It’s kind of breathtaking how these guys just really do not give one fuck about openly, brazenly, repeatedly lying about shit:
“I think there have been studies; there was one that came out of Pew in 2008 that showed 14 percent of people who have voted were not citizens. There are other studies that were presented to him.”
–White House press secretary Sean Spicer, news briefing, Jan. 24, 2017
Spicer cited repeatedly debunked research to support Trump’s claim that millions of people voted illegally during the 2016 presidential election. These studies do not support Trump’s Four-Pinocchio claims of “millions” of people voting illegally — as we’ve covered here, here, here, here and here.
Spicer claimed Trump believes there was widespread voter fraud, based on studies that were presented to him. Then Spicer cited a Pew study that — as we noted before — does not support this claim. Moreover, Spicer conflated the Pew study with another study that — again — does not support this claim.
I mean, bless the WaPo for trying and I hope everyone in the media keeps it up, but these guys just don’t care. It’s astounding. Al Franken needs to update his book, but it is going to take a team effort.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Why not ? They’ve been doing it for decades and keep winning. There’s no downside for them.
Elizabelle
Character will out.
Smiling Mortician
I really resent how quickly these assholes harshed my mellow from the Women’s March. I’m back to anxiety nightmares again. I used to love sleeping. Fuck these guys.
low-tech cyclist
Doesn’t take much for Cheeto Pinocchio’s nose to be longer than his fingers.
Dave
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: The near future will determine the limits of this strategy. I’m actually optimistic, heaven help me, that they’ve pushed it as far as it can go and it’s near backfiring. Or more accurately it probably works far better as opposition as opposed to when you are in actual power. We shall see. And even if it works the damage that will be done is going to range from significant to catastrophic.
Hunter Gathers
Shorter Sean Spicer:
Keep fucking that chicken, you pair of fucking clown shoes.
Raoul
@Smiling Mortician: I’ll tell you what is harshing my march buzz: A unanimous vote to approve Ben Carson out of committee. Sens Warren and Sherrod Brown are on that committee.
I dunno if Kay is around and can talk me off the ledge, but I’m about 5 seconds from being done with the Democratic Party. WTF is going on?
Did Warren not notice 175,000 people marching in Boston on Saturday? Did she interpret that as, oh, yeah Ben Carson said nice things in a hearing, all good!
Utterly demoralizing. And utterly stupid seeming. There is no value in collaborating with fascism.
amk
wapo running out of Pinocchios? why only four?
XTPD
Worth keeping in mind that this isn’t being done as a grand strategy so much as a deep sense of arschverletzung.
He also got the date on this picture wrong.
Ian G.
@Dave:
I think this fails too, because they were just too brazen about it too soon. Had they waited for something more opaque and subtle, like crime stats or the unemployment rate, they may have been able to sell it to the media and the great middle of the country. Now, everyone is going to assume everything the administration says is bullshit.
I mean, they wouldn’t have that toad Lamar Smith shrieking about how Dear Leader is the Truth and the Light if it were working.
Oatler.
They can say and do anything now. It’s a religion, and they’re cutting off communication to the heretic sect to make resistance harder. Or so they think.
Mart
Makes me wonder if these idiots actually vote. Your name is only on one list at one polling place. Once you sign in, no more voting for you. How the hell do you cheat this?
I had an absentee ballot this year. When plans changed I went to the church to vote in person. When signing in they red flagged me and kicked me out of line. I had to go home to retrieve then surrender the absentee ballot – that was torn up, before the would clear me to vote.
Warren Terra
One worrisome thing to think about: during the campaign, every time Trump made an accusation about his opponents it turned out to be an instance of Projection, something that he’d done or would soon do himself. Every damned time. And now, here he is, claiming Clinton benefited from three to five million illegal votes.
I’m not saying he committed election fraud, and especially not by drumming up huge numbers of illegal votes. There’s no evidence at all anything of the sort happened, and it would be essentially impossible to do. But, I am saying that he would like to do so, that he’d do it if he could – and that’s why he accuses others of doing it.
J R in WV
I’m pretty sure the reality is that in this year’s general election, 4 people were caught trying to vote fraudulently. So the Republican “Alternate Fact” is off by 6 orders of magnitude, approximately. Not that they know what an order of magnitude actually is!
Off by 2,999,996 or so, if they’re sticking to that 3 million votes number. Can they do subtraction? Without a calculator? Maybe so, maybe no. Probably not, or they wouldn’t be calling out a false number.
Liar, Liar, Spicer, Spicer.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Who’s going to primary Warren and Brown now, they are neoliberal sellouts. I guess Wilmer is our only hope. Seriously, who cares about these votes. I want them fighting for the ACA, Medicare, Medicaid, SS, the environment, and National Parks. If they don’t do that, then, yeah fuck them all.
hovercraft
Re-posting from downstairs.
He would never, ever lie.
Rep. Lamar Smith: ‘Better To Get News Directly From Trump’
The push to delegitimize the main stream media by Trump surrogates continued as Rep. Lamar Smith, the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee needs to reassess his duties at that committee chair since he believes Donald Trump is the only person capable of delivering the news because he speaks “the unvarnished truth.”
Rep. Smith whined that if Donald was a Democrat, the media would be reporting on the new president much differently.
Lamar said the liberal media won’t report that Trump is strong like bull. Or something to that effect.
Rep. Smith said, “No, the national liberal media won’t print that or air it or post it,” Smith said. “Better to get your news directly from the President. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.”
Politifact reported that Trump’s statements were either mostly false, false, or pants on fire 70% of the time.
The Toronto Star collected almost 500 lies Trump told during the campaign.
azlib
We appear to be dealing with a mentally unstable President surrounding by either sycophants or the cynically ambitious. This will not end well.
Jordan Rules
@Raoul: This is exactly how I feel right now as well. I hope I’m missing something, but I feel like the idea (expressed more eloquently elsewhere) of Dems continuing to play chess after the GOP wiped the game off the table and set the house on fire is apt.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Raoul:
Is she perhaps playing nice now in anticipation of bigger battles or so that Dems can point to some bit of collegiality?
Collegiality is pointless, of course, with this lot.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Mart: Anyone with half a brain would figure out how hard it is to cheat at voting, but I think I answered my own question.
amk
@azlib: yup. peak wingnut is here.
trollhattan
@Warren Terra:
Fact: 95% of all illegal votes were for Trump. Pass it on.
Mike J
Last week when Adam posted his hints for going to a protest, I added that you should not under any circumstances ever take your primary phone. Take a burner if you need one.
Here’s why.
Ian G.
The problem with Trump is that he has the “mind” of the most insane, notorious 3rd world tyrants like Idi Amin or Saparmurat Niyazov, but there’s too much of the liberal democratic infrastructure in this country for it to work. Aside from the 27% that would fly a jetliner into a skyscraper if he tweeted that doing so would get them 72 virgins in heaven, nobody is buying what this imbecile has to say.
I don’t know what goes through Paul Ryan’s mind on a daily basis, but I have to assume he’s reasonably in touch with reality. At some point, he’s going to have to pull the plug on this, right? I mean, he’d still get Pence as president. It’s not like Liz Warren is next in line.
Dave
@Mart: What they do is scream about things like voter rolls not being updated due to deaths, relocation, etc and bad or fake registrations and then extrapolate that this equals massive in person fraud. Which makes zero sense. I’m sure some happens probably significantly more than is found but if that is even as many as 10,000 votes out of the 130,000,000 cast in a presidential year I’d be pretty much shocked. The problem is it sounds intuitive registration issues equals vote issues and it takes more than a sentence to disprove so it isn’t soundbite friendly. And since know one they no ever voted for that damned Kenyan or Hitlary it must be the case that massive fraud is ongoing. It’s poisonous.
Smiling Mortician
@Raoul: Hadn’t heard that yet. Fuck.
hovercraft
If you liberals are going to try to de-legitimize our guy, we’re going to do the same to your guy. I guess they missed the last eight years?
Besides they’re wasting their time, Obama
Most recent polls for President Barack Obama:
Gallup Poll [b] January 13-15, 2017 57%
Monmouth University January 12-15, 2017 58%
NBC/The Wall Street Journal [c] January 12-15, 2017 56%
Quinnipiac University January 5-9, 2017 55%
Gallup Trump 45 %
Suck it assholes, Obama’s will go up from here, the shitgibbons will go into the gutter where they belong ;-)
Jordan Rules
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Why not just vote no because they aren’t qualified? Gillibrand managed to do it and we know she’s still going to fight on the other stuff.
Housing is a big deal.
Keith P.
Spicer doesn’t look like he’ll be able to handle the job for too long. How long that will be is a question. From the looks of it, he wouldn’t last a month, but that would look so bad that they’d find a way to keep him on for a bit…illness or something. Of course, Scott McClellan lasted way longer than I expected, too.
dm
They’re generating Wheaties to fuel their supporters’ Gish gallop marathons. When you refuse to deal with their bullshit, you will be the unreasonable one — more bubble-wrap for their world view.
janelle
@low-tech cyclist: In fairness, those are some pretty tiny fingers we’re talking about.
amygdala
The EPA clampdown today is frightening. If he tries this on NIH, I hope Francis Collins steps down. Can’t do anything about CDC, since Tom Frieden has already left.
It didn’t work out well in Canada when Harper did this. It won’t be a good thing on this side of the border, either.
Gravenstone
@Ian G.:
Won’t work either. You can pretty much guarantee they’ll be brazen (stupid) enough that a curve of the those stats (publicly available for historic reference) will show an essentially vertical departure of their first data point from the historic norm, in whichever direction those clowns deem most advantageous for their “argument”.
dogwood
@Raoul:
Not surprised at all that the Dems are going for Carson in a big way. Gives them some cred down the road that they tried to cooperate. Doubt that HUD is gonna be the center of attention in this administration;the big scandals will come from other agencies.
dedc79
I subscribed to the Washington Post because of how aggressively they went after Trump during the presidential campaign. As it turns out, I can’t actually bring myself to read their coverage since Election Day (too depressing), but i’m happy to keep paying, and presumably at some point I’ll be able to start reading it again.
Raoul
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: HUD has huge impacts over poor and disabled people’s lives. White, black, gay, old, immigrant, everything.
And it’s not like voting no on Carson keeps your powder dry. There’s not a limited supply of ‘No’ votes, as McConnell amply demonstrated for 8 f*king years.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Jordan Rules: I don’t know, I guess maybe they’re saving they’re ammo. Who knows? I mean the next 4 years are going to be a shit sammich. We are just going to have to to hate a lot of it and we can’t really stop most of it. So fight the important stuff ? Like I said if they don’t fight the important stuff then fuck ’em.
schrodingers_cat
All this news is making me physically ill. I need at least a week long break. See you next month.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Raoul: Yeah, I knew I’d get flamed for that comment, but I got no outrage left except for major issues.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Raoul: Also, meant to say, there will be a limit of no votes for Democrats because IOKIYR.
zhena gogolia
@dedc79:
I just glance at it for the headlines. They also send an e-mail of the most-read stories, and I occasionally click on those. I find it less upsetting than the NYT. I’ll never forgive them for e-mails, e-mails, e-mails.
MuckJagger
My cousin — who is a moderate — insists she does not want to lose friends who are on the other side.
Today one of those friends on the other side left this poop on my Facebook feed: Map of the U.S. and Mexico with the text “Having a wall here is racist” (arrow pointing to a proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall), followed by “But having a wall here is totally fine.” (arrow pointing to the wall between Mexico and Guatemala).
It’s like cockroaches — you stamp out one meme, and there’s another two dozen that will *immediately* take its place.
Dave
@schrodingers_cat: Pretty sure to to the degree they strategize that’s the point. Personally I don’t think much strategy is going on but I may be wrong. Regardless take the break that you need. I’ve been mainlining news myself and will need to take one soon for my own mental health.
zhena gogolia
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
I’m not flaming you. I think the Dems in Congress are actually very worried, and I assume they know better than I do which things are worth screaming about. The bottom line is we have no power. Voting no on everything is like an English horn solo.
prob50
@Raoul:
“No” votes from Warren & Brown would not have derailed this nomination. There will be more important issues and places to raise their voices coming up pretty soon.
Suggest you chill a little and then resume your “march buzz.”
dedc79
@MuckJagger: Did you share this snopes link?
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@zhena gogolia: Ha, I used to play the oboe.
elm
I’m paraphrasing somebody here because I can’t find the original quote.
The purpose of these lies is not to communicate information. Fact-checking them misses the point entirely.
The purpose of these lies (and other right wing lies) is to create justification for some policy they want to push. In this case, they intend to disenfranchise people, so they make up stories about widespread voter fraud.
In other cases, they intend to attack Planned Parenthood, so they lie about selling baby parts.
The lies don’t contain information themselves, but they tell you the priorities and mindset of the liars. Confront that rather than merely the lies. If you’re explaining, you’re losing.
zhena gogolia
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
So you know the old joke? Why is playing an English horn solo like p–ing your pants? It gives you a warm feeling, but nobody else notices.
zhena gogolia
@elm:
It’s helpful to have the media fact-checking, though. Think how we’d be screaming if they weren’t.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@zhena gogolia: New to me, but so true.
MuckJagger
@dedc79: Yep. Not to the post, because that’s useless — all the guy would do would be to start screaming at liberals.
But to my cousin, yes. :-)
Jordan Rules
@prob50:
This is true so why not vote no? He’s unqualified and housing is important. That is a fine message to send and be done with it. Move on to the ‘bigger’ stuff.
retiredeng
So, widespread voter fraud huh? Why does that mean the hairball won more? We need a new election if it was rigged. He does know we can all hear him. Right?
El Caganer
@Warren Terra: Maybe he’s projecting the millions of votes suppressed on his behalf. That’s a form of fraud, too.
MomSense
What reason do they have for pushing this lie so hard? Is it to usher in some new, horrific voting laws?
How the hell do we get rid of these assholes? Sessions, McConnell, Comey, Ryan, and Pompeo certainly won’t do anything.
dogwood
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Perfect. People who want to micromanage their representatives’ every move are setting themselves up for unnecessary angst. Democratic Senators have little power right now. We have to face this and recognize they have a right to pick their battles.
(((CassandraLeo)))
I feel compelled to note that Franken’s original book was also a team effort. He had a team of (Harvard, I think) researchers who helped him compile all the lies, and then wrote jokes around them. He’ll easily need to quadruple the size of his team to write a new book, though. There’s just too much to sort through.
elm
@zhena gogolia: In this case, they’re just barely doing their jobs. If you’re explaining then you are losing.
This 12 word headline “Recidivism Watch: Spicer uses repeatedly debunked citations for Trump’s voter fraud claims” is spineless and worthless. Rewrite to “Spicer lies about vote fraud (part N)”.
Or talk about why they are claiming vote fraud — they’re claiming it as part of a large scale attack on American’s voting rights.
@MomSense:
Exactly the right question and almost certainly the right answer. This is what the WaPo should be covering.
Dave
@MomSense: Honestly I think that it will be used for that but the original push is because the Orangymandias is fragile and raging. The smarter and more strategic people around him will try to use this to their advantage but ultimately the origin is his own frailty and rage. Of course this narrative exists to declare democrats as not legitimate and because minorities really aren’t supposed to vote and to justify voter surpression laws but regarding Trump he believes it because it salves his ego.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
Sorry you are upset. Hope it gets better for you. I too am tense and anxious about things. The Marches of millions of women and their male supporters helped me a whole lot.
Take care!
EBT
@MuckJagger: Tell you cousin to get her shit in line and stop being friends with racists and nazis.
Roger Moore
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Yes, there’s a huge potential downside for them. If the media decides they’ve gone too far and gets back in the habit of using the word “lie” when Republicans say something untrue, it may not stop with the Trump administration’s huge whoppers. They may actually start judging the truth of everything Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, et. al. say, which would be devastating to their whole political strategy.
LM Alcott
@dogwood:
This is a good point.
Dave
@Roger Moore: Agreed the strategy worked in a certain environment. That environment may cease to exist and with it the viability of the strategy. And I hope to the Gods this will be the case.
waspuppet
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Complaining and lying. Who said Trump was a different kind of Republican?
J R in WV
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
“Ha, I used to play the oboe.”
And I used to play the Tuba… shouldn’t we find another person who played an odd instrument and form a group? Harpist maybe…. ;-)
prob50
@dogwood:
This.
EBT
@J R in WV: I feel bad for any band missing a tuba or an oboe.
bystander
Sorry if this is a repeat post but the #freemelania meme is pretty funny. Especially, the last one.
Raoul
@prob50: Of course two no votes would not have derailed the nominee. I’m not a moron.
What I am saying is that Warren and Brown risk pissing away resistance momentum just days after it was built at the march. So far no one has offered what I’d call a viable upside reason for voting yes. “Save it for later” suggests there’s something to be gained tactically by this yes.
Help me see what is gained. And a shrug of ‘other things more important’ is not uncovering an upside – it is suggesting that housing discrimination is an OK tradeoff. It isn’t.
Mike J
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
An ill wind that no one blows good.
Raoul
@MomSense:
Absolutely yes.
Feebog
Think about the absurdity of 3 to 5 million undocumented residents illegally voting in the last election. By most estimates we have about 11 million undocumented people in this country. That means around 30 to 40 percent of all the undocumented voted in the last election. Math, how does it fucking work?
Smiling Mortician
@dogwood:
Dunno about that. Did you see Senator Warren questioning him in the hearing? He refused to answer whether he could guarantee that Trump wouldn’t get rich off HUD building contracts.
Jordan Rules
@Raoul: Yeah. I’m not trying to micromanage them and I’m certainly not suggesting that we primary them, I just don’t get it.
zhena gogolia
@bystander:
Hilarious!
bupalos
@elm: That’s what needs to happen.
“Administration Repeats False Claims of Voter Impersonation Fraud, seeking to Shrink Eligible U.S. Electorate.”
Jeffro
@Feebog:
RWNJs will just say that the 11 million is an undercount, there’s actually 30 million “illegals”…don’t fall for it. Just call them to their face what they are: insane liars.
If they’re so convinced that 5 million people voted illegally, why the hell aren’t they screaming for an investigation?!? Why can’t they produce one shred of proof? Because they’re fucking liars, that’s why. Their boy is illegitimate and they know it and WE know it and let’s drive him fucking insane(er) so that he’ll drive them insane and they’ll crack.
amk
@Raoul: There is no upside or any strategy in their voting, regardless of ‘things they might know but not available to us’. It will only disgust more dem voters hastening the death spiral. checks and balances be damned.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@J R in WV: Oh man, what horrible combination, we shoulda been booked at the Inaugural balls. We would been yoooooge !
Jordan Rules
Alright, calling Senator McCain’s office again to plead for investigations into Russia’s election interference to continue.
Revrick
It’s not that they don’t care about lies, it’s just that authoritarians such as Trump instinctively know that creating confusion and chaos are their best allies. Lies, belligerence, stirring the pot. It’s all the same. It increases the likelihood that a certain portion of the population will look for the strong man on the white horse to save them. And didn’t Trump base his whole campaign on the “fact” that “he” knew all the “answers” to our problems, and all “we” had to do was “believe” him?
This tweet storm by pookleblinky shows how it works: https://storify.com/miniver/how-fascism-accumulates-power-by-testing-people
Jeffro
@Warren Terra:
1) He didn’t need huge numbers of illegal votes (added in by hacking?) – just enough in just a few districts in just a few swing states to win the EC
2) Manafort told him to “focus on Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin” – hmmm
amk
@elm:
This. Don’t fucking show us the bright object, tell us what it really means.
elm
@Feebog: Argument, facts, observation, and logic are the wrong tools to apply — this is rhetoric. Contradict them, praise our strong election integrity checks, promote improving them.
For example: “Your claims are all false. The US has very strong election systems that prevent voter fraud. Automatic voter registration would make them even better.”
If you’re explaining or arguing facts, then you’re losing.
Jeffro
@Revrick: Shorter version: “It will only be unthinkable until it happens…if you let it”
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
What galls me is that his voter don’t seem to give a shit. There are two possibilities here, and only two. The first is that the president is lying about this because it stings to think that he lost the popular vote, and this is a way to soothe his wounded psyche. If this is true, he’s willing to undermine Americans’ faith and trust in our institutions and elections just so he can feel good. The other is that he truly believes this, but doesn’t care enough about it to order an investigation into how this happened and why.
If I had voted for a president who behaved like this, I’d be out marching in the streets. I’d be pissed off beyond belief. I’d feel betrayed. These people don’t seem to care. He treats them like idiots, like suckers, and they eat it up. What’s wrong with these people?
Raven Onthill
I am thinking that the best way to handle Spicer’s lectures to the press is to go, ask no questions, record them, and then go back to the office and publish a fact-checked version.
elm
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
They understand what he’s saying and what he means. They know that what he means is “We are going to stop the n*****s, w******s, and r******s from voting.”
Peale
@Jeffro: They like to claim that they only are concerned about “our borders” and “illegals”, but then the numbers that they give indicate that they are really talking about a much larger group of people that would include many people who are actually here legally. An illegal immigrant is pretty much any mexican, even with a work permit, and pretty much any working non-European professional who has an H1-B.
Larkspur
@J R in WV: Cello here.
ETA: No marching, sorry.
Raoul
Chris Baugh just did a little tweet thread on the Carson vote. He, by inference, suggests that Warren has to be looking at her ’18 re-election. I don’t know MA well, so maybe a no vote on Carson would be the less politically expedient vote. Obviously as a midwesterner, I’m not in a place to do that much about it.
And the Carson vote is of course no reason to have a purity purge. It’s just damn dispiriting, since it seems like a token granted to the Trumpers for so little back.
Raven Onthill
@prob50: “‘No’ votes from Warren & Brown would not have derailed this nomination. There will be more important issues and places to raise their voices coming up pretty soon.”
When push come to shove the voters have to know you have stood for them. Isn’t that half the problem of the Democrats right there?
prob50
@Raoul:
We’re not going to agree on this and that’s fine. I think standing in righteous indignation on every point eventually deadens the effect and you do not. I’m not necessarily dismissing your point, but I think the Senators are looking to avoid ginned-up charges of “obstruction” and the inevitable “both sides do it” media crap.
elm
@prob50:
That would be a wrong strategy. They will face those hurdles in any case.
MazeDancer
@Warren Terra:
And all the FL experts said Hillary’s lead couldn’t be caught. And such tiny margins in 3 states. Does not seem like a stretch to imagine projection is real here, too.
amk
@prob50: The media’s both sides do it’ism is always there. Might as well prove them right and gain the dems support instead of being seen as sell outs.
rikyrah
@dogwood:
Are you kidding?
It’s going to be looting central.
Carson is being set up to be the Black face for the decimation
Jordan Rules
@elm: THIS!!!!!!!!!!!
So I’m still trying to figure out what the upside was/is. Again, I’m not purity purging or anything like that. I’m trying to understand so I can also incorporate that knowledge into my activism.
MazeDancer
@MomSense:
Absolutely.
This lie is a twofer. Besides a set-up for national voter White People Only ID, like all the lies, the goal is to destroy the power of Truth. As in “there are no true numbers”. If numbers can never be real, there is no accountability anywhere.
Everything that happens with Spicer and Conway rests on the foundation that Bannon is Real Potus. And Bannon has said, in interviews, he’s a “Leninist” and his goal is to create chaos. He wants to destroy Democracy. So does Putin.
Putin is doing really well in his goal to rule the world, alas.
Peale
@rikyrah: It is. Unfortunately in this case, the Senators can’t really block him for the crimes that haven’t started yet. Their job is to watch over this and I’m not certain how to put a watchdog on it. HUD has been looted before and it went on for years under Reagan before enough people started to believe what the residents of public housing were saying – repairs weren’t being made even though money had been set aside for them. Someone (I don’t know who) is going to have to figure out how to alert liberals to the harm much more quickly this time.
zhena gogolia
@Jordan Rules:
Don’t focus on the cabinet appointments. That battle was lost from day one. Focus on things that can actually be stopped.
amk
Bottom line: Dragging and exposing donnie dick’s nominees is a gimme for dems. It’s not that the fraud won on reaganusque scale, ffs. No need of any fucking strategy or eyes on bigger things.
The Moar You Know
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Something that my brain is not able to comprehend. They’re all in. They love it. You point out the lies and they say “good, let’s have some more, you fucking liberals have been lying for decades.” It’s not that they don’t care, it’s that they actively support it.
prob50
@elm: Well, OK. I’ve never laid claim to being 100% right all the time.
Nonetheless I’m inclined to cut Elizabeth Warren some slack on this and assume she still has her eyes on the ball since she is probably one of our strongest weapons here. I didn’t watch the hearings but I understand she tried to put Carson’s feet to the fire several times. I think that will generate more attention than simply voting “No”.
elm
I found the twitter thread I was thinking of earlier, and this is very important for all of us to learn and remember.
PIGL
@Ian G.: except for they won the fucking election, and people who follow these things expect that they will increase their majority in both houses in 2018. What’s the realistic pathway for the Democratic Party to cover power at all levels in 2020? I just don’t see it from here. I know I have pointed this out before and I’m probably getting pretty tiresome to many of you but events are just not going to wait a generation or two for the forces of light and unicorns to rally themselves and beat these guys. The USA as currently constituted seems to me to be a lost cause. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger is beating the drums for West Coast separation if you listen to what he s saying.
Adrift
WTF with the gag orders/social media blackouts??
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/24/epa-department-agriculture-social-media-gag-order-trump
ETA: this is getting very scary, very quickly
prob50
@steve herl: You rang?
Brachiator
It’s not just the lies, it is that Trump either deeply believes these lies, and that he expects those he hires to chew on these lies like an angry dog chewing on a bone. Or Kellyanne Conway appearing on a Sunday pundit show.
This is one thing when Trump is a private citizen spewing this bullshit. It takes on another color of orange altogether when it is a president slinging such BS.
amk
@prob50:
And yet she pulled the lever for him. From this side, it seems hypocritical and unnecessary.
amk
Apparently, Gillibrand is the only one to vote NO for all the shitgibbon’s nominees so far.
elm
@amk: Voting NO (or abstaining in disgust) is good policy and good politics. The only choice that each of us has at every turn is to either cooperate or resist. There’s no third choice of resist, but later.
steve herl
@prob50: So true. When he comes for the Jews, I mean Muslims, they should vote for that too so maybe we can save the Catholics later on. I’m thinking once the Dems demonstrate how reasonable they can be everything will be good. What a load.
amk
@elm: Especially, given the near 100% obstruction from the thugs in the last 8 years. Reid had to resort to nuclear option to clear even the federal judges, ffs.
elm
@amk: Cooperating with Bush got Daschle defeated. Resisting Obama got McConnell made Majority Leader.
zhena gogolia
Yes, let’s dump on our Democratic representatives in Congress. That’s the best use of our energies right now.
The Moar You Know
I hate to say it but not only is Warren in over her head here, all the Dem legislative contingent is, save perhaps for Gillibrand.
They are playing by rules that are no longer operative. Fascism is here. It can be fought, but not like this. It requires iron, lockstep discipline and I’m afraid Dem legislators and their voters just don’t have what it takes to win this.
I know goddamn well we don’t have what it takes if this gets kicked up to the next level. And it is going to be, sooner than any of us expect. It took Hitler only four months to sell Germany on doing something the vast majority of them were against; killing all the Jews. As a straight white guy I think odds are pretty good I won’t be one of the “Jews” this time around but I’m damn sure not willing to bet my life on that.
elm
@zhena gogolia: Pressuring elected officials who are on our side is a good idea.
zhena gogolia
@elm:
I called both my senators and urged them to vote against all the nominees. But that’s different from going on a blog and whining about their votes after the fact.
ETA: At this point I’m assuming they know more about how to accomplish things in Congress than I do. Maybe I’m wrong.
elm
@zhena gogolia:
I think McConnell showed the way.
amk
@zhena gogolia: Have you seen the energy last saturday from ordinary folks? Warren and other dems go from spewing platitudes in those rallies to voting for the fascist admin’s disgusting nominees this week? Yeah, that hypocrisy is worth spending some energy over.
randy khan
@amk:
After Spicer’s rant over the weekend, they actually said they were awarding him 4, but wished they could give him 5.
Brachiator
Everything old is newspeak again. From the Guardian:
Ben Cisco
@dogwood:
1) It’s just poors and nigras gonna get screwed by Carson, amirite?
2) Gillibrand doesn’t seem to have a problem saying no – did she get a six-pack, 12-pack, or the Sams’ Club gross?
zhena gogolia
@amk:
Warren and Brown are not the enemy. Focus on the enemy.
randy khan
@Feebog:
Including children, I should add. It’s beyond ridiculous.
amk
@zhena gogolia: oh, please, we are. I am not sure that they are.
dm
I think you can explain the Warren and Brown votes for Carson in committee might be explained by a desire (thin hope? better than no hope) to maintain the filibuster long enough to be used for next week’s Supreme Court nomination.
The Moar You Know
If every Congressional Dem is not 100% down to say “no to everything” – JUST LIKE THE GOP DID TO OBAMA FOR EIGHT YEARS STRAIGHT – to this administration then, well, they may not be enemies but they sure as shit aren’t our friends.
amk
@The Moar You Know:
Yup.
prob50
@amk: OK, I get it, she’s just a weak, feckless hack and a poor excuse for a Democrat.
Oh, and a hypocrite to boot.
Honestly, does the base really require a reflexive “No’ vote on every item in order to stay fired up? Hey, I’m plenty pissed off too, but I just can’t run around with my hair on fire second-guessing the judgement of people I know are on my side.
steve herl
@Ben Cisco: 3) As a good liberal Democrat, if I can keep my mortgage interest deduction out here in the exburbs then voting for Ben Carson to screw over the urban core is a small price to pay. Those people don’t vote anyway right.
randy khan
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t like this vote, and I called my Senator on the committee to say so, but I think the reason for it is that Carson gave the Dems assurances on specific topics and they plan to hold him to those assurances.
After all, there are a couple of ways to game this out. One is opposition, opposition, opposition. Another is to make them promise to do things and then use that against them later. Another is to do something like the Dems’ infrastructure plan announced today – create an alternative that’s more attractive than anything the Rs will offer, and beat them over the head with it. (I hope they do that with the ACA – propose a bill that fixes the issues we know about but leaves the basic structure in place.) I suspect all of these tactics will be in play.
amk
@prob50:
Yes. Especially, in this illegitimate admin.
And yes, the hypocrisy issue still stands.
dm
@prob50: Maybe Purity Ponitis is contagious?
amk
@dm: yeah, those millions who marched last week seem to have caught it too.
prob50
@randy khan:
Hey, whaddaya know, a thoughtful take on possible Democratic strategies. Perhaps not as immediately gratifying as calling out your allies and demanding their head on a pike, but still perhaps worthy of at least brief consideration.
john fremont
@elm: I bring up the fact that despite the allegations of rampant voter fraud the GOP majority Congress still accepted the official vote of the Electoral College as per the Constitution. If they had evidence of voter fraud and they sat on it then this is a serious derilection of duty by Congress.
elm
@prob50:
Who demanded Warren or Brown’s head on a pike? Please link.
rikyrah
@Raoul:
I thought that was obvious.
lurker dean
@The Moar You Know: your comment reminds me of a tweet i saw today (it was posted as a jpeg, it didn’t have the name of the OP):
it’s like democrats and republicans were playing a board game, then the republicans were like “fuck it” and lit the house on fire, but dems are still just sitting in the burning house trying to win the board game.
Ben Cisco
@steve herl: Your logic is sound.
rikyrah
@elm:
That is right:
Resist
prob50
@elm:
Obviously (I thought) I was applying a bit of hyperbole, so no, I must admit that not a single commenter on this thread has actually demanded anyone’s head on a pike, pole, spear or any other such weapon or device.
So no, there will not be a link.
My apologies to anyone who took that part of my remark seriously.
amk
@randy khan: schumer ain’t no reid.
schrodingers_cat
@J R in WV: @Dave: Thanks!
Yoda Dog
@Jordan Rules: I dont know why they did it but I know we cant abandon the likes of Warren and Brown over this minutae.
Ben carson doesn’t matter. Onwards, comrades.
elm
@prob50: Oh, I thought we were discussing responses to a dangerous administration that uses lies in contemporary US politics to silence critics.
It’s funny that you would make the leap from people’s level-headed criticism of Warren and Brown to saying people were “demanding their head on a pike” in that context, isn’t it.
Here the rest of us are, suggesting an affirmative way they could do better, citing examples of when those methods have worked in the past, and describing how the present doesn’t resemble the recent past.
And you decide to offer an over-the-top characterization of mild criticism.
Collaborating with the fascists does not accomplish worthwhile goals. I think Brown and Warren should not collaborate with the fascists. I think collaborating with the fascists keeps the door open to future collaboration.
@Yoda Dog:
I don’t think most of us are proposing abandoning Warren or Brown over this disappointing vote, the message I see from posters here is “They should do better.”
Noskilz
@West of the Rockies (been a while): My guess would be both as a gesture/political cover for other fights and perhaps the suspicion someone who seems to be mostly a gullible idiot could be as good as it is going to get in terms of Trump selections for that position. Who would have been the likely plan B? If the sorts of people he’s been putting forward as his first choices is any guide, I have no reason to imagine it would be anyone remotely desirable and this confirmation process is going to involve a lot of trying to find the least destructive option ( and should blocking particularly bad ones altogether prove successful, a spate of recess appointments.)
elm
@Noskilz: Those of us who say they should have voted No (or abstain) want them to begin a habit of resistance to this fascist regime. There is a 0% chance of any nominee offered by Trump being good or qualified at all.
But cooperating and collaborating with the fascist is a bad habit and one better broken sooner than later.
Oatler.
@Mike J: I thought that was the clarinet? (recalling Ian Fleming Novel)
prob50
@elm:
Perhaps you missed my apology. If you want to keep beating me over the head with it have at it.
By the way this
is a better articulation of your stance on the issue. I might not fully agree with your conclusion, but I think it shows a lot fuller appreciation of perspectives than some earlier remarks.
Peace
cmorenc
@dogwood:
Another factor is that alone among Trump’s nominees to civilian agencies, Carson is a semi-decent, well-intentioned person, albeit a lunatic on many fronts with self-admittedly no professional background in the arena of the agency he’s been nominated to run (HUD) other than having been a bit of an urban hoodlum as a teen. With every other Trump cabinet nominee, his choice for a replacement will almost certainly be at least as bad or worse than any initial pick* that gets shot down, whereas Trump’s alternative HUD picks will only be worse and malevolently so than Carson. The asterisk is for Trump’s AG nominee Jeff Sessions, who is about as malevolently awful as I can possibly think of offhand, but I’m quite sure if Sessions gets shot down, Trump will manage to find someone even more malevolently inappropriate.
J R in WV
@Larkspur:
Lark, my last marching was in boot camp in 1970. I was talking about an oboe tuba duet, or perhaps a trio with a harp, dunno how anyone would march with a harp. Heavier than a tuba.
But thanks for thinking of us! Ompa-pa-pa! Squeak trill squeak!
elm
@prob50: I belabor the point of hyperbole because among allies I prefer to discuss things literally and sincerely. At the present time, some things that I sen literally and sincerely will tend to sound like hyperbole, but they are not.
For example, when I call Donald Trump a fascist, I mean that in the most literal and sincere way possible. His Presidency is a threat that the US may not survive.
When I call Steve Bannon a Nazi, I mean that literally. He and his allies want to destroy and liquidate ethnic minorities in the US.
Gvg
@Brachiator: I just looked that up to check that it wasn’t confirmation bias. It’s now #1. 1984 is now Amazon’s #1 bestseller. Good lord.