Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

No one could have predicted…

Not all heroes wear capes.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Late Night LOL NOTHING MATTERS Open Thread: “Not Naked! Alternatively Clothed!”

Late Night LOL NOTHING MATTERS Open Thread: “Not Naked! Alternatively Clothed!”

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Politico (of course) reports that some people liked the President-Asterisk’s performance:

… It was Trump’s decision to hold such an extended news conference and it was made Thursday morning, according to a White House aide briefed on the matter. After weeks of getting pounded by the media — something the president has privately and publicly fumed about — he made it clear to advisers that he wanted to speak in an unfiltered way…

One person close to Trump said he showed an “unusually long” attention span they hadn’t seen often in the White House. And two sources close to the president said he was happy with his performance — and that he felt he was seizing back control of a narrative of his presidency he had lost.

The reviews outside the White House were more mixed. “The guy up there seems crazy,” said one senior GOP aide. “I’ve thought that the whole time.”

The aide acknowledged, though, that the audience wasn’t necessarily Washington. “But how does this play outside the Beltway? It might play pretty well. I can’t say if he killed it or if he was terrible. I just know I was watching the whole time, the whole hour and 20 minutes,” the aide said.

“We were all riveted. Were you not? Have you ever seen a press conference like that from a president?…

The president said he wasn’t “ranting and raving” even as he ranted and raved. “Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars,” he said, without specifying what drug or what candy bar. He said “80 percent” of a court’s rulings were overturned and admitted there was no proof for the number, saying that he heard the number somewhere.

He torched the intelligence community for leaking damaging information about his administration and said the reporting was “fake” from the news media. “The leaks are absolutely real,” he said, complaining about them. Seconds later, he said: “The news is fake.” It was difficult to understand how both could be true…

There are other audiences…


Meanwhile, the Purity Progressives at the Young Turks are busy… surveiling the DNC chair candidates for warning signs of fraternization, because that’s the real threat:

Reader Interactions

187Comments

  1. 1.

    Omnes Omnibus

    “Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars.”

    I finally can afford that coke habit I always wanted.

  2. 2.

    PsiFighter37

    @Omnes Omnibus: Trump would probably be happy, given his reputed affection for drugs of the stimulant variety.

    As for the Young Turks – they can go fuck themselves. I have not gotten the sense at all that Ellison and Perez have any personal (or professional) animus for each other in the race for DNC chair. I hate those guys a bunch, especially that asshole Cenk Uygur.

  3. 3.

    cmorenc

    This is what it’s like to have your crazy RW uncle as President instead of merely being a loudmouth annoyance at holiday family dinners.

  4. 4.

    EBT

    Well I can buy a gram of cheap weed for 5 dollars. That’s two or three candy bars or even more than one mid quality bar. Or a big bag or something gummy. The weed would outlast the chocolate for sure, but maybe not the gummy.

  7. 7.

    efgoldman

    Have you ever seen a press conference like that from a president?…

    Not since Dan Rather asked Tricksie Dicksie Nixie “Mr President, are you a crook?”

  9. 9.

    Aleta

    (From NYT) Employees of the Environmental Protection Agency have been calling their senators to urge them to vote on Friday against the confirmation of Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s contentious nominee to run the agency, a remarkable display of activism and defiance that presages turbulent times ahead for the E.P.A.

    Many of the scientists, environmental lawyers and policy experts who work in E.P.A. offices around the country say the calls are a last resort for workers who fear a nominee selected to run an agency he has made a career out of fighting — by a president who has vowed to “get rid of” it.

  12. 12.

    Jonny Scrum-half

    From 1999-2008 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in fact had 80% of its cases that were reviewed by the Supreme Court either vacated or reversed.

  15. 15.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Jonny Scrum-half:

    From 1999-2008 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in fact had 80% of its cases that were reviewed by the Supreme Court either vacated or reversed.

    Which is not far outside the figures for the other circuits. Particularly since the 9th has a very heavy case load that includes a lot of Californian tech related cases.

    It’s a favorite misleading right wing talking point.

  21. 21.

    Ian

    If his candy bars are cheaper than my drugs, I will stick to my drugs! At least I only spend 25$ a week, what does he cost us all at Mar-a-Lago and NYC?

  22. 22.

    Eljai

    There’s a trump wine? I bet it’s really good. An unctuous, unrefined wine with a barnyard bouquet, notes of urine with a hint of gristle and a bigly flabby finish.

  23. 23.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Oxy does have a well-deserved rep for being over-prescribed, but it also has legitimate uses for chronic pain management.

    I didn’t mean to poke fun at your family & friends.
    My apologies.

    Disclosure: I was on Norco 10’s for a month after I broke my knee, and withdrawal was a bitch.

  34. 34.

    Ian

    @hilts:
    Our hopes need to focus on the house. We are really, truly, fucked in the senate. A good day for us in 2018 includes keeping every seat and gaining Nevada. That would be 51-49, and that is a best projection.

  35. 35.

    Jeffro

    I realize that everything, absolutely EVERYTHING has to be “a huge mess” in Trump’s mind in order for his narcissism to flourish…”the black guy screwed everything up, I’m the only guy who can fix this, I’m the only guy who sees the truth since the government is lying and unemployment is really around 84%” and what not…

    …but, isn’t there a variety of narcissism that just steps right into a successful situation, knows to keep it on autopilot, kick back, relax, play a lot of golf, and then take credit for it? If not, could we develop that variety and have Trump catch it like a head cold?

    Because a month ago everything was fine and most everything else in the world is still technically fine, but now we have this lunatic making unforced error after unforced error and disgracing the country.

    Think about it: Alternate Universe Trump could be doing literally nothing all day every day except playing “Minesweeper” and vegging out to Fox News, and it’d still be a much better world than this nonsense.

  36. 36.

    Villago Delenda Est

    “I am not a crook” – Richard Nixon, 1974
    “I am not really a bad person” – Donald Trump, 2017.

  38. 38.

    different-church-lady

    “We were all riveted. Were you not? Have you ever seen a press conference like that from a president?…

    “Well… uh… that’s quite an act. What do you call it?”

  40. 40.

    Keith P.

    “Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars.”

    So drugs are getting cheap, or chocolate is getting expensive? I mean, I’ve seen $25 chocolate bars in the store, but that’ll get you about a gram of high-end weed or a little tiny baggie of shitty coke.

  41. 41.

    scav

    “Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars,”

    Clearly he’s more familiar and worried about recreational drugs, because pharmaceuticals are not quite on the candybar metric, except maybe measured in Weimar wheelbarrows. Although his desire for higher prices is undoubtedly non-denomiational.

  46. 46.

    ? Martin

    @hilts: He won’t make it that long. He’s completely unable to respond to this situation and his instinct is to dig in and fight back – and he’s got not only the entire US intelligence community working against him, but likely most of the other western intelligence communities as well. His allies are a handful of white supremacists and Kellyanne Conway.

  49. 49.

    StringOnAStick

    @hovercraft: “I have no connections to Russia”. I heard Donnie boy make that claim at today’s presser; it made me smile that he did that in the same event where he (1) told the press they were dishonest and (2) took a few more punches at the IC. He’s on record now as plain as he can be; tonight’s leaks should be extra juicy.

  51. 51.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jon (((Wolfsthal)))
    ‏@ JBWolfsthal
    @ POTUS44 NSC transition to @ POTUS was like building a new house, everything in place for the prefect move, and the renters are crack heads

  56. 56.

    TriassicSands

    Open Thread — earlier today I encouraged anyone who hadn’t signed the We the People petition on the White House dot gov website to go there and sign. Then, when I returned to the site, the petition page was gone — nowhere to be found. I sent them a scathing message and I guess it scared them because the petition page is back. The current number of signatures is 975,854! If you haven’t signed and time it just right you could be number 1,000,000! A petition needs 100,000 signatures to get a WH response, so a million provides a comfortable margin.

    Then, some time within 60 days we will get our “response” from the White House. It will probably be something like “Thank you to everyone who signed, but the president will not be releasing his tax returns because only the media care about his taxes.”

    If you haven’t signed, get on over there and sign — put the petition over the one million mark. I don’t know this for a fact, but that must be a record for a We the People petition.
    A million signatures!

    There are also quite a few other petitions worth signing — I mean who doesn’t want both Madonna and George Soros arrested and jailed?

  57. 57.

    AnneW

    I have a few hours left in Twitter Timeout because I’ve been telling one too many people to go fuck themselves. Whoops.

    (Piers Morgan, Susan Sarandon, & the dipshit reporter who called the Republicans “geniuses” for blocking Merrick Garland. Plus, I said, “Like Children’s Day, _every_ day is “Hey James Comey, Go Fuck Yourself” Day.)

  60. 60.

    ? Martin

    Since Trump has a campaign event on Saturday, does this mean no Supreme Court confirmations? I thought the rule was no confirmations during a campaign.

  63. 63.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @TriassicSands: Like the occupied by fascists WH will pay attention to any petition, no matter how many signatures it has, that doesn’t conform with their agenda.

  65. 65.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Shalimar: If they have one, I am sure they have me already. What does this add? I will only lend effort and name to things that might work.

  66. 66.

    efgoldman

    @StringOnAStick:

    He’s on record now as plain as he can be; tonight’s leaks should be extra juicy.

    He never, ever said that, cross his heart and hope to float away into the stratosphere. Just ask him tomorrow, he’ll tell you.

  67. 67.

    Shalimar

    @Villago Delenda Est: There was already a petition 2 weeks ago that got over 200,000 signatures in the first 36 hours, prompting one of the tv talking heads (I think Chuck Todd) to ask Kellyanne Conway about it. She said the official White House response was no, no one cares about his taxes. This might even be the same petition, in which case I have already signed.

  70. 70.

    efgoldman

    @TriassicSands:

    A petition needs 100,000 signatures to get a WH response, so a million provides a comfortable margin.

    Another one of the Obama norms we were taking for granted. He did it because he thought it was the right thing.

  72. 72.

    Mnemosyne

    I just got back from seeing Moonlight and now I know what all the hype was about. I went in with no expectations and was pleasantly surprised to see it turn into a really sweet and poignant romance (and a gay one, at that). Definitely recommended.

  75. 75.

    TriassicSands

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    @Villago Delenda Est:
    It puts just a little bit more pressure and negative publicity (we can hope) on Trump. If nothing else, the response or lack of one will be wonderfully symbolic of the contempt Trump has for the people. It also makes it clear that Trump’s “nobody cares” excuse is just another lie.

    The point is to attack Trump in every way possible and this is just one way. And not signing it will hurt you how?

    Voting does what? Since (almost) no election is going to be decided by one vote why should anyone bother? Why should any Democrat in Kansas bother to vote? Because an important part of living in a democracy is expressing oneself. In any and every legal way possible.

    We want journalists to stand up to Trump and challenge his lies. Why? It’s not likely to stop Trump from lying.

    But, hey, if you’re too busy, too good, or even just too lazy to bother, it won’t make any difference in the end. The petition will have a million or a million and one signatures. If you don’t want to or can’t be bothered, then don’t bother. I simply wanted to point out one more, admittedly small, way that people can express their disgust with Trump. What you do or don’t do is up to you.

  78. 78.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @TriassicSands: Signed it long ago. But the point remains. The fascist regime will ignore it. This may be stupid, this may be idiotic, this may be suicidal, but they will.

    More fuel for the fire that will consume them.

  79. 79.

    TriassicSands

    @Shalimar:

    Gee, great question. They’re separate petitions so I’d have to say it would be different cells. But you could start your own petition calling for both of them to be in one cell. Or, go big, and call for Hillary to be in there too. The more the merrier.

  80. 80.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @TriassicSands:

    But, hey, if you’re too busy, too good, or even just too lazy to bother, it won’t make any difference in the end. The petition will have a million or a million and one signatures. If you don’t want to or can’t be bothered, then don’t bother. I simply wanted to point out one more, admittedly small, way that people can express their disgust with Trump. What you do or don’t do is up to you.

  81. 81.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    A broken ankle sounds like no damn fun. Is it the typical cast/boot/crutches for interminable weeks? Please pass along my sympathy and good wishes.

  83. 83.

    TriassicSands

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    More fuel for the fire that will consume them.

    It may only be kindling, and not a log, but as Werner Herzog said, “Even Dwarves Started Small.”

    There are now a number of anti-Trump petitions that have passed the 100,000 signature threshold, which “requires” a response of some kind from the White House. It will be interesting to see how they dismiss one after another.

  84. 84.

    seaboogie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The other person is someone you might know as well.

    I follow her on Twitter since she doesn’t comment here anymore when I check in.

    BTW, I love the “Momnes Momnibus” moniker – did SD coin that? Glad she’s doing well.

  89. 89.

    frosty

    @EBT: Five bucks a gram???? Holy shit am I out of touch. It was $10 an ounce (28g) for cheap crap in my day. Even with inflation that’s still only ~ $1.25/g.

  91. 91.

    TriassicSands

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    He’s pretty clueless in general. It was truly amazing — though not the least bit surprising — to hear him explain where he came up with the idea that he won a massive, historic Electoral College victory. He heard it somewhere. Or maybe it was written on a bathroom wall. Or maybe he just imagined it. Or possibly it came to him in a vision in which God told him to keep sucking up to Vlad.

    What is always amazing — to me, anyway — is to watch or listen to the greatest pathological liar in American political history call the media dishonest. Certainly, all the pots and kettles in the universe perk up their ears every time Trump does that. Though they may be confused since black is now white and white is now black. Or maybe we should borrow from philosophers and just call them blite and whack.*

    *If curious search for “grue and bleen” or The New Riddle of Induction

  93. 93.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @seaboogie:

    did SD coin that?

    Somebody else gets all the credit for getting in there first (although it did also occur to me instantly when I saw both “Omnes Omnibus” and “Mom” in close proximity in one of OO’s comments the other night). Sorry I can no longer remember the name/nym of the commenter who came up with it or I’d credit them here.

  102. 102.

    TriassicSands

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Hmm. I don’t think they can “ignore it.” They may dismiss it or come up with yet another lame excuse for why Trump can’t or won’t release his tax returns, but the website does more or less “promise” a response. I really expected them to take the petition page down once they saw where it was going. They inherited it from Obama so there wasn’t any compelling reason they had to keep it. If when they took over the WH dot gov website they had simply deleted the petition page, I doubt if many people would have noticed and those who did would probably have just shrugged their shoulders and said, “Whaddya expect?”

    But I don’t see how they can now simply ignore it, which makes me all the more curious to see how they do respond. A million signatures is a lot. Maybe Trump will point out that it’s not so many, why it’s only 1/5 the number of “illegal aliens” who voted for Clinton.

    Then again, we are talking about Trump. So, almost anything is possible. Maybe he’ll call for the arrest of all the traitors who signed the petition.

  103. 103.

    martian

    I’ve misplaced my partisan’s handbook, why is it a bad thing if Ellison and Perez are friends? I actually felt an unexpected stab of relief to see them say it. Each of them have needed areas of strength to bring to the DNC, and seeing that they’re talking gave me a moment of peace and calm on this shitty, insane day.

  104. 104.

    toschek

    @TriassicSands:

    If I sign the “We the People” petition how long does it take for the check from Soros to arrive? Will I have to claim it as income on my taxes?

    /s

  107. 107.

    Davebo

    @efgoldman: Actually ran into Dan Rather recently in Houston. God he looks tired and old just like me. I did get the chance to thank him though.

  108. 108.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @TriassicSands:

    Maybe he’ll call for the arrest of all the traitors who signed the petition.

    Well, I’ll look you up when we’re both in the camps.

  110. 110.

    martian

    @Major Major Major Major: Does refighting the primary mean we have to pretend that these proxies don’t have long histories running in the same, small circles? There are no outsiders in the club.

    God, I think this fucking election has deradicalized me and killed my pretty purity pony dead.

  111. 111.

    Another Scott

    @efgoldman: As if we needed another example of why a Democrat like (say) Manchin is 1000x better than any Republican, it’s this.

    The majority picks the leadership. The leadership sets the rules and divvies up committee assignments and leadership posts.

    Chaffetz wouldn’t be able to run these witchhunts for years on end and ruin people’s lives (and destroy people’s careers) if the GOP were in the minority. In the fall, you’re not only voting for your particular representative or senator, you’re voting for the leadership that runs everything.

    That’s why I keep harping on my mantra:

    Fight like hell for the better candidate in the primary; fight even harder to elect the nominee in the fall.

    The sooner we can flip the majorities and the WH, the better off the country (and the world) will be.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  112. 112.

    dogwood

    @Major Major Major Major:
    I say let the Sanders dead-enders take over the DNC. They’ll find out quickly how little power the organization actually has. And I doubt any of them are anxious to organize and put on a national convention. Also too, I will be looking forward to the Russians hacking them and selectively releasing their internal communications.

  119. 119.

    fuckwit

    @Jeffro:

    but, isn’t there a variety of narcissism that just steps right into a successful situation, knows to keep it on autopilot, kick back, relax, play a lot of golf, and then take credit for it?

    I believe you’ve just described Willard Mitt Romney.

  121. 121.

    Chet Murthy

    @kdaug: One presumes this is what is meant:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_riddle_of_induction

    It’s a famous (uh, cough cough in certain admittedly specialist, dare I say nerdy circles) response to people who argue that we should just assume the principle of natural induction which Hume showed was not rationally based, and then all will be well.

    ETA: Oh, ha! never played zork, didn’t know it showed up there. I’m guessing that the Zork reference is the relevant one, but that it was introduce due to the “blite-vs-whack” up-thread.

  122. 122.

    danielx

    “Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars.”

    If only.

    Russian press reports that the Russian Jerkey Boys, Vovan and Lexus, prank called Sens McCain, Graham, McConnell.

    If true, priceless. Hell, if not true, still priceless. Kind of begs the question about, did they speak to the distinguished senators in person and if so, how did that happen? Jaysus, mary and joseph, how did a couple of fucking russian pranksters get the hotline #s of those three guys, anyway?

    ETA: Every morning I get up and think things can’t possibly be as surreal as the day before, and every day I’m wrong.

  123. 123.

    TriassicSands

    @kdaug:

    what’s a grue?

    If you really want to know, search Wikipedia for “The New Riddle of Induction.” Make sure you take your sense of humor with you.

  126. 126.

    EBT

    @Chet Murthy: If you try to enter a dark area without a light source you are told “It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.” Which was itself referencing The New Riddle of Induction.

    @Major Major Major Major: You have never played a Sierra or Infocom game I see.

  127. 127.

    JWR

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    “I am not a crook” – Richard Nixon, 1974
    “I am not really a bad person” – Donald Trump, 2017.

    I know they’re not pronounced quite the same way, but every time I hear Trump reference his Good Friend Bibi, I keep hearing Nixon referring to his Dear Friend, Bebe Rebozo. (Yes, I read “All The Presidents Men” several times back in the day.)

  130. 130.

    NotMax

    (makes note to self)

    Save money. Hand out drugs this Halloween.

    @efgoldman

    No recollection of that, if it occurred. Do vividly remember the exchange that put Rather on the map:

    Nixon (to Rather): Are you running for something?
    Rather: No sir. Are you?

  131. 131.

    danielx

    @Another Scott:

    At this point all I can see is how this will all end – with a lot of bitterness for a lot of people, and we’ll be lucky to get through it without bloodshed. Beyond that I can’t tell. It doesn’t much matter; once you’ve figured out where you stand…this feels, melodramatic though it may sound, like maybe 1860.

  132. 132.

    NotMax

    @efgoldman

    Oh, and the B-side of Rather’s hit parade single:

    “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”

    (You young’uns can just go look it up.)

  135. 135.

    EBT

    @NotMax: If you were giving out say, whole fancy chocolate bars (not snickers or stuff like that) maybe half gram joints would actually be cheaper? Something to think about if you live near me and have poor eyesight.

  137. 137.

    jl

    ‘ The [dimwit Trump] aide acknowledged, though, that the audience wasn’t necessarily Washington. “But how does this play outside the Beltway? It might play pretty well. ‘

    No, I seriously doubt it. The campaign is over, and the majority of the country did not buy this lying nutcase’s schtick even as a campaign gimmick. He claimed to be the only one who understand the system and the only one to be able to fix it, and he would be presidential, calm and steady.

    Now, nothing at all is happening that anyone wants, except the very definite minority of the country who voted for Trump because he was an ignorant vengeful bigot. I don’t think Trump’s BS today played well at all for the less bigoted knuckleheads, the ones who thought Trump was putting on a campaign act and he would ditch the nut talk after election. He hasn’t done one damn thing they want, and is in fact moving in the opposite direction. And he raves like a lunatic.

    This crap today only played well among the racists and fascists and the dimwit nutcases. The GOP won’t win many elections with that crowd as their main source of support.

  140. 140.

    NotMax

    @jl

    Heh.

    Always wanted to hear a weather forecaster announce, “For tomorrow, an 80% chance of brillig.”

  141. 141.

    TriassicSands

    @efgoldman:

    …the right thing.

    I missed that comment earlier, but you’re right. Obama put it up as a legitimate way for people to express themselves and raise genuine concerns. None of that applies to Trump, who will never see the petitions and may never even be told about them. Imagine his response to being told there is a petition on “his” website calling for him to a) release his tax returns, b) divest fully, c) resign, and d) be impeached. And then to learn that one of them had 1,000,000 signatures. His head might explode, which is what we’re all, secretly or not, waiting for.

    As a test of a person’s morality, I posed a little thought experiment for friends when W. Bush was president. Imagine a knock at your door. When you open the door you find a small black box with a single button. Instructions explain that if you push the button Bush will simply disappear. No one will ever know who is responsible. Would you push the button? How about for Trump?

  142. 142.

    Mnemosyne

    @jl:

    Interesting tidbit that someone on Julia Ioffe’s Twitter feed pointed out: among Republicans, Trump currently has higher ratings than every previous Republican, including St. Reagan.

    Everybody else hates him, tho.

  145. 145.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @NotMax: A great moment. This is why the reactionaries, in the 80’s, wanted to buy up CBS stock so they could “be Dan Rather’s boss”. The right has hated Rather for that exchange with Tricky Dick for years.

  147. 147.

    ? Martin

    @TriassicSands:

    As a test of a person’s morality, I posed a little thought experiment for friends when W. Bush was president. Imagine a knock at your door. When you open the door you find a small black box with a single button. Instructions explain that if you push the button Bush will simply disappear. No one will ever know who is responsible. Would you push the button? How about for Trump?

    Yes, and yes.

    Both advocated (and implemented) policies that had the same effect on multiple other people. If they were willing to push the button, someone needs to be willing to push it back.

  148. 148.

    JWR

    @jl:

    This crap today only played well among the racists and fascists and the dimwit nutcases.

    Not to mention CBS News Senior National Security Analyst Fran Townsend, who, like Trump, is far more concerned with the leaks than with what they reveal.

  149. 149.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mnemosyne: He’s sticking it to the hated liberals. The reactionaries LOVE that.

    This is not going to end well. There will be civil war, and it will be far worse than the first one.

  155. 155.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @? Martin: Historians will have to suss out when it started. We might be in it now, but we’re not at the shooting and blowing stuff up stage on a massive scale yet. They may date it as far back as 1964, when the post-war consensus began to fray.

    But it’s coming to a head. Should Trump fall (and I think it’s now inevitable) his followers will not take it well, because they don’t operate in the same frame of reference as most of us.

  157. 157.

    Chet Murthy

    @TriassicSands:

    As a test of a person’s morality, I posed a little thought experiment for friends when W. Bush was president. Imagine a knock at your door. When you open the door you find a small black box with a single button. Instructions explain that if you push the button Bush will simply disappear. No one will ever know who is responsible. Would you push the button? How about for Trump?

    Wow, that’s a wonderful (moral) philosophy and political history question. Cuts to the bottom of a lot of the conversations and arguments. I never thought of it that way. I can think of at least two right off the bat:

    (1) “torture warrants” (I think it was Dershowitz who counted this horrifying neologism). The idea was that the govt could swear out a warrant authorizing somebody to torture, e.g. in a “ticking time bomb” scenario. In the thread I read, it was pointed out that (a) as far as we know, there’s never been such a circumstance, (b) if there were, it’d be a little too urgent to go thru the machinations of a warrant, (c) such a power would inevitably be misused, at great cost to the innocent, and us all, and (d) EVEN IF there were such a scenario, and our putative hero tortured to save us all, it’s not like we wouldn’t pardon him afterward.

    (2) and then there’s the relationship between this problem, and the historical fact of the Praetorian Guard that used to depose and install Emperors. That is, once you had such a box and deposed Trump, suppose you could keep the box. How long after, before the owner of the box became the Emperor, and if not, became the power behind the throne. In short, the corruptionof our institutions.

    I think it would be unwise to give an answer to the question, and I certainly will not commit myself.

  158. 158.

    ? Martin

    @jl: By comparison California is 44.8% Dem, 27.3% GOP, 23.3% No party affiliation. By likely to vote 45% Dem, 31% GOP, 20% No party affiliation.

    So the GOP #s in Cali aren’t that much lower than national, but Democrats are much higher. The GOP vote, though.

    This was pre-election. I’ll be curious to see what it looks like in 6 months.

  160. 160.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Chet Murthy: The “ticking time bomb” scenario is fantasy. Pure fiction. A lame justification for vengeance that Dershowitz muttered and forever removed himself from the realm of serious legal scholarship. Another Jew who has, in his insane hatred, forgot all the lessons of the Shoah.

  161. 161.

    ? Martin

    @Chet Murthy: There’s another angle to it, which is the why I think drones are perceived differently than conventional warfare. We are more comfortable with killing a person if it carries a high real (fuel, bombs) or potential (risk) cost. Drones represent a reduction in the marginal cost to kill someone. Whenever the marginal cost of a good declines, consumption increases and the rationale to consume is lowered, so our experience tells us that if killing someone gets cheaper, we’ll do it more and we’ll do it for more and more trivial reasons.

    The box with a button with no repercussions is the lower bound of that experiment – everyone pushes the button until only one person is left.

  162. 162.

    jl

    @? Martin: I think the average CA GOP voter, in most populated areas, is voting for more moderate GOPers, at least for state and local office. Goofballs still win in Sierra Nevada hillbilly land, and some pockets of Southern California. And of course our own little Oklahoma, around Bakersfield.

    The rest of the state, the reactionary GOPer seems to be going extinct. I was a little surprised that the whole San Joaquin Valley went blue this election.

    Edit: for outsiders from them other little dinky states, Bakersfield is in the Kern Basin, not San Joaquin Valley.

  163. 163.

    Chet Murthy

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yep. As I said, (1).(a). But I wasn’t clear that it was Dershowitz (who has a lot to answer for, and not just this, eh? If he believes in answering to his Creator, it’s gonna be an -interesting- conversation) posed the idea of these (to be clear) morallly unacceptable “warrants”. And others pointed out the various objections I listed, of which the most important is (a) “na ga ha pen”.

  164. 164.

    Chet Murthy

    @? Martin: Interesting you bring up drones. I read a book by van Creveld (I think, the famous one about 4GW) wherein he pointed out that having such invulnerability inevitably led to the destruction of morale and discipline in the armed forces. With examples from the IDF (and perhaps others — I forget). I’ve read that our “drone soldiers” are similarly beset by maladies of basically “being bad soldiers”.

    It seems that something within us (humans) yearns for a “fair fight”, and when we’re basically swatting human beings like flies, it takes its toll on us.

  165. 165.

    ? Martin

    @Villago Delenda Est: Given where the current dividing lines are falling, I’d argue that the civil war never ended. Trump really does represent a great deal that the Confederacy sought to protect. Not slavery directly, but definitely the preservation of a social structure against the headwinds of progress. Geographically the lines are pretty similar. Demographically they’re similar. Jim Crow and Civil Rights were major victories for one side or the other in that war, and truces were called around the world wars and the cold war, but we’re more or less back to where we started.

  166. 166.

    ? Martin

    @jl: Yeah, I would agree overall. There’s also the possibility that the top two runoff system is producing the desired outcome of more moderate winners of elections.

  167. 167.

    TriassicSands

    @Chet Murthy:

    …and I certainly will not commit myself.

    Then, I’ll pose a slightly easier question. What if when you pushed the button Trump’s pants would fall down as he is walking down the aisle before the State of the Union speech?

    Push? Don’t Push?

  168. 168.

    TriassicSands

    @? Martin:

    …everyone pushes the button until only one person is left.

    Hey, that’s why I only made one box and it only works one time — or only for one person. I don’t condone genocide.

    ETA: If I’d wanted to kill everyone, I’d have just built a doomsday machine (Dr. Strangelove) and not told anyone.

  169. 169.

    ? Martin

    @Chet Murthy: Yeah, I think in the case of modern warfare, you have two additional variables working the problem:

    1) The military has gotten pretty efficient at desensitizing soldiers to the early emotional cost of killing. Paper silhouettes that you learn to instinctively shoot at means that when you get an insurgent in a doorway, your muscle memory kicks in because you’re still seeing the silhouette, not a person. We haven’t gotten any better at training them for the long term cost, which in some cases is worse because they got desensitized to it making it easier to feel guilt.
    2) Increasingly we don’t see our targets. You aren’t killing ‘people’, you’re striking a little icon on a screen. You know it’s a person, but it’s also detached in some way. I was talking to an engineer at a defense contractor and asked offhand why they hadn’t gotten around to putting color camera displays in most systems. He said they are color, but only ever false color. They don’t want to broadcast a real color image to the operator because it makes it harder for them to pull the trigger.

    There’s something perverse in all of this. Not that people respond in this way, but that the known response of people is part of the engineering requirements. But yes, I think we have an instinctive tendency to measure value of life to some degree by risk. Large predators are usually revered because they are dangerous to us, while small prey animals are less likely to be protected. That extends to societies as well. It’s clear in the media that we value certain lives more than others. A disaster in Europe carries more emotional weight than one in Africa. Increasingly disasters in China are getting more prominent as China ascends in power, as we see the people there as more ‘civilized’. When you can kill someone from the sky, without even their knowledge, from half a world away, it’s very hard for us to see that person as an equal. They don’t possess the same capacity to put that risk on us, therefore they are ‘lesser’ in some way.

    There’s a lesson about wealth distribution in there as well. The life of a rich person is inherently more precious than of a poor person. There are important consequences to that…

  171. 171.

    ? Martin

    @TriassicSands: Right, but to the extent that our experience with market dynamics shapes how we view things outside of markets, if there were a box for everyone, our intuition tells us that everyone would push the button. And that of course turns into a sort of prisoners dilemma. If you assume that the ability to push the button for free means that people would push it, that means you have to assume the person with your box would push the button, even if you are convinced you would not because it is immoral. The only possible way to survive in that case is to push the button and hope you kill the person with your box before they have a chance to push it.

    And that unfortunately is how I view your two examples of Bush and Trump. Trump runs very close to being a sociopath, and with the power present in his office, I see few impediments to him initiating actions that will, effectively, kill multiple more or less random people, with no consequence back on him. I would argue that he has already implemented some of those actions even if we have not yet been able to measure the outcomes. Effectively he has a certain number of such boxes himself whose buttons he is willing to push. Bush did as well. In his case it was Iraqi civilians and at least some innocent people disappeared away to black site prisons, etc.

    So the question you present to me is, would I push that button to stop someone who I know would push multiple buttons of random people – people they could not possibly know or judge whether they are deserving or not? Does not pushing the button make me complicit in their deaths, knowing I could have prevented it?

  172. 172.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @? Martin: They wouldn’t use visual spectrum color for a couple of reasons: it’s subject to quite a bit of distortion from haze at a distance and you’re SOL at night without being detected. They’d use near IR, you see through haze quite a bit better than with the visual spectrum and you can light it up at night without being noticed.

  173. 173.

    TriassicSands

    @? Martin:

    Trump runs very close to being a sociopath

    The DSM “antisocial personality disorder” is a sociopath. Trump is not close — he qualifies.

    It’s late and I have to get up early. Don’t push any buttons tonight.

  174. 174.

    J R in WV

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    My impression is that very few federal appeals decisions are reviewed by the Supreme. 80% of 1% of 20,000, is that a big number? lessee, now, 1% of 20K = 200. 80% of 200 -> 160, right? How is that an issue of any sort?

  177. 177.

    prob50

    Looks like I picked a good week to re-start a long-discarded coke habit, although on my Social Security check I might still have to go with the meth instead. I’m told it’s very affordable in these parts nowadays. Besides, just about all my real teeth are already gone.

  178. 178.

    Central Planning

    @? Martin:

    The box with a button with no repercussions is the lower bound of that experiment – everyone pushes the button until only one person is left.

    I know it’s not your thought experiment, but this makes me wonder why the inventor of the box didn’t push the button. And, aren’t the choices to smash the box, or push the button twice and then smash the box? It feels ‘Lord of the Rings’-ish.

    @? Martin:

    Does not pushing the button make me complicit in their deaths, knowing I could have prevented it?

    That sounds like the logic the Sisters of the Poor were using for not filling out an ACA form to opt out of contraception coverage – by opting out, they are now getting contraception for their employees (which they still would have gotten regardless of filling out the form).

  180. 180.

    Jonny Scrum-half

    @Viva BrisVegas: Yes it’s misleading, but some courts have much lower reversal rates. The Ninth is the second most reversed, if I recall correctly, after the Federal Court of Appeals.

  182. 182.

    Jonny Scrum-half

    @amk: Check out Snopes. It’s not in anybody’s interest to hit Trump for things that he said that actually have factual support. Why open yourself to being shown to be wrong? That’s how you get discredited, and then no one listens to anything else you say.

  183. 183.

    Jack the Second

    Once again Perez and Ellison take identical positions.

    Part of being an actual Democrat is knowing and liking other Democrats.

  184. 184.

    Another Scott

    PSA – If you notice a new ‘nym who seems to be so concerned and rather trollish, hover over their name in blue. If you see “deleted”, it may be one of our old friends, back to stir the pot…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  185. 185.

    TriassicSands

    @Jonny Scrum-half:
    @Jonny Scrum-half:

    I believe it is the 3rd most reversed; the reversal rate for the Ninth is 79%; the average for all the appeals courts is 70%. The Supremes do their own thing — of course the old 5-4 majority had its own political agenda.

    From Punditfact:
    The 9th Circuit’s reversal rate is higher than average, but it’s not the absolute highest among the circuit courts. That distinction goes to the 6th Circuit, which serves Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, with an 87 percent average between 2010-15. The 9th Circuit is in third place.

    6th Circuit – 87 percent;

    11th Circuit – 85 percent;

    9th Circuit – 79 percent;

    3rd Circuit – 78 percent;

    2nd Circuit and Federal Circuit – 68 percent;

    8th Circuit – 67 percent;

    5th Circuit – 66 percent;

    7th Circuit – 48 percent;

    DC Circuit – 45 percent;

    1st Circuit and 4th Circuit – 43 percent;

    10th Circuit – 42 percent.

  186. 186.

    Stan

    @Jonny Scrum-half:

    From 1999-2008 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in fact had 80% of its cases that were reviewed by the Supreme Court either vacated or reversed.

    Read that carefully – of course a high percentage *of the cases that were reviewed* were reversed. if they weren’t vulnerable to reversal they wouldn’t have gotten to review.

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