AdamSmith

Absolutely. He is doing it instead out of his own: Lack of courage Lack of creative imagination how to figure out (or engage help) to solve legally the problem Lack of commitment to the cause Realization that fixing the current situation is going to cost him more than it brings in $$$

...Think I have mentioned that one time I sat a couple tables away from Bar and GWB and another couple dining at this place in Kennebunkport... https://www.gracehotels.com/whitebarninn/grace-dining/ ...close enough to overhear them. They of course occupied this table closest to the window. With a couple of black-suited, earpiece-outfitted SS agents sipping soda water at the bar. And two black and blacked-out-windows Ford SUVs just outside the door. She was hilarious! Droll, Sahara-dry witty, catching every nuance in the convo. I don't think even Joan Rivers was really as funny and witty as I overheard Bar Bush being in her talk with friends, right there behind me. I spent my whole meal trying my best not to laugh out loud. George was pretty funny too -- in, again, that family-inherited, southern-Connecticut-based, driest possible way.

...It's noteworthy that while Barbara Bush could relate to people from different backgrounds, she came from one of great privilege. Raised in a wealthy New York suburb and educated at boarding school, she met her future husband, George H.W. Bush, in 1941 at a country club Christmas dance in Greenwich, Connecticut. She was just 16 and he was 17. They became engaged before he went off to fight in World War II as a Navy torpedo pilot. "I married the first man I ever kissed," she said, adding with her usual dry sense of humor, "when I tell my children that, they just about throw up." She and her husband had six children, including former President George W. Bush and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush... https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/17/opinions/barbara-bush-opinion-brower/index.html

Most telling, and moving, how the Bushes (George H.W., even George W. [heresy! ], and now Bar) are looking better and better with time, given the current scene. (Today's world a low bar, to be sure; but still.) I post the below with admiration for a kind of iron-assed personality that we can, maybe in a fairly short time, hope to return to in our leaders. Barbara Bush redefined the role of first lady ...In 1989, she famously visited Grandma's House, one of the first homes created to care for infants infected with HIV. She spent nearly an hour at the facility near the White House and held babies infected with the HIV virus, which causes AIDS -- at a time when that disease carried a crippling stigma and stoked widespread fear. Through this simple act she helped disprove the myth that the disease could be caught simply through physical contact. "You can hug and pick up AIDS babies and people who have the HIV virus" without hurting yourself, she said during the visit. "There is a need for compassion," she said as she cradled a baby. That one visit helped change public perception and likely spared an untold number of people infected with the virus from further pain... https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/17/opinions/barbara-bush-opinion-brower/index.html

Deadly spot-on. Who terrifies Trump the most? Mueller and De Niro https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/15/opinions/trump-terrified-deniro-mueller-snl-obeidallah/

Sounds so sexy & seductive!

Your local grocery store.

... Comey discounted previous theories by some Trump critics that the President is incapable or not mentally up to the job, arguing that what he sees as an ego-driven presidency based on lies, demands for loyalty from subordinates and calculated deceit is no accident. "He strikes me as a person of above average intelligence who's tracking conversations and knows what's going on. I don't think he's medically unfit to be president. I think he's morally unfit to be president," Comey said. "A person who sees moral equivalence in Charlottesville, who talks about and treats women like they're pieces of meat, who lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe it, that person's not fit to be president of the United States, on moral grounds," Comey said. Comey stressed that he was not making a political point, saying he did not care what people thought about hot button issues like guns or immigration. "There's something more important than that that should unite all of us, and that is our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country. The most important being truth," he said. "This president is not able to do that. He is morally unfit to be president." https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/16/politics/donald-trump-james-comey-moral/index.html

LMAO

Your use of euphemism is admirable, & envious.

I got no such. Now I feel jealous!

Comey’s rebuke of Trump cuts deep The former FBI director does more than dish on Trump’s behavior — his book offers a full-throated indictment of Trump’s character. Former FBI Director James Comey pillories President Donald Trump in his soon-to-be-released book, “A Higher Loyalty,” deriding him as a cruel and selfish liar who is “unethical,” “untethered to truth” and has likely never “recoiled from causing another person pain.” From jabs at Trump’s height to ruminating on the status of his marriage, Comey leaves little question about how he feels about the 45th president. But throughout the book, a manuscript of which was obtained by POLITICO, Comey also seeks to draw deeper lessons about leadership — rebukes of Trump and those around him that may be lost in the headlines surrounding the book’s more startling details, like Trump’s apparent obsession with allegations concerning prostitutes in Moscow. In those passages, though, Comey indicts not only Trump’s character but also that of many around him, and those in power who support and defend him. Here are some of Comey’s more pointed passages that strike at the center of Trump’s worldview. A rumination on what it means to live a good life: “Sit there, and imagine you are at the end of your life. From that vantage point, the smoke of striving for recognition and wealth is cleared. Houses, cars, awards on the wall? Who cares? You are about to die. Who do you want to have been? … I hope some of them decide to have been people who used their abilities to help those who needed it — the weak, the struggling, the frightened, the bullied. Standing for something. Making a difference. That is true wealth.” On liars and lying: “I’ve seen many times over the years how liars get so good at lying, they lose the ability to distinguish between what’s true and what’s not. They surround themselves with other liars. The circle becomes closer and smaller, with those unwilling to surrender their moral compasses pushed out and those willing to tolerate deceit brought closer to the center of power. Perks and access are given to those willing to lie and tolerate lies. This creates a culture, which becomes an entire way of life. The easy, casual lies — those are a very dangerous thing. They open up the path to the bigger lies, in more important places, where the consequences aren’t so harmless.” On the fragility of institutions: “The actions of one person can destroy what it took hundreds of people years to build.” On effective leadership: “Effective leaders almost never need to yell. The leader will have created an environment where disappointing him causes his people to be disappointed in themselves. Guilt and affection are far more powerful motivators than fear. … A leader who screams at his employees or belittles them will not attract and retain great talent over the long term.” On self-reflection: “But transparency is almost always the best course. Getting problems, pain, hopes, and doubts out on the table so we can talk honestly about them and work to improve is the best way to lead. By acknowledging our issues, we have the best chance of resolving them in a healthy way. Buried pain never gets better with age. And by remembering and being open and truthful about our mistakes, we reduce the chance we will repeat them.” The impostor complex: “All of us labor, to one degree or another, under the belief that if other people really knew us, if they knew us the way we know ourselves, they would think less of us. That’s the impostor complex — the fear that by showing ourselves we will be exposed as the flawed person we are. If you don’t have this, in some measure, you are an incredible jerk and should stop reading immediately.” On humility: “As I’d seen from other leaders, being confident enough to be humble — comfortable in your own skin — is at the heart of effective leadership. That humility makes a whole lot of things possible, none more important than a single, humble question: ‘What am I missing?’ Good leaders constantly worry about their limited ability to see.” On Trump’s team: “I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the Mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service of some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth.” On Trump’s impact: “What is happening now is not normal. It is not fake news. It is not okay. Whatever your politics, it is wrong to dismiss the damage to the norms and traditions that have guided the presidency and our public life for decades or, in many cases, since the republic was founded. It is also wrong to stand idly by, or worse, to stay silent when you know better, while a president brazenly seeks to undermine public confidence in law enforcement institutions that were established to keep our leaders in check.” https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/13/james-comey-book-excerpts-522042

She was just like that in real life. Fucking hilarious!

One always had to wonder what that name 'Q' really stood for.

Maybe if he shipped physically a Thai boy or 2 up the Natchez Trace...?

Tonya Harding...?! Watch yer knees!

Oh boy. Here we go. Down the drain. Avoid Gulf stream disruption at all costs, scientists warn How close the world is to a catastrophic collapse of giant ocean currents is unknown, making halting global warming more critical than ever, scientists say Damian Carrington Environment editor @dpcarrington Fri 13 Apr 2018 09.49 EDTFirst published on Fri 13 Apr 2018 09.13 EDT Other research this week showed that Greenland’s massive ice cap is melting at the fastest rate for at least 450 years. Photograph: Nick Cobbing/Greenpeace Serious disruption to the Gulf Stream ocean currents that are crucial in controlling global climate must be avoided “at all costs”, senior scientists have warned. The alert follows the revelation this week that the system is at its weakest ever recorded. Past collapses of the giant network have seen some of the most extreme impacts in climate history, with western Europe particularly vulnerable to a descent into freezing winters. A significantly weakened system is also likely to cause more severe storms in Europe, faster sea level rise on the east coast of the US and increasing drought in the Sahel in Africa. The new research worries scientists because of the huge impact global warming has already had on the currents and the unpredictability of a future “tipping point”. The currents that bring warm Atlantic water northwards towards the pole, where they cool, sink and return southwards, is the most significant control on northern hemisphere climate outside the atmosphere. But the system, formally called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc), has weakened by 15% since 1950, thanks to melting Greenland ice and ocean warming making sea water less dense and more buoyant. This represents a massive slowdown – equivalent to halting all the world’s rivers three times over, or stopping the greatest river, the Amazon, 15 times. Such weakening has not been seen in at least the last 1,600 years, which is as far back as researchers have analysed so far. Furthermore, the new analyses show the weakening is accelerating. “From the study of past climate, we know changes in the Amoc have been some of the most abrupt and impactful events in the history of climate,” said Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and one of the world’s leading oceanographers, who led some of the new research. During the last Ice Age, winter temperatures changed by up to 10C within three years in some places. Advertisement “We are dealing with a system that in some aspects is highly non-linear, so fiddling with it is very dangerous, because you may well trigger some surprises,” he said. “I wish I knew where this critical tipping point is, but that is unfortunately just what we don’t know. We should avoid disrupting the Amoc at all costs. It is one more reason why we should stop global warming as soon as possible.” Oceanographer Peter Spooner, at University College London, shares the concern: “The extent of the changes we have discovered comes as a surprise to many, including myself, and points to significant changes in the future.” A collapse in the Amoc would mean far less heat reaching western Europe and plunge the region into very severe winters, the kind of scenario depicted in an extreme fashion in the movie The Day After Tomorrow. A widespread collapse of deep-sea ecosystems has also been seen in the past. But as the Amoc weakens, it might actually increase summer heatwaves. That is because it takes time for the cooling of the northern waters to also cause cooling over the adjacent lands. However, the cooler waters affect the atmosphere in a way that helps warm air to flood into Europe from the south, a situation already seen in 2015. Gulf Stream current at its weakest in 1,600 years, studies show Read more Other new research this week showed that Greenland’s massive ice cap is melting at the fastest rate for at least 450 years. This influx will continue to weaken the Amoc into the future until human-caused climate change is halted, but scientists do not not know how fast the weakening will be or when it reaches the point of collapse. “Many people have tried to check that with computer models,” said Rahmstorf. “But they differ a lot because it depends on a very subtle balance of density – that is temperature and salinity distribution in the ocean. We are not able to model this with any confidence right now.” “We are hoping to somehow make some headway, but I have been in this area for more than 20 years now and we still don’t understand why the models differ so much in the sensitivity of the Amoc,” he said. However, Rahmstorf said the international climate deal agreed in 2015 offers some hope if its ambition is increased and achieved: “If we can keep the temperature rise to well below 2C as agreed in the Paris agreement, I think we run a small risk of crossing this collapse tipping point.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/13/avoid-at-all-costs-gulf-streams-record-weakening-prompts-warnings-global-warming

James Comey slams 'the forest fire that is the Trump presidency' in book https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/12/politics/james-comey-book-donald-trump/index.html