The Abject Horror of Indecency Shell Shock...

So this happened . . . :

President Trump's use of "Pocahontas" as an insult during a ceremony honoring Native Americans on Monday set off a range of reactions about whether the term's racially insensitive.

In this case, Native American leaders said, it was.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/11/28/pocahontas-racist-eric-trump-defends-his-dad-but-native-americans-say-otherwise/902837001/

The Gadfly arrived home from work yesterday and read about this story, and watched the video of it as well.

And The Gadfly sat back and thought about it, and thought about it, and The Gadfly was so shell-shocked by the utter abomination of it all that he thought about it all the way through today.

And The Gadfly ultimately arrived late this afternoon at the conclusion that this country has either a very depraved, very mentally unstable individual running the country or one who quite simply is pure, unadulterated evil.

Our soulless, intellectual and emotional growth-stunted President used the setting of a majestic, patriotic, and somber ceremony for Native American World War 2 vets (the infamous code talkers) to taunt and insult one of his political enemies - and smirk about it.  The verbal insult utilized a famous Native American's name to slur the character of one of his political rivals.  Bad enough right?   But he did this, while standing in front of an oil painting of the 7th President of the U.S. Andrew Jackson - he of the fiendish "Trail of Tears" fame whose policies and actions toward Native Americas earned him the nickname "Indian Killer."

The Gadfly was so flabbergasted that a national leader, the President of the United States no less, would descend to such spiritually warped depths, in such a venue, and in the middle of that kind of prideful occasion - just to score a couple of dirt cheap political points ... well, it just so befuddled The Gadfly's senses that it blew his mind for an entire fucking day.

The Gadfly was pondering what to write about this sordid episode on his shitty little blog throughout the entirety of the day today, and knew what he wanted to say on the subject, but when it came time to put fingers to keyboard, the zeal to do so was tempered a bit by knowing that no matter what reality The Gadfly points out here about Donald Trump's very indecent and psychologically disturbed behavior, his core followers, his base -- will deny that reality and sink ever deeper in to the abyss of their cocooned, cult status.

Let's just be very clear about something here dear readers - and this should serve as a precautionary warning - history is replete with examples of cults of personality producing some first rate psychopaths and sadistic totalitarians.  And for anyone to say that it can't happen here is ignoring the evidence that it already is and it's sitting right on our collective door stoops.

Something needs to give here and let's hope that in this Season of Giving, the one who will be doing the giving will be Santa's number one special prosecutor helper Robert Mueller III.




----TFG

WWHJD? (What Would Horny Jesus Do?) . . .

Oh dear heavens! . . . . what will we tell the chil.... oh, fuck it - nevermind.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) on Wednesday apologized for a photo that circulated anonymously on social media earlier this week which appeared to show him nude.

“While separated from my second wife, prior to the divorce, I had sexual relationships with other mature adult women. Each was consensual. Those relationships have ended,” he said in a statement Wednesday acknowledging the photo. “I am sorry I did not use better judgment during those days. I am sorry that I let my constituents down.”

The censored photo of his genitals, which was shared by an anonymous Twitter account, along with a text message that used graphic language, appeared to be sent by Barton to a woman he was dating.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joe-barton-explicit-photo_us_5a15d1ffe4b03dec8249d9c0?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

All they got to do is just admit that they're lascivious bastards just like the rest of us sexually repressed Americans.  The Gadfly doesn't understand why that has to be such a godawfully difficult thing to do.

Listen dear readers -- it's none of The Gadfly's business if some 68 year old dude wants to text (in this case) consensual pecker pics to his lady friends - that is a private matter between two adults (albeit freaky ones).

What bothers the gadfly the very most about this tired nonsense is that for the better part of the past three decades conservative politicians like this Texas horny-toad, congress-critter clown have built lucrative careers (32 fucking years for Barton) upon their loudly and arrogantly stated premise, that their political party is the chosen party of God, and that their moral values are superior to those of liberals, thereby sanctifying, in their minds, all of their phony, conservative governing policies.

That is what gets an egregiously displeased bumblebee zipping around in The Gadfly's bonnet.

Joe Barton and the rest of these "moral values" preaching Republicans and Tea Partiers are all major league hypocrites, carelessly hurling stones and other heavy objects at others, whom they feel that they have the right to employ their personal religious values to pass judgment on.  They do it all at their own peril in a very fragile, glass house.

And The Gadfly is unrepentant when he tells you that he actually feels pangs of fucking divine joy witnessing the humiliating misery that Joe Barton and some of these other conservative assholes like him are experiencing with all of these sexual improprieties stories going public.  Their shameless hypocrisy has brought such requisite misery upon themselves.  It's about time.




----TFG

This is One Kindergartner Who Needs to be Held Back (permanently) . . .

[ click pic to enlarge ]

Lord have mercy! . . .

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster mocked President Trump’s intelligence at a private dinner with a powerful tech CEO, according to five sources with knowledge of the conversation.

Over a July dinner with Oracle CEO Safra Catz — who has been mentioned as a candidate for several potential administration jobs — McMaster bluntly trashed his boss, said the sources, four of whom told BuzzFeed News they heard about the exchange directly from Catz. The top national security official dismissed the president variously as an “idiot” and a “dope” with the intelligence of a “kindergartner,” the sources said.

A sixth source who was not familiar with the details of the dinner told BuzzFeed News that McMaster had made similarly derogatory comments about Trump’s intelligence to him in private, including that the president lacked the necessary brainpower to understand the matters before the National Security Council.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/sources-mcmaster-mocked-trumps-intelligence-in-a-private?utm_term=.kuPJARW5j#.lvY30jode

Let's take stock of where we're at now:

Trump's Secretary of State Rex Tillerson referred to dear leader as a "fucking moron." 

There is ample video evidence showing that Trump is incapable of stringing more than 1 or 2 coherent sentences or thoughts together at any given moment.  We also know that he does not read much, more so if the reading material is not about himself.  He prefers not to read his presidential daily briefings, opting instead to be presented with colorful slide shows and charts because he is intellectually incapable of ingesting raw information and processing it in a thoughtful, reasoned and rational adult manner.

And now we have yet another high level cabinet member confirming what all the rest of us who have been paying attention and aren't lying to ourselves know - namely that Donald Trump is indeed a fucking moron.

H.R. McMaster is a career military guy.  Those guys are typically pretty straightforward in their analysis of things and are also very matter-of-fact with their opinions.  The Gadfly would wager good money on McMaster actually having stated these views about Drumpf's cerebral fitness.

And all of this is quite crucial as we simultaneously see some very important people in government actually openly discussing the possible ramifications of being forced to deal with the horror of having a manifestly unfit individual with the power to launch nuclear missiles at his fingertips.

The Gadfly is absolutely fucking stunned that here we are, in the year 2017 and our government "leaders" are actually going to have hearings for the first time in over 40 years and debate the limitations of a U.S. President's authority to launch nuclear weapons.  To The Gadfly, that signifies that they are just as alarmed as every other sane person in this country at Drumpf's erratic and dangerous behavior as the nation's chief executive.

Is anyone else out there paying attention to this shit?  This madness??  Speak up if you are for God's sake.  The future of your country, your lives, your children's and grandchildren's lives so depend on it.




----TFG

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World . . . .

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” 

― Harlan Ellison

The Gadfly truly wishes not to believe that there are people this goddamn dumb walking around out there, but there are, and it's fucking frightening.

Interviewer:  What kinds of crimes would you include in the articles of impeachment (of Hillary Clinton)?

Dumbass Man on Street:  Extortion, treason - umm - if there was a "Benedict Arnold" law it'd be her, so yeah basically.

Sigh . . . . . . treason is the Benedict Arnold law you imbecile.

That exchange, for some odd reason, reminded The Gadfly of this bit from Mel Brook's "Blazing Saddles":

You said treason twice.

I like treason.

One of the end goals that the modern-day conservative movement has ardently striven for is to destroy public education, and make it much more difficult for Americans of meager and modest means to have affordable access to secondary education.  We can't be having too many smart, well educated, well informed people interfering with the aims of the dullards - dontcha know.

Looks like their plans are succeeding apace - the people in this video are the tangible result of those malevolent efforts.




----TFG

See? Now That Wasn't So Hard - Was It? . . .

"....and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free....."

Regarding the ridiculous claim from Donald Dumbass and the right wing conservatives that Hillary Clinton sold 20% of U.S. uranium to the Russians, watch Shepard Smith -- he of Fox "News" -- take a perfectly pinched, steaming hot, Miralax-inspired dump on that manufactured "scandal":




It really is that uncomplicated for anyone that is not predisposed to believe otherwise, or just plain goddamn dumb.  And it has absolutely nothing at fucking all to do with the Russian government interfering with the 2016 United States presidential election -- and apparently deliberately so on behalf of one of the two major party candidates.

Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace are probably the only two on-air talents at Fox who usually do practice fairly "fair and balanced" journalism - The Gadfly has no qualms about issuing that compliment.  The Gadfly can guarantee you though that Smith and Wallace are pretty lonely figures at Fox - not unlike a couple of beans in a boxcar.

They are lonely because there is still obviously a complete competency imbalance at Fox.  The rest of their talking head "stars" and contributors are so batshit right wing insane and nakedly biased with their ideology and politics, that all that is missing for them are the red, white and black armbands emblazoned with dear leader's majestic DT in lieu of the dread Teutonic fylfot.

Shepard and Wallace are token "alternative" voices.  Mustn't be too overt with using the public airwaves for political propagandizing dontcha' know.

So really - don't even bother high-fiving yourself for airing Shepard Smith's accurate reporting Rupert Murdoch -- you're still going straight to fucking hell.




----TFG

The MORAL of This Story Is . . . Get Some or Go Away . . .

As we haphazardly move forward with this belated national conversation on deviant sexual behaviors by some of our less than honorable male citizenry, let us make a concerted and resolute effort to ensure that people like the "lady" in the photo above, along with the rest of the Drumpf enabling conservatives of similar ethos, are not welcome to participate in that critical discourse.

These are people who, in The Gadfly's Fucking Opinion (TGFO), willfully forfeited the right to add their voice to that important discussion the very moment that they cast a vote for the admitted Pussy Grabber to become the leader and role model for our entire society.  And they've only enforced the justification for assigning absolutely zero value to their views on the subject with their perverse defense of the pedophile Alabama judge and would-be Senator, Roy Moore.

The Gadfly is, quite frankly, pretty inflexible in his thinking that one cannot have a coherent, productive conversation on the subject of morality and moral values with people who have none.

Simple as that.




----TFG

Lesson: Don't Sail Your Corruption Ship In a Sea Full of Legal Icebergs . . .

And the hits just keep on coming . . . . . (not that it's a bad thing in this case):

WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether U.S. President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was involved in an alleged plan to seize a Muslim cleric and deliver him to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Under the plan, Flynn, who was fired by Trump after just 24 days in the job, and his son, Michael Flynn Jr, were to receive up to $15 million for forcibly removing Fethullah Gulen from his U.S. home and delivering him to the Turkish government, people familiar with the investigation told the Journal.

The alleged plan emerged during Mueller’s wider investigation of possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any collusion by the Trump campaign.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/robert-mueller-michael-flynn-turkey_us_5a05b53ae4b05673aa58e720?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Conspiring with a foreign nation to commit kidnapping -- for ransom -- inside the borders of this country -- while employed as a "National Security" adviser to the President of The United States . . . . .Hooooooo-wee! ...

The holy-shit stuff that's beginning to get flushed out of Mueller's investigative tree-shaking is starting to fall squarely in to the "high crimes" part of that whole "High Crimes & Misdemeanors" thing.  Wowza.

With last week's indictments, this shit really is just the tip of Robert Mueller's iceberg folks, and Donald Trump and his administration are the corporeal equivalent of the Titanic who have just broadsided that iceberg, which is ripping a gaping hole in the side of their ship, and they're pretty much doomed.  And you know what?  There isn't a goddamn thing that's "fake" about any of that.

For you hardcore Trump supporters -- the game is over.  You've had your little electoral/political tantrum.  But now it's time for the adults to step in to take control of this out of control situation -- so go stand in the corner and count to infinity plus pi -- or something, and let Uncle Bob finish his work.

Certainly there are teachable lessons about lawlessness in every aspect of Drumpf's tainted journey to the Presidency -- although The Gadfly can say with a fair amount of confidence that it wouldn't matter a whit to this Trump bunch and their followers -- but teachable nonetheless.








----TFG

The Five Whores of The Apocalypse? . . .

Oy Jeebus . . .

The existence of the famed Russian “pee tape” may remain shrouded in mystery, but a former bodyguard for President Donald Trump reportedly has confirmed Trump was given the opportunity to host five women in his Moscow hotel room in 2013.

Former director of Oval Office relations Keith Schiller relayed the account in an interview with Congress this week, three sources present for the questioning told NBC News. Before the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant ― which was owned by Trump at the time and took place in Moscow that year ― a Russian participant offered to “send five women” to Trump’s hotel room, Schiller reportedly said.

Schiller, thinking the offer was a joke, responded, “We don’t do that type of stuff,” two of the sources told NBC. He discussed the conversation with Trump while walking him to his hotel room that night and they both laughed about it before Trump went to bed alone, two of the sources also said.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-schiller-pee-tape-dossier_us_5a04ac74e4b0f76b05c44156?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Yeah ..... this guy here turned down not just 1, but 5 hookers? .... this fucking guy??:





If Donald J. Trump truly turned down the opportunity to cavort with 5 gorgeous, Eastern European/Aryan/Russian strumpets, then The Gadfly is a suck-egg mule:



Haha!

It just blows the Gadfly's mind to unfathomable ends knowing that we are sitting here, in the year 2017, and talking about The President of The United States, Moscow hotels, hookers and pee - all in the same breath.  And if that's not a sign that your society is - how shall we call it? - oh yeah - Seriously Fucked! - than what is??

And if the thought of that isn't horrifying enough, the Idiocracy crowd is trying to normalize it all as well -- and there's a good chance they will get away with it if enough of the citizenry fails to stand up to it.  Yet should they indeed succeed in those efforts, unquestionably, the great American experiment edges steadily nearer to the abyss of historical obsolescence.




----TFG

Holy Rolling For Teenybopper Nymphs . . .

Oh dear!  What will we tell the children??

The GOP's favorite to win Alabama's Senate race next month is being accused of inappropriate sexual conduct with a 14-year-old girl in 1979, according to an explosive new report in The Washington Post. 

Leigh Corfman, now 53, said she met GOP candidate Roy Moore when he offered to watch her during her mother's child custody hearing. Moore, at the time, served as an assistant district attorney.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/359636-roy-moore-accused-of-sexual-encounter-with-14-year-old-girl-when-he-was-32

Apparently for this obnoxiously pious, bible-thumping Ten Commandments humper, the fact that there was no eleventh commandment proclaiming it a sinful act to lustily covet your neighbor's 14 year old daughters was likely the justification in his mind.

"I don't usually say things like this to girls your age, but when I saw you coming out of the school that day, that day I knew, I knew, I've got to have you, I've got to have you."

She's' been around, but she's young and clean I've got to have her, can't live without her, whoo no Christine sixteen, Christine sixteen. . . . 

Not that it will make any difference with the evangelical hypocrites -- they elected a serial sexual assaulter President of the United States, so what's one more of their deviants in high office gonna matter - right?




----TFG

Affirmative Action For Charlatan Political Zombies . . .

This freak is going to be back on The Gadfly's tv screen for no fucking good reason at all:

Fox News star host Sean Hannity on Wednesday announced that the network has hired Sebastian Gorka, formerly deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and a counterterrorism adviser, as a national security strategist.

“Joining us now is Dr. Sebastian Gorka,” Hannity said on his radio show. “I can officially announce today he is a Fox News national security strategist.”

“It’s in large part, really, thanks to you, Sean,” Gorka replied. “You’ve been a great supporter, not only of myself, but of the administration and the President, and it’s great to be back as part of the superb Fox family.”

A Fox spokesperson confirmed to TPM by email that the network has hired Gorka for that position.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hannity-announces-fox-hired-sebastian-gorka-national-security-strategist

They're bragging about hiring an actual Nazi.  No-no-no-no dear readers, The Gadfly joshes you not... a real, authentic fucking Nazi.

This Swastika loving asshole was even too toxic for Drumpf to have hanging around the White House - mostly because he was horndogging in on Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller's alt-right gravy train.  And Fox "News" couldn't wait to snatch him up and plaster his stupid fucking Nazi face all over the airwaves.  Add to that, Gorka's credentials in the field of "counterterrorism" are considered by a lot of distinguished experts to be fraudulent.

This clown will be a true disinformation/misinformation influence on Fox viewers, whom study after study has shown, are already the most misinformed group of news consumers in the country.  The last thing that group needs is to have more dogmatic gobbledegook stuffed down their turkey-like gullets -- they don't need any help becoming even more misinformed for fuck sake!

Man . . . -- you know something dear readers -- while not a novel occurrence, a thought has crossed The Gadfly's mind -- namely that there is a very special place reserved in Satan's S&M boudoir for Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch -- for continually putting these fraudulent dime-store, lie peddling ideologues like Gorka on the air to deceive the public.

Yes indeed -- a very, lovely, special, special, magical place for ol' Uncle Rupert. . . . . .







----TFG

There Comes A Time When That Boil On Your Ass Just Needs to be Lanced...

They are an infected, festering pustule on the pimpled ass of the body politic:

WASHINGTON ― Authorities are still trying to figure out why a man shot at least 26 people to death in a Texas church on Sunday.

But the lack of a specific motive has not stopped right-wing conspiracy theorists from blaming their opponents — including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), atheists, social justice warriors, communists, the Islamic State, liberals and anti-fascist protesters — for the slaughter.

The speed at which these theories spread shows how propagandists take advantage of the information vacuum after a shooting to serve their own ends.

The shooting was not racially motivated or caused by religious beliefs, authorities said Monday, though they noted there was a “domestic situation.” (The suspect, Devin Patrick Kelley, was previously convicted for domestic assault.) But in the hours after the shooting, the public didn’t know that. Instead, conspiracy theorists took what shreds of information were available to peddle plausible-sounding theories — or simply make up lies.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/texas-shooter-conspiracy-theories_us_5a01ed2be4b092053058499e?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

The right wing media loons (the aforementioned festering pustules) were breathlessly proclaiming that this past weekend Antifa was going to stage nation-wide, violent demonstrations as the beginning of their effort to overthrow Trump (of course it didn't happen).

They were also peddling assertions that the person who beat up Kentucky GOP senator Rand Paul in his residential yard was a liberal, Antifa sympathizer and the attack politically motivated (he wasn't - and it wasn't).  Paul and his neighbor - another doctor - had been feuding for years over shrubbery and leaves on each other's lawns -- but why let the truth interfere with a good fear-mongering lie right?

And before we go any further -- no! . . this is not a dirty fucking liberal hippie defense of Antifa.  They are not the point of this post goddammit!

The Gadfly's point here is about who the right wing media is.  Well here's who they are -- they're all fucking fraudulent nut jobs and ethically challenged people who in reality are the prime contributors to this disturbing national illness of proud and belligerent stupidity that presently plagues our society.  They've created their own sheltered world of "alternative facts" and "fake news" and manufactured enemies, and they are gleefully wallowing in it.   They are anti-facts, anti-reality, anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-reason, and anti-humanity -- and as long as being that way annoys the dirty fucking hippie liberals, they are genuinely happy about it - completely failing to acknowledge, of course, the presumption that being all of those aforementioned anti-bots also makes for being a pretty fucking lousy human being.

Is it any wonder that America's long-standing democratic allies are pulling back from us and wondering out loud as to whether America is even a reliable partner anymore in the quest to expand western democracy?  Are Trump, Breitbart, Fox & Friends and George Papadopolous truly the best that the United States of America has to give to the world?

What our allies are beginning to see is a country that has abdicated it's role as the strongest and most trusted democracy on the planet by permitting the lunatics to take over the asylum.  We even installed a hopelessly corrupt, narcissistic reality tv show ignoramus and sex pervert with a Russia fetish as our leader.  That's what our allies are starting to see.   What America's enemies see, on the other hand, is opportunity, and The Gadfly should not have to explain to you what that opportunity could be.  Nonetheless - what could possibly go wrong with all that - right?

And social media has been and still is the drug delivery method-of-choice for the right-wing conservative bullshit machine to spread their mad-cow diseased ideological propaganda.  The Gadfly sees it all the time -- even among some friends and family members.  The incessant sharing on Facebook of these absurd internet "news" stories, and fact-free political memes and black helicopter, gobble-dee-gook YouTube videos.  And they are all completely clueless or uncaring about the likelihood of the garbage that they are sharing having been created by some Russian or Eastern European troll farm.  And before you know it, it's getting distributed via conservative, carnival barking "news" outlets like AM talk radio, Breitbart, the insipid InfoWars and yes - even Fox "News."  And they pass this toxic misinformation and lies around like it's a meth pipe.  It's just downright disheartening to see some times.

Anyhow -- this is why it is maddening as hell for The Gadfly to see all of this occurring because he knows that at present there is neither sufficient courage, or a majority will of the citizenry to seriously confront and effectively combat it.  But The Gadfly gets it -- he knows -- hell, there isn't a magic pill made that you can give someone that will fix dumb and gullible -- or cruel and hateful -- the history of mankind has demonstrated that to us very clearly over and over again.

Quite honestly though, what is really keeping The Gadfly awake some nights is the obvious question -- will dumb and gullible ultimately triumph over informed and rational and if it does - what becomes of not only the informed and rational people, but the nation's and democracy's futures as well?

Things to think about.




----TFG


**P.S. -- The Gadfly was tired when he posted this, so if you want web links to sources for any of The Gadfly's statements contained therein, just ask in the comments section.

Gobble!..Gobble!..Gobble! -- BLAM!! . . . .

Oh dear . . .

Mueller Has Enough Evidence to Bring Charges in Flynn Investigation

by JULIA AINSLEY, CAROL E. LEE and KEN DILANIAN

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators have gathered enough evidence to bring charges in their investigation of President Donald Trump's former national security adviser and his son as part of the probe into Russia's intervention in the 2016 election, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.

Michael T. Flynn, who was fired after just 24 days on the job, was one of the first Trump associates to come under scrutiny in the federal probe now led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mueller-has-enough-evidence-bring-charges-flynn-investigation-n817666

It has occurred to The Gadfly that Bub Mueller is doing the old Sgt. York routine with these Drumpf mobsters.  He's picking them off one by one.  Remember the old Sergeant York movie with Gary Cooper (who when he was older, actually even kind of looked like Mueller)?  Anyway, in the movie Cooper's York knocks off a couple of dozen German soldiers by himself using an old hillbilly turkey hunting call - watch:




Gobble!..Gobble!..Gobble! -- BLAM!!  --- George Papadopolous
Gobble!..Gobble!..Gobble! -- BLAM!!  --- Paul Manafort and Rick Gates
Gobble!..Gobble!..Gobble! -- BLAM!!  --- Michael Flynn and his son
Gobble!..Gobble!..Gobble! -- BLAM!!  --- [ Insert name of any Trump Official Here ]
....ad infinitum . . . . .

Gonna be one helluva turkey-shoot come this Thanksgiving . . . . weeeeee doggy! . . .yessiree.



----TFG

Field of Delusions . . . Build It and They Will Come . . . .

Jeebus - they are exhaustively hopeless:

WAYNESBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing.

He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course.

”I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner.

Despite broad consensus about coal’s bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.

Trump has promised to revive coal by rolling back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants.

“I have a lot of faith in President Trump,” Sylvester said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-effect-coal-retraining-insight/awaiting-trumps-coal-comeback-miners-reject-retraining-idUSKBN1D14G0

What a depressing peek into the window of a closed-minded, reality-denying segment of American society.  These are people who have actually convinced themselves that Donald J. Trump, the P.T. Barnum of leisure-class real estate, the Elmer Gantry of populist poppycock . . . is  the great white savior of God's chosen hoi polloi, who with a simple wave of his stubby fingered hands, is going to magically revitalize one of the dirtiest, most environmentally damaging, slowly and deservedly dying, industries on the planet, and create oodles of jobs that will keep them all gainfully employed and economically sustain their families and communities for decades to come.

This is what a cult of mass delusion looks like dear readers.

It's what made this picture so terrifying to The Gadfly when he saw it the very first time during last years GOP primary campaign:

The Gadfly had seen the looks on those people's faces before.

When The Gadfly first saw that picture the summer of 2016, it sent an unpleasant shiver down his spine.  It reminded The Gadfly of some 1930's documentary news reels he'd seen long ago which revisited the history of another great Anglo Saxon savior who was going to deliver his beloved people and divine nation from the hordes of filthy immigrants, pointy-head liberal elites and impure bloodlines.

We know how that turned out - don't we?



----TFG