Twitler a little while ago:
Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2017
God, these people are so bad at their jobs, starting with the con man in chief. If Trump’s father hadn’t staked him, he’d have long ago washed out of the bottom-feeder time-share scam outfits for sheer incompetence.
ETA: To clarify, the tweet above is not only stupid on its face, it’s a ham-handed attempt to set up a scam that is visible from outer space. The chief aim of the Russian agents who ran the Trump campaign (and this can no longer be fucking denied) is to end the sanctions. Happily that coincides with the primary objective of Exxon, whose former chief is conveniently Trump’s secretary of state. And Trump wants to continue playing president on TV and make the Russia scandal go away.
What could achieve that win-win-win scenario? A “conflict” with Russia in which Trump gets to swing his dick around to impress Sean Hannity, followed by a “negotiation” that ends with Ukraine and Syria under the bus, the sanctions lifted and peace in our time. It’s playing out exactly as planned, though Putin probably gets an itchy polonium finger when he sees Twitler idiotically telegraphing their intentions.
Honest question: Am I deranged conspiracy theory girl now? This just seems so fucking obvious to me.
Corner Stone
And there will be peace…
/Palpatine
pk
It’s what Churchill would have said.
Corner Stone
Now I’m gonna haff to keep my eye on this here thread to make sure it don’ disappear like them otherens did afore it!
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
In a just universe Abu Ivanka al-Amriki would have been Nas’ weed-dealer-turned-family-butler, and would’ve gotten fired after “Takeover” made his employment a point of contention.
dmsilev
“We’ll have peace in our time!”
What’s Russian for ‘Munich’?
(I know, I know, but since right-wingers have decided that every foreign policy moment can be jammed into that framework, don’t we have to play along?)
Corner Stone
I’m not worried. At the right time someone will give me $10M and it will all work out fine.
amk
guess rex was shown the pee tape yesterday as a warning?
Gin & Tonic
Well, now I am reassured. I’m sure all my Ukrainian friends are relieved as well.
patrick II
When I read “staked him” I at first read it as putting a stake through his heart which would make sense if it had worked, but couldn’t figure out what that had to do with time-share scams. I was up late, I’m still sleepy. Not much of an excuse but I’m going with it.
rikyrah
he’s a MUTHAPHUCKING IDIOT!!!
The grading on a curve for a mediocre White man.
I always default back to…WHAT IF 44 had done this……
and then go most times with lips pursed….
UH HUH
UH HUH
Don’t wanna hear SHYT about any Non-White being ‘ unqualified’, after YOU elected this piece of garbage Mayo Nation
Villago Delenda Est
This traitor must be removed from office, along with all his minions. America can not be great again as a client state of a fascist dictator.
Major Major Major Major
@patrick II: I did too, but my excuse is that my husband spent the last half of March binging on Buffy.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: F grade person is not mediocre, he is worse than that.
Villago Delenda Est
He’d be living in a two bedroom rent controlled apartment, eating cat food right now after a long career of saying “do you want fries with that?” At least Uday, Qusay, and Lolita would have jobs at the grill and front counters to go to.
Corner Stone
It’s different because the piece of shit is directly transferring taxpayer money right into his fucking pockets. I don’t particularly care if he wants to go golfing on occasion. It rankles that he is taking that money and putting it in his coffers.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: Not all of us mayonnaise people voted for him.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: The mayo, I’m afraid, has gone bad.
SFBayAreaGal
@rikyrah: You I love very much. I love your phraseology.
Gin & Tonic
Anyway, Maddow’s opening segment yesterday was good, about just how bad this admin is at the basics. It really is remarkable.
SFBayAreaGal
@Gin & Tonic:Rikyrah knows that.
ruemara
@Gin & Tonic: You know what’s not necessary? “Not all [___].” Yes, certainly. But overwhelmingly, your demo did. And most allies on the left decided that maybe it’s the fault of pursuing “identity politics”, so, yeah, we get it’s not all of you. You can get that right now, it still looks like way too much of you.
germy
@Villago Delenda Est: I think he would have had a long and successful career as a used car salesman. Probably would have switched dealerships ever year or so, but would have done ok for himself.
His customers, on the other hand…
AAA would have been towing them day and night.
Corner Stone
Presser now by the lawyers repping Dr. Dao.
different-church-lady
You know, they’ll just… work out.
rikyrah
Jeffrey Lord says Donald Trump is the “Martin Luther King of health care.” pic.twitter.com/3j9bmJcKl5
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) April 13, 2017
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone: “And all of us will be driving Maybachs this time next year!”
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: Mr. Lord really needs to find some metaphors that are in the realm of credibility.
manyakitty
@Major Major Major Major: Excellent way to pass the time, though.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/12/17
Trump’s ‘not going into Syria’ vow ignores 1000+ US troops there
Rachel Maddow discusses the ramifications of Donald Trump’s missile strike on Syria on the U.S. troops already stationed there.
Mart
Privileged old white man watches too much Fox news, listens to too much Alex Jones, reads too much Gateway Pundit and Brietbart. Somehow gets to be Presidenting and says to himself, I don’t need no intelligence briefings or deep policy drill downs, I already know everything I need to know.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/12/17
Secretary Tillerson fails to defend US journalist in Russia
Rachel Maddow reports on how U.S. journalists can make leaders of less-free countries uncomfortable, and points out Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s failure to stand up for the American principle of press freedom and defend US journalists on his visit to Russia.
Aleta
Now the Republicans are staking him.
(D vs R support for the strikes, in 2013 vs now)
https://twitter.com/_JohnGonz/status/852337231893118976
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/12/17
Fmr Trump campaign manager Manafort registers as foreign agent
Rachel Maddow reports that former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort has registered as a foreign agent, the second high-ranking former Trump official to do so after-the-fact.
Betty Cracker
@ruemara: Here’s one thing I’m still struggling to work out: Just how large a contingent of “allies” on the left want us to drop “identity politics” to pursue Trump voters? In meat space, folks who think like that seem few in number, but anecdata, etc. Online, they are fucking legion (not here at BJ, but I see plenty of that shit on Twitter and other places). Hmmm. I wonder if there’s any polling on this issue. Anyone?
Gin & Tonic
@ruemara: I don’t want to see our side descending into “you people” or “those people.” That is never constructive. I know a great deal about Ukraine and its politics, and that sort of divisiveness was exactly what Paul Manafort brought to the table there, and successfully exploited to the nation’s detriment.
germy
@rikyrah: Wait a minute… I thought Carter Page was Martin Luther King. Didn’t he make that comparison a few days ago?
I’m getting confused here. Who really is the new Martin Luther King? Page, Trump, Manafort or KellyAnne?
hovercraft
Who says the man can’t learn anything. He owned pageants for years and now just look at him, he learned that all the best winners said they wanted “World Peace”, so he does too. His supporters should be so proud. Give that man his crown.
artem1s
He’s be working for Slipping Jimmy working street cons and living in someone’s basement or an alley. basically Ratso Rizzo.
rikyrah
Trump considers provocative new hostage strategy on health care
04/13/17 08:00 AM—UPDATED 04/13/17 09:22 AM
By Steve Benen
……………………………
“Obamacare is dead next month if it doesn’t get that money,” Trump said, referring to cost-sharing reductions. “I haven’t made my viewpoint clear yet. I don’t want people to get hurt…. What I think should happen and will happen is the Democrats will start calling me and negotiating.”
In other words, when the president says he doesn’t “want people to get hurt,” he means he will start hurting people by sabotaging the American health care system unless Democrats take steps to satisfy his demands.
It’s a bit like a criminal who declares, “I don’t want to shoot the hostages, but I haven’t yet received my ransom.”
What Trump may not realize is how truly ridiculous his new posture is. For a guy who paid someone to write “Art of the Deal” for him, the president doesn’t seem to have any idea how to negotiate effectively.
According to Trump’s latest comments, he’ll take deliberate steps to undermine Americans’ health security unless Democrats agree to help him undermine Americans’ health security. What incentive would Democratic lawmakers have to participate in such an exercise? None.
Indeed, the president seems baffled by the very nature of how threats are supposed to work. What Trump is describing is a form of political suicide: he’s publicly describing a scenario in which he alone starts hurting Americans, on purpose, so that everyone will know exactly who to blame. It’s like the aforementioned hostage-taker filming his crimes, while texting his address to the police, to make the prosecution easier.
Trump’s original strategy involved allowing the Affordable Care Act to wither through neglect and then avoid responsibility, insisting he had nothing to do with the law’s creation. That, too, was badly flawed, but it was at least borderline coherent. This latest gambit is simply bonkers: the president is prepared to take it upon himself to create a crisis that doesn’t currently exist, guaranteeing that Americans blame him directly for the ensuing disaster.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@rikyrah:
Said it before, and I’ll say it again:
He will pull the premium support appeal, because that is the kind of “man” that menopausal piece of shit is. He will cost the world a US carrier group or two in Korea, along with the residents of Seoul, because that is the kind of failure he is. He will screw up the Middle East and Eastern Europe, because of his gross level of stupidity.
He is the apex mediocre white man.
rikyrah
Tax reform shouldn’t be decided by a debate over branding
04/13/17 10:42 AM
By Steve Benen
………………………………….
Slate’s Jordan Weissmann had a good piece on this yesterday, noting, “Tax reform is in many ways just as complicated and politically unwieldly. And at the moment, the president isn’t demonstrating any kind of firm grasp on the single topic that has defined the debate so far…. Trump’s intellectual vacuum could end up swallowing his whole party’s agenda.”
If this sounds at all familiar, there’s a good reason for that. At one point in early March, Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke about the party’s health care legislation, and the president said he had had a problem with the bill: Ryan had used the word “buckets” to describe the additional steps of reform that would follow the initial legislation. “I don’t like that word buckets,” Trump reportedly said, preferring “phases.”
The House Speaker obliged, but the anecdote was telling. As we discussed at the time, Trump’s focus was on branding and sales pitches, not how American families’ lives would be affected by the legislation he was purportedly eager to sign.
Thoroughly Pizzled
Donald Trump is the greatest argument in favor of a 100% estate tax that has ever existed.
randy khan
@Gin & Tonic:
Living in Washington, I can tell you that whatever you think about how bad they are at the basics, it’s worse.
Corner Stone
Holy shit. A severe concussion, broken nose, lost two front teeth and sinus damage. Dao will undergo reconstructive surgery shortly. That does not sound like this is going to go well for UAL.
SFAW
@dmsilev:
On the plus side, I don’t think Putin is going to try to annex the Sudetenland.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
I think it’s kind of like the primaries: they are few in numbers, but so persistent and obnoxious that they make people think there are more of them than they really are. That’s why (for example) Wilmer won caucuses where his supporters could make a fuss and shout down everyone else, but lost when people did actual voting in a private voting booth.
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW: I’m sure the Crimean Tatars are glad to hear that.
rikyrah
Trump blasts obstructionism that exists only in his mind
04/13/17 10:03 AM
By Steve Benen
In late February, Donald Trump sat down with Fox News, which asked the president about the vacancies in key posts throughout his administration. Trump said the question was based on a faulty assumption.
“When I see a story about ‘Donald Trump didn’t fill hundreds and hundreds of jobs,’ it’s because, in many cases, we don’t want to fill those jobs,” the president argued with a straight face. “A lot of those jobs, I don’t want to appoint, because they’re unnecessary to have… Many of those jobs, I don’t want to fill.”
Six weeks later, Trump apparently no longer remembers this argument. He sat down with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, and complained about “waiting right now for so many people” to get confirmed by the Senate.
…………………………
Oh. Trump has gone from saying he wanted key executive-branch offices empty on purpose, which didn’t make any sense, to blaming Democratic obstructionism for the fact that so many executive-branch offices are empty, which makes even less sense.
As the Washington Post noted, the reality in this case is both clear and quantifiable: “Out of 553 key positions requiring Senate confirmation, 478 still have no nominee, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Another 29 have been announced but not formally nominated; only 22 positions have been confirmed. Republican senators have said they are growing impatient with the White House’s slow pace.”
SFAW
@Corner Stone:
But what kind of counter tops does he have in his kitchen?
That, and, of course, he’s no angel/Mother Theresa.
hovercraft
@Gin & Tonic:
To those of you mayo people who didn’t do this, I thank you, as for the rest of them I wish they would DIAFF. Though I must confess that I’m beginning to suspect that would be to good for them, I’m now thinking of some type of purgatory where they all have to live together just the “real Americans” and Twitler and his crew, with no contact with the rest of humanity. Nothing in, nothing out, just a perfect beautiful Randtopia, where the makers can all thrive together, nary a taker, or illegal in sight, no regulations, pump as much oil and gas as you can, no EPA, FDA, and especially no unions, makers don’t need stinkin unions!
SFAW
@rikyrah:
He’s such a fucking moron.
bystander
@Major Major Major Major:
Best typo of the day so far:
Oh that “e” before “i” exception. And what red blooded male hasn’t binged on Buffy?
Listened to one of the MSNBC hacks gush about how Rex Tillerson is a “businessman turned diplomat”. Why do these idiots insist on their reverential narrative for which there is not a shred of evidence to support their assertions? Really? Rex Tillerson spent his life squeezing life out of the earth and all of a sudden he decided he’d set his sights on World Peace? Uh huh.
Villago Delenda Est
@germy: Bannon is. Or that globalist, Kushner.
MattF
@Villago Delenda Est: Mr. Lord should stop insisting that up is down. Then, maybe, we can get into how reality may affect the meaning and usefulness of metaphors.
Villago Delenda Est
@bystander: The MSNBC hacks need to be in tumbrels right behind Tillerson’s.
A Ghost To Most
@ruemara: hmm; apparently, stereotyping is not just for wingers.
Tom
@hovercraft: Spare us the bathing suit competition.
Brachiator
This is entirely unfair.
I’m sure that had Trump started out in humbler circumstances, he would have become a somewhat adequate carnival barker.
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: We can wall off Oklahoma or Kansas, say, and park them all there.
JPL
@Corner Stone: That’s an understatement. All the passengers on the flight already received money back for their tickets.
rikyrah
There is no method to the White House’s flip-flopping madness
04/13/17 09:20 AM—UPDATED 04/13/17 09:36 AM
By Steve Benen
……………….
These were not isolated incidents. Politico noted overnight that Trump is “shifting positions at breakneck pace.”
A Washington Post report added, “Perhaps no politician is a bigger flip-flopper than President Trump.”
That’s not hyperbolic. Just this week, Trump has reversed course on labeling China a currency manipulator, NATO’s utility, the administration’s hiring freeze, the Export-Import Bank, Janet Yellen’s job performance, his preference on interest rates, the White House’s interest in paying the national debt, and Trump’s willingness to move on from health care to tax reform.
The sheer volume of flip-flops is amazing, but so is the time frame: it would take a normal president years to reverse course on this many issues.
Trump tweeted last night, “One by one we are keeping our promises.” It was an embarrassingly defensive message – because Trump probably realizes that he’s furiously abandoning commitments and promises he made before taking office.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
Those aren’t tanks, they’re
RussianUkrainian Freedom ™ fighter Welcome Wagons. “Howdy neighbor!”trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Mid-tier Amway associate. You can meet a lot of housewives that way.
rikyrah
GOP rep asks constituents the wrong question at town-hall event
04/13/17 11:20 AM
By Steve Benen
Why is it so important for members of Congress to hold town-hall events with their constituents? Because you just never know what they’ll end up saying.
A typical member of Congress receives an annual salary of $174,000 a year, financed entirely by taxpayers. As best as I can tell, the far-right Oklahoman does not forgo his compensation.
The Tulsa World, after speaking to the lawmaker’s office, reported that when Mullin said it’s “bullcrap” to believe taxpayers pay him to serve in Congress, what he meant was that he’s “paid more in federal income taxes than he’s received in congressional salary.”
Indeed, the rest of the video shows the congressman saying he’s paid his “own salary” through his taxes, adding, “No one here pays me to go.”
Iowa Old Lady
@Villago Delenda Est: There’s precedent for Oklahoma. At one time the US govt decided to move as many Native American tribes there as they could. Until white people decided they wanted the land, of course.
germy
I wonder if I will live long enough to see the pendulum swing back toward a sane direction? I mean, Reaganism influenced my early adulthood and experiences with employers and banks. And now drumpism is everywhere.
All these years I’ve read about “pendulum swings” and last year I actually had my hopes up that things would finally change for the better.
In my pessimism I suspect Kristen Gillibrand will win the nom in 2020, and her vote will be split by wilmerites and steiniacs. There’ll be raucous arguments here and on LGM, and the split will result in President [generic republican, more cautious in speech than drump, but loved by the mercerz and kochz] and the insanity will continue.
bystander
@Major Major Major Major:
My apologies. I always think of the present participle of binge as bingeing. But I looked it up and binging is also a pp of binge.
So I’m going to bing on some cherries.
Corner Stone
@trollhattan:
“We heard some strange noises over this way and wanted to make sure you were doing ok! We’ll just sit a spell until things calm down.”
germy
@trollhattan: Maybe even a meet and greet with DeVos!
MattF
@Betty Cracker:
The problem I’ve got with Trump conspiracy theories is that they assume a minimal level of competence. And maybe even a perspective on reality that’s connected to something that’s actually true. I don’t see either of those things.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: Donald, that word…”promise”…I do not think it means what you think it means.
Corner Stone
@germy:
Absolutely true. Except in our case the pendulum is close to the one in The Pit and the Pendulum by EA Poe.
rikyrah
@Corner Stone:
UAL and the CPD – CUT THOSE CHECKS
bystander
@rikyrah: According to Joe and Meeka this is that pivot we’ve all waited for so long.
@Villago Delenda Est: We’re going to need a bigger tumbrel.
MattF
@Corner Stone: So, he’s contending that the red fluid that got spattered all over the place was an indication that someone got injured?
hovercraft
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m not sure what the point of his appearances is, most of the time his bullshit is so unfathomable and fantastical the hosts are left looking utterly bewildered and his co-panelists laugh right in his face. No one in their right mind thinks Twitler knows anything about MLK other than the fact that he doesn’t want to purchase any property in close proximity to streets of that name*. Like the man himself, his surrogates can never stick to just lying, they have to go for the farcical, like KAC they’ve made themselves punchlines not validators. SAD!
*City streets named for Martin Luther King Jr. struggle across U.S.
The Thin Black Duke
@A Ghost To Most: What, you mean white people didn’t vote for Trump? Who did?
?eric
@SFAW: he wont press charges, UAL only did because it loves him.
Villago Delenda Est
Don’t forget Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and POLAND under the bus!
D58826
Saw a couple of tweeters from Der Fuhrer early this am on my iphone. they seem to have rolled off. In the first one he said China was going to take care of NK. In the second he said if China doesn’t then the US and it’s allies would.
I suspect that is news to both China and our Allies.
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: These fucking people.
patrick II
@Major Major Major Major:
Maybe both of our real excuse is wishful thinking.
Anyhow, I just happened to trip across this 2014 white house science fair with President Obama talking to the wiz kids. It’s one of my favorite vids. Obama is obviously prepared and knowledgeable and has a genuine affection for the youngsters. And the level of science is amazing. Try to imagine Trump pulling this off.
The Moar You Know
It’s obvious to everyone. Even the Trumpers in my office admit it. But they sure don’t have a problem with it, as we’re being liberated from the hell that was a black president. FREE AT LAST!
I fucking hate these people.
germy
Bob Schooley sort of suggested the same thing. This is the World Wrestling Federation school of diplomacy. A big “fight” to get the rubes riled up and ready for a satisfying conclusion.
The Midnight Lurker
No Ms. Cracker, you are not wrong, you are spot on in your observation. And if you require validation beyond a once-in-a-blue-moon commenter, look no further than the ever-growing pile of dead Russians that our media ignores. Dead men will tell tales.
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: That was a despicable. Everything about this administration and its supporters is despicable.
Corner Stone
Not at all. I posited something very similar in one your posts on Monday. I don’t think it is conspiracy theory or any searing insight to reach this conclusion. As you say, it is screamingly obvious if you look at the players involved and what each one obviously wants the most.
Tillerson hates this job. He was probably convinced not by “God’s will” but by the argument that he could unlock an almost $1T black goldmine if he played along. Trump is just a greed obsessed idiot who thinks he can get pats on the head for “improving” relations with Russia. Pooty wants that fat cash that will keep him in power til he dies of hooker overload.
The only problem is that Putin did not realize the exact level of bumbling incompetence Trump would bring to the deal. He knew he was a gullible fool who could be manipulated but IMO Putin also fell for the old “he’s a rich business man, he has to know something, nyet?!” Now Putin is having to ramp up his timeline by such obvious play acting because he’s scared Trump is going to flip the entire gameboard over.
germy
@The Thin Black Duke:
Surely you saw all those people at his rallies holding "Blacks for Trump" signs? (A few of them were white people, but still...)
A Ghost To Most
@The Thin Black Duke: Many white people did not vote for Trump; and some black folk (not many) voted for Trump.
Do you like it when white people stereotype black folk?
MattF
@Corner Stone: One problem is that Putin imagined that Trump was playing poker, where actually Trump was playing a solitaire version of War.
gvg
I wish they would just shut up with the historical analogies. they don’t know any history so they are always wrong. My ordinary public school education didn’t leave me ignorant. Why don’t they know anything? why haven’t they noticed they don’t know anything?
Trump would not have been a burger flipper IMO. He would have been in jail for stalking or worse or he would have had a completely different personality due to circumstances being so different and the lessons when he was young and alert enough to learn would have been different. Once its academic, it might be interesting to study his childhood upbringing for what not to do, but right now its just another squirrel distraction.
MattF
Oops, used a bad word in a comment, so I’m in moderation. I keep doing that.
ArchTeryx
You know, there are times that despite my dance with the devil in the pale moonlight, I still maintain my cynicism and pessimism about our politics. We’re still crowing about moral victories (see: Kansas) instead of *actual* victories, ones which can change the political leadership.
Then I remind myself that, in fact, with the President’s party controlling every lever of government, the midterm winds are at our backs for a change. Dubya beat that – just barely – in his first midterm, but not the second time around. And Democrats are more motivated then at any time since 2006 to actually turn out.
Nonetheless, I remain a skeptic that, despite all the anger, anything is actually going to change, no matter what outrage is foisted on us all by the Gang who Can’t Shoot Straight.
(ETA: The entire Kansas thing seems grossly over-determined to me, as is the case with any off-year special election. Yeah, there’s a whole lot of anti-Trump sentiment out there, but get back to me when it starts translating into actual victories, not moral ones).
zach
@JPL:
Which is lesson one in “how to avoid a lawsuit 101” … United is going to have 10s of millions in settlements out of that flight and affected parties. Dao, obviously, but also everyone with traumatized kids, everyone claiming embarrassment for being Internet-shamed for not doing anything to help, the cops themselves who can credibly claim they were following United’s procedure and now have their careers & reputations damaged, etc.
Which is particularly sad because this is an inevitable outcome of United’s booking policy (although you couldn’t predicted it’d hit the fan in such a severe way), and it’ll cost WAY more than they were profiting by not choosing the next-least-terrible overbooking scheme that other carriers use.
scav
And despite all the magical, hands-off,”when the time is right, everything will be cuddles and roses” strategy for international relations, as soon as the situation shifts even slightly, the unique and necessary genius of the hard-headed mean-fisted genius of Amero-Trumpian-Super-CEO-hood will be lauded to the skies.
Pete Mack
@pk: If Churchill’s first name was Neville.
MattF
@zach: And it wasn’t really overbooking– just United crew showing up at the last minute to claim seats that had been sold and filled.
opiejeanne
@Betty Cracker: Lots of bots still operating on Twitter. They seemed to go away momentarily but they’ve been back in force recently. Someone pointed out to me yesterday that one “tell” is a string of numbers in their name.
Villago Delenda Est
@zach: MBAs cannot figure this shit out. They just can’t. They are the best example in contemporary America of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Jacel
@rikyrah: After he made a threat like that, he should avoid returning to Florida, which has Stand Your Ground laws that millions of citizens are now provided the right to exercise.
Corner Stone
@MattF:
I believe Chicago PD’s counterclaim is that all the red stuff was from the ketchup Dao had put all over the hotdog he would not stop eating when asked to. The officers saw the ketchup on the dog, became enraged at the outrageous insult and were physically trying to apprehend the bastardized dog. Dao refused so things got messy. If this goes to a jury in Chicago not only would the police be acquitted but Dr. Dao may be jailed for sacrilegious misuse of a city resource, aka Chicago Dog.
Spanky
@D58826: Well, depends what “take care” means:
ArchTeryx
@zach: It’s a really classic case of penny-wise and pound-foolish, taken up to 11, isn’t it? Calling the city cops to forcibly remove a paying passenger for your own crew was a blunder of epic proportions, and they will pay until they bleed over it. I just hope that they don’t get away with just scapegoating the gate crew.
Villago Delenda Est
@scav: By Fareed Zakaria, who is dead to me now, as dead as Van Jones.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: We also assume a lot of competence from Putin, but I’m not sure that’s warranted either. A minimal effort at research would show Trump was a moron and a fraud. It seems like people assume evil dictators are smart or they wouldn’t be dictators, but guys like Solobodan Milosevic, Idi Amin or Kim Jong Un don’t strike me as the sharpest tools in the shed.
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: It’s almost sounds like he thinks the Democrats will nominate people for those empty posts.
ruemara
@Betty Cracker: It’s not much, but it’s a lot of the purported thoughtful ones with a platform. That’s kind of a problem when those assholes are the ones with both a megaphone and were influential enough to be used to spread misinfo.
@Gin & Tonic: This isn’t a you people moment. It’s time for white people to understand that white people overwhelmingly voted for Trump. And only fellow white people can get white people to see it’s not ok.
@The Thin Black Duke: There’s a reason why a segment of liberalism is saying be nice to Drumpf voters. They cannot abide that this is who people they love are. So let’s pretend that blacks voted in large numbers for the guy. It was a real come together moment to fuck the country.
D58826
REally bin a bad week for United –
Kelly
Since this is an open thread
Oregon’s sole Republican in DC, Chairman of the Energy committee spent a lovely day being shouted at by constituents.
ruemara
@A Ghost To Most: Yes. That’s what I’m doing. How dare I be so divisive and angry. There must be something I can do that’s useful, like wear a safety pin. And be silent. Definitely that.
sukabi
@amk: his own or Drumpfs?
zach
I lean more towards Trump actually reversing course on Syria than pretending to… he can look back at Bush, 2001-2004 as a model of success: popular deficit-funded tax cuts, riding to reelection on the back of a popular war and picking on a vulnerable social group (although the targeted group has changed). From Trump’s point of view, 2005-2008 was a GREAT time in American history: real estate speculation, opportunities galore for get-rich-quick scams, etc.
He probably thinks he can convince Russia to abandon the Syria/Iran alliance and trade up for an alliance with America after the next chemical attack. I’m not familiar enough with the reasons why Russia actually values Syria as an ally to guess if he’s right or not.
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
I’m looking around, so not sure yet, but the internals of this Quinnipiac poll from last week have some big warning signs for Twitler https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2448
Most people think he and his administration lie a lot. Then there’s this shocker, America thinks he’s smart, no really, they do.
Is DT intelligent?
Reps : 91 to 7, Dems : 40 to 57, Ind : 58 to 35, Men : 64 to 31, Women : 56 to 38,
College : 59 to 35, Non-college: 75 to 21.
We really are stupid gullible people. SAD!
And how much you want to bet that many of the 40% of dems who think Twitler is smart are part of the cohort who want us to grovel before his voters and get them “back” on our side.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
how I wish, as he rummaged around the dusty, cobwebbed attic of his brain looking for a half-remembered phrase from history he thought was resonant and inspiring, he had tripped over “peace in our time”
randy khan
@zach:
I read a fascinating piece about how Delta handles overbooking – it basically takes bids at check-in to choose people, and apparently it has resulted in much-reduced involuntary bumping and saved them a lot of money, mostly in avoided delays.
But, as MattF said, the United issue wasn’t an overbooking situation.
zach
@Corner Stone:
What’s hilariously sad is that the CPD is a parallel organization to the Airport department… whoever put out that statement (it wasn’t through normal channels) was just guessing what happened from the same youtube video everyone else was watching, assuming it was fine to go ahead and put out the default “nothing to see here” statement that PDs always release after this kind of thing.
A Ghost To Most
@ruemara: Don’t be silent, just remember that not all white people are your enemy (just some of them). I cut my family out of my life 10 years ago because of their bigotry.
MattF
@zach: Specialists in Russia tend to reach for historical/cultural causes for Putin’s desire to be a player in the Middle East. Otherwise, to be blunt, it makes no sense.
Corner Stone
@D58826: What do you expect? It’s in their nature.
Iowa Old Lady
I have a hard time seeing Trump “reverse course” as if he did something deliberate. To me, he’s hollow. He has no knowledge, let alone principles or convictions. A weather vane has no “course” to reverse.
sukabi
@Villago Delenda Est: since Spicer invoked Hitler yesterday the accurate metaphor was already used.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: This guy is begging to be invited to a necktie party.
trollhattan
@SatanicPanic:
I suspect Putin differs from Trump in having a long attention span (takes a long time to reconstruct the Soviet Union) and a working knowledge of statecraft learned in the KGB. They’re both good at propoganda.
Iowa Old Lady
@Villago Delenda Est: Maybe he’ll be the next R to demand Secret Service protection.
hovercraft
@SFAW:
Tort Reform!! Tort Reform!! Tort Reform!!
These awful trial lawyers are destroying free enterprise, they must be stopped from bankrupting capitalism.
Wait, what, oh no that’s different, Melania was defamed, she was damaged, she deserves her 2.9 million, and anyone who says anything bad about Herr Trumpenfurer must be made to pay bigly!!
Only liberals have to be squeaky clean to evoke sympathy and even then they don’t get it, Melania, almost certainly worked here illegally back in the day, she posed nude in her job as a model, but she is as pure as the driven snow. Then you have the Shitgibbon, who is the Shitgibbon, nough said.
SatanicPanic
@ruemara:
I have some friends going through this and it sucks. So I kind of feel for them there but only so much because they’re not the real victims here. Also anecdotal, but I meet some PoCs trying this tack as well. I’m not sure what’s up with that, but I don’t feel like it’s my place to get in a big argument with them about it.
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic:
I don’t think he is necessarily at Evil Genius level, but Putin survived a hell of a lot of dirty infighting, purges and “reforms” of the Soviet and then Russian intelligence worlds. IMO, that world does not suffer fools gladly, nor for very long. So I think he’s operating at a level that’s probably above average.
He’s a thug and a bully and has delusions of world pre-eminence for Russia. Or at least all of Europe in his hip pocket. I know Trump is a moron but I’m not ready to dismiss Putin as an average tool, just yet.
Major Major Major Major
@bystander:
Well, my husband and I, being gay, for two. As for whether it’s a typo or not, the lexicographers are at odds with the populace, and I’m something of a descriptivist.
ETA: I see you address this later.
zach
@randy khan:
It’s apparently debatable whether this was allowed after boarding or whether United is allowed to reduce the number of available seats for this reason, but United handled it according to their overbooking policy & relevant laws. I’m guessing this isn’t the first time an airline has tried to deal with an overfull plane situation after boarding? Lots of ways this could happen.
Corner Stone
@Iowa Old Lady:
Trump had a 10 minute conversation with Xi and T then flip-flopped on at least three statements/positions he had repeated for years.
PJ
@SatanicPanic: I can’t speak to Amin or Kim Jong, but Milosevic was a shrewd politician. He understood that, in a post-Communist world, he would need an angle to hold onto power (not just, you know, improving the lives of constituents). His angle was ethnic resentment (why should those Croats and Bosnians have all that land, when everyone knows it should belong to Serbs?), which had been dormant in Yugoslavia for 45 years, but which he successfully stoked into a roaring comeback. (Tudjman was no prince, either.) And he would have gotten away with it, if only those meddling NATO kids hadn’t come along.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: But what you described sounds very much like Trump’s own rise to power, and Trump is a moron.
Tenar Arha
@A Ghost To Most:
Insisting that a person qualify every statement they make about white people because it feels rotten to be stereotyped is that still small voice we need to learn to tell off, not listen to and then amplify.
Please don’t do this. Don’t “not all white people” this way. It never ends well.
Of course there were white people who didn’t vote for 45. But statistics show that a majority of white people did vote for Twitler. Even after the “grab them” tape, a majority of white suburban women voted for him. We can’t ignore that.
MattF
@zach: ‘Debatable’ in the sense that it will be debated in the jury room.
sukabi
@trollhattan: given his penchant for grabbing without permission, I think had it not been for his fathers money and societal position he’d have been a serial rapist drifter…
randy khan
@hovercraft:
The problem with “smart” is that it has widely variable definitions. The guy graduated from University of Pennsylvania, so by at least one definition he’s reasonably smart. He’s certainly smart by comparison to the cohort of non-high school graduates. By the standards of previous Presidents, well, that’s a different story.
SatanicPanic
@PJ: Same thing I said to Corner Stone- sounds no different than Trump. I’ve been making the comparison for months.
Jacel
@Corner Stone: What’s Chinese for “We also have a copy of that Russian hotel video”?
Feebog
Betty: I agree with most of your assessment, except for one thing. I don’t see how the Trump/Russian connection goes away. In fact if things play out as you projected, the scandal becomes more serious because it will become obvious exactly what the Russian motivation in all this is. I can’t tell you how many conservative (read dense) friends I have who don’t understand the Russian oil/sancitions nexus.
Splitting Image
@rikyrah:
What worries me is that the longer those positions go unfilled, the more screwed-up the administration will be when Trump is finally replaced. It may take more than four years to fix the systemic problems Trump is causing, and the country’s progessive betters will be complaining within weeks. (As they did in 2009.)
zach
@MattF:
There’s definitely economic and military value to the alliance; it makes sense with a relatively stable Syria that’s not accused of war crimes… screwing over Syria and allying with Trump might make sense in the near term, but maybe not safe assuming a Trump pro-Russian foreign policy survives past 2020.
Also, most of the people begging Trump to blow up Syria will say the same thing about conflicts with every other Russia-allied country/opposition group. McCain and Graham are happy about this but still “we’re all Georgians now” and all that. I doubt Putin trusts Trump to stop with Syria and he shouldn’t.
Ella in New Mexico
What a lame fucking random Tweet. Why does he bother sometimes?
“My underpants fit like a glove today. Never change, Hanes!”
“I saw a cow eating hay once. Very sad eyes!”
“Too many Q-Tips in my dispenser this morning. Terrible maid service!”
randy khan
@zach:
The actual overbooking rules refer to boarding and denying boarding, and “boarding” is not defined (including, so far as I can tell, in the general Department of Transportation rules). If we rely on plain English, he pretty clearly was already boarded.
And someone I know went through the United terms of carriage and didn’t find anything that would permit removing a seated customer to seat a flight crew. In general a policy can’t override the terms of a contract unless the contract says it can.
Now there may be other factors here, including whether there’s an industry understanding of the meaning of boarding that’s different from common usage (footnote here – bearing in mind that from an airline’s perspective, there may be protections against liability that kick in once someone is boarded, so this could be a two-edged sword) and whether there’s something in the contract that my friend didn’t notice, but there’s no obvious magic bullet for United here.
Humboldtblue
@ArchTeryx:
Now, now, now, that sort of comment is awfully close to “dismissing the resistance” (gonna be my new band name) territory I was accused of entering yesterday when I expressed skepticism the Kansas result extends anywhere beyond Kansas.
Whereas, I am still waiting for my official “Resistance beret and courtesy firearm” so that I am properly equipped for the fight.
randy khan
@Splitting Image:
Not to worry, Pence will fill the slots with GOP loyalists who need something shiny on their resumes.
trollhattan
@sukabi:
As best as I can tell he’s the first two, just not a drifter with a “d”.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone: @SatanicPanic:
Putin is shrewd and ruthless. Putin unlike Twitler has been steeped in this geopolitical stuff for decades, he knew he was potentially backing a moron with no self control, but I don’t think he expected him to win, he wanted to give Hillary as difficult time as possible and force her to spend most of her time dealing with an angry opposition party rather than interfering with him and his plans to realign Europe by breaking up the EU and possibly even NATO. Twitler is that cockroach that always seems to survive, he may have street smarts, but that because he’s a con man and a liar who always finds a new mark to get him out of the many disasters he create. Putin is the spider at the center of his web spinning away, trapping his enemies, Twitler is the roach, feeding on any and everything to survive, and if you leave anything out he will devour that too. Both survivors, but one has a plan, while the other is a scavenger.
Major Major Major Major
@Ella in New Mexico: thing is, a retirement-age man tweeting observations like that is an account I’d actually follow.
catclub
@Villago Delenda Est: The Gandhi of healthcare, and the Moses of healthcare were already taken.
By that Gruber guy.
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic: I’m sorry, but how in the world are they comparable?
trollhattan
@Ella in New Mexico:
Your Jack Handy-fu is strong this morning.
StringOnAStick
Putin is smart in many ways, but what he mostly seems to be is cunning with a real instinct for both survival and building up his loyalty-based organization. In that way Drumpf and Putin have some things in common, but Drumpf is only smart in the way that a mid-level NJ mafia hood is; Putin outclasses and out maneuvers him by many miles. Plus Putin actually reads what his intelligence agencies put together for him; Drumpf watches FOX and thinks that’s more than enough.
MattF
@zach: If Russia was relatively prosperous, then maybe. But it’s not, and McCain/Graham are committing the same error that the anti-Soviets did. I think Russian opportunism in the Middle East will end badly for both general reasons (i.e., pretty much everything ends badly in the Middle East) and specific reasons (i.e., a historical ambition to be a Great Power does not make you a Great Power).
hovercraft
If only Obama had kept his promise about FEMA Camps.
White House reportedly has plans in place to buildup deportation force
Published April 13, 2017 FoxNews.com
The Trump administration is reportedly working to build a nationwide deportation force and is even considering to drop the polygraph test and physical fitness exams for potential agents, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The paper, citing an internal Department of Homeland Security memo.
Trump seeks to bring in an additional 5,000 border agents and 10,000 ICE agents. That pricetag could cost up to $100 million, the agency said.
Homeland Security has also found locations that could increase detention space, but may not be able to secure the necessary funding for it, The Post reported.
Border Patrol is also looking to possibly hold immigration-court hearings through video conferences at or near U.S. ports of entry if Mexico agrees to the procedure, according to the paper. The U.S. could also send judges to so-called “port courts,” thought it could cost $400,000 per location.
Ella in New Mexico
@rikyrah:
To be honest, I think the more accurate term would be “Miracle Whip Nation”.
All the rednecks and WWC people I know drink that shit like a smoothie. Mayonnaise is “high falutin’ ” rich people’s food.
bystander
@Major Major Major Major: It bothers me because I can’t think of any word in English in which g before i is a soft g. But it doesn’t bother me as much as Trump.
Hobbes83
@A Ghost To Most: You simply cannot be that stupid as to try to make that kind of an argument given the statistics that are widely available that show who voted for what person.
Booger
@Villago Delenda Est: You certainly don’t believe this waste of protoplasm would have ever had the opportunity to procreate without his bankroll, do you? Ergo, in this idealized alternative universe, no Lolita, no Usay, no Quday, and Melanoma would still be ‘modelling.’
Woodrowfan
I don’t think it’s a conspiracy so much as a large group of con artists and crooks all grabbing for what they can. Some of their goals match, some conflict. But they’re no real organization. Think the mob of people scrambling for cheap electronics on the morning of Black Friday. A few here and there are cooperating with friends and family, but mostly it’s a nasty scramble to GRAB, GRAB, GRAB. And at the end the US will look like a giant looted big box store, trash everywhere, broken infrastructure, nasty spills everywhere, filthy, and a disheartened workforce wondering if they’ll every get it back in shape again.
Woodrowfan
@Booger: he’d be twice divorced, with lots of court orders to catch up on his late child support payments.
catclub
@Corner Stone:
Those thousands of nuclear weapons are no delusion. I would say that Putin’s angle is that if Russia is more influential, rather than less, he benefits.
So go see how much more influential you can make Russia.
zach
Just dropped the MOAB on Afghanistan… so goddamn presidential.
https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/852561262517121025
FIRST ON CNN: The US has dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb in combat on Afghanistan
aimai
What strikes me about that Tweet is that Trump is still giving his voters what they want to hear “daddy is in charge now so you can all go back to sleep.” I will never, ever, ever get tired of pointing out that the media and the right wing savaged Obama for merely talking like an adult. They never permitted him to assume the role of daddy in chief–in fact that practically had an armed insurrection over his taping a friendly message to tell children to stay in school.
catclub
@bystander: gigolo
also giant
StringOnAStick
@Feebog:
Yet. There was never anything that was going to bust those people out of hating everything Obama ever did, because ‘near’ you know, but if you are over 50 in this country you knew a time when Russia/USSR was enemy #1 and those fear circuits are still in their brains.
Then again, my Russia hating wing nut/Bircher father is so well fed on FOX now that Russia doesn’t seem like that big a deal, at least so far, and it put one of The Annointed (meaning Republican) in office so it’s all good. He’s always been a guy who could never see or accept that any corporation would do anything underhanded or wrong, unpossible! You should have heard how he excused the Bohpal chemical plant disaster (he worked as an engineer for Union Carbide at the time). As a kid, he was the parent I idolized; as an adult I find him to be a sad cartoon of a human being.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: He wasn’t supposed to even win the nomination, but he managed to play parties off each other and humiliate even people who should know better (Mitt Romney!). Sure, Marco Rubio might not be able to order him killed, but it’s still a very similar skill set.
If anyone doesn’t see a parallel, just imagine the Sochi Olympics in Trump’s hands and tell me how it doesn’t play out much the same way.
hovercraft
How’s this for a trade-off: End sales taxes on tampons and diapers, but raise liquor taxes
The slogans are simple, and meant to convey a clear choice.
“It’s time to tax liquor before ladies,” Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) said.
“We should be putting babies before booze,” Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) echoed.
Garcia and Gonzalez Fletcher made the pitches at last month’s unveiling of their proposal to eliminate sales taxes on tampons and diapers and make up for the lost revenue by hiking alcohol taxes……..
California’s current alcohol tax, $3.30 per gallon of distilled spirits, ranks 39th in the country. Judging by public opinion alone, an effort to raise it wouldn’t seem that difficult. At least 61% of residents have backed hiking alcohol taxes in nine Public Policy Institute of California surveys over the last 14 years. The most recent survey in November 2014 found 68% in support.
But alcohol interests have long been powerful at the Capitol. In the first half of the 20th century, liquor lobbyist Artie Samish was so influential he once demonstrated his clout to a photographer by pulling a ventriloquist’s dummy from his closet that he’d nicknamed “Mr. Legislature.”
catclub
@SatanicPanic:
The news that the Russians were doing their dirty tricks during the primary – which means against people like Marco Rubio – nearly got Rubio interested enough to be outraged. Russia doing those things against Clinton was not a problem.
Major Major Major Major
@bystander: @catclub: gin…
As for whether -ngi-* is nji and not ngi anywhere else, couldn’t say. I’ll agree that bingeing seems like it should be the right form, but it also makes my eyes bleed.
Humboldtblue
Here is one small way we from the mayo/cracker/miracle whip/easily-sunburned caucus can help. You can vote on having a panel at Netroots dedicated to the impact black women have on politics in general and the Democratic party in particular.
trollhattan
@zach:
Holy crap, why? We turned a wasteland into a flatter wasteland?
Somebody probably informed Trump it existed and he immediately demand they use it. “Why have them if you’re too chicken to use them?”
catclub
@zach: Even I remember that the argument against going into Afghanistan and hitting Iraq was that there were not enough hard targets in Afghanistan. What in the world in Afghanistan needs that bomb?
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: I can tell you that both the candidates for the chairmanship of the Colorado Democratic Party who visited with my small, rural, ruby-red county’s Central Committee paid at least lip service to the notion that we had to get beyond “identity politics” to win back the white, rural, Christianist vote. Made my hackles rise. I routinely make an asshole out of myself pushing back against this shite with the Wilmer-fluffers in the crowd. I’m amazed none of them has socked me yet.
hovercraft
@zach:
Paging Adam, STAT !
If he’s hoping for more of the fawning coverage he got for the “strike” on Syria, I think he’s going to be disappointed, Afghanistan is a boring old war, not shinny and new like Syria. Afghanistan and Iraq are so last decade, we need somewhere new to explore. Toppling the Taliban, Saddam, that’s the fun part, the chaos afterwards, no biggy the people we installed afterwards were great, everyone loved Karzai and
al-Maliki, right? I’m sure Twitler, I mean Jared knows the perfect new leader for Syria!
Mnemosyne
@randy khan:
If it helps, people online who sounded reasonably knowledgeable said that United keeps claiming that section 25 of their T&C (which covers pre-boarding) was in effect, but it’s actually section 21 that would apply, because that covers when they can boot you once you’re already seated on the plane, and that list is much, much shorter. So there’s a chance that United violated its own T&C’s (shocking, I know!)
I’m pretty obsessed with the case, and I think it’s because it’s our preview of the Trump years in a nutshell. United (Trump) made a series of bad decisions that backed them into a corner until the only possible solution was to violently drag someone from the plane, and that action is going to cost them far more in lawsuits and business losses than solving the problem another way would have.
That’s going to be the US for the next four years. We’ve already seen it in Syria. We are all United passengers now. ?
Major Major Major Major
@trollhattan: @catclub: yup, almost certainly he heard about its existence and then wanted to use it. We’re lucky they picked a wasteland.
ETA: as far as I’m aware the MOAB is mostly sort of a toy. It doesn’t do anything that several slightly smaller bombs wouldn’t, and it’s as hard to transport and deploy as several slightly smaller bombs.
catclub
@trollhattan: Curse you and your quicker fingers!
PJ
@zach: @MattF: Syria is Russia’s naval base in the Mediterranean. The only way Putin will get rid of Assad is if he has some real assurance that the base stays, and I don’t think anyone can guarantee that in a post-Assad Syria, even assuming that some miracle happens and there is some stable government. The question is: Are the trillions Putin would gain from a lifting of sanctions worth giving up a base in the Mediterranean? I think he will try to get one and keep the other, and since Trump neither cares about the actual welfare of Syrians nor Russian expansion in Eastern Europe, only “winning”, I’m sure Putin will figure out a way to assuage Trump’s ego and get what he wants.
Humboldtblue
@hovercraft:
I linked to this a few week ago. Brown vetoed the last measure the Legislature passed because he claimed the lost sales tax revenue hurt the budget bottom line. The trade-off with higher liquor taxes is a great idea and may just work this time around.
In other good news, the state’s high school graduation rate is up to 83% since 2010 when it was 74%. They point to expanded vocational programs and the suspension of the state exit exams as key reasons.
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic: I’m sorry but I am just not seeing it. Trump was handed his start, bailed out by daddy, bailed out again by daddy, and then went on to be bailed out by banks/others for approximately 6 bankruptcies.
I am not a Kremlinologist but it seems in no way comparable to Putin’s long rise to power or the methods he has employed to stay there.
And Sochi was not inept incompetence or bumbling. That was straight up oligarchic theft at a level that maybe only China’s ruling party could have pulled off. Trump would have also crony party-ied the shit out of that contract but I doubt he could have done is so epically.
Mnemosyne
@MattF:
Russia was the original fucker-upper in Afghanistan. I’ve seen some credible people say that the disaster there in the 1980s helped cause the downfall of the Soviet Union, and even compare it to Vietnam with the US in terms of having the population turn against the government.
hovercraft
@Ella in New Mexico:
I wish you people would just make a list already! Just let us know which brands of mustard are acceptable, which vegetables, and generally when and where to use each condiments. I’m so confused, Obama is an elitist for eating mustard on his burger and eating the wrong type of greens in his salad, while Hillary is an elitist panderer for saying she likes Hot Sauce to a black person.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
There you go accusing Trump of thinking ahead. Trump took the Russian money because he needed it, Trump took the Russian agents because he was losing and he is a WINNER and now Trump is losing on Russia abd trying to bullshit anyone who will listen he is really a WINNER again. Putin plays chess, but Trump is like a kid who thinks you vanished when you put your hand over your face.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: Sounds like actually Afghanistan fucked up the Soviet Union. Of course the Soviets also did damage to Afghanistan. I thought the original was Alexander the Great.
Major Major Major Major
@Humboldtblue: Brown is usually sincere in his veto rationales, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t pass muster this go around.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: well ok, minds can differ on Putin’s relative intelligence, it’s not an issuing worth arguing over
MattF
@hovercraft: Arugula. Quinoa. Dijon. All highfalutin’.
Humboldtblue
@hovercraft:
All of them (you should see my mustard shelf in the fridge) and Sweet Mama Janisse’s sticky love sauce has joined the varsity squad.
Mnemosyne
@StringOnAStick:
FWIW, it’s not his fault (or not entirely). Fox propaganda has eaten his brain, just as Roger Ailes designed it to do.
My dad was a lawyer who founded his own title insurance business (i.e. not a dumb guy), but by the time Fox and Limbaugh had invaded his brain, he was babbling about how Mussolini was really a communist and fascism was communism because Mussolini left communism to found fascism. It was truly depressing sometimes to see what right-wing propaganda turned him into.
Humboldtblue
@Major Major Major Major: Agreed
Kay
I am. I’m in the group that say Trump just listens to whoever he talks to last, though, so I don’t think he’s technically part of the conspiracy. Which (oddly) makes it worse, not better. Adds some chaos.
Splitting Image
@bystander:
Singing, hanging, etc. Bingeing is probably more correct. Binging sounds like what a singer does when he’s interpreting White Christmas.
Aleta
That would be after enough people have died due to his actions.
This hope sounds just like the one openly expressed for at least 60 years by middle class Japanese people who lived through a nationalistic regime with a military fetish. And its intensive pro-war propaganda, and the extreme poverty that developed everywhere as the military demanded more and more. And by the ones who lived in flattened urban areas, or witnessed the atomic blasts or their survivors.
I always figured that if other countries ever come to believe that the US must be stopped, and they succeed, and if mainland US ever experiences large scale suffering, then the US as a whole might get behind that hope for lasting peace. (Not that I wish for the suffering, only for us to be united behind that hope.)
But like @Betty Cracker says, the tweet is >> a ham-handed attempt to set up a scam that is visible from outer space. <<. This is another one of The Greatest Posts by Betty C imo. Your analysis is always so sharp and original and mind altering.
Chris
@rikyrah:
Trump reminds me of that moment in the Dresden Files where the good guys finally meet the ruler of the vampire court they’ve been at war with for most of the series… and discover that he’s [the vampire version of] a junkie, who may have lots of power and experience, but at this point also has barely any self-control left and is mostly just acting on sheer impulse. Which explains a lot about the otherwise incomprehensible, chaotic, constantly shifting “tactics” that the vampires have been employing in the war.
patroclus
Even someone as despicable as Hitler didn’t sink to tweeting stuff this stupid.
MattF
@patroclus: That’s actually true.
MJS
@randy khan: Sorry, but it’s exceedingly naïve to think that because one holds a degree from a school, one did the work necessary to earn that degree. If you believe Fred Trump was beyond greasing palms to get Donnie through Penn, I think you have too high of an opinion of him.
MattF
@Chris: Not only is the WH not flip-flopping, it has never flip-flopped. Flip-flopping is for losers.
Major Major Major Major
@Splitting Image: ‘binging’ is also according to google ngrams used like three times as often.
Boatboy_srq
@SFAW: Given that “Sudetenland” translates loosely as “the country to the Southeast”, which in the US would correspond to the original Confederacy, I beg to differ.
StringOnAStick
I agree with Betty, this crap about current bad, bad, badly relations with Russia is a smokescreen, and clearing up that smoke will lead to Drumpf oh so generously dropping the sanctions as a worthy gift to achieve Peace in Our Time.
When Drumpf first bombed Syria, the initial reaction from Russia was typical middling diplo-speak for “yeah, we have to says something so here it is: this isn’t helpful so stop it”. When the US press kept having wargasms and Russia’s first comments didn’t seem forceful enough to match that, then the official Russian statements grew more bellicose. Since when are Russian statements not well coordinated and uniform in response to such things? Only when they are being used in service of a deeper goal, which in this case is manipulating their erratic POTUS-asset towards the eventual goal of lifting sanctions. When Tillerson was first on his way to Moscow this week, the Russians were saying things like “no meeting with Putin has been planned”, but do note that he indeed did meet with Putin; Friendship medal and all that you know.
Betty’s right, and I for one am not falling for this Kabunco (well put, Betty).
I just saw a twitter rumor that 2 allies have coughed up recordings of Uday and Qusay talking about illegal actions on tape. Perhaps dropping that MOAB was more war pron to distract from this, if it is true.
Chris
@D58826:
Well, sure. They’ve been taking very good care of North Korea, all the way back to the time they came pouring over the border to drive the UN troops back before they could overthrow it.
Citizen Alan
You could say the same thing about Willard and Shrub (and I have). The only difference is that Shitgibbon’s Rich Asshole Daddy was nouveau-riche as well as a lousy father.
rikyrah
COMPLETELY obvious, BC.
COMPLETELY OBVIOUS.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major: @catclub:
Ixnay on ellingtay umptray about the ubsays.
“We have ships that go underwater?!?”
A Ghost To Most
@Hobbes83: What is stupid? Saying that many white folk didn’t vote for Trump?
Damn. Time to go hide in the mountains again.
StringOnAStick
@Mnemosyne: My dad is/was a very smart engineer, but he was a Bircher from back in the 1970’s and loved James Watt as a patron saint. FOX just let him find his tribe, and Limbaugh on the radio was his idea of the revolution this country needed. I’m hoping O’Lielly really is toast and that a splashy sexual harassment plus illegal pay-off shuffling scandal is about to engulf FOX, just to see him freak out over the fall of his personal hero, Lying BillO.
Major Major Major Major
@trollhattan: if he hears about nuclear submarines he’ll want to drop one on North Korea.
rikyrah
@aimai:
What strikes me about that Tweet is that Trump is still giving his voters what they want to hear “daddy is in charge now so you can all go back to sleep.” I will never, ever, ever get tired of pointing out that the media and the right wing savaged Obama for merely talking like an adult.
Continue to bring receipts
Corner Stone
@Humboldtblue: You have intrigued me. I am intrigued. It’s hard to tell from the website description, what do you like about the sauce? How do you personally use it?
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m still convinced that the problem is that most of these people have a mentality better suited to a feudal baron than, you know, a businessman. A feudal baron does not inconvenience himself or withdraw his demands because a peasant has a problem with them: rather, he should smack that peasant right in the mouth, lest the peasant get ideas above his station, or worse, give that idea to other peasants. Money, cost-benefit analyses, all that stuff? Doesn’t even come into it. This is a matter of principle.
(Same is true of nearly every conservative, right down to poor white men exerting their right over their wife and children).
Citizen Alan
@germy:
We had our chance and saw it squandered thanks to bigots, traitors, and the Bernie/Stein morons. Nearly every systemic problem facing this country could have been greatly alleviated with a 5-4 liberal majority on the Supreme Court. And people threw it away because Hillary wasn’t pure enough.
The Moar You Know
@catclub: Trump’s approval ratings.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So when Trump plays the violin for Putin, will that be the talent portion of it?
StringOnAStick
@Citizen Alan:
QFT.
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
Trump has been zealously consistent at using the Presidency to line his own pockets. He has been nearly as consistent about putting the screws to minorities. Everything else was just Jingo Talk to make the racism sound reasonable, and his followers don’t care any more than he does.
Using these two rules, I think Trump can be predicted pretty well.
@SatanicPanic:
No. Don’t give this blathering moron more credit than he deserves. Trump won because he called Mexicans rapists. He won because the Republican base wants a dumbass, ranting white supremacist. They are sick and tired of politicians who sell racism as responsible and mature, because that strategy got them a black president. Trump is no more to be applauded for intelligence in winning the Presidency as he is for being rich. He was the right moron in the right place at the right time.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
Sure, in the same way that Vietnam fucked up the United States in ways we’re still dealing with today. Big Guy vs Little Guy doesn’t always work out the way Big Guy assumes it will. See also the Crimean War.
JCJ
@bystander:
It certainly raises a giant question.
Humboldtblue
@Corner Stone:
I first tried it because I like her cooking (soul food) and I use it on sausage/hot dog (but not in the buns, more as a dip) and I spread it across a small ham before I cooked it and it was delicious. I haven’t tried it with chicken yet but it’s been spread on cooked chops. I have two freshly made sausages from the co-op meat counter set up for lunch today (along with a salad) and I’ll cook them up and just slice ’em and dip ’em. I can’t begin to tell you about the flavor except that it’s tart and sweet and mustard-y all at once and it’s very unique.
daryljfontaine
@Splitting Image:
It’s like Googling, only not as popular.
@bystander:
giraffe
angioplasty
whinging
avenging
D
Chris
@PJ:
Yeah. In that sense, Milosevic really was a pioneer, or at least an image of things to come. That message of “screw ideology, good old fashioned racism is all it takes” is increasingly recognizable all over the world.
Major Major Major Major
@StringOnAStick: I’ve been thinking of this line a lot recently. Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus:
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
LOL!
“If we tie [counts on fingers] eight A380s together, can we do this? Get me the French!”
Chris
@hovercraft:
I think the Putin/Trump thing is that Putin has been backing neo-fascists in Europe for years, but never expected to have a chance like that in the U.S. – whatever its divisions, the bipartisan consensus was still pro-NATO. Trump was a once in a lifetime opportunity, a guy who not only spoke well about Putin but was making lots of isolationist and specifically anti-NATO noise. Putin had to jump on that.
Elmo
@ruemara: Whatever you do, DON’T TAKE A KNEE. White people HATE that.
ruckus
@hovercraft:
As a mayo person I thank you for this.
As a human being I also agree with you on assholes having to suffer for their assholyness. They shouldn’t be able to have made such a monumentaly stupid fuck up as electing a fucking moron as president and just walk away unscathed.
liberal
Yeah, it would be really, really terrible if the Syrian civil war ended and ISIS didn’t end up controlling it.
Betty Cracker
@Miss Bianca: I’m involved in my local Democratic party organizations, and there has been some of that, but not to the degree you describe. I’m curious about what others are hearing in their party organizations and have thought about posting about it. But honestly, I hesitate because I am 100% certain it would turn into another dreary round of Bernie Bros. vs. Hillbots and even surface the shitheads who enjoyed dancing on the Democrats’ graves here last fall that have mostly crawled back under their rocks.
Chris
@Citizen Alan:
And McCain.
The Moar You Know
@catclub: Afghanistan has fucking destroyed ever single power that’s tried to take it over. This British story is instructive.
Brits at the height couldn’t make a dent in the place. Russians got slaughtered by the thousands. And we thought we could pull it off with a cut-down army and some planes. Does nobody read any more?
Personal anecdote: knew a guy in SF, conga builder. Really good. Came from Afghanistan. Was sitting out at the Music Meese in Germany having cigarettes with the guy and started talking about hobbies. He was very enthusiastic about his: shooting Russians.
SatanicPanic
@Frankensteinbeck: OK, but how you do describe what he routinely does to people who cross him? I don’t think it’s intelligence, but it does show an ability to navigate among a bunch of people who’d gladly throw you under the bus if need be. To be clear, I don’t think Trump is smart, he’s not. He’s very dumb. I’m just making a case that I don’t think smarts is a necessary ingredient for being a dictator.
The Thin Black Duke
@A Ghost To Most: No, but I don’t like it when people ignore math, and the last time I looked, a lot of white people voted for Trump. Sorry.
rikyrah
@A Ghost To Most:
Nice try, but no dice.
Mayo Nation brought us Dolt45.
White people did this- specifically White Women. (White men were honest throughout the campaign season- WE KNEW they weren’t voting for Hillary….White women were the LIARS)
Non-Whites, outside of slave catchers – are not responsible for Dolt45.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
And in both cases, the damage done to the little guy was still worse by far, no matter how bloody the superpower’s nose got.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone: And to ensure that we maintain our strength and security, the Republic will be reorganized as the Galactic Empire. Ruled by a single person chosen for life.
hovercraft
@Humboldtblue:
Mama Janisse’s looks good, I may try it.
TenguPhule
@Villago Delenda Est: That sounds shrill and something that will be tuttutted by the BJ community.
Mnemosyne
@SatanicPanic:
I think the word is “shrewd,” but there may be a better one.
TenguPhule
@Villago Delenda Est: Trump would never have spawned without money to buy the wombs.
rikyrah
@Gin & Tonic:
Enough of you did to elect him. If it doesn’t apply to you…it doesn’t apply to you.
As a Black woman, I refuse to allow anyone to remotely think that they’re gonna tell me that I’m responsible for what’s happening in this country. We didn’t do this.
Neither did the rest of Non-Whites, who are NOT Slave Catchers.
White folks broke this.
White folks must fix this.
GregB
Trump will authorize a nuclear strike before he leaves office.
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne: That’s probably a good one. Shameless and ruthless are also relevant.
patroclus
Neville Chamberlain (1938) – “I believe it is peace in our time.”
Donald Trump (2017) – “We will have a lasting peace.”
TenguPhule
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Trump is the greatest argument for the death penalty that has ever existed. So far.
zach
@Chris:
Even if Trump does a 180 on all things Russia, his isolationism and incompetence benefit Russia… from Putin’s POV, Trump > Clinton > Generic moderate-ish Republican (I’m a little on the fence about how to order the last two given how much we’ve learned about influential, mainstream GOP lobbyists being increasingly in Russia’s pockets). Plus Trump is predictably a little more extreme than other GOP candidates when it comes to torpedoing efforts to stop global warming and have any rules in global finance.
SatanicPanic
@GregB: I hate to think this but it’s probably true.
aimai
@rikyrah: I don’t think white women were liars–I think that women who always vote republican just continued that tradition. Women who were racist just continued that tradition. Evangelical white women who were both racist and republican just continued that tradition. I don’t know any white women who voted for trump but then I also don’t know any white republican women or out and out racist women who privilege their racism over their other interests. I don’t get the enormous antipathy towards women as opposed to white men. White racist, evangelical, and republican voting women voted the way they always do.
ET
What if a Democratic member of Congress or Democratic President had said that. Fox News would have a field day with it. That would be laughing and rolling of they eyes and hours worth of programming about how Democrats shouldn’t be allowed to have any part of foreign policy.
Humboldtblue
@hovercraft:
I’ll hazard a guess you will like it. It’s a unique taste and a little bit goes a long way.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: Alexander the Great was the original fucker upper of Afghanistan. It’s been the land of fuckerupers ever since then.
Villago Delenda Est
@GregB: This was my greatest concern about the deserting coward; he had a chance to play with all the toys except the nukes.
Frankensteinbeck
@SatanicPanic:
…what does he do? Trump hasn’t done jack shit to anybody who crossed him without overwhelming power on his side. The rest of the government, right now, is laughing at him. Republicans who came crawling back to him as he won the nomination would have done that to any Republican lucky enough to do so. The ones he mocked in debates were the saddest pack of dipsticks the GOP has nominated yet. Every one was actually inferior to Romney, and Romney was a godawful candidate. All of this took the same strategic genius Trump showed getting Gorsuch placed – bragging about accomplishments he had almost nothing to do with. He’s the result, not the cause, of the whole Republican Party process.
Humboldtblue
@aimai:
I think that’s specifically as it relates to Trump. As in, “how could you vote for an admitted sexual predator and man who treats women like objects to be used and tossed away?” The answer is because it doesn’t happen to “good” women like them.
Chris
@GregB:
“Now, before I leave this January, I want you to wipe New Mexico off the map! That’ll teach it to keep sending us all those parasites and criminals.”
“Sir, that’s American soil.”
“No, no, no, I don’t want you to nuke America. I said Mexico.”
“But sir, that’s New Mexico!”
“I don’t care if it’s New Mexico or Old Mexico! They gotta learn they can’t mess with the U.S!”
AxelFoley
@Villago Delenda Est:
The Village must be destroyed. All of them.
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: funny! (almost too true to be funny, but still…)
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic:
That is certainly an argument that has legs and could be debated endlessly. My takeaway from our earlier back and forth was that we should not automatically ascribe intelligence to Putin because he was very comparable in his rise to power to Trump, who is a widely acknowledged moron. I disagreed with the comparison.
For myself, I don’t say Putin is in power, therefore he is intelligent. I say, based on what I know of Putin and his achievement of power, and the way he has acted to maintain power, lead me to believe he is above average intelligence in at least some operational manner(s). IOW, in the environment he emerged from, morons do not become what Putin is.
Trump was given everything he ever had. He was given, regiven, regiven, and then regiven 6 times over. He survived in an environment that caters to wealthy white males, and he benefited from a society that does not routinely murder the opposition. He was extremely sheltered versus where Putin came from.
zach
@Frankensteinbeck:
What he does is be so annoying (dragging you through the mud in public or making empty legal threats that still waste time/money) that you just give up and decide never to do business with him again. To some extent he ran into problems with this in business when he ran out of legitimate banks to borrow money from, but for the most part this isn’t a problem in his lines of work where everyone has shady reputations. But there’s not an infinite amount of business partners when it comes to getting laws through congress and certainly not in international affairs.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: It does look interesting but it’s pretty pricey. I’m wavering.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
Yeah I Know, 18 bucks for a jar is a little steep, but I do love my condiments ;- )
Humboldtblue
@Corner Stone: @hovercraft:
That’s 18 bucks for a 3-pack
SatanicPanic
@Frankensteinbeck:
That’s the point though. It turns out he didn’t have the powers he thought he did, because the US is, for some reason, a bit more healthy of a democracy than we might have imagined. My point isn’t that Trump is a genius, rather that we look at dictators and assume they managed to rise to power despite being surrounded by competent, smart adversaries. Therefore we look at dictators as being generally smart people. I’m not sure there’s a ton of evidence for that. It might just be that dictators are those same morons who are in the right place at the right time, because dictators don’t usually appear in places with healthy democracies. Maybe dictators only appear when everyone at the top is some degree of moron, and the moron who survives is only the most shrewd and ruthless of that group of morons.
Feebog
@StringOnAStick:
My Dad was a Massachusetts Democrat with a big D. He brought his four kids up to be the same. And we (mostly) followed suit. Here’s how democratic my Dad was; he shared a birthday with Richard Nixon. When he was about sixty he decided that he could no longer share that day and declared that from then on his birthday would be celebrated on March 15. And so it was. My Dad passed away at 93 a couple years ago, but he was still voting in every election and proud to do so.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Yep. And I’m super white.
I’ve actually seen some idiots try to claim that because, like, 10 percent (at best) of Black men voted for Trump, it’s all the fault of minority voters that he won! Because I guess the 60+ percent of white men and 50+ percent of white women who voted for Trump had no agency.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: Maybe so. I too am not a kremlinologist.
glory b
@catclub: gin
Splitting Image
@Citizen Alan:
This bears repeating. A lot of repeating.
The Moar You Know
@rikyrah: White guy checking in here. I think this is a perfectly reasonable attitude to take. Don’t know that we’re going to be able to pull it off, but don’t think you’re out of line for saying it.
TenguPhule
No, cunning and ruthless. They only appear smart because dictators who survive long enough tend to prune all the people smart enough and ambitious enough to try and replace them. Because if they don’t, they don’t stay dictators for long.
Brachiator
@zach:
I’m sure Trump will take credit. Of course, it will accomplish nothing.
SatanicPanic
@TenguPhule: basically this
trollhattan
@The Moar You Know:
Given our storied history of “fixin’ stuff” I’d rather have a coalition. Better odds.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
For once “yuge” and “bigly” will apply.
rikyrah
Susan Rice Is Cleared. It’s Time to Shine the Spotlight Back Where It Belongs.
The right wing attack on Susan RIce is part of a broader distraction from the activities of Ezra Cohen-Watnick.
by Nancy LeTourneau April 13, 2017 8:44 AM
One of the stories that got pushed aside when Trump decided to bomb an airfield in Syria is the one about Rep. Devin Nunes stepping aside as the leader of the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of the Trump/Russia connections. The obvious explanation for that decision was that the House Ethics Committee had opened an investigation into whether or not he mishandled classified information.
About the same time, Trump and the right wing media managed to shift all the focus onto whether or not former National Security Advisor Susan Rice had done something nefarious or illegal in unmasking Trump associates whose communication with foreign targets had been collected incidentally. Recent reporting from CNN has proven all of that to be another lie.
hovercraft
@Humboldtblue:
Okay, in that case I think I’ll go for it. Thanks.
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: Toy? Ha!
Attackerman:
Heh. :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
On the Carter Page FISA Warrant, Be Careful What You Wish For, Republicans
by Nancy LeTourneau April 12, 2017 12:48 PM
The latest news to surface on the Trump/Russia story comes from the Washington Post.
Placing this in context, the Post goes on to report that the FISA warrant was obtained last summer. It was in early July that Carter Page travelled to Moscow where he gave a speech criticizing American foreign policy and was said to have met with Igor Sechin, president of Russia’s state oil company Rosneft. The Steele dossier says that it was at that meeting that Sechin and Page discussed brokerage for a private sale of up to 19 percent of Rosneft in exchange for the lifting of Russian sanctions. The dossier also says that Page promised that “sanctions on Russia would be lifted” if Trump were elected.
MattF
@Brachiator: I’ll agree that’s good that they reckon gravity makes things fall downward. But otherwise, what’s the accomplishment?
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
The one pair of Trump voters I know for sure is my white evangelical cousin and her racist husband.
My evangelical ex-cop white male cousin and Reagan-worshipping white older brother both voted for Hillary (in IL and CA), which makes me think that the real underlying cause was white racism, and the other identifiers are less important. If you’re white and a racist (whether you acknowledge that or not), you voted for Trump.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
I’m pissed that this even has to be said, anyone with a brian always kknew it was an attempt to deflect attention from Russia, Nunez and Ezra Cohen- Watnick, oh and most of all the Shitgibbon and his swamp of vipers. Who knew you could bring your own swamp to DC with you?
PJ
@Chris: @zach: The KGB has been working Trump since the 80s. Vityaly Churkin, the Russian Ambassador to the UN who had a “heart attack” earlier this year, first met Trump to Russia in 1986 and invited him to visit in 1987: https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/815696402936369152 See also: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/02/15/donald-trumps-ties-russia-go-back-30-years/97949746/ When Trump came back from Moscow in 1987, he took out full page ads in the NY TImes, Wash Post and Boston Globe, arguing that the US should stop defending other countries: http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1987/Trump-U-S-Should-Stop-Paying-To-Defend-Countries-that-Can-Protect-Selves/id-05133dbe63ace98766527ec7d16ede08
Mnemosyne
@Humboldtblue:
Misogyny was the huge unacknowledged elephant in the room in 2016. And a LOT of white women have internalized misogyny.
A person who can’t stand to look at Hillary and hates her with the passion of a thousand suns is reacting out of misogyny, because there is NOTHING she has done in her career to justify that level of visceral hatred.
zach
@Another Scott: Haha I was actually seriously annoyed that no one even bothered to discuss the practicality of explosively closing the Deepwater leak… I’m sure there’s some very good reasons it was a very stupid idea*, but the whole idea was that this was an Apollo 13 moment and all options were on the table and everyone in charge just wrote it off as obviously idiotic… when there’s a history of Soviets nuking gas leaks and (usually) succeeding.
*My guess is it’d risk disrupting nearby, sealed wells and it’s too difficult to predict where the blast energy will be focused… not that it’d be a radiation risk. Those were the lessons from our deepest nuclear tests in the past (nowhere near this deep). Also it would take to long to engineer a delivery system that keeps the bomb at operational temperature/pressure/etc…
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
The Hillary rally I took my kid to looked like California and by extension, like America (or what America is becoming). The Confederacy is our biggest impediment to progress.
laura
@SFBayAreaGal: Sacramento seconds what SFBAYAREAGAL says about Rikyrah!
PJ
Does putting in more than one link cause a comment to go into moderation? I didn’t use any bad words . . .
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
I’m sure they look forward to their Handmaiden status.
Lapassionara
@Mnemosyne: there are different types of intelligence. I have no idea what kind Trump has, but I have heard him described as “shrewd,” whatever that means. What he lacks is knowledge. His ignorance is astounding. And scary.
zach
@rikyrah:
There’s a NYT story today with a little more info. Specifically that FISA authorization was only sought after it was confirmed that Page had resigned from the campaign because of the sensitivity of getting involved in investigating a campaign… yeah too bad the FBI didn’t have that rule.
zhena gogolia
@Citizen Alan:
Yeah, unfortunately that’s how it looks to me too. A tragedy.
Humboldtblue
@hovercraft: You’re gonna like it.
@Mnemosyne:
I was very vocal about my opposition to Hillary early on (and took plenty of heat right here) not because she was a woman but because the right wing wurlitzer had been demonizing her for nearly 30 years and that it would lead to a campaign filled with distractions and outright bullshit directed at Clinton and would directly or indirectly help her opponent. I have yet to get a straight answer from middle class rural white women I know on why they voted for Trump (we both know why, dirty fucking liberals and that ni-clang in the WH for eight years) and I don’t expect a smart and sensible answer.
Brachiator
@SatanicPanic:
Huh? Isn’t it a matter or history, and the particular dictator? History is full of examples of dictators who fail early and are themselves done away with.
But there is something strange with how many people in the US, a more or less representative democracy, get all flushed and excited over dictators. Some of it, including with Trump, seems to be a love of a Big Boss who doesn’t have to listen to anyone and who can … well… dictate … based on his whims and desires.
Another sad thing may be this Sunday’s vote in Turkey, where a sizable chunk of people may give the ruler there more power. Now that is sad and crazy. The people have the power and want to give it away to their strong man.
Boatboy_srq
@The Moar You Know: You’re expecting first Shrub the Incurious and now tRump the Unready to read? That’s Mistake #1.
Mnemosyne
@Lapassionara:
I’m still convinced that Trump is a clinical narcissist, and one of the things that narcissists rely on is that they’re willing to do things that most people won’t do and shock other people so they can’t take any defensive action. Like my narcissistic sister-in-law who showed up with a U-Haul at her estranged dead husband’s house less than 6 hours after he died in that house.
Actions that most people would hesitate to take because those actions are so nakedly greedy or self-serving are hard to defend against, because it would never even occur to most people to do something like that in the first place. Narcissists don’t have that inner voice to stop them, so they just plow ahead and get their way from people who are too startled to stop them.
(In the case above, we were able to stop her from taking anything that didn’t belong to one of her kids, but that’s because a cop friend of my brother’s was on the scene and able to slow her down.)
TenguPhule
And then it will be our turn. Because you know its coming.
SatanicPanic
@TenguPhule: oh good grief
Brachiator
@Humboldtblue:
You know this makes no sense, don’t you?
Lapassionara
@Mnemosyne: I agree with the narcissism bit. The tell is how much better he felt about his week after he authorized the missile strike in Syria. I fear we will now have more and more of these, so that he will get his feel good moments. Sigh
Humboldtblue
@Brachiator:
It was a visceral reaction before the primaries started, more about my whining than anything else. And yup, I am aware
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne:
Well, yeah…this. But try telling this to someone who has absorbed all the 30 freakin’ years’ worth of bullshit spewed out about her by the vast right-wing conspiracy…boy, that’s like stepping into a buzz-saw.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule: RE: Another sad thing may be this Sunday’s vote in Turkey, where a sizable chunk of people may give the ruler there more power. Now that is sad and crazy.
It’s already here. Trump supporters want to give him a free hand to do almost whatever he wants, because they are convinced that he is doing what he is doing for them. Here, Trump is being mean and tough in ways that his supporters would like to be, but are generally too cowardly to do by themselves. And it is racism plus. I am getting a sense that his supporters are like Trump himself. Donald has a lot of unspecified lingering resentments, but not against a specific person or because of a particular act. He is just resentful. And now that he is president, he can strike out whenever he likes.
And there are citizens eager to live through Trump as he selects his next target. And he has surrounded himself with people who have the same urge. Jeff Sessions, for example, seems to want to get even for the defeat of the Confederacy. Watch what he comes up next, in the name of the law.
Mnemosyne
@Humboldtblue:
Worrying about the damage that 25+ years of lies had done was valid, and I do think the campaign did a lot to address that. But when you had that plus misogyny plus racism plus relentless propaganda trolls plus Breitbart plus Wikileaks plus Russian meddling plus a primary opponent who is STILL braying to this day about how the Democrats are hopelessly corrupt …
It was a perfect storm of shit, unfortunately.
ETA: PLUS massive race-based suppression of Democratic voters in the firewall states. Can’t forget my hobbyhorse.
dww44
@aimai: As a non Trump voter who inhabits a world peopled by lots of Trump voting white women (who are not working class either), a huge number of whom who are not evangelical and who aren’t overtly racist. What I’ve observed is that a significant subset of them are the absolutely worst Hillary haters, cannot give it up, and have transferred that hate to other Democratic female politicians like Pelosi, Warren, Waters. After all, most of them continue to despise Jane Fonda, a hatred they picked up from the males in their lives.
After last November, there are obviously many voters who are committed members of a tribe and they are gonna vote for the Republican no matter who that person is. They’ve many of them forgotten that they were hippies and Democrats in the 60’s and 70’s like so many of their contemporaries. They weren’t conservative then and they aren’t now. It’s a cover for their many hatreds.
Brachiator
@Humboldtblue:
OK. Thanks for the clarification and admission. Seriously.
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne:
No kidding. As much I dislike the way Hillary (and Nancy Pelosi) speak and pantsuits in general, I would always vote for them.
But this makes me nervous about the Kirsten Gillibrand 2020 movement. Yes, she’s awesome, but is she electable in light of this level of misogyny? Fortunately, we have a bit of time to sort that out. Just as the W Bush disaster opened the way for eight years of a black president, Trump is so effing horrible that we may be able to elect a female Muslim suicide bomber.
AxelFoley
@Villago Delenda Est:
The Columbian variety?
Humboldtblue
@Brachiator:
No one is more aware of my idiocy than me. It’s why I have always followed the smart left-wing blogs, I get to learn (I mean, look at the front page lineup, the closest my silly ass ever got to MIT was annual visits to family in the Boston area when I was a kid) and play class clown just like the old days and no one will ever turn to me for smart, lucid and informative commentary.
Citizen Alan
@hovercraft:
Its a vaguely worded question. He’s had a college education at an ivy league school. I can see hiw most people and especially most Republicans would assume he’s at least better educated than average. I’m mildly curious as to what the results would be if the question was “do you thunk Trump has good judgment?” which is a very different issue.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator: But its all unofficial now. Watch for when they want to actually enshrine it into written law.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
And my favorite hobbyhorse is that Clinton still might have won had she been a better retail politician, had better instincts and ignored the goddam polls. This might have changed a few more minds, got a few more people out to vote.
I agree with everything you and everyone one else says about every obstacle that Clinton faced. I totally agree. But everybody and their momma, including the Republicans were absolutely certain that Clinton would win, that she had overcome every objection. Until she didn’t.
And she won the freaking popular vote. This is not the sign of a failed candidacy. This is not the sign of a candidate who was definitively rejected by the voters, despite the massive right wing conspiracy, etc.
But in the small spaces in some areas, there was doubt about her, less enthusiasm for her than for Obama, and a little more active desire for the wild card Trump.
But again, the bottom line is that she convinced more Americans to vote for her than Trump. And not by a small handful of votes.
And this is where hope for the future lies.
Mnemosyne
@dww44:
That’s what internalized misogyny looks like, unfortunately. Hopefully none of them will end up on the jury for a rape or domestic violence trial, because I bet there’s a good chance they’d vote for acquittal since the victim probably deserved what she got.
rikyrah
@Steve in the ATL:
I believe so.
Because, it will be thrown in their faces, their support of this obviously unqualified man.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
What? Lemme ‘splain something to you.
Sessions, for example, has already started re-establishing the old racist order by deciding not to pursue some prior voting rights cases. By beginning to set aside consent decrees. The same is true with respect to other areas. Civil rights victories were accelerated when the federal government began to apply pressure to the states. By deciding which current laws to emphasize with respect to enforcement.
Sessions is in the catbird seat to let loose … come on, say it with me … STATE”S RIGHTS. Which were not only state and local laws, but a web of customs and traditions. And of course, this can be expanded to include gay rights, women’s reproductive rights, etc.
Roe v Wade has continued to be the law of the land, even as conservatives create new ways to prevent women from choosing to have abortions.
Law is part of it. But when you have the Justice Department, Congress and (they hope in the future) the Courts, the law follows with respect to how you choose to apply it and prosecute it.
Gravenstone
@liberal: Hey, good to know you’re 100% on board with Assad continuing his slow motion genocide of the populace. You truly are a execrable waste of skin.
Brachiator
@Humboldtblue:
You might just surprise yourself. Understanding yourself, with real honesty, is tougher than being some learned philosopher or commentator.
You stated your sentiments very well. I learned a lot from it. That’s my definition of informative commentary.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: What still gets me is: how come white women seem to fall for so much more bullshit than women of color? Is it just that they have so much more invested in the current craptastic system? Why does (white) race solidarity always seem to trump any other consideration? Just SMDH.
J R in WV
@bystander:
My apologies. I always think of the present participle of binge as bingeing. But I looked it up and binging is also a pp of binge.
So I’m going to bing on some cherries.
So you gotta be talking about bing cherries you’re gonna binge on, right? F’in A!!
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca: sorry, but that’s just not accurate. Clearly you’ve never worked in the domestic violence field, for example.
When the bullshit comes from someone who looks and talks like you, it’s harder to see behind it. Race doesn’t protect you from bullshit, believe me. Thinking you have choices, feeling strong and confident, being able to think for yourself and learn from the mistakes of others does help.
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: err…actually, I have worked in the domestic violence field – at least as a hotline volunteer. But in case I wasn’t clear, I was referring specifically to the political scene. If you want to argue with me that women of color have as much invested in a white-male-dominated patriarchy as white women do, go ahead. I doubt that I’ll agree with you, but that’s what makes horse races.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Along the lines of what Ella said, I think it’s culture and reinforcement. We really are the weird ones, culturally speaking, for thinking and talking about race. My (step)mom genuinely believes that Black people are inferior, and she’s never had to question that belief.
That’s why my all-time favorite Molly Ivins quote is: “Once you figure out they’re lying to you about race, you start to wonder what else they’re lying about.” And I do think that people who’ve never had to question their racial assumptions are much more vulnerable to the rest of the conservative propaganda package, because the “right” people are telling them what to think.
Ian
Conspiracy critiques are only incorrect when there is no ‘conspiracy’ going on.
In event of said ‘conspiracy’ going on, we call it an investigation.
A Ghost to Most
@rikyrah:
Wow.
::Walks away stunned ::
Ian
@SFAW:
He doesn’t have too
The entire area was ethnically cleansed in 40/45. Look at borders of Europe 1913/1946. He doesn’t need territory, he needs useful allies.
Ksmiami
@opiejeanne: I hate the administration and all the asshole Americans who voted for Trump /GOP. Like seal them off and let them eat each other levels of hate
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Gravenstone: Nope; sorry, but the tenets of TRUE LEFTISM™ dictate that not only is the only correct position on foreign policy the direct opposite of the Neocon Consensus, but that having this Consensus be on your behalf immediately forfeits all rights to basic empathy, much less sympathy. So saith the law.
FFS, it’s not like anti-interventionism w/r/t Syria and Ukraine is a bad idea or even a minority position. But anyone who thinks that Ukraine/Syria negotiations undertaken by Putin and Abu Ivanka wouldn’t throw those non-affiliated with Putin or Russia under the bus would do just as well wiring their 401(k) to the Prince of Nigeria.
Nora
@randy khan: And of course contracts are traditionally interpreted against the drafter, so if there’s something that contradicts common understandings, it would have to be spelled out pretty explicitly to be used against the passenger.
J R in WV
@zach:
Syria provides the Russian Navy with a warm water port in the eastern Med – something the Tsars wanted for generations. Now Putin has one. ’nuff said!
Admiral_Komack
@Gin & Tonic: 53% of white women did; I guess they weren’t with Hillary.
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca: I apologize-just read my reply to you and realize it came across as unnecessarily snarky, as opposed to cynical, which was my intent.
My point was that given most people are not political junkies like you and me, they tend to make these decisions based on personal and cultural filters through which they see the candidates. People of color nail it when white politicians are full of shit because it’s something they’re experienced dealing with as minorities. White women are so used to seeing politicians from their own racial/SES it’s easy to pull the wool over their eyes.
I think it’s always going to be harder to see the lies when someone looks and talks like the people you come from, unless of course, we teach people to question authority.