SOOOOOOOO Ubu!
Led by women (lots of that going around – look at Belarus), the angry citizens of Poland confront their own Mad Trump with the biggest challenge to his power yet.
Every day, in this final week, more shoes drop. Anonymous outs himself and writes an eloquent plea: VOTE.
I saw Donald Trump prove he is a man without character, and his personal defects have resulted in leadership failures so significant that they can be measured in lost American lives…
[When he read my anonymous opinion piece, Trump] became unhinged…
We must reject the culture of political intimidation that’s been cultivated by this president.
[Trump] has waged an all-out assault on reason, preferring to enthrone emotion and impulse in the seat of our government. The consequences have been calamitous…
… every single line twice. Out loud. Usually I’d excerpt the most important bits. It’s all important.
They said it couldn’t be done. They may still be right in the final tally. But a girl can dream.
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Plunge right through that poll.
Run the vote way past predictions, lead us to the goal.
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Fight on for your fame,
Fight! Badgers, Fellows! Fight! Fight, fight, we’ll win this game.
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Stand up, Badgers sing!
‘Forward’ is our driving spirit, loyal voices ring.
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Raise your glowing flame.
Stand, patriots, let us now salute your name!
He figured Fox would be a friendly place for him to try to get it up (it being the Hunter Biden thing) but the interviewer challenged him and … you know… I mean… it’s a désinhibiteur after all…
‘Some can say that you’re acting like Christopher Steele, that you were abstracting information.’
‘You better apologize for that. I mean I’ve been a United States attorney, associate attorney general, mayor of New York City and a member of the bar for 50 years. I’ve never been accused of anything, and you’re accusing me of being Christopher Steele. What you’re saying is an outrageous defamation of me, of my reputation… I came on your show in good faith to give you evidence that is being withheld from the American people, and I get defamed. This may be the last time we’ll be on camera because I don’t let people call me Christopher Steele.’
Take a gander. And she’s the lieutenant governor.
Now what worries me about Janice is not that she’s ’bout as close to a card-carrying fascist as I reckon you can get. You get to be what you want to be in this country. Go for it, babe.
UD‘s concerned about driver safety out there. What is the lieutenant governor modeling in this picture? She’s got a huge
American flag obscuring one of her van windows. Looks like she’s doing hands-free driving, what with her right hand holding a gun and her left holding a Bible.
Is she wearing a seat belt? I’m gonna bet Janice considers seat belts, like masks during a pandemic, or the concept of protected federal land, an abomination straight outta hell. So YEEHAH here’s Janice bombin down I 86 to Pocatello juggling guns, Bibles, and flags and lord knows what else (Confederate flag, blood drop cross, apple pie…), and I’m thinking she’s just askin’ for a taskin’.
******************
UPDATE: Janice drops a few more rungs on the mental illness ladder.
Actually, yes it is. Even hate speech is protected in the United States, a country which models freedom of expression for the world. As an American, I’m free to say that I despise the culture that continues to thrive in, say, the camps full of ISIS members being held in Syria. No one gets to hush me and advise me that it’s an illegitimate form of expression to despise sex slavery, the full body veiling of eight year old girls, routine beheadings.
An extreme example? We would all condemn such a culture?
Well, but then you don’t actually believe the expressed loathing of a particular culture is out of bounds.
UD‘s happy to see Obama saying some of what needs to be said about a president whose inner violence UD fully expects to explode outward at some point in the next week. Or perhaps later in the process. As you know if you read this blog regularly, UD has suggested that Trump may physically attack someone, or hurt himself, as the election winds down.
If, as seems likely, voters deliver a loss for Trump, the Twenty-fifth Amendment comes into … focus, as an essential support to the democratic electoral process … In the event that the President’s mental state leads him to try to circumvent the election result in order to stay in power, having Congress remove him via the Twenty-fifth Amendment as “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” would be as legitimate a function of constitutional democracy as can be imagined…
John Gartner, the Duty to Warn psychologist, told me that, if Trump loses the election, the period between November 3rd and Inauguration Day, on January 20th, is likely to be “the most dangerous moment” in his Presidency. “What does a malignant narcissistic person do when they’re enraged?” Gartner said. “They want to act out in an aggressive and sadistic way, to regain their sense of power.” He compared the voting public to “the abused spouse” who finally says to the abuser, “We’re going to leave you. We’re kicking you out of the house. Come January, we’re packing your bags. Well, what does he do then?” During that transition, it might be most important to have the Twenty-fifth Amendment at the ready.
In any case, why does Obama keep his extremely apt description of Trump private? Why should we hear secondhand that he is beneath contempt? Put it in your next speech, please.
“There was no way anybody in the administrative office of [his prep] school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard,” a former official at The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. “His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they did not.”
In the wake of Jared lecturing other Americans on how they really need to work harder to succeed, a fellow Harvard grad, from a poor family, enlightens Jared on what it takes for non-rich and non-connected students to get in to Harvard. Read it all.
Allentown, Pennsylvania:
“Nice trucks. You think I could hop into one of them and drive it away? I’d love to do it. Just drive the hell out of here. Just get the hell out of this. I had such a good life.”
Erie, Pennsylvania:
“[Before covid,] I wasn’t coming to Erie. I mean, I have to be honest, there’s no way I was coming. I didn’t have to.“
***************
For Trump’s political playbook (“Ah, I’ve had enough. It rains lead and iron here and we could damage our precious person.”), go here.
An Islamist named Rached Khiari
Is tickled and not at all sorry
That fellow believers
Take massive meat cleavers
And make all free citizens quarry
****************************
SAY THEIR NAMES! — RACHED KHIARI —
Serbia and Kosovo, so we signed a deal, so they gave me a prize for that, they gave me a Nobel Prize for something else, they should give me a Nobel Prize for what I did in Syria.
*******************
UBU: Hey! I’m becoming richer. I’m going to have them read me MY list of MY possessions. Herald, read me MY list of MY possessions.
THE HERALD: Earldom of Sandomir.
UBU: Begin with the principalities, you dickhead!
THE HERALD: Principality of Podolie, Grand-Duchy of Posen, Duchy of Courlande, Earldom of Sandomir, Earldom of Vitepsk, Palatinate of Polack, Margraviate of Thorn.
UBU: What else?
THE HERALD: That’s all.
UBU: How can that be all?
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UD REVIEWED
Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times
George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil
It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo
There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub
You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann
Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog
University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog
[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal
Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education
[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University
Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University
The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog
Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages
Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway
From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law
University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association
The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog
I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes
As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls
Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical
University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life
[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada
If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte