OMG, Bob Costa reports that in lieu of "war room," Trump intends to be "his own messenger" and will tweet WHILE Comey testifies. /1
— Sybill Trelawney (@SybilT2) June 6, 2017
… but as a reality-tv showman, Trump inevitably retreats to his safe space!
>> is admissible EVIDENCE in a grand jury, impeachment trial or court proceedings. It's nuts. Seriously nuts. He really is unhinged. /3
— Sybill Trelawney (@SybilT2) June 6, 2017
Anybody here with expertise want to double-check the law claims?
***********
But seriously, folks… Joe Conanson, in Buzzfeed, “Trump’s Aides Should Remember Whitewater — And The Collateral Damage”:
The last special prosecutor who went after a president didn’t take him down — but he did ruin Jim Guy Tucker’s life.
You don’t remember Jim Guy Tucker? He was Bill Clinton’s successor as governor of Arkansas, and he was the guy independent counsel Ken Starr did manage to convict, on charges that he’d lied on his application for a loan a decade earlier when he was in the television business. And Donald Trump’s aides would be well-served by googling him — and Webb Hubbell, and Susan and Jim McDougal, and William J. Marks Sr. — about the brutal collateral damage of Starr’s investigation, which originally focused on a real estate deal known as Whitewater but wound up destroying several mid-level Clinton associates before it landed on its improbable destination: Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.
As a former FBI director and veteran prosecutor, Robert Mueller may not perpetrate the same kind of clumsy abuses and copious leaks that marred the Whitewater investigation led by Starr, who lacked prosecutorial experience. But Mueller is expected to vigorously pursue all significant leads with the full authority of his office and the methods employed in any major case. The team he has recruited will exploit the vulnerabilities of Trump’s associates, forcing them to disgorge facts that they and the White House would prefer to keep hidden.
In other words, just like Starr and other independent or special counsels, Mueller may well prosecute offenses that appear tangential to the Russia case in order to turn targets into witnesses. That puts every single player in Trump’s orbit, starting with minor and seemingly irrelevant characters, in serious jeopardy…
Baud
Balloon Juice comments are privileged, right? I’m, um, asking for a friend.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Oh Baud,.. you crack me up ????
Ridnik Chrome
I know what Conason is trying to say, but really, you can’t compare Mueller and Starr. Starr’s brief was basically “keep digging until you find something, anything that can be used against the president”. The whole thing was a fishing expedition that was intended to hamstring the Clinton administration, and the Republicans pretty much admitted it…
Mnemosyne
Susan McDougal ended up being jailed for contempt for several years because she refused to lie under oath and say the Clintons had been in on the Whitewater scam.
That’s how evil Ken Starr is.
piratedan
as far as looking out for the people in the Trump orbit… fuck ’em.
it may take us a decade to recover, but all of these fuckers need to be perp walked for what they’ve done. Not because of policies I don’t agree with… nope, not because of that. Rather because of the way that they’ve pissed on our election laws, campaign finance laws and RICO and treason. THAT’S why they should be perp walked.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: We are all ordained jackals. I’m sure everything will be fine.
N.B. This advice is worth less than you paid for it.
Brachiator
They kill women, don’t they?
A quick thing before I leave for the day. Not sure if it was covered earlier. I heard a bit about this on Dan Savage’s podcast, could not believe that it could happen in a “developed” country. From the Chicago Tribune, Associated Press and other reports.
Women’s issues ain’t identity politics. It’s a matter of life and death.
Peale
@Baud: I think you’re good. I’d marry one of the front pagers, though, just to be on the safe side. Or Embed your comments in with medical advice.
The Dangerman
After reading about the Golf Tournament below, I’d love to see some of the Trump Family in the Big House, but that’s never going to happen…
…but I’m guessing Mueller gets fired. Right after Sessions. Fuck, The Donald might fire everyone but Bannon.
I don’t get Bannon’s end game. NATO was never controversial for how many decades and he seems to want to break it up. Is it all just to benefit Vlad?
Major Major Major Major
@Peale:
I wouldn’t.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Is it the jackal-hyena privilege?
different-church-lady
I might have to take up smoking by the time this is all done.
efgoldman
Lie down with cockroaches…..
schrodingers_cat
@Peale: BC, AL and DougJ are married. Not sure about Alain’s marital status. JGC has ABC. That leaves Adam Silverman. Does Boring Freddie still have FP privileges?
jl
@Baud:
” Balloon Juice comments are privileged, right? I’m, um, asking for a friend. ”
I guess we’ll find out whether whether running your campaign on spare change and lotto tickets was a good idea.
I think you can get a free hour at your local legal clinic.
debbie
@Baud:
Too late.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
efgoldman
@The Dangerman:
You’re looking for logic n’shit in the wrong place.
Anne Laurie
@schrodingers_cat:
But not to each other, she notes hastily…
JMG
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Same deal as the House. The moderates will fold like two buck lawn furniture.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
From what I’ve read, it’s tied into Texas’s jihad against Planned Parenthood. They cut off state funding for PP, closed a bunch of clinics, and didn’t replace them with anything else.
Texas decided that “saving babies” was more important than the lives of actual women and babies. They are perfectly happy to let mothers and babies die as long as they can deny abortions to women who want them. Denying abortions is the only thing that matters to them.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: One % get the tax cuts, rest of us die.
pat
@Brachiator:
Wasn’t it Texas that forced the closure of most of their Planned Parenthood clinics…. Hmm…
ETA: I see I’m not the first to make teh connection. The anti-choicers are truly evil.
Major Major Major Major
@JMG: But I heard Susan Collins had concerns!
Concerns!
schrodingers_cat
@Anne Laurie: As far as I know!
John Revolta
I dunno who Sybill is, but let’s everybody remember Rule #1: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Personally, as a big old hippie liberal, I would REALLY HATE IT if the President were to do the live Tweety thing. REALLY.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: I wonder if she’s still croaking about running for governor, scripting some ads about her brave and lonely stand in her dusty, echoey noggin.
Gvg
@The Dangerman: Bannon is supposedly funded by the Mercers. They also funded Breitbart and other out there right wing sites…I have read. KellyAnn was theirs. Supposedly Cruz was their first choice and they jumped on Trump when he took out Other candidates. Given how many connections have already turned up, especially Russian ones, I really want the Mercers investigated too. Bribery is the least I think will turn up.
Whitewater is a good reminder that investigations with politics involved can get out of hand so I don’t want a witch hunt. Bribery and corruption are the kind of things that can legitimately turn up in an investigation though. I hope it will turn up enough to get Citizens United over turned or new laws made.
The Dangerman
@efgoldman:
Yeah, it seems to be chaos for the sake of chaos; I wonder when the markets say “enough, motherfuckers”.
Barbara
Privilege protects communications between attorney and client. So live tweeting won’t break that privilege. However, all of the tweets and on the record comments could make a lawyer’s job that much harder. For instance, saying that he was thinking of Russia when he decided to fire Comey cannot be taken back, and makes any subsequent defense that the two are unrelated all but impossible. To the extent Trump ever plans to invoke executive privilege, he would need to stop making comments that more or less reveal all the information he is ostensibly trying to protect.
jl
Meanwhile, the world starts picking up the pieces and moving on:
Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, effectively declares independence from the current US govt
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/872206191807520768
The immediate danger of Trumpism, is that his idiocy sparks a miscalculation by NK or Russia/Putin (not sure what the difference is these days) that sparks something between an ordinary disaster and a catastrophe.
Barring that, most likely scenario is that other leading countries continue the post WWII world order without us. If Trumpism can be squashed over next two election cycles, they will probably carry on and make some good progress. What happens in longer term if Trumpism can’t be rooted out is another question. But US influence in the world will be reduced, and that would be mostly a bad thing (but I am prejudiced, so maybe not).
Would be a testament to the work of Truman, Eisenhower and other at least half-way competent US presidents, and founders of EU, if the US can take an ill-advised road trip into a oblivion for a while, and the world can continue to make progress. With current Canadian, French and German leadership, and other countries’ leadership, they might do quite well.
Edit: At least some of them must be asking, first Dick & Dub, now Trump, are we going to have to put up with GOP loons every other eight years from now on?
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: McConnell needs to go bye bye
And so do the Mercers as well
Immanentize
@Anne Laurie: AL. When I read this in your post:
I swear I read “retweets to his safe space.”
jl
@Anne Laurie:
” But not to each other, she notes hastily. ”
Pretty boring prospect for a Baudist. So, best can be hoped for is a threesome?
Ksmiami
@Gvg: For any NYC balloon juicers, the Mercer daughters own Ruby et Violette; an overpriced cookie boutique. Would be ashame if no rich liberals bought their crap. I hate Bob Mercer. Ef that guy. When Simons ran Renaissance, it had a soul.
Citizen Alan
@Brachiator:
I tried to be a glass-half-full kind of guy. Wouldn’t it be better to say that Texas has a lower pregnancy-related death rate than any other third world nation?
PsiFighter37
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Unless it’s the exact same bill as the House, it would still have to be hashed out in a conference. Still plenty to go from here, and if Ossoff wins on June 20, re-passing any kind of shit sandwich in the House gets that much harder.
I will believe something passes in the Senate when I see a scored bill. And this is assuming the Russia stuff doesn’t blow up even more (which it will).
Mnemosyne
@pat:
As I understand it, right now researchers are unwilling to say there was a direct cause and effect, because some of the deaths are from things like drug overdoses, but it seems pretty clear that removing a convenient source of contraception and prenatal care from an at-risk population has had at least some effect on those mortality numbers. It would be one hell of a coincidence if the closing of the PP clinics had had no effect, to say the least.
Ksmiami
@jl: We have to root out Fox and basically dismantle the Rt wing alternative media universe before this country can make progress. A tall order, sure, but it can be done once we seize power again. Free speech does not mean you can yell fire or revolution in a crowded theatre / country
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Brachiator:
Yeah, but it’s just women’s lives or deaths. No big deal.
Peale
@Citizen Alan: probably wouldn’t be true.
JMG
@Ksmiami: No need to get near the Constitution. Just mandate a la carte cable pricing. If viewers can pick and choose what they pay for rather than bundling, all three cable news networks will go toes up in about a week.
hovercraft
@Brachiator:
Texas has been hacking away at spending on women’s health ever since the ACA passed, they closed a bunch of clinics and I think they even had to give up a lot of federal funding because of their policies, and that was even before they forced all the family planning clinics to shut down to “stop” abortions.
efgoldman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
She can probably win if she does. It’s the same electorate that has kept her in the senate.
tybee
@Citizen Alan: Texas: it’s like a whole other third world country
SiubhanDuinne
@John Revolta:
Wow, me too! I really hope he doesn’t do that. PLEASE don’t live-tweet the Comey hearings, Mistah Preznit!! PLEEEEZE!!!!
Amaranthine RBG
Conanson ignores the fact that Trump can have Mueller removed unlike the situation with Starr.
Does anyone honestly think that Trump is just going to allow Mueller to do his job?
And, following on that, does anyone really think that the Republicans controlling congress will do anything to remove Trump?
efgoldman
@Ksmiami:
It does for a cable network, unless and until SCOTUS rules differently.
We have to stop dealing in fantasy scenarios (abolish the Electoral College! Reinstate the fairness doctrine! Get the electors to vote other than how their states voted! Abolish the senate!!) and define and work toward realistic goals, like winning some fucking elections!
craigie
Luckily, Trump will protect them.
What?
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman:
That sounds hard, can I just complain about ‘corporate Democrats’ or something?
rikyrah
@Gvg:
There were tweets in the morning thread about the FBI and CIA knowing that the Russians collected voter data.
If true, that could only be Kushner and the Mercers.
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne: And President Trump just doesn’t have the power to fire Attorney General Sessions. And even if he does have the power, he needs Sessions too much. — Sessions is carrying all of Trump’s water and is the real President. And frankly, Trump doesn’t have the stones to fire him because Trump is old and not good looking and not rich.
Can we start a website?
efgoldman
@Major Major Major Major:
Sootcha’ self
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m sure most tote bagger/NYT reader types in Maine and around the country think she’s bee a moderating, bipartisan influence on politics.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: It could also be Roger Stone and Sessions.
jl
More from Canada. Their foreign minister, like officials in other countries, understand how to add one and zero and get one.
There is no ‘cooperation’ with Trump. You are a client, and will get zip out of it, or rather, will lucky to get zip rather than serious damage.
Canadian Foreign Minister @cafreeland: “To rely solely on the U.S. security umbrella would make us a client state.”
https://twitter.com/Max_Fisher/status/872109172300578816
Tom Levenson
@Major Major Major Major: Wise man. Just ask my spouse.
Tom Levenson
@schrodingers_cat: I’m chopped liver. (Or rather, mostly silent until my current book mss is done, some months from now.
Immanentize
Why wouldn’t they think that? The magic teevee machine tells them it’s true every day!
Ksmiami
@efgoldman: Yes win first – then go after the neo-confederates root and branch. No more working across the aisle. GOP is a danger the the USA
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Amaranthine RBG: If he does that and the Repukes do nothing then they should be removed from power. By any means necessary. Because then the game is revealed to be irrevocably stacked in their favor. They won’t abide by the same rules, so why should we?
Gin & Tonic
@jl: Freeland is not stupid.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@efgoldman:
Like what?
Immanentize
@Tom Levenson: Good luck on the book! It’s a rollercoaster slog but you have proven it is doable. Finish early and be a shining example for us all. (I’m procrastinating on my chapter right now)
JPL
OT Not sure if this has been mentioned but Scott Pelley is doing the CBS evening news. GA had dozens of folks overdosing last night with four deaths. He’s covering the opioid epidemic in our country. If Hillary had won this would be big news.
Now I’ll go read the rest of the blog.
Villago Delenda Est
Here’s hoping the collateral damage wipes out as much Trumpanzee scum as possible.
schrodingers_cat
@Tom Levenson: Not to Tikka! How is the magnificent beast, btw?
Villago Delenda Est
@Ksmiami: The GOP must go the way of the NSDAP and the CPSU.
Oblivion.
JPL
@Major Major Major Major: Collins has the same type of concerns as McCain and Graham. Maybe Trump will ask her to dine with him.
Elie
@Brachiator:
More than that, not to get off topic, there is a real opportunity for Dems and progressives with women, The following really describes this increasing demographic that remains not fully tapped. Single women are growing in prevalence relative to married women, but they have not been as consistent voting. Many single women have children, hold jobs and are keenly interested in health care issues throughout their life spans from twenties through senior years. Women outlive their husbands and single women predominate in senior populations… This is a great article
http://data.voterparticipation.org/report/unmarried-women-america-2017/
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: This supposed “feud” with Sessions is just bullshit. Remember when Bannon was supposedly in the doghouse? Yet who removed the Article 5 sentence from the NATO speech?
Trump is an entertainer. This feuding is all a show, just like wrestling, and it’s appalling to see supposedly smart people falling for it hook, line and sinker.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus:
I await my check from you.
Cheryl Rofer
There is not enough popcorn in the world for Thursday. I’m glad I have a little stash.
schrodingers_cat
@JPL: Whory Woodruff would have done a tut-tutting feature with a concern trolling R senator as a guest for the Pure BullShitty NewsHour.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: I judge him (and people in general) by his actions and not words.
Cheryl Rofer
FWIW, the evening newsdump says Sessions offered to resign.
JPL
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Handel has a good answer on her support for mammograms, and I hope that Ossoff mentions that she supports Trumps healthcare plan, that would make it harder for people to get treatment for breast cancer. What good are mammograms, if you can’t afford the treatment?
fyi http://www.wsbtv.com/ will be streaming the debate here and on their facebook page. It starts at eight.
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic:
Is there any evidence that wasn’t just Trump himself? Hating NATO is one of his few actual beliefs.
lollipopguild
@John Revolta: Please do not throw me over into that Brier patch!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I, obviously, am not in sync with the trumpen trumpetariat, but this seems really, really dumb. “Hey! Let’s see if we can make any low information voters curious about what’s going on”
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
I can see Trump, though, in a late-night fit of pique, just firing Sessions because he feels like it at that very minute. If he had waited until morning, maybe grabbed a couple of hours of ZZZZs, he might reconsider. But he’s quite capable of firing the AG (or anyone else) on a whim, and then, because he is incapable of reconsidering his decisions, doubling down rather than admitting that he might have acted in haste.
eric
@Barbara: they could waive privilege if in the process you say something that would otherwise be privileged. then there is the issue as to the scope of the waiver. hence, say NOTHING.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: What I found amusing is that Sessions is having doubts about Trump. Sessions is not a shiny object of morality.
Loch in kop
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: No biggie, they’re just identity lives. Don’t let that fluff distract you from the Real Issue(TM).
MoxieM
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: A WilmerBro I know did tell me that Women’s Issues were “special interests”. With a straight face (no pun). I suggested that at something like 51% of the population, we are hardly that. Criminy.
JPL
Those expecting Comey to say that Trump obstructed justice, are going to be disappointed. The most that I hope for is for him to say, that is up to the courts to decide. I doubt that he’ll even go that far though.
Major Major Major Major
@JPL: The most I hope for is “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation” over, and over, and over.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@JPL: Based on what?
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@JPL: I’m torn. I want to see the debate, but that means looking at/listening to Karen Handel. If I lived in the 6th, Ossoff would have to shoot my dog to make me not vote for him, and even then I’d just stay home — there’s nothing Handel could say that would convince me to vote for her. So what’s the point?
I still might watch, though.
Johio
So, today I learn I will have no health insurance next year. 63 year old woman with pre existing condition. Fuck Trump. Fuck all Republicans. Fuck the stupid voters who gave them power for no better reason than their promise to fuck anyone not white. I have no hope for this country at all. Edward Murrow said we aren’t descended from fearful men. We’ve descended.
Frankensteinbeck
@The Dangerman:
Bannon’s end game is a race war. And I put the odds against Mueller being fired. It could certainly go either way, but Trump is a coward, and if he hasn’t done it already, he’s probably got a reason that will keep it that way.
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t think it’s bullshit, and I do think Bannon was in the doghouse. We have overwhelming evidence that Trump has the attention span of a fungus gnat. Anyone he’s mad at, that could turn around at any moment. Hell, the senile bastard forgot he was in a signing ceremony and walked out. This isn’t kayfabe, because he’s too incoherent to do that anymore, even though he once loved that stuff.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Now, don’t listen to her young jl. She was part of the MSM and FAKE NEWS.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: Somebody submitted text for the prompter. I am convinced that was Bannon and Miller.
Even if it wasn’t, my larger point is that Bannon is clearly not on the outs.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Priest-penitent, jackal-hyena, whatever.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
important work, making your nanny tax-deductible. Rally round the trumps, Rustburg!
JPL
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?: I assume that every republican will ask if Comey thinks Trump obstructed justice. That’s not something he can answer.
Peale
@The Dangerman: Brannon’s goal is to dismantle the liberal order, especially the institutions that work against genocide.
Cheryl Rofer
Frankensteinbeck
@SiubhanDuinne:
I don’t think it’s practically possible for him to do it that fast. There would be papers to have drawn up and signed, and before that happened, Trump would have to actually tell Sessions to his face that he’s fired. Trump is terrified of confrontation, remember? All that posturing on the Apprentice was to cover that firing people is exactly what he’s too cowardly to do. If he wanted to long enough to get someone to help him plan, he could arrange something where it’s sprung behind Sessions’ back like he did Comey, but not on the spur of the moment.
ruemara
@Johio: I am terribly sorry. I wish there was something we could do.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Maybe don’t try to defund Planned Parenthood if you really care about families?
Seriously, what Ivanka is doing for women or families? She’s a bullshitter. Something she and Rubio have in common
JPL
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: My family has already voted, and that number includes a son who didn’t vote last time. He had to travel out of town at the last minute and returned to Atlanta at 6:15. He arrived at his voting site at 7:10 to locked doors. This time, he made sure to vote early.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: as a lot of people have said, Comey knows how to present a story that makes him look good and highlights the drama– as with the Ashcroft’s sickbed tale.
I was looking at the footage of trump sitting around the table with the GOP leadership today, trying to remember which ones will be on the committee Thursday.
Quinerly
@SiubhanDuinne:
I tend to agree with you. Threw out a question about whether Sessions would be fired on a AM thread. For the most part Juicers said no. I can see it happening. I think Sessions is going down one way or another.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Rubio wants another tax cut for himself. Her plan would take away help for the bottom ten percent and give help to the top ten percent.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I think Trump’s such a nut job that people can go in and out of favor and then back again. I’m reminded of Damien Hurst’s King Henry VIII
Steve in the ATL
@JPL: eh, I’ll skip the debate as I’ve already cast my vote for Ossoff so it’s too late for Handel to try to change my mind. As if I would ever vote for that harpy….
Quinerly
@Cheryl Rofer:
Reading comments from bottom up. Just seeing this. Thanks for the post.
SatanicPanic
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yup. We’re not witnessing DISTRACTIONS, we’re witnessing a bumbling old fool trying to make sense of the world. That’s terrifying in its own right, but it’s not what we were expecting.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: I’m going to watch hoping he fucking destroys her.
dr. bloor
@Baud:
If you want to send me your insurance information, I’ll slap a CPT 90853 code (Group Therapy) on this whole thread, and you’ll be good to go.
Bex
@pat: @Mnemosyne: Trump stole from children with cancer. Since they were already born Papaya Pol Pot couldn’t care less.
Bobby Thomson
@Gin & Tonic: Amen. Just like when Roger Stone was “fired.”
efgoldman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
For the most part, the totebaggy set aren’t the voters that elect her. Most of Maine is Central Ohio or West Virginia, with potatoes and closed paper mills instead of mines and steel mills, and harder winters.
These are the folks who elected Mucilage twice, after all.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Likewise.
Also, there’s public broadcasting debate Thursday morning, June 8. Radio only at 9:00 a.m. (WABE-FM 90.1), repeated at 7:00 p.m. that evening on both WABE and WPBA-TV Channel 30.
JPL
@Steve in the ATL: A company conducting a poll for AJC called last night. Although I mentioned that I had already voted, they still wanted me to answer all the questions. It was hilarious. The last question was can a reporter contact you directly and I said NO.
At one point, the person conducting the poll mentioned that I was being recorded. Whoops!
tom
@Cheryl Rofer: One of the weird things about the current climate is that I find myself agreeing with people only a short while ago I violently opposed, including Jennifer Rubin, David Frum, and even, God help me, Bill Kristol and John Podhoretz.
SiubhanDuinne
@Bex:
Every time I think we’ve completely exhausted the store of alliterative orange-coloured fruit/despot combinations, someone surprises me. This is one of those times.
Mike in DC
My main hope is that he brings up other conversations with Trump, and/or with Trump surrogates, and thereby drops a new bombshell or three.
Omnes Omnibus
@tom: Just remember that they are who they are and once we pass this crisis they may revert to type.
Balconesfault
@Mnemosyne: for anyone who questions how evil Ken Starr is, just look at his actions as president of Baylor. When a woman would come forward to say she’d been raped by football players at a party, Starr would throw her out of college for being at a party where there was alcohol.
Kenneth Kohl
@pat: don’t mess with Texas…
Spanky
@Gin & Tonic:
You mean journalists and pundits? One thing about their profession is that for all the times they’ve shown themselves as idiots there’s a published article or video of them doing it.
And yet, they’ve persisted. Sigh.
tom
@Omnes Omnibus: No doubt. I am hoping that is sooner rather than later.
jl
@SiubhanDuinne: Anyone tried Tangerine Tyrant yet?
Edit: Kumquat Kleptocrat?
Edit2: Apricot A-hole?
Edit3: Cantaloupe Crumbum?
Edti4: Mango Melonhead? (Two, count ’em, two fruits in one!)
Lyrebird
@Gin & Tonic: Also too… is Sessions -aka Giant Stain On Our National Conscience – easier to prosecute via impeachment or as a private citizen if he resigns?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m open to the idea that the Sessions rumors are bullshit, but they come from Sessions, right? The rat who was ready to jump ship but stayed for the sake of blah blah blah…
ETA: @jl: Quince Quisling?
Corner Stone
@tom: John Schindler, Tom Nichols, Rick Wilson, etc.
They will drop you in the bucket at the first opportunity. Wilson just wrote a diatribe that denied the importance of voter suppression playing a role in elections. Called it, “tough love for both sides“.
They are all trying to jump off the tiger they spent decades crafting and creating.
The Dangerman
@jl:
Tang-banger?
Quinerly
Out of much of the news loop most of the day. Worth a peek if you haven’t seen/it hasn’t been posted: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cnn-reports-russian-hackers-qatar-crisis
jl
Maybe ‘Banana Republican’ can be used for the whole lot of them?
efgoldman
@Lyrebird:
There’s nothing preventing a cabinet officer from being indicted and tried. I suppose if he refused to leave and the president refused to fire him, some kind of congressional action might be required, but there’s no reason cops can’t walk into his office with a warrant and arrest him.
Once he’s out of office? Just another citizen.
Quinerly
@tom:
Ain’t that the truth…I found myself crushing on David Frum the other day. I felt so dirty.
tom
@Corner Stone: Nichols has been blowing the same horn, claiming that voter suppression and gerrymandering had little effect.
JPL
@Quinerly: I long for the days when I can ignore the never trumpers, because truth be told, they’d support Pence.
For those who plan on watching the Handel/Ossoff debate, expect her to mention Pelosi several times. I have no idea why, but she will.
zhena gogolia
Open thread, so just have to say: I get so many positive comments on my Tunch “Obey” sweatshirt. Since we’re having 50-degree weather here in CT.
Cheryl Rofer
@tom: Yes. Strange times. I couldn’t bring myself to retweet Podhoretz, but thought the crowd here would appreciate the humor of both the tweet and who tweeted it.
More seriously, we are going to have to ally with whomever is on the side of representative democracy to get the autocrats out and rebuild the nation.
efgoldman
@JPL:
It’s an evil spell/incantation, like “Hillary Hillary Hillary” but it won’t cause death of your firstborn. Sort of a lesser spell.
Not as effective as stepping on a crack.
Bex
@SiubhanDuinne: h/t Luvvie.
TenguPhule
@The Dangerman:
“WOLVERINES!!”
/And I’m not joking. This apparently is his end goal.
ArchTeryx
And it appears that McConnell is taking a page from the Ryan playbook re: Trumpcare. He’s simply going to cut and paste the house version onto a Senate bill in a matter of weeks, then try and jam it through on a party-line vote. He intends to make it a litmus test vote, too: No party support for re-election unless you vote for Trumpcare.
(Normally I don’t like posting GOS links, but it has good secondary links in it: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/6/1669306/-Sorry-kids-no-health-care-for-you-in-Trumpcare)
If that’s really true, then I fear it’s already a done deal, and the ACA and Medicaid as a whole are finished.
Steve in the ATL
@JPL: just got a text from Color of Change PAC asking me if Trump or Obama was a better president so far. This is what I get for responding to texts from the Ossoff campaign!
Esme*s Mom
@jl: Douche a l’Orange?
germy
Corner Stone
@Cheryl Rofer:
There are no allies there.
Mike in NC
@JPL: When Obama got elected the wingnuts created the “Obama-Reid-Pelosi” Axis of Evil to blame everything they hated on. Used to see it in Letters to the Editor all the time.
Corner Stone
@tom: Anyone who has the fucking balls to write a book titled “Death of Expertise” and still have voted for Republicans the last 30 years should expect the wall.
Tom Levenson
@schrodingers_cat: In fine shape. A brief cat post will be forthcoming.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: There is the possibility of a sensible opposition party, but that’s about as far as I am willing to go.
Bex
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Quince Quisling! You win.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bex: No, Bex, we all win.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Give any one of them three minutes to provide discourse on public policy or politics. If they do not mention Benghazi, welfare/SNAP or Public/Private Partnerships we let them live. On probation.
I guarantee you Frum, Nichols and Wilson – as a start, will fail.
TenguPhule
@Amaranthine RBG:
No. They made deal with the Devil and there’s no turning back. They must now hang together or else they will surely hang separately.
dmsilev
The (FT)NYT:
“Show us on the doll where Mr. Trump tried to grab you.”
TenguPhule
@efgoldman:
I thought you said you didn’t like fantasy scenarios.
JPL
@Steve in the ATL: He’s way to cautious and it won’t encourage folks out to vote.
You don’t appeal to those who didn’t vote for Trump, by not mentioning Trump. She’ll attack. Betty Price has been pretty quiet, but I expect that to change. She won’t want her husband’s seat to go to a dem, no matter her feelings about Handel.
Jeffro
@piratedan: Trumpov could die tomorrow and I’d still want this investigated and hashed out to the last hacked voting booth and laundered ruble.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
” Quince Quisling? ”
Yep, you win.
But we’ll need a lot of them.
So, anyone used ‘Pumpkin Pretender’ yet? Mark that one down for use when convenient.
Probably need to move off of fruits and veggies into savories.
Chedder Chump?
JPL
The debate is starting! Handel can attack and hopefully Jon will respond.
MomSense
@dmsilev:
We just saw this on hardball.
“James Comey told Sessions he didn’t want to be alone with trump”
7th grader: Bet lots of women feel the same way
TenguPhule
@Johio:
No subsidy, no provider or just priced out of the market?
Cheryl Rofer
More newsdump: James Comey told Jeff Sessions he didn’t want to be alone with President Trump after being unnerved by his request to end an F.B.I. inquiry.
I see @dmsilev has already addressed this, but I wanted to give the link. And if The Orange One heard about this, it might be part of his pique with Sessions.
Barbara
@Immanentize: The pressident can fire that AG. Don’t you remember the Saturday Night Massacre?
PVDMichael
Great article on Forbes about how Eric Trump Foundation was doing a lot of self-dealing. Surprise Surprise said no one ever.
Jeffro
@Gvg:
I think Bob Mercer’s Cambridge Analytica is already being looked into, for what it gave to the Russians in terms of data (both hacked and non-hacked) about Americans for the purpose of subverting the election.
Jeffro
Just sent this to RWNJ dad and bro, to see what their reaction is…
debbie
@Barbara:
I believe the AG resigned rather than fire Cox.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
Getting video but no sound. Damn.
Closing down the iPad for a minute and trying again to see if that fixes things.
TenguPhule
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Somebody told me McConnell was just dillydallying. My response was that when you don’t hear anything about one of these fuckers for awhile, that’s the time to be worried. It means they’re up to no good.
Cheryl Rofer
@Gvg: @Jeffro: Jared seems to be associated with Cambridge Analytica.
Barbara
@eric: Yes, but only after there is a privilege to waive. Anyone can be asked about a subject. The subject is not shielded because you spoke with an attorney about it. What is privileged are the communications about that subject with your attorney. The extent those communications can become diascoverable depends on whether they were held in confidence.
different-church-lady
@SiubhanDuinne: if that doesn’t work, try closing the iPad down permanently.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TenguPhule: I just read a piece by Doug Mataconis, who I think is on their side, predicting that they’ll never make it. left twitter seems to be panicking… who knows.
sm*t cl*de
@jl:
The judges would also have accepted Kumquat Caligula.
Quinerly
Trump wants solar panels on the Wall: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/06/trump-wall-solar-panels-mexico-239204
Cheryl Rofer
Moar newsdump:
I’m going to go read some dead-tree things.
JMG
The hard core will never admit how easily they were fooled. The hardest core actually want Trump to destroy the country. They hate it because they’re not completely in charge. They’re just like him. Me, Me. Me, Me. The ones who went along because Trump was the Republican, many will stay, but others will leave.
TenguPhule
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The problem is that McConnell declared that Senate Rules are Calvinball with Gorsch. Literally anything goes now.
Barbara
@Frankensteinbeck: So basically Bannon is a disciple of Charles Manson? Let us hope for similar failure without the carnage.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer: Sorry, Dick Cheney already made that redundant. And his fucking meetings are still locked up under top secret.
raven
Nancy Pelosi!!!!
TenguPhule
@sm*t cl*de:
I thought it was Catsup Caligula.
geg6
@tom:
I know. Me too. Frightening.
raven
Jane Fonda!!!!!!
raven
San Francisco!!!!!
pk
@Johio: Me too. Many of us. I can only hope karma wreaks havoc on all of them. Preferably by cancer or ED.
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer:
I used to think this…but now I’m not sure. I want terms of agreement first, as in, they have to agree to fully and completely investigate all of this crap and air it out in the light of day, ALL of it, not just the Russians and Trumpov. The Russians and the House/Senate races, the Russians and Cambridge Analytica, all the “dark money” floating around our system thanks to Citizens United, the unprecedented obstruction by McConnell on Garland and the Russian hacking, etc.
No more “long national nightmare is over” – we’ve already had to live the nightmare, so let’s see a very large number of people pay the price as an object lesson to future GOP scuzzwads. Respect the Republic and play by the rules, or be drawn and quartered.
Quinerly
Well, well, well….what do we have here?:http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/336518-wikileaks-offering-10000-to-get-intercept-reporter-fired
Barbara
@jl: Someone at TPM came up with Kumquat Quisling, which I think is just about perfect.
Cheryl Rofer
@TenguPhule: We report, you decide.
different-church-lady
Dude is going down
Jeffro
@Quinerly: That defeats the whole purpose! How can we have clean energy of any kind with all that sweet, sweet coal waiting to be burned?
I could actually see Trumpov doing the reverse: let all the brown folks in (for just a little while! BELIEVE ME!!) to help mine the precious coal
Major Major Major Major
@Jeffro: do keep us posted.
@Barbara: Il Douche is still the best one.
raven
Handel tried to be cute and say Trump should put down the twitter. It fell flat.
Cheryl Rofer
Yet moar newsdump.
This reports a step beyond Trump’s badgering of Comey. He wanted Sessions and Coats to shut Comey down.
Corner Stone
Yeah. This is a guy I am going to look to ally with. The author of “Death of Expertise”. Sounds just like our 5 year old R party president in his immaturity.
JPL
@raven: California, Massachusetts and New York.
Zelma
@Gvg: I want a witch hunt!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady:
I believe a ‘tweaker*’ will work.
*tweaker, aka a hammer.
germy
SiubhanDuinne
I had not realised, or had forgotten, that Karen Handel has such a whiny voice. (Yes, I finally have audio. Not on the iPad, but the iPhone came through.)
Keith P.
Man, the Trump stories are coming out in a steady stream (HA!) tonight. I bet it’s going to be like this all week.
Quinerly
@Cheryl Rofer:
Chris Hayes reporting the WaPo piece.
Chet Murthy
@The Dangerman:
Yes. SATSQ.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Nothing skeevy about that, at all.
JPL
Ossoff is too smart, and Handel has sound bites.
schrodingers_cat
@JPL: I have lived in Massachusetts and NY but not California, will Maryland do?
JMG
Nichols is a very smart guy and a good writer. Alas, he is one of those smart people who assume disagreement with him means people are either stupid, acting in bad faith, or most importantly, don’t respect his intellectual authority. So there’s not much point in engaging with him.
raven
The Obama Administration has admitted the 2 billion dollars is being used for terrorism!
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: the capitalists allied with the communists to beat the Nazis. Desperate times.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@JPL: Yep, she mentioned Pelosi three times in the first 15 minutes, I got a good look at my brain stem from rolling my eyes so damned hard, and my husband turned it off.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: I am not impressed by either Nichols or the three musketeers in the admin (2Ms and K)
Quinerly
@germy:
Would that be “Little Marco Rubio?” It’s so hard to keep up. Seems like decades of this shit.
raven
COLLAPSING
SKY ROCKETTING!!!!!!!!!
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Hahaha, I noticed that too!!
raven
Drill her ass, yes!!!!!
Corner Stone
@JMG: He’s a climate change denier yet wrote a book titled, “Death of Expertise”.
He’s not a smart guy.
raven
The pill in the senate!!!!
different-church-lady
@raven: wait, what?
raven
@different-church-lady: Fuck Karen Handel and her bullshit.
JPL
I knew she had the health care answer. Ossoff appears to have an answer though..
She’s back again
SiubhanDuinne
@different-church-lady:
Oh hellz no. I love my iPad.
JMG
Something should be cleared up here. Comey cannot and should not offer an opinion as to whether Trump obstructed justice. He’s not FBI director, he’s a private citizen and a witness. His job is to present facts, or at least his version of events in a factual manner. Anything else would screw Mueller’s investigation from jump street.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: They agreed the Nazis were real.
Chet Murthy
@Citizen Alan: Just to add a little meat to what others said: I dug up the stats a while back, and Texas actually has a worse pregnancy-related death rate than a few “third-world” countries. It’s that bad. Of course, the real crime is that it impacts african-american disproportionately:
Source
Quinerly
@raven:
I’m beginning to think that this president wasn’t vetted properly before the election.? Who do I complain to?
SiubhanDuinne
My sister was born without an esophagus, therefore Planned Parenthood Susan G. Komen something something, WHUT?
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: She thinks she’s so fucking cute.
debbie
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
NPR said this afternoon that Handel was also tying Kathy Griffin to Osoff. Seemed a bit ridiculous.
SiubhanDuinne
@JMG:
I have a number of issues with Comey, but I think he knows, understands, and respects that.
JPL
omg He nailed her, and that is what I was waiting for.
efgoldman
@debbie:
Two of them: Ruckleshaus and Richardson. Worked its way down to Bork, who did the deed.
Didn’t do old Tricksie a hell of a lot of good, did it? Maybe delayed the inevitable a month or two. Maybe.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
I know, fuck her. Cannot stand to look at or listen to her.
raven
@JPL: Mr Lubner was born without a spine. . .
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: They both have double Fs in their last names.
GxB
@SiubhanDuinne: Durian Dolt, Jackfruit Jagoff, Paw Paw Ponce…
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
?????
JPL
nancy pelosi
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: precisely why I am not watching the debate. I trust JPL, raven, et al to keep me apprised of any worthwhile developments.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: I didn’t realize we were trying to fight climate change with Tom Nichols, thought we were trying to get rid of Trump.
Jeffro
Where’s everyone watching the GA debate, again? I mean like on what channel or website?
trollhattan
You may be surprised to discover our shadow president is now Jerry Brown.
raven
Yea, the I 85 bridge repair was an example of how private-public partnership can work.
And they got every fucking dime. Yay!!
eta He needs to jump on that.
efgoldman
@Barbara:
IANAL, but I think it’s a reasonable assumption that if you tweet about something a dozen times, and/or discuss it with, or in the presence of, a third party, your privilege claim for that particular thing goes right down the crapper.
trollhattan
@Jeffro: In the library, with a candlestick.
raven
@Jeffro: Facebook has it, look for WSB
SiubhanDuinne
@Quinerly:
Complain to John Cole. Email(s), multiple, all caps. Then ask him repeatedly on twitter, Facebook, and Balloon Juice if he got your email yet. Send it again if he doesn’t respond within 15 minutes.
Quinerly
@Jeffro:
Need dedicated thread.
Patricia Kayden
@different-church-lady: Smoking what exactly?
raven
@Quinerly: It’s over in 20 minutes
different-church-lady
@JPL: PHRASING!
efgoldman
@Cheryl Rofer:
Meh. Darth Cheney did something very similar and never even got his desiccated wrist slapped.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Also, too, demand
cuteginormous cat photos. In focus.Patricia Kayden
@JPL: And Osoff should mention Trump one hundred times. Trump’s approval rating is down to 36%.
raven
@Patricia Kayden: That is not his strategy.
jl
@trollhattan: I note from the pic that Jerry Brown bows less to foreign autocrats that either Obama or Trump. A true patriot. And he is older than both Obama and Trump put together, I think, more or less.
SiubhanDuinne
Ossoff is hammering Handel on SGK/PP. Good.
raven
Planned Parenthood does not do mammograms.
raven
Cha-ching,
different-church-lady
@SiubhanDuinne: PHRASING!!!
Bill E Pilgrim
@trollhattan: I always made fun of people who claimed that California was going to split off from the rest of the country and float off into the ocean, but the first part at least is turning out to be true.
JPL
San Francisco values.
SiubhanDuinne
W.H.U.T.???
Karen, even you can do better than that.
Quinerly
@raven:
OK, I’ll close my eyes. Thanks for the warning.
Bill E Pilgrim
@different-church-lady: Turn up the heat then?
jl
@Bill E Pilgrim: We welcome you as our new client states. We will be gracious and merciful, and just. And thoughtful and wise. Not like Trump at all.
SiubhanDuinne
Nancy Pelosi again, sheeesh.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: That is the point. You can’t trust anyone to ally yourself with if they deny climate change. AKA Reality. If you think taking Tom Nichols at his word helps the cause of getting rid of Donald Trump then you have learned nothing about the GOP, R’s or anyone not on our side.
JPL
I hope no one is drinking to Nancy Pelosi.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: She’s dumb as a fucking post.
efgoldman
@Cheryl Rofer:
Is this new news? I thought he said so to the Russians or the tweetlerverse.
Bill E Pilgrim
@jl: Wait who’s “we” in this? I grew up in California. And moving back there in a couple of weeks.
JPL
@raven: She does come across like a pit bull, though.
Mnemosyne
@Bex:
Forced birthers don’t care about actual babies. If they did, they would make sure that low-income women could get prenatal care.
The only thing they care about is making abortion illegal. If mothers and babies have to die to get to that goal, then that’s fine with them.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne: Ur mean.
Jeffro
@trollhattan: Ha! Found it on my own, you scoundrel.
raven
I do not support a livable wage!!!
Jeffro
“I do not support a livable wage” – do we have time to run an ad against Handel on that?!?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: You’re on the list too.
SiubhanDuinne
@different-church-lady:
Hammering Handel? I guess I could have made a lame musical joke about Handel’s “Harmonious Blacksmith.“
jl
@Bill E Pilgrim: We will have a just, rational and humane immigration policy. How much money you got? You promise not to try to buy a house?
raven
@Jeffro: Oh yea
SiubhanDuinne
@Jeffro:
We’ve got two weeks.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: The fuck?
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Diabolical!
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: the soviets denied plenty of reality. But if you say we can’t ally with any climate change deniers to get rid of trump, it’s gonna be a much harder slog.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
I can live with that.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: She meant minimum but fuck that, drill her ass!
TenguPhule
@germy:
$5 says they try to turn all the Comey questions back to Hillary and her emails. And LEAKS!
Bill E Pilgrim
@jl: I’ve got a storage space there, I guess I could just live in that.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: You have fun with him and his ilk, then.
different-church-lady
@raven: PHRASE-ING!
raven
“I don’t think I’ll get a congratulatory tweet if I win”!
SiubhanDuinne
Ossoff: Voting rights. Good for him.
JPL
Another Nancy Pelosi
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: I am willing to work with them to get rid of Trump. I don’t trust them and expect them to turn on us at the first opportunity.
raven
@different-church-lady: This ain’t no pillow fight.
Corner Stone
@Bill E Pilgrim: Access to a water faucet?
SiubhanDuinne
Phone battery died. Y’all who are watching the last 10 minutes, please say if there’s anything worth noting.
MJS
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wait, what? “No one should have to put off having children due to economic insecurity”? Isn’t that a very good reason to put off having children, i e., you can’t afford them?
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule: $7.40 Cotton tells the press Trump asked them to intervene on behalf of Flynn.
debbie
@efgoldman:
Totally forgot about Rucklehaus, dammit.
raven
Duplicative!!!!! Hell yes, Trump supporters are scratching their heads.
different-church-lady
@raven: It sounds like a hardcore porno.
raven
@different-church-lady: In the mind of the beholder. . .
JPL
omg .. another Nancy Pelosi in fact two Nancy Pelosi’s
different-church-lady
@raven: Triplicative!
Cheryl Rofer
The White House crowd that would like to persuade Trump to stop tweeting weighs in.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: agree completely. They aren’t in my coalition, they’re allies of necessity.
raven
Wsb with analysis!
It would be good to recall that WSB stand for Welcome South Brother. They also have Hermann Cain, Hanitty, Rush and Boortz.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Corner Stone: No, but prelude to a phone.
I’m not really going to live in my storage space. The rent on that has been going up along with everything else BTW, yeesh. So I’m going to clear it out and give it up once I get settled, clearing it out for the first time in — not even sure. More than a decade, I’ve had that thing.
Brachiator
@Cheryl Rofer:
I keep imagining that Comey was afraid that Trump would grab him by the crotch.
What a strange administration. Comey is afraid to be alone with Trump. Pence is afraid to be alone in a room with a woman who is not his wife. I can’t believe what a dysfunctional bunch of goofballs we are dealing with.
. ..
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady: So what kind of Drinking Game for the Comey Testimony?
Sip for emails.
Sip for Clinton.
Sip for integrity.
Sip for “ongoing investigation”
Sip for “Russia”
Sip for “I am unable to comment”
Sip for each tweet of Trump’s about his testimony
Drink for “obstruction of Justice”
Drink for any mention of being uncomfortable
Drink if at any point Comey invokes 5th amendment.
Drink if something sensational is revealed.
Quinerly
@Cheryl Rofer:
Love that first paragraph….in related news, Melania reportedly moves into the WH this weekend.
different-church-lady
@Bill E Pilgrim: I remember the day I realized that for the amount I had paid for the storage space I could have bought everything in it anew.
Baud
@JPL:
It’s almost as if they hate Democratic women for reasons other than the use of private email.
Corner Stone
@Bill E Pilgrim: Not going back to The Continent?
JPL
@raven: It’s part of the Cox media group. The founder ran from President as a democrat. Handel is a pit bull but I don’t think the debate will move any one.
raven
@JPL: You’ve been a pessimist on this all along.
piratedan
@different-church-lady: the thing is, I can see Cotton doing just that. That guy strikes me as just being the right combination of ambitious and self-righteous to think he could end up on top of the dog pile, depending upon just how thick he was with The Turtle in regards to the money laundering, voter suppression and treason. It strikes me that the entire upper echelon of the GOP is corrupt and implicit in all of the hacking, voter suppression and dark money. How many of them pay for it remains to be seen.
JPL
@raven: lol Could it be that I lived in this district for more that 25 years? When I was knocking on doors for local political stuff though, I discovered something, younger folks are moving in. That is a good sign.
Corner Stone
It’s the definition of stupid to think they will help you, or be on your side. Not for one fucking minute. You will have to lie about and slag Obama and HRC. Over and over again. And even then it will not be enough, Because you do not speak the language. You don’t know all the words and the terms. Fight off climate change, fine. Talk about Hoot Smalley, fine. Planned Parenthood? Voter Fraud? Benghazi? Unmasking?
You just can’t do it. There.Are.No.Allies.There.
Bill E Pilgrim
@different-church-lady: I’ve gone through that realization/calculation and variations on it, many times. In my case it’s pretty whittled down, just the stuff I couldn’t/wouldn’t want to replace, instruments, boxes of books and files and records, etc. one or two little furniture pieces from childhood.
@Corner Stone: Not in any long-term way, or not right now anyway.
Corner Stone
People that deny reality in one area will deny it in others. Stock up on your ceramic plate inserts if you want to go to battle with these fucking allies.
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: Please define the pronouns here.
Ksmiami
@Villago Delenda Est: you, me and tenguphule – know that there will be blood
Corner Stone
@different-church-lady: Go crawl back in your hole.
BBA
@TenguPhule: Finish the bottle when the Russia thing is dismissed as a distraction from Benghazi.
Barbara
@TenguPhule: Bottle if Comey invokes the Fifth. A Fifth for the Fifth! That would turn this into something out of Tom Clancy.
Quinerly
I’m beginning to think that a year from now we will be posting about President Pence. I’m looking for comfort. I have found none.
efgoldman
Umm Mebbe can hazz noo t’read?
BBA
@Quinerly: Unless Trump has a Sharon-level health issue, not gonna happen.
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: I SAID PLEASE, ASSHOLE!
No, seriously, it’s sort of making sense but I’m not sure who you’re addressing it to, and who “they” are.
different-church-lady
@Quinerly: It would mean our democracy was still functional on some level.
eclare
@jl: At this point I would welcome California as a benevolent dictator.
Bill E Pilgrim
@efgoldman: I was going to tell you your tires were getting bald.
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: are you not enjoying the abuse?
TenguPhule
@Barbara:
What do you mean would? We’re already past the point of this being a bad fanfiction of Clancy made on drugs.
different-church-lady
@eclare: I, for one, welcome our new mellow overlords.
Quinerly
@BBA:
We’ll see. Not looking for an argument here. Not my style. We are less than 150 days into this shit show. Can’t last at this pace. I would love some full blown Trump embarrassment and family disgrace. But, I truly fear a Pence presidency.
momus
@efgoldman: Classic FBI MO squeeze the little guys until they rollover on their bosses, work your way up the hierarchy until you get the big guy.
efgoldman
@Bill E Pilgrim:
So’s my head.
TenguPhule
@Ksmiami: The problem is that most of that blood promises to be innocent. Things are going to be messy.
So many different currents that the only certainty at this point is uncertainty and I’m not even sure about that anymore.
Kathleen
@SiubhanDuinne: Now if Obama tweeted that…hmmm.
TenguPhule
@efgoldman: Perhaps you shouldn’t roll it on the road then.
TenguPhule
@Quinerly:
This is Snark.
Arguments are down the hall and to the left.
TenguPhule
@Quinerly:
Look on the bright side, If Pence is president, we’ll all be dead already.
Quinerly
@different-church-lady: A President Pence is the RWNJ’s wet dream. I just don’t know how to game this out. But at some point the Repugs in the House will cut their losses. Pence is a known commodity. Trump is chaos.
Quinerly
@TenguPhule:
I enjoy that sunny side of you. You should let it get out more often.?
TenguPhule
@Quinerly:
Reliance on facts clearly not in evidence.
Remember 2008.
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule: No more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Depending on the breaks.
TenguPhule
@Quinerly: I used to be just a dark snarker. And then Reality decided that it didn’t matter anymore on 11/8/16. But I think it was yesterday’s Winner that finally broke my sense of the absurd.
Quinerly
@TenguPhule:
And, I’m a 30 year plus practicing trial lawyer….always thinking about evidence….
frosty
@schrodingers_cat:
I have lived in NY and California, but not Massachusetts. Maryland will have to do for me, too.
Quinerly
@TenguPhule:
??
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady: And colored folks only count as 3/5 of a casualty!
TenguPhule
@Quinerly: And I will not have to pick up any more puppy poop from the new puppy.
Frankensteinbeck
@TenguPhule:
I said McConnell is dilly dallying. He is. He’s taking his own god damn sweet time, and his only legislation passed in five months that’s above ‘Name post office’ level is a budget that is pretty Democrat friendly.
What I did not say is that this means he’s harmless. The man is pure, calculated evil. I don’t know WHAT he’s up to. I just know it’s not ‘Use Trump as cover to ram through bills’, because he hasn’t done it. We’ll have to see.
Gvg
I just noticed the top tweets come from a Sybill Trelawney which is a Harry Potter character, the seer. I guess that means people who didn’t use to comment on politics now care a lot?
Steve in the ATL
@piratedan:
Cotton has the Cruz problem: he’s just such a fucking asshole that people can’t stand him
Steve in the ATL
@JPL:
OMG I am so effing drunk right now….
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
That’s what I’m afraid of.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL:
It is Tuesday.
SFAW
@Frankensteinbeck:
Although that can be said about far too many Republicans, it fits The Turtle as well or better than any of them.
If he were ever convicted of treason, I would hope that they would give Merrick Garland the right of first refusal to pull the switch (figuratively speaking, since I don’t think Ol’ Sparky gets used much any more).
Kathleen
@Quinerly: Dear Balloon Juice: I never thought I would ever write a letter to you about this, but…
SFAW
@TenguPhule:
Perhaps we should just Leigh-ve that comment alone for a bit.
Corner Stone
@Steve in the ATL: You be you, Steve. Hates gon hate.
SFAW
@Quinerly:
Seek help. Immediately.
Look, he may be saying the right things these days, a la Jen-Jen Rubin, but he’s still an asshole, and you can do a lot better.
I mean, it’s not as bad as if you had said that about Ewick Ewickshit or Jonah or Hannity, but it’s still bad.
SFAW
@Steve in the ATL:
As the saying goes: You’re not drunk, if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
I’m assuming you’re not there.
Yet.
Barbara
@efgoldman: Only if he tweeted about his communications with his attorney. No subject is off limits generally — the only time AC privilege attaches is when you are discussing that subject with your attorney. He can tweet all he wants about it to the world at large. He still gets a privilege regarding what he and his attorney discuss with respect to the subject. The fact that he talks about it day and night will make it harder for the attorney to forge a defense should one be needed.
Quinerly
@SFAW:
I know. I was bad. It was that beard he had briefly…that stubble. He looked Canadian. Pretty much over it now.
Quinerly
@Kathleen:
Unrelated…I always do a double take on your nym. That’s my name. Don’t tell anyone.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: As Sen. Franken said about Cruz, “I like him better than my colleagues do, and I hate Sen Cruz”.
Major Major Major Major
@Gvg: or, more likely, lots of people, even some of them respectable, have twitter accounts that reference the world’s most popular story.
Kathleen
@TenguPhule: You forgot “Blame Obama”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Quinerly: Your secret’s safe with us.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
I think the Bible still outsells Rowling. But not by much.
SFAW
@Quinerly:
Hell, if THAT’S all it takes …
I’m part Canuck. I’ll be over in a little while. What kind of wine should I bring?
[Of course, even if I weren’t 1,000 miles away, I’d warn you off of me. Unless you like short, fat, mostly bald Canadians (but not Canadiens, merde!) with a personality used as a template for multiple DSM-IV entries, that is.]
ETA: Although I love the name Kathleen. (One of the reasons that it’s my daughter’s name.)
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Paul Clifford?
Villago Delenda Est
@tom: Nichols is a dipshit. This proved it. He’s got a hardon to get rid of Nancy SMASH, who for some bizarre reason is the latest excuse why Dems can’t win in the Rust Belt. Never mind the careful gerrymandering and voter suppression.
Kathleen
@Quinerly: (whispers) Your secret is safe with me. I don’t know how trustworthy “The Others” are. Baud is vulnerable. You may want to secretly tape record his comments for strategic leakage during his campaign.
Kathleen
@SFAW: You have great taste!
SFAW
@jl:
You need to check with efgoldman, our resident Shitgibbon-renamer.
Quinerly
@SFAW: @Kathleen: @?BillinGlendaleCA: @TenguPhule:
I’m hopeful. A buddy of mine who spent 30 years of his life following/traveling with the Grateful Dead (he’s retired now?) just messaged me..”Mr. Trump, who told you doing the Twist was the best way to get out of quicksand?” Let’s all relax for a minute and wallow in that wisdom.?
Kathleen
@Quinerly: Ha!
Quinerly
@Kathleen:
And, yes, Baud does seem a bit vulnerable.
Steve in the ATL
@SFAW:
You must have been watching the clock to post this right at 10 pm. One minute earlier and you would have received a demerit for posting Balloon Juice After Dark language prior to Balloon Juice After Dark.
We appreciate your attention to detail and your concern for the welfare of the children.
SFAW
@Steve in the ATL:
But what of the little chilluns on the
WorngLeft Coast?Steve in the ATL
@SFAW: they have already been corrupted beyond repair by Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco Values(TM). I learned tonight in the Ossoff-Handel debate.
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: What does that even mean. Voting for Ossoff will make you a gay liberal?
/I am just trying to translate from Moron to English. Am I right?
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
No. it means voting for Ossoff will put History’s Second Greatest Monster (a/k/a Nancy Smash) one step closer to Speaker!!!!!!
It may come down to whether Trump is more or less un/popular than Pelosi. Unfortunately, the Pelosi-hatred is not based on anything rational. Then again, is any Rethug-voter’s action(s)?
Uncle Cosmo
@Bill E Pilgrim: Tilda Switon’s Bald Recap??
randy khan
@JMG:
People have been saying things like this for years, but in practice people actually like bundles (not just for cable, but for all sorts of things). At least one satellite video provider tried a la carte as an option and almost nobody bought it. Also, providers generally can price bundles well below what they’d charge for a la carte.
Smitty
Who remembers Butterfield?
Smitty
I look forward to a ‘Butterfield’ style revelation in the next 48 hours. POTUS Trump soon will be waving from the WH lawn as he boards Marine 1 to… who the fuck cares where he goes.
Philbert
@Smitty: Yup, I was watching it live! I recall no guess or warnings that there were recordings. I knew it was big.
Smitty
@Philbert: It was electric! I was watching during a break at my summer job . The whole crew, college students like myself, went wild! It’s hope that the congressional testimony over the next 2 days impacts a generation in the same way that the Watergate hearings impacted me. I believe in government. Government can be done well. Justice and Democracy can prevail.
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: Nationally, Pelosi’s personal approval-disapproval is 28-48. In other words, all Republican-leaners reflexively hate her and most other people don’t have much of an opinion. So she’s less popular than Trump, but it’s kind of by default.
Ksmiami
Wall off the red states and take their internet and Advil. I give them a week tops before its hunger games time
Tehanu
@piratedan:
From your keyboard to God’s in-box, I hope.