Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

No Justins, No Peace

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

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

You cannot shame the shameless.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Monday Morning Open Thread: So Much… Winning?

Monday Morning Open Thread: So Much… Winning?

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  1. 1.

    Morzer

    In the spirit of… transparency…

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/05/vladimir-putin-denies-he-has-compromising-material-on-donald-trump

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied he had any compromising material about US President Donald Trump.

    “Well, this is just another load of nonsense,” Putin said on NBC News’ Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, when asked whether he had any damaging information on the Republican president.

    The remarks were the latest in a series of denials from Moscow that have had little impact so far on a political crisis in the United States over potential links between Russia and Trump’s inner circle.
    …
    Putin also told NBC he had no relationship with Trump and had never met him, regardless of Trump’s previous travel to Russia as a businessman. Putin noted that executives from perhaps 100 American companies were currently in Russia.

    “Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something?” Putin asked, before saying: “Have you all lost your senses?”

    Trump has offered contradictory accounts of his relationship with Putin over time but has also said the two never met. He has called an FBI investigation into alleged ties between his campaign and Russia a “witch hunt” designed to undermine the legitimacy of his 2016 election win.

  5. 5.

    JGabriel

    NY Times:

    What to Expect as Bill Cosby’s Sex Assault Trial Begins

    I haven’t read the story, but I’m assuming one should expect:

    A tweet in support of Cosby from Donald Trump.

  6. 6.

    AnderJ

    Time for a march against climate change yet? The march for science may have been too general after Trump’s Paris decision

  9. 9.

    JGabriel

    The Guardian via Morzer:

    Putin noted that executives from perhaps 100 American companies were currently in Russia.

    “Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something?” Putin asked, before saying: “Have you all lost your senses?”

    Said a former KGB Employee of the Month.

  11. 11.

    SFAW

    If Shitgibbon would only heed the (immortal?) words of Paul Kantner:

    “Then, I became transparent,
    Finally, I was absent    .”

    Of course, then we’re stuck with Dense, then ZEGS, but: baby steps. (To go with the baby-sized hands of the Whiny-Toddler-in-Chief)

  12. 12.

    Baud

    @JGabriel:

    “Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something?”

    Does not deny gathering Intel on most of them.

  13. 13.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Does not deny gathering Intel on most of them.

    As long as “most of them” does not include Baud!2020 …

  18. 18.

    satby

    @tobie: Good morning to you, Baud,and everyone else! Hope everyone’s day is good.
    I haven’t seen Ozark for a couple of mornings, he’s usually one of the first on. Hope he’s just on vacation.

  19. 19.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Baud:

    Heh. I wonder what those executives are thinking after hearing Putin’s comments.

    Exactly what he wants them to think. STFU about Trump if you know what’s good for you.

  20. 20.

    tobie

    @AnderJ: There was the People’s Climate March on April 29. Admittedly that was before Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Accord. More marches will follow. I’m sure of this.

  21. 21.

    satby

    Of course, since they haven’t met face to face, there’s no other way that communications could have occurred between Putin and Trump. What a silly idea!

  22. 22.

    bystander

    Moanin’ Joe is marveling at twitler continuing to tweet about his TRAVEL BAN just days after his attorneys pled that what he tweeted and said during the campaign cannot be used as proof of the ban’s unconstitutionality.

  23. 23.

    Ben Cisco

    Did they really expect him to answer yes to this question? And at this point, who (other than the dimwits, halfwits, and fuckwits in Trump’s base-assed base) would believe him?

  30. 30.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Seriously, he sounded like a petulant teenage girl. His answers had clearly been formulated well before the interview.

  32. 32.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Senate Republicans fear ‘train wreck’ in September

    “Everything piles up, we go to the edge of the cliff, shut down the government, then we have an omnibus or a continuing resolution where we can vote yes or no. No amendments, no improvements, nothing,” McCain added.

    ****

    There’s no budget, no funding levels for the fall and little talk between the two parties on how to avoid a shutdown and debt default in late summer or early fall, worrying senators in both parties.

    “No meeting, no anything and no plan. I look at September and it’s just: How are we going to get that done?” said an exasperated Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the No. 3 Senate Democrat.

    “When are we going to do the appropriations? We’re not talking about that,” moaned Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.). “It’s gonna go to a [continuing resolution] or an omnibus. We get an up-or-down vote on the whole thing, which is what I’m yelling about.”

    They control all the levers and they can’t even handle a budget.

    Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “We should have an agenda. We know we’re not going to pass a budget with sequestration caps. I’m not.”

    Oh, nooooooooooow Lindsey is against sequestration and in favor of blowing up the deficit. Hmmm, I wonder what changed.

  34. 34.

    Immanentize

    @satby: I was having the same thought about Ozark — he wasn’t on yeserday’s garden thread which was unusual for him. That is probably why that thread was so quiet! ?

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    No meeting, no anything and no plan. I look at September and it’s just: How are we going to get that done?” said an exasperated Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the No. 3 Senate Democrat.

    Not our problem.

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    Oh, nooooooooooow Lindsey is against sequestration and in favor of blowing up the deficit.

    Probably always hated it for defence.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    The crowd rose to its feet and roared its approval as Sen. Jeff Sessions bounded onto the stage at the Breakers, an exclusive resort in Palm Beach, Fla. Stephen Miller, an aide to the Alabama Republican, handed him a glass trophy honoring his bravery as a lawmaker.
    “Heyyyy!” Sessions yelled out to the crowd.
    The ceremony that day, in November 2014, turned out to be a harbinger: It brought together an array of hard-right activists and a little-known charity whose ideas would soon move from the fringes of the conservative movement into the heart of the nation’s government.

    Jeff Sessions is really hard Right. The attorney general is fringe. That’s different and much more profound than being a Trump “adviser”, like Bannon. Sessions has actual, direct power. He can exploit the Trump Administration chaos and Trump’s poor management skills and laziness and move independently to push incarceration.

    This is a good piece because it ties these conservative fringe groups to the Sessions move to ramp up incarceration rates. The authoritarian vein that runs thru the “alt Right” is not discussed enough. They are people who seek to imprison other people. To me it’s always the scariest part of the hard Right, that when you scratch the surface it’s always about locking someone up.

    The WaPo should assign one whole person to cover Sessions. He desperately requires oversight. Trump is a weak President and Sessions is a hugely powerful nutjob. Sessions will step into the void left by not having a real President and he’ll have all the tools and power he needs to take full advantage of it.

  37. 37.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Trump is up and tweeting and apparently forgot anything his lawyers ever explained to him about judges, the travel “ban,” etc.

    @realDonaldTrump · 49m49 minutes ago

    People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!

    49 minutes ago
    The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.

    31 minutes ago
    The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court – & seek much tougher version!

    In any event we are EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S. in order to help keep our country safe. The courts are slow and political!

  41. 41.

    tobie

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: People seem shocked each and every time that Graham reveals himself to be nothing more than a Republican hack. I just don’t get it. He had maybe two-minutes of conscience in November, when he called for an investigation of Russian interference in the election, but starting in February or so he became Trump’s fiercest defender–so much so that he sounds like “Baghdad Bob” in the logical and rhetorical twists he must make to deny the evidence staring him in the face. I can’t imagine the kompromat Trump and Putin have on him.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I don’t think governors want to go back to the 1980’s and 1990’s on incarceration. This is coming out of Right wing grifter outfits and hard Right lunatics. It’s Ann Coulter stuff. Sessions can be discredited with this. It’s not just that it’s “fringe” it’s that there a mainstream criminal justice reform move at the state level that is far ahead of the national “debate”. Governors and state legislators control 90% of criminal justice reform because 90% of criminal issues are state law. They’re more powerful than Jeff Sessions. He can be exposed as fringe.

  44. 44.

    randy khan

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    There’s a lot a President can’t do, but one thing he can do is tell the Justice Department what to do in a suit against the government, which makes these tweets even more bizarre.

  45. 45.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: I agree. He is the worst of the pack. But luckily the DOJ is not so easy to corrupt.

    And I agree he is flying pretty low under the radar these days.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    To use the political language, Sessions is “out of touch”. The reason governors and state legislatures were reachable and persuadable on crim justice is that it’s HUGELY expensive to imprison so many people.

  48. 48.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Morzer: The best move for Putin, whether or not he has material on the Republicans, is to deny it. That keeps everyone guessing and a mystery (um) when the material surfaces.

    I didn’t watch the interview, but from my Twitter feed, it appears that Kelly was ill-prepared, asked stupid questions that someone smarter would have known Putin wasn’t going to answer, and didn’t follow up on any of them. Other than that, she did a great job.

  49. 49.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: @debbie: Thanks. I sorta remember talk of a trip but damn, doesn’t he have a smart phone?! I thought the same thing when Baud went AWOL.

  53. 53.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: it was the recession which really brought that home to the States. Then, when they peeked under the hood, besides all the injustice, they discovered that for-profit prisons were more expensive, were worse at the job, and unions hated them. But Sessions is heavily invested in private prisons for some reason….

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    But Trump is a weak President and poor manager. Sessions can step into that void and do a lot without executive or congressional checks. Bannon has to go thru Trump, operate within that dysfunctional workplace, jostle for position among the nepotism hires, etc. Sessions doesn’t. He can act independently. In fact, he is SUPPOSED to act independently.

    The last thing we want is loonytunes here “flying under the radar”.

  55. 55.

    JGabriel

    @SFAW:

    Of course, then we’re stuck with Dense …

    Which is why I always say the first thing that needs to be done is to impeach Pence, or force him to resign ala Agnew, and replace him with someone more acceptable.

    Then … we can impeach Trump.

  56. 56.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Baud:

    Even the liberal CNN:

    This piece of shit is not just an embarrassment to America and a stain on the presidency. He’s an embarrassment to humankind.

    — Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) June 3, 2017

  57. 57.

    Immanentize

    @Quinerly: Thanks. Maybe Doug could start a bleg for the phone thingy for Ozark. (Ha! And I can almost hear him say smarty-pants phone)

    Sorta OT but I saw you graduated from law school in ’84. Me too! Did you go to UNM? I taught there as a visitor a while back.

  59. 59.

    satby

    So, in the continuing saga of my stupid part time job that should be a no-brainer, I guess enough of the scrubs uniform feedback was negative that they’re being shipped back. And the office manager is pissed.
    In the meantime, our fees have been wrong online for three months, and yesterday the doctor gave me her admin password and I just fixed them. In five minutes. Which the office manager, who has her own admin password, should have done when the fees changed months ago. What a sad situation, a person who really isn’t fully up to the job at age 71 just refusing to relinquish control and everyone trying to work around that because we all like her lot, we just hate working with her.

  61. 61.

    Cheryl Rofer

    I love (I guess) the sieve-like nature of the administration. I am not spending a lot of time on it, but it looks to me like those in the know can pretty much figure out who’s leaking, too.

    It was not until the next day, Thursday, May 25, when Trump started talking at an opening ceremony for NATO’s new Brussels headquarters, that the president’s national security team realized their boss had made a decision with major consequences – without consulting or even informing them in advance of the change.

    “They had the right speech and it was cleared through McMaster,” said a source briefed by National Security Council officials in the immediate aftermath of the NATO meeting. “As late as that same morning, it was the right one.”

    Added a senior White House official, “There was a fully coordinated other speech everybody else had worked on”—and it wasn’t the one Trump gave. “They didn’t know it had been removed,” said a third source of the Trump national security officials on hand for the ceremony. “It was only upon delivery.”

    That’s pretty ugly, the President working around his senior advisors like that. But Trump has consistently said that he likes to be unpredictable. This way he wreaked that on both NATO and his advisors F.T.W!

  62. 62.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @randy khan: He probably just decided Justice should have done something different in the moment his finger was on the button. And, as Kay is busy pointing out, he doesn’t seem to be directing Justice.

    He’s always worse than we thought.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    True, AND stoke up racism, which was the political justification on the Right. The political utility.

    I think part of what happened was people within the system see it as hopelessly broken, they know their work isn’t returning any real value. It’s just this endless line of defendants in jumpsuits, year after year after year. I think they went back towards liberals on it in a kind of desperation, only AFTER they had tried the conservative approach for decades. There aren’t endless ways to approach a problem. No one will come up with some miraculous cure. It was go Right or go Left. They tried Right.

  66. 66.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: I am on the law side of things, not the law enforcement side. I think Justice is having a terrible time right now getting anything done on the law side — for good or evil.

    But I really worry about Sessions’ effects on the LE side. Customs, Border Patrol and ICE already seem to be acting as private militias.

  67. 67.

    Quinerly

    @Immanentize: Graduated 1985 from Saint Louis University School of Law. That’s how I ended up in St. Louis and stayed. They were looking for diversity and wanted a chick from NC. Made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse. As for Ozark and a smarty pants phone…I wouldn’t even try.?

  68. 68.

    SFAW

    @Quinerly:

    Pretty sure he’s on a trip. And, no, he has no smarty pants phone. He’s a flip phone kinda guy.

    Did he take Poco with him?

  71. 71.

    Immanentize

    @satby: Congrats on the scrubs win. But what did the Doc think about throwing out the useful lenses?!

    Meanwhile, did anyone hear back from Watergrrl and her Come To Deity Meeting?

  73. 73.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    . It was go Right or go Left. They tried Right.

    C’mon, Kay. You know that if Right fails, it’s because it wasn’t Right enough.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Also, you cannot overestimate the political effect of draconian crim justice becoming a white people problem. Republicans could no longer ignore the effects of these policies on lower income white men. It’s killing them. They can’t recover from a conviction. It’s not just the incarceration it’s the years and years “on paper” and the fines. The fines became a way to support the system. Just out of control.

  76. 76.

    Baud

    @Kay: All I can say is that this was a clear divide between the parties in the election and the minority side prevailed. Nonetheless, I’m seeing an uptick in “both sides” recently, so American fealty to that concept appears to be unshakable.

  77. 77.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: First, however, one must find a place that is safe. I’m looking for one if you know of any on the used safe-place market?

  78. 78.

    germy

    @Kay:

    They can’t recover from a conviction. It’s not just the incarceration it’s the years and years “on paper” and the fines.

    Plus the culture of google, where a simple online search shows the online newspaper headlines about their DWI arrests or “contempt of court” charges. Sort of makes applying for jobs or trying to sell themselves as contractors rather difficult.

  79. 79.

    Quinerly

    @SFAW:
    Nope. And on the Poco front….he’s in a lot of trouble. I was out yesterday, didn’t get home quick enough after a clap of thunder. Within 15 minutes, he tore through a section of drywall wall from his basement room (walk out basement with doggie door) into the rest of the basement, came up the steps through the interior basement door…ended up cowering under my bed on the third floor. How this ex street dog survived on the mean streets of St. Louis is a mystery to me. Poco has some issues that he wishes to hide from his public. Pissed off Mom today.

  81. 81.

    Immanentize

    @Quinerly: StLU is a great school. My old Dean Camille Nelson taught there. Didn’t you all get a new cool building not too long ago? As for Univ. New Mexico, I would go back to Albuquerque if I could. …

  82. 82.

    Quinerly

    @SFAW:
    I wish. Poco is in a lot of trouble. His Mom is very angry with him right now. I was out yesterday and didn’t get home in time for a clap of thunder. Within 15 minutes, he tore through a section of drywall wall in his basement room (walk out basement, doggie door, divided basement). He then busted through the interior basement steps door…found him covered in white dust, bloody nose…cowering under my bed on the third floor. Poco has issues that he had hoped to keep from his adoring public. I’m busting him.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    If you take a low income 20 year old male with a 15 dollar an hour job and put him in jail for 10 or 30 or 90 days 2 or 3 time a year until he “ages out” (older people commit fewer crimes) he will never recover financially. They have such a slim margin of error. A bump in the road, a minor error or series of errors becomes life-determining because those are the years they have to be MOVING – progressing. They get this on some level. How hard it will be to make up those years. Very few of them succeed not because they’re weak-willed but because it is objectively really difficult. Losing 5 years in your 20’s is much, much worse than losing 5 years in your 40’s.

    This to me is the reality we don’t admit in the US. The “success stories” are outliers. MOST people don’t recover.

  84. 84.

    Amir Khalid

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    They control all the levers

    The Republicans in Congress don’t seem to be controlling any levers, as far as I can see. Not with regard to the budget or to anything else. They’re just staring dumbly at the controls, wondering “WTF do we do now?”

  85. 85.

    Quinerly

    OK, I just composed 2 long Poco comments on the same subject. Both eaten. I give up.

  88. 88.

    SFAW

    @Quinerly:

    Is Poco OK? Or has he disappeared with Ozark????

    Re: comments eated: maybe if you didn’t use a smarty-pants ‘phone?

    ETA: Saw your Poco comments (Thanks, Cheryl!) after I posted this one. Sorry about the damage, I don’t blame you for being pissed. Maybe you should put some ‘Ludes in his food?

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    His administration is failing, though, Baud. All the NYTimes fluffing and all the tweeting in the world won’t cover a lack of legislative accomplishments. Trump essentially behaved like a lame duck when he got in. It was all executive action. That’s an “end of second term” strategy. He started there. I think it’s a direct reflection of THEM, the people he hires. They have really low standards. If it’s hard they give up in a week and go back to the bullshit they can “succeed” on. I laughed out loud when I read Jared announced early on he wouldn’t be dealing with legislation. Of course he won’t. It’s too hard and it’s measurable. He’s afraid of an objective measure. Better to “bring peace” or “reinvent government”.

  91. 91.

    Baud

    @Kay: Right. Thankfully, they are incompetent. But there will still be a lot of work to do to recover if we get control again, and not a lot of unity on how to go about it. But that’s a debate for another day.

  92. 92.

    SFAW

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Trump’s your boss?

    Nice selective reading there, buddy.

    You conveniently overlooked the part where satby said everyone liked the person in question. If it had been “everyone hates” that person, then I could see it ….

  93. 93.

    bemused

    @satby:

    The docs must know their office manager is a detriment to their practice. Do you have any insight on their views of her and if they do want to let her go, why haven’t they?

    Sorry if you’ve talked about this before and I missed it.

  94. 94.

    Kay

    @amk:

    I think this is a misunderstanding of white rural areas. You’re making a comparison that doesn’t exist in white areas. There is no “as compared to how prosecutors treat black people” because there are very few black people. If your county is 95% white and you’re a hard Right prosecutor your defendants are poor white people. The End.

    So, no. White prosecutors don’t use a national racist scheme and apply it to their county. They apply the state law to white people and the differences among white people are class differences.

  96. 96.

    Quinerly

    @SFAW:
    Well, I was lounging around in bed, listening to that evil NPR (instead of hate watching Joe of the Morning) like I do most mornings at 5:00AM. The smarty pants phone is convenient. In unrelated news, I highly recommend Trader Joe’s creamy polenta in a bag with spinach and carrots (in the frozen food section)…wonderful breakfast with a poached egg on top. Just do it!

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    and not a lot of unity

    You’re right. You were right on the damage a lack of unity did and I was wrong. Democrats are always fighting so I just filed it under “cats, herding” and it was bigger than that. I told you I had that meeting with the Indivible people at my house and The Democrats who were there (the county people) were upset with me because I let the Indivisible people dominate (deliberately). They were upset because they read the damage the disunity was causing correctly and I did not. It’s so touchy and fraught – the “Bernie People” are defensive and alert to the idea they may be blamed for this so I though I could diffuse that by bringing them in and all I did was alienate The Democrats. I wanted to move on but maybe we can’t. If it’s not settled it’s not settled and I can’t impose a resolution. It has to work its way thru.

  98. 98.

    SFAW

    @Quinerly:

    The smarty pants phone is convenient.

    You lazy kids, I swear.

    When I was your age, we didn’t have all them newfangled things, etc., etc.

  99. 99.

    Quinerly

    @Immanentize:
    SLU Law did get a new building downtown and off the main campus. I haven’t even checked it out. Basically was opposed to it and the $. I liked having the school on the main campus in Midtown. I’ll be in Bernalillo for the month of February. Looking forward to getting to know Albuquerque better. Usually stay in Santa Fe but was quite taken with Albuquerque that week I was there in February.

  100. 100.

    Quinerly

    @SFAW:
    Yep. You just reach over and it’s conveniently located on the nightstand. Maybe I’ve said too much.

  102. 102.

    Patricia Kayden

    @bystander: Just saw Sebastian Gorka (SpokesNazi) arguing with Cuomo on CNN that the media needs to stop obsessing over Trump’s tweets. LOL.

  103. 103.

    schrodingers_cat

    T is obsessed with Sadiq Khan, one wonders why? He is the mayor of a city not even in this country. A President taking on a mayor, how churlish, even W much more adult like. In fact I don’t remember a politician of any stripe in any country whining so much, non stop. Its not a good look.

  104. 104.

    Jeffro

    @JGabriel: yeah I am not sure I understand the point of interviewing Vladimir Putin… does anyone expect he’s going to say anything remotely truthful ?
    Oh wait… anyone besides Megyn Kelly, that is?

  105. 105.

    Jeffro

    I’m still hoping that a March for Shame gets organized and soon … would love to spend a day lampooning Paul Ryan and the turtle, graham and Walnuts, and all the rest

  109. 109.

    amk

    @Kay: What you say may apply to whites only aka red states. But what about other states, where they are not 95%+? Aren’t the nonwhites incarceration rates in those states much, much higher than that of the whites? And making it worse is sessions’ plan. No, I don’t think the poor whites are going to be that widely punished under the racist ag’s plan.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    What is the breakup of BS supporters: Old Democrats?

    There were more Bernie supporters. But that wasn’t what was appealing to me – what was appealing to me was that many of them hadn’t been involved before and that’s like the Holy Grail of organizing- non voters. I wanted them because it wasn’t about trading a D vote for a Bernie vote. It’s a new vote. It’s as simple as that. + 1. So the anger that I took Democrats for granted is 100% true. That’s like the definition of “take for granted” right? :)

    It was billed as a Democratic meeting, too, so arguably I got them there under false pretenses. The thing about new people is they say things older people already know, but they present them as earth-shattering revelations. That’s frustrating for people who have been around a while.

    One of the county Democrats isn’t talking to me- she was really mad. I can be incredibly dumb when I’m focused on something and my focus that day was “new voters”.

    The county Democrats believe Sanders hurt Clinton by validating the Trump charge that she was corrupt. I think that’s true although I didn’t see it at the time. I probably didn’t see it because I lean Left for Democrats (here- I’m further Left than they are locally) so I didn’t want that to be true.

  111. 111.

    Laura

    @Quinerly: Poco is in the time out/penalty box?
    Do you have thunder shirt compression garment for him?
    Chet, the dapper weinie dog (and former abandoned and starved street runner) has one for 4th of July/New Year’s Eve and the rare thunder storm, and it looks like he’s wearing a grey flannel suit.
    It doesnt repair damage -and that must have sucked to come home to from the Sunday, Bloody Sunday and Music afternoon.
    While he’s in the penalty box, you should look into getting him the thunder shirt. The system of firm jersey knit and velcro provides a comforting pressure over the chest, ribs and back like a big ole hug.
    Poor Poco, the naughty, scaredy cat of a dog.

  112. 112.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay:

    The county Democrats believe Sanders hurt Clinton by validating the Trump charge that she was corrupt.

    I do too. BS originated many of the HRC attacks which were then weaponized by the compliant media and the Rs. Some examples:

    Wall street speeches
    Corrupt DNC
    Nomination stolen from the saintly messed-up hair from Vt.

  113. 113.

    schrodingers_cat

    @amk: There is a lot of variation between the different states, United States is no more a monolith than say India is. What works in Bihar doesn’t in TN, similarly what works in Alabama doesn’t necessarily work in MD.
    Even if racist/casteist (in the Indian context) tendencies may exist everywhere they manifest themselves differently in different places.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    It’s hard because there are problems in the Democratic Party.

    Reid J. Epstein‏Verified account @reidepstein 21h21 hours ago
    More
    There’s an Iowa House special election this month and the Democratic candidate failed to get on the ballot

    Failing to get on the ballot is just incompetence. They’re supposed to be political professionals and they’re paid as political professionals and that money comes from donors. They have to do a better job or donors should demand they do a better job. This isn’t ideological. It’s just work. It’s work they’re paid to do.

    They should have to justify where donor money goes. I lost interest in Bernie as a model for that because he was as bad (or worse) than the MOST conventional pol. He hired those horrible, over-paid consultants and managers and he blew a giant wad on tv ads. That’s not innovative.

  115. 115.

    Applejinx

    @JGabriel:

    “Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something?” Putin asked, before saying: “Have you all lost your senses?”

    Why the fuck not? Our own biggest corporations do that all day, every day. What makes him so special?

  117. 117.

    Morzer

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/04/national-socialism-neo-nazis-america-donald-trump

    Their political party had been misrepresented, Heimbach explained to the waitresses. They’re not the KKK. They’re focused on family and faith and local control, on fighting the international corporations who came into Appalachia and took all the profits from Kentucky’s coal. Heimbach did not try to sell the waitresses on his plan for a white ethno-state, his conviction that the Holocaust did not happen, his belief in thousands of years of Jewish conspiracy. He just talked about family struggles and immigrants taking jobs and hurting workers and how white Americans needed more representation.

    Wooton, who had voted for Trump, was responding enthusiastically. She was furious at the lack of government response to the opioid addiction crisis and skeptical of establishment politicians. Her husband, a coal miner, had lost his job under Obama and been hired again three days after Trump’s inauguration. Wooton came back to the table repeatedly to press Heimbach for more answers, explaining her manager was still calling him a racist. She asked if Heimbach was willing to work with people of other races. He said of course he was. He talked about the importance of black communities making decisions for themselves, about how black policemen might be better at policing black neighborhoods. Wooton agreed and agreed again.

    Talking to Wooton, Heimbach acted like a local politician: polite, a little longwinded, but genuinely passionate. He was not Richard Spencer, the clean-cut, rich-boy racist who got punched in the face at Trump’s inauguration. He was not a ranting internet troll. He was a small-town kid who put himself through college selling custom wardrobe tidying systems, and now he was using those skills trying to sell fascism to the American people.
    …
    Wooton was incredulous that Heimbach could be a Holocaust denier. “He’s so smart. He has to know better than that. There’s television footage of piles of bodies,” she said.

    “They have a lot of really good ideas. It’s really sad that they just bring this racism,” she said.

    She looked depressed. She had been hopeful that Heimbach was a politician who could actually bring help to their area. “He seems really really smart. He seems like he knows what he’s talking about on a lot of things. And this stupid racism that’s going to hold him back from so many things – he could do so many positive things.”

    She was distressed. She could not understand it. “Maybe he’s a little mental,” she said. It was the only immediate explanation, that he had “a little mental problem that he can’t get past this racist thing”.

  118. 118.

    satby

    @Immanentize: @bemused: The office manager is a lovely person in many ways with a few flaws, just like all of us; unfortunately hers are being magnified with aging. In her attempts to keep on top of things she’s becoming very authoritarian (she’s basically liberal in her politics, so it’s weird IRL) and she tries to do everything instead of delegating. Or she delegates without details to successfully complete things which then justifies her doing it herself. She tends to cast blame, and I know I will be taking the fall for the failure of the scrubs adoption as the leader of the opposition ? (and I am totes OK with that)
    She’s one of those people who just is afraid of aging and her own mortality. I suspect she just doesn’t have an much of an identity or outlet outside of work. And she’s very devoted to the doctor. The doctor in turn is really a low-key loyal person herself, and I’m sure she’s hoping the manager will decide to retire before she has to push her out. Tough situation, but it’s a good lesson to me to be realistic about my own abilities as I get older.

  119. 119.

    satby

    @Kay:

    The county Democrats believe Sanders hurt Clinton by validating the Trump charge that she was corrupt. I think that’s true although I didn’t see it at the time.

    I’m pretty leftist myself, much more than almost anyone I know IRL but from observing the “BS effect” on my younger relatives and their millennial friends I think that it’s absolutely true. So many people who would have voted for a generic Dem didn’t vote for Clinton partly thanks to that “corrupt” meme. It didn’t matter so much in IL, where most of them were, but I’m sure it mattered in other places. Until that division and what it cost us is acknowledged, (and the constant trolls demonstrate that it isn’t) this is a huge problem for becoming unified. I honestly am afraid it’s going to damage us long term, because several of them aren’t going to come back. The whole party is corrupt is what they’re told, and they believe it.

  120. 120.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @Kay: The other big push is coming from the private prison crowd, IIRC, as they are not slow to misuse convict labor for even more profit. Prison reform is an attack on their bottom line and therefore cannot be tolerated.

  121. 121.

    TenguPhule

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    There’s no budget, no funding levels for the fall and little talk between the two parties on how to avoid a shutdown and debt default in late summer or early fall, worrying senators in both parties.

    Oh yes, I’m just fantasizing about this fucking Train Wreck that’s incoming.

    If you don’t have Emergency plans by now, you’re running out of time.

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