Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

The willow is too close to the house.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

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

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Bark louder, little dog.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

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

This really is a full service blog.

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

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

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

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Let’s finish the job.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Open Thread: No Bread for the Mobs, But Plenty of Circus

Open Thread: No Bread for the Mobs, But Plenty of Circus

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All together now: YOU DID THIS, REPUBLICANS!

Look at it this way: The B-roll when President-Asterisk is informed of the latest successful terrorist act on American soil will be much more eyeball-grabbing than that crappy ‘My Pet Goat’ footage…

Reader Interactions

233Comments

  5. 5.

    Kryptik

    How quickly we’ve found lickspittles among those who vowed to keep Trump in check.

    And they’ll just go on acting like this is all normal while insisting we deal with it or we’re not really Americans (if we were ever considered Americans anyway)

    There really is no fucking hope, is there?

  6. 6.

    Baud

    All together now: YOU DID THIS, REPUBLICANS!

    I met some lefty types today who were still taking about emails. I is depressed.

  8. 8.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’ve already decided what I’m doing on Friday, January 20th. Early in the morning I’m getting my hair cut/styled. Then I’m having my picture taken. Then (right around 12:00 noon, as close as I can make it) I’m taking the photos to the Post Office and applying to renew my passport, which is due to expire in March. I can’t think of a better way to observe the Trump Inaugural than to take steps to enable me to leave the country whenever I feel the need.

  11. 11.

    Schlemazel

    I am reminded of the 4 years Minnesota had Jesse ‘the Boobie’ Ventura as Governor. There are a lot of similarities with Trump, huge ego, self-promoter, sociopath, 2-bit fraud. He spent his 4 years taking care of himself. Got himself some special tax breaks, got his kid into the movie business, kept his side-gigs going (including announcing the XFL games) and generally ignoring the people who voted him into office.

    The only good thing to come out of his maladministration was he was so unpopular he had to move to Mexico to hide (where he lives today) and he destroyed the Independent Party of Minnesota. I sort of hope Trump gets those last 2 for himself & the GOP

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Coming shortly on NYT briefing, Trump said Burnett proposed shaking up the inaugural, perhaps w a helicopter leaving from NYC, per attendee

    @realDonaldTrump to remain Executive Producer on #CelebrityApprentice (EXCLUSIVE)

    Remember when Obama put his feet on the desk and the ghost of Ronald Reagan wept for persdinential dignitude?

  14. 14.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kryptik: The ongoing self dealing and conflicts of interests are because he’s over leveraged. He can’t divest or sell anything because he’s underwater on everything and reliant on cash flow. And because it would show just how much debt he’s in and to who. So he’s got to keep selling and selling and selling. Otherwise it’ll all come crashing down around him and there would be a very, very public bankruptcy.

  15. 15.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Schlemazel: I called my brother in Brainerd the day after that election. My SIL answered the phone, and I could hear my brother in the background shouting, “Tell her I don’t want to talk about Jesse Ventura!”

  19. 19.

    opiejeanne

    Kurt Eichenwald is have a righteous hissy-fit meltdown because of Trump still producing The Apprentice. He is really ranting over on Twitter.

  20. 20.

    hovercraft

    eyeball-grabbing than that crappy ‘My Pet Goat’ footage…

    Well Obumer did roast the shitgibbon while SEAL team 6 was going after Osama bin Laden, so SUCK IT libs, time for a professional entertainer to take it to the next level.

  24. 24.

    Schlemazel

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    He promised tuition relief and of course he went the opposite way once elected. Demonstrators showed up & he went out to meet them. Since the situation was not ‘rasllin’ bullshit & he was not in control they handed him his ass. He never met with opponents again. The guy was a steroid infused pussy/

  26. 26.

    opiejeanne

    @SiubhanDuinne: My passport expires in January so I just sent off the renewal paperwork on Tuesday. The guy at Pony Express took my picture and sold us the mailer. If I’d taken along the filled out paperwork and my checkbook I could have just done it right then, but I did put it in the mail later in the day.

  28. 28.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    Looks like my mother is going to go out 85 years to the day from when she came in. On the bright side, she won’t have to live in an America with Donald Trump as the president. Also, she’s been too out of it for the last year and a half to even know that he got elected, much less that he was running. She always thought he was a classless creep. We lived outside Philadelphia when I was growing up, and this was when Trump was building gambling halls in Atlantic City, which is near enough to Philadelphia that anything that happens there is more or less local news. So those of us from near Philadelphia heard more about him than anybody, I’d guess, but people from New York. She always said, “If you want to know what to do, look at what Donald Trump does, and do the opposite.” Not bad advice, all in all.

  29. 29.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Iowa Old Lady: “Tell her I don’t want to talk about Jesse Ventura!”
    Is your brother a political advisor to John McCain?

    But as it happens, McCain’s discomfort is ongoing. Last week, the Republican senator grew quite agitated with reporters who dared to ask him about his party’s new leader. “I’m not talking about President-elect Trump,” McCain declared. “I will not talk about Donald Trump…. Do not ask me again about Donald Trump.”

    “Universally admired… in some quarters” -Andrea Mitchell

  37. 37.

    gene108

    I was thinking about how people said use the Moral Mondays as a blue print to work on Congressional Republicans and Trump.

    It could work, if a large enough group kept holding rallies on the terrible things they are proposing. But it would have to be organized by professionals and stay issue focused.

  41. 41.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @opiejeanne: Kurt Eichenwald ‏@kurteichenwald 2h2 hours ago
    Get ready: @MGM_Studios and @NBC will soon be indicted 4 bribing president of the united states. We have the quid.

    Just need the pro quo.
    My Latin’s rusty, or non existent, is it ‘pro’ or ‘quo’ we translate to Mika! and Joe?

  42. 42.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @opiejeanne:

    I think the message is, everybody should have a valid and up-to-date passport. Seriously, folks, if yours has expired (or is near expiration) or if you don’t have a pp, take steps immediately to get current.

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Kurt Eichenwald ‏@kurteichenwald 2h2 hours ago
    If USA & GOP going 2 saved from this @realDonaldTrump insanity, @Schwarzenegger must resign from Celebrity Apprentice so it can be canceled.

    I bet Maria Shriver has a few goods on him still, and could make it happen

  52. 52.

    Manyakitty

    @debbie: Well, he WAS only a democrat, and therefore worthless.

    I know he had a good long life, etc., but Glenn’s death is hitting me hard.

  54. 54.

    JGabriel

    “[Trump’s Inaugural Team is] willing to pay anything,” one of the insiders told TheWrap. “They told me, ‘We’ll pay their fees.’ Most of these artists’ fees are in the six to seven figures.”

    One suspects that one reason Trump’s team is having problems finding someone may be Trump’s reputation for not paying the talent: USA Freedom Girls Sue Trump Campaign for Stiffing Them

    (You really don’t want to see the words Trump, girls, and stiffing them in the same sentence.)

  57. 57.

    Gin & Tonic

    @opiejeanne: Years back I called a large post office reasonably nearby that processes passport applications. They said yes, they had applications in stock. I asked if they could mail me one, and they said no. I said “but you’re the Post Office.” Sorry, no. I never understood that.

    I now take care of it at my town clerk’s office, where everybody knows me, and they smile and say “hello” like they mean it.

  61. 61.

    Shana

    @SiubhanDuinne: Sounds like a good plan. I’ll be out of the country vacationing with Hubby in Jamaica. He’s come to the realization that he can’t go a full year without a vacation so we’re going to a beach this time and will decide later what to do in the summer. Older daughter (who was sworn in to the VA Bar yesterday, yeah!) will be among the protestors that weekend, as will a cousin from NY state. We’re sorry to miss them but applaud their actions from a distance.

  68. 68.

    Old Dan and Little Anne

    My wife took in Congess today. She saw Paul Ryan. Sadly she did not flick him off. She also saw some republican wish everyone a merry Christmas and he looked forward to the next congress helping make America great again. Fuck off. And if anyone travels 390 I saw a big black truck on the west side sporting a long pole in the back flying a USA flag on top and a same sized blue flag underneath reading nothing but Trump. Horrifying.

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    Now my Trump-voting cousin is posting self-pitying statuses on Facebook about how all of her friends and family are so mmmmeeeeaaaannnn and just can’t accept her for who she is.

    Yeah, funny how when you show the world you’re a self-centered jerk, people start treating you like you’re a self-centered jerk. Who’d’a thunk it?

  70. 70.

    Hal

    So Chris Hayes is having a Town Hall in Wisconsin with Bernie Sanders on Monday with Trump voters in guess to see where it all went wrong. Um, why? Sanders wasn’t the candidate. But once again butt hurt white voters must be catered to all the while they are getting ready to get fucked over by Trump. Will Sanders and Hayes talk about that reality at all?

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I’m going to Disneyland!

    No, seriously, we had planned it for that weekend even before the election. But it is a relief that I will be in a fantasy world that whole weekend and away from the Trump disaster.

  77. 77.

    Batten Down the Hatches

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Very sorry to hear about your mother. She demonstrates excellent taste with her dislike of DT.

    Wanted to also say: your comments the other night were so goddamn encouraging that I actually bookmarked the thread so I could go back and read them again. The doom surrounding me is exhausting and — while I worry that it’s accurate — it also deadens my urge to fight and do something positive. I really appreciated your positive words.

  78. 78.

    hovercraft

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    I’m not sure I believe he sold his stock in June, but if he did, I wondered if he needed the cash.

    That was right around the time he was forced to switch his loans to his campaign into donations. Could it be that he had borrowed that money, assuming he would get it back, but then was shamed into donating it. He probably had to liquidate his stocks to pay back those loans.

    ETA: See what happens when you reply before you read the thread, Adam beat me to it ages ago. Sorry :-(

  79. 79.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    Disneyland or Disney World? For some reason, I thought you were having to go to Florida to be win your nieces, but maybe I’m mixing up two different Mnem trips in my mind. In any case, have fun. It’s surely a better option than sitting in front of the nonstop fatuous TV coverage.

  82. 82.

    Mnemosyne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I’m doing both — Disneyland is local, and I get a very nice discount from the Giant Evil Corporation. I’m doing WDW in the spring, pending final consent from the Devil Woman.

    I get better discounts at DL than at WDW for some reason, probably location.

  83. 83.

    danielx

    Actually I’m sorta relieved that they’re just looking for talent, as opposed to looking for talent plus promising to throw Noam Chomsky into a pit with lions or something.

  86. 86.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Shana:

    Congrats to your daughter. That’s a great accomplishment!

    I think you and your husband are very wise. Inaugurations almost always get huge viewership numbers, but I really wonder this time if an awful lot of people aren’t just going to give it a pass.

    I have several Atlanta-area friends who are doing the January 21 March on Washington, and keep pressing me to join them, but it really isn’t my style or, IMO, the best use of my time, talents (such as they are), and limited resources. I guess I can still make up my mind in the next couple of weeks.

  88. 88.

    RaflW

    To just be blatantly offering presidential appointments in exchange for getting an A-list to perform. First of all, hilariously terrible. Second, I’d expect that to be illegal/ripe for ethics investigation. But those will all be cancelled on Jan 21, I suppose, and new ones opened on folks like steelworkers and journalists.

  90. 90.

    hovercraft

    @Mnemosyne:

    Now my Trump-voting cousin is posting self-pitying statuses on Facebook about how all of her friends and family are so mmmmeeeeaaaannnn and just can’t accept her for who she is.

    She doesn’t happen to live in Chicago and shop at Michael’s does she?

  91. 91.

    FlyingToaster

    @SiubhanDuinne: I did the math, and I simply can’t make it down to DC that day — plus for some reason nobody runs early morning flights BOS-DCA on Saturdays. Fortunately, there’s a simultaneous march in Boston, so HerrDoktor will take WG to music that am while I T downtown.

  92. 92.

    MoxieM

    @hal…it’s not like they could have a ::girl:: in their club or something, right? Even a girl who won the primary, and won the popular vote by (what’s the count?) nearly 3 mil votes? She’s a g-i-r-l.

    Everybody knows girls have cooties.

  93. 93.

    Shana

    @SiubhanDuinne: Thanks. We’ll raise a toast to all the BJers when we have dinner together tomorrow night, I think I need to offer mu house, even if we won’t be here, to other folks who neeed a place to sleep.

  96. 96.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @JGabriel: I don’t think it’s the stiffing the Freedom Girls. I think it’s because they don’t want to be attached to Trump. Seth McFarlane had a piece explaining why so many entertainers are anti-Trump is because he’s like the sleazy people that they deal with all the time -agents,hanger onners etc. Anyhow,i am surprised that they can’t come up with people. Ted Nugent,Kidrock,Kei$ha and all the country people – Alabama,OakRidge Boys, Loretta Lynn,Gatlin Bros,Reba etc.

  97. 97.

    tobie

    @Lizzy L: Bought my train ticket to DC for the 21st almost as soon as it was announced. Amtrak/NE Corridor was all but sold out. The one thing that’s worrisome is that the National Park Services has yet to give a permit for the march. They claim that others have booked the Lincoln Memorial for that day, which may well be the case. More disturbing is that they refused permit applications for Jan 20. I was at the anti-inauguration march in 2004. A permit was issued then so I don’t know why one can’t be issued now.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    @realDonaldTrump to remain Executive Producer on #CelebrityApprentice (EXCLUSIVE)

    No one will stop him. It’s a banana republic. The thing to do is hang onto your dignity and cling to what you know to be true, so ignore everything they say :)

    The thing that kills me is how easy it was for him. The defenses were so weak! Did you know that? I sure didn’t. Our “institutions” are made of cotton candy. It’s like grifters and liars and fools with the occasional rare bright spot of a normal person and that’s not even the unwashed masses. Those are the “elites”!

    It’s very sobering, I must say. One of my sisters said “you realize it really is up to us” and I know exactly what she means. The cavalry isn’t coming. They’re all on The Trump Train.

  101. 101.

    Mnemosyne

    @hovercraft:

    No, but here’s your small world moment: I’m Facebook friends with a friend of my brother in law’s, and that’s her neighborhood Michaels. She said it wasn’t the first time that crazy lady had made a disturbance, even pre-Trump.

  102. 102.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I am vaguely interested in the latest Star Wars series because they brought back part of the original cast, and if I understand the commercial I saw, Darth Vader, but I have no idea what this is about

    Andrew idell @AndrewIdell
    So far since they won, the “we don’t need safe spaces” party has boycotted a play, a cereal brand and a movie for being mean. #DumpStarWars

    @Mai.naem.mobile: Reba McEntire is the ingenue in that crowd. IIRC the Oak Ridge Boys were rather venerable when Poppy Bush was pretending to like them.

  103. 103.

    hovercraft

    @Mai.naem.mobile:
    I think the vast majority of Country music stars are republicans, and they wouldn’t face a backlash from their fans. They would probably be happy to perform. The shitgibbon is very insecure, it is very resentful of the fact that he is generally shunned by NY Society, and for entertainment and hollywood A-listers to still shun it after it won the presidency, when they fawned over Obama and Clinton, must really stick in it’s craw.

  104. 104.

    Lizzy L

    @tobie: From NY Magazine:

    The NPS, on behalf of the Presidential Inauguration Committee, filed a “massive omnibus blocking permit” to block off much of the National Mall, Pennsylvania Avenue, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial for the inauguration. The permit secures these public spots for “days and weeks before and after” the January 20 event, which means the locations won’t be available for protests.

    Shortly after the election, women across the country came together to organize a Women’s March on Washington for January 21. The march was set to be held at the Lincoln Memorial, and 136,000 women have already RSVP’d on Facebook. However, given the NPS’s decision to block access to the famous spot, the rally will have to find a different home. Cassady Fendlay, a spokesperson for the women’s march, told The Guardian that the group is in conversations with the police, and that they have secured another location nearby.

  105. 105.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I know you will understand what I mean when I say that my cousin and her husband seem to be average Waukesha residents. I had to unfriend him after the election, and even before that, I had to block his reposts from fuckin’ Breitbart six times a day.

  106. 106.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Kay: The system has always been dependent on the players following certain norms. The GOP began to abandon those norms around 1994. This year marks the “Badges, we don’t need no stinking badges” point.

  107. 107.

    Betty Cracker

    @tobie: Read somewhere the other day that Trump organizations are squatting on all the permits in DC for 1/20 and 1/21. IIRC, some of the anti-Trump groups are suing, and the Park Service is trying to sort it out. My daughter and I and a group of friends may go.

  110. 110.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    William S. Gilbert once (supposedly) told Arthur Sullivan “I know two songs. One of them is God Save the Queen, and the other isn’t.”

  117. 117.

    Kay

    Maggie Haberman ‏@maggieNYT 10h10 hours ago
    Ivanka Trump plans to make women’s issues her primary focus in likely DC move, with pay equity chief among them

    Can someone explain to me why treat this person like a Senator? WTF? Ivanka Trump makes an announcement a day on her policy preferences and they cover it like she was actually elected to something.

    This is ONE DAY after they got played on her bullshit about climate change, which just happened to coincide with Trump naming an anti-environment EPA head. This has to be some kind of weird “access” thing, right?

    The Clinton hatred at the NYTimes was bizarre and the odd chumminess with the Trump Family is weird. Aren’t there female Senators they could quote on pay equity? Someone who knows something and was elected and has a job?

  123. 123.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: The only explanation I can come up with is that she’s attractive. Even some liberals — who should know better — seem to labor under the delusion that Ivanka isn’t a vile grifter like her asshole father and heinous brothers. Straight dudes all.

  124. 124.

    Origuy

    @Kay:

    Can someone explain to me why treat this person like a Senator?

    Because Little Gloves doesn’t have a horse he could make a cabinet member?

  125. 125.

    tobie

    @Kay:

    This is ONE DAY after they got played on her bullshit about climate change, which just happened to coincide with Trump naming an anti-environment EPA head. This has to be some kind of weird “access” thing, right?

    I’ve no idea what’s going on at the NYT these days…but the Haberman tweet is doubly annoying given whom Trump is nominating for Labor Secretary–a fast-food CEO who’s talked about the joys of seeing women eat burgers in bikinis. That in a nutshell is what the Trump administration has to say about women in the workplace.

  127. 127.

    Kay

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    She is! But that may be a non-starter. Hillary Clinton was a NY Senator :)

    I should stop reading the news:

    Ronald KlainVerified account
    ‏@RonaldKlain
    Donald Trump gave his Foundation’s largest donor a CABINET spot yesterday. Did you see blaring headlines? Imagine if HRC had done that??

    You have to laugh or you would cry. I mean come on. Not even an ATTEMPT at fairness. He could shoot someone on 5th avenue and nothing would happen. It’s the only true statement he ever made.

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    Dunno if it’s been mentioned here today, but Joe Manchin is threatening to force a (brief) government shutdown if the coal mining health benefits aren’t fully funded in the CR:

    Senate Democrats are threatening a short-lived government shutdown this weekend, indicating Thursday night they would not go along with a stopgap measure that would keep agencies open past Friday.

    The House on Thursday easily approved the continuing resolution to fund government through April 28, but several senators, led by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., objected to the short-term nature of the extension of health care benefits for 16,000 coal miners. The CR would provide the benefits through the duration of the funding bill, but Manchin and his Democratic allies have insisted on a longer-term solution.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., filed cloture on the spending bill on Thursday. Per Senate rules, the earliest the chamber can cast the first of two votes on the bill would be around 1 a.m. Saturday morning, one hour after current appropriations expire. Final passage would then occur on Sunday.

    Moving up the schedule to vote on Friday and avoid a brief shutdown would require unanimous consent from all senators, but several Democrats held a press conference Thursday evening to say they had no intention of backing down. Manchin claimed his strategy would not require a funding lapse.

    […]

    More at the link.

    The CR – HR 2028 – is here (70 page .pdf)

    It’s good that the Democrats are trying to throw some sand in the gears, but I’m disconcerted that waving away the 7 year rule for Secretary of Defense(, among other things,) is getting so little attention. There are good reasons to have that rule in place, and attaching a waiver to a budget bill makes no sense.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who notes that the word “budget” doesn’t appear on either the NYTimes or WaPo front pages at the moment.)

  132. 132.

    Hal

    @hovercraft:

    She doesn’t happen to live in Chicago and shop at Michael’s does she?

    Or works in a hospital in upstate New York and just wants everyone to give Trump a chance? I’ve seen several of these posts on facebook. The most hostile, angry, mean-spirited candidate in modern history wins the election and suddenly every one of his supporters wants to sing kumbaya. Screw these people.

  133. 133.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @Omnes Omnibus: oops, I was wrong. It was Azalea Banks. I don’t follow rap music at all. I just remembered it being a black female rapper.
    @gogol’s wife: Reba was one of the ones who criticized the Dixie Chicks.i might be wrong about this but I think she performed at one of Dubbyas RNC conventions. There was also Kix and Brooks who were at Dubbyas RNC convention.

  134. 134.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Kay:

    It’s the only true statement he ever made.

    Eh, he also said that he would date his daughter if he could.

  136. 136.

    Mnemosyne

    Huh. A post of mine just got eated by FYWP. I don’t think it had a banned word in it. Is there a FPer around who can check the trash? It’s about the artist Mary Engelbreit.

  138. 138.

    Kay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    This is what he talks about at his “thank you” rallies:

    Trump named TIME’s “Person of the Year,” promptly criticizes them for not calling it “Man of the Year”

    Himself. How great he is. Cable covers them wall to wall. Can we make some kind of United Nations appeal, petition, something, for being subjected to propaganda? They’re going to play Trump campaign rallies for the next 4 years?

  141. 141.

    tobie

    @Mary G: Obama is still President. He could put some pressure on the National Park Service. God knows why a march the day AFTER the inauguration has to be blocked off because of safety concerns at the inauguration. Maybe he could take a stand for the first amendment. This is not about him. It’s about what were once considered inalienable rights. I really don’t understand his comportment of late. Insights anyone?

  142. 142.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mai.naem.mobile: First of all, Ke$ha is white. Reba is very pro-gay rights. You may want to revisit your list. Some, I know, are right, but others might warrant a look. Let’s not slag people who are on our side.

  144. 144.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @tobie: If Trumpies filed requests first they get them. Nothing Obama can do. Stop attributing powers to the president that he does not have.

  146. 146.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That fuckin’ guy. Him and Lindsay Graham. What the fuck is wrong with these guys? They’re rich as fuck, they’re old, they don’t need to run for re-election. They’re set for life.

    Why can’t they stand up on their hind legs and say “For the good of the country I have served my whole life, I will vote my conscience and work to temper the worst excesses of the Trump administration.”

    McCain loves being the straight-talking Washington maverick and the press would canonize him. And yet…totally fucking gutless, both of them.

  147. 147.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Major Major Major Major: As I noted above, Ke$ha performed at late night Gabby Giffords things during the DNC. She also has a lawsuit going against her former manager for drugging and raping her and forcing her into a particular style.

  148. 148.

    Kay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Ewww. What a horrible parade. Ivanka and Jared and Donald pretending his far Right government composed almost entirely of elderly wealthy people is somehow new and exciting.

    Wealthy people didn’t have enough influence in DC, right? Donald Trump gave them all jobs.

  153. 153.

    Another Scott

    @Mai.naem.mobile: Shelley Moore Capito, maybe? Agreed, if WV polls want to play the coal card 24/7 before elections, then they should own it all the time.

    Google tells me that Lisa Caputo was Hillary’s press secretary for a while. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  154. 154.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’m pretty skeptical of the value of protests. There were, IIRC, big protests during Bush’s inauguration. He still got John Ashcroft and his tax cuts, and that was before 9/11. It wasn’t Tea Bagger protests and marches that slowed down the Obama agenda, it was votes in Congress, and votes in mid-terms.

  158. 158.

    Inmourning

    Smedley, mourn in your own time. If you are now the only grownup in your family, then it is up to you now.

  159. 159.

    Another Scott

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: There were huge, worldwide, protests before the Iraq invasion as well, and that didn’t prevent the war.

    That doesn’t mean that people should not get out and protest if they want their voices heard, though. First Amendment and all that.

    It won’t do anything by itself, but it’s often an important first step.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  164. 164.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mary G:

    When I wear my hair long and slicked back it’s hard to tell what color it is, but when I cut it short and loose it reverts to its natural grey-silver-beige tweed. Haven’t spent any time with Miss Clairol since the early 1970s.

  169. 169.

    J R in WV

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Honey, I would do that tomorrow… if it were me. I’ve got tix to Italy in May, so if it really looks that bad we can request admission to the EU as political refugees.

  171. 171.

    Mnemosyne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I probably have more gray than you do, and I haven’t reached 50 yet. It’s a family thing — like my mom’s whole side of the family, I started going gray in my mid-30s and will probably be close to 100 percent gray before I’m 50.

    At least it’s coming in as a nice silver and not that washed-out dishwater gray that a lot of people get stuck with. But I’m still going to color my hair until I reach 50, at a minimum.

  172. 172.

    Botsplainer

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Protests without actual violence against the ridiculous things white people treasure no longer accomplish shit. The gains of the past made via passive resistance were brittle, and didn’t endure the decades of assault from the right.

    Conservatives are like the Hun of a century ago – at your throat or at your heel, so you’d better keep that heel grinding into conservatisms neck.

    Love the idea of a Weathermen kickstarter…

  173. 173.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Omnes Omnibus: I have not gotten complaints.

    My point is that a cherry stem is not particularly flexible. I’m willing to bet actual money, genuine coin of the realm, that you would fail at tying a knot in one, nine times out of ten, when it was on the table in front of you and you were using your fingers.

  177. 177.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Another Scott: That doesn’t mean that people should not get out and protest if they want their voices heard, though. First Amendment and all that.
    It won’t do anything by itself, but it’s often an important first step.

    I’m not against protests, or rallies, or marches, and if it’s a first step instead of an only step, hallelujah. I suspect Tea Baggers rallies had a higher percentage of regular voters than the anti-Bush or anti-war marches. Fond as I am of capering Giant Puppets…

  180. 180.

    trollhattan

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Without getting all sciency one works it first with the incisors to make it flexible. Any metaphors harmed in this description are hereby apologized to.

  181. 181.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Botsplainer:

    Protests without actual violence against the ridiculous things white people treasure no longer accomplish shit.

    Which are they coming after first–my golf course or squash court?

  182. 182.

    hovercraft

    @Mnemosyne:

    It’s a family thing — like my mom’s whole side of the family, I started going gray in my mid-30s and will probably be close to 100 percent gray before I’m 50.

    My younger sister started as a teen, and my 14 yr old has a pretty good amount of gray already, it seems to only affect the women in the family. It’s selective though, not all of us are afflicted.

  183. 183.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    also, too, Good Lord, Miss Agnes–

    Betty Cracker ‏@ bettycrackerfl 28m28 minutes ago
    Betty Cracker Retweeted Fox News
    Does this blithering loon even realize The Onion is satire?
    [email protected] SheriffClarke: “The only people who believe The Onion are liberals, because liberals don’t critically think.” #Hannity

    I don’t think he does, Betty, I don’t think he does.

  184. 184.

    Gin & Tonic

    So there is, naturally, a YouTube video with instructions. But removing the stem from the cherry is cheating.

  185. 185.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Botsplainer: Do you own guns? Are you willing to use them in political violence? Would you prefer explosives? Blow up a right-wing bar or two? What do you suggest? We are both lawyers, but I have a previous, albeit short, career in the management of violence.

  190. 190.

    Aleta

    All together now: YOU DID THIS, REPUBLICANS!

    After they break the planet, they’ll still be explaining to us why Hillary deserved to lose.

  193. 193.

    Aleta

    @SiubhanDuinne: I want to march, but am also afraid there will be abusive perhaps still drunk celebrants on the streets from the day before. Maybe I’m over-anxious though.

  194. 194.

    Botsplainer

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Keep your cards held close. Hopefully, my predictions are feverish idiocy.

    As Kay said, though, the institutions are collapsing rapidly, and he’s not even coronated yet. One of the key things about nonviolence is that some working norms need to be maintained for it to provide relief through plucking at conscience. In the collapse of institutional norms, the ability to demand relief through peaceful protest goes away.

    So what happens then?

  200. 200.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @Another Scott: lol I feel like an idiot. The stupid part was I wasn’t sure about the name(I thought I was missing her married last name) but couldn’t be bothered to look it up.

  201. 201.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Botsplainer: Can you shoot someone? I thought long and hard about that before I joined the army. I think that I can in certain circs. Can you? If so when? I am not calling you out, but I don’t want to see people on our side promise more than they can do. Killing someone is a big thing. One can be a resistant without shooting at anyone. Can we focus on that for now?

  203. 203.

    J R in WV

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

    Like everyone else, I offer my condolences.

    My mom died back in 1997, so 20 years ago next fall. She and my Dad were both capitalist Rockefeller Republicans, but as she was bedfast with COPD (from Pall Malls) she told me “Don’t tell your Dad, but I’ve canceled his vote out the past elections. I couldn’t go with the Republicans and their anti-abortion nonsense!”

    She died a couple of weeks later in Dad’s arms. It was too early, her mom and older sister both lived into their 90s, but the Pall Malls (which were given away at the college football games, free, until you’re hooked! in the bad old days) choked her to death early.

    Sounds like you have already sorrowed enough, so take care!

  204. 204.

    opiejeanne

    @Botsplainer: I was trying to explain to my youngest last night that I would do some things but not other things, that I am not willing to risk prison or getting killed. She acted a bit affronted until I mentioned the death thing.
    She’s 34 on Saturday, doesn’t quite get how bad things might get and I sure as hell hope they don’t even get 10% of what I can imagine. Maybe I should have explained that I can do more good if I’m still healthy and not in prison, even if it’s all quiet, non-flashy stuff.

  208. 208.

    ruemara

    @tobie: Really? This is Obama’s fault/ How about this? You work your ass off for this country. You suffer the slings and arrows seriously deranged racists and our liberal condescending racists. You have to put up with your wife & kids being slimed at every opportunity. You have a party that stabs you in the back more than it has your back and the voters themselves are worse. They want to believe your every critic that tells them the presidency is a combination of tooth fairy and the giving tree. You actually fix things, give these corny ass muthafuckers who wouldn’t do half the work you did as an organizer much less as a president, some damned healthcare. You bring peace to Iran, open up to Cuba, kill Bin Laden and bring UE to 4.6%

    What’s your reward from this country? They vote in the white fucking supremacist candidate to tell you to go fuck yourself. Obama is doing what he must, with his consolation being a wonderful family and the knowledge that he was excellent. We’re a goddamned nightmare girlfriend who decided to schtup a disgusting bum and still want to blame the wonderful guy we just to piss of for not fulfilling our needs. If the permits were filed properly, this march would be fine. But demanding and chewing on Obama for not making sure the march gets its choice of venues? That’s ridiculous.

  209. 209.

    Another Scott

    @Another Scott: Smartypants says Team D still has a chance to stop Mattis at DoD:

    Led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the Democrats objected and promised to filibuster consideration of the waiver. In response, Republicans tried to insert the waiver into the must-pass spending bill that would keep the government running past Friday. But Democrats stood their ground. Don’t believe the headlines you see like the one in Politico that says, “Democrats wave the white flag on Mattis.” There is language in the spending bill that they’ve agreed to, but here’s what it does:

    The CR [continuing budget resolution] language unveiled Tuesday night would not grant the waiver, but rather establish an expedited process for considering it. Under the language, the Senate Armed Services Committee would have fives days to take up the waiver after it’s introduced, or else it goes straight to the Senate floor.

    Also, debate on the Senate floor would be limited to no more than 10 hours. But the waiver would still need 60 votes to pass the Senate.

    Notice that last bolded sentence. Democrats called Republicans’ bluff on shutting down the government and retained the ability to filibuster the waiver for General Mattis.

    Good. Make them own it. Don’t give an inch in helping them destroy our hard-won traditions and norms.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who really dislikes that it seems to take 1-2 days for the current version of legislation under consideration to show up on the public government servers…)

  210. 210.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @ruemara: tobie does not understand what Obama can and cannot do. We cannot work with people who do not remember School House Rock.

  212. 212.

    seaboogie

    @Mary G: Thank goodness I clicked on the link – for a moment I was thinking that women were doing a coif like Hair Furor.

    **shutters**/

  214. 214.

    Ruckus

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
    Sorry about your mom. Hope it goes as smoothly as possible.

    It hasn’t really hit me yet, and in a way, it feels like she’s been gone for two years already, so I don’t know what it’s going to be like when she does die.

    I’ve had this experience. If it goes for you like it did for me with dad, there will be sorrow and relief. Dad had Alzheimer’s. For 20 yrs. His last 10 yrs were all crap but the last 4-5 were a thousand times worse. When it was finally over that was the relief. Held him in my arms and it actually felt OK when he passed. He was finally at rest.
    I hope that you get to look back as I have and think of the good times and the stuff you learned.

  217. 217.

    John Weiss

    @Iowa Old Lady Geeze, I’d want to be paid in advance as well. That Trump guy has quite the record of not paying up when folks do work for ’em.

    I’ve had clients like that; I learned early on about ‘cash up front’. Only way to deal with the grift.

  218. 218.

    Bonnie

    Who da thought that we would get a president who makes George W. Bush look like summa cum laude graduate.

  219. 219.

    Mnemosyne

    Since Burnett is a Bible thumper, I would love to send him a postcard that just says “Matthew 25:43.” But he still wouldn’t get it.

    (For the reasonably Bible-familiar, it’s the parable of the sheep and the goats. Burnett is a goat who has deluded himself into thinking he’s a sheep.)

  220. 220.

    opiejeanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: I know, I saw that. I’m not into violence and I don’t like it being suggested in a cavalier manner. I was way too close to it during the Rodney King riots, and while I was angry with the verdict the violence was profoundly disturbing. I sat up 2 nights in a row watching it on tv and the first night was frightening because there was no way to know how far it would spread. My husband was working in the SF area, I was in downtown Riverside with three kids, two of them pretty young, and my dad called me up and asked if I wanted a gun. I told him I did not and he was 30 miles away anyway, so not very helpful, Dad. I figured I had a baseball bat and if that wasn’t enough I’d grab the kids and drive away, leave the house, hopefully rescuing the cats as well.
    It was eerily quiet that night. The whole town had closed down by 4pm including the Blockbuster and the grocery store, all the dance classes cancelled. Driving home I passed knots of people standing on corners outside of the cheap apartments, and I thought they were glaring at me.
    My son was a tall skinny college kid and his buddies showed up around 9, great big guys, and they went to the playroom and started a game. They stayed all night, playing that game; Traveller, I think. The two girls had gone to bed and were asleep by 9. At midnight I shut off the tv and went out front and just listened: there was no sound, no cars on the busy street two blocks away, no big trucks on the freeway, not even a barking dog.
    I think I slept at 6am for an hour before I took the girls to school then found out that we had had a couple of incidents but they were so minor they were laughable, like kids’ pranks. The next night was less tense, businesses still closed early but Riverside was fine; LA was still a mess and I noticed that there were people who were smashing things just because they could, not because they were angry about the verdict, but because they wanted a revolution. They were white. More than one of them talked to the camera and told us this just as they threw a trashcan through the window of a department store.

  221. 221.

    opiejeanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t remember Schoolhouse Rock, but I do remember 7th and 8th grade, the Constitution Test that was required in order to pass 8th grade, and the civics classes from HS plus I read a lot and have learned even more in the intervening years.
    Now if I could only remember half the stuff I’ve learned, because bits of it are going missing these days.

  222. 222.

    dr. luba

    @Major Major Major Major:

    But at least there’ll be parades!

    A parade up 5th Avenue? Do they want booing, hissing, and whatever else pissed-off New Yorkers will come up with? He’s not exactly loved in the Big Apple to begin with, and now they’re disrupting traffic permanently.

  225. 225.

    liberal

    @ruemara: he’s not perfect.

    He is, after all, the genius who picked Comey. Not to mention the one who was in charge of the Party while state organizations were dying on the vine.

  226. 226.

    liberal

    @Omnes Omnibus: one big problem with violence is that it’s hard to make the case that it would help.

    I feel the urge to commit violence myself. Then I tell myself that that’s the easy way out, and at least in the current situation what’s needed is elbow grease.

  228. 228.

    Victor Matheson

    @Schlemazel: Ventura did manage to keep the taxpayers from getting fleeced by billionaires owning professional sports teams and demanding new stadiums for 4 years. It took republicans like Norm Coleman and democrats like Mark Dayton to cave in to the sports extortion.

  229. 229.

    Procopius

    @Betty Cracker: She is very attractive, with a rather wholesome appearance, unlike her brothers who are so obviously slimy and untrustworthy. I think that’s part of it. The other part is they figure she drives clicks, which real elected people aren’t doing at this point in the fake news cycle.

  230. 230.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @liberal: Sanctimonious, I-know-how-he-should’ve-done-the-job purity troll is the best kind of purity troll.

    @liberal: you get right on that, Che.

  232. 232.

    opiejeanne

    @liberal: I’ve boycotted Carl’s jr for years. Our Anaheim house was a couple of blocks from Carl Karcher’s, and he is one of the monsters who gave us John G. Schmitz, a Republican so insane that he was too toxic even for Orange County, CA. One of his daughters is Mary Kay LeTourneau.

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