Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

T R E 4 5 O N

After roe, women are no longer free.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Let’s finish the job.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

In my day, never was longer.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Brown Bag Democracy

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Brown Bag Democracy

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More immediately, the Resistance targets the expense-account demographic…

Doggedly painstaking NYTimes explainer:

… The campaign, spread on social media and messaging apps, has called for a “day without immigrants.” It asks foreign-born people nationwide, regardless of legal status, not to go to work or go shopping in a demonstration of the importance of their labor and consumer spending to the United States’ economy.

Activists and groups in cities across the country have picked up the call, reposting fliers found online, and in some cases organizing demonstrations to coincide with the event. Several activists said that they did not know how the campaign began or how many people would heed it, and that as far as they knew, there was no national organization behind it.

But the dining scene in Washington, where the new Trump administration is taking a hard line on immigration and deportation, took notice. At least a few dozen restaurants in and around the Beltway have committed to staying closed on Thursday. Others have said they would offer limited service in the expectation that many of their employees would be out for the day. Some restaurants in other cities, including several of the Blue Ribbon restaurants in New York, have joined in…

Hey, when it was just lobbyists schmoozing backbenchers down in The Swamp, cute little joke. But if it inconveniences the important Media People and financiers in the Big Apple, well…

Actually, I expect a spate of mean-girl posts tattling on colleagues who Just Can’t (make their own lunches). Betting on Maureen Dowd to be first into pixels, since she doesn’t seem like she consumes many calories in solid form.
***********

What’s on the agenda as we slog through this interminable week?

Reader Interactions

140Comments

  2. 2.

    geg6

    Morning rikyrah!

    Big local news story on this today.

    Also made plans to attend the March for Science in Pittsburgh with some old friends. One of them is knitting us all brain hats for it.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Awwwwwww, those NFL meanies are just no fun at all for Netanyahu:

    The Israeli government has suffered an embarrassing blow after it emerged that only five of 11 NFL players turned up for an all-expenses paid PR trip organised to improve Israel’s image.

  5. 5.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    The Daily Caller @DailyCaller

    Former NSC Adviser Mike Flynn Loses His Security Clearance

    4:19 PM – 15 Feb 2017

  8. 8.

    SFAW

    Betting on Maureen Dowd to be first into pixels, since she doesn’t seem like she consumes many calories in solid form.

    Not sure I’m getting your point, whatever could you mean?

    By the way, has anyone ever seen MoDo, Nooners, and Ann Althouse in the same room at the same time? Or even two out of three?

    Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen Omnes and Althouse in the same room? (Asked because I had forgotten that AA is up in Cheesehead land.)

  9. 9.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly: LOL.

    In a social media post at the weekend, Bennett wrote: “I was not aware that my itinerary was being constructed by the Israeli government for the purposes of making me, in the words of a government official, an ‘influencer and opinion-former’ who would then be ‘an ambassador of goodwill’.

    Why did these players think they were getting an all expense paid trip to Israel?

    ETA: Maybe they thought it was a time-share promotion.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    And speaking of NFL meanies, Texas Gov Big Daddy Abbott is putting them in time out:

    “If a proposal that is discriminatory or inconsistent with our values were to become law there, that would certainly be a factor considered when thinking about awarding future events,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said in response to an email question about the Texas bill.

    The veiled threat prompted blowback from Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott, who told conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Tuesday that the NFL “is walking on thin ice” by wading into social issues.

    “The NFL needs to concentrate on playing football and get the heck out of politics,” Abbott said in a criticism of the league’s choice to allow players to kneel during the national anthem. “For some low-level NFL adviser to come out and say that they are going to micromanage and try to dictate to the state of Texas what types of policies we’re going to pass in our state, that’s unacceptable.

    “We don’t care what the NFL thinks and certainly what their political policies are because they are not a political arm of the state of Texas or the United States of America. They need to learn their place in the United States, which is to govern football, not politics.”

  12. 12.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Baud:
    They’re used to being treated like heroes. I doubt a free foreign trip would seem weird or suspicious to them.

  14. 14.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Re: alleged-but-not-proved-to-be human Greg Abbott:

    Hey, Greg, fuck you. You WATB wingnut motherfuckers are all good with wingnut celebs giving verbal blowjobs to your latest idol, whether it be W or Shitgibbon or Putin, but when someone shows some actual THOUGHT and PRINCIPLE and INTEGRITY and MORALS, it’s all “Oh noes! Shut up and sing, libtards!”

    So, in case you couldn’t hear it the first time: FUCK YOU, Greggie! And you need to learn YOUR own place, which SHOULD be prison for being an evil motherfucker.

  19. 19.

    Kay

    Someone at the FBI directed this to the NYTimes the week before the election:

    For much of the summer, the F.B.I. pursued a widening investigation into a Russian role in the American presidential campaign. Agents scrutinized advisers close to Donald J. Trump, looked for financial connections with Russian financial figures, searched for those involved in hacking the computers of Democrats, and even chased a lead — which they ultimately came to doubt — about a possible secret channel of email communication from the Trump Organization to a Russian bank.
    Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government. And even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump.

    After the election, the FBI contradicted this story but only after other intelligence agencies said there was a connection. I’d just like to know what happened here. Who planted this in the NYTimes the week before the election? It seems important since presumably the people who did are still employed there.

  21. 21.

    bemused

    Scratching my head. Enough Republicans thought Puzder had too many negatives so he withdrew his nomination. I’m not clear on what exactly concerned those legislators. I wouldn’t think the Oprah tape would offend them that much considering Twittlers history. I just find it interesting that they actually found a nominee too unfit to confirm, more unfit that those already confirmed.

  22. 22.

    Hal

    I skipped Chris Hayes last night because he decided to have Susan Sarandon on to discuss her take on the Trumpster. She did not disappoint based on the comment outtake.

    The good thing about this horrible thing of having Trump is that people are awake.

    Thanks Susan. No one was aware of how horrible Trump was and would be as president until he won. Soooo worth it! Ass.

  23. 23.

    JMG

    The NFL as an institution could eat any state in the union for breakfast in any political test of power. Net worth of the 32 owners is about $50 billion. They could easily find a puppet for a primary challenge to any governor, no matter how big their state is.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    @bemused:

    

    On December 8, days after Donald Trump chose Andy Puzder as his nominee for Labor Secretary, I predicted that he wouldn’t get confirmed. I didn’t have any special inside information, just the knowledge that Puzder’s beliefs included the one idea conservatives would not not abide: support for immigration reform.

    It’s Congress but it’s also executive branch dysfunction because some of the most vehemently anti-immigrant are IN the Trump Administration.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Saw this yesterday but didn’t have time to comment on it:

    As states have faced challenges to carrying out executions by lethal injection, various work-arounds and alternatives have been proposed, including the return of electric chairs and firing squads. Arizona may have come up with the most original concept yet: an invitation for lawyers to help kill their own clients.

    With drugs that can legally be used for lethal injections in short supply, the Arizona department of corrections’ latest execution protocol states that attorneys for death row inmates are welcome to bring along their own.

    The protocol says that “the inmate’s counsel or other third parties acting on behalf of the inmate’s counsel” may provide the department with a sedative, pentobarbital, or an anesthetic, sodium pentothal, if they can obtain it “from a certified or licensed pharmacist, pharmacy, compound pharmacy, manufacturer, or supplier”.

    These guys have gone way beyond chutzpah.

  26. 26.

    Quinerly

    Good Morning from Bernalillo, NM! We basically did what we do best yesterday…drove around our surrounds and looked (and sniffed) at things. A lot of stops to explore and short stops for Poco’s sniffing. Poked around Old Towne Albuquerque….always fun. The highlight of the day (and trip so far) was Los Ranchos del Albuquerque and that area. Stumbled on the incredible Casa Rondena Winery. I had no idea there was anything like it in the Albuquerque area. Just Google it. Impossible to describe. They had had a busy day Tuesday for VD, so the place was essentially empty yesterday. Sat on the beautiful grounds, amongst the vines, drank red wine and ate local green chile goat cheese. Actually, got a bit of a tan on my face. Great day, indeed. (Yes, Ozark, “I TRULY suck.” No regrets?)

  27. 27.

    SFAW

    @Hal:
    That’s the same rationalization bullshit that Saint Ralph the Pure tried to pull after 2000. Something to the effect of “Things will get so bad, that a new era of liberalism will be ushered in, and it will last a generation.”

    I was pissed at that motherfucker before I heard him say that; after I heard/read that (no, it’s not a verbatim quote, but it’s close), it fueled enough anger that he’s never going to be forgiven, in my eyes.

    Fucking morons.

  29. 29.

    HinTN

    @geg6: I’ve got my ticket and room. I’ve got my pink pussy hat, which did not arrive in time for the Women’s March. I’ve got my Kelly Green Omega tee shirt on order from Cafe Press. I’ve got a plan for my sign. I’m telling my friends and coworkers, one of whom said yesterday that he would be there, too! Scientists March in DC, here I come.

  30. 30.

    wormtown

    @bemused: Rachel covered last night. Her take is that there was concern that abuse allegations would bring accusations about Trump and Bannon back into focus.

  31. 31.

    Hal

    Easiest hundred grand ever:

    http://theslot.jezebel.com/robert-de-niro-and-robert-f-kennedy-jr-get-together-t-1792406941

    Kennedy explained that the WMP will pay $100,000 to the first journalist, or other individual, who can find a peer-reviewed scientific study demonstrating that thimerosal is safe in the amounts contained in vaccines currently being administered to American children and pregnant women. Kennedy believes that even “a meager effort at homework” will expose that contention as unsupported by science.
    A full livestream of the press conference was hosted by conspiracy hub InfoWars, who are extremely excited about anti-vaccine ideas getting a nice foothold in the mainstream. Their video of the press conference shows that Kennedy and De Niro were joined by Del Bigtree, a former producer on a CBS talkshow called The Doctors and one of the producers of the anti-vaccine movie Vaxxed. De Niro pushed for the film to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival last year, but it was removed following a huge outcry.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    @Hal:

    It’s extreme but I can understand the frustration that leads to “heighten the contradictions” thinking if it wasn’t for judges. Lifetime appointments. That to me is unforgivably reckless. It’s not 4 years. It’s 40. How could they do it? A liberal majority on the Supreme Court is HUGE. That alone is reason enough. Most of the Republican lawyers here are moderates. They all voted for Trump. They want the court. It’s so stupid it;s mind-boggling. 15 minutes of feeling righteous for 40 years of conservative decisions? Who makes that trade?

  34. 34.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Quinerly: When driving through Los Ranchos, did you happen to pass by the huge spread where the fenceposts had car wheels embedded in them? That’s the Unser — as in auto racing — property.

    I’ve heard of Casa Rondena but since I’m 24+ years sober have never availed myself of their products. Sounds like a nice place, though.

  35. 35.

    Quinerly

    If you haven’t read it, check out Kurt Echenwald’s piece from yesterday in Newsweek. Problems linking on this smarty pants phone & tiny keyboard hates me at this hour of the morning.

  40. 40.

    MJS

    @OzarkHillbilly: They really do make ’em stupid in Texas, don’t they? I’m relatively certain that the organization that determines where Super Bowls and other NFL events will be held is… the NFL. So Texas can be as discriminatory as they want to be, they just don’t get to have any Super Bowls if that’s how they want to be. It’s really very simple, and the Governor will learn how simple when he gets a call from Jerry Jones telling him what he will and won’t sign. Abbott most certainly won’t be telling Jerry to keep his nose out of politics.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @Hal:

    I know it doesn’t matter but…. :)

    Thimerosal was taken out of childhood vaccines in the United States in 2001.
    Measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccines do not and never did contain thimerosal. Varicella (chickenpox), inactivated polio (IPV), and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines have also never contained thimerosal.
    Influenza (flu) vaccines are currently available in both thimerosal-containing (for multi-dose vaccine vials) and thimerosal-free versions.

    People lose their minds when it comes to children. There are “panics” and they happen again and again. It was child sexual abuse for a while and then it was devil worship and then it was juvenile sexual predators and now it’s sex trafficking. These things are real but they wildly inflate the numbers and make bad laws.

    Child sex trafficking is a real thing. But it has become a cause of the religious Right and they are insane about it. They’re WILDLY inflating it and Republican lawmakers aren’t even using basic common sense to look at these numbers and see how insane they are. There will be a slew of bad laws and then everyone will quietly realize it’s another panic and the laws will change back to something rational. Over and over and over. Always regarding children.

  44. 44.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kay:

    A metric shitton of chiropractor fellating soft tissue injury lawyers are loud, proud conservatives, and vote GOP down the line.

    The payment they got from getting the GOP legislature and governor they so eagerly desired has resulted in a tort reform regime that will positively gut their practices. I avoid them anymore, but if they think they’re going to segue into my practice turf for an iota of cooperation from me, they can kiss my spotty fat ass.

  45. 45.

    efgoldman

    @dr. bloor:

    We’re about to find out just how tough the NFL really is.

    The NFL is only the first shot across Abbott’s bow. The NCAA is waiting in the wings as it was in North Carolina and Indiana. Threaten to take either the championship game or one of the semi-final bowl games and see what happens.
    Abbott and his asshole buddy, the AG Paxton are the turds floating in the bowl of the winger fever swamp.

  47. 47.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Quinerly: Yes, I think so, although it’s been about 17 years since I’ve been down that road so I can’t swear to it. It is along the Rio Grande, so it makes sense it would be on that stretch of road.

  49. 49.

    p.a.

    @JMG: But how many would actually disagree w the governor? Still a plantation mentality. Hell, look at the Krafts: they’re Jewish, buddies w tRump, yet can’t/won’t make the tRump Bannon antiSemite connection.

  52. 52.

    Mustang Bobby

    @p.a.: There were plenty of rich Jews who went along with the post-Wiemar regime in Germany in the 1930’s when it brought stability and order. By the time they figured out Herr Schickelgruber really meant it, it was too late.

  53. 53.

    James E Powell

    @Kay:

    The people who make that trade are mostly ones who will not really suffer much from 40 years of RW courts. Sarandon is rich, she’ll be fine. She’ll even get tax cuts.

  54. 54.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @p.a.: All of them if it was going to cost them money. They worship at the altar of the one true God, Mammon. That’s why the NFL has taken the position they have.

  56. 56.

    efgoldman

    @p.a.:

    But how many would actually disagree w the governor?

    You’re from around here, where nobody gives a shit about college football, and even high school is local rooting interest only.
    It is a fucking religion in Texas. More people know who the U of T football coach and QB are than know who the governor is. Several cities depend on minor bowl games for tourist $$ in December, not to mention the national championship semi-finals and final.
    Whoever said upthread that Jerry Jones will be on the phone to the governor is right. So will the Houston ownership, and likely the owners of the NBA and NHL teams. But Jerry is the big one. He’s got that gigantic, really expensive stadium to fill, and ten Cowboys games a year doesn’t do it. It’s already been a a magnet for championships of various kinds, and he’d surely like to keep it that way.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    We had one here where they basically accused this poor woman of being trafficked. She’s an immigrant from South America and black. I have no idea how this happened but they decided she had been trafficked as a child and that’s how she ended up here. They basically ruined this woman’s life to “help” her. It ended with professional ethics action against the lunatic psychologist who started the whole thing- she was reachable because she sometimes works for the court. A deputy sheriff told me about it. They involved him because they wanted DNA or something. An adult married woman with kids. They were “rescuing” her. There was a religious Right connection in the fake day care sex abuse cases too. They were in it because women had “left the home” and put kids in day care so of course had to be punished. It was like this unholy alliance between nutty Lefty child advocates and Right wing Christian family warriors. I could go on and on. In the 1990’s they were all het up about “gangs”- they were convinced every juvenile was a gang member. They had seminars, speakers, the whole works. No one was allowed to wear red to school. Otherwise normal adults go insane when faced with making laws about children.

  60. 60.

    Quinerly

    @rikyrah:
    Thanks! Poco and I rather like waking up to you guys. 10 days into the trip our body clocks are still on our St. Louis 5AM CST.

  61. 61.

    Patricia Kayden

    @OzarkHillbilly: Anti-gay bigotry is not politics. It’s discrimination. Good for the NFL for talking about this issue. I have family and friends who live in Texas. I don’t know how they do it. It appears to be intolerably and regressively red.

  62. 62.

    Jeffro

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    They need to learn their place in the United States, which is to govern football, not politics

    Wow…so I guess this is the sports version of “shut up and sing” that gets thrown at Springsteen, the DBTs, etc, all the time.

    What a miserable life RWNJs must lead, watching Duck Dynasty, listening to Ted Nugent, and waiting for their next set of instructions via Twitter…

  63. 63.

    Another Scott

    @SFAW: Hmmm…

    AA
    +
    13 13 (rot 13)
    —
    NN
    +
    1 1 (Radical Unity of the Cheeseheads)
    —
    OO

    Coincidence?!!??

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  64. 64.

    SFAW

    @Another Scott:

    Coincidence?!!??

    I think NOT! (as Glenn Beck might say)

    The only thing bad about your thought experiment is that Omnes is usually a night owl (I think), and thus may not see this whole train of “thought.”

  65. 65.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Ditto.

    The fractionation of “news” is a problem, especially for those of us not on Twitter and Facebook.

    :-(

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  67. 67.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Good morning, all Ever consider getting training as a grassroots organizer? I have just the program for you! You can sign up here for training as an OFA Community Engagement Fellow. Deadline for application is Feb. 20.

    The program consists of an in-person Orientation Meeting on March 4, followed by Wednesday evening webinars for six weeks. You and your fellow Fellows will organize an event – such as a speaker series or community project – together, putting the theory you’ve learned into practice.

    These training groups of six to ten people are forming all across the U.S. I’m flying to Chicago tomorrow for training to lead one of these groups. As the OFA promo page says, Don’t miss this opportunity to turn your passion into action—join the Community Engagement Fellowship.

    Thus ends your morning PSA.

  68. 68.

    Ian G.

    @Hal:

    Poor people are going to lose health insurance, immigrant families are going to be torn apart and, who knows, maybe many more thousands of battlefield casualties as we get in a disastrous war with Iran or China, but hey, a past-sell-date rich white woman gets to pretend she’s Vaclav Havel now! That’s what’s really important!

    I hate Sarandon more than words can describe. Stein too, of course.

  69. 69.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Quinerly:

    Good Morning from Bernalillo, NM!

    Waves from Galisteo! I’m heading to Elephant Butte this morning, to see a friend from Boston (Watertown, really) who’s artist-in-residence there. She has aspirations of kayaking. I’m hoping for strong winds to scotch that plan.

  70. 70.

    SFAW

    @Ian G.:

    maybe many more thousands of battlefield casualties as we get in a disastrous war with Iran or China,

    Iran, maybe. Were Shitgibbon to get us into a shooting war with China, the consequences would be worse, but only by several orders of magnitude.

    As stupid as I think he is, I have a tough time believing Shitgibbon would go there. Even though it’s a dream that Bannon probably jerks off to.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Heh:

    Trump had given his personal guarantee he would repay the $640m. As per agreement, he was now due to hand over a large chunk, $40m.

    There was only one problem: the future 45th president of the United States was refusing to pay up. Deutsche initiated legal action. Trump responded with a blistering, scarcely credible writ of his own, a 10-count complaint in New York’s supreme court, in the county of Queens.

    In it, Trump adopted a highly unusual defence, known as “force majeure”. He claimed that the 2008 economic crisis was a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami”, an act of God that was equivalent to an earthquake. Since it couldn’t have been anticipated, and it wasn’t his fault, he wasn’t obliged to pay Deutsche anything. It wouldn’t get the $40m or the outstanding $330m, his writ said.

    He went further. Trump claimed Deutsche Bank had actually helped cause the crunch. Therefore it owed him. Trump demanded $3bn from Deutsche in compensation.

  72. 72.

    danielx

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    They need to learn their place in the United States, which is to govern football, not politics.

    Shorter: Those People really need to mind their manners.

  74. 74.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: Speaking of gangs, being a “gang member” is one of the ways a DACA finding can be revoked. So, of course, DACA people being swept up in INS raids are being accused of being gang members.:

    WASHINGTON – A young immigrant protected from deportation under an executive order issued by President Barack Obama because he’d been brought into the country as a child faces deportation following sweeping raids launched by the Trump administration.

    Daniel Ramirez Medina, a 23-year-old with no criminal record, was taken into custody in Seattle as part of last week’s raids that led to the arrest of 680 people, 75 percent of whom, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Monday, had been convicted of a crime.

    McClatchy first reported that young people who’d received protection under Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program were likely to be apprehended as part of anticipated Trump administration enforcement actions. The DACA program protects an estimated 750,000 immigrants brought here illegally as children from deportation and also provides them work permits.

    Is he a “gang member”? Dunno. Apparently the language is broad enough that even “associating with gang members” may put one in jeopardy. The point is, it’s an accusation that can be thrown at a DACA person and defending against it is difficult (proving a negative). Even if Donnie’s EO is rescinded and nothing replaces it, the ICE people have a lot of discretion…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  75. 75.

    danielx

    @SFAW:

    Even though it’s a dream that Bannon probably jerks off to.

    People of his ilk have no objection at all to bloodshed in Great Lake-sized amounts, as long as it’s not theirs or that of anybody close to them

  77. 77.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The stones on that asshole. Of course, stiffing or suing Deutsche Bank is not quite the same as stiffing Joe’s Landscape Architects. I imagine it was just a negotiating tactic on Shitgibbon’s part, but it’s not clear that it would be an effective one with DB.

  78. 78.

    SFAW

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    Ask your “friend.”

    Actually, it’s sometimes as described as “Armenian pizza.” There’s a well-known (for these parts, probably not so much outside of the Boston area) business called Eastern Lamejun Bakers. It’s not the only thing they make/sell, but that’s what they’re known for, and they’ve been around for 60-plus years.

    Next time I’m in Watertown, I’ll have one in your honor.

    ETA: The scare quotes around “friend” was just me riffing on the no-lamejun-for-you thing, that probably wasn’t clear. Or amusing, for that matter.

  80. 80.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: You’ll love this part:

    At the same moment Trump was suing Deutsche he was telling the Scotsman newspaper he was a very rich individual, with a “billion in cash”. He was willing to spend it on his latest project: a golf course and hotel near Balmedie in Aberdeenshire. Controversially approved by then first minister Alex Salmond and the Scottish government, it would be the “world’s greatest golf course”, Trump said.

    It was what happened next that strikes many in the banking world as unusual – bizarre, even. In 2005 Trump had borrowed money from Deutsche’s commercial real estate division. In 2010 the parties settled their legal differences. But rather than walking away, the bank’s private wealth division then resumed lending to Trump, the troublesome four-times bankrupt client who had defaulted on a major loan.

    Why? It’s unclear what assurances Trump offered. He had given his word before, only to break it.

    Deutsche has refused to discuss its lending arrangements to the first family. Its clients also include Trump’s daughter Ivanka, her husband, Jared Kushner, and Kushner’s mother, Seryl Stadtmauer.

  81. 81.

    PK

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    As states have faced challenges to carrying out executions by lethal injection, various work-arounds and alternatives have been proposed, including the return of electric chairs and firing squads.

    What? No smothering with pillows or strangling with bare hands! I expected more from psychopaths. SAD!

  83. 83.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @SFAW: I was suitably amused. :)

    Thanks for the culinary education! I’m always up for new and interesting food.

  84. 84.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I would have thought the Germans would have had more of a fucking clue. (Speaking as a sort-of Landsmann.)

    Yes, I realize that DB (probably) has US branches, but at some point, lending to a multiple-times deadbeat would get elevated to the home office for consideration.

  85. 85.

    Quinerly

    @O. Felix Culpa:
    Good Morning to you! So enjoyed meeting you Saturday! Are you going to the Moral Monday March in Santa Fe? I may drive over. My landlady here in Bernalillo is going and invited me. She has made this glorious (and huge) paper Mache Muslim woman on a large poll. The scarf is beautiful. Look for her if I don’t go in. You won’t be able to miss her creation. It’s my last full day in the Albuquerque area before I head out to Holbrook, Winslow, Cameron and had plans to already be in Madrid and Santa Fe Sunday saying good bye to friends. Have a great day!

  86. 86.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    Child trafficking’s a religious right cause now? I didn’t know that had happened. The only people I ever hear talk about human trafficking of any kind are SJW/activist types that everybody hates because they make us feel bad for people who are probably all illegal immigrants and took their chances anyway and yada yada…

    (Of course, I totally believe it. Women in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia were a cause like that for the longest time, where nobody cared except shrill feminists. Then 2001 happened and the right wing suddenly found a reason to care and hasn’t shut up about it since).

  90. 90.

    scav

    @OzarkHillbilly: What I like about the bank story s everyone’s dealt with banks and knows what they’re usually like. That and damn near everyone was hit by that hand of god crash. Was everyone able to stiff the banks, let alone reget money out of them? True believers will believe (canny business genius, everyone knows it’s rigged, blah blah) but ones hit hard by the crash should be shaken). Old style cold warriors get another dose of possible Russian ties. Europhobes get the needle that his critical financial resourse is over there. Their blind knee-jerk devotion is going the require more tightly squinced eyes and bruised patellas.

  91. 91.

    Quinerly

    @O. Felix Culpa:
    Just seeing your comment at #69. Was scrolling from the bottom up. If you are around the Madrid area Sunday, I’m pretty sure I’ll be hanging at my friend’s shop at some point. Drop by. I’ll email you with my timing if you have an interest. You got a fun day ahead! Enjoy!

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @Chris:

    It is. The first I saw it was the Bush Administration. Gonzales. Some of the fever swamp Hillary-hate is conspiracy theories about how she’s a child sex trafficker. It’s like a big, crazy ball of fear and panic- the strings shoot out all over. Sessions is on it too, of course. This is me, but with conservatives I think the intense fear they attach to children’s issues has to do with their sense that they don’t have control, that some authority has been lost. Because it isn’t true that children had it better in the old days. They were horribly treated- everything from child labor to indentured servitude to child marriage.

  93. 93.

    scav

    @PK: Don’t forget, they’re also trying to cut out the overhead of the so-called judiciary entirely along with those activist drug companies and go direct to immediate trial-and-execution by cop.

  94. 94.

    Kay

    @Chris:

    They’ve done a horrible thing because child “stranger” abduction is rare. It exists but it’s rare. But it led to parents being so frightened they won’t let kids do anything which makes them overly dependent. I can’t help but feel that maybe some Right wingers WANTED them overly dependent. It feels like control to me. They’re monitored constantly.

  95. 95.

    Barbara

    @James E Powell: Sarandon is loathsome. Listen to her — she sounds like a kid at a horror movie, where she knows the hero won’t die and it will be all over in two hours. It’s all fun and games — “so interesting” — for her. On the most obvious front, no matter how bad things get for others, she can be sure that they will never get bad for her. More importantly, she can be virtually guaranteed that her own children will not be stopped by police and if by some strange confluence of events they end up on the wrong side of a drug charge, they will get probation at most. They certainly won’t be shot in the back by a panicked white policeman or some crazy vigilante citizen. There is no “cleansing social chaos” that is powerful enough to bring back dead people.

  96. 96.

    rikyrah

    The Anti-Power Couple: Duro Olowu and Thelma Golden
    By LAUREN INDVIK
    JUNE 24, 2016

    LONDON — Before Thelma Golden, chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, met her future husband, the London-based designer Duro Olowu, she had been on a Barneys waiting list for one of his dresses for months.

    The two were introduced at a Target party on a hot summer evening in New York in 2006 — so hot that Mr. Olowu nearly didn’t attend. Fortunately for both parties, Kim Hastreiter, the co-editor of Paper magazine and one of the party’s hosts, insisted he come.

    When he arrived, “Thelma sees me and comes up, and she goes into this whole thing about my clothes, and I think, ‘Who is this beautiful little thing?’” he recalled recently at the Camden Arts Center, where he was putting the finishing touches on his third art show, “Making & Unmaking.”

    Mr. Olowu, a native of Nigeria, earns his living as a fashion designer, but he is also an enthusiastic collector of vintage textiles and contemporary art, and has been dabbling in curation since 2012, organizing two shows at Salon 94 in New York.

    “She said: ‘I’ve been trying to get pieces of your work, but they’re always sold out. I left a message six months ago, and no one called me back,’” he said. “Of course, I got back to London and it said she called. I owe it all to Kim Hastreiter, who I now call my yenta.”

    They married quietly at City Hall less than two years later, Ms. Hastreiter and the artist Glenn Ligon their only witnesses.

    The oft-photographed Ms. Golden, who is also a board member of the Obama Foundation, and Mr. Olowu, who has dressed Michelle Obama and Solange Knowles, make an obvious — and very marketable — power couple.

    Yet unlike, say, the artists Rachel Feinstein and John Currin, or Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, it is not a power they wield easily, or even willingly.

    Mr. Olowu spends the better part of every month in London, where his studio and store are; Ms. Golden lives in New York. They refuse to give joint interviews to journalists, including this one, and despite numerous offers, they have never been officially photographed together for the glossy magazines desperate to get them into their pages.

    They do appear side by side at benefits and other high-profile events, including the state dinner in 2014 in honor of President François Hollande of France, where Ms. Golden was seated on President Obama’s left. But it was not until June 18 that they collaborated publicly for the first time.

  97. 97.

    pamelabrown53

    @Kay:

    Speaking of Hillary-hate conspiracy theories, Carter Page (one of Trump’s Russian flunkies) sent an extremely bizarre letter to the DOJ and a copy to the “Intercept” requesting the DOJ to review “the severe form of disinformation, suppression of dissent, hate crimes and other extensive abuses…”. He also claims “…the actions of the Clinton regime (!?) and their associates may be among the most extreme examples of human rights violations observed during any election in U.S. history since Martin Luther King was similarly targeted for his antiwar views…”. Another creepy nutjob misappropriating MLK.
    Spouse stumbled across this late last night at the Intercept (neither of us read it, as a rule). Consequently, it hasn’t had time to circulate yet.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    Some intelligence officials don’t trust Trump with sensitive info
    02/16/17 08:41 AM—UPDATED 02/16/17 08:52 AM
    By Steve Benen

    The day after his inauguration, less than 24 hours into his presidency, Donald Trump traveled to Langley to deliver an odd, rambling speech to the Central Intelligence Agency. Early on in his remarks, the new president made a point to explain why he was there.

    “The reason you’re my first stop is that, as you know, I have a running war with the media,” Trump said. “They are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth. And they sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community. And I just want to let you know, the reason you’re the number-one stop is exactly the opposite – exactly.”

    In reality, of course, Trump’s feud with the intelligence community wasn’t a media creation; it was a real problem that the Republican created, seemingly on purpose, over the course of many months. Trump, before and after the election, publicly attacked the intelligence community’s integrity, accuracy, and reliability in unprecedented ways.

    If this Wall Street Journal report is any indication, it’s safe to assume intelligence professionals noticed.

  99. 99.

    rikyrah

    White House struggles to keep its story straight on Michael Flynn
    02/16/17 08:00 AM—UPDATED 02/16/17 08:05 AM
    By Steve Benen

    On Monday afternoon, the White House was dismissive of the controversy surrounding then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, insisting that Donald Trump still has “full confidence” in Flynn. A few hours later, Trump World reversed course, saying the president was actually “evaluating the situation” surrounding the controversial NSA.

    On Tuesday afternoon, following Flynn’s resignation, the White House line changed again, with Press Secretary Sean Spicer telling reporters that the president forced Flynn out because Trump could no longer trust his National Security Advisor.

    Yesterday, Trump publicly addressed the Flynn scandal for the first time this week, and changed the White House’s position once more. From a brief press conference:

  101. 101.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Quinerly:

    Are you going to the Moral Monday March in Santa Fe?

    Not sure yet. I get back from Chicago Sunday night, so it depends on how well I’m feeling and how great my work backlog is. Will let you know.

  102. 102.

    rikyrah

    Trump’s preoccupation with his election does more harm than good
    02/15/17 03:57 PM
    By Steve Benen

    At a brief White House press conference today, standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump fielded a question from an Israeli journalist who asked about a rise in anti-Semitic incidents. “I wonder what you say to those among the Jewish community in the States, and in Israel, and maybe around the world who believe and feel that your administration is playing with xenophobia and maybe racist tones,” the reporter asked.

    The American president’s reaction was …. unexpected.

    “Well, I just want to say that we are, you know, very honored by the victory that we had – 306 electoral college votes. We were not supposed to crack 220. You know that, right? There was no way to 221, but then they said there’s no way to 270. And there’s tremendous enthusiasm out there.”

    Trump went on to say national divisions contributed to his victory, and then pointed to Jewish members of his family.

    In other words, asked about anti-Semitic incidents, Donald Trump immediately thought of how cool it was that he won the presidential election.

    This followed a press conference on Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in which Trump, in response to a question about Syrian refugees, noted that he won “a very, very large electoral college vote.”

    This, of course, came on the heels of a series of bizarre claims in which Trump claimed to have secretly won the popular vote, a recent interview in which he described his 2016 win as “one of the greatest victories ever,” and a recent conversation between the president and the Australian prime minister in which Trump reportedly “boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win.”

    Part of the problem with Trump’s unhealthy preoccupation is that it’s factually incorrect. He earned 306 electoral votes, and he received 304. Neither number is especially impressive: Trump’s tally was well below the historical average, and ranks among the lowest in American campaign history.

  103. 103.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    And it’s not like either trafficking (in general) and child abuse (in general) aren’t serious problems. But I have a funny feeling that the way these guys will handle it will do more harm than good…

  104. 104.

    rikyrah

    Right Wing Media on the Bannon vs Priebus Power Struggle
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    February 15, 2017 12:37 PM

    While most of us are focused on what the Michael Flynn story and subsequent leaks tell us about the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia’s interference in the election, Trump’s supporters in the right wing media are consumed with a whole different story.

    As an example, take a look at the spin on this opening of an article at Breitbart by Matthew Boyle.

    After GOP establishment forces inside President Donald Trump’s White House forced out National Security Adviser retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, sources close to the president confirm to Breitbart News there is serious doubt as to whether this early administration shake-up will also see the exit of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus.

    Notice that while the rest of the world is examining how the intelligence community seems to be targeting members of the Trump administration, Boyle simply assumes as fact that the “GOP establishment forces” are responsible for the ouster of Flynn. In a publication that has strong ties to Bannon, his name is never mentioned in the article. But it goes on to lay out the case for how Reince Priebus has failed the president and is responsible for everything from the delay in confirming Sessions to Obama “sleeper cells” all over the government who are sabotaging this administration.

  105. 105.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I heard that charming interview. Abbot’s also leading the Crusade for a Constitutional Convention. I love these “Originalists” who don’t want to change anything in the Constitution until they do.

  107. 107.

    Gin & Tonic

    @rikyrah: The Today show was on my TV this morning, and before I could get to it to shut it off, the odious weasel Roger Stone was on – I was trying not to listen, but from what I caught, it certainly seemed like he was shoving Reince under the bus.

  108. 108.

    Barbara

    This is just a PSA — wish I had posted earlier. Yesterday during a slow period of work I went to see “I Am Not Your Negro.” Everyone should see this movie, but especially if you have mostly just heard of James Baldwin. It is impossible to summarize this movie in brief. Many have focused on the various kinds of visual clips that are strung together. Forget that. The clips of Baldwin speaking and the voice over using text that he wrote would be thrilling even without visuals. Some of the clips work better than others, and there is perhaps too much context missing to make as much sense as I would have wished for some of the statements. E.g., “there is no such thing as white; white is just a euphemism for power.” One of the highlights is the Yale philosophy professor brought in as a guest on the Dick Cavett show along with Baldwin, who could probably stand in for millions of lesser and greater white lights, by objecting that not everything should be about race, and stating with a certainty that can only be driven by ignorance, that Baldwin has more in common with artists and writers than he does with working class blacks. How Baldwin avoided punching him is just a testament to how brilliant he really was.

    ETA: His statement that the entertainment industry offers white people a kind of narcotic seems weirdly apt in a year where the odds on favorite to win the Academy Awards is a movie about white people focused on the authenticity of jazz.

  109. 109.

    Quinerly

    @O. Felix Culpa:
    Love Chicago. It still overwhelms me. Have a great trip. Really doubtful that I would do two days in a row in Santa Fe. Committed to Sunday and Madrid before I knew about Monday. Tuesday is a big driving day….taking the long way to Holbrook by way of Window Rock and Gando.?

  110. 110.

    SenyorDave

    @Hal: Susan Sarandon: The good thing about this horrible thing of having Trump is that people are awake.

    I’ll go full Godwin. The good thing about this horrible thing of having Hitler is that people are awake, and those that are still alive will be in a position to oppose him.

  111. 111.

    Barbara

    @SenyorDave: Like I said above, it’s like life is a movie and she is a paid reviewer. Maybe when you get to a place where you are that wealthy and that insulated from consequences, you should just admit it and go along with other people who are closer to reality than you are, instead of trying to pretend that you somehow are the only one with authentic understanding of events.

  114. 114.

    Barbara

    @Iowa Old Lady: I will be infinitely nastier. She is more than charmed by her own celebrity. She is like the liberal analog to Donald Trump, someone who has ended up on the far right side of material wealth and who thinks that somehow she achieved it by being brilliant in all subject areas, including those she knows nothing about, and has never experienced or studied. She is Exhibit A for the liberal version of Dunning-Krueger effect. A woman so deluded by her own image of herself she has no idea how stupid she really sounds.

  115. 115.

    dexwood

    @Quinerly:

    On Rio Grande Blvd, Bookworks at 4022 Rio Grande Blvd. NW. Great little, independent book store next to a dog friendly coffee shop. Good section on SW literature. Not far from there, at Candelaria and Rio Grande, is the Rio Grande Nature Center with some good trails through the bosque along the river, though you might check first to see if Poco would be welcome. Wonderful observation room over the pond. The tasting room at Gruet winery, too, along I-25, might be of interest. Really good bubbly and chardonnay. If you like beer, try la Cumbre, 3313 Girard Ne, just north of Candelaria and east of I-25. Nothing fancy, but great beer and dog friendly. I’d happily buy you a beer there. You and Poco are living the life. Hell, I live here and I’m envious of your trip.

  116. 116.

    bemused

    Has there been any reaction from Twittler and WH that IC distrusts them and not giving them sensitive information?

  117. 117.

    The Moar You Know

    Kennedy explained that the WMP will pay $100,000 to the first journalist, or other individual, who can find a peer-reviewed scientific study demonstrating that thimerosal is safe in the amounts contained in vaccines currently being administered to American children and pregnant women.

    @Hal: Just wait until it’s confirmed that autism is a “born with” birth defect, inherited from one or both parents. These people are going to go insane and not in a nice way.

  118. 118.

    Iowa Old Lady

    How can anyone see this obsessive stuff and not know the man is nuts? He apparently thinks his EC numbers are (1) overwhelmingly impressive and (2) all it takes to make people respect and give way to him.

    Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 39m
    39 minutes ago

    The Democrats had to come up with a story as to why they lost the election, and so badly (306), so they made up a story – RUSSIA. Fake news!

  122. 122.

    Iowa Old Lady

    On the topic of nuts, also t his.

    Robert Costa ‏@costareports 19h
    19 hours ago

    Trump friend tells me decision for POTUS to hold big rally Sat in FL is part of his desire to “go to his people” and “bring back the crowds”

  124. 124.

    Debbie1

    @SFAW: That Nader/Sarandon sentiment is the sort of thing you feel when you’re sitting on million dollar cushions, surrounded by police escorts – who DON’T want to kill you.

  125. 125.

    rikyrah

    I have written before:

    The ONE place in America that has NEVER forgotten Vlad’s former job as a Higher up in the KGB is LANGLEY.
    This isn’t a matter of the CIA believing that the President is Weak. They’ve lived through that. They know how to adjust to that.

    We have come to a point where the CIA believes that the President of the United States, and possibly more than one of his higher ups in the White House – are ASSETS OF A HOSTILE FOREIGN GOVERNMENT.

    Think on that.

    The White House May Be out of the Loop on Intelligence Information
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    February 16, 2017 9:32 AM

    …………………

    What might be of more concern than what the leakers tell the public about this administration is what our intelligence services are NOT telling the president. Today we learn this from the Wall Street Journal:

    U.S. intelligence officials have withheld sensitive intelligence from President Donald Trump because they are concerned it could be leaked or compromised, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.

    The officials’ decision to keep information from Trump underscores the deep mistrust that has developed between the intelligence community and the president over his team’s contacts with the Russian government, as well as the enmity he has shown toward U.S. spy agencies.

  127. 127.

    Humboldtblue

    @Barbara:

    He’ll stop doing that the moment someone points out that what he’s holding in his tiny hands with those 306 precious EC votes is 59 fewer than Obama got in ’08 and 26 fewer in ’12.

  128. 128.

    NeenerNeener

    @Humboldtblue: And Bill Clinton also beat his 306 handily. I wish someone would show him Reagan’s 500+ in each of the 80s elections. I never voted for Reagan, but if that can cause Twitler to melt down he will have finally served the country well.

  129. 129.

    Yarrow

    This tweet caught my eye last night:

    IC thinks Trump is a traitor. I'll leave to actual lawyers to assess that, but it's quite a day in any democracy when the spies think such.— John Schindler (@20committee) February 16, 2017

    Pretty strong words from a guy who’s been a fairly dependable conduit for what the IC is thinking.

  130. 130.

    tobie

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Shame on Chris Hayes for having her on.

    Shame on Chris Hayes for a lot of his shows post-election.

    I haven’t watched him since December, and I feel better for it. This is a pity. I think he’s really smart, I liked his energy. You could see his mind working faster than his mouth. But all that has been sapped by his ideological loyalty to the line that the Dems abandoned the WWC.

  131. 131.

    Yarrow

    @Iowa Old Lady: An article in a local FL paper has more details. Apparently hie’ll be selling Trump merchandise at the event. He has already filed for 2020 so it’s legal. The campaign will be running the event, according to Spicer, so that means the campaign has to pay half (or something like that) of the cost. Doubt that’ll happen.

  132. 132.

    NeenerNeener

    @Yarrow: I would have thought the market for red trucker hats was pretty well saturated by now. Maybe they’ll sell Ivanka’s clothing line instead.

  133. 133.

    Quinerly

    @dexwood:
    Didn’t realize you are here. Let’s have a drink…beer!! or coffee before I head out Tuesday. I don’t mind sharing my email here if it’s ok. [email protected]. You will be my third Balloon Juicer I have met in person if we really have to count Ozark.? Thanks for piping in!

  135. 135.

    Calouste

    @rikyrah:

    We have come to a point where the CIA believes that the President of the United States, and possibly more than one of his higher ups in the White House – are ASSETS OF A HOSTILE FOREIGN GOVERNMENT.

    I don’t think believes is the most accurate word to use there. Maybe “has determined, based on the balance of evidence”.

  139. 139.

    Miss Bianca

    @dexwood: Ha ha! “shopping” for…something green and pungent, p’raps?

    I remember hearing somewhere that there’s a great French restaurant, of all things, in Albuquerque. Is that true? Or maybe what I heard is that ethnic dining in general is surprisingly good there.

  140. 140.

    dexwood

    @Miss Bianca:
    Ethnic dining is pretty good here. Maybe you’ve heard about P’tit Louis Bistro in Knob Hill. La Crepe Michel is also very good, as is, La Quiche Parisienne Bistro which is owned by a charming French baker. We love his breads and pastries.

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