Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Second rate reporter says what?

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We won’t go back.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

We still have time to mess this up!

Accountability, motherfuckers.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Late Night Open Thread: So Unlike the Comity of Our Own Democratic Gatherings…

Late Night Open Thread: So Unlike the Comity of Our Own Democratic Gatherings…

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As discussed in a fascinating little T.A. Frank post in Vanity Fair:

… Because Ryan is so beloved by many inside the Beltway, some are suggesting that he parachute into a contested Republican convention—one in which Donald Trump fails to win the 1,237 delegates required on the first vote—and become the party’s nominee. “If we don’t have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I’m for none of the above,” said Ryan’s predecessor, former House Speaker John Boehner, a couple of weeks ago. “I’m for Paul Ryan to be our nominee.” Sure, Americans seem to be flirting with populism, but maybe what they really want deep down is upper-income tax cuts, Social Security private accounts, and more immigration? Add to that Ryan’s patented smile-frown of humble empathy, and he handily beats Hillary Clinton. It all makes sense…

…[A]t the convention, both the first and second ballots would have to flame out. If Trump failed to get a majority on the first ballot, that would free up only about 57 percent of the delegates, meaning 43 percent would still be committed to a candidate. The second round of voting would therefore still favor Trump or Cruz, both of whom would have also promised supporters wonderful things, and maybe, in Trump’s case, even cash, which, according to Bloomberg‘s Sasha Issenberg, is not illegal.

Things would therefore have to go to a third round, and any defection to Ryan would have to contend with howls of protest not just from Trump, Cruz, and John Kasich, but also from a huge chorus within the Republican establishment, including Senator Lindsey Graham, who has denounced those who “want to drop in their favorite candidate and then try to stifle the will of the people.” In sum, securing a Ryan nomination would be a costly challenge for even a cunning and brilliant establishment, let alone a bumbling and dimwitted one…

That Bloomberg post, “How to Steal a Nomination From Donald Trump”, is a fascinating read as well. But here’s the relevant quote regarding offering cash to delegates:

… There is nothing in the RNC’s rules that prohibits delegates from cutting a deal for their votes, and lawyers say it is unlikely that federal anti-corruption laws would apply to convention horse-trading. (It is not clear that even explicitly selling one’s vote for cash would be illegal.) To lure a governor, for example, the offer of a Cabinet post could be necessary, while a delegate may be swayed by a job as regional HUD administrator or a seat on the Postal Regulatory Commission. A crucial vote on a procedural question could be ensured with a state party’s website-design contract to a delegate’s cousin’s firm.

But why waste an ambassadorship on someone who could be bought for far less? Every delegate and alternate is already paying for individual travel costs to get to Cleveland. Most state parties tell delegates to expect to spend $3,000 out of pocket on airfare, hotel and meals, and for some it could prove an unexpected hardship. (Delegates are assigned hotels by state; some could end up paying for the La Quinta Inn, others stuck with a bill from the Ritz-Carlton.) As blogger Chris Ladd has noted, Trump’s slate in Illinois contains “a food service manager from a juvenile detention center, a daycare worker from a Christian School, an unemployed paralegal, a grocery store warehouse manager, one brave advocate for urban chicken farming, a dog breeder, and a guy who runs a bait shop.” Could some of them be tempted to flip their votes if a generous campaign, super-PAC, or individual donor picked up the costs of their week in Cleveland? Far-flung territories that are treated as states under RNC rules offer even richer opportunities for geographical arbitrage. Round-trip flights in July to Cleveland from the Northern Mariana Islands, which nine delegates are unbound after the first ballot, already cost more than $2,000 each…

Probably just as well that our convention in Philadelphia takes place the week after the RNC gathering in Cleveland — sounds like the Media Village Idiots will still be in recovery!

Reader Interactions

109Comments

  2. 2.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Bring on the White Supremacist riots. (photo)

    There may be national shortages of popcorn. We may have to get ration books.

  3. 3.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    NEW YORK — (NYT) Corporations Grow Nervous About Participating in Republican Convention

    Some of the country’s best-known corporations are nervously grappling with what role they should play at the Republican National Convention, given the likely nomination of Donald J. Trump, whose divisive candidacy has alienated many women, blacks and Hispanics.

    An array of activist groups is organizing a campaign to pressure the companies to refuse to sponsor the gathering, which many of the corporations have done for the Republican and the Democratic Parties for decades.

    The pressure is emerging as some businesses and trade groups are privately debating whether to scale back their participation, according to interviews with more than a dozen lobbyists, consultants and fund-raisers directly involved in the conversations.

    In addition to Mr. Trump’s divisive politics, there is the possibility that protests, or even violence, will become a focus of attention at the convention. Mr. Trump has suggested t hat there w ill be “riots” if he is not chosen as the party’s nominee, and the city of Cleveland recently sought bids for about 2,000 sets of riot gear for its police force.

    I hope the cops shoot some tear gas canisters into the Fox News truck

  4. 4.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    APPLETON, WIS. — (NYT) Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that women who seek abortions should be subject to “some form of punishment” if the procedure is banned in the United States, further elevating Republican concerns that his explosive remarks about women could doom the party in the fall.

    For Republicans, the chaos felt something like a recurring nightmare. After the defeat of Mitt Romney in 2012, party leaders had hoped to move beyond a reputation for offensive comments on women’s issues, emblematized by Todd Akin, a Senate candidate in Missouri who posited that victims of “legitimate rape” were somehow able to prevent pregnancy.

    Mr. Trump’s comments came as many Republicans are confronting, with escalating despair, the specter of a Trump nomination — and the electoral difficulties he would face.

    On Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton called Mr. Trump’s comments “horrific and telling.”

    Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, sought to tie Mr. Trump to the rest of his party, noting that Mr. Cruz opposed exceptions for abortion in cases of rape or incest. Mr. Kasich, she added, has moved to defund Planned Parenthood in Ohio.

    “All three Republicans would drag the country back to the days when women were forced to seek illegal procedures from unlicensed providers out of sheer desperation,” she said.

    Burn baby, burn.

  5. 5.

    Frankensteinbeck

    If Trump goes to the convention with the most delegates, and he’s screwed out of the nomination somehow… I don’t know what will happen, but it won’t be pretty. Trump will not go away quietly. It doesn’t matter if he wants the job. He’s a petty, spiteful egomaniac. When life gives him lemons, he doesn’t make lemonade. He hires somebody to invent a combustible lemon. Donald Trump is the guy who will burn their house down, with the lemons!

    Ahem. And his supporters are cut from exactly the same cloth. The best the GOP could hope for is massively depressed turnout.

  6. 6.

    redshirt

    Best case scenario is Trump has the lead but not the automatic nomination. Contested convention is ugly with some violence, leading to Cruz as the nominee. Trump vows revenge and does everything he can to screw with Cruz even when he knows he can’t win.

    Hillary wins with 65% of the vote and the House and the Senate. A golden age unfolds….

  7. 7.

    Calouste

    @Frankensteinbeck: I think that the only hope for the GOP to prevent a disaster is if Trump drops dead before the convention. Even then, the bomb-throwing anti-establishment delegates of Trump and Cruz will make up a majority.

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    I think that Trump is aware that he’s unfit to be president. I suspect that deep down, he dreads being elected. It would mean four or eight years holding one of the most stressful jobs around, and having to behave himself. But I also reckon that there’s something he wants more than the Presidency itself: the right to say it was his for the taking.

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    @redshirt:
    Sure he can run. But If I’m right about The Donald, and I’m basing my theory on what that lady said after she quit his superPAC, he’s a loser if he’s nominated and doesn’t win, and he’s screwed if he does win; you can’t hide presidential failures behind a corporate bankruptcy. He might not be aware of this dilemma that he’s working himself into, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.

  13. 13.

    GregB

    Trump is clearly playing a Borat style character that will do the big reveal at the convention this summer.

  15. 15.

    balconesfault

    The thing everyone needs to remember is the mindset of the Trump supporter. The GOP promised them, for decades, a magical unicorn that poops gold bullion, and they’re pissed that it hasn’t been delivered. The idea that Trump delegates might be happy about switching their votes to the same old same old is delusional.

    Meanwhile, the Ted Cruz delegate will be committed to their votes with a religious zeal, be it the religion of Christianity, or the religion of a Federal Government that fulfills Norquist’s bathtub fantasy.

    In short – if someone doesn’t win on the first vote … we might not even have a winner on the 15th vote. There aren’t a lot of deals to be made between these two camps. Although I do have my own fantasy, of Cruz – looking out for his long-term political interests – finally backing down and turning his delegates over to Trump. And Trump proceeding to show him the respect he showed Chris Christie following his endorsement of The Donald. A public humiliation of Cruz would be a thing of beauty.

  16. 16.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    Part of me keeps on thinking Trump is a Bill Clinton agent but I think Clinton is too smart to play with a fire like the Donald.

  17. 17.

    Zinsky

    Just auction the damn thing off. Since Republicans believe everything should be for sale, look to make it that way . Maybe Sheldon Adelson will outbid Trump and that wrinkled old pervert will be the Republican nominee!

  20. 20.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    You have to have a sense of decency, a basic human level of dignity and some self-awareness in order to be humiliated. In other words, no way Crudz can be humiliated.

  22. 22.

    qwerty42

    Annie, your morning tour d’horizon of the political news is always entertaining …
    … In sum, securing a Ryan nomination would be a costly challenge for even a cunning and brilliant establishment, let alone a bumbling and dimwitted one…

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Exactly. Was reading the other day his explanation of the “buddy-buddy” time he and Trump went thru in the early campaign days. He said something like, “I didn’t go after Trump because everyone who attacked him got shot down.”

    In other words, “I’m a coward.” and had no problem admitting it.

  25. 25.

    Baud

    GMA making a big deal about a Trump’s abortion comments.

    I don’t get it. Reversing Roe means women would get punished. That’s what it was like pre-Roe.

  27. 27.

    Punchy

    Whoa…nominees can BUY delegates? Why the hell wouldnt Adelson and Koch and that PayPal shithead just pool their money, spend ~$1.5 billion, and buy whomever they want? It comes to $1.171 million per delegate (~1280 needed, rite?) What delly wont trade his/her vote for a million dollars?

  31. 31.

    JPL

    @Baud: The same news media that propped Trump up, is now trying to take him down. Pro-fetus folks have always wanted to punish women.

  32. 32.

    gene108

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    “All three Republicans would drag the country back to the days when women were forced to seek illegal procedures from unlicensed providers out of sheer desperation,” she said.

    They already have you dingleberry, DWS.

    But instead of back allies, they are buying pills off the internet, supposedly from Canada, and hoping for the best.

    When the abortion goes wrong, the state charges them with crimes ranging drone feticide to illegally purchasing drugs. And off to jail they go.

  37. 37.

    Face

    @Baud: They’re making a huge deal out of not-quite-so-ridiculous comments (i.e., yes, if it’s illegal and you do it, punishment can be expected, etc). Yet they dont focus on Cruz’s plan to shutter the IRS (!), EPA (!), and DOEducation (!). So abortion comments will sink you, but plans to pretty much destroy the country go unreported. Got it. Great journalism.

  38. 38.

    Patricia Kayden

    @redshirt: Yep. Under Citizens United, the richest people have the most speech when it comes to influencing elections.

    @Baud: We know that but Republicans/Conservatives have always pretended that they want to protect women from being able to make their own (bad) reproductive choices. Any discussion of punishing women for making their own reproductive choices blows the lid off Republicans’ so-called care about women.

  40. 40.

    debbie

    @Amir Khalid:

    I think that Trump is aware that he’s unfit to be president.

    No, he is not. He may not want it enough, but he doesn’t see himself as unfit for anything. Never has.

  41. 41.

    Baud

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Republicans/Conservatives have always pretended that they want to protect women from being able to make their own (bad) reproductive choices

    That was Cruz’s line in the clip they showed this morning.

  43. 43.

    debbie

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Me too. The couple next door have a baby who seems to refuse to sleep through the night. Last night, the kid woke me up three times. They’re just letting him cry himself out, but that kid’s tougher than they think.

  45. 45.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Because there is no unfitness for Baud!

    But back to the anti-abortion lobby’s reaction to Trump. I was listening to a representative this morning saying they’d never want to punish the mother getting the abortion, but isn’t just the act of restricting it a punishment?

  46. 46.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Face:

    Yet they dont focus on Cruz’s plan to shutter the IRS (!), EPA (!), and DOEducation (!). So abortion comments will sink you, but plans to pretty much destroy the country go unreported. Got it. Great journalism.

    I remember reading about those plans of Cruz’s in multiple locations a number of times. Seems to me somebody reported on it.

  47. 47.

    Baud

    @debbie:

    Restricting abortion will cause women to do it themselves or get black market abortions or cross state lines or use pharmaceuticals. The anti-abortion people will then say “hoocoodanode?”, and punish the women criminally.

  48. 48.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Ryan wants to be president. So he was a losing VP candidate, but you can recover from that. Then he reluctantly agreed to be Speaker of a Republican controlled House, which is a job that will make you look weak and earn you the enmity of your party’s nutjob wing. Now he’s being talked up as a candidate they can put in place despite their voters having mostly chosen Trump and despite the fact that Trump will do everything he can to wreck the place if he’s denied the nomination.

    I conclude that Ryan did something terrible in a previous life. Or possibly this one.

  49. 49.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    There’s been plenty of reporting; people just skip over it to see Donald’s latest nonsense. If Cruz is the nominee, this kind of stuff will kill any chance of victory.

  50. 50.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: I’m going hiking with the kid later this morning. She’s supposed to be here at 8. Ugh!

  54. 54.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie:

    I was listening to a representative this morning saying they’d never want to punish the mother getting the abortion,

    And I wish somebody would say “Bullshit” to their faces. And then watch them stammer and stutter as they can not explain how abortion is murder yet they want to let one of the guilty parties go free without any punishment at all. We all know that if the day ever comes, they will be locking up every single one of those sluts.

  56. 56.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Iowa Old Lady: Maybe he’s in the DC madame’s “black book”.

    ETA: Gives a bit of a different meaning to “Young Guns”, than they intended.

  60. 60.

    Peale

    @OzarkHillbilly: yep. And they’ll expect that their own behavior will pass unnoticed. I mean their abortions were necessary, unlike those of everyone else, who get them on a lark. Their miscarriages were tragic and unexpected, unlike those of the slutty women who should do 6 months if they can’t explain how they lost their baby.

  64. 64.

    gene108

    @Baud:

    Restricting abortion will cause women to do it themselves or get black market abortions or cross state lines or use pharmaceuticals. The anti-abortion people will then say “hoocoodanode?”, and punish the women criminally.

    This is already happening. Not on a large scale, but even one arrest and conviction is too many, and there are probably a dozen cases, at least, where this happens each year in this country.

  66. 66.

    NonyNony

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    I really don’t see how they deny Trump the nomination. Nor do I see what good it would do them if they did.

    I see a couple paths:

    * Loss of momentum. If Trump peters out here over the next few months and loses more contests than he wins, then a case could be made that that should be taken into account. I don’t think it’s a great case – it’s the argument that Sanders’s campaign wants to make for Sanders and it’s more of a reason to get your voters to continue to show up and vote even if it looks like you’re losing than it is a reason to deny someone with a plurality the vote – but it’s a case. But it depends on the shine starting to come off of Trump before the convention. The op-ed that his former campaign staffer posted the other day is the first kind of chink in the armor needed – more of the True Believers need to have their “Oh My God This Is Happening And It’s Stupid” moment if that path is going to work.

    * Faithless delegates. If its true that Trump hasn’t been able/willing/seen the need to wiggle his people into place then he could lose on the second ballot just due to his delegates abandoning him on the vote. I can easily see a path where Cruz has been playing Rand Paul games at the state level to finagle his supporters into convention delegate slots. They’re bound to Trump on the first ballot, but after that they’re free to vote for whoever. If Cruz can wiggle enough people into supposedly Trump-backing delegations then he could be declared the winner pretty handily on the second ballot.

    As to what good it does them – well, not much really. Either way the party that once co-opted angry racists to get votes for tax cuts will finish its transformation into the party of angry racists who promise tax cuts to rich guys to keep them on board. It’s been a work in progress for more than a half century, but you have to give the angry racists credit for being able to work the long game like that.

  67. 67.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @gene108: There have been a number of cases in TX where women have gone across the border to Mexico and gotten drugs to end pregnancies.

  70. 70.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Well it was the smart play if you assume Drumpf couldn’t win. Drumpf clears the way so you can still remain “friends” with the people he flattened. Early on everyone believed it would be won by the last not-Drumpf standing. Crudz is smart

  71. 71.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Iowa Old Lady: I don’t understand how Ryan is a more viable candidate than Trump or Cruz. He is no more appealing than either of those two and has already lost as a VP candidate, as you point out. This is just desperate thinking on the part of Republican elites.

    @GregB: No, I think he honestly believes he can be President. His ego has been growing over the primary season and will be massive by the time he gets to the Convention.

  73. 73.

    Technocrat

    @Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):

    Yeah, I have to agree that Cruz made the smart play. What’s funny is how blatantly obvious it was while he was doing it.

    Even so, Cruz seems to be relatively immune to whatever mojo Trump used on Jeb! and the rest.

  74. 74.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): “I’d rather be a live coward than a dead hero”? Not sure that is how you get to the White House. He would have been far better off to highlight the differences between them (“I am this. I am that.”) without directly attacking Trump. We have video of all those wet sloppy kisses he gave the Donald, and you can be sure they will be used..

  75. 75.

    yellowdog

    Forcing a woman to carry to term is punishment in and of itself because it endangers her health. Pregnancy is way more dangerous than a properly carried out abortion.

  76. 76.

    PsiFighter37

    Apparently Bernie was on Maddow saying ‘we’ll see’ about fundraising for doe ticket races.

    Fuck Bernie. The man has zero interest in party-building and just wants to have revolution.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Trump (now) says the woman is a “victim”. I don’t get it either. They can’t even allow her enough agency and independent judgment to make a decision and walk in there. She’s apparently utterly passive in all this.

    The only people who are treated like this in US law are (small) children and incompetents. Their whole frame of reference is sexist and treats women as children.

    I watched the clip where Trump weighed in and I don’t know about other women but I’ve lost patience with these repulsive, clueless old men OPINING on women.

    Trump is eager to punish a lot of people if he gains power. Half his rambling bullshit is about how he plans to punish groups of people he doesn’t like and doesn’t have any respect for. It’s not real flattering to the GOP base how they’re drawn to authoritarians.

  79. 79.

    boatboy_srq

    It is not clear that even explicitly selling one’s vote for cash would be illegal.

    And so was founded the Grand Old Purchase.

  80. 80.

    Ken

    Probably just as well that our convention in Philadelphia takes place the week after the RNC gathering in Cleveland — sounds like the Media Village Idiots will still be in recovery!

    Yes, and with any luck the fires will have been put out, or at least contained to central Cleveland. Does anyone know what sort of insurance the RNC carries for the convention?

  81. 81.

    satby

    @yellowdog: I forget which state, but one of them just passed a law requiring anaesthesia for abortions, so that the fetus won’t “feel pain”. Making even a minor procedure potentially life-threatening to the woman, because anaesthesia itself is a risk.
    They actively want the sluts to die for their sins, but know the only way they can accomplish that is by making abortion life-threatening via medically unnecessary regulations, and by forcing women to seek illegal abortions. Dead and damaged women are a feature.

  82. 82.

    Fair Economist

    @amk:

    mittbot calls donald dreck a tax-dodger? Hilarious.

    Actually, a lot of tax experts think that, because of a lot of cushy deductions and sleazy tricks possible with real estate-related income, Trump *IS* a tax dodger even compared to Mitt. I’ve seen claims Trump might be paying basically 0% in income as opposed to Mitt’s 13% (probably really 8% – he had neglected to claim a bunch of deductions and could have amended after the election).

  83. 83.

    boatboy_srq

    @MomSense: I thought the Maine Mall served that purpose.

    (It USED to be nice, when Jordan Marsh, Porteous and Filene’s anchored it. Lately, though…)

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    I’ve lost patience with these repulsive, clueless old men OPINING on women.

    I’ll bet listening/watching/reading the arguments in Zubick v Burwell has been truly painful for you.

    They can’t even allow her enough agency and independent judgment to make a decision and walk in there. She’s apparently utterly passive in all this.

    I think of it like an addict who is way over the minimum on whack killing somebody and they charge the drug dealer but let the addict go. It’s like they are totally immune to cognitive dissonance.

  85. 85.

    boatboy_srq

    @Kay: The only distinction between the two GOTea leaders that I can determine is that Cruz thinks women are sources of male sinfulness, where Trump thinks they’re accessories. Other than that it’s like half the population doesn’t exist. The GOTea really is regressing. And it’s not pretty.

  88. 88.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    I think it would be hilarious for them to nominate Paul Ryan, and very instructive. In that case The Donald will run a third party campaign and the Republicans will run a “mainstream” Republican who supports their Randian policy agenda to the hilt – tax cuts for the rich, privatize Social Security, and free market cat food for everyone else. The Donald will run on protecting Social Security and Medicare, trade protectionism, and health care for all with a side of racism and xenophobia. In that scenario, Paul Ryan comes in third, thus demonstrating that the Republican’s actual policy agenda is less popular than an amateur billionaire misogynist blowhard with a bankruptcy problem. Hillary wins in a landslide and Grover Norquist finally goes home with nothing. That would be a win for everyone.

  90. 90.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    The hilarious part of all this is that Trump is the blind squirrel that finds a nut – he’s no more repulsive than the rest, just more honest about the hidden meaning in all of the official pro-life tested and approved messaging which leads to the logical conclusion that he, Trump, states. He’s not playing by the rules, and that’s his cardinal GOP sin, and why he must be stopped before he gives the whole game away.

    one brave advocate for urban chicken farming,

    Urban chicken farmers for Trump!

  91. 91.

    Kay

    @boatboy_srq:

    I was much more patient with anti-abortion people in the past. I started reading some of the state statutes that have gone in since 2010 and it’s really offensive to me how the woman is just…missing in them. I think it is genuinely archaic and absolutely goes back to ideas about women as property. State laws aren’t dressed up in all the Hallmark greeting card religiosity. It comes clear when you read the dry legal language.

    My daughter had an interesting take on it, too, and that’s changed how I think about it. She has this approach where she feels this whole debate is horribly intrusive. She’s not particularly “political” – she’s like “liberal” in the classic sense- she’s tolerant- and she wants them to STOP running discussions of abortion on their terms. She rejects the frame of the argument in a way I never did when I was younger. She doesn’t accept that she’s absent or “the other” to be talked ABOUT in the way they do. It’s refreshing and she’s right. She doesn’t have to accept how they erase her, turn her into a problem to be solved.

  92. 92.

    boatboy_srq

    @Kay: I suppose that being schooled among the SBC taught me a lot about the anti-choice movement a long time ago. What goes unsaid about the anti-Roe campaign is that these volk really do want Daddy, or Big Bro, or Hubby (probably in that order) to have veto power over women’s health choices, and abortion/contraception is just the fulcrum they use to achieve that. It’s part of why they fetishize Roe and not Griswold, and it informs their entire effort.

    Look at what a fuss they made over the Schaivo trainwreck. It was a proxy for anti-abortion, but it was spot-on for anti-choice: Daddy didn’t want his little girl unplugged, and his wishes overrode both his daughter’s and her husband’s.

    One suspects the 19th Amendment is going to be in their crosshairs before too long.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I think of it like an addict who is way over the minimum on whack killing somebody and they charge the drug dealer but let the addict go

    I guess that happens but it doesn’t happen here. There’s no “letting the addict go” here. Any addict apparently has more agency and independent will than any woman. We just had a 20 year old sentenced to 9 years for vehicular homicide and he’s been addicted to booze since he was 13 years old.

    When Trump pursed his lips in that interview and sadly announced the whores would have to be punished I saw shades of the extremely nasty piece of work that is Mike Huckabee. He’s in the right Party, Mr. Trump. He belongs with them. Good fucking riddance.

  94. 94.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I’ve never seen it happen either, can not imagine it happening. My ex did 3 years (sentenced to 7) for vehicular assault after she almost killed 2 people. I am just astounded by the absolute incoherence of the Pro Lifer’s arguments. I don’t know how they can say these things and not have their heads blow up. I take it as one more piece of evidence that there is no God.

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Trump’s an idiot so he probably doesn’t know this but the “women as victims of the abortion industry” is a common theme in pro-life circles. That’s why they all freaked when he told the truth and stated the obvious, that laws barring something come with sanctions for the barred behavior.

    What I love is the complete and utter lack of concern for the huge group of women who have complicated miscarriages. If you were a physician would you use medical judgment if there were a pack of pro-lifers standing behind you ready to press charges? They are risking women’s lives and they simply don’t care.

    I don’t want them anywhere near me or mine when decisions have to be made. I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them.

  96. 96.

    boatboy_srq

    @Kay:

    What I love is the complete and utter lack of concern for the huge group of women who have complicated miscarriages.

    In their minds this is a tiny number compared to the wanton slvts getting their insides scrubbed out and the army of recreational abortionists traveling the US looking for more opportunities to commit murder (OT: I still want to form a punk band called Recreational Abortionists). They think there’s a massive, federally-sanctioned (if not federally-funded) industry exclusively geared to killing foeti.

  98. 98.

    Jay C

    Thinking this through, I’m just wondering what the reaction might be among the voting public (well, that portion of them who still care somewhat about the political processes in this country), should a Republican “overt-cash-for-delegate-votes” scheme be uncovered?
    Like most “dog-whistle” issues – in this case the influence of money on politics – the 2016 campaign seems be turning them into more of ocean-liner-horn: and as usual, the Republicans are in the lead…

  99. 99.

    balconesfault

    @JPL: The media really, really wants a brokered GOP Convention so much that they probably drool at the utterance of the phrase.

    So it was inevitable that eventually they’d turn against Trump to try to ensure he doesn’t reach the required threshold.

    It’s as transparent as their takedown of Al Gore during the 2000 campaign, or hammering Obama after the first debate in 2012. The horserace is what matters, not the outcome.

  100. 100.

    boatboy_srq

    @balconesfault: Don’t you mean the media really really wants a choreographed bloodbath? Because that does seem to be what’s coming. The GOTea is about ready to eat its own, and the MSM is all too happy to provide the video. I’m beginning to wonder whether the delegate vote count will remain above the number of casualties.

  101. 101.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Amir Khalid:

    But I also reckon that there’s something he wants more than the Presidency itself: the right to say it was his for the taking.

    The guy is a narcissist, not a leader. The minute the orange muthrfkr figures out the R’s are gonna screw with his nomination–and they will, no doubt about it–he’ll walk. He’ll say they broke their “contract” with him, can’t be trusted, don’t deserve him, blah-blah-blah…

    Maybe he tries a third party run, maybe not–it won’t matter to him because I really believe that deep down inside he never REALLY wanted the responsibility of being President. Not really–he just wanted to see if he COULD have done it. He’ll withdraw and be able to say he had the Nom, would have won and so IS the winner, the big yoooooooge winner.

    And/or…he’ll take the podium, announce he’s out, and then unload that his candidacy was all a big hoax to see just how many bigots, rubes and complete dolts there are in America who could vote for someone who was so bad, so inconsistent and so very, very digusting.

  102. 102.

    Aleta

    Kind of a drag that after running a bunch of horrific losers through the primary, most of whom got exposed (or exposed themselves), they can now slip in another guy who’ll suck in a lot of votes from the swell of relief.

  103. 103.

    Turgidson

    Because Ryan is so beloved by many inside the Beltway, some are suggesting that he parachute into a contested Republican convention—one in which Donald Trump fails to win the 1,237 delegates required on the first vote—and become the party’s nominee. “If we don’t have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I’m for none of the above,” said Ryan’s predecessor, former House Speaker John Boehner, a couple of weeks ago. “I’m for Paul Ryan to be our nominee.”

    Me too, Orange Julius. Me too. I’d like nothing more than for that cruel, Randroid phony to be pantsed in front of a national audience yet again. Maybe then, finally, he’ll just shut the fuck up and go the fuck away. Obviously Biden laughing him off the stage wasn’t enough to shame him. Maybe getting his clock cleaned by Hillary will do the trick.

  107. 107.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    @Punchy:

    Whoa…nominees can BUY delegates? Why the hell wouldnt Adelson and Koch and that PayPal shithead just pool their money

    No rule says the deligates have to stay bought.

  108. 108.

    mclaren

    As the demolition derby misnamed the Republican primaries crashes to its climax, Emma Ashford has a great summary of Trump’s Achilles heel — his total unpredictability:

    Yet though Trump sometimes advocates more restrained foreign policy ideas, he frequently also expresses extremely hawkish ideas. At his AIPAC speech, Trump pledged to prevent regional aggression by Iran, and promised to dismantle the Obama administration’s nuclear deal. He promises to “knock the hell out of ISIS,” and proposed sending 20,000 to 30,000 troops to fight the group.

    Other statements simply make no sense. Trump has repeatedly called for U.S. troops to seize Middle Eastern oil by force, a proposal that would require either a major permanent military occupation, or some miraculous advance in drilling technology. He appears to believe that hostages formed a part of the Iranian nuclear deal. And he refuses to answer questions on whether he would use nuclear weapons against ISIS.

    Indeed, it is nearly impossible to tell whether he actually believes these statements, or is simply monumentally ill-informed. Based on his comments to the Washington Post, Trump is apparently unaware of European sanctions on Russia, of the fact that Iran and ISIS oppose each other, and believes that America’s GDP is “essentially zero.”

    If we step back from substantive issues, however, another pattern emerges: unpredictability. Trump has flip-flopped on issues ranging from Syria to Afghanistan to visa policy. When confronted with these inconsistencies, he has denied his prior comments, obfuscated, and even praised his own flexibility.

    Unlike many politicians who moderate between the primary and general election, Trump actually touts his unpredictability as a foreign policy virtue. As early as June last year, Trump promised that he had a secret plan to defeat ISIS, which he could not reveal for fear of giving too much away. And in the Post interview, Trump similarly refused to detail his strategy for dealing with China, arguing that other countries cannot know what he will do once he is president.

    As a foreign policy doctrine, this is highly problematic.

    Source: “The unpredictable Trump doctrine,” 30 March 2016.

  109. 109.

    mclaren

    @Aleta:

    Not so much. Either way, the Republican party is doomed.

    If Trump’s the nominee so many people will abandon the republican party that conservatism will fracture and implode for at least a generation. If someone else parachutes in to rob Trump of the nomination, you’ll see a civil war within the conservative ranks akin to what went on in the streets of Chicago in 1968 when Hubert Humphrey was perceived to have stolen the nomination aided and abetted by the party elites.

    In case 1, the Republican party splinters, with many lifelong conservatives either sitting out the election or voting for a Democrat for the first time in their lives, and thus it no longer becomes a potent force for evil. In case 2, the Republican party elites lose their political legitimacy and the entire party goes through convulsions as conservatives battle each other over what conservatism means. And once again the Republican party loses its power to obstruct Democrats and win purple states.

    Either way, it’s a win-win for progressives.

    More of this, please!

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