Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

White supremacy is terrorism.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Books are my comfort food!

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

This really is a full service blog.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: History Made

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: History Made

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This woman is my spiritual sister. Not my actual baby sister, who has kept herself in much better shape, but I could easily pass for this lady’s cousin. (And I too still have my ERA YES pin!)

Apart from looking forward to this evening’s speakers, what’s on the agenda for the day?
.

Reader Interactions

326Comments

  2. 2.

    Poopyman

    @rikyrah: ‘Morning, Sunshine!

    Sooooooo, did anything of note happen overnight? I’m not diving into the last 3-4 threads.

  5. 5.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    The ones that stayed were. They also heard Bill talk about some amazing woman who has spent her life making things better for disadvantaged people. Some probably wished that woman had run so they could support her since she has actually accomplished many thing Bernie said he wants to do.

  11. 11.

    Mike E

    Headline over at Josh’s clickbate corral:
    Obama puts thumb on scale about Trump’s possible ties to Putin.
    Interesting times

  12. 12.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Started with an “H” I think . . . seemed to pretty important to Bill I remember . . . law school grad that did some amazing work for children and on health care issues even while still in law school. Oh well, it’ll come to me I am sure.

  13. 13.

    Central Planning

    My local news just had a clip from a Bernie delegate that was pissed off because Hillary was called the nominee on Monday instead of the presumptive nominee. SMH. Reality is hard.

  14. 14.

    David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch

    Rep. Alan Grayson’s ex-wife repeatedly went to police with accusations of domestic abuse over a two-decade period, according to documents she has provided to POLITICO, revelations that come as the Florida congressman enters the final weeks of his Democratic primary campaign for Senate.

    Lolita Grayson called police on her husband at least two times in Virginia and two more times in Florida, sought medical attention on at least two occasions and said that, in one instance, he had threatened to kill her, according to a police report.

    hooooooocoodanode?!?

    If there were only some clues or signs that could have told us he was unstable.

  15. 15.

    raven

    @Patricia Kayden: He and Hieleman (sp) also noted that there were other Dawg speeches that they didn’t think were that great and it turned out the public loved them.

  18. 18.

    Randy P

    “Looks like we elected the wrong Clinton”

    Bill Clinton quoting an Arkansas voter. As he went through the amazingly long list of just basically c GOOD this lady has done, I was starting to think maybe we elected the wrong Clinton back in the 90s.

    But no, the world wasn’t ready. And it gave Hilary another 20 years to add to her CV. As somebody said this week (Sara Silverman?) she’s actually overqualified to be President.

    Now let’s see if FYWP actually allows me to speak today.

  19. 19.

    Cat48

    Bless her heart! 102 years old & from Arizona? Did they force her to travel to Philly?
    Ok, it looks like she enjoyed her time in the spotlight. Bless her (not in a sarcastic way). I have to drag myself for an MRI appt this am, no energy to go to a convention.

  21. 21.

    rikyrah

    Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
    Bill Clinton on differences between DNC and RNC: “One is real and the other is made up.”

    *Shots Fired*#DemsInPhilly
    9:48 PM – 26 Jul 2016

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

    Nerdy Wonka
    ‏@NerdyWonka
    “When a young black life is cut short it is a national loss. It is a loss that diminishes all of us”

    #MothersoftheMovement #DemsInPhilly

  24. 24.

    Different nym

    For 3 days FYWP has been blocking every single comment I make, regardless of content. This is a test whether changing the nym will somehow fix it.

  25. 25.

    demit

    Was it necessary to comment on the “shape” of the woman in the picture? I was surprised to open up balloon juice & see that first thing. I hope the woman doesn’t see it. Not nice.

  26. 26.

    rikyrah

    Nerdy Wonka
    ‏@NerdyWonka
    Sandra Bland’s mother says the names of the women who died in police custody the same month as her daughter.

    *Chills*

    #DemsInPhilly

  27. 27.

    raven

    Maddow began by giving the end of the speech an A+, but then said, “I think the beginning of the speech was a controversial way to start, honestly, talking about the girl, a girl, leading with this long story about him being attracted to an unnamed girl and thinking about whether he was starting something he couldn’t finish, building her whole political story, for the whole first half of the speech around her marriage to him. I think, unless there were worries that this is going to be too feminist a convention, that was not a feminist way to start. But the end of the speech was really good. I’ve got to say, the top of the speech I found shocking and rude.”

  30. 30.

    rikyrah

    Al Giordano
    ‏@AlGiordano
    This convention isn’t tearing Donald down. He did that himself. This convention is building Hillary up.

  31. 31.

    Betty Cracker

    @David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: In one of his prior races against a GOP knob, Grayson went after his opponent for similar domestic abuse charges, but now that his own dirty laundry is being aired, it’s no fair to bring up family stuff. The polls show Grayson’s primary opponent, Patrick Murphy, in the lead. I’ll be voting for Mr. Murphy next month, then knocking on doors, etc., in the fall to try to help Murphy unseat Lil’ Marco and put HRC in the White House. It would be awesome for Florida to stay in the Blue column for the presidential race and rid ourselves of sniveling crapweasel Rubio.

  35. 35.

    Schlemazel Khan

    If you compare last nights speech to the one he gave in 08 they are very very different. But that wsa intentional as there were very different needs. In 08 WJC brought out the stiletto and artfully carved the GOP into tiny bits. He has been a master of that art for some time. It was all in good humor but every line opened another wound. He needed to do that in part because BHO could not, would not be accepted had he done it. Last night his job was to tell America who Hillary really is, who she has been for 40+ years. He did that perfectly. Those whining about the length, what would you have cut from his speech?

    Anyone paying attention & willing to listen learned who Hillary actually has been, is and will be. I get that some people may be disappointed that he didn’t administer death by a thousand cuts last night but that was not his job. He show the real human that the GOP has projected a monster on & hopefully broke some of that down.

  37. 37.

    rikyrah

    POLITICOVerified account
    ‏@politico
    Bill O’Reilly: Slaves who built White House were ‘well fed and had decent lodgings’

    ……………………………….
    Jay Bookman AJCVerified account
    ‏@jaybookmanajc Jay Bookman AJC Retweeted Media Matters
    We have an eyewitness, First Lady Abigail Adams, who said those slaves were ‘half fed, and destitute of clothing’

  40. 40.

    amk

    @Mike E: Even if the kenyan did, so what? He can claim deadbeat donnie is a national security threat given his russian oligarchs mobsters connection.

  42. 42.

    PsiFighter37

    I thought Bill’s speech was phenomenal. Figures that a shithead like Halperin would think it’s bad, because he only knows if something is good news for John McCain.

  43. 43.

    Cat48

    @raven:

    The story of how they met at Yale isn’t new. He and Hillary have both told the story in speeches. I guess Maddow never heard it. I knew what he was going,to say.

  45. 45.

    David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Drew McCoy
    ‏@_Drew_McCoy_

    Clinton’s ability to weave between personal and professional is incredible.

    He’s so good at this.

    7:22 PM – 26 Jul 2016
    49 retweets 64 likes

    Rick Wilson ‏@TheRickWilson

    Still one of the most gifted speakers of our time.

    53 retweets 253 likes

    The above tweets are from republicans. There are many more. You can oppose a person and still recognize skill. I don’t like Bill Belichek, but at the same time I recognize he’s a great coach.

    The only people didn’t like the speech suffer, from one degree to another, from Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

  47. 47.

    MattF

    @rikyrah: @OzarkHillbilly: In fact, slaves were so well-treated that when they wore out, their owners could sometimes trade them in and get a pretty good allowance in their purchase of a new one.

    ETA: Repeat of comment in earlier thread…

  48. 48.

    geg6

    @Cat48:

    This.

    I guess Rachel hates any and all books and movies where the central couple “meet cute.” Jeezus.

  52. 52.

    Cat48

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    @rickyray

    The wingnuts are quite sensitive about slavery. Rush Limbaugh said it was time Michelle get over slavery! It actually happened & they don’t really know what the working conditions were.

    They are the ones who need to get over slavery. Sorry if the truth makes you wingnuts uncomfortable!

  53. 53.

    Shalimar

    @liberal: Donald Trump says you have a nice house and it would be a shame if something bad happened to it. Would you like to donate to his campaign?

  54. 54.

    liberal

    IMHO a really interesting counterfactual is a common right-libertarian claim that the Civil War could have been avoided if the Feds offered to buy the slaves off the slaveholders.

    Apart from “probably not,” the morally correct payment would be from slaveholders to slaves, obviously. Well, obvious to anyone except a propertarian.

  55. 55.

    Amir Khalid

    @liberal:
    There is an obvious riposte to this, but it would be pointless now to relitigate a failed candidate’s Democratic bona fides.

  56. 56.

    Anne Laurie

    @demit: She’s the same shape *I* am. Nicely rounded!

    ETA: Also, I’m slightly afraid of my baby sister, who could not only beat me up but totally out-cuss me.

  57. 57.

    liberal

    @Shalimar: unlike you, my brain is big
    enough to hold these two thoughts at once: Hillary is despicable, and, two, Donald Trump is Cthulhu and must be stopped at all costs, starting but not stopping with voting for her in November.

    Just checking in with my peeps here who went on and on about this wonderful sharing by Hillary.

  58. 58.

    David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch

    Sabrina Siddiqui @SabrinaSiddiqui

    This segment of Bill Clinton’s speech on coal miners, Muslims and African Americans is not on the teleprompter. #DemsInPhilly

    7:52 PM – 26 Jul 2016
    Philadelphia, PA
    421 retweets 513 likes

    Bruce Arthur ‏@bruce_arthur 8h8 hours ago

    He’s a master.

    94 retweets 147 likes

  61. 61.

    bystander

    @Schlemazel Khan:

    He show the real human that the GOP has projected a monster on & hopefully broke some of that down.

    Yes, but not feministically. That’s why Maddow is upset. He should have discussed her Class rank in law school and showed us her law review articles.

    Yesterday I heard Chuckles muse that Bill C is unhappy because he’s no longer the most popular Democrat in the world. Somebody else on MSNBC, the station of FEMINISM and KNOW YOUR WORTH, then offered up the observation that if Hillary wins, it will be a big comedown for Bill and he’s going to be very unhappy. You know, as a former POTUS, he’s used to a certain amount of deference that will vanish when he’s First Gentleman.

    No wonder I’ve seen every episode of Law & Order and its progeny.

  62. 62.

    mike in dc

    @liberal:

    Whereas my brain is also fairly big and capable of holding the thought that Hillary is flawed and that people are complicated and it can be simultaneously true that she can be a tough, even ruthless pol who sometimes bends the truth and plays ethically fast and loose on occasion, and is someone who has done a very great deal of good on behalf of a lot of people and will do even more as President of the United States.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    News is so upset that Bill didn’t talk about Monica that the news is going to talk about Monica by talking about how Bill didn’t talk about it.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    @debbie: I didn’t see it, but apparently it’s because he called Hillary a girl when describing when they first met.

  70. 70.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Mary: When you get older, and rounder, one becomes more and more accepting of simple statements of fact.

  71. 71.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    @Baud: Donald’s been quite tame for almost 24 hours which means we can expect an eruption of craziness sometime before the weekend.

  73. 73.

    Leto

    @Baud: “And in other related stories, water is wet and the sky is blue. This is Tom Tucker reporting for Duh Network.”

  76. 76.

    Matt McIrvin

    @liberal: The cash value of the slaves was so immense that there would have been no feasible way to do that anyway. They were a significant fraction of the total assets of the US economy.

  78. 78.

    Cat48

    @liberal:

    I only cared about this bc Weaver was railing & saying it was illegal. As usual he was lying. The FEC said it was legal.

  81. 81.

    Shalimar

    @liberal: “All costs” include tamping down our urgent need to throw coal on every shit fire about Hillary Clinton. You can get your fix again when we go back to circular firing squads after the election.

  84. 84.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Joel: My method of watching the conventions is to follow them through these blog comments and watch highlights like Michelle Obama’s speech on YouTube afterward. Saves my sanity.

  86. 86.

    Chyron HR

    @liberal:

    On a scale of 9 to 10, how enraged were you that BLM was allowed on stage at the Democratic convention even after Bernie (or “The Master”, if you prefer) decreed that blacks only get shot by the police because they’re “hanging out on street corners” instead of working?

  87. 87.

    Mike E

    @amk: My take is the phrase, “weighed in” would be the appropriate one to use…the article is a short blurb with no reason to insinuate deception or overt bias

  88. 88.

    wormtown

    @bystander: That is so funny – me too! I end up watching law and order. Love the original, old ones (Chris Noth) and Criminal Intent (Vincent Donoffrio).

  89. 89.

    Emma

    I hold no brief for Monica Lewinsky. She wasn’t an infant when she worked at the White House, and notoriously, she had told at least one friend that “she was going to Washington to get her presidential knee pads.” I hold no brief for Bill Clinton. He was an adult and President and should have known better. But for God’s sake, can’t they be allowed to just leave it all in the past? How many of us would be happy to have some stupid, really stupid, amazingly stupid thing we did twenty years ago be dragged into the light for the entertainment of the Mrs.Grundys of the world?

  90. 90.

    PhoenixRising

    @Chyron HR: thank you. I took a vow to never mention that again after the 10th self-styled progressive asked me why I couldn’t support St Bernard and I told them he said that.

    But we’re letting it go and welcoming our more leftist brothers (remarkable how few sisters) into the Dem tent, giving them a cold drink & letting them share how hard it is to vote for an imperfect candidate to postpone the fucking apocalypse.

  92. 92.

    debbie

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I did that last week, only because I knew I’d start yelling at the tv. This week, I’ve kept PBS on and either listened or watched throughout the night.

  93. 93.

    Oysuzanna

    @demit: I agree. The clause about what shape the woman or Anne’s sister is or is not in seemed unnecessary and unkind. I, too, hope the woman pictured doesn’t read BJ.

  94. 94.

    amk

    gopolitico today

    Trump slams New York Times for ‘pushing Dem narrative’ on Putin

    Trump to Megyn Kelly: ‘Please get your facts straight’

    Trump, Pence peddle competing economic messages

    Trump accuses Sanders of lying about him

    Trump: ‘I have ZERO investments in Russia’.

    LMAO. The racist pos fucker is panicking.

  95. 95.

    Betty Cracker

    @mike in dc: You mean human beings are complex creatures rather than two-dimensional cartoons enacting some crackpot morality play that underscores my personal virtue? Damn!

  96. 96.

    Baud

    @debbie: I hate to say it, but I enjoy watching the Dem convention. Can’t watch the GOP anymore. Too disgusting.

  97. 97.

    Mike E

    @Emma: the tweets iirc had a good point about this, that Hillary’s grand bio isn’t the time for Bill’s deathbed confession about his past transgressions and you really have no sense if you think it was (or you’re a troll :)

  98. 98.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Emma:

    How many of us would be happy to have some stupid, really stupid, amazingly stupid thing we did twenty years ago be dragged into the light for the entertainment of the Mrs.Grundys of the world?

    #3 on the list of reasons why I would never run for political office.

  99. 99.

    bemused

    @rikyrah:

    Ignorant asses collecting huge paychecks like O’Reilly so easily shoot off their mouths, historical facts and human decency be damned. They have no worries about any twinges of shame or fears about being ridiculed sneaking up on them, not in the privileged, white cocoons they live in. They don’t want to acknowledge the huge role that immigrants from all cultures, not just white Europeans, has resulted in America being the wealthy, superpower country it is today. I think diversity terrifies them.

  100. 100.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    I didn’t see a photo of what the stage looked like for Trump’s speech until a couple days ago. Unbelievable. If that didn’t make Republicans uneasy, nothing will.

  101. 101.

    Matt McIrvin

    @debbie: Early Monday evening it sounded like the whole convention was about to collapse into a chaotic Berniebuster shitshow, and the whole election was going down the 1968 toilet in real time. I couldn’t watch that.

  108. 108.

    Different nym

    @rikyrah: Yes, but that comment had to be released from moderation jail. Under my normal nym they are just desaparecidos without a word.

  109. 109.

    rikyrah

    @amk:
    “I have zero investments in Russia. ”

    Um, Ferret Head, that is not the accusation.
    The accusation is that Russia had invested in YOU.
    That you are a bought and paid for Russian subsidiary.

  112. 112.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    @rikyrah: Interesting that Trump is probably telling the truth when he is avoiding the question asked.

  117. 117.

    Different nym

    @Mike E: Bill’s speech said what others said all night, but he said it as someone who has known her and admired her longer than any of the others: this is a Good Person, and when she says she has your back she means it and shows it with action.

    And she has been making things better her whole life. The listening and caring she did in her Senate campaign didn’t start there. She’s always been that way.

  119. 119.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: Yep. It’s a very lawyerly response, from both Trump and his spokesbot. Will the media let him get away with it?

  120. 120.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump · 10h10 hours ago

    I hate to say it, but the Republican Convention was far more interesting (with a much more beautiful set) than the Democratic Convention!

    What’s the matter with you all? Don’t you appreciate interesting, beautiful, hyuuuuge stuff?

  121. 121.

    bemused

    @Emma:

    I can’t think of a presidential family so free of scandal or even dumb but not serious incidents than the Obama family. It is really deranged that the Obamas are the quintessential American family but are vilely attacked.

  124. 124.

    demit

    @OzarkHillbilly: The ‘statement of fact’ was a gratuitous comparison of one woman’s body to another’s. I imagine a woman wearing a vintage ERA button is all too familiar with women’s bodies being fair game for negative comment by strangers, so if she sees this she’ll probably just sigh and wonder if that will ever change.

  126. 126.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    @Betty Cracker: Nope. Just ran two different tests, both apparently spam-filtered. Shifting nyms again since it looks like this will be me for the foreseeable future.

  127. 127.

    Quinerly

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    That Guardian piece nailed it. Thanks so much for the link. Maddow should read it. Maybe she will learn something about how Southerners tell a love story.

  128. 128.

    Emma

    @bemused: Agreed. But I think even those of us who resist an automatic “it’s the skin color thing” have come to realize that “the skin color thing” is all there is to a sizable minority in America.

  129. 129.

    NotMax

    @Iowa Old Lady

    R set looked like pieces cobbled together from a government surplus stash of nuclear bunker components.

    D convention set alternately looks like an upscale subway station or (gasp!) a wall.

  131. 131.

    evodevo

    @OzarkHillbilly: YES. This. And that is why I laugh every time I hear/read someone whining about why we can’t recruit more “normal/non-sociopathic/narcissistic” people to run for office at the local/state/national levels. Who doesn’t have any skeletons/dysfunctional relatives in the closet? Who doesn’t have an incident from the past that they would rather forget, or something they said that came out wrong? NOBODY. A single speeding ticket or offhand comment could be instantly magnified in today’s social media environment into an “INCIDENT”. No thanks, I’ll watch and kvetch from the sidelines…

  132. 132.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Still, the weekend was fruitful for Trump. He received a portion of the $14 million paid by Agalarov and other investors to bring the pageant to Moscow. Agalarov said he and Trump signed an agreement to build a Trump Tower in the heart of Moscow — at least Trump’s fifth attempt at such a venture. And Trump seemed energized by his interactions with Russia’s financial elite at the pageant and a glitzy after-party in a Moscow nightclub.
    “Almost all of the oligarchs were in the room,” Trump bragged to Real Estate Weekly upon returning home.

    Almost all. He knows them well enough he knows which oligarchs were missing? It’s amusing that most of this stuff circles back around to the Trump’s themselves saying something about it- Don Sr and Don Jr. They can argue that they all lie constantly (true) so they’re not reliable either but that’s why we need the ordinary financial disclosures any other politician would be pressured into making.

  133. 133.

    msdc

    @Cat48: Trump does not have a more dedicated foe in the media. Marshall has been right about Trump from the beginning, and he sees clean through his bluster. (Trump’s Razor is just brilliant.) He was also the first guy asking serious questions about Trump’s ties to Putin. I hope Hillary’s oppo research people are taking note.

  135. 135.

    Mike E

    @raven: Did you hear any of Trump’s speech in Charlotte at the VFW? I avoid listening to him doing his normal spiel but he sounded as if he ain’t gonna make it to Nov

  136. 136.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @demit:

    so if she sees this she’ll probably just sigh and wonder if that will ever change.

    My bet is she laughs. Don’t get your panties in a bunch over a simple observation. Once upon a time I was a rock hard carpenter/ cave explorer, but not any more. Now when I go to the Doctor’s and the nurse says, “Let’s see how much you weigh.” and she adjusts the scale up, I say “Fat”, she adjusts it higher up, I say “Fatter” and when she finally gets it right, I say “Fattest”.

    Don’t condescend to us. We know what we are. Our feelings are not hurt by simple truthful and obvious observations. We are over it.

  137. 137.

    Keith G

    Due to an early bedtime, I just now listened to Bill’s speech, actually watched it on YouTube. I really liked it a lot. Like Michelle Obama’s presentation, it was less of a speech and more of a conversation between friends.

    I also found it so poignant that the once formerly young and robust Bill Clinton, is neither. And that’s sort of okay because I like this version of the man just as I liked the former version.

    Maybe I like this version more because the humanity is so much more apparent.

    I hope that Hillary uses the lessons of Michelle and Bill and avoids giving a loud, rousing speech tomorrow, but instead gives a calm yet thorough (in about 3000 words which would be double Michelle’s word count) discussion about the issues we face and what she intends to do about them.

  138. 138.

    raven

    @Mike E: I missed that. Ohh, little hedge here “”The VA system will remain a public system because it is a public trust,” he said.”

  139. 139.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: As I said last night, I thought it was a beautiful speech. I finally found a full transcript this AM. From CNN:

    Hillary will make us stronger together. You know it because she’s spent a lifetime doing it. I hope you will do it. I hope you will elect her. Those of us who have more yesterdays than tomorrows tend to care more about our children and grandchildren. The reason you should elect her is that in the greatest country on earth we have always been about tomorrow. You children and grandchildren will bless you forever if you do.

    Perhaps he didn’t mean it this way, but (as I said last night) I thought he was telling us about his mortality. Of course, it is something that we should all keep in mind. And maybe I’m reading too much into it, but coupled with his thumb twitching.

    But who knows.

    It was a great speech, no matter what the haterz say.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  140. 140.

    Quinerly

    @Mike E:
    He ranted that no one has said “ISIS” at the DNC. At that point the second day hadn’t even been gaveled in

  142. 142.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
    I ache in the places where I used to play
    And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
    I’m just paying my rent every day
    Oh in the Tower of Song
    I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get?
    Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet
    But I hear him coughing all night long
    A hundred floors above me
    In the Tower of Song

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiAuXRK3Ogk

  144. 144.

    Kay

    Negotiations over the two hotels eventually fizzled, but in 2008 the Trump Organization was at it again, announcing it planned to build elite residences and hotels in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi, and license the Trump brand for other projects. Donald Trump Jr., the candidate’s son, made the announcement in a speech at the 2008 “Real Estate in Russia” conference.
    The younger Trump made over half a dozen trips to Russia on behalf of the Trump Organization in the two years during which the U.S. real estate market was collapsing during the Great Recession.
    “The emerging world in general attributes such brand premium to real estate that we are looking all over the place, primarily Russia,” Trump Jr. told a Manhattan audience in September 2008. He said that while Russia was on the Trump Organization’s “A-list” of emerging markets for investment, doing business there carried risks due to corruption and “because it is a question of who knows who, whose brother is paying off who, etc.”

    “Etc.” :)

    Obama apparently gave an interview where he raises this issue. Media will freak out but in the interview Obama says that Trump himself has said these things. That’s true. Obama’s source is Donald Trump.

  145. 145.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: OH NOZE!

    Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has exiled some of his players from first-team training until they meet certain weight targets.

    Defender Gael Clichy says the Spaniard has told his squad to avoid pizza, some juice and certain “heavy food”.

  146. 146.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Cat48: The cognitive dissonance between their poo-pooing actual historical slavery in the USA, and their rhetoric about tyranny and freedom and liberty, is astounding, also too.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  149. 149.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I understand where President Clinton is coming from. As I said, I’m 56 and could say the same thing, but it’s more than age. President Clinton has had open heart surgery and I think it really does focus you on your mortality(I know it did when my dad had his). I had a pretty serious health scare 6 years ago(it’s why I quite drinking), and it certainly had the same effect on me.

  151. 151.

    Iowa Old Lady

    I wonder if Maddow et al missed the power of Bill Clinton’s speech because parts of it were a candidate’s spouse speech and they were expecting the speech of a politician/officeholder/candidate.

  153. 153.

    gogol's wife

    Now that the rude children have gone home, this convention is fantastic teevee, as long as you’re watching on CSPAN. The little videos in between the speakers are wonderfully illuminating, and the musical acts are mostly charming. I am so excited for tonight — Biden, Kaine, and BHO! Watch CSPAN and forget about Maddow! Form your own opinions.

    Favorite moments last night: Mothers of the Movement, the Dean Scream, and Bill Clinton’s speech. I truly am learning a huge amount about Hillary Clinton, after thinking I knew all about her. Her work as NY senator is coming into focus.

  154. 154.

    NotMax

    raven

    Got another war movie for you to add to your list. On Netflix, A War.

    Spare and brutal (the latter not in a gory or salacious sense, rather by dint of circumstance).

    Wikipedia page.

  155. 155.

    gogol's wife

    @gogol’s wife:

    Oh, and how could I forget Madeleine Albright — “Coming from Czechoslovakia, I know what happens when you give Russia a green light.”

  156. 156.

    Mike E

    @Quinerly: Not the ‘policy’, just that his voice sounded like he’s barely holding on to his shit…not that I’m concerned, an acme anvil can drop on his ass for all I care

  159. 159.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Everybody knows “Everybody knows”. It’s a classic. “I’m your man” I’m unsure of, it tickles the edges of memory but that’s all.

  160. 160.

    Quinerly

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    It seemed to be mostly Maddow and Nichole Wallace. They were freaked out by the his usage of the word “girl.” I think Maddow mentioned something about his history…it seems they thought because he was telling a “boy meets girl” story of 40 years ago people would think of Monica. It was particularly weird when Todd, and the men had to explain it to them. Todd hardly says a kind word about any Dem but he really seemed to like the speech. Are other pundits on the shows, etc talking about that angle this morning? I have read that some thought Bill should have used it as some sort of deathbed confession about his transgressions. It was her night, he was telling their story and her story…quite frankly, I don’t understand why he would bring up their marital problems of 20 years ago. I’m appalled that someone would think he should have.

  161. 161.

    D58826

    So the latest ‘unforced error’ is McAulif saying Hillary will flip on TPP after the election. You know what he is right. In fact so would President Bernie. The TPP was negotiated to address a set of economic/policy issues confronting the US and the Pacific Rim countries with regards to China. Obama didnot get up one morning and say lets see if I can screw the workers in the rust belt sop I’ll negotiate the TPP. I’m not saying the TPP is the best approach but the issues are real. If President Bernie did not address them he would not be doing his job. Maybe he would have had a better approach and then maybe not but the issues have to be dealt with. And this isn’t a knock on Bernie. Just an observation that reality sucks
    The same can be said about NAfta. It was negotiated to solve a set of problems not destroy America. I’m sure there is a closet full of economic papers arguing the pros and cons of the treaty but if any one thinks that w/o NAFTA the economy of the 1950s would still exist is nuts. Like Elvis that economy has left the building.

  162. 162.

    Mark B

    @Quinerly: I am concerned that there is a large bloc of American voters who care about nothing but killing people they think of as ‘Sand n*****rs’ and don’t care if the economy is destroyed and America is turned into an authoritan hellhole. Those people are Trump’s core. I don’t think having the Democratic nominee cater to them is a winning strategy, because there is no way to out-crazy Trump, but you need to peel away the people at the edges, and try to help them see how their fears are being cynically exploited by a man who cares nothing about the future of America.

  163. 163.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:

    It was a great speech, no matter what the haterz say.

    This. Bill told a well-delivered, sweet story, full of admiration and respect for the accomplished woman he so clearly loves. I’ve been watching on C-SPAN, which I highly recommend. No need to have my experience filtered through the bloviators. Alas, I have found Rachel unwatchable for some time now. I prefer BJ for opinion, informed and otherwise.

  164. 164.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Quinerly:

    I don’t understand why he would bring up their marital problems of 20 years ago. I’m appalled that someone would think he should have.

    I’m appalled that anyone should think anyone should about anyone’s marriage. Every marriage is different and nobody’s business but the 2 people in it. Gawddamn.

  166. 166.

    Mark B

    @D58826: Yeah, trade pacts are political poison, but their overall economic impact is positive. And trying to back out of them is going to be really destructive. I think some positive changes can be made at the margins to TPP and NAFTA, but if the US started to become protectionist, it would have a similar effect to our economy that Brexit is causing to Britian, but much much worse.

  167. 167.

    eric

    So, the Teamsters endorsed Portman in Ohio over Strickland. This is why we cant have nice things. Kay….WTF?

  169. 169.

    Eric U.

    @O. Felix Culpa: I once predicted that the internet would kill opinion pieces in newspapers. Hahaha, I was wrong. But more to the point, all media has moved away from informing us and everything carries a heavy baggage of opinion.

  171. 171.

    raven

    @D58826: Mrs Greenspan just chased him down and asked him. He said she would support it if the changes she wants are made.

  174. 174.

    Mike E

    @O. Felix Culpa: CBS said he “gave the speech of his life” tho Nora pointed out he did the ‘Clinton lip overbite’…I don’t have cable so I try to watch the least egregious coverage, if possible

  176. 176.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    @raven: That’s one of my favourite songs to cover. I medley it in with Cowgirl in the Sand by Neil Young; they have some similarities in their chord progressions. Both from the Great Canadian Song Book.

  177. 177.

    amk

    @eric: I read coupla months back that seiu members were outright for deadbeat donnie or at least trump curious. Self destruction.

  178. 178.

    Quinerly

    In other news, Tucker Carlson’s rag is screaming that flags were banned from our convention. Literally banned. Yesterday, The Daily Caller was bitching about flag pins. Today it is actual flags. Obviously he didn’t see Meryl Streep’s dress. Great little Vanity Fair piece on-line about that dress. If this is all they got today,I think we will be OK.

  179. 179.

    Kay

    @D58826:

    Everyone who actually follows trade knows the basic framework of TPP is a done deal. They don’t negotiate these for 8 years and then not pass them. Fast Track is passage.

    The opposition is a negotiation. They want added legislation/executive action to address the issues. They can get that from Clinton.

    TPP won’t have much effect on manufacturing- the US has already ended most trade barriers to imports re: manufacturing. They got Japan to lower some of Japan’s barriers to US-made automobiles in the TPP. There are two sides to this- in the past the US has dropped trade barriers to imports and other countries have not reciprocated. Some of the TPP is an effort to address that- that’s what Obama means when he says it’s “improving” NAFTA. He means leveling the trade playing field for the US, Canada and Mexico re: manufactured products.

    You’re seeing the same thing now with ag products- we let ag imports IN, but other countries don’t reciprocate. The TPP is an effort to address that.

  181. 181.

    Matt McIrvin

    I have just been informed that the corrupt media are giving no coverage to Bernie-or-Busters.

  182. 182.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Watched it yesterday and at first dismissed it as too curt and too pat.

    Hours and hours later must dismiss that estimation, finding a delayed reaction of it still unfolding in my consciousness like a brittle flower blooming. Haunting.

  189. 189.

    Kay

    @D58826:

    Part of the misunderstanding about trade is due to what was the preferred narrative- that US companies couldn’t compete and therefore imports rose by the natural action of markets. But that isn’t what happened. The US opened markets and their competitors left barriers in place. This is from the US Trade Rep site:

    TPP presents a significant growth opportunity for U.S. auto exports.
    Historically, U.S. auto exporters have faced a broad range of formidable
    barriers to export in TPP countries, particularly in Japan. TPP addresses these
    barriers.
    • TPP includes a range of new tools to open markets to U.S. auto exports,
    while at the same time protecting our workers and firms.
    • TPP eliminates foreign taxes in the form of tariffs on exports of Made-inAmerica
    cars and trucks. That includes eliminating Malaysia’s 30% foreign
    tax on autos, and Vietnam’s foreign tax of 70% on autos.

    I think free traders problem is that for 40 years they’ve been saying this was all the natural operation of markets so even when they try to fix past trade deals and level the playing field people don’t believe them- they don’t believe them because they told us it was all the natural operation of markets. They neglect to mention that other countries kept trade barriers to US imports in place.

  192. 192.

    Kay

    @raven:

    Hah! Well, no. One (real) complaint about Obama’s trade deal was he got nothing from the GOP Congress in return for a trade deal THE GOP WANTED. They did want it too- badly. I myself don’t understand why he didn’t demand something big in return, like an infrastructure bill. Obama knows what a tough sell this would be for Democrats in an election year. If they had an infrastructure bill to soften the blow it would go down a lot easier. Obviously I don’t know what happened between the WH and Congress and maybe there’s a good reason the WH asked for and got nothing from the GOP Congress in return, but I’m mystified by that.

  194. 194.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Kay: Which I agree that it is a problem. What’s also a problem is the people who are indulging their reflexive protectionist/isolationist impulse and thinking we could build a ‘Fortress America’ economically, which would somehow serve our needs to manufacture and sell product both here and abroad.

    I can understand having a fear of getting screwed on a deal, I have that fear too. At the same time, we do not live in a world, (never did really) where we can afford to wall ourselves in on this regard.

    EDIT: Also I think the reason we didn’t get an infrastructure bill as a side bill to the TPP is because he knows the GOP has gone completely off the rails in who they elect as officeholders, so the question was do we try and get a framework for a deal or sit and twiddle our thumbs until either they (the Rep. office-holders) or the public get struck by the clue bat.

  197. 197.

    Patricia Kayden

    @raven: What the …? The beginning of President Clinton’s speech revealed that she was a social justice activist long before they were married, moreso than most of us knew. It was a great way to tell us something positive about his wife that most of us may not have previously known. I thought it was great. Oh well.

  198. 198.

    bystander

    @debbie:

    Some people just don’t recognize CLASSSYYYY even when it’s screaming at them.

    @wormtown:

    And SVU! Hargitay and Meloni! L&O was my gateway drug. I now watch CSI: Miami, which has the worst acting on tv.

  199. 199.

    D58826

    @Kay: yep. at some point call it what you will the US has to talk to other countries and make agreements with those countries. We will not get everythingt hat we want but that is why is is a negotiation and not an ultimatum. It happens over the price of widgets and the path to a nuclear weapon.

  200. 200.

    MomSense

    @Quinerly:

    In the video I posted of Tom Harkin’s speech, you can see large flags on the stage, four or five on each side. This is all manufactured BS.

    Oh and I’ll add to the reason some of the pundits didn’t like Bill’s speech. He wasn’t just knocking the RNC portrayal of his wife, he was knocking the media portrayal as being made up. Every one of the narratives the RNC has used about Hillary has been repeated and, in many cases, promulgated by our mainstream media. They may use the “some say” construction or other BS to try to separate themselves from the smears but it doesn’t change the slimy nature of the “reporting”.

    ETA Fox is my favorite though. They literally just turn the worst smears into a question. Obama a secret Muslim? Hillary Clinton not trustworthy?

  201. 201.

    Kay

    @BlueDWarrior:

    What’s also a problem is the people who are indulging their reflexive protectionist/isolationist impulse and thinking we could build a ‘Fortress America’ economically, which would somehow serve our needs to manufacture and sell product both here and abroad.

    I;ve said this a lot but I reject this framing. I was disappointed the President used it. You really don’t have to tell people who actually work in manufacturing that markets are global. The whole “bring up the drawbridge” theme is just dodging what are real issues.

    It enrages them because it’s both patronizing and blatantly untrue.

    It isn’t that difficult. If you tell them they’re competing with Japan and Japan puts tariff’s on US imports and the US doesn’t put tariffs on Japanese vehicles that’s not a level playing field. You can’t blow smoke up their ass forever. How are they supposed to compete if a country puts a 70% tax on US-assembled goods that come into their domestic market but the US allows foreign goods in w/no tariffs? They know this. They know the claims that it’s a “level playing field” are bullshit. Free traders were never straight with them. I have no sympathy for free traders. The blowback was inevitable.

  202. 202.

    Patricia Kayden

    @David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: Didn’t know that about Ms. Maddow. She seems very sensible to me so that’s too bad. President Clinton, despite his personal shortcomings, was a great President and the economy was popping in the 90s. I have no reason to dislike him, especially considering the horror which followed him between 2000 and 2008.

    Hope Maddow’s dislike of President Clinton doesn’t translate into the way she covers Secretary Clinton.

  203. 203.

    amk

    @Kay: It’s an open secret that the rethugs wanted TPP desperately. And yet, here we have their klown candie lying about not signing it. And the msm is fixated on hillary’s stand on it.

  205. 205.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Quinerly: I’m surprised that Tucker Carlson didn’t have a heart attack when the “Mothers of the Movement” took the stage at the DNC last night. He hates Black people with a passion to the point of justifying Zimmerman’s cold-blooded murder of Trayvon Martin so the fact that he’s rambling about flags instead of Black people is interesting.

  206. 206.

    FlipYrWhig

    @BlueDWarrior: @Kay: The thing I don’t like in the discussion of trade issues is that it seems to me that every trade pact will likely be followed by dislocations and job losses that can be attributed to the trade pact even if it’s a correlation and not a causation. TPP seems to have been the pact _most_ negotiated with dislocation in mind — and labor standards and environmental standards and whatnot, although admittedly I’m not an expert. As with all deals ever struck, people will say that it wasn’t a good deal for this or that reason. At a certain point, being able to export American goods keeps American goods being made and the workers employed, right? So is the solution to go meta and change the _process_ of negotiating trade deals, for instance by having the Sec’y of Labor and EPA chief always be involved (presuming they’re not already)?

  207. 207.

    Kay

    @BlueDWarrior:

    This would never happen, but if free traders in the US had said “our long arc goal is to reduce trade barriers so we plan to lead on that and reduce barriers for imports even though we know other countries won’t reciprocate for 20 years and you guys will get killed in the meantime but it’s worth it, trust us, long term planning” they MIGHT have an easier time selling the idea that they are NOW, 20 years later, “leveling the playing field”. You see why people don’t believe them? They said the playing field WAS level. When Obama announces he will begin enforcing trade deal terms his problem is they have been telling people they DO enforce trade deal terms for 30 years. They’re starting to enforce now? That’s funny- they told us they were always enforcing. Which is it?

  208. 208.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    Trump’s campaign just said they’re not releasing his tax returns. Let’s see what the MSM does about this.

  209. 209.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Kay: I’ll concede that. I don’t know if I would consider myself a true ‘free trader’; but maybe I do have an outsized trust in the ability of our esteemed officials to negotiate these deals in good faith.

    I dunno, when it comes to the opposition to the TPP, a lot of it just seems unfocused. Every deal will have bad points in it, but a lot of the people swinging signs around just seem like they’d reject any massive international trade deal on it’s face because of the ill effects perceived to have come from NAFTA.

  210. 210.

    Patricia Kayden

    @gogol’s wife: Yes, I am really enjoying the DNC too. Watching only on C-SPAN so there is no unnecessary chatterboxing. Looks like the attendees are having fun and really enjoying themselves and I love spotting real celebrities in the audience or on the stage (looking at you, Antonio Sabato).

  212. 212.

    D58826

    @FlipYrWhig: Maybe trade policy would be less poisonous if we had a stronger safety net and programs in place to help the folks who lose out on any particular trade policy. As long as we have vulture capitalism in which the rich get the gold and everyone else the shaft then trade policy will be unpopular.

  213. 213.

    BlueDWarrior

    @srv: And there was an outlier for Hillary a couple of weeks ago that had her up 10 from Reuters I believe. So what’s your point?

    (Btw – Rasmussen had Trump up 7, then down to 1 AFTER the convention, do you think we’re that stupid?)

  214. 214.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Patricia Kayden: Maddow has called out Bill C as a betrayer of gay causes in the 1990s. That’s one of her beefs with him, the one I heard her discuss on TV a few months ago. I assume in her heart of hearts she thinks of him as a bad influence on progressive politics, which is kind of de rigueur among lefties who came of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

  215. 215.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    The difference with the TPP and prior trade deals on labor rights and the environment is those things were side agreements in other trade deals. The TPP incorporates them in the deal. That’s progress.

    OTOH- the fact is trade terms enforcement is near-impossible to do because it can be the equivalent of an economic sanction and economic sanctions are an incredibly hostile act, country to country.

    Even the enforcement bluster is a bit of a fantasy. Is the US ever going to restrict the entry of Japanese autos no matter how many terms of the deal Japan violates? No, the US is not. “Trade sanctions” that are meaningful just don’t happen because they are almost an act of war, and trade is foreign policy, among other things.

  216. 216.

    D58826

    @Kay:

    so we plan to lead on that and reduce barriers for imports even though we know other countries won’t reciprocate for 20 years and you guys will get killed in the meantime but it’s worth it,

    Will be easier to build trust and support if instead of saying ‘you guys will get killed in the meantime’ they said ‘and this is how we will help you bridge that gap’.

  219. 219.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    There’s just so much BS around trade. The Administration says they have “won” every dispute at the WTO, but it;s like prosecutors who claim they have a 100% conviction rate. You get a 100% conviction rate by only prosecuting the most safe cases. Winning one case of one case brought is “100%” :)

    A lot of it is eye-rollingly shoddy marketing, really.

  220. 220.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: Would giving the Labor Dept. one or many seats at the table help alleviate the impression that the only interests being advanced are those of capital?

  221. 221.

    FlipYrWhig

    @D58826: IIRC they always do say that. There’s always a gesture toward job retraining, no? But that’s cold comfort if you’re the one losing your job when you’re older, or an expert at the thing you do and not the thing that’s supposedly coming next. But then again, if your plant closes when there’s NOT a deal, is it not-a-deal’s fault?

  222. 222.

    Kay

    @D58826:

    Well, what Japan and Germany actually did was ease the transition. They gradually reduced barriers. I don’t know if that’s why they did it but they let their manufacturing sectors gradually acclimate to fewer trade barriers. The US did a kind of shock therapy that I think was driven by ideologues- those horrible “Chicago school” people who are always gleefully and recklessly punishing people for ideological goals while their OWN jobs are safe as houses.

  223. 223.

    NotMax

    @Kay

    Don’t pretend for a second I have familiarity with the intricacies of international trade.

    The provisions of TPP relating to copyright life and enforcement, however, do bother me. A lot.

  224. 224.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Oh, they;re there. Labor unions are actually at the table. One of things that gets lost in the whole “fair traders don’t care about people in poor countries” is this- labor unions are international. One of their main complaints about Obama’s past trade deals is not about US workers. It’s about workers in Central America.

    Richard Trumka can tell you exactly what his problems are with labor protections in Central America- he’s not talking about US workers.

  226. 226.

    BlueDWarrior

    @NotMax: Well there is a compliance problem when it comes to certain countries *coughChinacough* stealing IP. Of course the problem is that we don’t know of a real strong mechanism for resolving these disputes on this scale that isn’t some kind of International Court or Tribunal or whatever. And once you even say you are nominally under the purview of such a things, you aggravate people, rightly and wrongly, who are concerned national sovereignty.

    And then there is the longstanding problem of what to do with smaller actors (bootleggers etc.) who sell copies of finished product. Do you drag them to some court that the international tribunal (or whatever the compliance enforcement mechanism is) approves of and resolve the dispute there?

    Yeah, I can understand why the provisions are there, and why those provisions scare the hell out of a lot of people.

  227. 227.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    You can’t come at this only from the US side. They jail labor union organizers in Vietnam. They’re not bitching about whether a break should be 15 minutes or 20 minutes. They jail and murder these people. It’s dead serious.

  228. 228.

    Quinerly

    @Patricia Kayden:
    I never click on his site so I don’t know all his screaming headlines on the Daily Caller. Saw the story about this flag whine on Crooks and Liars. I’m sure there will be a lot about the moms and BLM being thrown around today.

  229. 229.

    tobie

    @Kay: I’d love a cite on this point about non-reciprocal trade barriers. It’s an interesting angle.

  231. 231.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Patricia Kayden: To watch Tucker Carlson’s descent (or ascent, or revelation) into White Revanchism in this regard is awfully amusing and disturbing. Then again even the prep school kids, which he seems almost sent from central casting to represent, would have had some awful racists amongst them, almost purely due to law of averages.

  234. 234.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: Would you say the “No TPP” cause is about the specifics of TPP, or opposition to anything _like_ TPP? My sense is that, like with the Keystone Pipeline, it’s a proxy for a lot of things and that activists have latched onto it to send a message that they’re capable of raising awareness and stirring up widespread opposition. IOW it’s more about activist/campaign muscularity that can be brought to bear on not only this issue but also the next issue, rather than about the specific policy. (In rereading that I think it sounds more cynical than I intend it to be, but I’ll leave it as is.)

  235. 235.

    MomSense

    @D58826:

    I think that if we just raised wages for everyone and stopped eparating manufacturing from service, a lot of these problems would go away.

  237. 237.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: Does the US insist on having labor, indigenous peoples, enviros, etc. represented in the partner countries’ delegations? Could they? I guess I’m ignorant on this — I thought the big complaint about trade deals was that no one involved was looking out for American workers.

  238. 238.

    SenyorDave

    @Gin & Tonic: I think he can get away with not releasing his tax returns, but no debates? I think that won’t fly with some independents. Plus he’ll get taunted by people like Elizabeth Warren.

  239. 239.

    Quinerly

    @MomSense:
    I tried to reply to your Tom Harkin posting earlier but the reply button just kept sending me back to the video. Wanted to thank you for posting it and wanted to point out the flags. I missed Harkin’s segment yesterday. Had MSNBC on and they showed him walking to the podium, then Kornacki just had to interview Jill Stein (in their press area in the convention). I couldn’t get switched fast enough to C Span and got caught up with Stein saying over and over how the DNC and HRC had sabotage poor Bernie…that he never had a chance. Forgot about the Harkin speech until your post. Thanks again.

  241. 241.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SenyorDave: I think he’ll keep moving the goal posts on debate conditions and never get to a “satisfactory” agreement.

    The refusal to release the tax returns signals to me that he knows he’ll lose in November and is OK with that. Losing an election is not nearly as bad as being embarrassed – he can always blame it on something outside of his control. But releasing the tax returns will show that his fortune is basically a fraud, and he can’t have that. If he loses in November, he will *never* have to release them, and can go to his grave pretending that he’s “really, really rich.”

  244. 244.

    hovercraft

    @rikyrah:
    And Rush has chimed in to add that the Obama’s should just let that whole slavery thing go already, after all it’s such old news.

  246. 246.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Quinerly: I think she is the frozen foods heiress. His father has a collection of antique canes and walking sticks valued (a few years ago when I gleaned this nugget) at $1 million

  249. 249.

    Kay

    @tobie:

    Sure. This is the current ag situation in Japan:

    Reducing tariffs in Japan has been a long-held U.S. trade policy objective, and we have not made progress toward this objective since the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement in 1995. Japan’s average tariff on agricultural products is 14 percent. (For comparison, the average U.S. agriculture tariff is 5 percent.) Japan’s average hides significant tariff peaks: for many products Japanese tariffs exceed 100 percent and significantly restrict trade.

    So they could tell US ag producers that they can’t “compete” (like they told US manufacturing workers) or they could tell them the truth- you are at a disadvantage because the US reduced trade barriers to ag imports but other countries didn’t reciprocate. I don’t blame other countries for not reciprocating. Japan is really small and they probably want a domestic source of food because imports leave them vulnerable, but that’s the truth.

    The trade narrative was VERY good for business interests. US workers were lazy and made too much money! It just isn’t the whole story. You see the problem, right? They’re told it’s a free market for 30 years and then Obama comes along and says he’ll make other countries reduce trade barriers and “level the playing field”. US workers are like “but you guys told us the playing field WAS level- are you lying now or were you lying then?”

  250. 250.

    Patricia Kayden

    @lamh35: I talked to a Black man who said just that. He claims that another prisoner who rode in the van with Gray, witnessed him hitting his head against the van wall with such force that he damaged his own spine. I say bullocks but apparently some people find the whole “he did it to his own damn self” argument to be believable.

  251. 251.

    workworkwork

    @debbie: My wife has taken to shouting at the TV whenever Trump shows up. I’m just tired of all of the vitriol.

    Instead we’re streaming BBC shows on the Apple TV via the AcornTV app. (I can strongly recommend ‘Playing Shakespeare‘, a 1982 series with the RSC presenting a master class in acting the plays. Featuring Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Patrick Stewart, David Suchet and others! If you’re a fan of the Bard, this is a rare treat.)

  252. 252.

    D58826

    @FlipYrWhig: Well the problem is they say it but never follow thru. The changing nature of jobs is as old as jobs just ask all of the buggy whip makers in 1900. The follow thru would include re-training, stipends during the retraining period, possibly moving expenses, early retirement/ssn for old workers but still under 65, economic redirection of a region (make W VA. a major tourist destination and not coal country). There have to be multiple approaches and they have to be customized to the local economy. The retraining a displaced longshoremen in the job rich Port of LA area would be different than for a coal miner the more economically depressed W. Va.
    At the end of the day we have to change the vulture capitalism that rewards a company for laying people off and punishes it for funding a 10 year r&D program to develop a new product

  253. 253.

    Quinerly

    @gogol’s wife:
    I heard it mentioned. Flag pins,flags, and word play…if that’s all they got today, we will be ok. As for the discussion about Trump’s tax returns, I think tho will now dog him. The press wants a story. Quite frankly, I think the press is getting board with chasing Clinton “scandals” that don’t work out. I think the Russian stuff as related to his tax returns has legs. People have started paying attention. Isikoff had a great piece up yesterday. He’ll do around of the shows to discuss it, I’m sure.

  254. 254.

    WaterGirl

    @David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: Not really wanting to defend Alan Grayson, but I read the whole article BooMan linked to yesterday and the situation does not appear to be black and white. But even without being able to sort out what really happened, I would say that no one needs an elected official who has caused or stayed in that fucked up situation for that long.

    Really hoping he does not win.

  255. 255.

    Patricia Kayden

    @FlipYrWhig: I’m not gay so I won’t try to judge Maddow’s stance on President Clinton betraying gay causes in the 90s. Perhaps she’s right about that given that it was President Clinton who signed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” into law. If you feel someone has betrayed you, it’s probably impossible to look at them objectively. I’ve met a few Haitians who have vowed not to vote for Secretary Clinton because of some mess she allegedly did in Haiti in the 2000s. Doesn’t make sense to me but I have no right to judge them for their views.

  257. 257.

    BR

    I’m not a Bill Clinton fan, so the speech was meh to me, but the fact that many others like it is a good sign to me — I wasn’t the intended audience.

  258. 258.

    SenyorDave

    @Patricia Kayden: Who knows, might be true. It is common knowledge in Baltimore that the cops sometimes give a “rough ride” to teach prisoners a lesson. I live in the area, and I remember reading about in the “City Paper” years ago.

    Bottom line is that there was no reason on earth that Gray should have not been secured during transportation.

  259. 259.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Rachael Maddow has some real and serious issues and I’m surprised and somewhat appalled that it’s taken y’all this long to notice.

    Better late than never.

  260. 260.

    BR

    @WaterGirl:

    And don’t forget his offshore tax haven. Grayson is exactly the holier-than-thou fake progressive that we don’t need more of.

  261. 261.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @hovercraft: since slavery was no big deal, when they talk about being the “party of Lincoln”… why exactly do they think that’s something to brag about? The homestead act ?

  262. 262.

    MattF

    @Gin & Tonic: And he’s still wrong. Wanting Manafort’s return is an ‘insider’ desire. What’s wanted is Trump’s return. Why settle?

  263. 263.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Gin & Tonic: The thing is, even if (and it’s a big if) Trump has 3 billion rather than 10 billion, he is really, really rich. But he still had to exaggerate because he’s such a deeply insecure person.

  264. 264.

    Quinerly

    I’m having a problem with the reply button but wanted to throw this out to the commentator above who said Trump has been quiet on Twitter for awhile. I’m thinking he’s going to explode by the last night. Maybe when Chelsea intros her mom, he’ll discuss how small her breasts are compared to Ivanka’s. Fingers crossed.

  265. 265.

    D58826

    @Kay: Just as a very broad generalization that applies to many issues and not just trade policy – from what I’ve read Europe/Japan have a much more stakeholder view of the community/economy where ‘we are all in it together’ whereas in the US it is vulture capitalism and ‘every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost’. With those differing starting points you get very different policy/political outcomes.

  266. 266.

    MattF

    @Quinerly: He can only say ‘Pocahontas’ and ‘Crooked Hillary’ so many times before it becomes obvious that’s all he’s got. IMO.

  267. 267.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I’m not gay so I won’t try to judge Maddow’s stance on President Clinton betraying gay causes in the 90s.

    I am gay and IMHO Rachel was way off base with her remarks, which revealed more about HER than about the actual content and delivery of Bill’s speech.

  270. 270.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Iowa Old Lady: more than that, Trump’s returns, like Romney’s, would put a human face on just how badly the deck is stacked in favor of rich people– I’m still pissed about what the Romneys got away with. There was a story a few weeks ago that Trump has benefited from some NY state or city tax break that only benefits people making less than $500K. I don’t know much about this but is it (still) possible that Trump pays himself, and Melania, a nominal salary while DJTrump, Inc, or something like it, or several somethings like it, actually owns his stuff and pays his bills ?

  271. 271.

    burnspbesq

    @Betty Cracker:

    Am I remembering correctly that Grayson has said he intends to continue managing his little hedge fund even if he is elected?

    How tone-deaf can one man be?

  273. 273.

    O. Felix Culpa

    On another note, it is interesting how little photo coverage is given to, you know, the actual history-making candidate, as noted in TPM.

  274. 274.

    D58826

    We just love our guns

    The military was mourning two soldiers Tuesday who were fatally shot while trying to protect a woman from a gun-toting man in a South Carolina bar.
    Staff Sgt. Charles Allen Judge Jr., 40, and Sgt. First Class Jonathan Michael Prins, 29, “were acting as good Samaritans when they were shot,” said Capt. Adam Myrick of the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department.
    And they paid for their bravery with their lives.

    And 5 children will grow up w/o a father. I hate the NRA. And thankfully Scalia is STILL dead

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/two-south-carolina-soldiers-killed-defending-woman-at-bar-suspect-charged/ar-BBuU6x7?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp

  276. 276.

    WaterGirl

    @MattF: There is another woman who does the same early morning swim as I do. Our demographics are nearly identical but our politics are diametrically opposed.

    She brought up Bill Clinton’s speech last night and I said I had fallen asleep partway through, so I hadn’t heard the whole thing. Did she happen to catch Michele’s speech? Why, yes she did, and she didn’t really care for it. I asked if she had disagreed with the things Michele had said, but she couldn’t really answer that. I said “I love Michele!” and she said “she’s charming in her own way, I suppose, but I don’t care for her”. Her explanation was the Michele takes all these trips that waste the taxpayers money. I said the Obamas certainly live the “family values” that everyone talks about. She said, yes, the family is intact (I saw red!) and they are on their first marriage. Then as I started swimming again she said that she doesn’t like how the Obamas hang with the Saul Alinsky crowd.

    This is someone who in other ways is apparently a lovely, friendly, happy woman. I just don’t get it. I guess the only thing I forgot to ask is whether she watches FOX “news”.

    edited

  277. 277.

    hovercraft

    @gogol’s wife:
    But was it said in the right tone, context, it’s very important how many times it was said. Yesterday we went from it was never said was this a mistake, to today it was said only 6 times is that enough. I’m sure after tonight when Obama and Biden reference it during an overall CiC context it will be yes but was it too late, or did they feel your fear enough? It’s all bullshit.

  278. 278.

    tobie

    @Kay: Thanks for the cite. I just looked at export.gov for information on German tariffs and couldn’t find anything about exceptional trade barriers. Germany has a VAT on all goods imported from outside the EU of 19%. This is high but the it’s worth nothing that 19% VAT applies to all luxury items, too, even if they’re manufactured in Germany or the EU. The hitch is that the tariff on goods normally taxed at 7% becomes 19% when they’re non-EU imports. I need to look up what tariffs, if any, the US has on EU goods. Even if the relationship is asymmetric, I’m not sure it’s a problem. A rise in the total volume of trade with asymmetric tariffs is much better for the economy than a decline in the total volume of trade with symmetric tariffs. The latter amounts to something like cutting your nose to spite your face. (See the consequences of BREXIT.)

  282. 282.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jason Pinter ‏@ jasonpinter 7m7 minutes ago
    Remember that Trump, who won’t release his tax returns, demanded that our president release his birth certificate.
    78 retweets 49 likes

    We never saw Romney’s returns, either, did we? Just a “summary”, something they made up.

  283. 283.

    Patricia Kayden

    @O. Felix Culpa: I read the Joe My God blogspot all the time and have never come across anyone there (I assume they’re mostly members of the LGBT community) who dislikes President Clinton for betraying their community in the 90s. Pretty much everyone there (with a few exceptions) is rooting for Secretary Clinton. I hope Ms. Maddow can overcome her personal dislike of President Clinton enough to give his wife a fair shake. She appears to be doing fine in her election coverage so far.

    P.S. I loved Christopher Hitchens but never understood his hatred for the Clintons either. Just seemed irrational to me.

  284. 284.

    Patricia Kayden

    @BR: Or that he’s been dead for decades now. I assume he and President Obama never even met (but I could be wrong about that).

  285. 285.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Bill wasn’t talking about the past; he was taking us back to when they met and walking us through time with them. When they met, Hillary was definitely a girl to Bill.

    I’m not big on name-calling, but anyone who is upset about that is being ridiculous. (I do believe that word had been under-appreciated until, say Monday night?)

  286. 286.

    Quinerly

    Trump ranting in this press conference. Doing that weird breathing/snorting thing. A lot of questions about Russia and Putin, tax returns. He’ll never make it through the debates.

  287. 287.

    James E Powell

    @eric:

    I feel like the Teamsters have been endorsing Republicans since Reagan, maybe even Nixon. Is it any different with the construction trades? I believe the membership of these unions is overwhelmingly white, no college. Wouldn’t that explain it?

  288. 288.

    hovercraft

    @Matt McIrvin:
    This morning as I headed out the door the stay tuned tease was a delegate who has vowed not to eat till Sanders is the nominee. How long will this poor martyr last 2, 3, 5, 10 hours?

  289. 289.

    Emma

    The Telegraph, the flipping Telegraph, is doing our media work for them.

    The Russian-born fraudster who Donald Trump has claimed he would not recognise was a key player in several of the billionaire’s business ventures, the Telegraph can disclose.

    Mr Trump signed off on paperwork which made clear that Felix Sater was one of the figures in “control” of Bayrock Group, the property firm building three developments using his name, an investigation has found.

    The findings appear to contradict statements by the would-be president and his lawyer, distancing him from Sater, who was convicted for helping to lead a $40 million mafia-linked stock fraud scheme.

  291. 291.

    Kay

    @tobie:

    I don’t disagree with countries supporting sectors they want. I think that’s smart. Germany wants a manufacturing sector so that’s what they planned for and supported. What I object to is US free traders pretending the US was just washed along the tides of markets. We made policy decisions and other countries made different policy decisions. It’s always seemed like a huge fundamental contradiction anyway- we have to “lead” on trade yet we can’t have any impact at all on what happens to US sectors and US workers because that’s “markets”, winners and losers? What exactly are we “leading” then? They have to decide. They’re either masters of the universe making great deals or we’re just floating aimlessly hoping the trade tide comes in. As far as I’m concerned they brought this on themselves. They love the free trade “market” narrative as long as we’re blaming US workers but the minute it became about the deals they negotiate they now claim they’re making all the rules.

  292. 292.

    D58826

    Trump in his presser just invited the Russians to continue to hack Hillary’s e-mails and then publish them, And this mad man stands an altogether to large a chance of winning in November?

  293. 293.

    WaterGirl

    @Iowa Old Lady: There was really no other choice for Bill’s speech. If he gave a barn-burner, he would have completely overshadowed Hillary. So instead he wrote a love letter to his wife and shared it with the world. Excellent choice.

    On a somewhat related note, I really appreciated that Tim Kaine didn’t wear a tie at the rally on Saturday. In my experience, it doesn’t matter what the positions or titles are, a male with a tie is automatically who people look to as being in charge. I thought Kaine struck just the right note in every way.

  294. 294.

    hovercraft

    @FlipYrWhig:
    Don’t ask don’t tell, and DOMA were both enacted during the Clinton presidency, after he had run on allowing gays to openly serve. On an intellectual level she has pointed out that the backlash was severe, especially because he was ‘draft dodger’, but the bottom line is that at the end of his presidency gays were worse off than before. I think she is still bitter about that betrayal because he didn’t fight hard enough.

  295. 295.

    trollhattan

    @D58826:
    Let me guess: in South Carolina it’s legal to pack heat in a bar. Because alcohol and guns go together like peaches and cream.

    Horrible.

  297. 297.

    Original Lee

    @Emma: This. Plus, Dick Morris’s fee-fees were hurt and he tried to fisk Bill’s speech. I don’t follow the personal lives of politicians as if they were celebrities, and I don’t intend to look up Hillary’s career on Wiki, either, so I’m basically reduced to wondering who is paying Dick Morris to shit on the Clintons.

  298. 298.

    James E Powell

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I assume in her heart of hearts she thinks of him as a bad influence on progressive politics, which is kind of de rigueur among lefties who came of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

    I think Clinton and the whole DLC bunch were a bad influence on progressive politics and I came of age in the early 70s, I’m what I like to call the Led Zeppelin Generation. I didn’t like what they were selling – “We don’t like Jesse Jackson either!”

    That didn’t make me hate Clinton. I voted and volunteered for him twice. I am, after all, a Democrat. But I never loved him or cried over him or felt like getting a tattoo. The best narrative you can give them is that they and everyone with a heart was fighting a rear-guard action against the massive right-wing, white supremacist revanche. We believe that wave has broken. We hope it’s rolling back forever.

  299. 299.

    Kay

    @tobie:

    The next giant trade deal is services. This sounds bitter, but I look forward to the keening and wailing from people who work in service sectors when this “global marketplace” hits white collar workers. They were all happy to pile on manufacturing and production as “buggy whip makers”. Let’s see how they react when it’s education and financial services and engineering and other white collar sectors and wages start to plummet.

  301. 301.

    Captain C

    @amk:

    Trump: ‘I have ZERO investments in Russia’.

    Which, of course, says nothing about how many investments Russians have in him.

  303. 303.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Baud: that’s what my wife thought the complaint was, too, but in retrospect I think it was supposed to be something else — that Maddow didn’t like that Bill was telling a story about being smitten with Hillary because (to her) it had overtones of objectification and obsession, like it was driving him crazy and he just had to have her and wouldn’t give up until he did. I think that’s a gonzo way to react to a story that I heard as about a guy whose reputation is for being a smooth talker being caught off guard, bested, and generally outclassed by a girl who was going places and doing things he’d never dare to do. In the story, Hillary is the one making the first move. Hillary is the one telling him no. Hillary is the one doing her own thing and caring about people while Bill is just dumb and in love. It was actually a massive flipping of the script, I thought, whose effect was to say that Hillary was better, stronger, more of an activist, and more dynamic than Bill, who, you know, WAS THE ORIGINAL ROCK AND ROLL PRESIDENT. It’s very weird to take all that and say that it was antithetical to feminism, which is what Maddow said, with a look of dismay and disgust on her face. It was surpassingly weird.

  304. 304.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @hovercraft: If I had to blame one person for DADT, it would be Colin Powell. My recollection is he put his thumb on the scale in a big way.

  305. 305.

    Captain C

    @Kay: Initially, I read a sentence from the quoted passage as:

    He said that while Russia was on the Trump Organization’s “A-list” of emerging marks for investment,

  306. 306.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Rob in CT: I thought Hitchens, like Cornel West, was great when he talked about literature, which in both cases got overshadowed by the crazy

  307. 307.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    The reaction IS weird. They’re uncomfortable with Bill Clinton talking about his marriage, but long marriages are never straight lines. If no one who had a complicated relationship was allowed to talk about it no one would talk about long relationships at all. It’s such a conventional idea of “happy marriage”- they REALLY don’t know people who have complex 40 year relationships? They think it’s like a sitcom? I don’t know how he centers on his wife and leaves out the marriage. WTF? I felt as if I “got it” completely. It’s not a simple story, but what real story is simple?

  308. 308.

    tobie

    @Kay: I think where we disagree is in our assessment of how significant modest differences in tariffs are. I’m not an economist so this is a matter I need to look into. What I do worry about is a protectionist response to asymmetric/non-reciprocal tariffs. This comes to close to the Smoot-Hawley fiasco. The discussion of tariffs also obscures the much larger question of how to maintain manufacturing in the developed world in an age of globalization. This is the real issue around free trade as far as I can tell. And yes, you are absolutely right, that the next sector that will see outsourcing is the services sector. It’s already happening.

  309. 309.

    James E Powell

    They need to make another video like this one, but it will have to be updated to 2016 popular culture. Maybe a scene from Walking Dead?

  310. 310.

    FlipYrWhig

    @hovercraft: Before the DADT policy gay people in the military were far worse off. It was imperfect progress, and better policy was sandbagged by conservative Dems like Sam Nunn. By and large even gadfly gay activists who lived through it know that. It’s DOMA that’s far worse on his record, and even there it was probably better than a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to straight people, which realistically could have happened. I was just commenting to my wife that it’s been ASTOUNDING to see the rapidity with which LGBT people have been destigmatized in broader Anerican society and pop culture. When I was in high school in the 1980s we were only _just_ learning not to say “so gay” as an all-purpose word meaning “peculiar.” That’s damn fast. The 1990s might as well have been the 1890s when it came to baseline levels of pro-gay sentiment, at least among mostly well-meaning white people. It’s easy to forget that.

  311. 311.

    Kay

    @tobie:

    The other aspect of it is state support of certain sectors. If Germany deliberately created a state-supported system that is a skilled trades pipeline, is a US skilled trades person who has to pay for his or her own training on a “level playing field” with a German worker? Again, I’m a liberal. I think the state SHOULD support young people in skills development. But if the US has 28 GOP governors who gut funding for those kinds of efforts is it fair to tell US young people to just work harder because it’s all about quality? No it’s not. It’s partly about certain far-Right policy decisions US lawmakers made over 40 years. Free traders avoid accountability with this narrative. They made a conscious decision NOT to mitigate or buffer or plan for the results of their actions. That’s ideological.

  314. 314.

    D58826

    seems some of the burner or bust folks at the DNC liked ‘old little hands’ presser.

  315. 315.

    J R in WV

    @bemused:

    The Obama’s are the perfect image of a successful American couple suited for the White House. The relevant word in the reason why people dispute this fact is the “vile” part of your post. Vile racists hate it that one of those people has been promoted over their heads.

    Almost every time I see any member of the Obama family is just have to break into a smile for how happy they make me, a 65 y o white bread in southern WV… amazing how that works.

    Can’t wait for Obama’s speech, thought Bill’s speech was great last night.

    Totally successful speech for Hillary, about Hillary, telling her story from her greatest admirer’s point of view. Also a southern love story, which was pretty sweet.

  316. 316.

    tobie

    @Kay: I’m in total agreement with you here. I made this point on another thread yesterday. Germany not only has robust training and apprenticeship programs, it also subsidizes what it considers to be the industries of the future like solar energy. And their industrial policy has been very effective in cornering niche markets–for instance making the equipment that makes wood laminate products. Only one company does that in the world and it’s in Germany. So really no disagreement there. I’m not a gung-ho free trader opposed to government involvement in the market at all. I’m just cautious when it comes to questions of tariffs.

  317. 317.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: Clever to link to vocational training as something related to trade, globalization, and international competitiveness.

  318. 318.

    catclub

    @Mike E: That was exactly what Obama did not do, if you read what Obama said. The headlines on the other hand, assumed that since he was addressing it, he was putting a thumb on the scale.

  319. 319.

    carame

    @WaterGirl: The response to the “Vacations on our tax dollars!” crowd is to ask them if they’re similarly outraged about the vacations taken by military families and police officers.

  320. 320.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Obama apparently gave an interview where he raises this issue. Media will freak out but in the interview Obama says that Trump himself has said these things. That’s true. Obama’s source is Donald Trump

    I love that Kay.

    Go POTUS.

    Get that shiv.

  322. 322.

    Original Lee

    @tobie: This report is from the WTO, and it’s not U.S.-specific. The U.S. has a number of trade agreements that include non-reciprocal tariff breaks.

  324. 324.

    Original Lee

    @Patricia Kayden: Concur. A friend of mine will NEVER vote for Hillary because he believes the Clintons betrayed his fellow pilots back in the day. I won’t say he’s entirely wrong, but I also think it’s impossible for him to feel objective about it, even if he were to be handed a huge file that included a timeline of what everyone was thinking.

  325. 325.

    WaterGirl

    @carame: My response, “Michele Obama is our ambassador to the world!” did not go over well. Perhaps your suggestion will fare better.

Comments are closed.