Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The words do not have to be perfect.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

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

People are weird.

When they say they’re pro-life, they don’t mean yours.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Please don’t feed the bears.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

You are here: Home / Politics / An Unexamined Scandal / Open Thread: You Know It’s Bad for the Repubs, Because They’re Already Trying to Cover It Up

Open Thread: You Know It’s Bad for the Repubs, Because They’re Already Trying to Cover It Up

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Aaaand here comes Rep. Trey ‘But Her Emails’ Gowdy… Per USAToday:

Rep. Trey Gowdy used Monday’s House Intelligence Committee hearing to cite Obama administration officials, including the former president, as potential sources for leaks.

The South Carolina Republican was questioning FBI Director James Comey during the House Intelligence Committee’s hearing as part of its investigation into Russian interference with the U.S. election.

Like many of his Republican colleagues, Gowdy used his time to focus on recent leaks of classified information to journalists. But he went a step further by raising specific names of people from the former administration to show they had access to leaked classified material, implying they might have been sources of the leaks…

Gowdy argued that “unmasking” Flynn’s name was a felony because it was part of a confidential intelligence gathering and had previously been “masked” to protect his identity.

“I’m not going to get either that particular case, that matter, or any conversations I had involving the president. So I can’t answer that question,” Comey responded.

But Obama wasn’t the only one. Gowdy also rattled down a list of people who had held high-ranking positions in the Obama administration and asked whether each would have had access to the “unmasked” name. He included former director of national intelligence James Clapper, former CIA director John Brennan, former national security adviser Susan Rice, former White House adviser Ben Rhodes, former attorney general Loretta Lynch and former deputy attorney general Sally Yates.

“In the universe of possible motives of felonious dissemination of classified material, we could rule out wanting to help the intelligence communities and the law enforcement communities. Those are two motives that are gone now, that leaves more nefarious motives,” Gowdy said…

How dare those filthy Democrats try to expose our treason on behalf of the higher cause! Do they not understand that targeted leaking is only permissible by OUR party?

ETA:

Reader Interactions

201Comments

  3. 3.

    germy

    ne·far·i·ous
    nəˈferēəs/
    adjective

    (typically of an action or activity) wicked or criminal.

    “the nefarious activities of the organized-crime syndicates”
    synonyms: wicked, evil, sinful, iniquitous, egregious, heinous, atrocious, vile, foul, abominable, odious, depraved, monstrous, fiendish, diabolical, unspeakable, despicable

  5. 5.

    different-church-lady

    Wondering when will someone ask Comey why he didn’t reveal existence of Russia/Trump campaign investigation before Nov. 8.

    Is ‘never’ the under or the over on that?

  6. 6.

    p.a.

    Patriotism Misdirection is the last first refuge of the scoundrel Republican.

    strike through scoundrel should be undone.

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    is that name naming yet another norm tossed on the bonfire of the trumpeties? I hope Flop Sweat gets invited down to Maralago as reward, or at least a pat on the head and a snausage for being such a good doggie

  8. 8.

    Mary G

    I tweeted back at Trump this morning when he was bitching about the leaks that he was cheering on the leaks of the DNC and Wikileaks during the campaign, so live by the sword, die by the sword. Karma is a bitch.

  9. 9.

    germy

    Jon Karl (Charles Pierce calls him “republican mole”) got snapped at by Spicer at today’s press conference.

    When you’ve lost the college republicans….

    I expect his report on ABC News tonight to be peeved. He’s one of the cool kids who gets a front row seat for the press conferences. He didn’t like being scolded.

  10. 10.

    Waldo

    Today we saw Referee Comey’s attempt to make up for his bad call before the election. It won’t undo the damage, but it might mitigate the worst of it.

  11. 11.

    debbie

    Gowdy et al. made Nunes sound like a flaming liberal. I can only hope they’ll regret this some day.

  16. 16.

    SFAW

    I was just perusing the front page at Josh Marshall’s place, and maybe I’m trying to force-fit the info I saw into my hoped-for outcomes bucket, but this whole thing is starting to remind me of Watergate. Of course, in those days, the Dems controlled things, and the Republicans were not anti-American motherfuckers willing to do/say anything to maintain their hold on power, so perhaps my hopes will be dashed.

    Oh, and fuck Trey Gowdy. Leaks came from Obama? You weaselly motherfucker, I hope your intestine takes its cues from that of Grunthos the Flatulent.

  17. 17.

    TenguPhule

    @SFAW:

    Oh, and fuck Trey Gowdy. Leaks came from Obama? You weaselly motherfucker, I hope your intestine takes its cues from that of Grunthos the Flatulent.

    Don’t hold back, tell us how you really feel.

  18. 18.

    J.

    What a sh*t show. (I couldn’t watch.)

    On a somewhat related note, here’s The Trump Translator, so now you can understand what Trump really means when he spouts off. (Though I’m sure most of you Balloon-Juicers had/have a pretty good idea.)

  19. 19.

    germy

    GOP Intel chairman leading Russia probe says he ‘never heard of Carter Page or Roger Stone’: report

    Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), chair of the House committee leading an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election, reportedly said on Monday that he had never heard of two key figures linking President Donald Trump to Russia.

  20. 20.

    Hobbes83

    At this point, the one of the questions that I don’t think is getting stressed enough is this: when will someone point the finger at all of the Republican congressional members-especially those who were privy to this information prior to the election-and start asking the question that needs to be asked? We all know what the question is, no matter how rhetorical the question might be to liberals who have been paying attention to the inner-workings of the party for multiple decades. The question is this: you had insider knowledge of the ties between Trump and the Russians, and yet you did nothing to repudiate the campaign and the man behind it. Why? Tax cuts cannot be that fucking important when placed in a situation where our election was manipulated by a hostile foreign power. It is quite clear that not only is the Republican party intellectually bankrupt, they are also ethically and morally bankrupt, and have been for years. I still remember the 2012 presidential debates where Mitt Romney said that the Russians are our number one geo-political foe. What changed in the span of four years?

  22. 22.

    SFAW

    @germy:

    Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), chair of the House committee leading an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election, reportedly said on Monday that he had never heard of two key figures linking President Donald Trump to Russia.

    Well, it’s not as if he was under oath, so it can’t be perjury. Or, perhaps it’s just Doug-Feith-level world-class stupidity.

  23. 23.

    TenguPhule

    @Hobbes83:

    when will someone point the finger at all of the Republican congressional members-especially those who were privy to this information prior to the election-and start asking the question that needs to be asked?

    Never.

    This has been another depressing edition of SATSQ.

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    Trump’s coal-hump may be too late to save these plants.

    An electric utility company is closing two coal-fired power plants by next year, citing economic conditions. Dayton Power & Light, a subsidiary of utility giant AES Corp., announced on Monday the closure of the J.M. Stuart and Killen generating stations, following a monthslong review of the plants. They are the latest in a string of hundreds of coal-fired power plants announcing closure in recent years.

    “Along with our co-owners of the plants, we have completed a thorough review of our options and it has become clear that, without significant changes in market conditions, the plants will not be economically viable beyond mid-2018,” Dayton Power said in a statement about the plants that sit along the Ohio River in the southern part of the state.

    As coal tries to stay viable, it is competing against cheap and abundant natural gas, new environmental regulations and environmental activists. Despite that, President Trump has promised numerous times to lift the fortunes of coal mining and the power generating companies that use the fuel.

  25. 25.

    TenguPhule

    @Hobbes83:

    Tax cuts cannot be that fucking important when placed in a situation where our election was manipulated by a hostile foreign power.

    That’s because you’re not a Republican. Tax cuts are the only thing that’s real to Republicans.

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    @Singing Truth to Power:

    Trump wants to defund PBS because they made fun of him on Sesame St. His feelings were hurt.

    I heard that Trump could not work a muppet properly because he has such tiny hands.

  27. 27.

    kindness

    Why do I keep getting the impression that Republicans (particularly) and Democrats already know that actions taken by Trump could very easily get Trump impeached?

  28. 28.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    Red Flag!!! Rep. Trey Gowdy is trying to get FBI Director to criminalize news reporting – danger here…

    A lot of the reporting was criminal.

  29. 29.

    JPL

    @SFAW: That statement makes one wonder, if his computers were hacked. I’m more concerned about the republican computers that were hacked, because those folks can be blackmailed.

  30. 30.

    les

    @Hobbes83:

    Tax cuts cannot be that fucking important when placed in a situation where our election was manipulated by a hostile foreign power.

    hahahaha

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    @Hobbes83:

    At this point, the one of the questions that I don’t think is getting stressed enough is this: when will someone point the finger at all of the Republican congressional members-especially those who were privy to this information prior to the election-and start asking the question that needs to be asked?

    That question isn’t going to be asked until there’s something concrete on Trump. As long as nobody can prove that Trump did anything wrong, nobody is going to ask the Republicans why they let him get away with it.

  32. 32.

    Waldo

    Nice job by Rep. Schiff of neatly lining up the “coincidences.” I hope Rachel was taking notes.

  37. 37.

    ? Martin

    @Hobbes83:

    Tax cuts cannot be that fucking important when placed in a situation where our election was manipulated by a hostile foreign power.

    Billionaire wealth is not confined to the US like yours and mine. As Tillerson represented on behalf of Exxon, the truly rich and powerful are nation-states of their own. If Russia helps the ROI, then Russia is fine.

  38. 38.

    lollipopguild

    @Hobbes83: Romney was a LOSER and trump was a winner. Some of these people were/are so desperate to get a repthug president that they would throw putin a nice parade if he came over to take trumps place.

  39. 39.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @JPL:

    I’m more concerned about the republican computers that were hacked, because those folks can be blackmailed.

    I find it nearly impossible to believe that the RNC didn’t get hacked too… I wonder if the Russians did threaten to destroy the GOP leadership if they didn’t fall in line and back Trump…

    I also find it nearly impossible to believe that the upper echelons of the GOP & RNC didn’t know more about all of this than they’re letting on…

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    @SFAW:

    The good news is that I’m sure that people are currently scouring the internets for photos of Nunes and Stone together.

  41. 41.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    Grassley now being interviewed on PBS… complaining about the LACK of attention to the leaks… Grassley has NOT smiled once… Schiff never stopped smiling… make what you want of that…

  43. 43.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @JPL: Yup… not hard to come to that conclusion in any way… not one single leak of RNC emails?

  44. 44.

    ? Martin

    @Thru the Looking Glass…: Publishing the leaks is not illegal under any circumstance. Once they are leave the confines of the classification system, they are now open and public. The person leaking the information may have broken the laws, but the journalists did not – unless they solicited the specific information.

    The Pentagon Papers established that the first amendment supercedes the classification system. If you don’t want it published, don’t leak it.

  45. 45.

    Mnemosyne

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    I don’t think the Republicans had to be blackmailed at all. I think Putin promised them the permanent Republican majority they’ve always dreamed of, and they jumped at it. Since their loyalty is to their party, not their country, they don’t see any reason why they should feel any qualms about it.

  46. 46.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @germy:
    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    Oddly, Nunes recently went on record at the behest of the White House to refute a New York Times report that mentioned both Stone and Page.

    Nunes isn’t the pointiest skewer in the kebabs, is he?

  47. 47.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Mnemosyne: Blackmail or not, I believe the GOP knowingly colluded on this… yeah, they’ve wanted that ‘permanent Republican majority’ for a long time…

    I do have one nagging nerve ending that can’t help wonder about failure here… if Trump had not won and/or something broke in the wrong direction… what would have been the penalty for the GOP? And if there’s one thing that bunch really values above all else, it’s their own survival…

    Carrot and stick?

    Right now, Trump appears to have destroyed the Democratic Party, as it existed right up to the election… there seems to be a good chance he’ll yet destroy the GOP before this is over…

    Who knows… perhaps he’ll end up doing us all a favor by breaking both parties…

  48. 48.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Russian trolls out in force all over twitter today.

    Panic is as panic does

  50. 50.

    D58826

    And the incompetent Trumpers are at it again. TSA is banning electyrtoncs larger than a cell phone from the cabin for a number of overseas airlines. Now this might make some sense but check out the part I’ve bolded:

    The requirement forbids passengers from bringing laptops, iPads, Kindles and even cameras larger than mobile phones into the cabin. All such devices must be checked.
    Saudi Arabia’s Saudia Airlines and Royal Jordanian airlines are among the affected countries; the full list has not been revealed to the affected airlines themselves.

    The email – described as a “circular” – is not a public regulation, but airlines will be expected to enforce the new rule. Airlines were issued the circular on Monday and given 96 hours to comply.
    The circular does not address electronic flight bags (EFBs), which allow flight crews to display diagrams mapping flight patterns, maps of airports and other digital documentation, usually on an iPad.
    The lack of specificity leaves airlines in the dark as to whether their employees will be cited or otherwise punished for performing the vital functions of aircraft crew as usual.

    Doesn’t any one think these things thru? Rhetorical question.

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-forbids-any-device-larger-than-cellphone-on-flights-from-13-countries/ar-BBysOS7?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=iehp

  51. 51.

    TenguPhule

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    not one single leak of RNC emails?

    One of my theories has been the RNC is trading kiddy pron on their server. Would explain lack of leaks and why they’ll roll over on anything now. Even their base has lines they probably wouldn’t cross if it came out.

  52. 52.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @? Martin: And yet Republicans keep trying to indict the MSM in all of this… and as far as the guilt of who actually did leak the info, again, if it came from overseas?

    Shorter Repubs: LOOK! SOMETHING SHINY!

  55. 55.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:

    I don’t think the Republicans had to be blackmailed at all. I think Putin promised them the permanent Republican majority they’ve always dreamed of, and they jumped at it.

    I wouldn’t underestimate the value of the stick, even in the presence of a very nice carrot.

  56. 56.

    trollhattan

    Lemieux cements my pre-existing hatred of all things Elway.

    As confirmation hearings for Judge Neil Gorsuch got underway Monday in Washington, D.C., noted legal scholar John Elway sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on his Broncos letterhead endorsing Gorsuch for the nation’s highest court.

  58. 58.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @TenguPhule:

    Even their base has lines they probably wouldn’t cross if it came out.

    Or if it came down to going to prison or not…

    Personal survival trumps all other concerns…

  59. 59.

    TenguPhule

    @Major Major Major Major: Well yes, that’s the other bit of evidence that favors my theory. Literally every crime and misconduct they’ve accused Hillary and the Democrats and their other enemies of, we find the Republicans have actually committed in one form or another so far.

  60. 60.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Major Major Major Major: Absolutely… I read a Rand Corporation paper recently (got the link here) about the Russian hacking operation and if the authors got it right, whoa, are the Russians serious about this shite…

    Also… Malcolm Nance seems credible… back when Trump tried to put the hacking off on ‘some 400 lb guy sitting in his mother’s basement’, or however he worded it, I heard Nance comment on that… he laughed and said it (the hacking) was a very professional hit and must have been done by upwards of 400 very skilled hackers…

  63. 63.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @D58826:

    Doesn’t any one think these things thru? Rhetorical question.

    That’s because they’re in a panic…

  64. 64.

    Tom Q

    @Thru the Looking Glass…: “Right now, Trump appears to have destroyed the Democratic Party, as it existed right up to the election… ”

    Excuse me? A party that holds 48 Senate seats and won the popular vote by almost 3 million is “destroyed”?

  65. 65.

    Aleta

    @SFAW: Time for Trey Gowdy to testify under oath then. As well as Paul Manafort and every other member of the Trump campaign shell game.

  67. 67.

    Waldo

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    Even their base has lines they probably wouldn’t cross if it came out.

    Or if it came down to going to prison or not…

    Personal survival trumps all other concerns…

    Yeah, that will be the real tipping point — when the rats starting cutting deals to get off the ship.

  68. 68.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Major Major Major Major: What I recall of Nance’s comments was that it’s the sheer scope of the operation… tens of thousands of emails harvested, then dumped in waves as needed? He was pretty firm…

    “The effect of the Russian hybrid warfare operation [was] at a level of detail that had not been seen before in American history. They applied every aspect of Russian intelligence power, including harnessing the entirety of the Russian information warfare apparatus: cyber, political, propaganda, and the news media.*”

    *link goes to a site named TechGenix…

  69. 69.

    D58826

    Well atleast they are making it official:

    vanka Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter and wife of Senior Adviser to the President Jared Kushner, is in the process of obtaining a security clearance, Politico reports.
    According to Trump attorney Jamie Gorelick, Ivanka Trump will serve as her father’s “eyes and ears,” while advising the president on a range of issues. She recently obtained an office on second floor of the West Wing, and will receive government communications devices this week.

    What I do find amusing is Trump lawyer Jamie Gorelick used to be high on the list of liberal activist lawyers that the GOP loved to hate.
    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/ivanka-trump-will-receive-security-clearance-government-communications-devices/

  70. 70.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Waldo: Yeaaaaahhh…

    First time someone implicated accidentally trips and falls out a 30 story window or cuts his own throat ear to ear combing his hair…

  71. 71.

    debbie

    @germy:

    Roger Stone‏ @RogerJStoneJr 7h7 hours ago
    More
    It’s only fair that I have a chance to respond 2 any smears or half truths about alleged “Collusion with Russians” from 2day’s Intel Hearing

  72. 72.

    japa21

    I am not much of a conspiracy theorist but a thought occurred to me today. A lot of talk has been how Russia (Putin) wants to discredit western democracy and that was part of why they did the hacking, etc. I think it goes even further back than that, not necessarily the hacking but trying to delegitimatize the US government under Obama.

    We know Trump was in financial difficulties more than 8 years ago. We know the Deutche Bank was the only place he could get a loan. We know that the bank was found to be laundering money for Russian oligarchs. We surmise that some of that money went to Donald, thus creating a hold on him. We also know that Trump is a yuuuuge racist.

    Is it all that far fetched to believe he did the whole birther thing at Russia’s behest? And kept it going at Russia’s request even when it was obvious how wrong he was.

  75. 75.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Tom Q: Only the old-guard, DNC part…

    I, for one, am heartily encouraged by the energy I’ve seen generated and released all over the country by this situation… I just want to see the people who thought they were in charge gone… new candidates… new attitude…

    And right now, the GOP holds a majority of both chambers of Congress, plus the WH, and 35 governorships… I’d say they’re doing pretty well…

  76. 76.

    rikyrah

    Richard Engel‏Verified account @RichardEngel

    A sr US official told me he’s worried if there’s a major event, like terrorist attack, trump/allies will take more power, point of no return

  79. 79.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Thru the Looking Glass…: definitely. The real story is that Russia basically hacked the electorate with the emails.

    ETA: the fact that emails are surprisingly easy to acquire makes me assume they have them from the three main campaigns, and the fact that they only released them from one in such a targeted manner should really lay to rest any questions.

  80. 80.

    mike in dc

    @D58826: This isn’t going to tamp down the theory that Daddy is developing dementia and needs a family member around to keep him on point.

  82. 82.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    In other news, the other wheels are also falling off the other side of the car also too

    MJ Lee‏Verified account @ mj_lee 30m30 minutes ago
    WH message to senators today: the legislation is done & there are not going to be any more changes, according to Lee aide.

    Yikes. Sen. Mike Lee aide tells @FoxReports that Lee’s meeting at the WH today on health care bill was “terribly frustrating.”

  83. 83.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Major Major Major Major: Yeaaaah… it’s kinda like back when our beloved banksters almost destroyed the world economy w/ their devilishly complicated derivatives… the average working man or woman doesn’t want to know what happened on the 50th floor of a skyscraper in NYC behind closed doors… he, or she, just wants to know, did the Yankees, or Trump win or lose?

    Same w/ the Russian hacking campaign… I’ve seen a couple of diagrams that tried to explain how the Russians worked this thing and if you’re not a seriously wonky tech person, your eyes glaze over pretty quickly…

  85. 85.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @TenguPhule: Okay… I can get behind that… didn’t the British under Henry the Eighth leave executed individuals up all over England as examples?

  86. 86.

    Mnemosyne

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    Given the fact that the “old guard DNC part” was specifically targeted for destruction by the Russians, I think that you need to stop being gleeful about it. It’s not a coincidence that the Russians deliberately destroyed the DNC to make it harder for the Democrats to resist Trumpism.

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @D58826: vanka Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter and wife of Senior Adviser to the President Jared Kushner, is in the process of obtaining a security clearance,

    Is that Mrs Kushner of the up to their eyeballs in Chinese loans and cash Kushners? the Kushners of 666 Park Avenue?

    Even before that big bail-out last week, there was a long NYT article a few weeks ago on the Kushners’ business, and the ties to China and IIRC Russia were head-spinning. I’m assuming that the big Chinese companies are tied to the gov’t as much, if in different ways, as the Russian ones are to the Kremlin.

  89. 89.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Mnemosyne: Who’s being gleeful?

    I don’t like that bunch and this certainly doesn’t please me…

    I don’t like what happened and I can’t change it.

    I think we would be vastly better off at the moment if Hillary were in the WH…

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    I think a lot of liberals and people on the left still haven’t faced up to the fact that the Russian approach was multi-pronged, and one of the prongs was to create dissension among Democrats and make it harder for them to coalesce around Hillary. So the fact that the DNC and long-time Democratic loyalists were destroyed by the Russian leaks was part of the Russians’ plan.

    I still don’t think that Sanders knew that he was being used to split the party, but that was the ultimate result of his campaign, and I think that was by design. I still find Tad Devine’s Russian connections to be very suspicious.

  93. 93.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @AxelFoley: hear hear, let it be spread far and wide throughout the blog

    Bettina Judd‏Verified account
    @ bettinajudd
    Just saw someone refer to Trump supporters as Cult45 and I am mad that I never thought of it.

    also, Bettina is a great name

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    Roberto Aram Ferdman‏Verified account @robferdman

    WOW. Spicer on backlash over Trump’s proposal to indirectly cut funding to Meals on Wheels: “I get that that’s a cute program to point at”

  95. 95.

    rikyrah

    Scott Dworkin‏Verified account @funder

    Welp, the GOP is filled with a bunch of traitors. Not like we didn’t know. But now we REALLY know

    #trumprussia #comeyhearing #russiahearing

  96. 96.

    rikyrah

    John Harwood‏Verified account @JohnJHarwood

    Spicer says Trump golfing different from Obama golfing because of “how you use the game of golf” to advance US interests

  97. 97.

    tobie

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: OMG. What about the friggin anti-nepotism statute? She has not been nominated and approved for a cabinet post. Neither she nor Jared can BY LAW be an advisor to Trump since they are part of Trump’s family. And people not associated with the government in any official capacity cannot be given security clearance. Aaaaargh…this is so frustrating. These people flagrantly violate the rules and thanks to the GOP having their head up the Trumps’ assholes no one holds them to account. It’s maddening.

  98. 98.

    Barbara

    Bengowdy and each and every other Republican on that committee is a traitor. That’s all.

  99. 99.

    TenguPhule

    @Thru the Looking Glass…: Among others. I blame our continuing national deterioration on lack of Republican heads on pikes on display. Obviously knowing that their heads were not going to be mounted on pikes no matter what evil they committed has contributed to the moral decay of the GOP.

  102. 102.

    jl

    @debbie: Most meals on wheels go to disabled oldsters or people so gravely ill that they are house bound. Maybe they’ll throw us bone and just put in a work requirement for getting the benefits..That would be cute too.

  103. 103.

    J R in WV

    @trollhattan:

    I find it impossible to think favorably of any group associated with John Elway (or Troy “Cowboy” Aikman for that matter!) and am glad to learn that his pick is the Republicans.

    And who thinks it is proper for Aikman to cover Cowboys football, anyway? Those guys should never cover their college teams or their pro teams!! I know it isn’t real journalism, but they should pretend better than they do now!!!

    ETA: PS: Thanks for the link, LGM is my second favorite blog, shame about the edit button!

  104. 104.

    rikyrah

    MERKEL, ABE ENDORSE FREE TRADE WITH JABS AT TRUMP RHETORIC
    3/19/17 AT 6:22 PM

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke up for free trade at a major technology fair on Sunday with jabs clearly pointed at an increasingly protectionist United States.

    Both called for a free trade deal to be reached quickly between Japan and the European Union, in comments made after G20 finance ministers and central bankers dropped a long-standing mention of open trade in their final communique after a two-day meeting in Germany.

    Neither leader named the U.S. government as they opened the CeBIT technology fair in Hanover, but both used the opportunity to distance themselves from protectionist tendencies coming from the Trump administration.

    “In times when we have to argue with many about free trade, open borders and democratic values, it’s a good sign that Japan and Germany no longer argue about this but rather are seeking to shape the future in a way that benefits people,” Merkel said

  105. 105.

    jharp

    Wondering when will someone ask Comey why he didn't reveal existence of Russia/Trump campaign investigation before Nov. 8.— John Cassidy (@JohnCassidy) March 20, 2017

    I’ve been wondering about the same thing.

  107. 107.

    rikyrah

    David Corn‏Verified account @DavidCornDC

    After hearing, Nunes asked why he and Rs focused on leaks over Moscow attacking US election. He shrugged & said leaks were the only crime.

  108. 108.

    rikyrah

    Joy Reid
    ✔
    @JoyAnnReid

    Comey just confirmed that the Russians deployed hacking efforts against Republicans as well, but didn’t release any of that info.
    1:49 PM – 20 Mar 2017

  109. 109.

    patrick II

    If Trump’s team was being investigated for ties to Russia, why the fck wasn’t that server in Trump Tower with illegal communications with a Russian bank being tapped? Forget the presidential campaign, there were sanctions against Russia and a server from an American business secretly communicating with a Russian bank should have been investigated.

  110. 110.

    jl

    @rikyrah: An interesting development would be the rest of the world, minus probably US and Russia, goes back to real global trade negotiations. That approach was abandoned after, IIRC, the Doha round of talks. Countries like Brazil, So Africa, Kenya, India, all countries with rapidly expanding industries, had demands for level playing field for labor, IP, etc, wanted stuff that pissed of US corporations, and the US was essentially representing US and US based multinational corporations. So the Doha round fell apart. US been pursuing piecemeal regional and individual country deals since then, which are falsely advertised as big earth shattering free trade deals that will effect the whole global trading system.

    Thought the ideological complexion, of some of those coutnries governments has changes recently, so not sure whether those nations would form such a unified negotiating bloc now.

  111. 111.

    TenguPhule

    @rikyrah: Japan and Germany are the beacon of hope for Freedom and Democracy while America is the increasingly fascist bully on the block.

    The irony, it hurts so much.

  112. 112.

    rikyrah

    Eugene Scott
    ✔
    @Eugene_Scott

    Sesame Street had a character named “Donald Grump,” who wore a bad toupee and “whose name equals trash.”

  114. 114.

    jl

    From what I’ve read so far, the GOPer scum laid down a bet today that there is not really egregious direct connection and collusion between Trump camp and Russian election meddling, or that if there is one, they can manage to cover it up. Seems like a bad bet to me.

    Edit: with operators and goofs like Manafort and Roger Stone on the other side of that bet, anyone with common sense or not desperate would know it is a bad bet.

  117. 117.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @D58826:

    Ivanka an advisor? And what insights might she provide? Fashion? Dining? Hair and make-up? Pretty sure she knows jack about science, education, security, military affairs, the environment, or anything her father could not receive from someone with actual knowledge and experience.

  118. 118.

    J R in WV

    @TenguPhule:

    NoNoNo, professional Mexican farm workers would never provide rotten produce. We would have to buy it in advance and let it age.

    About that health care requirement… mandatory insurance being hateful. I think it should be optional… but if you don’t have coverage, you don’t get health care at all, ever. Until after you have coverage, which isn’t available over night. If you don’t want health care, OK. Then you can’t have any.

    And Congress and the President have the same coverage we all do. No worse, no better. How’s that?

  119. 119.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    this is headspinning, both as policy and as legislative Rube-Goldberg razzle-dazzle, how can they think this is going to work? What the fuck is a “reserve fund for tax credits”? So they’re going to tell spooked MoCs, ‘vote for this terrible thing, trust the Senate to make terrible thing a bit less terrible and then go campaign on having done that’. I still think there’s a health chance Republicans will fall in line, but this does not look like a well-oiled machine

    Requested by President Donald Trump, the amendment includes perks for restive conservatives who wanted optional work requirements and block granting in Medicaid, as well as a potential olive branch to wary centrists who demanded more help for older Americans to buy insurance, POLITICO has learned.
    The amendment would establish a reserve fund of at least $75 billion for tax credits to help the core constituency that propelled Trump to the White House: Americans between 50 and 64, who would see their premiums skyrocket under the current repeal plan. But the amendment would not set up the tax credits – it would instruct the Senate to do so, forcing House Republicans to take a vote on something the upper chamber would do later.

  121. 121.

    Roger Moore

    @rikyrah:

    Spicer says Trump golfing different from Obama golfing because of “how you use the game of golf” to advance US interests

    You didn’t expect him to give his real reason, did you?

  125. 125.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @TenguPhule: don’t forget we’re counting on the French to stem the tide of (elected) fascism. Seeing some tweets about the marathon, five-candidate debate, sounds like Macron got some cuts on Fillon

  127. 127.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Lying fucking piece of shit. Liar, liar, liar.

    Motherfucking lying piece of fucking shit!!!!!

  130. 130.

    wobbly

    In other Trump news, NEWSDAY is republishing the columns Jimmy Breslin wrote about Trump back in the ’80’s.

    The NEW YORK DAILY NEWS has one of Breslin’s as well.

  131. 131.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Mnemosyne: That’s seems plausible, especially in light of the fact that no emails from Bernie’s campaign were released either…

  132. 132.

    rikyrah

    Mayhew, where are you?

    …………………………….
    Bait and switch. How come the Amendment just can’t set up the tax credits? And, for how long, Boo?
    TOTAL bait and switch. So, that they can blame the Democrats when it fails to get to 60 votes

    ……………………………………

    GOP leaders pile on sweeteners to sell Obamacare repeal

    The revisions are part of a last-ditch effort to get the measure passed.

    By Jennifer Haberkorn, Rachael Bade and Josh Dawsey

    03/20/17 06:36 PM EDT

    House Republican leaders are poised to release Monday evening an expansive series of changes to their Obamacare repeal bill in a last-ditch attempt to win enough support to get the bill passed.

    Requested by President Donald Trump, the amendment includes perks for restive conservatives who wanted optional work requirements and block granting in Medicaid, as well as a potential olive branch to wary centrists who demanded more help for older Americans to buy insurance, POLITICO has learned.

    The amendment would establish a reserve fund of at least $75 billion for tax credits to help the core constituency that propelled Trump to the White House: Americans between 50 and 64, who would see their premiums skyrocket under the current repeal plan. But the amendment would not set up the tax credits – it would instruct the Senate to do so, forcing House Republicans to take a vote on something the upper chamber would do later.

    The amendment is also expected to repeal Obamacare’s taxes a year earlier than originally planned, a win for conservatives who want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act as quickly a possible.

  133. 133.

    tobie

    @rikyrah: Post-US world here we come. Germany and Japan move to fill the void created by the America’s newfound love of protectionism on the left and the right. I remember all those smug self-satisfied white activists at the Dem Natl Convention screaming, “No TPP.” Well, their cheers as well as the right’s “Lock her up” chants are going to cost us lots of jobs. Assholes, every last one.

  134. 134.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: it would instruct the Senate to do so, forcing House Republicans to take a vote on something the upper chamber would do later.

    I guess there may be some legislative trick here they’re planning, but I can’t imagine even the language of that provision

  135. 135.

    JMG

    @rikyrah: If they get a CBO score, it will be worse than before due to these changes. Can’t just “assume” Senate will do something in legislation. Also, House “instructing” Senate to do something pisses Senators off quite a bit.

  136. 136.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @TenguPhule:

    Obviously knowing that their heads were not going to be mounted on pikes no matter what evil they committed has contributed to the moral decay of the GOP.

    Absolutely… what’s that called… moral hazard… moral jeopardy?

    Goes back to Ford pardoning Nixon… ‘we need to move on…’

    But Clinton gets a hummer in the Oval Office? We’re still hearing about, 20 plus years later…

  137. 137.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @JPL:

    Wife insists.

    I just want to shoot my television. Repeatedly.

  138. 138.

    JPL

    So twitter tells me that Trump is saying that Clay and Andrew Jackson might have been besties, in an alternative universe.
    hmmm

  139. 139.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    But the amendment would not set up the tax credits – it would instruct the Senate to do so, forcing House Republicans to take a vote on something the upper chamber would do later.

    Deem and pass!

  140. 140.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:

    I still don’t think that Sanders knew that he was being used to split the party

    Any person with even half a brain could see that he was splitting the party; I just don’t think he cared.

  141. 141.

    Mark

    The FBI investigation continues. The truth will come out sooner than later. Nothing the republicans can do about it.

  143. 143.

    jonas

    @JPL:

    Comey once again said republicans were hacked but not leaked.

    Making — once again — a blatant liar out of Trump who has crowed multiple times about how the Russians were unable to crack the RNC while patting Rinse Pubice on the back.

  148. 148.

    FlipYrWhig

    @tobie: The number of people at the convention waving signs about the TPP who knew anything about it other than “corporate” and “Bernie no like” has to have had a ceiling of maybe 20.

  149. 149.

    Jeffro

    @Bailey: I would assume it is Pence’s chief of staff or some other person with half a brain… Pence himself will probably walk into the front door of the Washington Post thinking no one would recognize him

  150. 150.

    Jeffro

    Given the amount of extraordinary statements by people like Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy today I have to assume that they are also over a barrel with Russia (either financially or with blackmail)

    No amount of God Emperor worship could explain their willingness to go down the drain for this clown

  151. 151.

    dm

    @Mnemosyne: I think this is likely the right explanation — there was no percentage in releasing anything from the Sanders campaign, especially since the wikirelease of emails was in July, when the delegate count was settled (though I suppose there might have been some hope that the wikirelease might cause some superdelegates to defect). Sanders wasn’t a threat, but some of the Berniebros could be usefully-idioted into sewing dissenion and depressing Democratic turnout.

    Josh Marshall has a great post up on “What we learned today”. Shorter version: Comey said the investigation began last July. Marshall lays out the set of events that happened in July (tweak of the Republican platform, wikileaks, Carter Page spoke in Moscow criticizing US policy, Bloomberg published a survey of Trump’s indebtedness, Trump asked the Russians to hack the Clinton email some more, and in June Paul Manafort became campaign chairman. Quite a bill of materials.

  152. 152.

    TenguPhule

    @Jeffro: Nunes and Gowdy are serial child molesters and the Russians have photographic and video evidence of it.

  154. 154.

    Jeffro

    @Mnemosyne: Devine and Jill Stein too… I think Jill was prodded to jump on that brief post election recount in order to siphon away democratic funds and democratic energy in the immediate aftermath of trumps stolen victory

  155. 155.

    TenguPhule

    @Mark:

    The truth will come out sooner than later. Nothing the republicans can do about it.

    Wanna bet? Our media has no teeth and they have industrial quantities of bs to spread.

  156. 156.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Mnemosyne:

    BINGO. Putin played Sanders and Stein, and all the other hitler youth like a fine violin. He sniffed out all of the cult followers early.

  157. 157.

    Jeffro

    @TenguPhule: something like that yes … but knowing what dim bulbs these two are it could have easily been something like an Internet rumor that Hillary was running a child sex ring out of a pizza joint or something

  159. 159.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    Given the amount of extraordinary statements by people like Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy today I have to assume that they are also over a barrel with Russia (either financially or with blackmail)

    I would tend to agree w/ this… I know others think it’s just party loyalty but my gut feeling is there’s a chance of a heavy threat behind it all…

    Carrot & stick…

  160. 160.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Major Major Major Major:

    a peaceful way of constraining some of China’s excesses.

    I’d say something about Trump not even understanding this but the Chinese did give him all rights to all those trademarks…

    Geez… I’ve been paying so much attention to the whole Russian fiasco I never thought of that…

    The Chinese could NOT have liked the TPP and by pulling the US out, Trump gave them just what they wanted…

  162. 162.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Jeffro: Ya know… I wonder how far the rot and taint will go?

    Again, I find it nearly unpossible to believe that the top levels of the GOP were not aware of so much of this… co-conspirators?

    I keep waiting and wondering if some foreign govt – the Netherlands? One of the Baltic states that has a good reason to be afraid of the Russians? – will be the one to dump a whole load of truly incriminating intel on us…

  163. 163.

    Jeffro

    By the way do we have any word from trumps rally tonight? He’s got to be in quite a mood – should be something close to the few days before the election when he was sure he was going to lose .

    Ah, those were the days …

  164. 164.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    Scott Pelley on CBS Evening News (PST version)…

    Talking about wiretapping… taking no prisoners…

    Trump’s gotta be FUMING…

    Bannon’s probably telling his hemchmen that if Trump even LOOKS at his Twitter machine, break his thumbs immediately…

    Comey reportedly refused to answer dozens of questions…

  166. 166.

    Mnemosyne

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    And the emails that were released were specifically the ones designed to piss off Sanders supporters.

    But pointing that out to Sanders supporters only led to cries about how Wikileaks did us all a favor by letting us know that the DNC was “plotting against” Sanders by pointing out he had been mathematically eliminated and it was time for him to stand down from his campaign.

  167. 167.

    Jeffro

    @Thru the Looking Glass…: it would not surprise me if some of the FBI investigation included at least a few members of the Republican Party and Republican congressmen…

    … I realize that they did not want to upset the party a year ago by going fullbore on trump, and that Mercer cash ( and the threat of losing it ) held the party together long enough to get Trump elected… but a few of these guys are going so far overboard in their defense of the indefensible that clearly someone somewhere is cracking the whip

  168. 168.

    MCA1

    It’s heartening, I guess, that the feed at the top was from Faux covering this live. Not that anyone watched it in its entirety on said outlet, of course. I’d venture more than half their viewers get their news only during prime time programming and morning punditry shows and weren’t tuned in for this in the middle of the day, anyway, and the rest would see Schiff and say “Why is CSPAN on my Fox?” and turn it off. So all they’ll see is clips of Gowdy Doody and the rest of the Republican stooges hammering away at the same inane distraction that Twitler was going on about.

    But regardless, I wish we could get every person not part of the 27% to take the 18 minutes it takes to watch the entirety of Schiff’s statement. I bet very, very few people outside us politics dorks have any idea there are that many dots and that they’re so crazy easily connected. Schiff laid a lot of them out there pretty clearly. And he didn’t even talk about Hair Furor’s known dependence on Russian funding sources and connections to the Russian mob over the last 20+ years, Michael Cohen, Bank of Cyprus and the Commerce Sec’y, Felix Sater, or any number of other things.

  169. 169.

    dm

    Isn’t it time for someone to come around and point out how this Comey hearing is just a big distraction from the Gorsuch confirmation hearings and that we all have to learn to focus?

  170. 170.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @MCA1: Schiff was brilliant. I actually wondered if his statement was news to some of the R committee members. They don’t always seem particularly well informed.

  171. 171.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Mnemosyne: That’s why Malcolm Nance said this was such a sophisticated and targeted hit… what was done was so focused and specific….

  172. 172.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Jeffro:

    it would not surprise me if some of the FBI investigation included at least a few members of the Republican Party and Republican congressmen…

    Me either… I don’t see how it can’t past a certain point, if it gets that far and boy is this moving fast…

    I’ve thought and wondered about this situation a lot the last couple of months, especially as more and more information about Trump’s ties to the Russians kept coming out…

    And I realized how farkin’, devilishly complicated this is… what do you do?

    Come out before the election w/ incomplete information and potentially disrupt it? Would the country disintegrate into violence in the streets? I give the US major props for not getting violent by now… shows ya just how stable the country actually is…

  173. 173.

    dm

    (ETA: um, before you load your guns, please see my note at the end. I’m disciplined enough to want to apologize, but not enough to not want to have my say.)

    @Mnemosyne: You know, “mathematical elimination” wasn’t the point, by that time. Accumulating influence in the platform committee and extending reach/mailing lists into the late-primary states was. In order to do that, one had to pretend that there was still hope, even if it meant being hypocritical about super-delegates suddenly being a good thing (if they could be persuaded to change).

    If you’re playing a long game — and with Sanders now the “outreach chair” of a party he doesn’t even belong to (though one he constantly refers to as “we”) it looks maybe like he was — you don’t give up when you’re “mathematically eliminated”. Though you probably should focus on the Republican candidate and Congress more than the likely nominee, though, especially since you’re likely going to have to work with her to get what bits of your agenda implemented that you can get through Congress.

    It was all a matter of making the “inevitable victor” make promises that were more liberal than she might otherwise have made, dragging her farther to the left. It was also a matter of making her a much stronger candidate than she would have been had she just coasted to the nomination.

    That’s how the game is played.

    ETA: Oh, shit. I let myself get drawn into relitigating the summer, if not the primaries. Sorry — I don’t mean to derail the thread, and I’m a latecomer to these forums, I apologize if you’ve gone over this stuff at great length. I skipped the comment threads here last summer because I didn’t want to get into fights like this last year.

  174. 174.

    MCA1

    @dm: For me, it was the mysterious change to the GOP platform on Ukraine at the convention right after Manafort’s hiring that was the “HOLY SHIT why is no one paying attention to this?!?!” moment. I had already been exclaiming to people how stupid/desperate/hilarious/dangerous it was to be hiring that guy, given his past, but that it progressed so quickly to tangible pro-Russia moves within such a short period of time was breathtaking.

  176. 176.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @dm: d with Sanders now the “outreach chair” of a party he doesn’t even belong to (though one he constantly refers to as “we”

    I think last week when he said the Dems had failed at everything they’ve tried for 25 years, he wasn’t saying “we”

  177. 177.

    Baud

    @dm:

    It was also a matter of making her a much stronger candidate than she would have been had she just coasted to the nomination.

    That failed badly. We would have been better off with an actual coronation.

  183. 183.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @MCA1:

    For me, it was the mysterious change to the GOP platform on Ukraine at the convention right after Manafort’s hiring that was the “HOLY SHIT why is no one paying attention to this?!?!” moment.

    Yeah… me too…

  184. 184.

    Jeffro

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    And I realized how farkin’, devilishly complicated this is… what do you do? Come out before the election w/ incomplete information and potentially disrupt it?

    Well, hindsight being 20/20, I think no one really thought Trump would win and they wouldn’t have to resort to something drastic like telling America, “Hey, I know one of our two parties actually nominated this guy, and this is going to look partisan no matter what I do, but he’s Russia’s guy”. And then after the election it was already a fait accompli…how do you unseat a PEOTUS? How do you stop that train? In some ways, it’s almost good that we couldn’t…our processes and institutions are just that much on autopilot.

    But.

    The key is that Republicans abandoned any principles except their own power long ago. They are on the decline…their electoral power is waning…their voters are aging out…white privilege (especially its white male and white christian and white male christian variants) are trying to hold on to what they had, and they got increasingly desperate.

    So they gerrymander and racially pander and take orders from the Kochs and get behind Citizens United and deny climate change and on and on. They’re in for a penny for a pound for the whole ton. And individually, there’s no reward for standing up to it: they’ll just get primaried by an even nuttier, further-right wackaloon like Dave Brat (I mean ERIC CANTOR GOT PRIMARIED – wow). So the Rs keep going along to get along, and here we are, with some of them saying that it’s…it’s those CALLS to the firefighter we ought to look at, instead of the blazing house, and the orange guy with all the matches.

    Would the country disintegrate into violence in the streets? I give the US major props for not getting violent by now… shows ya just how stable the country actually is…

    That’s because it was Ds who were robbed…if this was about President HRC getting elected with the aid of China’s intelligence services hacking the RNC and then selectively leaking embarrassing stuff (much less actively colluding with them), she’d already be ground into a fine paste before she left the inaugural podium.

  185. 185.

    dm

    @schrodingers_cat: Who knows?
    I doubt that anything the Bernie-bros said was new to the Republican arsenal, nor any better wielded by Bernie-bros than by (other, perhaps in some cases) Republican rat-fuckers (and Russian trolls). I expect “lock her up” did more than “Goldman Sachs transcripts” (the latter I doubt would have been deployed by the Republicans).

    @Baud: yes, we would have, but would we have gotten one, or would the result have been the same as it was?

    The Republicans knew their only hope was to depress Democratic turnout — and that succeeded. I posted an article here a few days ago about the Black Clinton supporter in Battle Creek, and how he said most of his friends didn’t bother to vote. That wasn’t sure as hell wasn’t “All lives matter” Bernie’s doing. “Superpredators” was something she did to herself.

    Don’t forget — we “all” thought it was going to be a cake-walk. We “all” accused Nate Silver of click-baiting by saying Trump had a 30% chance of victory. In retrospect, a lot of things could have been done differently, but we didn’t realize it at the time.

    Clinton wasn’t able to overcome the twenty-five years of bullshit the Republicans threw at her, such that an alarming number of voters just didn’t see the point in turning out to the polls (incredible as that might seem) — at least not in enough states to swing the Electoral College. You don’t have to blame Sanders for that.

    Surely you’ve heard this before. I really will stop now.

  186. 186.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @dm: all true, HRC had a lot of problems that BS had nothing to do with, just as she has nothing to do with his continued and on-going running down of the party that sometimes he’s part of (when he wants to influence the DNC chair race) and sometimes not (when he wants to run down what the party has achieved because it doesn’t measure up to what he would have achieved if he went to legislate with the electorate we wished we had, as opposed to the one we do). Maybe the ultimate Bernie moment was when he saw fit to Bernie-splain to Tom Perez about the importance of labor and workers’ rights, a cause to which Perez has devoted most of his life and has, unlike Bernie, actually been effective in the area.

  187. 187.

    dm

    PS., there’s that political scientist with his “what’s the economy doing in the first quarter of the election year” model that’s predicted umpty-ump Presidential elections correctly. Didn’t that one say: “the incumbent party is likely to lose in 2016”?

    Seemed silly at the time, but golly, sometimes I wonder how much campaigns really matter…..

  188. 188.

    Baud

    @dm:
    @Bailey:

    I think he ended up hurting us (most likely, unwittingly). I’m not saying that the was the main cause of the loss. That goes to the media, the Russians, and Comey.

  189. 189.

    Tom Q

    @Baud: In fact, the history of presidential elections since the foundation of the two-party system after the Civil War, it’s been better for the incumbent party seeking to hold the White House to have a coronation — Taft in 1908, Hoover in 1928, HWBush in 1988. Competitive years — like Dems 1952 or 1968 –tend to go down to defeat.

    Sanders didn’t do quite enough to mortally wound Hillary, but he did weaken her enough with a certain breed (esp. young people, who didn’t have a history with Hillary to offset the bullshit) to be one of many things that barely pushed Trump over the line.

  191. 191.

    dm

    You hear rumblings about it some, but I wonder if Democrats can shift the debate a little by casting it in terms of: “How are we going to organize things so people can have meaningful lives when robots are doing 80% of existing jobs?”.

    Probably not — I suppose it will be the new “climate change” — with one side trying to plan ahead and solve a problem when it’s cheap to solve while the other turns it into a tribal marker.

  192. 192.

    No One You Know

    @kindness: I keep wondering what it’s taking so long.

    Maybe it’s just the relentless cold I’ve got, or the equally relentless gray and rainy weather.

  193. 193.

    Mike G

    FBI Director Comey on Russia: “They wanted to hurt our democracy, hurt her, help him.”

    Whattaya know, Russia did exactly the same thing as Comey.

  194. 194.

    Mnemosyne

    @dm:

    I’m actually not trying to relitigate the summer. I’m pointing out that the DNC emails that the Russians stole and leaked were SPECIFICALLY CHOSEN to get the Hillary vs Bernie wars whipped back up again right when it started to look like Democrats were going to close ranks behind Hillary.

    The fact that the emails were totally meaningless when you realized that they were written after Bernie no longer had a chance of winning only adds to the impression that they were specifically chosen to split the Democrats. And the Bernie or Busters fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

    Again: the Russians were playing multiple sides at the same time, and one of the sides was to get leftists riled up against Hillary. And it worked like a charm.

  197. 197.

    sukabi

    @jl: I fully expect that their “fix” for both the cost to seniors for health insurance and loss of meals on wheels will be to supply a gun and 1 bullet with a note to “use it wisely”…

  200. 200.

    AnotherBruce

    @Roger Moore: Jesus Christ on cracker, How can someone be so fucking stupid. He ought to be ousted from the FBI, not because of his mendacity, but because he essentially did not think through the consequences of his actions. Meself, I kinda think that a person who has that kind of responsibility and doesn’t know how to use it for the good of the nation should be fired, or die in a fire because of the incompetence (and yes, mendacity) that he has displayed.

  201. 201.

    Mnemosyne

    @dm:

    And, frankly, that’s part of the problem — Bernie’s fans are still so emotional about his loss that they’re unable or unwilling to accept that the Russians used their emotions against the rest of us. Until that happens, we’re going to keep fighting the same Hillary vs Bernie wars over and over again, and the Russians are going to keep egging those wars on with carefully planted propaganda and trolls.

    Bernie lost fair and square. It sucks, but that’s what happened. Anyone who tells you otherwise has ulterior motives.

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