This:
Democrats will grind Senate business to a halt in a protest against Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare.
Beginning Monday night, Democrats will start objecting to all unanimous consent requests in the Senate, according to a Democratic aide. They plan to control the floor of the chamber Monday night and try to force the House-passed health care bill to committee in a bid to further delay it.
Without the votes to block Obamacare repeal, Democrats are turning to procedural moves they believe will underscore their most powerful argument: Republicans are hiding their repeal plan from the public and using Senate procedures to keep it a secret.
Jam this bitch up until they show the bill. Fuck collegiality. Use every damned trick McConnell has used the past decade or more.
Robin G.
I’m holding my applause until it happens tomorrow and the next day, too. One night sounds like a fundraising email subject line.
Chris
Fuck “until they show the bill.” Jam up all business until they withdraw the bill.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Robin G.: “Beginning Monday night” sure sounds like its a longer term strategy
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris: And Yertle the Turtle is driven from the building for a walk of atonement complete with “shame” lady.
SFAW
I expect Turtle or one of his minions will push through a Rules Change stating that the Opposition Party can only stop — nay, question — the will of the Majority Leader if they have 75 votes to do so. Said Rule will expire the day before the Dems re-take the Senate (if that, Gott sei dank, should happen before Turtle dies),
Given how the Turtle has already destroyed most of the democratic norms, what’s to keep him from trying even MORE heinous shit? Might not succeed, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he tried.
ETA: Be that as it may: I’m with Chris @ #2
Robin G.
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?: I hope so. I just feel like we’ve been Lucy-with-the-football’d on this before.
schrodingers_cat
Cue the doom and gloom caucus to tell us how this is a lost cause.
mai naem mobile
Hope this works to kill the healthcare bill.
In other news Otto Warmbier died. I am trying to feel sympathy for the parents being that the dad was bashing Obama for not doing enough because apparently Obama is supposed to do I don’t know what to get a nut job dictator to release Otto Warmbier. In the middle of an election cycle.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
This is where I think we are headed to as a society, particularly after hearing Kushner speak:
Set in the very near future, WHAT CAME AFTER takes place in a too-credible third-world America that’s been hijacked by corporations in the service of the wealthy. The Federal government has collapsed, health care is inaccessible, and private armies keep order. The upper class is concentrated in the cities, while the middle class—decimated by disease and poisoned by genetically engineered foods—labors on in a handful of desolate Empowerment Zones.
One man, Henry Weller, has had enough. With his five-year-old daughter going blind, he sets out across a ruined America to find her the health care she deserves. He’ll have to face a strange and hostile world—from the financial districts of a walled New York to the armed camp of Washington, DC—but if he’s successful, his daughter might see again.
And along the way, a revolution might get started.
WHAT CAME AFTER is shaped by issues on everyone’s mind right now: poverty, corporate power, access to heath care, the outsourcing of government, parents’ obligations to their children.
But at its core, it’s a post-apocalyptic adventure in a desolate and treacherous world: THE WIZARD OF OZ meets HEART OF DARKNESS, at the end of the American dream.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
OK, just for you:
DOOM
GLOOM
DOOM
GLOOM
DOOM
GLOOM
This had been a Public Service Announcement, because we aim to please.
JPL
@mai naem mobile: That doesn’t bother me, because when you are in pain, you lash out.
Personal responsibility, tends to be for those less fortunate, and that bothers me.
TenguPhule
Unfortunately, McConnell is simply changing all of the rules to get the bill moved forward by July 4, 2017.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Senate Rules are now Calvinball.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Where’s your 51 votes to stop this? Otherwise, stop being an asshole.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@schrodingers_cat: The Democrats are just throwing a temper tantrum and refusing to admit that the last 8 years were a failure. Identity politics are what’s wrong with America today. Only Bernie coulda won but the DNC globalists like Debbie Wasserman-Schulzwitz stole the nom from him
How was that?
jl
Good news. Hope it has some effect. The Dems probably had this timed out for PR purposes. I heard in news report that Senate GOP leadership refused a meeting with 15 (count ’em up, 15!) non-profit health groups, including March of Dimes, to discuss what was in the secret health care bill.
But regular meetings with health industry lobbyists and big GOP donors are very important.
This must be made a huge, and I mean gigantic, issue, in the midterms The Senate GOP has decided to openly flaunt their duty to represent the people who elected them in favor of those who fund them. Not even a pretense of anything else.
They may even be prepared to take a huge hit in the midterms. Why? The tax cuts must be so important that they are willing to make a big sacrifice for them. I figure that idea must be that the GOP can keep enough seats in the Senate to serve as a firewall against repeal. And, therefore, a long term present to their donors.
I am assuming Trump will sign whatever comes out, even if the result is more ‘mean’ than the original House GOP bill. Trump either has no clue, doesn’t care, or will be persuaded by whoever talks to him last, and I am sure the loon tune squad run by Bannon, and Ryan and McConnell will make sure their team will be give Truimp the final pitch.
hueyplong
Is TenguPhule asserting intellectual property rights to assholedom?
SFAW
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
Pretty good for channeling a BernOrBust-er, not sure it’s a doom’N’gloomer rant, however. Willing to be proved worng.
TenguPhule
@SFAW:
He already has. They’ve already changed a lot of the rules to prevent some of the same tactics being used against them.
At this point, I suspect it would take a literal filibuster ignoring all the rules and simply physically blocking the actual vote from taking place to gum this up. Dunno if our Democratic Senators are willing yet to admit that the thing about Senate norms is just a sick charade now.
TenguPhule
@hueyplong: If we must have assholes, let them be interesting and expanding to new horizons, not a cut and paste from a very annoying person who likes to ignore reality.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@SFAW: I’d say it came out more as a alt-righter pretending to be a BernOrBuster
jl
@TenguPhule: Last I read, more than 90 percent of US voting population hates what Congress is doing on health care, and rightly so. It is a very irresponsible way to write legislation that affects more thna 10 percent of the US economy. So, seems like the time for the Democrats to face the destructive and indefensibly undemocratic tactics of the GOP leadership head on.
D58826
And Sen. Cronyn is complaining about D obstructionism.l on Well for once may actually be true.
From the you can’t make this up dept. Tonight’s Fema director confirmation vote has been delayed due to a line of severe T-storms moving thru the DC area.
Corner Stone
The post itself quotes this blurb:
If the fucking Democratic caucus has finally reached the realization that they have to throw the kitchen sink in the ring, what …. oh, never mind.
danielx
Why not? Scorched earth tactics seem to have worked fine for McConnell, he can’t very well bitch when they’re used against him.
Oh, wait….
Frankensteinbeck
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
I would say there is considerable overlap between these through groups, and it’s quite hard to tell which is which.
Brachiator
Works for me…
TenguPhule
@jl: Yes. The problem is is that we can’t legally stop the vote from happening and Trump from signing it if they really are passing a shittier version of the House ACHA bill. Electoral advantage isn’t going to unmake Deathcare from being the new law of the land if the GOP decides to do it.
The consequences are going to be terrible.
TenguPhule
@danielx:
Alas, he’s perfectly fine with changing the Senate rules to suit his needs.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ve kinda noticed.
OT, but do you watch MLP?
marcopolo
The entire effing lot of R senators can go to heck for all I care at this point. It would take only three (3) of them to say they won’t vote for this bill “unless” to force McConnell to use something approaching regular order in getting it passed. That would, of course, include committee hearings. But crickets. So screw all the so called reasonable Rs, the moderates, whatever the hell you want to call them. Collins, Murkowski, Sasse, McCain, Graham, Corker, Toomey, Caputo, etc… Bunch of spineless cowards. And the fact is, they do have more leverage over the process than the entire Democratic caucus at this point.
I am pretty much resigned to not having health insurance next year–actually just hoping it doesn’t go away before then.
And yes, I have called my senators repeatedly (Blunt & McCaskill) and have actually protested outside of Blunt’s office last week and again this Wednesday. Last week a total of 9 folks showed up to make a stand. It was depressing. The folks I tried to get to come didn’t show, and from what I can tell most of the resistance fire that existed in the first month or two of the Trump presidency has burned itself out.
Can you tell I am in a lousy mood in regards to all this? Going off to find some chocolate. My thanks to everyone who is still putting pressure on their senators over this and all the other issues for which they need to be held accountable.
TenguPhule
The irony is sickening that every lie about the ACA and Democrats is godly truth about the AHCA and Republicans.
And no matter how unpopular it is, they still have the votes to make it happen if they choose to do it. We can’t pretend otherwise here. We can hang it around their necks but we can’t stop them from doing it, our current system won’t let us.
Shlemazel
@mai naem mobile:
I admit to not paying attention to his story, what was he doing in the DPRK and what poster did he steal?
I can’t imagine anyone going near the place, particularly an American. Not a pleasant end and there will be no justice for him, sadly
catfishncod
Erick, son of Erick, has given up on the Union. And he sounds serious.
I mean, that’s what I expect. It’s what my great-great-grandparents did. If they can’t dictate terms, they can’t accept minority status. And they won’t accept that they’re not the majority. Federalism for me but not for thee is their calling card, just as it was a century and a half ago.
When (not if) the Democrats regain full control of the Federal Government, I expect insurrection. How bad it is depends on what Republicans do in the next three years.
Shlemazel
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
Ha ha ha ha ha. Pull the other one
Corner Stone
I am not sure why anyone would find this to be a powerful argument. The R’s have proven for 8+ straight years that they pay zero price for cheating and obstruction in Congress.
schrodingers_cat
@hueyplong: When he has nothing to say, he makes personal attacks. For some reason I have been the target of his overt hostility and nasty personal attacks for days now.
Corner Stone
@marcopolo:
Yeah, kinda getting that vibe. When I saw you said they “can go to heck” I started to worry about you a little.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Corner Stone: They have to pay some kind of price. They can’t away with effectively killing thousands if not millions over the next few decades.
All this will lead to is more chaotic, stochastic violence like what happened at the GOP baseball practice last week that will negatively affect our stability.
The government (R controlled) will crack down in a bid to stop the violence and things will become worse from there.
Chet Murthy
Via digby, David Frum (yeah, he’s not blameless, but at least he’s gettin’ religion (for now)):
jl
@TenguPhule: Theoretically, what can be done by reconciliation can be undone by reconciliation, so I think it is a very practical calculus by McConnell. Senate Dems are more exposed in upcoming elections, and McConnell figures he can race-bait and commie-bait and SF-values-bait the GOP dupes enough to hold the Senate, or Senate GOP can out ruthless the Dems even if the GOP loses the Senate (and if they do, will certainly be by just a vote or two).
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Pot meet Kettle. You just shit all over a bunch of other people and then run to the fainting couch when called out on it.
James Powell
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
You left out the fact that Democrats have ignored the white working class while always taking care of [epithet] and [additional epithet].
Shlemazel
@marcopolo:
All the Rs “can go to heck”!?!
Please! We must be more civil while they are forcing us along the death march.
SatanicPanic
@catfishncod: why did click on that link? So stupid. soooooo stupid.
Kathleen
I just left message with Sherrod Brown’s office thanking him and Democrats. They need to know they are supported, regardless of how futile it may seem. I just wish that the Mainslime Media would evince some interest in the fact that a bill which will potentially destroy the lives of millions of Americans is being ramrodded by Rethuglicans in total secrecy. Why aren’t they reporting this (speaking mostly of broadcast media excluding Joy Reid)? ‘
I think the message we should be pushing now to those of us suffering under yolk of Rethug Senator’s heartlessness is hold hearings on the bill. Why don’t you want anyone to know what you’re proposing? What are you hiding?
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
No, I just keep pointing out you’re acting like an asshole when you are actually acting like an asshole. When you actually say something normal I have no quarrel with you.
Mike in DC
Best case scenario is Ossoff wins handily tomorrow, putting just enough fear in the handful of targeted Senators that they bolt, and the bill dies. Second best scenario is that the Dems make it obvious to the public that this is a terrible bill, written and passed in secret. Then maybe it dies in the House. If it doesn’t, then the political imperative is to make sure the GOP owns it, across the board.
TenguPhule
@marcopolo:
Republicans will always fall in line because party over country, always and forever.
dmsilev
@catfishncod: Among other things, he’s taking his views in Nazism from Jonah ‘Liberal Fascism’ Goldberg. Well done, Erick of the House of Erick. While I’ve always had faith that you’d find a new low, there was some doubt about the form it would take.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
my understanding, a group called the Young Pioneers brings westerners into North Korea, with the support/control of the gov’t. Somebody said it tends to be fundies who want to go there to bear witness (to what, I don’t know), but the whole thing gives me a Jackass Dude-Bro vibe
schrodingers_cat
@Mike in DC: Agreed.
D58826
@marcopolo: According to an earlier report Collins, Murkowski have been given a pass by Yrtle. He can pass the bill with 50 votes plus VP Pantsless.
On balance you would be hard put to find a single vertebrae or set of balls/ovaries in the entire GOP House and Senate caucus. Those who have never served in the military are just cowards. Those who have served in the military have forgotten the fundamental principle – no person left behind. They are willing to leave at least 23 million people behind. They dishonor the uniform that the wore. And all of them, since they are mostly loudly professing Christians have forgotten Mat.25 – that which you do to the least of my children you do to me. If there are pearly gates they are going to have a LOT of explaining to do in order to avoid a slightly warmer post-life habitat. .
Corner Stone
@catfishncod: Oh my God! Why? Why did I click on that shit?!! YYEEAAARRRGGGHH!!!
They control the House, the Senate, the WH, the SCOTUS and something like 33 state houses/Govs. And he wants to talk about fucking secession?!! If that is not clear as to what it is going to take then I don’t know what is.
jl
@catfishncod:
From your link:
” The political left is becoming the American ISIS. ”
Complete idiocy and madness. Trump truly is their leader. They won’t win the majority of popular opinion with this hateful nonsense. So, I dunno, I try to find sliver linings, and I hope they march themselves off to their own political doom with that kind of insanity.
gratuitous
Yes, about god-damned time, but on the other hand, I think the timing is right. You draw out the battle, and the longer it goes on, the better the chances are for Republicans to outlast Democrats. Remember, Republicans have their very own 24-7 network and family of cable outlets that never grow weary, never grow faint, and keep the outrage-o-meter cranked up to 11 constantly.
Yes, the audience for Fox is beginning to shrink, but for some reason, the rest of the popular media is all too happy to look to Fox for their lead articles and stories, carefully maintaining their alleged both-sides objectivity. When Fox is all the way down at the end of the teeter-totter, and the rest of the media are firmly planted in the middle, it’s no surprise that everything tilts toward the conservative end.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Hot stove, curious hand syndrome?
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@James Powell: Ah yes can’t forget that:
“The Democrat candidate neglected the white working class, instead catering to the negros and walking vaginas”.
SFAW
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
Hmmm … might need to ponder that one a bit
rikyrah
???@ the minion
TenguPhule
@jl:
Guess that tone down the rhetoric is now officially over for the Wingers.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@jl: Soon, they won’t need to.
Yes, I’m feeling very upset right now
Shlemazel
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
UGH, that’s worse.
jl
@D58826: Never trust a GOP moderate to stand for their supposed principles. They always cave.Seems to me if that rule holds true for this vote, that cynical trope needs to be elevated to something like a law of physics.It’s now or never for them. If they fold this time, they will signal that they are willing to swallow near total public humiliation ritual, administered by their own leadership, and still fall in line.
McConnell has more or less told them that they are political slaves, who can be subject to any public, civic and political degradation, and they will submit.
Edit: that is apart from the fact that the legislation is very irresponsible and immoral.
D58826
ot
Militarily I guess it is prudent but you can also think that Der Fuhrer jumped at Putin’s command. If Obama had done something similar the GOP would have the words ‘treasonous America hater’ on continuous loop.
Oatler.
“Senate Democrats plan to speak on health care late into the evening” Permanent banner on CSPAN2. And now Yertle is complaining about Obamacare…
Shlemazel
@TenguPhule: what do you have mean”NOW”?
The rules of civility have only applied to Dem/ libs. Been that way since 1992
jl
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?: That is discouraging, and upsets me too. But it shows that they always over reach, and always push the envelope as far as they can. Right now they have won almost everything, but it is not enough for their bankrupt ‘intellectual leaders’ (put in scare quotes). They have to march off into even more extreme territory.
If we can keep a semblance of democracy and honest elections, it will be there undoing. They are mindless fanatics in the service of only their own spite and putrid septic bile.
sharl
@catfishncod: I saw on twitter today an alert about a recent regurgitation from Erick Son of Erick, but fortunately it came with sage advice to instead read an old Gawker piece by J.K. Trotter – Erick Erickson’s Mom Denies Son’s Story About Boycotting Asian Food Because of Pearl Harbor – on some long-ago nonsense from him. I took that advice and re-read that piece (I’d forgotten how funny it was), and have no regrets.
Patricia Kayden
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Hate to say this but that doesn’t sound like future America. That sounds like America right now. Right now there are children suffering because their parents are too poor to access healthcare services (and food and housing, etc.). Instead of a novel, we could watch documentaries showing this.
Ruviana
@Shlemazel: He was on a brief (10 days?) trip through NK with other students. They were all at the airport to pass customs and leave and he was pulled out of line. The alleged poster theft was probably bogus. He apparently had a great interest in East Asia and foreign affairs.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@TenguPhule: All it took was one confirmed left-winger commtting violence. That’s it. Where were these people when numerous right-wing dbags took pot shots at Dems and others?
Thoughts and prayers? Fuck off
debbie
@Mike in DC:
The third best case is that McConnell has decreed that there must be a bill before the July 4 holiday, or the Senate will move on to other things (again). There are supposed to be plenty of differences which could make this a possibility.
gene108
@mai naem mobile:
Can’t blame the family for lashing out.
Terrible news about Otto.
One dumb mistake, in the wrong place and now he’s dead.
Very sad.
jl
@D58826: The weird world we live in. Mattis, who before the election, I considered a dangerous and extreme hawk on Iran, is apparently fighting a battle, along with one or two other of Trump’s central casting generals, to stop the Trump administration from turning Syria into a dangerous and very unpromising proxy war with Iran.
So, I wish ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis luck.
Edit: but you have a point, maybe big daddy Vlad finally weighed in and was the decisive voice on this one.
Edit2: but the whole tangle shows how stupid, ignorant and mindless the Trumpster are. They want to fight a war with iran, because reasons (including that Obama made a deal), and they want to kiss Russia’s ass, not realizing that is a very tortuous path).
lamh36
@mai naem mobile: did u see Trump Co response:
Uh…
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
’Bout damned time. It’s long past time for Democrats to stop worrying about “the traditions of the Senate”. Republicans have taken a baseball bat to every tradition of the Senate that they couldn’t twist to their own ends. The only ones left are those they can use to fuck over the more than half the country who doesn’t like what they’re doing. Fuck the traditions. Time to make some new ones.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
The Wizard of Oz is Heart of Darkness, really.
debbie
@mai naem mobile:
Try harder, just like Breitbart is saying he didn’t. Of course.
lamh36
The Official WH statement…I.E. not written by Cheeto
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/876921846234402816
Suzanne
@Villago Delenda Est:
I don’t want to see that schmuck naked. I don’t want to see him at all.
debbie
@lamh36:
You know he had nothing to do with it because it doesn’t slam or blame Obama.
MisterForkbeard
@Chris: I feel like that’s counterproductive. At this point, the idea is not to grind Congress to a halt – it’s to defeat the bill. Being completely obstructionist might cause some issues we don’t need right now, when our primary goal is to expose the bill so we can defeat it. At least, without significant rebranding so the Democrats can loudly claim they’re doing this to protect citizens and not get ridiculous pushback from the media.
That said, if the Republicans succeed in hiding the bill until the vote happens, you’re damn right the Democrats should slow down every piece of the Senate they can. At that point you’ve got an ironclad reason for doing so that no news agency short of Fox could plausibly deny.,
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
At this point, I really kind of want to see McConnell go as far as he can go in January of 2019, and just have the Senate vote to refuse to seat any Democratic senator elected in 2018. That would knock off 25 of them right then and there. I don’t know why he wouldn’t. Not really. After all, each house gets to say who’s eligible to sit in it. Why not just decree that any election that a Democrat wins was tainted somehow, and refuse to seat them? They could knock off another 12 in 2020 that way. Seems like it would be a lot easier to run things if he didn’t have to worry about whether his candidates win their elections or not. I wonder why they haven’t tried this already? Part of me just wants to see the show, to see just how far these shitstains are willing to go, just for the sake of learning how far they’re willing to go.
bystander
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?:
You had me at “Schulzwitz”.
SatanicPanic
@lamh36: hard for them to lecture other people about not respecting the rule of law. I mean, DPRK is worse, but that’s a low bar they’re hopping over.
jl
@Suzanne: McConnell is the only Senator underwater with his own constituents. So, need to make another serious challenge to him if he decides to run again in 2020.
The guy is a pure cynic. Was a very moderate to liberal GOPer until he was granted a political (power play) epiphany Reagan revolution. I don’t think anything a normal person would regard as principle plays any part of anything he does. How does McConnell stay in power is probably his sole principle.
Edit: So, yes, by far my top choice wrt to him is to see him completely disappear into a content and very obscure private life. Probably he is so insane with desire for mindless power, that such a fate would eat him alive, a sort of obscure and horrifying Buddhist hell on earth for him. So, that would be good enough for me.
Patricia Kayden
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?: Yes, Bernie would have won because Jewish Socialists who honeymoon in a communist country are so popular in middle America — certainly more than a WASP woman. If Senator Sanders was so awesome, he would have won the Democratic primaries. Nuff said.
D58826
@sharl: Hmmm. I missed the warning and read some of the piece on Twitter. Short version – Planned Parent hood is worse than the Nazis. The doctors are just like Dr. Mengle. The Nazi are really on the left side of the political spectrum and grew out of both the German Bund in the US and P/P founders Margaret Sanger’s’ support for euthanasia (the only thing in his spiel that was correct).
It’s true that the Nazi movement drew inspiration from the euthanasia movement in the US. A lot of people, on all sides of the political spectrum supported the idea. It was fairly mainstream science at the time. A lot of Americans supported the Nazis also. Obvious German-Americans who formed the German Bund. But Irish Americans, like their cousins in Ireland accepted them on the basis of anything that makes England’s life difficult can’t be all bad. I believe the Scots-Irish, mostly in Appalachia, were strong America firsters and keep out of European wars. Lindbergh was one of the most prominent supporters of Hitler. I’m sure if Erickson huntd long enough he will find a link to Hillary’s e-mails.
lamh36
https://twiter.com/mattyglesias/status/876460742463148032
bystander
I just listened to Katy Tur telling Tammy Duckworth she appeared to be an obstructionist. Duckworth should have told Tur that despite her willingness to dittohead the repub talking point, fighting for healthcare for the people of Illinois is not obstructionism. She’s doing the job voters sent her to DC to do.
I hate Tur. And I really hate the peekaboo hairdo.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@bystander: Why couldn’t Tur understand that point?
Ed_finnerty
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: read ‘The Space Merchants’. IT is all there.
mai naem mobile
@Shlemazel: apparently he went with a Chinese organized tour operator and pulled down the poster from one area of the hotel and changed his mind and left it there. There was an article on Time online which actually gave a pretty different picture of Warmbier. Apparently he was very smart and got ino UVA on scholarship. He seemed to be willing to try anything to learn. I know some parents just let their kids do whatever etc. I don’t mean to sound critical of his parents but part of me doesn’t understand why his parents didn’t stop him from going to NK.
jl
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?: Really hard to believe that those corporate hacks have to spout that like robots. They need to be countered more strongly.
I’ll make a mental note to include that issue on my next constituent love letter (ha ha, that is a joke) to DiFi. I will issue a humble constituent instruction to be more forceful in countering the corporate media hacks when they routinely vomit up GOP propaganda boilerplate as part of their news coverage.
gratuitous
@TenguPhule: The “tone down the rhetoric” episode was a harrowing 12 minutes for the conservatives. But they’re over it now.
piratedan
@bystander: its when the media does shit like this that makes you wonder how Katy would feel if Trumps security team had simply given her over to the mob during the campaign.
to be fair, I’m glad that the Dems are fighting back using whatever methods they have at their disposal. I don’t care if Mitchie already has plans to circumvent them. make the motherfucker do it instead of just pre-emptive gnashing your teeth. Make him own it. Make him destroy the senate, make him burn comity on the national doorstep, get a picture of him ringing the doorbell. If there comes a time, when this worm turns (and we all hope to be here when it does), then perhaps, we can see his sad solemn face in some prison fatigues as we distribute the McConnell family belongings to the least amongst us.
D58826
@lamh36: Nice statement. Waiting for a word, any word from the WH twitter feed (the one written by a staffer or the Rage account doesn’t matter) on the Fitzgerald crewmen, the Muslim girl murdered in Va., the murders in Portland, the murder of the ROTC graduate in Maryland and of course the events in London last night. But all of those events involve people with the wrong skin color or religion. If you read the names and look at the photos of the 7 crewman on the Fitzgerald most had funny last names or didn’t look like real Murkins. I suspect a number of them (or their parents) would not have been allowed to enter the country under Der Fuhrer’s extreme vetting/beautiful wall immigration policy. I’ve seen a couple of articles about illegal aliens being deported in spite of having served with honor in the US military. And of course we are deporting some Iraqi Christians (Franklin Graham is outraged). But I guess in that instance Arab and dark skin is higher on the pecking order than Christian. Given Der Fuhrer’s deep religious (cough cough) background, he probable figures they were just faking being Christians as well.
D58826
@bystander: I think she was just asking a question w/o the sarcastic air quotes being as obvious as they should. I’ve seen her rip into Der Fuhrer on any number of issues.
and at one point she had sec. service or maybe it was MSNBC supplied protection. I think she knows exactly what Trump and his followers are.
bystander
@D58826: If so, she was giving Duckworth a real opportunity that Duckworth didn’t take full advantage of.
I still don’t like the Betty Bacall look on a journalist.
mai naem mobile
@lamh36: obviously not written by him because it doesn’t say ‘I am so awesome that only I could have and did get Otto released. See how awesome I am. Also look,look at my electoral map victory.’
satby
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Hey, did you see my reply to you about your kitten? You can find kitten replacement formula in lots of pet stores, he probably really needs that as well as kitten food.
D58826
@bystander: Maybe but if she comes on with the third degree then the pol won’t honor any more interview requests. And the pol knows that if they rip Der Fuhrer with to much gusto they may alienate votes back home who vote for her and Trump. The good interviewers know how to get the tough question in w/o making it look tough.
I don’t care much one way or the other about her hair. I’ve always been curious when any woman wears her hair that partially hides her face is how does she see around it? As a guy when my hair starts to get too long and drop over my eyes I wind up with a headache and a quick trip the the barber (they still do have barbers don’t they? or are they all hair stylists now).
Turgidson
@bystander:
She got her application into the Very Serious Political Media Club fast-tracked by surviving being MSNBC’s correspondent with Hair Furor’s campaign, which I’m sure was an absolutely miserable experience. And she did some good work on that campaign. But she knows that the ticket to the top of her profession is to Both Sides the shit out of everything. So that’s what she’ll do.
JR in WV
@catfishncod:
And Erick still asserts that everything bad that ever happened was because of Liberals. Because Nazis were liberals, and Mao was a liberal, and Stalin was a liberal. And Democrats were the slave holders back before the war of Northern Aggression! That’s all absurd, of course.
Today’s Democratic party is not the same political party that was called Democratic in 1850. And the Republicans are far right wing violent haters, and have been for decades.
If Erick son of Erick supports secession, I imagine he never served in the military – it isn’t like it was 150 years ago.
Frankly, I think killing people by disallowing their health insurance by tinkering with rules and laws is tantamount to murder. Only worse, dying of cancer is lots worse than just getting shot and dropping dead. Or progressive untreated diabetes, amputation of bits as your circulation fails. I think many of us know about this first hand in our family or friends.
It should never get worse, not in this country. It should only get better with time, as has happened over the past decade. We have to put the blame where it belongs if health care declines in the future.
D58826
@Turgidson: I think she was based in London before her Trump gig. With 17 people in the clown car NBC had to go deep in the bench to find people to cover them all. Since she was the rookie she got the candidate that seemed least likely to win now matter how ‘entertaining’ he was. And unfortunately ‘not making waves’ is a common requirement for advancement in most jobs. We love to hear about talking truth to power but only when the talker is someone else and we are not the power. As a colonel McMaster wrote a book on Vietnam telling truth to power. He was just lucky that he had a few friends (Gen. Patreaus I think was one of them) in high places who helped protect his career.
D58826
@JR in WV:
Mao and Stalin were leftists not liberals as the term is common (except by the RWNJ) understood. I remember in my college pol sci 101 class discussing how the Nazi right and the communist left ultimate turned the political spectrum into a circle where they both met given the tools they used to rule. Obviously the extreme right power base is big business and on the left it is the ‘workers’ but the show trials, gulag/political prisons, secret police, censorship, etc look pretty much the same in Moscow or Berlin.
SiubhanDuinne
@marcopolo:
Come over here and sit next to me.
Yoda Dog
@bystander: Also, too: When what they’re trying to do is polling at 17%, why the fuck is ‘obstructing’ a bad thing?!
(sigh…breathe…)
Turgidson
@D58826:
To her credit, Hair Furor did lob a lot of abuse at her and she handled it with poise. And sometimes she called it his lunacy. But she also accepted and regurgitated some of the campaign’s most brazen lies and stupidity without skepticism. And she seems to be using her star turn to settle into a nice BothSiderist perch. Which remains a good career move in Beltway/NYC political media, no matter how stupid the BothSiderists end up looking with even a moment’s worth of reflection or hindsight.
Kathleen
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?: She’s not paid to.
liberal
@D58826: that Iraqi Christian community (the ones who were citizens) voted for Trump.
D58826
They are crying over at the Onion that they did not think of this:
When I first saw the twitter I thought it was the Onion but they have it on video tape. And it looks like Melania is now sitting in on all of these meetings rather than Ivanka. Maybe she is off meeting with her legal team. Now I can’t say that I every paid that much attention to it when Obama was in office but I don’t remember see Michelle (or Laura Bush if you want to go back one more) in these kind of WH meet and greets of foreign leaders or in cabinet meetings.
and just to add a bit of recent history, the Panamanians recently completed adding a third set of locks designed to handle the super ships of today. And they did it all by themselves at time when Der Fuhrer could not find Panama on a map with a flashlight.
http://iwired.blogspot.com/2017/06/trump-praised-himself-for-panama-canal.html
D58826
It’s a shame that the only thing Der Fuhrer can remember from his briefings is compartmentalized intelligence that he then gives to the Russians.
Lapassionara
@marcopolo: hey, I will come to Blunt’s St Louis office if I know something is happening. Where are you?
Geeno
@schrodingers_cat: I’m gonna sing the DOOM song now
TenguPhule
@MisterForkbeard:
Nothing good is going to come out of this session of Congress. Not to mention the Sessions from Congress.
Best to fuck them all up.
TenguPhule
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
You’ll get accused of agitating for a Civil War with that kind of talk here. Just saying.
TenguPhule
@piratedan:
Not gnashing, just predicting. Watching every norm and tradition of the last 200+ years go up in one sudden bonfire is really quite disorienting.
Raven Onthill
I called my Democratic Senators to thank them.
TenguPhule
@liberal: Then let them pray for their own salvation. We have better people to try to save.
MisterForkbeard
@TenguPhule: As a public perception issue, it may or may not do any favors for us to say “We’re shutting down Congress because Trump is evil”. That’s what I mean – while there’s a certain percentage of people in the U.S. who would applaud such an action, it’s not a majority of the country and it’s mostly the politically informed. But you can bet your ass that immediately the republicans and all media channels would start “both sides do it”-ing and claiming that Democrats are just as bad as Republicans, with New Proof! Including nice quotes from Democrats talking about how awful Republicans were in the Obama years for doing (in the words of the media) “The exact thing the Democrats are now doing.”
You need some political groundwork laid first to avoid the pitfalls caused by our awful media. I don’t think we’re there yet.
TenguPhule
@MisterForkbeard:
We have to decide between optics or real threats to people’s lives and our nation. I don’t think we can wait for our media to catch up. They never will.
Mel
@Shlemazel:
Link below to an earlier article (2016) from the BBC, re: the initial arrest. Hopefully this link will work.
From what I understand, the initial statement given after his arrest indicated that he had been offered a sum of money by a fellow church member to steal an item of political propaganda and bring it back to the States.
However, there is no way to know for sure if the statement was accurate and factual, or if he was coerced into making a false statement. He was in captivity at the time of the statement. It seems that several other former detainees have stated thst at least part of their “formal admissions” were pre-scripted for them and that they were forced to read the statements.
Whether he was a young man who got talked into doing something risky by an asshole adult that he trusted, a kid who made (like almost every kid and young adult at some point) a spur-of-the-moment poor choice on his own, or an innocent person who got caught up in a political power play, the outcome is just unbelievably sad.
Mel
Drat. the link obviously did not come through above. Trying once more:
Mel
Still no luck with the link. It’s from the BBC, dated Feb. 29th, 2016.
Marcopolo
@Lapassionara: In case you check back in: this Wed folks will be gathering @ Blunt’s local office (corner of old bonhomie & Hanley) at 11:45 to go inside & speak with his local aide in a noon meeting. Later on Wed there will be a visibility action @ the corner of Manchester & Brentwood from 5 to 6:30 pm–bring a sign. I hear about these events because I’m signed up on the Indivisble St Louis email list. Events should also be listed on the Indivisible St Louis FB page but I don’t do FB so can’t say for sure.
Lapassionara
@Marcopolo: thanks. I am relatively new to St Louis, but I will do my best. We went to one event at Blunt’s office in Clayton, but I have not heard about these.
randy khan
I’ve called Kaine and Warner to tell them I love this and hope they will be supportive.
Lapassionara
@Marcopolo: working during day on Wed, but will aim for Wed afternoon.
Ohio Mom
@mai naem mobile: Otto was traveling in China and went to North Korea on a spontaneous side trip; it wasn’t part of his original itinerary. Imagine being his parents, you’d have to deal with feeling furious at him for his little lark at the same time you were grieving.
It looks a little like North Korea knew he wasn’t long for this world and that’s why they shipped him home — nothing to do with who was president. Makes me mad Trump might get any credit.
Radiumgirl
@catfishncod: Oh FFS — he is totally unhinged.
JR in WV
@D58826:
@JR in WV:
” Because Nazis were liberals, and Mao was a liberal, and Stalin was a liberal. ”
Well, I was expressing Ewick’s point, to make fun of him…