For a bracing start to the new week, from the Washington Post, company paper in the town where the monopoly industry is national politics:
Hillary Clinton’s increasingly confident campaign has begun crafting a detailed agenda for her possible presidency, with plans to focus on measures aimed at creating jobs, boosting infrastructure spending and enacting immigration reform if current polling holds and she is easily elected to the White House in November…
While careful not to sound as if she is measuring the draperies quite yet, Clinton now describes what she calls improved odds for passage of an overhaul of immigration laws — the first legislative priority she outlined in detail last year — and what could be a bipartisan effort to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges, airports, rail system and ports.
She also could be immediately confronted with a choice about a Supreme Court vacancy that could set the tone for her relationship with Congress, and she plans to immediately champion new measures on campaign-finance reform and ending legal immunity for gun manufacturers.
Her campaign’s to-do list includes assembling a Cabinet that has women in roughly equal numbers to men and that otherwise reflects American diversity, and lobbying has intensified for those and scores of other jobs that Clinton would fill in her administration.
Some Clinton boosters remain concerned that, with an election focused so heavily on Trump’s deficiencies, she could enter the White House without a clear mandate. But Clinton’s team is hopeful that a trouncing of her Republican opponent in November could soften the ground for a robust set of proposals that could be implemented both with and without congressional action…
Apart from dodging the Media Village Idiots groping for their fainting couches, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Origuy
She shouldn’t need to measure the draperies, the windows haven’t changed size since the last time she lived there.
Villago Delenda Est
The only reason the coverage focuses on Drumpf’s deficiencies is that he keeps parading them around like he’s proud of them.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Who was the last Democrat that had a ‘mandate’? That’s for Republicans no matter how they get into office.
raven
The garden club party is over! I didn’t know they were doing a big deal because it was the 10th Anniversary and my bride was one of the two founders. They asked me to do the fish and I did. Many of our friends and neighbors hadn’t seen our addition so it was a bit of a house warming. I’m glad they had their party and I’m glad it’s over.
OzarkHillbilly
@Villago Delenda Est: He is proud of them.
raven
Dylan makes gates.
divF
@raven: What did you do with what fish ?
Applejinx
Yes please.
Calming Influence
Just going back through about 1,000 “note to self”s on my phone. About 18 months ago I noted “write best-selling novel”, followed immediately by “write another best-selling novel”.
I’m pissed that I didn’t prioritize those higher.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@divF: I’m guessing he cooked it.
Calming Influence
@divF: I’m a little worried that “founders” was a typo for “flounders”.
burnspbesq
And of course …
Clinton stabs progressives in the back
raven
@divF: When I thawed it I found that I had three big redfish filets along with the amberjack and red snapper. I brined them all for four hours then smoked the AJ and snapper on the water smoker and grilled the redfish “on the halfshell”. That means that I cut the filets off the fish without scaling it. You grill it that way and scoop the meat out into the tacos. The redfish filets were about 18 inches long so you have an idea of the size, that is a BIG platter!
Comrade Scrutinizer
Clinton wouldn’t be credited with
finding a unicorna mandate if she received 73% of the popular vote and 400 Electoral College votes.Comrade Scrutinizer
@raven: Wow, Looks tasty, raven!
raven
@Comrade Scrutinizer: I bought a new water smoker and it cooked a bit hotter than I had wanted. I thought the AJ was a bit dry but everyone seemed to enjoy it.
Mary G
@raven: Fish look delicious; any photos of the garden?
Calming Influence
@Comrade Scrutinizer: You have to win Florida by a hanging chad in order to have a mandate.
Schlemazel
@raven:
very nice!
rikyrah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Now I’m hungry.
rikyrah
When Clinton wins…
THAT is her mandate
raven
@Mary G: You know I was so focused on the food and showing people the house I didn’t get around to taking any pics. Maybe I should get out there while the mulch is fresh.
Brachiator
Yawn. I don’t think any Clinton booster believes this. You win the presidency, you’ve got a mandate. Clinton should clearly demand that Congress work together with her to solve the nation’s problems (and water the demand down with flowery language, if necessary).
Then she should declare war on them the minute they inevitably talk their obstruction bullshit. Clinton should get her proposals out in front for everyone to see, and push towards a midterm clearing of GOP deadwood.
OzarkHillbilly
Gabriel Sherman, Roger Ailes’ biographer on the fallout of Ailes’ departure from FOX news:
These could be interesting times on the right.
Kay
Oh, good. He’s an absolute moron, even among that bunch.
I bet he has Donald Trump convinced that Hillary Clinton is dying.
divF
@raven: Very nice. I wanted to dive through the screen and get me some breakfast.
Brachiator
@burnspbesq:
She should stab them in the front, too, to make sure they get the message.
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
Stop trying to cheer me up with happy images this early on a Monday morning!
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh, Trump was being prophetic when he talked about people at Fox having “blood coming out of whatever.”
I would love it if Fox collapses between now and election day, or now and the inauguration, paralleling the struggles of the GOP to deal with their self inflicted Trump catastrophe.
Amir Khalid
It’s late August. Whoever wins the election will take office in just five months. Preparing a detailed action agenda and a list of appointees at this stage isn’t measuring the drapes at all. It’s called getting ready to govern, which is what presidential candidates still in the running ought to be doing. I’d like to see an equivalent story about The Donald’s governing plans. if he has any. I’d also like to see what Jill Stein has prepared (he said with a straight face). Such things are what you evaluate candidates for office on.
Schlemazel
@Amir Khalid:
Well, I have heard that Trump told NBC that he could still run “The Apprentice” while in the White House . . . so, thats a plan
amk
What the fuck is a ‘clear mandate’? 90% ? 95% ? Or is it 100%?
Fucking fifth columnists.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Trump actually had a magazine, in 2004. It was a huge flop. Paychecks bounced- at the end they didn’t pay the power bill and the lights were shut off. By then the Trump family had fled- they stuck the dopes who believed their bullshit with the job of closing the place. The Trumps had already distanced themselves and moved on. Despite all evidence to the contrary, media can’t let go of the myth that he’s a great businessman. He’s not. They have to reckon with this reality.
bystander
Moanin’ Joe is fixated on what Trump can do to turn it around. No mention of using Heinz Doofenschmirtz’s Memory Erasinator on the entire country.
The one post I’ve read that I find very troubling is Rude Pundit’s musing on the possibility that Trump is colluding with the Russians to rig the election electronically. Rude really strikes a chord here.
rikyrah
Cheri DelBrocco @cdelbrocco
Omg!
As The Kansas Economy Dies, Trump Appoints Gov. Sam Brownback As Advisor
Calming Influence
@Amir Khalid: Trump’s plan for the White House is just slap gold leaf on everything in sight, so the logistics are pretty straight forward.
Kay
@amk:
They should be thanking Clinton. They all promoted this clown. They’re still doing it- Trump specifically thanked Morning Joe for “nice” coverage on Friday.
She’s all that stands between them and a Donald Trump Presidency. It’s all a big joke until it’s not.
Baud
They should call it her bucket list, just to mess with the deathers.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
But but but Kayayay… He’s a billionaire!!!!
Brachiator
@Kay:
Whatever. I don’t care, and the entire thing would be a flop. Instead of the Fox News Channel you would have the Trump Loser Channel.
Another Holocene Human
@Kay: As someone who grew up with jokes about “the Donald” (thank you Opus) the notion that anyone thinks this clown is a great businessman is a source of endless befuddlement.
I have a lot of folks in Chicago, who will be worked into a state of cold fury if you utter the control phrase “Trump Tower”.
JGabriel
Deleted by author.
Immanentize
@raven: yummy fish! And I loved the Dylan article…. I kinda want one of his creations.
Immanentize
Good morning all. Early Doctor appointment for a check up and off to the office
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
He has TEN BILLION DOLLARS(!) Success!
Who knew one could just make up a number and that’s all there was to it? At the beginning of this I thought “well, he’s a fraud and a liar but Presidential campaigns draw so much scrutiny he’ll be exposed”. It’s almost September when early vote begins and Bloomberg and the NYTimes are the only outlets investigating any of it. They waited until late August.
Schlemazel
.@amk:
Because Trump is such a rotten human being and a shitty candidate Clinton won’t really have won because people want her programs, she will only have won because of Trump QED
Baud
@Schlemazel: But because the email scandal is the worst thing ever, the only reason she could have won is because people supported her policies. QED, motherfuckers.
Schlemazel
@bystander:
Here is the fly in the ointment with that thought: If all the pre-election polls show Drumpf losing big and all the exit polls show Drumpf losing big but the ballots somehow turn out to show him with a majority there will be huge issues. You can steal a win if the vote is close (see 2000) but as far back as the clown is there is no way people are going to accept he won. The best he could hope for would be that the US descends into chaos.But even that would be short-lived.
Immanentize
@Kay: But waiting until August might be a good thing. I am hoping that the Trump news revelations just grow more alarming after Labor Day.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: He has TEN BILLION DOLLARS(!)(in debt!) Success!
FTFY Kay, you’ll get my bill in the mail.
Schlemazel
@Baud:
YOU’LL NEVER get a job at the WaHoPo thinking like that! I on the other hand have a cushy job waiting me there!
Raven
@Immanentize: bet they are cheap!
Kay
@Baud:
Anyone who is surprised that Hillary Clinton is “hard at work” on everything hasn’t been paying attention.
I listened to a panel she held on education. They were completely in the weeds- talking not just about the Common Core but about Common Core testing and specifically the problems with computer administered Common Core tests. She was fully up to speed. When the hell is she reading this stuff? It’s like A, A (1), A (1) (b) subpart e of ONE issue and it’s not even federal.
Donald Trump would have trouble defining The Common Core. He couldn’t do it in his own words.
Baud
@Schlemazel:
Fixed.
qwerty42
@Amir Khalid: … I’d like to see an equivalent story about The Donald’s governing plans. …
Oh dear lord; whatever those “plans” might be, they are probably best shared with a psychiatrist.
satby
@raven: Congrats, sounds like you guys pulled of a great party.
Brachiator
@Kay:
Forbes, Time Magazine and other sources have put his net worth at an estimated $4.5 billion max. It has always been up to Trump to demonstrate otherwise. He has a right to lie about it, since it really only matters to people stupid enough to do business with him.
Now, if he owes the Russian oligarchs or Chinese bankers hundreds of millions, then we have a serious campaign issue.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning!
Schlemazel
@Baud:
Not entirely, one must think hard to come up with the sort of bullshit they print. That level of dishonest puke is not easy.
Baud
@Kay: She’s obviously not wasting her time on Balloon Juice.
bystander
@Schlemazel: That’s a good fly in the ointment.
OzarkHillbilly
….
No fucking comment.
trnc
The July FEC filings are out, and Deadbeat Donald spent a ton o money to collect cash.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-paid-dearly-to-boost-fundraising-227236
bemused
@OzarkHillbilly:
The Hill has WNYC Takeaway podcast with Vanity Fair reporter. Trump and NBC exec discussed doing Apprentice from White House if Trump elected. Media and rightwingers really do have Idiocracy/money fantasies.
If the Hillary campaign or other HRC support groups don’t use this against Trump, I will be extremely disappointed.
Kay
My youngest is doing the phones at the law office this morning. They all filled in during employee call-off emergencies and not one of them pursued that work as adults :)
My daughter is actively opposed to the practice of law. We drove her RIGHT into health care.
This kid is kind of chatty and people-oriented. He’s curious about other people. He might like it. Probably not, huh?
Luthe
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Only way she has a “mandate” is if the Democrats take back Congress and even then the pundits will haz a sad if she’s not “bipartisan” enough.
debbie
@raven:
I didn’t know you could brine fish. What do you use?
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Nah, he’d just hold up the remains of his apple.
debbie
@Kay:
He really is. I don’t know how many listeners he talked into moving up to North Dakota for the Great Fraking Rush just before the bottom fell out, but I look forward to reading about lawsuits.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
He’s “anti” because he saw he should be on FOX. “Common Core math” is “Singapore math” which we have been using in this middle of nowhere place for the last 6 years. They think Obama personally invented a course of study in math. Never mind that the Common Core isn’t a course of study. They don’t know the basic working definition of the thing.
JPL
@raven: How fun!
Baud
@Kay: Singapore math? First I heard of it. Does it use Arabic numerals?
Schlemazel
@bystander:
Unless Putin is OK with the US in chaos. He has no love for Drumpf and will discard him like a used tissue when he is done.
debbie
@Another Holocene Human:
That’s because they’ve falled for his sales schtick. That’s all he is: a salesman. Ron Ronco on steroids.
In light of this latest pivot, I’m surprised his ads haven’t changed. It still speaks of ending immigration, building the wall, etc. My favorite is the tagline, “HIllary Clinton: More of the same, only worse.”
Iowa Old Lady
@Calming Influence: I’m a little worried that he posted the party was over at 5:20 am. You’d think it would be too dark to see the flowers.
jacy
@Amir Khalid:
Since I post a lot of progressive things on Facebook, Jill Stein supports keep trying to friend me. I keep denying their requests. Now if I could just beat some sense into Kid #1 who’s currently all about “third parties.” I raised him better than that.
Kay
@debbie:
It isn’t “fracking” that is an (actual) hot issue here- it’s pipelines through peoples’ land. I sat with a group of them at a political event a couple of weeks ago and these are not “Lefties”. They’re older people with 5 acres and a modest (paid off) ranch house. We had a big trial on it about 6 months ago in a Common Pleas court. The landowners lost. I thought they had the better side of it compared to the pipeline companies. They think it’s a rip-off, that the state has set this up so the landowner gets ripped off with the property rights. I was persuaded. It DOES sound like a rip-off.
They’re wary in rural areas because of CAFO’s- “megafarms”- a lot of people had their property value destroyed when the state was pushing them. They’re scared because they’re older and the property value is equity- it’s 100k in value for people who have maybe 200k in value total if you add equity in property plus 401k or pension. It’s half their assets.
They did everything right- saved, paid off the house, carefully retired and here comes this scary thing they didn’t plan on.
Another Holocene Human
So I’m browsing liberal sites this morning and some folks are seriously defending Ryan Lochte. I don’t get it. I’m not even talking about the white privilege thing. Seriously, how can you be a liberal and defend that kind of behavior? How the heck does Brazil “deserve” it? I’d expect that kind of talk from stupid tribalistic conservatives but not liberals. Lying, cheating, and anti-social acting out are antithetical to the kind of society liberalism is trying to build.
rikyrah
@Amir Khalid:
One party is actually interested in the job of governing. The other is not.
Dems should be focused on running up the score. .beat them senseless.
Baud
@jacy: How do you know they are Stein supporters from their friend requests?
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: For the life of me, I will never understand the opposition to Common Core. The closest I can come is they are complete idiots.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Man, you are blistering and breaking it down like a fraction.
GregB
While Hillary plans to measure the drapes, Trump supporter Mark Foley has plans to measure something else.
Baud
@Another Holocene Human: You sure it’s not just a white privilege thing?
Baud
@rikyrah:
A Singapore fraction.
Another Holocene Human
@jacy: Third parties and alternative voting systems are all the rage among the yout. The fact that exotic voting systems don’t even work mathematically does not deter them. “FPTP is evil, because reasons.” Looking at history, it’s not clear if our system or parliamentary style is better at keeping civilization going. We had a civil war, Spain had a civil war, Britain had a civil war, and maybe it was some underlying issues rather than the details of how reps get voted into office that led to those conflicts and the break down of democracy. But, hell, our caesura lasted a much shorter time than theirs with easily more continuity in the system. Huh? Ever thought about that? OTOH, Canada is still, inexplicably, in one piece.
debbie
@Kay:
I wonder how many of them wouldn’t care if the pipes crisscrossed public lands and parks. I’d like to see them be against pipelines period, not just in their backyards.
P.S. They are against Common Core because they’re convinced socialism is hidden somewhere in there. Also, they hate standards of any kind. No one should be able to tell them how to be smart!
AnonPhenom
Counting chickens a bit?
And what happened to that all important focus on helping the down ballot races?
Anybody thinking this far ahead right now, and regardless of what’s written here I find it hard to believe that Clinton & Co. would be making post-election planning a priority 90 days out, has their head up their ass.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: It may be a white privilege thing. I’m just saying my shock and outrage doesn’t derive from comparing it to how the media treats black athletes. Yes, that is shocking, but this isn’t a case where it’s questionable whether the behavior should be approved or not. We could argue all day about endzone dances, great, greatest, or the worst ill that ever hit the sport. And we could talk about race and endzone dancing. But there’s no ambiguity to me that what Lochte did was Wrong with a capital double-U. I don’t understand how these people rationalize this stuff?
rikyrah
@Kay:
Hillary is Tracy Flick all grown up. And, that is comforting for me. I want a President who actually knows the issues. I want a President who actually wants to do THE WORK of being President. Hillary, like President Obama, is one that will do it.
Baud
@AnonPhenom: Wow, what a ludicrous comment.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
You learn something new every day
Kay
@Baud:
No, Baud. Obama invented it though.
There are parts of it that are odd to older people- they use a grid for multiplication, for example. It’s a fine way to multiply, actually. There’s not all that carrying of numbers. My son flies with it-it’s how he learned. The idea is they understand the concept so can apply – the problems are difficult and they seem really long to people who learned by memorizing operations. Memorizing won’t work and either will “plug and chug” – just putting in numbers until it “works”. They have to think it thru. He’s quick at math – intuitive- so he might be a bad example but it seems superior to me to how I learned. I could get away with just memorizing- brute force. He has to twist and turn and know where he’s heading.
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: Somebody told them it was great, and they passed it. Then the same somebody told them it was evil, and they believed it.
I doubt it took much whispering because throwing rage tantrums over the curriculum is a long honored American tradition.
Also, teachers are complaining about CC, mainly because of evil Republicans basing teacher pay on kids passing CC exams they haven’t been taught on, see: Florida. Some parents may not get the subtlety that the problem isn’t CC, it’s the way it’s being rolled out to try to attack teachers once again.
rikyrah
@Kay:
They should be scared. Dare I assume that your local GOPers are on the side of the frackers?
aimai
@AnonPhenom: Uh…she has more than three people working for her. Its quite common to have a transition team in place. They aren’t the same people as the GOTV people.
rikyrah
@Another Holocene Human:
It’s White Privilege.
I have a very hard time believing that if it had been a bunch of track and field athletes, that people would be defending them….and, you know which track and fielders that I am talking about. .
…..
Uh huh
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: Not surprised at all. They’ve also done tests at private prisons feeding prisoners textured soy protein for all their meals. Some of the men get sick on this diet and their families complain, to no avail. (Textured soy protein, sometimes called TVP, contains some endocrine-mimicking compounds. In tofu and soy sauce these compounds are broken down by fermentation, but in TVP you’re getting a big hit and some people’s systems seem to get disrupted by it. I don’t know if any proper research has been done, but let me put it this way, my grandfather stopped me from eating mature soy beans from the field, said it was poisonous. And he grows acres of the stuff.)
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: My point is I don’t get why they’re being defended at all. Not condemned as harshly, okay, I get it. Defended, no, I don’t get that. There’s nothing defensible. It’s like the fucking pumpkin riot. There’s no defensible there.
Iowa Old Lady
@Kay: The Bakken pipeline is a big issue for Iowa farmers too. They resent eminent domain and fear for the ground water, which is our source or drinking. It’s creates an unusual alliance of farmers and environmentalists.
Baud
Terry Mcauliffe has signed 13,000 individual reprieves to restore voting rights to ex-prisoners. 187,000 to go.
AnonPhenom
@Baud:
right. that stuff was only important to you when the Vermont hippy was running. piss off blue dog.
AnonPhenom
@aimai:
look up the word ‘priority’. the reread what I wrote.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Holocene Human: Teachers are the spawn of the devil. I know, I have 2 sisters who are teachers and another half dozen friends who are. They’re everywhere and they’re all out to get me.
Baud
@AnonPhenom: You fabricated a whole fake narrative based on a Politico article. That’s wingnut activity.
Another Holocene Human
Anyone following Al Giordano? Bernie successfully evaded the system of accountability. He and Lady Macbeth suck even worse than I thought when I voted against him in the Florida primary. What a selfish old prick. Fuck that guy. I hope he loses his Senate seat.
amk
@Baud: Assholish state court.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: VOTER FRAUD!!!!!!
D58826
@Kay: But corporations are people with more rights than carbon based people. end of story
rikyrah
Anyone follow Ferret Head’s twitter feed?
He “outed” Murdering Joe and his side piece.
Peale
@Another Holocene Human: maybe lochte was calling attention to the lack of clean, safe, public bathrooms, which, if it isn’t top of mind for most liberals, is actually an issue whose time has come. Gas station bathroom activists finally have their champion.
rikyrah
@Another Holocene Human:
AL has been on Bernie’s case for quite awhile.
Baud
@Peale: Only by tearing down bathrooms can we hope to build them back up the right way.
Schlemazel
@Kay:
That pipeline was a topic of conversation at this weekend’s pow wow. Any chance those retired folks will stand with the Indians on this issue or is that too much to ask from them?
That is not a sarcastic question.
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
@rikyrah:
Pivot
Cat48
@rikyrah:
That was funny. I was on Twitter when he did that. Everyone was retweeting or sending it to Morning Joe. Joe’s been railing about him all am per Twitter.
Baud
@Cat48: In that fight, we are all winners.
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
eric
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: no fan of either of those two clowns, but why go after your core constituency like this? all he had to do was give them exclusives and they would have been best buds again. sad!
eric
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: Trump (misguided) response: why buy the media cow, when……
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
They’re fighting with each other on twitter over the size of their …. ratings. They sound like they’re 2nd grade.
satby
@Baud: I never imagined that cannibalism could equal the entertainment value of the Olympics. But here we are.
Kay
@Iowa Old Lady:
I was shocked at how close they’re laying the pipe to residences. This older couple showed me photographs. It’s a big pipe, too and they say the company owns the right to put as many as three in the (proposed) trench (it was already flagged to be dug) which they say the lawyers for the company lied about at the trial.
WereBear
ROTFL! To the 900th power.
See, when you herd weasels in an atmosphere of mistreatment…
OzarkHillbilly
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: They’re Republicans. What did you expect?
Joel
@debbie: At least Ron Popeil’s crap works.
amk
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: donnie the thug killed off the gop thugs. If he kills off the cable noise too, I will root for him.
Kay
@Iowa Old Lady:
Our dispute is a little different. The “farmers” (big landowners) are selling the rights. Rural residents are opposed. It’s big landowners versus small landowners.
Farmers always tell me they care more for ground and water quality than anyone else, but I have been dealing with them for a decade and I have yet to see a single example of this. The ground and water are a commodity to them. That’s all. They don’t even live on the ground they’re farming anymore, half of them. They live in subdivisions and pay other people to plant and harvest.
Patricia Kayden
A win is a mandate. Just ask George Bush after he was selected by the SCOTUS. He certainly acted as if he had a mandate and I don’t recall anyone calling him out for that.
WaterGirl
@raven: Glad the party was a great success! Now you get to enjoy the fruits of all your work in preparation for the party – as a result, you are surely way way farther along in your pursuit of “let’s get the outside back in shape after all the renovations”.
satby
77 days to GOTV. I’m putting the countdown clock on my desktop.
I have never in my life before this year just endured waiting for the year to be over, so thanks 2016.
Cat48
@Kay:
That sounds like it needs to go to a new SC. I wouldn’t agree with that at all. My dad sold his property in Ark 25 yrs ago, but he did not sell the mineral rights to the property. He passed away several years ago, but his survivors still get payments from any company that draws out minerals, gas or oil usually. Maybe states are different or maybe my Dad was smarter than me. I miss him.:).
Patricia Kayden
@Another Holocene Human: I’m a little curious about why Brazil “deserves it”. We’re talking about four adults who acted the fool under the influence of alcohol and damaged property and then lied about being robbed at gunpoint. Why would Brazil deserve that? Oh well. Lochte has apologized so I guess we must all move on.
@rikyrah: So presidential. Such a pivot. So classy.
WaterGirl
@Kay: Maybe the thing to hope for is that he is able to destroy FOX “news” with his effort, and then of course the TRUMP channel will fail in fairly short order, leaving a big void on the right.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Show me the MONEY!
Kay
@Cat48:
I don’t know a lot about mineral rights but i know there are varying levels and these people had a pretty good argument that the State of Ohio was selling them down the river. They were really well-informed. They attended a week-long trial.
Cat48
@Patricia Kayden:
That’s what GOP pundits are reduced to now that they think they’re going to lose. Unless she gets over 50%, there is no mandate. I figure we will tell them it’s a 2000 Bush Mandate, that the GOP SC invented. :)
debit
@satby: How the move progressing?
Matt McIrvin
@amk:
“A solid majority of white men” is their usual benchmark.
Kay
How perfect is it that Morning Joe is involved with a silly back and forth with the dope they helped create?
These people are just ordinary assholes. There’s nothing specially talented about any of them. I hope the “content” on Trump’s birther crusade was profitable. They exchanged it for ANY credibility.
Cat48
@Kay:
Well, I couldn’t stop at that court I think. It sounds ridiculous — large oil pipes near your home. One of those oil pipes busted in an upscale subdivision in Arkansas & made it unlivable. They’re suing the oil company, but who wants their lives interrupted that way.
WaterGirl
@Another Holocene Human: Oh my gosh, John Oliver was absolutely brutal in his treatment of Ryan Lochte last night. It was a thing of beauty and a joy to see, and Lochte got slammed in multiple segments. I don’t usually go for public humiliation, but I’m all for it in this case.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I had read the first line of that comment and then moved on. Now you made me read the whole thing!
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: What I don’t understand is why/how the current state of life in prison is not considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Matt McIrvin
@bystander: I think that Kay’s arguments against electronic-rigged-election conspiracy theories apply as well to the prospect of Trump or Putin rigging them as to Democrats rigging them. There is no nationwide election system; there are state and local election boards running a patchwork of thousands of local elections with different systems. Many of them use scanned ballots with a physical paper trail. Some don’t, and those systems are worryingly vulnerable, but it’s not as if you can intrude on one computer somewhere, flip a couple of bits and then you’re done.
The way you swing these things is by denying people the right to vote, and you might be able to get away with dirty tricks on the margin in a couple of key swing states if the election is very close. I don’t think you could nationally reverse a bad loss on the scale that Trump is currently looking at without getting exposed.
WaterGirl
@Baud: He’d better get going on the rest before the try to kill him to prevent the other 187,000 from being able to vote.
WaterGirl
@Another Holocene Human: Do we know yet if Al is planning to run against Bernie?
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Is there a link? I don’t think that googling Ferret Head will get me anywhere. So hard to keep up with all the nicknames!
edit: never mind. I was assuming Ferret Head had to be some TV person. Wow.
Elizabelle
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: Somehow, I really enjoy that “long-time girlfriend” crack by Trump.
cmorenc
@Calming Influence:
You just did right there ! Unfortunately, they were to tersely short, rather dull novellas – but nonetheless, mission accomplished.
amk
@AnonPhenom: Ever heard of walking and chewing gum? You have got 200% batshit crazy on the other side, if you forgot.
one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer
@raven:
Love me some smoked fish. I’m coming over…
Mark B
@Another Holocene Human:
There is a streak of American provincialism which tends to think of other countries as inferior which borders on ugly Americanism which is endemic to people who live in the USA. I think it’s less common among progressive than right wingers, but it’s still there. Americans just don’t believe the property and lives of foreigners are as valuable as the privilege of good ol’ American kids (who happen to be over 30). It’s not just white privilege, it’s white privilege enhanced by American privilege.
Schlemazel
@Mark B:
“How much is that in real money?”
Heard several times in shops and resturants while I was in Europe. Made me tell people I was Canadian!
PsiFighter37
Trump fighting with JoeScar. Love it. Popcorn on a Monday morning please!
Emma
@AnonPhenom:
Some people can walk and chew gum at the same time.
WereBear
Well, some folks do.
Emma
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: Oh dear God. Just. Words. Fail. This is the Republican presidential candidate, Miss Red-Headed Heather.
rikyrah
Break On Through (To the Other Side): Part II
by D.R. Tucker
August 21, 2016 3:30 PM
Are the Republicans who are declaring that they’re “with her” quietly admitting an inconvenient truth about the man who was declared victorious over Al Gore sixteen years ago?
Notice the common thread that runs through the words of pro-Clinton Republicans: they’ve declared that GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is “completely unqualified” for the White House, and has “undermined the character of the nation.” Could it be that on a very subtle psychological level, these Republicans are acknowledging that the last member of their party to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was indeed an epic screw-up, and that the bigoted billionaire would equal, if not surpass, Dubya in his dimwittedness?
Yes, a number of these GOP-for-Hillary types backed the likes of Jeb Bush and John Kasich during the Republican primary; some of them backed Mitt Romney in 2012. Presumably, these folks believed that Jeb, John and Mitt could not have possibly botched things as badly as Bush did a decade ago. Now, facing a choice between Clinton and Trump, these Republicans find they can no longer lie to themselves. They know that a President Trump would be an icon of incompetence, just as President Bush was before him.
Even the Republicans who haven’t officially coalesced around Clinton are subtly stating that the left was right about the right all along. When former Romney adviser Avik Roy says that “the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism,” he’s quietly admitting that Bush was among those who pandered to white-nationalist sentiments when he bonded with the bigots at Bob Jones University during his 2000 campaign–the same bigots who presumably cheered as Bush turned a blind eye to the black bodies floating through the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit five years later.
It’s good to see so many Republicans haunted by the Bush years.
Denali
Well, we are sitting in our hotel room in Hungary, which seems almost as weird as Romania, after a huge fight with our son’s partner. She seems to have no problem with telling him off in front of us and their 3 year old, which somehow is a problem with us. She has revealing herself to be a total control freak, Attilene, we call her, who does not want to be crossed in any way. Our son who avoids confrontation, is, of course, caught in the midde. Two more days on this side of the pond. She refuses to comes to see us, and now I don’t even want her to. And I feel really for our son.
rikyrah
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Amir Khalid
@Denali:
Ouch. That’s really unfortunate.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
O-M-FSM that is horrible! Anyone can wind up in there, just have a moment’s inattention while driving, vehicular manslaughter, eat chicken “NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION!” and see how long you can live on garbage.
Better off dumpster diving, you get to pick and choose from lots of garbage instead of just whatever someone puts on your tray.
I guess it’s true, prison isn’t for rehab any more, just punishment in the medieval sense of the word. Republicans could Fuq up a wet dream… FSM help us if Trump gets elected. I’m for Portugal if it happens. Or Spain, or French mountains. Not staying to see the nazification of our world.
Captain C
@Amir Khalid: I’m guessing Gary Johnson’s is: 1) legalize, 2) smoke a joint in the Oval Office, 3) privatize everything.
MomSense
@Baud:
I love Singapore math. Students learn strategies to figure out how to solve the problems/equations. I wish we had this methodology available when I was in elementary school.
J R in WV
@Baud:
Maybe jacy looked at their facebook pages? Which were crazy for Dr. Stein? just guessing…
jacy
@Baud:
The last couple of unknowns who sent friend requests were wall-to-wall Jill Stein posts on their pages when I checked to see if I knew them or if they were friends of friends…..
burnspbesq
@AnonPhenom:
Bullshit.
(1) staffing an administration is a process. If you can do it over six months rather than two, why not use the extra time productively.
(2) if you can’t multitask or delegate, you’re unfit for that job.
tokyo expat
@MomSense: Have no idea what Singapore math is. I do know that watching my sons go through Japanese education that math moves at a much faster pace than I ever managed and I went up to Calculus in HS. I think it’s great if US education looked around and noticed better methods to teach the same stuff we’ve all had. Teaching and learning are dynamic. They are not meant to be fossilized despite the calcified view of people who start out with “It was good enough for me when I was in school…” But then I’m a teacher, so I’ve got a built-in liberal bias!
Cheers!
burnspbesq
@Mark B:
It’s not white privilege, it’s athlete privilege. For every George Huguely, there’s a Rae Carruth.
Elite athletes go into a bubble, where it’s all about them, at age 14 (younger in some sports). Many of them never grow up.
J R in WV
@Kay:
Oil and Gas lawyers lied at a trial? Quell surprised!!! It’s what they are, after all. We live in a tiny old oil/gas patch. The production company provided free household gas to nearly everyone in the neighborhood, every farm that had a producing well.
Then a new company bought the rights to the whole field. they instantly plugged every well associated with free gas rights, and drilled new wells on land they owned, or “landlocked” farms with no right of way for a residence.
So farmers living on $4-5,000 a year suddenly had a monthly gas bill for the first time in their lives. Deciding between paying the gad bill and having money to get their crop in in the spring. Wow.
So color me surprised about the pipeline. Not. This is the same crew who let a major crude leak go on for days, isn’t it? Couldn’t be bothered to go see why their delivery numbers were all wrong. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude on the land. Yuch.
Denali
@
Amir Khalid,
Thank you.
tokyo expat
@Denali: I’m sure disappointing doesn’t even cover how you feel. Any chance you can arrange to meet with your son and grandchild before you leave? After all, you leave in 2 more days and you live in another country.
Unfortunately, in my limited experience one partner can really dictate the relationship you have with your loved one. I don’t have a relationship with my brother because of his wife. If you want a relationship with your son and grandchild, you need to think carefully about what you do next.
My 2 cents. Wishing you the best.
Seanly
W00T W00T! As I’ve mentioned before I’m a bridge engineer. I’ve spent the last few months cobbling together 40-hour work weeks. Many states increased infrastructure spending, but we need the feds to increase it too.
To be fair though, my company has had a bad run of winning projects. However, there is a lot of work to be done for roads, bridges, airports, sewers, etc, etc.
shomi
OMGzzz….she may get 349 EC votes to Drumpfs 191…but…(scary music)…she won’t have a mandate because she said something bad about Drumpf….lol
This mandate talk always confuses me. Apparently politicians can now win elections without a mandate (ie. like winning an election) according to the media. To me this is just another way the media has invented to continue to masturbate over such things after elections are over.
Denali
@Tokyo ex-pat,
Thank you. This is so hard and you are so right.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Denali:
If you click the “Reply” button on the comment you want to respond to, you will be taken down to the “write a comment” box and a link to the first comment will be inserted automatically. That helps those who might want to see what you’re responding to.
JustRuss
Jesus Christ. The tone’s already set. In case you missed it, check out the Benghazi hearings, parts 1 through 47.
Alsotoo, a review of congressional Republicans’ reaction to Obama’s “reach across the aisle” attempts might be informative.