ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2018-03-30 12:34 am

Cutting the Arts

The Dumpling is now bragging about saving money by defunding government oil paintings.  Which is to say, cutting a vital support of the fine arts.  >_<  
capri0mni: A black Skull & Crossbones with the Online Disability Pride Flag as a background (Default)

Even more skeevey than that...

[personal profile] capri0mni 2018-03-30 09:46 am (UTC)(link)
...This is the man who took $20,000 that donors paid in good faith to his bogus Trump Foundation (thinking they were supporting research into children's cancer) to buy a six-foot tall portrait of himself.

Paraphrasing Lady Paulina from The Winter's Tale:

I'll not call him 'tyrant,' but this egotistical greed something savors of tyranny that makes him scandalous to the world.
cmcmck: (idiot)

Re: Even more skeevey than that...

[personal profile] cmcmck 2018-03-30 12:01 pm (UTC)(link)
"Why, but there's many a man who hath more hair than wit."

The Bard has it right so often! :o)
capri0mni: A black Skull & Crossbones with the Online Disability Pride Flag as a background (Default)

Re: Even more skeevey than that...

[personal profile] capri0mni 2018-03-30 07:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, in that scene, Lady Paulina is saying this directly to the king's face, and if she calls him "tyrant" to his face, in so many words, the king can order her killed on the spot and they both know it.

So she's saying: "I'll not call you tyrant... but based on your behavior (and how you're treating your wife), you sure stink like one, and everyone in the whole world can smell your $#-+iness."

Which is basically what I'm saying about the current squatter in the Oval Office. He may have been elected according to a narrow reading of the letter of the law, but everything he does and says STINKS to high Heaven of tyranny.

Here's the whole passage of her rebuke:

LEONTES

I'll ha' thee burnt.

PAULINA

I care not:
It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant;
But this most cruel usage of your queen,
Not able to produce more accusation
Than your own weak-hinged fancy, something savours
Of tyranny and will ignoble make you,
Yea, scandalous to the world.
johnpalmer: (Default)

[personal profile] johnpalmer 2018-04-03 04:31 am (UTC)(link)
I dunno. I'd imagine tyrants start popular, for all the usual reasons.

Trump's rule probably isn't legal; the problem is, ordinary law enforcement and the courts aren't able to rein in a President who takes bribes, self-deals, conspires with foreign powers, and allows his people to profit directly and indirectly by his rule. That role is supposed to be taken on by Congress, but Congress isn't even pretending to care - not even holding sham investigations, in most cases.

This part - that Congress isn't even going through the motions - is what scares me most. I've seen numerous news stories mentioning, casually, that the GOP Congress doesn't want to harm their party by causing trouble for their President. That shouldn't be casual. That should be, like, "and Congress, whether due to cowardice, corruption, or cronyism, is completely ignoring the huge risks to all aspects of the national interest; never before has partisanship extended to this level, to the clear detriment to the nation and the rule of law."