Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

White supremacy is terrorism.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Come on, man.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

“woke” is the new caravan.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2017 / Monday Evening Open Thread: Comic Interlude

Monday Evening Open Thread: Comic Interlude

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I suspect Dr. Stein has always fantasized being Lillian Hellman (as played by Jane Fonda) in front of an unsympathetic HUAC committee, and now she’s got her big chance.

The top congressional committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has set its sights on the Green Party and its nominee, Jill Stein, according to a former campaign employee.

Dennis Trainor Jr., who worked for the Stein campaign from January to August of 2015, says Stein contacted him on Friday saying the Senate Intelligence Committee had requested that the campaign comply with a document search.

Trainor, who served as the campaign’s communications director and acting manager during that time, told BuzzFeed News that he was informed of the committee’s request because during his time on the campaign, his personal cell phone was “a primary point of contact” for those looking to reach Stein or the campaign. That included producers from RT News, the Russian state-funded media company, who booked Stein for several appearances, Trainor said…

Trainor, who has done on-and-off work for Stein since formally leaving the campaign in 2015, said he is inclined to cooperate with the committee’s request but wants to first seek legal counsel. He said he believes Stein plans to comply as well and post the documents on her own website “in an effort to show complete transparency and kind of wage her own war against […] what I imagine she thinks is an overblown investigation into collusion.”

Stein did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the committee’s chairman, declined to comment.

Stein has not previously been a major focus during the Russia investigations on Capitol Hill, but her name has surfaced occasionally. The Senate Judiciary mentioned her in a letter to Donald Trump Jr. in July, requesting copies of “all communications to, from, or copied” to the president’s son that related to Stein and a long list of other, more prominent figures in the investigations…

The Senate Intelligence Committee has to ask, because Stein spent her 2016 campaign putting the “idiot” in the time-tested Soviet term “useful idiot”. I very sincerely misdoubt she has anything useful to offer, on this or any other topic, but I expect her interview to be second only in {face-palm} worthy moments to that of Carter Page.

Reader Interactions

191Comments

  2. 2.

    NobodySpecial

    Well, we know she met Michael Flynn on at least one occasion, along with Vladdy Daddy. Hopefully she gets all tangled up in this and loses all the money she scammed out of people on her bogus run.

  3. 3.

    germy

    thread:

    During the campaign Sean Spicer boosted Jill Stein (several tweets asking media to support her), who was in turn boosted by Wikileaks (several tweets boosting her) and Assange, whom Stein invited to speak at Green Party Convention (Assange spoke via satellite) *after hacks/leaks* https://t.co/XJ24ZrrOwo— Adam Khan (@Khanoisseur) December 18, 2017

  4. 4.

    matt

    Would be funny if they used her as the sacrificial lamb to prove they still enforce laws against foreign collusion.

  5. 5.

    geg6

    No surprise there. She’s such a dimwit, though, that I expect Vlad didn’t really use her for anything more than a prop.

    My question is when is it Bernie’s turn? Or was he just a useful idiot, too?

  6. 6.

    ThresherK

    She already thought she was the victim of a witch-hunt, didn’t she? I’m part curious, but yet more worried, how she’ll paint herself as another Dalton Trumbo or such.

  7. 7.

    lamh36

    I know, I know… I should be more outraged, I guess…it’s history. But can I at least note, they didn’t have to do this for PBO or GWB when they were added…and supposedly half the country hated each at the time they were Prez?

    @WDWNT
    There’s Disney security and Orange County Police standing by at the Hall of Presidents.

    4:40 PM – Dec 18, 2017

    https://twitter.com/WDWNT/status/942887414363754496

  8. 8.

    TenguPhule

    @NobodySpecial:

    Hopefully she gets all tangled up in this and loses all the money she scammed out of people on her bogus run.

    Hopefully that’s the least of the things she loses.

  10. 10.

    TenguPhule

    @geg6:

    My question is when is it Bernie’s turn? Or was he just a useful idiot, too?

    Given Gilibrand and company, perhaps we should just consider him a natural fit to the party.

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    that RT dinner was in December of ’15, I believe. Not hard to imagine that, like a lot of us, Putin didn’t see Bernie coming and figured he could make Stein into Nader to attack HRC from the left, with the disgruntled and bitter and greedy general coming at her from the right, along with trump

  12. 12.

    germy

    Fascinating profile

    Jill Stein was looking for her cat. Inside her suburban treehouse of a home, slightly north of Boston, the two-time Green Party presidential candidate had been wandering around for about ten minutes, peeking in closets, disappearing into her bedroom. “Lily!” she called, but the feline refused to emerge. “She’s just shy,” she reassured me.

    Stein is no stranger to losing things. When we met again a couple months later, we spent 15 minutes looking for her car, a blue Prius with a green “JILL STEIN” bumper sticker, after she forgot where she parked. She’s also lost the 2002 Massachusetts gubernatorial race, a 2004 Massachusetts House of Representatives race, the 2006 Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth race, the 2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial race, the 2012 presidential race, and the 2016 presidential race.

  13. 13.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Dr. Stein has always fantasized being Lillian Hellman

    Nah. “Doctor” Stein is just a kook.

    Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for President, has already said there are “real questions” about whether vaccines cause autism in children. Now a video has surfaced where Stein says that wi-fi in schools might be harming kids.

    “Jill Stein has said that the president has the authority to cancel student debt using quantitative easing, that is absolutely wrong,” Oliver told viewers. “The president does not have that authority. Only the Federal Reserve does and it does not take marching orders from the White House, because that would be extremely dangerous.”

  15. 15.

    ThresherK

    @lamh36: I hope Trump doesn’t go there. The animatron seems more lifelike. People who attack the more unreal looking one will be assaulting a President.

  17. 17.

    germy

    Stein, on the recount:

    Stein, characteristically, regrets nothing. “To me, it was being able to show that these issues of corruption are very real, and I think the recount has been extremely validated since then by the findings you know of rampant tampering in a variety of election systems,” she said.

    She directed me to a Bloomberg report about how Russian hackers targeted voting machines in 39 states as further evidence that her recount efforts were justified—which is odd considering Stein is not convinced that Russia interfered with the election to begin with. When I asked her about the various reports that indicate there was Russian interference in the 2016 election, she told me she hadn’t read anything to indicate “it was Russians,” but believes that voting machines were vulnerable to hacking.

  18. 18.

    TenguPhule

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:

    Everybody over at LGM keeps telling me how awesome Gilibrand is.

    I’m calling it right now, Gilibrand is going to be our next Bernie Sanders.

    I look forward to a repeat of the 2008 turf wars here. /s

  19. 19.

    TenguPhule

    @ThresherK:

    People who attack the more unreal looking one will be assaulting a President.

    If it bleeds green, its the animatronic. The real one bleeds motor oil.

  21. 21.

    Calouste

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m pretty sure that in December 15 Wilmer was already doing quite well in the polls, definitely well enough for Putin to take a punt. Of course Vlad is not the man to put all his eggs in one basket, and he just had multiple long odds bets going at the same time.

  22. 22.

    lamh36

    I may get dinged, but, IMHO, Rose McGowan is picking some VERY bad battles…smh…it’s interesting how she’s attacking other women…smh

    i saw the original tweet, but McGowan has since deleted the tweet, but Meryl responded to her and tried to reach out…

    @psddluva4evah
    More
    Meryl Streep Responds to Rose McGowan’s Criticism: ‘I Wasn’t Deliberately Silent’
    https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/942922376483926016

  23. 23.

    ThresherK

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Heehee. My favorite memory of that is some guy asking her about 9/11 being an inside job, and she couldn’t even talk him down or dismiss him with scorn. Any pol who’s achieved Board of Ed or library council knows a bit how to do this.

  27. 27.

    Roger Moore

    @Calouste:

    Of course Vlad is not the man to put all his eggs in one basket, and he just had multiple long odds bets going at the same time.

    I think it’s closer to multiple angles of attack than multiple bets. Stein was never even a long shot, but she was somebody who could help to bleed off some of Hillary’s support.

  28. 28.

    germy

    @Adam L Silverman: Through the years I’ve found myself face to face with doctors who inspired in me something less than total confidence in their abilities. (And more than a few dentists)

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    @lamh36:

    OMG!!! Trump’s Hall of Presidents robot will scare da hell out of children!

    IT LOOKS HIDEOUS!!!

    That sounds just like the actual Trump.

  33. 33.

    Chyron HR

    @lamh36:

    So what IS the protocol for a president who turns out to be a felon/traitor/war criminal/etc.? I guess we still teach the kids about him, the way we teach them about slavery and the holocaust, but does he stay in the hall of presidents? Does his picture get left up in classrooms?

  34. 34.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Calouste: I googled and you’re right, Wilmer was getting about 30% (to Clinton’s 55%) by then. My recollection is he switched from being a message candidate to full-on anti-Hillary (“Wall Street Speeches!“) in February ’16, but that was also when he got high on his own supply and decided he could win.

  35. 35.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Macy’s Herald Square has a secret army of “special” Santas of other races and ethnicities for families not dreaming of a white Christmas.

    The Post visited the department store last week and found they offered at least two covert St. Nicks: one black, and one who speaks Spanish.

    This is gonna kill Meygan Kelly.

  37. 37.

    germy

    sletter
    @mattyglesias

    “Russian agent” seems like a stretch to me but when @JStein_Wonkblog interviewed her she had little substantive policy knowledge on any topic but very detailed, pro-Russian views on foreign policy.

  39. 39.

    TenguPhule

    @Chyron HR:

    So what IS the protocol for a president who turns out to be a felon/traitor/war criminal/etc.?

    Trial, conviction, sentencing and execution.

    Just like for every other fucking traitor/war criminal.

  40. 40.

    jharp

    I wanna know how many in the right wing media were in on it.

    Ain’t no fucking way that lard ass from Iowa was the only one.

  43. 43.

    germy

    How dare you all!

    Click on "Jill Stein" that's trending & you'll see countless leading Dems – with large platforms – strongly implying if not outright stating she's a Kremlin agent: all because of a Congressional inquiry. They couldn't better replicate McCarthyism if they tried. https://t.co/HOWU16bS6O— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 18, 2017

    This is just the latest example proving that it is a clear and constant principle of leading Democrats that literally no evidence is needed to publicly accuse someone of being a Kremlin agent other than: "someone who is adverse to the Democratic Party." https://t.co/ctwND89Iqk— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 18, 2017

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    They’re not that covert — you just ask.

    And if your elf is David Sedaris and you make a point of haughtily asking him to make sure you get a white Santa, he’ll deliberately steer you to the minority one instead. ??

  54. 54.

    TenguPhule

    W-T-F.

    US could broaden its use of nuclear weapons, Trump administration signals

    Adam, did we miss something?

    The NSS policy document criticises the downgrading of the role of nuclear weapons in the US security strategy by previous administrations since the Cold War, and suggested it had not prevented nuclear-armed adversaries expanding their arsenals and delivery systems.

    “While nuclear deterrence strategies cannot prevent all conflict, they are essential to prevent nuclear attack, non-nuclear strategic attacks, and large-scale conventional aggression,” the NSS said.

    “Non-nuclear strategic attacks” represents a new category of threat that US nuclear weapons could be used to counter, and points towards likely changes in the Nuclear Posture Review expected in the next few weeks.

    Someone please tell me this is not real.

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy: agent?”useful idiot” seems almost to praise her with faint damnation. If Putin were shopping in the Useful Idiot Store, he was at the register waiting for them to ring up trump, Slabhead Donnie, Jared Kushner, Flynn, Assange, Giuliani (just give me that one, it makes me smile), and he saw Jill Stein in a display on the counter marked down to a quarter, and he thought it would make his grandkids laugh for a couple hours before it broke, so he tossed her on the counter and said, “yeah, I’ll take that too”

    and yet, she gave trump PA, MI and WI

  57. 57.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I always wonder how people like this made it through medical school.

    I wonder how they GOT INTO medical school. Generally, medical schools don’t like dropouts, they really try to keep folk in the program because it’s expensive. Law schools, on the other hand, don’t much care.

  59. 59.

    Mike J

    What’s great is that Senate Repubs will actually keep this going so they can pwn the libs and Senate Dems range from don’t give a shit about her to actively dislike.

  60. 60.

    Millard Filmore

    @lamh36: They shoulda put Trump on the can, tweeting. But Disney is a family oriented operation so that will have to go in a Wax Museum type of display.

  61. 61.

    germy

    3. Was RNC-Stein-Assange boosting each other shtick out of an implicit understanding to peel votes away from Clinton, or was there something more formal? Mueller will want to dig into Green Party's finances (Republicans like Erik Prince previously donated to Green Party to handicap Dems) pic.twitter.com/3niUdExanb— Adam Khan (@Khanoisseur) December 18, 2017

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    @germy: Follow the money!

  65. 65.

    Mike J

    Spencer Ackerman @attackerman
    The National Security Strategy’s “Keep America Safe in the Cyber Era” section contains no mention of Russia, nor election interference. Yet it pledges “swift and costly consequences on foreign governments…who undertake significant malicious cyber activities.”

  66. 66.

    gene108

    @TenguPhule:

    I’m calling it right now, Gilibrand is going to be our next Bernie Sanders.

    She’s in bed with Wall Street. Hubby works in big-finance-Wall-Street-type business.

    She’d be fodder from Our Revolution because of this, if Bernie chooses to run again or at least try play king maker.

  68. 68.

    Mike J

    @TenguPhule:

    While nuclear deterrence strategies cannot prevent all conflict, they are essential to prevent nuclear attack

    Coincidentally, this is exactly what North Korea believes too.

  69. 69.

    gene108

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Putin played the Left as much as the Right. Bernie was just the beneficiary of anti-Hillary Russian disinformation campaign.

    So many pro-Bernie folks were justifying their support of him and opposition to Hillary based on recycled right-wing talking points and issues that get to liberals, like Hillary using the word super-predator once, which pushed on Twitter and Facebook by Russian bots.

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: We haven’t missed anything. They’re doing a nuclear posture review and the President has hinted at using nukes for tactical preemptive strikes. My guess is this was put in there to make him happy. It really doesn’t say anything meaningful. To be honest most of the document doesn’t. I tried to do a follow on post to my earlier one on this and gave up. The document they released today has some significant factual/historical errors, it is internally contradictory – as in later sections contradict earlier ones, and the document is externally contradicted by the President’s speech today, his tweets, his previous remarks, and his actual actions.

    I didn’t agree with everything in the ones issued by the Obama and Bush (43) administrations, but at least they were internally coherent and weren’t contradicted by either presidents’ or administrations’ actual actions.

  72. 72.

    chopper

    speaking of comedic interludes:

    In 2018, we have to do better, all of us. We need to improve. In the area of politics this means, in part: sober up, think about the long term, be aware of the impression you’re making, of what people will infer from your statements and actions

    that’s right – nooners herself is telling us to “sober up”. that’s like trump telling us all to stop lying and have better hair.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    @Chyron HR:

    So what IS the protocol for a president who turns out to be a felon/traitor/war criminal/etc.?

    There is none because we’ve never had anyone like Trump before. The closest is somebody like Nixon, but at least he had a set of solid accomplishments you can talk about to try to counterbalance Watergate.

  75. 75.

    Dave

    @Adam L Silverman: Serious answer? I figure they are personality types that do very well under structured guidance but flounder, and then some, without it. See it fairly often in the military. I probably am this type to at least some degree even if I’m loathe to admit it.

  79. 79.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Dave: The military has likewise invested in their personnel’s training; with medical schools, the slots in the medical school classes themselves are expensive due to the competition to get into medical school.

  82. 82.

    gene108

    @Major Major Major Major:

    plus she has those schemy lady parts.

    I think that is part of her appeal, though liberal are not as crass as conservative men were with Palin. I think there is a level of sex appeal she has with some guys that make some interested in seeing more of her.

    It is anecdotal on my part, but I see fewer women on the Gillibrand 2020 wagon, as I do men.

  85. 85.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Wilmer on the Hayes show! Maybe this is when he’s gonna stop the tax bill by summoning his mill-youngs and mill-youngs to Mitch McConnell’s window!

  87. 87.

    El Caganer

    First they came for the Greens – and I did not speak out, because I was not a Green…..(just a little light-hearterd Niemoller reference, y’all).

  89. 89.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    @gene108: Sex appeal is a huuuuuuuuuuuge factor in the Tulsi 2020 fandom. (Well: That, bearded-Spock exceptionalism, and particularly obstinate Kneel Before Sanders-ism.*)

    *Even one of the derpiest Jacobin writers concluded all the way back in April that Tulsi was a terrible candidate for the left).

  92. 92.

    Adam L Silverman

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m honestly not sure how much input McMaster actually had. The lead author on this mess was Kevin Harrington, who worked for/with Peter Thiel, and was recommended by Thiel for the position of Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Planning.

  96. 96.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mike J: Nixon, working through Kissinger who was technically on LBJ’s payroll as part of the peace negotiations team, conspired with the North Vietnamese to reject LBJ’s peace proposal, which prolonged the war for almost another decade, leading to thousands more KIAs, casualties, and hundreds of thousand civilian deaths and casualties as collateral damage. All so Nixon could win the election. And in the end what Nixon and the North Vietnamese ultimately agreed to was not much different than what LBJ offered.

  101. 101.

    mdblanche

    @germy: We must not rush to condemn Jill Stein as a useful idiot before we know all the facts. It’s possible she’s just a useless idiot.

  104. 104.

    amygdala

    @Adam L Silverman: Med school does’t shock me so much, even Harvard, where she was a student. That people with that degree of cluelessness get through residency is a bit of a surprise, especially in her generation, which was old-school, pre-work-hour-restriction training. It was an era where the faculty may or may not have had you for lunch, but if you were a screwup, your fellow residents invariably did. More so if you were annoying on top of incompetent.

  106. 106.

    germy

    My favorite is that Greenwald is passing around a picture of putin and Hillary from when she was SoS like that somehow detracts from Stein’s bizarre dinner with putin and Flynn. Stein is nobody. Clinton was SoS. That’s a conservative tactic, btw.— Imani Gandy Canes (@AngryBlackLady) December 19, 2017

    The current disinformation/false equivalence tactic is to compare actions undertaken by Obama/Clinton in their official roles as representatives of the US government… and those of Trump and his minions (or Stein) while they were private citizens with no official/legal standing.— Wallace Ritchie (@WallaceRitchie) December 19, 2017

  110. 110.

    Cacti

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:

    Everybody over at LGM keeps telling me how awesome Gilibrand is.

    Sometimes, otherwise well meaning people can be just dead ass wrong about something.

    At BJ, it was the front page love affair with “whistleblowing patriot” Edward Snowden.

  114. 114.

    Dave

    @raven: The intensity makes total sense then. I wasn’t alive during their adminstration so I have the luxury of viewing them from a distance. And I haven’t really delved into their history. So they aren’t alive to me the wasy say Lincoln is even though he’s much farther back.

  116. 116.

    germy

    Burr confirms SSCI is investigating Jill Stein's campaign, saying there are TWO campaigns the committee has just started looking at.I asked what he's looking for from Stein's campaign."Collusion with the Russians," he said.— Emma Loop (@LoopEmma) December 18, 2017

  120. 120.

    Dave

    @Cacti: I do think if you look at her focus since becoming a Senator and some of the bullshit she encountered from the older male members of the Senate that her anger regarding sexual harrassment and assault is geniuine. Though that doesn’t in any way prove that she isn’t using that genuine anger at least somewhat cynically.

  122. 122.

    Amaranthine RBG

    Cheering on a republican controlled committee as it distracts from Trump’s Russia collaboration by investigating liberals and leftists is truly an inspired political strategy!

  123. 123.

    Cacti

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    Cheering on a republican controlled committee as it distracts from Trump’s Russia collaboration by investigating liberals and leftists is truly an inspired political strategy!

    And that just proves Bernie would have won.

  124. 124.

    Ruckus

    @Dave:
    Without fucking LBJ, Nixon wouldn’t have been able to prolong anything to get elected and it’s possible that we might have had a democratic president instead of Nixon.
    So, to echo raven, Fuck LBJ.
    (Yes I know what he did positive, I also know what he did negative and what happened next because of it. I repeat, Fuck LBJ)

  127. 127.

    Miss Bianca

    @germy: Jesus Chicken-Fried Christ. “The voting machines are hackable by anyone with an interest in fucking with this country’s elections, but OF COURSE they weren’t hacked by anyone RUSSIAN with an interest in fucking with this country’s elections!”

    Idiot, yes. How useful to anyone, remains to be seen.

    And i’m sure Bobby Three Sticks is the man to see to it. : )

  129. 129.

    Ruckus

    @amygdala:
    Is it possible that she has become more and more Jill Stein like as she’s gathered years? IOW her true self has emerged and fully blossomed. Now there’s a disgusting thought.

  130. 130.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: OMG, that is the funniest, most brutal take-down I’ve seen in a while. Remind me not to get in a pissing match with *you*! : )

    ETA: But then that ending. Rage all over again when I think of *that* little achievement.

  132. 132.

    germy

    Burr confirms SSCI is investigating Jill Stein’s campaign, saying there are TWO campaigns the committee has just started looking at.

    What other campaign?

    The one Tad Devine was running?

  134. 134.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    I’m not so sure about that, a lot of people voted for Nixon because of Vietnam and his promise. If LBJ hadn’t so massively ramped up the war, things might have been a lot different. Nixon wasn’t all that liked, remember we’d seen him around for a long time by then and the war was hated by a large percentage of the population.

  136. 136.

    Amaranthine RBG

    Pro-tip: if you find yourself repeating talking points conceived by Republicans, you might want to just shut the fuck up

  138. 138.

    Miss Bianca

    @gene108: Oh, great…we get our first woman President because she’s a PILF to white men?

    I think I just threw up in my mouth a little, which really annoys me when I’m savoring my last bottle of ginger mead.

  139. 139.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lamh36: No, but I have heard that the audience in the show has been getting more and more testy and partisan in the past several years, cheering and booing for various Presidents in the roll call… kind of contrary to the spirit they were going for. I suspect a lot of people at the Mouse didn’t really want to do this.

  140. 140.

    germy

    The most dangerous fact of the Trump presidency is that, unlike Nixon, he has weaponized an entire segment of the "news" media to misinform the public about his actions.— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) December 18, 2017

  141. 141.

    Jeffro

    @Chyron HR:

    So what IS the protocol for a president who turns out to be a felon/traitor/war criminal/etc.? I guess we still teach the kids about him, the way we teach them about slavery and the holocaust, but does he stay in the hall of presidents? Does his picture get left up in classrooms?

    How about if (when!) we find he was illegitimately elected, we give it to Hillz or call for a new election, and THAT person becomes #45? Write Tang the Conqueror right the heck out of the history books as a squatter, a footnote? (which is more than he deserves)

  143. 143.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Trolly Steve has been changing costumes this week like he’s Kate McKinnon on a Saturday night.

  145. 145.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @germy:
    Yeah get in there and refrigerate the 2016 primary

    You are a DIFFERENCE MAKER!

    ETA: actually, I think the typo improves it

  146. 146.

    amygdala

    @Ruckus: Could be. As I understand it, she was a primary care doc in the Harvard system and her interest in politics derived from constant exposure to health inequities. That’s a known path, and can be a noble one. Paul Farmer, another product of the Harvard system, has harnessed his anger about that into impressive global health work.

    Problem is that docs have a tendency to think that having gotten into med school they’re good at everything, including politics more broadly. Some find success in it, like Howard Dean’s time as governor, although it’s worth pointing out that he worked on Wall Street, I think it was, before he went to med school. A lot of docs, though, aren’t great managers, especially for entities larger than an office, and the bubble of medicine can easily render one ignorant of the larger world.

    My guess is that she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know, isn’t very curious, and refuses to listen to people who challenge her beliefs. Plus people tend to get more cognitively rigid with age. All of that together has the potential to be a big mess.

  150. 150.

    Ohio Mom

    @Jeffro: No, history should never be erased. Trump should be treated like any other low point in history.

    We teach about genocides, slavery, etc., in the hope that these things will not be repeated. Admittedly, aren’t completely successful at this but what other choice is there?

  153. 153.

    Ruckus

    Oh and as this is an open thread, saw the doc today.
    Seems like life has quite possibly taken another turn that foretells ongoing health fun in my future. If/when they decide to fully diagnose I’ll let everyone in on the exact turn. And I’m going to be taking this in over the next few days/weeks/months myself. It was not totally unexpected but hearing the words brace yourself always tightens up specific body parts.
    Suffice it to say, I like getting fucking old, it’s so much fun.
    Right now nothing changes, life goes on. And like everyone else, no one knows what the future holds. But it does alter my thoughts on retirement and retirement living.

  154. 154.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Sarah Palin called 911 as her 28-year-old son, Track, who has a history of domestic violence, attacked her husband Saturday.

    The former vice presidential candidate made the call at 8:30 p.m. that her son was “freaking out and was on some type of medication,” according to the Anchorage Daily News.

    Her son was arrested on charges of felony burglary, assault in the fourth degree and criminal mischief on Saturday.

    Track Palin arrived at the family home on Saturday after telling his father, Todd Palin, that he was going to “beat his ass,” according to a sworn affidavit obtained by the Anchorage Daily News.

    Track Palin reportedly wanted to pick up a truck from his father but his dad told him not to come, the report states. Track Palin arrived anyway, Todd Palin grabbed his pistol to “protect the family” and met Track at the door.

    Track Palin then allegedly broke through a window and attacked his father, pummeling him in the head.

    Bleeding, Todd Palin got away from his son and fled the home. The father sustained cuts to his head and had “liquid coming from his ear,” according to the Anchorage Daily News.

    This is what happens when people stop saying “Merry Christmas”

  157. 157.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    Shannon Watts‏Verified account shannonrwatts
    Todd Palin was armed and threatened to shoot his son. Last year, Track Palin was armed and threatened to shoot his wife. Perhaps guns aren’t making the Palins safer.

    Mama Grisly was tweeting today, like nothing at all happened this weekend. Most of her tweets are “Wow!” and a link to obscure “news” sites. The Daily Caller is the only source I recognized.

  158. 158.

    Ohio Mom

    @Ruckus: Oh dear.

    I hope you are going to get a second and even a third opinion. From a big medical center known for whatever body part of yours is the issue (from past comments, I’m guessing heart).

  161. 161.

    Miss Bianca

    Since this is an open thread, with a loose theme of “government overreach, or not, depending on your opinion of the principals”…may I appeal to any legal fleagles in the crowd tonight who feel like pointing me in the right direction?

    Are there any cases in which county jurisdiction – not state, mind you,but county – has any sway over what happens on federally-owned land – such as national park, national forest, or BLM land? I was under the impression that for lawful activity on federal land – say, hunting, grazing, mineral extraction, what have you – the feds had jursidiction in all cases except perhaps criminal. A CO county attorney appears to think otherwise. It appears that we are rapidly approaching the point where I feel compelled to engage her on the subject. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi lawyers! You’re my only hope! Where should I look for case law or opinion on the subject?

  162. 162.

    FlipYrWhig

    Glenn Greenwald, professional writing guy, doesn’t know the difference between “adverse” and “averse.”

  165. 165.

    efgoldman

    @Ruckus:

    Without fucking LBJ, Nixon wouldn’t have been able to prolong anything to get elected and it’s possible that we might have had a democratic president instead of Nixon

    Lots of lots “its possibles” and “if onlies” in 68
    – If McGovern hadn’t chased LBJ out, he likely would have been renominated.
    – Which, maybe, would have made a LBJ/RN election, with Wallace (1968’s Orange Julius, but much, much smarter) a distant third.
    – Or, if RFK hadn’t been shot, he might have caught the nomination; I always thought he’d have beat RN
    – If Boss Daley had kept his cops even the least little bit subdued, demonstrations but no riots. The riots, widely televised, scared a significant amount of WWC traditional white unionists away from Happy (Liberal) Hubert and to Nixon or Wallace.

    What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
    – Ecclesiastes 1:9

  166. 166.

    Ruckus

    @amygdala:
    I have found over the years that being a good, effective manager is like any other skill in this world, you have to have at least some talent for it, you have to learn about it, you have to work/practice at it AND you have to want to do it well.
    Now some people are closer to a natural manager than others, but no one gets there without effort. I used to know a CEO of a smallish firm who was incredible at fixing personnel issues after they had blown up but had not one iota of how to head them off in the first place. I’ve seen others that either expect everyone to have exactly the same skills and ruin a workplace when they didn’t to others that had no idea how to understand/control their own issues so that intruded into everyone’s life. In a negative fashion of course.
    I imagine that docs are no different, it’s just that for a long, long period of leaning they’ve been told that they are smart, they’ve proven to be reasonably effective in some way or it would be to some degree rare that they continued to move on. Of course that is effected by how much effort has been poured into getting them to the home stretch that I’d also bet that sometimes the decision to kick the can downfield is overwhelming.

  167. 167.

    Jeffro

    @Ohio Mom: I don’t think of it as erasing him…I think of it as ensuring he’s put in his proper place. Like a wart you’ve had removed.

  170. 170.

    Bill Arnold

    @Adam L Silverman:

    They’re doing a nuclear posture review and the President has hinted at using nukes for tactical preemptive strikes. My guess is this was put in there to make him happy.

    You’re the expert here at reading this type of document, but I read that as a generic “deterrence”, in whatever domain that we might be attacked in.

    The spread of accurate and inexpensive weapons and the use of cyber tools have allowed state and non-state competitors to harm the United States across various domains. Such capabilities contest what was until recently U.S. dominance across the land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace domains. They also enable adversaries to attempt strategic attacks against the United States—without resorting to nuclear weapons—in ways that could cripple our economy and our ability to deploy our military forces. Deterrence must be extended across all of these domains and must address all possible strategic attacks.

    Bold mine. I’m thinking they’re thinking in particular of improved strategic “space” deterrence forces. Regular extra-planetary “space” and (cough) “cyber space”. [1]
    Both are fraught with nasty stupid irreversible arms race potentials.
    [1] Amusingly limited imaginations. Perhaps they should be concerned about “threats” from other regions of the multiverse, and beyond. :-)

  175. 175.

    Ruckus

    @Ohio Mom:
    And to everyone else who commented. Thank you!
    Actually not the heart, although I have an angioplasty on Friday but the cardio god thinks it will be OK and not a worry.
    I needed to talk about it a bit but I’m not ready to go farther as the doc isn’t ready to call it yet. He wanted to prep me for what he thinks is down the road, how far he is still tentative about, from what has been seen and been happening for 2 or 3 yrs. If it’s what he thinks it is, there is no med to give me at this time that I’m not already on. There likely will be if and when they make the call. I’ve been somewhat anticipating this, it’s almost a classic case of a disease that takes time to diagnose and that has never been dismissed as a possiblity since I got into the VA system. It shares several traits with several other diseases, some of which are not that uncommon, a major one they looked at a few years ago and dismissed, so it has to develop to be diagnosed and there is almost no lab/imaging tests.
    I’m hanging in there but this is a biggie for me and I will probably vent every once in a while if you all don’t mind.

  176. 176.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @clay: he seemed to have behavior issues before the military

    The boys deflated the tires of 44 buses, broke mirrors and unplugged 110 buses from their engine-block heaters, which caused the buses not to start in subzero weather. The incident was serious enough to force the school district to close schools for a day on November 29.

    Curiously, Track Palin spent six months of his senior year with a host family in Portage, Michigan. His mother took him out of Wasilla High School and sent him to Michigan for the 2006/2007 school year. The Kalamazoo Gazette is reporting that Track came to the Midwest hoping he would be picked up by college hockey recruiters in the area, this despite the fact that he was already a star hockey player for the competitive Alaska All-Stars team.

    One has to wonder whether Sarah Palin had any hand in her son’s decision to leave Wasilla. After all, it would not be the first time that Sarah Palin took one of her troubled kids out of school. She did the same thing when she learned of her teenage daughter Bristol’s pregnancy.

    (link)

  177. 177.

    Miss Bianca

    @Ruckus: Jackals reserve the right to vent in jackal space. Vent away, say I!

    Since I fully anticipate the “well, shit – cancer” posting in my own future somewhere down the road (with any hope, much farther down the road).

  179. 179.

    Millard Filmore

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    Cheering on a republican controlled committee as it distracts from Trump’s Russia collaboration …

    Not much of consequence will come from those committee investigations. The real action is with Mueller, and then the impeachment fight is with a different set of committees.

  180. 180.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @raven: @Ruckus: Nope, Law ‘n Order and the backlash to civil rights. Remember, the country was burning down after Watts in 65. Nixon certainly wasn’t viewed as an antiwar candidate even with the “Peace with Honor”. Bobby Kennedy was the anti-war candidate, but he was dead.

  181. 181.

    Ruckus

    @tobie:
    VA care is first rate. Of course our low friends in high places would like to take my care away from me. As well as a lot of other people’s care. And of course that isn’t even just the VA they want to take away. Lots of money must be a hell of a drug. Maybe we should outlaw it. Because really the damage that congress is doing is far worse than meth. And addiction is a huge problem, removing healthcare and passage ways to get off addicting drugs makes congress far worse than dealers in my opinion. They could help people but no, they fucking want to make someone else a lot richer. Now that’s a clear definition of ASSHOLE.

  184. 184.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    I didn’t say it was a lock, but people hated Nixon, and with good reason, some of which we didn’t even know yet. It was a confluence of issues, None of us, even those who were adults at the time have any real idea what might have been. It was such a tumultuous time in our history, all the things you mention, all the things EFG mentioned. JFK, RFK, MLK, Vietnam, LBJ, civil rights, Nixon, riots, Chicago 68……… It was a clusterfuck, any one of us could be 100% correct or 100% wrong about how things might have gone had even one thing been different. And I know that I’m leaving out lots of stuff.

  187. 187.

    chopper

    @germy:

    that’s like telling the judge it’s okay for you to do 90 in a 50 cause you saw a cop speeding with his cherries on just the other day.

  189. 189.

    Ruckus

    @Miss Bianca:
    I hope not. I wouldn’t wish cancer on my worst enemy. And you are assuredly not one of those. And we all have a few right now.
    Cancer sucks. It sucks having it, it sucks getting treated (although the treatments seem to have gotten a lot more effective and better tolerated over the last 20 or so years) and it sucks waiting for what seems for fucking ever to find out if treatment was even successful. I’m 13.5 months out from treatment and still waiting for the “You don’t need to call us any more” call. Seems like longer. Seems like fucking forever.

  191. 191.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: I am so sorry to hear about your bad news. Brace yourself. Yikes. Of course you can vent, any time. You seem remarkably calm, though that may ebb and flow. I wish there was something we could say that would help. I doubt there is, but at least you know we care.

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