Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

A norm that restrains only one side really isn’t a norm – it’s a trap.

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

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

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

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

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

The revolution will be supervised.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Late Night Open Thread: Precious, Fragile Snowflakes

Late Night Open Thread: Precious, Fragile Snowflakes

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142Comments

  1. 1.

    XTPD

    Look at all that butthurt.

    With skin that useless, it’s amazing these people don’t rupture vessels and spray blood all over the place every time they put their clothes on in the morning.

  2. 2.

    efgoldman

    Apropos of this “don’t distress the people who voted for the guy terrifying immigrant communities” stuff, I saw this on Facebook

    Of course that’s true, but the assholes who need to read it, won’t.

  4. 4.

    BlueDWarrior

    @XTPD: It goes to show you the absolutely crushing sense of entitlement that these so called moderate conservatives have.

    It is, without a fault, always in the vein of “liberals just need to sit down and shut up until we feel, in our hearts that we are finally ready to accept their proposals; even if that takes decades, and in some cases, centuries”

    At some point, the line has to be drawn, and you can either serve your ‘ideology’ or get on the right side of history.

  5. 5.

    efgoldman

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    “I didn’t choose a side. They put me on one.”

    So, fellow liberals. Confess. Which one of us went in the voting booth with Jeff and held a gun to his head?

  6. 6.

    smintheus

    “I didn’t choose a side.”

    So the guy flipped a coin when he walked into the voting booth, but he thinks he deserves respect?

  7. 7.

    Lyrebird

    @BlueDWarrior: I should be asleep but I wanna allude to that MLK Jr quote (I think??) about being less concerned about the Klansmen than about the sympathetic-sounding folks saying “but not like that, not quite yet…”

  8. 8.

    Chet Murthy

    @BlueDWarrior: From the article

    As a conservative, he felt the need to choose the Republican

    (1) his logic was “I can only vote for an R”. That means he’s not a moderate.

    (2) Even in the face of the evidence of a proto-fascist white supremacist in thrall to Putin, he chose the R. He chose party over country.

    He’s a traitor.

    And I’m not even -getting- to his politics. This is -purely- on the basis of his astonishing lack of even a -shred- of patriotism.

  9. 9.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Pls explain exactly why committed, hostile partisanship is supposedly losing strategy for us but consistently winning strategy for them

    their voters show up

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Fuck all Trump filth. They had a choice…to vote for a qualified candidate who, admittedly, does not have a penis, or to vote for three spectacularly unqualified candidates, one who has, if you judge by hand size, a very small penis.

  14. 14.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Peter: Well, I think the word matters.

    ETA: Disloyalty does not = treason. I see shitloads of disloyalty, but little treason. Let’s not overclaim.

  15. 15.

    sunny raines

    phuck jeffery medford and every G-damn trump voter – they’re all moral pariahs and imbeciles, every last one of them!!!!

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    the Washington Post had still another profile of Trumpsters from Saturday’s rally, because we can’t get enough

    “If he hadn’t gotten into office, 70,000 miners would have been put out of work,” Patricia Nana, a 42-year-old naturalized citizen from Cameroon. “I saw the ceremony where he signed that bill, giving them their jobs back, and he had miners with their hard hats and everything — you could see how happy they were.”

    Fake news indeed. Their hard hats and everything. I haven’t even heard Trump claim 70K jobs.

    I gather there’s a lot of talk about coal on the right these days. I remember in ’12 somebody made the case that coal is now a cultural issue. It makes sense in places like WV/KY or CO/WY, but Florida? Also, odd to me that coal mining jobs are held up as a romantic ideal. All my life I’ve understood coal mining to be a hard and dangerous job, maybe because I saw the Loretta Lynn movie and read Germinal

  20. 20.

    different-church-lady

    “You’re an idiot if you support any part of Trump.”

    Absoulutely goddamed mother-fucking CORRECT. There is NO polite way of putting this ought-to-be-blindingly-obvious fact. The man is irredeemable. Full stop. I refuse to pretend otherwise just so you can feel an unearned respect that you seem to think is some kind of natural entitlement.

    #FAKE PRESIDENT

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Oh, dear. I’m in moderation for calling the male member a penis without using one of the html tag cheats. If I had said “cock” instead of that word, no problem!

  22. 22.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: …this is so weird. First, who thinks a President can sign a bill magically giving back 70,000 people their private-sector jobs? Second: You’d think that something like this might be actually be… easily checked?

  23. 23.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Omnes Omnibus: He’d sell his country down the road for another Russian oligarch loan.

    That certainly doesn’t make him a sterling citizen by any stretch of the imagination. And as far as I’m concerned, he qualifies as a domestic enemy of the Constitution of the United States.

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    Always nice to have a sample with an n of 3. Because that’s what the source material is here. I saw the author of the article interviewed this evening. She had the haughtiest look on her face and finished her remarks with a view from nowhere statement that she was merely the messenger.

  26. 26.

    AnotherBruce

    Who wrote this goddamned article? Jesus, I feel like I’m reading the same article about every two years. “Jeff” seems like a particularly stupid literary device. Every election the media writes this same fucking article. I kind of doubt “Jeff” is a real person. Jeff is just a tool to beat up those mean liberals for being so inconsiderate to the morons who elect republicans that don’t do anything but obstruct when they’re not grifting.

  28. 28.

    efgoldman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I remember in ’12 somebody made the case that coal is now a cultural issue. It makes sense in places like WV/KY or CO/WY, but Florida?

    Yeah, but they can’t buy their own coal, and nobody much else – certainly almost nobody in the US – is going to buy it. Coal plants have either been taken off line or converted to natural gas as quickly as the utility companies can do it. Good for the environment, but more to the point, considerably cheaper.
    Also the cost curves of carbon fuels and green fuels are rapidly moving toward intersection.

  30. 30.

    Bupalos

    I know that “please explain why turning everything black and white and throwing tantrums is only good for them” is supposed to be rhetorical, but there really are good reasons. Chief among them that they are a party trying to destroy some thing while we are a party trying to protect and defend something.

  31. 31.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    If I had said “cock” instead of that word, no problem!

    You can always use the word ‘pesnik’, which if it is not the Russian word for ‘pecker’, it surely ought to be.

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: It has become a cultural signifier of an issue. However, those jobs aren’t coming back. Not because people want the folks who have done those jobs to be out of work, but because the market shifted to natural gas. Its cheaper, cleaner to a point, and that’s where the market has moved. Lying to the people of coal country may make them feel good. It may even get you their votes. But it isn’t going to give them their jobs back. But lying to them is easier than actually coming up with policies and strategies to transition those to new/different jobs.

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Omnes Omnibus: We’re not at war with Russia, and no one spying for them or the former Soviet Union was ever convicted of treason, but there are ways to get at people who commit acts that in wartime would qualify.

  38. 38.

    efgoldman

    @NotMax:

    You mean to say you didn’t see Dolt 45 sign it? In unicorn blood, no less.

    Didn’t the very same bill mandate the re-opening of all those rusted, falling down, abandoned steel mills?

  39. 39.

    Oatler.

    I see a lot of comments about snowflakes ( Lileks’ blog and Ricochet} that are borderline homophobic: manly men who post scifi pics and “Red Dawn” gifs that let us know what they would like to do if Lying Leftists hadn’t teased them in high school.

  41. 41.

    Suzanne

    Jeff is just sad that he can’t be an asshole and suffer no social consequences for it. Like Milo Snuffleupagus, who wanted to say douchey things and have other people pay him for the privilege.

    Look at these little snowflakes. So saaaaad. They must be beta cucks.

  43. 43.

    NotMax

    @efgoldman

    The Rosenbergs were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage, not of treason.

    Treason as a criminal act requires very specific first-hand witness evidence and is darned difficult to prosecute.

  44. 44.

    Bupalos

    @Adam L Silverman: natural gas is cleaner at the point of combustion. But since much of the supply and all of the expansion comes from horizontal fracking, and since methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas, all things considered, its probably worse for global warming and more destructive of clean air, soil, and water than even coal.

  45. 45.

    Chet Murthy

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah yeah, I know that treason involves, war, etc. It’s tough not to come across that, given how much it’s discussed amongst the literate, eh? But guess what? IANAL.

    He voted for a proto-fascist with a fascist administration-in-waiting. He voted for a man with visible links to one of our two most powerful geopolitical adversaries. He’s DONE in my book. Him and all his traitorous ilk.

    ETA: I forgot to add: He voted for a man who told the world he wanted to take down the Western Alliance. Again: He’s DONE.

  46. 46.

    tBone

    Fuck every fucking pundit who tees up this “liberals need to stop being so MEAN to Trump voters” bullshit. Fuck ’em right in the ear. Were they telling conservatives they needed to be more welcoming and understanding of Obama voters in 2008/2012? No, because believing in diversity, easy access to healthcare, energy policy that won’t make the planet unlivable, etc isn’t as “honest” and “authentic” as voting for a grotesque carnival barker because he hates the browns and lies about bringing your jobs back.

    If you’re a Trump voter who genuinely regrets your vote, and you’re not a racist/misogynist/fascist shitbag, then sure, welcome to the team. But don’t expect a pat on the back and a cookie for realizing your mistake after it’s already too late.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    @Bupalos: Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and leakage from wells and distribution pipes is a big problem, but its residency in the atmosphere (8 years) is a small fraction of that of CO2 (~ 500 years). That’s a big reason why CO2 is a bigger problem.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  53. 53.

    NotMax

    @Chet Murthy

    FYI – Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution:

    Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

    The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

  54. 54.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @amk: Cowards, too. This is the face of the party of “personal responsibility”, and it’s always for thee, not me.

  57. 57.

    Chet Murthy

    @Bupalos: It doesn’t follow from that, that it’s bad to put things starkly in black-and-white. E.g.

    Do you thinik you’re just pale enough that they won’t come for you? Or rich enough that they won’t come for you? Have you seen their explicit invocation of Nazi ideas, propaganda, methods? And do you remember what the Nazis did to mixed-race people? When this is over, you can vote on other issues. But right now, ther eis only one issue: vote the fascists out, so they don’t come for you and your kind.

    I’m not very good at this. But I’m sure somebody else is. And I sure think that this is the right approach. It -is- black-and-white. It -is- a civilizational struggle.

  59. 59.

    Suzanne

    @tBone:

    Fuck every fucking pundit who tees up this “liberals need to stop being so MEAN to Trump voters” bullshit. Fuck ’em right in the ear.

    Yes. I am not interested in winning these people over.

  60. 60.

    Honus

    @smintheus: “Jeff” is a South Carolina republican. No chance in hell he would ever vote for a democrat, or give one any respect for that matter. His congressman is probably that “You lie” shithead.

  61. 61.

    Bupalos

    @Another Scott: this is true, but we’re essentially building out a permanent infrastructure to leak methane. When you add that ongoing flow it fairly wipes out the 40% reduction in CO2. You also need a crapton of energy mostly from diesel in all phases of getting the gas out of rocks to the power plant. All in all it could be marginally better or anywhere from marginally to significantly worse.

  62. 62.

    joel hanes

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Let’s not overclaim.

    God I love liberals.
    This is why you guys are my tribe.

    It’s also not a very successful political message rubric,
    he said, trying hard not to overclaim.

  63. 63.

    NobodySpecial

    Well, hell, since we haven’t been at war with anyone for 70 years, let’s just strike that part right out, and make everyone’s life easier.

  67. 67.

    Chet Murthy

    @Omnes Omnibus: OK, now that I’ve (uh) defended myself a bit vigorously, I’ll try to convince you.

    Call it what it is.

    To most Americans, to give aid and comfort to a likely adversary is a traitorous act. They’re not lawyers, and we shouldn’t talk to them like lawyers. Stop being nice, and accurate, and start reaching for the gut-punch. These imbeciles are about destroying our entire way of life! Destroying our allies, people and countries we’ve stood by for a century! Sure it’s not treason in the Constitution, but these people are traitors in every way that matters.

    Traitors in every way that matters.

    Do you think that the fact that every one of Obama’s actions had precedent in the actions of his predecessors, prevented the Rs from tarring him as a tyrant, a dictator, and his actions as un-Constitutional? Really? They wrapped themselves in the flag, and the Constitution, and patriotism. All so they could do what? Sell is all down the river to Vladimir Vladimirovitch?

    Half of Americans have an IQ <= 100, ffs. Do you really think they want to hear, or can comprehend, these detailed distinctions?

    P.S. And just to say it again: It would have been *impossible* to avoid the repeated discussion of the fine points of what is and is not treason. Of the Logan Act (and Nixon, Bush, et al's guilt), the Espionage Act, etc, etc, etc. I'm not talking about -laws-. I'm talking about what they actually DID.

  68. 68.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I am sorry Mr Melford, but didn’t you say “Fuck your feelings”? I seem to recall that.

    Trump supporter; someone who loves to dish it out, but can’t take it.

  69. 69.

    different-church-lady

    @tBone:

    Were they telling conservatives they needed to be more welcoming and understanding of Obama voters in 2008/2012?

    In fact they were saying Obama himself needed to be more accomidating to conservatives or he wouldn’t be able to govern.

    Win or lose, it’s incumbent that liberals be the ones who capitulate.

  73. 73.

    different-church-lady

    “Mr. Trump, you’re being impeached for treason.”

    “It’s not treason! We’re not at war with anyone!”

    [shrug] “We were given that information.”

  74. 74.

    Suzanne

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: They also complained about “political correctness”, until they realized that we are going to say shitty things about Jeff and his buddies.

    It’s “just being politically incorrect” and “free speech” when they do it, but it’s “divisive” when we do it.

  75. 75.

    Chet Murthy

    @Omnes Omnibus: You mean like “unconstitutional executive actions”? We fought back really well against that, didn’t we? Or “Hillary committed treason” ?

    It’s the -opposite- of what you’re claiming. In the court of public opinion (which is at least as important as a court of law, given that the Rs in Congress Will. Not. Investigate. and AG Sessions Will. Not. Indict.) all these *details* are too much, too complicated. “Treason”? They understand that.

    Remember: her email server was for unclassified mail only. Remember how that got turned into “she compromised our nation’s secrets”.

    One thing to learn from these cretins: always be on offense, and esp. in your ownership of the English language.

  77. 77.

    Redshift

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Don’t use the one on which they can successfully fight back.

    I don’t have strong opinions on this one way or the other, but I have to say that I don’t see much evidence that their ability to successfully fight back depends in any way on precise technical correctness.

    Instead, I see arguments about topics like guns, where my side is somehow completely discredited if we use a colloquial but not technically correct term for a piece of hardware, but their side is not discredited by using statistics about self defense that are pure bullshit.

  79. 79.

    Millard Filmore

    Since this is an open thread, I found this over at democraticunderground.com
    Title: “and so it begins. A fellow teacher sent us this. Assault on Education has begun”

    “Introduced in House (01/23/2017)

    Choices in Education Act of 2017

    This bill repeals the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and limits the authority of the Department of Education (ED) such that ED is authorized only to award block grants to qualified states.

    The bill establishes an education voucher program, through which each state shall distribute block grant funds among local educational agencies (LEAs) based on the number of eligible children within each LEA’s geographical area. From these amounts, each LEA shall: (1) distribute a portion of funds to parents who elect to enroll their child in a private school or to home-school their child, and (2) do so in a manner that ensures that such payments will be used for appropriate educational expenses. […]”

    http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028685203
    http://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/610

  80. 80.

    jl

    Ignore the hard core Trumpers, we need to work on swamping them in the midterms. I wouldn’t pay attention to them, cater to them, or try to explain anything to them, or irritate them or anything. Just don’t worry about their feelings one way or another.

    I’m not even sure how you would try to connect with them, since they would consider a person patiently explaining that 1 + 1 = 2 a liberal provocation and macroaggressive hate crime.

    Somebody comes along and wants to work for and vote for the right side in 2018 and 2020, and has a, shall we say, sketchy voting history in 2016, well tell them we have a secret ballot and no need to argue about water under the bridge. If they will work for good in 2018, fine. I wouldn’t bring it up.

  82. 82.

    Suzanne

    @different-church-lady: I don’t want to listen to or empathize with these dipshits. I want to yell, “You done messed up, A-A-RON” at each and every one. Make them feel bad. Maybe the better ones will learn.

  83. 83.

    Chet Murthy

    @NotMax: Dude, no shit. Again: by every definition that anybody who isn’t a lawyer uses in everyday discourse, his actions are treasonous. And IANAL.

    I mean, was Nixon a criminal? Of course he was. Was GHWB obviously guilty in Iran-Contra? Obviously. Can these be proven in courts of law? Of course not! Hell, GHWB pardoned himself, by pardoning his own co-conspirators.

    Should that matter to the citizenry, when it comes to judging our politlcal caste? NO!

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    @Bupalos:
    What else are you going to do? Getting coal out of the ground isn’t exactly a clean process let alone burning it. There will always be trade offs to any industrial situation. In the short term natural gas is better, even if it has issues, which of course it does. But wind and solar isn’t available 24 hrs a day. And we “require” lights and power, 24 hrs a day. Now that said, almost every VA facility I go to has huge solar arrays. The clinics, which are only open during the day, quite possibly can make all their electrical power on sunny days, which we have a lot of here on the correct coast, while of course the hospital has to remain open 24 hrs. We do what we’ve done with cars, find ways to make things work far better and cleaner than before. If we could get people out of their full sized pick ups when all they do is drive them around empty, or cars with 400 hp, which no one needs for the street…….

  86. 86.

    different-church-lady

    I would find the idea that more empathy is the only tool to de-fang a deluded cult of personality to be laughable, were it no so dangerous under the current conditions.

  89. 89.

    Bess

    Electricity generation with natural gas is much more dispatchable than with coal.

    Were we to do a 100% coal -> NG swap we might or might not gain in terms of CO2/methane and pollutant production. But we aren’t doing a direct replacement over time. NG gives us the ability to incorporate more wind and solar into our grids. We start with installing NG plants and closing coal plants, but at the same time we continue to install wind and solar at increasing rates. Because gas plants are highly dispatchable we can turn them off for hours/days when wind and solar are supplying and back on as needed.

    Down the road we should arrive at a point where we produce approximately 40% of our electricity with wind, 40% with solar and 20% with NG. (The part not produced by other renewables.) A replacement of 100% coal with 20% NG along with wind and solar means that we release ~80% less CO2/methane/pollutants.

    Further on, as storage prices drop, we cut the 20% NG with storage and use NG only for those few times a year that we experience prolonged periods of low wind/solar input. One study finds that this could be only a few hours per year.

    It’s a process. It will take 20 years or more. Forty years from now we may be at the point at which we’re still using those gas plants we’re now installing, but only a very small fraction of the year. And we may be fueling them with biogas. Biogas means that we no longer extract fossil fuels and de-sequester carbon.

  90. 90.

    Chet Murthy

    @Omnes Omnibus: If by this, do you mean, do I think that Bannonazi has it in for all the dusky-hued ones, yes, yes I do (and I’m one, so he’s got it in for me). And if I ever meet a Hindu who voted for Dampnut, or even -thinks- of voting for an R before Dampnut and his cabal are removed from power, that is what I’d tell them — and show them Bannonazi’s own words.

    Lotta Hindus think b/c they were (or might have been — I sure ain’t) descended from Aryan stock (who came south over the mountains), that white people will recognize them as white. Such bollocks. ISTR long long ago, some Hindus even sued to be recognized as white (kinda like that Finnish guy did) and lost. Idiots.

  93. 93.

    jl

    Probably 25 percent of any country is simple minded, toxic or crazy. And soon Trump support will be limited to that. Work on swamping them.
    Some people are talking like these goofs are the majority. They aren’t.

    And, hell, I wonder if trying to persuade someone so devoted to authoritarian bigotry, or so sadly simple minded and deluded as to stick by Trump, will do any good.
    Just work on persuading the majority of the country to turn out and swamp the Trumpers politically. Most salvageable Trump voters will come along, I think

  94. 94.

    different-church-lady

    @Honus: “I’m like, wait a minute. I made a speech. I looked out, the field was, it looked like a million, million and a half jobs!”

  95. 95.

    Millard Filmore

    @jl: My first step step is to print this out and take it to the school office tomorrow. They may think its important enough to pass along to the families of the students.

  102. 102.

    BlueDWarrior

    @efgoldman: If that’s all there is then that’s all there is… the question is how do you get people who are nominally moderate to come down off the Trump Wall (without sacrificing your own principles), and turn out people who might vote liberal but feel that voting is a waste of time and are either waiting for the White Knight or Armageddon’s Meteor to appear.

    And are doing either of those things even possible with the communication climate that we have right now? (Hell if I know)

  104. 104.

    ? Martin

    @jl:

    Just work on persuading the majority of the country to turn out and swamp the Trumpers politically. Most salvageable Trump voters will come along, I think

    Half the country didn’t vote. You only need a fraction of them to win without converting any Trump voters.

  105. 105.

    ? Martin

    Sigh.

    IsaacWebster: ICE raided a football practice for 7yr olds yesterday in LA. They took my friend’s undocumented cousin– leaving her 7yr old son at practice

  108. 108.

    Chet Murthy

    @Omnes Omnibus: The struggle is between blood-and-soil (necessarily fascist) nationalisms, and the Western Alliance of liberal democracies. Putin has supported UKIP, Le Pen (he fricken’ -funded- her), Orban, and is right now attempting to destabilize Sweden. Our allies in Europe all recognize that fostering (again) blood-and-soil nationalisms is Putin’s strategy to divide and weaken the West. Trump is just his tool for those ends here in the US.

    So yeah, this is about the West, and the Western way of life. But even if we just limit ourselves to America, it isn’t at all clear that we’re going to come out of this with a coiuntry, is it? Do you really think Bannonazi will stop before he sends in an army to push out the millions of undocumented immigrants who’ve lived in CA for ages? And if he does, do you think they’ll go quietly? Millions? With citizen family members? Then there’s the well-documented plans (there’s a reason Kobach moved up to DHS) for voter suppression. Everybody talks about how much of a buffoon Trump is, as if that’ll save us. Well, pre-Reichstag fire, a lotta newspapers were calling Hitler a buffoon, too.

    Just to be clear: I’m NOT saying it’s hopeless. I’m saying something different: This isn’t just politics. it’s about country and patriotism and our way of life. Once Trump and Bannonazi and Goebbels Miller are out of power and hopefully on their way to prison, we can go back to politics and deal with that reptile McConnell and his cabal. But right now, this is about our country and our way of life.

    So y’know, I don’t care whether it meets the legal definition of treason. These people are traitors.

  110. 110.

    Bess

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Both coal and natural gas extraction, distribution and burning cause environmental damage. I can’t determine which is worse.

    But the reason to move from coal to NG is the dispatchability of NG plants. They can be turned on and off quickly and efficiently, unlike coal plants.

    And that means that we can use NG plants to assure a 24/365 grid while we build out a renewables + storage grid.

    Our big need right now is to accelerate the amount of wind and solar we are installing. We need to be transitioning 3% or more of our electricity generation to renewables if we want to get close to zero coal and NG in 30 years.

  113. 113.

    Yarrow

    I don’t know about the exact and precise use of the word “treason” or “traitor” but I’m pretty sure those white people in South Carolina are familiar with the concept of someone being “a traitor to his race.”

  116. 116.

    Villago Delenda Est

    What we have here is a very old argument, with regards to “treason”. The English used to throw it around all the time to describe any action at all that the King might be offended by. The US founders wanted to narrow down an inflammatory charge to a specific act for that very reason.

    So getting an actual conviction for treason under the US Constitution is pretty difficult to pull off. However, it is still being used, on a daily basis, as a rhetorical device. We’re not at war with Russia, but they are an adversary, they are not an ally, such as the UK, Japan, Germany and France are. Doing the things that Donald does vis a vis Russia with any of those countries would not raise an eyebrow. Russia, however, for most of the past hundred years, has been an adversary, with a brief period as ally during WWII and just another country for about 10 years after the fall of the Soviet Union.

    This is the irony of this entire thing. People who used to wail about the “captive states” of the Baltic would sell all three of them out in a heartbeat now to Vlad.

  117. 117.

    Chet Murthy

    @Omnes Omnibus: Omnes, I -never- thought you were an R. if I did, I wouldn’t have tried to convince you.

    Look: we have a difference of opinion. You believe that accuracy and verifiable truthfulness in the way we talk about political matters is paramount. I believe that words can have power, and that power can be unrelated to their legal status. And that trying to be accurate in a legally valid way, is OFTEN (maybe even ALWAYS) viewed as weasel-words, as being slippery, as being inauthentic, etc, etc, etc.

    I believe that the commonsense meanings of words are the only one that count, until we actually -get- those traitors in court. THEN sure sure, we can go back to the legal meanings.

  118. 118.

    efgoldman

    @BlueDWarrior:

    turn out people who might vote liberal but feel that voting is a waste of time and are either waiting for the White Knight or Armageddon’s Meteor to appear.

    Agree that we have to do a much better job of grabbing people who stayed home, or voted for one of the idiots, or left that line blank – no only for president, but to take back congress, and eventually some of the purple or naturally blue states.
    But even “reasonable” people who have pulled the (R) lever their whole adult lives? Let alone people who purposely voted for Orange Shitgibbon REGARDLESS OF THEIR SELF-DECEPTION REASONS? They are not worth the effort.

    Fuckem

  119. 119.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Bess: I think we’re in agreement, you can’t just compare coal and natural gas without comparing all the externalities of each fuel. That’s what Bupalos was doing, saying the natural gas is cleaner at the combustion point but there are all those externalities, but failing to take into account coal’s externalities. One thing we do need to make renewables much more viable is an efficient storage and transmission system, that would reduce the need for fossil fuels by quite alot.

  120. 120.

    Chet Murthy

    @Omnes Omnibus: Moved here with my folks at age 4. I have *one* conscious memory of India, and it is of my grandmother giving me a bath. No idea from when or where. That’s it. My conscious life starts in an apartment in Brooklyn.

    ETA: should have added that the last time I visitsed India was after freshman year. And I’m now 52. Bannon wants to run me out of my own country. And that makes me angry. But he’s ginning up anti-immigrant sentiment in order to destroy our democracy. “Enemy of the People”. “Fake news” (“lugenpresse”). We’ve been here before. Some of us (not Melford) remember it from our History classes. The Jews took it in the neck. But Fascism wasn’t bad only b/c it killed so many Jews, even though that was a singularly evil act.

  122. 122.

    Bess

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    My original post was pointing out the fact that both open pit and mined coal results in methane production. Mines have to be constantly vented and monitored for methane levels. Methane explosions in coal plants kill miners.

    A study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that surface mined coal releases 1.91 grams of methane per kilogram and underground mined coal releases 4.23 grams of methane per kilogram.

    Pamela L. Spath et al, “Life Cycle Analysis of Coal-Fired Power Production,” National Renewable Energy Laboratory, June 1999

    If we want to compare coal and NG we need to include coal-produced methane.

    Obviously moving to renewables is what we need to do. The issue is how to transition without disrupting the grid.

  125. 125.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’m pretty sure that what Chet wants is newspaper and cable news headlines that scream, “IS PRESIDENT TRUMP A TRAITOR?”

    The legal answer to the question can be “no,” but I’d still like to see the question asked.

  127. 127.

    Ruckus

    @Bess:

    The issue is how to transition without disrupting the grid.

    Disruption is inevitable any time an industrial system is changed. Now if you mean that the grid keeps working 24/7 that I’ll agree with. We are not ready and it isn’t possible to change over from fossil fuel electrical production in one fell swoop. And it’s disingenuous of people to act like it is or should be. I am reminded that I served on one of the last series of steam powered warships in the 70s. We ran on bunker oil, which I gather is the stuff that is pumped out of the ground with the rocks and grit removed. It was filthy, high sulfur content, the boilers had to have live steam forced into the fireboxes every 8 hrs to keep them clean enough to keep working. That’s called blowing the stacks. We changed over to jet fuel and the emissions were dynamically better, we went farther on the same level of fuel, the fuel didn’t have to be heated to be pumped…… Now ships of the same size are powered by gas turbines. Far simpler, far safer to operate than the boilers which were 1200lb with steam temp of 1200deg. Far easier to operate, far faster to be ready to power the ship, far easier to remove and replace, sort of like the engine in a truck.
    Progress is rarely made in leaps but in small increments. Getting rid of fossil fuels is the same.

  130. 130.

    RM

    @Oatler.: I’m so mad about James Lileks. I love his Gallery of Regretable Foods and other websites skewering old cookbooks and ads and interior design, but his politics are deplorable.

  131. 131.

    Ksmiami

    @Chet Murthy: I agree. the GOP is a fucking fascist death cult and we need to absolutely crush them then defoxify the nation. It is a fight for America’s soul. and this means we can’t get caught up in legalistic terminology. The GOP has always out messaged the Dems because they shamelessly use words that have the opposite meanings – e.g: School Choice

  132. 132.

    AxelFoley

    @Chet Murthy:

    To most Americans, to give aid and comfort to a likely adversary is a traitorous act. They’re not lawyers, and we shouldn’t talk to them like lawyers. Stop being nice, and accurate, and start reaching for the gut-punch. These imbeciles are about destroying our entire way of life! Destroying our allies, people and countries we’ve stood by for a century! Sure it’s not treason in the Constitution, but these people are traitors in every way that matters.

    Traitors in every way that matters.

    Do you think that the fact that every one of Obama’s actions had precedent in the actions of his predecessors, prevented the Rs from tarring him as a tyrant, a dictator, and his actions as un-Constitutional? Really? They wrapped themselves in the flag, and the Constitution, and patriotism. All so they could do what? Sell is all down the river to Vladimir Vladimirovitch?

    Half of Americans have an IQ <= 100, ffs. Do you really think they want to hear, or can comprehend, these detailed distinctions?

    P.S. And just to say it again: It would have been *impossible* to avoid the repeated discussion of the fine points of what is and is not treason. Of the Logan Act (and Nixon, Bush, et al's guilt), the Espionage Act, etc, etc, etc. I'm not talking about -laws-. I'm talking about what they actually DID.

    Co-sign.

  133. 133.

    Gvg

    @Omnes Omnibus: you are fighting against the social meaning of the word treason. It’s like arguing that gay doesn’t really mean homosexual. It does now. Treason to everybody except some pure lawyers does mean acting against the interests of the native country and for a foreign country. Everyone knows that in their gut and we can’t unknown that and we can’t help saying that. Now when it gets time to charge someone, if it does, the actual charges may have different names….but charges or not, most people are going to call this treason. It’s also relevant to why we aren’t going to make nice with Trump voters. We didn’t say that about Bush or Reagan voters even though we may have said other harsh things. You can’t fight the whole populations understanding of a words meaning and you are not right just because the constitution defines it more narrowly. In fact the constitution was always fighting the popular meaning because it was written at a time when th powerful were defining Treason to be anything they didn’t like and sentencing without proof. It’s good that laws are written narrowly but language in use doesn’t work like that. Feelings don’t work like that either and we are expressing what we feel.

  135. 135.

    Shalimar

    @Omnes Omnibus: Better an idiot than an asshole and bully. Oh no, he’s not using the one specific definition of treason that you find acceptable. Because words only have one specific definition and puns don’t exist.

  136. 136.

    waysel

    @Chet Murthy: Agree 100%. 90% of the public has no idea what the technical definition of treason is, but they would say presidenting for Putin is treason. It’s a powerful word, and nuance isn’t part of most peoples vocabulary. We are in a propaganda war. It’s time to start fighting it.

  137. 137.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Hours late to the game, but ..

    What is the difference, if any, between “traitor” and “treason”? (Outside of the grammatical one(s), of course.)

    I view “treason” as a subset or special case of “traitorous behaviors,” not as treason == traitorous == treason. For example, to me, Ames and Hanssen were traitors, even though they were not charged with treason — they betrayed their country, even though we were not engaged in a declared war with the USSR.

    I think you and I may have discussed this some time ago, but I’m getting senile. In any event, my question is a serious one, not a stones-busting one.

  138. 138.

    artem1s

    @Ruckus:

    But wind and solar isn’t available 24 hrs a day. And we “require” lights and power, 24 hrs a day.

    the key to wind and solar is battery storage and making Solar Inverters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_inverter as common a feature in new construction as granite counter tops and air conditioning. In solar the collection of energy happens during non peak hours. The use of that energy is always going to happen during peak hours. Elon Musk’s experiment was less about the electric car and more about the battery storage capacity. The car got high end investors interested. Tesla is starting production of solar roof tiles this year. https://www.tesla.com/solar#updates

    The inverters and batteries are the key. once a house is fit with the utility to take advantage of wind and solar the worst of the conversion is over. But the resistance isn’t because of the costs, it’s because the construction industry can’t wrap their minds around adding that cost to new construction. Fifty years ago, having a master bath, air conditioning, walk in closets, and/or designer kitchens would have been considered add-ons and upscale. Not standard. The trick is getting to making the bank of batteries and inverters a standard item in new construction. Once that is there, you can choose solar, wind, hydrogen fuel cell converting natural gas…or whatever the next innovation might be. And you can use that for your house or your car. Energy storage is the key.

    Once residential is making most or all of it’s own electricity, it frees up massive amounts of electricity for manufacturing and commercial use. And that doesn’t even consider the amount of electricity that is lost transmitting it from power plant across the state to your home.

  140. 140.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Fine. I concede.

    To whom are you replying? If it’s to me: that’s not what I was looking for. I was trying to determine — at least from a legalistic point of view — whether “treason” and “traitorous actions/behaviors” are identical, or if not, what the distinction is.

    I make a distinction in my own mind [sic], but that’s just me, and I ain’t a lawyer, etc.

  141. 141.

    Shalimar

    @Omnes Omnibus: It’s not about winning and losing an argument. You’re a good person and your opinions, values and life experiences are always appreciated by me and I’m sure everyone else here. But calling someone names because they won’t agree with your viewpoint is crossing the line into abusive behavior. Even when you’re right.

Comments are closed.