INAUGURATION DAY

[Lord Jim]

In fairness, I believe that was somebody from the NPS tweeting numbers from a NYT story. The NPS (which used to do a very professional job estimating DC crowd sizes with a grid system compiled from aerial shots) was forbidden by Congress in 1995 (and ever since) from making public crowd estimates after the Million Man March fizzled and they gave a crowd estimate that upset the PC types:

“Due to the difficulty in accurately assessing crowd estimates for large events, most notably following 1995’s Million Man March, the National Park Service no longer makes it a practice to provide crowd estimates for permitted events,” he said in an email.

“While we make internal estimates for staffing, security and emergency response purposes, it is left to the discretion of event organizers to make a determination of the event attendance.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pow ... 3cca10b145

[Lord Jim]

Trump sends Spicer out to lie about the crowd size and the metro usage numbers:

Trump’s press secretary lashes out at press, calling crowd coverage ‘shameful and wrong’

President Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, on Saturday used his first media briefing to angrily lambaste the press for its coverage of the new administration, claiming reporters had deliberately sought to minimize the “enormous” crowd at Trump’s swearing-in on Friday.

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period — both in person and around the globe,” Spicer said. “These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong.”

Channeling Trump’s frequently voiced disdain for the media, Spicer said that there has been a lot of talk about holding the new president accountable for his actions. But Spicer said that “goes both ways.”

“We’re going to hold the press accountable as well,” Spicer said. “The American people deserve better.”

And he said that more people used the Metro system in Washington for Trump’s inaugural than for Obama’s 2013 swearing-in. That conflicted with information released Saturday by Metro.

The agency said 570,557 people took trips in the system between its early 4 a .m. Friday opening through midnight closing. That compared with 1.1 million trips for Obama’s 2009 inaugural and 782,000 in 2013, according to Metro.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos ... 289f25c3be

[BoSoxGal]

The Drumpffuhrer rises.

[Guinevere]

Spicer = Goebbels

Pence = Himmler

Christie = (ok, could have been) Goering

I'm throwing up in my mouth.

[Bicycle Bill]

Lest we forget ... even as he was carping about the press slanting the numbers against him, he was already beginning his war on the 99%.....

Trump's First Executive Orders:
Attack Obamacare, Raise Taxes

Just minutes after the end of his inaugural parade, Donald Trump signed several executive orders designed to remove protections for middle-class homeowners, appoint people to his cabinet in contravention of law, freeze regulation of businesses, and make a symbolic gesture against the Affordable Care Act.

The first order Trump signed was a non-specific one designed to “ease the burden of Obamacare,” according to White House press secretary Sean Spicer.  Among the other orders was one that allowed confirmation of Trump's nominees for defense secretary (James Mattis) and homeland security secretary (John Kelly), both of whom are too recently retired from their military careers to accept the posts by law, according to NPR.  Trump also suspended a reduction in the premium rate offered by the Federal Housing Administration to home buyers.  The reduction, relatively small, would have saved home buyers about $500 a year.  In effect, this is a tax increase on the middle class.  

I might also note that he has not yet begun construction on his border wall or begun to deport undocumented immigrants.  He had previously promised to do both these things in the first hours after taking office.

-"BB"-

[RayThom]

300K for Trump. A million for the women (tons of people on side streets -- as in Chicago and Boston. There wasn't room to actually march much... The NPS knows the real numbers, as does D.C. Metro. Unfortunately, Trump shut down the NPS twitter account last night, unhappy about its reports of the skimpy Coronauguration crowds.

I will not be surprised to read that Drumpf and/or his flunky minions will claim the two photos LJ posted were "somehow" mixed up and mislabeled.

"The purpose of Newspeak is not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Trump, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It is intended that when Newspeak has been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Trump — will be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words."

[BoSoxGal]

[wesw]

I can t believe the Nazi talk, especially from those who know better.

deceit and deception to achieve your ends.

you disgust me because you lead the uneducated to believe these things.

let me say again, you disgust me.

you will destroy our nation if you succeed in your misguided adventure.

you are deplorable and you will bring bloodshed to our land .

you will start a civil war if you succeed.

you are stooges of George soros.

I pity us all

you are petulant children.

you are indeed a dangerous crew

you are destroying our country and it makes you glad.

you disgust me

your hatred makes you stupid

[wesw]

oh, and anectdotally, you are losing black support. bigtime.

calling jim brown a "mediocre negro" really damaged your support

thanks marc lamont hill!!!!

we want the black and white folks to live in harmony

you want a race war.

dumbasses

do you really think that a movement that facilitates hatred of whites will not turn on you in the end?

fools. fools. fools.

and I m sorry to say that, but the time has come to choose sides

I have had hatred toward none, but it is time to hate my enemies, I think

you are not my brothers, you are fools and I expect your attacks

so know, if you call me a Nazi, you are my enemy and my heart has been hardened by your words and your actions.

the crows will feast, I fear.

we will not back down and we will not surrender our country and our democratic govt to your whims...

we will not bow to you.

you will have to exterminate us.

are you prepared to be Nazis?

that is your only path to success....

....unless you win the next election, but you seem to have given up on elections because you can t control the result.

you call us what you are.

loyal opposition has meaning no longer.

you are the enemy.

[Guinevere]

You are brainwashed wes. You couldn't recognize the truth if it smacked you in the face, because your leader and his minions have absolutlely no ability to speak the truth. You're nothing more than a pawn spewing the hate your leader tells you to spew.

Luckily for you, we are fighting for the rights, safety, security, and well-being of every American. We will take care of you and your family, despite the fact that you and your overlord would be happy if I shriveled up and disappeared into the mists, into shapeless quiet subservience. But that's never going to happen. I'm never going away, shutting up, or sitting down --- and there are tens of millions more Americans -- of every race, color, creed, gender, age, and sexual orientation --- just like me.


ETA -- its pretty clear who the one spewing hate and fear and doing the name calling is. I'm actually sorry you can't see it.

[Lord Jim]

Gee wes, when I read this part:

I can t believe the Nazi talk, especially from those who know better.

deceit and deception to achieve your ends.

you disgust me because you lead the uneducated to believe these things.

let me say again, you disgust me.

you will destroy our nation if you succeed in your misguided adventure.

you are deplorable and you will bring bloodshed to our land .

you will start a civil war if you succeed.

I thought that maybe you had finally wised up about Trump, since that's such a superb description of him...

If it hadn't been for the idiotic line about Soros, (yeah, I've always been a big fan of his... ) the next part:

I pity us all

you are petulant children.

you are indeed a dangerous crew

you are destroying our country and it makes you glad.

you disgust me

your hatred makes you stupid

Sounded like you had finally wised up about your fellow Trumpanzees and decided to break with them...

You were just one sentence away from having a truly accurate and insightful post...

So close...

[wesw]

I m brainwashed , eh?

sounds as if you are ready to send me to a nice "re-education + center until I m all better....

don t worry about taking care of us, worry about killing us, because that is what you must do if you want to impose your ideas upon us.

it s a small step for you .... once you believe that you are better than others, it is only a small step....

kill us for the general good. eh?

it s only a small step..., for the good of humanity you must re-educate or destroy us....

it s only right.....

just a small step.

you are the best and the brightest...., it is only natural... just evolution.... just a small step.....

[Bicycle Bill]

don t worry about taking care of us, worry about killing us, because that is what you must do if you want to impose your ideas upon us.

it s only a small step..., for the good of humanity you must re-educate or destroy us....

Did you ever watch the original "Conan the Barbarian" film?  Thulsa Doom, the leader of the Snake Cult, has massive power and commands complete and total obedience from his followers.  But what happens once Conan defeats and kills him?  His followers realize that they have been duped and abandon his cult and his ways.

And that's what's going to happen to the Cult of Trump as well.  It may take a year or two, but once the Trumpanzees come to see that the Emperor has no clothes, they will realize that they have been played for suckers and will abandon him too.  He will end up a sad and lonely little man in the ruins of his grandeur — much like Miss Havisham, still in her faded wedding dress in Dickens' "Great Expectations" — asking people "Don't you remember me?  I USED TO BE PRESIDENT!!"

We won't need to kill you or 're-educate' you.  The vast majority will eventually come to their senses and turn away on their own.  Those die-hard loyalists who remain will be so small in number and so powerless that they will be nothing more than a minor annoyance if they even are capable of rising to that level.

-"BB"-

[Guinevere]

Ah wes, back to your old ways of claiming I've said things I've never said. But that's what your leader says you must do, ignore the actual words and actual facts, and like a good little minion, it's what you do.

You should sit down wes, that yuuuge chip on your shoulder must be awfully heavy. All that hate and fear and insecurity you carry is a heavy burden for a little man. Sit. Rest. Then maybe you'll have a chance to breathe and engage your brain and start thinking for yourself. I know it's in you, I actually have faith in you. I hope someday you have faith in yourself.

[wesw]

lord jesus.

there is an election in two years, you can change the world in two short years.

why tear it to pieces first?

I have no problem with the women s march. it was peaceful....

well, I won t say no problem but no political problem instead.

I do think that crudeness and vulgarity and profanity was harmful.

more than harmful, it was laughable. you criticize trump for his vulgarity and what do you chant, and what do your signs say, and what is upon your head?

you know the answers but I will quote one sign that really struck me as stupid...

"this pussy is nasty", it said.

I won t comment further on the sign because you are intelligent people and you must see the hypocrisy yourselves.

no?

[wesw]

guin, you call people Nazis.

if trump is hitler and pence is goering.....

you see what follows.

and yes, I too hope to one day have faith in myself.

in fact, that is what trump is all about.

I don t expect to be better off at first, I expect to sacrifice, perhaps to suffer....

my personal situation is not always, or perhaps ever, the most important thing.

believe it or not, I give to charity, I am kind to my neighbors, and I take care of and love children.

....and there are times that all three are a pain in my ass, and times that I should do better and more of each.

maybe you are better than me, I don t know, but you can t rule me without my permission, and I denied you that permission in this past election.

so quit yer whining and get on with life until the next election

pussyhats.... (wes shakes his head and slowly closes his keyboard)

[Big RR]

Sometimes the best way to blunt a message using vulgarities is to take them for yourself, as many African Americans have with the N-word. Face it, it was not the Trump detractors who used that word first, he used it to demean women as a group. By all means seize it to empower yourselves.

As for the election in two years, protest is part of the system, as is opposition in the face of adversity. There's no need to remain quiet for 2 years to see what happens.

[Guinevere]

Exactly BigRR (and thank you for marching, you too, Econo)!

From the pussy pattern posted earlier:

We love the clever wordplay of “pussyhat” and “pussycat,” but yes, “pussy” is also a derogatory term for female genitalia. We chose this loaded word for our project because we want to reclaim the term as a means of empowerment. In this day and age, if we have pussies we are assigned the gender of “woman.” Women, whether transgender or cisgender, are mistreated in this society. In order to get fair treatment, the answer is not to take away our pussies, the answer is not to deny our femaleness and femininity, the answer is to demand fair treatment. A woman’s body is her own. We are honoring this truth and standing up for our rights.

I love my pussyhat, and I don't intend to stop wearing it.

[Guinevere]

Maya Angelou says it best --- the full lines of the poem in my signature:


Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

[wesw]

RR, no one asked anyone to be quiet.

stop calling people Nazis.

can you defend that one , RR?

I can tell you that that is the worst thing that you can say about someone that I can think of.

it is a step to far and I will not tolerate it quietly.

should I quietly take being called a Nazi, RR?