Tag Archives: White House

The Inmates Running The Asylum

There really is no end to this. Every day, we are reminded that everyone in or around the White House is either a White Supremicist (like creepy Steven Miller) or a nutcase invested in conspiracy theories. Of course, the two categories are not mutually exclusive.

Case in point.

The wife of White House communications director Bill Shine went on an anti-vaccine tirade while spreading conspiracy theories about an outbreak of measles in the Pacific north-west.

In a series of tweets, Darla Shine lashed out against a CNN segment detailing the outbreak, which has seen more than 50 unvaccinated people contract measles in Washington state and Oregon.

“Here we go LOL #measlesoutbreak on #CNN #Fake #Hysteria,” Darla Shine tweeted. “The entire Baby Boom population alive today had the #Measles as kids. Bring back our #ChildhoodDiseases they keep you healthy & fight cancer.”

“I had the #Measles #Mumps #ChickenPox as a child and so did every kid I knew,” she went on to claim, adding: “Sadly my kids had #MMR so they will never have the life long natural immunity I have. Come breathe on me!”

Shine is a former TV producer. She’s married to Bill Shine, the former executive at–where else?– Fox News who is now Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for communications.

When she was criticized for her comments, Shine not only accused “the Left” of attempting to smear her, but suggested that measles can cure cancer (mischaracterizing a complex case from 2014 that did not reach that conclusion.)

This isn’t her first visit to whack-a-doodle land. She has “debunked” use of sunscreens and spread several conspiracy theories warning of the “dangers” of vaccines.

Other unearthed tweets found Darla Shine making profane remarks about race, questioning why white people were considered racist for using “the n’word” given its use by black people and defending the Confederate flag.

She has repeatedly struck a dismissive tone when discussing allegations of sexual assault, be it in the military or at Fox News.

Granted, this woman is the spouse of a White House staffer–not the staffer herself. (Her husband departed Fox News after he was found to have suppressed allegations of sexual impropriety against Roger Ailes and Bill O”Reilly.) Nevertheless, her looney-tunes tweets reflect upon the administration and are highly inappropriate.

Of course, so are Trump’s.

In fact, I can’t think of anyone who is still in the White House, from the President on down, who isn’t an embarrassment to humanity.

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Crying Wolf

Not being a fan of right-wing conspiracy blogs/commentators, it was only a couple of days ago that I became aware of the latest “outrage” perpetrated by the Obama Administration–a Halloween party kept secret until now, where liberal Hollywood stars mixed with costumed members of the First Family and Staff in an expensive, decadent party paid for by our tax dollars.

I saw a clip of Rush Limbaugh–red-faced and shouting, vein in neck throbbing (okay, that’s his normal look)–accusing the White House of cavorting at taxpayer expense while average Americans suffer through the recession, and darkly asking “If they hide these extravagant, indulgent parties from the American People, what else might they be hiding??”

I consulted the Google oracle to find out more, and discovered that those crafty Obamas managed to “hide” the fact of this party, which turned out to have been held for the children of veterans, by posting about it on the White House Web site, Facebook and Twitter, and inviting the media to attend.

Oh, those crafty Obamas–it’s the Purloined Letter all over again! Hiding in plain sight!

It’s tempting to simply dismiss this silliness as another manifestation of Obama Derangement Syndrome, but there’s a darker side to these constant attempts to demonize the administration. Remember the Boy Who Cried Wolf? He was a shepherd who kept insisting he saw a wolf menacing his flock. When the real wolf came, no one believed him.

When everything Obama does–including, apparently, breathing–prompts accusations of high crimes and misdemeanors, what happens if and when the administration actually does engage in behavior that we really should worry about?

When the level of outrage is set on maximum all the time, how do we distinguish between a Halloween party for the children of our fighting men and signing the Defense Authorization Act?

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