Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Republicans in disarray!

You cannot shame the shameless.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

We still have time to mess this up!

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

Second rate reporter says what?

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

The words do not have to be perfect.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / President Obama’s Presser

President Obama’s Presser

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Here’s a YouTube livestream of the 2:15 ET press conference:

As valued commenter Trentrunner mentioned in the “Never tell me the odds” thread, PBO’s tone during this presser could signal how robustly he plans to address the Russian hacking issue and how much info on it we can expect. We’ll know soon!

ETA: Breaking news from WaPo: FBI backs CIA view that Russia intervened to help Trump win election. Well! Timing is interesting, no?

Reader Interactions

615Comments

  4. 4.

    germy

    These livestreams always crash my computer for some reason. Maybe someone can give me the key words.

  7. 7.

    Corner Stone

    Is there anything more emblematic of the ridiculousness and downfall of our society than the White House Press Corps?

  15. 15.

    Yarrow

    Damn CNN so worried about how the “Democratic leadership” is calling out Comey. Where are the worries about how the incoming president says the CIA is lying? *crickets*

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    Just updated the post with a link — WaPo says the FBI now backs CIA view that Russia interfered to help Trump. Wowsers.

  21. 21.

    toocanAnj

    Watching Malcolm Nance and Joy Reid on MSNBC: the only hope we have of people daring to speak the truth seems to be with people of color.

  22. 22.

    germy

    @Betty Cracker: Even fox news admits it. What are all the trolls commenting on my local newspapers to think? They’ve been poo pooing the theory from day one.

    One of my local tv new stations had a reporter literally call HRC a “hypocrite” because she wanted an investigation. They showed the debate clip where drumpf said he’d “see” if he’d accept the results, and HRC saying “well, that’s frightening.”

  26. 26.

    Trentrunner

    @Betty Cracker: Also, didn’t the FBI affirmatively declare before the election, “No clear target of Russia election shenanigans”?

    ETA: Yes, in the NYTimes of 10/7.

  27. 27.

    germy

    So now what? It’s official. They helped elect him. Even fox agrees.

    If John Kerry had won in ’04, and it came out that he’d been helped by a hostile foreign power, wouldn’t he have ended up a ball of tar and feathers on a prison bus?

  28. 28.

    Corner Stone

    @toocanAnj: I wanted to punch Amb McFaul when he said essentially, “let’s move on and legitimize Trump as POTUS”.
    Fuck you, rich white man.

  35. 35.

    ? Martin

    The suggestion that the CIA would publish documentation of Putin’s wealth and sources is interesting. Documenting a kleptocracy is usually only done after the fact, and it makes it difficult for other nations to partner with him once that becomes public. Additionally, it will invite Americans to draw parallels to how Trump is approaching the presidency. Most Americans don’t really know what fascism and corruption look like from the inside – it’s been a long time since either was a major problem in the US. This could be somewhat illustrative.

    I don’t think it’s punishment enough for what Putin has done, but it’s an interesting place to start.

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    @germy:

    If John Kerry had won in ’04, and it came out that he’d been helped by a hostile foreign power, wouldn’t he have ended up a ball of tar and feathers on a prison bus?

    Why tar-and-feather when they could just cover him in 50,000 Purple Heart band-aids?

    /still furious

  43. 43.

    gene108

    If I was more of an extrovert, I’d organize a big crew to go to Trump’s inauguration to chant “Putin’s Puppet” over and over again.

  52. 52.

    Jeffro

    Hear this, Deplorables? The sheer scale of the turnaround in America due to MR#5 is unbelievable, undeniable, and entirely NOT due to the GOP

  59. 59.

    germy

    Nick Bilton ‏@nickbilton 19m19 minutes ago

    People who say Russia interfered with US election:
    – White House
    – FBI
    – NSA
    – CIA
    – DNC
    – Clinton
    – Russia

    People who say no way:
    – Trump

  60. 60.

    trollhattan

    @Yarrow:
    Yeah, the hammer-and-sickle is more on the nose, especially given Putin’s clear desire to “get the old gang back together.” Plus, Russian flag is boring and Donny wouldn’t be able to recognize it. .

  62. 62.

    Jeffro

    @Yarrow:

    None of that is true. Murder rate is the highest ever. Economy is in the toilet. No one has a job.

    I can’t really argue with that, as I am both dead and unemployed at the moment. But Trump will change that!

  72. 72.

    tobie

    I thought that after the prepared remarks on Aleppo and Russia’s involvement in the carnage he would go on to Russian hacking but alas not. First question in the Q&A about this but no new revelations, no indignation, etc. Disappointing.

  73. 73.

    Yarrow

    Ooh…just called out Trump for questioning the integrity of the election before the election.

    You may think it’s Obama soft serve. I see the angry Obama lurking underneath.

  75. 75.

    Jeffro

    “…at a time when the President-elect himself was raising concerns about the integrity of the election…”

    ooooh…isn’t that what the kids call ‘throwing shade’ these days?

  81. 81.

    Yarrow

    Calling out press for covering gossip and minutiae – John Podesta’s risotto recipe. Why was our political system vulnerable to this kind of manipulation? Again, calling out press for focusing on dumb stuff.

  83. 83.

    tobie

    OK slow- simmer anger not coming out. “It’s worth reflecting on why, with so many issues at stake and such a contrast in candidates” we focused on tidbits of gossip in the leaked emails, which became an obsession for the media.

    Onto cybersecurity in general at the moment.

  84. 84.

    germy

    @Corner Stone: You can’t embarrass folks with no shame. And they won’t report his press conference correctly if they feel insulted; they’ll twist his words or edit creatively for the evening news.

  87. 87.

    hovercraft

    He is very good at the I’m so disappointed in you routine, calling the morons out for obsessing on bullshit and then now being shocked about what happened.

  89. 89.

    Corner Stone

    @Yarrow: It was the perfect opening if Obama was going to go all-in on this issue. Any follow up question will get the same answer treatment, looks like.

  93. 93.

    hovercraft

    @Corner Stone:

    He’s going to try and embarrass the media about this. And he’s going to fail.

    Like the shitgibbon they’ve helped elect, they are without shame.

  94. 94.

    germy

    Imagine if it had come out that Obama was helped in ’08 by Mugabe.

    I can’t help playing the “what if Obama” game. “What if Obama said the stuff drumpf said?” etc.

  95. 95.

    Trentrunner

    Michael Barbaro of the NYTimes just tweeted:

    Am I missing something? Obama seems more critical of media than Russia/Putin in this press conference.

    That’s the Village responding to Obama’s criticism of them.

  96. 96.

    Yarrow

    Circling back now – making point that his focus was that the election went okay – as priority before election.

    Goal now to send message to Russia not to do this to us.Need to do in thoughtful, methodical. Some things they’ll do won’t be public.

  98. 98.

    Jeffro

    @Corner Stone:

    He’s going to try and embarrass the media about this. And he’s going to fail.

    He slapped their wrists just hard enough to get their attention. They’ll feel just enough remorse that some (not many, but some) will take his talking points and run with them harder than they might otherwise.

  99. 99.

    ET

    @germy: or self awareness. The modern press media takes itself so seriously and they are only just reporting the “news.” (and chasing ratings/clicks/likes).

  101. 101.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Trentrunner: I actually kind of agree. He’s acting like Russia is just some wild animal that’s going to fuck with us no matter what, so they aren’t culpable, whereas the media has agency and the ability to not be a complete fuck-up embarrassment.

    Guess what? He’s right.

  107. 107.

    hovercraft

    Thumping our chests about stuff, will not intimidate the Russians. The response will be thoughtful and probably not divulged publicly, they will know, we will not. Putin is not running around announcing what he did, he’s denying it.

  108. 108.

    JMG

    Barbaro doesn’t get what his own paper wrote. Times was unwitting Russian agent. All media was. They didn’t HAVE to cover the hacked emails as big news. Could’ve said, they’re stolen documents, we looked at them, and there’s no news here.

  109. 109.

    Jeffro

    @germy:

    Imagine if it had come out that Obama was helped in ’08 by Mugabe.

    Or when you talk with right-wingers about it, just substitute “Clinton” and “China” for “Trump” and “Russia” – see what they think then.

  110. 110.

    dlm

    @gogol’s wife: I give up too. I am so fond of this man, but he has repeatedly rolled over when he should have kicked ass and taken names later. This is one of the reasons we lost. Trump was weaned on Roy Cohn. Dems need to buck up.

  113. 113.

    Yarrow

    I wonder if there’s a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes. He did hint that some of the things they’ll do to the Russians they won’t announce. Maybe he won’t tell us at this point because things aren’t yet in place.

    If this is Obama playing the long game he’s almost out of time.

  115. 115.

    hovercraft

    Calls out the media for not treating Hillary fairly during the campaign. She was not covered well. He is proud of her and her service. Says when he is a private citizen he will continue to advise the dems, to change the perception of them as coastal. latte sipping elitists.

  116. 116.

    Trentrunner

    Well, this shit is infuriating. What the fuck is he saying, exactly? He’s saying we need to get the votes of the guys with Confederate flags on their trucks, right?

  117. 117.

    Yarrow

    Says he wants to help with Dem party building once out of office. Every county should have a Dem running in every election in every state.

  119. 119.

    tobie

    Dialing it in. That’s the only way I can describe O’s energy at this press conference. No outrage, no passion, nothing.

  120. 120.

    debbie

    @dlm:

    I’m disappointed you think he’s rolling over. He’s using his words, like a grown-up, like the grown-up he’s always been.

    I’m holding out for someone to hack into Putin’s bank accounts and drain them. Watch Vlad keep quiet about that!

  121. 121.

    hovercraft

    @SatanicPanic:

    Who cares about the Russians? I’m worried about the people taking over in February

    They will probably create a new federal holiday to honor Putin, after all he was the MVP of the campaign.

  122. 122.

    SatanicPanic

    “With respect to response, my principle goal… was making sure that the election itself went off without a hitch, that it was not tarnish, and that it did not feed any sense in the public that tampering had taken place in the actual process of voting.

    You failed.

  126. 126.

    Betty Cracker

    I’d like to amend the speech bubble on my crappy Photoshop in the post downstairs as follows: “Never mind, Obama-wan. We’re fucking doomed.”

  127. 127.

    Corner Stone

    Just ask your fucking question and don’t go into repose while you compose the perfect question. Fuck you.

  128. 128.

    Jeffro

    @Yarrow:

    If this is Obama playing the long game he’s almost out of time.

    Sarah Kendzior on Twitter –
    1) Obama’s tactic was always to play the long game. That does not work when you have one month before a kleptocrat takes office.

    2) If Obama tries to play the long game, team Trump, upon taking power, will quickly rewrite the rules, as authoritarians have always done

    ETA (meaning – spot-on, Yarrow)

  131. 131.

    Kryptik

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Obama has been treated like a Malcom X-ish Super Black Panther-esque radical rabble rouser for how many years, despite being his usual staid self.

    If we went all in, at this juncture, what do you think would be the story, Russia, the emails, and the media’s abdication of their duties?…or Obama being a sore loser and super-radical trying to institute a soft coup?

    Obama’s personality just isn’t wired that way, but that’s also part of the reason he’s given even close to the time of day by anyone in the press, even with all the disbelief they show him anyway.

  135. 135.

    hovercraft

    Calls the Shitgibbon essentially a sore winner, says the transition from running to governing can be bumpy, feelings can be still raw and sensitive. Says he will try to convey the importance of making that transition, but actually taking office is sobering. He has tried to convey the importance of knowing that difference, but doesn’t know how much will be listened to/ followed.

  137. 137.

    Steeplejack

    @Corner Stone:

    I hate the 1,000-word essay questions that by the time they’re over no one can remember what the actual fucking question is.

    Oh, and now some asshole is asking whether Obama feels any “personal responsibility” for the carnage in Aleppo. Fuck you!

  138. 138.

    Lalophobia

    What else could still be coming out, and would it be a good idea to warn anyone it was coming?

  139. 139.

    rikyrah

    We’re not ‘delegitimizing’ Trump. He was never legitimate to begin with.
    Spandan Chakrabarti December 16, 2016

    At the start of this week, Joseph Murray II, a conservative columnist for The Hill, wrote that Democrats – particularly President Obama – were merely using “claims” of Russian hacking to delegitimize Donald Trump’s upcoming occupancy of the Oval Office.

    By using the term “delegitimize”, Murray quite consciously is legitimizing Trump. He and his right wing friends are implying that Trump is a legitimate winner in a legitimately conducted election, and therefore the rightful and legitimate claimant to the presidency once Barack Obama’s term ends.

    There is no need to ‘delegitimize’ Trump, of course, because Murray’s implication is fiction. Donald Trump does not need to be ‘delegitimized’, because he and his election was never legitimate to begin with.

    To hunt for proof, one need not sift through any greater a body of evidence than the fact that Trump has himself questioned the legitimacy of this election – both before and after its conclusion. Before the election, Trump himself boasted that the election would be rigged. After the election, Trump demanded that millions of votes be discounted in order to falsely claim himself the winner of the popular vote, because he claimed millions of votes were cast illegally.

    Our founders held that the power of our government is derived from the just consent of the governed. When a public office-holder raises doubts about even a single vote’s legitimacy without the full willingness to prove such claims in a court of law, that office-holder cannot be considered to have the legitimate consent of the governed, and is therefore himself illegitimate.

  141. 141.

    SatanicPanic

    @Kryptik: I don’t expect him to do the full Sanders freak-out but I am scratching him off my list of people I hope lead the Democrats in the future.

  143. 143.

    Corner Stone

    @Kryptik:

    If we went all in, at this juncture, what do you think would be the story, Russia, the emails, and the media’s abdication of their duties?…or Obama being a sore loser and super-radical trying to institute a soft coup?

    We played all these counterfactuals with single payer, the ACA and other legislation and budgets and other bullshit.
    Now it no longer matters. Obama is done in 34 days. He has no reason to conserve political capital or leverage or reputation or anything else. He will be wiped from the history books in 35 days. He will be Jimmy Cartered X1000 in 35 days.
    His “decent man” act is going to put us all in a really great spot. We’re already in a constitutional crisis. Let’s fucking have it.

  144. 144.

    Trentrunner

    From Twitter:

    President Obama is acting like a flight attendant trying not to freak out as the plane is going down. He should be acting like the captain.

  145. 145.

    Yarrow

    If he thinks Trump is going to feel responsible he’s lost his mind. If he doesn’t recognize that Trump is an authoritarian who is going to change the laws of the country within a few months, he’s not paying attention. Trump is going to be the president for his family and hangers-on. Period. Even the people who cheer him will be screwed.

    I have no confidence we will have free and fair elections in 2018. Let alone 2020.

    WASF.

  147. 147.

    rikyrah

    Repeal of Obamacare Helps Ryan’s Plan to Privatize Medicare
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    December 16, 2016 10:36 AM

    Back in 2014, Zachary Goldfarb made the case for why President Obama should be given credit for reducing income inequality.

    The key policies Obama introduced include: higher tax rates on the wealthy, new levies on upper-income Americans in the Affordable Care Act and expanded refundable tax credits for the poor. They also include a more generous program of health insurance for low- and moderate-income Americans, achieved through subsidies and expanded Medicaid.

    In addition to getting rid of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, Obamacare had a redistributive effect: it levied additional taxes on upper-income Americans and provided health insurance to those with lower incomes via Medicaid expansion and subsidies to purchase insurance on the exchanges.

    The Republican plan to repeal Obamacare eliminates that redistribution. As I noted yesterday, Howard Gleckman crunched the numbers on how that would affect people at various income levels.

    ………………..

    If that is the thinking, here’s what the process would look like:

    1. Give the one-percenters a big tax break by eliminating the funding mechanism for Obamacare – thus causing the whole system to collapse.
    2. In the process, Medicare’s trust fund is robbed of the savings included in Obamacare, expediting it’s insolvency.
    3. Promise to fix all of that by privatizing Medicare and block-granting Medicaid to the states.

    Of course the whole thing would be based on lies about how it would affect low-income Americans and the elderly. But that is something Speaker Ryan has been doing for a long time now.

  148. 148.

    Jeffro

    @hovercraft: He (PBO) simply does not understand…Donald Trump is never going to become more ‘sober’, thoughtful, or empathetic in regards to his fellow Americans. This is why Trump was the perfect “no norms” candidate for a party that has spent the past 20 years losing all sense of responsibility to the rest of the country. In that sense, they are a perfect match. And this is something that Obama must still not get, even at the last. Ah well…

  150. 150.

    hovercraft

    @Steeplejack:

    I love his answer though, he takes responsibility, he feels responsible, he questions everything, because this man is an adult, he knows that no matter what he does/did, someone will not be happy. Like Harry Truman, the buck stops with him. He knows that the choices he’s made resulted in many deaths, but he believes a different choice would have meant many more, and he’s willing to stand by that choice.

  151. 151.

    debbie

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Exactly. If Obama came out slinging accusations, that’s all that would be in the news until he leaves office. Act as he is now, and the focus remains on the dwindling belief that Trump’s election was not a fraud.

  153. 153.

    guachi

    Who, of his own free will, nominated the one man (Comey) singularly most responsible to Trump being elected?

    Oh, yeah, it was Obama, himself. He can go on and on all he wants about the election but he bears the greatest responsibility for destroying his own legacy.

  155. 155.

    Yarrow

    @Yarrow: Don’t know who it is, but sounds like it’s a woman. Obama is calling for them to get his doctor to help. Doctor is now here.

  157. 157.

    hovercraft

    @Jeffro:

    I think he understands, but at this point what can he do? He doesn’t want to stand up there and say, you fucked up America, and now you are all screwed. you’ve elected a thin skinned imbecile who is going to get us all killed.

  158. 158.

    schrodinger's cat

    @debbie: Posturing is not his style, though that’s what a lot of us have wanted from him after Bush II and now especially after Trump. Obama didn’t get to where he is without being tough and smart.

  159. 159.

    Corner Stone

    @MomSense: Fuck that nonsense. Tired of this fucking bullshit notion that the most powerful man in the country is DONE with us and our bullshit. Fuck that. I am not getting a PDB. I’m not in charge of our DNI. Fuck that garbage time bullshit trash fucking excuse making.

  161. 161.

    Yarrow

    @Davis X. Machina: I’m not sure. I was hoping for more direct comments on the Russian hacking. He’s been bland and blamed the press. I’m disappointed. This is a much more serious situation. He also has way more confidence in Trump – or he’s indicating he has more confidence, anyway – than Trump has shown he deserves.

    I hope it’s a case of a lot going on behind the scenes that we don’t know.

  163. 163.

    SatanicPanic

    @MomSense: We are in a national emergency. anyone who cares about civil rights and democracy owes it to everyone else to do their best. No one is off the hook.

  164. 164.

    hovercraft

    @Trentrunner:
    Exactly, calm down America.
    He’s giving us the tranquilizer that they administer to death row patients before they administer the lethal one. We’re terminal, but he is giving us palliative care.

    Too dark?

  165. 165.

    Davis X. Machina

    Anyone here old enough to remember the Saturday Night Massacre?
    I’m thinking that’s on the tame end of what you’re asking Obama to do here.
    With the 82nd Airborne on the other end.

  166. 166.

    Emma

    I think I am going to step away from the Internets for a while. I am getting as sick and tired of my fellow Democrats as I am of the Republicans. Obama fought the good fight for 8 years EVEN WITH DEMOCRATS on his case. It’s never enough with some people, is it? You’re not satisfied until he’s crucified and the storm begins.

    Added: And I am ashamed of watching people become like the people they’ve been fighting with for eight years.

  167. 167.

    Corner Stone

    “Oh, you make salary, you raise your kids, you volunteer for 20+ with you local and state D party. It’s on you to stop all this!”

  168. 168.

    PsiFighter37

    @Yarrow: It’s not.

    I don’t really know what to make of this. Obama has never been a bombthrower, but these are very serious times. He should be looking at all the terrible people that have been nominated and recognize this.

  170. 170.

    guachi

    @Yarrow:

    Obama isn’t going to do jack shit. He can blather all he wants and be all “I’m so disappointed in you” bullshit with the Press and the American people. But he’s the President. He needs to put his big boy pants on and do something or he should just go the fuck away.

  171. 171.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    Okay this presser is not helping me at all. Well, at least I have my passport and I can get the fuck out of here. I can’t help the stupid in this country who think I am a latte sipping artisanal vegan.

  173. 173.

    JMG

    @hovercraft: This, totally. Obama can’t berate people for being stupid, they have to figure that out themselves. Many white people are going to have to be screwed as they will be before they will let go of the joy of feeling like they’re in a superior race because Trump got elected, and even then most of ’em won’t. Their own lives won’t get better, so all that’s left is enjoying watching the suffering of others.

  174. 174.

    Yarrow

    Question now – Can you say this was a free and fair election.

    And are you concerned about Trump’s relationship with Putin?

  177. 177.

    Jeffro

    @hovercraft:

    I think he understands, but at this point what can he do? He doesn’t want to stand up there and say, you fucked up America, and now you are all screwed. you’ve elected a thin skinned imbecile who is going to get us all killed.

    I hear you, but I don’t think this conference or your scenario are the only two options. Just off the top of my head, here are some things that would have been helpful to hear this afternoon:
    – talking about American values and democracy
    – talking more about the importance of media and voters focusing on real issues and not fake news, trivialities, Twitter-wars, etc.
    – noting that Hillz won almost 3M more votes and that PEOTUS must govern knowing this
    – noting that whatever the agenda, cabinet agencies are there for a reason and Americans deserve a government that actually supports them (especially in providing a safety net in this day and age)

  180. 180.

    Steeplejack

    @hovercraft:

    I don’t have any problem with that. I have a problem with the complete idiocy of the questions. Keep it simple: “What is your view/​opinion/​analysis of the current situation in Aleppo and Syria in general?”

    Aside from that, I am feeling disappointed with this press conference. Low-key, long-game Obama is not appropriate here. As others have said above, he’s out of office in a month, and a constitutional-level crisis requires something more than flight-attendant calming. (Great tweet above.) I don’t want him pounding the lectern—that’s not his style or his personality—but I would have liked to see a little more of the steely, threatening Obama and some pointed remarks for various miscreants to ponder in the days ahead.

    ETA: All right! Obama just remarked on “these multi-part questions.” He loses track!

  182. 182.

    Emma

    @tybee: Declare martial law, take over the country and trigger a massive civil war that will leave smoking nuclear ruins. Hey, let’s behave like Republicans.

  184. 184.

    debbie

    @Jeffro:

    If he said any of the things you want him to say, he’d be dismissed as a partisan hack by conservatives and, eventually, by the media.

    I say that this will not end when he leaves office. He said he was going to remain active in issues like elections, and I believe him.

  185. 185.

    Yarrow

    Can assure public that there wasn’t tampering with the voting process. Votes that were cast were counted. No evidence of machines tampered with.

    Declassification – we will provide evidence that we can safely provide that doesn’t compromise sources and methods. But a lot is classified and can’t provide it. It would compromise our ability to keep doing our job re: cyber security.

    Unless American people genuinely think the professionals in entire Intelligence infrastructure, many who are Republicans, are less trustworthy than the Russians, then people should pay attention to what our intelligence agencies say.

    Need to think about our political culture. Now slamming the Russians – weaker country, etc. But they can impact us if we abandon our values. Putin can weaken us if we start buying into notions that it’s okay to intimidate the press or lock up dissidents. Or discriminate against people b/c of faith.

    Calling out Republicans for finding Russians as being okay because that’s how much they dislike Democrats.

  187. 187.

    Jeffro

    “…suddenly finding a government and individuals who stand contrary to everything that we stand for…as being okay because, ‘that’s how much we dislike Democrats’…”

    Hmmm

  188. 188.

    Corner Stone

    @debbie:

    I say that this will not end when he leaves office. He said he was going to remain active in issues like elections, and I believe him.

    Great. Citizen Obama can now pull ALL the levers of power on 1/21.

  189. 189.

    guachi

    @tybee:

    Obama brought a knife to a gun fight. He’s president for one more month. If he can’t give me actual concrete steps that HE’S going to take, I don’t care to listen to anything he’s got to say.

    What should he do? I don’t know. I’m not the President. But if he doesn’t have any plans for the next 30 days (and it doesn’t look like he does) then he should shut up and go away.

  190. 190.

    Yarrow

    Calls out survey showing that 37% of Republican voters approve of Putin. Over one third. Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave!

    Good for Obama. Calling them out.

  191. 191.

    Chip Daniels

    @Corner Stone:
    Obama-Wan is not going to swoop in and save us.

    We organize, we fight, we register, we vote.

    There is no such thing as the Great Leftist Man on Horseback.
    That sort of thing belongs to the other side.

  192. 192.

    Jeffro

    @debbie: he’s going to be dismissed by conservatives anyway…

    “…37% of Republican voters approve of Putin…over a third of Republican voters…the former head of the KGB…Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave…”

  194. 194.

    hovercraft

    @Yarrow:
    Of course he does, he warned them, many people warned them, and they did it anyway. Now he’s supposed to “do something,” what the fuck is supposed to do. He saved us from a second great depression, he has toiled away every single day to improve the lives of the American people, but it was never fast enough, or big enough, or whatever enough for a society and media that is all about immediate gratification. And now as he’s almost out the door, you want him to save us again, people need to stop doing stupid shit, at some point you have to lie in the bed you’ve made for yourself. America did this, America needs to fix this, this man can not fix this for us. Those who voted for this did so with their eyes wide open, now we have to live with that choice. We didn’t do this, but we will still feel the brunt of the consequences.

    @guachi:

    But he’s the President. He needs to put his big boy pants on and do something or he should just go the fuck away.

    Tell me what exactly you think he can do? Be explicit, don’t give me the nebulous ‘something shit.’

  198. 198.

    guachi

    @Trentrunner:

    JAMES FALLOWS just tweeted that Obama was being too measured.

    JAMES FALLOWS.

    Indeed. Even at this late date and with the crisis we have, Obama can’t rise to the occasion and be anything other than “No Drama Obama”.

    But you know what? The occasion calls for Drama he’s failing miserably.

  199. 199.

    Yarrow

    Yes, he agrees with intelligence community that Russians carried out this hack. But wants to wait for report to tie everything together.

  201. 201.

    geg6

    @MomSense:

    Can’t agree with you. He is the president of the United States. He has taken an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

    As of right now, I don’t see him doing that. And I can’t believe I even typed that, but I do not regret it.

  206. 206.

    Corner Stone

    @Chip Daniels: I, for one, am tired of people telling me that my twice elected POTUS is DONE with me, and us, and HE’S OUTTA HERE and FUCK YOU for expecting him to do his job for the next 30+ days.
    If that’s the case then keep your mouth shut and take the train. This garbage time presser is damaging to the cause of sticking the knife into Trump. I would have preferred he just keep his mouth shut on this topic and talk about something else.

  208. 208.

    Steeplejack

    Okay, now he’s getting a little pointed. Referenced the poll that a third of Republican voters approve of Vladimir Putin, “the former head of the KGB.”

  209. 209.

    guachi

    What could he do? Well, he could outright call for the Electors to vote for Clinton.

    I firmly believe that there is no amount of intelligence and certainty that would get Obama to do squat to the Russians in the next 30 days. Nothing. So nothing Obama says matters. Trump certainly won’t do anything.

  214. 214.

    rikyrah

    Duck and Cover Won’t Save Us
    by Martin Longman
    December 16, 2016 2:35 PM

    The American electorate made a pretty bad mistake on November 8th, as becomes more and more obvious everyday. In fairness, most of the people who showed up to vote expressed a preference for the person who didn’t win, but that doesn’t change the outcome. And I have to agree with Jonathan Chait that the most troubling aspect here is that a lot of people are going to die, and that a likely source for the bloodshed is forming around Michael Flynn and his national security staff.

    Simply put, the outlook doesn’t seem good:

    It is almost impossible to overstate the danger to American national security posed by the combination of Flynn and his staff. Because his appointment is not subject to Senate confirmation, and also because it has been overshadowed by the Rex Tillerson nomination and its connection to the fast-moving Russia story, Flynn has receded from the front pages. His appointment is unprecedented, like so many other other things Trump has done — indeed, the endless violations of precedent are what make Trump’s election so surreal, and its dangers difficult to order.

    But it is the specific, mutually reinforcing characteristics of Flynn and his staff that invite the most alarm. He is a conspiracy theorist averse to any challenge to his suspicions, surrounding himself with a staff of fellow conspiracy theorists seemingly designed to shut out any challenge to his biases, providing advice to a novice president who is himself a conspiracy theorist. It’s under-informed, overconfident crackpots all the way down. As a comedic script, it would defy plausibility. Except there’s a terrifying chance that a lot of innocent people will die as a result

    ……………………………..

    Unfortunately, the record since then is clear, and the guy is a full-on nutter who is staffing up with fellow tinfoil hat travelers. When I saw her name mentioned on Twitter, I thought maybe Trump had offered the job of Press Secretary to Monica Crowley, which was a bad enough thought for me to have. When I realized that she’d been hired to serve as senior director of strategic communications of the National Security Council, I immediately loaded up a relevant video starring Bert the Turtle..

  216. 216.

    MomSense

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    The media loved the juicy gossip and completely failed to vet der trump. 46% of our population doesn’t care if Russia interfered as long as it was against the Democrats. WE are too fucking stupid to be a functional democracy and it’s not the president’s fault. He’s been the recipient of way too much BS for 8 years now.

  217. 217.

    Jeffro

    “Being divided and partisan makes us vulnerable” – ok then, Mr. President, who’s mostly doing that?

  219. 219.

    Trentrunner

    Obama’s “both-sides” reflex at this historical moment is not serving him well.

    ETA: Or us.

  221. 221.

    Yarrow

    Christ, he’s back to the equivalent of “there’s not a red America and a blue America, there’s one America.” BS. There’s one side that’s vulnerable to the fake news an other crap like that. Look at the people making the fake news. They don’t even bother making ones for the left – they don’t make money. It’s the Trump voters that fall for it.

  222. 222.

    catclub

    @Yarrow:

    Ooh…just called out Trump for questioning the integrity of the election before the election.

    I even posted that this was brilliant ( and evil) on Trump’s part. Since there were all the pious statements that ‘there is no way a USA (#1) election could be hacked’. Then it turns out to be hacked.

  223. 223.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    I am getting the feeling Obama’s not really going to DO anything though except make a statement.

    There needs to be decisive action here. Things he CAN do like establish a special prosecutor right now… have Justice issue arrest warrants for the hackers we can identify and push to extradite them… oh, and send out the black helicopters and arrest every wingnut conspiracy nut and drop them off on a remote South Pacific island where they’ll be forced to cannibalize each other until only two rats are left.

  228. 228.

    FDRLincoln

    Watching Obama’s news conference. He’s being his normal calm steady self, but you can see the flashes of anger. My take:

    A) He understands the gravity of the situation.
    B) He doesn’t feel he can do anything about it legally.
    C) He’s trying to keep us calm while the plane is going down.

    He’s not going to save us. He can’t, not staying within Constitutional limits and political norms. The problem is that his enemies and Trump in particular are not constrained by those factors.

    I love and admire the man. But I am more convinced than ever that he is the American Gorbachev: a good man, well-meaning, trying his best, brilliant in his own way, but unable to turn around a sick and dying system on his own.

  230. 230.

    hovercraft

    @Davis X. Machina:

    Using federal marshals to prevent the meeting of the Electoral College? How does that sound?

    To me personally, great.
    Foe a functioning “democracy” not so much. It would be one thing for the electors to revolt and refuse to elect Putin’s guy. For Obama to do it at the point of a gun, would not go over well. Do I think it would be legit, yes, but with these crazy people, and the uselessness of the GOP and the media, it would be portrayed as a partisan action, and would make matters even worse.

  231. 231.

    guachi

    @PaulWartenberg2016:

    I am getting the feeling Obama’s not really going to DO anything though except make a statement.

    Exactly. It’s the height of fecklessness. Doing nothing at least doesn’t make it obvious you’re a feckless weakling.

  235. 235.

    guachi

    @tybee:

    the “oh woe is me” is highly amusing.

    That’s basically all of Obama’s press conference. Obama lays out all these bad things but not one thing that I’ve heard that he’s going to do about it.

  236. 236.

    Steeplejack

    @MomSense:

    We elect leaders to lead. Yes, we all bear responsibility for what happened, but the purpose of a leader is to distill and focus our power to wield it at the critical juncture. I don’t expect Obama to “solve” this crisis for us. But I think he could do a better job of clarifying the particular issues from his perspective and press a little on those who will come after.

    ETA: Had to step away to answer a phone call, so my apologies if he addressed all this in the last 10 minutes.

  238. 238.

    MJS

    @catclub: No, the election wasn’t “hacked”. There is no evidence that actual votes were changed, or not counted, due to “hacking” or any other interference along those lines. What occurred was the Russians wished to see Trump elected. They used the release of innocuous emails (yes, gained through hacking) to get some American voters, and most of the American press, to do what they are programmed to do, i.e., be stupid. Every American had the opportunity to come to the only logical conclusion – the information was illegally obtained, and it doesn’t change the fact that Trump should never be president. That enough Americans (or properly placed Americans, in terms of where they live) couldn’t come to that conclusion is because, again, a ridiculously large number of Americans are stupid. Nothing Obama says or does at this point in time can change that fact, or the outcome of the election.

  239. 239.

    hovercraft

    @TaMara (HFG):

    Whaaa, whaaa, whaaa, President Obummer didn’t step to the podium and declare martial law and name himself emperor. He’s failed me.

    This.
    I feel like I’m having a flash back to when the ACA passed, it was all about how he sold us out, no single payer, etc.

  243. 243.

    Cermet

    What should WE do?! Easy – declare cyber war on Russia and fuck over their internet system for their banks – they will both learn a powerful lesson AND be hurt badly; retaliation on their part? Sure, let them and game is on. We will demonstrate that in all out cyber war they lose and big time; yes, our banks get hurt but fuck them for not paying for proper defenses (they will, and since this will happen sooner or later, best to learn now while our economy is strong.) Fucking with our election should be an absolute “if you dare do this your toast” . This crime we MUST demonstrate once and for all to everyone not to try this again – pay backs are hell. That is EXACTLY WHAT WE SHOULD DO!

  244. 244.

    MJS

    @guachi: Grow the fuck up. It seems like you might just be a Putin fan yourself, all desirous of a “strongman” to take care of you.

  245. 245.

    germy

    @guachi: Feckless! There’s that word again!

    lacking initiative or strength of character; irresponsible.

    Wow, for a minute there I thought I was on a fox news message board. ” Feckless!” the wingnuts’ favorite euphemism.

  247. 247.

    Trentrunner

    Again, from Twitter:

    Trump is more visibly upset about a bad review of Trump Grill in Vanity Fair than Obama is about the death of the republic.

  248. 248.

    guachi

    @raven: @raven:

    Bucha loudmouth punk ass motherfuckers want someone else to do something.

    We have a representative democracy. I vote and elect people so someone else will “do something”. Being “loudmouth punk ass motherfuckers” is actually a good thing if you are a citizen.

  249. 249.

    Major Major Major Major

    @MJS: obama actually pointed this out earlier in the presser. There wasn’t any particularly sophisticated hacking. What the Russians really hacked was the media, and he called them out for their obsession with reporting breathlessly on the hacked emails.

    ETA: @Cermet: cyberwar? They spear phished John Podesta’s fucking gmail password. This was an act of information warfare.

  250. 250.

    geg6

    @TaMara (HFG):

    This is beneath you. I, personally, am extremely disappointed in this presser and, yes, Obama could do more. He isn’t bluntly saying what should be said. No one here that I can see is seriously making the argument that Obama should declare martial law. But I do think he is failing us miserably in this situation and have felt that way since shortly after the election. This hits him in his most vulnerable flaw–his excessive belief in the good will of the GOP and, by extension, That Man. Sorry, but it’s the one thing about Obama that I consider his fatal flaw.

    And to denigrate those of us who feel Obama owes the country more than the pablum he dished out today and say he owes us nothing, that’s just utter bullshit. He owes us the fight to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Talking about how he wants an orderly transition and slapping the wrist of the press is not much of a display of how he is doing that. Sorry, but it’s the truth and he owes us at least another month of it. After that, he can do whatever he wants but he should do his most important job between now and then.

  251. 251.

    Miss Bianca

    @TaMara (HFG): Yeah, this. Altho’ what it says about me that I kind of wish he *had* done so, I dunno. Calling on authoritarianism to defend democracy from itself is one of those contradictions in terms that makes my head hurt to contemplate.

    @hovercraft: And this.

  252. 252.

    Emma

    @raven: isn’t it always the same? The way I see it, this place will be filled with guachis, liberals, and NRs by next year, telling us how disappointed they always were with Obama and how Sanders would have been SOOOOO much better.

  254. 254.

    Corner Stone

    @hovercraft:

    I feel like I’m having a flash back to when the ACA passed, it was all about how he sold us out, no single payer, etc.

    I love how this is being used as a counter. No. This is bullshit.

  255. 255.

    hovercraft

    He is giving Tom Perez a very strong endorsement. Smart, hard working, he’s produced, extraordinary.

  258. 258.

    JMG

    So Obama should make his final acts as President guaranteeing a civil war? Try to remember there were millions of white people in this country who turned on him when he expressed sympathy for an unarmed black teen killed by a crackpot gunman. I rate the possibility of serious civil strife and political violence in this country in 2017 at close to 100 percent. I bet Obama does too. He regards it as a duty of the President to try and prevent that, or at least postpone. Disagree if you want, but honestly, some of the fiery rhetoric posted here reminds me of nothing so much as the Iraq War chickenhawks. Fight for us! Not, fight with us!.

  261. 261.

    Jeffro

    OMG he actually went there with “there are no red states, blue states”

    Made me laugh (crying might come later though)

  263. 263.

    guachi

    @germy:

    Feckless! There’s that word again!

    lacking initiative or strength of character; irresponsible.

    Wow, for a minute there I thought I was on a fox news message board. ” Feckless!” the wingnuts’ favorite euphemism.

    It’s well over a month after the election so “lacking initiative” seems to fit. He sat on information about Russian hacking apparently at the behest of Mitch McConnell so, again, “lacking initiative”. And he isn’t going to actually do anything about it so, again, “lacking initiative”

    And he was the one who nominated Comey, which was an obviously stupid decision at the time so “irresponsible”

    Yep, I think “feckless” fits just fine here.

  266. 266.

    Cermet

    @Davis X. Machina: No (you are correct) and I am hoping that is what occurs; aside: I admire President Obama and regardless of what he does, he did a really fantastic job these eight years.

  268. 268.

    geg6

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    If he breaks norms, he wounds the legitimacy of the American democracy.

    Jesus holy fuck. American democracy literally has no legitimacy. None, zero, zilch. I suspected as much in 2000, but was wrong. Don’t think I am this time. The country is poised to roll over and show its underbelly to a pack of jackals and no one, including Obama, is going to do a damn thing about it.

  269. 269.

    Starfish

    So people have given up on the bully pulpit and are settling for no less than autocracy now? Is this turning back into a Republican blog?

  271. 271.

    Jeffro

    @guachi:

    We have a representative democracy. I vote and elect people so someone else will “do something”. Being “loudmouth punk ass motherfuckers” is actually a good thing if you are a citizen.

    Seconded on the “loud” part, anyway. =)

    He’s throwing some quite subtle shade at Trump about what the Electors should do btw..

  272. 272.

    Corner Stone

    @MJS:

    Want a strongman to take care of their problems and restore their self-esteem.

    Or maybe a regular, decent man who was twice elected and swore an oath to protect the Constitution? We were attacked. It’s not in a debate any longer.

  277. 277.

    hovercraft

    @Corner Stone:

    I love how this is being used as a counter. No. This is bullshit.

    Obama has never satisfied our need to call out media and GOP bullshit the way we’ve wanted him to, that’s just not who he is. It’s why the “Luther Anger Translator” skits were so cathartic, Luther was the Obama we wished he would be at times. He’s not and never been that. Getting up there and expressing anger at this point will not change what happened, as I said before, America fucking did this already, end of story, it’s done, period.

  279. 279.

    catclub

    @Starfish:

    So people have given up on the bully pulpit

    It seems to me that if Obama had said the Electoral College should not ratify the operations of Russian interference in the election, that would be
    the use of the bully pulpit that we are actually looking for.

  282. 282.

    MJS

    @geg6: Hey, how about you get yourself a clue and bone up on the electoral college. Then you might understand better what happened in both 2016 and 2000. Until you do that, you should probably refrain from commenting on this issue.

  283. 283.

    geg6

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’m not saying he can solve the problem. I would just actually like to see him actually define the problem.

    So far, haven’t seen that from him. It’s all “we’re all one people” and “we all want the best for the country” and “we want a smooth transition.” Fuck that.

    The lack of any urgency on his part is infuriating and typical of him when he is all in the GOP is of fine character and my friends mode. That’s what I heard in this presser.

    Fuck that.

  284. 284.

    Jeffro

    “…some voters and elected officials who have more confidence in a foreign adversary than in their neighbors…”

    Ok, “like”

  285. 285.

    LAC

    So the suggestions for a course of action from our commentstors are:

    1. Martial law
    2. Get mad! Like Richard roundtree mad in that movie “Shaft”
    3. Do someshin, obamash…glug glug glug.

    Any others?

  286. 286.

    sukabi

    Christmas wishes…all I want for Christmas is a fistful of indictments…Comey, McConnell, drumpf, Bannon, Manafort…for colluding with Putin / Russia.

    I really don’t think it’s too much to ask.

  287. 287.

    Davis X. Machina

    @catclub: Assuming ex hypothei that it’s a good thing to do it, why would you announce it as part of a press conference? I’m old enough to remember Kennedy addressing the nation about the missiles in Cuba — it wasn’t the ninth item in a presser, in response to a question from Helen Thomas.

  288. 288.

    SatanicPanic

    @geg6: This. That ship sailed when Comey intervened in the election. He should have been fired immediately after his first press conference where he was accusing Hillary of wrongdoing without evidence. The second time should have meant an immediate arrest.

  289. 289.

    gogol's wife

    @LAC:

    Make Trump go away, please daddy

    I admit I’m being a child. I feel like a child whose world is about to disintegrate

  291. 291.

    Corner Stone

    “Hey, there’s a massive train wreck coming ahead of us. Everyone, let’s all get into one passenger car.”

  292. 292.

    misterpuff

    Obama counseling Dems to deal with the chasm between Dems and Trumpists by compromising, finding middle ground, WHEN THERE IS NONE. This is Obama’s blind spot, he can’t acknowledge that the other side is not sane, and they do not want the same goals as Dems, there are two Americas, and Our America is about to have a boot put to its throat.

  293. 293.

    MomSense

    @Steeplejack:

    Pretty sure he said exactly what went wrong. It just wasn’t what we wanted to hear even though many of us have said the exact same things.

  294. 294.

    Starfish

    Kyle Feldscher ‏@Kyle_Feldscher 10m10 minutes ago
    Democrats spent months celebrating “When they go low, we go high.”
    Then Obama went high and they’re apparently pissed about it?

  295. 295.

    Jerzy Russian

    @SatanicPanic:

    we did outnumber them, just not in the right places

    Just sitting here waiting for my daughter to get done with a meeting so we can drive home, but some random thoughts:

    California has 718,000 people for every electoral vote. Wyoming has about 190,000 people for every electoral vote. I am too lazy to do this myself, but I wonder what the electoral vote count would be if every state had 190,000 people per electoral vote. California would have close to 200 electoral votes.

    Driving into the Bay Area this morning, one caller to the local talk radio (810 KOGO) insisted that Romney had won the popular vote. Unfortunately, this person is one out of about 45% of the whole country, as far as I can tell.

  296. 296.

    geg6

    @TaMara (HFG):

    Oh, bullshit.

    Guachi can speak for himself. Just as I can. I still love the man and would vote for him again in a minute, but you can’t seriously think Obama doesn’t owe the country anything more than the pablum he served up there today.

    I have my plans for what I will be doing from here on out, but I don’t think Obama really has a plan here other than to get the hell out and leave us to the tender mercies of That Man.

  299. 299.

    germy

    @LAC:

    So the suggestions for a course of action from our commentstors are:

    1. Martial law
    2. Get mad! Like Richard roundtree mad in that movie “Shaft”
    3. Do someshin, obamash…glue glug glug.

    Any others?

    “More drama!”

  303. 303.

    catclub

    @Davis X. Machina: Hey, I agree that such a statement should be in a formal address. That makes a lot of sense.
    however, 1) I don’t expect that address to happen
    and 2) since he is being asked questions in a press conference,he can answer them with this.

  304. 304.

    JMG

    One last thing. On Jan 20, Obama will assume an unprecedented role in our politics. He is an ex-President both young enough and popular enough that he can act as a leader of the opposition. He’ll have no power, but he’ll have an enormous audience if and when he criticizes Trump and the Republicans. Any two-term President would be extremely reluctant to fill that role. He’s probably dreaming of a beach somewhere. But if Obama sees that as part of his future, he may wish to keep some powder dry and in reserve.

  305. 305.

    geg6

    @MJS:

    Go fuck yourself, asshole. I have a degree in political science. I’m well aware of how the electoral college works, you fucking dick.

  306. 306.

    SatanicPanic

    @Davis X. Machina: It doesn’t, refer back to my previous post. I’d announce that the electoral college isn’t meeting until, say January because given circumstances we need more time to investigate the results.

  307. 307.

    MJS

    @geg6: Have you been vilified by approximately half of the country for 8 years? If not, then you have exactly zero standing to say what the President does or does not owe this country after his second very successful term has ended.

  310. 310.

    gogol's wife

    @JMG:

    Yes, despite my fantasies, whenever I think of the aftermath of any of them (like the EC somehow keeping Trump out), I realize that the aftermath would be chaos. Now my fantasy is that we have enough Democrats (and maybe even some principled Republicans) to fight against the worst.

  311. 311.

    Corner Stone

    @Starfish:

    Democrats spent months celebrating “When they go low, we go high.”
    Then Obama went high and they’re apparently pissed about it?

    Personally I hated that slogan about the third time I heard it. Talk about the perfect synopsis of how and why D’s lose so many elections.

  312. 312.

    Miss Bianca

    @LAC: I’m in the middle of a sobfest, for various reasons, and you’re making me laugh!

    DAAAAAMMN YOOOUUUU…!!

  313. 313.

    geg6

    @Starfish:

    High is ignoring what has happened and telling me we need to come together with the GOP? After they have betrayed the nation?

    Um, no thanks.

  314. 314.

    catclub

    @Jerzy Russian:

    one caller to the local talk radio (810 KOGO) insisted that Romney had won the popular vote.

    That is basically a quote from the Trump tweet in 2012 that came out before the results from California came in.
    Trump complained then that it was unfair that someone could be elected without winning the popular vote.

  315. 315.

    Belafon

    @LAC:

    So the suggestions for a course of action from our commentstors are:

    1. Martial law
    2. Get mad! Like Richard roundtree mad in that movie “Shaft”
    3. Do someshin, obamash…glug glug glug.

    Any others?

    Join your local Democratic party and organize. Kansas this year is a good model.

  316. 316.

    Emma

    @geg6: America’s democracy is legitimized only by the adherence of citizens to the Constitution. It has always been that way. We have a sizable part of our population that has decided to use the Constitution as toilet paper. It is an unprecedented crisis and it will either make us or break us.

  317. 317.

    Trentrunner

    Andrea Mitchell just said emphatically that many important Democrats that talk to her have said they agree with Obama’s calling out the “coastal latte-sipping elites.”

    There you are.

  319. 319.

    MJS

    @geg6: Do you? You may want to ask for your money back, because you seem to think that the sitting president can slam the breaks on that process by fiat. Doesn’t work that way.

  322. 322.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @JMG:

    I rate the possibility of serious civil strife and political violence in this country in 2017 at close to 100 percent. I bet Obama does too. He regards it as a duty of the President to try and prevent that, or at least postpone.

    Yep. Dude really isn’t about emoting, but instead is about deliberative rational acts.

    Would it be satisfying to see Trump tossed into a Federal allocated holding cell at Rikers? Yes, and within a half a day, you’d have a dozen legislatures across the South and West meeting to consider articles of secession and mutual assistance, along with the announcements by several USAF commands announcing that they are now unmoored from NCA, as well as another dozen or so Army installations announcing their refusal to follow any orders from Washington.

    Obama doesn’t want that. You don’t want that. None of us want that.

  323. 323.

    Corner Stone

    I am loving how some here are arguing from the premise that our democracy is going to continue along just fine. What would DMX call it, a priori ?

  325. 325.

    dr. bloor

    @debbie:

    I’m holding out for someone to hack into Putin’s bank accounts and drain them. Watch Vlad keep quiet about that!

    This is a distinct possibility, actually, particularly if today’s presser is put in the context of last night’s Maddow lead. Obama knows how to follow the money, and Putin knows he knows. But you’re never going to hear about anything that might or might not happen.

  327. 327.

    Corner Stone

    “I think Donald Trump is going to be very happy on the line Obama walked here today. And I think we will be hearing more of this from him in the coming days.”
    /Chuck Todd

    Anything else, peeps?

  329. 329.

    catclub

    @Belafon:

    Join your local Democratic party and organize. Kansas this year is a good model.

    Can I predict that in a few years, the Democrats will win in Kansas, and be given two years to fix EVERYTHING, before being thrown out so the GOP can continue their reign of error.

  331. 331.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Corner Stone: It will continue along. It will not continue along just fine. It continued along from 1850 to 1865, through some seriously not just fine. If the people want it so.

  335. 335.

    SatanicPanic

    @Davis X. Machina: Because all the things people are worried about are going to happen anyway. People are worried about chaos- Trump in power will be chaos. It’s chaos already with China seizing drones from our Navy because of that guy just making a telephone call. We might as well seize the initiative.

  336. 336.

    Jeffro

    @JMG:

    On Jan 20, Obama will assume an unprecedented role in our politics. He is an ex-President both young enough and popular enough that he can act as a leader of the opposition. He’ll have no power, but he’ll have an enormous audience if and when he criticizes Trump and the Republicans. Any two-term President would be extremely reluctant to fill that role. He’s probably dreaming of a beach somewhere. But if Obama sees that as part of his future, he may wish to keep some powder dry and in reserve.

    Well…I’m not sure he’s ever fired off a whole lot of ‘powder’, ever, but I do get what you’re saying and you’re right: for the next several years, he’ll be able to draw a clear contrast between whatever the Putin/Trump administration proposes and what he & his team did for the country for eight years. The sheer fact of the economy recovering and then booming even while that cursed “job-killing Obamacare” was implemented needs repeating for the next decade, or else the Rs will pretend the recovery never happened and that Obamacare in fact killed 20 million people.

    Unfortunately, even WITH Obama there to remind them of pesky “facts”, Trump, Ryan, McConnell & Co don’t care about facts or have any principles save Randian ones. So besides Obama and his work (past, present, future) we’re going to need some inspirational leaders, and we’re all going to have to step up. It’s been heartening to see just on this board how many people are calling their members of Congress on a regular basis now, joining up with PP/SPLC/NRDC/ACLU, and so on. Let’s keep doing that.

  337. 337.

    Ksmiami

    @JMG: no fuck it. After the republicans go through with their plans there will no longer be an America worth fighting for

  342. 342.

    Hill Dweller

    @Trentrunner: Obama didn’t call out the “latte sipping coastal elites”. It was actually the opposite. He was ridiculing that caricature of Dems. Mitchell is a moron.

  343. 343.

    Mike in NC

    Putin did his best to elect Trump but it was a handful of Rust Belt idiots that did the job by believing Trump’s ridiculous lies and promises. Best Obama can do at this point is to do what he can to make Trump’s lifting sanctions on Russia as difficult as possible. After eight years in office, he has to know a few tricks to fuck with the shitgibbon and his henchmen.

  344. 344.

    kc

    Foreign hackers have been successfully targeting the US federal government, state governments, and numerous commercial entities for years. Four years ago, we were told Russian hackers stole the SS numbers of 3.6 million SC residents. As far as I know nobody, other than a handful of low-level SC DOR employees, suffered any consequences.

    I can’t see how or why this would be any different.

  345. 345.

    Trentrunner

    @germy: Doesn’t matter. Andrea thought he was.

    And why should that matter? If Obama had said “A lot of people think niggers are lazy and criminal,” would we care if he was USING or MENTIONING this racist slur? #linguistics

    We don’t need Obama fucking repeating the slurs AND the idea that there’s something wrong with being a “latte-sipping coastal elite.” Fuck THAT.

  347. 347.

    Ksmiami

    @Corner Stone: I want them to go Buffy the vampire slayer on their asses- heavy sharp objects clear taunts and don’t stop till the bodies have disintegrated. The people who support the GOP are animals- or even less than that as animals actually have innate empathy

  348. 348.

    nastybrutishntall

    It sounds like Obama has no fucks left to give about American democracy and is planning his vacation. He’s doing his due diligence, fulfilling his duties, and nothing more. I don’t blame him. “Hey America, I tried thoughtfulness and decency. That’s what I do. Now you get the opposite. Good luck with that! I’m out.”

  349. 349.

    Jeffro

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:

    Would it be satisfying to see Trump tossed into a Federal allocated holding cell at Rikers?…Obama doesn’t want that. You don’t want that. None of us want that.

    It’s appealing, I’ll grant you that. But were many of us advocating having Trump taken into custody? I don’t remember that. I do remember – since I was one of them – hoping that we’d see a little more fire, more on HRC’s huge PV lead, and a note to the EC to take everything they’ve seen into consideration when they vote next week. It sure took a while, but PBO did come through on that last one in a very presidential way.

  351. 351.

    Another Scott

    @Timurid: What will really hurt Vlad is the price of oil collapsing. The US starting to export oil, or opening the taps on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or encouraging western non-OPEC countries to stop buying Russian oil, or, …

    There are lots of things the US can do besides draining/freezing Putin’s bank accounts or messing up the traffic lights in Red Square.

    How much can be done before Donnie takes office is another question. :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  353. 353.

    Corner Stone

    @MJS: When Trump echoes that line, and he will, then what jackie? Trump is already using Obama to dispute what the facts being claimed about the hack actually are.

  356. 356.

    JMG

    @Jeffro: I agree. Look. Trump and the Congressional Republicans have power but not so much public support and an unpopular agenda. They’re the ones who’re going to have to repress a majority. Either Americans will resist that because they believe in constitutional democracy, or they don’t care. If they don’t, nothing Obama could say or so will change things. If you don’t have some level of faith in your countrymen and women, then it’s best to either emigrate or give up being an active citizen.

  357. 357.

    SatanicPanic

    @Davis X. Machina: That’s what it’s going to come to, but first we need some institutional power behind us. If Obama, Schumer, Sanders, etc. are going to keep talking like nothing’s changed, then we need new people.

  358. 358.

    Jeffro

    @albertZ: My bad…

    Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I’m saying is, what are you prepared to do?
    Ness: Anything within the law.
    Malone: And *then* what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way. Because they’re not gonna give up the fight, until one of you is dead.
    Ness: I want to get Capone! I don’t know how to do it.
    Malone: You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That’s* the *Chicago* way! And that’s how you get Capone. Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?
    ….

    I dunno, a knee to the face seems so much more reasonable…

  359. 359.

    Gin & Tonic

    @dr. bloor: Why in the world does Putin want or need money, in the form of actual numbers in an account in Zurich or Grand Cayman? He has all the power and resources of a nation-state at his disposal for as long as he wants them. That beats cash 10 times out of 10. He *is* the state.

  362. 362.

    Davis X. Machina

    @SatanicPanic: You don’t need them. I don’t need them. We don’t need them.

    When the people lead, the leaders will follow.
    East Germany had a Stasi, and everything. Where are they today?
    Poland had a Jaruzelski — where is he today?
    Name all the Euromaidan leaders.

  364. 364.

    catclub

    @Gin & Tonic: exactly. Very Few billionaires could afford Airforce 1. But a guy with a $400k salary does.

    Also, he probably has plenty of assets in Russian banks.

  365. 365.

    dr. bloor

    @Gin & Tonic: You’d have to ask him, but he’s been as busy as hell over the past fifteen years building his stack. Possibly because that state he controls is a giant fucking mess, and he wants a little something for himself when it all falls apart, again.

  366. 366.

    Yutsano

    @Cermet: Big problem with this: the Russians are GOOD. Like really good. They far outpace our cyberwarfare abilities by a fair margin, and it’s mostly because the best hackers get sucked up into working for the government at an early age. We are also horrifically behind in keeping many of our own devices secure. We would lose this bigly, especially with the Yam taking over.

  367. 367.

    SatanicPanic

    @Davis X. Machina: well it looks like either way we’re going to have to ditch them so I suppose it doesn’t matter in their particular case, but I don’t agree that it works the way you say it does. People are followers. We’ll have to cast around for leaders until we find one that’s right. No one at the national level who’s not from California is looking great right now.

  368. 368.

    Jeffro

    @Major Major Major Major:

    i bet Trump likes lattes, in his office inside his gold plated Manhattan skyscraper. Probably has one of those machines to make them that costs ten grand.

    I thought I read that he’s a soda guy – goes better with all the fast food he seems to like. Which automatically gets my mind thinking of the consequences of all that fast food…and hoping…and praying…

    Actually, you know what would be a fun & funny way for liberals to have a good one at Trump’s expense? Doesn’t McDonalds sell those stocking-stuffer booklets of coupons for their grub around the holidays? Why don’t we try and send him 65M of those? (Just a single coupon each, not the whole booklet!)

    We can all just smile innocently and tell him (and the press, and folks on social media, and our Trump-loving friends and family) that we’re just trying to show our appreciation for him. You know, give him exactly what he deserves…er, I mean what he enjoys, enjoys!

    LOL

  369. 369.

    catclub

    @Yutsano: I would certainly be concerned about the power grid. And in particular that ours is much more connected to the internet (stupid! lazy! cheaper!)
    than theirs. less concerned about banks.

  370. 370.

    EBT

    @Jeffro: Diet soda and bottled water, while saying that only fat people drink diet soda to try to make his 75 extra pounds go away.

  371. 371.

    Jeffro

    @Yutsano: What might work well is to hack the assets/accounts of Putin’s biggest backers…other Russian oligarchs. That way it’s not Putin himself or the Russian state directly, just some thuggish clowns in league with Putin.

    And then invest the proceeds in sending even MORE cheap oil and gas to Europe…

  372. 372.

    batgirl

    Only thing that MIGHT change the course of President Trump is if ALL Clinton voters took to the street to protest this unfair election and stayed there. But we don’t do that in America… Instead we post on blogs and twitter.

  374. 374.

    Davis X. Machina

    @batgirl: Well, we can learn. We’re a clever people — we learned how to blog and twitter, didn’t we? And there are still those among us, like Rep. John Lewis, who know how it’s done. And Rev. William Barber. We need to learn from them.

    ‘A republic, if you can keep it’ implies a certain amount of work.

  376. 376.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Trentrunner:

    “coastal latte-sipping elites.”

    Some one break it to Andrea that “Republicans on the Coasts” and everyfuckingwhere else ALSO sip lattes now…it’s 2016, not 1996 for fucks sake.

  377. 377.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @guachi:

    He needs to put his big boy pants on and do something or he should just go the fuck away.

    So exactly how does one defend Democracy by breaking it?

  378. 378.

    randy khan

    @tobie: Here, here! My wife and I will be there, and the more the better.

    It’s just one thing, but it’s an important one to set the tone.

  381. 381.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Ella in New Mexico: My local gas station, which was also the state’s biggest issuer of tags during deer season three years ago, has lattes. In many flavors. It goes well, I am told, with a tin of Skoal.

  382. 382.

    sukabi

    @Hill Dweller: well, when the President calls you an asshole by calling out your entire premise for framing every story you do- what’s left is to purposefully mischaracterize the President’s message.

  383. 383.

    Kay

    @Trentrunner:

    Democrats did have a bad message on the economy, though. They chose to highlight “opportunity” rather than talking about work and wages. They had plenty of warning that it wasn’t going well- they lost every governor’s race in a whole tier of Great Lakes states and labor got shellacked- they still rely on labor money and organizing in those states.

    Democrats weakness in those states was apparent PRIOR to Hillary Clinton even announcing but the Democratic Party doesn’t care about winning state races, so they ignored it.

    Forget “messaging” and whether we have to reach out to WWC or whatever- we have basic structural problems. They cannot be a federal Party. It won’t work. They should be in North Carolina right now. They should be looking at how they won the PA, LA and NC governor’s races and figuring out how they will win the WI, OH and MI governors races. What PA, NC and LA had in common was public education. That was a central issue.

  387. 387.

    Florida Frog

    @tobie: Women’s March- I’ll be there with bells on. So will a bunch of others from little Amelia Island. We might have enough to charter our own bus! Seriously, I have no idea how much attention this will generate but if we don’t have consistent, persistent pressure from the decent half of the country we don’t stand a chance.

  390. 390.

    Kay

    @Trentrunner:

    There is something blocking the Democratic Party from organizing effectively in states. We have to figure out what that is. There’s some kind of turf protecting going on in the national Party. Someone is effectively hogging all the money and manpower in the national Party. They had to know they were losing state after state. They made NO changes.

  391. 391.

    Emerald

    Right. I’m feeling better. Twitter Obama fans are saying hey, he’s always calm like this when he’s doing major shit behind the scenes. Doing OBL while eviscerating the vulgarian at the correspondent’s dinner being the operative example. He already said he can’t do anything until after Jan 20th. OK.

    I’ll wait, Obama. I never thought there was any actual chance to stop the vulgarian from taking office anyway.

    I’ll wait.

  393. 393.

    Kay

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    It’s different at the state level though- closer. About a third of what Rev Barber talks about is public education. That’s how he gets all those teachers out in NC. That sea of red at his rallies? That’s public education people- “red for public ed”.

  394. 394.

    SatanicPanic

    @Kay: The Republicans managed to get tea party nutjobs showing up all over, we should be able to do that too.

  395. 395.

    Mike in dc

    @Kay:

    Beltway consultant class gets antsy when you start moving money away from them. And the state parties challenging the national on strategy is probably annoying for them too. But you gotta strengthen the state parties, and start on regional economic development proposals if you want to build up rural support.

  396. 396.

    geg6

    @TaMara (HFG):

    If you think that was me being angry or punching you, you don’t know me at all. That’s just straight talk. Sorry that you see it as anger. Now some other of my replies to other commenters? That was anger.

  397. 397.

    tobie

    @Florida Frog:

    but if we don’t have consistent, persistent pressure from the decent half of the country we don’t stand a chance.

    Good for you folks for organizing to come! I agree that consistent, persistent and visible pressure is really important. If a million people show up for the march, it cannot be ignored. And it reinforces a point we all know but which hasn’t gotten so much attention in the media. He’s got no mandate; he lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes; the majority do not want his radical agenda.

  398. 398.

    randy khan

    @SatanicPanic:

    I don’t think anyone expects that a rally would make Trump step down. But a rally can do a lot of things – create pressure against his nominees and the Republicans’ worst initiatives, get people fired up to do things at home, set the stage for local organizing (and note that there are rallies scheduled in other places for the same day), etc.

    My view is that this sort of thing has to be part of a broader strategy – get people out and energized, then get them to do other things. I’d love it if the organizers used the megaphone the event will create to start flooding local Congressional town halls and the like, for instance – highlight that Trump and the Rs don’t have a mandate from the very start.

  399. 399.

    geg6

    @Emerald:

    I’ll wait, too, but I’m not holding my breath.

    I didn’t ever think he’d be able to stop him from taking office. I do, however, think he can lay it all out for us, honestly and in detail, before That Man takes office. I want it all out there. It isn’t, yet. And I won’t judge yet, but so far I’m seeing a lot of very weak sauce.

  400. 400.

    Morzer

    @tobie:

    the majority do not want his radical agenda

    Judging by what’s going on in North Carolina, the GOP plans to shrink the electorate and game the system so that such little things as majorities don’t matter any more.

  401. 401.

    SatanicPanic

    @randy khan: I agree with this, that’s why I was curious about the “stayed there” part of the comment. I think making a big show and then going home to get stuff accomplished is the way to go. But I am not an expert, just trying to do my part.

  404. 404.

    Calouste

    Obama can do pretty much anything he wants against the Russians in mid-January. How are the Russians going to retaliate? By fucking over their new best buddy Don the Con?

  406. 406.

    tobie

    @randy khan:

    My view is that this sort of thing has to be part of a broader strategy – get people out and energized, then get them to do other things.

    Agree completely. The march is there, among other things, for morale boosting and setting the stage for local party action. Every community that charters a bus or organizes its own protest puts together a list of people in the area who want to be involved in politics (local and state as well as national).

  408. 408.

    Kay

    I’d just like to note that Donald Trump hasn’t made a single effort to “reach out” to the majority who voted against him.

    In fact, he’s holding rallies jeering at the people who voted against him. It’s not my job to make Donald Trump comfortable as President, particularly because he continues to be the same ungenerous, lying asshole he was every day of his campaign.

    The President has to get better first before the country is ordered to show him respect. I owe him nothing.

  410. 410.

    ruemara

    Goddamn. All y’all backseat presidents. Consider that a good quarter or more of the electorate & the american public admire Putin. That they consider him a strong leader. Consider that Dems, liberals & progressives have spent nearly a decade whining at Obama and failing to turn out, unless he’s on the ticket, putting on a show for them. He’s out there with possibly the worst backup crew any leader could have, with a republic to try to hold together that has willingly ripped itself apart. No progressive movement ever spent serious cash & efforts to improve voting rights in red states, despite the fact that those votes have always been needed to win. Whole swaths of the left knew who Hillary’s opposition was and felt she was worse. The Russian involvement has been public knowledge since August.
    Yet it’s Obama who should take the extrajudicial methods you’d prefer and risk his own impeachment & arrest for sedition? You can’t take it as a call for the people to swing into action and demand things from your Congress, like right now? He’s got to be legislator, statesman and Captain America? Unless you have a method that doesn’t require an act of Congress, you’re job is to change Congress, not say you’re disappointed that Obama won’t break the republic to save it from itself.

  413. 413.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Morzer:

    Judging by what’s going on in North Carolina, the GOP plans to shrink the electorate and game the system so that such little things as majorities don’t matter any more.

    True, which is why we have to stiffen our spines, strengthen our resolve, and fight for democracy. Rev. Dr. Barber isn’t giving up in North Carolina and neither should we. I’m absolutely hating what this election catapulted us into. I do not want to live in interesting times. But here we are, like it or not. The question for each of us, individually and collectively, is how will we respond?

  415. 415.

    Kay

    Someone in media with “access” might want to tell the Trump Family and the rest of the public employees we’ll be paying that we don’t work for them. They work for us. They’re not in a position to make demands of the public for “respect” or anything else.

    Donald Trump wanted this job, and this job entails working for everybody in the country. He doesn’t direct how we treat him. We do. I’ll let them know when they meet my high standards. They’re not there yet.

  416. 416.

    gogol's wife

    @Kay:

    In the grocery line today, I saw an Us magazine cover line, “Melania: The White House is not a priority, Barron is my priority.” I shouted, “Then why did you run for president?” The sweet white-haired man in front of me turned around in fright, and said, “Oh, I thought you were talking to me!” I am really losing it.

  417. 417.

    Morzer

    @ruemara:

    Can’t ask Obama to do for us what we were unwilling to do for ourselves. Part of growing up is learning to do your own chores, earn your own money, stand on your own two feet. Obama isn’t our daddy and we can’t expect him to kiss our boo-boos every time we fuck up.

  418. 418.

    Kay

    Trump has a 48% approval rating. Instead of demanding that people respect and admire him he better get busy figuring out how to win over the half of the country who absolutely loathe him. His sleazy campaign team appearing on cable and yelling at us isn’t a good approach.

    Trump’s never been an employee. He now has millions of bosses and more than half of them aren’t happy with the hire.

  419. 419.

    Tyro

    This last press conference was final evidence that Obama leads the country he believes America to be, not the one that it is, and he’s going to stick to that.

    It’s also a clear example of how liberal democracy can be easily undermined– Obama needs to adhere to liberal democratic norms, but illiberal forces feel no such obligation and can use Obama’s instincts against him, since they can be assured they will face no risks.

  420. 420.

    ruemara

    @FDRLincoln: We’re a goddamned democracy. He shouldn’t have to have been trying to save us on his own.

    @Tyro: The risks have to be provided by the people. We hold our electeds accountable.

    Jesu. this is futile.

  422. 422.

    Morzer

    @Kay:

    He’s also laughing specifically at the African American community because some of it didn’t vote at all – and he’s thanking them for it. Talk about being a crass little racist thug!

  423. 423.

    jenn

    @batgirl: Protest marches should be the last step, not the first. The first comes with organizing. Here’s an article: https://hbr.org/2016/11/what-successful-movements-have-in-common

    A highlight:

    The Strength Of A Movement Is Not Large Crowds, But Small Groups

    In the 1950’s, the prominent psychologist Solomon Asch undertook a pathbreaking series of conformity studies. What he found was that in small groups, people will conform to a majority opinion. More recent research suggests that the effect applies not only to people we know well, but that we are also influenced even by second and third degree relationships.

    So while we usually notice successful movements after they have begun to attract large crowds and hold massive demonstrations, those are effects, not causes, of successful mobilization. It is when small groups connect — which has become exponentially easier in the digital age — that they gain their power. […]

    That’s why founders of Otpor warn in their training manuals about the dangers of holding large demonstrations too early. Rather, they suggest that protesters focus on building capacity and strategically sequencing their actions to gain support. If you can do that successfully, eventually the large crowds will take care of themselves.

  425. 425.

    patroclus

    Wow! I take a few weeks off and Balloon Juice hasn’t changed much. A vocal minority still blaming Obama (or Hillary) for stuff Putin and Trump do. I think I might take a few more weeks off now. I thought it was the usual good performance by the POTUS – too bad he’s only got one more month.

    TBOGG??!!

  428. 428.

    Lalophobia

    @Jeffro: Didn’t they get Capone on tax evasion or something like that?

    Me, I don’t know how to feel, because this is the guy who can cheerfully laugh at an OBL joke while he knows the kill is taking place. If there’s shit going down behind the scenes or there’s not, he’s not going to let anybody know.

  429. 429.

    Kay

    @Morzer:

    It’s all such bullshit. A President who wants to bring the country together after an election doesn’t launch a campaign tour to jeer at the people who voted against him. I refuse to play along. When he starts acting like a President I’ll treat him like one. He goes first.

  430. 430.

    Tyro

    @ruemara: this is a heckuva lot of victim-blaming going on here. We going headlong off a cliff, and you’re saying that things would have been better if only we “organized” more. Parties, elected officials, the media to keep the public informed, etc. are supposed to be the infrastructure that enables in, and they are non functional. And then you complain that people aren’t doing anything with the infrastructure and leadership they don’t have.

  432. 432.

    Tyro

    @Kay: the thing I respect about politicians like Trump and W is that they don’t think their job is to “bring people together.” Their job is to lead their movements to enact their policies. “Bringing people together” is especially pointless when you’ve WON. When you have a majority, your job is to defend your majority and stand up for them, not sell them out in the name of making the minority like you more

  433. 433.

    Elie

    @Tyro:
    I hear you but will hold my judgement till this last bit plays out. Yes Obama is idealistic but he is no fool and has as strong an ego as any leader inc Trump. Let’s see what happens

  435. 435.

    notoriousJRT

    @Trentrunner:
    So now Trump is the standard we should follow. God. You folks have lost your minds.

    ETA: Trump is always going to be more upset about stupid shit. It is who he is. Obama is not going to subvert the constitution to save it, IMO. Just because his hair isn’t publicly on fire, you have no idea the level of his upset. Christ on a crutch. He probably wonders why voters (who are ultimately to blame) could not see this shit coming. The country goes down if we let it – not if Obama isn’t sufficiently exercised to suit you or the Twitterverse.

  438. 438.

    ruemara

    @Tyro: Yeah, you’re victims. The suppression has been documented going back multiple elections. This election cycle has been rife with propaganda, misinformation, tons of proof that the current PEOTUS was a repellent, dangerous, untrustworthy individual, but I’m blaming the victims.

    We should remain unorganized and basically be as effective in change as Occupy Wall Street, for whom we owe so much progress after so much effort.

  439. 439.

    Davis X. Machina

    @gogol’s wife: I spent a lot of time reading about Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, in the 1980-1990 period. What we need to do can be done. Anybody my age (60) has seen it done.

    It remains to do it, is all.

  440. 440.

    Suffragete City elftx

    LOL at the comments demanding POTUS pull a Kanye.
    He’s too damned smart for that.

  441. 441.

    SatanicPanic

    @ruemara: I think it’s worthwhile to point out that his continued attempts at working with the other side did lead to him hiring the guy who threw the election to Trump. At the very least we should admit that he owns that particular mistake.

  442. 442.

    Tyro

    @ruemara: yes, and you’re saying it’s their fault for not “organizing” against it. As if people with jobs and family have nothing better to do than form a local chapter of “The Community for Empowering Community Empowerment” and signing up all their neighbors and organizing weekly “action items.”

    The Republicans didn’t wait around for people to “organize,” they sponsored the Tea Party, pumped tons of money into it, funded dozens of think tanks, handed out lots of checks to conservative campus groups, etc.

    We need to stop acting like we have somehow “failed” the party and wake up to the fact that it has failed us

  443. 443.

    Tazj

    @SatanicPanic: Yes, that’s what we have to do now. I’m tired of hearing Republicans saying “you lost, get over it. ” Oh, like you guys did with tea party. Of course, they had every right to protest and we do too.

  444. 444.

    ruemara

    @SatanicPanic: Yes, because one would believe a Republican would be interested in working with the Russians to throw an election. Definitely. Pillory him now, because the emails were such a legitimate issue, since deciding behind a career politician and a lying neonazi with dodgy financials, a squick relationship to his daughter, rape accusations and the general attitude of depraved sentient venereal disease was sooooo haaaaarrrrrd.

    Sorry, I’m going to have to lay this on the non-voters and the voters for anyone who wasn’t HRC.

  445. 445.

    Brachiator

    @notoriousJRT:

    ETA: Trump is always going to be more upset about stupid shit. It is who he is. Obama is not going to subvert the constitution to save it, IMO. Just because his hair isn’t publicly on fire, you have no idea the level of his upset. Christ on a crutch. He probably wonders why voters (who are ultimately to blame) could not see this shit coming. The country goes down if we let it – not if Obama isn’t sufficiently exercised to suit you or the Twitterverse.

    Yep.

  446. 446.

    ruemara

    @Tyro: They failed you. And they didn’t pump tons of money into races? That’s not what the finance books say. Too bad. Sounds like you have a fucking failure to organize. Do you really think any gains made in the past 50 years didn’t come from people who went out and worked after work, plus those who risked their lives to be full time organizers? Seriously? What do you think this is, easy as pie?

  448. 448.

    Tyro

    @patroclus: the proof is in the pudding. If Obama is so great, why did both midterms implode for the democrats and why was everything such a clusterfuck leading to Trump being elected? It’s well and good you enjoy Obama’s dignified performance, but there are political duties that he failed to deliver on.

  449. 449.

    SatanicPanic

    @ruemara: I’m not letting voters off the hook, but it’s not a new thing that there are some uninformed people who vote. Picking Comey was a bad choice. I’m not saying he should have known Comey would do what he did, but he should have known better than to pick up Republican.

    EDIT- to clarify, we are to blame, Obama is to blame, everyone involved is to blame. There is plenty of blame to spread around.

  450. 450.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I made the mistake of listening to the first few minutes of MTP Daily, and boy howdy, are Chuckles and the gang ever upset about the fact that Obama smacked them (and the rest of the media) on their little behinds for covering emails emails emails ad nauseum throughout the campaign.

  451. 451.

    patroclus

    @Tyro: The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The midterms imploded because more people voted for Republican candidates than they did for Democrats. What’s a clusterguck?

  452. 452.

    Tyro

    @ruemara: it isn’t just about spending money on campaign commercials. It’s about the basic work of building an organizing infrastructure like the republicans did. I almost feel like democrats feel no need to do this for the specific purpose of blaming voters for not doing it.

    And furthermore, Obama doesn’t seem to acknowledge or respect the feelings of the people who put him into office. People are outraged, and his message is always, “I am calm and don’t understand what you are all agitated about.”

  453. 453.

    Brachiator

    @patroclus:

    Wow! I take a few weeks off and Balloon Juice hasn’t changed much. A vocal minority still blaming Obama (or Hillary) for stuff Putin and Trump do.

    It might be a stages of grief thing.

    @Tyro:

    the proof is in the pudding. If Obama is so great, why did both midterms implode for the democrats and why was everything such a clusterguck leading to Trump being elected?

    And occasional flareups of outright political insanity.

  454. 454.

    Tyro

    A lot of comments here reflect the same blindspot that Obama has: the expectation that the electorate should behave in a certain way for a desired outcome, and a disappointment/anger that they don’t behave that way, placing them at fault

    You must deal with the electorate as they are, not as you want them to be. If the democrats need to “organize” to win elections, then the party leadership needs to organize them. If there is too much propaganda, then the party needs counter programming. If students are disillusioned with politics, then the party needs to dump resources into campus organizing.

    It’s like complaining that the republicans refused to work with Obama. Accept that is the reality and work from there rather than wishing everyone wanted to rise above politics and get along.

  455. 455.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Tyro:

    And furthermore, Obama doesn’t seem to acknowledge or respect the feelings of the people who put him into office. People are outraged, and his message is always, “I am calm and don’t understand what you are all agitated about.”

    I think he acknowledges and respects those feelings just fine.

    What he cannot do, even with a mere 35 days remaining in office, is to go full Bruce Banner—–>Hulk. Partly it’s his personal style, and partly it’s because he knows damn well what would happen to his legacy if he were to morph into Angry Black Man.

    Apparently a lot of people on this blog won’t settle for anything less than seeing him foam at the mouth, jump up and down, curse like a sailor, and flash green fire from his eyes à la Carly’s Demon Sheep.

  457. 457.

    patroclus

    @Brachiator: I’m glad that they care, but the blame seems to be mis-directed. Personally, I’m glad that Obama acknowledges and respects my feelings after I helped put him into office by not going off half-cocked and lashing out at everyone.

    Only 43 more to a TBOGG!

  458. 458.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Tyro: I almost feel like democrats feel no need to do this for the specific purpose of blaming voters for not doing it.
    Good Lord.

    And furthermore, Obama doesn’t seem to acknowledge or respect the feelings of the people who put him into office

    Good Lord.

  459. 459.

    Elie

    Dude stood up and delivered a cool handed roast to Trump while Bin Laden was being taken out in a high risk operation that could have failed a million ways. I don’t know how this will end. Whether those of you who think he is just some mealy mouth with no answers here at the end are right. I did not expect him to lay it down for us today. I don’t know what is going on but my guess is a shit load. Maybe not ready to be revealed yet and he can’t really say “just wait” can he? But maybe there is no there there. Well have to see. He has not been a perfect President but I will always respect him

  461. 461.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    t’s well and good you enjoy Obama’s dignified performance, but there are political duties that he failed to deliver on.

    Jesus is this particular dipshit new?

  463. 463.

    Miss Bianca

    @Tyro:

    I almost feel like democrats feel no need to do this for the specific purpose of blaming voters for not doing it.

    OK, now you are really living up to your nym. Are *you* a Democrat? is this your first barbecue? Do you understand that if you are a Democrat and you are upset about what happened, then rather than stomping your teeny tiny feet that other people aren’t doing it for you, the onus is on YOU to get out there and start organizing? Jesus Chicken-Fried Christ – who do you think all those Republicans are who populated the Tea Party? Yeah, there’s a lot of money, but there’s also a fuckton of the base who is ready to go out and run for school board, call their reps, primary their asses, and lick envelopes. I am so fucking sick of liberals who whine and complain that they’re too busy to make a difference, they vote for President and bitch about their choices and that’s all they have to do, everything else is someone else’s problem. You know what? EVERYONE’S busy. And yet, somehow reactionaries cheerfully turn out to use democracy to destroy it, and liberals, in their own weird form of daddy/mommy fixation, seem to expect that some Leader out there – who’s not them – is going to do the heavy lifting for them.

    Either be prepared to be the change you want to see or SHUT THE FUCK UP already.

  464. 464.

    Corner Stone

    We were attacked by a foreign nation state. I guess it is on me that I didn’t grab my licensed copy of McAfee and jump onto the barricade.

  465. 465.

    Yarrow

    I had to go out for a bit. Heard a bit in the car on the radio. I think I heard someone ask him if he thought the Electors should be briefed on the hacking. I didn’t catch his response. Can anyone summarize?

    I hope he said something like, “It’s important the the Electors be informed as to issues surrounding the election. We will help them in any way we can if that is what they want.” Or something like that. Implying that yes, there’s stuff they should know but they have to ask.

    I don’t think he should have gone Hulk or Luther his anger translator, but I do think of the part I heard, I felt he could have been a bit more forceful and direct.

  466. 466.

    Elie

    Tyro has popped up now and then. Usually to weigh in w negative assessments of Obama or the Democrats. Whatever

  468. 468.

    debbie

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Apparently a lot of people on this blog won’t settle for anything less than seeing him foam at the mouth, jump up and down, curse like a sailor, and flash green fire from his eyes à la Carly’s Demon Sheep.

    “Can’t he be more like Trump?!”

  470. 470.

    Raoul

    @Corner Stone:

    He’s going to try and embarrass the media about this. And he’s going to fail.

    Indeed. While Republicans clearly feel no shame, reporters do. And their response is to lash out at those who make them feel the hot red face of public embarrassment.

    .

    Beyond that, I think we cannot expect much from Obama publicly between now and Jan 20. Not sure we can expect much from him after, either. He clings (maybe without bitterness?) to the antiquated and venerable institutions that the GOP has already set alight.

    It deeply saddens me that his love of our system and norms blinds him to their imminent collapse. I don’t know what sort of legacy history will accord him. Fantastic president, except for that fascism right after him thing.

    (And for g-d’s sake, I’m not saying he caused it, but his trust in our better angels has been tragically misplaced … several times over. I also don’t think he’d suddenly change his spots and road like a beast. But the accounts of this presser are of a man looking back not forward. Which in normal times is … uh, normal. These are not. Leadership means stepping out when times aren’t normal. Obama’s caution served him well many times, and failed him biggly at other key moments. Here we are.)

  471. 471.

    Tyro

    Everyone praised Bill Clinton for his “I feel your pain” moment in the 1992 town hall debate. When it comes to the outrage Obama’s voters felt about the Bush years, the republican stonewalling, the Trump campaign, etc., Obama is constitutionally incapable of feeling that connection with voters. That’s forgivable. But what is worse is how many of his supporters blame voters for feeling disappointed that he refuses to reflect their feelings/demands. A politician who can’t do that is going to shed support, and that is the fault of the politician, not the public.

  472. 472.

    Corner Stone

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    What he cannot do, even with a mere 35 days remaining in office, is to go full Bruce Banner—–>Hulk.

    Do you think that’s what B Crack expected? geg6? gogol’s wife? It seems kind of like fetishizing some people here who aren’t exactly bomb throwers against the Obama WH.

    and partly it’s because he knows damn well what would happen to his legacy if he were to morph into Angry Black Man.

    His legacy will be wiped from the history books. It’s all gone.

  473. 473.

    Tazj

    Here’s my esteemed representative Republican Chris Collins.

    There are people who are lying and deceitful, the e-mails point that out.</blockquote
    Please someone hack Collins' e-mail or the RNC e-mail and release the information. Also, release Trump's tax returns, I have the right to know the truth.

  474. 474.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Tyro: Everyone praised Bill Clinton for his “I feel your pain” moment in the 1992 town hall debate.

    I rolled my eyes. Then his health care proposal failed with a Dem House and Congress. Then, by your lights, “he” “lost” Congess to Newt Gingrich. Then he bit his lip and somebody else bit something else and he got impeached.

    So shut the fuck up, WATB.

  475. 475.

    Brachiator

    @patroclus:

    I’m glad that they care, but the blame seems to be mis-directed.

    I agree.

    Personally, I’m glad that Obama acknowledges and respects my feelings after I helped put him into office by not going off half-cocked and lashing out at everyone.

    Yep. I think that Obama realizes how serious the situation is, and he might even feel much the same way as many of us (or at least I) do, that I cannot believe that the American people were stupid enough to essentially elect the anti-Obama, a rage-filled moron as president of the United States, and someone who Obama had seemed to best on the public stage.

    And as president, he is constrained from taking Trump on. As a private citizen, it will be something else entirely. If he chooses.

    But the challenge will be there for all of us. And it will take more than whining and back-biting.

    ETA: Only 25 posts to go!

  476. 476.

    Elie

    If he were to take a major action the last thing he would do is alert the targets with any judgements or other alerts. The broader and larger the number of targets the more careful and circumspect or bland you would be. He has hinted that there was going to be some sort of retaliation but the nature and timing of it would not be known. I think his blandness might be due to that? Or not.

  477. 477.

    Tyro

    @Elie: that’s not all I chime in about!

    Also, I would be saying different things about Obama and the Democrats of the outcomes were different

  478. 478.

    jake the antisoshul soshulist

    We should just call this the manic-progressive thread.
    A lot of you are just embarrassing yourselves.

  479. 479.

    patroclus

    @Tyro: I didn’t praise Bill for his schmaltzy over-the-top faux empathy in 1992. But Obama reflected my outrage over the Bush years quite well and he certainly reflected my feelings/demands for a health insurance system, marriage equality, rapproachment with Cuba/Iran, ending the war in Iraq and taking out OBL, not to mention a booming economy, record stock market highs and years-long job growth. His approval rating is at all-time highs so he certainly isn’t shedding support.

    Only 21 more for a TBOGG! We can do it!

  480. 480.

    Yarrow

    @Raoul:

    It deeply saddens me that his love of our system and norms blinds him to their imminent collapse. I don’t know what sort of legacy history will accord him. Fantastic president, except for that fascism right after him thing.

    (And for g-d’s sake, I’m not saying he caused it, but his trust in our better angels has been tragically misplaced … several times over).

    Yep. We suck.

    Someone upthread called him our Gorbachev and I hadn’t thought of that before but it seems to ring kind of true. Of course the authoritarianism that followed after him hasn’t been great. I don’t think things are going to go well here.

    I hope President Obama is watching his back and protecting his girls. One thing authoritarian leaders do is jail opposition leaders. Trump’s crowds are still chanting “Lock her up!” and they’d cheer if Hilary had to do the perp walk. They’d cheer even louder if some reason could be invented to arrest Obama. And if they could embarrass his family – maybe hack into his kids’ social media accounts or phones and then publicize their stuff – I’m sure his minions would cheer that too.

    Obama’s hoping that Trump is going to understand that he’s the president of all the people is not realistic. There’s nothing he’s done that has ever shown us that would indicate he’d do that. But loot the treasury, enrich his family, corrupt our laws and norms…yes, that he’ll do. And if that means jailing opposition leaders, he’d be happy to do that.

    I hope Obama is watching his back.

  482. 482.

    Lalophobia

    @Tyro: If I’m remembering correctly, congressional democrats spent the lead up to 2010 running away from Obama.

  483. 483.

    AxelFoley

    Ah, how did I know some dipshits here would try to blame Obama for Trump and be mad Obama doesn’t subvert the Constitution to keep Trump from being sworn in.

    No, assholes, that’s on you. You had ONE job on November 8th and you fucked up.

    This country deserves the assfucking Trump’s gonna give it the next 4 years. I’m just gonna sit back sipping tea and laugh at all the pissing and moaning that’s gonna happen.

    After all he’s done for this country, after practically begging people to vote in 2010, 2014 AND 2016, Obama doesn’t owe you shit.

  485. 485.

    SatanicPanic

    @Mnemosyne: That’s at least half of why I keep going. I like Obama and I think he’s done a good job. I was hoping for a little more today, but I don’t know if there’s much else he could have done. But yeah, almost to 500

  486. 486.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I will say I have come around to the view that Obama should have made a bigger deal out of the Russian hacking (edited) information in early October. But it is by no means clear that his doing so would have fixed the Clinton* campaign.

    * haven’t read the whole thread, but based on what I’m seeing at the lower ends…. y’all do remember Obama wasn’t on the ballot, right? I firmly believe that, Michelle and the Constitution wiling, Obama would’ve wiped the floor with Trump or which of the 16 Misfit Toys the GOP primary had coughed up at him, and probably dragged McGinty, Feingold and possibly Ross over the finish line. Biden maybe, might, possibly could have beat Trump, it’s by no means clear that the man who wrote so much of the legislation HRC got scorched for “supporting” could have made it past the Bernie Brigades and boosted minority turn out, or not stepped on his own… tongue as he has done so mucky times in the past. And, as Thucydides said, after three amphora dark sweetened wine, “All counterfactuals is bunk.”

  488. 488.

    waysel

    T Bogg unit contribution. I am disappointed. I hoped he would save us like Superman, or pull a miracle out of his ass. I still love the man and his fam.

  489. 489.

    Raoul

    “I just don’t think most people are as good or fundamentally moral as he thinks they are.”
    Joy Ann Reid on Obama after the presser. She’s right. I’m bereft. (But not giving up).

  493. 493.

    Yarrow

    @patroclus: Well, as far as the marriage equality thing goes, they want to pass laws to make it so that every person, business, entity can claim “religious exemption” for not having to deal with those homos that want to get married. So kind of like when African Americans could vote but the south made up those impossible tests they had to pass before they could vote, they didn’t get to vote much in practice.

    So if gay marriage is legal but it comes with almost no rights because those are the things they take away, then yes, it undermines the whole thing.

  494. 494.

    Tyro

    @patroclus:

    I didn’t praise Bill for his schmaltzy over-the-top faux empathy in 1992.

    That’s why Bill was a politician and you aren’t. It’s all well and good to praise Obama for doing hard work and accomplishing things. That is, of course, his job. But his other job is to be a successful politician and lead his party and keep up the enthusiasm of his supporters. He couldn’t do that because he didn’t respect or appreciate the symbolism of that.

    Once again, you need to address the electorate you have, not the one you wish you had.

  495. 495.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Corner Stone:

    His legacy will be wiped from the history books. It’s all gone.

    I guess I have a little more respect for and confidence in historians than you have.

  499. 499.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Tyro:

    The Republicans didn’t wait around for people to “organize,” they sponsored the Tea Party, pumped tons of money into it, funded dozens of think tanks, handed out lots of checks to conservative campus groups, etc.

    “The Republicans” didn’t do any of that. Individual rich and/or smart Republicans did. You’re fulminating against the Democratic Party for not doing things that the Republican Party didn’t do either. Individual Democrats did the same things individual Republicans did: Center for American Progress and so forth. There could always be more on our side, or the ones that exist could be more effective, but at a basic level you’re just not describing the real state of things.

  506. 506.

    waysel

    And for all you party and voter critics….. ya forgot about the Comey/ Chaffetz Oct 8th coup? The US media endless work to elect Trump? Putin and Wiki? The gutted VRA? Shut the fuck up, ye Dem party critics.

  507. 507.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Tyro: But his other job is to be a successful politician and lead his party and keep up the enthusiasm of his supporters.

    Once again, you dumb shit-assed toddler, Bubba “lost” (again, according to your thinking) a forty year House Majority and the Senate, and handed the White House to George W Bush

  513. 513.

    Elie

    @Tyro:
    But funny you never have anything good to say. You are always negative – assessing failures. That is not a balanced observer or advocate if you only show up with the negatives. That’s not really the sign of a fair observer. Most humans want their side to be successful and actually celebrate those successes
    Trolls on the other hand are just around to demoralize and sow discord. There are people (maybe you are?) who really like doing that cause they feel more powerful being critics than they do supporting someone

  516. 516.

    ruemara

    Look, we have to stop blaming voters for their vote. Let’s all come together as one and sit down and wait for a rescue party.

  517. 517.

    liberal

    @patroclus: sadly, I can’t take credit…after all, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

  518. 518.

    Tyro

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: yes, in part because Bill didn’t see it coming. But where Obama deserves a little more blame than Bill is that Obama seemed unprepared for something that he had seen happen 16 years before.

    But this press conference was really a prime example of Obama simply not understanding the mood of the moment. If your personal temperament is more important than political leadership, become an engineer or an appellate lawyer.

  519. 519.

    liberal

    @Elie:

    Most humans want their side to be successful and actually celebrate those successes

    First thing to do on the road to more successes…when the guy you’re disagreeing kicks you in the nuts for the 100th time, you start kicking back.

  520. 520.

    Raoul

    @Yarrow:

    Someone upthread called him our Gorbachev and I hadn’t thought of that before but it seems to ring kind of true.

    Jebus. Hadn’t thought of that either, though I had been thinking about Gorby’s role in Russia getting to Putin. I suppose Rump will be our Boris Yeltsin, minus the vodka perhaps. Haplessly presiding over the handing of vast riches to oligarchs. Yup.

    Shit.

    Pence will maybe be our Putin, then? Doesn’t quite hold together, but …

  521. 521.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Tyro: yes, in part because Bill didn’t see it coming. But where Obama deserves a little more blame than Bill i

    Good Lord.

  523. 523.

    Tyro

    @Elie: I am happy the Dems won a bunch of senate seats and that the lightweight Mark Kirk is gone. But I am temperamentally a glass-half-empty person. And today is not a day when there are a lot of successes to celebrate.

  524. 524.

    liberal

    @Tyro:

    But where Obama deserves a little more blame than Bill is that Obama seemed unprepared for something that he had seen happen 16 years before.

    Yeah..in many ways he was a very good president. But he really drank way too much of his own Kool-aid.

  530. 530.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @amk: lwnj’s just whine.

    that’s unfair. A lot of them vote for people like Stein, or leave the top of the ticket blank, because they’re “uninspired” and their vote was not “earned”

  531. 531.

    liberal

    @amk: I guess I must not be a lwnj, since I whine, but also voted and gave a very large sum of money to Democratic Senate candidates.

    Didn’t give any to Hill, cuz she didn’t seem to need any money. Sadly, that was entirely too correct.

  533. 533.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Tyro: Obama’s whole thing is that he’s a transcendent synthesis of America through whose loving grace America’s many differences can be likewise synthesized. That’s how he got elected in the first place. It’s a little late in the day to expect him to approach politics differently.

  534. 534.

    ? Martin

    @Raoul:

    It deeply saddens me that his love of our system and norms blinds him to their imminent collapse. I don’t know what sort of legacy history will accord him. Fantastic president, except for that fascism right after him thing.

    It doesn’t blind him to it. It informs him that he can’t do anything about it. That’s the whole fucking point of a democracy – if the system breaks WE need to fix it – and he has told us that repeatedly from day one, that he needs us to get these things done. We need to be calling our legislators, protesting, and doing all of that stuff rather than blogging.

  536. 536.

    liberal

    @Lalophobia:

    To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

    2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

    3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

    4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

    5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

    6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

    7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

    8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

    Sadly, I think in the next few months we’re going to find out what time it is.

  538. 538.

    waysel

    @liberal: For once you are correct. Maybe. i.e., I don’t know if there were meaningful extenuating circumstances at the time that Obama had opportunity to replace Comey. I find that aspect to be horrifyingly tragic. For him and us all. Shakesperian.

  539. 539.

    Renie

    IMO we just have to admit that our election system gave us this idiot. Nothing will change, no Russian investigation will do anything, Electoral College will vote him in and we are screwed for the next 4 years. The best we can do is make sure someone like Drumpf (or worse) never gets elected again. I hope all of us will be okay and not harmed by the legislation the GOP will force on us.

    But we all must try to take some action to help the country return to sanity in 2020; every effort will help.

  541. 541.

    mai naem mobile

    @Tyro: oh go fuck yourself. He couldn’t have given Hilz any bugger gift than he did with a decent economy. He helped her with black voter outreach. She could have run a better campaign. BTW it’s not really either ones fault. It’s the fault of lazy ass Americans who can’t get off Facebook and their video games to go vote. You shouldn’t have to babysit adults to make sure they vote.

  542. 542.

    Raoul

    @Corner Stone:

    Marriage equality may actually be gone.

    Possibly. If things really go as bad as some are fearing (including me on bad days). I think it’ll be more likely that marriage equality will become conditional again. It’ll work ss commonly decent people expect it to in California, New England, etc., as a legal and moral construct of coastal society.

    But ‘religious exemptions’ will allow giant truckloads of discrimination to be driven thru it, so that in the south, and south-like states such as Indiana, everything from hotels to hospitals to adoption courts can pretty much ignore what will have the barest constitutional existence. A sort of Jim-crowing of SSM in effect.

  543. 543.

    SiubhanDuinne

    All y’all can just fuck the fuck right off.

    Nothing personal.

    Fuckers.

    (Channeling my Inner John Cole. Feels great.)

  549. 549.

    liberal

    @Corner Stone: I think marriage equality is one of the few things that is probably OK, if nothing else than because the bigots most opposed to it are rapidly dying off.

  552. 552.

    Corner Stone

    @Raoul: Nope. State’s Rights when out of power, crushing federal authority when in power. It’s gone within two years.

  553. 553.

    liberal

    @waysel: What kind of extenuating circumstances would there be? “If you don’t appoint Comey, a hydrogen bomb will detonate over Manhatten”?

  555. 555.

    liberal

    @Tyro: Unfortunately the Dems really underperformed in the Senate races, given the number of seats the Republicans were defending.

  556. 556.

    Yarrow

    He seems nice.

    Donald Trump has tweeted 34,100+ times.

    He has called people:"dummy" 77x
    "loser" 243x
    "moron" 52x

    He has never tweeted about Aleppo.— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) December 15, 2016

  557. 557.

    gogol's wife

    @? Martin:

    Don’t look at me — I actually called Lindsay Graham today to commend him for wanting an investigation. My own senators are sick of me.

  558. 558.

    liberal

    @Tyro:

    We need to stop acting like we have somehow “failed” the party and wake up to the fact that it has failed us

    Sadly, to a large extent, this is true.

  559. 559.

    SatanicPanic

    @Elie: I’m pretty well resigned to nothing happening and us having to keep organizing and doing things. Which is fine, I am glad to do that. But it would save some lives if something happened to keep Trump out of the WH.

  560. 560.

    XTPD

    @FlipYrWhig: Thing is, not only am I a millennial (21), but according to the Political Compass I’m something like 85% Green – far closer to Stein than any other politician.

    Even then, I’ve been aware that third-party purity voting was fucking stupid since at least 2012, an opinion which I credit LGM as playing an important part in forming (and indeed, that was the year I first started visiting the site).

  561. 561.

    gogol's wife

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I was inspired by not seeing Trump’s fat ugly face for the next four years. Never been more inspired to cast my vote. But my vote doesn’t count as much as some idiot in Wisconsin.

  562. 562.

    liberal

    @Yarrow: Yeah…he should be tweeting like everyone else that it’s sad that the guys controlling those parts of Aleppo, ISIS and AQ (the “moderate” rebels ceasing to exist years ago, sadly), have gotten kicked out.

  563. 563.

    liberal

    @XTPD:

    Even then, I’ve been aware that third-party purity voting was fucking stupid since at least 2012, an opinion which I credit LGM as playing an important part in forming (and indeed, that was the year I first started visiting the site).

    What does “purity” have to do with it? The stupidity of voting third party is a consequence of an evil first-past-the-post voting system. Nothing more, nothing less.

  564. 564.

    waysel

    @liberal: Don’t know. Maybe ” If you replace me, your SS agents may not be able to protect your family.” Maybe there was nothing, and I’m too lazy and disaffected to look it up, but I do wonder. Perhaps he was just that dumb.

  565. 565.

    liberal

    @mai naem mobile:

    BTW it’s not really either ones fault. It’s the fault of lazy ass Americans who can’t get off Facebook and their video games to go vote. You shouldn’t have to babysit adults to make sure they vote.

    When in battle, you don’t blame the lay of the land for failure. You blame your leaders.

  566. 566.

    Corner Stone

    “A time and place of our choosing.”
    Great, meaning that if anything is going to happen there is a 34 day or less timeline.

  567. 567.

    Tazj

    @Tazj: Sorry, had to run out the door to take my son to practice, and didn’t fix my post.Chris Collins had no problem with the DNC and Podesta e-mail hacks because they revealed “the truth to voters.”This was from an article at TPM by Matt Shuhman.
    I’m the one who wants their e-mails hacked and released to the press, and Trumps tax returns released.

  568. 568.

    ? Martin

    @Raoul: Yeah, this is what I expect as well. At the end of the day Trump is nothing more than a full-bore randian, with a Speaker in full alignment – down to the level that lying to the public is fine if they’re stupid enough to believe it. We’re about to get a crash course in national glibertarianism. You want gender rights, all it will take is your best Imperator Furiosa impersonation. We’ll be smuggling trans kids out of Alabama and into California. It’s horrible to consider, but it’s what the nation wants, apparently. California’s attitude right now is to profit off of it. We will be the liberal port of refuge and prove that liberal ideas can beat conservative ones.

  569. 569.

    Raoul

    @Elie: I doubt it. Schumer and Sanders are pretty moribund, old skool Dems (OK, Bernie is an indie, but he’s cut from the same floppy cloth). Obama will probably decide to follow the historical precedent of being out of the way for a time for the new preznit to define themselves.

    Only way that 11ty-dimensionally works is if Rump defines himself as a failing, flailing, uber-incompetent twatgrabber from day one. Which he might. He already has the lowest, worstest, huuuugely negative favorability ratings of any recent pre-inaug preznit. So Obama might be pulling the highest risk “please proceed” of all time. But, uh, he might just scoop up his wife and kids and go live on an outlying island off Hawaii. I’d get that temptation.

  570. 570.

    Corner Stone

    Where did that stupid tweet come from that informed us that Trump’s inability to accept the IC reports on hacking made the transition of power less of a priority.

  571. 571.

    NR

    Thank you all for tuning in to today’s Balloon Juice rerun of “Obama can’t fail, he can only be failed.” Next week will feature another rerun; just replace Obama’s name with Hillary Clinton’s or that of some other establishment Democrat.

    You’d think they would have cancelled this program by now, but they still love it around here!

  572. 572.

    Raoul

    @Corner Stone: There is a lot I don’t like about Roberts, but barring the total institutional failure of SCOTUS (not impossible, I’m aware of the dangers), I don’t think Roberts would preside over a reversal of that magnitude.

    Call me an Obama-lite institutionalist, but Roberts is not quite of the burn it down cult.

  575. 575.

    Elie

    @SatanicPanic:
    You are probably right and I will join you in the effort. That said there will be retribution. May not undo the election but may set certain things in motion. It struck me that somehow the FBI got lined up with the CIA and NIA as agreeing about the Russian involvement to influence the outcome. Why do that? Maybe nothing and Obama is just lame. Well see

  579. 579.

    SatanicPanic

    @Elie: yes join us! I gave myself a few days to mourn and then I started looking around at things to do. I was lucky to have someone with organizing experience already starting something, but I’ve been branching out on my own thing as well. It’s not something I’ve ever done before so I’m kind of learning as a I go. I know a lot of people are. I’m nervous about where the country is going, but I think if enough of us get on this then we can prevent our worst fears from being realized. We’ll see.

  582. 582.

    NeenerNeener

    @FlipYrWhig: What Bill did say was interesting and prophetic though: “You’re not going to stop hurting by trying to hurt other people.” He described the people who voted for Trump 24 years later, in a nutshell.

  584. 584.

    toocanAnj

    @Yarrow: I have wondered if that is why the Obama’s have bought a house in California. Because it seems that would be a state with the right governor and the power to protect them if it was needed.

  586. 586.

    Corner Stone

    @notoriousJRT: I’ll tell you what is pathetic you fucking yob. It’s going out and telling the country that you believe Trump is going to change his worldview and viewpoint at 70 years old. He’s going to become a statesman. He’s going to put the country first. Trump is going to put everything he has done his entire life on the side and show us all a new face.
    That is what is pathetic, you fucking chump.

  587. 587.

    Corner Stone

    At this point I am actively looking forward to 1/20/2017. How am I supposed to give a shit if the very people who are going to take it up the poop chute seem to be so sanguine about the last line of defense against what is coming?
    They’d rather tell us all how Obama was right to be decent to the very end and then get erased from history? He had no choice, he had no power, he had to do what he did, what did you expect him to do, what were his options, he tried to tell us, how many ways did we fail him.
    Poop.Chute.

  588. 588.

    XTPD

    @liberal: In the sense that voting third-party in a presidential race – in a system that currently all but guarantees a two-party lock on the electoral system – is at best a waste of time and at worst an active hindrance to ideological compatriots, saying that doing so betrays a lack of strategic thinking is perfectly accurate. (And when the third-party frontrunners for 2016 were an altie-friendly grifter and a geriatric muppet, calling it “purity voting” is putting things lightly.)

    And yes, the complete worthlessness of third-party presidential voting is largely due to the idiotic structuring of our electoral system. Take that up with Gregor Sansa.

  589. 589.

    Bill

    @hovercraft:

    And now as he’s almost out the door, you want him to save us again

    That is the job of being president. Whether it’s the first or last day of his term.

  594. 594.

    Corner Stone

    @notoriousJRT: No doubt, chumpo. Try and hide in the corner and hug your knees and keep repeating to yourself it will all be fine.
    Fucking vichy asshole.

  595. 595.

    Corner Stone

    @notoriousJRT: You and Trump don’t seem to want to believe the assessment of 17 US Intelligence Agencies, apparently. But I am the one with no credibility.
    Stop beclowning yourself in the kneepad service of a president.

  596. 596.

    Corner Stone

    I was wrong, I admit it. I thought we would get a strongly worded letter to the editor, beautifully delivered.
    And instead we got a bullet point list, read from some distance.

  599. 599.

    Corner Stone

    “What else could he do?” “You wanted him to do what?”
    The rallying cry as it all burns down while some bitch about the arrangement of deck chairs on the back porch.

  605. 605.

    J R in WV

    Well. I read some of the comments – not near all of them. I didn’t much care for the bits of the Presser I watched. Obama seemed detached.

    He worked hard for Hillary, who won the vote, isn’t she nearly 3 million votes ahead now? But not distributed quite correctly for the win.

    I’m sure he’s bummed out, who wouldn’t be? But the constitution is what it is. I guess he could have sent 535 Intelligence Operatives out to simultaneously visit all the electors, show them the data on Russian interference, show them the financial data that prove Trump is a Russian patsy.

    Maybe that’s going to happen late the night before the Electors vote….HWHAHAHAHAHhhahaha! Right. Like more than 3 or 4 would change their minds. Republicans aren’t just brain dead dolts, they are evil dolts to boot.

    No saving us from the Zombie Republican Party!

    I getting into reading SF and Fantasy, Vampires, Fae, Shape-shifters, Aliens, Area 51, all that good stuff.

    In the Arizona desert, near the highways, there are huge symbols etched into the ground, more modern than the Nazca Plain symbols in the Andean High Desert, lines are straighter, triangles are more equant, but they are there!

    And Trump will be President in not long enough!

    And how about those Republicans in North Carolina – taking away all the powers of the Governor, now that a Democratic Governor has been elected!!! Now that’s a well ordered polite democracy there!!!

    I have friends down there, and now I can’t visit them because it will put money in the pockets of the most vile Republicans in the nation.

    We are so Fuqed!

  606. 606.

    Larkspur

    @LAC: I too join in, and thank ruemara.

    @ruemara: Thanks. I think you were at a SF Bay Area meet-up not long ago. I’m sorry I missed it. Another time, I hope.

  613. 613.

    PIGL

    @Emma: i’m not an American so my opinion counts for 0, but I think I would prefer your ironic option to the other option which is to behave like Democrat and surrender. a

  615. 615.

    Applejinx

    @Raoul:

    Jebus. Hadn’t thought of that either, though I had been thinking about Gorby’s role in Russia getting to Putin. I suppose Rump will be our Boris Yeltsin, minus the vodka perhaps. Haplessly presiding over the handing of vast riches to oligarchs. Yup.
    Shit.
    Pence will maybe be our Putin, then? Doesn’t quite hold together, but …

    If Paul Ryan survives Trump, he’ll be the Putin.

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