Lots of news coming down the pike overnight and this morning. Here’s a brief rundown of some items that caught my eye:
WaPo reports that shady little shitweasel Carter Page, whose credentials Trump once bragged on like a proud grandpa when he wanted to show that his campaign foreign policy shop had cred, was the subject of a FISA warrant because he was suspected of acting as an agent of a foreign government: Russia. The warrant was subsequently renewed.
I realize this isn’t as startling as the revelation that a former government official once used a private email server that was apparently not hacked, but still, it seems like a pretty big deal. Trump can act like he doesn’t know Page all he wants now, but there are records of his campaign naming Page to the advisory team. It happened.
Other things that happened: Flynn lying about his contacts with the Russians and resigning in disgrace, campaign chairman Paul Manafort being cut loose because of his shady Kremlin ties, Sessions perjuring himself in his senate hearings about meetings with Russia, Kushner omitting meetings with Russians on his security clearance disclosure form and pretty much everyone in Trump’s orbit being involved with Russia on some level. This isn’t going away.
Speaking of people Trump hardly knows, WaPo also reports (via an interview in the NYP) that Trump is distancing himself from Bannon:
“I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Trump said. “I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve. I’m my own strategist, and it wasn’t like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary.”
Well, that’s a comedown for the Nazi carbuncle, who was named “chief strategist” and “senior counselor” in the wake of the election. When defending Bannon’s inclusion in NSC meetings just weeks ago, Trump and his flacks emphasized that Bannon had military and geopolitical experience that were absolutely essential to White House decision-making. Is this all due to the feud with Mr. Ivanka?
Good riddance if Bannon is on his way out — he’s a horrible person. But it may be a case of “out of the white supremacist fire and into the neocon pan” anyway if reports are true that Mattis and McMaster are now steering foreign policy with Bannon sidelined. Oh well. That’s about what we would have gotten with Jeb or Marco, so it’s at least within hailing distance of “normal,” if regrettable nonetheless.
And finally, Trump’s weird interview this morning on Fox Business (WaPo transcript here). A couple of excerpts:
On healthcare:
I think we’re doing very well on health care. It’s been very much misreported that we failed with health care. We haven’t failed, we’re negotiating and we continue to negotiate and we will save perhaps $900 billion.
You know, if you look at the kind of numbers that we’re talking about, that’s all going back into the taxes. And we have to do health care first to pick up additional money so that we get great tax reform.
So this “alternative success” take on the healthcare fiasco is basically an admission of what we already knew: Trump plans to funnel money currently used to fund healthcare into rich folks’ pockets. It might have even worked if he hadn’t stuck his dick in a hornet’s nest from the get-go on that effort.
And as he kisses Freedom Caucus ass to get them on board during the “negotiation,” Trump will lose moderates, who are surely spooked by the specter of a single-digit win in a +27 GOP district in deep red Kansas last night. Good luck with that, motherfucker.
On Injustice Gorsuch:
You saw that [strong Democratic opposition] with Justice Gorsuch, which is — who we’re very proud of. He had no — almost no Democratic support, even though he was central casting, like the perfect Supreme Court judge.
Dumb bastard still thinks he’s running a reality show or a pageant.
On FBI Director Comey and Hillary Clinton:
No, it’s not too late [to ask Comey to step down], but, you know, I have confidence in him. We’ll see what happens. You know, it’s going to be interesting.
But, you know, we have to just — look, I have so many people that want to come into this administration. They’re so excited about this administration and what’s happening — bankers, law enforcement — everybody wants to come into this administration. Don’t forget, when Jim Comey came out, he saved Hillary Clinton. People don’t realize that. He saved her life, because — I call it Comey won. And I joke about it a little bit.
When he was reading those charges, she was guilty on every charge. And then he said, she was essentially OK. But he — she wasn’t OK, because she was guilty on every charge.
Is it just me, or does he sound a little rattled? The “Comey won” line, iterations of which he has uttered in the past, sounds odd. Maybe his tiny pea brain has grasped that the Comey giveth, and the Comey taketh away. Eh, probably not; that would require a level of self-awareness that is surely beyond Trump’s limited abilities.
Anyhoo, discuss this hot mess or anything else — open thread!
Corner Stone
This is going to get really, really good if he cuts Bannon loose.
Citizen_X
Oh, good! Bankers and cops, my favorite people. Let’s get more of them represented in the government!
rikyrah
Just saw this:
Source: Carter Page isn’t the only Trump campaign ally who was the subject of a FISA warrant. A second target was recorded also. Tick tock..
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) April 12, 2017
EBT
He sounds really spooked by Comey now. Guess he thinks he can squash the investigation that way?
dmsilev
It really burns him up that he and Ryan failed on health care, doesn’t it? Yes, Donald, you failed.
Corner Stone
And what Spicey said yesterday, repeatedly apparently, was incredibly dumb, stupid, ahistoric, ridiculous and asshole fucking thoughtless. But, I wish the cable peeps would just STFU about it now. It’s not a two day story with all the other shit of greater import going on. If he isn’t fired by end of day then we will all know that no one in the WH gives a shit about what he said, and may have actually primed him to Hitler-fy Assad on purpose. And he just flubbed it because he is incredibly bad at this job.
Corner Stone
@rikyrah:
My conservative guesstimate is we will one day find out that almost all of the Trump ally WH was recorded along with maybe up to two dozen R Congresspersons as well.
schrodingers_cat
Jeff Sessions is still in charge of the DOJ, a person deemed to be too racist to be a judge in the Reagan era.
ETA: Today is the anniversary of the 1924 act which restricted immigration. T has explicitly said that’s what he wants to go back to. That idea comes from Jeff Sessions and the immigration restrictionists that propelled T to power.
Corner Stone
I hate James Comey with an undying passion. But I read this as a threat and imagine Comey straightening his tie and saying, “You want interesting? I’ll give you interesting.”
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: True. Spicer saying something dumb is a dog-bites-man story.
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat: A man who just stood on the US/MX border and declared immigrants “filth”.
Lee
Whole I was working out Fox & Friends was on. About 530am it really looked like they were supporting Spicer’s claim about Hitler.
There was no sound but between the closed captioning and the bottom scroll I really got that impression.
Corner Stone
I wish HRC would sue the fuck out of this asshole. Just light his ass up and demand depositions and discovery.
aimai
@Corner Stone:
It is a really interesting bit of garbled word salad. I really do, for the most part, find Trump very easy to understand even though the exact, literal, meaning of his sentences is often garbled and imprecise. But the way his thoughts link together is usually very significant–the order in which he says things, the kinds of things that he juxtaposes, are inartful and accidental but very revealing. Its like he is going on sheer word association with his own thoughts. But he can’t help himself: he has only so many things that he thinks about, or that he “knows” and they are always floating at the tip of his tongue. So everything he says is an inadvertent admission, sometimes of his actual beliefs and crimes.
However I have trouble understanding the part about Comey won and saved Clinton. That was a babble too far for my Trump decoder.
SatanicPanic
If Trump is actually antagonizing Russian, will we see the pee-pee tape? I’d rather not.
Corner Stone
“Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me!”
/O’Reilly’s new opening music bit on his internet streaming show from non-extradition-stan
Timurid
More like “from the people who think they can get European Fascism right this time back to the people who will return to the tried and true Gilded Age.”
The consensus is still White Supremacy; the argument is over the details.
Tokyokie
@Lee: Perhaps their reasoning was that because Nazis don’t consider Jews, Roma, and gays to be human, it was not like he was murdering his own people. And you’re a bad person (if, in fact, you’re human) for not considering the point of view of terribly oppressed Nazi apologists.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: But I get lectures from the denizens of Balloon Juice for being uncivil to BS supporters and doom gloomers. Apparently, I am too angry and love to pick fights.
TenguPhule
Comey vs Trump.
Rooting for murder-suicide. /And be honest, you are too.
efgoldman
@EBT:
Comey’s (any FBI Director’s) fixed term is ten years, right? To insure no more Jedgars for life? So he’s only got a year plus.
zach
@rikyrah:
I expect the GOP to be more cooperative in Russian investigations now. Especially if Trump actually backs away from war with Syria/proxy-war-with-Russia.
They got their short-term gift with the Gorsuch confirmation; Trump’s ineptitude is screwing up the rest of their plans. If shit’s going to hit the fan, better for it to happen now than later when Dems might be running things on the House side and Pence can take over and get tax cuts done before election season ramps up. If Trump was actually successful in firing/sidelining enough people to claim ignorance of Russian collusion, better for everyone if that happens soon.
How does Trump escape this? By going to war with Syria in response to the next atrocity there… can’t go change horses midstream, you know. Hopefully he’s too dumb to figure that out.
JPL
@efgoldman: I thought that Trump could ask him to resign, and then replace him. It wouldn’t look good, but he appears to have a solid base.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Corner Stone: Since firing Bannon would be both stupid politically for Trump and lead to some highschool drama from the Alt-Right we can be sure Trump will do it.
efgoldman
@schrodingers_cat:
Ah, but by a Dem senate which still had a few sane Republiklowns.
OGLiberal
While saying this makes me sad about the state of our electorate, if Trump doesn’t run on the Bannon white nationalist, scary brown people, isolationist strategy, he doesn’t win. Running on a Jared/Ivanka agenda wasn’t going to get the crazies out to vote in those places where he barely won, the places that gave him his EC victory. And those people are going to abandon Trump if he ditches Bannon and his craziness. And nobody wants a neo-con government again so maybe dumping Bannon would not only be good for the nation but also good for the Dems chances in 2018 and 2020. Plus, I doubt Bannon and his folks will go quietly.
Betsy
Gosh I just love reading this. Thank you, Betty, for sharing facts and analysis, always expressed in that biting humor. There are many things to love at BJ and your posts are a huge part of the unique value of this blog to me — it’s information and entertainment at the same time, but in the best possible way.
zach
@efgoldman:
10 years expires September 3, 2023.
Corner Stone
This is funny, at least to me anyway, because this morning when I was driving my son to school we were singing the “something bone connects to the something bone” song. But we were just randomly inserting goofy shit the whole way like, “stop bone connects to the turn bone” or whatever. This story is definitely coming together as a something connects to something else type situation until the final refrain is “Trump bone”.
Oh. Ew. EEEEWWWWW. Sorry.
rikyrah
Comedian Charlie Murphy dead at 57 from leukemia.
RIP.
Condolences to the family. :(
Tokyokie
@TenguPhule: Actually, I’m more in favor of an actual steel-cage death match, with the winner being summarily executed. With Bannon vs. Kushner as the undercard.
Josie
@Corner Stone: I think it is entirely possible that I could come to despise this cretin even more than I do Trump. Maybe it is because I grew up on the border, but I take this shit very personally.
dmsilev
@JPL: Legally, yes Trump can “request Comey’s resignation” and appoint Jared to run the FBI. How well that would work in practice is a question which hopefully will remain hypothetical.
schrodingers_cat
@Josie: Check out his Senate record with respect to immigration. His contempt for immigrants (all of them, Katie) is nothing new.
amk
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
No. He took office in September 2013, so his term won’t end for another 6-1/2 years.
ETA: As zach noted in #28.
Oldgold
His comment on Comey is an unambiguous threat – back off or your fired. Perhaps, not textbook obstruction of justice, but, of course, it is. Outrageous.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
I know people here say to ignore Louise Mensch, but she’s been sure for quite a while that Comey’s going to be the hero of TrumpRussia. There have been 2 arrests overseas by the FBI of hackers somehow tied to Trump’s campaign. I don’t trust Comey at all, but, I do wonder whether he might be doing the job we hope he’s doing, and tie all these threads together into a nice little snare that can’t be dismissed.
Regarding Trump, everything he accuses anyone else of is a confession, and everything he says about himself is the opposite. So, health care is a total failure and he’s guilty as sin.
hovercraft
President Bannon, that’s it, it’s not the neo-Nazi shit or racism, or misogyny or antisemitism, it’s that people said he was the real president and the boss of him!! No one is the boss of him!!!
efgoldman
@JPL:
It’s true that the president can always fire him (as many of us wanted Obama to do last summer) but I’m pretty sure it’s ten years and done.
Yup. Just checked Wiki
Humboldtblue
Well, at least we have — well, I say, I say Jefferson Bowwwwww-reeeegawd Sessions — at the border dealing with the filth that are Mexican immigrants!
I am shocked he didn’t explain how murders rapes and war zones committed and created by Americans are different.
SatanicPanic
@Josie: He’s by far the worst of Trump’s nominees, and that’s saying something.
Brachiator
Melania Trump picks up a cool $2.9 million
From Politico and other sources
Nice work if you can grift it.
TenguPhule
@zach:
i expect you will be badly disappointed.
The Fascists are going to double down. That’s literally been their only strategy for 30 years and they show no signs of change yet.
TenguPhule
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Hah hah no. Comey stuck his nose into the Big Boy pool and that’s the one that plays for keeps. Putin is going to arrange a nice little tea party for Comey and that will be that.
Kay
I hate to say it but there hasn’t been accountability for any of it. Comey hasn’t been held accountable (or even explained) why he interfered in the election. No one has been held accountable for the hacking. No one has been held accountable for treating Hillary Clinton as if she was guilty of things she wasn’t even charged with.
It could change but Trump keeps behaving the way he does because it works.
We’re heading into another election where there could easily be Russian interference. The public won’t even know about it until months after it’s over and even then no one will tell us anything.
It’s not that “it failed”. It is failing. Right now. Every day it fails a little more. It’s big so it will take a long time to fall down, but the crisis is still in progress. Cruising along. Apparently unimpeded.
hovercraft
@aimai:
Before the Comey announcement she was pulling away, then he Killed” her, then when he came back and said aw shucks never mind, he “saved her life”. So technically he won because even though he saved her, she still lost so the good guy won?
LurkerNoLonger
How come it’s never Ireland or Canada or Australia? It’s always Russia with these fucking people.
Corner Stone
@aimai: If you skim the transcript linked above you will see Trump use the phrase, “you know” 33 times in the short interview. He uses that phrase a lot as well as similar terms, “you understand” or “you get that”. It’s a way to let the soft interviewer’s mind fill in the blanks for him, or the audience to feel like they are in on something with him.
It’s just a complete word scramble every time he starts talking. He always sounds so unsophisticated and childish. His use of words and phrases are so immature I always imagine a toddler complaining to mommy about not getting a second snack after lunch.
TenguPhule
@Tokyokie: But those tiny hands ensure that it wouldn’t be much fun to watch, not unless you throw in a few chairs and baseball bats.
Patricia Kayden
Every time I have to read his words or listen to his ramblings, I feel a keen sense of shame that this is who Americans put into the White House to replace the classy, dignified, intelligent and articulate President Barack Obama. What a long fall to the bottom. Sigh.
germy
@rikyrah: He was great as “Vic” on Black Jesus.
We also recently lost a rising star in Lashonda Lester.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
This is typical Trump. And also, sadly, why his supporters like him.
He evades all responsibility for negative outcomes, but he’s perfect. And he never misses an opportunity to sling some mud at an old, or already defeated opponent because he can’t let go of the past.
zach
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I think he made a bad judgement thinking his Clinton e-mail statements would hurt, rather than help, and that it was a good idea to give folks trying to extort him from within the FBI what they want instead of firing them and indicting them on the same day… but what seems dumb from the outside could make sense from the inside. It’s not easy to fire government employees and doing so would’ve led to a torrent of leaks immediately that would’ve been even more chaotic in the lead up to the election… with pretty credible-seeming allegations that Comey was acting on Obama’s orders to cover up crimes by silencing do-gooders in the FBI.
Ultimately as far as the FBI investigations/leaks/announcements go, it’s largely Clinton’s fault for not realizing her vulnerability there and doing a better job to minimize the fallout.
ruckus
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
He is after all the master of projection. Mainly because he’s not smart enough to understand what he is actually saying. Being a master of projection really does confirm that he is a conservative, 100%.
amk
@Patricia Kayden: From total class to complete crass.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Its not a Republic anymore. Its a corpse. The body is still moving on institutional inertia, but the brain is dead.
jl
” shady little shitweasel “? I thought everyone, including the Russian spies trying to, or who actually did (?) recruit him, agrees that Page is a big clueless goofus.
TenguPhule
@zach:
So Mrs. Clinton was supposed to spontaneously develop telepathy and precognition?
TenguPhule
@GrandJury:
Which is how you can tell what’s really going on. When you have a consistent liar, the truth is obviously the opposite of what they’re saying.
Corner Stone
@zach:
GRTFOOH
GregB
Can we hire somone to go on one of this talkshows and literally tell professional flak thrower Jack Kingston to fuck off to his face?
That’s all.
Amir Khalid
An attempt at an AHCA version 2.0 has only very recently failed. The Freedom Cuckoos, being heartless nihilistic bastards, still wanted it to contain not less than 200% Fuck The Poor, which was not cool with their colleagues who had hopes of extending their political careers past 2018. (Or at least of not being called heartless bastards by their constituents.)
Who is the Trump administration is negotiating with, anyway? Someone needs to press him on this point. I’m sure it’s not that pack of crazies; he’s not the boss of them, they’ve made that quite clear, and he can’t make them listen to him. It’s surely not the more mainstream Republican reps either; they’re more or less on his side, but like him they have no sway over the Cuckoos. And the Democratic party would have to be daft, which it generally is not, to even consider helping him repeal Obamacare.
Roger Moore
The big thing about Carter Page is that trump is trying to have it both ways. The FISA warrant against him is supposed to be evidence that Obama was spying on his campaign, but at the same time they’re trying to claim he was barely part of the campaign in the first place. You have to pick one or the other; you can’t reasonably claim both.
zach
@TenguPhule:
We’ll see… I don’t think Trump would be hanging Bannon out to dry and firing or distancing himself from basically everyone in the weird Russia orbit if he were gathering the wagons. That’s a ‘hang-em-out-to-dry’ move, and it’s consistent with everyone coming forward to offer testimony for immunity, the Nunes demotion, leaks implicating Page/Manafort/etc… some of that stuff could be attributed to intel community or Dems leaking to push investigation forward; all of it together makes sense if Trump is going for the few-bad-apples defense.
George Spiggott
@Corner Stone:
http://sucomedy.com/videos/3252-richard-pryor-kids-lying
hovercraft
@OGLiberal:
Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence. They have done nothing to demonstrate that their agenda is anything different from her fathers, they have run a PR campaign to make it look like they are the only ones saving us from Twitler unleashed but there is no evidence to support that. They just like him seem intent on grabbing as much money and power as they can while the going is “good”.
They are just as ignorant and repellent as him, Eric’s story yesterday about Lucretia getting her father to bomb Syria because she’s a mother of three is frightening, not comforting, running the country on emotion, be it his or theirs is untenable.
opiejeanne
@schrodingers_cat: you’re just the right amount of angry and challenging other people’s assertions is not picking a fight.
sukabi
@SatanicPanic: pretty sure the Russians have much more interesting and damaging tapes on Drumpf. He’s been “doing business” with them for a couple of decades at least. Being Bedwetter in Chief is the least of his worries.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
I wonder if it’s an acknowledgment of what we already know, that Comey’s actions turned the tide just enough to get Trump elected. And since the R’s probably would have immediately filed articles of impeachment against Hillary, Comey “saved” her from that.
I think he’s giving us a garbled version of what people have told him, just like W used to.
mainmata
@rikyrah: My guess would be Felix Sater. He’s really, really dirty and close to Trump and Putin.
Bill Arnold
@aimai:
Yes, this is why I pay close attention to his utterances and tweets (and their timing).
Betty Cracker
@Timurid: Good point. Le sigh.
zach
@Roger Moore:
Remember Trump’s claim that Trump Tower, specifically, was surveilled. Here’s Carter Page:
Trump’s claims on one hand are (1) he’s never met Page, (2) Page’s role in the campaign was not important, and (3) Page resigned after his trip to Russia… on the other hand (1) Trump tower was (2) “wiretapped”, where quotes indicate not a quotation nor sarcasm but rather the category of all things that contain the thing within the quotes… obviously.
Everyone using quotation marks Trump style should become a meme…
chopper
he’s starting to remind me of the mom from requiem for a dream, so drugged out he thinks he’s living a tv show.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
Since there seems to be a war on Asian-Americans right now, I can’t really blame you for being angry and scared. ?
SatanicPanic
@sukabi: I guess we’ll know if Russia is seriously pissed off at us if Russia releases them.
TenguPhule
@opiejeanne: Unless its about H1-Bs. Then he just goes completely bonkers and starts swinging at everyone like a drunk British football fan.
Origuy
@Humboldtblue: I understand Sessions left out the phrase about “filth” when he actually spoke. His speechwriter, Stephen Miller, put that in.
Tokyokie
@TenguPhule: Give both of them the sort of dagger that the yakuza always have in Japanese movies. Only make sure the blades are dull. People would want to get their money’s worth, so it can’t end too quickly.
mainmata
@aimai: He’s talking about when Comey testified in July IIRC that, while HRC did a number of illegal things with respect to the email server, no prosecutor would ever take the case because the evidence and circumstances weren’t very strong.
Steve in the ATL
@Lee:
I don’t even know how to respond to this.
Skippy-san
@Corner Stone: If Bannon leaves-he will just go back to Breitbart’s shithole. They will pay him millions to write an occasional guest column or two. This while they continue to publish utter filth and argue in favor of the end of the world. The only way Bannon should leave the White House is lifeless and on a stretcher. As should his boss.
TenguPhule
@mainmata:
Wrong. FFS, must the rightwing lies be repeated even here.
NOTHING FUCKING ILLEGAL.
Mnemosyne
@zach:
What, exactly, was Hillary supposed to do to “minimize the fallout” from Anthony Weiner being investigated? Be specific. Fire Huma Abedin because her ex-husband is an asshole?
Villago Delenda Est
@EBT: Dick Nixon tried this, but of course Dick Nixon hadn’t pissed off the entire IC before he tried.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: So says the model of restraint and reasoned dialog.
sukabi
@SatanicPanic: the Russians like “creative suicides” … Someone could be found floating in the Potomic wrapped in a urine drenched mattress having died of “natural causes”.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Humboldtblue:
I think his full name is Robert E. Jefferson Beauregard Dixie Lee Rebel Sessions.
Yeah, no way that dude’s a racist.
Betty Cracker
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Mensch definitely has some kooky ideas (Breitbart was assassinated by Putin, for one), but she’s been right about some things. I can envision a scenario in which Comey’s overweening vanity works in our favor, just as it worked against us during the election.
TriassicSands
Like all Trump interviews, this one was truly bizarre — as in normal for Trump.
I’ve never watched Fox Business and I was amazed — even given that it was Fox — at the level of sycophancy exhibited by Maria Bartiromo. It wasn’t so much the softball questions as the fact that she agreed with every patently untrue statement Trump made and there were plenty. It was like having a talking bobblehead interviewing him. The Post printed the transcript with annotations and if it had been a fact-checking column the Pinocchios would have been flying. My favorite was this:
WTF? Here is the Post’s response:
Affection? The AHCA was quite simply the worst health care plan any Democrat is likely to have seen in her or his lifetime. It couldn’t even be considered a health care plan because what it did was take health insurance away from people. And the losses were catastrophic. But Trump, always off somewhere in his own delusional world, claims that “many Democrats” think “his plan” is “incredible.’ You can’t make up stuff like that. It’s just too bizarre.
And, as always, Trump equates the most superficial measure of a nominee with being the highest possible qualification — “central casting.” “Mad Dog” is straight out of central casting. Gorsuch is too. There are two ways to look at Gorsuch’s qualifications. Does he check all the right boxes? Sure. But is he the kind of judge any minimally decent human being would want on the SCOTUS? Nope. Looks great, but sucks.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
On behalf of my blogging partner, go fuck yourself. She knows people who are getting badly screwed right now for the crime of being Indians here on visas and green cards.
Corner Stone
@Skippy-san: Go back? He never left Breitbart. His recent threats to damage Kushner are a clear signal that he’s going to produce the new blockbuster movie The Cuckening: Globalist Boogaloo
It’s going to be alt out war. Can’t wait.
catclub
@zach:
Huge own goal by Obama. Buying into GOP police/military daddies.
Cacti
O/T, but in the librul media’s haste to victim shame Dr. Dao for his treatment by United Airlines, they may have actually libeled the guy.
Link
moops
There needs to be movement on this dam Russia investigation. In another week the public is going to forget and the GOP can shut the whole thing down over the feeble whining from the Democrats. No talk show will want to talk about it, no journalist will want to cover old news, and it will vanish.
If the IC has been carefully staging the Trump takedown they have been too soft on the accelerator in the last week.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: Which is all aimed at the right targets. I don’t make a habit of opening fire on friendlies.
hovercraft
@LurkerNoLonger:
Because Putin had a plan, it worked better than he ever dreamed, but he had a plan to infiltrate and cause trouble. Turns out we’re even dumber that he thought. He has the same problem the GOP has with their base, the so-called Tea Party. They thought they could harness the energy and then get them to sit back and shut up, turns out that insane people are insane and unpredictable. Who knew?
I guess be careful for what you wish for is a useful adage.
TriassicSands
@dmsilev:
We can at least be thankful that he didn’t bring up the size of his inaugural crowd. His interviews are streams of unconsciousness.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: Right back at ya. If you want to bury your head in the sand and ignore the fact that the H1-B system is a bit more complicated and screwed up then just your precious little feefees, then you run along with those scissors in hand and don’t complain when nobody bothers to help your self-inflicted wounds.
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
If the newspaper who reported that did screw up the names, I hope they’re prepared for a nice, fat libel lawsuit. Even claiming that he’s now a public figure won’t save them.
(Note: IANAL and don’t know libel law, but come on!)
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
The Johnson-Reed Act was enacted in May, 1924. I’ve read that Sessions praised this law to high heaven, but I doubt that Trump knows any details about the law, even though he clearly aligns himself with people who think that the US is threatened by an incoming nonwhite horde.
There was a sickening story about Airbnb that gives evidence of a new, dangerous sentiment that has been unleashed since Trump’s election.
ETA: The Johnson Reed Act limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States as of the 1890 census; it severely restricted the immigration of Africans and outright banned the immigration of Arabs and Asians. There are Trump supporters who claim either not to know or refuse to believe how exclusionary and racist Trump’s advisors and appointees really are.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Betty Cracker:
I think that’s what Mensch thinks as well – Comey has a very large sense of himself and if there’s a hero role to be played in any of this, he would see himself as the one to fill it. It’s not crazy. There seems to be a lot of stuff happening under the surface, some of which we’re seeing as leaks, some of which we can infer from the generally manic attitude coming out of the WH, and the Nunes nonsense. I don’t follow Mensch religiously, but she is doing a lot of digging. Her timeline development based on oligarch plane tails, and oligarch yachts being in the same location as Trump’s, is really important work.
Steve in the ATL
@LurkerNoLonger:
I suspect that my wife is acting as an agent of Ireland’s government based on her red hair and Jameson consumption.
Humboldtblue
@Origuy:
Sweet mother of stoolies, he really is a motherfucking kapo isn’t he?
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
He doesn’t happen to drive a 1969 Dodge Charger does he?
schrodingers_cat
@opiejeanne: @Mnemosyne: Thanks! I am mad but not scared so much as questioning all my assumptions about this country and its people and unsure of my place in it.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
And “precious little fee-fees” equals “friends and family being summarily threatened with deportation even after paying thousands of dollars in legal fees while following the process to the letter,” right?
There are some issues with the H1-B process. You crossed the line into saying that somehow the visa holders are the problem, not the process.
So, yes, you can continue to fuck yourself. Good day.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
If they confused him with someone else, every paper that published his “criminal record” could be on the hook. Accusing someone falsely in print of crimes relating to their professional competence and moral character is libel per se.
Steve in the ATL
@GregB:
I had Jack Kingston as my congressman before I had Tom Price. #redstatelife
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: Time to fess up to my Ruskie connections. I have three good Russian friends, by Russian I mean from Russia who immigrated here, I have at least 3 Matroyoshka dolls. I call my orange kitteh, Olga, and pretend she is a babushka. I also put a scarf on her head to make it seem more realistic.
Betty Cracker
@moops: While I completely understand your impatience, the fact is, an anonymous source told the Post about the warrant on a Trump campaign adviser for being a Russian agent yesterday. That’s a fairly significant development, no?
zach
@Mnemosyne:
I have no clue; I’m not paid to figure that stuff out. Firing Abedin when her family was obviously compromised in a serious way would suck but that’s the kinda sacrifice you make sticking with a dude who’s a serial embarrassment when it comes to dealing with women… Clinton should know that much. Although she would’ve had to have been kicked out of Clinton’s orbit many years earlier for it to have prevented the last-second FBI story.
More seriously, she needed to get ahead of the story. She was always reacting and seemingly surprised by every FBI leak or Comey statement. She hoped Bernie’s “I’m sick and tired of the e-mails!”, plus Trump being a creepy conman, would be enough to guarantee victory and it didn’t work.
She’s running a billion dollar campaign… that’s enough money to hire someone to figure out when the next wikileaks release or FBI leak is coming out before I see it on facebook or whatever.
Villago Delenda Est
@West of the Rockies (been a while): Jefferson FUCKING Beauregard FUCKING Sessions the FUCKING Third, you mean.
Lurking Canadian
The tradition at this time of year is actually to deny three times that you know the guy.
catclub
@Corner Stone:
‘you know’ is a sign of laziness in the speaker. It puts the burden for understanding on the listener.
Its opposite is ‘Do I make myself clear?’
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: T said in his immigration speech before the election that he want immigration to return to its historic norms. That’s the code for the Reed Johnson Act. He may or may not know the exact act but he agrees with it in spirit as all his pronouncements and appointments to date, demonstrate.
Corner Stone
@zach:
You simply *can not* be for real right now. I refuse to believe you just typed that and hit Post Comment.
Villago Delenda Est
@Lurking Canadian: Also, too, for a hell of a lot more than 30 damn pieces of silver.
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne:
You correctly identified it as libel rather than slander, so kudos!
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
Just think about it, 100 years from now when people are reading about the early 21st Century, and they read the speeches or interviews from the first three Presidents.
“Is our children learning?”
“You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.”
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgewbu386490.html
“We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States.”
“We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.”
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/barackobam375645.html
“I have an attention span that’s as long as it has to be.”
“I don’t like losers.”
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/donaldtrum717758.html
One of these is not like the others, and I don’t mean it in the usual way.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub: “Alles klar, Herr Kommisar?”
Mnemosyne
@zach:
So she was supposed to hire a psychic? Yeah, that’s a plan.
You know why Roger Stone knew ahead of time that Wikileaks was going to release doctored emails? Because he was colluding with the Russians.
bobbo
Elsewhere I have read it transcribed as “I call it Comey 1.” I think meaning Comey 1 was letting Hillary off the hook, Comey 2 was the letter about reopening the email investigation, that propelled Trump’s victory.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@schrodingers_cat:
That would be assuming the Trump administration did stuff like policy. More like Trump will decide he’s milk all the emotion there is in Immigratent bashing and throw open the borders just to piss off the Alt-Right.
catclub
@TriassicSands: Trump and the Healthcare bill:
From kevin Drum:
Mnemosyne
@Steve in the ATL:
I used to freelance for newspapers back in the day, so I still remember what I was trained not to do. ?
zach
@Corner Stone:
Tell me about it. I hate that people get shit for their partners transgressions and even more shit when they decide to move past them. But it happens and that’s the crappy political reality. I respect Clinton for choosing to look past that in this case. But it would make no difference unless she told Abedin “don’t let Weiner touch this computer or you can’t use the e-mail server” years ago.
Edit: And yes that was a stupid post anyway. I apologize.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Wrong. The whole H1-B system is screwed up. As you seem unable to comprehend something so simple as how bad it comes across when Americans are losing their jobs to H1-B holders due to companies exploiting the system. You want to commit suicide by defending the system, you’ll find yourself with few allies there.
So keep digging that hole and the H1-B holders will simply get kicked further down the line of priorities that American voters actually care about.
Ryan
Maybe launching 59 Tomahawks into Iraq will fix things…
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: I messed up, I meant the 100th anniversary of the exclusionary 1917 immigration act, a precursor to the Reed-Johnson Act s passed in 1924.
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
I think it’s more a matter of him using them as “discourse particles”, which is a fancy term for a filler word that’s used while the speaker is making up his mind what to say but wants to keep saying something so nobody else will think he’s finished and cut in. They tend to be a sign that the speaker’s mouth runs faster than his brain, which can be a combination of poor language skills (I notice non-native speakers using them a fast mouth, a slow brain, thinking very hard to express thoughts, or being a non-verbal thinker.
catclub
@Lurking Canadian: So how do you work it to get the guy who is denied three times crucified. Asking for a friend.
LurkerNoLonger
@Steve in the ATL: Red hair and Jameson > Short dictator and Stoli.
hovercraft
@Brachiator:
His supporters are delusional.
I had an encounter with one of his “fans” his morning. He had a very successful summit with China and now the Chinese have cut North Korea off, they are no longer buying coal from NK, they are now buying it from us? He destroyed Assad’s airbase, and now that he’s shown what a tough guy he is China and the rest of the world are scared of us. No one is laughing at us anymore! I tried to interject, but immediately stopped because the avalanche of bullshit that came back was overwhelming. There was no point, he’s not just drunk on the koolaid, he’d marinated in it, he’s a goner.
glory b
@aimai: “However I have trouble understanding the part about Comey won and saved Clinton. That was a babble too far for my Trump decoder.”
And here I was ready for a translation!
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
If we make it that long. Just think if a new “The Bell Curve” book was published at some point in the future, but the author used W and Trump and whatever inevitable garbage human being that follows Trump as evidence that white people were of lower intelligence and intellectually stunted? Could there be a counter argument? Could anyone at the time scrape enough science or data together to refute that argument when faced with such irrefutable anecdata? I mean, the massive fucking indictment of our Pay-for higher “Ivy” league educational institutions, all by itself should be enough to prove out the thesis, amirite?
MattF
Trump’s statements can be diagrammed as meandering tree structure. The words associated with the branches tend to be repetitive because each node at which the subject lurches has only a small number of possible branches. Needless to say, all the branches are labelled ‘I’m a genius’. It’s like Dorothy Parker’s joke about running the gamut of emotions from A to B.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Being pissed off at H1-B visa holders because the companies that hire them are exploiting the system makes about as much sense as getting pissed off at illegally employed nannies because your kid can’t get a babysitting job.
But, hey, if you want to spend your time being pissed off at the wrong people, the exploitative employers will cheer you on, and even hold your coat while you fight the wrong people on behalf of those crooked employers.
zach
@Mnemosyne:
So maybe take it seriously when he specifically talks about Podesta being next months before his e-mails are leaked? That’s enough time to identify all e-mails that can be taken out of context and craft a specific response to each. Instead, the official Clinton response was “who even knows if these e-mails are real?” Good point, but it didn’t work.
glory b
@schrodingers_cat: Angry women of color, represent!
ruemara
@TenguPhule: Well, if she’s gonna walk around having a vag ina & ambitions…
@glory b: Do we have a bat symbol? Featuring Lucille in silhouette?
SenyorDave
@Corner Stone: It’s just a complete word scramble every time he starts talking. He always sounds so unsophisticated and childish. His use of words and phrases are so immature I always imagine a toddler complaining to mommy about not getting a second snack after lunch.
My granddaughter ill be seven in a few weeks, and she speaks better than Trump, and probably reads better. Trump is a fucking idiot, he’s not capable of playing regular checkers, much less multi-dimensional chess.
amk
@TenguPhule:
You sound just like the trumpanzees.
hovercraft
@Roger Moore:
Says who, Twitler frequently says two or three contradictory things in a single sentence, winners make their own reality suckers. Just because you heard him say that doesn’t mean he said it.
TenguPhule
@zach:
Because the FBI and Comey were throwing out nothingballs that just kept ginning up stories about NOTHING.
We’ve just had the whole Russia angle explained and you’re STILL wondering why the Clinton campaign was experiencing flat tires throughout the election?
StringOnAStick
I want, no need to think that the IC is doing exactly what it needs to do right now, and that we are finding out things like the Ukraine black ledger is real because they are ever so slowly turning up the heat on all the players; that one of course was aimed at Manafort. The reason no one has gotten an immunity deal is because the IC has such good evidence that they don’t need what Flynn and Page offered, they’ve already got it.
What is taking so long is there are just so damned many players that need to be rolled up. I can’t imagine the anger inside all of the IC at how a sworn enemy has gotten so much and so deep into our government, and I imagine they want to make sure they get every last string pulled and every traitor firmly in their noose. Between the internecine fighting in the administration and the individuals trying to remember just exactly what they said and when they said it since it is all on FBI tapes, I have to imagine the fear sweats are getting pretty stinky at this point. Good!
Mnemosyne
@zach:
The Clinton people underestimated how stupid Sanders’s fans were and didn’t realize that they would take emails written after he could no longer win the primary as proof that the DNC conspired against Sanders.
But since Sanders had successfully poisoned the well during the primaries and continues poisoning the well to this day, there was no way to explain that the guy had already lost the primary but was still running his asshole mouth anyway.
TenguPhule
@amk: Let me guess, you can’t read or figure out simple things either? H1-Bs are political poison right now. Its not the fault of the visa holders, but the whole thing is tainted because companies have EXPLOITED IT TO FIRE AMERICAN WORKERS IN FAVOR OF CHEAPER IMPORTED LABOR FROM NON-AMERICANS.
If you can’t grasp that simple point then run along to your true spiritual home, Jill Stein.
retiredeng
@Betsy: I agree. The writing here is excellent. Informative and well written. It’s my favorite site to sooth my anger at the sad state our politics has become. And not just Betty. The whole crew is tops.
Gindy51
@sukabi: Especially when you consider those beauty pageants may be nothing more than human trafficking vehicles….
schrodingers_cat
@glory b: Slayers of ignorance and bigotry, we are the manifestations of Shakti (power, also Parvati)
Corner Stone
@zach:
If you can explain to me in a serious manner how anyone could have pre understood that Comet Pizzagate Child Trafficking/Cannibalism could have emerged from Podesta’s emails I will honestly donate $100 to any charity you choose.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
And yet your plan is to blame the workers for being exploited, not the companies for exploiting them.
Great plan.
amk
@TenguPhule:
Hey moron. Unless you are a native american, you and your family themselves are ‘non-American’ to begin with. Dumb ass.
Immanentize
@Humboldtblue: those were the released prepared remarks. Sessions actually did not deliver the “filth” line when he gave his speech (per Josh Marshall)
zach
@TenguPhule:
I’m as pissed off about Russian propaganda and the FBI leaks/Comey as anyone. I just think there was a better strategy than ignoring it and going for the highroad strategy that could’ve swung the handful of votes needed to win.
I don’t live in a swing state so I don’t know what the mail/found/ground strategy was, but the national “when they go low we go high” pitch, inspirational as it was to committed Democrats, failed. Clinton was killing it when she had her foot on the gas pedal in the debates and she should’ve never let up, but she trusted polls that said a conservative strategy would surely get 50+1 while an aggressive strategy has some uncertainty.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@StringOnAStick:
I think there probably is some validity to believing this – there is a big net to cast. I forgot what I read and where – something on twitter – that surmises that there’s a very big fish that they’re after, and anything that compromises that investigation – like players further down on the ladder – will just have to wait. The cointel and the criminal divisions in the FBI are separate from what I gather, so the ratfucking of the NY office before the election doesn’t necessarily mean anything to the cointel investigation. It is all extremely alarming, no matter what happens, because trusting Comey is all we’ve got and that ain’t reassuring.
Louise Mensch on Nunes and Epshteyn and obstruction of justice.
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
Thank you, violating department policy or directives is not breaking the law, if she had still been in their employ, they could have disciplined her.
The FBI talk is a red herring, everyone knows that a prosecutor if they really want to, can charge almost anyone with something, will they get a conviction is the question and Comey said no. Last I checked, “carelessness” is not a crime if you are not a secret agent of some sort, and even then, it depends on the circumstances.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
I think he’s saying Comey saved her from prosecution, not that he saved her politically. There are lots of Republicans who are sure that she violated every law on classification in the book, and that only Comey’s corrupt intervention in the case protected her from being thrown in jail for the rest of her natural life.
zach
@Corner Stone:
Hahaha yes fair enough. I actually make the same argument about the IPCC climate change reports… all the scientists involved bend over backwards to make sure the science is 1000% unimpeachable and leave zero room for speculation even though it might be more effective at moving policy makers. Many years of manpower wasted dotting every i… and then, in the absence of real errors, the Koch-funded folks just make things up anyway.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
I remember reading about this weeks ago, long before any recent kerfuffle, and thinking it was very F’ng interesting. The announcement was made in Feb 2017, WaPo link, but I see when I search that all the RWNJ media have glommed on to it like it’s a Trump Big Win for being a Tough Guy.
IOW, the usual bullshit spin.
Chris
@hovercraft:
Ditto. And it’s not “Trump fans,” it’s conservatives in general. I’ve had experiences like that for years, which is why I flat-out stopped arguing with them. “Did you hear they finally proved that global warming’s not real?” “Did you hear they found Saddam’s WMDs in Syria?” “Did you hear France just went bankrupt because of its welfare state?” Not from hillbillies either, from well educated people in cosmopolitan coastal settings who just happen to be complete morons. It’s just too much work to google everything and disprove it. Easier to just avoid contact with them altogether.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Pot, kettle. That was my whole POINT which I have been repeatedly digging your partner about. Instead of realizing that I AM SYMPATHETIC to the H1-B holders, he and you both leaped to the conclusion that I’ve got something against them when I point out that the H1-B system ITSELF is a problem which has VERY BAD OPTICS when trying to defend those currently using it.
Any Democrat trying to defend H1-B holders is going to get slammed with “They’re stealing our jobs!” by any opponent with two brain cells to rub together and it will literally be the truth, which makes it really really hard to get the people who vote on your side. Its not fair, but this is reality.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore: I personally also think it’s the way the mind of an infantile conspiracy theorist works. He’s always hinting darkly at things with no details or backup info.
It allows him to thread a narrative that can ramble in many, or any, directions because he isn’t tied into reality. The audience is either stunned into WTF, or replacing the fillers with their own personal boogeymen ideas and, of course, know exactly what he’s talking about.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Louise Mensch on Nunes and Epshteyn and obstruction of justice.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
That’s right, I forgot what the fever swamp angle was. That’s the same fever swamp currently braying that it’s okay that Trump plays golf more often than Obama because he’s doing business on the golf course and Obama totally wasn’t because shut up, that’s why.
I don’t think I’ve said it in this thread, but I realized this morning that, in Trump, conservatives managed to elect the guy who really is everything bad they claimed Obama was (lazy, unprepared, pissing off our allies, spending taxpayer money on vacations, etc etc etc).
Steve in the ATL
@hovercraft:
1. that’s not my dog
2. my dog doesn’t bite
3. I don’t have a dog
ETA: this is called “pleading in the alternative” and lawyers are allowed to do this under the theory that the facts will come out over the course of the litigation that will narrow the defenses
catclub
@StringOnAStick:
emphasis on imagine?
Can you also imagine a pony while you’re at it?
I can imagine they are also furiously working to prosecute all the people involved in torture during the Bush admin.
TenguPhule
@zach:
Were you not paying attention during the election?
The Clinton campaign flat out said the Russians were interfering and were roundly mocked by the media for their trouble. The whole damn deck was stacked against them.
Chris
@hovercraft:
If it was, Comey himself would be in jail for violating every department policy regarding investigations and ongoing elections.
mai naem mobile
I haven’t seen the Bartiromo interview but did Maria Antoinette Bartiromo push back at all? I hate watch her Sunday show occasionally and she’s such a RW journohack. I hope she gets guillotined along with the RW pols and Wall Streeters when the revolution comes.
Bill Arnold
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
The obvious alternative story re Comey is something like this, and variations of this have been published in media outlets:
(1) The NY FBI office was threatening to leak, perhaps just implicitly but clearly enough. (Dunno if true.)
(2) He releases the statement about the Weiner laptop emails, thinking Clinton already has the election won.
(3) Roughly concurrently (I forget the timeline) the Podesta emails are released, and widely used by [X etc – not sure who actors are] to stir up the alt-right, mostly invisibly to MSM consumers.
(4) Big Oooops, these were enough to push Trump over the top.
(5) Russia/Trump investigations (counter-espionage), already long-ongoing, continue.
(6) Comey thinks of himself as an honest, honorable man. (H/T Adam Silverman)
(7) Comey digs in. He also starts setting plenty of dead-man switch traps that take effect if he’s fired. And also if he is em-deaded by a bathtub accident or defenestration whatever.
Deadlock. Investigations continue. The investigations are finding things, and administration nervousness increases.
StringOnAStick
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Comey isn’t all we’ve got, there is more to the IC than just the FBI. He’s just the most likely to give us a response that we as citizens will actually see; the deeper nooks of the IC are places we will likely never know about and I am sure the deep spooks are using what they can find now as set ups for the future. That game never ends, and my fear is they are protecting something or someone so incredibly big and long running that letting Drumpf’s crew get away with it is the bargain they are willing to make, for now anyway. There will probably be some very public defenestrations of some of these idiots, the IC doesn’t like traitors. There may also be some who are allowed to skate because they somehow keep a string active to the deeper game. Who knows?
I check here obsessively, looking for a new post by Adam Silverman because all this traitor/spy/IC stuff has me on serious edge these days. He’s an incredible lifeline for us and I am amazed we are so lucky as to have him posting here.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: All that’s left is ignoring Congress and becoming a dictator….oh wait.
Keith P.
@rikyrah: Devastating. His True Hollywood Stories are hilarious. I’ve seen the Prince and Rick James ones (the outtake ones aren’t very good) probably 30 times each.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: IAAL and stating that someone commited a felony is libel per se. Even the public person hedge can’t protect you. But there might be some wiggle room on whether they said he was a criminal or just an arrested fellow.
Corner Stone
@mai naem mobile:
Well…if she does, does that mean I can get a…little…oh, never mind.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
In his defense, he has told them to pull back on the Kushner bashing the last few days to try to save his perch in the White House.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: Point me to this mysterious plan I seem to have targeting the H1-Bs that you keep talking about. I’ll wait.
Steve in the ATL
@Humboldtblue:
The more I hear from FUCKING Jefferson FUCKING Beauregard FUCKING Sessions the FUCKING Third, the happier I am that Alabama lost the national championship game.
Of course, I’m not happy that a team from South Carolina won, but still….
Corner Stone
@Steve in the ATL: I thought ethically you were not allowed to present a defense you knew was not true?
MCA1
@Roger Moore: I think it’s both. He obviously uses a ton of verbal filler, in part to mask the fact that he says nothing of any substance, so it allows him to speak a lot of words and to feel like he must have made a point in there, somewhere. But it’s telling that his verbal filler is almost without exception of a subliminal sales pitch nature. “You know,” “truly,” “believe me,” “trust me,” obviously,” “everybody knows/says.” He’s not using “uhm” and “ahh” and similar non-verbal vocalizations. He’s using phrases that invite the listener to subconsciously either accept the veracity of his lies, or feel like they’re in on something with him, or believe they must be in the minority if they disagree with the rest of the statement. Sometimes it’s gaslighting, sometimes it’s outright conspiratorial.
Brachiator
@catclub:
But Trump speaks like his supporters. And if you like, you can say that he is as lazy and uninformed as they are. But this puts them on the same wavelength. They will be relaxed, supportive and more likely to agree with him.
What you see as a problem, his supporters grab onto as another sign of his “authenticity.”
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Wonder if Comey-2016 was as simple as this:
Comey gives “shape of earth: views differ” testimony to Congress that splits the difference between what the two sides want – admitting that he doesn’t in fact have any cause to pursue Hillary Clinton to make the Democrats happy, but scolding her loudly and publicly for how her actions, while legal, were still bad or not wise, to make the Republicans happy.
Republicans spend the next several months howling that Comey saved Crooked Hillary from a sure prison sentence and that it proves what a liberal hack he is.
Comey, sensitive to this hurtful accusation, does his October Surprise by way of apologizing to Republicans for having offended them.
I mean, that’s how an MSM pundit would think. Can only hope Comey’s not like that, but his judgment is pretty clearly godawful all around.
TenguPhule
@amk: And this relates to what I just said, how? You think you can pack in a few more fallacies before finally giving up and admitting that you fucked up?
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: Ssssuuuurrreee he has. Interested in any nice bridges?
sukabi
@Gindy51: it would be irresponsible not to speculate…
StringOnAStick
@catclub: Good point, but I think the kind of people you find in the IC are a whole lot more excitable about traitors and Russia penetrating our government than they were about the CIA torturing people from the ISIS-Al Qaeda world. The former is about traitors, a much bigger wrong in their book, by far. I think illegally torturing is also extremely wrong, but they see it as (1) we got permission from the Attorney General, and (2) our guys won’t punish our guys. Not even remotely similar, though both are crimes in my view. I’m not excusing it, but I suspect the IC guys see this differently than you or I do.
Steve in the ATL
@Corner Stone:
You are correct, sir, but when lawsuits are filed the defendant often doesn’t know yet what is true and what isn’t, hence pleading in the alternative to preserve any possible defenses
germy
@mai naem mobile: Not only did she not push back, she behaved like an overanxious T-Ball mom with him (quoting Bob Schooley)
Captain C
@sukabi:
Which is why I suspect their real hold on him involves huge loans and money laundering.
I tend to think that this tape, if it exists, isn’t even close to the worst sex tape they have on him, given what we know about his proclivities; I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there’s an FSB-owned sex tape or two which show Il Donaldo committing actual felonies (ones which wouldn’t endear him to a significant part of his base).
Corner Stone
@Steve in the ATL: Hmmm. I get not asking him, “Did you kill that person?” because you want to argue alternatives freely. But wouldn’t you ask him if he had a dog? Surely someone is going to have a pic of him with the dog, or a vet record or credit card bill of buying dog food?
TenguPhule
@Captain C:
My guess is Trump got slipped a ladyboy in Russia, didn’t realize until afterwards that the balls touched and killed the poor thing on tape.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@moops: using the Quackenbush hearing as a model, which is likely a good one since it’s a good chance the Cal Dems are leading this, they want a steady examination and of what happened until Trump’s guilt is becomes fixed and undeniable in the public consciousness instead of some Perry Mason dramatic gotcha moment.
Steve in the ATL
@Corner Stone: the dog example is actually part of a lawyer joke and not a real pleading, but I included the alternate pleading paragraph in furtherance of my tireless efforts to inform and educate the Juicetariat.
amk
@TenguPhule: Spoken a like true trumpanzee. Go back to random all caps.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Hey, if you’re comfortable demonizing immigrants to score political points, that’s on you. I’m not willing to do that. And I think we can win by pointing out that the problem is the dishonest employers who are exploiting the system, not the workers who get caught up in it.
You can’t halt prostitution if you only arrest the hookers, and you can’t stop H1-B visas from being exploited if you only punish the visa holders. You have to cut the problem off at the source and not waste time trying to punish the people who got exploited by the system.
hovercraft
Oh FFS, these people are really a bunch of big scardy cats.
Pruitt Requests Around-The-Clock Security Detail As Deep Cuts Loom At EPA
Though the Trump administration has requested deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, the department is looking for an increase in security for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, the New York Times reported this week.
The EPA has asked to add 10 security agents to provide a 24/7 security detail for Pruitt, which would be the first time an EPA administrator has had around-the-clock security, according to the New York Times.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
No problem. The sad thing is that the average American knows about the immigrant welcoming myth of the Statue of Liberty, but not much at all about the various laws enacted to restrict immigration of people considered to be less than desirable, especially the various Asian directed exclusion acts. Canada, sadly, also enacted some heinous Chinese Exclusion Acts. The racism was not exclusive to the US.
Corner Stone
@Captain C:
Like one where he chokes the life out of an underage trafficked child because that was the only size neck he could wrap his tiny hands around and squeeze?
What? I’m just sayin’.
tybee
@GregB: i would do that for free.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
Not sure how they can protect him from Mother Nature.
zach
@TenguPhule: Her campaign could’ve gone way farther painting Trump as a Russian stooge, a conman, and a pervert. Did you see the BAT Tax ad? Trump was running with tariffs as a centerpiece of his campaign and Clinton could’ve run an almost carbon copy of that ad against him.
I agree FBI, Russia and our irresponsible social media and traditional media gatekeepers played major roles in the election. I think Clinton was the best candidate of the three by far and that Bernie’s flaws would’ve been quickly exposed if he ever had a chance at winning. But I’m imaginative enough to think that a more aggressive strategy in the final weeks could’ve swung the needed handful of votes. Also some longer-term strategic errors in not recognizing rust belt vulnerability.
hovercraft
Conway Denies That She Is ‘The Darkness’ In ‘Democracy Dies In Darkness’ (VIDEO)
Riffing off The Washington Post’s new slogan, “Democracy Dies In Darkness,” journalist Michael Wolff asked President Donald Trump’s senior counselor Kellyanne Conway if she takes personally the fact that she is “the darkness.”
“How personal do you take this?” Wolff asked Wednesday during a conversation at the Newseum in Washington D.C.
“How personally do I take what?” Conway asked.
“This coverage of you this ‘Democracy Dies In Darkness” because I’m gonna tell you, when they say ‘Democracy Dies In Darkness’ you’re the darkness,” Wolff said to cheers.
“I’m not the darkness,” Conway shot back.
Wolff clarified that he was not calling Conway “the darkness,” but pointing out that is probably what the Washington Post had in mind. Conway said that just because someone says something, doesn’t make it true.
The comment came in a forum about the press and the presidency, which Conway participated in. Unsurprisingly, most of the questions volleyed at her had to do with the administration’s distrust of the media. At one point, Conway took a shot at television news, saying that anyone can go on TV and say anything, even if it’s not true.
“People literally say things that just aren’t true,” Conway said to laughs from the audience.
These fuckers have no souls let alone shame. Ugh!!!!!!!!!
Captain C
@sukabi: ‘He
was thrownfell from the 20th story [specifically, a room with small, high windows], crashing into the sidewalk below and dying from natural causes as a result.’Corner Stone
@Steve in the ATL: Tireless, indeed. Even when stuck in the hell that is Masshole, you persisted.
Kudos.
mai naem mobile
@Corner Stone: you can get a piece of the chocolate cake that they serve at Mal-A-Lago. You know, the one Xi Ping was having when Dolt 45 told him about the armada of missiles.
Captain C
@TriassicSands:
Freedom Caucus: “Hold my beer and watch this…”
Chris
@hovercraft:
“I’m not the darkness.” That’s even better than “I’m not a witch!”
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
But I read it on Politico, and I’m sure Chris Cillizza et al, said that they are trying to play nice, Bannon has baked off and everyone is singing kumbaya. Nothing to see here folks, all is well, move along.
Once again my snark was not snarky enough, sorry. ;- (
LAO
@hovercraft:
OMG — so she learned, until the media stopped booking her. Damn, I’m literally crying, I’m laughing so hard.
amk
zach
It’s crazy that there’s any point in speculating about Trump being a creepy sexual weirdo or that it’s news when evidence surfaces that he is. He diversified his real estate investments into beauty pageants and modeling agencies! Who does that? Then, this week his company (obviously with no input on his part) ends its relationships with those businesses basically the second he’s in a position to use political power instead of money to coerce women into whatever he wants.
LAO
@Corner Stone: Or karma.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@hovercraft: Oh my god she’s still ALIVE?
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Also, the 1924 Reed Johnson Act was signed today in the House of Representatives. The immigrant -love-hate is cyclical.
rikyrah
@Cacti:
Not only do I hope it’s true, but he sues the phucking newspaper into oblivion.
mai naem mobile
@hovercraft: why would you need 10 security guards? I wonder if Bill Gates has 10 security guards? I understand a POTUS needing a large number of security guards but the EPA chief? Seriously? Is it ever going to occur to these people that they’re doing something wrong if they need all this extra security? DeVos and,now, Pruitt. Bet Price and Mnuchin will be next.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
They are delusional, but they also have Fox News and other sources to reinforce what they want to believe.
I hear local talk radio hosts and callers talk about Trump as a forceful, decisive “new sheriff in town.” They are delusional because they desperately need to believe that this rich white man will save them and restore everything that feared that Obama would take from them. I don’t know what will happen or what lies they will console themselves with after Trump and his fellow thieves strip them down to nothing.
Corner Stone
@zach: I am sure you have some definitive ideas about how HRC and her campaign fucked up. And, no doubt, they did at several key points. But you keep failing miserably to make any actual coherent arguments to advance your ideas on this issue. She wasn’t going to fire Huma, no one could plan for Pizzagate, her email server was never hacked, she couldn’t stop the media from drooling every.single.day about a new wikileaks nothing, she could not have stopped or got ahead of the Comey Letter(s). She made the probably most brave, honest and truthful speech I have ever seen a major politician running for office give, and got fucking big trucked and maligned for it.
And she called Trump “Putin’s Puppet” with about 80M potential voters watching.
A chunk of them did not care. They just hated her that much.
hovercraft
@Chris:
I would like them to engrave this into every telepromter Twitler uses and onto all the White House stationary as a reminder to these morons that they cannot actually make their own reality, we out here can see and hear what’s going on in the real world. Morons like the one I had a “conversation” this morning not withstanding. I also appreciate that the crowd laughed when she tried to accuse other people of being the liars. They should just stick to Fox.
rikyrah
@StringOnAStick:
truth
hovercraft
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): and apparently experiencing your name, Butthurt ;- 0 Why is the world so cruel.
amk
Iowa Old Lady
Can I just say how much I hate Trump’s raspy, high-pitched voice?
Betty Cracker
@Chris: I think Comey is exactly like a Beltway hack; in a recent interview, he even said something to the effect that if both sides are angry at you, it proves you’re an honest broker. Broder himself couldn’t have said it better.
But if he’s susceptible to ref-working from the right, he’s susceptible to it from the left too, and he’s likely perturbed by accusations that he threw the election. So maybe he’ll do a makeup call. I realize it’s a slim reed to hang one’s hopes on, but drowning men, straws, etc.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
You’re just going to double down and refuse to admit you were wrong, aren’t you?
Mnemosyne
@zach:
You’re talking about voters who, when they were told there was a whole white supremacist “basket of deplorables” behind Trump, immediately declared themselves to be “deplorables,” and the MSM egged them on.
This is a different issue, and one I tend to agree on. I think national Democrats vastly underestimated how successful voter suppression tactics had been in the “firewall states” and didn’t realize they needed to throw extra GOTV dollars there well before the election so people could get the IDs and other documentation they needed. The number of people that Milwaukee County’s county clerk reported as being unable to vote due to the WI voter ID law was about twice Trump’s margin of victory in WI.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
I have never done drugs. But I have to admit the idea is growing on me.
TenguPhule
@zach:
Every time they tried it was either derided by the media or quickly forgotten by them.
TenguPhule
@amk: You really must enjoy the weather there in Siberia, comrade.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Why am I supposed to “admit I was wrong” when this is what you said:
You said we need to demonize H1-B holders to keep voters on our side, because otherwise we’ll get slammed by our opponents.
piratedan
@hovercraft: okay, okay so she isn’t The Darkness… then she sure as fuck is The Dusk, the harbinger of The Darkness.
jl
@Corner Stone: Bannon was baked off on his own off-kilter brain chemicals years ago. So, it’s not really new news.
Corner Stone
@Iowa Old Lady: I hate his stupid fucking voice. And I especially hate it when he “goes soft” voice like he’s explaining something to the audience. And I hate it when it’s on my TV. Oh and when it’s not on my TV I still fucking hate it.
I fucking hate that guy like I have not hated anyone in my life.
amk
Humboldtblue
@amk:
I am pretty sure Tengu has been referring to situations like this one when it comes HB-1 visas.
Millard Filmore
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
The thing I fear most is the possibility of Trump saying “Pardons all around.” Trump HAS to go down first.
hovercraft
Presidenting and governmenting is sooo hard people!!!!
White House: Federal hiring freeze over, ‘surgical’ cuts begin
By Dan Merica and Elizabeth Landers, CNN
The Trump administration, in an attempt to remake the size and scope of the federal government, will inform federal agencies Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s federal ban on hiring is over. But the Office of Management and Budget expects agencies to begin implementing more “targeted” and “surgical” cuts to agency staffing.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Tuesday the guidance, which will go out to agencies Wednesday morning, is an attempt by the Trump administration to make good on the President’s promise to “drain the swamp,” a slogan that animated his 2016 campaign.
“This is really important to the President,” Mulvaney said when asked why Trump will be able to do what past presidents have failed to accomplish. “I can tell you that this is a big part of draining the swamp. … Really, what you are talking about doing is restructuring Washington, DC, and that is how you drain the swamp.”…………
“What we are doing tomorrow is replacing the across-the-board hiring freeze that we put into place on day one in office and replacing it with a smarter plan, a more strategic plan, a more surgical plan,” Mulvaney said.
Mulvaney said he could not provide detailed figures on job cuts, but added that it “probably goes without saying (that) we think we can run the government more efficiently than the previous administration can.”
Oh and guess who make up a disproportionate portion of Federal Workers? Fucking dumbasses!!
Additionally, there are concerns that hiring freezes and job cuts will adversely impact veterans, many of whom leave their service and hope to land federal government jobs.
A 2015 report by the Office of Personnel Management, found that veterans made up 44% of all full-time hires in the federal government.
Corner Stone
@amk: Tillerson does not want any of that. He wants to create a condition set such that the US will remove the sanctions against Russia. That’s it.
catclub
@schrodingers_cat:
if by today you mean, on this day of the year, in 1924.
schrodingers_cat
The moment my friend became an ex-friend: When the travel ban defending and JS voting moron said that she is not a racist because she likes Indian food and does yoga.
schrodingers_cat
@catclub: Good catch! that’s what I meant. Happens when you are writing two things at a time.
zach
@Corner Stone: Yeah I went off the rails a lot.
“Fake news” (before Trump destroyed the term) is a thing in every modern election: Bush’s guard records, Kerry’s purple hearts, Obama’s birth certificate, etc. Sometimes you can disprove it in time (Bush) but for the most part you just need to be call out bullshit for what it is, hope the media is vaguely objective, AND give people something else to talk about that’s at least as interesting. In the last few weeks, Clinton screwed up the last part.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: I think Mulvaney is the cabinet member who needs to be requesting double digit security.
Mnemosyne
@Humboldtblue:
And as that article points out, the problem is that employers exploit it, not visa holders:
hovercraft
And speaking of festering messes that won’t go away.
Majority of Voters Want President Trump to Release His Tax Returns
Jennifer Calfas
Apr 10, 2017
A new Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll found 53% of voters say Trump should be forced to release his tax returns, and 51% say Trump’s taxes are either very or somewhat important to them. Additionally, 45% say Trump’s taxes are relevant to his job in the White House.
The Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll surveyed 2,353 registered voters over a two-day period in early April.
Before the 2016 presidential election, 62% of voters said it was either very or somewhat important that the candidates release their tax returns, according to a Monmouth University poll.
The new data from the poll comes just days before protesters plan to march to demand Trump release his tax returns on April 15, which is historically when Tax Day falls although it has been extended until April 18 this year.
Trump broke decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax returns while he was a presidential candidate. In fact, Trump maintains that no one — aside from reporters — cares about his tax returns.
amk
@TenguPhule: Blabbering morons bore me.
Betty Cracker
@Iowa Old Lady: I was just saying this morning that, in addition to all the serious reasons to despise the Trumps, there are so damn many trivial things about them that get on my last goddamned nerve every single day. His stupidly long ties. The little hair-winglets he combs over his ears and plasters in place with gel. Ivanka’s simpering voice. The comb marks in Eric’s over-productized hair. Don Jr.’s annoying Chiclet teeth. Melania’s duck-lips expression. I just resent the presence of these trashy grifters in my life.
Gelfling 545
@Corner Stone: We used to reprimand my granddaughter for excessive “you knows”. She was 12.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
“Drain the swamp” = “firing all liberals and Democrats and filling those jobs with movement conservatives.”
They freely admit this. The only people who don’t seem to have caught on is the media.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: I have totally abandoned watching TV news since November. That helps.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
I see your problem now. You need glasses.
I said that any Democrat who defends H1-Bs will be attacked. I did not say that Democrats should therefore attack those same H1-Bs.
1. Democrats are the minority party in government right now.
2. There is nothing they can do to actually help H1-Bs while a minority party.
3.Trying to help the H1-Bs now will be used against them by the Republicans and not help the Democrats trying to attract votes to stop being a minority party.
5. Therefore, The Democratic Party has bigger problems to worry about right now.
Captain C
@Corner Stone: Something like this, perhaps after she (or he) laughed at his tiny…hands.
TenguPhule
@amk: So you quickly bored yourself and came here to spread the misery. Wonderful.
zach
@TenguPhule:
If there’s one good thing that comes out of the Trump era, if we survive, it’s learning that being derided in the media isn’t necessarily a sign to stop if you want to win.
CindyH
@Kay: I agree Kay. I have watched comments about eating popcorn for years, but the repugs kept winning and now have a stranglehold on our country. They have no decency; only an insatiable thirst for power.
Captain C
@mai naem mobile: If it’s 24/7, probably 3 for each 8-hour shift plus an extra so they can rotate for weekends/vacations and suchlike.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
And if I didn’t loathe the stereotypical New Yawk accent before, I sure do now. Like nails on a friggin blackboard.
mai naem mobile
@schrodingers_cat: oh,okay,so Dolt 45 isn’t racist because he likes fried chicken and corn on the cob?
amk
Guess stfu nda’s will be part of that ‘compensation’.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: Which is the problem. And why the whole H1-B program has such bad optics with Americans who vote.
schrodingers_cat
@mai naem mobile: Actually I hadn’t even called her racist, she reflexively felt she like she had to defend herself. It does feel sad though, because she has changed after moving to a red state. I kept making excuses for her, till I finally ran out of patience.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
Tell me about it, I posted a link in the next post, he’s advocating giving the rich tax cuts and just fuck the deficit. He’s even okay with deficit spending on infrastructure. Funny how all the offsets he demanded of Obama and the democrats are no longer necessary.
mai naem mobile
@Captain C: the way I read it was that they’re asking for 10 additional security guards which means he’s already got regular security. I always figured all regular cabinet members have a security detail like a governor has. Would he need more than a couple of people at a time except maybe when he’s at big events? And,more than two at night when he’s sleeping? Doesn’t make sense.
Gravenstone
@efgoldman: Nope, Republican majority.
mai naem mobile
@Captain C: it isn’t Dolts accent that bothers me. It’s his voice and,more annoying,is the way he talks like he’s playing a POTUS character in a movie. It would be nice if he would try and sound like Martin Sheen in ‘American President.-
J R in WV
@Mnemosyne:
Those of you pitching road-apples at TenguPhule are off base. TenguPhule isn’t attacking H1-B visa holders at all, he is attacking the companies hiring H1-B holders AND the companies that procure the H1-B visas to bring those contractors her to America, to replace people making higher wages.
That you don’t realize this about TenguPhule makes me suspect your reading skills. Saying that speaking in defense of H1-B visa workers is political poison is an accurate read of public opinion about these “foreign” workers.
My state agency was able to staff up for major projects by using contractors while not being allowed to actually hire FTE workers, because politics. Politicians want to cut staff and save money, ignoring the fact that staff is required to execute the mission of every state agency.
Cutting staff past a certain point make remaining staff unable to do even the lower amount of work you might expect, as the workload is not doable with the people on staff.
Please, read the comments TenguPhule has made, and don’t insert your inferences into those comments, because they are in your head, not TenguPhule’s head.
TenguPhule
@J R in WV: Thank you.
mike in dc
@Corner Stone:
A few suggestions:
1. Withdraw from Ukraine.
2. Stand down military buildups in Eastern Europe, particularly in the Baltic states region.
3. Withdraw support for Assad and remove forces from Syria.
4. Putin agrees to resign from office after his current term expires and to not be involved in Russian politics in any way.
glory b
@schrodingers_cat: And now we have a slogan!
Gelfling 545
@Roger Moore: You see, the problem here is that you expect something reasonable. This regime does not do reasonable.
retiredeng
@Patricia Kayden: In every possible measure Obama and Trump are polar opposites. I suppose it’s a kind of “balance” really. We’re being punished for having the audacity to elect a great president twice.
Betty Cracker
@retiredeng: They sure are polar opposites. It’s hard to believe they’re even the same species sometimes.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: oh, noes! Dammit, I hate it that only the good die young. : (
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
Obama is not an Orangutan.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Yes, let’s just let the white supremacists attack and demonize H1-B holders and not say anything. We have more important things to worry about than immigrants being attacked, amirite?
schrodingers_cat
@J R in WV:
First they came for H1-B workers and I said nothing because it was political poison. I am sorry but I do not have that luxury. There are things more important than political expediency to me, you see, I am not that different from the people TP and you have marked as political poison. The only thing that differentiates us is our legal status.
H1-B visa has a lot of problems and the entire employment based immigration policy needs an update. Even in the enforcement, the middling staffing companies are targeted, while the big corporate giants get a slap on the wrist,if that.
Mnemosyne
@J R in WV:
I love you, man, but … no. In a country where we are currently refusing to let people so much as visit based on their national origin or the color of their skin, allowing the white supremacists in charge to demonize H1-B visa holders is playing right into their hands. We can say that companies are unfairly exploiting the system and defend the people who hold the visas at the same time. It’s not an either/or, no matter how much you and TP want to claim it is.
Demonizing immigrants or allowing others to demonize them unchallenged NEVER ENDS WELL. Ever. Even if it seems like the best strategy at the time, it will ALWAYS backfire and bite you in the ass when it turns out that your “allies” in ending worker exploitation really just wanted to stop Asians from immigrating to the US and end up screwing you on worker protections anyway.
J R in WV
@Captain C:
No, probably 2 staff for work hours, one for each overnight shift, more when traveling. Don’t forget people get sick days, holidays, weekends, vacation, etc. 10 is a bare minimum really, to have someone on 24/7.
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: gee, it’s almost as if they feared that completely trashing the agencies they were hired to administer was going to inspire some kind of…pushback.
Meanwhile, the thought that my tax money is going not to support say, the EPA or the Dept. of Education or the HHS, but rather for protection services for these shitweasels makes me gnash my teeth.
Gelfling 545
@zach: I know; she could have hired a team of psychics to forecast for her. Unrealistic much? How do you “get ahead” of lies and misrepresentation? The fault was Comey’s for putting in his little chirp about absolutely nothing on one side and keeping silent about a major compromising situation on the other.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
No we can’t. We are not the majority party in control of the government.
The Democrats can’t help these people because they have no power in government at the moment. Speaking up on their behalf without that power is an exercise in feel good futility. It will just be used to demonize any Democrat foolish enough to do so.
So please recognize that immigration, like taxes, is much more complicated then just “poor H1-B visa holders” and that we are constrained by the political realities we have now, not the ones you might wish for.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
No political party in the world has ever run and won on “Foreigners first, voters second.”
And don’t deny that this is exactly how our lazy media would portray it as.
Betty Cracker
@hovercraft: Yeah, Trump is a new species: the shitgibbon.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
A whole lot of them have won on “protecting the fatherland” against foreigners and not enough people opposed them because they thought it was a political loser.
You may be right. The US may be on an inevitable path to race-based fascism that none of us can stop. But unlike you, I think we should fight that slide rather than roll over and let them do whatever they want.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
@Mnemosyne:
You guys are both griping about motes and ignoring logs. Schrodingers_Cat, I don’t know anything about your status, I would have assumed you were a naturalized citizen if asked. And this isn’t particularly about you and your status, it’s about politics and how to get people elected. My point is exactly what you have said yourself in the ‘graph I have quoted.
Mnemosyne, Trump wishes we were refusing to let people enter the country based upon their national origin and religion. That isn’t the case as the judiciary has his pathetic executive order blocked because it is patently not legal.
I’m not attacking H1-B visa holders at all, hell, I’ve brought quite a few into the country, they did great work and are mostly all either Green Card holders or actual citizens now. I’m proud to have helped them walk the same road my G-Grandparents did 125 years ago.
I resent your accusations about me and TemguPhule, neither of us attacked H1-B visa holders – he attacked the employment visa system itself, and the immorality of the companies using visas for profit – big profits- and not for the betterment of the nation.
In politics, splitting hairs just makes you look foolish…. when you are explaining a complex and nuanced position, you are losing to the guy who’s position is a simple 6 word slogan. Avoiding those complex and nuanced positions while running is not evil, it’s pragmatic.
Gore, Kerry, and Clinton all tried to make good sense about complex issues, and they all lost. Kerry’s loss was partly because of despicable lies about his heroic military record, much like Max Cleland, a real hero, who lost to a despicable Republican in GA a while ago. But all three tried to be nuanced and complex, and failed with people who don’t understand complexity.
I’m in favor of immigration of people who will help our nation improve. That’s short, not nuanced, and hard to argue with. Anything more complex won’t work in politics. We aren’t talking about theology or philosophy or political science here, we’re talking about running and winning elections.
I’m done with this. So long!
ETA, typos, clarity.
Mnemosyne
@J R in WV:
TenguPhule insisted on continuing an argument from a thread last week where he did attack visa holders. And now he’s arguing that we should pretend that Trump isn’t basing immigration policy on racial grounds because we want to win elections.
H1-B is part of our immigration policy. Trump is trying to severely restrict immigration from Asia, and especially India. His attacks on the H1-B program are based in that, not on a desire to protect American workers. We CANNOT go along with his actions because American workers are pissed at immigrant workers.
I don’t think you’re racist, but I do think that you’re not looking at the whole picture and realizing that the current attack on H1-B’s by the Trump administration is part of their overall attempt to end immigration by non-Europeans, not a standalone policy.
Trump is using American tech workers’ well-founded dislike of the H1-B system to get his racist immigration policies in place. Don’t fall for it. Any changes he makes will be worse for immigrant workers AND worse for American workers.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Unlike you, I don’t think charging straight out of the trenches headlong into the machine guns is a viable strategy.
This issue may be important to you and those you know, but in the political landscape of the country, its peanuts. “Race-based fascism”? Tell that to the American men and women of color who are not only voters but in quite a bit more shit right now then the H1-Bs. There are not infinite resources to handle everything the way you might want to, we do what we can with what we actually have and try to help the most with it.
No matter how sympathetic those in and allied to the Democratic party may be, there is nothing that can be done to help the H1-Bs now. And trying to do so risks making them even worse off and giving popular support to a fascist enemy who will exploit any attempt to do so.
schrodingers_cat
@J R in WV: You agreed with TP that defending H1-Bs is political poison. It may be, but I will defend them. On a personal note, I have the greatest regard for you as a commenter and consider you a friend, and have enjoyed your comments on my blog as well.
Captain C
@Gelfling 545: In grad school, I once counted 59 “you knows” in another student’s 6-minute presentation.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
And here you go again doubling down on the misrepresentation. How about reading what we actually say instead of what you assume we’re saying?
FFS, are you really going to go off the rails on this? The H1-B program was recognized as a problem pre-Trump. Democrats couldn’t fix it under Obama because the GOP killed everything in the House and Senate. They can do even less about it now.
Pot. Kettle. You’re so obsessed with your side of it that you are missing the realities that are confronting the Democratic party.
What do you think is going to happen if any of the Democrats in the house or senate stick their necks out for H1-Bs?
They’ll be pounded with “Helped foreigners take American jobs!” and probably lose their seats. And they will have accomplished nothing to actually help any H1-B holders.
The Democratic Party will resist anything Trump proposes on principle. That’s a given already. But don’t ask them to waste limited resources on a loser of an issue, which is what the H1-B program is.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Which would be the 2017 version of voting for Jill Stein in the general.
Pretty, but ultimately not helpful.
schrodingers_cat
deleted.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Uh, you realize that there are Indian-American citizens of the United States, yes? And that many of them have friends or family whose only chance of immigrating here from India was on an H1-B? And that Schrodinger’s Cat is one of those Indian-Americans who had friends and family come here on H1-B visas? And that her friends and family — people she knows personally in real life — are currently being screwed by Trump’s new policies, and it’s not just the H1-B holders getting screwed?
This issue is not as easily divided into “American citizens” and “foreigners stealing our jobs” as Trump and his allies have told you it is. And the reason SC thinks you’re an asshole is because you’re saying that she and her friends and family are not real Americans worthy of being supported, so we should just ignore their problems and concentrate on what’s good for white Americans.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Sure, let’s acquiesce to the racists and not fight them. That’s always worked out well in the long run for all of us. Good plan!
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: Your inability to think laterally is concerning. Instead of charging the machine guns, consider tunneling around them.
Or you can keep on bonking that chicken.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
And the way you do that without telling Indian-Americans and other Asian Americans, Hey, sucks to be you, shoulda been born white if you wanted equal treatment is … ?
You claim that we can champion minority and immigrant rights while throwing immigrant visa holders to the wolves. What’s your plan to thread that needle?
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: Its not just Indians who are here on H1-Bs. That and J-1 visas are what universities and national labs like NIH etc use to employ foreign nationals.
I just highlight issues concerning immigration because immigrants (documented or not) and the foreign born are test cases in T’s America. If he can get away with treating non-citizens poorly, he will try those tactics on citizens too. Being citizens did not protect the Japanese Americans in WWII or Jews in their respective countries.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, and as I repeatedly have pointed out, it is not their fault. But the problem again is that H1-Bs are not citizens and don’t have a vote in this. Their relatives here who are citizens do. As do all the people who had their jobs taken away by the H1-B program and all of their friends and relatives and those who read the stories about H1-B exploitation in the news are voters. Guess which voting block is bigger?
Do I need to explain political slogans to you too? As JR in WV pointed out and all the studies have borne out, simple tends to beat nuanced when it comes to political messaging. This is not a fight you are ever going to win because its going to be countered simply with “Taking our Jobs”. So don’t get into this fight, there’s nothing to gain and everything to lose.
And the reason I think you and SC are both idiots on this is that you keep opening fire on friendlies instead of focusing on the real enemy and can’t bother to think outside of the box to actually help the people you claim you want to help instead of insisting on stupid and pointless gestures just to feel good about yourselves.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
Yep. And, sadly, Trump knows he’ll get away with it because far too many people who think of themselves as “liberal” will fall for his anti-immigrant rhetoric and not realize they screwed themselves until it’s too late. Kind of like the election we just went through, hm? ?
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule:
What gestures have I asked of you? I expect nothing from you.
Mnemosyne
As SC pointed out, that’s how we got internment of Japanese-American citizens in WWII — white people wanted the “yellow menace” to be locked up. But, hey, Roosevelt would have lost votes if he hadn’t imprisoned hundreds of thousands of American citizens without any kind of due process, so no problem, right?
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
The Democrats can work on minority rights, but until they get a majority in Congress or control of the executive branch, there is nothing that can be done for immigrant rights now. Its not fair, but again this is how bad things have gotten. The basic rights of all American citizens of color are imperiled and the time, energy and resources that will have to be spent on clawing those back is going to be the bulk of what’s available.
Status quo pre-Trump is the best that Non-American citizens immigrating can hope for for now. Don’t ask for more unless you enjoy being disappointed. Again, this is reality and we don’t have any working majorities that you can legitimately bitch about for not doing anything.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: Blanket condemnation of anyone who pointed out the situation is more complicated then your simple black and white says otherwise.
zach
@Gelfling 545:
Everyone in Clinton’s campaign, especially anyone as senior as Podesta, should’ve checked if their online accounts had been compromised/archived after the DNC leak. Especially after Stone hinted there’d be Podesta leaks coming. No excuse to be caught off-guard by that (even if the substance of the leaks was bogus).
Obviously you can’t avoid Pizzagate type total nonsense. But Clinton could’ve found out Podesta’s Gmail had been compromised and downloaded months earlier and announced as much.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: You are the one doing the condemning and the name-calling. For me, at least this conversation is over.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule: RE: You claim that we can champion minority and immigrant rights while throwing immigrant visa holders to the wolves. What’s your plan to thread that needle?
That’s mighty white of you, deciding the civil rights agenda, and who’s worth fighting for.
You haven’t even been paying attention to what’s been posted in this thread. Trump, Sessions and the Republicans in power think that white America is being threatened by a nonwhite horde, and they don’t draw the line at who is and who is not a citizen.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: Oh look, a strawman.
Some of those people affected by H1-Bs are in the Democratic camp at the moment. Some can be persuaded to come over. Some are lost causes. Alienating the whole block on the one issue that will unite them all when it doesn’t even have to be brought up in the first place is stupid.
Its harder to legislatively fix the issues in the H1-B program then it is to make useless grand gestures of defiance. I’d prefer slipping it quietly through in multiple bills as sub-amendments to address various aspect fixes, but then that’s boring and doesn’t really capture attention.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: And this is why I keep needling you. You keep running away when we both know you’re wrong.
MCA1
@Betty Cracker: Preach it, sister Betty. I hate all those relatively trivial things because they’re attached to loathsome people.
That just this single family contains all the tackiness of the bombastic, know-it-all, desperately striving, overcompensating for a million deficiencies asshole from Queens stereotype (the patriarch) AND the dickishness of the coddled, entitled prick in loafers, bubbled life, clueless billionaire boys club d-bag stereotype (Uday, Qusay, Kush, the entire Band of Brooks Brothers) is remarkable. I cringe every time I see or hear any of them. They uniformly embarrass the crap out of me. These are our best people? This is the family we trot out before the world? They’re 100% paper tiger Dunning-Krueger whining no-class vultures.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator: So fighting for the blacks, the browns, the muslims, the jews and everyone else on the long list of American citzens being shit on by Trump is the new whitey now? Or maybe there might be a reason why if you still think the legal options will work, that a citizen actually has a stronger legal position then a foreigner in the states on a visa?
amk
@Mnemosyne:
Yep. This has been the librul version of those damned mexicans taking away real murkan jobs.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
As has been repeatedly pointed out to you in this very thread, “status quo pre-Trump” no longer exists. What we have is Trump World, where Asians are part of the ravening horde destroying White America that have to be kept out. SC can’t even get a visa for her elderly mother-in-law to come for a visit, because Trump has decided that Indians need to be kept out, even as tourists.
You’re pretending that we’re still in a pre-Trump travel world when people who know FIRST HAND that that isn’t the case are trying to educate you, and you’re ignoring what people are telling you IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW because you can’t let go of how much you hate H1-B.
At what point are we allowed to stop conceding ground to the xenophobes and start fighting back?
Wow. You really missed the point of that whole “first they came for the Socialists …” poem, didn’t you?
Immigrants are the pointy end of the stick that is going to end up pointed at your heart. It’s better to stop it now than wait for it to get around to you, dumbass.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
I mean, Jesus, man, what did you think Chris Rock meant when he said, “That train is never late!”
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
That’s the goal, not the starting point. We’re starting at “Shit is fucked up” and trying to climb out of the pit.
I’m well aware of how bad the Trump travel ban, its already hurting my state’s economy and we are well out in front fighting against it . I also have no illusions that anything more can be done about this outside of the courts UNTIL the Republicans are thrown out en-masse. You keep putting words in my mouth that came straight out of your head.
The point of fighting back is to bury the other side, not allow them to bury you. As I and others have repeatedly pointed out to you and SC, the optics of the H1-B issue are terrible with American voters. Its not a hill to die on and there isn’t anything substantial that can be done as a minority anyway.
Wow, you really keep bonking those straw chickens now. The Democratic party does not have infinite resources. It can only spend them on so many things at a time and first priority is always going to be American citizens. Who are already under attack by this administration. Your refusal to recognize these simple facts is why you’re increasingly hurting your position with those of us who are sympathetic to the situation. You refuse to accept that things have changed and that yes, American citizens will always come first for an American political party that wants to survive.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
There is a difference between fighting alongside your friends and with the high and mighty condescension of deciding which groups you think can be sacrificed.
It’s an attitudinal thing. Some people who talk about fighting “for” a group as though they are doing them a favor, often disappear when the shit gets tough. Or, which is more the case here, you may be as much a target as anyone else.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: So tell me, how do you answer “They took our jobs”? You tell me how to disarm that bomb that will be dropped 24/7 on any Democrat who sticks their neck out. You tell me how to respond when they drag out the Disney staffers who were not only fired, but forced to train their replacements under threat of losing their severance check. You tell me, realistically, how to win on what is essentially the third rail of immigration.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator: Non-citizen or Citizen. Pick one over the other. This is what it boils down to politically.
Its not fair, but its the truth. And the Democrats can’t win if they get into this fight.
jc
@Brachiator: It’s incredible that Trump is still, months later, calling her “crooked Hillary.” It shows that he can’t help being a loathsome pig.
No Drought No More
“Don’t forget, when Jim Comey came out, he saved Hillary Clinton. People don’t realize that. He saved her life, because — I call it Comey won. And I joke about it a little bit”.
Consider the source.
It sounds to me like Trump is either “joking” or bragging that Hillary had been targeted for assassination, which Comey alone prevented by virtue of his infamous decision to subvert her 2016 presidential campaign during its final two weeks.
Like I said, consider the source.
opiejeanne
@Gelfling 545: I’m beginning to suspect that this guy is a concern troll.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: I know no such thing.