Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

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

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

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

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

No Justins, No Peace

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

T R E 4 5 O N

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

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

You are here: Home / Breitbartian Rhapsody

Breitbartian Rhapsody

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Nothing really matters, anyone can see:

You can listen to the whole segment here, but I direct your attention to the part starting at time 14:40. That is when Scottie Nell Hughes, Trump stalwart, joins the show to assert that “this is all a matter of opinion” and “there are no such things as facts.”

You can listen again starting at around time 18:30, when I point out one of the specific, small lies of the Trump campaign—that the NFL had joined him in complaining about debate dates, which the NFL immediately denied—and Hughes says: Well, this is also just a matter of opinion. Hughes mentions at time 21:45 that she is a “classically studied journalist,” an assertion that left Glenn Thrush, Margaret Sullivan, Diane Rehm, and me staring at one another in puzzlement, this not being a normal claim in our field.

It’s worth listening in full. This is the world we are now dealing with.

Nothing really matters, nothing really matters to me:

Any way the wind blows.

We are so fucked.

Reader Interactions

281Comments

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer

    That is so….

    It’s just….

    What….?

    I can’t, okay? I just can’t.

    Holy fuck.

  4. 4.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Hey, stupid lady with the glasses, I live in California; there isn’t voter fraud. I show up at my polling place with my sample ballot and sign my name in the voter rolls and only then get a ballot. Stupid people.

  6. 6.

    Major Major Major Major

    “There are no such things as facts” is the new “not intended to be a factual statement.”

    God, in my information science presentation yesterday I specifically talked about how there are such things as facts. Nuts. These people don’t even live in the physical world.

  9. 9.

    Big Ole Hound

    The illogical gibberish falling out of their brains inspires me to research “incompetence” in practical terms. Also “bullshit”.

  11. 11.

    mai naem mobile

    When my niece was in HS her civics teacher taught the students what kind of sites wold be considered reliable sources. The teachet did have FOX and NRO for position papers. I taught her a little more.I don’t think he dolts on this CNN piece know how to do that.

  13. 13.

    beth

    I just watched a segment on BBC News where they interviewed a Trump supporter who said “Trump is a self made billionaire; he didn’t start out with anything”. We are so truly fucked.

  15. 15.

    debbie

    That chick’s an idiot. From her bio:

    A Magna Cum Laude graduate from the University of Tennessee at Martin with a broadcast communications/ political science degree.

    I’ve lost all respect for the Laude family.

  17. 17.

    JPL

    @rp: It’s 47 here, so there!

    John, What we need you to post is pictures of the house and the pets. Nothing else matters.

  19. 19.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    When does post truth start affecting things like engineering and science, and consequently airplanes, bridges, electric service, telecommunications? Someone needs to let me know what the leading edge of that looks like, because I don’t want to live in the Dark Ages, and will take the stash of painkillers left over from my mother’s Alzheimer’s long goodbye.

  20. 20.

    Morzer

    I have doubts that punishing the elites by voting for the most obvious moron on the block is going to work out well for the minority of the American people who selected Shitburger with Orange Fries. Alas, the majority is going to get screwed too.

  21. 21.

    Steve in the ATL

    @debbie: a degree from UT-Martin means she couldn’t get into UT-Knoxville, which has never been difficult. When I was a kid in Tennessee, it was viewed lower than UT-Chattanooga and even ETSU and MTSU.

  23. 23.

    kd bart

    These people flaunt their ignorance & treat it as a badge of honor. They deserve to get conned. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to suffer along side them.

  24. 24.

    Steve in the ATL

    Also, I am in the Minneapolis airport. Haven’t tapped my foot in the men’s room, but I got a sick feeling in my gut when I walked by the bar where I was watching the election returns on Black Tuesday.

  25. 25.

    Scamp Dog

    @jacy: Something about loud magnets, right? I mean, we wouldn’t want to be crude by going to one of the other words in the phrase, right?

  26. 26.

    Schlemazel

    @debbie:
    The UoT misspelled ‘laudanum’, she graduated mangna cum laudanum . . .a fuck it, it isn’t even funny any more

  28. 28.

    Morzer

    @kd bart:

    I think the division between the GOP and the Democrats comes down to this: one party thinks that swindling others is the only moral way to live and that they should be praised for doing it. The other party thinks that people have a right to live in a competently governed society with adequate consumer protections and respect for the rule of law.

  29. 29.

    greennotGreen

    Okay, I saw this both at Kevin Drum’s place and here, and I don’t get why this is startling people. We’ve known that the right wing parted ways with objective (measurable, verifiable) reality a long time ago.

  31. 31.

    PVDMichael

    Here’s one of the nice things I like to think about:

    * For every person on the left who thinks he/she knows the exact reason we lost, there’s a person on the right who thinks he/she knows the exact reason they won. These people have egos, different priorities, occasionally complete different positions.. and they will sometimes work at cross purposes.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: Read this:
    http://www.gq.com/story/desperate-gamble-of-scottie-nell-hughes-trump-surrogate

    The Desperate Gamble of Scottie Nell Hughes, World’s Most Loyal Trump Surrogate

    Like the rest of Trump’s devoted street team, Hughes spends her days evangelizing The Donald with a relentless series of appearances on TV. But why? And what if she he loses?

    For Scottie Nell Hughes, the day had been remarkably chaste. She’d taken her daughter to see Disney on Ice in Nashville, where she lives, and then they visited the Old Spaghetti Factory. It was, she said, a “girlie day,” that is, until news broke that would change her family-friendly evening plans and perhaps the course of American history.

    At 4 P.M. Eastern, on October 7, 2016, The Washington Post published that now infamous video from 2005, the one in which Donald Trump can be heard boasting about grabbing women “by the pussy,” because “when you’re a star, they let you do it.” As far as bombshells go, it was more confirmation than revelation, but it was nonetheless a colossal tipping point. Suddenly, supporters were vanishing and high-level staffers were scrambling to pull out of television appearances—all the better to avoid having to answer for Trump in this, the campaign’s most chaotic hour. While others ran, Hughes surveyed the darkening shit storm and glimpsed something more like opportunity. With calm grace, she did what she could to save her country and preserve her career: She got in front of a camera and started talking.
    …

    Click over and read the whole thing!

  34. 34.

    M. Bouffant

    @debbie: Nothing says “classically studied [?] journalist” like a B.A. from not-even the U. of Tenn. where supreme hack Glenn Reynolds “teaches”.

    Other fascinating facts most adults would leave out of their bio after landing their first paying job & having a little meat for the resume:

    She went on to win the top High School Broadcaster Award for the state of Tennessee and the Broadcaster of the year for her college class 3 years in a row.

  35. 35.

    Mary G

    Reposted from the last thread, because I didn’t notice it was dead:

    Today’s actions: Called Darrell Issa’s local office and demanded that Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare remain intact. I wrote a few more sentences on a letter I plan to send to It, deleted the profanity and rewrote two of them that I think I can keep.

    Then I went to whitehouse.gov and sent the Obamas a message:

    Dear President and Mrs. Obama:

    I haven’t always agreed with you, particularly on foreign policy, but boy am I going to miss you. You have done your country a great service and I thank you so much for all your hard work, and sacrifice of your privacy and freedom of action. I plan to be active in resisting the rollback of your achievements. Especially the ACA. You have been the best president and presidential family of my 60-year-old life.

    What will happen to the videos and photos of your speeches and events currently on whitehouse.gov? When I am down and discouraged, I watch a speech or look at a few pictures to get fired up and ready to go. There are so many I want to see, but haven’t had time to.

    God bless you, Mary

    I’m still on cable news blackout, even secondhand, so I’m not watching the video above.

  38. 38.

    p.a.

    Lyrics
    C G D Em
    C Bm Am
    The waterfalls trinkling
    C Bm Am
    like bells to my ear
    C Bm Am Em Bm
    The earth rolls out before me through smiles and tears.

    A country lost, a soul discovered
    The ruin that I once was will soon recover.

    C G D Em
    And I know a howlin’ wind runs through here Blowin’ every day.
    C G D Em
    Yeah a howlin’ wind runs through here Takes my breath away.

    Swing time is here children, for large and small
    Let’s dance before the fever is upon us all.
    Yeah it’s a strange religion, without any god.
    The preacher walks with innocence spares the rod.

    hey ey hey ey

    Swing time is here children for large and small
    Let’s rock before the fever is upon us all.

    C G D Em
    Howl, I’m gonna howl, I’m gonna howl, I’m gonna howl
    C G D Em
    I’m gonna howl, I’m gonna howl howl howl howl

    Written by Graham Thomas Parker • Copyright © BMG Rights

  40. 40.

    gene108

    I do not know why, but I am pulling for Trump to loot the hell out of this country.

    The Old Post Office hotel, he just built in D.C., is being leased from the GSA ( General Services Administrion, which does a lot of procurement for the government).

    He gets to appoint the new head of the GSA. I hope this guy rips up the current lease with Trump, and only charges Trump $0.01 per year, with payments deferred for one million years, so Trump can operate the hotel free and clear forever.

    It would not do any immediate harm to Medicare, for example, if he just worked on self-enrichment and I want the media to fucking realize how they backed the wrong horse.

    I mean, was spending four years on one consulate attack and two years on Hillary’s e-mails, really a bigger story than Trump’s conflicts of interest?

    And Trump does not have to give the media shit. No press conferences. Only agrees to do fluff piece interviews, where Trump gets to pre-approve the questions.

    Those media fuckers rely on the goodwill of others to play by some set of rules, which enables them to do their job, but they have been fucking over the policitians who played nice, nice and respected “the system”, so they deserve to get their shit handed to them.

  43. 43.

    debbie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I skimmed most of it, but this chick is really pissing me off. All she ever does is turn the statement around. No one ever challenges her to provide facts or even back up her statements. Who knew Trump would find his surrogates at the bottom of the swamp he drained?

    That school needs to take its degree back. Magna cum laude and she doesn’t believe there are such things as facts??

  44. 44.

    Matt McIrvin

    The sage Karl Rove says: See, you’re all in the reality-based community. We’re an empire now, and we’ll make our own reality……….

  46. 46.

    hovercraft

    This regime is taking the Rove philosophy to the next level.

    The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore.” He continued “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

  48. 48.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Adam L Silverman: I remember hearing somewhere that early on, Soviet physicists were under pressure to espouse ideas every bit as stupid as Lysenko’s, but eventually they basically explained to Stalin that if he didn’t cut it out there would be no atom bomb for him, and he seemed to get the point. So they had a top-flight physics establishment for a while there…

  49. 49.

    Hellbastard

    I love how these nitwits go on and on about how much they distrust mainstream media but cite… mainstream media as the source for their crazy beliefs. “I heard it on CNN!”

    Alysin Camerota is pretty hot. I’m glad she left Fox.

  53. 53.

    Mary G

    Fighting back can work; WaPo has an example: A photo of a 4-year-old with Hillary Clinton was used as a disgusting meme. Her mom fought back.

    Someone had taken the photo, originally uploaded to the Clinton campaign Flickr page, and turned it into a meme that was then shared thousands of times across social media.

    Bold white type across the top of the image read, “I AM FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS!” Then halfway down, text covering the lower half of Sullivan’s body accused Clinton of accepting money and refugees from countries “that would mutilate this girl’s genitals, marry her to a Muslim pedophile, and stone her to death if she doesn’t wear a bedsheet.”

    The ADL sent a take-down notice to the originating sites and, soon after, it disappeared from the Internet.

    Baby steps, people. Do things.

  57. 57.

    Matt McIrvin

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: I seem to recall that post-truth affected Iraq and the city of New Orleans somewhat dramatically some years back. Our President-Elect seems more keenly attached to it than the guy in charge at the time, so we may see faster results.

  60. 60.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Van Buren: I am not taking any of the ShitGibbon’s cabinet “appointments” seriously until they’re submitted to the Senate for approval.

  62. 62.

    Taylor

    @Matt McIrvin: The ultimate post-truth is that climate change is a Chinese hoax.

    Unfortunately the consequences this time are going to be much, much worse than the death of a major American city.

  64. 64.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’m glad I don’t own anything – I sold my house and rent, and lease a car. No debt, will be converting to cash. I don’t think government bonds are safe. Will put in a good stock of cannabis, liquor, and painkillers. My youngest daughter and her husband just bought land in Belize so I have an escape hatch, if they let me.

  66. 66.

    misterpuff

    Shitgibbon getting all Nationalistic in Cincinnati tonight. Full of simple empty rhetoric, still no details.
    Just saved the managers and engineer’s jobs at Carrier not the WWC jobs, bye bye to Mexico. Trump paid ransom for the white collar jobs…..

  67. 67.

    JPL

    Jennifer Palmieri expressed what many of us feel. You go girl!

    “If providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, I am proud to have lost,” she said. “I would rather lose than win the way you guys did.”
    Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, fumed: “Do you think I ran a campaign where white supremacists had a platform?”
    “You did, Kellyanne. You did,” interjected Palmieri, who choked up at various points of the session.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/shouting-match-erupts-between-clinton-and-trump-aides/2016/12/01/7ac4398e-b7ea-11e6-b8df-600bd9d38a02_story.html?utm_term=.89bd36f481cc

  69. 69.

    gogol's wife

    @Morzer:

    Right.

    Seeing on Colbert the clip of Trump and Romney walking into an über-expensive restaurant to eat frog legs just made me sick to my stomach. To think of those idiotic rubes who believed him in his goddamned trucker cap, that he cares a damn about any of them.

    I have no use for anyone who voted for Trump. I feel no kinship with them and will give them no civility.

  70. 70.

    Adam L Silverman

    @misterpuff: $7 million for 800 jobs. He didn’t knuckle Carrier/United Tech, they knuckled the taxpayers of Indiana through him and Pence.

  80. 80.

    misterpuff

    Drumpf declares “We won in a landslide”
    2.5 Million voters disagree with that…..
    Looks to be an all white crowd. Claims empty seats at rally due to Secret Service security.

  84. 84.

    Jeffro

    @debbie:

    Magna cum laude and she doesn’t believe there are such things as facts??

    Paging Neil deGrasse Tyson, paging Neil deGrasse Tyson, please pick up the white courtesy phone…he’d set her straight in 3 seconds…

    “Ma’am, have you ever flown in an airplane? Is ‘lift’ a factual thing, or does the pilot will the plane into the air?”

  86. 86.

    misterpuff

    Drumpster claims NFL rating drop due to Trumpence Campaign.

    On Regulations: The Race to The Bottom is On. Bye,Bye Regs.

  88. 88.

    Steve in the ATL

    @misterpuff:

    Drumpster claims NFL rating drop due to Trumpence Campaign.

    On Regulations: The Race to The Bottom is On. Bye,Bye Regs.

    If this means and end to those bullshit unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, then at least one good thing has come of this.

  89. 89.

    Morzer

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:

    And Steve from Atlanta
    Showed them how to canter
    And rode them to many a thrill….

    *cough*
    OK, I will now run naked through the snow and flog myself with birch twigs as a punishment for my sinful thoughts.

  91. 91.

    Jeffro

    @JPL: Conway needs to hear it more – every day all day would be fine with me.

    At a similar post-election forum here in NoVA, the unbelievable douchebag Trump campaign manager actually tried to skeeze his way out of Trump’s own statements and claim that his “locker room talk” was ginned up by the Democrats as an unfair slime job. I actually surprised myself by booing.

  92. 92.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Morzer:

    OK, I will now run naked through the snow and flog myself with birch twigs as a punishment for my sinful thoughts.

    Odd. Scandinavians do that for fun.

  93. 93.

    misterpuff

    MSNBC Cryron: ” Trump: We won in a landslide” / Hillary Clinton leads pop vote by 2.5 million votes”

    Also great Business Brain sez “We will put the miners back to work.” Can change economic realities with his Bullshit.

  96. 96.

    danielx

    That is when Scottie Nell Hughes, Trump stalwart, joins the show to assert that “this is all a matter of opinion” and “there are no such things as facts.”

    Scottie, that city bus that just turned you into a grease spot? All in your imagination.

  97. 97.

    Morzer

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    To express the full depths of my repentance, I might have to invite some McGill girls* to chastise my sinful flesh.

    *The above offer is purely illustrative and does not represent a contractual commitment by Morzer International.

  98. 98.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman: Truly, education in all its forms and models, from as early as possible for as long as possible, has to be an overarching imperative if democracy is going to survive. Hell, a 5-minute primer on confirmation bias would do the country more good than single-payer at this point.

    But it better be an ENTERTAINING 5 minutes, or it’ll be good for nothing. Ah, but ain’t that America, you and me…

  99. 99.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @NotMax: I thought there was a five year waiting period before a retired flag officer could be appointed to a top Defense position.

  101. 101.

    Adam L Silverman

    @misterpuff: Manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back. Automation is going to take care of all that. Hell, truckers will be lucky to have jobs within a decade as a result of automating vehicles.

  102. 102.

    MoxieM

    Boy that woman on the vid is too stupid to breathe. (Also vicious.) I dislike the idea of voting tests for historical & racist reasons but, wow, she’s a powerful counter argument.

    Also, too, in addition, I’m glad I have a child who lives in Europe. Not sure she’d be thrilled to have mom move in, but it would be better than an American Gulag.

  110. 110.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Jeffro:

    Truly, education in all its forms and models, from as early as possible for as long as possible, has to be an overarching imperative if democracy is going to survive.

    This is, of course (or “bien sur” as they say at McGill), the precise reason why the republicans have been trying to destroy education.

  111. 111.

    Applejinx

    @Steve in the ATL:

    I met a couple of girls from McGill on a train somewhere in Europe when I was in college. You know, I should not tell the rest of this story….

    But everyone knew them as Nancy?

  112. 112.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Morzer:

    No one – NO ONE – can run through the snow like McGill girls. They wear high heeled leather boots to walk to campus like hikers wear crampons on Everest. I have borne witness to their fashion determination.

  117. 117.

    Applejinx

    @Jeffro:

    “Ma’am, have you ever flown in an airplane? Is ‘lift’ a factual thing, or does the pilot will the plane into the air?”

    Angels. Dumbass. Huh, I’m surprised you don’t know that with all your fancy edumacating ;)

  119. 119.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: So what’s interesting here, and I just checked with my former teammate, a now retired Marine colonel, is I’ve never heard anyone in uniform call Gen. Mattis mad dog. His nickname or moniker is The Warrior Monk. The former because he’s a good warfighter. The latter for two reasons: 1) he’s very scholarly and well read (he’s not GEN Dempsey, but he’s pretty close) and 2) he never married and is single.

  120. 120.

    Morzer

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Much the same way as Nissan bent over the brave new free traders of Brexit. Although even the Brexiteers aren’t trying to run around trying to claim credit for their epic fuck-ups in quite so shameless a way.

  121. 121.

    SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer

    @MoxieM:

    I dislike the idea of voting tests for historical & racist reasons but, wow, she’s a powerful counter argument.

    I was thinking much the same. Of course the whole idea of “literacy tests” leaves a very bad taste in my mouth, but I think I might consider something like, every voter must pass the same test immigrants must pass for their citizenship. None of the impossible exams African-Americans were required to pass during Jim Crow — just basic 6th-grade knowledge about the fundamentals of the Constitution, branches of government, etc. Ten minutes, tops.

  128. 128.

    Morzer

    @Gin & Tonic:

    It can hardly be colder in the winter – and I’d bet they don’t spend every spare minute fixing the roads that they were too cheap to deal with properly the first time.

  136. 136.

    Hal

    Watching a bit of Trump’s victory tour on msnbc and I’m am officially all out of can you imagines. As in, can you imagine if Obama held a tour post election to mock and attack the press, lie outright about winning in a landslide, and basically shit on tens of millions of people who did not vote for you. All the while your audience cheers and calls for your opponent to be locked up.

    Fuck every single person who voted for this monster and double fucks to all the bullshit we must reach out and try to understand these people tripe that keeps getting repeated.

  143. 143.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Hal: I heard nine or ten second before I hit mute, heard a bit about ‘no idea who they are, saw the chyron about build the wall. It’s a full on sixty-minute hate. I’m surprised he didn’t burst from holding all this inside for three weeks

  147. 147.

    Morzer

    @Gin & Tonic:

    The Great Boston Ritual – watch them tear up the road, wait two days, slap down some redolent asphalt concoction and then, three months later, do it all again! Observing how the winter salt eats into that stuff makes me suspect that there has to be a better way and that some ambitious young MIT student is going to make a killing in the future.

  152. 152.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Gin & Tonic: But there are so many Cambridges and people around here turn on a dime and say weird, unrelated shit all the time. I’ve been to a Shoney’s in Cambridge, Ohio.

  156. 156.

    MaryRC

    I don’t understand why someone doesn’t simply say to people like this “I read on Facebook that your spouse is a pedophile” and just keep repeating “But it’s just a matter of opinion” over their screeches.

  164. 164.

    Morzer

    @misterpuff:

    Trump and the PlunderBlunder Party are going to make Caligula look restrained, genteel and reasonable by the time they are through.

  173. 173.

    Steve in the ATL

    My flight is taking off, so someone else will have to stimulate your lascivious and un-Christianlike thoughts for the next three hours.

    Good luck and Godspeed!

  174. 174.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MoxieM:

    I dislike the idea of voting tests for historical & racist reasons but, wow, she’s a powerful counter argument.

    In practice, the point is always to keep people like her in power.

  175. 175.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    CNNVerified account
    ‏@ CNN
    Trump: We had “a lot of fun fighting Hillary, didn’t we?”
    Crowd: “Lock her up! Lock her up!”

    ETA: and this, he was paid to watch it
    Josh Barro ‏@ jbarro 29m29 minutes ago San Francisco, CA
    Trump is making some very specific promises right now that are likely to show up in attack ads in four years.

  184. 184.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Omnes Omnibus: I think you’ll enjoy this, then

    Zeke MillerVerified account
    ‏@ ZekeJMiller
    .@ KellyannePolls on Trump’s unfounded tweets abt fraud: “He’s president-elect so that’s presidential behavior”

    there’s some kind of public performance of top campaign aides at some kind of college in Cambridge, MA. Apparently it’s quite nasty, and KAC got all huffy about “are you saying I would work for a racist campaign?” Um… yes.

  187. 187.

    Turgidson

    @Steve in the ATL:

    A LGBT friend of mine who travels a lot and regularly goes to or passes through that airport has “checked in” many times on Facebook at the “Larry Craig Memorial Bathroom” or something like that. Makes me snicker every time I see it.

  189. 189.

    Peale

    @Adam L Silverman: I should note that the fake news ads that immediately follow the article in that esteemed publication are:

    VIAGRA OBSOLETE: New Replacement Cheaper Safer Faster
    Can Washington Handle The President’s Daughter’s Latest Scandal?
    Men Don’t Need Viagra If You Do This Once Daily – Kills ED
    Homeowners Must Claim their $4264 Before End of 2016
    Tom Hanks Reveals The Diabetes Cure That Saved His Life
    Another embarrassing scandal for Fox News
    The President’s Daughter Picked An Atrocious Time For THIS Scandal
    What Your Cable Company Doesn’t Want You to Know
    Do This Before Bed And You’ll Never Need the Gym, Once Daily
    How to Get ‘Rid’ of Herpes for Good – Try It Today

    The internet is the anti-elightenment. Everywhere.

  191. 191.

    Gravenstone

    @Major Major Major Major: I had to dig up the old Asimov quote to remind myself this has long been a known quantity. It is now expanding are relativistic speeds, alas.

    “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

  193. 193.

    Tim C.

    A) We need to call our congressional delegation. Weekly if not more often. Give heart and courage to those with us and be the annoying fly in the ointment to the ones who need a whack between the eyes. They work for us.

    B) Trump is exactly who we think he is. He will not be able to govern. There will be multiple internal fights in his White House. He’s a coward and a bully and will be unable to handle all those factions.

    C) We need to establish an official Balloon Juice commenter/front pager pool on the date Trump hits 27 percent approval.

    D) Maybe It’s the transition though the (made up) stages, but now I’m on anger. I say less than 50/50 he even tries to run again. It’s not a job he going to want in four years. He’ll never be popular, he’ll never be accepted by a majority of the country, he’s going to be a joke. We are going to fucking fight. And even when they win a battle, their ideas are so bad, it’s going to hurt them. Make them feel it.

    E) Focus on the people around you, help them. I found some inspiration by watching “Gandhi” again, do it. There’s our model.

    F) See A. Call. Your. Congressional. Delegation. Do it. Yes you, the lurker or the rare commenter. YOU!

    Finishing with inspiring quote-

    Sons (and daughters!) of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers (and sisters!) I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of Men (and kick-ass women) comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand! Men (and kick-ass women!) of the West!

  194. 194.

    Morzer

    @Peale:

    Another embarrassing scandal for Fox News

    Obviously fake, because Fox abandoned any pretense of shame or embarrassment years ago.

  198. 198.

    NotMax

    @Gravenstone

    Might as well wedge a bit o’ Bierce in.

    Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

  199. 199.

    matryoshka

    I knew we were fucked back in the ’90s when a student of mine, after 2 weeks of reading and discussing the book Farewell to Manzanar, responded to an essay question asking her to imagine whether or not something like Japanese internment could ever happen again in the U.S. (why or why not, etc.) with the simple statement that Japanese internment never happened in the first place. When I gave her an unsatisfactory grade for that answer, her parents complained to the principal (a fundamentalist), who supported their assertion that it was acceptable to deny historical facts. This was long before I even heard of Fox News. The Trumpening looks to me like the natural evolution of that kind of ignorance.

  204. 204.

    mike in dc

    Two new names in contention for SoS—the current CEO of Exxon Mobil…and the former CEO of Exxon Mobil. I guess they really want to drain the swamp, so they can start installing that gold-plated hog trough.

  206. 206.

    Jilli Brown

    What freaking planet is this? Just watched a portion of trumps open mic night…Sweet jesus, let this just be a bad dream.

    Just heard trump is considering the CEO’s- plural – past and present – for secretary of state. Sweet jesus. Wake me up, or better yet, just shoot me.

  208. 208.

    Morzer

    @Jilli Brown:

    This is the sugar high period for Trump and the Trumpzis. There’s an almighty crash coming up and I don’t think any of us are going to enjoy the consequences.

  211. 211.

    mike in dc

    @Morzer:
    Bad stuff happens during every president’s first term, and they have to deal with it. How Trump deals with the first couple bad things will be telling. Think about the following:
    1. Mass shooting incident
    2. Terror attack
    3. Foreign crisis
    4. Hurricane or other natural disaster
    5. Onset of a recession
    6. Unarmed person of color killed at a police stop
    Now try to imagine President Trump competently and diplomatically handling any one of those situations.

  214. 214.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jilli Brown: Just heard trump is considering the CEO’s- plural – past and present – for secretary of state.

    (CEOs of Exxon, that is)
    I suspect that this, like the leak of Palin for VA, is trollery. Not that either of those bastards will be displeased with whatever policies we get from the Trump-Comey administration

    @mike in dc: I was thinking about this today, how right and left love to bleat that the President must personally appear on the site of every national disaster, natural and otherwise. I don’t think trump will wear well as “Mourner-in-chief”. I shudder to think of him speaking at funerals of public figures– I wonder if Poppy and Bar* are redrafting their final instructions–, or occasions like Charleston or Dallas

    *ETA: Old Betty Windsor is gonna tell Charles to put her on ice till That Man will not be invited to her funeral

  216. 216.

    SgrAstar

    @mai naem mobile:

    When my niece was in HS her civics teacher taught the students what kind of sites wold be considered reliable sources.

    That’s the first thing I do with my university course in science policy! My students are mostly seniors, and they still need work on this. They are swimming in such murky waters, and a lot of them have no idea. If any of you are interested, Berkeley’s excellent Understanding Science website has a section devoted to this.

  219. 219.

    3Jane Tessier-Ashpool (a/k/a Lorinda Pike)

    @The Pale Scot: A well-timed and focused CME (coronal mass ejection) from the sun would also work. Blast our electric grid and all our electronics back to the stone age. Both would fry the planet, but the CME would be slightly less messy. Would work pretty well slowing climate change too.

    I’ll be in my cave with my cache of Oxy and Jack Daniels.

  221. 221.

    Jeffro

    Just saw a quip on Twitter to the effect that it helps if you think of Trump as a televangelist and also God…everything starts to at least make sense. After all, that is how both he and his cult see him.

    (quickly Googles how to de-program cult members…)

    Oh hell, I don’t have time for that nonsense…can we just work hard to educate the next generation better, and perhaps ban “reality” TV?

  222. 222.

    3Jane Tessier-Ashpool (a/k/a Lorinda Pike)

    @Tim C.: I really like your list – I feel the need to DO SOMETHING and this helps. And I love the quote. But the actor who delivered it so well in the character of Aragorn son of Arathorn voted for Stein, and was proud of “voting his conscience”. I guess that makes him a good actor. Oh, well.

    I currently live among Trumpanzees. I try and stay very quiet now.

  223. 223.

    Lizzy L

    @Adam L Silverman: Interesting. I spoke with a friend of mine, retired from the Marines, an attorney, who served with Mattis. He had positive things to say about him.

    I think Gillibrand is serving notice (along with Pelosi, Sanders, Reid, etc) that the Democrats are not going to play nice. I’m pleased.

  224. 224.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jeffro:

    Oh hell, I don’t have time for that nonsense…can we just work hard to educate the next generation better, and perhaps ban “reality” TV?

    My nephew and niece (15 and 13) have made efforts to publicly hang out with their black, Latino, and Native American friends/acquaintances over the past few weeks. My whole family is headed for the camps.

  226. 226.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Lizzy L: from what I’ve read about Mattis, we could do a lot worse. One thing I haven’t seen clearly explained is why he retired, though I’ve seen lots of references to a hostile relationship with the Obama White House.

    Also, this
    Simon Maloy ‏@ SimonMaloy 5h5 hours ago
    the only thing I know for certain is that Trump picked Mattis for Defense because he thinks “Mad Dog” is a really cool nickname
    I saw the clip of him announcing it to the howler monkeys in Cincinnati, and he growled MAD DOG two or three times, and they all went apeshit because of course they know all about Mattis’s policy positions and ideas about military engagement. I want someone to ask if Mattis is one of the generals who knows less about ISIS than Trump

  227. 227.

    matryoshka

    @Major Major Major Major: Yeah. I was gobsmacked and left teaching not long after that, but that student would be in her mid-30s now and is most likely a Trump voter. Everyone I know in education has similar stories too numerous to tell, all pointing in the direction we find ourselves now.

  228. 228.

    Another Scott

    @Adam L Silverman: Nancy at WaMo points to indications that it has more to do with Donnie’s promise to cut the corporate tax rate to 15% than the $700k/yr pittace.

    What that means is that the tax cuts Trump is promising will dwarf the $65 million/year UTC would save from moving those jobs to Mexico. That kind of approach – providing corporate tax cuts to incentivize companies to stay in the U.S. instead of imposing tariffs/taxes on those who leave – is exactly the approach favored by Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump’s incoming Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. So that explanation has the ring of truth. The end result is that it looks like our president-elect just offered UTC an amount of money in excess of $65 million/year in order to save 1,000 jobs. They could have just as easily offered to pay each of those workers more than $65,000/year.

    Of course, it’s only 800 jobs now…

    IOW, Trump doesn’t care about the Carrier jobs, he cares about finding and using a cudgel to get power to do what he wants (looting the Treasury and cutting his taxes).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  230. 230.

    Jeffro

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    My nephew and niece (15 and 13) have made efforts to publicly hang out with their black, Latino, and Native American friends/acquaintances over the past few weeks. My whole family is headed for the camps.

    That’s awesome!

    I already alerted Mrs. Fro that if Kobach & Co get a Muslim registry started, I’m converting and registering. I’ll do my best to make a big stir about it – call the TV stations in advance, send out press releases, encourage 240M non-Trump-voting Americans to do the same to fuck up the registries and make the whole thing worthless. So…when I’m in the camp cabin next to yours, stop by and say hi!

    But seriously, good on your nephew and niece. Every generation gets it a little more right.

  231. 231.

    Jeffro

    @matryoshka:

    Like Neal de Grasse Tyson said, “Make America smart again.”

    Yes, starting with the very low bar of “Making America slightly less stupid and reactionary, one Tweet or Facebook share at a time”. It’s a long bumper sticker but it’s worth it. =)

  234. 234.

    Soprano2

    I listened to that Diane Rehm show yesterday. What Fallows doesn’t mention is that Hughes stated that something she believed was a fact literally one minute after saying there are no such things as facts anymore! I was disappointed that not one panelist called her on that. She made that claim several more times. If you want to seed a real shitshow go look at the comments to that broadcast.

  235. 235.

    Jeffro

    @Omnes Omnibus: I probably should have air-quoted “converting” – same here (my bad). All my friends (who have known me as a life-long atheist) will get it and think it’s funny; I can only hope that some of them do the same, just, thing.

    Unfortunately, one or both of my parents may keel over dead when they see me on TV and for that, Mom, Dad, I apologize in advance. Let’s try to keep the big picture in perspective here.

  238. 238.

    Original Lee

    I have come to the conclusion that every single phrase Trump utters that could be written as ending in a period needs to be followed by [Not true: Fact-checking.] Example: The NFL complained about the debate dates. [Not true: The NFL was fine with the debate dates, link to statement.] Chyrons should do the same thing: Trump: NFL complained about debate dates / NFL: We’re fine with them.

    If a news org isn’t willing to perform this service, they don’t deserve to be called news.

    ETA: If nothing else, it creates jobs and makes watching and reading the news more fun. They could have contests to guess how many false statements Trump will make in a day.

  240. 240.

    Regime Touchon

    @lollipopguild:
    Back in the W dayz Suskind interviewed some neo-con dipshit who said we make our own reality. We have come to the ultimate conclusion of truthiness, may I present Donald dipshit trump.

  241. 241.

    slag

    Wiggy. I’ve been singing this very song a lot lately for exactly this reason. And yes, easy come, easy go. Any assertion that the reality-based community stands a chance and that we’re not all just reeds blowin’ in the wind is not founded in observation or reason.

  242. 242.

    fuckwit

    BRING ON THE BRAWNDO!!

    We are now living in a hellish combination of Idiocracy and A Handmaid’s Tale.

  244. 244.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @fuckwit: No, we are still in Obama’s USA. Enjoy it. The other thing is coming. Get a quick abortion. Get gay married. Do it while you can.

  246. 246.

    Another Scott

    @fuckwit:

    “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

    – Karl Rove

    “History’s actors”. Heh. That’s why W has been erased by the GOP from history just like Alexander Malchenko was…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  248. 248.

    mainmata

    Not a rhapsody, ok? A brain fart at the most generous. Eventually people like her will be overwhelmed by facts and events and shit happening. They either come out of their reality deniance or they die.

  250. 250.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: 7, but when Congress did the waiver legislation in 1950 they stated in it that it was the “sense of the Congress that such a waiver should never be granted again”.

  252. 252.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lizzy L: He’s not a bad choice all in all. Not sure having a recently retired general officer/flag officer as the SecDef though.

  254. 254.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Actual quote:

    It became clear to me at age 58, I would have to learn new tricks that were not taught in the military manuals or on the battlefield.

    The missing word changes the meaning substantially.

    The rest:

    In this position I am a political soldier and will have to put my training in rapping out orders and making snap decisions on the back burner, and have to learn the new arts of persuasion and guile. I must become an expert in a whole new set of skills.

    Source.

  258. 258.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: He was pegged out in terms of billets. The USMC, because it is the smallest of the services, doesn’t have a lot of four star billets. Once he was replaced a bit early as the CENTCOM Commander, there wasn’t a four star billet for him as a landing pad. He did clash with President Obama as the CENTCOM Commander and the Obama Administration should have and could have done a better job letting him know he was being replaced with GEN Austin. But this is a personalities matter, relationships matter issue. He has a very forthright, very powerful personality. And he will push till something gives. His strategic vision for what needed to be done within his Area of Responsibility was more expansive than President Obama’s. And he argued his vision vigorously, which is what you want. But, and its an important but, the relationship between the CENTCOM Commander and the President is the hardest relationship within the US military. The CENTCOM Commander is the one geographic combatant commander (GCC) that is on the phone with the President every day telling him about all the screwed up stuff in the most active area of responsibility on the globe. So if the personalities already don’t mesh well, this reality will destroy the relationship.

  259. 259.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: No, the one in 1950. They had to pass legislation to waive the law for Marshall. In that legislation they wrote that it was a one time only thing and should not be done again. It can’t really bind a future Congress – all they have to do is pass similar legislation waiving the law or, even worse, just repealing it.

  261. 261.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steeplejack (tablet): I copied and pasted it from a field manual, because I couldn’t find the full quote anywhere and don’t have it memorized. I know what the full quote is. I sat underneath it every day for four years.

    Also, the co-author of that article, Gregg F. Martin, would eventually be my Commandant and Commanding General – I was his Cultural Advisor.

  262. 262.

    J R in WV

    Well, I’ve read all the comments now, up to 231, and I have to say it was depressing.

    Perhaps I should look up on a liberal news site the Drumpf’s Nazi rally in Cincinnatti tonight? My doctor told me to cut back on my alcohol intake, what timing!!!

  263. 263.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steeplejack (tablet): @Omnes Omnibus: The other thing that is important to know is that a determination was made at the US Army’s Military History Institute at US Army Heritage Education Center at US Army War College that the quote cannot be validated. That there are multiple original versions – all similar, but not identical, attributed to multiple primary sources, and to different periods of Marshall’s career – he said it when promoted to Chief of Staff of the Army or SecDef or SecState – that the quote cannot be substantiated and is no longer to be attributed to Marshall. As a result we took the quote down in all the classrooms at USAWC during my last year there.

  264. 264.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @J R in WV: What would you have liked to have posted here about it? IOW, how did this free site fail you? Would a faux naif talking about his family’s wealth make you happier?

  266. 266.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: I never briefed him directly when I provided support to CENTCOM. It was always through the Command Sergeant Major at the time (who I knew)- basically I provided strategic level cultural operations reports from my office at Carlisle and when I was in the area visiting family I went in for a meeting with the CSM. So I do not know, specifically, what Gen. Mattis was proposing that the President didn’t agree with. I just know that it was more aggressive than the approach the President wanted to, and has, taken.

    So I’m not sure this is an issue of being right where others were wrong. Its just that the President wanted someone else as CENTCOM Commander and there was no place left for him to go but to retire.

  267. 267.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: I think its a great quote. And it certainly seems like something Marshall would say based on what I’ve read about him. It could be truth, it could be truthy. But it does capture an essential important reality regardless of whether it is truth or truthy.

  269. 269.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I gather there is some unstated agreement to keep politics down here…

    Zeke Miller @ ZekeJMiller
    .@ KellyannePolls moments ago on the @ splcenter “They are an anti-Trump group”

    Matt FordVerified account
    ‏@ fordm
    The SPLC cut its teeth bankrupting Klan chapters, who firebombed their HQ in retaliation. Viewing them as the enemy is…something.

    founded in 1971 to be mean to Trump in 2016. This reminds me of the Iraq War years when Republicans would insist that some flare up of Shi’a/Shi’ite violence was only meant to embarrass George W Bush

  270. 270.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    You disseminated an erroneous version of Marshall’s quote that, though the omission seems slight, is pretty much the opposite of his original meaning. That should give you pause, especially if it is wrong in the field manual you copied it from.

    The point is not whether you know what the full quote is. It’s that you have, however accidentally, misinformed the lay readership here.

  272. 272.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steeplejack (tablet): Its been determined that its not even an actual quote. And that was because there are multiple versions being quoted with different primary source citations in multiple sources. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the one from the field manual is not the same one from my former boss’s article when he was a colonel versus two different versions I just found in two different books versus a third different version I just found in a USAWC strategic research project from Academic Year 2010 with a quick keyword search. But for penance, I’ll ban myself. Would that make you happy and hole?

  273. 273.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    It’s not merely a question of “there are multiple versions being quoted” when one of the versions has the opposite meaning of the other(s). I don’t see why that is so hard to grasp.

  278. 278.

    prob50

    @chopper:

    i’m the queen of canada!

    Queen of Canada is Trumped by the Top Bannona of Breitbart, not to mention all the assorted Minions, Mnuchkins, Jesters, Jokers, Trumpetts, and STRumpetts who dwell in the Nether-factual Twittle-Mirth dominion of Donald-“I won by a LANDSLDIDEPreznitt elect.

    He’s likely gonna appoint the Red Queen as Sekritary of Truthiness, and the Mad Hatter will be soon be anointed as the sole determiner of all Ethics and Cornflakes of Interest.

    Rudy G. will be the Drainmeister of Swamps and Keeper of Order, and Chief Persecutor of Liars, and will be charged with meting out punishments in accord with the Red Queen’s Irrevocable Indictments. Previous Fed-Heads are expected to be rolling like bowling balls on a Free Beer Night in Wisconsin.

  279. 279.

    prob50

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I thought there was a five year waiting period before a retired flag officer could be appointed to a top Defense position.

    But wait, isn’t 48 months 5 years now? I believe this is clearly stated in Trump’s latest Twitter Decree.

    From this point forward all U.S. Laws, Monetary and Foreign Policy will be handled in this manner, as well as all DoJ actions and rulings.

  280. 280.

    grumpy realist

    @Matt McIrvin: The story I heard was that it was the meltdown of a nuclear waste dump in the Urals that made the Soviet establishment exempt the physicists from the doctrine of Revealed Truth.

    I still have a physics book from around that time. It’s pretty funny to read. The author wrote a clear, straightforward physics text (quite good) and then randomly shoved in sentences like “This shows the elegance of the electron model, so wonderfully revealed in the writings of Lenin and Marx.” I suppose to get the thing past the censors.

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