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Who’s going to their local March for Truth? And what else is on the agenda for the day?
Trump's campaign has announced a "Pittsburgh, not Paris" rally at Lafayette Square across from the White House https://t.co/OlB9IjZaKj pic.twitter.com/hDbUuplQJl
— POLITICO (@politico) June 2, 2017
Yes, the park named for Lafayette, that famous yinzer and Steelers fan. https://t.co/bEOKrjgV9f
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) June 2, 2017
Umm. Lafayette lived in Paris for most of his life and is buried in Paris under soil from Bunker Hill. https://t.co/SUNFNUNoew
— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) June 2, 2017
A direct counter-protest to our #MarchForTruth, which Trump BLOCKED me for promoting. ??https://t.co/NU6zUUie68
— Holly O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) June 2, 2017
Le Comte de Monte Cristo fka Edmund Dantes
So here’s a short video of a shark dive and nautilus dive on last weeks scuba liveaboard in the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea. This was edited from a lot of great video by the ship’s photographer (I have a much longer set, as well as my own GoPro stuff).
There was some climate change related bleaching evident in discreet places at each site (our furthest point was off the Cape York Peninsula at Osprey Reef, nearly halfway to Papua New Guinea) but the nonbleached stuff was beautiful and the sea life phenomenal.
Yup, the sharks were omnipresent, large and came within a couple of feet of my head on multiple occasions.
Yoda Dog
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo fka Edmund Dantes: Beautiful video. I would be terrified of those sharks, personally, but they clearly didn’t bother the divers..
Quinerly
I’m going to our St. Louis March at 10:00. If anyone wants to meet up afterwards, pipe up! Will be at Blues City Deli (after 1) and the Venice Cafe (after 4) for music. Salt and pepper hair, with braided rat tail.
geg6
I am happy to see that Curley, Schultz and Spanier were all sentenced to spend time in jail. Not enough (a few months each, then probation), but I am glad they’ll have to serve even that. Not often the rich and powerful spend any time behind bars. Now if only the University would ban sororities and fraternities, things might get better there.
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone???
Baud
C’mon, Pittsburgh. Time to step up with a “Pittsburgh ❤ Paris, not Trump” rally.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Mary G
Darrell Issa’s having a live, in person town hall stacked with sympathetic constituents who got a postcard with a code number to sign up. Needless to say I didn’t get one. Seats went in seconds and there’s a yuge waiting list. The protest outside may be hampered, because it is at a high school in a fairly undeveloped area with only one road in and out. I haven’t decided if I will go or not, but there’s going to be a lot of protesting somewhere, I know. Lots of media too. And the ACLU, because the city where his main office is has refused to grant any more permits. It hasn’t stopped the protesters yet.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo fka Edmund Dantes
@Yoda Dog:
In my GoPro (not as pretty as that – Gary was using a $10,000 rig), you clearly hear a Shitload of beeps over the bubbles of stationary, experienced divers. What that means is that several people who had wireless pressure gauges had kicked their air consumption into high gear despite being stationary, LOL.
geg6
@Baud:
The mayor lit the bridges and city hall in green last night and he’ll be speaking at the March for Truth today, which begins at the City/County Building downtown. Peduto has been all over tv, giving interviews about how Dolt 45 knows nothing about Pittsburgh and how coal is a part of our past, not our future. That’s evident in that our hockey arena is no longer the Consol Center (a coal company). Now it’s PPG Paints Arena, a much more apropos sponsor. Consol couldn’t afford the sponsorship anymore because COAL IS A DYING INDUSTRY, dammit.
JPL
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo fka Edmund Dantes: What an amazing video, and please post some of your videos also.
Jeffro
@Mary G:
Sounds like the wingers have figured out their counter-strategies to escape #Indivisible protests at their town halls. We’ll need to get around this if we’re going to flip the House next year.
Spanky
@Baud: Well, there is this:
So while it’s a little too soon to get anything that specific organized, they’re using the rallies already in the works to address it. Good n ’em!
ETA: See geg6 got there first. I’ll only add that the tallest building used to be the USSteel Building. Now it has “UPMC” at the top. Quite literally rebranding the city.
Jeffro
Oh, and to answer AL’s question: I’m heading down to the DC March for Truth at midday (planning to, anyway – we’ll see how the Orange Line crowd looks at my nearest station).
Baud
@geg6:
@Spanky:
There you go.
BC in Illinois
Mrs BC and I will be at the St Louis March. (Daughter, who was at the St Louis Women’s March on Jan 21, has to work.)
Also greyish hair, with a USN “Veteran” hat. Events like this are about the only time I wear the hat. At a march protesting our local Congresswoman’s refusal to have town halls . . . Ann Wagner (R – corporate greed and a dependable GOP vote) . . . I met two other Navy Corpsmen and three Marines.
Unfortunately, @Quinerly: we will be unable to stay around. We are meeting friends — from when I actually lived in Illinois — at the Fort de Chartres Rendezvous. http://www.fortdechartres.us/47th-fort-de-chartres-june-rendezvous-june-3-4-2017/
Villago Delenda Est
The Lafayette Square thing…the minions of the shitgibbon sure know how to step in it…they get instantly eviscerated on social media, but the catch of course is that the Trumpanzees don’t give a shit about facts. They’ve got their hate and resentment to keep them warm.
Quinerly
@BC in Illinois:
Love Fortes de Chartres. Went to a couple of those gatherings there a few years back with a friend who is a huge history buff re the area. Have fun. I’m in Soulard if you are ever over in my area. We can put together a meet up.
Lapassionara
@Quinerly: we are going. I will look for you, but like BC in Illinois, we cannot stay too long after.
satby
Having to work on Saturdays is really cramping my march activism, and no one will trade days with me because the only people not working are M-F people who like having weekends off. I’ll be with you in spirit.
Only place I have ever worked in retail where everyone didn’t have to rotate the lousy hours with the prime ones, part of the office manager’s special magic of management (two warring teams in a seven person office who won’t full in for each other). Bet you’re all jealous ?
amk
Pittsburgh? yet another instance of twitler doubling down on his stupidity?
JPL
This morning I’ll be at the local library where I can vote early for Jon Ossoff, with my son and dil. The other son voted on Wednesday for Ossoff.
Spanky
@Villago Delenda Est:
Don’t forget the persecution. Makes them feel all holy and shit.
satby
@JPL: I have so much hope he wins. It sounds extremely close though.
ThresherK
@geg6: I’m just not-yet-awake enough to expect you to type “Curly, Moe and Larry”. I neeeed caffeeeeeeine.
Kay
@amk:
You can tell they’re excited though. That they hit on a “theme” so they can act as if Trump has some coherent “view” or plan or guiding principles. I don’t think he does. I bet he got out of the agreement because the French president humiliated him publicly. Petty and always, always about Trump. Look for the smallest, dumbest, most selfish reason and bet on that one.
More and more I think the “collusion” and “coordination” investigations won’t reveal some grand plan for a new world order. It’ll be a series of sleazy actors pursuing self-serving goals that happened to intersect in or around 2016. Nothing as coherent as a “conspiracy”. Just ordinary crooks playing on a bigger field.
Comey said Putin “hates” Clinton, which at the time I thought was really odd- it’s so personal, so small- but more and more all of this stuff looks small. There’s just a LOT of it, a lot of players, a lot of sleaze, so it appears as if it adds up to some Grand Plan when really it’s just ordinary corruption. We’re giving them too much credit.
debbie
@Yoda Dog:
I wonder if sharks can smell fear. I’d be doomed.
Princess
I’ll be at the Chicago March. Anyone got an idea for a good sign.
Baud
@Kay:
It’s not new. Remember “You didn’t build that!” They built their 2012 convention out of it.
amk
@Kay: Yup. some shitgibbon’s speech writer thought Pittsburgh rhymed with Paris, the orangegutan mouthed it, now he has to ‘prove it’. sleaze with sheer incompetence. well done, wwc.
Rob
The video made our morning.
No plans to march as we have prior plans.
Kay
I’m going to North Toledo to look at a house my middle son wants to buy. He qualified for an FDA loan, which is odd because it’s in no way “rural” but who knows. It’s a cute little house and I like the location a lot- the area has Lake Erie on one side and the Maumee River on the other. It has a tiny strip of yard attached to he can stop taking up my garden space with his dumb potato-growing :)
Who grows potatoes? It’s like growing field corn or soybeans.
debbie
@Kay:
Good luck to your son!
Kay
@Baud:
My daughter lives in Pittsburgh and she loves the mayor. She rides the bus and he did something good with buses. She knows a ridiculous amount about Pittsburgh transit :)
She’ll be thrilled he’s fighting with Trump. They always forget that the things that pump up their base also energize the other side.
Kay
@debbie:
I’m sad he’s moving away. It was nice having one close. Those 1950’s brick houses in Toledo are cute. God, houses were TINY back in the day.
OGLiberal
Yeah, she’s a Disney star but this is what people who really care, unlike our CiC, do:https://news.google.com/news/amp?caurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2017%2F06%2F03%2Feurope%2Fariana-grande-manchester-hospital-visit%2F#pt0-989522
Baud
@Kay:
2016 election proves otherwise.
Baud
Anyone else notice that Cleek’s Law is now getting major play in the media, but Cleek isn’t getting any credit?
ThresherK
This whole Pittsburgh meme reminds me of Tim Russert and Tweety and every other “overeducated” pundit who needs to prove something to his* dad that he’s not some effete suit-wearing disgrace: Hanging desperately onto the idea of how something was 50 or 80 years ago.
(*Gendered pronoun used on purpose.)
geg6
@Kay:
Peduto has been a very good mayor and he seems to be an all around good guy. How can you not love a guy who takes his rescue dog to work with him every day?
efgoldman
He will get a huge crowd of dozens, I’m sure.
@Kay:
I think that’s a small part of it, The main reason for a lot of the things he actually does or tries (instead of just yammering about) is pure hateful spite: Gotta’ undo anything that ni[clang] before him did. “Obama should have told them not to drink bleach” is a burn, but there’s a lot of truth behind it.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo fka Edmund Dantes
@JPL:
I’ll see if there’s some method of trimming and whether I can put things up on imgur. I have a shitload of stills from Sydney to Cape Tribulation to sharks that I sent to Alain for “On the Road”…
Spanky
@Kay: The older I get, the more evidence I see that national and world affairs are just a continuation of high school politics.
Kay
@Baud:
One election doesn’t “prove” anything. “Third terms” are rare and if 20,000 voters had gone a different way in a few key states we’d all be saying Clinton won and her team were geniuses. In 2004 Democrats were never gonna win again because of soccer moms and in 2006 Democrats won because Howard Dean is a mastermind and everyone had to say “50 state strategy” over and over like an incantation. The 50 state strategy was a Power Point presentation. It caught a wave.
satby
@Kay: I grow potatoes. The blue ones, and sweet potatoes. Pretty sure Ozark and Marvel do too, among others.
Kay
@Spanky:
The French president is supposed to be a sissy in TrumpWorld. Instead he knocked the hell out of the big, flabby windbag.
Kay
@satby:
Sorry. I was kidding. He loves potatoes. They take up a lot of room though and I don’t see the pay-off :)
I grow beets which are arguably worse but I love beets. I’m thinking about growing rutabaga!
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
Someone mentioned his jowls last night. I was shocked that when he speaks they now flap in the wind.
I don’t think a more repulsive person has ever walked the earth.
Baud
@Spanky: Always been that way.
@Kay: Oh, I agree Clinton was cheated predominantly by external factors. But I haven’t seen that our side can maintain a cutthroat focus in the face of GOP outrageousness. We consistently become distracted by ancillary issues. (BJ mostly excepted.)
Baud
@Kay: He’s been very impressive on the world stage. Maybe the French are excited because the English speaking world seems to be committing suicide. France is back, bébé!
debbie
@Kay:
Trump turned out to be the sissy after that handshake!
Doe anyone know whether that handshake came before or after the shoving of Montenegro?
Kay
@satby:
He was fun to cook for when he was little because he pays attention, you know? I love parsley- I grow it and I use a lot of it and he noticed that at like..ten. The rest of them just shovel it down. We share a love for this bizarre Michigan-specific dish, which is why I might have to grow rutabagas.
Bobby Thomson
When we were in death’s door, when we were needy, we made a promise, we signed a treaty.
Immanentize
@Kay: I think the image of Trump riding behind the other leaders in his golf cart — while they stride forward together — is the enduring image of this moment And, regarding your other comment, simple corruption if endemic can be a lot worse than one sinister plan.
zhena gogolia
@Bobby Thomson:
Good catch!
Quinerly
@debbie:
Pretty sure after.
Another Scott
@Jeffro: I plan to be there too. It looks to be a beautiful sunny day. Bring a hat!!
Cheers,
Scott.
debit
Can’t march, I have a vet appointment, but I will be there in spirit.
debbie
@Quinerly:
Good. Then it will serve as reinforcement that Europe will stick together in the face of the blustering baboon.
hovercraft
So he no one pointed out to him that the MarchForTruth has been planned with plenty of advance notice, made up of people who are mad as hell, while his gig is a slap dash, last minute thing? Which do you think will have the bigger crowd? Then again, it probably doesn’t matter Twitler and Spicey will probably tweet out pictures of the anti-Twitler rally and claim that they are his crowd. SAD!
Thor Heyerdahl
@Spanky:
A quote I saw once said “the definition of work is junior high school with more money.” I agree that would extend to politics as well.
Sunny Raines
can’t we (USians) be mature and get on with the business of separating trumpland from America and so end all the useless nonsense!!!! republicans can have their empty cow pastures (aka red states) and Americans (aka Blue States) can get on with reality and making a better world for all of humanity.I no more want to be a part of nation with today’s republicans in it than they want to be with me. So let’s divorce – all will be much better off.
tobie
@Jeffro: @Another Scott: I wanted to go but all of my usual marching buddies bagged out. Is Trump trying to orchestrate a brawl, inviting his supporters to come and beat up the other side? This is what exactly what Hitler’s Freikorps did. He’s playing with fire, and he’s too stupid to know it or to to care one bit.
Emma
@Sunny Raines: The last time we tried it, we killed off 620,000 young men, not to mention the uncounted collateral damage. Let’s try marriage counseling first.
Except the business comparison is more apt. Let’s change the board of directors.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Today is the day Wilmer’s supposed to file his Senate personal financial disclosure after getting a 20 day extension. What are the chances he does? If there’s another extension allowed, zero. If not, does he file? After all the scrutiny he and Jane are under now for bank fraud, and they don’t disclose what their tax returns reflect, they’d better be really fucking careful.
JPL
@Baud: That’s what concerns me about Ossoff. He doesn’t want to scare off moderate republicans, by openly attacking Handel’s connection to Trump.
Luckovich went there though.. https://cmgajcluckovich.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/lk060417_color.jpg
Anya
@Kay: Trump is the smallest man ever but I am not convinced he pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord because Macron beat him at the handshake battle. He did it because nothing motivates him and his base more than Obama hate/envy. He was probably angry that Obama is still getting the big crowds and adoration so he had to stick it to him.
Just One More Canuck
@Spanky: not even high school – it’s more like junior high
Baud
@JPL: I don’t envy anyone running in +R districts.
Kay
@Immanentize:
Oh, it can! Agreed. Simple corruption is worse for them because “an ideology” assumes some kind of belief system, where this is just assholes jostling for a place at the trough. I sometimes think the EFFORT to jam this into a “belief system” is a thing smart people fall for to try to give it some form, some order, some rationality. They’re over-thinking it. The pieces won’t fit neatly together because it’s a varied group of greedy, amoral individuals with different goals that happened to coincide. Putin is a lot of things but the common thread is he’s corrupt and self-serving.
Saying “Trump is a populist who is worried about Pittsburgh so his climate change position makes sense and fits a theme” is a fantasy. Pittsburgh isn’t a steel town anymore. In fact, Pittsburgh works very hard to promote the idea that they are NOT limited to heavy industry. Have any of these people BEEN to Pittsburgh? Not the 1950’s version. The real place.
This same thing happens with ordinary criminals, where people assume it’s a network or they are “associates” or something. There’s no commonality there! There’s no theory! They would and will steal from one another just like they’ll steal from anyone else. There’s no plan.
bemused
@Kay:
Our three grown sons all love to cook. They requested recipes when they went off to college. One endeared himself/sucked up to office staff during an internship by baking brownies for them on a regular basis. We didn’t know this until it was mentioned by a staff member when our son gave us a tour of the plant. One son in college would bake a full size lasagna or other main meals and freeze portions. No eating on the fly/fast food/junk eating for any of them.
Baud
Fuck Martin O’Malley.
tybee
@Kay:
my late father-in-law loved rutabagas. me, not so much.
i used to kid him that the best recipes for that vegetable involved digging a hole first so when you finished cooking it you already had some place to put it.
tobie
@Baud: What did he do? This is an honest question…I haven’t followed anything he’s said or done in months.
MattF
@Anya: I agree– it’s because Obama did it.
And the opera cilp is great.
kindness
I saw an article at Raw Story this morning discussing polling for Congressional elections in 2018. It more or less said current polling indicates Republicans will keep control of everything. Here’s what I posted regarding what I think the value of current polling is:
‘The next election isn’t for a year and a half. Trump’s words scare us but America hasn’t really felt the impact of his policies yet because we’re still running on an Obama budget framework. What they will create this year for funding next will be catastrophic.
Your typical American cares about words but votes on their paychecks. Polls put out now predicting the makeup of the Congress for 2018 are not worth all that much. Come next year they will mean something. But current ones? Na.
Come the 2018 elections there will be Republicans voting for Democratic candidates. And if current Republicans in Congress don’t see that and do something to stop that then they and we deserve what they get. It’s their own damn fault.’
That part can’t come true quick enough. It’s the 2 year nightmare I fear.
Baud
@tobie: Turned in the TV and he was on whatever Sunday show was on. Looks like he’s decided to join white males Wilmer and Biden in deciding that knocking Hillary is the path forward for them.
sdhays
@Anya: I think Josh Marshall’s perspective is insightful. Basically, you’re both right. This was a campaign promise, and he made it in the first place because of his Obama hate and envy. But he did it now because the European leaders made him feel how small he really is and he’s worried about the depths of his treason coming to light. He wanted to “punish” Macron and needed the fawning praise of his deplorables right now, so, being the pathetic baby that he is, he announced pulling out of a non-binding international agreement.
“I really showed that Macron guy,” he thinks, then the dementia takes hold and he starts arguing with the wall.
Baud
@kindness:
We need a pretty big wave to take control.
Will not happen.
MJS
@kindness: Yep, people generally vote their pocketbooks, and the jobs reports are weak. Last month was low, and the two previous months were revised downward. If that trend continues the polls in late 2018 will look very different than they do now, with or without the shitgibbon in the White House
Barbara
@Kay: I would like to go to a march today but we already have plans. I grew up in Pittsburgh and most of my family still live there. Trump is just bizarre and incoherent and ignorant. Coal has not been an instrumental part of Pittsburgh’s economy for 30 years.
MomSense
This was a fun read and man do I miss PresO.
Warning politico link.
how the most interesting man in the world and Barack Obama became friends.
MJS
@Baud: Come on. Anything more than one Republican equals “Republicans”.
Quinerly
@Lapassionara: @BC in Illinois: Would be cool to run into each other in the crowd. I’m wearing my 25 year old John Lennon (NY, “Imagine”) black t shirt, shorts…with a fun group of chicks…blondes and redheads.
Baud
@MJS: I concede technical accuracy.
Baud
@Baud: I guess it was a Saturday cable show. Reminded me of a Sunday show.
tobie
@Baud: Okay…none of these guys gets how many of us enthusiastically supported HRC. We’re tired of not being recognized or counted. We’re the party’s base. It’s time these phuckers realized that.
Barbara
@Kay: I hesitate to say this, but when Pittsburgh was going through the hardest times, many companies held its industrial past and union labor expectations against it when deciding where to locate factories. That is one reason it goes out of its way to stress other aspects of the city. When I drive around Pittsburgh I ask myself what neighborhoods would cost if it were DC or SF.
Corner Stone
I think MSNBC is about to do a segment on whether Ivanka is incontinent or not.
MomSense
@Baud:
Yeah the dude who ran for President because he was broke and had bills to pay says what?
He looked like a fool in those debates and can take a damned seat right now.
jacy
I’m enjoying Macron kicking Trump’s flabby ass up and down the block.
Right now scrambling to finish up some work — The Boyfriend and I are taking a trip to St. Francisville, Point Coupee, and False River for his birthday, and I am going to take 48 hours off from thinking about anything.
MomSense
@Quinerly:
Yes but will Poco be there?
SuzieC
@zhena gogolia:
That was me!! I agree with you that he is beyond repulsive.
MomSense
@Kay:
I love beets so much. And the greens are delish.
Spanky
@Corner Stone: ??????
!!!!!
Barbara
@MomSense: The guy whose signature idea for economic development in Maryland was to build casinos because Marylanders were leaving gambling dollars in WV. I live in Virginia but we are affected by what happens in the whole area and he has not really had any great accomplishments, and that is apart from whatever he failed to do as mayor of Baltimore, where I also used to live.
Corner Stone
This lady is the cray.
Baud
@tobie: Right. Hillary is admired and respected by millions and was cheated out of the presidency by foreign and domestic forces in favor of an unqualified cretin. And instead of tapping into that anger, you have all these politicians who think it’s beneficial to talk about how flawed a candidate she was. It makes no sense.
When we say how our politics are broken, we shouldn’t forget this aspect of it.
Corner Stone
@Spanky: Something about, “Is Ivanka leaking in the West Wing?”
They then showed a bunch of pictures of Ivanka in long dresses, I think to illustrate she might have adult diapers on underneath.
It was on mute so not completely sure of the context.
Corner Stone
@zhena gogolia:
Not in our lifetime. I’d take a sweaty, bejowled Simpson’s caricature of Nixon 100 times out of a 100 over Trump’s bloated scowling visage.
Quinerly
@MomSense:
No Poco. But if we can ever get a St. Louis meet up on track, I’ll wear my Poco, the band, shirt.? And weather permitting, Poco, the traveling dog, will do a little meet and great
Corner Stone
Joy has her Resting Bitch Face set to On to begin her AMJoy show this morning.
tobie
@Baud: So true. This should be your strategy in your next campaign.
PPCLI
@Barbara: I left Pittsburgh about 20 years ago. I looked around the mansion-sized, stained-glass bedecked house (InShadyside) I bought on an assistant prof’s salary, and knew that I would never live in a house that beautiful again.
Quinerly
@Corner Stone:
She looks beautiful this morning. In other news, I have a huge crush on Malcolm Nance. Maybe we could double date?
Laura
@rikyrah: Good morning Rikyrah.
Happy Saturday.
bemused
@Anya:
Trumpy knows what turns on his voters because he is nothing but an insecure, spiteful, bullying, vengeful jerk. He taps into the raging resentment and scorn that his supporters have for liberals, tree-hugging environmentalists, college educated “elitists”, anyone they believe look down on them. I live among these rural, small town people with the “you’re not the boss of me” and “ain’t gonna listen to no snooty, know-it-all liberals on anything” attitudes. I think spite plays a major role with them. They live to stick it to liberals even if it results in screwing themselves.
I don’t know what would change that. Media coddling them with interviews about their hurt feelings probably makes them even more entrenched in their resentments. Not much will change their mindsets until more of them catch on they have been conned and lied to bigly by Trumpco and GOP legislators. If they start to realize and believe Trumpco made fools of them, they will not take it well.
Quinerly
St. Louis’s own Sarah Kendzior on Joy’s show. Our beautiful Arch in the background. ❤Looking forward to hearing her speak at the march. I’m outta of here! Have a great day, everyone.
ruemara
Stop focusing on polling to figure out 2018 elections. We aren’t going to flip the likely voters pollers target. You may have to actually ignore them while working on getting people to vote. Stop depressing yourselves by chasing folks who are too stupid to breathe.
No marching here. My demographic didn’t vote for this mess. And I gotta work. Can’t wait to see how the final show video comes out.
Barbara
Could someone take my comment out of moderation? I have no idea what word could possibly have put it there.
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: Agreed, this obsession about predicting the future is stupid. See DougJ’s thread from last night. No one knows what going to happen a year from now. Life and politics is not linear regression.
BTW how did you like Philly? What did you end up seeing? Did you go to the Reading Market?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I take great pains to avoid his visage. Its hard but I do my best.
Barbara
@Baud: It is the white male handicap at work. Think about all the things Trump (and even Bush) did that would have ejected any person not male or white from the race. There is a default expectation that white guys will turn out okay that is virtually impossible to overturn. Whereas Clinton had to prove her competence every day in every way and every mistake merely validated the default expectation of incompetence. I try not to be bitter but the idea that people are not in O’Malley’s face whenever he shows up asking him to explain riots in Baltimore just makes it a little too obvious. How can he not have some accountability that seriously undercuts his claim to have a right to tell the rest of us how to think?
Barbara
@jacy: Macron and Trudeau and lord knows who else will always be younger and better looking than Trump. And the worst part is, they don’t care but Trump does. There will never be another younger and prettier wife. Some people do not age gracefully often because the things they valued most about themselves were always the transitory features of luck and youth.
MomSense
@Baud:
It makes no sense but I bet just about every woman of a certain age has experienced this same phenomenon a thousand times in her work and personal life.
Gretchen
@Kay: I love growing potatoes! It’s one thing the rabbits won’t eat, and fresh-dug potatoes are so much better than store-bought! Let us know how the house is. It sounds lovely.
ruemara
@schrodingers_cat: I really loved it. I’m sorry i missed out seeing so many museums, but i was working. Loved Reading Market. But i had no kitchen so how could you? I hope to return, depending on what else is going on. This year though, it’s San Diego and in December, Seattle for PodCon. Have to hype my podcast.
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: We had a little fridge and microwave in our hotel room, so that helped! We even bought some cheeses and sausages from the Amish/Mennonite shops to take home, also the breads were delicious.
Took Amtrak to Philly did not fly,
rikyrah
@Kay:
Is this the son who is an apprentice?
debbie
@Baud:
Don’t you think it’s time to stop arguing about the past and instead focus on going forward? The endless re-litigation of the past election will change nothing and will only strengthen division and antagonism. Whoever said we need to stop focusing on numbers is right, but we should also stop the endless squabbling over who was most responsible for the outcome. Does arguing for the thousandth time change anything? Will it ever?
MomSense
@debbie:
The problem is that decisions about resources will be made based on the conventional wisdom. Voter suppression is not even making it to the top five of lessons we must learn to win in 2018, 2020, and on. We have to fight now to protect our diverse democratic coalition because the “appeal to the WWC/heartland” voices are loudest right now.
NotMax
@Kay
Met a gent in Minnesota who would pack a raw rutabaga with his lunch and eat it like an apple.
Or, as he called them, “rutabaggies.”
germy
Is it unfair of me to suspect Ivanka’s only disappointed in her father’s Paris Agreement decision because he embarrassed her in front of Leonardo DiCaprio?
MomSense
@germy:
I don’t think she is disappointed at all. She is in deep brand management of her own person as her brand. If her husband and her father go down in Russiagate, she will dress herself like a grieving Jackie O and try to capitalize on being the victim who soldiers in for her children. Watch her work whatever happens to build her brand.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: Its like eating a turnip raw..
debbie
@MomSense:
Yet all I hear, even after 6 months, is Clinton supporters fighting Sanders supporters. Everyone has got to make a conscious decision to find common ground moving forward or the divisions from last year will ruin our chances in 2018.
I totally agree about voter suppression (I’d probably put it first in my concerns), but we have got to focus on fighting suppression (and actually do something about it) rather than arguing over the number suppressed in 2016.
germy
@MomSense: Honor our dead with champaign popsicles!
(and other household hints. click here to subscribe)
Corner Stone
Kurt Eichenwald has been particularly poor in his segments so far today on AMJoy. Not his biggest fan but he used to be better than this.
germy
@debbie:
I read here that Holder and Obama have launched a GOTV effort against repub gerrymandering. I’m guessing voter suppression is something they’ll be fighting against. Does anyone here have any links to their efforts?
Emma
@debbie: I agree. Now, can you tell me what we have in common? Because as far as I can tell the only way forward Sanders supporters seem to advocate is to concentrate on economic issues at the expense of social issues. And to a sizable number of Democrats social issues are life-and-death matters.
Amir Khalid
I wish I understood the anger over Hillary Clinton and what she said at her Recode interview about how she lost to Trump. It sounded like a fairly complete and honest assessment to me. And she said so much on the subject only because her interviewers asked about it a lot. It’s other people who dwell on her loss, who call her a weak candidate — even though she wound up with millions of votes more than Trump, even though they can’t quite agree on what her weaknesses were.
MomSense
@debbie:
Sanders is chief spokesperson for getting rid of “identity politics” which is really just going back to white male identity as the default identity. That asshole wanted to primary Barack Obama in 2012. That asshole wrote a blurb on the book cover for the book called “Buyer’s Remorse” about our first black president. That asshole called for stricter campaign finance laws while simultaneously not complying with the existing laws (don’t hold your breath waiting for him to release his amended campaign financial disclosure). That asshole is on the Chris Hayes show all the damned time. That asshole is on the cable news town halls representing democrats all the time and he’s not even a democrat. As long as he puts himself in front of the tv cameras and advocates against the diverse democratic coalition we have been building for decades I am going to oppose him. This is a whole lot bigger than Clinton. I’m not going back to a whites only identity for the Democratic Party. So I’m not going to make common cause with anyone who pushes for that. Hell no.
ruemara
@debbie: Clinton supporters aren’t fighting Sanders supporters. Clinton supporters are throwing themselves into races with money and time and, yes, even working on voter suppression efforts. Sanders supporters are being offered a chance to help, and a small, loud internet faction spit on everyone, attempt to take over a party they hate and scream about the corrupt DNC and how much of a loser candidate the “establishment“ Dems handed the nomination to in HRC. Which, as it is intended to, riles up Clinton supporters and anyone who would like them to take their failure party and stuff it up their slavering gobs.
ruemara
@Amir Khalid: she said it while having a vagina and being a Clinton. Which seems to be a federal offense.
@germy: I think you can go to the Obama Foundation for that info.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: You mark my words he is neck deep in the Russian mess too, he benefited from all the lies those R trolls circulated about Clinton.
ETA: Putin backed two “outsiders” to the parties, one got into the WH and is destroying the R party and the country and the other is destroying any meaningful opposition to the same by poisoning the well against one force that can do something.
debbie
@germy:
I don’t think they’ve really gotten started yet. I know there’s a ballot issue in Ohio where they’re still circulating petitions. I hope to find them when I’m out walking later today.
I hope they’ll focus on registration too. These shenanigans with variable eligibility requirements have got to stop.
ruemara
@schrodingers_cat: sit near me, because we agree. The left is just as ratfucked by mother Russia as the right and they’re too smug to acknowledge it.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
Exactly.
Cheryl Rofer
@Barbara: I released your comment. The bad word may be “casinos,” which is a part of many spam messages. We will have to see if Alain can get that unblocked, since it is a part of many discussions of Trump.
germy
@ruemara: This morning CBS was showing clips of Oliver Stone’s polite questioning of Pooootin. So respectful.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@MomSense:
Appeals to the WWC are going out, for sure. I think it’s foolishness to ignore their concerns, but it is ludicrous to focus feverishly on them, too.
Why’d we lose 2016? In no particular order, we have Russian intervention, voter suppression, aspects of our coalition that can’t in sufficient numbers be arsed to vote, a press corps that is afraid to call Republicans out as bigots and affixed to the uber wealthy, gerrymandering, and other reasons, I am sure.
Apparently, about 30% of voters collectively (comprised of all colors and sexual identities) just didn’t want anyone who is not a WASP male to be president.
It’s infuriating and there is no simple solution. But “we’re so screwed” is not a way forward.
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: Katrina and her husband Cohen are a good example of this. Steve is a true believer. End result is the same.
MomSense
@ruemara:
The left was the primary target for Russian ratfucking! Given Tad Devine’s resume I’m not willing to give the Sanders campaign a pass on collusion. I want his campaign and Devine investigated.
debbie
@MomSense:
But can you win without them?
Barbara
@Cheryl Rofer: I wondered if that was it. Too funny. Our president’s main claim to fame is a business so sketchy it can’t make it through a spam filter.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: The uber lefties were the original reds, since forever, don’t forget.
Baud
@debbie: I would love it if people on our side stopped complaining about Hillary. It’s up to them.
germy
@MomSense:
Definitely, and let’s see those taxes.
Corner Stone
Oh my God. The next segment on AMJoy is with Krystal Ball and how to un-Pelosi the Democratic Party.
MomSense
@debbie:
Who are they exactly?
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: I wonder how much Putin is paying this Krystal person.
MomSense
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, fuck Krystal Ball. The only reason to watch is to see Joy kick her ass again.
david
Why has Adam Serwer’s twitter gone dark?
germy
@MomSense:
Barbara
@ruemara: I gave money to Rob Quist even though I found his Sanders worship irksome. I understand that in some parts of the country that will work and in others it won’t. What I don’t like is when Sanders tries to pretend that his appeal is as deep as Clinton’s merely because he appeals more to some segments that she had a hard time capturing — which basically starts to look like a stance in which African American, Latino and yes, many female voters of all colors either don’t exist or don’t count. I mean, we make fun of Trump for his “Pittsburgh not Paris” idiocy, but Sanders appeals to a lot of the same ethos underlying that, a view of labor and demographic trends that is at least 20 and more like 30 years out of date. My mother and sister working in health related jobs are working class. Maybe I am not but they sure as heck are.
debbie
@Baud:
Democrats who didn’t vote for Hillary, whether it was Sanders or Stein, or even Trump.
ETA: Oops, meant for MomSense.
debbie
@Baud:
I think it’s up to everyone, and I’d bet PBO would agree.
nightranger
I’ll never understand why there are so many people willing to keep these idiotic memes alive that Repubs and the orange fart sack make up.
You think you are making fun of the whole Pittsburg not Paris thing but really, you are helping them keep that thing going when it would otherwise die in a dumpster fire and just go away like all the other right wing BS. Instead Faux Noise and Hannity can keep talking about it and keep people watching and keep their advertisers happy.
Baud
@debbie: I’m doing my part, and I’ll be there in 2018 and 2020 supporting the election of Dems. I’m not responsible for other people’s decisions.
trollhattan
@jacy:
Great response, strengthened by Trump’s prior support for LePen. Donny’s making friends, winning!
Quinerly
I’m guessing a thousand people here for St. Louis march. Sarah Kendzior getting ready to speak.
Jeffro
@Baud: Are they actually using the term “Cleek’s Law”, or just generally describing the state of modern conservatism (as the opposite of what liberals want)? I actually tweeted the term at a dozen talking heads and columnists over the past few days
Baud
@Jeffro: No, they are finally talking about the substance of Cleek’s Law without using the proper name.
Hal
@Mary G: In the end, how is that beneficial to him? When it’s election time I hope his opponent runs on Issa needing a safe space for his melting snowflake fee fees.
germy
@Baud:
Cleek is the Clark Kent of bloggers. No one knows she’s Superman.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
O’Malley looks great on paper, and I always figured he’d be the first choice of the David Sirota-D-Kos crowd (that may be unfair to D-Kos, I quit reading there regularly in ’08/’09), but from what I saw he couldn’t even get a blog bubble going. In ’08 (again, IIRC) he was a big Clinton booster because he thought he could be her Veep; in’16 he turned on her because he thought he could do what Obama did. That kind of opportunism is (I think) what made David Simon make Tommy Carcetti out of him (if you’ve seen The Wire— If you haven’t watched The Wire, watch The Wire). I didn’t know who he was when I saw him as an Obama surrogate with Bob Schieffer and thought, Jesus, who is this useless Eeyore lump-of-cold-mashed-potatoes motherfucker getting rolled by the Vice Principal of Broderton Central High School. His designated successor lost to a Republican in a pretty blue state in a race that locals said was due in part to O’Malley’s record. I think he’s a liberal Evan Bayh, a born also-ran who will always find someone else to blame for his runner-up finish.
All that said, like David Simon, I’ll vote for him if I’m wrong and he takes the 2020 primary by storm.
ruemara
@debbie: yes. Because we have the numbers. We need to fix the systems in the states pertinent to the EC
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I never had a problem with hm before today. I don’t want to overstate it, but I’m tired of the whole theme.
ruemara
@Barbara: I tossed cash his way & I’d do it again. But Sanders’ rhetoric is a benign white supremacy based economic message. Nah-uh. I don’t trust him. But i’ll ally if it means we win.
Tenar Arha
@debbie: I don’t think I’m going to be allowed to let it go. Every article that focuses on telling Hillary Clinton to STFU (with her well thought out valid criticisms of the entire election and all the rat fudging goings on) is both proof and fuel for the people who did believe in her that their concerns don’t matter to the party. I mean c’mon, black women our our most reliable base, but we’re ignoring them chasing after white men.
Show me any articles telling Wilmer and Uncle Joe to STFU or behave in some specific way like how they’re telling Clinton or Obama to act now…they want them both to go away because they’re both proof that white men & a lot of white women & the media failed to call bull pucky when it would have mattered most. Those articles and think pieces are the media’s guilty conscience playing out by blaming the usual targeted scapegoats. If we don’t fight that perception now, registering voters, getting volunteers etc, will not happen in 2018 because we didn’t stand up to these guilty people trying to blame everyone but themselves for how misogyny, racism, rat fudging, CYA and a concerted 30+ year propaganda campaign in the media torpedoed the most prepared candidate we’ve ever had.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
There are a lot of similarities, oversimplification of problems and of the politics that are necessary to fix them, and over-promising based on those oversimplifications. And no small degree of dishonesty from Himself.
@Baud: The “I would’ve been a better candidate” fantasy is widespread, just like the “I would’ve been a better president than Obama” fantasy of everyone from Chuck Schumer to Keith Ellison.
Baud
@Tenar Arha: Agree.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agree.
Camembert
@Jeffro: Protests don’t flip anything; they frighten or disrupt Reps and provide organization buttons for the actual election.
Issa promised to protect our healthcare at his last town hall, then voted for the AHCA. I’m delighted to harass him at every turn, and I’m done believing that he’s worth my time and energy to engage.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wasn’t pleased to see O’Malley rise again in recent days. I guess it goes too far to blame him for the loss of the governor’s race in Maryland– the Democratic candidate was a dud– but O’Malley was visibly not helpful, and local Dem politicians were seething about it. One got the strong impressions that for O’Malley, ambition wins over actual politics.
Camembert
@Baud: This is the nature of all left-wing memes:
Step 1) This meme is insane and you are insane for thinking/coining it.
Step 2) This meme is old news, and it wasn’t invented by anyone, it just kind of came about.
The transition from Step 1 to Step 2 usually takes about 72 hours.
Cleek isn’t the first person to articulate Cleek’s Law; he just said it well in a particular community. Atrios has been on about this for years, as have thousands of less well-spoken or read humans. It’s a fun way to say it is all.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Of course, what we need is a TV performer who Says Things that makes white millenials scream “Whooo!”, not an effective politician who understands coalitions, legislation and knows how to get actual bills passed.
(I think my admiration for Nancy Pelosi is clear, but a couple of hours with an acting coach wouldn’t have been wasted)
debbie
@ruemara:
Getting rid of it altogether would be better.
NPR mentioned the pro-Trump rally in DC, estimating the crowd as being in the “dozens.” Haha!
Westyny
@MomSense: Righteous and right.
Peale
@Barbara: yep. Unfortunately I think though the issue of sanders is that he may appeal to younger voters, not just Johnny Steelworker. We lost white millenials to Romney and to Trump. While the demographics of that generation mean that Hillary won them overall, there are still 2x as many of them.
Anyway, looking at cross tabs, though, I think you’re right about Sanders trying to make his slice of democratic voters who voted for Trump or stayed home into a bigger deal than it was. Also too, looking at the cross tabs, doesn’t reveal that there was the groundswell of leftism in the country that he could galvanize to out perform her. The largest block of voters dislike Washington, thought Obamacare went too far and only 17% wanted more liberal policies than we already have. He’s offering a 2 big federal programs to that electorate. And it would have been a no-brained to paint him as a lefty. That’s who showed up in 2016.
Those disenchanted non-voters? Who cares about them unless they actually wanted to vote and were prevented from doing so.
frosty
@MomSense:
Wow, great story! Loved the audition for the commercials.
Omnes Omnibus
@Peale:
No, if they are left leaning, we want them. If they really believed that their voices and votes didn’t matter, we can show them that they do matter. Look how few votes it took for the Orange Outrage to win. We also want the people who wanted to to vote but couldn’t. Courting Trump voters? Fuck that.
Jeffro
@Baud: bummer…I’m glad the the GOP’s lack of policies or principles is being discussed but Cleek deserves credit
Heidi Mom
@West of the Rockies (been a while): It’s foolish to ignore the concerns of the working class, agreed. The white working class? No.
Jeffro
@Camembert: right…if this is how they’re going to control the public’s access to their constituent meetings, we need to find new ways to harass and frighten them
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and that’s just domestic policy– trump’s ‘tough’ affect had enormous appeal to lizard brains and night terrors of people who think ISIS is washing up on the banks of the Mississippi and its tributaries, and old Hand Wavy Wilmer wasn’t gonna reassure them
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ben Sasse doesn’t know how to thread tweets, I don’t know how to efficiently cut and paste them, but
before he had time to think on that red-eye, he was accepting congratulations on the great, “adult” conversation he and Maher had. But his apology is probably more, and more sincere, than we’ll ever see from Maher.
Peale
@Omnes Omnibus: I guess I’m referring to the 2016 election non-voters. A lot of Bernie’s power, as it is with most progressives, is this belief that there is this large slice of progressives in that non-voting pool just waiting to be activated. Maybe there are. I mean, people don’t vote for lots of reasons. Clinton won first time voters…by a landslide! Perhaps the best thing we could do as a party is find as many of them as possible and can nvince them to show up next fall! They’ve already taken the first step towards becoming regular voters! The other major block of democratic voters are those who only show up for president. That’s who we need to survey because until they get into the habit of caring who represents them in that hated Congress, it doesn’t matter who we put up for president.
Amaranthine RBG
@Baud:
Indeed, Clinton did not even carry the white female vote
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: the guy Sasse retweeted, the one who complimented him and Maher on their adult conversation, has deleted the tweet that provoked this response from Sasse in real time, which is still up
ETA: anywhere I can place a bet that Maher’s first response will be “this is why trump won”, and that there will be a second response after he talks to HBO?
Teddys Person
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: To me, Sasse looked a little too comfortable with the casual use of the n-word. Right after Sasse and Maher had a little chuckle over BM dropping the n-word. They chuckled over “wanting kids to suffer.” Maher asked if Nebraskans still work in the fields, and Sasse replied with a big ole grin, “Yeah, we want our kids to suffer.” Neither one of them comes off good in any part of the exchange.
Mike in DC
Between 4 and 8000 in DC for the rally here. The Nuremburg rally FOR Trump in Lafayette park drew “dozens”.
satby
@MomSense: sorry debbie, I’m totally with MomSense here. Nice summary of why the animus against Sanders won’t go away. His trolls swarmimg threads is another reason the anger lingers.
Baud
@Mike in DC:
That’s quite a range for an estimate.
Mike in DC
@Baud:
I no count so good.
Camembert
@Peale: “We lost white millenials to Romney and to Trump.”
Clearly the best possible approach is to double down as hard as possible on the exact strategies that lead to this outcome, instead of trying to come up with new strategies that both retain our decency and actually win.
Nah, let’s just sit out the opiate crisis and help the 1% take all our wages. Winning!
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in DC: At least you have your grammar skills to fall back on.
Peale
@Baud: perhaps crowdsize is quantized. One the fifth person shows up, the level jumps to 8,000
Gelfling 545
@Kay: Beets are one of the few crops which are worth the effort of growing at home. Fresh picked are a totslly different experience from store bought. Others are tomatoes and string beans. Lettuces too for the many varieties possible and getting baby leaves and of course fresh herbs. Most other things are only worth it if you’re growing to store for a big fsmily in a big space. Potatoes are fun to do with kids but unless your area has a paucity of varieties I don’t find it worth it in general. My sister, when she taught 2nd grade, did grow them with the kids in big plastic garbage bags in her classroom, though. They would have a grand feast at the harvest.
Frankensteinbeck
@Camembert:
However, they can reflect the level of engagement of our voters, which is enormous, as reflected by huge swings in our direction in the special elections.
@Camembert:
That’s fine, but the strategy won’t be to engage Trump voters or stop pushing the racism angle. They’re not flipping to us, and we’re way more fucked if we lose the actual Democratic base, which is minorities and especially black women. And we’re already heavily pushing policies to economically help the white working class. So, what further suggestions do you have?
Peale
@Frankensteinbeck: declare that our cities are on fire! Instead of promoting raising the minimum wage as a way to address basic living concerns and inequality, sell it as a way to stick it too your boss and hurt the 1%. Make it shinier.
germy
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Peale: Breaking up the Big Banks* will solve the opiate crisis, apparently.
*-How will we do that?
–Because we should!
–WHOOOO!
satby
@Kay: LOVE Rutabaga. Do it!
Citizen Alan
@MomSense:
Personally, I wish O’Malley had done better in 2016. If he’d gain some traction and lasted for a while, he’d eventually have reached the point where the only way to go forward was to go negative against Wilmer and drag out all the dirty laundry that Clinton, as the front-runner, didn’t want to lower herself to use.
Peale
@Frankensteinbeck: @Peale: I’m not exactly joking. If we need more exurban votes, you’ll have to validate their lifestyle choices. Man, living here sucks, what with all the dead end jobs leading you all to shoot up heroin after the doctors hooked you on OxyContin. But I’m here to tell you that I still believe you’re the backbone of this country. The dumb people are those who moved away where the jobs are. You, well, you’re just fine and not at all the cause of any problems in this country. It’s those people in New York that are the problem. I’ll stick it to them. They’ll be sorry that they left.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t know why that cracked me up. A former neighbor of mine used old tires to grow potatoes, I guess to contain them? I never asked. I have a couple of old tires, that I was thinking of using as raised beds, but I checked the google and a lot of people said they leach toxins into the soil and you especially don’t want to use them for food. Other people on the internet said, that’s not true anymore because of sciency stuff. I’m inclined to agree with the people who say don’t do it. Any of the people on the internet here have an opinion? I guess I finally have a question for the gardening thread other than “Does anyone want to come over and pull weeds in my yard?”
Kathleen
@debbie: Is this the proposed ballot issue to redistrict national congressional offices via independent commission, like the Ohio will be doing for state offices as a result of the anti gerrymandering proposal that passed? A friend of mine is getting signatures to get it on the ballot. I’m thinking I should be gathering signatures also.
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: @ruemara: Can I join you? ruemara, I really appreciated your comment yesterday regarding not being able to afford cynicism and hopelessness in context of civil rights movement. I was too late to comment on that thread but I’ve had that same thought.
Kathleen
@MomSense: Amen!
Kathleen
@germy: Amen amen.
Frankensteinbeck
@Peale:
I hear what you’re saying, but it’s not at all that easy. Our politicians already tell them they’re great heartland voters, and just like our politicians already offer economic policies to directly help them, it’s not working. The rural folks who resent city slickers and how we look down on them enough to make their political choice based on it are trying to protect a culture that is racism, a Christian monopoly, ignorance, and generalized hate. I’ve lived there. I know it intimately. As long as the Democratic party is against those things, these people will feel that we are attacking their culture. Their culture is dying, and that scares them, but that is the culture that’s dying. Nobody’s stopping them from eating grits, wearing cowboy boots, and listening to country music.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Amaranthine RBG:
No Dem presidential candidate has carried the white vote since 1965.
Captain C
@MomSense:
That alone could have destroyed his rep and sunk him in the general. Just picture the ad, a slightly distorted visual of Wilmer in full Angry Unhinged Professor Mode saying something like “politicians need to be transparent, especially with their finances, so we know they’re not bought out by Wall Street million-aihs and billion-aihs” followed by, say an unflattering black and white pic of the man with the voiceover: “[Wilmer] wants more transparency from politicians, but he refuses to release his tax returns and financial disclosures. What is this hypocrite trying to hide? Call [Wilmer] and ask him why other politicians have to be transparent, but he can hide his own finances.” He’d have no response.
Marcopolo
Was at the StL but haven’t been on BJ today until now so didn’t know other folks would be there. Oh well, it’s what happens when you get up early, work out, do chores, and barely have time to get downtown for the start. Back home now. Glad everyone came out. Was interesting seeing Sarah K (not gonna try to spell her last name) in the meatspace speaking.
In other news in StL, about the time the march ended I here there was a confrontation at the Confederate Monument in Forest Park between Trump supporters, who I guess were holding a counter March for Truth rally, and regular folk. I’m all for dismantling the thing and moving it to the Civil War museum/display/whatever it is at Jefferson Barracks asap.
Sorry to miss folks though I probably saw you anyways and to you & everyone else–hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend!
Camembert
@Frankensteinbeck: “the strategy won’t be to engage Trump voters” Absolutely agree for 95% of them, and the 5% we can peel off we can get with the same vast changes to industrial policy we’d make to motivate nonvoters.
Oops I meant hire more Republicans to run the economy. Can’t criticize St. O.
debbie
@Kathleen:
It is, though I think the GOP should have honored the voters’ decision when Issue 1 passed a couple years ago. According to this, they only have a month to gather signatures.
Here’s the campaign website.
Gian
@Baud:
it might help if the site owner put it in the lexicon
rikyrah
@Baud:
Why Baud?
Betsy
@Sunny Raines: A Lincolnian vision you are advocating. Very noble
Peale
@Camembert: so, what changes do you want to industrial policy?
Quinerly
I’ll leave this here: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/politics/state/donald-trump-religion/
Another Scott
@germy: This?
https://democraticredistricting.com/
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Camembert
@Peale: End the anti-worker bias of our current industrial policy.
1) H1-B program: end it. There’s an argument to be made for having a system to allow a small number of specialists to cross borders easily, but the structure of the H1-B program exists to create a permanent underclass that drives down wages.
2) Lobby for and enforce blue-green provisions of our trade deals, including with the WTO and NAFTA. I comprehend the idea of us subsidizing extremely poor countries and reducing human suffering. I don’t comprehend the idea of outsourcing pollution and increasing human suffering both there and here.
3) Wages. Round about 1980, wages disconnected permanently from productivity. If they’d kept up, we’d all be making 50% more an hour. That isn’t a slowdown in how effective we are, it’s just straight up rich people muscling stuff away from the rest of us. There are a lot of causes of this. Some of it is variants on outsourcing. Some is probably diminished union capacity. Both of these are policies; we allow China to subsidize their goods via exchange rate policy and environmental devastation, among other things.
4) Enforce environmental laws on Big Ag. Doing it right isn’t all that much more expensive, but it does require a shift from megacapital to labor. Not tough to discern who wins on that one. I’ll totes accept a 3% increase in food prices if the result is that rural American stops being a wasteland.
5) The finance sector is about 3x the size it was (in GDP terms) in 1950. I defy you to tell me that the country that defeated Fascism then put humans on the moon was incapable of mobilizing capital. We should do a comprehensive reexamination of every law passed since 1978 (when ATMs got decent) to see if it’s for any purpose other than helping speculation.
6) Infrastructure investment, yada yada. Include a program for private home environmental refits; that’s an easy twofer.
(pie in the sky)
6) Student loan forgiveness. The big debtors are the folks who got taken in by the for-profits and people who went for the wrong graduate degrees. Neither of these are particularly terrible things to do, so why are they getting hounded?
7) Land redistribution. Just what it says it is.
8) #SinglePayerNow Helps with a lot of systemic problems, including wage differentials.
It’s fine, I know none of this will ever even remotely be considered. The Democratic Party isn’t the worker-hating monolith the GOP is, but we are definitely a party of the 10% professional elite.
No One You Know
Marched for Truth today. Gonna put some pix and notes together later–I should figger out how the rest of you do it–, maybe for my next DNC survey response, but some quick notes:
Both Senators and the district house representative sent staff to speak. They all acknowledged the mail, email, phone calls on Russian interference and pledge to get answers; Wyden’s rep said Wyden “intends to bird-dog this so it won’t get swept under the rug.”
We filled the park. Not a huge group, maybe 400 people, but passionate.
Big plus: a local party person told us how to get a state house Bill out of committee and to a floor vote–where it will win. I’m really excited about the possibility that they read BJ. And will be calling and emailing to encourage the blockers of the bill to move forward.
The big jerk with the anti-DNC sign about Seth Rich didn’t like it when the little old woman half his size held up an upside-down American flag in front of him. His sign went higher, easily clearing hers. The Peace Volunteers moved in after the jerk’s sign hit the pavement. I didn’t see how that happened but there wasn’t any visible fighting. Someone engaged him and listened to him talk. A little while later he walked away and started shouting from the street, but stopped or was stopped.
The march went well, and several restaurants offered free lemonade and iced tea as we went by!