This woman is pregnant. She has 2 kids & she just lost her husband. POTUS told her he knew what he signed up for pic.twitter.com/08ExED8jU8
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) October 18, 2017
.
With his amazing ability to reveal the absolute worst about anybody who tries to work with him, “President” Flapjaw has exposed John Kelly as a tinpot militarist willing to sell out his own dead son in support of the GOP’s figurehead. And it’s not gonna get any better.
Video: Gut-wrenching stuff as Gen. Kelly describes his emotions upon seeing Democratic Rep. Wilson parading around blasting Trump pic.twitter.com/1quiR8ta0R
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 19, 2017
Johnson’s (and Wilson’s) hometown paper, the Miami Herald, “In attack on Frederica Wilson over Trump’s call to widow, John Kelly gets facts wrong”:
… Kelly criticized Democratic U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson for claiming “she got the money” for the new building during the 2015 ceremony while he and others in the audience were focused on the heroism of agents Benjamin Grogan and Jerry Dove, killed during a 1986 shootout with bank robbers south of Miami…
In 2015, Wilson won praise from Miami Republicans for sponsoring the bill to name the long anticipated federal building after two agents who became legends in local law enforcement.
At the dedication ceremony, James Comey, then director of the FBI, lauded Wilson’s legislation, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama three days before the April 2015 ceremony…
Johnson was a constituent of Wilson’s who participated in a program founded by the longtime legislator called the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project, which mentors African-American boys and young men.
“Sgt. Johnson was a member of my community and of the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project that I founded to help boys of color build successful futures,” Wilson said in a statement. “He was killed while on a mission to provide training and security assistance to West African armed forces battling vicious insurgents like Boko Haram, the group whose defeat I’ve been fighting for since it abducted nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls more than three years ago.”
Wilson said Thursday that she is intent on finding out why it took 48 hours for Johnson’s body to be located after the ambush, and that the White House is attacking her to distract from an investigation into Johnson’s death.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, also called for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Johnson’s death on Thursday…
The more he talks, the worse it gets.
The only good thing Kelly did today was confirm that Trump was lying.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 19, 2017
John Kelly is falling on his sword for a lying white supremacist with multiple ties to Russian corruption but he's stunned by Rep Wilson?
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) October 19, 2017
John Kelly lamenting days when women were held sacred while launching an attack on an outspoken congresswoman really sums the whole thing up
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) October 19, 2017
No doubt, it’ll play well with The (Very) Base. Our Preznit MAGA made the black beeyotch cry! Doesn’t matter which woman, especially when it’s women of color — they just want that warm feeling in their shorts from watching someone not-them get abused. But the rest of the world can look at “President” Flapjaw and see a lying liar…
President Trump: "I didn't say what that congresswoman said. I didn't say it at all. She knows it. And she now is not saying it." pic.twitter.com/uZt1Xjtj9u
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 18, 2017
Wilson says “I wanted to curse him out,” meaning Trump, for making widow cry, but Army sergeant holding phone wouldn’t let her talk to POTUS
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) October 18, 2017
Frederica Wilson is reportedly getting threats for calling out Trump over his conversation with Sgt Johnson's widow.https://t.co/2xkIR12b2a
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 19, 2017
The Washington Post had a nice eulogy for Sgt. LaDavid Johnson:
To most of the country, Sgt. La David Terrence Johnson was an American service member killed in action in West Africa.
But to his family and in his community in Miami Gardens, Fla., Johnson was also known as “Wheelie King,” a nickname he earned for riding his bicycle on one wheel. He rode a lot, usually on his way to work.
To those who knew him, he was a loving husband who had his wife’s name, Myeshia, tattooed across his chest; a soldier who pushed to improve himself; a son who enjoyed talking about his family.
He was also a father who was looking forward to seeing his baby girl…
This weekend, friends and family members will hold a “WHEELIE KING 305” parade to remember Johnson, his wife announced on Facebook.
“Everyone With DirtBikes, 4 wheelers, Pocket Bikes ,BMX Bikes Come Out And Shout Out For My Husband!!!” Myeshia Johnson wrote…
Johnson joined the Army in January 2014 and was assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina.
He was highly regarded by his military peers.
Bohler, the friend who said he was also Johnson’s supervisor at Fort Bragg, said Johnson rose through the ranks rapidly — from a private to a sergeant in less than three years.
“He caught on quickly. You tell him once, and it’s complete, any task,” Bohler said Wednesday. “He was just that one soldier that always wanted to better himself every day. Every day, he wanted to do better than he did yesterday.”…
8) Putting everything else aside, POTUS made a Gold Star widow cry. Even if unintentionally that should bother John Kelly
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) October 20, 2017
10) Instead he savagely attacked Cong. Frederica Wilson for publicizing what happened when Trump called Myeshia Johnson
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) October 20, 2017
15) But John Kelly didn't do that. He defended Trump & said nothing about the unimaginable grief of Myeshia Johnson. That is ugly
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) October 20, 2017
Time to stop being angry at Trump for abusing families of fallen soldiers
Time to direct our anger at the Repubs who are letting him do it
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 19, 2017
NotMax
Shouldn’t that be Tsarship Trooper?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Of course, not. She’s black.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
I don’t why anyone is surprised at Kelly.
He didn’t resign after Drumpf said the KKK and Nazis were very fine people.
The Drumpfians are who we thought they were.
Betty Cracker
Congress needs to investigate the circumstances in Niger that led to the death of Sergeant Johnson and his comrades. Specifically, we need to know if Trump’s idiotic travel ban destabilized the area (see Maddow).
Anne Laurie
@NotMax: I like ‘Tsarship’, but for Trump, Kelly is a “trouper” (reliable member of an acting troupe) not a “trooper”.
In case there’s any doubt, I was referring to the film, not the (idiotic) Heinlein novel:
Amir Khalid
“Mr President, from now on please leave the families of our fallen soldiers the hell alone. You can’t afford to fuck it up like you did with poor Mrs Johnson.” I wonder what saying this would do to a White House staff member’s career.
(Actually, we all know perfectly well.)
Anne Laurie
@Betty Cracker:
Anne Laurie
@Betty Cracker: P.S. I was gonna front-page Seay’s tweetstorm later, but if you have the chance/desire to do so in regards to breaking news, please take it!
Msb
Josh Marshal is right. trump poisons and degrades everything and every person who comes into contact with him.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@NotMax: Tardship Trooper
With his uniform off, Kelly is just another useless, inept old white guy screaming at the kids to keep off his lawn. Way to go guy.
raven
@Betty Cracker: Adam L Silverman
October 19, 2017 at 11:23 pm
@mike in dc: @raven: @Jacel: Okay I’ve gotten through the Maddow segment. What she’s positing – that the violent extremists planned and carried out the ambush or, at least, took their planning operational when they did because Chad had withdrawn its forces because of inclusion on the travel ban – is plausible. I’m not sure, however, that we have enough information now to make that conclusion. I’m also not sure we ever will. It is almost a counterfactual type of argument.
Betty Cracker
@Anne Laurie: Thanks! Seay sounds like she knows what she’s talking about. I hope Maddow responds to her push-back. Regardless, as Seay says, it makes sense to examine what the U.S. is doing in the area and why the soldiers were so vulnerable to an attack.
henqiguai
@Anne Laurie (#5):
Philistine.
Kay
This is true. The other would be a good show, too. It’s hard to even imagine – “I traveled to the coast from rural Kansas to meet with local folks – here are their stories”
“Trumpanomics- is it lifting up the hard working restaurant industry folks in Portland?”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: That would be more appropriate.
Ladyraxterinok
Read congresswoman was not in House when funds given for building. That she did however get the building named for the 2 agents after she was elected to the House.
Kay
Trump is crazier than ever on Twitter so I see Kelly’s effort to restore dignity was a big success. They really don’t get the Trumps- you have to take them out of there in handcuffs to make this stop.
Kay
@Ladyraxterinok:
That’s why it’s dangerous to cross them- they just lie. She’ll spend all her time defending when Trump was the one who lied. The easiest and safest thing to do is just not cross him. That’s how he got away with this shit for 50 years.
I think it’s chilling. She told the truth about what Trump said and they’re trying to destroy her.
I also think it’s misplaced rage- they took two hits from McCain and Bush and Trump is raging and found a target.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Kelly needs to be spit at in airports…
TS
@Kay: And MHo is saying “both sides” – trump and the congresswoman are at fault. He tells lies, she tells the truth – but both sides.
Bobby Thomson
@Kay:
Kay, this has been SOP for him for years. He never lets criticism slide when it comes from a woman, and especially not a black woman (or a brown man). That’s something he has to respond to immediately, and with venom.
Bobby Thomson
@TS:
?
Matt Howard?
My horrible opinion?
Kay
I actually don’t think there’s anything wrong with “getting the money”- getting the money is her job, same as it’s the job of every conservative district House member. It’s a smear that goes no where with me.
Generals seem to be very good at “getting the money” looking at the ever-expanding defense budget and they’re not even elected.
Kay
@Bobby Thomson:
I wondered if they’d attack Bush but it looks like they’ve honed in on their target.
Bobby Thomson
@Kay: it’s not a “they,” although I’m sure Fox News is only too happy to play along.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: That’s true. Congress actually functioned a lot better when they were trading slabs of pork. But as Wilson points out, Kelly’s story just doesn’t make any sense in the context of the building dedication. I hope a transcript or video of the event surfaces. Hard to believe one of the local stations wouldn’t have covered it. Kelly should be exposed as the liar he is.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
The whole “pork” thing is such bullshit. One man’s “pork” is another man’s “our beloved House member got our share of the giant federal budget”. Especially coming from the military. Is there any sector that are better at “getting the money”?
Anyway. It sounds like she wasn’t even in Congress when the icky, dirty money was passed out but if she was I have no problem with her getting some for her district.
Amir Khalid
@henqiguai:
Heinlein was a libertarian, wasn’t he? I’ll give him credit for writing a good yarn. But with some SF writers on the right side of the political spectrum, once you begin to examine the politics in his works, you get to feeling uneasy with them.
TS
@Bobby Thomson: Morning Joe
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
rikyrah
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Uh huh ?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker:
You hit on my pet peeve. During the days of the velvet graft of the earmark, shit really did get done. People were accountable to leadership related to the pork barrel and not ideology. Between the Pervert Rule (named for Denny Hastert), the Tealiban’s elimination of earmarks, computer weaponized gerrymanders for state and Federal and Citizens United, legislative function has gone to shit and government has been completely delegitimized as to wide swaths off the most productive people throughout our most productive urban economies. Everything is now about ideology, and that isn’t good.
Rural regressives are governing as if they have an overwhelming mandate, when they are definitely in a numerical minority. The Mayberry Machiavellis have been demonstrating this on a daily basis with regard to their attacks on any critics, as well as their jeremiads against minorities and issue groups that the actual majority eagerly protects. You see the focus – turning our backs on the USVI and PR, not caring about impacts to inbound travel, shrugging shoulders about reciprocal travel impositions, reinstating idiot restrictions WRT Cuba.
We had been in about a 10 year cold civil war. I’m giving it about six more months before we start seeing some genuine left violence start up outside the ranks of the usual anarchy or antifa groups.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Yep. Why did these young men die.
rikyrah
@Msb:
Nope. Remember, Kelly floated the idea of separating parents and children at the border.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Oh.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Because she is Black , Kay. Look at the pattern.
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: All the various Jesuses, yes. That report pulled so much together I started crying from it.
rikyrah
AL,
Will you post LarryO’s opening segment from last night about Kelly?
It was blistering.
TS
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Don’t remember Putin complaining about the disrespect shown to President Obama.
Kay
Too late. He could have and should have said this during Trump’s campaign. Now all these people are in power and it will be really hard to dislodge them. We’re stuck with the judges. You can’t even vote them out.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
That was my favorite article overnight, Big Daddy sailing in to protect his Cheeto Ceaucescu.
I enjoyed the fitting end to the original Ceacescu. Decorum would indicate that my current sentiments be masked…
Baud
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I agree that Trump as president represents a symptom of a poor political system in the U.S.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
To be fair, he had to be as blindsided as everyone else.
debbie
Jonah Goldberg is calling Kelly MacArthuresque. Great way to start the day.
Baud
Did anyone watch the Sanders-Cruz tax debate? A front pager on GOS is gushing about it.
Kay
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Bush is really adept politically. I don’t think he was blindsided by anything. They were running on blatant, in your face racism and his brother was in the race. The Bush’s have been at this for 3 generations. He knew exactly what was going on.
debbie
@Kay:
Tiberi’s quitting for the pork. If he couldn’t find it in Congress, he’ll find it at the Business Round Table, by gum!
JMG
@debbie: I know Jonah doesn’t know it, but “MacArthuresque” is not exactly a compliment.
Quinerly
@rikyrah:
Good morning from Poco and Little Ivan! Kitty John Lennon is in Soulard guarding the homestead.
Kay
@debbie:
It was better when they were out front about wheeling and dealing. Now we get this bullshit where one tranche of federal spending is somehow more pure than another.
Kelly’s administration is getting ready to BALLOON the deficit using the exact same crackpot economic theory that sunk Kansas, the only difference is Kansas can’t borrow. I don’t want any lectures from him. I hope she got some. I hope she gets MORE.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@debbie: Of course he would. MacArthur murdered veterans at the Bonus March.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
It was so good especially since Lawrence knows the neighborhood.
Baud
@debbie: I read that as McCarthyesque.
eclare
@Quinerly: Good to see you, I’ve missed hearing from you and the tribe!
MJS
@David Canadian Anchor Baby Koch: Yep. Kelly’s only problem with anything Trump said is that he said it out loud, in front of other people. All his cringing and face covering aren’t, “My God, how can you say that”, they’re, “My God, you’re not supposed to say that in public.”
henqiguai
@Amir Khalid (#28):
Heinlein was many things through the years, including apparently somewhat libertarian-leaning for a while. I always viewed his works as an interesting challenge to my own developing views (congenital geek and budding draconian rationalist). To this day, I still don’t understand how people can be so easily swayed away from their beliefs because of something they casually read, or hear. I was roundly criticized by the other senior brothers at my then school (chi sing tang lang pai) for recommending such right-wing propaganda, after first introducing them to Dune. Interestingly, their analyses stopped at the very shallow reading of a supposedly fascistic society; they did not respond to counter arguments. Okay, they were too busy chasing my ass around the school; big bullies ;-)
Kay
Well, speaking of “getting the money” I’m afraid they’re going to get their giant tax cuts which means they’ll support this asshole no matter what he does- the big payoff is on track. Hopefully their complete incompetence lets us dodge a bullet again.
debbie
Theresa May will not be amused.
bystander
@Kay:
It’s always more interesting to talk to people who actually signed up to have their faces ripped off by wolves. The rest of us don’t have much to say beyond, no, uh huh, no thanks. The delusions and fevered dreams that lead a person to vote to have his face ripped off make for much better journamalism.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
I thought all the Sanders homers left GOS in a huff.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@MJS: Kelly is a White Citizens’ Councils type. They believed the same things as the KKK, but being part of the gentry they thought it was beneath them to wear sheets or brown shirts.
Kay
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Here’s Bush bravely standing up to racism:
This stuff is just meaningless. They never act on it.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Don’t know. Haven’t been part of that scene for seven years. I leave open the possibility that Sanders did a good job. Anyone can have a good day. I just wanted to know when you the GOS report was true.
Baud
Politico
Bobby Thomson
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
A little polonium lets the riff raff know their place, right, Vlad?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
I went and looked at the thread, including some excerpt that apparently soaked the drawers of every single Kossack. Looked more like one-note Bernie, his signature conclusory statement, and accomplished nothing.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Right. You just can’t trust reporting any more. That’s was I asked you guys if you’d seen it!
Woodrowfan
I liked Heinlein when I was in college, until some of his stories began to give me the creeps–the incest in “Time Enough for Love’ for example. I got half way through “The Number of the Beast”, put it down, and never picked up a Heinlein book or story again.
Woodrowfan
I liked Heinlein when I was in college, until some of his stories began to give me the creeps–his affair with his own mother in “Time Enough for Love’ for example. I got half way through “The Number of the Beast”, put it down, and never picked up a Heinlein book or story again.
Quinerly
@eclare:
We are all OK. Pretty chatty on a thread yesterday. Since the site changes, BJ won’t load completely on my very convenient Microsoft smarty pants phone. Plus, we have been traveling…in NC right now. Limited WIFI access for Kindle or lap top. Turned back to my lurking days on already dead threads but still out of the loop. Thanks for piping up!
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?
@Baud: I would rather have my eyes gouged out of my head. So that’s a no.
SFAW
@TS:
Then you have a lousy memory. He and Bibi Netanyahu issued a joint statement during Obama’s second term, lamenting the disrespect Obama was showing. Uh … I mean “being shown,” yeah, that’s the ticket.
satby
@Woodrowfan: I used to be a huge s-f fan when I was young, but by the end of high school most of it didn’t interest me any longer. Not just Heinlein, pretty much all of it just got tedious.
debit
@Woodrowfan: Yeah. His enthusiastic approval of incest (and always parent/child) turned me off for good. Whatever else he had to say was so much garbage if he couldn’t understand there was simply no way that could healthy, no matter how much it apparently turned his crank.
SFAW
@Quinerly:
Two days in a row! (That we’ve seen you comment, that is.) Outstanding!
debit
Help, I used a bad word and am in moderation.
different-church-lady
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
That would be appropriate, since they arrived in a huff.
satby
@Baud: Her judgement was quoted in NPR before I could turn it off, and she said (not quoting here) that a pardon in an executive act of mercy, but it doesn’t change the historical facts of what happened. It was great.
SFAW
@satby:
I TRIED to warn you not to read Atlas Shrugged, how it would ruin science fiction — well, fantasy, I guess — for you, but did you listen?
And there were no orcs, either.
Baud
@satby: Thankful for little things.
Baud
@SFAW: If I weren’t lazy, I’d write a sequel called Atlas Wanked.
SFAW
@Quinerly:
Do you ever make it to real civilization, i.e., New England?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Oh, on another note, the Kentucky pension fix appears to involve a hybrid thing that will see no new entrants into the system that aren’t already in while encouraging working teachers to exit, virtually guaranteeing its collapse in 5-7 years.
I’ll be working to support my parents when I’m in my 60s.
Maybe keeping my grandmothers cracker box isn’t such a bad idea. We can all live in it.
satby
@SFAW: there was no way I would read that dreck even as a youngling.
SFAW
@Baud:
I think you should do it. It would help your campaign — you’ll nail down the moron glibertarian vote, which is quite the formidable voting bloc. Or is it “glibertarian morons”? I can never remember which is the noun, when it comes to those dumbfucks.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Fixed?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
For sure about my mother. Dad’s more quiet but I’d give it about a 60% chance that it applies to him, too.
SFAW
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Well, were there still icebergs, I’d suggest that relocating them to a small one of those might help you address that problem.
Look for the Rethugs to start exploring that as a “viable alternative.” [Apologies to Edwin Newman and various English teachers and pedants.]
Schlemazel
@Amir Khalid:
I got into Heinlein reading his juvenile novels, they were ripping good yarns for a 12-13 year old. I read everything he published eventually and Troopers was a klinker for sure (not his only one). He claimed he wanted to write a book where killing was just and good and right. But the book is so much worse than that. He could have done it without the fascist government of military glory humping he added. It was hardly a libertarian world he created. He was an Annapolis grad who fell ill while stationed in Panama and was let go on a medical discharge. He came back for desk duty in WWII (I think) but several of his works have a strong pro-military plot line.
rikyrah
@debbie:
Why is he quitting?
Dead girl?
Live boy?
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
Morning to you and the tribe?
Peale
@Kay: And one of the problems that our rural folk have is that they’ve gotten so mad about pork that other places have that they continue to elect a mass of congressmen who make sure no one gets any. Not even their own districts. Then they go write eligies about how no one cares about them.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I managed to get thru the Fountainhead, just barely. Had to patch several holes in my walls tho.
Peale
@Baud:
Heracles: I don’t know where to find the golden apples. Woe is me.
Atlas: I know where they are. Just hold up the earth for awhile and I’ll go get them.
Heracles: Ok….ugh. This is heavy.
Atlas: you sure are handsome and strong.
Heracles: wait, wtf are you doing!!!! Gross. Stop that.
JMG
Stranger in a Strange Land was pretty good, because it was about the most accurate science fiction I ever read, envisioning a future that was pretty much like the present except even more aggravating. I read it as a teenager, and now that I’m old, I see it was an accurate prediction.
FlipYrWhig
@Peale: That’s not “pork,” that’s “black and brown people.” We have an entire political party bound by and devoted to resentment that black and brown people get help from the government. That’s the only thing they all believe in. It’s grotesque.
Kay
@Peale:
Hah! That book keeps dogging me. We went over it in school committee and now it’s made it way into book club. I hate the trendy nature of these things- you’ll notice the honest laborers have completely disappeared from view now that tax cuts are on the table.
“Dance with the girl who brung you”. That should be in the book. They do better under Democrats than under Republicans,lower income white people. I hope this “culture” they’re claiming is worth losing their house. That’s an expensive confederate flag they just bought.
OzarkHillbilly
@JMG: It was the best of Heilein’s books, IMO.
El Caganer
@Baud: Joe or Charlie?
SFAW
@Kay:
Which they will blame on “the gol-durned gummint giving too much free stuff to those lazy darkies.”
boatboy_srq
#NotPatriotic
Just One More Canuck
@Quinerly: Has Poco been fundraising for Baud/Poco 2020? Shaking paws and sniffing butts?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Peale:
I work in KY-03 (Louisville), ably represented by the very progressive John Yarmuth, a guy who is very attuned to the district and such needs as he can meet. I live in KY-04, and am represented by a baby-faced Koch-Mercer asslick by the name of Thomas Massie. The person who is currently allowed by his masters to call himself Thomas Massie has a district that sprawls from the north of Ashland (in Appalachia) along the Ohio River to the NKY burbs of Cincinnati (white suburban/exurban wingnut) to the northeast suburbs/exurbs of Louisville (Republican money). the guy knows less than zero about anything in the district – he’s all about abortion, guns, tax cuts, deregulation and scary foreign people. The model GOP rep, in other words.
They’re going to slice KY-03 in 2020 – everybody knows it. Bring KY-04 in to the Watterson (inner ring). Grab some WWC suburbs in the Southwest with KY-02. Three districts in pie shapes start within 5 miles of one another downtown at the Ohio River and run into a jumbled mess at the Tennessee border, maybe even to Virginia. Show us uppity city folk…
Fair Economist
@OzarkHillbilly: Even when I liked Ayn Rand, in my younger days, I found the Fountainhead hard to read. Roark is an ass and an idiot in way the Atlas Shrugged heroes aren’t. Objectively Galt is a far worse monster, killing almost everybody on earth because he doesn’t like their philosophy, but it’s abstract and didn’t grab me like Roark’s obnoxiousness.
Kay
@SFAW:
In their defense a lot of time they don’t blame anyone- they’re just baffled.
“Hillbilly” is code for lower income but upstanding white people. Part of their thing is they are kind of innocent bystanders, just taking care of their own and trying to get by.
boatboy_srq
@SFAW: There are plenty of orcs in Rand: they just run around in suits and pretend to be the heroes.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
Tell it, Kay. Truth.
boatboy_srq
@JMG: Isn’t it rich when a Reichwingnut doesn’t understand connotation and misuses some term or phrase?
Jeffro
Why, it’s almost like we’re overdue for a March for Shame!
father pussbucket
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“I have all the best monickers. I have more monickers than Batman.”
boatboy_srq
@Kay: Indentured servitude. You never think it will happen to you. And they’re running right for it.
With the colonies no longer available, and Australia free and independent, where will the Transported penniless go? Maybe that’s why Lord Dampnut is so fixated on a permanent presence on the moon.
Kay
“Kelly, who we decided joined the White House to restore order, acts completely differently than how we presented him but we weren’t wrong- instead Kelly changed into a Trumpster overnight.”
How do they know why Kelly joined the White House? Maybe he joined the White House because he shares Trump’s views?
boatboy_srq
@Kay: “Innocent bystanders” don’t run to the polls every election and vote for their oppressors.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So after Kelly is outraged that Wilson dare repeat was said in the Sacred Gold Star Parent Presidental Phone call and taking the “he knew what he was signing up for” out of context, Trump goes off and says it never happened. Trump is such a compulsive liar he lies about his own lies.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay
The word was Kelly was there to stop the White House in fighting, but I wonder if really was Price and Bannon are True Believers in Make America White Again, figured out Trump is piss useless and screws up his own side up just for laughs so it’s not happening under him and bailed.
Just consider what’s going on with Kelly, Kelly is just the chief of staff but so what Kelly really believes isn’t that important, just does keep things going at the White House. Kelly credibility as a general is a plus for Trump, yet Trump’s go him in press briefing after briefing and managed to squander that for what?
PIGL
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: well I think I know what they are and I agree. There are about 100,000 people need to be put to the sword, and a maybe a hundred billionaires and their families that need to be dispossessed. The alternative is the catastrophe that’s allready hull up to windward.
I think the fact that seems no way out is the solution to the Fermi paradox.
OzarkHillbilly
@Fair Economist: I read it as an adult only because a (much younger) friend suggested it to me. As a carpenter, I found the idea of architect as hero especially objectionable. I long ago came to the conclusion that most architects are complete idiots absolutely certain of their own artistic genius. Woe to the carpenter/electrician/plumber/ironworker/ad nauseum who says their papered visions are pure fantasy unrealizable in the 4 dimensions of this universe. In that way Roark was a perfect representation.
I have a thing about finishing a book once I start it no matter how bad it is. Fortunately I don’t have the same problem with authors. Hence, I never read Atlas Shrugged.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
meh to early, I mean “Trump squandered Kelly’s credibility and gained nothing from it politically”
Kay
@boatboy_srq:
a lot of lower income people don’t vote. There really is something going on with lower income white men. I say “men” because IMO the women tend to navigate the world better. This culture they’re defending isn’t helping. They can keep it but they’re going to pay dearly for it because it isn’t advancing them in any way. There are huge class divisions even in rural white communities like mine. This county went 70% for Trump and half the county looks down on the other half. I had a college kid come in and ask to shadow me yesterday. He sent a letter first – i could tell by his speech, dress and high school he was rural poor. I asked him why he wanted to shadow in such a small office and he said no one else took his appointment. I literally don’t have a desk for him and I don’t think I can give him the 270 hours he needs for college credit in the time allotted but why didn’t the bigger offices bootstrap this fine young man? Because they’re snobs and they made the same class assessment I did.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
You must have a different species of hillbilly in Appalachia than we do in the Ozarks. Our hillbillies know exactly who to blame and are quite vociferous about it..
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Don’t you feel like that’s part of the culture though? The “I don’t know” or “I didn’t know”? I’d had judges say “you did know because you stood right there when I told you”. They have to act like everyone is slicker than they are and they’re just trying to get a deer for dinner or whatever. It’s annoying.
Kay
Because “mean spirited asshole” is the Trump Brand? When has Trump EVER taken the “high ground”? Not ONCE.
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
But who gave them “the word”? The Trump White House? They put the absolute best spin they possibly could on Kelly working there and are now pretending that was somehow borne out by the facts. Has Trump gotten substantively or rhetorically better since Kelly arrived? No. He’s gotten worse. Now Kelly’s joined in.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Marvelous! Please let us know how it goes with the young man.
Glad he found you. And what a lesson — the bigger firms do not give a fig about him or his prospects.
He will benefit by being around you.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: It’s all pretense. They act like everybody else is a liar trying to con them out of their hard earned dollars, but they are just hard working honest folks trying to survive by their own sweat and toil who just happened to come up a little short of money but they totally weren’t jacklighting for deer when they were shining that spotlight across the field. They had forgotten all about the .30-30 locked and loaded on the front seat between them.
And besides, why aren’t you locking up them ni**ers in the city, they’re the real criminals.
schrodingers_cat
I went and read the transcript of Kelly’s speech yesterday. The message it sends to anyone who is not white or male or an R that totally buys into T’s version of America is chilling.
We (as in T and Kelly and the executive branch and the United States military) are allowing you to exist here. You do not have the right to question us. If you do we will come after you and tear you apart and demonize you. What he said yesterday from the WH podium would befit a military led theocracy.
We are the United States of Evangelistan.
ETA: The objects of his ire were the black Congresswoman, and the Khans. Coincidence?
Only he can talk about his loss with emotion when the Khans do it, they are disrespectful. WTF.
Jeffro
@Kay: Who is this Mark Murray person? I don’t think I’ve encountered someone that obviously dumb in quite some time. Trumpov…take the high road? Murray can’t have made it to adulthood and be that dumb.
schrodingers_cat
BTW why aren’t these fucking toadies in the press asking why those young men were there in the first place and why did the C-in-C leave them there to die.
ETA: They can make noise about Benghazi and Black Hawk down but are just swallowing whatever Kelly and T are feeding them, now?
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: The Hillbilly Elegy phony got a tongue bath from the oh so serious Whory Woodruff when he was on there. She makes me sick with her R talking points.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: huh, sounds like rural Michigan. Word for word.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: They all watch FOX news.
Barbara
This is going to sound harsh. Now that John Kelly has exploited the death of his son to save Trump’s ass in what should have been a simple kind of presidential action, it is now off the table for future Trump screw ups, like when it comes out as it surely will that this mission was ill-conceived and exposed Americans to grievous harm without adequate support and planning. The fact that Kelly had a son who died will not be on the table to salvage Trump’s reputation as an incompetent CIC, nor that of commanders who were in charge of this mission. You get to use that kind of emotional trump card exactly once and it’s now gone.
boatboy_srq
@schrodingers_cat: Gut Patriotische Ahmurrkkkan Leaders sent them there, so there must be a reason. As opposed to the Blah President™ and That Woman™, who got Gut Patriotische Ahmurrrkkkans killed by them r*gh**ds for nothin’.
Anotherlurker
@Amir Khalid: That is the reason that I no longer read Larry Niven.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@PIGL: DIspossession leads to its own problems, as Machiavelli noted:
It’s kind of appalling how much he got right about people.
geg6
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yup. The hillbillies here in the Appalachian area of Western PA are quite vocal about who they blame for their problems. It ain’t Wall Street or Trump or Republicans, for sure.
OzarkHillbilly
@Anotherlurker: It did get old.
geg6
@OzarkHillbilly:
Pretty much all of my neighbors could have said that, word for word.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
He’s been meeting with Bannon about a congressional/senate run. Not sure which.
J R in WV
@JMG:
Yeah, really, Douglas MacArthur was fired for disobeying orders and getting thousands of troops killed when he provoked “Red China” into a counter attack as Mac’s troops approached the Yalu River, the border between China and Korea.
He wanted to use Nukes to drive the Chinese hordes back, imagine if he had gotten away with that!?!
henqiguai
@OzarkHillbilly (#118):
I used to have that same habit, then read a decent essay on why *not* to do so. If the book, for whatever reason, doesn’t work for you (e.g. it’s crap, it’s mind-numbingly dull) walk away from it. My local libraries have received a lot of donated books with low reader-mileage for that reason. Life is too short.
Chris
@debbie:
Well, I don’t know if I disagree with that.
Barbara
@henqiguai:
Hear, hear. If I start a book and realize that I don’t really care about the characters or find the author’s vision interesting, I stop reading. My local library, as well as local nursing homes, gratefully receives donations and puts them to good use. You are never going to read even half of the books out there that you find edifying or compelling. Don’t waste time on those that aren’t!
A Ghost To Most
For you social folk: A guy I work with related a story to me. He mentioned that a friend, a “country bumpkin” as he said,was visiting from Misery. They were at a restaurant, and after their (black) server made a small mistake, then corrected it and left, the “country bumpkin” said “she only did that because she’s a N*****”. I said he isn’t a “country bumpkin”, he’s a fucking racist, and my coworker took offense. How would you folks have handled it?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay:
Likely Kelly himself, being able to orally service one’s own reproductive organs in public seems to be the sole qualification for being in the Trump admin. Go look at the narrative “Trump the civilian is out of control but the stern and disciplined General Kelly is going to restore order for the sake of the country he loves more this even his wife”, civilians clueless clowns but military heroic fits Kelly’s narrative at that briefing yesterday. As for why it was believed; because those reporters live in the US too and it helped them sleep better at night the idea that there was someone level headed enough to stop Trump from blowing up the world because he didn’t get two scoops of ice cream at dinner.
tobie
@geg6: I hear you. Trump & Company have made it a-okay for rural, white America to express the rancid racism, sexism, and xenophobia they’ve always felt but kept under wraps. I don’t see how we reach these people. Grievance-meisters on TV, radio, and now Facebook have whipped rural America up into a rage about minorities and elites while at the same time massaging their wounded egos by telling them they’re true grit, the real Americans, the only hard workers, salt of the earth, etc. It’s such a toxic brew.
Elizabelle
@A Ghost To Most: Told the coworker: “you need to tell your friend that language does not fly outside of Missouri. People aren’t going to think he’s a bumpkin; they’re going to think he’s a racist.”
Gets message across, but it’s not specifically you calling the racist a racist. You’re doing it for the “bumpkin’s” protection, in his best interests.
Geez, what a ridiculous comment. A little mistake is a little mistake.
OzarkHillbilly
@henqiguai: I’ve gotten better.
Amir Khalid
@A Ghost To Most:
I think you handled it about right. What your coworker’s friend said is obviously racist. If it offends your coworker to have that pointed out, maybe he too is a racist.
OzarkHillbilly
@A Ghost To Most:
At which point I would have added, “And you seem to be OK with it.”
Bostonian
I think when the Skid Mark of Liberty says women were “sacred,” he means women kept their uppity mouths shut. That’s what he’s missing.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Seconded. It’s not as though you’ll “fix” either individual but at least you now know your cow-orker has a hole in their vision big enough to drive a semi through and should be considered warily going forward.
gene108
@tobie:
And by elites, they mean white-collar college educated middle-class professional in urban or suburban areas around the country, who don’t mind eating Thai food or Indian food every once in awhile and know how to use chopsticks to eat Chinese food.
The elites they aren’t mad at are the Koch brothers, the Mercers, etc., who want to undo every 20th century protection they enjoy and return them to the poverty of the 19th century.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Barbara: Yes, I am thinking the same thing and for over such a petty thing.They shamed a D rep in a bright blue district.Wilson can scream “lair” at Trump all day and won’t hurt her with her constitutes.
FlipYrWhig
@A Ghost To Most: That’s sick, because it’s SO gratuitous — servers of all races, colors, and creeds have been known to make mistakes. So it sounds to me like the “bumpkin” was eagerly anticipating a chance to call someone a n199er. That’s not just racism it’s, like, _enthusiastic_ racism.
Ella in New Mexico
@rikyrah:
This and the other ways Kelly implemented Trump’s travel ban and immigration policy– including Kelly’s very own dictate to the front line ICE folks to implement a brutish, cowardly attack on non-violent, unsuspecting illegal immigrants and DACA reciptients is why I had issues with the whole “but he’s a military general, he’s a patriot he’s gonna save us as Chief of Staff” meme.
The shameful way this Marine general ran Homeland Security was the way a Marine General would conduct war against a mortal enemy. And seriously, what did we expect? Seeing people as the enemy is the sum total of their training and experience. And never forget, a military leader’s ultimate job is to implement the lawful orders and desires of his commanding officers, not challenge them. If your commander tells you to get a job done, you find a way to get that Goddamned job done, and to his/her liking. We need to remember that in the end, the military, ICE, police are our guard dogs: we ask them to trust that their leaders are good and decent and will only ask that they protect us. We don’t want them to question our commands.
Which is precisely why most Executive Branch positions should only be held by civilians-especially when dealing with a law enforcement or defense.
And as for his “speech” yesterday–clearly this was a far too emotional subject for him to weigh in on. It caused him to ramble and make imprecise or preposterous statements of which he clearly had no first hand knowledge regarding this Congresswoman or the widow involved. He tried-and succeeded mostly– to speak to the pain experienced by Gold Star Families, and rightfully appeared angry that we’re questioning ANY of them in any way. But he was forced by Orange Caligula to demonstrate his loyalty in order to keep his job, and he did which has merely opened up another can of worms.
Yes, I do think Kelly is trying to do the “right things”, and in a weird way that Kelly being a military man has brought some order and decorum to the clown car that Trump was running in the White House. But in the end, it’s the job of a military man to take and implement what he believes to be lawful orders, whether he agrees with them or not. Kelly will ultimately do that, to his and our detriment.
Chris
@gene108:
By “elites,” they mean “anybody who lives on either coast,” “anybody who vote Democrat,” “anybody who’s disagreeing with me,” and a few other things.
The post-2016 worldview where nowadays, an actual majority of the country is being dismissed as “out of touch elites,” pretty nicely illustrates how useless the word has become in their mouths.
tobie
@gene108:
Good point. They have no problem supporting the elites who poison their water and pollute their air. But they despise those who try to make sure they have any legal protections at work.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@A Ghost To Most: I was just thinking your coworker is a piece of work from get go with calling a friend a “bumpkin”.
Peale
@Chris: Yep. Somehow white middle class Democrats are Elites. While those middle class whites who overwhelmingly went for Trump get to use the cover of the bumpkins to remain salt-o-the earth non-elite types. Plus they somehow get to further diminish us by staking a claim that all the people who didn’t bother or couldn’t vote belong to them as well.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So I guess Lara Trump, wife of Eric Trump is now the latest Trump ambassador to that mysterious and enigmatic group that is lady kind.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/lara-trump-confirms-wilson-account-trump-call-widow
She’s seen the text of Trump’s call and Trump’s comments were taken out of context.
a) Lara you moron; there is no context you can say “he knew what he was getting into” to a grieving widow or parent. They will ignore the rest of it and go into full meltdown at a phrase like that.
b) Is these Gold Star condolence conversations sacredly private or not? It’s beyond the pale that a US congress person sits in, but splendid the President’s daughter in law does? Can these clowns get their story straight?
Leto
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I figure I’m responding late to this, but Kevin Drum had a really good piece about this in Mother Jones.
Interesting part:
I’ve said the same thing you have regarding earmarks, though at this point I don’t know if that would work. They keep electing people who promise to break the government and then act amazed when nothing gets done. /smdh
Captain C
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I suspect this is partially a message to his own people, as it’s becoming increasingly hard for him to pretend that he’s actually doing anything to improve the lives of Russians outside of his oligarch and Bratva circles, what with his and their looting of the country for 17 years.
Plus, there are rumors that he’s starting to phone it in with regard to what passes for his day-to-day job duties.
chopper
@A Ghost To Most:
i’d have said ‘he’s a fucking racist and should die in a fire’.
chopper
@JMG:
so kelly’s gonna get shitcanned for trying to start a war with china? that’s just great.
jl
Probably commenter above has noted, but I only have time to skim comments.
Another pattern that is clear is that Trump is a coward, and he is hiding behind Kelly and his dead son. I hope the general voting population notes that. If they do, won’t be good for Trump. And in using Kelly, Trump sent Kelly to dish out half baked callous and incorrect BS in front of the whole country (which doens’ excuse Kelly, it’s similar to some incidents in Colin Powell’s history).
His base won’t care, or even turn that into a plus, but there are more on the other side. Just have to turn them out in next two elections.
Spaniel
Whatever happened to all of those promises that Trump was giving out to the veterans and letting their voices to be heard, in the months after the inauguration? There was talk of better health care and other benefits.