#DimensionSteve (Theme Song Edition)

#trumpswindle | #WhatTheyVotedFor

Notes and quotes from Steve Benen, at MaddowBlog, 20 February 2017:

• #ProbablyNot: “If it makes Sweden feel any better, many Americans often have no idea what Trump is saying, either.”

• #WatersEdge: “As a factual matter, the senator is a Maverick in Name Only.”

• #WhatTheyVotedFor: “There’s no reason to go along with this as if it were somehow normal.”

• #GettingWorseNotBetter: “Republicans may be eager to blast Democratic ‘obstruction’ and partisan delays, but the truth of the matter is simple: Democrats can’t block nominees who don’t exist.”

• #McCarthysMouth: “That’s the kind of quote that could use some clarification.”

• #Backfill: “The era of ‘fuzzy math’ is back with a vengeance.”

• #WhyGovernmentDoesntWork: “So, the nation’s Education Secretary, even now, isn’t sure the position she now holds should exist―apparently because she’s still not on board with the idea of having a federal Department of Education, which she now leads.”

• #MatthewFifteenEleven^α: “The president is himself on board with the ‘Never-Mind-What-Trump-Said’ approach to foreign policy.”

• #PutiPoodle: “Why Cohen would tell two very different stories to two different newspapers is unclear.”

• #YesWeHave: “Have we really reached the point at which Trump World is so accustomed to pushing bogus and misleading information that even the president’s golfing is fair game?”

The Donald Trump Show (Swedish Go Fish)

#fakenews | #WhatTheyVotedFor

This is the beginning of the 2020 presidential contest:

During a rally in Florida on Saturday, Trump said “look what’s happening last night in Sweden” as he alluded to past terror attacks in Europe. It wasn’t clear what he was referring to and there were no high-profile situations reported in Sweden on Friday night ....

.... Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Catarina Axelsson said that the government wasn’t aware of any “terror-linked major incidents.” Sweden’s Security Police said it had no reason to change the terror threat level.

“Nothing has occurred which would cause us to raise that level,” agency spokesman Karl Melin said.

Axelsson told The Associated Press that the Swedish Embassy in Washington contacted the State Department on Sunday to request clarification of Trump’s remarks and was waiting for an answer.

Former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt tweeted, “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound.”

Huuhtanen

A Thoughtful Way to Distract Your Day

“By depicting roads as chasms and crosswalks as rickety planks spanning them, Tingvall shows just how lopsided the the proportions of a normal urban street corner really are.”

―Joseph Stromberg

We are generally averse to articles that tell us what to think or how to feel, but this one is pretty straightforward and, besides, the headline (“This brilliant illustration shows how much public space we’ve surrendered to cars”) tells us what Joseph Stromberg of Vox.com thinks, and, well, is that not the point of artistic criticism?

Then again, what is the criticism? Well-executed basic artistic form about a colored pencil drawing? The patience of maturity enduring what youth could not? It is a curious aesthetic result, with the detail of a well-illustrated children’s book read as the first twitches of a geometrically overdosed acid trip rise in the brain.

On the other hand, within the breadth of what art can communicate, yes, this is pretty simple, and it’s supposed to be.

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Stromberg, Joseph. “This brilliant illustration shows how much public space we’ve surrendered to cars”. Vox. 18 November 2014.