.
So a couple of failing enterprises combine forces in a totally legal manner to protect assets. Sounds like how Trump explains bankruptcies.
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) April 25, 2016
Yeah, Politico‘s photo choice does kinda recall the old Adam West/Burt Ward tv show, but that was (mostly) intentional farce:
Ted Cruz and John Kasich have begun coordinating their campaign strategy to stop Donald Trump, an abrupt alliance announced Sunday night that includes Kasich quitting his efforts in Indiana and Cruz clearing a path for the Ohio governor in Oregon and New Mexico…
The new Cruz-Kasich pact is an acknowledgment that neither man can overtake Trump in the race, and both know their best shot at preventing Trump from clinching the nomination outright is to team up to block his path and force a contested convention. And it may still be too late: Trump is closing in on the number of delegates he needs to win the nomination…
One hopes, for his family’s sake, that Kasich has made out a will. For once in her career, Jen Rubin may actually be correct:
…[I]t emphasizes the degree to which the most likely alternative to Trump — Cruz — has failed to unite the GOP… The consolation for Cruz is that news of the pact will overshadow and help put in perspective expected losses tomorrow in all the primary states.
Cruz’s perceived weakness in turn leads to another unintended consequence of the deal: It will heighten interest in a third candidate. It is now evident that neither Cruz nor Kasich is a sterling candidate. The odds of a Trump nomination are high, so shouldn’t backers of a third candidate get cracking?
The pact likewise opens the door to other candidates entering or reentering the race in Cleveland. Essentially the pact is recognition that the party has failed to come up with a single not-Trump alternative. If so, why then not try someone else who might unite the party?…
Yeah, I said she was correct in her assumptions, not that I think bringing in a a ‘third’ (fourth? third-and-a-half?) candidate would do anything more than further roil the RNC convention waters. I’m just happy it’s not us Democrats’ problem to settle!
***********
Apart from popcorn, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Lamh36
long day at work I’m hoping to get to bed early and on time tonight. I’m still listening to my playlist and to be honest I’ll probably be listening for awhile unless, God forbid, someone really big passes this year…smh
Lenny Kravitz & Prince American Woman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC34ZcDiCag&sns=tw via @youtube
Baud
I should partner with Bernie.
redshirt
Holy contested convention!
I wish.
Seems far more likely Herr Drumpf is the candidate.
22over7
Does Rubin really think this could happen, like Zombie Eyes could just walk in there and claim the nomination? Has anybody played the tape through to the end? I really don’t want to read about the Battle of Cleveland…
Lamh36
in other music news I checked out Beyonce “visual album” Lemonade and it was visually very interesting. Of course I loved all the NOLA scenes and imagery.
of course since they’ve had what 24 hrs to process it now u got the think pieces and stupid commentary.
Taylor Swift can write cutesy songs about all her MANY exes in her shirt dating life & it’s cool. Beyonce writes songs about her one and only husband and marriage and folks in they feelings?
Oh and Carrie Underwood can write about busting out headlights with a bat and it’s a “woman’s anthem” but Beyonce does basically the same and (mostly white) folks are shocked!!!
Some idiot called Beyonce an “urban terrorist”…really, really…
https://media.giphy.com/media/CE5LPDMZP73l6/giphy.gif
BillinGlendaleCA
There’s still hope for JEB!
Lamh36
redshirt
@BillinGlendaleCA: IS THAT JEB’S MUSIC?!?!
(Jeb walks through a curtain on the 3rd ballot to “Rock you like a hurricane”)
Trollhattan
Two completely unrelated items (or are they?).
Maisie Williams crashes GOT premiere party at UCLA, brings snacks. Like probably everybody else, she’s my favorite character.
Michael Rogers retires from cycling due to heart condition.
In his prime he was a beast. Sorry to see him forced out; hopefully still to live a long life.
cmorenc
Move along now, nothing to see here. But…but…but…LOOK OVER THERE! Hillary email scandal! Indictment by sometime in August! And Hillary cyberbullying Monica Lewinsky!
smith
With their Loser’s Pact, dividing up the states because neither could be competitive in all of them, haven’t Cruz and Kasich tacitly admitted that neither could manage a national campaign in the GE?
gogol's wife
@Lamh36:
You should read the NYTimes piece. I haven’t had time to read it yet but it looks very sympathetic, based on the few paragraphs I saw.
dollared
Gawd, this is great. With all these campaign spiraling through so many machinations, you can only imagine how many farms in the Shenandoah Valley have been paid for out of consulting and brokerage fees……
gogol's wife
@Lamh36:
The piece is by Wesley Morris.
BillinGlendaleCA
@cmorenc: …the Democrat Party nomination contest is soooo corrupt(Joe of the Morning, this morning).
germy
Pierce is hilarious on the subject:
p.a.
Can’t the Kochs or Shelly use their vast sums to reanimate Ronnie Raygun? The thought of der Trumpenführer’s supporters backing him as he pukes on Zombie Ronnie is schwing worthy.
scav
@Lamh36: Every single time a police union official opens his mouth, I am further not only convinced but stunned by their arrogence, insensitivity and fundamental inhumanity.
germy
Does anyone know what happened to the comments section on Pierce’s Esquire blog?
piratedan
@redshirt: if it is Jeb!’s music, you probably be assured that he didn’t procure the rights to use the song from the artist, that’s just how the GOP rolls.
Rommie
@redshirt: What’s he doing, King? No – NO! Don’t do it Jeb, DON’T DO IT! (crunching sound) OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
Seriously, we’d have fisticuffs if JEB! got the nomination – there’s no way Trump takes that meekly. We’d approach, but still not quite get to, Peak Wingnut, Peak Media Freakout, and Peak Internet all at once.
Shana
Hey, Rubio could get back in couldn’t he? Don’t they all “suspend” their campaigns instead of actually quitting nowadays?
benw
@gogol’s wife: there’s no way Wes Morris wasn’t going all in on Bey’s new album. But “Lemonade” is pretty kick-ass.
Also, Cruz and Kasich, working together? Baaaaaaaarf.
redshirt
@Rommie: So many chairs to the backs of heads. Except replace chairs with guns.
Shana
@germy: I don’t know what’s happened to comments, but he did say something in his last post on Friday about working on getting them back. It’s been pretty annoying lately with all the work from home make a fortune spam posts that happen, but it’s worse to not have any comments. They’re always good and frequently hysterical.
Cacti
Unhappy confederate memorial day to anyone living in the State of Alabama.
Or as I call it: Happy second place in the Civil War, you losers Day!
MomSense
@Lamh36:
Did you see this MHP article in Elle about Lenonade?
Call and response.
lamh36
@gogol’s wife: Read, it great article.
MomSense
@Lamh36:
That makes me boiling mad. How dare he.
SFAW
@benw:
Almost as bad as dogs and cats, living together.
Leaving Texas
Just had a conversation with some real honest-to-god real Americans at a housing project in subarban Maryland and I just have to say 1) people are good, 2) liberal values are good. This atheist says “God bless America”.
Shana
@SFAW: And about as productive.
ruemara
I think I’m the last black woman on earth who hasn’t watched Lemonade. Hate to say it, but I also don’t have much interest. My blackness is a different, but I support all of it. The imagery I’ve heard described is interesting. Formation was good. We’ll see, maybe later.
In car news, I removed my fuel relay regulator. I also found that it their is such a thing as a fuel regulator. Didn’t fix it. I now also know what a ignition coil and a fuel pump are. I’m treating this whole mess as an adventure in new learning horizons
Roger Moore
@benw:
Mass hysteria!
Tripod
He can’t win, doesn’t have any voters or donors, yet soldiers on. Kaisch is a stalking horse for JEB! He was always running for the VP slot.
SiubhanDuinne
@Lamh36:
Dafuq?
Origuy
Until John Oliver did a show about it last night, Puerto Rico’s financial problems hadn’t been talked about much here on the mainland. Except in Utah, where Congressman Bob Bishop, the Republican point man in the talks to bail out PR, has been the focus of an attack from the right, conducted by a group called the Center for Individual Freedom. The CFIF was founded by tobacco companies to fight regulation.
WaterGirl
@Origuy: John Oliver has become a national treasure.
Leaving Texas
@ruemara: Seriously glad you mentioned not being “true to type” Makes me feel less alone as someone who doesn’t like the things she’s supposed to like based on race/gender/age. Real communication depends on bravery in spite of social norms.
Emma
For whomever was interested in yesterday’s Shakespeare links. BBC Radio 3 has an original play called A Play for the Heart: The Death of Shakespeare by Nick Warburton. It “speculates” on the last day of Shakespeare’s life, and it is fascinating! Here
lollipopguild
@SFAW: Mass Hysteria! I see where Rodger beat me to it.
msdc
I can only assume you meant to type “soil.” Because that’s exactly what it would do.
raven
@WaterGirl: More for you back yonder.
rikyrah
@germy:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Pierce is so funny
scav
@Emma: There’s also a different one about essentially the same day, only Cevantes shows up. It’s called Big Time and can be downloaded for a while.
WarMunchkin
I had a comment removed by a moderator for being racist on reddit. It was that famous quote, and nothing else, from Martin Luther King about the failure of white moderates, in a thread hating on BLM.
I laugh and I cry.
WaterGirl
@raven: I am saving the high school story links for tomorrow, but I read the rest. I know some of the people who were interviewed, but I had no idea that they were involved with that stuff. Interesting to learn about all this. Thanks a bunch.
ThresherK
@Emma: Better them than NPR’s On the Media, who wasted precious airtime on Shakespeare when the coulda been, I dunno, doing media crit in the middle of an election season?
geg6
All I know is that tomorrow’s primary can’t come soon enough. So sick of the constant ads with Trump and Cruz and Bernie screaming at me from my teevee. Sestak, McGinty, Fetterman and Hilz are comforting by comparison. At least they don’t shout. Hilz has a really cute one with a little girl at a town hall asking if she would be paid the same as male presidents. McGinty and Sestak are showing their regular people bonafides. And Fetterman has very artistic, gritty ads that really highlight his “outsider” status and issues. The rest are just annoying and horribly shouty.
redshirt
@WarMunchkin: What was the subreddit?
JustRuss
@Shana: Yeah, hope they get the comments back soon. The spam was getting out of hand though.
Bjacques
Cruz and Kasich?
More like Creutzfeld and Jakob!
Poopyman
@geg6: I met Fetterman at Netroots Nation when it was in Pgh (’09?). Guy definitely had an agenda to pull Braddock out of the gutter. Can’t tell from this distance if it ever happened. Seeing him in the Senate would be a hoot, though. I suspect he would turn out to be pretty effective despite people’s expectations, a la Franken.
chopper
@Bjacques:
nice.
Mnemosyne
@Emma:
I discovered today that apparently Mark Rylance is a Shakespeare Troofer. I am disappointed.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mnemosyne: Who does he think wrote the plays?
geg6
@Poopyman:
He’s the real deal. Braddock is slowly pulling out of the depths of despair, much thanks to him. He’s a really interesting guy. Came from a somewhat wealthy family, master’s in public administration from the Kennedy School, not from Braddock but somehow he embodies the town. I’m voting for him tomorrow but he’s not going to win. Not this time anyway. I’ll happily vote for Sestak or McGinty in the fall, though I’d rather it was Sestak. McGinty is too insider-y for me.
Mike J
@Iowa Old Lady: Rachel Ray.
Central Planning
@Baud:
I think if you started your pivot now, you could win the Republican convention.
Frank Wilhoit
I have been predicting right along that Trump would be kicked out, by any means necessary, but at the latest possible moment (i.e. at the convention), so as to give him the shortest possible time in which to try to rig up an independent run.
I have also been predicting right along that the eventual nominee would be someone who did not run, and was not even mentioned, in the primaries. This will actually look more fair than anointing someone who “lost”. (I do not assert that the Party concerns itself with fairness; I speak only of appearances, in the eye of whomever chooses to behold them.)
I will now go out on a further limb and predict that the eventual nominee will be a member of the House. I suspect that it will be a member of the Freedom Caucus, but I will not today elevate that hunch to the status of a prediction. The choice will depend upon whether immigration or the person of Mrs. Clinton is thought to be the chief obsession ofg the Republican electorate. If the former, Steve King? If the latter, Trey Gowdy? (It will not be Xtian Dominion; if it were, the easy out would have been to stack the deck for Ted Cruz. If this had been done from the beginning and with a will, he would now be leading in the delegate roundup.)
germy
Iowa Old Lady
@Mike J: Certainly has the virtue of originality.
Mike J
@Iowa Old Lady: Not as original as one would hope.
geg6
@germy:
These guys are the Keystone Cops of politics.
hovercraft
I think this may not end well. I’m thinking “War of The Roses”
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
He claims to be keeping an open mind, but he seems to be an Oxfordian (ie thinks the Earl of Oxford wrote them).
I have to admit, I generally read the claims of the anti-Shakespearians and think, You guys have no idea how writing works, do you? They really seem convinced that people can only write about things that they have directly experienced, which should mean (among other things) that science fiction and fantasy couldn’t exist as genres.
feebog
@germy:
So now it will be lyin’ Ted and backstabbin’ Kasich?
Mnemosyne
@Frank Wilhoit:
I keep telling you guys: Alan Keyes. Rested, (pre-)tanned, and ready.
redshirt
@Frank Wilhoit:
Your predictions intrigue me and I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter.
dmsilev
How the GOP Plans to Stop Trump:
scav
@Mnemosyne: It would be fun to use their rules of logic against most of the book and script writers and come up with alternative authors. Richard Nixon and Jack Kennedy collaborated and wrote The West Wing. etc.
rikyrah
What do they have against Sestack? He seems to be willing to fight.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mnemosyne: They also usually believe only some with a university education could have written the plays. There’s way too much contemporary evidence that Shakespeare wrote them, though if you look slantwise, you can make a fun conspiracy theory.
@Mike J: People are not always as perceptive as one might hope.
catclub
@Shana:
I have Moved On on to the Alicublog comments. I think Esquire comments required facebook or some such.
redshirt
@rikyrah: Sestak = Sleestak = Do Not Want.
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
IIRC, there’s pretty good evidence that, as a middle-class merchant’s son, young Will would have gotten a pretty thorough classical education that would be the equal of a modern university education.
It’s the snobbery of the claims that really annoys me, frankly. An educated middle-class man couldn’t possibly be the intellectual equal of an aristocrat because reasons.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Follow
catclub
@Origuy: I do not know the details, but I know the main basis for the problem is that PR does not have access to any normal kind of bankruptcy proceedings. It was left out of laws for either cities or states.
I do not see the solution as a bailout from the feds.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, Shakespeare fans should track down Fritz Leiber’s affectionate modern ghost story, “Four Ghosts in Hamlet.” Leiber himself spent some time in a Shakespearean touring company and combines that with his ghost story.
redshirt
@Mnemosyne: Have you seen Whedon’s “Much ado about nothing”?
gf120581
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: At this rate, if Sanders wants to keep any shred of his reputation intact, he needs to pull the plug on his campaign soon or do some serious soul searching, because he’s rapidly becoming a parody of himself.
At least muzzle his idiot surrogates. Tim Robbins is now screaming that because exit polls were off, of course NY was stolen. Where does he find these clowns?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: I read the other day that he has a history of being undisciplined and disorganized as a candidate after knocking Specter out
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
I’m not sure what the other options are. As a US territory, we do have some responsibility towards them.
Mnemosyne
@redshirt:
Not yet, but it’s in our queue.
Mike J
@gf120581: http://i.imgur.com/3akry82.jpg
Miss Bianca
@Lamh36: I have no words.
redshirt
@Mnemosyne: It’s great, but then I am a Whedonite.
burnspbesq
@Lamh36:
My only beef with Beyoncé is that she sucks all the air out of the room and prevents other African-American female artists like Rhiannon Giddens and Esperanza Spalding from getting the attention they deserve.
Mnemosyne
@burnspbesq:
This is snark, right? Because they’re not in the same genre. It’s like being pissed that Jay-Z is drawing attention away from Wynton Marsalis.
Major Major Major Major
@gf120581:
It really is peculiar. It’s like they’re completely new to the whole political process. Including many, I would say most of the (now quite silent) Bernie fans on my Facebook feed. Arizona was stolen by Hillary because there were voting problems, never mind that the SoS is a Republican and the areas with problems were Hillary-supporting demographic areas. Voting machines had some minor quirky results in Chicago, no shit, voting machines are stupid. Ballot-counting is a little off here and there, no shit, that’s why we have automatic recount thresholds, also we all know there’s a little room for error baked in as a result, etc. Sometimes people get tossed off voter rolls (see Brooklyn), we 1) have an investigatory process for this and 2) this is what provisional ballots are for. And so on. Rrgh. Hanlon’s razor, people.
Miss Bianca
@redshirt: @Mnemosyne: Seconded on that one. One of my favorite comedies, and Whedon gets at the heart of its dymanic much more effectively I think, than Branagh’s did.
ETA: I was going to correct “dymanic”, and then I just decided to leave it as is.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
No it’s not snark. As Mister Ellington once said, there are only two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. When good music gets overlooked, that’s a tragedy. “Genre” limitations are inherently stupid.
Matt McIrvin
@Origuy: I’ve seen it used by libertarians as an argument against national minimum-wage laws. That’s about it.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: I haven’t seen the movies yet, but I love the scores of Vishal Bhardwaj’s Shakepeare adaptations, Omkara (Othello set in western Uttar Pradesh) and Haider (Hamlet set in mid 90s Kashmir). AL front paged a number from Haider, about a couple of weeks ago.
Anne Laurie
@Frank Wilhoit:
Interesting theory, but no way Steve ‘Cantaloupe Calves’ King is giving up, or even risking, his extremely secure Congressional seat in pursuit of what would clearly be a sacrificial run. At this point, it looks to me like the Permanent Republican Party is convinced they’re not gonna regain the Oval Office come November, so they’re just trying to block as many down-ticket losses as possible.
If your hunch comes through, I’m guessing some True Believer Teahadi newbie like Tom Cotton or Mike Lee is encouraged to jump in, on the grounds that (a) a young nutball can afford the hit better; and besides (b) if someone like Cotton or Lee is fatally wounded by a last-minute highly controversial Presidential run, it’s not gonna make any of Reince Preibus’s handlers weep big salty tears.
catclub
@Anne Laurie:
So why is Paul Ryan still in the House after the 2012 election? I presume he ran for both VP and his house seat. Could not King do the same?
Different state rules?
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No, he was not liked by the PA Dem establishment. He ran a very good campaign with little support from the usual suspects here and lost only by about 3% or so. I had donated and done some canvassing for him back then and to this day, I get Christmas and birthday cards from him. And I was just a small donor and only did a few shifts during the primary and general. Does that sound like someone who is disorganized?
david10
@germy: Whatever happened to SECRET backroom scheming and skullduggery?
One of the things that made Jeb? so pitiful was his campaign constantly announcing the devastating things they were going to do next week or next month, to all of which Trump answered immediately-usually by laughing at the poor bastard.
Anne Laurie
@catclub:
Haven’t researched the rules, just thinking about the ‘reputational’ hit. Right now King’s got his seat for life because he’s King of Pigmuck Mountain — he pops up to make vile comments about those people on a regular basis, but that only endears him to the majority voting percentage of people in his district.
If he “runs,” however late and nominally, for President, there’s a much brighter media light shining on him. Even horse-race-tout reporters start asking questions about what this guy is doing for those of Iowa’s voters who aren’t agribusiness beneficiaries, and what he’s gotten from the CAFO lobbyists in return. And his natural homespun charm (/sarcasm) is not well-suited to a broader market… he’ll embarrass the state of Iowa as collateral damage. By the time he limps from July to November, there will be one or more hungry much-more-personable young Repubs lined up to challenge him, and he knows that. From what I’ve read, part of his ‘unlikely’ tenure is that nobody’s cared enough to challenge him from the GOP side — he’s not a smart man, but he’s smart enough not to draw unneccessary attention from potential enemies.
schrodinger's cat
@Anne Laurie: I still owe you those garden photos, will send them to you this week.
Miss Bianca
@Mike J: OMG – that’s funny.
david10
@Mnemosyne: @geg6: And they have no idea about genius-which really is inexplicable. Reading the reactions of his contemporaries, it’s obvious they thought he was pretty amazing.
What the troofers have in common is snobbery-how could this commoner possibly do this-has to be a noble because, you know, NOBLE.
j.a.m.
@burnspbesq:
My husband just saw Rhiannon Giddens at the New Orleans Jazz Fest yesterday and said it was the best show he saw all weekend.
Anne Laurie
@schrodinger’s cat: Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out for them!
Emma
@Mnemosyne: Really? Well, hell.
Mnemosyne
@burnspbesq:
Hate to tell ya, but you lost that argument right around when Elvis’s first single debuted.
catclub
@Anne Laurie: Ah. Thanks for the long winded explanation.
Helpful!
Emma
@scav: Thank you, got it.
Mnemosyne
@Emma:
Sadly, yes. Here’s a debate between Rylance and stage director Trevor Nunn. Rylance basically has the same arguments as every conspiracy theorist: my ideas should count as facts, but your counter-ideas are only ideas!
Miss Bianca
@david10: Well except for this guy, of course – Mr. Groatsworth of Wit (name says more than he thought it did, don’t it?)
Tom
@redshirt: We love it. Amy Acker is amazing. Plus I finally got the joke about “I am an ass” thanks to Nathan Fillion’s performance as Dogberry.
The whole thing is charming, funny and stylish but still accessible.
Don Kasak
Cruz and Kasich teaming up this late in the game makes me think of a similar merger. A similar level of success is guaranteed.
daves09
@Miss Bianca: Greene wasn’t it? Dying, drunken, a failure and at the very beginning of Shakespeare’s career. Written in response to the success of Henry VI-it’s a reference to the description of Queen Margaret.
Scott Alloway
@Lamh36: Fuck them and the horse they they rode in on.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
IOW, “I have no power base which I can use to negotiate to put my ideas in the Democratic party platform, or indeed to make any demands on Hillary at all.”
Paul in KY
@Frank Wilhoit: Darth Creepy would be displeased with your scenario.
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: Rhiannon Giddens is quite a talent. Saw her at Bonnaroo. Very, very impressed.
Paul in KY
@j.a.m.: Does not surprise me.