By Mark Morford

More than a third of all the trees in California – more than 100 million of them, covering roughly 7.7 million acres – are dead.

But it’s OK, because the forests are largely empty anyway, given how we as a glorious human species have thoughtfully killed off half of all animals on planet Earth, all in just the past 45 years or so, because people.
It’s a statistic almost too staggering to fathom in scope and heartbreaking desolation, yet it seems to match up shockingly well with the current emotional timbre; there are hundreds of millions fewer birds than ever before in human history, desolated fish stocks, obliterated rainforests, dwindling numbers of elephants, lions, butterflies, rhinos and iguanas and leopards, on and on, everywhere and forever, all gone and most never to return. Sorry, kids.
Kids? Oh, we have plenty of those. There are, of course, many, many more babies swarming over the planet than we have healthy capacity to feed and water and sustain, on ongoing and sort of disastrous procreative commandment driven largely by the efforts of heavily Catholic and/or violently patriarchal cultural posturing, because of course babies are God’s little angels and the Lord will provide and birth control is for heathens, and who cares about all the starvation and water shortages and poverty and vicious wars over dwindling resources?
But really, why worry? The incoming Trump administration is already working hard to assure a quick and bilious doom for all. The scowling orange monster has assembled the most laughably grotesque team of the most cold-blooded demolition experts in American political history – nearly all of them rich white males with the moral compass of flesh-eating bacteria and each hell bent on undoing Obama’s legacy and/or annihilating some indispensable hunk of the U.S. government, like the Department of Energy, or NASA, or the Department of the Interior, or Treasury, or nature, science, fundamental empathy.
Let it be hereby repeated until every Trump voter hangs his head in shame, which they never will: The Trump era is going to be a shameless, leering rape of the American dream unlike few we have ever witnessed in our short history. Odds are tremendously good we will not ever fully recover. You know, just like Jesus intended.

Of course it’s true. But will it make any difference?
Even comedians are getting nervous. Hecklers are turning pro. No longer just loutish, drunken rednecks who don’t get the joke, they’re newly empowered defenders of ignorance, an army of mal-educated trolls who feel it’s their Trump-given right to stand up and grunt their illiteracy, their sexism and their racism at the screen, the stage, the performer, this hamburger, that Starbucks cup, whatever and whomever they like, to the point of violence.
All that tact and grace, intelligence and kindness that so distinguished the Obama era? Drowned like dogs in favor of the howler monkeys of panic and white male fear. Hate is oozing into American thought-stream like acid from a rusting car battery. Noam Chomsky has it exactly right; the GOP really is the most dangerous organization in the world.
Behold this misshapen snapshot, one of a thousand forthcoming: It’s Trump, surrounded by all the leaders of modern technology, the lords of Google and Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, Facebook and Tesla, et al (and of course, three members of Trump’s own insufferable family).
And there was Trump, trying his damndest to hang, to pretend he’s smart and lucid enough to actually belong in their educated, savvy, largely liberal clique, when each of them – with the exception of insufferable Trump ring-licker Peter Thiel – think the man is a tyrannical ignoramus with the mind of a frog.
Does all this ring a bit too bleak? Possibly. Surely some good news is afoot. Surely it’s mildly heartening that, say, Facebook just decided to take the epidemic of fake news seriously. Though you might also agree that it’s sort of tragic they didn’t choose to do so, oh, about two years ago, back when armies of trolls, neo-Nazis, Russian hackers and misogynistic thugs dredged up from the sewers of Gamer Gate started swarming social media and dumbing down the (older, whiter) electorate?
Perhaps you’re heartened by Michael Moore’s prediction that Trump will never actually make it to the Big Chair, or that some secret legal or constitutional mechanism buried somewhere in the fractured American Dream will suddenly kick in and block the Trump administration from gutting the nation like a hog?
We can certainly hope. Then again, if North Carolina just taught us anything, it’s that the GOP is the biggest and most shamelessly corrupt middle finger to democracy and fundamental decency we have ever witnessed. There is, quite literally, nothing they will not do to derail progress and maintain grunting white male power.
One thing is certain: It is perilously easy to become dismayed. It is wildly tempting to say all is lost and to hell with our once-semiproud country because it turns out Obama really was our last and finest hope to stave off the demons of ignorance, of climate destruction, of moral incivility and desperation. Which is to say: History will show that Obama was extraordinary for an entirely different set of reasons than we first imagined.
Is it true? Are we running out of road, far more quickly than we can calculate? Or does hope survive in strange nooks and corners and unexpectedly successful Dakota pipeline protests? Will the backlash to Trump’s intended rape of America’s moral center whiplash us into a radical new awakening? Right now, anything is possible and all bets are off and it sure as hell  would be nice if that felt far less terrifying than it is. Hang on if you dare.

This weekend’s Sunday morning shows feature a veritable Christmas stocking bursting at the seams with assholes. In the ongoing efforts to undermine incoming President Donald Trump on foreign policy the establishment is going big on Sunday to spread the meme that over 60 million American voters are Kremlin sleeper agents.

The media has tripled down since Hillary’s loss and has reconfigured itself into a huge megaphone for politicians and others peddling their wares about the vast Russian conspiracy and it’s domestic head who barring any last minute surprises will be sworn in next month.

According to The Hill’s preview of the festivities (bolded text are author’s comments):

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ABC’s “This Week”: Interim DNC chair Donna Brazile makes an appearance. Former CIA Director James Woolsey, who is advising the transition team, discusses Trump’s response to the intelligence community’s position on Russia. U.S. Ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute talks about the international response to Russia. Two members of the House Intelligence Committee, Reps. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) also join.

What a great guest list. Not only is Brazile a thoroughly discredited liar and cheat who was fired from CNN for feeding Hillary debate questions but she also remains ensconced at the DNC as an operative for the Clinton dead-enders. Adam Schiff is that raving nutcase who went on nighttime TV and actually accused Fox Host Tucker Carlson of being a Russian agent.

CBS’s “Face the Nation”: Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger will weigh in on Trump’s foreign policy.

This one speaks for itself. There is probably no greater war criminal and psychopath in modern American history than Henry Kissinger, a man who is so vile that Satan fears that he will take over the rulership of Hell once he finally croaks.

NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta makes an appearance. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates discusses Russia’s meddling in the election.

If you pick up a dictionary and look up the term scumbag it should be accompanied by an illustration of John Podesta. How is it that a political hack who just managed the campaign of one of history’s biggest losers gets afforded prime space during a nationally televised show to lie about the contents of those damning emails that were snagged an a phishing attack and to continue to wail about Russian hacking of the election despite no evidence to back up the claims.

CNN’s “State of the Union”: Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) both give exclusive interviews.

This one’s a doozy but considering it is CNN nothing less than the grandest of shitshows would suffice. Loretta Lynch is the human embodiment of high government corruption and despite her shady meeting with Bill Clinton on an airplane in Phoenix to cut a deal to spare Hillary from FBI prosecution she is still somehow treated as a reputable character.

But it’s the exclusive interview with Mr. Sunday morning himself – John McCain – that will serve as the launching pad for the holiday week’s main red-baiting, anti-American talking points. McCain will presumably sit down with ace fake news peddler Jake Tapper to spew think thank crafted, anti-Trump talking points designed to cast suspicion on both his presidency as well as millions of Americans who are on the brink of being accused of treason by the establishment.

You can bet that Jake Tapper or whichever talking head has the honor of sucking up to McCain won’t ask the warmongering old codger any serious questions relating to why he was in Ukraine holding pep rallies before the 2014 coup and more importantly, why was he palling around with neo-Nazis.

Those are the two big questions that should be asked of McCain given his open advocacy for neo-McCarthyite witch hunts, shutdown of alternative media and provoking a war with Russia.

December 2013 McCain Goes to Ukraine, February 2014 Ukrainian government toppled.

McCain’s buddy Oleh Tyahnybok headed up virulently anti-Semitic neo-Nazi party that provided muscle for Kiev coup:

The big media propaganda megaphones have a lot of gall accusing Trump of being a sponsor of white nationalism while this six-term slimeball is given a free pass for his affiliation with REAL white nationalists – and neo-Nazis to boot.

McCain has quite a history of chumming around with questionable characters, and so do the Sunday morning propaganda fests that regularly feature this dangerous charlatan as an authority on anything.

Fake news is not only promoting official government lies as truth but also the lies of omission by failing to provide the proper context or ask the proper questions of McCain, Lynch, Podesta and their ilk.

My last cat would hang out with my Golden retrievers and when I got the charcoal grill going Saturday evening she would go hunting. By the time the grill was ready the cats would be up the hill by the garden giving a deep " yowling" sound. The dogs would look, I'd say "fetch" and the next minute I'd have a fresh rabbit to put on the grill.
We had Fox, coyote, coons and etc., and my cat NEVER had a problem. It's the damn city folk moving into the woods that expect wild life to be " Fair and civilized". Of course they're ALL democrats.!

Wellllllll.........some were traded, some were released in to the wilds of euless...the caimen went into the trinity river( mean bastards anyway)...some passed on due to age, some due to contracting sickness...not many vets work on things like those ..pet stores. ...no!! They have rules....then i moved onto fish had some pretty angry tanks....too much trouble with fish....high maintenance little bastards

The church is responsible for the moral decline in this nation

The church no longer promotes morals and values. This nation suffers because of it. We get morals and values from the media. Satan is the prince of the air, according to Ephesians 2:2. Most of America is under satan’s influence. The protesters are behaving like spoiled children who throw temper tantrums when they don’t get their way. Go home. You will only get yourself in trouble. Stealing, killing, and destroying should not be a solution to anything. When Obama stole the last election, republicans didn’t protest, they just found a way to cope. Democrats should do the same. The church should be the moral guide for this nation. Apparently it taught what it did not understand. Today’s church has it’s congregation singing songs to a god they don’t obey or understand. Some pastors sleep with the wives of the men that bring their families to their church to hear them teach the word of God. The beneficiary of the teachings of the church is the church itself. The beneficiaries of those around Christ and the apostles are the people. The fact that some of us think we are saved in a nation that has murdered around 60 million children should tell us something.

It is my opinion, planned parenthood is misnamed, it should be called Slaughter Houses for Babies. It is nothing more than a big business that allows some to pretend that killing children is acceptable while they pay a doctor who is collecting government money to kill those children and then sell body parts. They perform about 320,000 abortions nation-wide annually and receives about $550 million in federal tax dollars. Planned Parenthood is not essential to women’s health care in the U.S. In 2015, Alliance Defending Freedom and the Charlotte Lozier Institute reported there are 13,540 medical clinics providing whole-woman health-care in the United States versus the 665 Planned Parenthood facilities, which offer only limited services including abortion. Now consider this, if parents went back to parenting, how many unplanned pregnancies and STDs could be avoided? The nation needs to take a cue from Pennsylvania who just passed a law on abortions, although not the original law of if there is a heartbeat... but, still it will close down many of the slaugter houses!

Children should obey their parents

Childhood lasts around 20 years. There are no stages of adulthood. No one is more of an adult than panyone else. Your child may still be a child in your eyes, but if you are taking care of yourself it doesn’t matter if you are 19 or 90. The chief difference between adults and children is adults provide for themselves. That is it. Nowhere is it found that when a child becomes a teenager, they have say so in their upbringing and be allowed input into the consequences of their actions. Children should do as they are told. Everyone chooses their actions but no one chooses or should be able to choose the consequence of their actions. Life is longer as an adult than as a child

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things

1 Corinthians 13:11

Children have a nasty habit of growing up. They no longer feel the way they felt, think the way they used to think. They think for themselves. They speak differently. But while they are children, they should do as they are told and whipped if they misbehave. Childhood doesn’t last forever. Some idiot told me that children who receive corporal punishment will grow up and beat their parents. I informed them that as a child I was beaten, when I grew up not only did I not hit my mother, but I would have snatched a bone from anyone who looked at my mother in a threatening manner.