We’re using data from our #Mars orbiter to scout potential landing sites for a human #JourneyToMars in the 2030s: https://t.co/TP2Aqhl2Rm pic.twitter.com/z0QppvDfDa
— NASA (@NASA) November 15, 2016
I know, I know, cheap punchline, and yet: People who stand to lose everything under a Trump administration are still doing their jobs, acting like there will be a 2030 and that there will be scientists (possibly even American!) around to use the data they are painstakingly assembling today. I choose to find that admirable, right now.
Apart from working for the best and planning for the worst, what’s on the agenda for the day?
**********
Also, I hope other states will follow Maura Healy’s lead:
Massachusetts’ attorney general is launching a new hotline to report harassment and intimidation of minority groups.
Residents are encouraged to call 1-800-994-3228 or fill out a civil rights complaint form online if they witness or experience bias-motivated threats, harassment or violence against racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women, immigrants and lesbian, gay and transgender individuals.Staff and lawyers in Attorney General Maura Healey’s office are monitoring the hotline.
The office said it will be track reports and refer cases to local law enforcement officials or the office’s Criminal Bureau. Hate crimes are generally prosecuted by local district attorney’s offices.
Healey, an openly gay Democrat, said she’s launching the hotline after reports that people across the country have been targeted and harassed since the election of Donald Trump as president…
Yes, this is a deep-blue “progressive” state, but if you click over to the link [warning: noisy autoplay], we have our share of racist dirtbags.
The Art of the Deal will earn large royalties with Trump's victory. I will continue to give away ever dime I earn. Suggestions welcomed.
— Tony Schwartz (@tonyschwartz) November 14, 2016
MomSense
Well Ellison is out. At least I hope he is out. This election has been incredibly revealing.
JPL
David Brook’s oped today is an eulogy for Gwen Ifill. This passage stood out.
Fox news and other sites convinced some, not to trust the elites. The elites in their mind are the scientists, teachers and journalists. For the most part, those are fields that you can enjoy a nice middle class life. They decided to trust the billionaire, orange one. Help us all.
Darkrose
@MomSense: He’s withdrawn?
OzarkHillbilly
We’re not done fucking up this planet yet. One job at a time.
Joyce H
@Darkrose:
I’m curious too. The last I heard, and it was just a few hours ago, was that opinion was coalescing around Ellison. So what’s happened since then?
MomSense
@Darkrose:
Not yet but the leaked tape of his deplorable comments about Jews should do the trick.
Another Holocene Human
My doctor said every time you donate to Planned Parenthood in Mike Pence’ name, he gets a certificate. I kind of hope this is true. *evil grin*
Another Holocene Human
Great, so we get “I love the confederate flag” Dean.
Joyce H
@MomSense:
Do you have a link to a credible source on that? I just Googled, but all the sites that were talking about it had such hinky names that I was scared to click on them. Are you sure this is legit and not those Macedonian teens again?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@MomSense: I’m looking through the news and I don’t see anything about this. Link?
MomSense
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
It may be an edited video but I don’t see how he gets out of this.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Also, what’s the deal with Trump deciding he wants to live in Trump Tower most of the time? Are they going to close down some of the busiest streets in New York? Are other residents going to have to go through the full Secret Service screening every time they leave and return home? What about any residents that can’t pass a background check? Are they going to be evicted?
If he didn’t want the job, he shouldn’t have applied for it.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@MomSense: You’re going to have to provide a link, because none of the rest of us are finding this when we search the news.
OzarkHillbilly
@Joyce H: Always we have to at least suspect a person might be getting Breitbarted.
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: Hm, if so, they must be really afraid of him. Good.
Joyce H
@MomSense:
I recall some time ago when the right was circulating a video of Obama saying something pretty reprehensible. But when you got the full clip rather than the edited clip, the part they were putting out was actually him quoting someone ELSE in order to deplore the comments. So yeah, I wouldn’t be too quick to assume it’s true.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Here’s the video itself.
Only places reporting it are weaselzippers and powerlineblog and their ilk.
JPL
When I typed in Keith’s name in google, most of the headlines, have to do with his entering the race to be DNC chair.
Of course, fox news said left wing Muslim American congressman with past links to the Nation of Islam, enters race for DNC chair.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Holocene Human: They are afraid of each and every one of us. That’s why they carry guns.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Donny likes his own gilded bed and little Binky his stuffed monkey. He can’t get his 4 hours of sleep a night without them.
ETA: And yes, shutting down a couple of blocks of downtown NYC for at least 4 years will be a clusterfuck.
MomSense
@Joyce H:
He starte he comparing 9/11 to the Reichstag fire and then the video gets hinky.
MomSense
@Another Holocene Human:
But but but 50 state strategy.
Ugh
JPL
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: That came out shortly after 9/11 and he apologized and further explained his comments. Top Jewish leaders have come out to support him. Unfortunately, MomSense is right, this will cause him to withdraw. The President-elect made disparaging remarks about blacks and Jewish people, but a past statement will cause Keith to hang his head in shame. ‘
MomSense
@JPL:
It would be too much of a distraction. Van Jones had to step down for similar reasons. You become the issue and the media won’t get past it. Republicans on the other hand can do or say anything. As Chris Matthews explained, if a journalist tells a politician their statement isn’t true then the journalist is accused of bias.
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: Good point. If they weren’t afraid, they wouldn’t be authoritarians.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I can’t believe we’re going to go back to the, “Once upon a time he said something inappropriate if you don’t pay attention to all of the context,” right after DONALD FUCKING TRUMP just got elected president. The only proper response to Republicans who complain about anything said in the past is to tell them to shut the fuck up.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL: Shit, if it’s 15 years old and he’s already apologized …
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: This is reminding me of the “Scoops!” taken straight from Dreams From My Father. Dude, we’ve all read it already. I guess it’s a SCOOP! for those who don’t read.
Baud
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
@Another Holocene Human:
We just learned from this last election that a substantial number of our own voters are easily misled by media reporting.
JPL
@MomSense: That is so true.
MomSense
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Guess you are more up for spending the next 4 years explaining it. Didn’t work for the emails issue but maybe we’ll get luckier this time.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Honestly, if a Republican makes that argument, irony is going to reach out of the grave and fucking strangle them.
Peale
@Another Holocene Human: or someone else will run. Depending on the day of the week, lobbying for MEK would be considered fronting for a terrorist group. Depends on who you ask.
Look, it’s an Important, public position. it was made more important by leaks of emails that convinced a lot of people that it is the single most important position in the party after the presidency. So if Ellison is out, he’s out.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: He’s frustrated by the double standard, an emotion I share. But you are right, the media will look at a 15 yr old statement and make it all about the “hypocrisy.”
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
Same as it ever was.
Jack the Second
I know the man deserves some time off, but is Obama doing anything for the next N years? My understanding is that DNC chair is an elder statesman job, not a rising star job, so it’s not like he’d be displacing someone else.
JPL
Sessions is being considered as Attorney General, and his past statements about blacks, should disqualify him. They won’t though.
Ellison needs to get in front of this, by appearing with supporters of the Jewish community.
WereBear
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: He didn’t want the job. He wanted the fuss.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: Yep.
R-Jud
@Jack the Second: PBO has said he will be working on restoring and protecting voting rights, including ending gerrymandering, after he leaves office.
I’d love to see Harry Reid as DNC chair, myself.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: As long as he didn’t have his own email server, I don’t see a problem.
rikyrah
Morning,Everyone????
MomSense
@Jack the Second:
It’s a dumb job and I don’t understand why anyone gave a minute’s worth of time to the Russian/Wikileaks nonsense. They fundraise and organize the convention. We hopefully will get President Obama to do something that actually matters.
geg6
I like Ellison and it’s a shame if this chases him out of the running but I don’t want him to head the DNC. We need a full-time party head and Ellison has a full-time job.
BillinGlendaleCA
@geg6: Seconded.
rikyrah
Tom Perez for DNC CHAIR
Darkrose
@geg6: Agreed. I don’t want Howard Dean, though. He had his time.
CarolDuhart2
@geg6: That’s my objection too. Either Ellison has to step down and cause a special election, or he only does this part-time whenever he can spare the time. Not to mention, that having to worry about one’s own re-election means that one has to hold back lest they offend a backer or two. DWS won readily, but there were some things disturbing about payday lenders.
Dean at least, though there are lobbyist ties, has a record of success and does not have a further political career to worry about. As for “he’s had his time, this is a job where you need political experience and stature. Ellison has no profile even statewide and no national stature either. That’s fine for a DWS-style caretaker, but rebuilding the party is something else altogether. And frankly, DWS was too small for the job as it was.
TS
@JPL: In the past the President elect laughed with a newsman about how to treat women. The newsman was fired from his job, the other was elected to the highest office in the land.
WereBear
The next dreaded item is my weekly trip to farm country. Before, I would be blasting the David Bowie and yelling (with the windows up) at every lawn with a Trump sign, “You know Ed Gein came from this kind of place!”
The latest thing is to have a long long long driveway with a sign like “Dim Lane” on it that makes it look like exactly like a street but then you arrive at a house with a sign that says they are looking forward to shooting trespassers. It’s either some kind of status thing and/or an Alfred Hitchcock episode about small town cannibals trapping the unwary,
And I only turned off in desperation because while the speed limit is 55 there is a truck behind me who wanted to do 70 so by gum he’s doing 70.
I know these people. One of them used to have a house next to a friend’s apartment. This guy had retired to Florida and didn’t know what to do with himself.
So he would spend the whole day taking out the bathroom trash, which had one tissue in it, and he’d probably just blown his nose so he could empty the container. Then he would get down on his knees and edge the driveway with scissors. Then he would patrol the lawn and snip any blade a bit too tall. Then he would wander back into the house, but not for long, because I am sure his wife said that if he didn’t get out of her face she would kill him. So he would get in his land yacht which he constantly washed even though it wasn’t dirty, and no doubt wound up at the hardware store, milling about with the other retired men in their shorts and socks with sandals and too tight shirts, comparing prices on bolts and pliers until it was time for the Early Bird special.
They could have lives, you know. They have money and time. And all they do with it is become more and more bored and annoying and cranky.
BillinGlendaleCA
I’m on a roll folks, got a great pic of the moon and fixed my Hackintosh that was getting the circle of death.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Co-signed.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: You should run for DNC chair.
Pogonip
Question for readers: do you feel you are a typical Democrat or that you are more to the far left of the party?
Darkrose
@CarolDuhart2: My concern with Dean is that when he ran for president, he was all about appealing to “guys with Confederate flags on their trucks”. We’re already seeing many on the left ready to throw people of color under the bus (yet again!) in order to appeal to the white working class.
Baud
@Pogonip: Depends how you define the party, but on a scale from 0-100, I think I’m a 65 to the left if 50 is the party center.
WereBear
I was good until I saw that picture in that last thread. The one with the Trump supporters with their smug white faces above the shirts that said “Fuck your Feelings.”
And it just coalesced. I was miserable and worried and exasperated and scared and resigned, but that did it. Now I am dealing with rage.
Because all we did was have the nerve to be happy.
We were kissing each other after the gay marriage and mingling interracially in commercials and reading our Kindles and admiring art and sleeping late on Sundays instead of going to church.
No, we weren’t living on a four acre spread which was 5% flower beds and 95% golf course monoculture, scalped within an inch of its life and ruthlessly patrolled for any deviation from the norm. I swear these people live to mow their lawn. That’s all I see them do.
There’s a couple of art galleries struggling to keep it together and TWO restaurants to eat dinner in that aren’t fast food. So there’s nothing else to do. But that is their choice. They decided to live out in the middle of nowhere with insulated bags to get the ice cream home. FINE.
But they hate us. I know that now. They hate us because we are, against all odds, happier than they are.
OzarkHillbilly
@Pogonip: Both? I have some left of left ideals but I’m far more pragmatic in my approach to politics.
WereBear
@Baud: I am probably 75-80.
Of course, these days, that’s practically Weathermen territory. Just supporting President Obama puts me in the godless commie category.
Baud
@WereBear: They hate us cuz they ain’t us.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Heh.
I’m really on a roll, found a program that will display 3-D files(Bino); still need glasses.
ETA: Bino works on Windows or MacOS with a variety of glasses(red/blue, green/purple, or blue/amber(the best)).
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear:
That’s OK. We hate them back.
Matt McIrvin
@Pogonip: I think that when talking about positioning within the Democratic Party, we need to talk about multiple axes, because a lot of the people who identify themselves as “leftists” are really left-populists: people who want the party to run further left on economics and further right on race and gender issues. I think I’m slightly to the left of the party center on both, but really I’m a pretty mainstream Democrat.
Raven
The sunrise is a couple of minutes away and the moon is great over the gulf. I hooked something really nice at sunset but I hurried too much and it threw the hook right off the beach.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: I do now. Maybe that will get better… but I doubt it.
Mr WereBear lost a promising career to illness and now he survives on SSDI and Medicare, both of which he paid into. Taking it away would be stealing.
I would love to see Trump voters brought low, but taking down these massive assholes would mean people like Mr WereBear would topple first. That’s why I am now thinking of them as terrorists, taking hostages. The rest of us must knuckle under and pretend they are the apex of Human Civilization, or they are burning down the whole thing.
Yep. Still rageful.
debbie
@JPL:
We need to remind the nation exactly what constitutes an “elite.” Not sipping chai or nibbling arugula, but someone who thinks you’re really only worth a couple bucks an hour and that programs you’ve paid into for decades are only entitlements that you don’t deserve.
The messaging has to change and it has got to be more in your face.
JPL
Serious question, if Giuliani is Secretary of State, what happens to Bolton? Trump rewards his friends, so I assume he’ll go to the Pentagon.
I’m not as worried about Ellison, as I am Trump’s cabinet members.
WereBear
Which leaves people oppressed by race and gender unable to access those economics. Nice trick!
Applejinx
@Pogonip: No, I see the people telling me to die in a fire as typical Democrats, because blessed few people bother to even raise an eyebrow about that. I’ve voted Democrat literally all of my life, not excepting 2016. Does not seem to be working out that great for me.
Applejinx
Fuck that noise. No compromise.
Baud
@Applejinx: No, that’s your typical Juicer.
WereBear
I agree. Pushing back the lies has to be everyone’s responsibility now.
Because they crumple so easily. I have crushed them in conversations, with unassailable facts, and they are panicked and start sweating because their whole world is under pressure. But they shrug it off, run back to their bubbles, and the next time I see them they just avoid me.
I was particularly struck by a summing up comment in a past thread: “They hate professionals and worship the rich.”
It’s so twisted. Because I know for a fact they don’t avoid doctors and tax accountants and lawyers. They need them and yet disparage them. What the hell kind of mindset manages that, day in and day out?
No wonder they are miserable cranky jerks.
Matt McIrvin
Also I categorize myself as a Democrat who does not give a shit about who becomes the next DNC chair.
Cermet
I give up on the small handed one, for now; the filth he intends to install in the various government positions is depressing. As for today, just finished reading a paper that used some General Relativity for a derivation and was so lost I now more fully realize what a brain dead zombie I have become these last few years …ugh.
Still, on a brighter note, for the reminder of the day, I get to try and convert elemental sulfur, using a catalyst, into a strange type of plastic material that I then need to turn into tiny and ultra thin sheets …not bad work but do have to wing the details since the original research paper doesn’t try to made the stuff into such small sheets.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: I care, but I’ll accept the result. Although I prefer a full time chair, I’m not going to scream bloody betrayal if they don’t take my advice. It’s not that important in the scheme of things.
WereBear
@Baud: Why do we even have one, then? If you think they are not important.
debbie
@WereBear:
Just make sure to be there to ask them about their feelings when it dawns on them their Medicare is going bye-bye.
debbie
@Baud:
They hate us because they’re wired for resentment. Deep down, they think rich people are rich only because they got stuff given to them.
BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: Maybe Ambassador to the UN?
Baud
@WereBear: It’s important work, but the differences between the people competing for the job aren’t all that significant to me, at least based on what I know about them, which is not enough to make the hiring decision myself.
debbie
And they’re really only cowards. Here’s a brave Trumpie standing up for his man.
Couldn’t even fight fair.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: My own take is it probably is important, but I am not nearly well versed enough in the job’s duties, requirements, or candidates to weigh in on it.
Patricia Kayden
Christopher Waltz hits the nail on the head about Trump. My sentiments exactly.
debbie
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Been there. Done that.
Quinerly
@TS:
Think I read that Billy Bush is being hired by Breibart. Could be wrong. These surreal, crazy dreams I have are crashing into and merging with reality.
Applejinx
@Baud: Hey, I’d like to believe that but I’ve seen the people in the NH Clinton campaign. They did not send ANY canvassers to Sullivan County. Too rural. In frickin’ New Hampshire.
@WereBear: “They hate professionals and worship the rich.” I don’t see a contradiction there. We must remember that some of our shared assumptions as Americans go across party lines, even when they’re not serving us.
My whole beef with neoliberalism is that it replaces a sloppy world of awkward coexistence with an efficient, professional world utterly given over to Randite survival of the fittest. Clearly people can win at this and still be resentful (the gated-community, scissor-trimmed-lawn assholes being spoken of in this thread, and if there’s that many of them I’ll eat my foot: and how are their property values doing, for all that they are rich? Eroding much?)
I’ve been keeping close track of the situation in San Francisco and California in general. The technocrats there are presiding over an insane world of India-like caste disparity. What will happen if people flee red-state cultural toxicity and try to go there? They are already completely overwhelmed with the impossibly poor and destitute. People wouldn’t be pooping in the street if there was ANYWHERE for them to go, like literally go. Much less anywhere for them to live. It won’t end well.
This is what you get when ‘retraining and being a professional competing in the new economy’ is the answer. Meritocracy means the top people win and everyone else is out in the street, to ‘retrain’. This cuts across political boundaries, since the 90s.
I don’t know what’s happening or how we get out of this, and then typical Juicers (which I feel does represent typical Democrats) are openly crying out for the backwater red-state towns to literally die. How is that going to work? How long has it been going on? My sources suggest, since the 90s. I think that’s plausible.
What a mess.
Kay
We don’t have to wait that long to see how bad it will be. If Congress and media roll over on this we’ll know it will be really bad:
Rudy Giuliani says Trump plans on doing nothing about these conflicts. No one contradicted him.
I’d watch laying this whole thing on “the heartland” too. Trump and Giuliani came out of NYC. The leaders of this came to power in NYC, not Indiana or rural Mississippi. Trump attended eastern private schools, as did Kushner. Trump will actually be running his whites-only administration out of NYC. The worst coverage we got during the election was the NYTimes- a paper that is based where Trump was raised and came to power.
Donald Trump came out of NYC. Mitt Romney came out of Michigan. Hillary Clinton is actually from Illinois and Obama was a Kansan for a long time.
Patricia Kayden
@debbie: Raw Story has a plethora of stories documenting racist incidents related to Trump’s election. It is absolutely horrific.
I am relieved to see all of the anti-Trump demonstrations which have occurred since last Tuesday, including students walking out of school here in Maryland. Trump and his supporters need to hear that this whole country is not going to bow down to his agenda.
Baud
@Kay: Right. Strange bedfellows between voters and leaders.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay:
You spelled Kenyan wrong. /s
How awkward did Trump feel meeting with a President he accused of not being American?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Applejinx: Yeah, California is a hellhole. Gawd.
MomSense
@Pogonip:
Left right means nothing. We are a coalition party so different constituencies overlap in some issue areas but I’ve never thought that left right is particularly useful. Sometimes our values or issues are in conflict. For example, labor issues can conflict with environmental protection issues.
OzarkHillbilly
@Patricia Kayden: Trump doesn’t do awkward. That would take a level of self awareness, something he is totally lacking in.
Kay
John Kasich, the most high profile and least cowardly never-Trumper was elected twice as governor of Ohio.
I’m not taking responsibility for creating the Trump family. If we’re doing a regional blame game NYC has to take the Trumps. I didn’t make these grifters national celebrities. I don’t think he would have been a national celebrity if he were a real estate developer in Missouri. No one knows any of their names, thank God. They’re probably horrible too.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Uh huh
Uh huh
Tell that truth, Kay.
Iowa Old Lady
@debbie: Before the election, I saw a quote from a woman who said she was afraid Trump would take away her health insurance, but Hillary Clinton was going to make it illegal to say Merry Christmas, so she was voting for Trump. Perhaps if she says Merry Christmas to her doctor enough times, the doc will treat her cancer.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden: yes, it is horrific, yet nothing from Ferret Head about it.
Quinerly
@Pogonip:
I’m not even sure I even know what a Democrat is anymore. I personally don’t know any Trump supporters anymore. One of the only ones I actually had dealings with was my dog groomer. Severed ties with her two weeks ago after a really ugly scene….she’s a two time cancer survivor with a Bi husband, small daughter and loves Trump’s healthcare “plan.” Never had health insurance before Obamacare. As for the rest of these Trump supporters….I keep running into them on my friends who voted for HRC FB feeds. My friends are sharing my posts and then they are fighting with these loons over the posts. I’m drawn in b/c they are my “shares.” Most of these vile creatures SAY that they were Dems, SAY that they voted for Obama but couldn’t vote for a “hag, liar, cheat, killer.” They can’t believe that anyone would accuse them of being racist. Honestly, I think the BLM Movement has a lot to do with it here in Missouri. I’m a 34 year transplant to St. Louis. Whites are still carrying on over Ferguson. When I push these FB strangers, Ferguson inevitably comes up.
dogwood
@Kay:
Obama a Kansan for a long time? His grandparents were born and raised in Kansas. But floated around quite a bit after marriage. Eventually Seattle, then Hawaii.
rikyrah
@Iowa Old Lady: and folks want me to coddle that kind of stupidity?
Nope.
MomSense
@Iowa Old Lady:
The stupid is strong with that one.
Quinerly
@Iowa Old Lady:
Great comment. Thank you for my morning chuckle. Maybe I will have a full blown laugh at some point again. Someday?
WereBear
@Applejinx: Reagan created a lot of the poor and destitute by destroying the places they used to live in, no matter how precarious it might have been or how badly they were treated. They could be in group homes if the rich paid their share of taxes.
And I continually urge the small town people I know to get a skill that would let them stay where they are. We had a large phone center open up a few towns over, with a guy who thought he could hire locally and bring the town back.
It failed. Because modern call centers require at least a modicum of computer knowledge and people moaned that learning such new things was “too hard.”
We had a large retail outlet open up last year and after months of pre-opening interviewing they were still short-staffed. We have local people who say they want jobs but somehow they can’t manage to retail clerk.
In Hillbilly Elegy, the author took a summer job in his Ohio hometown, working in a flooring warehouse at good wages, with health insurance yet. Still, the owner constantly struggled to keep afloat, solely because he could not find workers who would reliably show up on time and do the job.
I’m through being sorry for such folks. I recognize that not everyone is cut out to be a doctor or a lawyer, and I understand not wanting to live in a city. I don’t have a graduate degree and I don’t live in a city, but I have retrained myself a number of times to keep my skills fresh and pivot to new opportunities as they arise.
They could do that, too. But they refuse.
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
Oh, I think the doctor will hold out for a couple chickens.
WereBear
@Iowa Old Lady: If Trump has the effect on the economy that I fear he will, her sense of smug is all she’ll have for Christmas.
JMG
One reason people in more rural/ex-industrial areas voted for Trump after having voted for Obama is the opoid crisis. It’s demolishing lives and communities. And it really hasn’t been addressed as the crisis it is, probably because there are very few good public policy answers on tap anywhere in American politics. One way to reach out to those voters without compromising values in any way is to urge your state governments to do more. Urge your Congresspeople to do more. Get in touch with the community programs in those areas and ask how you can help from far away, Ask any Trump voters you’re still on speaking terms with if they will join you in urging action. If they say no you’ve lost nothing. If they say yes, that’d be good.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
I would say ‘you have no idea’, but I’m pretty sure you do, so I’ll just say, ‘How rich and broad is your imagination? However far you can extend take it one step more.’
Calling them pond scum is an insult to pond scum.
Baud
@Quinerly:
I wonder if some of these so-called Obama-Trump voters see Hillary as a race traitor and therefore worse than Obama.
WereBear
@Quinerly: Yep. BLM was a stark delineator. We poked a racist abscess and they screamed in pain and now we are all going to die horribly, but the people they hate will die first so they can watch.
What I’d like for Christmas is a republican Rapture. Imagining all those crumpled empty suits in Congress is such a soothing image.
Quinerly
@JPL:
Talk of some obscure Romney niece for Defense which would make her the first woman in that post. Also, Kelly Ayotte touted for Defense. Sessions for AG. I read that somewhere before I drifted off last night. Seems Giuliani put on some sort of performance art yesterday for SOS…he knew some #s and %s. Piece said Trump is impressed with people who spout #s.
dogwood
@WereBear:
The rural mining area where I grew up started to go downhill before Reagan.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly: The racism is strong in STL, always has been. Better than it was back in the 70s-80s, but that’s like saying Jim Crow is better than slavery.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Yep, still waiting for that think piece.
Matt McIrvin
As more rural communities die and people flock to the big blue states, the depopulated red states will become more and more “rotten boroughs”, blessed with outsize political power per capita. On the other hand, their absolute power will decrease, so maybe this is less a huge problem than a potential palliative for the misery there.
Kay
@rikyrah:
It wasn’t the Birmingham Alabama FBI who pressured Comey to interfere- it was NY’s finest.
Facts keep getting in the way of these Grand Theories of Racism. Looks to me like 90% of GOP-ers fell in line behind Trump and a lot of them are high income with graduate degrees. There’s a riddle, huh? Kushner is most famous for buying his way into Harvard. This team didn’t come out of community college. Don’t blame me for creating this.
Gin & Tonic
And for your dose of news from Eastern Europe (if anyone gives a fuck), Lech Kaczynski’s body is to be exhumed. He’s the Polish President who died in a plane crash in Russia. Lots of nationalists and revanchists (who are now in gov’t, including Kaczynki’s twin brother) think the crash was intentional. And Russia’s economic development minister was arrested for allegedly taking a $2m bribe. Since everyone there takes/pays bribes for everything, he is being singled out. Somebody is playing hardball and we’re back to the old “Kremlin-watchers say…” phase.
Hope everybody’s ready for ground war in Europe.
dogwood
@Quinerly:
Ayotte at Defense? Man this guy is dangerous. After the election he said there was no place for her in his administration. Most decisions will be made by whoever is the last man in the room.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yep, I know. As I think you and I have discussed previously, I came here in 1982 for SLU law school from rather progressive NC (at least at the time, Helms disclaimer, though). Saw and heard more racism in the first years here than in the prior 5 in NC. In other news, Saw Red at the Venice the other Sat and am FB friends with her, as well as good personal friends with her. Might be a good idea for you to reach out to her. She’s in a dark place over this mess. I’m going to try to make time to drag her out to lunch and perhaps a long walk at MOBOT.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: It’s interestingly in the political interest of Republicans not to bring those jobs back.
Gator90
Is the Ellison video a real thing? Because I saw it via link upthread, and I’m generally (over)sensitive to anti-Semitism, but he didn’t appear to mention Jews or even allude to them as far as I could tell. Assuming the video/audio to be authentic, someone else in the room said something about Jews, but that’s about all I got out of it. Did I miss something?
Quinerly
@dogwood:
His new BFF John NcCain is pushing her. I hope I didn’t somehow dream this up. Try to be precise. Perhaps the Google should be utilized.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly: I’ll give Red a call, I rarely get to town but maybe I can make it happen. Thanx.
Quinerly
@dogwood:
Quick Google…WaPo, Boston Globe, and that awful Hot Air reporting over the weekend Ayotte being considered for Defense.
Van Buren
@Pogonip: I am further than the people I see on a daily basis, but I am against reparations for slavery, so I have been told that I am a DINO.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
Would love to meet you and your wife sometime if that’s not too forward. Red told me all about you guys. She is a dear soul. Don’t tattle on me. I’m worried about her. She’s carrying a lot of burdens right now. I’ve got some mosaic jobs for her here at my Soulard home in Feb and March. I won’t be in town for about 6 weeks. Hoping she can just camp out here to get some breaks from….well…from “stuff.”
Quinerly
@WereBear:
I have been thinking we are in a “slow rolling Rapture” with all the great musicians, etc we have lost in 2016. Maybe all the good ones are getting out while the getting is good….just saying.
Quinerly
@Baud:
Dying thread…Baud, some seem to imply that they were Bernie supporters. When I push back on the “cheat” part, what gets thrown back is “poor” BS and the primary bullshit. Hatred for the DNC rigging it for HRC. Honestly, I’m at a loss on most of this.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: Too true.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly: Same in return (about meeting) Again, thanx for the heads up, I’ll just say I hadn’t talked to her in a while (true) and was thinking of her post election.
FlipYrWhig
@JMG:
I don’t remember Donald Fucking Trump saying one fucking thing about opioids.
@Applejinx:
You still don’t have the remotest piece of the slightest idea what neoliberalism means, you stupid shit.
FlipYrWhig
@Quinerly: Maybe that’s because Bernie Sanders is a scam artist running a cult of personality who tricked weak-minded people into believing stupid shit.
Baud
@Quinerly: I don’t know if Obama voters who voted for Trump supported him from the beginning or supported Bernie in the primary.
Quinerly
@FlipYrWhig:
True dat. No argument from me. I know it’s a bit of a sore subject on this blog but I put much of the blame on him and the seeds that his campaign sowed. The Jill Stein voters that I know were spouting Powerline, Hot Air, etc talking points towards the end.
Inmourning
I am in St Louis too. Maybe we could organize a meet up.
FlipYrWhig
@Quinerly: I go back and forth between blaming him and the way he ran, vs. blaming the idiots who were looking for someone to latch onto and romanticize because of something something “banksters” and “neoliberals.”
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
She’s insistent that we already know each other. Your name just didn’t ring any bells. You do build beautiful bar ❤ …..I was mostly a Venice chick only on “Liquid Prairie” Saturdays back in the day, ex boyfriend was big in the Banana Bike Brigade. For the most part, though, I was a Molly’s and McGurks gal. Also, second in charge of our Mardi Gras parade in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s when we launched it from the AB parking lot.
Quinerly
@Inmourning:
Let’s do it! I have been wanting to throw that out and was waiting. I’ve lurked on this blog since the Bush Adm. Feel like I personally know some of you.❤ Only really been commenting since July. I’m in on any gathering. How do we get it going?
imonlylurking
@rikyrah: Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@Inmourning: There are a # of STLians here. As much as I’d like to do a meetup, it is unlikely I would make it up there for one. Possible, but unlikely.
FlipYrWhig
@efgoldman: It’s very important to Applejinx that he feel embattled and righteously resistant to overwhelming forces of domination, like people being mean to him on the Internet because of how he’s annoying and constantly saying dumb things.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: One I talked to said that. and I replied,…
Me “well your party control the government, so I assume you approve of Ryan and his kill your’ medicare agenda”
Conservative “Well I don’t like Ryan”
Me” Politics isn’t a buffet. You don’t get to pick and chose what part of a party you approve of. It’s a full package”
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
I don’t think he ever lived in Kansas. His mother was born there but she had already left when she met Barack Obama, Sr.
Rest of your comment is, as always, spot on.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@FlipYrWhig:
According to a conservative friend of mine Trump promised to make drugs cheaper. Of course Trump never said how he was going to do it, but they will be the best, most awesome and hugest cheep drugs ever.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly:
You may remember my Krewe the “Stewed Krewe”. We always had a hot tub. Also I was one of the Scurrilous Monks for the Alternative Soulard St Patricks Day parade the couple years it was running. Liquid Prairie… We’ve definitely met. Ranger Dave, Wren, Ferd, the whole corrupt crew, damn I do miss those Saturdays.
I know. I’m humble too. Have I told you how humble I am? I’m very humble.
And with that I have to go. Y’all play nice now, ya heah?
ETA also, I got roped into being a Parade Marshal a couple of years, hmmmmm……..
laura
@rikyrah: ×1000!
FlipYrWhig
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I kind of still can’t quite get over how Donald Fucking Trump managed to run a campaign for the presidency without being made to say HOW THE MOTHERFUCKING HELL he would DO any of the things he said he wanted. People fault the media for a lot of things. That’s mine. Even Paul Ryan has to–hell, he LIKES TO–talk about how his bad, ugly, gross plans WOULD WORK. Trump never had to do this BASIC FEATURE OF AMERICAN POLITICS, and nobody cared.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
Short reply here since you might not see it. Wren has been in town a few weeks…”Liquid Gold” plus he is dealing with a huge estate sale re his mother. The pictures are amazing. His mother was quite a woman. Ferd’s around too. Knew him from his old “JBF Flyers” days at Molly’s…Joe Bidewell, Blake Travis (RIP) and Ferd. Have a great day. Call Red!
jenn
@Jack the Second: Former Presidents need to try to avoid political spotlight, and we need a DNC chair who can fight.
rikyrah
@Kay:
While Barack Obama isn’t from Kansas, his mother and grandparents who raised him were, and he has a lot of Midwestern sensibilities.
SiubhanDuinne
@FlipYrWhig:
On the (admittedly) rare occasions when a reporter actually did press him on the “ways and means” specifics of his plans, he refused to answer. He didn’t just dodge or pivot, he flat-out said things like “I’m not going to tell you that until I’m ready.”
Inmourning
Quinerly
Just suggest a time and place, and I will let you know. Best after Thanksgiving.
Do you have a law office somewhere? I am an attorney too, but not licensed in MO.
Betty Cracker
@jenn: I don’t think PBO will avoid the spotlight, at least, I hope not. He doesn’t owe us a damn thing, but the man is a patriot, and my hope is that after he takes a well-deserved vacation, he’ll put his community organizing skills to work to oppose the shit-gibbon administration’s assault on his legacy. Avoiding the spotlight and giving an incoming president a chance made sense in the pre-shit-gibbon era. As far I’m concerned, there’s nothing normal about this situation, so old protocol is out the window.
negative 1
@Matt McIrvin: Starting by getting rid of that formulation as two sides in conflict would be a start. Wouldn’t it be OK to be a left populist and believe in inclusion? I’d swear if you’d read comment sections (yes, here too) in anything Dem in the past year you’d think it was either/or.
@MomSense: Geez given the problems of the moment that seems downright quaint.
Another Holocene Human
@Quinerly: A boil must be lanced, and drained.
Did BLM cause the Dems to lose? Well, shame on America.
Quinerly
@Inmourning:
I wonder if a Front pager could devote an open thread to throw out possible meet ups? A thread where people could post where they are and if they want to connect. Maybe it’s been done in the past. Nice little support groups near various cities would be nice for us. As for me, I’m now semi retired after practicing 30 years in MO and Il. No office anymore. Anything I do law wise I can do out of my home office. 32 year resident of Soulard (city). Plenty of places here to get a group together for drinks, etc. Throwing that out as a suggestion. I’m open to meeting anywhere. I prefer to support businesses in the City and U City areas. Kinda anti Chesterfieldian and Ballwinian type stuff?
glaukopis
@debbie: Late to this thread but noticed below you said you’d be alone at Thanksgiving because of the relatives. We’re just outside Columbus and you’re invited to our place. Let me know and we’ll work out contacts.
Smitty
@SiubhanDuinne: Turns out that informed, intelligent plans are a bug, not a feature. Trump-Barnum knew that.
Quinerly
@Inmourning:
I emailed Anne Laurie to follow up with the meet up idea floated in my comment #157. I’m willing to organize one for our area after Thanksgiving…a happy hour type thing here in St. Louis…for those of us in this area and from Southern Illinois if there is an interest from there too. Have a good day.
Kayla Rudbek
@Cermet: put it into solution and run some ultrasound through it, maybe?
Inmourning
Quinerly
I am relatively new to the area, but have heard good things about Soulard, so would like to meet somewhere near there. Maybe for a morning coffee someday, or lunch, or adult beverages later in the day. Just don’t know anyplace to suggest. What about the Wednesday after thanksgiving.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Deader than dead, but didn’t he live with his grandparents for a while, and weren’t they in Kansas?