Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

This really is a full service blog.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

People are weird.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Civil Wars, Trump Edition

Civil Wars, Trump Edition

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Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)
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Salena Zito has been defending ‘President Trump’ since forever, so it’s not a big surprise he’d feel comfortable exposing his vast ignorance to her. The question remains: Shouldn’t someone on Trump’s staff, if not the reporter, thought twice about putting his comments out for all the world to see?

Yoni Appelbaum, in the Atlantic:

… The entirely uncontroversial consensus among professional historians is that slavery caused the war, although this conclusion has not reached much of the general public. Leaders like Jackson, then, only postponed the inevitable reckoning. It’s still tempting, though, to believe that the Civil War might have been avoided, the loss of three-quarters-of-a-million lives averted, the bloodiest conflict in our history forestalled. And for a century, many of America’s political leaders did everything in their power to turn a blind eye to the carnage of slavery, staving off sectional crises.

The first century of American history, in fact, can be told through the long litany of deals struck by strong leaders working to suppress, or at least delay, open conflict over slavery. The delegates in Philadelphia were dealmakers; the Constitution they produced strengthened the federal government, but at the price of shielding slavery. The three-fifths compromise ensured the South would wield disproportionate power in the House and in presidential elections; the document protected the international slave trade for 20 years…

Reader Interactions

160Comments

  2. 2.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Donald needs to go to prison for what he’s done. Resignation should be no shield. And if Dense uses his brief time as President to pardon Donald, Dense should go to prison, and Donald and his entire fucking family should be dealt with extra judicially. Because their crimes should never be pardonable, ever.

  4. 4.

    FlipYrWhig

    Maybe the same rule applies to the Civil War as to Israel and Palestine: “I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like, I can live with either one.”

  5. 5.

    gvg

    If Trump actually listened to a competent staff, he would never do interviews. It’s amazing how stupid he is.

  7. 7.

    JMG

    Ben Jacobs of the Guardian had my favorite comment: “It could be a tough day for the markets if Trump gets briefed on Jackson’s views on banks.”

  8. 8.

    germy

    Clearly someone (likely Bannon or Giuliani) told Trump he is the modern day Andrew Jackson. But they only gave him a selective history.

    I think Joy Reid’s explanation is the most plausible.

  9. 9.

    FlipYrWhig

    @germy: Yup. They told him something like “the elites sneered but the common people loved him because he was a man of action. Just like you.”

  10. 10.

    Gin & Tonic

    I would have no objection to the citizenship test being mandatory for everyone.

  11. 11.

    robert thompson

    My G-G-Great Grandfather fought in the 6th KS Vol. Cavalry in the American Civil War. My G-G-Great Uncle fought in the 10th KS Vol. Infantry. They knew why there was a war. They were hardcore Abolitionists. My G-G-Great Grandfather came back and my uncle did not. My family knows why there was a war. Donald knows nothing.

  12. 12.

    germy

    This is from January 2015:
    http://notesironbound.blogspot.com/2015/01/andrew-jackson-still-lives.html

    America’s true Founding Father was not Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin or Hamilton, but Andrew Jackson. The 18th century Founders were the product of a pre-modern America where politics was conducted by the “better sort,” not the masses. Jackson was the first president to be a true mass politician, as have all the presidents who have followed him since. Unlike the likes of Jefferson and Franklin, he was not a man of the Enlightenment, but a man of action who felt no need to find moral or intellectual justifications for slaughtering Native Americans, removing them from their lands, expanding the borders of slavery, and filling the government’s offices full of party flunkies. This was not politics as virtue in action, but politics as bloodsport.

    I see much of Andrew Jackson in conservative politics today. Modern day Jacksonians laugh at the notions of global warming and sustainability, and champion a volatile, extractionary economy where entrepeneurs can “drill baby drill” and have access to as much cheap labor as they want…

  14. 14.

    Cacti

    When Mars Andy put out a bounty for a runaway slave, he also offered:

    “Ten dollars extra for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred.”

    Helluva guy that Jackson.

  15. 15.

    hueyplong

    Even if the Russians release an oddly off-center Trump sex tape, his “views” on the Civil War will creep me out more.

  16. 16.

    amk

    Shouldn’t someone on Trump’s staff, if not the reporter, thought twice about putting his comments out for all the world to see?

    Why, ffs? The knownothing nonothing moron should be pilloried for every shit he spews.

  18. 18.

    Mike in NC

    Finally caught part of the Samantha Bee special where Will Ferrell comes out as Dubya smoking a cigarette and asks, “What do y’all think of me now?”. Indeed, I almost miss him.

  20. 20.

    schrodingers_cat

    Wasn’t Andrew Jackson a general and didn’t he come from humble beginnings? Even history’s monsters have something going for them, some positive aspect compared to the current occupant of the WH, including the German guy with the mustache. What is an even bigger tragedy is that millions saw this person with zero achievements, sub par intellect, who fails as a human being and decided he would make a good President.

  21. 21.

    Roger Moore

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Donald and his entire fucking family should be dealt with extra judicially.

    Deuteronomy 24:16, dude. Go ahead and punish Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka for helping out daddy, but at least that’s for something they’ve done themselves. There’s no reason to go after anyone because of what their relatives have done. Doing that puts you exactly on trump’s level.

  22. 22.

    hovercraft

    @Это курам на смех:
    Why must you insult poor Forrest? Yes he was a dunce, but he was sweet and well intentioned. Shitstain is stupid, malevolent, and delusional, he actually thinks he’s smarter than most people. While this is terrible for all of us, we have an ignoramus making the most consequential decisions in the world, his minions can pretend to him that many of his failures are in fact wins. He’s less destructive when he thinks he’s winning.

  23. 23.

    JPL

    Without comment.. From the CBS transcript

    JOHN DICKERSON: George W. Bush said the reason the Oval Office is round is there are no corners you can hide in.
    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, there’s truth to that. There is truth to that. There are certainly no corners. And you look, there’s a certain openness. But there’s nobody out there. You know, there is an openness, but I’ve never seen anybody out there actually, as you could imagine.
    JOHN DICKERSON: But he– what he meant was it’s– all comes —
    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure. Sure.
    JOHN DICKERSON: –back to you.

  27. 27.

    Jeffro

    @JPL: “…there are certainly no corners. And as you look, there’s a certain openness…”

    it’s like Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey or something. Only by someone even stupider.

    A couple more “Dickerson moments” and that 25th Amendment thingy’s going to be looking pretty good. Multiple columnists today were noting Trumpov’s recent interviews as evidence that he’s not all there.

  29. 29.

    The Moar You Know

    Jackson faced down an attempt by South Carolina to secede. He dealt with it the way he dealt with everything: threatened to kill them all. They backed down. Apparently he had a reputation of doing exactly that.

    Some things of interest about that incident: Jackson very forcefully stated that “To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States is not a nation.” He wasn’t having any “states rights” bullshit. And to prove he had their number: “the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question.”

    He knew Southerners and he didn’t like their bullshit. He didn’t like anybody, come to think of it.

  33. 33.

    Yarrow

    @JPL:

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, there’s truth to that. There is truth to that. There are certainly no corners. And you look, there’s a certain openness. But there’s nobody out there. You know, there is an openness, but I’ve never seen anybody out there actually, as you could imagine.

    Wow. What does this even mean? Trump always gives away what the real story is, so what’s he saying here? “There’s nobody out there”? Where? Nobody supporting him? Nobody to help him? No Republicans? No Democrats? Voters have deserted him? Fox News doesn’t love him anymore? Where is the “there” where he thinks there is “nobody”?

  34. 34.

    JPL

    @Major Major Major Major: In Trump’s case, he needs to speak as little as possible. I’m still trying to figure this one out… But there’s nobody out there. Maybe a cry for help?

    Yarrow, strange huh!

  35. 35.

    hovercraft

    @FlipYrWhig:

    We just need to add a Who Knew It Was So Complicated , Tag and slap it on all of his pronouncements about shit he’ll have solved in no time.
    Perhaps he can borrow Obama’s time machine and go back to the Jackson era and help him fix it. If he promises to take his entire family with him, and Jeff Sessions, it’ll be worth sabotaging the thing so they all get stuck in the era they should have been born into. I’ll amend the passenger list, take the entire cabinet, see how Carson feels about slavery and the ACA after a couple of weeks, and how those champions of women’s empowerment DeVos, Lucretia and KAC enjoy their stay. Oh and we’ll see how much South Carolina agrees with Nikki Haley that slavery is not the biggest driver of the impending War of Northern Aggression.
    These fucking people.

  36. 36.

    patroclus

    If Jackson had still been alive in 1860, he would have either been allied with the Stephen Douglas wing of the Democratic party (certainly not Breckenridge) or John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party, both of which lost the election to Lincoln. He would have had to have taken a position on slavery generally, the Wilmot Proviso, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott, the Fugitive Slave Act etc… and his war-making, his Presidency (tariffs, national bank; nullification) and his repression of Native-Americans (then viewed favorably) would have faded into history. So he wouldn’t have been in power and couldn’t have stopped the war. It’s a stupid discussion – kind of like “What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?”

    Trump is trying a bait-and-switch maneuver on health insurance. While the actual bill does NOT protect those with pre-existing conditions, he blathers on and on about how he allegedly favors such protection. But we can read and he’s a known liar. It is clear that he doesn’t know any details about much of anything, so what he “says” is irrelevant. Let’s hope Congress can read.

  37. 37.

    Phylllis

    @JPL: I saw that clip on CBS news last night. Still trying to figure out what T-rump was getting at.

  38. 38.

    rikyrah

    Finished the first episode of Dear White People on Netflix. There was a scene of a meeting of all the differing Black factions on campus. Had me HOLLERING in it’s accuracy. I know everyone of those Black folks. Hilarious!
    Can’t wait to continue watching it.

  39. 39.

    psycholinguist

    Anybody else hearing Trump campaign adds on radio? I was listening to our local right wing affiliate last night and there was a “Trump is great” add, paid for by the Trump campaign. WTF. This is in East Tennessee.

  40. 40.

    germy

    @Yarrow: He’s deflecting. He knows exactly what Dickerson is driving at. “Once you’re president, there’s no place to hide. The oval office isn’t like the boardroom.”

    And he looks momentarily nervous (a split second) and then replies “yes, there’s no place to hide. See outside? Nobody hiding in the bushes.”

    It’s the way used car salesmen deflect if you ask them about an airbag recall. “Yes, lots of trunkspace for all your bags. Perfect for the airport.”

  41. 41.

    prob50

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I used to have a hard time with metaphors too. When I was ten. And I’m autistic.

    Hey, when I was little I thought Santa Claus and Christ might be the same person. Both appeared prominent near Christmastime, had beards and seemed to make people joyous. One said “Ho-ho-ho” and the other saved your soul. It was an easy mistake, you know, for a stupid little six-year old.

  42. 42.

    Technocrat

    @Yarrow:

    Where is the “there” where he thinks there is “nobody”?

    The Oval Office. He’s saying he hasn’t literally seen anyone hiding in it. Because he thinks that’s what Bush meant.

  43. 43.

    Yarrow

    @JPL: Yeah, I think it’s a cry for help. He has always had people to do the work for him. He still does but “the buck stops here” is built into the job of President of the United States. At some point he has to do some things. He has to decide about using nuclear weapons on North Korea. No one can do that for him. Or, they can, but he’ll still be blamed. His patented “blame everyone else for the mess you made” style of doing things will only go so far in the Oval Office.

  45. 45.

    Patricia Kayden

    Joy Reid:

    Clearly someone (likely Bannon or Giuliani) told Trump he is the modern day Andrew Jackson. But they only gave him a selective history.

    I disagree with Joy Reid about this. Trump could fully know about Jackson’s bigotry and be perfectly comfortable being compared favorably to him. Trump has worn his bigotry on his sleeve. It’s something he’s very proud of. And his base loves that he is not “politically correct”. It’s a win-win for him to be enthralled to a slave holding, anti-Native American President.

  46. 46.

    hovercraft

    @Yarrow:

    What does this even mean?

    He’s never seen anyone hiding in the corners, DUH !!!
    You now that if the room wasn’t an oval and therefore open, people could hide in corners and he might have caught a look at them once or twice, but because they made the room a circle that can’t happen. Brilliant.

  48. 48.

    rikyrah

    I’ll say it again:

    Not.enough.coincidences.in.the.Western.World.

    Mysterious rash of Russian deaths cast suspicion on Vladimir Putin
    Oren Dorell , USA TODAY
    Published 5:04 a.m. ET May 2, 2017

    A former member of the Russian parliament is gunned down in broad daylight in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. A longtime Russian ambassador to the United Nations drops dead at work. A Russian-backed commander in the breakaway Ukrainian province of Donetsk is blown up in an elevator. A Russian media executive is found dead in his Washington, D.C., hotel room.

    What do they have in common? They are among 38 prominent Russians who are victims of unsolved murders or suspicious deaths since the beginning of 2014, according to a list compiled by USA TODAY and British journalist Sarah Hurst, who has done research in Russia.

    The list contains 10 high-profile critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin, seven diplomats, six associates of Kremlin power brokers who had a falling out — often over corruption — and 13 military or political leaders involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, including commanders of Russian-backed separatist forces. Two are possibly connected to a dossier alleging connections between President Trump’s campaign staff and Kremlin officials that was produced by a former British spy and shared with the FBI.

  49. 49.

    germy

    The way he walks a few feet away from Dickerson, sits down and then busies himself with some paperwork.

    Our cat does that if something annoys her, like too much brushing or an offer of a nail trimming. Except instead of paperwork she’ll stare irritably into the distance.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodingers_cat: That’s the tactic I use on my idiot Trump-voting relatives, that and pointing out that he’s a con man and liar who is filling the swamp up with his own grifting relatives and rich buddies. I don’t hope to persuade them to support Democrats; they never will. But I do hope to demoralize the sporadic voters among them into finding something else to do on election day instead of supporting the next fascist.

  53. 53.

    Yarrow

    @germy: Maybe, although I think his brain is going and he’s not as quick with stuff like that as people might think.

    He also has a history of giving away the real story. These days when he blames someone or something else for his problems I know it’s what he or the Republicans are doing or planning to do. If he says odd things like this, I figure it’s an insight into what’s really going on. So I look to see if I can figure it out.

  55. 55.

    FlipYrWhig

    @hovercraft: I think hovercraft has it right. Trump doesn’t understand it’s a metaphor and thinks, hmm, true, it’s a round room that no one can hide in to surprise me, good point.

    ETA: He doesn’t get that Bush means “there’s nowhere for YOU to hide” and thinks he must have meant “there’s nowhere for ANYONE ELSE to hide and waylay you.”

  56. 56.

    germy

    @Yarrow: That’s very true. If you want to know what they’re up to, look at what they’re accusing others of doing.

    He also has a history of giving away the real story.

    Wasn’t that Homer Simpon’s problem? He’d have a “conversation” with his brain, his brain would tell him “Don’t say [X]” and then he’d blurt out [X] followed by “D’oh!”

  59. 59.

    JPL

    @Phylllis: Let us know, when you figure it out.
    Trump appears to be a narcissist with dementia, and yet the repubs defend him.

    I might add, that I’m not qualified to make a diagnosis, and I did not sleep at the Holiday Inn.

  60. 60.

    The Moar You Know

    Democrats need to attack T on his business credentials which are a total sham. Saying that he is not a decent person is plus to his base. Attack the perceived strong suit.

    @schrodingers_cat: His base wouldn’t give two shits if he was on food stamps and had ten bucks in the bank. They REALLY don’t care about his business dealings. They couldn’t understand them anyway.

    He promised to get rid of the brown people and that’s all they care about. They don’t even give a fuck if he does it or not (he won’t). They just wanted someone to say loudly that those people aren’t Americans. Which he has. And he will continue to do that. And they will keep loving him and voting for him because of that alone.

  62. 62.

    Boatboy_srq

    David Barton no doubt is updating his Civil War materials to include tRump’s new truthiness.

    /s

  63. 63.

    Roger Moore

    @lollipopguild:

    His base does not care about his business bullshit.

    This is a tired excuse for not going after him. His base is unreachable, but it’s also too small to accomplish much electorally. He won the election- barely- because a lot of Republicans were willing to hold their noses and vote for him and because a bunch of Democrats gave up and stayed home. Push harder on his genuine weaknesses, and we’ll probably be able to get the Republican nose holders to give up on him and energize the discouraged Democrats. That should be enough to win.

  64. 64.

    rikyrah

    This is VERY IMPORTANT: For employer plans, there would be a race to the bottom on essential benefits, ban on lifetime limits, cost limits. https://t.co/J5QXzc9nEJ

    — Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) May 2, 2017

    With state waivers to weaken essential health benefits in AHCA, employer health plan protections could disappear too https://t.co/oWcQqnFGWr pic.twitter.com/qNjBgPQUJM

    — Loren Adler (@LorenAdler) May 2, 2017

  66. 66.

    germy

    Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump

    We either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%.
    Our country needs a good “shutdown” in September to fix mess!

  67. 67.

    schrodingers_cat

    @The Moar You Know: You know this how? You have talked to each and everyone of T’s voters? Without the patina of the business success he has nothing positive. We attack the perceived positive, whether it will have success or not remains to be seen.

  68. 68.

    FlipYrWhig

    @The Moar You Know: And the additional element of the racket is that I don’t think he even needs to DO ANYTHING about it. He can just say that “the establishment” or whoever (judges, Democrats, cowardly politicians in his own party) pulled out all the stops to interfere. But you’re 100% right: he ran on hate, he provides hate, and what his fans like about him is the hate, and whenever they cite anything that isn’t hate, like jobs or “running the country like a business” or something, they’re lying, it’s all about the hate, and the more he makes (decent, smart, etc.) people upset, the more his base will adore him.

  69. 69.

    hovercraft

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Trump doesn’t understand it’s a metaphor

    Huh? What is a metaphor?
    We need to dumb it down people, stop assuming he understands the basics. He’s that kid in third grade who’s already been left behind twice and is only being passed along at this point because soon he’ll be as tall as the teacher. His parents refuse to accept that he needs to be in a school that can deal with his limitations and teach him things that may better prepare him for life.

  70. 70.

    rikyrah

    GOP splinters over protecting those with pre-existing conditions
    05/02/17 10:13 AM—UPDATED 05/02/17 10:44 AM
    By Steve Benen

    When Republicans appeared ready to pass a far-right health care plan in March, their plan was already dreadful and unpopular. GOP leaders then tried to revive the failed legislation by making it quite a bit worse, gutting protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions.

    Because of the state of Republican politics in 2017, this persuaded a variety of far-right lawmakers to endorse the more regressive approach, but in an example of politics resembling Newtonian physics, the change pushed other GOP lawmakers further away.

    Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), for example, conceded the other day that he’s “not comfortable” with his party’s proposal, which shocked many on Capitol Hill – because Upton has spent five years as one of the GOP’s top officials on health care policy, directly helping shape the Republican agenda on the issue.

    Yesterday, as USA Today reported, brought an even bigger surprise.

    In a sign of trouble for the GOP’s efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, a Missouri Republican lawmaker and staunch Trump supporter said Monday he would oppose a newly revised health care proposal because it weakens protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

    Rep. Billy Long, R-Mo., sits on the powerful House committee that wrote the first GOP repeal-and-replace bill, which sank in March amid opposition from hard-line conservatives and some moderates. Those two factions have since banded together to draft a new bill — but it does not seem to be faring much better.

  74. 74.

    Calouste

    @JPL: He asked himself “Is there anybody out there?”, the obsession with a Wall… it’s obvious, Trump is Pink.

  75. 75.

    FlipYrWhig

    @hovercraft: I don’t think that’s a metaphor either. He was sent to a military school because he was such a little asshole.

  77. 77.

    SenyorDave

    @rikyrah: In a sign of trouble for the GOP’s efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, a Missouri Republican lawmaker and staunch Trump supporter

    I believe that being a patriot and a staunch Trump supporter are mutually exclusive terms

  79. 79.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @FlipYrWhig:
    That answer sounds like he has no idea what the metaphor means, period, and is spewing word salad in the hopes of hiding that until he can change the subject. He also sounds afraid. He’s having enough moments where he catches himself being either stupid or forgetting the most basic things because of Alzheimer’s that he’s become terrified the public will find out.

    @The Moar You Know:
    Trump let the ICE run wild and be the meanest shits they want. To his base, this one fact qlone means he has fulfilled his promises better than any previous president, and Hell, Yeah, they’ll vote to reelect him.

  82. 82.

    bystander

    @Roger Moore: Tell it to Anastasia.

    Self-important hack Jon Meacham referred to the Commander-.in-Thief as Jacksonian early on on Moanin’ Joe. Humpty Trumpty heard it, believed it and is now basking in it.

  83. 83.

    Jeff

    I’ve been reading The Age of Jackson by Arther Schlesinger Jr. published in 1945. The only similarity between Trump and Jackson I’ve found it they both rode the wave of the unhappy white man vote into office. Jackson actually worked against the vested interests of the 1% and financial institutions of his time in favor of the 99% who put him in office.

  84. 84.

    Tim C.

    @A Ghost To Most: The Tribe only gets you so far. The advantage in attacking Trumperdink’s perceived strong points isn’t with the people who voted for him. It’s with the small number of his marginal voters we can convince. For 2018 it’s about getting those people to either not vote for their local R or to actually vote D. This is doable. The total Republican fail on Healthcare is going to make 2018 miserable for them. Either they pass something and literally kill and bankrupt people, or they can do a whole bunch of nothing. Either way millions of their supporters get hosed.

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    @germy:

    Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump

    We either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%.
    Our country needs a good “shutdown” in September to fix mess!

    He is a fucking dictator. Maybe still a wannabe. But that tweet would get me out into the streets. This fucker does not understand divided government, or checks and balances. And that tweet proves it.

    Burn the fucker.

    And they should do a shutdown. That will elect Democratic governors in Virginia and New Jersey like nothing else. It helped Terry McAuliffe in 2013. (Thanks Ted Cruz.)

  87. 87.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Tim C.: Nope the purity progressives and the doom and gloomers (there seems to be an overlap between them) have two things on their to do list
    1. twiddle their thumbs
    2. Attack other Democrats for perceived slights and play into the media RW narrative.

  88. 88.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JPL:

    “I think Donald Trump is a narcissistic maniac.”

    All righty, then. Northam’s getting a contribution from me.

  89. 89.

    randy khan

    @patroclus:

    Trump is trying a bait-and-switch maneuver on health insurance. While the actual bill does NOT protect those with pre-existing conditions, he blathers on and on about how he allegedly favors such protection. But we can read and he’s a known liar. It is clear that he doesn’t know any details about much of anything, so what he “says” is irrelevant. Let’s hope Congress can read.

    One of my pet Facebook trolls keeps saying that Trump has promised pre-existing conditions will be covered. At this point, I’m basically laughing at him.

  90. 90.

    Steve in the ATL

    The entirely uncontroversial consensus among professional historians is that slavery caused the war

    No fucking shit. The giveaway is right in the secession documents, where every state says it’s seceding to preserve slavery.

  91. 91.

    HRA

    @schrodingers_cat:

    “What is an even bigger tragedy is that millions saw this person with zero achievements, sub par intellect, who fails as a human being and decided he would make a good President.”

    It really isn’t a mystery if you have a good conversation with them rather than to dismiss them in vile terms .

  92. 92.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    America, 2017

    Searched and harassed for no reason, that’s what one Louisville man says he witnessed at Mall St. Matthews. He says when he spoke up, he was put in handcuffs.

    Ty Adams says he was at Mall St. Matthews Saturday afternoon when he saw security guards approach two Chinese Campbellsville University students and asked for their ID’s, Adams says the guards harassed the students.

    The university tells WHAS11 that those students are upset over the situation and were even asked for their passports and told to leave. The mall is now disputing those claims.

    Mall St. Matthews officials say security explained to Ty Adams why they were stopping the students since the rules for underage shoppers which takes effect Friday and Saturday after 4 p.m., they say Adams was aggressive.
    …
    Mall St. Matthews released a statement regarding the incident:

    “Mall St. Matthews has a Parental Guidance Required (PGR) program in place that requires all shopping center guests under 18 to be accompanied by a parent or supervising adult after 4 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The PGR program aims to provide a comfortable, family-friendly shopping experience for everyone. When the Mall St. Matthews security team attempted to explain the program to Mr. Adams, he became verbally and physically aggressive. His disruptive, dangerous behavior jeopardized the safety of our security team and that is not tolerated at the shopping center.

    Mall St. Matthews strives to create a safe, inclusive environment for our community and the well-being of our shoppers and retailers is our number one priority.”
    …
    Campbellsville University also released a statement:

    “The students are fine but are upset about the situation. We understand the need for security by the mall company, but the students felt targeted and weren’t given any information for why they needed to show mall security their identification. Many groups of our international students travel to St. Matthews on the weekend, and with Campbellsville University being in the top ten for most international students in the south with over 900 International students, this is the first incident we’ve had involving mall security at St. Matthews.

    Based on information that was conveyed to us by the students, they were asked by mall security for their identification, so the students showed them their school ID. Mall security told them that the school ID wasn’t adequate and asked the students for their passports. The students said they had left them in their dorm rooms on campus (in Campbellsville), but they had taken a photo of the passports on their phones and showed security the photos instead. Mall security told them that that wasn’t good enough and asked the students to leave. It was at this moment that Mr. Adams came forward to talk to the security and assist the students. Mr. Adams was then arrested and removed from the building as the students were escorted out.”

    As I understand, the policy includes stopping and IDing any (black/brown) young adults who look (black/brown) under 25.

    How a prominent local businessman ended up in handcuffs at Mall St. Matthews

    Ty Adams, managing director of Adams:Kinkade Design, said he was detained and threatened with jail after helping two Asian foreign-exchange students from Campbellsville University on Saturday at the Mall St. Matthews.

    Adams said that he and his wife, Deena Adams, had gone to Williams-Sonoma that afternoon to pick up a gift card and bumped into friends near the entrance. He told Insider that while they were talking, he observed the mall security checking the students’ IDs and searching purses and that it was clear to him that the exchange students didn’t understand what was going on.

    “Their body language told me they were terrified,” he said, adding that he was reminded that in some Asian countries it is a bad idea to “attract undue attention” to yourself. “So, I invited myself into the conversation.”

    After Adams was asked if he knew the students and responded in the negative, the security personnel took exception to his involvement. He said he was repeatedly told that he should butt out; eventually, he was placed in handcuffs and led away to the security office.

    There he — and his wife — were threatened with jail, he said. “I’ve never been in handcuffs before,” Adams said.

    After the office reviewed video of the incident, Adams said, he got off with a slap on the wrists — he is banned for a year from both the Mall St. Matthews and Oxmoor Mall.

    Deena Adams, director of development for the American Lung Association in Kentucky, took pictures and posted about the incident on Facebook, and her post went viral locally. Nearly every comment on the post speaks to people’s shock as her husband is a well-regarded member of the business community, a frequent startup mentor, a member of Venture Connectors and a philanthropist.

    Senior Manager of Public Relations for GGP, the company in Chicago that owns the mall, Lindsay Kahn, told Insider via email that the security team tried to explain to the Adamses that Mall St. Matthews has a Parental Guidance Required program in place that requires all shopping center guests under 18 to be accompanied by a parent or supervising adult after 4 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

    “When the Mall St. Matthews security team attempted to explain the program to Mr. Adams, he became verbally and physically aggressive,” Kahn said. “His disruptive, dangerous behavior jeopardized the safety of our security team and is not tolerated at the shopping center.”

    Adams said a review of the video of his interaction with security guards showed there was no escalation on his part.
    …
    The curfew of sorts was put in place after the media frenzy surrounding a so-called riot in the mall in December 2015, an event that turned out to be greatly overblown.

    As it turned out, the Paul Blarts in this instance were sworn officers who work for Metro Corrections. By training and experience, they have ZERO fucking business interacting with the general public in a routine security role.

    Other points:

    1. Don’t fuck with the nice, well-heeled white people and philanthropists who were shopping at the Williams-Sonoma – the shit you splatter at them for doing a good deed will get splattered back multi-fold.

    2. There’s a whole lotta profiling undoubtedly going on. These are two of the last three truly indoor malls in the city. None of the other concept shopping areas have the kind of policies at work here.

    3. The statement by the asshole PR rep for the the mall operator is United Airlines level aggressive, and indicative that they stupidly accepted the report of the LMDC officers at face value (these are guys who can always excuse any prisoner injury as “a fall in the shower”). Their reports should always be taken as face saving lies until proven otherwise.

    4. The emails of “I’m not shopping at your mall again” are starting to stream in. I am including emails to the anchor stores too, for a sense of panic to set in, as the nice white professionals actually started noting the ridiculousness of the policy.

  93. 93.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    And if Dense uses his brief time as President to pardon Donald, Dense should go to prison, and Donald and his entire fucking family should be dealt with extra judicially.

    Last time I suggested a trial should end in a “brass verdict” I got yelled at by LAO. But since she’s busy with puppy duty, I’ll mention it again here!

  94. 94.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @randy khan:
    This does not deny your attitude, but it’s not Trump’s bill. It’s Paul Ryan’s bill. It was from day one a love letter to Ryan’s Randian obsessions and moronic fake ‘wonkery’. Trump does want to pass an Obamacare repeal so he can brag about beating Obama, but he doesn’t give two shits what’s IN it.

  95. 95.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    One addition (it wouldn’t let me edit):

    Had Adams committed any crime, they’d have arrested him. He didn’t – they simply illegally detained him under color of law, in an effort to enforce mall rules in their moonlight jobs.

    I hope he calls me.

  96. 96.

    hovercraft

    We are definately living in different worlds. I just went over to RealClearPolitics for a round up of today’s talking points, and it’s a real shitshow.

    The Past 100 Days Have Been a Disaster–for Dems Marc Thiessen, New York Post

    Trump’s Tax Plan Should Follow the Reagan Model Arthur Laffer, Washington Examiner

    ‘Nationalist’ Shouldn’t Be a Dirty Word Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal

    A Pity Party for the Unloved Press Wesley Pruden, Washington Times

    My Father Is a Man of Action Who Gets Results Donald Trump, Jr., FOX News

    He must be having a real SAD, if he’s sending Junior out to make his case for him, things must be desperate.

    ETA: I did not read any of them, the tittles were enough for me.

  97. 97.

    randy khan

    @JPL:

    Northam is a great guy, and strong on core Democratic issues – women’s rights and gun control, in particular. He’d be a great successor to McAuliffe.

  98. 98.

    Patricia Kayden

    @hovercraft: Those are all Rightwing rags so I would expect that they’re living in an alternative universe with alternative facts. Unfortunately for them, the majority of Americans don’t have a favorable view of Trump or his (failed) policies.

  99. 99.

    schrodingers_cat

    @HRA:

    It really isn’t a mystery if you have a good conversation with them rather than to dismiss them in vile terms .

    Who do I need to have a nice conversation with? T voters? The media has been doing that non-stop all through the election season and after.

  101. 101.

    germy

    @hovercraft: Every time I’d watch the PBS Washington Week in Review I’d see a journalist from RealClear™. A woman named Humdinger or something. Very polite, but always normalizing the abnormal.

  105. 105.

    hovercraft

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    but it’s not Trump’s bill. It’s Paul Ryan’s bill.

    Exactly, he just wants “W’s” on the board, as far as he’s concerned being able to claim he did it is all that counts, nothing is set in stone. He can always tell everyone that it does the exact opposite of what it actually does and his people will believe him. That why I keep calling it Tryancare, Twitler will claim it right up until it fails again and then he’ll stick it on Ryan and the democrats for failing to vote for this flaming turd.

  106. 106.

    germy

    @Patricia Kayden:

    they’re living in an alternative universe with alternative facts.

    I turned on our local sinclare TV news station for a check of traffic and weather, and they called the new budget a “significant legislative victory” for the POTUS.

  107. 107.

    FlipYrWhig

    @randy khan: I like what I’ve seen of Northam but I have a bad feeling Perriello is going to make it a proxy war and the whole thing is going to devolve into Hillary vs. Bernie redux.

  109. 109.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @HRA:
    I have spent more than half my life having conversations with them. I am quite confident that I understand Trump voters, and that is why I dismiss them in vile terms.

    I understand them especially well, because I’m a white, straight man who is just nonconformist enough to be labeled ‘Other.’ I am intimately, first-person familiar with the cesspool of ignorant hate hiding under a surface of excuses and pretend civility.

  110. 110.

    hovercraft

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I know, they are either Murdoch properties or the Mooney Times, but the point is RealClearPolitics is supposed to be a “neutral” site that gives you a round up of the days headlines. They have a total of 17 articles/op-eds today and half of them including the ones below are from crackpot authors or publications, they are distorting he media. It’s bad enough that the MSM is doing everything in it’s power to make him seem normal, but to present these headlines as if they are anything other than Twitler fluffers trying to keep the troops enthralled is bullshit.

    Trump Trolling the Media, Winning the Narrative David Prentice, American Thinker

    Make-or-Break Moment at Hand Over Economic Growth Conrad Black, New York Sun

    ‘Tax Cuts for the Rich’? Thomas Sowell, Investor’s Business Daily

  111. 111.

    amk

    @HRA:

    rather than to dismiss them in vile terms .

    You mean like they do to others all the time?

  112. 112.

    Brachiator

    @FlipYrWhig:

    ETA: He doesn’t get that Bush means “there’s nowhere for YOU to hide” and thinks he must have meant “there’s nowhere for ANYONE ELSE to hide and waylay you.”

    Interesting psychological insight here. Trump is the center of his own universe, so he would never think in terms of hiding. But he is always has a chip on his shoulder with respect to potential attackers.

  113. 113.

    JPL

    @randy khan: I stand with Northam. Ossoff’s ads are all positive, but the RNCC and the chamber of commerce are attacking him heavily. I think it’s time for him to question Trump’s temperament, and let Handel defend it.

  115. 115.

    Jeffro

    @hovercraft:

    ETA: I did not read any of them, the tittles were enough for me.

    The Thiessen piece (which was also published in today’s WaPo, sadly) will make you want to stuff him in a barrel. Whether it’s to send it over Niagara Falls, or fill it with concrete, is your call.

  116. 116.

    Jeffro

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I like what I’ve seen of Northam but I have a bad feeling Perriello is going to make it a proxy war and the whole thing is going to devolve into Hillary vs. Bernie redux.

    They’re about 99% in agreement on the issues…they were scraping for things to differ over at their recent, extremely civil, debate.

    Also, Perriello has already racked up some pretty significant “establishment” D support – not much of a split there.

    I like them both, but Northam is having to stretch a bit to gin up some serious fighting spirit – he’s great on the issues but temperamentally a little laid back. Perriello gives the impression of being more of a fighter. I have a feeling I know which one is going to carry the NoVA suburbs for the nomination, and then the Gov’s seat.

  117. 117.

    Hurling Dervish

    @hovercraft: I clicked on Donald Jr’s piece, just for kicks, and noticed this astonishing news: “Regulations that would…shudder power plants…” Hey, those Obama regulations must have been really out there! And I thought there was supposed to be a wall between the business and the President.

  120. 120.

    Patricia Kayden

    @germy: My eyes are struggling to not roll backwards and out of my skull. How is this legislation which doesn’t fund his wall, doesn’t cut funding for Planned Parenthood or the EPA, etc., represent a major victory for the Bigot in Chief? I just cannot with these people.

  123. 123.

    LAO

    @Steve in the ATL:

    I got yelled at by LAO.

    You sure it was me, man? And, PS — I’ve finally accepted my limitations as a puppy owner — a trainer is coming to my apartment today at 4:00 pm, to train me (since there’s no such thing as a bad dog, right?)

  124. 124.

    LAO

    @germy:

    they called the new budget a “significant legislative victory” for the POTUS.

    Wow, that’s crazy.

  126. 126.

    hovercraft

    @Hurling Dervish:

    shudder power plants

    Who knew regulations were like earth quakes?

    Separation is totally there, these are original thoughts from average Joe regular citizen Jr. his father and sis had nothing to do with this. Now with a normal administration I’d point out that a piece ghost written by the WH wouldn’t make such a basic error, but with his crew even their official WH memos are riddled with errors.

  127. 127.

    Brachiator

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Trump does want to pass an Obamacare repeal so he can brag about beating Obama, but he doesn’t give two shits what’s IN it.

    Trump’s mask slipped, but his supporters refuse to see it. Part of Trump’s thing has been all about erasing Obama’s achievements. But he made the mistake of promising to replace Obamacare with something better. Not having a clue how to go about it, he’s fallen back on the weak offer to retain pre-existing conditions while letting Ryan and the GOP jackals gut everything that makes Obamacare meaningful.

    And so now, Trump just wants the win. Because it’s all about him, the country be damned.

  128. 128.

    hovercraft

    @LAO:
    Kids and pets, they’ll beat you down till you surrender, You.Are.Not.The.Boss.Of.Them. Once you accept that. all will be well ;-)

  129. 129.

    Steve in the ATL

    @LAO: It was you, but you may have softened your position on the issue in light of recent events.

    I’ve had a lot of bad dogs–are you suggesting that *I* might be the problem?!

  132. 132.

    HRA

    @schrodingers_cat:

    “Who do I need to have a nice conversation with? T voters? The media has been doing that non-stop all through the election season and after.”

    Yes, T. voters are voters. We know they were not all Rs. IOW we need to know what all voters whether they voted or did not vote thought of the election then and now.

    During Obama’s first election campaign, the local committee site came across a problem when a canvasser came back early saying he had stopped his route when all he saw were McCain/Palin lawn signs. We had our 8 member meeting to address the issue. The decision was to go politely to those houses with a 3 question survey after we had a canvasser training session. We had an 80% response to the survey. We also found out a group of 7 neighbors had put up those signs so no one would come knocking at their doors.

  134. 134.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @HRA:
    Your anecdote does not suggest that we should have nice conversations with T voters. It suggests that as a canvassing strategy, it should not be assumed that anyone is a T voter. This has bupkis to do with the conversational behavior of anyone here, and very little to do with overall Democratic messaging.

  135. 135.

    Elizabelle

    @Jeffro:

    I have a feeling I know which one is going to carry the NoVA suburbs for the nomination, and then the Gov’s seat.

    OK. Spill it. Who you thinking?

    And I am glad to see some love and respect for Northam on these boards.

  136. 136.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Mnemosyne:

    Not just that – I laughing over what a corrections prick would do in trying to read a PRC passport. My PRC visa’s English portion is pretty damned incomprehensible and I already know all the information on it.

  137. 137.

    Roger Moore

    @bystander:

    Tell it to Anastasia.

    One of the drawbacks of hereditary rule is that it puts people into the line of succession- and hence targets for people who want to change that succession- who would be happy not to be there without giving them any way to avoid it. Fortunately, we don’t have that system, so there’s no similar justification for going after Tiffany and Barron.

  138. 138.

    Brachiator

    @hovercraft: I took a look at one of the links: ‘Tax Cuts for the Rich’? Thomas Sowell, Investor’s Business Daily

    Sowell makes the following argument, as though it’s a slam dunk, using hard headed logic.

    One of the key arguments of those who oppose what they call “tax cuts for the rich” is that the Reagan administration tax cuts led to huge federal government deficits, contrary to “supply side economics” which said that lower tax rates would lead to higher tax revenues.

    This reduces the whole issue to a question about facts — and the hard facts are available in many places, including a local public library or on the Internet.

    The hardest of these hard facts is that the revenues collected from federal income taxes during every year of the Reagan administration were higher than the revenues collected from federal income taxes during any year of any previous administration.

    But I ran across graphs and analysis of this argument and easily found this rebuttal.

    EFFECT OF REAGAN TAX CUTS ON REVENUES – SHORT ANALYSIS

    The argument that the near-doubling of revenues during Reagan’s two terms proves the value of tax cuts is an old argument. It’s also extremely flawed. At 99.6 percent, revenues did nearly double during the 80s. However, they had likewise doubled during EVERY SINGLE DECADE SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION! They went up 502.4% during the 40’s, 134.5% during the 50’s, 108.5% during the 60’s, and 168.2% during the 70’s. At 96.2 percent, they nearly doubled in the 90s as well. Hence, claiming that the Reagan tax cuts caused the doubling of revenues is like a rooster claiming credit for the dawn.

    Furthermore, the receipts from individual income taxes (the only receipts directly affected by the tax cuts) went up a lower 91.3 percent during the 80’s. Meanwhile, receipts from Social Insurance, which are directly affected by the FICA tax rate, went up 140.8 percent. This large increase was largely due to the fact that the FICA tax rate went up 25% from 6.13 to 7.65 percent of payroll. The reference to the doubling of revenues under Reagan commonly refers to TOTAL revenues. These include the above-mentioned Social Insurance revenues for which the tax rate went UP. It seems highly hypocritical to include these revenues (which were likely bolstered by the tax hike) as proof for the effectiveness of a tax cut.

    Hence, what evidence there is suggests there to be a correlation between lower taxes and LOWER revenues, not HIGHER revenues as suggested by supply-siders. There may well be valid arguments in favor of tax cuts. But higher tax revenues does not appear to be one of them.

    Yeh, them facts are hard headed things.

  139. 139.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat: OT: I didn’t keep up with Balloon Juice posts over the past few days. Have you been following the box office success of Baahubali 2?

    From Box Office Mojo:

    In third is the mammoth release of the Tollywood sensation, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion distributed by Great India Films in North America. Playing in a mere 425 theaters the film brought in an estimated $10.1 million, a whopping $23,855 per theater average and nearly three times as much as the opening for the 2015 original. This is the largest opening for an Indian film domestically and we are still hoping to get a full report regarding its performance outside North America.

  141. 141.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @germy:

    Modern day Jacksonians … champion a volatile, extractionary economy where entrepeneurs can… have access to as much cheap SLAVE labor as they want…

    You KNOW it’s coming…

    Slavery… child labor… debtor’s prisons… whaling…

    Pure, unbridled, no-holds-barred capitalism…

    Profit is SACRED…

  143. 143.

    TenguPhule

    @Thru the Looking Glass…:

    You KNOW it’s coming…

    Slavery… child labor… debtor’s prisons… whaling…

    All of which exist now. Just not all of them are in the United States.

    We still ban whaling.

  144. 144.

    Roger Moore

    @Jeffro:

    Whether it’s to send it over Niagara Falls, or fill it with concrete, is your call.

    Maybe fill it with hydrofluoric acid and bury it in the desert.

  145. 145.

    TenguPhule

    @ET:

    But those NRA types just like to advertise.

    Which allows burglars to do their civic duty of relieving them of the weapons they are obviously not qualified to own.

  146. 146.

    Shana

    @JPL: Yeah, he pretty much said the same thing at the debate Saturday night with Tom Perriello. A little too close to Dominion Power for my taste, but I hope he wins the primary.

  147. 147.

    HRA

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I never expect anyone to agree with me on the subject of politics. The example I gave was an eye opener to those of us who were hard at work to get our candidate elected. Our committee has chiefly resigned from campaigning now. We do meet every few months for brunch and conversation. We all vote straight D.

  148. 148.

    TenguPhule

    @hovercraft:

    I just went over to RealClearPolitics for a round up of today’s talking points, and it’s a real shitshow.

    You dove into a sewer and were surprised by the sewage?

  149. 149.

    hovercraft

    @Brachiator:
    Joy Reid had Bruce Bartlett on her show on Sunday, and he pointed out that the real cause of the economic turnaround during the Reagan years was the cut in interest rates, we went from something insane like 20% down to something reasonable and that is what kick started the economy. The problem with all these supply siders is that they all point to Reagan when none of the starting points are anywhere near comparable. Tax rates back then were really high because we used to actually pay for shit not just bitch about tax rates while exploding defense budgets and the deficit. Interest rates were also really sky high, which did have the effect of stifling growth, but it also meant that people lived within their means, they only bought what they could afford. Interest rates and tax rates right now are too low, we can’t afford the basics and yet assholes like this still bitch about them, they are so wedded to their philosophy facts on the ground don’t have any meaning to them.

  151. 151.

    TenguPhule

    @Roger Moore:

    That should be enough to win.

    And the denial of voting rights, voter purges and Russians are just going to sit back and let us have free and fair elections just like that?

  152. 152.

    Shana

    @Jeffro: Who do you think will carry NoVA? My 26-year-old is all for Perriello, most of the FCDC folks I’ve interacted with are behind Northam, who certainly got bigger applause from the audience Saturday. I’m kind of torn.

  154. 154.

    TenguPhule

    @Roger Moore: Haven’t watched the show. But acid would kill and destroy the body, so the desert is redundant. Now without the acid, burying in the desert makes more sense.

  155. 155.

    gvg

    @Gin & Tonic: Well that would be an easy way for the rich to gain total control. Make “public” school educations so bad that only the rich could get an education and pass the test. I know idiots are scary, but education is already under attack and so are voting rights. the results so far do not lead me to think such tests would actually help. Besides, recall how “tests” got used in Jim Crow south.

  156. 156.

    Roger Moore

    @TenguPhule:

    But acid would kill and destroy the body

    It would certainly kill, but it’s nowhere near as good at destroying the body as people think. Any halfway decent chemist would tell you concentrated lye is much better at eating flesh than acid, even HF. I think the point of burying the barrel in the desert is so you don’t have to find a place to store it, worry about it spilling, etc.

  159. 159.

    TenguPhule

    @Roger Moore: Acid takes longer then lye, but is more through and leaves less solid bits behind. But I take your point about the storage.

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