NEW: Comey will testify publicly before the Senate Intelligence Committee as early as next week https://t.co/mWY0WcvAGI
— Axios (@axios) May 31, 2017
So potentially talking about Presidential obstruction of justice….
SCOOP: the head of the fraud section at Justice is joining Bob Mueller's Russia investigation. By @Tschoenberg22 https://t.co/BXiNaBozdf
— Alex Wayne (@aawayne) May 31, 2017
And potentially following the money….
ruemara
My thoughts and prayers go out to the Trump family and administration at this time. Plus this sacrifice of an intern. May the Erinyes find them.
Mike Furlan
It is only obstruction of justice if the Republicans think it is.
There are no financial crimes unless the Republicans this there are.
It is all politics.
LAO
The Weismmann move is big news.
Baud
Now they need to hire someone from Vice and Organized Crime.
LAO
@Baud: That’s where he started. Old press release with his bio.
Fun fact, when he was chief of the criminal division in the EDNY — He asked me “what’s a nice Jewish Girl like you working for mobsters?” I was pissed.
Rob in CT
@Mike Furlan:
It’s good politics for Democrats. 2018 isn’t that far away. Take the House, investigate more. Then take the WH & Senate in 2020, and work to undo the damage.
Or, if you prefer, cower under your bed in the fetal position. Hmm, which is more useful?
clay
CNN is reporting that Comey’s going to testify that Trump pressured him to drop the investigation.
Corner Stone
@LAO: Pissed that you were working for mobsters? Or pissed that he asked you?
Baud
@LAO: I need to talk to a guy about a thing. Can you hook me up?
LAO
@Corner Stone: Pissed he asked. I was young — but really; its a total dickhead thing to say to defense counsel. He’s a total prick, which is exactly what we (the country) want in an investigation like this.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
Mind you, the content of those thoughts are bloody and the wording of those prayers quite painful.
LAO
@Baud: Man, I wish I was still working the organized crime beat — but they’re all in jail or dead.
hovercraft
@ruemara:
Fuck the family, they chose to encourage this bullshit, knowing that he was a pustule of insecurity, ego and rage, that they were foisting onto the world. I’ll lay some sauce before the FSM goddess but that’s it!
I do wonder how much of what he knows he will be able to testify to, does Mueller want him to lat it all out or will they hold more than just the classified stuff back? This testimony will probably be more watched than Hillary’s Benghaaaziiiiiiiiii hearings. I’ll need to make sure that I’m stocked up with snacks, I guess I’ll be very busy chained to my desk that day.
Ghost of Fitzmas past
@Rob in CT: you can keep falling for the hidden ball trick if you want to. I don’t celebrate until the end.
Baud
@LAO:
Or in the White House.
Mike Furlan
@Rob in CT: Not cowering. But just pointing out that “Trump Bad” is not going to work any better in 2018 than it did for Hillary in 2016.
Get used to Trump, we are probably stuck with him for a while.
jl
@hovercraft: The belong to the Erinyes now. You don’t have to worry.
TenguPhule
@Rob in CT:
Now rewind 12 years and your words would fit right in when the Bush regime was in place.
Not saying that it won’t work this time. But some of us got burned badly in 2004 and were brutally disappointed in 2006 when the Democratic leadership let the criminals get away with it.
Don’t count the chickens till you have them grasped tightly in hand.
LAO
@Baud: Trump, with his mouth, wouldn’t of lasted 5 minutes in any of the 5 families. he’s a grifter.
LurkerNoLonger
@Mike Furlan: @Ghost of Fitzmas past: Go away.
Baud
@LAO: I’m glad to see some people still have standards.
hovercraft
@Mike Furlan:
While this is technically true, Twitler’s nepotism will probably be what brings him down. Only the president is immune from prosecution, and since he likes to keep it in the family, whatever shady financial dealings he has will ensnare his spawn, Sessions can try all he wants to slow it down, but FINCen will have the trail, Mnuchin can slow walk all he wants, but guess who holds the keys? The deep state. Spend two years denigrating people who have the power to destroy you? If Mueller gets the spawn, what do you think happens to him, alone without his family around him, do you think Ryan and Yertle will stand by him?
ruemara
@hovercraft: lol. get to know me.
MJS
@Mike Furlan: Are you auditioning?
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
Pardon power.
The fucking elephant in the room. What happens when that power is abused?
ETA: To make it clear, there are no good choices on this one. Thanks, you fucking Republican traitors!
jl
@hovercraft: Agreed. That is our hope: Trump’s incompetence and his insistence on hiring incompetents.
Witness the new bunkermaster’s sales pitch to the GOPers, who also hold some important keys to Trump’s fate:
Lewandowski To Republicans: Get On Trump Train or Lose Next Election
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/05/31/lewandowski_to_republicans_get_on_trump_train_or_lose_next_election.html
Baud
@hovercraft:
I need to be nicer to the front pagers.
jl
@Baud: And the commenters. Don’t forget the commenters.
Amir Khalid
Ahem: It’s intriguingness.
What is Comey aiming for? Does he want to see Trump impeached and eventually convicted, as payback for Comey’s patently unjust firing? Merely to tell it all, and let the chips fall where they may? Or something in between?
It does seem to me that Jim Comey’s Senate testimony, even if it’s as damning as some hope (and some others fear), could be for naught, if the ultra-partisan Republican-led House simply refuses to acknowledge its significance. As far as I know, even some Democrats get cold feet when they contemplate the enormity of impeaching a President.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@MJS:
Personally, I’m reading Furlan’s words as expressing essentially cynicism as to whether Repubs will invest in the process. Maybe I’m wrong. I’m okay with cynicism. I get tired of the “we’re so screwed” brigade.
Baud
@jl: The commenters have no power to destroy me. Fuck the commenters. Fucking commenters.
dmsilev
@TenguPhule: Presidential pardon power is only for federal crimes. Violations of let’s say New York money laundering laws would still be prosecutable.
And the ultimate redress is political. Every Republican that covers for Trump will get to defend their actions to their voters.
Baud
@Amir Khalid: Are you sure it’s not intriguinuity?
jl
@Mike Furlan:
” Get used to Trump, we are probably stuck with him for a while. ”
May be true, but no reason not to try to constrain his ability to do damage as much as possible.
I do agree that ‘Trump is bad’ is not a good electoral strategy. The Democrats need to come up with a more constructive, positive poilicy message. Even if what Trump and/or the Trumpsters have done spills out publicly soon enough and is so bad that is produces a big win in 2018, what then? Voters’ memories are very short. If Democrats can make enough gains to wield some legislative power, they nee to produce for the average person, or at least produce a policy platform that promises things what will improve the lot of the average person, or the voters will turn back to the GOP, which would probably produce something worse than the current mess.
LAO
@Mike Furlan: I no longer think the end game is impeachment (would love to see it happen, but then its President Pence, or President Ryan) but rather the total de-legitimization of the Trump Administration, to the point where its ability to legislate is rendered nil. I think that remains possible.
eric
@dmsilev: and the power eliminates the 5th amendment protection (I know you know). but this is the big disincentive. You only pardon when you know that the person would rather go to jail for contempt than testify. Then you get into the pardon for the contempt; rinse, lather, repeat. Although, I do not know whether failure to honor a grand jury subpoena results in civil or criminal contempt
Roger Moore
@Rob in CT:
Take the House and subpoena tax records. The Democrats have been pushing for Congress to request trump’s tax records, but they’ve been blocked so far. If they get control of one House of Congress, they’ll be able to do it, and you know there’s a cemetery worth of skeletons in that closet.
jl
@Baud:
” The commenters have no power to destroy me. Fuck the commenters. Fucking commenters. ”
Hey, at least win the presidency before you go down that route. At least you will enjoy some cool perks before you destroy yourself.
(heh heh, our plot is working, folks…)
Gin & Tonic
@LAO:
So you didn’t do a very good job, eh?
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
He can pardon them all up the wazoo, they may never see the inside of the jail, but they would be convicted felons, just think of the commercials, do you think the GOPer cowards at that point could resit impeachment. The vote would be the be overwhelming with only the brave patriotic “Freedom Caucus” standing up for him. If he is reduced to issuing pardons to his family members he’s done.
LAO
@Gin & Tonic: too true.
jl
@LAO:
” to the point where its ability to legislate is rendered nil. I think that remains possible. ”
So far, Trump seems all on board with that plan. Let’s hope things continue that way.
Baud
@jl: Sorry. I assumed for obvious reasons that hate trumps love.
Captain C
@TenguPhule:
No 5th Amendment protections. That’s why Scooter Libby didn’t get pardoned.
Plus, the President has no pardoning power over state crimes, and if there’s anything illegal at all, Schneiderman will bring the power of New York State down on Trump and his organization (which means his three oldest kids, too).
Baud
@LAO: If and when I’m indicted, I would choose you to defend me.
LAO
@Baud: Hey, as long as I’m appointed Attorney General after the 2020 election — consider yourself represented.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Baud, I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate.
Don’t make me destroy you.
jl
@Baud:
” Sorry. I assumed for obvious reasons that hate trumps love. ”
Live by the fashion, die by the fashion.
I think you did better with low rent hedonism.
“Beered up with Baud!” Heck, I’d go scrounge the sofa cushions for spare change if you went with that one. And, I’d like to be a mega donor again.
Immanentize
@LAO: I thought almost all the mob lawyers were nice Jewish boys and girls…..
My question is a modification of Bill Murray’s in an old SNL skit — Why do so many Jewish Prosecutors drive German cars?
germy
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
@jl:
Right now congress is restrained by his popularity with the base, but:
From Nate Silver last week
That’s with this normal Twitler bullshit, if the shit hits the fan, how many of these people stick with him?
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
Yes I do. It would be insane, but nothing I’ve seen so far has shown a glimmer of sanity from the Republicans in the House and Senate.
I hope you’re right about this.
sukabi
@TenguPhule: would it perchance be the same prayer the RW used to “bless” Obama and his family?
LurkerNoLonger
@jl: Republicans are in a no-win situation and I love it. Stick with Trump and feel the wrath of decent people come November 2018, abandon Trump and feel the wrath of the deplorables come November 2018. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of assholes.
hovercraft
@Baud:
Your base will support you through thick and thin, we’ve watched you shoot some trolls in the middle of Fifth Avenue and we’re still with you!
BAUD 2020!!!!
Even the Depp State Can’t Get Him!
TenguPhule
@dmsilev:
Ideally. But my money says Kushner and company would try to flee the country to avoid prosecution or even arrest.
The bastards must not be allowed to escape their punishment.
Baud
@LurkerNoLonger:
The three of us are mad as hell and we vote!
Bobby Thomson
@LAO: or the White House.
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
Sorry, I would still vote for Johnny Depp over Baud.
Nothing personal, Baud.
Baud
@hovercraft:
Johnny Depp had his own state? What’s the world coming to?
Roger Moore
@Mike Furlan:
I think you’re very wrong about this. “Trump Bad” didn’t work so well in 2016 because it was largely dealing with his personal failings and predictions about how he’d behave in office that were necessarily speculative and could be easily ignored by people who were willing to project their hopes and desires onto him. In 2018, “Trump Bad” can focus on all the disastrous things he has actually done and tried to do, and how the Congresscritters we’re running against have been doing their best to help him. They are not the same thing!
Baud
@TenguPhule: He’s quite talented.
sukabi
@Amir Khalid: enormity of it or letting their personal ambitions blind them…ie Corey Booker
TenguPhule
@sukabi:
In nature perhaps, but much more eloquent and imaginative and completely justified.
GregB
Idi Amin rode out his state looted retirement in the luxurious confines of Saudi Arabia.
The Trump Klan may be looking at blue prints for a nice compound as we read.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Intriguingdomnesshoodity.
TenguPhule
@LurkerNoLonger:
And what about the rest of us? Our wrath doesn’t count for anything any more?
Barbara
@hovercraft: I personally think that so long as Trump can wrap his “To Russia with Love” sentiment in the mantle of national security — Syria, Islamic terrorism, blah blah blah — there are people willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. If it really starts to look more like that was just a lot of cover for his real game of “From Russia with Money,” then he will lose a lot of that contingent support. The Kushners and Trumps are not inherently likable or appealing people. They don’t have charisma and their whole lifestyle is alien to that of the people most inclined to vote for them. Can I say that for sure? No, and, perhaps even more important, it might not translate into dropping support for other Republicans. People like Devin Nunes and Paul Ryan might face real blowback because of their high profile support, but a lot of others will survive. Those people are more likely to be done in by their vote for the execrable health care bill than their lack of action on Trump.
Just One More Canuck
@LAO: that might be the best (realistic) result – it would be hard (though not impossible, given the media) for the GOP to pretend that they are anything but corrupt, craven assholes who would sell out their country for a dollar. if Trump were to be impeached, it would give them the opportunity to lay everything off on him, and they deserve a fresh chance under President Pence (ptui!)
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: How’d you get the password to my email account???
Barbara
@GregB: Once Trump is no longer president it is likely that Jared and Ivanka won’t even qualify for a visa. Seriously, S.A. did not permit Jewish and Israeli journalists to enter their country even though they were supposed to be traveling with Trump. Trump’s level of support for S.A., and Kushner’s facilitating additional arm sales are just shocking.
Tim C.
@TenguPhule: I subscribe to the idea that we really don’t know where the exact line is where the Republicans in congress will do more than just have Huckleberry and Walnuts shake their head in mild disapproval. I do get the sense that *IF* it gets to that point it will happen very very fast. I also think it’s a reasonable belief to think that there is literally nothing Trump can do to lose the support of congressional Republicans.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Immanentize:
I’m not Jewish.
gvg
i think Trump can’t shut up, and that will bring him down. he is evidently not listening to lawyers.
If he pardons his kids or others that are convicted, that actually might cause a republican backlash. Congress might finally grow a spine.
jl
@hovercraft: I personally believe, and this is anecdotal from doing some work on 2016 election, many of his supporters are disgruntled and ignorant knuckleheads who saw themselves and their communities take a series of economic hits since 2000 that had not been seen since the Great Depression. It left a deep mark and they were ready to lash out in an irresponsible way. I don’t think most of these people were part of Trump’s racist, xenophobic misogynistic base. I hope Clinton was right when she said half of the Trump voters are ‘deplorables’.
Actually, I have to suspect every Trump voter of some kind of ignorant bigotry or immaturity, but they aren’t so devoted to it as to make great sacrifices for the cause. My bet is Clinton was right, and maybe half of the knuckleheads will fall away from the Trump crazy train. So, Trump gets stuck in the mid to low 30% support range.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Baud:
Ve haff our vays.
Patricia Kayden
@Rob in CT: Take the House and Senate in 2018 and the presidency in 2020. That sounds like a plan to me!
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
One thing we all have to remember is that we are ONLY FOUR MONTHS IN, the investigations have barely begun, or rather we barely have a glimpse of what the investigators know. This will be drip, drip, drip at least for the next few months, the leaks make it seem like the dams about to burst, but unfortunately we are still a long ways off. He’s still in his honeymoon period, Steve Kornacki pointed out last night that during the campaign his approval ratings fluctuated between 35 and 42, which is pretty much where he’s been since he took office, he’s had no real crisis’s other than himself. That won’t last, people will get tired of this shit, the longer this goes on with nothing getting done legislatively, his peoples will be turned off, independents will continue to leave and that’s when the cowards on the Hill will begin to run. They have to run next year, he does not. Though I guess they can run on a platform of vote for us or the democrats will impeach your guy, that would help motivate some I guess, but if they haven’t delivered anything I doubt it will be effective. Republicans are still giving him the benefit of the doubt because he’s new to the job.
TenguPhule
@Tim C.:
You and me both. They’ve done things since Nov 8, 2016 that even I didn’t think the Republicans were capable of.
jl
@Roger Moore: Some truth to what you say. But still, suppose best case and Dems win House and Senate in 2018. What then? Needs to be something constructive, not just hemming or getting rid of Trump.
The GOP fundes play a long game in public propaganda re what is good policy. it is truly a ‘long con’ The Democrats need to play the long game too. Need something positive besides ‘Trump is bad’. Electoral politics is a ‘what are you going to do for me tomorrow’ game. Unfair, but I think true.
Elie
@Mike Furlan:
I don’t think you know any more than any of us know how all this will turn out. We are on uncharted territory and almost any theory is as good as any other. For that reason, we have to think about demoralizing ourselves or others when we don’t really know — we think, we guess, we plan for contingencies and also we hope. We hope mainly to activate our creativity and energy rather than sitting with our heads between our legs or curled up in a fetal position because its all desperately hopeless. You don’t know. You are only putting out your opinion.
Patricia Kayden
@gvg: Hmmmm. Congress controlled by Repubs aren’t going to lift a finger against Trump no matter what he does. Congress controlled by Democrats is a different story entirely and hopefully we can get there next year. I assume if Trump sees the writing on the wall, he’ll leave office for “pressing personal reasons”.
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
I thought that too in 2000.
And then Bush fucked the football in 2001.
I do think enough people would be dumb enough to fall for a repeat of the rally the flag shit.
First time tragedy, second time farce.
ETA: And as you said, 4 months in and yet he seems bound and determined to have a military catastrophe and/or terrorist attack with US casualties.
acallidryas
I enjoyed reading this quote from the article, “Weissmann’s specialties have included corporate fraud and foreign bribery.” hmm
jl
@Baud:
” Johnny Depp had his own state? What’s the world coming to? ”
The ship of state, my son, the ship of state. You should get one..
Barbara
@acallidryas: Foreign bribery = Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
hovercraft
@TenguPhule: @Baud:
Typo, or Freudian slip, hmm. I’d go with Johnny for Secretary of Pissing Off Republicans in a BAUD administration. Yes he’s an asshole, but a cute one and he said years ago when he moved to France that he couldn’t take all the stupid/ignorant people in this country. Who knew Johnny Depp was so prescient? We* picked Hair Furor, they picked Macron.
* None of here apart from the trolls, but morans in the middle of the country.
TenguPhule
@Elie:
Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
TenguPhule
@jl:
Does it run on nuclear catapaults or steam ones?
jl
@hovercraft: Baud, who puts ‘PARTY’ in political party.
Baud needs to stay true to his principles and he will prevail. Sooner or later.
Gin & Tonic
@TenguPhule: Even after that last Pirates movie?
Elie
@hovercraft:
I think an explosive revelation that could change a lot, is for one of the Congressmen (like Nunes), to get found deeply in this corruption. That would explode the GOP apart as not all would be ok with being tied to corruption or Russia to “protect” some of their members. They would not fall on the sword for that. Same thing for any Senators who are caught in the web. Oh yeah, I think there may be some dirty GOP Representatives or Senators and they are probably as nervous as der Trumpenfuhrer. Think of how nervous they must be if Trump with his big mouth and stupid brain knows any of them are involved.
TenguPhule
@jl:
Make Republicans suffer. Enjoy their screams and tears. Put the boot to their neck.
/Turnabout is fair play, so I’m told.
jl
@TenguPhule: Rum and a certain kind of lash that cannot be discussed on a family blog.
hovercraft
I guess the other Orange man is feeling the heat from Twitlers army of bots.
Boehner Walks Back Criticism Of Trump Presidency As A ‘Complete Disaster’
Pathetic doormat is still a pathetic doormat.
Shalimar
Regarding covfefe, Spicer said: “the president and most people know exactly what he meant.” and all the reporters laughed.
Patricia Kayden
Jennifer Rubin opines in the Washington Post about Trump being a de facto Russian plant. Putin’s Puppet, indeed. Who was it that warned us about this again?
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic:
Its not his fault that Disney’s writers are subcontracted morons.
Chris
@Barbara:
He’s got at least some assistance there in that people who consume Republican media have at least twenty years of conditioning in excusing financial crimes/corruption as just ordinary capitalism. You know the drill: “these rules they broke were just stupid liberal regulations strangling the creativity of the free market,” “if he’s so smart and so good at getting around the rules, don’t we want someone like that in office?” etc.
schrodingers_cat
@Mike Furlan: No.
TenguPhule
@jl:
So you should have no problems talking about it on this one then.
Barbara
@Shalimar: He meant that he is delighted that he can spout gibberish and have half the world awake for half the night trying to figure out what he meant. Seriously, it plays right into his hands. IMHO.
trollhattan
@GregB: He claims to not drink so no impediment there, but the Baconnaise and pork taco bowl addictions are serious roadblocks to Saudi retirement villa residence.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
“Would a spy for Russia be acting any differently?”
That’s been my stance since the beginning: 1) whether or not Trump is in fact compromised and/or tied to the Russian government, one must admit that things couldn’t be going any better for Putin if he’d planned them himself; 2) the scariest possibility in all this isn’t that the Russians have compromised the President and the Republican Party. It’s that they didn’t even need to compromise them in the first place.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
Not my ideal outcome, but I think it would still be an acceptable one. It involves them tacitly admitting guilt, and that’s going to be hugely damaging.
Stan
@Roger Moore:
So here I am in the great state of New York, with a so-called-democratic governor (Cuomo) and a so-called democratic legislature holding a majority of both houses…..but not really….and they have it in their power to release trump’s New York State tax records.
Somehow these marvelous progressives cannot stop the circle jerk long enough to get this done.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
Bounty Hunters. Or CIA wet teams. I’m not picky as long as they do not live to enjoy their spoils.
glory b
@Mike Furlan: Oh for Christ’s sake, can we stop with the “ALL HILLARY DID WAS TALK ABOUT TRUMP!!!1!!111” thing?
One of those word cloud things was up on Vox (I think), it showed that the topic she spoke most about was JOBS!! The next was wages. The media put that out there, and no one can let it go, in spite of the fact it wasn’t true.
But even if it was, it worked for the majority of people in this country and she got more votes than any candidate in the history of the country except Obama.
Sure, it’s unfortunate that a bunch of racists in the wrong parts of the country decided that they had enough of those Black Lives Matter people, and the repubs suppressed voting in enough places that Trump won. But that “Not Trump” shit needs to die.
aimai
@Roger Moore: Right “trump is bad for you because he took away your health care, wrecked FEMA just before a big storm affected your community, cut your medicare, didn’t pay your social security–those things are perfectly good political arguments. The continued criticism of the democrats in 2016 for not having said more than ‘trump bad’ is such incredible garbage–HRC had incredibly detailed positive plans for action. She and her campaign said way more than “trump bad”–in fact that is why the democrats voted for her. Because she had actual policies and skills to offer as president. The good things about democratic policies were actively rejected by trump’s voters who voted on “hillary bad” quite happily. Different kinds of voters require different approaches.
dr. bloor
@TenguPhule: Their punishment will involve roughly two seasons of golf at Danbury, where the greens are only cut twice a week and the fairways have the occasional brown patch.
Jared’s daddy did his time, Jared will if need be. They’re not fleeing anywhere.
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
A couple of things, 9/11 was sui generis, it allowed Shrub to get away with shit that normally he would have paid a political price for, and remember that even with the fearmongering he barely won re-election. Any war the moran started now would get old really fast, people might rally around the flag briefly but we truly are a war weary nation and his peeps loved when he said he was putting America first, yeah dropping MOAB, or shooting off a bunch of missiles turns them on, but if/ when war is back in the news and we are seeing reports about soldiers getting killed all the time, then it becomes all to real and people remember that we’ve been at it 16 years. I guess if he started a war in September of next year or something that could help, but what is he doing for the next 15 months to keep them happy?
If something as bad as 9/11 were to happen, all the stories about the inexperience in his administration and him not reading or paying attention to intelligence reports unless they have pictures and his name in them would take on a different light. At least I hope so ;)
Roger Moore
@GregB:
The technical term for what they’re shopping for is a dacha.
aimai
@Stan: What makes you think that its legal for a state governor to release the tax records of people he doesn’t like?
pamelabrown53
@sukabi:
Personal ambitions or the problem that reps/senators in New York and New Jersey will be tainted by their yuuuge industries: Wall Street and real estate developers?
Betty Cracker
@Shalimar: I just heard that clip on Twitter, and you’re right, they laughed, but it wasn’t “haha how clever” laughter but the “are you fucking kidding me?” variety. Spicer sounded dead serious too — implying they left that incoherent babble up all night as an inside joke.
jl
@Barbara:
” Seriously, it plays right into his hands. ”
Whose hands? No one knows what the hell Trump meant, and will take that response by Spicer as arrogant, frivolous and offensive.
Except the true hard core Trump base, which thinks that they are in on the joke, but that is 30% to 35% of the voters, I think.
These idiots are slowly destroying themselves in front of our eyes. We only have to hope they keep it up and it does enough damage to make a difference in 2018.
Chris
@TenguPhule:
We don’t need their scum!
Regnad Kcin
@Baud: “Derp State” I think he meant
Chris
@LAO:
As I recall from a conversation on this same topic here a couple months ago, the traditional ones that are in jail or dead are simply being replaced by East European equivalents.
Elie
@Stan:
Stan, you must realize that once a State government does that, it could be done to anyone at any time. Not saying that ultimately these can’t be obtained, but I rather than be submitted in a investigatory process in the lead up to a trial rather than just leaked. We have to be careful trashing any institutions that we then want to keep. Once we get outside these, we are in hell. Does that mean caution and occasional slowness. Well, yes it does. To make an analogy, when a doctor removes someone’s appendix, he/she don’t just take the knife and cut right down to the appendix in one stroke. You have to slice carefully and tie off blood vessels and be careful not to contaminate the site with bacteria. The goal is to not just have the appendix removed, but to have the person wake up after the procedure, heal from the surgery and go on. Also, stop disparaging the progressives. If we are to survive this, they are the horse we ride. If you have ideas to make them better, that is good.
trollhattan
@trollhattan:
Just realized with the whole legal polygamy thing he could bring back Ivana and whatsername, too. Let’s make this Saudi move happen!
LAO
@Chris: You are correct. And they are a lot crazier than the Italian-American’s and much scarier (even from a lawyer’s perspective).
TenguPhule
@Chris:
They’re alright, provided we insist on no disintegrations.
Roger Moore
@Elie:
Mitch McConnell is in it over the top of his shell. He’s already taken a corrupt payoff from trump in the form of a cabinet post for his wife, and I bet there’s a lot more that hasn’t been found yet. Find the dirt on him and the rest of the party will be running scared.
jl
@hovercraft: I agree that Clinton had good policy proposals. But I think she oversold the message that she would continue and maintain the ‘Obama legacy’. Too many people saw that as continuing a political establishment that presided over a period of misery for themselves and their communities. Were people who saw things this way ignorant and thoughtless? Yes, I think they were. GW Bush created the mess, and Obama should have gotten more thanks for salvaging the situation.
But I think we have to recognize that ignorant and thoughtless people vote. So, I think ‘Trump is bad’ is not enough. The Democrats need something more to offer. What will replace the bad Trump? And it needs to be communicated in a way that appeals to people who express disgust with what they perceive as the political establishment. Unfair, and I find it irritating. But I think it has to be done.
Baud
@jl:
Then the blame falls with us liberals, who insisted she do that and not run away from Obama like Gore ran away from Bill.
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
A string of 9/11s, or even Washington anthrax/sniper style attacks though, I’d like to think our media isn’t that fucking stupid or our public not that fucking gulliable, but its sadly been proven that in times of peril people will gravitate towards things that make them feel secure. The US government has done a fair job of making feel secure in the past.
But past performance is no guarantee of future results.
At either level. So maybe Trump’s security failures will bleed him where Bush’s didn’t.
Or maybe he’ll blame the blocked travel ban and let our worthless media both sides it.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule:
Great question (seriously).
Also, what happens if we get far enough along and decide that since Trumpov was elected due to the actions (acts of war?) of a hostile foreign power, the election is essentially void? If the Japanese had hit the Pearl Harbor office of the Hawaiian Democratic Party…with the targeting help of Republican traitors…would we then go on to let those same Republicans keep their seats? I am guessing “not”.
But it does answer the question: no pardons, then ’cause he’s not the president.
rikyrah
To our allies’ alarm, Trump’s foreign-policy vision takes shape
05/31/17 01:01 PM—UPDATED 05/31/17 01:11 PM
By Steve Benen
A month ago, then-White House Communications Director Mike Dubke met with colleagues about messaging on Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office. Dubke, who resigned a few weeks later, said at the time that foreign policy posed a challenge for the White House team because, as he put it, “There is no Trump doctrine.”
The president’s team reportedly recoiled at the comment, insisting that “America First” is the Trump doctrine – as if a shallow bumper-sticker slogan and a foreign-policy doctrine are the same thing.
……………………………………….
This morning, for example, White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which they made a provocative case:
In this vision, U.S. allies aren’t partners, so much they’re competitors in the “arena.” It’s a model in which the American president stops leading the free world and starts defeating it.
It’s this kind of thinking that leads Trump to undermine NATO, pick a pointless and counterproductive fight with Germany, “crack up the American alliance with Western Europe,” and move towards abandoning America’s participation in an international agreement on climate change.
It may not qualify as a doctrine, per se, but Trump’s goals are increasingly clear: identify the inter-generational pillars of stability in the Western world and tear them down.
What’s less clear is why Republicans, who used to see credibility on foreign policy as a birthright, are indifferent to the developments. Business Insider’s Josh Barro noted yesterday, “What Trump has done in Europe was supposed to be Republicans’ greatest foreign-policy fear. Trump is demonstrating that America’s most important treaty commitments are unreliable, at least as long as he is president.”
Patricia Kayden
@Chris: It really is scary. There are too many ties between Trump and his sycophants to not conclude that Putin is sitting pretty when it comes to getting what he wants from the U.S.
LAO
@Betty Cracker: It’s moments like this, when it’s pretty easy to say “fuck off” to all those people saying “poor Sean Spicer” — as if Spicey hasn’t willingly sold his soul to the devil to be press secretary for an incompetent, lying, piece of shit human being.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I see we are still hankering for the mythical WWC Yeti that voted for T because of economic anxiety.
Chris
@LAO:
The portrayals I’ve read seem to say that the East Europeans (and Central Americans, too) are basically in the same spot that the Italian and Jewish groups were in a hundred years ago – ruthless newcomers that the old school “establishment” was unprepared to deal with. The old Mafia having basically gotten respectable, gone soft, and also lost the large pool of poor and victimized Italian immigrants from which they drew recruits.
(I know more about history than current events when it comes to this, but it seems to make sense).
rikyrah
Lewandowski To Republicans: Get On Trump Train or Lose Next Election
Posted By Ian Schwartz
On Date May 31, 2017
Corey Lewandowski warns Congressional Republicans to support President Trump or risk losing their seat in the next election. Lewandowski tells Republicans if you don’t get on the Trump train and support the president’s agenda, “you have failed the American people.”
From his appearance on Wednesday’s FOX & Friends:
Chet Murthy
@TenguPhule:
Schneider(man)Mas! Schneider(man)Mas!
(only half-joking; if the NYS investigations yield zippo, I’ll start to believe they’re all gonna skate)
HeleninEire
@Baud: You need to get a newspaper column or maybe start your own blog or maybe write a book or…something.
Seriously, your talent is wasted here.
ETA: Oh wait, you can run for President!!!
Chyron HR
@jl:
Yes, 2016 clearly demonstrates you can’t win just by attacking your opponent, you also have to give out silly hats.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
That would be the ideal solution.
Entire election void, all actions taken since 1/20/17, illegal. No powers can be used, granted or taken.
Unfortunately, that would at a minimum require control of Congress and five reliable SC justices.
LAO
Well, this can’t be real. If so — I have to go find some RC cola to buy.
randy khan
@Roger Moore:
Indeed. And “Obama bad” worked for the Republicans in 2010, even though he was meaningfully more popular than Trump is today.
That’s not to say that the Dems shouldn’t have a positive agenda, but to a large extent it should be focused on things that Trump and the GOP have broken, or have refused to fix. (One item that comes to mind is if the Trump infrastructure plan never comes to fruition, the Dems should have one of their own.)
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Ah, there it is, the “You have failed me” trope!
Wingnut bingo!
TenguPhule
@LAO:
Even in times of darkness, light still shines through.
jl
@Baud:
Keeping control of federal government for three presidential terms in a row is difficult. Requires an exceptional political talent. I don’t think the Democratic Party had that talent in 2016, I think Clinton had the talent to govern very well but not to win. ******* was lucky to run when his schtick would be appealing enough to maybe (not sure about that) win, but not enough political talent to produce a successful administration (witness his pratfalls when he had to produce real plans). I dunno, maybe Warren should have run.
TenguPhule
@Chyron HR:
And molest some women. Then brag about it.
Gin & Tonic
It’s 3:30 pm EDT, and it seems half you people are drunk or high.
LurkerNoLonger
@TenguPhule: By decent people I meant anyone who isn’t a die hard Trump supporter. That can even include people who voted for him but now see the error of their ways.
jl
@randy khan: The Democrats should have the talent and resources to to both. Hell, this administration is turning into a very dangerous mess. Need to move on more than one front.
LAO
@Chris: True story — from a trial about 14 years ago.
Witness: Italian–American wiseguy turned rat.
Story — the Albanians were trying to move in on Gambino territory. The Albanian’s called for a meeting at a gas station owned by a Gambino Associate. Everyone pulls up, gets out of their cars and 4 of the Albanians walk over to the pumps and proceed to spray gasoline on (1) everyone, including themselves, and (2) all the cars. One of the Albanian’s calmly tells that either the Gambino’s agree to turn over the territory or the Albanians blow everyone up.
The guy reached out to the government to become a cooperator about 2 days later.
Walker
@LAO:
Their tweet to “with a few exceptions” was awesome.
Mike in NC
@jl: No. Trump would have kept calling her Pocahontas and his mysoginist base would have doubled over laughing with him.
jl
@Chyron HR: Big bold and simple promises yelled out at airhorn levels that appeal to a critical mass of ignorant and thoughtless disgruntled people help too.
But, yes, the silly hats were the only part of the Trump campaign that had any appeal to me. As memorabilia if nothing else.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So…. sell all stocks by Friday?
Baud
@HeleninEire: Aw, thanks. But I’m too proud a Dem to be successful professionally at any of those things.
Mike Furlan
@West of the Rockies (been a while): I do have contempt for the “Ooh look what you did! You are going to be in so much trouble when Mom gets home” attitude which is pretty much ever liberal blog 24/7.
Mom doesn’t care. She hasn’t cared since at least Reagan.
Baud
It’s pointless to speculate about who would have won last year.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Its almost as if someone could write a book about McMaster called Dereliction of Duty. Wasn’t he supposed to save us according Adam Silverman?
Chris
@LAO:
Yikes. I think I’d actually read that one before, but yeah – I can totally see why the Wise Guy would say “yeah, it’s time for me to get out of the game” and turn rat.
Also, it’s my understanding that the Albanian gangs in particular are considered basket cases even by East European standards.
randy khan
@Stan:
The New York legislature and governor don’t have it in their power to release Trump’s state tax returns without changing the law. And, frankly, releasing them would be an abuse of power.
Congress is different because that power has been in the law for a long time, although it’s used only rarely.
glory b
@jl: I’ve never understood why there is the theory that unless the Dems have the perfect message, delivered in an impeccable for, by candidates of unimpeachable (ha ha see what I did there) perfection, who never misspeak, make a misstep or have ever been afilliated in any way with anyone who is less than a stellar credit to humanity, voters will vote for any mouth-breathing cretin that the repubs can haul upright for the balance of a general campaign.
White people? This seems to be a white people problem, so can one of you explain this? People of color have never had a problem voting for the “Not (fill in the blank)” candidate.
Now this is where whitesplaining would come in handy.
hovercraft
@jl:
I agree completely, like someone already said(you?) the warnings about how bad Twitler would be fell on deaf ears because it was mostly theoretical, though I do think more emphasis on his past victims would have been helpful. More we’ve know Twitler for 30 years and everything he’s touched has ended in disaster for everyone but him. We need a positive message as well, but we also must point out everyone who’s stood by him as he’s devastated the country.
@TenguPhule:
I have no faith whatsoever in the media not to fall for the strong leader bullshit again. When so called sober foreign policy journalists laud missile strikes and giant bombs that hit nothing significant, like Fareed Zakaria (plagiarist), say that makes him presidential, there is no hope for us. Richard Haas a respected foreign policy expert lauds Twitler selling advance weaponry to the Saudis to annihilate people in Yemen we can not look to them to save us. Unlike those elites who flit from one publication to the next while collecting their monies from the cable companies to prat inanities about shit that they never have to make any sacrifices for, Americans are tired of spending all this money on wars that never end and can’t be won. I hope.
Iowa Old Lady
My hope is that the scandals and hearing affect the 2018 elections. I don’t believe the current congress will take any steps against Trump.
BCHS Class of 1980
@TenguPhule: Decent people and 80% of the BJ community. To clarify, I estimate that 20% of the community are decent, not that any significant % are for this GOP.
feebog
The Mueller/FBI investigation is going to be months before the first indictment is announced. The exception to this may be Flynn, if he doesn’t cut a deal. The Senate/House investigations are really just beginning, and I expect nothing until early next year, maybe later. So, drip, drip, drip, with plenty of leaks yet to come. Which is fine, let it last another year or more, right into the 2018 elections.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Don’t you judge me!
randy khan
@glory b:
This, a thousand times. The media chose to report the “Trump bad” stuff because it played well, not because it was the focus of her campaign.
LurkerNoLonger
@glory b: I’m white and I don’t get it.
Corner Stone
No one is watching this HRC Q&A? This is fucking fascinating.
Baud
@glory b: Your comments in this thread are on point.
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
There can be no looking back, notice how even when republicans acknowledge the Russian meddling they always make sure to mention that it actually didn’t work, it had no effect what so ever and no one has shown that a single machine was hacked! This about future elections last year was fair dammit!
There can’t be a recount unless it can benefit a republican, but you can bet your bottom dollar if Putin had helped Hillary, we’d have had to have a new election or every single day every single democrat would be old that their election was illegitimate so they can’t enact heir agenda.
rikyrah
@Chris:
They are all stooges. And traitors to this country.
The.entire.lot.of.them.
jl
@glory b: That is not what I said. Big bold airhorn messages with big bold simple promises worked will with Trump. And I agree (with Clinton, if you believe what she said during the campaign) that it worked with about half of the people who voted for Trump. I think Clinton understood. For some reason, I don’t think Clinton could deliver in electoral appeal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: just turned it on– ‘the Russians wouldn’t have known how to weaponize data without guidance from the US… ‘ I’ve seen it reported, though I can’t remember by whom, that Wee Jared was neck deep in the trump data operation, and this could be the target of the investigation
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic:
Hah! I’m Knurd!
Tenguphule -2
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: So pretty much tow the Trump line or I’ll use my thuggishness to get you out. He sounds like such a nice guy. He must not be paying much attention to the news. Linking yourself to Trump right now is not a good move given his unpopularity and the real possibility that he may be found liable for wrongdoing by Mueller.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: HRC has a very deep understanding of what happened, at least to this point in what we know. This Q&A is fucking masterful by HRC.
rikyrah
@glory b:
LMAO
I know that you are serious, because, as a non-White, it has puzzled me too.
They fall for the shiny object EVERY PHUCKING TIME!!!
And, have the nerve to talk about how WE aren’t educated voters.
Phuck.outta.here.
?BillinGlendaleCA
The Worst Candidate for President EVER! is speaking right now a few miles from Trump National Golf Course here in town(Rancho PV).
? Martin
So CNN fired Kathy Griffin. Okay, perfectly understandable. Why would CNN have hired her in the first place? That’s not a personal judgement of her, but why would a news organization hire a general comedian in the first place?
randy khan
@glory b:
I’m a white person and I don’t get it, either. We are all imperfect vessels, and political candidates generally are at least as imperfect as their constituents.
jl
@schrodingers_cat: That’s not what I said or implied.
Go the Bureau of Labor Statistics and see what happened to the employment to population ratio for prime age workers, men and women, white or black, and see if there is anything like that sudden disaster and slow recovery in the last 50 years. You can find the same data for drop in household wealth across races and ethnicity. I think broad spectrum of the population was very disgruntled in 2016, and ready to lash out at what they perceived to be an uncaring political establishment. So they voted for a nut who made big simple promises, or stayed home.
? Martin
@Corner Stone: I look forward to watching it tonight.
Mike in DC
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I like the NFLTG version of HRC.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Second edition after Colin Uncle Tom Powell and Condi Ho Rice?
hovercraft
Hey it’s not like the largest cot in his state will be affected by rising sea levels or anything.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@LAO: I reading a story about a nice Jewish boy that’s fallen in with a bad crowd recently, the US Senate.
(It’s Sen. Franken’s latest.)
Elie
@TenguPhule:
He is threatening folks. That hard power has limited effectiveness when Trump is mumbling gibberish in the middle of the night and when his key staff (McMaster et al.) are setting up de facto threats to be competitors to our once allies. The hubris is monstrous and our fall will be likewise if there is no mitigation. Not sure what that would be but these people are signaling extremely dangerous ambitions and actions.
randy khan
@? Martin:
So far as I know, the only thing she ever did for them was co-host New Year’s Eve with Anderson Cooper (and the story apparently is that she was a guest one year and never left, but that it did well in the ratings).
schrodingers_cat
@jl: How is the decline of the power of labor a Democratic flaw. Its the Rs since Reagan at the very least who have been against people who work for a living.
Lapassionara
@TenguPhule: My concern is that T would use a terrorist attack as an excuse to impose martial law. He would win then bigly.
Corner Stone
@? Martin: You should make it a point to do so. This is amazing.
hovercraft
@glory b:
Exactly, great comment.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: The bald and large military person actually wrote a book by that name about W’s war.
hovercraft
@? Martin:
She does their cheesy ring in the New Year broadcast with Anderson every year.
janelle
@Mike Furlan: “Incumbent President Bad” has worked great in EVERY midterm election in my lifetime for the opposition party, with the exception of 2002, and only because the country was still reeling from the worst domestic attack in our nation’s history at the time – Dubya still had an approval rating over 60% in November 2002 (though it was clearly on the downswing from its high of 90% a year prior).
You’re right that it won’t be sufficient to take back the White House in 2020, but winning in midterms is all about tapping into the public disfavor of the incumbent president . A POTUS with an approval rating in the 30s is going to see his party take a massive hit in the midterm elections.
TenguPhule
@Lapassionara:
It would be like flinging lit dynamite into a completely full dynamite storage room.
Not enough police, marshals, national guard and FBI combined to enforce it. Trying to bring in regular military units for domestic use would kick off a whole new kettle of exploding beans.
Shit would get very very real.
ETA: Just to be clear, even I think this one is a fringe speculation for now. Short of a full scale civil uprising, the gears would have so much sand in them that he’d risk mass disobedience across the government civil service.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: Tweety, who likes to occasionally talk as if he wears a hardhat on his TeeVee show and puts a lunch bucket next to him on the back seat of the town car when he’s driven in to work, was once bloating, I believe in the run up to 2012, that Obama should have done something big, something people would remember, like when Reagan stood up to the air traffic controllers. The rescue of the auto industry, which IIRC is said to have saved a minimum of one million jobs, one or two them perhaps blue collar, even unionized, never occurred to him as “big”.
(ETA: all of which is to say: If anyone tells me that Dems walked away from labor, I will respond: “Fuck you”)
Analysts have said that voters in MI and OH did remember in 2012.
@Corner Stone: I’m listening, not watching. Do you know who the interviewers are?
Corner Stone
As much as I bewilderingly love Nicolle Wallace, I would much rather continue watching HRC speak right now.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
What, it can’t be both?
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The co-founders (?) of Recode Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg.
Turns out they are also live streaming it.
chopper
@Baud:
the study of which is called “intrigonometry”.
janelle
@LAO: Agree completely. I don’t know whether or not Trump will ever get impeached, but I have very serious doubts that he would ever get removed from office by the Senate, given that it would require at least 15 or more Republicans crossing the aisle to vote for his removal (it takes 67 senators to remove an impeached president). Never gonna happen. Even if you could find 3 or 4 maybe sorta kinda moderatish GOPers like Murkowski and Collins, there’s no way you find 15 in that bunch.
Corner Stone
@trollhattan: I know. He has such little faith in us. Saddens me. Bigly.
janelle
@Corner Stone: You bewilderingly love Nicolle Wallace for probably the same reason as anybody else on the left might – she clearly loathes the current occupant of the White House.
Spanky
@Gin & Tonic:
Dammit! Why am I always the last to know?
Kay
Good. We need some hearings. LOTTA hearings. I’ve developed some sympathy for Comey. All his efforts to deal with this have made it worse. He was fired (in the most humiliating manner possible- because Trump is a douchebag) and he’s STILL in it.
aimai
@jl: Stop it. Again–stop it. Clinton made a smart move to try to keep the Obama legacy and the Obama coalition and she actually did–getting 3 million more votes than Trump. She did not retain (some) former Obama voters because Trump appealed to their racism and their rejection of democratic initiatives on jobs/education etc… But there was no way to get those votes or they were insignificant compared to other issues in the election. Be honest and admit that what you are longing for is simply for someone magically to have changed the racist nature of the white working class voters who CHOSE TRUMP. Yes, they actively chose trump because he scratched an itch which they had . They would never have gone for Clinton no matter what she said or did because she would have had to trash the Obama legacy which would have lost her as many votes as she might have picked up.
But please, please, please stop with the stupid monday morning quarterbacking. Your point is so dumb that it makes my teeth ache and the repetition of this fundamentally stupid argument will destroy democrats since it will push them back to being republican lite or, in other words, the party of southern white racists.
The Moar You Know
@Gin & Tonic: Hey, I don’t preach at you when you’re lying stoned in the gutter.
FlipYrWhig
@jl:
Trump’s message was that Hillary Clinton was a crook and he would make fewer Mexicans be around. There was no promise, no nothing. He’s just an asshole who connected with other assholes in a shared spirit of being assholes.
rikyrah
Poorly Educated WHITE….always remember that.
cause the other poorly educated didn’t fall for the banana in the tail pipe.
The Democrats Lost the ‘Poorly Educated’ and They Need Them Back
by Martin Longman May 31, 2017 12:45 PM
In any election as close as the one we had last November, countless variables could have decided the outcome. People will tend to seize on the ones that serve their ideological goals. It’s a somewhat different question, however, to figure out why the polls (particularly the state polls) were off by so much. At The Upshot, Nate Cohn takes a whack at trying to answer that question. There is evidence that a lot of late-deciders went for Trump which is a thing the pollsters can’t be faulted for failing to predict. This could be explained by the so-called Comey Effect, named after former FBI Director James Comey’s decision to link Anthony Weiner’s sexting with minors to Clinton’s private email server in the last week of the election. It could also be explained by the Shy Voter Theory that postulates that people were a little ashamed to admit they were going to vote for Trump and weren’t truly undecided. Maybe it was a little of both.
But there’s a more potent explanation available about why the polls were wrong, which is that they may have been incorrect all along due to a failure to anticipate the importance of educational attainment in candidate preference. Poorly educated people are less likely to respond to surveys which results in them being underrepresented in most polls. But, until the 2016 election, this didn’t tend to skew the results because the correlation between education and how people vote wasn’t all that strong.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Silly Jim. “Something big” means HURTING people, not HELPING them!
Corner Stone
HRC is ripping Trump’s asshole.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Obviously you need a few drinks to fix that.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone: Is she remembering to wear gloves to avoid catching something nasty?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mike Furlan:
What makes you think a 70 something, overweight, stressed out old man who watches Fox news all day and has already visably mentally degraded is going to last four years?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and I think more important than “Democrats need a good message” is “Democrats need good candidates”. My hobbyhorse du jour, of several jours, is that if Jon Ossoff were a veteran, he’d have won the run-off. Less sure if you could say the same about Quist, given that MT is so much about guns and coal, but Gianoforte lost statewide to a Dem who was not a quirky folksinger without any celebrity endorsements or a dramatic and compelling platform that I’m aware of.
Chris
@Kay:
I’m rooting for him against the people who fired him and that he’s investigating, but sympathy is going a bit far.
rikyrah
A Flaw in Too Much of Our Political Analysis: The Default Is White
by Nancy LeTourneau May 31, 2017 3:44 PM
I’ve spent most of my life in middle America, with early years in Texas and my adult life in Minnesota (mixed in there were short stints in Oregon, Florida, Colorado and California). So perhaps I’m not the best person to take on Michael Tomasky’s criticism of what he calls the “coastal elite.” But there is a glaring error in his argument that happens a lot when white pundits pontificate on these issues. And I think it’s important to note.
In talking about middle America vs coastal elites, here is how Tomasky suggests that they are divided in their conclusions about the 2016 presidential election.
Later in the article Tomasky describes middle Americans (liberal, moderate and conservative) as people who go to church, aren’t consumed by politics, aren’t into free trade coffee, perhaps served in the military, might own guns and are patriotic. As an aside, I’ll simply note that, even though I’d qualify as a liberal middle American, none of those things apply to me except the one about being patriotic. You can take that for what it’s worth. Perhaps I’m exceptional—but then so are an awful lot of my friends.
Taking all of that into account, I think it’s safe to say that when Tomasky refers to both middle Americans and the coastal elites, he is talking about white people. For example, I know plenty of people of color in middle America who blame Trump’s victory in the electoral college on racism. As a matter of fact, the strongest voices in that argument come from people of color—no matter where they live.
Tomasky’s reference to liberals who are coastal elites also ignores the fact that an awful lot of people who tend to vote Democratic in those areas are people of color. Exit polls from California show that while Clinton won that state by a whopping 30 percent among white people the margin was only 5 percent. Conversely, Clinton won with African Americans in California by 79 percent, Hispanics by 47 percent and Asians by 53 percent. I doubt that the people who brought Clinton those overwhelming margins consider themselves “elite.” I also suspect that you’d have a hard time drawing the kinds of distinctions related to church, politics and patriotism that Tomasky referred to when it comes to Hispanics in Texas versus California.
Corner Stone
This is a masterclass in NFLTG
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was told by BS bros that Quist was going to win on the basis of the endorsement from St S from Vt.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Somebody on MSNBC just said that Jim Comey has always been willing to talk about the Clinton case and the trump case. Not quite “always” whoever you are.
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: IMHO one of the biggest political divides in White America is between “good at school” people and “bad at school” people. Nowadays the good-at-school white people grow up to be Democrats, and the bad-at-school white people grow up to be Republicans.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodingers_cat: You noticed how that factor got swept into the memory hole too? :/
Ridnik Chrome
@chopper: “Intrigonometry treads on my trail, entriggering traps for a gross gang of ghost types”
lollipopguild
@TenguPhule: As opposed to contracted morons?
Chet Murthy
Thread’s gotten old enough, I thought you might enjoy a little sumthin-sumthin. I remember as I started reading comments here, was blown away by the range of knowledge and depth of experience. You’d all make excellent border agents!
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: FWIW I have known life long Democrats ME, MA and NY and could be described as WWC. Both my old landlord (instructor in a Technical College) and downstairs neighbor (roofer) loved President O and thought that W was an idiot. This was in upstate NY near Albany.
T voters I know on the other hand are wealthy and paranoid.
I live in largely white rural community and T got less than 25% vote over here. In my anecdata restricted to New England and the mid Atlantic states (NY and MD) working class folks here tend to be Dems. Its the middle class folks who are R.
The Moar You Know
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Some personal history: nice, college-educated, churchly grandma dies at age 63. Vicious, 6th grade educated alcoholic grandma, who spent her days spewing vile abuse at anyone who got within a hundred feet of her, died at 89 after having lived with congestive heart failure for more than 15 years, and having been told at that point that she should go into hospice. She told the doctor to go fuck himself, went home and had a scotch. For 15 more years.
Mean, shitty, awful people live longer. I don’t know why but I see it all the time.
Mary G
@Corner Stone: Thanks for posting that. She is kicking ass and taking names.
ETA she gives a shout-out to Adam Schiff and some people applaud.
Corner Stone
How stupid do you have to be to now claim that Trump and a small handful of people at the WH “know” what cofveve really means?
LurkerNoLonger
@rikyrah: Uhhh, aren’t the “poorly educated” Trump’s base? Fuck ’em, they’re not worth courting.
Corner Stone
This HRC Q&A is breaking my heart. Someone who has a master level knowledge of what she is talking about and can recall facts, figures and context at her fingertips at any given moment. This highly qualified woman could be representing our nation around the world right now. How fucking sad and devastating.
Kelly
@LAO:
This is the insight I read Balloon Juice for ;-)
trollhattan
@FlipYrWhig:
So wish this would fit on a hat.
Elie
@rikyrah:
This
FlipYrWhig
@LurkerNoLonger: Careful, though: the way it’s been put to me, African Americans and Latinos by and large _value_ education as a means of upward mobility (even if they aren’t necessarily acing all the tests, or if they didn’t do well in school they’ll still want their children to do well), while poorly-educated white people _disparage_ education as a waste of time and/or vaguely emasculating.
The Moar You Know
@Chet Murthy: Last border agent that actually did more than the formalities and searched my luggage may have saved my life. She held up two of my med bottles and asked “are you taking both of these?” I said yes. She said “that will kill you.”
Turns out she was right, my doc at Kaiser was in such a hurry to retire he’d stopped looking at my records. I confirmed the combo could be deadly from another doc entirely. I left Kaiser directly afterwards.
FlipYrWhig
@trollhattan: Make assholes whole again?
Chris
@rikyrah:
Yeah, a bunch of this definitely doesn’t reflect the Average American and may not even reflect the Average White Guy. People who attend services regularly are only about half of the population. People who served in the military are a definite minority, significantly more so since the All Volunteer Force was created. Gun owners are most definitely a minority in this culture. That leaves “aren’t consumed by politics,” which is debatable – the average American might not know a whole hell of a lot, but in my experience, that sure as hell doesn’t make him hesitant to offer an opinion – and “aren’t into free trade coffee,” which I’ll grant them. (Plus “are patriotic,” which is just such a meaningless thing that I’m not even touching that one).
The person who coined that impression is describing what the conservative fantasy of the Average American, or rather the Ideal Citizen, looks like. It bears no resemblance to the reality.
Jeffro
@Gin & Tonic:
“half”?
“or”???
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
2nded Having been to an HRC rally she really can connect with a crowd on personal and professional levels, be responsive to the crowd, modulate her message, delivery and tone…i.e., complete mastery of politics as we once perceived it. At the end of the day I think just enough voters reminded too much of mom either stayed home or chose another candidate. Shame on them, none on her.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone:
Is she on MSNBC? I want to know where to look for a clip or transcript later…
Bokonon
But … but … some liberal comedian pretended to cut off Trump’s head!! And all progressives are hate-filled hyporcrites!!!! Blah blah blah.
That’s today’s counter-programming intended for low attention members of the public … and those “poorly educated” voters we’ve talked about. The GOP has a sophisticated media strategy for changing the dialog all the time, and fuzzing up the facts.
Mary G
This guy is en fuego.
Corner Stone
HRC has called Trump a “threat” or “imminent threat” at least 3 times in this Q&A.
Chris
@Bokonon:
Well, thank God conservatives during the Obama years were above all that.
Elizabelle
@Corner Stone: Yup. And thank you all for menioning the recode appearance. Watched the last of it online.
Could we have a thread dedicatec to her recode remarks later? I would love to see the whole thing, and discuss it with you.
LurkerNoLonger
@FlipYrWhig: It’s almost as if they take pride in being ignorant. Somebody said that once, he was a smart guy.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Tweety wanted Obama to do a really BIG infrastructure push with signs saying it was paid for by “the BIG infrastructure” thing. I guess Tweety forgot(remember, he worked for Tip!) how Congress works(or really doesn’t) with Republicans(personified by the turtle) throwing sand in the gears.
germy
bystander
@TenguPhule: I knew we could count on you to wreck this moment of reverence.
Mary G
@Jeffro: She was at the ReCode conference and they were streaming it live. Here’s a link to their liveblog of it, Some good stuff:
Barbara
@rikyrah: It’s like the default working class representative is a white male. It’s infuriating. My mother (a secretary) and my sister (an aide for developmentally disabled adults) are every bit as much part of the working class as my brother, who works in construction. Tomasky of all people should know better. But it’s like their image of the default average American and the default working class American became set in stone in 1978 and has not shifted even a bit.
NoraLenderbee
Where is/was the HRC Q&A? TV show? Web site?
Barbara
@FlipYrWhig: So I know you are being somewhat flippant, but I can’t blame kids for this, not while they are in school. There is a large contingent of people who don’t care about education and who have hit a wall professionally because they did not care. Instead of getting their kids to care so that they won’t meet the same fate they keep trying to ride a magical pony whereby they get the equivalent of eating all the ice cream they want and never gaining weight — try as little as possible to succeed in school and still make more than the teacher does soon after they graduate. I am sure that many do care how their kids do so I don’t want to overgeneralize, but this disdain for education, which is reinforced by a lot of cultural forces, is responsible for a lot of what ails us economically. So is disinvestment from education, which is one of the reinforcing factors at work here.
Chris
@Barbara:
Back when the Daredevil TV show was coming out, there were a few comments in the reviews about how Marvel’s vision of New York City had basically solidified in 1985 and never moved on from then. I thought at the time that this applied to a hell of a lot more than Marvel, or even pop culture…
Corner Stone
@Elizabelle:
I’ll be on a plane to Barc within the hour!
HRC did not play around and did not pull any punches. She trashed Trump in a straightforward way every time she was asked about him. Called him a threat, stupid, and a few other good things.
This was not one of those Former Ambassador to X answers your questions next! Where they softshoe every answer and are extra diplomatic in responding.
That was not NFLTG HRC today.
Corner Stone
And if I ever see that motherfucking hack Jonathan Allen in real life he may not enjoy that encounter.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He calls himself “Big Luther Strange” Or maybe it’s Big Strange Luther. I only watched the video once.
Fair Economist
@The Moar You Know:
Your memory may be selective. Probably the nicest person in my family was my mother’s stepmother. Everybody loved her. My aunt, her stepdaughter, moved to my parents’ town, which she didn’t like, just to be with her in her old age. And she lived to be 101, older than anybody else I know.
NoraLenderbee
@NoraLenderbee:
Thanks, @Mary G
zhena gogolia
@Corner Stone:
That’s why I can’t watch it!
The Moar You Know
@Barbara: Here’s the problem from the teacher’s perspective (my wife is one). It is important to note that the population she teaches is largely extremely affluent and white. The parents have zero respect for education, they tell their kids to go get educated, but the kids have listened to the parents disparage taxes, teachers and education for years. And the kids go through the motions but learn nothing, just blowing it off. The parents get them through by routinely threatening lawsuits and getting the kids on what they call here in CA an “IEP”. Means the kid doesn’t have to do the work to pass the class, essentially. A tool originally put in place for kids with serious learning disabilities which is now being used by over 40% of the parents in our district. You’d think that would be a red flag.
The survivors of this comedy show up to college, where my brother takes over (he’s a language professor at a major university) and they promptly fail out in huge numbers. The parents use the same bullying techniques that they used on the high school teachers, but that doesn’t fly in college and the kids are done. Total waste of time and money from start to finish.
From my perspective, as an interested observer who thankfully doesn’t have to work with anyone who hasn’t been in the military (I work in defense) I’d say this: white kids aren’t worth the money or effort to educate up to college level. They simply don’t think it’s important. It may well not be. They seem to get jobs eventually, somehow.
Barbara
@The Moar You Know: What a gross over-generalization. My white kids worked hard throughout high school and college and so did their white (and non-white) peers. As a society, we do undervalue education, but most people who have succeeded as a result of education are rarely dismissive of education. With the IEPs and such, what you are describing are helicopter parents, a well-known phenomenon that instills such a high level of fear of failure that they practically guarantee their kids are never able to walk alone. This is also a very bad thing but it is not necessarily the same thing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@The Moar You Know: Was grandma doing a high stress job and beening told to go pound sand sand by the rest of the world?
sm*t cl*de
@The Moar You Know:
My secret plan for immortality is exposed.
bemused
@The Moar You Know:
Sounds like very affluent, white privileged jerks to me.
The Pale Scot
@LAO:
Trump is Carlos, without the looks or the modicum of smarts.
“No, give him a living. But never let him know the family’s business.”
What else, Tom?
Drumph would be like my childhood Sicilian friend’s extended family who ambitiously hijacked a truck full of electronics, then finding out the goods were specced for european voltages. Or my mum’s childhood friends who took a small boat across to the Bayonne Marine Terminal to grab a load of cigarettes. The boat’s motor failed on the way back, then it sunk. They swam to shore where PT boats were built during WW2. . The story goes that the next day when they entered a bar everyone started singing “Row Row Row Your Boat”.
satby
@Baud: Dude!?
TenguPhule
@bystander: Your snarkometer is broken. Get it fixed.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Captain Babywipes doesn’t even work a normal workweek, let alone President Obama’s one.
If he’s actually working more then four hours a day for three days a week, that would be the most he’s done since his hostile takeover.
dopey-o
@trollhattan: Middle-aged white guys hate HRC because she reminds them of their first wife.
J R in WV
@Roger Moore:
But what happens with the “President” just declines to even talk about his tax returns? No refusal, no nothing. Just the House, talking down a well shaft. Not even an echo. Then what?
No One You Know
@TenguPhule: Decent People doesn’t comment here.