Overcast with just a bit of ground fog this early Friday here on California’s north coast — rain expected later on, with a good shower due over the weekend.
Gray-gloomy weather we’ve had lately.
And along with the outside, an inside sense a little somber, too, with a worsening and obvious stupefaction on the apparatus of US government.
A bad-looking scenario fashioned at the whim of an outlandish, nefarious-nonsensical Republican party, unhampered by actual needs of the country, or basic facts on any subject.
Terrifyingly, US governance operates via only two political factions, and one of those is insanely dangerous.
(Illustration found here).
The GOP has become so isolated, so self-centered, some nit-twit senator from Arkansas can fuck the country real good if his idiot cohorts aren’t paying attention — witness the really stupefying (though, not that surprising) act this week of 47 Republican senators in dispatching a missive of warning to the Iranians on the current nuclear talks. The letter was stupefyingly dumb-ass on many levels.
President Obama churned the fire this morning (from Politico):
“I’m embarrassed for them. For them to address a letter to the ayatollah who they claim is our mortal enemy, and their basic argument to them is ‘don’t deal with our president ‘cause you can’t trust him to follow through on agreement,” Obama said in a trailer for a Vice News interview scheduled to run in full on Monday.
“That’s close to unprecedented,” he said.
And to further impress with idiot/don’t-give-shit skills on the whipping-out of the Iranian letter: ‘“It was kind of a very rapid process. Everybody was looking forward to getting out of town because of the snowstorm,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who also signed, in an interview with POLITICO earlier this week. “I think we probably should have had more discussion about it, given the blowback that there is.”‘
If Jackboot John hadn’t been just so ‘rapid’ to beat the snow, hence, the ‘blowback.’
Per GlobalGathering:
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday during a meeting with members of Iran’s top clerical body, which includes President Hassan Rouhani. “The letter by American senators indicates the collapse of political ethics in the United States.”
“Governments are bound to their commitments by international laws and would not violate their obligations with a change of government,” he said.
“They [the Republican senators] said they want to teach us their own laws but we don’t need their lessons, our officials know how to make agreements binding if there’s a deal.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif called earlier the letter a “propaganda ploy” and derided Republicans for failing to understand international and US law.
Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith notes that Zarif has a valid point: the letter incorrectly states that the Senate has the power to ratify treaties, which it does not — a fact stated even on the Senate’s own website.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the Republicans’ open letter’s “most profound impact” was to erode the trust of international partners and allies in the United States.
Earnest said “generations of credibility” were threatened by the actions of the Republicans, and that “that confidence in the United States of America has been undermined” as allies and other nations weighed whether the US would keep its promises.
“It’s not a laughing matter,” Earnest said.
Yet one asshole who’s actually funnier-than shit, Lindsey Graham, and who also signed the senate letter, further epitomized the ignorant arrogance of Republicans during a political bullshit session last weekend — the details didn’t emerge until middle of this week (via Vox):
“And here’s the first thing I would do if I were president of the United States. I wouldn’t let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to. We’re not leaving town until we restore these defense cuts. We are not leaving town until we restore the intel cuts.”
Yet just Lindsey blowing shit-smoke: ‘The military line was “not to be taken literally,” according to Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop, who staffed him on the New Hampshire trip.’
So…don’t accept the word, ‘literal,’ in its normal translation, even if the good senator uses the word literally in a sentence? Actually, but not literally, Lindsey would call out the US military against the US Congress?
And regular Americans feel the ugly bat-shit crazy, mean-spirited vibes, good and bad.
According to a poll at HuffPost, the GOP Iranian communiqué was worse-than awkward: ‘Nearly 60 percent of Americans have heard at least something about the open letter, and 42 percent say it was inappropriate, while 28 percent find it appropriate and the remainder aren’t sure — a divide similar to views on the invitation for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress, which 47 percent of Americans said was inappropriate.’
Therefore, all this GOP-induced flak in the polluted air strikes at the citizenry — credit/hope by Americans for our government are at or near record lows (via The Salt Lake Tribune):
The 2014 General Social Survey finds only 23 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court, 11 percent in the executive branch and 5 percent in Congress.
By contrast, half have a great deal of confidence in the military.
…
If there’s one issue than unites Americans, it’s that hardly anyone has much confidence in Congress, the survey shows.
Over half of Americans express hardly any confidence at all, while only 7 percent of Democrats, 5 percent of independents and 3 percent of Republicans have a great deal of confidence in Congress.
And that’s somewhat, or maybe close-to, literally…