Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Everybody saw this coming.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Cole is on a roll !

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

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I really should read my own blog.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Saturday Morning Open Thread: We Live in A Very Weird Timeline

Saturday Morning Open Thread: We Live in A Very Weird Timeline

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(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)
.

And Dana ‘Happily On Putin’s Payroll’ Rohrabacher may be the avatar where all the current crazy intersects. Per TPM:

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said Friday that President Donald Trump “has a legitimate right to say that he was betrayed” by Attorney General Jeff Sessions due to Sessions’ recusal from matters relating to Russia, which in turn led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.

“The American people, now, are getting a taste of what people in Washington have known over this last year, and that is Jeff Sessions betrays the people who have had faith in him,” Rohrabacher told CNN’s Ana Cabrera in an interview…

“When he recused himself from this whole Russia thing,” Rohrabacher said of Sessions, “he knew he was setting in motion the establishment of a special prosecutor. And a special prosecutor, as happens in Washington, we understand, is just giving unlimited power to someone to go after you, and not just you but to go after anybody they want to go after.”…

Rohrabacher, a longtime advocate for states’ rights to determine their own marijuana laws, also faulted Sessions for betraying President Trump’s stated commitment during the 2016 campaign to maintain a hands-off policy when it came to marijuana laws.

“It’s not Trump who is betraying the campaign promise, it’s Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, [who] is betraying Trump and the rest of us,” Rohrabacher said. “The President made his position clear. Jeff Sessions now is going in the opposite direction from what the President actually committed during the election.”

“This shows you what happens when you have an attorney general who is not loyal to someone who has been elected by the people on a specific issue,” he added. “And Sessions betrayed us on this, and he’s betrayed the President on the special prosecutor for the Russia collusion that never existed.”

.

Since it’s Saturday, and some of you may have more time for such diversions, here’s Michael Wolff describing / defending his methods:

Reader Interactions

222Comments

  2. 2.

    Just one more canuck

    I love it that the crawler at the bottom of the screenshot says that “revolutionary guards claim the unrest is officially over”

  5. 5.

    Major Major Major Major

    “This shows you what happens when you have an attorney general who is not loyal to someone who has been elected by the people on a specific issue,”

    He was elected by the people on the specific issue of ignoring Russian interference in the election, I guess.

  8. 8.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    I’m imagining Trump on the phone berating New York Times journalists and editors stenographers Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker for failing to protect him from Michael Wolff.

    /fixed

  12. 12.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    “It’s not Trump who is betraying the campaign promise [marijuana], it’s Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, [who] is betraying Trump and the rest of us,” Rohrabacher said.

    I saw griftwald say the same thing. Russian agents have always been good at holding the party line.

  13. 13.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    “On his first night in the White House, President Trump complained that the TV in his bedroom was broken, because it didn’t have ‘The Gorilla Channel’, Trump seemed to be under the impression that a TV channel existed that screened nothing but gorilla-based content, 24 hours a day.

    To appease Trump, White House staff compiled a number of gorilla documentaries into a makeshift Gorilla Channel, broadcast into Trump’s bedroom from a hastily-constructed transmission tower on the South Lawn. However, Trump was unhappy with the channel they had created, moaning that it was ‘boring’ because ‘the gorillas aren’t fighting.’

    Staff edited out all the parts of the documentaries where gorillas weren’t hitting each other, and at last the president was satisfied. ‘On some days he’ll watch the gorilla channel for 17 hours straight,’ an insider told me. ‘He kneels in front of the TV, with his face about four inches from the screen, and says encouraging things to the gorillas, like ‘the way you hit that other gorilla was good.’ I think he thinks the gorillas can hear him.”

    This. Is. The. Greatest. Thing. Evah!

  14. 14.

    TriassicSands

    Honestly, I don’t see how anything Wolff has written could be worse than what we’ve seen, heard, and come to expect from Trump every day. We know now, that no matter how bad Trump is or how low he will stoop, he will be worse tomorrow. And worse still the day after that. There is no Peak Trump. Trying to imagine Trump’s limit is like trying to comprehend the extent of the universe — the human mind is simply not equipped to do it. I’m not exaggerating for effect.

  17. 17.

    ThresherK

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I think we reached the Event Horizon. Every part of my brain which says “that’s no way a true thing” is immediately rebuffed by another memory of previous Trump things which ended up being true.

    It’s now impossible to make up stuff about him.

  18. 18.

    Quinerly

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Are you serious? Is this in the book? I don’t have a copy yet. Preordered the first day this week that we all were talking about it. Thurs night around 10:00 Amazon emailed me and said shipped. Now the status is essentially “pending shipment.”

  25. 25.

    gene108

    I do wonder what these Republicans thought of Ken Starr re-opening the Whitewater investigation after the previous Independent Counsel (or Special Prosecutor, forget his title and name) closed it and said everything was fine and the Clintons did nothing wrong. Or when Ken Starr busied himself with looking into Bill’s sex life, which was beyond the scope of Whitewater.

    I mean, if they are mad at Mueller looking into money laundering, as well as Team Trump’s willingness to work with Russians, for overstepping his bounds, they must have really been mad when Ken Starr went all over the place on Bill.

    Hahahaha…I kid…

    Republicans are hypocrites, and would sell their mothers into slavery to win an election and cut taxes for the rich.

  28. 28.

    Cermet

    A really impressive (close) conjunction between Jupiter and Mars in the Morning sky (to the south.) And I do mean really impressive!

  30. 30.

    gene108

    @ThresherK:

    It’s now impossible to make up stuff about him.

    I don’t know, if a reporter talked about how calm, cool, and collected Trump is or his love of reading and so on, it would be pretty far fetched. And I think plenty of reporters have tried so hard to give him the benefit of the doubt, with regards to him having no any redeeming qualities as a human being.

  32. 32.

    satby

    And MoDo’s idiot brother has a piece in an Irish news aggregator I read that fellates Trump’s “accomplishments” his first year in office. So MoDo’s stupidity is clearly genetic.

  39. 39.

    Debbie(aussie)

    @satby: It does make a difference. Tho being a jackal, I am very ‘involved’ (not sure if that is the right word). It is so very hard to believe that he is so so so abhorrent, ignorant, gross……

  44. 44.

    Gin & Tonic

    @m.j.: I believe it is scheduled for Jan 30. But all the Constitution requires is that he “from time to time” report on the state of the union. It doesn’t have to be in person, he can just send them a memo. The big speech is a 20th century tradition.

  49. 49.

    Ken

    The Ohman cartoon almost captures the Trump WH for me. It’s a bit too Mad Magazine, though – my mental image is of a nest of vipers. (Admittedly with stooges sound effects.)

  50. 50.

    Jeffro

    ‘Gorilla Channel’ hilarity aside, let’s parse this for a second…

    “The American people, now, are getting a taste of what people in Washington have known over this last year, and that is Jeff Sessions betrays the people who have had faith in him,” Rohrabacher told CNN’s Ana Cabrera in an interview…

    “When he recused himself from this whole Russia thing,” Rohrabacher said of Sessions, “he knew he was setting in motion the establishment of a special prosecutor. And a special prosecutor, as happens in Washington, we understand, is just giving unlimited power to someone to go after you, and not just you but to go after anybody they want to go after.”…

    “Jeff Sessions betrays the people who have had faith in him”. Translated, this statement means, “Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General of the United States, who is supposed to faithfully execute the laws of the United States, did something to betray Donald Trump’s faith in him. And by ‘something’, I mean ‘recused himself from a matter in which he rightfully should have recused himself and turned it over to others to investigate’. And by ‘Donald Trump’s faith in him’, I am referring to ‘Donald Trump wanted to be protected from the legal and political consequences of his and his campaign’s collusion with a hostile foreign power in order to win office’.

    Put it all together and that one short sentence, translated, means, “By faithfully (for once) and properly carrying out the duties of his office, Jeff Sessions left Donald Trump exposed, legally and politically, for his and his campaign’s collusion with a hostile foreign power in order to win office.” To which Rohrbacher is essentially saying, “And that is absolutely unforgivable – Don is your (crime) boss, Jeff Sessions, and this is my friend Russia he worked with, and now it’s ALL YOUR FAULT.”

    They’re just going to keep pounding the narrative that “Sessions betrayed the president*” and hope that it works. “But the president was betraying the country, Dana, just like you” is the only response.

  52. 52.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    Holy shit.

    ….to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

    ….Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star…..— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

  53. 53.

    Chyron HR

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    Remember, Barack Obama personally killed every little brown baby who died from 2008-2016 because he’s pure evil, but you can’t hold the God-Emperor responsible for what his hand-picked Attorney General does!

  65. 65.

    JPL

    @m.j.: He’ll probably schedule around this event..
    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has scheduled a briefing for later this month to outline how the public can prepare for nuclear war.

  68. 68.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @debbie: He has 3 TV screens in his bedroom, I’m sure one has a live Faux News feed, the other’s may be DVR of earlier Faux News shows. This is how he learns about what’s going on, “by watching the shows”.

  69. 69.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Michael Wolff Did What Every Other White House Reporter Is Too Cowardly to Do

    I’m gonna begin this post with the same disclaimer that needs to come with every post about Michael Wolff, which is that Wolff is a fart-sniffer whose credibility is often suspect and who represents the absolute worst of New York media-cocktail-circuit inbreeding. But in a way, it’s fitting that our least reliable president could finally find himself undone at the hands of one of our least reliable journalists.

    All of Wolff’s excerpts from Fire & Fury so far (the book was rushed into stores today) read like jayvee fan fiction. They read like a pilot that Steve Bannon himself wrote, pitched to Hollywood, and had rejected 17 times over. They read, in short, like bullshit. And yet…Wolff has audio. He’s got hours upon hours of audio. Not only that, but the book has already caused legitimate upheaval in the administration, opened a permanent rift between President Trump and Bannon, AND it confirms what we have all always known to be true: that the president severely lacks the cognitive ability to do this job, and that he is surrounded at all times by a cadre of enablers, dunces, and outright thieves. As much as I wanna discredit Wolff, he got receipts and, more important, he used them. Wolff got it all. Wolff nailed them.

    And look how he did it. He did it by sleazily ingratiating himself with the White House, gaining access, hosting weird private dinners, and then taking full advantage of the administration’s basic lack of knowledge about how reporting works. Some of the officials Wolff got on tape claim to be unaware that they were on the record. Wolff denies this, but he’s very much up front in the book’s intro about the fact that he was able to exploit the incredible “lack of experience” on display here. In other words, Wolff got his book by playing a bunch of naive dopes.

    Thank God for that. Wolff has spent this week thoroughly exploiting Trump and his minions the same way they’ve exploited the cluelessness of others. And he pulled it off because, at long last, there was a reporter out there willing to toss decorum aside and burn bridges the same way Trump does.

    -Drew Magary

  72. 72.

    MomSense

    The president wants us to know he’s like totally smart and known for his mental stability.

    In other news, the house of one of Roy Moore’s accusers burned down. Officials suspect arson.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    Trump was an unusual candidate in many ways, but one important one was that before he took office, we knew less about his political philosophy than that of perhaps any other modern president. We’re now almost a year into Trump’s tenure, though, and his policy agenda has been almost entirely orthodox Republicanism. Voters have noticed.

    Most now think he’s far Right, which he is. I know – he’s not anything, really but I’m not talking about what he says, I’m talking about what he does. That’s good, I think. That part of the Trump bullshit facade has crumbled, that his agenda is something other than far Right Republicanism. It gives you hope that reality still matters.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    In other news, the house of one of Roy Moore’s accusers burned down

    I was shocked and horrified by that. Every time you think they can’t get worse, they get worse.

  84. 84.

    GxB

    @satby: Now, now… let’s not draw hasty conclusions. It could be due to lead paint chips in their childhood home.

    And as to “the Gorilla channel” story, I’ve seen it elsewhere on the net a couple days back. It didn’t pass the initial sniff test simply because why would you have to make a broadcast tower for something that is easily done with a DVR and coax cable. Never-the-less, the rest seemed well within the realm of possibility, if a bit on the extended hyperbole side.

  85. 85.

    Jeffro

    This was fun (and I need to dig up the Star Trek episode Josh is referring to, as I’ve never seen it): it’s called “Did Trump Ever Have a Chance?” but a better headline would be, “Coming Soon: The Trump Crime Family Deserves Our Pity”

    …If you’ll allow me a whimsical comparison, this reminds me of a classic Star Trek episode from 1968: A Piece of the Action. If you’re unfamiliar with the plot, the Enterprise travels to a world, Sigma Iotia II, that has been culturally contaminated by earlier contact with humans. A hundred years earlier a starship had visited the planet with its highly imitative culture on the verge of industrialization and inadvertently left behind a book on mob rule in Chicago in the 1920s. Believing the visitors were superior beings or even gods, the Iotians built a society based entirely around what is described in this book. It is their ideal society. They refer to it as “the Book”, in effect their bible. In other words, the Enterprise finds a world in which everyone is a criminal – but not criminals in the sense of deviants from a social norm of lawful behavior. They inhabit a world in which criminality is the what is aspired to, valorized and proper.

    Everyone on this planet is crook and a thief. But you can hardly blame them since they were born to be crooks in a society that made crime and the acquisition of power by violence the highest good. The episode plays the concept largely for laughs. But the idea is most readily comparable to mob families we know from dramas like The Sopranos and The Godfather. Tony Soprano and Vito Corleone aren’t against the law. It’s just something like the weather that you deal with and work around and maybe even use sometimes but all and only in the service of personal and family power and wealth. The key theme of all mob drama – and presumably to some degree the reality of mob culture – is that the law is for chumps, a crutch for those who aren’t man enough, powerful enough to get what they want without it. This sounds very much like the mindset of Donald Trump and his family. Who would be a fool enough to become President of the United States and not use the power for legal invulnerability?

  86. 86.

    satby

    @Kay: preliminary reports are that it was a local guy known to have mental health issues. Wonder if that’s going to pan out or whether more comes to light about it.

  87. 87.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    I admit that it has me a bit spooked. Like Moore, Dolt 45 has a sort of cult like group of supporters. Some of them will not react well if/when he has to leave office.

  88. 88.

    Chyron HR

    @satby:

    I look forward to a fair and even-handed application of the new legal standard, “It’s not terrorism if the person who did it is off their nut.”

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Remember that? We might get Medicare for all! He was secretly pro-choice and also anti-war! He’s “a builder” so there would be road and bridge building! Instead they got incredibly belligerent foreign policy, a plutocrat’s dream of a tax bill massive deregulation AND as an added bonus, the Christian fundies got their wish list on social policy. The judges aren’t just far Right, they’re also unqualified over-promoted morons. We got incompetent far Right policy.

  91. 91.

    Jeffro

    On another note, Joy Reid is asking this question on Twitter: “[Republicans] now have their tax cut windfall, so it’s not that. They barely knew Trump before last year and many despised him. So why are they forming a wolf pack to defend him (and Russia) now?” Everyone is responding with, “kompromat” (no, really!)

    You almost have to wonder if Trumpov knows that Russia has his fellow Repubs by the balls, too…

    Barring that, I’m sure that most of them know their campaigns (at least since Citizens United) have been funded to some degree by Russian money, funneled through American middlemen AND by the Kochs’ carpet-bombing of funds since that time as well. A lot of powerful forces want that funnel and carpet-bombing to continue, especially as the GOP becomes even more of a minority party.

  94. 94.

    Kay

    @satby:

    Republicans need to stop telling people that God wants them to win because there are unstable people in this world and they will believe it. I hope the arson investigation doesn’t hold up her insurance payment. She needs somewhere to live.

    The Moore’s have a nonprofit with a lot of money, judging by what they’re paying themselves. They should buy her a house.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I can’t decide if they’re going after Sessions to make a fake show that Sessions is “independent” after the revelation that Sessions collected dirt on Comey or if they’re going after Sessions to put someone in who can stop the Mueller investigation.

  102. 102.

    rikyrah

    @danielx:
    And, that’s another reason why they are mad. Wolff’s not even a ‘real’ journalist. He’s a gossip monger. And yet, he scooped them, and is about to clean up.

  103. 103.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    Latter part Kay. They need an Attorney General that can fire Bobby Three Sticks.
    But, as so many have pointed out, the KKKeebler Elf is living out his White Supremacist fantasies and will never resign.

  104. 104.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Trump’s stances led voters to believe he was relatively moderate for a Republican — or at least that he was ideologically idiosyncratic. More voters viewed Trump as liberal than any incoming GOP president since at least Ronald Reagan, and fewer voters viewed him as conservative than any Republican since at least Reagan. That stood in stark contrast to Clinton, whom the clear majority of voters saw as liberal. Trump’s ideological positioning relative to Clinton’s may have been one of the reasons he was able to pull off a slim Electoral College victory against her.
    Upon entering the White House, however, Trump has taken up a primarily conservative agenda. He’s become hawkish on foreign policy, he stocked the federal courts with conservative judges, and he urged Congressional Republicans to push through a massive tax cut that was seen as mostly helping the well-to-do. He also tried to stop transgender Americans from serving in the military. The national infrastructure project seems to be going nowhere.

    They thought they could get all the racism of hard Right Republicans with none of the downside – threats to federal benefits and subsidies. Oh, well. Bad bet. Like a Democrat, plus racist!

  107. 107.

    satby

    @rikyrah: He’s a gossip monger that writes for a trade scandal sheet, not of the tribe of “serious” journalists and not behaving within their norms of looking the other way at unseemly behavior. They would deny that he scooped them because they already knew Trump is incoherent and incompetent to be president. They just never thought that any of the rest of us should know. The villagers are our betters, they’ll tell us what we think, and make sure we only see news that reinforces what they think we should believe.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    That stood in stark contrast to Clinton, whom the clear majority of voters saw as liberal.

    The majority of voters were smarter than the people who glommed on to that neoliberal bullshit.

  112. 112.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The only person racist conservatives hated more than Obama was Holder. I think it killed them that a black man was Top Cop. Holding that enormous power to prosecute white people. They always, always portrayed him as corrupt although there was a notable absence of corruption in the Obama Administration. LEAST corrupt administration in my adult life.

  113. 113.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Fox News Research

    Average Monthly #Job Gains
    -by year

    •2017: 171,000
    •2016: 187,000
    •2015: 226,000
    •2014: 250,000
    •2013: 192,000
    •2012: 179,000
    •2011: 174,000
    •2010: 88,000#JobsReport
    7:54 AM – Jan 5, 2018

  115. 115.

    ThresherK

    @OzarkHillbilly: DingDingDing!

    That headline is 200% correct (the mathematically best kind of correct).

    I hope this will separate the tools from the grown-ups.

    PS I’m gonna tell everyone about The Gorilla Channel, then like our press did for John (Purple BandAid) Kerry and Al (Invented the Internet) Gore, twenty weeks later I’ll discover that it wasn’t exactly true as written, and run a correction on page B26.

  116. 116.

    Peale

    @Baud: yep. Even the fuckin Republican loons were better judges of political positions than our progressive betters.

  118. 118.

    Baud

    @Kay: There were a number of black officials in the Obama administration who got a disproportionate amount of hate. Plus Michelle Obama.

    ETA: I still don’t understand why Valerie Jarrett was in their cross hairs.

  120. 120.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: ALL the black officials in the Obama admin.

    ETA ALL the women too. and if you hit the daily double of being a black woman….

  121. 121.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Some of it I blame on mainstream Democrats. We have to stop saying all the racists are in the rural south. It was never true and it lets northern, urban racists like Trump adopt a kind of veneer – “he’s from NYC! He must be moderate!” It’s bullshit and it was always bullshit. Giuliani gets away with this too. If those two had southern accents and were from rural Arkansas no one would ever mistake them for “moderates”. It’s a kind of snobbery.

  122. 122.

    tobie

    @Kay: My bet is that they want to fire Sessions and appoint an Interim AG through the Vacancy Act. No Congressional approval would be needed for the interim appointment. The press is speculating that Pruitt is the likely replacement but I’m wondering if it isn’t the truly hideous Pompeo. He’s a lawyer, unlike Pruitt, and he’s invited to Camp David this weekend.

  123. 123.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Staten Island and South Boston cornered the market on northeastern racism long ago. Gentrification has only prettied it up a bit.

  125. 125.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: And at this point Trump has claimed ownership of the economy on nearly a daily basis. That won’t matter to him if we enter a recession – he’ll just switch to blaming Obama – but persons with a functioning memory will notice.

  127. 127.

    danielx

    The emperor is indeed clothed, but is better fitted for a play pen than for the Oval Office.

  128. 128.

    Peale

    @Kay: he’s also rich, and Democrats have this huge blind spot for racism amongst wealthy white people. Racism is endemic to the white working class and uneducated. Once you have someone with a college degree and a trust fund, well, that person isn’t really racist…that person is just using the racism to manipulate the working class to vote for a tax cut and lower regulations. We cant imagine that the Koch’s and Mercer’s back racist groups because they might be racist.

  130. 130.

    Kay

    @tobie:

    So they really are planning on shutting down the investigation. Wow. This was the worst case that we were yet again assured would never happen.

    If they shut down this investigation we should take to the streets. It’s time. That’s a goddamned coup. There has to be massive public resistance or nothing will happen.

    They get worse every month. It won’t wait until after the midterms. The desperation we’re seeing is an attempt to lock in power prior to the midterms.

  131. 131.

    Baud

    @Kay: If Trump actually has the balls to fire Sessions, it’ll be the one thing he will have done that would surprise me.

  134. 134.

    Quinerly

    @Princess: And a blast from the past…Desiree Rogers. She has absolutely nothing in common with Jarrett, Rice, Holder, and Lynch.?…..and Shirley Sherrod.

  135. 135.

    Kay

    @Peale:

    Democrats continued to do this after the election, sadly. The fucking Mercers were staring them in the face and they continued to insist that bad character is the same as lack of a college degree. It’s fucked up and it’s TRULY elitist.

    It also ignores the massive numbers of AA who weren’t rich and didn’t have graduate degrees but somehow managed to recognize bad people. Education doesn’t fix this. It’s a culture and a lack of character.

    It’s not like it’s never happened before. Industrialists and wealthy educated people supported Nazis. Hitler wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without the support of elites.They’re making some kind of tragic category error.

  137. 137.

    Ohio Mom

    Just got here. Has anyone else noted that Sherrod Brown’s opponent, Republican Josh Mandel, just announced he’s dropping out of the race?

    Says his wife is ill. Call me a terrible person but I am delighting in their misfortune.

  138. 138.

    MattF

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I know quite a few 70-and-above folks (it’s the cohort of my sister and BIL), and they all smoke weed. And they’re unwilling to go back to the days when you had to bribe the pizza delivery boy to get your regular supply.

  139. 139.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Quinerly:

    Hahahahaha! I love when ultra-rich liberals use their money for trolling! And the ~$11,000 he spent is more or less pocket change anyhow. Love it!

  140. 140.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Democrats continued to do this after the election, sadly. The fucking Mercers were staring them in the face and they continued to insist that bad character is the same as lack of a college degree. It’s fucked up and it’s TRULY elitist.

    Who did this? I don’t remember this. All I remember is the push back against the movement to pander to white working class Trump voters.

  141. 141.

    Kay

    @Ohio Mom:

    I did. I’ve already volunteered for Sherrod because he is my favorite. Republicans were saying yesterday it was good for Republicans because “now” they can get a better candidate but that sounds like bullshit to me- if they could have gotten a better candidate they would have had one. Mandel wasn’t standing in the way of the “good” Republicans who can win. The only one I was afraid of was Kasich but his campaign guy says he doesn’t want it. Mary Taylor is awful. They should run her.

  142. 142.

    Baud

    @MattF: We’ll see. I follow net neutrality and for all the vehemence about the issue, it never makes a difference in any election.

  143. 143.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    You don’t remember that the Trump voters were all uneducated and we needed better “civics” education? I don’t think any of it was true. There were PLENTY of educated Trump voters (white women, look’in at you!) and he certainly has plenty of “elite” backers. We mix up “good” and “rich” in this country but we also mix up “good” and “has a college degree”. It’s dumb. No one else in history has struggled so much with these categories. The historical accounts of Nazis don’t say “to the shock of everyone, many industrialists and learned people supported this madman” – there was a recognition that there’s bad people in all sectors of society.

  144. 144.

    Davebo

    Seriously, how the fuck does California’s 48th give us Dana Rohrabacher? Was the tax cut worth it? Part of me laughs when I think about their SALT free 2018 tax returns.

  145. 145.

    Baud

    @Kay: O vaguely recall some of that, but I associate that with people who were complaining about Democratic messaging rather than accepting that the Trump voter chose to buy what Trump was selling.

  146. 146.

    satby

    @Baud: that’s because the most fanatical net neutrality peeps also lean to the tech-bro Bernie-Stein side of the ballot. Ineffectual and loud and proud of it.

  147. 147.

    JohnO

    @Baud: -3, walking the dog in full cover, hitting the grocery store before the rush, and reading my BJ thread, and that one really made me laugh. (Not that several others didn’t!)

    He’ll do whatever he feels like doing as the noose tightens, and if it’s a matter of “balls” his are the biggest and the best. Just ask him.

    I was at my elderly, increasingly demented, brittle diabetic grandfather’s last Dr. visit to retain his driver’s license. In the past year he had been taken to the ER with blood sugar’s as low as 20 and as high as 500. As the Dr. was questioning him, my GF told the Dr. he was feeling great and sort of skipped that part. I did not, much to my grandfather’s horror. We were very close and it was as angry as he’d ever been with me.

    It’s hard to take the keys away from Grandpa. And my gf was was a highly intelligent, highly rational person. No WAY does DT go down without blowing some s**t up on the way out. He. Doesn’t. Care.

    He is and has been a horribly pathological person his entire life.

  148. 148.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It may not matter but I think Republicans have a younger generation problem with their disdain of science. Kids these days are inundated with STEM worship in school. Whether that’s oversold or not is a good question, but the point is, they believe it. I hear real contempt from my son and his friends on Trump positions on science- climate change but also environmentalism. This county went 70% for Trump and only 25% of their parents have college degrees. They’re getting this somewhere, and it isn’t at home. They follow popular culture scientists. They’ve absorbed this message that science is admirable and “smart” and they portray Trump as “old” – like his age is part of why he rejects facts.

  151. 151.

    Yarrow

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
    I love the responses to The Gorilla Channel story. Samples:

    I stopped watching The Gorilla Channel because of how it covered the Harambe incident. People watch The Gorilla Channel to see gorillas fight each other, not for political commentary.— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) January 5, 2018

    please stop calling our customer service hotline to ask if we have The Gorilla Channel— Netflix US (@netflix) January 6, 2018

    If every Trump protest from here on out doesn’t have at least one person in a gorilla costume I’m going to be disappointed. It’ll piss him off to no end that people think he watches The Gorilla Channel 17 hours a day.

  152. 152.

    satby

    @raven: well, you can always delist it and go, but that cold you caught is nasty if it’s “the cold” we’ve all caught. Besides, the Tangerine Traitor is still planning on going, isn’t he? Or do you think he’s going to stay where he can’t hear any boos?

  155. 155.

    john fremont

    @Kay: I remember that Trump was also the only Republican who says we don’t have to cut anything from Social Security either. On his first interview after announcing as a candidate and throughout his campaign, he said the economy will be doing so well that Social Security and Medicare would be completely funded for years.

  156. 156.

    Yarrow

    @Kay:

    Some of it I blame on mainstream Democrats. We have to stop saying all the racists are in the rural south. It was never true and it lets northern, urban racists like Trump adopt a kind of veneer – “he’s from NYC! He must be moderate!” It’s bullshit and it was always bullshit. Giuliani gets away with this too. If those two had southern accents and were from rural Arkansas no one would ever mistake them for “moderates”. It’s a kind of snobbery.

    QFT.

  157. 157.

    Elizabelle

    Le sigh. From “No Drama Obama” to “You Can’t Make this Shit Up.”

    Delivered my friend to the airport in Seville. On return: check my email: NYTimes alert informs me that

    BREAKING NEWS
    President Trump, in a flurry of tweets, defended his mental capacity, saying he is “a very stable genius”

    I think “we have him, NY Times, because you shitasses couldn’t stop masturbating over the emails, emails, emails.” What a world.

  160. 160.

    Tenar Arha

    @Quinerly: My favorite part of this is that I saw Pixelatedboat do this yesterday/day-before-yesterday & thought well that could actually be true.

    Later that same day there was a story going around that Trump was watching Michael, decided he’d rather watch the Jean Claud Van Damme movie Bloodsports, and made DJT/Eric fast forward so he could watch only the fight scenes. And again I thought, could be true.

    At this point I think we’re all being occasionally overwhelmed by truthiness.

  161. 161.

    satby

    @Kay:

    25% of their parents have college degrees. They’re getting this somewhere, and it isn’t at home.

    Imma gonna stop you right there Kay. Most of the friends of my age cohort don’t have college degrees, we’re part of the last generation of folks who could enter the job market and climb pretty high without them. I’m not a climate denier, none of my friends are, none of the farmers I used to live near are, and no one raised their kids to be. The only people who are that I know of are college degree holders, but tribal identity as a conservative has trumped any knowledge they used to have.

    And never forget, the requirement for a college degree was originally a racist way to discriminate without appearing to, because minorities weren’t able to attend and graduate college at anywhere near the rates of whites. I’m not all that convinced that it should be a requirement for most jobs still. And that shouldn’t be why people get educated anyway.

  163. 163.

    Yarrow

    @raven: Are you feeling better? You can always take your down your listing and go. It’ll be hard to top the Rose Bowl, though.

  164. 164.

    gene108

    @john fremont:

    I remember in the early debates from 2015, Trump talked about raising taxes on Wall Street, along with not cutting SS and Medicare, while the rest of the Republicans were talking about the need for entitlement reform and massive tax cuts for the rich.

    Trump basically showed the average Republican voter didn’t care about tax cuts, supply side economics, or entitlement reform. As Kay said up thread, they wanted a Democrat, but racist.

  167. 167.

    Baud

    @Kay: Again, we’ll see. There were a number of articles after the election about how many environmentalists don’t vote.

  168. 168.

    kindness

    I don’t live in S. Cal. I’m a N Cal dirty lib. What I do know is there are enclaves down there that the virulent right wing owns. I never understood that. Conservatism, sure, I get that. Right wing straddling authoritarian fascism I don’t get at all. Especially there. White people aren’t downtrodden there. Ever since the days of Goldwater though that area gave us Reagan & worse.

    With that in mind how do they keep electing an obvious right wing kompromat stooge? How does that work anyhow?

  169. 169.

    SteveinSC

    @OzarkHillbilly:Article is absolutely right on the money. It took a sleaze-bag to take down a sleaze-bag. The U.S. military fought unsuccessfully against the Native American’s for years across the Great Plains. They only succeeded by hiring tribal mercenaries. Trump will go berserk over this and we may hope it drives him over the cliff.

  170. 170.

    john fremont

    @Baud: Do you think Trump would fire Sessions if there is serious politcal blowback from the change in legalized Marijuana policy? That way, Trump could use that as his excuse for getting Sessions out of the way to stop Mueller.

  171. 171.

    Ken

    @Elizabelle:

    President Trump, in a flurry of tweets, defended his mental capacity, saying he is “a very stable genius”

    “I have papers from three doctors. Top doctors. Three of them. Three top doctors. Psychiatrists. They all say I am stable. Three top psychiatrists. They all say I’m stable. Most people don’t even have one paper like that. Certificate. Certificates from three top psychics saying I’m stable. Obama doesn’t have that. Crooked Hillary doesn’t have that.”

  172. 172.

    raven

    @Yarrow: We feel marginally better. I feel like I can’t lose, if it sells for what I listed it for it will go a long way toward paying for our Rose Bowl trip. If it doesn’t I made enough on the first one to go to the game for free and make $500. I’ve been in worse situations.

  174. 174.

    raven

    @kindness: Back in the day there were tons off Vietnamese Boat People in Orange county. I think the makeup has changed but they were some serious wingers.

  176. 176.

    jimmiraybob

    Obama has lived in a prominent neighborhood in Trump’s brain for a decade. Now, I’m thinking that that image of Obama is one of him sitting out on the front lawn reading “Fire and Fury” to the neighbors while intermittently telling dad jokes to the delight of the people and throngs of media. I don’t know how much longer the Trumpstorm can take that kinda pressure.

    But then he is like a really smart genius with good words.

  178. 178.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    I’ve also heard they want Mary Taylor to run. Hopefully she will do so (and be trounced) without giving a black eye to other women candidates’ chances (she is that horrible).

  179. 179.

    satby

    @kindness: it’s all about the tribal identification. Grievances forged in the white hot oven of racism when the Democrats betrayed white people by pushing the Civil Rights Act through in the 60s. Exacerbated by the dirty n**ger loving hippies protesting the righteous war against Brown people in the far East and bringing down the Republican President who committed treason to prolong it so he could win an election using his “southern strategy”.
    Edited: The only people they hate more than non-white people are the race traitors like us who think they’re vile.

  181. 181.

    Adria McDowell

    In my mind, climate change denialism is more correlated to evangelicalism (especially older evangelicals) than to education levels.

    @Aimai: Exactly. Not to mention that lots of “progressives” dismissed voters of color as “low information.” That nonsense didn’t come from mainstream Democrats.

  183. 183.

    Chyron HR

    @Aimai:
    because Boo-Nee says that the White Working Master Race are his chosen people and they only vote Republican because the Democrats aren’t left-wing enough.

  184. 184.

    p.a.

    OMFG CNN about 8:55 am showed video of WH presser with tRump on video screen with sidebar title “Pop-up President”. Then showed clip of Wizard of Oz hiding behind curtain after Toto exposed him. At gym, so no audio I could hear.
    LOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOLL…

  187. 187.

    john fremont

    @gene108: Agreed. Paleoconservatives like Steve Bannon want America to become more like Japan; restrictive immigration policies to preserve ethnic identity, industrial policy, trade protectionism, and a modern welfare state for only specific groups. Trump was just going to be the vehicle to achieve these goals.

  188. 188.

    bemused

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

    The deep freeze is getting old! We’re going on 3 weeks straight of below zero temps with very few days above zero. -32 at our location was the coldest dawn temp…so far. Even our Samoyeds don’t stay outside long, in and out doggies. The up side is bright, sunny days dominate during frigid weather like this. I’ve been loving looking outside at the moonlit surroundings at night and wishing I was a good photographer with a camera that could capture the beauty of moonlight so bright, the trees cast shadows and you can see just as far into the woods as in the daylight. Great time for cross country skiers to hit the trails. No flashlights needed.

  189. 189.

    Ken

    @p.a.: Important question: Did CNN create that material, or are they reporting on late night comedians, youtube videos, etc.?

    The first seems unlikely, unless they’re pulling the Fox News stunt of “Oh, that sixty seconds of programming wasn’t from our news division, that’s our entertainment. Read the schedule carefully.”

    The second is what a news organization does when they want to say something, but professional ethics intrude – find someone else saying it, and report on that. (Not all that different from Fox’s news/entertainment Chinese wall, I guess, except it’s not produced in-house.)

  192. 192.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Jeffro:

    He talks/tweets like a ‘valley girl’ from the 80s. Which is odd for someone so masculine and studly.

    Go watch Trump talk with the sound off. His gestures and body language are odd for a mature man.

  194. 194.

    Tenar Arha

    @Ken: @p.a.: @m.j.: That stunt was a boundary test though. The reporters stayed, they filmed it, it was clipped everywhere. Yes people made fun, but no one walked away.

    Agent Orange will try it again, he fancies himself good on camera. Plus, his handlers know he’s getting more and more volatile, so they’ll try anything.

    No joke. Yesterday, during my first phone call to my legislators this year, my list included telling them they had my enthusiastic permission & consent to get up & walk out if he tried that for the SOTU either by video or by sending someone to read them a report. ETA I wish I thought of it before this morning, but I should have said “please don’t participate in the Trumpshow.”

  195. 195.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Kay: Probably more of case that Trump really doesn’t matter to his own administration. Policy is what the staff does and those TV’s don’t watch themselves.

    Like with Sessions. Sessions is doing what ever the f Sessions wants because Trump’s off yelling at Ivanka about how smart Trump is.

  196. 196.

    Quinerly

    @Elizabelle: Thanks for asking. We lost one of Poco’s kitty advisers, Little Ivan, Thursday. He was diagnosed with failing kidneys in June (had never weighed over 7lbs, down to 6lbs at that exam). We tried the special food but he hated it. Re examined and retested in Oct…kidney function failing more, 1/2 lb lost. I took him with me in Oct to NC to keep an eye on him and he gained a little weight (plus, he loved to ride in the car and lounge on my mother’s old bed at the beach place). I wanted him looked at before my upcoming NM trip, so we went in Thurs for kidney function tests. He was down to 5lbs and kidneys really failing fast. It was time. He was a funny little guy who had probably experienced severe abuse before coming here. Brain damaged a bit from lack of oxygen and walked funny because most likely front declawed by a nonvet. Orange tabby, not a lot of personality but incredibly sweet but reclusive. Would disappear for days in the house…I always felt that he was writing his manifesto. Someday, I hope to find it hidden away somewhere.?

  198. 198.

    Elizabelle

    @Quinerly: Ahhh. What a cool kitteh. Sorry he has left you, but what a character. Also, in horribly practical terms, he is beyond pain and care while you are away in the American West. Interesting how life plays out that way, some times.

    I love that Ivan enjoyed riding in the car. Is that rather rare for cats? (We had to put ours in a pillow or box for vet visits. Oy vey.)

  199. 199.

    BC in Illinois

    @Tenar Arha:

    Yesterday, during my first phone call to my legislators this year, my list included telling them they had my enthusiastic permission & consent to get up & walk out if he tried that for the SOTU either by video or by sending someone to read them a report.

    If Trump sends a video, the Dems should sit with their laptops and liveblog the whole event.

  200. 200.

    MomSense

    @Quinerly:

    The story I’m working on now is about a little dog who is dropped behind a dumpster. The other dogs in the story figure out that she is a stray. It starts very sad but ends happily. I was a little worried that it would be too sad for young children but I kept writing it anyway. Bad things do happen to children so hopefully they will find it helpful.

  201. 201.

    rikyrah

    @Baud:

    ETA: I still don’t understand why Valerie Jarrett was in their cross hairs.

    Jarrett was the Gatekeeper to 44. And, she was Michelle Obama’s eyes and ears around the West Wing. Michelle Obama didn’t need to hang out around the West Wing- Valerie was there. Jarrett was close to BOTH of them.

    In addition to that, Jarrett was OKOP, and most White people don’t know how to deal with that, let alone Republicans.

  202. 202.

    Quinerly

    @Elizabelle: He rode in a carrier. I would fix it so he could look out and see in the passenger seat. I think he mostly knew it signaled he was getting away from John Lennon. I got JL as a kitty friend…thought it would help Ivan’s reclusiveness. Actually made it worse. Upcoming trip weighed heavily on my decision Thurs. Didn’t want to leave care responsibility of sickly kitty to my friend who looks in here. I’m glad the vet said “it’s time.” Some want to give tons of options….after she said “it’s time” I asked about saline hydration, etc…she said it could be done but really prolonging the inevitable. She didn’t push treatment.

  205. 205.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    One of the cutest tweets of the past 6 months was a group of teenaged girls at a hotel, and guess who gets on their elevator?

    Bill Nye, the Science Guy…

    AND THEY KNEW WHO HE WAS!!
    It was so cute, them being star struck by him.

    Peanut knows him and Neil Degrasse Tyson, and she’s only 9.

  206. 206.

    Gvg

    @Kay: statistics are measuring a population. It’s a fact that a college degree results in less racism in the population but for any specific individual it might not. The young tend to be less racist also but the younger population is less white so it may not be age. There are statistics by age and race showing the college degree makes a significant difference in how liberal people vote. Youth when separated out by race tends to vote like their parents, unless they went to college.
    Exposure matters which is why the resegragation of our schools is a problem IMO. Back door segregation done with we fixed racism so no need to require busing, vouchers, school choice, testing results so parents who care with college inadvertently move their kids away from minorities. Punishing poor performing schools by cutting funding so they become worse. Home schooling. Vouchers.
    Voting isn’t the same as character but it is a practical test and measurable. Democratic Party isn’t the same as good either but right now it’s a proxy for not racist and also not anti poor. Don’t know a single word for that but “conservatives” are anti poor as well as racist.

  207. 207.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Jeffro: One could also read that as Rohrabacher asking for an admin position. Personal loyalty to Trump is the main thing Trump looks for.

  209. 209.

    Kathleen

    @Ohio Mom: Thought of pending sexual harassment suit just flashed through my mind. He fits the stereotype. Regardless I’m with you and happy for whatever misfortune they are suffering.

  211. 211.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    He has gotten worse.

    He has indeed. However I don’t think that the word worse quite covers it. Worse implies not as good. But he has gone a whole lot farther than not as good. And as you noted his bar wasn’t set all that high in the first place (you could walk over it and not trip). His bar is 20,000 leagues under the sea, now. Not quite at Marianas trench low yet. Which is a scary concept, that he can get to as bad as it gets and still be president.

  212. 212.

    Adria McDowell

    @Kathleen: There apparently is some suggestion that something is going to come out about Mandel and his finances. which would be something since he’s the state treasurer. Ohio Dems could use the whole “how can you trust the Ohio GOP with your money if their treasurer can’t handle his own finances?” but probably won’t.

  214. 214.

    Ruckus

    @MattF:
    People seem to forget that if you are 70 now you came of age in the 60s. I’m not quite there (although it feels, and is, very, very close) and I did. We had people at HS with entire pharmacies for sale, on their person, on campus, during the school day. I don’t know if this was the height of teen drug abuse but it sure wasn’t the cleanest, most angelic of times.

  216. 216.

    Ruckus

    @satby:
    There are lots of jobs that require a degree to even apply. It doesn’t mean you have any need of one for the job. It means it’s a way to separate out the wheat from the wheat. And no, I didn’t do that saying wrong. It is supposed to show that you have an understanding of thinking and desk work, as opposed to manual labor. It’s as much bullshit as anything drumpf says but he’s president and we aren’t. Even the military can have this blind spot. In 1969 I tried to enlist in the AF but was told that I needed a 4 yr college degree. To clean toilets I asked. Yes. They didn’t need enlistees so it was used as a screening method. HR departments use it for the same reason.

  219. 219.

    J R in WV

    @satby:

    …preliminary reports are that it was a local guy known to have mental health issues.

    Well, yeah. If you were a KKK-wanna be, and wanted to ensure that someone’s house burned down, a political enemy, would you go over there in the morning with a can of something really flammable? Or would you find a local guy known to be weird and a firebug, and point him at your personal enemy with a crowbar and a can of solvent?

    There used to be several old farmhouses with gingerbread and stained glass windows in our neighborhood. Then a few months to a couple years after one became empty, long after the utilities were all shut off, at 2 am one of them would burn to the ground. Everyone knew who was doing it, but there was no real proof. He was the local firebug.

    There are lots of weird kids around, just look up booking reports in the local weekly paper, see who’s been questioned for that kind of thing.

    And that is who an Alabama wanna-be KKK dude would pay $100 bucks and a 12-pack for setting a house on fire. The local weird guy, who would believe that he was hired by a KKK guy from 100 miles away? The only tough part would be making sure the henchman burned the right house, really. And you’re back home 150 miles away across the state with the rest of your KKK buddies.

    Now, I’m 500+ miles away from Alabama and don’t plan to go there, ever, so I don’t know any facts about this fire. I’m just making what seem to me to be ordinary and sensible assumptions about rural country life in a state with an active bunch of wanna-be KKK guys. Who knows? Quite a coincidence, though.

  220. 220.

    J R in WV

    @Baud:

    I still don’t understand why Valerie Jarrett was in their cross hairs.

    Ms Jarrett is more beautiful than any Republican office holder.
    Ms Jarrett is smarter than any Republican office holder.
    Ms Jarrett is more accomplished than most Republican office holders.
    Ms Jarrett graduated with honors from the University of Michigan Law School and Stanford University…
    Ms Jarrett is black!

  221. 221.

    J R in WV

    @raven:

    Isn’t your championship game at Mercedes Benz Stadium?

    Doesn’t that mean the seats will be way more, really comfortable seats from Mercedes Benz? Think how good it will be to see a football game with power leather seats!!!

    ;-) heehee

  222. 222.

    Fred

    Michael Wolff looks like the love child of Carl Bernstein and Doktor Evil and his voice definitely sounds like Doktor Evil.
    I don’t mean to be derisive. I don’t think he is evil and he sure isn’t Carl Bernstein but it was just there.
    I’m sure Mr Wolff will make a mIllion dollars for his book and good for him. I won’t read it. I think it would be too depressing. I will make do following the quotes and comments on the tube and the internets.

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