Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The words do not have to be perfect.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

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

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Second rate reporter says what?

T R E 4 5 O N

We still have time to mess this up!

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

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Reader Interactions

172Comments

  1. 1.

    SiubhanDuinne

    That baby! And his “Mt. Nasty” sign! That picture definitely goes in my “RESIST” photo folder.

  5. 5.

    hovercraft

    Denver marcher is adorable!!
    @zhena gogolia:
    She is sad for our country, going from her husband, who cares so much, and worked his heart out for all of us, to a Shitgibbon who knows nothing and can’t be bothered to learn.

  6. 6.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    “Gott Mit Uns” actually made it into his speech.

    The biggest lies ever foisted off onto people were the bullshit about God and the non-sacrifice of Jesus (if you take the doctrine literally).

    You can do everything and anything you want, mutter a couple of “I’m sorries” and “I believe in you, Jesus”, and your “Personal Lord and Savior”(spit) will make everything alright for your victims in the afterlife.

    Disgusting and evil.

  7. 7.

    hilts

    Trump’s reign of idiocy has officially begun:

    At 11:59 am eastern, the official White House website had a lengthy information page about the threat of climate change and the steps the federal government had taken to fight it. At noon, at the instant Donald Trump took office, the page was gone, as well as any mention of climate change or global warming.

    It’s customary for http://www.whitehouse.gov to flip over to the new administration exactly at noon, but the only mention of climate on President Trump’s new website is under his “America First Energy Plan” page, in which he vows to destroy President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, which is a government-wide plan to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change. To reiterate: It is normal that the site is completely new; it is notable that climate change is not mentioned on any one of Trump’s new pages.

    “President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule,” the site says. A search of the website found no mention of “global warming,” and the only mentions of “climate change” were archived pages that, after clicking on the links, led to scrubbed pages.

    h/t http://motherboard.vice.com/read/all-references-to-climate-change-have-been-deleted-from-the-white-house-website

  8. 8.

    Yarrow

    About the only slight positive I can see from this mess is that the Republicans own the shit that’s going to happen. Let’s make them own it even harder. Speak up. Keep resisting!

  10. 10.

    skerry

    Schmer was the only Dem to speak at the inauguration

    “We Americans have always been a forward-looking, problem-solving, optimistic, patriotic, and decent people. Whatever our race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, whether we’re immigrant or native-born, whether we live with disabilities or do not, in wealth or in poverty, we’re all exceptional in our commonly held yet fierce devotion to our country.” — Senator Chuck Schumer

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Ugh. I understand Dems, the Clintons and others attending the ceremony, but I don’t understand why they’re at the fucking luncheon

  13. 13.

    rikyrah

    How America’s anti-elitism might be creating a whiter White House
    By Tracy Jan
    January 20 at 11:15 AM

    As his Cabinet nominees were grilled by the Senate on the eve of his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump declared that “We have by far the highest IQ of any Cabinet ever assembled!”

    It’s a grandiose assertion, one that’s impossible to know. But by another metric, Trump’s nominees fall short: academic degrees.

    As a whole, Trump’s picks to lead the nation’s government agencies have fewer advanced degrees than any first-term Cabinet in at least 24 years.

    A third of the nominees in Trump’s 15-member executive team hold only a bachelor’s degree. A quarter obtained up to a master’s degree, and 40 percent achieved a law or medical degree. No one has a doctorate. Compare that to President Obama’s original Cabinet, which conservatives derided for being stacked with intellectual elites: Only two members held a bachelor’s degree alone. A third stopped their educations at a master’s degree, and more than half held doctorates, medical or law degrees — often from the nation’s most prestigious universities.

    Certainly, education comes in many of forms. For some of Trump’s nominees, what they lack in classroom education has been made up for in relevant career experience. But there’s something uniquely important about schooling — it’s supposed to be America’s great equalizer, the traditional gateway to the higher levels of society. At least for people of color.

    In 2008, it wasn’t lost on people that Obama’s nominated Cabinet was both loaded with academic credentials and among the most racially and ethnically diverse in history. Six of the 15 nominees belonged to minority groups, all of whom held advanced degrees. Obama himself has a Harvard law degree and was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. (Bill Clinton’s first Cabinet included just as many minorities as Obama’s, and it was even more educated, with all but one Cabinet member holding doctorate or law degrees.)

    Trump’s Cabinet also happens to be the wealthiest in modern history — illustrating how it’s possible for some to reach the top without racking up college degrees. That level of success without years of advanced education is nearly impossible for black and brown Americans, say sociologists, economists and political scientists who study the link between race, education and achievement.

    “Rarely will we find an example of an uncredentialed black person in an elite position,” said Darrick Hamilton, an economist at The New School in New York. “That black person is usually certainly qualified, if not overqualified, with regard to their education.”

    ……………………………….

    “As higher education has become more accessible to more diverse groups of people, the general population has become more distrustful of education and expertise,” said Tressie McMillan Cottom, a sociologist at Virginia Commonwealth University. “They think there must be something suspect about education, because how great can Harvard really be if someone like Barack Obama got there?”

    “In this country, diversity has gotten tied up in the idea of a liberal academy,” she said. “The election of Trump is a critique and rebuke of that.”

  16. 16.

    Ian G.

    I think a healthy dose of mockery is required for the next 4 years. All authoritarian movements are inherently ridiculous but demand to be be taken seriously. Mock them. Mock them as much as Mel Brooks mocked Hitler and Parker/Stone mocked Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il. It will drive the Drumpfenproletariat nuts.

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne

    @skerry:

    I think traditionally he’s required to as the Senate Minority Leader. Only way out of it would be to get the Blue Flu.

  26. 26.

    hovercraft

    @hilts:
    Perhaps he should consult the DOD, they might have a few thought on Climate Change beyond how much it is cramping the fossil fuel industries profit margins.

  27. 27.

    The Moar You Know

    Now everybody install Signal on your phone for fast and easy messaging that the authorities can’t read.

    @Major Major Major Major: Look, I appreciate, but this is the field I work in (IT security and forensics, hence my last comment on software engineers) and I guarantee you there is no messaging or email app or service that cannot be read with trivial effort.

    In other words, if your life depends on “authorities” being unable to have access to your communications, you better not be having those comms electronically.

    Of all things, thanks to his massive and extensive history of lawsuits, Trump understands this very well and has commented on it in the past.

  31. 31.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    God this scene of him signing bills and passing out pens is so surreal and gross

    ETA: he’s already clearly bored with the ceremony

  33. 33.

    Kryptik

    @rikyrah:

    Or, to put it more bluntly, a PoC has to be eminently and unimpeachably qualified to be considered for jobs a mediocre white candidate can simply back into.

    That’s as much about the double standards expected of non-whites as it is the lethal strain of anti-intellectualism. The article suggests too much that the racism is a side effect of anti-intellectualism rather than vice versa.

  40. 40.

    hilts

    @Ian G.:

    It will drive the Drumpfenproletariat nuts.

    Hopefully, it will drive Trumpenstein himself nuts as well.

    @eclare:

    Only way I will get through this is with Sam Bee and Seth Meyers doing their jobs.

    Plus Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and Trevor Noah. Someone needs to give Larry Wilmore a platform to express his mockery as well.

  43. 43.

    Cacti

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    You can do everything and anything you want, mutter a couple of “I’m sorries” and “I believe in you, Jesus”, and your “Personal Lord and Savior”(spit) will make everything alright for your victims in the afterlife.

    Never a Catholic at any point, but the position of the Catholic churches that you still have to be a good person even after joining the club made a lot more sense than the evangelical position of say the magic words and you’re good to go for all time.

  45. 45.

    hilts

    @hovercraft:

    Trump is so anti-science he belongs back in the goddamn Dark Ages. I hope this planet can survive his epic incompetence and arrogance.

  46. 46.

    schrodingers_cat

    I am planning to ignore news for a while. In other news, I am using my airlines miles to get WSJ subscription. Might as well read the right wing news without the filter of so called liberal Vichy Times, get it straight from the horse’s mouth. Besides they cover the econ news the best.

  48. 48.

    ? Martin

    Most of my staff are quite young – just out of college. Needless to say, they are quite distraught today so we spent some time this morning talking about things.

    Besides my usual “California will rise up” message, I also noted that I believe that we could not have gotten Obama if not for Bush, that the country was more open to someone like Obama because of disappointment in the Bush presidency. So instead of dwelling too much on what the next few months will be like, consider what the response to Trump might be, with the comfort that nothing that is happening in DC is backed by popular support. Trump lost the popular vote. Obama never dipped below 40% approval, which several polls already show Trump below. Polls indicate that the proposed policies are not popular. Whatever is happening now is happening against the grain of the nation and there will be a backlash to that. That will hopefully come in 2018 but it will more likely come in 2020. I don’t fear that Trump will become suddenly popular any more than I fear the Kansas experiment will suddenly start working.

    Yes, I worry about what will happen in the near term, while Congress can afford to do unpopular things, and I worry about us stumbling into war or recession, but I’m pretty optimistic long term. Democrats seem to responding appropriately to having been kicked in the junk. Protests will work. We should see midterm turnout by Dems at record levels. Dems are down but mostly we need to restructure and I think that work is underway. Remember the long arc.

  49. 49.

    Gravenstone

    @hilts: As always, the planet will survive (at least until the sun goes red giant and bakes it outright). The biosphere, on the other hand is likely to be heavily disrupted. Fun times.

  52. 52.

    Calouste

    @Gravenstone: Yep. I’m not worried about the planet surviving, can’t blow it up even with ten times the nukes we have now. Humanity is a different matter though.

  54. 54.

    Ian G.

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I’m not sure the WSJ would serve as Trump’s Pravda. They weren’t on his side in the primaries. Keep in mind that the Paul Ryan wing of the GOP (which the WSJ is a major cheerleader of) still hates Trump. They’re probably just scared of his supporters.

  55. 55.

    Bobby D

    Denver marcher is a cutie.
    Is that Sen Warren on the Mount Nasty w/ Michelle, Hillary, and RBG?

  57. 57.

    The Moar You Know

    You think the authorities, however we’re defining them, can trivially read a message that’s been end-to-end encrypted in the usual manner?

    @Major Major Major Major: Of course they can. Not to mention, when said message has been generated on a fucking smartphone, where the underlying operating system is Android or iOS? Christ, I could do it.

    If you can read it when you’re typing it in or receiving it, it’s breakable both at the source and recipient through the OS. End of story.

  58. 58.

    darrel wright

    I agree with mocking and ridiculing Trump. I don’t agree with mocking and ridiculing the Trump mob. I’m not sure if people understand that this is a big part of how we got there. Quit wishing them “what they deserve for being so stupid” because first off, they’re probably going to get it whatever you wish, and second of all, what they deserve will make them even worse.

  60. 60.

    ? Martin

    @Major Major Major Major: And iMessage/Facetime is also end-to-end. And I think WhatsApp is now as well. Email is a completely lost cause – it cannot die quickly enough, but there are a host of good secure messaging solutions out there.

    I suspect the bigger problems with these end-end solutions is the security of the endpoint. Android devices, particularly running older versions of the OS that aren’t getting security patches completely undermine the services security. If you can compromise the device, then all the security in the world over the service is negated. So stick with iOS and Android that get regular updates. I wouldn’t even consider buying an Android phone that didn’t come from Google for that reason alone.

  63. 63.

    Major Major Major Major

    @The Moar You Know:

    If you can read it when you’re typing it in or receiving it, it’s breakable both at the source and recipient through the OS. End of story.

    Duh, but that has nothing to do with saying yes to

    You think the authorities, however we’re defining them, can trivially read a message that’s been end-to-end encrypted in the usual manner?

    Here’s Schneier disagreeing with you again. Look, while I don’t work as a security professional, I’ve worked alongside them, including some heavy hitters, and collaborated on the web portions of two pretty hefty security/privacy/encryption projects. I have never heard anybody saying what you’re saying, and have heard people saying the exact opposite.

    ETA: I’m referring of course to the encrypted message being intercepted and cracked, not the police unlocking your phone after they arrest you. I meant secure in transmission.

  65. 65.

    catclub

    @Major Major Major Major:

    You think the authorities, however we’re defining them, can trivially read a message that’s been end-to-end encrypted in the usual manner?

    This is actually an interesting question. Can the NSA read AES (or comparable) messages without encryption keys?
    I believe not, but do not have anything besides that fact that ‘the community’ is not running from AES, as evidence.

  67. 67.

    ET

    I live near Lincoln Park on the Hill and just saw my first group of discernable attendees. A group of teens with a few grown ups. Guess they weren’t waiting for the parade. Must have been lost on their way to the RFK bus parking lot.

  68. 68.

    Trentrunner

    @? Martin: All good, but the “long arc” has to include SCOTUS.

    And on SCOTUS, we are now fucked FOR DECADES. No shine on that shinola.

  69. 69.

    Jeffro

    I don’t know how many others might be following Sara Benincasa on Twitter, but she’s just put out a great piece called “Self-Care in the Age of Trump”

    Two great points that go hand in hand:

    You Do Not Have To Engage With Every Single Fight
    You are not obligated to call out every single thing that pisses you off or that hurts your heart. You are not on duty 24/7 as the lone warrior for justice. There are so many of us out here doing the work alongside you. You do not have to respond to every shitty comment from every shitty leader and every shitty hate-voter who refuses to engage in critical thinking and real self-education. And this leads me to my next point…

    Limit Your Social Media Time

    But there are other good ones, too…=)

  70. 70.

    catclub

    @Major Major Major Major: those are two different questions. If the authorities have their hands on the device that sent or received the SIGNAL encrypted message, I would think chances of breaking it go up a lot. How well is Signal insulated from the OS of the device? I do not know.

  71. 71.

    Jeffro

    @Trentrunner: We might be fucked for as little as two years, for as little as one nomination/seat. Let’s fight hard in 2018 and 2020 and see how it all shakes out!

  72. 72.

    FlipYrWhig

    @darrel wright:

    I don’t agree with mocking and ridiculing the Trump mob. I’m not sure if people understand that this is a big part of how we got there.

    Another big part of how we got there was that LGBT people, mouthy women, people of color, public employees, college professors, etc., have been mocked and belittled for generations. Fuck the Trump mob. I DO look down on them, because they suck. They look down on me too. All we can do is win, and, when we do, fuck them up.

  75. 75.

    pamelabrown53

    @rikyrah: #13

    Dear, dear rikyrah::

    Rarely will we find an example of an uncredentialed black person in an elite position,” said Darrick Hamilton, an economist at The New School in New York. “That black person is usually certainly qualified, if not overqualified, with regard to their education.”

    Also, too:

    In this country, diversity has gotten tied up in the idea of a liberal academy,” she said. “The election of Trump is a critique and rebuke of that.”

    I’ve said from the git go that this election would be the “Revenge of the White People”. However, in my wildest dreams I would never have predicted Trump.It’s terrifying that such an intelligent, human being who has an advanced spirituality could meet such opposition as to invite the destruction of what’s best in America.

    (Sorry, my second block quote is off; I’m practicing so that I can be a more useful contributor).

    Here’s the deal: while the reactionaries won a significant battle, we will prevail.

  78. 78.

    Cacti

    @darrel wright:

    I agree with mocking and ridiculing Trump. I don’t agree with mocking and ridiculing the Trump mob. I’m not sure if people understand that this is a big part of how we got there.

    What a relief we have you here to explain it for us.

  80. 80.

    Humboldtblue

    @darrel wright:

    Fuck you. And fuck Trump voters. We outnumber them by than 10 million when you look at total votes cast. The fact that Democrats nominated a supremely qualified candidate unmatched in experience and she still got her ass handed to her by Trump means that there 30 years on non-stop attacks from people who lie for a paycheck won on a technicality and it also means we’ve been left with a fucking crook in the White House.

    If you voted for Trump you’re a fucking traitor and if you’re so fucking ill-informed or willfully ignorant that you now think you made a mistake, fuck you twice. Go talk to some people in Ohio and North Carolina who were prevented from voting what they fucking think of Trump and the GOP and then go fuck yourself with this bullshit “we need these people.” Only if we’re making fucking soylent green, maybe.

  82. 82.

    ? Martin

    @The Moar You Know:

    @Major Major Major Major: Of course they can. Not to mention, when said message has been generated on a fucking smartphone, where the underlying operating system is Android or iOS? Christ, I could do it.

    Really? Because you’re guaranteed a job at the NSA right now if you can crack an iPhone 7. I know for a fact they can’t yet.

  84. 84.

    The Moar You Know

    I meant secure in transmission.

    @Major Major Major Major: Irrelevant. The transmitting and receiving endpoint is an open book and that’s all anyone needs. And it’s not like they need physical access to that endpoint to get every single last bit of information off of it.

    ETA: I mean, do what you want, but if my life depends on the security of my comms, I personally am not having those comms via any electronic medium.

  85. 85.

    Timurid

    @? Martin:

    “California Will Rise Up” isn’t much help for people who don’t live in California. Especially people like me, who would literally starve if we tried to move there.

  86. 86.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @Jeffro: All Democrats should fight bigly against cuts to healthcare and Social Security. All Democrats should say treasonous, traitor, Russia, Putin, shadows, dark clouds, mobbed up, Russian Mafia.

  87. 87.

    Ian G.

    @darrel wright:

    Depends on what you mean by “Trump’s supporters”. I agree that one shouldn’t mock autoworkers in Michigan or Ohio who listened to his horseshit about bringing jobs back and who voted him after voting Obama twice. They’ll come around once he’s exposed as a fraud. But the 27%? The Breitbart meme sharing crowd? Fuck them. Mock them as the low rent trash that they are. Make it clear that their ludicrous attempts to wring “respect” from Hollywood or NYC will never work. They’re not needed to forge a winning electoral coalition, and I wouldn’t want them anyway.

  89. 89.

    satby

    @darrel wright: I suggest the biggest part of how we got here isn’t from wishing that the pathetically ignorant fools who voted for their own destruction get it, but from the voters who were prevented from voting. And the apathetic fucks who couldn’t be bothered, who turned out to be almost as big a percentage as all the people who did turn out.
    When we mock someone who now is upset because the guy they voted for is going to do just what he said, they deserve it. I for one don’t intend to stop pointing that out.

  90. 90.

    JPL

    @Humboldtblue: Trump himself is going to fuck his voters.

    JUST IN: In one of first Trump admin. orders, Dept of Housing & Urban Dev. suspends reduction of FHA annual mortgage insurance premium rates

    and so it begins

  91. 91.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @satby: Also a large number of people on the left who really believed Hillary was worse than Trump, or couldn’t bring themselves to vote for her.

  92. 92.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    A protest on K Street has turned violent. Tear gas and pepper spray deployed. Live video on MSNBC right now.

  93. 93.

    Cacti

    @ Martin:

    Perhaps leftist purity ponies will learn their lesson and not stay home on election days.

    FTFY

    Unfortunately, the elections of Presidents Nixon, Dubya Bush, and Trump suggest this is unlikely.

  94. 94.

    The Moar You Know

    Fuck you. And fuck Trump voters. We outnumber them by than 10 million when you look at total votes cast. The fact that Democrats nominated a supremely qualified candidate unmatched in experience and she still got her ass handed to her by Trump means that there 30 years on non-stop attacks from people who lie for a paycheck won on a technicality and it also means we’ve been left with a fucking crook in the White House.

    If you voted for Trump you’re a fucking traitor and if you’re so fucking ill-informed or willfully ignorant that you now think you made a mistake, fuck you twice. Go talk to some people in Ohio and North Carolina who were prevented from voting what they fucking think of Trump and the GOP and then go fuck yourself with this bullshit “we need these people.” Only if we’re making fucking soylent green, maybe.

    @Humboldtblue: Seconded, and when you are on you are ON.

  95. 95.

    Kryptik

    @Ian G.:

    The “Lock her up” crowd is never going to see the light, and seems utterly impervious to any attempts to do so. Mockery is the only way to get through to them and outside observers sometimes.

  96. 96.

    The Moar You Know

    A protest on K Street has turned violent. Tear gas and pepper spray deployed. Live video on MSNBC right now.

    @Steeplejack (tablet): So predictable. Oldest game in the book. Wonder if it’s Donald’s private thugs or the NY FBI masquerading as “liberals”? Pick one.

  97. 97.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    The God’s Abandon Antony:

    When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
    an invisible procession going by
    with exquisite music, voices,
    don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
    work gone wrong, your plans
    all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly.
    As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
    say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
    Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
    it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
    don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
    As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
    as is right for you who proved worthy of this kind of city,
    go firmly to the window
    and listen with deep emotion, but not
    with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
    listen—your final delectation—to the voices,
    to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
    and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

  101. 101.

    Redshift

    I heard back from the march organizers about being a marshal! So if your at the march in DC and you see a tall blond guy with a ponytail in a yellow marshal’s vest, it might be me!

  102. 102.

    Ian G.

    @Kryptik:

    We can talk all we want about the catastrophic failure of the mainstream media to portray Trump as what he is during the election, but it’s actually been a multi decade failure. He’s always been portrayed as Warren Buffett instead of Paris Hilton, so a lot of people out there saw “successful businessman”, not “reality TV con artist”. Those people thought they were voting for a boost to the US economy, not revenge on the darks. I know this because I know a lot of people like this.

    They’ll come around when his utter ineptitude becomes plainly obvious. Trump’s job approval rating will be at 27% before we know it. It’s close enough as it is.

  103. 103.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Humboldtblue:

    Fuck you. And fuck Trump voters. We outnumber them by than 10 million when you look at total votes cast. The fact that Democrats nominated a supremely qualified candidate unmatched in experience and she still got her ass handed to her by Trump means that there 30 years on non-stop attacks from people who lie for a paycheck won on a technicality and it also means we’ve been left with a fucking crook in the White House.

    If you voted for Trump you’re a fucking traitor and if you’re so fucking ill-informed or willfully ignorant that you now think you made a mistake, fuck you twice. Go talk to some people in Ohio and North Carolina who were prevented from voting what they fucking think of Trump and the GOP and then go fuck yourself with this bullshit “we need these people.” Only if we’re making fucking soylent green, maybe.

    I need a cigarette.

  104. 104.

    Kryptik

    @Ian G.:

    I honestly hope you’re right there. But I’m still not convinced those who have embraced full bore the ‘Lock her up’ BS, the ones who are so all-in about the idea of not just defeating Hillary but hounding her until she’s literally hung for treason, are ever going to be the ones reachable under even those metrics.

  105. 105.

    Timurid

    CNN feed now: Police are throwing smoke bombs into a crowd of what appeared to be mostly press/photographers.

  106. 106.

    Redshift

    @The Moar You Know: There are also anarchist groups in town with the declared intent to disrupt the proceedings. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s wingnut provocateurs, but we have idiots who think they’re on our side, too.

  108. 108.

    hovercraft

    He Xeroxed the Convention Speech

    “America First” has now be spoken in an inaugural address. This was quite similar to Trump’s convention speech: dark, defiant, filled with talk of “American carnage”, a landscape dotted with tombstones. This was vintage campaign Trump.

    “Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation, an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge, and the crime, and the gangs, and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”

    If you didn’t hear it, that’s about all you need to know. This speech was about grievance and reclamation, reclaiming power, wealth from those who’ve stolen it. These themes can make sense and be salutary for countries which are weak, battered and poor. When they become the rallying cry for the strongest and wealthiest of countries, that is always dangerous. Our work is cut out for us.

    – Josh Marshall

    Josh is right, we have our work cut out for us.

  109. 109.

    darrel wright

    @Cacti: Always feels like there’s a lot of deferred dental care on this here site. Sorry if you feel the input is unhelpful, but can someone please explain the point of just being good old fashioned mean and rude when someone is trying to kick in 2 cents towards helping?

    I live in the heart of the heart of the place that elected this catastrophe and I deal with these people Every. Single. Day. I don’t know where you live or where you get your views of them, but on the whole, they really are miserable, sad, angry people facing decline. Are they on the whole doing it badly? Yes. Were they a pretty ratty crew even before they became demoralized Fentanyl-stalked punchlines? By most accounts. Is actively trying to make them feel worse and be worse going to help them or us? No. You’re looking at a bunch of abused children and arguing they just need more beating.

    This whole line (including telling people who see it a different way to “fuck-off” eight clever ways to Sunday strikes me as profoundly illiberal. A lot of people here seem to want revenge on the stump they stubbed their toe on. I just don’t think that’s going to get us anywhere, sorry if you think I’m being pretentious or know-it-all-ish to mention it.

  110. 110.

    ruemara

    @Kryptik: This. I only get work from the desperate who are also abusive. I love doing what I do at the new place, but I’ve also worked a 14 day work week on a project where I’m the only person who can do the work and it was a mess I wasn’t involved in that started spring of 2016. Everyone working on it had & has less experience. And it’s a miracle I have the skills & ability to do it at all, as it wasn’t what I was hired for. It’s too common for me to be a hail mary, “everyone else has fucked up so I’ll try the black lady” hire. And if that wasn’t a key factor in Obama’s appeal in 08, I’m Tiffany Trump.

  111. 111.

    p.a.

    @Ian G.: Early wake up call for ’em I think: corporations always rightly interpret Rethug victories as carte blanche for the war on workers and consumers.

  112. 112.

    Calouste

    So what does the Unimpeached Traitor mean with his “Day of Patriotism”? I assume it’s going to be on the date known until this morning as “Dr. Martin Luther King Day”.

  113. 113.

    Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA

    @Ian G.: That’s my plan. I’m waiting for the first Trump voter to lose his health coverage — I’ve got a big, cheerful “Well, you sure showed us!” queued up and ready to go. I imagine there’ll be a lot of that soon.

    And I will laugh. Oh, how I will laugh.

  116. 116.

    Starfish

    @Major Major Major Major: It appears you are having a conversation with an uninformed tech know-it-all. There are a million better ways to spend your time than being condescended to by someone who does not know what he is talking about. Let’s go read some Ars Technica.

  117. 117.

    FlipYrWhig

    @darrel wright:

    You’re looking at a bunch of abused children and arguing they just need more beating.

    “Abused children”? Christ almighty. No, I’m looking at a bunch of abusers and arguing they need to feel some additional pain themselves. I don’t feel for their misery. I want to deepen their misery.

  118. 118.

    Ian G.

    @Kryptik:

    They’re not, and like I said, fuck them. Hard. What I’m saying is they’re only about half of Trump’s voters. I think a wise woman made a similar point about “deplorables”.

  119. 119.

    darrel wright

    @Humboldtblue: If the super feisty among us here hadn’t so worn out the term “fuck you” on everything and everything within their reach I’d take offense. Since people spout it here like “howdy neighbor” I’ll just say ‘good DAY sir’ in my best Gene Wilder.

  121. 121.

    bemused

    Just heard Bikers for Trump mentioned on msnbc. Really? I hope it’s the competing Bikers for Trump groups (2 or more?) pummeling each other.

  123. 123.

    oklahomo

    @Humboldtblue: Preach it. I have a neighbor who was convinced if Hillary won. she would complete taking the guns started by Obama. And he’s suspicious that since a rabbi was speaking at the inauguration, it might mean the Trump admin was bowing to the Joooz and would come for his guns. Fuck these people. They are cancer.

  125. 125.

    The Moar You Know

    No, I’m looking at a bunch of abusers and arguing they need to feel some additional pain themselves. I don’t feel for their misery. I want to deepen their misery.

    @FlipYrWhig: This. I know quite a few Trump voters, sadly. Not a one could you remotely describe as “abused”, that was the most ludicrous thing I’ve read all day and I’ve been reading some STUPID shit on my Failbook feed today.

  126. 126.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Yarrow:

    About the only slight positive I can see from this mess is that the Republicans own the shit that’s going to happen.

    They’ll own it if Democrats don’t vote along with them. Otherwise any blame for Trump’s mishaps will be bipartisan. Or so we will be told by Republicans.

  127. 127.

    Humboldtblue

    This whole line (including telling people who see it a different way to “fuck-off” eight clever ways to Sunday strikes me as profoundly illiberal. A lot of people here seem to want revenge on the stump they stubbed their toe on. I just don’t think that’s going to get us anywhere, sorry if you think I’m being pretentious or know-it-all-ish to mention it.

    Who the fuck is “us” motherfucker? I just watched a fucking criminal be sworn in as president and the fucking ignorant fucking clowns you are defending are directly responsible for it. I hope they fucking suffer, I hope their fucking health care gets cut and they can’t afford food and they can’t afford to heat their homes. I hope they fucking suffer because they are fucking responsible for their own fucking suffering and they sure as shit asked for it.

    They right wing and its supporters have made war on decent humanitarian principles since the end of WW2. They have stood in the path of every attempt to ensure that every motherfucking American has access to all the benefits this country can offer and now you want us to turn the other fucking cheek after they have used their deep-seated racial resentment to elect a man so unqualified for the position he makes Palin appear a saint? ?

    Fuck this noise, they have declared war on my country and they openly and proudly declared that they hate all that I value. I will knock a motherfucker out before I ever look to them as a fellow citizen of worth and honor, so fuck off.

    And it’s not a fucking good day either, you fucking bint.

  128. 128.

    Ian G.

    @oklahomo:

    Remind him that Kushner has Trump’s ear. Hint that it’s part of the global Jewish conspiracy. Make him go hide in his basement and get a laugh out of it.

    Like I said. Fuck. These. People.

  130. 130.

    Shell

    When the Trumps arrived to meet the Obamas at the WH, they gave them a gift in a powder blue box. Wonder what it was. Something from Tiffanys?

  131. 131.

    Kay

    Trump made “enormous sacrifices,” Conway said. “He actually gave up more money, more power, more prestige, more position than he will have.”

    No President ever says the job is a sacrifice. Ever.

    They’re bad, unlikable people. Ungenerous. Ungrateful. Hopefully they don’t wear well.

  133. 133.

    oklahomo

    @Ian G.: He’ll hide in his tornado shelter that he gets a tax break for, with his Obama Phone, gobbling his Medicare opioids (better than meth, I guess). Fucking hypocrites and scum.

  135. 135.

    Turgidson

    @Ian G.:

    But just like the Granny Starver himself, the WSJ ed board types will probably be willing to politely clap when told and look the other way on any number of heinous atrocities if they think it gets them closer to their goal of wheeling poor, sick and/or elderly people out of hospitals and doctors’ offices and telling them to pick themselves up by their bootstraps because those sockulist abominations the ACA and Medicare are gone and now they all have more freedumb.

    So maybe they won’t be Trump’s Pravda, but I doubt they show much spine in criticizing him, either, until it looks safe or expedient to do so without harming the plutocracy agenda.

  136. 136.

    Patricia Kayden

    @FlipYrWhig: Thank you!! My sentiments exactly. Why should I give a dang about people who hate my guts (for being a Black, foreign-born liberal woman)? Not understanding this “please be nice to Trump supporters even though they’re racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic” meme. Doesn’t make a lick of sense.

  137. 137.

    Formica

    @Major Major Major Major: I think the best way to describe the Signal situation vis a vis what TMYK is saying is thus:

    Signal provides excellent in-flight security. That is, if our boys at Fort Meade are sucking up data and sifting for keywords, you’re probably safe. OTR, Signal, and WhatsApp are probably secure enough to avoid that kind of dragnet action.

    What TMYK points out (and I agree with him) is that these apps do nothing to address endpoint security. That is, if Fort Meade wants to own your phone, or if law enforcement gains physical access to your phone, they can probably read whatever they want. In concept these practices require quaint things like warrants, which the FISA court hands out like candy for spooks.

    I would add that it is trivial to record all the IMEIs (unique identifiers for phones) that connect to particular towers, thus making it easy to “prove you were there”. I think the Ukrainians used similar tactics during the Maidan protests a few years back.

    If I’ve misrepresented what either of you are saying, please flame me.

    Protip: Signal allows auto expiring messages that disappear after a specified time. In this way you can pre-emptively wipe your conversations.

    @The Moar You Know: what is your opinion of TAILS for truly paranoid communication? It strikes me as about as secure as an endpoint can get for non-agency users, provided it is in use for both endpoints.

  140. 140.

    darrel wright

    @Humboldtblue: O.K., maybe not a day for being constructive, gnash away, have a contest for who can be more raw and angry on the internet. hopefully I’ve at least provided an avenue for catharsis or something.

    You do realize you’d be shouting “fuck you” at Obama in about 5 seconds if you tried to have a dialogue with him.

  141. 141.

    Kay

    Nope. Still don’t like him. My initial impression was 100% correct as far as I can tell. Now there’s just more people like him, what with all the horrors he hired plus his grown children. It’s getting worse.

  142. 142.

    Patricia Kayden

    @oklahomo:

    Fuck these people. They are cancer

    No no no! They’re abused children for whom we should have nothing but compassion. Doesn’t matter how bigoted they are. For some reason, we’re supposed to have pity for these abused children who voted for an unqualified, dangerous Bigot to run our country (into the ground).

  143. 143.

    Cacti

    @darrel wright:

    Always feels like there’s a lot of deferred dental care on this here site. Sorry if you feel the input is unhelpful, but can someone please explain the point of just being good old fashioned mean and rude when someone is trying to kick in 2 cents towards helping?

    Because it doesn’t help.

    I grew up in “real America”. I understand why it is the way it is just fine.

    Rabid Trump partisans are never going to vote for the Democrat under any circumstance. The non-rabid ones were willing to ignore his numerous flaws. As with the last disastrous GOP POTUS, this type of voter didn’t change their mind until they started to experience real suffering from his policies. At that point, it’s time to treat them like adults and tell them they’re suffering because they elected a moron. So, don’t elect a moron next time.

  144. 144.

    Humboldtblue

    @darrel wright:

    I’m tired of being told that I have to take a step back, be more accommodating and ensure that I give plenty of time and space to the angry fucking racists who voted out of sheer resentment when they cast a ballot for Trump. Tomorrow is not going to be better, do you fucking understand that? It’s going to be worse and then it will be worse the day after that and it will keep getting worse because the selfish, stupid, deeply hateful asshole you keep standing up for made it happen. I don’t give a shit what Obama would say either, we see how much success he had accommodating a vile and resentful party bent on hurting me and those I love.

    This shit doesn’t stop tomorrow and you can keep pretending that it will be OK in the end if we only extend our arms to people who would fucking shit on us if given the chance. There is a clear and stark difference between me and those who voted for Trump and I’m not going to ignore it.

  145. 145.

    oklahomo

    @schrodingers_cat: A close relative, who owns no guns, spouts the same bullshit (I’m surprised this years Xmas cards didn’t have a Pepe frog on them). Except two weeks ago, his wife was diagnosed with diabetes. Now needs insulin. Now they are like, oh no, we don’t want them to take Obamacare from people who “need” it. Refuses to discuss former love and kisses and votes for Trump, but can’t bring themselves to think about democrats because unions. No sympathy for these idiots. None at all.

  146. 146.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Humboldtblue: Trump supporters are tweeting that his folks couldn’t come out to the inauguration in numbers comparable to President Obama’s first inauguration because they have to work (unlike us lazy liberals). If that’s true, doesn’t that show that President Obama’s legacy in creating jobs has been successful? So successful that Trump’s supporters now have jobs and thus cannot attend the inauguration ceremony.

  147. 147.

    darrel wright

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Not understanding this “please be nice to Trump supporters even though they’re racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic” meme. Doesn’t make a lick of sense.

    Of course no one quite said “please be nice to Trump supporters.” What I am arguing is that lumping them all together in one basket and mocking them is pragmatically foolish. This may not be the day for pragmatism.

  148. 148.

    bemused

    @Cacti:

    I also live in “real America” and you are exactly right. The more rabid ones will always try to blame liberals and Dems when they get kicked in the teeth by the GOP. That will be a lot harder for them to do that now that GOP has all the power. Still, I expect some will still try to blame Dems and I will enjoy mocking them.

  149. 149.

    oklahomo

    @Patricia Kayden: After the Dixie Flag blow up last year, we had 2 or 3 flaggots on the daily commute to entertain us, but they also flew a Stars and Stripes with their dixie shit. Last nite going home and this morning coming in to the office I counted 16 morons in their shit cars and beat up 1978 Ford pickups flying the dixie battle flag, not even a star and stripes with it. I’m not sure how to convince these folk to rethink their stands on race, and I don’t really care. They are assholes and useless assholes at that.

  150. 150.

    ET

    They just showed some video of the parade route at the Navy Memorial and Archives and there aren’t that many people and there was supposed to be a protest that was permitted. I definitely think that there aren’t that many people. My memory for Obama was people had a hard time moving around.

    Having any attention drawn away from his glorious self on HIS day is going to poss him off.

  151. 151.

    gene108

    @darrel wright:

    I live in the heart of the heart of the place that elected this catastrophe and I deal with these people Every. Single. Day. I don’t know where you live or where you get your views of them, but on the whole, they really are miserable, sad, angry people facing decline. Are they on the whole doing it badly? Yes. Were they a pretty ratty crew even before they became demoralized Fentanyl-stalked punchlines? By most accounts. Is actively trying to make them feel worse and be worse going to help them or us? No. You’re looking at a bunch of abused children and arguing they just need more beating.

    From the late 1960’s to the early 1990’s, urban America was in a state of decline. The factory jobs, shipyards and other places that gave non-college educated folks jobs moved out. People with money to move to the suburbs did, leaving behind poor people, with few job prospects.

    Crime, drug use, etc. became serious problems.

    And what I remember from rural America is the urban people need to take personal responsibility for their actions. There’s no reason to be a criminal. The good folks in rural Indiana or Ohio are not joining up for street gangs. They are well behaved kids, who respect the law and Jesus. If only families in urban America were stronger and the girls quit being sluts and having kids out of wedlock and the boys quit joining gangs knocking all the girls up, everything self-correct.

    Others just wanted the urban folks to fuck off and die.

    And now we are supposed to put that behind us and cast all our sympathy for people, who are going through what big cities went through a couple of generations ago?

    They need to cock up like the cities did and find ways to rebuild their communities.

  153. 153.

    gene108

    @darrel wright:

    What I am arguing is that lumping them all together in one basket and mocking them is pragmatically foolish. This may not be the day for pragmatism.

    The only reason to be nice to them is that our government, by design, is slanted towards over representation of rural areas.

    If we want to retake Congress, we’ll need the votes from people in rural America.

  155. 155.

    darrel wright

    @Humboldtblue: I’m not telling you you have to take a step back. I’m not telling you what you have to do at all. I’m offering a perspective that you may want to consider, I think it’s a more practical way to win and also one that won’t ruin your life and leave you spouting fuck you at every shadow of a shadow.

    I get that this blog has always had a “fuck you I’m not going to be a pu ss y liberal” bent, and it’s bound to come out in spades with this congealed lump of hate and hair grafts now riding roughshod over the seemingly meager progress we made. I just honestly believe I can see how this whole trump thing works, like I say I’m cheek to jowl with these stunted people. This whole thing thrives on the loathing and mockery. “Basket of deplorables” is one of the things that made this horror possible, and a whole lot of folks seem to want to do the “you think that was bad, wait ’til you see what I call you NEXT!!!” The true-bred basket dwellers LOVE it, and the half that aren’t sure whether you’re saying they are in it or not jump in and start singing along.

    I’m going to keep coming back to it. Hate is too heavy a burden to bear. That is a brilliant insight and a PRACTICAL insight.

  158. 158.

    Это курам на смех

    @Kryptik:

    The “Lock her up” crowd is never going to see the light, and seems utterly impervious to any attempts to do so. Mockery is the only way to get through to them and outside observers sometimes.

    They mock us with just as much acerbic glee. Do their diatribes “get through” to us? Of course not; they just make us hate them all the more. And vice versa. We mock them because they deserve it, not because it will change their views, which are utterly impervious. We mock them to strengthen our resolve, and because it’s fun. In times like these, making fun of these losers keeps us from sinking into hopelessness and depression.

    These motherfuckers can all go to hell. We need only to outvote them.

    I’m more concerned about getting purity progs to vote, not about changing right wing minds. But the purists believe they are above the fray, and refuse to vote.

    To save America we have to take the Congress back in 2018. Nothing is more important.

  159. 159.

    Doug R

    @darrel wright: During the Arab spring, protesters would use Bluetooth when the government shut down the network.
    Like them, I think we should be more worried about communicating than secrecy.

  160. 160.

    ruemara

    @darrel wright: You’re not being pragmatic. You’re trying to bamboozle people. If you voted for Trump, you were not only ok with misogyny and racism, you were down with overt, dangerous and horrible levels of it. You deserve no quarter, no forgiveness without asking. I will hold no hand out for them until they humbly request forgiveness. I will never, ever grant it just because. I won’t give them the out of claiming abuse, because so many abuse victims rise above their abusers and are graceful, tolerant, loving people despite all the pain. You are trying to get us to extend something to people who have consistently attacked us even as we’ve done things that saved their repellent asses.There will be no forgiveness for those who haven’t learned contrition. Let them have their havoc, it will destroy them first.

  161. 161.

    Это курам на смех

    @gene108:

    If we want to retake Congress, we’ll need the votes from people in rural America.

    No. We don’t. We outnumber them. We need the votes of so-called Democrats who are too lazy, or smug, to vote in midterms.

  162. 162.

    Patricia Kayden

    @darrel wright: Why don’t you take your song and dance to a Rightwing website and let them know that they need to stop being racist, sexist, etc.? I’ll be cordial to them when they stop being bigots. Otherwise, I am not going to treat them kindly or send nice thoughts their way. I hope they suffer hard under Trump since he’s their man. They deserve no less than that. A huge part of their vote was to cause suffering to “others” (i.e., people who don’t look like them or worship the same god). It’s only fitting that they get what they wanted others to get.

  163. 163.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @darrel wright: This just in:

    Joan Walsh
    ✔
    @joanwalsh

    Two white 20-something men just walked past the long line at the Holocaust Museum and yelled “Six million Jews! Alright!”

  167. 167.

    humboldtblue

    @darrel wright: They fucking hate you and all you stand for. Even when their health is literally on the line they despise you with the fire of a million suns and vote against their best interest. I don’t care anymore and to be honest the largest and most frustrating line of bullshit that came out of this election was this deep deep concern for the plight of the poor downtrodden working white man struggling to get to middle class.

    It was the already-middle class and the wealthy whites who voted for Trump in droves because fuck you that’s why.

    We don’t need them and we don’t need to spend the time and energy to try and bring some sense to people abhor reason and operate solely on spite. There are far too many people who didn’t vote and I am far more interested in getting them to the polls than any outreach to the vile, resentful and deeply hateful right wing. Let them eat their own shit, maybe you can give them some bread for a sandwich.

  168. 168.

    rikyrah

    @Humboldtblue:

    If you voted for Trump you’re a fucking traitor and if you’re so fucking ill-informed or willfully ignorant that you now think you made a mistake, fuck you twice. Go talk to some people in Ohio and North Carolina who were prevented from voting what they fucking think of Trump and the GOP and then go fuck yourself with this bullshit “we need these people.” Only if we’re making fucking soylent green, maybe.

    Got nothing to add.

  170. 170.

    Miss Bianca

    @darrel wright: I live among these people too, and the Trump voters among them are as dumb as the stump you compared them to. Do us a favor and don’t come hillbilly-splainin’ to us. Most of us here need a safe space to vent while we deal with idiot Trump voters in our lives telling us to “think positive!” and “hope for the best!” and “get over it!” while we observe the shambling shitshow that their venality – or lack of thought – has condemned us to. While we observe the planned demise of the ACA, the attempted handover of federal land to the states and the Kochs, and other horrors as yet unnamed and unimagined. It’s starting to feel like a form of gaslighting. Yes, these neighbors, these family members, are human beings who I nominally give a shit about. But their monumental inability to imagine giving a shit about anyone who doesn’t look like them is going to take a while for me to forgive. Just…back off.

  171. 171.

    tybee

    @Humboldtblue:

    …Fuck this noise, they have declared war on my country and they openly and proudly declared that they hate all that I value. I will knock a motherfucker out before I ever look to them as a fellow citizen of worth and honor, so fuck off.

    And it’s not a fucking good day either, you fucking bint.

    dead thread but that was an excellent rant.

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