I’ll stomp on Betty for a moment:
In all seriousness, this is a sad story. Not a laugher. Guy sold his company, divorced his wife, didn’t see his kid's birth, for…. this.
— Sam Stein (@samstein) July 31, 2017
Scharden should be freuded here.
Unless someone is in uniform and is receiving a direct order to serve at the White House, why would anyone work for Trump. The competent have mostly disqualified themselves by signing multiple never-Trump letters during the campaign. The hacks are being forced out by Bannon. And now the boot-lickers see that boot licking is not enough if they are manifestly incompetent.
This is not normal.
Spanky
Dude stayed with Trump in WV while his wife was giving birth to their child, later texting congratulations to her.
What would your wife do?
rikyrah
This is NOT a sad story.
Nobody forced him to sell his company.
Nobody forced his wife to divorce him.
He’s a mean, spiteful, power hungry bully.
Tokyokie
I think it’s more a case that his wife divorced him, rather than him divorcing her.
Ian G.
It’s par for the course for dictators, wannabe or otherwise, to replace the professionals with pathetic loyal hacks. A large part of the current mess in Venezuela stems from the collapse of the oil industry there after Chavez purged the professionals and left incompetent loyalists running things.
Hopefully the “deep state” (aka the rule of law and the professionals running things under the rule of law) keep this clown show from infecting too much of the federal government and its ability to function.
hueyplong
Seems like a poor judgment call for someone in such tight circumstances to roll around DC defecating on everything and everyone.
A sad, tragic korvfefe.
schrodingers_cat
I am not laughing. What do we know about Kelly? He has been a good little foot soldier of T’s anti-immigrant agenda at the DHS. He seems efficient. He has been rude to members of Congress when they have questioned him. So far he seems like the most capable of T’s appointees and seems to agree with the agenda set forth by Miller, Bannon etc.
jl
Man, I dunno. Why was this guy schmozing with Trump when his wife was having their kid?
That sounded very odd to me when I read it this weekend.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
Yeah, I’ll save my tears for the many, many people who are already suffering because of this evil regime.
Another Scott
CNN Money from July 25:
(Emphasis added.)
Yeah, about that… [/Lumberg]
Poor, poor Moochie.
Cheers,
Scott.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah:
1000% agree. The guy voluntarily sold his soul to Beelzebub and missed his son’s birth to do it. Sad only in the sense of shameful and pathetic.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat:
So far, we know he’s an evil shit and possibly competent. That’s the bad news. Good news is that no escapes the wrath of T. Kelly won’t last either.
TenguPhule
@jl:
Trump’s dick was obviously not going to suck itself.
geg6
The only people named Scaramucci that anyone should have sympathy for are the about-to-be ex-wife and child. She thought she’d married a wealthy Democrat and found out he was just an over ambitious pig and that poor child obviously has a father who cares not one bit for it. I’m sad for them. I’m laughing my ass off at the Mooch himself, however.
Mary G
@schrodingers_cat: I agree. The amusing fuckups are distracting from the fact that a military junta seems to be coming down the pike. Kelly said that Trump should take a sword to the media, has criticized Congress members for disloyalty, and let the thugs and brownshirts of the border patrol run amuck and is a dangerous man to have been put in power because he’s competent and a true believer in Trump’s horrible worldview.
oldgold
Now we know why Barnum & Bailey called it quits last month. No way it could compete with the circus at the White House.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
That he’s got no moral fiber, no ethical qualms about fucking up people of color under code of law and he’s got enough political talent and knowledge to make it to rank status.
All in all, nothing that bodes well.
Spanky
@TenguPhule: Objection! Assumes dick not in evidence.
Chris
I’ve ripped off Golda Meir before with “we won’t have peace until conservatives love their children more than they hate us,” but I wasn’t expecting to see the phenomenon play out quite so literally.
Ian G.
@O. Felix Culpa:
Right. For more on that, see Jefferson Beauregard Nathan Bedford Forrest Jubal Early Preston Brooks Fort Pillow Andersonville Sessions III.
hueyplong
@TenguPhule: “Trump’s dick was obviously not going to suck itself.”
The Mooch firing should show seeds of doubt in your mind on that point.
schrodingers_cat
We underestimate Kelly at our own peril. He is scary and competent.
Chris
@geg6:
This.
Hopefully the kid gets a better chance at growing up normal than he would have with this asshole for a father.
NotMax
Sadly, never a lack of volunteers for the brown nose brigade.
TenguPhule
@Spanky:
Counter-Objection! Existence of the dick can be confirmed through the effects it had on its surroundings without need for direct visual confirmation.
different-church-lady
Fuckin’ choices: how do they work?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@TenguPhule:
And god knows Trump sure in shit isn’t limber enough to get it there….
CZanne
@schrodingers_cat: Kelly was Mattis’ second for the invasion; they both spent a lot of time arguing against Bremer and they seem to have worked well together when the politicals weren’t fucking things up. If their plans and suggestions had been followed, an Iraqi civil war was far less likely. (I have met Mattis once, socially, many years ago and have followed his career on a casual basis. I respect his mind.) But Bremer won that one, and well. Look what we got.
As for his DHS tenure… that’s where I get suspicious. There’s “following orders” and there’s fostering a culture of harm. ICE/La Migra was never actually a hotbed of functionality. I suspect that the last six months have been mostly a reaction of being somewhat off leash after several years of leash, but that’s not the whole cause of their recent wretched behavior. We know that white supremacists have been joining and infiltrating for at least a couple decades. Those are attractive jobs and positions for their cause.
I think it’s going to depend strongly on their loyalty to their first oath — is the Constitution What guides them? I trust that in Mattis far more than in Kelly. But I don’t trust either unilaterally at this point.
Yutsano
@geg6:
This.
Although I hope she rakes him over the coals in the divorce settlement.
enplaned
Josh Marshall nailed this. The only people who are now joining Trump are those who are rotten at the core. That includes the Mooch. He made all those changes because he would do anything to get close to the seat of power. He was rotten from the start — there’s no reason to feel sorry for him. Especially because he sold his fund for serious $$$.
Chris
@Mary G:
Arguably the scariest thing that’s happened yet in this administration is something that hardly anyone of note commented on at the time (people here, yes, people in the media or even civil rights community, no): that when the judges ordered the Muslim Ban thing to stop, and CBP was refusing to comply with their orders, federal marshalls apparently refused to serve warrants on the CBP officers.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@schrodingers_cat:
But is now going to be at the mercy of people who are legally entitled to say “fuck you, I’m not doing that, you’re not my boss”.
MattF
@Another Scott: Some more info about HNA. Their ownership structure is… opaque. Fits in with the ‘money laundering’ theme of Trumpville.
Applejinx
F
(to pay all the respect this fucker deserves)
Cacti
This would be a sad story…
If it wasn’t such a hilarious story.
Left his family for Trump and got dumped after 10 days.
LoLoLoLoL
Chris
@Ian G.:
You left out Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
jonas
Guy sold his company, divorced his wife, didn’t see his kid’s birth, for…. this.
Yep, he did. *Busts out laughing*
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Actually, it gets worse: his wife went into labor two weeks prematurely and the baby ended up in the neo-natal unit, and he couldn’t be arsed to rush back to NYC to see them.
And this is their second child together.
schrodingers_cat
@CZanne: Thanks for your perspective, being an immigrant myself I follow that beat closely and let’s just say that the good general’s tenure at the DHS has been a cause for concern.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Lawrence Wilkerson (Powell’s right hand man and IIRC a retired army colonel) spoke very forcefully about that on Joy Reid’s show yesterday. I’d be very interested to know what kind of blowback he faced
good lord, that’s scary
scav
and been announced dead by his alumni association. Let’s hear it for the scriptwriters, for once their otherwise unbelievable concatenation of events works.
rikyrah
An updated Obamacare map — with new OH entrants, we’re down to 19 counties with zero carriers. Mostly in NV, a few in IN. pic.twitter.com/uy0j557nyh
— Sarah Kliff (@sarahkliff) July 31, 2017
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Obviously time to trade her in for a newer model. //
/Yes, I know she’s the one initiating.
rikyrah
According to the FCC, 39% of rural Americans — 23 million people — don’t have internet access. via @BrentNYT https://t.co/i2uQYR1cnB pic.twitter.com/DsL0MuwHAw
— Arapaho415 (@arapaho415) July 30, 2017
rikyrah
Joe Arpaio found guilty of criminal contempt of court today. Kris Kobach gave Arpaio unlawful deportation authority https://t.co/ErYVYq1jGA pic.twitter.com/mCOdYBIVQf
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) July 31, 2017
Kobach blocked 30,000+ Kansans from registering to vote & now wants to take voter suppression plans national https://t.co/OZiHQV6HXK
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) July 31, 2017
Cacti
Who could predict that leaving your wife for Donald Trump wouldn’t end well?
(raises hand)
Skerry
@geg6: There is a 3 year old child too.
? Martin
Party of personal responsibility, everyone…
jl
@Mnemosyne: Thanks, I guess. I didn’t know that. WTF?
randy khan
@Mnemosyne:
I’m sure his thinking was that the second child is just a spare.
NotMax
@Martin
A case of premature ejectulation.
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
There was a Page Six article about the whole mess last week with lots of juicy details. The Mooch’s buddies were trying to claim his soon-to-be-ex was “verbally abusive” because she called him stupid for dropping everything to go work for Trump.
I didn’t know that telling your spouse the truth and seeing your predictions play out now count as “verbal abuse.”
Chris
@Mary G:
Further on this,
The scary thing about the constant undermining and destroying of all the non-military Useless Big Government Bureaucracies in Washington (which has been going on since Reagan at least) is that if left unchecked, sooner or later, it lands us with a country in which the military is the only organization left with the resources and basic know-how to handle the kind of projects that are the province of big government.
randy khan
A friend posted a haiku about this event on Facebook, and it inspired this almost double-dactyl:
Spouting profanity,
Trump’s new guy Anthony
Threatens all leakers and
Deletes his tweets.
Who would’ve guessed it, but
Tragicomedically,
On day eleven he’s
Back on the streets.
? Martin
@Mnemosyne: Do not revile the king even in your thoughts, or curse the rich in your bedroom, because a bird in the sky may carry your words, and a bird on the wing may report what you say.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Fuck his company, of which Reince Priebus accused him of jacking up the price in return for trump access, his wife divorced him (and he was an asshole when they both split from their previous spouses to put a ring on their affair), and he’s the type to miss his kid’s birth for basketball tickets.
sukabi
@rikyrah: agree. The Mooch did ALL of that to himself thru greed and self-serving ambition. No tears for him at all.
Hopefully his soon to be ex-wife will have a long, happy, fulfilling life with her child without all the chaos and drama that her ex drags in his wake.
The Moar You Know
He went to work – TO HELP – that orange sack of shit destroy America. He deserves every awful damn thing he got and he deserves a lot more that he’ll never get because he’s rich, white and Republican.
Anonymous At Work
I think Kelly and Mattis and the other generals that came after Flynn have hit on the one thing needed to run things, marginally, under Trump: Demand hire/fire privileges up front. Trump will hire impulsively but has no loyalty, so they can be immediately fired without a problem, and Trump is too impatient and needy to hire the generals that he won’t balk at that particular demand.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Who is this Sam Stein? Cry me a fucking river, scary mouse invited this calamity upon himself, I have zero sympathy for him.
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: As I said in the other thread, this is the recipe for Evangelistan, a Christian Pakistan where the military is more powerful than the elected government, and undermines it at every turn.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
from a couple of days ago:
(I’ve never really watched Nicole Wallace’s show, she got pretty aggressively contemptuous with a trump-bot just now)
sm*t cl*de
@jonas:
Guy is trying to sell his company (though really selling insider access) but the transaction is still waiting for regulatory approval. It’s not too late for the Chinese buyers to change their minds.
? Martin
@The Moar You Know:
No he didn’t. He went to work to enrich himself. That’s all he ever cared about – not his wife, not his kid, just getting more millions. He could honestly give a shit about Trump, his policies, the effect on the country. None of those are his concern, so long as he gets paid.
lgerard
Is the Mooch going to be on Hannity tonight?
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: True, but he’s not the President. He can’t “fix” what’s wrong with Trump’s administration. Like many others, I expect he’ll be gone before too long (certainly by mid-November 2018 at the absolute latest).
We can enjoy the Mooch imploding so quickly, while we also keep our eyes on the prize.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: political reporter for the Daily Beast, he was at HuffPo forever, apparently an habitué of Morning Joe, which horror I manage to not inflict upon myself, however much of an MSNBC junkie I may be, especially on days like this
James Powell
@rikyrah:
Sounds like the Republicans found their 2018 candidate for NY Governor.
NotMax
@Igerard
Only if Hannity buys him dinner first.
/eeewww
JMG
Mooch’s story is even funnier than that Stein guy said. If he can’t find another job in the administration by the end of the year, he’ll be liable for tens of millions of bucks more in taxes from the sale of his hedge fund. Anyone who can’t see the humor there isn’t human.
Major Major Major Major
That is not how spelling works.
Chris
@schrodingers_cat:
True. The only caveat I’d add is that generally speaking, the U.S. military has been pretty good at obedience to civilian authority. But against that you have the complete erosion of civilian willingness to resist militarization for fear of being accused of stabbing the country in the back…
jl
Some one should start up a company for ‘I sold my soul for Trump and all I got was this lousy MAGA hat’ MAGA hat.
But, how do you fit all that on a cap? Whoever figures it out will make a mint.
TenguPhule
@sukabi:
She’s no angel either.
Here’s to hoping they both lose and their lawyers win.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JMG: trump-bot on MSNBC said he’s going to ExImBank (wasn’t that one of trump’s big targets during the campaign? The “Bank of Boeing”?)
ETA: Steve Schmidt is on a tear about the threat trump poses to the country as a serial lying bully with no principles, discipline or consistency. If only he had the ear of some elected Republicans)
ETA, A: “these people, with their lack of probity, their lack of rectitude, lying to the American people, day after day”..he’s talking to you, Kellyanne.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Chris:
That’s one of my greatest fears. If the military are the only competent and trusted institution left then that opens the door for military “hostile takeovers” of the government to make sure paychecks come things don’t unravel too much.
bystander
I was hoping we were going to get to the bottom of why Mooch was a Twitter fan of Blake Mitchell, gay pr0n star.
Now, it’s all going to go the way of Jeff Guckert. Covfefe!
Cheryl Rofer
David:
Yes, there’s a serious side to this too. Trump seems to be running out of toadies and boot-lickers. As you say, the competent were gone a long time ago. Trump is not filling in the middle-range appointees who actually do a lot of the work of government. Bannon’s proclaimed goal is to end the government, and the Freedom Caucus agrees with him.
We really do need a government. For several decades now, the Republicans, initially led by Ronald Reagan, proclaimed that government is the problem. That’s gotten to be conventional wisdom, aided and abetted by Bill Clinton. People are starting to recognize this as they see that the Republicans want to end their health insurance. I think the message needs to be put forth more forcefully, but there is also a matter of whether the people can recognize and accept it. Timing is important.
We are six months into the Trump administration, one-eighth of the way through. I’m not sure we can deal with the full four years.
I saw the documentary, “The Singing Revolution,” over the weekend. It’s about how Estonia regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. That was preceded by many, many street demonstrations combined with smart legislative moves. We need to be doing more of that sort of thing here now.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
With regard to Scaramucci (is that Italian for scrapple?) being escorted off the premises – although this could easily be Kelly authoritarianism and Trump vindictiveness on display, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it happened because he was found in possession of cocaine on the WH grounds.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@schrodingers_cat: Even worse, a Christian Pakistan with thousands of nuclear warheads and hundreds of millions of potential soldiers. The day the USA (or any major superpower) completely goes over the edge is a very bad day for the world.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
By all accounts, she’s at least a Democrat and smart enough to realize that Trump was toxic, so she wins the moral stakes despite her personal life.
jl
@Chris: I can imagine a wingnut cadre in the military going for that idea. But for the rest, particularly the more professional and competent officers, Trump has been pissing off the brass at least as often as offering them any attractive deal in a military-lead Trumpistan.
Maybe if Trump promised to be a real symbolic figure head and stay out of their way. Except, he’s trashed his brand.
What could he offer? US military are fussy about their uniforms, so the 1920s Central European operetta look won’t go over well with them, so he has no image ideas to offer.
Probably, they’ll hold out for Pence.
The Moar You Know
@rikyrah: And that stat is 100% bullshit, pulled straight from the ass of Ajit Pai himself to justify the dismantling of net neutrality. He claims, with zero supporting evidence, that it will improve rural broadband coverage.
If you have a cell phone and coverage in these United States of 2017, you have internet access. May be shitty, may be slow, but you have access.
Ohio Mom
@Major Major Major Major: Even so, that spelling worked for me.
Major Major Major Major
@bystander:
I was just assuming it’s because he’s a fan of Blake Mitchell, gay pr0n star.
lgerard
@JMG:
That’s a good point
and it is the type of sad story that would resonate with trump
DCrefugee
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne: my interest in Mrs Mooch extends no further than my hope she hurts him, bad, in the divorce. And maybe uses some of the cash to fund Let America Vote or Planned Parenthood
schrodingers_cat
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: We are at a crossroads, we must do everything in our power to stop that from happening. T’s election is not a good sign of the health of the polity. He is the symptom of a deeper malaise, within the R party and hence the politics of the country.
ET
So was The Mooch’s official start date really the 15th? If so ouch.
The Twitter is having a field day. He totally deserves it.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Fuck Steve Schmidt. He helped build this Frankenstein’s Monster and is now running around trying to pretend he had nothing to do with it.
bystander
@Major Major Major Major: Sometimes a cigar is just a good smoke, I guess.
I’m currently enjoying the gospel version of Maxine Water’s I’m Reclaiming My Time.
Chris
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Yeah.
And to be clear, I don’t believe there’s any conspiracy to bring about military rule going on. For one thing, the military has civilian control pretty well ingrained in it, generally. For another, that’s not how the wingnuts destroying the government think – the stupid fucks genuinely believe that it’ll create an explosion of peace and prosperity.
But that’s what makes it scary: I can imagine (it’s not a likely scenario, but it’s not an unthinkable one) a scenario in the not-too-distant future in which the military takes over the country, not by coup or conspiracy, but because the only options are literally that or collapse into failed state status.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Hah hah, no. The military, like every other institution of government, has been given to the GOP termites for decades.
The financial accounting is a sick joke. The boots on the ground are worn out. And don’t even get me started on the equipment and vehicle issues. Our peacetime forces have been mobilized for years without a break.
As Adam and many others have pointed out. When the next war starts, we are SOL for rapid force deployment.
The military isn’t going to save us or take over. Its going to fall apart like the rest.
Beautifulplummage
I work at an event rental company….with popcorn machines. The warehouse has been testing one so bring on the schadenfreude. Munch, munch munch.
Major Major Major Major
@Beautifulplummage: Sure, that’s great for you, but what about the rest of us? Did you bring enough to share?
NotMax
@Chris
Plus there remains a greater degree of separation between the military and intelligence services than is the case with the ISI in Pakistan.
sukabi
@TenguPhule: she may not be an “angel”, who is? Hoping for stability and happiness for her kids with perhaps the one parent that hasn’t shown ass publicly isn’t really much to ask for is it?
Adding, I don’t know anything about her other than she has EXTREMELY poor taste in men, and had a moment of clarity when she filed for divorce.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: We are not there yet, but we can get there if the currents trends are not reversed.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: Every R worth his salt has 3 wives, amirite?
Chris
@NotMax:
Isn’t military/ISI rivalry a thing in Pakistan? For some reason I thought the divide was bigger than it seems to be per your comment…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
couple of good things from twitter
spin that Kristin Welker, straight reporter, just echoed on MSNBC
Here’s hoping!
Robert Sneddon
One comment I saw elsewhere is that Big Government means Interstates and clean water, Small Government means dirt roads and cholera. The Founding Fathers were all in favour of state’s rights and a small Federal government but they lived with dirt roads and cholera. The American people have got used to the benefits of Big Government but, like anti-vaccination proponents they think that Interstates and clean water are the natural way of the world and not something that takes continuous effort and government to sustain.
Gelfling 545
@TenguPhule: She wouldn’t need to be an angel to be a better person than Moochie. And yes, she’s the one who decided to marry and reproduce with the jackass. Still, it happens. Often to women who are decent people.
TenguPhule
@Chris:
Military are the sane ones, ISI works hand in hand with the Taliban.
They don’t usually get along unless they have no other choice.
Tom65
Nope, still laughing.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Given what we know of Kelly at DHS, would he try to manipulate Trump to give himself more power?
nonynony
@Mnemosyne:
I mean, Scaramucci has the moral character of … I dunno, a member of the Trump family (is there anything lower on this scale? I’m having a hard time coming up with a metaphor here). So she’s going to win by default if she has even an ounce more.
My understanding is that she’s Wife #2 and that they were having an affair while he divorced Wife #1, so she had warning signs that he was likely pond scum from the very beginning. People are very good at ignoring those kinds of warning signs when they think they’re in love, so it may not be a moral failing so much as the kind of stupid trap a lot of people in that situation find themselves in.
(In this case the man decided to slough off his wedding vows in favor of toadying up to Donald Trump – which shows just how slimy and stupid he has to be. Or possibly that he’s a masochist, I guess.)
TenguPhule
@Robert Sneddon:
All of our problems in a nutshell.
People who crow for less government have never actually experienced the real consequences of what that means. And even if they did, they wouldn’t learn from it because most of them wouldn’t survive it.
GregB
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s like feeling bad for the Geobbles because their children died.
Applejinx
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
It is now!
Yutsano
@schrodingers_cat: It won’t take the whole country. If the descent info totalitarianism happens there are sections of the country that will split off. This country is way too big & Dolt45 doesn’t have enough of a power coalition to hold it together. Not to mention there are sections that can survive (after a few rough years at first) without DC.
frank
@randy khan: Outstanding
Jim, Foolish Literalist
it’s almost supernatural how there is always. one. of these.
Nelle
Sheriff Arpaio found guilty of criminal contempt of court….
TenguPhule
@Nelle:
In the Trump family, this makes him a made man.
lamh36
@schrodingers_cat: Well…dang…I went to a late lunch and Da Mooch was kaput…dang…
Already know the spin…”looks like Kelly means business…good for Cheeto prez!”
@MatthewACherry
Cab Calloway
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Chris:
That’s true, and I don’t really think there’s an actual conspiracy either. But cultures can change and the self-selecting nature of the All-Volunteer Force doesn’t help either. Generally, more right-leaning people join the armed forces. If they believed, true or not, that the elected government did not respect or follow the constitution as they understood it or was otherwise inept enough to endanger the welfare of the military, then I believe they might try a takeover
Yutsano
@Nelle: LOCK. HIM. UP.
Major Major Major Major
@Robert Sneddon:
Not true, only some of them! They spilled a lot of ink arguing about it, dontcha know.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lamh36: our own Siubhan Duinne (sp?) made that joke earlier
and Cab Calloway was the best part of The Blues Brothers.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
1. Not enough people. Literally.
2. Chances of inter-service cooperation on this are pretty much zero.
3. Mutiny. (On all sides, you’d have factions pretty much all over the place with everyone realizing the losers would be facing the death penalty)
zhena gogolia
@bystander:
Fabulous!
lamh36
Well damn…methinks The Mooch, ain’t gonna take this treatment well…
quakerinabasement
Gotta dispute Sam on this. Every sentient creature on the planet could have predicted this would happen. But not Mooch! One wonders how someone could run a successful hedge fund with such lousy foresight.
A total laugher.
lamh36
Personally, I think Trump used Mooch to get rid of Reince and then once he took too much of spotlight, he couldn’t have a shining star in his orbit…
Sure the media will credit Kelly, but I’m thinking if Cheeto wanted to keep Mooch, Kelly or no Kelly, he would…
Frankensteinbeck
@nonynony:
I can attest to that.
The Moar You Know
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Not exactly the case. About 50/50 for enlisted. Officer corps…yeah, I’ll give you that one, it’s about 25-1 in my experience.
There’s a lot more enlisted folks than officers.
Some of the most hardcore libs I know are military or ex-military. And those folks…they’re always the smartest libs I’ve met.
Gelfling 545
@schrodingers_cat: Jennifer Rubin’s column in WP today is should the GOP die. Spoiler: her answer is yes.
Major Major Major Major
@lamh36: You’re suggesting that Trump has an ability to plan or think further in the future than an hour here, which doesn’t seem supported by the available evidence.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
I never claimed it would have to be successful. And anyway I’m assuming that current trends continue to hollow out the government and democratic norms are continually and increasingly held in ignorance and contempt by the enough of the population for them to not put up much of a fight/even support it. This wouldn’t be a year from now or even then years. It would be many decades into the future.
lamh36
Sure, Ok…
The Moar You Know
@TenguPhule: You’ve heard the old joke – only somewhat a joke – that the reason we have different branches is so that they’d all fight each other instead of taking over the government.
Now, there has never been any serious danger of that, IMO, but even if there were the old joke is true. Fucking guys would be having a four way war that would end only in total annihilation of all the service branches.
efgoldman
@Nelle:
Is it too much to ask that he be sentenced to his own sneezer?
jl
@Major Major Major Major: Where are the Hamilton fans today? And James Wilson, not remembered as a biggie founder today,, but influential at the time, was more nationalist than Hamilton. And where Hamilton went, you also found Washington on most issues, though he did not advertise his personal opinions as much. Benjamin Franking believed in a federal government that had the right to expansive powers, though I think he was more populist than other nationalists (so if the people, not the bigshots willed a powerful central government). And Tom Paine, for an early version of a federal ‘welfare state’, aka social insurance provided by federal government.
lamh36
@Major Major Major Major: naw…I’m saying, he kept him even after Spicey and Reince objected…then when Mooch did that interview, it put too much “shine” on da Mooch…remember reports said, Trump was more upset that Reince didn’t fight back…
Now, I’m sure Kelly may have given him an ultimatum, but I also think, if he wanted to keep the Mooch, he would have…Kelly or no Kelly
Iowa Old Lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Somebody tell Melania that it’s just locker room talk.
schrodingers_cat
@lamh36: Funny how the media that had daggers drawn for HRC the moment she arrived in DC is all smoochie smoochie for the spectacularly unqualified Ivanka.
ruemara
I have ZERO sympathy for this. He made choices. They came back on him. I hope he learns and changes. That’s all.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Unless we’re going to pretend that a whole lot of military officers will all decide to commit suicide, the trend will see our military fall apart long before a coup could be considered possible. This is literally one of the few things that is pretty much guaranteed the death penalty for in the military. Mutinies are crushed mercilessly.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: @The Moar You Know: It also has changed over time, and depends on the branch – the Navy traditionally had more liberals, in both in the officer and enlisted ranks. It’s still probably the most liberal branch, if you use the rough metric of Dem vs. Rep voter registration. The Air Force once was more liberal, too, but has slowly been taken over by extremely conservative evangelical Christianists. Vietnam service experience was a major force for liberalization of views among Army and Marine personnel but that generation is now mostly gone.
Felonius Monk
@efgoldman:
Only if he is required to wear “Prisoner Pink” undies like all the other inmates.
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know:
Yep. Airforce hates the Army which hates the Navy which hates the Airforce. And the Marines hate everyone, but make an exception for the Navy as a glorified taxi service.
randy khan
@The Moar You Know:
That’s actually the same number the Dems came up with in the last report on broadband availability. The standard is a 25 Mbps downstream/3 Mbps upstream connection. It’s much worse than that on Tribal lands.
I’m not saying that Pai’s approach to addressing that issue will be good, but the number actually isn’t his.
jl
@lamh36: You gotta a guy who can talk and swagger and make of damned fool of himself like Trump, and make a stronger case than Trump (since Mooch actually knows fact thingys). So that is good.
OTOH, Mooch can get media attention like Trump, or MORE than Trump, which is not so good. And people can mercilessly ridicule Mooch (and explicitly) for acting and talking (aka lying) like Trump, and in a way that they cannot do wrt to Trump himself. Also not so good.
Mooch also ‘leaked himself’, if that makes any sense.
Villago Delenda Est
Sam Stein is getting beat up on the twitter machine. For example, Jen Rubin has absolutely no sympathy for Mooch.
Lee Hartmann
@Spanky: +one million
sukabi
@lamh36: no. The Mooch wasn’t fired via tweet. This is Kelly asserting control over his job. Chances are he wouldn’t have taken it if he couldn’t actually be in control. Otherwise he would have been drumpfs fly catcher and nothing more.
randy khan
@TenguPhule:
I believe that the Marines don’t hate the other branches; they merely have contempt for them (and occasionally pity those who are forced to serve in the lesser branches).
My dad was in the 2nd Marine Division during World War II, and they sent every surviving member of the division a book on the history of the division. Approximately every other chapter went like this: “We offered to be in the first wave of the invasion of [name of Pacific island] but the Army insisted on doing it. When they couldn’t hack it, we came in and got the job done.”
O. Felix Culpa
@lamh36:
Sure, it was totally out of concern for “the women” that Scaramucci’s gone. They’ll have to spin harder; that one’s not working.
A Ghost to Most
@Villago Delenda Est: Rubin’s third column today? Talk about a real good case for redemption.
Beautifulplummage
@Major Major Major Major: can’t you smell it from here?
We will be selling off one of the older machines in a few months….
O. Felix Culpa
@The Moar You Know:
Speaking as a person who lives in a rural area that didn’t have broadband until last year, that “access” can be about as real and useful as “access” under the GOP’s healthcare plans. Cell phones barely and only intermittently work out here. I had better cell coverage in Uganda. I can’t speak to the statistics, but the reality is that not even cell phones work everywhere in the U.S.
Yutsano
@A Ghost to Most: Probably on the Tweet machine. She can be quite cutting on there.
Suzanne
@Villago Delenda Est: I was actually starting to feel some sympathy for the fucking paranoid schizophrenic Reince-y, since he got sold down the river in exchange for this clown. But then Mr. Suzanne reminded me that no one who has ever enabled Agent Orange in any way deserves even a speck of sympathy or good faith.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: Preibus’ loathsome–ness was well established during his tenure at the RNC
Villago Delenda Est
@A Ghost to Most: It was on the Twitter machine, per Yutsano. Brutal takedown of Mooch.
Redshift
OT: The purity ponies are at it again in the VA Gov race:
“‘They would work their hearts out for him’ if only Northam opposed pipelines, protesters say”
Sigh. Fortunately, there don’t seem to be a lot of them this time.
Hafabee
@randy khan:
I wish! Here in Eastern W.Va., barely 100 miles from DC, my only real choice is DSL on my landline at 2.5 Mbps down and 0.3 Mbps up. That is enough to stream video at 480p, which is generally fine (at least when the devices are not deciding to hog the bandwidth by updating themselves), but more and more services are streaming HD which stutters intolerably. And cell coverage is spotty at best (The Mountain State! Wild and Wonderful!), so that is not really an option.
sukabi
Interesting defense from Jared
Paraphrasing a bit
“We’re too fucking stupid and disorganized to collude with Russia.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Got it in one.
gratuitous
The jokes, they write themselves:
1. Death to Moochy
2. Suggested title for his political memoir: 127 Hours
3. “Mr. Scaramucci, on your application here under reason for leaving last job, it looks like you checked ‘Spend more time with my family,’ but that’s been crossed off.”
Redshift
@The Moar You Know:
That “if” is doing an awful lot of work there. I’ve been in plenty of rural places where I had no coverage.
However, this:
is spot-on. The constant ludicrous argument from net neutrality opponents is that the telecoms invested all this money building the internet infrastructure, and they’re not being allowed to profit from it. The telecoms certainly look plenty profitable to me, and nothing (other than the glorious Free Market) is forcing them to be in the internet services business. If anyone thinks they can make more money on voice calls, they’re welcome to try.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
In a humiliating pink jumpsuit, working on a chain gang….
Redshift
@sukabi:
That may well be the case, but seeking to collude with Russia is also a crime, even if you’re not successful. (Not to mention that the Russians are plenty competent, if you supplied them with information to help them get what they wanted, even if you’re too incompetent to get anything in return.)
schrodingers_cat
I read some articles in the prestige media about Kelly, everyone is fluffing Kelly.
Such swagger much marine
Wow
sukabi
@Redshift: you know that and I know that, apparently Jared isn’t listening to his lawyers cuz that’s the line they’re pushing.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Exactly. Being offensive to women is a feature with these people, not a bug.
efgoldman
@Redshift:
Our daughter has been reporting and writing about this for SO long, she’s sick of it.
She can’t ever say so out loud, but she’d like to rip Pai’s arms and legs off and stuff them down his throat.
Christ what an asshole.
Kay
This is the new, serious Trump Family.
They’ll find out that the whole appeal was the novelty- if they act like a normal Presidential family everyone will realize they’re just bad at it. The chaos is really all they have- without the drama they’re just sort of dumb incompetents.
efgoldman
@sukabi:
Alternate theory: Kushkie hired a lawyer as competent as he is.
Baud
George R.R. Martin hasn’t killed off this many characters. #GameOfFools
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Kinda scary thread on Kelly from a former staffer for Ted Kennedy (now at Third Way, but I guess everybody needs a job)
Kay
If The Mooch has any self respect he’ll get revenge. Three quarters of the country would cheer him on.
efgoldman
@Kay:
“Sort of?”
? Martin
@Redshift: Yeah. They built a utility monopoly and after extracting monopoly profits, we somehow are upset. The solution is to give them a two-sided rather than just one-sided monopoly – let them gouge consumers and content providers! That’ll improve competition and lower prices!
That said, even our leading economists don’t have a fucking clue how zero marginal cost, network effect driven businesses function. Politicians don’t stand a chance.
sukabi
@efgoldman: there is that, and you’re probably right as we can all see from the competence parade that is the Drumpf admin.
Schlemazel
@Kay:
they truly are “The Aristocrats!”
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I know he’s awful. I’m just too much of a softie. Mooch absolutely humiliated him, and I felt mildly bad for the dude for a second. Then I remembered that he’s evil. Lawful or neutral evil, but still evil.
I need to be more cold-hearted. I’d be treated with more respect.
? Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, grab ’em by the püssy.
sukabi
@Kay: he already dispelled any notion of self respect when he went chasing after any job with the Drumpf admin.
JPL
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Normally Melania says it is just locker room talk. hmmm
@geg6: She donated to Walker and then Jeb. She just didn’t like Trump.
Ladyraxterinok
@schrodingers_cat: HRC and Bill were outsiders and were never accepted as part of the ‘in’ group. I think Ivanka is viewed as part of the ‘in’ group although Donald Sr is not. She’s rich, consdered to be pretty by many, and is considered to be ‘cultured.’ Bill was always seen as a hillbilly from Arkansas. By marrying him and moving to Arkansas, HRC was forced into a marginal group.
smintheus
We shouldn’t assume that the kid is Mooch’s.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: I hope he winds up selling real estate back in Kenosha. But I”m sure he’s already in talks with some ‘consulting’ group or another for the fattest paychecks of his life.
lamh36
@sukabi: Well…then I gues Kelly will succeed where no other has. If he can control Ivanka & Jared, and if Trump no longer uses tweets as official statements then you can expect the MSM to begin carrying water for Trump even more.
Villago Delenda Est
@lamh36: Aye, it will be the new “normal” for the vermin of the Village.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Kay
This is great:
Kay
@? Martin:
I think the Trumps hate to be laughed at, and Mooch took it from “they’re incompetent” to “they’re a joke”.
I’m almost sad to see him go. He really personified the Trump family ethos.
Steve in the ATL
@Kay: you have a lovely state but I’m leaving Cleveland now. Thanks for the hospitality.
And this is gold:
Schlemazel
@Steve in the ATL:
truly, he is a douche among bags
sukabi
@lamh36: yeah. But the only way all that happens is if Kelly can convince Ivanka and Jared to hold Drumpf down while they slip him into a straitjacket and ball gag…then he could get the kids out of the WH…he’d still need Pences’ cooperation.
randy khan
@Hafabee:
The FCC would consider you unserved by broadband (and so would I). 2.5 Mbps was swell maybe 15 years ago, but not today.
randy khan
@Redshift:
I was just talking about this with someone in my office. Right now, the overwhelming majority of the investment in wired broadband is coming from the cable companies, both in research (they pay for CableLabs, which creates the standards for cable-based Internet) and assets on the ground (notably pushing fiber deeper into the network to support increasing demand). The telcos, particularly AT&T and Verizon, have more or less stopped doing more than maintenance spending on their wired facilities (sometimes not even that, particularly if you’re somewhere that doesn’t have UVerse or FiOS), and have shifted their capital spending to wireless. The only exceptions are companies that primarily serve rural areas, mostly because they tend not to have wireless licenses.
Also, the particularly funny thing about this argument is that network neutrality rules never have affected what a provider can charge its customers.
Another Scott
@Redshift: I hope you’re right!
That reminds me, the end of the month “deadlines” for various “matches” are tonight. Give if you can, folks!
Cheers,
Scott.
randy khan
@efgoldman:
I only can imagine what she thinks of O’Rielly.
Kay
@Steve in the ATL:
Cleveland is my favorite Ohio city.
I have a lot of affection for Toledo but in that sad way where it’s like an under-achieving friend :)
Columbus is so spiff-ed up and so flush with state money. I’m horrible when I’m there “LOOK at how NICE their roads are! They get ALL the money!”
mayim
@O. Felix Culpa:
Yup. True.
Here in Maine, there’s reliable cell and high-speed ‘Net coverage in the Portland area. Outside of that ~ highly variable. I’ve had little/no signal when I was pretty much in view of the state capitol building, as Augusta is really just a small town {popu;ation in the 20,000 range}.
The library I work at on the coast is technically in an ‘urban cluster’ {Census Bureau’s 2500 to 50,000 people} but just barely hits that lower number ~ and more than half the town is outside the cluster. A good half our traffic at the library everyday is people who have no Internet access available at home ~ some because it’s too costly, but many because the lines just don’t go down the rural roads.
Chet Murthy (chromebook)
@TenguPhule: any mother to be gets a pass. Sorry Thar’s just the way it is. She not complicit ffs.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Redshift: The reason it was necessary for the US government to bring electricity to the area covered by the Tennessee Valley Authority is that utilities had tried to do it and gone broke–the same reason so many parts of the rural US got their first electricity through Rural Electrification Administration co-ops. Even now the Rural Utilities Service oversees power, water and telecommunication services throughout the country for areas the big companies won’t touch. If they won’t make money off providing decent internet and cell access for these places, then the government should step in, because all areas deserve access to these blessings (and necessities) of modern life.
And I’ll bet the RUS can do as good a job as ATT and Verizon, if they have the funding. They give a damn about the access to service and the welfare of their users.
Steve in the ATL
@Kay: Toledo sucks. Cleveland needs a Pittsburgh-style revamp and it could be awesome. So much waterfront to gentrify!