How Long Shall The Wicked Reign Over My People?

How Long, How Long?

Number of the Day: 2,864,974. (Popular vote differential.)

Fuck the gawd-damned Electoral College too.

Friday Fuckheads

CNN:
Senior State Dept. aide once called Obama a Kenyan and Pelosi a Nazi whose Botox wore off  —  (CNN)A senior adviser at the State Department once said he thought then-President Barack Obama was a Kenyan and called House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi a Nazi whose Botox had worn off.
Noah Lanard / Mother Jones:   Islamophobic Conspiracy Theorist Helped Produce Infamous Trump Report Linking Immigration to Terror

Rashaan Ayesh / Axios:
Nikki Haley: Dylann Roof hijacked meaning of Confederate flag  —  Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley said that shooter Dylann Roof hijacked the meaning of the Confederate flag when, in 2017, he attacked a historically black church in Charleston, S.C., in an interview with The Blaze.
Colby Itkowitz / Washington Post:   Nikki Haley: Mass murderer Dylann Roof ‘hijacked’ meaning of Confederate flag
Dareh Gregorian / NBC News:   Nikki Haley defends comments about the Confederate flag
Tim Murphy / Mother Jones:   Nikki Haley Says Dylann Roof Ruined the Confederate Flag for Everyone Else
Justin Baragona / The Daily Beast:
Nikki Haley Suggests Confederate Flag Just Meant ‘Sacrifice and Heritage’ Until Dylann Roof ‘Hijacked’ It
Anne Branigin / The Root:   Revisionist History X: Nikki Haley Claims Dylann Roof ‘Hijacked’ Meaning of Confederate Flag
Balloon Juice:   Yes, It Is About Heritage  —  Nikki Haley is getting …

Cheeses, what a transparent hypocrite. Be ready for "Nikki for President 2024".

Lumpy Is The King Of Shit

Inane In The Membrane

Bloomberg:
Trump Orders Toilet Rule Review, Saying People Flush 10 Times  — President complains about impact of water efficiency rules  — He says hand washing is nearly impossible due to water flow  —  Donald Trump's latest target for deregulation is Americans' toilets.

This continuing interest in excretion places him somewhere between infantile & juvenile on the maturity axis. If water pressure bugs him so, where's "Infrastructure Week"? When America's 100+ yr.-old mains & pipelines go there won't be any fucking water.

Continued denial of reality, absurd vanity:

President Trump joking about why he doesn’t like the new light bulbs: “It doesn’t make you look as good. Being a vain person, that’s very important to me. It gives you an orange look, I don’t want an orange look.”

— Eamon Javers (@EamonJavers) December 6, 2019

(Not "joking", either.)

50. Yrs. Ago Today: Altamont

Found at Nostalgia Central. Click for sparse text outline of events

An interview w/ someone who wrote a book about the whole sordid mess over a yr. ago.

Click here to read long excerpts from “Just a Shot Away” at Google Books.

And a review.

This reporter was reporting from the other side of the world at the time; as he wasn't there, he has nothing to add.

¿Qué Pasa New York?

New York Is A Summer Festival (Of Shit, Apparently)

... [I]f there is one American city in this moment that can help us understand (and forecast) general trends in U.S. politics, it is New York.

The state’s notorious culture of corruption, for example, provides some insight into the deep-seated rot in Trump’s camp. As Jeet Heer put it in The New Republic last year, “It’s impossible to understand why Trump’s administration has been so scandal-wracked without appreciating where he comes from.” Heer calls New York “the most politically toxic place in America,” and in terms of corruption, this is undoubtedly true. A PolitiFact analysis from 2016 documented that between 2006 and 2015, the state endured 28 corruption scandals involving public officials, followed by Pennsylvania in second place with 24 corruption cases and New Jersey with 12 cases.

Many paragraphs of how awful, stupid & evil both Bloomberg & N.Y.C. are.

Bloomberg, who was a registered Republican for half of his mayoral career, wants to prevent the progressive revolt that is currently brewing in his own city from going national. In his heart, he would probably prefer another four years of President Trump over a President Sanders. No matter their differences, then, it seems the New York elite—and the American elite in general—will always have each other’s back when a real threat to their power presents itself.

The big conflict in your benighted country is not between North & South, or between the ignernt rural rubes & urbane sophisticates, but between the decadent Northeastern power elites still attached to European feudalism & the people who had to keep moving west to escape fascism.

Calling New York the “most progressive city” in America is certainly a bold claim for a city that has been consistently ranked as one of the most unequal places in the country, but this reveals a lot about the kind of politics that passes for “progressive” these days in many top Democratic circles. As of 2018, New York boasted the highest concentration of billionaires in the world, with more than 100 living in the city, and for a neoliberal Democrat like Bloomberg, this is a sign of genuine progress.

“If we could get every billionaire around the world to move here, it would be a godsend that would create a much bigger income gap,” declared Bloomberg in 2013 during his final year as the city’s mayor. (Earlier, he had even mused about luring “all the Russian billionaires” to move to the city, which isn’t an opinion that would fly in today’s Democratic Party).

[Truthdig]

"The Whole World Is Watching! The Whole World Is Watching!" (And Laughing, Mostly)

Life's a joke and you are the punchlineIf you kidz don't understand the title ...

Drayton Gets It Again

TUE 5 DEC 1944
Pacific
Naval Base, Tinian, is established.

Submarine Hake (SS-256) lands supplies on Panay, P.I.

Tank landing ship LST-23 and medium landing ship LSM-20 are damaged by Japanese planes 70 miles northwest of Caiut Point, Leyte, 10°12'N, 125°19'E. Kamikazes damage destroyers Drayton (DD-366), 10°10'N, 125°20'E, and Mugford (DD-389), 10°15'N, 125°20'E.

Japanese planes attack convoy bound for Leyte, torpedoing U.S. freighter Antoine Saugraine at 09°42'N, 127°05'E; falling astern of the convoy, the freighter again comes under attack, is torpedoed a second time, and is abandoned. Frigates San Pedro (PF-37) and Coronado (PF-38), and Army tug LT 454 rescue the 42-man merchant complement, 26-man Armed Guard and 376 Army troop passengers between them (see 6-7 December 1944). A kamikaze crashes freighter Marcus Daly in San Pedro Bay, Leyte, 09°34'N, 127°30'E; 1 of the 27-man Armed Guard is killed, as are 2 of the 40-man merchant complement and 62 of the 1,200 embarked Army troops; 49 men are wounded. Nearby, Armed Guard gunfire from freighter John Evans deflects a kamikaze from his suicidal course toward that ship, but the plane grazes the ship, glancing off the topmast and the stack before splashing close aboard. Bomb fragments cause some topside damage and wound four men (two of the 43-man merchant complement and 2 of the 26-man Armed Guard).

Medium landing ship LSM-149 is damaged by grounding, Philippine Islands.

Japanese escort destroyer Ikuna is damaged by aircraft off Formosa.

Mediterranean
Tank landing craft LCT-152, under tow of tank landing ship LST-141, is damaged in a gale off Palermo, Sicily. Auxiliary tug ATA-172 brings LCT-152 into port.

Tuck You, Furley

Place [Shakespearean Lawyer Quote] here.

Elie Mystal / The Nation:
The Republicans' Star Impeachment Scholar Is a Shameless Hack
Dareh Gregorian / NBC News:   Jonathan Turley: Who is the lone GOP impeachment witness (and what's this about his dog)?

That's right Turley, fuck you for being a piece of two-faced shit.

Destroyer Drayton (DD-366) Damaged; Flasher (SS-249) Attacks

MON 4 DEC 1944
Pacific
Destroyer Drayton (DD-366) is damaged by horizontal bomber off Leyte, 10°00'N, 125°00'E.

Submarine Flasher (SS-249) attacks Japanese convoy about 275 miles southwest of Manila, sinking destroyer Kishinami, 12°54'N, 116°27'E, and damaging merchant tanker Hakko Maru. Flasher eludes efforts of the escorting Yurijima and Coast Defense Vessel No.17; Hakko Maru is later scuttled, 13°12'N, 116°35'E, most likely by Yurijima and/or Coast Defense Vessel No.17.

Fat Fascist Fuckhead Of The Day

Fuck You, You Fat Four-Eyed Toad

Sanjana Karanth / HuffPost:
William Barr Says Those Who Don't Show More Respect To Cops May Not Get Police Protection  —  The remarks are the latest example of the U.S. attorney general's “tough on crime” approach that President Donald Trump has adopted.  —  U.S. Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday that if some communities don’t begin showing more respect to law enforcement, then they could potentially not be protected by police officers.

The country’s top cop made the questionable remarks while giving a speech at the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in Policing.

“But I think today, American people have to focus on something else, which is the sacrifice and the service that is given by our law enforcement officers,” Barr said. “And they have to start showing, more than they do, the respect and support that law enforcement deserves ― and if communities don’t give that support and respect, they might find themselves without the police protection they need.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for clarification on who specifically Barr was referring to when he mentioned “communities” and what he meant by people finding themselves without police protection.

But American Bridge, a liberal super PAC that first flagged the comments, said the attorney general was referring to communities of color that have historically had a contentious relationship with law enforcement due to police brutality, mass incarceration and racial profiling.

“The Attorney General isn’t being subtle and that shouldn’t surprise us considering this administration’s record,” American Bridge spokesperson Jeb Fain told HuffPost in a statement. “When it comes to communities of color, he sees justice and equal protection under the law as subject to conditions.

“Barr’s words are as revealing as they are disturbing ― flagrantly dismissive of the rights of Americans of color, disrespectful to countless law enforcement officers who work hard to serve their communities, and full of a continuing disregard for the rule of law.”

The attorney general has proved before that he does not support the more humane criminal justice reform that’s coming to states, counties and local jurisdictions across the country. Since taking over as attorney general in February, Barr has maintained the “tough on crime” approach that President Donald Trump has adopted.

In August, Barr told the Fraternal Order of Police ― the country’s largest police organization ― that there should be “zero tolerance for resisting police.” The attorney general gave an emotionally charged speech going after local prosecutors he accused of making police officers’ jobs more difficult because of their more progressive approaches to criminal cases.

“There is another development that is demoralizing to law enforcement and dangerous to public safety,” Barr said in his August speech. “That is the emergence in some of our large cities of district attorneys that style themselves as ‘social justice’ reformers, who spend their time undercutting the police, letting criminals off the hook and refusing to enforce the law.”

Barr is also behind the Justice Department’s push to reinstate the federal death penalty, something that hasn’t been put to use since 2003. The attorney general scheduled five executions for this month and the next, though a district judge ordered a preliminary injunction while some of the people Barr wants to put to death legally challenge his workaround for reinstating capital punishment at the federal level. The injunction was upheld this week by a federal appeals court. The Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to make a ruling.…
Bob Brigham / Raw Story:   AG Bill Barr blasted for speech suggesting police in Trump's America are like ‘a gang running a protection racket’
Mark Berman / Washington Post:   Justice Dept. asks Supreme Court to let federal executions proceed after appeals court denial

Does it occur to his thug mind that "respect" is a two-way street? Fucking Nazi pig. He deserves the death penalty he wants, & soon.

Geneva Convention Violated

SUN 3 DEC 1944
Pacific
Destroyer engagement in Ormoc Bay that began late the previous night continues. Destroyer Cooper (DD-695) is sunk, possibly by torpedo from escort destroyer Kuwa, 10°54'N, 124°36'E, but not before Cooper, along with Allen M. Sumner (DD-692) and Moale (DD-693), sinks Kuwa and damages her sistership Take, 10°50'N, 124°35'E. "Black Cat" PBY-5A picks up Cooper's survivors that night and the next day. One PBY carries 56 in addition to its 8-man crew. Allen M. Sumner is damaged by horizontal bomber, and Moale is damaged (possibly by Kuwa) in Ormoc Bay, 10°54'N, 124°36'E.

Hospital ship Hope (AH-7), fully illuminated in accordance with the dictates of the Geneva Convention, is attacked by Japanese torpedo planes but not damaged, 125 miles east of Mindanao.

Submarines Pampanito (SS-383), Pipefish (SS-388), Sea Cat (SS-399) and Searaven (SS-196) attack Japanese convoy in South China Sea off coast of French Indochina, in heavy seas and poor visibility. Pipefish probably torpedoes and sinks Coast Defense Vessel No.64, 18°36'N, 111°54'E; Pampanito torpedoes army cargo ship Seishin Maru, 18°20'N, 111°52'E, and Sea Cat or Searaven torpedoes tanker Harima Maru.

U.S. Navy land-based aircraft sink Japanese merchant tanker No.13 Nanshin Maru off Balikpapan, 01°22'S, 117°03'E; and merchant tanker No.18 Nanshin Maru off Borneo, 05°55'N, 117°03'E.

Europe
U.S. freighter Francis Asbury is mined in the Schelde River, 51°22'N, 03°53'W; of her 41-man merchant complement and 28-man Armed Guard, 9 of the former and 6 of the latter are killed, one merchant sailor and one Armed Guard die later of their injuries. Forty-six from both groups are injured. Francis Asbury drifts aground off Ostend, Belgium, where she is sunk by gunfire as a menace to navigation.

Mediterranean
Tank landing ship LST-141 is damaged when she runs aground at Bizerte, Tunisia.

Sturdy Sinks Communication Ship No.142

SAT 2 DEC 1944
Pacific
Four destroyers (DesDiv 44) bombard Japanese positions at Palompon and northern Ormoc Bay, Leyte. Another group of three destroyers (DesDiv 120) (Commander John C. Zahm) enters Ormoc Bay at night and battles enemy aircraft, destroyers, and shore batteries.

Submarine Gunnel (SS-253) lands supplies and evacuates Allied aviators from Palawan, P.I.

Submarine Sea Devil (SS-400) attacks Japanese convoy MI-29 in the East China Sea, sinking merchant tanker Akigawa Maru and passenger/cargo ship Hawaii Maru about 80 miles south-southwest of Kyushu, 30°24'N, 128°17'E.

British submarine HMS Sturdy sinks Japanese Communication Ship No.142 in Makassar Strait, 04°05'S, 119°32'E.

USAAF B-24s sink Japanese gunboat Bantan Maru and damage auxiliary minesweeper Cha 105 and cargo ship Sh_ka [sic] Maru 140 miles nautical miles [sic] from Makassar, 03°30'S, 117°30'E.

USAAF P-40s attack Japanese shipping off Palompon, P.I., sinking motor sailship Kosei Maru.

Gondola Load

Office supplies from Canada's paper clip mines.

December Opens Dully

DECEMBER

FRI 1 DEC 1944
Pacific
Naval Operating Base, Kwajalein, is established.

Europe
U.S. freighter Arizpa is damaged by mine in the Schelde River, 51°23'N, 03°18'W, but proceeds to Antwerp, her destination, under her own power. There are no casualties among her 41-man merchant complement or the 28-man Armed Guard.

Hank Snow Sunday: A Tangled Mind Moves On