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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Thursday Evening Open Thread: Move Fast, Break… Your Own Administration?

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Move Fast, Break… Your Own Administration?

by Anne Laurie|  February 2, 20176:30 pm| 265 Comments

This post is in: Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?

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New from @ppppolls: 40% want to impeach Trump; 52% want Obama back, just 43% prefer Trump in office https://t.co/I4t8bjTUAJ

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 2, 2017

One can but hope.

What else is on the agenda for the evening?

Gallup: Trump EOs all quite unpopular…
• 55% oppose Muslim ban
• 60% oppose border wall with Mexico
• 58% oppose ending refugee program pic.twitter.com/phEORw7UDH

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) February 2, 2017

I guess I'm just tired from all the winning. https://t.co/lQjxoZ9wzD pic.twitter.com/DFrHPkG99j

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) February 2, 2017

If these numbers hold, we'll see congressional Republicans get a lot more concerned about executive actions, fast. https://t.co/iWRTSyFkM4

— Liz Mair (@LizMair) February 2, 2017

NEW COVER: Stability is good for business. Donald Trump's whims threaten it https://t.co/c9wNJcY3Km pic.twitter.com/mY5b0a833l

— Businessweek (@BW) February 2, 2017

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Reader Interactions

265Comments

  1. 1.

    scav

    February 2, 2017 at 6:33 pm

    :)

  2. 2.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 6:34 pm

    Man, I hope our side can play the long game for once.

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 6:34 pm

    Are we “great again” yet?

  4. 4.

    debbie

    February 2, 2017 at 6:35 pm

    The PPP poll is the first happy news I’ve posted on FB in weeks!

  5. 5.

    lollipopguild

    February 2, 2017 at 6:35 pm

    Are we GREAT again yet? I always use my “Tony the Tiger” voice when I say the word “Great”.

  6. 6.

    Corner Stone

    February 2, 2017 at 6:37 pm

    DAMN! That’s an actual BW cover?

  7. 7.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 6:38 pm

    @Corner Stone: They are shrill.

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    February 2, 2017 at 6:39 pm

    @Baud: Play that long game! Play it! Keep your powder dry and look for the right hill! Always Be Chessing!

  9. 9.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 6:40 pm

    @Corner Stone: Keeping the powder dry when it should be used isn’t playing the long game.

  10. 10.

    trittico

    February 2, 2017 at 6:40 pm

    Isn’t 43% support awfully the fuck high?
    For what we’ve seen so far?
    We’re fucked, people.

  11. 11.

    zhena gogolia

    February 2, 2017 at 6:42 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    It reminds me of that gif that was going around where the thing said “I have no soul and am afraid of dying” or something like that.

    Bill Maher did a great bit after saying they looked like menus at [some steak franchise the name of which I can’t remember].

  12. 12.

    p.a.

    February 2, 2017 at 6:42 pm

    If only they were as bad at electioneering and embezzling as they are at governing everything else.

  13. 13.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    February 2, 2017 at 6:43 pm

    I have to say, my feelings about Trump and his maladminstration have shifted a lot over the last two weeks. Two weeks ago, I was scared shitless. And to be clear, I am still scared. But what I am more now is enthralled. I’ve never seen anything like this crew, and, as awful as they are, they’re hilarious. Everything they do is so badly thought through and so badly done that you can’t help but laugh. I saw a link to a piece in Politico (yeah, I know) that said, among other things, “While he was in New York, Omarosa Manigault, another Trump aide, sought to take [Scaramucci’s] office with a better view of the Washington Monument, according to people familiar with her move. Manigault now may get the office, since Scaramucci is now not expected to join the administration.”

    Another gem from the piece was, “Despite the attempts to project a functional, harmonious White House, sources say it’s far from that. People involved in the administration sometimes don’t trust each other because there are several camps that remain warring factions. Top Trump aides often travel with him to events they don’t necessarily need to attend because they want to be close to the power center and in the pictures.”

    These guys are stealing each other’s offices while the victims are out of town and undercutting each other to get into pictures! It’s like they’re high school kids, fighting to get into the pictures that go into the yearbook. I can’t help but sit back and laugh at the comedy of it. It’s beyond belief. These clowns couldn’t run a fruit stall, much less the U.S.

  14. 14.

    Corner Stone

    February 2, 2017 at 6:43 pm

    @Baud: It’s obvious you do not know how to play the long game. Because if we use our powder now, then we won’t have it for the next time we need our powder. Then what will we do? play 11-D chess? Or find the appropriate hill to die on? Hint: it is not this one…nor that one.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 6:44 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): They are a reality show with nukes.

  16. 16.

    zhena gogolia

    February 2, 2017 at 6:44 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    It would be funny if nukes weren’t involved. And people’s lives. But I know what you mean.

  17. 17.

    Felonius Monk

    February 2, 2017 at 6:46 pm

    It appears that the Republican Congress is composed entirely of women because not a one of them seems to have any balls. They give the impression that they are deathly afraid of this Orange Shit-Stain in America’s Underpants. So far, they are falling all over themselves to do his bidding for fear that he will lash out at them. So sad. What they are really doing is owning him and making it much, much easier for us to hang him around their necks.

  18. 18.

    zhena gogolia

    February 2, 2017 at 6:48 pm

    I just checked the WaPo site and saw “Wilmer: Where President Trump and I Can Work Together.”

  19. 19.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 6:48 pm

    @Corner Stone: We should use our powder and then steal theirs when we run low.

  20. 20.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 6:49 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    Yes, but there’s a reason we don’t let high schoolers carry weapons into class, and it ain’t because we hate them. Immature people with a lot of power can really fuck things up, bigly.

  21. 21.

    Cacti

    February 2, 2017 at 6:49 pm

    I read that Trump is going to be sanctioning Iran.

    Oh well, it’s not like Boeing wanted that $17 billion contract they just signed to replace Iran’s commercial airline fleet.

  22. 22.

    SatanicPanic

    February 2, 2017 at 6:50 pm

    @zhena gogolia: What is wrong with that guy?

  23. 23.

    scav

    February 2, 2017 at 6:50 pm

    @Felonius Monk: Women like Nancy Smash? Women like J K Rowling? Republicans in Congress are behaving like Republicans in Congress: it’s all about what’s easy for them and their immediate power brand / aura and not about the country, actual logic or adherence to long-held values.

  24. 24.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 6:51 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Lots of people on our side say that. I know it upsets people, but Dems need room to posture. If the idea is to emulate Republicans, that’s what they did.

  25. 25.

    MazeDancer

    February 2, 2017 at 6:51 pm

    If you haven’t seen this, you will be delighted to see that someone has started a GoFundMe to “buy back” Pat Toomey.

    Betsy DeVos gave him 55K. The GoFundMe will offer him more to vote against her. They’re halfway there already.

    This kind of PR action is going to become more necessary. Creativity is going to be require for many things. The GOP are turning off their phones. So lots of “delivery” to local offices and DC is going to have to be invented.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 6:51 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    I do laugh all the way through Dr. Strangelove, but that was supposed to be fiction.

    Here’s the scary thought I had in the thread below: in this updated version of Strangelove, the calm, rational politician is played by Vladimir Putin.

  27. 27.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 6:53 pm

    @Cacti:

    Many giant corporations are very, very unhappy with Trump’s new immigration policies. This is where we find out if Paddy Chayefsky was right about corporations vs the media.

  28. 28.

    SatanicPanic

    February 2, 2017 at 6:54 pm

    @Baud: But I thought he was the tell-it-like-it-is guy we on the left have been waiting for

  29. 29.

    Corner Stone

    February 2, 2017 at 6:55 pm

    Who gives a fuck what you think, Nick? Steve Bannon is a clear white supremacist. How can calling him what he is be harmful?

  30. 30.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 6:56 pm

    @SatanicPanic: Now that’s a fair criticism. He kept talking about his political revolution. We could use that right now.

  31. 31.

    HinTN

    February 2, 2017 at 6:56 pm

    @Cacti: Not in Trumpland they didn’t.

  32. 32.

    JPL

    February 2, 2017 at 6:56 pm

    @Corner Stone: Bannon likes to think of himself as a White Nationalist or a member of the alt-right, which is another way of saying White Supremacist, but sounds better.

  33. 33.

    HinTN

    February 2, 2017 at 6:59 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Paddy was right. The end. Whether we learn it or not is an open question.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 7:00 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    As other people have mentioned, Apple is gearing up to file a lawsuit against the government, and there are a LOT of major corporations that could plausibly either follow suit or join up as a class action.

    What are “progressives” going to do if it turns out that mega-corporations are our best bulwark against Trumpism? There will be many ‘splodey heads in our near future.

  35. 35.

    trollhattan

    February 2, 2017 at 7:01 pm

    @Mnemosyne:
    Does set it on its head. Interestingly enough, “Strangelove” was conceived as a drama but Kubrick et al realized it was too grimly realistic and recast it as a comedy–a very, very black comedy.

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 7:01 pm

    @HinTN:

    Yes, but Paddy never pictured corporations coming down on the side of democracy over fascism.

  37. 37.

    Cacti

    February 2, 2017 at 7:02 pm

    I’ve had Trumpkins say to me in all seriousness that Bannon is qualified to sit on the National Security Council because he was a Lieutenant (O-3) in the Navy.

  38. 38.

    BlueDWarrior

    February 2, 2017 at 7:03 pm

    @JPL: i think that white nationalism is a tad different than white supremacy in that it’s adding a few more bits of thought to the ethos. But it’s the equivalent of putting Barbie in a new costume and calling her an entirely new character.

  39. 39.

    cosima

    February 2, 2017 at 7:03 pm

    @Felonius Monk: Glob, now you’ve made me think of that awful children’s book series about Captain Underpants. And it’s past bedtime here, which means precious little time left to get it out.

    How long until we get a tweet about sad Bloomberg fake news going under?

  40. 40.

    p.a.

    February 2, 2017 at 7:04 pm

    @Mnemosyne: hey: by any means necessary. If one’s society has to have fascists, let ’em be incompetent. Then even their natural allies will be against them.

  41. 41.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 7:04 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    What are “progressives” going to do if it turns out that mega-corporations are our best bulwark against Trumpism?

    Use their iPhones to post screeds on Facebook?

  42. 42.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 7:05 pm

    @Corner Stone

    Overheard in the gruel line at the FEMA re-education camp: “What’re we supposed to do with all this dry powder?”

  43. 43.

    JPL

    February 2, 2017 at 7:06 pm

    @BlueDWarrior: What about alt-right?

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 7:06 pm

    @HinTN:

    Or, to put it another way, I don’t think Trump and Bannon realize yet that Trump is Howard Beale in this remake, not the corporate overlord.

  45. 45.

    BlueDWarrior

    February 2, 2017 at 7:07 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Honestly, if it takes corporate dollars to not return to 1890 in our politics and society, then lard my ass up.

    I truly think politically neutral and liberal heads of industry could stand to spend their dollars in the political arena more.

  46. 46.

    cosima

    February 2, 2017 at 7:10 pm

    @Baud: Lord yes. When my daughter posts awful stuff about the vulgarian I comment ‘But emails! Benghazi! Hillary is just the same as Trump!’ My daughter got a stern talking to from me about that shite, but she has a lot of purity pony friends who pride themselves on not having voted in an election that was rigged against Wilmer. Today I commented for the benefit of one how much more effort it was for me to volunteer hundreds of hours for Obama’s two campaigns than for them to post shit on facebook. Oddly enough, there weren’t any comments after that…

  47. 47.

    debbie

    February 2, 2017 at 7:10 pm

    @JPL:

    Sarah Posner of The Nation was on Fresh Air today, talking about the redefining of nationalism and religious freedom by the far right. It’s worth listening to.

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 7:11 pm

    @JPL

    Alt-human covers the nuances of bigotry and jingoism..

  49. 49.

    Death Panel Truck

    February 2, 2017 at 7:11 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    My soul is empty. I’m scared of dying alone.

    https://twitter.com/TrevLeaderbrand/status/825856713903464450

  50. 50.

    dm

    February 2, 2017 at 7:13 pm

    I’ve not hung on every comment. Has it been pointed out that Chris Christie has broken the 27% barrier by 10 points?

  51. 51.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 7:13 pm

    @cosima: “In my day, we had to canvass uphill both ways.”

    Lol. Good for you. Your daughter’s friends are assholes.

  52. 52.

    debbie

    February 2, 2017 at 7:14 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Sadly, there’s a long waiting list at my library for Dr. Strangelove.

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 7:14 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    What are “progressives” going to do if it turns out that mega-corporations are our best bulwark against Trumpism?

    I will cheer when they do good stuff and boo when they do bad stuff, same as always. It’s the same way we can cooperate with Iran when fighting Daesh while maintaining sanctions against them for their ballistic missile program.

  54. 54.

    scav

    February 2, 2017 at 7:15 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Maybe, maybe not. Certain major corporations were rather front-line recently for some LGBT rights issues. It’s not entirely 100% unprecedented. Besides, there’s a real difference between managing a single business (especially when reduced to the rote aphorisms of MBA) and juggling an economy. Le Combover wasn’t exactly stellar at even the first, except in claiming victory.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 7:15 pm

    @Roger Moore: Sell out.

  56. 56.

    Brachiator

    February 2, 2017 at 7:15 pm

    I refuse to believe all these negative evaluations about Trump until Kellyanne Con Job has done a double twist axle spin, two cartwheels and an Exorcist head rotation and given us the alternate facts version of things.

    I saw a YouTube clip of Cornell “I hate Obama and Hillary” West railing against Trump. Funny how he is having to eat his words. Has anyone heard from Jill Stein lately? Oh shit:

    Tomorrow, Feb. 3, former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein returns to Salon Talks for an exclusive interview with Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir. The two will discuss President Trump’s first few weeks in office, the inauguration and the direction politics is heading in.

    Tune in here at 9:30 a.m. PT/12:30 p.m. ET to watch live, submit your questions and join the conversation.

    Our last Salon Talks interview with Stein, which is one of our most popular in the series to date, focuses on the first presidential debate, the election in general and issues still making headlines today, including the Dakota Access pipeline and climate change.

    Oh, Lordy.

  57. 57.

    Kelly

    February 2, 2017 at 7:17 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): My best hope for limiting damage has always been overreaching, infighting and incompetence. It’s not just the Trumpistas. Rep Jason Chavez pulled his federal lands give away after hunters and fishermen turned on the heat.

  58. 58.

    Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)

    February 2, 2017 at 7:18 pm

    @Cacti: Those Trumpanzees are morons. No O-3 on the planet would qualify for that slot, let alone that Red Skull wannabe.

  59. 59.

    Elizabelle

    February 2, 2017 at 7:18 pm

    This is just not fun to have your president be a teetotaling dialing yam with anger issues.

    Not fun.

    I wonder if we should push for Merrick Garland or nothing. Trump’s numbers could be very, very bad about three months down the road. Maybe it’s worth it to push back against the stolen USSC seat.

    Although I realize there’s the issue of who ends up as chief judge of the DC Circuit. …

    I think we got to get the pussy hats out, every second or third week for a big march, and show up at congresscritters’ offices, etc. The protests are working.

  60. 60.

    Cacti

    February 2, 2017 at 7:18 pm

    @cosima:

    Lord yes. When my daughter posts awful stuff about the vulgarian I comment ‘But emails! Benghazi! Hillary is just the same as Trump!’ My daughter got a stern talking to from me about that shite, but she has a lot of purity pony friends who pride themselves on not having voted in an election that was rigged against Wilmer. Today I commented for the benefit of one how much more effort it was for me to volunteer hundreds of hours for Obama’s two campaigns than for them to post shit on facebook. Oddly enough, there weren’t any comments after that…

    The epitaph of our Republic may end up being:

    “But, her e-mails”

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 7:18 pm

    @Brachiator

    Must miss TV.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 7:19 pm

    @Brachiator:

    former perpetual Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein

    Fixed.

  63. 63.

    Elizabelle

    February 2, 2017 at 7:19 pm

    Rats. In moderation. Talked about the pink knitted hats.

    Here’s the comment:

    This is just not fun to have your president be a teetotaling dialing yam with anger issues.

    Not fun.

    I wonder if we should push for Merrick Garland or nothing. Trump’s numbers could be very, very bad about three months down the road. Maybe it’s worth it to push back against the stolen USSC seat.

    Although I realize there’s the issue of who ends up as chief judge of the DC Circuit. …

    I think we got to get the pink p ___ hats out, every second or third week for a big march, and show up at congresscritters’ offices, etc. The protests are working.

  64. 64.

    bluehill

    February 2, 2017 at 7:19 pm

    Listened to interviews with lesser known dnc chair candidates, Buttigieg and Harrison. Both have impression backgrounds and although I just heard of them I hope they get more than a passing glance.

  65. 65.

    Cacti

    February 2, 2017 at 7:20 pm

    @Brachiator:

    In a just world, tomorrow, Feb. 3, former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein returns to be beaten with a pillow case full of doorknobs.

    FTFY

  66. 66.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 7:21 pm

    @Cacti

    There are days when it feels as if we’re being drowned in a vat of pus.

  67. 67.

    Mike E

    February 2, 2017 at 7:23 pm

    Conman The Destroyer…he literally cannot stop showing his ass, they’ll have to start putting up dueling lunar charts from now on just to keep them straight

  68. 68.

    Gin & Tonic

    February 2, 2017 at 7:23 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Did you see where Vladimir Kara-Murza has suffered multiple organ failure? He was out promoting/screening his Nemtsov movie, IIRC.

  69. 69.

    dm

    February 2, 2017 at 7:24 pm

    @zhena gogolia: You made me look.

    So, it’s finding the bits that Trump has said that are useful and holding him to those words:

    President Trump and other Republicans have talked about the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. Recently, Trump said (rightly) that Big Pharma is “getting away with murder.”

    He goes on to invite Trump to work with him “and [his] colleagues”.

    And then the rest of the article is about pharmaceutical company profits. Later, he mentions that Trump folded after one meeting with big-pharma execs. (He does not mention Democrats who have similarly folded.)

  70. 70.

    Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)

    February 2, 2017 at 7:24 pm

    @BlueDWarrior: When YOU are the one with a gun at your head, there ain’t a damned bit of difference.

  71. 71.

    Lapassionara

    February 2, 2017 at 7:26 pm

    Just saw a headline that said Trump called Netanyahu and told him to stop the new settlements. Real? fake? WTF

  72. 72.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 7:28 pm

    @Lapassionara: Who knows? That would be interesting.

  73. 73.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 7:28 pm

    @Cacti:

    Professional GOP ball-washer Ed Rollins trotted that out on MSNBC one night recently. He said that Bannon had been a “surface warfare officer” and had served as an aide to an admiral. Ergo: NSC qualified!

    I know from my RWNJ brother’s career in the Navy that “surface warfare officer” covers a lot of people, including my brother, who was an officer on destroyers and is in no way qualified for the NSC based on that experience. He often jokingly described himself as a “boat driver.” He’s barely qualified to be on the board of his homeowners’ association, but that’s an issue for another time.

  74. 74.

    Yarrow

    February 2, 2017 at 7:29 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    as awful as they are, they’re hilarious.

    I really let a aide to my Democratic Rep have it when he said the Trump administration was hilarious. I told him it’s not funny, they need to be taking it seriously and if my Congressmember isn’t taking it seriously then they all need to recognize the threat and get with the program and increase their push back 100x more than they are doing now. Authoritarians move fast to grab power and the Trump administration is moving quickly to dismantle our government and loot the Treasury. That institutions only hold if people push back. I think he was taken a bit aback. Maybe I woke him up.

    I do know what you mean though. Some of it is just comically inept. I just don’t want to get complacent thinking they’ll do themselves in with their incompetence. That won’t happen unless we make it happen. We have to keep up the pressure.

  75. 75.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 7:29 pm

    @Felonius Monk:

    It appears that the Republican Congress is composed entirely of women because not a one of them seems to have any balls.

    As a woman, I have never understood what’s so special about the metric of either size or number of balls.

  76. 76.

    cosima

    February 2, 2017 at 7:29 pm

    @Brachiator: Do you think she’ll be asked about that dinner party in Russia? I don’t give a single fuck about anything that she has to say unless it’s to explain her presence there. WTH is wrong with Slate?

    I so would like to go down the T*d Dev!ne road with my daughter’s purity pony & free uni facebook friends, but they’re still too young and stupid to understand. She lives in VT, they’re barely out of nappies, I can’t be mother/explainer to all of them. I can only hope that they don’t have to learn some very hard lessons in the worst possible way in an America that’s been magically made great again (for fascists, racists, bigots, misogynists, et al).

  77. 77.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 7:30 pm

    @Lapassionara

    At least until his offspring can finish up the paperwork to submit construction bids.

  78. 78.

    cosima

    February 2, 2017 at 7:33 pm

    @Cacti: and ‘Benghazi!’ (in a world reduced to rubble, nuclear winter, etc).

  79. 79.

    Msilaneous

    February 2, 2017 at 7:34 pm

    @debbie: Thank you for that.

  80. 80.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 7:34 pm

    @BlueDWarrior:

    But it’s the equivalent of putting Barbie in a new costume and calling her an entirely new character.

    Somebody in a morning thread called Ivanka (going to Dover with Daddy to greet a fallen SEAL yesterday) as “Funeral Barbie.”

    It was wrong of me, but I laughed and laughed.

  81. 81.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 7:34 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Because without them it’s just a warm change purse. ;)

    “Hold on, I’m sure I’ve got a penny in here somewhere.”

  82. 82.

    Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)

    February 2, 2017 at 7:35 pm

    @Cacti: A Google image search of “but her emails” proves to be both cathartic and sardonic.

  83. 83.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    February 2, 2017 at 7:36 pm

    @Corner Stone: We make more powder. It’s not a difficult recipe, and this lot seems more than ready to supply the ingredients.

    If the ACLU can raise (without much effort on their part) $24 million over the weekend, what could Emily’s List and ActBLue do? Planned Parenthood’s legal fund?

  84. 84.

    ? Martin

    February 2, 2017 at 7:37 pm

    Someone at HuffPo was really excited to pull this headline out of a drawer:

    “TRUMP LOSES UBER ALLIES”

  85. 85.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    February 2, 2017 at 7:37 pm

    @zhena gogolia: I missed this, why do they call him “wilmer”?

  86. 86.

    BlueDWarrior

    February 2, 2017 at 7:37 pm

    @JPL: alt-right to me is a flag put up to show you are of the sorta Internet breed of right wing thinker who doesn’t opertate within the normal boundaries of political correctness (aka politeness and comity).

    It doesn’t singify a different ideology per- se, just different tactics and language meant to further heighten the contradictions.

  87. 87.

    Baud

    February 2, 2017 at 7:38 pm

    @? Martin: Heh. I’ll give them that one.

  88. 88.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 7:40 pm

    @JPL:

    “Hillbillies want to be called ‘sons of the soil,’ but it ain’t happening.”

  89. 89.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 7:40 pm

    @Kelly:

    My best hope for limiting damage has always been overreaching, infighting and incompetence.

    The most fundamental problem for the Republicans is that a lot of their agenda hurts the 99% for the benefit of the 0.01%, and that just isn’t that popular when it comes out into the open. They can sell gutting food stamps and Medicaid as hurting Those People, but gutting Social Security and Medicare and selling off public lands are so obviously a bad idea that they get a lot of pushback every time they try. The problem for the Democrats is that successfully stopping the worst that the Republicans are trying to do lets their supporters ignore their most dangerous campaign promises.

  90. 90.

    Gin & Tonic

    February 2, 2017 at 7:42 pm

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Because calling him by his given name seems to trigger Google alerts that bring some old trolls out of the woodwork.

  91. 91.

    Elmo

    February 2, 2017 at 7:42 pm

    “I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”
    -Voltaire

  92. 92.

    Felonius Monk

    February 2, 2017 at 7:43 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    As a woman, I have never understood what’s so special about the metric of either size or number of balls.

    I was not intending to disparage women, perhaps I should have chosen a better metaphor. :-)

  93. 93.

    cosima

    February 2, 2017 at 7:43 pm

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: To ensure that his fans don’t descend on threads & make a mess. Some conjecture as to whether or not they’ve got mentions flagged (prob not using the correct terminology — late + wine).

  94. 94.

    chris

    February 2, 2017 at 7:45 pm

    Feeling a bit of whiplash here. Nikki Haley at the UN. Condemning violence in the Ukraine and telling the Russians to pull back and respect the cease fire.

  95. 95.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 7:45 pm

    @NotMax:

    Oh ewww ugh

    ETA: Keep the change.

  96. 96.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 7:45 pm

    @Elmo

    Also too:

    “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
    – Voltaire

  97. 97.

    bemused

    February 2, 2017 at 7:46 pm

    Reading comments on another blog:
    Liberal: Our economy is going to take a bit hit from the Muslim ban.
    Rightwinger: Arab exports are even smaller than Finland’s exports. And don’t call it a Muslim ban. It’s not. I’ve read the EO.

  98. 98.

    Seanly

    February 2, 2017 at 7:46 pm

    But, but, but Cokie Roberts and the other quislings on NPR keep doing stories about how the economically-disadvantaged meth-addled racist crackers in Bumfuck, OH are liking Trump’s EO’s and his get-tough-on-something stances. I think Cokie’s already called the 2020 election for Trump.

    My favorite part of the constant fellating of all things Republican by NPR hosts is that those very same Republicans would happily march those hosts first up against the wall and exterminate them and their hyphenated last names. Sometimes I don’t know what is worse – the truly evil Republicans and their despicable policies or the boot-licking toadies at NPR who constantly try to normalize such hatred, vitriol, and lack of empathy.

  99. 99.

    Jeffro

    February 2, 2017 at 7:46 pm

    @Baud: I lol’d, it’s true

    (Posted via iPhone)

  100. 100.

    joel hanes

    February 2, 2017 at 7:47 pm

    @Felonius Monk:

    What they are really doing is owning him

    yes.
    I’ve got a screencap of that LGM frontpage that’s just a sequence of The Donald’s overnight tweets.
    I’m captioning it :

    You supported this. You endorsed this. You own this.

    and printing and sending it to a variety of prominent Republicans to whom it applies.

  101. 101.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    February 2, 2017 at 7:47 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Oh, I see. Is there any significance to “wilmer” or is it just random?

  102. 102.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 7:47 pm

    @? Martin:

    Heh

  103. 103.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 7:48 pm

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    I missed this, why do they call him “wilmer”?

    To avoid people who magically appear and try to derail the thread any time his name appears.

  104. 104.

    Shana

    February 2, 2017 at 7:49 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Not that I’ve watched it cuz I dislike reality shows – except for Project Runway – but isn’t that basically the idea of The Apprentice? Deliberately playing one side against the other, provoking paranoia? And how he’s run his company?

  105. 105.

    zhena gogolia

    February 2, 2017 at 7:49 pm

    @Death Panel Truck:

    right. And the restaurant is Beefsteak Charlie’s.

  106. 106.

    JosieJ (not Josie)

    February 2, 2017 at 7:50 pm

    The Republicans in Congress aren’t scared of Trump. Anyone with two functioning neurons to rub together should have given up on their notion of controlling him by now. However, they still feel that if they placate him enough, he’ll occasionally throw them a bone, like with the Supreme Court pick.

    So far, they’ve made out pretty well, so don’t expect profiles in courage from that side of the aisle too soon.

  107. 107.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 7:51 pm

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    I think someone was watching The Maltese Falcon when we needed a pseudonym for troll avoidance.

  108. 108.

    zhena gogolia

    February 2, 2017 at 7:51 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    So was it natural causes?

  109. 109.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 7:51 pm

    @debbie:

    If you have Starz, it’s coming on Saturday night (11:40 PST). Also shows up regularly on TCM.

  110. 110.

    Chip Daniels

    February 2, 2017 at 7:51 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I will cheer when they do good stuff and boo when they do bad stuff, same as always. It’s the same way we can cooperate with Iran when fighting Daesh while maintaining sanctions against them for their ballistic missile program.

    Progressives are not the implacable enemy of corporations or banks, we just want them to play by the same rules as everyone else.

  111. 111.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 7:51 pm

    @Felonius Monk:

    I didn’t take it as disparagement. I just don’t get that way of keeping score.

    But then I never got boob size as a way of keeping score among women, let alone as a metric of being somehow superior to men.

    It’s all just earth suits.

  112. 112.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 7:51 pm

    @Felonius Monk:

    I was not intending to disparage women, perhaps I should have chosen a better metaphor.

    Perhaps you could call them invertebrates; they’ll definitely need spine transplants before they’ll be in any position to stand up to Trump.

  113. 113.

    joel hanes

    February 2, 2017 at 7:52 pm

    @dm:

    Chris Christie has broken the 27% barrier by 10 points?

    Ah. 17 % was Cheney’s final score. I think it’s the ultimate floor, and I think The Donald is just the man to keep digging until he finds it.

  114. 114.

    zhena gogolia

    February 2, 2017 at 7:54 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Ugh. Doesn’t look good.

    I have to admit that I don’t keep up with current Russian news as I should. It’s too depressing. But now that’s true of current American news too.

  115. 115.

    TenguPhule

    February 2, 2017 at 7:54 pm

    @chris: Russsian ambassador quickly delivers some scanty lingerie to the US embassy and orders that Haley be on her knees ready to go for Putin’s pleasure.

  116. 116.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 7:54 pm

    @Chip Daniels:

    Progressives are not the implacable enemy of corporations or banks …

    I’m not sure everyone has gotten the same memo. Just sayin’.

    Personally, as a low-level employee of a Giant Evil Corporation myself, I think there’s a sensible middle ground between letting them run rampant and destroying them all.

  117. 117.

    Hungry Joe

    February 2, 2017 at 7:55 pm

    Erik Larson’s “In the Garden of Beasts” is about Germany in the early days of the Nazi regime, as seen and reported by the American ambassador and his daughter. The ambassador was astonished at how downright DUMB so many high-level Nazis seemed to be; he actually referred to them as “idiots.” And they may have been … and that may have been what led to his (and our) underestimating the danger. Idiots with power can do — have done — unimaginable damage.

  118. 118.

    joel hanes

    February 2, 2017 at 7:55 pm

    @Baud:

    Your daughter’s friends are assholes.

    They’re young. Many young people are assholes. Some of them will learn from experience and change, maybe for the better. Look at Cole — it does happen, and we can maybe help it happen if we try.

    I was a young asshole once.
    It’s hard to know oneself, but I suspect that experience has made me an older, different kind of asshole.

  119. 119.

    Yarrow

    February 2, 2017 at 7:55 pm

    Has this made it here yet?

    Howard Stern said on his program Wednesday that Trump will hate being president and the role will be detrimental to his mental health.

    Stern and Trump are long-time friends, with Trump making numerous appearances on Stern’s radio show over the years.

    “I personally wish that he had never run, I told him that, because I actually think this is something that is gonna be detrimental to his mental health too, because, he wants to be liked, he wants to be loved,” Stern said. “He wants people to cheer for him.”

    “I don’t think it’s going to be a healthy experience. And by the way, he’s now on this anti-Hollywood kick. He loves Hollywood. First of all, he loves the press. He lives for it. He loves people in Hollywood. He only wants hobnob with them. All of this hatred and stuff directed towards him. It’s not good for him. It’s not good. There’s a reason every president who leaves the office has grey hair.”

    This is pretty much what I’d figured. Trump wants to be loved and respected. He loves the applause. Protests against him and Hollywood mostly boycotting him is working. Let’s keep it up!

  120. 120.

    Corner Stone

    February 2, 2017 at 7:56 pm

    @Roger Moore: It’s weird that if that is the case, they haven’t set something up for “Wilmer” by now.

  121. 121.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    February 2, 2017 at 7:56 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Perfect! Bumbling character fits perfectly.

  122. 122.

    Gin & Tonic

    February 2, 2017 at 7:57 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Hah!

  123. 123.

    Mel

    February 2, 2017 at 7:57 pm

    @Felonius Monk: I see the point you’re trying to make. Great point, but maybe not so great a way to express it. Brains and tenacity, not whether you’re toting a pair of balls or a special lady oyster, determine how tough one gets when the shit hits the fan.
    Gillibrand stands strong. Pelosi now steps up and calls it like it is instead of doing verbal gymnastics to avoid hurting delicate fee-fees. Tammy Duckworth is loudly, proudly speaking out for real democracy and equality.
    Not pleased with Warren’s nightmare Ben Carson decision, but still – who had the guts to pursue Wells Fargo?

    Take a look at the Women’s March photos and think about what thay says about the strength and
    fearlessness of women worldwide in the face of all this chaos. No balls necessary, but male marchers welcomed and much, much appreciated!!

    Those kinds of insidiously common but honestly problematic phrases always make me think of a sort of horrible but darkly funny event that a friend experienced as a very young teen. She loved to play baseball, and was damned good at it, but the boys in our rural farming neighborhood would hog the diamond at the school practice field all summer and would never let any girls play. Finally, one Saturday they agreed to let my friend pitch, obviously just so they could catcall her and mock her and enjoy upsetting her. They started chanting, “Pussycat, pussycat, meow meow meow,” and progressively worse, on to downright obscene, crap while she warmed up. Right before she threw out the first ball, the batter yelled, “Go on, show us how you throw like a girl, boo hoo!” Without a second’s hesitation, she yelled, “Happy to!”, and let loose a blazing fastball aimed right at his face. Suffice it to say, ball connected with target, and guess who ended up doing the boo-hoo-ing all the way home that day?

  124. 124.

    Patricia Kayden

    February 2, 2017 at 7:57 pm

    @Corner Stone: Don’t you know that calling a racist a racist is worse than racism?

  125. 125.

    Viva BrisVegas

    February 2, 2017 at 7:58 pm

    @JosieJ (not Josie):

    So far, they’ve made out pretty well.

    At least they’ve managed to make sure that crazy people still have access to guns.

    There is an achievement to be proud of.

  126. 126.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    February 2, 2017 at 7:59 pm

    if they catch on to Wilmer we can always change it to Major Strasser

  127. 127.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 7:59 pm

    @Yarrow

    There’s a reason every president who leaves the office has grey hair.”

    Not St. Ronaldus.

    ;)

  128. 128.

    TheMightyTrowel

    February 2, 2017 at 7:59 pm

    @bluehill: I know Pete Buttigieg personally – grad school classmate – at the time he was a pretty derpy Ivy league centrist lib who decided that joining the military post grad school was the best way to round out his pre-prez appeal – that said, being a mayor in Pence’s Indiana, combined with his military experience and (i would guess) the experience of living abroad (oxford!) is shaping him into a better person that I’d believed he would be. Pence’s anti-LGBT crap forced him to decide to come out of the closet and he’s been getting louder and lefter ever since. I’ve been watching his career with a lot more interest since then.

  129. 129.

    Moebym

    February 2, 2017 at 7:59 pm

    @Hungry Joe: These parallels to Naziism are getting a little too numerous for comfort…

  130. 130.

    Corner Stone

    February 2, 2017 at 8:00 pm

    @1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet):

    We make more powder. It’s not a difficult recipe, and this lot seems more than ready to supply the ingredients.

    That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

  131. 131.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 2, 2017 at 8:00 pm

    @dm:

    Chris Christie has broken the 27% barrier by 10 points?

    Wow, so it is possible.

  132. 132.

    ThresherK

    February 2, 2017 at 8:00 pm

    @Yarrow:

    Trump will hate being president and the role will be detrimental to his mental health

    .

    To poach the line about Cal Coolidge, “How would we know?”

  133. 133.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 8:00 pm

    @joel hanes:

    I was a young asshole once.
    It’s hard to know oneself, but I suspect that experience has made me an older, different kind of asshole.

    Oh yes. I was not only an asshole, I was a conservative asshole. I was a Randroid asshole who actually “studied” under Rand and her acolytes in NYC during the mid-60s. I’ve spent the last fifty years making up (or trying to make up) for a lot of youthfulish stupidity.

  134. 134.

    joel hanes

    February 2, 2017 at 8:01 pm

    @1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet):

    It’s not a difficult recipe

    Heh.

    Back in the Pleistocene when I was a sprout, I used to get on my bicycle and head downtown to spend my paper-route profits at Osco Drug, where I bought quart jars of finely-powdered sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal. The cashiers never blinked an eye, and by some miracle, I still have both of mine. And all my fingers.

    It was a different world.

  135. 135.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 2, 2017 at 8:01 pm

    @Baud:

    Your daughter’s friends are assholes.

    Don’t beat around the bush Baud, tell us what you really think.

  136. 136.

    Corner Stone

    February 2, 2017 at 8:01 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    Professional GOP ball-washer Ed Rollins

    That motherfucker.
    We’d all be better off when he goes back to Better Call Saul.

  137. 137.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 8:03 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    Another gem from the piece was, “Despite the attempts to project a functional, harmonious White House, sources say it’s far from that. People involved in the administration sometimes don’t trust each other because there are several camps that remain warring factions. Top Trump aides often travel with him to events they don’t necessarily need to attend because they want to be close to the power center and in the pictures.”

    This is a classic authoritarian leadership style. Leaders of authoritarian governments are- often justifiably- paranoid about their subordinates conspiring against them. To avoid that, they set the subordinates against each other so that they each have to vie with the rest for the leader’s favor. The result is exactly the kind of backbiting and petty betrayals we’re hearing about in the Trump White House. That it makes governing incredibly inefficient seems beside the point; it’s better to be the living leader of a catastrophically inept and inefficient government than dead in a palace coup.

  138. 138.

    bemused

    February 2, 2017 at 8:04 pm

    @Yarrow:

    Amazing, not until he reached 70 and became president did he discover that reality is a bitch. Qualifier: The reality that everyone doesn’t love him, in fact hate him. I don’t expect any other reality to penetrate.

  139. 139.

    joel hanes

    February 2, 2017 at 8:05 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I was a conservative asshole

    Recovering purity pony here.
    If I and people like me had been able to see things more clearly, Humphrey might have gotten the nomination.

  140. 140.

    mai naem mobile

    February 2, 2017 at 8:05 pm

    Wondering if somebody can answer a question – in the WH pics of Dolt 45 in the Oval Office, there seem to be a bunch of white guys standing around . I recognize Bannon,Reince,Kusher, Stephen Miller and Spicer. Who’s the last guy? It’s a middle aged a little overweight with a brown hair. He’s not bald. Hard to tell if it’s a receeding hair line. Is it Don McGann?

  141. 141.

    Yarrow

    February 2, 2017 at 8:06 pm

    @NotMax: Heh. Didn’t they give him the slightest bit of graying at the temples or something? Just to make him look distinguished?

    @ThresherK: Ha! It’s hard to imagine it getting worse, but I guess it could…

  142. 142.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 8:06 pm

    @JosieJ (not Josie):

    The Republicans in Congress aren’t scared of Trump. Anyone with two functioning neurons to rub together should have given up on their notion of controlling him by now. However, they still feel that if they placate him enough, he’ll occasionally throw them a bone, like with the Supreme Court pick.

    I don’t think that’s it. They may not be afraid of Trump, but they’re afraid that any obvious betrayal would piss off the rabid members of his base who would never forgive him come primary time. It’s not as if Pence would give them anything less than Trump, except for unnecessary drama. This attitude seems foolish to me. I’m pretty sure that if they betrayed Trump now, they’d have plenty of time to win back the base by delivering hatred on Those People before the next election. The wild card is what Putin may be holding over their heads from hacked emails.

  143. 143.

    joel hanes

    February 2, 2017 at 8:08 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    making up (or trying to make up) for a lot of youthfulish stupidity

    One useful definition of “expert” is “someone who has already made every possible mistake in a particular field of endeavor”.

  144. 144.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 8:08 pm

    @Yarrow

    Patron saint of the antimacassar makers.

  145. 145.

    Jeffro

    February 2, 2017 at 8:11 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Wow, so it [Chris Christie at 17% approval] is possible.

    Well yeah, think about it: CC’s just Trump minus the multi-millions, minus all the WWF and Apprentice episodes, and minus 5 decades as every Americans’ shorthand for “rich and doesn’t give a shit what you think”. Same asshole attitude, no dough no fame no name. I’m surprised Christie isn’t lower.

  146. 146.

    Yarrow

    February 2, 2017 at 8:12 pm

    @bemused: Yeah, I think people protesting against him, people hating him, is going to get through to him. It’s why he can’t stop talking about the inauguration crowd size and his election win, which he keeps characterizing as massive and he claims the popular vote as well. He wants everyone to love him so he keeps saying it like it’s reality. It’s not. And day after day the reality that people don’t love him, are protesting against him is getting through. Not sure what else is, but it’s clear that is.

  147. 147.

    Taylor

    February 2, 2017 at 8:12 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I think someone was watching The Maltese Falcon when we needed a pseudonym for troll avoidance.

    Pretty. Funny. Fella.

  148. 148.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 2, 2017 at 8:12 pm

    @Roger Moore: betraying trump is a distraction that would prevent them from ramming through all their pet legislation. They’ll do it in a couple months.

  149. 149.

    Applejinx

    February 2, 2017 at 8:12 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    I just checked the WaPo site and saw “Wilmer: Where President Trump and I Can Work Together.”

    On the bright side, if he can get Trump to go along with any of that, imagine the rending of garments over on the Republican side. While we’re stuck with him, let my senator fuck with their heads just as hard as possible. I WANT them to think Trump is working with the Socialist. I WANT them to lie awake at night wondering if Trump’s gonna do single payer or decree a thousand bridge rebuilds using American workers, just because some commie got in his ear. :)

    Honestly, the chances of driving a wedge between Trump and the Republicans is already quite good. I think our worst fear is that Trump is a white nationalist psychopath AND prepared to shove through the full Republican agenda. Let’s get in the way of that last part, so the Republicans don’t trust him and can’t work with him, and so he hates them and doesn’t trust them either.

  150. 150.

    Jeffro

    February 2, 2017 at 8:13 pm

    Btw the Bloomberg cover…the Uber walk back…the Harley Davidson “uh, no thanks no visit please”…big business is starting to get how Trump-substantiation works (h/t Betty). Let’s keep reminding the slower CEO folks down the road that it’s really in their best interest to shun the Apricot Ass.

  151. 151.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 2, 2017 at 8:14 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Or maybe this guy.

  152. 152.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 8:14 pm

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    I’m pretty sure Zhena Gogolia substituted “Wilmer” in there. Tsk, tsk, should have said: “[Wilmer]: Where President Trump and I Can Work Together.”

    Washington Post (teaser on home page): “Bernie Sanders: Where President Trump and I Can Work Together.”

    The origin of “Wilmer” (credit to Jim, Foolish Literalist).

  153. 153.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 8:15 pm

    @Jeffro:
    You left out the extra years for his governing scandals to play out in the media.

  154. 154.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 8:16 pm

    @NotMax:

    antimacassar

    My second-favourite word in the world.

  155. 155.

    NeenerNeener

    February 2, 2017 at 8:16 pm

    @Yarrow: That’s why I’ve thought for months that he’ll eventually fake a heart attack and resign for “health reasons” so he can go out on his own terms, as a tragic figure who could have been the greatest if only….

    His greed is still overwhelming his need to be adored right now, but if we keep mocking and protesting him we could tip the balance the other way, hopefully before he starts wars with China, Mexico and Iran.

  156. 156.

    Jeffro

    February 2, 2017 at 8:16 pm

    @Applejinx:

    I think our worst fear is that Trump is a white nationalist psychopath AND prepared to shove through the full Republican agenda.

    My worst fear is that he thinks it’d be a good idea to “drop a small nuke on ISIS, you know, the smallest one we have, just to let them know we mean business”, followed by the fears that he doesn’t mind torpedoing a Chinese warship or bombing an Iranian nuclear facility, again, “just to get their attention and show them who’s really in charge.”

    Everything besides that is just stuff we can undo after the Republican Civil War.

  157. 157.

    bluehill

    February 2, 2017 at 8:16 pm

    @TheMightyTrowel: As he was describing his background I was more and more surprised and impressed. Yes I totally stereotyped given he is a mayor in Indiana. If we’re trying to rebuild the dnc at the state and local level in all 50 states he seems to have unique perspective and experiences that would be an asset

  158. 158.

    Kathleen

    February 2, 2017 at 8:17 pm

    @Corner Stone: Why can’t we just leverage synergies?

  159. 159.

    Jeffro

    February 2, 2017 at 8:18 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    You left out the extra years for his governing scandals to play out in the media.

    True, true. Christie’s pathetic attempt to rage-ham it up at the RNC had to have cost him 10% as well.

  160. 160.

    Kathleen

    February 2, 2017 at 8:19 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Translation: How I can up my Grift Game for fun and profit. Lots of profit..

  161. 161.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 8:19 pm

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    Meh. More like Ugarte, who also found out how tricky it is to make deals with fascists.

  162. 162.

    trollhattan

    February 2, 2017 at 8:19 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    Whoa, really? Ever meet Greenspan and if so, ever kick him in the junk (oh please, oh please)?

    Recently read of her hatred of Beethoven. The heck was up with that?

    We need stories!

  163. 163.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 2, 2017 at 8:20 pm

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): And nearly all O-3s would know better than to assert that.

  164. 164.

    Skepticat

    February 2, 2017 at 8:20 pm

    I’m convinced that’s there’s one way to get rid of Bannon, and that’s to make a loud fuss over how masterful he is, how he has Orange Foolius eating out of his hand and really is the one in charge, and the like. The raging id in the oval office cannot bear having anyone take attention, credit, or thunder from him, and there’s a chance Steverino could be made to walk the plank if he feels he’s being shaded. We also ought to stress what a slovenly mess SB is, given how the entire Cabinet and top officials have been chosen for their looks. Any ideas for how to weaponize these approaches?

  165. 165.

    joel hanes

    February 2, 2017 at 8:20 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    My second-favourite word in the world.

    after “axolotl” ?
    or “nebbish” ?

  166. 166.

    Jeffro

    February 2, 2017 at 8:20 pm

    Speaking of Republican Civil War, here you go: we’re now down to “Repair, then Replace” Obamacare.

    Oh my. You can almost hear swords unsheathing (or is that daggers sharpening?)

  167. 167.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 8:21 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Goddamn it, shut up! The first rule of Wilmer is don’t talk about Wilmer. Except, uh, when you’re talking about Wilmer, I guess.

  168. 168.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    February 2, 2017 at 8:21 pm

    A few more executive orders and there will be weekend protests, every weekend.

    If you thought the Muslim Ban was a big deal, just wait until he comes after :
    1) Gay rights
    2) Dreamers

    I’m so relieved that so many people are tuning in.

    We may last 4 years at this rate. He won’t, though.

  169. 169.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 2, 2017 at 8:21 pm

    @Roger Moore: The people that Dolt45 needs to worry about is Dense and the Cabinet, not the White House staff.

  170. 170.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 8:22 pm

    @Jeffro:
    It’s also possible that being visibly on the outs with Trump is hurting him with Republicans.

  171. 171.

    amk

    February 2, 2017 at 8:22 pm

    @Jeffro:

    NJ dems: Mission Accomplished!

    Assholish morons/Moronic assholes. Your pick.

  172. 172.

    TenguPhule

    February 2, 2017 at 8:22 pm

    @NotMax: Which is why CW II is inevitable at this point. The Right has thrown their lot in for MOER-TORTURE-NOW.

    At this point, extermination is the only remaining option to cleanse this cancer from the Republic’s corpse.

  173. 173.

    Kathleen

    February 2, 2017 at 8:22 pm

    @BlueDWarrior: Nuremberg Barbie? With designer jack boots?

  174. 174.

    TenguPhule

    February 2, 2017 at 8:23 pm

    @Jeffro: Warning, that’s rebranding, not retreating.

    Defensive Feint Trap.

  175. 175.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 8:23 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    Jaysus, Steep, did you have to undo all our hard work of avoiding the name?!?

  176. 176.

    trollhattan

    February 2, 2017 at 8:24 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    Use in a sentence also containing chifferobe for double-bonus points.

  177. 177.

    Kay

    February 2, 2017 at 8:24 pm

    Sam Stein ‏@samsteinhp 5h5 hours ago
    More
    big chatter on Hill today was how the DeVos callers are basically shutting down/overwhelming the phone lines of tons of offices.

    I love these people. So determined! :)

  178. 178.

    cosima

    February 2, 2017 at 8:25 pm

    @Baud: Close — canvassed in AK, some of the time in snow, pulling my tot in her little red flyer wagon or pushing her in her pram. And being threatened with guns by some ‘patriots.’ Had fortunately moved to Denver for the next go-round, summer of record-breaking temps regularly over 100, but people were nicer…

    They are assholes, but they are young assholes, so they may change. I, however, am not going to spend my finite amount of energy trying to do it. My oldest has now seen the wilmer-free light, and understands a lot more about the big political picture. I’ll pass the torch to her.

    Truly is bedtime here in the Highlands. Night all.

  179. 179.

    dm

    February 2, 2017 at 8:25 pm

    @Moebym: Since the election I’ve gone on a podcast bender (I have a nice long walk to work, they’re perfect). This morning I listened to a Pro-Publica interview with Masha Gessen (she of the Autocracy: Rules for Survival). She said that if people had looked at authoritarian populists in other places, we’d have recognized Trump for what he threatened to be a lot earlier (I think she mentioned an Israeli right-wing populist who was not slowed down by a sexual scandal like Trump’s “grab them by the….” tape, among other analogies).

    Pro Publica also has a couple of interviews of how journalists should approach life in Trumpsylvania.

    So, I recommend Ezra Klein’s podcast (I went back to the beginning and listened to almost all of them). The Vox “The Weeds” I’m less enamored of, but it’s okay. The Scholars’ Strategy Network (a bunch of political scientist academics) have a “No Jargon” podcast where they talk about their research (among the topics: populism, authoritarianism, anthropology of Trumpistan, why are there so many Chinese restaurants), without the abstruse academic-speak.

    I would say it’s hella better than NPR, but I stopped listening to NPR 20 years ago, so I don’t know what they’re like now (they’ve gotten worse, it sounds like).

  180. 180.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 8:26 pm

    @amk

    17%. Supported by the crème de la scum.

  181. 181.

    Major Major Major Major

    February 2, 2017 at 8:26 pm

    @TenguPhule: I don’t know, there were those repair bills earlier today.

    They might not have time to get their act together to repeal it this year.

  182. 182.

    David Spikes

    February 2, 2017 at 8:28 pm

    @NotMax: Gerald Ford’s only good joke*Reagan is the only man I know who’s hair is prematurely orange.*

  183. 183.

    Kathleen

    February 2, 2017 at 8:28 pm

    @Brachiator: Dag. I’d love to listen but I don’t want to break my appointment to have hot needles stuck in my eyeballs.

  184. 184.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 8:29 pm

    @TenguPhule

    I hope you brought enough chewing gum hyperbole for everyone, young man (or woman).

    ;)

  185. 185.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 8:29 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    The people that Dolt45 needs to worry about is Dense and the Cabinet, not the White House staff.

    Maybe so, but there’s no real need to govern that way in the first place. As questionable as his election was, anyone trying to overthrow him would be even less legitimate. I think he’s doing it because he’s paranoid, which means he isn’t doing it based on some rational judgment of people’s actual threat.

  186. 186.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 8:29 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Ever meet Greenspan and if so, ever kick him in the junk (oh please, oh please)?

    Met him many times. Was far too young, stupid, brainwashed, and intimidated to kick him or anybody else in the junk.

    Can I get a do-over half a century after the fact? Because I’m ready for that now.

  187. 187.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 8:31 pm

    @trollhattan:
    Must also include spatchcock for completeness.

  188. 188.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 8:32 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Recently read of her hatred of Beethoven. The heck was up with that?

    That was a major, VERY major, factor in my dawning realization that I needed to part company with Miss Rand.

  189. 189.

    Kathleen

    February 2, 2017 at 8:33 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Agreed. I’m more of a crowd size gal myself.

  190. 190.

    Eljai

    February 2, 2017 at 8:33 pm

    Are there any handwriting experts here? I’m staring at tRump’s signature on that Bloomberg cover. I just noticed how he loops the D, T, and P into pointy looking KKK hoods.

  191. 191.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 8:35 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Okay, and . . .

    Don’t keep us in suspense!

  192. 192.

    dm

    February 2, 2017 at 8:35 pm

    @Skepticat: I know the New York Times is garbage, but they did headline an editorial “President Bannon”. “President Bannon and his sockpuppet” has a pretty nice ring to it, and if it ever gets into widespread use, it’s sure to get under some orange skin.

  193. 193.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 8:36 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    Could you be sure to do something equally awful to Mrs. Greenspan while you’re at it?

  194. 194.

    Kathleen

    February 2, 2017 at 8:37 pm

    @Seanly: I would support any congressional action to defund NPR.

  195. 195.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 8:38 pm

    @trollhattan:

    We need stories!

    If you are serious about this, I may think about resuscitating a long-dormant writing project. Didn’t really think anyone would be interested at this late date. (And to be clear, I was never part of the Objectivist Inner Circle, although my husband and I [we actually met because of Ayn Rand, and years later I divorced him because of differences over Ayn Rand] were stalwart attenders of every class and event offered by the Nathaniel Branden Institute in New York, many of which featured “guest appearances” by Ayn Rand her ownself.)

    Strange days. I think of myself then, and I can hardly believe it.

  196. 196.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 8:38 pm

    @Eljai:

    Are there any handwriting experts here?

    Why don’t you consult with a reputable phrenologist instead?

  197. 197.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 8:39 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    D’oh! I get confused when it gets too meta.

    I guess this is a good place to suggest that another solution would be to let the trolls show up and then ignore them. But of course that’s crazy talk.

  198. 198.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 8:40 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    Heh, was wondering who would be the first to buckle.

    Boustrophedonic.

  199. 199.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 8:41 pm

    @Kathleen

    Privatizing public broadcasting is an oxymoron of the nth magnitude.

  200. 200.

    Roger Moore

    February 2, 2017 at 8:41 pm

    @Kathleen:
    We need either to defund it completely (in which case it will probably wind up even more in the Koch brothers’ pockets) or fund it fully. This bullshit about giving them a tiny fraction of their operating budget and then bullying them by threatening to remove it has got to stop.

  201. 201.

    TenguPhule

    February 2, 2017 at 8:42 pm

    @Roger Moore: Isn’t being married to Greenspan punishment enough? Or do we make it worse with a human centipede?

  202. 202.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 8:44 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Must also include spatchcock for completeness.

    I know nobody except shrinks ever wants to hear about anybody else’s dreams, but I actually dreamt of “spatchcocks” last night, with the term itself being prominent.

    There were two “spatchcocked” pigs in my huge apartment that I was moving out of, each of them taking up room on the top of a bureau.

  203. 203.

    divF

    February 2, 2017 at 8:45 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Tangentially related: did you get satisfactory answers to the question “on which side do you dress”?

  204. 204.

    lurker dean

    February 2, 2017 at 8:46 pm

    fwiw, this came across twitter tonight. i was able to call and leave a message on the first try.

    ACTION ALERT: The Senate Committee on Homeland Security is taking calls about Bannon’s appointment to the NSC. You can call: 202-224-4751

  205. 205.

    joel hanes

    February 2, 2017 at 8:47 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    DUMBLEDORE: I’d like to say a few words:
    Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

  206. 206.

    Applejinx

    February 2, 2017 at 8:49 pm

    @Skepticat:

    I’m convinced that’s there’s one way to get rid of Bannon, and that’s to make a loud fuss over how masterful he is, how he has Orange Foolius eating out of his hand and really is the one in charge, and the like. The raging id in the oval office cannot bear having anyone take attention, credit, or thunder from him, and there’s a chance Steverino could be made to walk the plank if he feels he’s being shaded. We also ought to stress what a slovenly mess SB is, given how the entire Cabinet and top officials have been chosen for their looks. Any ideas for how to weaponize these approaches?

    Reminds me of the Foundation trilogy. People trying desperately to do just that, to get the Emperor or whatever to turn against his best general who was kicking everybody’s asses. They try everything, fail in every case, are despairing and then learn: the general is disgraced! Exactly the outcome they’d wished, and they hadn’t executed the conspiracy well at all!

    It was the general’s success that doomed him. Because he was such an effective power, the emperor destroyed him. I think the same could be true of Bannon: the only question is, who’s really in charge, Trump or Putin? If Trump is an aging child unhappily avoiding the devastating wrath of his puppetmaster (no puppet! you’re the puppet!) Putin, then his rages mean little. We’re assuming he even has power to abuse. That’s certainly what he’s claiming, but Trump lies…

  207. 207.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 8:51 pm

    @joel hanes:

    after “axolotl” ?
    or “nebbish” ?

    “Axolotl” was a new word to me, although I’ve seen pictures of the creature and think it’s quite cute.

    “Nebbish” was quite likely the very first Yiddish word I ever heard, thanks to the cartoon character popular in the 1950s. It’s a great word.

  208. 208.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 8:59 pm

    @divF:

    did you get satisfactory answers to the question “on which side do you dress”?

    Not to the specific question I had in mind, which was, basically, does the side a man “dresses” on have any correlation or similarity to “handedness”?

  209. 209.

    joel hanes

    February 2, 2017 at 9:01 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    “Axolotl” was a new word to me

    It was a favorite of The Usual Gang Of Idiots at Gaines’s MAD Magazine. They found an impressive number of occasions to use it.

  210. 210.

    Applejinx

    February 2, 2017 at 9:01 pm

    @scav:

    Maybe, maybe not. Certain major corporations were rather front-line recently for some LGBT rights issues. It’s not entirely 100% unprecedented. Besides, there’s a real difference between managing a single business (especially when reduced to the rote aphorisms of MBA) and juggling an economy. Le Combover wasn’t exactly stellar at even the first, except in claiming victory.

    My concern here is this: identity and justice issues are publicity friendly. There is no great risk in promo campaigns being all ‘United Colors Of Benetton’.

    If you’re absolutely totally sure we’re in the best of all possible capitalist worlds, there’s no danger in turning over politics to the biggest corporations serving the widest demographics. They will behave as though genocidal racism and crazed sexism is bad for business, because it is.

    If we are in economic trouble with all the capital being sucked out of 99% of the world through corporations and insanely rich people who run them, I would humbly suggest this: turning over total power to them only enables them to escalate that very course of action. It seriously will not matter if black or gay people or women are empowered as much as the next guy, if every one of them is trapped in a declining world with no hope of escape. And it will always be more profitable to torture, rob, and impoverish people than not to: that’s kind of how things got to this pass.

    You will find not many corporations are all that liberal except in an identity politics sense that looks good on promotional displays, and certainly aren’t that populist. Republican granny-starving is NOTHING compared to what corporate rule would get up to. But then, we’ve been getting both for decades: we’re talking about ‘this to the 90s’ is as ‘Trump to GWB’. We can’t turn to corporate power to fix our country, though it will come in useful for blocking the worst xenophobic excesses.

  211. 211.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 9:01 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne

    “Axolotl” was a new word to me

    Incontrovertible evidence you weren’t a regular reader of MAD.

    Also gleaned from there: poiuyt.

    Kind of fond of paizogony. Not top of the list, just a fun word.

  212. 212.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:02 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    If I get the do-over, sure. Never met her (when I knew him, he was married to a woman named Joan Mitchell, no relation to Andrea Mitchell AFAIK).

  213. 213.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 9:04 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Punctiloquent response: No.

  214. 214.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:04 pm

    @NotMax:

    Incontrovertible evidence you weren’t a regular reader of MAD.

    True enough. Read it occasionally in the late 1950s, but not regularly and not at all after I graduated from high school in 1960.

  215. 215.

    Jeffro

    February 2, 2017 at 9:09 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Warning, that’s rebranding, not retreating.

    Defensive Feint Trap.

    Not everything is a ‘trap’ or a ‘distraction’…and sometimes, when your enemies hit the Wall of Reality, it’s ok to celebrate.

    They are realizing that contrary to their own side’s propaganda, the majority of folks who benefit from Obamacare are WWC folks in the red states, and that there are other effects to Medicare, Medicaid, and the ‘cost curve’ in general. I have no doubt that they’ll do what they can to cut Obamacare taxes on the wealthy and make the poor pay more, but other than that…they don’t have anywhere to go. Heck, even big business won’t let them: bending the cost curve is good for everyone’s bottom line, hospitals are financially healthier, and so on.

    Let’s just call it Trumpcare and move on to more important things, like whether we’re going to invade Australia or abandon Ukraine first…

  216. 216.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 9:11 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Got an oddity from the 50s sitting in the dugout in anticipation of the usually more easygoing overnight thread.

  217. 217.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 9:12 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I am (slightly) disappoint. That seems a little too arcane/​obscure, and so feeling a little like not a “real” word. Like hominochionophobia (fear of snowmen).

    One of my favorite words, in a “worrying something stuck between your teeth with your tongue” way, is flaccid, because it supposedly should be pronounced “flack-sid,” but it’s almost universally pronounced “flass-id,” which gets across much better the essential idea of it. (Sad trombone sound and penis graphic.)

    Bonus: flaccid makes an appearance in this old rock song (2:00).

    Extra bonus: hot recorder solo at 1:47!

    ETA: I’d forgotten what a gold mine of bad hippie poetry this song is.

    When vague desire is the fire in the eyes of chicks
    whose sickness is the games they play

    That’s pretty much how I remember my high school dating career.

  218. 218.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:17 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    I am (slightly) disappoint. That seems a little too arcane/​obscure

    Oh rubbish. It is cromulent as all fuck, and you know it.

    And FTR, I have always pronounced flaccid “flack-sid.” Also too, “ack-sess-o-ry.”

  219. 219.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 9:18 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Hey, I gave you what I thought was a good answer on that.

  220. 220.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 9:20 pm

    @joel hanes:

    I liked the poiuyt.

  221. 221.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:20 pm

    @NotMax:

    Well, depending on whether I rack out by 10:00 p.m. and/or find myself wide awake at 3:00 in the ack emma, I may or may not see it when posted. Generally I catch up with the overnight threads the following morning, and almost never comment because too late and other reasons.

  222. 222.

    joel hanes

    February 2, 2017 at 9:21 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    after I graduated from high school in 1960.

    Ah. You were ten years too mature for MAD.

    I, on the other hand, being a member of the core demographic, still remember some of the rules of 43-man Squamish.
    IIRC, during the coin toss, the referee must declaim that wise old Chilean proverb:
    “Mi tio es enfermo, pero la carretra es verde.”

  223. 223.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 9:23 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Ditto.

    Also too, HAAH-ress-ment.

  224. 224.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:24 pm

    @joel hanes:

    Ah. You were ten years too mature for MAD.

    Story of my life. I have always been ten years too mature for anything, and as a result I am always ten years behind the times.

  225. 225.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:25 pm

    @NotMax:

    Also too, HAAH-ress-ment.

    Yes!! Had entirely forgotten that, but yes!

  226. 226.

    Skepticat

    February 2, 2017 at 9:26 pm

    @dm: I’d missed that, but you’ve made my day, er, evening. Thanks.

  227. 227.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 9:27 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Where do you fall on forte? (Non-musical sense.)

  228. 228.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:32 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    Hey, I gave you what I thought was a good answer on that.

    Forgive me. Either (a) I never saw it in the first place, (b) saw it but didn’t think it was as good an answer as you did, or (c) saw it, thought it was a fantastic and clarifying answer, but my extremely advanced years are having their way with me and I just.don’t.remember. Whichever, would you mind terribly pointing me to your answer, or simply repeating it?

  229. 229.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 9:33 pm

    Had to go listen to Jackie DeShannon’s “When You Walk in the Room,” because nonchalant (0:54).

    Bonus: go-go dancers! But low-energy. Sad!

  230. 230.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:34 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    Where do you fall on forte? (Non-musical sense.)

    Non-musical? Meaning one’s strength? One syllable. (French.)

    Musical? Meaning loud? Two syllables. (Italian.)

  231. 231.

    p.a.

    February 2, 2017 at 9:35 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    Smock!

  232. 232.

    NotMax

    February 2, 2017 at 9:35 pm

    @Steeplejack

    Personally, pronounce it “strong suit.”

    ;)

  233. 233.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:37 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    Jackie DeShannon’s “When You Walk in the Room,” hold your head up high

    I mostly love R&H, but I detest “You’ll never walk alone” with the proverbial heat of the proverbial thousand suns. Cringeworthy.

  234. 234.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:39 pm

    @p.a.:

    Poit!

  235. 235.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:41 pm

    @efgoldman:

    That’s ”cause you got ’em, darlin’.
    (That’s a compliment)

    Aww, you ARE sweet!

  236. 236.

    Mnemosyne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:46 pm

    @Applejinx:

    turning over total power to them only enables them to escalate that very course of action

    And yet the only person here talking about turning total power over to them is you. The rest of us are saying that if corporations want to use their giant pots of available money to fight Trump’s executive order on immigration in the courts, why should we refuse their help?

  237. 237.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 9:47 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Basically I said that it is like handedness (at least for me), because it’s not anything I ever thought about consciously but it became a preference or habit (again, unconscious) for one side (right). Like “deciding” which hand to write with.

    . . . Okay, found the original. Hmm, the conversation went on into handedness.

  238. 238.

    Central Planning

    February 2, 2017 at 9:47 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    As a woman, I have never understood what’s so special about the metric of either size or number of balls.

    As a man who is down one (fuck cancer!), I can safely tell you number of balls doesn’t make a difference.

  239. 239.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 9:48 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Agreed!

  240. 240.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:49 pm

    @Central Planning:

    Fuck cancer, and I surely didn’t mean to be flippant or offensive.

  241. 241.

    Central Planning

    February 2, 2017 at 9:52 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: I didn’t take it that way, my response was just to joke about it. Sorry for the confusion! And I thought your nym was Siubhan, not Shirley.

  242. 242.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 9:53 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Agreed on that as well. Forced to sing it ad nauseam in grade-school or junior-high music class one year. Memory mostly suppressed, but (unfortunately) not completely.

  243. 243.

    mainmata

    February 2, 2017 at 9:53 pm

    @trittico: That’s because he’s done a bunch of dramatic EOs (!!!) but when the disastrous GOP leg he signs and it gets implemented? 2018 is the consequential year.

  244. 244.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:54 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    . . . Okay, found the original. Hmm, the conversation went on into handedness.

    I evidently missed a lot of that thread. Bookmarked for the inevitable middle-of-the-night insomnia. Thanks. You have awesome google-fu, and I still owe you a drink from like four years ago for tracking down my grandmother’s song about roses.

  245. 245.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 2, 2017 at 9:56 pm

    @Central Planning:

    And I thought your nym was Siubhan, not Shirley.

    “Cigarette?”

    “Yes, I know.”

  246. 246.

    J R in WV

    February 2, 2017 at 9:57 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Multiple organ failure!? Polonium can cause that…wonder if they’ve checked him with a Geiger counter?

  247. 247.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 10:04 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Oh, I haven’t forgotten that drink. Someday!

  248. 248.

    zhena gogolia

    February 2, 2017 at 10:05 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    Oh, yeah! I used to try to draw it.

  249. 249.

    jonas

    February 2, 2017 at 10:12 pm

    @Cacti: This is going to work out great. Trump will slap US sanctions back on Iran and every other country in the world, esp. Germany, UK, China, India, etc. will just keep on doing business and usual and Boeing, US energy firms will just be left out in the cold. Oh, and Iran will just tell Hamas and Hezbollah and their folks in Yemen: “go nuts, boys.”

  250. 250.

    AnotherBruce

    February 2, 2017 at 10:19 pm

    @Kelly: That’s great news, it was the hunters and fishermen who established these many wildlife areas.

  251. 251.

    J R in WV

    February 2, 2017 at 10:25 pm

    @joel hanes:

    We used to disassemble 12-ga shotgun shells for the powder. Useful in home-made rockets.

    Also bought carbide at the hardware stores, which when wet with common water emitted acetylene gas, with outstanding results. Long ago it was used in mining lamps, more recently by cavers underground. Not around much anymore.

    Somehow never injured, although I did once burn off my eyelashes on a nice summer evening in a small brief acetylene fireball when too much water got added to the small stack of carbide. Close call, though!

  252. 252.

    Steeplejack

    February 2, 2017 at 10:27 pm

    @efgoldman:

    They’re real!

  253. 253.

    Debbie1

    February 2, 2017 at 10:31 pm

    Oh my God, his fingers are short! It’s no wonder he does all that unecessary saber rattling. Sad.

  254. 254.

    evodevo

    February 2, 2017 at 10:58 pm

    @trollhattan: I changed all the antimacassars today, and put the clean ones in the chiffarobe.

  255. 255.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    February 2, 2017 at 11:06 pm

    @efgoldman:

    That’s totally real!

    Now, overcome by nostalgia, I am trying to bend my feet Don Martin style.

  256. 256.

    Captain C

    February 2, 2017 at 11:15 pm

    @bemused:

    Arab exports are even smaller than Finland’s exports.

    This is pretty much the ignorant economic version of “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

    or “with some notable exceptions…”

  257. 257.

    Captain C

    February 2, 2017 at 11:25 pm

    @Jeffro: Christie also notably and visibly kisses the asses of those he feels he needs to suck up to. Exhibit A: the picture of him humping the leg and snarfing the armpit of a noticeably disturbed Jerry Jones. Also, low info Eagles and Giants fans may have started to notice CC is a Cowboys fan.

  258. 258.

    joel hanes

    February 2, 2017 at 11:51 pm

    @J R in WV:

    carbide

    You can still purchase “carbide cannons” that use it for “ammunition”
    The big ones are really loud.
    My uncle used to shoot his every Glorious Fourth

  259. 259.

    AnotherBruce

    February 2, 2017 at 11:59 pm

    @Mel: @efgoldman: Or maybe there’s hope for 10% of the crazies. Hopeless optimism, I know.

  260. 260.

    No One You Know

    February 3, 2017 at 1:15 am

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I regret noting that I’m not enthralled about twin threats to Social Security and my retirement accounts. He, Trump, doesn’t have to directly threaten them to do a lot of damage.

  261. 261.

    TenguPhule

    February 3, 2017 at 2:26 am

    @Jeffro: Republican Congress critters are both stupid and believe they’re the smartest ones on the block. They’ve been doing this exact shit for 30+ years. Watch for the dead of night sneak it in.

  262. 262.

    Kathleen

    February 3, 2017 at 4:19 am

    @NotMax: No such thing as “Public” broadcasting. They’re CNN light anyway.

  263. 263.

    Kathleen

    February 3, 2017 at 4:20 am

    @Roger Moore: Yes. I agree.

  264. 264.

    Just One More Canuck

    February 3, 2017 at 7:33 am

    @Cacti: I was in army cadets when I was a kid – does that make me qualified to be on the NSC?

  265. 265.

    Just One More Canuck

    February 3, 2017 at 7:48 am

    @Roger Moore: ke

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