Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Everybody saw this coming.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

You cannot shame the shameless.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

After roe, women are no longer free.

In my day, never was longer.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

“Squeaker” McCarthy

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Peerless Leader

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Peerless Leader

by | 204 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)
.


***********

Apart from agreeing with that majority, what’s on the agenda for the day?
.

Reader Interactions

204Comments

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Now if only 64% of voters will care enough to get off their lazy asses and do just one small thing come Nov 6, 2018.

  5. 5.

    Kansi

    Trump is the fireworks show, while all his minions are busy destroying the State Department,splitting up and shipping out families, harming the environment, selling off the government, radicalizing the courts, and plotting to suppress the voters’ ability to stop the madness.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Your daily double dose of hypocrisy: The conservatives turning against Donald Trump

    Flake acknowledged that Trump has displayed conservative instincts in his cabinet appointments, choice of supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch and plans for regulatory and tax reform. But he said the president’s approach to trade is populist and his temperament unstable.

    Yeah, sure, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what has Donald trump ever done for Republicans?

  7. 7.

    p.a.

    Does it have to take a frakup war, a city destroyed, and economic collapse to convince 50.1% of voters the Rethugs are morons? And with voter suppression, will it take an actual 60% to get to 50.1?

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @OzarkHillbilly: More:

    But Trump has found a more receptive audience among pressure groups in the conservative movement. He retains strong connections with evangelical Christians, anti-tax adherents to the Tea Party, pro-life campaigners and the National Rifle Association – in April he became the first sitting president to address its annual convention since Ronald Reagan.

    Sean Hannity, a Fox News host, and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, are among those to enjoy frequent meetings and dinners at the White House. All can bring considerable pressure to bear on the Republican party.

    Speaking by phone as he walked down the street, through security and into the White House for a meeting with officials, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said of the president: “I would argue he’s taken a more pro-conservative stand on gun rights, on home schooling, on judges than past Republican presidents. If you want to do a purity test, Reagan and Bush would not have passed on a lot of a things. Trump changes the world on behalf of conservatives.”

    Trump’s ban on transgender troops in the military and a raft of policies on criminal justice, education and immigration have thrown red meat to his allies on the right. Despite numerous setbacks and a sense of chaos in his administration, his approval rating among conservative Republicans is holding steady.

    Tom Tancredo, former Congressman for Colorado, put it bluntly: “There were two reasons I voted for him: one was he wasn’t Hillary Clinton; second was the supreme court. All else is forgiven.”

    Open your eyes Jeff, the moral rot is at the very core of your party. You fuckers sold your soul a long time ago.

  16. 16.

    Quinerly

    @Baud:
    Poco agrees 107% with your stance. And he sends out a good morning to you. He’s off to school shortly to finish up his courses he started in June. He’s very worried that he forgot stuff over vacation ….. he doesn’t want to let down the Baud/Poco 2020 ticket.

  19. 19.

    Schlemazel

    @kd bart:
    If said Dem does not agree with me 100% there is no difference between said Dem and the worst the GOP has to offer so Iwill stay home or vote for Johnson

  20. 20.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    I was out shopping all day yesterday, and not one merchant said “Merry Christmas” – not one.

    No wonder the malls are dying.

  22. 22.

    Jeffro

    Who knew that putting a 71-year-old Fox News addict in charge of the government was a bad idea ?

  24. 24.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Even the liberal Investor’s Business Daily:

    Poll — Donald Drumpf

    Approve……………..32%
    Disapprove…………59%

    Trump lost significant support across the board, but saw big declines among areas of core support, including Republicans, Midwesterners, middle-income families, white men and the high-school educated.

    ***

    Among Republicans, for example, Trump’s approval rating fell from 83% in July to 71% in August. Trump’s already low approval ratings remained relatively unchanged among Democrats (4%) and independents (30%).

    (link)

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…… Poor babies. Did you forget to pay your taxes and somebody bought your multi-million dollar street for a mere $90 thou?

    Unlike the vast majority of San Francisco streets, Presidio Terrace is private. Residents, via their HOA, are responsible for paying for the street’s maintenance and, as with any other private property, tax.

    The homeowners association stopped paying that tax many years ago, however, and in 2015, the city’s tax collector placed the property into default. That set the stage for the auction and the San Jose couple’s windfall.

    The homeowners association claims that the tax went unpaid not out of any desire to avoid payment (or inability to come up with the cash), but because the city was sending the bill to the address of an accountant who had not worked for them since the 1980s. They also fault the city for failing to send a notice of the default to any of the homeowners or their association.

    They are asking the city’s board of supervisors to intervene on their behalf and rescind the auction – a process allowed for by state law. They’ve also filed a lawsuit against Lam and the city. If the board of supervisors fails to rescind the sale – a vote is tentatively scheduled for October – the association will turn to the courts, said Emblidge.

    “I’m very optimistic that the city officials want to see a reasonable end to this, and a reasonable end is to rescind the sale and put things back the way they were,” Emblidge said. “The same thing that happened here could happen to anybody, poor or rich, that happens to have a parcel like this. The issue isn’t really a rich versus poor situation. It’s what should have to happen before someone can sell my property.”

    Yes, a poor person’s home owners association could easily forget to pay the taxes on the bridge under which they have placed their cardboard box. Probably forget to pay the taxes on their curtain rod too. Consider my Freud to be thoroughly schadened.

  27. 27.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly: If they are accurate that there was an administrative screw up that caused the problem and they never received notice, then this time I don’t take pleasure in their pain.

  29. 29.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Snowflake GOP congressman bans guns from his townhall meeting (photo)

    These are the same frauds who attack grammar schools for being gun free zones.

  31. 31.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It happens every so often – the common area gets a tax bill, the person responsible for it moves, quits or dies, and nobody thinks about it.

    What it really reveals is that the nonjudicial process for the acquisition of property via tax bills sucks.

    These things should ALWAYS be done via a judicial foreclosure.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    On a cloud-swept landscape dotted with grain elevators, a meat producer called Prestage Farms is building a 700,000-square-foot processing plant. The gleaming new factory is both the great hope of Wright County, which voted by a 2-1 margin for Donald Trump, and the victim of one of Trump’s first policy moves, his decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
    For much of industrial America, the TPP was a suspect deal, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which some argue led to a massive offshoring of U.S. jobs to Mexico. But for the already struggling agricultural sector, the sprawling 12-nation TPP, covering 40 percent of the world’s economy, was a lifeline. It was a chance to erase punishing tariffs that restricted the United States—the onetime “breadbasket of the world”—from selling its meats, grains and dairy products to massive importers of foodstuffs such as Japan and Vietnam.
    The decision to pull out of the trade deal has become a double hit on places like Eagle Grove. The promised bump of $10 billion in agricultural output over 15 years, based on estimates by the U.S. International Trade Commission, won’t materialize. But Trump’s decision to withdraw from the pact also cleared the way for rival exporters such as Australia, New Zealand and the European Union to negotiate even lower tariffs with importing nations, creating potentially greater competitive advantages over U.S. exports.

    TPP really was good for agriculture. There is no group of people who were more wrong about Obama than rural people. On everything from health care to trade they benefited much more from Obama’s policies than Obama’s “urban base” ever did. Watching them shoot themselves in the foot over and over again, on issue after issue, has really been something. They’re their own worst enemy.

    That leaves workers in 13,000-person Wright County, whose survival depends largely on agriculture, with relatively few signs of optimism. Trump’s decision to walk away from the TPP has stoked uncertainty about U.S. trade policy and, more notably, the president’s commitment to rural America.
    “He fooled a lot of people,” said Sandy McGrath, mayor of Eagle Grove, who is not affiliated with any party and did not support Trump.

    Trump’s underqualified trade representative is scratching his head- he “doesn’t understand” why countries won’t make unilateral trade concessions on US ag products. Trump is yelling at them a lot! Why won’t they do what he wants?

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I do. The assholes never sent in a change of address? And they just “forgot” to pay their taxes? And now they want a redo? Because if you are rich gross incompetence is not your fault? Fuck them. I hope they get it right up their asses the same way they’d stick it up the asses of any normal San Franciscan trying to find a place they can live for less than 2/3s their monthly income.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @Kay: MomSense linked to that article yesterday. I don’t get to say this often, but good job politico.

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Sorry, I can see it happening. Not saying it happened here. They could easily be lying. But if they aren’t then I hope they get their property back.

  36. 36.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @ThresherK: they’ve been doing polls forevah

    According to 538:

    Among the more prolific polling firms, the most accurate by this measure was TIPP, which conducted a national tracking poll for Investors’ Business Daily. Relative to other national polls, their results seemed to be Democratic-leaning at the time they were published. However, it turned out that most polling firms underestimated Mr. Obama’s performance, so those that had what had seemed to be Democratic-leaning results were often closest to the final outcome.

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: All the more reason to stick it to these c***suckers. The system is set up the way it is to benefit speculators and the only way it will change is if some rich assholes take it up the ass just like poor folk do every damn day and are told “Ignorance is no excuse, you have to obey the laws just like everybody else.”

    And yes, I do hate rich people. Why do you ask?

  39. 39.

    ThresherK

    @Kay: I appreciate more evidence added to long list of “What did Obama ever do for RealAmerica?”, but at some point part of me wants a fight between “what’s good for agriculture” (and all sorts of public policy) to be between ADM/Armour/General Mills and the little (largely right-wing) people who live there.

    It’s been mentioned how screwed up WV and parts of KY are in their relationships with mining companies, and the mining co’s owned politicians. But are “agricultural” states far behind that?

  40. 40.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Canada looks like the big winner on ag trade. They should send Trump a thank you note.

    In the meantime, Lighthizer, a trade attorney who pressured Japan to voluntarily restrain its steel exports when he was a trade official in the 1980s, said Tokyo should just go ahead and lower their tariffs without expecting anything in return.
    “I think in the areas like beef and the others, they ought to be making some unilateral concessions, at least temporary concessions,” he told lawmakers in June. “And I don’t quite understand why that doesn’t happen.”

    Trumpians are of the 1980’s. They still live in that decade. Glory days for them. They think they can go back there.

  41. 41.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I like this guy.

    Swanson acknowledged his own household is split over its support for Trump. Trump, he figured, would be the best positioned to tamp down the rising health care costs for his own family and his one farmhand that he believes to be connected to the Affordable Care Act.

    But on trade, Swanson was less sure where Trump drew the line between campaign-trail bluster and real action. There was, he thought, far too much at stake for his rural base to make any rash decisions. Then, three days after he was sworn in, Trump made good on a promise to drop U.S. support for TPP.

    “I was disappointed Trump kind of broadly wiped out TPP before there was even a discussion,” Swanson said.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    @ThresherK:

    I just don’t think agriculture is comparable to coal. It’s huge. They rely on exports, too, because they produce so much. They’ll get killed if there are no trade barriers into the US but they can’t sell oversees without tariffs. For Trump to not know that Canada (which is also huge in agriculture) would jump into the void he left is just nuts. It’s ignorance- not knowing basic information about what the US produces and exports and who their competitors are- things any Senator would know.

  46. 46.

    bemused

    A friend about 67 years old, retired since he turned 55, spends a large chunk of his time playing video games, often with his younger retired brother. I was imaging Trump addicted to video games instead of twitter and cable tv surfing but that would be impossible for Trump, not with his ego and scant two minute attention span. What a thought, video games are way too difficult for Trump to understand!

  47. 47.

    different-church-lady

    It takes honest-to-goodness work to get approval numbers this bad when you’ve inherited sub-5% unemployment.

    Work? Naw, he’s a natural at it.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    @ThresherK:

    Trump left the barriers DOWN for entry into US markets and left the barriers UP for entry into overseas market. They’re screwed. It all comes in but they can’t get theirs out. They’re much worse off with NO trade deals – that isn’t what he promised. He promised bilateral deals that would favor US producers but the rest of the world isn’t interested in favoring US producers. We already have a competitive disadvantage because our food safety rules are laxer than many European countries. People in those countries don’t want to lower their standards to US levels.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    that he believes to be connected to the Affordable Care Act.

    But which is probably not. They can’t do this anymore. They can’t operate on these “beliefs”. In what world did he think his “health care costs” would go down under Trump? Because he could buy crap insurance? That’s not “health care costs”. It’s imaginary savings that only last until he uses the coverage.

    They have to work harder at this.

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A video showing a northern California police officer pointing his gun for more than nine minutes at the passenger in a car stop has drawn attention on social media. The Campbell police department says the officer pulled over the car for speeding on Highway 101 on 28 July.

    Campbell police captain Gary Berg told the Mercury News the officer asked for the license of the woman driving, the car’s registration and proof of insurance. While the occupants were looking for those documents, Berg says the passenger started to reach under his seat.

    The phone video shows the unidentified officer pointing his pistol at the passenger. The passenger holds up his hands and explains that he was looking for the requested documents, noting the papers on the floor and asks why the officer is pointing the weapon at him.

    The Campbell police department is defending the officer’s decision to draw his gun.

    I detect a flaw in their reasoning. The problem isn’t drawing his gun, it’s the fucking 9 minute threat to kill the passenger that’s the problem.

  52. 52.

    Baud

    @Kay: It’s not as if we weren’t subjected to arguments on the left that Trump was better on trade than Hillary.

  54. 54.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    It isn’t being said loudly enough that the rise in healthcare costs reflect the greed of the insurers, pharmaceuticals, and providers. It also is not being said loudly enough that the treaty didn’t kill jobs; the businesses did that when they sent their companies overseas for greater profits. But mostly, it isn’t being said loudly enough that the GOP is a Trojan Horse, built by nothing more than empty slogans and knee-jerk reactions. Waving around this Better Deal thing is an empty gesture and does nothing if it doesn’t lead with comparatives.

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I saw the “trust” number you picked out and this heartening but I don’t get why the extreme nastiness of Trump and Co doesn’t turn people off. They’re just nasty people. 90% of what they say is either outright negative or whiny and self-pitying.

    Maybe that’s rolling into the low numbers. We need a question “do you think these people are assholes?” Maybe 70% yes. Petty, angry assholes with a generous dollop of self-pity and privilege on top. Just deeply unappealing people.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @Kay: If it was going to turn people off, it would have done do during the election.

    The most generous explantation I can offer is that people are having difficulty separating behavior that is appropriate in the real world from what may be acceptable as entertainment on TV.

  57. 57.

    bystander

    @OzarkHillbilly: I personally will only vote for Democratic candidates who were Phi Beta Kappa from the seminary and made their vast fortunes by curing cancer and writing best selling inspirational tracts. We will be attracted to their concise, three sentence explanations of how they will create jobs and resolve terrorism. Plus they must have a catchy slogan all America will be repeating.

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I don’t know about the driver (didn’t watch the video) but the passenger is white (his hands and forearms are visible in the still shot)

  59. 59.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Baud: Because when the left says “trade” they’re thinking “proletariat.”

    @Baud: I fully expect that “the rising health care costs for his own family and his one farmhand that he believes to be connected to the Affordable Care Act” means “he thinks he’s being forced to pay more for health insurance so that black people and illegal immigrants can get it for free.”

  62. 62.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Baud: Agreed, but the cosplay Marxists who were making the argument were romanticizing factory work as the sadly dormant seedbed of radical revolutionary consciousness.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    So I’m helping with a party for this candidate for Ohio gov on August 29. It’s at the house of a Republican. He’s left the fold, probably not permanently though- he’s only to “I vote the man” (in this case, woman) :)

    He was very frank on the phone, which I appreciate. Said he has never done this before for a Dem. He really loathes Trump- kept giving me openings to attack him which I didn’t take. My sense is it’s best if they attack him – I had nothing to do with him.

  64. 64.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @bystander: And those best selling inspirational tracts had better NOT be ghost written by a reformed ’70s hippy radical.

  65. 65.

    JGabriel

    Jake Tapper via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    Trust Most of What You Hear from the White House?

    Yes 24%
    No 73%

    It’s interesting that the percentage of people who don’t trust the White House is roughly equal to the percentage of time that Putin’s Trump lies.

  67. 67.

    satby

    @Baud: nope, don’t buy it. How does an HOA not remember property taxes they haven’t paid for years? Their current accountant didn’t notice that? Bogus, and serves them right. They probably thought they could get away with not paying.

  71. 71.

    clay

    @Kay:

    In the meantime, Lighthizer… said Tokyo should just go ahead and lower their tariffs without expecting anything in return.
    “I think in the areas like beef and the others, they ought to be making some unilateral concessions, at least temporary concessions,” he told lawmakers in June. “And I don’t quite understand why that doesn’t happen.”

    *facepalm*

    Yeah, why don’t other countries just give us stuff?!?

    Did this guy try asking pretty please?

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    The whole (dumb) trade “debate” is flawed by the fact that it’s so US-centric. OTHER COUNTRIES have goals on trade. It’s complicated. Trump’s idea that he’s going to make a deal with the UK and just leave Australia out ignores that Australia will move too. Even if you know nothing about trade you must notice you can buy apples from Chile and New Zealand in the supermarket. You must know there are other countries. It’s like “we should buy apples from Washington and Michigan”.

    Okay. Should we also sell Washington apples in Japan? “No”, I guess. No selling outside the US? What’s the plan here?

    We’ll just sell pork to New Zealand and refuse all their products? Why would they agree to that? It’s really very arrogant.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    I love the fake Trump fight with the NYTimes, too. That’s the real “fake news”. No one helped Trump more than that newspaper. The NYTimes led the charge on the ridiculous focus on Clinton’s emails.

    It’s mutually beneficial, this “fight”. It pumps up both sides’ numbers. They’re a team.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    I sometimes comfort myself with the fact that if Clinton had won we’d be seating the 2nd or 3rd congressional inquiry into something or other, and the NYTimes and CNN would be leading the charge.

    You know it’s true.

  77. 77.

    satby

    So a diversion from national Trump angst: my office manager did something that made the store manager have a meeting with the doctor to complain about the manager’s behavior. Later the doctor told me “you’re right, there’s just too much drama”. They’re also (finally) looking for at least one more person to hire. Stay tuned for the next episode of “As the Doctors office turns”. ?

  78. 78.

    Baud

    @Kay: Agree. While I still wish she were president, it wouldn’t have lanced the boil that is infecting out society.

  79. 79.

    Baud

    In better news

    The FBI will soon have to turn over documents involving its role in purging the federal government of gay and lesbian employees, under a recent court ruling.

    A lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights group called the Mattachine Society challenged the Justice Department after its records request into the decades-long incident initially yielded little in the way of actual results. The removal of LGBT federal employees occurred after a series of government rulings, culminating in a 1953 executive order issued by President Dwight Eisenhower that mandated employees in positions related to national security must be free of “sexual perversion.” The order led to the removal of 7,000 to 10,000 employees in the 1950s, according to the Mattachine Society. The practice was not officially banned until President Bill Clinton signed an executive order prohibiting discrimination against gay and lesbian federal employees.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Next week he’ll give them another exclusive interview – he hates the NYTimes so much, Baud. That’s why we get all that analysis of the inner Trump. What makes him tick?

  81. 81.

    satby

    @Kay: lancing a boil lets all sorts of ugly infection out. Maybe in the cosmic scheme of things this country was overdue; but I would still have preferred Clinton winning. being seated as President.

  82. 82.

    randy khan

    @Baud:

    From what I can tell, the administrative screw up was that the homeowners never bothered to change the mailing address when they changed accountants (or something along those lines). If that’s right, it’s their fault, not the city’s.

    I work with a nonprofit that did something similar – it didn’t change its registered agent when the original one died, and as a result didn’t get the notices about reregistration, etc. While that was fixable, there wasn’t any good argument about not having to pay the late fees and the like that went with missing the registration deadline because it was the nonprofit’s fault.

  84. 84.

    Kay

    Donald J. Trump‏Verified account
    @realDonaldTrump
    I will be holding a major briefing on the Opioid crisis, a major problem for our country, today at 3:00 P.M. in Bedminster, N.J.

    And my gross, grifting family will continue to make money off my Presidency. Every time I look at the Trumps (and you can’t avoid them) I think “doing really well on the Trump Presidency”.

  85. 85.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Jeff Flake:

    It is a testament to just how far we fell in 2016 that to resist the fever and stand up for conservatism seemed a radical act. It is a threshold requirement for a conservative to be able to both tell and expect the truth. We must demand and accept nothing less. Assuaging the public with happy talk quite obviously isn’t a conservative thing to do. Viewing the government paternalistically isn’t either.

    Once a populist fever abates, truth must fill that void. But it is an ugly fact that the truth doesn’t play well on the campaign trail. Free trade never fares well during campaigns. It’s always easier for a politician to point at a shuttered factory and go looking for a scapegoat rather than tell the truth about modernization, mechanization, automation and the more efficient allocation of capital – all things that have made our lives better. But those things are difficult to explain in a campaign.

    But for those of us who have been elected, our job is to communicate, so we must communicate. We can’t just pander and promise impossible things. Because the truth is that there is no easy solution to our changing economy. The truth is that we are producing about twice as much as we did in the 1980s with 30% fewer workers. The truth is that coal probably isn’t coming back in our lifetimes, that auto plants that once employed hundreds will now only employ dozens, that automation has made our economy more productive than it has ever been.

    We will simply have to find a way to make sure that those who are just starting out are going into engineering instead of political science (my chosen major), and that if you’re 40 or 50 years old the future includes you, too, in a way that can provide a stable income and retirement. But it will be the future, not some rose-colored past. And it won’t be easy. Anyone who tells you it’s easy is not telling you the truth.

    Granted, none of that is as catchy as “the American dream is dead and you’re the victim of a rigged system”. And none of that is as visceral as economic nationalism and fear – fear of the other, fear of national decline, fear of the future.

    In the 2016 election, a suffering American working class was ripe for Trump’s message of fear, which was relieved to hear an easy solution that only he had thought of and only he could execute. Such a reductive populist message should make conservatives ill. But as this message advanced, we retreated, before capitulating altogether.

    With all due respect sir? You conservatives can’t handle the truth and you sure as hell don’t respect it. If you had any respect for the truth you would turn off Roger Ailes’ zombie arsehole instead of mainlining Hannity. And that void you speak of? It has replaced your souls.

    Repeat after me:

    Truth: Climate change is real and an existential threat to America.
    Truth: The “free market” will not solve our healthcare problems.
    Truth: Racism is a real and continuing problem in American society and it has found a home in the GOP.
    Truth: The same can be said for misogyny.
    Truth: The war on drugs is over. We lost.
    Truth: Wall Street exists for the sole purpose of making money and does not give a rat’s ass about anything else.
    Truth: Tax cuts for the rich will not solve any of our current problems.
    Truth: Ad nauseum.

  87. 87.

    satby

    @randy khan: I’m on the board of a non-profit, and we have to file paperwork every year to maintain that designation, and supply certified financials. If they had an accountant, he was grossly incompetent or they just blew the taxes off. Probably both, but that’s still on them.

  88. 88.

    Adria McDowell

    @Kay: Thanks for the info on Connie. I’m seriously considering volunteering for her. Female vet from a working class family and a former public defender? I’m so there!

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @satby:

    Oh, I agree. I think it would have been very tough, though. They had it in for her. There would be much tougher coverage of real or invented conflicts of interest and her family. I was around for Whitewater. Trump has far exceeded whatever “Whitewater” represented in his first six months and they barely mention the corruption and self-dealing. Imagine if Chelsea Clinton’s husband was promising benefits from the Clinton administration to investors. Kushner’s behavior alone would merit a special prosecutor.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @Adria McDowell:

    I like her. She has a nice way about her. She’s (reportedly) raised over a million dollars. If Cordray gets in she’ll be immediately second place, though.

  94. 94.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

    it wouldn’t have lanced the boil that is infecting out society.

    Truer words have never been spoken, but I’m not sure that trump is going to lance the GOP.

  95. 95.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud: Greenwald:

    “Who has brought more death, and suffering, and tyranny to the world over the last six decades than the U.S. National Security State?”

    Looks like Glenn slept through history and never heard of Mao and the Great Leap Forward, the Khmer Rouge, the Gulag Archipelago, the Hutu Interahamwe….

  97. 97.

    Quinerly

    @Baud:
    This is going to be awesome. Poco can’t wait to get on the trail with you. “Baud/Poco2020 save the bees from us”

  98. 98.

    Baud

    @Gin & Tonic: What especially gets me is that he still sees Trump as separate from the “U.S. National Security State.”

    @Quinerly: Maybe we shouldn’t lead with that. Bees have been in decline, and people might blame us!

  101. 101.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Saw a Fox News clip on Twitter in which Eric Trump, who manages the Trump-branded properties that are raking in money from people hoping to curry favor with Donald Trump, was complaining about how corrupt Washington DC is.

  102. 102.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

    Maybe we shouldn’t lead with that.

    Yeah, I don’t see being the “Neonicotinoids Team” as a good selling point.

  103. 103.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Betty Cracker:

    It was a pretty big year for predators
    the market place was on a roll
    and the “Land of Opportunity”
    spawned a whole new breed
    of men without souls

    This year notoriety
    got all confused with fame
    and the devil is down-hearted
    ’cause there’s nothing left
    for him to claim

    “The Garden of Allah”

  106. 106.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Betty Cracker: Well if anyone should recognize corruption, it would be someone closely associated with Trump so Eric may have a point. I’d take his word for it.

  107. 107.

    Another Scott

    @OzarkHillbilly: The tax was $14/year.

    The HOA messed up, and yes the property owners are ultimately responsible, but the system is broken in cases like this. Fixing it doesn’t mean that the Oligarchs are taking over, or something. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  108. 108.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Baud:

    The trust question broke the 27% barrier. Impressive.

    Yes, and fact that it means 10% of the population think Trump is an incompetent, lying sack of shit and yet they still support him.

  113. 113.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I refer you to my reply at @OzarkHillbilly: Tell me something, if you screwed up like that, do you think you would get a do over? You know damn well you wouldn’t. But these assholes will. Because for every rule there is an exception: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Fuck them.

  116. 116.

    Betty Cracker

    @Frankensteinbeck: It was reviled for good reason, but yeah, turns out tearing the TPP framework up and replacing it with the rantings of a dunce who doesn’t understand trade, national self-interest, international cooperation, negotiations, etc., is a lot worse.

  118. 118.

    Baud

    @Another Scott: Right. Like I said, there were legitimate bases for opposing the TPP agreement, but the rhetoric that it was impossible to understand why Obama would push it — other than that he was a neoliberal sellout — was completely hollow, as we’re now finding out.

  119. 119.

    Immanentize

    Have people noticed that “Laughable” is the next non-denial?
    Did you threaten the Alaska Senators? Sec. On Interior Zinke : “That’s laughable!!”
    Are you planning a Presidential Run in 2020? Vice President Pence: “Laughable!”

  120. 120.

    Tenar Arha

    @Kay: It’s late, but stuff like this is why I knew it wasn’t “economic insecurity” that got people out to vote for that orange menace. (I now scoff at every single article since the election that doesn’t bother to interview enthusiastic Hillary supporters who are not only grief stricken, but who knew exactly what would happen! It tends to just reinforce my opinion that it was racism, sexism, and bigotry that narrowed the margins enough to let the Comey letter do its work).

    I don’t know how you deal with the constant desire to say “I told you so” to everyone you meet. I can hardly discuss what’s going on and I make my life among a mostly leftist, liberal or old-style New England republican (they’re all independents or democrats now) group of people.

  121. 121.

    Immanentize

    @Betty Cracker: Adam was saying a couple of nights ago that will be no going back to where we were before Trump. This is a great example. Even after Bush II, and even though “9/11 changed everything” we were able to be pretty much the same country when Obama was elected. I think the TPP withdrawal plus Trump’s foreign fucknuttery will mean that we will have to learn to live as a player not a leader. As isolated even if we don’t want isolation

    No Mulligan’s in International Power relations

  122. 122.

    gene108

    @Baud:

    A lot of the views on trade from the Left closely match what Trump has been saying about trade deals being bad for the USA, and we need to pull out to protect the workers.

    Honestly, most of the opposition to TPP was from the Left.

    Republicans were all on board with passing it.

    @Betty Cracker:

    It was reviled for good reason, but yeah, turns out tearing the TPP framework up and replacing it with the rantings of a dunce who doesn’t understand how trade, national self-interest, international cooperation, negotiations, etc., work is a lot worse.

    There was no Plan B, for the USA, at least. The 12 countries that negotiated it were not going back to the table, because American leftists felt it was just another neoliberal corporatist sell-out.

    For the other countries, Plan B is signing in with a China centric economic zone.

  123. 123.

    Peale

    @Kay: our allies will be more amenable to deal with us when they get the bill for our defense overspending.

  124. 124.

    Kathleen

    @Kay: But if Obama had only changed his skin color he would have been accepted by the Trump loving economically angsty abandoned by Dems white working class rural did I say white oops forgot male backbone of Heartland America. Did I leave anything out?

  126. 126.

    Shalimar

    @OzarkHillbilly: The article says it was $14 a year. That is a rounding error for them, I can see the accountant being the only one aware they even have to pay property taxes for the street. That said, if they stopped using that accountant in the 1980s, that is no excuse whatsoever for not having another accountant look at their books in over 20 years and realize the taxes hadn’t been paid. If they want their street back, they should pay the people who own it now.

  127. 127.

    Quinerly

    @Baud:
    Poco’s not good at sloganeering. He does give good indiscriminate goose to the ladies, though.?

  128. 128.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @gene108:
    Poll studies are pretty clear that Trump’s voters say they care a lot about trade, but change their mind what they believe about it according to the conservative propaganda of the moment. It’s just another example of how racists make up shit so they won’t have to admit race drives their votes.

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    @Baud:

    Greenwald himself is not a nationalist, and is certainly not a bigot, but the episode has revealed a left-winger’s idiosyncratic sympathy for the most odious characters on the right.

    Category error.

    Greenwald isn’t a “left-winger”. He’s a libertarian, which means he’s a right-winger/Republican but doesn’t want people to realize that.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  131. 131.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    OT, but in reference to the discussion about the film Dunkirk a couple of weeks ago, particularly the performance of Tom Hardy’s Spitfire, and it’s ability to glide without gas. I finally saw the film (which I found easy to follow and very impressive) and then pulled out a book from a British TV series about the RAF, Piece of Cake by Derek Robinson. Well reviewed for its accuracy, Robinson gives a series of impressions of the RAF during the Phony War and 1940. Re-reading the book illuminated much of what I saw during the “Air” part of Dunkirk. I highly recommend it and the ITV series (which is now down loadable for free).

  135. 135.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @bemused:

    video games are way too difficult for Trump to understand!

    Video games are too difficult for me to understand! That’s why I hang out here at Balloon-Juice.

  136. 136.

    Quinerly

    Need kitty advice! Little Ivan doesn’t want to eat his new, very expensive food that was prescribed for his kidneys. He ate it like a champ while lounging around my mom’s old room while on his beach vacation. Never had a cat that was a picky eater. Any ideas on flavor enhancers? Of course, he’ll eat the old food now but not the one that he adored last week. We’re talking wet food. As my dad would say…”something to get him going, prime the pump.” My dad did not invent that expression,though….but I digress…?

  138. 138.

    schrodingers_cat

    BTW why are McMaster’s suits so tight, is he trying to show off how buff he is? Its odd, these high profile people have trouble even dressing themselves up.

  140. 140.

    Betty Cracker

    @gene108: I’m not an expert on trade negotiations, but I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Had Clinton won and been inclined to alter the agreement, it’s possible the U.S. could have negotiated a better deal (i.e., one that included more protections for workers and the environment). But there’s little point in arguing about that now.

    @Immanentize: Sounds about right to me.

  141. 141.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @satby:

    nope, don’t buy it. How does an HOA not remember property taxes they haven’t paid for years? Their current accountant didn’t notice that?

    Bingo! I’ve been a board member and treasurer of various organizations. You know what needs to be filed and/or paid, as does your accountant. “Forgot” to pay, nope.

  142. 142.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Kay:

    It’s complicated.

    Therein lies the problem. Trump and his minions don’t know from complicated.

  143. 143.

    Gin & Tonic

    @O. Felix Culpa: I bet they remembered to pay the security guard who keeps the riff-raff off their street. Remember, this is a gated street of 8-digit homes in one of the most desirable areas of a gorgeous city, which, until the late 1940’s was deed-restricted to white owners only.

    I’m playing a sad tune on the world’s tiniest violin.

  144. 144.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Kathleen:

    Make sure you provide the campaign with a notarized copy of Poco’s diploma when he graduates.

    I foresee problems with the long form birth certificate.

  145. 145.

    Quinerly

    @schrodingers_cat:
    I adore men’s clothes (especially footwear…first thing I check out on a guy). No one in the administration knows how to dress. Ill fitting suits, pants, shirts. Disclaimer…Colbert’s suits bug me on his new show. Couldn’t watch the first monologues because his suits were so weird fitting. Men should always unbutton their suit coats when they sit. These are the things I feel strongly about and have exited relationships over.?

  146. 146.

    Spanky

    @Quinerly: Start at 90% old food, 10% new. Gradually ramp up the new food as he takes to the mix until you’re completely switched over. If he turns his nose up, lower the new food portion. Might take a couple of weeks.

  147. 147.

    gene108

    @Betty Cracker:

    But Hillary was being attacked hard from the Left about her support for TPP. In the end, she came out against it.

    There was no renegotiating it, if Hillary had won, from what was promised during the campaign.

  149. 149.

    Quinerly

    @Spanky:
    We did that two weeks ago with the new. His kidneys are in really bad shape, hence this new food that he was digging until the weekend and being back. I’m going to check the pet sites and see if there is something to sprinkle on it to get him going again. Probably back to the vet,though. Thanks.

  151. 151.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Quinerly: For my citizenship interview I wore a black skirt and a cream colored silk blouse with lace. Husband kitteh was going to wear sandals, I was horrified, I made him change to brown oxfords.

    ETA: I must be fusty and old fashioned because I do notice these things.

  152. 152.

    Tenar Arha

    @Baud: ~*chuckle*~ TFW two people couldn’t deserve each other more.

    I tend to fall into and out of like with columnists when they can get too noxious for me to stand. I’ll forgive a lot for good writing and/or good arguments, but at some point it’s like a switch flips and I’m done. GG lost my interest a long time ago when I realized that he was basically a libertarian tech bro with only a couple of positions that I agreed with him on. He’s the kind of writer who argues his point so hard I’d never agree with him enough for him not to become a hate read of the day. I think Chait lost my interest shortly after TNC took him down hard on some column of his when he was talking out his butt about stuff he really didn’t know anything about (probably the Civil War or something related, like Reconstruction or reparations). If a columnist can’t truly apologize, admit they were not only uninformed and inarticulate but truly offensive, the rest of their work tends to lose my respect.

  153. 153.

    Quinerly

    @O. Felix Culpa:
    Yep. And all that unpaid child support for offspring he doesn’t know about. I imagine Poco poked around a bit in the two years he was on the street. He was 5 before the snipping. The good news is he has never blamed me for that operation he had a day after we met.

  156. 156.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    OT – In honor of today being 8/8, ESPN-U has redubbed itself “The OCHO”, and is broadcasting nothing but obscure sports.

    “Bold move, Cotton!”

  157. 157.

    Central Planning

    @Quinerly: I’m of the firm belief that pets will eat when they get hungry (unless sickness causes them to not eat). The question is: can you outlast Ivan (not as in who will eat the food) and not give in to his desire for regular food?

  164. 164.

    Betty Cracker

    @gene108: Depends on whom you believe — some close Clinton supporters (Terry McAuliffe, IIRC) said she’d try to renegotiate specific provisions within the TPP framework. Anyhoo, this is like arguing about the Gore presidency — pointless. The only valuable lesson to be drawn from the issue is that anyone who believed Trump would be better on trade was a goddamned fool. Hopefully we can all agree on that.

  166. 166.

    Immanentize

    @Shalimar: I completely agree — unless the HOA notified the State that they have a new point of contact which the law requires for their incorporation, they are idiots SOL.

  167. 167.

    Quinerly

    @rikyrah:
    Poco is at school. Ivan is wrapped up in protesting the end of his vacation by refusing to eat. Fat and lazy kitty John Lennon says, Meow, meow, meow, meow.” He thinks he is starving. He’s shut up in a room to give Ivan privacy to eat. Have a great day!

  173. 173.

    MomSense

    @Quinerly:

    When my kitteh stopped eating, I could sometimes give him some of the liquid from the can of tuna fish. Maybe put a few kibbles in with some of that tuna water and see if that does the trick.

  174. 174.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Baud: Lol!! That’s actually not a good thing given some of the public’s awful bigoted views. Baud needs to work on this.

  175. 175.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Quinerly: Obama got off to a very bad start with me when he wore a smoking jacket with a white tie to his first inauguration. White tie means a tailcoat and a white waistcoat, it’s not just some variant of a tuxedo.

  179. 179.

    danielx

    Time for a Boris and Natasha update, because THREAD NEEDS MOAR KITTEHS!

    In a word, they are thriving. Which means getting into everything, including a dryer with fresh warm clothes in it. (Naturally – what could be better?) Everything is to be played with everywhere, even doors. They continue to do everything together, eating, drinking, visiting the litter box, and of course sleeping. Terminal cuteness has not yet been achieved, but it’s coming.

    Boris is seriously fuzzy, as can be seen here, and it’s not soft kitten fur but coarse. I’m beginning to wonder what he has dangling from his family tree.

    Zoey the Senior Cat has warmed up to them slightly, but continues to regard the younguns with a jaundiced eye.

  180. 180.

    tobie

    @Another Scott: Trade deals are easy to demagogue because like all deals they involve concessions in exchange for benefits (i.e., tradeoffs). The fact that NAFTA arrived at a time when manufacturing was hit with automation and advances in shipping and globalization was taking root has made it impossible to discuss even that one trade deal, much less any other. A year or two ago I was interested in finding out just what the costs and benefits of NAFTA were for the US economy and came across this study by the Congressional Research Service from 2015 which basically said that the effect of NAFTA on jobs was a wash to a modest positive for the US. Yes, outsourcing did occur but the volume of trade between the US and Mexico went up so dramatically that it compensated for these losses. The numerical analysis doesn’t do any any good for the factory worker who lost her/his job, and I don’t recall in what sectors jobs were created following NAFTA, but it’s interesting to read a report about the agreement before trade became a firestorm issue in the national political scene.

  181. 181.

    SenyorDave

    @OzarkHillbilly: I detect a flaw in their reasoning. The problem isn’t drawing his gun, it’s the fucking 9 minute threat to kill the passenger that’s the problem.

    About 30 years ago, I was driving right around sundown and didn’t have my lights on. I was stopped by two policemen (they were correct to stop me, at that point it was almost dark). They asked for license, registration and insurance. I used to keep my registration in a packet along with some other car info under my seat. I produced the license and insurance from my wallet, and without thinking I reached under the seat to get the registration. The two policemen went ballistic, one drew his gun, and told me to freeze. I told them I kept my registration under the seat and was getting it. They had me remain in the car with both arms out the window while one them reached under my seat and got the packet with the registration. I believe the one who drew his gun put it back in the holster while this transpired. After they confirmed my identity, one of them explained that alarms go off for police officers when people reach under their seats because that would be a great place to keep a gun.
    They were 100% in the right, everything they did and said made complete sense to me, but this was in 1987, I was a 28 year old white male and it was a small New Jersey town. If this occurred today I’m sure it would be much more tense, and if I was a black male I would be lucky to survive.
    I didn’t get a ticket and I learned to never, ever keep anything important under the car seat.

  182. 182.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Baud:

    Most observers outside the nationalist wing have treated McMaster as the sympathetic party in the conflict. The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald is a notable exception.

    No, he’s not an exception. He’s very much one of them.

  183. 183.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @SenyorDave: Growing up in Detroit, I was taught that if I was stopped, I should put my hands very visibly on the steering when at 10 and 2, and should ask permission to get my registration from the glove compartment. And I was a white girl.

  185. 185.

    Kathleen

    @Quinerly: I. must admit I’m concerned about the potential for a butt sniffng video that be dropped at an inopportune time during the campaign.

  187. 187.

    glory b

    @Another Scott: Well, fixing it for them while others suffer their consequences is.

    This is like a statute of limitations issue, if there was fraud or wrongful conduct on the part of the authorities, or something akin to an act of God that was out of anyone’s control, that’s different. You forgot to tell us about your change of address? No.

    And this is part of what I do for a living.

  188. 188.

    TerryC

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Disc golf is no longer an obscure sport. I live within 50 miles of more than 100 disc golf courses. In thirty years when you hear the word “golf” in a conversation, the odds will be that the speaker is referring to throwing a frisbee not hitting balls with sticks. Over the last 15 years US courses went from 800 to 6,000 plus while ball golf courses decline from 24,000 to fewer than 14,00 and still declining.

  189. 189.

    glory b

    @Quinerly: This is mean girl time, but have you noticed HOW SMALL TRUMP’S FEET ARE?? OMG, I first noticed this during the inauguration. When he was sitting next to Obama and their feet were next to each others, it really leapt out. In photos of the Trumps and the Obamas getting ready to go to the ceremony, while noticing how miserable Melania looked, I also noticed that her feet are substantially bigger than his.

    Okay, leaving the mean girl table for class (a hearing).

  191. 191.

    zhena gogolia

    @danielx:

    So cute. I think Zoey has things well in hand. Don’t be surprised if Boris and Natasha stop being quite so close as they get older. Our Sasha and Masha were like this when they were kittens, then they got on each other’s nerves in adulthood.

  193. 193.

    Immanentize

    @Kathleen:

    I’m concerned about the potential for a butt sniffng video that be dropped at an inopportune time during the campaign.

    About Trump?

  194. 194.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Baud: Just back from reading the Chait piece on Greenwald. I think he’s FAR too charitable to Greenwald, who, as I’ve said before, would make _all manner_ of insinuations about the underlying politics of someone whose big break as a litigator was defending white nationalists and who wrote about the social perils of immigration — like one Glenn Greenwald did.

  195. 195.

    Kathleen

    @Quinerly: I. must admit I’m concerned about the potential for a butt sniffng video that be dropped at an inopportune time during the campaign.
    @Immanentize: Well, vid of Trump sniffing Poco’s butt would be icky as well but I was more concerned about a Big Baud donor.

  196. 196.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @tobie: Speaking as someone who works in manufacturing the topic is so complex with the way things go in and out of the country it’s like Quantum Physics. My sense is Trump/Bannites simplistic world view could easily tank the economy if they got their way.

    But here is an example of the bizarre way tariffs work; apparently I have life time employment as a service and repair electronic technician because the high Asian tariffs means it would be cheaper to build a new unit than send it back to the factory in Asia for repair. So if it’s cost enough to be worth fixing, it’s done by Americans.

  197. 197.

    The Moar You Know

    “I think in the areas like beef and the others, they ought to be making some unilateral concessions, at least temporary concessions,” he told lawmakers in June. “And I don’t quite understand why that doesn’t happen.”

    @Kay: Read this yesterday, find it staggering. And this guy supposedly has trade experience?

    Like the actor said, “what’s my motivation?” Why the fuck would any nation do that?

  198. 198.

    Origuy

    @Baud: HOAs, at least the one I’m in, are incorporated. They should have had the address of their agent for service of process filed with the CA Secretary of State and the city should have filed a lien on the property before auctioning it off. Chances for screwups all around.

  199. 199.

    The Moar You Know

    The phone video shows the unidentified officer pointing his pistol at the passenger. The passenger holds up his hands and explains that he was looking for the requested documents, noting the papers on the floor and asks why the officer is pointing the weapon at him.

    The Campbell police department is defending the officer’s decision to draw his gun.

    @OzarkHillbilly: I read the entire article. In addition to papers on the floor, there was a screwdriver. The officer had no backup (motorcycle cop). As soon as backup arrived, he holstered his weapon. I’m sure he’s not thrilled that his department took nine fucking minutes to get there.

    Also, PROTIP, do not EVER address an officer as “bro” and keep asking him “what’s your problem, bro?” every thirty seconds. That does not lower the tension, put mildly.

  201. 201.

    Origuy

    @The Moar You Know: The Campbell cop was way out of his jurisdiction. Highway 101 doesn’t go anywhere near Campbell. It’s not clear to me if he called for backup from the CHP, the local cops, or his own department. It would make a difference in the response time.

Comments are closed.