This one belongs in the false equivalence hall of fame
There are differences, but who remembers when Clinton banned a reporter she didn't like from her pool? https://t.co/8ecpilFvOr
— Annie Linskey (@AnnieLinskey) February 24, 2017
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Spanky
NO ONE!
elm
Primary campaigns and Presidencies are exactly the same.
rumpole
Trump shits in public. Clinton shits in public restroom. These things are not the same.
dmsilev
‘There are differences, but’ is truly hall-of-fame weasel-wording.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
The press really is the enemy of the American people.
Yarrow
Banning entire news organizations and banning one specific reporter from a news organization, while others are still welcome, are exactly the same thing.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Any time someone has a weak moment and decides Our National Press Corpse doesn’t belong in a collective tumbrel or have their heads affixed to the ends of pikes, one of em comes along with something like this.
hovercraft
This is beyond infantile, I know they are preaching to the choir, as am I in this forum, but jeysus fucking christ these people are morans.
TenguPhule
Annie Linskey will be among those up against the wall when the revolution comes.
LurkerNoLonger
I don’t do Twitter, but does the blue check mark after your name mean you’re a verified idiot?
kindness
You know those times you wish a 2×4 could make it through the intertubes to be introduced to certain somebodies on the other end? Yea, this is another to add to that list.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The kicker is the complete lack of introspection among them. All I hear is “good reporting costs money. SUBSRCIBE!” Yet they totally don’t get the fact that shit like this is precisely why people like me will never subscribe again: they ran out of the benefit of my doubt about a dozen years ago and they’ve done *nothing* since to restore my faith in their ability to be nothing more than Republican stenographers.
different-church-lady
…I’m going to go ahead and post this anyway!”
Iowa Old Lady
If we’re talking about what the POTUS is doing, how does it matter what someone else once did?
Mom hat on. “I’m not talking about Hilly from up the street. I’m talking about you, Donnie.”
hovercraft
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Remember when Hillary had a fainting spell because she had pneumonia and it was the most important story ever, and why did they take two days to tell us, and why did it take two hours for her to come out of Chelsea’s apartment? And how it was important for us to know, and yet, now that we have a mentally unfit and unstable person serving as our president, his health and mental state are not a big deal? For all the glimmers of journalism we see the majority of this “profession are toe suckers who will bow down to the GOP for access and approval.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@hovercraft: Yes, and despite everything, I see the NYT has increased subscriptions. Sometimes you just feel like drinking Draino.
geg6
@Iowa Old Lady:
I’m pretty well versed on politics and Villagers and I have no idea who this idiot woman is. And I suspect that most people don’t either. Not only that, they don’t know about Hillary’s past alleged actions in this matter nor do they care. The only people I’ve heard mention Hillary, other than Dumpster fans and Wilmerbros, are the Villagers. This sounds like something that would be a hot take on Morning Joe, another bunch that your average person knows nothing about and cares even less. People like this clueless idiot are why most of America despise the media. Whether the left or right, they all hate her and her ilk. It’s the one thing that everyone agrees on, if not on the reasons we hate them.
momus
False equivalence never gets old!
hovercraft
Trump Won’t Be Filling Hundreds of Agency Jobs
by Nancy LeTourneau
February 28, 2017 2:24 PM
During an interview with Fox and Friends, Donald Trump made a statement that is very significant in understanding his plans for this administration.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump said he’s been hit for not filling about 1,200 administration jobs that require Senate confirmation, but people don’t understand that he’s not trying to fill many of those jobs.
“A lot of those jobs, I don’t want to appoint someone because they’re unnecessary to have,” Trump said. “In government, we have too many people.”
………..That is an important admission as it reflects on both Trump and his so-called “shadow president,” Steve Bannon. As we’ve already noted, in his speech at CPAC, Bannon suggested that one of his main goals was the deconstruction of the administrative state. Leaving important policy positions open is step one in that process. Of course, that also leads to the kind of incompetence and chaos that we’ve already witnessed from this White House. But for Bannon, that is more likely a feature than a bug………….
schrodingers_cat
I have never heard of this person. No loss.
SFBayAreaGal
@LurkerNoLonger: That would be a positively, absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt YES!!!
Starfish
They have already tried the “But Obama” angle on this. So much of it was in crazy land that I had a hard time figuring out what part was based in reality. This happened during the Obama campaign. There was another incident during the presidency, but I can’t wade through the conspiracy-nuttery to find it.
The Moar You Know
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I would imagine that the few Republicans who read it are liking what they see these days. Can’t blame the NYT. That’s where the money is. You can always skim a few bucks out of a Republican’s wallet by telling them you agree with them.
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
That’s your first mistake right there, Mom hat, everyone knows that no one takes Mommy seriously, it’s the “Dad hat, and the Daddy party” that are responsible for all the important decisions. FSM knows that if Daddy didn’t run everything, Mommies would have messed up the entire planet by now. //
So just relax everybody, Daddy and his fellow Daddies are back in charge, just enjoy the ride.
The Moar You Know
@hovercraft: That’s the best news I’ve read in a while. Assuming said agencies are not eliminated, that means Obama’s people will continue to be in their upper echelons and will be doing the actual work of running said agencies.
If Trump packed ’em he’d do some real damage.
Iowa Old Lady
@hovercraft: God help us.
waysel
@Iowa Old Lady: Yeah, I’m way past sick of the elementary school playground logic that passes for discourse amongst these True Believers.
Ohio Mom
@geg6: I see that she is a reporter at the Boston Globe. Here is another one of Annie’s awesome tweets:
“Say what you will, Bannon has ideas.”
I know we are supposed to be rushing to the press’s defense because Trump, but she isn’t making that too compelling.
Yarrow
@The Moar You Know: Hey! Maybe he’ll leave the courts alone too. You know, too many government employees and all.
randy khan
@Spanky:
Yeah, when you read the story you realize that the justification had nothing to do with what the reporter wrote or even with whether she liked him (as if any politician likes reporters) – it was about providing more access to U.S. publications. Now, you could choose not to believe that, but it’s all that’s reported.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Ohio Mom:
Say what you will, Bannon has ideas.
You know who else had ideas?
patroclus
@Ohio Mom: Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it’s an ethos.
japa21
There are some differences, but what she didn’t add was that there were no similarities.
different-church-lady
@Ohio Mom: My fuckin’ cat had “ideas”.
John Revolta
@hovercraft: That jumped out at me too. I’d been snarking to myself about all the jobs they hadn’t filled yet; then I realized- they ain’t gonna bother. Oy.
hovercraft
@Ohio Mom:
Ideas like*, white men own this country, Hitler made a good start, women should accept whatever their man dishes out to them, black people are inferior, Muslims are all terrorists. He has many more “ideas” but yo get the gist.
* I do not have specific instance of him saying these things, but based on Breithbart……………
Villago Delenda Est
@Ohio Mom: Yeah, and Reinhard Heydrich had ideas, too.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@kindness: @The Moar You Know:
Shhhhhhh… not so loud… make THEM figure that out…
Thru the Looking Glass...
@kindness:
Now that you’ve identified a legitimate need, perhaps some enterprising soul can develop an app to fill it…
hovercraft
Remember way back in olden times when republicans bitched that Obama was always campaigning and why wasn’t he doing the job we payed him for? I guess all that’s out the window now that Twitler finds his actual job boring and complicated and subject to constant criticism, he’s firing up the money Wurlitzer o he can fund a few more feel good moments for his ego.
Once a grifter always a grifter—Trump uses State of the Union address to raise 2020 campaign money
Donald Trump and his never-ending fundraising machine are using his first-ever State of the Union address to fundraise for a campaign that should be years away. Instead, Team Grift is getting an early start, having filed for 2020 re-election on the same day he was inaugurated (41 impossibly long days ago.)
Ian G.
@patroclus:
@hovercraft:
@Villago Delenda Est:
You all beat me to it. Damn.
At least Mussolini had ideas for making the trains run on time.
trollhattan
@hovercraft:
Yup, and when Donny’s shitty response made it into the debate his defense: “I said she didn’t have the sta-min-ah.” Stretching my sta-min-ah to the very limit.
Turgidson
Matthew Dowd is sitting at his computer, thinking “FUCK I wish I had thought to send that tweet” and anxious that he has a new rival for “biggest bothsiderist dipshit in the media” honors. He anxiously texts his mentor, long-time holder of the title, Ron Fournier, for advice.
clay
Wait a minute… Annie Linskey… Annie Linsky… A. Linsky… Alinsky… SAUL ALINSKY!!!
Clearly, this is Obama’s fault.
hovercraft
DeVos Tries to Enlist HBCUs in Her Ideological War
by Martin Longman
February 28, 2017 1:53 PM
Ben Mathis-Lilley of Slate had an appropriate response to the statement the Trump administration released from Education Secretary of Betsy DeVos after their meeting with leaders of Historically Black Colleges and Universities yesterday. But, first, let’s look at the press release:
Click to see the memo
So, that statement is bonkers.
…this official 2017 federal government press release celebrates legal segregation (!!!) on the grounds that the Jim Crow education system gave black students “more options,” as if there was a robust competition between HBCUs and white universities for their patronage. (When black Mississippian James Meredith chose the “option” of enrolling at the University of Mississippi in 1962, a massive white mob formed on the campus; two people were shot to death and hundreds injured in the ensuing battle/riot, during which federal marshals came under heavy gunfire, requiring the ultimate intervention of 20,000 U.S. soldiers and thousands more National Guardsmen.)……..
Go over and read the rest.
It will make you happy that he is not filling many of those vacancies, these people are insane.
Major Major Major Major
FDR killed civilians too, so, you know, both sides.
nominus
Was this one brought up yet? Amanda Carpenter’s unfortunate head trauma I’m not sure how much injury you need to suffer before that sounded intelligent.
We really are between a rock and a hard place here. I can’t take 45’s efforts to dismantle the press in this country when the dumb motherfuckers won’t do much to help themselves.
Iowa Old Lady
@hovercraft: I’d bet anything he’s using his campaign warchest the same way he used to use his foundation as a slush fund.
germy
Does anyone here plan on watching tonight’s speech? I don’t think I can stomach it. I’ll check here tomorrow for analysis, but the sound of his voice is like fingernails on a blackboard for me.
Jeffro
@different-church-lady: Exactly. It’s the reporters’ version of how wing nuts always change the subject. In the reporters’ cases, it involves changing the subject from whatever horrific thing a Republican is doing, to the topic of “both sides do it”
Iowa Old Lady
@germy: Geez no. Live blogs are much more fun.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: I will conveniently be seeing my shrink at the time, so, go me. One of the advantages of a standard Tuesday appointment at west coast prime time is that I miss many political things.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Not going to watch.
Gist
Immigrants are criminals
Muslims are terrorists
I won
Hillary lost
the end
lollipopguild
This reminds me of people I see out and about who cannot quite figure out how to make a right hand turn, or how to properly drive thru a parking lot. When i waited on them at my job you would have conversations with them that would leave you wondering out they manage to get out of the bed in the morning much less hold down a job or pay their bills.
geg6
@Ohio Mom:
So she’s not really a Villager. Just aspiring to be one.
Even more disgusting.
germy
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/what-we-know-about-trumps-first-address-to-congress.html
EBT
Anyone see today that deadbeat donnie tried to tell the Pennsylvania AG that the anti-semitic bomb threats and cemetery attacks are false flags? http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/trump-just-told-the-pennsylvania-ag-that-anti-semitic-threats-may-be-false-flag-operations/
geg6
@germy:
I’m expecting some intrepid BJers to, hopefully, watch and recap the action here for me. I simply cannot watch the man. Ever. Not if I want to continue having a tv.
Shalimar
@hovercraft: That is incredibly ignorant. Putting your own people at the top is how you gain control of the agency and decide which positions are unnecessary. Even if Trump is right that government is bloated and there are lots of unnecessary positions, the positions he appoints are not among them if he expects to get anything done.
germy
It’s like one of the RW online commenters on my local newspaper was elected president. It’s insane.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: well, they are both Russian trolls.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
I can only watch him via Sassy Trump, and I assume that will take a few days to get posted.
burnspbesq
So there seems to be a consensus here that there is no meaningful difference between Trump and the media.
People like that remind me of the Catholics and Protestants in Ulster. It took them 300 years to figure out who the real enemy was.
Don’t be fookin’ daft.
hovercraft
@germy:
No.
I expect that the Guardian will live blog it as well as some other trustworthy sites. The BJ commentariat will I’m sure keep us abreast of all the wonderful things he’s brought American in his 42 days. The economy has added private sector jobs for eleventy consecutive months, and the stock market has been rising for many many quarters, all in anticipation of the day that he became president. You’re welcome America!
different-church-lady
@nominus: Winning the internets quality reply:
Not to mention that we did have problems with Bernie’s plans: in particular, that it was highly doubtful his numbers functioned in the real world.
FlipYrWhig
@Shalimar: I guarantee you that he’s thinking that it will save a lot of money not to pay people to do high-level jobs. Because he doesn’t really understand magnitude. I think he’s from one of those civilizations that has a number system that goes one, two, many. Look at all the people in the crowd! You can barely count ’em! Must be millions and millions! Look at all those jobs in the book! Such a long book! Who even knows that many people, millions and millions, looks like! And we already have all those people working here, in buildings, like one per desk, and then at lunchtime there’s traffic, who can even count them all, they’re everywhere!
dmsilev
@germy:
I would, but it’s my turn to shampoo the neighborhood squirrels, and, well, do you have any idea how long it takes to get curlers in their tails?
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
I see a good one just got posted.
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
Hopefully I will be alive in 20 years when forensic accountants are sifting through the Twitler family accounts as they try his kids for their profiteering. Sessions will never do anything, but eventually someone will. I say 20 years because right after he’s gone we will have bigger fish to fry, Russia and all that, on top of which they will fight this with everything they have, it will drag on for years.
ruckus
@germy:
Unfortunately it’s exactly like that.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@clay: I THOUGHT there was something… familiar… about that name…
Connect the dots, people… connect the dots…
Villago Delenda Est
@nominus: Former Cruz comms director, speech writer for DeMint.
All you need to know about Amanda Carpenter’s head trauma.
ruckus
@FlipYrWhig:
Don’t give him credit that he can add more than one, because it looks like he really can’t.
nominus
@different-church-lady: indeed. Bernithmetic notwithstanding, that’s just something the R’s refuse to mentally process: We want to figure out how to spend money making people healthy, we don’t want to just keep throwing money into bombing people we’ve never met. But anyway, this was the best response to the “healthcare is complicated” quote, or maybe this one. I guess there are a couple of media people that aren’t completely worthless.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Shalimar:
On the other hand, there is an upside to this situation… if he doesn’t fill a lot of those positions, it’s gonna slow down any agenda they have something wicked…
Perhaps the WH domestic staff can double up and fill in where needed… Undersecretary of Destroying the Environment… that sort of thing…
EBT
@hovercraft: Any liveblog that isn’t a wonkette drinkin liveblog isn’t a liveblog worth watching.
SFAW
@Ohio Mom:
Since John Henry (Red Sox owner) bought them, they are no longer “even the liberal” Boston Globe. The closest thing they have to a “liberal” is a guy named Scot Lehigh — sort of a centrist, but not a Bobo-like centrist (thank FSM).
Their attempt to become just like the Boston Herald is pretty fucked up.
Villago Delenda Est
@EBT: Indeed. Everyone here should check out the vile snark mob.
Dog Dawg Damn
I’m hoping Trump gets up there tonight and gives another Sturm und Drang Hitler screed. Let the people know what they’ve done. Let it be unambiguous. I hope he points out his wife’s guests–victims of crime by illegal immigrants–and rants about how crime committed by illegals is so much worse than crime committed by white men. Let it be out there in the open.
rebmarks
The Daily Mail is a UK tabloid and was actually banned as a source by Wikipedia for being unreliable and sensationalistic.
John Revolta
@Shalimar: They’ve already decided which positions are unnecessary: the “government” ones. That IS what President Bannon “expects to get done”.
goblue72
@EBT: Well everyone knows Jews are sneaky. Sneaksy Joos.
Mnemosyne
@Ohio Mom:
Please tell me someone tweeted back to ask if Bannon has an ethos.
Major Major Major Major
@John Revolta: Trump’s plan does seem to be, basically: war on immigrants; destroy every unrelated part of the government except defense; actual war with foreigners a little bit down the line. This lack of appointments is unsurprising through that lens.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@dmsilev: Then there are the hipsters who want a flat iron used on theirs!
cmorenc
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Just because one member of the National Press Corps lapses into lackey of the running dogs imperialists mode doesn’t mean we need to send the whole Corps to news re-education camps in the countryside, comrade. And we save the heads-on-pikes displays for the worst habitual offenders, like Tucker Carlson.and RW propaganda outfits pretending to be press such as Breitbart.
As for the likes of Ms. Linskey, the bottle-walk treatment from Cool Hand Luke will do as part of her re-education camp studies.
goblue72
@SFAW: Do they still employ Jeff Jacoby?
Ohio Mom
@Ian G.: Many of the responses on Annie’s twitter feed make these exact points (file under great minds…).
I can only assume she tweets a lot of equally dumb stuff, gets lots of pointed replies, and learns nothing from any of it.
Or maybe she’s in it for the clicks. After all, a fair number of us went to read the old Globe article about Hillary, just to see how off base Annie was.
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
What came first, head trauma or Stockholm syndrome?
Shalimar
@Thru the Looking Glass…: I suspect on some level they realize that they don’t have 1200 qualified people who haven’t said anything negative about Trump during the campaign. Not filling the positions means they don’t bruise Trump’s ego by constantly going over all the disloyal stuff the potential candidates said.
Major Major Major Major
@cmorenc: i second this. Doug’s nutpicking is amusing but there are still many babies in the bath water.
Brachiator
@germy:
Nope. I probably will not even check out any recaps until tomorrow.
Trump often feels stifled when he has to deliver any statesmanlike speech. He might say something more interesting or revealing a day or two after this speech. He always feels a need to loosen up and release the real Trump after formal occasions.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Do they use pool cameras or do networks have their own? Because it would be amusing to keep one on Joe Wilson and Sam Alito to capture their enraptured responses against a split screen from ’09. Both sides!
goblue72
@germy: As I don’t speak German, I plan on reading the translation the next morning.
lapassionara
@The Moar You Know: It is my understanding that the Obama people in these positions are no longer there. So what this means is that the high level people at the State Department are not there, except for Rex Tillerson, and his views on foreign policy are being undercut by Bannon and the WH. I would prefer Bannon have less influence, not more. Same with other agencies, although I have not heard much about them. Tillerson has suggested people for State, but WH has not approved them, one because he once said something negative about Trump. So, who knows who will meet Trump’s standards or whether these posts will get filled. This is a big CF.
different-church-lady
@Ohio Mom: I don’t think she reports for the Globe, she merely linked to an article they published to make her… well, let’s call it a “point”, for lack of a better term.
Villago Delenda Est
@cmorenc: Faith Militant Walk of Atonement through the narrow alleys of King’s Landing.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Couldn’t it be simpler? Trump is unfit for the office and unable to effectively administer the Executive branch. And maybe his ego will not let him cede more authority to Pence and the Republican leadership to fill vacancies.
BTW, I am mildly curious to know how this compares to Obama, Bush or Clinton in terms to time needed to get up and running.
Major Major Major Major
@lapassionara: the State guy who once said something bad about Trump is also a war criminal, so we kind of lucked out there.
Cacti
There are differences between Annie Linskey and a bucket of shit.
The bucket of shit can be useful for fertilizer.
Mnemosyne
I’m going down to Disneyland right after work today, so I will miss the shitgibbon’s big speech. How sad.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: Gessen has a good interview today over at Slate talking about the personality similarities between Trump and Putin that gave me pause about how much Trump’s obvious lack of fitness actually matters. It’s a good read.
Mike in DC
@EBT:
Racism. Check.
Islamophobia. Check.
Xenophobia and anti-immigrantism. Check.
Misogyny. Check.
Homophobia and transphobia. Check.
Anti-Semitism. Check.
The only one missing is Anti-Catholicism. Otherwise the Bigot Bingo card is all filled out.
Roger Moore
@Ohio Mom:
At least it’s an ethos!
Ian G.
@EBT:
I’m sure that’s what Alex Jones whispered in Donnie’s ear, so of course he repeated it.
PPCLI
@Major Major Major Major: Very true. The one positive about this administration is that it doesn’t have Elliot Abrams in it.
goblue72
@different-church-lady: She is the Boston Globe’s chief national correspondent, per her Twitter profile. She is based in DC. Her email: [email protected]
sam
Whenever I see one of these “both sides!” or “but someone else did something completely different but we can kinda say it’s the same if we squint really hard!” comparisons, I’m reminded of the following…
Months before the election, I was sitting with my boss talking about Hillary and Trump. He found Trump completely abhorrent, but was kinda disappointed that Hillary ended up being the dem candidate because he viewed her as, well, flawed (he’s canadian, by the way, so had zero ability to vote for anyone. this was all a bit more theoretical for him). He said something along the lines of “Hillary is that job candidate who has a stellar resume, but when you sit down to interview them, you just…can’t find that… connection”.
And I said back to him – “look, I get what you’re saying. She’s absolutely not as good a campaigner as, say, Obama. But to use the job interview analogy, your choice is her, a stellar candidate who is maybe a bit stiff in the interview, or Trump…the guy who shows up an hour late, still demands to be seen, throws his crumpled resume at you (half of which is fake entries), doesn’t let you get a word in edgewise, then pulls his pants down and takes a shit in the middle of your desk, and then demands that you hire him on the spot.”
My boss had to admit I had a point.
knittingbull
@dmsilev:
WIN!
Major Major Major Major
@sam:
And America is the company that hires him anyway.
cosima
@sam: I wish you’d been Hillary’s campaign manager. Could have saved us all a world of hurt.
rickstersherpa
This also goes to show the ingrained culture of hate toward the Clintons, particularly Hillary, that has festered these last 25 years. And kind of pointless to this time since neither Bill or Hillary will be running for office again.
Also, I don’t recall Hillary ever sicking a mob on a reporter as Trump did with Katy Tur.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
It would be reasonable to have pool cameras, but I’m not sure.
And yeah, that split screen would be funny.
Mnemosyne
@Mike in DC:
Someday, the Catholic-raised Bannon will be astonished to discover that while we may be towards the bottom of the white supremacists’ hit list, Catholics are still on there. Hopefully he finds out the hard way.
nominus
@Brachiator: The Russian mafia doesn’t give a rat’s ass about governing and policy and all that bullshit, that’s something someone else can get to once all the thievery is done. Get the rubes distracted by defense spending and immigrant bashing and that’s good enough; no one is going to bother with finding an assistant deputy undersecretary of agriculture, I mean, who the fuck cares about shit like that when you can funnel billions of dollars a day out the door?
Ridnik Chrome
America’s Least Favorite Tourist Destination…
Major Major Major Major
@rickstersherpa:
Also evident in the way that the media keeps trying to make Chelsea Clinton relevant.
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
And he at least theoretically had a way to pay for what he wanted that didn’t beggar the rest of the government.
lapassionara
@Major Major Major Major: Well, there is that little problem.
Mikefromarlington
Is it too late to encourage a 30 sec silent protest from all Dem Congressmen and Women during Trumps address? A show of solidarity against Trump and his admin.
lapassionara
@sam: I tried to explain to a Canadian who did not like Hillary and claimed he would “never” have voted for her, that it was like a dinner menu where our choice was either a hot dog, maybe with mustard even, and tire rims laced with anthrax. Of course, I think Hillary was a way better choice than that, but I was using what I hoped would be an analogy that would get his attention. I don’t think I convinced him, but this was early January, before the reign of error began.
I think Hillary is introverted, and I think she presents herself as a thinker, not as a feeler. This results in a personality that probably would make a great president, but does not make a good campaigner.
efgoldman
The original article is almost TWO YEARS OLD. Looks like somebody pretending to be an editor told her that her tweetstorm didn’t have sufficient volume.
This is Cilliza level of lazy, stupid, irresponsible excuse for journalism. Maybe that’s what Linsky aspires to be.
goblue72
@different-church-lady: And that right there is the kind of “would you settle for half a loaf” thinking as to why in part Clinton lost. Complete failure of the moral imagination.
Trump’s (and his followers) demands are completely abhorrent – but at least they have the stones to demand them in the first place.
The correct response to Little Miss Amanda Carpenter is “F.U. we don’t need more money for our disgustingly bloated military. What effing wars does your weasel brain think we need to be starting? And F.U. yes we need more money for education. College SHOULD be free. Except for ‘communications’ majors. That’s not a real major. Go back to sucking on Ted Cruz’s worm.”
Calming Influence
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Done. I’m calling it UberHeadSmack. For a reasonable fee, drivers equipped with 2x4s locate the designate person and give them tap on the side of the head. For an additional fee, the driver will sing the reason that they’re getting the 2×4 treatment. PayPal and all major credit cards accepted.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Yep.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m not a big Slate reader, but I will check this out.
So on Slate were you referring to the Isaac Chotiner interview?
I also found an essay by Gessen at the NY Review of Books.
Long reads that I will look at later. But again, the simpler explanation is that Trump claimed to be a master businessman. And even though he has obviously failed spectacularly before, he seemed to run the Trump Organization as a fairly tight ship. He’s also appointed some successful business people (or at least rich people) into some cabinet positions, and some of the military people he’s appointed have good reputations for running their previous organizations.
And yet Trump seems simply to be in over his head. He knows nothing about public administration and thought that he did not have to know anything. Not the only reason for his failure, but gotta be at the top of the list.
Still, the other two articles I found look interesting. Let’s see what it adds to understanding Trump.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
While I agree that there is a huge dollop of Clinton hatred in this effort, this is also an attempt to both sider that criticism of Twitlers kids. They have been receiving a lot of negative press, and the want to show that they are not biased. Malia and Sasha are young, so for the most part they have been off limits, though they’ve taken some shots at Malia.
Roger Moore
@lapassionara:
That’s correct. That leaves a bunch of career civil servants with minimal political oversight. That’s not the situation you want if your goal is to implement a fascist regime, with the exception of the handful of places like ICE and CBP that are staffed by fascist career civil servants.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Does GEC provide you with discount tickets?
JustRuss
From the original article:
So yeah, just like Trump. I hate that I pretty much agree with him about how bad our press is, although for different reasons.
rikyrah
@EBT:
Which he got from David Duke
justsomeguy
Gee, I remember when the Democrats and Republicans conspired to eliminate the League of Women voters Presidential debates and – as a unified racketeering cartel – ensured that third party candidates could not participate. In that case – YES – BOTH sides did it. (but I take your point).
JerryRich
@lapassionara: Every time Hillary showed emotion she was called hysterical or was faking it.
sam
@lapassionara: The difference between your canadian and mine is that my boss would have voted for her if it came down to it, because he did ultimately recognize crazy.
I work with another guy who is a fairly solid red-state republican, and he was up here a few weeks ago – I was a little concerned because I simply assumed he’d be a trump voter, but he finally cornered me (we were at a farewell party for another colleague) specifically to let me know that he voted for Hillary. His exact words were “It’s not that I liked her, but I voted for the crooked [expletive], because at the end of the day I trusted her with the nuclear codes over a complete psycho”.
And you know what, I appreciated the sentiment – because he was someone who I never imagined voting for her in a million years, but he could at least still see that there was a difference between her and the abyss.
He then went on to tell me all about how his daughter went to the DC women’s march, and I thought about how maybe the world wasn’t going to end.