December 19, 2016, Let the good times roll
Item: the inevitable is now the official: our most unqualified president ever[TM] Mr. Trump prevailed in the Electoral College, by 304 to something or other.
While it's probably going to suck for all of us, it's going to suck most for the actual morons who voted for him. Schadenfreude isn't much... but there are times when it's better than nothing.
Item: In Archduke Franz Ferdinand news, Russia's ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov was assassinated by a gunman (described, conveniently, as a 22 year old off duty policeman) in a museum in Ankara, and the gunman conveniently yelled the requisite "Allahu Akbar! and "Don't Forget Aleppo!" The Grey Lady reports:
Turkish officials said the gunman was killed after a shootout with Turkish Special Forces.He was identified by Turkey’s interior minister as Mevlut Mert Altintas, from the western province of Aydin and a graduate of a police college in Izmir. Local news reports said that Mr. Altintas’s mother and sister had been arrested and that a computer had been confiscated from their house.
While it was too early to tell if the gunmen acted alone, his use of jihadist slogans and his invocation of Syria raised the possibility that he was a member, or at least a sympathizer, of an Islamist group like Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate or the Islamic State, two organizations that Turkey has been accused by allies, including the United States, of supporting in the past.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, told the Rossiya 24 news channel that Mr. Karlov had died of his wounds in what she described as a terrorist attack. Turkey’s Interior Ministry said the ambassador had died at Guven Hospital in Ankara.
Well, at least that's settled.
Item: A truck plowed through a crowded Christmas market in the Western part of Berlin, Germany, killing at least a dozen people and injuring dozens. Police are investigating the incident as terrorism... you'll recall that this was a similar M.O. to the Bastille Day attack on Nice, France. While local officials investigate, at least incoming president-elect Donald John Trump knows all... he already knows that this was the work of ISIS... indeed, all Muslims, everywhere... his well-thought-out statement:
Our hearts and prayers are with the loved ones of the victims of today’s horrifying terror attack in Berlin. Innocent civilians were murdered in the streets as they prepared to celebrate the Christmas holiday. ISIS and other Islamist terrorists continually slaughter Christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad. These terrorists and their regional and worldwide networks must be eradicated from the face of the earth, a mission we will carry out with all freedom-loving partners.
Seems ill-advisedly provocative, no? "Bring it on" on super-meth-power steroids, no? Well, I think so, anyway.
And speaking of Herr Drumpf...
Item: Actor Tom Arnold says he has a widely circulated recording (outtakes from The Apprentice) of the president-elect using racial slurs (yes, including that N word) as well as "the C word" (we knew about that,,, oh wait... that was the P-word...) and calling his own son a "retard." Evidently, Arnold could have released the tape on November 6th, i.e. before the election, but feared for the poor production personnel "who would never work again." (Seriously?) He did note that he just didn't think the release would actually have hurt Trump in the election... and on that, maybe he has a point.
Item: A poll shows a majority of Americans are either uncertain or pessimistic about the future in the face of the looming Trump presidency. You think?
Item: Alex Jones of Infowars (confession: I find him an absolute riot) warns the president-elect that the CIA is plotting to assassinate him. Well, there's probably no evidence that's not true... is there?
Item: Paul Krugman treats us to a discussion of how republics end... especially the Roman republic. I think the expression involves something about history repeating itself, first as tragedy and then as farce... admittedly, that was
Karl Marx, an economist with actual understanding of the workings of markets and the world. He would have observed the economic inevitability of, say, the Kuwaiti government cancelling their embassy's big event at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C., instead choosing to re-book it at the Trump hotel. (Supposedly there was "pressure from the Trump Organization.") Ya' think?
Item: Sex-bots could overwhelm their human lovers, a Swiss academic warns. Perhaps that's the CIA's diabolical plan?
Frankly, for the next four years, a sense of humor is definitely going to be a necessary survival skill. Just saying.