Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Books are my comfort food!

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

The lights are all blinking red.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

đŸŽ¶ Those boots were made for mockin’ đŸŽ”

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

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

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Fables Of The Reconstruction / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Trolling, Trolling, Trolling…

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Trolling, Trolling, Trolling…

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(Wikipedia tells me this clip is from an Alan Sorkin tv show called Sports Night, which ran from 1998-2000.)
.

Keeping in mind that there is little or nothing new under the sun, what’s on the agenda for the day?

********
For entertainment purposes only, from the Washington Post, “Trolling Trump: How viral visual taunts have changed protest in nation’s capital”:

… In the year since Trump won, activists have expanded the age-old Washington reliables of marches and rallies with more-unconventional ploys: queer dance parties, high-wire banner stunts, animated graffiti projected onto the walls of Trump’s Washington hotel. In volume and style, the digital age and the president’s own pugilistic instincts have created a unique moment in movements.

“There was outrage against [Richard] Nixon and against [Lyndon] Johnson, but those protests were mostly against policy,” said Michael Kazin, a historian of social movements at Georgetown University. “Now the focus is to a great extent on the president’s personality. They are responding to his own way of attacking people by attacking him.”

Even traditional protests seek a visually viral taunt. The Women’s March, which drew hundreds of thousands to the Mall a day after Trump’s inauguration, was forever branded by the thousands of hand-knit pink triangular hats worn as a defiant symbol of Trump’s “grab them” comment.

A towering inflatable chicken with Trumpian Orange hair made an appearance outside the White House in August (get yours on eBay for $498). After the president announced he was pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord in June, Diesu helped sneak dozens of protesters into the lobby of Trump International Hotel, where, at 7 a.m., they pulled out alarm clocks and air horns to “wake up” guests to the dangers of global warming…

Reader Interactions

160Comments

  3. 3.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Peter Baker‏ @peterbakernyt

    Abortion rate fell by 25 percent in the US from 2008, study finds, citing improved contraception

    4:58 AM – 24 Oct 2017
    41 replies 667 retweets 977 likes

    Terry Moran‏ @TerryMoran

    Thanks, Obama.

    3 replies 13 retweets 40 likes

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy is at risk of deportation after being stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint and accompanied to hospital by officers who waited outside her room as she recovered from surgery.

    Rosa Maria Hernandez was born in Mexico but has lived in the US since she was three months old. She was being taken from the Texas border city of Laredo to Corpus Christi for a gallbladder operation, travelling in an ambulance with a relative who is a US citizen.

    As they drove through an inland Border Patrol station about 60 miles east of the frontier in the early hours of Tuesday, agents discovered Rosa Maria’s undocumented status.

    They allowed them to continue but followed them to the hospital, another 80 miles.

    Her mother, who is undocumented and in Laredo, told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times that officers waited outside her daughter’s room while she recuperated from the operation on Tuesday.

    Rosa Maria left hospital in an ambulance on Wednesday, said her attorney, Leticia Gonzalez. Mohammad Abdollahi, an organiser with DreamActivist, an immigrant rights group, said that Border Patrol agents took her to a shelter for child immigrants in San Antonio that has a contract with the federal government.

    Words fail.

  8. 8.

    Zattarra

    Sportsnight was before it’s time. Today it would be on HBO and loved by everyone. And it did get Sorkin West Wing.

  9. 9.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    The first woman told CNN she was invited to visit [Mark Halperin‘s] office in the early 2000s, when he was political director at ABC News, to have a soda, and said that while she was there with him he forcibly kissed her and pressed his genitals against her body.

    “I went up to have a soda and talk and — he just kissed me and grabbed my boobs,” the woman said. “I just froze. I didn’t know what to do.”

    The second woman, another former ABC News employee, described a similar experience in his office during the 2004 campaign cycle. This woman said she was around 25 years old then, and wanted to be a “campaign off-air” — ABC News’ term for one of the reporters who travel embedded with presidential campaigns — so she reached out to Halperin, who was a part of the decision-making process regarding those assignments at the time.

    “The first meeting I ever had with him was in his office and he just came up from behind — I was sitting in a chair from across his desk — and he came up behind me and [while he was clothed] he pressed his body on mine, his penis, on my shoulder,” this woman told CNN. “I was obviously completely shocked. I can’t even remember how I got out of there — [but] I got out of there and was freaked out by that whole experience. Given I was so young and new I wasn’t sure if that was the sort of thing that was expected of you if you wanted something from a male figure in news.”

    The woman said Halperin continued to express a sexual desire for her in subsequent visits, despite being rebuffed.

    “It was more like him coming up too close to me and sort of along the lines of hugging me,” she explained.

    She also alleged that Halperin propositioned her for sex on the campaign trail.

    “He would say, ‘Why don’t you meet me upstairs?’ And I would say, ‘That’s not a good idea.’ And he would push the request further,” the person said. “Eventually I would just ignore him and go about my business.”

    A third woman, also a former ABC News employee, told CNN she was on the road with Halperin when he propositioned her.

    “I excused myself to go to the bathroom and he was standing there when I opened the door propositioning [me] to go into the other bathroom to do something,” she said. “It freaked me out. I came out of the ladies’ room and he was just standing there. Like almost blocking the door.”

    A fourth woman who worked with Halperin and was junior to him told CNN he once asked her late at night on the campaign trail to go up to his hotel room with him, and that she believed him to be propositioning her. She declined.

    The fifth woman who spoke to CNN was not an ABC News employee at the time of the incident she alleges. She was not comfortable sharing specifics of her story for publication, but said Halperin, while clothed, placed his erect penis against her body without consent.

    (link)

    This “shocking” considering how often Halperin has moralized against Bill Clinton.

    Ordinarily he would be fired, but I think they’ll cover up because they don’t want the dam to break. If he went down, then others would feel free to come out against Morning Blow. You have to think he pulled the same shit, considering his history. Blow got kicked out of Congress cuz he was having an affair with a married intern. He recently left his wife and children because he was having an affair with a co-worker, who was also married and with children.

  10. 10.

    raven

    “Five women accuse journalist and ‘Game Change’ co-author Mark Halperin of sexual harassment”

  15. 15.

    Kay

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    The dam is gonna break anyway. Broken. The dam is broken. If Morning Joe is one of them he’s a dead man walking.

    I don’t remember Halperin moralizing against Clinton but he’s awful- all that smug, superior judging of others he does- he really deserves to be outed.

  17. 17.

    Kay

    That they didn’t go after Trump for his sexual harassment and assault is starting to make more and more sense. They were probably afraid he would out them.

  19. 19.

    bystander

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    (Moanin’ Joe) recently left his wife and children because he was having an affair with a co-worker, who was also married and with children.

    That somehow came up never during the pearlclutching contest guessing which Dem would run first to the mike after Harvey blew up. Do they not think that extramarital affairs in the workplace aren’t prohibited just because it makes you look unseemly? It’s uncomfortable for everybody.

    I would love a tape of all the times Halperin inveighed against Bill Clinton. I’m sure Mika would love to do the intro.

  21. 21.

    Kay

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I’m convinced one of the ways Trump controls people is he threatens to reveal things he knows, and they know he’ll do it. That’s part of how he makes everyone who comes close complicit. It’s funny because he ruins reputations anyway, so they’re damned if they go along and damned if they don’t. He’s poison but you’re safer if you’re 1. not vulnerable on anything, 2. keep him at a distance.

  24. 24.

    gene108

    @rikyrah:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    But
 I thought that it was only going to be CRIMINALS
 REMEMBER?

    That was the revised promise. The original promise was to deport 11 million people, no matter who they are and what they are doing and that original promise launched Trump to the top of the GOP field.

    He is a nasty evil man, who brings out the worst in everyone around him.

  25. 25.

    TS

    @Kay: The picture with trump on the campaign plane should have been enough to stop any network giving him the time of day.

  26. 26.

    Kay

    Julian Assange said he rebuffed a request for help in 2016 from the head of a data firm tied to the Trump campaign

    I put “Julian Assange said” right up there with “Trump said” – Julian Assange says a lot of things.

    The problem with these brave truthtellers was always that THEY are completely opaque. We’re not supposed to believe anyone else, but THEM we have to take at their word. Wikileaks and Assange aren’t transparent at all.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I would say the “pressing up against” is by far the most common amongst the varieties of physical intimidation and harassment women I know have told me or I have heard 2nd hand. Halperin is a garden variety creep. O’Reilly on the other hand sounds like a real expert. I don’t know what you have to do to pay out 30 million dollars but it probably could have been prosecuted.

  31. 31.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Yeah, well, Halperin is no better than the scum doing the same thing on the subways. He and his fellow practicioners need to be branded with that fact.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    That’s true. Makes it worse, right? It sounds like he blatantly lied when Corker dared to oppose him and it didn’t matter.

    There’s a “chilling” factor at work here, though. When he outs one of them they all get the message. Remember when he revealed the Joe and Mika relationship? That was because they left the cheering section. It’s intended to humiliate and intimidate and it’s brutal. Remember when he described her facelift?

    To keep your integrity you have to keep him at arm’s length. Allow him to give you something or get close and you’re screwed.

  33. 33.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    President Trump’s approval rating has hit a new low in Fox News polling.

    Trump now has a 38 percent job approval rating in the Fox News poll released Wednesday, down from 42 percent last month. And his disapproval rating has hit a new high, up four points to 57 percent.

    (link)

    Democratic candidates lead by 15 points in a hypothetical matchup for the 2018 midterm elections, according to a new Fox News poll.

    In the survey, 50 percent of respondents said that if the election for Congress were held today, they would vote for the Democratic candidate. Only 35 percent said they would vote for a Republican.

    About a year ago, the same question showed voters evenly split, with 45 percent saying they would vote for a Democrat, and 45 percent saying they would vote Republican.

    Generic ballots are considered an important bellwether for how a party’s candidates will fare in an election. (link)

    Your ratings aren’t supposed to be in a dumpster just 9 months into office with the unemployment rate at 4.2%. Things only get worse from here.

  35. 35.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It sets a high bar for bringing him down because it can’t be a witness- what someone said. There’s no “truth” so that doesn’t matter. It has to be documents and money changing hands- verifiable and tangible- something that can’t be intimidated or corrupted. Trump has only backed down in areas where his denials and the complicity or cover-up of people he’s corrupted didn’t matter- the charter jet thing, the video of him bragging about sexual assault. He’s still denying what he said to the widow because there’s no record. They went after the witnesses.

  38. 38.

    Feathers

    @bystander: Affairs may squick, but they are something entirely different from harassment. The difference is consent. The issue is coworkers feeling they have to cover up the affair.

    It’s a huge red flag for general scumbagism of course, but it can also just be the messy end of a bad marriage.

    The main focus and issue of harassment is the lack of consent.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    This is nice- looks like they did a good job explaining all the hurdles to voters:

    Iowa public employee unions voted overwhelmingly in favor to maintain their existence this week, despite Iowa Republican politicians’ best efforts to destroy them. Earlier this year, legislative Republicans and then-Governor Terry Branstad passed a wide-ranging collective bargaining bill that limited what Iowa public workers could bargain for. It also instituted re-certification votes with extremely cumbersome rules – local bargaining units needed a majority of all their members to vote in favor, not simply a majority of those voting.
    Iowa’s unions pointed out that if the same standards were applied to Iowa’s elected officials, no one would win election. By not voting, you were essentially casting a “no” vote. But so it went, and unlike most pieces of legislation that implement major policy changes over time, Republicans mandated that these new rules take place within just months.

    The Los Angeles Times employees are unionizing. When you read anti-union editorials in media remember media owners are often opposing their own employees’ organizing efforts. They have a vital self-interest in union bashing. It’s out in the open at the Toledo Blade. The Blade owners use the editorial page to bash their own workforce.

  40. 40.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Good morning!

    We have a hard frost, 30° out now. So today I will see what if the green tomatoes are worth salvaging after selling at the market this morning, then this afternoon will clean up the vines. My experiment using cardboard boxes instead of grow bags was a qualified success: everything grew very well and overwhelmed the stakes I put in to hold up the vines. Because the boxes were close together I ended up with a tomato jungle in that spot. Lessons learned for next year.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    I think labor unions survive not because they don’t have massive forces working against them OR because they’re so fabulous themselves but instead because there is nothing else. There’s a labor union or nothing. No one has ever come up with another idea. There’s regulatory protections for workers and then there’s labor unions. As Republicans gut more and more of the regulatory protections labor unions become more essential, not less.

  46. 46.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Baud: I think that poll is an outlier. The outfit issued a poll 1 week before the primary and they failed badly. They had Perriello beating Northam by 8 pts, but he ended up losing by 11 pts. They had Gillespie beating his challenger by 17 pts and he won by only 1 pt. They were off in both surveys by high double digits.

    Anyways, knock on wood.

  47. 47.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    @Kay: The newly all-R legislature passed a flood of sickening laws last session. This one was particularly maddening. Public employee unions had an agreement with the state that they wouldn’t strike but that both sides would sit for binding arbitration when there was a dispute. The legislature tossed their side of that agreement right out the window.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I think Halperin was responsible for a lot of the “othering” of Obama- making him out to be foreign or somehow not American- hinting or implying there was something untrustworthy or dangerous about Obama.

    Because I think that was based on race Halperin disgusts me. Watching how supposedly educated and sophisticated media people treated Obama was a real education for me. I did not understand how deep racism goes prior to Obama. I see it now in a way I didn’t before.

    Imagine any other President having to have “the beer summit”- they did that. They insisted he do this “outreach to white people” thing they would never insist a white President offer to black people. Once you see it you wonder how you missed it.

  50. 50.

    TS

    @JPL: They did briefly mention it – about 15 minutes in. Said he would not be on the show & they were awaiting further information

  52. 52.

    gene108

    @Kay:

    have “the beer summit”

    And yet, despite many pictures and videos of him drinking beer, many Republicans still think he is a devout Muslim.

  53. 53.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):

    They have to offer some alternative to unions because people figure out they need some leverage. Young people are funny because they came up with no sense of WHY unions came to be- I was at my son’s place during the pro-union referendum in Ohio and they were asking me about it- he works in tech and I could tell one of his co-workers was intrigued- “what is this ‘union’ thing you mention? Could I get one of those?” :) This 300 year old idea is new to them.

  60. 60.

    Montanareddog

    Now if Chinchilla were the next in line to be outed as a pest; the resulting BJ schadenfreude explosion would be visible from the ISS

  61. 61.

    Jeffro

    Morning everyone!

    Hey, did y’all know that The Party of Lincoln Is Now the Party of Trump?

    In a 2017 paper, “All in the Eye of the Beholder: Asymmetry in Ideological Accountability,” Iyengar and Sood provide further insight into how so many Republicans found their way to voting for Trump.

    They demonstrate that partisan voters’ approval of their party’s leaders “bears little relationship with their ideological extremity.” Because of this, candidates like Trump “enjoy considerable leeway to stake out positions at odds with the preferences of their supporters.”

    Iyengar and Sood buttress their analysis by pointing out that from December 2008 to August 2010, “Sarah Palin’s support never once slipped below 69% among Republicans,” even though her positions were well to the right of the average Republican voter and she was subjected to brutal ridicule in the liberal media.

    See what happens when you put a Palin in the national spotlight? When a milquetoast like Mitt Romney fails to restore white privilege? When much of the country economically bleeds out, waiting for all that wealth to trickle down? Repubs just say, “fuck it” and go full bore tribal.

    But wait: let’s not forget to both-sides this sucker…this IS the NYT, after all…

    Not only are Republicans willing to support Trump, but both Democrats and Republicans are inclined to demonize the leadership of the opposing party.

    Iyengar and Sood describe this as the “boomerang effect”:

    The position attributed to a disliked party perceived as ideologically distant is pushed even further away from the receiver’s position. For instance, a Democrat who encounters a Republican campaign ad on government spending enlarges the discrepancy between herself and the Republican on the issue.

    While attention has focused on Trump and the Republican Party (since both are in power), Democrats are hardly exempt from tribalism.

    After Flake denounced Trump on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, issued a statement making the point that Flake, like Corker, had waited until he was no longer seeking office to break Republican ranks:

    Senator Flake voted with Donald Trump 91% of the time. His retirement is a symbol of a Republican Party whose leaders allow Donald Trump’s divisive politics to flourish as long as it serves their political interests, and who fail to criticize this dangerous president until it’s too late.

    Nolan McCarty, a political scientist at Princeton, tweeted: “When Dems attack those GOP pols who stand up to Trump, perhaps they are the ones putting party before country,” a comment picked up by Ryan Enos, a political scientist at Harvard, who added, “Yes, this seems to be a case of tribal loyalties coming out at the worst possible time.”

    Along similar lines, Theodoridis and Stephen Goggin, a political scientist at San Diego State, asked 1609 voters whether two unnamed senators were Democrats or Republicans. One of the two was described as the subject of a story headlined “Senator Wins Anti-Corruption Award,” the other as the subject of a story headlined “Senator Admits to Lying.” Democrats consistently labeled the anti-corruption senator a Democrat and the liar a Republican, while Republicans took the opposite view.

    See, they’re the same! Supporters of the no-scandal Obama administration and the self-dealing, Russian-bought Trumpov one? Both tribal!

    Trump’s grip on his party remains firm. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll asked Republican voters: “Do you consider yourself to be more of a supporter of Donald Trump or more of a supporter of the Republican Party?” The answer: Trump 58, the Republican Party 38.

    Trump’s overall favorability ratings may be terrible (39 percent positive to 56 negative), according to a RealClearPolitics average of the eight most recent surveys, but the generic Democratic advantage is a relatively modest 9.2 percentage points. In an October 15-16 Economist/YouGov survey, Democratic voters said they planned to vote for Democratic House candidates 88-3 and Republicans said they would vote for Republican House candidates 86-3. Independents favored Republican candidates 27-22. These are not the kind of numbers Democrats need to win control of the House or Senate.

    Hey #NeverTrumpers…you can bleat away in the wilderness for a few decades while your arsonist brethren burn down the country, or you can come join the center-center party, give it a clear majority everywhere, and help us take our country back. Your call!

  64. 64.

    MomSense

    @JPL:

    Mika did a quick someone who sits at our table nearly every day, our friend, blah blah blah, we’ll wait until more of the facts are in before commenting.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    Josh Barro in Business Insider

    I’ve written before about problems with the provision of the Republican tax framework that President Donald Trump touts as good for small businesses.

    This tax break would ensure that people who own so-called pass-through businesses would be taxed at no more than 25% on income from those businesses, unlike wages, which may currently be taxed at rates up to 39.6%.

    A major problem with this proposal is that most small businesses wouldn’t benefit. More than 80% of tax filers with small-business income are already taxed at rates of 25% or less, so only the wealthiest business owners, who currently face high tax brackets, would get a tax cut.

    And many of the businesses getting the tax advantage wouldn’t be small. The president, who would surely contest the idea that his own businesses are small, would get a big tax break from this provision.

    But now another problem with the proposal is starting to get attention in Congress – a problem that will make this provision a huge mess even if you like the idea of a big tax cut for business owners.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-plan-problem-small-business-2017-10

  67. 67.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: Fox’s polling, oddly, hasn’t been that far out of line in recent elections. The nuttiest major one is Rasmussen, which I suspect should just be ignored (not just because it skews right–Harris/Harvard and Politico/Morning Consult skew right, but their behavior is more consistent; Rasmussen’s party ID re-weighting lards it down with bullshit and makes it jump suddenly whenever they adjust the model).

  69. 69.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @gene108:

    And yet, despite many pictures and videos of him drinking beer, many Republicans still think he is a devout Muslim.

    That just made him a “bad” Muslim.

    Of course that’s only among those conservatives informed enough to know something about Islam.

    By the way, Sports Night was a great show. If you get a chance to watch it, do so.

  70. 70.

    Feathers

    @Kay: in the Weinstein aftermath, there was a very good essay by a former HR worker about the problems of HR and why they are worthless on harassment issues. She left the field because she felt she wasn’t helping people.

    Her most interesting point was that HR performed the many of the same functions as unions, but always taking management’s side, not the workers. I think that’s a good way to describe unions – HR but on your side.

  71. 71.

    JPL

    @TS: @MomSense: Good for them for at least mentioning it. Halperin has always been a hypocrite, and maybe Bill O’Reilly will interview him on his podcast.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    We pay less then 25%. It’s about 19-20. That’s a 4 employee business. That’s a really good point, that it benefits rich people (surprise!)

    Do small businesspeople really not know how much tax they pay? I know I don’t pay 25%. I don’t prepare the business taxes but I read and sign them.

  77. 77.

    Immanentize

    New York Times this morning;
    This past summer, the Trump administration debated lowering the annual cap on refugees admitted to the United States. Should it stay at 110,000, be cut to 50,000 or fall somewhere in between? John F. Kelly offered his opinion. If it were up to him, he said, the number would be between zero and one.

    Mr. Kelly’s comment made its way around the White House, according to an administration official, and reinforced what is only now becoming clear to many on the outside. While some officials had predicted Mr. Kelly would be a calming chief of staff for an impulsive president, recent days have made clear that he is more aligned with President Trump than anticipated.

    And the NUTimes may be garbage (Baud) but that anecdote is reporting gold. This is not about immigrants — it is about REFUGEES! And I am with S’s Cat — John Kelly is a racist fucker. He would have done a great job keeping the Jews out in the 30’s.

  79. 79.

    Jeffro

    @Immanentize:

    John F. Kelly offered his opinion. If it were up to him, he said, the number would be between zero and one.

    Admit half a refugee? That’s just sick.

  81. 81.

    Elizabelle

    Good morning, Juicers. I was not sure the Goddess loved us enough to wake us with news of Mark Halperin, embroiled in a sexual harrassment scandal. Delicious.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Feathers:

    We have a factory owner here who is fine with unions for just that reason- they handle a lot of the things he doesn’t want to handle. His employees are Teamsters and he’s able to stay out of all the fighting and wrangling and just concentrate on making money. He’s an extremely practical person. though. He seems to have no ideological leanings of any kind.

    He’s right now voting for Democrats- disgusted with the GOP- and I want him to run for the US House. He thinks this is a joke but it’s not- I really want him to. I think he would be great.

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    Regard JCole’s twitter feed on the sidebar.

    Today we have that beautiful, curious-seeming little sparrow. Yesterday we were treated to stern combover Trump.

    Moar birds, please. No more big photos of he who should not be in the Oval Office.

  86. 86.

    Immanentize

    @Jeffro: I had that same thought. Then I thought of Erik the half-a-bee.

    Sorry for screwing up my block quote tags, all. I am on my phone so I couldn’t edit….

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    My personal opinion of people who complain about taxes is that they are whiners who don’t want to pay for things. It’s harsh I know but this is what I think when they whine to me. I don’t love it either but I don’t dwell in it – you have to pay for things. It’s a bill to me, like an invoice. Services aren’t free.

  94. 94.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I have to pre-pay – bank the tax money ahead of time- so I’m quite pleased that I have it :)

    I don’t really understand the attitude of privilege. I’m like “oh, thank God” – I’m amazed other people are so confident this money will keep rolling in.

  95. 95.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: I agree completely — just last week I was at the Social Security office and I was telling the guy working with me (who was a Navy veteran) how happy I was that I paid my taxes and the result was he was doing such a good job with a smile for me. He was literally made speechless for a bit. Then he said thank you — no one ever said that to me before

  97. 97.

    Betty Cracker

    @Elizabelle: I put that photo of Trump (which was directly relevant to the discussion) below the fold so it wouldn’t be on the front page but forgot about Cole’s automatic Twitter freed. I’m trying to create a safe space for y’all, but sometimes automation gets in the way. If a photo of Trump is ever necessary to illustrate a point again, I’ll post a random photo of a chicken or something at the top of the page so that’ll get picked up by the automated Twitter thingy, then bury the Trump photo below the fold and string caution tape all around it so no one accidentally stumbles across his hideous image.

  101. 101.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker: I love your dumpster fire illustration. Everyone gets that one.

    Or one of your chickens can be styled with a Trump combover? Of course, we will know the chicken’s head and heart contain more curiosity, valor, and spirit of service than he who appalls us.

  104. 104.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud: I was complaining precisely because there was a dick photo up yesterday on Cole’s twitter feed (due to no fault of Betty’s). In full color.

  107. 107.

    Elizabelle

    I would love to hear that Jim vandeHei is the next harrasser whose reputation takes a dive. He is what is awful about political coverage, and his minions colonized the FTF NYT and CNN.

  110. 110.

    OzarkHillbilly

    KOCO reported Wednesday that a heated exchange passed between House Speaker Charles McCall, who was walking past Democratic Reps. Cory Williams and Jason Dunnington.

    “I’m hoping this passes,” McCall said as he squeezed between lawmakers and reporters.

    “You’re delusional if this passes,” Williams quipped.

    “You guys need to support this. This is bullsh*t,” McCall shot back before walking downstairs.

    “I’m glad you think so. So does most of Oklahoma,” Williams shouted back.

    “We’ve made every compromise possible,” McCall told KOCO. “It is time and it is actually past time for partisan politics.”

    There is no partisanship in the Oklahoma legislature, Republicans hold the majority. Out of the 101 seats in the Oklahoma House, 74 belong to Republicans with a mere 28 for Democrats (one is vacant). Still, the GOP couldn’t pass a budget throughout the legislative session.

    But it’s DEMs fault OK has no budget.

  111. 111.

    rikyrah

    My personal understanding of The Resistance

    The way I see it the resistance has been with us throughout history although it might not have been named the resistance. It has been with us whenever a person or a group of people are resistant to the presence of oppression exploitation and injustice.

    When President Obama was elected I experienced the beginning of what seems to me has grown and is now called the resistance. I have always understood President Obama to be a liberator and the very symbol of him as president was in itself an expression of liberation. I felt a deep need to protect and defend him and what he stood for and what he was trying to accomplish and although I didn’t use the word resistance that was how it felt to me. The pursuit of the defense of President Obama motivated me to find TPV where I found people of like mind.

    As we know the attempt to erase President Obama lead to the election of Donald Trump. On the day of the inauguration of Trump I experienced what I sensed was a tipping point and that the resistance as we see it today was solidified into a powerful force.

    The difference between the resistance of the past and the resistance that is now present is that now it is connected to the unification of diversity. There have been various groups of people who have been in the minority who have been in resistance but they were largely separate from other groups of people who have been in the minority. The inauguration of Trump catalyzed these diverse groups of people into a force that now has the potential for a lot of power.

  113. 113.

    MazeDancer

    @debit:

    I miss Sports Night, still, even after all these years. RIP Robert Guillaume.

    Sports Night is spectacular. Great writing. Remarkable cast. ( Josh Charles, Peter Krause, Felicity Huffman, Joshua Malina,
    Sabrina Lloyd, Robert Guillaume, RIP). It’s not about sports, it’s about relationships. Like West Wing, it’s a continuing buffet of word work delivered by outstanding actors

    Just get past the first few episodes which have laugh tracks. Once they dropped that, show got even more wonderful.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    string caution tape all around it so no one accidentally stumbles across his hideous image.

    During the campaign one of my sisters would email me unflattering photos of Trump because she knew this would delight me although I would not do it myself – nothing in the header- just an email with a photo attached. We had this long discussion about how he has “doll hair”- the shiny, weird-colored hair that dolls have.

  118. 118.

    Kay

    Dave Weigel Retweeted
    Gabriel Sherman‏Verified account @gabrielsherman 37m37 minutes ago
    More
    WOW: Frm NJ assemblyman, who dated O’Reilly victim, says Fox and O’Reilly worked together to dig up dirt on accusers

    It’s bad but really- are you the slightest bit surprised? I would be surprised if they didn’t. This is how this works- it’s about power and intimidation and keeping secrets.

  119. 119.

    Elizabelle

    Peter Baker of FTF Vichy NYTimes finally catches up with Schrodinger’s Cat:

    Once Pitched as Calming Force, Kelly Instead Mirrors Boss
    By PETER BAKER
    For all the talk of the White House chief of staff as a moderating influence, John Kelly has strong feelings about patriotism and immigration that amplify President Trump’s hard-line message.

    Ya think? Peter Baker is one of the knob polishers; compleat Republican whisperer, although sometimes they leave even him without the ability to say “both sides.”

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    I don’t know what you have to do to pay out 30 million dollars but it probably could have been prosecuted.

    Rape with proof,Kay.
    That’s the only thing.

  121. 121.

    Elizabelle

    @rikyrah: Tell it, Norm Ornstein.

    And Zinke is a bad hire. As are all of Trump’s cabinet, but some are more ambitious than others.

    He should have to repay all the excess security and construction costs either.

  123. 123.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: That might be an interesting topic for a conversation here: What does the resistance mean to you? From casual conversations with fellow liberals (online and in meat space) as well as observations of how high-profile people and groups behave, I get the feeling there are as many answers as there are resistors.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    It’d be good to get another scalp. I’m convinced corruption is a good tactic to use against Trump. It can be documented and the longer he stays the worse it will get. A lack of character as far as telling the truth isn’t isolated- it isn’t a one-off. He hires these people and ethical behavior is not something he hires for. It must be a fucking free for all in that administration. There are no limits, no standards,other than loyalty to Trump.

  126. 126.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Immanentize: Kelly was always garbage. He makes a big deal about being in the military, yet he works for a draft dodger who says POWs are cowards for not fighting to the death.

    Imagine how Kelly would be screaming bloody murder if a Dem did those things.

    And the fucker is Irish-Catholic – all the shit his ancestors faced and yet he sides with the know-nothing nativists against fellow Catholics because they’re brown.

  127. 127.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Maybe we’ll find out and then we can find out why yet another powerful person wasn’t prosecuted for criminal activity. I’m sick of the double standard. If I have to watch every poor slob shuffle by in orange for these fucking draconian sentences I want these people rounded up too. They are buying their way out of trouble and I’m sick of it. It makes a mockery of the whole system. Prosecute.

  128. 128.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Haha! For weeks after Trump got elected, my sister and I would text each other unflattering names for Trump, e.g., “Velveeta Voldemort,” etc. It was much easier for me to play that game since I hang around on the internet a lot and could offer epithets I picked up online in addition to ones I made up. My sister had to make all of hers up or repeat what she heard on late night TV.

  130. 130.

    rikyrah

    get this child to the patent office

    This 11-year-old invented a device to help people in Flint detect lead in their water. pic.twitter.com/ma3yITt5qT

    — AJ+ (@ajplus) October 26, 2017

  134. 134.

    gene108

    @Kay:

    My personal opinion of people who complain about taxes is that they are whiners who don’t want to pay for things. It’s harsh I know but this is what I think when they whine to me. I don’t love it either but I don’t dwell in it – you have to pay for things. It’s a bill to me, like an invoice. Services aren’t free.

    One doesn’t become a millionaire or billionaire by thinking things need to be fair. Things need to be stacked to your benefit.

  137. 137.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Good morning from the Resistance in New Mexico! Working on getting voters registered, informed, and engaged, while trying not to let the f*cking splitters take over. And I bought a “new” car yesterday – 2016 Toyota RAV4 hybrid with just under 19k miles. Repair expenses on the 2003 CRV were starting to mount up, so I pulled the trigger.

  138. 138.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    She’s funny because she wasn’t a “Party” person and I was and Bush made her such a good Democrat! She fit right in- has the 7th grade sense of humor I really go for! :)

    I canvassed with her once and she was much more diligent than me- I was like “I’m SO HOT, can we GO now?”

  139. 139.

    germy

    On Wednesday, Hawaii senator Brian Schatz officially introduced one more idea into the mix: A bill that would allow states to expand Medicaid to anyone on the individual market who wishes to buy into it. Like the traditional Medicaid program, the expanded version would be funded by a mix of state and federal dollars. Unlike the old fashioned version, this plan would compete with private ones on the Obamacare exchanges. States would have the power to set premiums and deductibles on this public option plan, and consumers would be able to use their Obamacare tax credits to purchase them.

    Schatz co-authored the legislation with New Mexico Congressman Ben Ray Luján, and the bill has already attracted 17 Senate co-sponsors – including senator Sanders. Schatz is, himself, a co-sponsor of the democratic socialist’s “Medicare For All” bill. And while he believes his plan is the best option currently on the table, he wants his party’s marketplace of healthcare ideas to be as competitive as possible.

  140. 140.

    Elizabelle

    @schrodingers_cat: Yes. Agree completely.

    Not slagging JCole, but some of what goes up here is Readership Repulsion.

    Helen in Eire’s comment 2 nights ago about thinking of stepping away from BJuice (granted, it was a dark day for her) is a wakeup call. I see that happening with some regulars. Too much to marinate in all the negativity, or focus on complaining on a blog about stuff we are somewhat powerless to control.

    I worry that the negativity saps strength. We need to maintain ours, to resist. This is a marathon.

  143. 143.

    gene108

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The impulse to trust a square jawed general is a strong one.

    It is more than just a square jobbed general. He was competent at what is considered to be a demanding job, which involved running a large government organization. People figured this would translate well, because there is an obvious dearth of competence with many Trump hires.

    So many Trump hires are incompetent for their jobs, such as Carson at HUD, or are actively trying to undermine their departments, like Pruitt at EPA or are both incompetent and undermining their departments like DeVos.

  144. 144.

    gene108

    @Elizabelle:

    What needs to be added are what measures we can take. Updates from local groups working to get Democrats elected or protesting Trump.

    There’s a lot happening, but we need to do a better job getting people coordinated.

  145. 145.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Seconding that we need more positive stuff about actions to take. And it’s partly up to me as a front pager.

    It’s easy to feel down. The last two days of lying and crazy have muddled my mind. And constructive posts take energy and research to write. We also need better definitions of what’s wrong. I have a post on possible foreign policies that I have been working on forever, but it’s my ambition to get it done within the next week or so.

    I had a discussion about that with a friend over the weekend. He seemed surprised that I wanted to work on something so specific. Situations are going to change as Trump wreaks his destruction. But we need to develop the ideas so that we have something when he goes, as he eventually will.

  146. 146.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Elizabelle: It definitely saps my strength. If everything is lost and everyone around me is irredeemably racist and xenophobic and Rs are always going to win. Then I should leave while I still can, right. Well I am not willing to give up, without a fight. I think this country, my adopted home, is worth fighting for. This country and its people have been good to me. I am not willing to judge everyone by T and his minions standard. And there are more of us than them.

  148. 148.

    Betty Cracker

    @gene108: And that happens on the local level, mostly. I kind of assume most folks around here are plugged into their local party organizations, resistance groups, OFA, etc. It’s interesting to hear updates about actions on the ground, etc., here at this blog, but I don’t think this is the right venue for coordinating such actions. IMO.

  149. 149.

    eyelessgame

    Sports Night was amazing. Its first season is as good as any season of West Wing. (Its first season aired the year before West Wing started, and the show had Sorkin’s full attention.)

    “The Quality Of Mercy At 29K” (two episodes before the one containing the clip above, “The Six Southern Gentlemen Of Tennessee”) is an episode I watch every Thanksgiving almost since it first aired. It gives me hope for humanity and the future and it even did last year.

  150. 150.

    gvg

    @schrodingers_cat: I think you are misunderstanding what we want to trust Kelly FOR. The only thing I thought the generals would think they SHOULD resist the commander in chief, is don’t use nukes on anyone that hasn’t launched toward the US, and maybe not even then. It was all about the nukes and Trump being an aggressive moron with no understanding of consequences, law, or science.
    Even the racist he clearly is can still be useful for this purpose, especially if Trump knows he is generally in agreement with Trump’s bigotry. The generals we hope have enough brains to foresee things like drifting radioactive clouds, polluted water, food supply disruption, economic sanctions worldwide etc and so on. In the past, aggressive Presidents actually understood some facts. Trump showed during the campaign that he actually didn’t even understand how dangerous to US using our nukes would be. I hate Trump voters again when I think about it…
    We had certain limited hopes for the generals. Since Trump hasn’t used nukes yet, maybe its working.

    It was also possibly hoped they might be able to make Trump’s whitehouse less chaotic. Maybe that has worked slightly too, but not enough to care about.

  151. 151.

    Lee

    @Feathers:

    That is exactly correct about HR (I work a lot with HR in my IT job). They are management’s interface to the human resources. They are not there to look out for the employees in any shape or form. They only reason they can about safety, anti-harassment, etc is because the company will get sued or fined if they don’t.

  152. 152.

    Jill

    Sports Night was one of the best shows ever. I would encourage everyone on this site to check it out if they haven’t already seen it.

  153. 153.

    H.E.Wolf

    @O. Felix Culpa: @schrodingers_cat: , and a host of others who have chimed in:

    I greatly appreciate the updates at Balloon Juice in which people talk about their Resistance activities. Although there’s no formal group, it heartens me to consider myself part of the BJ Resistance.

    Speaking of which, I’ve started doing a Resistance volunteer job – data entry for the local Democrats, related to their GOTV effort for 2018. Each time I update a record in the database, it’s one tiny step closer to victory. :-)

    Meanwhile, the female staff at our local library branch have added a stack of voter registration forms to their Useful Pamphlets table.

    Tiny steps: they get the job done. /hamiltonlove

  154. 154.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @H.E.Wolf: Good for you on doing the data entry! That was one of my roles in the 2016 campaign and quality data makes a BIG difference.

  155. 155.

    J R in WV

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    Kelly …. is Irish-Catholic – all the shit his ancestors faced and yet he sides with the know-nothing nativists against fellow Catholics because they’re brown.

    Come on Dave! You know all REAL Catholics are Irish. All the others are kinda converted heathens! It just makes sense that way, if you’re an Irish Catholic! And look how well that worked out in Ireland!

  157. 157.

    No Drought No More

    I sometimes wonder what John Lennon might have come up with in the digital age. To think he stomped the terra in the tube and transistor days is to marvel a bit more at all he did accomplish with what he had.

  158. 158.

    The Lodger

    @O. Felix Culpa: Keep us posted on how the RAV4 hybrid works out, wouldja? We have a Civic hybrid now and were thinking of upsizing when the time is right, unfortunately Honda doesn’t want to develop a CR-V hybrid so we might get a RAV4.

  160. 160.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @Baud: To be Scrupulously Fair, the very richest people in the country did get a minor tax increase with Obamacare (I think the top marginal income tax rate went up from 35% to 39%, which is nowhere where it should have gone. While economists think 70% would maximise government revenue, I’m more in favour of 90% or higher, because at this point expropriating wealth from the upper 1% seems like a vital matter of national security).

    So, definitely not “lots of people”, then. Most who said that are just liars.

    Also, regarding the OP, my pedantry requires me to note that the creator of Sports Night is named Aaron Sorkin. And yes, it is as good as The West Wing; it’s the only of his other shows that was. I should re-watch it when I have time.

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