Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

We still have time to mess this up!

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Not all heroes wear capes.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Cole is on a roll !

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: (Avocado) TOAST!

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: (Avocado) TOAST!

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Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, what’s on the agenda for the day?
***********


(Jeff Danziger’s website)

Reader Interactions

161Comments

  2. 2.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    After the spasmodic NK-US-China-Russian nuclear exchange occurs, can we at least have a pact that any surviving Twitter executives will be hunted down by surviving Juicers for food?

  3. 3.

    Citizen Alan

    @Baud:

    There was some moron who wrote an essay a few weeks back suggesting that the reason Millennials are so poor is that they squander their money on frivolous things like $15 avocado-on-toast appetizers. It was exactly as stupid as my brief description made it sound.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    @Citizen Alan: What’s a reasonable price for avocado-on-toast appetizers?

    Sometimes, I can’t tell if anti-millennial screeds are directed an anti-millennials or at millennials who like to hate read and then talk about it on social media.

  5. 5.

    Frank McCormick

    @Baud: “Avocado toast” has become both a standard Millennial slam AND a quick snark on trivial Boomer comments on “The Yute these days”.

  18. 18.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    So here’s my thought of the morning – I’m seeing a lot of whining about him not being given a chance, being “obstructed” and those of us who oppose Him not wanting to see a “successful Trump presidency”.

    Wondering what a successful Trump presidency looks like in their eyes – as in, what the end result looks like.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    So when millennials get old, will they be all like, “we ate avocado on toast, which was the fashion at the time*?

  26. 26.

    sm*t cl*de

    Trump approval numbers are at or near all-time lows in many polls lately.

    Does Nate Silver bother to type in these tweets himself, or does he have a bot set up to send them out automatically at weekly intervals?

  27. 27.

    Schlemazel

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
    I read a story saying hair furor was irate that Kelly wanted to control the tweeting. I took that as a very good thing. As long as the tangerine tantrum continues to careen out of control the damage he does will be lessened and the likelihood of a total GOP collapse increases. I was seriously concerned that Kelly would bring some discipline to the administration and magnified the damage

  28. 28.

    Schlemazel

    @Debbie(aussie):
    Yup, and you can keep him we have plenty of our own, thanks.

    A great line from “As Good As It Gets”: Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all full up here!

  30. 30.

    raven

    @Schlemazel: You left off the best part!!

    Where do they teach you to talk like this? In some Panama City “Sailor wanna hump-hump” bar, or is it getaway day and your last shot at his whiskey? Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.

  35. 35.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Millennials are right, though:

    The message is straightforward. Only a few decades ago, the middle class and the poor weren’t just receiving healthy raises. Their take-home pay was rising even more rapidly, in percentage terms, than the pay of the rich.

    The basic problem is that most families used to receive something approaching their fair share of economic growth, and they don’t anymore.

    Also- avocado toast sounds delicious.

  36. 36.

    Schlemazel

    @raven:
    I had forgotten that first part . . . That could have been Kelly talking to his boss this week

    great line – thanks for completing it.

  37. 37.

    raven

    @Schlemazel: Funny, I had remembered it as Olongapo City! I guess that was Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and the great ping pong ball caper!

  38. 38.

    Schlemazel

    @Kay:
    That, in a nutshell, is the problem. The difficult part is, what’s the solution? How do you convince billionaire CEOs and Investors to take a little less and give a little more?

  39. 39.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Schlemazel:

    Firing squads, guillotines (for when the bullets run out) and rope (for when the blade gets too small after the sharpening).

  40. 40.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Avocado is supposed to be healthy, but I can’t eat it.

    Kevin Drum has recently put up a couple of charts and posts talking about the big changes in income distribution. The big inflection points were 1980 and 2000, both of which were the beginning of big income increases among the rich.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    The one time Trump’s NLRB will side with the worker.

    The Google engineer fired over writing a 10-page viral memo about diversity has filed a complaint with federal labor officials, reports Business Insider. James Damore filed the complaint against Google on August 7th, and the case page on the National Labor Relations Board website states that law firm Paul Hastings will represent Google.

  44. 44.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    Kay,
    Did you see my post to you about the tweet that the DOJ has approved Ohio purging voters that haven’t cast a vote in two years???

  50. 50.

    TS

    @Schlemazel: The investors (in many cases the folks who look after our retirement investments) can stop the massive pay the CEOs receive – why they don’t is the hope that one day … they might get that job. Most ceos are like trump – FLUWOEs

  52. 52.

    Kay

    @Schlemazel:

    I’m not sure anyone “convinced” them before. They took it from them. They made them pay higher taxes and if they didn’t raise wages they went on strike.

    There was a whole spate of stories after the financial crash on how really wealthy people were worried about “unrest” and I wondered about it- what were they worried about? Poor people don’t have any power. Looking at that graph though they should be worried, because it isn’t just poor people. It’s really wealthy people versus literally everyone else. The gains over time is the thing. All middle class people have is money over time. They need 30 years of slow gains because they don’t get big gains. They just didn’t get it and they can’t make more time. They can’t create an extra ten or twenty years. They just run out of working years. Millennials are right because the gains have to be there when they’re younger or they can’t make it up. Money is worth more at 30 than it is at 50. What’s surprising to me in my practice is how fragile “middle class” is and was. You really need a whole set of factors and you need them in place at the right time- earlier rather than later. There’s a window and if it closes for a generation it’s too late.

  53. 53.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Re Avocado toast: Haven’t had it, but have gotten fond of beans on toast over a couple trips to the U.K.

    Re Glen Campbell from the thread last night: Didn’t see anyone mention the documentary, so allow me to recommend I’ll Be Me, filmed in his farewell tour after the Alzheimer’s diagnosis. It’s remarkable to see how performance revives him and keeps him going. We watched it on Netflix after seeing an article mention it.

    I am among those who had no idea how good a guitar player he was. I was more aware of him as background music, a voice I heard a lot on the pop radio stations because he had so many crossover hits.

  54. 54.

    Schlemazel

    @rikyrah:
    It is the last 2 Federal elections, so 4 years. But still the object is to disenfranchise poor and people of color

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I think the Texas case is much more egregious because Texas met the standard of “intentional discrimination” (which is hard to meet) and still the Trump Administration is defending Texas.

    Federal courts have said that Texas and North Carolina deliberately changed their laws to discriminate against black and brown voters. Intentional. There’s no point in having federal voting rights protections if Sessions doesn’t enforce that. They found intentional discrimination! That’s what conservatives said we had to prove! That’s where the federal government steps in. Sessions is simply not doing his job.

    Ohio’s purging process has been defended by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican who is running for governor. He said the method of removing inactive voters has been used by both Republicans and Democrats to clear the rolls of people who have moved away or died.

    Husted is in my opinion the front runner for GOP governor candidate. He’s smart and tenacious and he could win. He’ll use that office to appeal to the GOP base as we get closer to the race. So that’s the big threat in Ohio- he’s running for governor. They all are- just about every statewide office holder in Ohio is running for governor but Husted is serious and could win. On the GOP scale of voter suppression he’s not the worst- he’s a 5 if the scale goes to 10.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    It blows me away that conservatives don’t take more heat for Texas and North Carolina. They intentionally discriminated against black and brown voters. Carefully crafted laws over months and months to try to stop certain citizens from voting.

    It’s appalling. But now it’s been normalized on the Right. It’s just business as usual. That’s a real erosion from even the 1990’s, when conservatives were at least still pretending they were pro-democracy. It’s not a mystery why it’s Texas and North Carolina, either. They’re terrified of non-white political power. AA in North Carolina and Latino in Texas.

  62. 62.

    debbie

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Usually spoken by the very people who refused to give the previous president a chance and actively hoped his presidency would fail. Then you get the current talking point: “But here and now…” as if simultaneously acknowledging and dismissing this fact.

  65. 65.

    debbie

    @Schlemazel:

    Is anyone really surprised that Sessions’s DOJ would side with the OH SoS on this. This is the guy who thinks he should be able to purge voters even more quickly.

  68. 68.

    Ohio Mom

    I made myself avacado toast: mash half an avacado, spread on whole wheat bread (which I did not toast, so maybe this isn’t authentic), with a dash each of salt and lemon juice. It was okay, the texture felt like cake frosting.

    I’m at the stage of boomerhood/encroaching oldsterhood that I am developing a morbid interest in what young people are doing these days.

  69. 69.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Husted is in my opinion the front runner for GOP governor candidate.

    Last week, it was reported he raised less than Jim Renacci, the Tea Party candidate.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I know you could repeat this every day, but Trump is such a liar. Yesterday he intimated that the opiate addiction crisis came about because of lax drug law enforcement. That’s not what happened. The opiate crisis came about because of legal drugs. They deliberately targeted certain populations with a huge influx of powerful painkillers. They sold enough opiate-based painkillers in Ohio to treat every man, woman and child 20 times over. The attorney general gives presentations with a map of the counties. The over-prescribing started ten years ago and you can watch each county turn red as it spread. They track prescriptions. There’s a record of every transaction. They KNOW this happened. The LEGAL drug industry created this crisis. Deliberately.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Maybe they’ll go with a lunatic again – they did vote for Trump- but Husted is the best of the bunch IMO. What do I know though- I thought they should have nominated Kasich for President and they hated him.

  72. 72.

    NotMax

    There must be a real humdinger of a story brewing beneath the surface.

    A Mormon church leader was removed from his post and kicked out of the religion Tuesday for the first time in nearly three decades.

    James J. Hamula was released from a mid-level leadership council based on disciplinary action by the religion’s highest leaders, said Eric Hawkins, a spokesperson for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

    Hawkins didn’t say why Hamula was ousted, but the Utah-based church said it was not for apostasy, which refers to teaching inaccurate doctrine or publicly defying guidance from church leaders. Source

  73. 73.

    Quinerly

    @JPL:
    Love fried avocado! If ever in Santa Fe, check out the fried avocado at El Farol on Canyon. Tapas place, low slung bar, seasonal changes on food. Supposedly the one of, if not the oldest bar in the country…bar there since the 1700’s. My friend remembers it having a dirt floor and pool tables in the 1970’s. Now somewhat upscale. Also, the the fattest WHITE anchovies I have ever seen if they happen to have them. Sometimes off menu item. Now I’m hungry.

  75. 75.

    Ohio Mom

    @Schlemazel: I think I told this story once: the people we bought the house from died in a car accident a couple of years after the sale.

    There was a stretch there when Ohio sent absentee ballots to every registered voter, whether they had asked for them or not. When theirs arrived, I called the board of elections and they told me they could not take the previous owners off the rolls unless someone brought them death certicates, or they hadn’t voted in two presidential elections.

    That seemed fair to me, shortening the time span does not. Many people only vote for president.

    We do have a very motley crew running for governor. I’d say, “Maybe they’ll cancel each other out,” but after the Republican presidential primary race, now I live in fear about who will rise to the top.

  80. 80.

    Quinerly

    @Central Planning:
    Yep. I got it and it didn’t even go to the spam folder first. Last name didn’t ring any bells but I know his street well. When are you heading to PKS? Are you in NC? We have another commenter here who has Carteret County connections. Met her and her mom and sister at the Ruddy Duck in Morehead on that May trip. Turned out her BIL was the public safety director in PKS for 20 plus years, and I knew him. Small world. How often are you down there? I’m back in October and then again in the spring. No Christmas trip this year. Will email you back a bit later. Thanks for reaching out. Have a great day

  81. 81.

    JPL

    Before six this morning, my phone issued an alert. I looked and it was only a flash flood warning. Phew!

  82. 82.

    Kay

    @Schlemazel:

    One thing that rural people do for their grown kids (which I see in my practice) is if they have some property or assets they pass it to the grown kids at the right time. So rather than wait until they die they give them some stake when they marry or move out or graduate college or get their first job. That makes a lot of sense. If you’re going to give it to them give it to them earlier, then they can take advantage of more time. I wonder if they have a longer view because many of them started with some boost from their parents- usually property- land. They have a better sense of generational transfer. So a larger down payment given at 25 means a smaller mortgage and less interest over 30 years…that sort of thinking. Generally you would want to get more into the hands of younger family members, earlier. You have to think of your family as a sort of ongoing enterprise though, and I’m not sure a lot of people do that.

  83. 83.

    Quinerly

    @NotMax:
    Thanks for the link. Interesting. I’ve been a bit suspicious of El Farol’s claim. It’s old but I suspect probably 1800’s. Eventually, I will make a trip to NYC. Never been.

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Gervais said he suspects that voters consider belief in God essential for morality and deem atheists “moral wildcards” who lack restraint and are capable of anything, including “kicking puppies, cheating at cards, light cannibalism”.
    …….
    Despite leading a life dedicated to the worship of mammon, Donald Trump was embraced by white evangelical voters, who accepted his declarations of devotion and saw him as preferable to church-going Clinton.

    Any Evangelical who remained in their cannibalistic church expressing moral superiority over little ole atheist me is risking death by speaking in my presence.

  88. 88.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Baud: I must not be a millennial then because I rarely eat avocados. I assume that’s a California hippy thing.

  90. 90.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Responding to a speech last Friday in which Clinton claimed Trump’s approach to foreign policy would endanger the US, [Susan] Sarandon said: “I believe in a way she’s more dangerous.”

    ***
    Speaking in an interview in the US, the actress warned: “I don’t know if she’s over compensating or what her trip is but that scares me. I think we’ll be in Iran in two seconds, it frightens me.”

    Trump is not the threat that some think he is, she argued.

    It’s like she’s Nostradamus, only in reverse.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Doesn’t it sound good, though? Just those two things together. Toast and anything, really.

    They do eat fancy food, the devil may care millennials. My son and his wife are always giving me exotic treats. Then they laugh at me because of the word “fancy” – they say “oh, FAN-cy!”

    We have a vacation house and I like to come after them because they leave Vietnamese coffee, things like that. Fizzy water! Yay! I won’t buy it but I’ll eat theirs.

  95. 95.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sm*t cl*de: As you can see on the chart, before this past week or two, Trump’s approval numbers had actually been pretty steady for months. One might have been able to imagine that the damage had been controlled.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    “I believe in a way she’s more dangerous.”

    The DANGER of Hillary Clinton. Please. She’s like a standard Methodist. They created this whole person who doesn’t exist. I love the “crimes” because they’re so fucking crazy. She’s a PEDOPHILE and a MURDERER. A SEX TRAFFICKER.

    She looks like my mother in law and she goes on and on about the earned income tax credit. They made this person they hate up. Invented an enemy. Hillary Clinton is not that exciting. She would have done a good job but that wasn’t enough. They required drama. Well, they got it.

  100. 100.

    Baud

    @Kay: This. It’s morbidly fascinating how so many American minds can’t handle the idea of Hillary.

  101. 101.

    bemused

    @Kay:

    JAMA recently reported about large percentage of opioid prescriptions after surgeries were unused. My husband only took two pills after hernia surgery, 28 still in the bottle. I didn’t pay attention to the amount when I picked up the prescription for him but we both thought prescribing 30 pills was overkill so to speak.

    Trump is a know nothing. The people who live in the areas with the worst addiction and overdose numbers sure know how so many of their loved ones, friends and neighbors became addicted. Trump calling those places drug infested dens is true in that the drug companies infested our communities but that isn’t how he perceives or portrays the issue. I still suspect he could be on something or prescribed something that he doesn’t want revealed.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    My husband plays tennis seriously- he’s on two leagues- and after all this time married his tennis mates convinced me to play. I’m a bad athlete, generally. So they suggested I play “pickle ball” which is like easier tennis. I went and played yesterday with women who are 20 years older than me and they kicked my ass. But I’m going back because now I have to beat them. One of them at least. The one with the tennis injuries who plays with all kinds of leg braces. The weakest link, as it were.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    @bemused:

    It’s just that it’s recognized. Our attorney general is a wingnut who will do literally anything to mollify his base and he’s the one giving these presentations I’m attending. My House member is Latta, he’s a far Right Republican and he’s a lawyer so he has to go to the same training I go to. I’ve seen him there. They know the cause of the opiate crisis. There’s no “debate” over what caused this. Two opiate producers caused it. When they couldn’t get the legal drugs anymore (because they closed down the ‘pain clinics’) they went to heroin. Heroin is actually cheaper.

  104. 104.

    Betty Cracker

    It’s unlikely, but wouldn’t it be great if the GOP attack on voting rights created this huge backlash that made people willing to jump through absurd hoops to get IDs they shouldn’t even need and willing to crawl through broken glass to vote in every single election? What if voting became a subversive act, a way to express defiance? What if the suppression efforts backfired so spectacularly that turnout reached 80% or so for even boring old city council races?

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    This is horrible but that’s why she shouldn’t have been the nominee. The myth is too set. You saw the coverage she got. They start with the assumption that she is doing something nefarious. It’s baked in. It’s not fair and it’s not her fault but it wasn’t just the far Left and the far Right. They treat her like a criminal.

    I didn’t know how bad it was but I have to say when I saw the NYTimes coverage Whitewater came flooding back and I thought “oh, THIS. I forgot about THIS”. It’s real and it’s a real problem.

  108. 108.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Haha! I’d never heard of pickle ball until my snowbird in-laws showed me a court at their retirement development, but it turns out it is commonplace in Florida among retirees. Kick that old lady’s butt!

  109. 109.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud:

    It’s morbidly fascinating how so many American minds can’t handle the idea of Hillary.

    Minds? That’s rather generous of you.

  110. 110.

    different-church-lady

    @bemused:

    Trump calling those places drug infested dens is true in that the drug companies infested our communities but that isn’t how he perceives or portrays the issue.

    Still, it was nice to see him admit that he only won the NH primary because the voters were drug-addled.

  112. 112.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think there’s almost a culture in political media of treating Hillary Clinton like a criminal. There is no “benefit of the doubt”. It’s decades now. It’s unfixable. It’s a bad marriage. There’s a whole history there. They attack, she defends, they attack her for defending. It’s irretrievably broken.

    The email wasn’t the harbinger. Benghazi was. There was nothing there but they trumped it up for two years. They believed she did something wrong and it was just a matter of finding it. That should have been the tip-off of what we were in for because there was nothing there.

  114. 114.

    zhena gogolia

    @Kay:

    Haha, that’s what my husband always says, “She’s a Methodist.” That’s like his go-to characterization of Hillary. Too bad that wasn’t a meme.

  116. 116.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    This is horrible but that’s why she shouldn’t have been the nominee. The myth is too set.

    I had assumed the left of center was ready for prime time and was strong enough to defeat our enemies. I was wrong. Too many of us turned out to be addicted to right wing hate culture. Still, it ended up being Comey who delivered the coup the grace. Almost.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    It’s fun – it’s more like ping pong than tennis. Still, I almost fell twice. I get over-enthusiastic. It’s going better than my attempt to learn to ski at 40 which was a disaster. I think you have to learn to ski as a child.

    The old ladies are really aging jocks- they all played something in high school and they all play or played tennis. You forget there are as many older women who played sports in their youth as there are men. They’re quieter about it “I was all-county in volleyball”, just casually mentioned :)

  119. 119.

    Weaselone

    @Kay:
    I’m not certain this is true just of Hillary though. It seems like all Democrats in power are guilty until proven innocent in the eyes of the press.

  120. 120.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: To be honest Kay, there is never anything there, no matter who they are attacking. We have become inured to it. What we could not overcome (I certainly was aware of the anti-Hillary bias) was the 20 years of BS with a fresh dollop of Comey just days before the election.

    ETA BS=bull shit, not wilmer tho some may not be able to tell the difference.

  121. 121.

    Amir Khalid

    @Kay:
    A basic playing tip. I hope it’s helpful.

    Take the racquet back as you run towards the path of the ball so that you’ll have plenty of time to make your stroke. Remember, power in the groundstroke is generated not so much by swinging your arm, but by planting your feet and turning your body. The arm swing is merely an extension of the body turn, and the purpose of the racquet is to steer the flight of the ball rather than to drive it. If you do the body turn fast enough, it is possible to pull your feet off the ground. If this happens, pay it no mind.

  122. 122.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Betty Cracker: That would be more than great. It’s exactly what is needed. If after all that the GOP has put us through (including putting a Mad Man in the White House), voters aren’t roused to get up and vote out every single Republican next November then I don’t know what would rev them up.

  125. 125.

    Amir Khalid

    @Kay:
    If Hillary shouldn’t have been the Democratic nominee last year, who should have? Wouldn’t the Republicans have demonised that person too?

  126. 126.

    Quinerly

    Book of Faces “memories” of one year ago is telling me that Trump suggested that the “2nd Amendment people might take out Hillary.” The Secret Service investigated. Washington Monthly and 535 had big pieces up talking about an EC landslide for HRC. She had opened up a double digit lead. Fake medical reports about HRC were being posted on Twitter. Trump was questioning her mental health. And Saint Bernie had just bought his third home. I miss last year.

  130. 130.

    MomSense

    Regarding the “Propaganda Document” Dolt45s lackeys give him every day. Doesn’t that sort of sound like a participation trophy/safe place for a special snowflake?

    WTF. That in combination with his fury and fire threats to North Korea are setting off all my warning lights.

    25th amendment time. This is bullshit.

  131. 131.

    bemused

    @Kay:

    That’s just it. Trump’s voters are recognizing it. They want more funds for their communities to fight the epidemic with addiction treatment, etc. I think people who realize drug companies to blame want them held accountable too. Instead Trump pounds on stronger drug laws enforcement. Just a day ago Price said no declaring national opioid addiction emergency because it doesn’t meet requirements, something, something. I just wonder how many Trump supporters are catching on that he’s not going to help them on this either.

  132. 132.

    Quinerly

    @Quinerly:
    And Book of Faces “memories” is telling me that 2 years ago today, women were tweeting and emailing Trump updates on their periods. He had just made the the Megyn Kelly remark. I miss two years ago.

  133. 133.

    satby

    @Amir Khalid:

    Wouldn’t the Republicans have demonised that person too?

    Of course they would have. Just like they’ve done to Pelosi, Harris, Obama….anyone. Being capable and Democratic is a crime worthy of the most vile smears. Clinton was a great candidate on her own merits, that the media has been able to slander her for years with nothing but anemic pushback from everyone who cares about facts in news is a national disgrace.
    And the left wing tools who parrot right wing propaganda should never say another word in public. They’ve lost the right to tell anyone else anything.

  134. 134.

    Peale

    @bemused: come on. We all know that it was the emptiness of white existence that caused them to turn to these drugs, which were all prescribed by Undocumented Guatemalan Gang Bangers posing as doctors when they weren’t murdering white women as part of their initiation rituals and stealing your job.

  135. 135.

    Quinerly

    Three years ago Michael Brown was murdered in Ferguson, Missouri. Our local NPR station has been covering the anniversary most of the morning. The mention of his name still makes me cry. I learned a lot about my born and bread St. Louis friends 3 years ago. Purges on FB, folks I knew 20 years that I don’t even acknowledge in public. St. Louis is still a very racist town.

  137. 137.

    Chris

    @Schlemazel:

    Agreed. I don’t want discipline in the White House and certainly not from someone like Kelly. Chaos is the least bad option.

  138. 138.

    Jeffro

    Hey everyone – good morning! Let this lighten up your day a bit: Sorry, Mike Pence, But You’re Doomed.

    The other day, from the Naval Observatory in Washington, you heard a howl of such volume and anguish that it cracked mirrors and sent small forest animals scurrying for cover. Vice President Mike Pence was furious. He was offended. Someone — namely, my Times colleagues Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns — had dared to call him out on the fact that he seemed to be laying the groundwork for a presidential bid.

    Problem No. 1: His president is still in the first year of his first term. Problem No. 2: That president is Donald Trump, who doesn’t take kindly to any glimmer that people in his employ are putting their vanity or agenda before his. Just ask Steve Bannon. Or Anthony Scaramucci. They were too big for their britches, and Trump snatched their britches away.

    The Times report put Pence in similar peril, so he pushed back with an operatic outrage that showed just how close to the bone it had cut. When a story’s actually wrong, you eviscerate it, exposing its erroneous assertions without ever breaking a sweat. When it’s a stink bomb at odds with your plotting, you set your jaw, redden your face and proclaim it “disgraceful,” never detailing precisely how.

    That was Pence’s route. And his rancor, I suspect, reflects more than the inconvenient truths that Martin and Burns told. It’s overarching. It’s existential. On some level, he must realize that he’s in a no-win situation. Without Trump he’s nothing. With Trump he’s on a runaway train that he can’t steer or brake. If it doesn’t crash, Trump can scream down the tracks straight through 2020. If it does, Pence will be one of the casualties.

    I’m going to email FB and see if he has ever heard the term, “Shit Midas” ;)

  139. 139.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    Don’t forget the stupendous college debt that millennials often have accumulated, which means that not only can they not save adequately for retirement, but they’re often starting out with a shit-ton of negative points that they have to make up for. For years, a ton of the money they earn will go down the black hole of debt repayment instead of being put down for their retirement, or used to buy a home or a car or just more groceries, y’know, the kind of things that actually are good for the economy.

  140. 140.

    bemused

    @Peale:

    Oh gawd, I’d laugh but there really is no bizarre, flaky conspiracy theory floated that wouldn’t instantly be believed in numbers that are horrifying.

  141. 141.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    It’s appalling. But now it’s been normalized on the Right. It’s just business as usual. That’s a real erosion from even the 1990’s, when conservatives were at least still pretending they were pro-democracy. It’s not a mystery why it’s Texas and North Carolina, either. They’re terrified of non-white political power. AA in North Carolina and Latino in Texas.

    Nothing but truth.

  142. 142.

    rikyrah

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    So here’s my thought of the morning – I’m seeing a lot of whining about him not being given a chance, being “obstructed” and those of us who oppose Him not wanting to see a “successful Trump presidency”.

    Which is why they are mad.

    They thought that we would have crumbled by now. They really don’t get it. Don’t understand. The paradigm has changed.

    I’ve said it before.
    This isn’t 2000.
    This isn’t even 2004, after Shrub lied us into two wars.
    There is something fundamentally altered, and so many in the MSM, and especially on the right, think that folks are playing with him.

    NO. We do not respect him.
    NO. We will not ‘respect him in the office.’

    Mainly because, as a human being, we find him disgusting.
    But, also, because we have 8 years of receipts of what you did to 44, and nobody is letting anything slide.

    And, yes, your vote for Dolt45 condemns you for YOUR lack of character.

  143. 143.

    Chris

    @Weaselone:

    True. The treatment of Republicans v. Democrats in politics is pretty much another case of the phenomenon minorities know well, the “you have to work twice as hard to make half as much” thing. Which isn’t surprising, since the Republican/Democratic divide in politics is basically the proxy for the white/nonwhite, male/female, and other cultural divides.

    Obama/Trump is probably the starkest contrast.

  145. 145.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    The opiate crisis came about because of legal drugs. They deliberately targeted certain populations with a huge influx of powerful painkillers. They sold enough opiate-based painkillers in Ohio to treat every man, woman and child 20 times over.

    yes yes yes yes yes
    Remember the story about the drug company that they found the documents of their plans to literally FLOOD West Virginia with those pills.

    It was disgusting. But, this is totally and completely a man-made ‘crisis’.

  146. 146.

    rikyrah

    @NotMax:

    There must be a real humdinger of a story brewing beneath the surface.

    A Mormon church leader was removed from his post and kicked out of the religion Tuesday for the first time in nearly three decades.

    I know when I read it, I was like WTF?

  148. 148.

    rikyrah

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    I’ve never even heard of avocado toast. I don’t know if that’s because I’m old or because I live in Iowa.

    I live in the big city and had never heard of it either. :)

  149. 149.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @satby:

    Of course they would have. Just like they’ve done to Pelosi, Harris, Obama….anyone.

    Especially anyones who aren’t white males. And the purity left would join in on the right-wing attacks because…purity.

  150. 150.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: Maybe they are emulating the Catholics and covering up sexual abuse of minors? It would be wrong not to speculaye?….

  152. 152.

    MomSense

    @Quinerly:

    I honestly don’t know. I think Pence is up to his lying eyeballs in the Russia/Mike Flynn/Manafort mess and I’m not sure that this helps him at all. I hope it’s the Mooch finally figuring out how delicious back stabbing can be.

  153. 153.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    Yes the opiate crisis was totally started by over prescribing legal drugs. The way it was tied in with Worker’s Comp (getting people back to work cheaper than longer term treatment), physician incentives, and Medicaid patients. Doctor’s don’t want a lot of visits with Medicaid patients because they don’t get paid as much. Physical therapists and specialists don’t want to spend multiple visits with them either. So they gave them 3 months worth of opiods and sent them on their way.

  154. 154.

    Quinerly

    @rikyrah:
    Poco is at school. Ivan ended his hunger strike this AM. Happy dance. John Lennon is fat and lazy…that will never change. All waving paws and tails back at BJ. Have a great day, everyone

  155. 155.

    Tenar Arha

    @rikyrah: @Iowa Old Lady: It’s probably because we’re not English. I would guess that avocados are less common in England so it’s a special treat? I only heard about it from the article in mid-May, & people were already making a meme of it in mockery by Memorial Day.

  156. 156.

    Applejinx

    @Schlemazel:

    That, in a nutshell, is the problem. The difficult part is, what’s the solution? How do you convince billionaire CEOs and Investors to take a little less and give a little more?

    Stop basing your political survival upon donations from them.

  158. 158.

    GregB

    Ivanka has done a wonderful job in keeping her father calm and leaning in towards liberal causes.

  159. 159.

    Quinerly

    @Patricia Kayden:
    I love the city. I’m glad law school brought me out here in 1982. I live in a wonderful, diverse historic neighborhood in a 1890’s Victorian that I have been restoring since 1993. It’s a great, progressive urban neighborhood….Soulard. A few blocks from AB Brewery…very walkable, great restaurants and bar scene. Live music 7 nights a week. A lot of people showed their true colors 3 years ago re Ferguson. They weren’t in my neighborhood. Enough said.

  160. 160.

    sheila in nc

    @Kay: Well, no, there aren’t quite as many. Remember that we 60-somethings were pre-Title IX. The women I know who are my age and who were varsity athletes did so at private schools. My highly regarded public high school in suburban DC didn’t have any varsity sports for girls until after I graduated. (Although we did have gym class, something that’s endangered at many cash-strapped high schools.) I did dancing in HS but never discovered my inner athlete until I had the opportunity to play rec softball in grad school. I’ve never looked back.
    Tennis is a great game for people of all ages and levels. My husband and I took it up about 10-12 years ago, and now it is my main social and exercise life. I play on and captain multiple teams every year. My husband retired from Federal service last year, turned around and trained/qualified as a USTA and college tennis official.

  161. 161.

    Dalai Rasta

    Anne Laurie:

    I had tried to update you on Bella and my father, but I haven’t been able to get through by email. I had tried to contact you via Contact a Front Pager, but I don’t know if you received my message.

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