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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Friday Morning Open Thread: RECESS!

Friday Morning Open Thread: RECESS!

by Anne Laurie|  August 4, 20174:15 am| 178 Comments

This post is in: Dolt 45, Open Threads, Rick Perry Presents "Rick Perry", Clown Shoes, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?

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Newsweek dubs Trump "Lazy Boy" on latest cover https://t.co/RyhovhQrAt pic.twitter.com/YK2CY7EXaS

— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) August 4, 2017

This guy, fersure!

Trump, about to head on vacation, tells Congress to go back to work on repeal-and-replace. "We'll get it. We'll get it, folks," he says.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 3, 2017

Who's ready for recess?! ?? #busted pic.twitter.com/GT8G4trEBE

— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) August 3, 2017

Per the Washington Post, “Recess just started for Congress, and it’s not going to be much fun for Republicans”:

The Senate left town for the rest of the summer Thursday, bringing a historically unproductive period of governance to a close for Republicans, who failed to produce any major legislative achievements despite controlling Congress and the White House…

By their own accounts, Republicans have failed to enact the ambitious agenda they embarked upon when Trump and the GOP majorities swept into power in January. The president has fallen well short of the legislative pace his two predecessors set in their first six months on the job.

The lack of a signature accomplishment Republican lawmakers can highlight at home this month has given rise to a new level of finger-pointing and soul-searching in a party that stood triumphant eight months ago after winning back full control of the federal government…

On Thursday, Trump took another parting shot at lawmakers for failing to pass a health-care bill. “Our relationship with Russia is at an all-time & very dangerous low. You can thank Congress, the same people that can’t even give us HCare!” he tweeted, a day after he grudgingly signed an international sanctions bill that the Senate passed 98 to 2…

The Senate will hold some pro-forma sessions throughout August and early September. Democrats had expressed concerns that Trump might try to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions while lawmakers are away if they did not hold such gatherings. But there will be no more roll-call votes in the Senate until Sept. 5….

Apart from standing well clear of the exits, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up another busy week?

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Reader Interactions

178Comments

  1. 1.

    AnderJ

    August 4, 2017 at 4:51 am

    Too bad Trump’s base will never believe reports about the transcript. Trump admitting one of his cons in his own words, but the’ll readily believe his angry denial on twitter.

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    August 4, 2017 at 5:07 am

    What’s on my agenda today? Why, practising guitar chords with my Girl, of course.

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    August 4, 2017 at 5:19 am

    How could any American look at that Newsweek cover, and not feel shame?

  4. 4.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    August 4, 2017 at 5:34 am

    @Amir Khalid: The ones who look at that cover and see themselves.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 4, 2017 at 5:48 am

    Headline at the Guardian: Donald ‘I don’t take vacations’ Trump takes vacation . It’s true, how can one take a vacation when you’re entire life is a vacation?

  6. 6.

    Schlemazel

    August 4, 2017 at 5:48 am

    @Amir Khalid:
    based on what I see on FB the last hard core of his true believers will only feel anger and the ‘libturd media’ who publish fake news about the President that has gotten more done in 6 months than that colored fella did in 8 years so that our long national nightmare is finally over.

    I wish I were kidding. those people are beyond reach

  7. 7.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    August 4, 2017 at 6:00 am

    I won New Hampshire because New Hampshire is a drug-infested den

    Trump admits you have to be on drugs to vote for him.

    Imagine the media wailing if a Democrat had trashed hard working whites in flyover country. But IOKIYAR

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 4, 2017 at 6:05 am

    South Korea’s spy agency has admitted it conducted an illicit campaign to influence the country’s 2012 presidential election, mobilising teams of experts in psychological warfare to ensure that the conservative candidate, Park Geun-hye, beat her liberal rival.

    An internal investigation by the powerful National Intelligence Service also revealed attempts by its former director and other senior officials to influence voters during parliamentary elections under Park’s predecessor, the hardline rightwinger Lee Myung-bak. Claims, now confirmed by the service, that it was behind an aggressive online campaign to sway voters is certain to add to public anger towards South Korea’s political system.

    Park, who narrowly beat the current president, Moon Jae-in, to become the country’s first female president in the 2012 vote, is standing trial on corruption and abuse of power charges, and faces life in prison.

    …..

    The NIS’s in-house investigation found that its cyberwarfare unit formed as many as 30 “extra-departmental” teams comprising officials and internet-savvy citizens to upload posts in support of conservative politicians for two years in the run-up to the 2012 presidential vote. “The teams were charged with spreading pro-government opinions and suppressing anti-government views, branding them as attempts by pro-North Korean forces to disrupt state affairs,” the NIS report said.

    A spokesman for Park claimed the NIS inquiry was politically motivated. “The NIS says it will dissociate itself from politics but it is meddling in politics again by starting this probe,” Kang Hyo-sang, of Park’s opposition Liberty Korea party, said in a statement.

    Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

  9. 9.

    satby

    August 4, 2017 at 6:06 am

    @Schlemazel: they are beyond reach, but the public mocking most of them get on normal people’s threads is reassuring. Their bubble may be bulletproof, but it’s shrinking. I take some hope from that.

  10. 10.

    satby

    August 4, 2017 at 6:08 am

    @Amir Khalid: his followers will feel rage.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 6:09 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: So much like the New York field office of the FBI.

  12. 12.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 6:09 am

    Experimental libertarian Texas city not going well:

    In Galvan’s view, the liberty city experiment has gone all wrong.
    “This ain’t going well at all,” he said. “We’ve got a bunch of empty buildings, a lot of [federal] grant money spent, and for what? We have a fire station that nobody wants to operate and a police station with no police. Where did all that money go?”

  13. 13.

    rikyrah

    August 4, 2017 at 6:09 am

    Good morning, Everyone ?? ?

  14. 14.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 6:10 am

    @rikyrah: Good morning.

  15. 15.

    satby

    August 4, 2017 at 6:10 am

    @rikyrah: good morning sweetie! ?

  16. 16.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 6:10 am

    @Amir Khalid: I don’t feel shame because I did the right thing on election day.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 6:13 am

    @Kay:

    Experimental libertarian Texas city
    …..
    a lot of [federal] grant money spent,

    You know if they had succeeded, they would be saying they did it all on their own.

  18. 18.

    satby

    August 4, 2017 at 6:13 am

    @Amir Khalid: I’m enjoying reading updates on your progress with the Girl! Glad you’re having fun with your new hobby!

  19. 19.

    satby

    August 4, 2017 at 6:15 am

    @Baud: I noticed that too. They got grant money from an entity they revile, and still couldn’t make it work because IGMFY isn’t a solid basis for any social enterprise.

  20. 20.

    JWR

    August 4, 2017 at 6:17 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    How could any American look at that Newsweek cover, and not feel shame?

    And how can any American even imagine Newsweek doing a cover such as this directed at Bush the Lesser, even when we all new what an idiot he was?

    PS. I hope yer gurl’s been treating you right. ;-)

  21. 21.

    Mustang Bobby

    August 4, 2017 at 6:19 am

    @Kay:

    “This ain’t going well at all,” he said. “We’ve got a bunch of empty buildings, a lot of [federal] grant money spent, and for what? We have a fire station that nobody wants to operate and a police station with no police. Where did all that money go?”

    That’s not exactly what the auditors will want to hear when they come around to check their books. And trust me, they will ask.

  22. 22.

    Schlemazel

    August 4, 2017 at 6:19 am

    @satby:
    I’m interested to see if it can get smaller than 27%. I don’t think it will but I am hoping. I have already seen them saying the call transcripts are fake. This is levels of stupid even I assumed were not possible

  23. 23.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 6:20 am

    @Baud:

    The one person who benefited? The libertarian lawyer who came up with the plan:

    Even as Von Ormy descended into chaos, Martinez de Vara’s own profile had been rising. Folks from around the state had started calling him with questions about how to form a liberty city. Martinez de Vara found himself with a niche law practice. He says he has helped four or five Texas towns incorporate as liberty cities, about half the state total in the last decade.
    “We were blessed with this unique opportunity to experiment with democracy.”
    The GOP had also taken notice. In 2011 and 2012, Martinez de Vara served as chief of staff to one-term Representative John Garza, a San Antonio Republican. Then, in 2014, Senator Konni Burton, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Fort Worth, brought him on as chief of staff. That session, Burton introduced Senate Bill 710, which would codify the liberty city model as an official form of municipal

    They don’t have municipal water or sewer but the plan depended on “attracting businesses”

    As mayor, Martinez de Vara’s first priority was to lure chain stores with the town’s low-tax, low-regulation branding. But there was a problem: Von Ormy lacked a sewer system and it would be expensive to connect to San Antonio’s main wastewater system. The San Antonio Water System, which services most of Bexar County, told town officials that the connection would cost $4 million to $5 million.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 4, 2017 at 6:22 am

    @Baud: You caught that, eh?

  25. 25.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 6:24 am

    @Kay:

    The one person who benefited? The libertarian lawyer who came up with the plan:

    The free market works, Kay.

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 4, 2017 at 6:24 am

    @Kay: Whocoodanode?

  27. 27.

    Lapassionara

    August 4, 2017 at 6:30 am

    @Kay: what a story! No sewer system, police department in trailer. Who is going to want to buy a home there now? The most basic functions of government actually cost money. Who knew?

  28. 28.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    August 4, 2017 at 6:30 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Who knew Korea would be so complicated?

  29. 29.

    cynthia ackerman

    August 4, 2017 at 6:32 am

    @satby:

    Not only that, how hilarious that they went bust on public services that true libertarians would say aeen’t necessary.

  30. 30.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    August 4, 2017 at 6:34 am

    Experimental libertarian Texas city

    I heard they were going to call it Mogadishu, Texas

  31. 31.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    August 4, 2017 at 6:34 am

    @Baud: Same thing happened here in LA, they built a new jail with federal money and didn’t have the funds to operate it. It sat empty for a few years until they figured out how to pay for it’s operation.

  32. 32.

    satby

    August 4, 2017 at 6:40 am

    @cynthia ackerman: they say those services aren’t necessary until their house burns down or their car is stolen. But they still won’t want to pay for those services.

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 4, 2017 at 6:41 am

    @Kay: No water, no sewer, no police, no fire dept…. It’s a paradise! What business owner wouldn’t want to move there? Answer: Any business owner who needed insurance.

  34. 34.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 4, 2017 at 6:44 am

    @satby:
    A major part of the Trumpeter motivation was ending the public shaming they receive for being stupid, asshole bigots. In some areas it has worked, but mostly the shaming is getting worse. I don’t know what that will do. They may not feel guilt, but public shaming scares and angers them.

    CNN just pitched to me an article saying Trump’s base is ‘white grievance’ and actually used the phrase ‘white supremacists.’ The MSM has devoted themselves for decades to pretending racism is dead. We are down a rabbit hole in so many ways.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 6:50 am

    More about self reliant Americans who don’t need the federal government

    WASHINGTON—Federal regulators took steps Thursday to close the digital divide in rural America, moving to reshape two subsidy programs that they say haven’t been as effective as needed.
    …..
    At Mr. Pai’s urging, the FCC on Thursday took steps to boost incentives for carriers to expand broadband service. The FCC voted to overhaul one of its existing programs for extending wireless broadband, with the aim of better targeting the funds. The Mobility Fund program will distribute about $4.5 billion over the coming decade.

    The FCC also sought to help increase broadband availability by moving forward with redesigning another existing subsidy program, the Connect America fund, which will distribute about $2 billion over a decade

    WSJ

  36. 36.

    Schlemazel

    August 4, 2017 at 6:51 am

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
    No biggie, nothing a few bold and clever tweets can’t fix

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    August 4, 2017 at 6:52 am

    @Kay

    Truth in advertising would mandate they rechristen the spot as Underpants Gnome, TX.

  38. 38.

    NorthLeft12

    August 4, 2017 at 6:54 am

    The Senate left town for the rest of the summer Thursday, bringing a historically unproductive period of governance to a close for Republicans, who failed to produce any major legislative achievements despite controlling Congress and the White House…

    Whocouldaknown? Although, their failures to actually do anything they wanted to, is probably their biggest achievement from an average American’s perspective.

  39. 39.

    Schlemazel

    August 4, 2017 at 6:55 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    From what I have seen, hair furors failure and the worsening shame have made them angrier and more aggressive. There is a non-zero chance that this will not end well. Well, except for Russia which will settle some short-term expansion issues in their favor and CHina who is is now the world leader and will solidify that roll as the US and Europe get weaker without a unified team

  40. 40.

    NorthLeft12

    August 4, 2017 at 6:58 am

    @satby: But they sure as hell feel that someone should pay for them!

    I don’t doubt there is a large slice of them that think they would have them provided if all that money wasn’t being wasted on refugees [includes all POC in their minds], and the poors.

  41. 41.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 4, 2017 at 7:00 am

    @NorthLeft12:
    They did produce one major legislative success, and it consisted of telling the president and Russia to fuck off.

  42. 42.

    Jeffro

    August 4, 2017 at 7:01 am

    (from the late-night thread):

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
    August 3, 2017 at 11:54 pm
    I just can’t deal with this anymore tonight. Whoever it was in the comments that turned me on to Football in the year 17776, G-d bless you. I’ve been going through it slowly and enjoying the hell out of it – just in time, since I’m giving up real football on account of brain damage. (Theirs. Not mine.)

    You’re welcome! It’s crazy-cool, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure I first heard about it in Austin Kleon’s weekly newsletter (which is definitely worth subscribing to, along with Atlas Obscura’s)

  43. 43.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 7:02 am

    @Lapassionara:

    It takes a lot of time and energy to make all those individual decisions. We renovated a building for our business and I was glad to have county occupancy inspectors come thru. I don’t know about building safety and I don’t want to learn. It just makes sense to have certain people know some things and other people know other things. I don’t want to worry about wastewater – I wouldn’t have time to do what I’m supposed to be doing at work. They tell me the hallway has to be X number of feet wide for a wheelchair I think “great! now I don’t have to read the Americans with Disability Act”

    The inefficiency amuses me. They zeroed out animal control and they learned “dogs are running the streets”. Everyone else already knew that.

  44. 44.

    Jeffro

    August 4, 2017 at 7:03 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    A major part of the Trumpeter motivation was ending the public shaming they receive for being stupid, asshole bigots. In some areas it has worked, but mostly the shaming is getting worse. I don’t know what that will do. They may not feel guilt, but public shaming scares and angers them.

    This is so incredibly true. They really don’t like being called out for their hateful, racist positions…I hear that defensiveness all the time from RWNJs I know. Well, if the shoe fits…

  45. 45.

    NotMax

    August 4, 2017 at 7:04 am

    When you name the place Torch Tower…

    Dubai Marina’s Torch Tower, the world’s fifth tallest residential building with 86 floors, which caught international headlines after a huge fire back in February 2015, went ablaze again at half past midnight on Friday.
    [snip]
    The Torch Tower first went up in flames back in February 2015. More than 1,000 people were evacuated from the 1,105-foot tall building.… Source

  46. 46.

    satby

    August 4, 2017 at 7:05 am

    @NorthLeft12: one of my acquaintances is on disability and Medicare and is only 59. Complains about her (miniscule) taxes all the time. I pointed out that both her health care and her entire income is due to people paying taxes, so how can she resent paying her fair share? It shuts her up (around me at least) but I have no illusions that the logic ever penetrates.

  47. 47.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 4, 2017 at 7:06 am

    @Schlemazel:
    Yeah, but what does ‘not end well’ mean? They’re too chickenshit for widespread violence. They’re sure trying to destroy the country politically, and we’ll have to see where that goes.

    I still wonder how much the furious anger they’ve awakened in the mushy middle will affect things. It will be interesting to see what reactions Republican senators get on break, now that the public believes Obamacare is safe.

  48. 48.

    p.a.

    August 4, 2017 at 7:09 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: Yes indeed. While A.K. is right, the cover induces shock as well as shame: shock that the fellow-traveling MSM is actually going there, fina-fucking-lly.

  49. 49.

    TriassicSands

    August 4, 2017 at 7:10 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    You’ve got to stop spending so much time with “Ol’ Butterscotch.” Reports are that you’ve stopped eating and sleeping and you’re practicing 24 hours a day.I

    Just kidding.

  50. 50.

    NotMax

    August 4, 2017 at 7:11 am

    Caveat: Daily Mail story.

    EU threatens to kick Poland out after the country demanded Germany pay it huge reparations for WWII amid escalating row Source

  51. 51.

    satby

    August 4, 2017 at 7:14 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    They’re too chickenshit for widespread violence. They’re sure trying to destroy the country politically, and we’ll have to see where that goes.

    I’m not sure that they’re all too chickenshit to engage in violence, and a nut with a gun can do psychological as well as physical damage. And they’ve had some success in the “destroy the country politically”. I’m hopeful we can get back on track, but I think it will provoke violence from some of the dead enders too. This was their shot to “take their country back” and it’s floundering.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 7:15 am

    @Jeffro:

    The Trump team are lying to them though about jobs and in this one area they’ll get caught out. They really do understand their paychecks. They can say manufacturing is up all they want- they’ll know it’s not, eventually, and sooner rather than later:

    After a good run, warning lights are flashing in the auto industry—and that’s not good for the broader manufacturing sector, for heartland metropolitan areas, or for President Trump.
    Here’s the problem: after seven years of strong growth following the 2008 economic crisis and federal bailouts of both General Motors (GM) and Chrysler, auto sector output and employment growth have slowed markedly from record levels. Years of catch-up purchases by car buyers have finally plateaued. Likewise, automakers must economize to invest billions in developing the electric and self-driving cars of tomorrow.

    It’s cyclical. There was pent-up demand for new cars after the recession and gas prices are low. Trump doesn’t know anything about these industries. He is, in fact, a NY real estate developer. He doesn’t understand how it ripples thru these areas, all the way down to retail.
    By next year they’ll be looking back wistfully on the “Obama economy”. You can almost feel it slow down.

  53. 53.

    Lapassionara

    August 4, 2017 at 7:15 am

    @Kay: We lived in New Orleans years ago. People there were proud of their low property taxes. What I noticed right away were the lack of services and the high cost of car and home insurance. The public library was pitiful, we had to join a Y-type organization to have any recreational activities for us and our children, and everyone we knew paid a lot to send their children to private schools. We left as soon as we could.

  54. 54.

    debbie

    August 4, 2017 at 7:16 am

    Sherrod Brown performed a great public service this morning when he was interviewed on NPR about U.S.–China trade, pointing out how the Trump administration has again delayed the investigation into China’s trade policies. He wasted no opportunity to point out the administration’s hypocrisy, and even more amazingly, they didn’t speak over him, cut him off, or rephrase his answers for the audience. Go, Sherrod!

  55. 55.

    sm*t cl*de

    August 4, 2017 at 7:16 am

    @Kay:

    Where did all that money go?

    Libertarian shocked by theft of moneys by grifters. Details at 11.

  56. 56.

    NorthLeft12

    August 4, 2017 at 7:17 am

    @Kay: Uhhh, did I read that right? Twenty, two zero [20], cops for a town of one thousand and three hundred?

    Sorry, I am a Canadian, and that does not sound normal to me. Canada has 187 police per 100K, and the US as a whole has 284 per 100K. I understand that smaller locales have inherently larger staffs due to inefficiencies of scale, but twenty sounds like over double what a town that size would need.
    For the “freest town in Texas” that is a shitload of enforcement. Anyone else see the contradiction here?

  57. 57.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 7:17 am

    @Kay: But, Kay. Dow 22000!

  58. 58.

    debbie

    August 4, 2017 at 7:18 am

    That Newsweek cover is the new Thomas Nast. I hope they keep this up.

  59. 59.

    sm*t cl*de

    August 4, 2017 at 7:19 am

    @Kay:

    By next year they’ll be looking back wistfully on the “Obama economy”.

    For values of “looking back wistfully on” that include “blaming everything on”.

  60. 60.

    MJS

    August 4, 2017 at 7:25 am

    @satby: Which, them being who they are, will be impotent rage. Have-a-stroke rage, not lash out rage.

  61. 61.

    NorthLeft12

    August 4, 2017 at 7:26 am

    @Lapassionara: I visited Baton Rouge on a business trip about twenty years ago. We had dinner with our customers and they immediately started ribbing me and my co-worker about the high taxes we have to pay in Canada. I told them I felt I got good value for my taxes; “free” healthcare, good schools and education system, decent infrastructure and services, and generally competent and fair government.
    They conceded that their roads were a mess, nobody sends their kids to “public” schools [the way they said “public” ….as if it were a curse word] so they pay for private, rampant crime, crooked government, and of course no healthcare.

    So, in short, they gave me the Republican 2016 Election platform in 1995.

  62. 62.

    Fester Addams

    August 4, 2017 at 7:26 am

    @NotMax:

    When you name the place Torch Tower…

    They ran an Internet poll to pick a new name for the place but the winning name was Burny McBurntower, so no help.

  63. 63.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 7:26 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    Trump, his WH deplorables and his supporters don’t feel any shame at all.

  64. 64.

    satby

    August 4, 2017 at 7:29 am

    @Lapassionara: That’s Indiana too. Low state income taxes, higher every other tax. And the public schools were all jobbed off to the K-12 corporation, which only cares about how much money they can suck off the government tit.

  65. 65.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 4, 2017 at 7:30 am

    @AnderJ: That’s too bad for Trump’s base that they are so deluded that they can’t believe the truth. That’s really their own private problem though because life goes on and Mueller is upping his investigation. Trump’s base can continue to live in LaLa land while Trump is being exposed as the criminal fraudulent huckster he has always been. We wouldn’t have heard about Trump if his father hadn’t left him millions of dollars so that he could turn around and bankrupt several businesses.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 7:33 am

    @Baud:

    It’s like dominoes. My middle son is getting overtime to take off lines at a lime (the mineral, not the fruit) processing plant. They use lime to refine various metals for manufacturing. They think they’ll need less of it or they wouldn’t be paying electricians on Sundays to hurry up and shut lines down.

  67. 67.

    NorthLeft12

    August 4, 2017 at 7:34 am

    @Lapassionara: I forgot the part about car insurance too. When I flew into Baton Rouge we rented a car for our three day stay, and when I picked it up I asked the rental agent whether there was anything I should know about driving in Louisiana. He said, “Well we have the highest car insurance rates in the US, our roads are terrible, and I would wait a couple of seconds before going through a light that has just changed from red to green.”

    I was really just wondering if you could turn right on a red light, like I can in Ontario and other civilized areas of the world. Sheeesh!

  68. 68.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    August 4, 2017 at 7:34 am

    @NorthLeft12: The wife’s cousin lives in Canada and she said “I don’t understand why you folk are always complaining about taxes”.

  69. 69.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 4, 2017 at 7:37 am

    @debbie: Ha!! What I find hilarious is that Trump is being called lazy after 8 years of Republicans like Limbaugh, Palin, Sununu and Gingrich calling President Obama lazy. We know why they called President Obama the “welfare president”, lazy, etc. We also know that given all of President Obama’s accomplishments, he was a hard working, driven President. The current White House Occupant is not only lazy but also incompetent and a liar. He can’t even work with a GOP Congress to get anything of consequence done. Thank goodness for that.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 7:38 am

    @Baud:

    Trump doesn’t know how the government works (or really the private sector either) so he’s spent the last 5 years saying the President is the CEO of a company and everything is dependent on the President. Tick tock. Guaranteed to bite him in the ass.

  71. 71.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 4, 2017 at 7:38 am

    @debbie:
    Trump is all hat, no cattle. China is paying him big, so he’ll bluster in public, but actually do whatever they want.

    EDIT – I’ve heard China finds him confusing. Chinese politics is a Machiavellian viper’s nest. They have trouble believing an idiot could become president.

  72. 72.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 7:38 am

    @Baud:

    I’ve read of other small towns/cities that went down in libertarian flames. It would be interesting to see a journalist research and write an article about how many small American municipalities where this has happened.

  73. 73.

    satby

    August 4, 2017 at 7:40 am

    @NorthLeft12: They’re resistant to any idea that government can, or should, provide for public good. Some day someone smart should put together a chart of all the “hidden taxes” caused by people paying extra to fix their cars (or buy more expensive heavier duty ones) due to lousy roads, or for tutoring or enrichment programs for kids who get inadequate educations, or for bottled water or house purification systems because their water is bad. Also: higher healthcare costs, etc.
    And then they can point out how our rugged individuality keeps people chained to jobs so that they can cover all the extra out of pocket costs their low taxes guarantee.

  74. 74.

    debbie

    August 4, 2017 at 7:40 am

    @Patricia Kayden:

    What I can’t believe is that Trump’s process is solely to ask whoever he’s interacting with what they can do for him, how they can help him. Never any proposals, never any suggestions, only what can be provided for him. I don’t even think any other CEO would be this impassive and lazy.

  75. 75.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 4, 2017 at 7:43 am

    @Amir Khalid: I think you are missing the point which is that there are Americans who have a vested interest in Trump simply because he’s a bigot just like them. The fact that he hasn’t accomplished anything simply means that there is a deep state (run by Obama, Rice, Clinton, Soros) who are thwarting Trump’s progress. The recent immigration reform which was disastrously announced by Spokes Ghoul Stephen Miller was meat to the alt-right and White Supremacists who adore Trump. They’re also ecstatic about the DOJ announcement that affirmative action which is anti-White is going to be targeted by this administration.

    So I’m not sure who you think feels shame about Trump’s election. I don’t since I didn’t vote for him and his supporters don’t because he’s their Bigot.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 7:43 am

    @bemused:

    If it doesn’t even work in tiny towns imagine a large city. Libertarianism is essentially archaic. It doesn’t scale. Even if they did manage to run a town they;d be ignoring the larger infrastructure the experiment is dependent on. If Texas really did expand this deadbeat town where no one pays for anything they’d have to spend more at the state level.

  77. 77.

    Lapassionara

    August 4, 2017 at 7:44 am

    @NorthLeft12: @satby: Louisiana is a third-world country, and its culture is so ingrained that I cannot imagine it improving. I would have thought at one time that there would be hope for Indiana, but I am not so sure anymore. I wish Dems would focus on building their local parties for a while, instead of arguing about the last election. There needs to be some sane voices talking locally about the importance of infrastructure and planning, and funding for the basics.

  78. 78.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 4, 2017 at 7:45 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    Because the federal government used their taxes to force desegregation. After that, about half of America decided ‘fuck the public good.’

  79. 79.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 7:45 am

    @Baud:

    A local blogger recently wrote about this issue and the need in our rural/small town area. Some retired teaparty sort wrote that subsidies are evil and turn into entitlements plus nothing good comes from government forcing things on people. This, from a comfortable retired white guy with a pension who does have decent internet. Typical IGMFU.

  80. 80.

    zhena gogolia

    August 4, 2017 at 7:45 am

    I do have to say, though, I subscribed to Newsweek print and digital in honor of Kurt Eichenwald. The magazine comes very erratically. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all, then the next week I get two in one day. I really don’t get it.

  81. 81.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 4, 2017 at 7:51 am

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: My understanding is that Trump won the primaries but didn’t win against Secretary Clinton in the general election. Strange that he doesn’t think it’s a bad thing that he won the primaries because folks were out of their natural mind.

  82. 82.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 7:51 am

    @Kay:

    What Brownback did to Kansas comes to mind. It may not be pure libertarian methods but damn close.

  83. 83.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 4, 2017 at 7:54 am

    @debbie: He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Trump is not an intelligent person — he just happens to be rich (and we don’t even know if he is as rich as he claims to be). He also isn’t interested in governing. I assume he wanted to be President for the prestige and power but to actually get elbow deep in policies and legislation is something that he has absolutely no interest in doing. I wish reporters would ask him questions about healthcare or taxes or immigration which would show up his ignorance of the basics. Would be quite easy to show him up for the know nothing that he is.

  84. 84.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 7:54 am

    @bemused:

    Kasich believes in it too. He thought he could cut taxes and revenue would just appear. You know the drill. There would be lower rates and fewer categories but the economy would boom because there would be more revenue raised within those rate categories. He has a billion dollar hole. Didn’t materialize.

  85. 85.

    bystander

    August 4, 2017 at 7:55 am

    Moanin’ Joe and complicit Meeka have been mewling about how much they miss Pat Buchanan and how much they’d like to have his racist ass sitting there spewing his caste-based blather again. This must be a prelude to the rehabilitation of an Aging Eminence. Or a big, “Eff you. It’s my show and I like racists.”

  86. 86.

    Chris

    August 4, 2017 at 7:56 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    One of the major points that made the rise of liberal democracy possible was the notion that armies should obey the orders of the lawfully elected civilian authorities. At some point, something needs to be done to ensure the same thing for police and intelligence agencies. This kind of shit is just way too common.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 7:57 am

    Today is Obama’s birthday. I remember it because it is also my middle son’s birthday.

    Send him a birthday wish and ask him nicely to come back :)

  88. 88.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 4, 2017 at 7:59 am

    @zhena gogolia: It’s the fault of that dogdamned govt run USPS!!!

  89. 89.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 7:59 am

    @Kay: No. He has earned the right not to come back.

  90. 90.

    Yoda Dog

    August 4, 2017 at 8:01 am

    FFS, PLEASE COME BACK, OBAMA.

    Also,too; happy birthday.

  91. 91.

    Sherparick

    August 4, 2017 at 8:03 am

    Read the whole article, the fools still believe. Libertarianism apparently cannot fail, it can only be failed.

  92. 92.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 8:04 am

    @Sherparick: It’s a religion.

  93. 93.

    Iowa Old Lady

    August 4, 2017 at 8:05 am

    @Baud: He looks happy these days. Blessings on him.

  94. 94.

    NorthLeft12

    August 4, 2017 at 8:05 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Well, I always thought it was because you [Americans] felt you were not getting enough value for the taxes you do pay. And you know, you may be right to complain.

  95. 95.

    Chris

    August 4, 2017 at 8:06 am

    @NorthLeft12:

    The best summary of the Republican platform is still something John Cole said here about his fellow West Virginians a while back; they absolutely refuse to pay a few hundred a year in taxes to fix their roads, as a result of which they pay a few thousand a year to get their cars fixed.

  96. 96.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 8:07 am

    @NorthLeft12: That’s a fair criticism if it’s made in good faith. But it’s often made as an excuse against considering any tax hikes.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 8:08 am

    @Baud:

    Michelle got 8500 people at her last speech and Trump got 8000. I was pleased she beat him.

  98. 98.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 8:08 am

    @Kay:

    They really cling to their fantasy that tax cuts and more tax cuts solve everything and brings sweet prosperity.

    I like your points that what community wants to be solely in charge of building safety, waste water, animal control, street repairs, etc with no or low funds and little expertise. You have to have the funding and the expertise. It would be like building your own home in the country by yourself needing the equipment, money and experienced knowledge of every step to install sewer, water, build the whole house from basement up, wiring, etc, etc.

  99. 99.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 8:09 am

    @Iowa Old Lady: Think of the two presidents who sandwiched his tenure. Is it possible to look better in comparison?

  100. 100.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 8:10 am

    @Kay: Sad!

    I hope he finds out. Those will be incredible tweets.

  101. 101.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 8:10 am

    @Baud:

    Cult. Freedom moonies.

  102. 102.

    Chris

    August 4, 2017 at 8:11 am

    @bemused:

    I’ve read of other small towns/cities that went down in libertarian flames.

    I’ve been reading about it ever since 2008 and the rise of the teabaggers. The best summary I heard about it at the time was “while the federal government broke the budget so as not to break society, local governments are breaking society in order not to break the budget.”

  103. 103.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 8:12 am

    Benjy Sarlin‏Verified account
    NH Gov. Chris Sununu (R) responds to the drug den leak: “The president is wrong.”

    Oh, he just said it so he could say he won NH, which was a lie anyway. Wrong lies, lying is wrong, whatever.

  104. 104.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 4, 2017 at 8:13 am

    @Yoda Dog: Echoing your sentiments. Wishing my Forever President a very happy birthday.

  105. 105.

    Peale

    August 4, 2017 at 8:15 am

    @Kay: yep. Normally the libertarians wait until after us authoritarian jack booted thugs are finished building the infrastrstrure before they try their revolution.

  106. 106.

    oldgold

    August 4, 2017 at 8:15 am

    I am reading Al Franken’s new book “Giant of the Senate.”

    In it he describes meeting Iowa’s corn cob of s Senstor Chuck Grassley.

    CG: ” You look just like you do on TV,”
    AF: ” There’s a reason for that.”

  107. 107.

    Amir Khalid

    August 4, 2017 at 8:16 am

    @Patricia Kayden:
    Well, as a Malaysian I feel embarrassed and ashamed that my country’s Prime Minister was caught with the equivalent of US$700 million in his bank account that he didn’t have a good explanation for. And that as PM he got to stifle the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s investigation into it. And that it needed your country’s Department of Justice to make any real progress in investigating the matter. I didn’t vote for his party, but I don’t think I get to wash my hands of him being PM.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 8:19 am

    @bemused:

    What business wants to be in charge of all that. These things make it possible to make money.

    I read that piece about how wealthy tech executives are looking for overseas havens in case civil society collapses. They’re worried about rule of law because they can’t function without contract enforcement. There’s this myth that these idiots have promoted that “society” benefits only individuals. It’s just a lie. These things make it possible to focus on making shit and selling shit. The recklessness of taking it for granted takes my breath away. These things were created- this whole elaborate unseen “system” and they ALL rely on it. It didn’t spring from the soil like weeds. You have to pay for stuff. You have to pick up your part of the load.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 8:20 am

    @Amir Khalid: You are correct that Trump is a national disgrace and an embarrassment to all Americans. I think that’s different from feeling a personal sense of shame if you are someone who has always fought him. And frankly, we don’t really have the luxury of wallowing in personal feelings of shame.

  110. 110.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 8:22 am

    @Chris:

    The old saying you get what you pay for has a lot of truth to it. People bitch so much about their taxes but don’t think about how they benefit. Cole’s point of really low taxes = horrible roads and very expensive car repairs. The bitchers really believe they should get gold plate service at bargain prices.

  111. 111.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 8:25 am

    @Kay: Modern economic and political thought teaches people to focus on the margins and ignores the whole. For example, yes, I would be better off if the tax rates were reduced slightly, all else being equal. But typically all else is not equal, especially when you have the entire country pining for their own personal marginal benefit.

    It’s like everyone is trying to take their own piece of a jenga puzzle and then being shocked when the whole thing comes tumbling down.

  112. 112.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 4, 2017 at 8:26 am

    @Amir Khalid: I think shame is the wrong word. Now embarrassed… I think that is a sentiment we can all get behind.

  113. 113.

    rikyrah

    August 4, 2017 at 8:29 am

    @Amir Khalid:
    Does she have a name yet?

  114. 114.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 4, 2017 at 8:31 am

    Trump’s latest ad is running in Turkmenistan: Gun-toting president goes Commando in TV ad

  115. 115.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 8:33 am

    @Kay:

    Yes.

  116. 116.

    rikyrah

    August 4, 2017 at 8:34 am

    Happy Birthday 44! ??????????

  117. 117.

    Another Scott

    August 4, 2017 at 8:35 am

    @Kay: “Who cleans the toilets in Galt’s Gulch?”

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  118. 118.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 4, 2017 at 8:36 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I tend to distinguish ‘guilt’ as an unhappiness from an internal judgment you have done wrong, and ‘shame’ as unhappiness from external social pressure that you have done wrong. Their moral system runs purely on shame, which means they seethe with resentment.

  119. 119.

    ThresherK

    August 4, 2017 at 8:37 am

    @Sherparick: “A fire station nobody wants to operate”? And for years I thought the ne plus ultra Libertarianism joke was

    What goes 9-1-click…9-1-click?

    A Libertarian with a house fire.

    That joke has been topped by real life.

  120. 120.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 8:41 am

    @oldgold:

    I’m reading it now too. Franken hitting the MN campaign trail, parades, small town festivals, etc mentioned my former “hilarious, irascible, curmudgeon” Dem Rep. Tom Rukavina. I know Tom, he graduated from same high school a year or two before I did, and he is a character and never holds back. Franken told story about Tom in a parade once and someone he knew yelled out, “Hey Tommy! Why do you only care about the poor?” Tom instantly replied, “You are poor, dummy.”

  121. 121.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    August 4, 2017 at 8:43 am

    @oldgold: I really liked Al’s book.

  122. 122.

    O. Felix Culpa

    August 4, 2017 at 8:46 am

    @Baud:

    Federal regulators took steps Thursday to close the digital divide in rural America,

    Our rural community finally got broadband last year thanks to one of those federal programs and Senator Udall. We held a party in the community center and popped champagne, it was such a big deal. We are also a Democratic majority village, so there’s that.

  123. 123.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 8:46 am

    @Baud:

    yes, I would be better off if the tax rates were reduced slightly, all else being equal. But typically all else is not equal, especially when you have the entire country pining for their own personal marginal benefit.

    When we did something selfish my father would say “what if everyone did that?” because you’re really claiming a special exemption from norms everyone relies upon. It’s a good phrase because it brings the concept home. It’s easy to imagine the result. The 95% who don’t litter make it possible for 5% of lazy people to litter, or we’d be wading thru drifts of trash. The few people who are loud in places that are supposed to be quiet can be borne, but only if it’s a few. If it’s more than that it’s a loud place, not quiet at all.

  124. 124.

    Denali

    August 4, 2017 at 8:48 am

    @Amir,

    Mortified comes to mind, but that is too mild a word. And I agree with you that although we did not vote for him, he is the personnification of the ugly American who foists himself on the rest of the world.

  125. 125.

    ThresherK

    August 4, 2017 at 8:50 am

    One item in the Texas Observer story on The Freedomest-Loving CIty Which Sense Forgot and the Decades Cannot Improve.

    James McCandless writes:

    If Von Ormy is a libertarian experiment with democracy, it’s one that hasn’t turned out as expected.

    I can imagine many folks not in RealTexas (or even RealAmerica) who expected this. Is the quote a polite papering-over, an understood fiction, to describe it that way, being Texas and all? I’m a Yankee, and given to saltiness.

  126. 126.

    Baud

    August 4, 2017 at 8:50 am

    @Kay:

    When we did something selfish my father would say “what if everyone did that?” because you’re really claiming a special exemption from norms everyone relies upon.

    This is why I dislike protest voters.

  127. 127.

    Elizabelle

    August 4, 2017 at 8:50 am

    @JWR: Am remembering the articles on GHW Bush and “the wimp factor.” Even a Newsweek cover to that effect. Before he had formally declared his candidacy. (October 1987)

    One assumed it was Democrats pushing that story, but now I am wondering if it was conservatives, infighting. You look back at it and see can the rugged conservatards who liked Reagan, sneering that GHWB was too establishment or too moderate. MSM dutifully picking up their framing. It’s like a template for 2016.

    The lede to that story on GHWB as wimp. Trump did not go to Greenwich Country Day, eh?

    At the Greenwich Country Day School in the 1930s, boasting and strutting were anathema, the boorish behavior of parvenus and cheap politicians. To instill modesty and self-discipline, the school graded its privileged young charges not only in math and history, but in a category called “Claims no more than his fair share of time and attention.” For young “Poppy” Bush, the lesson was reinforced at home. “How’d we do in ‘Claims no more’?” was Wall Street investment banker Prescott S. Bush’s invariable first question when his son raced home with his report card. “He gave us hell if we were claiming more than our fair share,” George Bush recalls today.

    …. Bush, who formally declares his candidacy this week, enters the nomination fight with enviable advantages — high name recognition and stronger voter ratings for experience and competence. Other candidates can spend an entire primary season trying to match those assets. Yet Bush suffers from a potentially crippling handicap — a perception that he isn’t strong enough or tough enough for the challenges of the Oval Office. That he is, in a single mean word, a wimp.

    … In private conversation, Bush can be charming and funny. In correspondence with his children, he expresses his feeling so movingly that two of his grown sons grew tearful in interviews as they recalled letters from their father. In public life, he has sought — and been accorded — the gravest responsibilities. Why, then, is he so cruelly mocked? The reasons are both stylistic and substantive. Television, the medium that makes Ronald Reagan larger than life, diminishes George Bush. He does not project self-confidence, wit or warmth to television viewers. He comes across instead to many of them as stiff or silly. Even his most devout backers can sense his unease on the tube. “I die for him when he gives a speech. I want it to be right, and I know he’s just not comfortable with it,” says lifelong friend Betsy Heminway. Bush concedes he has a communications problem. “I know what I can do,” he says, “I know what I believe. The only question now is communicating.”

    Beneath such surface qualms lie deeper doubts. What does Bush really stand for? His two decades in government have produced an impressive resume — congressman, U.N. ambassador, Republican Party chief, China envoy, CIA director, vice president. But his imprint on all those jobs is indistinct, even his friends admit, and he seems to have avoided the great social and political controversies of a quarter century. In short, Bush is by and large a politician without a political identity.

    … Bush’s native political tribe — the Eastern-establishment wing of the GOP — is nearly extinct today. Lacking any natural base, Bush has rather uncomfortably embraced the Reaganism of the 1980s. But no matter how hard he tries to sound like a member of the red-meat right, he seems like an Episcopalian, which he is, at a fundamentalist tent meeting. Stylistically, too, Bush’s gee-whiz language and enthusiasms seem out of place in the elbows-out self-promotion of American politics. “You can’t . . . do things you don’t feel comfortable with,” he explains. Says his sister Nancy Bush Ellis: “George is absolutely the product of his upbringing.”

    Republicans nominated a reality TV star, a buffoon, in 2016. With Putin’s help…

    Dog save us.

    ETA: Here’s the link to the “wimp” article. No coffee yet!
    http://www.newsweek.com/bush-battles-wimp-factor-207008

  128. 128.

    Tenar Arha

    August 4, 2017 at 8:54 am

    @satby: IIRC few years ago there was an article about Colorado Springs (?) doing government services a la carte and contracting out most jobs. It was like a litmus test. I read it and saw immediately they’d gone penny wise and pound foolish. The article even had an example, where one guy went from paying his taxes for an array of town services including parks and street lighting etc. to paying almost the same amount for an individual street light to be turned on. The job changes were worse, b/c a guy who’d been making $35/hr w/ benefits working for the town parks department ended up getting re-hired by the new contractor for $15/hour w/ no benefits, plus the contractor got a real steal buying up the parks department’s slightly used equipment. And so on.

    Anyway, litmus test: I gave that article to my libertarian-ish type friends, they just didn’t see the wasted $ I saw. It was like they were blind to the better value of town services if everyone put in a little, then everyone benefits even if not everyone can pay. Extrapolating from this, I suspect that these are the same people who don’t understand that if everyone has insurance, & it’s subsidized for those who can’t afford premiums, it gets better & usually cheaper for almost everyone….

  129. 129.

    Elizabelle

    August 4, 2017 at 8:57 am

    WRT the Newsweek wimp article: you can see the Eastern establishment grimacing at the red-meat archconservatives, too.

    And this was nine years before Fox News Channel’s launch. (October 1996, middle of the Clinton v Dole election.)

    Who would not prefer to have GHW Bush and Brent Scowcroft back, even in their 90s, over the fool in office now?

  130. 130.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    August 4, 2017 at 8:58 am

    @Tenar Arha: In California, we have to provide proof of insurance to register our cars. I’m sure that libertarians hate that, until an uninsured poor person hits their Benz.

  131. 131.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    August 4, 2017 at 8:59 am

    @Elizabelle: Hell, I’d take Bush junior over this crowd.

  132. 132.

    O. Felix Culpa

    August 4, 2017 at 9:02 am

    @satby:

    They’re resistant to any idea that government can, or should, provide for public good.

    Sadly true. In my experience with that demographic, not even the clearest most graphic of charts showing the value of public services and the cost of not paying for them would penetrate their ideologically-addled pates. Facts, reason, and logic just don’t matter in their bizarro world.

  133. 133.

    Jeffro

    August 4, 2017 at 9:03 am

    @Kay:

    By next year they’ll be looking back wistfully on the “Obama economy”. You can almost feel it slow down.

    True…but I’m betting that half of GOP voters will buy Trumpov’s argument that the Russia investigation is a distraction that’s slowing down the economy. No, that doesn’t make any sense. Yes, he will still say it.

  134. 134.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 4, 2017 at 9:03 am

    @Elizabelle:

    The lede to that story on GHWB as wimp.

    GHWB, the man who got shot down in the Pacific in WWII is a wimp. Ronald Reagan who spent the entirety of that little dust up editing propaganda films in LA is a real man.

    Says everything one needs to know about today’s GOP.

  135. 135.

    Jeffro

    August 4, 2017 at 9:06 am

    @Yoda Dog:

    FFS, PLEASE COME BACK, OBAMA.

    Ok, I lol’d at that…let us know if it works! :)

    Also,too; happy birthday.

    Yup that too!

  136. 136.

    ThresherK

    August 4, 2017 at 9:06 am

    @Tenar Arha: I do not remember the article you mention, but if Colorado Springs, a relentlessly “conservative” city, home of all those Christianist organizations, and the “god”-infected Air Force Academy, is not the place, I’ll buy you a beverage of your choice.

    Did any of your Libertarian friends move there? Because I define a Libertarian as A person who’s ready to give up someone else’s non-essential government services.

  137. 137.

    Another Scott

    August 4, 2017 at 9:06 am

    @bemused: Yup.

    I remember in the ’70s all the talk about “cost-benefit analysis” when it came to proposed EPA regulations. C-BA morphed over time to the point that all the Teabaggers talk about now is Costs. The “job killing regulations” and all the rest. All public discussion from them about the Benefits of (almost) anything government does has been thrown down the memory hole. It’s a cartoon of a political argument.

    It’s toxic, and it needs to be fought and reversed.

    “Interest rates aren’t going to be low forever. There’s slack in the economy and too many people don’t have jobs they can live on, and good job prospects that make them willing to invest years of education and training to be qualified for. We need to invest now and get the economy better balanced so that when interest rates are higher we can easily pay the costs. I’ve always believed that when possible it’s important to minimize interest costs. Republicans seem to believe these days that balancing the books by raising enough money to pay the bills is some sign of weakness or bad governance. We can’t pretend that roads never need maintenance, that water and sewer plants never need to expand and be replaced, that schools built in the 1930s are adequate now. Spending on these things doesn’t make us poorer, it makes us richer and healthier and we need to stop belly-aching about it. As Obama said, “eat your peas…””

    Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  138. 138.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 4, 2017 at 9:09 am

    @Patricia Kayden: Correct–Trump won the NH primary but lost NH in the general. It was by a microscopic margin, though, and if I recall correctly it looked like he was winning NH through much of election night.

  139. 139.

    Jeffro

    August 4, 2017 at 9:10 am

    @bemused:

    The old saying you get what you pay for has a lot of truth to it. People bitch so much about their taxes but don’t think about how they benefit. Cole’s point of really low taxes = horrible roads and very expensive car repairs.

    It’s nowhere more true than with public schools, and from that, the ability to attract high-paying jobs/employers. Low taxes = starved school districts = fewer and less-well-trained teachers, fewer offerings for the kids, and less ability to move up in life through education.

  140. 140.

    Jeffro

    August 4, 2017 at 9:11 am

    @ThresherK:

    I define a Libertarian as a person who’s ready to give up someone else’s non-essential government services.

    I’m just going to borrow that forever, if you don’t mind.

  141. 141.

    ThresherK

    August 4, 2017 at 9:14 am

    @Jeffro: Certainly; I likely lifted it from someone else cleverer than I am.

  142. 142.

    Elizabelle

    August 4, 2017 at 9:17 am

    @satby: I had to buy a new tire one recent jaunt through Indiana. The post-winter roads tore one tire to shreds; it blew out in traffic at high speed. Still remember how lucky there was the wide end of a lane on the right to pull over to.

    That was a lot of money to spend at a tire shop on a Saturday afternoon.

    It’s like the Indiana businesses are waiting there, like predators under leaves, waiting for business to happen by.

  143. 143.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    August 4, 2017 at 9:18 am

    @Kay: It sounds like the whole thing was damned from the start even without the liberalism; it was done so the locals could pretend they weren’t a city and all that means and the leaders were all women who think they are the second coming of Ayn Raynd and were determined to be the biggest assholes they could to everyone else.

  144. 144.

    Elizabelle

    August 4, 2017 at 9:20 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yes. Fantasy over substance. You can see the prenatal Tea Partying prints all over that Newsweek story.

    It is an ugly, ugly world that the rightwing Republicans have brought us to.

  145. 145.

    Tenar Arha

    August 4, 2017 at 9:28 am

    @ThresherK: Nope. But I did know someone who I heard through the grapevine moved from Massachusetts to Kentucky (?). I kind of always expected them to end up in NH, but I guess they wanted less snow.

  146. 146.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 9:30 am

    @Jeffro:

    The lying scares me because I don’t know that it ends with Trump. There has to be some consequence for it or all politicians will go in that direction.

    We’re being sort of conditioned to accept it – “The President lies publicly several times a day” – is now just a fact of life.

    I wonder too if the conditioning to accept the smaller lies make it easier when he really has to start lying- there will be some catastrophe- natural disaster, something- and he will lie about it. Imagine this administration with something like Katrina or the gulf oil drilling disaster. We’d be lucky to get them to admit it occurred.

    Thinking about that makes me panicky because it’s unmoored by anything. There’s no ground under your feet. The scary thing about the lies is the remove from reality.

  147. 147.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 4, 2017 at 9:34 am

    @Baud: Agreed. Trump is an embarrassment in general but I have nothing to do with his election so I can’t feel shamed by his antics. I’m hoping that some Congressional Republicans are slowly waking up to the nightmare they’ve created by supporting this idiot who was clearly unqualified and unsuited for his current position. Republicans have gotten a SCOTUS seat but little else from this presidency so far. Not sure that the embarrassment to their party has been worth it.

  148. 148.

    Chris

    August 4, 2017 at 9:36 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yeah, I think 1980 was a defining election that way – America channel-surfs right past two people who actually served in the military, one of them an actual veteran (Bush in the primary and Carter in the general) in favor of a Hollywood star who spent the war making movies but told everybody how he’d liberated Auschwitz.

  149. 149.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 9:37 am

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    We had a township withdraw as a municipality. It’s dirt poor though. They really couldn’t carry their weight. It’s low value absentee landlord houses and an assortment of non profits that were placed there because no one else wants the halfway house, things like that. It just turned into a county responsibility. The service costs were distributed to everyone in the county, in a sense. I go there quite a bit for work reasons and it’s odd- like a little failed state.

  150. 150.

    Chris

    August 4, 2017 at 9:47 am

    @Kay:

    The problem there is that the lies didn’t begin with Trump or even with any politician, it’s a product of the Fox-News-ified environment we live in, where no matter what happens, Republicans know they can run to their favorite media outlets and be reassured with a story that lets them off the hook. (If all else fails, they’ll run a story saying “but what about when liberals did this? That was just as bad, wasn’t it? So really, the real problem isn’t us, the problem is that we’re the only ones who get punished!”)

    I can’t help but feel that part of the reason Katrina and Iraq were accepted and discussed in politics (eventually) as the disasters they were is that Fox News was still less than a decade old in 2005, its blogospheric equivalents were just beginning to take off, and most of the political class had still been raised in a pre-Newscorp environment and still thought to quite an extent in those terms. The longer that bubble exists and develops, the more it defines politics. 2010 and the preceding rise of the teabaggers was a big milestone there – it’s when we elected an entire class politicians that, in contrast to Gingrich’s 1994 crowd, has never been without their Alternate Reality/Echo Chamber bubble to lean on. And it very much showed in their governing style Trump was another milestone.

  151. 151.

    Miss Bianca

    August 4, 2017 at 9:49 am

    @O. Felix Culpa: hey, O. Felix! You anywhere close to Santa Fe? I’m meeting my sister down there Monday/Tuesday. Would love to do lunch or something!

  152. 152.

    Barbara

    August 4, 2017 at 9:59 am

    @Amir Khalid: What I feel is anger. On a variety of different levels. Too often, shame is the assignment of responsibility to those who really are not personally responsible.

  153. 153.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 10:00 am

    @Another Scott:

    The rightwing freakout over LED and CFL light bulbs depicts their mind set. Aside from the wild myths and conspiracy theories, they refused to believe the new light bulbs would come down in cost and last longer with energy efficiency saving money over time. They don’t like any change if liberals are for it and think liberals/government are forcing them to change. It’s like they didn’t really believe competition among light bulb manufacturers would result in better, cheaper light bulbs, more choices and efficiency. They are knee jerk against anything that government may play a role in, no matter how small a footprint. Plus if liberals think something is a great idea, they are against it.

  154. 154.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 10:07 am

    @Jeffro:

    Yeah but those teacher union cabals (credited to ex MN Gov Tim Pawlenty), teachers get summers off and how hard can their jobs be?!

    Selfish morons.

  155. 155.

    El Caganer

    August 4, 2017 at 10:11 am

    I’ve been away from home doggie-sitting for the last couple weeks, so I don’t know if this has already been covered. A little something to give every body Recess Angst:
    http://www.poynter.org/2017/how-the-press-misses-trumps-critical-court-moves-update/469453/

  156. 156.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 10:12 am

    @Chris:

    Right, but I have to disagree with lumping Trump into “governing style”. He lies every day. Whether or not Fox news also lies isn’t the same thing. The President himself is spreading these lies and this behavior extends to everyone who works for him. They announced that immigration bill like it was a law that had passed. That’s because they seek to trick people into thinking it passed. They are deliberately and strategically deceiving people, every day.

    He just tosses the lies off and it was discussed for a while and now it’s just “that’s definitely a lie, that’s probably a lie, she’s lying too” and on and on, every day.

    It’s a much lower standard. I don’t know how we come back from it.

  157. 157.

    Amir Khalid

    August 4, 2017 at 10:13 am

    @rikyrah:
    She’s The Girl. That’s her name.

  158. 158.

    Jeffro

    August 4, 2017 at 10:14 am

    Btw Mueller is smart to hustle up and have not one but two grand juries going already. It’s a lot more “there” there and makes it harder to get rid of him (although the GOP members of Congress seems to understand on some level that they need Mueller to save them from themselves and their awful enabling of Trumpov). Glad to see that recess appointments are blocked and legislation preventing Mueller from being fired is in the works.

    (Of course, the best-case would be a Congress that clamps down on his emoluments violations, nepotism, inappropriate security clearances, and other bullshit. A boy can dream, can’t he?)

    Trumpov’s performance last night was a disgrace for the ages, from pretending there’s nothing to the Russia investigation to his call for HRC to be investigated. The first Dem to hold a rally and/or buy 30 minutes of airtime, and give a real barn-burner of a speech slamming Trumpov will give the Village a ‘thrill up its [collective] leg’ like we haven’t seen since…oh…2007, maybe 2008? =)

  159. 159.

    Kathleen

    August 4, 2017 at 10:15 am

    @NorthLeft12: @Lapassionara: My brother in Dallas made that point regarding Texas having no state income tax. He said there are more state fees and they’re higher. He’s not at all convinced that lack of state income tax is. beneficial.

  160. 160.

    Uncle Cosmo

    August 4, 2017 at 10:17 am

    @Schlemazel:

    I wish I were kidding. those people are beyond reach

    Tell you what this reminds me of:

    July 1990. I’m staying at a large & slightly dodgy hotel on Nollendorfplatz in what was for the moment still West Berlin, at the start of my tour revisiting the same cities as the year before – before the Wall had fallen – to see how much had changed.

    After a particularly frustrating afternoon in the East trying (unsuccessfully) to book a room in Leipzig or Dresden through what was for the moment still the East German travel agency, I returned to the hotel & got to talking with the 60ish night clerk about the impending reunification.

    He said, “For 45 years those people have been told by their authorities that snow is black. Now we tell them that snow is in fact white. It will take many years before they believe it…. Perhaps the adults are hopeless. Perhaps we should just forget them, and teach their children to know better.”

    IMO we are in very much the same position re the Fox’ed-up melanin-deficient protofascist masses – except that the RW media continue to spew their imbecile hatred into the mind of those folks. We’re going to need a lot more than 4 or even 8 years of relative sanity to turn this around. I won’t live to see it. =:^(

  161. 161.

    Jeffro

    August 4, 2017 at 10:18 am

    @bemused: he called them “cabals”?!? Even Frank Luntz must be like, “Dude, that’s a little excessive…”

    Every time someone’s ever bitched about teachers & summer vacation in my presence, I ask them if there was some law in place at the time that prevented them from going into the teaching profession. Or were they banned from entering the education field for some reason? Same thing with people who don’t like government workers and their pensions: were they somehow blackballed from applying for those positions? No? Then I guess they just need to shut up. (Or advocate harder for summer breaks and/or pensions in their own chosen fields). It’s ridiculous.

  162. 162.

    NorthLeft12

    August 4, 2017 at 10:19 am

    @Tenar Arha: I find people like that don’t seem to understand that stuff, especially public stuff, fails, wears out, becomes obsolete, and then must be replaced or upgraded.
    I think this is one of the biggest differences between our two countries; up North we still believe in the value that our government brings to our lives, and down in your neck of the woods I see the opposite attitude…….unless you mention the military and then its “they needs more!”

  163. 163.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 10:23 am

    @Chris:

    The dishonesty is baked in. Did you notice how they shifted yesterday with the announcement of the grand jury?

    “There were no Russians in the campaign” “The President isn’t under investigation”

    That was never the standard. They’re leaving the possibility that there was collusion with Russians outside the campaign and that people around the President are under investigation. They’re lowering the standard. By the end of this it will be “did Trump personally call Russian agents and ask them to intervene? No? Then what’s the problem!”

  164. 164.

    NorthLeft12

    August 4, 2017 at 10:25 am

    @Kay: And Baud; Your father’s comment seems to be the reverse credo of anti-vaxxers. Everyone else can vaccinate to protect me and my family!

  165. 165.

    Kay

    August 4, 2017 at 10:28 am

    @NorthLeft12:

    True. We could apply a herd immunity thing to it. My daughter is a medical person and she explained herd immunity to me and I immediately became enraged at anti-vaccers :)

  166. 166.

    NorthLeft12

    August 4, 2017 at 10:33 am

    @Jeffro:

    just in time, since I’m giving up real football on account of brain damage.

    Yes, I have been struggling with this for awhile too. After reading the Deadspin article about how the NFL weaseled out of its commitment to the NIH to study football related brain damage, and its ongoing interference in their research I gave up on them.
    Another contributing factor is the discourse between NFL fans. Even fans of the same team. I am sick and tired of reading how these players are soft, have it so easy, are hugely overpaid, but not one word about the POS owners and how they make out like bandits despite their incompetence. IMO there is a lot of racism involved in those discussions. I just can’t take it anymore.

  167. 167.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 10:49 am

    @Jeffro:

    Yup he sure did but not when he was governor, iirc, but when he was a legislator.
    I remember this well because it was long enough ago when Republicans still tried not to say this kind of thing out loud. It would be hard to find now because I read it in local small town paper with a rightwing editor who quoted Pawlenty. I never found it anywhere else in MN sources.

  168. 168.

    bemused

    August 4, 2017 at 10:52 am

    @Jeffro:

    No matter how obvious, can’t expect logic from them ever.

  169. 169.

    Elizabelle

    August 4, 2017 at 10:56 am

    @Amir Khalid: Not A Girl, or That Girl.

    The Girl.

    Is Bianca jealous?

  170. 170.

    The Pale Scot

    August 4, 2017 at 10:58 am

    I want that in a 24×36 frame, so I can hang right next to the RFK and the Fearsome Foursome riding in a convertible picture on my wall, what a contrast!

  171. 171.

    Gelfling 545

    August 4, 2017 at 10:59 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: wow, that takes me back. In one of my school faculty lunch was enlivened by discussions between the art teacher whose parents were from Israel and the English teacher whose parents were from Ireland about the nuances of Jewish guilt vs Irish shame. Fascinating stuff.

  172. 172.

    Chris

    August 4, 2017 at 11:16 am

    @Kay:

    Right, but the Fox News environment is what enables and empowers people like him. And why the problem won’t go away just with Trump.

  173. 173.

    Amir Khalid

    August 4, 2017 at 11:30 am

    @Elizabelle:
    Bianca was wary at first, and then mildly curious — what is this new thing? But she hasn’t shown any signs of jealousy, because I always give her plenty of attention..

  174. 174.

    james parente

    August 4, 2017 at 12:04 pm

    @Kathleen: When I first moved to Fla., I experienced severe sticker shock at the $$ to register a car in this state. No state income taxes but you pay thru the nose for everything else.

  175. 175.

    james parente

    August 4, 2017 at 12:13 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Amir, As a wanna-be guitarist, I have to say that you are approaching learing the instrument in the correct way. Keep up the great work!
    I have to say, though, that once you progress some more, you should look at purchasing a decent acoustic guitar. I love my Tele, but there is absolutely nothing like the satisfaction of banging away on a Dreadnought acoustic!
    I suggest looking at Washburn, Ibanez, Ovation, Epiphone etc. They are all reasonably priced and they all sound amazing!
    Also, I find that the acoustics help build up hand strength. I still try to play all my guitars every week and I’m having a ball doing it.
    I’m inspired by your progress and your love of the instrument.
    One more thing: Find a good teacher if you can. They are worth it.

  176. 176.

    The Lodger

    August 4, 2017 at 1:16 pm

    @Jeffro: I’d like to find a way to get it on next year’s Hugo ballot, if I can figure out a way to classify it.
    You know, the other day I was using Google Maps to locate Fort Bragg, CA and when I zoomed the map out I got this incredible feeling of deja vu…

  177. 177.

    J R in WV

    August 4, 2017 at 1:29 pm

    @bemused:

    You mean people get houses built without knowing all about foundations and roofs?

    How do you know it’s being done correctly? I hired an architect, who subbed with a structural engineer and a soils geologist to design the footers and rebar inside the concrete. So I studied standard concrete reinforcement practices to be sure what those guys were drawing was SOP for the concrete industry, and helped bend and tie rebar with the crew.

    I’ll admit I trusted the electrician, Dixie, to do a good job. Then she got hired full time as a cook up in Athens, and I got Rick to take over, he was a construction foreman at the time, laid off while the company worked to get a new contract to build a bridge or water treatment systems, etc. When he got called back to work, I let Danny do the rest, told him to follow the pattern Dixie and Rick installed. So far so good.

    There is no building inspector here, and no zoning. You do have to get a building permit, which provides cash flow for the county to track building projects to be sure they bought a permit. But I’m pretty sure none of those guys know anything about building codes past “Can you show me your building permit, please?”

    I’m kidding a little bit, I hired neighbors who had been doing building, excavation, concrete pours, etc. Mostly union guys laid off and working on the side. We’ve been in the house since 1994, so it’s held up for better than 20 years so far!

    But living in a rural place is different, few rules, just do the best you can.

  178. 178.

    J R in WV

    August 4, 2017 at 1:56 pm

    @Jeffro:

    Low taxes, poor tax base, bad schools. We have all that, rural county, never was any coal mining, was some oil and gas activity which has faded with time. So there just isn’t much for the schools, even though the BoE is the largest employer in the county by far.

    Which means it is highly politicized. You get to be a teacher in the county seat not by being the best teacher of your subject, but by having the best political connections. So the more rural schools often have the best teachers.

    This is so to the point where the County Seat’s high school top student went to local state University, and had to take remedial English and remedial Math, because making straight A’s in HS didn’t prepare her for college level classes, because the teachers weren’t selected for their teaching ability, but for their familial connections to the local political hierarchy.

    Sad. Not her fault, either, all you can do is the best with what you have to work with. Straight A’s is pretty good

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