Looks like time for a new thread.
Have at it!
ETA: I wish I was still living in Colorado. I’d have taken off today and gone to setup a campsite for a few days and then head back home for the night with fresh trout for dinner. We would drive the hour after work, and this would have been our Friday evening view (minus the pop-up, I use tent and cots for back reasons). And crawdads so tasty, those mountain lakes deliver!
Elizabelle
Raising a glass of white wine to you all. It’s lunchtime in Barcelona. Like late, late lunch.
After lunch, will call my Virginia county to see if they’ll send me an absentee ballot. Democratic primary for governor on June 13. Ralph Northam vs. Tom Periello. Both good picks. I am with Ralph.
Corner Stone
Personally, I hope each of the NATO people Trump meets with asks him specific questions about tactical situations, or general strategy about a troubled region.
Corner Stone
Don’t know if it’s just my feed but the site is dragging balls again.
jeffreyw
Thread needz moar kittehs!
Mike E
@Corner Stone: it’s called, “Stump the chump”
Nicole
Funny coincidence from last night- I’m currently in rehearsals for a production of that old chestnut of a play, Kennedy’s Children, and during our ten-minute break last night I opened up balloon juice, and what was the top post, but Cheryl’s JFK post.
Things about doing the play that make me feel old- having to explain to the young ‘un playing Rona that it’s not pronounced “Ay-bee Hoffman.” And that only one other actor knew the melody to Camelot and that’s only because she was a musical theater major. Mind you, I was born after the Beatles broke up, but I think you grow up with a decent knowledge of things your parents grew up with. Which means to these kids, the 1980s are to them as the 1960s were to me. Sigh. Where’s my cane? I need to wave it angrily.
Wag
Steamboat Lake?
rikyrah
Quick Takes: Republicans Are Still Intent on Protecting Trump
A round-up of news that caught my eye today.
by Nancy LeTourneau
May 23, 2017 7:25 PM
* Former CIA Director John Brennan didn’t drop any bombshells during his testimony today in front of the House Intelligence Committee. Instead, as David Corn documents, it was Republicans on the committee who made the news.
In the face of this questioning, Brennan repeatedly stated that the intelligence he saw regarding contacts between Trump associates and Russia was worrisome and deserved full FBI scrutiny. So the Republicans failed in their mission to provide cover for Trump—and they ended up highlighting the legitimacy of the FBI inquiry begun under Comey.
NotMax
@Corner Stone
Personally, I hope they all raise a middle finger to him in unison.
But that’s not a-gonna happen either.
Corner Stone
In the pic of the Trump’s with the Pope, that is not a good look for Melania. Poor thing.
rikyrah
@jeffreyw:
AWE
hueyplong
Did Trump pressure the Pope to issue a statement saying that Trump is not under investigation?
rikyrah
There are a lot of deplorable people in the Trump administration. But lately, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney seems to be vying for placement at the top of the list. Here is what he wrote about the administration’s budget that destroys this country’s safety net:
In other words, public assistance is “theft” and “larceny.”
Corner Stone
I simply love it when a program has to spend more than half of their commentary time rebutting and debunking one guests persistent blatant lies, misrepresentations and falsehoods.
Morzer
@rikyrah:
So what would be his take on Trump’s multiple swindles, stiffing of creditors and bankruptcies?
JMG
The two best things to eat on Earth: fresh caught Colorado trout and Maryland soft shell crab.
PaulWartenberg
trump has now blabbed Navy secrets – about subs patrolling near North Korea – to another head of state, and in a way that still exposed the information publicly.
At this point, the entire Defense Department, CIA, NSA, and FBI cannot tell this idiot a goddamn thing.
at the rate he’s spilling secrets, trump is going to reveal the nuclear football codes to Tiger Beat by Friday.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Morzer:
IOKIYAR
Nicole
@Morzer: Well, that’s different, you see. Trump is white, male and already rich.
rikyrah
Byron York Prepares Republicans For Trump’s Impeachment
by Nancy LeTourneau
May 24, 2017 8:00 AM
While I rarely agree with Byron York on issues of policy, there have been times I’ve noted that he is one of the few conservatives who seems capable of getting outside the right’s epistemically enclosed bubble to catch a view of reality. He seems to have done just that with an article titled, “At this rate, it won’t matter if Trump colluded with Russia.”
York toes the Republican line in the beginning by expressing skepticism over claims that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians.
I’d suggest that he hold on to his hat on that one…things are just getting started.
But then York zeroes in on the events following Trump’s decision to fire Comey. He provides a useful reminder of things that happened in such quick succession.
Now, whether there was collusion or not, we have a case for obstruction of justice.
In conclusion, I’m not sure York is completely wrong about what might have happened if the president hadn’t brought this all down on himself.
I suspect that York is trying to prepare Republicans for the inevitable results that are about to unfold with respect to Trump’s obstruction of justice. He’s also correct in suggesting that when/if the president is impeached, he will deserve it.
Morzer
@Nicole:
I would love to hear a real reporter ask Mulvaney the question, just to watch the worthless little rat babble and sweat and turn slowly crimson under the lights.
NotMax
@Morzer
“Captain’s log, U.S.S. IOKIYAR…”
Major Major Major Major
Nice lake. Colorado always has the best clouds.
@rikyrah:
Not that I expected different, I suppose, but great, the OMB director doesn’t understand how budgets work.
rikyrah
@obandon1384 “Karen Handel declines to debate with Jon @Ossoff”
-> We decline to elect her in to office!
Simple politics!https://t.co/xg36PRwWiI
— falazar (@falazar) May 24, 2017
#FlipThe6th: @Ossoff, #Handel to debate on June 6th at 8 pm on WSB-TV Atlanta https://t.co/ecohaY5vbi
— Dianne Wing (@DianneWing2) May 24, 2017
amk
back & forward functions are all wonky again.
Corner Stone
@rikyrah:
Honestly, that dude has secured the number three spot of most punchable faces in DC. He would be higher but it’s almost impossible to dislodge Trump and Turtle from one and two, just due to the sheer destruction they are doing/have done.
I think at this time you then have to go ZEGS then Cruz.
rikyrah
Trump Continues to Get Away With Everything
How much more of this horrendous behavior is the nation willing to accept?
BOB CESCA
During the third and final debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Trump made sure to accuse Hillary of not having the “stamina” to be president. He also reiterated, by the way, his claim that she didn’t have “the presidential look” — a not so subtle dig at the fact that we’ve never had a woman serve as president, therefore anyone resembling a woman can’t possibly be presidential. The irony in both of these ad-hominem attacks is that Trump himself is neither presidential (his look or otherwise), nor does he have the stamina for the gig.
His first big overseas trip has been peppered with what some would consider to be “senior moments” — in Trump’s case, they’re senior moments combined with his natural inability to know important things, like where he is and what he’s doing. Indeed, his own staff characterized his disposition as “exhausted,” and that was only on the second day of his trip.
So, first, Trump neglected to say the words “radical Islamic terrorism” during his address in Saudi Arabia. This was excused by his staff due to the aforementioned exhaustion. But that wasn’t the end of it, nor was it anywhere close to being as egregious as what followed.
Next, Trump moved on to Israel where he was relieved to report that he “just returned from the Middle East,” even though he was still in the Middle East. (Israel isn’t in Asia or Europe — or maybe Trump thought the Middle East was the Arabian peninsula.)
On top of that gaffe, which triggered a major facepalm from the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., by the way, Trump inadvertently admitted that the intelligence partner who supplied us with the code-word classified information which Trump blabbed to the Russians was from Israel. Somewhere, the Israeli ambassador just facepalmed again.
………………….
How much more of this horrendous behavior is the nation willing to accept? As John Oliver discussed this week on his HBO show, and as I’ve discussed before in terms of grading Trump on a drastic curve, he always manages to get away with it. Always. Whether it was his unforgivable criticism of John McCain for “getting captured”; or his mocking of Serge Kovaleski’s disability, or his jihad against a Gold Star family (he didn’t even know what a Gold Star family was); or, of course, his confession about grabbing women by their genitals without permission; or, yes, colluding with Russia to commit treason, as well as all of the attempts at a cover-up, Trump seems to get away with trespasses that, each one alone would’ve doomed every other presidential-level politician.
Jeffro
@rikyrah:[summarizing Mulvaney]
This is truly the nuttiest of wingnutty, “libertarian” arguments – that as citizens in a democratic society who can vote for our representatives (who then vote on what services the government will be providing and to whom) that somehow taxes are “theft”. We. all. make. each. other. pay our ‘dues’ for living in this society. If I’m making John pay his taxes and John makes me pay my taxes…how is that “theft”???
These people drive me crazy with their laziness and stupidity.
rikyrah
Get ready for the ‘impeachment election’
By David Ignatius
Opinion writer May 23 at 7:47 PM
President Richard Nixon was heading for a big reelection victory in November that would confound his critics. He had just returned from a pathbreaking visit to China and had big, transformative ideas for foreign policy. Yet he felt hounded by his enemies and a media elite that opposed him at every turn.
And there was that pesky FBI investigation into a “third-rate burglary” at the Watergate office building, about which the media were asking meddlesome questions. Nixon wrote in his diary after a later, revelatory Post scoop about Watergate that this was “the last burp of the Eastern Establishment,” recalls Evan Thomas in a recent book. Nixon was trying to do the people’s business, but he felt angry, isolated and embattled.
…………………………………………….
“History does not repeat, but it does instruct,” writes Timothy Snyder in his new book, “On Tyranny.” Some people, apparently including Trump, just don’t learn.
The world is probably baffled by Washington’s obsession with the Russia scandal. Trump seems popular abroad, as Nixon was. That’s especially true in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and China where leaders are tired of being lectured by the United States and the public is fascinated by the cartoon-like “big man” character that Trump projects.
………………………………………………………….
Yet no foreign or domestic success will stop the slow unfolding of the investigation that is now underway. That’s the importance of last week’s appointment of the impeccable Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel to investigate the Russia matter. The process can’t be derailed now. If the president or his associates are guilty of wrongdoing, Mueller will find out. If they’re innocent, he’ll discover that, too. From what we know about the former FBI director, he won’t tolerate leaks about his investigation.
For all Mueller’s probity, this investigation has an inescapable political destination. Mueller must refer any evidence of wrongdoing by Trump himself to the House of Representatives as evidence of possible “high crimes and misdemeanors” that might warrant impeachment. Would this GOP-dominated House begin impeachment proceedings, even on strong evidence of obstruction? Right now, you’d have to guess no.
The real collision point ahead is the 2018 midterm election. This will be the “impeachment election,” and it may be as bitterly contested as any in decades. Trump seems unlikely to take Nixon’s course of resigning before the House votes on impeachment. He’ll fight all the way — a combative president trying to save his mandate from what he has described as a “witch hunt.” This appeal would resonate with a populist base that already feels disenfranchised by jurists and journalists.
Jeffro
Also, Alain, pics like that are why the Mrs. and I are moving west just as soon as we get the youngest rugrat off to college!
ET
From the same people projecting images onto the Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, now Jeff Sessions wearing KKK robes onto the Justice Department building. I hope the artist can keep this up.
hueyplong
@Corner Stone: No love for multi-talented utility man Jared Kushner or Q-Tip Headed Wannabe Inquisitor Gowdy?
D58826
@Corner Stone: Why black? They both looked like they were at a funeral.
Now I’m not big on dress codes. I always thought the habits the nuns wore years ago were silly. And was more than happy to go with business casual and ditch the coat and tie. So it’s no surprise that I think the Saudi dress code for women is absurd. On the other hand, the Trumpers went out of their way NOT to cover their heads when in Saudi Arabia but did observer all of the religious customs about head cover/dress in Israel and the Vatican.
There is a protocol apparently that only Catholic queens and princesses can wear white in the presence of the pope.
Not a big deal but if when in Rome and all that then why not when in Saudi Arabia …… And of course was an impeachable offense when Michelle did not cover her head.
Corner Stone
@hueyplong: God no. They both fall well outside the top 10. Gowdy is a powerless hack. I’m afraid if you tried to punch him in the face all that shimmering sweat would morph into a whirlpool and it would drag you in. His face certainly looks punchable, indeed, but you have to have priorities!
J Kush is just odd. I don’t like him, don’t think he’s competent to do basically anything, and doubt he knows anything about anything except for petty revenge. But whatever he may be saying privately to Trump about hurting the poor, he’s not standing in front of the press gleefully admitting he wants to kill them asap.
I mean, it’s not like there’s any wrong answer but if you had a shot at J Kush or Bannon, which mug are you cracking first?
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@rikyrah: I think he needs to be #1 in the first tumbrel.
Nicole
@Morzer: You and me both.
I know several people, some very dear to me, who vote Republican and I can divide them into three groups:
1) Have daddy issues
2) Are assholes
3) Both
(The ones dear to me all fall into the first category. One of them has been known to vote occasionally for for the Democratic candidate in a local election here and there)
Jeffro
Btw for those who care, J-Rubs is so OVER modern conservatism that she’s going after Fox News(!)
Sounds like someone has had a “Schiavo moment”…
Major Major Major Major
@Nicole: I realized the other day that I don’t know a single republican voter well. Libertarians, yes, but real ones (say what you will about the tenets of techno-Utopianism, at least it’s an ethos) who actually vote for the libertarian. Although a couple voted for Hillary.
I like my bubble.
Jeffro
Speaking of Fox, if you head over to the Fox News dot com website, you’ll see
1) massive fear-mongering headlines about Manchester
2) how it was an “honor” for Trumpov to meet the Pope
3) this nonsense:
I mean, whaaaat?
Corner Stone
@Mike E: “Ladies and Gentlemen! Step right up, step right up! Lay your money down and take your shot at Stumping the Chump! It’s not hard, folks, even a child could do it!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Melania and Princess Tackycrap look like they’re about to need sedation to keep from jumping on the casket or collapsing, the Pope looks like somebody just made a fart joke during the eulogy, and trumpy looks like somebody just made a fart joke during the eulogy (if we’re looking at the same picture.
ETA: I will say, being caught at a bad moment aside, Melania’s outfit looks to me like something very traditional–maybe too traditional– that a Catholic woman would wear to meat the Pope. PTC’s looks like a clueless nouveau riche professional shopper thinks would be a fun and daring twist on tradition
D58826
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yep that’s the one. I can’t find the link but someone has posed a photo of Obama’s visit with the Pope. Big smiles on both men. IN the on e with Der Fuhrer, the Pope looks like he would rather be playing cards with Satan than standing next top this guy.
There is another photo of Der Fuhrer seated across a table from the Pope. It reminded me of all the photos/cartoons of the kid sitting in front of the school principal. The Pope looks relaxed and Trump is leaning forward like he is waiting to find out how many sentences he has to write as a punishment.
rikyrah
@D58826:
I don’t think that they went inside of a mosque. When Hillary as SOS and other women on a trip with POTUS, went inside the mosque with him in Arab Countries, they put on a head covering.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
I think that in the name of egalitarianism, we should just line them up and punch them all at the same time and allow the people each of them has most aggrieved line up to punch them. But your list is incomplete, you left off Sessions, and as a woman I can say this DeVos, Pruitt is also up there, and never forget ZEGS, he is as culpable in all this stuff as the rest, if not more so. You know what fuck it, I say lets just round them all up, line them up and let the three people they’ve caused the most harm to one punch each (proxies will be allowed for those who can’t punch that hard). We can make it a national competition, and televise the punchfest.
Fester Addams
@PaulWartenberg:
My bet is he made them change it to 1-2-3-4-5.
StringOnAStick
@Nicole: I think your 3 groups of R voters is pretty accurate, at least based on my experience. Every one of them that I’ve known or still know has a huge anger problem as well though I’m not sure if that was always there, was FOX induced or just FOX enhanced. I know that in my Bircher dad’s case you can toss anger in at being elderly and no longer able to boss people around, on top of what has always been his having a horrible temper.
Major Major Major Major
@Fester Addams: that’s my luggage code!
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Someone is asking for a low tumbrel number.
D58826
@rikyrah: and they did wear long dresses with sleeves at all public appearances. As I say I’m not big on dress codes but not big on gratuitously insulting your host’s traditions either.
Time has made the same observation – http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/melania-and-ivanka-trump-wore-veils-to-meet-the-pope/ar-BBBu33k?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp
The article did say that Francis has been a bit more liberal on the entire dress code thing.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If you notice, there is daylight between all of Melania and Trump, they are not touching at all. She also looks like she’s thinking of jamming her thumbs into his eye sockets, maybe so that Il Papa can finish the exorcism when the stupid starts streaming out.
Also, too. I think that may be the best fitting suit I have ever seen Trump wear. But the jacket end is still two inches too long, you can’t see any of his cuffs and the pants are boxy and just a sloppy mess. I will say that at least someone tied his tie to within an inch of the length it needs to be. So there’s that!
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Other than that one time when trump asked the Russians to hack Hillary’s email. And all the times Roger Stone knew what Wikileaks was going to release before anyone else. And they mysterious communications between a server in trump Tower and Russia. Other than that, no public evidence at all.
Corner Stone
@Fester Addams: Do you think he can count that high without being distracted?
“1-2-…306. You know, my yoog EC victory? People say it was like the largest most beautiful win in history.”
Aleta
@Corner Stone: To me it looks like she just realized that they are all going to hell.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: I worried that “collusion”, meaning video of trump meeting with Putin in a bleak cafe by the train station in Zurich with audio of Putin saying “this is how we do it” and trump saying “Yes, sir”, would become the goalpost. Then trump went on TeeVee to brag about obstruction of justice.
Aleta
@Corner Stone: I like the comparison to the Adams family though.
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
They are pulling out all the stops to try to distract their viewers, but so far America isn’t falling for it, I’m shocked that he’s as high as he is, but still it’s gratifying that most of us see him for what he is, in spite of the medias attempts to normalize the dipshit.
Via Gallup
His honeymoon was a week, FFS it took exactly one week for most of the country to say WTF!
But hey he got some good news this morning!
You’ve got to love the positive spin they put on this!
I hate these fuckers!
Laura
Jack Ohman nails it:
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorial-cartoons/jack-ohman/article152056472.html#navlink=SecList
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
Morning joke was giving him makeup tips this morning, SAD ; ( when you have Morning joke calling your efforts pathetic, you’ve descended to a new low.
Miss Bianca
Is that Blue Mesa Reservoir? Looks like a view from 50, heading up to 92 and the Black Canyon!
@jeffreyw: oh, SQUEEEEE!!!!
Aleta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Which is why it will be for sale soon. And matching outfit for Barbie dolls.
Butch
@Wag: I was thinking Jefferson Lake in South Park. Used to live near there….with the current price of housing in Colorado I couldn’t even think about moving back and actually don’t miss it all that much, but it does look like Jefferson Lake.
brendancalling
Driving home from my lunch break yesterday, while passing used vehicle lots that I intended to visit later, my 97 Subaru abruptly shit the bed.
Luckily I was on a slow-moving street, and it wasn’t at 65 mph on I-65. Luckily, the plucky little thing got me home, even while dying. I rented a car and visited those lots, so today, as soon as this coffee is in me, I am hitting three or four remaining used dealerships and buying either an early 2000s Ford Ranger or a 97 Dodge Dakota. Mainly because that’s what’s available (both Dodges have pretty low mileage).
Wish me luck folks.
amk
twitler’s touch at work again
Nicole
@StringOnAStick: I agree with your observation. I know exactly one Republican whom I would not describe as “angry.” Including the ones in my family I do truly love. And that Republican picked his “side” back in the 1980s and I don’t think actually pays attention to politics. Thus, his wife votes Democratic and he’s raising 4 future Democratic voters.
It’s the anger that boggles my mind- directed at anything that would make someone’s life nicer, whether it’s financial aid or parks or a fucking participation medal. I wonder how different these people would be if their parents had just cuddled them a bit as kids.
The Moar You Know
@rikyrah: Wrong question.
The right question is “How much more of this horrendous behavior is the GOP willing to accept?” and the answer to that is “a lot.”
Just One More Canuck
@rikyrah: But hiring people to perform services without any intention of paying them for those services is perfectly fine?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
it’s hard to pick a dumbest-looking picture of Blake Farenthold
Nicole
OH! I have to share this. I am equal parts proud and mortified-
My son’s teachers told me today that yesterday, during Circle Time, they were discussing the importance of caring about other people (one of the many things I love about my son’s school is that there is a lot of focus on raising good, and active, citizens). My 6-year-old son raised his hand and said, “Yes! If you don’t care about other people, you’re a Republican!”
One teacher left the room so the kids wouldn’t see her laughing.
One patiently explained you shouldn’t paint everyone with the same brush.
One snuck out to tell the rest of the teachers what he’d said.
I see that it’s not enough for me to say, “I’m generalizing, but…” before I say something at home. I need to actually explain what “generalizing” means. And maybe we’re talking a bit too much politics.
On the other hand, his great-grandfather would have been so proud of him. ;)
D58826
@amk: Interestingly there is one photo at that link of Michelle in a blue dress. So maybe black isn’t required any longer or maybe its whither the setting is within the Vatican itself or outside it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
hmm….
As in “Let’s just get this shit over with”?
Butch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is the guy Chris Hayes continues to invite to, um, “speak?”
JPL
@Nicole: I just returned from the local supermarket. While at checkout, I laughed aloud about the trashy magazines. The clerk noticed and told me a very serious twelve year old boy, saw one last week that was titled What Trump doesn’t know. The young man said the magazine wasn’t thick enough to answer that question. The mother showed disapproval, so the son explained to the clerk, that he was sorry, but didn’t feel that Trump was prepared for the difficulties of the job.
That will be yours next year.
gene108
@Morzer:
Business transactions are voluntary. There are risks and you decide, of your own free will, if the risk versus reward is worth it to you.
Taxation is involuntary confiscation of money and only works because it has the police powers of the State behind it. The only difference between taxation and being robbed at gunpoint is with taxation the people with the guns work for the government.
Miss Bianca
@gene108: Oh man, that sounds just like my Libertarian buddy…LOLSOB
hovercraft
@Nicole:
Out of the mouths of babes……
I’d like to commend you for your excellent parenting, you are doing a great job. Just be sure to tell your six year old that while what he said is undoubtedly true, he must also keep an open mind, it is always important to allow for the fact that people can change, they almost never do, but hope springs eternal.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I guess there are two things about this line that really annoy me:
1) The constant conflation of “evidence” and “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. Yes, there is not yet 100% proof that the trump campaign coordinated with the Russians, but there’s plenty of evidence.
2) The suggestion that the investigation is just a politically motivated fishing expedition unless it already has evidence.
Both of these are fairly common dodges for somebody under investigation, and together they’re an unbeatable combination, since they require iron-clad proof of wrongdoing as a condition of continuing the investigation.
Aleta
Jim Sciutto @jimsciutto
Sec. Tillerson says Vatican encouraged President Trump to remain in Paris climate accords
Corner Stone
@Nicole: Ha! I think I may have gone a little too far and am now raising a little Marxist. My 12 yr old told me he got into an argument with his friends the other day. Oh, yeah?
“Yes, I tried to explain to them that if you are rich or have a lot of money then there was either a crime or you treated a lot of people very badly to get it all.”
I told him solemnly, “You got it right.”
MattF
@Jeffro: Something has definitely changed with Ms. Rubin.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This, your whole comment, is exactly what we saw trump lap-weasel Trey Gowdy doing, or trying to do, with Brennan yesterday, and what we will see almost every Republican doing this weekend.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, it’s like trying to find a photo of Gohmert in which he doesn’t look like a slack-jawed moron.
Brachiator
Looks peaceful. A nice bit of beauty to get a (relatively) Trump-free morning started.
Oh, well
@gene108:
Are you serious? Fraudulent business transactions are not voluntary, unless you are Ferengi or a libertarian.
Taxation is the price of civilization. Again, are you serious or playing a Trumpette?
MattF
@Corner Stone: Is he a Bolshie? Has he read Trotsky’s history of the Russian revolution?
The Moar You Know
@Corner Stone: My respect for you has just shot through the roof. Damn fine job of parenting there. Your child has that exactly right.
ET
Now Rump has been blabbing to Duerte about subs off the Korean peninsula???
JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN REVEAL AND DECLASSIFY DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD!!!!!!!!
Jebus.
Brachiator
@JPL:
Smart kid. Already smarter than Trump.
Eric U.
Apparently women dress in black with head cover at the Vatican. Michelle Obama did, and they were scrupulous about things like that. Merkel didn’t wear all black and didn’t wear a scarf, but she’s a head of state
Jeffro
@amk:
It’s possible that Trumpov is a mutant whose power is to radiate misery waves (in addition to being able to turn things to shit by his touch)
ET
I know that there is an official dress code for the Vatican that I knew applied to tourists and I suspected there was one for official visits but I saw this that explains a bit.
Gin & Tonic
@PaulWartenberg:
My son-in-law was a junior officer on a USN nuclear submarine. When they were on deployment and he had the occasional chance to e-mail my daughter, if he revealed anything about their location he’d have been court-martialed.
hovercraft
Pope Asks First Lady What She’s Feeding Trump, Confusion Ensues
Thanks to the Pope and the U.S. first lady, a traditional Slovenian dish is hitting the headlines.
As Melania Trump approached and shook hands with Pope Francis on Wednesday, Pope asked in Spanish through his interpreter pointing toward Trump: “What do you give him to eat? Potica?”
She looked puzzled at first. “Potica, ah yes,” the Slovenian-born first lady smiled before stepping aside.
Potica (pronounced paw-tee’-tzah) is a typical highly nutritious Slovenian festive strudel with nut, poppy seed, cottage cheese, hazelnut, chocolate, tarragon, leek or honey fillings.
I don’t think the message to keep things short and sweet, got to the Vatican, or even the message that they don’t actually live together or I bet eat together ever. The poor Pope trying to make small talk with theses ghouls.
Librarian
@Eric U.: No, she’s the head of government. The president of Germany is the head of state.
Jeffro
@MattF:
Sheer disbelief that 90% of her party could have enabled this clown’s rise to power? It would help if she would own some of her own culpability in making the GOP mindless over the years, but at least she’s aware of the threat here & now, and sees the Republicans’ astonishingly craven support for Trumpov for what it is.
aimai
@Jeffro: I saw that too–its astonishing.
Jeffro
On a happier, non-political note: the weirdest star in the sky is acting up again!
Dyson spheres! Alien civilizations! Who doesn’t get a thrill about stuff like that??
Corner Stone
@MattF: Heh. Unfortunately the “reader gene” he inherited from me has not turned to Full On just yet. He prefers to recreate science experiments and do math problems, so I can’t complain too much. Except I have to screen his science because he gets “inspired” by things on YouTube a little too often.
“Dad, I’m going to be using all the rubbing alcohol we have left. Oh, and do we have a fluorescent light bulb anywhere?”
“Ummmmm….”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: @MattF: most surprising thing to me is that she mentions climate change
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
While Asparagus and pajama boy are extreme examples of the species, find me one Texas GOP congresscritter, (includes senators) who does not look like a moron or at best an asshole whose face you want to smash in.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
I thought the Pope was calling Trump really fat.
MattF
@PaulWartenberg: It’s no surprise that there are US subs near NK. But someone really should look Trump in the eye and say “THE LOCATION OF US SUBMARINES IS A SECRET”. And I guess there’s no need to use the word ‘dumbass’.
hovercraft
Hey Alain if you are out there, the site is really sluggish, I’m having flashbacks to the good old dial up days ;(
Alain the site fixer
@Miss Bianca: I think it was Eleven Mile, but Blue Mesa would be second bet, but not just an hour from my old home! I miss being able to drive on a whim to such places to fish, perhaps spend the night, and then head back home, shower, and log into work.
Alain the site fixer
@hovercraft: The backup is still running I would expect, but I’ve done nothing to the site today. I’m stuck on other things.
amk
#maga indeed.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
Nuh uh, his doctor said he wasn’t fat! Who would ever doubt the word of this fine man?
ruemara
@rikyrah: “Trump seems popular abroad”? I’m not saying the rest of what he wrote isn’t correct, but this seems stupid. He’s not popular. He’s mocked and despised and only desired by his own craven despotic kind, and that’s because he’s the stupidest one.
@ET: He’s going to get even more military people killed.
hovercraft
@Alain the site fixer:
Thanks for the response, I’ll soldier on. The sacrifices I make ; )
amk
LMAO.
Barbara
@rikyrah: I posted this below but I think the thread is over, but after looking at Mulvaney’s utterly heartless comments and reading a NYT article on the Quist election, I was struck by an idea that keeps popping up among some voters that billionaires are not “beholden” to anyone and so will exercise their power independently. Trump clearly benefited from this meme. I was trying to think of a suitable response, and here is what I came up with, so far: Billionaires are not beholden to other people but they are beholden to a system that reinforces their wealth and influence, by cutting their taxes and along with, cutting the things that might benefit you, like education or health care or even infrastructure, and by appointing judges who make rulings along the lines of money equaling speech. The fallacy is that not being beholden to other people automatically means that they are inclined to help people who are not billionaires. I would think that the Trump budget is Exhibit A of how misguided that proposition is. A billionaire wants to benefit himself and the only way to do that is to do things that benefit other billionaires as well and the only way to do that is to do things that screw over ordinary people.
Amir Khalid
@Eric U.:
Sorry, but that’s incorrect. Bundeskanzlerin (Chancellor) Angela Merkel is Germany’s head of government. Germany’s head of state is Bundespräsident (Federal President) Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Kay
Credit where credit is due! They got one elected.
They should do more of this and less of worrying about the DNC. The DNC isn’t stopping anyone from winning anything.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: You can’t. It defies the laws of physics. On the D side I think both Beto O’Rourke and Joaquin Castro are decent looking men in their own way.
Neither of them are JFK, Jr. apparently, but I mean who is?
hovercraft
@ET:
Then dammit what’s the point of having all these secrets and not being able to dribble them as I see fit in order to impress other world leaders ?!?!
First they tell me that I can’t launch any nuclear weapons on people who piss me off and insult me, now I can’t tell anybody all this cool super secret stuff they have to tell me!!!
This is no fun, I want to go home, I want my TIVO and my own bed : (
Barbara
@Jeffro: Rubin is a neo-con who is probably also an economic conservative, with little allegiance to the evangelical culture warriors of the Republican Party. But really, I think she knows anti-semitism when she sees it, and to her credit, its echo or re-invention against other groups as well as Jews. It scared her, and again to her credit, she simply refused to go along to get along for the sake of convenience. Her and Ana Navarro and others as well.
Gin & Tonic
@hovercraft:
I’m so old I can remember when *you* were suggesting *my* posts were “foul-tempered.”
hovercraft
By the time this nightmare ends, we’ll be lucky if half the country is not just a mas of drooling ignorance blaming democrats for bankrupting the nation.
Infowars Gets White House Press Credentials, Celebrates By Slandering Murdered Children
So this is what White House Correspondent Jerome Corsi, yes that Corsi, and his boss will be feeding to the mouth breathers, to try to distract from the slow pile-up happening in this administration. Actually not that slow, it’s only been FSM help me four fucking months, it feels like four loong years.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Exactly. Candidates win elections when they persuade voters to vote for them. No Senators from New England are on the ballot in MT, I doubt very many people in GA-06 are going to vote based on Perez vs Ellison.
I think political junkies are, in a way, poorly equipped to judge candidates and how voters will react to them. I know I keep having to learn all over again that relatively few people vote on issues, especially the ones that affect them the most– look at all the anecdata about people voting against their own health insurance because of abortion. I think if either Quist or Ossoff were veterans, they’d be winning comfortably at this point, despite the fact that they would have little to say about military policy as one of 435.
ETA: wow, NPR just reported the trump-Francis meeting as “awkward” at the beginning, and I think the Pope as “scowling” when he met trump.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@D58826: If you visit the Pope, the Vatican’s protocol rules apply. If he visits you, it’s your rules. The blue dress picture is from a visit to the US.
In googling pictures of Obama with the Pope, I noticed that even Ratzinger looked happy to see the Obamas. Says a lot about their charm and graciousness.
Barbara
@hovercraft: That’s so funny. These “enriched breads” as they are called are found in Slovenia and other Slavic countries, like Slovakia where my grandmother was born. There are slight differences from country to country. They were one of the highlights of my childhood and no doubt the Pope has eaten many slices when visiting churches in these countries. When I find the authentic thing in the U.S. I automatically ask the purveyor where in the Eastern Europe they are from.
D58826
@Roger Moore: I lost the link on this but it was from a new yorker article late in march.
Just after all of this went down the House Intel committee chair Dunce cancelled the hearing. Obviously she testified later before the Senate. The coverup/obstruction is in full swing
gene108
@Brachiator:
Morzer asked how do you justify Trump’s swindling versus taxation.
I gave an answer, which summarizes arguments I’ve heard repeatedly from right-wingers.
@Miss Bianca:
If only that line of thought were limited to liberatrians. I bet you can get the same response from fundies, Wall Street types, and any other sort of conservative.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
I’d take either one of them, and bonus points for them, they actually sound like they know what their talking about when they open their mouths, Yes I know people say Rafael Cruz is smart, but just in they way a smarmy used car salesman sounds smart.
@Gin & Tonic:
HA! That I believe was just yesterday, and if you go back further you will find me proudly announcing that I am a bitch and sometimes bitter, so if that’s your cup of tea, come sit next to me ; )
Jim, Foolish Literalist
to be fair, whom amongst us…?
SatanicPanic
@Kay: Yup, I made this point yesterday. If they win, great! More power to them. I only object to the all-talk internet idiots.
D58826
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): thought that might be the case when I saw the photo of Michelle.
We all have been having a good time with Melania and the sour puss but there really are serious issues that we should be worried about.
hovercraft
Counterterrorism Expert: ‘Trey Gowdy Should Have His Ass Kicked’
Poor Trey, this is the second time he’s been put out there to slay the dragon and has been mauled, perhaps it’s time for a new dragon slayer?
Aleta
From Wapo (edited)
———-
When Seth Rich’s Gmail account received an alert this week from Mega.com, attempting to start a new account on a website created by the New Zealand-based Internet businessman and convicted hacker Kim Dotcom, his family knew that something was off. According to experts and Rich’s family, the emailed invitation from w#elcome#mega#nz appeared to be an attempt to gain access to Rich’s email. Joel Rich, who maintains his late son’s Gmail account, did not click the link.
Meanwhile, Dotcom was promising on Twitter to prove that the younger Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks — and Fox News host Sean Hannity was telling his 2.37 million Twitter followers to be ready for a revelation.
Hannity had invited Dotcom to appear on his show for what he said on Twitter would be a “#GameChanger” interview. The implication: that Dotcom would finally offer evidence of his claim that Rich had sent internal DNC documents to WikiLeaks before his death.
All that began to unravel Tuesday afternoon, when Fox News retracted a story that had claimed the same Rich-WikiLeaks connection.
“It looks like someone set up a fake Gmail account, then used that Gmail account to create the Mega account,” said James Lewis, cybersecurity expert and a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This part is pretty standard. Mega then checks with Gmail to see if the account exists, which is Mega’s somewhat cheesy way of authenticating identity. You then get to set up the Mega account. It’s a system designed to enable pseudonyms and fake identities.”
The episode also demonstrated how fake news can be flung from fringe media to the mainstream. A conspiracy theory that began on pro-President Trump message boards — a theory that Rich was actually a mole who wanted to expose corruption at the DNC — was fed by Russian news outlets including RT and Sputnik. The Daily Mail, Fox News’s website and a number of other mainstream outlets with large audiences churned through false information and leading questions, sowing confusion that Rich’s family struggled to combat.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday said on “Fox and Friends” that the story was worth investigating, a sentiment he repeated in a short interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday. “I don’t know anything about it,” Gingrich said. “I know exactly what has been said on the various blog sites . . . I think it is worth looking at.”
On May 16, Dotcom mentioned Rich for the first time, after a follower asked what he thought of the conspiracy theory that Rich was tied to the release of thousands of internal DNC documents.
On May 19, Dotcom asked for Google to release the contents of Rich’s Gmail account, as well as two accounts that online sleuths had claimed belonged to him. Later that day, Dotcom said that he was willing to “give written testimony with evidence” that Rich had passed the DNC documents to WikiLeaks.
Hannity had devoted several segments of his radio and TV show to the conspiracy theory. Dotcom then claimed that he would be able to reveal what he knew after talking to lawyers. But Tuesday on his website (Dotcom) claimed only to know that “Seth Rich was involved” in the DNC hack, and that he would give his full statement after a “guarantee from Special Counsel [Robert S.] Mueller, on behalf of the United States, of safe passage from New Zealand to the United States and back.”
“I know this because in late 2014 a person contacted me about helping me to start a branch of the Internet Party in the United States,” Dotcom said. “He called himself Panda. I now know that Panda was Seth Rich.”
WikiLeaks’s Julian Assange had persistently fed rumors of a connection with Rich without providing evidence. He has offered a $20,000 reward for information about Rich’s killer, and he has used an interview with Dutch television, an interview with Hannity and several tweets to suggest that Rich’s case showed why WikiLeaks sources tread carefully. He has never explicitly said whether Rich was a source.
Roger Stone, a Trump ally who according to NBC News is cooperating with an investigation into whether the 2016 Trump campaign coordinated with Russian contacts, said this week that Rich had clearly given the DNC documents to a third-party source “in a floppy disk form.” But the source, a British ex-diplomat, had told Russia’s Sputnik news outlet that he had heard about the hack secondhand — then told the Daily Mail he had gotten documents in September, months after Rich’s death.
According to Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Center For Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University, none of the “inside man” scenarios make sense. The FBI, he noted, had come to the DNC to report a data breach months before anything was published by WikiLeaks.
The collapse of the story came only after a number of conservative voices drew attention to it. On Monday, Rush Limbaugh told listeners that Dotcom was “renowned” and “world famous,” with a story to tell. “This story is now starting to get legs, that Seth Rich was murdered, it was a contract hire killing because he was leaking to WikiLeaks,” Limbaugh said.
On Tuesday, Hannity told his radio listeners that he would keep fighting to disprove “this Russia collusion narrative” and be proven right. “I will do the mainstream media’s job like I have for most of my career,” Hannity said. “All you in the liberal media, I am not Fox.com or FoxNews.com. I retracted nothing.”
———-
Brachiator
@gene108:
Fair enough. I appreciate the clarification.
Tom
From TPM: Reports: Trump Told Duterte US Has Two Nuclear Subs Near Korean Peninsula. One comment, one question. The comment: I think we’ve found the source of the leaking of the classified information. One question: Can we impeach him NOW???
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well how many people go out and lie, cheat, beg for a job that has you on call 24/7 with no real down time, a job where you a person who only wants certain aspects of your life open to scrutiny, knows that every aspect of every minute of every day will be under a microscope, where you are constantly being criticized by friends and foes, and yet you are the most thin skinned venal person who ever lived, yes whom amongst us would beg for that job and then just wish for some quiet time with your TIVO flipping through the channels as they praise you?
mai naem mobile
@Aleta: it’s just a Vince Foster redux. I wish the left would pull something similar on Chris Hume. Maybe Brit Hume getting upset would knock some sense into the RW’s rotten brains
Brachiator
@ET:
Repeal and Replace. Reveal and Declassify.
Can’t wait until we get to “Impeach, Convict and Remove”
catclub
@Jeffro: I thought a lot of that would go away with Ailes leaving. Not so. Fox now seems as bad or worse.
SiubhanDuinne
@mai naem mobile:
I think you mean Sandy Hume. I hope nobody on the left goes there. Using the suicide of a child to upset his parent is vile, and completely beneath what we say we stand for.
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
Seen on Twitter earlier today: “How many generations of cousins marrying cousins did it take to produce Trey Gowdy?”
LOL
Consensus seems to be that the name ‘Trey’ is a tell, right there…
ruemara
@Kay: She was a Sanders delegate. But she won her seat with the establishment local Dems and the teachers Union, without Our Revolution or Sanders. I will not credit that old egomaniac for the achievements of others.
Jeffro
@catclub: Worse. They can only keep talking to their base in its bubble at this point, they’re ‘all in’ with Trump now. “Bubblespeak”, as it were.
Over the next year, as folks emerge from The Bubble, we’re going to be having some weird conversations. It’ll be like talking with North Korean defectors, or with the residents of M Night’s Shyamalan’s “The Village”.
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
I think it’s only inside the Vatican. When the Pope visited Washington DC and the Obama family met him at the airport, Michelle wore turquoise and the girls also wore colorful dresses.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: btw, I am *so* stealing the term “Trump lap-weasel”. LOL!
Miss Bianca
@Alain the site fixer: When you comin’ back, Red Ryder? And since you got one of those super-cool techie jobs, I’m guessing, can’t you just tele-commute? (yeah, I know, I know, tech support for BJ don’t pay you nothing but a hil of beans and a whole lot of love, but still…)
@Gin & Tonic: “Thus conscience doth make cowards – er, bullies – of us all…”