Turkey held a referendum yesterday in regard to the structure of the Turkish government. On its face it was intended to modernize the 1980 constitution, which was drafted after the last military takeover to preserve the Kemalist system. The referendum involved constitutional reform that increases the power of the President of Turkey.
The plan turns Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential republic. Among the numerous changes:
- The role of prime minister will be scrapped. The new post of vice president, possibly two or three, will be created.
- The president becomes the head of the executive, as well as the head of state, and retains ties to a political party.
- He or she will be given sweeping new powers to appoint ministers, prepare the budget, choose the majority of senior judges and enact certain laws by decree.
- The president alone will be able to announce a state of emergency and dismiss parliament.
- Parliament will lose its right to scrutinise ministers or propose an enquiry. However, it will be able to begin impeachment proceedings or investigate the president with a majority vote by MPs. Putting the president on trial would require a two-thirds majority.
- The number of MPs will increase from 550 to 600.
- Presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on the same day every five years. The president will be limited to two terms.
There appear to be a number of observed and reported irregularities in the voting and the tallying of the votes regarding the referendum.
@20committee https://t.co/aPzQaKg8Oq
— Tacia (@Tacia) April 16, 2017
ISTANBUL: Turkey’s two main opposition parties on Sunday said they would challenge the results putting the ‘Yes’ camp ahead in the referendum on expanding the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after alleged violations.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said that whatever the final result, it would challenge two-thirds of the vote, saying: “There is an indication of a 3-4 percentage point manipulation of the vote.”
The deputy head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Bulent Tezcan, denounced “violations” by the election authorities in allowing ballot papers without an official stamp to be used.
Another CHP deputy head, Erdal Aksunger, said it could appeal up to 60 percent of the vote.
“Believe me, this election is not over,” he told CNN Turk, quoted by the Dogan news agency. “This is totally invalid. We are declaring this here.”
He said that the CHP was appealing 37 percent of the ballot box results, and this figure could eventually rise to 60 percent. “Since the morning, we have detected violations,” he said.
Turkish media said that CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu was convening a special meeting of its executive board.
The EU had its monitors on site because Turkey still has an open application to join the European Union. Both the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) sent monitors.
… observers from the OSCE and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said on April 17 that the legal framework for the referendum “remained inadequate for the holding of a genuinely democratic referendum.”
The monitors also said the referendum campaign was conducted on an “unlevel playing field” and that the counting of ballots in the April 16 referendum had been marred by “late procedural changes.”
President Erdogan responded by calling out the EU and its monitors:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan treated a crowd of supporters gathered outside his presidential palace on Monday evening to a speech laced with invective against Europe, saying his victory in a referendum on Sunday took place under conditions that were democratic beyond compare.
“We don’t care about the opinions of ‘Hans’ or ‘George,’” Erdogan said, using the names as stand-ins for his European critics. “All debates about the constitutional referendum are now over.”
This, unfortunately, fits with President Erdogan’s ongoing attempts to reorient Turkey away from an EU he perceives as perpetually dragging its feet regarding Turkish membership (he is not wrong) and from the EU’s attempts to restrict his power and his remaking of Turkish politics and society. Even more unfortunate was the President’s response to the outcome of the referendum.
BREAKING Presidential sources: US President Trump calls Turkish President Erdoğan to congratulate him on #Turkeyreferendum result. pic.twitter.com/4UtWsMPXyU
— CNN Türk ENG (@CNNTURK_ENG) April 17, 2017
I think that it is highly likely that despite what the EU monitors have observed and reported, and the challenges by Turkish opposition parties, that the outcome of the referendum will stand. This will significantly increase President Erdogan’s power, which he is eligible to wield all the way through the 2029 Turkish elections if repeatedly reelected. In many ways this referendum put the democratic process to work to achieve a very anti-democratic and authoritarian outcome, or at least an anti-democratic outcome that will allow Erdogan to become more authoritarian. In many ways it is the logical follow on from last summer’s abortive coup. Regardless, it is neither a positive outcome for Turkey, nor was the President’s response to this in his call to Erdogan a good thing.
(Full disclosure: One of my former students, from my first year assigned to USAWC, has been accused by the Erdogan government of participation in the failed coup. I was his front line supervisor/academic advisor and his research advisor/supervisor. I have been unable to reach him or his wife since the night the coup began. The last time I heard from him was in 2015 when I wrote a letter of reference for his application to a Belgian graduate program while he was assigned at NATO headquarters. He is an excellent officer, a true gentleman, and a loyal Turk.)
Mary G
I read somewhere that countries often vote an authoritarian system into place, rather than a military coup or revolution or whatever. This makes Turkey the latest. I hope America doesn’t become an item on the list.
I’m sorry about your student, Adam.
efgoldman
If Erdogan breaks away from the EU, what is the likely result for their economy? They’re not exactly Germany.
(Asking because I really have no idea)
As for Alleged President Litlescrotum, I think we can depend on him sticking his foot in the country’s mouth for as long as he has the job.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: It is all too easy to do. Unfortunately.
Villago Delenda Est
Donald is a fascist. Of course he’s going to support his fellow fascists.
It’s the nature of fascists.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Turkey has had an open application for EU membership for as long as I can remember. Easily 20 years. More likely closer to 30. At one point, pre Erdogan, every time the Turks thought they had gotten all their ducks in a row, all the Is dotted and Ts crossed, the EU would seem to come up with something new. This partially paved the way for Erdogan to come to power.
amk
For all his shit stirring in Germany & Holland, the turkish twitler just eeked through – most likely stole it – a la the murkan twitler.
Jeffro
@Mary G: @Adam L Silverman:
If they’re going to survive, democracies must recognize that a democratic state is not a given or a natural ‘end of history’, that once established it can be undone (even by its own processes, as you two have noted). It’ll require that small-d democrats get a lot more serious about inculcating democratic values in its citizens at all ages and at every opportunity…which will be tough, as it smacks of indoctrination.
And yet…we can “indoctrinate” democratic values here, there, and everywhere into our society, or we can watch the likes of Putin and Erdogan undo those values swiftly (to say nothing of the McConnells and Ryans within).
Villago Delenda Est
BTW, the EU should tell Edrogan to go pound sand.
Or, to be a bit more blunt, to go die in a fire.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Mary G: This where I read it yesterday:
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Yep.
Adam L Silverman
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: He is, unfortunately, correct.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Adam L Silverman: He’s certainly an authority on such things.
Adam L Silverman
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Yes he is.
Jeffro
.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I have not read it yet.
sharl
Best thoughts and wishes for your former student, Adam. The breadth and depth of the purges that have been going on in Turkey has been something else.
Mary G
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: That was it, thanks. Kasparov’s twitter-fu is strong.
I keep going back to Ben Franklin:
Adam L Silverman
@sharl: Thanks. If he is very, very lucky he may one day be released to get on with trying to put his life back together.
Jeffro
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: @Adam L Silverman:
I have “Winter Is Coming” next up on my reading list, have either of you read it? I’m trying not to rush through The Underground Railroad first, though!
ETA: sorry Adam, I messed up something in #14 so I re-did the question here.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: No worries. I have still not read it in the last five minutes.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: OT: To answer your question from the other night – yes, the Nashville Predators are still wearing the yellow jersey’s at home.
Jeffro
Interesting…in looking up a link to “Winter Is Coming”, I see Amazon has recommended to me “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters” by Tom Nichols.
I wonder how many times the term ‘Dunning-Krueger’ appears in that book…I’m guessing two dozen or more??
Anyway, onto the Wish List it goes…
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: Well, with you, one never knows…
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I’m good, but I’m not that good!
I have a long list that isn’t getting any shorter. Right now I’m about 100 pages into The Vanquished. I’m still trying to make my way through Darwisha’s book on Putin and Russia’s kleptocracy and have at least two more Putin/Russia books on the list after that.
amk
guess who has ‘property’ in turkey?
Adam L Silverman
@amk: Rhymes with Tvanka Irump?
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: Fuck Tom Nichols. He is 100% behind Andrew Sullivan’s racist bullshit. Get it from the library if you must pollute your mind. But do not give that asshole a penny.
Example elebenty that just because someone slags on Trump that does not make them a decent person or ally.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@amk: ooh! ooh! I know! I know!
also, too, Erdogan has property in the United States. Its called Michael Flynns. Two instead of the usual one, father and son.
amk
@Adam L Silverman: twitler at home with tinpot dictators of all hues.
WafflesTasteGood
@amk: Yea, why isn’t that congratulations from the tiny fingered fascist raising more eyebrows, seeing as he has business interests in Turkey. Really should be a lot more questions about all of that daily.
Does he have business interests in China? I think he does.
Adam L Silverman
@WafflesTasteGood: The Chinese own the note on Trump Tower. One of the bigger PRC backed banks leases office space there. Kushner, his businesses, and his business associates, are into the PRC backed banks and companies for millions in financing.
Anya
Best wishes for your student, Adam. I don’t know what to say. I hope at least his wife is safe somewhere. In situations like these I am assuming the family is avoiding anything that might draw attention to themselves and that includes contacting their old friends.
hovercraft
At this point shouldn’t we just get used to this being the case as long as Twitler is in the White House? He doesn’t listen, he doesn’t know anything, he’s easily offended, and mercurial spiteful.
Adam L Silverman
@Anya: Thanks. I honestly have no idea.
Adam L Silverman
I think someone needs their medication adjusted!
Anya
I am surprised the Short Fingered Vulgarian didn’t tweet his congratulation, and praise Erdogan with the hashtag #AutocraticGoals
schrodingers_cat
Not the first time, and I am sure it won’t be the last. T is pretty bad, but shady and dictatorial allies are nothing new. Pinochet, Zia, assorted South American dictators. I am sure we can find a dictator/strongman from A to Z, that has been an ally.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: No we should not.
Ella in New Mexico
@Adam L Silverman: the “US” is not on the wrong side of history.
Our less than1 term POS fake President is.
Never forget, there’s a big distinction.
Chris
@Adam L Silverman:
Ah, fuck her.
rikyrah
Kyle GriffinVerified account @kylegriffin1
“How many Russian spies do we have to have in the White House before you investigate it?!”
—Constituents press Dean Heller at his town hall
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: Ok, ok, point taken. These days, I’m buying about 90% of my books via Amazon’s secondary/used book sellers anyway, so no dough for Mr. Nichols. I’m still going to consider his argument and try to see if there are some possible solutions to take from it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: Jeff Flake smiled like a thorazine’d game show host during his meeting, Heller looked shaken.
chris
@WafflesTasteGood: Trump is worldwide. Here’s a start but I imagine there’s more.
Adam L Silverman
@Chris: I think the CalExit person is a him.
Corner Stone
@Chris: Who are you fucking there?
rikyrah
Kyle GriffinVerified account @kylegriffin1
Replying to @kylegriffin1 @American_Bridge
Nevada woman delivers powerful speech at Dean Heller town hall about the importance of Planned Parenthood, via @American_Bridge
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: All these assholes should be shunned. If he comes out on the side of racist “rationalization” I can almost guarantee his arguments in the book are shit.
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is reminiscent of Nigel Tufnel in “Spinal Tap” — “This one goes to eleven.”
Chris
@Adam L Silverman:
Focused on name of tweeter rather than name of tweetee. My mistake.
rikyrah
Kyle GriffinVerified account @kylegriffin1
“Have him release those tax returns so we can see what kind of connections he has.”
—Constituent urges Tom Cotton at town hall, via @MSNBC
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: Don’t let it happen again.
rikyrah
Natasha Bertrand
✔
@NatashaBertrand
The leader of the Calexit campaign, Louis Marinelli, just announced he’s settling in Russia permanently & withdrawing his ballot petition.
3:28 PM – 17 Apr 2017
hilts
@Jeffro:
Head in the Cloud: Why Knowing Things Still Matters When Facts Are So Easy to Look Up by William Poundstone has a good discussion of the ‘Dunning-Krueger’ effect.
And speaking of idiots… Eric Trump:
h/t https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/apr/17/how-donald-trump-became-golfer-in-chief
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Let the number of spies in the WH be n, then m = # of spies for Rs to start an investigation.
m= n+1
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: I marvel at the sheer self-lobotomization it took for Marinelli to write the end of that first paragraph. Essentially, “I am disillusioned with America and its partisan divisions; therefore Russia is the answer and I fall eagerly into the Motherland’s embrace”. Oh my. Never stopping to think about why there aren’t any (overt) partisan divisions in Russia. Because freedom, that’s why!
Ah well…bon voyage (or whatever that is in Russian), Louis.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
I think we need to expect the worst, prepare for the worst and be ready to resist when our pessimism is justified. One of the things that went wrong last year is that we were too optimistic, we had faith that someone like him couldn’t be elected in this country, but too may democrats and independents didn’t believe him, they chose to give him the benefit of the doubt. As Rikyrah always says, when someone tells you who they are believe them. Preparation is not acceptance.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: No argument here.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: That’s fine…I promise to shun him in person, not follow him on Twitter, etc. And if I buy his book used, he doesn’t get a nickel. But the argument seems related to current events, and if there’s some thoughts about how to combat this “celebration of not-knowing” that is the Trumpov MalAdministration (and beyond), then I’m good with reading about it.
Granted, Richard Hofstadter wrote about this sort of stuff 40-50 years ago, so I’m not going into this thinking there’s some sort of magical cure that Nichols has discovered in the interim. But you never know.
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: Kim Philby thought so too, that Mother Russia was the answer to his public school- rich boy disillusionment.
rikyrah
William Butler @wbutlermd
A key Schneiderman advantage as a state AG: the Prez power of pardon applies only to ~federal~ crimes. NY State crimes are unpardonable
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: He is pretty anti-Dem and was anti-HRC during the elections too.
rikyrah
ABC News Politics@ABCPolitics
@PressSec calls Obama-era policy of releasing White House visitor logs a “faux attempt” that “didn’t serve anyone well.”
hovercraft
@Ella in New Mexico:
As much as I’d like to agree with you, I can’t, the President is the singular person who gets to speak for our country. Yes people know that as a democracy we are not monolithic, they also know that all our disparate voices do not carry the same wight as the doofus does, he is our spokesperson to the world. Something all those people holding their noses or sitting on their hands should have taken into account before it was too late. We can all raise our voices in protest or disavow him a la Dixie Chicks, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is the face and voice of our nation. He is the one who gets to make policy.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: There is some question about that.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: The bigger issue we have is someone at State issued a different statement about rights and democracy. This is the overall, larger problem. The US government, on any topic, is not speaking with one voice. There is no coordinated strategic messaging and communication. And every agency and department is not properly staffed to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Or would be if the Administration could pick a page and stick to it. Eventually this will create a real crisis.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: when can I start making fun of certain friends of mine for buying into an obvious Russian-backed destabilization movement (and calling me a paranoid “red-baiter” (lol) for pointing it out)?
Why am I friends with these people?
You don’t have to answer them all.
ETA: @hovercraft: at least the Dixie Chicks vote!
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat: Tom Nichols is a fucking cocksucking asshole. Not to put too fine a point on it.
He may as well have been the author of “Liberal Fascism” or “Clinton Body Count”.
There is nothing he has to say that should be taken at face value. Fuck him.
rikyrah
David FrumVerified account @davidfrum
Manafort advising Chinese tycoon on how to get a slice of Trump infrastructure spending
Jeffro
@hilts: Just think of what Trump could have accomplished if only he’d had the opportunity to golf with Idi Amin…Moammar Qaddafi…Vlad the Impaler…so many gifts, so constrained by the forward progress of time!
Also, Eric Trump is an effing moron if he thinks a round of golf makes these clowns trust each other, or that it’s a good idea for the fate of a democratic republic to hang on the outcome of a golf outing. Jee. Zus.
danielx
Because I really need this picture, one of my faves:
Barack Obama And McKayla Maroney Are Not Impressed.
…and becoming less so with every passing day.
rikyrah
Brasilmagic @Brasilmagic
Kellyanne Conway begs Dem leaders to tell protesters to stop because Donald Trump won – is she out of her mind?
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Yup. I can see it.
I’m really enjoying the CBC feed for the games they’re covering. I imagine it’s cheaper for NBC than duplicate production, and while I don’t believe their announcers are more knowledgeable, they’re not Pierre McGuire, which is a double bonus.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: I don’t see what’s so bad about being a cocksucker.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: I don’t know. The CI investigation will take as long as it takes. The other criminal investigations that Director Comey referenced will too. As will AG Schneiderman’s in NY State. A lot of this is going to involve a lot of forensic accounting, which takes a while. Also, the CI Task Force is going to want to make sure they’ve identified every single connection they can, which also will take a while. I know some seemingly knowledgable, or, at least, well sourced folks are stating soon, this week, not to much longer, but I honestly have no idea. It will take as long as it takes. And, remember, at the end of the day we may find out things that no one expected or anticipated instead of what we think is going to come out.
amk
@Jeffro:
Not so fast.
rikyrah
So much twitter truth
Sally Albright @SallyAlbright
My friend @Kris_Benny wrote this excellent analysis that “economic anxiety” actually stems from racism. Everyone should read it
efgoldman
@rikyrah:
Assholes gotta’ asshole. It’s what they do.
danielx
Can’t recall where I read this today, but it went (roughly) like this: politically speaking, there are now three groups of people – those who still favor Trump, those who regret voting for him, and those who had a hard time believing anyone could vote for him in the first place.
This seems sort of simplistic to me, although It’s getting harder by the day to believe that anyone still considers Trump to be a competent and capable chief executive. Trump’s administration, like Alzheimer’s disease, can be thought of as the ultimate existentialism. Every day is a tabula rasa, unrelated to anything in the past and unconnected to what might happen tomorrow.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Trump has more conflicts of interest than there are stars in the sky. Utterly corrupt, utterly unfit for any public office of any kind.
glory b
Ugh. Brian Williams announced that Nicole Wallace (who is probably the dumbest person on msnbc) is traveling the COUNTRY, interviewing Trump voters for a SERIES on the channel.
I never noticed this level of interest in what Obama voters thought
Mary G
@rikyrah: Yes, she is. The Democrats aren’t doing a tenth of the screaming the tea partiers did, but they are more effective, so she wants them stopped. They don’t seem to realize that if Trump didn’t tweet stupid stuff about protests, and people like KA didn’t talk about them so much, there would be a lot less coverage, because the media is mostly on their side.
@Major Major Major Major: Louis decided to take his football and move to Russia because CalExit was going nowhere here among the Southern California Democrats I know. Of course, they are older and more tote-baggery than your friends, I think.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: No. This ties into my post from Saturday night. The messaging is the violence is all coming from extreme left individuals. Even though we can demonstrate via social media posts that Saturday was a long planned alt-right political violence operation disguised to be able to place the blame on the extreme left. By doing so it creates an opening for strategic communication and messaging to paint all left of center and center left movements in the US, and the Democratic Party, as complicit and attempts to put them on the defensive by calling for them to speak out against violence that has nothing to do with them, but is organized and carried out by the President’s extremist supporters.
efgoldman
@Major Major Major Major:
And they’re MUCH better performers, and more entertaining, then The Family Grifter of Manhattan/Florida
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I was talking about the Calexit fools.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Doc Emerick and Bill Clement or I want my money back!
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
You make it sound as if it’s important that we speak with one voice as a nation. The GOP already proved that it was fine for the opposition to advocate for a different message than the president, now the White House it seems is determined to show that an administration can send of mixed and contradictory messages, no problem. He did tell us that he wanted to keep everyone on their toes and stop being so predictable. Who knew that he wanted members of his own administration to be surprised as well.
Adam L Silverman
@danielx: Digby’s.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Oh, okay. Immediately.
Carry on…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Or people whose lives were improved by the ACA.
Except in the last four months, if they voted for trump.
sharl
@rikyrah:
Ah, memories:
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Emrick is the best, but I haven’t heard/seen Clement in years. Last time I saw him was on the worldwide leader
sigaba
@amk: What’s sortof cool about ultra-nationalists is how adept they are at forming transnational support systems and alliances that totally undermine their claims of national identity and purpose.
It’s almost like the whole nationalism thing is a pretext for a war on modernity. Nahhhh.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
So Manafort has ties to Putin’s inner circle, he’s a lobbyist for Erdogan’s Turkey, and he’s also lobbying for China, you have to give the man his due, he’s got some big brass ones, you would think that a man who was fired for his shady foreign dealings would have tried to lay low for a while, but not him. Either he’s a Honey badger, or he knows something that he thinks will keep him out of jail.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: “Why is a cocksucker a bad man, when it should be a good woman?” – George Carlin
efgoldman
@hovercraft:
They’re not “determined” to do anything. It’s just another in the infinite number of signs of their incompetence.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major:
Weeks ago.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: He completely retired, even from studio work, a while back. But he and Emerick were a great team together for years.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: He was also the President’s local lobbyist with Palm Beach County right after the President bought Mar a Lago. The President was disturbed to find out that Mar a Lago is on the flight path for approach to the airport and wanted this changed. Manafort was the fixer he hired to try to get the changed made. The effort failed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Let’s not be LGBTQ unfriendly. Anyone who wants to do it should be okay with whoever wants it done by the party of the first part.
rikyrah
Jon CooperVerified account @joncoopertweets
Melania Trump hosted a private Easter Egg Roll exclusively for the rich and powerful
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: State is operating in the “bi-partisan” post-WWII consensus mode. Donald and Bannon don’t believe in that at all, and they and Pence say incredibly stupid things like what Pence said in Korea about “strategic patience”. This is fucking insane.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: Right, and that’s where they called me a paranoid red-baiter, because they’re idiots.
Another Scott
@Jeffro: Nobody ever cheats when Donnie plays golf either, I’ll-bet-cha.
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
Cheers,
Scott.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Everyone knows KAC and her boss were so out there telling the Tea Party and all the birthers to stop protesting against Obama because he won, right?
Payback bitches!!
Obama was never hated by this many people. Twitler is the most hated man on the planet, on the fucking planet!! That is one hell of an accomplishment. He loves to say he done something no one else has ever done, the world thought that George W. Bush was the worst, and that America could not do any worse, but congrats, we found a way to do worse and Twitler , well what can I say……….
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Did you see the video of him doing the ritual incense thing at the memorial? Before he’d do it he stopped, looked behind him and to the right to see if Mother was okay with diplomatic heresy. She subtly nodded, he turned back forward, squinted even more than usual, and put the ritual incense in the burner.
Chet Murthy
@danielx: Thank you for this. Brings a smile to my face. Seen it before, but still, brings a smile to my face.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: Sometimes mockery must be the first response. If someone says Nickelback is a fantastic band, how can one respond? 1. Head desk. 2. Backing away slowly. 3. Mockery. Vicious, mean mockery.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman:
Is it just me or is that something a halfway intelligent person would know before they bought something?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good sweet holy fuck. Brian Willaims asks Harold Ford if Donald Trump can pass major legislation before the end of the year. Ford takes the opportunity to troll Obama on the passage and implementation of Obamacare, so as to draw an equivalence between the mistakes Obama and trump made in their first year. David Jolly, actual R, managed to focus on trump.
Chet Murthy
@Corner Stone: CS, I think I understand the sentiment you’re trying to express. When I grew up, where I grew up, pretty much the worst thing you could say about a man was to call him a “c**ks**ker”. But times have changed, and we can’t use that slur anymore, eh? There’s nothing wrong with being that, and doing that. Whether one is male or female.
I myself found myself asking “gee, what sort of slur can I use now? I need something suitably -harsh-!” It’s difficult. I’ve found a slur I like, but it’s sufficiently …. brutal and harsh and not-suitable-for-impolite-company, that I won’t even repeat it here.
But seriously, and I say this as someone who was a homophobe until age 21: it’s not cool, man. I know you’re not a homophobe, and this is just a leftover of old idiomatic language. But really, man, no.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: That was rhetorical, right?
Davebo
@Major Major Major Major: Well a Jeppesen subscription costs money and Donald doesn’t care for parting with money.
Besides, he heard somewhere that Palm Beach International’s approaches looked a lot like those at the old Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: You
You mean like arguing that Creed is much better?
dm
@Villago Delenda Est: he’d like that. One of the reasons he is following this referendum with one re-establishing the death penalty is passage will put an end to possible membership in the EU without him actually having to accept the blame.
The vote was pretty close, and was basically divided between urban “noes” and rural “yeses”. Sound familiar?
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): No, that is fucking with idiots.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Apparently he was told by the wife of this Italian immigrant grifter who claims to be a count. She was a tenant in Trump Tower. Her second husband, the con man, claims to be the connecting node for all the far right, neo-nationalist movements in Europe.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/world/europe/trump-tower-neighbor-europe-populists-orban-wilders-le-pen.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0
You could not make this stuff up and have it be believed!
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes.
@Omnes Omnibus: when somebody says something like that I just ignore them, this is different, it would be like if I’d been saying that Nickleback was a Russian front designed to delegitimize alt-rock and then Nickleback moved to Russia.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: You clearly take music less seriously than I do.
Ksmiami
@rikyrah: fuck her. She’s a cheap treasonous whore
dm
@Villago Delenda Est: that would be throwing him into the briar patch.
Erdogan plans to follow this referendum with one re-establishing the death penalty. If passed, it would put an end to the possibility off E^I membership without him having to take the blame.
The vote was close, divided between urban nays and rural ayes. Sound familiar?
efgoldman
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s not gonna’ take much climate hoaxery – an abnormally high tide, a good hurricane – to mostly wipe that monument to bad taste right off the map.
Of course you know Orangemandyas would apply for federal disaster relief.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Heh. I just read a story today with other Calexiters getting all shirty at the notion that the Russians were secretly funding and supporting them. Whoops!
Villago Delenda Est
@Ksmiami: Kellyanne’s greatest regret, which she shares witn Ann Coulter, is that she was born about 50 years too late to be the Bitch of Buchenwald.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Rate this on indie, hipster cred: song.
Ksmiami
@Villago Delenda Est: frog march or against the wall. when this is all over one way or another I want the GOP permanently banned from any participation in civil society. I truly believe that we r witnessing an end to America
Adam L Silverman
Wunderbar!
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
I approve of cocksuckers.
@efgoldman:
They may not have planned to be bumbling incompetents, but their proficiency is making it seem like strategery.
@Adam L Silverman:
This is why he hates regulations, first they refuse to change flight paths and then NYC won’t let him land his helicopter on top of his building. Don’t they know that he’s special!
danielx
@Major Major Major Major:
Hey, it’s no crazier than the theory that Lawrence Welk was really Martin Bormann with plastic surgery, getting revenge by depressing us all into suicide with regular treatments of hideous champagne music.
Sab
@Adam L Silverman: I am starting to think that Trump Towers is a good idea, to have all these noxious folks holed up in one building, instead of out living among the rest of us.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Such utter crap from Donald. He has no friggin’ clue about the deal Clinton brokered, and how the deserting coward fucked it up and then NK made a dedicated effort to get nukes. Which leaves us with a (barely) nuclear armed adversary in the DPRK, and someone who shouldn’t be allowed within 1000 miles of the football.
Omnes Omnibus
@danielx: That one actually makes some sense.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
halfway intelligent person
That’s your problem right there, he’s definitely not the first two, and barely the third. He’s a mass of insecurity and ego.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: That has to be the worst call on that 2nd Nashville goal that I’ve seen in a while. You can’t slash the defending goalie’s stick, after forearm shivering him in the head, so that he’s pulled out of position and not have that called as interference.
Yarrow
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think I could name one Nickelback song. Besides the fact that they’re Canadian, the only thing I know about them is they suck. They’re the standard for “rock band that sucks.”
Adam L Silverman
@danielx: No, Bormann escaped to South America. At least that’s what that History Channel program tells me.
Adam L Silverman
@Sab: Only if you could completely quarantine them inside.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: And he clearly doesn’t have any idea who is running the DPRK.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yarrow: You got my point then. Listen to the song I offered up here. Be a hipster.
Mnemosyne
A Lucy Worsley documentary about the Regency era that keeps vanishing from YouTube because of music rights just magically re-appeared, so I’m going to go watch that before the copyright police make it vanish again. Later, jackals!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: I heard him say that about Clinton’s book, and I wondered which member of his entourage read it and told him that, and when
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Why do you think that Ford is a regular on Morning Ho?
He is a reliable black democrat who will go on TV to criticize democrats, a twofer. I’d call him a poster boy for the DLC, but he makes Rahm Emanuel seem look like a flaming liberal. Of course I supported him against Bob Corcker, but he is truly a useless piece of shit.
danielx
@Adam L Silverman:
Could be. I was only five or six when I saw Welk, but even then I hated his music and his rictus-like smile.
danielx
@Mnemosyne:
So that’s set during 2001-2008, right?
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m old enough to remember when any goalie out of the crease (which Crawford was) was fair game.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Goalie comes out, S/he a is player. Goalie doesn’t come out, s/he can fuck with people.
danielx
@Jeffro:
Doing a little quick reading on the subject: am i correct in perceiving this Marinelli person is a couple of bubbles off plumb?
Sab
@Adam L Silverman: Well maybe having that home address will disqualify them from any activity besides grifting.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott:
I was going to see Groucho today but the cemetery was closed, so I had to settle for Bob Hope.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: @Omnes Omnibus: My understanding was that part of the agreement on reducing the size of the protective equipment is that the rules would be interpreted to protect the goalies. I will stipulate that I am a Blackhawks fan since I was a kid. That said, this wasn’t Crawford flying out trying to break up a play or stick handle. He was just outside the blue paint above his crease and was trying to play the puck. I get that the offensive player also is permitted to contest for that space, but a slash on an opposing player’s stick who is also trying to make a play on the puck is still a slash. Regardless of whether the opposing player is a goalie and he is outside of his box. And a forearm to the head is also a no go, regardless of who the opposing player is and where on the ice they are.
Adam L Silverman
@danielx: Yep.
Yarrow
@Omnes Omnibus: Do I get a few hipster points because I’ve heard of Star Anna before?
@hovercraft: Harold Ford loves to criticize Democrats. No wonder he gets invited on TV a lot. He’s always made my skin crawl.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman:
We are done. You win.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yarrow: If you want them… Do you really want to be that person?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Being honest is finally an advantage!
Actually when I started watching ice hockey with my Dad as a kid, when you got one game a week on USA network, I got hooked on the Blackhawks because of the jerseys and logos. They had the most colorful and interesting jerseys and logos at the time. And, despite the fact he was never a very good starting goalie, they had Murray Bannerman still wearing the full face mask and it was painted with the logo on it. You only had a few guys still wearing these. A lot of them were wearing plain white. I think Grant Fuhr’s had the Oiler’s drop on his. Everyone else was starting to go to the full cages, before settling on the style they now use. So those had no color to them as they were just cage masks attached to regular helmets a la Billy Smith. So all that color and detail caught 7 year old me’s eye.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: A ‘hawks Owner’s daughter was good friend’s gf in college. Plus, they are my local. Off to bed now.
JCJ
Predators up 3 – 0 on the Blackhawks. Wow.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman: @Omnes Omnibus: A Bruins fan, obvs by geography and heritage, but they’re not getting out of the first round.
Any team that finished three places ahead of its playoff rival, then mails it in, getting shut out in the first two games AT HOME. doesn’t deserve to win.
OTOH any team that trades on purpose for Subban doesn’t, either. All the physical talent in the world, nothing between his ears.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Oy vey, not only ahistoric as usual but adroitly (as in thunderously, painfully, obviously) skips the entire GWB administration and 33.3% of the mighty Axis of Ebil.
trollhattan
@JCJ:
There’s a sportsball team called the Predators? That’s pretty on-the-nose.
JCJ
@trollhattan: @trollhattan:
Well, sportspuck or sportsdisc, but yeah.
joel hanes
@danielx:
hideous champagne music
My favorite : One Toke Over The Line
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3ecDYxOkg
Yarrow
@Omnes Omnibus: Don’t particularly care, no. Not really even sure what is and is not a hipster these days.
jl
@trollhattan: I hope that Trump is merely speaking ‘ahistorically’, and he has gotten some more lessons in Korean history.
Edit: but it does sound like Donny has a hard time keeping their leaders straight.
And, the NK leaders didn’t have to do much to outplay Dick and Dub (and Rumdum, remember him?), did they? All they had to do was ignore the bluster.
Mnemosyne
If Suzanne or any of the other architects wander in, they might be interested in the BBC docu that I just watched — it’s mostly about the architecture and city planning.
And I was pleased to have Dr. Worsley validate something I’ve always thought about the Regency, which was that it was the 1960s of its day. A huge swing in fashion and social change that ended up swinging back to the more conservative Victorian era.
efgoldman
@jl:
Maybe – maybe – he can learn things in the Pavlovian sense (arf). He cannot, does not, and will not “absorb lessons.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: It’s not like there have been a ton of leaders in the DPRK in their 70+ years, there have been 3.
jl
@efgoldman: Events at today’s Easter Egg Rool suggests a plan. Get FLOTUS down to DC so she can nudge him into attention on a regular basis.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
We ain’t talking Brawny here.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: I thought that was Ivanka’s job. Oh, that’s right she’s on her Passover ski vacation.
efgoldman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
All from the same gene pool. At least the two Bushes (after all the complaining about dynasties, actually the only family to both get elected, unless you count the Adamses and the Roosevelt cousins) were separated by eight years of Clinton.
And after that, her May shoe-buying trip to Italy, and her June Caribbean diving vacation, and her July sojourn to the Rockies….
JWR
@efgoldman:
Heh heh to that little (arf.) bit. But oh, the world we’re living in these days…
Redshift
@trollhattan:
I doubt Rump had anything to do with that “adroitness.” His maladministration ribs on the assumption that everything on Fox is true, and they had already done that editing of history by the time he saw it.
Redshift
@Redshift: Er, “runs,” not “ribs.”
zach
Trump probably sees supporting Erdogan as a necessary part of threatening escalation of US involvement in Syrian civil war… but if he looked closer he could see that he could use our involvement, which Turkey wants, as leverage to push Turkey away from anti-democratic reforms.
sharl
Here is a twitter list of journalists and scholars who follow Turkish matters – most of it in English, with some English translations of quoted (nested) Turkish tweets – put together by Zeynep Tufekci, an academic sociologist in the U.S.
Tectonic post-referendum rumblings are still going on.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Everyone forgets about the two Harrisons.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@zach:
You give him too much credit for thought. He cheated to a win on a strongman vote, so he gets a call…
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@zach:
You give Twitler too much credit for thought. He cheated to a win on a strongman vote, so he gets a call…
SWMBO
@efgoldman: @Adam L Silverman:
I remember the commercials with Guys picking sides and they’d chant “Clement! Clement! Hands of cement!”
gene108
@zach:
Trump has hotels in Turkey or some other business interest. He’s just making sure his investments are safe.
Edit: He does not want to get on the wrong side of a guy, who can cost him millions.
zach
@gene108:
Except that getting on the right side of Erdogan means getting on the wrong side of Putin… unless Putin wants to trade in the Syria alliance for a Turkey alliance (which seems smart to be me but I don’t know much about anything).
dm
@zach: Erdogan and Putin have been cooperating in Syria, and have lately been finding a fair amount to agree on, as Foreign Policy puts it, “A marriage of convenience”:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/11/putin-and-erdogans-marriage-of-convenience/
Also, more for the Maskirovka files: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-03/who-is-alexander-dugin-the-man-linking-putin-erdogan-and-trump
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Adam L Silverman: I don’t suppose we could come up with a hockey playoffs post here in this tavern? Watching the talking heads try and figure out a narrative for the Blackhawks/Predators results has been interesting.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@efgoldman: I think the whole “out-of-the-crease” business was why Forsberg got away with that–it was the argument the announcers put forth, anyway.
Uncle Cosmo
@Villago Delenda Est: Anyone else recall (hearing about) Lenny Bruce’s arrest for obscenity in SanFran back in the 50s? I paraphrase his later comment:
(Adjust for the evolution of sexual mores over the ensuing 60-some years; I’m pretty sure Lenny wouldn’t have a problem with that.)
FWIW many years back I used the term in conversation with a friend to derogate a third party. When I saw the look on his face I immediately apologized; It hadn’t even registered how that would strike someone who (like him) was gay. Ouch.
Uncle Cosmo
@danielx: Once upon a time Playboy’s Unabashed Dictionary defined crotch as “where Lawrence Welk parks his car.” Just FTR.