A few days ago, I took my grandchildren to see a magic show on Broadway called “The Illusionists.”
As we were fooled again and again, we said to one another, “How did he do that?”
We are fooled by sleight of hand, distracted by a flash of light as the magician pulls his trick.
Trump plays the fool and the bully, and we are outraged.
But behind the scenes, he is appointing people who hate their agencies or leaving crucial positions unfilled or putting people in charge who have a financial conflict or who are totally incompetent and unqualified but worked in the campaign.
Michael Lewis wrote a book about it called “The Fifth Risk.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
(Not on topic). This is a fascinating article. Please post and discuss:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/new-york-city-school-integration.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Intelligencer%20-%20December%2015%2C%202018&utm_term=Subscription%20List%20-%20Daily%20Intelligencer%20%281%20Year%29
LikeLike
It is an interesting article, but it is a topic with which I am familiar.
“Every American wants their child to have a quality education, but few seem invested in a quality education for all children.”
Unfortunately, this statement is true in America. I was fortunate enough to teach in a diverse NYS school district where integration worked wonders. I was shocked to learn a few years ago that New York had the most segregated schools as this was not my experience. Privatization or “choice” increases segregation. I support well funded public schools because they aspire to allow all students to learn and grow together. When this aspect of public schools is realized, all students benefit from the opportunities afforded to them.
LikeLike
I am not convinced that every American wants their child(ren) to have a quality education. My own parents never gave a rat’s ass, about my education.
LikeLike
We, as a society, are better off if our people can read, write and think, especially in order to vote. Most parents care about their children’s education, but there are some that do not or cannot show that they care about their children’s education.
LikeLike
XLV is the puff of smock the Ripofflichen Party uses to distract us from their long-term agenda. Fixating on the individual as opposed to the social context is what my old textbooks called “Fundamental Attribution Error”. We have to keep reminding ourselves that XLV’s social deviancy was a mutation naturally selected from a field of lesser deviants by a Niche Of Organized Corruption known as the Republican Party whose principles were compromised a long time ago. That corruption has continued and will continue no matter what puppet they use to misdirect us.
LikeLike
“Let public agencies rot on the vine and then point to the rottenness as proof that Big Government doesn’t work.”
My generation would call this an example of the self-fulling prophesy.
Thanks for this preview of the book.
LikeLike
Small government that steps out of the way of corporations and is unable or unwilling to regulate the plunder of the profiteers. That’s what most conservatives want.
LikeLike
Bingo.
LikeLike
Here is more of the incompetent realm.
From the WH:
Rep. Jody Hice: Time is up, let’s build the wall
Rep. Jody Hice, a Republican, represents Georgia’s 10th Congressional District. He is a member of the board of the House Freedom Caucus.
…Republicans lost the House in November because our actions during the 115th Congress did not reflect the words we spoke when we campaigned during the 2016 election cycle. With only a handful of legislative business days left on the books, we have one final chance to live up to the promise that we made to the parents, small business owners, blue collar workers, farmers, teachers, and ordinary people who helped us gain control in the first place.
Simply put, it’s time to build the wall…
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/rep-jody-hice-time-is-up-lets-build-the-wall
LikeLike
I thought the excerpt was from the onion, so I laughed.
LikeLike
Unquestionably, Trump is not the first to use this tactic. The accompanying silence on the part of his party now indicts it’s so-called small government philosophy. Republicans have long been the party that approved of government being big enough to dominate the small and defenseless, but not big enough to police the economically powerful.
LikeLike
remember when Republicans were deficit hawks?
No more.
LikeLike
They’re only “deficit hawks” on paper when they are out of power. Marketing, not substance or principles.
LikeLike
And then today, we have the news that the strict constructionist judge in Texas did what John Roberts would not do. He declared the affordable care act unconstitutional. Damned activist liberal judges.
LikeLike
How does a judge sleep at night knowing that because of him, millions of people will lose health insurance and many will die
LikeLike
GregB
As you can tell by my absence lately. I am pretty much Trumped out.
As far back as Reagan concerns about debt were for other people. As far back as Goldwater the vile nature of the Republican party was becoming obvious.
Bruce Bartlett one of the architects of Reagan’s tax-cutting supply-side bunk, points out that Democrats have fallen into their trap every time. Pelosi is doing it again proposing Pay-Go rules for the next Congress. Probably as revolting as Obama appointing a debt commission in a financial collapse.
Not that there is anything that can be passed through the Senate anyway. But perhaps she will propose cutting the defense budget in half or eliminating the give away on Gains and Dividends to pay for a progressive agenda. I guess we can hardly expect either.
Anyway back to the Republican party, perhaps I am going out on a limb. As vile as they are; it strains credulity to believe that they would not have dumped Trump after the Tax cut in exchange for Pence. Unless of course, Russiagate reaches far deeper into the party with Russian money or knowledge of it. Just a theory.
Anyway, this piece sums Republicans up.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/how-did-republican-party-get-so-corrupt/578095/?r-r-2&fbclid=IwAR0pCjWUtDmtX8Cnlrwrt4vkeWDq9Wxc2NFp3o8cZPRWmm6GSx-8auYHYMo
LikeLike
I’m with you, Joel. Thanks for the article link.
Watching the movie The Best Years of Our Lives and looked up Harold Russell, the non-actor who plays a vet who lost his hands (as he did in real life) on Wikipedia. He’s one of two non-actors to ever get an Oscar, the other being Haing Ngor from The Killing Fields). But what really struck me in the article was a quote from a letter he sent serving as the national commander of AMVETS to President Truman supporting his decision to relieve Douglas MacArthur of his duties:
“The issue is whether the ultimate civil authority of the United States can tolerate actions in contempt of constitutional lines of authority. Any lessening of civil power over military power must inevitably lead away from democracy.”
Amazing how that quote is more relevant today than it was in the early 50s.
LikeLike
Remember who won the American Revolution…and why…Great Britain was a powerhouse then and the Americans were just “upstarts”…..it is getting to be time to take back our country from the very wealthy and from those who feel it is OK to tell the rest of us what to do and how to do it … and how to educate our children. We need to be sure our congressmen and women know full well that we are not going to put up with the nonsense we’ve been getting from Washington and our Presidents allies (J Bush, DeVos, et al) and if they are not willing to stand up for their constituents, than it’s up to us to make lots and lots of noise.
LikeLike
Isn’t this what I’ve been saying for two years? While everyone is busy hyperventilating about Trump’s latest Twitter belch, no one has been paying attention to what he’s actually been doing. Stop worrying about what Trump is saying and look at what he’s doing.
LikeLike
EXACTLY! Rump-head has done this his entire life.
LikeLike
Both matter. His words are deeds. They have alienated our allies and created an alliance with dictators.
LikeLike
So what are you going to do about his words? How do you intend to get him to stop being crude and obnoxious? The more you pay attention to it, the more he enjoys it. Making people upset is why he does it. When you refuse to respond, you retain your power rather than give it to him. When you react to his words, you are giving him power over you.
As far as alliances with dictators, that’s as American as apple pie….
LikeLike
Trump will never know or care what I think of his words. His words decide who sits on the Supreme Court and whether we laugh at climate change
LikeLike
I agree he does it to get response, & counts on response to distract & deflect. But he is not a little boy swearing, & we parents refusing to rise to the bait. This is more like “give him an inch, he’ll take a mile” combined w/Berne’s “game of uproar.” One must register outrage every time, while simultaneously pointing to what he’s trying to veil, & applying pressure.
The problem I have w/ MSM is that they’ll spend 24hrs dissecting what’s wrong w/what he said this morning– while failing every time to analyze & shed light on what he’s distracting from. I attribute this to the commercialization of news, which encourages sensationalism. And that gets right back to laws which we citizens sat back & ignored, namely deregulation of the airwaves [culminating in 1987 repeal of Fairness Doctrine].
The connection between that dereg & today’s commercial clickbait is illustrated by this ’80’s quote from Reagan’s FCC chair Mark Fowler, who [per Huffington contributor Holm 2/13/14] “sneered at the principle that broadcasters bore special responsibilities to ensure democratic discourse. It was all nonsense, said Fowler. “The perception of broadcasters as community trustees should be replaced by a view of broadcasters as market participants.”
LikeLike
Add to this all the petty, two-bit American “dictators” who now feel emboldened to really put the screws to anyone who is unfortunate enough to exist beneath them. A lot of pain and humiliation can be inflicted even by a small town boss, a local permitting official or the random, dunderheaded school administrator. The effects of Trump’s noxious, uncivil behavior will be rippling shock wave-like through our culture for many years after he is gone.
I can only hope there is a backlash and soon. It will be interesting to see how some of the people who are sucking up to Trump now scramble to distance themselves from him once his star falls. (And, fall it must, if the United States as we’ve known it intends to survive.)
49%…..42%….38%… pundits on NPR were recently discussing what kind of support Trump has right now.
My God, even 5% of the country is way, way too much.
LikeLike
LikeLike
John,
As horrible as he is for our country, he is emboldening fascists across the globe. In Hungary and Brazil and elsewhere.
LikeLike
Another extraordinarily horrific legacy of this misadministration
LikeLike
Absolutely.
LikeLike
News from Hungary today: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/thousands-of-hungarians-protest-against-orbans-rule_us_5c16caa2e4b049efa753932c
LikeLike
GregB: “On Saturday, Orban’s ruling party Fidesz said “criminals” were behind the “street riots” and accused Hungarian-born U.S. billionaire George Soros of stoking the protests.”
Good grief. Soros is guilty of everything everywhere.
Orban and Trump are two of a kind.
LikeLike
In “1984,” there is an all-purpose villain whose name and image were often invoked as the source of all evil. I think his name was Goldstein. Soros plays that role today. A Jew, of course.
LikeLike
This is an eye-opener for me; I tend to react negatively to “data-collection,” thinking only of all the wrong-headed data collected by “edumeretricians” & bad ed policies based on it. Knew nothing of how advances in data-collection have benefited meteorology, energy, public safety (‘broken arrows,’ nuke waste, opioid prescriptions et al).
From NYT link: “‘After Trump took office, D. J. Patil [Pres Obama’s chief data scientist] watched with wonder as the data disappeared across the federal government.’ The disappearing data concerned phenomena that the Trumpers opposed, like climate change or food safety regulations, or that they didn’t care about, like poverty, or stuff that they assumed were government boondoggles, which was most everything not involving the Pentagon. They cut funding for data collection across the board.”
This is scary. Just one of the things it suggests to me: too much power for running the country lies in the hands of executive agencies. Apparently all that’s needed to run off the rails is an incompetent but power-mad president –such a person is easily guided by anti-public-goods predators in his admin, especially when complemented by scores of same-party sycophants among congressional “overseers.”
LikeLike
Trump is on the mission best described by the odious Steve Bannon: to destroy the administrative state.
That is, every function of the federal government except the military.
LikeLike
Putin couldn’t be happier that Trump is President. His appointees for the many Departments are destroying each Department. He us running up the National debt. The country is torn apart inside. It’s as if Putin put Trump here.
LikeLike
Don’t forget that Trump has done his best to destroy NATO and disparage all our allies.
LikeLike
This is what he was engaged to do:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842
LikeLike
So it seems, Bob, that Trump has a taste for Eastern European women and the Russians have been exploiting this for at least for 40 years. It’s also possible that the Russians helped to develop this taste. What does this say about the current first lady? 🙂 Does the Russian investigation extend to the ex and current wives?
LikeLiked by 1 person
A very good question
LikeLike
A 7 year old child died in custody of the US Border Patrol. She was dehydrated and needed food. The cruelty of this administration is beyond comprehension. Guess its okay to now kill innocent people and children and have nothing happen. Trump and Kirstjen Nielsen’s policy is, “Let his monstrosity be a warning to all immigrants to stay out of this pure white skinned country’. Kirstien blamed the family for this death even though this child was in custody for 8 hours before anything was done.
……………………………………
We Are Governed By Monsters Now
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
15 December 18
The Trump administration’s cruelty is not just deliberate. It is casual.
And before the inevitable trolling begins, as soon as this child was taken into the custody of the United States Border Patrol, she became its responsibility and nobody else’s. At that point, it doesn’t matter if she had walked here from Guatemala, or Guam, or Jupiter. Once she was in custody, the child’s health and well-being became the responsibility of the United States government. It became the responsibility of the United States government to monitor her for any sign of exposure….
This is cruel, but not unusual. The de facto policy of this administration* is to make the refugee experience so deadly as to discourage people from attempting to flee to this country. The de facto policy of this administration is to whiten the population of this country by any means necessary…
No mention there of children who should die a slow death, alone amid strangers, because it is somehow, in someone’s twisted mind, good public policy to allow it. The cruelty in this country’s history has been this deliberate before, but rarely has it been this casual. We are governed by monsters now.
Naturally, this being Camp Runamuck and all, the blame-shifting has begun. On Friday morning, Secretary of Homeland Security and Misplaced Consonant Victim Kirstjen Nielsen took time off to visit Three Idiots on a Davenport, because that is the crucible of sophisticated discourse and high-level policy thought in this administration. She promptly blamed the child’s family, because she is a monstrous cyborg whose soul is a bag of scorpions.
“What happened was they were about 90 miles away from where we could process them. They came in such a large crowd that it took our border patrol folks a couple times to get them all. We gave immediate care, we’ll continue to look into the situation, but again, I cannot stress enough how dangerous this journey is when migrants choose to come here illegally.”
She was in custody for over eight freaking hours before anyone did anything.
Monsters, all the way down.
https://news.yahoo.com/governed-monsters-now-172600258.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=ma
LikeLike
I just read the comments. Looks like 99% agree that it was the parents fault. “What business did they have for starving their child and bringing a child on such a long trip.”
These ignorants obviously have never suffered the way these poor abused people have suffered. Nobody would take children on such a long trip unless they were in severe danger of being killed in their homeland. They didn’t have water and food and the US didn’t provide anything.
US policy is responsible for creating impossible economic situations south of the border. This whole thing makes me sick. It’s a game of blame the victim…just as poverty level people in the US are now blamed for being lazy and greedy. Cut off SNAP and Medicaid so they’ll learn to work and they’ll feel SO much better.
LikeLike
OP-ED HUMAN RIGHTS
This Holiday Season, I’m Standing With Migrants
Kerri Kennedy, OtherWords
PUBLISHED
December 15, 2018
This holiday season — a time so often associated with bringing family together — my thoughts keep turning to the families in the migrant caravans making their way to the US southern border.
I had the privilege of spending four days in Mexico last month with my organization, the American Friends Service Committee, to assess the needs of participants in the caravan and expand human rights monitoring.
As I crept into my children’s bedrooms to give them a kiss when I got back, resisting the urge to wake them up for cuddling and conversation, I thought about what would make me pick up with them and flee, with little notice and even less information about what would lie ahead….
I met so many people in Mexico who joined the caravan because it was their only way out.
I think about “Maria” (not her real name), a young mother of four I met. Maria is from El Salvador, where violence and a complete lack of opportunities put her family at risk. One of her children had already been killed by gang violence.
When word spread of the caravan, Maria made a spontaneous choice to join. She told me she was in search of opportunity for her family, and the hope of seeing her children grow up in a place without constant danger.
Like Mary and Joseph, who fled to Egypt when King Herod’s government threatened their newborn child, Maria and so many other parents have picked up everything and undertaken a harrowing journey to save their children’s lives…
In the season when many celebrate the birth of a child whose family had to flee to another country to keep him alive, what does our shared humanity demand from parents making the same difficult choice today?…
https://truthout.org/articles/this-holiday-season-im-standing-with-migrants/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=mashshare&utm_campaign=mashshare
LikeLike
QUOTATION OF THE DAY…NYT
“There are these laws and these ethical norms that are being blown to bits by these cabinet secretaries. And that’s the pattern, the problem, that keeps us up at night.”
DELANEY MARSCO, ethics counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group.
LikeLike
Trump works exactly like a cuckoo’s egg. Somebody put him in the government nest, he hatched, and now he is putting his own eggs into nests that need to be destroyed: EPA, Supreme Court, Department of Education, etc.
LikeLike
Máté Wierdl: My hope is that Trump becomes this egg: ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t but Dumpty together again.”
May he fall hard and crack. Here’s to Mueller and incoming New York Attorney General Letitia James who plans to thoroughly investigate the business dealings of President Donald Trump and his family when she takes office next month.
May they all fall and crack!!!
LikeLike
Yeah, Carolm, I share your wishes. As of now, we mostly see their droppings fall all over the place, and that stuff doesn’t break.
LikeLike
Perfect metaphor. Except it wasn’t just “someone” who put the egg in the Oval Office.
Perhaps we should adapt an Australian folksong to “US”:
Cuckoobirdie sits in the old oak tree,
Laid an egg in every nest in the tree,
Laugh, cuckoobirdie,
Laugh, cuckoobirdie,
Cuckoos all are we.
LikeLike
I knew this was song-worthy, bethree5. If the Russian connection is true, and the Russians manipulated the elections, then the motherbird of the Trump-egg might have been Russian, so we do not have to feel “that” guilty.
Bob Shepherd shared above this article on the Russian connection
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842
LikeLike
I have a bit of insight as to what’s happening at the Department of State, because my daughter and son-in-law have positions there. They’ve recently returned from a year in Afghanistan and were unprepared for the breadth of the hollowing out they have found. About a third of the offices at Foggy Bottom are empty. Career officials who were held in high esteem retired or resigned after being relegated to unimportant tasks such as logging phone calls or sorting mail for Trump’s appointees.
In Afghanistan, my daughter’s portfolio included administering grants to improve the position of women and girls in civil society. One day not long ago, she was given the task of redacting memos to reflect the Trump “doctrine” of America First. Her husband’s diplomatic portfolio includes the UN, where a former Fox personality is now running the show. They despair of the direction in which the main diplomatic arm of our country is headed and that the loss of institutional knowledge may be irreparable.
My worry is that even when we are rid of Trump and his minions, how far up the body politic will these parasites have crawled? What will we need to do to purge ourselves of them and at what cost will it come?
LikeLike
I have heard from friends at the Department of Education about the same hollowing out. There are floors where many offices are empty.
LikeLike
If they ever make a movie about The Real Red Dawn, this would be it …
LikeLike
Jon Awbrey: “If they ever make a movie about The Real Red Dawn, this would be it …”
Patrick Swayze is my favorite actor, ballet dancer and song writer, all combined. Because of this, I watched Red Dawn a couple of months ago. I found it frightening to feel what the US would be like if Russia & Cuba [any foreign power] decided to invade. People should watch this movie and get a slight feel of what it is like to be afraid of daily bombings and to see foreign soldiers who want to kill on OUR home soil.
This hatred and fear is what many countries of the world feel when the US arrives. We no longer have a goal except to stay, bomb, kill and destroy. The US continues to feed ever increasing amounts of money into the military industrial complex. [This leaves no money for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare for All, infrastructure, SNAP or any social needs.] What really has been accomplished when this war goes on for 17 years? And of course, we now also need the military force in space to protect us from invading aliens.
LikeLike
So much easier to destroy us without firing a shot … well, except for the shots they pay the National Russian Asset to shoot at ourselves …
LikeLike
Trump is destroying the federal government, but ultimately, it is the savage ignorance of many of the American people who have done/are doing so. The latter is a much more complex and difficult force to contend with.
LikeLike
Trump needed the support of Putin to win the election. No wonder Trump works to destroy our democracy and our government. That isn’t where his loyalty lies. I’m sick of Putin’s Poodle.
………………..
The Washington Post
Democracy Dies in Darkness
Evening Edition
The day’s most important stories
BREAKING NEWS
Russia used every major social media platform to help elect, support Trump, report says
The new report, prepared for the Senate and a draft of which was obtained by The Post, provides the most comprehensive analysis yet of the Russian disinformation campaign around the 2016 election that leveraged nearly all social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
By Craig Timberg and Tony Romm
LikeLike
No wonder Trump loves Putin. One has to wonder what happened to the American collective brain.
………………………………….
The New York Times
Breaking News Alert
December 17, 2018
BREAKING NEWS
The 2016 Russian influence operation targeted African-Americans and tried to limit Democratic voting, according to a report for the Senate.
Monday, December 17, 2018 8:01 AM EST
The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of posts on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its Facebook operations, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The report adds new details to the portrait that has emerged over the last two years of the energy and imagination of the Russian effort to sway American opinion and divide the country, which the authors said continues to this day.
LikeLike
He appointed Scott Pruitt to head the EPA. Maybe the rest of America was asleep when Oklahomans who had seen what Pruitt was voiced our concern and showed the many times he sued that agency on behalf of oil companies. Not the state which he was appointed to protect, but oil companies.
Maybe this is news to someone. Maybe they don’t know that there is still no ambassador in the majority of nations across the globe. Maybe they are blissfully unaware that while he is busy blaming democrats for children’s deaths (the children in question being held in custody of his DHS) he is continuing to do as little as possible for Puerto Rico and most of the state’s impacted by yet another record hurricane season.
But maybe people with the money to attend Broadway shows just don’t worry about all of that? Or, didn’t until a friend needed a book hyped. I hope the kick backs are nice, you’ll need them where this planet’s headed.
LikeLike
Really? The Orange Hair Monster is immoral? I can’t imagine how anyone could come to that conclusion. [sarcasm] One more person has seen the light. Slowly they turn.
……………………………………….
Retired Gen. McChrystal: I think Trump is immoral
BY BRETT SAMUELS – 12/30/18 10:30 AM EST
Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal said Sunday that he believes President Trump is “immoral,” and that he would not join the administration if asked.
“It’s important for me to work for people who I think are basically honest, who tell the truth as best they know it,” McChrystal said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I don’t think he tells the truth,” he added…
https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/423227-mcchrystal-i-think-trump-is-immoral
LikeLike
I like this fellow. He wastes no time apologizing for Trump’s idiocy.
……….
Column: Trump’s incurable incompetence
Steve ChapmanContact Reporter
December 28, 2018
…Trump apparently faced a steep learning curve. But it turns out that he has no learning curve, because he is incapable of learning.
His brain is shielded by a concrete border wall that repels any unwelcome facts or obligations. At the same time, it locks in the motley collection of myths, prejudices, grudges, habits and addled opinions that he has accumulated over the years.
In the past, the White House has been staffed with savvy aides who could keep the president from making a fool of himself. But if they exist in this administration, they are out of the loop. Nearly halfway through his term, Trump is still revealing new ways in which he is simply awful at his job — the important stuff, the trivial stuff and everything in between…
Cocooned in ignorance and enslaved by impulse, he spurns the guidance of people who have expertise and experience. He doesn’t know much, doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, doesn’t learn and doesn’t care….
Each day is a chance for Trump to expose his incompetence at every element of his job. Each day, he seizes the opportunity.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-perspec-chapman-trump-incompetent-shutdown-troops-20181228-story.html#share=email~story
LikeLike