You will be shocked to learn that David Brooks and Matt Bai have both gone anti-anti-Trump and, thus, are now effectively pro-Trump. Here’s how being anti-anti-Trump works: yes, Trump isn’t perfect but the dirty hippies and the elites in their Accela Corridor bubble are worse.
In other words, Trump changes nothing. We’re back to square one. We’ve always been at war with the Oberlin College student council.
The anti-anti-Trump coinage comes from the Weekly Standard, and it’s noteworthy that, for whatever reason, conservative writers are more likely these days to recognize that the American right is now unified primarily by its list of enemies. Tom Nichols, for example, nails it:
There is a more disturbing possibility here than pure ignorance: that voters not only do not understand these issues, but also that they simply do not care about them. As his supporters like to point out, Trump makes the right enemies, and that’s enough for them. Journalists, scientists, policy wonks — as long as “the elites” are upset, Trump’s voters assume that the administration is doing something right. “He makes them uncomfortable, which makes me happy,” Ohio Trump voter James Cassidy told the Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale. Syria? Korea? Health care reform? Foreign aid? Just so much mumbo-jumbo, the kind of Sunday morning talk-show stuff only coastal elitists care about.
Cleek said it even better, of course:
today’s conservatism is the opposite of what liberals want today: updated daily.
And it’s not just mythical Trump voters drinking Buds in a bar next to the shuttered auto factory, it’s establishment media types like Bai and Brooks.
schrodingers_cat
The media Punditubbies are T’s original constituency. They love him because they are like him, they have no knowledge but think they are experts on everything under the sun
Hunter Gathers
It seems that ‘progressives’ have gone full on Hipster – it’s lame to make money now. Obama’s a sellout for making money when he’s no longer a politician. I’m going to tell my boss that I work for free now. Sure, my wife might get upset, but making money only makes you a cog in the corporate machine, it’s not cool, it’s not hip and Wilmer would dissaprove.
BTW – Senator Warren – you can shove your concerns up your ass.
Rasputin's Evil Twin
OT, but interesting.
The Tangerine Ballsac says he doesn’t read his own executive orders, just signs them. It seems to me we should slide a letter of resignation into the pile, noting he’s quitting to spend less time with his family.
Weaselone
It’s interesting that in his article Nichols discounts the idea that the FBI and Russia influenced the outcome of the election. I thought he was supposed to be an evidence based kind of guy.
TenguPhule
Except this time their malice is going to hurt and kill people because they gave the keys to the military and nuclear arsenal to a conman with a lizard brain who believes his own lies.
MattF
Not surprised about Brooks– he’s always been the ideal fellow traveller. “I’m an independent thinker. Unless… um… it would put a detectable gap between me and my pals.”
FlipYrWhig
@Hunter Gathers: Hipsters have plenty of money. They just _affect_ not to, by not shaving and wearing thrift store clothes. Like how Wilmer lets his hair look stupid, thereby proving his authenticity, despite 3 houses and an unqualified wife who plundered a college.
hovercraft
None of this is new, apart from a few, actually Jennifer Rubin and Ana Navarro are the only ones coming to mind right now, the so-called anti-Trumpers all blamed Obama and the democrats for being mean to them and forcing them to lose their mind. The Brooksies of the world may have been critical of Twitler, but they always made sure to “both sides” their criticism, we look down on them that’s why they behave badly. Some one needs to ask these assholes what the hell it says about a party when their entire governing ethos is basically to screw everyone who ever made them feel inferior, and to create a permanent underclass that they can look down on. Just fucking pathetic, especially since they don’t seem to realize that they are being shoved right into that underclass along with the rest of us.
dmsilev
@Weaselone: I noticed that too. The data’s pretty clear, to the point where denying it says more about the denier than it does about anything else.
Droppy
Right-wing assholes who fought against the New Deal or the Great Society were straight-up selfish country club types. The new breed of right winger is proudly and aggressively stupid on top of the selfishness. They have all had a blanket of racist snow covering them, and the piles underneath are now no taller, but they are more widespread.
schrodingers_cat
@Weaselone: I have no idea why people like Nichols, seems like bog standard R when it comes to blaming the Dems for everything.
JanieM
My laugh of the day, and one for the ages. Nicely done.
rikyrah
Keith BoykinVerified account @keithboykin
The Trump family and their cronies have turned the home of Lincoln and Roosevelt into a House of Grifters.
rikyrah
DA PHUQ?
Eric GellerVerified account @ericgeller
CIA director fills No. 3 spot with private equity exec instead of tradtl career intel officer, renames job to COO.
Chris
I realized years and years ago when I started really reading up on fascism that the whole “how could people let this happen?” was depressingly easy to understand: all the nice respectable citizens were busy justifying themselves by going “all right, these people are a little rough around the edges, but what about the leftists? They’re the real danger.”
rikyrah
The Associated PressVerified account @AP
BREAKING: US economy grew just 0.7 percent in Q1, weakest showing in 3 years.
Chris
@rikyrah:
I wonder how long it takes that guy to say: “This is so much harder than I expected! I thought it’d be easier than private equity.”
MattF
@Chris: The red flag is ‘authenticity’. And that holds for either right-wing or left-wing politics.
Ian G.
This should be obvious to anyone with a Facebook feed (and I have mercifully few Drumpfenproletariat in my feed). Nothing animates them other than the idea that the blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, college students, and New Yorkers are wrecking the country by creating a painting of black transgendered Jesus to be displayed at San Francisco city hall. Do you see anything what-fucking-soever to do with POLICY there?
So they went with the guy who promised to “get back” at every boogeyman in their heads. Whether he’s capable of governing is irrelevant.
sharl
I’m on board with pretty much everything in the OP, although a messenger like Tom Nichols can be a bit problematic. I haven’t read his book “The Death of Expertise”, or taken in many of his numerous interviews hyping the tome, so I don’t know if he has been asked to what extent “experts” themselves are complicit in that death by the choices they make in how they make their expertise available. It’s not gonna be a simple or comfortable discussion though…
rikyrah
Trump names anti-abortion leader Yoest to top HHS post
By RACHANA PRADHAN
04/28/17 10:32 AM EDT
President Donald Trump Friday said he would name one of the most prominent anti-abortion activists in the country to a top communications post at Health and Human Services.
Charmaine Yoest, tapped to be to be assistant secretary of public affairs, is a senior fellow at American Values. She is the former president of Americans United for Life, one of the most prominent anti-abortion groups in the country, which has been instrumental in advancing anti-abortion legislation at the state level to restrict access to the procedure.
AUL’s website — which states that the group offers state lawmakers 32 different pieces of model legislation to restrict access to abortion — characterizes Yoest as “public enemy #1” for abortion rights organizations. The assistant secretary of public affairs shapes communications efforts for the entire agency.
Yoest isn’t the only Trump administration appointee who has expressed critical views about abortion and other social issues. Katy Talento, a health aide for the White House Domestic Policy Council , has taken the controversial view that contraception poses major dangers to women and causes abortion and miscarriages.
The Moar You Know
The eternal NYT argument against Democrats. Works every time.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
He’s a white man not named Clinton so his pimping out the Lincoln bedroom is cool.
Don’t you now corporate espionage is just the same as what the CIA deals with. you people need to chill.
That’s a hangover from Obama, even though the stock market has “rocketed” because of Twitler, and the great unemployment numbers are because of him, but Obama tanked the economy.
PhoenixRising
Student Senate. Please. Show some respect.
(My tenants, one of whom is an elected member of that august body, yesterday, via text at his 12:30pm: “Hey, a big truck was making a lot of noise in the front of the property this morning and woke us up. Can you warn us about disturbances like that?” Upon investigation, city poured new curbs in the quadrant, an activity that got closer every day until it was 50 feet from their little sleepy heads….whereupon they contacted me in another time zone to find out what all the noise was at 9:30am.)
I take a back seat to no one being annoyed by Oberlin students, but that doesn’t cause me to think LittleFingers is an okay guy just in over his head. Morons.
rikyrah
m. mendoza ferrer @mgranville1
Jane Sanders funned kids tuition $$ to her daughter’s for profit business, too: “Nepotism at Burlington College:”
rikyrah
TBogg @tbogg
Obama: ” $400k for a speech. What do you think Michelle?”
M: “I worry what the Intercept will think.”
(Pause)
Both: “HAHAHAHAHA”
-FIN-
Yarrow
@rikyrah: WINNING!
?eric
@FlipYrWhig: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ztwb_joe-jackson-william-shatner-common_music
rikyrah
‘Fine me later’:
Takkarist McKinley wins hearts with draft speech to late grandma
Takkarist McKinley promised the grandmother who raised him that he would become a top college football player. When he was picked by the Atlanta Falcons in the first-round of Thursday’s NFL draft he remembered her again, giving an emotional speech as he clutched her photograph.
“I made a promise to her and I stuck to it. I made that promise, man,” a fired up Takkaris McKinley told the NFL Network after he was picked. “I told her. Before she passed away, I was going to live my dream. I was gonna go [to a Division I college]. I was gonna get out of Richmond, I was gonna get out of Oakland. I was gonna go to the NFL. I made that promise to her, man. Thirty seconds later she passed away. And this is who I do it for. This is who I do it for, man … C’mon, man! Get to the damn quarterback! We gonna get to the quarterback!”
McKinley then challenged the NFL’s policy on expletives as he spoke to the NFL Network’s Deion Sanders. “It means every fucking thing to me … Excuse my language, fine me later.”
McKinley’s grandmother, Myrtle Collins, raised him on her own in the tough neighborhood of Richmond in the San Francisco Bay Area. She kept him out of the way of the gang violence that plagued the area, and they would sit in and watch wrestling together. “She would be into it more than me,” McKinley told the LA Times last year. “She would be, ‘Oh, this ref, they’re cheating!’ and all this. It was just crazy, man.”
Myrtle Collins died in 2011.
Villago Delenda Est
And this is why the tumbrel manifest is written in indelible ink, people.
Wipe them out. All of them.
The Moar You Know
@sharl: No need, it’s just a grossly expanded version of his Federalist article, which more or less blames hippies and Democrats for refusing to acknowledge their intellectual betters.
Some of it is useful and honest and needful (I happen to agree with his core thesis that dismissing experts will get you in a world of shit) but it’s all covered in hippie-punching. Really didn’t see a need to buy a book from an asshole like that.
rikyrah
All ten episodes of “Dear White People” have dropped on Netflix.
rikyrah
Just a coincidence, right?
Pussy RiotVerified account @pussyrrriot
Alexey Navalny – who’s running for president of Russia & who’s arguably the main Putin’s opponent – was attacked.
Chemical burn of the eye.
rikyrah
in moderation..help..
hedgehog mobile
@rikyrah: ❤
Gravenstone
@Rasputin’s Evil Twin: I would imagine Pence and his coterie have already entertained similar thoughts on that admission.
lollipopguild
@rikyrah: Gee, he is a private citizen now so he can make some money? I guess he was supposed to wear a hair shirt and eat locusts and honey in the wilderness.
Hunter Gathers
@The Moar You Know:
I’m not exactly pro-hippie punching (yet), but there are days I want to shove a BroGressive’s lunch of cruelty free grain fed organic soy bison right up their tight, white ass. Bigly.
narya
As someone who actually was ON the Oberlin Student Council (a long damn time ago), I can tell you that I do not give a rat’s ass what they’re saying. They sound so much like an abusive spouse (“you made me do it”) that it’s creepy. My bag of fks is empty. They are self-centered and mean, and they wrap it in platitudes. I say, “Bite me.”
rikyrah
Matthew Gertz
✔
@MattGertz
MSNBC responding to Trump’s election by moving right — even as their evening hosts score ratings by opposing him — is bizarre.
Goku
So is this a new thing? Or is there just more of them now? How can a free democratic society survive these people? I really hope something breaks this fever. I never realized so many of my neighbors were so far gone
Chris
@Ian G.:
Well, they’re not wrong about that last one. Or at least a handful of New Yorkers who just moved to Washington…
Patricia Kayden
And we care because? Did the media swarm around Obama supporters after he won in 2008 and 2012? If so, I don’t recall article after article about what made Obama supporters tick, or what made us happy. Funny that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wonder how the good professor feels about climate change.
I’ll say this for Nichols, he never pretends to be a moderate, like every tote bagger’s favorite ‘moderate’ Republican, Brooks
rikyrah
Sarah KendziorVerified account @sarahkendzior
You know what would give you the biggest ratings, headlines, and praise of all time, @realDonaldTrump?
Resignation.
Hunter Gathers
@lollipopguild: Stop mocking Wilmer’s Army of LoserGressives. If your six figure Philosophy degree from Precious Snowflake Private U only got you a job in sales, you’d be crying in your organic frogurt as well.
lollipopguild
@rikyrah: Nothing Big Media does makes any sense, ESPN kept spending money like they were never gonna run out of it-until they did.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
David Brooks: Poster child for the banality of snivel.
Goku
@FlipYrWhig: Lenin cosplay?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: also, I don’t know if Nicole Wallace literally eats paste, but if she doesn’t she should try. A big bowl of Elmer’s would double her IQ. At least for a while.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Somehow Spicey is going to explain in the next press conference how exactly this is all President Kenyan Muslim’s fault. Just like every other bad thing in this administration.
rikyrah
Sessions recuses himself from any Michael Flynn investigation
By LOUIS NELSON 04/28/17 08:20 AM EDT
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday that his recusal from Justice Department investigations into the 2016 campaign for president will extend into inquiries into the activities of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, under fire for his ties to foreign governments.
“My recusal deals with the campaign issues,” Sessions told NBC’s “Today” show. “But I would expect not to be involved in this one.”
“You would recuse yourself from any decision dealing with general Flynn?” asked Today anchor Matt Lauer. “Yeah,” Sessions replied.
Flynn, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency who served briefly as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, has been the subject of scrutiny in recent weeks amid reports surrounding lobbying work he did for the Turkish government and a paid speech he delivered at an event for RT, a propaganda arm of the Russian government.
Peter
@Goku: The primary thing that will break the fever is his supporters hitting their expiration date.
rikyrah
Keith Boykin
✔
@keithboykin
So the only people who think Trump is qualified to be president are white people with no college degree.
lollipopguild
@Hunter Gathers: When tRump destroys the country Wilmer’s Army are going to have REAL problems on their hands.
Goku
@rikyrah: Could this take down Wilmer by extension?
Yarrow
Ha ha ha ha ha:
rikyrah
Andy SlavittVerified account @ASlavitt
Here is the new version of Trumpcare all in one place.
Circulate if you find helpful.
sharl
@The Moar You Know: Thanks. That doesn’t surprise me at all.
Writers like Sean Davis (Federalist) or Bill Kristol (Weekly Standard) are drooling idiots in nearly all of their work, which I appreciate; it saves on clicks and reading time. On the other hand, people like Nichols are very frustrating to me, because they show occasional – maybe even frequent – flashes of insight, but then stubbornly stick to major narratives for which I can’t find any obvious bases. Maybe some childhood trauma or other major character-forming foundational event is involved? I dunno.
Goku
@Patricia Kayden: Could it be that T’s voters look like and believe the same things decision-makers in the media do? Perish the thought
rikyrah
Eliza Newlin Carney @ElizaRules
Important @OpenSecretsDC report on the spike in political donations from secretive limited liability corporations:
Yarrow
@rikyrah: I saw that Sessions interview on the Today Show. I was rewinding to find the weather and saw it, so decided to see what he’d say. They asked him about Wikileaks being a state actor and he went on for quite awhile about how leaks were bad and needed to be stopped. It was kind of funny.
James Powell
@Chris:
I also saw and heard it years ago when the Republicans transformed from the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Reagan & Richard Viguerie to the Party of Rush Limbaugh & FOX. The animating forces of the whole enterprise are hatred & resentment.
That’s why – apart from tax cuts and deregulation – the Republicans never propose any positive policies. It’s all enemies enemies enemies.
lollipopguild
@sharl: Some of these folks simply cannot admit they are ever wrong about anything important. If they did they might literally crack apart. There were nazi’s in germany who literally believed in Hitler’s ability to turn things around right up to the very end. Nixon had his true believers even after he resigned. Trump has his as well, with Brooks and others they simply can never be wrong-Bill Kristol has never been wrong in his life.
Spanky
Oh darn …
No time off next week to get the subsistence garden going. You know we’re going to need it before next growing season.
slag
On the plus side, even in an age of a President Donald Trump, we now know that there are at least some constants in the universe. Comforting.
sharl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
For a while this came up quite a bit in Nichols’ twitter feed, usually from people with left-leaning politics who were initially happy to find another anti-Trump person, only to be disappointed by Nichols’ less delightful opinions on other matters.
I’m too lazy to track down the tweets in question – there have been quite a few of them, but they are temporally scattered – but as I recall, the good Perfesser doesn’t deny the reality of climate change, he just doesn’t really care enough about the issue to feel motivated to dive into the topic.
…..By the way, numerous studies within the Navy itself, and statements from senior Navy brass, are pretty clear on the fact that this is a real problem that will affect the world, including Naval operations. I think even one of Nichols’ faculty colleagues has ever-so-gently pointed this out in one or more twitter exchanges.
jacy
@rikyrah:
That’s got Pence’s dirty little fingerprints all over it. Trump couldn’t give a fig about abortion.
Villago Delenda Est
@lollipopguild:
Two words: Roger Stone
rikyrah
FINALLY,
they talk to voters who did NOT vote for Dolt45
https://youtu.be/ybRJiGfSfkg
……
I felt the person who said
” his impeachment can’t come soon enough”
………………………….
I also appreciated that the clowns at CNN, even though they went and got the Sista on the Street, they also went and got the Sista in the Suburbs..and, guess what – they said the same thing….
but, economic anxiety though.
dmsilev
@rikyrah: I disagree. Ratings and approval would be higher still if he went with seppuku.
Tazj
There seems to be a consensus among the punditry to grasp for any straw that proves 45’s election wasn’t anything but a complete disaster and an embarrassment for the country.
I was hate listening to NPR’s On Point, before my kids, who got out of school early today, saved me by turning the channel.
Apparently, we’re all supposed to be thrilled he hasn’t started a nuclear war yet, according to Kelly Jane Torrance. Also, Jack Beatty of the Atlantic says it’s great 45 has shown the ability to learn and change his mind on things.
I don’t know how anyone can’t be insulted and terrified by this presidency. Why don’t we just hold a lottery for the presidency the next time and pick any adult at random?
As to the progressive criticism of president Obama for receiving money for a speech, it’s ridiculous.
Having money doesn’t make one evil or against the people. It’s what you do with your money and the causes you promote.
Do they remember or know who FDR was?
rikyrah
Peter DaouVerified account @peterdaou
Peter Daou Retweeted CBS This Morning
The caption: “Obama cashes in”
The guest: Bernie “I’m no Dem” Sanders
The mission: ‘Save’ the Democrats
The method: Attack Barack Obama
jacy
@Goku:
That’s been the depressing thing. Realizing how many people are just….shitty people. Even people I had respect and a genuine fondness for. There are days it just makes me despair. How can people live any kind of satisfying life only being animated by their desire to hurt other people? I just don’t get it.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Not really, they’ve been moving right ever since COMCAST bought them. If Hillary had won, the ratings for the primetime shows would have gone down and they would have used it as an excuse to cancel the prime time hosts, maybe not Rachel, but the other two. They’ve wanted to get rid of Chris Hayes, but he keeps getting EMMY nominations so they are shamed into keeping him. Just remember Kelly and Greta are waiting in the wings for primetime slots, not to mention Hugh Excrement Hewitt, or they could mix it up by giving “moderate” conservatives like Charlie Sykes and Steve Schmidt shows.
Cacti
Doug, those sentences had too many syllables.
Apologize!
Villago Delenda Est
@dmsilev: I can’t imagine Donald ever doing something honorable, so that’s right out.
GregB
Only their feelings matter.
By the way, does the odious Greta Van Sustern get ratings?
rikyrah
Look at the table behind him. Every other President has it filled with pictures of his family. Look at that table. Nothing.
He’s.not.normal.
Gideon ResnickVerified account @GideonResnick
here’s a pic from reuters of Trump with the electoral maps he showed to reporters yesterday
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@sharl: Relevant question, since it was brought up in a recent LGM thread (where it was suggested that Larison should’ve hade Stephens’ new position): Would it have been better for the FTFNYT’s new token conservative to be someone who was especially good on one issue (foreign policy) but completely rabid on anything else? Especially if AFAICT, there’s no record of him having retracted his views?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve read that one of the big suits, Griffin?, thinks Hayes is prestige programming and saved the show when his ratings bottomed out in ’14 or ’15. One of the most surprising things I ever read about the Village was that Monsignor Russert protected Olbermann from cancellation. r
Patricia Kayden
Trump’s tax plan will hit blue states the hardest. Good to know.
piratedan
@rikyrah: look at who is running the store… its’ not like MSNBC is run by progressive or lefties or even moderate Dem, I believe Phil Griffin is the guy in charge of programming and he’s not a lefty. All they are is a network “counterweight” to the likes of Faux and Political TigerBeat Nightly (CNN). All you need to see is who has the gig and who their guests are. Maddow and Reid are there, not sure how much Chris Hayes brings to the table, after all, these are the folks that give Morning Ho his forum.
Alcana Bent
@Villago Delenda Est: Two more words: Monica Crowley
SatanicPanic
@Goku: Willful ignorance and hatred of other has been with us since the beginning. We used to be worse. I mean, Trump is a terrible president, but so far we’ve been lucky and if continues on this path, he’ll fall short of Andrew Johnson in the worst ever sweepstakes. Of course, it’s early, so we’ll see.
Yarrow
@hovercraft:
I doubt that’s the reason. Emmy winning shows get canceled if they don’t produce ratings. Chris Hayes must have good enough ratings to keep his show. If he didn’t, he’d be gone.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes I think it was Griffin who saved him, being able to EMMY winning or nominated is the one thing they can hang their hats on, since saying we don’t lie blatantly isn’t worth anything, and the denizens of Bullshit Mountain always beat them.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
And the crowds to watch it happen? The yooogest in human history!
Yarrow
@rikyrah: I’ve seen multiple pictures of that credenza behind him. He’s got KEURIG COFFEE PODS on it. Seriously! No pictures of family but he’s got a stand for coffee pods.
germy
@rikyrah: Photo of his father behind him on the right.
SNL, in their set decoration for Baldwin’s schtick, captured that detail. Photo of the elder, framed by itself.
lollipopguild
@SiubhanDuinne: BIGLY!
Villago Delenda Est
Breaking news: “Performance Artist” Alex Jones loses custody of kids.
lollipopguild
@SatanicPanic: Bad Presidents in the past did not have nukes. Trump can literally destroy the planet if he decides to.
sharl
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Yeah, that shitty NYT decision to hire Brett Stephens is troubling by itself. But just to add to that shit-show was the utter contempt shown to readers, including topic experts – y’know, supposedly Prof. Nichols’ tribe – by NYT Ombudsman Liz Spayd, who called them leftists for their concern. That was the final straw for a lot of climate scientists (e.g., Michael Mann), who’ve started a campaign for supporters to cancel their NYT subscriptions. The last I looked in on that, Spayd had doubled down, claiming that the threats to cancel subscriptions weren’t showing up in NYT’s balance books.
I’m sure this has been addressed somewhere before, including by former journalists (here and elsewhere), but what is the upside of NYT hiring a guy like Bret Stephens? I think I kinda-sorta know, but I would be more confident seeing it confirmed by someone who knows the business as practiced at that level. I assume it is the same basic mechanism that keeps Morning Joe gainfully employed at MSNBC despite regularly crappy ratings; money is a big part of it, of course, but it is a very different kind of money flow – a dark and secret river of cash, correlated with message coordination and confirmation bias aimed at The Powers That Be – than what is discussed vis-a-vis more obvious issues related to numbers of subscribers, viewers or listeners.
SiubhanDuinne
@lollipopguild:
The bigliest EVAH!
germy
@Villago Delenda Est: Not surprising after some of the stuff he admitted in court. I mean, jeeebus…
hovercraft
@Yarrow:
Twitler has been great for MSNBC’s ratings, http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/q1-2017-ratings-msnbc-has-best-quarter-ever/324683, and before that the election had already caused all the cable news ratings to spike, but before that they were in the process of clearing out the liberals, they felt they were too far left and wanted to return to a more :fair and balanced” place. Hayes was on the chopping block, his ratings were terrible, Griffin saved him.
Spanky
@Spanky: Also too …
So on this, at least, the GOP is still consistent.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@sharl: Thanks, but what I wanted to know was if Daniel Larison’s FP expertise overrode everything else about him such that he’d be a net improvement over Stephens.
Mike J
@Villago Delenda Est:
they were just crisis actors anyway. He’s doesn’t really have kids.
SatanicPanic
@lollipopguild: That’s why I’m saying it’s early. He has all the qualities of a truly disastrous president. But so far other than putting Jeff Sessions in the DoJ, he hasn’t been as bad as I thought he would be. A competent but “mainstream” Republican like Cruz might have been worse, because some really bad legislation might have passed already. Again, not saying he won’t be worse, only that so far he’s been too stupid to make the worst of our fears come true.
amk
@Villago Delenda Est: Excellent. Having that nutjob around the house is child abuse.
ArchTeryx
To answer a question from earlier dead thread, I think it’s easier to motivate people in opposition then it is to motivate them to vote to stop it in the first place. Take a damn good look at the Bush years for examples of that, and then the Obama years when we were wearing the mantle of ‘in power’ for a little while.
I think it’d be really interesting to find out how many of the Women’s March participants actually voted – the assumption is pretty good that most of those that did voted for Hills, but how many marched that didn’t vote in the first place – particularly in the swings states that gave Trump his “victory”?
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@germy: I heard last night that he got joint custody but his wife could choose where their kids would live with. Jones also has clinically-confirmed narcissistic personality disorder, no?
bystander
Joy Reid is MSNBC’s best moderator/journo. She’s smart, cogent, funny, and she brooks no nonsense when the lies start flying. Martin Bashir was pretty good, too, but they pounced on the chance to fire him. Too much Al Jazeera on his skin.
David Spikes
@rikyrah: But gee,he’s always been really interested in spy stuff and now that’s he’s made his billion in Wall St. fraud he wants to expand his horizons.
Not so OT. All those people, right, left and center, who’ve been moaning that a better candidate, a different candidate, a more Wilmer candidate, would have swept to victory: Trump voters would eagerly vote for him again-there is nothing he can do that will change that. The most we can hope for is that they will relapse into apathy because they have reached the point of unreason where they are proud to be voting against their own best interests as long as it fucks their”enemies”.
amk
@rikyrah: 100 days in and the man-child still craves legitimacy for illegitimate win.
lollipopguild
@SatanicPanic: You are correct and you combine trump with the complete and utter shit-storm that the GOP in the house have become and so far not as bad as we feared.
sharl
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I don’t get over to LGM as much as I should; was Larison actually under consideration for a position at NYT, or was it just a consensus opinion at LGM that he would have been a good choice for a conservative columnist? I seem to recall reading that NYT was planning to hire some other people as columnists, so maybe he still has a shot.
Like I said, I have an (unsubstantiated) idea of why these hiring decisions are made, but even if I’m right, I don’t have any idea on specifics of how they come up with an initial candidate list, nor how they pare that down to a short list of finalists, nor how they arrive at a final selection. I would assume Stephens’ Pulitzer helped; does Larison have one of those?
Villago Delenda Est
@sharl: Liz Spayd is now on the tumbrel manifest.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Good catch, by you and by SNL.
That’s really quite … odd … isn’t it? No mother, no wives or kids or grandkids, FFS?
Nobody is required to put family photos on display, of course, but the singular one he selected in combination with all the ones conspicuous by their absence, just scream his pathologies aloud to anyone who notices.
SatanicPanic
@ArchTeryx: How are you going to look at the most motivated people, people who were willing to stand in the rain for hours to show opposition to the president and wonder how many of them didn’t vote? If you want to find the people who didn’t show up and vote, common sense would suggest you look literally anywhere else.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne: “Paging Dr. Freud. Dr. Jung. Dr. Hackenbush.”
catclub
@Patricia Kayden:
In particular, swarms of articles about Republicans who were sick of the republicans who had sold out the country and ruined it, so they voted for Obama. Somehow, on the very next day they ( the press) were gaga over the Tea party.
bemused
I agree with Tom Nichols paragraph in post and Cleek did say it best. Whatever liberals are for, Trump voters and most Republicans are against. Rightwing media has done a successful number on suggestive Republicans. They’ve had decades to whip up Republican voters to knee jerk reject anything liberals say. They live to upset or anger liberals. It seems to be all most of them think about.
I’ve certainly experienced this often enough with Republicans I know and bet everyone here has also. If they know you are not a Republican just like them, they will automatically discount and tune out your opinion. It doesn’t even have to be a hot button political issue. The conversation topic can be something pretty innocuous, or so I’ve thought, when I can see their faces change and the wheels turning in their fevered brains and suddenly it becomes rightwing vs liberal.
aimai
@SatanicPanic: This. I don’t get Archyteryx hate on for specifically women as the cause of trump winning. Plenty of men voted for him, or refused to vote for HRC.
Timurid
The whole anti-anti-Trump thought process:
1. This Trump guy is an idiot!
2. He wants to start a race war now?! FOOL!
3. *Some random black guy on the subway holds a stare a fraction of a second too long*
4. Sigh… Well, a race war was inevitable anyway. I’d prefer a better general, but I’m sticking with my own side.
5. GO TEAM WHITE! (starts burning things)
SatanicPanic
Washington Post has been pretty good since the election. NYT, on the other hand, has been Spayd and neutered.
catclub
@SatanicPanic:
I am not so sure. I would ask Barney frank about it. He had strong feelings that there are too many people who want to look good, and not enough who actually want to do what gets results. I agree that most of the non-voters don’t care about anything. But I can easily imagine someone getting pulled into the enthusiasm of a march by their friends, even if they did not vote.
aimai
@catclub: This is taking asshole contrarianism too far.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Seriously. It’s a tired cliché by now to posit a parallel situation under Obama, but if his sole family photo in the Oval Office had been his distant, absent, not to mention Kenyan father, the GOP and the Village would never ever have shut up about it.
germy
@bemused:
I saw that with net neutrality. Because Obama was in favor of it, they were instantly against it.
TenguPhule
@Villago Delenda Est: The good news, he lost custody. The bad news, he reproduced.
Major Major Major Major
Uh oh, you guys, according to my CNN news alert app, “Obama hailed the political resilience of Obamacare at a private event Thursday, saying it has a higher approval rating than his successor.”
What a sell-out, endangering liberalism and his legacy by giving that speech!
SiubhanDuinne
@SatanicPanic:
Nice.
LurkerNoLonger
@rikyrah: What’s the over/under on how many abortions Trump has personally paid for? I’m going to be conservative and say 10.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic: Point of order. The FNYT was bad before the election too. Ever since they bent over for Bush II, they’ve never been the same.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s a tired cliché but I find myself making that comparison again and again. Especially when I see transcripts of interviews with the shitzgibbon.
My mind always wanders over to “Imagine if Obama had said those things…”
TalkHateRadio, FauxNewz and Beefbart would have literally exploded in rage if Obama had said “Gee, I didn’t know this stuff was so hard. I sort of liked being a community organizer better….”
Yarrow
@ArchTeryx: It’s always easier to be opposed to the party in power. Governing is hard. Just ask the Republicans right now.
Who cares how many people who marched in the Women’s March didn’t vote? It doesn’t matter now! What matters is that they care enough now to get themselves out and marching. They care enough to get involved.
The Women’s March has been great for getting people connected and involved. If you think it’s just about marching you’re missing the point. Look at GA-6, where women who have NEVER been involved in politics or elections at all are meeting, planning, canvassing. If that’s not a great outcome of opposition to Trump, which is largely how the Women’s March started, when I don’t know what is.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah: So we have a Forced Birth Terrorist leader in power at Health and Human Services.
I’m sure that will end well.
SatanicPanic
@aimai: I feel like a big part of the women’s march was “I really wanted a woman in the white house and instead we got this creep”. And I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to suggest than anyone who really wanted HRC in the WH knew they had to vote for her.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
They really are trying to make The Handmaid’s Tale into a how-to manual/instructional film.
Yarrow
@LurkerNoLonger: I thought I read 10 or 12 abortions that Trump paid for. The women supposedly signed NDAs. Apparently this info was well known in the Studio 54 crowd of that time.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
But if they continue not to vote, then it doesn’t matter how much they care. All that enthusiasm never seems to deliver at the ballot box most of the time with rare exceptions.
amk
@Major Major Major Major:
As always, his wife did one better.
Yarrow
@TenguPhule: How do you know they didn’t vote? And why does it matter? Read the second half of my comment for what the Women’s March has done as far as people getting involved. That’s what matters.
hovercraft
@SiubhanDuinne: @germy:
If there was ever a president with some seriously unresolved Mommy and Daddy issues it’s the Shitgibbon. Yeesh, and to think I thought the Shrub was out to prove to Poppy and Babs that he was smart too, dammit, not just Jeb!
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@sharl: It wasn’t a consensus, but it was put forth as a preferable alternative to Stephens (although I wasn’t entirely sure whether Scott’s cosign was sarcastic or not).
bemused
@germy:
Well yes, it will definitely happen if Obama is mentioned but I have been gobsmacked at how a topic that is in no way political somehow could become political in the Republican’s mind. I’d walk away wondering if they ever stop thinking about politics, even for a minute. I doubt it. Cultists or damn close.
catclub
@Patricia Kayden: But this in the referenced article is wrong, wrong, wrong.
No. You would report the higher income in federal tax forms, but unchanged income in state tax forms. So state taxes get NO windfall, but the Feds get a windfall based on no deductions of state taxes paid.
TenguPhule
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m sure they don’t really want to kill the gays, torture the lesbians into being straight, force women to be nothing more then illiterate breeding hosts, force one religion on all citizens…………oh.
lollipopguild
@germy: If Obama had given a speech saying that water is wet the Reich Wing would have screamed “No it’s not!”
Jeffro
So…what do we think the Friday Afternoon Document Dump will consist of today, folks? Anyone? Bueller?
SatanicPanic
@catclub: I’m sure those people exist. But suggesting that more than a trivial amount of them is hypocrites is weird to me. These are people trying to make a difference, why poop on them?
germy
@bemused: Global warming shouldn’t be political. It should be “listen to what the majority of scientists say, and act accordingly.”
Chris
@Timurid:
And they fall for that shit easily because they want to. Sure, they can see there’s something unprecedentedly wrong with Trump, and they can see that the rest of his party isn’t doing anything about it. But they’re deeply uncomfortable following that to its logical conclusions, so the first time they’re given an opportunity to return to the comfortable blame-the-left, blame-the-blacks narrative, they jump on it.
Major Major Major Major
@lollipopguild: James Inhofe would’ve given a speech in Congress while holding a snowball saying “See? Water is a solid!”
hovercraft
@SatanicPanic:
At this point aren’t we reduced to just the Shrill on K-Thug and Charles Blow?
As BAUD – CHELSEA 2020 says, they are garbage, do not reward them with your money.
TenguPhule
@Patricia Kayden: Did you catch the sleight of hand that Trump is trying?
Increase the standard deduction, eliminate the personal exemption.
Result: net wash for normal people who take the standard deduction, because the amounts are pretty close to each other. Screws all those who do itemized.
Yarrow
@Jeffro: I don’t know. Isn’t Comey still in NZ at the Five Eyes conference? Not sure a lot of stuff will drop before he gets back. I think Pompeo is there too.
SatanicPanic
@TenguPhule:
How many elections have there been since January?
germy
Extra-credit question:
Who will play the role of “spoiler” for the Democrats in the 2020 election? Who will receive the “Nader” (similar to the Oscar) for this starring role?
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Obama framed it so differently. Of course he acknowledged that it was a hard job, but he put it (paraphrasing) “If this were easy, it wouldn’t have reached my desk.” Humble but clear-eyed recognition that the Presidency really is about life-and-death decisions — decisions that are almost always going to anger or disappoint a great number of people, decisions that by their nature require listening to and evaluating the most expert voices on all sides, decisions that carry with them full acceptance that “The buck stops here.”
Turgidson
@jacy:
I imagine there’s been some corrupt bargain between Trump and the American Taliban wing of the party where Trump rubber stamps Pence’s suggestions re appointees and various other measures of “family values” thuggery (which he probably doesn’t care about either way and is willing to delegate and ignore) in exchange for that wing’s loyalty and willingness to look the other way on all manner of sleaze, corruption, Russia, and all the rest that comes with Hair Furor.
LAO
@Villago Delenda Est: I can’t stress how profoundly weird I find it, that Texas has jury trials for child custody cases. That’s fucking weird.
SiubhanDuinne
@hovercraft:
I also enjoy (if that’s the right word) their obituaries.
ETA: And arts coverage.
hovercraft
@SiubhanDuinne:
I think you’ve erased the vitriol on the right about the title of his book, Dreams From My Father, there were endless articles about how making it about his absent father was proof he was a reverse racist, who choose to ignore his white mother and grandparents who raised him in favor of his black father who abandoned him. Rush and Hannity and the rest also chewed on that bone for weeks, and I’m pretty sure that Glen Beck spent some time with the topic and his black board.
germy
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/democrats-mike-pence-trump-russia/2484/
jacy
@hovercraft:
Narcissists tend to have strong parental issues. Often the root of their narcissism is narcissistic parenting, where they were never good enough for the parents. Narcissists see family members only as extensions of themselves, or limbs. They’ll amputate the limb if necessary. But it only flows one way, they desperately want the approval they didn’t receive as children, but they don’t see their children as individuals, so the process just keeps perpetuating itself.
artem1s
@rikyrah:
This isn’t Twittler anymore. It’s Pence. No reason to fear getting rid of the orange cesspool in the WH, Pence is already running the country. It was bound to happen as who could have known that running a superpower isn’t at all like taping an episode of The Apprentice.
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: And crossword puzzles.
Turgidson
@SiubhanDuinne:
It never ceases to amaze me the extent to which the self-branded “party of personal responsibility” never, ever, EVER actually takes responsibility for any of their so-numerous-even-Stephen Hawking-has-lost-count fuckups. It’s always someone else (usually whichever Democrat is most plausible or convenient to blame) or “mistakes were made” obfuscation with them, if they even admit anything is amiss in the first place, which they try really really hard not to. I mean, did the Bush Crime Cartel ever really, frankly, admit that the Iraq War was anything but a blindingly awesome success?
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic: Iraq War II. 2004.
This isn’t the first time the marchers failed us when it came time to vote.
lollipopguild
@germy: Everything becomes political because if you are not exactly LIKE them then you are a THREAT. You must be like them or be destroyed.
vhh
@SatanicPanic: The WaPo is owned by a certified billionaire with a cushion that the owners of the NYT do not have. I suspect this makes a difference.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Tulsi Cultist Gabbard
TenguPhule
@artem1s:
Cites facts not in evidence. Pence is predictable. Trump isn’t. He always somehow finds a worst option then the one you can think of.
Gravenstone
@LurkerNoLonger: Zero. You know damn well he made the women pay for their own.
rikyrah
There is a poster here, who went back and forth with several of us about the question of immigration. This poster, dismayed, at seeing ICE breaking up families, thought that a solution would be to offer the folks here a permanent green card without the option of citizenship.
Those of us on the other side, said absolutely not..because, these people want to deport non-Whites, and don’t want any immigration from non-Whites.
This story from the NYTimes is posted with these two questions:
Do you honestly think these people can be reasoned with? That there is a compromise to be had with them?
……………………………..
Justices Alarmed by Government’s Hard-Line Stance in Citizenship Case
By ADAM LIPTAK
APRIL 26, 2017
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. tried to test the limits of the government’s position at a Supreme Court argument on Wednesday by confessing to a criminal offense.
“Some time ago, outside the statute of limitations, I drove 60 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone,” the chief justice said, adding that he had not been caught.
The form that people seeking American citizenship must complete, he added, asks whether the applicant had ever committed a criminal offense, however minor, even if there was no arrest.
“If I answer that question no, 20 years after I was naturalized as a citizen, you can knock on my door and say, ‘Guess what, you’re not an American citizen after all’?” Chief Justice Roberts asked.
Robert A. Parker, a Justice Department lawyer, said the offense had to be disclosed. Chief Justice Roberts seemed shocked. “Oh, come on,” he said.
The chief justice asked again whether someone’s citizenship could turn on such an omission.
Mr. Parker did not back down. “If we can prove that you deliberately lied in answering that question, then yes,” he said.
The exchange was among several moments of indignation and incredulity during the argument in Maslenjak v. United States, No. 16-309. Several justices seemed taken aback by Mr. Parker’s unyielding position that the government may revoke the citizenship of Americans who made even trivial misstatements in their naturalization proceedings.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy had heard enough.
“Your argument is demeaning the priceless value of citizenship,” he told Mr. Parker. “You’re arguing for the government of the United States, talking about what citizenship is and ought to mean.”
bemused
@germy:
Some more reality based Republicans seem to be catching on. If they have kids in school who are doing climate projects, recycling, and so on, they probably think that is reasonable now but it wouldn’t surprise me if they are also reluctant to believe solar, wind and other clean energy sources will replace fossil fuel and be more economical.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule:
Well, first, they can’t have failed you because there hasn’t been an election yet. Second, what makes you think the antiwar protestors didn’t vote? It’s not their fault if there are simply more people on the other side.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: No chance. She has no base outside of her core supporters. Sticking her nose into Syria has pretty much sealed her fate nationally.
Unless the DNC is so incompetent that they can’t use that as fodder against her…..oh wait.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
Obama , Pete Souza, John Favreau and the rest of the speech writers are having fun roasting the Tangerine Shitstain. I love it.
Who’s having more fun?
Obama
or the
Shitstain
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
The anti-war protestors who normally vote, voted. But the ones who never do, still didn’t. And it showed.
germy
@schrodingers_cat: So she’ll play the lead comedy role? She’ll make sure we’re not fooled by Kirsten Gillibrand or Sherrod Brown?
And the drama will play out here on balloon-juice, I’m sure. Brand-new commenters will appear out of nowhere to throw sand in the gears.
SatanicPanic
@TenguPhule: So the people marching in that anti-war march didn’t vote for Kerry? Please explain how you came by this information. This isn’t the black-bloc we’re talking about here.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Feature, not a bug of the GOP agenda.
Doug R
@Hunter Gathers: Tell those “progressives” to stop cashing their Russian pension checks, then we’ll see how they feel about money.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: In September 2004 the Iraq war was at 54% favorability. I’m not seeing how a couple million protesters let you down by not being 54% of the electorate.
ETA: also what @SatanicPanic said.
SiubhanDuinne
@hovercraft:
I expect you’re right about Rush and Hannity and Beck and the rest — I never listened to or watched any of them, so I’m glad to trust your memory. But of course that’s a RWNJ distortion of the book, in which Obama actually did discuss his mother and grandparents in some detail, and not equivalent to displaying a picture of his father and only his father in the most photographed office in the world.
(Lightly edited for clarity.)
bemused
@lollipopguild:
This, at least for those who are consumed with hating liberals. They believe liberals are against Trump simply because “haters gonna hate”. Projection.
hovercraft
@Yarrow: @Yarrow:
When you consider the way the spawn that he has have turned out, I’m happy that we do for now have a choice. Think about it there could be 10 or 12 more of these terrible people running around spreading his genes around. Thank FSM that he only spawned five, and pray that it’s only five.
I’m not casting asparagus on Barron, but given his siblings, I don’t hold out a great deal of hop that he’ll turn out differently. But hey there’s still hope.
Gravenstone
@TenguPhule: Pence may not be running the show yet, but a lot of the appointments within various cabinet departments seem to bear his Dominionist imprimatur.
SatanicPanic
@Major Major Major Major: Also the biggest protests were in states that Kerry won. I guess people are supposed to protest in 2003 and then immediately move to swing states so they can vote in those elections or it doesn’t count? And those protests were in the hundreds of thousands. GWB won by a 3 million vote margin. I get that we need to translate anger into votes, but harping on the most engaged people seems like a dumb way to do it.
hovercraft
@LAO:
Fixed ;)
germy
This article appeared last month:
Weaselone
@Patricia Kayden:
We should never frame it this way. It should always be that Trump wants to tax the money you pay in taxes. Even if it hits blue states harder, nobody wants to pay federal income taxes on the taxes they pay. It should be labeled the Tax Tax. A tax on the privilege of paying taxes.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic: Abu Ghraib broke in April 2004. Bush still won in October.
That’s why I’m not getting my hopes up.
jl
Why is Doug! surprised by this development?
Trump has improvised enough, and competent ultra-corporatists have influenced him enough to produce a policy portfolio that media mega corporations will love.
And why is anyone worried about the hard core knucklehead and/or racist Trump voter block? They are a minority by at least 3 million. When the pain of incompetent and malicious and ignorant policy hits people, most of the softcore Trump vote will peel off and look for another alternative. So, soon >> 3 million. Tom Perez and you-know-who are barnstorming to get that vote. If the Democrats can produce better candidates than the likes of you-know-who-else who recently lost the general election, in more places, we should make good gains.
Edit: and probably best to ignore the already well established corporate media pattern of special pleading for Trump voters. I don’t even bother listening to interviews of fumbling Trump voters who are asked to explain the serial messes that he and his cronies are producing. I don’t really care about their coping mechanisms anymore. When some of them start coping by indicating they might not fall for BS in the next election, my ears will perk up.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic: Not harping on them, but Yarrow’s enthusiasm is unjustified based on past results.
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
How could I forget!?
catclub
@SatanicPanic:
saying ‘it would be interesting to see how many did not vote’ seems like an extremely small poop.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
what.
what.
SatanicPanic
@TenguPhule: I would have no problem if you said “protests are fine, but that needs to translate into action at the ballot box”. But that doesn’t appear to be what you and ArchTeryx are arguing. You two seem to think that people are showing up at protests en masse not knowing that voting it important. I don’t see where you are getting this and I haven’t seen any evidence of this being the case. If you don’t think protesting works, fine, literally no one without a black mask on their face is arguing that protesting alone will do anything. But you two sound one step away from checking if they have granite countertops when your investigating skills would be more useful just about anywhere else.
liberal
@Hunter Gathers:
So he’s going to forego any influence on the future and direction of the Democratic Party?
LOL.
You people are so stupid.
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: By not doing enough crossword puzzles. They keep you sharp.
jl
@Weaselone: I think there is one common theme in Trump domestic policy so far: funnel more money to very rich people and very rich corporations by any means necessary. That is down in black and white in the documents the Trumpers churn out. Stick with that fact.
SatanicPanic
@TenguPhule: I don’t know what’s confusing about that. Is it controversial that our worst fears about him haven’t been realized yet? I thought he would have jailed some journalists by now.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
No, I’m telling Yarrow that voting matters more in the end then protesting. Those who don’t bother to vote tend to continue not to vote. And the trend is worse in off years. Getting all enthusiastic about the outrage and anger now is counting chickens before the eggs are even laid, let alone hatched.
rikyrah
Allan Brauer @allanbrauer
People who have watched Obama most closely through the years absolutely trust that he views money as a tool for social improvement.
…
When you attack him for earning money, the Obama coalition hears that you don’t know who the fuck he is, and don’t understand us at all.
…
We’ve spent years watching you react to breaking Obama news by freaking out & attacking him 1st w/o waiting for the rest of the story.
…
Oh, eventually you calm down once more facts are known, but the damage to your credibility with the Obama coalition never ends.
…
We have memories. We save receipts. We make you radioactive. You’ve lost us.
…
Obama got the most votes in US history, yet you chase after the clicks & votes of people who disapprove of him? You’re stupid.
…
That’s why Bernie Sanders lost the primaries so decisively, and why we hate him more each time he puts Obama’s name in his mouth.
…
You will never lead the Democratic Party. We’ll beat you every time. We are the future, better get used to us. We’re not going away.
catclub
@Weaselone: but if you start looking at it that way you will go cross-eyed. Fer instance, the state is taxing the money your pay in federal taxes.
It is also taxing any income you had that was paid in state/local sales tax.
ouroboros.
jl
@SatanicPanic: I don’t think basing arguments on whether somebody’s (whose?) worst fears have been realized yet. Argue on the bad and incompetent messes the Trumpers have produced so far, and are planning and proposing.
Gravenstone
@liberal:
You might want to step away from the mirror before commenting. It’s bad for your self esteem to attack yourself like that.
liberal
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I don’t think that’s a good question, insofar as he mainly seems interested in pushing his foreign policy views.
Though his FP views alone would lead many of the rabid, bloodthirsty warmongers who comment here to be opposed to him getting a column anywhere.
liberal
@Gravenstone: Gosh, what a witty reply!
SatanicPanic
@TenguPhule: Who is disagreeing that voting is more important than protesting? And ArchTeryx is specifically asking whether people at the Women’s March voted, which is what I’m pushing back on.
liberal
@rikyrah:
I know who he is. While he’s probably the best president we’ve had in my lifetime, he’s also the person who appointed Timmy Turbotax Geithner to SecTreas. Someone who made Larry Summers look like a flaming Marxist.
hovercraft
@Gravenstone:
Troll’s gonna troll.
If you must engage, direct them to this, @rikyrah: .
They can woulda, coulda, shoulda all they want, but they lost, for a reason.
rikyrah
They’re Still Laughing at Trump
April 28, 2017
McKay Coppins: “Trump is a Queens-born billionaire who has spent his life chasing validation from elites who hold him in disdain. With each new benchmark he reaches, he holds out hope that it will finally quiet his chorus of haters. And when he realizes they’re still laughing at him, he acts out.”
“Consider, now, what Trump is likely seeing these days when he turns on his TV: presidential historians discussing the unparalleled failures of his first hundred days; polls showing an historically low approval rating; pundits depicting a presidency gripped by impotence. Given his recent history, an eruption was inevitable.”
SatanicPanic
@jl: I’m just making the point that so far his badness isn’t totally surprising- we’ve elected some really terrible presidents before. He is really bad, but GWB was really bad too and that wasn’t that long ago.
Citizen_X
ETA: Removed for ungood readin’.
hovercraft
Reports: Jim DeMint On His Way Out As President Of Heritage Foundation
Politico first reported, according to three unnamed people with knowledge of the situation, that the former South Carolina senator’s ouster would follow a difference of opinion on a variety of issues with a portion of the foundation’s board.
The far-right foundation, funded in part by billionaire Republican kingmakers Charles and David Koch and their network, became more politically active during DeMint’s tenure. He took up the office in 2013, and has used its political advocacy arm, Heritage Action, to target Republicans in Washington, D.C. deemed insufficiently conservative.
The foundation did not immediately respond to TPM’s questions about DeMint’s status.
One unnamed operative who has worked with Heritage told Politico, “If Heritage pushes Jim DeMint out it was because a few board members, who are close to the Republican establishment, never wanted him to be president and have been working to push him out ever since.”
The publication noted that DeMint had worked to ingratiate the foundation with the Trump administration, even allowing foundation employees to work on Trump’s transition team.
Immanentize
@LAO: It’s in the Texas constitution — Jury trials for everything unless explicitly excepted in the constitution. You want to hear what is really weird — competency to stand trial is a jury issue. So, your capital charged client who is quite schizophrenic but is a “moving target” of competency starts a trial. Capital jury is death qualified. About the second day of trial, the State’s expert comes up to my friend and says — “your client is out of it.” So, there is an objection to the trial proceeding based on competency. Capital jury is excused while the lawyer picks a jury for the competency hearing. That jury hangs on competency! Second jury is picked re:competency. State expert now claims form the stand that “he looks competent.” OK, bring back the capital jury and lets get going again! True story from San Antone.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic: I would have thought his leaving major government agencies unstaffed would be on the “worse then I expected list”.
We effectively have no State dept, no actual ambassadors (just stand-ins), and all those other government positions that Trump decided the government doesn’t actually need.
rikyrah
44 is trolling Dolt45.
LOVE IT!!!!
……………………
Obama says Obamacare is more popular than Trump
Updated 1:41 PM ET, Fri April 28, 2017
New York (CNN) Former President Barack Obama hailed the political resilience of his signature health care law at a private event Thursday, pointing out that Obamacare is now more popular than his successor trying to repeal it: President Donald Trump.
As Republicans in Washington sputtered again this week in their efforts to undo the law, Obama noted to an audience in midtown Manhattan that “the Affordable Care Act has never been more popular — and it’s more popular than the current president,” according to a person in the room who paraphrased the comments.
Trump has recorded historically low approval ratings for a new president, while public opinion on the health care law has improved gradually amid Republican efforts to get rid of it.
Obama also predicted Thursday that it will be challenging for Trump and fellow Republicans to make any sweeping changes to a law that now provides health insurance for so many people, as he remarked how difficult it was for him to get Obamacare enacted into law in 2009.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
Let me guess, you joined the Twitter chorus demanding that Chelsea Clinton swear in blood that she’s never, ever going to run for office while whacking off to pictures of Ivanka in her garden party dress in Germany.
Jeffro
Not kidding, this is the kind of thing that could actually rattle a few of Trump’s mouth-breathing supporters: Nationalist? Globalist? I’m both, says Trumpov.
Oh yeah, baby, that’ll go over well with rural America and “the poorly educated”…hear THAT, y’all? He’s BOTH. He’s 50% Globalist. LOL
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
CNN PoliticsVerified account @CNNPolitics
Sen. Bernie Sanders says President Donald Trump is on right track with North Korea http://cnn.it/2oFCiy9
SatanicPanic
@TenguPhule: Sure, but overall, I thought it would be worse. No tanks have rolled over any protesters, Obamacare looks to remain in place, Trump hasn’t nationalized any industries and put Ivanka in charge of them, etc.
Citizen_X
@liberal:
So?
What was the practical negative result of that appointment? Obama brought us the CPFB, net neutrality, upper-income tax increases, and the ACA, the largest downward distribution of wealth since the ’60s. How was that record lessened by him appointing some guy you didn’t like, and getting paid a bunch for a speech?
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
godsdamnit Mnemosyne! I didn’t need to see that!
/Breaks out brain bleach
kd bart
To quote Professor Wagstaff in Horse Feathers, “Whatever it is, I’m against it.”
SatanicPanic
@rikyrah: that’s interesting
Chyron HR
@liberal:
So after Our Revolution has destroyed Clinton, Obama, Pelosi, and (just to be safe) Chelsea Clinton to ensure there are no other liberal leaders who might challenge the Sandy Priest, what exactly is your plan for saving America?
You, uh, have one, right?
LongHairedWeirdo
Steve Jackson actually nailed it earlier. In the game Illuminati, he defined groups has having tags. It was easier for a “liberal” group to try to infiltrate and control another liberal group, and far harder for one to infiltrate a conservative group.
He gave definitions for the tags:
Liberal: Political “left”, whatever that means
Conservative: Usually mad at the liberals.
TenguPhule
Well, there goes the neighborhood.
Well, its been nice knowing you folks.
Yarrow
First of all this: @TenguPhule:
seems a little disingenuous since you followed up by commenting about what I said again:
@TenguPhule:
You are misunderstanding my point. I don’t think that marches are enough. What happens from and because of and after the marches are what counts. So far the results seem to be encouraging. I am not “all enthusiastic about the outrage and anger.” I’m looking at the network building, the postcard writing, calls, canvassing, and turnout and results in places like the local races in Illinois, where Dems, mostly women, won seats held by Republicans for a century. That’s results. It’s change. And it’s good.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
Fair enough. I apologize.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: @Chyron HR: Can someone explain to me why Chelsea Clinton is suddenly being discussed? I missed whatever it was that put her back under the microscope and seemed to suggest she might be running for office. Has she expressed any interest in it? I’ve seen lots of talk about it, but don’t understand where it came from. Thanks.
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
It gets worse.
Seoul rejects Trump demand it pays for missile system
$1bn THAAD defence system in South Korea guarding against threats from North Korea will be operational ‘within days’.
South Korea’s government has brushed aside US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that it should pay for a $1bn missile defence system the two allies are installing in South Korea to guard against threats from North Korea………….
“I informed South Korea it would be appropriate if they paid. It’s a billion-dollar system,” Trump said in an interview with the Reuters news agency.
“It’s phenomenal. It’s the most incredible equipment you’ve ever seen – shoots missiles right out of the sky,” said Trump. “And it protects them and I want to protect them. We’re going to protect them. But they should pay for that, and they understand that.”
Oy vey !!!!!!!!!
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
She hasn’t. She’s said that repeatedly. Some ratfucking reporters and writers keep harassing her about it, apparently they don’t believe her. So they keep bringing it up again and again in the media.
Its enough to make you think Village has a point.
Shana
@JanieM: That one made me laugh too. Especially since Hubby went there for a year (he was only 16, and it was the middle of nowhere OH, so he moved back to Cincinnati for the rest of his undergraduate years) and we saw Fun Home last night, and Allison Bechdel went to Oberlin too.
hovercraft
@Yarrow:
Apparently it’s been happening for a while, but this was the first I heard abut it the other day.
Why are so many male journalists ganging up on Chelsea Clinton on Twitter?
By anna19876
Tuesday Apr 25, 2017 · 12:32 AM EST
Click through, here’s a sampling:
GregB
@hovercraft:
This fucking monster Trump is turning America into a global extortionist.
Disgusting.
Barbara
@hovercraft:
But in the meantime, Ron Flaherty will engage in the equivalent of mental masturbatory overdose while he obsesses over the meaning of those six words, “I am not running for anything,” and the saddest part is at the end of this meaningless mindless obsession he will think that he has done an honest day’s work and contributed to civil discourse in some way.
Yarrow
@TenguPhule: Thanks. And thanks for the Chelsea Clinton info.
@hovercraft: Christ. They’re parsing her verb tense? That’s ridiculous. She’s never struck me as that interested in politics, in the running for office sense. And she doesn’t seem to have her dad’s charisma and knack for retail politics. Why anyone would bug her about is dumb.
Feel sorry for the Obama girls because you know this level of scrutiny is coming for them. Sigh.
Major Major Major Major
@GregB: No one could have predicted he’d do exactly what he said he’d do.
O. Felix Culpa
@Yarrow:
This. We.have.no.way.of.knowing.who.voted. And if they didn’t, I’ll bet my firstborn that they will vote going forward. Move on.
gratuitous
Today is the anniversary of Fletcher Christian’s 1789 mutiny against Captain Bligh on the British ship the Bounty. The story has long since passed into legend, and been the subject of several dramatizations and movies. I haven’t seen any of them, but I did catch a little bit of the 1984 movie with Anthony Hopkins as Bligh and Mel Gibson as Christian.
At the supreme moment, when Christian has finally had enough of Bligh and declares his mutiny, the two factions on board ship divide themselves up, most taking the side of Christian. Too late, Christian realizes that all those on board of his class are standing with Bligh, and he’s left with the greasy, grinning dirty crew, low class and low rent characters of ill repute. But there’s no going back; Christian begins ordering Bligh and those who stand with him off the boat, then throws his head back to lament “I am in Hell!”
Brooks and Bai, having had quite enough of President Trump, realize too late that they’re standing with the no-account dirty fucking hippies in opposition to Trump. But they have an out that Christian didn’t, and so now they’re the anti-anti-Trump intellectuals, smart enough to reject Trump, but even smarter in that they don’t want to be associated with those dirty fucking hippies. True Laodiceans, those two.
hovercraft
@Yarrow:
Malia had a stalker who was arrested last week. The paparazzi are following her around the city like she’s a celebrity or something. I guess the fact that she’s technically an adult now and her father’s out of office makes them think it’s okay to follow her around the city and report about what she’s wearing and who she’s with. Those poor girls, no wonder Michelle says that she’d never run because of her daughters.
Mnemosyne
@Shana:
How did you like Fun Home? I was crying so hard at the end that we couldn’t leave our seats right away.
If it’s the national touring company that was in LA, I know someone who’s related to the actor who plays the father.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Yeah, I’ve heard about these guys who think that women are sending them “signals” but are just playing coy when they say they don’t want it … ?
Gravenstone
@hovercraft: It makes for an occasional fun plaything, but I normally ignore it’s idiocy. What can I say, I was bored.
Uncle Cosmo
@lollipopguild:
It’s no accident that Thuglicanism & Fundanazi religion go together like ham & swiss. Proselytizing faiths generally have zero tolerance for difference because, deep down inside, they are all terrified that they might be wrong & can’t have anyone even raising the possibility around them, because it gets in the way of the mass hypnosis hawked by the megachurches.
Saddest bumpersticker I ever saw (& I’ve seen it more than a couple of times):
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Hunter Gathers: I often get a whiff of sour grapes from people ranting about how much money someone else gets. Not every time, because sometimes it is appalling how much you can leverage your way to if you have the right connections–not the right skillset, just the right connections–but I’ve felt both often enough myself to know when I’m seeing the sour grapes.
@MattF: You know, I find I am able to keep Mr. Brooks’ pronouncements in perspective when I remember William F. Buckley gave him his break into the big time. Because nothing says “genteel, narrow-minded bigotry” quite like the late Mr. Buckley’s name. If that phrase had an entry at the Urban Dictionary, there would probably be a link to his Wikipedia biography.
Uncle Cosmo
@artem1s:
Mike Dense? The stupidest person in Congress when Louie Gohmert qualified for the trophy? Who couldn’t find his ass with both hands if you bent them behind his back & shoved them into the waistband of his tightywhiteys?
Naaah. It’s whoever Dense takes orders from…which means “Mother.” Say hello to the First Woman President…=8^O
enplaned
There’s a word for reflexive opposition to something else — reactionary. It’s accurate. Let’s start using it. The right isn’t radical, it isn’t conservative, it’s reactionary.
glory b
@Mnemosyne: AMEN!! she mentioned a few weeks ago that she was considering writing a childrens book and they jumped on that as proof she was running,
They want her to exit from any public discourse I guess.
Why aren’t they hassling George P. Bush?
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@lollipopguild: No honey! Too indulgent! It would set a bad example–think of the chiiiiillllldddrrreeeennnnnnn!
Captain C
@Hunter Gathers:
I would be willing to bet that at least a significant minority of those Expressing Their Concern either have trust funds large enough to live on, or (less likely) have made enough of a pile on their own to retire, no doubt through means that they would consider completely ethical if Obama or the Clintons were doing it.
Captain C
@Chris: And the hardcore leftists were more interested on beating up on the people just slightly to the right of them, rather than the fascists.
Captain C
@lollipopguild: And they’ll still blame Hillary Clinton.
Captain C
@rikyrah: I’m still wondering how St. Wilmer of the Hairshirt and his wife, St. Jane the Totally Not a Grifter managed to plunk down $600K in cash for a lakefront property while living on their honest and totally tiny salaries.
EriktheRed
@Hunter Gathers:
Whodafuq is Wilmer??
Captain C
@EriktheRed: A certain wild-haired former Presidential Candidate, the mention of whose name apparently sets off a Google Alert which brings out some monomaniacal and boring trolls.
Mnemosyne
@glory b:
You answered your own question. The Bushes are an approved dynasty. Bill Clinton rudely overthrew them. Now the Clintons must be punished for all eternity for their effrontery.
Barbara
@EriktheRed: It is the approved code name for the erstwhile contender for the Democratic nomination for president whose wife’s name rhymes with sane janders.
Steve in the ATL
@Yarrow:
misdirection
Ksmiami
@aimai: Because women had more to lose with Trump and GOP control and should have fucking known better
chopper
@Hunter Gathers:
you don’t understand, O is not just giving a speech at a conference, it’s at a conference that has corporate sponsorship! that sort of thing never happens!
of all the conferences i’ve ever been to, literally none have oh, wait
dogwood
@rikyrah:
Thanks for posting that. I don’t think I’m part of what the author of that piece considers his base. But you don’t have to be a POC to understand who Barack Obama is at his core. You just need to pay attention to him and tune out the people who don’t know him but write endlessly about him. I was at a conference in Chicago in the mid ’90’s where I picked up Dreams From My Father from a bookstore display of books by Chicago authors. It was a great read and I remember finishing and thinking what a remarkable man the author was. Infinitely, thoughtful, decent and self-aware. What struck me when he came on the political scene was the fact that the guy on the stage was the same guy from the book. It was almost eerie. And he was still the same guy when he left in Jan. What I so admire about the Obamas is the way they were never bullied into taking advise from the critics on both sides about how to raise their kids, where to go on vacation, who to invite to dinner, how many golf rounds to play, blah, blah, blah. As a white person it never escaped my notice that is was always white people who wanted him to get mad, start yelling, go populist on their asses. Then other white people would say he’s afraid to be seen as an angry black man. Obama isn’t an angry guy and he refused to play one on tv for white folks’ amusement or to please horses asses like Cornell West. So, thanks again for the comment.
Randall Bott
I live close to Oberlin and go there often. Love the liberalism.
Bonnie
I don’t understand most of this politics stuff. I believe in live and let live. I do not wish to push this philosophy down any one’s throat. Yet, those who disagree with me are doing their best to shove their point of view down my throat. And, if I don’t accept this “shoving down my throat” and believe what exactly what they believe, I am evil. It is not evil to live and let live. Is it?
J R in WV
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