Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The willow is too close to the house.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

The revolution will be supervised.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

In my day, never was longer.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

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

Republicans in disarray!

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / Why, Yes, Every Single Human Being I Know, I Have Heard About the Racist Ladies In Clay County

Why, Yes, Every Single Human Being I Know, I Have Heard About the Racist Ladies In Clay County

by | 259 Comments

This post is in: 

I’ve received more emails, fb mentions, twitter dm’s and mentions about this than anything else I can remember in the history of this blog, so I might as well address it formally. yes, I have heard about the two racist ass women in downstate WV who posted some “deplorable” shit to their facebook page:

ape-in-heels-post

An official at a Clay County agency lost her job Monday after publishing a racist Facebook post criticizing first lady Michelle Obama.

The mayor of Clay also was strongly criticized for commenting in approval of the post.

Pamela Ramsey Taylor, an employee of the Clay Development Corporation, referred to the first lady as an “ape in heels” in the Facebook post. A person who answered the phone at the Clay Development Corporation said Monday afternoon that Taylor has been removed from her post, but refused to comment further.

Clay Mayor Beverly Whaling commented on the post soon after, saying, “Just made my day Pam.”

Neither Taylor nor Whaling could be reached for comment Monday. Their Facebook pages have been deleted.

We can now report that Whaling, the Clay mayor (Clay is the county seat of Clay County, so if you are wondering if we backward hicks have mayors for counties, no, we don’t) has submitted her resignation. So I have now reported this, so hopefully the emails will stop.

What’s more interesting, probably, is why I didn’t mention it. And the reason I didn’t mention it was BECAUSE NO SHIT, HALF THE GOD DAMNED PEOPLE IN THE STATE HAVE BEEN SHARING AND SAYING SHIT LIKE THIS FOR EIGHT FUCKING YEARS. I’m honestly more surprised that someone got in trouble. That’s what is so horrifying about the election of Trump. Being overtly racist has been normalized and rewarded.

I mean, where has everyone been the past decade?

Reader Interactions

259Comments

  2. 2.

    Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire

    I guess if Michelle had posed in a bikini with a gun, they would like her better? I dunno….

  3. 3.

    JPL

    You do know they aren’t racist though, right?
    Probably no black friends though, since there are only 15 in the county.

  5. 5.

    Mudge

    Not so much in Morgantown, John, but the state is full of meth using scum, or coal barons looking at ruin, or the stupid. As you well know. It is perfectly believable that no one in Clay County knows a black person.

  6. 6.

    Patricia Kayden

    Mrs. Obama is gorgeous in my eyes and the best FLOTUS in my lifetime. She has handled her job with grace and dignity even though she must be aware of the racism that has been spewed at her (and her family) by bigots like those featured here. I don’t blame her for scoffing when people suggest that she run for President. This country doesn’t deserve her.

  7. 7.

    BGinCHI

    Pose nude and illegally immigrate = Classy

    Working your way out of the South Side of Chicago to Princeton and Harvard = Not Classy

    Good to know.

    Fucking racist hicks.

  8. 8.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I want stuff like this mentioned. I want to be horrified and shocked every single goddamn time I read something like this. I want to be offended at racist/sexist/antisemitic/islamophobic “jokes” and Internet memes. I want to feel sick to my stomach every time some international celebrity, or minor government functionary, or ordinary Joe Sixpack, says or does or shares.

    I don’t ever want to see this kind of shit and simply shrug it off. I don’t ever want it to be normalized. Surprised? No, not any more. Appalled? Every fucking time.

  9. 9.

    Honus

    It’s sad. It wasn’t always like this. I grew up in West Virginia in the sixties and remember Theodore White writing in The Making of the President 1960 that West Virginia had the best race relations of any state with a sizeable black population. People used to aspire to be better. Now the duck dynasty culture has made them proud to be stupid rednecks.

  10. 10.

    Это курам на смех

    I am shunning all Trump voters. I don’t berate them; I don’t debate them. I say, politely, “This election is not normal, it is an affront to basic human decency. I have no desire to socialize with you any further, so please don’t speak to me again.”

    Admittedly this is easy here in deep blue Portland, where I have only a handful of people to ostracize in this manner.

    Will it help? I don’t know.

  11. 11.

    Sloegin

    So… to be a dignified First Lady you have to be either white? Or have a published nude photos of yourself? I can never remember which one it is.

  12. 12.

    WereBear

    Their Facebook pages have been deleted.

    Jiminy! That is a serious crime, all right.

    Seriously, they felt perhaps more emboldened than usual, if the stories I have been hearing are right.

    Good.

  13. 13.

    cokane

    WV i think had the highest GOP % in the prez this year. Just crazy what’s happened to the state that seceded from the confederacy.

  14. 14.

    lollipopguild

    I always enjoy when a white person says something openly racist and gets called on it that person immediately says something like “i do not have a racist bone in my body, You can ask all my friends, I am Not a racist!” The jokes they write themselves. Yes I am white.

  15. 15.

    khead

    I grew up in what has now become the Trumpiest county in America. McDowell Co. WV. Really disappointing. It’s as far south as one can get from John while still in WV. I’ve been working since the election but at some point I’d like to add a long post here to talk about the election and the home folks. My opinion cant be much worse than the other pundits.

  16. 16.

    chris

    Someone, can’t remember the name, left this in a previous thread. Might be the best summary of white rural people I’ve ever read. It rang a lot of bells for me even here in my little Canadian backwater. Ayup, they’re here too.

  20. 20.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    They seem awfully economically anxious.

    Perfect, M^4!

    I have a feeling that “economically anxious” is going to replace “also, too,” “I blame Obama,” “good news for John McCain,” and “all of them, Katie” as the go-to political catchphrase here on The Juice.

  21. 21.

    Schlemazel

    @JohnCole

    It seems to me that there as been a continual stream of this shit documented on this very blog for the last 10 years. If people are surprised, shocked or suddenly noticed one thing that can be said about the Trump election is it woke people the fuck up. Sad it took such a national disaster.

  23. 23.

    Timurid

    The pace and the scope of the normalization continues to blow my mind.
    It’s like watching everyone from Barack Obama to Bill Kristol to that football player who’s decided to stop kneeling at the anthem because he ‘overreacted’ to the election… walking hand in hand down the horror movie stairs to the fiend waiting in the basement.

  24. 24.

    Hoodie

    @Honus: I think a 1960 idea of “great race relations” is a little bit of good old days mythology and I don’t imagine a graduate of Boston Latin and Harvard really knew all that much about W. Va. race relations. There was plenty of racism when I was growing up in N. Ga. in the 70’s, and rightwing radio, the internet, and Trump have brought it out from undercover.

  26. 26.

    slag

    Since objecting to overt and blatant racism is now an elitist act, I hope you’re preparing for your forced relocation to your new loft in Tribeca, John.

  29. 29.

    Aleta

    WTFUCK!?!>

    After campaigning as a champion of coal miners, Donald Trump is reportedly close to choosing for Commerce Secretary a New York billionaire who owned a West Virginia mine where a dozen miners were killed in 2006. Trump’s favored candidate, Wilbur Ross, also engineered buyouts that cost workers their benefits and their jobs. It’s a striking choice, considering Trump’s promises to improve the lives of coal miners and other working-class Americans.

    Ross made his money collecting “distressed assets”—failing steel and textile mills in the Midwest and South, and coal mines in Appalachia. Dubbed the “The King of Bankruptcy,” Ross cut jobs, wages, pensions, and health benefits at the companies he acquired, and reaped the profits. In the early 2000s, Ross’s foray into the steel industry netted him a $267 million personal windfall, but stripped health care benefits from more than 150,000 retired steelworkers. Then he moved on to the coal industry, at one point controlling as much as $1.2 billion in coal assets through his company, the International Coal Group.

    One of ICG’s acquisitions in West Virginia was the Sago Mine, about 100 miles east of Charleston. The mine, a non-union operation, racked up a slew of safety violations from federal inspectors—more than 208 in 2005 alone. That year, the roof of the mine collapsed twenty times. Workers at Sago were injured three times as often as workers in similar mines elsewhere. Though Ross claimed not to be part of operating management at Sago, he admitted later that he was aware of the violations, and waved them away.

    Then, early one January morning, methane ignited deep in the mine. The explosion instantly killed one worker and stranded a dozen others about two miles from the mouth of the mine, in a passageway filled with carbon monoxide. It was more than an hour before company managers called for help, and four hours until a rescue team arrived. Nearly two days later, when they finally reached the trapped miners, all but one had died. Ross and ICG set up a $2 million compensation fund for the families of the deceased—an amount, critics pointed out, that paled in comparison to Ross’s immense personal wealth. (Trump contributed $25,000 to that fund.)

    from The Nation

  30. 30.

    ArchTeryx

    Considering that I’ve been “economically anxious” my entire adult life, and now may well be looking at the end of it, and I still vote Democratic?

    Screw the “economically anxious”. That’s nothing more then a politically correct way of saying “we were trained from birth to kick down.” I’ve been kicking up my whole life and paid the price, but at least my conscience is clear.

  31. 31.

    Honus

    @khead: McDowell county population was nearly 100,000 when I was in high school, probably 15% black. Now it’s less than 10k, and virtually all white.

  32. 32.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    That’s beautiful, raven. Thanks for reminding us all that there’s beauty in the world.

    (Did you see, or photograph, the Supermoon?)

  33. 33.

    mai naem mobile

    I am guessing Trump will hire her for black wimmens outreach because that’s who they would consider qualified,no?

  34. 34.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Aleta:

    Not sure why he didn’t select Don Blankenship.

    :: Googles ::

    Oh, right. He’s in prison for killing 29 coal miners. Sorry, Donald.

  39. 39.

    Seth Owen

    It’s not normalized if we don’t normalize it, folks.

    I will remind everyone that the mainstream media during the 1960s was not generally behind all them ‘troublemakers’ either.

    It’s not going to be easy. I hope it will not take the kind of sacrifices that were made in the 60s, but it might. We need to be prepared for that level. Buckle up. Watch ‘Eyes on the Prize.’ Reread MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. Do whatever helps. Have no illusions. But remember we aren’t the first to face a challenge like this.

  41. 41.

    Helen

    They’re calling my flight. See all you fabulous people on the other side of the pond. Will report back. Love and calm and success and happiness to you all.

  42. 42.

    Honus

    @Hoodie: North Georgia was/is a whole lot different than a lot of West Virginia. My home county (wetzel) and McDowell county were the two counties in what was then Virginia (1860) that had virtually no slave population. The racism in Virginia when I came to UVA from West Virginia in 1973 shocked me. I had never seen anything like it. There was a reason West Virginia seceded from Virginia. Now, Virginia is much more liberal than West Virginia.

    More than ten years ago told a friend that I shuddered to think about WVU having a black football or basketball coach. Fortyyears ago nobody would have blinked an eye.

  43. 43.

    Fair Economist

    @Honus:

    McDowell county population was nearly 100,000 when I was in high school, probably 15% black. Now it’s less than 10k, and virtually all white.

    Seriously, a 10-fold drop in population? That’s unbelievable.

  44. 44.

    khead

    @Honus:

    You are my Dad’s age then. Dad never left. But your post about race relations? “The Free State of McDowell”? – other folks can look that up on Wikipedia – is a myth. Once the shift at the mines was over, the miners went home to different areas. Even in the same communities.

  47. 47.

    Mary G

    I guess because it’s California, Jake, I actually don’t hear shit like this. Ever. I can’t remember hearing a bad thing about Michelle Obama where I live, ever. I guess it’s the liberal bubble, so yeah, I’m surprised. From the link:

    The Clay Development Corp. is a non-profit that provides healthcare and social assistance to elderly and low-income residents of the area. It received more than $360,000 in government grants in 2014, according to income tax filings.

    The organization employs 192 people. Taylor, who served as executive director of the organization, made nearly $83,000 in 2014.

    Clay has a population of 468, according to 2013 statistics from the U.S. Census.

    So this town of 468 people has 192 of them working for a GOVERNMENT SUPPORTED ORGANIZATION. She made $83,000+ on taxpayer money. Paul Ryan will cut the whole organization off right quick.

    I am flabbergasted, gobsmacked, and all the rest.

  49. 49.

    dmsilev

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Not sure why he didn’t select Don Blankenship.

    He still could. Remember, Trump will soon have Presidential pardoning powers.

    (Cheery thought for the day…)

  50. 50.

    Big Ole Hound

    Sorry but the evangelical white church declares that people are black because of their past sins and those of their fore fathers so as long as this “noah’s ark” thinking is around the racist will flourish. The southern half of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois can join Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee as the holders of this wonderful belief and no amount of reason will ever change it as the idea of white supremacy is indoctrinated from birth.

  51. 51.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Aleta: Why it’s almost like the candidate who’s a lifelong scam artist just might have scammed people! And I’ll bet it doesn’t even make a dent, either in WV or nationwide.

  52. 52.

    Honus

    @Fair Economist: Yep. I think Mingo is about the same. Widen, north of Charleston, was probably 8-10 k people in 1966. A high school, florists, Dept. stores, streets, police. It’s nothing now. Literally a ghost town. Everybody left when the mine closed.

  53. 53.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    Wow, just fucking gorgeous.

    I have a category in my Photos called “Out There Up There” — great pix of the moon, and stars, mostly. I hope you don’t mind, I’ve added this beautiful image to the album.

  54. 54.

    NotMax

    Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio Michael Harrington
    Our nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you…

  57. 57.

    raven

    @Mustang Bobby: Quite a day. I had something hit my bait mid-morning. It was about 100 yards out, jumped and sliced the line in half. Mid-afternoon I was out throwing when I turned and saw that the rod and rod holder were gone. I was in the water so I hustled at an angle and the water is so clear I found the rod and reel and picked it up. I fought it for almost and hour and, when I got it close enough, saw it was a ray. I was exhausted but it was really fun. Then, at about 4, this sucker hit. Another 20 minute fight and I got the bull in. Snapped some pics and put it back. My back is killing me and I’m waiting to see if there are any hernia ramification!

  58. 58.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Schlemazel:

    Missed it first time around. (I try to keep up with all the posts and comments, but recently that has become a daunting task.)

    Grateful to raven for putting the photo up again.

  62. 62.

    Mary G

    Politico: Power battles bog down Trump transition

    I’ve been venturing out onto the internet a bit and finding nothing but incompetence and grifting.

    One week after winning the presidency in a stunning upset, Donald Trump is already botching the transition, insiders say.

    The daunting task of filling top Cabinet posts appears to be a chaotic scramble inside Trump Tower, with competing power centers jockeying for position and influence as a steady stream of names both realistic and not gets floated to a baffled media.

    “It’s an absolute knife fight,” said one Trump insider. “But that just makes it Tuesday.”

    And:

    “I would give them 100 to 150 days before the wheels are off and they’re fighting about everything,” said one GOP operative familiar with the Trump transition operation.

  63. 63.

    lamh36

    SHIT!!!!

    @asmith83
    Wow.

    …The disarray has left agencies virtually frozen, unable to communicate with the people tasked with replacing them and their staff. Trump transition team officials were a no-show at the Pentagon, the Washington Examiner reported. Same goes for the Department of Energy, responsible for keeping the nation’s nuclear weapons safe, where officials had expected members of the Trump transition team on Monday. Ditto for the Department of Transportation. Over at the Justice Department, officials also are still waiting to hear from the Trump team…

  65. 65.

    Mary G

    @raven: Wow! I am so glad you are linking pictures of the moon, Bohdi, and other life-affirming things. And you threw it back! Maybe you can catch him again.

  70. 70.

    Schlemazel

    @Mary G:
    I hope they cut the whole office. It may be the only way someone that stupid will learn. Look, a lot of people are going to be hurt by this asshole. Many, far too many, do not deserve what is coming but people like her do. Lets see what we can do to make sure that Trump voters suffer worse than those who do not deserve to be hurt.

  72. 72.

    hovercraft

    @Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire:

    I guess if Michelle had posed in a bikini with a gun, they would like her better?

    Psst, I don’t think the problem is her outfits or lack of an ammo phalus, it’s that she’s blah and fat also too!! The fat comments come from some of the most svelte commentators in the land, Hannity and El Rushbo. Speaking of the, when will we find out what their new posts in the new administration will be? And what about the “Great One” Mark Levin?

  73. 73.

    raven

    @Mary G: The slot for reds in 17 to 28 and this one was 38 inches. A couple of years ago I caught one that size and took it to the local bait shop to weigh. They told me it would be a $1000 fine and all my gear If I got caught. I vowed to adhere to the limits hence.

  74. 74.

    Archon

    I’m prepared to hear the left-wing theory of the case on why people voted for Trump that voted for Obama in 2012. It was statistically small but it looks like it made a crucial difference in the rust belt and we shouldn’t ignore how and why that happened. However every other cohort of the Trump voter was and is the same voter that pulled the lever for W, McCain, Romney and now Trump. Those voters can go fuck themselves.

    Anyone that believes their vote can be flipped with an “economic anxiety argument” without abandoning pretty much every other plank of modern day liberalism (especially when it comes to social, legal, and cultural concerns of blacks and browns) are basically lying to themselves.

  76. 76.

    Kay Eye

    Yes, you are right. That disgusting filth has been spewing forth openly for the last 8 years. I am a member of a mixed race family (never mind that there is no such thing as race). My grandchildren’s skin colors range from fish-belly white to rich brown. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
    And I am scared for all of them.

  77. 77.

    Botsplainer

    @lamh36:

    Ammon Bundy will happily take Interior. No transition knowledge needed.

    That sort of thing may actually be the plan – competence and known skills may be anathema to what is supposed to happen.

  78. 78.

    Mary G

    @lamh36: Wow is right. From your link:

    The transition dysfunction extends beyond failure to promptly execute a memorandum of understanding. According to several sources close to the Trump transition team and inside the Obama administration, the president elect and his staff have had difficulty finding able-minded Republicans willing to take on critical posts. One Democratic source, who like others would only discuss sensitive talks on condition of anonymity, said transition officials had been informally asking Obama political appointees to recommend Republicans to take over their jobs.

    For somebody so fond of making even the volunteers sign NDAs, its team sure leaks like a sieve and it’s only been a week.

    The sad thing is, the Democrats will probably name good people, because they care about their country. Then it will screw everything up and blame it on the personnel the Democrats recommended.

  79. 79.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    He’s lazy, but he’s lovable, we know him like a book
    Anytime he can’t be found, we know just where to look:

    Gone fishin’, there’s a sign upon his door
    Gone fishin’, he ain’t workin’ anymore
    There’s his hoe out in the sun where he left a row half done
    He said “hoein’ ain’t no fun”, he ain’t got no ambition
    Gone fishin’ by a shady wady pool
    I’m wishin’ I could be that kinda fool
    I’d say no more work for mine on my door I’d hang a sign
    Gone fishin’ Instead of just a wishin’

  82. 82.

    JMG

    @Mary G: Obama’s played the guy like a master fisherman. I had a co-worker once whose favorite saying was “in confusion, there is profit.”

  83. 83.

    Pogonip

    @Aleta: Tick…tick…tick…

    You think Deplorables were angry now, wait till 2018. Their fury has already swept a lot of Democrats out to sea. In 2018, Republicans will follow.

    Hey, maybe the 3rd party I attempted to join will actually exist someplace besides Facebook! (i say “attempted to join” because I filled out the comment form explaining I do not and will not use Facebook and asking for some other way to join. Got back a canned message inviting me to join a privare group on…Facebook.)

  85. 85.

    John Revolta

    I mean, where has everyone been the past decade?

    Not West Virginia?

    (The fruit, so low it hangs)

  90. 90.

    hovercraft

    @dmsilev:

    Trump will soon have Presidential pardoning powers.

    An even more cheery one would be if Obama pardoned a huge number of non violent drug offenders on his way out the door, as a final fuck you to the new law and order shit heads. It would be the right thing to do because the sentencing was too harsh, but it would have the added bonus of pissing the assholes off.

  91. 91.

    Mary G

    @Ohio Mom: @lollipopguild: @Schlemazel: The woman whose post originally dissed our FLOTUS has already chosen, or more likely been forced, to resign.

    But I was thinking about the math. The agency’s whole budget is $360,000. She got $83,000, leaving $277,000 left over for the other 191 employees. That’s only $1,450 or so each, never mind the poor people who are supposed to be getting help. Sounds like the whole thing is a scam.

  92. 92.

    JMG

    He should pardon Trump and all members of his family for past acts as he goes out the door. That’d be the troll supreme.

  93. 93.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mary G:

    For perspective, it’s currently 65 days until Inauguration Day. So basically the wheels come off the wagon by March 1st.

  94. 94.

    Mary G

    @raven: The light in that photo is phenomenal, and Bohdi looks so content to receive the ball. You got a great shot of it mid-air.

  100. 100.

    Roger Moore

    @Fair Economist:

    Seriously, a 10-fold drop in population? That’s unbelievable.

    It’s a bit of an exaggeration, though the truth is bad enough. Per Wikipedia, the census population topped out just under 100,000 in 1950. It had dropped to 72,000 by 1960 and 51,000 by 1970. It has since continued to decline and is now estimated at just under 20,000. So it’s dropped “only” 5x over the past 65 years, which is still enough to be devastating. I don’t know what you can do to deal with that kind of collapse.

  101. 101.

    Mnemosyne

    @Archon:

    I’m prepared to hear the left-wing theory of the case on why people voted for Trump that voted for Obama in 2012.

    Celebrity. Some people are stupid enough to want to vote for celebrities — see also Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura.

  103. 103.

    Schlemazel

    @Pogonip:
    Republicans out but replaced with what? Certainly not liberals, they are evil.

    I predicted back in Boy Blunders admin that morons would pick an outsider demagogue & when he failed they would be ripe for a real fascist and take to armed violence to get him to power. Obama gave me hope that this would change but I think we are back on track

  104. 104.

    jake the antisoshul soshulist

    White people have been embarrassing me for over 50 years. I don’t expect it to stop before I die.

  105. 105.

    WaterGirl

    I just read some good news in my email that:

    International anarcho-terrorist money man George Soros is funding domestic terrorism organizations like MoveOn.org and Black Lives Matter to try to stage a leftist uprising.

    Maybe there is hope after all. :-)

    P.S. I had no idea that MoveOn and BLM were terrorist groups. When did that happen?

  107. 107.

    MomSense

    @NotMax:
    TPP renegotiated NAFTA.

    Fuck I’m pissed at the Democrats for buying into this con. You cannot work with him, cannot normalize this monster. Jesus.

  113. 113.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Aleta:

    @ ‘presidential’ pardon is at least 6 months away

    I’m just interested in how many months away is ‘presidential,’ period. Not sure it’s going to happen with this one.

  114. 114.

    Ohio Mom

    @Mary G: Mea culpa, sloppy reading on my part. It was the idea that I could have a chance to see some karma in action that excited me so. But yes, those numbers don’t add up. Could be the reporter’s fault for getting them wrong.

  115. 115.

    Southern Beale

    Shit like this post is why I get so enraged when people say we’re “slut-shaming” for posting that nude picture of Melania Trump. It’s not slut-shaming, it’s revealing hypocrisy. Remember when Michelle Obama’s bare arms were the worst thing EVER? And Melania posed nude, grabbing her own crotch. Yes, it was years ago, yes she was a model. Yes if my body looked like that, I’d probably be walking everywhere naked. That’s not the fucking point. Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds and I’m not about to let it go unchallenged.

    ALSO: I doubt ANY female Democratic politician would be elected dog catcher, let alone become First Lady, if she had done nude pictures like Melania Trump’s. This Republican Rules shit is waaay old and I’m way too old to tolerate it anymore.

  116. 116.

    SFAW

    @Pogonip:

    Their fury has already swept a lot of Democrats out to sea. In 2018, Republicans will follow.

    Right. Because all those angry and economically anxious voters will make a judicious assessment of their own financial health (or whatever), and follow that thought to it’s logical conclusion, and place the blame where they believe it belongs, then vote accordingly.

    So I’m thinking the House will end up being 275 R, 160 D, and the Senate 65 R, 35 D+I

    You heard it here first.

    PS: This assumes we’re all still here, that 2018 elections are actually held, etc.

  117. 117.

    Schlemazel

    @Baud:
    I assume you get the parties together & say “We don’t like this & demand it be changed” They can all then argue for what they want. If it fails I suppose the US could unilaterally rip it up but man that would be dangerous. My guess is Trump would get tolled by superior negotiators & the final agreement would be worse while he crowed about his big win

  118. 118.

    Jeffro

    @Schlemazel:

    Thats the first thing I thought. Those poor women, so frightened for their economic future. The Dems need to work harder to win these people over

    omg that was funny (and dry! had to read it twice ;)

  119. 119.

    Mary G

    @Southern Beale: Yeah, I didn’t get all the way through the Politico article, but it looks like Rudy Ghouliani’s firm has “consulted” for Qatar and all the evil, evil. foreign entities that Hillary was alleged to have granted favors to.

  120. 120.

    Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire

    @hovercraft: Well, I don’t think she’s fat. I’m just assuming they find her form attractive but can’t admit it cuz teh blah. Lol. It’s nice to see Michelle still has her original face, too.

    How could you forget the lean, mean, nutcase machine that is Alex Jones in that group!!!

  123. 123.

    Jeffro

    @Big Ole Hound:

    The southern half of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois can join Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee as the holders of this wonderful belief and no amount of reason will ever change it as the idea of white supremacy is indoctrinated from birth.

    Don’t forget the southwest tip of Virginia, too. Actually, in addition to not forgetting it, would you mind taking it off of Virginia completely? It screws up our politics something awful.

    Anyway, god bless the Appalachian Mountains and those good, sturdy Scots-Irish folks. Speaking of, has anyone heard from Jim Webb lately? I’m dying to hear his take on all of this economic anxiety.

  124. 124.

    SFAW

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

    don’t know, man. I don’t think it’s so much that he’s normalized it, as that he’s brought it out into the open.

    Given the outcome of the election, given the prominent position of Bannon, given the unwillingness of the MSM to scream RACIST every fucking day, given the post-election spike in racial attacks — it say that’s pretty damn normalized. About the only thing Trump DIDN’T do was be seen with KKKers in robes.

  125. 125.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    Thanks for the FB link. I agree with the article. I’m checking FB quietly and occasionally, but am not initiating, or reacting, or commenting at all right now. But I appreciate your knowing that I’d be interested in seeing that.

  126. 126.

    Schlemazel

    @Jeffro:
    I think M^4 really deserves the kudos but thanks. I have to try to bring some laughs because I know I can be a little black ray of darkshine in the world.

  128. 128.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Roger Moore:

    So it’s dropped “only” 5x over the past 65 years, which is still enough to be devastating. I don’t know what you can do to deal with that kind of collapse.

    Pull back to the Forum and Capitoline and abandon everything across the Tiber?

  129. 129.

    khead

    @Archon:

    Anyone that believes their vote can be flipped with an “economic anxiety argument” without abandoning pretty much every other plank of modern day liberalism (especially when it comes to social, legal, and cultural concerns of blacks and browns) are basically lying to themselves.

    I agree with this. It’s non-negotiable. I’m trying to think about ways to NOT address their “economic concerns” and still win.

  131. 131.

    gene108

    @NotMax:

    Why not? He is going to be President. He gets to try to renegotiate NAFTA. I doubt he will make it so jobs come back to the USA and rural America.

    And when he fails, I hope people notice.

  132. 132.

    Schlemazel

    @Baud:
    Oh, well thats different. He does not like that US firms have move manufacturing to Mexico. He will demand that stop by . . . ah . . . well . . . something-something mumble, wave hands MAKE MURIKA GRATE!

  133. 133.

    jacy

    @lamh36:

    This is actually what got one friend who voted for Trump to wake up. When she realized her taxes were going up. Now she’s upset. (Ironic, because her lesbian daughter is my son’s best friend, but that wasn’t enough….)

  135. 135.

    dogwood

    @Baud:
    I stay out of these free trade discussions because they seem more about ideology and proving liberal cred than much else. What has never been clear to me is how rejecting these deals will change any American’s life. I grew up in a small mining town, populated almost exclusively with WWC. The standard of living in that town has risen consistently over the last 50 years. Same with the community I live in now. Given my location, TPP would actually bring more opportunities to the region. The short period in history where American industry had little global competition ended long before NAFTA.

  136. 136.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    I meant what doesn’t he like that he will demand be changed.

    The part where obligations are reciprocal. They’re supposed to open their markets to us while we maintain high tariffs to keep them out.

  137. 137.

    rikyrah

    Jason Miller ‏@longwall26 5h5 hours ago

    Bannon: I’m a racist
    Bannon’s supporters: He’s a racist
    Bannon’s opponents: He’s a racist
    Media: Is Steve Bannon a Racist? Critics Disagree

  138. 138.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    It just get worse and worse….

    ‏@ kerpen
    Just got tip that DANA ROHRABACHER is being vetted as potential fallback SecState if Rudy ethics issue conflicts him out.

  139. 139.

    gene108

    @khead:

    I agree with this. It’s non-negotiable. I’m trying to think about ways to NOT address their “economic concerns” and still win.

    I think Democrats can still win the Presidency, if they can field the right candidate. A lot of people stayed home or did not vote for President, but did vote for downticket races, compared to 2012.. There are votes to be had.

    The real issue is how to win back state houses and governorships in states that seem to have jettisoned Democrats at every level.

    I do not know what each state needs to do to get these back, but if we take back states, we can undo voter ID laws and gerrymandered districts.

  141. 141.

    NotMax

    @Mnemosyne

    Not trolling when his exact quote of what he told you know who’s people was “Count on me” for that.

    The (for lack of a better term) Blue Wall of “No!” is revealed as constructed of Jell-O.

    Hayes let it slide by unremarked, but the mangy cat is out of the bag.

  144. 144.

    rikyrah

    Donald Trump’s Tax Plan Would Hit Single Parents Hard

    excerpt:
    Three major changes make Trump’s plan particularly hard on single parents.

    First, he would eliminate the head-of-household filing status, thus requiring single parents to file as individuals. By itself, that boosts tax rates for single parents at most income ranges.

    Second, although Trump would boost the standard deduction, he would eliminate personal and dependent exemptions, raising taxable income for all single parents who do not itemize.

  147. 147.

    Jeffro

    @Archon:

    I’m prepared to hear the left-wing theory of the case on why people voted for Trump that voted for Obama in 2012. It was statistically small but it looks like it made a crucial difference in the rust belt and we shouldn’t ignore how and why that happened. However every other cohort of the Trump voter was and is the same voter that pulled the lever for W, McCain, Romney and now Trump. Those voters can go fuck themselves.

    Personally, I doubt there were very many folks who voted for Obama in 2012 that voted for Trump in 2016. I think some Rs who voted for Obama in 2008 got turned off after Obamacare or whatever excuse was convenient (I’ve even heard the “beer summit” as a major turnoff, no joke) to bring them back to their GOP programming

    That would explain some of the drop off of a few million folks for Obama from 2008 to 2012. They melted away a bit in 2012 (as did some of our own D voters) and made it a closer election. In 2016, some more of our folks dropped off, and some more of theirs may have dropped out too, but other infrequent R voters turned out something fierce, especially in the Rust Belt. And there we have it.

    Put me on TV, I’ll do it for free.

  148. 148.

    Jeffro

    @hovercraft:

    An even more cheery one would be if Obama pardoned a huge number of non violent drug offenders on his way out the door, as a final fuck you to the new law and order shit heads. It would be the right thing to do because the sentencing was too harsh, but it would have the added bonus of pissing the assholes off.

    Yes all of them – and Hillary too. Just have her say she doesn’t want it and have him say publicly, “too bad”.

  149. 149.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Well, it’s not as if was always a big liberal-supported program. Clinton got it done, but I don’t think liberals were especially thrilled by it. (Of course, my memory might be faulty. Senility sucks.)

  150. 150.

    CaseyL

    @Chris: @ArchTeryx:
    There is a chance – not much of one, granted – that “repeal and replace” means “re-name ObamaCare TrumpCare and otherwise leave it alone.” I’d be OK with that, and I suspect Obama would be OK with that, too. The important thing is that the program continue, not who it’s named for.

  151. 151.

    Jeffro

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t know much about Rohrbacher but I thought earlier today that between Rudy and Bolton, Rudy looked good by comparison.

    This is what they mean by “normalization”, folks. Rudy. Frickin’. Giuliani, just for a second, looked like a satisfactory pick.

    Fortunately I pretty much bleed Democratic blue by this point, but still…it was a tough three seconds there…

  153. 153.

    BellyCat

    @chris: Hot smoking pig iron. That link you included to Forsetti’s Justice NAILS IT!!!

    (If you haven’t peeked at this, it’s worth the insights provided)

    I grew up in a small (minded) town filled with fetid religious hypocrits and escaping the moment I graduated from high school and moving to a city (for college) was like having a thick plastic bag peeled off my entire epidermis.

    Fuck these holier-than-thou authoritarian bigots and the grifting horse they rode in on. If only there was a way to exclusively serve THEM the triple-decker shit sandwiches they’ve ordered for the next four years (while not realizing that like the apocryphal bottomless “loaves of bread” doled out by Jesus, will be the only thing on the menu for a decade or more.)

    When Obama said he was going to focus on voter reform after he is sprung free, he (not surprisingly) has clearly figured out that there is no changing fundies tiny little minds. Now its time to simply outnumber them at the ballot box.

  155. 155.

    Peale

    @NotMax: I don’t have a problem with it. Look, at lot of OUR voters said they want to destroy neoliberalism and want trade deals blocked. And a lot of voters in Sherrod Brown’s state said they wanted that too. I don’t like it, because, yeah, there’s quite a bit of racism in singling out the poorest member of the agreement and trying to get them to be even poorer, forgetting that Canada seemed to gain quite a bit of US auto industry and natural resources jobs out of the deal, too. It bothers me a great deal that he wants to “punish” Mexico.

    Anyway, I don’t think these negotiations will go anywhere. There are too many people trading too much with the 10th largest economy in the world and by far our biggest trading partner who isn’t China. NAFTA actually worked after years of adjustment, a lot of which hit Mexico hard, which is why there were so many people leaving the countryside to migrate in the 1990s. Then when the damn factories were supposed to start coming, the multinationals fell in love with China instead. Frankly, I think NAFTA worked.

    Mexico negotiated its own trade deals with most of the big economies in Europe and in much of Latin America so it held an advantaged place in the global supply chain for manufacturing so that EU and Asian companies also started setting up plants there to get around the fact that the US stopped negotiating trade deals for a decade while it chased terrorists around the globe. Good for them.

    I really don’t think these negotiations will yield much. Trump doesn’t have time to do them himself, but if he jumps into them, LOL. They are trade deals, not business deals, and if he tries to negotiate what the public wants, well that’s not going to work. We want Mexico to buy our goods and send nothing back, are threatening to round up its citizens in this country and put them in prisons, threaten to start dropping bombs from drones. Fire away. Mexico doesn’t “own” those factories and can’t really order them to leave and if they do leave it can’t demand that they go to Indianapolis.

  157. 157.

    SFAW

    @Jeffro:

    Yes all of them – and Hillary too.

    I was thinking approximately the same thing. I like your follow-up, re: “I didn’t want him to do it.”

  161. 161.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    Understand it is customary to grant deference and a honeymoon period to a newly installed president.

    Customary is non-operative.

    This is not a normal person. By dint of his utterances and the not normal people he chooses to be surrounded and counseled by he has abrogated the privilege of being treated normally.

    Sen. Brown seemed not to grok that.

  163. 163.

    Schlemazel

    I sent a note to my reps, Ellison, Franken and whatser name reminding them that the GOP Congressmen & Senators met in January of 08 to agree and announce that their job was to obstruct Obama on anything and everything he wanted to do. I asked them when we could expect the Dems to do this now.

  165. 165.

    rikyrah

    Bradd JaffyVerified account
    ‏@BraddJaffy
    NBC’s @mitchellreports: Trump team asked that Kushner be designated to attend Presidential Daily Briefings once he gets top secret clearance

  166. 166.

    Jeffro

    @SFAW:

    I was thinking approximately the same thing. I like your follow-up, re: “I didn’t want him to do it.”

    Only way to do it. She protests her innocence, Obama takes the heat on his way out but…what can you do, right? It’s a presidential pardon. Maybe he even throws some shade (as the kids say) and notes that while he wouldn’t normally pardon an innocent person, Hillary’s been persecuted beyond all reason and he’s taking as a first step towards restoring some norms and the rule of law in this country.

  167. 167.

    Corner Stone

    @Jeffro: I pray no pardon is ever offered, and if it is she flips the double rods at it.
    I hope she gets dragged in front of the religious tribunal and tossed into the lake. So we can see for once and all if she weighs the same as a duck.

  172. 172.

    hovercraft

    @NotMax:
    Well that’s just great, all these fucking assholes thinking that the Shitgibbon will do anything he said he will are just pathetic, the NY Times had a piece just this morning pointing that it’s already in the process of walking everything back.

    Trump Campaign’s Easy Answers Confront Hard Reality

    has not yet clarified his promises on trade, but most experts say it will be very hard to simply walk away from Nafta and impose a 45 percent tariff against imports from China. “In an age of global supply chains,” said Dani Rodrik of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, “you cannot take a chain saw to trade agreements and not end up cutting your foot off.”…..

    Nafta may not be the best agreement in the world; China certainly cheats. But igniting trade wars with the nation’s biggest trading partners would not improve the livelihoods of America’s working class…..

    ……the frustrated working-class voters who cast their vote for Mr. Trump are likely to remain as frustrated as ever: stuck with insufficient education in a world of low growth and diminishing opportunity. Maybe they will figure out that most of the industrial jobs they lost are gone for good, that protectionism can’t bring them back, and that the main driver of their plight is technological change…….

    …..“What happens when Trump realizes he cannot adequately respond to the expectations he has raised?” he asked. “Does he respond to economic failure like all populists around the world do — by further polarizing the nation and deepening divisions based on identity? And what does that do the quality of our democracy?”

    Sherrod is a good progressive, but the notion that protectionism can roll back globalization is bullshit. We need to come up with real solutions, shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted makes no sense at all, it just sets people up for even bigger disappointments.

  177. 177.

    misterpuff

    Trumpworld: Cutting your nose off to spite elite smug libruls, Part XXX +

    I am currently on a business trip in a deeply rural area of Michigan. I encountered a health care worker of Mideastern extract. I had my bags in the elevator, so he asked me if I was checking out. I said just packing my car for the trip tomorrow back to Chicago. Ah, he replied, a resident of Illinois a Democratic state and then he asked me if I voted for Hillary. I said I did. He gave me a thumbs up and then said maybe they can overturn in the Electoral College. I said I doubt it but we will survive. But as I packed my car, I realized perhaps his life could be upended and the people he serves, mostly white god-fearing people might have voted to make that happen.
    In many rural areas, the medical care is provided by immigrant doctors from India, Pakistan and other English speaking former colonies. if Muslim or immigrant xenophobia drives them out, the good farmers of the Thumb may have to drive hours to get good medical care. Sad!
    This sux.

  179. 179.

    SFAW

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Kris Kobach’s name is being floated for AG. Read and weep.

    I realize floating a name and actually nominating someone are two different things, but has there been ANY name floated so far for ANY position that isn’t a complete fucking asshole? We got Kobach, Rudy, Bannon, Bolton, Priebus, Rohrabacher, the EPA guy.

    And if Heydrich were still alive, Trump could float his name for Obergruppenfuehrer Senior Group Leader; he and Kushner could trade stories about being self-hating Jews, and he and Bannon could chat about various Solutions. [Yeah, I guess it’s a non-sequitur.]

  180. 180.

    Ruckus

    @Это курам на смех:
    The Shit-Gibbon lover at work gets the cold shoulder now. He said good morning today, I basically ignored him. My boss suggested that I set up a job and show him how to run it. I almost told him, not even if it means my job. Instead I told him the guy wasn’t capable. I’ve said 2 words to him in the last week, both involved work. He gets nothing else. I’m not sure he understands why.

  181. 181.

    Jeffro

    @Corner Stone: I hear you…I’m just not up for letting this drag out in yet another show trial, much less a sentence of any kind. She can flip Obama the bird while he’s busy flipping it to the GOP.

  183. 183.

    dogwood

    @Peale:
    Thanks for that post. There has always been something troubling about this populist talk about sending jobs to Mexico or China, but no “Canada is taking our jobs” outrage.

  184. 184.

    chelsea530

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Grrr. If I hear that once more, I’m going to scream even louder.

    Thanks, John Cole, for keeping this going. We need to call it out every single time it happens. Take the power out of empowerment of racism, bigotry, and misogyny.

  185. 185.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @BGinCHI:

    Pose nude and illegally immigrate = Classy

    I think the correct reply to Pamela on facebook is “I am sorry, I was to busy jerking it to Ivana’s naked pictures”

  186. 186.

    schrodinger's cat

    @hovercraft: What we need is labor to have a seat at the table, we need unions and a union representative on the board of directors, like they do in Germany and other Scandinavian countries. Protectionism is a fool’s errand.

  187. 187.

    Betty Cracker

    @Archon: I’ve sought out articles on Rust Belt voters who flipped, and the explanations people surveyed gave were inane crap like “he’s a straight talker,” and “we need a change,” blah blah blah. We might just have to face the fact that these voters are rando nitwits who swing back and forth for no good reason.

  188. 188.

    Jeffro

    @hovercraft:

    What happens when Trump realizes he cannot adequately respond to the expectations he has raised?” he asked. “Does he respond to economic failure like all populists around the world do — by further polarizing the nation and deepening divisions based on identity? And what does that do the quality of our democracy?”

    I love Rodrik’s questions – and Trump probably does too:
    “Does he care about economic failure” – of course not, he’ll be the last person touched by it.
    “Does he care about further polarization and deepening divisions” – of course not, he thrives on it.
    “And what does that do to the quality of our democracy?” – I have a funny feeling this is the whole point.

    Trump (and Bannon, and Giuliani, and Bolton, and all the other psychos being drawn into this on that side) think that the world is crappy and cynical and shit, when all evidence would tell a normal person otherwise. The whole point of this is power for them, which means the end of democratic rule.

  190. 190.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    No. If we are now a country that puts political rivals on trial, then we should be open about it.

    And what happens when she gets convicted? As in, what is the response you anticipate?

    ETA: To clarify: the response of persons not wanting her shot/hung/castrated/disemboweled.

  192. 192.

    Corner Stone

    @Jeffro: WTF? What do you mean “another show trial”?
    Fuck the idea that HRC hides behind anything and that Obama cloaks her in some way.
    Are you fucking stupid? If Obama did that they would target him and put him on trial. That may happen anyway. Let HRC get dragged before some HUAC bullshit. She can take it. She would probably relish it.
    No hiding. Let’s see these fucking cowards try it on.

  193. 193.

    Corner Stone

    It’s easy for me to so bravely put HRC forth for trial. I get that. But I honestly think she would shine if that happened, and be a beacon unlike anyone else except PBO in a similar situation.

  195. 195.

    Aleta

    (WaPo) Fahrenthold and Sellers, examples of how Bannon manipulated Trump to shape him as a candidate.

    The clearest public sense of how the two plan to work together — and what policies Bannon will probably try to push — came over the course of nine one-on-one interviews on Bannon’s radio show between November 2015 and June of this year.

    In those exchanges, a dynamic emerged, with Bannon often coaxing Trump to agree to his viewpoint, whether on climate change, foreign policy or the need to take on Republican leaders in Congress.

    At times, Bannon seemed to coach Trump to soften the harder edges of his message, to make it more palatable to a broader audience, while in other cases he pushed Trump to take tougher positions. He flattered Trump, praising his negotiating skills and the size of his campaign crowds.
    …
    The flattery often came before a leading question.
    Last December, Bannon told Trump that, “I know you’re a student of military history.” Then, he laid out a case for questioning the U.S. alliance with Turkey, a member of NATO since the 1950s.
    Wasn’t it true, Bannon asked, that the situation was a bit like the web of treaties that connected European countries before World War I?

    “People were locked into these treaties. . . . It led to the beginning of the bloodiest century in mankind’s history,” Bannon said. He said that Turkey had changed since it joined NATO, turning to Islamism under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. What if Turkey was drawn into a broader conflict in Syria, perhaps with Russia?

    “This is not something, Steve, that you want to end up in World War III over,” Trump said.

    In other cases, Bannon would use his questions to frame policy choices — and then ask Trump if he agreed with the frame and the choice. In the December interview, Bannon presented the problems of climate change and the Islamic State as a binary option — offering Trump, in effect, the choice of fighting one or the other.

    “Do you agree with the pope and President Obama that [climate change] is absolutely a path to global suicide, if specific deals are not cut in Paris, versus focusing on radical Islam?” Bannonasked, referring to the negotiations that eventually led to a global climate agreement in Paris last year.

    Trump said that what other people considered to be climate change was probably just weather. Radical Islam should be the focus.

    On issues ranging from trade to slowing Muslim immigration, Bannon said, “What [Ryan] wants is for you to drop those policies. Are you prepared to do that for unity?” When Trump later began to say it would be “better if we do get together,” Bannon interrupted, saying that Ryan’s version of unity would represent “a collapse of what you ran on and a collapse on what [voters] backed you on.”

    “Well, you can’t do that,” responded Trump.

    (Hoping this kind of article will cause another sinkhole between the swamp monster and his bog demons.)

  197. 197.

    Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire

    @Kropadope: No, there’s not, and I really don’t care, but the hypocrisy needs to be called out.

    Personally, I think Melania wants nothing more than to return to NYC with her son and spend what little money Cantaloupe Caligula has. Can’t say I blame her.

  198. 198.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SFAW: Do you mean am I expecting mass protest marches and the like? No, I am not. But I want to know where we stand. Are we now a fascist country and, if so, are people okay with it?

  199. 199.

    Kropadope

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    What we need is labor to have a seat at the table, we need unions and a union representative on the board of directors, like they do in Germany and other Scandinavian countries.

    I think a good step on the way there would be to have fewer Republican governors and presidents on capital’s side making it difficult for labor to freely assemble.

  200. 200.

    Jeffro

    @SFAW:

    I realize floating a name and actually nominating someone are two different things, but has there been ANY name floated so far for ANY position that isn’t a complete fucking asshole?

    Well yeah, if you get to 70 and have no friends and no one even trusts you in your own line of work, then these are the kind of people who gravitate towards you: people who have no qualms associating with such a soulless orange toad.

  204. 204.

    Mike in NC

    Still chuckling over the lead on tonight’s NBC Nightly News: “Trump Transition in Turmoil”. This is the next four fucking years, folks. Even Putin is despondent.

  205. 205.

    Suzanne

    I drove through West by God Virginia once. It was enough.

    There are so many places with beautiful landscape and hideous people. It’s tragic.

  206. 206.

    Barbara

    @Jeffro: A lot of people might be saying no. This is not an episode of Celebrity Apprentice where people will do anything to jump start a dormant career. Think back to the list of convention speakers and imagine the problem multiplied by a factor of 1000.

  207. 207.

    Kropadope

    @SFAW:

    And what happens when she gets convicted? As in, what is the response you anticipate?

    You mean “if” and I think if they have a real trial with a truly fair jury, there’s no way she gets convicted. What she did was inadvisable, it was not illegal. Furthermore, it was a workaround to outdated government communications infrastructure and policy.

    Where the focus on this should be is that our government’s tech should be state of the art. Better for user-friendliness, archiving concerns, and security alike.

  208. 208.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I don’t know if we’re a fascist country, but I know — well, believe — that about half the country would be OK with a conviction after a show trial. Actually, a too-large number would be OK with the Cardassian judicial process (if I remember my ST correctly).

    [If I recall: Cardassians started the process with a declaration of guilt, and then proceeded to show why the accused was guilty.]

  209. 209.

    Peale

    @SFAW: Dimon for Treasury. Yes its a big banker, but given what it COULD be. At least he hasn’t spent the last eight years running around the country complaining about Obama, throwing up wild accusations that we’re living in Weimar! And unlike the Mercers, isn’t going to advocate for a return to the gold standard. He actually understands that it is kind of important to not default, doesn’t seem like he’d be a tool of Putin, and likes the dollar as the global reserve currency.

  211. 211.

    dogwood

    @hovercraft:
    The end of that piece where it discusses the populist who retains power by polarizing a nation along the lines of identity is what is scaring me the most right now. If we were to become a 2 party system where one party is exclusively white and the other 80-85% non white we will be in more trouble than we can imagine right now. Because under systems like that policy is irrelevant, only identity matters. And even if there are policy arguments to be had, the same side with it’s reliable voting base will always win the day.

  212. 212.

    chelsea530

    @Peale: Isn’t he the one who wore POTUS cufflinks when Obama called Wall Street banksters to the White House in 2009 after the near-financial meltdown?

  213. 213.

    SFAW

    @Kropadope:

    No, I meant “when,” thanks. The only trial I’d anticipate is some Congressional BS, with a dash of Comey thrown in there, and they’d find a way to fuck her over yet again.

    I figure they’d find some part of the Patriot Act that they’d claim she violated — after all, her e-mails were worse than the Rosenbergs, Jonathan Pollard, Mohammad Atta, Aldrich Ames, and Kim Philby combined — and go after her that way.

    You’re fucking right I’m cynical.

    ETA: I also expect them to talk about the hundreds or thousands of times her private server was hacked.

  215. 215.

    ArchTeryx

    @Jeffro: Exactly why I’m updating my will and making my peace. It almost sounds too much like a bad Tom and Jerry cartoon, but it’s all too real for me.

  216. 216.

    Citizen Alan

    @Pogonip:

    I’m honestly hoping a lot of the Deplorables will be dead or surrendered to despair once the Zombie Eyed Granny Starver pinches their benefits.

  218. 218.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I also agree with Corner Stone that she would handle herself perfectly if it happened.

    Not that it makes any difference, but I absolutely agree. She did great during that marathon session. But outside of political junkies like (some of) us here, who really knew about that?

    And the point is not whether she is capable of defending herself, it’s that in a show trial, it won’t matter.

    Look, a large part of me can’t believe they’re even considering pursuing this, given that they got the result they wanted, one week ago. But up until a week ago, a large part of me couldn’t believe that there were that many fucked-up voters, and we see where that got me.

  219. 219.

    Monala

    @Mary G: I didn’t read that as their whole budget is $360,000, just that $360,000 of their budget comes from government grants. Most federal grants expect you to match the grant amount with private dollars from foundations, individual donors, maybe local businesses. Their total budget was probably a great deal larger. And since you have to be audited to receive government grants, somebody is keeping tabs on them.

    ETA: the rest of your points are sound. I work for one of the larger nonprofits in a mid-size West Coast city, and we probably receive $360,000 in government grants, while serving tens of thousands of clients each year.

  220. 220.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SFAW: They aren’t going to gin up a Soviet style show trial. Any trial would be in a regular US court with a judge and jury.

  221. 221.

    dogwood

    @Peale:
    This has been a weird day for me, I hear about Jaime Dimon and feel a bit relieved. Only nice story I see today? Goeorge and Laura go to the local SPCA and bring home a cute dog.

  223. 223.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I guess that’s the other half (or flip side) of what irks me — that she’d even have to go through one (show or otherwise) in the first place.

    If I believed in a Just God, I would probably be less annoyed about this bullshit.

    OK, time to get back to work.

  225. 225.

    Amaranthine RBG

    Hey I’m from around there know several people in the Ramsays and Whalings families. (Not the two women themselves.)

    Let’s just say I ain’t real surprised by any of this.

  227. 227.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @debbie: That’s the whole thing. They don’t actually have anything. A pardon is saying that there really was something in there. There never was.

  228. 228.

    PPCLI

    @Omnes Omnibus: Don’t underestimate how far down that road even “respectable” Republicans have gone. Don Seligman is in jail. And when US District Attorneys were being fired for refusing to launch politically motivated charges, I didn’t hear many Republicans raising hell. The question at issue now is just how sweeping they want to be.

  229. 229.

    catclub

    @Omnes Omnibus: ANY trial will be continuing catnip and distraction for the press. Plus, assuming she is not convicted, Trump will claim that the system is still rigged. PLus, campaign promise fulfilled!

  230. 230.

    debbie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Didn’t think so, but wasn’t sure I hadn’t missed something. I would like her to go through the process, if only to prove their lunatic idiocy. Relatives I’d thought were smarter are calling for her prosecution, which is killing me.

  233. 233.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @debbie:

    I’ve seen talk about the Clinton foundation and influence peddling as Sec. of State.

    Oh, and there’s no statute of limitations on her murder of Vince Foster and 47 other people, so there’s that, too.

  234. 234.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @PPCLI:

    Don’t underestimate how far down that road even “respectable” Republicans have gone.

    I am not underestimating anything. I want to know where we stand as a country. It will affect what I do and how I do it.

  235. 235.

    dogwood

    @catclub:
    I’ll worry about the Clinton trial when and if it happens. Right now these fascists can’t even organize a transition properly. And transitions are actually easier than they used to be because in one of their decent moments the Bush administration pushed through a completely bi-partisan law that made the process more efficient

  239. 239.

    sukabi

    @EBT: she was talking about the $83,000 yearly salary and the remainder of the money being divided between 191 other employees for the year…pretty sure even in west virginia that’s not enough to get you through 1 month, let alne a year.

  240. 240.

    boatboy_srq

    What struck me was the oh-so-literate “a Ape in heels.” Note the mismatched article. So, Taylor showcased her iggerance along with her bigotry. And don’t give me that “140 characters” BS: there are places where that tweet could have been shortened and still be English (bigoted English, but still a complete sentence with proper grammar that any third-grader ought to know).

  244. 244.

    Fake Irishman

    @NotMax:

    Lot of people on this thread concerned about Sherrod Brown. He’s been lobbying against NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP and any other free trade agreement since he joined Congress in 1992 on the grounds that they tend to gut American manufacturing jobs while leaving those workers in the lurch while enriching their company owners. We can argue around the edges about what free-trade pacts accomplish and are supposed to accomplish, and the merits of TPP vs. NAFTA vs. improvements on both vs. no free trade but he sure as Hell isn’t doing this to cozy up to Trump, who he thinks is a buffoon and an evil, evil man. This is the point where he gestures in his direction before going to the matt on health care, tax cuts, the environment, labor rights and other matters. (Brown famously refused to take his employee health benefits while in Congress and the Senate until the ACA passed in 2010.) He sure as Hell ain’t no racist either. Brown is facing the fight of his life in 2018, and he’s making sure he’s connected with his roots in Ohio (which he never has disconnected himself from.).

    You can check in with front-pager Kay on this point. She’ll back this up.

  246. 246.

    Macbethchick

    @Honus:

    Howdy, Honus. I’m a former Wetzel resident. I have a love-hate relationship with the place. I’ve always wondered how prominent the sundown towns were in the northern panhandle. My grandfather was a KKK member in Brooke County, busily ridding the Panhandle of those mackerel-snapping Catholics and dagos.

  247. 247.

    NotMax

    @Fake Irishman

    Not a newcomer to knowing about Brown.

    But this is not the time, the place and the circumstance to give an inch, something he has now eagerly spoken a willingness to do.

  248. 248.

    Macbethchick

    And for some fucking reason I still haven’t gotten the hang of posting a response to a thread without it looking catti-woncus.

    I recently read an article a friend posted from some faction of FauxNews bemoaning the economic state of Clay County. The old ‘King Coal is our life, blah blah blah, and the EPA commies destroyed us.’ (Thanks, Obama! Dammit, Hillary!) Well since one of those women was the freaking Director of the Clay County Development office, maybe THAT’S why they’re in the toilet.

  253. 253.

    CaseyL

    I don’t understand the willingness to have Hillary face a show trial. The idea horrifies me. I wouldn’t blame the Clintons if the entire family packed up and left the country, found refuge in Ireland or someplace like that.

  254. 254.

    cosima

    I would like to see BJ return to the civility of the tire rims & anthrax days. I wish John would re-post to help us all feel a bit better.

  256. 256.

    liberalandlovingit!

    @chris:

    That was a great article. And, they are with us, here in Canada.

    Remember when PM Harper killed the communist Canadian Wheat Board?

    They drive around with stickers that say Farmers Feed Cities.
    Yeah, and cities and our taxes support farmers.
    Arrogant white land-owners.
    It’s sickening.

  258. 258.

    J R in WV

    @Honus:

    Regarding your McDowell County WV population data, you are incorrect. According to the US Census, there are an est. 19,834 people in McDowell County, and 89% are white while 8.8% are black. Here’s a naked link:

    http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/RHI205210/54047,00

    So you were off by nearly 100% more than your guesstimate on total population count, and much more than that on black population. 38% of the population is living in poverty, though. Which isn’t surprising, but is pretty sad.

    In a previous life I delivered educational TV materials for teachers to the school board there, and in my last career I visited the WV DEP office there several times. You would have to stop talking when a train came through town, which was common then, because the noise was so overwhelming.

    The town is in a very narrow valley, and the RR passes right by the buildings, through tunnels built right there in town. Many abandoned buildings, crumbling away. It was very prosperous back in the 1950s and ’60s, in its own way.

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