Does it feel like the bridge under the Trump Train is suddenly kinda spongey? Is the blanket of lies starting to unravel? Yeah, I feel it too. But here’s a thought: maybe the best way to accelerate the collapse is to defeat the AHCA or B-CRAP or whatever they’re calling it this week.
I’m not saying don’t pay attention to the emails that portray Uday as an eager collaborator with a hostile foreign power — hell yes, pay attention to it. But the Republican Party Before Country Party will be an immovable obstacle to clearing out the nest of traitors in the White House until it is made clear to them that Trump is a useless impediment.
Hand the Republicans a stinging defeat on healthcare, brand Trumpcare with the “LOSER” label, and Trump will come unglued. When Trump comes unglued, he lashes out. When he lashes out, Trump hits indiscriminately, sometimes smacking GOP senators, which makes fellow Republicans frown.
So, if we want to see our enemies driven before us and hear the lamentation of their women, the first step may be to defeat their abomination of a healthcare reform bill. That would not only stop a massive transfer of wealth from working people to fat cats, it could set off internecine warfare. I’ll call my senators now and save my popcorn for then.
UPDATE: The Senatortoise from Kentucky understands the stakes. Via WaPo:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Tuesday that he will delay the August recess by two weeks to complete work on health-care and other issues.
“In order to provide more time to complete action on important legislative items and process nominees that have been stalled by a lack of cooperation from our friends across the aisle, the Senate will delay the start of the August recess until the third week of August,” McConnell said.
In addition to health care and appointments, the Senate will also devote time to passing a defense authorization bill “and other important issues.”
Work on the Senate’s health-care bill, meanwhile, remained uncertain Tuesday. Senate leaders still planned to release a revised bill by the end of this week and hold votes beginning next week, according to a senior GOP leadership aide.
Keep calling, faxing, writing, etc.
Origuy
Jezebel read David Brooks so you don’t have to.
Major Major Major Major
Good point.
@Origuy: I read Slate’s takedown of that column, it sounds awful.
cervantes
There’s really a synergy here. The defeat of B-CRAP appears likely, and it’s helped along by the lack of an actual president. Once McConnell decides that Orange Julius is in the way of his evil schemes, rather than furthering them, we may see president Pence sooner rather than later. That isn’t necessarily a good thing.
patrick II
I think Ivanka is the one behind releasing the Jr’s emails. Childhood bitter rivalry comes to a head.
ruemara
I’m getting frustrated with people who are in power, with a very large platform, dismissing treason because their main issue is the ACA repeal. We can and must do both.
NR
You are right, Betty. The godawful Republican health care bill must be defeated.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Origuy: Just a few sentences in and he’s condescending.
Oh, God, sushi! Only the upper classes can afford that hoity-toity stuff! Surely someone with only a mere HS diploma could only hope to experience such delicacies without Gentleman Brooks’ kindness
TriassicSands
I think President Dimwit called it “beautiful.” He has no idea what the bill does or that it provides none of the coverage he promised his supporters. There have been countless cases of candidates lying to their supporters, but this might be the worst betrayal, well, perhaps forever. It doesn’t just fall short, it does real harm to those stupid enough to believe Trump’s campaign promises. Hey, folks, maybe the doctors and hospitals will accept wishful thinking in lieu of insurance.
patrick II
I remember the old TV show — Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I feel now we are getting a good look at the real lives at least some of the rich and famous — tawdry and vapid. I am curious as to how much I such generalize this look at a billionaire(really?) family.
Susan
I’m hoping there is evidence of collusion during the primary. That would get a few GOPers riled up.
rikyrah
@cervantes:
I will say this again..
If they think Dolt45 is going down without taking Pence with him…
THEY ARE ALL DELUSIONAL..
Bruce K
@cervantes: In my view, the sooner Pence gets thrown into the fish bowl at 1600, the sooner his true character will be exposed. And, knock on wood, the sooner we can start good-natured arguments over whether Nancy Pelosi counts as the 47th President (what with the “acting” qualifier in the 25th Amendment…)
ruemara
@patrick II: Nah, that’s him, making choices.
@Susan: It won’t and this is evidence of collusion during the primaries.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@rikyrah:
They are far-right lunatics. Comes with the territory.
TriassicSands
@patrick II:
I have no idea who is behind the release of the emails, but Ivanka may be the one Trump who cares if she’s labeled a liar, con woman, and traitor. I don’t mean she isn’t willing to lie, defraud, and commit treason, she just doesn’t doesn’t want the labels. She’s the sensitive one.
Kay
I resent that I have to call these horrible people. I want better a better Senator to call.
It’s pure drudgery.
Gin & Tonic
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Not just condescending but wrong. The rolled form is indeed maki, but the slice of fish atop a little mound of rice is nigiri.
Another Scott
@cervantes: Heh. TheHill:
Suuuuurrree. How long before he walks that back, too?
Cheers,
Scott.
cervantes
I’m not sure Twittler can take Pence down. Pence has been steering pretty clear, as far as I can tell, and hanging out at the Naval Observatory, not the White House, presumably trying to keep his skirts clean.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay:
Move to Rhode Island. We have two very good ones.
efgoldman
@TriassicSands:
Or she may just be clueless.
I vote for door number two.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Kay: You live in Ohio, right? So do I. Portman is a jackass who pretends to care about what will happen to the people who will lose health insurance.
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic: the David Brooks article is about Italian sandwiches. The jezebel article making fun of him is about sushi.
Kay
I feel like saying that to Portman’s staff when I call – ” do you think I LIKE calling you people? I do not”.
No more than they like talking to me, that’s for sure!
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Another Scott:
More like the Electoral College, an outdated undemocratic institution, sent you bozos to enact the agenda of Putin and the global oligarchy (mega rich). Don’t try to pretend you’re legimate. You’re not, Dence.
Kay
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Right. Stop hiring horrible people and then I won’t have to call them. I could be making coffee or looking out the window or something. Better uses of MY TIME :)
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I live in Virginia, so I don’t have anybody I need to worry about. I’m going to call, though, and let them know I’m fully behind them on this, as are a whole shitload of other Virginians.
Another Scott
@cervantes: Heh. TheHill:
Steering clear? Keeping his skirts [sic] clean? ;-) I don’t think so…:
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
That was the satiric riff on what Brooks actually wrote.
The bastard was on my radio over the weekend defending Trump’s Bannon-written defense of Western Civ in Poland, beginning with how he went to the Chicago School. It was the snooty Brooks at his very worst.
rikyrah
@cervantes:
Pence is up to his eyeballs in the Flynn mess…
gratuitous
I think the next lamentation you hear from the Republicans will be about how they squandered six months squabbling over things when they should have been grabbing with both hands. The subtext will be that none of them knew nothing about any of this unpleasantness, and McConnell and Ryan are hoping they can slide by without getting spattered by the million pound shithammer.
Mike in DC
Block BCRA and their entire legislative agenda, then flip the House in 2018. The GOP will see the writing on the wall for 2020, and turn on him with a vengeance.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks. I read neither (obvs.)
TriassicSands
@rikyrah:
It depends on who’s doing the taking down. If it’s impeachment, then it’s entirely up to the House (and if they impeach Trump, the Senate to convict). They can decide to leave an obviously guilty Pence alone and let him become president. And no one can do anything about that. I don’t see Mueller even trying to bring a legal action against Trump before he’s removed from office. There is disagreement over whether a sitting president can be criminally prosecuted. Some legal experts say no. If it’s up to the SCOTUS, who knows how those corrupt five men would decide he case. We might discover that the five conservative justices dislike Trump personally (what’s to like?) and rule against him, since they’d still have a Republican president.
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic: the Jezebel article wouldn’t make any sense if you didn’t know what was in the Brooks article…
Raoul
McConnell is delaying the August recess, per reports. They’re panicking. PUSH HARDER.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@trollhattan: Is this like Friedman’s taxi driver, Ben Ghazi?
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major: Sometimes I believe that people just don’t know how to properly make fun of others anymore.
TenguPhule
That’s a lot of Optimism, Betty.
They’re all in this up to their necks. The Republicans know if Trump goes down, they all go down.
And they’re going to fight to the death to make sure he never goes down.
Betty Cracker
@Mike in DC: That’s exactly what we should be aiming for. If the GOP gave a flying fuck about democracy, they wouldn’t need to see their doom written before turning on Hair Furor. But we know who they are.
@Kay: Ha! I had a very similar thought this morning as I was making my 1,000th call to that vapid knob Rubio’s office — it sucks that I have to spend my valuable time with that nonentity’s minions. Another reason to never miss an election!
Mike in DC
@TriassicSands:
I am of the view that, while you can’t prosecute the case to trial during their tenure in office, you can certainly have a grand jury issue an indictment, and request that the prosecution be deferred until they have left office or been removed via impeachment. It preserves the statute of limitations to issue the indictment (s), which could be relevant if Trump is re-elected.
It would be ballsy and unprecedented, but it would also put immense political pressure on Congress to impeach. No “debate” over whether or not the offenses are high crimes, if there are actual criminal charges backed by hard evidence.
Raoul
@patrick II: “I’m Robin Leach (has there ever been a more apt name?!), why is my shouty show about leopard print palazzos popular?”
Gawd the 80s were horrible.
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic:
David Brooks, every column. Comes with the territory.
Ian G.
I definitely want to hear the lamentations of their women: Ivanka, Kellyanne, Huck’s daughter. The various clowns in the Nazi mefia chorus like Tomi Lahren, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, etc.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: Well, that there’s a burden I am unwilling to bear.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: Many of said people seem to be published at former Gawker properties…
@TenguPhule: Again, that wasn’t David Brooks but a rather crummy parody.
MattF
@Origuy: Brooks thinks that the truth of the stereotypes he believes in is self-evident, and giving vent to them is a form of analysis.
TenguPhule
@TriassicSands:
Depends on how bad the shit is.
From here, it looks bad enough that Mueller should be keeping multiple copies available in different formats in many locations for insurance.
Raoul
@gratuitous: Yeah, and re: my comment just a little way up, Smash-n-Grabs don’t really work if you spend months and months on them and have to delay cherished in-district campaign fundraising time to pull ’em off.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
So a variation of Poe’s Law?
TenguPhule
@Raoul:
Gonna need a higher window.
StringOnAStick
I heard an NPR story yesterday about 3 KY residents, 2 of which had health insurance for the first time in years thanks to the Medicaid expansion. One was a guy who was hurt doing construction and now exists on odd jobs, the other marginally employed. The third was a single mom with 3 kids, complaining about what her employer sponsored insurance cost her every paycheck for herself and her 3 kids. the kicker? She voted for tRump, and hopes that what will be next on the agenda is a “health system like in Canada or Cuba”.
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major: It’s often as if they recognize the structure of humor but not the content.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: Adequately-syllabic derp is indistinguishable from actual David Brooks.
Quinerly
Ryan and McConnell will continue to put tax cuts for the wealthy and gutting social safety nets before country: https://www.vox.com/2017/7/11/15953472/trump-presidency-over-ryan-mcconnell-impeachment-scandal
MattF
@Raoul: McConnell blames Democrats for stalling on Trump’s appointments. Beyond parody.
MisterForkbeard
@Raoul: I love that they’re blaming the need for the recess on Democrats. The balls on these people.
Frankensteinbeck
@Another Scott:
Pence will not walk that back. Mike Pence’s character is well established. He will dutifully repeat whatever lie he has been told to say, without variation. He’s too stupid to get nervous about it. He just says what he was told to say. He will deny being at that meeting in a courtroom with video of him at that meeting playing, if that’s what his lawyer says is right.
dmsilev
Coming from Mr. Obstruction himself, this is particularly amazing. Not to mention that most of the delay in processing nominees has been from Trump’s failure to actually nominate people for a whole slew of positions.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@MisterForkbeard: How do legislative majorities work?
Omnes Omnibus
I called my senators. Got voice mail at Johnson’s office. Got a person at Baldwin’s. I thanked Baldwin and her staff for all the work they have been doing; the staffer seemed pleased to be acknowledged. The staffers do a lot of work and deserve some appreciation (if they work for a good senator).
Don
@Origuy: my comment to the Times for that monstrosity was “you could have said ‘my treat’.” Haven’t heard back from Brooks yet….
piratedan
gotta believe that McConnell’s actions imply that they don’t think that they’ll ever have another shot at this as the good ship GOP is taking on an ocean’s worth of water. Boy, the 1% must really have McConnell’s balls in a jar because that’s the only thing I can think of that’s driving this other than Mitchy is so deep in the Russia thing that this is his parting gift to the 1% to keep his family in the 1%.
Chris
@cervantes:
I have to say, my hope for the Russians thing was that it would be dragged out as much as possible over the next few years to provide maximum benefit for 2018 and 2020.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: I feel the same way about short fiction by people with MFA’s.
@piratedan: Some people are just assholes.
efgoldman
@Mike in DC:
Remember that there’s a parallel state investigation by the NY AG’s office. Neither congress, nor Mueller, nor anybody/anything in DC can control it at the federal level. Also “the president” has no state pardon power.
ET
And now Russia is trying to just how much a bitch Trump is. They are threatening to expel diplomats over the whole sized property in the US thing. Did they do this under Obama (can’t remember) or was this just out there for what is going on right now?
They are totally loving life in Moscow right now. They either get their property (win!) or they get more press coverage about collusion and Trump weakness with Trump talking fake news and Eric being under even more scrutiny (win!). They get what they want either way.
Fuck you to the FBI NY Field Office, the RNC, and all those American’s who voted/enabled Trump. The US will likely never really recover totally from President Trump.
Chris
@MisterForkbeard:
I’ve long since given up thinking that there was anything bad in America that wasn’t somehow our fault.
TenguPhule
Ed Rogers needs to be up against a wall.
For this quisling, I’m good with making an exception for him and skipping the trial.
MisterForkbeard
Trump just cancelled his visit to the UK due to “scheduling conflicts”. If you can feel it, I’m rolling my eyes from way over here.
TenguPhule
@MisterForkbeard:
Would you like us to roll them back to you?
MisterForkbeard
@TenguPhule: I feel like I’m going to need to roll them again over the Ed Rogers thing, so if you’d be so kind…?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule: Ed Rogers is an asshole with his head in the sand being willfully obtuse about probable treason and espionage. Hope the commenters are taking him over the coals
Mike J
sukabi
The delay of the recess is likely part of gop senators begging mcturtle to cancel it so they don’t have to go home and face their constituents…
TS
What does trump have on the turtle?
And suddenly McConnell is staying in town.
rikyrah
@Mike in DC:
What about crimes before he was President?
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Chris: Only Democrats have agency. This is a view shared by the mainstream media as well.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Origuy: Hehe, the writer really has Brooks solemn grativus at the Applebees Salad Bar down pat.
JMG
@TS: This is because, and only because, he doesn’t have the votes yet. That whole “we have to get it done before the recess” was a bluff. They’ll stay in session every day until Election Day 2018 if that’s what it takes. McConnell loses, he’s probably done as leader.
bemused
@Gin & Tonic:
Minnesota is nearer for Kay. Franken and Klobuchar here which reminds me to watch Franken and Letterman videos.
Nelle
Called today. Called yesterday. Will call tomorrow. The first grandchild, overdue by a week, may make her appearance tonight or tomorrow. They are going to the hospital soon. I’m headed up to Des Moines now. Do this for her, the little thing. Call today. Call tomorrow. And every day until they go to break. (Still can’t believe I have a No from Kansas – soft no, I think, not putting bets on it staying that way, but I’m calling and calling.) Kia kaha (Maori for Stay Strong)
Major Major Major Major
@(((CassandraLeo))): Even Republican voters don’t have agency, those poor put-upon hillbillies and (white) exurbanites who’ve been ground into the dirt by globalization and brown people.
Brown people, of course, have agency, and would be successful if they’d only try.
Betty Cracker
@Mike J: LOL, Weigel!
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@JMG: Who would be the new leader?
A Ghost To Most
Ruth Marcus, WaPo – Wow, even both-sider Ruth is daring to say the words collusion and conspiracy now.
Brachiator
@Origuy:
Sushi, with a side of condescension.
What an ass roll.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
They are. 99 out of 100.
TenguPhule
@MisterForkbeard: As you wish.
SiubhanDuinne
@Origuy:
From the FTFNYT comments on that Bobo column:
TS
@JMG:
I will never understand why so many old f@rts want to hold onto political power. They are going to leave this planet much sooner than later & have enough spare cash to live in luxury for those final times. Ignoring family and friends to hate on those less fortunate doesn’t seem (to me) a great way to generate your obituary.
bemused
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
I haven’t (thankfully) seen him on tv for awhile but I’ve never forgotten an article several years ago describing his mcmansion which sounded hideously, expensively tacky. He had to be a multi-millionaire then. Lobbying and saying anything he’s paid to say has been fantastic for him.
Cacti
I wonder if Junior could tweet out his old man’s tax returns for the past 10 years.
rikyrah
Jeff Sessions’s Senate Replacement Will Be Deplorable
by Martin Longman
July 11, 2017 12:41 PM
It has been a while since I wrote about Alabama politics, but the primaries for the special election to replace Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III in the Senate are scheduled for August 15th, and the candidates are out on the trail. From what I’m reading, Roy Moore is the current frontrunner, which is more than mildly terrifying:
As former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore runs for U.S. Senate, he doesn’t shrink from telling voters he has twice been ousted from the bench for defying federal courts over the Ten Commandments and same-sex marriage.
Instead, he wears those rejections as a badge of honor.
Moore tells Republican voters in the blood-red state that they are akin to battle scars for standing up for what he believes.
“I will not only say what is right, I will do what is right,” Moore said during a June forum in the east Alabama city of Oxford.
jl
I endorse Lady Cracker’s sentiments. Except I don’t want to hear the lamentations of their women. I’d prefer just to imagine that takes the form of their women giving those old geezers hell in the privacy of their domiciles. I want to hear, and see, the lamentations of their flunky political operatives, pundits and Congresscritters on TV!
And the Trump collaboration scandal will get boring soon. I mean that’s all in the past. I heard the parts of one of the Donnie Jr. emails read on the news this morning, and I will say in a humble brag, it sounded very close to the version I typed out last night on a thread on this very miserable lefty blog. That whole business is all details now, And we already know that the Trumpsters are bald face liars.
With proviso that anything that involves Trump/Putin/Russian collaboration affecting future elections has to be tip top priority and blasted out at eleven with hair on fire. But we know the outlines of what happened in 2016, Better to focus on the real policy dramas unfolding now, which are more exciting.
TS
@Nelle: First grandchild will remove all thoughts of politics leaving an overwhelming feeling of love and family. Enjoy.
Then come back and fight for her future.
Chris
@Origuy:
They said Newt Gingrich was “a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.”
In much the same way, David Brooks columns are a rich and cosmopolitan East Coast urbanite’s idea of what a poor person without a college degree sounds like.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
The sushi example is actually not Bobo, it’s Jezebel. In David’s original column, it was an Italian restaurant, with all kinds of exotic cheeses and tomatoes and sausages all ending in vowels.
It’s worth going over there just to read some of the comments (there are more than 2,000 of them at this point). They are devastating. Luckily for Bobo, he’ll never read them.
SiubhanDuinne
Don’t have a clue why my reply to G&T is in moderation, but I’d appreciate being released. Thanks!
HeleninEire
@SiubhanDuinne: Think the site is borked. My comment is lost too
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
You weren’t kidding:
There does always have to be the one party pooper:
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@rikyrah:
Maybe Moore could use some real scars. Asswipe
But her emails!!!
@Chris:
Yeah.., but actually no. Most rich, cosmopolitan east coast urbanites know what an actual poor person without a degree sounds like. Brooks is just his own class of stupid, arrogant snob.
efgoldman
@MisterForkbeard:
Remember when his “plan” was to ride thru London in the Queen’s golden coach to the cheers and adulation of millions.
Enjoy your pumpkin, Pumpkin Pustule!
jl
@TS: Insensitively, I asked David Brooks to produce this ‘friend’ with only a HS degree. Insensitively, I wondered how much he or she had in common with the salad bar at Applebees.
Iowa Old Lady
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Brooks needs to get out more. There’s sushi for sale in the grocery store where I live in Iowa.
MisterForkbeard
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
This describes the Trump’s perfectly. ^_^
Shell
All of this has completely sucked up all the oxygen in cable news. Today was the first time I heard Elie Wiesel died, on July 2nd.
bemused
@rikyrah:
So weird to think that seeing 10 Commandments outside courtrooms would convince anyone entering to suddenly come to Jesus when they see it.
HeleninEire
So my lost comment: Can NYS (or any state) coordinate (pre-indictment) with the Feds to enhance who’s indicting whom?
FlipYrWhig
@jl: I’m jus’ plain folks but as fur as I kin tayl they ain’t no such thang as a high-school degree.
jl
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Actually, I agree with the barely lawyer, that if you take a shot at someone with the intention of killing that person, and miss, in a sense, it is a nothing burger compared to not missing and killing someone. But, strange thing about how this funny old world works, in pretty much any country with laws and police and courts and stuff, if they catch you, you end up in custody and you face a trial.
Is that ‘fair’? Especially if you are a rich white Republican male big shot? I dunno? I report and you decide.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Iowa Old Lady: Turns out I was quoting Jezebel’s parody version of the article. It was Italian sandwiches, or something. It was still bad
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
You can usually tell ahead of time when I’m kidding.
SiubhanDuinne
@Shell:
A year ago.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: “Attempted murder? Feh! Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry?”
jl
@FlipYrWhig: I apologize to you for making you feel uncomfortable with my snooty reference to cultural signifiers that made you feel inferior. Use this doll to show me where it hurt you.
Anyway, always fun to look for the dishonest implications in a sequence of words Brooks hacks out for money. He framed the whole column to hang what is wrecking our culture on liberal snootiness. I notice three liberal cities were mentioned, and my liberal dump, SF Bay Area was mentioned. Now, if Brooks had dome some research, he would see that racial and class segregation in housing is actually less prevalent here than in many other cities. It is still very bad of course, but not as bad as many other places. by his criteria, Houston, which doesn’t have conventional ‘liberal’ zoning laws should be a paradise of equality.
Edit: in SF itself, class barriers in housing really hit working class like teachers, cops and fire, and middle class families, most of whom have college degrees of some kind, not say immigrant families with small kids.
Funny he didn’t have space to discuss how, say, policing and justice system works in adjacent rich and poor neighborhoods in many parts of the country to enforce class barriers. But discussing that would not target liberals, would it? But Brooks had to find space for his asinine and improbably story about his very unusually intimidated friend with ‘only’ a HS degree. Looks to me people with only HS degrees in California are much less intimidated and sensitive in California than back in the snooty East.Coast.
Mike J
@HeleninEire:
Anniversary of the Hamilton duel. WordPress randomly kills comments.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
And this stinker from the Rogers piece’s comment section by a chris_zz:
I’m sure Chris is an independent and speaks for all indies. The line about wanting to see leadership and compromise instead of hate and chaos is absolutely precious. I’m sure the GOP will get right to work on pot legalization now that Jeff Sessions is the AG as well as from reform. Trump will go “soft on crime” with crime reform. And tax cuts! There’s nothing to compromise on. And isn’t it funny how it’s still all our fault even though Congress is completely controlled by the GOP?
TenguPhule
@Mike J:
I welcome our new random number deity of no specific denomination.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: The sad part is that he’s actually less of an asshole then the shithole commenters at my local paper’s online site. There, the tongues are so fused to Trump’s Rump that when he farts, they expand.
jl
@Mike J: I think there are more S P _a_ m words than naughty words that kill comments.
Mike in DC
@rikyrah:
Well, the theory is that you cant have a sitting president forced to deal with something that distracts from the duties of office. However, as i said, if its necessary to preserve the statute of limitations, it seems reasonable to issue the indictments and defer the actual proceedings until such time as they have left office.
mai naem mobile
I hope the Mercers go down with these fuckers. I would love for the Kochs to go down with the Bad Ship PoussezPop but I think they’re too smart for that. I would have no.problem if some of the hedgefunders get caught up in this and do some hard time. Paul Singer,John Paulson,Carl Icahn etc.
I am wondering if Dolt 45 told Donnie DumDum to become the scapegoat because he would pardon him. Donine DumDum is stupid enough to believe it. Kush probably heard enough bad prison stories from Daddy Kush that he wasn’t going to risk being scapegoat for any possibility of hard time.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule: Do you use your revolutionary talk on them as well?
frosty
@Kay: True, it’s a chore. I’m lucky enough to at least have the palate cleanser of thanking Casey after trying to educate Toomey (spit).
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: /dev/random may or may not have a deterministic denomination, but it’s certainly particular.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: No, Paywall. Also the temptation to give them a helpful push to Darwin Awards is very hard to resist, so I try to avoid.
ETA: Honolulu Star Advertiser, and if you have the stomach for it, look at the comments for any Trump story.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: I was told there would be no programming on this blog.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: …by who?
Sloane Ranger
CNN has been interviewing a succession of Democratic Senators. They are all welcoming this revelation as a significant breakthrough but then they pivot to bewailing how this is taking time away from doing “the peoples business.” and addressing things like infrastructure and “fixing healthcare”.
I know I’m British and I may be missing some aspect of US political culture but this seems to be bad messaging. Shouldn’t they be using the opportunity to slag off Trumpcare? After all the Thugs claim they also want to fix healthcare so aren’t they confusing the non-politically engaged?
Or is this their spin for International CNN and they’re saying something different for domestic consumption?
CZanne
@TS: who says they have friends? Who says they have managed to get through life without alienating every relative who might have felt obligated to give a shit about them? I’m gonna need evidence. (McTurtle’s got his payoff — wifey in charge of Transpo, and some serious sketch in his campaign finance.)
@SiubhanDuinne: to be fair, I would have frozen in that sandwich shop, too, despite my doctorate and pair of master’s degrees. I try not to make working lunches or casual meals with friends all about me, but I have to be very careful with carbs in general, wheat causes a bunch of problems, and food in general can be a complicated relationship. I order a lot of salads, but if that didn’t look available, yeah, I, too, would be furiously thinking through what I could eat without being a pain in the ass for the staff and my friend. I love bread, but it’s a very rare sacrifice and I know I’m going to be paying for it for several days if I indulge. Lunch with a friend is not usually worth that. And lunch with a judgemental friend who has a tendency to be an asshole? No, I’m not going to go into my fraught relationship with my gallbladder and my dodgy genetic code.
But it’s Brooks, who is always a condescending asshole. It’s his default mode. He cannot think beyond his own cast-iron worldview to understand why someone would want to be both polite and resist.
Aleta
@A Ghost To Most: And now it’s time for the word treason.
It’s important that media discussion of treason happen — we should ask for it, express support when they do discuss it — aside from whether indictment is politically or legally possible. Or conviction ever comes, or is overturned.
Because no matter what the legal results are (w/ help from their friends), publicity now could affect whether these players eventually get big rewards. Head companies that get defense contracts, and be put in charge of gov’t data collection, as Cheney did for Poindexter after conviction-reversal. TV commenting and hosting like North (convicted-reversed). At least we can try to keep them from getting wealthier off the defense or subsidized housing or health industries. Which is what they’re after in the first place.
The Moar You Know
@Sloane Ranger: Short answer: yes, they should.
US Dems don’t know how to fight or message effectively. They just don’t. They’re trying to work within the traditional political system, and the GOP long ago abandoned working within that system at all. Dems don’t know how to deal with that.
The old military adage about “trying to fight this war with the lessons you learned from the last one” is pretty accurate here. Dems need to wise up, as a party, and realize that shit has changed. They have not, so far as I can see from where I sit, done so.
ETA: Dems talking about “fixing healthcare” are rendering me in need of said healthcare. We did fix it. The GOP has done nothing but try to break it. The Dem response has been to adopt the GOP’s framing on the issue, which will give the GOP a win. It drives me fucking crazy.
Major Major Major Major
@CZanne: If I were invited to lunch with David Brooks I would make sure to eat beforehand. It’s obvious by now that he doesn’t understand how food or restaurants work.
SiubhanDuinne
@CZanne:
That’s perfectly legitimate, but Brooks wasn’t considering that his young friend with just a high school diploma might, like you, have been concerned with dietary restrictions. His assumption was that she was simply too ill-educated to have studied Italian, and too poor to have traveled to Italy, either of which would have given her the wherewithal to move gracefully among her intellectual, economic, and cultural betters.
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: I took a year of Italian and have traveled in Italy and I wouldn’t have known my ass from a hole in the ground at that sandwich shop.
Chris
@Aleta:
Yeah. As much as I generally don’t mind the “remember that this isn’t actually treason, treason is a very narrowly defined term in the constitution” reminders, at this point, fuck it. If colluding with the KGB in order to take over your own government doesn’t constitute treason, then the term has no meaning. It may or may not fly in a court of law, but by the standards required to post in plain English on a political blog, the term is just fine.
TriassicSands
@TenguPhule:
Well, we know it’s not bad because Donald has told us it’s all “fake news” and his supporters scream “nothingburger.” And since Trump has such an exemplary record for telling the truth, even when it is to his disadvantage, we know he wouldn’t lie.
WTF? This morning I heard someone on the radio talking about the White House not having “much credibility left.” Much? MUCH?
How on earth could Trump have any credibility left with anyone except for those who would believe him if he said the sky is plaid?
Iowa Old Lady
@mai naem mobile: I heard Terry Gross interviewing a guy about why so few Wall Street guys went to jail after they’d engaged in shady dealings that nearly broke the economy. He said there was what for want of a better word he called a class issue. Some prosecutor said these were good people who’d done one bad thing, so they shouldn’t go to jail, not something they’d ever say about a black teenager dealing drugs. I suspect the Mercers will fall into that same category in a prosecutor’s eyes.
karensky
I loved reading these comments. David Brooks is a terrible writer, a wanker and enabler of all things that have been bad for regular Americans for 35+ years. I really want to take him to my neighborhood bar in Philly that I have pre-packed with friends and relatives.
Keep resisting the “I Don’t Care Act” and calling your senators.
Boatboy_srq
@Susan: THAT would be delicious. Imagine how the Auld Guard would turn on the tRumpets who would turn on the Teahad who would turn on the FundiEvsngelists… All those poor snowflakes and their Fvck Your Feelings t-shirts would be unmasked as pwned tools of the FSB. Too, too delish.
(Also utter cr#p because everything we’ve seen anything from the Reichwing says they’ll merely double down on the cray.)
CZanne
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s the point I was making. He cannot get out of his own perspective (or lack thereof) enough to imagine that anything except his assumptions are in play.
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
Or be from an Italian family or been close to any Italians. I’m as white bread Anglo-Saxon as it gets and I know what all those things are. I’ve never been to Italy and I knew what they were before I even graduated from high school, let alone went through undergrad and grad school.
Mainly because I knew a lot of Italians. Some of them actually born in Italy.
I’ll bet if he’d said, well, this tastes a bit like bologna but richer or this is a smokier or spicier sausage than salami or this is a type of ham with some spices to heat it up, the friend would have totally gotten it. That’s how my Italian friends explained strange things to me when I asked what they might be. And hell, it’s Italian charcuterie. It’s all delicious.
Aleta
@SiubhanDuinne: I went from the link at Jezebel to read his column and two things struck me as weird. (If I didn’t get it wrong from reading too fast.)
First, saying that kind of effort by the upper-middle class is recent (only “the past few decades”). Then, his focus on generational fashions like food as his example — which is either a lazy or an avoidant way to talk about the behavior codes that upper classes have always taught their kids to harden class boundaries and give the advantage to their own.
Avoiding the real discussion as he did is actually kind of typical for many in his class. It’s supposedly his topic, but then he can’t break the class taboo against revealing too much. Maybe because it’s too exposing for him and his friends. But Italian sausages–ha ha! Funny for many reasons. Able to leap to tall conclusions in a single bound! It’s wealthy-whiteman!
Raoul
@MattF: Indeed. But some 40% of America gets nothing but pre-digested sound bites from shitheels like McConnell and believe him. The ministry of propaganda ain’t broken, even if Trump & fam are about to be engulfed in flames.
@dmsilev
And at this point, good damn luck getting anyone smarter than a gerbil to want to be nominated.
Raoul
@MisterForkbeard: “scheduling conflicts” = a LOT of meetings with criminal defence attorneys. Also, I believe the Right Honourable (?) Ms. T. May will be washing her hair and unavailable for Trump-stench.
mai naem mobile
@Iowa Old Lady: I would hope treason would rank quite a ways above financial misdeeds/fraud. I sincerely hope you’re wrong.
NoraLenderbee
@Shell: He died last year, actually.
Uncle Cosmo
@Bruce K: You should pull up a copy of the 25th Amendment, Section 4, & actually read it for comprehension before blathering about it.
IANAL but as I read it, the whole “incapable of discharging the duties of office” and “Acting President” mishegoss is intended to clearly designate who is acting as Commander-In-Chief when everyone (including POTUS if at that point conscious) agrees s/he’s incapable (or about to be, e.g., when undergoing a medical procedure requiring general anesthetic).
If the President does not agree s/he is or will be incapable of etc., then Amendment 25.4 quickly turns into a clusterfuck. It would be faster & require fewer votes in Congress to impeach him/her.
cokane
Well said Betty. All the collusion stuff will eventually get us is President Pence, so…