the trump presidency in 4 photos

Could not have been said, or presented, better. Thanks, Greg!

gregfallis.com

Somebody once said photography makes us all tourists in another person’s reality. If that’s true, and I suspect it is, then…wait. You know, if I had to guess, I’d guess it was probably Susan Sontag who said that. I mean, she was always offering some weighty opinion about photography, and she had the terribly annoying habit of generally being right. Anyway, regardless of who said it, let’s acknowledge the truth of it. There’s absolutely no way to accurately depict four years in anybody’s life in four photographs, let alone the life of one of the most powerful people on the planet. So this is really just a tourist’s…wait. I had to check, and yes, it was Sontag.

The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own.

Okay, back to my point, such as it is. My point is that this is basically a tourist’s…

View original post 982 more words

screaming

The screaming.

gregfallis.com

I watched the video with the sound off.

I’m not a dispassionate person by nature, but much of my professional experience and training (as a medic, as a counselor in the Psych/Security unit of a prison for women, and as a private investigator specializing in criminal defense) has taught me to be a detached observer/participant. Well, as detached as possible. You can’t be effective on the job if you allow yourself to fully experience the shock, the horror, the revulsion while you’re doing the job. The emotional distance between you and what you’re doing and seeing is the only thing that allows you to do the job well. You put all that ugliness aside and deal with it later. The problem, of course, is that you always have to deal with it

That’s why, last night, I watched the video of the attack on the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch…

View original post 761 more words

not gonna happen

gregfallis.com

Let’s just dispense with the fantasy of Comrade Trump being frogmarched out of the White House in handcuffs, put on trial, found guilty, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, and tossed in the hoosegow. It’s not going to happen.

It doesn’t matter if Trump has committed multiple felonies (spoiler alert — we’re like 98% certain that he has; before he ran for office, during his campaign, and after his election), he’s not going to be prosecuted for them while he’s in office. Maybe after he leaves office; that’s a possibility. But unless he’s impeached by the House of Representatives and convicted by two-thirds of the Senate, Trump isn’t going to stand trial — not for money laundering, not for conspiracy, not for obstruction of justice. It’s just not going to happen.

Here’s why: the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has stated that “a sitting President is constitutionally immune from indictment and criminal…

View original post 361 more words

keep saying it

gregfallis.com

There’s too much to say today, and it feels like there’s not much point in saying any of it. We’re dealing with yet another mass shooting, this time a hate-inspired attack on a synagogue. We’re dealing with this just a day after the arrest of a hate-inspired series of bomb attacks on prominent critics of President Trump — which took place just a couple of days after a hate-inspired double murder of African-Americans in a Kentucky grocery store (after the shooter failed to gain entry into an African-American church).

In the face of all this hate, President Trump has once again proven himself incapable of performing the basic functions of his office. Instead of trying to unify the nation against this hate, he’s continued to encourage the anger and resentment of his followers. Instead of showing compassion for the victims of this shooting and offering comfort, he blamed the temple for…

View original post 211 more words

bombs, for fuck’s sake

gregfallis.com

You know, it was bad enough when our president was just ignorant. I mean, yeah, he was ignorant about the world and about how government worked, but it was just plain old ignorance. And it was bad enough that the president was an inveterate liar, who showed no compunction about making shit up on the spot and acting as though it was accepted truth. Sure, only his supporters actually believed them, but most of his lies were really obvious, so folks could ignore them. And it was bad enough that Comrade Trump was a hateful bully. But hey, he bullied everybody he thought he could get away with bullying, his friends and supporters as well as people who opposed him.

All that was bad enough. But now we have bombs. Actual bombs.

Now we have bombs sent to men and women who’ve publicly criticized Comrade Trump. We have bombs…

View original post 525 more words

bughouse

And here I thought Kim Jong Un was bughouse nuts.

gregfallis.com

As the kids say (or used to say) I haz been bizzy. Not too busy to follow the news, but too busy to write anything thoughtful (or snarky, or thoughtful-snarky) about it. And you guys, there’s been a LOT to write about.

I mean a LOT. For example, many people are saying the President of These United States appears to be bughouse nuts (SPOILER: he pretty much really is bughouse nuts). Yesterday Comrade Trump decided to promote himself to Czar Trump, declaring he has the absolute power to pardon himself for crimes. I can’t recall if that was before or after he declared that appointing a special counsel to investigate Russian ratfucking of the 2016 election was unconstitutional, based on something he might have heard somebody on FOXNews say before cutting to commercial.

“I’m not bughouse, I’m not bughouse, you’re bughouse!”

Is that bughouse nuts or what? (HINT: it’s totally bughouse…

View original post 466 more words

in which i sorta lose my temper

gregfallis.com

I’d never heard of Kevin Williamson until a friend sent me a link to an opinion piece in the New York Time entitled The Outrage Over Kevin Williamson. Even though I’ve lost a lot of respect for the Times, and I generally avoid their opinion page these days, I read the piece. I wanted to know 1) who the hell is Kevin Williamson, and 2) who was outraged by him, and 3) why.

Bret Stephens

The editorial is written as an apologetic letter to Williamson by Bret Stephens, who I only know as a conservative political writer who opposes Comrade Trump. It begins with Stephens citing the reasons for the apology:

Sorry, first, that you have to endure having your character assailed and assassinated by people who rarely if ever read you and likely never met you. Sorry also that your hiring as a writer for The Atlantic has set…

View original post 528 more words

legged

This…so much THIS.

gregfallis.com

Okay, I let myself get sidetracked a couple of days ago when I wrote about Stormy Daniels and her (totally true, c’mon) allegations of boinking Comrade Donald Trump. There was a thing I wanted to say — an important thing — but I lost track of it on account of there are SO MANY crazy aspects of this story.

The important thing isn’t that Trump boinked Stormy (well, that’s kind of important), and it’s not that he’s lied about it (well, that’s kind of important too), and it’s not even that he had his lawyer pay hush money to keep her from talking about it (well, okay, yeah, that’s pretty important too, but just wait). The important thing is this: Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997).

You can see why that slipped my mind, right? Here’s why that’s important: Clinton v. Jones established that a sitting POTUS has no immunity from…

View original post 218 more words

muslims and taco bowls

gregfallis.com

I knew it was going to be bad. I didn’t know it would be this bad this soon. I knew Comrade Trump had no real grasp on the concept of governance, but I didn’t know he was entirely ignorant of how government worked. I knew he wasn’t prepared for the job, but I didn’t know he’d make no effort to learn.

Trump apparently believes issuing a presidential executive order works the same basic way as ordering a taco bowl. You say “I want a taco bowl” and somebody gives you a taco bowl. You say “I want a ban on Muslims” and somebody gives you a ban on Muslims. Easy peasy. Right?

Easy as ordering a taco bowl.

Nope. Ordering a taco bowl is easy; getting a taco bowl that’s safe to eat is complex. Somebody has to grow the lettuce and the tomatoes and the beans, somebody has to pick…

View original post 469 more words

yeah, there IS a goddamn difference

Thank you, Greg!

gregfallis.com

I keep hearing comments like this:

“There’s no difference between Trump and Clinton. Both major political parties are corrupt. The only way to force change is to vote for a third party. The only way to express my disgust with the current political system is to vote for a third party. The lesser of two evils is still evil. To think there’s a choice between Trump and Clinton is an illusion; they’re both the same.”

You know what this is? Twaddle. It’s nonsense; senseless; silly bullshit. And I’m hearing this twaddle multiple times a day. I’m mostly hearing it from former Bernie supporters who now believe Bernie is a traitor for doing what he always said he’d do — support the Democratic nominee.

I’d intended to write a thoughtful, well-researched analysis detailing exactly why those sorts of comments are twaddle. Hell, I was even prepared to discuss the etymology of twaddle…

View original post 527 more words