The @FEC just sent Trump a 250 page letter listing what appear to be illegal campaign contributions. Read it here: https://t.co/oQ1jS9uDIm pic.twitter.com/2t526e2dYi
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) January 13, 2017
Allow me an old person’s whimsy. The notorious Watergate burglary took place in June 1972; its instigators were indicted in September, but its beneficiary — Richard Nixon — was nevertheless reelected in November. Televised hearings of the Senate Watergate Committee didn’t begin until June 1973. The impeachment hearings began in May 1974, yet Nixon didn’t officially resign until August 9, 1974.
That was in an age before 24/7 cable news, much less social media.
Alex Pareene, at Deadspin, yesterday — “Republicans Have No Good Reason Not To Impeach Donald Trump“:
It’s been fun, but it’s about time for Republicans to admit that the great Donald Trump experiment isn’t going to work out—for them.
One hypothetical version of President Trump—the ideal version, for Republicans, and one that many convinced themselves he would become, given practice and training—is a new Reagan: a mouthpiece for the ideas and policies inserted into his empty head by members of an ascendant conservative movement riding his television-mastery to power. Surround this version of Trump with good party men like Reince Priebus and Mike Pence, and he takes care of entertaining the masses—and distracting the opposition—while true-believing conservatives actually run the country, enacting their entire agenda too forcefully and quickly for anyone to effectively fight them…
Another version of Trump—the nightmare for liberals and not one conservatives would welcome either—could be a second Nixon, with no real political philosophy, but a willingness to do anything to maintain his grip on power. Not just through unethical and criminal means, like the Watergate break-in or the sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks, but also in his willingness to do decidedly un-conservative things if they’d benefit him politically—like the wage and price controls he implemented, to great popular acclaim, in 1971. This is the model Steve Bannon likely hopes to emulate.
But Trump will fail to be either, and by now Republicans should recognize this. He’s too impetuous and narcissistic to be Reagan, and not smart enough to be Nixon. Half of his advisers will attempt to use him as a pitchman for conservative policy, the other half will attempt to use him to create and sustain a white nationalist international coalition, and he will instead tweet for hours about which celebrity slighted him this week. Trump will reject conservative ideas if he believes they will not be popular, but if Trump attempts to cynically abandon conservatism to maintain popularity, he will find that he has no clue how to go about doing actually popular things.
The end result won’t work for anyone. Successful corrupt right-wing populists generally tend to actually deliver tangible things to their bases of support. Trump will be unable to do this, and the Republican Party is too tied to its dead philosophy to help him. Ethno-nationalism needs welfare chauvinism to flourish, but today’s GOP might actually be too opposed to all forms of welfare (for the non-rich) to ensure their own political success….
If Republicans were smart—if they were a rational political party able to act in their own best interests—they’d impeach Trump as soon as possible. His bizarre performance today, and his brazenly inadequate response to the many very obvious conflicts of interest and opportunities for corrupt dealings that his administration will invite, give Republicans a perfectly acceptable rationale to do so. They can say it is for the good of the country, but the truth is that it would be for the good of the Republican Party and the conservative movement…
***********
Apart from such happy fantasies — not to mention awaiting the usual Friday Doc Dump — what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the week?
SiubhanDuinne
One week. We are now officially in countdown mode.
greennotGreen
Republicans will only impeach Trump if/when his base turns against him because his base is a significant subsection of their base. Ultimately, it’s all about their individual self-interest, i.e., getting re-elected. It’s certainly not about the good of the country or even the good of the Republican Party.
mai naem mobile
@greennotGreen: the GOP are in a suicide pact with Lumpy. He won’t go down without a fight. He will whine to his supporters about everything being rigged and they are too stupid/full of pride to admit they voted for a compromised fool and won’t come out to vote for GOPrs. WASF.
p.a.
When things go to shit tRump will be the Black Knight: “It’s just a flesh wound.” Problem for Rethugs is many of his supporters are just as stupid, so for the party to cut him loose may be as damaging as staying married.@mai naem mobile: you beat me to it and said it better ?
TriassicSands
The question is not if Trump will commit impeachable offenses, but when. It’s looking like it may be the moment he is sworn in.
The biggest threat to Trump (apart from himself) is that most Republicans in the House and Senate would rather have Pence as president. What he has going for him is that those same legislators are spineless scum who might not be willing to risk impeaching (and then necessarily removing him from office) no matter what crimes Trump commits. It’s all about electoral prospects.
I vacillate, but I definitely don’t think Trump is safe. Every time he opens his mouth or tweets it becomes more obvious that he’s a dangerous idiot who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the presidency.
Unfortunately, in some respects, the Democrats could be better off politically with Trump making a mess of things and fighting with Republicans constantly.
Stay tuned, it could get interesting, maybe even exciting.
@greennotGreen:
You may be right.
OzarkHillbilly
Awaiting the coming icemageddon and the inevitable loss of power. Supposed to get as much as 3/4″. I hope I have enough gas for the generator.
Bostonian
My wife just asked me if I could say one good thing about Pence. I said “he has previously worked in government.”
Joyce H
@Bostonian:
Compared to many in the incoming administration, that’s a not inconsiderable benefit. SO many of these folks obviously haven’t a clue in the world how the government (or even their assigned portion of it) actually works.
bemused
So the lights went out yesterday morning during hearing of Pompeo for CIA director and hearing moved to another room. In the afternoon C-Span 1 feed interrupted and replaced with RT feed for about 10 minutes. No confirmed causes for either of these events yet this morning. Anyone else think this is strange? It makes me feel a bit uneasy but with everything else bizarre going on, uneasy is my daily state of mind, to put it mildly.
Manyakitty
I’d like to see the top tier of republican “leadership” from Traitor-in-chief elect down to Ryan and McConnell, plus Comey, all spend the rest of their miserable lives rotting away in solitary at some private shit hole of a prison. Oh, come on. A girl can dream!
hellslittlestangel
I hate to be a killjoy, but: President Pence.
low-tech cyclist
@greennotGreen:
This. If the GOP Congress tried to impeach Trump anytime soon, it would be civil war in the GOP, and they’d lose big.
Maybe Trump will eventually find a way to disillusion his base, but until then, the GOP is stuck with him, and they know it.
Manyakitty
@bemused: I think it’s hackers or computer geeks playing with us. Because they can now. With impunity.
NotMax
T minus 7.
HoustonAmerica, we have a problem.OzarkHillbilly
@Bostonian: Someday he will do the right thing and die.
low-tech cyclist
@hellslittlestangel:
I’m not exactly worried about a guy whose popularity was sinking like a rock in Indiana, for Chrissakes. He wouldn’t be the worst possible public face of the GOP, but he’d be close enough. Just by being there, he’d make everything the GOP tries to do look even worse.
TriassicSands
@hellslittlestangel:
President Pence. Yeah, that’s a pretty grim prospect. From a political standpoint, it might be best to let Trump do some major damage to the party before dumping him. But that might entail his doing real damage to the country. On the other hand, Pence and the Republicans are always a threat to the well-being of the US,
What to do? Best case scenario: Aliens abduct the entire Republican Party and all Republican voters. Not very likely.
Most likely scenario? Chaos followed by ?
Это курам на смех
They are going to ride this bomb of theirs into the ground like Slim Pickens in “Dr. Strangelove.” He cannot admit an error, and neither can they. Yee-haw.
amk
feckless fec will and can do jacksquat about the corrupt dick’s election shenanigans.
hellslittlestangel
@low-tech cyclist: If Little Gloves is impeached, the Official Story will be that Pence will be the savior of not just the Republican party, but America.
Gvg
@TriassicSands: actually since Pence is more of an actual conservative in our current political definition of conservative, his being President would also be “good” for the democrats in a win future election sense. Trump is somewhat unique (chaotic random) and when he crashes the Republican Party might be able to claim that he wasn’t really one of them and get back some political victories after 1 cycle out of power. Pence is more typical and so conservative I don’t think he could have actually won the election himself. But he will crash too because the country isn’t as conservative as he is and because the things they believe about business and economics are actually fantasy and business will make an example of them.
Problem is both scenarios require a lot of pain for us all first and people have been disappointing me by forgetting the downside too fast. After 2008 it should have been along time until Republican’s came back to power but they won mid terms in 2010.
NotMax
Gvg
The political memory of the country makes a gnat’s look like an elephant’s.
p.a.
tRump’s jobs miracle for the rust/coal belt: “do you wanna supersize that?” assuming anyone there can afford anything beyond the roast sparrow.
rikyrah
Good morning Everyone ???
резидент американской области Российской Федерации
As I was leaving my office yesterday, I was walking out onto the street with a lawyer from another floor and remarked on the RT interruption of the CSPAN feed. Always had thought of him as a sharp guy. He starts talking about the Acosta slam and how Trump is “interesting” and “different” and “willing to take on the media”.
*sigh*
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Stay safe
резидент американской области Российской Федерации
@Gvg:
Shorter – I miss the neocons. Cheney’s crew may have been stupid, incompetent assholes with an idiot and cruel vision for the country, but at least they didn’t sell out to a kleptocratic oligarch white nationalist state like this crew.
Joyce H
@low-tech cyclist:
The thing is, I don’t think Trump’s actual base of support is anywhere near as big as he thinks or as the GOP thinks. I think a lot of his votes were anti-Hillary votes, and a lot of them were ‘protest’ votes from people who thought it was safe to vote for Trump to stick a thumb in the eye of the establishment because Hillary was going to win anyway. (Like those folks who voted for Brexit and were so dismayed when they actually won.) Yes, there are some rabid Trump supporters and they probably number in the millions, but nowhere near the 62 million votes he actually got.
And I think the GOP is going to start to realize that soon. I suspect his inauguration isn’t going to be the enormous extravaganza of love and support that he’s expecting, and the Women’s March could be bigger than expected.
They’ll start realizing this about the same time they actually start dealing with Trump. Remember, ever since the election, other than a few visits to Washington, he’s been dealing out of his golden tower up in NYC. Just wait till he’s in Washington, and the cognitive dissonance of having that barking joker in the White House sets in and they have to try to work with him and get him to make an agreement with them and not change it the next day. They’ll start realizing he’s impossible to work with around the same time they realize that his ‘base of support’ is thin as tissue paper. Then, helloooo Emoluments Clause!
Joyce H
Nor do I think we’ve heard the last of the Russian connections.
Anyone who thinks the ‘dossier’ is completely fictitious, ooh ooh, tell me again about how the guy who blithely confessed to multiple sexual assaults AFTER being miked up for a celebrity news and gossip show is too savvy and cautious to allow himself to be compromised – I love that story!
bemused
@Manyakitty:
And majority of GOP remain unconcerned.
TriassicSands
@Gvg:
I agree with much of what you wrote. I do have one small nit to pick. Please don’t qualify unique. It means one of a kind, not unusual. Things are or aren’t unique, but not really somewhat or very. On a spectrum we have: ubiquitous, common, uncommon, rare, unique. What comes after unique is probably nonexistent. (Note: other words fit within that spectrum.)
Your statement is stronger and more accurate if you omit “somewhat.” Trump is like nothing we’ve ever seen before in presidential politics. The combination of wealth, personality disorders, and Twitter (along with a list of other characteristics that won’t fit here) creates a situation unlike any before it. (You can modify unique with a word like truly, which simply specifies the truth of the one-of-a-kindness.)
(Note: I wrestled with whether to pick that nit, but unique is a beautiful word with a very specific and useful meaning. It shouldn’t be diluted — at least I don’t think so.)
резидент американской области Российской Федерации
I have a fun riddle. How is Donald Trump different from Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling or Henri Petain?
Manyakitty
@bemused: Yep. Wait til they start flashing the lights on and off in the White House.
Manyakitty
@резидент американской области Российской Федерации: He’s our problem right now?
e.a. foster
don’t know if the Republicans would impeach Trump. First they’d have to get their act together to develop a case. They couldn’t even get their act together to stop him from winning the nomination. Once he has his cabinet in place they/he will have control over a lot of things. a little bribery here and there and the Republicans will all go back to sleep. It will only be when those who voted for him find out he didn’t drain the swamp, he just installed more alligators that they may not vote for Republican Congress people in 2 years, restoring the Dems to a majority. They may then decide to dump Trump. His fake news b.s. is playing to his base. Its only when his base sees their lives aren’t improving, but getting worse that things will change, perhaps.
p.a.
@резидент американской области Российской Федерации:
They actually did, but it was our kleptocratic oligarch white nationalist state.
Jeffro
@hellslittlestangel:
Assuming that the “what did President Pence know, and when did he know it?” hearings re: his former boss and Russia don’t bring him down as well, so what? He & his policies are so repellent that I don’t mind him & Ryan & McConnell being the face of the GOP going into 2018.
Oh and Pence is at least mostly sane, so that’s an upgrade there as well. Evil, but sane.
Central Planning
@TriassicSands:
Just out of curiosity, is that your list, a subsection of something like Webster’s Dictionary, or something else? It’s interesting – I’ve never thought about the spectrum of ubiquitous to unique before.
This reminds me of a joke – How do you catch a unique rabbit? You ‘neek up on him.
Jeffro
@Joyce H:
It sure seems like his base is about half the GOP (which is about half of all voters, which is about half of all American adults). So – 12.5% of all adults or 25% of all voters? 30M or so?
JPL
Chaffetz is already holding hearings because the ethics head, criticized Trump. There was a veiled threat to stop funding the OGE. Why can’t they stop funding the FEC. We’ll be on the honor code.
CarolDuhart2
200 buses to go to the Orange Cheeto’s Inauguration. With an average seating of 50, that means 10k. 1200 to the Women’s March. And the Women’s March isn’t going to be the only one. There may be more protestors than attenders at the Inauguration. Hope it makes him miserable.
резидент американской области Российской Федерации
@Manyakitty:
Nope.
The difference is that they had actually served their people with some distinction, courage and competence in the past.
When you look at famous traitors, there seem to be several camps, some mixed.
1. Money. (Mir Jafar, Wang Jingwei, Aldrich Ames, Judah Iscariot, Robert Hanssen)
2. Ambition and authority. (Vidkun Quisling, , Henri Petain, Marcus Junius Brutus)
3. Vengeance over perceived slights. (Benedict Arnold, Judah Iscariot, Gaius Longinus)
4. Ideology, usually from an anti-authoritarian perspective, but can go the other way) (Guy Fawkes, Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Longinus, Julius and Ethyl Rosenberg)
Deadbeat Donnie most resembles Wang Jingwei in the list. Completely self-serving. Mitch Jafar at least attempted to undo what he had wrought.
JPL
@резидент американской области Российской Федерации: That’s an unfair comparison, because had it not been for that little problem, Trump would have served honorably. In fact he could have been a general.
Raven
@TriassicSands: come on man. . .
резидент американской области Российской Федерации
@JPL:
The yugest, BEST general….
p.a.
@Raven: Silverman gonna firebomb him.
OzarkHillbilly
@Central Planning: How do you catch a tame rabbit? Tame way, you neek up on him.
TriassicSands
@Central Planning:
I made up the list on the spur of the moment.
My complaint is probably a good sign I’m old. I know that languages constantly change, but it seems a shame when the changes are driven by people not knowing. Older BJ commenters (and those who have taken a college logic course may know what “begging the question” means. If you listen to talking heads on TV or actors reciting lines you would think that when someone “begs the question” they are causing a question to be raised. But in logic “begging the question” means assuming the conclusion of an argument to be true as part of the argument meant to establish that conclusion. It’s a logical fallacy. But its meaning has now been lost (or is being lost) because people started to think that begging a question was meant to be taken literally — “When you say that you’re begging for me to ask this question.” I don’t see that or the use of unique to mean merely unusual or uncommon as the best way for language to change because I see it as the language contracting, rather than growing. Enough for the lecturing. Sorry.
Kay
Conservatives don’t believe in campaign finance regulation anymore though, because it’s a regulation.
She just didn’t pay it. She doesn’t believe she has to. She follows God’s law, or the law of monarchies, or something.
I have to hand it to them. Redefiining corruption as a deeply held anti-regulatory principle is amazingly ballsy. I didn’t see that coming.
Baud
I support keeping the pressure up on the GOP to impeach. Make them constantly explain why they won’t.
amk
lil fingered lunatic twit is
tweetingwhining again.Iowa Old Lady
@Manyakitty: And then denying that the lights are flickering.
JPL
@TriassicSands: Also, too Trump’s use of gotten irks me.
Kay
My husband does some contract work for the state Party regarding election process and so he goes to the Ohio election officials conference. There were some candidates for DNC chair there I didn’t know about- the mayor of South Bend, Indiana and a state Party chair from (I think) one of the Dakotas. A mayor or state Party chair might be an interesting choice. He said the South Bend mayor gave a very good presentation.
TriassicSands
@JPL:
Well, there’s so much about Trump that irks, sickens, annoys, etc. me, I haven’t recognized what he’s doing to the word “gotten.”
Explain, please.
amk
chinese are rattling their land grabbing chains.
rushyans are whining about regular nato exercises.
welcome to the reality, you lil fingered pos.
Gindy51
@Jeffro: There isn’t much upstairs in Pence for him to be insane…
p.a.
@Gindy51: membrane?
Iowa Old Lady
Trump tweets within the last 2 hours:
NeenerNeener
I still think Trump is going to fake a medical excuse for resigning before his base can turn on him for non-performance, and Ryan can impeach him. It saves face all around. He could have made America great again, if not for that hangnail…
MomSense
I am not understanding how we can let someone take the oath of office when we already know they were compromised and coordinating with a hostile nation. We also seem to be engaged in cyber warfare with said hostile nation. Hasn’t every other lawmaker who just took the oath just sworn to prevent this?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
.@резидент американской области Российской Федерации:
Meh. So was Albert Speer and that got him 20 years in prison.
JPL
@TriassicSands: During the press conference, he referenced the release of the intelligence documents. I was not paying close attention, until he mentioned they gotten.
Kay
I’m fine with how anyone wants to oppose him – the policing of the forms of opposition gets on my nerves and it won’t work with Democrats anyway- they’ll do what they want- but I still think the best way to get Trump is on competence.
Competence is safe for media. It’s not controversial. It’s also all he has. He isn’t a likeable person, he isn’t particularly popular and he’ll be constantly embroiled in sleaze because he’s utterly and completely lacking in character. Cut into competence and the whole Trump bargain with voters falls apart. He had one thing to offer- “on time and under budget”. Without that he’s a sleazy bumbler who never shuts up but doesn’t deliver.
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: The evening news reports on Trump were unfavorable. It was quite a contrast compared to the reports on Biden and the medal of honor.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: IOKIYAR, the one size answer to fit any political question in these trying times.
jayboat
@Kay:
This.
We need to remain focused on it.
Kinda hard sometimes when the subject of attention is throwing up molotov cocktails every 2 minutes.
JPL
@Kay: The Senate voted to defund the ACA. Most Americans do not realize that act weakens Medicare and lowers premiums to insurance companies. MSM didn’t talk about the repercussions of the Senate’s actions. I don’t expect them to cover in detail Trump’s lack of coherent policies.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
The candidate from Manchuria
OzarkHillbilly
I wonder how far this will go.
satby
NPR just led with the story that Paul Ryan is undercutting Putinsbitch’s promise to deport the Dreamers. The cracks are forming.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
WaPo reports “According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking.
1. CIA/NSA has moron Flynn talking on open line to hostile foreign government.
2. Who knows what else they have on tape.
3. CIA/NSA is leaking to Post
Jack the Second
@TriassicSands: I’m willing to give up on “begging the question” because (a) most people are more familiar and comfortable referring to it as circular reasoning and (b) it originated as mis-translated Latin.
So it was wrong to begin with, just confuses people nowadays, and isn’t even filling an unfilled niche. Let it die.
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m so old that I remember saying the same thing about Cheney.
raven
Moonset
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Spanky: Cheney is dead, or more precisely un-dead.
Patricia Kayden
@mai naem mobile: When Trump goes down, he’ll bring the Republican party down with him. Looking forward to that.
@OzarkHillbilly: I wonder if Comey faces any repercussions, i.e., termination, for his behavior towards Secretary Clinton. Would love to see him out.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: So far over here in Springfield it’s mostly a non-event. I just drove to work; the streets in the city are wet, and it’s just raining. Ice is accumulating on the trees and power lines, so that could get bad later. I hope you stay warm, dry and safe over there. Ice storms are notoriously fickle; even a two degree change in temperature can make a huge difference. Over here we’re still scarred from the Great Ice Storm of 2007.
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky: His day too will come.
gene108
Dumbest thing I’ve read in awhile.
As long as their are African-Americans and now Latinos, who get any kind of welfare, whites will flock to the GOP goal of returning to the Gilded Age.
Democrats threw down a marker, in 2016, to be (1) very liberal – by U.S. standards – with regards to social welfare issues, and (2) openly supporting gays, Black Lives Matter, multiculturalism, etc.
And white voters voted overwhelmingly against Democrats.
As long as point two exists, it doesn’t matter how generous point one will be; white people will reject it all.
gene108
@raven:
Very nice.
Quinerly
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Thanks for this post and link.
Kay
@JPL:
Not Congressional actions. Half of Americans don’t know that the ACA covered millions of people I agree with you that the coverage of Congress will suck and no one will know anything.
Trump’s actions. HIS promises and projects. He set this up himself. His horrible employees are out everyday saying ‘on time and under budget”. He won’t be able to do that.
satby
@raven: Beautiful! What lens did you use?
Kay
@JPL:
I’m not even reading the ACA news because I know they’ll gut children’s coverage and that took Democrats TWENTY YEARS to get. I don’t have the heart to read it.
I think it’s barbaric to deny children health care and I don’t care how many sneering adult pundits dismiss it as emotional posturing.
gene108
@Kay:
We never see it coming, which is why we are floundering. We think rules generally are to be followed, and if not followed there will be consequences. They do not think this way. I do no exactly know what way they think, but it is a mindset very strange to me.
OzarkHillbilly
@Patricia Kayden: The article states that “President-elect Donald Trump has notably declined to commit to keeping the FBI director.” so there appears to be no love from either side.
@Soprano2: Yeah, I’ve been thru some bad ones and had others fizzle. After my comment I went out and checked how much gas I had: maybe 2 gallons. Ran to town to get some, roads were wet but treated and OK. Started raining on my way back and had more than a little icing on my windsheild but the roads were fine all the way home. Not going any further than my chicken coop the rest of the day. We’ll see what happens.
debbie
@amk:
I’ve noticed an increase in multiple connected Tweets from Trump. Guess being held to 140 characters isn’t as revolutionary as he’d assumed. Of course, it also increases his looking like a fool.
OzarkHillbilly
gene108
@Kay:
You grossly underestimate the amount of cognitive dissonance people are able to hold in their thoughts, in order to justify not supporting “those people”, America-hating-liberals, SJW, et. al.
debbie
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
While I’m surprised they don’t think the Kenyan would be a bigger threat as he goes out the door, I also expect Trump to say this is a good thing. Unpredictability to him is an asset.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: I hope you don’t lose power; that’s the worst thing that happens in ice storms. My husband got our generator out yesterday, made sure it ran fine, and got some gas for it. We also had one of those power switches to use a generator to run your house put in when we built our shed in 2010. I told my husband that guarantees that we will never have another bad storm here again!! I read in the paper earlier in the week that lots of people were having whole-house generators installed. That’s too rich for my blood.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Routing right to Vlad’s Blackberry?
Kay
The WSJ editorial page are calling for Comey to resign.
I don’t want him to resign anymore. They’ll just bury it if he resigns, which is why they want him to do it.
Let’s litigate this out fairly and completely and publicly. The public is due transparency. He’ll just be cheating the public out of honest services again if he goes slinking away now. Stick around, Mr. Comey. We have some questions. At least give us that.
raven
@satby: 55-200
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: Good luck to you and your chickens, bud. No more injuries.
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly: Shuuuuuur.
manyakitty
@резидент американской области Российской Федерации: Useful. Thanks!
rikyrah
@Kay:
They are sociopaths, Kay. The entire lot of them.
debbie
@Kay:
When you’ve lost the WSJ editorial page, you’ve lost…nothing.
Kay
I also think the Comey matter should be aired completely because there was reporting that there was some far Right faction in the ‘NY Office” manipulating the situation for Trump. Comey resigning doesn’t fix that problem. He was obviously too weak or corrupt to rein them in, but they’ll still be employed if he runs away now.
Elizabelle
@raven: I was enjoying last night’s full “Wolf Moon.” At the beach for a few days, just to think. 70 degrees yesterday; was walking in the surf. This after 5-6 inches of snow, last weekend. We still had patches of snow yesterday.
Now, back to moons:
manyakitty
@Kay: Think that will work for me with Sallie Mae? “I ain’t paying to stinkin’ student loan billz. My preznit sez only stoopids pay the gubmint.”
manyakitty
@Iowa Old Lady: Yep. You know it’s all a game any more. We’ve officially become the world’s joke.
Mike in DC
We need an unending parade of negative news cycles for the next 6 months, for both Trump and the congressional Republicans. Get things to the point where even half of Republican voters can’t stand them anymore.
Kay
@debbie:
I love this, I must say. They’re more than happy to litigate Bengazi for 4 years but we’re all just too darn BUSY to spend any time on the corrupt FBI.
I’d like a full and fair accounting of what transpired, please. I get that it’s easier for Trump and conservatives if the whole thing disappears but Comey stuck around this long- he can stick around to answer questions.
MomSense
@Kay:
Oh and yesterday I had a RWNJ sneer at me that they won’t have to pay for our tax credits anymore blah blah blah. So I told him that I would make it my life’s mission to make sure we pass legislation so I no longer have to pay for the tax credits for his employer provided health insurance plan. He looked at me like I had two heads and then I explained it to him and told him to go check with his HR dept. for himself. He’s been mooching off of us for 30 years the bastard.
Kay
@Mike in DC:
It really is that simple, IMO.
hovercraft
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ugh, can’t you just let me whistle past the graveyard?
Kay
@MomSense:
I just can’t look at health care right now. I so vividly remember the SCHIP fight. What kind of gross, greedy country goes backward on childrens health care? We have terrible stats now on childrens health compared to other countries as it is. We’re deliberately harming them now?
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: The article I cited above states the IG was also going to investigate “unauthorized leaks” for whatever that is worth.
Inmourning
Didn’t Comey announce that he was going to hold a press conference sometime after the inauguration? Or was that part of my post-election nightmare?
Oatler.
From The Twilight Zone: “It’s a COOKBOOK!”
Peale
@gene108: the have subscribed to a form of Christianity that only Satan could have given them. The one where the rich are free to do as they please and Justice is robbing the poor of their wages. The one where strangers are to be mistreated and one can get away with anything as long as one swears fealty to veterans and policemen. As long as their public religion is based on the praise of violence, there is no point in pretending that there is much that good liberals can do to convince them that they are wrong.
Ohio Mom
I think it would be immediately better for the U.S. if Trump was gone. Doesn’t look like Putin has anything on Pence, and say what you will about that Hoosier, at least he won’t be stuffing his own pockets with his family at his side in full view of the world. Pence will observe the norms Trump doesn’t know exist. I want those norms back.
For the Democractic party, it might be better if Trump stayed, as several others in this thread have already explained, there is the hope of tremendous infighting.
Hmmm…Party or Country, which to put first?
I have no influence on which gets chosen, and either way my family is effed.
rikyrah
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
The entire preposterousness of this is just stunning
rikyrah
@Kay:
I feel you, Kay???
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: I would love to put in a whole house generator. Not gonna happen.
debbie
@Kay:
The drip, drip, drip will cause the GOP more damage in the long run. If those clowns weren’t so busy viewing their colons from the inside, they’d look back and see how much it hurt Nixon.
резидент американской области Российской Федерации
@Kay:
Yes, backwards is now de rigeuere.
To follow the logic of my RWNJ mom, so long as a single you-know-what is getting any sort of scaled or public benefit, everything is misery.
hovercraft
@mai naem mobile:
Jones Town here we come. You do remember that the people who tried to leave were shot, there is no leaving this train, they all bound to his greatness now, he controls their destiny. I’d say it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving group of sociopaths, but this train is like one of those super tanker trains. You know the ones full of extra unstable fuel, and when it crashes it burns for days and cannot be put out. The fire spreads from the train and spreads it’s toxic fumes, harming people miles away from the crash site. The damage he does will not, cannot be contained. Now if we could only get the media too believe their lying eyes we might get somewhere.
satby
@Kay: the same country where education is consistently underfunded in poor areas because better off areas want all their taxes spent only on their own offspring. The same country where people dependent on government income like SS and military pensions bitch about welfare to poor children and want drug tests for welfare recipients to get benefits. It’s been this selfish and greedy and short-sighted for eons.
Baud
@Ohio Mom: Country.
John Waldron
“Our Trumpster is a jolly good fascist,
And he’ll never die.
But the devil himself will come from hell to fetch him by-and by.
He’ll come with a carriage to fetch him,
And he’ll wallop him on the spot.
Then the devil will shove him in the fire,
To keep hell nice and hot.”
From Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslav Hasak with obvious editing.
satby
@Baud: right. Much as I want the Karma to smash the GOP big time and forever, I want my country to dodge the horror of a Putinsbitch in office. The GOP puts their party first, we need to continue to put the country first.
Xenos
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: What I find astonishing is that Flynn, supposedly some sort of security expert, did not realize that OF FUCKING COURSE the NSA and CIA have the phones of the Russian Ambassador tapped. What the hell did he think he was doing?
Nobody needs a FISA warrant on Trump’s people, as they are just going to punch in the phone number for the consulate and chat away.
They are so, so, so over their heads.
manyakitty
@raven: Evocative
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Well, that’s why we put Hillary up for the job. The GOP differs.
hovercraft
@TriassicSands:
FSM bless you for saying this, it drives me nuts. Not to revive the skirmish that broke out last night over pedantry, but I hate “very unique” and other qualifiers with a passion. Goddess knows why, there are so many more important things in life, so why is this a pet peeve, when I’m a horrible speller.
JPL
@Kay: The house committee is still investigating Clinton. Would the investigation stop with Comey’s resignation?
O. Felix Culpa
@SiubhanDuinne:
Gaaaahhh! You just harshed my morning mellow. But I forgive you. :)
raven
@Elizabelle: Which beach?
Elizabelle
@raven: Am at Virginia Beach.
geg6
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
OT, but have you been away for a while? I feel like I haven’t seen your snarky nym around lately.
raven
@Elizabelle: Nice, just a hop skip and a jump to Ocracoke!
GregB
As much as I loathe 90% of what Pence stands for at least he understands the rudimentary functions of government and doesn’t seem to be full short fingered kleptocrat and he at least has the sense to couch his bigotry in less grotesque ways that Mango Mussolini.
Plus I gather he’d ditch Bannon.
Elizabelle
@резидент американской области Российской Федерации:
Whoever you are, I wish you would drop the solely Russian ‘nym, or at least give a clue as to who you are.
It’s tiresome.
Elizabelle
@raven: Now there’s an idea.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: An attorney who enjoys SCUBA diving, and lives in a blue city in a red state.
satby
@Elizabelle: It’s the nym formerly known as botsplainer, I believe.
hovercraft
@JPL:
If there was a functioning news media it would have been that way for the last year and a half, the country would have gotten daily doss of he is lying, and it would have been drummed into the populace was given a daily, heck hourly dose of don’t trust the bitch. It still galls me that millions of people think/thought that he was more honest and trustworthy than her. Morons.
Kudos to the President and the VP for showing what grace and dignity are. They will be missed. ( The two men, and grace and dignity)
Gin & Tonic
@Xenos: He knew, of course. The fact that he didn’t give a shit is the bigger tell.
satby
@Gin & Tonic: yeah, they feel pretty secure. Which is even more frightening.
Jeffro
@Gindy51:
That’s true. Pence being regarded as one of the dumbest (now former) members of a Congress that includes Steve King and Louie Gohmert…whew…that’s a pretty low bar to clear.
Xenos
@Elizabelle: google translate indicates it is from a resident of Russian-occupied America
As to that security warning to Israeli security: it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall as this is discussed with Netanyahu.
Elizabelle
Thanks.
For one thing, how would we know if someone logged in and changed or transposed just a few letters? We would not, except for a few of us. (The commenter formerly known as gogol’s wife, etc.)
Again, I find it beyond tiresome.
hovercraft
@OzarkHillbilly:
True but since he has a ten year term, he would have to be fired, or asked to resign. What if he simply refused to go?
Jeffro
@Iowa Old Lady: I can almost smell the leadership wafting in across the Internets…
OzarkHillbilly
@GregB: Then again, he did sign on to be Trump’s bitch.
@Elizabelle: Is it any worse than OzarkHillbilly?
satby
@hovercraft: no worries, Putinsbitch likes to fire people. It’s his only real skill other than lying.
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly:re Comey probe
It’ll point out the obvious, that Comey acted against a big ol’ Clinton nothingburger contrary to all DOJ guidelines, while letting the investigation into Russia/Manafort/Page/etc quietly slide.
Would like to see it drop on 1/19, that’s for sure. Otherwise it’ll get scuttled by the Trumpkins.
rikyrah
Trump’s Lies Tell the Story
by Nancy LeTourneau
January 12, 2017 4:15 PM
There are times when you can learn something from what a person like Trump choses to lie about. Yesterday morning he tweeted this:
Then later at his press conference, the president elect said this:
Did he repeat it enough to make you believe him? Or, like me, do you remember when the Washington Post reported on what Donald Trump, Jr. said back in 2008 at a real estate conference?
Elizabelle
@Xenos: Yeah. Like that’s helpful.
My take on Trump vs. Pence: whole government to be is illegitimate. Election should be thrown out and redone. It does not matter that much who is the figurehead on the GOP ship of state. I think the GOP should get so burned by this that they never think of stealing another election, or are strong enough to contend.
This should be Hillary preparing for inauguration. It’s monstrous that we can’t postpone the formal transition until this plays out more.
rikyrah
How Much Do For-Profit Colleges Rely on Federal Funds?
by Robert Kelchen
January 12, 2017 3:45 PM
The outgoing Obama administration placed for-profit colleges under a great deal of scrutiny. This includes gainful employment regulations that will require graduates of vocationally-oriented programs to meet debt-to-earnings requirements and borrower defense to repayment rules (which will likely be quickly abandoned by the Trump administration) designed to help students who feel they were defrauded by their college.
But special federal scrutiny of the for-profit sector has been around for decades, with one rule shaping the behavior of many colleges. This post explores the extent to which for-profit colleges rely on federal funds. It turns out that many rely heavily on these funds, although it’s not always clear what the implications are for the public.
In the 1992 Higher Education Act reauthorization, Congress included a provision that only applied to for-profit colleges, limiting the percentage of total revenue that for-profits could receive from federal grant, loan, and work-study programs to 85%. (This notably excludes veterans’ benefits, which are a large source of revenue for some colleges.) This percentage was increased to 90% in the 1998 reauthorization, which led to the rule being commonly referred to as “90/10.”
For-profit colleges that exceed 90% of their revenue from federal financial aid in two consecutive years can lose access to federal aid for the following two years. Some Democrats have tried to move back to the 85/15 rule or include veterans’ benefits in the federal financial aid portion of revenue, but these efforts will likely be unsuccessful given the support Republicans have received from for-profit colleges. Notably, some for-profits get a sizable portion of their revenue from veterans’ benefits.
Jeffro
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Since they’re reading this anyway, I’d just like to take a minute and thank America’s intelligence agencies for having the balls to do what the “deep bench”, utterly unprincipled Ryan & McConnell, and (sadly) our team could not: throw Donald Effing Trump a mighty, mighty anchor in the days leading up to the inauguration. There is nothing more patriotic than taking out one of the most dangerous threats to the country, even if that threat also goes by “president-elect”.
Donald, please keep tweeting your brains out and insulting the people with the means, motive, and opportunity to do you real damage. Sad!
rikyrah
Donald Trump, Not the CIA, Is the Bad Guy Here
by Martin Longman
January 12, 2017 3:23 PM
Steve M. makes a good point about Glenn Greenwald’s logic.
The intelligence agencies? Greenwald writes,
And that’s a sign that the Deep State is an unbridled force of pure evil? If we accept Greenwald’s premise, it means that the Deep State wasn’t even powerful enough to throw the election to the favorite.
Personally, I don’t agree that there was a lot of clarity about who the CIA preferred in the presidential race, although I readily admit that DCI Brennan is close to the president and probably had a strong preference for Clinton. But the disposition of the CIA as a whole isn’t really my concern here.
I think Steve makes an obvious observation when he notes that Trump’s victory showed that the “Deep State” isn’t as all-powerful as Greenwald would like us all to believe. I mean, assuming the Deep State had a preference for Clinton and tried to do anything at all, they obviously failed.
It’s worth considering the idea that they they really didn’t do anything to help Clinton, which is a statement all by itself. Neutrality is what we expect, and James Comey’s actions at the FBI that appeared to stall Clinton’s momentum at a critical time have outraged Democrats for exactly the reason that it lacked neutrality or balance. But electoral indifference and inaction by the intelligence arm of a state (whether an ostensibly representative state or not) isn’t something that’s common or that should be taken for granted.
If the CIA has some kind of cultural preference, that’s one thing. If they ran operations to help one candidate and hurt another, that’s supposed to be out of bounds. It seems to me that there’s more evidence of pro-Trump sentiment at the FBI (with it’s pro-law enforcement anti-Black Lives Matter culture) than there is of any kind of monolithic pro-Clinton support at the CIA. And the FBI actually, visibly, crippled Clinton’s campaign.
OzarkHillbilly
@hovercraft: He’d get fired.
rikyrah
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Unphuckingbelievable!!
SFAW
@Patricia Kayden:
Although I, too, would love to see the Party of Unremitting Evil get destroyed from within, the “American” people have shown an amazing ability to subscribe to IOKIYAR. If you recall, at any given time, 45 percent of the electorate belongs to that group affectionately known as “the common clay of the New West.” When you add Vladi Vladimirovich Putin and James “Traitorous Motherfucker” Comey to the mix, that number goes up to 52 percent.
FMBJO
I have never seen this answered……If Trump died before Jan 20, would Pence be automatically sworn in as President?
SFAW
@rikyrah:
But-but-but E-mails!! (Unhacked) private server!!! Crooked!!!!
Worst candidate EVAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
O. Felix Culpa
I was having a discussion with friend last night about which would be worse/better, a President T***p or a President Pence. It’s somewhat like asking would you rather be eaten by sharks or swarmed by fire ants.
However, we decided that Pence was nominally better. As someone on this blog mentioned a while back, we can rebuild the ACA, Social Security, Medicare, etc. (and even W was stopped from gutting the latter programs at the peak of his popularity). It would be a lot harder to recover from a nuclear war or even another conventional one, which I believe are heightened risks under someone as erratic and lacking in impulse control as T***p.
MomSense
@Kay:
A greedy, immoral country goes backwards on children’s health. The maternal health stats are looking pretty horrific out of Texas right now, too. Hmmm eliminating the sources of contraception and pre-natal care causes bad outcomes.
Anti science is pro death.
Major Major Major Major
So, I know I like to hate on the ‘Facebook left’ here, as I decided just now to call them, but I finally saw yesterday/this morning a pattern that I’m already sick of and I imagine will be a constant drumbeat in the coming years. To a degree it already was but not like this.
So, the senate vote happened on the drug reimportation amendment offered by Klobuchar and Sanders. It failed, 46-52. The nays include Cantwell and Murray, Bennet, and Menendez and Booker, as well as some less safe red state Democrats. A dozen or so republicans also crossed over to vote yea.
Almost instantly, Lee Fang at The Intercept has a piece out about how this is Corey Booker and his Wall Street Big Pharma Corruption Bucks singlehandedly ruining a bill that would have rescued the working class forever and ever. And not just any bill, but a bill introduced by Sanders.
The audacity!
And the usual outlets run with this; the headlines often getting even more hyperbolic in the process.
Then, this morning, clarifications start coming out, the two I saw are from Casey and Booker. Casey says that he actually did support the Wyden reimportation amendment and that this bill had inadequate safety provisions; Booker also cites the safety thing. Also, the fact that a bunch of Republicans (who are not your friend!) voted for it should give you pause.
So ends a stupid news cycle, with a nonzero number of people on the left who were enamored of Booker just yesterday morning because he opposed Trump and Sessions now mad at him because of lefty infighting. To summarize:
– left-leaning/anti-Trump politician does good, anti-Trump thing
– potentially complicated thing happens; before it is obvious what it was…
– known Russian propaganda outlet that has lefty cred publishes inaccurate hit piece on said left-leaning politician
– this piece, spread quickly through Facebook, makes you forget you ever liked said politician
– lefty infighting over fucking drug reimportation instead of solidarity opposing cabinet nominations
– profit!
And SO MANY OF MY FRIENDS FALL FOR IT and THESE ARE NOT STUPID PEOPLE.
hovercraft
@Kay:
Actually they do have time for investigations, Chaffetz Demands Ethics Chief Testify In House Following Criticism Of Trump. This is also the same scum who yesterday or was it Wednesday said that he is not done investigating the e-mails. Any investigations they undertake will be looking back at the Obama administration, and at anyone who has the gall to point out that the emperor has no clothes. One would think that they’d give up the Obama ghost already, they’ve tried for 8 years to tarnish him, but he’s leaving with high approval ratings, and with the majority of the country sad to see him go.
SFAW
Slightly off-topic (so to speak), but:
I may have missed any updates, but do we know how dmsilev and his parents are doing? I’m assuming his travel to the Right Coast was uneventful, and hope that everything else is going as well as possible for him/them.
SFAW
@hovercraft:
Unfortunately, Pigface Chaffetz probably has a seat for life, and he’s young. And since when has a Rethug cared about doing the right thing?
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Projection much GG. It’s funny how all these Putin stooges are trying to re-write history. Unfortunately we are not all blind and stupid, there is a paper trail, and we all know who’s side GG, Assange, Snowden, and the Shitgibbon choose, they carried the Kremlin’s water, now they want to pretend that it never happened. Fuck em, we see you and what you did, now fuck off, while we figure out how to go about fixing the mess you helped create.
cosima
@Major Major Major Major: I saw that my daughter ‘liked’ something from one of her friends about this and lit into their arses. Told them they’d better be more vigilant about a) where they sourced their news, and b) the value of having all of the facts. Also pointed out that hyperbole is not your friend (the headline for the piece being ‘Corey Booker is not your friend’ or some such b.s.).
OzarkHillbilly
@hovercraft:
Hence the need to trash him and everything he’s done.
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
I was fuming about it yesterday when it cropped up here and it is back again on Mayhew’s post. I’m still fucking fuming. Why was Booker singled out? I have a guess. He was a FUCKING CHAMPION of opposition against trump and his cabinet of deplorables. Really, it’s not even close in terms of his efforts in one day against two deplorable nominees and in the fight to save the ACA.
And the idiotic Wilmer lefties jumped on because they want to kneecap the person they perceive to be the biggest threat to the coronation of Wilmer in 2020. The Wilmer wing is not an ally.
ETA The Wilmer wing will obstruct efforts to resist trump if they think it will help Wilmer in 2020. They are not allies.
Major Major Major Major
@cosima: that was another thing I noticed–some outlets are rejiggering their headlines this morning but it just can’t be done because they wrote them so hyperbolically so you end up with something like “Corey Booker is a big pharma whore (update: maybe he isn’t?)”
hovercraft
@SFAW:
That’s so funny, yesterday I was watching Dr Who reruns with the kids, and it was the one with the pig-slaves serving the Daaleks, and your comment brought back that visual. He does resemble a pig slave. Ha, thanks for the chuckle ;-)
pamelabrown53
@MomSense: #172
Sorry for my ignorance but who or what are “Wilmer lefties”?
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: Seriously, is that a thing? Won’t he be like 80 years old in 2020?
Miss Bianca
@John Waldron: Props for quoting The Good Soldier Schweik!
And that much blubber and gall should keep Hell’s fires sputtering for quite some time.
Major Major Major Major
@pamelabrown53: some call the junior senator from Vermont Wilmer so that trolls who have google alerts for his name don’t show up.
GregB
@hovercraft:
He spent months calling the mere notion of Russian influence McCarthyism.
Who’s the McCarthyist now?
I get the feeling there will be some bombshells about Greenwald to drop too.
By the way, so funny to see Trump holding up Russian government denials as evidence.
P.S. Does Greenwald ever talk about Russia’s ‘deep state’?
hovercraft
@OzarkHillbilly:
I get that, but it seems to me the definition of insanity would apply here, no?
Besides one would think that even they would realize that the Shitgibbon will continue to take up all the oxygen, and their petty investigations will get no traction, because Obama is gone, so who cares that he played basketball instead of a good American sport like bowling, or how much money Michelle’s garden cost the tax payers? Stupid strategy is stupid, even GWB’s numbers improved after he left office, how high do you think Obama’s will go?
O. Felix Culpa
@pamelabrown53: “Wilmer” is code for Hillary’s primary opponent. It’s a troll-avoidance measure, since it appears that the trolls have alerts set up for his name and then insert themselves to derail discussions.
ETA: What m^4 said at #178.
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
I wonder if some enterprising reporter will ask Rep Chaffetz if he ever figured out how to look his 15-year-old daughter in the face, now that he’s covering for Orangemandias? Wonder how his wife feels?
Wonder how long it’ll take the GOP to fall apart with no Hillary to blame and with down being the only way to go, post-Obama?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Elizabelle:
Better?
Had some thoughts driving in on my hellish commute this morning.
1. The reason why a lot of the protective institutions are already failing is that we’re culturally conditioned from early on to trust the guy who speaks aggressively and plainly while bearing the trappings of success. The watchdogs are inclined to take them at their word, and that leads to resistance to the notion that there are lies in the flow of communication, which is why it is so difficult to “turn” the initial inclination. F’rinstance, my tale about the lawyer on another floor of my building finding Trump’s power play on Acosta to be interesting, and why skill and knowledge at the practice of governing are disdained are all part of this difficulty to make things turn (thing “steering the Titanic”). Anymore, the media narrative on “messaging” and “optics” has accelerated the collapse of those institutions.
2. I have a lot of micro experience in dealing with pathological liars like Trump in litigation, both in family cases and business cases, and have both represented and opposed them. The pathological liar never has to be smart, they only have to be persistent, and they get their way to a surprising extent mainly because of the propensity of factfinders to give the pathological liar the benefit of the doubt on marginal calls due to the trappings of success. They can be beaten though, usually by meticulous examination of the facts and circumstances of their transactions, and direct confrontation with contradictions. When caught in a contradictory lie that is profound and reprehensible, the pathological liar rides it to the ground like Slim Pickens on the H bomb, even as they’re being excoriated by everyone from the judge to the jury foreperson to the clerk to their own attorney, and they come up with elaborate excuses as to how everyone has failed them.
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
The Shitgibbon just got elected at 70, so why not Wilmer pushing 80? Wilmer is the voice crying in the wilderness, he will lead us all to the promised land, his age is inconsequential, it is his voice and his vision that counts, he speaks to the youth, to our future.
I have no idea if this is a thing, but I can already hear the arguments on how this is the only way back for the democrats.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@cosima: It’s all about character with them. They don’t seem to understand that imperfect people can still be forces for good. There is no political figure in the history of America that’s good enough for them, except Bernie.
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
It’s not strategy: getting rid of Obamacare is about erasing Obama from history as much as possible. It’s Government By Spite. It’s Governing By Cleek’s Law, full stop. (I know we all know that, just sayin’)
Having said that, I fully expect Obama’s post-presidency approval rating to climb until it reaches 73%. =)
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: age only makes you old if you’re a lady.
pamelabrown53
@Major Major Major Major: #178
Hah! Thanks, too funny:D.
hovercraft
This is how an adult speaks. Preview of him on 60 Minutes this Sunday.
Obama: I Sometimes Failed To Mobilize Public Opinion As President (VIDEO)
“Part of the job description is also shaping public opinion. And we were very effective, and I was very effective, in shaping public opinion around my campaigns,” Obama said in a preview clip published online on Thursday.
“But there were big stretches, while governing, where even though we were doing the right thing, we weren’t able to mobilize public opinion firmly enough behind us to weaken the resolve of the Republicans to stop opposing us or to cooperate with us. And there were times during my presidency where I lost the PR battle,” he told CBS.
Obama made the comments while discussing Republicans’ refusal to consider his last Supreme Court nominee.
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
Then I hope they all have many more moments like this:
Powerful moment when man shames Paul Ryan and thanks Obama for saving his life, because of the ACA
I hope OFA and other democratic organizations get people in every single congressional district to attend their town halls and ask these monsters why they are taking away the health insurance that is keeping them alive. Shame them, make them tell you to your face why they are doing this, and if they don’t hold town halls, go on local TV and make their constituents know what they are doing to real people.
daveNYC
@Betty Cracker: I’m more impressed that she’s excited about running Booker for president. He was mayor of Newark, the attack ads write themselves.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Haha, exactly right. It always makes me a bit queasy to write folks off for certain jobs due to their age because the variables are so great. I’ve known 80-year-olds who were sharper and more energetic than their own children. But POTUS is a non-stop job that clearly takes a toll on everyone who holds it.
I’ll honestly be surprised if Sunkist Stalin makes it through his first term without a serious health incident. Would not surprise me a bit if he up and drops dead in his first year. He’s not used to hard work, and there’s only so much he can delegate without losing control and having his minions carry out embarrassing turf wars.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Yes and it’s ridiculous. It is definitely a thing on fb and twitter. My kids are experiencing it in meat space with their friends.
manyakitty
@Major Major Major Major: Booker is not perfect by a longshot. I object to his pro-charter school stance and his inexplicable love for Michelle Rhee. That said, he’s a damned sight better than anyone on the other R side, and I wouldn’t hesitate to vote for him in 2020, should that situation arise.
Betty Cracker
@daveNYC: I don’t know enough about Booker to have an opinion about that. 2020 presidential candidates are so not on my radar right now.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
My bad, so sorry. I forgot that watching women age is so icky, watching an orange blob is so much more attractive. By 202 we will have the pleasure of watching an unkempt Sesame Street character and a Baboons sphincter face off. Something to look forward to.
Major Major Major Major
@manyakitty:
I’m willing to not constantly pillory him for stances shared by huge numbers of other democratic office-holders. I object to people spreading outrage that’s clearly designed to keep the left disorganized. ETA: which is not what you’re doing here but the point of my comment was not to talk about some of the concerns we have about Booker, it was to talk about being manipulated by Russian propaganda.
Richard above writes a good piece asking questions about drug pricing, and the fact that an insurance expert doesn’t know the answer to that question off the top of his head makes me think it’s nuanced. That’s the right way to think and talk about these things.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hovercraft: I heard Killer Mike on NPR this morning, saying that he listened to Obama’s call to action in his farewell speech, and said, “He must’ve been listening to the O.G.”, Wilmer. Cause nobody, certainly not Obama, ever called on citizens to get more engaged in politics before a year ago.
Wilmer invented pizza, you know. And Tollhouse cookies.
Amen, we’ve mid-terms before then, and odd year elections before those mid-terms.
SFAW
Part of me wonders whether “Wilmer” was picked because of Elisha Cook. Not sure the two of them resemble each other, and whatever the new Wilmer’s faults, he’s not a nutso gunsel.
But thanks to all for explaining who Wilmer is; I saw that a couple of days ago, never got around to asking.
O. Felix Culpa
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Even though every generation thinks they invented themselves, I still find the ahistorical devotion to Wilmer astonishing.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: I like Booker, for all his flaws. Not as much as Booker likes Booker but that’s a given in a high-powered politician. We need leadership right now, he’s trying to step up, we should let him. Leadership not only doesn’t have to but shouldn’t come from a single person.
резидент американской области Российской Федерации
Hey, got an English nym in moderation that needs a release
hovercraft
Is our democrats learning?
Schumer Blasts Chaffetz For Trying To ‘Bully’ Ethics Chief Over Trump Conflicts
“The Republicans are at it again, filling the swamp instead of draining it. First, House Republicans tried to gut the Office of Congressional ethics. Now they’re trying to handcuff the Office of Government ethics. Mr. Chaffetz’s attempt to bully Mr. Shaub out of doing his job are absolutely despicable,” Schumer said in a statement.
Schemer so far is not the door mat I feared he would be, I guess I should have trusted that Reid knew what he was doing ;-)
DesertFriar
The Trump impeachment will begin once he is no longer an asset for Vlad. E-mails will be leaked. And then the Republican “deep bench” will go after him.
manyakitty
@Major Major Major Major: Agreed completely. I was inelegant in my response. That said, hasn’t that been the D response to everything? Because the party is/was so generally open, it was difficult to align the different factions behind one platform. Gotta hand it to Gingrich, though–he whipped those republicans into following the party line or else. They haven’t really wavered, since. I’d love to see Newt’s baby disintegrate into a million fetid pieces.
Elizabelle
@резидент американской области Российской Федерации: Why, thank you!
I think …. (TBD)
hovercraft
Gallup Poll: Trump’s Approval Rating Lowest Of Any PEOTUS In Decades
Donald Trump has historically low approval ratings for how he has handled his transition to the White House, with 51 percent of Americans saying they disapprove of his performance, according to a Gallup poll released Friday. Only 44 percent of Americans said they approved.
These figures set him far apart from his predecessors. A week before Inauguration Day in 2009, 83 percent of Americans said they approved of President Barack Obama’s management of the transition, with only 12 percent saying they disapproved. Even George W. Bush, who, like Trump, lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College, had 61 percent approval to 25 percent disapproval a week out from Inauguration Day in 2001.
Trump’s numbers have dipped since Gallup’s December survey, when the public split 48 percent to 48 percent on approval versus disapproval. They have also remained steadily and starkly split by political party, with 87 percent of Republican approving of Trump’s transition in the January poll compared to 86 percent last month. The percentage of Democrats who approve fell to 13 percent in January from 17 percent in December.
Part of the President-elect’s historically low numbers seems to be the public’s lackluster view of his Cabinet picks. Trump’s nominees were rated “below average/poor” by 44 percent of respondents, compared to only 10 percent of Obama’s and 13 percent of Bush’s nominees.
——————————————————–
I have to ask what the hell is wrong with the 13 % of democrats who approve of this asshole, pull your heads out of your asses now, you will suffocate!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hovercraft: I’ve never been a huge Schumer fan, and I know this breach-of-protocol as protest won’t undo any elections, but I liked it. If this is the kind of thing Schemer is going to do, I approve Maddow had a few of the Dem protests, including a very strong Heidi Heitkamp, which came as a pleasant surprise. O’Donnell played a few more, including Sheldon Whitehouse speaking up loudly for a (IIRC) nine year old RI boy who’s at risk of losing his health coverage.
manyakitty
@hovercraft: Ha! I tweeted that to him this morning, along with a reminder that nobody respects him because he’s a traitor, coward, and Putin’s puppet.
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m just trying to get through this week and deal with the cabinet of deplorables. I can’t think about 2020 now since there are about a million fights to wage before then.
OzarkHillbilly
@hovercraft:
Yes, but so does every thing else the GOP does. It’s just how they roll.
Major Major Major Major
@MomSense: I said nothing about 2020. I want Booker to keep up the good work as regards pressuring Trump.
Just One More Canuck
@SFAW: “whatever the new Wilmer’s faults, he’s not a nutso gunsel”
Are you sure about that?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Elizabelle:
Another attempt.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jeffro
Btw for folks that are interested, Mr. Tough Guy Neil Cavuto went on a rant against CNN (due to Jim Acosta being treated so shoddily by Trump at the presser) with all kinds of nonsense about “the shoe being on the other foot” and “how does it feel?”
This is how they were treated for 8 straight years, dontchaknow. “They say payback’s a bitch”.
So…if Cavuto and Tucker Carlson were standing on the edge of a cliff and you only had time to shove one of them, who do you shove? It’s a real dilemma…
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is and was always my biggest issue with Wilmer and supporters. We are the democratic party, and we have been championing most of the things Wilmer talks about for years, What Wilmer and his followers forget is that Obama, that sellout has pulled the country notably to the left. Social conservatives lost the culture war, they lost, which is why they were willing to sell their souls to the devil in exchange for judges who would undo the progress that we have made. When these people lament the Clinton years as sellout years, they forget that we were a different country then, Hillarycare was defeated soundly, DADT was a compromise, a terrible compromise, but it came after Clinton was beaten back when he tried to allow people to serve openly, politics is the art of the possible, not the perfect. Obama ran saying that he was against same sex marriage, which we all knew was bullshit, but he said it in order not to scare middle America. Wilmer runs around pretending that he’s re-inventing the wheel, but he’s not.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@MomSense: My Wilmer-worshiping SIL did vote for Hillary, so yay, but she’s convinced Wilmer would have won. (headdesk)
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: Oh, believe me, I’m dealing with this in my County Democratic Party, and I am one unpopular gal for suggesting that Wilmer-ism is not necessarily the Way Forward for Democrats.
D58826
@hovercraft: Seems Chaffetz is also upset the the ethics office didn’t investigate Hillary’s paid speeches after she left the State Dept. (sigh)
Vhh
@Elizabelle: I learned fluent Russian back in the 1970s during the Cold War when the govt and major universities thought that having American professionals who spoke Russian was a Good Idea. Came in handy in my career as a scientist (worked in Russia), and I know what Putin says without subtitles. Those days are gone–Russian depts are fading, people like me are dying off. We are fortunate to have immigrant native speakers as journalists, analysts etc. The big danger we are seeing now is from general ignorance of Russian history and politics, which is what has allowed Trump and the GOP to serve as Putin stooges without being booed off the stage as they would have been even 10 years ago. So if a BJer is interested able enough to use a Russian handle, more power to him/her.
hovercraft
@D58826:
Because you fucking moron she was not an employee of any government entity, and so she could do as she goddamn pleased. He should go testify and tilt his head to the side like @ravens dog did the other day when he heard Steve giving John the what for for not feeding him on time.
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
Well, to be fair, Wilmer told us for MONTHS that those paid speeches were proof positive that she was totally corrupt, so both sides agree that she should be prosecuted for that.
I almost put sarcasm tags on that but, sadly, it’s not funny anymore.
catclub
@Patricia Kayden:
Until Trump names Giuliani as head of FBI.
catclub
@hovercraft:
This is totally unfair. His cabinet is full of millionaires and billionaires, but no poor or below average (wealth) people.
Thoroughly Pizzled
I think Wilmer could have won the general election, maybe, but it would have been for a very stupid reason (his penis) rather than the reasons we’ve been hearing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@low-tech cyclist:
or likely to get us in a nuclear war over something some actress said about him.
cosima
@Thoroughly Pizzled: I cured my daughter of her irrational Bernie love quite early. I told her that talking shite about your primary opponent — at the level that he was — was way off base (and eff him b/c he wasn’t a Dem anyway), and asked what he had to show for his zillions of years in politics that he should be talking about instead of talking shite about HRC. Show me. She couldn’t. The other day one of her fb friends (friends in real life, too, maybe, who knows) was feeling very superior because she didn’t vote in the ‘corrupt election’ and I commented that voters who ELECTED not to vote sucked as much T/P voters. I can be reasonable about a lot of things on FB, and I have often been the voice of reason when there’s a dog pile on her page, but the Bernie purity brigade get no love from me, and as she lives in VT there are a good number of them.
@Major Major Major Major: Yes, of course the corrected-with-reservations headlines doesn’t seem to make the rounds, though. However, if I can educate my daughter about headlines, news sources, etc., it’s somewhere to start since she has a stupid number of ‘friends’ on FB (and a reasonable number in real life). Right now I’m investing some mother-daughter talk time in educating her (so that she can educate her friends) in the ways that the left is being aggressively targeted by faux-left sites in the interests of splitting them. As I pointed out to her, they’ve achieved their aims with the right, and can now focus 100% on fomenting dissension on the left, and what we most need now is strength thru solidarity.
amk
@Jeffro: well, god gave you two hands for a reason.
rikyrah
@hovercraft:
What an accurate description.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Gvg:
Because Trump isn’t a TRUE Conservative(tm) and tainted with liberalism he’s the GOP wet dream for implementing a Kotch Brother’s austerity program. They can always denounce Trump as this crazy outsider who hijacked the REAL American Party. But as the article says Trump is to much of a fool to be a useful one to anyone.
“A dumb Nixon” certianlly does fit Trump, doesn’t it though? Makes me wonder if that’s how Trump sees himself.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@резидент американской области Российской Федерации:
and you passe dup the chance to say “Oh, I don’t know, I always fell like I am pissing the day away listening to Trump..”
rikyrah
@MomSense:
Who is Wilmer?
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: the junior senator from Vermont. If you say his real name too much the trolls get a google alert and show up.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: code name for B er n ie. seems to work as troll be gone.
misterpuff
@NeenerNeener: Heel Spurs
Larkspur
@Vhh: I get what you mean. It’s just that most of us can’t sound out Cyrillic words, so it can be a bit frustrating to refer to someone (even just in your mind) sort of like we had to do with (symbol) “the artist formerly known as Prince”.
Your background is fascinating to me because I traveled to the Soviet Union back in 1977. It was a small group of Americans, and we had a Russian speaking American guide. She wasn’t of Russian descent; she learned it from the ground up. She was so good – totally fluent, able to joke with the Intourist minders easily. And she was funny. The morning after we arrived at our hotel in Kiev, she announced at breakfast that she’d been assigned the same room she had on her last visit. She knew this because the lamp was still fixed with the same BandAid. (She also advised us to check for hot water as soon as we arrived in a room, and if there was some, to take a shower immediately. This was very useful advice.) She said she was getting a little tired of being a guide, but she was uncertain what to do next, because she was uneasy about government work. She said, “I’m not sure I want to be used in that way.”
That trip was so interesting. I’m not sure I’d even recognize Russia today. Back then it was decorated only with the huge red and ochre (and black and white) political banners. (I also remember the way the sun lit up everything that was gilded – that was the point, to intensify and recreate sunlight – and the red stars that floated above the Kremlin at night). At night in Red Square, old women were sweeping the early season snow with their twig brooms. And everywhere, everyone asked for cosmetics – even used ones – and other Western stuff. People argued with each other constantly, but I came to see it as more a big-city family squabbling kind of thing. As Americans, we mostly got in places ahead of Russians (except for Lenin’s Tomb, where I looked at him so hard because I could have sworn I saw him blink, and a Soviet soldier pushed me along by the elbow) and they didn’t like it, but they accepted it.
Have you read Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich? If so, what did you think?
PS: This is all kind of OT, sorry.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
I reject the premise that there would only be enough time to shove only one off. Work smarter, not harder!
And get a friend to help.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!
hovercraft
@SFAW: @Jeffro:
I’m with SFAW, push Cavuto into Tucker and have him take him down with him. Two for one is efficient, don’t they love efficiency and productivity?
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: I was thinking the same thing, but I was willing to roll with the artificial premise anyway and the answer is always the one with the bowtie.
Jeffro
@amk: @SFAW: @hovercraft:
However it happens, be it 1 or 2 going over the side, just the thought has given me a warm fuzzy feeling all morning long.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
If it could only be one then yes I’ll go with Tucker, he is sleazier, has a bigger platform, and is a petulant brat to boot, Cavuto is on FOX Bossiness that has no viewership, so who cares.
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
I’m beginning to worry, we are becoming a bloodthirsty lot here at BJ ;-) Me likey!
chopper
@satby:
ryan was asked point blank by a dreamer ‘do you think i should be deported’, and he gave a typical political non-answer like ‘you seem like a nice woman.’ even ryan knows actually saying ‘yes you should’ to someone’s face on live TV makes you look like an asshole.
chopper
@Elizabelle:
honestly, who cares? it’s a person’s nickname on a blog.
ruemara
I can’t understand why people don’t get it by now. We already have President Pence. Trump will be showboating and rallying and shaking hands while doing deals. Pence is our domestic policy maker. Stop saying “President Pence” and start acknowledging “(vice) President Pence). So removing Trump may get some of the worse of the lot out of power, because they’re not beloved of the GOP, they’re only there due to Trump. It just feels like a case of selective amnesia.
SFAW
@hovercraft:
Well, it’s what passes for “bloodthirsty” on an ultra-left hippie commie liberal pinko lefty blog, where the commie pinko hippies are.
For REAL bloodthirstiness, any wingnut blog has this joint beat.
This joint is more like Unitarian Jihad.
PJ
For all the continuous complaints from about 10 posters here that Bernie-supporters will not give up “re-litigating” (why do people use this word – was there ever a trial?) the election, it is these exact same people who cannot stop bringing up Bernie, even as they refuse to use his name, in posts which have nothing to do with him. Why is this? I’m serious, why are y’all obsessed with Bernie Sanders? He’s a Senator from Vermont, one of 50, who did not come close to winning the Democratic primaries. It’s as if you are all Trump, continuing to tweet about “corrupt Hillary”, when he won the election more than two months ago.
BTW, I’m glad to see that Booker is doing his job as Senator from NJ and is grilling Trump’s nominees, but he’s not exactly Mr. Liberal: he’s as big, or bigger, a supporter of Wall Street as Chuck Schumer, he is 100% behind charter schools, and I haven’t met anyone with kind words to say about his record as mayor of Newark. He is, however, exceptionally good at getting himself press coverage.
hovercraft
@SFAW:
As you say we are lefties, our FSM smites you with soggy noodles, so yes more Unitarian Jihad than Stormfront, all in all that’s a good thing, we are not evil ;-)
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
Do you have natural gas piped into your home? I ask because you can get conversion kits for most common engines to run them on natural gas. A friend started the trend locally, there one manufacturer of these kits in Summersville, WV. Rick tells me that it costs less to generate his electric than to buy it from the power company, except for the noise.
He lost power for quite some time the last big storm, some local entrepreneurs pulled down the cable that wasn’t already on the ground and stole the copper from the main road all the way up the hollow late on night. So the power company didn’t just need one bucket truck and three guys to splice the breaks, they needed reels with miles of cable, multiple trucks, and guards to keep the new cable from being stolen again.
If you Google you get lots of hits, some for kits, some for D-I-Y videos, etc. Safer than keeping gallons of highly flammable fluids around the place!
J R in WV
@hellslittlestangel:
If they impeach Trump for election fraud, Pence gets to share the lead role with him, as they were both on the fraudlent ticket together!
A two-fer-one special that can’t be beat!
Then, of course, President Ryan!!
It’s clowns all the way down!!!
chopper
@SFAW:
push one into the other, hard enough for them both to go over. done.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
All the way to next Friday, Jan 20th at noon. That far and no farther.
geg6
@Jeffro:
Easy, I pick the one closest to me, find the right angle and push that motherfucker into the other hard enough that both go sailing over the edge. I’m a pretty good pool player, so I think I could easily sink two balls at once.
J R in WV
@gene108:
Gene, when you say “And white voters voted overwhelmingly against Democrats.” you are perpetuating a falsehood. Hillary won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. Granted other candidates didn’t fare as well, but still… a very debatable remark.
Mike G
Let me stop you right there.
Applejinx
Welp, lob enough nukes and they will be right…
Applejinx
@O. Felix Culpa:
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Are you children?
Applejinx
@hovercraft:
Because THAT guy was already too old. It was always about the vision. His inability to get a ‘Remliw’ (far be it from me to invoke counter-trolls) controlled Democratic Party to do anything he’d wanted, was obvious even then and more obvious in hindsight. They would rather lose to President Trump than bend to his commie ways.
Sarcastic points about Wilmervision happened to be perfectly accurate, but it’s too late for that guy to do anything like that. I would keep voting him into the Senate (and I’ve got the power to do it) under almost any circumstances, but him trying to continue to run for President would be a deal-breaker for me. Everything’s changed and we have bigger problems and it was never going to be possible to swing the Democrats left. Looks like we all have to go down together, and see what’s left. ‘Wilmer’ will not be left in 2020, unless you count left-wing.
Applejinx
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Wouldn’t have helped. The Republicans are supporting Trump a LOT more than he would have got, even if there had been a wave election taking the House and Senate for the Democrats. They would have united in opposition, and he and his penis might as well have stayed home.
Increasingly I have the feeling this was a Kobayashi Maru, a no-win election. It literally didn’t matter who won, every single possibility was a variation on ‘you’re totally fucked’. This emphatically includes our bird-charmer hippy friend, as much as I love his vision.
SFAW
@Applejinx:
I don’t think the Wilmer thing is targeted at you — I’m assuming it was Native Russian — but perhaps you can find some quiet space where you and NR can engage, because I’m sure you’ll find him a sparkling debater, a person of high integrity, etc., etc., whom you will enjoy debating or commiserating with. And we are all assholes for not tolerating him as much as you doubtless would.
Fixed, because there seems to have been enough to go around.
No One You Know
@резидент американской области Российской Феaдерации: Cool list. Where would you put Cataline? Didn’t he attempt a populist uprising with no committed goal?
No One You Know
@hovercraft: Cosigning. Doing English well ensures that readers aren’t distracted from a good point by bad usage. That said, doing so gently, appreciating that good point, is the way to go.
Affirm everybody! :-)
No One You Know
@Elizabelle: Aww, c’mon. It’s a nym for our time, no?