As I mentioned in the morning thread comments, the walking collection of untreated personality disorders who will be president in two weeks took time out of his busy schedule to trash his reality TV show replacement’s ratings:
@realDonaldTrump Seriously — seek help! https://t.co/b45ahlhEao
— Betty Cracker (@bettycrackerfl) January 6, 2017
Some folks believe Trump is playing eleventy-dimensional checkers, hoping to distract the media from the Russian hacking thing by starting a catfight with Ahnuld. I think that gives Trump too much credit. He sees everything through the filter of his disease, so he can’t resist wanking over ratings.
That also explains why he tells easily disprovable lies about stuff like the not-landslide Electoral College victory and outrageous whoppers about voter fraud being responsible for Clinton’s historic margin in the popular vote total. The truth causes an unbearable injury to his ego, so the truth must be denied.
It’ll be interesting to see how that dynamic plays out around the report on Russian hacking in the U.S. election. President Obama was briefed on it yesterday, and Trump will be briefed today. Then a heavily redacted public version is expected to be released sometime next week.
Even multimillionaire media figures find it odd that Trump won’t accept the intel community’s consensus that Russia was behind the hacks. CNN’s Chris Cuomo tried to pin Kellyanne Conway down on that this morning, causing Conway to spin faster than a particle beam in the Hadron Collider:
Unless you’re feeling particularly masochistic, I don’t recommend watching her simper and obfuscate for the full 17-plus minutes, but she did say something right before the 10-minute mark that might come back to bite Team Shitgibbon on the ass: She insisted that the Russians didn’t want Trump to win.
However, U.S. intel intercepts allegedly captured proof that Russian poohbahs were high-fiving one another over the success of their operation when the race was called for Trump. There are rumors — unsubstantiated, as far as I can tell — that the Russians used an unflattering nickname for Trump that is more offensive than “bitch” but with similar connotations in shirtless macho horse-riding circles.
So how will the brittle narcissist react when presented with this information? Will he continue to dismiss the intel? Will he accept the intel about the hacking, blame it on Obama’s “weakness” and get into a pissing contest with Putin?
I suspect this and every other decision Trump makes — ever has made, and ever will make — will be driven by the overriding goal of minimizing damage to his fragile self-esteem, with national security considerations and even political expediency far down on the list of factors to be considered. This is who he is.
To paraphrase a line from “The Birdcage,” for Americans, the Trump presidency will be like riding a psychotic horse toward a burning barn. Shorter: WASF.
GregB
Do we know if the insult was the Russian word for cuckold?
Major Major Major Major
What’s up with the “‘swamped’ (or destroyed)” line in his tweet? Such an odd thing to put there, given our recent usage of the word swamp as well as the character limited nature of a tweet.
@GregB: That would be almost too perfect.
sherparick
With Trump, every day will be FUBAR and the watch word is BOHICA, good and hard.
ChrisB
I assume that the game now is to guess the nickname while avoiding moderation.
zhena gogolia
@ChrisB:
I’d love to know what it was. Probably not mudak, I guess. Although it’s quite appropriate.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Translation?
hovercraft
Simple, he’s already laid the groundwork:
That was from the WSJ two days ago, so I’m sure the spin for the next few days will be all about how this is all politics, the Obama administration is trying to delegitimize the greatest electoral college victory in the history of forever! It cannot be true, he is universally loved and admired by everyone except a few bitter losers.
sherparick
By the way, the time for the Circular Firing squads has passed (see the proxy war between Perez and Ellison). We need to form Working America and Moral Monday groups in every precinct in the country. http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/5/14176156/rebuild-democratic-party-dnc-strategy
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
It doesn’t have a precise equivalent in English. It’s formed for the vulgar word for testicles, but it connotes not manliness but a combination of jerk, a**hole, and idiot. I’d say it’s just about perfect, but there are a lot of other words.
PGE
Over the years I’ve seen countless republican spokesassholes who were various combinations of evil, stupid, ignorant, or just plain wrong. But she’s the first that just plain makes my skin crawl. I’d cross the street if I saw her coming my way
Cris (without an H)
Some people have cautioned us to refrain from making remote diagnoses, which is fine (I mean, we recognized that as illegitimate when Bill Frist did it). But I don’t think it matters whether Trump is clinically (morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably, and reliably) an NPD case. The NPD profile fits his behavior, and that gives us a guideline for how to respond to his behavior.
SenyorDave
I broke my rib last year in NYC MLK weekend. After a rather excruciating train trip back to Maryland, I spent a miserable two weeks. I don’t handle pain very well, and I generally can’t tolerate the stronger pain meds. One thing I discovered is that using the facilities can be extraordinarily painful, in fact it was probably the thing I dreaded the most for those two weeks. That being said, I think I would rather break a few more ribs than listen to Kellyanne Conway for 15 seconds, much less 17 minutes. I truly believe that there will be a special place in hell for her. People like her enable malevolent assholes like Trump. I believe in karma, and it makes me feel a little better knowing that a POS like her will experience some of the pain she will help to cause millions of people.
Steeplejack
@ChrisB:
No, it’s not some word that would trigger the FYWP filter. From the other story I read, it’s something similar to “He’s our bitch” but much, much stronger in the original Russian.
schrodingers_cat
@sherparick: BS has some questionable links to Russia too. One Putin puppet is enough, don’t you think?
ETA: 1. His close advisers have Kremlin links
2. His actions in the primaries benefited T.
3. We have no idea about his finances. Houses on Lake Champlain don’t come cheap.
tpherald
None of this is surprising at all. This is simply the way that Trump has lived his entire life and made his entire empire based on exaggerated claims, promises and conning people.
He was pretty upfront about this and didn’t try to hide it.
So I’m sure he’s very surprised at the blowback he’s getting. He thought he had a mandate to bring that same hucksterism to the WH.
Cermet
The dump’s disorder offers a great chance by dems to manipulate him; make him feel that what he is doing for the thugs is unmanly and the alternate isn’t. He could easily be controlled via a clever use of this method when issues were critical.
The Moar You Know
Probably “suka/suki”.
O. Felix Culpa
@sherparick: Co-signed. That’s why I’m running for local Dem Ward Chair, among other activities. I’m encouraged to see a lot of new energy going into building the local party. We definitely have the 2018 governor’s race in our sights.
Also, for those with time and desire to be trained as an organizer and then provide training, OFA offers this program.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
Does it give the Russian?
I don’t think “suka” fits, because that doesn’t have connotations of weakness. That’s more like “bastard,” even though it means a female dog.
zhena gogolia
I can’t find anything via googling. What’s the source?
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
I haven’t seen the actual Russian word or phrase mentioned anywhere, which is kind of irritating in this Internet age. It seems excessively coy.
hovercraft
Trump’s Favorite Excuse: Later
by Nancy LeTourneau
January 6, 2017 10:02 AM
Perhaps the most consistent promise from Donald Trump during the presidential campaign was that he would build a wall along our Southern border and that Mexico would pay for it. Before he’s even inaugurated, key parts of that promise are falling apart. How he deals with that – both now and in the future – will provide a window into what we can expect from our president-elect on a host of other issues.
As Erica Werner and Jill Colvin report, what was once a wall has already been downgraded to a border fence upgrade. No one knows exactly how much money it will cost – but estimates are in the $10 billion ballpark. Congressional Republicans are now working with the Trump transition team on a plan to fund that by April. The most likely vehicle will be to piggyback on the Secure Fence Act of 2006 and attach funding for it to the must-pass budget bill.
But here’s the hitch…Trump promised that the Mexicans would pay for the wall (now fence). So as reports of these plans surfaced, our president-elect did what he always does when something gets under his skin. He took to Twitter.
I see. Mexico will pay us back later. Judd Legum reminds us that this is something we hear quite often from Trump.
To that list we could also add that Trump will release his tax returns later and that the campaign will address Melania’s immigration history later. None of those things ever happened.
On Mexico paying for the border wall, it is important to keep in mind that immediately following Trump’s trip to that country, President Peña Nieto stated unequivocally, “I repeat what I told you personally, Mr. Trump: Mexico will never pay for a wall.”
So here’s what the pattern looks like: whenever Trump is faced with a reality that is dangerous to his fragile ego, he promises to resolve it later. Given his own short attention span, it’s likely that he projects that onto the rest of us and thinks we’ll forget and simply move on. That’s why it is important to notice the pattern. Is the attention span of the media and/or the American people as short as Trump assumes? We’ll find out.
ETA: Notice he has dubbed it The Great Wall, does he seriously think that anyone other than him or his minions will call it The Great Wall? Not going to happen, Jiynaa has us beet by several centuries, or is it thousands of years.
SAD !
Major Major Major Major
@Cermet: I’ve recently been thinking a shrewder person than I could take advantage of this situation.
Thoroughly Pizzled
The worst man in America, bar none. But we must have empathy for the people who supported this geyser of idiocy.
Cris (without an H)
I don’t know, his self image has always included “haters and losers,” the idea that a bunch of envious inferiors will always try to tear him down. It helps him feel victorious.
DissidentFish
@schrodingers_cat: I have no reason to believe Sanders himself colluded with the Russian apparatus. But it is pretty obvious that the Russians put some hard currency in the hands of many trolls who’d lie about Clinton, and you’d have to be pretty naive to think that they only opened their purse once the Dem convention was done.
And Bernie should say that out loud, because he’s not that naive.
FlipYrWhig
@hovercraft: Also his press conference to explain how he’ll resolve his financial conflicts of interest.
Calouste
@PGE: Kellyanne Conway is Central Casting for Cruella de Vil.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: Mostly off line today and tomorrow, but I’ll check back, because I’m curious, too. I agree that “suka” doesn’t fit the description.
cynthia ackerman
What are the odds that drumph’s briefers show him proof that his oeganization is providing sensitive intelligence directly to Russia government?
What are the odds the briefers are planting Trojan horses in his briefings, looking for telltales of active collusion?
Iowa Old Lady
@hovercraft: He promised press conferences and postpones them all the time, maybe hoping the media will forget. To those you mention, I’d add the one explaining how he will resolve his conflict of interests.
As I recall, he also said he’d release his tax returns once the audit was over. No one ever calls him on this stuff as far as I can see, though since he sticks to twitter, it’s hard for a reporter to pin him down.
rikyrah
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA
You really do have a way with words.
Gin & Tonic
@Thoroughly Pizzled: No, we mustn’t.
SenyorDave
@FlipYrWhig: Also his press conference to explain how he’ll resolve his financial conflicts of interest.
And if we had a competent media, the first question any of his surrogates would get is when will that press conference will occur.
schrodingers_cat
@DissidentFish: So why is he still playing the useful idiot?
O. Felix Culpa
Adam L Silverman
Here’s what I expect to see happen. The unclassified, televised session yesterday included a written submitted statement. You can find that here:
http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Clapper-Lettre-Rogers_01-05-16.pdf
The DNI, especially, made it very clear yesterday that the IC is frustrated and furious. I know it didn’t look that way, but he did. ADM Rogers pretty much did the same thing. The President was briefed yesterday, so he knows everything: findings, levels of confidence attached to each finding, sources, and methods. He’s seen it all and so has his senior National security team. The President-elect and his National security team is being briefed now. The unclassified report, which, as DNI Clapper indicated yesterday he’s going to be as liberal as possible in stuffing full of information, will be out Monday at 2 PM.
Initially, as I stated in comments yesterday, I thought this was just another example of how President Obama’s Strategic Communication has failed. The report should have been issued as the President-elect was being briefed in order to prevent him from tweeting and his team from spinning their take on the report for three days before anyone else could see it. This may still be that strategic communication failure. But given that material was leaking out last night, I think the IC has set a trap. For two reasons. The first is that depending on how the President-elect and his people respond today and over the weekend, that the report will be further tweaked before release to deal with their objections. The second is that the IC will begin to leak like a sieve by early this afternoon.
This is a fluid situation and I expect it will be changing rapidly. I also expect it is going to get very, very ugly. DNI Clapper fired LTG Flynn from his last job. There is bad blood there. There is going to be a personalities matter, relationships matter component to this.
Yarrow
@cynthia ackerman:
I think they could be doing this too. Downside, if they give incorrect info Trump will turn it around and use that to discredit the Intelligence Community. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.” And if they do find a mole, what then once Trump is president?
Gin & Tonic
@O. Felix Culpa: He knows the power of branding, and this is branding him early. It’s hurting. Good.
Major Major Major Major
@DissidentFish:
It would hurt his image and bottom line, and he is that self-important.
matryoshka
@hovercraft:
Sadly, yes.
SatanicPanic
@Major Major Major Major: This is an internal debate I’ve been having in my brain over the last few months. People like Palin and Trump speak in a similar sort of weird, disjointed world salad. A couple of years ago, I was at an aquantaince’s house and he showed me an MRA video. Guy was talking in the same way. Is it intentional? Because it felt like someone was trying to brainwash me. Or are these people just nuts? Or stupid? I dunno. I tend to think they’re just dumb people, but either way it’s weird.
satby
@cynthia ackerman:
God, I hope so.
Nicole
Totally unfair comparison. What would Narcissus do? Narcissus would stare rapturously (and quietly) at his own reflection until he starved to death. We should have been so lucky.
randy khan
@O. Felix Culpa:
I wish I found it surprising that he reached this conclusion before he was briefed.
By the way, I’m still waiting with bated breath (as we all are, I’m sure) for Trump’s big news about the hack. I seem to remember it was supposed to be early this week.
hovercraft
Tech CEOs bracing for Trump tweets
Tech correspondent Samuel Burke is leading CNN’s coverage out here. I asked him what’s happening at the intersection of media and tech here at the show. His reply:
One incredible thing that’s catching my attention is tech CEOs — talking about Trump — are fearing getting a tweet about their companies at 3 a.m. West Coast time since the president-elect often tweets in the 6 a.m. Eastern hour.
On the one hand I’ve heard from many in the tech community here who say they are eager for a Trump rollback on regulations that could have a positive effect on their business.
On the other hand — multiple tech leaders say they or their PR folks have adjusted their schedules to make sure someone is up at 3 a.m. local time to catch the the tweets out of fear that a Trump tweet could crash their stock and put their company into a frenzy.
Many are saying they’ve learned how to get Trump Twitter alerts directly on their phone. Some are prepared with an action plan in case he tweets! And we aren’t talking about just a reply tweet – more of a full blown media campaign reply…
Speaking of Trump’s tweets…
Sean Spicer says “I do not know, I do not get a memo” when Trump is about to tweet… “He drives the train on this…” It is an “exciting piece of the job…”
Spicer talked about it with Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod at the University of Chicago on Wednesday. Details via the WSJ…
— Related: Fandango’s Erik Davis tweets: “Trump is the best and worst thing to ever happen to Twitter…”
WASFS
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman:
I hope so! Throughout the campaign, Fridays have been the most interesting days for breaking news. Wonder what this one will bring.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
This is not necessarily a bad idea. I wonder who came up with it.
All of the furor behind Trump’s mad Tweets about not believing the reports about the source of hacking is political carnival, i.e., even more riotously stupid than the usual political theater we get from these fools.
And Betty Cracker is absolutely spot on when she notes that ultimately, Trump’s instinct is to deflect everything into another desperate insistence of his obvious and inevitable magnificence.
SatanicPanic
@O. Felix Culpa:
That’s really cool man. Good luck!
The Moar You Know
@SatanicPanic: Think of it like this: 20 years ago, someone comes to you and tells you they’re going to give every moron in America a video camera and a free distribution medium for anything they film with that camera.
You’d have said “oh my God, what an awful idea, America will become nothing but idiots 24/7”.
Here we are. The only surprise is that anyone is surprised at the results.
Spanky
@Adam L Silverman: It’s hard to underestimate just how much relationships matter in the IC world. It’s a very small world, and as you can imagine, trust is critical.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: DNI?
Betty Cracker
@Adam L Silverman: Do you think it’s a big deal that Woolsey bailed on Trump, as in, he knows something that’s about to happen and didn’t want to be associated with it? Or do you think it more likely that it was an office politics thing, as in he felt Flynn was too powerful an influence or something like that?
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: @Gin & Tonic: Its former NSA officer and former Naval War College professor John Schindler:
https://twitter.com/20committee/status/817354388360531968
And
Yarrow
@Brachiator:
People who want the IC to be beholden directly to them and serve their interests instead of US interests?
Major Major Major Major
@SatanicPanic: I think this is just the vernacular that stupid people use right now.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: The best one I’ve seen so far is Trump Taj MyWall or Trump Taj MaWall.
Spanky
@schrodingers_cat: Director of National Intelligence.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
So it’s some derivative of “pizda.” You know, CU on Tuesday
Calouste
@schrodingers_cat: DNI = Director of National Intelligence.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
@cynthia ackerman: Low chance that they are feeding Trump Trojan horses, I hope. Because if they’re doing that, then they will have taken control of the government, or just about.
Adam L Silverman
@O. Felix Culpa: See my comment 37.
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
Okay, it’s something like “nash pizdiuk,” as I said, from the vulgar word for vulva. But I don’t think of that as a terrible epithet. Wiktionary says it refers to “somebody who is small, shrimp, squirt, e.g. a young boy, young son, etc.” You can use it affectionately. But then I guess that’s pretty terrible for the leader of the (once) Free World.
hovercraft
@Brachiator:
If the idea came from any other entity, I would have no objections to tweaking how the intel community works, no institution perfect, and the intel community definitely is not. But I suspect that this is all a smokescreen because he and his team do not like the fact that they are saying that the election was indeed hacked by Putin, and that he benefitted from the hacks. He doesn’t like that they are verifying democratic contentions that Putin wanted to hurt Hillary by helping him. They are tarnishing his “victory” so he is lashing out at them. If the media does it’s job and points out that all 17 agencies agree, this is not just the DNI, then….
Ha ha ha , never mind.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: This John Schindler guy is funny.
Brachiator
@Cermet:
The Republican leadership and various other stooges have already convinced themselves that they know how to do this. And yet, somehow Trump keeps slapping them down.
And nobody knows what will happen next.
SatanicPanic
@The Moar You Know: But these are some old people! Where does this way of talking come from? I guess maybe I’ve been sheltered by not being around really stupid people in a while. That being said, YouTube is definitely helping dummies find each other. They used to live in isolation like god intended.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: @hovercraft: it’s the difference between cutting back on military spending because some of our weapons systems are unnecessary and overpriced, and “cutting back on military spending” so we can hire contractors from a company owned by the Vice President.
Adam L Silverman
And the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is holding hearings on Tuesday on the Russian Hacking. Here are the details:
https://twitter.com/frankthorp/status/817372599038582785
The briefers will be DNI Clapper, DCI Brennan, DNSA ADM Rogers, DFBI James Comey. Unclassified open session briefing followed by classified closed session briefing.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Adam L Silverman: I have a sinking feeling that it may get very, very ugly even before my (and Bill in Glendale’s) birthday, which will be the first full day of Trumptopia. Please correct me.
Mike in NC
Seems like there are very good odds that Trump will take a very hard fall in the shower even before January 20th.
Starfish
The people still blaming Sanders for everything are as sad as Trump blaming Clinton for everything.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
Ha! Exactly. After a certain point, this stuff all seems like an inane merry-go-round.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh that will be must watch TV, I’ll bring the popcorn.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: Really, really unflattering.
tpherald
@Cris (without an H): Perhaps you are correct. This is the normal working order that we can come to expect for 4 years.
japa21
My guess as to what will happen. Trump will be shown classified information today. In his determination to exonerate himself, he will talk (or tweet) some of that information to the public. My question would be whether or not he could then be indicted, even before the inauguration for that. He obviously thinks that he is already President, but until 1/20 he is a private citizen.
I am also curious as to who is with him for this briefing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@hovercraft:
ROFL, he’s off shoring.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
in this instance, how do you know which is which?
Yarrow
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): As a reminder, Congress meets today to count the Electoral College results. It is possible for objections to be raised.
cynthia ackerman
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:
Except he, and moreso his organization, are not the government yet.
hovercraft
Sigh.
I think we had enough of the trolls yesterday, how about we all heed Joshua’s words, “the only winning move is not to play.”
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: in which instance?
@Starfish: who are these people?
Citizen_X
@hovercraft:
Falling from a building is pretty exciting, too.
GregB
@Adam L Silverman:
Adam, have you seen the reports that Gen. Mattis is bumping up against the transition team when it comes to DOD appointments?
If so, I would be interested in your input.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@GregB: I assume that’s the beginning of Flynn (and maybe Bolton?) vs Mattis
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Adam L Silverman:
The report may not need to be tweaked much, if at all. Trump has shown that he is incapable of not lying, especially when his ego is pricked. I’m sure he is going to be spinning like a top and tweeting all weekend over this report. And his lies and inconsistencies will be laid bare when the public report comes out.
MomSense
@DissidentFish:
The target of the release of the DNC emails Russia stole was Democrats and others who supported Sanders. Russia was trying to help Sanders to weaken Clinton.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker: Great thread title. Someone should market WWND tee-shirts with the Shitgibbon’s shiny face.
Major Major Major Major
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Yep, that’ll stop him.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: Has he made a statement on the Russian leaks? Did I miss it. I have only been scanning WashPost headlines once a day.
Adam L Silverman
@Spanky: I don’t have to imagine.
StringOnAStick
@sherparick: Everyone should go read the link at sherparick’s comment, then send it on to everyone they know!
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Director of National Intelligence. DCI is Director of Central Intelligence.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: I think its a big deal as its one more signal, by one more former senior leader of the IC, to the members of the IC that they should be free to protect themselves and do what they have to do going forward in an environment where the President-elect seems to be openly hostile to what they do.
As for inside information, I have no idea.
goblue72
@schrodingers_cat: you’re fucking insane
HeleninEire
@Adam L Silverman: I am so grateful you are here to explain this to us. So much of it is way above my head. Especially the politics of the IC. Thanks Adam.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: I have no idea. I am just indicating where the info came from and how its been qualified.
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
Warning Link is to the Vichy Times.
Trump Says Focus on Russian Hacking Is a ‘Political Witch Hunt’
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR JAN. 6, 2017
Mr. Trump spoke to The New York Times by telephone three hours before he was set to be briefed by the nation’s top intelligence and law enforcement officials about the Russian hacking of American political institutions. In the conversation, he repeatedly criticized the intense focus on Russia.
“China, relatively recently, hacked 20 million government names,” he said, referring to the breach of computers at the Office of Personnel Management in late 2014 and early 2015. “How come nobody even talks about that? This is a political witch hunt.”
He noted that there have been prior successful hackings of the White House and Congress, suggesting it was unfair that those attacks on American institutions have not received the attention that the Russian cyberintrusions have. But none of the information from those intrusions was made public as it was in the case of the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.
“With all that being said, I don’t want countries to be hacking our country,” Mr. Trump said. “They’ve hacked the White House. They’ve hacked Congress. We’re like the hacking capital of the world.”
Mr. Trump, who has consistently expressed doubts about the evidence of Russian hacking during the election, did so again on Friday. Asked why he thought there was so much attention being given to the Russian cyberattacks, the president-elect said the motivation was political.
“They got beaten very badly in the election. I won more counties in the election than Ronald Reagan,” Mr. Trump said during an eight-minute telephone conversation. “They are very embarrassed about it. To some extent, it’s a witch hunt. They just focus on this.”
The president-elect also noted reports this week that the D.N.C. had refused to give the F.B.I. access to its computer servers after it was hacked.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I cannot prove it, and I do not know Schindler, but my impression has always been that he’s been a way for his former colleagues at the NSA and in counterintel circles to make their interests and information known. I think you can, keeping a healthy dose of skepticism as one should for all things, treat what he is stating, as well as what Evan McMullin is stating, as if it is coming from their former colleagues. For Schindler that’s NSA. For McMullin that’s CIA.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: We were discussing Woolsey’s choice of phrase last night:
“Effective immediately, Ambassador Woolsey is no longer a Senior Adviser to President-Elect Trump or the Transition. He wishes the President-Elect and his Administration great success in their time in office.”
“In their time in office” ????? That’s an odd word choice. Most people who are actually wishing someone well or who wish to sound neutral would choose “wish them great success” or “a successful administration” or something like that. Choosing to use the word “time” leaves the impression that the amount of time itself could be in question. Is he signaling that the amount of time in office could be short?
Maybe it means nothing. It does seem odd, though.
Major Major Major Major
@goblue72: easy way for BS to show us any possible financial entanglements & clear that up.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Interesting insight. Thanks. And with that in mind, this pinned tweet of his is even more interesting:
Let it be so.
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: Thanks. I actually meant Sanders.
Mike in DC
I am not entirely sure that narcissists can be helped. Like psychopaths, they’re very resistant to treatment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Now he’s taking on NBC News? Is there an organ of the conservative/McCainian foreign policy establishment he hasn’t picked a fight with?
Yarrow
@hovercraft: I could be wrong, but I think schrodinger’s cat’s question was regarding the esteemed Senator from VT and any strong condemnations and continued calls for investigation that he might have made/be making regarding the Russian hacking.
bemused
Plenty of people surrounding Trump,his team, advisors, cabinet picks and Republican legislators have serious personality disorders themselves. What really kills me is the others, not quite as nuts, who are aiding, abetting and taking advantage of the access to benefit themselves and know full well there is something very, very wrong with Trump. And they don’t give a rat’s ass.
Nick
To be scrupulously fair, the treatment for personality disorders is pretty limited and generally ineffectual. The best strategy when dealing with people who have them is to ignore them, and take care not to give them openings into your life. Good luck, America!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow: maybe if somebody points out that Putin is a bill-yunn-aiyr that’ll get his dander up
Bobby D
@Cris (without an H): Add that psych diagnoses is as much labeling a set of behaviors on a spectrum, than an actual definitive/medical diagnoses. IOW, lots of woo-woo in the mental health field. We tend to think of diagnoses as a binary process – you have the flu virus or you don’t, you have a genetic anomaly that causes xyz or you don’t have it.
But mental health “disorders” only become classed as true disorders when they prevent daily functioning in things like work, family, social life. Personally, I have more than just shades of NPD and ASPD. But they are mild intensity, and don’t fall into a true “disorder”. Cause me plenty of problems, sure, but I think most of us could be classes as having “tendencies” toward one or another PD.
Not to discount the fact that Trump is a batshit crazy narcissist. Just that the mental health field is far from a scientific practice at this point. Headed that direction, but still very far from it.
Juice Box
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: He’s sending people to Siberian gulags. He,s got a friend with some property there.
goblue72
@Major Major Major Major: You people are clinical & certifiable. That you manage to hold down a job is astonishing.
Starfish
@sherparick: Do you consider anything that is being said in the Vox article to be new? I think it is being dismissive of things that it really should not be dismissive of. I don’t think that putting money in multiple causes while multiple causes are being attacked is the wrong way to go. A whole lot of people donated to ACLU, SPLC, and Planned Parenthood after the election, and I think that is a fine thing to do. I think that dismissing all of the potential electoral college fixes out of hand without discussing them is silly. There are multiple fixes being considered. One is the EC vote splitting as in Maine and Nebraska. Another is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. No red states are considering this yet. I think this path insures that states that have been ignored continue to be ignored. I find the EC vote splitting to be more appealing.
Adam L Silverman
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Going to war with the IC is never good. Going to war with the IC when almost everyone in your inner circle, or your adult childrens’ from your first marriage, inner circle can be linked to elites and/or notables of a hostile foreign power and those links are all within two (or three at most) of the leader of that foreign power is not good. There may be a lot of reasonable explanations for those connections. Unfortunately, paranoiacally circling the wagons and obfuscating them instead of simply explaining them isn’t helping. I have no idea if there is something criminal or unethical or dubious here – in any sense of the words, but there seems to be a full on coverup. And as we all know its never the crime, its always the coverup.
Its just sad to see this happening. I’m sure a lot of folks will not agree with this, but a lot of my concern or worry is that the President-elect seems to be, because he’s placed himself there, outside the boundaries of American politicians. In terms of domestic political positions and agendas, had Governor Kasich or Governor Bush or Senator Graham or Senator Paul won the GOP nomination and the election, I would be in opposition to their domestic agenda. But I would largely not be too concerned about their foreign policy positions and agenda. The President-elect is, despite all the tweeting and rallies and interviews and everything else – still quite an unknown quantity. And that is, I think, what is so concerning for a lot of Americans. Democrats and some Republicans, liberals, progressives, moderates, and some conservatives.
I’m not saying this to be mean or hypercritical. You want the President and his team to be successful. Because if they fail its going to be very, very bad. The unease, I think, comes from everybody being on unknown territory.
Calouste
@Major Major Major Major: I realized that BS was BS when he started to make up all kinds of BS about not releasing his tax returns while at the same time spouting the BS that he was the only honest politician in DC.
Bobby D
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, now that IS special. Orange turd blows off nat security briefings, then whines about not knowing something before others? SMMFH.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@HeleninEire: Somebody was looking for a source for info about a Dublin march last night! I can’t remember the commentor’s nym or even what thread, but I thought you might offer anything you’d heard about expats or any other Dubliners who might plan to comment publicly about the new US regime.
Starfish
@Major Major Major Major: I find what schrodinger’s cat is doing up there wondering about Sander’s houses to be strange and not a good use of time.
Yarrow
@Yarrow: Can’t edit my comment, but see schrodingers_cat replied.
It is interesting how quiet he is on the Russia hacking thing. Why is that?
Hill Dweller
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Trump tweet is almost identical to the WikiLeaks tweet bemoaning “top secret leaks”.
FlipYrWhig
Unplug your irony meters, people:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/817322050297745408
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@goblue72: says the keyboard radical/cubicle jockey who actually believes in his own various and sundry internet costumes.
You ever make it to goddamn Illinois to bring those clueless losers some of your totes Malcom-y organizing savvy, Dwight? Or was the Greyhound ticket out of reach?
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
See my #63.
Spanky
@Adam L Silverman:
Never say never. This time it may well be a doozy.
Betty Cracker
@Adam L Silverman: I’d be plenty worried about the domestic and FP agenda of any of the Republicans you named. But I wouldn’t worry about them getting into a dick-swinging contest with Kim Jong-un that ended with nukes flying. With Trump, I definitely have that worry.
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: Putting a lot of people who have mortgages to pay and have access to all kinds of information in uncertainty about their career is a rather risky move.
randy khan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The good news is that the Intelligence Committees will ignore this request. Heck, one of them may have leaked it.
Major Major Major Major
@Starfish: which is not however an example of what you said.
Adam L Silverman
@GregB: I read it. I have no idea what, if any of it, is accurate. I would surmise that Mattis wants to pick a lot of his own top line people. The under secretaries and deputy secretaries and he likely wants input on the service secretaries. He wants it to be his team. Under that, in more junior roles, special assistants, directors, deputy directors, assistant directors, it will be a bit different. The opposition to the Never Trump GOP/Conservative security folks doesn’t surprise me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Graham and to a lesser extent Bush would make me nervous in a different way than Turmp, but they would be less frighteningly erratic and impulsive. I don’t think Paul is as consistent an isolationist (or anything else) as his old man, but I think he would be less trigger happy than Graham. Kaisch on FP I have no idea about– my hunch is he’s like Romney, mostly interested in domestic policy and prone to take advice from the GOP FP establishment.
Spanky
@FlipYrWhig: OK, OK, I’ll bite.
WTF are those 2 talking about? What supposedly TS data is NBC supposed to have obtained? And how, may I ask, does J Fucking Assange know what classification level said info is at? And why am I ending a sentence with a preposition?
Calouste
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, as if we needed any more proof that WikiLeaks is just an agent of Trumputin these days rather than an organization concerned with releasing secret information.
I’d like to visit the Galapagos Islands one day, but not before Assange has been longer out of the Ecuadorian embassy than in it.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman:
I said yesterday that at some point things between Trump and Putin as going to fall apart. Putin has been and continues to flatter Trump while also probably letting him know he owns him. The problem is, Trump likely believes the flattery and will more the longer it continues. At some point if Trump doesn’t want to do what Putin wants, he’ll think he can just do what he himself wants and Putin “will be fine with it because we’re such good friends.”
That’s not how it’s going to work. Putin is not Trump’s buddy, no matter how much he plays one on a day to day basis. And when Trump decides to go his own way, or Putin goes his own way and Trump gets upset about it and tweets out some revenge tweet at 3:00 a.m., it’s going to get very ugly very quickly.
We are all going to be in big trouble if things get that far.
StringOnAStick
@Nick: I once was friends with a properly diagnosed narcissist, and he was quite open about it. Tons of fun to be around, made you into part of his clique, saw himself as a leader of men, and one of the smartest people I have ever known. He also left a trail of horrible bitter relationships with ex-lovers and ex-friends trailing behind him and quite frankly didn’t give a shit since he’d gotten what he wanted from them. How none of the scorned didn’t just shoot his arrogant ass always surprised me; my husband ad I finally saw how dysfunctional it all was and backed away slowly until it was safe to just flat out run.
Narcissists don’t think the way we do and how they see the world is utterly foreign to us normie’s, never forget that empathy is something just as foreign to them as their narcissism is to us.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Yes, NY Times. Three hours before the briefing. Briefing started at 1230 hours.
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/817406271213146112
Full NY Times story at: https://t.co/gKnxV9Kt3y
goblue72
GOP is playing hardball while Democrats have temper tantrum chasing Trump tweets, despite resounding evidence that his Tweeting serves as a highly effective “look, shiny bead” distraction continually shocking our lizard brains.
Case in point – GOP is lining up confirmation hearings for the most odious of Trump’s picks all at the same time & in a compressed hearing schedule. Meanwhile, Trump is going to have press conference while the hearings are going on (that he slyly avoided having in order to gin up excitement). McConnell planning Obamacare repeal votes while all this going on.
Watch Ryan & the Turtle to kill Obamacare funding streams immediately but delay the “repeal” date. Watch as PP defunding sandwiched in, Liberal interest groups chase the shiny bead, Collins frets, PP defunding pulled at 11th hour (like it always was), and lesser of 2 evils – defunding Obamacare – sails through. Watch as Dems in a few years have to deal with Medicare / Medicaid running broke and forced to pick which constituency to screw over.
All the oxygen is going to get sucked out of the room as Dems unable to focus on the most critical because they still don’t realize how fucked they are & continue to fool themselves that Trump is an idiot.
hovercraft
@Yarrow: @schrodingers_cat:
There is nothing coming up on Google, and there is statement about it on his official web page. So I don’t think he’s commented.
hovercraft
@Nick:
Gee thanks ;-)
Adam L Silverman
@HeleninEire: I’m speculating here, but its somewhat informed speculation. I am not pleased to see this. This is not good for the US, our allies, or our partners. Even if it all turns out there was no actual connection between the Trump campaign and what Russia was doing, the way the President-elect is responding is doing a lot of harm. I write that as someone who has worked, still works, and would like to continue to work in this professional space and who has done so under both Republican and Democratic Presidents.
As I indicated in an answer to Bella Q: you never want to see a President, regardless of party or ideology, fail or get into trouble or have a hard time. Because when that happens it is bad for the US, for our allies, and for our partners.
Kay
Why did the Russian government want GOP House members to win? To give Trump more latitude/less oversight?
I’m interested in the House race hacking. I wish someone would look into it.
Seth Owen
@Brachiator: Yes, it’s a bad idea. Sure, if the motivation and purpose was increased efficiency and it was done on an objective and analytical basis it would be a good idea, but there is no reason to suspect any of that will play a role.
If it’s a political purge designed to create compliant agencies full of lackeys then it will not only be a bad idea, but a disaster that will take many years to fix.
Adam L Silverman
Breaking News:
https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/817405341893820416
Yarrow
@hovercraft: It’s curious, isn’t it? He’s one of the big stars in the Democratic party right now. Why isn’t he speaking up on this serious issue?
goblue72
@Starfish: Pretty much. There’s a half dozen regulars here obsessed with Sanders who just can’t let go and have convinced themselves that Their Girl Friday lost because some cranky guy from Vermont was mean to her.
It’s gotten to the point where it’s just pathetic and sad.
Nick
@Yarrow:
One variable in this is that Trump surrounds himself with losers — aware that Pence and all these other idjits are pretty low on the scale. Putin isn’t — he’s an alpha’s alpha (in the mind of the right), the master of a violent, unstable political establishment, and he does what he wants. Putin will always have more status than the people around Trump, and it’s not going to be easy to shake the hold that this gives Putin over Trump. In fact, I’m not sure that it’s desirable that this happen — it might be better for Trump to be under the sway of Putin, than Pence, Flynn, or any of these other small-time nutcases.
Spanky
@Adam L Silverman: Ah, so somebody got a clue as to what was about to happen.
Major Major Major Major
@goblue72:
Unlike your cop-shooting fantasies that make you a total badass.
HeleninEire
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I haven’t seen anything but I will take a look and let you know.
Calouste
@Yarrow: I’m sure Putin is well aware of the lessons of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and that he will be aiming to put the shiv in before Trump has gotten too entrenched. That will result in more chaos in the US, which is Putin’s long term interest. Having a nutty dictator in the US is not in Putin’s long term interest. A country that is too divided and disinterested to interfere while he hovers up the old Soviet states is.
Kay
The problem with this for Trump is Trump himself kisses Putin’s ass. Take hacking out completely and that is still in fact true- Donald Trump adores Putin. He is much more respectful and deferential to Putin than he is to Obama.
Democrats don’t even need the hacking for a political witch hunt if the effort is to tie Trump to Putin. Trump himself does that.
Felonius Monk
@goblue72: WTF? Why aren’t you on your way to DC to get this organized and straightened out? Get these DEMS on track. Marshal the forces. Oh, I see. You missed the last Greyhound (or was it TrailWays) out of Bullshit City and the next one doesn’t come along until next month. You coulda saved us, Dwight, but you didn’t. So useless.
Jim Foolish Literalist
that makes absolutely no sense outside of wanting to call Clinton a girl. Interesting window into one possible cause of your bitter rage, Dwight. Is the new crew chief of your cubicle row also a “girl”? Is she enforcing the donut limit?
goblue72
@Yarrow: because it’s a distraction. Why else is Trump tweeting about it. Lot of smoke that will go nowhere. Voters won’t give two shits about this in 2 years and it’s far too easy for Trump to pitch it as sore loserdom. Election is over. General public will quickly tire of “the election was stolen” stuff.
It’s a convenient distraction for the GOP though. They aren’t going to allow any investigation to go far & it keeps media blathering about it while they queue up killing healthcare and raiding the public fisc.
Yarrow
@Kay:
Seems like a reasonable guess. The Russians understand how our government works, at least at a basic level. It would be pretty obvious that having a Republican House and Senate with a compliant Russian puppet as President would help them achieve their goals.
We know both Democrats and Republicans were hacked. It’s just that they released Democrats’ info. They held on to most of the Republicans’ info. Someone has it. Many of those people may not yet know they were hacked. Blackmail opportunities abound.
Calouste
@Kay: I think getting GOP house members to win was the backup plan in case Trump didn’t win, to hamstring Clinton. I don’t think the Russians thought Trump really would win. Eggs, baskets, etc.
Elie
Trump and his team are corrupt and treasonous. What bothers me is less about him and them than if we have any persons and or means left to keep our country safe. That might mean having the intestinal fortitude to remove him from office and prosecute him and anyone in his administration who was involved. If it is clear that he is guilty I hope that the super cautious Obama declassified the report. We may need a bench clearing brawl in this country because the GOP will not do what is moral or patriotic. The people who care about this country will have to fight for it.
goblue72
@Major Major Major Major: that you can’t let that go is what is sad and pathetic.
How do you hold down a job? Do you have one?
O. Felix Culpa
@Adam L Silverman: Prezackly.
Mnemosyne
@SatanicPanic:
I don’t have the link right now, but I read a series of really interesting posts last year about how following all of the “pick-up artist” (PUA) and MRA advice basically guarantees that you will become involved with a woman who has a Cluster B personality disorder (those disorders include narcissistic, borderline, and sociopathic). It also pointed out how many of the big PUA gurus either have an evident Cluster B disorder themselves or talk about their parent who had one. It was simultaneously very sad and very creepy.
hovercraft
@Hill Dweller:
Someone, I’m pretty sure it was Adam linked to a tweet yesterday, that said if you want to know what the shitgibbon will be tweeting about tomorrow, check out a Russian blog, I think it was Sputnik.
Actually here is the tweet:
SatanicPanic
@Starfish: Maine’s allocation of EC votes is a pretty small fix though. I think there are better steps than tinkering around the margins, but no major changes to the EC are going to go through in the current environment.
Mnemosyne
@goblue72:
Not everyone can have their ivory tower in San Francisco. Have you figured out yet which part of the state that you live in has a larger population?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You want us to look forward and not back, Dwight? I guess the fact that you’ve finally become embarrassed by your adolescent posturing is actually progress, for you. Just a couple weeks ago you were standing by your obnoxious blather.
FlipYrWhig
@goblue72: Someone who’s posing as a badass street radical MIGHT wanna rethink his proclivity for “Get a job!” insults.
Kay
The giant toddler is mad that there’s information out there that makes him look like a dope and a stooge. Boo hoo.
Shalimar
@goblue72: People are crazy for pointing out that Tad Devine has the same Ukrainian ties to Yanukovich that many of Trump’s team do, and that Sanders didn’t release his tax returns? I agree with you that it is a stretch to start accusing Sanders’ campaign of being Russian patsies based on just that, but it isn’t outside the realm of possibility and you seem incredibly defensive in denying it.
goblue72
@Mnemosyne: yes. The part that is all the rest of the state outside LA metro. Have you figured out how to do math yet?
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne: FWIW the MRA I know is pretty obviously a sociopath.
goblue72
@Shalimar: I’m dismissive because it’s fucking retarded.
Major Major Major Major
@goblue72: It’s business hours, what are you doing here?
Kay
@Calouste:
That’s what I would focus on if I were in the Senate. Donald Trump is once and Trump adores Putin anyway, hacking or no hacking. Congressional races could be repeated over and over. It’s wild to think they could be blackmailing GOP members right now.
Nick
@Shalimar:
Part of the problem here is that there’s no evidence that Sanders was advocating for policies other than what he wanted, and that he had very little to say r.e. foreign policy at all. He ran as a perfectly acceptable social democrat. What would it mean to say that he’s a Russian ‘patsy’? That his candidacy is treasonous? ‘Patsy’ isn’t an identity, it includes what people do.
goblue72
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: oh I stand by it. There’s a lot of pigs who deserve the firing squad.
I just find your obsession pathetic.
hovercraft
@Kay: From what I understand, even with their meddling, they expected her to win, so more GOP congresscritters would have complicated her life and made it harder for her to govern. I’m not sure they realized how little they could have done to stop her on FP, maybe they thought she would be distracted by domestic squabbles.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
A fallacy that a lot of conservatives fell into during the Bush years was thinking that Democrats were “hoping” Bush would fail, when we were predicting he would fail.
Unfortunately, I think we can all make a similar prediction about Trump with a pretty high degree of certainty.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman: Good. Maybe they are learning from past failures, box him in.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@hovercraft:
“I’ll pay you back later” is the scammy businessman’s go to.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
fuck you, Dwight. Not the first time you’ve dragged that one out. Like a Trumpeter, you’re too fucking stupid to realize how obnoxious and offensive you are. Between this and your calls for violence, I can’t imagine why you’re still here.
Nick
@Mnemosyne:
On the contrary, I think that what we have to fear most is that Trump ‘succeeds’ on terms that matter to him, but fails deeply on the normal terms we apply to our Presidents . . .
But you want to know something? I do hope Trump fails. If he succeeds in any meaning of the term at all, that’s a disaster for American politics.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim Foolish Literalist: It’s a great metaphor, because people who like Hillary Clinton see her as our spunky ex-wife and employee! o_O @[email protected]
goblue72
@Major Major Major Major: 4 day work weeks are possible when youve managed your career intentionally such that your skills are in high demand.
Yarrow
@Kay: EVERY Democrat should start asking and keep asking at every available opportunity if the Republicans are being blackmailed by the Russians. What do the Russians have on the Republicans? We know Republicans were hacked, why was almost nothing released? How do we know that their votes aren’t because they’re being blackmailed? Blackmail, blackmail, blackmail. It’s a word everyone understands. It’s hard to disprove. Puts the Republicans on the defensive. Get Republicans and blackmail connected in voters minds through repetition.
rp
If Putin wanted Clinton to lose, and was willing to interfere on behalf of Trump to make that happen, why wouldn’t he do the same during the primary?
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
Yes. This is exactly where we are. Equally troubling, Trump’s supporters strongly endorse this, and the Republican leadership, for now, is also fully on board.
I am not aware of a clear precedent for this in US history. I also have a mild unease that even if we safely get through a Trump administration, it will be difficult to re-establish the traditions, safeguards, conflicts-of-interest rules, and other ethical and legal standards that helped filter out the worst presidential aspirants.
ETA: What do you think of former CIA director R. James Woolsey Jr quitting Trump’s transition team?
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: I also hope he fails. White nationalism must not be seen as something that leads to successful policy outcomes.
@goblue72: That’s a very accurate description of my career, yes, but you haven’t explained why *you’re* here commenting during business hours.
goblue72
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: ok snowflake. Guess your fee-fees can’t handle salty language. Like most squishy Dems, it’s about the kabuki of appearances ain’t it?
FlipYrWhig
@goblue72: Also when you’re told not to show up for a while because you annoy the fuck out of people.
sukabi
@Mike in NC: you might be accused of being a conspiracist with talk like that…;°)
hovercraft
@Yarrow:
He’s um very busy right now, he just launched a joint effort with Andrew Cuomo to make college tuition free. As I skimmed the page , this was his latest tweet:
Priorities.
Shalimar
@Mnemosyne: The way Sarah Palin talks and what she says is uncannily similar to my mom, who I am positive has NPD. It’s like a funhouse-mirror version of reality, always twisting and turning and impossible to reason with.
Elie
I have had screaming nightmares twice this week for which my husband has had to shake me awake.
Adam, you are so wise but we are so so not in the system you knew anymore. These people aren’t even in office yet and they have undermined key sectors of our government and threatened our businesses. We don’t want to exacerbate the situation but when do you accept that you are off the grid and need to come to terms with who our new allies will be and find the leadership to do it? This is way bigger than the Democrats alone. We need to save this country
Nick
@rp:
So how would Putin have helped Sanders? Or how did he help Sanders? It’s not an abstract question — it’s pretty clear how he did this for Trump. How did he do it in the Democratic primary?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@goblue72: mocking the disabled is “salty”? I had forgotten that besides being a pathetic and delusional cosplayer, you’re a raging, ignorant asshole.
Must be that highly successful career that makes you such a pleasant and well-adjusted guy.
FlipYrWhig
@hovercraft: When your career is dedicated to the cause of sticking it to Wall Street and neoliberals, what better partner could you have than Andrew Cu… wait, I’ll come in again.
Mnemosyne
@goblue72:
Sorry, schnookums, but you weren’t comparing the whole rest of the state to the LA metro area. You were claiming that the six counties of the Bay Area were what keeps California blue, and then you got pissy when I pointed out that we have twice as many people in LA/OC/Ventura who keep the state blue.
The Bay Area is not the center of California — not economically and not by votes. And you expect us to take YOUR advice about what the White Working Class really wants?
jeannedalbret
@schrodingers_cat:
1. Actually, we do know the house cost $575,000 — but am chary of candidate who does not submit tax returns…
2..Question: Is it just BS’ politics, or would your suspect anyone who challenged Clinton/DNC establishment (not a problem for me–but very little daylight there) from the left to be tools of the Kremlin?
[email protected]schrodingers_cat:
Kay
Getting testy in Trump Tower.
Of course he’s sheltering the Russian government. He wants a far Right authoritarian state like Putin has. He admires that and he doesn’t know the first thing about democratic forms of government. I don’t even think he has the faintest understanding of state/federal interaction or how that works in the US. He seems to think he’s in a position to boss the governor of Ohio around.
Yarrow
@Brachiator:
Mild unease? Is that some kind of understatement? Trump has broken countless norms and the Republicans have cheered him on and shown every indication they will follow his lead and break even more norms.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
My boss is out sick, so I can play with the trolls all day! ?
(But I’ll try not to, if only to keep the threads under control.)
Betty Cracker
@Adam L Silverman: Sounds like they moved it up. Fascinating.
@Kay: Outside of one NYT article, I haven’t seen doodly-squat about the hacked House races. Seems kind of important. Someone should look into that.
Yarrow
@Nick: Could be money. He never released his tax returns. How could we know?
Vhh
@GregB: The ordinary Russian word for bitch is suka. Much more offensive are the words related to the Donald’s favorite anatomical noun p***y: “blad’ ” and “pizda” (the latter has much the same meaning across many Slavic languages). Given that Donald fancies himself the c**k of the walk, my money woild be on pizda. The Russian word for cuckold is “rogonosets” = wearer of horns, which lacks the sting of “cuck”. So I’ll go with pizda as the FSB/GRU moniker for Donald.
FlipYrWhig
@Nick: I dunno, maybe by getting the supporters of the runner-up to feel like they’d had victory unforgivably stolen from them so that they’d act embarrassing at the party’s nominating convention?
The Moar You Know
@Mnemosyne: goblue72 is not a Bay Area resident and has said so on this here blog multiple times.
It’s a little unclear as to where it lives, actually.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: When it comes to leadership, the white working class always looks to smug Californians who boast of their success.
Kay
@Yarrow:
Every citizen should want to know involvement a foreign government had in Congressional races, especially with this lunatic as President. There are three branches. They interfered in two. These checks and balances are failing all over the place. What next? The judiciary?
schrodingers_cat
@jeannedalbret: First of all my problem with BS is that he only joined the Democratic party to challenge Clinton. He is no longer a Democrat now, nor was he before the primaries
He kept running long after he had a chance to win.
He demonized HRC and DNC, giving ammunition to T.
I am actually sympathetic to many of his stated econ goals.
Demonizing the Democratic party and its nominee was a strange way to go about those stated goals.
Yarrow
@Kay: Yes, every citizen should want to know. But the ones who voted for Trump are blinded. It will take a concerted PR effort to help some of them see. Using the word “blackmail,” a word that pretty much everyone understands, and tying it to Republicans as in “Are Republicans being blackmailed by Russia” over and over again will help accomplish that goal.
And yes, the judiciary is the next to fall. Many vacancies need filling. Of course the Supreme Court vacancy. Pressure on judges who don’t do what Trump wants (like him calling out the judge of Mexican heritage and how it couldn’t be fair to Trump because of that.) It could get very ugly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Moar You Know: he used to claim to be a player in Boston politics, where his many grassroots successes– that he won’t talk about in detail– would be the model for Democrats if they had his brains and balls. A few months ago he bragged about his big fancy office with a view of San Francisco Bay, and his fancy place in a gentrifying SF neighborhood, where in spite of being a moneyed yuppie gentrifier, he was the best friend of the local homeless, with whom he stood in noble principled opposition to the “pigs”
schrodingers_cat
@The Moar You Know: Some basement in Siberia.
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: Yeah, but Narcissus, at least, was beautiful. And the worst harm he caused was to himself.
SatanicPanic
@The Moar You Know: I could have sworn he said he was from San Francisco yesterday.
Mnemosyne
@rp:
Apparently it makes you a crazy conspiracy theorist to even ask the question, especially knowing that Tad Devine has connections to Putin.
Some people seem to think that the fact that Sanders and Trump used the same lines about how “corrupt” Hillary and the Democrats are because Hillary and the Democrats really are incredibly corrupt.
But if you don’t start with an automatic assumption that Hillary is crooked and the DNC is corrupt, then the fact that both of her opponents both had campaign managers who worked for Putin and both opposition campaigns used the exact same attacks against her starts to look kind of … interesting. Add in that Comey and Wikileaks both used the same line of attack, and it gets even more interesting.
What’s the old James Bond line? “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action”?
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I really does. I’d also like to know if Senate races were interfered with, and which ones. Is this going to happen the same way again, except in the next cycle w/legislative races? We’ll get Wikileaks releasing something Russia gave them and media will slaver over that for 6 months? Seems like an emergency to me. I hope the NY field office of the FBI isn’t handling it, is all I can say.
TriassicSands
Betty — look up “antisocial personality disorder” in the DSM-5.
Trump fits that one perfectly, as well. This is one damaged person.
Shalimar
@Nick: Policies were not the focus of the Sanders campaign once we got to 2017. It was constant butthurt about process and how unfair it was. That wasn’t the Bernie Sanders I voted for. I like his policies.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Not so much offshoring, but outsourcing.
The new US intelligence contractors will be the GRU and FSB.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Agree completely. I also didn’t like that he didn’t release his tax returns. For someone that went on and on about millionaires and billionaires, you’d think he’d want to be as transparent as possible about what his financial situation was. He didn’t. We have no idea how much money he has or who is funding him. He’s hypocritical on this issue.
Kay
@Yarrow:
A lot of mainstream Republicans here are uncomfortable with Trump’s kissing Putin’s ass. I work with GOP lawyers every day. They’re not happy about it. It doesn’t have anything to do with Reagan and anti-communism. They’re uncomfortable with it because it’s weird and they’re conservatives- “weird” makes them uncomfortable.
It IS weird. I don’t remember any US President engaging in this kind of lovefest. It’s inappropriate. It’s like Tony Blair with Bush, except Trump is Blair.
Elie
We have to move opposition out of the formal political parties sooner or later. It binds us down. Much of the GOP is complicit or passive and the Democrats are hemmed into a minority. I don’t know when or how but opposition hS to find another nucleus.
It is very clear to me that we are in a legalized coup. Legalized because he won the election (kinda) but he is rapidly destroying key functions and institutions of the existing US government. We will not be able to stop it fast enough waiting for the next scheduled elections in 2018 and make assumptions that we can stay intact as a functioning country. Let’s stop kidding ourselves
TriassicSands
Removed.
Mnemosyne
@Nick:
By setting up the narrative that Hillary and the DNC are hopelessly corrupt and that the only reason he lost was because they cheated. Sanders pounded that idea again and again and again, to the point that his delegates repeatedly disrupted the convention to protest the “corruption” of Hillary getting 3 million more votes in the primary.
If you bought into the right-wing anti-Clinton propaganda of the past 25 years, then Sanders’s claims probably sounded plausible, but they weren’t actually true. They were like Whitewater — lots of innuendo that never panned out, because the Clintons never actually did anything wrong.
Major Major Major Major
@Elie: the article linked in one of the first comments makes a very persuasive case for working with the party machinery. Mostly on account of it exists already.
Kay
@Yarrow:
I lost so much respect for Lefties over this. Why do they think Putin is even on the Left? It’s like they think ideological leadership is static, and it’s 1934. Putin’s some horrible variant of authoritarian crony capitalist. He’s not a socialist. We’re not talking about fucking Denmark here.
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
Nah it’s probably based in the small Macedonian town of Veles.
Elie
@TriassicSands:
Unless we can remove him somehow using that information (we can’t) who cares? High crimes and misdemeanors are the vehicle. Removal for incapacity is very weak in our Constitution so let’s not waste time. There is no fix. He is not and will not be coherent and reasonable. My only question is how do we get him and his fellow treasonous partners out of power as fast as possible?
Mnemosyne
@jeannedalbret:
See my post above. It’s not Sanders’s politics. It’s his obsessive focus on Hillary’s supposed corruption.
The only reason we know that Hillary gave speeches to Goldman Sachs is that she listed them on her tax return and then publicly released her tax returns for the last 25 years.
Where is Sanders’s tax return? Why did he never release it so we could scrutinize it the same way he scrutinized Hillary’s? For a guy who’s constantly whining about “fairness,” it sure didn’t bother him that he gave himelf an unfair advantage by refusing to release the same information that Hillary did.
Ohio Mom
@Kay: Except that Britain has historically been an ally, and Russia an adversary.
“Weird” can go either way. Some things are weird, and they are good. It was weird the first time I ate raw fish in a Japanese restaurant. It was weird for a lot of people to adjust to the idea that gayness isn’t “wrong.” Jackson Pollack’s paintings were too weird for a lot of people at first — for that matter, so were the Impressionists, and nowadays, everyone accepts them as great artists.
Other things, like incest, are weird and bad and are always going to stay that way.
Why is it not surprising to me that it is conservatives who can’t take that step to discriminate between what’s good weird and what’s bad weird?
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Apropos of nothing, and I’m only willing to say this because I’m (mostly) anonymous here, but I think this election gave me confirmation for who one of my old college friends went to work for given where in Eastern Europe he was doing a lot of research right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I’ve always suspected it was the CIA, and now I’m even more suspicious.
Elie
@Major Major Major Major:
Just because it exists already doesn’t mean that it will fit the needs of this very atypical situation but I will read it. We can’t just think inside the box of what has worked in the past however. All of it will be fraught w uncertainty and risk because the situation is not the usual.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Calouste:
Wife (high end luxury/leisure travel professional) has historically sent a lot of people to the Galapagos. I was talking to her about Assange and Ecuador and Wikileaks/Putin about 2 months ago (she wasn’t aware), and she’s been steering people to other experiences ever since.
Kay
@Elie:
Elie I know this kind of goes against the grain of “activism” but I feel like this is an extraordinary situation that will require a new response. I’m not sure that kind of thing can be “created” – my sense is if it’s going to happen it will start organically and then evolve. This goes against my whole approach to things- I tend to be practical and (frankly) not very “creative” but I have this very strong feeling that what we have done in the past just will not do- it’s insufficient for the task at hand. I’m kind of in a holding pattern. Maybe that’s all too much magical thinking but that’s where I am. Anyway, I share your concern- I think it’s very bad and will get worse.
Nick
Asking if a Democratic candidate, or any candidate, is the stooge of a foreign power isn’t a normal question — it’s one that encourages paranoia and jingoism. With Trump, it’s asked because of the large amount of ‘coincidences’, as well as his abnormal behaviour towards Russia. With Sanders, it’s asked why? Because he criticized Clinton and attacked her in a primary?
Elie
@Kay:
I am terrified but activated to seek a path to take this on. We are not in Kansas anymore and have to face it.
O. Felix Culpa
@Elie: I have limited Democratic Party experience, but from what I’ve seen locally, they’re thrilled to have new activists – that is, people who are actually willing to work – on board. With credibility as a worker, one gets to help shape the political agenda. I am also exploring working with OFA concurrently. I do not believe in reinventing the wheel if existing mechanisms are already in place, assuming those mechanisms can be rendered useful.
ETA: To Kay’s point in #233, I agree that we are in an unprecedented situation which may require new solutions. That said, my decision is to begin working with what is available now and keep scanning / ready for the new and better solutions should they emerge. I personally can’t afford the luxury of waiting for that unknown thing to develop. But I’m ready to support if and when it does.
Yarrow
@Kay: Glad they’re uncomfortable with it, but they need to be more than uncomfortable. They need to move past that to stating outright that it’s a danger to our country. That Trump is a danger to our country.
If there’s one thing Trump knows it’s the value of branding. It’s why he was so successful with branding his opponents (“Lying Ted,” “Crooked Hillary”). It’s also why he’s so upset at what I think he sees as an attempt to brand him as a Russian puppet. So let’s keep it up. Let’s push into the “blackmail” concept. Trump is being blackmailed. Republicans are being blackmailed. Talk it up with great concern to your GOP lawyer colleagues – “I think it’s a concern that with all this hacking the Russians might be blackmailing the Republicans. It’s odd that nothing on them was released, even though they were hacked. What do you think?” Let them process it. It’s a real issue.
Major Major Major Major
@O. Felix Culpa: the California democratic part is practically giddy for the new folks who are participating in this weekend’s assembly district delegate elections.
Mnemosyne
@Nick:
It’s asked because his campaign manager, Tad Devine, worked for Putin in Ukraine. In fact, his boss there was Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was “officially” fired when his Russian ties came to light, but who continued living and working in Trump Tower.
To reiterate: SANDERS’S CAMPAIGN MANAGER WORKED FOR PUTIN AND MANAFORT.
With all of the other Russian connections that are now coming out, do you honestly think that’s just a weird but meaningless coincidence?
Miss Bianca
@goblue72: I continue to be amazed that, with your *totally* obvious political acumen, that you haven’t managed to become a high-level consultant! I mean, if Tad Devine can manage to fuck up a bunch of Democratic presidential runs, why shouldn’t you have *your* chance?
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: It was me. I admit it. I throw myself on the mercy of the court.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: As I’ve indicated I think its signaling to members of the IC from a former senior leader that it is okay for them to do what they have to do to protect themselves.
Elie
@O. Felix Culpa:
I’m already in the local democratic org. I will do what I can within it but it is highly bureaucratic, run by folks who know the system we are in but not really into thinking about what ifs not related to operating a party rather than a resistance. I will do what I can and be open to identifying the organic re-shaping of opposition that Kay addresses. I’m not confident however since my local party could barely get data together on voters or powerpoint training slides.
Kay
@Elie:
Once you accept that institutions are just not “up” to this challenge you feel better.
Okay, then! New institutions!
If “institutions and norms” weren’t strong enough to withstand Donald Fucking Trump, reality tv show star and failed businessman, maybe they weren’t all that resilient, huh? The whole point of having them is for protection from chaos and lunatics. If they failed at their ONE JOB maybe they were weak and need replacing anyway :)
FlipYrWhig
@Nick: Maybe because the Sanders campaign in its death throes was one long whine from dead-enders about Russian-hacked DNC emails?
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
Shame on you, trying to keep us all informed.
Mnemosyne
@Elie:
Somebody else was given this advice a few months ago, but it was basically to scope out the people in that org who seem to have a clue, get friendly with them, and then have a potluck with just them to discuss either starting a new org or taking the existing one over.
A mutiny, but with pie! ;-)
randy khan
@goblue72:
I really think you enjoy tirades more than action.
Personally, I’m spending a lot of my time on the substantive stuff, and if you paid attention to the comment threads, you’d know that a lot of other people here are doing the same. Yes, we’re aware of what the Republicans are trying to do. So are the freaking Democrats in the Senate.
Maybe you should go call some people in Congress, or something, instead of yelling at people on message boards. it might do you some good.
hovercraft
While we are all distracted by the Shitgibbons antics, the house has been busy.
Kochs, House, and Trump gut voting rights, internet freedom, and clean air with a single bill
By Mark Sumner
Friday Jan 06, 2017 · 9:08 AM EST
Rather than distract Donald Trump from the critical business of wreaking vengeance on local officials and tweeting about ratings, the House has moved to make it easier for them to handle all that tedious deregulating everything. The Koch-promoted REINS Act doesn’t futz around with going after one thing at a time, it’s goes after everything, all at once.
REINS dictates that a “major rule shall not take effect unless the Congress enacts a joint resolution of approval” and won’t become law if Congress does not pass that resolution by “70 session days or legislative days, as applicable.”
The idea of a bill that effectively North Carolina’s the power of the executive, squelching action of agencies unless they get the mother-may-I from Congress, may actually seem attractive in the Age of Trump. But of course REINS isn’t constructed to stop the wholesale stripping away of rules and guidelines that has the Trump team so eager get their torches on the rulebooks. Deregulating slips right on past without a word. It’s anything new that has to get permission. The House is focused on keeping agencies crippled, ineffective, and, of course, ridding the system of anything that was created under President Obama.
Executive branch agencies will be able to set any rule they want, but only those that pass the scrutiny of Republicans in the House will be enacted.
Trump, having spoken directly to the Koch team about the bill, has already promised to sign it. After all, a bill that keeps him from wasting time on items that don’t generate funds for the Trump Organization is a big win.
What horrors have the Koch’s “Americans for Prosperity” specifically identified as targets of the REINS Act? Net Neutrality, the Clean Power Plan, and voting rights. Why these three? Because if the Koch brothers can regulate what Americans see on the Internet, and make it hard enough for people to express their will at the polls, it helps them make their money the old-fashioned way—burning the dirtiest fuel available.
As Trump has staffed up his cabinet, any illusions that there’s a difference between the Koch agenda and the Trump agenda have been blown away.
During his presidential campaign, Trump referred to Republicans reliant on Koch money as “puppets” and said he turned down a meeting with the Koch brothers. Yet, the Trump administration is increasingly loaded with Koch allies.
The way in which the REINS Act seizes the regulatory powers of executive agencies may seem unconstitutional, but only if you’ve been exposed to a wide range of opinions and non-House-approved information. Hang on a second. They’ll take care of that.
Mnemosyne
@Elie:
Also, I don’t have the link handy, but Google “dailykos meteor blades precinct captain” and you’ll find a story by that DK front-pager that explains how he helped reform his precinct and nearby precincts in So Cal.
We can’t rely on our current leaders, so we need to take our own action.
Elie
@Kay:
Nothing just keeps working without adjustments. We have to do some work if we want to keep our Republic (as Ben Franklin warned, it ain’t easy). We first have to stop or slow down the freight train. Let’s see if there is any way to do that.
Shana
@Betty Cracker: Sorry if someone else has already chimed in with the same opinion, but my take is that he’s finally woken up to how stubbornly Trump refuses to acknowledge the truth about the Russian hacking et.al. and decided he could no longer be associated with someone so delusional.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
Yes.
Major Major Major Major
@randy khan:
Ya think?
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Not so much new institutions as much as new tactics. I like your idea of focusing on local elections.
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
WTF precinct reform, M? Did just read up thread about the latest calumny that the GOP house is putting together? We need something much more plastic and way way faster! We need a whole new type of PLAN which is not a precict organizing strategy, for gosh sakes! Our house is on fire. We need something faster than a bucket brigade before the whole neighborhood is in flames!
leeleeFl
@PGE: Kellyanne Conway is just hideously evil. I CANNOT watch news at all any longer. It is far too painful and nauseating. I will NEVER call the DJT anything remotely like President. Those who do not like it can bark at the moon. I am gonna be 66 in a few weeks and I cannot believe the BS that is being said and done by elected Representatives of a “free” country. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so f- ing dangerous!
LongHairedWeirdo
Let me tell you what scares me like nothing else: Donald Trump knowing that the Russians helped him, but thinking that HE can play THEM better than vice versa.
Even worse, and, alas, possibly more likely: he might trade them a few tiny tidbits here and there, nothing too serious, thinking he can “make a great deal”. Except once this happens, the instant it happens, they have his balls in a padded vise – they can now blackmail him to keep the secret.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
Wow. Trump really is a fool if he signs this. It neuters him. He can’t even do anything major that would help the Trump Organization without the approval of Congress.
Mnemosyne
@Elie:
Read the article. It has really good advice on ORGANIZING. Flailing around in a panic will not help if there is no PLAN.
Firefighters don’t just rush into a burning building. They take a few minutes to assess it. So read the damn article before you decide there’s no need to assess the situation before running in blindly.
Lizzy L
@hovercraft: The DKOS article says nothing about the Senate. Is there a similar Senate bill, and it is supported by a majority of the Senators? If not, this dies.