Reportedly, the Ruskie efforts to influence and sway the 2018 elections are boring full steam ahead.  Which is dreary for a couple of reasons: (1) They are apparently effective.  And (2) The Ruskie efforts to influence and sway the 2018 elections don’t amount to much more the creation and planting of noxiously amusing gifs on various online platforms.

But more to the point… er… the elevation of Trump looks like a good clear and clean entangle a Putin shadow.  What exactly is the Ruskie down ticket formation supposed to be?  Then again, the idea may come down to kicking the machine forward… the… er… Ruskie troll gif machine.

Every so often, in one of the national papers — the USA Today or New York Times — we see an apocalyptic religious sect or another spring for a full page ad.  Not nearly as entertaining as the old Wildmon full page ads against sexual deviancy on tv that used to occasionally grace the back page of the comics page on Sundays (and cramp the strips down in size), but still… worth a gander.

The Trumpets are blaring.

The aliens will come.  They won’t be real aliens, they’ll be demons.  We’ll throw our support behind the Pope.  Who will demand we support going to church on Sunday as part of the remedy, to be enshrined into law.  Global law, I suppose.

You call us crazy.  You’re the crazy one!

The case has ever been thus, and a little confused.  As Counterpunch’s Jeffry St Clair mentions in the discovery of some Russian troll using that site, to promote shared political biases.

whether it’ s a (fired plagiarist) Jayson Blair story in the New York Times or a (controversial reporter) Judith Miller story in the New York Times

The mention of Judith Miller in the same breath as Jayson Blair gives his politics away, as does the particularly uncertain words in the parentheses give away the politics of the Portland Tribune.

Dots abound all over the place.  You connect the dots in a haphazard way and find… er… child sex traffic from a pizza parlor in released Hillary Clinton emails?  Or… Ahmad Chalabi passing on misinformation to Judith Miller to advance his political aims.  One or the other… or both.

From The Columbian, the paper of record for Vancuouver, Washington if you shall.  “Herrera Beutler Ignores Comments” — moving about her not reading the twitter machine.

Later in the meeting, talk turned to President Trump.  In October 2016, Herrera Beutler said, “I refuse to accept this is the best we can do,” and announced rather than vote for Trump in the general election, she would write in Rep. Paul Ryan, R. Wisconsin, who had also sought the Republican nomination, but lost to Trump.

I kind of don’t understand this casual mistake, and there seems to me something more going on here than nothing — since I see it of a type happen a bit too much.  Paul Ryan… did not run for the Republican nomination for President in 2016.  It mis-remembers Paul Ryan’s various hedges during the campaign — momentary “dump Trump and replace with Ryan” feelers — culminating with Paul Ryan campaigning down ticket for all the Republicans and mentioning Pence as a headline with a mention of Trump almost as an after thought… which… a vote for Pence is literally the same as voting for Trump.

It feeds a false narrative.  Such as this one…

A third party run in 2020 by disaffected Republicans, behind the one term pledged Democratic candidate Joseph Biden.  Biden / Sasse!  Because… Sasse brings to Biden what Biden lacks, and Biden brings Biden.
Nevermind that the consensus among Republicans during the Obama — Biden years, even those who adhere to Sasse-ism (what that may be) was that the man was a gaffe-ing baffoon.
This is not a serious editorial in the New York Times.

There’s a letter to the editor in the Oregonian a few days ago, which seems to take an editorial cartoon with Franklin Graham saying “a marriage is between a man, a woman, and a porn star” at face value, and demands an apology from Franklin Graham as he never said such a thing.

Not withstanding that I can’t bring myself to care much about Stormy Daniels (that’s her name, right?) and her tryst with the current president, or even much on the hypocrisy fronts of such folks as Franklin Graham, it strikes me as the most likely reading of the letter… he isn’t aware of the point of reference… Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels and Franklin Graham and the “religious right”‘s support of Donald Trump.

There is an article in the Portland Mercury which envisions Abraham Lincoln as an early territorial governor of Oregon, and which gives him an a-historically progressive credit, thinking somehow that he would have — unlike the slavery supporting governor that was appointed — envisioned Oregon as something other than a White Haven… never mind the historical Lincoln wanted to ship them all back over to Africa.  The two convergent realities with the two governors, in terms of Oregon’s development, would be about the same.  Best guess is Lincoln wouldn’t have become president… Oregon is way too out of the way, ain’t it?
Things to ponder as proponents of a name change to Jefferson High School (the one majority black high school in the state, and you know Jefferson and the slaves) considers a name change… sure, shelve the statue if you want, but beyond that… meh.

Odd little hic up with this article…

When Don Horn of Triangle Productions went about putting together a world premiere about the first recognized fully transgender person in the United States, people asked him about the individual, guessing that it was 1970s tennis player Renee Richards.

“No, this person came way before Renee Richards,” Horn says. “Nobody knows about this person.”

I don’t know a damned thing about 1970s tennis player Renee Richards (though the name is vaguely familiar.)  I do know  Christine Jorgensen.

It is because tennis is alien to me, but I would know the focal point between Richard Nixon and Ed Wood.

My cultural antenna points are apparently completely out of whack.

In his exit, Steve Bannon assailed the Trump administration as now purely beholden to Davos — I think a sliding away from that old nationalist big works products mixed as it were with the building of The Wall toward the end of an upper class tax cut.  It’s interesting to note that, naturally, the reception at Davos is… hostile.  In and out.

  And sure, they’d be out with any American president, and Bush with Iraq.  This one’s notable in that Trump’s big faux pas in the Davos  with Davos is an “anti-globalism” protectionist stance… so where do the protesters come about on the issue of the neo-liberalism globalist order?

It’s also interesting to note the protesters message conflicting with that, in a sense, with noted member of the “Resistance” — if any politician can be called that — Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown — a man who, it is rumored is — along with every other elected Democratic official — may be running for president or vice president or has his name being floated out there because there’s no one else anyone can think of…

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, applauded this week’s decision on tariffs and said he had been dismayed when Trump delayed decisions about whether to impose restrictions on steel and aluminum imports.

Notably, he likes the protection on solar panels.

Of course, this is the policy prescription that won Trump OhioPennsylvaniaMichiganWisconsin, and thus the election…

(whistling because no one likes to suggest Trump won with policy prescriptions of any sort ascribed to traditional Democratic policies.)

Eight years ago, when North Korea made an appearance in the World Cup and proceeded to turn in a piss poor performance, the news seemed to suggest retributions to the athletes.  Presumably, when the Unified Korean teams come to play, either the South Korean athletes will be covering well enough for the North Korean athletes that a bar will be met so that the People’s athletes won’t be embarrassing the People’s Republic, or in whatever agreement that made this passable —

— the host South Koreans as well the Olympic committee wanting to diffuse political tensions and provide a storyline for public consumption, so a deal is brokered —

this was dealt away with.

Or perhaps Kim Jong Un is more sports sympathetic than Kim Jong Il.  (Though, the Rodman lead basketball team had to tie the North Korean team, for North Korean consumption.)

At first it strikes me as positive — if slight.  Open up what channels of communication you can.  (What?  Didn’t a Ping Pong competition open up China?  (Or, according to the late 1970s Hal Lindsey book — The 1980s — Countdown to Armageddon — put us on the path to armageddon.)  Though don’t pretend it’s more than it is.  (Yes.  The Leader wants the country to put the thoughts on the war on hold, and prepare for the glorious day when South Korea will be lead by him as too well.)

But then consider this problem: there are South Korean athletes … now being cut… from rosters… to make room for North Koreans.

On that score, what the heck?