Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Consistently wrong since 2002

So many bastards, so little time.

In after Baud. Damn.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

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

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Morning Open Thread: Break Out the Light Therapy Boxes

Monday Morning Open Thread: Break Out the Light Therapy Boxes

by | 208 Comments

This post is in: 

(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
.

Something this weekend about the quality of the light, or the lack thereof, reminded me it’s probably time to start using my light therapy box again. If the turning season makes you SAD, remember that self-care is especially important as the days get shorter here in the northern hemisphere.

Apart from turning inward with the season, what’s on the agenda as we start another week?

***********
It’s not just us sensitive left-wing snowflakes — even the robust denizens of MAGAmurka are feeling abused and misunderstood these days. Eric Levitz, in NYMag, says “Trump Keeps Getting Mad When He Finds Out What His Policies Actually Do”:

… [T]here is one sense in which Trump is genuinely a man of the people — or, more precisely, of a certain subsegment of said people: Like millions of ordinary Americans, Donald Trump watches a lot of Fox News, but isn’t really interested in politics.

No occupant of the Oval Office has ever shared the average person’s disinterest in policy, parliamentary procedure, and the rudiments of American civics to the extent that Trump does. He is America’s first “low-information voter” president.

This was surely one source of his appeal on the campaign trail. The candidate spoke about politics like a regular Joe. Which is to say, like someone who doesn’t know much about politics but heard (or misheard) an outrageous thing about “Obummer” on Hannity last night. Jeb Bush read white papers, gave speeches at D.C. think tanks. Donald Trump watched Fox & Friends and shouted at his television. The billionaire might live in material conditions more opulent than his supporters could ever imagine. But unlike every other candidate in the GOP primary, in one small — but real and visceral — sense, Trump and the Republican base lived in the same world.

But if blithe ignorance about politics and mindless faith in the claims of right-wing pundits worked for Trump as a candidate, they’ve proven less effective for him as a president.

Specifically, the fact that Trump is too lazy and disinterested to craft (or even read) his own policy proposals has led him to outsource his agenda to congressional Republicans. And the fact that he gets most of his news from the GOP’s propaganda network has led him to assume that the party’s talking points bear some resemblance to political reality…

…Like the millions of low-information voters who elected him, Trump was duped by Fox News. And now he — and, to a lesser extent, they — are growing disillusioned with his presidency…

Even Mr. Megan McArgleBargle, professional libertarian happytalker, begins to suspect there’s no pony buried in that vast pile of horse shit…

… Mr. Trump, of course, is the biggest sideshow of them all. He exploited the gap between the base and the elites, embodying the dysfunction and disarray that already existed.

Like all presidents, he serves an organizing function for his party, orienting it around broad goals. But Mr. Trump’s goals have more to do with Twitter feuds and personal aggrandizement than any particular policies. Under Mr. Trump, the party’s chief internal debate is not so much about which governing vision to pursue but whether there should be one at all.

This reality is not lost on all Republicans. Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, one of the party’s most libertarian members, recently said that when he realized that primary voters backed him and his fellow libertarians Rand Paul and Ron Paul, it wasn’t for their ideas. Instead, he said, “they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race — and Donald Trump won best in class.”

Republican voters weren’t voting for any policy outcome. They were voting for chaos. And that, more than anything, is what the party has come to stand for.

A more conventional Republican president might have smoothed over some of these intraparty conflicts, and almost certainly would have managed passing legislation with more skill. But the essential divisions would still have existed…

For years before Mr. Trump was elected, Republicans lacked a consensus plan to replace Obamacare, and their tax reform plans were vague. Republicans blew up the deficit under Mr. Bush before complaining about it under Mr. Obama, and the party has fought bitter internal battles over immigration for decades.

Republican voters, meanwhile, were attracted to shallow political entertainers and obviously unqualified candidates long before Mr. Trump threw his hat in the ring.

Mr. Trump didn’t cause any of this. He just took advantage of it. He is the most successful huckster of the bunch…

As though “huckster” wasn’t the highest form of human intellect, in Ayn Rand’s fantasyverse. Don’t go away mad, Peter — just go away!

Reader Interactions

208Comments

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    There’s something wrong with Hillary Clinton. It is not just her constant lying. It is not just that she throws off menacing glares and seethes thwarted entitlement. Watch closely. Something much darker rides along with it. A cold creepiness rarely seen.

    -Julian Assange, a cold creepiness rarely seen as it hides out in an Ecuadorian embassy.

  11. 11.

    satby

    @eclare: yeah, the new ads make the site hard to load on her mobile, and she’s cleaning out her family home of the accumulation of years. So she’s working hard and too tired to drag the laptop out to get on the blog, she said.

    Good morning, everyone!

  12. 12.

    satby

    Only getting to 59 here but at least it’s stopped raining. Ironic that it finally gave us the good soaking we could have used 2 months ago. But I noticed that some of the autumn colors on the trees are perking up a bit with the added rain, the leaves were mostly just turning to brown and dropping, now one maple that was mostly browning up is showing red. Never expected that.

    Tomorrow will be 67 and sunny, good because I have tulip and daffodil bulbs to plant. That’s perfect weather for it.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    One’s heart goes out to those folks spotlighted in this article impacted by the Harvey storm. But that does not include any sympathy nor any leeway whatsoever for adamantine unreasoning, political Luddite-ism, raw cultism and entrenched belief in magical thinking.

    Ewing’s home in Port Neches survived Harvey unscathed, though she has friends and relatives who lost everything. She remains unshaken in her belief that emissions do no lasting damage to the Earth despite the consensus among climate scientists that global warming is real and caused by man. She said she trusts America’s manufacturers to regulate for themselves what they put into the air, and she believes the government’s attempts to control carbon emissions have caused some to move their factories overseas, where they pollute just as much.
    [snip]
    Ewing is part of Trump’s base, an ardent supporter, and she said the only thing he could do that would disappoint her would be to resign. She feels that nothing — especially environmental regulations — should be allowed to get in the way of his pledge to bring back American manufacturing jobs. Source

    Texas, it’s a whole ‘nother country dimension.

  15. 15.

    Chyron HR

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    [Clinton] seethes thwarted entitlement

    “Because of the Clintons’ long-standing contacts Inside the Beltway, she had also won the support of the leadership of most of the unions, environmental groups, and women’s and LGBT groups. Her lock on establishment support was so strong that by the end of the campaign I ended up winning the endorsement of one major newspaper. She won the support of dozens. IT’S NOT FAIR!”

    – Bernard S., un-entitled presidential candidate

  18. 18.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    The billionaire might live in material conditions more opulent than his supporters could ever imagine.

    I wish they would stop saying he’s a billionaire. Billionaires don’t display fake paintings on their walls or wear fake costume jewelry.

    One of the reasons he’s in the WH is because over decades the corporate media has conditioned the public to believe rich people are good with money and therefore they should oversea the government budget. Fact is a broke con-man who has declared bankruptcy 6 times and lives on other people’s money is anything but good with budgets.

  21. 21.

    RedDirtGirl

    Good morning everyone! I hadn’t felt the need for my SAD light for the past few years, but I just ordered replacement bulbs and will start using it as soon as they arrive.

  29. 29.

    HeleninEire

    Morning everyone. Almost noon here and its actually sunny with a slight breeze. The city center is pretty empty. Most of the shops have chosen to stay closed. Looks like the South is getting hit hard. Dublin expects to welcome Ophelia around 1 or 2. I’ll check in again later today.

  32. 32.

    satby

    @HeleninEire: Best of luck to the land of my ancestors! Did it land as a hurricane or did it downgrade to tropical storm strength?

    Edit: ok, it’s now a strong tropical storm.

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The latest fad in STL gun violence:

    The Sunday shootings were:

    Shortly after midnight, police were called to the intersection of Martin Luther King Drive and Clara Avenue, where a woman was shot in the right leg. She was reported stable at a hospital.
    Just after 2 a.m., police responded to the 7500 block of Pennsylvania Avenue, where a teenage victim was shot in the calf during an attempted robbery. He was also reported stable at a hospital.
    At 4:15 a.m., police were called to the 5800 block of Kennerly Avenue where a victim was shot in the calf. The victim was conscious and breathing.
    At 5:45 a.m., police responded to the 5400 block of Gilmore Avenue, where a person was shot in the hand and wrist. He was conscious and breathing.
    About 3 p.m., police were called to the 4400 block of St. Ferdinand Avenue where a victim was shot in the face. She was conscious and breathing.
    About 4 p.m., police responded to the 4800 block of Carter Avenue, where a victim was shot in the leg. He was conscious and breathing.
    About 5 p.m., police were called to the intersection of Goodfellow Boulevard and Henner Avenue, where a victim was shot in the leg. He was conscious and breathing.
    About 7:30 p.m., two male victims showed up at a hospital with gunshot wounds to their lower extremities. Both were described as stable. They said they were shot near Page Boulevard and Walton Avenue, but police said there was no evidence supporting that statement.
    At about 9:20 p.m., a woman was shot in the chest in the 2500 block of North Grand Avenue. Homicide detectives were called to the scene, and the victim was taken to St. Louis University Hospital.

    It’s tuff being a leg in STL these days.

  36. 36.

    Just one more canuck

    @Chyron HR: getting the support from groups after working with them over a period of decades to achieve common goals while I sit around on my flabby ass and pontificate is so unfair

  38. 38.

    Betty Cracker

    @NotMax: Yep, I am bereft of empathy for the willfully stupid like Ewing. It would be poetic justice if Hurricane Donald smashes her house to matchsticks and forces her to climb aboard a floating island of fire ants to escape the toxic surge.

  39. 39.

    Tony J

    Sitting here at my desk in Liverpool, looking out over the Irish Sea, and the sky is really, really creepy looking. If you’ve ever played ‘Red Dead Redemption – Undead Nightmare’ you’ll recognise the sickly yellow glaze and that eerie glow of rot and corruption it casts on everything. I know we’re all probably living in some whacked-out alien’s hyper-advanced VR simulation, but Ogshabuttzi of the Meizo Clan really shouldn’t have downloaded this patch before Halloween, it’s too spooky for a Monday morning.

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Baud:

    Chyron did add the “It’s not fair!” at the end.

    The rest is from Sanders’s book Our Revolution, for those who don’t know.

  43. 43.

    satby

    @Steeplejack (phone): @Baud: I recognized the tone as real enough, he’s said similar. Didn’t realize that the last sentence wasn’t his because it’s something that I expect him to whine about. But I won’t say more, it’s a troll magnet.

  46. 46.

    rk

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    There’s something wrong with Hillary Clinton. It is not just her constant lying. It is not just that she throws off menacing glares and seethes thwarted entitlement. Watch closely. Something much darker rides along with it. A cold creepiness rarely seen.

    Actually what’s wrong with Hillary is that she’s knows exactly what this punk Assange is all about. She’s far more knowledgeable than 99% of the men on this planet and that’s what creeps him out. The moron has spent half a decade holed up like a coward.

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Baud, @satby:

    This is how bullshit gets started on the Interwebs, and it’s why I am constantly nagging people to provide links or at least name their sources. Stuff like this proliferates and wanders far away from its original context, and snark and even well-intentioned humor can get misread. Somewhere down the road somebody will be swearing that “Bernie was yelling ‘It’s not fair!’ I saw it on Balloon Juice, an almost top 10,000 blog!”

  51. 51.

    debbie

    @HeleninEire:

    Good luck. The local weatherman said Ophelia was heading more northerly than earlier predicted. Hope that continues and the storm is just a glancing blow.

  54. 54.

    Matt

    @NotMax:

    Ah, conservatism: where regulating what companies put into the air is a crime against freedom, but regulating what adults put into their bodies (chemicals and/or other adults) is somehow a moral imperative.

  56. 56.

    different-church-lady

    @Chyron HR: I was going to hold off on a side-thought I had while reading the NY Mag quote about Trump, but now I might as well go ahead.

    Trump is resentment-driven creature. He is driven almost purely by resentment. And Sanders, while not being so overwhelmed by it, is also fairly resentment driven. Sanders resentment is driven from the opposite direction, one much more fair-minded and compassionate. But it’s still resentment, and resentment is a major engine in his politics. It’s one of the reasons I was suspicious of his ability to get much done as president. Resentment is corrosive, whether it’s justified or not.

  57. 57.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    So as I’d mentioned this weekend, I have what I think to be a cracked tooth or an abscess under a crown. I did start some Keflex antibiotics (had some around, thanks to whichever commenter said it).

    Anyway, I had been going through my leftover hydrocodone yesterday to control the pain (was alternating ibuprofen, Tylenol, aspirin and the lortab). Last night, at about 12:30, sonofabitch just started throbbing. Combined lortab and ibuprofen and oragel, and it really didn’t touch the pain. 3:30 am was especially exciting.

    And of course, my dentist was out of town yesterday – she’ll be in this morning. Hopefully, she can get me in this afternoon.

  64. 64.

    Amir Khalid

    @Chyron HR:
    I’ve long said that Bernie’s lack of preparation for high executive office, indeed his unawareness of the need to prepare, is a disqualifying.flaw in a candidate for POTUS. Resenting Hillary for benefiting from her decades of that prep work is foolish, and only serves to underline that Democratic voters were right to prefer her over him.

  69. 69.

    Baud

    @Kay: Except Hillary was slagged for being rich too. I think the only rich considered legitimate is business rich.

  70. 70.

    MJS

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Try packing it, or otherwise keeping air away from it. I’ve had a ruptured appendix, kidney stones, and a cracked tooth, and the cracked tooth was by far the most painful. The only thing that helped was holding a mouthful of water at all times, which I didn’t figure out until it was too late was because it was keeping air away from the tooth. Oh, whiskey also helped more than any pain killers I took, but I could only use that on the weekend.

  73. 73.

    Calming Influence

    Another sunny day in the Seattle/PNW region, but definitely headed towards drizzle season. As far as SAD, the cure is outside. Exposing yourself to sunlight, even through cloud cover, is enough to ward off the heebie jeepies.

    (We get the same amount of rainfall as Huntington, New York. We just get it spread out over the winter rainy season, or more accurately the “drizzle” season.)

  75. 75.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @debit:

    I’m guzzling coffee with a ton of sugar.

    Food is for people who can chew.

  76. 76.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: @Steeplejack:

    The lower extremity refers to the part of the body from the hip to the toes. The lower extremity includes the hip, knee, and ankle joints, and the bones of the thigh, leg, and foot. Many people refer to the lower extremity as the leg. In fact, the leg is the part of the body between the knee and ankle joints.Sep 16, 2017

    Definition of the Lower Extremity – Verywell
    https://www.verywell.com/lower-extremity-2549237

    ETA I had never considered the pelvic area as part of the lower extremities. Learn something new every day.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    What Christmas gift should I get for a 17 year old exchange student from Denmark? He likes soccer and…the internet.

  79. 79.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kay:

    Find out his favorite team and player, and get him a proper jersey.

  80. 80.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    I attribute seasonal affective disorder (SAD) to the lack of a full slate of baseball.

    It makes the more important issues of living bearable. Something has to bring joy into the day. The six month during baseball season there is something in the day that isn’t there during winter. It’s not that you have to watch the game, but you could if you needed it.

    Thomas Boswell, Washington Post

  83. 83.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Amir Khalid: No, not all the same guy. Sometimes it feels like STL has more guns than people but most of the shootings are in specific “hot spot” neighborhoods. These were all over the place and a little surprising in that roughly double on Sunday over Saturday. Fortunately, as far as I can tell, there were no fatalities for a change (knock on wood).

  84. 84.

    Amir Khalid

    @Patricia Kayden:
    Per Wikipedia, Swedish prosecutors dropped the investigation and applied to have Assange’s arrest warrant revoked. So he’s not facing those charges anymore. But the local cops in London still have an arrest warrant outstanding on him for jumping bail, and that’s why he’s still a guest of the Ecuadorean Embassy.

  85. 85.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @different-church-lady: his policies are actually good (ie free collage) but it’s impossible to listen to him or to put up with him with his never ending litany of personal grievance and self-righteousness.

  87. 87.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: “Getting hit in the lower extremities” was always cop-speak in Florida and Texas for getting kicked, punched, or perhaps shot in the groin. But my arrest form experience was from less crass times (last century).

  90. 90.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Amir Khalid: Sadly Ecuador has turned into a client state of Russia.

    Medvedev did not hide his eagerness to sell Russian armaments to Ecuador and said he hoped the contract signed Thursday for the sale of two Mi-171E helicopters to the Ecuadorian army would be “just the start” of “technical-military cooperation” between the two nations.

    The Russian leader also hailed an impending agreement to eliminate visa requirements for citizens of each country who wish to travel to the other.

    Medvedev said his government and Correa’s see eye-to-eye on international issues and he expressed gratitude to Moscow’s “Ecuadorian partners for their understanding regarding some (Russian) concerns.”

    Though the Russian didn’t elaborate, media reports this week suggest that Ecuador is preparing to join Venezuela and Nicaragua in recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the two regions that declared independence from Georgia after Tbilisi’s August 2008 armed conflict with Moscow. (link)

  91. 91.

    Steeplejack

    @Kay:

    Does he like playing soccer or just watching it? If the former, maybe get him a good-quality soccer ball. And I second the recommendation on a jersey.

    Or, and this is a little off the beaten path, what about a messenger bag? Hard to know what kids think is cool gear at any given time, but you can make observations and perhaps ask your own sons. Timbuk2 and L.L. Bean have some decent choices. Does he show any signs of the mania for American brand names that my brother’s Brazilian in-laws have? Some of them, I think you could give them a rag with a Nike logo on it and they would go ape. (And then sell it to someone else for $40 when they got back to Brazil.)

  92. 92.

    different-church-lady

    @rk:

    She’s far more knowledgeable than 99% of the men on this planet and that’s what creeps him out.

    I suspect during her tenure as Secretary of State she learned a whole lot about the world that mere mortals will never know.

  95. 95.

    satby

    @Kay: Amazon gift card. Maybe in some souvineer thing he can bring home. He’s in Chicago, right? Does he enjoy any of the sports teams?
    Alternatively, tickets to something like a Blackhawks game or another experience he might like. Exchange students want to see and do more than their budget usually allows. And a lot of stuff ends up staying behind when they pack to leave, so I usually got gifts that let them go do or see something.

    Edited to add: many are surprisingly open to going outside their comfort zone too, so it could be a concert or a play. If his favorite rock group ever comes to Chicago, he would be over the moon to get a ticket to that.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    I can’t stand Jane Sanders. She just screams “bullshitting fake Lefty” to me. It’s unfair, obviously I don’t know her personally but I don’t want to.

    Dennis Kucinich is horrible in person- patronizing, ambitious but pretending he’s not, a poor listener. She reminds me of him.

  102. 102.

    debit

    @satby: Good! Just terribly busy at work and doing a lot of family stuff so my internet time is limited. I miss you guys.

  103. 103.

    SFAW

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Assange is a rapist. It’s amazing that he would call a woman creepy.

    As with ALL Republicans — whether they actually belong to the Partei of Traitors or not [sic] — it is always projection. Always always always.

  106. 106.

    Amir Khalid

    @Kay:
    He’s still getting a skiing holiday, so I don’t think he’ll mind that it won’t be in Vail or Aspen, both of which are world-famous for being very expensive. If he were that much of a dick, he wouldn’t have been selected for a student exchange programme in the first place.

  108. 108.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: As an STL fan in the early 60’s I loved Harry and was heart broken when he got fired for some… extracurricular activities with the Boss’s wife. Fortunately, my old man was a die hard Cubs fan so I still got to listen to him on a regular basis.

  109. 109.

    different-church-lady

    @NotMax:

    She feels that nothing — especially environmental regulations — should be allowed to get in the way of his pledge to bring back American manufacturing jobs.

    Does that include his own incompetence?

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @satby:

    Thanks. I know you’re experienced. I only have him for a week and the ski trip will be one 12 hour day. My son, his host, who is a jerk, is making fun of me. “Take him to see the Christmas lights at the courthouse. Take him to Black Friday at Walmart” as if that’s all we do :)

  112. 112.

    SFAW

    @different-church-lady:

    I suspect during her tenure as Secretary of State she learned a whole lot about the world that mere mortals will never know.

    Oh, bullshit. Her failed tenure at State was a failing fail of Fails. Did she stop the Arabs hating the Israelis? NO! Did she stop the Shia and Sunni from hating each other? NO! Did her “experience” and “knowledge” keep the Germans from bombing Pearl Harbor??? NO!!!

    And don’t get me started on how she, as SecState, hand-delivered all the nuke miniaturization designs to Joseph Stalin!

  113. 113.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud:

    Except Hillary was slagged for being rich too. I think the only rich considered legitimate is business rich.

    Rich is only a pejorative when aimed at someone with left-oriented politics. “Hillary’s wealth proves she’s a hypocrite because hippies hate capitalism. Trump’s wealth proves he’s a genius because he loves capitalism.” None of these people will ever launch rockets, never mind understand magnets.

  116. 116.

    satby

    @Kay: I have experienced “son” humor too, funny only to them. But if there is a touristy thing near you (sorry, I know Ohio is a big state and have no idea where you are in it) I would take him there. How about a trip to an Amish area, that would be interesting for him.

    Edited to add: a morning at the courthouse would be interesting too. Any judges you know willing to meet him and spend a few minutes talking about our system of justice?

  117. 117.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: I know there’s a long misogynist history behind the suggestion that I’m about to make, but I feel strongly that Jane Sanders pushed Bernie to run for President because she knew it would make her famous and/or influential herself.

  118. 118.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @different-church-lady: These are the same people who claimed John Kerry serving in Vietnam as proof he doesn’t support the troops. People get a little caught up in how Hillary was abused, but heck when being combat vet is denounced as sign of cowardice by a flock of Chicken Hawks, then things are really wrapped beyond reality.

  119. 119.

    Steeplejack

    @Baud:

    On the contrary, I was going to ask for a link to these obviously factual, reality-based allegations so that I could spread them far and wide.

  120. 120.

    FlipYrWhig

    @different-church-lady:

    Rich is only a pejorative when aimed at someone with left-oriented politics.

    Yup. That’s basically what the word “elite” means on the right and what the word “neoliberal” means on the left.

  121. 121.

    Frankensteinbeck

    They were voting for chaos.

    They were voting, like McConnell and Boehner, to do absolutely whatever it took to stop a black man from ever becoming president again.

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Assange is an asshole, and he’s crazy. ‘Hide in the bushes from imaginary assassins’ crazy. That is a thing he does, or did before he had to hide in an embassy. He is also openly racist and sexist, makes ethnic jokes including slurs, views women as things to use and is open about it, and is a notorious deadbeat. He agreed to write (with a ghost-writer) a memoir, refused at the last minute to have it published, and would not give the money back. He did things like that as a pattern. Oh, and he divides the world into good guys (himself and anyone he thinks is totally allied with him on all issues), and evil cartoon villains. So, yeah, he’s going to say stuff like that.

    @different-church-lady:
    Sanders represents a group that I have noticed over the years here on Balloon Juice. The Lefty thinks that the rich are evil. He wants to hurt them. That’s it, that’s his political views. No regulation of banking is meaningful unless bankers go to jail. The entire insurance industry must be destroyed, and nothing else will do. There are merely strongly liberal folks here who lean to ‘the rich are evil’, but for Sanders and his dead-enders, there is nothing but anger and destroying the enemy.

  123. 123.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Tesla Motors fires hundreds of workers after performance reviews

    Tesla Motors fired hundreds of workers after completing its annual performance reviews this week, even though the electric automaker is trying to ramp up production to meet the demand for its new Model 3 sedan.
    ………..
    Tesla is under pressure to deliver its Model 3 to a waiting list of more than 450,000 customers. The company has been lagging behind its own production targets, after making just 260 of the vehicles in its last quarter.

    The firings were of a very inconsequential number (4-700 people out of 33,000) but 260 cars for whole a quarter? Which computes to 1040 cars per year? And a waiting list of 450,000? I know Elon Musk is supposed to be a business genius and all but something tells me he’s leaving a lot of money on the table.

  124. 124.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @SFAW: l

    In wingnut world, diplomacy is supposed to work like this:

    “White man of means and seriousness announces that coolies/wogs/spics/colored/slopes must accede to a specified list of demands, which includes some exchanges, actions, inactions and quid pro quos, each of which is designed to aid said white man of means and/or his friends at great expense to the coolies, etc. Refusal of said coolies etc. to enthusiastically do these things brings about the very credible, very real threat of diplomatic, trade and military reprisals from America and her allies.

    Life for them is a western movie from the 50s.

  125. 125.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @FlipYrWhig:
    I think we underestimate how well Lefties understand the term ‘neoliberal.’ The problem isn’t that they’re using it wrong. It’s that they live in a fantasy world where mainstream Democratic policy is letting the rich do whatever they want. As above, presumably this fantasy stems from Democrats not wanting to actually march the rich to guillo- well, no. From Democrats not screaming about how the rich are inherently evil. Like Trump supporters, they’re more into bluster than action.

  126. 126.

    different-church-lady

    @Frankensteinbeck: I think you’re only slightly off the target: you accurately describe the stunted politics of a certain brand of reactionary lefty. I believe Sander’s views are much more nuanced. But the problem is he has nearly no compunction about leveraging the reactionary simple-mindedness of the first group.

  128. 128.

    chris

    @OzarkHillbilly: There’s an economic argument for gun control right there. All those people presumably ended up in emergency rooms needing medical care. Must have cost a fortune but it’s unlikely anyone will do the arithmetic.

    Wrong. Google has lots of numbers but no one seems to care. Price of freedumb, I guess.

  129. 129.

    satby

    @different-church-lady: the man has never successfully shepherded a single bill of his own into law. If he had a nuanced view of anything, he’d have more to show for his decades in office. He was and is an unpleasant professional gadfly who’s graduated to professional con artist.
    His spouse is a crook.

  130. 130.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In today’s Guardian:

    The fact that Trump stepped back was the result of intense, high-level lobbying. Pressure was applied by senior White House officials, departmental chiefs and close allies such as Theresa May, who personally intervened by phone. The outcome: Trump’s worst instincts on Iran were curbed, at least for now.

    Leading the campaign inside the West Wing were three former generals – John Kelly, Trump’s chief of staff; Jim Mattis, his defence secretary; and HR McMaster, his national security adviser. All three men served in Iraq and, unlike the president, know what it means to be on the sharp end. Their intervention meant Trump’s speech, while strategically misjudged, needlessly bellicose in tone, and historically and factually inaccurate, was not quite the unlucky cataclysm that had been predicted. In Trump’s White House, it was the night of the generals.

    Whether Trump’s principal advisers and handlers, egged on by friendly overseas leaders, can pull off the same trick in future is an open question. But an important precedent has been set.

    The biggest, upcoming concern is North Korea, where the US leader has recklessly threatened to rain down death and destruction on bumptious Kim Jong-un in response to the regime’s nuclear weapons build-up. Congress has belatedly woken up to the fact that the president has the power to launch a nuclear strike without any meaningful prior consultation. Legislation to curb that authority is now mooted. But for the time being, the three stooges – Generals Kelly, Mattis and McMaster – are probably the best, last defence preventing Trump from starting the third world war.

    Made me laugh anyway.

  131. 131.

    Kay

    @satby:

    Friends of ours are real farmers- they have a big commercial operation – and they have a Christmas party with a band every year, so he might think that’s interesting. They hold it in the barn but it’s a barn for equipment not animals so it’s not “barn-like” in the way he might expect. We make the giant tires for large equipment here -they’re manufactured here- and these people always point that out.

    it’s a pretty impressive place, their farm. Just neat as a pin. The courthouse is actually beautiful- lawyers get an electronic pass key so I can take him all over inside. A lot of Ohio courthouses are beautiful but this is something special because they never screwed with it- didn’t put up dropped ceilings or chop it up. I have a 15 year old – he’s friendly and easy to get along with so maybe he’ll take him out too with the local high schoolers.

  133. 133.

    Betty Cracker

    @satby: I was following the Women’s March convention kerfluffle on Twitter for the larfs, and Jane Sanders piped up to complain that women who say the women’s convention should be opened by a, you know, woman, were being sexist against Bernie. What a maroon!

  135. 135.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    @different-church-lady:
    Sanders represents a group that I have noticed over the years here on Balloon Juice. The Lefty thinks that the rich are evil. He wants to hurt them. That’s it, that’s his political views. No regulation of banking is meaningful unless bankers go to jail. The entire insurance industry must be destroyed, and nothing else will do. There are merely strongly liberal folks here who lean to ‘the rich are evil’, but for Sanders and his dead-enders, there is nothing but anger and destroying the enemy.

    Try pointing out to them what sudden imposition of “Medicare for All” does as far as unemployment, pensions, 401Ks and charitable endowments, and you’ll get met with sheer malevolence.

  136. 136.

    Kay

    So I’ve seen some valiant efforts to rebut Trump’s constant lying on his tax plan, but this is serious now- he’s lying about a law that might actually pass. Trump could cement in income inequality in a way that won’t be remedied.

    Oppose, oppose, oppose.

  138. 138.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Betty Cracker: Making it more galling is how Sanders spent 2016 denouncing “identity politics”, even bashing Planned Parenthood. Now that he wants to run again, he cynically appeals to empowerment groups.

  140. 140.

    satby

    @Kay: all those will be great experiences, and memories! You’ll have a good time too, because you’ll see your own environment with fresh eyes. You got this!

  141. 141.

    Barbara

    @OzarkHillbilly: Julian Assange is a coward. He is also a creep, but the animating spirit is one of complete fear of having to go toe to toe with anyone that would actually require him to defend some principled position — either because he has no principles or because those principles are indefensible. Either way, he is a base man who is unfit to judge other human beings.

  143. 143.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I came to agree with them on jail, though. The “powerful people don’t go to prison” thing has to stop. It would be bad in a country that doesn’t send everyone and their brother to prison but in THIS country, a country that does, people are bound to notice.

    No more fines. Prosecute. If they lose they lose but the “day in court” for the public is vitally important. People sometimes just want to be heard and that’s valid. They want an advocate.

  145. 145.

    satby

    @danielx: yes, but the sun is out for the first time in 3 days! We needed the rain, but I missed the sun.
    And my tomatoes and late crop of potatoes are still growing.

  146. 146.

    Kay

    @satby:

    Thanks. I love having house guests and I don’t get my daughter and her husband this year so I felt ripped off. Her husband would be good to have around. He’s sporty and gregarious and he has that bizarre Pittsburgh accent :)

  148. 148.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    A. Bartlett Giamatti felt the same way:

    It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped, and summer was gone.

    — The Green Fields of the Mind

  149. 149.

    oldgold

    Satby, I am starting to get an inkling of a feint vibe that you just might not feel the bern?

  150. 150.

    Chris

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    “White man of means and seriousness announces that coolies/wogs/spics/colored/slopes must accede to a specified list of demands, which includes some exchanges, actions, inactions and quid pro quos, each of which is designed to aid said white man of means and/or his friends at great expense to the coolies, etc. Refusal of said coolies etc. to enthusiastically do these things brings about the very credible, very real threat of diplomatic, trade and military reprisals from America and her allies.

    “And acceptance of said coolies to enthusiastically do these things brings about the very credible, very real threat of diplomatic, trade and military reprisals from America and her allies anyway, because America needs to kick ass.”

  152. 152.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Frankensteinbeck: I know the type of lefty you speak about. They read Guardian (and Hindu, if they are in India). Every American policy, especially foreign by its definition is bad, so many of them were sitting ducks for Russian manipulation. I think more than the RWNJs, it was the BS supporters, who were the main vector for infection of the Russian virus to the main stream. I always always heard the worst HRC memes from my BS voting later JS voting friends.

  157. 157.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @danielx:

    “Is it safe?”

    I can’t think of Oil of Clove without referencing “Marathon Man”.

  158. 158.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @danielx:

    “Is it safe?”

    I can’t think of Oil of Clove without referencing “Marathon Man”.

  159. 159.

    Chris

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Ehhh… There’s always been a Russian connection to the hard left, but that in itself was never a very big source of penetration into the U.S, simply because everyone else hates the hard left and always has. What really made them dangerous this time around was that making inroads into far right and one percenter groups, i.e. people that the system considers “respectable” in a way that DFHs are not.

  162. 162.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NotMax:

    and she believes the government’s attempts to control carbon emissions have caused some to move their factories overseas, where they pollute just as much.

    She actually has a point there. But the solution is not a race to the bottom; it’s stronger environmental conditions on trade and offshoring.

  166. 166.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Amir Khalid: Were it true that Bernie woulda won, one could argue that it just doesn’t matter–Donald Trump is a thousand times more unprepared than Bernie Sanders ever was, and beating him would simply be an overriding consideration relative to any shortcomings of the candidate as a President.

    But we didn’t have a crystal ball and can’t really look at the alternate timeline.

  167. 167.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kathleen:

    Much as I enjoy weight loss as a concept, I wouldn’t mind eating instead of guzzling sugary coffee.

  168. 168.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I hope they can treat your infection with antibiotics, I was in a similar situation and had to have emergency dental surgery to relieve the pressure from the infection.
    I waited too long for the dentist because we had an ice storm and everything was at a standstill because our area did not have power for days. The tooth infection went from bad to worse in those few days.

  169. 169.

    A Ghost To Most

    Alabama Democratic Senate candidate Doug Jones raised $1.3 million between July and September, an impressive amount for the former U.S. attorney who has so far attracted relatively little support from the national party.

    Jones now has $1 million cash on hand, according to the third-quarter total that was provided to HuffPost.

    “These fundraising numbers are the latest proof that our campaign is continuing to gain incredible momentum with grassroots support from throughout the state of Alabama,” said Sebastian Kitchen, communications director for the Jones campaign. “Alabamians know that Doug cares about kitchen table issues that are important to them and know he will stand up for hardworking families in the Senate.”

    keep it up!

  171. 171.

    A Ghost To Most

    Biloxi removes “To Kill a Mockingbird” from curriculum

    The public school district in Biloxi, Mississippi, scrubbed the 1960 novel from its 8th grade curriculum last week, saying there had been “complaints” about the book’s “language.” The move continues a tradition dating back decades of American schools censoring Harper Lee’s Pulitzer-winning classic.

    “There is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable, and we can teach the same lesson with other books,” Kenny Holloway, vice president of the Biloxi School Board, told the Biloxi Sun Herald of the “Mockingbird” decision. “It’s still in our library. But they’re going to use another book in the 8th grade course.”

    Just for the record, I call Biloxi the “asshole of America”. Spent 4 months there; biggest shithole I have ever known.

  172. 172.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I used to help the elderly farmers next door in the summer, when there was farm work going on. They were in their 70s, born and raised on the farm their grandparents built. There was still a Native American lady living there when the family first came into these parts.

    Come afternoon, after left-overs lunch, they would turn on the TV and we would sit and watch the Cincinnati Reds game, in the heat of the afternoon. Soon there was napping, until someone made contact with the pitched ball with the wooden bat, when we would all start awake to watch the action. Otherwise we napped while listening to the quiet murmur of the play-by-play announcer, who’s name I never quite got.

    The creek in our Hollow is named for their family. Officially, on the maps.

    Today high expected to be 61. Appointment to take both dawgs to the vet for their annual inspection and vaccinations. They got Lyme vaccinations last year, tempted to beg the vet for two syringes with kilo-weight appropriate dosages for two adult humans, as it’s the same vaccine originally developed for people, that didn’t sell well due to anti-vaxxor furore.

    Cats go tomorow, won’t that be fun!!

  173. 173.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck: What drives me nuts about the word “neoliberal” is that it gets twisted in a malign direction by confusion between the US and world senses of “liberal”.

    Yes, the Democrats are fairly liberal in both senses; they generally favor a mixed economy, and are not old-school socialists out to nationalize the means of production; they’re probably to the right of most North European social-democratic parties. But now look at the Republicans: in the US sense of the word, the Republicans are less liberal, whereas in the world’s sense of the word they are far, far more liberal. Yet you rarely hear them calling Republicans neoliberal, just Democrats. I get a definite sense that lefties who throw “neoliberal” around as an epithet in US politics are deliberately trying to obscure that distinction, and kinda-sorta imply that the Democrats are actually worse in some sense, because of their characteristically lefty-revolutionary drive to set the perfect against the merely better.

    (The next response is usually to consider Republicans as some uncontrollable force beneath moral consideration, comparable to wild beasts of the jungle–they just can’t help it–whereas Democrats are the insidious quislings masquerading as good guys. But the solution here is not to aid the beasts of the jungle in tearing them apart; they don’t even do that in the horror movies where the monster eats the human villain near the end of act two.)

  174. 174.

    Chris

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Oh. Well yeah, if you mean “not electing Hillary,” you’re probably right (I’d still rank the MSM and Comey above the professional left, but there’s no doubt that they helped).

    By “infection of the Russian virus into the mainstream,” I thought you just meant more generally – the willingness of so many people to overlook and excuse Russian interference in the election. If that interference had only been through the left, I have no trouble believing that the entire political spectrum would be calling for a Second Cold War right now. Because they did it through and in the service of a right-wing asshole instead, the system is, at best, treating the whole thing with a lot more circumspection than they ever would have if it had been a leftie, and at worst, shrugging and going “yeah, they interfered, so what/what can you do?”

  175. 175.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @different-church-lady: I think one of the things he’s good at in Washington is the parliamentary maneuvering necessary to move or impede legislation–he was doing some of that during the Senate ACA repeal efforts, throwing obstacles into Yertle’s path when opportunity offered.Clearly, that’s not the same as the arm-twisting that Pelosi is so good at, or the persuasion and button-holing others do well, but it is a part of the process, even more so before the Great Turtle of Kentucky started blowing things up in the upper house of our national legislature. I imagine he depended on others to figure out how things were put together into workable bills.

  181. 181.

    trollhattan

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    He’s entering an industry that has over a hundred years wrung every gram of inefficiency out of its production processes, thinking he can reinvent it from scratch without making the same mistakes the others have already experienced. Seemed to work for the low-production high-cost models but trying to make an electric car for “everybody” is a whole other mountain to climb.

    Things will get interesting once we have adequate charging infrastructure, but that seems a ways off.

  183. 183.

    FlipYrWhig

    @a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): There was an old Rolling Stone piece by Matt Taibbi where he basically shadowed Sanders as he walked through Congress lamenting how everyone else was corrupt. But one other feature was that he, it seems, was good at getting his amendments slipped into other people’s legislation. Thing is, I’m not sure he is or would be very good at getting _other people_ to sign onto _his_ legislation, because it seems like he’d carp and kvetch about how unfair it was that he’d have to water it down when it was so filled with wonderful ideas as it was. That’s how he represented his VA reform bill, at any rate: good, but not as good as it could have been, because other people got involved and weakened it. Um, that’s politics, Senator.

  184. 184.

    Brachiator

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    “Is it safe?”

    I can’t think of Oil of Clove without referencing “Marathon Man”.

    Oooh, yes. Great scene.

    Hope you get your tooth issues resolved. I know that stuff can be painful.

    ETA: For some reason, I keep thinking about the tag line of a commercial for a BBQ place promising tender meat portions. “You don’t need teef to eat our beef!”

  186. 186.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @A Ghost To Most: While it’s really hard to give a Mississippi school district/school board the benefit of the doubt, the cause célèbre in the book is a rape accusation, discussed in fairly unrestrained language during the trial scene. It is possible that some people were distressed by that and didn’t feel it was something they wanted their 13-year-old to read, even under supervision. I’d understand someone asking if this couldn’t be put off as a course text for a couple of years for that reason. I think there may also be a suggestion on incest being covered up by the rape accusation, although I might be misremembering.

    Of course, there are going to be other people whose objections are going to be based on the fact that the book wasted time holding a trial at all. Then there will be those upset that it suggested their elders might have resorted to lynching, because in the American South, what’s past is perfect.

  187. 187.

    different-church-lady

    @trollhattan: If film and video tech is any analogy, it goes something like this:

    RED: “We’ll come out with cameras that have incredible imagery at semi-affordable prices.” And RED owns the niche for two or three years.

    Until Sony says, “Hey, that was a good idea RED had, and they’ve proven people outside of Hollywood are interested in the high-quality digital cinema space . Let’s us our significant advantage of years and years of building cameras to leap-frog them.”

  188. 188.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @FlipYrWhig: That seems to be entirely in character, from what I’ve seen. If you have him a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle, he’d complain because he really wanted rye or gin.

  189. 189.

    A Ghost To Most

    A new report from the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer claims that President Donald Trump regularly keeps Vice President Mike Pence in his place by mocking his Christian faith.

    According to Mayer’s sources, Trump enjoys ribbing Pence for his right-wing Christian views by portraying him as a Taliban-style fundamentalist who wants to execute all LGBT people.

    During a recent conversation on gay rights, for instance, Trump allegedly pointed at Pence and said, “Don’t ask that guy—he wants to hang them all!”

    Additionally, Trump likes to ridicule Pence’s commitment to overturning Roe V. Wade by noting that many blue states would simply vote to legalize abortion even if the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 ruling that gave every woman in the United States the right to have an abortion.

    “You’ve wasted all this time and energy on it, and it’s not going to end abortion anyway,” Trump told Pence, according to two sources.

    Mayer also reports that Trump asks people who have just come out of visiting with Pence if the vice president made them say prayers during their meeting.

    Reap the whirlwind, book humpers

  196. 196.

    Brachiator

    @A Ghost To Most:

    Additionally, Trump likes to ridicule Pence’s commitment to overturning Roe V. Wade by noting that many blue states would simply vote to legalize abortion even if the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 ruling that gave every woman in the United States the right to have an abortion.

    There is a wonderful French film called, appropriately enough, “Ridicule,” very much worth renting, that reminds me of the atmosphere of the Trump Administration.

    Ridicule is a 1996 French film set in the 18th century at the decadent court of Versailles, where social status can rise and fall based on one’s ability to mete out witty insults and avoid ridicule oneself. The story examines the social injustices of late 18th-century France, in showing the corruption and callousness of the aristocrats.

  197. 197.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Amir Khalid: Oops, you meant Biloxi and “To Kill A Mockingbird”. I’m thinking they object to depicting white southerners as less than perfect Aryan christian overseers of those people.

  198. 198.

    Matt McIrvin

    @a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): There’s a subtler critique of “Mockingbird”, that it celebrates Atticus the white liberal savior and implies that the antidote to racism is his gentle advocacy of colorblindness (though, on the other hand, Tom Robinson doesn’t get off). But I have a feeling that this objection is some distance from what’s going on here.

  199. 199.

    Brachiator

    @a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):

    It is possible that some people were distressed by that and didn’t feel it was something they wanted their 13-year-old to read, even under supervision.

    The School board did not give much of a reason for banning the book, other than that some people were “distressed,” bless their hearts.

    And what themes were taught using the novel? From the Sun Herald, the local news site that reported the story (always go to the source)

    The current themes for 2nd term language arts classes in Biloxi this year are the Golden Rule and taking a stand. With “To Kill A Mockingbird” specifically, the teens were slated to learn that compassion and empathy are not dependent upon race or education, according to the school’s website.

    The book is listed on the curriculum as core text for 8th grade ELA, the Common Core state standards for English Language Arts.

    One 8th grade teacher on the school website described it as: “Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, “To Kill A Mockingbird” takes readers to the roots of human behavior — to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into 10 languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.”

  200. 200.

    Amir Khalid

    @Matt McIrvin:
    It could also be argued that Atticus’ polite advocacy is depicted as insufficient against racism — despite his heroic efforts, Tom Robinson is still wrongly convicted. The liberal saviour fails to save his man.

  201. 201.

    Ruckus

    @Patricia Kayden:
    Really?
    I’d have thought that a rapist would be looking at the entire situation as a power play. Something he can get over on someone he sees as weaker or creepy. Is it possible that women being physically different than him, scares him? Is it possible that he’s just an asshole?

  205. 205.

    ljdramone

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    There’s something wrong with Hillary Clinton. It is not just her constant lying. It is not just that she throws off menacing glares and seethes thwarted entitlement. Watch closely. Something much darker rides along with it. A cold creepiness rarely seen.

    My stars, but don’t that there Assange feller write purty?

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