Some random jackass on the internet last night:
You all do understand that the only way this Trump leaking story has any chance to cause damage is if the ally we fucked is Israel, right?
— Schrödinger's Dog (@Johngcole) May 16, 2017
Well, well, well:
The classified intelligence that President Trump disclosed in a meeting last week with Russian officials at the White House was provided by Israel, according to a current and a former American official familiar with how the United States obtained the information. The revelation adds a potential diplomatic complication to the episode.
Israel is one of the United States’ most important allies and a major intelligence collector in the Middle East. The revelation that Mr. Trump boasted about some of Israel’s most sensitive information to the Russians could damage the relationship between the two countries. It also raises the possibility that the information could be passed to Iran, Russia’s close ally and Israel’s main threat in the Middle East.
Israeli officials would not confirm that they were the source of the information that Mr. Trump shared. In a statement emailed to The New York Times, Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, reaffirmed that the two countries would maintain a close counterterrorism relationship.
This explains why, as Adam noted, McMaster went out last night to reassure our ally, as the ally in question was Israel and Trump had just fucked probably a bunch of assets who had been buried deep for a decade. This is also why aides freaked out when Trump did it and rushed to the NSA and CIA to tell them.
So now, the million dollar question. Will this matter? I think it might.
Aleta
zhena gogolia
I’m flashing on Bad Boys II and Hot Fuzz all at once. Hoping for a good ending.
Hal
Every time I see or hear the name H.R. McMaster I think H.R. Puff N Stuff.
schrodingers_cat
Why are you schrodinger’s dog?
MARCION
How soon till our elections become a tug of war between Russia/China and our traditional allies over who can ratfuck the hardest?
Trentrunner
Well, Fox & the Mighty Wurlitzer are all about somebody named Seth Rich and how John Podesta killed him with his bare hands then ate his liver. Apparently there’s video and DNA and Laura Ingraham’s private diary entry.
Bailey
So what next? Israel uses this fuck up as leverage to move the US embassy to Jerusalem?
Frankensteinbeck
No. At best, it’s another drop of water wearing away the stone. The GOP has no core principles except white power, as they have demonstrated time and again. They will sacrifice anything to maintain it. Even their precious tax cuts, although I can’t see how that will be tested any time soon.
schrodingers_cat
This is Putin’s revenge for 1990s collapse of the Soviet Union. Thanks Republicans.
? Martin
And this is where the GOP decides that Israel always had shitty spies and gave bad intel and why the fuck would we care about them anyway?
Marcelo
Whether it matters depends on whether Sheldon Adelson cares more about Israel or money.
Keith P.
@Trentrunner: I kept flipping over to Fox last night to watch how they covered the Trump leak (the most recent one, not the one with the Russian hookers). It was definitely interesting. The big focus was “who leaked this to the Post?”, and any time Juan Williams would say that Trump leaked classified info, the moderator would immediately jump in and “correct” him.
quakerinabasement
How do you like your flaxen-haired boy now, Bibi?
LAO
From a Knesset reporter:
Hmm…
EBT
@Bailey: If I thought donnie could plan or cared about his campaign promises at all I might think that this was done just to give pretense to give in to this demand.
Doug!
As long as he keeps letting Bibi build settlements, he’ll be fine in Adelson’s book.
geg6
Holy fuck. I hope Bibi is having apoplexy right about now. Only Dolt 45 deserves it more.
Brachiator
Uh,no. The “leader of the free world” shows himself to be unreliable and unable to keep secrets? Bow down to your new leader, Angela Merkel.
It does. But, still…
The only question is whether Trump truly is too old, to egotistical, too arrogant to step back and actually take advice. This kind of shit is still delighting the core of Trump supporters, but is making the Republican leadership nervous. And past history, from the primaries until now, clearly, undeniably and definitively indicate that Trump is a Man Baby who must have his way. The Republican leadership saw this and rolled the dice for Trump anyway. Now, they don’t know what to do.
LAO
@Marcelo: Adelson is from a generation of Jews that will pick Israel over money (he’s already filthy rich). I say this as (1) a jew and (2) daughter of a member of that generation of Jews.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
OT, but I finally responded to your email. It’s pretty long. ?
geg6
@LAO:
Oh, that’s hilarious, if true. Damn. The GOP is going to suddenly have no use for Israel. Oh, that’s hilarious. Karma, motherfuckers. Karma.
MARCION
Paul Ryan sits in his office with the lights off. He closes his eyes as he cranks up the volume of his favorite Rage Against the Machine album. Tom Moreno’s lyrics drown out the incessant noise of the pounding at the door. Paul Ryan cannot hear it any more, not can he hear the telephone, which has been ringing constantly for the last 24 hours. He leans back into his chair and mutters to himself: “Donald was the party’s choice… at least we beat Hillary. Donald was the party’s choice…” Outside, it begins to get dark.
SatanicPanic
Uh, wow. Israel was the ally? I’m not sure how much worse this particular story could get for him or any of the rest of us.
Mnemosyne
@MARCION:
Ahem. Tom Morello. He went to my high school (but graduated well before I went there).
Kay
I don’t care how much they try to normalize it, the nepotism is gross. Always remember Donald Trump hired his completely unqualified family members to run the country and the GOP accepted this as desirable.
The public doesn’t see as many pictures of Kushner and Ivanka as they used to. Is there a recognition that hiring them was a bad move, politically? It was certainly bad for the country, but does it also harm the GOP/Trump brand?
I sure hope so, because as Kushner reportedly said, Trump can’t fire his family members. We’re stuck with them for the next 3 and a half years. I sure hope Trump/GOP pay for this.
geg6
@MARCION:
I’ll never get over the fact that Ryan claims to be a RAM fan. Has he never, ever actually listened to the lyrics?
LAO
@geg6: This is going to be interesting. Because the evangelicals are totally devoted to Israel (for odious reasons), I’m not sure that the Republicans can easily disentangle themselves from support for Israel.
Judge Crater
Trump has already alienated our European allies. This is really a intelligence-gathering disaster. No one will trust the U.S. There’s a mole in the Circus and it’s Donald Trump.
Trentrunner
@Kay: MSNBC just showed a shot of Jared at whatever lunch Trump is hosting for Erdogan.
Keith P.
@Doug!: Maybe not. Trump fucked that up this week, too, when some State Dept official told the Israelis that the West Wall is not in their territory.
germy
@Doug!: I thought he was tweeting about a 2-state solution, or was I dreaming? It’s so hard to keep up.
Sufferin' Succotash
@schrodingers_cat: More likely it’s payback for the US treating Russia like garbage after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Chris
Will it really? I can totally see Bibi giving Trump a pass. Actually, scratch that – I’d say he definitely wants to, but public and political pressure could conceivably force him to push back.
Kay
Such a shame that will all the talented women that have worked really hard to amass solid careers in government the US is represented by the President’s daughter.
Who has done absolutely nothing to earn the position and is not qualified for it.
Ivanka should apologize to young women. She’s doing them a real disservice.
geg6
@LAO:
I know! That’s what makes this so hilarious! All the people I despise are going to be pissed. Dolt, Bibi, evangelicals, GOPer congresscritters, Adelson…all pissed and flailing.
If I don’t laugh at this shit, I’d cry. Continuously.
Wag
@Hal:
Bobby Thomson
@Brachiator: you’re kidding right? Trump is the same asshole he’s always been. He was never going to change. At 70 years old he’s definitely not going to change. Even Haberman is starting to understand this.
PPCLI
@Hal: Trump does remind me a bit of Witchy Poo
trollhattan
@Doug!:
Yup, plus Trump will probably now sell* them F-35s to reverse-engineer for resale to their heart’s content.
* By “sell” I mean increase their military foreign aid in proportion to the price of a dozen or two units.
Bobby Thomson
@LAO: nah, they would have no trouble at all. Their support for Israel isn’t sincere.
trollhattan
@Trentrunner:
Erdogon allowed a Jew in the room? Mighty accommodating of him.
geg6
@Bobby Thomson:
Agreed. Basically, 70-year-old men, let alone 70-year-old men with personality disorders, low intelligence and possible dementia, don’t change. My guy is a 70-year-old guy. He’s great and all, but could improve in some areas. But it ain’t gonna happen. And I have accepted that. And he’s really smart, kind and on the ball. Dolt 45 isn’t going to learn anything. If he ever could have, which I doubt. His untreated mental illnesses have made that impossible.
Corner Stone
@Trentrunner: J Kush looked like he was 13 years old sitting at the adults Thanksgiving table.
LAO
@Bobby Thomson: It’s sincere, disgusting, but sincere. Jesus Christ can’t return unless the Jews are in Israel. So no Jewish State, no Armageddon.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
“A Republican screwed over Israel” my brain has problems make sense of this…, dear god.
Chris
@Judge Crater:
Worse; there’s a mole in the Circus, and at least half of the Circus has demonstrated that it’s firmly dedicated to keeping him there as long as it guarantees their own jobs. The implications of this go well beyond Donald Trump. It’s not just the reliability of this particular American leader as an ally that this calls into question, it’s the reliability of the entire American political class.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
Informants tortured to death by ISIS on Youtube. Screaming their betrayal by America as they die.
Keith P.
@Wag:
My reading voice keeps saying “HR McBoatface”
amk
twitler fucking over comey, nut n yahoo, msm et. al. sweet schadenfreude.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Well, after the whole selling visas to the Chinese was exposed, they definitely went underground.
Shalimar
@MARCION: Morello is the guitarist. Zack de la Rocha is the singer.
Timurid
If Israeli nationals die as a result of Trump’s leak, this train really will have no brakes…
Corner Stone
@Kay:
I can not even imagine taking the day to day being shit on, hit on, insulted, dismissed, denigrated, etc that a woman in a really Boy’s Club environment had to go through to earn her street cred. And this strumpet comes out of nowhere and sits on panels with Angela Fucking Merkel as the US rep?
I would want to choke her out.
Iowa Old Lady
Trump is going to be seriously jet-lagged too. From personal experience, I can tell you that gets harder to recover from as you get older. Granted, AF 1 is not a coach seat on American Airlines, but still.
I posted about the Border Patrol agents being on the jetway in Minneapolis when we left on May 4. In all of Eastern and Central Europe, I saw nothing as scary as that scene, so I was worried about the return, but it was fine. Trump’s America is a nightmare.
rikyrah
Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1
Reminder: The Telegraph reported in Jan. that US spies ‘warned Israel not to share intelligence with Trump’ http://bit.ly/2iuWlLb
Sebastian
I’ve been reading way too much rumor mongering on the internet lately but I wondering what’s up with the Senate session on Thursday?
The following would be fit for a Tom Clancy thriller but we are beyond anything imaginable already so let’s do a little thought experiment. Please let me know if anything is legally impossible, let’s keep the improbabilities aside for a moment:
* Trump and his cabal board the AF1 and leave. While in flight:
* Rosenstein presents Senate with evidence of High Treason and request Senate to vote for Sergeant at Arms to arrest Trump. Senators refusing to vote for arrest are declared accessory after the fact and arrested.
* AF1 is rerouted and arrests happen on the tarmac.
Hahahahaha who are we kidding, right? Now, would that be possible at all?
SatanicPanic
@TenguPhule: I shouldn’t have said what I said. It can always get worse. it probably will.
Corner Stone
@LAO: I’m still betting a small amount of money Trump “reschedules” his planned trip.
MjOregon
I can hardly keep up with tall the crap going down but I have a few questions today. Did anyone at McMaster’s press conference ask if Dolt 45* consulted with his intelligence advisors about giving this information to the Russians before he met with Lavrov and Kislayk last week? And if so, what was he told? If not, then who prepared him to give the information to the Russians? He’s not able to string two complete sentences together without a script or days of preparation, so did he give them written information or an oral account? Who hatched this cockamamie plan in the first place? How in the hell did this thing even get started without someone screaming at him NO, YOU CAN’T DO THIS??? It’s beyond my ability to believe this is something he remembered all on his own and tucked away to whip out to impress the Russians. WHO HELPED HIM DO THIS?
LAO
hmm…
Cheryl Rofer
@Aleta: I don’t read Russian. Some on my twitter feed are saying there’s a Tass story that’s a big deal, with much detail. Others are saying it’s a rehash of the Post story. I am waiting for the more reliable Russianists I follow to chime in.
Shalimar
@geg6: I get the impression Ryan has only listened to Killing In The Name and loves the line “fuck no I won’t do what you tell me”. That and he wants to appear younger and more with it musically than he actually is. Most people form their musical tastes in stone by age 25 and Rage Against The Machine got popular a few years after Paul Ryan passed that age.
LAO
@Corner Stone: If by small, you mean 5 figures, definitely a good bet.
amk
@LAO: the rethugs don’t even care about optics any more, do they?
serge
I wonder how Israel will view this (apart from the unspeakable derpitude it indicates) through the lens of their thirty years of asking for Jonathan Pollard’s release and being told to fuck off at every turn. And now the Russians…really? I know Israel needs a free-spending Uncle Sam desperately, but this must be causing them no end of teeth-gnashing. Maybe they’ll blow another US Navy ship out of the water…
geg6
@MjOregon:
McMaster basically said that Dolt 45 just came out with it spontaneously. So, no, no briefer, no consultation with the NSA, CIA, DoD, DoS. Just off the top of his head.
FUUUUUUUUUUUCK! WE ARE ALL FUCKED!
Peale
@Sebastian: Look, if we’re going to go tin-pot banana republic dictator, we might as well take on the trappings. I believe more than one world leader has been ousted in the coup while attending to a diplomatic affair overseas. I believe that while Thaksin was giving a speech at the UN General Assembly, the Generals took over the country.
Iowa Old Lady
What are the odds the two Russians in the meeting with Trump decided what information they wanted ahead of time and agreed on how to work him to get it?
And would that be better or worse than the the info being a surprise bonus for them?
James Powell
@Hal:
I think of H.R. “Bob” Haldeman.
JPL
@LAO: lol
Ruviana
I came hurrying over here to post this for Schrodingers_Cat. These people should’ve paid more attention in school.
sigaba
@LAO: McConnell’s gonna have to turn the TVs up extra loud…
rikyrah
Country Be Damned
by John Stoehr
May 16, 2017
The Republicans chafe at accusations of putting party ahead of country, which they have done, with breathtaking success, since the election of the first African-American president. But since the Democrats are usually doing the accusing, the Republicans and their apologists have parried by calling it the “politics of division.”
Peter Wehner, a conservative with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told NPR in January that Barack Obama was “unusually divisive. He constantly accused Republicans of putting party ahead of country. And that kind of rhetoric, over a sustained period of time, has consequences. And I think that some of the failures of the Obama presidency led, unfortunately, to the Trump presidency.”
This is why Americans hate Washington. Plain-to-see reality gets spun in the Cuisinart of partisanship until facts are meaningless, no one is at fault and nothing matters. To illustrate how rooted this is, Wehner defended the above claim today after the Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump personally gave classified information about the Islamic State to two Russian envoys.
Trump’s blunder, conscious or not, has sparked a global reaction. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that European intelligence is reconsidering whether to share future information with an American president who can’t be trusted with it. Moreover, the information Trump gave was “need to know” only. That means lives and security are stake. That means Trump is himself a threat. That means he’s making our country more vulnerable to the next September 11.
But Trump isn’t the problem. If we had two healthy, functioning and patriotic political parties, members of the Congress could move to hold the president accountable through a variety of means. That isn’t going to happen, because the Republicans, no matter Trump’s outrage, will stand with the president as long as doing so yields partisan victories they have long coveted. In other words, the Republicans are putting party ahead of country.
James Powell
@Frankensteinbeck:
And this is enough to gain control of all three branches of the federal government, along with over half the state governments, as they have demonstrated time and again.
What this means is that America is a much more fucked up & repugnant country than we usually care to admit.
amk
amk
Corner Stone
@Iowa Old Lady:
I doubt an Israeli sourced embedded cel in ISIS territory is what they wanted. They probably just agreed they were going to tune him up and see what kinds of paths he started spewing about.
Patricia Kayden
@Aleta: Wow. Wow. Wow. This might be what brings Trump and his regime down once and for all. Loose lips sink ships.
Shalimar
Listening to the MSNBC mashup of all the times Trump said during the campaign that Hillary wasn’t fit to be president because of the way she supposedly handled classified email. If Trump knew how to use email, he would email the Russian Ambassador personally and say “thought you might want to know about this ISIS intelligence I got from my great sources LOL”.
rikyrah
Why Partisans Are Slow to Turn on Their President
by Martin Longman
May 16, 2017 2:30 PM
It’s not surprising that if you go back and look at the three most significant presidential scandals in modern history (Watergate, Iran-Contra, Lewinsky) that you’ll discover that partisans stayed mostly loyal to their president and that the most likely to turn were the most moderate members from the most competitive states and districts. You can call this putting partisanship over country if you like, and I think that’s fair.
But, at the same time, people work hard to get presidents elected for specific reasons, and when a president is at risk of going down it puts a lot more at risk than the fate of one chief executive. Without getting bogged down in the qualitative differences between burgling your opponents’ headquarters, trading arms to terrorists, and lying about an extramarital dalliance, there were people who actually cared about policy who stood to lose if their champion was laid low.
For conservatives who worked feverishly to deny George H.W. Bush the 1980 Republican nomination, the loss of Reagan would have been a catastrophe. Fans of Nixon couldn’t be comforted by the idea of the more moderate Gerald Ford taking over the job. I don’t think Gore presented the same stumbling block to supporters of Clinton, but he didn’t have the same once-in-a-generation political talent which became obvious when he “lost” to George W. Bush in 2000.
Trump is a different animal. Who are the people who really stand to lose if Trump is replaced by Mike Pence? They’re not serving in Congress, that’s for sure. Almost no one in Congress endorsed Trump. Almost none of them preferred him to Pence in January, and even fewer do so now.
jacy
@Iowa Old Lady:
Bad thing for a narcissist to lose home ground — Trump will have nowhere to retreat to. I wouldn’t be surprised at a public meltdown.
Aleta
Is there any hope that Israel has been keeping all the significant intel away from Trump (since the warning from Obama administration)?
amk
@rikyrah: yeah, Watergate, Iran-Contra, twitler’s 24×7 treason are all same as a bj. who is this idjit?
Bill Arnold
@Cheryl Rofer:
The google translate for that page looked like a rehash of the US press, not sure though. google translate, FWIW:
Millard Filmore
Israel told us back at Christmas time that Trump will pass things on to the Russians. Were these ISIS spys expendable? Did they pull them out in time?
? Martin
@amk: Best graf:
“Yeah, he’s too lazy and stupid to reveal anything terribly damaging”
Thru the Looking Glass...
@geg6:
I think you’ve got the wrong part of Trump’s body there…
Corner Stone
@Aleta: Israel now saying that Trump sharing classified intel with foes was their worst fear confirmed.
Barbara
@Timurid: The fact that it is Israeli intelligence does not mean that the people who produced it are Israeli. Indeed, if it was culled from an unspecified city in the Middle East, in ISIS territory, it probably means that Israel has agents, most likely not Israeli, in that city. As you might imagine, such a person would not likely live long and would likely die a terrible death if his or her status became more widely known. It’s just unconscionable that anyone in the U.S. could be so careless, whether the country in question was Israel or Jordan or Saudi Arabia.
Applejinx
@Chris: And yet, that’s the reality. There’s no question that that’s the reality.
Millard Filmore
@SatanicPanic:
Going one step farther, it can get worse without limit.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@? Martin:
Oddly enough, that sounds like it could be the truth…
And it’s still one hell of a defense for someone in Trump’s position…
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@James Powell: This has always been abundantly clear to everyone in this country who isn’t a hetero white male.
David Spikes
Everyone, everyday needs to go over to youtube and watch the last scene of Burn After Reading.
amk
isis strategy meeting – who do we even bother? wwc murkans are doing our job mighty fine.
? Martin
@Millard Filmore: Probably. By all accounts the intelligence agency that received that intel would have immediately warned Israel before it was published. Additionally, the agencies are now forced into the effort of ensuring that information flows to the US in exchange for assurances that the details will not be shared with the WH. After all, our allies share that information with us because its also in their best interest to do so, and presumably they trust our agencies, just not our President or his advisors.
I bet a lot of IC folks are for the first time thinking hard about what the oath of office really means.
Sebastian
@Peale:
But would it be legal and constitutional?
The challenge as I understand it is, if he is really guilty of collusion and perhaps even High Treason, the only way to get rid of him is via impeachment. What if HoR doesn’t impeach? Could DOJ/SCOTUS or whoever call the bluff by forcing the Senate to vote?
? Martin
@Thru the Looking Glass…: Oh, I’m sure it’s the truth. But when that’s your defense of the situation, you’re basically admitting that he’s unfit for office and should be impeached. That’s a pretty tough road to walk right there.
Barbara
@rikyrah: This is the wrong way to think about Congress. They may despise Trump but many of their constituents are rabid Trump supporters. That’s what they have to lose.
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
Nicole Wallace was pointing this out yesterday, she said that you can’t imagine how exhausting it is to do so many countries in such a short period of time, she kept saying that this was the first chance for the “grown ups” to shine, McMaster, Powell, Kushner, and Lucretia, someone pushed back on her and asked in what way they had demonstrated that they were the grown ups? She responded that the meetings and calls he’s had, the Syria strike and now this trip, again she got push back, the strike was not them, it had been proposed to Obama so yes he pulled the trigger but they didn’t plan it, and the meetings have not been that smooth. But anyway, she went back to, how easy it is to get tripped up and how it’s exhausting, and Twitler likes to stay in his own bed, and he’s 70, so we need to keep the popcorn at the ready.
jonas
@Patricia Kayden: Not as long as the GOP 1. sees him as a useful idiot for getting their tax reform and deregulation rammed through and 2. doesn’t fear a backlash from the base. So far the base remains safely cocooned in its Fox News bubble and is happy to see the country run into the ground as long as it pisses off liberal elites.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@? Martin: In a word… yup…
He’s just not unfit… he’s a tremendous danger to the whole farkin’ world at this point…
Brachiator
@Bobby Thomson:
Did you read what I actually wrote?
Still, this is new ground for Trump. He is in over his head, but doesn’t entirely realize it. Or maybe he thinks this is like another bankruptcy that he can dance out of. No matter what, this is going to be painful to watch.
Anonymous At Work
Sadly, I think it’s a legitimate question whether AIPAC makes a bigger deal about Trump compromising deep cover Israeli intelligence agents or the Democrats demanding that a Republican address the issue of having compromised deep cover Israeli intelligence agents.
LAO
@? Martin: I wanted to laugh when I read that in the NYT but I can’t. I’m totally numb at this point. 115 days in, and I’m done. I can’t take another minute of this Administration.
zhena gogolia
@Cheryl Rofer:
Do you mean this article? It cites the New York Times as its source.
Barbara
@hovercraft: Can’t they bring his own bed with them? Install it on AF-1 and then transport it from place to place? I bet foreign dignitaries have made odder requests.
Jerry
I don’t know, man. Liberals are pretty outraged about this, so keep in mind Cleek’s Law.
LAO
@LAO: Well, at least this did make me laugh.
Chris
@Anonymous At Work:
Not a question at all. They’ll back the Republicans.
? Martin
You know the best thing about this White House staff reboot idea – that there are people that will willingly submit to being thrown into that shithole of lies, immediately marking them as dishonest and having poor judgement to the entire fucking world before they even arrive.
MjOregon
@geg6: I’m not buying that. Dolt 45* couldn’t retain that level of complex information for more than two minutes much less since he was briefed on the plan to put bombs in laptops. He apparently gave pretty detailed info to them, down to the town where the operatives got the information to begin with. This is not the level of information he gets in his briefings, which are to be a “brief” as possible according to all accounts of the changes he’s made. Somebody made sure he got more information in this case.
amk
one brave black woman and a party of full of cowards.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@LAO:
It’s starting to affect my health at this point… I can feel this shit all thru my body… hard time focusing… not sleeping well…
JCJ
@Iowa Old Lady:
I have often seen agents on the jetway when boarding, but that is not new. They are typically looking for people carrying undeclared cash >$10k. My wife was stopped once when boarding a flight to Tokyo when she was by herself. When we fly together I always make sure I am walking with her because then they leave her alone.
Mike G
Wasn’t Israel one of the few countries in the world (besides Russia) that was pro-Trump before the election?
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
LAO
@Jerry: I’m not saying peak wingnut — but this could be a very big test of Cleeks Law.
rikyrah
I’m totally psyched for Still Star-Crossed.
5 Things Everyone Will Talk About in ABC’s Still-Star Crossed
By Jamie Broadnax
– May 15, 2017
Shondaland TV has done it again with changing the game in how we see diversity on the small screen in her latest project Still-Star Crossed. The story of this new innovative take on William Shakespeare’s classic play Romeo and Juliet begin
after the tragic deaths of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet. Sharing
bits and pieces of what happens in Shakespeare’s play shouldn’t be a
spoiler since we all know how the story of Romeo and Juliet went down.
Rosaline Capulet played by the alluring English actress Lashana
Lynch is our protagonist in this dramatic tale, and she is betrothed
against her will to Benvolio Montague by Prince Escalus. The Prince
wishes to end the bad blood between the Montagues and the Capulets.
However, this arranged union is what leads to a series of events that
begins to tell the tale of the stories of these characters in the new
ABC drama Still-Star Crossed.
After viewing the pilot episode, I want to share five things everyone will be talking about when the pilot debuts May 29th:
1. A Black Woman Is Our Heroine
Our hero and lead protagonist of this story, Rosaline Capulet sets
the tone and is the launchpad for this story. The TV series is based on a book of the same name by author Melinda Taub. We’re grateful to Shonda Rhimes for making Rosaline a beautiful dark skinned character played none other than by actress Lashana Lynch who is just divine! If you remember in the Shakespeare story, Rosaline is Lord Capulet’s niece, Romeo’s first love at the beginning of the play. However, when Romeo meets Juliet, his world dramatically changes, and he falls in love. In Still-Star Crossed,we see the story from her perspective as she is entangled within many story arcs including Romeo’s, Benvolio’s, Lord Capulet’s, the Montagues,and Prince Escalus.
hovercraft
@amk:
Bullshit,
Report: Trump made 488 false or misleading claims in his first 100 Days…
VOX
May 1, 2017 – Report: Trump made 488 false or misleading claims in his first 100 days in … (On six of those days, the president golfed at a Trump property.).
LAO
@Thru the Looking Glass…: I’m with you, I wake up in a panic around 5:30 am every morning. (I don’t need to be up till 7:00).
zhena gogolia
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
I actually hide the front page of the NYT from my husband so it won’t adversely affect his health. This is ridiculous.
Gex
@Ruviana:
But how can we take this seriously? An east coast elitist with inherited wealth understands the working class? Or was it just that he offered full throated support for bigoted white supremacist policies that Brett likes.
I mean c’mon. Brett can SAY that. But it isn’t even remotely believable. If by chance he actually believes this he is delusional and not connected to reality.
amk
@hovercraft: It’s not a contest… ok, it is.
MCA1
@Shalimar: I’m not sure about that. Their self-titled was released in ’92, when he was 22 years old.
He’s a poseur, and his actions in adult life are 180 degrees at odds with a single thing Rage against The Machine stood for in their music, yes. I don’t know that I fully discount the possibility he actually liked them as a college senior/recent graduate and thought they sounded authentic and intense and also thought he identified with their lyrics, though. He may still think of himself as some kind of a rebel 25 years on, instead of a d’bag who serves the president ice cream. If someone wrote out the lyrics to “Know Your Enemy” he’d probably react by saying “Yeah, bro. Fuck those Democrats and their discord sowing lockstep political correctness.”
rikyrah
This isn’t funny. It’s quite frightening.
Trump can’t be trusted with sensitive information — and now the world knows
By Editorial Board May 16 at 12:30 PM
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S disclosure of highly classified information to senior Russian officials was the most disturbing demonstration yet that he is dangerously unprepared to handle sensitive national security matters. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump essentially confirmed a Post report that he provided details of the Islamic State’s plotting of airline attacks to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in an Oval Office meeting last week. The Post reported that the information could allow Moscow to identify the source of the intelligence, which came through a foreign government with which U.S. spy agencies have a fragile relationship.
The consequences of the president’s lapse could be far-reaching. In addition to disrupting a vital flow of intelligence and possibly endangering agents on the ground, Mr. Trump has let the world know that he and his administration cannot be trusted with sensitive information. Governments that share their secrets with the CIA, from Britain to Israel to Australia, may feel compelled to recalibrate their cooperation. Those that don’t have a cooperative relationship, such as Russia and China, will try to use their access to Mr. Trump to extract more indiscretions.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-cant-be-trusted-with-sensitive-information–and-now-the-world-knows/2017/05/16/5f2a191c-3a3c-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-f%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.54617addc091
Corner Stone
@? Martin:
Can you imagine? It’s gotta be some weird mix of Fox News rejects and people cast aside from Iran-Contra scandal. What quality person would willingly take a low six figure job in this admin right now?
hovercraft
@Mike G:
Democrats insist on pushing for a two state solution which Bibi and Co hate, so yes they prefer the GOP, plus Hillary was part of the evil Obama administration, so she had mad cooties.
Gelfling 545
@Sebastian: What a lovely daydream!
amk
wapo sez cornyn is out as twitler’s fbi pawn. looks there was a pushback from his own party. rats are abandoning the sinking shitship that is twitler?
southend
@rikyrah: Because they know Pence is (almost) as dirty as Trump and if this drags on too long, and the Dems really do take the house in ’18, then they’re looking at President Pelosi.
Yarrow
@MARCION: Paul Ryan is an ambitious man. He would love to be president. We know Trump is a traitor. Pence has been involved in a lot of the treasonous discussions and is guilty as well. Ryan can see that. Why isn’t he making moves to get them both out so he can be the American Hero who Saved The Country From Russian Traitors and, as third in line, become president? He isn’t doing anything like that. Not even close. My observation of his behavior and changes in his statements about Trump lead me to conclude that he’s involved in the Russia stuff as well and is just as much a traitor as the rest of them.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@rikyrah:
Who plays Benvolio? Is he equally fabulous?
Captain C
@schrodingers_cat: The sad thing for Russia in this regard is, their economy is so hollowed out that once Putin leaves (if not before) they may well be looking at another Soviet-Style collapse. Like in the Soviet days, Putin and the leadership are putting their energy and effort into foreign adventurism in order to distract from the fact that they have no desire to or idea how to diversify and grow their economy. It turns out that being perpetually nasty to one’s neighbors and ignoring one’s own economic health isn’t a formula for success.
amk
Sebastian
@Yarrow:
Welcome back. Of course he is. They are all going down.
Corner Stone
I waited too late to edit my comment but how funny is it going to be to have a bidding war between MSNBC and the Trump WH to hire all the Fox News rejected personas out there?
japa21
@amk: Also possible they see the writing on the wall and are afraid a Dem might win an election to replace him.
japa21
@amk: That won’t sit well with Burr.
hovercraft
@Captain C:
That and into the pockets of Putin and his ruling cabal, he is rumored to be worth somewhere in the 200 billion mark, though there are no official numbers because that could get you killed. How about some nice tea?
Yarrow
@Sebastian: Thank you. And I agree and have been saying for months they’re all guilty and going down. It’s instructive to look at behavior, though. If Ryan were innocent he’d be doing everything he could to toss Trump and Pence under the bus while framing himself as The Man Who Saved America from Traitors. He would be a hero. He isn’t doing that because he can’t. He’s guilty.
Ruviana
@Gex: I thought *all* the people interviewed in the piece sounded delusional! They have no understanding of how their situations came about.
amk
wanna bet he will spew this exact thing?
hueyplong
Those who say Trump can’t change at 70 are wrong. He’s going to change, alright. He’s got dementia. Shit’s gonna get worse, because it won’t claim his anger and narcissism first.
Captain C
@LAO: “I’m sorry Mr. Trump. In light of your recent burning of our assets, we cannot guarantee your physical safety while you are in Israel. Please reconsider postponing your visit for at least four years.”
schrodingers_cat
@Captain C: So why are Rs so happy being Putin’s lap dogs?
Annie
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
I’ve had to stop reading political news after 6 pm. Any later and I get so upset at the Trumpery atrocities that I can’t sleep.
Barbara
@Gex: They wanted to be lied to. We have been over this terrain so many times. Yes, many of them are a ball of confusion with gender, race and economic concerns bound together without regard to reality or feasibility, but at the end of the day, why is a wife willing to believe her husband over her friends about his cheating? They want to be lied to. They want what the white guy is selling, and the fact that he is white makes it somehow more believable to them because they think (like this clown named Spencer) that there is something unifying about white skin. They are sad, they have benefited from institutional racism even if they aren’t permeated with racial animus, and they don’t really have any other advantage to redeem themselves economically. $25 per hour plus pension plus health — that’s more than $50K plus benefits and there are people with advanced degrees who don’t make that.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
I love that the show’s producers are taking their cues from Broadway and realizing that theater fans don’t care about the race of the actors in the show as long as they’re good. Hopefully TV viewers will feel the same, but Rhimes has a pretty good track record of figuring out what viewers want before they know they want it.
Captain C
@geg6: Bibi is getting an object lesson in trusting people who hate you and want you stuck in one place for convenient killing.* Most Jews have understood this for a minimum of 75 years.
*Republicans, specifically Evangelicals/Pentacostals, who want all the Jews in Israel so that all but a few can be murdered in the Apocalypse (and the rest converted) in order to make White Supremacist Prosperity Jesus come back and delegate the rule of the world to said nutters.
amk
LOL. And no, it’s not the real tundra twit. Also. Too. Fuck you, john mccain for going down this path and enabling this shitfest.
ericblair
@hovercraft:
At this point, Putin is almost beyond wealth. He can just command the state to do whatever he wants, and money is from tribute, for paying off others to keep the mafia state going. He is, as the analysts say, “acquisitive”, is short-term focused and opportunistic, and is a poor judge of risk.
The Russian economy is running out of money, and there are multiple sources of unrest that the official storyline has trouble dealing with (farmers, truckers, etc). Like the Soviet Union, things will probably look fine until they suddenly don’t, and there’s deliberately no successor in place. So we could end up with a major crisis in the near future. Great, huh.
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
It’s totally believable as long as you remember to add in the unspoken part of the answer: the working class was being crushed by liberals, Blacks, and immigrants.
Tim C.
@Yarrow: There are a couple other possibilities, but yeah. We know the RNC got hacked too, and we know that info hasn’t made it to wikileaks yet. So there’s that as the most obvious point of blackmail the Russians have over the Republicans.
Also possibly Ryan is terrified that if it all comes crashing down next November, his political life will be over. There’s also the fact the GOP is still not a unified entity, the establishment vs Trump Voters dynamic is still in effect. If they dump Trump, the Trump rump will…. I can’t even finish this sentence without giggling.
rikyrah
Greg SargentVerified account @ThePlumLineGS
Re Paul Ryan’s weak reaction to bombshell news:
When Rs abdicate oversight, Trump learns he can do anything:
http://wapo.st/2rbvE3n
Sebastian
@Yarrow:
No question about that. He is third in succession, a few small but well planned out moves and he would be President. That he isn’t doing -anything- at all (as far as we can tell, speaks volumes to his collusion.
rikyrah
bэnnydiэgø ☆ @bennydiego
This is treason. And nearly every republican in congress is guilty of aiding and abetting for allowing this dangerous Presidency to continue
LAO
Will he or won’t he?
ruemara
@Kay: 2 years. 2. It is imperative that we take things back in 2018. Otherwise, I don’t think we’ll regain voting rights until around 2028. And I’m not kidding.
@rikyrah: I’m seriously debating taking her producing masterclass. I just need to find the extra scratch. Selling prints, if anyone is interested.
rikyrah
Malcolm NanceVerified account @MalcolmNance
1. Trumps twitter flip flop confessing to passing classified info to Russia confirms that nothing he or his staff says can be trusted.
amk
@Sebastian: granny starver ain’t no leader. he is just an ass-licker of rich.
NotMax
“Handling sensitive highly classified material is complicated.”
hovercraft
@Yarrow:
As much as the media is trying to portray Pence as the new savior who’s doing all he can be constrain Twitler and save us all from his worst impulses, they are glossing over the fact that he’s been in on all the worst decisions he has made, he knw what he was in for when he signed on. As for Ryan, he’s lost his media glow, and besides that his reward for once again becoming their golden boy would not be the presidency, it would be to follow in the footsteps of John McCain, another man cast as the savior of the republican party by the media who the base hated. Ryan’s instincts were right when he tried to resist becoming speaker. The base hates him because he’s not completely crazy like the FC, they hate him because he was critical of Twitler last year, and now they hate him because he’s not doing more to get Twitler’s “agenda” through and bring on the glorious days of 4 to 7% growth, by failing with the ACAH the first time he made him look bad. People keep saying that the shitstorm we are watching will eventually bring them back to their senses, bullshit. They nominated Twitler after McGrumpy brought us Palin, they are insane and doesn’t do a good enough job of selling himself as one of them. He’s Kasich, just a few years younger, with out the down home aw shucks “charm”.
jimmiraybob
And, Russian state media – a semi- quasi- somewhat public outlet, also too?
Mnemosyne
@Captain C:
And yet that’s the exact formula the Republicans want to follow. Ugh.
LAO
You can’t make this shit up. Apparently the Saudi’s invited the President of the Sudan to the “summit” with Trump. The small hitch in the Saudi plan,
Everything fine, nothing to see here.
hovercraft
@hueyplong:
I’m thinking we all meant for the better, though if he does have dementia, maybe he can change for the better, maybe he’ll become so far gone that he doesn’t actually do anything other than watch FOX and Friends all day and play golf. Oh shit that’s what he does now, okay maybe he does that and nothing else, they can just rotate his staff through the office and tell him they are dignitaries come to pay tribute.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Because the Russian oligarch money is coming to them.
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
Tax cuts.
ChrisH
“I never thought leopards would eat my face” – Bibi Netanyahu
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I’ve eaten your cookies. You need to do a bake sale, my friend. ?
Archon
At this point this isn’t even about Trump anymore, he is who we thought he was. This is about Republicans in Washington and the Trump supporters in the country who aren’t dear leader authoritarians or in thrall to Cleek’s law.
At a certain point they are gonna have to stand up to this, because this cannot last 4 years, not without real civil disturbance and real political violence.
hovercraft
@LAO:
Well he has showed a propensity for dictators and he did say that no oe can prove Putin kills journalists and his opponents, and Tillerson did say that the US will stop putting so much emphasis on human rights, and gave the Saudi’s he green light to step up their war crimes in Yemen, so, why wouldn’t they think this would be fine.
Yarrow
@Tim C.: It’s more than blackmail from hacked emails. He’s complicit and knows about the treason they’re committing. The rot at the top of the GOP is huge. There are probably some very low level elected Republicans who aren’t traitors but the money has been flowing there for a long time. When it breaks it’s going to be ugly. I don’t think the Republican party can survive and some Never Trumpers seem to think the same way as they plan for a new party.
@Sebastian: Yep. Watch what Ryan does not what he says, although to a certain extent what he says is also useful. He’s guilty as hell.
TenguPhule
@LAO: So many bad apples in one spot.
Oh yeah, that’s not going to end well.
jl
@hovercraft:
” they can just rotate his staff through the office and tell him they are dignitaries come to pay tribute. ”
Trump will want to see the piles of gold. Who’s going to fund all that? All the contingency plans have serious problems.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@LAO: Yup… I constantly wake up in the middle of the night in a panic… I’ll survive but boy oh boy, am I feeling this all the time now…
Frank Wilhoit
@LAO: Armageddon: the ultimate suicide bombing.
Yarrow
@hovercraft: If Ryan knew both Trump and Pence were guilty and he himself was innocent of treason, then he’d toss them out as fast as he could. He’s third in line and could position himself well as having saved the country from treason. The media would love it and “moderates” would flock to him unless he screwed up a bunch of other stuff.
You’re right that the base doesn’t like him but it could be spun as him being the country’s savior. He’s not choosing that route so it’s worth considering why he isn’t.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@zhena gogolia: I understand… on one hand, I feel better understanding what’s happening… on the other hand, I’m on the verge of going ballistic on a daily basis…
Raoul
And yet, today, McMaster claimed that he knew of no reason for staff to have rushed out of that fateful
giveawayimportant meeting to quell the chatter.McMaster has apparently decided to, like every Trumper, destroy his own reputation in service to a reckless assclown. I don’t know why this still amazes me, but sometimes it does. The level of self-delusion & self-abnegation Trump inspires in his henchmen and-women is intense!
NotMax
@LAO
Well, he did promise to bring back torture.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Yarrow:
In complete agreement w/ you on this one…
I think, and hope, a whole bunch of them go down, and at the same time…
Jeffro
@LAO: “You can’t make this shit up” – true, except people have made this up, it was called the plot of CAPTAIN AMERICA II, where Hydra had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. We’re being compromised at all levels by some very un-American folks, starting at the top.
Chris
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
God, would I ever love to see all of the leadership go down at the same time. Unfortunately, precisely because it’s so widespread it becomes that much harder to imagine.
jonas
@Tim C.:
Too lazy to google it up, but my recollection was that an older server no longer being actively used at RNC headquarters was breached, but none related to their current operations. The Russian moles wouldn’t have gotten very far with the DNC either were it not for Podesta accidentally downloading malware from a phishing email.
Gex
@Ruviana: I believe this is true for most Republican voters. When polled about income and wealth distribution, the vast majority of Americans think things should be distributed more fairly. When polled on policies without party labels, the vast majority favor liberal policies. When you add party labels, they eat up the idea that conservative policies that give all the money to the top 1% are the way to go.
I joked on FB earlier today that Republicanism should be in the DSM V. In retrospect, I think it already is: Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Dems are grown ups who say we need to pay for stuff, we need to capture externalities, and so on. Michelle Obama suggests kids should eat nutritious meals and move more and they are somehow fucking OUTRAGED. It’s asinine.
germy
@Thru the Looking Glass…: I get the 3AM jitters. Sometimes I can fall back asleep, other times not. Counting sheep doesn’t help.
hovercraft
@jl:
He’ll be of his rocker by then, all they’ll need is chests full of gold wrapped chocolate coins, he loves chocolate, he has access to the best chocolate, and they can show him the executive order he signed where he changed our official currency to gold chocolate coins. WIN!! As a final topper they can tell him he owns the company that manufactures them.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Chris: Ultimate perp walk of all time…
Yeah, you’re probably right on that one… but twitter feeds are chock full of hints at mass arrests coming…
Hopefully, they won’t be the wrong kind of ‘mass arrests’ if they do happen…
jonas
@LAO: Trump to Al Bashir: “War crimes, eh? Well, the media is totally unfair to me too!”
Wjs
What did Russia get from Iran in exchange for the info Trump gave them for nothing? How much do you want to bet it’s a dead American agent of high value?
Everyone who is now down range is looking for a fast extraction because the chess board is cartwheelibg through the air.
hovercraft
@Yarrow:
Possibly, but at heart Ryan is a coward, it would be a risk, because he and the congress would have to against the base, who don’t care what the media says. But I have no problem seeing him as just as compromised as the rest of them.
Yarrow
@Thru the Looking Glass…: I don’t think they’ll all go down at the same time like some dramatic TV show or movie. But they’ll all be taken out.
My question is, given Trump’s known habit of throwing everyone under the bus, will he toss Pence to the wolves and blame everything on him? Maybe Priebus? If so, how? Release some recordings showing clear treasonous activity?
Yarrow
@jonas: I wouldn’t trust the Republicans to tell the truth about what got hacked. Why would they publicly admit it?
El Caganer
@hovercraft: Willie Wanker and the Chocolate Factory
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
@? Martin:
I think you both might be on to something here. Is it possible that, having seen what a chump Trump really is, all kinds of scoundrels and opportunists might want to jump on board and make the most of the opportunity? And I can imagine that there are some vile neocons who were passed over during the first round of appointments who might eagerly want a grab at the ring of power.
Teapot Dome got nuthin” on Trump.
Gex
@Barbara: @Mnemosyne:
Well yeah, I know all that. But that in itself is delusional. First of all, if this election proved anything, it is that minorities cannot impose shit on them in our system. They have all the power, they flexed it, yet the act all victimized. Delusion.
It is also delusional to think that the people who consistently fare worse than you have it the easiest. I get that it is bigotry/white supremacy all the way. But it is also fucking delusional.
Anyhow, I was responding to the idea that these folks should have paid more attention in school. Paying attention in school doesn’t matter when your thought process is disordered and delusional.
les
@Archon:
Yeah, but how much can the two of them accomplish?
Elie
@Yarrow:
I agree but these traitors must be vewy vewy nervous — They surely cannot trust each other and they know they can’t trust Trump for sure. What he knows could jump out of his mouth at any time, taking himself and a whole lot of folks with him. There are a lot of people with a lot of secrets to manage, and that never bodes well for keeping them over the longer term. Its just where this is going to break down. There are a lot of fronts to protect and complex relationships and incentives. My take, therefore, is that this is going to blow up. How much damage it does to our country is unknown, but there is going to be a big hole in the middle of the Republican Party. Our country has already been damaged in its prestige and place in the world. No telling if that can be repaired — may depend on how much longer the damage is allowed to continue. I am personally quite concerned. I think its going to be bad when it goes and very damaging to us.
les
@Yarrow:
What could he (Ryan) do? He can’t get impeachment through the house, he can’t buck the 27%, he can’t buck the monied…he’s fucked. Couldn’t happen to a nicer granny starver.
Yarrow
@hovercraft: If it truly was confined to just Trump and his cronies (including Pence), the rest of the Republicans would be leaking to the media nonstop about that very thing. They’d assign a few elected Republicans to start the ball rolling about Trump’s treason and start talking up Ryan’s ascension. The media would happily play along because that would mean they’d get the understandable Republicans back in charge and the rich media moguls would get their sweet, sweet tax cuts. The base would follow along because Trump=traitor would be a Fox News talking point day in and day out. You’d see plenty of “more in sadness than in anger” framing statements about Trump and his cabal as they ushered them out.
That isn’t happening. The Republicans can use their media machine to manipulate the base if they want to. They aren’t doing it because too many of them are caught up in it. Ryan’s just as guilty as the rest of them.
The Moar You Know
@Captain C: Huh, that’s the formula that my own mother has lived by all her life. You’re right. It has worked out pretty fucking badly for her, to be honest.
No surprise she’s a Trump voter.
TenguPhule
@Archon:
They’re not gonna stand up. They made their deal with the devil.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: lol. So much baking tho. I’ll have to research what gourmet cookies cost. How much would people pay for candied bacon chocolate chip?
NotMax
@Archon
Standing up requires a spine.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Yarrow: Yeah… you’re probably right…
***sigh…***
But it would be so satisfying to see that…
Barbara
@Gex: They have less relatively than they used to. They are not delusional about that. They are delusional about the cause for their relative material decline and whether it can be reversed. On those things, they are willing to be lied to because they don’t like the complexity and contingency of the truth. And no, I don’t have unlimited sympathy.
Millard Filmore
@jonas:
If there was active collaboration with the Russians, they don’t need hacked RNC info. They already have their side of the emails.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@germy: Yup… I get up and play robo-bridge on line for a while…
Sometimes it works and sometimes I get 3 or 4 hrs of sleep that night…
Patricia Kayden
@amk: Was McMaster in the room when Trump gave classified info to the Russians? If so, he is useless as a babysitter.
Yarrow
@Elie: I think it could get very ugly as well. As for the big hole where the GOP used to be (if that happens), several prominent Never Trumpers are already rushing to fill the niche. I expect “principled” white people to flock to them if the massive rot in the GOP is made public.
As for our position in the world, if we do the job right and take out all the traitors–and it’s going to be a lot–then I think we’ll show the world how a country handles that kind of thing. Someone commented last night that perhaps we need some sort of Truth and Reconciliation commission to deal with how all this happened. Again, that’s the kind of thing that can show we’re serious about dealing with it.
geg6
@hueyplong:
I would argue that anger and narcisism ARE the essence of Trump. And so, dementia will not really change him if they are intact.
But you and I both know that’s not what we’re talking about when we say he can’t change. It’s been my experience that people’s worst traits become even more entrenched as they age, unless they take active steps to arrest the process. Dolt 45 thinks he’s the most awesome dude ever born, so taking any active steps in an attempt to change are pretty much out of the question.
Applejinx
@Gex:
Seriously? Trump said that over and over. He went to Wisconsin, to Michigan, and beat that point into the ground.
He was lying his ass off the whole time.
He’s rich.
If you expect people to trust and believe in the technocrats and wealthy people because they bring the economic mojo to the table, you have to take the consequences when somebody abuses that trust. Trump went after that class of voter whole hog, and didn’t have the slightest difficulty telling them what they wanted to hear with sincerity and anger in his voice, because he’s a lying sack of shit and believes anything in his own head as he’s saying it. They fucked up in believing him, but he was hammering on those points really hard and it’s not at all surprising if people bought into it.
Everybody else in Washington is rich. Trump was supposed to be THEIR rich wrecking ball, taking vengeance on all those gummint jerkwads and telling them they were fired. Too bad that’s not actually helpful behavior because to this day, he is indeed doing that, and it’s not helping, because he’s worse than any of ’em.
TenguPhule
@ruemara: In New York City or real America?
TenguPhule
@El Caganer: Stop defiling my childhood.
Millard Filmore
@Yarrow:
How did South Africa do this? We can’t just catch and release these guys. If Truth and Reconciliation means no jail time but the traitors will be treated as felons on lifetime parole (no guns, no votes, no government jobs, no TV appearances, … (hey, its a plea deal to stay out of prison)), maybe that would be ok.
jonas
@Gex: Liberal policies are vastly more popular than conservative ones if you go by polls. What Republicans have discovered, however, is that if you pile all the right wing votes into safe Congressional districts, and then make it doubly difficult for likely Democratic voters to vote, you can sail to victory on a platform that most of the country finds outrageous, but that is very amenable to their motivated base voters and plutocratic donor class.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Patricia Kayden:
Dude claimed he was there on camera. Was that a lie, too?
Montanareddog
@Brachiator:
Dinesh D’Souza for FBI Director! Dick Morris for Chief of Staff! Halberman for Press Secretary!
ruemara
@TenguPhule: I can’t make Real ‘Muricah cookies. Not enough anthrax, bile and cheetoh dust to craft a recipe at their 99¢ Walmart price point.
TenguPhule
@ruemara: A cookie store in New York actually sells the bacon cookies.
Captain C
@hovercraft: This is true also, and $200 billion could do a lot of good for Russia. And further, at least the Soviets tried to industrialize. Putin seems happy with an extraction* economy that he dominates.
*This includes the extraction of wealth (and sending it out of the country) that he and his cronies are conducting on Russia’s treasury and income.
Brachiator
@Montanareddog: RE: Is it possible that, having seen what a chump Trump really is, all kinds of scoundrels and opportunists might want to jump on board and make the most of the opportunity
Oh, yeah, this would definitely be bottom of the barrel scrapings!
Captain C
@schrodingers_cat: My guess is a combination of compromat and “hey, we’re getting the tax cuts/screwing of the poor, women, and minorities that we want, and besides, I’ll still have my Congressional Pension and health care regardless.” Remember, these are craven, venal, kiss-up-kick-down cowards that we’re talking about. Besides Russia is now the True Home of Manly White Men Who Take No Shit From Wimmens and [Blacks], so…
Captain C
@ericblair:
That tends to happen when a good chunk of that money gets funneled out of country into Cayman bank accounts and tony London and Manhattan real estate. If Russia’s economy implodes like it did in the ’90s, in addition to all the chaos and suffering it will cause Russians, it could cause a big problem for London’s (and possibly the world’s) FIRE sector.
Captain C
@amk: That, and a fake policy wonk.
Captain C
@Mnemosyne: No wonder Rethugs love Putin’s Russia.
EthylEster
@rikyrah: Peter Wehner is a weenie. Who claims to have seen the light on Trump. I loathe both equally.
RLChina
@James Powell: I suspected the US was far more racist than generally portrayed…I fully expected and saw the backlash towards Obama but I never imagined how deep it really goes. Waking up to the election results in November disoriented me as I struggled to come to grip with the fact that the USA is not what I thought it was.