Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

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

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

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

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Come on, man.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: We Must Each Do What We Can

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: We Must Each Do What We Can

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Update from commentor Dalai Rasta:

Bella’s finally regained much of her usual energy, and started waking me up in the mornings again about halfway through the month. She hasn’t had a single seizure – that I’m aware of – since she started taking her phenobarbital.

I just want to thank everyone so much for helping Bella. Being able to look after her needs has been a bright spot in a dark and scary month. My father’s condition has been somewhat worse, and I had more seizures than normal. The news coming from D.C. has generally been terrifying, and we’re all wondering whether our situation won’t spiral even further out of control, whether I’ll lose my Medicaid and SSI, or whether my parents will get slammed by Medicare cuts, or the insurance we still carry from his old workplace will still be there for us a few months from now. Worst of all, though, is knowing that some of our own relatives helped to put us in this state of fear.

I thank God for all of you at Balloon Juice, and wish I had some more encouraging things to say. I do have cat pictures, though, which is not nothing.

It is, indeed, not nothing — thank *you*, sir, and Bella, for something to cheer up the start of a foreshortened and no doubt busy work week!

Apart from being amazed at the physics of napping feline relaxation, what’s on the agenda as we buckle down for the day?

Reader Interactions

148Comments

  3. 3.

    Morzer

    As for plans, I am going to spend some time reading Thomas Mann (auf Deutsch!). I have a feeling he might be quite a good guide to this messed-up world of ours.

  4. 4.

    geg6

    Bella looks so sweet! I take more comfort from my pups more than ever these days. Pets are great for that.

  5. 5.

    Morzer

    angrystaffofficer.com/2017/05/29/how-i-lost-at-patriotism-and-how-we-all-lose/

    The next speaker then walked up to the podium: a Vietnam veteran who had served in the Marine Corps. This was made abundantly clear by the dress blues he was wearing – as well as his high and tight haircut and R. Lee Ermey style of speaking. With white-gloved knife hands, he pointed to the red stripe on his trousers and barked, “Red. The color of blood. The blood of patriots. Because to be a patriot is to shed blood. And only those who have shed blood, as I have, know what true patriotism is. And the blood that is shed is sacred. This country is sacred. This is the greatest nation in the world and I will not hear a word against it.”

    Patriotism. What is it? Is it, as the veteran said, the purview of only those who have sacrificed their blood on the battlefield? Or is it something more, something far more egalitarian?

    Read the whole thing and think what the likely outcome is of a patriotism based on shed blood and an utter absence of critical thought about the nature and situation of one’s country. I think the US is closer to finding out than any of us wish to believe.

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The Illinois Legislature has overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to automatically register qualified voters.

    Meanwhile, here in Misery, the cabal is doing everything it can to make it harder for certain people to vote.

    As for what’s on the agenda, SSDD.

    ETA

  10. 10.

    satby

    Thank you AL and Dalai Rasta for the Bella update and pictures! It’s so good to hear that we jackals were able to help. We’re all a bit terrified.

  11. 11.

    Elizabelle

    Good to hear that Miss Bella is on the mend.

    We can fight them, hard, on “improving healthcare.” We will keep you and your family, Dalai Rasta, in mind as we do so.

  14. 14.

    Alce_e_ardilla

    @Morzer: What pray tell, will you be slogging through? I read his novella, Tonio Kröger, auf Deutsch.as a senior in HSBC and it was a bear, a delightful bear, but a bear non the. less

  17. 17.

    Morzer

    @Alce_e_ardilla:

    I am thinking of Der Zauberberg. Tonio Kröger and Der Tod in Venedig are my depth novellas if the Mountain doesn’t make it through OTAs.

  18. 18.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    John Harwood‏ @JohnJHarwood 19m19 minutes ago

    CNN: in intercepted communications, Russians signaled they could “influence (Trump) through derogatory information”

    16 replies 157 retweets 157 likes

    pee pee tape

  20. 20.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    CNN Affiliate: Trump pee tape leaks (link)

    It was only a matter of time – they couldn’t keep it in forever.

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Looks like the much-rumoured staff shakeups at the WH have started. CNN headline alert says Communications Director Dubke has resigned.

  30. 30.

    bystander

    @Morzer: The rats have started queueing up at the gangplank for an orderly transition.

    The only Mann I ever read in German was Death in Venice. I never even tried the Mountain.

    OTOH, I’ve tried for the past 40 years to read Remembrance of Things Past. I invariably fall fast asleep about 3 pages in, so I kept Volume 1 on the nightstand as my go-to soporific. But now there is a graphic novel version that does keep my attention. Comic books for the comic book brain.

  31. 31.

    Lapassionara

    Good morning, Juicers. Anyone going to the March for Truth in St Louis this coming Saturday? Not sure why it is so named. I can’t help but think of “when the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies. . ..”

  32. 32.

    JPL

    IMO, even if the golden shower tape was released from Putin’s secret vault, Trump’s supporters would not care.
    Trump is tweeting again, and Germany is bad, but Russia is showing strength.

  34. 34.

    Morzer

    @bystander:

    “So, every time I eat a cookie, and not many people know this but I have the best, smartest cookies, I think about stuff. Bigly. Important stuff. Yuuge, classy stuff.”

    Remembrance of Things Past (The Trump Notes edition).

  35. 35.

    montanareddog

    @Morzer:

    Looks like the bad news just keeps on dribbling out, no matter how hard Trump tries to stop and shake it off.

    as he ages, he is finding it more and more difficult to locate the source of the leak

  37. 37.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: At some point, maybe a decade from now, lawyers will be able to compare voting rates in auto registration states with those in suppression states and build a good section 2 challenge. Ok. Maybe 20 years.

  38. 38.

    Karen S.

    I spent some time yesterday with an old friend I hadn’t seen in several years. I met her through my dad who mentored her when she was a college student majoring in chemistry. My dad’s also a chemist, and they’ve remained friends. She has become my friend, too. Anyway, she lives in Maryland now and works in the National Weather Service. I asked her if anything had changed yet at the NWS under Trump and his gang. She replied, “No, because they’re so incompetent.” Incompetence or the Trumpers just aren’t particularly interested in the National Weather Service yet.

  39. 39.

    Morzer

    @JPL:

    I think we should regard the thoughts of Trump’s base as irrelevant to future calculations. They mostly aren’t going to desert their squamous, batrachian messiah. We should try to tap into the huge pool of people who don’t normally vote as well as mobilizing people who want to vote but can’t get the right ID for whatever reason. Find the money for a Friends of Democracy program to get them IDs and help get them to the polls and watch them take great pleasure in voting against the party that tried to take their rights away.

  40. 40.

    Morzer

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    ‘Tis but piddling badinage, I fear. But many a piddle makes a puddle and what will a little green fascist frog do then, poor thing?

  42. 42.

    Immanentize

    @Morzer: Mann is great, but can I recommend Austerlitz by Sebold for a really clear sad deep novel about the modern world?

  45. 45.

    debbie

    @Morzer:

    I loved Mann, especially Magic Mountain, but it was Hesse I wanted to read in German. I found a German edition of Magister Ludi in the library at Dartmouth, but only one look at the text told me I’d never get the hang of it.

  49. 49.

    montanareddog

    @Immanentize: Sebald not Sebold. Great, great novel – though I read it in English, my German not being good enough any more.

  50. 50.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Baud: LOL!! I wish I were then maybe I wouldn’t be so horrified at all the damage Trump is doing to this country.

  53. 53.

    Immanentize

    @montanareddog: sorry for the spelling. I saw it but on my phone about 50% of the time the edit function doesn’t work. I read Austerlitz in English, but my friend who recommended it read it in German and was blown away by the language. It’s great in English too!

  54. 54.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Morzer: Who? I won’t consider this to be a shakeup unless and until the big dogs are removed and replaced with even worse people.

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @Karen S.:

    “No, because they’re so incompetent.”

    That’s important, that they not get any legislation thru. I love that Jared didn’t want anything to do with “the legislature”. Too hard! So complicated!

    Trump is yelling at “Germany” this morning. They will STOP all this… exporting! He just met with these people. Apparently the plan is to yell at them after the meeting, from very far away.

  56. 56.

    Morzer

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Apparently he just decided to go, no explanation given. I’d guess this is because he doesn’t like dealing with the abusive orange chaos machine.

  57. 57.

    Morzer

    @Kay:

    Trump apparently hasn’t realized that Germany makes the cars it sells to the US – in the US! Sometimes I really do suspect that he’s not much of a businessman….

  59. 59.

    montanareddog

    @Immanentize: I just checked Wikipedia and he did not do the translation himself (he was a Prof at an English university so presumably had a good command of English). So, kudos to the translator, Anthea Bell, who did a brilliant job.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    Trump’s weird brainwashed spokepeople can say all they want their trip was a big success but if it had been a big success the giant toddler wouldn’t be pissed off and yelling at Germany.

  62. 62.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Morzer: Not only does it make them in the US, it makes them in the most Trumpian of states. I’d bet the workers at those plants swung 5-1 or more for Trump.

  63. 63.

    Immanentize

    @montanareddog: ok. I had some other books lined up for the summer (including the Confessions of Felix Krull) but I think I will re-read Austerlitz.

  64. 64.

    Karen S.

    @Kay:
    Trump’s childishness is breathtaking, but then that quality is a reflection of a many of his supporters who believe that Trump’s “America First” chest thumping/bellowing is a sign of leadership.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Morzer:

    Well, he said after the trip that he made all kinds of progress on trade- the huge “deals” we were promised by the master deal maker. Running home and then sniping at them on Twitter doesn’t feel very “successful” to me, not like a person who just returned from a trip where he came out the winner.

  68. 68.

    Kay

    @Karen S.:

    At some point he has to actually get something done. Trade, for example. Making automobiles is complicated- it’s genuinely complex. It’s an international supply chain. There are lots of moving parts all over the world. There’s no other mass consumer product/ purchase that’s quite like it. Huge regulatory schemes that differ depending on the country manufacturing- a complex, expensive machine that has to be safe and also idiot-proof because it isn’t an airplane- any idiot has to be able to operate it and also afford it. People spend their whole careers learning that business. It isn’t something a real estate heir can dabble in.

  70. 70.

    Morzer

    @Kay:

    I am absolutely sure he got nothing whatever on the trade front. If he had, he’d have been vomiting up what few specifics his limited mind can hold. Trump and his crew are the lazy shift on amateur hour. They don’t know how to do anything and they’ve made it clear that professionals are neither needed nor wanted. They obviously don’t have any plan beyond making life miserable for anyone who isn’t in the pasty-white fascist halfwit demographic. It’s all lies, scrambling improvisation that falls apart as soon as their limited attention span is diverted and a campaign of bullying victimhood directed against anyone who points out that they are completely unfit for any public office..

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: trump at his core is a coward. We all know he has already decided to dump the Paris accord but doesn’t have the balls to do it face to face.

  72. 72.

    debbie

    @Immanentize:

    Finally found it on Amazon. Heuet illustrated volumes 1 and 3, but some other guy did the second volume. Weirdly, my library only has the first and third parts.

  79. 79.

    Karen S.

    @Kay:
    Who knew how complex automobile manufacturing could be? Since he and his gang know so little and despise anyone who’s competent and has expertise, as someone else on this thread already mentioned, they’ll just end up wrecking things.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @Morzer:

    He doesn’t understand any of it. Germany makes the machines that make machines. That’s the huge value-add.

    My son was a mechanic at a plant that makes 2 liter Coke bottles. He wasn’t making bottles. There’s a machine system that does that. The skill is fixing the machine that makes the bottles. Making that machine system is even better.

    Coke bottles are made on a machine system that is imported from France. It’s theirs. They bring the whole works over and then they train US mechanics and “operators”- operators are the lowest level. Anytime you’re talking about some mechanized manufacturing process someone makes that system. It’s a tangible thing- big, expensive machinary. It can’t go down because they lose hundreds of thousands of dollars and hour if it does.

    Germany (and France) invested in this. Their investment paid off. Trump, on the other hand, is cutting funding to skills training. He doesn’t know the first thing about any of this. It’s some romanticized abstraction to him- men swinging hammers or some shit. It’s not like that at all.

  81. 81.

    Miss Bianca

    @Morzer: So, a Mann go, then? (’tis a poor, pitiful, vile clench, I own, but the best I can do in my pre-caffeinated state). Alles Gute!

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    @JPL:

    IMO, even if the golden shower tape was released from Putin’s secret vault, Trump’s supporters would not care.
    Trump is tweeting again, and Germany is bad, but Russia is showing strength.

    And it’s not just his uneducated supporters…even supposedly sharp people are twisting themselves into knots trying to explain Mr. Two-Opposite-Things-At-Once. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to nominate Mr. Stephen F. Cohen for a SayWhutNow? award: here he is being interviewed by Issac Chotiner

    Chotiner: I heard you recently on Fox News. You said that the “assault” on President Trump “was the No. 1 threat to the United States today.” What did you mean by that?

    Cohen: Threat. OK. Threat. That’s a good word. We’re in a moment when we need an American president and a Kremlin leader to act at the highest level of statesmanship. Whether they meet in summit or not is not of great importance, but we need intense negotiations to tamp down this new Cold War, particularly in Syria, but not only. Trump is being crippled by these charges, for which I can find no facts whatsoever.

    Chotiner: Wait, which charges are we talking about?

    Cohen: That he is somehow in the thrall or complicity or control, under the influence of the Kremlin.

    Chotiner: I think it would help if he would admit what his own intelligence agencies are telling him, that Russia played some role in …

    Cohen: No, I don’t accept that. I don’t accept that at all, not for one minute.

    Chotiner: People in the Trump administration admit this too.

    Cohen: Well they’re not the brightest lights.

    Chotiner: And the president is?

    Cohen: No. You didn’t ask me that. You asked me, you said, some of the president’s people. You’re referring to that intel report of January, correct? The one that was produced that said Putin directed the attack on the DNC?

    Chotiner: I was referring to that and many news accounts that Russia was behind the hacking, yes.

    Cohen: The news accounts are of no value to us. I mean you and I both know …

    Chotiner: No value? None?

    Cohen: No. No value. Not on face value. Just because the New York Times says that I don’t know, Carter Page or [Paul] Manafort or [Michael] Flynn did something wrong, I don’t accept that. I need to see the evidence.

  83. 83.

    Shalimar

    @Morzer: Too bad Kushner wasn’t one of the desperate patients stuck in an ambulance in traffic during the bridge closure. Asshole.

  84. 84.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jeffro: So, Stephen Cohen is sounding just like my Tea-Partier acquaintances, insisting that they have to be presented with “facts” and “evidence” and then, when they are presented with facts and evidence, hand-waving it away by insisting that the facts aren’t in fact facts, and the evidence isn’t “conclusive”. Extreme Right, meet Extreme Left. Now excuse me if I duck out before the circle-jerk begins….

  86. 86.

    debit

    Late to the post, but just wanted to say that I’m so glad Bella is doing better.

  88. 88.

    Miss Bianca

    @schrodingers_cat: It’s a shame, I actually used to subscribe to “The Nation” at one point. Now because of him and his wife, I wouldn’t use it to wipe my ass with.

  89. 89.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Jeffro: Cohen is the idiot jumping off a tall building because he doesn’t believe in the law of gravity. Please proceed, Mr. Cohen.

  91. 91.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    Great! Let’s have an investigation. Donald Trump was the least-vetted Presidential candidate of the modern era. We learned nothing about him other than personality traits – that he’s an asshole. We know “the person” now. He’s a loudmouth know-nothing who treats everyone like shit and rewards people who stroke him over people who are competent. Got it. Now to the good stuff. The evidence.

    I want an investigation with evidence. It’s too goddamned late but better late than never.

    I don’t know the first thing about Jared Kushner and neither does 99% of the rest of the country. I’m sick and tired of hearing about all this bullshit- his inner thoughts and motivations. Let’s see some documents- some phone records, some bank records, financial transactions. Let’s see what every other other high level US policy maker had to provide.

    I want to see records on this whole collection of misfits and weirdos and sleazy people – bring it on.

  92. 92.

    Jeffro

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    Cohen is the idiot jumping off a tall building because he doesn’t believe in the law of gravity. Please proceed, Mr. Cohen.

    I have to admit, I’ve never seen gravity myself. I mean things fall, but that’s not “evidence”.

    I love how Coehn justifies his embrace of Trump and Putin by saying that they’re both in power, and therefore we need them working together on Syria. Um, no we don’t. It’s far greater priority for the U.S., and the world, that both men be ousted or at least rendered as impotent as possible.

  93. 93.

    tobie

    @Morzer: Try reading Robert Walser’s Jakob von Gunten auf deutsch. It’s a gem of a book, serene on the surface and weird, if not downright kinky, underneath. And it’s short and the vocabulary is fairly simple, so it’s great for brushing up on your German.

  95. 95.

    bystander

    @debbie: Proust.

    In NYC the French consulate runs a bookshop called Albertine that carries a lot of Proust, including the graphic abridged (very) version. I noticed the other day they had a book of portraits by Nadar of the real people Proust purportedly based his characters on. Anybody who enjoys a good bookstore or French literature (translated or au naturel) should drop by Albertine when in NYC. Beautiful old townhouse with a couple of the original residence’s rooms preserved from its beaux arts days.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    We’ve somehow been duped into believing that it’s okay and acceptable that Kushner “doesn’t speak publicly”.

    He is for some reason offered this special treatment, where he can simply decline to speak while running the country.

    What goddamned nerve. Every other pol and policy maker has to defend their decisions and take questions except The Prince, who remains a mystery. Enough. Enough special treatment. The campaign is over.

  98. 98.

    hovercraft

    WaPo: Jared Kushner Gets His Own Intelligence Briefings

    White House senior adviser and son-in-law to the President Jared Kushner receives a separate intelligence briefing from President Donald Trump, earlier in the morning than when Trump sits for his briefing, the Washington Post reported Monday night, citing two unnamed White House officials.

    Kushner often joins Trump for his intelligence briefing as well, according to the Washington Post. Trump in November had reportedly said that he wanted Kushner to have access to the presidential intelligence briefings.

  100. 100.

    Jeffro

    @Kay:

    I don’t know the first thing about Jared Kushner and neither does 99% of the rest of the country.

    Actually, now we know that he gets his own. private. intelligence. briefings. Ye gods, can y’all imagine if Chelsea Clinton’s husband was getting privately briefed on classified material, the better to later guide Hillary through her own briefings (which were mostly pictures and bullet-pointed lists?!?)

    Fox News Headline #1: “Madame Moron President? Why can’t Hillary read a briefing book?”

    Fox News Headline #2: “Un-elected Shadow Prez? Who made Marc Mezvinsky the secret dictator of America?”

    It’s so far past having double-standards, it needs its own term. Quadruple standards? (actually, it’s just having NO standards)

    ETA: h/t hovercraft at #98…great minds thinking alike/reading the same articles ;)

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    Jared Kushner can’t speak for himself? Why not? WTF with all these “sources said”. Why is he exempted from saying something he can be held to?

    Everyone would do this if they could. “Oh, I don’t speak PUBLICLY. That’s too risky for me”.

    When does the mysterious Prince utter words? The world awaits his pronouncement.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    We know his family immediately sought to cash in on Trump. That’s what they revealed publicly. Wouldn’t it be great if we knew something about their business dealings? Wouldn’t it be great if some adult would force Kushner to speak for himself?

  103. 103.

    NotMax

    Newsflash: Wolfman attack in subway.

    Only in the Big Apple?

    A New York City subway performer says he was injured after an attack by a subway dance group that was angry they didn’t receive tips for a dance routine.

    Jean Loup Wolfman says he tried to calm down the dancers after they started threatening an elderly couple at the Union Square subway station on Monday. But his attempt to intervene led to the three unidentified dancers chasing him around the station, catching him and beating Wolfman with a hula hoop he was carrying for subway performances. Source

    ————

    Shall leave this for schrodingers_cat to comment upon.

    India tightens meat industry laws amid fierce protests

    (Other than the jaw-dropping tidbit that one can receive a life sentence for killing a cow.)

  104. 104.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Jeffro: Prof Stephen Cohen needs to die in a fire. He has been carrying water for the USSR/RF for nearly a half-century now.

  105. 105.

    eclare

    @Kay: John Oliver had a bit on how no one has any idea what he sounds like when (if?) he speaks.

  107. 107.

    NotMax

    @JPL

    If you’re talking about the U.S., I believe the honorific of oldest continuously published magazine goes to Scientific American.

  109. 109.

    Shalimar

    @hovercraft: So President Kushner gets the real intelligence brief, and Commander of the Universe Trump receives the crayola version later in the morning. Got it. The whole place is a clusterorgy.

  110. 110.

    hovercraft

    @Jeffro:

    I love how Coehn justifies his embrace of Trump and Putin by saying that they’re both in power, and therefore we need them working together on Syria. Um, no we don’t.

    Funny that, it must be a new philosophy:

    As Julia Ioffe pointed out: Putin’s American Toady at ‘The Nation’ Gets Even Toadier

    May 1, 2014

    If there’s a popular consensus out there, you can be sure that Stephen F. Cohen is going to disagree with it, because that’s the kind of original thinker Stephen F. Cohen is. In fact, he’s so original, he’ll even disagree with a consensus that doesn’t exist, as he does in his most recent column, penned with his wife and employer, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor-in-chief of The Nation. In it, Cohen alleges that Barack Obama has unilaterally declared a new Cold War against Russia, and that the entire monolithic crowd girded by the Washington Beltway has been utterly, silently complicit.

    I guess that Obama wasn’t really in power or something?

  111. 111.

    Jeffro

    @eclare:

    John Oliver had a bit on how no one has any idea what he sounds like when (if?) he speaks.

    Hopefully something like that “sassy” version of Trumpov. Please, FSM.

  112. 112.

    gene108

    @Morzer:

    I am sure this Marine Vietnam vet was very, very uncritical of the US government under President Obama and President Clinton. /sarcasm

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @eclare:

    no one has any idea what he sounds like when (if?) he speaks.

    Because he’s a Prince.

    Maggie Haberman‏Verified account @maggieNYT 1m1 minute ago
    More
    The White House has refused to comment on Kushner/secret comms report, while sending Kelly out to say it was fine

    Apparently we may not demand this adult speak for himself. Suspend his security clearance until he gathers his courage and directly addresses the public. This “I’m the silent special snowflake” routine may have worked with his mom but now he’s a big grown up policy maker.

  115. 115.

    NotMax

    @Jeffro

    Don’t care a flying fig what his voice sounds like. Don’t want any 36-year-old placed in total charge of anything of such import. Period.

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @eclare:

    I will laugh so much if we find out he sounds terrible. He and his wife are a carefully curated product. I hope his voice is unfortunate.

  117. 117.

    hovercraft

    @Kay:

    Well he can speak for himself, and apparently does in the WH, but not to the public. For us he wants to maintain an air of mystery, “people say” that he enjoys the fact that no one’s heard his voice and that there’s all the buzz about him, before last week that is. You notice that all of Javankas PR is done by anonymous sources and they have no problem with that?

  118. 118.

    hovercraft

    @Shalimar:
    Morning Joke said that Kushner is like his FIL, he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, which makes him dangerous since he’s the closest advisor.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    Another one of the hundreds of reasons nepotism is bad management is because it’s dispiriting for people who aren’t relatives when they get fired instead of the relative because of fuck ups by the relative.

    Just remember- Jared would be fired if he weren’t the son in law. Instead a whole bunch of other people will be fired, which will make what is already a horrible workplace much worse. We may not need the FBI. Trump is making plenty of disgruntled employees and one or two of them will be vindictive.

  120. 120.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic: The fact that Cohen is adamantly denying that Russia hacked the election with Trump’s complicity is all the proof I need that it happened.

  121. 121.

    NotMax

    @,a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2017/05/30/tuesday-morning-open-thread-we-must-each-do-what-we-can/#comment-6403080″>hovercraft

    The Kush putsch is a-comin’.

    Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of our lives.

  122. 122.

    Shalimar

    @hovercraft: Yes, Kushner does seem to be an ignorant buffoon too. But, at least he listens to a complete intelligence brief every morning rather than the bulletpoint version for the learning-impaired. Yes, the bar is that low now.

  124. 124.

    schrodingers_cat

    @NotMax: The BJP government’s anti-meat laws are stupid and counterproductive. RWNJ always overreach. I hope they are punished for it at the polls. This puritanical vegetarianism will backfire on them in a big way. Most Hindus are very live and let live about their dietary rules.

  128. 128.

    Betty Cracker

    @NotMax: Depends on the 36-year-old. The issue isn’t his age; it’s the utter lack of qualifications.

  129. 129.

    Immanentize

    @schrodingers_cat: I agree Kelly is abominable. His whole schtick that back channels are good for ‘Merica? I was dying for someone to ask him then, whether he was supporting a full pardon for Aldrich Ames….

  130. 130.

    Ladyraxterinok

    Re works by Thomas Mann. What about Buddenbrooks? A book about the rise and fall of a family. IIRC, by third generstion there is weaknees, by the fourth bullies have taken over the firm. Mann is one of the most difficult authors to rea,d in German. There are sentences that run on for a whole page! Ah, the wonders and glories of German grammar.

  131. 131.

    hovercraft

    @schrodingers_cat:
    All of them Katie.
    Seriously which one has stood out for taking a principled stance on anything? Yes we heard that McMaster tried to purge the Flynn people, but when Twitler said no even after assuring him that he’d be able to hire his own people, he didn’t say boo. I hear all the people saying that these former military officers are staying so they can mitigate the damage, but if you do so at the expense of not only your reputation, but worse propping up a dangerous buffoon, then you are just as bad as the rest of the mercenaries who are looting the treasury.
    Kelly, McMaster, and Mathis all witnessed what the rest of the world did, a disastrous trip, and yet they are all telling us not to believe our lying eyes and applaud the dear leader on his great triumph.

  132. 132.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Kay: In this incompetent corrupt regime, I’m not sure if Kushner would be fired if he weren’t Trump’s son-in-law. Sessions admitted to lying about his Russian contacts during his hearing and in several written documents. Yet there is no way that Trump fires Sessions. Trump will probably fire a few low level, behind-the-scenes folks but otherwise leave the Big Dogs in place.

  133. 133.

    schrodingers_cat

    @hovercraft: I never had faith in any of them to begin and was reprimanded and asked whether I was okay for that heresy more than once in the comment section here.

    ETA: Joining this administration shows that you lack judgment of a Trey Gowdy or a Joe Lieberman.

  134. 134.

    hovercraft

    @NotMax:
    He may be a FOX hero, but I suspect that even the Turtle would balk at forcing his members to walk the plank for a criminal, not out of any sense of decency, but out of fear of a backlash.

  138. 138.

    JPL

    House of Cards is gloomy and dark. I’m only on the third episode, and already hoping that this is the last season. I’m ready for Frank to meet the same fate as Urquhart did in the British version.

  139. 139.

    hovercraft

    Looks like someone is getting desperate. They must have explained to him again that Turtle, ZEGS and him can’t just ram things down America’s throat like they were always accusing Obama of doing.

    Donald J. Trump
    ✔
    @realDonaldTrump

    The U.S. Senate should switch to 51 votes, immediately, and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy. Dems would do it, no doubt!
    9:59 AM – 30 May 2017

    4,735 4,735 Retweets
    16,353

    I guess all the talk on cable about how Republicans on the hill are frustrated and scared that nothing is going to get done, the money men are also scared that the Russia shenanigans mean that they won’t get their tax cuts is pissing him off. Trip was a disaster to everyone except the WH, his agenda such as it is, a disaster, being forced to respond to one of his fans being a terrorist, also too:
    Trump’s Approval Rating Drops to New Low of 36%, I know Rasmussen probably has him at 50 or something, but everywhere he turns he’s getting hit, the poor man must be beside himself. I hope someone is making sure that he doesn’t get too closes to the “football”, Kim launched another missile, making him look bad, we’re up to 9 launches since he took office!

  141. 141.

    debbie

    Funny, Trump’s now gone back to tweeting about Jared, citing an unnamed source to support that Jared did not suggest setting up a Russian channel. Earlier today, I listened to Glenn Beck’s sit-in clown dispute the unnamed sources cited by Dems as a condemnation of their Trump Hatred. I thought then of all the unnamed sources used against Obama, but this is another large basket to toss Trump into.

  143. 143.

    Mike in DC

    Covert comms, derogatory financial kompromat, parroting the Putin line on NATO and Syria, meetings with Russian bankers. Nope, nothing to see here. Hoping for heavy turnout at the March this weekend.

  144. 144.

    scav

    @Karen S.: Competence is not necessarily required to do great damage to institutions already under stress: Weather Service Staff Shortages Have Led to Burnout Among Employees

    GAO said that vacancies at NWS increased from 5 percent at the end of fiscal 2010 to 11 percent by the end of fiscal 2016. And between fiscal 2014 and fiscal 2016, the number of vacant meteorologist positions increased by 57 percent, while positions within management dropped 29 percent.

    And that with more proposed cuts in the offing and continued workplace uncertainty guaranteed.

  146. 146.

    Morzer

    @JPL:

    I suspect Trump is trying to force McConnell into passing his healthcare abomination, probably after being told by McConnell that there aren’t the votes for it and he has no intention of committing electoral suicide just so that Trump can claim the credit.

  147. 147.

    Jeffro

    @Mike in DC:

    Covert comms, derogatory financial kompromat, parroting the Putin line on NATO and Syria, meetings with Russian bankers. Nope, nothing to see here. Hoping for heavy turnout at the March this weekend.

    I’m going! Can’t decide on which sign to carry, though: MITCH, THIS IS ON YOU NOW or MAN UP, McCAIN. So many good possibilities…

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