Hard for me to see how this is any worse than Hillary waiting a few days to condemn Harvey Weinstein:
President Trump served notice Thursday that he may pull back federal relief workers from Puerto Rico, effectively threatening to abandon the U.S. territory amid a staggering humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
But he did say this on twitter, not on a private email server.
Cermet
Considering the rump or the dolt in chief is an avowed sexual predator, preying upon and harming the powerless is his preferred method of dealing with such people.
randy khan
This is, unfortunately, an ongoing tally:
Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20 and was gone later that day. Harvey hit Houston on August 25 and finally left the area on August 29.
The Harvey relief bill was signed on September 11, roughly 17 days after the storm hit and 13 days after it left Houston. No relief bill has been proposed for Maria, and it’s 22 days after it hit Puerto Rico.
I’d add that the whole line about infrastructure is stupid. Puerto Rico had power and phone service before the storm hit, and largely does not have either today. That’s the only part of the story that matters.
rikyrah
I believe that they are trying to kill these American citizens.
Droppy
This is a thought from Donald Trump’s head: Puerto Rico is a foreign country populated by spanish-speaking brown people who are lazy. Let’s ignore the fact that this one thought has at least 3 errors and assume that it is perfectly true. Now, here is a conservative evangelical Christian thought: Donald Trump is a good Christian. I just continue to be baffled that people who profess a religion which has the ideals Christianity asserts can tolerate, let alone support, the pronouncements and policies that come out of this presidency.
NotMax
Nitwitter-in-chief, the clown prince of antisocial media.
A Ghost To Most
@rikyrah: Feature, not a bug, to the fascists.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am more than a little convinced now the anti-Hillary bias in the press is because she wouldn’t have sex with one of them. Look at the way they describe her; “cold”, “bitch” and ” a lesbian”, that’s all a-hole talk for “she turned me down a made me feel like the cheesy looser I am”
Bruuuuce
The more folks he allows to die or become unable to rebuild, the cheaper real estate will get for him and his developer buddies to grab up so they can build resorts for the wealthy. If it has the effect of removing brown folks who primarily speak Spanish, well, that is, as noted, a feature, definitely not a bug.
Spanky
I would like to see some country send a ship full of supplies and dare the Feds to deny it entry because of the Jones Act. The optics on that would be awesome. If PR is enough of the US under the Jones Act, why is it not receiving US aid? Every journalist should be asking that question.
Wonder what the reaction would be if the ship were Cuban?
Mustang Bobby
He probably thinks they can’t vote for him since they live in a territory, and besides, they’re brown, so screw them.
Except they can vote when they move to the mainland, and they’re on their way. And they will remember.
dr. bloor
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Nah. Those are all standard terms for any woman who has more power than they do, regardless of whether or not they want to sleep with them.
ThresherK
“Let it sink back into the ocean” works for both Puerto Rico and California.
It literally accomplishes twice as much with half the effort, so we know Trump didn’t say it.
PVDMichael
Spanky – I may be wrong… but I believe the Jones Act only applies to ships arriving from American ports to Puerto Rico. Those must be American flagship ships. So a Brazilian container ship in Miami cannot bring supplies to Puerto Rico on their way back.
I do not believe the Jones Act keeps a ship arriving directly from a foreign country from stopping in Puerto Rico.
yam
Do we not have some sort of treaty that compels us to assist? If so, wouldn’t these actions be illegal?
Elizabelle
@Spanky: I would like to see Germany send a relief ship. Or the Scandinavian countries.
It would show Trump up but good, and do good.
Jeffro
I love how he’s acting like Puerto Rico is mooching off of his own personal piggybank (and is acting ‘ungrateful’ to boot!) A majority of the island’s people haven’t had power for three weeks…three weeks! But THEY’RE the ungrateful freeloaders.
Like Michael Che said last weekend:
Ian G.
Maybe the media just assumes this is another decree from our demented Habsburg monarch that will be ignored by Cardinals Mattis and Kelly.
Millard Filmore
@PVDMichael:
It would prevent that ship from stopping at Puerto Rico first, then traveling on to a mainland port, which is where most of its cargo would be destined.
Davebo
@PVDMichael: You are correct.
Davebo
@Millard Filmore: And that is correct as well. Sort of.
The ship could still come to the mainland but the freight on board is taxed quite severely.
aimai
When (or why not) can’t Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans living in the US begin appealing directly to the UN High commission on Refugees for relief supplies? Also: lets not forget the Virgin Islands which were devastated and which receive nothing from us because the main port through which relief supplies used to come, in previous hurricanes, was Puerto Rico.
aimai
@PVDMichael: The Jones act applies to all ports, even on the mainland. The reason Houston was not devastated by the Jones act was that we could ship stuff by truck. Alaska and Hawaii would be devastated if, after a similar disaster, the Jones Act was not waived for them.
Doug!
@ThresherK:
No, California tumbles into the sea.
Whereas, Puerto Rico, my heart’s devotion, let it sink back into the ocean.
ThresherK
@Doug!: Hmmf! That’ll be the day I go back to Annandale.
Mary G
Hospitals are scrambling because there’s a shortage of saline solution for IV drips. A lot of the American supply is made in Puerto Rico. But we’ll just let patients die, I guess. WaPo link.
different-church-lady
@ThresherK: Everyone there will have moved here.
A Ghost To Most
Rich kids, making movies of themselves
They don’t give a fuck about anybody else
hueyplong
@Doug!: That’ll be the day I go back to Annendale.
Kay
@Bruuuuce:
As the Trump Administration continues though it’s less and less believable that Trump has any plans or grand schemes.
He may just be a moron. I think he believes his tax plan cuts 4k off middle class taxes. They’re lying to him. That’s the second half of this- Trump is a liar but he also believes everything he hears that he wants to hear. There are smarter people who will use that to their advantage.
low-tech cyclist
Tried to warn you about Chino and Daddy G, but I can’t seem to get to you through the U.S. Mail.
hueyplong
@ThresherK: I am slow. At least I remember the queen of soul.
rikyrah
The Changing Politics of the South
by Nancy LeTourneau
October 11, 2017
I have written before about why the 36 governor’s races in 2018 will be crucial. It is also true that the race in Virginia between Democrat Ralph Northam and Republican Ed Gillespie that will take place in less than a month will be a harbinger of things to come. But to be honest, the governor’s race that really has my attention is the one that will take place in Georgia.
On the Republican side, five white men are running in the primary. On the other side of the aisle are two women, Stacey Abrams and Stacey Evans. A recent article in The Root by Abrams-supporter Jason Johnson has stirred up a bit of attention. It is titled, “Black Stacy vs White Stacey: A Lesson in Race Politics From Georgia.” Johnson is not the first person to describe politics in the South like this:
……………………………………
Here is how he describes the two candidates:
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
The media is right, this is really gonna hurt Hillary when she runs in 2020. Oh wait..
Kay
There may be people who want to take the land in Puerto Rico but Donald Trump won’t be planning that- smarter people will plan it and use Donald Trump to achieve it. By now they’re figuring out how to manipulate him. They’ll get better at it, too.
Jeffro
Btw this piece will mostly be not-news to BJers but it’s worth it for the gaffs, from the title Democrats Are Playing Checkers While Trump Is Playing Chess
to some of the language used:
“More racially conservative whites”?!? Can’t they just say “racists”???
Anyway, I hate magic-bullet solutions and the author’s MBS is that we Dems aren’t doing a good enough job of motivating young’uns and keeping the Obama Coalition together. Not Russia, not ‘Dark Money’/Citizens United, not gerrymandering, not the Electoral College, not Cambridge Analytica…we just suck at getting millennials, particularly millennials of color, to the polls. Oh, okay.
Also, more bullshit:
Um…wasn’t Clinton’s ‘tagline’, “Stronger Together”? And didn’t she win 3M more votes with that message??
(oh and also we liberal elites mocked the Heartland…I don’t remember doing that but Paul Begala says so, so it must be true…)
None of the above has anything to do with “Trump playing chess” btw…nowhere in the article does it mention that he’s some sort of strategic genius. I’ve never seen a bigger disconnect between a headline and content. But then what do I know, I’m a heartland-mocking bleeding-heart liberal who was “for her”…
Honus
Since Ryan is saving so much time by letting regulatory action take care of bump stocks I guess that big infrastructure bill should be done before thanksgiving.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
All the Bernie surrogates who said Trump would be better than Hillary should be forced to live with angry, starving Puerto Ricans.
Boatboy_srq
@Droppy: Remember that to the FundiEvangelical Xtianist mindset, “Spanish-speaking” is dogwhistle for “Catholic”, and Catholic != Xtian. Also, all the “do unto others” and “least of these” language in Teh Buk is translated as support and aid specifically for fellow Xtians, not for just anyone. It’s perfectly acceptable in all that to let PR stew in its own juice because the residents are among Those Other People® who don’t matter anyway.
rikyrah
The Discussion About Trump’s Unfitness For Office Has Shifted
by Nancy LeTourneau
October 12, 2017
I’ve already labelled myself as a congenital optimist, so you can put what I’m about to write in that context. But I’m sensing a change in the tone of the discussion about the presidency of Donald Trump. And yes, I think it is mostly related to the recent comments by Sen. Bob Corker. I’ll give a hat tip on that one to Greg Dworkin, who recently highlighted a theory about indexing.
rikyrah
Movement Conservatives Are out For Blood
by Martin Longman
October 11, 2017
Mitch McConnell has an impressive number of conservative enemies. We already know that Steve Bannon is gunning for him, but today we saw another major shot across his bow. In a joint press conference and press release, Media Research Center president Brent Bozell, Senate Conservatives Fund president Ken Cuccinelli II, Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots, FreedomWorks president Adam Brandon, David Bozell of For America, and the chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, Richard Viguerie, all demanded that McConnell and his top lieutenants step down. It’s almost as if these conservatives thought that something might actually get done if they helped elect a Republican president and a Republican Congress.
Carl Hulse of the New York Times says that failure to pass some tax cuts is no longer an option for the GOP. As a result, he predicts that they’ll at least overcome their internal differences to pass a budget through the Senate that can get the tax cut ball rolling. I’d make the same prediction, although this tells us relatively little about their prospects of uniting around a bill that they can actually pass. So far, though, it’s not clear that the Senate Republicans will have the votes to pass a budget. Senators McCain, Paul, Corker, and Collins have to be considered possible ‘nos,’ and that’s assuming I haven’t overlooked anyone. I know Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota just came out and said he wouldn’t vote for a repeal of the Estate Tax, for example.
But with all this outside pressure on McConnell and his team to resign, it will probably intimidate the doubters into letting the process start. Were the effort to die on the launching pad, it would probably be the end of the current leaderships’ tenure.
It’s tempting to say that this is the primary motivation for the folks who are attacking McConnell. They want to help get a tax cut passed. But the groups opposing him aren’t exactly the Chamber of Commerce. They’re movement conservatives, some of them founders of the movement. I think they’re genuinely out for blood and don’t really care about short-term considerations. If the tax effort fails and causes McConnell and his team to lose their grip on power, they’ll take that trade. If it weakens Trump, even fatally, they won’t consider that a big problem, either. They’re trying to complete their takeover a major political party, and every other consideration appears to pale in comparison.
ThresherK
@hueyplong: Eh, 1) it’s often right place-right time happenstance, and indicates that you have better things to do with your time than monitor one blog to make one quip, also 2) the more the merrier.
I’m always dancing on the edge of making a reference so obscure that nobody gets it, and I’m enough of an introvert to not know if that’s a good thing.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 10/11/17
Maddow: Bad leadership turned Puerto Rico crisis into catastrophe
Rachel Maddow describes reporting on the chaos in the Donald Trump White House and notes that the continued problems in the disaster response in Puerto Rico that is costing American lives is attributable to bad leadership at the top.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Spanky:
Fidel would have sailed aid ships already, been greeted warmly. Current Cuban leadership isn’t as creative.
Kay
@rikyrah:
This idea that “good people” are figuring out how to handle Trump ignores that “bad people” will figure that out too. This “moron” thing swings both ways. If Mattis and Kelly can manipulate him then other people can too. It’s like “yay, he’s weak and here come the good guys!” The bad guys are right behind them.
Boatboy_srq
@Jeffro: It’s always about what everyine else does wrong, about how Teh Left just doesn’t understand Ahmurrrrrca. It’s never about how racist sexist anti-Otherist bigots would rather commit treason than allow another of Those Other People® to hold office.
rikyrah
This kind of sanity from FRUM….
still can’t get used to it.
Trump’s attitude to sufferering on Puerto Rico an ominous indicator of his likely attitude toward fatalities on the Korean Peninsula
— David Frum (@davidfrum) October 12, 2017
different-church-lady
@Jeffro:
rikyrah
This is how dicatatorships start — exactly what Putin did in Russia in 2000. https://t.co/NWLBly5l4j
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) October 11, 2017
different-church-lady
@rikyrah:
JGabriel
The New York Times asks:
I haven’t read the story, mostly because my first reaction on seeing the headline was, “Have you seen our president?”
randy khan
@rikyrah:
I can tell you from an earlier Virginia gubernatorial race that “single” could be just as much of an impediment as “black.” The whisper campaign about Mary Sue Terry’s unwed state (which was read as “she’s a lesbian”) may have been as much a factor as anything in her loss. That wouldn’t matter in a blue state, but in a state like Georgia (and still in parts of Virginia today), it was a killer.
Boatboy_srq
@rikyrah: I necver thought I would say this, but while McConnell is a mean-spirited, partisan, conniving, miserable, spiteful, grasping SOB, he’s apparently not a good fascist.
rikyrah
Sci-fi stories used to be about how far humans could reach with technology, now they’re mostly about how low we can sink morally.
— Shower Thoughts (@TheWeirdWorld) October 11, 2017
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: And for those who may be unaware, McFaul is a former US Ambassador to Russia.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@low-tech cyclist:
Whoa, no, Guadalajara won’t do…
ThresherK
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Geebus, you’re right. At this point in history, the West (warts and all) ought to be “winning a won game*” for whatever remains of the Cold War.
Cuba? We shoulda opened trade with them ages ago. There’s no good reason not to now.
North Korea? Their philosophy is no threat. They’re not going to make an empire. Only the military.
*That’s a chess term for a player having such an advantage in the early- or mid-game that victory is almost assured. All the opponent can do is hope for a stalemate or a series of critical mistakes. But Trump is determined to make those mistakes, isn’t he?
Spanky
@Kay:
Or, since I’m a glass-half-empty kinda guy, it’s the good guys behind the bad guys manipulating Trump. And the current ongoing disasters tend to favor my take.
Boatboy_srq
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Add the Johnson supporters too. Their BSDIism and their bootstraps will go over well in a UNITED FVCKING STATES TERRITORY without power, water, sewage or food supplies.
Sherparick
@Droppy: Well, as George Bernard Shaw once said “Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.” For the Fundamentalist Evangelical White Church, their particular version of Christianity is a marker of racial identity and “elect” status, with the more prosperous you are, the more “elect” you are. Trump, may be a sinner, but they see him as God’s agent to establish a right wing Supreme Court that will reestablish male heterosexual white patriarchy. They also enjoy hearing liberals and minorities squeal.
It is also interesting reading all the Trumpers, all these religious people who just recently were demanding the freedom of religion under the 1st amendment to impose their doctrines on others who don’t share their opinion, this 35% of the voting population, 50% of the white population, joining Trump on calling for NBC to be shut down and media locked up for “faked” news, or being propaganda arms for Democrats (as if they makes any difference to the 1s Amendment). Since Trump took an oath to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution, his open use of his office to restrict free speech in itself is a violation of that oath, and would be grounds for impeachment as on this subject the framers made their intent very clear that the phrase of “high crimes and misdemeanors” means “…[the] violations of the those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself….” Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 65.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I feel that too, Kay.
Spanky
@JGabriel: My reaction to reading your quote is “Teenagers? What about the rest of us sentient adults?”
Bruuuuce
@Kay: The one place where he may actually have a small clue is in gaming the real estate market, because he’s got to have absorbed SOMETHING in 50 or so years of exposure to crooked developers and landlords (as well as being one). It’s possible that the scheme was cooked up by his buddies in the biz, but I do believe it’s one reason he has been so slow to act.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@different-church-lady:
Fake! He can’t see or reach his toes!
sheila in nc
@different-church-lady:
Amazing how that song still fits.
“Always the hurricanes blowing
Always the population growing
And the money owing…”
Smoke on your pipe, and put that in.
Chris
@Droppy:
I suspect a lot of this is also simply trolling. He knows that by deliberately and very visibly using a different standard for Puerto Rico than for anybody else, he’ll piss off a large section of the country, which will point out that the double standard is racist… which in turn will galvanize his base because fuck those killjoys who think we should pay as much attention to spics as we do to God-fearing Texans.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 10/11/17
Veracity of Trump dossier holding up despite Republican attacks
Mark Hosenball, Reuters national security correspondent, talks with Rachel Maddow about portions of the Trump Russia dossier that have turned out to be true, and the Republican effort to undercut the Russia investigation by discrediting the dossier.
Patricia Kayden
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: The media spent the last 5 days breathlessly waiting for Secretary Clinton to give a statement about a Hollywood sexual predator while Puerto Ricans are still bearing the brunt of Hurricane Maria and Republicans look the other way. My sympathies to all those who are suffering in Puerto Rico because Trump could care less about Brown people.
But her emails. And Benghazi. And the Clinton Foundation.
rikyrah
Kansas cut taxes. California raised them. GOP said Kansas wuld thrive, Calif collapse.
Kansas collapsed. Calif thrived. GOP learns? Nuthin’
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 11, 2017
rikyrah
Great op-ed from @Evan_McMullin on the dangers of populism, the rising threat of our time in America: https://t.co/THi0p2Jaij
— Richard Hurowitz (@RichardHurowitz) October 11, 2017
Boatboy_srq
@Mustang Bobby: I’m betting that, as the Cuban population that still thinks they can go home again to a pre-Castro Cuba post-Castro ages out, we will see a new PR expat community rise that remembers that the GOTea let them drown/starve/whatever when it was in their power to prevent that.
JGabriel
@Spanky:
Believe me, I had that thought too.
Boatboy_srq
@rikyrah: Larnin’ is for pointy-headed Godless liebruls.
/s
rikyrah
Trump says minorities ‘want’ and ‘need’ more police protection than other Americans
By Philip Rucker, Damian Paletta
Washington Post
President Trump said Wednesday that minorities “want” and “need” more police protection than other Americans, and blamed Democrats for a “crazy” number of murders in Chicago and other large cities.
In an interview with Sean Hannity, the Fox News Channel anchor who also is a friend and informal adviser to the president, Trump said police in big cities are “not allowed” to respond to what he described as rampant crime because “they have to be politically correct.”
“Minorities want police protection more than anybody,” Trump said. “They need it more than anybody. What’s going on is crazy. And you look at some of these inner cities where it’s just out of control.”
Trump’s comments came during a discussion of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players who have demonstrated during the playing of the national anthem in protest what they see as injustices against blacks in this country.
“We have incredible police in this country,” Trump said. “They could stop [crime] if they were allowed to do their jobs… In many cases, it’s the police are not allowed to do their job. They have to be politically correct.”
Trump placed the blame for what he described as rampant murders and shootings squarely on Democratic politicians. “Don’t forget, the Democrats have ruled the inner cities for 100 years,” he said. “This is their rule.”
Jeffro
@Boatboy_srq: That’s exactly right. The depths to which all these “racially conservative” folks are willing to sink, the lies and bigotry they’re willing to support, the monsters they’re willing to embrace – all in the hopes of preserving their privilege and turning back progress – it’s mind-boggling.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: Kansas must not have cut them enough. And California doing well is of course #FakeNews.
Chris
@ThresherK:
“Chinese political prisoners are going to be sewing soccer balls with their teeth whether or not we sell them cheeseburgers. So let’s sell them cheeseburgers.”
rikyrah
Eyes rolling and lips pursed
Here’s a budget breakdown of a couple that makes $500,000 a year and still feels average
Kathleen Elkins | @kathleen_elk 1:56 PM ET Fri, 24 March 2017
Americans are falling short when it comes to saving. As money expert at Intuit Kimmie Greene tells CNBC, “Whether you’re making $50,000 a year or $200,000 a year, we all have challenges saving.”
Or, as this couple shows, you and your partner could be making $500,000 a year and still end up with very little besides 401(k) money.
Sam Dogen of “Financial Samurai” breaks down the budget of two New York City-based spouses, each of whom makes $250,000 a year as a lawyer. They’re 35-years-old and they have two young children. “This one couple shared their story and I decided to anonymously highlight their reported expenses,” Dogen tells CNBC.
…………….
As you can see, they both max out their 401(k) plan each year and are working on paying down student loan debt. But, even though they qualify as “upper class,” after taxes, fixed costs, childcare and discretionary expenses, there’s only $7,300 left each year to go towards other savings goals, investment accounts or retirement funds.
Twitter users have largely responded with irritation rather than sympathy.
Kathleen
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: They should be locked in a room together for a week without access to food or bathrooms.
Chris
@rikyrah:
Pretty sure there hasn’t been a Democrat in the NYPD since the days of Tammany Hall.
rikyrah
This is…..
UGH
Here’s a budget breakdown of a couple that makes $200,000 a year and yet is scraping by
Emmie Martin | @emmiemartin 10:47 AM ET Mon, 9 Oct 2017
An annual household income of $200,000 is nearly four times as much as the median annual income in the United States. But although bringing in that much puts you in the upper class, it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll feel rich.
To illustrate this point, personal finance blogger Sam Dogen of Financial Samurai broke down the hypothetical budget of a couple living in San Francisco with one child, each making $100,000 a year, for a $200,000 total annual income.
Here’s exactly how this family could spend its money — and end up without much left over.
……………………..
For a detailed breakdown of how Dogen arrived at each of these numbers, read the full post on Financial Samurai.
In this example, the couple contributes to their 401(k) plans — although they don’t max them out — and are working on paying down credit card debt. But even though they qualify as “upper class,” after taxes, fixed costs, childcare and discretionary expenses, there’s only $5,700 left each year to go towards other savings goals, investment accounts or retirement funds.
They’re rich by many standards and yet they appear to be just getting by.
This deficit highlights a crucial lesson: Thanks often to lifestyle inflation, as well as the high cost of certain necessities, earning a higher salary doesn’t always translate to financial peace of mind — or to a well-padded savings account.
Alain the site fixer
@Mustang Bobby: hey Mister Playwright, you should enter the BBC radio play contest. It’s free and open to anyone not living in Britain.
Kathleen
@Patricia Kayden: Chris The Lizard will dub this “Hillary’s Katrina”.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
If the feds really do pull out of PR, to me that’s a genuine 25th Amendment moment. That’s dereliction of duty borne of someone incapable of serving. It’s not worries and hypotheticals and palace intrigue, that’s a tangible actual event that should make everybody drop what they’re doing and solve the damn problem. It won’t, because lazy brown people that aren’t actually Americans, but straight up refusing to help people that you’ve been elected to lead in a time of crisis is something even Bush didn’t do on this scale. His FEMA response was horribly slow, but once it got there things did at least sort of happen. And not once did Bush or any of his people give me the impression that they were actively hostile to the people in need. Slow to appreciate the situation and a bit indifferent yes, but hostile is a whole other level of disgraceful. He’s still the bigoted shithead throwing minorities out of daddy’s buildings, but now he’s got the whole federal gov’t as his enforcers.
rikyrah
We can keep the military in Afghanistan for decades but we can’t keep them in a US territory long enough to restore power and drinking water pic.twitter.com/93CYhmj4Eu
— David Klion (@DavidKlion) October 12, 2017
hedgehog the occasional commenter
Just donated to the One America Appeal, run by ex-Presidents who actually know how to, you know, President. Feeling angry and sick and helpless.
bemused
@rikyrah:
The more you have, the more you think you “need”.
I was intrigued with the article(s) a couple of years ago exploring how much money one makes to how happy one is. I don’t recall authors but they proposed that people are about as happy as people get making $70,000 or so a year. If you have your expenses covered and most of your real needs met, a paycheck above that doesn’t increase happiness level. I’m not sure if that bears out but it’s sounds about right to me.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: this hypothetical couple should hypothetically be asked if they’d rather switch places with the median American family, or keep earning that $200k and somehow muddle through
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
So we’re now out of UNESCO, due to anti-Israel stances of the organization.
Anybody know if there’s a GoFundMe for Hezbollah and Hamas? Asking for a friend…
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@rikyrah: There’s a decent chunk of America that could go for a little protection FROM the police, Fingerstubs of Orange. Some of them play a bit of weekend sportsball. I doubt promising them more cops, especially YOUR kind of cops, is going to be very reassuring. After all, what football players really want from drunken stupid white America right now is more outrage about how “soft” the game is now because their brain tissue is less important than Bubba’s fucking entertainment, and then when they do get arrested on a traffic stop that one extra smack to the head from the top of the squad car. You’re a champion of the blacks, truly.
I swear every single day features about half a dozen moments when I hear John Goodman in my head yelling “Shut the fuck up Donnie! You’re out of your element!”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@bemused:
People spend to their earnings, same as it always was. I see a lot of household budgets, and I’ve noticed that people earning as low as $40K combined (with kids) be able to muddle through. I’ve also seen people with combined incomes over $250K struggle to meet overblown obligations.
Chris
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
You’ve got to love the fact that UNESCO isn’t “too anti-Israel” for Israel, but is “too anti-Israel” for the U.S.
Never seen a topic that brings out the “more Catholic than the Pope” ethos like Israel in U.S. politics, of course, so it’s not exactly news.
Ian G.
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
There’s a huge difference in my mind between Bush’s response to Katrina and Trump’s to Maria. Bush was incompetent. He wasn’t deliberately trying to punish his insolent subjects. This is more akin to the Pakistani military junta’s refusal to help East Pakistan (Bangladesh) after the 1970 Cyclone in order to crush unrest there.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Ian G.: That you can even draw that sort of historical parallel is, as I said, reason enough to invoke Big Number 25.
JGabriel
@bemused:
That was a few years back, and it was about 73k/year if remember correctly. I suspect it’s gone up to about 85-90k at this point. There’s probably some geographical variation as well – someone who’s happy in Nebraska on 90k/yr would probably need about 135-150k to afford the same lifestyle in NYC, SF, or Silicon Valley.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
The Washington Post did a good job on Moore, though. That’s how it’s supposed to work. They reach national level and they get increased scrutiny- state and local media don’t have the resources national media do. It’s what I thought would happen with Trump, especially because he operated his whole life in a center for national media- NYC.
Fair Economist
@rikyrah: I’m part of a couple with a child. We make less than $200,000, and I feel very comfortable financially. In that budget, amongst other things, $500 a month for a car payment and *two* vacations per year at $4000 each is not “just getting by”.
Kay
The latest disaster relief bill will be 36 billion dollars. This, and they’re cutting revenue. Madness.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@JGabriel: My adjunct university teaching gig in the US before I moved overseas paid me 27k, but rent was dirt cheap and I didn’t have a lot of expenses so I could save through the summers and even take trips. People who can make their mortgage/rent manageable or own their own place outright are way ahead of the game in that respect if income is still rolling in. People making 6 figures but having spend it all on housing and student loans won’t feel like their making much progress relative to the tradesman making half as much but lives in a place he owns outright. I’m not super sympathetic, but I can see where the anxiety might come from on their part.
Fair Economist
If PR doesn’t get substantial help, it’s going to be mostly abandoned. It’s already far more in debt than any US state, and the damage from Maria is comparable to the existing debt. It can’t even begin to pay its bills without help. Government services and utilities will collapse (or never be restored) and basically everyone will have to leave.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
So where’s Doctor Saint HOA President Selectwoman Jill Stein’s statement on Harvey Weinstein? Tacit approval?
And whatabout Bernie? He’s silent, and scheduled to speak before the Women’s March conference in Michigan?
Spanky
@JGabriel: It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you owe that determines how rich you feel. Seems (based on watching my cohort) that once out of school and you get some credit, you get a little in debt. But life is long and you’re young, and you figure you’ll earn your way out of it. Then you don’t.
And that was back in the day before crushing student debt became common.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Does this count what they haven’t proposed for Puerto Rico?
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Kay: I’m still not convinced that in Trump’s case negative publicity even matters. He strokes the id of resentful white Americans so well that I think many of them voted for him BECAUSE of all the terrible crap that did come out about him. They saw it as either a positive or not important, and resulting criticism as more evidence of political correctness and the liberal media conspiracy. 2016 is the year that Republicans learned that they lost elections because they weren’t racist ENOUGH before. I’d like to think that a combination of demographic change and pissed off America (of the “less real” varieties) will slam that window shut within the next few years, but the amount of damage that might be done in the meantime is more than I really want to think about.
germy
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/scandal-plagued-cy-vance-suddenly-has-a-write-in-challenger.html
Maybe we can beat Cy Vance Jr.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@germy: Not super likely but I give this guy credit for putting himself out there, and I hope he does well
Chyron HR
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Hey, I’m sure that the Great One did a background check on every single one of his $27 donors to make sure they’d never done anything wrong in their lives.
rikyrah
Trump’s posture towards Puerto Rico takes a more callous turn
10/12/17 08:40 AM—UPDATED 10/12/17 08:46 AM
By Steve Benen
Over the last year, Donald Trump’s willingness to publicly contradict Mike Pence has led to some cringe-worthy moments, but developments over the last 24 hours offer an especially awkward example.
The vice president spoke at a National Hispanic Heritage Month reception yesterday, and offered strong assurances to the people of Puerto Rico: “We’re with you; we stand with you; and we will be with you every single day until Puerto Rico is restored bigger and better than ever before.”
In a trio of tweets this morning, Pence’s boss said pretty much the opposite.
Let’s note for context that as of yesterday, more than 80% of Puerto Rico is still without power, three weeks after Hurricane Maria hit. What’s more, roughly a third of the island’s American residents do not yet have access to clean water.
It’s against this backdrop that the president thought it’d be a good idea to blame Puerto Ricans and starting laying the groundwork for a weaker response to the island’s disaster.
Xentik
@rikyrah:
That budget isn’t even right. Their total taxes should be significantly lower given that they can write off 18k of donations and likely around 30k worth of mortgage interest every year. Back of the envelope (using NY and federal tax rates) suggests that they are actually paying 30k less in taxes a year than what that budget claims.
Betty Cracker
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Unlike some folks here, I don’t HATE Sanders. I ended 2016 with considerably less respect for him than I began the year with, but I don’t think he colluded with Russians to elect Trump, etc. However. The first national women’s convention in 40 years, and the organizers give the goddamned opening night headliner to Sanders? Peak 2017, as someone on Twitter noted. Bull. Fucking. Shit.
West of the Cascades
@Jeffro: and living in their $700,000 home while muddling through on $200,000 a year.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@rikyrah: Amendment 25, now
Corner Stone
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I still simply.cannot.believe.this.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: You have to admit that he has repeatedly taken actions and spoken out against the interests of Ds, he did to HRC and he continues to do it after the elections. His recent push for single payer when T and Rs in Congress were still trying to kill the ACA.
ETA: He is as thin on policy as that other empty suit with funny hair from NYC.
The Moar You Know
@JGabriel: COLA correction for CA: 90k/yr in Nebraska would be equivalent to at least 250-300K/year anywhere in coastal CA, and even more in SF/Valley. I could not believe how well my wife’s relatives were living in Ohio on about 2/3 of our salary – we’d have had to be clearing over 300k a year and could not find a piece of property the size of what they were living on for less than 5 million bucks. If we could find 2 acres of land within 5 miles of the coast at all, which is doubtful.
It’s insane and not sustainable. You should not be making $100k/year and be poor. But the neighbors on each side of me are, and we’d be as well if we had kids.
Tenar Arha
@rikyrah: Geez white supremacy is a h-e-double-toothpick of drug.
(I really don’t know what we white people can do to get rid of this system before we get us all killed. Changing hearts and minds of white individual by individual is simply not fast enough).
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: Vichy Times says what? I would be surprised if T can even identify the different chess pieces.
The Moar You Know
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: This is stone-cold truth. Cleek’s law come to life. Can’t discuss Trump with my Trump-voting relatives because everything I think is either horrendous about the guy or a serious national security risk about to explode into a life-threatening situation, they literally think is great and long overdue.
I sound like a broken record here and always will: Trump’s not the problem. His voters are a huge problem WRT the continuation of America, and that is a problem I don’t know how to solve. When they get beaten at the polls (2008/2012) they just keep doubling down until they finally win. Like the goddamn Terminator.
Amir Khalid
I read the BBC story about Trump’s comments re Puerto Rico. It’s just appalling. Puerto Rico is in obvious need of far more federal help to make a proper recovery. Three weeks past the hurricane, the White House has yet to propose a proper aid package, never mind a recovery plan. And he’s talking like a bill collector, when what Puerto Rico needs is their President to do his job.
Mike in DC
@The Moar You Know:
It’s going to take a long series of lopsided electoral defeats, including in midterms, for the GOP to (largely, but not entirely) abandon racism as an organizing principle. I’m talking consistent double digits. Demographically, we’re still years away from that. And we’re going to need some wins on redistricting, voter id and other voter suppression tactics.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: I’m not sure I agree–a large amount of “Golden Age” science fiction was incredibly grim and concerned with apocalypses and atrocities. Far too often, coming down in favor of them. The specter of war hung over everything.
I think many people judge old SF by “Star Trek”, which was unusually hopeful (but still had terrible atrocities in its historical background that was our near future). Also by Space Age nonfiction futurism that was really corporate propaganda.
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: randy khan made an important point up at the top of the thread: Congress could force the issue at any time if they wanted to. This is more than just Trump.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@rikyrah:
Still waiting for Maddow to focus on the part of the dossier that states that there were Russian agents/facilitators in the Democratic party structure. She spends hours discussing Manafort, yet never quite gets around to mentioning how Devine and Manafort partnered to elect Putin’s candidate in Ukraine, and how “coincidental” it is that the very next job they both get is heading each campaign whose sole mission was to undermine the Democratic nominee. [[strokes chin]]
Boatboy_srq
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: Beg to differ on Shrub’s FEMA response. The year before Katrina was hell on wheels for FL, with four named storms causing a fvcktonne of damage. It didnt get anywhere near the attention it deserved, largely because FL had at that time a reasonably functional emergency management mechanism which HEB? as FL’s governor leveraged to protect his POTUS brother during an election year. Federal response for FL was slow in coming and would have been quite inadequate without FL’s systems beginning to work first. Had all that not happened we would be talking about Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeannie the way we now discuss Katrina, and we’d be talking abiut President Kerry’s tenure 2005-12.
A Ghost To Most
@Matt McIrvin: Rump is a symptom of a much larger disease:
malignant cancervatism,
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@The Moar You Know: I’ve seen people refer to it as self-immolation, at least in regard to rural areas. I was talking to my dad on the phone about this last week for a few, since he grew up during the Civil Rights era (albeit from a very white and northern part of the country) and all the backlash. My folks were terrified of Trump. I thought they were overestimating the size of his following. Turns out I was the idiot, because apparently George Wallace would’ve won if he hadn’t had to share the lawn order (grass, off it!) vote with Republicans. Because I was a white guy in a white part of the country I was able to grow up thinking that it wasn’t actually all about race. From the time of the Trayvon Martin shooting to the election of Trump I’ve received a fucking education that I was immune to before, and it’s disillusioning to say the least.
Matt McIrvin
@Mike in DC: Either that, or their electoral victories come with larger and larger popular-vote deficits until they’ve got rock-solid control of the country with something like a 70% majority openly against them; then California secedes, and the US just falls apart entirely.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Boatboy_srq: If Kerry had won in 2004 I’m not certain he would’ve been re-elected.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Mike in DC: This. How much democracy does our lord and savior Justice Kennedy wish to grant us?
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Amir Khalid: Gotta throw the browns out before you can get the property value to go up
Matt McIrvin
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: I think a lot of white liberals have. The results of the Pew polarization survey that came out a little while ago make that clear. “Woke” is probably an exaggeration, but the average Democrat has shifted to a far more aware position on race just since 2012, and it’s a big enough shift that it has to involve white people.
Some of the racist panic that brought us Trump is reacting to that. (The Republicans are shifting in the opposite direction.) They sense it and they’re freaking the fuck out. The Obama-to-Trump voters, meanwhile, are the white Democratic voters who thought they weren’t racist but can’t process this.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
There’s a twitter thread today by a white woman who recounted growing up in a typical household with a deeply misogynistic father, and what it meant to her as an 8 year old girl to watch Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs with her father watching in disgust and horror. Don’t ever discount misogyny as a motivating factor – I too, like you, have come to understand how deeply that white before black men before women hierarchy has been ingrained.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Corner Stone:
If you look at the list of organizers, it’s a veritable who’s who of Bern or Busters.
rikyrah
@Amir Khalid:
PREACH
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Matt McIrvin:
These voters have been looked at, and it’s pretty clear there’s no such thing as a Trump Democrat. When those voters were interviewed, they voted for Obama because he was so personally non-threatening and hoped he’d make “the coloreds” calm down, but they went home to the GOP because Kaepernick was ruining their football experience and because of Black Lives Matter.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah it started becoming pretty clear in ’09 honestly. Half of white America lost their shit when O’bummer took their preferred shade of daddy on the teevee away. That was the first sign for me.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Turning BLM into a boogieman was predictable I suppose, but it requires the same kind of tendentious shitbaggery that I associate with that smug fascist Gorsuch.
rikyrah
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I hear you…come sit by me and we’ll share the tinfoil hat.
I’ve long been on the record – I believe everything in the dossier.
Amir Khalid
@The Moar You Know:
Trump is one of the ignorant angry bigots who voted for him — only rich and famous and (as long as you don’t look too closely at the numbers) successful in business. He himself might not be the problem, but he does belong to the problem group.
Boatboy_srq
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: Possibly not. However if Shrub’s (FEMA-specific) incompetence had been showcased in 2004 instead of the following year, he would not have been reelected either.
John Carter
It looks as though we’re about to learn whether the Cockatrice’s statement of “shooting someone on the street and having people still vote for him” will come to pass. And if it does, those who do support him should NEVER get any government help for anything.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Indeed. What’s the phrase around here? The curve is real? If I ever ran an HR department I’d hire all browns and womenfolk when the resume and interview results came in equal. Twice as good to be thought half as worthy. I’ll take that twice as good all the way to the bank, thanks.
Jeffro
@West of the Cascades:
It’s monumentally un-fucking-believable that this hypothetical couple is expected to draw hypothetical sympathy from anyone at all…they are putting more into their 401K each year than some folks have to live on. Meanwhile, something like 50-60% of Americans have no savings whatsoever because you can’t save what you don’t have.
But by all means, let’s repeal the estate tax…er excuse me the death tax…er excuse me the “family-owned trucking business tax”.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Boatboy_srq: Probably true, he just squeaked by as it was. Interestingly, had Kerry won Ohio, he would’ve been another instance of an EC winner beating the popular vote getter, and the second in a row. Wonder if there would’ve been any conservative outcry then?
Steeplejack
Trump speaking now about the health-care executive order he’s going to sign. I am raging. Every other statement is a lie or factually inaccurate.
And who is the woman in the blue dress behind him with the grinning rictus on her face?
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Oh, fuck. He’s calling up small-business owners so he can talk about their Obamacare horror stories. I hope the press fact-checks the shit out of these quislings.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jeffro:
In nearly 30 years of general law practice and handling quite a few estates, I’ve never had one with a Federal Estate tax obligation – not even close. That includes people who were fairly well off, with over 2 mil in assets.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Steeplejack:
I’m a small business owner, and my insurance has always sucked ass.
I’d say it’s time to inspect some granite countertops.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Jeffro: One thing that pundits never discuss when economic inequality comes up is the waste of resources involved. So much money just bounces around in the stratosphere now, capitalizing on itself in fractions of second on rapid fire front runner stock trades and so forth, rather than being devoted to infrastructure or small businesses or salaries for working people or any number of other, more useful functions. Businesses can’t grow without customers, and retail is looking gloomy as a direct result, amongst other sectors. When the plebs run out of $ to spend, money stops circulating through the economy as a whole, and that’s just a bad policy outcome for anybody that gives a shit about the long term health of the system. Too bad most of the people at the controls these days are basically pillagers.
martian
@Betty Cracker: The Women’s March co-chairs were/are Bernistas. Thus you had things like the list of influential women they put out that deliberately left out Hillary even while they coopted the famous Hillary quote “Women’s rights are Human rights”. Also, see, slagging on Hillary for attending the inauguration. You weren’t aware of the drama around the time of the march? Sarsour in particular seems to have it out for Hillz.
What gets me is that they don’t seem to see the actual Bernie standing right in front of them saying dismissive shit like “It’s not enough to say vote for me, I’m a woman.” Or Bernie decrying any kind of identity politics that isn’t white working-class identity politics. Bernie is not intersectional! I don’t get how he’s become this kind of mirror that all the woke leftists look into to see a dream politician just exactly like themselves.
Betty Cracker
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Saw that thread too. It was terrific.
Steeplejack
Holy shnikeys! Trump finished talking, said, “Thank you, everybody,” and started to leave the room, and they had to drag him back to his little desk to actually sign the motherfucking executive order.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’m guessing that the “small business owners” they’re prodding before mics have 20-30 employees each, and are sobbing about foregoing buying new boats, horse trailers and golf clubs….
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@martian: I liked Bernie much better when he was an eccentric doing a weekly radio schtick with Thom Hartmann. Now I’m just really fucking tired of him. The primary showed me how much of an empty suit he is. No more Bernie, no more Biden, no more Hillary. Whole new crop of Dems for the top spot next time around, thanks.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I want testimony from Bob Murray and his squirrel.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: That is so true, and IMHO is one of the reasons for white people’s panic.
El Caganer
@Steeplejack: I wonder which one of his toads (or which group of them) wrote that thing for him. Because he sure as hell doesn’t understand enough about the ACA (or about much of anything else, I guess) to have come up with it himself.
Chris
@Steeplejack:
The press couldn’t even be arsed to fact check Sarah Palin’s “death panels” claim for weeks.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Steeplejack: Paw-paw’s sundowning before noon now? Seems the situation is accelerating.
Boatboy_srq
@Steeplejack: Makes you wonder how much of Lord Dampnut’s other business was (is?) conducted by verbal agreement – no doubt to save trouble with all those pesky lawyers when he cheetoed out on the deals.
Steeplejack
@Chris:
It’s a more adversarial environment now, and at least some in the media feel it’s safe to go after Trump and his minions.
Boatboy_srq
@John Carter: It’s arguable that is already happening in the streets of San Juan.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Boatboy_srq: Ray Kroc set the standard with the McDonald’s boys, but at least Ray put some work and real assets into the company before he stole it. Donnie’s never even done that.
PJ
@Bruuuuce: There is a recent book out called Fear City, about the NYC financial crisis in the mid-70s. (Caveat: I haven’t read the book, but I did go to a talk by the author.) The big banks stopped issuing bonds for the city, and Ford’s administration (peopled by young geniuses like Donald Rumsfeld and Alan Greenspan) refused to bail out the city as part of a grand experiment in “free market” economics. The thought was that, without money, the city will be unable to offer anything to unions, who will be forced to accept less in negotiations, and will be on their way to being broken down, and, more importantly, the city will have to start selling off real estate – libraries, fire houses,hospitals, any parcel set aside for public use – at bargain basement prices. Guess who was one of the first beneficiaries of this scheme – you got it, Donald J. Trump, who, in the state’s redevelopment scheme, purchased the Commodore Hotel from the defunct Penn Central, turned around and sold it to the state Urban Development Corporation, and then leased it back from the agency in exchange for decades of tax breaks (now amounting to over $360 million). Here’s an interview by Naomi Klein with the author Kim Fein: https://theintercept.com/2017/04/23/fear-city-explores-how-donald-trump-exploited-the-new-york-debt-crisis-to-boost-his-own-fortune/
Boatboy_srq
@Amir Khalid: He’s only rich if you don’t look carefully at the numbers, too.
germy
Steeplejack
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
It doesn’t even have to be that, though I don’t rule it out. It’s his colossal, bottomless narcissism. “I came into the room, all eyes were on me, there was deafening applause, I spoke. The end.”
Everything is about him personally. Actually doing anything is a mere afterthought, if that.
Mike J
@Ian G.:
https://static.simpsonswiki.com/images/3/35/Concert_Against_Bangladesh.png
martian
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: I liked Bernie, too, but he lost my primary vote fair and square when he couldn’t offer plausible paths to achievement for his promised pretty ponies. And the tone of his campaign was getting under my skin by the time my state’s turn rolled around.
Who do you have your eye on? I’m Kander curious, but watching for Gillibrand and Kamala Harris.
rikyrah
@germy:
Yeah.Right.Whatever.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Betty Cracker:
It really was something. Misogyny is just simply not as discussed as racism and given the Trump/Weinstein/Ailes world us women have to live in, maybe front page it for discussion.
Jeffro
@germy:
Well yeah, there’s that little issue, sure…
They have his tiny little gonads in a vise already…twist, Bobby Three Sticks, TWIIIIIIIISSSSSSST!
j
Forget it Doug, it’s Trumpistan.
Jeffro
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: Wait…you’re saying there’s a better purpose for money than to end up in the hands of our billionaire betters? BLASPHEMY!!
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@martian: Harris may not be my ideal candidate but she commands a tv screen, and that shit clearly matters in a presidential campaign. She’d certainly have resources and is someone I would happily vote for. Gillibrand is fine, though in a moment where outrage is called for Harris might project that better (not that projecting outrage is allowed for Democrats, especially of the nonwhite and/or female variety). Honestly I’m waiting to see who throws their hat in, what the pitches look like, and who can catch fire. It’s time for new blood, and I’m eager for some new voices to enter the fray. Kander can certainly cut to the heart of a matter and that counts for something. I don’t have an allegiance yet. I’m not looking for a savior, just a new group of younger folks to give the canvassers a fresh jolt of positive energy.
A Ghost To Most
Since some folks have issues with posting song lyrics, I will limit myself to the chorus of “White Man’s World” by Jason Isbell:
Jeffro
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Exactly. Some talking head recently referred to it as the “rich-people-who-don’t-get-their-acts-together” tax, i.e., there’s plenty of ways to pass on wealthy and have it be minimally taxed or not taxed at all.
Besides that: this dumb argument of the Repubs that “money shouldn’t be taxed twice” – o rly? A) In many cases – especially with the wealthy – it was minimally taxed at capital gains/pass-through rates or never taxed at all. B) Working people sure get taxed two, three, four times in various ways – why not the rich?
Drives me crazy…
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Jeffro: I have well known communist/fascist tendencies. I do sometimes have trouble deciding which anthem to sing or salute to use when I try to intimidate squares in suits, however. Growing up is hard.
Jeffro
@A Ghost To Most: That whole album rocks! Ok except for “Chaos and Clothes”. But still…
A Ghost To Most
@Jeffro: I even like “Chaos and Clothes”. He’s still trying to figure out what happened with Shonna Tucker.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Jeffro:
Taking into account just how… obsessed… the Gropenfuhrer seems to be w/ Puerto Rico’s debt problems, perhaps they should just do the Trumpian thing and ya know, DECLARE bankruptcy… you’d think he would approve of their business smarts, dont’cha?
catclub
@Jeffro:
why do I think of Mafia families and Trump when I read this?
Ian G.
@A Ghost To Most:
Isbell is a pretty good liberal, and appears to get a lot of shit for it from his Trumpkin fans. I’ll make a deal with those people. You promise not to show up to an Isbell concert, and I’ll promise not to show up to a Kid Rock show.
catclub
@rikyrah:
Andrew Tobias wrote “Getting by on $100,000 a Year” about 30 years ago. Same story, updated. (He has a website and was treasurer of the Democratic Party for many years.)
Ian G.
@A Ghost To Most:
My favorite on that record is his rally cry to liberals, “Hope the High Road”.
Jeffro
@A Ghost To Most:
That’s his right, of course…but I’ve skipped over that track since the first listen-through.
Hey, not liking 1 song on an album is actually a pretty big compliment from me in its own way. It’s rare that I like more than 50% of the songs on any given album (even from folks that I follow and like). Just one more reason I’m going to make an excellent Cranky Old Person in a few more years. =)
Jeffro
@catclub: Because you’re smart, that’s why.
martian
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: Yeah, charisma does matter, and Kamala has that for sure. I prefer serious wonks, but I’ll be looking for camera ready, myself, given the media and social landscape. My only allegiance is to the Democratic nominee, whomsoever that shall be. I’m a bit shocked with myself to say it, but that’s it. Any Dem over ANY Republican, no third parties need apply for the foreseeable future even for lower offices.
Kander is interesting, and his social media game is good. The lack of experience is a concern for governing, but his lack of history seems a strength for getting elected – less material or traction for attacks. These are weird times.
Ian G.
@Jeffro:
What is your feeling on “Something More Than Free”? That’s his masterpiece, as far as I’m concerned. Not a bad song on it. I was in tears the first time I listened to “Children of Children”. “Speed Trap Town” also got me in the feels, especially after my aunt passed away after a long illness back in March (“how long can they keep you in the ICU…?”)
bemused
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Yes. Most of us do.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: I’d love to see the GA Democrats throw in behind Stacey Abrams and say, “fuck ’em”. But meantime I got to watch a white male Democratic candidate for state party chairman in CO – mostly white Colorado! – trying to win votes by saying that Democrats should be eschewing “identity politics” – meaning, any identity that isn’t white, Christian, and rural.
He didn’t get my vote.
bemused
@JGabriel:
It has to be about that now. I wonder if the authors have revisited the topic but don’t have time to look into it.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
Whiteness is more important to them, even after 9 months of Trump.
A Ghost to Not
@Ian G.: I have all his albums, plus his DBT work. My son and I think “The Nashville Sound” is his best work, and that is saying something. ” Something More Than Free” is brilliant in places.
Listen to “Streetlights” on the first 400 Unit album. It’s an amazing song to me.
catclub
@Amir Khalid:
Neither have any House or Senate groups. Funny how zero voting representation in those bodies lowers the urgency.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Steeplejack:
That article in Vanity Fair was claiming even the White House staff thinks Trump has something wrong with mentally now.
catclub
this was amusing – if unsurprising that he knows nothing about anything.
who knew that tax reform could be so complicated.
bemused
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Can you remember the tweeter? I’d like to read that.
Citizen Alan
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
Maybe, but he’d have gotten 2 SCOTUS justices including the Chief.
Betty Cracker
@martian: I remember that drama around the march, but I didn’t think the idiots would put forth Sanders as the headliner for the women’s convention. I mean, there are WOMEN they support, hopefully. Was Elizabeth Warren busy? Kamala Harris? Kirsten Gillibrand? It’s outrageous.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack: That’s at least twice he has “forgotten” to sign an EO, one time he has walked right past a car waiting just for him, and three times I have seen where I thought he was going to amble past a waiting Marine One until he made a course correction about 15ft from the ladder. I seriously thought he was going to walk a small S pattern and loop around right past the Marine One about 30ft or so to his right.
germy
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-johnson-concern-trolls-single-payer-20170921-story,amp.html
germy
@Steeplejack:
The presidency as Robert Benchley short subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1yc-19z14s
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@bemused:
UGH I can’t find it. Betty Cracker maybe has it.
Corner Stone
Damn. Former Gov of PR just told MSNBC that the POTUS is racist.
Amir Khalid
@Corner Stone:
I wonder what Trump will call him.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
Yup. And I’m primarily disappointed in my fellow white people who have reality shown to them and keep squeezing their eyes shut even harder.
I really appreciate people like the illustrator Mary Englebreit, who was able to set aside her upbringing in Missouri and wake up when Michael Brown was killed. She’s been on a tear ever since.
Bill
@rikyrah: Trump’s explicitly said, or strongly implied, he hates the first, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, nineteenth and twenty fourth amendment. I suspect if pushed he’d say the only one he likes is the second.
bemused
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I found it Betty. Good thread.
Gail Collins book, When Everything Changed is a great history of when women’s “place” started shifting. Everything didn’t quite change and plenty of wingnut folks that would like to turn back the clock. Reading Billie Jean King segment. King said, “I thought it would set us back fifty years if I didn’t win that match.”
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: I’m with you on this one. To me, it says everything that I needed to know about the young hipsterBernie Sis feminists who spent so much goddamned time trying to tell me how wrong I was for telling them I thought that their anti-Clinton stance was anti-feminist as well.
Matt McIrvin
@martian: A part of me wants Al Franken to run as the anti-Trump. An outrageous TV clown who keeps making quotable wisecracks running for office… only, here’s the shocker, he’s actually a serious, highly intelligent and hard-working politician!
(But, no, he’s too old.)
germy
Ian G.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
How can one look at Trump’s hair and face and not think something is mentally wrong? I wonder that every time I see a photo of him sitting at a conference table with his cabinet, or Ryan/McConnell, who aren’t dyed orange and don’t have nests built by sparrows on LSD where their hair would be.
Ian G.
@A Ghost to Not:
His DBT stuff rules too. “The Dirty South” is my favorite DBT record, and “Danko/Manuel” blew me away the first time I heard it.
Aleta
germy
@Aleta: She meant WaPo set up a spoof trump twitter account??
bemused
@Aleta:
Shit, everyone in OUR house is vermin.
ruemara
@rikyrah: I see it as using a natural disaster to commit genocide by neglect. I’m having a hard time witnessing this, both as a person and as a POC.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: The theme of this conference is “Reclaiming My Time”. The woman who popularized that phrase is not opening the convention. Let that sink in. Tickets for kids are $125, for adults are $300. Costs that are really out of reach for the actual women who need all the resources available of networking, learning and organizing. I’ve seen too many (sorry, white women) claim Sanders had built a great grassroots organizing foundation and has important experience that a nongenderist, agist person could understand made him valuable. Which I do wonder which Earth 3 Sanders they are talking about. Not the guy who couldn’t get his people registered to vote in the primary? Not the guy who blew millions in TV ads or in strange last minute flights to meet the pope. Not that guy, right?
@bemused: This is not a surprise.
A Ghost To Most
@Ian G.: Interesting. “Danko/Manuel” is actually one of my least favorite Isbell songs. I much prefer “Never Gonna Change” and “Goddamn Lonely Love” from that album. Have you listened to “Live From Alabama”? It has a killer cover of “Like A Hurricane”, as well as great live versions of many of his best songs.
LanceThruster
I think Bernie as opening speaker to the Women’s Conference was inspired and look forward to his remarks (though some don’t think so). It will certainly aid in the press coverage and shows a desire to present a progressive message that people can unite behind…one where victory is the actual outcome.
Corner Stone
The WH now trotting out John Kelly to lie from the podium in defense of Trump WH chaos.
bemused
No, sigh, but every time it’s a gut punch.
Gremcat
@Kay: of that 36 billion, 5 billion goes to PR. But get this , it’s in the form of a loan, and has to be paid back. On top of the $78b that they still owe. I don’t see them ever getting out from under, but I guess that is the the whole idea.
Jeffro
@Ian G.: @A Ghost to Not:
AGTN’s comment:
pretty well sums it up for me too. And besides those two albums, my two favorite songs of his are ‘Alabama Pines’ and ‘Songs That She Sang in the Shower’.
Jeffro
@germy: I wonder what the over/under is on how long it’ll take Mr. AccuWeather to determine that NOAA’s a waste of government funds and should be sold for $1 to…AccuWeather? Two weeks, tops.
Jeffro
@A Ghost To Most: “Heart on a String” – me and my son sing that one like nobody’s business! ;)
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: He is an honorable man CS, they are all honorable men.
catclub
@Mike in DC:
I just read about NC going the extra mile and gerrymandering judicial redistricting.
Peale
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Well to be fair, they’ve trotted him out to claim that he was signing executive orders that were really blank sheets of paper before and I wouldn’t be surprised if someday what he signs will turn out to be his personal secretary’s request for a personal day. I could easily be confused by all the faux puff show that goes on.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone:
Oh good – that’s very reassuring, coming from him. Hope he doesn’t mind doing it 2, 3, 4 times a day from now until…?
Starfish
@Betty Cracker: I responded to AngryBlackLady’s thread on this topic, and I am drowning in hearts and retweets.
Miss Bianca
@ruemara:
THIS THIS THIS. Aaaaaaggggh….
Spanky
I’m so old I remember
the last open threadwhen this was just glossed over following the election:Starfish
@LanceThruster: Quit trolling DougJ. ;)
Miss Bianca
@LanceThruster: Visiting us during your date with your right hand again, PronNym? Don’t let us keep you – and please, keep your splooge to yourself next time.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@LanceThruster:
LOL of course a Berniebro would think that a Woman’s March should headline their cult leader. It’s just like the episode where Ron gets the Woman of the Year award on Parks and Rec.
Aleta
@germy: That would be deep thinking for the receptionist who said that …
Could be the flowchart for the WH phones is only about the trigger words now. They should outsource it and skim the money … unless of course paranoia striking too deep.
A Ghost To Most
@Jeffro: Ah, “Alabama Pines”. I really like the whole “Here We Rest” album. Also, “Tour of Duty”, and “The Blue”.
A Ghost To Most
@Jeffro: He does a live version on “Live From Alabama”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this has to be an act, right? A little too on-the-nose.
Mnemosyne
@LanceThruster:
White guy loves the idea of a white guy lecturing the little ladies about what they should think is important, as defined by white guys.
This is my surprised face.
ruemara
@LanceThruster: Sure, it’s inspired all right. What could be more progressive than a 70 year old fellow with 3 houses, a longstanding cushy government job, no practical skills in organizing demonstrated and a record of writing rape fantasies and supporting folks who oppose choice? I can’t wait to hear from him!
Corner Stone
They all love him. All the WH Press Corps are goo goo for gaga over the moon for Gen Kelly. He’s telling them to their face that he thinks they lie every morning and they love him for it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Mnemosyne:
Bernie earning his place at the head of the women’s table.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
They Support The Troops.
You seem a little… tepid in that regard, Citizen.
Starfish
@Corner Stone:
Spanky
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
OK, I LOLed. What else can I do, at this point?
A Ghost To Most
From WaPo. News sure is different these days.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Ho. Lee. FUck. That Real Time moment is amazing
germy
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Man Finally Put In Charge Of Struggling Feminist Movement
germy
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah. I watched that happen in real time (pun intended) and Bernie should be very glad that I wasn’t sitting where Abby Huntsman was.
germy
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@germy:
Maxine will not be set up to be steamrolled by Bernie fucking Sanders.
Jeffro
@A Ghost To Most: that’s where I heard it first! =)
Jeffro
@Mnemosyne: That’s not a very surprised surprised face.
ruemara
@germy: Well, she is a negress and couldn’t possibly be a leader.
How disappointed am I in the progressive sphere? Not sure there’s a mathematical formula for it yet.
Jeffro
@Spanky: I love how they are so miserable, they can’t even keep the (verbal) mask on for a full minute…”I’m not quitting today…I don’t think I’m being fired today…”
MAN UP, KELLY! Just think to yourself, “How would Kellyanne lie?” and do that. This today stuff is weak, weak, weak!
Ian G.
@A Ghost To Most:
Bits and pieces of “Live from Alabama”. The version of “Dress Blues” on it blows the original studio version out of the water.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No! No, I 100% do! In fact, I am standing at attention right now! And after seeing Supreme Leader CoS Kelly’s beguilingly pearly white smile I am at “full attention” if you know what I mean. And I think you do.
Aleta
@Mnemosyne: Hey why not headliner apologies from Obama. Maybe that would call the strays together.
A Ghost To Most
@Ian G.: Have you listened to DBT’s “Live From Austin City Limits”? I always recommend it as a way to explore DBT. No Isbell, but it came just after “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark”. John Neff OWNS that album with his pedal steel work.
Aleta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And how each of the women feel obliged to laugh.
LanceThruster
@Mnemosyne:
Nina Turner’s probably cool with it, but I see your point. How dare women make their own selection without getting Mnemosyne approval first.
A Ghost To Most
@LanceThruster: Doug must have some free time.
Mnemosyne
@Jeffro:
Sorry, I forgot to include the emoji:
This is my surprised face. ??
Mnemosyne
@LanceThruster:
There are a lot of women out there who prefer to have men tell them what to do rather than think for themselves. I’m just surprised that they’re claiming to be feminists.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: oohh, *Nina Turner* is cool with Bernie being The Face of Feminism, so it’s *all* cool, amirite?
rikyrah
@ruemara:
Everytime I think the rage might subside, something else happens. I’m beyond enraged by this.
rikyrah
@Gremcat:
Is the other 31 billion – A LOAN to those areas?
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
And she runs Our Revolution completely independently of Bernie, and the organization has no association with him! You know, kind of like how Scientology is run independently of L. Ron Hubbard.
catclub
@rikyrah:
It may no longer be a secret, but I think a whole lot of disaster loans end up being forgiven by the government.
ruemara
@LanceThruster: Nina Turner. The insufferable Bernista Pokemon against critique. What’s great is she counters two things by being both black and female. Problem is, she’s as shallow, ego-maniacal and lacking in real accomplishment has him. Hey, they should team up and hit the Catskills circuit!
prostratedragon
We’re swimming in it. Recorded at Electric Lady, NYC, 1974:
sm*t cl*de
@rikyrah:
That antivax conspiracy-theorist rightwing nutjob has become a Trump pukefunnel? Imagine my surprise.
satby
@LanceThruster: oh, blow it out your ass
J R in WV
@A Ghost to Not:
So you guys start talking about song titles without a mention of the artist.
I look up who wrote “that” and still don’t know anything. Never heard of the guy. Never heard any of his music. Not dissing him or you, my failure to be educated, but still. Total loss. What happened? I used to know all the good musicians…. but that was then and this is now.
ETA: And David Bowie is still dead! I was never a big fan, but he was a talent. Prince too…. never mind, I’ll find my way out now.
LanceThruster
@ruemara:
Maybe a stint as First Lady would give her some bona fides? That is, unless it’s Melania’s turn first. Oh wait…immigrant. Guess she’ll have to settle for being a Senator. Might actually be able to do some good there if she treats the position as important to the functioning of the Republic and not just a stepping stone to something more prized. I wonder what state she should carpetbag in?
As for Nina, it takes a lot of guts to work at something from the ground floor despite the obstacles. If she keeps her nose clean and doesn’t get fired for being corrupt, she’ll do fine (though if she was corrupt for the ‘right’ person, job security is not a problem).
LanceThruster
@satby:
Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark.
LanceThruster
@satby:
Ouch! That’s gonna leave a [email protected]Mnemosyne:
Or like the DNC and Team Hillary? Talk about a Scientology parallel.
LanceThruster
@Miss Bianca:
The organizers of the conference were cool with it. They call the shots. No complaints here. I like Maxine Waters a lot too, though have read some of her reported gaffes and wince a bit. They seem no worse than Obama’s 57 state primary remark (or whatever that was).
LanceThruster
@Mnemosyne:
Ah, there it is. The organizers of the Women’s Conference just can’t help themselves. Even *they*…politically active and determined women, are just puppets of the mens pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Maybe Hillary can come riding in on her white charger to save the day in the nick of time. You know, like she did in saving us from tRump and his deplorables (after having her MSM minions puff Trump for the first part of the election cycle). So glad her high stakes wager paid off for the party, the nation…hell, the whole danged planet! Now *there’s* a master of 11 dimensional chess, if I ever saw one.