Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

“woke” is the new caravan.

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

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

We’re not going back!

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Tick tock motherfuckers!

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

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

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

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Books are my comfort food!

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

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Open Thread: Another Starbucks Backwards-Boycott!

Open Thread: Another Starbucks Backwards-Boycott!

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As the Washington Post reports, a Florida real estate remodeler lost his temper when he felt disrespted at Starbucks: “‘I voted for Trump! You lost!’: White Starbucks customer accuses barista of ‘discrimination’”

Give him credit (being as Florida is a Stand-Your-Ground state) — he used his words, even if those words were sometimes NSFW.

This being 2016, of course another customer took some video, which inevitably went viral. Trump supporters nationwide considered themselves deeply, personally OUTRAGED!!! And because Trump supporters are not the sharpest crayons in the box, they announced another round of their notorious NATIONWIDE PROTESTS…



Yeah, basically, these bold Sons of Liberty can’t do without convenient access to their favorite triple-caff vanilla grandes (no whip), so they resort to noisly signalling their public patriotism. As if the Starbucks baristas didn’t have enough to put up with already.

At least NYC theater is a sufficiently niche market that the Hamilton ‘protests’ are unlikely to expand beyond noisy demands for apologies on Twitter…

‘I will fall on the sword & take your tickets’: Calls to #BoycottHamilton met with mockery

Reader Interactions

329Comments

  3. 3.

    WereBear

    This is our central problem: they have absolutely no clue how incredibly privileged and stupid they are.

    Mind you, there’s an intersectional correlation there.

  4. 4.

    Corner Stone

    I’m feeling some serious withdrawal here, you guys. I haven’t seen even one story about HRC’s emails in NYT or WaPo in almost two weeks. I’m kinda freakin’ out here, TBH.

  6. 6.

    Corner Stone

    @Baud: I was feeling too bullied and sock-shamed in the last thread to say it, but I also too sometimes wear socks with sandals. What’s worse is that they are the grippy style one gets from a stay in the hospital.
    Don’t judge me!

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne

    I’ve already offered on Facebook to buy “Hamilton” tickets back from anyone who is outraged that they were so mean, you guys! to poor, delicate Mike Pence, who just wanted a safe space.

    Strangely, I’ve had no takers so far.

  10. 10.

    GxB

    “Feeeeel-iiiings! Woah, whoah, woah…. Feeeeeel-ings!”

    That and add a hotlink to the tubby asshole couple in Trump/Pence shirts “Fuck Your Feelings”

    It’ll be my standard response for the foreseeable future.

    WATB nation.

  11. 11.

    Jeffro

    @Corner Stone: yeah at some point the media might get bored enough to report on the fact that every single person in the Trump administration has strong ties to Russia … but then again we would probably just get borscht recipes and what not.

    Republicans you sold out our country in your last dying grasps for power, and I swear we’re going to make you pay for it

  13. 13.

    Jeffro

    On a non-Russian note I am encouraged that there are a rising number of voices pointing out that the Hamilton scrap is just another bright shiny distraction keeping the media and the public from noting that Trump had to settle his trump university lawsuit for fraud for $25 million.

    It would be interesting to keep pounding on the media that way especially when the Republicans get ready to take an ax to Medicare Medicaid and Obamacare – I know that’s what my calls to my representative and senators will be about this week .

  15. 15.

    Mnemosyne

    And to be serious for a moment, yes, the demand that other people should accommodate you and make you comfortable at all times — even when you go to see a hip-hop musical featuring a diverse cast that currently stars an HIV-positive gay man — that’s pretty much the FUCKING DEFINITION of privilege.

  18. 18.

    trollhattan

    @Corner Stone:
    It means the Overton Window has moved approximately to the moon. RMoney is the new “sensible centrist.” My incontinent dog is now in charge of school nutrition programs.

  19. 19.

    debbie

    With all the false news, I’m unsure if Huckabee has really been named Ambassador to Israel. Does anyone know?

    Is this going to be the Gag Cabinet in both senses of the word?

  23. 23.

    Suzanne

    @WereBear: See my comments in the thread below regarding cultural markers of Trump voters.

    Trump voters have bad taste. Not just in their candidate, but in life. I am ashamed that that bothers me as much as it does, but it does.

  25. 25.

    Suzanne

    @Corner Stone: I hope you are properly shamed that you stop wearing socks with sandals. I meant to make you feel bad.

    Next up: people that buy undefined “antique-ish” furniture to accommodate their 72″ flatscreen TVs and all attendant electronic components. Because “Ye Olde Early American Entertainment Centyre” is the kind of shit that only this country could dream up.

  28. 28.

    Arclite

    In the comment section at aarp.org story about Republicans and Medicare:

    ReTiReD51 3 hours ago
    I voted to make my country great again. I didn’t know they were going to privatize my Medicare to make it great again. That’s not great for me.

    Next will they privatize my Social Security too?

    Wish I could change my vote.

  29. 29.

    Timurid

    @Corner Stone:

    Romney getting hired to some big job is in some ways scarier than people like Bannon. He’s smart and well connected, and he has no respect for Trump. If he gets on board it’s a signal of broad based acceptance that there’s no stopping this train.

  32. 32.

    WereBear

    @Suzanne: Why be ashamed you have an aesthetic sense?

    Why be ashamed that you have sense?

    I am so very over caring what these mental troglodytes think. They just voted for wrong and if I am smug to point that out; tough. I am a doctor and I am just bringing the diagnosis.

  33. 33.

    Mike R

    @Arclite: This is a joke right, no one is so dumb that they didn’t believe that the Republicans wouldn’t make a run at the entitlements. Anyone this dumb would probably forget to breathe.

  34. 34.

    Corner Stone

    @Arclite: There is no way that is a real comment. No old retired person knows what the hell they are doing to use caps in the way that commenter does.

  39. 39.

    Kelly

    @Omnes Omnibus: Well we did elect our first statewide Republican in a generation here in Oregon. Secretary of State. Not sure how that happened. Hopefully it’s not the leak that takes out the dam.

  41. 41.

    Hungry Joe

    Tourist advisory: Socks w/sandals NOT okay in SoCal. Don’t even think about it.

    Or rather, think about this: Mike Pence is the kind of guy who’d wear socks with sandals in SoCal. Black dress socks. Walking along the boardwalk by the beach (not ON the beach, for heaven’s sake!), Hawaiian shirt tucked into his shorts.

  43. 43.

    WereBear

    @Arclite: OMG. My pagan/esoteric/”Feel the Force, Luke” prayers have been answered!

    Bwahahahahaha! Yeah, assholes. Feel the pain.

    I stated recently that they have to feel fear to break out of their happy little bubble.

  47. 47.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Ted Cruz: Election was the ‘revenge of flyover country’

    Can you imagine any Democratic politician saying that Obama winning election was the “revenge of coastal America”?

  48. 48.

    Villago Delenda Est

    These three year olds trapped in the bodies of adults take all their cues from the crybaby-in-chief.

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    @Suzanne:
    Hey, I wear socks with my sports sandals. If you ever saw my bare feet, you’d understand why. Let’s just say that some people have good reason to do it.

  51. 51.

    Suzanne

    @Hungry Joe:

    Or rather, think about this: Mike Pence is the kind of guy who’d wear socks with sandals in SoCal. Black dress socks. Walking along the boardwalk by the beach (not ON the beach, for heaven’s sake!), Hawaiian shirt tucked into his shorts.

    This is the kind of shit that gives me the vapors. Like, so gross. I see them as akin to the people who go to all-inclusive resorts in places like Jamaica and then literally never step a toe out of the resort. They just gorge themselves on food and get wasted the whole time, then fly home.

    But I think we should capitalize on this, and recast the Democrats as the party of people with enough sense and taste NOT to do this.

  53. 53.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: The pushback has to start somewhere. If it starts with being against socks with sandals, that is fine with me.

  54. 54.

    Shell

    Christie was supposed to be the head of that whole transition process but Pence took it over. So happy that in the middle of all that, Pence found time for a night out at the the-a-ter.

  56. 56.

    James Powell

    It’s almost 11:00 AM PST on November 20, 2016, and I still hate almost every single person in the country who voted for that dickless piece of shit and I’m kinda sorta waiting for my anger to subside before I inform my family that no, I am not going to spend Christmas or any other holiday with you assholes because I’m done with you and all your kind.

  58. 58.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: You laugh, but it honestly seems like Les Deplorables are unaware that I hate them for being trashy and gross aaaaaaaalmost as much as they hate me for being a nasty woman and nearly as much as they hate black and brown people. So now they want safe spaces, as the realization slowly dawns,

  61. 61.

    raven

    It looks like we did it as well as possible. Went to the Ortho walk-in and they did the exam, put her in a cast and will work us in for surgery tomorrow. I didn’t say it to her but I was really worried we’d have to wait until after Thanksgiving.

  62. 62.

    Amir Khalid

    @Shell:
    These clowns just aren’t taking things seriously. There’s only two months to go and the clock is ticking. But then they’re following a leader who’s sending angry Tweets in the middle of the night, and picking a fight with the cast of a Broadway show. Facepalm.

  64. 64.

    Corner Stone

    @lollipopguild: I have more style in my well clothed pinky toe than you have in your whole oompa loompa land. Shame, on the other hand. My mom wrung that outta me before I was 10.

  65. 65.

    Kelly

    @Omnes Omnibus: No, no, no you have it backwards. This is a time to burst bourgeoisie paradigms. The revolution starts with socks and sandals! This is how you will recognize the vanguard!

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @Suzanne: I think this election caused the country to turn a corner. Our side really has no room for graciousness anymore and a lot of people are starting to realize it.

  67. 67.

    Corner Stone

    @Amir Khalid:

    following a leader who’s sending angry Tweets in the middle of the night

    The interesting aspect is that he is lying about the cast of Hamilton being rude. But all the media is happily playing along.

  68. 68.

    Suzanne

    @Corner Stone: I really think that a disturbing amount of the election was caused by people who think like that. “Liberal” is just code word for “snob”, and they are willing to hurt themselves to deny the snobs a victory.

    As one of the snobs, I am happy to now sit back and watch them get their due.

    And I will also be happy to remind every loudmouth Trump voter that I encounter that they did this to themselves.

  70. 70.

    Corner Stone

    All the media, including the NYT, is scared to death right now. Trump has excluded them from any access. They have no sources on what’s going on or anything else. So they will unquestioningly repeat any “leak” they get handed to them by a “Trump source” and gratefully bend their knee for it. Because they are scared to death they will lose access to the incoming administration. They have no idea what to do except uncritically tongue bathe Trump no matter what happens.

  72. 72.

    Corner Stone

    @Suzanne: “Liberal” is codeword for snobby (elitist) gay male that wants to turn America over to our enemies and give free stuff to blacks and illegals.

  75. 75.

    SenyorDave

    @Baud: I can’t imagine Trump having an unscripted press conference. The whole thing is so damn depressing. It will be interesting if they do have a big tax cut and they truly screw the middle class, and have it go to the top 5%.

  76. 76.

    Iowa Old Lady

    I want the NYC cast of Hamilton to send copies of the speech they made to Pence to all the Hamilton touring companies, and I want that statement read after every show. To the Revolution, and the hope that we survive!

  79. 79.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    What a bunch of fragile, whiny cry babies. Entitled, diaper-wearing punks.

  80. 80.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: I think we have all danced around it, or talked about it in terms of race, or sex, or income/financial class, or educational attainment, or whatever, but there really do seem to be two Americas divided up by cultural markers. And I don’t think we really have it in our language to talk about it, because it’s really unpleasantly judgmental and exclusionary.

    I thought this essay on the word “classy” was really great. It also made me self-conscious about the fact that I use the word “charming” as much as I do in daily use.

  82. 82.

    Joyce H

    @Corner Stone:

    All the media, including the NYT, is scared to death right now. Trump has excluded them from any access. They have no sources on what’s going on or anything else. So they will unquestioningly repeat any “leak” they get handed to them by a “Trump source” and gratefully bend their knee for it.

    They just need to wait. You don’t think people like the Trumps are nice to their staff, do you? The White House is going to leak like the Titanic. As will every agency with these unqualified incompetent nutbars brought in to run them.

    Meanwhile, I have to ask, where are OUR hackers? There have to be some lefty hackers, right? Why doesn’t someone hack into the Russian government servers, find and abstract the video Putin has of Trump with underaged girls (oh, come on, you KNOW he’s got SOMETHING), and then crash Russia’s electric grid on the way out?

    Meanwhile, news reports that Melania and Barron aren’t making the move to DC but will stay in New York. (In some places, that’s called a separation.) Who’s going to hold the book on whether the first scandal of the Trump administration will be financial or sexual?

  83. 83.

    Ang

    @Arclite:
    Or paraphrased, “I voted to make my country great again, and in the process to only destroy the lives of others. I didn’t vote to inconvenience myself!”

  84. 84.

    SenyorDave

    BTW, notice how effective the pressure on the Bannon hire was. It will all be normalized, we have a racist as president-elect and a white supremacist as his chief adviser.

  85. 85.

    germy

    Is The Second Reconstruction Over?

    A breath-taking attempt at creating a multiracial democracy ended in violence, white backlash, and indifference from whites who had once supported Reconstruction. The 1876 election drove a nail in the coffin of Reconstruction, and the Democratic Party’s slogan that year was “This Is A White Man’s Country: Let The White Men Rule.” An eleven year window of rights and opportunities for African-Americans was slammed shut, and legal equality would not be established again until the 1960s, almost a hundred years later.

    Of course, we are only talking here about equality under the law, economic and social equality have proved much harder to secure. The last few years have seen a lot of activity pushing against structural racism, and I think it’s hardly incidental that this happened with a black man in the White House. As during the original Reconstruction, when black men served in the House and Senate, having people of color in high positions was the most potent symbol of change.

    What we see now looks like a backlash against it, and in my darker moments makes me think that the period from 1965 to 2016 may to future generations be akin to that of 1865 to 1877. The parallels are getting too clear for me not to see it. During the 1870s, the Supreme Court whittled away at the 14th Amendment, and when the black defenders of Colfax, Louisiana, were massacred by a white militia, the Court ruled that 14th Amendment protections did not apply, since it was a mob and not the state that had done it. (Even though the mob basically grabbed power in the state through their actions.) This makes me think of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Shelby case, which gutted the Voting Rights Act, and then unleashed a wave of suppression aimed at voters of color.

  86. 86.

    Lizzy L

    @SenyorDave: I can imagine it with no trouble. It will be just like one of his rallies, minus the audience participation. The press corps will sit there in stunned silence while Trump just — goes off. And the next day the NYT will write about Hillary Clinton’s emailz.

    We are so screwed.

  87. 87.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Meanwhile, inside the Great and Ongoing Village Circle Jerk

    Rafal Hill ‏@ rafalhill 2h2 hours ago
    neeratanden was the only one on MeetThePress who spoke of Trump DC hotel, his meeting with Indian execs and conflict of interest.

    and…

    Jon Favreau ‏@ jonfavs 21m21 minutes ago
    Jon Favreau Retweeted CBS News
    This could’ve been corrected or even challenged if @ FaceTheNation had chosen to include one left or even center-left panelist today
    CBS News @ CBSNews
    “President-elect Trump is going to be inheriting the worse fiscal situation of any president other than President Truman..”

  88. 88.

    geg6

    I just can’t with these people. Still not dealing well with events. To add to my misery, it was almost 80 degrees on Friday and today, it is below freezing with about 2 inches of snow and high winds. Plus, John being down with the bad wing isn’t helping my mood.

    So I have spent the day making some homemade chicken stock. I’m freezing half (about 2qts.) and making chicken and corn chowder with the rest. I pulled the last of the summer corn that I took off the ears and froze back in August, the poached and pulled chicken with which I made the stock, carrots, potatoes, onions, celery, bacon and the thyme I brought inside the other day and mixing with half and half. Crusty bread on the side. Comfort food at its finest.

  95. 95.

    Suzanne

    @Corner Stone: All that stuff goes along with it, yes, but I really think it’s baser than that. There’s an unspoken cultural hierarchy of value, and I think that a lot of people have resentment that they, and the things they hold meaningful/like/feel affinity toward, are lower on that hierarchy than they’d like to imagine themselves.

    I even see this shit in movie criticism, which shouldn’t be anything at all, really. But critics will say that some middlebrow action superhero movie sucks, then the movie goes on to make like 648264527282 billion dollars, and then you see all this reaction about how “critics don’t know anything, they’re snobs” or some shit. When that movie “Suicide Squad” came out, the backlash against the critical reaction was….not insignificant. And, like, who cares? It’s just a movie, we all have things that we like that aren’t “great art”, but there had to be anger back at the critics for not being seduced by Shit Blowing Up.

  96. 96.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @Lizzy L:

    The press is not writing about Clinton’s e-mails anymore. Haven’t seen a story in, oh, a week or more. Dunno why that is.

  99. 99.

    germy

    Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, after initially flirting with the idea that Trump could be a “bonus” for the state, posted a statement on Facebook, arguing that New Yorkers “have fundamentally different philosophies than what Donald Trump laid out in his campaign.” Cuomo was tacitly accusing the President-elect—who is a New Yorker—of a kind of betrayal. He continued:

    Whether you are gay or straight, Muslim or Christian, rich or poor, black or white or brown, we respect all people in the state of New York.

    It’s the very core of what we believe and who we are. But it’s not just what we say, we passed laws that reflect it, and we will continue to do so, no matter what happens nationally. We won’t allow a federal government that attacks immigrants to do so in our state.

    Nice, but I still don’t want Cuomo running for president in 2020.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    CBS NewsVerified account
    ‏@CBSNews
    “President-elect Trump is going to be inheriting the worse fiscal situation of any president other than President Truman..”

    Fake news. Boy, they’re off to the races with Trump. It’s all propaganda from here on out. Let the looting begin.

  102. 102.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SenyorDave: This can’t be on the level.

    there’s a video at the original CBS tweet, the GOP op i’ve never heard of qualifies it with ‘as regards the debt in relation to the overall economy’, so we’ll care about debt long enough to hold any and all infrastructure hostage

    I happened to turn on MSNBC just now and caught the MTP segment, Robert Costa was actually saying that no one in Trump’s circle wants to bring up the business or the family, Tanden made her point about the conflicts, and Tom Friedman was off and running about how this is all about Trump having a phone, and now we have portable MRI machines. Now, after a break, we’ll turn to Bernie! to find out why college-educated whites and exurbans didn’t get a chance to vote for his “I will raise your taxes… FOR YOUR OWN DAMN GOOD!” platform.

  103. 103.

    Arclite

    @Mike R:

    “no one is so dumb that they didn’t believe that the Republicans wouldn’t make a run at the entitlements.”

    They don’t call them “low info voters” for nothing. Few are political junkies like us.

    That thread is full of terrified comments, demanding that AARP bring fire and brimstone down on Ryan and the Republicans.

  104. 104.

    Quinerly

    @James Powell:
    I feel just like you at #56. Saw my next door neighbor last night. Same age as me… 55, WSF. She’s a Lt Colonel in the Air Force. Said she was late to the polls so didn’t actually get to vote for Trump. HRC just too corrupt! Emails! Pu**ygate was overblown, he’s just a guy, she’s had to put up with stuff worse than that in the Air Force to get along, Obama has gotten nothing done in 8 years, need a strong male leader for the military. Needless to say, I won’t ever feel the same way about her. It’s all changed now.

  105. 105.

    NotMax

    $8.00 for a coffee? And crappy coffee at that?

    Glad I don’t get out more.

    Also too, disrespted?

  106. 106.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    3 hours ago
    .@neeratanden was the only one on @MeetThePress who spoke of Trump DC hotel, his meeting with Indian execs and conflict of interest.

    Scary, right? The plan seems to be “pretend none of this is happening”. It’s amazing to watch.

  108. 108.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Arclite: exactly, “Entitlements” is for “those people” for whom, in Paul Ryan’s words, the social safety net /imagine sad Paul Ryan face/ is a hammock. Medicare and Social Security are things WCW’s have earned, damn your eyes!

  109. 109.

    germy

    @Arclite: From the last line of that AARP article:

    Changes to the program should be implemented gradually and should protect current beneficiaries and near retirees.

    I predict AARP will roll over and surrender their soft bellies to Paul Ryan, all the while telling seniors they should put off retirement for as long as they can.

  111. 111.

    Schlemazel

    @Corner Stone:
    I have maintained for years now that the Koch Bros and their fellow travelers are communist saboteurs. They are working to make capitalism so reprehensible that a communist revolution will seem like the only option. They have been working for decades to destabilize American governments, and doing a great job of it.

    Now, we have reached the end game. They have elected the Russian mole to POTUS. The arrogant fool who does not understand he has been played. The fool is staffing his entire administration with friends of Russia so that the collapse of the US and the capitalistic West will be accomplished without a shot being fired.

    Naturally, this seems impossible, it is ridiculous, a tin-foil hat theory. Someone point out where this theory is incorrect..

  113. 113.

    germy

    @NotMax: The last time I visited a starbucks, the guy pressed his palm on the top of my cup after handling money. His palm completely covered the cup. I guess he wanted to share his DNA. Their coffee tastes like burnt crap and they don’t follow basic rules of good hygiene.

  114. 114.

    Iowa Old Lady

    During some panel discussion of the WWC, I want someone to ask in the most sincere tone possible what difference the person blathering sees between the need and concerns of the WWC and the WC. Then sit back and see what we get.

  118. 118.

    Ksmiami

    @Baud: pretty much. When I find out ppl voted trump I thank them for destroying our future. Civility is so over-rated

  119. 119.

    Major Major Major Major

    @germy:

    Their coffee tastes like burnt crap

    Not a coincidence! They made it big because they were able to deliver a ‘consistent’ cup of coffee anywhere in the world, and they do this by roasting the beans into oblivion.

  122. 122.

    Suzanne

    @Iowa Old Lady: Seems like many of the WWC want to make bank at their low-skill jobs and raise their children to go into the same jobs. Whereas most immigrants and many POC encourage their kids to get educated and get out of Pigsknuckle County.

    One worldview is focused on others and encouraging their success. The other seems to be inwardly focused, needing one’s kids to validate one’s life choices.

  123. 123.

    JMG

    Romney was my governor for four years. He did OK the first two, then started running for president and became worse than useless. He is, however, good at crisis management, and for the sake of world peace, it’d be good if one person in Trump’s administration has that skill. The others are crisis creators.

  128. 128.

    trollhattan

    @Kay:
    Truman?!? Boy Scout. GW Bush had to face down the horror that was the Clinton budget surpluses–who among us would want that job? Luckily for all, Mission Accomplished.”

  129. 129.

    Shalimar

    @Amir Khalid: How seriously do you have to take printing out a massive list of Republican grifters, celebrities and other losers and throwing a dart at it for each job? It’s not like they actually bother to vet anyone, or care about job qualifications.

  130. 130.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Joyce H:

    Yes, where are our damn hackers? Oh, I know, they go low, we go high. Most if the time I’m down with that. But I’m reminded of Michael Jordan’s response when Phil Jackson told him there was no ‘I’ in “team”:

    “There is in ‘win’!”

  131. 131.

    raven

    @JPL: Yea, we were just walking the dogs and a friend drove up and had heard. She had the sane thing and said it was easy going after they surgery. It’s good for the girl to get some encouragement.

  132. 132.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Suzanne: @catclub: That’s interesting. I was just being sarcastic but you’re both right. I had schoolmates whose parents didn’t want them to go to college because college would change them and they’d no longer fit in the world the parents lived in.

  134. 134.

    Corner Stone

    They continue to set the bar for the Trump admin to the lowest possible levels, even when they need to use propaganda to do so. “The worst fiscal situation of any president other than Truman”.
    Fuck. Got to hate inheriting a stock market at record highs, unemployment at recent lows, median househod income growing. I’m kind of starting to feel bad for poor Mr. Trump.

  135. 135.

    germy

    I saw Shelley Duvall on Dr. Phil.

    I remember when Phil was supposed to be about counseling the worried well, or troubled marriages. He pledged to never have guests on with severe mental illnesses, or those who were on medication.
    But that was a few years ago. Now he’s got the integrity of Maury Povich.

    He basically spent an hour exploiting a woman suffering from debilitating mental illness, and he did it for ratings.

  138. 138.

    GrandJury

    Did anyone hear the news!!! Dr. Orange settled the Trump U lawsuit for $25Mil. It was easy to miss because the news only lasted for a FEW FUCKING HOURS before it almost completely disappeared from the media.

    There are probably STILL more stories about Hillary’s fucking emails and the Clinton Foundation that stay at or near the top of the front page than there are about this story. Unlike the Hillary manufactured controversies, this story is for real and so much worse and yet the media acts as if it’s no big deal.

    Think about that! The president elect just settled a lawsuit for defrauding the American people with a scam business and the media has decided it’s no big deal. But Hillary sent some emails from home and is associated with a non-profit organization which apparently is much much worse somehow. Media is so fucking pathetic.

    IOKIYAR

  139. 139.

    germy

    @Major Major Major Major:

    What in my comment would make you think I was defending the flavor of their coffee?

    Why do you think I thought you were defending their coffee? I didn’t think you were defending their coffee.

  142. 142.

    Shalimar

    @germy: Fuck AARP. The correct response should have been:

    Medicare is fine. Don’t fuck with Medicare or we will destroy you.

  143. 143.

    GxB

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    there’s a video at the original CBS tweet, the GOP op i’ve never heard of qualifies it with ‘as regards the debt in relation to the overall economy’, so we’ll care about debt long enough to hold any and all infrastructure hostage

    Ah, we’re going back to the old “needle of truth in a haystack of bullshit” game now that they’re back on defense. This is how they breed apathy, it is absolutely exhausting trying to sort it out.

  144. 144.

    germy

    @Major Major Major Major:

    OK, just making sure.

    I actually have never found myself in disagreement with anything you’ve ever said here.

    Often, you will say something and I’ll think “I was just about to say the same thing!”

    There are people I agree with some of the time and there are people I disagree with all of the time. You, I agree with all the time.

  145. 145.

    germy

    @Shalimar: The very last bulleted item in the AARP article gave away their game. “Don’t make any changes, blah blah blah… but when YOU DO MAKE CHANGES (like we know you will) please make sure they don’t affect people over sixty.”

  146. 146.

    Suzanne

    @Iowa Old Lady: There was a good piece linked in this blog from HBR about how for the WWC, the dream isn’t to change jobs or get higher education, or to move away. It’s to own the business that they are currently working at—to be the boss—but to otherwise keep the same lifestyle.

    Couple that with John’s friend on Facebook asking me incredulously if I really thought that my higher education made me believe that I deserve to make more money than a HS graduate. (I said, “Absolutely.”)

    And…..I cannot find any common ground with that mindset. That is straight-up fantasy.

  147. 147.

    Sebastien

    First results of the first turn of the primary in our right-side party (Ex-RPR, then ex-UMP, now calling themselves Republicans. Yeah, they have very smart rebranding people…): François Fillon about 46%, Alain Juppé 26% (Nicolas Sarkozy 24% (my favorite being Jean-François Coppé at 0,3%. Having been Sarkozy’s dutiful mouthpiece for years pays, he ?).

    So, a big push by Fillon (similar to Juppé in that he is a boring, steadfast professional of politics), and even if he scraps by Juppé, a severe scare for Sarkozy.

  148. 148.

    GrandJury

    @Amaranthine RBG: Nope. That is Austin. Probably not many racists to intimidate there compared to the rest of the state.

    That’s like saying “California is dark blue so the country will be ok”.

    California is apparently 1/6 of the US economy though so it’s a nice state to have as dark blue. Too bad it doesn’t have 1/6 of the representation in the Federal gov’t. Instead you have redstates that contribute almost nothing to the economy controlling things. The fact they are also the largest drain on fed resources is also ironic.

  152. 152.

    Shalimar

    @germy: I understand AARP thinks turning Medicare into vouchers for insurance companies will be a boon for their insurance business, just like every other privatization scheme is for the business sector getting the cash. They’re probably right.

    But they are fools for thinking they will have any goodwill left if they don’t lead the fight against vouchers and win. There are many other organizations that would love to be the voice of 1/4 of the country, groups that don’t have a conflict of interest with their for-profit main business.

  154. 154.

    Peale

    @EBT: no. They will tank the California economy then recall the governor and replace with whatever celebrity they want

  157. 157.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    @Mike R: Back in 2012, I believe, someone gave a presentation about Ryan’s plan for the safety net. It was so awful people in attendance did not believe it was real. So, I think most folks don’t have a clue what’s in store.

  159. 159.

    trollhattan

    @Peale:
    We Must be Punished for delivering a nearly 2:1 Hillary vote. He’s going to award California to Westlands Water District. They also get the US Bureau of Reclamation.

  160. 160.

    geg6

    @raven:
    He had shoulder surgery. Took out some bone spurs, landed the cyst caused by the spurs and a few stitches in his bicep. This is the second surgery on his right shoulder, the first was the major rotator cuff surgery. This was, you might say, a maintenance check. It’s relatively minor, but he won’t be completely mobile for at least 2 weeks. And he’s taking every advantage.

  161. 161.

    trollhattan

    @Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
    In the vein of “Trump will succeed because he’s successful” Ryan will forever be “The Republican budget wonk” because he utters “budget” a lot and worships Ayn Rand (now very quietly, shhh). The narrative must not budge.

  162. 162.

    WereBear

    @Arclite: Like this gem:

    j971991w 1 hour ago
    This is really scary. I don’t know why I haven’t heard any Democrats address this issue, not that they could do much to stop this from happening. Voting has consequences. The Republicans control all three branches and have been waiting for decades to privatize Social Security and Medicare. This is a dream come true for Paul Ryan. They have to be able to afford all the tax cuts they have promised so it will be accomplished by cutting “entitlements”. I have talked to so many friends who had no idea this has already been mentioned as one of the first things Paul Ryan will be working on by March of 2017. Start writing your letters and making phone calls!

    It is only what the Democrats have been running on since 2000.

    That’s not a low-info voter, that’s a recently revived from the dead voter.

  163. 163.

    Arclite

    @Suzanne:

    Couple that with John’s friend on Facebook asking me incredulously if I really thought that my higher education made me believe that I deserve to make more money than a HS graduate. (I said, “Absolutely.”)

    Gently explain it’s only in Communist countries where factory workers make more than doctors and lawyers.

  164. 164.

    Fair Economist

    @Corner Stone:

    All the media, including the NYT, is scared to death right now. Trump has excluded them from any access. They have no sources on what’s going on or anything else. So they will unquestioningly repeat any “leak” they get handed to them by a “Trump source” and gratefully bend their knee for it

    Largely true, and a dumb approach.

    They should report the wildest, most horrifying rumors until Trump gives them access. Starting with “Trump commits to destroy Medicare”. They’d get access pronto.

  166. 166.

    germy

    You can’t fight the stupid. It’s like the force. It surrounds us.

    His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere.
    – Mark Twain

  168. 168.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Suzanne:

    Couple that with John’s friend on Facebook asking me incredulously if I really thought that my higher education made me believe that I deserve to make more money than a HS graduate. (I said, “Absolutely.”)

    I agree with a lot of what you have been saying, but I have to push back on this bit. To the extent that you deserve to make more money than a high school graduate, it is not because you have a degree or degrees. It is because, in the course of pursuing the degrees, you acquired a valuable set of skills. A high school grad could easily have a set of skills that are more valuable than those of many college graduates. Plumbers tend to make more money than Art History BAs (I am not denigrating art history as a major). .

  171. 171.

    Arclite

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Plumbers tend to make more money than Art History BAs (I am not denigrating art history as a major).

    They’re also wading in shit. Art History BAs, largely, are not.

  174. 174.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Schlemazel: ‘Zactly.

    @Suzanne: There’s a prevailing notion in tech that anybody can learn how to code, which while true obscures the value of formal eduction. There are very significant differences between an autodidact, and our equivalent of a trade school graduate, and a person with a BS (not to mention MS). This is in opposition somewhat to the “anybody can learn to code!” mentality. While it’s true that anybody can learn to code, there are some things that are much harder to replicate without a 4-year cloistered CS experience.

    Even within fields that try really hard to be/act democratized like this (even Thiel works on this, stupidly as he does, with his Thiel Scholarship stuff–but he believes in it), there are significant class boundaries.

    (I was halfway through that when I realized it wasn’t 100% relevant and decided to post it anyway.)

  175. 175.

    Schlemazel

    @geg6:
    OW! I can understand his wanting to make the best of the two-week R&R requirement. Hope the load is not too big for you. Remember you don’t HAVE to do everything, leaving stuff for later and ignoring minor stuff that doesn’t need to be done now if at all is not a crime.

  176. 176.

    Bill_D

    @Omnes Omnibus: And consider the hypocrisy of pro-capitalist rural folks demanding to be paid based on “fairness” rather than by market rates. That’s socialism they want, when it works in their immediate favor.

  177. 177.

    raven

    @Schlemazel: That’s what I’m sweating. She needed a cape (or something like that) to go over the cast so I took her to TJ Maxx. Jesus, what a zoo. She also does all that xmas stuff with some kind of vines all over the house, decorates the tree and who knows what else. A challenge indeed.

  179. 179.

    Suzanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: In my case, the degree is a requirement to have a license, and a license is a requirement to practice. And I do agree that high-level skills can be perfected with or without a degree, and should be well-compensated—the degree is just a shorthand manifestation of all of the things one should have learned. But the overall thrust is that there seems to be a contingent of low-skill, easily replaced workers who honestly don’t believe that higher education is (or should be) any type of differentiator in the marketplace. It seems to me that they perceive education as literally without worth.

    So I don’t know what to do with that attitude.

  180. 180.

    Corner Stone

    @Major Major Major Major:

    there are some things that are much harder to replicate without a 4-year cloistered CS experience.

    I’m sorry but I have been married once. Sadly for society, my secrets die with me.

  182. 182.

    WereBear

    From the last thread but too good to languish there:

    @Suzanne: People do not make decisions rationally. They do not.

    Underestimate this human need for this kind of collective understanding and identification, and underestimate the skill it takes to exploit, and we will never win again.

    This last election, we maxed out the wonk vote. The smart vote, the political junkie vote, the by-god-it’s-time-to-come-down-from-the-trees vote. It was not enough.

    The exact same policies, now with a track record of success, and people stayed home.

    I think this is an important point and one we ignore at our peril.

  186. 186.

    Gravenstone

    @germy: “Dr.” Phil has always been a self aggrandizing attention whore. He and his staff basically destroyed the life of Laurie Bembenek, who was already a troubled individual to start with. I’m sure he was sorely disappointed that his show couldn’t even exploit her injury for ratings gold.

  187. 187.

    Schlemazel

    @raven:
    Tell her you love her but maybe this Christmas is the one where you all get to appreciate how great all that stuff is because you miss having it.

  188. 188.

    Patricia Kayden

    @father pussbucket: Great article. My Jamaican Canadian Mom expressed outrage this morning at the way racist Americans have treated President and Mrs. Obama for his entire Presidency, including the latest nasty claim that the gorgeous FLOTUS is an ape in heels. And now, we’re all supposed to forget the last 8 years of racism directed at the first Black President, including the appalling claim that he wasn’t even born in this country and open our minds to Trump/Pence? Not ever going to happen. Boo them everywhere you see them. Give them the same amount of respect which Republicans showed to President Obama. They deserve nothing more.

  191. 191.

    FlyingToaster

    @Suzanne:

    It seems to me that they perceive education as literally without worth.

    That’s the commonplace attitude amongst the people I grew up with. I went east to school, got a masters, and then further east to that liberal hellhole Boston. All because I was smart. I told them to fuck themselves in 1979, and I haven’t changed my mind one bit.

    What pisses them off most (according to my niece who knows a few of them) is that I could literally buy and sell them, because when they were working at Macys and Venture (pre-Target dept store), I was busting my hump in grad school and working 70 hour weeks the first 4 years out to make my bones. But no, the effort I put in isn’t relevant to the results I got.

    You’re not going to change their minds. They’re dinosaurs; bring on the comet.

  192. 192.

    Schlemazel

    @Gravenstone:
    Phil (he is no doctor) is an exploitative, abusive asshole who makes TV for morons who enjoy seeing people humiliated for their pleasure. He is the Judge Judy of mental health. In a just world both of them (Phil & Judy) would be be fed through a wood chipper to the cheers of their audience.

  195. 195.

    Schlemazel

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    In “forensic psychology”, that obviously does not make him qualified to do what he is doing. He should be analysing dead people for a police forensics unit

  196. 196.

    WaterGirl

    @Iowa Old Lady: I stayed away from BJ and the news for two days because I was headed past discouraged, racing toward despondent. I don’t want to google because I can’t bear to see all the stupidity.

    Is there a short one or two sentence explanation about this whole Pence-Hamilton thing?

  198. 198.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Omnes Omnibus: I have a friend who is a psychiatrist with a high school buddy who’s a plumber. My friend has a good deal of med school debt, and as a triple boarded doc (pediatrics/psych/neurology) had a lengthy residency period. He observed that his hs classmate actually nets as much in a good year working as a plumber, because he has been working since high school no educational debt and has been able to invest more of his income over those years. He made the observation to demonstrate that there are different financial realities from what folks might believe or expect.

  200. 200.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: Pence went to see Hamilton. Audience members booed him. After the show, a cast member came on stage and made a plea for inclusiveness. Righties started spreading the story that the Hamilton cast booed Pence.

  201. 201.

    Applejinx

    @Suzanne:

    I hope you are properly shamed that you stop wearing socks with sandals. I meant to make you feel bad.
    Next up: people that buy undefined “antique-ish” furniture to accommodate their 72″ flatscreen TVs and all attendant electronic components. Because “Ye Olde Early American Entertainment Centyre” is the kind of shit that only this country could dream up.

    Arguably there are more important things going on, but this is still part of why I love Balloon Juice. :)

    I’m wearing socks RIGHT NOW. With cozy slippers. ‘cos I might not have much, but I can have wool socks for the winter and slippers to code in, and I can have an occasional laugh on Balloon Juice.

    And I’m about to have tacos for dinner. So there :)

  208. 208.

    Ohio Mom

    @Suzanne: Tell them you want for them the same things you have: a safe neighborhood to live in, healthy children who get to go to good schools, clean air and water, peace so your children don’t have to go to war, the knowledge that their old age will be comfortable, and so on.

    You are glad you are well paid because you get to pay more taxes that go to support these things. You are so interested in supporting these things that you vote very wisely.

    They need to see that it isn’t you against them. It may not get through the first time but it is worth a shot.

  210. 210.

    Schlemazel

    @Suzanne:
    I started working with data networking by accident (the other guys in the department didn’t want to learn new stuff) back in the early 80s. Nobody had a degree in that stuff. I did really well until the late 90s when I was suddenly competing against college kids with degrees in the subject.. But I had worked my way into IT security by that time. Nobody had a degree in that. I have done OK but am now competing against degreed kids. Many of them are much better than I am, many others have read the books and passed the tests but have no real clue about what actually works. I have mixed feelings, I see education as really important but you have to understand what you learned too.

  211. 211.

    trollhattan

    @WaterGirl:
    Make it a union-built wall. We have standards.

    I’m getting a Harry Truman shirt made: “If you want a friend in this town, get a dog.” These asshats think we have to give them deference they NEVER afforded Obama. [“you lie!”] Screw that. I’m awaiting the Patriot ™ salute to Obama’s heli departure inaugural day. Let us recall the shocked tisk-tisk Bush’s “na-na, hey-hey, goodbye” sendoff received.

    Aw, I’m sure they’ll respectfully thank him for eight years of service.

  214. 214.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kelly:

    Well we did elect our first statewide Republican in a generation here in Oregon. Secretary of State. Not sure how that happened. Hopefully it’s not the leak that takes out the dam.

    Shit, one win and it’s Secretary of State? Hope you weren’t too attached to voting.

  216. 216.

    Applejinx

    I’m doing groundbreaking work in digital audio but it really and truly doesn’t translate into money. It might if I was hooked up with some very ruthless marketing company and pursuing every tactic to maximize returns: hyping everything like crazy, cheating in demos (for instance, your playback is 0.5 to 1.5 db louder than the ‘competition’ you’re trying to compare to), using extremely aggressive Digital Rights Management to compel people to pay up in a sector that’s got lots of piracy/copying, always chasing the next hyped thing and not bothering to fix old problems with broken stuff you intentionally sold people. Oh, and pay a cut to every media outlet and forum you can so they will go to bat for you, if at all possible under the table so they look like they’re just hyping you on their own initiative. Not unlike what you do to make money as a AAA game developer.

    I hate that stuff so passionately I can’t do it, so I end up outlasting a lot of rivals but my ‘brand’ has to be ‘crazy eccentric person crafting special but uncommercial tools’. It’s a pain when the workings of market capitalism try to compel you to be evil. I’m sure there are lawyers who make very little who’re just as cross with real ambulance-chaser late-night-TV-ad lawyers.

    Under certain circumstances, just like ‘quick/cheap/good’ are exclusive choices to some extent, ‘poor/evil’ are mutually exclusive, and you have to pick one and go with it.

  218. 218.

    Jeffro

    @Corner Stone:

    All the media, including the NYT, is scared to death right now. Trump has excluded them from any access. They have no sources on what’s going on or anything else. So they will unquestioningly repeat any “leak” they get handed to them by a “Trump source” and gratefully bend their knee for it. Because they are scared to death they will lose access to the incoming administration. They have no idea what to do except uncritically tongue bathe Trump no matter what happens.

    They shouldn’t be scared – they can get all the quotes (not to mention actual facts) that they need from Democrats for a change. To quote a certain orange-hued ass pimple, “What do you have to lose?”. Trump’s people are just going to lie; why even have them on TV or ring them up for their take on things?

    And then just wait for the leaks to start rolling in (most likely through the intelligence services)…

  220. 220.

    Jeffro

    @trollhattan:

    These asshats think we have to give them deference they NEVER afforded Obama. [“you lie!”] Screw that. I’m awaiting the Patriot ™ salute to Obama’s heli departure inaugural day. Let us recall the shocked tisk-tisk Bush’s “na-na, hey-hey, goodbye” sendoff received.

    Exactly. Remember all those Republicans who chastised their Tea Party moron brethren parading around with posters of Obama w/ an added bone through his nose? Me either. Fuck them.

  222. 222.

    fuckwit

    @Jeffro: Wait wait wait, I got an idea!

    Instead of just being stenographers, repeating what they get through official “access”, maybe, just maybe, they could commit Acts of Journalism and do investigation, research, and obtain actual facts from records?

  223. 223.

    Mnemosyne

    I have to admit, I’m still a little astounded by the massive butthurt of the Trumpers post-election. They wore t-shirts saying, “Fuck Your Feelings” and now they’re all sad that people are mad at them and their friends and families won’t speak to them? What the fuck is wrong with these whiners? Who in their lives failed to teach them that actions have consequences?

  224. 224.

    Suzanne

    @Schlemazel: I am by no means saying that education is the end-all be-all. I know too many highly degreed idiots for that. But I do think that education has value, not just in creating more empathetic, informed, creative people, but also for solving complex problems. And I also believe that my education—funded by taxpayers and myself, not to mention earned at great sacrifice of time and effort—brings value to my clients, and I consider it eminently reasonable that I be compensated as such.

    I don’t know what to do with the notion, apparently held by more people than I thought, that this is not a reasonable expectation.

  226. 226.

    aimai

    @Corner Stone: This makes no sense to me. No “sources” and no “access” doesn’t mean no stories–far from it. Reporting from the journalist pool following a candidate is basically the kiss of death for reporting. You could do tons of better reporting just following up stories and information. The Times simply doesn’t want to do journalism about Trump. The reason isn’t that they are scared of losing access–it is that they are scared that he and his coterie are vindictive and will pursue individual owners, editors, and journalists with all the power of the state. And they aren’t wrong to worry about that. They never worried that Obama, or Bill Clinton, or Hillary would punish them for their reporting. But they know that Trump will.

  228. 228.

    glory b

    @geg6: Hey, also here in western PA, made zuppa toscana, soup with Italian sausage, onions, potatoes, kale and chicken stock with half and half.

    I’ll have to go out to get bread after I walk the dog. Brrrr!

  229. 229.

    Jeffro

    @WereBear: We lefties consume far more “real” media (NYT, WaPo) than the ignorant rubes who elected Orangemandias – let’s be sure to write them and call them this week to remind them that. HOLD TRUMP ACCOUNTABLE!!

    Hell, SNL was a good start: when do we get to see this awesomer-than-the-generals anti-ISIS plan in action?

  232. 232.

    mai naem mobile

    Out of habit this AM I punched the NPR station button in my car(I’ve been on an NPR blackout.) They had a bunch of suburban white women in Richmond. One CONservative idiot said she voted for Gary Johnson and cried. Then the moron says she’s not somebody in the government making 7 figures trying to figure out how to bring both sides together. Does the fcuking moron know that even the POTUS makes six figures as does the Surgeon General as do Military Generals. Another RWNJ argued saying Breitbart was a good news source. No pushback from the journo. Nada.

  235. 235.

    Major Major Major Major

    @mai naem mobile:

    Another RWNJ argued saying Breitbart was a good news source. No pushback from the journo.

    If I may put on my contrarian tiara for a moment, Breitbart is about to be the most influential media outlet on the planet, so it might make sense not to make enemies.

  236. 236.

    Corner Stone

    @aimai:

    You could do tons of better reporting just following up stories and information. The Times simply doesn’t want to do journalism about Trump. The reason isn’t that they are scared of losing access

    Sure, you could. We saw one dude do it at WaPo and one at Newsweek. IMO, they probably are scared of a vindictive Trump and et al. But I further think they are in the state of bargaining right now, thinking they can survive by kneeling long enough and kissing his ring. If they can just please the king a little longer, maybe they will be able to continue on with their existence as is and everything will be fine. This is fine.

  237. 237.

    Jeffro

    A Note On Effectiveness:

    I just wanted to put this short thought out there to the BJ community: since the Gish Gallop is about to turn into the Gish Marathon, we’re going to really need to help each other stay focused (in general) and focus in on things that are effective at fighting Looters Inc. for however long it takes for them to implode.

    In my various news sites and on my FB feed (lol) these past few days, I have seen well-intentioned progressives trying to do everything from sending letters from their kids to Trump (“be nice and don’t say mean things”), to a “March on Washington” the day AFTER Trump’s inauguration, to trying to get Trump to fire Steve Bannon, to try and get Republicans to move forward with Merrick-Frickin’-Garland (because the people have spoken, and Hillary won the popular vote, and therefore yeah Mitch McConnell it’s time to put Garland on SCOTUS). I’m not making any of this up.

    These kkklowns are without shame, they don’t care about most if any of the rules, and they will do the opposite of whatever they think Dems want. So we have to think what’s effective: what gets their own supporters to turn on them? What gets the media to pull back the curtain?

    That’s why it’s important to help galvanize the whole country into realizing this is post-2004 W (only on steroids) with the Medicare/Medicaid/Obamacare thing. Tell ’em: YOU’RE ABOUT TO LOSE WHAT LITTLE SAFETY NET YOU EVER HAD, YOU “ECONOMICALLY ANXOUS” JACKASSES. Same thing with giving some “guidance” to the mainstream media: TRUMP’S NOT GOING TO GIVE YOU ACCESS UNLESS YOU BOB HIS KNOB AND THANK HIM FOR IT – HOW ABOUT REPORTING THE FACTS WITHOUT PUTTING HIS PAID LIARS UP ON THE SCREEN?

    I like laughing at Hamilton lectures as much as anyone – but let’s settle in for the long haul, commit to daily ACTION, daily EFFECTIVE ACTION too. We’re liberals, we can walk and chew gum (unlike some…)

  238. 238.

    DivF

    I’m in the smithsonian museum of American history. I was just walking past an exhibit of the Greensboro lunch counter (site of civil rights sit-ins in 1960) just as an African-american father was explaining to his 8 y/o (I guess) son about how “we weren’t allowed to eat there”. I tried to tell Madame about it, but I couldn’t without choking up in tears. Combination of shame, joy, and fear.

  239. 239.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Bill E Pilgrim: Ted Cruz went to Princeton and Harvard Law, where he refused to study with people from “lesser Ivies.” He is the biggest elitist in their party. What a loathsome fraud.

  240. 240.

    Elmo

    Thank God, an open thread. Prolly dead by now but here goes.
    I have a guy in the house RIGHT NOW who bid $150 to replace three light fixtures. (Don’t judge, they are all overhead and one is heavy and i didn’t want to do it myself). He has been working on the first fixture for an hour and a half.

    Do I need to stop him and talk about a rebid price or cutting out one of the lights? Cuz he obvs underbid the job and I don’t know what to do. I want him paid but I can’t afford $300 for three lights. Which is prolly what I shd pay him just based on time by the time he’s done.

    Jackals, help!

  241. 241.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Mike R: Ryan has been loudly hankering about cutting social security and other entitlements for eons. Why aren’t people paying attention and believing that he would do what he has promised to do. Now that he has a Republican President and Senate, all systems are go.

  242. 242.

    Gelfling 545

    This is bothering me because I have a beautiful, social activist type, teen relative who has that last name and she has suffered. We were looking forward to it getting better after the election but now……
    When we went to Paris last March I taught her to say “I am not related to that man” in French. It looks to be a long 4 years ahead.

  245. 245.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Jeffro: I assume Trump’s hardcore racist supporters will only abandon him if he doesn’t do things to hurt the “others”, such as kicking Brown folks out of the country, building the wall, cracking down on BLM, etc. Not sure if cutting their benefits would make any difference except among older, poorer Trump supporters who are actually hurt right away by Trump policies.

  246. 246.

    Patricia Kayden

    @mai naem mobile: I turned on NPR one morning and was greeted with Tucker Freaking Carlson. That was it for me. I hadn’t listened in a long time and won’t be tuning in any time soon. The quality of their commenters has really gone way down.

  248. 248.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @FlipYrWhig: I just love the way they can openly express aggression against an entire region and it’s completely accepted, whereas if any Democrat is seen to be not sufficiently lavishing respect and praise on the “heartland”, let alone, god forbid talking about hating it and getting “revenge” on its inhabitants, they and the press never stop fainting about it.

  251. 251.

    Suzanne

    @Bill E Pilgrim: Yes.

    There are times I want to hear politicians say, “The heartland sucks. ‘Real Americans’ are gross. They all eat at Cracker Barrel and wear socks with sandals.”

  252. 252.

    hovercraft

    @Baud:

    I’m going to buy a pickup and put a Hillary sticker on it.

    You must also deploy Truck Nutz or your protest will not be clear.

  254. 254.

    elm

    @Suzanne:

    @Corner Stone: I really think that a disturbing amount of the election was caused by people who think like that. “Liberal” is just code word for “snob”

    Sadly no, they use liberal as a code for n*gger lover.

  256. 256.

    Ruckus

    @Mike R:

    Anyone this dumb would probably forget to breathe.

    One could only hope but alas tis not to be. The autonomic nervous system (as you most likely know) doesn’t depend on stupid or smart. In my own case I have on occasion thanked various entities for that, as many of us probably have. I also have thanked various entities for allowing me to grow the fuck up and understand that I can’t count on that continuing to happen for ever and therefore I have to at least attempt to be smarter.

  257. 257.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Speaking at the National Lawyers Convention Friday, the Texas senator said Trump’s win was “vindication for the American people across this country, and especially those that you know in rural America, in what elites on both coasts consider to be ‘flyover country.’ This election can be well understood as the revenge of flyover country.”

    I guess they showed us, they elected a billionaire con man from New York so he can rob them blind. I think it might be like “I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue” though that might not be the right color choice.

    Just to that point, Cruz also said this:

    “When you’re given control of the executive and the legislature, it’s time to put up or shut up. There are no excuses,” Cruz said. “We’ve got to deliver.”

    Yeah good luck with that. That last line is actually fairly prescient about the only jobs anyone will be able to get before long in Trump America TM.

  258. 258.

    MoxieM

    Re: the sandals with socks conundrum: I thought that’s why we have espadrilles. Real ones, from España. Yes I am a shoe snob. Get over it.

  259. 259.

    Schlemazel

    @Juice Box:
    Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota get 16 EC votes with just a little more population than Minnesota who gets 10 and about half of Michigan who gets 16.

  260. 260.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Van Buren: Has the mainstream media done a good job of pointing out how much the economy has improved since 2008? During the election season, the media allowed Republicans to moan about how bad the economy was performing, including challenging the unemployment rate and monthly job numbers. The reality that the economy has improved substantially under President Obama was never emphasized unlike the economic malaise that voters allegedly felt.

  261. 261.

    Ruckus

    @lollipopguild:

    Have you no sense of shame? Or style?

    Can’t answer for CS but for me, not so much that you’d notice. Comfort and decency. Other than that I got nothing.

  264. 264.

    Shalimar

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    the Texas senator said Trump’s win was “vindication for the American people across this country,

    Also proof for everyone to see that Ted Cruz’s wife really is incredibly ugly. Our new leader said so, and he is never wrong. Someone needs to remind Ted of that, preferably his ugly wife.

    ed: I’m not a fan of Andrew Jackson in any way, shape or form, but at least he would have had the decency to kill Trump for saying that about Rachel.

  265. 265.

    Sab

    If the electoral college doesn’t come through, will Melania’s cookie recipe be okay? I know nothing about Slovenian pastries.

  267. 267.

    liberal

    @Patricia Kayden: Employment to population ratio for ages 25-54 is still lower than it was at the peak before the 2008 crash. And that peak was below the late 1990s peak, which was the all-time high. Of course, that stuff is largely due to factors way beyond short-term government control. But in historical terms, the economy isn’t all that great, and IIRC since 2008 wage growth has been anemic, though that might be changing.

  268. 268.

    Kay

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m in a book club where 7 of the 10 women are Republicans. I’m hosting tomorrow night and I’m dreading it.

    My daughter said I should make a big, dramatic scene- she suggested “do you people have any idea how upset I am?” :)

    Here’s the thing- I know these women. Our kids went to school together. I’ve known them for 20 years. I KNOW they don’t believe the President Tweeting insane things or trading on the office is okay. So I feel like saying “don’t bullshit me- you all know he’s a clown”.

  269. 269.

    liberal

    @Van Buren: Or they could go the I. F. Stone route, and look at documents and stuff instead of just listening to the shit that comes out of politicians’ mouths.

  270. 270.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud:

    I’m going to buy a pickup and put a Hillary sticker on it.

    “Deadhead sticker on Cadillac, don’t look back, you can never look back.”

  271. 271.

    Sebastien

    @Juice Box:

    Most people on the TV sets tonight were a bit baffled (funny how familiar it sounds…) but I think it mainly comes from the fact that Juppé was Sarkozy’s designated opponent, and the media blitz about these two hitting each other daily opened a path for Fillon. Kind of ‘OK for the drab guy, but let’s take the one without the ferocious gnome nipping at his heels’. Now, his economic program is no fun at all to consider…

    And it saddens me, as a soc1al1$t sympathizer, to say I’ll most probably have to vote for the one who’ll get on top, because only a miracle is going to get a leftist on the 2nd turn of the real thing. The only good new about it, is that it won’t be Napoleon the Shorter (me, hostile to Sarkozy ? What makes you think so ?)

  272. 272.

    frosty

    @John:

    Pennsylvania is flyover country?

    Sure. To get from Philly to Pittsburgh you have to fly over all the trump voters in “Alabama-up-the-middle”. I’ll wave from my bunker as you go past.

  273. 273.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    The other seems to be inwardly focused, needing one’s kids to validate one’s life choices.

    “It was good enough for mom and dad, it will be fucking good enough for you.”
    It isn’t so much they want to validate their life choices it’s that they have to find as much solidarity as they can with the only people they control (or think they do), or they will have to slash their wrists, thinking about how shitty their lives have turned out. IOW, if they can’t have it good, no one else should have the opportunity either.

  274. 274.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Sebastien: Funny trivia: socialist, socialism, et al were actually triggering moderation for so long only because they had the word cialis in them, not from anything political.

    Now watch me get put into moderation, but I think that particular quirk was debugged some time ago.

  275. 275.

    J R in WV

    @Corner Stone:

    DuDe,

    I’m an old, retired white Guy, and I KNOW when to use CAPS and when NOT to.

    AND I KNEW that Republicans have been trying to kill off Social Security since the day after it was adjudicated legal back in the 1930s.

    Dog Bless FDR!!!

    He has allowed millions of workers and widows and children to live decent lives, when prior to the New Deal they all would have died of starvation or exposure.

    Anyone not aware of the Republican party’s hate for Social Security is dead between their ears. Trump and Dence are prime haters, and want their serfs to have to work until they die.

    I damaged my shoulders, and realized that people who do physical work, linemen, plumbers, builders, cannot continue to work at those trades after suffering physical injury. I had replacement surgery, and have less pain, but these artificial joints won’t do that kind of work for very long. Social Security disability allows those workers to actually live after suffering a career ending injury.

    Republicans hate that too. Alan Grayson may have turned out to be somewhat of a prick, but he was accurate about the Republican health plan. Die quickly, wasn’t it? Republicans party members are monsters, or too ignorant to live healthy lives.

    And I don’t feel bad for people who voted poorly and are going to die miserable deaths from a lack of medical care – they decided to commit suicide by political means, and by sticking it to their friends, neighbors and relatives, deserve their miserable lives and horrible deaths.

    Also, I’m still furious about the R’s stealing another election, if you couldn’t tell.

  278. 278.

    frosty

    @Elmo:

    Do I need to stop him and talk about a rebid price or cutting out one of the lights?

    If you got several bids and he was the lowest and you went with it, then no. He owns the bid he made. If you selected him on qualifications or something else and he gave you an estimate, it’s fair to either reduce the scope or pay more.

    You can also do that with the first guy, but there are business reasons he might have underbid that you don’t know about. It’s also not fair to anyone else who bid higher. Maybe they figured out how much more work it would have been.

  279. 279.

    Sebastien

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Yes, I noticed that one (started reading the site in 2007, thanks to a link from Sadly No. Never stopped since.), which is why I used the funny spelling.

  281. 281.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Shalimar: And don’t forget that Trump informed us that Ted Cruz’ father assassinated President Kennedy. Nice that Cruz can forget all that and pump up Trump now.

  282. 282.

    Sebastien

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Yes. Living and working around Paris, and thankful that the family still lives in the far more civilized Charente (probably known only for the Cognac spirit and the Angoulème comics convention).

  283. 283.

    Brachiator

    @lollipopguild:

    The cast of hamilton stripped mike pence naked, covered him with tar and feathers and rode his ass out of town on a rail.

    It’s true. I read about it on Facebook

  284. 284.

    frosty

    @Kay:

    So I feel like saying “don’t bullshit me- you all know he’s a clown”.

    Seems like a reasonable opening gambit to me. The non-deplorable half of the basket voted R in part because they always have, that’s who they are, and they couldn’t imagine voting for a Democrat. It took my mother about 15 years of eye-opening to make the switch.

  286. 286.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    .. So I feel like saying “don’t bullshit me- you all know he’s a clown”.

    So, they voted for him because they like the circus?

  287. 287.

    maryQ

    I guess this would be like screwing elites by voting for them to have a tax cut and for you to lose your Medicare.

  289. 289.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    So I don’t know what to do with that attitude.

    Point out to them that many vocations require a degree or multiple degrees to actually do the work. Like a medical doc. Do they want someone with only a HS diploma attempting to fix human internal plumbing or wiring? It’s a craft job, which lots of jobs are, we just have, for some reason, a hard time talking about them that way. That doctor of internal plumbing is a craft job, you can’t learn it without watching and practicing. Your job is a craft job, one that, like a doctor, requires a fair amount of classroom knowledge to make the practice possible and valuable. Mine, precision machinist, requires a bit of book learning but mostly, a lot of practical experience. A lot of jobs require maybe some basic book learning (HS) and some practical experience. I find that a lot of people who land in those jobs think that all jobs are like that. As you know and reasonably think, not all are and yes they should be paid more, they make more for someone and allow a lot of those less practical experience jobs to even happen.

  291. 291.

    Brachiator

    @Major Major Major Major:

    If I may put on my contrarian tiara for a moment, Breitbart is about to be the most influential media outlet on the planet, so it might make sense not to make enemies.

    Fox News, Breitbart and the National Enquirer are about to become the official news organs of the political realm. It doesn’t much matter what the rest of the media does, even though I’m sure Maureen Dowd will continue to get access.

    And there will be plenty of people willing to leak and go off the record.

  292. 292.

    opiejeanne

    @James Powell: You want to come to our holiday parties? Christmas is being hosted in Seattle by my daughter, Thanksgiving at my place, just outside Seattle in a semi-rural bit of King County.

  293. 293.

    Ruckus

    @Elmo:
    He quoted the job, it’s on him.
    I say this as a person who quoted jobs that cost anywhere from 4 to 6 figures for decades. It’s part of the job, to know what you need to, to account for the times when it doesn’t go as planned and to tough it out and get the job finished properly.
    It is part of your job to not unrealistically accept the lowest bid if it is way out of range, but it is not part of your job to accept the blame for how much a person makes with their quote. Now if the job was a lot more difficult that it normally is and was quoted and the person does a great job anyway, I’d say feel free to give them a bonus.
    That is part of that leaning experience that I wrote about above, it is an aspect of the job to quote pricing and sometimes mistakes are made in the learning process. A smart person learns and one not so inclined finds a new line of endeavor.

  295. 295.

    Jeffro

    @jacy:

    Josh Marshall at TPM has a good piece about why Medicare is the nail we should all be hammering 24/7

    I know…I linked to it at #227 above…
    Great minds thinking alike and all that ;)

  296. 296.

    Jeffro

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I assume Trump’s hardcore racist supporters will only abandon him if he doesn’t do things to hurt the “others”, such as kicking Brown folks out of the country, building the wall, cracking down on BLM, etc. Not sure if cutting their benefits would make any difference except among older, poorer Trump supporters who are actually hurt right away by Trump policies.

    His supporters are almost totally for Medicare and Social Security…if he or Ryan & Co make moves on it, they’ll screw themselves. Yes, the Trumpistas want other things, but building a wall is an easy stall for Trump. He could technically ‘break ground’ next week with a shovel, do the photo-op, and never have to do another thing.

    But cutting their only retirement, their only hope for health care? Uh-unh.

  297. 297.

    Jeffro

    @Van Buren:

    If I remember correctly, Woodward and Bernstein didn’t have great access either, but somehow they managed.

    Right…they caught the leaks (in addition to committing other actual acts of journalism).

    The professionals in these agencies, especially intelligence, the “shadow government”…they’re not going to take this craziness for too long.

  299. 299.

    Jeffro

    @Kay:

    So I feel like saying “don’t bullshit me- you all know he’s a clown”.

    That’s perfect! “…he’s a clown running cover for the Kochs/Ryan and their safety-net-cutting mania” doesn’t really work until perhaps much later in the evening. =)

  300. 300.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Peale: Mostly, what happened was a bunch of whining about having meetings during Thanksgiving week. Some formalities about retaining outside counsel since the Attorney General is involved in one of the campaigns. Another meeting scheduled for Tuesday despite the whiner, to focus on (among other things) vote harvesting in Bladen County.

    Cooper probably has an insurmountable lead at this point, but McCrony is determined to give him the Al Franken treatment.

  302. 302.

    opiejeanne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The definition of “entitlement” is a thing to which you are entitled, have earned/paid for. We paid for these entitlements throughout our working years.
    Republicans like Ryan have tried to change the meaning of that word to “handout”, i.e. something given for nothing.

  303. 303.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: I don’t think there will be any automatic revolt. Ryan is going to preserve Medicare for the people who currently have it; he’ll just yank it/voucherize it for everyone my age and younger. But everyone my age already believes they won’t see a cent from Medicare or Social Security, because investment advisors and representatives of company 401(k) programs have been telling them for literally decades that the plans are broke and are going to disappear. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy; the phaseout can and will be sold as saving these programs from inexorable doom, by transforming them into something completely different.

    I don’t know. I guess pushback actually worked when Bush tried this for Social Security. But it seems different now. Making it part of the Trump revolution might just allow them to steamroller over any opposition.

  305. 305.

    opiejeanne

    @Iowa Old Lady: My dad was split on the issue of sending us to college; he snorted in derision at people with college degrees but was proud as the dickens when I got my BA, and adored my husband with his BS in Civil Engineering.

  306. 306.

    opiejeanne

    @Shalimar: AARP doesn’t own or sell insurance, according to the fine print. They license their name to companies, but that disclaimer appears on every sales letter we get.

    I noticed that some of the commenters were goading AARP to take a stand to stop the Republicans’ attempts to modify Medicaid. Medicare, or Social Security. They’ve been good on these subjects in previous attempts so I expect them to continue to resist Paul Ryan’s attempts. Meanwhile, I’ve been writing to them and asking them to take a stand against these attempts to modify; they represent a large block of people who vote.

  307. 307.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    I would probably tell them that they voted to make sure there would be no more “safe spaces,” so they’d better be prepared to defend their vote and the guy they voted for. But I’m kind of a jerk like that.
    ;-)

  310. 310.

    The Lodger

    Getting back to the OP: what do you think of calling out, equally as loud as the barista, “Hope you got cash for that.” Or some other way to bring up The Orange One’s cheatin’ history.

  311. 311.

    Jeffro

    @Patricia Kayden:

    And don’t forget that Trump informed us that Ted Cruz’ father assassinated President Kennedy. Nice that Cruz can forget all that and pump up Trump now.

    The Mercers – or should I say, their money – got him back on board right quick.

  312. 312.

    Jeffro

    @Matt McIrvin:

    But it seems different now. Making it part of the Trump revolution might just allow them to steamroller over any opposition.

    It only seems different now because we’re still reeling a bit from the loss. But the vast majority of the country (even their own voters!) is with us on this one and the country needs us to get back in the fight.

  313. 313.

    Jeffro

    @opiejeanne:

    Meanwhile, I’ve been writing to them and asking them to take a stand against these attempts to modify; they represent a large block of people who vote.

    That’s awesome – great job! Don’t forget to tell them, “If anything, these programs should be and easily could be expanded, not privatized”

    (Also: the cost savings from Obamacare to date extended the life of Medicare by something like a decade, true! People need to hear that)

  314. 314.

    sherparick

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): It is a half truth and a non sequiter. After WWII the total debt to GDP ratio was about 120%. and the Great Recession, the Bush-Obama Tax cuts, and 15 year war sent the debt to about 100% of GDP. It is trending down right now, but that will soon be reversed. Unless there is crowding out, the debt does not affect the U.S. which borrows in its own currency, and that currency is in demand as the primary reserve currency in the global economy. NO ONE SHOULD CARE ABOUT GOVERNMENT:S DEBT WHEN INTEREST RATES ARE NEAR THE ZERO BOUND.

    Now, if the Republicans and Trump purse their preferred policies of huge tax cuts and ramped up military spending, much like Reagan’s policies in the 1980s, but in a different economic situation. He is starting at near full employment and low inflation and a dollar that is already strong. So I expect next year and 2018 will see a boost in growth, a boost in the deficit, and a boost in inflation with increasing interest rates, then the size of the debt may start to matter, although if the nominal GDP grows faster than n at. I will be interested to see who Trump puts on the Fed since it is with that institution the could end up screwing himself and the economy by putting hard money gold bugs on the FED.

    There is also the renegotiation of NAFTA and TPP. One little known fact is that TPP, because the U.S., Canada, and Mexico were all part of it superseded NAFTA for the most part. A little prediction. Trump will “renegotiate” TPP (getting the protections for Big Tobacco and Pharma that McConnell and Hatch felt had been left out) and then announce in repaid order the U.S. pulling out of NAFTA but signing a new improved Trump negotiated TPP (Trump after all only said the old deals were bad and that he would negotiate new deals that would be “Great” because he would be negotiated by him.) Whether he means to do anything actual on trade or not, the higher U.S. growth and higher interest rates will mean capital imports, a stronger dollar, and a growing trade and current accounts deficit. The first great shock that the Midwest got was in the first part of the Reagan Administration when the dollar shot up and manufacturing was shattered by competition with Japan, Korea, and Europe where they could not compete with cheap imports coming in from the strong dollar. It will be interesting to see the political effect of this since Trump has made the trade deficit a huge issue what will be the political repercussions when he says “Never Mind?” .

  315. 315.

    dww44

    @JMG: Friday night on the LOD show, David Frum said the same thing. Urged LOD and the other pundit to give Romney a break that the country needs as many people like him in a Trump administration. I agree. We need some sane non ideological members of Trump’s team, even if it contributes to a more beneficient take on his administration. We and the world need some folks inside it who can slow down/limit the damage. Whoever ends up in such a role deserves to be labelled a true patriot.

  316. 316.

    dww44

    @Timurid: I think your take is not correct. I believe there will be people like Romney, including Romney, who will step up to contribute for the sake of their country. Not for the sake of their egos.

  317. 317.

    Corner Stone

    @dww44:

    I think your take is not correct. I believe there will be people like Romney, including Romney, who will step up to contribute for the sake of their country. Not for the sake of their egos.

    This is a garbage take. Anyone who associates with Trump gets shit on. He has done this to every single person and entity that comes into his orbit.
    If Romney tries to “do the right thing” on whatever garbage time BS you want to describe that as, he will only come out the other side looking worse. And as a worse person than he already is.
    Timurid is correct in saying that if “normal” Republicans come on board it will be because they have completely capitulated and this whole experiment is fucking over.

  318. 318.

    Juice Box

    @Sebastien: Le Monde says that the election saw the left voting strategically in order to avoid having to choose between Napoleon-the-lesser and Marine Le Pen? Is that true? Is it that easy to cross over to another party? Americans would not be smart enough to vote strategically; they can barely get themselves registered and to the polls.

  319. 319.

    dww44

    @Corner Stone: You know, there are people on the right of conscience and who actually do love the county and who would take a job in Trump’s cabinet/administration to try to steady the ship of state. I do not agree politically with Romney nor do I forget that he also lied on the campaign trail in 2012, but I don’t believe either that he’s a terrible person deserving of wholesale condemnation. I believe that he has skills that could benefit the incoming administration

    The country does need sane less ideological folks to become part of Trump’s administration. Do you disparage the President for trying to make this transition a success and to counsel his successor as best he can? I believe he’s sincere in that effort. Did you, by chance, watch Obama’s PC in Peru 3 or 4 hours ago?. And, finally, who…………..in your corn flakes?

  320. 320.

    catclub

    @Jeffro:

    The professionals in these agencies, especially intelligence, the “shadow government”…they’re not going to take this craziness for too long.

    Do you mean the FBI which is Trumpland? They might take it for longer than you guess.

  321. 321.

    Corner Stone

    @dww44: Romney actively sought Trump’s endorsement as the lead Birther in Charge back in 2012. Fuck him. He is not a decent human being and he has no skills on the foreign policy table. If he wants to be a voice of conscience then he can keep repeating his message that Trump is a phony a fraud and a conman.
    Get this fucking straight. There is no steadying the SS Trump. That is not happening. he damages everything and everyone he touches. That includes us and this nation. The motherfucker tweeted for days about his VP hearing boos at a broadway play. He is meeting with business partners from India after being elected. His kids are sitting in on meetings with heads of state. He is garbage. Fuck you and your god damn corn flakes.

  322. 322.

    Gvg

    @dww44: Trump is into petty vengeance. Look at the way he treated Christy. Others too. Romney would be wisest to stay away from Trump. Also Romney was kind of clueless overseas during his own campaign so he couldn’t actually do a good job even if he wanted to. sec of state is a prominent enough position that I expect Trump to be unable to resist meddling so no one will be able to do it well.
    There are professionals who will take positions out of duty but due to personal history Romney can’t be one of them in Trumps administration. I am rather skeptical about the whole story anyway.

  323. 323.

    catclub

    @Gvg: Pretty much my thoughts. Trump will find ways to humiliate Romney. Romney will put up with it for a little while, then quit.

  324. 324.

    The Moar You Know

    I was a barista at Starbucks, year and a half, in the early 2000s.

    WORST JOB I EVER HAD BY A LONGSHOT, and I’ve worked some bad ones. Why?

    At no other workplace have I had the vast majority of my customers come in for the purpose of beating up on someone less fortunate than themselves, but (sorrynotsorry to those of you who are) that is what the absolute vast majority of Starbucks customer base go there for, well north of 95% of the customers I had every single day. Just wanted to treat someone like shit. You can do it for two bucks.

    The company also fails its employees in a myriad of truly innovative policies, but as bad as they were, they weren’t the worst part of the job. It was always the customers, first and foremost.

  326. 326.

    sebastien

    @Juice Box:

    I wasn’t particularly interested in the idea myself, but yes, many left-leaning people voted in the primary, though I don’t think they expected Sarkozy to be ousted, especially that hard, and the first analysis I read don’t consider their action as decisive.

    As of how they did it, the primaries followed quite simple rules. To be allowed to vote, one had to:
    _be on electoral lists (here, these only serve to check if you have the right to vote. There is no party registration listed).
    _pay 2 euros (to participate to the organisation costs)
    _Sign a declaration that ‘I share the Right and Center’s ides and principles and I pledge myself for the change of government for the good of the country’. Weak tea as pledges go…

  327. 327.

    Cain

    @Kelly:

    @Omnes Omnibus: Well we did elect our first statewide Republican in a generation here in Oregon. Secretary of State. Not sure how that happened. Hopefully it’s not the leak that takes out the dam.

    That’s because the democratic party put in Brad Avakian, who apparently had a lot of negatives. I have no idea why they would do such a thing. A lot of people were disappointed. He’s going to be a loner in a very blue state, he will need to tread very slowly if he wants to keep that position. If he starts mouthing about voter fraud like his buddies in other red states, he’s a dead duck. I’m sure Oregon is very sensitive now thanks to Trump being president.

  329. 329.

    eataTREE

    @The Moar You Know: That’s really weird, because I always understood the unspoken transaction at Starbucks to be more or less the opposite: I a, boring old irrelevant white middle class person, am paying two dollars for the (unspoken and momentary) attention and approval of a still-young, still-hip, still-relevant barista. If all you want is to yell at the kids to get off your lawn, you really don’t need to shell out three bucks. You can do that at the bus stop for free.

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