And there you have it:
Democrats refusal to give even one vote for massive Tax Cuts is why we need Republican Roy Moore to win in Alabama. We need his vote on stopping crime, illegal immigration, Border Wall, Military, Pro Life, V.A., Judges 2nd Amendment and more. No to Jones, a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2017
Good morning, juicers.
PsiFighter37
He’s going to win, too. You think I’m going to bet on the dumbest state in the country to do the right thing?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
You’re going down you POS. You will be remembered as the worst President in American history and you’re too deluded to realize it.
Elizabelle
The bird in question is a loon.
Fuck ’em. I rather hope Alabama surprises some folks here and elects Doug Jones.
If they don’t, I hope Alabama surpasses North Carolina’s experience losing business and tourism in the wake of their insane bathroom bill. Decent people need not spend money in Alabama. Our money has a voice, even if our voters don’t.
NotMax
Teenage girls keep diaries. Surprising none have yet surfaced.
Is the literacy rate that low in the Yellowhammer* State?
*During the Civil War, pieces of yellow cloth resembling the Yellowhammer bird were attached to Confederate uniforms and led to soldiers being nicknamed “yellowhammers.”
Schlemazel
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
You’re assuming anyone will remember American history by the time he is done.
@PsiFighter37:
We have to figure out how to save the country without the support of the Stets of the former Confederacy. As we did through the entirety of the 20th century, we have to marginalize their sway and drag them kicking and screaming toward decency and progress.
Mike in DC
It’s a special election in mid-December. Turnout would normally be lower than midterm turnout, so getting the votes out could actually be the difference here. Go Doug Jones!
PsiFighter37
@Elizabelle: You think Alabama has enough business that’s worth boycotting? There’s fuck-all reason to host conventions or any of that kind of crap there.
JPL
https://twitter.com/JGreenDC/status/937636575495716867
This is good news for Clinton
NotMax
@PsiFighter37
Casino hotels.
Kay
I know he’s a long shot but I think he’s a wonderful candidate and Democrats were lucky to have such a high quality person – he probably had no chance of winning when he started this and he ran anyway.
This is the reality of “contest every race”, which we all always say. We will lose a lot :)
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@JPL:
The best legal team money can buy lol
TS
MJ has gone full against trump (took attacks against him by trump, to do it) – but they still have David Ignatius on to mention Hillary & add that both sides (Oh, this is like Hillary Clinton talking about deplorables).
When I can watch a political program that does not mention a Clinton – then maybe the dems will be winning against the horror of trump and the GOP.
debbie
Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney fired by Trump, called bullshit on the insistence that Trump’s attorney wrote that incriminating tweet. Having opposed the attorney in several cases, Bharara said Trump’s attorney had made a number of “ludicrous” statements.
JPL
@Kay: The same was true when Ossoff ran in the sixth. The idea that a democratic candidate came so close in a solid republican district amazed me. The democrats are still energized here, and hopefully the same thing will happen in Alabama.
debbie
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Not even. They can’t write a cogent, grammatically correct sentence.
TS
@Kay: Now that trump has come out against Jones – the latter probably has a chance. trump doesn’t have a great record of backing winners over the past 9 months.
NotMax
@JPL
The articles of impeachment drawn up against Nixon beg to differ.
Where did he attend law school? Matchbook U.? His statement is evidence enough to invalidate his degree, with prejudice.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Important to keep this in mind, try like hell anyway, and not get discouraged over setbacks.
PsiFighter37
@NotMax: Thought Vegas tended to be the preferred destination for that kind of business…
bystander
I find it strange that on the “Trending” column of facebook, the story about pro-Clinton investigator getting fired by Mueller ranks far higher than Flynn’s guilty plea. Are the trending stories purely decided by most hits? Or another example of how compromised fb is?
I would love to be seated at the MJ table one morning just so I could laugh in Joe and Meeka’s faces when they start clucking about Conyers or when they deny their role in normalizing twitler early on. BTW is there some reason why the Farenthold sex story is less interesting than that of Conyers nd Franken? Because I’m not hearing any of the lurid details. Or even a mention.
Kay
@JPL:
Good for you. We seem to veer wildly between “run every race” to “we never win in these places”. Decide. If we seriously contest in places like Georgia or Alabama we will lose a lot. “Contest every seat” is hard because they lose a lot. That’s why it’s hard to get good candidates. Good, qualified people instead decide to enter job application processes where they have a shot in hell of getting the job.
It always goes like this. First the person is a long shot and then if he or she draws closer we immediately think they “should have won”. They always could have won. They always probably wouldn’t. If losing means we will always lose and we shouldn’t try than we should stop saying “contest every race” because we don’t mean it.
JPL
@NotMax: hahahha The current republican leadership won’t blink an eye. It will be business as usual, and that means screwing the American public.
Woodrowfan
Mississippi in holding on line 1 for you. Arkansas is on line 2.
JPL
@Kay: Ossoff hasn’t committed to run yet, but has moved into the district. The fact that he didn’t live here, did lose him a few votes. Another candidate has already committed to run, Bobby Kaple, and he has a good bio. He was a former newscaster who stepped down to run.
rikyrah
@JPL:
Yeah, ok, whatever ??
Kay
@JPL:
Marcy Kaptur energetically recruits candidates for my congressional district and they’re always at least decent. I’ve talked to most of them in the last 15 years or so (every 2 years) and they seem to be the kind of people who are drawn to the high reward scenario of “winning as a long shot”- obviously it’s riskier but they (rightly) see it as amazing if they would win. They always think they CAN win too. I don’t think they’re faking or just saying that because one has to say it. They believe it. I have come to think they have to convince themselves they can win or they won’t really try.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I agree, Kay.
He is an excellent candidate, and more than deserves our support.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
One statement does not automatically exclude the other. We shouldn’t run every race with an expectation of winning, we should run every race even if we are going to lose just so they have to earn their victory.
OzarkHillbilly
@Woodrowfan: Kansas line 3. Misery line 4. Oklahoma line 5…
Kay
@JPL:
It’s such a nice, clear contrast too, this one. It’s like Good versus Evil! Maybe Jones’ prior career makes him a good candidate for that sort of fight. Turning a blind eye isn’t limited to Alabama, either. That happens a lot. Donald Trump was a NYC celebrity for 40 years and no one called him out for his blatant racism and serial sexual harassment. Christ, he was taking out full-page racist ads in the newspaper and look how far HE got. This whole “educated people” frame is just wrong. Good judgment and decency aren’t dependent on level of formal education. I bet the Mercers are pretty well-educated. The problem isn’t lack of education. It’s that they’re sleazy and venal. They lack character, not college degrees.
OzarkHillbilly
This a good run down of the trump/Russia imbroglio by Josh, helps to give some perspective. But this cracked me up:
Too true, all to true.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I like his explanation for why Flynn would lie about the contacts knowing the contacts would be documented. As a SPY Flynn would know that. But he thought he’d be in charge after December! That makes sense to me. They thought they could quash or obstruct any investigation, which made sense. The NYTimes had cleared them of all charges on October 31st and any suspicions were the stuff of conspiracy theories.
Kay
@JPL:
How many Americans had college degrees in FDR’s time? Something like half of them hadn’t even gone to high school. They weren’t “better educated”- they were just better.
JPL
Tomorrow is the runoff for a state senate seat, and technically it has already flipped. The race is between two dems, and my son who lives in Sandy Springs plans on voting again.
Facebook question….. Locally I’ve been helping with local elections, and although it’s non partisan, it’s unlikely that the candidates vote for a dem often on the state level. Since I have to keep up with what is being said, I follow some right wing sites. It appears that I’m blocked now from joining dem sites. Is there a way I can clean up my facebook page, in order to prove my dem credentials? The local election is tomorrow, so I don’t plan on following those pages again.
Robert Sneddon
@Kay: FDR and his compliant heavily-Dem congress was full of racist southern Dixiecrats, people the Democratic Party gave up on in the mid-60s when they passed the Civil Rights Act and turned reliable wheelhorse Dems like Strom Thurmond into heartland Republicans. The better-educated and wealthier areas voted Republican, hardcore capitalists generally.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Again and again they have shown how truly corrupt they are and think that laws are for little people. Flynn fit right in.
Another from Josh. And again, this part cracks me up:
Tell that truth Josh, tell it.
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: Read that article yesterday, comprehensive, and does a great job of bringing the actions and motives together.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: My mother’s father never made it out of elementary school (had to go to work). He retired as the CFO of Cambell-Taggert (the makers of Bunny Bread)
Betty Cracker
@eclare: It really does. I know a lot of folks aren’t fans of Marshall for one reason or another, but he’s really good on analysis, IMO.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL:
Fuck’em.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Purity ponies.. Just so you all know now, I’m a closet repub. hahahahaa
raven
@TS: That is untrue, he’s been on a jihad for months. Try to keep up.
SRW1
@OzarkHillbilly:
Also an excellent explanation for the high personnel turnover in the Trump admin since his raft of state hit open waters.
Matt McIrvin
@Schlemazel:
Virginia is turning into a blue state, while WV, which seceded from VA to stay with the Union, may be the reddest state in the country. Florida and North Carolina are swing states (NC is currently in the grip of a reactionary antidemocratic junta, but that’s because they’re desperately trying to hang onto power with dwindling popular support–they’ve lost the governorship already). Meanwhile, the northern Midwest is trending Republican. The boundaries of the old Confederacy aren’t quite the ones to look at.
raven
@Kay: Half of the 44 millions who served in [email protected] didn’t have a hs diploma, that’s where the GED came from.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL:
I have no time for them.
@SRW1: And for why he has to cannibalize his admin for nominees to newly opened posts. Mulvaney from budget director to head of CFPB being just the latest example.
Kay
@raven:
My father was drafted at the tail end of the war and he was shocked at how poor his fellow draftees were and he was ordinary working class- his mother went no further than 6th grade but she worked so they had 2 incomes and they only had 2 kids so he lacked for nothing. He had never been out of Pennsylvania and had never seen that kind of poverty. He’s obsessive about cleanliness and neatness. He was horrified that they had what he considered poor people diseases and problems- lice and rickets and nutritional deficiencies. It’s so funny the GED came out of it because that’s where school lunches came from too.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: Thank you for pointing that out.
Patricia Kayden
@TS:
Secretary Clinton pointing out that many of Trump’s supporters were deplorable has been proven true several times since his election including by the violence perpetrated by White Supremacists in Charlottesville. There was nothing wrong with her comment. It was true then and is true now.
Why doesn’t the media obsess on how Trump has attacked individuals, including mocking a disabled journalist and recommending that his supporters look up a nonexistent porn video on a beauty pageant contestant? Trump’s attack on those who don’t support him far surpasses Secretary Clinton’s deplorable speech.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@PsiFighter37: I have an on line friend who lives in Alabama, she works at a Target in Mississippi.
danielx
@OzarkHillbilly:
More like Mulvaney from just about anything. This is a guy who really does not appear to believe in governing or government, so naturally he becomes a Trump minion.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: It was sort of nitpicking, but not really–I believe that the future of the national Democratic Party lies south (and west, but that’s almost too obvious to mention), with a multiracial coalition that’s getting stronger there while white Midwestern liberalism is slowly dying.
That’s the Atlantic Coast South, mostly; actually becoming dominant in Alabama will be impossible for a long, long time, and there might be the Louisiana problem of climate-related disasters driving out the blackest and poorest segment of the population first. Texas is a long-term goal but not for the next few cycles.
OzarkHillbilly
@danielx:
You know, you could just say “Republican” and then you wouldn’t have to type all that out.
tobie
@Patricia Kayden: I feel like I’ve always known in my gut that the media favors Republicans, but didn’t have any proof. The differential treatment of Farenthold (R) and Conyers (D) and Franken (D) proves that IOKIYAR.
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin: Texas might happen sooner than any of us think. I read an article recently on some local organizations doing God’s work among Hispanics.
rikyrah
My late grandparents, born in 1904 in rural Virginia, never finished high school. They sent 2 kids to nursing school, 1 to law school, 1 to vocational school, 1 to Vietnam. They could’ve never imagined that the option of higher education would be looked down on in America now.
— Jeffrey Wright (@jfreewright) December 4, 2017
Tazj
@TS: During the 2016 campaign, many in the media chose to ignore the fact that a significant number of Trump’s supporters were racists and Nazi sympathizers. I never knew that the white nationalist movement was as large as it was or what Pepe stood for before 2016. Hillary gave a speech that in part was meant to shed light on this movement. Her political error was how she quantified the number of Trump supporter who were deplorable. Maybe, if she would have said a small number were deplorable she wouldn’t have received as much criticism for her statement. However, the press was just dying for a makeup call to even up all the horrible things Trump had said. The media completely ignored the other half of her “deplorables” comment that stated how many people are justifiably angry and ran with how mean Hillary was.
Right now Republicans are just letting their freak flags fly in the way they are criticizing people who receive government help to survive in order to justify tax cuts for the wealthy. Grassley made crazy comments about people spending all their money on booze and women. Maybe Hatch wasn’t criticizing the children who are CHIP recipients, but his statement saying the government was wasting billions of dollars on lazy poor people was worthy of widespread condemnation.
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly: Getting the Hispanic population of Texas to vote seems to be hellaciously difficult, but they eventually did become a dominating force in California and it changed the state’s politics forever. I wish them luck.
randy khan
@JPL:
That’s one of those claims that’s stupid on its face.
SiubhanDuinne
Rachel Martin on NPR’s Morning Edition just said “The Senate passed the tax bill without a single Democrat vote.”
Goddammit. It’s grating enough when Republicans do it. When mainstream broadcasters use “Democrat” as an adjective, it comes close to journalistic malfeasance.
raven
@Kay: Well, they knew they had to do something with the post-war vets after the Bonus Army so they created the GI Bill. The problem was that the Bill was for post-secondary and with all those people with out a secondary credential they had to do something.
Matt McIrvin
@randy khan: “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.”
TS
@Tazj:
And I’m waiting for the media to condemn it – and keep repeating what he said for the next 2 years. Faint chance..
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Amen, brother.
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly: …it does seem like “if you vote, we will hunt down and deport your relatives” would be a particularly potent threat now.
randy khan
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, but get Texas and the map looks really scary for Republicans.
gene108
@Kay:
They were desperate and starving. The same people, who voted FDR in 1932, voted Hoover in 1928.
They had also been living in the world Republicans are looking to recreate, so they understood how what FDR offered was an improvement in their daily lives.
d58826
@OzarkHillbilly: I would agree if money was unlimited but to throw money into a race that you have next to 0% chance of winning and risk under funding a race that you have a 3 in 10 shot of winning seems foolish.
d58826
@Matt McIrvin: Ah a golden oldie from misspent youth
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: The problem is not his aides, the problem is the man himself.
Scotian
@Patricia Kayden:
Because it is much easier and more fun to beat on the bitch who takes it as a responsible adult than it is to beat on the bro who whines and smacks back with any and all that he an think up (aka BS, not retaliate with facts, which is the preferred HRC method, a far more limited method because it relies on actual fact/reality not imagination alone).
These are yet another in our series of blunt answers to pressing infuriating questions.
Next?
Sorry, I know that is a bit blunt and glib, but really, hard to come up with anything better to explain it than the very ugly truth. She gets beaten up because she IS a person of principles who tried to better the world through substantive governing policies, whereas he is a big fat white spoiled racist sexist (At the absolute minimum!) male able to say and do whatever he wants even by his own recorded admission, yet somehow he must be respected as not being a typical politician, he is new to politics, yadda yadda yadda ad nauseum.
One of my primary reasons for fury with Sanders and company isn’t that they ran against her, it is that they used GOP rhetoric and as it turned out were aided by Russian internet trolls on an organized basis (not because they liked him, it was always about the Hillary hate for Putin at the beginning, Trump just added to it for him IMHO, and was not the originating factor for this action by Russia). I think I became early aware of it because I flatly refuse to use Twitter and FB, never been on either. So last year I was trying to figure out how the hell I was hearing classic 90s hits on HRC from the GOP VRWC machine suddenly coming from far left progressives who supposedly have nothing in common with those righties. It became very clear to me that RT via FB was a major cause of this spread, as was Twitter, and I saw that by April 2016.
So if I, a Canadian with too much time on his hands because of a permanent disability can work this out in real time no less, that I am STILL seeing so much active resistance to what was clearly going on not just in the Trump orbit vis-a-vis Russia but the Sanders side of the political spectrum as well (again, because the underlying target of Russia was the same, HRC, not out of some secret alignment with Sanders, as unlike Trump I am NOT aware of multiple contacts between team Sanders and Russia) is not a promising sign of things to come.
Which brings us to Alabama and Moore. The reason why I fear so for the USA is not merely because of the crazy right, it is because the left, especially its more extreme ranges are more concerned with policing their own FIRST before anything else, which is great when you are dealing with relatively minor political matters, but when the foundations of your government are on fire, while at the same time being subjected to multiple earthquakes, it really might be time to leave that alone, unite, and fight the real enemy. When this sort of tribalism goes unchecked by one side for this long that it enables this sort of candidate, well, you are far down that proverbial road to hell. None of this is new either, s being late to this game isn’t from ignorance. but choice/willful blindness IMHO.
I am not hopeful sitting up here, sorry. I pray Alabama and the mid-terms next year give me more cause for hope, but really…
*shrug*
Not going to hold my breath. After watching this project over the last quarter century get basically unchallenged because purity ponies gonna purify…
Jeffro
“We all need to get behind a pedophile and elect him to the World’s Most Awesomest Deliberative Body in order to enact tax cuts for the super-rich! YES!!”
Sounds good, Trumpov. However the actual election shakes out, we’re going to hang this around you & your party’s neck from now until the end of time.
Tazj
@TS: You’re right. All I’ve heard is “Liberals are mischaracterizing his statement” and “Did you know Hatch created CHIP with Ted Kennedy?”
SFAW
@d58826:
Three months ago, Doug Jones had “zero percent chance of winning.” He may still lose, which would be bad for the country (but good for John McCain), but so what? It is nigh-impossible to predict how a race/campaign will progress, much of the time. Well, except it was completely predictable that the FTFNYT would go after Hillary, thanks to idiot scion and degenerate motherfucker Pinch Sulzberger. But outside of that …
SFAW
@Scotian:
Neoliberal shill. [Kidding.]
LurkerNoLonger
@debbie: Don’t watch political programs. Problem solved.
ETA: Woops! that was for TS above you.
chopper
jones should just respond “no puppet, no puppet, you’re the puppet”.
d58826
@SFAW: and would still have a 0% chance if the GOP hadn’t picked Moore. But I think this is the exception that proves the rule. Obviously if you see a situation in which a ‘normal’ candidate would win but the GOP has picked a loon (i.e. Christine ‘I am Not a witch’ O’donnell) then you alter your funding decisions. What you decide to do in March isnot engraved in stone.
d58826
@Scotian:
shorter version – she is a woman.
Cheryl Rofer
@Scotian: People are starting to back off and look at the big picture: All those Russian connections, the lies, etc. I have been making a conscious effort to do this for the past couple of weeks. It’s hard to do when you’re getting pelted with all the trivial nonsense and unconnected facts, but I think we’re getting there.
Don’t lose faith in us – as Winston Churchill said, we do all the wrong things first.
Scotian
@d58826:
Sadly, cannot agree. I think it is a major part of it yes, but the real reason they went after her so heavily from the outset was the correct target assessment that in policy terms she represented on of the greatest threats to their agenda in the political realm. Especially as she and her husband were not out of the usual political establishment and could be seen as something new, a new way if you like. I agree using the fact she was a woman helped, and was also a part of the intrinsic motivation for many, especially at the lower political rungs, but the higher and funders? No, I stand by what I said. Just look at the differences between her treatment and ANY other Dem elected politico. There is a clear qualitative difference from where I sit. Neither of course is acceptable nor good, but one is clearly worse than the other, and the only explanation is fear fear of her abilities on top of everything else. They HAD to discredit her, the very things that made her a less than stellar retail politician made her an AWESOME policy expert who actually understood how to take theory and put it into practice. Can you truly think of any greater threat to the VRWC that has brought America to this point over the past few decades? I cannot.
Scotian
@Cheryl Rofer:
I am trying, and I was always one of America’s bigger proponents up here even when it got a little difficult back in the Cold War days and the first years afterward, but I watch you too closely not to see just how bad the reality is. Please, I hope and pray you all prove my fears wrong, but the track record as of late has not been encouraging, sorry.
rikyrah
George Papadopoulos’ late night with the FBI
‘Law enforcement likes to get somebody’s attention as much as they can in a lawful way,’ one of his lawyers said of the July arrest.
12/04/2017 05:16 AM EST
When former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos stepped off a flight from Germany at Dulles Airport outside Washington last July, he had no inkling of the unwelcome surprise in store for him: FBI agents waiting to place him under arrest.
For the 29-year-old Chicago native, it was going to be a long night.
Jail records obtained by POLITICO show Papadopoulos was booked in at the Alexandria (Va.) city detention center at 1:45 a.m. the following morning.
Despite the late arrival at the jail and the fact that Papadopoulos later agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, his Chicago-based defense lawyers Thomas Breen and Rob Stanley said in an interview that the FBI did not attempt to interrogate him right away.
Stanley said Papadopoulos arrived on a Lufthansa flight from Munich that touched down at about 7 p.m. on July 27, and the FBI intercepted him as soon as he got off the plane.
“He was arrested before he got to Customs and he was then held at the airport before being brought to a law enforcement office,” Stanley recalled.
rikyrah
Radio Employee Fired, Another Suspended After Racist Comments Go Viral
8:05 AM, DECEMBER 4, 2017
FOREST CITY, Iowa – Controversial commentary from two local radio employees at a high school basketball game in northern Iowa is going viral — and has resulted in the firing of one employee and the suspension of the other.
A video clip from a boys basketball game between Forest City High School and Eagle Grove High School was posted to Facebook Sunday night. It contains racist comments by an announcer and producer. The clip is from a longer online broadcast of the Nov. 28th game, with audio provided by KIOW-FM in Forest City.
According to KIMT the exchange in the clip is between Orin Harris and a producer. Harris is a longtime announcer for Forest City Athletics.
The two make several comments about the ethnicities of some of the Eagle Grove players, discussing the “Espanol people in Eagle Grove.”
Harris also says, “As (President) Trump would say, go back where they came from.”
Amaranthine RBG
@debbie:
That portion of the interview was referring to Dowd’s statement that the president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice.
Preet speaks very carefully about these things
Amaranthine RBG
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s a silly thing to worry about.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
My father’s father had a 9th grade education, but never stopped learning. He wound up owning and managing a large manufacturing business. I think he was in 9th grade when they threw him out of the county orphanage.
The Truffle
@OzarkHillbilly: Oklahoma has begun electing Democrats to state legislatures, believe it or not. This year, Dems did quite well in November. Makes you wonder if there is hope after all.
Frank Wilhoit
@Woodrowfan: Ohio would call, if they could figure out what is phone.
quakerinabasement
Hatch Act? Never heard of it!
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Party of Family Values
Mike in Pasadena
@SiubhanDuinne: I agree and I am sick of it. Since we are shortening party names, I like Repubs, pronounced re-pubes, as in pubic hairs.
Gemina13
@NotMax: Maybe in the ’50s, but who the hell had time in the ’70s, or ’80s? I didn’t have time for one until I joined LiveJournal when I was in my 30s.