It’s a virtual certainty that the GOP will ramrod the “Pass-Through Entities Enrichment and Donor Relief Act” this week, giving the Scheißegibbon a much-needed “win” by leveraging the U.S. tax code to widen the already Gilded Age-scale wealth inequality gap. But today is still a good time to call your senators:
(202) 224-3121
Why bother? Well, “Liddle” Bob Corker felt sufficiently soiled by the tawdry process that he was moved to pretend he didn’t know the #CorkerKickback was added specifically to corral his vote. Via The Hill:
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) sent a letter on Sunday to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) asking how a provision that would potentially benefit real estate moguls, including Corker, made it into the final version of the Republican tax-reform bill.
“Because this issue has raised concerns, I would ask that you provide an explanation of the evolution of this provision and how it made it into the final conference report,” Corker wrote.
The International Business Times reported Saturday that a provision added during the reconciliation process allows owners of income-producing real estate to take advantage of a 20-percent deduction for “pass-through” entities. The Senate version of the tax bill included rules that allowed the deduction to be claimed only by businesses that pay their employees significant wages.
The provision would potentially benefit Corker and President Trump, among other real estate moguls.
I think Cole was right when he said the Republicans are openly engaged in a smash-and-grab because they sense an electoral wipe-out on the horizon, one that will make the 2010 Teaturd wave resemble the dribble from a cracked thimble. But long odds aren’t a reason to give up.
McCain is out. Cochran is out. Corker is shocked — shocked! — that self-dealing is in the bill and demanding explanations. Susan Collins, “the human fulcrum perched stoically at the precise center of American politics,” also functions as a weathercock. Friends, let’s change the weather.
Open thread.
raven
Johnny’s in the basement mixin up the medicine. . . .
NotMax
Drunken Aunties Slake ‘n’ Bake.
Spill the beans.
cleek
nah.
what the national GOP is doing is exactly what the GOP did in NC. they didn’t bother negotiating, didn’t bother crafting the bills with lots of public hearings and other time wasting foolishness. they just got in there and got er done. write the bill quickly, smash it through and move on to the next thing.
use the power while you got it, regardless of what the next election looks like. if you spend your time trying to massage things for the public, worrying about the next election, you run the risk of losing members or having courts get in your way or all the other things that confound majorities. whip it up, ram it down.
(that they’ve failed so far to do anything is because some of their team has a shitty team ethic)
Yarrow
In the “maybe it’s not over” category:
Major Major Major Major
I love that McSweeney’s article.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
re: your query the other day. Yes, gave a thumbs up to Obit, among others who subsequently seconded.
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: Oh, the usual — we stayed up way too late and made an enormous mess, but we all agreed the effort was worth it, and we’ll do it again next year. :)
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: So what did you drink and what cookies did you make?
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
I’ll take mugwump for $500, Alex.
;)
Amir Khalid
“Your winnings, sir.”
Greg Gabrielse
Or call Sen. Strange and ask him to follow the will of the Alabaman voters.
jeffreyw
@Amir Khalid:
Well played!
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Perfection!
Yarrow
The hashtag #CorkerKickback is getting some momentum on Twitter. Anyone on Twitter might want to pile on. I don’t know if social media shaming will work, but this is such an obvious case of bribery, and Corker’s reaction of “I’m shocked! How did my hand get in the cookie jar??!!” means the accusation has hit home. He may care about his reputation, he may not, but might as well try to shame him into changing his vote.
Major Major Major Major
@jeffreyw: it also brings to mind Austin Powers finding a certain item in his personal effects.
@NotMax: well, I watched it and I’m writing a short story about somebody based on that weird archivist, so thanks!
randy khan
And don’t forget to call House Republicans in high tax states.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
Sadly, it’s too late. The governor of Minnesota has already appointed Franken’s replacement.
I hope the “zero tolerance” Democrats led by Gillibrand are happy with the results they pushed for.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Smash and grab. That’s what this is. That’s all this is. They’re going to steal everything that isn’t nailed down and leave a mess behind like the one they left in 2009, Democrats are going to have to come in and clean it all up, and lots of people are going to hate it, because cleaning messes is never as much fun as making messes, and they hope to ride back into office on a wave of resentment in 2022. Sooner or later, though, this shit is going to stop working for them.
Yarrow
NotMax
@Yarrow
Not completely analogous but am thinking back to the so-called “Jordan Rule.”
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Franken hasn’t officially resigned. The Governor has said who the replacement will be, but it’s not done yet. Not saying anything will change, but who knows at this point.
I don’t think this will reflect well on the Democrats that piled on to push for his resignation, especially Gillibrand, in the long run.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Mnemosyne: Look, nobody’s happy about this, but it’s something we have to do. Things are changing, and if we don’t get out in front of it, we’ll get screwed. There are enough people who don’t harass women, who don’t grope them, that we can fill every seat in Congress and every state legislature ten times over. We can do better, and we should.
Betty Cracker
Rubio’s intern sounded harassed and cranky! Nelson’s seemed happy to get a positive call. My work here is done.
@schrodingers_cat: My sister made some vodka cranberry concoction that threatened to derail a significant portion of adult supervision, so we quickly switched to red wine. We made and decorated cut-outs, coconut macaroons, mocha espresso cookies, snickerdoodles, buckeyes and spritz cookies!
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Glad to hear you found it worthwhile. Intriguing fellow, he.
tobie
@Mnemosyne: White women in AL voted overwhelmingly for Roy Moore. White women voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Why do so many in the party believe that this issue will mobilize white suburban voters? Nothing in recent electoral history supports this assumption.
I found the piece Yarrow linked to appalling. Some Dem Senators won’t go on record saying they regret their vote; some said they issued statements because they felt pressured to by their colleagues. What wimps! Compared to ordinary people these elected officials have extraordinary power, and yet they’re afraid to exercise judgment.
Shalimar
@Betty Cracker: Rubio’s intern should sound harassed. They put a cherry on top of a two-story pile of shit and Rubio is now calling it a sundae.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: the end was very sad.
Major Major Major Major
@tobie:
Other than the elections in Virginia and Alabama, sure. You don’t have to win a majority, you just have to win more.
Yarrow
Calling John Cornyn is an exercise in futility, but I saw someone say they got through to his Austin office and asked the staffer about this statement:
Staffer didn’t have a response and didn’t know he’d said it. LOL. Idiots. Might be worth calling his office and asking about that, especially those in Texas.
Ridnik Chrome
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): What’s wrong with having an investigation first? If the accusations against Franken turn out to be true, then by all means, he should resign. I don’t see what’s so hard about that.
WaterGirl
I keep trying to call Bob Corker but his line is busy. I hope they are getting inundated with calls and haven’t just taken their phones off the hook.
Is anybody pressuring the OTHER senator from Tennessee about the shame that Bob Corker’s buyout is bringing Tennessee?
Amir Khalid
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
For reasons already highlighted in this thread, I disagree.
Yarrow
For anyone calling Corker’s office, some supplemental info from 2015:
WSJ article.
gvg
@Yarrow: Gillibrand has been pretty consistent on no tolerance even when it irritates loyal democrats (Bill Clinton for example). I have been wondering if she has some personal reason for over reacting or if she is just naive and sheltered. She may of course be doing it for her idea of a future election prospect but I wonder because I don’t think it’s a smart bet. Even calculating politicians have personal buttons.
Butch
Over in the House….is there any chance the Freedom Caucus won’t go along because of the effect on the deficit? I’m not being Pollyanna-ish, just wondering,
Betty Cracker
@gvg: Let me suggest another possibility: Gillibrand genuinely believes there should be no tolerance for sexual harassment in the Democratic Party.
WaterGirl
@Yarrow: Your comment moved me to call Kirsten G. AGAIN about her horrible role in running Al Franken out of the senate. I am beyond pissed about this and it’s not going away.
As for the article, how can the governor have already appointed a replacement if Al Franken has not stepped down, only given an indication that he will step down.
The Moar You Know
@Yarrow: Four senators figured out that the GOP can’t be shamed into following the Dems off a cliff? My stars. Someone get me some pearls to clutch.
If I were Franken at this point I tell the Dem party to go fuck itself sideways. The only time we were at his back was when we were shoving him under the bus.
tobie
@Major Major Major Major: I still don’t see this issue as the game-changer many others do, and I think we’re heading into dangerous territory when believe-the-accuser-at-all-costs leads to (a) lumping together everything from a squeeze too hard on the waist at a photo-op to sexual assault in a locked office and (b) the weaponization of accusations to discredit political enemies. I still believe Franken was framed and don’t view his canning as a sacrifice for the greater good.
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: Have also been trying to reach the other senator from Tennessee – and his line is busy, also. Everyone should keep trying. If we make this painful enough for both senators in Tennessee, maybe we can stop this “tax” bill.
Shalimar
@WaterGirl: It is more than just an indication. Franken announced that he is stepping down. It isn’t wrong to take him at his word. I personally don’t want him to go either, but it would be hard to undo now.
Amaranthine RBG
@Betty Cracker:
This is the right answer
O. Felix Culpa
Take action! Here’s an Indivisible link to contact friendly voters in Arizona and Maine to ask them to call their Senators to vote NO on the #TaxScam: http://bit.ly/2hFcU5U.
low-tech cyclist
@Major Major Major Major:
This. IIRC, Northam lost white women by 51-48 according to the exit polls, but that beat losing them by double digits.
Kirk
@gvg:
Agree. #metoo applied to a lot of people, and personal pain is a strong force.
Ella in New Mexico
@Yarrow:
Good. He should NOT resign, period. And I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish with this rush to judgment but if they felt pressured to ask him to and now regret it they should retract their statements. We need him there.
Gillibrand et.al., over-reacted and should have let the ethics committee investigate. They’d find there was an actual conspiracy behind this stuff with Franken. Tweeden’s accusations are clearly a part of a right wing hit job conjured up by Stone and Cernovich, as a simple investigative story regarding that and her behavior with others during her USO tours would demonstrate. As it turns out, she has been highly selective with her accusations of “sexual harassment”.
And seriously, the rest of the accusations amount to bullshit nothings. I mean, c’mon- the last one expressed she was sexually harassed because during a photo he put his arm around her waist and managed to squeeze her muffin top during a hug.
Meanwhile, we got people pressuring female staffers to allow them to impregnate them with their spawn and others demanding see aides nipples while calling them fucktards. I think Kristen Gillibrand needs to learn there really is such a thing as apples vs. oranges.
Besides, as a feminist, I’m starting to feel that when accusations don’t involve any demonstrable damages to the victim”we need to slow down and let the process play out before we ask people to resign or summarily fire them or we’re going right back to where we were before this “Me Too” movement: No one believes you, and worse, people stop caring.
Having someone put their hand on your butt for 2 seconds during a photo-op is NOT the same as having someone force you to perform oral sex on them in order to keep from being blacklisted for future jobs.
Ridnik Chrome
@Yarrow: Has anyone else noticed that there have been no new accusations against Franken since he announced his resignation? I think Democrats are starting to realize that they got played.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
A lot of us believe that too, but there’s reason to believe she was too quick to demand that Franken resign.
The Moar You Know
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): It’s been working for them since Carter, so you’ll pardon me if I don’t share your faith that “this shit is going to stop working for them”. 40 fucking years and counting.
The only way you’re gonna teach them a lesson at this point is to commit political suicide and refuse to clean up the mess, commit political suicide by letting them win elections until the country is destroyed, or force the Democratic party to get their shit together enough to cruise to crushing victories in both houses and the presidency for the next 40 years straight.
VOR
@Mnemosyne: The appointment of Franken’s successor is not without controversy in Minnesota. Governor Dayton (D) appointed the Lieutenant Governor, Tina Smith (D), to replace Franken. Once appointed, Lt. Gov Smith plans to run for re-election in the 2018 special election to finish Franken’s term, which is scheduled to run until 2020. State law says the President of the State Senate, Republican Michelle Fishbach, “shall” become the new Lt. Gov. The State Constitution says the Lt. Gov. cannot hold any other offices. But Sen. Fishbach wants to retain her position in the state Senate and claims she can hold both offices simultaneously. Right now the MN Senate has 34 Republicans and 33 Democrats so losing Sen. Fishbach would be a significant impact to Republican control of the Senate.
Major Major Major Major
@tobie: I agree with this whole comment and didn’t realize you were talking about it being the sexual impropriety thing that would awaken suburban white women. The fact is they’re one of the demographics that’s been tacking Dem-wards all year though, and their votes mattered in AL and VA (as did the Obama coalition voters who turned out at high rates in both elections).
Now, we all know that polls don’t really show what a demographic is actually thinking, but even if this is just an artifact of enthusiasm, with suburban white female republicans not voting… well, that counts in elections too.
WaterGirl
@Greg Gabrielse: I called Sen. Strange. Lied and said I was sorry he hadn’t won and couldn’t be the state senator (gag) and then asked him to do right by his state one last time with this vote, voting against the tax bill with the shameful bribes to senators. At least I was able to get through to him!
tobie
@O. Felix Culpa: What a great tool! Thanks for the link. For those of us with two Dem Senators, it’s hard to know what to do, so I’m grateful for this chance to take some action.
Villago Delenda Est
@2Annies1Chalice: Historically, the party (or in this case, Partei) that controls the White House loses seats in the midterms.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: Gellibrand’s first fight in the Senate IIRC was forcing a serious investigation of sexual harassment and assault in the military, and she faced a lot of resistance. I do find it troubling that the cases that pushed her and others to go from “due process” to “he’s gotta go” were anonymous charges that sound like they were scripted by James O’Keefe’s high school intern (“he told me it was his right as an entertainer”), the only accusation Franken categorically denied, and LOOK AT ME! performance artist Tina Dupuy’s story about having her “waist” grabbed. I used my ardent feminist sister as a privilege check on that one, and her response to Dupuy was “are you fucking kidding me?”
Feathers
@tobie: You are missing certain distinctions. Non-evangelical white women went 75% for Jones. A majority of white women with college degrees votes for Clinton. Pretending that there is this monolithic hopeless mess called White Women won’t do. I know this sounds close to NotAllWhiteWomen, but the distinctions you are talking about run along non gendered lines.
LAC
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): thank you! Jaysus fucking crisco, you would think that there are no others out there who could be the next franken without the touchy feely baggage.
WaterGirl
@Yarrow: Tried calling Conyers and got “sorry that mailbox is full”. Grrr.
NotMax
@The Moar You Know
Headline we’ll never see:
Scientists scramble to study mass outbreak of conscience at FOX news.
O. Felix Culpa
@tobie:
I’m in a similar happy boat, so am glad for opportunities to reach out to others less fortunate. :)
And just because it’s so important, here’s the Indivisible calling tool for reaching favorably inclined voters in Arizona and Maine again: http://bit.ly/2hFcU5U. Just do it!
low-tech cyclist
@Yarrow:
What I’m not seeing in that article is a reference to any reason to believe that the allegations against Franken might be shaky.
tobie
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks for your kind response! It’s really hard to tell what makes any demographic groups tick and why they side with one candidate or another. Dems are energized on various fronts, and if we can keep Republicans deflated, that is good. This worked in VA and AL and hopefully will work elsewhere. On that note, I will acquaint myself with @O. Felix Culpa: ‘s handy-dandy tool to call loyal Dems in red states.
rikyrah
There have got to be other kickbacks that can be pointed out for other Senators.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
If there’s anything we should have learned as a country by now, it’s that “zero tolerance” policies hurt more people than they help. Removing authorities’ ability to make judgement calls just means that people lower on the social scale get hurt even worse while people higher up escape all punishment because of “zero tolerance.”
I still say that, within 6 months, it’s going to come out that Leeann Tweeden made up the whole kiss story (which already follows the script of the actual sketch that she’s known to have performed with him multiple times a little too closely) and that the anonymous accuser in Congress did, too. And won’t we all feel self-righteous knowing that our “no tolerance” policy led to an innocent guy getting railroaded out of Congress?
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: I have been thinking the same thing. I hope someone is on it.
HinTN
@Betty Cracker:
That’s our girl!
ThresherK
@raven:
Fair Economist
@rikyrah:
There are plenty. Daines (R-MT) and Johnson (R-WI) demanded tax breaks for their families’ businesses as a price for their votes (openly!), and a number of other Senators and Representatives benefit from the #CorkerKickback. And, no doubt, there are even more that haven’t been ferreted out yet.
Librarian
IIRC, Larry Craig at first said he was going to resign, but then took it back and stayed in the senate. So it’s not unprecedented for a senator to take back a resignation announcement.
Mnemosyne
@low-tech cyclist:
You mean other than the already shaky stories of the only two named accusers?
Again: Tina Dupuy wrote a long, tearful article about how Franken “groped” her by squeezing her waist during a photo op. Apparently Dupuy had never taken a photo with a public figure before where he or she put their arm around her. Or something.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I agree, mostly. The Dupuy pile-on was another type of “me too” — one that threatens to diminish a serious movement. The anonymous charge that evidently precipitated the call for Franken’s resignation is troubling because it was anonymous, but I think it’s possible the senators who lined up to shove Franken out know more about it than we do since it supposedly came from a Democratic operative. Bottom line, though — what’s done is done, and knee-capping another high-profile Dem because you’re mad at her for knee-capping a high-profile Dem seems kinda…counterproductive.
Ella in New Mexico
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: exactly my point above.
@Betty Cracker: If righting a wrong or injustice is “knee-capping” someone, then we’ve got a problem.
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: oh, *now* Democratic senators are starting to have buyer’s remorse? They felt “rushed” into making statements, so they did so “before all the facts came in”? Gee, so much for being the “deliberative” body. Maybe they saw some polling evidence to suggest that the suburban white woman vote they appear to be courting with this move, *isn’t* going to be moved by feminist considerations. What a shocker.
The moralists who couldn’t shoot straight. Jesus wept.
@Ella in New Mexico: Yeah, pretty much this.
Feathers
Why is no one bringing up the fact that if the level of handsiness that brought Franken down is the new standard, Biden is toast?
low-tech cyclist
@Mnemosyne: Is this gonna be one of those things where the only accusers who count are the ones willing to publicly identify themselves?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am even more Cynical than that. I think they’ve decided governing is no fun and want to go into permanent minority status and are setting themselves up for it. Most of these GOPer twats are God Botherers of the lowest order, in that world a TRUE Chosen Elect judges other people, isn’t judge themselves, so their movement whole instinct it sit on the side lines and scream “For Shame!”
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: So she plans on becoming the McCarthy of sexual harassment. Yep that’s the way to political victory.
Brachiator
@cleek:
I concur.
The GOP signaled that they didn’t give a crap about the next election, or their voters, when they tried to simply repeal the Affordable Care Act despite clear opposition from their own base. Even Trump hisself dropped the pretense that he would ensure that something better would be offered, and instead settled on tantrums and promises to punish anyone who defied him.
So now, the race is on to give humongous tax breaks to the wealthy and to corporations, to destroy the effectiveness of all cabinet level organizations, and to pack the courts with knaves, incompetents and bumblers.
Anything else, even surviving the midterms, is gravy.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Pictures or it didn’t happen! C
Cookies sound yummy, my mouth is watering..
Amaranthine RBG
@Feathers:
Nah, the future of the Democratic Party is perfecting turnout for of black women
Every other group is not worth trying to reach
/s
Jim, Foolish Literalist
How has this not been be-memed and enviraled? Innertubes, you disappoint me! Make it so!
Amaranthine RBG
@2Annies1Chalice:
You realize you are posting on a blog run by someone who said Franken should resign after the first allegations were made?.
Betty Cracker
@Ella in New Mexico: I’m talking about the people right here on this blog who have proclaimed that Gillibrand is “dead to me” or that they’d never vote for her — plus the legions on Twitter who are castigating the senator. I’m not sure the decision to push Franken out was the right one, but I don’t consider it an outrageous miscarriage of justice either, and I’d hate to see it blight Gillibrand’s future in national politics. I don’t think it will, BTW, any more than Kamala Harris’ decision to join Gillibrand in calling for Franken’s resignation takes her off the “women to watch in 2020” list.
Served
Look, the deal is this:
If Dems want to take on Trump via this issue and tackle sexual harassment/assault as a societal issue, they will never win if they are constantly hedging when they are inevitably asked about the conduct of their political allies.
I liked Franken as a senator, but he responded poorly to the accusations and did not acquit himself well in his statements. To be frank, we lack the communication to discuss and address situations like this fairly and openly. We must believe victims, but it is also important to verify claims, especially in high-stakes incidents. It is such a thin line to walk, respecting and empathizing with victims, while also trying to avoid spurious claims (which are still exceptionally rare). You could make the claim that spurious accusations are more common when you have a political movement willing to pay O’Keefe handsomely, but I don’t think we are quite in that territory yet.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I also think that one of the lesser mentioned factors in teh stampede at Franken was Nancy Pelosi’s bungled response to the Conyers accusation. If she had stuck to a “we have an ethics process in place….” line, it would have sounded less like making a partisan excuse.
I love Pelosi, I think the Moultons and Ryans calling for her to step down are morons who don’t actually get what her job is, but she is not good on TV. See also, Tom Perez.
hitless
@Yarrow: I’m sure Franken will follow through with his resignation. I do notice that there have been no new accusations of Franken inappropriately touching someone during a photo op.
Brachiator
@2Annies1Chalice:
I thought that Franken had already decided to go. Is he backtracking? More power to him.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good points.
Brachiator
@Served:
As a single issue, this is a waste of time. Very few will change their minds about Trump with respect to this. The Democrats need to be thoughtful, consistent, but not self-destructive when it comes to dealing with their own members of Congress and other officials.
This is a separate thing, and worthy of engagement.
Served
@Brachiator:
Agreed. Unfortunately, it feels like they are tepidly engaging this right now and aren’t sure where to go with it.
Miss Bianca
@low-tech cyclist: I’m going to go there and say ‘yes’. If there actually had been an ethics investigation, they would have had to be willing to be named and come forward and swear that it had happened.Are you arguing that the evidence of anonymous accusers *should* be sufficient grounds to pressure people to resign?
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, I think you’re right about that being a factor. Le sigh. Two wrongs definitely *not* making a right in this case.
And for those arguing that Democrats had to “get ahead” on this issue…I’m not going to relitigate my position that they could have done so *without* throwing their colleagues under the bus. But Democrats always get buffaloed by bright lights and Republican ratfuckery. That has to change.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Too, the list of sitting senators who successfully ran to become president, in its entirety, is as follows:
Harding
Kennedy
Obama.
Directly from Senate to v.p. is, historically, the path with the greater chance of success.
Brachiator
@tobie:
This is factually incorrect.
Amir Khalid
@Amaranthine RBG:
Not a few people here criticised John Cole for that.
Patricia Kayden
@Feathers: Biden should be toast because of his advanced age. I really hope that Democrats aren’t considering running him or Senator Sanders in 2020. We need fresh blood. I know we can’t have another President Obama, but surely there are younger, fresher candidates that we can run in 2020 which will motivate millennial and seasoned voters alike to come out and vote in droves for our side.
Kay
the FOX media personalities are cheering as Republicans vow to screw the whole country. They’re all big winners under the plutocrat tax bill too, of course, because they’re all multimillionaires.
This is a joint effort.
NobodySpecial
Jesu. Franken is becoming the new Wilmer around here. Cannot fail, can only be failed, is the only one to save the Democratic Party, and everyone else is either a neoliberal bitch or a weak patsy, unable to fight for REAL DEMOCRATS.
I like the guy less and less as everyone loses their damned minds over him. Cults of Personality suck.
Kay
This stinking,corrupt mess is objectionable in a lot of ways, but I have to say the best part is the subsidy for rich people to send their children to private schools.
They don’t even pretend anymore. They have absolute contempt for the public.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Patricia Kayden: I tend to agree we should be looking for younger candidates, but if I thought Biden were as strong a candidate that some people do I’d be willing to overlook that. But there are reasons his two earlier campaigns flamed out, his actual record is far less progressive than his image and rhetoric, and ramshackle quality that was so endearing in Obama’s Veep would look a lot different at the top of the ticket. Others’ MMV, etc.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
Seeing news of big Amtrak train derailment in Washington State.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: The country is being run as Reality TV show, with a Reality TV star as the President.
tobie
@Brachiator: According to the Washington Post, 63% of white women voted for Roy Moore. Trump won 53% of white women according to Vox.
ThresherK
@Brachiator: I’ve read things about non-evangelical white women moving away from Moore (compared to recent AL statewide elections). Don’t know the Venn diagrams of them w.r.t. college-educated white women.
Could this part of a strategy for the midterms? I don’t keep track of where all the evangelical v. non-evangelical voters are.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@NotMax: And a person of the female persuasion has never been elected President (at least not by the Electoral College). Doesn’t mean it won’t happen!
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: i had brunch yesterday with some good friends, and none of us were impressed with Harris or Gillibrand and didn’t like Biden’s age either. Then I tuned out when they said “Bernie would’ve won”.
JohnO
@gvg:
That’s an easy one. Gillibrand is a conventionally pretty woman, and I’m POSITIVE has had to fend of her share of unwelcome advances. So I get that it’s personal to her.
Still, “zero tolerance” equates to “zero personal responsibility for circumstantial common sense” to me and trying to legislate the infinite tableau that is human sexual interaction is absurd.
Kay
Of course it will. They wrote it.
When does the coordinated propaganda campaign to gut “entitlements” start? I’ll need to put that on my calender.
I bet it begins with a bullshit “study” – I’m familiar enough with how this works to predict there will be a study that will be parroted as fact to roll out the campaign.
Fair Economist
@NotMax:
I think that’s either an accident or out of date. First, prior to the Seventeenth Amendment, only about 100 years old, Senators were appointed. Only 11 people have been elected to the Presidency since there were elected Senators (Coolidge, Truman, and Ford got the job without being elected to it), so 3 out of 11 isn’t particularly low. In addition, there have been several attempts lately, two of which (Hillary and Kerry) were close calls. So it really doesn’t seem to be much of a disadvantage.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Patricia Kayden: Senator Harris 2020 – let’s let the west coast lead for once!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: aren’t you in CA? I guess you know her better than I do, but I find Harris much more charismatic than Gillibrand. Who knows if she can pull that off on a sustained national campaign, but I’ve found her impressive. I’m waiting to see what Gillibrand can do with national pulpit. Nobody’s dead to me yet.
and why does autocorrect change the NY Sen’s name to “Gellibrand”? What or who the hell is a Gellibrand?
d58826
I suspect that an honest DOJ could investigate the GOP under the RICO statute. It is a criminal enterprise from top to bottom.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: specifically San Francisco, we know people who worked for her as DA and have nothing good to say.
d58826
@tobie: Well; if they want to go around putting a ‘please grope me’ sign on their back, it is a free country. Just don’t complain when some pig take you up on the offer.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Holy fuck.
tobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You know who has presence–Sally Yates. I don’t know if she’s a Democrat or if she’s considered running for public office. Her demeanor is friendly and folksy but when push came to shove she showed her grit and paid a price for it–meaning being fired for refusing to defend the Muslim ban on Constitutional grounds.
ETA: I’m not thinking of Yates as a Presidential candidate. I just hope she’ll kick around in politics a bit maybe with a Congressional run.
Fair Economist
Well, whoever the Democratic nominee is, I expect to support them enthusiastically. Of course you can find problems with anyone – as the saying goes, nobody’s perfect. They will still be worlds better than Trump, or Pence, or even a “moderate” Republican. Having Gillibrand in the Oval Office, with a possible tendency to overreact to questionable accusations of sexual harrassment, would be an enormous improvement over having an actual harasser in there, never mind the bread and butter issues.
WaterGirl
@tobie: Pretty sure Sally Yates will be busy having CornerStone’s babies. Or maybe it’s CornerStone who wants to have her babies? Either way, I’m not serious, of course.
Tom
@tobie: Tobie: It’s important to drill down into the “White women voted overwhelmingly for Moore” data set. It turns out that white women who self identify as evangelicals voted for Moore by about 2 to 1, but all other white women voted for Jones by about the same margin. I think this means that the problem is less that of “How much melanin do you have” and more of the “I want to shove my religion down your throat”. I leave it to those more politically astute to decide how best to leverage that dichotomy in 2018 and forward.
NotMax
@Fair Economist
Not out of date at all. 16 Senators became president. 13 of them were former senators when they assumed the office (either through election or succession, 10 of those 13 becoming president during the 19th century), 3 were still in the Senate when they ran and were elected.
tobie
All good points, folks. I’m going to sign out to make calls to Dems in red states thanks to O. Felix Culpa’s tool. Please do so, too, if you have a few minutes to spare.@O. Felix Culpa: has the link this post. Ciao for now!
magurakurin
@Mnemosyne: nobody is “happy” about any of it. People did what they felt was right, but I don’t think anyone feels like they got a win here. The whole thing is sad.
SiubhanDuinne
@NobodySpecial:
Lemon meringue for me — though I do love a slice of warm apple pie with a big chunk of sharp cheddar on the side.
JohnO
Time to revoke Glenn Close’s Woman Card, I suppose.
Fair Economist
@NotMax: Most of those Senators got the Presidency back when Senators were appointed, meaning they didn’t necessarily have electoral political skills – indeed, probably didn’t. Before 1916 or so, it was a very different situation and has little to do with the current one. Since then we’ve only had one prior Senator, Nixon, get elected to the job, and that was after losing once first. Or, to put it another way, 3 of the 11 initially elected President since the 17th were elected as sitting Senators and NOBODY has been elected on their first try if they were a prior Senator. Hard to see how that shows it’s bad to be a sitting Senator.
ArchTeryx
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): It’s a mass casualty event. At least one car fell off the bridge onto the Interstate, another is dangling from the bridge.
Du lieber Gott.
TenguPhule
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
This kind of horseshit is exactly why we can’t have nice things.
Ella in New Mexico
@Betty Cracker: I hear your points. But I really do think that the damage to Gillibrand and Harris’s reputations has already been done, in that soon the true story regarding Leaann Tweeden’s tale and the rest of these accusers will move from Twitterdom into the mainstream media spotlight. Were they to actually investigate, and come out and say they found problems with the accusations and no longer believe he needs to resign, it might actually repair them.
This is what’s wrong when we allow hysteria to stomp all over a legitimate abuse issue. As an advocate and feminist who remembers the McMartin pre-school era and saw how easy it was for people to claim ritualistic or sexual abuse and create havoc, I am really concerned that that is what is happening here. “Mee Tooooo!” is becoming a joke among co-workers in employment settings around the country as we speak. Pretty soon, no one will believe or listen to legitimate accusations involving harm.
I hate to say it, but I had a few (five to be exact, in 14 yrs so it’s not common) clients in the domestic violence program I worked with years ago who falsely asserted sexual abuse of their young children in divorce/restraining order suits because it was not only a “big issue” of the day after McMartin, it was difficult to prove innocence, and more importantly it was a powerful weapon in the hands of a person who felt incredibly powerless in their relationship. As their counselor, when it became clear they were not being truthful, I held them accountable while still remaining their advocate. I had to reassure them they didn’t need to lie to receive fair treatment, and that it would be far worse not only for them but for children who WERE sexually abused to be believed if their lie became known.
As feminists and advocates we HAVE to demand honesty, due process, transparency, and accountability in these issues because it’s the sane and pragmatic way to protect the right of future victims. If Gillibrand and Harris found a way to speak to this in recanting their demands Franken resign I think it would go a long way towards keeping this a salient issue.
chopper
@Amir Khalid:
that is true, but franken was too quick to step in it after the first accusation. his response was a mealy mouthed statement about how he didn’t remember things that way but he’s totes sorry about it, in spite of the fact that the accuser was a hardcore partisan republican hatchetwoman.
I dunno if denying everything would have saved his ass, but his response was basically like cutting off your thumb while sitting in a tank full of sharks.
Amir Khalid
@Fair Economist:
I understand that it was quite late in America’s history before publicly campaiging for the presidency became a thing — that in the early part of the 18th century the nominee stayed at home and left it to the voters. Can anyone shed light on this?
Kay
If it didn’t matter that the tax bill is a windfall to rich people the Trump Administration wouldn’t be lying about it so much.
They care enough to lie about it.
catclub
@Yarrow:
it might. I think much of the GOP senate bloc voting is pure peer pressure to go along with the crowd on some who know the bill is actually terrible.
SFAW
@tobie:
I live in MA, but I have called the Portland office of the “human fulcrum.” When they asked where I’m calling from, I’ve said “Mass, but we’re in the process of relocating to Maine.” Which is technically true — I just don’t know if it will be this year — well, 2018, I guess — or 2020, or when exactly.
You may not have that same “luxury,” but it might be something to consider.
JPL
Nydia Tisdale is awaiting sentencing for a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of a police officer. She’s a citizen journalist who videos civic and political events. In 2014 she attained permission to film a republican rally and was manhandled by an officer who was not in uniform.
https://twitter.com/MPetchenikWSB
This is pretty scary and her conviction should be thrown out.
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
this. MN still has a democratic senator, and as pointed out upthread, now it looks like the goopers majority in the MN senate is evaporating. this isn’t like the GOP backing moore and losing a senate seat.
and yes, franken was a good and effective senator in terms of leadership, but once the accusations started coming in, he wasn’t any longer. becoming radioactive doesn’t help you do the job anymore.
TenguPhule
@tobie:
Something about better natures and the innate goodness of humanity.
All horseshit, of course. People who vote Republican now don’t have any.
TenguPhule
@chopper:
Following this line of logic Hillary Clinton was a terrible choice to run for president and we should have nominated Bernie Sanders.
Mike J
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): They just built a new bypass line so Amtrak wouldn’t have to share rails with freight trains going through the south sound. This was the first run on the new line. Willing to bet on a construction defect.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: That’s always the answer to every question, isn’t it? Bernie would have won.
Amir Khalid
@chopper:
I agree that Franken’s initial response was poor. But he did follow that up with a much better statement. So I wouldn’t be inclined to condemn him for that first response. I still reckon that he shouldn’t have resigned until the Ethics Committee investigation he asked for had delivered its findings, and those findings made it clear that he was morally unfit for the Senate. Never mind his vote, the loss to the Democratic Senate caucus of his passion and intellect is no small matter.
SFAW
@Kay:
With any luck, they’ll try a pass play near a latter-day Malcom Butler, instead of giving it to Marshawn.
[With apologies to Seahawks fans.]
catclub
@Patricia Kayden:
How about Michelle? or the girls?
chopper
@SFAW:
too soon, man. too soon.
raven
@Mike J: That is no new bridge it went off of.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
No, I’m being dead serious here. Its the same thing, only the target of the last smear job was a woman.
If you supported Hillary Clinton, you supported an effective former Senator and SOS who was smeared by false and bullshit accusations who still had her reputation tarnished by the echo chamber repeating it over and over again.
So why the fuck couldn’t these same people support Al Franken?
TenguPhule
@NobodySpecial:
Bass Ackwards.
The new Bernie-bro purity line is that Franken had to go.
Mike J
@raven: Upon reading more, one of the great things about the new section of track was that it was supposed to be straighter and allow for higher speeds. The curve was rated for 70MPH and reports say it was doing 80. So came out of the new high speed section too fast? I dunno.
Whats certain is that Elon Musk et al will say this proves how dangerous rail travel is while ignoring how many people are killed in cars.
TenguPhule
@low-tech cyclist:
Other then the evidence doesn’t support their stories, that two of the anon accusation stories were either changed or fell apart immediately under scrutiny and that Franken denied all of the worse ones.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
If it was wrong, i.e. if Franken turns out to be innocent or was too heavily punished for a minor offence (I myself am convinced that at the very least its timing was ill-considered), then it was a miscarriage of justice. And a miscarriage of justice is never less than an outrage to one who suffers it.
laura
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Look, nobody’s happy about this, but it’s something we have to do.
Fuck that bullshit lie to hell and back!
Regarding the sacrifice of the right to Due Process -and your demand that others give it up, and then find out its not there when YOU need it.
If and when AL Franken had been subject to an ethics investigation -that he, himself called for, and may have been found to have committed violations or not, after examination of witnesses, under oath, then and only then should he have stepped aside.
Patricia Kayden
@catclub: Mrs. O has said over and over that she doesn’t want to run and I agree with her. I wouldn’t want her to be subjected to the nonsense that her husband had to go through from the left and the right for 8 years. Let someone else do all that.
Brachiator
@tobie:
Even white women are not a monolith. I think (I hope) the Clinton campaign knew this, but knowledge of this has to be part of Democratic Party strategy.
Among white women, there is a significant gulf between the educated and the non-educated. Moore still won, but 45 percent of college educated white women voted for Jones vs 52 percent who voted for Moore. Among those without a college degree, only 25 percent voted for Jones, vs 73 percent for Moore.
White men in Alabama are just fucking stupid, college degree or not. They voted overwhelmingly for Moore, 62 percent and 79 percent, respectively.
You get less than overwhelming white women support when you break down by age and by non-evangelical vs evangelical. In the midterms and the next national election, Democrats must know what groups of white women can be moved and work to win them.
Hell, within and outside the South, the Democrats have to shape their message differently to maximize the younger and older black vote.
Nationally, this is not much different than 2012 or even 2008. But we don’t vote nationally. States matter. And again, college vs non-college matters. Young vs older matters. Single white women tend to vote differently from married white women.
By the way, some serious study needs to be done on why Hillary Clinton could not move the needle with respect to white women overall. Although obviously, millions voted for her, there were many who were simply unmoved by the idea of a woman president. Was it because Clinton was a Democrat? Or a woman? Or other factors?
Strategists need to be aware of these distinctions.
And if you want to talk intelligently about the numbers and who supports who, you need to be aware of these distinctions, too.
ETA: I used WaPo as a source for this. I looked at some of the detail. Why didn’t you look at the detail?
Uncle Cosmo
@I’maranting POS: Since you support it, it is quite obviously the wrong answer. FOADIAF.
NotMax
@Fair Economist
Nobody?
Truman wasn’t chopped liver. (It was for a second term but also his first try at running for the office.)
Better if we agree to disagree on this, methinks. You assign greater weight to the change by which senators were elected when it comes to these examples than I, and that’s fine.
trollhattan
@SFAW: @chopper:
Grrrrr. :-P
Man oh man, this season is a dumpster fire.
TenguPhule
@Ella in New Mexico: /Applause
Short term gains over long term goals is supposed to be the Republicans, not Democrats.
Rosalita
John is right. I said the same thing in conversation with my parental units yesterday. The Rs have no fucks to give and will gladly take the year or so to make hay before they get hoisted on their asses. The public never learns though, eventually they will get the majority back again, hose us again, rinse, repeat.
Miss Bianca
@Amir Khalid: Oh, Amir…*everyone* knows that passion, intelligence, and experience are totally negligible and quite possibly interchangeable qualities, and as long as the person in the seat has a (D) beside their name, then either they’ll magically *grow* those qualities or those qualities don’t matter! See how that works?
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: I shouldn’t have used the word “justice,” which carries legal connotations. What I meant was, I don’t think it was an outrageous political move on the part of Gillibrand, Harris, et al. It may backfire on them, but FWIW, I don’t think it will long term.
Anecdotes aren’t data, but 100% of the hyperventilating I’ve seen about this issue is online. In real life, I’ve heard several Dems say it saddens them to see Franken go, but they’re glad the party is drawing a clear distinction.
trollhattan
@Patricia Kayden:
You said exactly what I feel. Frankly, we don’t deserve her and she sure as heck doesn’t warrant the ugliness of a campaign, much less occupying the Oval Office. I can’t guess what the family endured those eight years that they haven’t told anybody about. What we know is bad enough.
Amir Khalid
@Patricia Kayden:
It began the day Barack announced his candidacy, in February 2007, so it was more like a decade.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There was a Democratic staffer, who said Franken tried to kiss her, after the taping of his Air America show.
That is the straw that broke the camel’s back, with regards to calls for his resignation.
All the people, who said he grabbed them and the USO tour thing did not spark any real reaction for Senate Democrats. The Dem staffer, who said Franken went too far immediately drew calls for his resignation.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Yup.
Omelet, breaking eggs and all that.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: my friends and I all think it’s bullshit IRL.
ETA although we don’t necessarily express that in polite company.
SFAW
@trollhattan:
You’re a Jets fan? Landsmann!
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
They’ve demonstrated they have no loyalty to their party or fellow Senators.
They should expect none in return when their turn in the barrel comes.
And it is coming.
TenguPhule
@gene108:
An Anon CLAIMING TO BE A DEMOCRATIC STAFFER.
FOR FUCKS SAKE REMEMBER THE ACTUAL FACTS.
Major Major Major Major
@gene108: that would be the “my right as an entertainer” allegation. The one I remember reading reported as the “straw that broke the camel’s back” was the waist squeeze.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ella in New Mexico: Yes. The rush to judgement and punishment based on questionable evidence short-circuited the investigative process and overturned the will of 1.2 million Minnesota voters. I don’t see how this is a good thing for anyone.
ETA: I’m not an Al Franken cultist by any stretch of the imagination. I never found him funny and his behavior as depicted in the photo was boorish. However, putting an arm around someone’s waist as assault? Not buying it. No way. No how.
TenguPhule
@Miss Bianca: Once we have replaced every admiral with ensigns, our victory at Midway is assured. For we will be so pure that our enemies will recoil from the light of our goodness.
randy khan
Barbara Comstock. 202-225-5136. Tell her the tax bill would be bad for northern Virginians because of the state and local deduction. They’re asking for zips, so here are two: Sterling, 20164 and Winchester, 22601
A Ghost to Not
I’m going to beat the rush. I won’t vote for Gillibrand in the primary. If she makes it to general, yes.
The railroading of Franken is highly distasteful.
Miss Bianca
@TenguPhule: @gene108:
So, it was all good till someone claiming to be a Dem staffer made an accusation? And then it was bad?
Wow, these “explanations” for this action just get worse and worse.
TenguPhule
@O. Felix Culpa:
Other then Trump and the Republicans.
Betty Cracker
@TenguPhule: CAPS LOCK is a great look. You should use it all the time.
Major Major Major Major
@A Ghost to Not: agree.
tam1MI
@chopper: He tried to protest his innocence while not damaging the movement that engendered the accusations. Other accused men will not make that mistake.
TenguPhule
@Miss Bianca:
Hence why Gilibrand and her fellow cowards get short shrift from me.
We had 3 CONFIRMED Republicans, 4 never identified and 1 pissy ass Democrat who got upset over being overweight and being touched at the waist.
That was what Franken was lynched for.
Benghazi madness all over again. Made even worse by people who’ve seen this before and should know better then to fall for it by now.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker: I tend to shout when I am upset at people for repeating falsehoods when they should really know better.
chopper
@TenguPhule:
anonymous to us. i have a feeling she wasn’t anonymous to schumer et al.
TenguPhule
@chopper: How much would you like to bet she was yet another Republican lying her ass off?
O. Felix Culpa
@Amir Khalid:
That miscarriage of justice in the Franken case was not limited to Franken himself, but affects the entire body politic and the people who voted for him. I want justice to be done – if Franken or any other congresscritter is found guilty of serious misconduct then he/she should go – but due process is essential. Short circuiting the investigation undermines due process and reveals that we don’t believe in it really. I am not a fan of mob rule and judgments meted out on unsubstantiated evidence. Takes us too close to McCarthyism. (h/t s_cat)
burnspbesq
Meanwhile, Trump is unveiling his alleged “National Security Strategy” today.
Short version: Oceania has always been at war with both Eurasia AND Eastasia.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/trumps-national-security-strategy-and-the-great-powers/
chopper
@TenguPhule:
roughly zero dollars. look, I understand gillibrand was making a political move. I doubt that all the ten or so other dem senators who asked him to quit after that last accusation came out didn’t find out who the staffer actually was.
Ken
@Mnemosyne: spare me: in politics the knives are always out. There are no friends when you’re standing in the way.
ruemara
@Butch: Like they care about the deficit.
@Brachiator: Because a majority of white women benefit from the patriarchy and white supremacy. This isn’t hard. There’s no message they need to hear except maintain the status quo because it benefits me. They will vote for folks who don’t think they should have a vote. You cannot out educate bigotry. That has to go away based on the bigot changing their minds. So, fuck them.
catclub
@burnspbesq:
AND Emmanuel Goldstein ( but not Bibi Netanyahu).
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: A place in Australia.
@Amir Khalid: Theoretically, they were supposed to stay above it all and leave the campaigning and mudslinging to surrogates. However, Jefferson campaigned, rather convincingly playing the “ordinary man” as opposed to the elitists in opposition to him. Aaron Burr actually started the active campaigning that we know today. (I’d have to dig out the Chernow book for the precise references.)
gvg
Franken was known here to have said he would not be able to run for President because of his entertainer background and my impression was he had specific things in mind. I think a reason he may have not pushed back as much as some here wanted and seemed to give in “to soon” is that awareness. The first couple of accusations did seem “fishy” but I still haven’t heard much about the middle ones. the last one did come across as a bad joke. Maybe all of them were made up but I think Franken would really have been in trouble if he fought these off by attacking these women and then another one came out with proof. He is maybe aware of his own past a lot more than we are. This is speculation, but he did say that about himself years before these accusations.
I have also read his support from MN voters tanked after the accusations so that would be a factor too.
We may not be done with him yet anyway. He could run for some other office after some kind of amends maybe, after people have started to learn about proportional reactions. That does take some time and practice and failures and corrections. Better than ignoring though.
Corner Stone
@TenguPhule:
You mean we’re going to staff our entire Navy with Care Bears?
Doug!
Love the Animal House reference.
Cheryl Rofer
@burnspbesq: National Security Strategy is out now.
I didn’t read the article you provided. The NSS is largely a public relations document. What is important is what is done by the President and the administration. The disconnect between what is said and what is done is probably more important. From what we’ve seen so far, we know that the disconnect is large. For example, Trump’s constant undermining of Tillerson.
I’m not going to get to working through it right now to find contradictions and scary passages. I’ll keep an eye out for others’ finds on Twitter.
TenguPhule
@chopper:
I lost that belief back when they got suckered into voting for the authorization to use military force against Iraq based on bullshit.
Do not ascribe to them wisdom when stupidity is an obvious explanation.
Corner Stone
And to demonstrate that we certainly do not need any kind of Infrastructure Grand Bargain, the Amtrak train derailment in Tacoma, WA has “several dead”. I think tax cuts can fix this, post haste.
zhena gogolia
@NobodySpecial:
I know what you mean.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
At least then they’d be fully staffed.
/Too soon?
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
I well recall my time serving aboard the “USS Broney.”
tobie
@Brachiator:
This is completely uncalled for. Make your points. That’s fine but don’t call posters intelligent or unintelligent.
As for your larger analysis, my one quibble would be that the fact that white women voted for Trump at the same rate they voted for McCain and Romney proves that the allegations of sexual harassment didn’t matter much to them as an overarching demographic group. Yes, conditions vary state to state, and that’s important when coming up with campaign strategies.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Trump’s Great New Idea was to privatize the whole thing and give them tax cuts for bond funding.
Cheryl Rofer
Meanwhile, the fourteen other members of the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to condemn the US action on Jerusalem as capital of Israel. The US vetoed the resolution and Nikki Haley said that “their insult will not be forgotten.”
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl: The both of you just stay away from my Sally Yates and no one has to get cut.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@A Ghost to Not: Agreed.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
FSM. I do not like playing Germany against the world here.
Corner Stone
@Cheryl Rofer: More useless and empty twaddle from this admin. Completely predictable and a testament to the dramatic loss of international soft power the US has lost in these oh so long 10 months.
The Moar You Know
@tam1MI: That’s nicely put and jibes with everything I saw happen.
That is a brutal truth. As a Dem, since you now know you’re not going to get an investigation, there is no downside to giving any accuser the full Anita Hill treatment, save for what your conscience may bear, and that’s what most future accusers are going to get. The GOP will not change anything, just start off with the Hill treatment and take it as far as they need to go before the accuser gives up with his/her life in ruins.
Amir Khalid
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’ve always felt there should be a way for the UN Security Council to override a “superpower” veto when the superpower in question is a bad actor in a given situation.
chopper
@TenguPhule:
say what you will about schumer but he’s reasonably good at keeping his caucus together in part because he’s not stupid enough to demand the resignation of a member because someone anonymously claiming to be a dem staffer says they were harassed.
TenguPhule
@Amir Khalid: The problem is that the UN only functions with the consent of the bad acting superpowers and who that bad actor in can rotate or even be all of them when against a party with a complaint.
TenguPhule
@chopper:
But we’ve just seen that he is and he did.
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: That sounds like a mafiosi threat. Was she petting a kitteh while saying that?
Librarian
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I believe that the candidates themselves did not campaign for most of the 19th century. Burr may have done it the modern way, but he was way ahead of his time if he did. As late as 1920, Harding ran a “front porch” campaign.
Corner Stone
@Librarian:
Hmmm. So the future of campaigning is to literally shoot your competition dead?
The Moar You Know
@chopper: Um, curious how you got there, as that is precisely what happened.
gene108
@Miss Bianca:
When Dems have a pro-active media platform that can rival the right-wing media machine, than they might be able to be stand firm. But as things are, given how outsized the right-wing propaganda machine is, Democrats often find themselves overwhelmed by the right-wing propaganda that permeates the media and are in a damned if they do or damned if they don’t react to it.
If Franken stays on, then every Republican, who comes out as having had transgressions, will be met with a “what about Franken”, undercutting your agrument. Sure there are subtleties you can try to interject, but how will you get heard over the right-wing noise machine?
If you lose Franken, you are losing an effective liberal Senator, but at least the right-wing noise machines quiets down on this issue.
So until Democrats can round up billionaires to invest in a pro-liberal, pro-Democratic media operation, Democrats are going to respond in ways we think is not effective. But we aren’t the people that need convincing. We are very engaged.
@JohnO:
The longer I think about it, the more I think we are where we are, with regards to racism, because we’ve tried to adjudicate the subtleties. When Reagan gave a states-rights speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, was he being racist? He didn’t use the N-word. No way to know.
When Republicans bashed Affirmative Action programs as taking jobs from better qualified whites, were they making a valid point or just appealing to racism? Let’s weigh the arguments of both sides and agree there’s an honest point somewhere in the middle.
Part of me thinks, if we go down the road of trying to adjudicate an ass garb, versus demanding sex for a woman to keep her job, we will get nowhere. If sexual harassers could take a hint, they’d not do what they do.
TenguPhule
Fallout from allegations of tea party targeting hamper IRS oversight of nonprofits
Just a reminder that there are consequences to falling for GOP Bullshit.
TenguPhule
Stuck in moderation hell, please help me.
TenguPhule
@gene108:
I see the fatal flaw in your argument.
You think the Danes will leave after they get their Danegeld.
Brachiator
@tobie:
You’re right. I apologize. Even though I said “speak intelligently about numbers,” it was needlessly provocative. All this is more about my frustration with people making too much about national numbers or treating groups as a monolith. But again, I apologize. No quibbles or reservations.
In Alabama, abortion and a general distrust of Democrats seems to be a huge issue. Also (and journalists seem unwilling to dig into this), there are a chunk of white people who hate the Democrats because they are inclusive of blacks and Latinos. They yearn for a white only political party.
White women, like white men, discounted every negative warning sign about Trump, not just the sexual harassment charges. It’s odd to entirely understand why they dig in so stubbornly, even when Trump lies to the faces.
chopper
@TenguPhule:
and i’m saying no. schumer isn’t stupid.
chopper
@The Moar You Know:
I’m saying that this woman is anonymous to us, but not to the democratic leadership. I’m sure they know who she is. schumer and pelosi may be a lot of things but they’re not idiots.
TenguPhule
@chopper:
Nothing I have seen to date supports this belief.
trollhattan
@Cheryl Rofer:
Now that Omarosa is gone it’s up to Niki Haley to pick up the “Kneel before Zod” mantle. She’s been extra screechy the last week or two. “I’m-a taking names here, people.”
Fair Economist
@Patricia Kayden:
Whether she runs is her business, but I find it interesting that a significant portion of the “Run, Michelle!” crowd was opposed to Clinton because they didn’t like “political dynasties”.
(Personal opinion is that since she has never been a professional politician, she wouldn’t be as good a President as you’d expect from her speeches. But, if she runs and wins the nomination, I’ll be all for her.)
J R in WV
@2Annies1Chalice:
Not only that, it’s un-American. In this country everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and there’s a very real reason for that. Proving a negative (Proving that Al Franken did NOT grope anyone) is logically impossible. I remember this from a logic and philosophy class I took some 40+ years ago, because the prof told us young servicemen that this philosophical truth is the reason our constitution was written with the assumption of innocence and the requirement to prove guilt.
Because in jolly olde Europe, it wasn’t like that. The Spanish Inquisition worked from the assumption that you were guilty, and demanded that you prove your innocence, which, being impossible, led to many many people being tortured to death. Same in England, if you were accused of treason against the King, you had to prove you weren’t a traitor, and when you couldn’t do it, you, your family, and everything all of you owned was forfeited to the King. Drawn and Quartered in public, got to watch them do it to you wife and kids first. Jolly Good Time, Old Chap!!
And that’s why treason is so narrowly defined in the Constitution. And why innocence is the default assumption in court, and should be everywhere else!
Miss Bianca
@gene108: So basically, since Dems will NEVER have a media platform that will rival Fox’s – because there just isn’t as much money from billionaires available for left-wing positions as for right-wing ones -your position is “we’re screwed, and we have no choice but to run around with hair on fire, on any issue that the right-wing noise machine chooses to douse us with gasoline on and strike a match”?
I have to say that I don’t share that opinion, myself.
I’m going to argue that voters respect their representatives more when they stick together and say, “Let’s wait for an investigation” then when they say, “wow, *Republicans* don’t care about issues like sexual harrassment, but we do, so we’re going to get rid of some our most effective legislators who’ve been accused of it! Except oh, wait…maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, but we had to do it, because voters want us to do it…except for when they don’t. Oh, shit.”
If we’re “damned if we do, and damned if we don’t”, how about just once we DON’T jump to do our political enemies’ bidding.
smedley the uncertain
@Yarrow: Look, Gillibrand doesn’t give a rats patootie (from wise old sage) about Franken. It’s all about her as she grabs the reins of the bandwagon; forward to 2020.
tobie
@Brachiator: Thanks for responding. I appreciate it. I think you’re right that one of the reasons so many white people have a knee-jerk aversion to the Democrats is that it’s a rainbow coalition. They’ll couch that sentiment in other terms, such as the party doesn’t speak for “us,” but that’s really just a round-about way of saying it speaks for “them.” I was struck listening to CNN’s umpteenth portrayal of Trump voters in Michigan and the number who said he speaks for us. Really? A plutocrat speaks for working folk?
gene108
@Miss Bianca:
What I am saying is Democrats are not always going to go with the “fuck off, pound sand” response Republicans seem to always go with.
We will have more weak responses than Republicans, because there are fewer public figures having our back versus attacking us.
I don’t think every Democratic response should be weak, but I understand Democrats cannot have the same “fuck off” response Republicans have.
So I do not feel like freaking out every time a Democrat makes a weak response.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@NobodySpecial: Eh. For some of us, Franken’s situation has become a symbol of being a nation of laws, not mobs. I consider Gillibrand tainted as a potential president because she led a call for mob “justice”, not because of who the target happened to be.
We are all influenced by our pasts. Having lived through the ritual abuse moral panic, I’m sensitive to signs that a similar frenzy might be getting started.
J R in WV
@Kay:
Picking out a best part of the Trump Tax Plan is like telling one of your kids they’re the best offspring – a terrible mistake. Tomorrow you will see a new part of the Tax Improvement Plan even better than the free private schools for the rich piece.
And all the other good/terrible pieces of the Tax Enhancement Plan will hate you for it!!
J R in WV
@gene108:
You may have no way to know… But the Racists knew right off!!!
J R in WV
@gene108:
Well, I read the rest of your comment:
Let’s not. Let’s admit that they were then and are now racists. I think the evidence is in, just look at the pictures of President Obama they made up!
I worked with a black guy who’s paperwork mysteriously never made it through the process to become a new position, a new purchase. Not rejected, just went away, no one could find it, ever. He said when he went out the door, his paperwork went in the trash, instantly. I was dubious for about 30 seconds. But when it happens over and over, you gotta think there is a pattern here, and it IS a racist pattern.
If you can’t see that, maybe your eyes are bad?
MuckJagger
The comments on Senator Collins’ Facebook page have not been kind.