Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

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

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Second rate reporter says what?

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

The willow is too close to the house.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Consistently wrong since 2002

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Open Thread: Heck of A PR Job, Repubs!

Open Thread: Heck of A PR Job, Repubs!

by | 264 Comments

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By the time this posts, Trump will probably have said some equally infuriating, hateful things about the mass casualty event in Las Vegas. But still…

Even the Mad Bitcher is getting an uncomfortable sensation in his exquisitely tuned antennae!

It’s not just “optics”…



Confirmation of Not-Normality from a professional:

Reader Interactions

264Comments

  1. 1.

    germy

    I watched NBC and CBS evening news. They briefly covered his visit to Puerto Rico, and interviewed several residents who said they liked him. They showed a cheering crowd. The paper towel tossing was shown very briefly, but they didn’t comment on it. The people he’s tossing the towels to are for the most part smiling and laughing. I’m sure a few were pissed off, but they’re not evident from that clip. It looks like a party.

    My point is, the average voter; the person who doesn’t read The Hill or comment on Balloon-Juice or NoMoreMisterNice blog, etc. sees the news report and thinks “Okay, he visited and the people seem happy” and leaves it at that.

    I hope his base continues shrinking. From what I understand, it is.

  2. 2.

    prob50

    Hey, it’s not just paper towels, don’t forget Trump also dedicated the President’s Cup Golf Trophy to Puerto Rico.

  3. 3.

    jayboat

    I remember those days of singularity… last year I think it was– when I would wake up in the morning wondering what new embarrassment or outrage twitler would manage to bestow on us.

    And then I would think- this can’t last very long.

  6. 6.

    prob50

    Here’s another Trump gem from his PR visit:

    * “It’s a great trip. Your weather is second to none but every once in a while you get hit. And you really got hit.”

    The empathy is truly stunning., isn’t it?

  7. 7.

    MomSense

    If only there had been some way to vet the Apricot Asshole before the election. I love how some of the pundits are stunned by trump’s behavior now. Apparently they missed trump’s entire fucking life before now.

  8. 8.

    tobie

    I keep on wondering who the heck the people in the crowd were when Trump threw out paper towels. Remember he brought his own folks with him to cheer when he spoke at the CIA the day after the inauguration. Why wouldn’t he do the same this time?

    Anyhow I’m trying to distract myself as I await pathology results from a double biopsy on Monday. Trump news is not good for me. The best distraction thus far was knitting and crocheting.

  11. 11.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    They were busy tracking down Clinton’s email crimes. Because Trump told them that was the issue.

    How do you fucking NOT cover health care in an election where one candidate is promising to pull it from millions and millions of people? How does that happen? They had one candidate who is a health care expert and the other who is a moron and they decided not to draw that distinction.

    Thank God for Jimmy Kimmel is all I can say.

  13. 13.

    Corner Stone

    I am loving this MSNBC reporting that Tillerson called Trump a “moron” in front of other staff and Cabinet members this last summer.
    I wonder why Rexy just doesn’t resign already?

  14. 14.

    Baud

    @tobie:

    Maybe they were ringers, but it wouldn’t surprise me if ordinary people took their cues from the president’s behavior when in his presence. Authority has that power.

    ETA:. Good luck on the test. Avoid the news if you need to.

  16. 16.

    Kay

    Matthew Yglesias‏Verified account @mattyglesias 3h3 hours ago
    More
    Matthew Yglesias Retweeted Matthew Yglesias
    Who is the greater fool, the moron president or the former executive who ruins his reputation to serve him?Matthew Yglesias added,

    It’s such a lie that these high level Trumpsters are falling on their swords. I have no problem with career people staying on but these clowns want it both ways “I object!” Oh, bullshit. Shut up and do what you’re told.

  17. 17.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: They laughed at Obama in mom jeans but Obama is those jeans is hundred times better to look at than the huge backside in the pale khakis look. Not to speak of the tucked polo with a huge potbelly.

  18. 18.

    prob50

    @tobie:

    I keep on wondering who the heck the people in the crowd were when Trump threw out paper towels. Remember he brought his own folks with him to cheer when he spoke at the CIA the day after the inauguration. Why wouldn’t he do the same this time?

    Yeah, just throw the towels to planted shills, then collect them back later to throw to another assembled group. I noticed in the video that he threw them over the heads of most of the group to guys standing in a gap behind the main group.

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    Saw a tweet from Lin-Manuel Miranda last night noting that the Trump admin had reversed the prohibition on SNAP coverage of hot meals under withering public pressure. Good.

    @germy: Seems like it takes time for narratives to filter down to the decreasingly influential nightly news broadcasts. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I think the Puerto Rico debacle has legs, not least because the Beltway dimwits whose editorial decisions affect broader coverage are primed to seize on rerun themes like “XYZ’s Katrina.” We’ll see, I guess.

  23. 23.

    Kay

    Imagine for a moment if a NY prosecutor had mysteriously dropped an investigation into Chelsea Clinton based on a campaign donation.

    Compare/contrast.

  24. 24.

    prob50

    @tobie:

    Anyhow I’m trying to distract myself as I await pathology results from a double biopsy on Monday. Trump news is not good for me.

    Normally I wouldn’t be inclined to share, but I have a doctor’s appointment today where I should be getting the results of the MRI I had on my liver a couple weeks ago. 4 cm mass. Depending on the findings I guess I could be looking at a biopsy fairly soon down the road. That’s part of why I’ve been up reading and posting since around 3 am this morning.

    So anyway I have at least a small clue as to how you feel right now.

  26. 26.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Imagine for a moment if a NY prosecutor had mysteriously dropped an investigation into Chelsea Clinton based on a campaign donation.

    Imagine if that never happened but someone merely claimed it did.

  27. 27.

    tobie

    Thank you, BJers, for the good wishes. I really appreciate it. I do love this community of contentious but also big-hearted individuals.

  32. 32.

    prob50

    Well, I guess I’m kinda ready to roll with the punches because there really isn’t anything else to do at this point, but the waiting and not knowing is pretty tricky.

    Thanks for the thoughts.

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    @Kay: I wonder if Rex’s wife still thinks God spoke to her and said to get Tilly in that SecState position.

  34. 34.

    low-tech cyclist

    @prob50:

    Here’s another Trump gem from his PR visit:

    * “It’s a great trip. Your weather is second to none but every once in a while you get hit. And you really got hit.”

    The empathy is truly stunning., isn’t it?

    Almost as good as Jayne’s speech in “Jaynestown,” if you’re into Firefly.

    Far as I see it, you people been given the shortest end of the stick ever been offered a human soul in this crap-heel ‘verse. But you took that end, and you – well, you took it. And that’s – Well, I guess that’s somethin’.

  36. 36.

    Lyrebird

    @tobie:
    @prob50:

    May all the medical news be GOOD and ACCURATE!

    Back in April & May I had a relatively minor similar thing,
    all margins were CLEAR thank heaven,
    but I have a bit of a notion of the discomfort of waiting.

  37. 37.

    Corner Stone

    @Baud: I heard that Chelsea was going to make a run for elected office but someone found out about her sealed indictment. And also that she had been pregnant with octuplet alien babbies but had aborted them right before due date.

  38. 38.

    A Ghost To Most

    Guns and women got Dan Bilzerian where he is today – the so-called “King of Instagram,” with nearly 23 million followers, a mansion full of guns and a hot tub full of women.

    He lines his feed with photos of himself and women in the wilderness, playing with his arsenal of rifles, his biceps the size of their thighs.

    Bilzerian once trained to be a Navy SEAL, and while he never became one, he often brags of his apparently deadly prowess.

    “My greatest fear is that someone will break in and I won’t be able to decide what gun to shoot them with,” he once wrote, beneath a photo of his table of guns. There’s even an official Dan Bilzerian video game about shooting zombie women in the Nevada desert, and then in a city, with scoped headshots and bodies in the streets.

    But on Sunday night, in the real Las Vegas, the Instagram star found himself caught in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. He saw a woman lying dead, he said.

    He turned a camera on himself as he walked, short of breath, from the killing grounds, and at first resolved to live up to years of online bravado.

    “Trying to go grab a gun,” he says in the clip. “I’m f– headed back. … Saw a girl get shot in the face right next to me, her f– brains hanging out.”

    But in the next clip, which briefly appeared on Bilzerian’s Instagram account and has since been plastered over the internet, he stands in front of police lights, looking slightly dazed.

    “Um, they got one of the guys,” he says, no gun in sight, all fury gone from his voice. “I’m headed back. I don’t think there’s much I can do.”

    So he went home, leaving fans to wonder if one of Instagram’s most formidable stars was something different in real life.

  41. 41.

    Baud

    @Corner Stone:

    And also that she had been pregnant with octuplet alien babbies but had aborted them right before due date.

    It’s worse than that. She’s had two human children with a guy who works on Wall Street.

  42. 42.

    MattF

    Even Cillizza was taken aback by Trump’s utter lack of empathy. I suppose it wasn’t an issue last year, right Chris? Not worth covering, or discussing, in any case. ‘Temperament’ is only a problem if you’re a libtard. Grr. All right, I’ll stop ranting now.

  47. 47.

    Corner Stone

    @MomSense: Are you kidding? This is heaven! Fresh news happens every single day, sometimes more than once. And if it’s a slow news day they can count on Trump to start shit with somebody or somewhere. And the Russia investigation is not going away so they can always get some kind of scoop if they need a fix.
    Think for a second if a normal human had been POTUS during Maria. That would have most likely been a destruction/rescue/recovery process story. Lots of human stories of loss but not like losing an island. That’s boring!

  48. 48.

    Timurid

    This fiasco reminds me of UN Secretary General Boutros Ghali’s infamous visit to besieged Sarajevo, where he scolded the residents for their ingratitude and told them that there were many places in the world worse off than them….

  53. 53.

    MattF

    @Baud: I suppose theology is only meaningful in the context of a sort of mutual admiration society. Otherwise, why bother?

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: At first, I thought it was just the flak jacket, but he’s markedly more puffy and bloated for sure. He looked sweaty and ill in Puerto Rico yesterday. I suspect I’m hoping he strokes out on the crapper mid-tweet almost as much as Melania longs for that outcome!

  62. 62.

    Corner Stone

    @A Ghost To Most:

    So he went home, leaving fans to wonder if one of Instagram’s most formidable stars was something different in real life.

    So he went home, because of course he did, because all angry bloated blowhard rightwing gun nuts are empty bags of gas when it comes down to it.
    I find it interesting that he had the burning desire to grab a gun somewhere so that it might lend him its courage. The magical talisman that imbues the possessor with god-like powers to resolve all conflict. It’s also interesting that real first responders ran into the melee and destruction, their first thought to help others and nary a word about needing a gun to do so.

  65. 65.

    rikyrah

    @Betty Cracker:

    Saw a tweet from Lin-Manuel Miranda last night noting that the Trump admin had reversed the prohibition on SNAP coverage of hot meals under withering public pressure. Good.

    Just came to post this.

    I also think it was done initially to spite the chef that broke off the deal with Dolt45, but is now in Puerto Rico, with some more chefs, feeding thousands of people a day.

  68. 68.

    Adam L Silverman

    @A Ghost To Most:

    Bilzerian once trained to be a Navy SEAL, and while he never became one, he often brags of his apparently deadly prowess.

    He had to go through BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition School) twice. Not sure what the problem was the first time, but he washed out the second time because of a firearm safety issue on the range during qualification. His prowess is so deadly that the SEAL range masters and trainers decided he was too unsafe to complete the course and qualify as a SEAL. There must have been a repeated pattern of unsafe behavior or they would have done a spot correction, noted it took, and moved on.

  69. 69.

    prob50

    @Baud:

    How do you know that God doesn’t care about your fate unless theology tells you so.

    Oh, that’s too easy. You just ask the people who know that God is talking to them.

  72. 72.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: I didn’t make the connection between the chef and the hot meals rule, but I bet you’re right. With Trump, it’s always a good bet to assume decisions are driven by spite and/or rank stupidity.

  73. 73.

    A Ghost To Most

    We’ll ride this ship down
    dumping buckets overboard
    There can’t be more of them than us
    There can’t be more

    I know you’re tired
    and you ain’t sleeping well
    uninspired and likely mad as well
    but wherever you are
    I hope the high road leads you home again
    to a world you want to live in

  75. 75.

    Corner Stone

    @germy: It seems like every single content provider I used to swing by to skim articles has determined that they *must* have an intro video for all.the.things.they.link.to. Every damn one of them has an auto start video that I have to wait for it to start loading before the site will let me scroll down to the actual text of the article. I know I’m an old and all that, but jeebus, just give me the damn article.
    I blame this on the millenials.

  77. 77.

    rikyrah

    Why Don’t Moderate Democrats Want Susan Collins to Leave?
    by Martin Longman
    October 3, 2017

    I don’t know if Senator Susan Collins of Maine is going to give up her seat to run for governor in Maine. I don’t know because even she doesn’t seem to know. But here’s what I do know. The Democrats would stand a damn good chance of winning her seat the next time it came up for election, and they ought to be hoping against hope that she takes her ball and goes home.

    But that’s not the reaction I’m seeing. Here’s the reaction of endangered Democrat Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota:

    Sen. Heidi Heitkamp was watching TV recently when she saw a report that Susan Collins was considering a run for Maine governor and soliciting advice on the decision.

    The North Dakota Democrat quickly shot a text message to her Republican colleague: “Don’t do it.”

    …“She is [up in the air]. And I think she had hoped to make a decision before this,” said Heitkamp, who herself weighed retirement before announcing this year she’d run for a second term. “I desperately hope she doesn’t run.”

    …………………………

    I understand that moderate Democrats don’t relish the prospect of working in an environment where there are absolutely no moderate Republicans left, but the trade off here seems obvious.

    It’s enough to make me think that these Democrats feel safer in the opposition than they do in the majority. And they could be right about that. As it stands, they don’t have to explain away their votes for controversial Democratic legislation. They can oppose a mostly unpopular administration and a very unpopular Republican congressional leadership without a whole lot of risk to themselves.

    So, is that what this is? They’d rather have a modestly safer seat than be in a position to actually hold hearings or write legislation?

  83. 83.

    Betty Cracker

    @A Ghost To Most: He ran away like a scared little bunny. No shame in that. In the workplace shooting I witnessed, the only person running faster than me was the (armed) security guard. But it does take the starch out of the uber-macho online persona, doesn’t it. What a wanker.

  85. 85.

    rikyrah

    The Republican Party Has No Heart
    The party’s dog-eat-dog mentality threatens our democracy.

    by James Bruno
    October 4, 2017

    ……………………………………

    “Somehow, one of our nation’s two great parties has become infected by an almost pathological mean-spiritedness, a contempt for…‘losers,’” Paul Krugman wrote in 2013. “If you’re an American, and you’re down on your luck, these people don’t want to help; they want to give you an extra kick.”

    Americans’ sense of community has been giving way to a growing sense of selfishness. Mitt Romney’s telling remarks at a 2012 campaign fundraiser with fat cats about the “47 percent” of Americans who are “dependent upon government” encapsulates this mindset. And so does a resurgence of interest in pop iconoclast-philosopher Ayn Rand. A woman in the supermarket line struck up a conversation with me the other day. “Have you read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand?,” she asked. “She has all the answers for what ails our country.” A friend reports his millennial daughter is enraptured by Rand, as are a growing number of the young. Sales of her books have surged since Trump, a self-proclaimed Rand admirer, was elected. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, CIA director Mike Pompeo, and Speaker Paul Ryan are also self-admitted Rand fans—as are many of the callous conservatives that Trump has tapped to fill out his Cabinet.

    Rand, who died in 1982, preached “the virtue of selfishness,” “egoism” and an extreme version of laissez-faire capitalism that has become popular with libertarians. Society, in her view, consists of a minority of talented winners, and broad masses of losers. And she rejected altruism as “immoral.” Historian Jennifer Burns describes Rand’s writings as a “gateway drug” to right-wing politics.

    I believe much of the class rancor manifesting itself in meanspiritedness stems from growing wealth and income inequality. Trump’s “forgotten men and women” increasingly resent the elites that have monopolized wealth and power. Between 1979 and 2015, income of the top 1 percent surged over 156 percent. The average income of the bottom 90 percent of earners, on the other hand, has grown just 21 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute. And the Congressional Budget Office reports families in the top 10 percent of wealth distribution possess more than three-quarters of America’s total family wealth, while those in the 51st to 90th percentiles owned less than a quarter. The bottom half of Americans, meanwhile, own just one percent of the wealth pie.

    President Trump’s sketchy tax reform plan would serve to shift yet more wealth and income to the very rich.

  87. 87.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: It might just be they’re friends. There aren’t all that many women senators. So not losing a friend and member of the group may be all this is.

  89. 89.

    prob50

    @Baud:

    Millennials killed the internet.

    My understanding is that sooner or later every generation screws up the best stuff they have. At least from us boomers on.

  93. 93.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Betty Cracker: I doubt it. I also, honestly doubt he has any idea of any specific details of the various NGOs responding. He clearly doesn’t have a good grasp of the US government assets involved.

  94. 94.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Betty Cracker:

    He’s hauling about 15 pounds around his jawline and neck alone. Really jowly these days – he’s trying to give Grover Cleveland a run for image.

    He’s undoubtedly suffering sleep apnea and high blood pressure/hypertension. Probably borderline for gout and diabetes. Kidney function is probably marginal, too, from the soft drinks.

  97. 97.

    tobie

    @rikyrah: I have to say Heidi Heitkamp has been something of a disappointment. I know she’s in a red state and has to maintain a precarious balance between the interests of the party and the interests of her constituents but there have been a few votes that have struck me as a total slap in the face to the party and she did of course meet with Trump during the transition.

  98. 98.

    Dave

    @A Ghost To Most: The guy experienced what is common in almost everyone’s first firefight. He learned that he isn’t a superhero that the image he’d built up of himself was largely bullshit and so on. It’s very common, I’ve had to talk few people through that aftermath, and since he wasn’t in a firefight but a goddamned massacre it’s probably ten times as intense. And even more so because he is such a cocky shittalker his self-image, and livelihood, being based on toxic he-man bullshit. Maybe he will learn from this. It’s possible but probably not since he appears to make his living selling the tough-guy bullshit. I could say much more about this but this childish selfbullshitting about what they would do in a given situation and placing combat in particular and violence in general on some sort of sick pedestal can not to an end soon enough.

  99. 99.

    rikyrah

    2 questions angry people should ask:
    What have I done to help win in Virginia on Nov. 7?
    What will I do to help win in Virginia on Nov. 7?
    — Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 4, 2017

  100. 100.

    Ruckus

    @schrodingers_cat:

    the huge backside in the pale khakis look. Not to speak of the tucked polo with a huge potbelly.

    You just described a large segment of the American population. And I’d bet a large segment of them voted for him because they see themselves in the mirror. Sure they like the racism because it can’t be them that might be the problem with them having a good life. But he looks “normal” to a lot of people.

  102. 102.

    Amir Khalid

    @Corner Stone:
    I think the argument, is that video “adds value”. All too often it disappoints you in that respect, merely using text from the story as captions on uninformative/irrelevant visuals.

  104. 104.

    trollhattan

    Does Trump know what paper towels are? I can’t think of a situation where he’d use them and speculate he thinks those are rolls of giant toilet paper and wonders if he should switch, given his enormous/Trump-scale caboose.

  105. 105.

    PIGL

    @Kay: Oh I hear you. But there’s really no mystery. The owners of the major media corporations preferred Republican victory. Their employees did all in their power to bring this about.

  106. 106.

    Major Major Major Major

    @tobie: that article didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Heitkamp probably just likes Collins as a person and buys into the myth of the senate as a postpartisan deliberative body. The author has a ‘craven democrats’ line to sell that he seems to be cramming every senate and campaign development into. Incompetence is much more likely than malice.

  110. 110.

    Baud

    @Major Major Major Major: I just read the excerpt above, but it doesn’t strike me as odd at all that Dem Senators would seek to establish rapport with GOP senators. Heidi knows full well her text isn’t going to sway Collins’s decision one way or the other.

    I believe I read that Schumer helped save Obamacare from BCRA by being nice to McCain on his return to the Senate.

  111. 111.

    prob50

    @trollhattan:

    Does Trump know what paper towels are? I can’t think of a situation where he’d use them and speculate he thinks those are rolls of giant toilet paper and wonders if he should switch, given his enormous/Trump-scale caboose.

    Here’s hoping he start using Brillo pads instead.

  117. 117.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: He has two options:
    1) Ignore the questions about the NBC report, make whatever statement he’s going to make, take no questions, and go back to his office.
    2) Resign.

    That’s pretty much it. He doesn’t have a lot of options now, especially given the reporting about him berating the President in from of other members of the nat-sec team and having to be coached by the VP. I just saw the room setup on the moving picture box and it’s prepped for only one speaker.

  120. 120.

    Shalimar

    @tobie: I’m pretty sure everyone Trump saw in PR was vetted by the governor and told, “be positive and kiss his ass. If he gets mad at us, we don’t get an assistance package.”

  122. 122.

    A Ghost To Most

    Progressive challenger Randall Woodfin on Tuesday unseated William Bell, the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, in a nonpartisan runoff election.

    Woodfin’s ambitious platform and dogged ground game ultimately bested Bell, 68, a two-term Democratic incumbent who had been in city politics since before Woodfin was born.

    But not even Woodfin’s most optimistic boosters anticipated the resounding margin of his victory. With all but one polling place reporting, Woodfin defeated Bell 58 to 41 percent.

    “Our city, our 23 communities, our 99 neighborhoods, you all have spoken very clearly ― we deserve better,” Woodfin said at the start of his victory speech Tuesday night, prompting cheers from the audience.

    Woodfin’s win is a coup for national progressive groups that backed him, including the Working Families Party and Our Revolution, the legacy organization of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Sanders personally endorsed Woodfin and recorded a robocall for him on Monday. (Sanders’ endorsement reflects the changing nature of the political landscape following the November presidential election: Woodfin backed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her 2016 primary battle with Sanders, eventually becoming her Alabama state director.)

    Don’t give up on Alabama.

  123. 123.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Corner Stone:

    “It has become common knowledge that I referred to the lazy, stupid, entitled, mediocre, bloated piece of shit as a moron. Diplomacy demands that such personal judgments be kept to oneself, lest mixed messages go forth. I therefore resign.”

  124. 124.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman: According to NBC reporting it is an unscheduled statement. As there does not appear to be a policy message setup at the podium, I am wondering if Option #2 is a 60/40 favorite?

  125. 125.

    Kay

    Tillerson has to resign because he told the truth about the Wizard of Oz, so which low quality Trumpster replaces him?

    Someone who is a more obedient soldier and yes-man, obviously.

  128. 128.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: So I’ve just read the New Yorker piece on this:
    https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-ivanka-trump-and-donald-trump-jr-avoided-a-criminal-indictment

    Here’s what the fallout will be:
    1) Vance is done. Expect a mounting call for his resignation. Followed by a resignation. His public service career is over. He’ll likely be taken care of at some white shoe law firm, but by and large he’s done.
    2) AG Schneiderman will now pick this up and roll it into the investigations he’s quietly running into the Trump Organization, the campaign’s, and the transition’s activities within his jurisdiction in New York. If he hasn’t already done so.
    3) Once again the Trump SoHo rears its head. This was the project done with Felix Sater (shocked, I’m shocked…). Mueller will now add this to his inquiries as part of the pattern of corruption and obstruction of justice by the President and his associates he’s investigating.

    Jr. and the Princess are in more jeopardy now than 2012 when the President got his legal fixer to intervene on their behalf to get them out of trouble.

  129. 129.

    Shalimar

    @A Ghost To Most: Birmingham has always been a solidly Democratic city. Most of the Republicans live in the suburbs. It is also historically notoriously corrupt. Good for them finding a Democrat who isn’t tied to that long history. Hopefully he can work towards something more positive for the future.

  130. 130.

    rikyrah

    Lips pursed.

    White House says Puerto Rico must fix its debt problem: CNN interview

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House budget director Mick Mulvaney on Wednesday backed away from U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments a day earlier calling for the storm-hit island’s debt to be wiped out.

    In an interview on CNN, the Office of Management and Budget director said Trump was referring to Puerto Rico’s need to fix its own debt issues through its oversight board.

    “I wouldn’t take it word for word,” Mulvaney said of Trump’s comments late Tuesday.

  132. 132.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: Tillerson is so tight lipped, both when he was running Exxon and as Secretary of State, that I have no way to handicap it. But I think it is a possibility. And since the President is unhappy with him this gives him a way out.

    Makes you wonder if he had one of his people leak this to the press, thereby setting the conditions that allowed him to exit this way.

  133. 133.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    “I wouldn’t take it word for word,” Mulvaney said of Trump’s comments late Tuesday. “The president is, after all, a moron.”

    Fixed.

  134. 134.

    Amir Khalid

    @Shalimar:
    There’s a short story — whose title and author’s name I forget, alas — about a little boy who can, on a whim, make people and things … just disappear. And so the people in his small town, which thanks to him is all that’s left of the universe, must be nice to him and speak only in soothing tones around him. Sometimes Trump reminds me of that little boy.

  135. 135.

    Corner Stone

    We know that AG Sessions is living his best life, punishing the blacks, browns, gays and poors in every way the DoJ can. Going after the Godless Weed Heathens. So he’s there for life.
    But Tillerson is already incredibly wealthy. If the only reason he took the job was to hook up Russia and Exxon then he has to see that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Why the hell would he stay on?

  137. 137.

    Kay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I hope so Adam. You know I’m suffering a crisis of confidence in law enforcement re: The Trump Family.

    I think it’s really damaging to credibility to give rich people special treatment! Prosecutors should stop doing it!

    Poor people NOTICE this. They are AWARE. It’s damaging credibility for the whole system.

  139. 139.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: There would be an acting Secretary of State, as there was when Tillerson was awaiting confirmation. Given he doesn’t have any of the senatorial confirmed deputies because the White House won’t agree to anyone he wants and he won’t agree to anyone they’re pushing, it would likely be one of the senior career diplomats from the Foreign Executive Service.

    The problem they’re going to have is this will be the third cabinet principle needing to be replaced. We have acting secretaries at DHS and at HHS. And we still have around 300 or so appointments that require senatorial approval either pending or waiting for a designated nominee. I’m unclear how many of the almost 3,500 other appointments that don’t require senatorial confirmation are still empty, but my understanding is most of them. The President has made it clear he does not intend to fill most of these as he doesn’t think they need to be filled.

  140. 140.

    Steeplejack

    Apparently Tex Drillerson getting ready to speak publicly. MSNBC and other cable-channel cameras lined up and ready to go. Tasteful view of imposing double doors and American flag.

  141. 141.

    aimai

    @A Ghost To Most: Amazing, thanks for posting that. I saw his original tweet and thought “who is this moron who is running for his life and says he wishes he’d brought a gun? Who was he going to shoot?”

  142. 142.

    tobie

    @Adam L Silverman: My only question is if there’s a statute of limitation on this kind of criminal case. Vance is done. And if Schneiderman can pick up the ball on this, he will. He’s a Rottweiler. (I mean this as a compliment.)

  143. 143.

    rikyrah

    @Corner Stone:

    We know that AG Sessions is living his best life, punishing the blacks, browns, gays and poors in every way the DoJ can. Going after the Godless Weed Heathens. So he’s there for life.

    That’s how I see it. Attorney General White Citizens Council is living out his White Supremacist fantasies. He.WILL. NEVER.RESIGN.
    HE can only be fired.

    But Tillerson is already incredibly wealthy. If the only reason he took the job was to hook up Russia and Exxon then he has to see that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Why the hell would he stay on?

    He was ALWAYS the Secretary of Exxon. His one job for Putin was to get those sanctions lifted. Since that failed, and he clearly has no interest in the job..
    I will always believed he never thought he’d be in the job this long. He was there to do a smash and grab, and that failed.

  145. 145.

    Kay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    As you know, Adam, 95% of civil society runs on consent. Most people voluntarily follow rules.

    What if everyone did what the Trumps do? The whole system would collapse. All prosecutors have is credibility. They can’t lock everyone up.

  146. 146.

    Corner Stone

    @Kay:

    I think it’s really damaging to credibility to give rich people special treatment! Prosecutors should stop doing it!

    That’s not fair, Kay. You know the law allows the poor a chance to bribe law enforcement, same as rich people.

  147. 147.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    That’s how I see it. Attorney General White Citizens Council is living out his White Supremacist fantasies. He.WILL. NEVER.RESIGN.
    HE can only be fired.

    And he will never be fired, because he’s the only one that Trump has whose constituency is Trump’s racist base.

  149. 149.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Jr. and the Princess are in more jeopardy now than 2012 when the President got his legal fixer to intervene on their behalf to get them out of trouble.

    Tangled web, deceive, etc.

  150. 150.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: This is not new for the President. As Wayne Barrett reported, this is how the President got Rudy Giuliani to bury an inquiry into him for money laundering in the late 80s/early 90s.
    http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/wayne-barrett-donald-trump-rudy-giuliani-peas-pod-article-1.2776357

    Rudy and Donald first got together in the late 1980s shortly before Donald became a co-chair of Giuliani’s first fundraiser for his 1989 mayoral campaign, sitting on the Waldorf dais and steering $41,000 to the campaign. A year earlier, Tony Lombardi, the federal agent closest to then-U.S. Attorney Giuliani, opened a probe of Trump’s role in the suspect sale of two Trump Tower apartments to Robert Hopkins, the mob-connected head of the city’s largest gambling ring.

    Trump attended the closing himself and Hopkins arrived with a briefcase loaded with up to $200,000 in cash, a deposit the soon-to-felon counted at the table. Despite Hopkins’ wholesale lack of verifiable income or assets, he got a loan from a Jersey bank that did business with Trump’s casino. A Trump limo delivered the cash to the bank.

    The government subsequently nailed Hopkins’ mortgage broker, Frank LaMagra, on an unrelated charge and he offered to give up Donald, claiming Trump “participated” in the money-laundering — and volunteering to wear a wire on him.

    Instead, Lombardi, who discussed the case with Giuliani personally (and with me for a 1993 Village Voice piece called “The Case of the Missing Case”), went straight to Donald for two hour-long interviews with him. Within weeks of the interviews, Donald announced he’d raise $2 million in a half hour if Rudy ran for mayor. Lamagra got no deal and was convicted, as was his mob associate, Louis (Louie HaHa) Attanasio, who was later also nailed for seven underworld murders. Hopkins was convicted of running his gambling operation partly out of the Trump Tower apartment, where he was arrested.

    Lombardi — who expected a top appointment in a Giuliani mayoralty, conducted several other probes directly tied to Giuliani political opponents, and testified later that “every day I came to work I went to Mr. Giuliani to seek out what duties I needed to perform” — closed the Trump investigation without even giving it a case number. That meant that New Jersey gaming authorities would never know it existed.

    It’s hard to watch Giuliani invoke his 14-year history as a federal prosecutor when he calls for Clinton’s prosecution and square it with the seedy launch of his own relationship with Trump.

  151. 151.

    Amir Khalid

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’m unclear how many of the almost 3,500 other appointments that don’t require senatorial confirmation are still empty, but my understanding is most of them. The President has made it clear he does not intend to fill most of these as he doesn’t think they need to be filled.

    It seems to me that as Chief Executive the Dotard could formally abolish posts he thinks are unnecessary. But I don’t recall seeing any reports of him doing that. Any ideas why?

  152. 152.

    A Ghost To Most

    @aimai:

    If I had a dime for every time I heard my old man say
    one of these days
    I wouldn’t be like my old man today
    talking bout places that he’d been
    back in his younger days that he was gonna go back to again
    one of these days
    Dropped out of school when he was just sixteen
    fell right in to a tire plant
    building the very things that make the asphalt sing
    and put Alabama far behind you

    I remember him saying that Chicago was a hell right here on earth
    and twenty five years later I was saying the same thing about Memphis

    It’s no wonder everybodies scared of downtown Birmingham
    it’s just a little too close to home
    But there’s more crooks down here and the cops don’t care,
    while old white men wearing ties can do anything they want.

    Once a country boy’s seen the way the steam rises
    off a man’s insides on the sidewalk
    Tends to change the way he thinks, the way he sees everything
    and he goes back to where he came from

    One of these days when my face looks like a roadmap
    gonna find my way back home.
    And i’ll go walking on the west side after dark
    and leave my gun locked in my car.
    One of these days you’ll take one look at me and run.
    One of these days you’ll take one look at me and run.

    “One of These Days” – DBT

  153. 153.

    Mike in NC

    Trump’s tossing rolls of paper towels at homeless Puerto Ricans will go down in the history books alongside the Gettysburg Address!

  159. 159.

    Kay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Thanks. I’ll read it. 25k is exactly what they bought Bondi for.

    I mean, come on. Find a godammned honest prosecutor or this whole civil society contract we’re all complying is breached. How can you tell people to follow the law if they don’t? This is very corrosive! It’s one thing to do a crap job, it’s another to discredit the whole system while you’re doing it.

    They’re all relying on “institutions” as if institutions are somehow apart from the people they’re composed of- that’s not true! The GOOD reputation was earned. They can’t just ride on it forever. It can disappear.

  160. 160.

    LAO

    @Adam L Silverman: @tobie: the Statute of Limitations has run on a criminal case, so the NY State AG can not pick up the criminal case.

    It will be interesting to me, whether the AG can convert the case and other allegations of fraud into “Enterprise Corruption” prosecution, which is NYS version of RICO, then maybe there would be some traction.

  165. 165.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gin & Tonic: Without a doubt. He’s just started talking. It looks like he’s going to abase himself by publicly sucking up the President from the first few sentences.

  166. 166.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Sessions is sticking around so he can stop black people from voting. They’re all getting something out of this or with their giant fucking egos they would have flounced off long ago

  167. 167.

    Corner Stone

    That was a solid non-denial denial by Rexy on the questions about the “moron” thing.

  170. 170.

    tobie

    @LAO: thanks for this info. I remember Cyrus Vance (Sr) as Secretary of State under Carter quite well. A pity it turns out that the son is a pale shadow of the father.

  171. 171.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Amir Khalid: He can’t formally abolish them through executive action. He can choose to not fill them. Even the special envoy positions at State that he’s decided not to fill will simply sit vacant until either 1) he or a subsequent president fill them or 2) they are formally abolished during an appropriately conducted reorganization.

  173. 173.

    Kay

    Boy that tax cut better be big. So many fancy people have sacrificed themselves in service to it.

    Our elites are low quality. Everyone talks about how Trump voters are uneducated and racist but PLENTY of elites are too, apparently and they have NO excuse other than greed and self-interest. The Trump voters won’t get jack shit out of this, but elites will!

    The rot started at the top.

  174. 174.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Adam L Silverman:

    It looks like he’s going to abase himself

    I really don’t get it. Dude has been CEO of one of the world’s largest companies, has a personal net worth north of a quarter-billion, he’s 65, has kids and presumably grandchildren. If I was him I’d spend my days spoiling my grandkids and my evenings drinking good wine.

  176. 176.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: Thanks. That was my thought as well, but not being a lawyer I wasn’t going to say. I’m guessing this would then mean that Kasowitz and Vance would be subjects of Schneiderman’s investigation.

  178. 178.

    Steeplejack

    Tillerson says he fully supports Trump’s “America First” agenda. Bullet-lists administration’s “accomplishments.” Name-checks fellow cabinet members.

    Paraphrase: “Veep has never had to persuade me to stay.”

    Now taking questions.

    “Could you address the main headline of this story that you called the president a moron?”

    Verbatim: “I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that. I mean, this is what I don’t understand about Washington. You know, I’m not from this place, but the places I come from we don’t deal with that kind of petty nonsense. And it is intended to do nothing but divide people. And I’m just not gonna be part of this effort to divide this administration.”

  179. 179.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I can’t stand him. He exudes weakness to me, on every level. He’s a simpering bully-someone who hangs around bullies.

  180. 180.

    Mel

    @germy: If by “eye-catching sexy videos”, you mean quilting instructionals and old people throwing treats for cats, I‘ve got it covered.

  181. 181.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: He submitted a formal letter of resignation after the President publicly and privately humiliated him. The President refused to accept the resignation at that time. It wasn’t that Sessions wanted to give up on what he was doing, it was that he has a small amount of pride.

  185. 185.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Boy that tax cut better be big. So many fancy people have sacrificed themselves in service to it.

    Keep on nailing it, Kay.

    Keep on nailing it.

    Me? I guess Vlad told him that he couldn’t quit just yet.

  186. 186.

    Mike in DC

    Have there been any reliable polls of hispanic and non-white voters since the election? I mean, where they’re the whole sample instead of an outlier group of 60 latinos, of which 45% approve of Trump?

  187. 187.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gin & Tonic: Who knows. I’m a big fan of following the money. He’s in the right position to make sure he can actually get the payoff from Exxon’s Rosneft investment. Maybe that’s the case.

  190. 190.

    Kay

    “I am fully committed to the huge tax cut I’m getting”

    Our elites are gross and ethically bankrupt.

  191. 191.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I think he probably did it to add another line to his bio

    I like to think that guys like Mattie and McMaster accepted about of a sense of duty and wanting to have adults around Trump. Like to think …

  193. 193.

    Turgidson

    @MomSense:

    Cillizza is the biggest fucking moron on the planet. When historians are trying in 100 years to make sense of how this catastrophe happened, they’ll wonder why society gave him a public platform and didn’t do the sensible thing and unanimously agree to throw him into a padded cell as a matter of national security. Fournier and Matt Dowd too.

    He spent the entire goddamn election talking about fucking emails as if it was Pearl Harbor and Watergate combined. While he was by no means alone in his demented obsession, he was perhaps the most obnoxious and oblivious about what he was doing and he’s a non-trivial reason we find ourselves in this nightmare we can’t wake up from. He should be tarred and feathered every morning for the rest of his miserable life.

  194. 194.

    Chyron HR

    @A Ghost To Most:

    Has anybody tried explaining to Our Revolution that replacing Democrats with “True Progressives” doesn’t in any way diminish the Republican stranglehold on federal, state and local governments?

  196. 196.

    rikyrah

    @Adam L Silverman:

    @Gin & Tonic: Who knows. I’m a big fan of following the money. He’s in the right position to make sure he can actually get the payoff from Exxon’s Rosneft investment. Maybe that’s the case.

    I don’t disagree with you – THAT is the reason why he’s there. But, after the sanctions weren’t lifted…..
    I still say Putin told him that he couldn’t quit just yet.

  199. 199.

    Corner Stone

    Trump tweeting that Rex totally refuted the NBC reporting. This is going to leave a yooooge stain on Trump’s ego.

  202. 202.

    Chyron HR

    @Steeplejack:

    “I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that. I mean, this is what I don’t understand about Washington. You know, I’m not from this place, but the places I come from we don’t deal with that kind of petty nonsense.”

    “Why, I’m just a simple country CEO of Exxon Mobil. I don’t hold with your rotten city slicker ways.”

  203. 203.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Chyron HR: True, but from what I have been able to learn, he is far less corrupted than the current mayor, in a city known for corruption.

    It’s possible the results are a sign of things to come (Support Doug Jones).

  205. 205.

    FlipYrWhig

    @A Ghost To Most:

    Woodfin’s win is a coup for national progressive groups that backed him, including the Working Families Party and Our Revolution, the legacy organization of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Sanders personally endorsed Woodfin and recorded a robocall for him on Monday.

    They sure showed that corporate tool! Down with the establishment and up with grassroots radicals!

    (Sanders’ endorsement reflects the changing nature of the political landscape following the November presidential election: Woodfin backed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her 2016 primary battle with Sanders, eventually becoming her Alabama state director.)

    Oh.

  207. 207.

    Baud

    @Chyron HR: I initially missed the part where it wasn’t a Republican being unseated. Still, as others have mentioned, sounds like the new guy is less corrupt than the old guy.

  208. 208.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Gin & Tonic: The chance at a $500 million payoff if the sanctions against Russia were lifted. EXXON was counting on Tex Drillerson. It was his only job!

  210. 210.

    glory b

    @tobie: “I keep on wondering who the heck the people in the crowd were when Trump threw out paper towels. Remember he brought his own folks with him to cheer when he spoke at the CIA the day after the inauguration. Why wouldn’t he do the same this time?”

    I read that the event was held in a wealthy neighborhood, which trends Repub.
    So, it may be that this was the only place to find anyone to look pleased by his visit.

  211. 211.

    Corner Stone

    @LAO: And NBC is very strongly standing by their reporting, citing 12 sources confirmed this news. Who gets a dozen damn sources leaking to them from inside the WH?

    God damn broke ass back button.

  218. 218.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Amir Khalid: Depends. Acting secretaries and deputy secretaries and assistant secretaries and deputy assistant secretaries or some combination will likely be filled by senior career civil servants on an interim basis/for the time being. However, almost all, if not all, Federal agencies are prohibited from doing certain things without a Senate confirmed (eg a constitutional officer) principal or deputy who is acting as principal. Some of the middle layer of political appointees will be temporary filled by the transition people who were on the landing teams. Most of them do not have deep experience with the agencies they’ve been assigned to, they are on rolling 90 to 120 day appointments, and those can only be renewed a limited number of times, if at all. So there is a significant amount of work that is either being covered down on by career civil service or is just not being done at all. And because of the sequester over the past 4 years there has been a lot of attrition within the civil service. Positions have been unfilled after retirements or lateral moves or promotions or they’ve been reduced in force (RIF) and gotten rid of. To be very blunt: the Federal government, especially those portions/the majority of it that is located in the national capital region is one bad flu season away from being leaderless. Right now things are running on momentum. The US government is currently improperly staffed, rickety, and verging on hollow.

  223. 223.

    Kay

    @A Ghost To Most:

    you guys give them too much credit. It doesn’t have to be a big payoff! The going rate for a Trump to purchase someone seems to be 25 thousand dollars.

    They come cheap!

  224. 224.

    mad citizen

    @A Ghost To Most: This will be the best thing I read today–thanks for posting this. I’ll support democrats of any stripe, but I’ve been thinking, the candidates need to be MUCH MORE AMBITIOUS, not less. We need to broaden the issues. For example, why does everyone accept the 2nd Amendment as a given, written in stone? We can change it. It’s a long road and requires a turnover of party rule, but there is a process for amending our founding document.

  225. 225.

    Karen

    dolt’s Vega visit should prove “interesting” since many of the “white” people are hopeful that he will say things to bring country together while non whites are pissed about what he did in PR and how he manages to stir up division and violence if he isn’t reading from a teleprompter; what gets me is after nearly 2 years of his bs that any of his worshipers still believe he “just needs to be given a chance”

  226. 226.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gelfling 545: I don’t think the President knows they’re there. I don’t think he has any granularity in regard to the details of NGOs involved providing aid. I’m not even sure he has any real granularity in regard to the details of US government agencies involved providing aid.

  229. 229.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Amir Khalid: A lot of the old Twilight Zone episodes were based on short stories. I figured I could give you enough to lead you to the story.

  230. 230.

    Steeplejack

    Tillerson’s aria of fawning (verbatim):

    Let me tell you what I have learned about this president, whom I did not know before taking this office. He loves his country. He puts Americans and America first. He’s smart, he demands results wherever he goes, and he holds those around him accountable for whether they’ve done the job he’s asked them to do. Accountability is one of the bedrock values the President and I share.

  231. 231.

    Corner Stone

    @Karen: He lacks empathy but he also lacks the ability to fake conveying empathy. So I feel confident he will say something insensitive and foolish in LV also. If he mentions the F-35 again somebody on his team should tranq him and shove a prompter in his face.
    My so was asking if I thought Trump would do his event outdoors, and if so how could they secure it? I thought that was a damn fine question and concluded he’ll have to do something indoors, right?

  234. 234.

    Shalimar

    @Corner Stone: My family has a gigantic old house in the middle of nowhere that I spend at least a few days every other week working to fix up. No television, no internet other than the data connection on the cell phone. While there, I am pretty much forced to avoid the major sports sites because they all have auto-loading videos on every article and just pausing them doesn’t stop the rest of the video from downloading in the background. Our data plan is unlimited, but the speed is downgraded if you go over a certain amount. I don’t care personally, I’m patient and mostly use the internet to read, but I share the plan with family members and they get pissed if the speed gets really slow at the end of a month.

  236. 236.

    NYCMT

    One of the interesting things about Vance’s and Kasowitz’s position (and Adam Leitman Bailey’s) is the possibility of bar complaints. That plaintiff’s letter is very weird and a prosecution non-cooperation settlement clause is the definition of an unenforceable. Ethical duty breaches? He did get ninety cents on the dollar plus fees – adversely affecting his clients interests in favor of his own? If Kasowitz and Vance had a quid pro quo (fifty grand?) for dropping the investigation, that’s a big ethical lapse. And there is no statute of limitations for a bar complaint.

  237. 237.

    burnspbesq

    The trend of what I’ve read today seems to be that oral argument in the partisan gerrymandering case went fairly well for the good guys. See, e.g., SCOTUSBlog and Rick Hasen.

    Fingers crossed, with all the usual caveats.

  238. 238.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    @rikyrah: It’s because if she leaves, her replacement will be appointed by the governor. Take a good long look at him and consider what he’d appoint, and what that would do to the ability to block the more insane shit that comes down the repub pipeline.

  239. 239.

    Shalimar

    @Amir Khalid: To expand on what Baud said, the positions which have to be approved by Congress were established by laws passed by Congress. The president can’t unilaterally abolish them, but they could all be abolished by one bill if Republicans could get it through the Senate.

  242. 242.

    Shalimar

    @Chyron HR: Woodfin is a reformer, and the little I know about him is positive, but he isn’t a “true progressive” just because Bernie chose to endorse the Clinton campaign state chairman for a position where the alternative was crap.

  243. 243.

    Miss Bianca

    @low-tech cyclist:

    Almost as good as Jayne’s speech in “Jaynestown,” if you’re into Firefly.

    Far as I see it, you people been given the shortest end of the stick ever been offered a human soul in this crap-heel ‘verse. But you took that end, and you – well, you took it. And that’s – Well, I guess that’s somethin’.

    Funny you should mention that, I just watched that episode last night. And yet, Jayne at his worst is more coherent than Trump at his best. Funnier, anyway..

    ETA And now I’m thinking of Wash in relation to Trump’s PR trip: “We should go to the crappy town where *I’m* the hero.”

  245. 245.

    J R in WV

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    Global warming is the result of millions of righteous bakers baking millions of delicious pies for the blessed to eat as they await the coming of the lord.

    Unusual for this poster to be so religious…! ;-)

    Colour me shoucked…

    Thanks, guys, for the Cleek work, everyone who helped!!!

  246. 246.

    Suzanne

    @Gin & Tonic:

    If I was him I’d spend my days spoiling my grandkids and my evenings drinking good wine.

    Yeah, me too. To Baud’s point, that’s why I’m not in any position of power.
    I seriously don’t understand why anyone would put themselves through working for Trump. Lord.

  247. 247.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Shalimar:

    This is another instance where the High Sparrow swoops in and slaps his endorsement on someone who is leading, then takes credit. Can’t let the black guy take credit for his own hard work.

  248. 248.

    Miss Bianca

    @Baud: I’m presuming that Birmingham is pretty solidly Democratic, so is this primary win the same thing as it would be out here for the Democrats – the de facto election? If so, ’twill be interesting to see how this person governs.

  249. 249.

    Shalimar

    @A Ghost To Most: I know it’s just a small detail amidst all the other creepiness, but all the targets you get to shoot in his horrible video game are women. Something is very messed up in Bilzerian’s head.

  250. 250.

    J R in WV

    @tobie:

    @prob50:

    Best wishes on your guys results!!

    I learned yesterday that a cousin has liver cancer. She was almost like a sister growing up together. A year younger than I am.

    So I’m with you guys all the way.

    Fuck Cancer. It’s a real SOB for sure.

  251. 251.

    Shalimar

    @Miss Bianca: Yes, the primary winner will get over 70% in the general. The hills around Birmingham are filled with Republican communities, but none of them are within the city limits.

    Bell took over for the most recent of many Birmingham mayors to go to prison, and he wasn’t any better. It’s about time he lost.

  252. 252.

    Karen

    @Corner Stone: I figure it will be indoors, and like all his events highly vetted so that only white worshipers are allowed in with maybe that token black guy with signs that say how much blacks love dolt45. After all if it was held outdoors one of those angry gun nuts might start firing at his crowd.

  253. 253.

    ruemara

    @A Ghost To Most: You mean a fucking misogynist coward? How surprising.

    Sending good thoughts and healthy vibes to Tobie & Prob50. Let us know how it turns out.

    @A Ghost To Most: You know, I’ve said for years we have a better shot at filling local seats with progressives than we do of filling federal seats with progressives no one knows. Our revolution crowing about A (1)win should earn them a neck punch.

  254. 254.

    OGLiberal

    I never thought I’d see the day when Jon Wurster made a front page post on Balloon Juice. Awesome.

  257. 257.

    SteveKnNKY

    If a person mistakenly thought the paper towel roll was a volley ball and spiked said paper towel roll back at the POS-pOTUS, do you go instantly into Secret Service custody?

  258. 258.

    grandpa john

    @MomSense: I have preached it for years, Our fucking so called media will be the final straw that destroys our country as a democracy.

  259. 259.

    Corner Stone

    @SteveKnNKY: I still don’t know why not one person didn’t chunk one back at him. You can get a pretty decent spiral on a towel roll for a short distance.

  260. 260.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Kay:

    It’s such a lie that these high level Trumpsters are falling on their swords. I have no problem with career people staying on but these clowns want it both ways “I object!” Oh, bullshit. Shut up and do what you’re told

    .Yes, I will accept the Generals are working with Trump because he’s the president. But Rexy can STFU, he’s one of the self proclaimed masters of the universe and those people never showed a seconds intrest in the public good tell now. Rexy’s only pissed that Trump is treating him as a minon.

  261. 261.

    ruckus

    @tobie:
    @prob50:
    Good luck to both of you. I had two biopsies, the second after a confirmation MRI showed the tumor was significantly larger than they thought. I finished treatment 11 months ago and they are optimistic on the outcome.
    My point is that this can take a while to work through the process. It’s easy to get lost in the day to day not knowing, ask a lot of questions, the more you know, the less scary it is. I’m now 3+ years in and I don’t think that timing is all that out of the ordinary.

  262. 262.

    prob50

    @ruckus: Thanks. They just confirmed the mass and gave me a referral to a specialist. I see him in about 2 weeks. Probably looking at a biopsy, which I pretty much expected

  263. 263.

    ruckus

    @prob50:
    I know it’s difficult to maintain a positive attitude, believe me I know, but it really does help. Second piece of advice is, you most likely will get down at some point, don’t get lost in there, take a deep breath and climb out, even if you have to get someone to talk you out.

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