Swamp update, part 1: divided loyalties.

Dear communitarians and fellow Swampers, please excuse my absence from our friendly swamp (or wish it had been extended). As I reported last year, my Cousin Adalbert, who is a "fixer" in the D.C. Swamp managed to get me a swamp cleaning job in DC. In fact, I passed the physical, how much carp crap I could ingest while diligently working. Wasn't hard at all.

That's a picture of me and several cousins receiving tools for the job from some fellow with funny hair in order to proceed with the necessaries of the job. Our commission was that we were to stir up the swamp and eat all the congress critters we could snatch.

At first, Adalbert, seated in the back of the boat was embarrassingly pictured in such as way as to be favoring Repugnants, which he claims is untrue.

Apparently, his one-sided preference for eating Democrats was based on dietary choices, since they were so greasy--well, except for Nancy P. who is much too bony for a good eat, but boy can she talk. Fortunately for her, Adalbert is hard of hearing.

Here is a little more about the Better Deal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/11/01/democrats-ad...

The main problem facing this installment of the Better Deal is one that’s bedeviled every Democratic policy rollout: The difficulty of getting anyone to notice.

Democrats and activists always planned to use this week, long anticipated as the beginning of the GOP’s tax cut push, to propose policy alternatives. On Tuesday, Schumer and other Senate Democrats rolled out a plan to expand 401(k) plans, to exploit voter worry about how Republicans might tax those plans to pay for lower overall tax rates. The Democrats’ proposal: Allow people under 50 to save $24,500 in the plans annually, and people over 50 to save $30,500.

But the rollout of that plan, at a news conference attended by Capitol Hill reporters, got relatively scant coverage. The Better Deal is covered not as an ongoing messaging effort, but as one event in July that quickly lost voters’ attention. (“It quickly disappeared,” wrote Post columnist Dana Milbank on Tuesday night.)

The 401(k) plan and the Better Deal labor plank follow a similar theory of messaging, hammering issues that have been elevated — and mishandled — by Republicans and the Trump administration. Democrats believe that the White House gave away a serious political advantage in early 2017, when after meeting with building trades leaders, the president let a “trillion dollar infrastructure plan” drop off the first-year agenda. Trump, who had made historic electoral gains with union members, didn’t consolidate them.

But labor leaders have remained irritated with the Democrats. Last week, at the AFL-CIO’s conference in St. Louis, union members passed a resolution in favor of “new directions in electoral politics,” a shot across the bow of Democrats and their resilient neoliberal wing.

One striking thing about the claims to protect Unionism is the Dims, shall we say, "casual" disinterest in the ongoing Teachers' Rebellion, as well as their noteworthy inaction on Fight for $15.
Maybe the reason the Better deal sunk so rapidly was that even alligators know this perfect Swamp rot. A few of my colleagues thought a "Better Meal" would be more appropriate. After all, my family doesn't qualify for Food Stamps because we don't vote democratic. But we set about our Swamp work with vigor as so many CC's have exited the Halls of Corruption Congress. I was hopeful to get dinner of Blake "I Just Wanna Be Friendly" Farenthold, a very plump morsel indeed.

So just after starting my journey back to the California Swamp, where computer illiterate Xavier Becerra, scheduled to exit soon (mmmmh) due to profound incompetence in stopping the "Pakistani Man of Mystery" (Imran Awan, for those who want "absurd amounts of specificity") from continuing his quest for classified knowledge even after the House Sergeant At Arms forbade him entry into the Alabaster Alley of Bastards. Nice job which I'm sure will rank Becerra with our Beloved Camel who granted mercy on Steve "1000 ways to flip-flam" Mnuchin.

I received news from Adalbert, adept at changing sides quickly, that my job had reopened, with services requested by none other than Nancy Pelosi

Democrats are now employing a familiar rallying cry that helped define President Trump's presidential campaign, a combative messaging shift ahead of what analysts say will be a bruising midterm election season.

Expect to hear Democrats urging voters to "drain the swamp" this time around, observers say, because their internal polling has shown that the electorate is increasingly concerned about weeding out corruption in Washington a year and a half after Trump's win.

"President Trump has embraced the most egregious establishment Republican norms and appointed the most conflict-of-interest-ridden Cabinet in my lifetime,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, told reporters Monday.

He added: “The swamp has never been more foul, or more fetid, than under this president.”

The move is a shift for Democrats, who last summer emphasized their positive plans to improve the economy, instead of taking shots at Trump and supposed cronyism in the White House, The Hill reported.

Chuckles has anosmia--the swamp was every bit as fetid under Obama.

The new messaging is something of a return to form for Pelosi, who famously vowed in 2006 to "drain the swamp" just prior to becoming the first female speaker of the House in history. The midterm elections that year ended more than a decade of GOP control of the House.

As we know, the Swamp only got more luxurious under Pelosi's watch with Iranian kickbacks, Uranium kickbacks, Moroccan kickbacks, of course with Repugnant complicity.

So after conferring with with my Cousin, it is determined that we can clear the swamp of Repugnants as well as Dimocrats.

Warning to non-approved swamp critters, WE are everywhere!

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc_fS6mPArY]

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The Aspie Corner's picture

This is capitalism enriching itself at the country's expense as it always has going as far back as that snake George Washington himself. He was the richest asshole in the country at the time of the founding.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3TtDiNBYIE]

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

TheOtherMaven's picture

@The Aspie Corner
It was really all Martha's - land, slaves, everything. And most of it was land, which meant that the family had an illiquidity problem, which led to difficulties down the line (We're lucky, in a sense, that Mount Vernon survived at all.)

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Azazello's picture

@TheOtherMaven
The plantation economy was based on agriculture and land ownership which makes it closer to feudalism.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

edg's picture

@Azazello

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Azazello's picture

@edg
My point was that it's hard to fit the plantation economy into some hackneyed "Marxist" analysis.
I wouldn't call slaves the "proletariat" or the landed aristocracy the "bourgeoisie".

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Azazello Good point.

Except, I guess, that the plantations tried to sell their cotton, indigo, etc. in a kind of international marketplace. That part wasn't like feudalism (as I understand it).

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

mimi's picture

and swamp cleaners is toxic to my brain chemistry.

I need alligator swamp cleaning translators for cute squirrels being scared to get sweaped up into the darkness of the gullies.

If I could just understand alligator snark... in German it sounds somewhat cute.


[video:https://youtu.be/cg_FrUzaFwc]

But all her dreams of nutty alligators are just too much...

18021917663_f135939f51_z_1.jpg

Scratching my head...

[video:https://youtu.be/vZ9myHhpS9s]

and asking myself...
[video:https://youtu.be/5iAIM02kv0g]

Sigh, where are all the workers gone ...

[video:https://youtu.be/uXnJVkEX8O4]

"Nichts für Ungut"
Give rose

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Alligator Ed's picture

@mimi I would like to book Schnappi for the next AU concert. Would you be his agent, bitte?

So sad part of his tail was amputated.

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Cute story. Great cartoons.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

"A perfect monster has no end."

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Alligator Ed's picture

@irishking I don't know how Adalbert survives the DC winters.

Scratch one-s head

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@Alligator Ed

tremendous album, imo.

can't resist- you encouraged me.
check it out.

"anosmia" - glad I got up this morning! thx.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@irishking So, just to hammer this theme down (atop Demonratic heads):

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp7zVPB2GD0]

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@Alligator Ed

we could hammer out a brand-new day.

new to me, thx.

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gulfgal98's picture

It is funny how each side is trying to sell us on the fact that "draining the swamp" will rid us of the repulsive critters from the other side. Funny thing, the swamp is just one big fetid swamp filled with corrupt critters of both stripes in DC. Does their corruption make them any less tasty to you and your kin? Wink

All I know is:

“When you are up to your ass in alligators it’s difficult to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp”.

Dirol

BTW, Q and I agree. WE are everywhere!

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gulfgal98 As a Floridian, I kinda like swamps. Generally draining them ends badly.

I think "Clean the Augean Stables" would be more appropriate, but nowadays almost nobody would get the reference.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

gulfgal98's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal in my former life as a land use planner. Those of us in the planning field recognized the tremendous value of swamps and marshlands, particularly as aquifer recharge areas. Before Rick Scott gutted state land use regulations, swamps, marshes, and estaurine systems were highly regulated statewide under chapter 163, and were required to be addressed in local government comprehensive plans.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

wendy davis's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

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Anja Geitz's picture

On what is an absurd assertion from either side. Less humorous is the fact that these serpent tongued politicians can still point their fingers across the bow at each other and convince their constituents the other team is worse.

Yet another consequences of political loyalty; a blindness to see corruption as an equal opportunity enterprise.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

i've had a been of fun with (save for bernie exposé) is the what (26? cia dems running for federal office. the most illuminating meme i've grown to love since the advent of the mueller investigation is how the Dems ♥ the CIA (even anonymous ones!) and related military agencies.

US primaries: Military-intelligence candidates win four Democratic congressional nominations, Patrick Martin, 24 May 2018

but no, in my usual haste and relative disinterest, i hadn't even stopped to read past the title. other carp fish to fry. but some clever stuff here, sir wally gator.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@wendy davis to the collective intelligence of the DemonRats. Rodents don't need to be smart--they only know how to eat and procreate. They eat our lunch and f*** the rest of us.

We are supposed to lay down, roll over and let THEM do it to us again.

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...The Democrats’ proposal: Allow people under 50 to save $24,500 in the plans annually, and people over 50 to save $30,500. ...

That one was more grimly hilarious and will benefit the top 20% who might be able to manage to set this aside, rather than frivol their money away on things like food and housing, if they're lucky enough to be able to cover these.

Edited because I messed up a word.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

MsGrin's picture

@Ellen North My thought exactly.

"A slightly less unattainable deal for the already comfortable?" #RetirementForAFew

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'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member