TV News LIES

Yes, I know:  I keep waking up in TrumpWorld, too.  The thought clicks into place about two seconds after my eyes open and consciousness dawns.  Dazed and confused.  Then, the cringing and wincing begins all over again...

My blood pressure goes up 40 points envisioning his clan in the national living room, rummaging around in the country's secrets and cupboards and treasure chests, looking for self-fulfillment, self-aggrandizement, and various wealth-building angles to play.  We have 243 million adults living in this country, give or take.  THIS is the best we can do? REALLY?!

Officials in New York and Los Angeles on Thursday said they hoped President-elect Donald Trump would not follow through on a campaign promise to withhold federal funds from “sanctuary cities” that shield people who are in the country illegally.

The nation’s two largest cities have sharply limited their cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities seeking to deport undocumented immigrants.

Another election.  Another Veterans Day.  Another round of triage.  Yes, it's a new day.  Welcome to Group.

Might be nice to start out this session by reminding everyone that those five Kubler-Ross stages of grief are not linear, bim, bam, boom, and all-done.  Elisabeth Kubler Ross has herself had mixed feelings about coming up with that scale, saying it was always meant as a guideline, not a serial shopping list of tasks to be done, and crossed off in that specific order -- nor was it meant to exclude other facets.

Welcome back to Group -- please grab a little something from the food-and-drink snack cart, and we can get started...

As you know, positioned here, as we are, on the lip of the smoking impact-crater of democracy, the first thing we've had to attend to is pulling out survivors from the white-hot and smoldering wreckage -- pulling people out from under towering stacks of collapsed polling data, out from under the shattered shards of broken dreams, out from under the formerly stable, non-psychotic, and modern-world construct formerlyt envisioned and expected by most people here and abroad.

Ever since the shitshow ended a couple of nights ago there has been a plethora of polite analyses of What The Fuck Just Happened. Desperate pundits are trying to be reasonable while describing how and why Fucko the Clown just won the election.

This is what Denial looks like:

The hubris of Hillary Clinton and the DNC empowered them to steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders because not only did she “deserve” the presidency, but they believed she could beat Fucko in the general election. Clinton, the DNC, and their donors, completely underestimated, or ignored, the Hillary hatred that has been simmering for decades, as well as the contempt voters have for establishment politics.

The Obama administration is expected to approve the disputed easement for the Dakota Access pipeline as soon as Monday, according to two sources familiar with the timing — dealing a major blow to climate activists even before Donald Trump takes office.

The decision would let the pipeline be built across the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux's reservation in North Dakota, where protesters have been camped out for months in one of the largest ongoing environmental standoffs of recent years.

Leonard Cohen, the baritone-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter who seamlessly blended spirituality and sexuality in hits like ‘‘Hallelujah,’’ ‘'Suzanne’’ and ‘‘Bird on a Wire,’’ has died at age 82.

Cohen’s label confirmed a statement on his Facebook page Thursday that he has passed away, and a memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date. No further details on his death were given.

If our clock wasn't cleaned, it was certainly reset.  That makes twice in one week.  I wasn't over Falling Back yet -- now, in mid-primal scream, I am Falling Forward, imagining many of us, holding our heads as we drop, by the battalions, parachuting in, chutes failing to open, each of us Edvard Munch, spying the ground racing up.

Somewhere around 3:00 a.m., as Eastern Shock Zone is calculated, I think it was, when it was certain -- when the curtain was pulled around the unsettling corpse of the election.

3:00 a.m. -- the time, you might remember from past messaging, when it was comforting to think someone alert, aware, and with lights-on-in-the-head, might take an emergency call for the nation, get up, get the lights on, and start working.