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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

In my day, never was longer.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

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

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

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

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

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

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / How We Got to Trump

How We Got to Trump

by John Cole|  October 20, 201612:09 pm| 405 Comments

This post is in: Activist Judges!, Election 2016, Republican Venality

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built

One of the more vexing things about the current election has been the fact that the now, all of a sudden, principled conservatives who are #NeverTrump are basically being given a free ride by the media to absolve themselves of any responsibility for their party nominating Trump. This didn’t just happen. This took years of effort, years of unprincipled playing to the mob, decades of subtle and not so subtle racism and otherism, years of chipping away at facts and logic, pretending tea party candidates and Sarah Palin were serious people, and to borrow a phrase from the C+ Augustus reign, years of “creating their own reality.” To borrow a more recent wingnut phrase, you built it, GOP.

At any rate, if you want a striking example of how we got to Trump, look no further than the spin from the Republicans, including the #NeverTrump frauds after Donald Trump refused to state he would accept the election results:

Tonight's takeaway: Democrats still won't admit the 2000 election was decided fairly in favor of the winner.

— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) October 20, 2016

There is a fundamental difference in refusing to accept the results of the process before a vote has even been cast, de-legitimizing the election before it even happens, and contesting an election using pre-existing election law. What Donald Trump is doing is the former, what Gore did was the latter. It’s a fundamental distinction, and it is why people who know things are horrified by what Trump did last night:

Contesting an election does not de-legitimize it. Asking for a recount and pursuing your rights as LAID OUT IN ELECTION LAW does not de-legitimize elections. These polices are argued over, debated, and passed into law to make sure that we keep elections legitimate and fair and that everyone knows the rules. Individuals on twitter still being pissed about the election outcome does not de-legitimize elections. Candidates refusing to accept the outcome, before and after, de-legitimizes the election. Gore did neither.

And for the record, if anything in the 2000 election de-legitimized things, it was the Supreme Court making shit up and passing a ruling that was so obviously shite that they made sure it COULD NEVER be used as precedent:

omentous Supreme Court cases tend to move quickly into the slipstream of the Court’s history. In the first ten years after Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 decision that ended the doctrine of separate but equal in public education, the Justices cited the case more than twenty-five times. In the ten years after Roe v. Wade, the abortion-rights decision of 1973, there were more than sixty-five references to that landmark. This month marks ten years since the Court, by a vote of five-to-four, terminated the election of 2000 and delivered the Presidency to George W. Bush. Over that decade, the Justices have provided a verdict of sorts on Bush v. Gore by the number of times they have cited it: zero.

***

Even at the time, Bush v. Gore was treated as a kind of novelty item, a one-off decision that applied only to the peculiar facts then before the Justices. The majority itself seemed to want it that way. In the most famous sentence from the decision, the Justices wrote, “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.” (Unlike most weighty decisions, Bush v. Gore had no single author and was delineated “per curiam,” or by the Court, a designation the Justices usually reserve for minor cases.) In light of all these admonitions to leave the case be, might getting over it be the best advice?

Actually, no. To return briefly to the distant world of chads, hanging and otherwise, it’s worth recalling what Bush v. Gore was about. The pervasive uncertainty about the results of the election in Florida—at the time, Bush led by five hundred and thirty-seven votes out of nearly six million cast—prompted the Florida courts, interpreting Florida election law, to order a statewide recount of all undervotes and overvotes; that is, ballots that indicated no Presidential preference or more than one. (Chads were the tiny paper rectangles that voters were supposed to push through punch-card ballots.) That recount had already begun on Saturday, December 9th, when five Justices—Scalia, William H. Rehnquist, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas—issued a stay, barring the Florida authorities from continuing their labors. Three days later, the same five issued the per-curiam decision that stopped the recount once and for all.

What made the decision in Bush v. Gore so startling was that it was the work of Justices who were considered, to greater or lesser extents, judicial conservatives. On many occasions, these Justices had said that they believed in the preëminence of states’ rights, in a narrow conception of the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and, above all, in judicial restraint. Bush v. Gore violated those principles. The Supreme Court stepped into the case even though the Florida Supreme Court had been interpreting Florida law; the majority found a violation of the rights of George W. Bush, a white man, to equal protection when these same Justices were becoming ever more stingy in finding violations of the rights of African-Americans; and the Court stopped the recount even before it was completed, and before the Florida courts had a chance to iron out any problems—a classic example of judicial activism, not judicial restraint, by the majority.

In short, this is how we got to Trump. Yes, Republican, you built this. And if you read this “DEMOCRATS ARE WORSE” gibberish from Bre Payton, graduate of the “Patrick Henry School of Political Journalism,” which I googled and is an actual place andnot a quip made up in the Free Republic comments section, they are still building it. Or demolishing it. Your call.

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Reader Interactions

405Comments

  1. 1.

    John Cole

    October 20, 2016 at 12:19 pm

    test

  2. 2.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 20, 2016 at 12:22 pm

    Trump could easily have said something like “Chris, initial election results can be misleading. I refuse to take anything off the table when it comes to making sure that the election has been free and fair, and that includes recount processes and court cases if we find out about anything shady. Al Gore and Norm Coleman requested recounts, and under similar circumstances we’d be foolish not to do the same. Only when we are fully confident will we be satisfied, and not a moment sooner, and I expect Hillary feels the same way.” It would tick all the boxes with his supporters, and no one would say boo about it. He didn’t say that, because that’s not what’s on his mind. What’s on his mind is that everyone against him is in cahoots, from the media to black people to ladies who think they’re so important, and that’s not fair. Because he’s infantile.

  3. 3.

    Immanentize

    October 20, 2016 at 12:23 pm

    @John Cole: You receive an “A” on your test

  4. 4.

    Immanentize

    October 20, 2016 at 12:24 pm

    The question was: If you lose, will you accept the results? It was not about close elections or contested elections. It was straight up — If you lose, will you accept the result….

  5. 5.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 12:25 pm

    To be fair, a big part of the problem lies with Obama too.

    Obama could have come out and released his long form birth certificate in 2008 or whenever the birth stuff started. But he enjoyed trolling the right wingers, using it to make them look silly, so he drug the process out for years when he could have put the issue to bed. That is where Trump got involved.

    Trump has made some reasonable points, one of them is that one of Obama’s greatest failures was telegraphing his every move to Republicans. Republicans could sit down and plot out thwarting Obama’s attempts to bring people together and put politics aside to get things done, precisely because Obama told them that was what he wanted to do. So any phase of working together with Obama by Republicans became a fulfillment of an Obama campaign goal and thus Repubs would get no credit for it.

    Trump is also trying to point out that just as Bush got distracted in Afghanistan by Iraq, Obama got distracted in Iraq by Syria and Libya.

    Lastly, Trump is pointing out something pretty important, which that Hillary does not indeed have a plan for immigration reform. I’ve been a Hillary supporter since 2008 but I’m beginning to believe that Hillary does indeed want open borders where workers can flow across from Mexico and vice versa. Call it the right policy or the wrong policy, it doesn’t matter, it is a decision for the American people to make, and not one to be snuck in through passive aggressive policies.

  6. 6.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 12:26 pm

    They “built this”.

    This rancid outhouse of a political party. Now it’s only a concern who’s the Lord of the Flies.

    They deserve everything they get, and hard.

  7. 7.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 12:27 pm

    @kwAwk: This is sarcastic, right? My detector seems to be offline at the moment.

  8. 8.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 20, 2016 at 12:28 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Trump has made some reasonable points, one of them is that one of Obama’s greatest failures was telegraphing his every move to Republicans.

    When has Donald Trump made this point?

  9. 9.

    John Cole

    October 20, 2016 at 12:28 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Obama could have come out and released his long form birth certificate in 2008 or whenever the birth stuff started. But he enjoyed trolling the right wingers, using it to make them look silly, so he drug the process out for years when he could have put the issue to bed. That is where Trump got involved.

    This is either spoof or you are so white you are probably translucent.

    Obama didn’t release his long-form birth certificate because the mere suggestion that he was not American was so fucking fundamentally racist and insulting that to seriously address it would be degrading to himself, the office of the Presidency, and all people of color.

    Jesus fucking christ.

  10. 10.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 12:29 pm

    @redshirt:

    No sarcastic in the least. Obama could have put the birther stuff to bed years before he did. Didn’t want to because it made the right look silly.

    Obama got distracted on Iraq. Destabilization of Syria led to destabilization of Iraq.

    I also believe that the whole open borders in North America was included in the Hillary/DNC emails hacked by the Russians.

  11. 11.

    Nunca El Jefe

    October 20, 2016 at 12:29 pm

    After enough of these kinds of examples, I can’t help but think that it’s a willful blindness on the part of some of these folks, to be unable to parse these simple, but deeply important, distinctions.

  12. 12.

    chopper

    October 20, 2016 at 12:30 pm

    @John Cole:

    aw jesus, there’s gonna be a test?

  13. 13.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 12:30 pm

    @John Cole:

    No big shocker though that there are racists in the US. Racist or not he could have put the issue to bed. He was trolling the racists by not doing so.

  14. 14.

    Elizabelle

    October 20, 2016 at 12:30 pm

    They couldn’t do this without the complicity of broadcast media.

    The NY Times gave them cover. Katty Kay last night on PBS: Hillary is so unlikeable and so untrustworthy.

    To them, maybe.

  15. 15.

    chopper

    October 20, 2016 at 12:32 pm

    @kwAwk:

    wow, this is some cask-strength derp right here.

  16. 16.

    Ian

    October 20, 2016 at 12:33 pm

    @kwAwk:
    They still believe he is a foreign born Muslim. It does not matter that he released his long form birth certificate. Anyone dumb enough to believe this in 2008 or 2012 will not be swayed by evidence.

  17. 17.

    Nom de Plume

    October 20, 2016 at 12:33 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Trump could easily have said something like

    Trump could not have “easily” said the statement you laid out for him, unless it was on a teleprompter and it was considerably shorter so as not to test his attention span. That was far too coherent for him under any other circumstances.

  18. 18.

    RealityChex

    October 20, 2016 at 12:34 pm

    @kwAwk:
    Shut up, asshole.

  19. 19.

    MattF

    October 20, 2016 at 12:34 pm

    In fact, Trump’s “I’ll study it and tell you what I think at some unspecified time in the future” ploy is part of his repertoire of responses to questions he doesn’t want to answer– he uses it all the time. So I think that the various expressions of shocked surprise we’re hearing on the subject from the commentariat are overdone. But if this episode gives reluctant centrists an excuse to abandon him, that’s fine with me.

    And, yeah, they shouldn’t be lying about Al Gore. But they’re Republicans.

  20. 20.

    Frankensteinbeck

    October 20, 2016 at 12:36 pm

    The media is emotionally, socially, and financially invested to the limit in the idea that racism is a tiny fringe motivation, and the Republican Party is serious, responsible, and DEFINITELY not racist.

  21. 21.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 20, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    @Nom de Plume: OK, let’s say instead that Fantasy Trump could have made that argument without violating any of the stances Actual Trump holds.

  22. 22.

    ChrisGrrr

    October 20, 2016 at 12:40 pm

    @John Cole: Great (main) post, dude.

  23. 23.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 20, 2016 at 12:40 pm

    @John Cole: Also because there’s no such thing as a long-form birth certificate.

    I currently have two birth certificates for myself in my possession. One of them is the sort of document that birthers wouldn’t accept as Obama’s birth certificate: it’s a document generated recently by Lexis-Nexis on behalf of the state of Missouri, with a state seal on it. The other one is a tiny slip of flimsy paper that is faded almost to complete illegibility, issued by the hospital where I was born in 1968, also with a state seal on it. Neither one is what any reasonable person would call “long-form”. The birthers may well have been trying to say they wanted to see the second type of document, physically issued at the time and place of birth of Barack Obama, but of course this often doesn’t exist any more when one is an adult (if it ever did).

  24. 24.

    MisterForkbeard

    October 20, 2016 at 12:41 pm

    @kwAwk: The “open borders” thing in the leaked speech is basically crap. It’s saying “Ideally it would be great if people could go where they wanted and trade freely” – that’s about it. It’s a long-term vision, not a “we’re going open borders”. As for her plans… go read her website. There’s a lot of information on her immigration plans there, and has been for quite some time.

    @FlipYrWhig: I’m almost tempted to think he’s being clever here. Donald Trump has said that Obama “tells his enemies what he’s going to do”, meaning Iraq and Iran or whatever. But maybe he’s being clever and acknowledging that Republicans have declared themselves as Obama’s enemies, not the loyal opposition.

  25. 25.

    The Moar You Know

    October 20, 2016 at 12:42 pm

    To be fair

    @kwAwk: 9.9/10, awarded “Master of Trolling” level. That was pretty close to perfect.

  26. 26.

    MisterForkbeard

    October 20, 2016 at 12:42 pm

    @ChrisGrrr: Hey, I’m a big fan of ‘test’, personally. I think it’s really pushing the limits of the avant-garde blog commenting art form.

  27. 27.

    NobodySpecial

    October 20, 2016 at 12:43 pm

    I don’t want to hear shit from anyone comparing this cock gobbler to Al Gore.

    When Al Gore ‘lost’, he had the ultimate chance to throw a fuck you at the whole rigged process – because as VP, he had to preside over the whole damn formality of losing the election. He could have refused.

    He certified the damn thing instead. He took the loss KNOWING he’d screwed himself and then been screwed. That’s personal honor, and that’s something a lying bloviating shitstain like Donald Trump can never ever ever fucking understand. Hopefully after the election he’s caught with a stash of kid porn.

  28. 28.

    maurinsky

    October 20, 2016 at 12:44 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Trump could easily have said something like “Chris, initial election results can be misleading. I refuse to take anything off the table when it comes to making sure that the election has been free and fair, and that includes recount processes and court cases if we find out about anything shady. Al Gore and Norm Coleman requested recounts, and under similar circumstances we’d be foolish not to do the same. Only when we are fully confident will we be satisfied, and not a moment sooner, and I expect Hillary feels the same way.”

    Well, no, he couldn’t say any of that, because those are coherent ideas expressed in grammatically correct sentences.

  29. 29.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    October 20, 2016 at 12:44 pm

    @kwAwk: Hello, person I’ve never seen here before.

    To be fair, a big part of the problem lies with Obama too.
    Yes, I believe that.

    Trump has made some reasonable points
    Yep, I certainly believe that.

    Obama got distracted in Iraq by Syria and Libya.
    Yes, I agree that whatever that sentence is trying to say, it’s a sensible point in some language.

    Lastly, Trump is pointing out something pretty important
    Yep, I certainly believe that describes anything that Trump has ever said.

    I’ve been a Hillary supporter since 2008
    And I believe that most of all.

    Translation: by “I believe that” I mean “you’re full of doo-doo and I don’t agree with a single word you wrote. Including ‘and’ and ‘the'”.

  30. 30.

    Jonny Scrum-half

    October 20, 2016 at 12:45 pm

    @kwAwk: Why is it his responsibility to help his opponents avoid looking foolish?

  31. 31.

    Srv

    October 20, 2016 at 12:46 pm

    Lots of overlap here, but kwark is terrible, a troll, a moron, incorrect, and a Trumper.

  32. 32.

    Jeffro

    October 20, 2016 at 12:46 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Trump could easily have said something like “Chris, initial election results can be misleading. I refuse to take anything off the table when it comes to making sure that the election has been free and fair, and that includes recount processes and court cases if we find out about anything shady. Al Gore and Norm Coleman requested recounts, and under similar circumstances we’d be foolish not to do the same. Only when we are fully confident will we be satisfied, and not a moment sooner, and I expect Hillary feels the same way.” It would tick all the boxes with his supporters, and no one would say boo about it. He didn’t say that, because that’s not what’s on his mind.

    That answer wouldn’t have been easy for him, because it’s not “OBAMA/HILLARY BAD!” But otherwise, point taken.

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    October 20, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    I thought we weren’t feeding the trolls today?

    Anyway, let the Repubs squawk and try to re-write history all they want…let’s GOTV, elect the first female president, and get that Senate flipped but good.

  34. 34.

    ChrisGrrr

    October 20, 2016 at 12:49 pm

    @MisterForkbeard: Creativity is sometimes fed by what’s right in front of our faces, this is true.

  35. 35.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    October 20, 2016 at 12:49 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Exhibit A to that was the convo with Robert Costa, Chris Matthews and some other white male pundit on the panel right after the debate, discussing Trump’s call for poll watching in the cities and Philadelphia, finally agreeing that it “might” have had “racial overtones”, and then of course went right to break. Racism is the two ton elephant in the room, all the time, and must never be pointed to and named. The progressive left is just as guilty of this as Republicans.

  36. 36.

    chopper

    October 20, 2016 at 12:49 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Trump could easily have said something like “Chris, initial election results can be misleading. I refuse to take anything off the table when it comes to making sure that the election has been free and fair, and that includes recount processes and court cases if we find out about anything shady. Al Gore and Norm Coleman requested recounts, and under similar circumstances we’d be foolish not to do the same. Only when we are fully confident will we be satisfied, and not a moment sooner, and I expect Hillary feels the same way.”

    as di bubbe volt gehat beytsim volt zi gevain mayn zaideh.

  37. 37.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 12:50 pm

    @kwAwk: And you’re a Hillary supporter?

    I’m sending the detector into the shop for recalibration.

  38. 38.

    hovercraft

    October 20, 2016 at 12:50 pm

    @kwAwk:
    This is complete and utter bullshit.
    States have laws, he provided his certificate of birth when he was first running, they wanted more, and when the State of Hawaii finally released the long form, they still wanted more. Just as they are trying to deligitimize Clinton now, it was always about that, not the birth certificate itself.
    Democratic presidents are not legitimate period.

    State law prohibits the DOH from disclosing any vital statistics records or information contained in such records unless the requestor has a direct and tangible interest in the record, or as otherwise allowed by statute or administrative rule. See HRS §338-18. Direct and tangible interest is determined by HRS §338-18(b).

    In light of the unprecedented number of requests for information relating to the vital records of President Barack Hussein Obama II, the DOH has reviewed the requirements of UIPA and the confidentiality provisions of HRS Chapter 338.

    Based upon that review, the DOH has determined that the information listed below constitutes all of the publicly available information related to requests for vital statistics records pertaining to President Barack Hussein Obama II, and the only disclosures pertaining to those records that can be made in accordance with Hawaii law. The Department of Health is providing links to copies of the records in the form that they are available to the public.

  39. 39.

    Betty Cracker

    October 20, 2016 at 12:51 pm

    @John Cole: A-fucking-men.

  40. 40.

    Aleta

    October 20, 2016 at 12:53 pm

    Separated at birth by orders of magnitude in responsibility, competence, intelligence. Today one is announced as the only sane choice. Congratulations! It’s a woman ! I’m grateful but also WTF.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    October 20, 2016 at 12:53 pm

    We’ll find out how bad it is if they try to throw it to the House. I for one don’t believe any of their reassurances. I’m betting Hillary Clinton doesn’t either. Obama didn’t. He had teams of lawyers. just ordinary prudence and preparation. They were all saying Romney had lawyers with “bags packed” in Boston. When they got to Ohio to contest they would have found Obama’s lawyers already there.

  42. 42.

    Blueskies

    October 20, 2016 at 12:54 pm

    And don’t even forget that Sandra Day O’Connor eventually admitted that she went along with the other four because of politics. She simply thought that a Republican should be the president (and to hell with the law).

  43. 43.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 12:56 pm

    @kwAwk:

    No sarcastic in the least. Obama could have put the birther stuff to bed years before he did. Didn’t want to because it made the right look silly.

    It might help you to pay attention to the world in general, once in a while.

    As Ian pointed out, there is some large percentage that still believe Obama’s foreign-born, or Muslim, or both. “Releasing” his long-form BC the femtosecond before Trump got involved would have made no difference. It’s not unlike the Rethug meme “If only Obama had been nicer to the Congressional leadership.” It was bullshit then, it’s bullshit now.

    But on a more basic level: why is it that Obama needed to go through all that bullshit in the first place? George Romney didn’t, John McCain didn’t, Trump hasn’t had to (even though, from some reports — is it irresponsible to speculate? — his mother was not a citizen when Donnie popped out). Hmmm, how interesting that some were trying to de-legitimize President Obama as a candidate and election-winner, I guess there was just something slightly off about him — but I’m sure they would have been mollified had he just produced that doc the first time those honorable men asked. And so are they all, all honorable men.

    But thanks so much for your concern.

  44. 44.

    hovercraft

    October 20, 2016 at 12:56 pm

    @Jeffro:
    Sometimes when the tears are especially bitter, it’s fun to toy with them.

    @Svr is a welcome addition to our playground, that other thing not so much. So we’ll see if we can straighten it out, if not then I’ll ignore it.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    October 20, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    ABC News PoliticsVerified account
    ‏@ABCPolitics
    .@realDonaldTrump: “I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election, if I win.”

    Hah! Doubling down. If we know anything about Clinton now we know she prepares. He’ll lose this like he loses everything else because he’s lazy and entitled and all talk.

  46. 46.

    Hitless

    October 20, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    @The Moar You Know: I think it was a shade too subtle…did not argue strongly enough that racism is Obama’s fault. It was a good effort though.

  47. 47.

    hovercraft

    October 20, 2016 at 12:58 pm

    @John Cole:
    Nice post and spot on on the troll.

  48. 48.

    Shell

    October 20, 2016 at 12:58 pm

    Guess Trump figures he’s got nothing left to lose. He’s now on a rant claiming that Hillary got the debate questions ahead of time.

  49. 49.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 12:59 pm

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym:

    And I believe that you believe all that!

    Say Hallelujah!

  50. 50.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 20, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    I have this troll with 2 ks in his nym before, he has just been absent for a long time.

    Shorter kk
    She wore the short skirt, she was asking for it.

  51. 51.

    Van Buren

    October 20, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    <em
    @kwAwk: So, because Obama was truthfully trying to cooperate, he’s at fault for republican obstructionism, and because he deceitfully withheld the long form, he’s at fault for birtherism.
    That’s some catch, that Catch-22

  52. 52.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    October 20, 2016 at 1:01 pm

    They’ve spent the last decade sabotaging the government and now they don’t know any other way to behave. Fuck them forever.

  53. 53.

    burnspbesq

    October 20, 2016 at 1:02 pm

    So of course this morning Trump is tweeting that Crooked Hillary was only able to kick his ass rom Las Vegas to Barstow and back because (gasp!) SHE HAD THE QUESTIONS IN ADVANCE!!!

    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/10/questiongate-will-doom-hillary-clintons-campaign

  54. 54.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 20, 2016 at 1:02 pm

    If the Republican party is guilty of the attempted murder of democracy in this country, the mainstream political media has been an accessory to the crime.

  55. 55.

    Kay

    October 20, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    @Shell:

    I love how he can’t imagine that she would prepare. “Work” isn’t even a possible approach. It must be cheating. Boy, that SCOTUS question came out of left field. No one knew that was coming. Is this maybe her 20th debate, including the Senate? She can recite half these answers.

  56. 56.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    @John Cole:

    Obama didn’t release his long-form birth certificate because the mere suggestion that he was not American was so fucking fundamentally racist and insulting that to seriously address it would be degrading to himself, the office of the Presidency, and all people of color.

    The client in the Parker/Spenser novel Hush Money dealt with a similar situation, and he felt that answering the illegitimate questions was demeaning (to put it mildly). He also was “melanin-enhanced.” Interesting … why do those people always have something to hide?

  57. 57.

    Tim C.

    October 20, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    I wish I could embed this for some of the kwawk type comments.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjA9uJ2dFCI

  58. 58.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    October 20, 2016 at 1:04 pm

    And the news media’s role can’t be ignored, ranging from serving as outright Republican party propaganda arms like FOX News (or the NYT, if you’re talking about 2003 and the invasion of Iraq) to just serving as infected enablers, as in the majority of outlets pretending that “both sides” were the same, as only one side deteriorated before their blindered eyes.

    I think of it like having two houses side by side, one of them clearly going to seed, the roof has holes in it, the garbage is just thrown out the window and is starting to rot and is infested with rats, there are children that no one is taking care of wandering in and out, and so on. Yet whenever anyone tries to point out that maybe someone should call the health department, the common response by pundits and politicians posing as reasonable is to point to a house next door that has none of these problems but there’s a tiny crack in the driveway and say “What’s the big deal? Both houses have problems” and use this as an excuse to do nothing.

  59. 59.

    burnspbesq

    October 20, 2016 at 1:04 pm

    The naked-link-eating mutant salamander has returned. So let’s try this again.

    Trump tweet: Clinton cheated.

  60. 60.

    Shell

    October 20, 2016 at 1:05 pm

    Didn’t want to because it made the right look silly.

    The Right didn’t need any help in making themselves look silly.

  61. 61.

    hovercraft

    October 20, 2016 at 1:05 pm

    @MattF:
    Unfortunately for him his rigged talk is not being parroted by FOX today. These are the FOX related headlines at TPM right now.

    Fox News Editor: Trump’s Losing By Too Much To Blame Voter Fraud

    Even Fox News Acknowledges ‘Experts Say Voter Fraud Is Rare’

    Fox Can’t Paper Over Trump’s Accept-The-Election Answer

  62. 62.

    James E Powell

    October 20, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    Is it me or has the quality of the trolls declined significantly this year? I mean, they’re as stupid and mean spirited as they’ve been in the past, but they’re less biting in their sarcasm, less aggressive in their responses. It just seems that their hearts aren’t really in it.

    Thanks Obama.

  63. 63.

    DCrefugee

    October 20, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    A few months back, during the primaries, I had an Old White Guy (OWG, a demo that includes me) tell me the Trump phenomenon was Obama’s fault. That’s a world-class case of projection, of course.

    But the facts of Obama’s election, reelection and mostly error-free (c’mon, work with me here…) presidency absolutely do make OWG heads explode. The concept of an AA man doing the job arguably better than they or anyone else in their party could have, his grace, his family and his raw intelligence/capability simply do not compute. The more they think about it, the angrier they become (whether by realizing their belief system is broken or through some other dynamic). And angry white guys are Trump’s core constituency.

    So, yeah; all the sad, unfortunate, ill-considered and petty ways OWGs have reacted to Obama’s successful presidency — which come natural to them — are Obama’s fault, because he showed them how it should be done, by doing what they cannot.

  64. 64.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    October 20, 2016 at 1:09 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: Al Gore didn’t request a recount.

  65. 65.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 20, 2016 at 1:10 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: true. Saying so would have played in the room, though.

  66. 66.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 1:11 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Obama could have put the birther stuff to bed years before he did.

    You’re a jerk.

    I’m old enough to remember the months-long process of supplying documentation and testimony that the Obama campaign went through. Barack Obama did more than a person actually has to do to legally establish one was born in the state in which I reside- I know this because of a long and boring story about my passport.

    At every step- the “short form” birth certificate, the birth announcements in newspaper archives, the testimony of witnesses- it wasn’t good enough.

    He always had to produce more elaborate papers. For some reason, the goalposts kept moving! It’s a complete mystery, right?

    Jerk.

  67. 67.

    hovercraft

    October 20, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    They built this.

    ow, however, Trump has made Ryan out to be an enemy to the conservative cause; prominent far-right activists are accusing him of being involved in conspiracies against the GOP; and leading voices in Republican media have labeled Ryan a “saboteur” who needs to be replaced on Capitol Hill.

    And as it turns out, this is having the intended effect. The latest YouGov/Economist poll found that 64% of Trump voters have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Speaker of the House, while only 28% have a favorable opinion. In a result that’s hard to believe, the same survey found Ryan slightly more popular among Hillary Clinton’s supporters than Trump’s.

    New results from a Bloomberg Politics poll point in a similar direction.

    The poll’s findings showed the extent to which Trump, with his hardline positions on immigration and trade, has triumphed among the party’s supporters over Ryan, with his vision of a pluralist conservative party that focuses on cutting taxes and spending.

    When asked which leader better represents their view what the Republican Party should stand for, 51 percent of likely voters who are or lean Republican picked Trump, while 33 percent picked Ryan and 15 percent said they weren’t sure

    .

  68. 68.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    @Jonny Scrum-half:

    If you’re going to complain that your opponents are not acting rationally then you shouldn’t be trying to encourage that behavior. If you believe that the rise of Trump is an existential crisis for this country you shouldn’t be enabling him.

  69. 69.

    Tripod

    October 20, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    Open borders, Mexicans, be afraid?? For serious? In a good year there are 50 million border crossings in San Diego/Tijuana alone. It’s the busiest border on the entire fucking plant. Only a complete moron thinks you can barf out NAFTA, throw up a fence, and solve for anything.

  70. 70.

    dogwood

    October 20, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    @kwAwk:
    Obama released his birth certificate late ’07 or early ’08. It was on his website. The fact that people like you dismissed it as not enough, is pretty telling. This fiction about some long- form birth certificate is the only “real” document is propaganda. The “long” form that Hawaii finally released wasn’t longer than the official birth certificate that Obama released. It had no information that was different from his original certificate of live birth. It’s Obama’s fault that racists went after him on this? Racist appogists like you are as disgusting as all the other “deplorables”.

  71. 71.

    Shell

    October 20, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    It just seems that their hearts aren’t really in it.

    Kind of like the Trump surrogates these past couple of days. Trying to keep up that facade of sunny optimism just isn’t working. And having to practically nail on those rictus-like smiles and hoping it lasts till the end of the interview must be exhausting as well. Saw a clip of Guiliani last night and the man has practically devolved into Gollum.

  72. 72.

    Chip Daniels

    October 20, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    My money is on Kwawk being DougJ.

    A reference to bipartisanship, or David Brooks might confirm it.

  73. 73.

    MattF

    October 20, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    @Kay: Exactly. It’s projection, an ever-present premise in any Trump argument against Democrats. ‘I wasn’t prepared, so I couldn’t have answered those questions the way she did; therefore she cheated’.

  74. 74.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    @kwAwk: stay in the bunker, dood. The immigrants are out to get you. Moron.

  75. 75.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    October 20, 2016 at 1:17 pm

    @John Cole: What the fuck is a “long-form birth certificate”?

  76. 76.

    father pussbucket

    October 20, 2016 at 1:18 pm

    Gonna push this once more: Trump is their Monster from the Id. They build a great machine to give the rubes exactly what they wanted, and Trump is it.

  77. 77.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    As far as Obama promising to bring the parties together, it’s Sun Tsu really. Leave your adversary an out to take. Obama claimed the whole battlefield when he said get everybody to work together. A trapped enemy will fight to the death with extreme zeal.

  78. 78.

    germy

    October 20, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    Can someone tell me the phone number we can call if we are hassled on election day? I remember reading somewhere (was it here on BJ?) that either the election board or the DNC had set up a hotline to report harassment.

  79. 79.

    Cacti

    October 20, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Obama could have come out and released his long form birth certificate in 2008 or whenever the birth stuff started. But he enjoyed trolling the right wingers, using it to make them look silly, so he drug the process out for years when he could have put the issue to bed. That is where Trump got involved.

    I’m also not being the least bit sarcastic when I say, go piss up a rope.

  80. 80.

    MattF

    October 20, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @kwAwk: ‘Way to subtle for me– it’s like negative-dimensional chess.

  81. 81.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @dogwood:

    You make to many prejudiced assumptions. I have always believed that Obama was born in Hawaii and I voted for him twice. He just doesn’t walk on water in my world.

  82. 82.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @kwAwk
    Hey asshole. Racist scums like you built this monster. Go, clean up your shit.

  83. 83.

    JPL

    October 20, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    @dogwood: This!!!!

    I hope that Hillary brings the long form of her birth certificate to the Al Smith dinner tonight… It would be hilarious.

  84. 84.

    sherparick

    October 20, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    @John Cole: Which President or Presidential candidate before Obama has every been asked to produce a birth certificate of any kind before or after election? The answer of course is “none.” Trolls, just got to love them, at least till the Sun comes up and turns them to stone.

    A bit of analysis to add to John Cole’s. 1. It is not just the Republicans, but the “Failed Corporate Media Experiment or national politics as “High School” model championed by Maureen Dowd and her ilk. the whole both sides paradigm that the Village celebrates (except when it comes to Social Security, Medicare, and “the Debt” where there is only one side and that first two have to go to solve the (non) problem of the “the Debt.” 2. The Republican candidate and his followers are pretty much saying the same thing that John C. Breckinridge and the Southern “Democracy” and their Doughface Northern supporters said in 1860, that they would not accept the outcome of a Democratic election and pretty much for the same reason and “idea,l” America as a Republic of White Men. When you let women and non-whites vote you “rigged” the election in their eyes since such people are not legitimate voters.

  85. 85.

    dogwood

    October 20, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:
    As I said above, “long form” birth certificates don’t really exist. Like “voter fraud” and “welfare queens”, it’s just another in a long line of right-wing racist terminology.

  86. 86.

    WaterGirl

    October 20, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    @John Cole: Thank you, Cole. I am having a flashback to the thread from years ago where you said something to the effect of “you know what’s like rape, you stupid fuck? Rape.”

    That was a thing of beauty, but I have never been able to find it with google.

  87. 87.

    Calouste

    October 20, 2016 at 1:25 pm

    I assume that the Groping Orange Pedophile is accusing Clinton of having been given the debate questions in advance simply because that is the only way that he himself has ever passed any exams in school.

  88. 88.

    dogwood

    October 20, 2016 at 1:25 pm

    @kwAwk:
    You aren’t fooling anyone here. Anyone who buys into the idea that Obama is responsible for birtherism is essentially an apologist for racism.

  89. 89.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @kwAwk:

    If you’re going to complain that your opponents are not acting rationally then you shouldn’t be trying to encourage that behavior.

    “What are you arresting ME for, officer? She MADE ME hit/rape her! How? By being disagreeable/dressing like a whore, that’s how!”

    If you believe that the rise of Trump is an existential crisis for this country you shouldn’t be enabling him.

    You might consider telling your fellow Republicans that, since the Dems haven’t really been doing what you’re saying.

  90. 90.

    scav

    October 20, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Same here, it’s a retread. Haven’t a number of such re-emerged today and late yesterday?

  91. 91.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    @dogwood:

    Like “voter fraud” and “welfare queens”, it’s just another in a long line of right-wing racist terminology.

    You forgot Poland “strapping young bucks.” (with or without T-bones, I guess.)

  92. 92.

    Trentrunner

    October 20, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    Trumpism is here for the foreseeable future: Trump is FAR more popular than Paul Ryan, who is officially now more hated IN HIS OWN PARTY than Hillary Clinton (poll released this morning).

    After Trump loses, there will be a very vocal, angry minority that is going to make a shitload of trouble for the GOP, the same way Trump did: Obstructing, acting out, saying and doing bigoted things, and generally continuing the GOP’s race to the electoral bottom.

  93. 93.

    ruckus

    October 20, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    @Jesse:
    You are too kind.

  94. 94.

    WaterGirl

    October 20, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    @Ceci n’est pas mon nym: I have seen that nym before and my general impression is that he has been a troll.

    Here’s the google search results for comments by this person. Anyone who cares can check it out and see if he really is a troll. I’m too lazy to do that, I just skip over his comments.

  95. 95.

    Mike J

    October 20, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    Holy shit everybody panic! A simulated earthquake has just hit the Seattle area so emergency management crews can do training. The shake out.

    If this were a real earthquake, I would run around in circles and then yell about it on the internet. I think I’ve got it down.

  96. 96.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    @ruckus: I’m trying to go high.

  97. 97.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    October 20, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    Let’s stop calling it Trumpism and call it what it really is: the Republican Party. Trump hijacked the base out from under the other clowns, but the base is the party.

  98. 98.

    liberal

    October 20, 2016 at 1:33 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Obama could have put the birther stuff to bed years before he did.

    LOL.

  99. 99.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 1:35 pm

    @Trentrunner: It’s wonderful! They’re trapped in a horrible dynamic and I can see no way out for the near future. Their base hates their leadership, so they will continue to “purify” themselves in the fires of crazy until they are down to the 27%. You can’t win most elections with 27%.

    Any attempt at moderation will be met by the forces of Wingnut.

    Meanwhile, any one with a moderate, sane bone in their body will move to the Democratic camp.

  100. 100.

    dogwood

    October 20, 2016 at 1:35 pm

    @Mike J:
    It’s about time. Did anyone here read “The Big One” in the New Yorker a couple of years back? A great piece about the Cascadia fault and a convincing case that the Pacific Northwest could very well be gone as we know it within our lifetime.

  101. 101.

    Erisia

    October 20, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    @kwAwk: Your using abuser logic, “If you don’t like my beatings stop cooking my eggs wrong”. The problem isn’t how President Obama handled the continuing irrational behavior, the problem is the irrational behavior, period. Also, you are an awful human being for needing this to even be explained to you.

  102. 102.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I’m generally a lurker here. Occasionally I’ll chime in when I think I have something of value to add to the conversation and we get a whole thread where everybody calls me a moron.

    C’est la vie.

  103. 103.

    liberal

    October 20, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    @kwAwk: Yawn.

    There are lots of legit criticisms of Obama and Hillary—I should know, I ruffle a lot of feathers here when I make them.

    This line you’re pushing isn’t just not legitimate, it’s fucking stupid.

  104. 104.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 1:37 pm

    @Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Yep. And it reveals the deep, structural divide in their party. While their leadership has been mouthing pretty much all the things Trump espouses, they don’t get it done. The wingnuts believe Trump will, and thus they are fired up. But at the same time this is electoral poison, the leadership knows this, but they can’t escape it without ruining their careers.

    Rock, meet Hard Place.

  105. 105.

    RK

    October 20, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    You’re the puppet.

    I have the best temperament.

    It’d be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.

  106. 106.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    @Erisia:

    It’s really a ‘the food is awful and the portion sizes are too small’ kind of deal. If you don’t like how the cook prepares the food, quit going to the restaurant, ya know?

  107. 107.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    @kwAwk: Maybe your points are idiotic. Have you considered that?

  108. 108.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 20, 2016 at 1:39 pm

    @kwAwk: You know, that might reveal something about your processes of self-assessment.

  109. 109.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 20, 2016 at 1:39 pm

    The GOP must go the way of the NSDAP and the CPSU.

  110. 110.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:40 pm

    @kwAwk:
    Nah. Don’t sell yourself short. You are a racist scumbag cowardly moron, who is gutless to take responsibility for his own words.

  111. 111.

    Ian

    October 20, 2016 at 1:40 pm

    @hovercraft:
    Wouldn’t it be awesome if Ryan lost his election this year? It’s only r+3/4 points. If they could consume their own in the quest for purity once more I would be very happy.

  112. 112.

    Mike J

    October 20, 2016 at 1:41 pm

    @dogwood: It’s not the first drill they’ve had, but it’s the biggest in a few years.

  113. 113.

    nonynony

    October 20, 2016 at 1:42 pm

    @Trentrunner:

    Trump is FAR more popular than Paul Ryan, who is officially now more hated IN HIS OWN PARTY than Hillary Clinton (poll released this morning).

    Trump’s popularity will take a nosedive once he loses. It’s how they are – they love a potential winner, but they kick losers to the curb.

    There will be other people trying to win the affections of the core base that Trump wooed, but there’s very little chance that once Trump loses he keeps that affection himself. Of course, the longer he fights the “we wuz robbed” fight the longer he’ll hold onto their affections. So maybe he really will stick around if he’s willing to devote all of his time and what remains of his money to keeping the “rigged!” talk up for the next four years…

  114. 114.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 1:42 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Obama could have put the birther stuff to bed years before he did.

    You’re an idiot: it’s still not “put to bed”. It merely became moot.

  115. 115.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:44 pm

    @redshirt:

    Yes, I have considered that. Have you considered that yours may be too?

    Has anybody noticed that we’ve had mad gridlock in the Congress for 7.75 years now yet neither candidate is offering to bring people together and enable the congress to work together?

    That’s because it was a killer for Obama. In 2008 he was given a mandate the size of the moon to do anything he wanted. You know Presidency and both houses of Congress. Yet he couldn’t do it because he’d promised to work with Republicans. Couldn’t pass his agenda because without Republicans he was violating his biggest campaign promise of making people work together, and Republicans had no incentive to work with him because that’s what he’d told everybody he’d do. Heads he wins, tails they lose.

  116. 116.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:45 pm

    @amk:

    What exactly have I said that is racist Sparky?

  117. 117.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 1:46 pm

    @nonynony:

    Trump’s popularity will take a nosedive once he loses. It’s how they are – they love a potential winner, but they kick losers to the curb.

    Oh, he’ll still have a loyal fanbase. Eventually, he’ll play 200 shows a year at the Donald Trump Theater in Branson, Missouri. But I won’t have to hear from him ever again, about anything, and that will be a blessing.

  118. 118.

    Frankensteinbeck

    October 20, 2016 at 1:46 pm

    @Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
    I would say you’re not even going far enough. Trump did not swoop in and take the base. He is actually what they want. He is their ideal, thin-skinned idiocy and all. They heard him give an incoherent rant about Mexicans being rapists and criminals, and demanded more.

  119. 119.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    And overlooked in this is the fact that Gore actually did conceed eventually.

  120. 120.

    dogwood

    October 20, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @nonynony:
    How long Trump stays in the spotlight really depends on how willing the media is to indulge him as he lurches from one conspiracy theory to another. My guess is they will be more than willing to give him an unlimited platform.

  121. 121.

    hovercraft

    October 20, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    From the GOS

    It’s hard to believe, but Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s decades-long reign of terror might finally come to an end next month. According to a new poll from the Behavior Research Institute, conducted on behalf of several local Arizona media outlets, Arpaio trails his Democratic challenger, former Phoenix police sergeant Paul Penzone, by an astounding 15 points!

    Paul Penzone (D): 46

    Joe Arpaio (R): 31

    And it’s not just this one poll. A week ago, a survey from a Republican pollster found Penzone beating Arpaio 51-41. And not only could Arpaio lose re-election, he might also soon lose his freedom: On Monday, federal prosecutors charged Arpaio with criminal contempt of court for violating an agreement to curtail racial profiling by his department. If he’s found guilty, he could face six months in prison.

  122. 122.

    Anoniminous

    October 20, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    What the fuck is a “long-form birth certificate”?

    It’s an intelligence test. If the person taking the test thinks it is a real thing then they are an idiot.

  123. 123.

    Fair Economist

    October 20, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @nonynony:

    Trump’s popularity will take a nosedive once he loses.

    I think not. That’s why he’s cooking up his dolchstosslegende. He’ll blame his loss on the traitorous betrayals by Ryan, McCain, Fox News, etc. Breitbart is probably already editing the clips of Fox screaming about voter fraud a few weeks ago with the clips of them admitting it’s not a meaningful problem today. Those will be going into heavy rotation Nov 9th as proof of Fox backstabbing the “true conservatives”.

  124. 124.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @kwAwk: How do you propose Clinton could get the Republicans in Congress to work with her? I’d love to hear your suggestions.

  125. 125.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @kwAwk: your fucking words, racist idiot.

  126. 126.

    inventor

    October 20, 2016 at 1:48 pm

    Republicans have no agency of their own, they are only capable of reacting to Democrats. Therefore everything is Obama’s fault…….or som’in’ like dat.

  127. 127.

    WaterGirl

    October 20, 2016 at 1:49 pm

    @hovercraft:

    Arpaio trails his Democratic challenger, former Phoenix police sergeant Paul Penzone, by an astounding 15 points!

    Does god really love us that much?

  128. 128.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 1:49 pm

    @Fair Economist: I think it will. He’s going to follow the Palin arc. He’ll be popular after the election for a few months, maybe he starts up some new grifting scheme, and that will work for a year or too. But he’ll disappear eventually. And his business is done. The rubes will move on to some new demagogue.

    Do you think Fox news will want him on the air in January 2017?

  129. 129.

    Aleta

    October 20, 2016 at 1:50 pm

    The press had seven years to dismantle Trump justified by birtherism alone, or to use that as a starting point to expose his past. They passed, and their reasons are the big story that they won’t be covering so much. Besides the more obvious reasons, to me it’s also tied to how hard they prioritized stories about money and the illusion of success in the late 70s-80s-90s, And how the press urged everyone into investments in the stock market and housing (imo they were criminally unobjective). Their stories were sold using pictures of Trump’s bogus riches, among others.

  130. 130.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    @redshirt:

    I don’t propose she does. I propose that she proposes an agenda and fights her ass off to get that agenda passed and make the Republicans stop her.

  131. 131.

    Taylor

    October 20, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    @kwAwk: This is why I don’t particularly appreciate DougJ’s trolling. It’s impossible to tell if stuff like this is some pinhead who may actually believe his own nonsense, or DougJ having a laugh at people’s stupidity for taking it seriously.

    In this case, I call DougJ.

  132. 132.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    @amk:

    That’s pretty vague Sparky.

  133. 133.

    Poopyman

    October 20, 2016 at 1:52 pm

    @John Cole:

    This is either spoof or you are so white you are probably translucent.

    As a Translucent-American I take offense in the implied association with Mr/Ms KwAwk.

  134. 134.

    germy

    October 20, 2016 at 1:52 pm

    While delivering a speech in Delaware, Ohio on Thursday, a defiant Trump pledged that he will “totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election — if I win.”

  135. 135.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:53 pm

    @kwAwk: yeah, I know, that’s why you are a racist moron.

  136. 136.

    Anoniminous

    October 20, 2016 at 1:53 pm

    @Mike J:

    I have been involved with Emergency Response for multiple decades. Before an actual emergency occurs it is VERY important people know what their job is and to train to accomplish their job. I highly commend you for being part of the training exercise and fulfilling your assigned task.

  137. 137.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 20, 2016 at 1:53 pm

    @redshirt: He’s saying the opposite. He’s saying that Obama was naive and squandered a rare opportunity, which is why no one including Hillary Clinton is going to be that naive again.

    I think I’m starting to remember previous frustrating go-rounds with Mr. kwAwk. Probably either drones or the stimulus or health care reform.

    ETA: Witness the above, which looks to be a relic of the IT”S NEGOTIATING 101!! moment.

  138. 138.

    Shell

    October 20, 2016 at 1:53 pm

    Seems wing nut twitter is all a-flutter about Clinton supposedly leaking classified information about our nuclear response, “The President has four or so minutes to respond with a launch.” Only problem is, its not classified, never was and has been cited for decades. And if it is such a secret, how do all these people know that she leaked something classified?

  139. 139.

    hovercraft

    October 20, 2016 at 1:53 pm

    Trump: Clinton Should Resign Over Allegedly Leaked Town Hall Question

  140. 140.

    germy

    October 20, 2016 at 1:53 pm

    @WaterGirl: 15 points! Holy crap! I didn’t know the number was so high.

  141. 141.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    October 20, 2016 at 1:54 pm

    @kwAwk: Sun “I am only good at beating on defenceless women and stealing chickens” Tsu, seriously?

    “A trapped enemy will fight to the death with extreme zeal. ”

    Sure, if you don’t take prisoners.

  142. 142.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 1:54 pm

    @Taylor: I hope this is just a running joke. If not, here’s a public service announcement, please read:

    DougJ is not trolling this blog. The trolls are real.

    Thank you.

  143. 143.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:56 pm

    @amk:

    Sure, I understand that. I’m a racist because you make vague statements. Almost makes as much sense as people thinking I’m DougJ. DougJ doesn’t much like me either.

  144. 144.

    Frankensteinbeck

    October 20, 2016 at 1:56 pm

    @redshirt:
    I don’t think he’ll follow the Palin arc. First, his specific appeal is the possibility of an openly racist president. When he’s no longer a candidate, he won’t have that appeal. Second, he’s embarrassing. The base never knew Palin made them look stupid. They know it with Trump. Too much loser stink there. Third, Palin was propped up, hired by people like the Kochs to inspire the Tea Partiers. Nobody will want to do that with Trump. Within a week of the election the only people who care about Trump will be journalists who want to use him as an excuse to claim the 2016 election does not actually reflect the Republican Party.

  145. 145.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 1:56 pm

    @kwAwk: Now comes the part where we quote you back to you, and you sputter that you’re not being racist at all.

    This:

    Obama could have put the birther stuff to bed years before he did.

    is you attempting to legitimize a bunch of cranky white folks shaking an accomplished black man down for his papers. He gave them more than he needed to, if the question was asked in good faith, long before Election Day 2008. And yet, in their eyes and yours, it wasn’t good enough.

  146. 146.

    WaterGirl

    October 20, 2016 at 1:57 pm

    @redshirt: Nobody likes a loser. Especially when the whole reason they chose him was because they thought he was a winner. I think even some diehards start to bail once they see he’s a loser.

  147. 147.

    barns

    October 20, 2016 at 1:57 pm

    More overanalysis horseshit.

    It’s really not that difficult to understand. He’s an idiot not qualified for the job. Full stop.

    Also LOL….DougJ’s post below this one. He’s SHOCKED…SHOCKED that Hillary is doing so well against an idiot. Who’d a thunk.

  148. 148.

    japa21

    October 20, 2016 at 1:58 pm

    I received my election judge precinct assignment today. Got relatively lucky. It is only 1/2 mile from my home. which, since I have to be there around 5 AM, is a good thing. The precinct is comprised of two large apartment complexes, one of which has a large Indian population. One of the other judges speaks Hindi, so I would anticipate that judge being assigned to the check in table.

    Since apartment complexes tend to have a lot of turnover, I have a feeling there may be a lot of provisional ballots. I also wonder how many same day registrations we will be doing.

  149. 149.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 1:58 pm

    @hovercraft: Resign what? Her SoS position? Her presidency? No wonder his base is as dumb as he is.

  150. 150.

    nonynony

    October 20, 2016 at 1:58 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Yet he couldn’t do it because he’d promised to work with Republicans.

    Okay, you’re probably a troll but this is stupid.

    He had a Democratic majority of over 60 for like a month. The month when they passed the ACA. Prior to that month the Republicans were making sure that Al Franken wasn’t seated. After that month Kennedy died and got replaced by Scott Brown. Outside of that window, most of Obama’s time in office he’s had to deal with Republicans because the Democrats did not have a supermajority and the Democrats refused to kill the filibuster. That’s it.

    On top of that, most of the pushback that Obama got came from his own caucus. Even with that month of supermajority, the ACA looks the way it does more because of Joe Lieberman and Max Baucus than because of Mitch McConnell. The conservative Democrats in the Senate needed to be appeased to get them on board.

    If you literally do not understand how politics work, you should consider not pontificating on it.

  151. 151.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    October 20, 2016 at 2:01 pm

    This post here is why I read this blog every day.

    This comment, “Occasionally I’ll chime in when I think I have something of value to add to the conversation and we get a whole thread where everybody calls me a moron,” is not*. It’s just something I have to put up with to get what’s worthwhile. And as awful as some of these trolls are, you know what? It’s worth it. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again now, this is the best blog on the interweb.

    *’Cause, for the record, you don’t have anything of value to say. Not ever, if this thread is anything to go on…

  152. 152.

    japa21

    October 20, 2016 at 2:01 pm

    @barns: shomi, is that you?

  153. 153.

    Mike J

    October 20, 2016 at 2:02 pm

    @Anoniminous: To be fair, I also test fired a generator, checked all the UPSs.

  154. 154.

    Frankensteinbeck

    October 20, 2016 at 2:02 pm

    @nonynony:
    And despite all that, those two years rank among the most productive in presidential history. Knocking Obama for offering bipartisanship is wrong on every level.

  155. 155.

    The Sheriff's A Ni-

    October 20, 2016 at 2:02 pm

    Resident asshole returns demanding woman and black man do as he says, more at 11.

  156. 156.

    Frankensteinbeck

    October 20, 2016 at 2:03 pm

    @japa21:
    Yes. I noticed the similarities in both subject matter and phrasing from the first time it posted.

  157. 157.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 2:04 pm

    @barns: Jeez, are you incapable of taking a different approach?

  158. 158.

    liberal

    October 20, 2016 at 2:04 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: Yeah…apart from character issues you’re assuming about 20 more IQ points than Trump has.

  159. 159.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 2:05 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: I like your take better than mine. We agree on the main point though: Once he loses, Trump is done. It’s only a question of how long that takes. Days? Months?

  160. 160.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    October 20, 2016 at 2:05 pm

    @redshirt: Do you think we’ll be treated to the spectacle of the whole Trump clan getting into a drunken brawl at a block party and hauled off to the pokey, à la the Palins? I can only hope…

  161. 161.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 20, 2016 at 2:06 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: BUT HE SHOULD HAVE TWISTED ARMS LIKE LBJ! ASKED FOR MORE THAN HE WANTED AND THEN MEET IN THE MIDDLE! Kwawk radio, your home for all your favorite tunes from 2009.

  162. 162.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 2:06 pm

    @redshirt: Ooh, ooh, you know what I haven’t seen here in a long time?

    “Cudlip”.

    I think barnsmi should do a cover of that.

  163. 163.

    liberal

    October 20, 2016 at 2:07 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Occasionally I’ll chime in when I think I have something of value to add to the conversation …

    Better luck next time, beyotch.

  164. 164.

    dogwood

    October 20, 2016 at 2:09 pm

    @kwAwk:
    Anyone who believes that Barack Obama didn’t produce a “real” birth certificate before 2011 because he was trolling is either a bigot, a full-blown racist or ignorant. No documentation produced by Obama has changed the minds of any republican. So the idea that it was ever in his power to end birtherism is absurd.

  165. 165.

    liberal

    October 20, 2016 at 2:09 pm

    @Shell: Next thing you’ll be telling us is that they think the concept of the nuclear triad is classified.

  166. 166.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 20, 2016 at 2:10 pm

    @liberal: Mostly what I meant is that there was a way, consistent with everything Trump professes to believe, to answer Wallace without backing down from his “rigged” theme and without creating another fiasco. But, yes, Trump has never showed himself to be bright enough to avoid creating fiascoes.

  167. 167.

    raven

    October 20, 2016 at 2:10 pm

    CLINTON: Well, Chris, I am on record as saying that we need to put more money into the Social Security Trust Fund. That’s part of my commitment to raise taxes on the wealthy. My Social Security payroll contribution will go up, as will Donald’s, assuming he can’t figure out how to get out of it. But what we want to do is to replenish the Social Security Trust Fund…
    TRUMP: Such a nasty woman.

    And there you have it. This campaign, summed up in two sentences. Trump was speaking in the English of talk radio, of the conservative media bubble that has surrounded him, and of the chain e-mail. It was drunk-uncle English, so convinced of its own righteousness that it’s blind to its own cartwheeling ignorance. Hillary Rodham Clinton was speaking the English of the career politician, albeit with a bit more of an edge than she usually brings to it.

  168. 168.

    Vhh

    October 20, 2016 at 2:11 pm

    @kwAwk: BS. There is no requirement to publish a long form birth certificate to run for office. Obama had whatever was needed to get a passport, and no reason to do more. The wing nut demand was racism, and had he complied right off the harassment would have escalated. As it is, Obama and his family have endured insults like no first family in history. Turning the tables on the wing nuts was exactly the correct thing to do.

  169. 169.

    liberal

    October 20, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    @kwAwk: The real problem is that the Dems should have nuked the filibuster, but you can’t put that on Obama.

  170. 170.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    @Jesse: I actually liked her. She sometimes made good points. She wasn’t a troll either, just insane.

  171. 171.

    GregB

    October 20, 2016 at 2:13 pm

    All I know is that after three debates, Trump supporters are tired of winning.

  172. 172.

    liberal

    October 20, 2016 at 2:14 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: Yes, sure, that was your main point. I’m just adding that, while first Donald doesn’t do nuance, I also don’t think he has the intelligence to say that particular thing, even less eloquently.

  173. 173.

    Doug R

    October 20, 2016 at 2:14 pm

    @kwAwk: I think we need to stop and frisk you for your papers

  174. 174.

    LevelB

    October 20, 2016 at 2:15 pm

    Here is a question I would like to see GOP elected officials asked before the election: Will you and the RNC support and fund Donald’s planned challenge to the outcome of the election?

    Could be worded better..and will not be shocked to learn this is already happening.

  175. 175.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:15 pm

    @Vhh:

    Turning the tables on the wing nuts was exactly the correct thing to do.

    Yup, that’s why the racist pos like the one here are pissed off. It backfired on their own lily white asses.

  176. 176.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:16 pm

    @nonynony:

    I believe he had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate for like 20 months until Kennedy died. That’s why the election of Scott Brown into Kennedy’s seat was such a big deal.

  177. 177.

    Steve Crickmore

    October 20, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    When the shoe was on the other foot. Talk about paranoia. When Hillary was senator and New York lost its bid for the Olymypic Games, in July 2005, she went so far as to question Lord Coe’s twelve world records as a 1500 metre runner. “All I’m saying is that you’ve got to question the motives, check the source. Was he setting world records back then in order to build himself up and attack us in the future? He’s spent his whole life absorbed in competition. It’s not healthy. I think he’s obsessed.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danielle-crittenden/new-yorks-failed-olympic-_b_3725.html

  178. 178.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    @redshirt: Yeah, you’re right. We went round and around once or twice because, you know, insane, but she wasn’t a troll. So my nostalgia is misplaced.

  179. 179.

    liberal

    October 20, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    @redshirt: I thought the conventional wisdom was that he was going to head some neo-Nazi media venture.

    I’m hoping the fact that he’ll go down as the first man in history to lose to A GIRL in a presidential election will give him a coronary and he keels over.

  180. 180.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    @dogwood:

    Very true. But stupid people are people too! If he wanted the issue to go away, best bet would be to patronize them a little bit.

  181. 181.

    liberal

    October 20, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    @Tripod: Actually, there is a way to get illegal immigrants to leave the country. Draconian penalties for employers who hire them. But somehow no one proposes that. I wonder why…

  182. 182.

    Schlemazel

    October 20, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    @redshirt:
    Getting a Republican Congress to work with Clinton is easy! All she has to do is to agree to every stupid thing the GOP wants. To sign every bill they want without regard. Appoint only wingnut judges, dept secretaries and officials and they will work with her. Oh and the last thing they want is for her to shoot Tim Kaine on live TV, appoint Paul Ryan VP and then jump off the top of the Washington Monument. Anything short of those few easy steps are unacceptable

  183. 183.

    ET

    October 20, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    @kwAwk: Sorry but you are so wrong. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing would have stopped the birther thing – his name was foreign sounding, his father wasn’t American, and he lived outside of the US for a lot of his life. He could have brought them back in a time machine and they wouldn’t have believed it. Producing the long form of the birth certificate any earlier wouldn’t have changed a damn thing because i was never about him not being born in the US, it was always about him not being white– they just couldn’t say that.

  184. 184.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    If you think I’m a troll, please Google “kwAwk & BLRAG”. You’ll find about 10 years of my defense of every democratic position from immigration to gay marriage to climate change to the election of Barack Obama.

    Or you may Google “kwAwk & DailyKos” and there you’ll probably find my declaration of support for Hillary Clinton circa 2008.

  185. 185.

    Mnemosyne

    October 20, 2016 at 2:21 pm

    @kwAwk:

    In your world, “not walking on water” seems to mean “requiring someone to jump through hoops that no other candidate or president has ever been required to jump through.”

    You’re holding Obama to a higher standard than any other president in US history. Why is that, exactly?

  186. 186.

    liberal

    October 20, 2016 at 2:21 pm

    @kwAwk: if you think those redneck fascists can be humored/appeased so easily, you dumber than…oh wait, we already established that you’re an idiot.

  187. 187.

    Gin & Tonic

    October 20, 2016 at 2:22 pm

    @kwAwk:

    But stupid people are people too!

    Thank you, Senator Hruska.

  188. 188.

    dogwood

    October 20, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    @Vhh:
    There is no such thing as a “long form” birth certificate. Never could understand why dems fell for this trap. States have their own methods and terminology for issuing certified birth certificates or certificates of live birth. Bureaus of Vital Statistics store the original information in various ways and issue certified standardized copies to citizens. The use of the term “long ” form is designed to create a connotation of something being hidden or secret. That’s crap.

  189. 189.

    Mnemosyne

    October 20, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    @kwAwk:

    I believe he had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate for like 20 months until Kennedy died.

    You remember incorrectly. Al Franken’s election was disputed and it took several months for him to be seated. Between that and Kennedy’s terminal illness, Obama had 8 months of a filibuster-proof majority.

  190. 190.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:24 pm

    @kwAwk: no need, you have already proved yourself. a racist pos.

  191. 191.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Lets face it. As far as Presidential material Barack Hussein Obama is pretty different that the collection of old white guys that came before him. For some people this took more than a little getting used to. I think we could have afforded to humor them a bit.

    I made the same arguments to conservatives for years about the silliness about their demands. But when Obama started trolling Trump about it, I lost a little faith.

  192. 192.

    trollhattan

    October 20, 2016 at 2:26 pm

    @kwAwk:
    All those girls and ladies were trolling Trump by not wearing burkas. I see how this works now, thanks!

    Better trolls, plEAse.

  193. 193.

    shortribs

    October 20, 2016 at 2:27 pm

    Wtf is a long form birth certificate? Mine’s a 4×6 (about) piece of faded paper that has as I recall, my name, birthdate and a signature or two on it the rest is white space and fancy bordering, it’s the only birth certificate I’ve had for 52 years.

  194. 194.

    Mnemosyne

    October 20, 2016 at 2:27 pm

    @kwAwk:

    So a double standard is okay when it hurts the black guy?

    You know, there’s a word for people who think that whites and blacks should be treated differently, and that black people should be held to a higher standard than white people.

    Goodbye, racist troll.

  195. 195.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 2:27 pm

    @kwAwk:

    I think we could have afforded to humor them a bit.

    Yeah. They weren’t actually going to lynch him, just rough him up a little. So let’s humor them, because nothing is more important that the hurt fee-fees of bigots.

    Asshole.

  196. 196.

    Joel

    October 20, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    @John Cole: Go is an underrated movie.

  197. 197.

    bemused

    October 20, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    I like that. Or he could go on a frenzy of groping and get caught on multiple videos.

  198. 198.

    trollhattan

    October 20, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Al Franken took his oath of office on July 7, 2009, more than half a year after the beginning of his term on January 3, 2009

    Better trolls, plEAse.

  199. 199.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 2:29 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I’m just some internet rando, but I like you.

  200. 200.

    chopper

    October 20, 2016 at 2:29 pm

    @kwAwk:

    As far as Presidential material Barack Hussein Obama is pretty different that the collection of old white guys that came before him. For some people this took more than a little getting used to. I think we could have afforded to humor them a bit.

    shut up, doug.

  201. 201.

    Mnemosyne

    October 20, 2016 at 2:30 pm

    It sounds like kwAwk watched the White Fragility Training Video and thought, Yes, that’s exactly how minorities should act around me!

  202. 202.

    chopper

    October 20, 2016 at 2:31 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    even then, it was a filibuster-proof majority in name only. 60 votes, but including guys like lieberman.

  203. 203.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:31 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Lmao…. In the historical scope of American racism against black people, asking for a piece of paper from the first Black President is but a fart in a wind storm. It’s not to say that he should be asked for it, he shouldn’t, but at the same time we don’t live in a perfect world. Obama being asked for his birth certificate isn’t that worse than Kerry being asked to justify his military medals or George W. Bush being asked to justify his college grades.

    One must do undignified things to become President.

  204. 204.

    Joel

    October 20, 2016 at 2:31 pm

    @kwAwk: here’s a shovel
    please proceed

  205. 205.

    germy

    October 20, 2016 at 2:33 pm

    Wallace also exposed his audience to a large dose of right-wing misinformation:

    His question about the economy began with the false premise that President Obama’s 2009 stimulus plan damaged the economy.

    His question about immigration took Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s 2013 comments about “open borders” grossly out of context.

    His question about abortion access invoked the right-wing myth of “partial-birth” abortion, a non-medical term invented by anti-abortion groups.

    His question about the national debt falsely alleged that programs like Social Security and Medicare are going to run out of money and add to the debt absent short-term cuts, echoing Republican talking points about entitlements.

    (media matters)

  206. 206.

    EBT

    October 20, 2016 at 2:33 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: No, he couldn’t. That is far too many words in a row for him to say without any racism or mysoginy.

  207. 207.

    Aleta

    October 20, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    Court decision in Ohio, important win for GOTV. From Think Progress: via ACLU:

    A federal district court ruled Wednesday night that Ohio must allow most of the voters illegally purged from the rolls to vote in this year’s presidential election using provisional ballots.

    A higher court ruled back in September that Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State John Husted violated the National Voter Registration Act by purging nearly 2 million voters from its rolls over the past five years. While some of this group were removed legitimately because they died or left the state, many were purged simply because they skipped a few federal elections.
    An investigation by Reuters earlier this year found that low-income, black, and Democratic voters were disproportionately purged. The study found that in Ohio’s major cities, including Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, voters have been removed from the rolls in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods at about twice the rate as in Republican neighborhoods.
    With the crucial swing state already a week into its early voting period, voting rights advocates in the state are cheering the court’s decision, but expressing fear that because of the late news, voters have already been disenfranchised.

    Now, anyone purged since 2011 as well as anyone who has moved within the same county will be able vote.
    “Moving down the street shouldn’t mean someone’s vote is thrown away,” Mike Brickner with the American Civil Liberties Union told ThinkProgress.
    Additionally, the state has to send notification to any purged voter who requested an absentee ballot that they may vote in person using a provisional ballot either early or on Election Day.

  208. 208.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Obama being asked for his birth certificate isn’t that worse than Kerry being asked to justify his military medals or George W. Bush being asked to justify his college grades.

    It does get a wee tad worse when the first seven attempts to answer the question are brushed aside as insufficient. But you keep willfully ignoring that part.

  209. 209.

    Soylent Green

    October 20, 2016 at 2:35 pm

    After Trump welches on his debts to the Russian oligarchs who own him, do they poison his taco bowl with polonium, or make it quick with a double tap?

  210. 210.

    dogwood

    October 20, 2016 at 2:36 pm

    @shortribs:
    If you’re white that’s all you need. If you’re black you need the super secret long form.

  211. 211.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    @Jesse:

    And yet, when the time came to shut up Trump, he was pretty easily able to produce the necessary document.

  212. 212.

    Mnemosyne

    October 20, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    @kwAwk:

    George W. Bush being asked to justify his college grades.

    George W. Bush was never asked to publicly release his college transcripts to prove he passed all his classes.

    You know who was?

  213. 213.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    @Jesse: It’s a cowardly racist troll with the same talking point. Just like any other rethug. No percentage in trying to reason with it.

  214. 214.

    Matt McIrvin

    October 20, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    @kwAwk: That wasn’t the necessary document; the necessary document didn’t exist. No document that anyone released shut up any birthers, including Trump.

  215. 215.

    Soylent Green

    October 20, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Obama had 8 months of a filibuster-proof majority

    He also had the blue dogs undermining his agenda.

  216. 216.

    Mnemosyne

    October 20, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    @Jesse:

    Thank you, I do my best. ?

  217. 217.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 2:41 pm

    @kwAwk: See, again, this is you legitimizing the people moving the goalposts. You’re saying they were perfectly within their rights to demand not just an answer, but a particular elaborate form of the answer constructed to their satisfaction.

    I say your replies in this thread are pretty fucking racist. And by your rules, since I’m a cranky white guy, I’m right. Asshole.

  218. 218.

    Mike J

    October 20, 2016 at 2:41 pm

    @shortribs:

    Wtf is a long form birth certificate? Mine’s a 4×6 (about) piece of faded paper that has as I recall, my name, birthdate and a signature or two on it the rest is white space and fancy bordering, it’s the only birth certificate I’ve had for 52 years.

    Virginia embossed mine on a credit card piece of blue plastic with raised white letters. That was the only birth certificate I (or my mother) ever got. That was in the ’60s.

  219. 219.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:41 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Do you think that Obama being asked for his transcripts might have had just a little bit to do with left wingers harassing Dubya for 8 years for his C average at Yale?

  220. 220.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Oh yes, while harassing Dubya as only getting into Yale on legacy? (legacy is affirmative action for rich white folks)

  221. 221.

    scav

    October 20, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    @amk: Even if it isn’t racist, it does racism, enables racism “for entertainment”, the pure personal pleasure in the transgression. Rather like Trump denigrates and grabs pussies in public — anything for the spotlight and the little shiver of interior superiority to the other objects littering the landscape.

  222. 222.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    @amk: I’m sick, I have restricted mobility, and I’m bored.

    Okay, topic change. Ironically, the first time I really, really wanted to vote for HRC was when she moved to nominate Obama at the 2008 convention. I’m glad he got in first, but I’ve been really happy to vote for her this year.

  223. 223.

    Timurid

    October 20, 2016 at 2:44 pm

    @Soylent Green:

    I’m not sure how Secret Service protection works for losing candidates. Will Trump’s security detail pack up and leave the morning of 11/9?

  224. 224.

    Kay

    October 20, 2016 at 2:44 pm

    Brit HumeVerified account
    ‏@brithume
    Hillary may claim to be horrified by Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting election result, but look at this:

    Al Gore! Question: is it a conflict of interest for Roger Ailes’ former employees in media to shill for Donald Trump, who is managed by Roger Ailes? Or do ethical norms just not apply to this large group of ultra-special people?

    Also. Did we ever clear up why everyone turned a blind eye to Ailes’ predatory behavior for decades until someone had the good sense to record what was going on behind the scenes in that horrible, 1950’s era, unprofessional workplace?

  225. 225.

    Steve Crickmore

    October 20, 2016 at 2:46 pm

    If opinions critical of Hillary still allowed on this site, I submit this. When the shoe was on the other foot, that is when Hillary was one of its senators and New York lost its bid for the Olymypic Games, to London, in July 2005, she went so far as to question Lord Coe’s twelve world records as a 1500 metre runner. “All I’m saying is that you’ve got to question the motives, check the source. Was he setting world records back then in order to build himself up and attack us in the future? He’s spent his whole life absorbed in competition. It’s not healthy. I think he’s obsessed.” If so I submit this Breaking her silence on New York’s failed bid to host the 2012 Olympics, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) today blamed a “vast Euro conspiracy” for awarding the prize to London.

    “Obviously the committee was stacked with extremist judges,” Clinton said when stopped by reporters on her way to the Senate cafeteria. “What we have here is a vicious partisan attack. The [International Olympic] Committee is practicing the politics of municipal destruction.”

  226. 226.

    Paul in KY

    October 20, 2016 at 2:46 pm

    @kwAwk: You did your part!

  227. 227.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 2:46 pm

    @Kay: Your questions, you’re joking, right?

  228. 228.

    dogwood

    October 20, 2016 at 2:47 pm

    @kwAwk:
    I must have slept through the W transcript movement. How many hours on cable tv were spent on it? Who were the official spokespeople for this travesty?

  229. 229.

    Iowa Old Lady

    October 20, 2016 at 2:47 pm

    I’d love to see the media ignore Trump on election night.

  230. 230.

    Mnemosyne

    October 20, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Nope. I think it had to do with racism, since the claim was that Obama was only allowed into Columbia and Harvard because of affirmative action.

    But let me guess — claiming that someone who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law only did so because his teachers gave him a pass due to affirmative action totally isn’t a racist claim, because other people made claims about W’s grades, so that means racism doesn’t exist. QED.

  231. 231.

    Kass

    October 20, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    @kwAwk:
    “drug”? He gave it some pill or something?

  232. 232.

    Paul in KY

    October 20, 2016 at 2:49 pm

    @Anoniminous: There is a long form DD-214, which specifies at bottom the basic reason for the departure, even when discharged honorably.

  233. 233.

    Paul in KY

    October 20, 2016 at 2:54 pm

    @raven: That it just one example of 12,845 of how unfit he is for the position. A gentle jibe & she’s such a ‘nasty woman’. What a precious little creampuff!!!!!

  234. 234.

    gwangung

    October 20, 2016 at 2:56 pm

    @kwAwk:
    No.

    SATSQ

  235. 235.

    Poopyman

    October 20, 2016 at 2:56 pm

    @Kay:

    Al Gore! Question: is it a conflict of interest for Roger Ailes’ former employees in media to shill for Donald Trump, who is managed by Roger Ailes? Or do ethical norms just not apply to this large group of ultra-special people?

    Also. Did we ever clear up why everyone turned a blind eye to Ailes’ predatory behavior for decades until someone had the good sense to record what was going on behind the scenes in that horrible, 1950’s era, unprofessional workplace?

    Question! Do you lawyers pose anything other than rhetorical questions? :^)

  236. 236.

    gene108

    October 20, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    The rot started with Bush, Sr. and the “read my lips, no new taxes.” They basically went all in for dogma over the pragmatism needed to govern and weaponized it under Bush, Jr. and now have turned it into a WMD.

  237. 237.

    Iowa Old Lady

    October 20, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    @Paul in KY: Yeah. Nasty women unite!

  238. 238.

    Gin & Tonic

    October 20, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    @Steve Crickmore: Just wondering whether you have any actual documented sources for those quotes, other than one unsourced blog post on HuffPo.

  239. 239.

    Paul in KY

    October 20, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @Soylent Green: The polonium would definitely mark it as them doing it & would be a nastier way to go, but innocent people could be contaminated, so for that reason, I go with the double tap to the head.

  240. 240.

    Joel

    October 20, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @kwAwk: nope

  241. 241.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 2:59 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I guess affirmative action is how he made Harvard Law Review too. (Technically possible.)

    Presidents of the Review, such as Barack Obama, are elected by the other editors. But I guess the Law Review editors, just felt sorry for him or something. I mean, it’s not like Harvard Law students compete ruthlessly for prestige positions like that.

  242. 242.

    Joel

    October 20, 2016 at 3:00 pm

    @Steve Crickmore: a+ on the passive aggression.

  243. 243.

    Teganu

    October 20, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    Bush v. Gore was a judicial coup d’etat and I will maintain that to my dying day. Too bad Scalia died before we could hang him for treason.

  244. 244.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    @kwAwk:

    It’s really a ‘the food is awful and the portion sizes are too small’ kind of deal. If you don’t like how the cook prepares the food, quit going to the restaurant, ya know?

    That’s certainly not the MOST asinine thing I have ever read on this blog, but it’s industrial-grade stupid. When a relatively large number of people are telling you it’s abuser logic (h/t/ Erisia), you might consider not coming up with some stupid-ass response like the one I blockquoted.

    C’est li vie, huh?

  245. 245.

    sukabi

    October 20, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    @kwAwk: bullshit.

    Name one other time, prior to Obama, that ANY candidate was asked to provide anything other than regular documents as proof of citizenship.

    Name one other time citizenship was even brought up.

    The Repubs questioned McCain’s eligibility when he ran against W, but they weren’t full on “he’s a Panamanian”….

    What could the difference be, hmmmmm?

  246. 246.

    Paul in KY

    October 20, 2016 at 3:04 pm

    @Jesse: Hell no!! Who really cares (in the long run) about being editor of Harvard Law Review. I mean, where do you even throw that on a resume??

  247. 247.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    @Timurid:

    I’m not sure how Secret Service protection works for losing candidates. Will Trump’s security detail pack up and leave the morning of 11/9?

    Only if his check bounces.

  248. 248.

    gene108

    October 20, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Do you think that Obama being asked for his transcripts might have had just a little bit to do with left wingers harassing Dubya for 8 years for his C average at Yale?

    When Bush, Jr started talking in 2000 and people heard a guy, who could barely talk coherently, Republicans rushed to his defense by stating, “see he’s smart, he went to Yale and Harvard”.

    The natural rejoinder is, if he’s so smart what kind of grades did he get? We hear he has a C average and squeaked by. Plus, being a legacy admission, means the entrance requirements for him were dumbed down.

  249. 249.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 3:06 pm

    @sukabi:

    Name one other time citizenship was even brought up.

    George Romney, 1968. Although he (obviously) did not get the nom.

    ETA: And the Romney thing did not last too long anyway, even when he was still an active candidate.

  250. 250.

    trollhattan

    October 20, 2016 at 3:07 pm

    @Soylent Green:
    Yup and also, too, my earlier comment re. Al Franken not being sworn in until JULY due to his recount battle. What was that magic number, again?

    Better trolls, plEAse.

  251. 251.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 3:08 pm

    @Paul in KY: Secretary of State, what even is that? Some office clerk thing?

    The stones on these people. “My ignorance is your fault!”

  252. 252.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:08 pm

    @Timurid: When mittbot lost, SS said ‘you’re on your own now, buddy’ and skeddaled outta there.

  253. 253.

    Iowa Old Lady

    October 20, 2016 at 3:09 pm

    @Timurid: Here’s an article from just after Romney lost saying they usually hang around for about a week, but it’s up to their discretion.

  254. 254.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    @sukabi: That McCain was born to two American citizens on a military base?

    The funny thing is, that you guys can’t accept that I’m not saying that Obama didn’t suffer from racist people questioning his citizenship.

    What I am saying, is that when a kid gets bullied, if you want it to stop, a lot of the times you have to look at the behavior of the bully and the victim. Bullies tend to bully because they’re insecure. They choose their victims based upon their propensity to be victimized.

    Some abused women are with true sociopaths who will abuse anybody. Other abused women display traits that attract abusers. This is why women who are abused in one relationship are more likely to be abused in another relationship. Doesn’t make the abuse right, but when a woman is abused in multiple relationships, it will pay off if she tries to examine the behavior she has that leads her into relationships with abusers.

    Sometimes it takes two to Tango.

  255. 255.

    geg6

    October 20, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    @kwAwk:

    There is apparently another Trump who has been making these “reasonable” arguments because Donald J. Trump is not that guy.

  256. 256.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:11 pm

    @gene108:

    There are a lot of people who go to good schools who are quite intelligent who do not excel at public speaking.

  257. 257.

    Iowa Old Lady

    October 20, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    @amk: That’s my memory of what happened in Romney’s case too. He woke up the next morning and the SS was gone. But the article I cited at #247 says it varies.

  258. 258.

    piratedan

    October 20, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    @Steve Crickmore: Steve, considering the scandals that have plagued the staging of the games in Rio and in London before them, calling the IOC machinations of rewarding the games to certain locations, only follows the folks at FIFA for alleged chicanery (i.e. the selling and buying of influence and votes). Consider the hoops that were cleared and arm twisting that was done to award SLC the Winter Games a few years back. Perhaps we should allow a certain lattitude in believing that the folks that “govern” sports of a global or international nature do not always apply what most of us would consider to be honest metrics to the decision making process and hey, maybe she really is human and wanted to see the games in NYC and felt a bit of sour grapes that all of the work was for naught.

  259. 259.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:13 pm

    @kwAwk: This is a pos troll, peeps. All gishgallop. Don’t waste your time, folks.

  260. 260.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 3:13 pm

    @kwAwk: He was asking for it. That’s really all you got?

    Please rest assured that my assessment of you as a garbage fire of a human being is based purely on the content of your character, as revealed through your words.

  261. 261.

    geg6

    October 20, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    @kwAwk:

    I also believe that the whole open borders in North America was included in the Hillary/DNC emails hacked by the Russians.

    Don’t know anything about this in the DNC emails, but you may be highly confused about a speech she gave to Brazillian bankers in which she was discussing a sort of EU type relationship among the nations of the Americas, where there is free trade and the ability to move about the entire region freely. I think you’ve been spending too much time watching FOX or something.

  262. 262.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Do you have a point re: your comment about gridlock? If so, you’re not presenting it very coherently, other than to transcribe what you believed has happened since 2009.

  263. 263.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:15 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: That’s what I remember, especially mittbot pumping his own gas.

  264. 264.

    sukabi

    October 20, 2016 at 3:15 pm

    @Steve Crickmore: thanks for playing “Who really said this”

    Attitude, sentence structure and pettiness suggest that drumpf had that brain fart.

  265. 265.

    chopper

    October 20, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    @kwAwk:

    In the historical scope of American racism against black people, asking for a piece of paper from the first Black President is but a fart in a wind storm.

    lol, “just a piece of paper”. yeah, they just wanted a blank one to doodle on, i don’t see what the big deal is.

  266. 266.

    geg6

    October 20, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Jesus, could you be any whiter? No, he wasn’t trolling. He was maintaining his dignity and self-respect. Jesus. I wish he’d never have released it. He should not have to and to imply that he should have, for any reason whatsoever, is racist. No better than Trump.

  267. 267.

    Calouste

    October 20, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    @Steve Crickmore:
    Great link!

    Wait…, there is no link, you just pulled it out of your ass.

  268. 268.

    scav

    October 20, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: I’d imagine there could be a pretty media-ready opportunity for Trump to arrange for a reality-type apprentice show to choose which of his gun-loving following get the unbelievable opportunity and honor to be a part of his volunteer personal guard. Combines the bang-bang thrill of target competitions with the bikini round as he goes for his take on the Amazonian Guard. Bring on their new network!

  269. 269.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:18 pm

    @SFAW:

    I’ll make it really really simple for you. Obama is partially responsible for the gridlock of the last 8 years.

    A) Because he promised to make people work together
    B) Because it wasn’t in his power to make this happen
    C) Because it gave Republican’s an incentive to not work with him
    D and Because it trapped Republicans into a corner where any cooperation at all was a victory for Obama

  270. 270.

    Paul in KY

    October 20, 2016 at 3:18 pm

    @Jesse: Clerical job, obviously. For the ‘state’, so I guess that’s a lot of clerking, but management is where you want to be.

  271. 271.

    Steve Crickmore

    October 20, 2016 at 3:19 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Good point! Surpisingly, I can’t find any other corrobative source so I should withdraw it, if I was able. One might have thought that Huffington Post which is now very pro Hillary would have checked it out, but who knows, maybe it was a wee too satirical. My bad!

  272. 272.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:20 pm

    And to cole. Do you have the balls to ban the blatantly racist trolls?

    yeah, yeah, I have heard your spiel on freedumb of speech and all that bs.

  273. 273.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 3:21 pm

    @Paul in KY: Yeah. Secretaries are losers. Managers are winners. Guys who can lose a billion bucks running a casino (!) are yuuge winners.

    Donald Trump: backwards Chuck Norris Facts.

  274. 274.

    Paul in KY

    October 20, 2016 at 3:21 pm

    @kwAwk: That is so pathetic!!! Just because some people happen to be timid, and don’t just shoot the abuser right off the bat, does in NO WAY make them an enabler to their own abuse by some POS creepoid.

    You don’t abuse people just because it’s easy to do so, you fucktard.

  275. 275.

    Joel

    October 20, 2016 at 3:22 pm

    Christ, what the fuck is with the trolls today. Do we need to get Beowulf back in here?

  276. 276.

    Paul in KY

    October 20, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    @kwAwk: You are so fuckin stupid…

  277. 277.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:24 pm

    @Paul in KY:

    Correction for you. You SHOULDN’T abuse people because it’s easy to do. Some people do anyways.

    Some women who fall victim of physical abuse are themselves people who inflict emotional abuse. Some women and some men just don’t know who to de-escalate conflict. Some people just don’t know how to negotiate and compromise. It is what it is.

  278. 278.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 3:25 pm

    @kwAwk:

    left wingers harassing Dubya for 8 years for his C average at Yale?

    Led by George Soros, no doubt, who also personally directed the “Bush is Hitler” TV ad which appeared a gazillion times.

    In case that’s too abstruse for you: there was no “harassing Dubya for 8 years for his C average.” It was rightly pointed out, more than a couple of times, that he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree, but that was because he kept saying and doing stupid shit.

    Please try to keep your RWNJ BS memes straight.

  279. 279.

    Bobby Thomson

    October 20, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    @Mnemosyne: try less than two months. Franken was sworn in after July 4 weekend. Kennedy died August 25 while congress was in recess.

  280. 280.

    Brachiator

    October 20, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Trump could easily have said something like “Chris, initial election results can be misleading.

    But the point is that Trump could not have easily said something like this because that is not how his mind works.

    The weird thing is that Republicans are in total denial about this.

    I listened briefly to a conservative radio station’s post debate analysis. The station had hosted a very well attended public showing of the debate in Anaheim, California. The audience members, all very strong Trump supporters would continually normalize and rationalize Trump’s wild sputtering to smooth out the anger, ignorance, vindictiveness and just plain strangeness. They either think he is just deliberately being entertaining and provocative or finally telling it like it is to both Democrats and Republicans.

    And (no surprise here) they blame a media who they are convinced are all pro-Hillary of deliberately distorting Trump. And some of these people have attended Trump rallies and heard him speak in person. And so, even if they do not believe that the election is rigged, they have no problem with anything that Trump has said about the Democrats trying to steal the election from him.

  281. 281.

    Paul in KY

    October 20, 2016 at 3:27 pm

    @kwAwk: I stand by my comments. You should run from yours.

  282. 282.

    Fair Economist

    October 20, 2016 at 3:28 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Nobody likes a loser. Especially when the whole reason they chose him was because they thought he was a winner. I think even some diehards start to bail once they see he’s a loser.

    Y’all seem unfamiliar with the Southern “Lost Cause” myth. I assure you these people can back a loser whole-heartedly for centuries.

  283. 283.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    @Paul in KY:

    Not really. You’re pretty silly. If victims have no role in their own abuse, why are children of abuse more likely to get involved in abusive relationships?

  284. 284.

    sukabi

    October 20, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    @sukabi: doing a quick google on the above quote, only 2 results show up. in the entire googleverse 2 results. The first is an article written by Danielle Crittenden frum, wife of David on Huffington post. And the only other reference is on free republic. Both were posted in 2005. Made up bullshit that couldn’t get traction because obvious bullshit.

  285. 285.

    Gin & Tonic

    October 20, 2016 at 3:30 pm

    @Steve Crickmore:

    would have checked it out

    That would require HuffPo to have what journalists typically call “editors” who review the material they publish. Since those types of people need to be paid, this would detract from HuffPo’s business model.

  286. 286.

    Erisia

    October 20, 2016 at 3:31 pm

    @kwAwk: They are more likely to get with more abusive men because of learned behavior from a previous abusive partner or parent. The cause is all on the fucking abuser. You don’t get to fuck someone up then blame them for other awful people fucking them up. If your mindset is that there is something inherently wrong in the character of both an a bully and a victim, and that a victim needs to be held partially responsible and needs to change to avoid victimization, then there isn’t a chance in hell people are ever going to stop calling you a moron.

  287. 287.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:32 pm

    coming back to real issue that really matters

    Larry Sabato @LarrySabato

    Our new Crystal Ball Electoral College map: It’s a mad, mad world — Utah is a toss-up. Clinton leads 352-173.

    No wonder trolls are out today.

  288. 288.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 3:33 pm

    @amk:

    Do you have the balls to ban the blatantly racist trolls?

    He does. RtR spewed some racist shit back in the spring, and was banned for it. Although kwAwk is a troll, I think s/he is more clueless than racist (based on the comments I’ve read, which are only a subset of his/her comments), and, if Cole gave me the power of the banhammer, I wouldn’t use it on kwAwk.

    My opinion, for which no one asked.

  289. 289.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    @kwAwk: How, exactly, did Barack Obama invite the abuse he received? Spell it out for me. What specific action did he take?

    You’re going to come up with a variation on failure to comply. I already know that. I just want to hear which one it is, you sorry sack of crap.

  290. 290.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 3:35 pm

    @srv:

    Who are you, and what have you done with the REAL “srv”?

  291. 291.

    Paul in KY

    October 20, 2016 at 3:35 pm

    @kwAwk: Listen, dumbass. I didn’t say certain people weren’t easier to abuse than other personality types, everyone understands that.

    What I said, was no matter what personality traits a person has, (leaving aside mass-murderer, kitten-in-the-woodchipper-lovers, etc), no one deserves to be abused.

  292. 292.

    Ian

    October 20, 2016 at 3:36 pm

    @Kay:

    do ethical norms just not apply to this large group of ultra-special people

    I think you already know the answer to your question Kay.

  293. 293.

    Bobby Thomson

    October 20, 2016 at 3:36 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: the byline was David Frum’s wife.

  294. 294.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:38 pm

    @SFAW: meh, I don’t believe in degrees of racism.

  295. 295.

    sukabi

    October 20, 2016 at 3:38 pm

    @kwAwk: no, what you’re saying is that the republican party has degenerated into a bunch of sniveling juvenile bullies that need someone to “teach them respect” and Obama, by not knocking the shit out of them, contributed to their continued slide into the sewer.

  296. 296.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 3:39 pm

    @SFAW:

    Although kwAwk is a troll, I think s/he is more clueless than racist …

    As long as we’re trafficking in unsolicited opinions, I disagree with your assessment more and more as the thread goes on. I commend the fabulous abuse metaphor to your attention. That’s not a product of mere cluelessness.

  297. 297.

    Bobby Thomson

    October 20, 2016 at 3:39 pm

    @piratedan: nah, it was Frum’s wife trying to be Borowitz and failing.

  298. 298.

    evodevo

    October 20, 2016 at 3:41 pm

    @liberal: Yes. this.

  299. 299.

    trollhattan

    October 20, 2016 at 3:41 pm

    Holy crap, it’s really happening. Sam Wang reports the big Irish …uh….wagering joint has already paid out their Clinton bets.

  300. 300.

    Miss Bianca

    October 20, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    @Erisia:

    If your mindset is that there is something inherently wrong in the character of both an a bully and a victim, and that a victim needs to be held partially responsible and needs to change to avoid victimization, then there isn’t a chance in hell people are ever going to stop calling you a moron.

    No, not “moron”. “Asshole” would be the term of choice, for me.

  301. 301.

    dogwood

    October 20, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    Demands for birth certificates, transcripts, personal emails are not about transparency or openness. They are about one thing – finding a way to humiliate a political opponent. People who are entertained by this are pretty sick. And they exist on both sides of the aisle. Nonetheless, Democrats are lucky that prominent leaders and elected officials don’t pander 24-7 to the voters who get off on this crap. For Republicans it’s all they got.

  302. 302.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    @redshirt:

    She wasn’t a troll either, just insane.

    It’s a fine line, isn’t it?

  303. 303.

    Brachiator

    October 20, 2016 at 3:44 pm

    @kwAwk:

    I’ll make it really really simple for you.

    I will make this even simpler. What you say is wrongheaded. And factually incorrect.

    Your ABC list contradicts itself. If it wasn’t in his power to get Congress to work together, it is irrational to say he was responsible because he broke his promise. And the GOP leadership is on record as deciding to oppose him as soon as his term ended.

    There are ways to analyze the success and failures of the Obama administration, but your take is too simplistic.

  304. 304.

    trollhattan

    October 20, 2016 at 3:44 pm

    @Jesse:
    There’s something about the whole “GW Bush: defenseless target/ B. Obama: architect of every hurdle he’s faced” construct that I can’t quite put my finger on. What could be the difference here? What, indeed?

  305. 305.

    redshirt

    October 20, 2016 at 3:45 pm

    @different-church-lady: I don’t think so. Trolls are insincere. They do what they do intentionally to get a reaction.

    The insane are sincere, and do what they do because they are insane. Big difference to me.

  306. 306.

    RareSanity

    October 20, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    My nutty (but otherwise nice) boss came into my office asking if I saw the debate last night. Me knowing nothing good can come from this conversation, said no.

    He proceeds to tell something about how Hillary “stepped in it” by saying something about abortions being allowed right up until the the day before the due date. I was so caught off guard, I was like “What!?!”

    These people are literally living in a self-imposed alternate reality…I mean, how do you even respond to something like that? Where did this even come from? I started to google it, then he said, “the media isn’t even covering it”. So I’m thinking, “you actually believe that if Hillary said something that absurd, the media wouldn’t cover it?” I said nothing except, “interesting”.

    What the hell is going on in this country?

  307. 307.

    mike in dc

    October 20, 2016 at 3:47 pm

    Odd that shomi gets suspended and we get a new proliferation of trolls.

  308. 308.

    Bailey

    October 20, 2016 at 3:48 pm

    @kwAwk:

    To be fair, a big part of the problem lies with Obama too.

    Obama could have come out and released his long form birth certificate in 2008 or whenever the birth stuff started. But he enjoyed trolling the right wingers, using it to make them look silly, so he drug the process out for years when he could have put the issue to bed. That is where Trump got involved.

    Jesus, and I get called a troll.

    Obama released the same certificate of live birth that was acceptable for every other presidential candidate for the last two centuries and on par with what every modern candidate has released.

    That you think he needed to release a “long form” earlier only means that you buy into the racist crap the GOP and Donald Trump were spewing. Obama owed them nothing.

    Trump has made some reasonable points, one of them is that one of Obama’s greatest failures was telegraphing his every move to Republicans. Republicans could sit down and plot out thwarting Obama’s attempts to bring people together and put politics aside to get things done, precisely because Obama told them that was what he wanted to do. So any phase of working together with Obama by Republicans became a fulfillment of an Obama campaign goal and thus Repubs would get no credit for it.

    Yes, it was entirely unreasonable for Obama to telegraph that he wanted to work with both parties.

    Trump is also trying to point out that just as Bush got distracted in Afghanistan by Iraq, Obama got distracted in Iraq by Syria and Libya.

    He isn’t pointing that out at all. And if he were, it is a non-sequitur of a point based in nonsense. Iraq was completely a war of choice, with no relation to 9/11, that Bush chose to sell to the American public on the basis of scary mushroom clouds. Obama’s actions in Syria and Libya have been reactions to events taking place internally.

    Lastly, Trump is pointing out something pretty important, which that Hillary does not indeed have a plan for immigration reform. I’ve been a Hillary supporter since 2008 but I’m beginning to believe that Hillary does indeed want open borders where workers can flow across from Mexico and vice versa. Call it the right policy or the wrong policy, it doesn’t matter, it is a decision for the American people to make, and not one to be snuck in through passive aggressive policies.

    Hillary doesn’t even need an immigration reform plan. Plenty already exist that have bi-partisan appeal.

  309. 309.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 3:48 pm

    @trollhattan: At this point, we’re just running up the score in the legislative branch. It’s beautiful.

    I’m really hoping we get NFLTG Hillary fairly early on. And I can’t express how much I’d give to see “Get real, I’m made of steel, this is nothing” from Actual Hillary.

    I would also accept a reprise of “next time, bring Kryptonite.” :)

  310. 310.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:51 pm

    @Erisia:

    Women who end up in abusive situations need to learn positive behavior to prevent future abuse. Sometimes physical abuse is a reaction to emotion abuse. Sometimes physical abuse is all the fault of the abuser but the woman herself didn’t stop the abuse or recognize the warning signs. Some women like the attention and affirmation that comes from a controlling person, (he loves me, he needs me, I feel wanted, I feel needed) but don’t recognize that controlling behavior is abusive and leads to other type of abuse.

    Physical abuse is unacceptable. But that doesn’t mean that it is never provoked.

    And I don’t really care if you call me a moron. I’m just here to have fun. Don’t know any of you and don’t care about your assessment of me.

  311. 311.

    Bobby Thomson

    October 20, 2016 at 3:52 pm

    Stop feeding the fuckin’ sealion, yo.

  312. 312.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 3:53 pm

    @amk:

    meh, I don’t believe in degrees of racism.

    I guess, for me, kwAwk being clueless about someone else’s (Rethugs) racist motives doesn’t necessarily make kwAwk racist, just clueless. And the “why’n’t he just show them the BC and get it over with” seemed to be over-the-top clueless, because the last 7.75 years have shown that they’re never content, and will always move the goalposts. There’s a difference between not understanding a racist dogwhistle, and purposefully ignoring one. You’ll probably still disagree, which is OK by me, and I realize that maybe I’m being naive about his/her racism

    @Jesse:

    commend the fabulous abuse metaphor to your attention.

    Not sure which one in particular you’re talking about, but I (and plenty of others) commented on that near the beginning of the thread, so I think you and I may be on the same page.

  313. 313.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 3:53 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Don’t promise what you don’t have the power and/or ability to achieve. Obama promised to get folks to work together. He failed at that for whatever reason you choose to throw out there.

  314. 314.

    rikyrah

    October 20, 2016 at 3:54 pm

    @kwAwk:

    I thought you were joking.

    That you weren’t..well….

    He should have put it to bed?

    PHUCK. YOU.

    43 WHITE PRESIDENTS and nobody asked for the birth certificate.

    John McCain wasn’t even born in this country and they didn’t say shyt.

    Produce his birth certificate?

    He’s a man who can trace his ancestry back to the VERY FIRST SLAVE IN THIS COUNTRY.

    P-H-U-C-K-Y-O-U

  315. 315.

    trollhattan

    October 20, 2016 at 3:54 pm

    @Jesse:
    Last night I really, really had my fill of the straight-up misogyny from both Trump and Wallace, and then the talking heads. Previously it was all caught up in the reflexive anti-Clinton gumbo but last night it stood out, shiny and proud.

    I want her to intone: “That’s President Clinton, and I’ll thank you to not talk over me or ignore what I say for the next four years. Thank you.”

  316. 316.

    rikyrah

    October 20, 2016 at 3:54 pm

    When they defended Caribou Barbie in 2008 as a legitimate candidate to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency…

    that’s where we got Ferret Head.

  317. 317.

    les

    October 20, 2016 at 3:55 pm

    @kwAwk: A little early for the heavy drugs, no?

  318. 318.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 3:55 pm

    @Mike J: You got a credit card when you were born? That is so cool!

  319. 319.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 3:55 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Physical abuse is unacceptable. But that doesn’t mean that it is never provoked.

    Don’t be an asshole. That’s a typical abuser stance right there. “She just pissed me right off, and she wouldn’t stop! So I hadda!”

  320. 320.

    Major Major Major Major

    October 20, 2016 at 3:55 pm

    lol @troll

    Hi troll! How’s the trolling? Catch anything? I know trolling can be an effective form of fishing.

  321. 321.

    les

    October 20, 2016 at 3:56 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Destabilization of Syria led to destabilization of Iraq.

    Fuckin’ history, how does it work?

  322. 322.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 3:57 pm

    @rikyrah: I’m telling you, David Duke is going to give Hillary a hell of a fight in the 2020 general…

  323. 323.

    Jinchi

    October 20, 2016 at 3:57 pm

    @kwAwk: You’ll have to remind me why Obama is the only president who ever needed to release his “long form” birth certificate. I don’t remember ever seeing Trump’s, and no one felt the need to challenge Canadian-born Ted Cruz during the primary.

  324. 324.

    japa21

    October 20, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    @kwAwk: No, he promised that he would work with Republicans. He did that. The fact they refused to cooperate is not his fault. You try to talk as if you have some expertise in psychology or mental health areas. Please provide information on your formal training in such areas. If you don’t then we can assume you are talking out your ass.

  325. 325.

    Major Major Major Major

    October 20, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    Check here for some vintage kwawk on why birtherism isn’t racist. Classic!

  326. 326.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 3:59 pm

    @kwAwk: Looks like you lose.

  327. 327.

    The Moar You Know

    October 20, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    I wish he’d never have released it. He should not have to and to imply that he should have, for any reason whatsoever, is racist.

    @geg6: Agreed but would take it further: he should not have released any of it, at all. I think, for some inexplicable reason, that Obama thought the GOP would work with him. I was very dismayed that it took most of his first term to learn better.

  328. 328.

    Erisia

    October 20, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    @kwAwk: Thanks for mansplaining abuse to me. My feeble female mind has trouble understanding all these great concepts you speak of. Really good to know physical abuse is mitigated when provoked by my unstable hysterical outbursts.

  329. 329.

    dogwood

    October 20, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    @rikyrah:
    I understand that FLOTUS can trace her ancestry to early slavery. Not sure how his ancestry is linked to early slaves. There were slaveholders on his maternal side, were there slaves on his maternal side as well?

  330. 330.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    @Timurid: Right back to pumping his own gas.

  331. 331.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    @SFAW:

    I’m sorry I don’t have your need for an immaculate victim. Is it possible for one guy to provoke another guy into a fight? If you have two assholes in a bar trading insults with each other until a fight breaks out, is only the first person to throw a punch responsible? A woman can never have contributory negligence in a fight?

  332. 332.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 4:01 pm

    @Erisia: You’re welcome. Hysterical outbreaks are a form of emotional abuse, BTW.

  333. 333.

    Major Major Major Major

    October 20, 2016 at 4:03 pm

    Oh here is a great one.

    kwAwk says:
    May 28, 2008 at 12:13 pm
    Well I have to say. Good thing we had Barack Obama in this race in order to bring people together and to make sure that we are all being nice enough to the Republicans. Where would we be as a party without his graceous unfying presence?

    In all seriousness though the Obama supporters may want to start trying to convince Hillary supporters of why they should vote for Obama and tone down the ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! WE WON!” bullshit.

    I don’t owe my vote to Obama and he isn’t guanteed to get it. I’m also more of the mind that having moderate yet competant Republican President wouldn’t be worse than having a bad Democratic President.

  334. 334.

    trollhattan

    October 20, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Set your drag light.

  335. 335.

    Betty Cracker

    October 20, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    @hovercraft: Wow, how sweet it would be to see that racist old fuck kicked to the curb!

  336. 336.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    @trollhattan: “Save us from fascism, but don’t be a bitch about it…”

    I’m reduced to quoting comedians because in real life, these people are just not on her level. I’m fully confident she can destroy them at any time. (Rhetorically.) It’s like arm-wrestling a toddler, in that it is so easy as to be beneath the dignity of a functional adult.

  337. 337.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 20, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    @hovercraft: So, Hillary anticipates questions based on a list of areas to be covered issued to both candidates, and the public at large, and because she actually prepared for the debate, she should drop out of the race.

    The logic here eludes me, but I’m not the Donald or any of his drooling followers.

  338. 338.

    trollhattan

    October 20, 2016 at 4:05 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    moderate yet competant Republican President

    Oh waitress, I’ll have what he’s drinkingsmoking.

  339. 339.

    amk

    October 20, 2016 at 4:06 pm

    USA TODAY @USATODAY

    Russia sought to send monitors to U.S. polling stations for the Nov. 8 vote

    Great job, rethugs.

  340. 340.

    Betsy

    October 20, 2016 at 4:06 pm

    @kwAwk: Are you kidding us? No other candidate for office anywhere in the U.S. has ever been asked for their birth certificate to prove that they are eligible to run for office. Show me one, just one example of this.
    After just your first paragraph, I discounted everything else you wrote.
    I’m a 70 yr old white woman from AZ, and I’m still waiting for one good reason to vote for Trump.

  341. 341.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 4:07 pm

    @kwAwk: I’ve seen people use a shovel to make they hole they’re in deeper, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone attempt to use it to bury themselves quite like that before.

  342. 342.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 4:09 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Dumb fuck. Do you understand the difference between physical abuse and a bar fight? No, I thought not. “Immaculate victim”? Christ, you’re an asshole.

    A woman can never have contributory negligence in a fight?

    Bitch had it coming, amirite?

    I hate to break it to you, but the reason people here are calling you a moron is because you are, in fact, a moron. Perhaps a misogynist, too, but it’s hard to separate your assholishness from true misogyny.

    You might consider rethinking your Weltanschauung. Just a thought.

  343. 343.

    Major Major Major Major

    October 20, 2016 at 4:09 pm

    kwawk says:
    April 9, 2014 at 10:05 pm
    When I went and test drove my car they took a copy of my license, though they did let me take the car out unattended.

    The thing about white privilege, is that while it is true that a white person can never know what it is really like to be black, it can also be said that blacks can’t really know about what it is to be white.

    It’s not all wine and roses. Rich people hate poor white people too. They didn’t hand my mom a bonus check for giving birth to a blonde haired green eyed boy.

  344. 344.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 4:10 pm

    @kwAwk:

    …and we get a whole thread where everybody calls me a moron.

    You missed that feeling, obviously.

  345. 345.

    kwAwk

    October 20, 2016 at 4:10 pm

    @Betsy:

    I’m not saying the right wingers were right about Obama. Only that Obama could have made the issue go away sooner than he did. It’s like they used to teach us about driving cars and crossing the street. There is such a thing as dead right. You’re perfectly right to cross the street when the light changes, but that won’t mean anything if you’re lying in the street dead because a car ran the light and you didn’t look for it.

  346. 346.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 4:11 pm

    @different-church-lady: He (I’m assuming, but come on) already lost, because he said he doesn’t care what we think of him. That’s the internet version of tapping out. He got his ass beat.

    I would have banned him about six posts ago, personally, but oh well.

  347. 347.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 4:12 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    A grateful Nation Juicetariat thanks you for your service.

    ETA: But stop already. Don’t we get enough of his modern-day assholishness without you dredging up more?

  348. 348.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 4:14 pm

    @kwAwk: And some people just don’t know how to put the shovel down.

  349. 349.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 20, 2016 at 4:15 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Obama could have put the birther stuff to bed years before he did. Didn’t want to because it made the right look silly.

    These might be the two most stupid sentences I’ve ever seen on Balloon Juice.

  350. 350.

    Major Major Major Major

    October 20, 2016 at 4:15 pm

    @SFAW: I’m done! I was just impressed by his record.

  351. 351.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 20, 2016 at 4:17 pm

    @Aleta: Holy shit. The judge in this case is a very conservative Reagan appointee.

  352. 352.

    les

    October 20, 2016 at 4:17 pm

    @redshirt:

    Their base hates their leadership, so they will continue to “purify” themselves in the fires of crazy until they are down to the 27%. You can’t win most elections with 27%.

    But you can win a shit load (not a euphemism) of republican primaries with it.

  353. 353.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 20, 2016 at 4:19 pm

    @Soylent Green: Ivanka should make plans to go into hiding.

  354. 354.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 4:20 pm

    @redshirt:

    Trolls are insincere. They do what they do intentionally to get a reaction.

    I submit that this is not sane behavior.

  355. 355.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 4:21 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: From Donald, you mean?

  356. 356.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 4:22 pm

    @RareSanity:

    What the hell is going on in this country?

    Screw the country: what the hell is going on in your office?

  357. 357.

    Jesse

    October 20, 2016 at 4:22 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: I used to like Ivanka.

    (wistful sigh)

  358. 358.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 4:25 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Women who end up in abusive situations need to learn positive behavior to prevent future abuse.

    And I don’t really care if you call me a moron.

    I see no internal contradiction between these two statements. None.

  359. 359.

    Suzan

    October 20, 2016 at 4:26 pm

    I trust you didn’t mean to include Schmidt as a” #NeverTrump fraud”. He’s been excellent lately. Nicole Wallace and he were on MSNBC after the debate trashing Trump. What’s interesting is both of them had an up close and personal look at Palin and were appalled. The scales from their eyes? I find it interesting to see how people transition away from the GOP I know our own Mr. Cole’s reasons, admirable. There are others, my Dad, Josh Barrow, Andrew Sullivan (I’m not a Sullivan fan but I went back and read his blog posts when he got fed up with the GOP, fascinating). If Schmidt and Wallace became disenchanted by seeing Palin up close, I wonder if we’ll get some more converts after the Trump disaster. (Yes, I know, neither has switched parties but it took all of you some time to come around.)

  360. 360.

    Erisia

    October 20, 2016 at 4:27 pm

    @kwAwk: Wow, so not only are women responsible for their own abuse but this fictitious modern hysteria (do you mean conversion disorder or are you using some vague naturalist “hysteria”?) makes us culpable of emotional abuse! So abuse victim = culpable. Mental illness sufferer = abuser, got it. I feel like I’m really learning a lot about how to be an awful person from you.

  361. 361.

    Brachiator

    October 20, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Don’t promise what you don’t have the power and/or ability to achieve. Obama promised to get folks to work together. He failed at that for whatever reason you choose to throw out there.

    You’re the one throwing out BS.

  362. 362.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    @Bobby Thomson: Aw, come on, we haven’t had a TBogg in a while.

  363. 363.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 4:31 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: #DumbLivesMatter

  364. 364.

    WereBear

    October 20, 2016 at 4:31 pm

    @father pussbucket: Great article, thanks!

  365. 365.

    catclub

    October 20, 2016 at 4:34 pm

    awfully well fed trolls here today. Completely derailed thread. Trolls win. huzzah.

  366. 366.

    Paul in KY

    October 20, 2016 at 4:35 pm

    @Suzan: Not me, Suzan. Archives to prove it.

  367. 367.

    different-church-lady

    October 20, 2016 at 4:35 pm

    @catclub: Ass is on the menu.

  368. 368.

    Steve Crickmore

    October 20, 2016 at 4:37 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: As i knew the writer’s mother in law, Barbara Frum, quite well as it happens, in Toronto which was the name of the current affairs show we worked on together. I have sent Danielle, the writer, an email asking her to clarify her post. whether it was satirical or not?

  369. 369.

    catclub

    October 20, 2016 at 4:39 pm

    @WereBear: That was a good article!

  370. 370.

    catclub

    October 20, 2016 at 4:42 pm

    @Steve Crickmore: Pretty obviously satirical. There was a mention of just that fact in a 2005 post
    i found on searching the phrase, “Committee is practicing the politics of municipal destruction” combined with Clinton.

  371. 371.

    Major Major Major Major

    October 20, 2016 at 4:45 pm

    @catclub: that and “vast euro conspiracy”.

  372. 372.

    Miss Bianca

    October 20, 2016 at 4:49 pm

    @SFAW: No, we’re calling this troll an asshole. To call him a moron is an insult to morons.

  373. 373.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 20, 2016 at 4:50 pm

    @different-church-lady: From Vlad’s collection agency. They have a history of going after family members.

  374. 374.

    chopper

    October 20, 2016 at 4:55 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    oh man, the lols.

  375. 375.

    NotoriousJRT

    October 20, 2016 at 4:57 pm

    @John Cole:
    Thank you, John Cole. Hope the house-to–home project is going well!

  376. 376.

    MCA1

    October 20, 2016 at 5:03 pm

    @Chip Daniels: Agreed. And that first post of his here was a f’ing masterpiece. I changed my mind twice before I even got through my initial read of it. Work of art; a seamless blend of obtuseness, condescension, concern trolling, and self-congratulatory, too clever by half quasi-profundity, nicely wrapped up in faux sincerity.

  377. 377.

    Bill_D

    October 20, 2016 at 5:03 pm

    @dogwood:

    Did anyone here read “The Big One” in the New Yorker a couple of years back? A great piece about the Cascadia fault and a convincing case that the Pacific Northwest could very well be gone as we know it within our lifetime.

    Good but not great. Ignorant and sensationalistic statements like ‘everything west of I-5 will be toast” (Implied to be due to a tsunami, even though there are intervening mountains) make the piece suspect, even if the general idea of a damaging very large quake and tsunami is correct. Shaking intensity in the major areas of population in the PNW will be surprisingly modest due to the depth of the quake (400 miles) and distance as well. Tsunami damage will largely be on the outer coast; most of Seattle is elevated and the coastline there is relatively sheltered.

    To sum up, it’s not like the Toyko of 2010 is now gone due to the quake and tsunami of 2011, even if some coastal areas farther north took it on the chin.

  378. 378.

    catclub

    October 20, 2016 at 5:05 pm

    something perceptive from Mark Cuban:

    you’re in that echo chamber, no matter what happens, you’re still going to believe all that,” he said. “If he loses? I’m more concerned about violence if he wins.”

  379. 379.

    catclub

    October 20, 2016 at 5:26 pm

    Voters are tired of these circus-like antics and reject these fictional stories and the clear efforts to benefit Hillary Clinton.” – Jessica Ditto, Deputy Communications Director for Trump Campaign

    Nominative determinism!

  380. 380.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 20, 2016 at 5:37 pm

    @catclub: Yes, his crowd is going to demand an Endlösung to the Mooslim/Mezikan/Blah/Gay/Liberal “question”.

  381. 381.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 5:41 pm

    @Miss Bianca:

    No, we’re calling this troll an asshole. To call him a moron is an insult to morons.

    Far be it from me to disagree with you.

  382. 382.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 5:44 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’m done! I was just impressed by his record.

    OK, good. I was starting to think we might need to stage an intervention.

  383. 383.

    rikyrah

    October 20, 2016 at 5:49 pm

    @dogwood:

    Yes, the link to the original slave came from his MOTHER’S side of the family.

  384. 384.

    gorram

    October 20, 2016 at 5:50 pm

    @kwAwk: It’s very, very normal for people at war with each other to say “let’s work together” hmmm? Obama didn’t leave “his enemy” a tactical out, but who made “his enemy” into “his enemy”?

  385. 385.

    Erisia

    October 20, 2016 at 5:52 pm

    Sigh, I was really hoping for a deep, trenchant observation about whatever the hell “hysteria” is supposed to be…

  386. 386.

    gorram

    October 20, 2016 at 6:11 pm

    @kwAwk: The notion that Black people are responsible for inciting other people’s anti-Black racism, and related ideas about Obama, is… uh… racist!

  387. 387.

    gorram

    October 20, 2016 at 6:16 pm

    @nonynony: And that filibuster-proof Democratic Senate included… Joe Lieberman who soon after began to caucus with the GOP. #NotIntendedAsActuallyGovernable

  388. 388.

    gorram

    October 20, 2016 at 6:25 pm

    @kwAwk: “harassing” is very interesting word choice here… especially for supposedly The Most Enlightened of Liberals

  389. 389.

    TS

    October 20, 2016 at 6:43 pm

    @kwAwk:

    To be fair, a big part of the problem lies with Obama too.

    I’m sure everyone has already debunked this piece of garbage – but to say it again – this is absolute garbage.

    NO OTHER president EVER had to produce a birth certificate – except the black guy? Go take the sh!te someplace else.

  390. 390.

    Uncle Cosmo

    October 20, 2016 at 7:02 pm

    @Mnemosyne: In fact in the 111th Senate, Dems plus Independents caucusing with Dems equaled 181 days, from the seating of Al Franken (7 Jul 2009) to the death of Ted Kennedy (25 Aug 2009) & again from 25 Sep 2009 (? dunno what happened then) to the seating of Scott Brown (4 Feb 2010). (49 + 132 = 181) (ETA don’t know how to strike out text, so edited.)

    But as pointed out supra, that number included Joe-Shmo Lieberman, among other momsers…

  391. 391.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 7:22 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Re: Sep 2009:
    Paul Kirk was appointed to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat until the Special Election could be held. Kirk’s vote gave the D + I a total of 60, enough to pass the PPACA. Kirk also promised not to run in the Special, which may have helped give us Scott Brown.

  392. 392.

    Turgidson

    October 20, 2016 at 7:39 pm

    @kwAwk:

    This is unfathomably dense.

    I’m sure there were probably a few sincere nutjobs out there who really believed that Obama was born in Kenya or at the Bin Laden family estate or whatever (lookin at you, Orly Taitz. Maybe Alan Keyes, since he’s a total loon on many things).

    But birtherism became a thing and stayed a thing because it was a convenient stand-in for what the real issue was. “I’m really angry that the President is a niCLANG, but know I’m not supposed to say that out loud”. That was the goddamn issue. And no amount of Obama producing reams of evidence to show that, really, truly, he was born in Hawaii and is just as eligible to serve as President as any of the white guys who preceded him was going to extinguish that issue for a Crazification Factor-type subset of the American people. The fact that his name was Barack Hussein Obama rather than Joe Smith made it easier for them to rationalize their racist animus (I hate and fear this man because he’s a furriner, not blackityblack), but it didn’t change what the real issue was. And plenty of Republicans with real influence who, to a person, almost certainly knew what the fuck they were doing, from media personalities to elected officials on every level up to Congressman, played footsie with this bullshit for cynical reasons.

    You really think Obama going even further out of his way than he did to try to appease these people would have done jack fucking squat? U can haz Brooklyn Bridge for very fair price if so. The “long form” release satisfied the infantile political media, who, we can now see, previewed their spectacularly awful 2016 election coverage of Trump by humoring his stupidity for ratings and controversy. But it didn’t satisfy the birthers themselves. Nothing would, other than Obama resigning from office and committing suicide on live TV. Because that was never actually the problem they had with Obama.

  393. 393.

    Uncle Cosmo

    October 20, 2016 at 7:51 pm

    @Paul in KY: I know this isn’t a precise analogy, but…

    I’ve had various items (e.g., cell phone, rucksack, jackets) stolen out of my car in the 36 years I’ve lived in the city. Sometimes the door had been left open, other times a window was smashed. In each case the stolen item was left where it could be seen from the outside.

    Clearly no one has the right to take things from my auto without permission, whether or not the doors were locked. Clearly the fault like entirely with the thieves.

    But the surest way to stop the thefts is to change my behavior by not leaving anything in sight in the passenger compartment that even looks like it might be worth stealing.

    As I said, the analogy isn’t exact. But if the goal is to stop sexual predation, and we can’t catch every predator, doesn’t it makes sense to at least try & make repeat victims aware of the types of behavior that are known to attract predators so they have the option of helping to protect themselves by changing their behavior? (NB I realize there is a fine line between encouraging prudence & “blaming the victim”, & I’m trying to stay on the encouraging side here.)

  394. 394.

    SFAW

    October 20, 2016 at 7:53 pm

    @Turgidson:

    and committing suicide on live TV.

    Bullshit.

    They would have wanted to kill him themselves. His killing himself would have been yet another example of his not reaching across the aisle, by depriving those patriotic Americans their God-given right to kill people they hate. OK? Got it?

    You goddam libtards, always covering for The Worst President EVAH.

  395. 395.

    Turgidson

    October 20, 2016 at 7:54 pm

    @SFAW:

    Good point.

  396. 396.

    Groucho48

    October 20, 2016 at 8:26 pm

    @Soylent Green:

    That also includes summer and holiday recesses. When you just count the time Congress was actually in session, he had about two months of a max potential vote of 60. Including Lieberman and other Blue Dogs. Much of that was spent on Obamacare.

  397. 397.

    r€nato

    October 20, 2016 at 8:39 pm

    @kwAwk:

    Obama could have come out and released his long form birth certificate in 2008 or whenever the birth stuff started. But he enjoyed trolling the right wingers, using it to make them look silly, so he drug the process out for years when he could have put the issue to bed. That is where Trump got involved.

    african-american, please.

    maybe he thought it was fucking stupid and it would burn itself out if ignored. Maybe he thought he wasn’t a trained monkey who had to dance whenever the fucking nutjobs called the tune.

    And if he really did purposely drag it out to make his critics look like fools? Good. It worked.

    he drug the process out for years when he could have put the issue to bed.

    your naiveté isn’t charming. Have you paid attention at all to how these people soil their Depends daily over anything at all that he does?

  398. 398.

    r€nato

    October 20, 2016 at 8:46 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: there is such a thing as a long-form birth certificate. Every state, AFAIK, issues it. It’s what Obama released in 2011. It’s the full form, and it is kept on file by whatever state agency maintains birth records. This is typically not given to the birth parents, they get the short form. The long form, you have to request from the state. I had to get my long-form birth certificate when I applied for citizenship of a non-US country. The top half looked like the “short form” that I had a copy of already. The bottom half was signed by some official of the state where I was born and given an official seal. This bottom half is what differentiates the long form from the short form, and verifies its authenticity for the really important stuff (like obtaining citizenship).

  399. 399.

    r€nato

    October 20, 2016 at 8:57 pm

    @germy: the best thing to do would be to contact the local Democratic party and ask for an elections hotline phone number; you’ll get a much more rapid response than trying to reach anybody working at the national level. Both parties will have elections lawyers on the ground acting as observers and troubleshooters. If the DoJ / Feds need to get involved in some incident, they’ll be sure to get them involved if necessary.

  400. 400.

    r€nato

    October 20, 2016 at 9:02 pm

    @Anoniminous: oh good grief. There bloody well is a long-form birth certificate. It took two seconds of a web search to confirm what I already knew from personal experience. For many purposes the short form (which is typically what is sent to the birth parents) works fine. When I applied for foreign citizenship, I had to obtain the long form. The only difference between the two is the bottom half of the long-form has some sort of statement attesting that the BC is true and valid and blah blah blah, some state official signs it, then it gets a seal. The top half is identical to the short form.

  401. 401.

    r€nato

    October 20, 2016 at 9:07 pm

    @Jesse: there is a long, long, long, long, long tradition of delegitimizing black folks by demanding their papers or otherwise subjecting them to ‘special treatment’ such as stop-and-frisk or driving while black. Most comfortable white folks know nothing about this, and if you tell them many won’t believe you. For this I blame our educational system. It wouldn’t fix everything because we’ll always have white resentment assholes and bigots among us. But it would go a long way when it comes to such debates as #BLM or the Trayvon Martin murder if we already had a commonly-accepted foundation of knowledge that black folks have historically been treated as 2nd class citizens in many ways beyond just separate-but-equal schools and separate drinking fountains.

  402. 402.

    r€nato

    October 20, 2016 at 9:12 pm

    @Vhh: what’s more, even after releasing the long form… birthers, armchair amateur document analysts, and other sufferers of Stage IV Obama Derangement Syndrome picked it apart and generally refused to accept its authenticity.

    I was far too polite to kwAwk. Anybody with a lick of sense knows that the He-Man Obama Haters’ Club are always moving the goalposts.

  403. 403.

    barns

    October 20, 2016 at 9:44 pm

    Instead of an awesome video of Obama roasting Trump and Rubio in Florida today, we get a dark grainy video of dogs doing…….NOTHING!

  404. 404.

    No One You Know

    October 20, 2016 at 11:35 pm

    @Tim C.: Yeah. And I’m lame enough that I never could get the pie filter to work. Although I still relish Trumpify.

  405. 405.

    Paul in KY

    October 21, 2016 at 3:51 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo: See your point, but don’t want to have that conversation with a tool like kwaWk.

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