Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

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

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

Tick tock motherfuckers!

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

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Bark louder, little dog.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Second rate reporter says what?

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Come on, man.

The willow is too close to the house.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Consistently wrong since 2002

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

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

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Boizhe Moi…

Boizhe Moi…

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I got nothing.

Here’s the clip from C-SPAN.

From Time (autoplay clip at the link):

“Great president. Most people don’t even know he was a Republican,” Trump said while addressing attendees at the National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner. “Does anyone know? Lot of people don’t know that.”

Trump then said Republicans need to spread the word that Lincoln was a Republican, appearing to be unaware of the fact that the GOP is commonly referred to as the “party of Lincoln.”

“Let’s take an ad, let’s use one of those PACs,” he said.

3:25 to 3:29 mark sums it up nicely:

Reader Interactions

366Comments

  4. 4.

    ET

    Jebus. Just because many of his voters are idiots and there are likely a few that don’t know that Lincoln was Republican doesn’t mean that most people don’t know…. I would guess that the truth is exactly the opposite – most people DO know Lincoln was a Republican.

  6. 6.

    zhena gogolia

    More to the point would be that the present-day Republican party is in direct opposition to all of Lincoln’s values. Who cares that the party he belonged to in the 1860s was called “Republican”? It’s meaningless.

  7. 7.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    Well, Lincoln is doing an amazing job and is being recognized more and more….

  8. 8.

    Elizabelle

    @zhena gogolia: True. Lincoln would NOT be a Republican today.

    Neither would Teddy Roosevelt. GOP does not do much to protect public lands or fight monopoly.

  9. 9.

    LAO

    I’m not the first to say this but in Trumpspeak, “most people don’t know,” actually means, “I (Trump) just learned…”

  17. 17.

    Yarrow

    @LAO:

    I’m not the first to say this but in Trumpspeak, “most people don’t know,” actually means, “I (Trump) just learned…”

    Exactly. I wonder what all the Republicans sitting there listening to him were thinking.

  18. 18.

    dmsilev

    I will outsource my remarks to Groucho Marx: “Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you: he really is an idiot.”

  21. 21.

    hueyplong

    The nickname is “shitgibbon” for a reason.

    For some reason he thinks we need a daily reminder.

  22. 22.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    I see Manafort’s name in the news today about a ten million dollar gig for Russian concerns… any thoughts, Adam and BJ community?

  23. 23.

    germy

    The vote on the Republican health care bill is a defining moment for House Speaker Paul Ryan that could boost his aggressive agenda to overhaul the tax code and remake the federal government.

    Or send it off the rails.

    If he fails? “It will be very hard to manage this,” the Wisconsin Republican told reporters ahead of Thursday’s likely vote.

    The bill would repeal major parts of former President Barack Obama’s health law, capping future funding for Medicaid and cutting tax increases for high-income families and health insurance companies. It is the kind of high-impact legislation that has become rare in a Congress that sometimes struggles with routine duties like keeping the government open.

  24. 24.

    Elizabelle

    @LAO:

    in Trumpspeak, “most people don’t know,” actually means, “I (Trump) just learned…”

    Tee hee. So the president of the Republican Party had assumed all along that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat.

    Because Lincoln’s values line up with Democrats’. Without thinking about it, Trump had reached that conclusion. That’s interesting to me.

    OTOH, Trump’s followers include the uneducated. So it’s possible a lot of them don’t know …

  25. 25.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mike J: Chuck Barris’s other career IS a joke, right? Because I am the world’s most gullible person, look it up!

  26. 26.

    germy

    Here’s a depressing story:

    I learned today that Chuck Barris died. I vaguely remember that he wrote the Freddie Cannon hit “Palisades Park.” I also remember that as a child in the 1960s I used to enjoy visiting the Palisades Amusement Park. So I checked wikipedia for some info ad here’s what I found:

    Several African-Americans began to challenge Palisades Amusement Park pool’s racial segregation during the summer of 1946. Protesters showed up at the Palisade Avenue entrance to the park with signs in hand, some reading “Protest Jim Crow”, Jim Crow meaning state and local laws enacted between 1876 and 1965, entirely by Democrats, mandating racial segregation in public facilities.

    Someone had enough of an agenda to edit the wikipedia entry on a NJ amusement park to settle an old score. DEMOCRATS were teh PARTY of SEGREGATION!

    Idiots.

  27. 27.

    Kropadope

    @LAO:

    I’m not the first to say this but in Trumpspeak, “most people don’t know,” actually means, “I (Trump) just learned…”

    Perhaps, but there is also the fact that purported broad public failure to know and appreciate the glorious history of the Republican party is a major point in their persecution complex.

  31. 31.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mike J: Of course, if it were true, I’d expect him to say nothing about it. But that’s just me…

    Still, considering what he went on to do, he would have been an assassin with a peculiar sense of humor…”a little song, a little dance…a little polonium down your pants…”

    ETA: “A jape, a jest…eternal rest…” OK, I gotta stop now…

  33. 33.

    YellowDog

    If someone else had made that comment, such as President Obama, I would take it as trolling the Republicans. From someone who reads his own press and wants one-page briefs with charts and maps, it betrays a level of ignorance and a lack of curiosity that are breathtaking.

  35. 35.

    Jeffro

    The only possible good thing about Trumpov being president is that he’s a lock to do down in history as the absolutely dumbest, most childish, ignorant buffoon ever to hold the office. And considering the competition, that is just astounding.

  36. 36.

    Tenar Arha

    @Adam

    You know the thing about the Dolt’s statements that makes me fnucking furious is that one of the reasons people who don’t know history wouldn’t think that Lincoln was a Republican is that since the passage of the CRA they’ve tarnished themselves so much that no one who knows the present party would think that Lincoln was the Great Emancipator!!!!! Augh augh augh #historynerdmeltdown

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    @Gin & Tonic

    The scratch enabled him to buy the apartment in that tower in Manhattan.

    “(knock, knock) Oh, hi Melania. Sorry to bother you, but could I borrow a cup of sugar and a sheaf of state secrets?”

  38. 38.

    Adam L Silverman

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): This has not been unknown. It was just never widely reported on prior to today. Nor should it be surprising. The question that needs to be asked now are:
    1) Which, if any Republican politicians and/or GOP/conservative organizations was Manafort also advising/consulting for/working for at the same time?
    2) Where these GOP officials, GOP organizations, and/or other conservative organizations compromised as a result.

    When you read the reporting, Manafort’s former partner, who went to work advising Senator McCain in 2008 without Manafort has come out and stated that he’d separated himself from their partnership, that he’d no involvement with the work with Depareski, that he knew nothing about it, etc. Manafort was a major behind the scenes player in a lot of GOP campaigns, even during this time period where he was making the big money from Russian oligarchs and oligarchs in Ukraine tied to Russia. What needs to be determined was what, if any, influence passed and if any, in what direction.

  39. 39.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    I think a lot of conservatives stop absorbing new information sometime in high school, maybe early college, or at least they shun new information that will challenge those high school beliefs. To them, change admits weakness.

  40. 40.

    Jeffro

    @YellowDog:

    From someone who reads his own press and wants one-page briefs with charts and maps, it betrays a level of ignorance and a lack of curiosity that are breathtaking

    Did you see The Onion article about how his handlers were struggling to condense Trumpov’s presidential daily briefing to one word? So very, very close to the truth…

  41. 41.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Miss Bianca: hey there, hope all is well. Should you get any nice pics this spring, do send them in and represent! Most folks have no idea how beautiful your area is.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    Republican Pete Sessions just literally said “Nobody is going to lose their coverage, you’ll be able to keep your same doctor,” “same plan.”

    It surprises me that anyone is surprised by this. Republicans lied about Obamacare for 8 years and they were richly rewarded. Lying works for them. It pays off. Just like with raising kids – they’ll keep repeating this bad behavior as long as it keeps paying off. It’s literally a lack of “moral” hazard :)

    Trump hasn’t suffered at all for his daily lies. He’s been rewarded.

    I don’t know how this continues- where it leads. A rational person would say “I should lie all the time, about everything”. It’s what winners do. Telling the truth is for suckers and losers.

  43. 43.

    Jeffro

    @West of the Rockies (been a while):

    I think a lot of conservatives stop absorbing new information sometime in high school, maybe early college, or at least they shun new information that will challenge those high school beliefs. To them, change admits weakness.

    I’m not sure it’s just conservatives…isn’t it something like 2/3 of American adults didn’t read a single book in the past year?

    ETA: OMG, you’re not going to believe this but then again, you will – guess what the percentage who didn’t read a book actually is? Yup. Ok, maybe it is just conservatives, WOTR, my bad!

  44. 44.

    Kropadope

    @YellowDog:

    If someone else had made that comment, such as President Obama, I would take it as trolling the Republicans.

    It’s funny, I can imagine these exact words in that different context. Obama has great delivery for just that sort of ironic humor.

    ETA:
    @Jeffro:

    Did you see The Onion article about how his handlers were struggling to condense Trumpov’s presidential daily briefing to one word? So very, very close to the truth…

    140 characters, perhaps? (That’s how many it is, isn’t it?)

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gin & Tonic: Especially if it means he can cut a deal that he isn’t extradited to Ukraine. Whatever the US might to do him in terms of criminal charges and punishments is going to be much, much, much more tolerable than what the Ukrainians would do. They’re now bandying about allegations, based on texts from his daughter, that Manafort personally killed at least one person there on orders from his paymasters.

  46. 46.

    Archon

    Lincoln is either the second greatest President ever (after Reagan) who freed the slaves and saved the Union or a war criminal who shredded the constitution to prevent states from peacefully leaving the United States depending on which part of the country you ask a Republican.

  47. 47.

    geg6

    Based on this thread, it’s a good thing I’m not a man because I would not fit in anywhere.

    I do not find Scarlett Johanson attractive. At all. She is, IMHO, just conventionally pretty. But not in any outstanding way. And well, let’s not even get into her acting skills. If she has any. I haven’t seen any evidence of that.

    Now, Jennifer Lawrence? I’d switch hit for her.

  49. 49.

    Miss Bianca

    @Alain the site fixer: Hey there, yourself! I saw your beautiful columbine photo the other day and meant to give you a shout-out, but got busy and distracted. I actually have some photos that might do (hey, I live in vacation-land!) so I’ll look ’em over and pass some along!

  51. 51.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Thank you for the observations. The AP report was rather breathless with insinuation. Then again, I’d barely awoken when my girlfriend said, “Holy shit, you have to read this!” (Uh, in this case, holy shit is an expletive, not a pet name she has for me.)

  54. 54.

    Miss Bianca

    @geg6: Yup, I’m with you. Miss Scarlett does nothing for this girl. But Jennifer Lawrence, yes indeedy. Particularly in her Hunger Games archer get-up, rowr!

  56. 56.

    gex

    Most people know Lincoln was a Republican. The GOP never tires of derailing issues of racism by making that point. Though I do notice that lots of white working class Republicans are completely unfamiliar with the post Civil Rights Act realignment, despite many of them being Republicans because of that.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    There was once a time — before the investigations, before the sexual abuse conviction — when rich and famous men loved to hang around with Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire money manager who loved to party.
    They visited his mansion in Palm Beach, Fla. They flew on his jet to join him at his private estate on the Caribbean island of Little Saint James. They even joked about his taste in younger women.
    President Trump called Epstein a “terrific guy” back in 2002, saying that “he’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
    Now, Trump is on the witness list in a Florida court battle over how federal prosecutors handled allegations that Epstein, 64, sexually abused more than 40 minor girls, most of them between the ages of 13 and 17. The lawsuit questions why Trump’s nominee for labor secretary, former Miami U.S. attorney Alexander Acosta, whose Senate confirmation hearing began Wednesday morning, cut a non-prosecution deal with Epstein a decade ago rather than pursuing a federal indictment that Acosta’s staff had advocated.

    This is an amazing story because one of the central stories in the Right wing fever swamp about the Clintons is that they are tied to Epstein. That proves they are pedophiles. The conspiracy theory is elaborate. They are convinced it is true- that the Clinton’s are “sex traffickers”

    You know who had much more contact with Epstein over decades? Donald Trump.

    Trump’s people told Trump’s base that the Clinton’s had extensive contacts with Epstein when the exact opposite is true- Trump did. You almost have to admire that level of manipulation.

  62. 62.

    Miss Bianca

    @EBT:

    Cause that’s the only thing Joss (what kinda fucking name is “Joss” anyway) can do without fucking it up.

    Hey now, hey now – them’s fightin’ words. Now I’m not going to say “take ’em back, or by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end you”, but that’s only because i’m too much of a fuckin’ lady.

    And “Joss” may be short for “Jocelyn”, which is (or was) a nice, androgynous name.

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    @AliceBlue: I’m planning on getting tickets to their world tour when it comes to my area. I hear they’re doing great things, great things. Many people are really talking about it.

  65. 65.

    Mike in NC

    Trump likes to tell people he has a very good brain. Too bad it’s the size of a gerbil’s.

  66. 66.

    AliceBlue

    @geg6:
    We’re told that actresses like ScarJo are drop dead gorgeous, but I went to high school and college with women who were just as good looking, if not better.

  67. 67.

    Mike in DC

    Us Weekly has a story on Melania that Dolt 45 is not going to like. Summary: she’s miserable, can’t stand him, resents him for forcing this lifestyle on her, and they never spend the night together and sleep in separate beds, often separate rooms.

    Which makes Ivanka taking a position in the WH even creepier.

  68. 68.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @geg6:

    I agree, geg6, and I’m a straight man, albeit old enough probably to be her father. Pretty face, nice figure, but sort of melancholy. YMMV.

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    @gex: This includes almost all conservative justices that practice originalism. That originalism does not include that of the framers of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Just the framers from the time of the second founding and the drafting of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the 1790s.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    Last year, Kraig Moss sold the equipment for his construction business in upstate New York and stopped making mortgage payments so he could follow Donald Trump on the campaign trail.
    The amateur country crooner sang pro-Trump ditties while strumming a guitar emblazoned with Trump campaign stickers, earning him the moniker “Trump Troubadour.”
    International media dubbed him “the voice of unheard America.”
    But now, Moss refuses to play the guitar with the Trump decorations. He’s soured on the President because of the newly proposed Republican health care bill.
    That legislation, which the president supports, could result in dramatic cuts in addiction treatment services.
    Three years ago, Moss found his son, Rob, dead in his bed from a heroin overdose. He was 24.
    “The bill is an absolute betrayal of what Trump represented on the campaign trail,” he said. “I feel betrayed.”

    Instead of talking to CNN he should sit down and reflect on why he didn’t recognize a huge liar when one was right in front of him. I feel like they have to ask themselves why they are such piss-poor judges of character.

    He didn’t have to know anything else about Trump other than the constant lying. That should have been a deal-breaker.

    I knew he would screw them. How could they think a person’s character matters not at all? Of course it does.

    We have a treatment facility that Sherrod Brown got us. This county goes 70/30 R. Sherrod Brown benefits not at all politically by putting a treatment facility here. He did it anyway. Quality matters, and it has nothing to do with levels of education or income.

  76. 76.

    cintibud

    I went home with my campaign manager
    The way I always do
    How was I to know
    He was with the Russians too

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: For a conman to be successful the marks have to want to be conned. The marks wanted to be conned.

  79. 79.

    Miss Bianca

    @schrodingers_cat: Damn…you mean that’s been the secret of my success all these years (such as it’s been)? And here I thought it was my witty dialogue and sharp, genre-savvy writing!

  80. 80.

    catclub

    @Jeffro:

    The only possible good thing about Trumpov being president is that he’s a lock to do down in history as the absolutely dumbest, most childish, ignorant buffoon ever to hold the office.

    So far. Forever is a long time.

  82. 82.

    Monica Ellis

    I had to educate one of Trump’s followers about Eisenhower being a Republican, that was fun.

  83. 83.

    NotMax

    Phew. Bleary eyed from being jolted awake by the verdammt sinuses, on first reading thought people were getting all worked up about a picture of Joe Scar.

  86. 86.

    JGabriel

    “Great president. Most people don’t even know he was a Republican,” Trump says about ABRAHAM LINCOLN …

    Don’t worry, Donnie. In a few years, most Republicans won’t admit you were a Republican either. In fact, I bet most Americans will think you were Russian.

  87. 87.

    Miss Bianca

    @Gin & Tonic: Oh, thank you for that – I miss the Western Slope so much!

    ETA: How are you, btw? I understand you have a busted arm. Hope you get fixed up well and soon!

  88. 88.

    Jeffro

    @catclub: With an IQ any lower than Trump’s, President ______ in 3048 would have to be something on the order of an Irish setter. Or a turnip.

  91. 91.

    EBT

    @Major Major Major Major: Firefly is simply stale, boring, and hackneyed. Buffy is terrible on a whole other level. A “strong female lead” who has to be saved by the old man or the idiot guy friend in half the episodes, when she isn’t busy NOT killing the goddamn vampire she is wet over? Not even getting in to how bad the lesbian couple got treated.

  92. 92.

    Aimai

    @schrodingers_cat: jesus when did the other female posters at balloon juice get so threatened and bitchy and judgemental about another womans looks? If you don’t like her–fine–but when did this become some kind of competition for who can insult her more? She’s a woman working in a tough, hudgemental, field full of assholes who demand she market herself to the male gaze. The oppisite of that attitude( bitch isnt pretty) is just as ugly and demeaning to her and jennifer lawrence.

  93. 93.

    Cacti

    Funny thing, the sociologist/mathematician whose model predicted the exact year of the Soviet Union’s collapse…

    As well as the Iranian Revolution, Tiananmen uprising, and multiple economic crises…

    Predicts that the United States will be finished as the world’s super power without peer by 2020.

    The model says it was set in motion by the militarism of the Bush years, and that it would culminate in a phase of fascism and reactionary politics.

    This guy’s prescience about certain things is flat out spooky.

  95. 95.

    ChrisA

    George Washington, great president, and not many people know he was the first president and one of the founders of our country.

  96. 96.

    Immanentize

    @germy: And FYI — New Jersey (Palisades Park is in Bergen County) and New York were heavily Republican in nature during that spread of years. Civil war and Industrialist Republicans, no doubt, but Republican. So anything about Jim Crow and New Jersey has nothing to do with the Democrats alone .

    ETA Just looked it up — from the period listed, 1876 to 1965, there were 21 governors in New Jersey of whom 16 were Republicans. of course there was a nice stretch of Dems in the FDR years….

  98. 98.

    Kay

    President Donald Trump’s so-called “skinny budget” proposes spending cuts that could have a severe impact on black colleges, according to advocates for those institutions.
    The budget blueprint titled “America First” decreases Department of Education funding by 13 percent, leaving some programs that support minority students unfunded.

    I could collect these stories all day. He’s basically betrayed everyone he ever talked to in his short political career and he’s done it in 2 months. The small comfort black colleges have is they didn’t vote for him and knew the photo op was self-promoting bullshit from the get-go.

    They go out of their way to invite people into the White House and lie to them.

    That’s why they’re not “good people”. This isn’t hard. It’s pretty easy to tell good from bad! If you’re a betrayed Trumpster you have to think on that for a while – it’s not him. It’s you.

  99. 99.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: CNN, and many others, were afraid to call Trump a liar and listeners/viewers took that as an indication of “both sides” or something. So lots of voters could and did ignore stuff that was plainly lies.

    Why were they afraid of him, because he said things like Donald Trump said on Friday he plans to change libel laws in the United States so that he can have an easier time suing news organizations..

    Since he’s a “billionaire”, they’re afraid of him. Just as too many Republicans were.

    Of course, learning the correct lesson that the rich have too much power, especially in politics, they decided to cower and think they’d be safe.

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who recognizes that voters have responsibilities, but they exist in a system that is broken.)

  100. 100.

    lollipopguild

    @Kay: In reality little people who lie end up getting into trouble in some cases a lot of trouble-jail. People like trump stay out of trouble or get ahead in life because their status keeps them safe, until they lie to the FBI, like Martha Stewart.

  101. 101.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Aimai: I have nothing against ScarJo. She is attractive, I don’t love her or hate her. Do we all have to be in lock step now? I was not criticizing ScarJo at all but the standards of beauty that Hollywood perpetuates.

  107. 107.

    The Moar You Know

    I do not find Scarlett Johanson attractive. At all. She is, IMHO, just conventionally pretty. But not in any outstanding way. And well, let’s not even get into her acting skills. If she has any. I haven’t seen any evidence of that.

    Now, Jennifer Lawrence? I’d switch hit for her.

    @geg6: Agreed on all counts save for the “switch hit”, because I’m male.

    And Ms. Lawrence does it for me in every way. Including one that’s pretty odd for me.

    I’ve always had a thing for blondes. As in “since I was two”. First time I saw Ms. Lawrence was, of course, in “Hunger Games”. I have since seen her in others. Wonderful woman. Smart, beautiful, funny. So…I like her better brunette. My brain tells me “you like blondes” but the, erm, rest of me goes bonkers over brunette Jennifer.

  108. 108.

    A Ghost to Most

    @schrodingers_cat:
    Nah, she has a nice figure, but her face rivals, if not surpasses, Elizabeth Taylor’s at the same age. Plus, she is very normal, and not caught up in it all.

  109. 109.

    rikyrah

    BRAND NEW: Tool for Thursday’s vote

    Want to see how many lose coverage by Congressional district? (Example: Dent)https://t.co/U2Nr8ogSPq

    — Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) March 22, 2017

  110. 110.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @pamelabrown53:

    As I said, YMMV. Finally saw her in Lucy over the weekend on Netflix. She did well in a silly-premised script. Definitely has a sultry voice.

  111. 111.

    tobie

    @Cacti: I think a lot of us have been feeling this way for quite some time. If I recall correctly, Betty Cracker said yesterday something to the effect that this all has the feel of the end of the empire. I don’t believe people have yet to process what this means in practical terms, and how the loss of global preeminence will affect our political freedoms and economic lives. Scarcity is not something with which Americans have much experience.

  112. 112.

    rikyrah

    “Great president. Most people don’t even know he was a Republican,” Trump says about ABRAHAM LINCOLN

    — Claudia Koerner (@ClaudiaKoerner) March 22, 2017

    sigh.
    sigh.

    This level of Idiocy.

    Thanks, White people.

  113. 113.

    Kay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I still have some sympathy for the parents of addicts because that is a tough addiction. It really grabs people in a way I didn’t even see with meth which was the epidemic in white rural areas that preceded this one. Part of why it’s so hard is they can work and function for a long time while the addiction gets worse. Meth is like a car crash. They crack up quickly. I can spot them now at earlier stages but for a long time they appeared normal. We all missed it until it was UPON us, you know what I mean? They were functioning. They present as just really apathetic and disinterested but they’re actually loaded.

  114. 114.

    Major Major Major Major

    OT: So apparently there’s a new startup that delivers gasoline, which has regulators concerned since there are no rules for such thjngs, because there is no bottom to the idiocy of Silicon Valley.

  115. 115.

    Miss Bianca

    @EBT: Eh, I would argue the toss with you, but otoh, why bother? Tastes differ. “That’s what makes horse races”, as me old ma used to say.

    Now me, I’m about ready to toss “Mr. Robot” out the window, despite the raves I’ve seen it getting. Dull, dull, dull. I’d re-watch “Firefly” again and again over that dreck.

    ETA: Plus, Gina Torres. Talk about “rowr”…

  116. 116.

    A Ghost to Most

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Was that picture taken from Log Hill Mesa? My wife and I consider that the prettiest view we’ve yet seen in Colorado.

  118. 118.

    Immanentize

    @EBT: Buffy? Firefly/Serenity? Fucked up? Hmmm — you are messing with your credibility or maybe you are just very young and didn’t know those efforts.

    ETA @Major Major Major Major: OOps, M4 — you already said what I just got around to saying

  119. 119.

    MattF

    @Major Major Major Major: So… it’s a mobile delivery service? So… it uses gasoline to deliver gasoline? So… it’s guaranteed to lose money? Wish I was a venture capitalist and had money to burn.

  121. 121.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Archon: This is the key point. Ask your average guns-and-freedum Trump voter about Lincoln. If he recognizes the name at all, it’ll be because Lincoln was a tyrant who violated the Constitution to squash State’s Rights. You may also hear that he was also a gun-grabber who created the scourge that is Big Government.

    Doesn’t sound very Republican, does he?

  122. 122.

    Major Major Major Major

    @MattF:

    So… it’s guaranteed to lose money?

    Not if it charges a big markup.

    The bigger issue is that they didn’t bother to follow standard practices for how to do it safely. Regulations are just oh so much red tape, to a certain Uber-ish mindset. This is a problem when you are delivering gasoline.

  123. 123.

    Immanentize

    @Adam L Silverman:

    That originalism does not include that of the framers of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

    This is precisely the question I want someone like Whitehouse to ask. I suspect the answer would be — originalism is also determined by the Court’s interpretation at the time the amendment was written. Or at least that would be a clever answer but I don’t think Gorsuch would handle that one well….

  124. 124.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    People are talking about it here. It’s been front page in the newspaper for days. It’s presented as what it is- a threat to thousands of people. They had the CEO of the hospital on local radio again this morning talking about how many people in-county are at risk.

    It’s sad because it’s too late, you know? They needed this level of attention in 2011. You don’t always get several chances. Sometimes it’s essential to make a good decision and it’s no backsies or “try harder next time”.

  126. 126.

    The Moar You Know

    Ex-girlfriend’s sister (actress, obvs, and that’s all I will share as she’s still working) worked quite a bit with Wheadon. He is not a nice person.

    Not the worst Hollywood has to offer by a long shot, but I wouldn’t have put up with his shit.

  128. 128.

    The Moar You Know

    OT: So apparently there’s a new startup that delivers gasoline

    @Major Major Major Major: Will end in a literal ball of fire. WTF is wrong with people? The world is losing common sense at an alarming rate.

  129. 129.

    Ian G.

    “Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.”

    Charles Sumner, Republican Senator from Massachusetts.

    Yeah, I’m sure someone expressing such left-of-Wilmer thoughts IN THE 1850s would be at home in today’s GOP.

    Great insight, Donnie.

  130. 130.

    Immanentize

    Question — Did anyone else like Lost in Translation? I thought the acting was fabulous by all involved.

  131. 131.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @Kay:

    It’s sad because it’s too late, you know?

    John Oliver and others said it, you get one chance don’t fuck it up.

  133. 133.

    Miss Bianca

    @The Moar You Know:

    Not the worst Hollywood has to offer by a long shot, but I wouldn’t have put up with his shit.

    Easy for you to say. News Flash For Men: Most men in Hollywood in any position of power are some more or less toxic blend of sexism and egotism that borders on megalomania. And any woman who wants to get ahead in that world has no choice but to put up with it.

  134. 134.

    Anya

    @ET: “most people don’t know this” usually means Trump found out about the issue of person and as a narcissist, everyone els must be as ignorant as him, if not more.

  135. 135.

    MattF

    @The Moar You Know: A few years ago, I was in a fender-bender mishap on the DC Beltway. Within five minutes of pulling over to the shoulder, a guy showed up with a watering can full of gasoline, just in case the problem was that we’d run out of fuel. Apparently, a profitable one-man business.

  136. 136.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Republican Pete Sessions just literally said “Nobody is going to lose their coverage, you’ll be able to keep your same doctor,” “same plan.”

    It surprises me that anyone is surprised by this. Republicans lied about Obamacare for 8 years and they were richly rewarded. Lying works for them. It pays off.

    But, Kay….this isn’t the same. People will know when they have NO PLAN. No plan. No doctor. They will get that. There is no both sides do it.

    GOP took over. Gave you a plan. You have no more healthcare.

  141. 141.

    Immanentize

    @MattF: Well, where I live, people use gasoline to deliver oil. And counting the number of such trucks I see, it is a pretty stable effort.

  142. 142.

    Mnemosyne

    @Miss Bianca:

    Yep. I know that Patricia Arquette got all kinds of shit a few years ago for talking about how toxic the sexism in Hollywood is, but it’s really, really toxic. It’s a major boys’ club, and sexism really is a bigger factor than racism in most cases.

  145. 145.

    pamelabrown53

    @Immanentize: #128.

    I’ve seen “Lost in Translation multiple times and agree that the acting is superb. I thought the movie captured the sense of loneliness and isolation exacerbated by the characters’ in a cultural-language milieu which exacerbated those feelings.

    I also want to point out that SJ didn’t burst on the scene as a siren; her first memorable role was a child actor in “The Horse Whisperer”.

  147. 147.

    Immanentize

    @schrodingers_cat: @schrodingers_cat:

    always has an annoyed look about him.

    That is why he worked so well in that film — washed up US actor making a scotch commercial in Japan. Annoyed describes it perfectly.

    ETA and I loved his Karaoke version of Bryan Ferry.

  148. 148.

    The Moar You Know

    Easy for you to say. News Flash For Men: Most men in Hollywood in any position of power are some more or less toxic blend of sexism and egotism that borders on megalomania. And any woman who wants to get ahead in that world has no choice but to put up with it.

    @Miss Bianca: I know this very well. I did not share her stories for that reason; she’s still trying to get work.

  151. 151.

    Major Major Major Major

    @schrodingers_cat: That look works for him in Lost In Translation, though. Also in Zombieland and The Life Aquatic, where he plays extremely annoyed, world-weary people.

    Can’t say I care for Sofia Coppola’s mood pieces much, though, or comedies of manners in general, as a matter of taste.

  152. 152.

    Another Scott

    @Anya: Or, it could be some 11-dimensional chess stuff.

    “I’ll speak to my minions and give them their marching orders, and also throw out a bit of disinformation to keep the Liberals and the Lying Media distracted for a few hours. The substance will be ignored and we’ll rush the bill through while they’re chasing the rabbit in the briar patch! Winning!!!1”

    You know, kinda like that Mastermind RWR.

    ;-)

    Seriously, what Trump said is stupid, but he’s brain-brain damaged. He says stupid stuff. We need to not get too distracted by this stuff.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who appreciates levity as much as anyone, but who laments that the GOP is always driving what we talk about.)

  155. 155.

    Brachiator

    @Immanentize:

    Question — Did anyone else like Lost in Translation? I thought the acting was fabulous by all involved.

    Yep. Thought it was beautiful, sad, memorable. Bill Murray and ScarJo were great in it, and I appreciated that SJ was not simply an object of affection to help Bill out of a mid-life crises.

  156. 156.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Immanentize:

    I did not. I thought the whispered epiphany at the end was a cop-out. Didn’t hate the movie but didn’t get the adoration.

  157. 157.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    Republican Pete Sessions just literally said “Nobody is going to lose their coverage, you’ll be able to keep your same doctor,” “same plan.”

    I think we’ve found our lie of the year.

    And Sessions is a dead man walking if the bill passes into law.

    Someone who loses coverage is going to kill him, or make a very decent attempt to.

  160. 160.

    Miss Bianca

    @The Moar You Know: Nothing personal, but it bugs me sometimes when guys talk about some other guy’s bad behavior and say, “I wouldn’t put up with that shit”. First, because in a lot of cases, you wouldn’t have to, so it’s kind of a moot point. And second, because in a lot of other cases – where it applied to a man behaving badly to a woman? You probably *would* put up with it – for the same reason that the woman would. You’d look away, you’d make excuses. Or you might say something, but only in the company of friends. Because rocking the boat is just going to get you labelled a troublemaker, unless you’re in enough demand yourself that you can tell other people to pound sand with impunity.

  163. 163.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Obama did “nothing” for the white working class except… cover most of them under Medicaid. For which Democrats were punished by the same white working class!
    No wonder Trump feels like he can screw them without consequences. The “consequences” make absolutely no sense.
    Schumer said at one point in the healthcare debate that Democrats wouldn’t get any political payoff from any of these people and he was right. I liked him for saying it. No one else would dare say it but it’s absolutely true.

  164. 164.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    What needs to be determined was what, if any, influence passed and if any, in what direction.

    Assume every Republican he’s ever contacted is compromised and a filthy traitor unless proven otherwise. Handle accordingly.

  168. 168.

    TenguPhule

    @Cacti:

    The model says it was set in motion by the militarism of the Bush years, and that it would culminate in a phase of fascism and reactionary politics.

    Yes, but when you try and explain to people what this entails, you get accused of being into violence pron.

    The American Republic died on 1/20/17.

    The corpse is still moving, propelled by structural inertia, but Pax-Americana is gone.

    Rule of Law is effectively over. We have two sets of laws now, one for people without money and one that says the rules do not apply to Republicans with money.

    Its not going to end well.

  171. 171.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I know I’m bitter but I’m tired. I’m going to a school meeting tonight. We worked hard to get a federally-funded after school program. My kid doesn’t go. The kids are all lower income. It’s “enrichment”, fun stuff, the stuff higher income parents pay for. Trump is cutting all those. I feel like they have a duty to figure out who helps their kids- I mean we’;re talking about where they GO after school.

  174. 174.

    BruceFromOhio

    @TenguPhule: The mark of civilization falling is the looting of hospitals, as this bodes the cascade failure of multiple constructs (law & order, respect for authority, caring for others). And no working drains. Water supports life, drains support civilization.

  175. 175.

    Debbie1

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): I think that’s the only appropriate response to such stupidity. In fact, both you and LAO have said it all.

    Good God, the man just found out Lincoln was a Republican. This one time though I must say I can’t blame him for not seeing any similarities. (He still stupid though.)

  178. 178.

    Major Major Major Major

    @TenguPhule:

    Yes, but when you try and explain to people what this entails, you get accused of being into violence pron.

    The American Republic died on 1/20/17.

    The corpse is still moving, propelled by structural inertia, but Pax-Americana is gone.

    I’ve been saying that the most instructive analogue to 2016 is 1914, and I think it still holds. Analogue, of course, not one-to-one mapping. Pax Americana is teetering on the edge, tied IMO to the fate of trans-Europeanism and internationalist trade policy.

    That is different from saying that there’s going to be a bloody civil war and all Republicans are traitors who should be executed.

  179. 179.

    TenguPhule

    @BruceFromOhio: Then we’re halfway there. The AHCA is going to turn looting Hospitals into the new Healthcare plan and keeping the drains clear isn’t even on the budget.

  181. 181.

    Gelfling 545

    @Elizabelle:

    So it’s possible a lot of them don’t know …

    And wouldn’t like it if they did. That War of Northern Agression & all.

  183. 183.

    oldster

    It’s not too late to call your Reps today and tell them to vote “No”.

    Partly because of our constant, unrelenting pressure here in Upstate New York, we forced a bunch of imperiled Republicans to demand the “Buffalo Buyout”. It’s a bull***t gimmick in itself, a meaningless pork-barrel give-away that will only raise our state taxes. But it has good effects:

    It makes the bill that much more *un*-palatable to the Freedom Caucus and Cato group.

    So by squeezing from the left, we made them push the bill to the left. And that makes the right hate it all the more. With any luck, they are the ones who are going to tank it.

    Keep squeezing, any way you can.

  184. 184.

    Archon

    @TenguPhule:

    I’m slightly more optimistic then you but I do wonder has any group of people as far down the political rabbit hole as today’s Republicans ever been woken out of their nonsense without violence?

    America has uniquely strong institutions, that’s my hope but history doesn’t have good examples of political situations like ours ending peacefully.

  185. 185.

    Immanentize

    @trollhattan:

    I have no idea how it survived the pitch to actually get made

    Perhaps because it was directed by Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter?

  186. 186.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    I know I’m bitter but I’m tired. I’m going to a school meeting tonight. We worked hard to get a federally-funded after school program. My kid doesn’t go. The kids are all lower income. It’s “enrichment”, fun stuff, the stuff higher income parents pay for. Trump is cutting all those. I feel like they have a duty to figure out who helps their kids- I mean we’;re talking about where they GO after school.

    You should tell them. Tell them what they are going to lose.

    You’re better than me…cause, I sure wouldn’t hesitate in telling them that this is all part of ‘ Making America Great Again.’

    I am very bitter myself. I look at the coming pain, and I’m so bitter. I’ve decided that I can stay bitter, cause I’m not going to ‘get over it’.

  187. 187.

    Julia Grey

    @germy:

    Not idiots at all. It demonstrates the self-perpetuating knee-jerk defenses of the Republican brand that have resulted in our current predicament.

  188. 188.

    bemused

    @Kay:

    You’d think these Trump supporters who view themselves as salt of the earth, hardworking, patriotic and most authentic Americans ever would easily recognize a loudmouth, bragging fleecer full of shit. I’ve no doubt if a stranger driving an expensive car all decked out in jewelry and fancy clothes walked into their local bars buying drinks all around and other businesses and tried to sell locals on some fantastic deals, most of the locals would walk away and warn their friends. Why they fell for Trump will always be a mystery to me but can’t help but feel they just hate liberals more.

  189. 189.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Archon:

    I do wonder has any group of people as far down the political rabbit hole as today’s Republicans ever been woken out of their nonsense without violence?

    Maybe not, but they can easily be outvoted since they’re outnumbered. We just have to get our people to the polls and work on the apathy problem.

  190. 190.

    TenguPhule

    @Major Major Major Major: We’ve gone beyond 1914. Way way beyond it. Its become a madness, that’s the best I can describe it. Not just Republicans, but the rubes who decided to just vote for Trump for the first time.

    The bed can’t be unshat. Republicans as a party have gone all in on treason, pissed on rule of law and metaphorically set fire to the Constitution. There is no disincentive for them to ever step back from this. They have every incentive there is to escalate their evil to remain in power.

    Its not going to be resolved peacefully.

  191. 191.

    rikyrah

    FBI probe into Team Trump casts cloud over Supreme Court process
    03/22/17 08:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    On Monday, FBI Director James Comey publicly confirmed that there’s a counter-espionage investigation underway, examining not only Russia’s illegal efforts to help put Donald Trump in the White House, but also whether Team Trump cooperated with Moscow’s scheme. On Tuesday, the confirmation hearing for Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, began in earnest.

    Much of the political world is treating these two developments as distinct and unrelated. It was heartening to see Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) take the obvious step of connecting then. The Washington Post reported:

    “I’d like to point out that it is the height of irony that Republicans held this Supreme Court seat open for nearly a calendar year while President Obama was in office, but are now rushing to fill the seat for a president whose campaign is under investigation by the FBI,” Schumer said, according to remarks sent out by his office.

    Schumer said that, to him, it appeared “unseemly to be moving forward so fast on confirming a Supreme Court Justice with a lifetime appointment” due to the looming FBI investigation, which could potentially last for months or years

    The Democratic leader added, “You can bet that if the shoe was on the other foot – and a Democratic president was under investigation by the FBI – that Republicans would be howling at the moon about filling a Supreme Court seat in such circumstances. After all, they stopped a president who wasn’t under investigation from filling a seat with nearly a year left in his presidency.”.

  193. 193.

    TenguPhule

    @Major Major Major Major: He who counts the votes and determines where those votes will be applied, determines the winner. Failing that, control of the SC will determine what your vote is actually worth.

  194. 194.

    rikyrah

    Republicans considering whether or not to back U.S. President Donald Trump’s healthcare reforms in a crucial House of Representatives vote this week face a painful choice.

    If they vote against, they could face the wrath of a vengeful and combative president. If they vote for it, they risk retribution from the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch and other powerful right-wing players whose money can be pivotal in re-election races.

    As Trump faces the most formidable, high-stakes negotiation of his presidency, the fierce battle in the U.S. Congress over his plan to replace Obamacare is a test of whether Republicans will trust him with their political futures at the risk of alienating deep-pocketed conservative advocacy groups.

    As Trump and leaders in the House round up support for the bill ahead of a planned Thursday vote, some groups are threatening to retaliate against those who do support it, including the Club for Growth, the Heritage Foundation’s political arm, and Americans for Prosperity, which is part of the expansive political pressure network established by the Koch brothers.

    All three groups are “keying” the vote, which means it will be a factor in determining whether the groups deem a lawmaker to be sufficiently conservative. That opens up the possibility that some Republicans who vote in favor of the bill could face a primary challenge in next year’s congressional elections and may not be able to count on help from the Kochs and others

  195. 195.

    liberal

    @TenguPhule:

    We have two sets of laws now, one for people without money and one that says the rules do not apply to Republicans with money.

    Nonsense. We’ve long had two separate sets of laws.

    Just today that douchebag who ran that compounding pharmacy in New England got hit with a zillion counts. But none for murder or manslaughter. Fucking prick killed lots of people, and in a just world he’d be facing the death penalty. He probably won’t even get life in prison.

  197. 197.

    Betty Cracker

    Speaking of Jennifer Lawrence, if you haven’t seen “Winter’s Bone,” DO. It’s the first thing I ever saw her in (pre-Hunger Games), and she’s stunningly good, IMO. The film is also a searingly accurate depiction of white, Southern poverty and the honor code in force in certain rural communities. I grew up in a less extreme version of the family depicted in that film, and it was so true to life it rattled me.

  200. 200.

    Peale

    @rikyrah: Let’s just remember that not a single “no” vote out of the House GOP will come because the law will hurt too many people. They subscribe to the “rip the band-aid” off model of governing and will be voting against it because the tax cuts are too small and the number of children on medicaid is still too large.

  203. 203.

    TenguPhule

    @liberal: We’ve never had it rubbed in our faces this badly since the Bush reign of error. In some ways its worse because of what happened last time. Its the kind of thing that drives good men to madness.

  204. 204.

    Yarrow

    @Immanentize: Loved “Lost in Translation.” Acting was so great. I wish Bill Murray had gotten the Oscar for his role in it. He was wonderful. I loved ScarJo in it too. Acting really great all around.

  205. 205.

    Miss Bianca

    @Betty Cracker: I tried to get that out of our local library and the DVD was so messed up that it wouldn’t play. But I’ll try to get from somewhere else now that I know it’s worth it!

  206. 206.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: Do you know what I love the most about that Reuters article?:

    As Trump faces the most formidable, high-stakes negotiation of his presidency, the fierce battle in the U.S. Congress over his plan to replace Obamacare is a test of whether Republicans will trust him

    The plan — and its success or failure — is entirely Trump’s now.

  207. 207.

    EBT

    @Miss Bianca: Yeah, like I’m not saying don’t watch him if you like him, just that I’m not seeing anything to actually appreciate in his work myself.

  210. 210.

    aimai

    @schrodingers_cat: We don’t have to be in lockstep–I was just taken aback by the vitriol and the general level judgmentalism directed at this woman. I also find the complaints kind of bizarrely contradictory–she is not conventionally beautiful at all, as several commenters point out to disparage her. And yet she is considered by many to be sexually attractive–why is that not considered a triumph of audience taste/personal choice over some absurd notion that “hollywood” is foisting her on us? Why set up this weird competition between her and Jennifer Lawrence for audience affection or sexual attraction? They are both working women. CAn’t we let them work without turning it into a cat fight?

  211. 211.

    Archon

    @TenguPhule:

    A fresh America came off the bench in a tie game late in the fourth quarter to win WWI for the allies. It was brilliant but our domestic politics at that time help squander that fruits of that victory with our post war isolationism.

  212. 212.

    Peale

    @rikyrah: Meh. At this point, I’d be inclined to just have Kay cry “If they don’t have after school programs, they’ll start hanging out in pool halls, and then we’ll have trouble…right here in (insert town name here).” Maybe a little production number at the school board meeting will lift her spirits a little.

  213. 213.

    Elizabelle

    @rikyrah: Good for Schumer.

    Stonewall and do not confirm Gorsuch. That’s a stolen Supreme Court seat. Do not reward them for that stunt.

    Plus, Trump might truly be an illegitimate president. And the GOP could have colluded with Russians. Investigate the shit out of that.

    Fresh elections. Then they can deal with the open Supreme Court seat.

    We’re not even at 100 days yet.

  215. 215.

    TenguPhule

    @Archon:

    I’m slightly more optimistic then you but I do wonder has any group of people as far down the political rabbit hole as today’s Republicans ever been woken out of their nonsense without violence?

    None that I can think of which ever held major political power. Which is part of why I’m so pessimistic,

    Generally fringe platforms stay small and go extinct as the believers die off or get disillusioned.

    But every now and then you get a cult leader who clicks with just enough people to become a problem.

    And then things get ugly.

    You can’t rely on the rules because these people ignore or break them at will.

    You can’t rely on human decency, they have none.

    You can’t rely on some other force to stop them, because there is none they will accept and they will fight it out.

    So the only peaceful alternative is to surrender to them. They will not accept anything less.

  216. 216.

    Immanentize

    @Peale:

    THE POOL PLAYERS.
    SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

    We real cool. We
    Left school. We

    Lurk late. We
    Strike straight. We

    Sing sin. We
    Thin gin. We

    Jazz June. We
    Die soon.

    — Gwendolyn Brooks.
    Maybe Kay could just hand out this poem?

  217. 217.

    TenguPhule

    @Archon: Yeah, we came together, raised taxes, sold warbonds, nationalized resources, improved infrastructure, targeted war profiteers, drafted troops.

    Now? Look around and weep.

  218. 218.

    EBT

    @Major Major Major Major: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Usually he uses it when we talk politics, which is double annoying because 1. Fairly serious topic for him and me both, and 2. We agree on most everything.

  220. 220.

    Mnemosyne

    @bemused:

    They fell for Trump because he pushed every white supremacist and xenophobic button they have. It really feels like some of these people were half-hypnotized when they went into the voting booth.

    Despite all of the cries about “economic insecurity,” I still think that white voters were actually feeling pretty secure after 8 years of Obama and thought they could try and put themselves back on top socially now that they were doing well economically again. Whoops! Thanks a lot, assholes. You broke the goddamned country.

  221. 221.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay: @Immanentize:

    Last year, Kraig Moss sold the equipment for his construction business in upstate New York and stopped making mortgage payments so he could follow Donald Trump on the campaign trail.

    Is this story supposed to raise sympathy? Because all I can think of is “Too stupid to breathe”

  222. 222.

    Immanentize

    @Elizabelle: I am still promoting the idea that, as the Republicans believe that no President should nominate a Supreme Court Justice in their last year of their Presidency, plus Trump will likely not last out the year, Gorsuch (the Avignon Justice) should not be considered. Q.E.D.

  224. 224.

    EBT

    @TenguPhule: Besides Jayne none of the characters are even likeable. Firefly was better when it was called Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda. And honestly if I am going to watch “Plucky losers of a war tool around in a spaceship” it’s Lexx.

  225. 225.

    aimai

    @schrodingers_cat: Not for approbation. I apologize if you feel slighted. I simply tagged my comment on to a developing thread of people talking back to one another about Johannsen and other actresses. You don’t have to respond to me if you don’t feel its warranted.

  226. 226.

    ruemara

    @Immanentize: I loved it. My Japanese friend hated it. She felt very othered by it.

    @Miss Bianca: Most men. And, end sentence. sadly.

    @EBT: OK, if you prefer Lexx, you’re not even remotely in the audience for Firefly.

  228. 228.

    danielx

    Lincoln a Republican?!?? Why, I only found out last week that oxygen is necessary to most life forms on earth! Will wonders never cease….

  233. 233.

    different-church-lady

    TRUMP: People don’t know Lincoln was a republican.
    DEAD LINCOLN: Holy god, I don’t want ANYONE to know that anymore!

  235. 235.

    rikyrah

    The Republican health care plan is actually worse than nothing
    03/22/17 09:21 AM
    By Steve Benen
    It dawned on congressional Republicans quite a while ago that they couldn’t simply repeal the Affordable Care Act, roll back the clock as if “Obamacare” never existed, and walk away. GOP policymakers conceded they’d have to “repeal and replace” the health care law with their own policy blueprint.

    That, of course, has become a fiasco of historic proportions. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released a report that highlighted the profound impact the Republican bill would have on the American system: the ranks of the uninsured would grow by 14 million by next year, and that number would expand to 24 million by 2026.

    And as dreadful as those results sound, the New York Times’ Margot Sanger-Katz’s highlighted an even more striking detail yesterday:

    The Republican bill would actually result in more people being uninsured than if Obamacare were simply repealed. Getting rid of the major coverage provisions and regulations of Obamacare would cost 23 million Americans their health insurance, according to another recent C.B.O. report.

    In other words, one million more Americans would have health insurance with a clean repeal than with the Republican replacement plan, according to C.B.O. estimates.

    Let that sink for a moment. If Republicans simply took a sledge hammer to the ACA, 23 million Americans would lose their health coverage. If Republicans pass their own legislation, 24 million Americans would lose their health coverage.

  236. 236.

    aimai

    @ruemara: I am a huge Whedon/buffy fan but I never got into firefly. I think I couldn’t get past its one trick pony quality and the way the hero seemed to be a regurgitated Southern Civil War/state’s rights kind of guy. As space and politics I thought that Battlestar galactic, until it went off the rails, had just so much more meaningful stuff to say.

  237. 237.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Immanentize: Yawn, just more dialogue Whedon stole from Apuleius. All the hacks in the entire Western canon just ripped that guy off.

    @aimai: Firefly wasn’t really supposed to be about politics, though; Battlestar was. And just because they’re gunslinging rebels who lost a war doesn’t automatically make them analogues for the south.

  238. 238.

    randy khan

    @EBT:

    You’re certainly entitled to your opinion about BTVS, but it definitely is a minority opinion.

    I’m a straight white guy, so there are plenty of things I wouldn’t notice, but I’ve always thought that the Willow-Tara relationship, particularly in the context of the show, was treated the way other relationships were treated, which was kind of a big deal when the show was on the air. In addition, Whedon made it clear in Season 7 that this wasn’t some one-off thing, and that Willow really was gay, because she got into a new relationship. (I might have wished for someone I liked better as her girlfriend, but such is life.)

  239. 239.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Peale: Many Hollywood actresses are attractive and talented. Some people find some more appealing than others.

  241. 241.

    Immanentize

    @ruemara: I’m not surprised you Japanese friend felt that way — it was about (in part) Western alienation and clinging to our world perspectives even when we are not in our own culture at all. I imagine that cross-cultural film making is near impossible. I think probably Hiroshima Mon Amour is the one I can think of where the director really tried to cross an almost uncross-able barrier.

  242. 242.

    Miss Bianca

    @aimai: Um…can’t we say, “this actress – offered up in a film clip for our alleged delectation – doesn’t do it for me, but this other one does” without being accused of cat-fighting, bitch-slapping, vitriol and general anti-feminism? Or not? Trying to imagine a similar level of outrage ensuing from my saying, “gee, I don’t get why people think Robert Redford is so hot – I’ve always preferred Paul Newman.”

  243. 243.

    rikyrah

    McConnell prepares for the ‘conclusion’ of the health care fight
    03/22/17 11:23 AM—UPDATED 03/22/17 12:08 PM
    By Steve Benen
    A couple of weeks ago, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes had a fascinating chat with Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), who was pressed on a single point: how many hearings did House Republicans hold on their health care plan before passing out of committee?

    Lance, reluctant to acknowledge that the number was zero, dodged the question repeatedly, before the congressman eventually said he thought the Senate might hold some “discussion” about the legislation.

    As it turns out, that’s not going to happen. The House vote is still scheduled for tomorrow – though that may be delayed if GOP leaders find themselves far short of the votes they’ll need – but in the upper chamber, Republican leaders are moving forward with a plan to make this mess go away as quickly as possible. Politico reported:

    Senate Republicans are unlikely to hold any committee hearings, and many of them haven’t even read what the House is about to pass. It’s unclear, to put it mildly, how proponents can placate enough moderates or conservatives to get the bill across the finish line.

    But GOP leaders are showing no signs of applying the brakes.

    “We’re not slowing down,” [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell said on Tuesday. “We will reach a conclusion on health care next week.

    ”

  244. 244.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Other fun facts

    * No one in the South, which is Trump’s base, voted for Lincoln in 1860 and 1864.

    * Andrew Jackson, Trump’s hero, was the founder of the Democratic Party.

  246. 246.

    Mnemosyne

    @Immanentize:

    When I was in high school, I got to go to a poetry reading by Gwendolyn Brooks, who at the time was the poet laureate for the state of Illinois. It was pretty damn cool.

  247. 247.

    Immanentize

    @aimai: Huh, that’s interesting — I never picked up on the Civil War vibe. Next time I watch it, I will consider it. I see it as a surface conceit, but it was never really developed for me outside of the “loser side guys” narrative. But, thanks for the insight — another reason to revisit.

  248. 248.

    Kyle

    @ET: Actually, what Trump says is what someone who just realized Lincoln was a Republican would say. Is it possible that he just learned that?

  249. 249.

    rikyrah

    Mattis is proving to be far too responsible for some in the GOP
    03/22/17 10:41 AM
    By Steve Benen
    The headline on the Politico piece overnight was unexpected: “Hill Republicans say they’re growing frustrated with Mattis.” OK, I’ll bite. What seems to be the trouble with Defense Secretary James Mattis from the perspective of congressional Republicans?

    Defense Secretary James Mattis’ unconventional choices for top Pentagon posts and his reluctance to aggressively push for dramatic increases in the defense budget have rankled Republicans on Capitol Hill who say he’s burning through political capital he needs as he begins reshaping the Pentagon. […]

    Republican lawmakers and senior congressional aides said in recent interviews they’re running out of patience with the former four-star general’s staffing decisions, which have disappointed Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee members hoping to see their ideological allies elevated to senior levels in the Defense Department. Others are grumbling about Mattis’s refusal to advocate for a bigger increase in the defense budget, which defense hawks believe was gutted disastrously under President Barack Obama.

    One top Republican staffer on Capitol Hill told Politico that Republicans have waited for years to fill key Pentagon posts “with Republicans,” a desire the Pentagon chief isn’t taking seriously. Another GOP aide says Mattis seems to forget “that we won the election.”

    Oh. So Republicans are “growing frustrated” with the former four-star general because he’s trying to govern in a mature, non-partisan, and responsible fashion, making decisions based more on merit and less on politics.

    The nerve of that guy.

  250. 250.

    Miss Bianca

    @ruemara: Watched both Lexx and Firefly this year. I’d watch Firefly over and over (and have), but not sure I’d watch Lexx again. “Farscape”, otoh…

  251. 251.

    Immanentize

    @Mnemosyne: Respect! I was a creative writing major and I saw some amazing folks, including Amiri Baraka (Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note is still a favorite — it still makes me shiver). But I never saw Brooks. SAD!

  253. 253.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: So what I would like Mattis to push for is an all-inclusive amount of billions, run out of the DoD if necessary, for climate change research and development. That is how he could increase the defense budget but also save the world.

    ETA Mattis has already identified the effects of Climate Change as the most significant strategic threat facing this country (and the world) today).

  254. 254.

    Mnemosyne

    @rikyrah:

    As I keep saying, when Trump said, “Drain the swamp,” he meant he was going to purge Democrats and liberals from the government. Period. Republicans freely admit this.

  255. 255.

    TenguPhule

    @rikyrah:

    One top Republican staffer on Capitol Hill told Politico that Republicans have waited for years to fill key Pentagon posts “with Republicans,” a desire the Pentagon chief isn’t taking seriously. Another GOP aide says Mattis seems to forget “that we won the election.”

    Do these sound like a party that intends to peacefully turn over power in the event of a lost election?

  256. 256.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @rikyrah: LGM:

    Only McConnell is not saying that he has the votes, only that he wants TrumpCare off his calendar in a timely manner:

  258. 258.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @ruemara:

    OK, if you prefer Lexx, you’re not even remotely in the audience for Firefly.

    Neither am I since my ancestors fought for the Union.

    Role play with a lot of Firefly fans in an on line game and I hear a lot about it: Firefly is quite the breathtaking example of Alt Fact Southern revisionism to the point the North is BOTH the evil inhuman industrialists AND the slave owners at the very same time. Also all blacks, no exception, are god bothering simpletons to the point they try the burn one of the crew as a witch. That and the perfect woman is a bisexual hooker. I strongly suspect the studio screwed the show over deliberately to stop it before anyone noticed the rubbish Weton was pulling because I am sure if he had the chance Weton would have had Fort Pillow massacre done by the North against it’s own troops.

    Care to take a guess at the overlap between Trump voters in my game and Firefly fans?

  259. 259.

    Immanentize

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Timely manner includes the fact that the reconciliation bill the congress initially passed has a deadline (after which reconciliation may not be employed this year) in — May?

  260. 260.

    jonas

    Reminds me of Rand Paul’s effort a few years ago to reach out to AA students at (IIRC) Howard University by explaining to them, as though they were a bit dim, that Abraham Lincoln had been a Republican, and that lots of blacks used to be Republicans, so why aren’t they voting Republican, too?

    It did not go down too well.

  261. 261.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    Oh great… headline over at Politico…

    Nunes: Trump transition members were under surveillance during Obama administration

    Members of the Donald Trump transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under U.S. government surveillance following November’s presidential election, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) told reporters Wednesday.

    Nunes said the surveillance appeared to be legal but that he was concerned because it was not related to the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the election and was widely disseminated across the intelligence community.
    “I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show that the president-elect and his team were, I guess, at least monitored,” Nunes told reporters. “It looks to me like it was all legally collected, but it was essentially a lot of information on the president-elect and his transition team and what they were doing.”

    And I, for one, have ZERO doubts that Nunes and his fellow bottom feeders will try to misrepresent this info in all and any ways they can… is there any chance that Nunes himself has just deliberately leaked classified information?

  262. 262.

    sherparick

    @germy: The forgot the part where the “Ryan’s proposed legislation will result in the financial ruin of millions of working class and middle class families and hundreds of thousands of premature deaths” over the next 10 years.”

  263. 263.

    Matt McIrvin

    I’m pretty sure Trump is quite familiar with Lincoln being a Republican. What’s going on here is the conservative belief that liberals don’t know the Democratic Party used to be the main white-supremacist party, and that when confronted with this the paradox will make them self-destruct with smoke like a computer on Star Trek.

  264. 264.

    The Moar You Know

    So what I would like Mattis to push for is an all-inclusive amount of billions, run out of the DoD if necessary, for climate change research and development.

    @Immanentize: DoD has already been doing this, regardless of party in power, since the 1990s. They have trillions of dollars in coastal land assets, quite a few of them absolutely vital to our nation’s defense, and don’t want to lose them.

  265. 265.

    aimai

    @Miss Bianca: Of course we can say whatever we want. I’m just commenting on the, to me, surprising amount of entitlement I saw being expressed over who got a tingle from johansson and who didn’t. I get that people were responding to what they seemed to feel was an unjustified amount of attention to an actress they don’t like–everyone spoke from their individual perspective. But the totality of the thread felt kind of different to me–a kind of piling on. Its one thing for people to say “I love this actor” or “I find him/her hot” its another to start to slag off on an actor, accuse other people of simply liking them as a kind of sexual aid, or setting up an imaginary competition between them in which one of them is all good/sexy/talented and one not. I commented when schroedinger’s cat added her bit by saying that the only reason people like Johansen is that she is buxom. That seemed…ungenerous.

  269. 269.

    aimai

    @Matt McIrvin: That’s not what is going on. Trump simply has to imagine that he is the smartest person in the room. So whatever he is going to say he has to stop and announce that no one has ever thought it/known it before. The guy probably announces his poops have never been pooped so poopishly before, either, when he walks out of the bathroom. Its a tic. Not a strategy. Its really Trumpian tourettes.

  270. 270.

    Immanentize

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: What? OK, this is the kind of analysis that makes me crazy. TV shows just simply do not mean that much. The weight fans put on them is such a shocking image of their inside brains that we hardly need PET scans.
    I think Zoe Washburne and Kaylee Frye are amazing characters that seem to have nothing to do with this elaborate overlay. But, YMMV.
    It might be time to consider a move away (at least a break?) from your on-line roll playing dudebros.

  271. 271.

    FlipYrWhig

    Maybe Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the Hillary Clinton of TV shows. To defenders, pathbreaking and era-defining. To critics, flawed and… era-defining.

    @Immanentize: @aimai: The Southern/Civil War SF influence… that’s straight out of Edgar Rice Burroughs and John Carter of Mars, right?

  272. 272.

    aimai

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I really agree with this. Much as I love Whedon the subtext of this show was incredibly obvious, I found the super-prostitute thing just creepy, and everything else you’ve pointed to is thematically correct. Once I saw the themes developed I couldn’t watch it anymore at all.

  273. 273.

    Immanentize

    @The Moar You Know: I know — and our ports! But I wish they would just go all in and be open about it, which would change the national discussion. Or are they trying to be sly and not let the other side (whatever that is these days) grok to our super secret planning? Adam??

  274. 274.

    aimai

    @FlipYrWhig: I think aside from the general white man’s burden of it all John Carter of Mars (which I read all of when I was younger, along with Carson of Venus and the one where the guy goes to the center of the earth) has less obvious civil war parallels.

  275. 275.

    Miss Bianca

    @aimai: Well, your mileage may vary, aimai, but as an actress and entertainer and scholar of popular entertainment, who’s had her looks, talent, and lack thereof – to say nothing of her boob size – discussed both behind her back and to her face for any number of years, I have to say…I didn’t see what you apparently saw. And that’s the last I’m going to say about it.

  276. 276.

    The Moar You Know

    Oh, are we bitching about Firefly? Howsabout Wheadon’s shameless ripoff of all of Cowboy Bebop, save for the good plot lines?

  280. 280.

    Immanentize

    @FlipYrWhig:

    straight out of Edgar Rice Burroughs and John Carter of Mars, right?

    That was an overt part of the tale, just like it was in Dances with Wolves. I just didn’t see it in Firefly. PS, I saw John Carter much more as a Victorian tale (empire, conquest, indigenous peoples conquered, etc.) which included a civil war vet rather than a civil war allegory.

  281. 281.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Yup…

    I’m a little afraid this news is going to give them cover they don’t deserve…

    I can just see them cranking up the noise machines over at Fox & Breitbart right now…

    I wonder how long it will take the Cheeto Benito to hit the magic Twitter machine?

  282. 282.

    EBT

    @randy khan: Yeah, and I won’t accuse people of bad wrong fun for liking Buffy. I accept my opinions on Joss and Chrono Trigger, and Zamfir are outside of what the money all says.

  283. 283.

    ruemara

    @Miss Bianca: Farscape is golden forever and Ben Browder deserved more fame & accolades. I watched all of Lexx and while I’m fond of some of it, it wasn’t good in many spots, was highly creepy & misogynistic. But so’s most of my entertainment, I’m a nerd girl

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: The connections you’re drawing are your own. Even if you have 10k friends, that’s a highly limited pool of fans. I have tons of Firefly fans, all hyperliberal bernicrats who saw Firefly as a very liberal show. remember YMMV is a real thing.

  284. 284.

    schrodingers_cat

    @aimai: I am not the audience Hollywood is targeting. I can’t remember the last Hollywood movie I have seen, that has really appealed to me. I am also totally bored with the comic book superhero genre. Hollywood is churning out repetitive and boring fare. YMMV.
    Hindi movies went through a similar dead period in the 80s and 90s.
    BTW I thought of you when I saw the trailer for Poorna, the youngest girl to climb Mt. Everest.
    No subtitles for the trailer, but it is the story of a young adivasi girl who has a talent for climbing. She goes on to climb the tallest mountain in the world. The tagline is, girls can do anything.

  285. 285.

    The Moar You Know

    But I wish they would just go all in and be open about it, which would change the national discussion. Or are they trying to be sly and not let the other side (whatever that is these days) grok to our super secret planning? Adam??

    @Immanentize: Not Adam but kind of in the same line of work. They have been all open about it. You can download most of it from the DoD, it’s all public.

    That you have not heard about it is due to a quite deliberate choice on the part of the media to simply not cover it.

  286. 286.

    Immanentize

    @aimai: My friend and colleague in Miami (AA gay man who died of AIDS during the bad years) wrote the same line of analysis for Star Trek TOS. I told him then that I also thought he was making the show do too much heavy lifting. What he saw was there, I just don’t think it was carefully planned and scripted.

  288. 288.

    Mike in DC

    Can we get a thread about the Devin Nunes shitshow/obstruction of justice exhibition?

  290. 290.

    Immanentize

    @The Moar You Know: Thank you — I am thinking of an effort like the moon shot in the sixties. Tremendous effort of the civil scientific and engineering community financed and directed in large part by the military. And look at all the cool stuff we got from that!

    ETA Like SpaceFood Sticks!

  294. 294.

    TenguPhule

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Role play with a lot of Firefly fans in an on line game and I hear a lot about it

    Well there’s your problem right there.

    Those of us with a sense of black humor enjoy a show where the lead will kick the lead mook into a running engine rather then go through the whole “spared him only for him to come back for revenge” thing.

  297. 297.

    Major Major Major Major

    @EBT: Off the top of my head, an existentialist black bounty hunter features prominently in the episode Whedon considered to be his best work, and I always thought Zoe was half-black (the actress is Afro-Latino).

  298. 298.

    TenguPhule

    @The Moar You Know: But without the cool guns and space battles. And catgirls. And samurai girls. And Dragon guys. And other assorted aliens and robots. And creepy arms dealer.

    Say, what was your point again?

  299. 299.

    TriassicSands

    I’m watching the Gorsuch hearing.

    He’s creepy. And slippery. And annoying.

  301. 301.

    Immanentize

    @EBT: Who said different? I just don’t believe — at all — that every little thing has the weight people like to put on it that maps on their own consciousness. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

  303. 303.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: There’s always a chance it could blow up in their faces, especially if it turns out the real, legally approved targets of the surveillance were indeed Russian mobsters/spy types and the surveillance just happened to catch Trumpsters because they were in such constant contact…

    I wonder if Nunes thought this thru before shooting his mouth off?

  304. 304.

    randy khan

    @EBT:

    That works for me.

    I am genuinely interested in your thoughts on what was wrong about the portrayal of Willow and Tara, though. Like I said, as a straight white guy there’s plenty I’m likely to have missed.

  305. 305.

    SFAW

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Is it possible that the man who is possibly the stupidest, and definitely the most incurious, president ever didn’t know a basic fact?

    If by “A basic fact” you mean “any basic facts.” As I’ve said here more than once, he has not intentionally told the truth since he began his campaign.

  306. 306.

    JMG

    @Thru the Looking Glass…: He’s not real bright. I wonder if he fell for a security trap. Classified Info given to him that he then passes on to the White House and makes public! FBI, NSA and CIA can then go to DNI Coats and say House committee is compromised and we’ll give them no more information. Nunes is today one of the leakers he said on Monday should be prosecuted. Equivocal position.

  308. 308.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @JMG:

    Nunes is today one of the leakers he said on Monday should be prosecuted. Equivocal position.

    Right… that’s what I was wondering about… in his zeal to Blame the Other Side™ did Nunes himself deliberately leak classified information?

    I’m guessing he’s using some sort of ‘Well, they did it to us, so I’ll do it to them’/grade school reasoning here… it will be interesting to see what comes of this, and will it ultimately backfire on Nunes?

  310. 310.

    Millard Filmore

    @JMG:

    FBI, NSA and CIA can then go to DNI Coats and say House committee is compromised and we’ll give them no more information.

    Wouldn’t that grind the House investigation to a halt? Sounds like a good excuse to scream for a special prosecutor.

  311. 311.

    lollipopguild

    @Immanentize: TANG! Drank it at breakfast for years when I was a kid. Lots of things were sold as coming from the space program whether they did or not.

  312. 312.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I’ll give another plug for Moonlight, which justly won the Best Picture Oscar this year. I went in without knowing much of the plot and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was not just a love story, but one with an ultimately hopeful and uplifting ending. Usually Hollywood love stories have sad or tragic endings (like Casablanca or Love Story), so it was nice to see an exception.

  313. 313.

    M31

    @Ian G.:

    And what did Charles Sumner get for his pains? Nearly beaten to death on the floor of the Senate by a DEMOCRAT! See? Republics are always the victims!

  314. 314.

    Yarrow

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I am also totally bored with the comic book superhero genre.

    Oh, yes. This. Totally agree. Seems like every other move is a superhero movie of some sort. And a few years ago it hit TV shows as well, at least for network fare. I saw a commercial for some superhero-related TV show about protecting people from superhero weapons damage or something. It caught my eye because Danny Pudi, who played Abed on “Community” is on it and I really liked him on that. But I’m so over superhero stuff I can’t watch it.

  315. 315.

    M31

    lol I was going to edit to change “Republics are always the victims!” to “Republicans” but it’s better just to leave it :-(

  317. 317.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, if we’re going to discuss creepy, wrongheaded Whedon shows, I’m pretty sure “Dollhouse” takes the prize hands-down.

  324. 324.

    Gravenstone

    Haven’t read the comments yet, but …

    Sweet Jumping Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a Crutch!!

    What the everloving hell is wrong with this imbecile? Correct answer, what isn’t?

  325. 325.

    Gravenstone

    Oh, and relevant to the thread title, first time I saw the phrase and thus with whom I will always associate it – Colossus in some 1980’s issue of Uncanny X-Men.

  326. 326.

    HRA

    “My God”!, Adam. No, I did not have to google it.

    Re:Nunes -He certain was very nervous giving his opening statement yesterday and I did wonder why. My thanks to Yarrow and others for the answer.

  330. 330.

    tobie

    Nunes went to the press before he even talked to Adam Schiff, the ranking member of his committee. The abuse of power, the disregard for proper procedure, the blatant disrespect for a colleague, the possible violation of law…all this is staggering.

  333. 333.

    jimmiraybob

    Wow, that was a pretty thrilling clip. She was sooo close to falling out a 4th floor window while moving a hot tube. Close call.

  334. 334.

    Iowa Old Lady

    My rep, Blum, says he’ll vote no on Trump Care. He’s a Freedom Caucus member so I’m sure it’s for the wrong reasons, but I’ll take what I can get.

  335. 335.

    Barbara

    @Yarrow: Maybe I am being excessively prissy, but given the well-known propensity for Russian business to be generally associated with Russian mobsters and Russian spying apparatus, it is my belief that no individual with any rank elected or unelected in the USG should have active Russian business ties. Russia’s GDP is smaller than that of Italy and it has been hostile to foreign business interests for a long time. If someone comes up to you as a USG official and offers you the opportunity to do business with a Russian company, there is a large chance there is a non-business related agenda in play.

  336. 336.

    Miss Bianca

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’m pretty sure Trump is quite familiar with Lincoln being a Republican. What’s going on here is the conservative belief that liberals don’t know the Democratic Party used to be the main white-supremacist party, and that when confronted with this the paradox will make them self-destruct with smoke like a computer on Star Trek.

    For some reason, I missed this comment on the way down and this is just making me giggle so hard right now…

  337. 337.

    Barbara

    @tobie: The fear, the flopsweat, the dawning realization that his business ties could be with people who were under surveillance for spying or organized crime . . .

  339. 339.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Mnemosyne: I really enjoyed the creepiness factor! Even MrsFromOhio settled in to watch it, and she rarely tolerates my viewing choices. The psuedo-post-apocalyptic ending was a little confusing, but really cool sci-fi. And how many of the actors showed up in other places? Absolutely adored Amy Acker as Root in Person of Interest.

  341. 341.

    tomtofa

    @Mike in DC:

    Us Weekly has a story on Melania that Dolt 45 is not going to like. Summary: she’s miserable, can’t stand him, resents him for forcing this lifestyle on her, and they never spend the night together and sleep in separate beds, often separate rooms.

    White House Easter egg hunt is going to be fun this year.

  343. 343.

    danielx

    @tomtofa:

    she’s miserable, can’t stand him, resents him for forcing this lifestyle on her, and they never spend the night together and sleep in separate beds, often separate rooms.

    Can’t blame her a bit.

  344. 344.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Barbara:

    … with people who were under surveillance for spying or organized crime . . .

    Why does it have to be one or the other… if it was surveillance on Russians, there’s a really good chance it was both… spying AND organized crime…

  345. 345.

    aimai

    @Immanentize: I’m not talking about authorial intent and I’m not making the show do any “heavy lifting.” I don’t think Whedon is doing anything covert: he chose to make a western, in space, and tediously mapped it to actual western/drought style locations. In addition, he wholesale dropped imagery and aesthetics that we associate with lost cause/noble rebels into the show. I get that lots of liberal liked it and there were witty lines and all that. I just found the call back to swaggering rebel independence too much for me along with the attacks on order/centralized government. I’m as against tyranny as the next person and all the bad things that were wrapped up in the central government enemy of the show. But when you see how many of our own citizens mistake fantasy for reality and have legitimized and mythologized the post reconstruction southern war on the federal government–well, I query the utility of this perspective.

    IF we are talking about personal preference–I preferred BSG because that was groundbreaking and considered really difficult things like polytheism vs monotheism, militarism vs government, etc…etc…etc… I just found firefly tedious.

  347. 347.

    tobie

    I thought the stench of fear yesterday was because of what the hearing exposed about Trump. I guess Nunes has some personal things to be worried about too. Didn’t catch that angle.

  348. 348.

    schrodingers_cat

    @aimai: I don’t think ScarJo is only popular because she is buxom. She is obviously talented and good at her job. Her physical appearance definitely adds to the popularity. Or do you disagree.

  352. 352.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @danielx:

    Summary: she’s miserable, can’t stand him, resents him for forcing this lifestyle on her

    I think that sums it up nicely for many of us.

  354. 354.

    bemused

    @Mnemosyne:

    More than half-hypnotized, I think they act like they’ve been indoctrinated into a cult. Willing participants but several decades of wingnut propaganda made them feel validated and special.

  355. 355.

    Brachiator

    @tomtofa:

    Us Weekly has a story on Melania that Dolt 45 is not going to like. Summary: she’s miserable, can’t stand him, resents him for forcing this lifestyle on her, and they never spend the night together and sleep in separate beds, often separate rooms.

    White House Easter egg hunt is going to be fun this year.

    Especially when Trump’s daughter-wife Ivanka pops up in the Rose Garden leading kids on an egg hunt.

  358. 358.

    Captain C

    @TenguPhule:

    Our domestic politics were better then where we are now.

    Um, yeah, if you don’t count Jim Crow, women not being guaranteed the right to vote, the deplorable state of labor relations, and so forth.

  359. 359.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    Well…

    This didn’t take long…

    Schiff questions if Nunes is acting as ‘surrogate of the White House

    *

    Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, questioned on Wednesday whether the panel’s Republican chairman, Devin Nunes, is acting as a “surrogate of the White House.”

    Earlier on Wednesday, in what was apparently a surprise to his fellow committee members, Nunes held a news conference and then briefed President Donald Trump on what he said was evidence that members of Trump’s transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under U.S. government surveillance following November’s presidential election.

    At his own news conference later that afternoon, Schiff sharply criticized Nunes, given that his committee is in the middle of an active investigation that includes the question of whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia’s suspected attempts to meddle in last year’s election.

    *link goes to Politico

  361. 361.

    TenguPhule

    @Captain C:

    Um, yeah, if you don’t count Jim Crow, women not being guaranteed the right to vote, the deplorable state of labor relations, and so forth.

    Politics, not policies.

    Even in light of gross inequities to women and non-whites and the literal battles between capitalists and labor, we as a nation still pulled together for WW I as Americans.

    Look at us now.

  363. 363.

    Southern Beale

    I love that Trump said this literally one week after visiting The Hermitage in Nashville TN … home to the founder of the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson.

    I’m guessing he didn’t know that.

  364. 364.

    Miss Bianca

    @Ksmiami:

    but they should be hung. a girl can dream…

    Err…technically, I think, the term you want here is “hanged”. When a girl dreams of men being “hung”, it usually refers to something a bit different.

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