole interview was little more other than "Trump is great, I am so proud to have worked for him, he is a game changer, and he is a winner!" He simply ignored any harder question and repeated his stalking points.
What a waste of time and money, CNN. What wuz you morans thinkin?
What Lewandowski's firing means for the Trump Campaign
Like many folks, I first treated Donald Trump's entry in to the GOP campaign as a joke. Then, it struck me that he was precisely the guy to excite the nuttiest nuts in the nut factory. About March, April, I was convinced that he was going to win the nomination.
But, at the same time, I always felt that his whole campaign was a joke, a put-on job, an ego-stroking, masturbatory effort at selling his personal brand. And, I was convinced that he was going to find some escape route, a means to quit while gaining the maximum amount of free coverage.
Like any PT Barnum apprentice, Trump instinctively knows what will create media attention and grab the short attention spans of the functionally illiterate, the willfully ignorant, and those morons who actually believe that the Tea Party was started as a ground roots movement. He has been a master at it, and has achieved an enviable success. Considering just how few Tea partiers remain, and how lucky we are to have a small, demented, but extremely vocal minority of imbeciles, morons, anti-intellectuals, and flat-earthers, Trump's success is almost unbelievable. Considering that Trump got 14,000,000 votes throughout the campaign (and I would suggest that 4,000,000 of those were protest votes, sarcastically cast, or used to protest our gamed economic and social systems) that means that Trump acheived the unthinkable.
If the net percentage of America's population were broken down into mental capacity, knowledge, experience, and relative "sanity" groups, this means that Trump earned 85% of ENTIRE moron vote in America. That is an astounding figure.
Given the growing hatred of Trump, especially on GOP side of the aisle, I had expected him to concoct some lame, unprovable excuse, and retire from politics. He just would not work as president, and the demands on his time would drive him crazy.
Unfortunately, all of my predictions, ideas, and predictions about this race just went out the toilet. Down the window? Something like that. Lewandowski had two things going for him. He was as rude and arrogant as his boss, and he had the ultimate insider's respect and reliance that Trump had deigned to award him.
This was, under Lewandowski, a loser's campaign, run by a loser, organized by a loser, promoting a loser, in a race that the loser was going to lose. By any measurement, the Trump campaign was a disorganized, bundle of inane, often contradictory, and pointless decisions made by one person - Trump - and put into action by his closest aide, - Lewandowski.
What his resignation means is that Trump took to heart some advice from someone within the GOP monstrosity, someone got his attention, and gave him strong advise on what he needs to to do campaign successfully. Given just how little Trump likes or takes advise from others, I suspect it was an interesting meeting or conversation.
The upshot is that Lewandowski is gone. It also means that Trump is in it to the end. It means that Trump now wants the presidency. Bring out your popcorn and fasten your seatbelt. It will be a hell of a ride for the upcoming months.
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On edit. It looks like the folks who got TRump's attention were adult family members. Either way, the prediction that he would withdraw was just plain wrong. With his family supporting his presidential campaign, he has wrapped himself into a bubble chamber in which he can do no wrong. And that means he is running for president.
any polling data on the Illinois Senate race?
Tammy Duckworth has been in the background for a bit. Pity, some of Rauner's talks (out of one side of his mouth in Chicago, out of the other downstate) should give her fodder for free press.
Kirk made a big splash with his post-support of Trump with his refusal to support him.
One thing Trump has taught us, the media is like a school of dumb fish. Flash a shiny object in front of them, and they dash for it, ignoring everything else.
One possibly bad impact caused by this despicable event?
Trump wins the presidency. I am sure is already planning how to capitalize on this. I only hope he goes too far and pisses all of America off,
We know the NRA is meeting and planning a response. We can be sure Mitch McConnell and John Boe . . . Paul Ryan are plotting on how to keep gun control off the legislature's agenda. And we know that the vast portion of America are in tears and mourning.
What a fucked up time to live in.
TRONC
Years ago, I took a grad level psych course about how organizations, partnerships, and corporations got stuck in making really bad decisions. A combination of "group think," a perceived need to please the boss, and a fear of retribution all contributed to making a potentially bad choice into a really, really bad decision.
The Tribune Media Corpse decided to remake its image, stress how hip and modern it is, and to set a new, flashy, and "with it" reality as it moves from paper to plastic. Oops, that was the grocery industry from the 1980s. From paper to online services news reporting.
Someone at the Tribune had already came up with the cost cutting idea of replacing a couple of dozen national and international reporters with purchased content from the pseudo news paper, USAToady. That village idiot probably failed to check the content of its local Chicago rival, the Chicago suntimes, that had done just that a few years ago. What a brilliant idea - beat the competition by cutting staff and having the identical national and international content from a third party.
That village idiot just made things worse. They renamed Trib (at least the name maintained some semblance of a decent rep) TRONC. I KID YOU NOT!
According to the urban dictionary, tronc means:
Someone/thing that is very old and archaic trying to act young and hip
How fitting.
I don't know the details of how "tronc" was chosen, but it has all the earmarks of all those factors I studied years ago in that psych class - with that same laughable result.
Tronc.
Gross.
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Name: RakGender: Do not display
Hometown: Illinois
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Member since: Wed Jul 13, 2005, 07:56 PM
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