I may have besmirched the memory of the great Cantinflas by comparing him to Trump.
The character (Cantinflas) was that of a poor, uneducated, but street-smart man with a great heart and a penchant for getting in trouble for defending the weak and poor. He was aware of his shortcomings, and his “cantinfladas” (long speeches by politicians that don’t really say anythingn or answer any questions, and yeah, it’s a word now) were mostly to confuse his opponents. Sort of like “baffle them with bullshit”.
That was one of my thoughts when he discovered how complicated health insurance is. Seriously, do none of his companies offer his employees health insurance? Or maybe he was never allowed to be involved in that decision?
Trump’s January executive order directing the DoJ to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities that do not cooperate with ICE by providing information on and withholding potential illegal immigrants has been frozen via injunction.
Once again, Trump and his cronies’ own statements are the key evidence offered to belie whatever limited scope or intent is argued by the DoJ attorneys defending the respective executive orders in court. How would cities and counties even know the right and left limits of what could constitute adequate cooperation and what would not when Trump and the feds don’t even seem to know or provide guidance (on what is and what is not a “sanctuary city”)?
What astounded me about that quote was it’s like he didn’t realize before he took office that almost everything he did would affect people. It’s actually one of the more coherent sections of the interview , which is scary.
And it’s not quite as incoherent as the Time magazine interview from last month. If you haven’t read it yet, you must. It’s jaw-dropping.
Also, it makes us nostalgic for those innocent, as-yet-unsullied days of yore (100 days ago) when the clusterfuck was still in the realm of the possible, not yet in the realm of stark reality.
It’s looking more and more like Flynn broke some serious laws with his Russian dealings. The noose tightens on Trump, who I hope will eventually have to serve prison time himself for treason. Every single Trump supporter and/or voter ought to be sentenced for treason, but I’ll settle for the Clown-in-Chief himself.
We could just build a wall around Gary, Indiana, and dump them over the side, starting with Flynn and Bannon. And this time, instead of sending in Kurt Russell to rescue the president, we’ll send in Jared Kushner armed with a Super Soaker.
Trump’s attempt to defund sanctuary cities is smacked down. I wonder if the genius Jeff Sessions is going to comment about a judge in the continental United States. Fuckwit. Speaking of judges, here’s what this judge had to say about the Trump team’s legal argument:
The argument was lost on the judge, who ridiculed the government’s position as “schizophrenic.”
Here. This is my absolute favorite part of the case the government presented to the court. From the cite above, but it’s being discussed a number of places.
Let that sink in. The government’s argument is that the order shouldn’t be stayed because “it doesn’t do anything”. The judge was under-whelmed. He also pointed out that the Administration was describing it very differently outside of his courtroom. Bonus points for insulting the intelligence of the judge. (Or just being stupid themselves.)
The administration/Rs seem to be struggling a bit with that pesky third branch. I wonder how they might deal with that. Perhaps they will take a page out of the Kansas playbook and simply threaten to defund the judiciary if it keeps trying to thwart them.
ISTR that his Passpartout was considered quite a letdown by his Spanish-speaking fans precisely by not having enough cantinfladas. An example of a famous English cantinflada would be Groucho’s confusing contract instructions: the words make sense, the individual sentences make sense until they stop making sense, but the whole thing sounds as if it should make sense. 'cept it doesn’t.