The Monsters Are Due on Mapplethorpe Street

There's a term from Nazi Germany --"degenerate art" -- that I'm sure most of you know.  For those that are unfamiliar, this from Wikipedia:

Degenerate art (German: Entartete Kunst) was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, was removed from state-owned museums and banned in Nazi Germany on the grounds that such art was an "insult to German feeling", un-German, Freemasonic, Jewish, or Communist in nature. Those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions that included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art.

 

Degenerate Art also was the title of a 1937 exhibition held by the Nazis in Munich, consisting of 650 modernist artworks that the Nazis had taken from museums, that were poorly hung alongside graffiti and text labels mocking the art and the artists.[1] Designed to inflame public opinion against modernism, the exhibition subsequently traveled to several other cities in Germany and Austria.

While modern styles of art were prohibited, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were traditional in manner and that exalted the "blood and soil" values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience.

Well, here it comes again, Murrican style!  From The Atlantic:

Trump Takes Over the Kennedy Center

The president intends to replace members of the institution’s board as he adopts a more aggressive approach toward the arts.

Artists embarrassed Donald Trump when he first came to Washington. Now that Trump is back in power, he is determined not to let that happen again.

Trump plans to announce the dismissal of multiple members of the Kennedy Center board as soon as today, a group likely to include recent appointees of former President Joe Biden; among those on the current board are the Democratic political strategist Mike Donilon, former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and Democratic National Committee finance chair Chris Korge. 

The White House has also had discussions about having Trump himself installed as chair of the board, according to two people familiar with the purge, who requested anonymity to describe plans that are not yet public.

This is, of course, disgraceful.  But it could have been done slowly and quietly, without the sounding brass of Donald Trump bellowing to the world that this was straight-up, fascist degenerate art.  But that would have defeated Trump's agenda of loud, public demonstrations of authoritarian domination and humiliation.  And so

...Trump confirmed the news, writing on Truth Social that he planned to make the Kennedy Center “GREAT AGAIN” by terminating “multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.” He wrote that he planned to announce a “new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” adding, “The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation. For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”

So get ready to enjoy all the soaring, heroic "art", personally approved by Il Douche.  

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To Serve MAGA: Part 2

There are many Denizens of the MAGA cesspit who do not like what I write.  Didn't like it back when they were Fake Tea Partiers.  Didn't like it before that when they were Bush's loyal cheerleaders.  

Yeah.  Been at this awhile.  

And since Musk's Incel Clown Posse can't cut off my nonexistent Soros/USAID/ACORN (Remember ACORN?) funding and no one in Trump's cabinet can sack me, instead I get shit like this.  

To which I say, thanks for the content The Blogger Team!

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To Serve MAGA

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The Perfect Coda to The Career of One of Musk’s Incel Clown Posse

...and they're racist.

This from MSNBC.

Musk’s 25-year-old DOGE staffer resigns after racist posts emerge: report

Marko Elez is the 25-year-old DOGE staffer who reportedly had access to the U.S. Treasury’s most sensitive payment systems. But a Wall Street Journal reporter linked Elez to a now-deleted social media account full of racist and hateful statements, including, "I was racist before it was cool."

And:

New: A 2nd DOGE staffer has amplified extremists online, including Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate

www.reuters.com/world/us/sta...

[image or embed]

— Raphael Satter (@raphae.li) February 7, 2025 at 1:16 PM

You already know the punchline, right? 

The horrified agent asks what the act is called.

The proud answer, delivered with a flourish: "The Aristocrats!"

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Professional Left Podcast Episode 874: They Ain't Playing 4-Dimensional Chess

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.” --  Oscar Wilde

Links:  

• 
  

The Professional Left is brought to you by our wholly imaginary "sponsors" and real listeners like you!

Our New National Symbol

The Statue of Fealty.

Financed, built, installed and zealously defended by the Republican Party and its media collaborators.

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In or Out, There Is Never a Doubt...

Just who's pulling the strings.

Been quite a week for Little Marco, who has had his soul up for sale for decades ago, and which Trump has now picked up at remaindered prices from the bargain bin of failed Republican saviors.  

First, there's this goon named Pete Marocco who was (allegedly) one of the mob who stormed the Capitol on January 6th.  That guy was just appointed by Little Marco to run the U.S. Agency for International Development.

This thug's first act as "acting deputy administrator for management and resources" was to empty out the agency.

From Media-Ite.

Trump Official Who Allegedly Stormed Capitol Places Aid Workers on Leave: ‘You Are Not to Enter USAID Premises’

Remaining staffers at the U.S. Agency for International Development were placed on administrative leave, Tuesday by a Trump administration official accused of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In a memo titled, “PLACED ON ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE,” acting deputy administrator for management and resources Pete Marocco advised USAID employees they were “being placed on excused absence (also known as administrative leave) with pay effective immediately.” 

Next up, Little Marco puts an out-and-proud wannabe Klansman in charge of [checks notes] "public diplomacy."

From MSNBC:

Senior State Department official haunted by his scandalous record

"Haunted"?   

Nah.

"Proud of".

Yep.

But please continue. 

In theory, revelations about Darren Beattie's recent past should end his State Department tenure. In practice, it might not be that simple.

In 2018, officials in the Trump White House started receiving media calls about a speechwriter and policy aide named Darren Beattie. Journalists wanted to know whether Beattie’s colleagues were aware of his role at a conference regularly attended by well-known white nationalists, and soon after, he was fired.

Eight years later, Beattie is back, serving under Rubio as an acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. NBC News reported:

Beattie has a history of making inflammatory remarks, including a post on X in October that said: “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.” Beattie’s site promoted a baseless theory that the attack on the Capitol was the handiwork of the FBI, or has he put it, a “Fedsurrection.”

On a related note, Beattie also spent part of Jan. 6, 2021, telling various Black people — including Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina — to “learn their place” and “take a knee to MAGA” 

The agencies and functions Little Marco is gutting at the behest of Il Douche are the faces we show to the rest of the world.  Providing food and medical care to the sick and starving.  Promoting democracy in oppressed corners.  A beacon to others in dark places.  

And now Little Marco is putting a Klansman's hood on the Statue of Liberty --

-- and making absolutely sure the rest of the world knows that the bare plurality of bigots and imbeciles who now govern this country never gave a fuck about any of that.

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What Is Dead May Never Die: Grace Hoppers (Ongoing) Revenge

"One day, my pretties, we will destroy them all!"*

Some of you may remember waaaay back during the Before Time when a secret ally of democracy suddenly revealed itself to put a hurt on a Republican trying to do mischief.  

The year was 2010.

The Republican was Ahnuld Schwarzenegger, who, believe it or not kids, for a minute was actually governor of Galivornia (official pronunciation during his tenure in that oviz.)

And the secret ally of democracy was...COBOL!  Yay! My very own programming mother tongue!

Like the the Dead Men of Dunharrow, summoned by the last King of Gondor to turn the Battle of the Corsairs in The Return of the King, COBOL emerged from its hiding place to frustrate Ahnuld's plan to screw over government employees.

Twice!

I wrote about the Guvinator barking out his empty orders "zee bayroll zizdem being vixed now! Now! Now! And zo fort" here and we did a podcast about it here.

And now from the rotting carcass of the Party of Lincoln, a new and vastly more destructive villain has emerged.  One who is attempting to bypass laws and courts by dispatching his Aqua Teen Incel Fascist Force to seize direct control of the government payroll system and cut off funding to whoever offends him.

And once again, Grace Hopper's Ghost Army of ten million lines of ancient B-XOR, END-INVOKE and 88-level number code -- some of which was probably last updated and compiled during the Carter administration -- have emerged from the shadows to kick Musk's Shitler Youth in their hairless yam sacks like an angry Mayan Codex with a black belt in taekwondo. 

H/T to alert listener Ravi for passing this along.  From Paul Krugman:

The 20-somethings Musk is deploying to take over, locking out those old hands and pushing aside the people who know how the system works, almost surely don’t understand enough to politicize payments right away.

As Nathan Tankus, the go-to expert on these matters, says,

I 100% believe that the primary barrier to Elon Musk gaining control of the Treasury payments system is COBOL.

For readers mystified by the reference, COBOL is a very old programming language that was once pervasive in the business world but in which hardly anyone under 60 knows how to program — yet is still widely used in government. (During Covid, the state of New Jersey put out a frantic call for people who knew COBOL to implement expanded unemployment benefits.)

So raise a glass to the inventor of COBOL -- navy Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper [December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992] -- was, by all accounts, a perfectly nice, brilliant nerd*, the likes of whom we could sure use more of these days, and exactly the sort of hero Tosspot Pete Hegseth would have run out of the Navy.

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