Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Come on, man.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

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

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

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

Democrats are back in array!

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Heroes and Zeros (Open Thread)

Heroes and Zeros (Open Thread)

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I’m watching Chris Hayes while waiting for Rachel Maddow’s interview with Hillary Clinton at 9 pm. Hayes is interviewing Michael Moore. I’m so fucking sick of Michael Moore.

Moore did some good work in the 80s and 90s. I used to be a fan. But he’s been as stale as a popcorn fart for decades.

Apparently Moore has a Broadway show now. I’d rather sit through “Cats” as performed by Alvin and the Motherfucking Chipmunks.

My husband is something of a Bernie Bro. He voted for Sanders in primary. He’s not stupid; he voted for Clinton in the general and shares my horror and disgust with Trump.

But he hopes Sanders runs again, and he argues with me when I call Sanders a self-aggrandizing phony. When I mentioned I wanted to watch Maddow’s interview with Clinton, he rolled his eyes and said she’s just peddling a book.

When I responded (somewhat bitterly!) that no one seemed to object to Sanders peddling HIS book, and gosh, isn’t it something that Beltway pundits aren’t telling Sanders to sit down and shut up, he said, “Fine! We can watch your hero!”

I replied, “Hillary Clinton isn’t my hero.” And then I said, “Wait. You know what? Yes, she is. She is my hero.”

And I realized it was true. It wasn’t true in 2007 and 2008, when I was all in for Obama and sick of the Clintons and the sarcastic enemy of PUMAs online. But damn if it isn’t true now. Funny how life has its twists and turns.

Anyhoo, the mister dozed off while Moore was droning on, and regardless, the goddamn remote is mine. Looking forward to watching a conversation between two women I greatly admire.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

191Comments

  3. 3.

    PsiFighter37

    MAddow may be smart as a whip, but I still despise her for that ratings stunt on a page of Trump’s tax returns that she milked and overhyped.

  6. 6.

    TenguPhule

    It wasn’t true in 2007 and 2008, when I was all in for Obama and sick of the Clintons and the sarcastic enemy of PUMAs online.

    Sadly, some of those wounds did not heal by 2016.

    The Hill-bros did themselves no more favors then the Bernie-bros.

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    IMO, any adult human being around our age that has such an irrational response to someone who has been slagged on, attacked, the kitchen sink, everything, for forty years – when she has spent her entire adult life in public service and in the furtherance of human rights for women and children around the world…
    I am no longer sure that person should not be tagged with the “stupid” moniker.

  9. 9.

    toocanAnj

    Watching her reminds me what it is like to have a leader who can talk in complete sentences and understands complex issues.

  11. 11.

    hueyplong

    Wilmer was too old in 2016. And in this day and age, I’m highly suspicious of anyone who only wins caucuses and doesn’t win actual popular voting primaries.

    And this is all beside the point that he can’t be troubled to join the party whose nomination he seeks.

  15. 15.

    Davebo

    Had similar issues with the wife in 2008 when she loved Obama and I wasn’t sold. As usual, she was right. Still miffed though that she gave my contact details when she donated. I’ll never get off those lists and I can’t change my cell # or email address.

  16. 16.

    PhoenixRising

    I’m at the point where I will fight anyone who says anything critical about Hillz just because the attacks have been endless, pointless and without substance. Yes, I’m being reactive, but I don’t care. It’s ridiculous what she’s chosen to endure for the good of this country, and terrible that she’s got time to sell a book on Maddow.

    The fucking North Koreans are going to test one of these missiles into an airliner or ship, by accident, and Tangerine Twitler will be driving our response. She doesn’t and can’t forgive anyone who didn’t vote, and neither can I.

  21. 21.

    TenguPhule

    @Corner Stone:

    I am no longer sure that person should not be tagged with the “stupid” moniker.

    You’re doing the revolving negatives intentionally, aren’t you?

  22. 22.

    cmorenc

    @Betty Cracker:

    My husband is something of a Bernie Bro. He voted for Sanders in primary. He’s not stupid; he voted for Clinton in the general and shares my horror and disgust with Trump.

    Sanders is not really a phony – he’s more a prophet and true believer the US should be transformed to more resemble the mix of capitalism and socialism found in Scandinavia. Now, before you all scold me for calling Bernie a “prophet”. let’s visit the downsides often found in prophets: messianic egotism with a streak of narcissism, not much for being team players, and if they do happen to win executive power to attempt to put their visions into action – they’re often very bad at it (see: not team players, narcissism, etc.)

    Bernie would have frankly made a terrible President. Not bad in the same league as Trump, but would have created self-inflicted difficulties realizing his programs and goals, beyond just the fact that the GOP would have stayed even more constantly busy creating obstacles and vicious slander than they did with Hillary.

    As a movement leader, Bernie’s ok. As a potential retread Presidential candidate in 2020, I sense deja vu dread coming on already.

  26. 26.

    PPCLI

    @PsiFighter37: especially because it seems likely that the Trump people leaked it since it was a relatively innocuous year, and lacked all the documentation where the real info would be found. Maddow got played.

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    Say what you will, Moore’s limited run one-man Broadway thing is a hot ticket and has received glowing reviews.

  36. 36.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @NotMax:
    Yeah he called the election for Trump so jeopardy ciously has a bit more insight and intelligence than some people.

  39. 39.

    Corner Stone

    Not like it’s a big shock or anything, but HRC has every facet of Trump’s number nailed down.

  42. 42.

    danielx

    I’d rather sit through “Cats” as performed by Alvin and the Motherfucking Chipmunks.

    Today’s win for the intertubes.

  44. 44.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Iowa Old Lady: I almost never watch Rachel Maddow or any such shows, but I’m watching now. Holy shit Hillary is just fucking awesome. Smart, articulate, witty, not bitter. Wow.

  46. 46.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’ve probably mentioned before, maybe even more than once (!), that Michael Moore was one of my community producers when I worked for the NPR station in Flint, MI back in the 1970s.

    This was even before “Roger and Me.” Mike was always passionate, always weird. He took me to one of the GM plants for a few hours to watch the “shop rats” in action. We did a good interview with several of them during shift change. Mike was good even then, but as I had been hired in as “cultural affairs producer” for WFBE, it was not easy to connect with his working-man persona. I regret that now. My loss.

  52. 52.

    TenguPhule

    Is our Texans learning?

    The suburban Houston enclave of Meyerland has long presented a facade of prosperity and permanence.

    Built half a century ago on what had been rice fields, it totals more than 2,000 spacious homes, many with swimming pools, all set amid unfurling green lawns. In 1955, Vice President Richard M. Nixon attended the development’s ribbon-cutting. Michael Dell, the billionaire computer entrepreneur, grew up here.

    “Driving through Meyerland, it’s easy to envy those who are able to live in the neighborhood,” the Houston Press noted in a 2014 profile of the subdivision.

    Three major floods later — in 2015, 2016 and now with Hurricane Harvey — the envy is dissipating, replaced by the once-
    unthinkable idea that swaths of Meyerland ought to be abandoned and returned to nature.

    Beating a retreat from a thriving neighborhood is a rarity in U.S. urban history, but after Harvey, the notion is compelling enough in flood-prone communities that it has drawn support from leading planners in Houston. And exhausted by repeated inundations, some residents say they would welcome a government program to buy out their vulnerable homes.

    Valuation and funding would be the major issues here.

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SiubhanDuinne: that’s interesting. I was a huge Moore fan back in the 90s. The appeal started to fade, actually, with Fahrenheit 9/11, when he spent a good chunk of time on the 2000 election and, to my recollection, never mentioned his own role in it, or even Nader.

    Mike was always passionate, always weird.

    and once very funny

  56. 56.

    PhoenixRising

    @Major Major Major Major: yeah, Rachel’s in drag now, not clear how you’d build from that. If you see any images from her life/family, her statements about the shift from radio to TV requiring her to become a female impersonator ring true. Been there: ‘Well, I guess my problem with the required outfit is that I look like a boy in a dress, but you can require me to do that if it’s important to you.’

  61. 61.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Who knows. But if we start putting that Lin Manuel-Miranda did the music in comments here, then Mnem will want to see it.

  64. 64.

    jl

    I’m tired of Michael Moore too, at least in interviews. His movies are still good and useful.
    On the other hand, not sure what is wrong with “Cats” as performed by Alvin and the Morherfucking Chipmunks.
    Is that just me? I am sorry. Second time I have to apologize to this blog today.

    Neither Hilary nor Bernie are heroes to me. The are politicians who ran for president and the first test on presidenting was if they could win. And that didn’t turn out the way I had hoped.

    I don’t particularly want either of them to run again in 2020. Unless one of them shows that they have the best chance of winning among the Democrats.
    If that evidence appears, then run, you crazy dang kids, run! I don’t think Hillary is inherently unlikable. I think she seriously misjudged what the public wanted on policy and tone, and that was the biggest problem, and I think that problem leaked into some of the mechanics of her electoral strategy. But, she still won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes.

    But I doubt evidence will arise that either are obvious choices to run, and think that there must be some others who can develop into politicians who can reliably win, like Big Dawg and Obama have in the past. And I hope we can do better in state elections.

  65. 65.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @Iowa Old Lady: I didn’t much care for her a couple years ago, but she’s become one of my favourite people in the world (despite disagreements with some of her political stances), and in particular, she’s a much more gracious and selfless person than I’ll ever hope to be.

  67. 67.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    But the show is about much more than simply Trump-bashing, although the president, whose glowering visage at one point is projected in the background like Big Brother incarnate, certainly gets his lumps. Moore does attempt to galvanize the audience into action, telling them they must act as a “swarm of bees” to relentlessly oppose Trump, and encouraging them to call their congressional representatives with the help of the website http://www.5calls.org (happy to provide the free publicity here).

    Smart enough not to fall into the trap of simply preaching to the choir, Moore makes the evening partly autobiographical. He recounts the hilarious story of how he inadvertently became a political activist at age 17 when he wrote an essay lambasting the Elks Club for allowing only Caucasian members. It attracted national media attention and even led to a congressional hearing that resulted in legislation forbidding private organizations from racial discrimination. That the teenage Moore’s love of Ruffles potato chips figures prominently in the proceedings only adds to the fun.

    Not long after, Moore received a thrashing from his high school vice principal for the sin of walking through the halls with his shirt untucked. After finding out that all he needed to run for a seat on the local Board of Education was 20 signatures, Moore promptly ran and won (the photo we see of the long-haired teenager posing with his unsmiling fellow members is priceless). Another anecdote, involving his traveling with a friend to Bitburg, Germany, in 1984 to protest Ronald Reagan’s visit to a cemetery containing the graves of dozens of SS members, proves alternately harrowing and amusing, with Moore again providing photographic evidence of his youthful political engagement.

    But the evening, cleverly staged by Michael Mayer, is not just an illustrated lecture. It has a vibrantly theatrical, variety-show atmosphere, complete with a stand-up comedy routine in which Moore points out the absurdities of TSA screenings (featuring a riotous sight gag) and a mock game-show in which he quizzes a U.S. and a Canadian audience member about their respective knowledge of each other’s countries.

    There’s also a segment involving a different guest at every performance… Source

    Links to other reviews here.

    NY acquaintances inform that tickets almost never show up at the half-price booths.

  68. 68.

    TenguPhule

    Trump’s inflammatory Air Force One gaggle, annotated

    Yeah, I think Wapo just likes fucking with us.

    “[Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and I] had a great talk yesterday. I think especially in light of the advent of Antifa, if you look at what’s going on there. You have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also, and essentially that’s what I said. Now because of what’s happened since then with Antifa, when you look at really what’s happened since Charlottesville, a lot of people are saying, and people have actually written, ‘Gee, Trump may have a point.’ I said there’s some very bad people on the other side also. But we had a great conversation. And he has legislation, which I actually like very much, the concept of which I support, to get people into certain areas and building and constructing and putting people to work. I told him yesterday that’s a concept I can support very easily.”

    This is Trump quadrupling down on the controversial “both sides” and “many sides” comments he made after a white supremacist allegedly killed a woman and wounded many others by driving into a crowd of counterprotesters. Those comments were decried even by Republicans and criticized by his own staff — both privately and publicly, in the case of chief economic adviser Gary Cohn — who saw it as playing down the role of white supremacy.

    “We’ve had bigger storms than this.” (He cited bigger storms in the 1910s, 1930s and 1940s.)

    This is a far cry from what Trump has been saying for weeks. He has at times almost gleefully pointed to the supposedly unprecedented sizes of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

    “She’s not supposed to be doing that, and what she did was wrong. We’ve been saying that. It’s just the tip of the iceberg. She wasn’t supposed to be doing that — the unmasking and the surveillance. I heard she admitted that yesterday.”

    Rice, who served as President Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor, told Congress this week that she unmasked — or asked for the redacted identities of — Trump aides in intelligence reports to learn what the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was doing in New York last year. Trump’s allies have argued that this unmasking was outside Rice’s purview and that it may have even constituted spying on the Trump campaign.

    Their claims are highly questionable, and Trump saying “what she did was wrong” is taking plenty of liberties. He also seems to be suggesting, with his “surveillance” and “tip of the iceberg” comment, that he might still believe he was spied upon by the Obama administration. And so another long-dormant controversy may have new life.

    “If the Republicans don’t stick together, then I’m going to have to do more and more. By the way, the Republican Party agrees with me. The people out there definitely agree with me. If they’re unable to stick together, then I’m going to have to get a little help from the Democrats. And I’ve got that, and I’ll tell you, for the tax bill, I would be very surprised if I don’t have at least a few Democrats.” (He added that he won some states by 30 points where Democrats are running.)

    This is a pretty strong threat issued to the congressional GOP.

    “You’ll see what I’m going to be doing very shortly in October. The Iran deal is one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen. Certainly, at a minimum, the spirit of the deal is atrociously kept. The Iran deal is not a fair deal to this country. It’s a deal that should not have ever been made. … We are not going to stand what they are doing with our country. They’ve violated so many different elements, and they’ve also violated the spirit of that deal.”

    Two months ago, Trump’s State Department certified Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal. If they have violated it, Trump’s administration hasn’t said how.

    The lowlights of an already lowered bar.

  69. 69.

    Jersey Tomato

    I love Hillary, too. Does she have faults? No more so than any other politician. Yes, she’s too cautious and sometimes calculating. Yes, the cattle futures thing was probably just on the right side of legal. Yes, she triangulates and sometimes that leads her to doing foolish things, like voting to authorize use of military force in Iraq. But you know what? In terms of politicians, that practically makes her eligible for sainthood. No one would hold stuff like that against male politicians to the same degree. The crazy character assassination she has put up with is mind boggling, and it infuriates me when liberals say “well, she was a bad candidate because rightly or wrongly, she had too much baggage.” Great, so we’re supposed to cede the selection of our candidates to our opponents, choosing only the ones they haven’t chosen to drag through the mud?

    She’s also put up with a metric assload of bullsh*t from the press, which targeted her in a way they have never targeted any male politician, even (especially?) Trump. I remember the night she was first elected Senator. Even though she beat him like a drum, her opponent refused to concede before the 11:00 news came on, so she went out and gave her victory speech without waiting any longer. Brian William (Yep, that lying sack of sh*t) commented on air that she “didn’t have the decency” to wait for her opponent’s concession, and then said “but when was Hillary Clinton ever concerned about common decency?” I supported her first run for President because I thought she was tougher then Obama, for whom I ultimately voted and came to greatly admire, but the vitriol that supposedly liberal commentators, like Tweety Matthews and even Keith Olbermann, displayed toward her was incredible.

    Se is so tough, and brilliant, so hardworking and she would have been a great President. So, to end my wall-o-text: love ya, Hillary. Don’t go away, don’t sit down and don’t shut up. .

  73. 73.

    kindness

    Household primacy is now based on who controls the remote.

    I liked Bernie’s appeal more than I liked Bernie. He’s a crusty old fart. He still is.

  74. 74.

    NoraLenderbee

    She’s my hero, and my President, too.
    Fuck everyone who hates women, especially women way smarter and stronger than they’ll ever be.

  75. 75.

    Davebo

    @TenguPhule: There was a story recently of a 4000 + sq ft home in Meyerland that was raised almost 6′ just after Harvey at a cost of over 300k. Can’t imagine the home, had it never flooded, would be worth more than 450K. Can’t find the story now but apparently it was planned before Harvey and paid for through a federal grant.

    Bottom line, with it’s location, Meyerland isn’t going to be abandoned.

  76. 76.

    Corner Stone

    @jl:

    The are politicians who ran for president and the first test on presidenting was if they could win.

    What a garbage take.

  79. 79.

    TenguPhule

    @Jersey Tomato:

    and it infuriates me when liberals say “well, she was a bad candidate because rightly or wrongly, she had too much baggage.”

    I have to point out in all fairness that some of this did stem from her failed 2008 run. Some of it was legitimate concerns from what was at the time considered a relatively ugly primary.

  81. 81.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Baud:

    Hillary’s not running again. Even those of us who admire her aren’t asking her to run.

    I’d be happy to see her become a full time troll. Right wingers could never keep up with her. She’s too smart and honest for them.

  83. 83.

    jl

    @Baud: Yes, I know. I just wanted to make the point that being able to win elections is very important to me. And make the point that the media garbage CW on Hillary Clinton is garbage, and I wish she had been less apologetic and just dismissed it. I think her supposed character, charisma, and personality problems followed from her misjudgments on what the public wanted to see a politician say and do in 2016. If she had judged that better, she could have just ignored the CW media nonsense, and I don’t think people would have cared very much.

  94. 94.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steve in the ATL: War of 1812.

    More seriously, when I was assigned at USAWC we had a faculty member there who just wouldn’t retire. He was at the Military History Institute. Must have been in his late 70s. Real smart guy. Military historian. Retired colonel. We always used to joke that he was so good at US military history because he first served during the Revolutionary War.

  95. 95.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @Jersey Tomato: The bullshit she’s had to go through in the past couple years has simultaneously greatly increased my opinion of her and greatly decreased my opinion of far too many other people to mention.

    @Baud: I wouldn’t ask her to run again either but a rather large part of me thinks that if she doesn’t somehow end up in the office of president after all this bullshit, it’ll be a major injustice. If I were scripting this for Hollywood (which I wouldn’t; it’s been way too implausible) I’d have her appointed Speaker after Dems retake the House; then Twitler and Dense get thrown out for their collusion with Russia and she becomes president. Not gonna happen, but it’d surely be a better ending than we’ll probably actually get.

  96. 96.

    Starfish

    It’s like you live in my house, Betty.

    I live in a caucus state, and I did not bother to vote in the caucuses. My husband went to feel the Bern. He dislikes how the Bernie people are on the internet but was saying something about Clinton being divisive for having a book.

    I feel like my support for her has increased since the election as I see dudes dismiss her valid critiques of what went wrong in the process. She wasn’t an ideal candidate, but treating a person who won 3 MILLION more votes as a losing loser who needs to go away is ridiculous.

    I don’t think that my husband wants Bernie to run again, but I feel like a lot of the work on the side of the Democratic party now is being done by women. And men do not quite realize that the same old nonsense is not going to be acceptable.

    So I find myself sharing this defense of Clinton and talking about feminist issues with people that I normally wouldn’t because this attempt to treat feminists as the root of all evil is going too far.

  103. 103.

    Jersey Tomato

    @TenguPhule: Granted. I know people feel strongly about her 2008 run, and she’s not above criticism for some of the things she/Bill said or did, but we can’t pretend that her 2008 run was the sole cause of the absolutely poisonous reaction to her on the part of some people. .

  104. 104.

    Old Broad in California

    Hillary is my hero. She reminds me of the crap professional women (myself included) had to endure in the ’70’s, ’80’s, and still today, to be respected and taken seriously- from the excess scrutiny of what we wore, to whether our voices were “too shrill”, to whether our natural bodily functions somehow made us unfit.

    She has risen above so much venom directed at her with class and grace. It’s a crying shame that she’s not our President.

    (End of rant)

  105. 105.

    NotMax

    Baking cheater’s* onion bread. House smells so-o-o good.

    *Using Lipton’s onion soup mix in the dough.

  108. 108.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @TenguPhule:

    “You’ll see what I’m going to be doing very shortly in October. The Iran deal is one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen. Certainly, at a minimum, the spirit of the deal is atrociously kept. The Iran deal is not a fair deal to this country. It’s a deal that should not have ever been made. … We are not going to stand what they are doing with our country. They’ve violated so many different elements, and they’ve also violated the spirit of that deal.”

    Two months ago, Trump’s State Department certified Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal. If they have violated it, Trump’s administration hasn’t said how.

    WTF is this supposed to mean? Go for it Donny. Declare Iran out of compliance. Watch your best buddy Putin shiv you in the back over this and all the other signatories ignore you. Fucking loser.

  109. 109.

    SFAW

    Betty –
    I’m truly not making light of, nor fun of, your statement, but all I could think of, vis-a-vis Hillary is your hero, was Dudley Do-Right saying to Nell Fenwick (after she saves his sorry butt yet again) something along the lines of “Oh, Nell, you are my heroine (pronounced heh-row-WEEN)!” And I could hear Bill Scott saying it.

    In any event, I don’t know too many people who could put up with the shit that’s been dumped on her for more than 25 years, and still be the great person that she is.

    Fuck Rupert Murdoch, fuck Mitch McConnell, fuck Pinch Sulzberger, fuck Paul Ryan, fuck Lying Littledick, (and, in the interest of conserving space) fuck the Republicans in general.

  112. 112.

    ArchTeryx

    @jl: Let’s just sit you down and put you through a few repeats of that. I guarantee that before you’re halfway through the first repeat, you’ll be reduced to either a) gibbering insanity, or b) begging to be locked in a closet with Pennywise the Dancing Clown instead.

  113. 113.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    Spanish American. Or maybe Russo-Japanese. They all run together.

    Thanks be to FSM! I was worried you were going to say Agincourt or something like that.

  116. 116.

    Nicole

    She’s my hero. I didn’t just want a woman President, I wanted her as President, because she really did deserve the job. In the first days right after, what had me torn in pieces was the sheer unfairness of it all- not only did she lose to a reality TV star and grifter, she DIDN’T lose- our antiquated slave-state-favoring-system took her popular vote victory away.

    But then, Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton devoted their lives to the cause of women’s suffrage, and neither of them lived to see the 19th Amendment. Clinton is not the first woman to have not seen something she deserved to see, and she won’t be the last.

    Molly Ivins wrote about how for southern liberals, it comes down to race- I’m paraphrasing, but she wrote about growing up in the pre-Civil Rights south, and seeing separate drinking fountains in her white neighborhood, and being told not to drink from the fountain marked “Coloreds” because “it’s dirty, dear.” When she could see, plain as day, that it was sparkling clean, while the fountain marked “Whites” was covered in spit and chewing gum. As she put it, once you realize grownups are lying to you about one thing, you wonder what else they’re lying to you about. I felt the same way as a young woman when Clinton came on the national scene. She would say something, and the media would spin it as something that I knew full well wasn’t right- I especially remember how indignant the media was that a First Lady would give a speech at the UN and be so political about what she said, and thinking, “But there was nothing wrong about what she said! Women’s rights are human rights!”

    So, you know, once I realized they were lying about that in regards to Clinton, I started wondering what else they were lying about in regards to her. A whole heck of a lot, as it turned out. And continues to turn out.

  117. 117.

    Davebo

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Had a CMC at Atkron-72 who was authorized by the CNO to wear female service stripes because it was the only way they’d all fit on his sleeve, yet they were red.

    I think it was at 32 years he finally retired and he didn’t last 6 months afterwards.

    ETA: Oops, that was at FASTOTRAGRULANT DET JAX. Give me a break, it’s been 30 years.

  120. 120.

    jl

    @ArchTeryx: Not sure whether you are talking about Alvin and the Chipmunks or the rest of my comment.

    If my comment on Hillary Clinton is dumb, it’s too late to have it yanked, so that’s too bad. It expresses my thoughts and I don’t want to argue about it.

    Would be interesting to see how long I could last through the chipmunk ‘Cats’ though.

  121. 121.

    Jersey Tomato

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Absolutely. But I think we have to ask why those memes were taken up so eagerly by people who consider themselves to be liberals. I know a lot of critics who are supposedly on the left are, in fact, bots or wingnut trolls, and my response to them is that Hillary Clinton’s toenail clippings are of more consequence than they will ever be. But there are enough liberals who have allowed themselves to be convinced that Hillary is Satan incarnate that I have to just shake my head.

  123. 123.

    Frankensteinbeck

    It wasn’t true in 2007 and 2008

    A lot has happened since then. Hillary earned her hero status.

    @jl:

    If she had judged that better, she could have just ignored the CW media nonsense

    I disagree. What I saw, and still see, is that hardly anyone knows anything Hillary actually did, only what the media imagines she did. There is no winning that game, so any plausible strategy is as good as any other.

  125. 125.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @Jersey Tomato: I think misogyny is so deeply ingrained in our society that even a lot of people who think of themselves as feminists have internalised a lot of its framing. People I know aren’t trolls (because I’ve known them for years) and aren’t exactly regressive on women’s issues still wound up falling for a rather depressing amount of right-wing framing about Clinton. Mostly, I think the cause is that we don’t notice misogyny the way a fish doesn’t notice water. We often have to be trained to notice it. It’s basically what @Nicole says above.

  126. 126.

    ArchTeryx

    @jl: Alvin and the Motherfucking Chipmunks. The rest of the comment was just fine – political opinions are just standard snarling jackal territory round here, but AatMC playing CATS is a concept that deserves to get locked in a closet with Pennywise.

  127. 127.

    sheila in nc

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    “If she had judged that better, she could have just ignored the CW media nonsense”

    “I disagree. What I saw, and still see, is that hardly anyone knows anything Hillary actually did, only what the media imagines she did. There is no winning that game, so any plausible strategy is as good as any other.”

    This, this, this.

  130. 130.

    magurakurin

    @PhoenixRising:

    The fucking North Koreans are going to test one of these missiles into an airliner or ship, by accident

    an accident like this?

    The Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision was a ship collision between the United States Navy (USN) Los Angeles-class submarine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) and the Japanese-fishery high-school training ship Ehime Maru (えひめ丸) from Ehime Prefecture on 9 February 2001, about 9 nautical miles (17 km) off the south coast of Oahu, Hawaii, United States. In a demonstration for some VIP civilian visitors, Greeneville performed an emergency ballast-blow surfacing maneuver. As the submarine shot to the surface, she struck Ehime Maru. Within 10 minutes of the collision, Ehime Maru sank. Nine of the people on board were killed: four high-school students, two teachers, and three crewmembers.

    I live in Japan. I occasionally surf in the Sea of Japan (it’s the left coast for me, I’m on the Pacific side.) Korea is close enough that you will always find trash on the beach with Hangul writing as if floats over the sea. North Korea is a shithole of epic proportions. A nightmare regime that more or less proves that if there is a God he is a spiteful dick who really just likes to fuck with people. The whole problem on the Korean peninsula is a festering shit storm of unresolved problems that only seems to worsen with each passing year. But the odds of someone getting hurt by one of NK’s missile test has to be amazingly low. I am far more worried about the US initiating some ill-advised first strike under the leadership of our Asshole in Chief.

    And for us, any of us US citizens, screaming about the dangers of military accidents to civilians around the world…that’s pretty rich.

  134. 134.

    Gvg

    @Nicole: I remember the attacks on her as First Lady and realizing Limbaugh’s attacks seemed like an attack on my mother. There was nothing wrong with her the way I was raised, by both parents, and she was being attacked in ways that were just rude and unfair. Basically media and polititian’s were saying things that weren’t allowed in polite company and showing young me what crude barbarians they were.
    I didn’t think she was a hero then, just normal. And it shocked me how the “other side” behaved. As Trump has exposed some peoples moral rot, she held a mirror up to some people long before without intending too. My life has not had many encounters with actual chauvinism, Hillary’s story was one of the few times I really noticed it.

  135. 135.

    Aleta

    Moore lost me for good when he thought he needed to get out front on stage at the march in Washington. Sanders lost me most recently when he put out a health plan (good) w/o bothering about rational financing — seemed like the intent was “get people on board my boat for now; we’ll figure out how to mend the sails and repair the engine later.” I could be wrong.

  137. 137.

    -ly Ballou

    Down to their last strike and down 2-1 in the bottom of the 9th, the Indians tie it up on an RBI double by Lindor, then walk it off in the 10th on a Jay Bruce HR to extend their streak to 22.

  139. 139.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Aleta: via Dave Weigel’s twitter (and he wrote up the article) here’s some proposals, in the form of a “white paper”, whatever the hell that means.. I skimmed this over last night and I have no idea how complete a picture this is, waiting for some wonks I trust to weigh in

    The six-page document assumes that “our federal government could save up to $500 billion per year” if most insurance was replaced by universal Medicare, waving away more than a third of the yearly cost expected by Republicans.
    The taxes themselves would fall on both employers and employees. Sanders floats the idea of a 7.5 percent tax on employers — who would no longer be footing a bill for employee health care — with one workaround. “As workers shift into the new system, employers will be required to pay either 75 percent of what they are currently paying for health care costs for each of their employees who enroll in Medicare for All, or the 7.5 percent payroll tax, whichever is higher,” he writes.
    Another tax, of 4 percent, would hit individuals, o    n the theory that they would end up saving money relative to the cost of premiums. “A typical family of four earning $50,000, after taking the standard deduction, would pay a 4 percent income-based premium to fund Medicare for All — just $844 a year — saving that family over $4,400 a year,” writes Sanders. Families below the poverty line would pay no net new tax.

  140. 140.

    Aleta

    @Frankensteinbeck: Saw that happen even w/ my two good friends who do incredible work. One had no idea until summer 2016 that the program that made possible her job of 10+ years (getting resources for hearing impaired kids and parents in low income families) came from Senator Clinton’s initiative for children’s health.

  142. 142.

    TS

    @jl:

    misjudgments on what the public wanted to see a politician say and do in 2016

    She assumed the electorate wanted a sane informative intelligent president – she didn’t assume that over 40% of the electorate were dumb, racist to the core and misogynist as well.
    Seems that was what she did wrong.

  148. 148.

    tobie

    @Aleta: DKos’ health expert Brainwrap feels that the rush to propose a Medicare for All bill actually helped propel the Graham Cassidy healthcare proposal which now has a chance of passing and torpedoing Obamacare. For tactical reasons it would have been better to wait till the deadline for all reconciliation bills had passed to propose this legislation. And for strategic reasons it would have been better to propose a bill that actually took account of financing. Someone will have to pay. Healthcare’s not cheap. I met with a German acquaintance this evening, who told me that in keeping with German law she pays 900 Euros/month for public health insurance and her employer pays 900 Euros/month. This amounts to a total of 21,600 Euros/year. A Medicare 4 All bill without a financing mechanism is grandstanding and nothing else.

  149. 149.

    Aleta

    Scott Dworkin @funder. 1h
    #BREAKING: Sarah Huckabee Sanders Hit With Ethics Complaint Over Call for ESPN to Fire Jemele Hill #FireSarah #AMJoy

  151. 151.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @tobie: who told me that in keeping with German law she pays 900 Euros/month for public health insurance and her employer pays 900 Euros/month.

    Wow, that shocks me. I would’ve thought individual poemiums would be a lot lower.

  153. 153.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Davebo: I know a number of retirees that can handle being retired. They’re either now DOD or Service civil servants or contractors. They just can’t let go.

  155. 155.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    The gentleman who ran the (know I’m getting the precise title of the office wrong, but the concept is there) office of strategic planning was into his 90s when he retired not all that long ago. Also universally respected for his acumen at the position which, if memory serves, he had held uninterrupted since the Carter administration.

  156. 156.

    jl

    @TS: Could be. A lot of people were pissed off, and for reasons that I don’t have much sympathy with, since a lot of that was poorly informed self-indulgent anger, IMHO. That was the mood for enough voters to have an impact.

  157. 157.

    magurakurin

    @tobie:

    yep.

    I live in Japan. My wife and I currently pay 54,000 yen a month for National Health Insurance here. The plan has a 30% copay across the board…it does include dental though. We both also have supplemental private insurance company plans that provide for gaps in cancer treatment coverage and hospitalization. That amounts to another 12,000 yen a month. It’s about 800,000 yen a year or around 7,200 dollars. Plus whatever we pay for in the copay. I’m not complaining by any means…but ain’t nothin’ free in this world.

  158. 158.

    tobie

    @Aleta: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: It was actually quite illuminating to talk to someone well-versed in the German healthcare system. Apparently the requirement in Germany is that the employer and employee each pay 50% of the healthcare tab. Self-employed people are on the individual market where you have a mix of public and private options. Cost-sharing subsidies exists for low wage earners. The one perverse twist in the German system is that only high wage earners are allowed to purchase private health insurance, which is far cheaper than public insurance for an unexpected reason. Consumers of private insurance don’t have to subsidize the insurance for low wage earners; this falls to the people in the highest wage category in the public system. My acquaintance is in the uncomfortable position of earning too little to qualify for private insurance but too much to get any discounts for public insurance. Still she’s grateful for the full coverage, and I gather her out-of-pocket expenses are quite limited.

  159. 159.

    Ruckus

    @Nicole:

    She’s my hero. I didn’t just want a woman President, I wanted her as President, because she really did deserve the job. In the first days right after, what had me torn in pieces was the sheer unfairness of it all- not only did she lose to a reality TV star and grifter, she DIDN’T lose- our antiquated slave-state-favoring-system took her popular vote victory away.

    I agree. And easily worth repeating.

  160. 160.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Correction of omission:

    Pentagon’s (know I’m getting the precise title of the office wrong, but the concept is there) office of strategic planning

  162. 162.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: One of my mom’s cousins (who was like a sister to her as they grew up) married a guy who ended up an FA LTC. He came to my OCS graduation and personally swore me in as an army officer. He retired at 24 years (he wasn’t likely to go higher; as opposed to my dad’s ring knocker cousin who was hitting all the marks for a star but then got divorced. He chose retirement and a GS job at DoD rather than a gig in Korea away from his kids.). Back to the original story, the guy taught JROTC for another 20 years. And now he goes to bass fishing tournaments. He has never been home.

  163. 163.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: Yep. I’m not arguing the guy should have retired, just stating he didn’t. The funniest thing about this was at an all hands meeting when Training and Doctrine Command, despite there not being a reduction in force order to do so, ordered USAWC to go through the process of determining how they’d conduct a reduction in force (which they then used to reduce USAWC’s faculty by ten even though there still was not a reduction in force order in place), he asked a question about the requirements for early retirement. Several of us, in a variety of stage whispers, pointed out he’d been eligible for early retirement since the Battle of Verdun.

  168. 168.

    Jersey Tomato

    Ugh. Watching Brian Williams now. His first question to his guests re: Hillary Clinton was if they found her tone during the Maddow interview more “strident” than usual. Then he followed up with “of course, everybody asks, where was this Hillary Clinton during the campaign?” You weren’t interested in that Hillary Clinton during the campaign, Brian, you reverse-raccoon-eyed idiot.

  175. 175.

    joel hanes

    @TenguPhule:

    the once-unthinkable idea that swaths of Meyerland ought to be abandoned and returned to nature.

    Iowa has been getting wetter because of climate change.
    After two major floods and two minor, my own small hometown condemned and demolished two old graceful streamside neighborhoods, and will never allow rebuilding on that flood plain. It’s parkland now.

  176. 176.

    Ruckus

    Just saw this from a blog I check about every 5 or 6 months. Alternate Brain

    Trump Finding Himself More Isolated in White House
    Whenever he takes a shower, all the toilets get flushed.

  177. 177.

    Eljai

    @Jersey Tomato: I just got home from work on the west coast and am watching the rerun of Rachel’s interview with Hillary and I do not detect a speck of strident tone. What I hear is the highly intelligent opinions of someone who would have been a fine president. Brian Williams is a dimwit who is not fit to shine Hillary’s sensible pumps. Also, have you noticed how he uses the word “germane” a lot? It’s like it showed up one day in his word-a-day calendar and now he has to use it in every other sentence.

  180. 180.

    omnes omnibus

    @Mart: A lot of us identify as liberals not lefties. And I remember 2000 when he was saying that there is no difference between Gore and Bush.

  182. 182.

    Steve in the ATL

    @omnes omnibus:

    A lot of us identify as liberals not lefties.

    Yup.

    And I remember 2000 when he was saying that there is no difference between Gore and Bush.

    Double yup. Fuck that guy.

  185. 185.

    cosima

    @Starfish: That piece you shared from Medium is 100 kinds of amazing.

    I’ve whittled down my social circle (easier now that I live in the UK, though I did the same when we lived in Denver) to remove any hint of pro-MAGA folk, even family who support him get the cold shoulder from me. However, the ones who feel (or felt) the Bern still need a stern talking to now & then, and this piece may actually inform them. Perhaps not coincidentally many of them are men, though, and there is a lot in there about the female experience that they may not take on board — I’ll remain hopeful for those that have daughters & wives that they do.

  186. 186.

    cckids

    @Steve in the ATL:

    I’d be happy to see her become a full time troll. Right wingers could never keep up with her. She’s too smart and honest for them.

    I know the thread’s long dead, but I so agree with this. I’d love for Hillary to embrace the “Texts from Hillary” persona, and just live NFLTG, out there 24/7, or as often as she wants to. Let that intellect loose with zingers on DT and his deplorables every. fucking. day.

  188. 188.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    I’m right there with you Betty. HRC wasn’t a hero to me before the election. But reading accounts of what she’s really like from staffers, seeing how she handled herself through the epic futons of sexism that were hurled at her, and most importantly, seeing all the little girls whose faces lit up when they met her or who went to polling stations with their parents to be a part of history…anyone wants to dismiss that, shut that up, make that go away etc., is being completely disrespectful to those moments and those millions of inspired people.

  191. 191.

    r€nato

    Disagree strongly re: Moore: “Where To Invade Next” was masterful and exposed how brainwashed Americans are into believing the American way of doing things is the best way and the only way. It’s difficult from inside this country to perceive how deeply influenced is America for the worse, by Puritanism and Calvinism.

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