Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Usually wrong but never in doubt

We are aware of all internet traditions.

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

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

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

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Second rate reporter says what?

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

This really is a full service blog.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Infrastructure week. at last.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Evening Open Thread: Show of Hands

Monday Evening Open Thread: Show of Hands

by | 206 Comments

This post is in: ,

A generic silhouette of Holiday Cheer, made vulgar by the limitless imagination of American consumers. Because what use are mittens, without hands? [NSFW]

***********
Apart from appreciating the effort, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

206Comments

  10. 10.

    hovercraft

    The GOP has taken over the McDonald’s graphic shop now? I know they “won”, but really is this necessary?

  11. 11.

    jl

    We need an emergency blog fix so we can all post pics in the comments. Where is ‘Alain the blog fixer’ (that’s his handle, right?)

  13. 13.

    Mike in NC

    Here’s a story so absurd I need to share it with the world. Went to a hospital this morning for a routine procedure. Advised to put on a gown and lie down so the nurse could insert an IV in my hand. So I was left lying there staring at the ceiling for over an hour. Placed my free hand on my chest and noticed there was a pocket, and there was something in the pocket. I reached in and pulled out a folded piece of colored paper. Assumed it to be an empty candy wrapper or the like, but when I unfolded it damned if I wasn’t holding a crisp $100 bill. Cannot imagine how that got there.

  17. 17.

    bystander

    There was a billboard ad featuring Macauley Culkin sitting on Ted Danson’s lap all over the subway for some execrable movie. A few deft moves with a marker would have made them obscenely hilarious. Or hilariously obscene. Either way, there were even then cameras on the platforms, so I restrained myself.

  18. 18.

    PST

    @Mike in NC: This is going to sound so weird, but I left a hundred in a hospital gown by accident yesterday. We both should be angry that they aren’t laundered more often. Would you mind returning that?

  19. 19.

    trollhattan

    Holy shit, that’s funny. Graphics fail? Graphics triumph!

    Just learned the Friedman Unit (FU) has its own Wikipedia Page.Also, too, for the first time in six years (I think) we have a flood warning forecast in northern California. I blame Obama (while there’s still time).

  20. 20.

    J R in WV

    @Chris:

    Hell, yes, he kept it! How would they have found the source, who may have intended the bill as a gift to the next person to wear that gown.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    John Harwood Retweeted
    Lauren Victoria ‏@LVBurke 2h2 hours ago
    BREAKING: Trump set for deposition just weeks before inauguration in lawsuit tied to new D.C. hotel

    Oh, thank God. Americans get the first bit of information on the new President.

    Go lawyers! I’m pulling for you! :)

    We all have to sue him, one by one. That’s the only shot we have. You all must retain private counsel immediately.

  24. 24.

    jl

    @BGinCHI:

    ” Truth in Advertising, given the taste of their coffee (so I hear, since I would never drink it). ”

    Oh, damn, I missed your first comment. So, you are asking, where is the golden stream? I guess the customer didn’t have a yellow pen handy.

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    The LA Times Reader’s Rep is trying to deal with the shit storm arising from the publication of noxious letters suggesting that the internment of Japanese Americans was a good thing. Some extracts:

    The letters employed cultural stereotypes to suggest that the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was justified, and sought to minimize the hardships they endured.

    Davan Maharaj, editor-in-chief and publisher of The Times, said the letters did not meet the newspaper’s standards for “civil, fact-based discourse” and should not have been published….

    Outraged readers found the opinions offensive and insensitive.

    “Framing the forced internment of Japanese Americans as their ‘contribution to the war effort’ is, frankly, disgusting,” wrote Matthieu Boblet of Bothell, Wash. “Many lost their homes, livelihoods, ways of life and childhoods as they spent years locked away, forced to live in rickety shacks out in the desert due to knee-jerk reactionary xenophobia. Framing it as anything different is a disgrace and outright falsehood….”

    The Times’ Travel editor, Catharine Hamm, said she approved publication of the letters thinking that the writers’ views, although provocative, would be balanced by subsequent letters of response.

    Hamm said that, in retrospect, that was not the right decision, because the views expressed in the letters did not lend themselves to reasoned discussion.

    Maharaj made the same point in discussions with staff members disturbed by the letters, and in remarks to editors during The Times’ daily news meeting this morning.

    “Letters in The Times are the opinions of the writers, and editors strive to include a range of voices. But the goal is to present readers with civil, intelligent, fact-based opinions that enlarge their understanding of the world,” Maharaj said. “These letters did not meet that standard.”

    The Travel section plans to print letters of response in the Dec. 18 edition.

    And in related news, PEW research notes this stunner:

    Most Americans haven’t heard of the ‘alt-right’

    A majority (54%) of U.S. adults say they have heard “nothing at all” about the “alt-right” movement and another 28% have heard only “a little” about it, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Just 17% say they have heard “a lot” about the movement.

    I actually think that some people are lying or have their heads up their asses. There is this stark difference in attitudes:

    There are stark partisan differences in impressions of the alt-right movement. Democrats (47%) are nearly three times as likely as Republicans (17%) to say the movement stands for “white supremacy” or “white nationalism.” Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to associate the movement with “racism” or “prejudice” (18% of Democrats, 10% of Republicans). By contrast, Republicans (8%) are more likely than Democrats (less than 1%) to describe the alt-right more generically as a “conservative movement” and are more likely to decline to volunteer a response at all (39% vs. 21%).

  29. 29.

    mai naem mobile

    @Mike in NC: wow! Pretry cool. Hopefully good omen for whatever you were getting done. I’ve found a ten dollar bill and twenty dollar bill on the ground but never a hundred.

  30. 30.

    JanieM

    @Brachiator: The LA Times excerpt reminds me that I’ve been wondering: what did those letters, or that topic, have to do with the travel section in the first place?

  32. 32.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Notify Jake Tapper:

    WASHINGTON — The special congressional investigation into the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi is officially over now that the panel filed its final report the day before the House adjourned for the year.
    The Select Committee on Benghazi initially released its findings in June but remained in place for months afterward trying to declassify supporting documents like emails and interview transcripts for public release.
    The final report, not including dissenting views from committee Democrats, clocks in at more than 322,000 words. It was added to the official House record without fanfare on Dec. 7 by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the panel’s chairman.

    Weird how media and Republicans doggedly pursued that for exactly the period Hillary Clinton was running for President. Vital matters of national security have certainly taken a back seat now that the she-devil is gone!

  34. 34.

    Alain the site fixer

    @jl: no can do. We’d need to enact registration and that’s not in johns value set, nor many of the regular commenters.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @Kay:

    Will you represent me, Kay? We’d have to do it on a contingency basis, but I think I have a solid case. We’ll sue Trump bigly!

  36. 36.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    People really could sue him weekly. He has no intention of getting rid of those “businesses” (or whatever they are!)

    We can all fund lawsuits against the President. It’s the only way we’ll ever find anything out.

  39. 39.

    Eric S.

    The bartender showed me a photo of the cup, unaltered yesterday. Just about everyone saw it with the hands.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @Alain the site fixer:

    no can do. We’d need to enact registration and that’s not in johns value set, nor many of the regular commenters.

    You’re making the right call, both in denying the request and in explaining it to us in gibberish so that we don’t bitch about it.

  43. 43.

    jl

    @Alain the site fixer:

    ” no can do. We’d need to enact registration and that’s not in johns value set, nor many of the regular commenters. ”

    Thanks for your prompt response. I’m glad someone understands the responsibilities involved in running a full service blog.
    I only made the inquiry in the best Holiday Spirit.

    I had to drink some swilish McD’s coffee to get a cup to scrawl filthy things upon…. but, don’t worry.. it’s… OK. I guess.

    @Baud:
    No leadership from Baud, yet again!

  47. 47.

    Brachiator

    @JanieM:

    The LA Times excerpt reminds me that I’ve been wondering: what did those letters, or that topic, have to do with the travel section in the first place?

    Some asswipe readers wanted to rewrite history:

    So, a travel article dealt with the area where Japanese Americans had been imprisoned:

    The Nov. 27 article highlighted the Tule Lake and Manzanar relocation camps in California, where thousands of Japanese Americans were detained. Tule Lake was especially notorious, the only one of the 10 war relocation camps with a stockade and jail. Japanese Americans deemed disloyal were sent there.

    The article quoted park ranger Angela Sutton, who has worked at Tule Lake since the park was established in 2008, on why it’s important to remember what happened:

    “We take a dark spot in our own history, something other countries might want to cover up,” she said, “and we maintain it and preserve it so that future generations can learn.”

    Some jackass readers felt that the truth of American racism was un-American.

    The two letters published in the Dec. 11 Travel section accused the National Parks article of engaging in an “anti-U.S. remake of history” and of needing balance. The letters included racial stereotypes:

    “Japanese have an extremely strong attachment to family, and even more so back then. First- generation and, to a lesser extent, Japanese here would have been expected to follow the wishes of their elders in Japan.”

    And they suggested that it wasn’t so bad in the camps:

    “Virtually everyone in the U.S. was assigned jobs to help the war effort. The Japanese were assigned the job of staying out of the way and not causing complications. Millions of Americans were assigned far worse jobs.”

    Or that the detainees could have had it worse elsewhere:

    “War is evil, but I would have much rather been interned by the U.S. in California than by the Japanese in their captured lands.”

    We are going to see more of this, where faux patriotic fools try to justify or minimize any wrong that America has ever done.

    Dropping the bomb on Hiroshima? We were just helping the Japanese to clear the land for rebuilding.

  49. 49.

    jl

    @Brachiator:

    ” Some jackass readers felt that the truth of American racism was un-American. ”

    You forgot about the greed. Racism, and greed. Don’t sell our racists short, they wanted to make some bank out if too.

    Edit: our alt right minders will be watching us to make sure we are respecting those traditional values, you know. One of Trump’s comments about his brilliant move against the One China policy on Taiwan was that, the whole issue was gonna be OK, it could be traded away as part of one of his Great Deelz.

  51. 51.

    James

    Back when in college, I found $786.00 in my freshly laundered jeans after my mother washed them with my Dad’s pants. I returned the money of course.

  53. 53.

    Alain the site fixer

    @jl: I am not here all the time and certainly do flake out here and there, but I’m always up for good ideas. I fought for pictures but we figured that it would only work without abuse if registration was required. And so values won over function. Which is nice, really.

  54. 54.

    NR

    Here’s a little something for the “Every Trump voter is a dirty, dirty racist” crowd:

    The collapse and revival of Hostess illustrates how even in a business success, many workers don’t share in the gains. The episode also provides a snapshot of the economic forces that helped propel Donald J. Trump to the White House.

    Since losing his job at Hostess in 2012, Mark Popovich has had three jobs, including one that paid about $10 an hour, half what he made at the Twinkie-maker. A lifelong Democrat and devoted “union man,” Mr. Popovich said he supported Mr. Trump, the first time he ever voted Republican.

    …

    Before being laid off from Hostess, Mr. Popovich made about $20 an hour. Every year, he went on vacation in the Bahamas or St. Martin. His health insurance covered the $385,000 cost when his wife needed major surgery.

    “I lived a good life,” said Mr. Popovich, whose most recent job driving a forklift at a solar panel plant paid about $16 an hour.

    Mr. Popovich is also entitled to a pension, which he was promised after working more than two decades at Hostess. But he recently received a letter at his home in Toledo, Ohio, warning that the pension fund was nearly insolvent.

    But I’m sure that the way to win this guy back is to tell him that all the pain he’s feeling is just a misguided yearning for white privilege.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I’m just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: “Did little demons get inside and type it?” I don’t know! My primitive mind can’t grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know – when a man like my client slips and falls on a sidewalk in front of a public library, then he is entitled to no less than two million in compensatory damages, and two million in punitive damages. Thank you.

  58. 58.

    jl

    @Alain the site fixer: Now I feel bad. I was joking. No way commenters should be able to post pics for a post like this. All hell would break loose.

    Would be nice to post pix, but on a site like this, Mr. Cole probably has his value set adjusted about right. As much as I hate to admit that.

  62. 62.

    japa21

    @NR: Unfortunately, he voted for the candidate who really doesn’t give a fuck for his problems instead of the one who not only cared but laid out specifics about doing something about them.

  65. 65.

    D58826

    I’m sure everyone on BJ will be shocked, shocked, horrified, and saddened that der Fuhrer has had to postpone the press conference where he would reveal how he will remove himself from operational control of Trump. Inc. The presser has been rescheduled for some unknown date in Jan. of some as yet to be determined year.

  66. 66.

    jl

    @MissBarbie: Sorry, I’ve gotten some pretty bum coffee at McDonalds, at least in the US. Better in Europe.
    Do they have a special brew I have to ask for?

    For some reason their iced coffee, black, is much better.

  67. 67.

    Corner Stone

    @NR:

    Before being laid off from Hostess, Mr. Popovich made about $20 an hour. Every year, he went on vacation in the Bahamas or St. Martin.

    What in the fuckety fucking hell? What? Really?

  68. 68.

    MisterForkbeard

    @japa21: You know, I could take this kind of argument seriously if these people feeling economic pain hadn’t just voted for the personification of “rich dude who lies, screws his employees and investors, and runs off with all the money.”

    Because believing that Trump would help the WWC was such a huge reach to begin with, I don’t know what else could have motivated it other than some kind of bigotry. Or rank stupidity, I suppose.

    @D58826: Yeah, but when was the last time Hillary had a press conference, huh?

  73. 73.

    goblue72

    @Keith P.: Personally no, but McD’s McCafe coffee has generally been acknowledged in the food industry trade press as being a fairly decent cup of coffee, for its price point. They source from three regional coffee bean suppliers (on the West Coast, its Gavina). Their blend is a medium-roast, which probably hits the palate of the average coffee drinker as tasting smoother and less bitter. (In contrast to the dark roast (aka Charbucks) style popularized by Peets and later Starbucks).

    So, yeah, not surprising. McD’s prepared coffee drinks (latte, cappuccino, etc) in comparison to Starbucks range from middling to garbage though.

    That said, McDs, Peets, Starbucks – its all variations on crap coffee.

  77. 77.

    Corner Stone

    @NR: I’m not beating on anyone who can raise their quality of life. More power to that guy. But there ain’t no fucking way in hell he vacationed every year in the Bahamas or St. Martin on $20 an hour.
    Let me be a snooty elitist for a second. My house is paid for. My 2008 Honda CrV is paid for. I make more than $20 an hour. I saved for 10 years to go on a vacation that wasn’t in the state of Texas.

  78. 78.

    jl

    @Corner Stone: Packages aren’t that expensive. I know a lot of 40K income people who do a package from CA to Hawaii or Central American resort every year. I can see a person on 40K and part time working spouse with good benefits being able to afford that.

    Edit: forgot to say I just checked, can get one from Midwest for around $2000 if you plan ahead.

  79. 79.

    NR

    @japa21: You’re missing the point. The Democrats have been in power for eight years and they did fuck-all to stop the kind of corporate looting that cost this guy his job. In fact, Hillary Clinton actively courted those kinds of firms in her campaign.

    There are a hell of a lot of people in economic pain in this country that the Democrats have done little or nothing to assuage. Trump’s bullshit spoke to those people. And calling them all racists is not going to win them back to our side.

  84. 84.

    jl

    @NR: I agree with you, but better to talk about how to proceed from here than hectoring people, seemingly out of the blue in this post.

  85. 85.

    Corner Stone

    @jl: That’s true, I guess. I prefer packages that include young ladies in bikinis hand peeling grapes and feeding me poolside.

  88. 88.

    Corner Stone

    @Baud: Dude, a couple thousand disposable dollars every single year? On $40K?
    I am doing this whole thing waaayyyy fucking wrong.

  89. 89.

    Alain the site fixer

    @jl: don’t feel bad. Good ideas are great, so please always offer them! Even if it doesn’t work today, things change and so an idea previously considered, when offered by a new voice, often leads to re-thinking of the “problem” and a solution.

  94. 94.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @GregB: the gossip about why he got shitcanned by Trump coming up on MSNBC. I admit, I wanna point and laugh

  95. 95.

    goblue72

    @Corner Stone: Yes, quite possibly. Assuming he worked full time, its about $41k a year gross income. Article indicates he was in a union, so with seniority, he was probably getting fairly regular ability to pull overtime. And also entirely possible that like many working class men, he had a full-time wage earning job for his base 40 hours a week (and some OT), and then held a part-time job on the side for the “extras”. Article also indicates he’s married, so entirely likely his wife held at least a PT job. Add it all up, and entirely in the realm of possibility that their combined gross income somewhere in the $60k – $70k a year range.

    And in the Rust Belt, that’s pretty much a middle class income. Article indicates his Hostess job was in Northwood, Ohio. Housing costs – the biggest single household expense – are quite low in that area. Average rent in that area appears to be under $600 a month. Median sales price for a home in the area appears to be just under $120k. And if he bought a home 20 – 30 years ago, he likely paid far less than that – easily $20k-$40k if he bought it in the 1980s. But even if he bought a $120K home TODAY, with 20% down, his monthly payment on a $96k mortgage is only $460.

    His health insurance appears to have been fully paid for under his old union job. Ditto his retirement plan via a pension. Let’s say their combined household income is $65k. Married, no dependents, living in Ohio, their take home pay about $52k. That’s $4,330 take home a month. Again, let’s say $600 for housing. Leaves $3,730 for everything else. They are working stiffs, so there’s no student loans. They live in Ohio, so they either own one or two cars. But they are working stiffs, so they bought both cars used, and quite possibly just saved the cash to buy them, so likely no car loans. So entirely possible they are able to squirrel enough away with that $20 per hour job (plus OT or second PT job) to take a one week splurge vacation each year on some package vacation trip.

    But hey, its much more fun to engage in the “liberal” version of counter-top criticizing.

    And you fools, with your first instinct being to pile on the working guy’s life, wonder why you lose so many elections.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    Kevin Cirilli ‏@kevcirilli 55m55 minutes ago
    SCOOP:
    Trump postpones till Jan. announcement outlining how he’ll handle his biz in WH to focus on cabinet picks:

    I knew he’d tell them to fuck off. The only way to reach him is to sue him on one of his crappy, sleazy businesses.

  99. 99.

    Kathleen

    @Keith P.: I like McDonald’s coffee. But I drink Starbuck’s every morning because it’s convenient and I get “rewards”. We old people will sell our souls for “rewards” points (I’m an unabashed Kroger fuel points whore).

  105. 105.

    Baud

    @Kathleen: I’m the same way. I’ll go to Starbucks for the points and the convenience, usually while wearing socks and sandals. [Shakes fist at Suzanne]

  107. 107.

    Mart

    @Keith P.: Damn, am I the only person who thinks McDs sells pretty good coffee?
    I am a bit of a coffee snob. The Aeropress and ceramic grinder kind. I travel a lot in the country. When I want a coffee in the middle of nowhere and see a McDonald’s, it is a good thing. Not great, but good enough.

  119. 119.

    Kathleen

    @JanieM: @Brachiator: This is surreal. First, it’s in the “travel” section. Why? Second, if I read this right, the editor thought it acceptable to publish a pile of excrement but got upset because letter writers objected to maggots and flies. Or did I misunderstand her reaction to the letters? ETA just saw Brachiator’s follow up post. Hamm is talking about THOSE letters. Thanks for clarification.

  120. 120.

    NR

    @jl: Okay, fair cop. But I wanted to point out how wrongheaded and destructive some of the attitudes around here are. “Oh, look at all the economic anxiety!” is becoming a meme around here whenever some Trump voter says or does something racist. Yes, a lot of Trump voters are racists. No, not all of them are, and acting like they are is only going to push them further into Trump’s arms.

  121. 121.

    Mike in NC

    Cruises from Florida to Nassau can be dirt cheap. We know retirees who do it every year. Of course, once you’ve seen Nassau a couple of times there’s not much point in ever going back.

  122. 122.

    Kay

    Matthew Yglesias ‏@mattyglesias 5m5 minutes ago
    Remember when Hillary hadn’t done press conferences in a while and it was a national crisis with daily updates?

    You could literally play this game all day and every word would be true. Just pick your “crisis”. No longer a crisis now that Trump is in power. He really did make America great again. All the fake issues disappeared and now it’s smoooth sailing.

  124. 124.

    Clem

    @Alain the site fixer: Am new to dynamic web pages but can’t you just use an image tag with a user provided link? You don’t have to upload an image. Would that be a security problem? Just give the posters access to the image tag?

  125. 125.

    Kropadope

    @NR:

    But I’m sure that the way to win this guy back is to tell him that all the pain he’s feeling is just a misguided yearning for white privilege.

    The way to win that guy back is to make it clear to him which party is responsible the financial forces impacting his life. Hostess’s temporary fall was largely designed by Romney-style vulture* capitalism which is heartily embraced by the Republicans, including Trump. Now Trump wants to undo the minor levelling of the energy playing field, courtesy of Obama, that has allowed alternative energy to get a foothold and is providing him his current job, which it states pays better than the other jobs he’s had since Hostess.

    This dude’s an exemplar of how Republicans convince people to fuck themselves.

    ETA: *Sorry, Rick Perry got in my head, but vulture capitalism isn’t the right word. It’s vampire capitalism. They don’t prey on the dead, they kill the living, leaving behind an occasional new one of themselves.

  130. 130.

    Kay

    @NR:

    NR, they’ve dropped the whole “economic anxiety” thing. They never gave a rat’s ass about the white working class- none of them.

    After January 20th you won’t hear another fucking word about them out of media OR Republicans. They were convenient, useful for 6 months. Now they’re back to the white upper classes.

    Remember “soccer moms” after 2004? Same thing. When’s the last time you heard a word about a “soccer mom”?

  133. 133.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne:

    so he could instead blame the black guy.

    Uh, he voted for the black guy twice and then the black guy ceased to be on the ballot.

  137. 137.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah, well maybe now that you’re not so aggressively attached to helping the Democrats shoot themselves in the foot that you won’t consider a counter-argument…

  141. 141.

    Yarrow

    Oh, this is good. It’s about the upcoming meeting of the tech people with Trump. Go read the whole thing.

    But here’s what I imagine the thought bubble in their head read: “Fuckfuckfuck — now I have to become a reality show star in a new episode of ‘The Apprentice: Nerd Edition,’ bowing and scraping to that luddite Trump, who will probably simultaneously berate us in person and bully us on Twitter later with a lot of poop emoticons. Even worse, I have to act like Thiel is a genius, which he kind of is for backing a man who called serious and sophisticated hacking incursions by sovereign nations ‘the cyber’ and said ‘somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds’ — did he mean the bed or the hacker? I have no idea still — could have pulled it off.”

    She couldn’t get an on the record quote from any of them.

    Or you can say no — loudly and in public. You can resist the forces that are against immigrants, because it is immigrants who built America and immigrants who most definitely built tech. You can defend science that says climate change is a big threat and that tech can be a part of fixing it. You can insist we invest in critical technologies that point the way to things like new digital health inventions and transportation revolutions. You can do what made Silicon Valley great again and again.

    When I could get no really substantive on-the-record statements from the tech leaders, I pinged investor Chris Sacca, because I knew he would not let me down.

    “It’s funny, in every tech deal I’ve ever done, the photo op comes after you’ve signed the papers,” he said. “If Trump publicly commits to embrace science, stops threatening censorship of the internet, rejects fake news and denounces hate against our diverse employees, only then it would make sense for tech leaders to visit Trump Tower.”

    He added: “Short of that, they are being used to legitimize a fascist.”

  143. 143.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kropadope:

    “This guy got screwed by the Republicans” is a counter-argument to supporting the Democrats?

    Never mind, I don’t even want to know how you manage to square that circle. I know it’ll kill some brain cells just to read it.

  144. 144.

    Schlemazel

    Apparently corporations need to hire a pervert to help them not make mistakes. I am available for a very reasonable salary and benefit package

    Here is what Makers Mark sent me as a Christmas gift for being one of their “ambassadors”
    http://i.imgur.com/jpIjizB.jpg

    You tell me what you think that is supposed to be for!

  145. 145.

    NR

    @Kay: Oh, I completely agree. Trump never gave a shit about the working class. And when the things he promised don’t materialize, we’ll have an opportunity to win back some of those voters. But we won’t do it by screaming that they’re racist, sexist, deplorable, or whatever else we want to call them.

  146. 146.

    JGabriel

    @bystander:

    There was a billboard ad featuring Macauley Culkin sitting on Ted Danson’s lap all over the subway for some execrable movie. A few deft moves with a marker would have made them obscenely hilarious.

    Reminds me of a graffiti I saw on a subway platform once. This would have to be back in 1992 or 93. It was on a poster for Scent of a Woman – which featured a white background with Al Pacino and Chris O’Donnell in the lower right corner of the poster, facing/walking leftward. Someone had taken advantage of all the white space above and to the left of them to draw a word balloon, emanating from Pacino’s mouth, which read:

    I know she’s here somewhere … I can smell the bitch.

  150. 150.

    Yarrow

    I’ve seen the clip of McConnell today when he called for the investigations into the Russian hacking. There’s something about his body language – he doesn’t look confident. He looks like he’s been forced to go out there and say all that stuff. Like someone’s got something on him. Hmmm….

  151. 151.

    Kay

    @NR:

    I don’t care who you are, white working class, recently fired Hostess worker, whatever. Donald Trump is a liar and a con man. He’s a bad person. You didn’t need a college education to see that.

    I’m sorry Trump conned all those people but my acting as if I was conned isn’t going to make it any better for them. I wasn’t conned and they didn’t have to be either. It’s not that fucking difficult to recognize a bad person. Clinton was not only more experienced and would have been better for Hostess workers, she’s a better person. And that was obvious. To anyone who cared to look.

    They’re not children. They should be able to recognize a lying, sleazy con man. If they can’t they have bigger problems than the Democratic Party.

  152. 152.

    MJS

    @NR: A large portion of Trump supporters are racists. Those who aren’t racists but voted for Trump are irredeemably stupid to have believed anything he said, and not notice the countless inconsistencies. And news flash – Clinton won significantly more votes than Trump did. So what exactly is your strategy for getting racists or imbeciles to vote Democratic? Lie to them? Or start to throw some constituencies under the bus?

  155. 155.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, let me be clear: I’m happy to welcome any Trump voter who says, “Holy shit, I got conned!” I won’t even mock them (to their faces) because Trump was telling them something they wanted to hear, like all con men do.

    But the people who continue to insist in the face of all of the evidence that Trump was a better choice than Hillary? Fuckem. They’re not worth a millisecond of my time.

  156. 156.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne:

    “This guy got screwed by the Republicans” is a counter-argument to supporting the Democrats?

    What the flying flowers does that even mean?

    See? This is why you think you disagree with me on so much, because if you read something you disagree with, you fly off the handle and invent some crazy statement to argue with (or deem unworthy of argument in this case). You straw-man as well as the best of the Republicans. Why not debate what was actually said on the merits sometime? You’ll find yourself less frequently needlessly antagonizing your own side.

  157. 157.

    JGabriel

    @Keith P.:

    Damn, am I the only person who thinks McDs sells pretty good coffee?

    I’ve only tried McD’s coffee a few times, and haven’t had any in years (probably over a decade). That said, I seem to remember that it wasn’t actually good, per se, kind of thin and a touch cardboardy, but it also had a fairly low level of bitterness that made it very drinkable. And it seemed to contain a surprisingly strong shot of caffeine. Your basic rocket fuel in other words – not all that different from NYC diner/deli coffee, or Dunkin’ Donuts coffee for that matter.

    Again, that’s if I remember correctly. Like I said, it’s been a few years. Also, they may have changed the beans they use since then.

  158. 158.

    nastybrutishntall

    @Yarrow: This Guardian article on how Google search is hate’s new weapon of choice makes Trump’s diversionary idiocy pretty clearly a savvy move. Bannon is Goebbels, softening us up for the big con, while Trump runs the breadless circus. That article freaks me out. We are losing the propaganda war. We are about to flip into a Nazi mindset in this country, aided and abetted by tech.

  159. 159.

    seaboogie

    @jl:

    These crummy politicians are liars, all of them. Lars, I say.

    Especially the Scandinavian ones, I presume.

  161. 161.

    Kropadope

    @NR:

    Oh, I completely agree. Trump never gave a shit about the working class. And when the things he promised don’t materialize, we’ll have an opportunity to win back some of those voters. But we won’t do it by screaming that they’re racist, sexist, deplorable, or whatever else we want to call them.

    You see this shows better how false narratives, carried primarily but not entirely by the MSM, helped to fuck up the election. The deplorable statement is held up as showing as how the left looks down on the rest of the country. The thing of it is, though, that Hillary didn’t call Trump voters deplorable. She called racists and misogynists deplorable and said that we should reach out to the Tump voters who aren’t.

    This got twisted in the media and people were just so eager to buy into any anti-Hillary messaging available.

  162. 162.

    jl

    @NR: @Kay:

    The great HRC/Bernie wars drove me away from the blog for awhile. Just couldn’t take it anymore.

    I suppose the reasons for the 2016 mess have to fought out, but I’d prefer to fight them out in terms of how to proceed going forward. Might be just a matter of framing, but we are in for the fight for our lives. Literally if they they try to kill Medicare and Social Security, that could touch every non filthy rich plutocrat. I ain’t rich and I’m in very good health (as far as modern science can determine), and the news of the GOP berkers’ plans sent a personal chill up my spine.

    I think the Dems have to be very aggressive in pointing out the massive betrayal that started two damn days after the election, IIRC.
    I hope Schumer is sincere in his moves so far.

    Now, I will go back to listening to classical and Tejano music to calm the F down. Except my Spanish is coming back and soon I will understand the Tejano stations’ commentary on el senor presidente Pavo Trumpo. Then I will have pull my socks up and deal with reality.

    When they decide they need to register more groups until we find out what just what the hell is going on, I want to wear by Bernie and Spanish Speaker badges with pride.

    BTW, I really like these guys
    Eddie G Y Grupo Vida
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Iv3YZ6mvS0

  163. 163.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kropadope:

    You said:

    Yeah, well maybe now that you’re not so aggressively attached to helping the Democrats shoot themselves in the foot that you won’t consider a counter-argument…

    So what the fuck are you going on about? Really, in the face of Trump we’re supposed to be less aggressively attached to the Democrats? We’re supposed to ignore the fact that Hillary got 3 million more votes? What the fuck are you trying to say? What is the “counter-argument” that you think you’re making?

  164. 164.

    Schlemazel

    @JGabriel:
    I have McAwfuls coffee twice a year. Not really the bold aggressive flavor I like but low acid, decent flavor and for a buck a cup a good value.

    I’d buy it before Staryucks

  166. 166.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Clem: technically, yes. It’s easy. But what about assholes and spammers and those who might wish the site illwill and so submit child porn or other obscene images. That would require some kind of approval, accountability/reputation or voting mechanism, all of which offer more angles of abuse or trollery.

  167. 167.

    japa21

    @NR: Well, this is the first time I see you pretty much saying it wasn’t Clinton that was the problem, but that basically any Dem candidate, even Sanders, would probably not have been able to get this guy’s vote.

    As others have said, he voted for a person who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about him who represented a party that has actively over the last 6 years (and even before that) hamstrung the economy to make it nearly impossible to improve his situation. The Republicans, after all, have been pretty much in total control since 2010 and have blocked every measure the Dems have put forward to improve the lot of the WWC.

    You are excusing this guy’s total stupidity and trying to justify it.

  169. 169.

    NR

    @MJS: This is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about when I say this shit needs to stop. Mark Popovich is a lifelong Democrat. When he voted Democratic in every other election before this one, did he do it because he was a racist or an imbecile?

    There are any number of reasons why someone might have voted for Trump even knowing what a shitty person he is. The fact is that even though he was completely full of shit, Trump was selling the right thing: Most people in Washington don’t care about you. People believed his “throw the bums out” message because Washington hasn’t done shit for them in a long, long time.

    Shitting all over people like Popovich (again, he’s a lifelong Democrat) isn’t the way to win them back. The way to win them back is to finally start caring more about what they need than what the party’s corporate donors want.

  170. 170.

    jl

    @japa21: Those people have the right to vote. We need to salvage every one we can using an honest message. (and, no, that does not mean blathering stupid White Heritage crap. And I think and any message that revolves around ‘white working class’ BS is a loser).

    But some regions of the country have been economically devastated, and rather suddenly, since 2000 and that issue needs to be addressed aggressively.

  171. 171.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne: Obviously I was talking about the primary. Democrats put up a weak slate and were at so many levels pushing for Hillary to be the only choice. If you even wanted to consider an alternative to Hillary you were a misogynist and, somehow more still, a racist. The primary tore the party apart and, from what I saw, the portion of the Hillary camp that was firmly ensconced within its Republican-scale impenetrable information bubble was every bit as responsible as the Twitter-addled Bernie bros.

  176. 176.

    jl

    @SiubhanDuinne: You mean… I’m not alone… there is someone else! Wow, just wow. Thank you.
    I’m glad he is alive and hope he is doing well, in some productive work away from the movies, though. I try to be gracious and merciful.

  177. 177.

    Kropadope

    @Major Major Major Major: Hillary in 08 ran for a long time on a slim reed of a chance. Why begrudge that same behavior to Bernie? Oh, yeah, cuz everything HRC does is perfect and right and if you dare step a toe out of line, you’re a step away from joining a lynch mob.

    ETA: Besides which, a lot of the same people so bent out of shape about Bernie staying in were trying to declare it over after Iowa (or even before!!!)

  179. 179.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Kropadope: 2008 was much closer and depending on what happened with michigan and Florida could still have gone either way before the meeting in May hammering that out.

    ETA: i was not a Hillary fan in 2008 and didn’t begrudge her staying in at all.

  180. 180.

    Kropadope

    @Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:

    But we won’t do it by screaming that they’re racist, sexist, deplorable, or whatever else we want to call them.

    I doubt whoever runs will be doing that, so you’re worrying about nothing.

    But if they come close enough to doing so that the media can pretend they did, they’re screwed. For evidence, see this election.

  181. 181.

    seaboogie

    @goblue72: Your whole post was useful and informative until the last sentences, when you had to go full douche-bag. Douche-baggery is an option in which it is not necessary to indulge. Consider that next time.

  182. 182.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    @Kropadope: So we get to the crux of the matter. Lack of a messaging infrastructure for the left. No one is doing anything about this, that’s a huge problem.

  183. 183.

    Kropadope

    @Major Major Major Major:

    depending on what happened with michigan and Florida

    And that was the fantasy thinking on Hillary’s team. Seat them for the convention? Sure. Let them participate in most things. But if two states where there was no active campaigning and, in one of them, the other candidate wasn’t even on the ballot were allowed to swing the primary, the Dems would’ve lost even that gimme of an election.

  186. 186.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @jl:

    You mean… I’m not alone… there is someone else! Wow, just wow. Thank you.

    Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone.

    I’m glad he is alive and hope he is doing well, in some productive work away from the movies, though. I try to be gracious and merciful.

    Yes, can’t stand him as an actor or persona, but I don’t wish for his death. I really did think he was dead, though. I must be thinking of some other child star from roughly the same era. No idea who it might be, though.

  187. 187.

    Kropadope

    @Major Major Major Major: Who gives a fuck? The same crowd of people were being ludicrous assholes well before Hillary clinched the nomination. Not all Hillary voters, but her devoted bots were literally a left wing equivalent to the Republicans; wouldn’t engage in an honest debate, aggressively guarded their shibboleths, and loved to harass “the other” as they saw it.

  189. 189.

    Kropadope

    @Major Major Major Major: Still you evade my point. I’m not arguing he was right to draw out the primary. Now I’m arguing two things. One, which I had to add due to your first evasion, is that it’s hypocritical of the Clinton camp to complain about drawing out the primary. My original point is that the hardened, epistemically closed portion of the Clinton camp was wrong to treat a huge part of the Democratic coalition as though they didn’t matter.

  190. 190.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kropadope:

    Hillary in 08 ran for a long time on a slim reed of a chance. Why begrudge that same behavior to Bernie?

    Really, Hillary called Obama corrupt and complained that the whole system was against her and the reason she was losing was because the DNC stacked the deck in Obama’s favor? And then her supporters booed all of the other speakers at the DNC while she refused to smile for the camera?

    Funny, I don’t remember any of that happening in 2008. Links?

    In case it wasn’t clear, Bernie did NOT behave as graciously in 2016 as Hillary did in 2008. Not by a long shot.

    But I realize that you don’t want to remember it that way so you don’t have to admit that Bernie’s Putin-connected campaign manager encouraged Bernie to act that way rather than encouraging Bernie to suck it up and be a good loser like Hillary was once it was mathematically impossible for him to win based on citizens’ votes, not superdelegates.

    You realize by now that Tad Devine encouraged the whole “corrupt Hillary and corrupt DNC” framing to flip voters to Trump, right? The calls were coming from inside the house the whole time, and even when Russian-connected hackers released emails “proving” what the Russian-connected campaign manager was claiming, Berniebots STILL didn’t get it.

  191. 191.

    seaboogie

    @jl:

    I have been damned on this blog for committing cultural macroaggression against Sweden and their candy.

    So I guess you won’t be quoting “…and Thanks for all the Fish”?

  192. 192.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne:

    Really, Hillary called Obama corrupt and complained that the whole system was against her and the reason she was losing was because the DNC stacked the deck in Obama’s favor? And then her supporters booed all of the other speakers at the DNC while she refused to smile for the camera?

    No, she made criticisms of Obama particular to him, but she DID criticize him. Funny how that works, huh?

  194. 194.

    Central Planning

    @NR:

    People believed his “throw the bums out” message because Washington hasn’t done shit for them in a long, long time.

    Except they didn’t throw the bums out. They threw out the ones that were (to whatever degree you want to debate) trying to do help people. How do you reconcile “throw the bums out” when the majority of House and Senate members were republicans, and they still have the majority after the 2016 election, and now the presidency?

    I think “Throw the bums out” is bullshit and cover for racism, misogyny, and bigotry. You could probably add stupidity into that as well.

  196. 196.

    Kropadope

    @The Dudeist: If that’s what he wants to do for a vacation he might’ve, you know, planned. If I had all the extra money I spend eating out and buying video games, I could probably go to the Bahamas too. I make less than he did (or does).

  197. 197.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kropadope:

    No, she made criticisms of Obama particular to him, but she DID criticize him. Funny how that works, huh?

    What’s really funny is that you think the problem was that Bernie criticized Hillary at all, and not that he used the exact same criticisms that Trump did.

    Tad Devine handed Bernie the ammunition that would hurt Hillary the most in the general election, and Bernie threw it without thinking twice. And he never stopped throwing it until, what, less than a week before the DNC?

    Face it, Bernie got played by the Russians. So did you. You bought into all of the propaganda about her purported “corruption” without ever pausing to consider the source.

    What, exactly, makes you smarter than the Trump voter who believed the exact same “corruption” stuff about Hillary and the Democrats that you did?

  198. 198.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne:

    You bought into all of the propaganda about her purported “corruption” without ever pausing to consider the source.

    You attributed all these beliefs to me that aren’t mine without ever pausing to consider what I’m actually saying. You’re still doing it.

    ETA: What have I said that leads you to believe that I “bought in” to the corruption narrative?

  199. 199.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kropadope:

    Democrats put up a weak slate and were at so many levels pushing for Hillary to be the only choice. If you even wanted to consider an alternative to Hillary you were a misogynist and, somehow more still, a racist.

    Nope, you didn’t buy into the “corruption” narrative at all. Not you.

    You got played, son, just like the Trump voters did.

  200. 200.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne: How does any of that describe corruption? Bad decisions are not corruption. Prejudice is not corruption. But prejudice and generalized bad decisions are the two things I’m accusing the Democrats of.

  203. 203.

    J R in WV

    @jl:

    dammed for “committing cultural macroaggression against Sweden and their candy. “???

    You dissed the herring taffy> ??? DAMM You~!!! That’s horrid and vile treason against the Swedish Chef….

  206. 206.

    steverinoCT

    Coffee: I am not a snob; I like the Newman’s Own medium roast bold (which is also Fair Trade and Organic) (and all profits go to charity) but that’s besides the point: I like the taste. McDonald’s here in New England at least used that coffee itself beginning a few years ago, until it later went with its own McCafe blend. On the road, I will look first for a Dunkin Donuts, then an Arby’s (few and far between, but fresh-ground), and then McDs. I drink it black and bitter, so the actual coffee taste does matter: no Starbucks at all: just too burnt.

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