Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are complicated. Love is not.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

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

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

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

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Second rate reporter says what?

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

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

A consequence of cucumbers

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

You are here: Home / Politics / Glibertarianism / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Staunch in Opposition (to Reality)

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Staunch in Opposition (to Reality)

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For all the chaos of Lord Smallgloves’ mis-administration, some things remain eternal. The sun rises in the east; the tides go in and out; and Megan McArdle is proudly, aggressively stupid on the internet:

… After years of failing at the grown-up business of passing legislation, small wonder the Democrats would like to let the Republicans have a try at being the adults in the room. In politics, saying “no” is a great deal of fun…

At the moment, of course, the empty gesture of blocking Gorsuch is delighting many on the left, who finally feel like their party has grown a spine. If this follows the pattern that evolved on the right, however, that feeling will turn out to be increasingly costly…

Democrats desperately need to become competitive again outside of a handful of urban agglomerations, not just because their rural failures cost them the presidency, but also because of all the other offices they’ve lost at every level of government below the White House. But making themselves more competitive is probably going to require backing away from an immigration position that was skirting dangerously close to “open borders,” and placing less focus on identity politics. If they try to do this, their base will (correctly) perceive themselves losing power and status in the party, and they will be incandescent. Their first priority will be extracting signals of loyalty to themselves, not winning elections … and if the Republican experience is any guide, they may well get what they want.

Bless her cold, self-satisfied, shrunken heart.

Apart from rolling our eyes, what’s on the agenda for the day?

Reader Interactions

216Comments

  2. 2.

    Immanentize

    Very very very few voters care — or even know — who Gorsuch is. I expect so little from McArdle and she never disappoints.

  4. 4.

    bystander

    Reading Haberman egging Trump on to elaborate on his lies about Rice. Haberman is such a hack she can’t resist helping him gin up some b/s story.

  6. 6.

    NorthLeft12

    Lemmee see now, Repubs block every progressive/positive idea in sight, pass meaningless resolutions, and encourage meanness, ignorance, prejudice, and hate, then get elected to control of virtually every level of government.

    Now, is McArdle warning Dems from this path, or pointing it out to them?

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A Missouri senator is threatening to derail a bid to boost taxes for the St. Louis Zoo because of the city’s decision to ban employers and landlords from discriminating against women who have had an abortion.

    Sen. Bob Onder, R-Lake Saint Louis, linked the two issues in a lengthy debate on the Senate floor Wednesday, saying he was wary of supporting a push to tax residents in counties surrounding St. Louis when the city has made itself what he calls an “abortion sanctuary city.”

    Under an amendment filed to the zoo tax proposal, Onder said the zoo should have to change its name to “The Midwest Abortion Sanctuary City Zoological Park.”

    “It’s beautiful,” Onder said of his proposed name change. “Hey, you come to us asking for the tax authorization, we might put some conditions on it, okay?”

    I kind of like that name, and while we’re at it we can rename Lake St. Louis the “Idiot Freeloaders Capitol of Misery” because they take state and federal money, right?

  9. 9.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Under an amendment filed to the zoo tax proposal, Onder said the zoo should have to change its name to “The Midwest Abortion Sanctuary City Zoological Park.”

    That would stop me from taking the money.

  10. 10.

    satby

    I’m starting to think we should offer to partition the country. Give the red state die hards a few states as their own country, pay for relocation of all citizens to either the remaining U.S. or the Independent Red States of America over a period of 6 months or a year or so, and then cut them loose. Let them live under the rules they want, and let us fix what they’ve screwed up and move on.

  14. 14.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    On the local news here in LA, they had a story about a young Asian woman who was going up to the local mountains with her friends for the weekend. So as they were headed up there, she called to confirm their accommodations via AirBnB. The folk rent this place out told them the reservation was cancelled since she’s Asian and noted that it’s OK because of Trump.

  15. 15.

    kindness

    Megan had begun to see a reality I see lately with her realizing TrumpCo are simple grifters. I guess this is a not so much piece. I have to wonder what it is that drives editors to want to publish such obvious offal. I don’t get it.

  18. 18.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @satby: The red states would never do it because they get off on watching everybody else suffer. That’s their sick kink. It’s what gives their mean ugly empty lives meaning.

  19. 19.

    Woodrowfan

    @OzarkHillbilly: the yahoos from rural Virginia that rule us from Richmond love to whine about “The Peoples’ Republic of Arlington”, or Fairfax, etc. But dear sweet Jesus do they love our tax dollars.

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: There is the alternative proposal of charging everyone not living in the city (currently only city residents pay taxes that support the zoo, while residents from the surrounding counties pay zero,zip,nada,nothing) an admission fee, (the Zoo is currently free) but somehow or other I suspect Republicans will then complain how only THEY have to pay to see the Zoo and how those “urban” people are just free loaders.

  25. 25.

    debbie

    @satby:

    Yes. Build a huge, beautiful wall all the way around it. Lock them in there without healthcare, without protection from banks and predatory businesses, but all the bullets they want. Let them fight it out with each other.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I suspect Republicans will then complain how only THEY have to pay to see the Zoo and how those “urban” people are just free loaders.

    Stop it with your identity politics.

  32. 32.

    Patricia Kayden

    If this follows the pattern that evolved on the right, however, that feeling will turn out to be increasingly costly…

    Because being obstructionist extremists really hurt the GOP, right?

  33. 33.

    satby

    @debbie: Everything above and below Oklahoma. Give “flyover country” real meaning. No walls though, we’re going to have refugees coming over the borders constantly once they start to take their own medicine.

  39. 39.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Waited to say good morning til you got here!?
    @debbie: I remember you saying snow was predicted by Friday around here, and I woke up to it today. You live in the Midwest too?

  40. 40.

    Patricia Kayden

    Isn’t it amazing that McArdle could claim that Democrats need to step away from identity politics while Steve King talks about “white babies” not being replaceable by immigrants? When hasn’t the modern Republican Party not been about kicking down those Black welfare queens and bucks? When has it not been about using Brown people to pick food, clean houses but refusing to create a path for them to become citizens?

    When have Republicans not been about White identity politics?

  43. 43.

    satby

    @Patricia Kayden: Their main mode of communication is projection. Everything, every single thing, that they say Democrats do or should do, every accusation, is a projection of what Republicans and conservatives actually do or are in the process of doing.

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    @satby:

    I’m starting to think we should offer to partition the country. Give the red state die hards a few states as their own country, pay for relocation of all citizens to either the remaining U.S. or the Independent Red States of America over a period of 6 months or a year or so, and then cut them loose. Let them live under the rules they want, and let us fix what they’ve screwed up and move on.

    That’s effectively where we’re at, with the blue coastal regions (and large cities everywhere) serving as “Productive and Healthy America”, and the rest serving as “Unproductive and Unhealthy America”. Wasn’t it something like Hillz’ 15-20% of counties won produced 65% of the nation’s GDP?

    Anyway, we need to fix our gerrymandered representation (Congress and the Electoral College) and big-money campaign system (overturn CU). Those have to be among the Dems’ strategic and moral imperatives from now ’til…well, ’til they’re fixed.

  49. 49.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Baud: True, but sometimes you just can’t help yourself. The stupidity burns and you have to respond. We’re not all as cool and collected as Presidential Candidate Baud 2020.

  52. 52.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Baud: Assuming AirBNB is like its sharing economy counterpart Uber, being exempt from the rules that govern the non-cyber providers of the same service is kind of the whole business model.

  53. 53.

    Kay

    No one likes conservative health care ideas. They’re not popular. The least popular parts of Obamacare are the conservative parts- they’re also the sections that don’t really work.

    Democrats should go further- rid Obamacare of all the shit conservative Democrats inserted and Obamacare will go from the current 55% approval to 75%.

    John Kasich agrees with me. That man adores Medicaid. He’s a convert! You could literally build an ad around John Kasich loving Medicaid. Kasich and Sherrod Brown should go out together and fight Trumpcare. It would be a fun test of the “bipartisan” fetish in pundits. See if they back a liberal program that both Parties support.

  55. 55.

    Sunny Raines

    Democrats desperately need to become competitive again outside of a handful of urban agglomerations

    another POS construct. Those ” handful of urban agglomerations” are where THE VAST MAJORITY of Americans live and were it not for a failed political system favoring land over people, republicans would be nothing but small talk in acceptable social circles as the immoral pestilence of humanity that they are. But yea, Democrats need to reach out to barren cow dung pastures of red republican America, because being masters of cow dung is what America is all about.

  58. 58.

    Sheila in NC

    @satby: Preach. The Cheeto Benito is the most obvious example (of COURSE Susan Rice is a criminal, according to him, although an outside observer notes that the real criminals are the ones she was trying to find out about, etc.) And all the charges of voter fraud. Basically, any time an R accuses a D of something, it’s a good bet the R’s are already doing it.

  59. 59.

    Kay (not the front pager)

    I’m going to have to come back later to read the comments. I just had to hop down here and say, I am so tired of this:

    Democrats … placing less focus on identity politics.

    It is Republicans who push identity politics. They only embrase White, Christian, rural voters. This tribal identity is the key, almost only criterion for Republicans. No one else is welcome. So spare me the Democratic identity politics shibboleth.

  60. 60.

    Gindy51

    @Kay: Then Kasich primaries trump (or Pence or whoever survives the next few months) and is up against whoever the DEMs want to run in 2020. I can easily see President Kasich in our future (if we survive that long).

  61. 61.

    efgoldman

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    red states would never do it because they get off on watching everybody else suffer. That’s their sick kink.

    And, while the rubes and flying monkeys have no damned idea at all, at the state houses they know which direction all that sweet federal money flows.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    @Kay (not the front pager):

    They only embrase White, Christian, rural voters.

    In Village speak, those people are simply referred to as “voters.” Alternatively, “Americans.” Since every other person who votes needs a qualifier (black, woman, gay, etc.), it’s really only the Dems who are practicing identity politics.

  65. 65.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Kay (not the front pager): That’s what jumped out at me as well. I went to the link to post a comment about how Republicans are the party of White identity politics. Who the hell are they fooling with their claim that Democrats are improperly obsessed with identity politics? What they really mean is that Democrats should kick minority voters to the curb in a vain attempt to get racist votes. Not going to happen.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @rikyrah: As you well know, when woman have abortions, they are given a “I aborted” sticker (like the “I voted” stickers you get when you vote). Which these woman wear proudly, because they are evil. (As are all women. /Mike Pence).

  67. 67.

    efgoldman

    @Kay:

    You could literally build an ad around John Kasich loving Medicaid.

    And it would have the added benefit of croaking any chance at all he’d have for the RWNJ nomination in 2020.

  68. 68.

    efgoldman

    @Baud:

    when woman have abortions, they are given a “I aborted” sticker (like the “I voted” stickers you get when you vote).

    Not a big, scarlet “A”?

  69. 69.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: The mandated by law scarlet “A” tattooed on their foreheads when they had their abortions. Or maybe it will be their generally slu++y behavior.

  71. 71.

    Another Scott

    @Lurking Canadian: Yeah.

    You know their lawyers’ argument will be something like: “We’re a company valued at $30B, but we’re not responsible for anything that anyone who uses our app does. They’re ‘independent’ (even though they use our name and follow all our rules and we make our money from them). So, suck it.”

    :-/

    All these “sharing” and “gig economy” apps/systems have never passed the smell test for me. If they were just about “sharing”, then the companies wouldn’t be worth billions of dollars. They’re not “sharing”. They’re huge businesses, and they should be subject to all of the rules and protections that everyone else in public accommodations, public transport, etc., has to follow.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  72. 72.

    hueyplong

    Give them every state traversed by the Keystone pipeline and then just sit back and watch their Confederate currency go worthless as they fail to figure out how to fund a military capable of fighting the United States.

  73. 73.

    Another Scott

    @Gindy51: Stop trying to cheer me up. ;-p

    As EFG says above, it’s hard to imagine Kasich winning the nomination of the GOP as it exists today. He didn’t go anywhere the last cycle playing the “sensible moderate”, it’s hard to see them coming to their senses and nominating him after they implode due to Trump, either.

    The GOP has too many rich people who want a puppet. I don’t think the big money guys would get behind him either, if they see someone better.

    But things will eventually change for them. How soon is anyone’s guess.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  75. 75.

    liberalandlovingit!

    @Sunny Raines:
    We’re not desperate, we’re biding our time. The rural’s need to feel the pain of don the con et al, then perhaps- lessons learned. Unless they’re opiated.
    hey hillbilly’s- i got an elegy for ya- move to where the jobs are! We have AA & NA in the cities. Go green and get smart, ffs. Time’s short. And if not, and there’s any justice in the US of A- Drumpfh and Christie will be swept out into a sea of their own making, next hurricane- bu’bye assholes, don’t let the roller-coaster off-shore hit ya on the way out.

  76. 76.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Heh:
    In this case, we’re talking about a President with historically low job approval ratings who has absolutely no experience in dealing with foreign affairs beyond the women he’s dated. -D. Mataconis

  77. 77.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    That article is just hilarious, Trump is a disaster, likely facing impeachment, the Republican policies, such as they are, poll badly even among their own voters and this twit thinks the Dems should save them. If she is serious, that’s another example this is really about Old Stupid People.

  78. 78.

    Jeffro

    @Gindy51:

    Then Kasich primaries trump (or Pence or whoever survives the next few months) and is up against whoever the DEMs want to run in 2020. I can easily see President Kasich in our future (if we survive that long).

    I’m not seeing how a GOP primary challenge to Trump (or Pence) doesn’t result in an all-out GOP civil war. Pretty easy Dem pickup at that point.

  80. 80.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    It’s somewhat off topic, but this being an open thread I guess nothing is really off topic, but I’m wondering if lil Marco is angling to be the mavericky maverick that replaces maverick John McCain. I have no use for Rubio but if the Republicans are starting to savage Trump already (even if it’s just the mavericky ones) it’s a sign that things aren’t going well. He’s blaming Trump for the Syrian chemical weapon attack.

  81. 81.

    Jeffro

    One thing that I’m sure no one in the media will notice or report: the Republican Tea Party is loaded with racist, sexist, anti-science, pro-billionaire bullshit. Any Democratic “Party of No” would be standing for equal rights, equal pay, green energy, acting to mitigate climate change, and provide benefits to the majority of the working families in this country. That’s not dragging the party any further left than it is now – it’s just reinforcing what Dems already stand for.

  82. 82.

    msdc

    @Sunny Raines:

    Those ” handful of urban agglomerations” are where THE VAST MAJORITY of Americans live and were it not for a failed political system favoring land over people…

    You go to war with the electoral system you have, not the electoral system you wish you had.

  83. 83.

    S-Curve

    “They will be incandescent.”

    Come on, McMegan, we’re the left. We’ll be solar LED. We took away your freedom bulbs, remember?

  84. 84.

    sigaba

    @OzarkHillbilly: Does this mean we can start referring to Alabama and Tennessee as “Anti-Union sanctuaries” and Charlotte as a “bathroom bully sanctuary city”?

    If a few Republicans want to smash States Rights and localism on the anvil of sanctuary cities then I guess go right ahead.

  85. 85.

    Ian

    @Jeffro:
    I thought the 2016 primary would result in all out republican civil war. Turns out they value tribal loyalty more than principle.

  86. 86.

    efgoldman

    @Another Scott:

    it’s hard to imagine Kasich winning the nomination of the GOP as it exists today. He didn’t go anywhere the last cycle playing the “sensible moderate

    I think their next nominee depends on how and when Tangerine Tantrum (he won’t be it again) leaves office.
    If he leaves horizontally, either dead or obviously disabled (stroke, etc) it leaves the racist core dispirited and without a “fuck you” champion around whom to coalesce (Dense ain’t it). They will splinter in the primaries (remember that Apricot Asswipe never got a majority) among various “sensible” contenders, or stay home.
    If he is seen (or sees himself) as being “pushed” out, by impeachment, 25th amendment, or resignation, he will go into a rage/twitlergasm, he’ll keep giving speeches and holding rallies; he’ll keep bleating abut “disloyalty” and “plots” and “crimes”, as he does now, with no evidence at all. Since it can’t/won’t happen without at least some of his own party’s connivance, that’s who he’ll be yelling about most. His mouth breather racist base will get all worked up; at least some of them will follow his instructions, whatever they are, and the rest will abandon the party, at least temporarily.

  88. 88.

    NonStopRocka

    Talk about false equivalency. Shorter McArdle: see what happened to the rethuglicans when they empowered the tea party?

    Um, except for the fact that the majority of voters want “extreme” liberal policies. Otherwise, same thing! *McArdle sticks out tongue, blows raspberry*

  90. 90.

    SFAW

    @satby:

    I’m starting to think we should offer to partition the country.

    Some of us — well, me — have been saying for a while that we need to rename Nuevo Aztlan (a/k/a Texas), and call it “Dumbfuckistan.” Turn Austin into a latter-day West Berlin, but wall off the rest of the state from America. Offer all sorts of US tax credits for the RWNJ base to relocate to Dumbfuckistan. Provide feign aid in the form of automatic weapons, and just enough bullets to get the job done (IYKWIMAITYD), but not enough to be a credible threat to the (slightly smaller) USofA.

    Forced relocation of ZEGS, Turtle, and the rest of their suckling-from-the-the-Government-teat-while-trying-to-destroy-the-government ilk. Let them run their own banana republic, instead of allowing them to destroy America.

    As fount-of-wisdom-commenter efgoldman says: Fuckem

  91. 91.

    rikyrah

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    @satby: The red states would never do it because they get off on watching everybody else suffer. That’s their sick kink. It’s what gives their mean ugly empty lives meaning.

    Also, they know they are the moocher states. They can’t pay for themselves.

  92. 92.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    The red states would never do it because they get off on watching everybody else suffer. That’s their sick kink. It’s what gives their mean ugly empty lives meaning.

    More likely they would all for it up until the second it got clear it would be the end of White Socialism. Just look how the hicks are spinning on immigration now they see that no Mexicans means no farm hands.

  93. 93.

    rikyrah

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    On the local news here in LA, they had a story about a young Asian woman who was going up to the local mountains with her friends for the weekend. So as they were headed up there, she called to confirm their accommodations via AirBnB. The folk rent this place out told them the reservation was cancelled since she’s Asian and noted that it’s OK because of Trump.

    I hope that she took to social media to blast them.
    And, Air BnB.

  94. 94.

    Barbara

    @satby: Megan McArdle is a trust fund baby slumming as a journalist. That she can possibly write such tripe is a testament to how thick privilege can make one’s skin. Seriously, Democrats say no to repealing arguably the most important legislative achievement of the last 50 years, given how many have tried before them and failed, and they are the party of no. Republicans say no day in and day out and McArdle just thinks that’s the way of the world. She is, truly, an idiot who has been given a passable literary veneer by elite schools. There is no actual thought lying beneath, just a regurgitation of all the class markings that have been stamped on her to the bone. I find it grating to read more than two paragraphs of McArdle.

  95. 95.

    rikyrah

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Isn’t it amazing that McArdle could claim that Democrats need to step away from identity politics while Steve King talks about “white babies” not being replaceable by immigrants? When hasn’t the modern Republican Party not been about kicking down those Black welfare queens and bucks? When has it not been about using Brown people to pick food, clean houses but refusing to create a path for them to become citizens?

    When have Republicans not been about White identity politics?

    So.much.TRUTH!!!

  97. 97.

    rikyrah

    Idiots like McArdle REALLY believe that the Democrats are supposed to help the GOP dismantle Obamacare?

    If you don’t get THE FUCK outta here.

    I said from the word go that the Dems need to be the Party of No.

    Because, what the GOP believes in and wants to do – IS THE POLAR OPPOSITE OF HOW DEMOCRATS WANT TO LIVE.

    What are we supposed to help with?

    The destruction of Obamacare?
    The turning of Medicare into a voucher program?
    Privatizing Social Security?
    The Muslim ban?

    Really? Seriously? Just where do you see areas of compromise?

    There is no middle ground.

    And, that’s ok with me.

  98. 98.

    Chyron HR

    Remember when we were told that Clinton practically forced the media to ignore Trump’s scandals in favor of credulously repeating ridiculous Republican talking points about her “e-mail crimes” because she was so scheming and secretive and untrustworthy?

    Funny how they’re doing the exact same thing with Rice now. I guess she must have given a speech to Goldman Sachs also, too.

  99. 99.

    Jeffro

    @Ian:

    I thought the 2016 primary would result in all out republican civil war. Turns out they value tribal loyalty more than principle.

    True, true. But then again they had the threat of History’s Greatest Monster taking office, and the promise of dismantling Obama’s legacy, to unify them. Faced with a sure loss if Trump heads the ticket in 2020…what will happen? Who will step up?

    Kasich and Sasse are clearly best positioned. I guess it’s basically up to the Kochs and Mercers – if they decide Trump’s toast (assuming he’s even still in office), perhaps they’ll throw their bucks and their network behind a challenger.

    Fun times!

  100. 100.

    rikyrah

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    @Lurking Canadian: AirBnB said they dropped that provider, the reporter(who’s also an Asian woman) for the station tried to call the provider and they didn’t want to comment.

    Good for them. Put those muthaphuckas on blast.

  101. 101.

    Betty Cracker

    Hello, disgruntled friends of the blog! I’ve missed y’all. I’ve been on a sad and unexpected road trip due to the death of a friend, and just returned home last night. I see Trump is still a gigantic douchebag spraying unspeakable greed, incompetence and chaos on the planet. So nothing much has changed in that quarter, anyway. Le sigh.

  103. 103.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Isn’t this a constant theme with McArdle; the Democrats should save the GOP from their own failures?

  104. 104.

    rikyrah

    Democrats desperately need to become competitive again outside of a handful of urban agglomerations

    Once again, you moron…

    Hillary won 3 MILLION MORE VOTES

  107. 107.

    Jeffro

    @Humboldtblue: 15% of the counties, 65% of the GDP. Amazing.

    Along with everything else, we really do need to fight the hard fights on ending gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and Citizens United. All the GOTV in the world won’t help if we stay stuck in our current districts and let billionaires keep directing our government.

  108. 108.

    Chris

    @hueyplong:

    Give them every state traversed by the Keystone pipeline and then just sit back and watch their Confederate currency go worthless as they fail to figure out how to fund a military capable of fighting the United States.

    Good Lord, I don’t want to fight them. They can just go away.

  112. 112.

    Barbara

    @rikyrah: McArdle is well insulated from whatever happens to the ACA and just about every other social legislation. For her, politics is like a game, like Fantasy Baseball, where you put together combinations that only exist in your brain and where there is no meaningful outcome to speak of. Oh gee, it turned out I had the best pitchers but next time I need to remember to choose a few more offensive players . . . . blah blah blah. Nothing she says matters.

  114. 114.

    ruemara

    @Another Scott: actually, no. AirBnB has strict discrimination rules. And sharing economy companies like Über and Lyft cannot opt out of nondiscrimination laws.

    Those people just got themselves a mess of trouble for a moment’s prejudice.

    I can’t comment on McArdle, since she’s beneath the level of intellect required to be noticed. Started my morning by yelling at a Berniebro male acquaintance sharing Milo Yannopolis meme about how whitewashing is ok because the Japanese were cool with Ghost in the Shell. I don’t understand how white male liberal cluelessness is just that thick a layer that you can be so tone fucking deaf but this is the 4th time I’ve called him out for being upset a white comic character is now played by a non-white person but thinking whitewashing is totes cools. Then another acquaintance was wondering why I was not willing to hear out Rachael Dolezal about being transracial. 6:15 am & I’m already in fuckery overload.

  116. 116.

    Barbara

    @Jeffro: I would argue that what you are seeing right now with the failure to pass Paul Ryan’s gift to wealthy people masquerading as ACA repeal reflects Republican Civil War, except that the combatants are too scared to say what they really believe.

  118. 118.

    satby

    @Chris:

    Good Lord, I don’t want to fight them. They can just go away.

    My point exactly. And once a lot of the zombies have to live under the rules they think they want, they’ll be running back over the border to us.
    Though we’re going to apply extreme vetting; need to make sure we aren’t letting in any white power terrorists.

  119. 119.

    Barbara

    @rikyrah: Air BnB will drop people who do this, that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that many people do this in far subtler ways, like refusing to be available for people whose names they associate with ethnic groups they don’t want to rent to. There are ways to avoid this but they involve doing things that Air BnB doesn’t really want to force their “hosts” to do.

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    Trump faces foreign policy tests he doesn’t know how to pass
    04/06/17 08:00 AM
    By Steve Benen
    At a White House press conference yesterday alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah, Donald Trump was asked about Iranian support for the Syrian regime. The president responded by complaining about the Iran nuclear deal, which in context, didn’t make any sense. At the same event, asked about his administration’s plans for U.S. policy towards Syria, Trump’s answer was even stranger.

    “I don’t have to have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go the same way,” he said. “I don’t change. Well, I do change.”

    Soon after, BuzzFeed reported that officials in Trump’s Defense Department “were left confused” by what, exactly, the president intends to do.

    [T]hree defense officials told BuzzFeed News they cannot begin to craft a military response, if that is what Trump wants, without a clear understanding of what the president wants to see happen in Syria. Does he only want the Assad regime to stop using chemical weapons? Does he want regime change? Is he seeking a negotiated settlement? Or were Trump’s comments simply rhetoric?

    It’s one thing when you and I have no idea what Trump’s intentions are, but as Rachel explained on the show last night, when officials in his own administration can’t figure out what their boss wants to do, there’s a much larger problem.

  122. 122.

    Humboldtblue

    Oh, and you learned and worldly motherfuckers can probably help me here — I am not all that familiar with Vietnamese cuisine and I am meeting a buddy for lunch today at Pho Thien Long. I checked out the menu and looks like there are three dozen items I would really like to try.

    Do yinz have any suggestions on dishes you like (this won’t be a curry lunch, fry or Pho most likely)? I’m a big savory guy, not much of a sweet tooth and can go medium-hot to hot with the spices.

  123. 123.

    rikyrah

    Trump pushes laughable claim about a leading congressional Dem
    04/06/17 08:40 AM—UPDATED 04/06/17 09:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    Before we get into what Donald Trump said yesterday about Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), some context is in order.

    Less than a month into his presidency, Trump declared at a White House press0 conference how eager he was to meet with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. “I actually thought I had a meeting with Congressman Cummings, and he was all excited,” Trump claimed. “And then he said, ‘Well, I can’t move, it might be bad for me politically. I can’t have that meeting.”

    Cummings soon after explained that Trump simply made all of this up. “I have no idea why President Trump would make up a story about me like he did today,” the Maryland Democrat said.

    The following week, Trump and Cummings did meet, and according to the congressman, Cummings told the president some things he didn’t want to hear.

    Reflecting on the conversation, Trump seems to remember the meeting very differently. Here’s what he told the New York Times yesterday:

    TRUMP: Elijah Cummings [a Democratic representative from Maryland] was in my office and he said, “You will go down as one of the great presidents in the history of our country.”

    NYT: Really.

    TRUMP: And then he went out and I watched him on television yesterday and I said, “Was that the same man?”

    ……………………………

    So what did the congressman say? The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake reported:

    [Cummings] explained in a statement to [the Washington Post]: “During my meeting with the president and on several occasions since then, I have said repeatedly that he could be a great president if … if … he takes steps to truly represent all Americans rather than continuing on the divisive and harmful path he is currently on.”

    This is Trump’s fabulism in action. He hears a comment like that, lops off the all-important “if” part, and takes it as a compliment. And then he takes that perceived compliment and amplifies it by a factor of about four; “great president” becomes “great presidents in the history of the country.”

    The question, as with all of Trump’s falsehoods, is whether it’s subconscious or deliberate – the “Stupid or Liar” theory. Either he doesn’t comprehend what Cummings was saying to him – which is a big problem in a president – or he chooses to completely misrepresent it – which is a big problem in a president.

  124. 124.

    Chris

    @rikyrah:

    Also, they know they are the moocher states. They can’t pay for themselves.

    This is doubly blatant in the South, where the entire post-colonization history of the region goes

    1) Spend several hundred years as a Saudi-style economy, based on the export of a single product, cultivated not by the locals but by an imported workforce with no rights.

    2) Turn into an economic disaster area when that system goes away (to be fair, part of that was courtesy of the Yankee troops passing through, but then again, who started that war?)

    3) Remain that way for over half a century until the New Deal, at which point, go on the dole with money collected from Yankee and Californian cousins. And stay that way, all while crying louder and louder about “rugged individualism.”

    If we take the wingnut “moochers and takers” worldview and apply it to the South, bastion of modern conservatism, forgive me for noticing that the white South as a whole has literally never had a moment in its entire history when it wasn’t living off of somebody else.

    (And yes, there are Southern states crawling out of the pit. But even then, the regions generally carrying the rest of the state on its back tend to be the bluer ones, and not by accident).

  126. 126.

    satby

    @rikyrah: And this kind of thing is a better reason to hammer the Republicans in the “disloyalty to America” theme than even the Russian connection is. The Republican party is enabling and supporting a dangerously confused and volatile man in office to the detriment of this nation.

  127. 127.

    Chris

    @rikyrah:

    Idiots like McArdle REALLY believe that the Democrats are supposed to help the GOP dismantle Obamacare?

    You’ve got to love the fact that they’ve driven themselves so deep into the ditch that they’re now reduced to whining that Democrats should be doing their job for them. Where “their job” means “dismantling everything they’ve done voluntarily, because we can’t convince enough people it’s a good idea and/or figure out how to do it ourselves.”

  129. 129.

    Barbara

    @Humboldtblue: If you are not a sweets guy, you won’t like my favorite Vietnamese dish, which is caramelized fish in fish broth, with rice. It’s the combination of sweet and salty (but way more savory than sweet) that makes it unforgettable. I would tell the waiter your preferences and let him know that you are not afraid of spice and seeking something that is authentically Vietnamese and ask him what he would suggest.

  130. 130.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    Uh oh,

    Russia challenges President Trump to set out his strategy on Syria after he said his views on Assad had changed

    The boss wants and explanation.

  131. 131.

    D58826

    From the daily beast

    Russian Spy Sent Home After Early Release From U.S. Prison
    Evgeny Buryakov, whose handlers sought to recruit former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, was expected to be released from an Ohio prison in July after his espionage conviction.

    Well that’s one way to get rid of a potentially incriminating witness.
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/05/russian-spy-sent-home-after-early-release-from-u-s-prison.html

    And from the party of superpatriots and flag lapel pins:

    Hear No Evil
    House Intelligence Republicans Boycott Briefing From FBI’s Russian Double Agent
    The incident was the latest example of the dysfunction, partisanship, and paralysis that’s gripped the panel since Chairman Devin Nunes blew up its Russia nvestigation

    A House Intelligence Committee Democrat tried to reach across the aisle to reboot the committee’s stalled Russia investigation. Republicans met his gesture with total silence.
    Republicans boycotted a Wednesday briefing on Russian intelligence methods organized by Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who had hoped the committee’s members could gather in a bipartisan manner to hear non-controversial testimony from an expert.
    Weeks ago, House Intelligence Committee staff and Swalwell reached out to a national security specialist, Naveed Jamali. In the 2000s, Jamali was a double agent in the service of the FBI after the Russian government tried to recruit him as an asset.
    Every single Republican lawmaker on the House Intelligence Committee was invited to the members-only briefing on Wednesday. Not one showed.

    also from the daily beast http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/05/house-intelligence-republicans-boycott-briefing-from-fbi-s-russian-double-agent.html

  133. 133.

    Humboldtblue

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Yeah, looking at the menu that list of Pho and the variations means I could be there all day choosing

    @Barbara:

    Good suggestion, that roasted duck pho sounds pretty damn good and the joint is popular and well liked. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to lunch.

  135. 135.

    Barbara

    @rikyrah: If you have never dealt with a narcissist this always comes as a surprise. I had a secretary once upon a time who never wore anything twice. Through her, I learned that narcissism is the yin to insecurity’s yang. She often wore things that were not particularly flattering to her shape or coloring, but she was always seeking validation that she looked great, which became extremely tiresome. Once, I was having a very careful conversation with her over the color black, and I said something really conditional, like “Black doesn’t usually look great on true brunettes but some can pull it off.” And what she said in return to me was, “Thank you.” That is, she interpreted what I said as a compliment that black made her look good (not really true). Obviously, this was inconsequential and I was just trying to avoid getting pulled into her vanity complex but with a narcissist it’s almost impossible to escape.

  136. 136.

    Chris

    @satby:

    Though we’re going to apply extreme vetting

    At the very least, preferential treatment for demographics that are less likely to be right wing. Black people, Hispanics, Muslims, homosexuals, all go to the front of the line. It’s completely justifiable too: you can call them refugees who have a reasonable fear of persecution if they go back to their home country that the all-WASPs don’t. Can also get something in place for political refugees, i.e. if you were outspokenly liberal before partition.

    (Fantasy, of course. Partition will never happen and the cost would probably be horrific if it did. And of course, it wouldn’t be the end of us having to deal with our heartland cousins. They’d just be outside the tent pissing in, instead of inside the tent pissing… well, in).

  138. 138.

    rikyrah

    @Barbara:

    @Jeffro: I would argue that what you are seeing right now with the failure to pass Paul Ryan’s gift to wealthy people masquerading as ACA repeal reflects Republican Civil War, except that the combatants are too scared to say what they really believe.

    I want to thank you….for continuing to bring the truth about Trumpcare. It should never be far from our thoughts – Trumpcare is a TAX CUT BILL THAT WAS MASQUERADING AS A HEALTHCARE BILL

  139. 139.

    rikyrah

    Donald Trump Will Never Get What He Wants
    by Nancy LeTourneau April 5, 2017 3:43 PM

    Perhaps because of my background as a therapist, I think it is important to sometimes look beyond the political games and understand what is going on inside a politician’s head. Never has that been more true of a president than Donald Trump. If we simply analyze his posturing from a political perspective, we’ll miss the story.

    Something Martin just wrote triggered my thoughts in that direction: “the Washington Establishment didn’t accept him irrespective of which party they represented.” I was reminded of a fascinating piece Garrison Keillor wrote about Trump during the election, which basically explored what goes on inside Trump’s head.

    ………………………………………..

    Trump has always felt like he is “bush league” in a world of Manhattanites. Even the Washington Establishment rejected him – no matter how much money he donated to their causes/campaigns. The voices inside his head (predominantly his father Fred Trump and Roy Cohn) are constantly questioning his legitimacy and telling him to view every situation as a battle to the death. No amount of money he could make or attention he could garner ever silenced those voices.

    In the end, the calculation that Trump made was that winning the presidency was the one thing that would finally validate him. After all, you can’t get any bigger than POTUS.

    But it didn’t work.

    That’s why yesterday, three months after the election and in the midst of failure on health care, initial work on tax reform, another missile test in North Korea, the use of chemical weapons by Assad in Syria and an ongoing counter-intelligence investigation by the FBI into his campaign, Donald Trump wanted to talk about how bigly he won.

  140. 140.

    rikyrah

    Trump’s Foreign Policy Mess
    by Martin Longman April 5, 2017 4:44 PM

    David Usborne doesn’t think that Xi Jinping will be moved “by the usual golf-and-cocktails Mar-a-Lago treatment,” and in fact believes that it’s a terrible idea for Trump to be meeting with him at this point in time. One main reason for this is that it’s pretty obvious that our president isn’t even remotely prepared.

    You almost wish President Xi Jinping had lingered in Helsinki rather than continuing on his way to southern Florida for his two-day sojourn at Mar-a-Lago, the stucco-and-terracotta confection that nowadays, on account of its owner, has been dubbed the Southern White House.

    That would be Donald Trump, who seems entirely unprepared for a first face-to-face with his Chinese counterpart. He doesn’t have his ambassador in Beijing yet. His trade negotiator has not been confirmed. Nor are the State Department experts who would normally formulate Asia policy and brief the president on it yet in place. It is possible we are underestimating the homework he has done ahead of it, but on balance that seems unlikely. True, Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, went on a ground-laying trip to Beijing last month, but was assailed for issuing a statement afterwards that read as if it had been written for him by his hosts.

    In Tillerson’s case, he has an excuse because he read that statement between naps.

    More seriously, it’s a bad time to talk to China because one of the top topics on the agenda will be what to do about North Korea, and to do that properly, Trump needs to consult very closely with South Korea. But South Korea is currently experiencing a change in government after former president Park Geun-hye was first impeached and then arrested on (among others) charges of “bribery, abuse of power, coercion and leaking government secrets.

  141. 141.

    rikyrah

    From Quick Takes:

    * Career professionals in DOJ’s Civil Rights Division are likely reeling at the thought that AG Sessions plans to “review” (more likely decimate) much of the work they’ve done in cities like Ferguson, Baltimore and Chicago on police reform. Former acting head of the division Vanita Gupta and senior counsel Corey Stoughton articulated what many of them are not able to say publicly.

    If Mr. Sessions’s review is conducted in good faith, it will vindicate the Justice Department’s existing police work and demonstrate the continuing value of consent decrees. It will show that the department’s civil rights division uses its authority wisely, in only a small fraction of the nation’s more than 16,000 law enforcement agencies. It engages fairly with law enforcement, as well as individuals, community leaders and elected representatives. It makes findings where the law and the facts demand it. It negotiates agreements in good faith with local leaders, adhering to principles of local control and resource limitations without compromising its statutory responsibility to enforce federal civil rights laws. It closes cases when needed.

    Justice Department career staff members understand the difficulties faced by police officers in Baltimore and across the country. They know that every day, officers risk their lives to uphold the law and keep communities safe. They are keenly aware of the challenges of policing in cities grappling with complex social and economic challenges rooted in poverty, racial segregation and inadequate educational, employment and housing opportunities. The factors the attorney general wants the Justice Department to consider in his review have already been accounted for. Mr. Sessions should let the people in his department working on police reform keep doing their jobs.

  142. 142.

    JMG

    Politico reporting Nunes to recuse himself from Russia investigation. This will free up some quality time for him with his attorneys.

  144. 144.

    danielx

    Where does one start? Let’s just take the extract above, shall we?

    After years of failing at the grown-up business of passing legislation, small wonder the Democrats would like to let the Republicans have a try at being the adults in the room.

    Well, yes, it’s difficult to pass legislation when the opposition has the majority in the House and Senate, primarily due to gerrymandering and saying no to everything that comes down the pike. When Dems were in the majority, they managed to pass the ACA and get economic stimulus moving – but those things don’t count, right? And so far Republican attempts at being adults appear to be a miserable agglomeration of suck and fail, due to exceedingly unpopular ideology and believing their own hype. There’s no more a majority of extreme conservatives out there than there is a majority of extreme liberals, regardless of Naderites and (perhaps) Bernie bros would like to believe. In this area Dems do have somewhat of a built-in advantage, because they don’t have a whole industry devoted to manufacturing horseshit (such as McArdle’s) to push them into insane policy positions.

    I don’t want Dems to nationalized industries and put a Cadillac in every driveway, I just want them to act like Democrats instead of compromising at every turn.

    Democrats desperately need to become competitive again outside of a handful of urban agglomerations, not just because their rural failures cost them the presidency, but also because of all the other offices they’ve lost at every level of government below the White House.

    Dems “lost” the presidency because of the fucking Electoral College while winning the election by three million votes, Megan, or has that inconvenient fact slipped your mind? Add in a touch of voter suppression, whisk lightly…and I haven’t noticed the Republicans doing a goddamned thing for the folks out there in flyover country of whom Megan seems to be so fond. Perhaps parachute drops of pink Himalayan salt? Not that I especially care, since as far as I’m concerned Trump voters richly deserve whatever misfortunes they get in consequence of their shitty decisions and racism. Not feeling very sympathetic these days, no indeed.

    At the moment, of course, the empty gesture of blocking Gorsuch is delighting many on the left, who finally feel like their party has grown a spine.

    (Italics mine.)

    Blocking Gorsuch, among other things, does indeed have Democrats saying lots of things that amount to “about fucking time!”. And then some, because yes, saying no to fascism and insanity is not only fun but necessary.

    Their first priority will be extracting signals of loyalty to themselves, not winning elections … and if the Republican experience is any guide, they may well get what they want.

    Which Republican experience is that, pray tell? Looks to me like extracting signals of loyalty and saying NO to everything has worked quite well from an electoral standpoint for them. If it requires standing up and saying no for four years and enforcing discipline on the Democratic caucus, good. If that requires replacing those who need spine transplants with those who already possess them, better yet. it seems to have worked for Republicans and generally speaking, supporting programs that help people is a winning proposition. As opposed to espousing policy positions designed to hurt people while telling them it’s all for their own good (with tax cuts for people who don’t need them, natch), a la Paul Ryan.

    So why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut, Megan? Ni shagu nazad!

  145. 145.

    Sanjeevs

    Nunes stepping aside from House investigation.
    That’s Brannon and Nunes inside 24 hours. From some reports earlier in the week seems McGahn didn’t appreciate their stunt and how it placed him in jeopardy of an obstruction charge

  147. 147.

    Eric U.

    @satby:

    GIGO sums up every McArdle column.

    AIGO — anything in, garbage out. Although wasn’t she a never-Trump?

  148. 148.

    Rob in CT

    So I know folks here have been following the GA-5 campaign (Ossoff), but I wanted to raise another one that isn’t getting enough attention:

    Montana-at-large.

    http://www.kxlf.com/story/35041048/national-democratic-groups-not-a-big-presence-in-mt-congressional-race

    For whatever reasons(s), our side isn’t in on this one the way they are in the GA one, but apparently it’s winnable. Ossoff has a *huge* war chest at this point. Surely we’re into diminishing returns w/him. Meanwhile, the Dem in MN (Rob Quist) has raised half of what his opponent has.

    To donate:

    https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/montanansforquist

  149. 149.

    rikyrah

    * Stepping back from a singular focus on Donald Trump, Alex Pareene writes about how “The Long, Lucrative Right-wing Grift Is Blowing Up in the World’s Face.”

    If you want to understand intra-GOP warfare, the decision-making process of our president, the implosion of the Republican healthcare plan, and the rest of the politics of the Trump era, you don’t need to know about Russian espionage tactics, the state of the white working class, or even the beliefs of the “alt-right.” You pretty much just need to be in semi-regular contact with a white, reasonably comfortable, male retiree. We are now ruled by men who think and act very much like that ordinary man you might know, and if you want to know why they believe so many strange and terrible things, you can basically blame the fact that a large and lucrative industry is dedicated to lying to them.

    Because there was a lot of money in it for various hucksters and moguls and authors and politicians, the conservative movement spent decades building up an entire sector of the economy dedicated to scaring and lying to older white men. For millions of members of that demographic, this parallel media dedicated to lying to them has totally supplanted the “mainstream” media. Now they, and we, are at the mercy of the results of that project. The inmates are running the asylum, if there is a kind of asylum that takes in many mostly sane people and then gradually, over many years, drives one subset of its inmates insane, and also this asylum has the largest military in the world.

  150. 150.

    danielx

    @Betty Cracker:

    “Sorry for your loss” always sounds so inadequate, but sometimes it’s all one can offer, for what it’s worth. And no, unfortunately, the Malignant Mango has not undergone a brain transplant in your absence.

  152. 152.

    Chris

    @rikyrah:

    Countries like China are going to freaking love the next four (or eight) years – a president who hasn’t got a clue what he’s talking about, who’s completely open to bribery, and even worse, that bribery needn’t even be material – stroking his ego will often be all it takes. Not just for sale, but cheap!

    I’ve heard stories about Reagan that say that he also was often completely unprepared – the difference is, he at least had enough sense (or laziness) to let his advisers run the show. Trump’s ego won’t even let him do that.

  153. 153.

    Woodrowfan

    @Chris: well, except the New South movement lead to rapid industrialization, and California was not the economic powerhouse in the 1930s it became later. But yeah, the South has always been the most violent, poorest*, and least educated regions because their elite like it that way,.

    * although the top1% were among the richest in the country…

  156. 156.

    amk

    other than bj’ers, does anyone even know who mcargle-bargle is or care what she says?

  157. 157.

    Quinerly

    @Sanjeevs:
    For what it is worth, Lawrence O’Donnell said last night that Tillerson will resign shortly. I tend to agree. Think I read awhile ago that Trump and Tillerson had never met prior to his being picked. Know that Tillerson’s wife encouraged him to take the job. Has anyone read who brought Tillerson’s name to Trump? I know the obvious Exxon/Russia connection but do we know how Trump got on to him other than that? Seems there were no personal connections.

  159. 159.

    ET

    I see is is being reported that Nunes has recused himself from the Russia probe. Well finally. Unfortunately the House investigation is now tarnished enough which I assume was his goal so there isn’t a point in him hanging around anymore.

  160. 160.

    bystander

    Guest repub on MSNBC pushes back against the idea that the Bannon move and the Nunes recusal are related. That’s the only thing that makes me think they are related moves.

    Dirty Devin’s Russian liquor distribution arrangement with Putin is going to turn out to be one of the objects of the investigation.

  162. 162.

    ET

    @Quinerly: I saw this from a CNN article back in December which may be true but no one seems to have fessed up definitively:

    Tillerson was recommended to Trump by former secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and James Baker and former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, sources told CNN.

  163. 163.

    D58826

    @rikyrah: Well this is one white male not retired by choice that didn’t fall for the con. We are screwing our kids, grand kids and great grand kids and it sucks.

  164. 164.

    rikyrah

    @Quinerly:

    @Sanjeevs:
    For what it is worth, Lawrence O’Donnell said last night that Tillerson will resign shortly. I tend to agree. Think I read awhile ago that Trump and Tillerson had never met prior to his being picked. Know that Tillerson’s wife encouraged him to take the job. Has anyone read who brought Tillerson’s name to Trump? I know the obvious Exxon/Russia connection but do we know how Trump got on to him other than that? Seems there were no personal connections

    He is the SECRETARY OF EXXON.

    He was chosen by Putin.

    $500 BILLION DOLLAR WITH EXXON that 44 stopped from happening because of the sanctions.

  167. 167.

    D58826

    @Quinerly:

    Know that Tillerson’s wife encouraged him to take the job.

    Actually I think it was the FSM telling Mrs. T to urge him to take the job

  168. 168.

    Corner Stone

    @Humboldtblue: I don’t see Com Bo Luc Lac, also known as Shaking Beef on their menu, which is unusual for a Vietnamese restaurant. Given the other usual selections maybe it is served there but just called an Americanized name. You can’t go wrong with a place that has typos in the category headings! I’d like some Pan Fired Noodles, please!
    If you decide to not go with pho then I suggest C15, the BBQ pork. It should be flattened and very crispy. Some places serve it with too much fatty left on, but I gather that is how some prefer it. It’s usually not spicy at all so you can add the side sauces to your liking.
    Caveat, I have never been to this specific place but across a bevy of other places with similar menus and prices it all tends to be within a range. Place in Houston Midtown named Red Pier is always excellent for lunch.

  172. 172.

    D58826

    @rikyrah: I don’t remember Obama having as many face to face meetings with world leaders this early in his first term. Maybe it was because the economy was in free fall. It just seems like these are meetings for the sake of the photo-op/Der Fuhrer’s ego stroking and running up the tab at a Trump property where the meetings are held.

  173. 173.

    germy

    @different-church-lady:

    Wait, just what the fuck did we pay for?

    Buyer’s Remorse

    the sense of regret after having made a purchase. It is frequently associated with the purchase of an expensive item such as a car or a house. It may stem from fear of making the wrong choice, guilt over extravagance, or a suspicion of having been overly influenced by the seller.

  174. 174.

    different-church-lady

    @Another Scott:

    The GOP has too many rich people who want a puppet.

    And too many poor people who want a Hitler.

    And too many rich people who want a Hitler, for that matter.

  175. 175.

    sempronia

    @Humboldtblue:
    If you’ve decided on the roast duck pho, consider adding a spring roll appetizer – those with the soft rice wrapper (i.e. not deep-fried) are more traditional Vietnamese. Any of the grilled meats will be savory and delicious. Vietnamese food is famous for using lots of fresh herbs, not spicy chili peppers, so neither the pho nor spring roll will be spicy unless you add chilis. And of course, when ordering remember to pronounce it “phuh”, not “foe”.

  176. 176.

    Corner Stone

    @different-church-lady: Pooty overplayed their hand, methinks. He never thought Trump was going to win, he just wanted to make sure HRC was too weak to build a consensus on further sanctions going into place against Russia.

  177. 177.

    Chris

    @Woodrowfan:

    Well, yeah. And it is, in fact, more complicated than that, which is why I said “if you take the wingnuts’ moochers and takers worldview.” For example, rural areas mean smaller populations spread out over much larger areas, the contrary of urban areas which have huge populations concentrated into relatively small areas – which makes it hard to raise the taxes necessary to support the infrastructure of civilization. No matter how “hardworking” the population is, at some point you need to redistribute urban-produced income into the sticks to make things work. No shame in that.

    But hey: wingnuts don’t have any time for that crap. Redistribution is evil and the world can be divided into moochers living off of hard earned tax money and creators. Therefore, by their own lights, they’re moochers.

    (Also good point about Southern industrialization… but as I pointed out, that tends to either make things bluer, or at least be perceived that way. Even in states like Texas that are still solidly red, the big cities still get crap from the sticks for being “people’s republics” or God knows what).

  178. 178.

    NCSteve

    The fact that she isn’t homeless, or at least working a minimum wage job, is proof of that the universe is inherently unjust.

    So help me god, if Kevin Drum decides to write a “let’s take McMegan McArglebargle seriously” post today, I’m liable to get banned from Disqus.

  180. 180.

    Chris

    @D58826:

    Yeah, but they never admit that part. Including to themselves. The idea of being rugged individualists who did it all on their own is crucial to their self-image.

  181. 181.

    Goku

    @Baud: Perhaps that has something to do with the demographic makeups of these newsrooms and boards of directors of news orgs… Nah.

  182. 182.

    Barbara

    @Quinerly: I have been thinking this too. Trump is transparently going around him and putting him in handcuffs, and this treatment is one of the reasons why Tillerson is making mistakes that show how unfamiliar territory this position really is for him. This is not the kind of thing CEOs are used to putting up with. The CEO of Alcoa who served as Secretary of Treasury in GWB’s administration later wrote a scathing book about the experience. The fact that CEOs hate politics doesn’t mean that looking at the politics of things is wrong, but it shows how much of a mismatch there can be between working in industry and working in government.

  184. 184.

    sempronia

    @Corner Stone:
    Shaking beef is a family-style dish, as is the caramelized catfish kho dish that Barbara mentioned. A joint named Pho Something specializes in soup noodle bowls and grilled meat rice/noodle dishes for individuals, not family-style dinner-dishes, unless it’s trying to be all things to all people (which it is, with that weird assortment of Thai dishes thrown in).

  187. 187.

    Humboldtblue

    @Corner Stone:

    I was thinking about pan fired noodles as well! Thanks for the recs.

    @sempronia:

    No decisions have been made yet (and it’s going to be hard to make one at 1 p.m.) and thanks for the tips! I have the pronunciation down.

  188. 188.

    Boatboy_srq

    @satby: Can we guarantee those Red States will be downstream and downwind and their coastal waters won’t affect fishing and recreation nd sustainability for Blue States?

  189. 189.

    D58826

    The fact that CEOs hate politics doesn’t mean that looking at the politics of things is wrong, but it shows how much of a mismatch there can be between working in industry and working in government.

    Well there are ceertainly office politics that they have to deal with but as a CEO they do have the advantage of when they say jump all of the underlings ask how high. Doesn’t work that way in government.

    Way back in the day, I remember reading in a pol-sci class that someone made the comment that Ike would be a very frustrated man because as a General he was used to having his orders carried out. But as POTUS, supposedly the most powerful man in the world, not so much…

  190. 190.

    Honus

    @Woodrowfan:I seem to recall that a few years ago it came out that the brain surgeons in the general assembly had mucked around with the car tax so much in their tax cut frenzy that it turned out that places like Halifax and Patrick county were actually subsidizing Fairfax

  191. 191.

    Humboldtblue

    @sempronia: I think they may be part-Thai-owned, we had two very good Thai places and one closed down and the original Pho owners sold to them if I am not mistaken.

  192. 192.

    Aleta

    Trump’s lying isn’t the curable kind. It’s not the ‘one lie here for this reason, another lie there for that reason’ kind. It’s his ingrown mechanism for how he controls the world he perceives. I think the control mechanisms humans develop when our need is desperate become more like a functioning part of our body than like a habit. (And he’s almost as desperate as they get, except for those who openly murder opposition no matter who is there to see.) Every time the press or the politicians or his relatives act as though he can be tweaked or monitored or tempered, or his administration fixed by getting rid of a couple of bad apples, it’s not progress or a solution. Which is why no compromise with his higher ups is the only option, and thank heavens for all the people who believe that right now.

  193. 193.

    Barbara

    @sempronia: A lot of Vietnamese and Thai restaurants have standard pan-Asian dishes on their menu because many people do not necessarily come for that specific kind of cuisine. A long, long time ago I dated a Chinese man and when we went to a Chinese restaurant he didn’t even look at the menu, he would just ask them to make his favorite dishes and specified the regional style he wanted (Southern, coastal, or Northern). I suspect that this happens in Thai and Vietnamese restaurants as well.

  194. 194.

    Barbara

    @D58826: The business man who was pretty successful at being in government was Robert Rubin. He apparently ran circles around Newt Gingrich and company in the 1995 budget negotiations (the ones that shut the government down twice in the fall and winter of 1995). He had been the managing partner at Goldman Sachs and was used to (a) dealing with prima donnas and (b) negotiating around uncertain outcomes by playing people off each other. Dealing with Congress probably isn’t that much different and certainly not harder than negotiating the compensation of people every one of whom thinks they are more important than anyone else in the universe.

    ETA: The point being that the specific skills that made you a successful business person might or might not be transferable to government service.

  195. 195.

    Chris

    @D58826:

    Basically, corporations are dictatorships, and governments, at least the democratically elected ones, not so much.

    Kind of puts the whole “we love the private sector and hate the public one” mentality into perspective. Of course, nowadays they’re pretty open about hating democracy too. (“We’re a republic!!!” etc).

  197. 197.

    Corner Stone

    @sempronia: i am sure that is overall true, but I have had Shaking Beef at three different places in maybe the last 6 months, two of which had Pho in their name and the third being the Red Pier place I linked earlier. Those places serve a portion that is definitely enough to share, especially if you have a small plate beforehand.
    There is another place in downtown Houston that is Pho Something but I have not been by there yet. It’s been open for a while so it must be decent as doing a restaurant in downtown Houston is hard work. I am almost never in the Bellaire area around feeding time but that is the real jackpot in The Greater Houston Metro Area.

  198. 198.

    Aleta

    @rikyrah: Maybe they are implying (with this legislation) that they need the right to access records of doctors and organizations. + Are they also implying that they want the right to make a woman answer questions under oath, give names, etc.

  199. 199.

    Aleta

    @Chris:

    Basically, corporations are dictatorships, and governments, at least the democratically elected ones, not so much.

    Kind of puts the whole “we love the private sector and hate the public one” mentality into perspective.

    Well said

  201. 201.

    Corner Stone

    @Aleta:

    Also the soldiers in God’s army automatically know which women work for Satan.

    All of them, Katie!
    /Pence

  202. 202.

    D58826

    @OzarkHillbilly: Seems to me there are some equal protection issues here. So lets amend the bill so that employers and landlords can discriminate against any man who got the woman in the position that she needed an abortion. What’s good for the goose is especially good for the gander., (yes snark)

    The serious question is what do the wives/daughters/etc think of these guys who make these proposals? And it’s almost always a guy.

  203. 203.

    SFAW

    @amk:

    other than bj’ers, does anyone even know who mcargle-bargle is or care what she says?

    TBogg

    Well, at one time — maybe not any more.

  204. 204.

    D58826

    @Barbara: yep. I remember how R. McNamara and his whiz kids and tgheir charts/numbers were going to revolutionize DOD. Instead we got Vietnam/body counts and sorties flown as a measure of how much progress we were making. Seems the VC/NVA wern’t on the distribution list of the status report

  206. 206.

    Boatboy_srq

    @sigaba: That’s actually a damned good idea. We should call the racist sexist anti-Union Xrofascists out in explicit terms. we can’t reach them with moderation and conciliation – that’s been tried – so there’s no risk in making them own their bigotry.

  207. 207.

    les

    @amk:

    other than bj’ers, does anyone even know who mcargle-bargle is or care what she says?

    Well, Susan of Texas does, and serves up righteous entertainment for those of us who can’t read McMegan without projectile vomiting.

  212. 212.

    liberalandlovingit!

    Well. I’ve been here since the 2016 debates. Commented a few times, asked some questions; picked your brains.
    You all? Crickets.
    Didn’t know you was running a Very Private Club here.
    Fuck ya and have a very nice day. Over & Out.

  215. 215.

    Corner Stone

    @liberalandlovingit!: I…don’t understand? If you’re not going to comment on one of my comments, and re-affirm my brilliance and cutting insight, then why are you here?

  216. 216.

    Epicurus

    She’s very good at what she does; displaying her ignorance for a handsome salary.

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