Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

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

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

Republicans in disarray!

“woke” is the new caravan.

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

Come on, man.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

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

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The words do not have to be perfect.

Bark louder, little dog.

Not all heroes wear capes.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Rallying Against the New Not-Normal

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Rallying Against the New Not-Normal

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The Washington Post reports:

Teresa Shook never considered herself much of an activist, or someone particularly versed in feminist theory. But when the results of the presidential election became clear, the retired attorney in Hawaii turned to Facebook and asked: What if women marched on Washington around Inauguration Day en masse?

She asked her online friends how to create an event page, and then started one for the march she was hoping would happen…

Now, more than 100,000 people have registered their plans to attend the Women’s March on Washington in what is expected to be the largest demonstration linked to Donald Trump’s inauguration and a focal point for activists on the left who have been energized in opposing his agenda…

Organizers say plans are on track, after securing a permit from D.C. police to gather 200,000 people near the Capitol at Independence Avenue and Third Street SW on the morning after Inauguration Day. Exactly how big the march will be has yet to be determined, with organizers scrambling to pull together the rest of the necessary permits and raise the $1 million to $2 million necessary to pull off a march triggered by Shook’s Facebook venting…

“We plan to make a bold and clear statement to this country on the national and local level that we will not be silent and we will not let anyone roll back the rights we have fought and struggled to get,” said Tamika Mallory, a veteran organizer and gun-control advocate who is one of the march’s main organizers.

More than 150,000 women and men have responded on the march’s Facebook page that they plan on attending. At least 1,000 buses are headed to Washington for the march through Rally, a website that organizes buses to protests. Dozens of groups, including Planned Parenthood and the antiwar CodePink, have signed on as partners.

Organizers insist the march is not anti-Trump, even as many of the groups that have latched on to it fiercely oppose his agenda…

They’re not anti-Trump; they’re just pro-everything Trump and his followers hate / fear / despise.

***********
What’s on the agenda for the day, as we prepare to keep on fighting?


(via)

Reader Interactions

136Comments

  2. 2.

    gene108

    @crawdad:

    My hope is organized protests / rallies at the state and local level, so we can get around the media filter and keep stories of Republican malfeasance front and center for state and local Congressional races.

    And hopefully this translates to votes for our side come 2018.

  5. 5.

    Ian

    I think it was pretty negligent for the tech companies not to have someone on the ball 24 hours a day. In a globalized internet world anything could happen at any time and the fastest reaction is often necessary.

    What does scare me is a president who is willing to deliberately fuck with companies stock prices unless they submit to his whims. Nothing could possibly go wrong…

  8. 8.

    amk

    who and how exactly are they pulling down these tech stocks based just on a lunatic’s idiotic tweets?

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @marcion: Let me just be the first to speculate it’s a false flag operation. Trump supporters chanting anti Trump slogans while pretending to torture one of their brethren on video.

    Hey, if it’s good enough for Red State, the Gateway Pundit, and Drudge, why not us too?

  11. 11.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    It was #1 trend on twitter for hours today.

    #BLMKidnapping

    Truly disgusting how politicized it was. Also, most Trumpers were more giddy about using it to demonize BLM than expressing concern for the victim. It’s an awful tragedy, and nothing good will come of it. I hope they rot in jail.

  12. 12.

    Central Planning

    Just to follow up on the dead computer security thread from below – you can get a free OpenDNS account which will help protect your home devices. It works by filtering out known malware requests from getting back to your computer.

    It’s not foolproof, but computer security is not a single point product.

    I’ve used it for years and have configured it for family members. Support calls have gone down so that’s a win for me.

  13. 13.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    So some Czech supermarket used a *gasp* black model in advertising and some patrons went nuts on Social Media:

    http://blisty.cz/art/85158.html

    I am quite disgusted. The media are trying to force multiculturalism on us, which has totally failed and it is a targeted genocide of the white race.

    …

    Our people hate these layabouts and parasites and are afraid of them.

    Parasites who are committing genocide. Familiar framing.

  15. 15.

    ThresherK (tablet)

    Awake for 2 hrs already. Wife’s PT today for her replacement knee, and she is doing well by all accounts and making fine progress.

    When she goes back to work her cat is gonna miss having a blanketed lap to sleep on for most of the daytime.

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Bureau of Land Management? Boy, these Bundy people will stoop to any low in their efforts to demonize the Federal govt.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    Brrr.

    Gonna be a repeat of last night, when it dipped into the upper 40s here on the slopes.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: When I think of what is replacing him I can’t help laughing at the Orange Turd’s supporters and what they think is ‘Presidential’. Sometimes my laughter borders on hysteria.

  27. 27.

    debbie

    Any tweets yet about Trump’s promise to save the thousands of retail jobs lost this week? Certainly more urgent than those alleged 600 jobs at Ford, I’d think.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    Gonna be next to impossible to see the dignitaries on the platform at the inaugural, what with their being hidden behind tables piled high with steaks, bottled water, clothing, etc.

  31. 31.

    debbie

    @JPL:

    You’d think that would rile him up, wouldn’t you? I’d hate to think the meme that his clothing line brought down a long-established corporation would get any traction. I guess that’s just 3 a.m. thinking.

  32. 32.

    El Caganer

    @debbie: And what about all the restaurant workers? According to an article I saw on Thrillist, the restaurant industry has overbuilt and now is in a bubble that’s slowly bursting around the country. Perhaps he could hire them all at sub-minimum wages to work in Trump restaurants. Very classy. Also, yuge.

  34. 34.

    Kay

    Ivanka Trump’s child care plan will actually cut access to child care for people who make between minimum wage and 20 dollars an hour, while subsidizing child care for people who make much more than that:

    During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka helped craft a childcare tax credit proposal for her father’s run, and now she’s pressing Republican lawmakers to make it reality. Unfortunately, the plan won’t do much good for most American parents.
    On Sunday, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) confirmed that she has been in talks with Ivanka Trump about turning her childcare proposal into legislation. “I am delighted to see that we’re looking at options for tax credits, tax incentives, ways for moms and dads to be able to write-off this child-care cost,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
    President-elect Trump’s proposal, as outlined on the campaign trail, would allow couples who make $500,000 or less and single parents earning $250,000 or less to fully deduct the cost of childcare from their taxes. Unlike a tax credit that gives anyone who’s eligible extra money, tax deductions, which lower someone’s obligation, are most helpful to those who owe the most. The more a qualifying family spends on childcare, the more it can benefit.
    Deductions do nothing for lower-income Americans who earn too little to owe federal income taxes and people with small tax bills. About 35 percent of Americans don’t have federal income tax liabilities.
    Trump’s plan therefore offers a $1,200 rebate for poorer families, which is still less than what they should be able to get under existing law. Parents enrolled in subsidies through the Child Care and Development Block Grant get about $4,800 a year, but the share of families who get that assistance is at a 15-year low thanks to falling funding.

    There was tons of coverage when she announced that she would be running this- the least they could do is cover the crap she churns out now that she’s in power.

    Low income working parents actually get child care subsidies now, and they’re more generous than the NYC socialite’s plan. Low(er) income parents where I live get both child care subsidies and public preschool- the public preschool is funded locally thru property taxes – it’s part of the school district budget.

    Raise your hand if you’re surprised that the first actual proposal from the Trump Family is a bullshit rip-off.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Sadly true, too many of ours stayed home. I would like to see an analysis of what has been happening in WI and MI. Especially since Scott Walker’s election. Something changed up there.

  38. 38.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    That’s womens’ work, retail. Not manly enough to merit coverage.

    I actually wondered about a restaurant bubble. I don’t go to restaurants a lot but I’m a Dickensian miser. I wondered who the hell was filling up all these restaurants they built. As you know there’s highway strips in the midwest that are like 100% restaurants. Miles of them.

  40. 40.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    99% of them are national or regional chains. They’ll just take the losses off their taxes. Trump’s taught them how. ;)

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Not that I read. We have Head Start and it’s wildly popular but they’re losing share to preschools operated out of public school districts because public schools are distributed better- Head Start here is one location and public schools are in each community. It can be a 20 mile ride to Head Start. In a way it makes more sense to put preschool classes in the same locations as K-12.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Preschool is HUGELY popular. Younger parents, even lower income parents, take it as a given. They treat it like a natural extension of kindergarten. The lower income parents who take advantage of it are the most ambitious and plugged in, too. They’re the people who are most worried about their kids being left behind. We built 2 preschool classrooms in the new school and we should have built 4. There’s a waitlist.

  43. 43.

    Spanky

    @Baud:

    Reddit is all in an uproar over that because all the racists are feeling morally genetically superior.

    Fixed.

  44. 44.

    Starfish

    @Kay: I am going to go to our local march, and I thought that a poster demanding “Universal Preschool” was just asking the world. The idea just made me happy.

  47. 47.

    germy

    Any truth to this? Or is it more hysterical rawstory bullshit?

    Bombshell report claims at least 50 Trump electors are illegitimate — and should not have voted

  49. 49.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

    Doubt it. Just a bunch of middle aged women working retail.

    Stepping outside of the immediate terror that is our mustard colored menace, I do wonder what we are going to do in terms of job growth. I was very hopeful about renewable energy jobs but I don’t see the Republicans protecting solar from Chinese underpricing. The reality is that our planet cannot sustain the current level of consumption indefinitely let alone the kind of increased consumption we need to keep the economy growing.

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: They need to make a cologne like that: Craftsmen #5. “Hey Tim, whaddya got on? Ya smell like a Visegrip.”

  52. 52.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Same as with housing. It’s seen to be profitable, so everyone rushes to get their piece. Their greed results in overbuilding, and the glut destroys the profitability.

    This is how this country works: a predatory animal endlessly chasing its tail.

  54. 54.

    Ohio Mom

    @Baud: I always assumed some of the restaurant bubble was because of franchises, and that a lot of poor schmucks were going to get screwed.

    My BIL looked into opening a First Watch breakfast/lunch place and reported back that corporate required you to open something like five or six restaurants, so it takes a huge investment to do that. But I bet opening up a Subway or a Jimmy John’s looks doable to lots of people.

  55. 55.

    Oldgold

    Another series of outrageous tweets this morning.

    ‏@realDonaldTrump
    The Democrats, lead by head clown Chuck Schumer, know how bad ObamaCare is and what a mess they are in. Instead of working to fix it, they..

  56. 56.

    El Caganer

    I think there’s a good chance that we’re going to see the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act seriously abused by the new regime. We’ve already seen the promotion (courtesy of the Washington Post) of an anonymous group denouncing – totally without evidence – a large group of bloggers and journalists as foreign propagandists/useful idiots and demanding that they be investigated. If any of the PEOTUS’ minions have two brain cells to rub together, they’ll tell him to start using this to attack his perceived enemies. Staging a march for women’s rights? “I have inside information that the organizers are taking directions straight from Pyongyang.” Holding a vigil to commemorate someone killed by police? “Organized directly by Tehran. Sad.”

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @Starfish:

    The problem with lower income younger parents is they don’t vote. We were able to bring them out to vote for the new school but it was like pulling teeth. I was canvassing after dark, day of. This is a really conservative area. If we can expand K-12 to include preschool, anyone can. It doesn’t really solve “daycare” though. In a way it’s more work for parents because day care is all day. Preschool complicates matters- it’s an extra pick up and drop off. Daycare to preschool and then back to daycare. I think that might be why the most sort of “striving” lower income people are the people who sign up. It’s not “easier” for them, free public preschool. It’s more complicated.

  59. 59.

    Patricia Kayden

    @marcion: As all crimes are disturbing. Love how White Supremacists are trying to use this one incident to denigrate Black Lives Matter.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    The problem with lower income younger parents is they don’t vote.

    Wrong Kay, the problem with lower income younger parents is they don’t contribute thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars to Republicans.

  61. 61.

    Jeffro

    Why march the day after the inauguration? What’s the point then? March the day before, or the day of – that, I get. Jan 21st is (literally) a day late and (not literally) a dollar short.

  62. 62.

    marcion

    @Patricia Kayden:
    I am worried about what reaction or even copycats these shitstains might inspire. I know if the races and candidates where reversed we would all be probably flipping out here…

  63. 63.

    gene108

    @Baud:

    Reagan was the tip of the spear. with regards to the conservative movement. There was a whole lot of institutional support backing him and driving him through.

    Reagan’s lasting contribution to the coalition was bringing in and giving a seat at the table to the Fundies.

    Obama on the other hand is a singularly amazing politician. He did not spend decades working in whatever passes for a liberal movement in the USA. His coalition was about his personal appeal and not broader movement.

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    A footnote in British history.

    “Bloody hell, Your Majesty, I nearly shot you,” the anonymous guard is reported to have said.

    According to The Times diary column, the Queen replied in her well-known witty vein: “That’s quite all right.” Source

    For all you pet lovers:

    The Hawaiian Humane Society’s animal shelter in Honolulu recently cleared out all its animals available for adoption for the first time in its 130-year history. Source

  65. 65.

    Jeffro

    The Uniter Tweets!!

    Yes, let’s all come together with you and your gang of goons to undo something that’s working relatively well at insuring 20M people and keeping costs down for the rest of us, you fucking moron

  66. 66.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Sweden sees benefits of six-hour working day in trial for care workers

    In February 2015, nurses at the Svartedalens retirement home switched from an eight-hour to a six-hour working day for the same wage – the first controlled trial of shorter hours in Sweden in about a decade.

    To ensure that patients at the home for the elderly were attended to for the same number of hours as before, 15 new employees were hired for the duration of the experiment, costing the centre about an additional €600,000 (£510,000) a year – a 22% increase in gross cost.

    But preliminary results found the benefits of the trial were considerable. Reduced working hours led to a 10% drop in sick leave, meaning the employer had to spend less to hire cover. Compared with care home workers with normal working hours, the perceived health of the carers at Svartedalens improved by about 50% The employees started to spend more of their reduced working hours on what the analysts classified as “social activity” with patients, such as games or outdoor walks, which can be particularly valuable for patients with dementia.

    At the time, Lise-Lotte Pettersson, a 41-year-old assistant nurse at Svartedalens, said: “I used to be exhausted all the time, I would come home from work and pass out on the sofa. But not now. I am much more alert; I have much more energy for my work, and also for family life.”

    Daniel Bernmar, the leader of the Left party group on Gothenburg city council, which pushed for the trial at Svartedalens, denied reports that the experiment had ended in failure. “It still remains to be seen whether the economic costs of reduced working hours outweigh the benefits. The costs of the trial for the public economy were actually half of what we thought they would be,” he told the Guardian. A final set of results is expected in March.

    Bunch of Commie bstrd Swedes. Where’s the profit in this????

  68. 68.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jeffro: Because that was the closest day they could get a permit for.

    ETA and there was no way the Park service was going to give them a permit for the day of or the day before when they are preparing for the day of.

  69. 69.

    Baud

    @marcion:

    I know if the races and candidates where reversed we would all be probably flipping out here…

    Because the system has a history of treating those crimes differently. Don’t bring that alt-right argument here.

  72. 72.

    marcion

    @Baud:
    I mean… Well… It’s true. Flip things around and this would be another portent of the Trumpenreich. The other side is perfectly capable of flipping out too; in fact they count on it, or what exactly was the xenophobic Trump campaign about?

    I guarantee this incident is going to inspire at least one vengeful copycat. And next time something like this or the Dallas shooting happens, wouldn’t that give Trump just the excuse he needs to institute nationwide stop and frisk or something equally asinine?

  73. 73.

    Immanentize

    On Inauguration Day news, I hope someone publishes a picture of the Mall at Obama’s first in 2008 to compare to Trump’s in 2016. I have not heard anyone say they were traveling to DC to see Trump sworn in.

  74. 74.

    OzarkHillbilly

    All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin

    There is no ideology, no Putinism, other than a mangled nativism that appropriates bits of history that appear valid in the moment. Sometimes acolytes misjudge and are ostracised, either temporarily or permanently. Sometimes they get close to him and see their stock rise. But if it rises too far, as it did with both Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov, they are liable to a spell in the wilderness. The king has to be the biggest man in the room (even if he is only 5ft 7in).

    A paramount leader, a clique of courtiers, a system where short-term tactics win out over long-term strategy: so far, so corporate. In many senses the Kremlin is just another big 21st-century behemoth, like a FTSE 100 company, a UN agency or political party, which comes unstuck because of the ambitions and insecurities of the individuals that work there. Here are people who often take all the wrong decisions for all the wrong reasons, a failing that will be familiar to many who have worked in an organisation of more than a couple of hundred employees.

    But there are two key differences. The CEO, chairman or party leader will usually be particularly concerned about his or her succession, so that the organisation in which they have a huge personal – and often financial – stake continues to thrive. Putin, in contrast, is quite uninterested in his successor, because he believes he can never stand down. He will have to stay in power until he dies, or is too old to matter any more. Second, the game of thrones in the corporate world may be a dangerous business, but it is unlikely to lead to a body count quite as large as the one that leads up to the Spassky Gate.

    A book by Mikhail Zygar,

    “the former editor of TV Rain, one of the last holdouts of inquisitorial journalism in Putin’s Russia before it finally fell foul of the political establishment in 2014. As a chronicler of the opposition movement that briefly unsettled Putin through the winter of 2011/12, Zygar cannot be considered an impartial observer (though who can in matters concerning Russia these days?). Yet he does manage, through dozens of interviews with members of Putin’s inner circle, to produce a three-dimensional, detached and readable account of the “man who accidentally became king” and the courtiers who dance around him.”

    Should be an instructional read.

  75. 75.

    rikyrah

    And the big reveal is!

    Liberal Librarian
    January 4, 2017

    Over the weekend our incoming glorious leader Donald J. Trump made noises that he would have “startling revelations” about Russia’s involvement in our past election. Greeted with the usual mix of derision and shaking of heads, no one gave much thought to it.

    Then today, Trump made his revelation: He agrees with alleged rapist Julian Assange that there was no Russian hacking of the US election, flying in the face of both the CIA (which loathes him) and the FBI (which did much to put him in his current position).

    Welcome to the post-truth, post-fact world. That Trump is siding with a man who helped hand him the White House is not surprising. After all, his bromance with Russian President Vladimir Putin was kicked off when he mistakenly thought Vladimir Vladimirovich had called him a “genius”. People who stroke his… ego tend to become bosom friends.

    But that an incoming President would just dismiss the entirety of the country’s intelligence apparatus is frightening. Equally frightening are rumblings that he’ll put his own people in as intelligence agents. There is a very real threat that he’ll turn the alphabet soup of US spy agencies into nothing more than a collection of glorified information bubbles, delivering only the news he wants to hear. (Probably revolving around the gorgeousness of his hair.)

  76. 76.

    SenyorDave

    @Immanentize: I’m sure the predator-elect will tweet out that 1 million plus people attended the inauguration no matter what the actual count is. My wish is that inauguration day is a cold, rainy day, and the next day is mild and sunny. That would piss him ff to no end, probably see a bunch of tweets about a weather conspiracy.

  77. 77.

    rikyrah

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    When I think of what is replacing him I can’t help laughing at the Orange Turd’s supporters and what they think is ‘Presidential’. Sometimes my laughter borders on hysteria.

    It’s the fact that he’s such a morally repugnant human being disgusts me more.

  78. 78.

    El Caganer

    @Elizabelle: Curious coincidence – there’s a Frida Kahlo exhibit that recently opened down here at the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg.

  79. 79.

    Spanky

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, I always wondered if things would be worse once someone exercised a second amendment remedy on Putin. I’m leery of unintended consequences, especially with two nuclear powers thrown into chaos. But I’m starting to come around to that liking that scenario.

  80. 80.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Low income working parents actually get child care subsidies now, and they’re more generous than the NYC socialite’s plan. Low(er) income parents where I live get both child care subsidies and public preschool- the public preschool is funded locally thru property taxes – it’s part of the school district budget.

    Raise your hand if you’re surprised that the first actual proposal from the Trump Family is a bullshit rip-off.

    Not shocked in the least, Kay.

    not.one.phucking.iota.

  81. 81.

    tobie

    @Elizabelle: FWIW, friends of mine who have rarely if ever protested are planning on going and if people turn out in large numbers it will disrupt the media narrative that’s been forming for weeks that Trump is making strides in policy and popularity with each single tweet. Local marches are also being organized in many different cities. This is the first public and visible sign of the 56% of the population that voted against Trump. The pooh-poohing of this effort is surprising to me. No one is suggesting that marches are the be-all-and-end-all. They’re morale-boosting for the resistance.

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    @OzarkHillbilly: I hear you about the permits, but these are extraordinary times. What if a couple hundred thousand folks just happened to show up in downtown DC on inauguration day, you know, for a stroll? They could circle the Capitol for an hour or two, you know, sightseeing. ;)

  83. 83.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Preschool is HUGELY popular. Younger parents, even lower income parents, take it as a given. They treat it like a natural extension of kindergarten. The lower income parents who take advantage of it are the most ambitious and plugged in, too. They’re the people who are most worried about their kids being left behind. We built 2 preschool classrooms in the new school and we should have built 4. There’s a waitlist.

    Yep. A good preschool will have waitlists.

  84. 84.

    gene108

    @Jeffro:

    If Obama or Hillary called Mitch McConnell the head clown, the media would be all over them, like flies to shit on a hot summer day, demanding they apologize.

    But The Donald can just keep being The Donald, no matter how vulgar

  85. 85.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: The fact that that is what they think makes him ‘presidential’ is what makes me laugh. They are going to be every bit the victims of his moral bankruptcy as everyone else, and they just won’t see it.

  87. 87.

    rikyrah

    The GOP Plan to Crush Senate Resistance is Weak Tea
    by Martin Longman
    January 4, 2017 3:15 PM

    Oh, here’s a newsflash:

    Senate Republicans have a plan to break the Democratic resistance to Donald Trump’s Cabinet: Make their delay tactics as excruciating as possible.

    And how is this supposed to work?

    …the GOP is preparing to keep the chamber running around the clock if that’s what it takes to speedily confirm Trump’s Cabinet. It’s the kind of retaliatory strategy that would bring all-night sessions, 3 a.m. votes and a long slog through the first months of Trump’s presidency that could sap some of the GOP’s legislative momentum.

    Sen. John Thune, the No. 3 Senate Republican, said the GOP will do “whatever it takes” to get Trump his team as quickly as possible.

    They’re going to break the Democrats’ will by pulling all-nighters. Maybe it’s time to invest some of your nest egg in Domino’s or whatever pizzeria is preferred on Capitol Hill.

    Anything else?

    …the GOP believes that if Democrats pull out their dilatory techniques the pressure will increase on moderate Senate Democrats from Trump-leaning states to buck their party and help Republicans move the nominations along.

    I don’t think there are twelve Democratic senators as fearful of their constituents as Joe Manchin. And that’s what it would take to get the 60 votes to stomp on those dilatory techniques.

    So, the real weapon here is simply hope.

    ………………………

    When you combine that with the fact that Donald Trump has the crazy idea that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III will fly with the Democratic base, that the pathologically diseased Ben Carson is a suitable head of Housing and Urban Affairs, that our Treasury Secretary should be a predatory floreclosure maestro, that our Secretary of State should be a Putin-loving oil magnate with no government experience, and that Rick ‘Oops’ Perry should be in charge of our nuclear weapons, I think you’ll see a little more resolve than we’ve see in the past. There are few acceptable nominees, and certainly not the Amway woman they want at Education or the hamburger dude they have in mind for Labor. These picks are so bad, in fact, that the Democrats are seemingly relieved to give up on civilian control of the military and won’t put up a fight about (barely) Ret. Gen. James Mattis taking over control of the Pentagon.

    And the Republicans are making it easy to fight because they’re trying to blow off the basics, like actually having these nominees submit to normal vetting.

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    A WH official says the Obama WH offered to keep the playset for @realDonaldTrump kid/grandkids, but was turned down.

    — Mark Knoller (@markknoller) January 5, 2017

    So the WH playset was removed and donated to “a local organization serving those in need,” says WH official.

    — Mark Knoller (@markknoller) January 5, 2017

  91. 91.

    rikyrah

    “This. Is. Normal.

    If it wasn’t, if this wasn’t normal, then we wouldn’t have to fight so hard every single day for reproductive rights, for LGBT rights, for Black Lives, for freedom from oppressive religion, for peace, for justice, for equality, for education, for healthcare, for adequate food and clean water and breathable air.

    Ignoring it, ignoring that sea of red in the middle of the country, the KKK and neo-Nazis unashamed front and center at national political rallies, social media full of hate and invective, open racism and misogyny and xenophobia, pretending that’s not the normal state for much of America, refusing to acknowledge it and face it head on instead of with ineffectual bluster and catch phrases, well, that’s why you’re looking at President elect Donald Trump right now.”

    Stonekettle Station: No Middle Ground

    — Pretty Foot (@PrettyFootWoman) January 5, 2017

  92. 92.

    rikyrah

    Call me a Hollywood elitist, but I think it’s unconscionable that the richest country in the world would go back to bankrupting the sick

    — John Legend (@johnlegend) January 5, 2017

  93. 93.

    debbie

    Someone’s not accepting he said what he said:

    Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 1h1 hour ago
    The dishonest media likes saying that I am in Agreement with Julian Assange – wrong. I simply state what he states, it is for the people….

    Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 51m51 minutes ago
    to make up their own minds as to the truth. The media lies to make it look like I am against “Intelligence” when in fact I am a big fan!

  94. 94.

    Major Major Major Major

    multiple tech leaders say they or their PR folks have adjusted their schedules to make sure someone is up at 3am local time to catch the tweets out of a fear that Trump could crash their stock and put their company into a frenzy.

    So they… asked one of the software engineers to check Twitter, then?

  96. 96.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Jeffro: I appreciate most, if not all, of your comments here, but honestly, I get tired of people armchair-quarterbacking ACTIONS that other people ARE ACTUALLY DOING.

    I have some limited insight into the organizing being taken for the D.C. and local marches…and it’s a LOT OF WORK. These events don’t happen by themselves. There’s coming up with the idea, getting others to sign on, spreading the word so there’s a critical mass of people attending, raising funds for the permits (and they were touch-and-go until recently and access to the Mall was denied thanks to the Trump organization), creating state-level organizations that are hiring buses and finding hotels for people to stay in, etc. etc. etc. Not to mention the herding cats aspect of any liberal/progressive endeavor. So please, if you have a better idea/approach, PLEASE GO AHEAD AND MAKE IT HAPPEN. Otherwise, please STFU and support what others have put tremendous sweat equity into creating. Great ideas are always welcome, but I hate hate hate liberal second-guessing of people who are actually doing the hard work.

    Rant over. You’re welcome.

  97. 97.

    OGLiberal

    @marcion: These arsehole kids who did this probably didn’t vote, probably don’t know or care much about political issues (they’re apparently teens or close to it) and did a very horrible thing for which they should be held accountable. Unfortunately, this will get hung around the necks of the Democratic Party, liberals, BLM, Obama, etc. and will give Trump and his racist supporters the opportunity to feel superior and call everybody else the “real” racists. Will they be right to hang this on the Democrats/left in general? No. Will they? Yes. Would we do the same if it was white kids abusing a special needs black kid? Absolutely.

    What an unfortunate and stupid and violent act. The Dems/the left/BLM/etc, of course, had nothing to do with this and could have done nothing to prevent this from happening. But we’ll all get the blame. And this is going to suck up all the media’s attention for at least the next 3-days while Trump and Ryan continue to plan/plot to ruin everything we care about. Stupid emmer effers. And I hope that poor kid is OK. Many years ago some white trash jerks in my home town did something similar to a special needs young man – he was white as well – and it was just horrible.

  99. 99.

    EZSmirkzz

    @rikyrah: Quit being an asshole. OdGold is obviously a newbie, and posted the link which he/she couldn’t embed in their remarks. You’ve been here long enough to have seen it before.

  100. 100.

    Major Major Major Major

    @El Caganer:

    According to an article I saw on Thrillist, the restaurant industry has overbuilt and now is in a bubble that’s slowly bursting around the country.

    The article where the restauranteurs blame it all on having to give their employees wages and healthcare?

  106. 106.

    Spanky

    @debbie:

    I cannot wait to see McConnell’s “Gee, I really have to pee” face.

    You won’t. We’ve been seeing his “I’m sitting in my own pee” smirk for years.

  109. 109.

    El Caganer

    @Major Major Major Major: It seemed to me that there were a lot of moving parts: wages had to go up, whether mandated or not, because the explosion of restaurants put qualified help at a premium. There was also the problem of rent – you have a nice place, the landlord notices and bumps your rent up through the roof. I don’t think the restaurant owners blamed the employees; they appeared more concerned that there wasn’t enough of a market to sustain so many restaurants, hence the bursting bubble.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    It’s the fact that he’s such a morally repugnant human being disgusts me more.

    Anti-bullying is big in schools right now and I’m on a committee. There’s a new study that says the single best anti-bullying strategy is “adult modeling of preferred behaviors” – in other words, “stop being such rude and disrespectful assholes, adults”

    Someone needs to tell Melania. Her anti-bullying work could consist solely of telling her husband to stop acting like a douchebag.

  123. 123.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    When Trump mocked Serge Kovakeski, I had a conversation with my middle schooler about how that behavior would get him detention and/or suspension from school. It’s like our pres elect is a big fat fuck you to all the work we have done to discourage bullying and increase inclusivity. I’ll never get past this.

  124. 124.

    ruemara

    @Major Major Major Major: I reject this argument that it was charisma. For fuck’s sake, she won the popular vote, she lost the EC vote. If you want to believe it was about charisma, I don’t fight people on matters of faith. But until we get it ingrained in our narrative that she lost key states due to voter suppression that’s been getting worse while our side worries about who’s the most huggable populist we can run, we will always lose in the national.

  129. 129.

    Debbie1

    @Baud: I’m sorry but just because a “rich” White guy named Trump had a low bar to scale does NOT mean that a Black male w/ the name of Barack Hussein Obama also coasted his way into the presidency. For God’s Sake. I can’t even deal w/ that comment.

  130. 130.

    debbie

    @Debbie1:

    This again (is it the cold weather?) If you’ve read many of Baud’s posts, you’d know that post was snark. It’s safe to assume everything here is snark until proven otherwise.

  132. 132.

    prob50

    @debbie:

    Same as with housing. It’s seen to be profitable, so everyone rushes to get their piece. Their greed results in overbuilding, and the glut destroys the profitability.

    It’s even worse than that. It really pisses me off when the media reports drastically increased home sale prices as though it were a wonderful thing, ‘cuz it ain’t if you don’t already own or you are a renter.

  133. 133.

    Miss Bianca

    @ruemara: I guess I’m just going to be going around dittoing all your comments. Does that make me a Ruemara Dittohead?

  134. 134.

    prob50

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I’ll try and quit being an asshole.

    It’s really hard to do. Maybe somebody could invent a patch you could wear.I guess it would have to be big enough to fit over one’s mouth AND hands.

  135. 135.

    J R in WV

    One of the many things I love about Balloon-Juice is the volume of really high quality snark that people build into most comment threads. That, and the cats and dogs and birds, etc. And John Cole’s travels through a difficult universe, and building a new house inside an old house.

    Anyway, I have been to Stonekettle Station to read Chief Warrant Officer (ret) Wright’s good stuff. I hates to admit it, but he had some good points about President-elect Trump, and calling him names. He did win the electoral college vote, and he will be president of the USA soon, barring black swan events.

    And it outraged all good liberals when rednecks called President Obama names, and referred to him and his wife and kids in dis-respectable ways. That red-neck county employee in Clay County WV, for example. She pissed me right off. Because she showed profound disrespect for both the man, Obama, and the office he holds, the Presidency.

    So I’m gonna try to call Donald J Trump, Mr. Trump, and leave off the shitgibbon and Orange Orangutan. It’s going to be hard, but I’m going to attempt to not show my lack of respect in juvenile ways. I won’t have much respect, as Mr Trump hasn’t earned much respect. But the office deserves respect to the maximum extent we can show it. Damm it.

    So there it is. You can oppose someone strenuously without name calling, which is one of those things the Republicans base has trouble with. I really REALLY REALLY don’t want to lower myself to the level of the Republican base of Alabama, or even West Virginia.

    You guys, my B-Juice friends, please think about this, and if you disagree with me, at least try not to call me names I don’t like. Hillbilly is OK, I’ve earned it by staying here instead of moving to the San Juan Islands… Hippy is OK, I’ve had a beard since 1968, mostly. Republican apologist, that’s right out!! You see? Right out!

    It snowed here, after getting down to about 22(F) last night. So the bridges all froze in the pre dawn as the snow started. The interstate was closed in both directions in at least two places for the morning commute. One big truck left the Interstate and landed on a city street below, and crushed a couple of cars, we don’t think anyone was killed in that accident, but there were ambulances involved, so some folks were hurt.

    In a 1-3″ snow flurry… the first little snow of the usually mild winter. Where I grew up, at 2600 feet above sea level, in the beginnings of the real mountains of this Mountain State, we got 8-12 inches ever week or two, back when I was growing up. We would have been really embarrassed to wreck cars and trucks in a 1-3″ snow “storm”!

    Just before I retired, I was driving to work around 8 am, and as always I crossed two bridges over two branches of the Stone River. Just after crossing the first bridge, I saw 2 or 3 cars up ahead hit their brakes, and so I took my foot off the gas and slowed down, gently.

    As I crossed the second bridge, I saw in the median a nice sedan, on its roof, stikll rocking back and forth. There were several cars stopped, and one guy was holding a cell phone as he quick walked towards the car, so I idled on towards town, everything being under control.

    There was no snow or rain, but it had been wet the day before, and that bridge had both a curve to the left and a slope to the left, camber for the curve. And there must have been invisible black ice on the concrete, which led to the car banging around between the concrete curbs of the bridge, and flipping over soon after that. They were pretty lucky not to flip over the curbs, because it was a long way down, and there was both a railroad to land on hard and a river to land on softer but drowned.

    Be careful out there driving in the temperate climate zones, it might be slick. We have about 2 inches, and they opine that we might get another tonight. Like a blizzard!

    ;-{)}

  136. 136.

    EZSmirkzz

    @J R in WV: Hiya J R in WV, so how’s your ass anyway?

    Sorry to be so slow in responding to your post, I had to re-serve my favorite string and then tune it. Of course while you’re doing that you may as well shoot a couple a dozen arrows at stump ducks too.

    As to your point, and Jim’s, I don’t think we can over-look youthful exuberance in many of the snide knick names headed towards the Donald. (Duck Donald! Duck!) Who we are is what we have become over the years, and the kids haven’t got there yet. Jim’s fatherly advice is going to go over with a thud in some quarters, especially in those quarters where 8 years of manure from the conservatives and Republican’ts is all that they’ve been exposed to in their political lives. It’s been normalized for them. Over time it’ll wear thin on them as well, unless the President-elect continues to operate on the same emotional and intellectual levels as he has, in which case I suppose this will become normalized too.

    Far on back at you brother.

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