Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Consistently wrong since 2002

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

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

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

Good lord, these people are nuts.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Why Do Democrats Always Have to Be the Grown-Ups?

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Why Do Democrats Always Have to Be the Grown-Ups?

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I know, I know — because we sure as hell can’t count on the Republicans, and that was true long before Lord Smallgloves became President-Elect. At least there’s some comfort in knowing that someone will step up. From the Washington Post:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor reacted carefully to Donald Trump’s election Tuesday night, saying that the country can’t afford for a president to fail and, also, “we can’t afford to despair.”

Sotomayor was cautious in answering a question from Bill Press, a liberal commentator and talk show host who interviewed her at the Hill Center on Capitol Hill.

Press said he needed to address the “800-pound gorilla in the room” and asked Sotomayor: “Are you in any way apprehensive about what happened in this nation last Tuesday?”

“I’m going to demur from answering that question that way,” said Sotomayor, 62, a liberal nominated by President Obama in 2009. “I will answer it in a different way, which is I think that this is the time where every good person has an obligation both to continue being heard and to continue doing the right thing.”…

“But we can’t afford to despair, and we can’t afford to give up our pursuing of values that we and others have fought so hard to achieve. And so for me, this is a challenge. So I’m going to continue doing what I think is the right thing. That’s the challenge we all have to face.”…

***********

Apart from steeling ourselves, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  1. 1.

    Kryptik

    As always, GOP thinks gov’t is a goddamn game of RISK, and when they lose, they “misplace” the other pieces to give themselves the advantage. And mom tells you to indulge him lest he shit the floor in a tantrum. And if he does, she blames you for inciting him.

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    I plan to use the word neoliberal in just about every form and style imaginable. I figure no one who uses it here knows what it means, so might’s well.

  7. 7.

    Corner Stone

    Has Trump yet come out and forcefully told his followers they must, in all decency and for the good of the country, stop all vandalism and hateful acts against their fellow citizens of this country?

  8. 8.

    Laura

    Right now both the WP and NYT are gaslighting their own coverage from yesterday about the Trump transition by pasting the news of his whining tweets as their top story with giant headlines and treating those pathetic tweets as the serious news of the day. They don’t give much pushback, they are letting Trump write their headlines.

    Don’t know what else to type, it’s all overwhelming. I’m another longtime lurker feeling the sense of dread/doom (and that maybe I’m a sucker for my new WP subscription.)

  12. 12.

    Corner Stone

    @Laura: This is the playbook. It is so obvious it screams “Drop in a quarter and Play Me!”
    The Trump team is dropping every name in the book as possible whatsis. The media dutifully type it up and hit Send. As is, with no reporting, research or thought. The Trump admin then says, “The media is so dishonest! That was never the thing that was going to happen!”
    Trump’s team could leak that Krusty The Klown was going to be SecDef and the media would simply send that out as if it were reality. Actual news.
    Trump is destroying whatever mild little bit of nugget of usefulness the media have ever possessed. He is turning them into fossilized shit.

  14. 14.

    Corner Stone

    So, we’re about to get a 30 minute news cycle that Russia actually did want to tilt the neoliberal election in one way.
    And then? Memory hole, baby!

  15. 15.

    Chris

    The Democrats are expected to be responsible for

    1) Repairing the extensive damage caused to the machinery of government by years of conservative governance.

    2) Performing all of the routine and ordinary acts of maintenance that allow the machinery of government to keep operating day to day.

    3) Anticipate, plan for, and execute all of the necessary upgrades and expansions to the machinery of government that’re necessary to keep up with the changes of the world it operates in.

    All while the hooligans are still pelting said machinery with molotov cocktails and preventing the works at gunpoint from going where they need to go.

    It’s simply too much work for one party to do, especially when that party starts off at a handicap facing the other one even at the best of times.

  16. 16.

    Chris

    @Jim Pharo:

    Wrong analogy. The better analogy I keep hearing is the abusive parent vs. the parent trying to hold it together for the sake of the children.

  20. 20.

    Botsplainer

    So here in the People’s Democratic Soc!alist Kenyan Shariah Republic of Louisville, the Party bucked the tide of stupid and increased its Democratic numbers in Frankfort. The bad part is that Kentucky Democrats got shellacked on a statewide basis, leaving Kentucky’ s TeamD with two bases, one in Lexington and one in Louisville. This city is about to get stripped bare and suffer a lot of conservative stupid. Already, we only get back 50 cents on every revenue dollar shipped to Frankfort. The GOP plans to choke down any local option on increasing taxes for local govt and services, and a lot of home rule provisions will get stripped, particularly affecting gay rights. We’re going to see some North Carolina style bills, and a lot of social services privatized to Evangelicals.

    At the same time, spouse’s company, the one that catered to an upper class clientele and enabled access to some really preferred boutique travel providers and 6 weeks paid vacation (while being VERY profitable) just got sold to the equivalent of Trump Steaks. It provided her with a 6 figure income.

    I think we need to radically readjust to an affordable blue city in a purple to blue state. Can anybody tell me anything about ABQ?

  22. 22.

    Felanius Kootea

    OT: The New York Times has this opinion piece on Republican Falsehoods About Obamacare.

    Paul Ryan, for instance, said on on Fox News on Thursday, that “because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke.” That statement is false. According to the Medicare trustees, cost controls in the A.C.A. are one of the reasons that the system’s hospital trust fund is projected to remain solvent through 2028 — 11 years longer than before the A.C.A. was enacted.

    A similar claim by critics of the A.C.A. is that the law is driving up the cost of employer-provided insurance, which covers 154 million people. A new study by the Commonwealth Fund, which compares costs in the five years before and after 2010, when the A.C.A. was enacted, rebuts that claim.

    Every year, during the open enrollment period, when health insurance premiums go up at my workplace, I’ve noticed that there is a statement blaming this on Obamacare: “…Healthcare Reform (aka the Affordable Care Act) is increasing the cost of providing benefits at …” even though we often had premiums go up in the years before the A.C.A. I wonder how many people receive statements like this across the country and are for the ACA repeal as a result, thinking their premiums will go down?

  23. 23.

    SiubhanDuinne

    How often does a new administration roll into town and literally refuse to take advice from, consult with, or even talk to the current administration. I mean, even the GWB folks at least met and talked with their opposite numbers, never mind that they subsequently ignored pretty much everything they had learned.

    But this lot won’t even return calls from State and Defense (probably other departments too). NOT NORMAL, NOT NORMAL, NOT NORMAL.

  27. 27.

    Chris

    @Felanius Kootea:

    Yep, this is exactly what the only Trump voter I’ve talked to since last Tuesday said. “But premiums are going up! It’s unsustainable!” As if they hadn’t been going up for years before the ACA, to the point that, before the ACA, health insurance crises were the number one reason for bankruptcy.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I don’t know why I don’t have permission to edit my own comment, but what I should have written was “their opposite numbers from the outgoing Clinton administration.”

    Serious, albeit O/T question: why can we sometimes edit our comments with no problems, and other times get that officious “You Do Not Have Permission To Edit This Comment” line? No change in device or anything.

  30. 30.

    Archon

    If I was advising Trump (political thought experiment, wouldn’t do it for all the money in the world), I’d let Paul Ryan and the radical conservatives get comfortable with the idea of privatizing Medicare and shrinking government, then I’d advise Trump to double cross Paul Ryan and come out with a budget keeping Medicare as it is, making superficial changes to Obamacare (and renaming it Trumpcare) and come out with a MASSIVE deficit financed infrastructure bill (call it making American great again Act. Then I’d dare anyone, left, right, and center to oppose it.

    Trump’s argument to the left needs to be, “you may hate me and the way I got here, but I’m all that’s standing between you, and conservative’s repeal of the Great society and New Deal”. I’m not sure that will work but if he governs as a hard-right movement conservative and actually agrees with privatizing Medicare he will be in the low 30’s approval rating by next March.

  31. 31.

    Botsplainer

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I think this is how you erase the legitimacy of the Obama Administration. January 22, fat camo cap and old rednecks will swarm Federal offices while shouting “yer fired” in some shitmouth drawl.

  33. 33.

    The Moar You Know

    I wonder how many people receive statements like this across the country and are for the ACA repeal as a result, thinking their premiums will go down?

    @Felanius Kootea: Our insurance broker sent out a letter the day after the election assuring us that this was in fact what was going to happen. Our CEO believed them. Showed it to me gleefully (I’m the token office liberal IT overlord who can’t be fired because I’ve testified in court for this company and know where all the dirt is). I told her to hang on to it when we got our inevitable increase. Maybe she could make the broker eat the difference. She left while I was still laughing.

    Yes, I do not give a shit if I get fired. They know it’d be free income for the rest of my life if they did.

  35. 35.

    SenyorDave

    @Archon: I think he’s going do something along these lines. I think he’ll screw the Republicans ultimately, but I also think he’ll screw the poor somehow because that is always popular in this country.

  37. 37.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    Nothing quite like getting rid of Clinton and Bush dynastic politics by electing Trump so he can bring in Uday, Qusay, Ivanka and Jared to clean house.

    Speaking of Bannon this sounds like some of his handiwork:

    Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped write tough immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, said in an interview that Trump’s policy advisers had also discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.

  40. 40.

    Corner Stone

    Chuck Todd is neoliberally obsessed with how Clinton is nowhere to be found in public politics right now.

  42. 42.

    trollhattan

    @Corner Stone:
    Good god. First it’s Obama should rend garments during every appearance and now Hillary has to come BACK into the adoring media’s eye? Fuck that noise; she’s already given her country more than 99.9999% of y’all. Going for the last .0001?

  46. 46.

    smintheus

    the country can’t afford for a president to fail

    How did so many idiots get this self-refuting idea? We can’t afford for a president with unAmerican plans to succeed. It’s just a question of whether Trump’s plans are as unAmerican as he makes them out to be.

  48. 48.

    humboldtblue

    Pokey LaFarge provides a nice distraction with his latest beaut.

    I gave my older sister a heads-up, she loves that I turned her on to LaFarge and she said she needed the lift. She’s the motherfucking awesome matriarch of a small tribe of brilliant, beautiful, smart, engaged, empathetic, compassionate absurdly clever and wonderful people. My immediate and badass clan has it all, goddammit, — Jew, black, Asian, gay, rich, poor country and city — and that’s why this shit hurts so motherfucking much.

    My nephew in-law is a black man in West Virginia married to a white woman who after five years busting his ass to get his full teacher credential works at a school where it someone thought it was OK to post a flier reminding white girls to not marry niggers. I am choking with rage, literally. This is not good.

  50. 50.

    Lizzy L

    @lamh36: This sounds suspect to me. Civilian control of the military is baked in, according to my military buds. OTOH, there must be a mechanism somewhere for What To Do if the Commander in Chief goes suddenly batshit, or is revealed to be in the pay of a foreign government. Can the CinC be declared incompetent? We need Adam.

  52. 52.

    weaselone

    @Corner Stone:

    Fuck Chuck Todd. Hillary is probably going to stick it out and stand for a show trial in a handful months partially because the bulk of our media as useful to our democracy is as a fucking infestation of tapeworms. She deserves to spend the time between now and then playing with her grandchild, hiking with her dogs and getting plastered. Fuck Chuck Todd.

  55. 55.

    Lizzy L

    According to TPM, Lindsey Graham and Orrin Hatch are now praising the filibuster for judicial appointments, and stating flatly they don’t want it changed.

    We now live in a world in which these two men become a bulwark against the death of democracy. Hoo boy.

  56. 56.

    WarMunchkin

    Question: Who the heck is the actual constituency for Medicare privatization? I don’t know anyone actually dissatisfied with the program, and nobody capable of doing arithmetic claims Medicare is fiscally insolvent. Usually in politics, things get passed to satisfy actual power blocs of some kind – so where is the one for this change that actually has a vote?

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    @Archon:

    if he governs as a hard-right movement conservative and actually agrees with privatizing Medicare he will be in the low 30’s approval rating by next March.

    I don’t think he cares. As long as he gets all the attention he wants and a chance to loot the treasury, he won’t give a fuck about his approval rating.

  60. 60.

    goblue72

    @WarMunchkin: Rich dudes who don’t need Medicare but want the tax cuts that could be financed by cutting Medicare. And whatever insurance companies that would benefit from getting subsidies for selling shitty Medicare policies.

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    Pertinent section of the 25th amendment regarding competency/disability:

    Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

    Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

    Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

    Interestingly, in such a case when the veep becomes Acting President, there is no oath required or administered* and the majority interpretation is that the veep continues as president of the Senate as he/she has not fully assumed the actual office of the presidency.

    *or anyone else in the line of succession should circumstances dictate that situation

  65. 65.

    weaselone

    @WarMunchkin:

    I’m assuming that it’s insurance companies that offer crappy insurance, probably also some pharmaceutical and medical supply companies that have the prices for their products negotiated down significantly by medicare.

  67. 67.

    lamh36

    Do yourselves a favor…if you are feeling down. Google clips the final White House performances that aired on BET. If you saw SNL last Saturday, Dave Chappelle referenced it (he mentioned seeing this sea of Black faces…and Bradley Cooper for some reason…lol). You can find clips on twitter with the hashtag #ThankYouObama

    It will at once make your day, and also maybe make you sad cause I can almost guarantee the gathering of that many Black folks under the roof of the White House won’t be happening anytime again in the next 4 years…maybe next lifetime (other than maybe servants, who you wont’ see visibly under President Cheeto I’m sure…ugh).

    Anyway, here’s a GIF: @NerdyWonka
    Go on with yer bad self, President Barack Obama.
    Go President, that’s MY President.

    And one of the stand out performances, of which there were many: @Kingwole
    Common and Yolanda Adams delivered a breathtaking performance of “Glory”.
    So beautiful! #ThankYouObama

  68. 68.

    Mnemosyne

    @Lizzy L:

    Having read many of Adam’s very long posts, I suspect what they’re trying to do is figure out if they have standing to disobey orders, not overthrow him. But I third the idea of having Adam explain it to us.

  70. 70.

    Lizzy L

    @NotMax: Thanks. It would not surprised me at all to find this section of the Constitution applied sometime in the next 4 years.

  72. 72.

    Jeffro

    @Chris: that is exactly right … and sometimes the responsible parent either has to flee with the children or knock the abusive parent upside the head with a baseball bat

  73. 73.

    Jeffro

    @Botsplainer: come to most any of the college towns in Virginia or Northern Virginia itself … NoVA is expensive but the rest of the state is not and you will find yourself in wonderful intelligent company

  75. 75.

    WarMunchkin

    @goblue72: Retired rich dudes probably aren’t paying payroll or income taxes to finance Medicare, right? And at least part A is financed primarily through a nominal payroll tax; I know they could cut part B, C, D if they want tax cuts, I guess.

    @weaselone: Why would insurance companies want this? Isn’t that an impossible adverse selection trap?

  78. 78.

    HelloRochester

    Being “the grownups” was what got us a kind and devoted candidate who we all knew was the only person Donald Trump could possibly beat. And (I’m a big fan of all 3, so save your fake outrage) now we’ve decided Senator Professor Warren, Bernie, and Keith Ellison are the new faces of the party because outreach (to whom?) and at the same time hand minority leader to Chuck Schumer. And I’m still getting emails from Donna fucking Brazile. What in the actual fuck?

  79. 79.

    Raven Onthill

    Because the Democrats are the mommy party, and mommy always forgives her wayward sons, doesn’t she? Even when they sets fire to the house, right?

    We talk a lot about the loss of this election, and somehow we forget the huge weight of sexism that it was freighted with.

  81. 81.

    weaselone

    @WarMunchkin:

    I’m assuming that they want it for the same reason they wanted medicare advantage. They think that they’ll make money serving the healthiest segment of the market and don’t care what happens to the rest. The difference being instead of having medicare to fall back on, the sicker cadre of elderly won’t be able to afford policies even with the premium support, so they’ll go without.

  82. 82.

    Roger Moore

    @NotMax:
    Section 4 of the 25th Amendment is badly written. In addition to not dealing with whether the VP should continue as president of the Senate while acting President, it really ought to consider what happens if the President is permanently incapacitated, e.g. by a devastating stroke. Article II already suggested that the President could lose his power if he became unable to discharge the duties of his office, so by providing only for temporary incapacity, Section 4 of the 25th actually muddies the waters rather than clarifying them. Since Congress already has the power to remove the President permanently by impeachment- and with a slightly easier to meet standard than the 2/3 of each house mentioned in the 25th- it wouldn’t really be adding much to their power, just giving them one more legitimate grounds for removing the President from office.

    ETA: Should have looked more carefully at the other point. Article I, Section 3 says the VP should not be President of the Senate “when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States”, which seems to me to cover the event of him acting as President under the 25th Amendment.

  84. 84.

    lamh36

    @ChadPergram
    Schumer: There’s a debate going on about whether we should be a party of diverse Obama coalition or blue collar heartland.

    “diverse” coalition…(cough…colored folks…cough)…

    I mean there are black and brown blue collar workers Chuck…

  87. 87.

    BBA

    @Roger Moore: Getting section 4 invoked is probably Trump’s preferred scenario. He gets to be president without having to do any of that annoying work.

    If he’s impeached and removed before two years are up, he gets to run again in 2020 and 2024.

  88. 88.

    Roger Moore

    @BBA:

    If he’s impeached and removed before two years are up, he gets to run again in 2020 and 2024.

    If he’s impeached before 2 yeas are up, it will necessarily involve many members of the Republican Congress. They aren’t going to do that while still in fear of Trump’s fans in the next election. That means it’s not going to happen until/unless Trump fails so publicly and spectacularly that he’d have no chance of coming back. It’s an interesting scenario, but not one we need to spend a lot of time thinking about.

  90. 90.

    Jeffro

    Folks, Trump is not getting impeached no matter what he does…Ryan & Co will promise him a nice easy life if he’ll just keep signing their bills. In return, they’ll let him do the ranty thing for at least four years and give him a little of what he wants.

    Other than Trump being a Russian stooge and having “the button” at his disposal, the next worse problems here are the Rs having free rein to destroy the entire social safety net, roll back taxes on the rich and corporations, and persecute a whole lot of minority groups in the US.

    Still stuck on what to do (other than work to keep VA blue next year)…trying to think of what levers would get the red state Electors to do the right thing when they vote on Dec 19th, based on the proven Russian connections to Trump & Co and that goon squad’s already-obvious incompetence. But Electors are usually party hacks…hmm…have to think about this.

  91. 91.

    Dread

    saying that the country can’t afford for a president to fail

    With respect to the Justice, he’s going to fail.

    The only question is will he fail like an unprepared student on a test, like the brakes on an 18-wheeler filled with flammable gas, or like the O-ring on the Challenger’s booster rockets?

  92. 92.

    NotMax

    @Roger Moore

    Interpretation with which am most familiar rests on a very narrow distinction. Acting President exercises duties of president but does not assume the office, thus making an end run around Article I conflict.

  96. 96.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: I am pretty worried that letting Trump “do the ranty thing” while President will actually lead to a large majority of American whites becoming radicalized fascists, leading eventually to either genocide or nationwide neo-Jim-Crow.

  99. 99.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Mnemosyne: When I read that Trump and Putin talked on the phone I couldn’t help wondering: who was doing the interpreting? Was DoS even aware of the call? Which phone line was it on?

  100. 100.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @EBT, @Mnemosyne:

    LOL. Plus, from that story:

    Australian media reported that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was the second leader Trump spoke to, after the Australian ambassador to the United States got Trump’s personal phone number from Australian golfer and Trump friend Greg Norman.

    That’s how you break the diplomatic logjam!

  101. 101.

    Calming Influence

    I have an idea. How about, when some Democrat loses their shit and says, on camera, to some Republican: “Seriously, Trump is a giant fucking asshole!” maybe other Democrats could start off with ” I don’t know what you’re talking about, but by the way Trump IS a gigantic fucking asshole…” instead of denouncing allies by saying “Yes, it is impolite to point out that Trump is a giant fucking asshole; we will never do it again!”

  103. 103.

    Greg

    @WarMunchkin:

    Paul Ryan. Who went to college on Social Security survivor benefits and worked in government his entire existence. The Kochs. Various other rich people. And all the others who keep telling the government to stay away from their medicare.

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