Hey, I made a meme, inspired by the troubles besetting Trump’s transition team.
In case you haven’t been following the issue, here are a few just slightly alarming quotes from a Huffington Post piece on the chaos.
Donald Trump’s transition team is nearing a state of stasis, causing concern among both Democrats and Republicans in Washington that his White House will be woefully ill-prepared once he is inaugurated. …
The disarray has left agencies virtually frozen, unable to communicate with the people tasked with replacing them and their staff. Trump transition team officials were a no-show at the Pentagon, the Washington Examiner reported. Same goes for the Department of Energy, responsible for keeping the nation’s nuclear weapons safe, where officials had expected members of the Trump transition team on Monday. Ditto for the Department of Transportation. Over at the Justice Department, officials also are still waiting to hear from the Trump team. …
According to several sources close to the Trump transition team and inside the Obama administration, the president elect and his staff have had difficulty finding able-minded Republicans willing to take on critical posts. One Democratic source, who like others would only discuss sensitive talks on condition of anonymity, said transition officials had been informally asking Obama political appointees to recommend Republicans to take over their jobs.
Yeah, that’s kind of what happens when you elect a dude who has no freaking idea what he’s doing to the highest office in the land.
I saw this yesterday on some random feed, and it’s one of the few things to have given me any energy. There’s something satisfying about the call to “fuck shit up.” I mean, we’re facing people that are going to do just that anyway, so why not use it as a rallying cry?
Things like this are part why I’m far more scared of Trump than I am of Pence. Two caveats before I go on with that line of thought. 1. Pence is, using the most charitable language possible, a cruel beast who would happily see those outside his nonexistent empathy scope dead. 2. The modern RNC, that is, the RNC as it has existed since… well, I’d have to actually think about it to determine where they started, is complicit in the rise of the U.S. neo-nazi movement. (I am retiring the term “alt-right” in favor of the more honest “neo-nazi.”) As a result, we would have seen this behavior on the rise regardless.
That said, Pence is a, notably extreme, establishment republican. I feel like his power would have resulted in a less blatant disregard for our institutions. I don’t feel like he would have asked for his family/business partners to get top level security clearance. I don’t feel like he would have been as demonstrably linked to the interests of other states. I don’t feel like he’d put a well established white supremacist with documented desire to destroy the state on his staff. If Pence was going to be the president, I would actually believe we have another 2 years to accomplish anything. Maybe that is more naive than I realize.
But Trump? There is more than enough evidence to show that his interests are in the hands of others, both in this country and out of it. His ties to Russia are well documented, which should scare you:
https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/798985259924623360
and, yet, no one seems to give a shit. In his hands, we are facing an unprecedented, at least for us, attack on the very foundation of our government and society. It’s why I’m encouraging things like this:
https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/798979093391884288
and encouraging people putting pressure on the electors with information like this:
https://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clintons-popular-vote-victory-is-unprecedented-and-still-growing/
Pence, as bad as he is, is somewhat normal. A bad normal. A normal that needs to be broken and discarded, but it’s not this. This is beyond abnormal.
…
So, with that all out on the table, I’m going to at least try to give some levity. This is one of the few things to get a good laugh out of me in the past few days.
I mean, it was one of those laughs that ends with me breaking down into a weeping mess, but still.
And in the other direction, the Native Americans.
(Going off on a tangent: Can I just say how much it pisses me off that mainstream archaeology is perfectly happy to accept that the Vikings reached North America but throws a fit every time the idea of trading between the two is brought up? Like, I understand that archaeology still has trouble believing that non-white people are capable of building or exploring, but for fuck’s sake, trading?)
BA HA HA HA HA!!
Thank you!!
OT: I found a YouTube clip of a Batman show that stuck with me for years.
Joker Junior.
I’ve had a few friends who used to watch Batman like I did but they didn’t remember it so I always thought I just misremembered it, but I found it, and it’s as terrible and traumatizing as it was the first time I saw it.
Goddamn, Batman Beyond, goddamn.
@Jack
Yeah, that one got dark af…
@Axe
The laughter to crying, man, the laughter to crying…
Mark Hamill is amazing though. I need to look up and see if he’s ever won, I guess it’s an Emmy? For his Joker work because hell.
EDIT: He won some awards for the video game version, got nominated for an Annie and won Video Premiere Award for Return of Joker.
You don’t know what Trump is doing
I don’t know what Trump is doing
Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing
But whatever he is doing
It’s almost certainly nothing good
Call it a hunch based on track record
On the one hand, the sheer incompetence of this administration may make its political triumph short-lived and tarnish the Republican Party. On the other, its incompetence could do even more damage to the country and the world than its malevolence.
Trump is also thinking of appointing two other shitheads. Frank Gaffney and a raging homophobe for Supreme Court.
I just tweeted Donald Trump and called him a penis potato.
@Handsome Jack
….Morbid curiosity is getting the better of me this time. Link?
@Troubelle
Okay, well, here’s the censored version, which is the one I saw on TV as a kid. Here’s the uncensored version which came out a few years later. And this is the little bit in before some of the junk happened in the others, so you may want to watch that first. The uncensored version clip has the most backstory on what happened.
EDIT: Oh, yeah, TW for psychological abuse and torture. And death. And blood. And unpleasantness all around.
You know, actually, I don’t remember if I saw the censored or uncensored version. I remember a gun falling which is from the uncensored version but I think I saw it on TV and the uncensored version definitely didn’t see TV time. All I remember, really, is the eyes and smile peeking from shadow and the laughter to crying.
The laughter to crying.
@Jack
Thank you, but hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh iunno what my mind’s gonna do with it.
Probably make the life of the character the other person’s playing in an RP even more unpleasant than it already probably will be.
http://67.media.tumblr.com/59ce8c4aa0ecd068ce9bf547fb4ad2c9/tumblr_o0yp8jRIfX1uk5pr5o2_500.gif
Punkle Stan skrev:
When I watched ROTJ on Toonami, it was the uncensored version (possibly off a European DVD, since I have a vague memory of the opening titles saying Batman of the Future rather than Batman Beyond).
@Jack
Not necessarily the one I mentioned before. I’ve always got at least a dozen threads running, pertaining to something or other. Sometimes it’s Gravity Falls. Sometimes it’s Don’t Starve. Sometimes it’s Borderlands. Sometimes it’s all kinds of things thrown together and left to congeal together.
But I’m always quick to find an excuse for suffering in an RP.
Real life….not so much, and even once I’m an Actual Adult(tm), consent is (MOST_SIGNIFICANT_ROYALTY).
re: the scene
There’s someone in my stories who used to guide me and comfort me.
Now he resents me.
I imagined that he told me to keep my eyes on the screen, to not switch to another tab like I’m so fond of doing.
And I imagine he saw what I saw.
And he’d probably say,
||You’re not even fazed. Yet you’ve seen things that torment an adult…Sort of like the sick shit you’ve got yourself penning every few waking hours at most, isn’t it, [Troubelle]?||
….What can I say? He knows me too well.
Hmm, it was on Toonami, huh? That might be where I saw it, then, but I feel I may have been younger since the uncensored version came out in 2002. Thinking about it, I was ten then, and the part with the BANG! and seems more familiar than the other.
http://i.imgur.com/MVnwjBC.gif
@Jack
….Did you catch the reaction, perchance?
@Troubelle
I admit, I didn’t read the scene thing until after I hit submit but I think it still applies.
@Jack
Fair enough.
….Promise not to laugh if I tell you who the figure is? Hints: canonically male, from a lesser-known video game that has representation in a much better-known one stemming from the same company, and likes carrots.
I feel like the case for the Electoral College flip petition gets better every day. Too bad that even in the best case scenario, the chance of it actually happening remains infinitesimal.
But I signed anyway, because why not…
Aw, man. Honestly, the only character I could think of is maybe, like, Buster Bunny or something but Little Loony Tunes is kinda more famous as a cartoon than video game but I wouldn’t know. I have no idea who it could be. Like, if you’re gonna “riddle me this”, can I get a hint? Like, IDK, the year it came out or if he’s a main character?
@Jack
Main character of the first two games of his series. Nintendo property. Mind that my emulated quote would likely never come out of his mouth in-game (even in censored form). He’s been here -taps noggin- too long.
@Troubelle
Okay, so they’re in Smash but honestly the carrots part and the “lesser known game” is throwing me off because I have no idea what would be considered a “lesser known” Nintendo game would be. (The only Nintendo system I’ve owned is the original NES. I was a PlayStation kid.) But I’m guessing Captain Olimar from Pikmin, which I admit I wrote off because I know and even played some Pikmin but Paradoxy suggested him, so, yeah.
I cheated.
@Jack
boy am i late
But you are correct, though damn your cheating! DAMN YOOOOOOOOOOU
but yeah. For the story I mentioned in another thread, the current era was ushered in when 10-year-old me diverged the timeline from Pikmin 2 back when it didn’t look like the series was going to get a continuation, managed to institute Olimar into the office of leader of the entire planet, shit kept on happening, and he came to the realization that shit kept on happening because I wanted conflict, I wanted a story, I was bored. Essentially, he was at the mercy of not just a deity, not just a god, but the author. He’s not doing too well, and hasn’t since…about 2014.
On the plus side, he gets on entirely too well with Rick Sanchez.