JUST IN: Trump to meet Putin in first foreign trip as president: reporthttps://t.co/nIC80P9xfB pic.twitter.com/ojXCrxmOGY
— The Hill (@thehill) January 15, 2017
Don't want to trust that tape to a courier. https://t.co/xXWjatfKdd
— Schooley (@Rschooley) January 15, 2017
Per the Guardian:
Donald Trump’s first foreign trip is to be to Iceland for a summit with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, according to reports.
In a move that echoes Ronald Reagan’s cold war meeting in Reykjavik with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, Trump and his team have reportedly told British officials that the summit will take place within weeks of him becoming US president…
On Saturday the president-elect said he would consider dropping sanctions against Russia if Moscow helped tackle terrorism and worked with the US on other goals, although they would remain in place “at least for a period of time”…
Trump’s claims that he has “nothing to do with Russia” appear to have been contradicted by his son Donald Jr, who reportedly said in a speech in 2008 that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section” of a lot of the Trump Organisation’s assets…
They'll seal the deal by signing each other's names in the snow. https://t.co/ehs1qfjZSA
— Zeddy (@ZeddRebel) January 15, 2017
Not always, but general heuristic: Angrier Trump gets a/b, and the more he harps on, an allegation against him, the more likely it's true
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) January 15, 2017
So few ask if Trump's taxes are perpetually under audit because he's up to his eyeballs in foreign debt including to Russians.
— Zeddy (@ZeddRebel) January 14, 2017
Corner Stone
“That’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.”
“No puppet! No puppet! You’re the puppet!”
God. How horrible must HRC feel these days? Even worse than Nov 8th, one would assume?
JPL
Bloomberg News is saying that Trump considers NATO obsolete and dismisses the EU.
link
Baud
@Corner Stone: I hope she doesn’t feel bad, because she of all people should be able to say the country deserves this after how she had been treated
Gin & Tonic
My Google-fu is weak today, but I can’t seem to find where the second-place finisher in the Democratic primary has expressed concern.
XTPD
I give Donald’s Occupancy 11 months. You can decide whether that refers to the Russian honeymoon or his removal from office.
aimai
@Corner Stone: Its always hard to imagine the feelings of someone who campaigns so hard and then loses. But what Al Gore and HRC went through, and are going through, just boggles my mind. They are both like characters in a film, like invasion of the body snatchers, who tried to warn everyone only to find the entire town swallowed up by alien invaders.
Baud
It might be good to warn American investors that they risk losing their investment in Russia when Trump falls.
Major Major Major Major
I just assumed he was perpetually under audit because he skirts as close to the law as possible.
rikyrah
found this at another blog:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@XTPD: I suspect John McCain wants to vote to remove Trump from office even more than he wants to go to war in/with Syriaqia, and Paul Ryan won’t hesitate to introduce articles as soon as/if trump loses his popularity with the R primary base. I wonder if they’ll suddenly start talking about Russia once the tax cuts and O-Care repeal go through.
Unabogie
@Baud:
Not only that, but she can state clearly and with evidence that she warned America about all of this.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: I hope she spends her days sleeping in, doing yoga, getting massages and mani-pedis and facials, partying with her friends, and enjoying spoiling her grandchildren. She should not feel badly. The people who hated Trump and voted for him anyway because they convinced themselves that she was the devil for FSM-knows-what reason—I hope they never sleep again. If they are eaten up by guilt for what they have done for the rest of their lives…..I’m good with that.
rikyrah
He rolled upon the wrong one. Bet he’ll think twice before trying that shyt again:
this Somali girl gave him the WORK when he tried to pull her hijab
Unabogie
@Suzanne: I thought for a while the jurors on the George Zimmerman trial would be eaten up by guilt over what they did. But then I saw them interviewed and it was obvious they were incapable of remorse. I see Trump voters in the same light. They voted for him because deep down they liked hearing a white man promise to put women and non-whites in their place. And for that they’ll never feel sorry.
Baud
@Suzanne: Yep.
Baud
@Unabogie: Yep.
SiubhanDuinne
@aimai:
Or Kassandra.
Schlemazel
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Thats what I assume. Putin does to I think, hence the quick meeting. He needs to be given Ukraine and openings in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and he knows Trump won’t last long after the the GOP is through using him. The treason will be leaked for the impeachment but it will be too late for the folks on Russia’s border.
aimai
@rikyrah: Adorable!
aimai
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh yes! thank you!Much better comparison!
rikyrah
Comedy Hype
@ComedyHype_
DL Hughley goes off about Steve Harvey, & others meeting with Donald Trump
Major Major Major Major
@Unabogie: I unfortunately agree.
XTPD
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was also thinking of him actually dying in office.
Thornton Hall
Trump’s fans don’t care. He’s still playing to the crowd at his rallies. What he doesn’t understand is that John McCain, Lindsay Graham, and Marco Rubio are a constituency he also has to deal with now.
debbie
Putin’s bitch comes bearing gifts.
Suzanne
@Unabogie: A lot of Trump voters are like that. But there’s a fair amount of them who HATED him—and voted for him anyway. I know a few Catholics and Mormons that voted for him solely because of his pledge to nominate pro-life judges, and some others who convinced themselves that the email “scandal” was unforgivable.
The GOP’s voters are much better than we are about getting behind a candidate and sucking up differences. This is a double-edged sword, because obviously they’ll elect someone so clearly dangerous/unsuited for the office. But they advance their agenda, because they don’t get as hung up on the specifics of the candidate as we do. We give away power because we get hung up on shit that ultimately doesn’t mean that much.
LibraryGuy
@Baud: I wish she didn’t, but I have to believe that someone raised in her church and in her family and career to look out for and help others is feeling like shit. Anger for sure, but I bet she feels far sorrier for the people that will be hurt by Trump than anything else.
Baud
@Suzanne: Yep.
aimai
@Unabogie: I think about this a lot and I think the right tack to take with those morons is “You were lied to! Trump lied to you and laughed about how gullible you were! He was Putin’s tool and you let yourself become Putin’s fool all because Putin wanted to weaken the US and undermine the better candidate. And now all the things we told you were going to happen are going to happen: the Republican party is going to take your granny’s medicare, and your son’s medicaid, and your children’s future and flush it down the toilet. And all because you trusted Fox News and the Republican Party and Donald Trump.” You have to undermine their pride in being sturdy independent thinkers and rub their faces in the fact that they were lied to and they ended up backing an actual treasonous, millionaire, corrupt, traitor.
Baud
@LibraryGuy: Yep. She’s a better human being than I am by a mile. Anyone who hates her would hate me too.
Baud
@aimai: Yep. I still say the best and only response to the Trump voter is “you were conned.”
SiubhanDuinne
@XTPD:
You give me an idea. Every time I am required to write, or somehow submit, my home address, the last line will read “Occupied U.S.A.”
(I’m old enough, as are *cough* one or two other commenters here, to remember the ubiquity of items labeled “Made in Occupied Japan” for several years after the end of the War. I also remember that there was some Japanese town that changed its name to “USA” so that they could, with all truthfulness, label their export products “Made in USA.”)
LibraryGuy
@Suzanne: I think that’s because we go into the voting booth to try to elect the best person for the job. Republicans go in to pull the lever and make a Democrat suffer and lose.
rikyrah
Dinesh D’Souza Verified account
@DineshDSouza
John Lewis is not a “legend”–he was a minor player in the civil rights movement who became a nasty, bitter old man
……………
Joy Reid Verified account
@JoyAnnReid
Joy Reid Retweeted Dinesh D’Souza
You’re a felon, hypocrite adulterer and historical illiterate who no one respects. John Lewis on the other hand, is a great and beloved man.
Tokyokie
@rikyrah: All that is true, although the Lockheed Martin-ExxonMobile association is probably overstated. ExxonMobile’s research subsidiary hired Lockheed Martin to develop new-generation automation systems for its refineries. Both are huge corporations with lots of interests besides their core business lines, and ExxonMobile probably didn’t have a lot of choices for developing the sorts of automation systems it requires. Now, if you want to criticize such a deal from an antitrust standpoint, I’m with you, but as much as I dislike and distrust Comey, I don’t see that string of associations as being the nexus for his questionable actions during the election campaign.
Baud
@LibraryGuy: Who is we? People who protest voted for Stein or Johnson were not voting for the best person for the job.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
MASHA’ALLAH!!
Cheryl Rofer
Sean Spicer, Trump’s press spokesperson, said last night that there is nothing to the story about Trump meeting Putin in Reykjavik.
The Times of London and Bild have just published on a joint interview with Trump last Friday in which he continues to knock NATO and say that Brexit is a good thing.
I’m commenting more at Twitter. Very lively right now.
rikyrah
The ignorance burns
But, the title should be Why WHITE women voted for Trump…
Keith Boykin Verified account
@keithboykin
Why Women Voted Trump? Hillary killed Vince Foster. My 8-year-old talked me into it. Didn’t like a Somali cabdriver.
LibraryGuy
@Baud: “We” is you, me, Suzanne, Cole, Adam, etc. The usual suspects.
Corner Stone
@rikyrah: He ain’t bullshitting.
SiubhanDuinne
@aimai:
Not better, just supplementary :-)
MazeDancer
@JPL:
And that he’ll lift the Russian sanctions in exchange for some Russian nuke concessions.
Realizing my naivete included thinking most GOP would be pro-NATO and anti-Russia. Guess not. Thinking we might as well start using WAGTD as shorthand for “We’re All Going to Die”.
On another front, Bernie Sanders could do enormous boost to his otherwise deserved dislike among many Dems, especially People of Color, by being the first Senator to say he’s not going to the inauguration, because Trump isn’t legit. Of course, Bernie has already said he’ll work with Trump. And now is suggesting Comey should resign, which would be a guarantee of no Russian investigation at FBI by the new Trump Director. Still, it would help Bernie’s ongoing attempted takeover of the Dem party if he dumped Trump.
Suzanne
@LibraryGuy: True. But I think that we have somehow let the idea that voting is an expression of self and not a collective act fester. I think that those of us who truly believe that every person has worth and rights worth protecting sometimes suck at coming together for the greater good. The GOP has a lot of voters who are used to being members of churches and social clubs and are more used to collectives.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
Yeah, well, a lot of people HATED Hillary. Why couldn’t they have voted for her instead, as long as they were voting for anyone?
/rhetorical and bitter
rikyrah
Republicans Fund Obamacare While Trying to Kill It
January 14, 2017
Politico: “On their way to killing Obamacare, Republicans are leaning toward funding up to $9 billion in health care subsidies this year to keep the program afloat — even though they sued the Obama administration to stop those exact payments. The move is the most significant sign yet that the GOP is serious about propping up Obamacare temporarily to provide a smooth transition to a yet-to-be disclosed Republican replacement.”
Republicans Fund Obamacare While Trying to Kill It
January 14, 2017
Politico: “On their way to killing Obamacare, Republicans are leaning toward funding up to $9 billion in health care subsidies this year to keep the program afloat — even though they sued the Obama administration to stop those exact payments. The move is the most significant sign yet that the GOP is serious about propping up Obamacare temporarily to provide a smooth transition to a yet-to-be disclosed Republican replacement.”
“The irony is deep: Republicans have never voluntarily funded an Obamacare program. This particular subsidy, which covers out-of-pocket health care costs for low-income participants, has been a GOP target since 2014 when House Republicans went to court to argue the White House funded it unconstitutionally. Republicans were exultant last May when the D.C. District Court ruled in their favor, even though the payments were allowed to continue pending an appeal.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: Lots of white women are invested in the success/social position of white men so they don’t have to work. There’s also a lot of women invested in patriarchy, and have convinced themselves that feminism is for ugly/poor/leftist women.
LibraryGuy
@SiubhanDuinne: They thought they had a choice, a way to show their disapproval and dislike and not have the consequences. They were wrong.
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: Because they convinced themselves that voting third-party or not voting at all was a principled act. The right doesn’t do that shit.
LibraryGuy
@Suzanne: Agreed. I don’t think a lot of Republicans would throw their vote away to teach a detested nominee a lesson. They are far better at focusing on the big picture, i.e. always beating Democrats.
SiubhanDuinne
@LibraryGuy:
Yeah :-(
Thus my “rhetorical” tag.
Patricia Kayden
@Corner Stone: I hope she’s not feeling too horrible. She made a lot of pronouncements during her presidential campaign about Trump and we are now seeing that she was 100% correct. The country will pay for elevating Trump which is something of which she has already warned us. If I were her, I’d sleep pretty well at night.
rikyrah
For those who missed this tweet. Her words. Her voice. Her demeanor. Everything you need to know about Comey:
Yashar Verified account
@yashar
WATCH: “The FBI Director has no credibility” — Congresswoman Maxine Waters makes her point in less than five seconds.
Suzanne
@LibraryGuy: In this way, we should learn from them. We do too much cult of personality shit.
Peale
@Baud: our above the board business ties with Russia are very limited and were even before sanctions. But then our business and trade ties with China and Mexico are much more extensive and we just elected someone who is going to go to war with both of them. Go figure.
p.a.
@rikyrah: from the article:
“I saw there was much more racial divide” etc.
Only 1person out of millions, but how can you convince someone this pig-dumb. Caused by whom, you dumb #%€{*!!?? Obama??!!
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
Every time I think I have control of my emotions, I find myself wanting to jump up on the table and scream “FUCKEMFUCKEMFUCKEM!!!” at the top of my voice.
randy khan
@rikyrah:
mai naem mobile
I think my eldest sister voted for Trump from some comments she’s made. I don’t even know how to deal with this. I kind of don’t want to know. He husband and her are high income and I think she based it on taxes alone. Our niece who she adores I don’t think would even talk to her if she did vote for Trump. I don’t think at this point she would even tell the truth because several family members would not let her live it down.
Baud
@Suzanne:
It’s an act of privilege. Full stop.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: Yeah, I sometimes wonder how all the “I want to feel good about my vote!” people are feeling these days. Some, like Sarandon, I’m sure sleep the sleep of the truly stupid and self-satisfied.
randy khan
@Baud:
She undoubtedly does not think the country deserves this. That’s not who she is.
LibraryGuy
@Suzanne: Agreed wholeheartedly. I want us to want to win for the right causes, the right policies, but I am giving less of a crap about niceties and norms. Stand in front of McConnell everyday and read from his letter about vetting nominees. Quote them on their accounts, have giant boards like Sanders did. Confront at all times.
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: I am definitely waffling between anger and bargaining, i.e., if only Trump voters get fucked by his presidency, that’s fine. Their kids can die in the wars and they can lose their healthcare and I will be fine with that!
Peale
@LibraryGuy: and they won’t admit their error even if they have to roast sparrows under the bridge as long as those democrats who don’t actually think it wise to destroy capitalism are reduced to eating stouffer dinners in our elite coastal enclaves. We’ll still be out of touch.
rikyrah
Feinstein Says Russia Altered Election Outcome
January 15, 2017
Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) told NBC News that she believes Russia tried to interfere in the presidential election and that their activity ultimately altered the outcome.
Said Feinstein: “I’ve had all of the major classified briefings. I have been astonished at what has been a two-year effort at Russia to spearfish, to hack, to provide disinformation, propaganda wherever it really could. And I think this has been a very sophisticated effort.”
She added: “I’m certainly not gonna leave this in limbo, because this is the future of America, it’s the future of democracy. And if we can’t carry out an election without disinformation being pumped into it by another country, we’ve got a huge destruction of our system going on so we have to — we have to be full and robust in this look.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And wealthy.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: I may have to go off FB for a while – maybe permanently. Because every time I see a post from someone who I saw shilling for Wilmer or talking how HRC was just the worst because emails or Wall Street or whatever the fuck was pushing their buttons, and talking about how the principled thing to do was to vote for Jill Stein, *now* moaning about something Trump’s done and how AWFUL it is, I just want to plaster all over their pages, “WTF DID YOU THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN IF YOU DIDN’T VOTE FOR THE ONE SANE CANDIDATE, YOU IDIOT?!”
Baud
@randy khan: Yep. See my #30.
Suzanne
@Baud: Yup. Like I said, I voted for Sanders, but always thought of HRC as a good, solid option, and had not even one fleeting second thought about supporting her once she won. Because I knew that I wasn’t the one to be completely fucked if the GOP won.
fuckwit
Who’s Wilmer?
Baud
@Suzanne: Sure. And to be clear, most of his primary voters were simply Dems on the left. They aren’t the issue.
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
Nelson Garcia Verified account
@9NewsEducation
While more than 100 people were waiting to meet with him, Mike Coffman sneaks out early from his own community event. #9News
Baud
@Miss Bianca: Just tell them they were conned and leave it at that.
rikyrah
@fuckwit:
Bernie
JPL
@MazeDancer: Earlier on Adam’s post, someone mentioned that Ryan appears indifferent. He just wants his policies enacted and Mitch can be bribed.
rikyrah
I bought all my Obama retrospectives from Amazon this morning. :(
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Profiles in Fucking Courage
debbie
@rikyrah:
60 Minutes is spending the entire hour with Obama.
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: Those white women are so stupid I’m ashamed to be a white woman.
Schlemazel
@XTPD:
They better check for polonium if he dies
rikyrah
One Exchange Shows Why Trump’s Russia Scandal Will Also Take Down Mike Pence
By Jason Easley on Sun, Jan 15th, 2017 at 2:09 pm
One exchange between VP-elect Mike Pence and Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday showed why Pence would not survive Trump’s Russia scandal.
Notice how Pence tried to stick to the standard line that Trump won in a landslide. He also tried to give himself plausible deniability by stating that he didn’t join the campaign until the summer, with the suggestion being that there may have been contact between Trump and Russia before he became Trump’s running mate.
Mike Pence is going to be tainted with Donald Trump’s scandals. Even if some gigantic scandal would force Trump to resign or be impeached, Pence is not going to be in a strong position to lead the country. In fact, Pence would immediately become the modern day Gerald Ford. Mike Pence would be a dead president walking whose future White House prospects would be ruined by Trump.
ruemara
@Suzanne: If you read the article, quite a number of them consider themselves feminist and said Ivanka Trump was why they sided with The Fetid Yak Diarrhea.
@Miss Bianca: You. Should. Say. It. The biggest problem is these twerps are consistently praised and removed from the consequences of their privileged actions. Make them unfriend you.
MazeDancer
Seems to be the case.
But will Paul become more interested in outcome if it looks like both Trump and Pence were involved in Russian contact? Makes him POTUS with no campaign effort.
He’ll make NIkki Haley VP and we’ll have to listen to “new generation” media worship. But, it could mean we won’t all die by nukes. We could die from no healthcare, Social Security, or Medicare, of course. But the giant turnout all over the nation – even KY and MO – today for Save ACA rallies gives some hope that, if we’re not at war, Paul’s not getting his dreams come true. Which would make him more interested in dumping Trump.
PhoenixRising
@LibraryGuy:
Ironically, the only way to achieve nice things–policies that serve every American by preserving civilization as we know it–is to act like thugs. Polite, non-violent, disciplined thugs, but we have to throw the respectful persuadable reasonable attitudes out the window and be the crazy we wish to see in the world.
Just went to a congressional town hall/health care protest, at which my Congresscritter yelled about how Republicans just want to give rich dudes a tax cut and devil take the rest of us, and I realized two things:
a) My Congresscritter rocks. Y’all should get a widowed woman in her early 50s with a teenager at home, a grandchild living with her 21yo, and an aging mama who is on Medicaid as well as Medicare so she can stay in her own home, representing you in Congress if you don’t. Because Michelle isn’t buying any of their bull; she wants to know how she’s supposed to take care of 4 generations of women, without the health insurance company being regulated into providing services. And she’s mad as hell.
b) If you have a Tea Party Congressperson, show up and yell (politely and non-violently, of course) makes mighty good TV, because your representative will sooner climb out his office window into a blizzard than let your local TV people get film of him telling small business owners that we’re losing our ability to buy insurance for our families, in order to give rich people a tax cut. Making your rep run and hide, literally, is a big win.
It worked for the Teat Party, and that’s why we are in this pickle: The tactics that make Congresscritters cower in fear *work*– even if the so-called ideas behind the tactics are barely disguised racial hatred plus a case of IGMFY that would make a mature person blush.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
I would seriously love to see your list, as much as anything to see if there’s an item I’m missing. I’ve been dropping coin on the various special commemorative volumes too. I think I own just about every major magazine and national newspaper from when he was elected/inaugurated, a lot of books about both Barack and Michelle, and now all the end-of-second-term tributes. It’s like a little literary shrine I have going :-) I’m not as big on mugs and key chains and the like, but I have a couple of t-shirts and my nice Obama-Biden 2008 yard sign (it is pristine because my apartment complex wouldn’t let me put it up).
Honestly, you’d think I was black ?
XTPD
@rikyrah: Would a Paul Ryan presidency still be easy to take down?
PhoenixRising
@rikyrah:
Beautiful. I was picturing Indiana Jones, in his suit, climbing out the window of his office at the university, but that’ll do.
I am starting to feel hope that, when it comes to their own health insurance, white Boomers with working brain cells may be willing to take enough action to save the rest of us. Remains to be seen what they do once *they personally* aren’t in the barrel, but some of them are going to take to it and become people who use democracy to do things.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Tell you this right now, I don’t EVER want Maxine Waters as an opponent.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PhoenixRising: this may be a case when low information works for the good side. Headlines like “Premiums skyrocketing!” strike fear in the hearts of people who don’t read down to see that it’s happening in half a dozen state and only to people who buy unsubsidized insurance on the exchanges. Headlines like “Millions to lose insurance” similarly frighten people who won’t be that directly affected.
more substantively, people do seem to understand pre-existing conditions, lifetime limits and coverage for young adults.
SiubhanDuinne
@Schlemazel:
Umbrellas with ferrules. Stay well away from an umbrella with a ferrule.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Tie game! Rogers looks piiiiiiiissed.
LibraryGuy
@PhoenixRising: +1000
TriassicSands
In yellow!
hovercraft
To what extremes will our allies go to listen in on this summit? I know everyone spies on each other anyways, but this summit will be the first opportunity for our friends to get a true understanding of how fucked we all are.
rikyrah
Why Does the South Carolina Shooter Dylann Roof’s Website have Ties to Russia?
Dylann Roof allegedly shot to death nine people at South Carolina church.
Shortly after Roof’s ‘manifesto‘ and website were leaked publicly, while everyone was focused on the content, I decided to do some basic research into his website.
What I found was interesting at the least, not only was the site only created 4 months prior to the attack, on 2/9/15, but it also has very interesting ties.
After doing some simple DNS & WHOIS searches I came across something interesting, Russia.
Why would a 21 year old, from South Carolina, use a Russian email host (yandex.com), and a Russian web host based out of Moscow(reg.ru) to host his website?
…Note: Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia a book by Alexander Dugin. The book has had a large influence within the Russian military, police, and statist foreign policy elites and was allegedly used as a textbook in the General Staff Academy of Russian military.
In the United States:
Russia should use its special forces within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism. For instance, provoke “Afro-American racists”. Russia should “introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics.”
SiubhanDuinne
@TriassicSands:
Cursive!! (Query: Does Cyrillic have cursive, or an equivalent?)
Steve in the ATL
@rikyrah:
He has admitted doing so. It is not alleged.
Sorry, lawyers gotta lawyer….
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Go on, Girl!! That will teach him to put his hand on another person without consent. He must think that he’s Trump grabbing women by the you know whats.
Bill Arnold
Rude Pundit is in fine form lately about the Russia/Trump intimate relationship. I do not disagree with him the slightest. (My intuitions agree; something is up, and it feels like some chaos is looming. Could be wrong perhaps.). Jan 13 (last Friday):
Where the Fuck Are You, Democrats?
TS
So MAGA meant join up with Russia and share Europe between them. Who’d have thought. Moving war back to Europe.
Mel
@Suzanne: Absolutely. After all the bizarre rumermongering, crazy allegations, sexist crap, and general BS that she has endured and countered with strength, intelligence, patience, and dignity for decades, she deserves to cut loose, sleep in until noon, flip off photographers, cuddle those grandbabies, wear whatever the hell she wants to whenever and wherever she wants to, and enjoy herself for a while without carrying a burden. She was still willing and eager to give four more years of public service for her country, despite the obstacles and the incessant attacks on her family, her character, and her intentions. She has more than earned a couple of decades of privacy and happiness, methinks.
Bill Arnold
@rikyrah:
Interesting, thanks much for the link.
SWMBO
@SiubhanDuinne: Don’t knock over your drink or ruin the chocolate. Don’t scratch the tabletop. Make sure you video it so you can play it for all the people who are trying to convince you that it’s all going to be ok…
We’ll always have Takei. Allegiance is coming back to theaters February 19.
For those who missed it: http://allegiancemusical.com/article/allegiance-film-encore/#aIK3324u1xvPOEFv.97
I probably shouldn’t be promoting this now but everyone should get used to me saying this. Takei in Allegiance was awesome. He (like John Lewis) has lived through much and has learned how to resist. If you missed this the first time, you get another chance. Go. You won’t regret it.
SFAW
@p.a.:
Obviously.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
Da
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: Yup. The woman who ran against Coffman last election, btw, is running for Democratic Party Chairman of CO. She seems pretty solid.
Miss Bianca
@PhoenixRising: see the story Rikyrah referenced about Mike Coffman ducking out of his town hall early to avoid the hundreds – literally, hundreds – of citizens showing up to talk about health care.
ETA: Oh, whoops. Looks like you’re tracking already!
Baud
@Miss Bianca: I somehow was watching CNN and they had Washington governor Inslee on about Obamacare. They were talking about how there were all these stories about people whose lives were saved by Obamacare, and the reporter asked Inslee why we didn’t hear of these stories before. Inslee, to his credit, didn’t start hurling profanities at the reporter, but I sure would have.
Aleta
@SiubhanDuinne: Excuse the length. This was interesting to me. The last part of an essay by Rebecca Solnit:
The other story was about white women, who voted 43 per cent for Clinton to 53 per cent for Trump. We were excoriated for voting for Trump, on the grounds that all women, but only women, should be feminists. That there are a lot of women in the United States who are not feminists does not surprise me. To be a feminist you have to believe in your equality and rights, which can make your life unpleasant and dangerous if you live in a marriage, a family, a community, a church, a state that does not agree with you about this. For many women it’s safer not to have those thoughts in this country …. And those thoughts are not so available in a country where feminism is forever being demonised and distorted. …
So women were hated for not having gender loyalty. But … we were also hated for having gender loyalty. Women were accused of voting with their reproductive parts if they favoured the main female candidate, though most men throughout American history have favoured male candidates without being accused of voting with their penises. … ‘I don’t vote with my vagina,’ the actress Susan Sarandon announced, and voted for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, who one might think was just as vagina-y a candidate as Clinton but apparently wasn‘t.
‘One of the many lessons of the recent presidential election campaign and its repugnant outcome,’ Mark Lilla wrote in the New York Times, ‘is that the age of identity liberalism must be brought to an end,’ and he condemned Clinton for calling out explicitly to African-American, Latino, LGBT and women voters at every stop. ‘This,’ he said, ‘was a strategic mistake. If you are going to mention groups in America, you had better mention all of them.’ Who’s not on that list, though it’s one that actually covers the majority of Americans? Heterosexual white men, notably, since it’s hard to imagine Lilla was put out that Clinton neglected Asians and Native Americans.
‘Identity politics’ is a codeword for talking about race or gender or sexual orientation, which is very much the way we’ve talked about liberation over the last 160 years in the US. By that measure Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, Rosa Parks, Bella Abzug, Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, Malcolm X, Del Martin and Harvey Milk were just lowly practitioners of identity politics, which we’ve been told to get over. Shortly after the election Sanders, who’d got on the no-identity-politics bandwagon, explained: ‘It is not good enough to say, “Hey, I’m a Latina, vote for me.” That is not good enough. I have to know whether that Latina is going to stand up with the working class of this country … It is not good enough for someone to say: “I’m a woman, vote for me.” No, that’s not good enough.’
In fact, Clinton never said this, though one could argue that Trump had said, incessantly, aggressively, I’m a white man, vote for me, and even that Sanders implicitly conveyed that message. The Vox journalist David Roberts did a word-frequency analysis on Clinton’s campaign speeches and concluded that she mostly talked about workers, jobs, education and the economy, exactly the things she was berated for neglecting. She mentioned jobs almost 600 times, racism, women’s rights and abortion a few dozen times each. But she was assumed to be talking about her gender all the time, though it was everyone else who couldn’t shut up about it.
How the utopian idealism roused by Sanders’s promises last winter morphed so quickly into a Manichean hatred of Clinton as the anti-Bernie is one of the mysteries of this mysteriously horrific election, but it was so compelling that many people seemed to wake up from the Democratic primary only when Trump won; they had until then believed Clinton was still running against Sanders.
Hillary Clinton was all that stood between us and a reckless, unstable, ignorant, inane, infinitely vulgar, climate-change-denying white-nationalist misogynist with authoritarian ambitions and kleptocratic plans. A lot of people, particularly white men, could not bear her, and that is as good a reason as any for Trump’s victory. Over and over again, I heard men declare that she had failed to make them vote for her. They saw the loss as hers rather than ours, and they blamed her for it, as though election was a gift they withheld from her because she did not deserve it or did not attract them. They did not blame themselves or the electorate or the system for failing to stop Trump.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
Spasibo.
TriassicSands
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yes, Russian does have cursive.
Trump will be limited by the length of his “pen.”
Miss Bianca
@Baud: Then you have people like Senator Cory Gardner (R, Dickweasel), who read the *one* letter from a constituent he can find about how his life was “ruined” by Obamacare.
That this oaf got elected over Udall just leads me to wonder if there really *is* something wrong with Colorado Democrats…that never should have happened.
Moebym
@Baud: She seems to me to be the type of person who, despite the hell that she had been put through for the past three decades, still loves her country dearly and is willing to sacrifice her own safety and privacy for it.
@Mel: Agreed 100%.
Steve in the ATL
YES! Not a Packers fan, but fuck Jerry Jones and the Cowboys!
Gravenstone
Fuck the Cowboys! Revel in your defeat.
Suzanne
@ruemara: Ivanka Trump is pretty and is therefore the acceptable kind of feminist.
Never forget that patriarchy is such a fucking asshole that it’s got women doing its bidding.
Gindy51
@Steve in the ATL: Husband was screaming yesyesyes and scared the dogs!!
Mel
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, because people like Sarandon don’t ever have any actual skin in the game. It’s easy for them to pontificate about the need to “burn it down” and “turn it inside out”, because when Rome starts to burn, they’ll just casually fly to a stable country and watch, untouched, from a safe distance. She has no concerns about how to pay a mortgage, feed her children, pay for medical care, keep a public school alive and well in her community, etc.
What people like her see as their oh-so-daring political statements that they believe make them seem ever so radical and hip and cutting edge are really, I think, less expressions of any real philosophy and more a careless, destructive attempt at an attention grab. The problem with egotistical, insecure attention seekers like that is that the have a ready mefia vehicle to broadcast their toxic garbage.
Then, when the proverbial crap hits the fan for almost everyone else, they simply retreat in comfort and watch detached interest, like a kid looking through the glass at an ant farm, deeply satisfied at having gotten that extra ten minutes of tv exposure.
TriassicSands
@p.a.:
Hey, give pigs a break. They’re pretty smart. A lot smarter than anyone who voted for Trump.
From PETA:
I don’t know how cats got in there.
Baud
@Miss Bianca: Udall was too pro-choice, no?
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
The article cited is dated June 20, 2015. At the time, it was very much “alleged.” Presumption of innocence was paramount.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne:
She is superficially pretty alright. But when push comes to shove don’t you think she is sleeping with her…err, siding with her father’s asshole neanderthal thoughts?
SiubhanDuinne
@TriassicSands:
It’s okay. You can say “fingers” here. It’s Balloon Juice; I won’t be offended.
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: look at you–clicking the link just to make me look bad! I won’t forget this….
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
Killing innocent offspring to get revenge on the parents might not be the best idea. I’m sure there are lots of kids who are appalled by their parents’ votes in November. Would you really have them die just to get even with mom and dad? I hope not.
I have no problem with those who elected Trump suffering. However, I don’t want the pain to extend to people who did the right thing but are connected to the guilty by family ties.
XTPD
@TriassicSands: I’ve always held that spotted hyenas are the most criminally underrated carnivore.
Quinerly
@Steve in the ATL:
Article is from 2015. Before trial. So “alleged.”
XTPD
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes
ETA: Beaten to the punch.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: I don’t know if there’s anything truly sexual, or just weird. But I think a lot of women who still worry about their social status are threatened by feminism, because it’s semiotically linked to a rejection of beauty standards. If you’re pretty invested in beauty standards because you’ve achieved them pretty well, then you’re going to want the kind of feminism that is pretty and skinny and wears nice clothes and not the icky, threatening kind.
And I am not throwing stones here. I am into skincare to a ludicrous extent. And I want my long, shiny hair so badly that I had Mr. Suzanne (attempt to) give me a blowout, since my hand is still FUBAR. I get it.
TriassicSands
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well, Trump’s pen is not very long.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
“Fuck you now and fuck you forever!!”
Good on ya. Can we haz rotating tag of this?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@JPL:
Oh. So the absence of general widespread European wars for the last 70 years (longest unbroken period since the fall of the Roman Empire) means NATO is “obsolete”?
hovercraft
@Baud: Isn’t Diana Degette (sic), from Colarado? She is the head of the congressional pro-choice thingy, and Colorado has rejected both trap laws and other “pro-life” ballot initiatives several times, if I recall. I think Gardener won because Udall was a bad campaigner (Rachel made the point, he never smiled and was low energy), and because he tried to use the tried and true, “he is an extremist on abortion” card, which he is, but Gardner lied about it well enough and the media jumped on board saying Udall was a one trick pony, and he was old and boring while Gardner was new and exciting.
Suzanne
@TriassicSands: I don’t truly want anyone to suffer. Even Trump voters. I want them to learn that they were wrong and to feel badly about that and to make changes in their voting and their worldview.
But, like I said, the reaction I described above is what I am feeling in the bargaining stage of grief.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
They don’t call me “nasty woman” for nothing.
rikyrah
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ebony
Essence
Time
Rolling Stone
Conde Nast
If there are any other Barack Obama retrospectives, please let me know. These were the ones at Amazon.
SiubhanDuinne
@TriassicSands:
Mightier than the sword, though, I reckon.
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
I understand that feeling.
satby
Told my buddy Syl to come lurk here, she’s been feeling as down as the rest of us about the outcome of the November donnybrook. Especially because her very closest friend voted for the orange twitler. I told her come here, there’s more of us around than it seems. Hi Syl ?
Suzanne
@TriassicSands: Whenever I take those Meyers-Briggs tests and they ask the question about whether I’d rather be more just/fair or more compassionate, I have to be honest…..my base impulse is always for justice.
TriassicSands
@SiubhanDuinne:
If you’re talking about those tiny plastic party swords…
Corner Stone
@satby: I thought the First Rule of Balloon Juice Club was…
No One You Know
@rikyrah: Thank you for posting that. The bully’s expression is priceless.
satby
@TriassicSands: I’m thinking those little ones they spear olives with in cocktails. Something that fits twitler’s hands.
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
But that can be a difficult choice since both are admirable/positive.
I suspect if you asked Trump to choose between just/fair and compassionate, he’d need a third choice.
satby
@Corner Stone: food fight?
TriassicSands
@satby:
Yep, those are the swords.
Corner Stone
“Dash Pass Left”
/just like Coach drew it up
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Then, they should accept responsibility for their actions. Don’t hide. Don’t make excuses.
john fremont
@Suzanne: This!!!
zzyzx
@Miss Bianca: And that’s a bad thing to do because? I have facebook ppl I’m hate tagging.
Baud
@satby: Did you have her sign a release first?
Mnemosyne
@PhoenixRising:
I went to a meeting today for a new group called Rise Up Los Angeles and Rev. K.W. Tulloss (who is a local Black leader and a part of Rev. Sharpton’s group) made the point that showing up at congresscritters’ offices and doing sit-ins may not get the attention of the MSM, but it sure gets the congresscritters’ attention.
satby
@rikyrah: I answered on bigot on FB this way:
And I wonder why I have trouble making friends sometimes.
satby
@Baud: she’s known me for more than 30 years, she has a good idea of the kind of people I would virtually hang with.
Lurking Canadian
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Well, look. If the point of NATO is to keep Russia from expanding westward, and the policy goal of the new administration is that Russia should expand westward, then I’d say NATO is pretty obs–
Oh fuck, I can’t. Not even in jest can I contemplate a future in which the USA backs out of treaty obligations and lets Russia conquer allied nations. How the fuck is that possible? How the fuck do even Republicans, after screaming “Munich!” and “appeasement!” for sixty years every time some Democrat refused to torture prisoners or nuke Mecca or whatever, countenance this turn of events?
rikyrah
@satby:
Hi Sylvia??
Welcome to Balloon Juice
Steve in the ATL
@satby: or maybe you’re doing a great job screening out the people you don’t want to be friends with!
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
There are two different Rolling Stones. One is “A Conversation with President Obama” and the other is “The Obama Years.”
There’s also a People magazine with both of them, and three featuring Michelle alone — Vogue, InStyle, and UpScale.
I feel as though I have one more, but I didn’t record it yet and it’s not at hand. Will let you know. The magazine racks at Barnes & Noble and Target both had good selections.
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
That would be reasonable except I’m not sure a lot of those voters are “educable.” When some lose their health care, they’ll find a way to blame Obama, the Democrats, or Obamacare itself. The GOP is desperately trying to convince people that Obamacare is dying under its own weight, when, in reality, they’re doing everything they can to kill it*. When it fails, which is inevitable if the Republicans take the appropriate steps, Ryan, et al. will claim it was self-inflicted death and the rubes will believe them.
*Not just repeal it, but have the exchanges fail as insurers, facing uncertainty (at best), pull out.”
opiejeanne
@SiubhanDuinne: Only if the sword is very small and the pen is very sharp.
Sort of borrowed from Terry Pratchett.
And I see you’re talking about cocktail swords, so never mind.
SiubhanDuinne
@satby:
Hi, Syl! Welcome! You’re among like-minded people, except for the occasional troll, and we’ve mostly learned to pay no attention to trolls.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yes, there is a cursive script in Cyrillic. Works similar to ours.
Mnemosyne
@Aleta:
We’ve seen several of those white men right here at this very website. Somehow, it was Hillary’s responsibility to convince them to stand against fascism, because they couldn’t be arsed to figure that shit out for themselves.
satby
@Steve in the ATL: or them scrrening me out. Fuck it, I was never known for my patience with stupid.
SiubhanDuinne
@TriassicSands:
The things that hold the little onions or olives?
EDIT: Curse you, @satby, darn you to heck!!
Baud
@satby: For you, I’ll be on my best behavior.
satby
Edited: Oops!
So true, Mnem!
john fremont
@hovercraft: That is what I saw as well.
satby
@SiubhanDuinne: ?
@Baud: ?
Mnemosyne
@Lurking Canadian:
Because it lets them undo the New Deal, and that’s all they care about. They don’t actually give a shit about foreign policy, and they never have. If they could create Fortress America and never have the US interact with a foreign country ever again, they would be perfectly happy.
Corner Stone
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: How would one know, Comrade?
satby
In all seriousness though, I keep hoping for more blockbuster disclosures to derail Twitler every day, and I get disappointed when it doesn’t seem like much is moving on that front. Rude Pundit is right, that’s all every Dem and supporter should be hammering.
That we have to hammer on the ACA and other fronts risks fight fatigue, and I’m sure that why the Republicans throw so much chum in the water.
The Dudeist
TriassicSands: Friend of mine, liberal on lots of things tells me regularly that she was going to continue Obama’s goal of starting WWIII. I assume he got this from info wars. He once asked me what I thought about that site and I told him it’s propaganda and loony stuff. He is the type who follows self help gurus and liked Trump’s book. Sad times it seems.
Lyrebird
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: even less legible, but probably quite easy to spray-write.
Not sure what vowel they use for the “uh” sound, but here’s PEOTUS’ name without all the nice ties between letters:
goHalg mpoMπ
and his master manipulator:
πymuH
Ugh.
Corner Stone
@The Dudeist:
May I politely suggest you are not actually listening to anything your friend says?
PIGL
@Unabogie: I don’t want them to feel sorry. I want them to die screaming broke and alone.
MomSense
I Fucking hope Brennan goes in for the kill on the apricot assmouth.
Save us CIA Kenobi. You’re our only hope.
The Dudeist
@Corner Stone: No way. I am with #theresistance. I don’t get sucker into sheeple guru stuff nor do I listen to idiotic drivel from the likes of Alex Jones.
The Dudeist
@Corner Stone: Also he will be the hardest hit when Twitler implements his agenda with Paul Ryan. I like thinking for myself, my friend thinks he does but is a big failure there.
Corner Stone
@The Dudeist: No, comrade. I suggest may I humbly that if your friend sayings are along the line that the Rodham would start horrible Obama’s path to WWIII that maybe the liberal he is not.
PIGL
@Baud: You can’t cheat and honest man. these sorts of mistakes are never innocent. they deserve exactly what they’re going to get…and a very, very great deal worse because of the consequences others will suffer for their blind folly and malice .
Miss Bianca
@Baud: No, he just wasn’t “tingly” enough. He lacked “charisma”. Apparently that’s all that’s really needed or desirable in a candidate.
@hovercraft: Or, y’know, what you said.
Another Scott
All these closely-spaced open threads are a bit confusing to this poster. :-/
I posted this upstairs, but it fits better here.
BlueVirginia has video and photos of the ACA rallies in Richmond and Alexandria, VA today. It looks like there was a good turnout, and the party bigwigs (Terry Mac, Tim Kaine, Bobby Scott, Mark Warner, Gerry Conolly) were there, along with Northam and Perriello (candidates for the dem nomination for Governor in the fall). It looks like we’re speaking with one voice on this. Let’s keep it up.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@PIGL:
In the dark, with the heat turned off.
Mnemosyne
First World Problem of the Day:
I was letting myself get all stressed out about not having a pink t-shirt to wear to Disneyland on Saturday to express my solidarity with the Women’s March, and then I looked at the weather report and realized I’m going to be wearing my pink raincoat all day anyway. Problem solved!
amk
clay bennett nails it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: You have a pink raincoat?
PIGL
@TriassicSands: we don’t have the power to be all selective. The hard rains are going to fall on the just … let them fall also on the unjust. That’s the best deal we’re going to get .
PIGL
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: it’s obsolete from the perspective of cutting a new deal with the Russians. Always assuming of course that the European powers have no agency of their own.
PIGL
@satby: I hope you’d have no trouble making friends with me.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Looks like Saturday is the only day it’s NOT going to rain between this coming Wednesday and the next Wednesday. It can’t rain, gotta get my b-day hike in.
PIGL
@Lurking Canadian: we have always been at war with west Asia.
PIGL
@SiubhanDuinne: …and with the chill flood waters rising, and the wrathy fire ants seeking refuge up their orifices.
Over to you, sir.
TriassicSands
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yep.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
You don’t?
SiubhanDuinne
@PIGL:
And the great big saw came nearer, and nearer, and nearer, and nearer, and nearer,
And the great big saw came nearer, and nearer, and nearer, and nearer, and nearer.
Edit: In case you don’t believe me https://youtu.be/isPX-5Hhzkg
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yep, bright magenta. If I have to ride my bike in the rain, I don’t want anyone to be able to claim they didn’t see me if they hit me with their car.
Also comes in handy for being visible while crossing streets.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Olive drab. I do have a pink shirt.
@Mnemosyne: I see.
Mnemosyne
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Ah, I see the forecast has changed a bit since yesterday.
Pity poor G — he’s driving down to Anaheim on Friday night and back to Burbank on Sunday. Rain both directions.
I’m taking Amtrak to Anaheim on Friday morning since he has to work. There’s a bus that goes to DLR, but no one seems to know how much a single fare is, only a per-day pass.
Shalimar
@Corner Stone:
Don’t hire pee hookers and tell us it’s raining?
J R in WV
@fuckwit:
Wilmer is a pseudonym for the other candidate in the Democratic primaries. IF we use his real name google alerts call the troolllls – no one wants that!
J R in WV
@Quinerly:
IANAL, but I recall Roof telling the FBI “Yes, I did it.” in his first interview… I misremember those dates, but it was only 2 or 3 days after the killing spree.
As far as I am concerned, that moved him from alleged to admitted killer. All I know about criminal law is from being on murder trial juries…
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Is it a special bus or OCTD? OCTD takes TAP cards, I think. (I have a TAP card to ride Metro, though I usually don’t need it since my Metrolink ticket is an all day TAP card.)
Mnemosyne
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I think it’s a special bus — Anaheim Resort somethingorother. Google Maps seems to indicate it’s $3?
Gretchen
@SiubhanDuinne: yes, Russian has cursive, so we can tell Putin’s handwriting in the snow.
jc
Anyone who thinks Trump isn’t as dirty as they come is deluding themselves. It would be irresponsible not to ask detailed questions.
Putin will forgive a big chunk of the millions Trump owes to Vlad’s underworld associates, if Trump agrees to pass along some sensitive U.S. information … which as President, he can (secretly) proceed with whatever treasonous sellout he wants to, with zero repercussions.
Gretchen
@Suzanne: Ha! I got Mr Gretchen to try to blow dry my hair when I broke my arm. It didn’t go well.
Barry
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “I suspect John McCain wants to vote to remove Trump from office even more than he wants to go to war in/with Syriaqia, and Paul Ryan won’t hesitate to introduce articles as soon as/if trump loses his popularity with the R primary base.”
No, because any GOP politician who does something like that will get creamed by the Trumpist faction of the GOP, which is the dominant faction.
It’d take *incredibly* bad sh*t happening for Trump to lost enough support that open rebellion would not be suicide.
TTT
@rikyrah: “Lockheed Martin gets their rocket engines from Russia” — I’m certain that isn’t true.
Another Scott
@TTT: The United Launch Alliance Atlas V uses Russian engines. There are efforts to phase them out.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.