Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The revolution will be supervised.

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

In my day, never was longer.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

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

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

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

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: “Treasonous”

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: “Treasonous”

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He’s just a tummler at heart, a white-bread Rodney Dangerfield, working the Suburban Racist circuit. Getting the reliable cheers by promoting time-worn tropes of Us vs. Them — honor and patriotism be damned. Kudos to Tammy Duckworth for her response, as reported in the Washington Post:

… “We don’t live in a dictatorship or monarchy. I swore an oath — in the military and in the Senate — to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not to mindlessly cater to the whims of Cadet Bone Spurs and clap when he demands I clap,” Duckworth (D-Ill.) wrote in a tweet. She used a nickname she has given Trump, who has said he was granted a medical deferment during the Vietnam War after he was diagnosed with bone spurs in his feet.

Duckworth, who lost her legs in 2004 while serving in Iraq as an Army helicopter pilot, then shared this quote from Theodore Roosevelt, lifted from an opinion piece the former president wrote during World War I: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”…

In a Senate floor speech last month, Duckworth called Trump a “five-deferment draft dodger” who had no business accusing Democrats — such as herself — of not caring for the military.

“Does he even know that there are service members who are in harm’s way right now, watching him, looking for their commander in chief to show leadership, rather than to try to deflect blame?” Duckworth said…

Reader Interactions

235Comments

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    Duckworth is marvelous. “Cadet Bone Spurs” was trending on Twitter that day, which must’ve rankled Trump (or whichever slab-head handles his social media effluvium).

  6. 6.

    dianne

    Nobody’s ever heard of Benny Hill but our family, thanks to a small TV market that ran reruns after school. My kids were fans and loved the big galoot. Trump is Benny Hill sad to say but we are not fans any more. I never thought we would elect such a
    shallow, ignorant fool as president.

  10. 10.

    Zinsky

    “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
    — Theodore Roosevelt

    Who is the traitor here, Cadet Bone Spurs?

  11. 11.

    BlueDWarrior

    Trump is categorically incapable of not doing something to where he becomes the focus of attention. The smart play would have been to say nothing specific after the SOTU, and let people come under the impression you might have psychologically turned the corner, as it goes.

    Instead he has to make it all about himself again has he and his lawyers bang on about the investigation and he talks about Democrats being traitorous for not cheering his grand pronouncements of American wealth and well-being.

    Because of course he would, in the end, the only person that Donny sees are himself and not-himself, and if there is too much attention to not-himself, well that obviously must be corrected, now doesn’t it?

  12. 12.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Baud: They were superbly red districts, MO is kinda gerrymandered to oblivion right now.

    Honestly I think the next great civil right fight should be a nationwide law (if not a constitutional amendment) forcing the non-partisan drawing of districts according to an easily accessible and verifiable formula and/or process.

    Too many states are basically rural and suburban ‘diasporas’ ruling over a super-concentrated (district-wise) urban core.

  13. 13.

    JGabriel

    Trump says Democrats who didn’t clap for him at the State of the Union are “un-American” and “treasonous.”

    I wonder if Traitor Donald even knows he’s projecting, or if it’s totally subconcious.

  15. 15.

    Betty Cracker

    @BlueDWarrior: Agree 100% about the importance of eliminating partisan gerrymandering — that and overturning laws that disenfranchise voters must be a top focus.

  19. 19.

    Montanareddog

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Benny Hill(first of all he’s kind of dead)

    There is an odd anecdote about Benny Hill’s death. After the comic actor, Frankie Howerd died, Benny was quoted in the paper with some boilerplate praise for Howerd’s’ career and life. It later transpired that the journalist had called Benny and got no answer so it was Benny’s agent who had given out the quote in Benny’s name. And, in fact, Benny was already dead, alone in his apartment, the body as yet undiscovered.

  26. 26.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Donald Trump
    ‏ @realDonaldJTrump
    Feb 5

    These criminal Eagles fans are turning Philadelphia into a shithole city. Someone tell them that winning a Super Bowl is a GOOD thing! SAD!

    5 replies 71 retweets 193 likes

  28. 28.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    It is always, always projection with this motherfucker. This is essentially his confession of treason. No puppet! No puppet! You’re the puppet! No, you’re the puppet!

    @Betty Cracker: I think these are my top priorities, alongside the environment. But really, every other right is practically dependent upon the franchise, the way things are set up now. The right to remove politicians who abuse the public trust is crucial to a functioning democracy, and particularly since congressional Republicans have abrogated their constitutional responsibilities to impeach/25th Amendment this treasonous motherfucker, the franchise must be our #1 priority.

    (The abrogation is because they’re complicit in the Russia stuff, BTW. I’m calling it early. You read it here… well, maybe not first, but before the indictments.)

  29. 29.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Donald Trump
    ‏ @realDonaldJTrump
    Feb 5

    We are going to build a wall around Philadelphia — And the @Eagles are going to pay for it!
    1 reply 49 retweets 155 likes

  30. 30.

    ThresherK

    Well, Steve Inskeep, you’ve got a megaphone. Use it. Let’s not hear any shit about there’s two sides to this story, or its exactly like what Obama did.

    Really, is this going to be the thing which cracks the shell of NPR?

  32. 32.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    This could be the moment when people swing from loving the troops to saying “the troops are overpaid, overcoddled, and have never actually done shit for me”.

  36. 36.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Why do people listen to NPR for news?

    I love PBS for its documentaries, for its cooking shows, for ask this old house, for its Stormy Daniel movies on Saturday night. But I would never watch their “news” shows out of fear of ptomaine poisoning.

  39. 39.

    Betty Cracker

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: That video is absolutely horrifying — I almost tossed my waffle! When the two rigid hair-flaps (constructed from the locks Trump combs straight back, perpendicular to his ears, and cans of Aqua Net) yawned open to reveal the scalp beneath, I wasn’t sure if I’d see “666” inscribed with Satan’s own fingertip or Voldemort’s nose-less face. But in a way, the pale, blank scalp was just as repulsive and terrifying. OMFG, my eyes!

  40. 40.

    Baud

    WaPo

    As more Americans take advantage of genetic testing to pinpoint the makeup of their DNA, the technology is coming head to head with the country’s deep-rooted obsession with race and racial myths. This is perhaps no more true than for the growing number of self-identified European Americans who learn they are actually part African.

  43. 43.

    NorthLeft12

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Maybe it’s because I am a pacifist Canadian, but this love/worship of the military seems very unhealthy to me.

    I can remember taking European history, and how Germany, especially Prussia, was described and criticized for being militaristic, and that back then militaristic was universally regarded as a bad thing. Now……?

  44. 44.

    Kay

    I wondered why the hair was carved like wings in the back- so that mystery is solved. The top flap must be crazy-long when it’s on the right side.

  47. 47.

    Baud

    One thing about Falcon Heavy that people have taken for granted. It was awesome for us because of how advanced video technology has gotten. Can you imagine if the moon landing could have been witnessed in HD?

  54. 54.

    danielx

    There’s a story from the Gulag Archipelago wherein a provincial party conference is being held somewhere thousands of miles from Moscow during the Stalin era. At the meeting there are professions of loyalty to Stalin, and everyone starts applauding. Bear in mind, now, Stalin is not actually present. The applause goes on for three minutes, four, five – the elderly present are starting to collapse. Six minutes, seven pass, people are starting to look around in faint hope that someone else will stop this insanity. Ten minutes and they will go on clapping until they collapse. Eleven minutes pass and finally a factory manager stops applauding and sits down with a businesslike look. Everybody else sits down with surreptitious sighs of relief. That night the factory manager is arrested by the NKVD on some spurious charge and without further ado is tried and given a sentence of ten years in the Gulag. The records of the trial show that he is told “and in future never be the first to stop clapping”.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    Oh man. GMA just showed one of Trump’s advisors saying people should pray to avoid the flu. Apparently, doctors are worried that it won’t work as well as the vaccine.

  59. 59.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @NorthLeft12: You should see what’s going on in one of our local school districts. One of the teachers(also a city councilman) said in class that “the best folk don’t join the military”(it may have been the Marines specifically). They’re trying to get him fired.

    The one thing that really bothers me is saying the President is the nation’s Commander in Chief, the news folk do this all the time. He’s the military’s CiC, I’m not in the military, he ain’t mine.

  60. 60.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    What would be nice would be to take the money Trump wants to spend on that parade, as well as the money it will take to repair streets damaged by the tanks, etc., and put it all into vets’ healthcare. This is something Schumer and Pelosi should get really noisy about as soon as possible.

  69. 69.

    opiejeanne

    @dianne: Benny Hill was my companion as II walked the floor with our middle child or rocked her to sleep. I always had it on then and it usually took the entire show to get her asleep so that her eyes didn’t fly open the second we laid her in her crib. She was Wide Awake Baby! The strains of Yakkety Sax were heard each night by that baby, which may explain a few things about her now that she’s 38.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @danielx: Also the UK: First modern Britons had ‘dark to black’ skin, Cheddar Man DNA analysis reveals

    The first modern Britons, who lived about 10,000 years ago, had “dark to black” skin, a groundbreaking DNA analysis of Britain’s oldest complete skeleton has revealed.

    The fossil, known as Cheddar Man, was unearthed more than a century ago in Gough’s Cave in Somerset. Intense speculation has built up around Cheddar Man’s origins and appearance because he lived shortly after the first settlers crossed from continental Europe to Britain at the end of the last ice age. People of white British ancestry alive today are descendants of this population.

    It was initially assumed that Cheddar Man had pale skin and fair hair, but his DNA paints a different picture, strongly suggesting he had blue eyes, a very dark brown to black complexion and dark curly hair. The discovery shows that the genes for lighter skin became widespread in European populations far later than originally thought – and that skin colour was not always a proxy for geographic origin in the way it is often seen to be today.

  72. 72.

    Patricia Kayden

    @raven: She’s allowed to talk? Yesterday, Joe practically had a nervous breakdown when one of his guests asked him politely to let Mika make her point. But she tolerates his interruptions so I guess it’s all good.

  75. 75.

    James E Powell

    @Betty Cracker:

    Andrew Bacevich has written & spoken about this and the dangers it creates. But like everything else he’s written it doesn’t enter the public discussion.

  76. 76.

    germy

    Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon once again avoided testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, forcing the panel to give him another week to comply with a subpoena to appear.

    A source told CNN Monday that Bannon knew prior to Tuesday’s deadline that he would not be showing up to give testimony because the White House and the committee have not reached an agreement on the scope of the questioning. The committee confirmed Tuesday that Bannon would be given another week to comply with the subpoena.

    Emily Hytha, spokeswoman for Rep. Mike Conaway, the Texas Republican running the committee’s Russia probe, said in a statement: “The House Intelligence Committee’s interview with Stephen Bannon has been postponed at the Committee’s initiative until next week. We look forward to having him before the Committee once we can assure that he will be able to thoroughly answer all our questions without concerns regarding the scope of executive privilege.”

    That stonewalling has caused the committee to delay his appearance twice.

    Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking committee member, released a statement in which he called Bannon’s failure to testify “unacceptable.”

  77. 77.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Betty Cracker:

    If they are willing to serve as props, my inclination is to defund them – salaries, benefits and equipment, as they’re not currently doing shit for me.

  83. 83.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Heh:

    Josh Hawley, the Missouri attorney general and rising Republican star who appeared to have a clear path to the party’s U.S. Senate nomination this year, is now facing vague but widespread rumors of buyer’s remorse in the party. One of Hawley’s top supporters, former U.S. Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, hinted Tuesday that he believes those rumors might stem from incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. — who has shown in the past a talent for scrambling the home turf of her enemies. Danforth offered no evidence implicating McCaskill, and her office is strongly denying any role.

    The concerns about Hawley’s campaign, conveyed in part by anonymous sources on national political websites, focus on his fundraising, which is solid by most standards but hasn’t kept up with McCaskill’s financial juggernaut. There is also the fact that she has been stumping all over Missouri while he has mostly remained on the job in Jefferson City. His recent comments blaming sex trafficking on the sexual revolution of 50 years ago got unwanted national attention and have added to the sense of a campaign adrift.
    ……
    McCaskill is considered one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats in the country this year, with roughly even approval-disapproval marks in a state that went to Republican Donald Trump by about 20 percentage points in 2016. Trump has endorsed Hawley.

    In an interview with the Post-Dispatch, Danforth, the retired senator and party elder, suggested that McCaskill might have had a role in the whispers of party frustration with Hawley on national political sites. “I don’t want to peddle conspiracy theories … (but) who would have an interest in putting that rumor out there?” said Danforth, who helped clear the Republican field for Hawley and expressed continued support for him Tuesday. Danforth didn’t outright allege a McCaskill role in the stories, but said: “Sen. McCaskill is a very shrewd operator. Witness her engineering the (Todd) Akin nomination. … She doesn’t miss a trick.”

    Akin was the St. Louis-area congressman who emerged from a brutal GOP Senate primary in 2012 to challenge McCaskill, only to stumble with his comments claiming that “legitimate rape” doesn’t cause pregnancy. McCaskill later admitted — boasted, really — of how her campaign spent major money and effort to help Akin win the GOP nomination over other Republicans, believing he would be easiest to beat in the general election. After Akin’s “legitimate rape” flub, as Republicans nationally were trying to get him off the ballot, McCaskill publicly defended his right to keep running. She ended up beating him by more than 15 percentage points.

    You go Claire, beat him like a rented mule.

  84. 84.

    aimai

    @Baud: That article was so bizarre, and accompanied with so many Ads for genetic testing, that I made up my mind it was a paid advertisement. But some of the stories–like the story of the children who never met their mother but when she was “dying…in a darkened room” in order to prevent them from seeing that she was black, will haunt me for the rest of my life. ITs like a Melville story–I guess I mean like some nineteenth century story.

  85. 85.

    Another Scott

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: The Propecia isn’t working that great, huh.

    Side effects:

    Runny nose

    [ Hmm…. ]

    […]

    Finasteride may cause a decrease in PSA levels in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia as well as in patients with prostate cancer. In one study, mean PSA reductions of 50% were noted, regardless of baseline levels. There was no indication that PSA levels were further suppressed in patients with prostate cancer.

    PSA levels are commonly used in the screening process for prostate cancer. Patients who develop sustained increases in PSA while on finasteride (the active ingredient contained in Propecia) therapy should be carefully evaluated for medical causes as well as noncompliance.

    Vox:

    Trump’s PSA is very low, meaning he has no prostate troubles.

    Hmm….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  86. 86.

    ThresherK

    @debbie: Hah. As someone who is very tired of South Park, and heard that Cartman was created by Parker and Stone to have a character hurl insults like Archie Bunker did (without being a 50 year old WWII vet confused by the world changing around him), I’ll go with your comparison every time.

  92. 92.

    Bobby Thomson

    OT but I’m having a hard time placing lyrics and teh Googol is no help.

    I think it’s a musical, maybe Oliver! or My Fair Lady. Someone with a thick cockney accent follows up a reference to the Golden Rule with “What do you take me for, a fool?”

  93. 93.

    ThresherK

    @OzarkHillbilly: Rising Republican star s thrown around very casually in the last twenty years, isn’t it?

    Oh, and us gingers prefercbeat him like a red-headed rented step-mule.

  94. 94.

    Betty Cracker

    @James E Powell: I wouldn’t say his contributions are completely shut out of public discussion — I’ve read several Bacevich essays in high-profile publications and agree with much of what he’s said. It’s true his recommendations are mostly unheeded by folks in power.

    I did think his critique of Obama’s surge strategy in Afghanistan was off-base, and I’m not someone who thinks PBO is above criticism! I disagreed with the surge strategy too, but Bacevich attributed Obama’s support to cynicism and GWB’s reckless rush to war to idealism. Off. Base. But definitely worth reading!

  95. 95.

    germy

    So Democrats flipped another seat in a special election yesterday in Missouri? Balloon-juice is the first place I heard about it.

  99. 99.

    Lapassionara

    @Betty Cracker: well said, BC!

    Good morning, everyone. Yeah, MO Dems. The swing in one district was 51 points, but alas, not enough to gain a seat, as the district went to Trump by 53 points.

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @germy:

    I know I’m a broken record but Democrats should control more states. Their signature issues are most easily sold at the state level, with one huge exception- immigration. You could work for 20 years at the federal level and NEVER get a law barring felon disenfranchisement, but you can get it on the ballot in a state like Florida, where it will have huge impact. The same is true of minimum wage and crim justice reform.

    We have to think about this differently- instead of federal law impacting states look at it the other way- if more people can vote in Florida the federal will take care of itself in the next Prez election. It’s really fertile ground for Democrats.

  102. 102.

    retiredeng

    @Baud: We should give Trump the parade he deserves. A 2 million voter’s march down Pennsylvania Avenue with torches and pitchforks.

  104. 104.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I really don’t know. Grietens is hiding from the press (again) hoping it all just goes away. With our electorate, who knows? My reading of the piece left me feeling Repubs are getting nervous, they think Claire should be DOA, but they thought that in 2012 when Akin went all “legitimate rape” on them. Hawley’s “sex trafficking is caused by the sexual revolution” comment is a little too reminiscent for them. Former Gov. Kit Bond (not to be confused with current Gov. Bondage Kit) thinks Hawley needs to get with the program. Others are pushing Wagner to rethink her decision to stay out of the race.

    I suspect in the end it is just much ado about nothing. Hawley will get the nomination.

  105. 105.

    NotMax

    @Bobby Thomson

    Mayhaps you’re thinking of this bit from “Why Can’t the English?” in My Fair Lady?

    Higgins: Hear them down in Soho square
    Dropping “h’s” everywhere
    Speaking English anyway they like
    You sir, did you go to school?
    Man: Wadaya tike me for, a fool?
    Higgins: No one taught him ‘take’ instead of ‘tike!’

  106. 106.

    Kay

    My daughter says first Pittsburgh emergency rooms git hit with the flu. Now they’re getting hit with hundreds of people who think they have the flu but don’t. But since they’re sitting in the emergency room for 4 hours among people who DO have the flu many of them WILL have the flu :)

  109. 109.

    germy

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Nobody’s ever heard of Benny Hill but our family

    Not true.

    When most people think of Benny Hill, they think of him running around being chased by ladies, to the tune of Yakety Sax.

    But there’s one bit he did that for some reason I found more strange and funny than anything else he did: A weird monologue (I think he was parodying something but I have no idea what) about a man who sees his “Maw” standing on train tracks, frozen and transfixed by the light of an oncoming train. The monologue builds in drama, with the man yelling “move, Mama, move!!”

    And the anticlimax ending. “She moved.”

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I just remember Ohio in ’06. There was a national wave but the Ohio wave was really about the state-level corruption among Republicans. One huge scandal sort of morphed into general disgust with the incumbents.

    Claire is amazingly good at politics. She has been declared dead so many times and there’s always some miraculous turn of events and she stays in. If there’s ANYONE who can take advantage of GOP fatigue at the state level it’s her.

  112. 112.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Bobby Thomson:

    It’s from the opening number in My Fair Lady, “Why can’t the English?”

    HIGGINS: Hear them down in Soho Square,
    Dropping “h’s” everywhere.
    Speaking English any way they like.
    You sir, did you go to school?
    MAN: Whaddya tike me for, a fool?
    HIGGINS: No one taught him ‘take’ instead of ‘tike’!

    ETA: Curse you, NotMax!

  113. 113.

    germy

    @Kay: My wife and I both had the flu last month. Knocked us both right out. But when my wife went to urgent care they gave her the quick (swab up the nose) flu test and told her it WASN’T the flu.

    She believed them until a few days ago when we saw a TV news segment about the quick test being only about 30-50% accurate.

  114. 114.

    Isua

    @Bobby Thompson. “But no one taught him ‘take’ instead of ‘tike’!” Is that the next line? That’s “Why Can’t the English Teach Their Children How To Speak.”

    Edit – and several folks got there while I was typing. :)

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @germy:

    This is mostly panicky parents. It’s a peds emergency room. They don’t know how to take temp or they think 98 is a fever, she can’t figure out which.

    Hospitals are bad places for slightly sick people, generally, because there are other really sick people there- it’s a real conundrum.

  123. 123.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Claire is good, very good, but is she trump trump good? I have not seen much in the way of GOP fatigue and corruption is a way of life in Jeff City. State politics here have gotten so bad I am actually depressed by them, tho that might be more the locale I live in then a statewide reality.

  124. 124.

    oldgold

    Seventy-six Abrams led the big parade
    With a hundred and ten drones flying close behind
    They were followed by rows and rows of the finest torpedoes
    Cadet Bone Spurs was clapping out of his mind

  125. 125.

    ArchTeryx

    @Baud: I’m old enough to remember when Misery was a purple state and how every President since forever carried the state.

  126. 126.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Hospitals are full of people dying of incurable diseases and should be avoided as much as possible.

  128. 128.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Misery actually was very much a purple state almost going for Obama in ’08 (it took weeks to get a final tally and McCain barely won) but then Obama did that governing with competence thing and Tea became the unofficial state drink. There has always been more than a little blatant racism in the hills and hollers but the amount of latent racism everywhere else was truly disheartening and surpassed only by the misogyny displayed in ’16..

  135. 135.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    If they pass that Felon Re-enfranchisement Referendum, that will change damn near EVERYTHING in Florida.

    And, kudos to you, Kay. You, indeed, have been beating this drum. And, you have been right all along.

  136. 136.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @oldgold:

    I’m warming to the idea of the parade – the images of asshole on the review stand looking like Mussolini would tend to shatter to last vestiges of respectability that US white Christian conservatives claim in other areas of the world as to supporting democratic norms. Would also be terror recruiting bonanza, particularly domestically and among DACA deportees.

  140. 140.

    Kay

    @ArchTeryx:

    Me too. Missouri went red but on the flip side Virginia got bluer. As long as you can replace these states it works out- after Trump’s election people were angry and saying whites in the midwest weren’t worth bothering with, which would be fine if they had 3,4 states to replace with, but they don’t.

  144. 144.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I just got up, and now you are obviously trying to get me to go back to bad and pull the covers up over my face. Thanks, Baud.

  145. 145.

    chris

    @dianne:80s into the 90s I worked in bars and restaurants and kept vampire hours. At two in the morning the choices were Baywatch, Benny Hill and Dave Allen. Allen was my favourite (May your god go with you.) but Benny always made me giggle.

  147. 147.

    germy

    My neighborhood movie theater is doing this:

    OPENING NIGHT FAN EVENT – BLACK PANTHER

    On Thursday February 15, Black Panther fans can be among the first to experience the new Marvel Studios film in RealD 3D at Opening Night Fan Events. In addition to watching the film one hour early, fans attending will see exclusive content, receive a collectible coin, and be given a special event only concessions offer.

  149. 149.

    Ruckus

    Remarkable, then, for the president to talk of “treason

    Not remarkable at all for this president.
    President Dumbledoor.

  152. 152.

    Kay

    @Ruckus:

    Trump is the perfect example of conservatives accusing others of the exact thing they feel vulnerable on- “treason” doesn’t come out of thin air- that word has been applied to Trump.

    It’s remarkable. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve known it forever, too. Newt Gingrich was guilty of all the things he accused Democrats of- a perfect match.

  154. 154.

    J R in WV

    @dianne:

    Nobody’s ever heard of Benny Hill but our family, thanks to a small TV market that ran reruns after school. My kids were fans and loved the big galoot.

    You are quite incorrect about Benny Hill. I live way out in the country, in a rural county with but one newly installed stop light at the interchange with the new 4-lane that cuts across one tiny corner of the county.

    Years ago back when there was a neighborhood bar at the top of the hill, I decided to go up there to watch Monday Night Football, because we didn’t even get broadcast TV signals in our narrow hollow. So I walked into the little bar, which was in a manufactured building, a double wide, and everyone was watching Benny Hill on a UHF public TV signal.

    I ordered a beer, and respectfully asked “would anyone be interested in watching the football game?” While it was far from unanimous, there was general agreement that it would be OK to go there when the current episode of Benny Hill was over.

    Bar is long gone 20 years ago or more… not enough solid drinkers willing to pay the extra cost to drink together.

  155. 155.

    Kay

    @Ruckus:

    All the stuff about Trump not being a “real” conservative is bullshit too. Yes, he is. He’s a REALLY good fit for that base, temperamentally, in terms of behavior and signaling, and that’s all they really give a shit about anyway- they could care less about “policy”.

    Yesterday Ivanka was planting shit in the political news about how they want a “killer”- so fucking perfect for the Party of Bullies and Loudmouths.

  157. 157.

    zhena gogolia

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Yeah, it’s bad. The hilarious thing is that if he just were an old man with a shiny pink bald head, nobody would think anything of it. The idea that he’s fooling people into thinking he’s 40 is just painfully funny.

  159. 159.

    rikyrah

    Oklahoma now has 91 school districts that can only afford to open schools four days per week; drunk drivers in the state can keep their licenses bc there are no bureaucrats to take them away. Remind me about the SW/Sun Belt growth model everyone’s touting? https://t.co/gQofRvZlcn

    — Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) February 6, 2018

  160. 160.

    Kay

    @zhena gogolia:

    I sort of disagree. Trump knows one of the reasons he is famous is he looked the part. You know how they say Newt Gingrich is a dumb person’s impression of what smart people sound like? Trump is like that for “success”.

    An old man with a shiny pink bald head wouldn’t have had a reality tv show where he’s the boss.

  163. 163.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Oklahoma public schools are really in crisis. A smart Right-leaning Democrat could win in that state on public education.

    It’s fertile ground state level. The people who value public education VOTE. Tell them you’ll open their schools back up. This is an absolute gimmee.

    Republicans know it too. Scott Walker spent his entire terms attacking public education. He has done a complete 180. Now he’s Mr. Public Schools. They know it’s a vulnerability.

  165. 165.

    rikyrah

    uh huh
    uh huh

    A new media startup that billed itself as a “radical,” “grassroots” collective has admitted to being a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian government following an exposé by The Daily Beast. https://t.co/zTdx7W6XcS

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 7, 2018

  169. 169.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    He is a ridiculous mean little man and the hair is emblematic of his phony self.

    The Anglican Church defines a sacrament as “An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” Trump’s “hair” is the inverse of that: An outward and visible sign of an inward and terrified emptiness.

  170. 170.

    Immanentize

    @Another Scott: Ha! I was speaking meta-furickly and Mara liasson is their spawn.

    Of course S. Roberts is how Cookie got into the whole political thing with being in the Boggs household. The Boggs curse, I call it.

  174. 174.

    rikyrah

    Someone needs to follow the money, cause somebody’s GETTING PAID!!

    The Department of State is mandating enormous fee increases to a new accrediting entity beginning February 15, 2018 for agencies working internationally.

    The newly-appointed accrediting entity does not have contracts, policies, or procedures, and has provided those agencies with no services. The costs of international adoptions for each family will increase by thousands of dollars beginning almost immediately. The DOS is charging an additional $500 per international adoption pursuit, even if the adoption is unsuccessful. Agency monitoring fees stand to increase by approximately 4,000% – an outrageous amount that does not include accreditation expenses or account for the additional staffing that will be required to meet their added demands.

  175. 175.

    WaterGirl

    So I just read on Steve Benen that the Dems plan to separate the funding fight from immigration. Please tell me I am not understanding that correctly or that there is some strategy to this. I thought we deliberately tied Dreamers to the Feb 8 and we weren’t going to do a CR if we didn’t get that. Seems to me that we have a plan to completely give up our leverage and leave the Dreamers hanging. What am I missing? Or, sadly, am I not missing anything?

  176. 176.

    rikyrah

    A retired Army general just gave an epic response to Trump’s military parade demand
    By Peter Mellado
    Published on February 6, 2018

    American sensibilities were rocked Tuesday when the New York Times reported that White House and Pentagon officials had been ordered to plan “a grand military parade” for President Trump. Two sources told The Times that Trump met with top generals last month at the Pentagon, where they began to draw up the plans.

    snip//

    After reading the New York Times report, retired Army Major General Paul D. Eaton released a scathing statement on VoteVets.org, and he didn’t mince words.

    “Donald Trump has continually shown himself to have authoritarian tendencies, and this is just another worrisome example,” his barrage opens. He was just getting warmed up.

    “For someone who just declared it was ‘treasonous’ to not applaud him, and for someone who has, in the past, admired tactics of everyone from Saddam Hussein to Vladimir Putin, it is clear that a military parade isn’t about saluting the military – it’s about making a display of the military saluting him.”

    “The military is not Donald Trump’s to use and abuse in this way,” Eaton’s statement continues. “Our military is the very best in the world – they are not the be reduced to stagecraft to prop up Donald Trump’s image.”

    “Any commander in chief who respects the traditions of the military would understand that. Unfortunately, we do not have a commander in chief, right now, as much as we have a wannabe banana republic strongman.”

  178. 178.

    rikyrah

    After Comey was fired Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed the rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in him. Now texts show it was just another lie from the White House as the entire FBI was devastated and Comey was beloved by all. https://t.co/EfsPI1XNim

    — James Gunn (@JamesGunn) February 5, 2018

  179. 179.

    rikyrah

    Dear @UNLincoln,

    You are aware that Dan Kleve, one of your students, is a violent white supremacist. In this video he openly says he wants more violence and is waiting for the right opportunity to strike.

    Your students want to know why you are so strongly protecting him. pic.twitter.com/JmnQWQCDpP

    — Shaun King (@ShaunKing) February 6, 2018

  180. 180.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah:

    “Any commander in chief who respects the traditions of the military would understand that. Unfortunately, we do not have a commander in chief, right now, as much as we have a wannabe banana republic strongman.”

    I hope this guy is not too old for me because I really want to marry him for saying that. If the whole marriage thing doesn’t work out, then let me just extend profound thanks for saying this out loud.

  182. 182.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @ chrislhayes
    Every single last thing GOP said about deficits/debt and austerity under Obama was obviously bad faith AT THE TIME. But for those who pretended not to see that, well….

    @ MikeGrunwald
    This was a big theme of The New New Deal and I’m remembering an influential former colleague who thought it made me unfit to cover politics.

    Grunwald was at Time when he published that book. I’d bet all my quatloos that said “influential former colleague” was Beltway “liberal” Joe Klein. I haven’t seen his name in a while. I hope he’s faded into deserved obscurity

  183. 183.

    SFAW

    @rikyrah:

    “Any commander in chief who respects the traditions of the military would understand that. Unfortunately, we do not have a commander in chief, right now, as much as we have a wannabe banana republic strongman.”

    Hitlary would be worse

  184. 184.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: The Dems explicitly accepted no more shutdowns over DACA when they accepted McConnell’s previous CR. McConnell said he would only allow an immigration bill to come up if the government stayed open.

    Of course, Donnie is now saying he wants a shutdown unless he gets his 4-point immigration bill (which won’t be considered until after the new CR starts), so …

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  186. 186.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:
    They don’t think about policy because they can’t think about policy. They are 4 yr olds with a vocabulary and personalities to match. They know what they know and that ain’t much. Knowledge is hard, slogans and shouting is easy.

  187. 187.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: Oh my god. Dan Kleve is disgusting and so is the administration who is protecting him. I would be afraid to be a student at that University, not to mention how terrifying ti would be for anyone who is not whiter than white. Thanks for posting this.

  189. 189.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: I would swear that what everyone was saying here at BJ is that we came out well from the last deal because the Republicans had promised that they would address DACA before Feb 8 or we could allow a shutdown then.

  190. 190.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @germy:
    The national press is doing a great job making it look like a huge electoral wave isn’t happening. To my relief, this is having no effect on the wave. It keeps going. Liberals, especially women and minorities, are PISSED.

  192. 192.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: Lots of people tried half-heartedly to spin it that way, and getting SCHIP funding was a big win, but McConnell was clear. But maybe there’s more leverage now in the House.

    RollCall is pushing the drama:

    The House Republicans’ day of reckoning is almost here.

    As early as Wednesday, the four corners of congressional leadership are expected to announce a sweeping budget deal that could increase the sequestration spending caps by nearly $300 billion over two years, extend the debt ceiling without any spending changes designed to reduce the deficit, and appropriate more than $80 billion for disaster relief without pay-fors.

    While those rough parameters were all but certain, according to Republican and Democratic sources, as of late Tuesday leaders had yet to sign off on the deal. The negotiations were so fluid that House Democrats decided to move their retreat, scheduled for Wednesday through Friday in Cambridge, Maryland, to the Capitol complex.

    The deal will set up a battle between House conservatives and GOP leadership that has long been inevitable. There will be moaning and groaning about the bipartisan agreement and a sizable number of House Republicans — likely somewhere between one third to one half of the 238-member GOP conference — could vote no.

    This is not a new scenario. Past budget deals have been hammered out in a similar fashion. But it is the first such deal brokered with Speaker Paul D. Ryan fighting on behalf of the House Republicans in the four-corner negotiations.

    […]

    Meadows predicated that about 90 Republicans would vote against such a budget caps deal. If leaders throw in a debt ceiling extension, the defectors could reach around 100, the North Carolina Republican said.

    […]

    House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is facing mass pressure from her caucus to hold firm on ensuring immigration is part of any sweeping budget deal.

    For months, House Democrats have withheld support for stopgap spending bills in search of a broader budget agreement on lifting the sequestration spending caps and providing a legislative replacement to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program that is scheduled to end March 5.

    They even held firm against a Feb. 8 continuing resolution that reopened the government after a three-day shutdown last month. Many of their Senate counterparts relented to supporting that measure after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell committed to holding an open floor debate on immigration, starting the week of Feb. 12 so long as the government remains open.

    With the Senate looking to attach a budget caps deal to the spending bill needed to keep the government open past Thursday, the leverage House Democrats have needed to secure an immigration commitment in their chamber may finally be here and they’re ready to play their Trump card.

    “The budget caps are our leverage,” House Minority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said Tuesday, noting Democrats want Ryan to commit to a floor debate on immigration like McConnell did.

    […]

    We’ll see what happens…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  193. 193.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    It’s hard to defend Comey though because he did a bad job. They might have liked him but all his anguish over how to handle Hillary was to me just the wrong question, and indicates a real inflated sense of his role.

    It was OUT OF BOUNDS to act as he did. When my husband saw the press conference with Comey expounding on Clinton he said “WTF is he DOING?”

    Comey made a problem and then made it worse. There was no need for anguish. What do you do in a situation like that? Easy. You follow THE RULES. You don’t turn it into your own personal moral dilemma. It’s EGO. This was NOT about Comey and his supposedly sterling reputation. He should NOT have been central to this story.

    Comey had one fucking job- say there are no charges coming and get off the stage. All of Comey’s angst and handwringing? Comey created that.

  194. 194.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    That sanctimony and intense pride Comey has in his own integrity? That made him bad at his job. We would have been better off with a competent practitioner. Instead we got a fucking blurry, conflicted moralist who imagines he’s saving the world.

    It’s a kind of vanity and it’s a real occupational hazard for prosecutors. They can’t indulge in it.

  196. 196.

    rikyrah

    Emil Jones: Pritzker showed ‘true colors,’ should withdraw from governor’s race

    CHICAGO NEWS 02/07/2018, 12:55am

    Former Senate President Emil Jones not only doesn’t accept J.B. Pritzker’s apology, he says the billionaire has shown “what he really thinks about black folks” and should withdraw from the governor’s race.

    Pritzker showed his “true colors” when he told Rod Blagojevich in a secretly recorded conversation that Jones was too “crass” to fill Barack Obama’s Senate seat, Jones said Tuesday.

    “He’s been running around the black community talking about all the things he’s gonna do. Blah, blah, blah. … He’s trying to buy the black vote. He’s like a one-eyed jack. But, those tapes show you the other side of his face. This is what he really thinks about black folks,” said Jones, who has endorsed Chris Kennedy for governor.

    “What he meant by ‘crass’ is that I’m an uppity black. I fight for my people and, sometimes, that ruffles feathers. What he was saying in comparing me to Jesse White is that Jesse White is a safe black. Jesse White is not gonna do what Emil Jones does. Dr. King was a crass black. Harold Washington was a crass black. It was said in a derogatory manner.”

    Jones said he doesn’t accept Pritzker’s apology — and neither should African-American voters.

    “Look at the other side of his face. The other side of his face is that he does not accept strong black leadership. He likes acceptable blacks who are meek and won’t say anything,” Jones said.

  197. 197.

    eric

    @Kay: I think Comey knew of the rogue actors in the NY FBI and their willingness and ability to use the Right Wing Noise Machine to go after Comey if he did not do “something” regarding Hillary. He was protecting himself first and foremost, knowing that blowback from Hillary and the dems would not hurt him at all in the DC world (he was very right). In the end, he won. He may have lost his job, but he is admired in the DC world, while getting revenge on Trump for firing him. The only thing he got wrong was Trump actually winning, but he was far from alone on that.

  198. 198.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: broken clocks and all that, trump was not wrong when he called Comey a showboat

    ETA: @eric: Yup. the texts and emails I’d like to see are the ones between those agents, Giuliani’s cronies and Chaffetz and his staff. Also Eric Lichtblau and the other NYT reporter who wrote that “No FBI investigation of trump” story

  199. 199.

    Kay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    This idea he had that this was somehow all on him. What a fucking ego. That’s WHY they have the rules to fall back on. All he had to do was act within the letter of the rules and he would have been fine.

    You know I watched his testimony and it’s not true that he hated being in the position. He LOVED being in that position.

    “The fate of the Republic is on your shoulders, sir!” OMFG, how about you just be COMPETENT? Start there. That’s hard enough. Why does he care what the GOP in Congress think about him? Who gives a shit? Is that was this is about? Comey’s reputation?

  200. 200.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Another Scott:
    All I know for sure is that I’ve been reading ‘Democrats are about to cave and betray their base’ stories for the past ten years. Remember when Obama was about to cut Social Security? Presumably some of them must be true, but you’re a lot better off ignoring them and waiting for the results. We won the last round, period. We came out of it in a better position than we were then. So the question is whether we’ll win this round.

    EDIT – @Kay:
    It’s very easy to convince yourself that bashing someone is doing the right thing when you personally hate that person.

  201. 201.

    tobie

    @WaterGirl: I remember that during the last shutdown fight what Schumer extracted from McConnell was a promise to bring up immigration after Feb 8. That basically killed any leverage the Dems had going into this shutdown fight. I defend the party leadership a lot in the face of what I feel are unfair attacks but on the timing here they really screwed up.

  203. 203.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The Tweets now! Now we’re treated to his wise sayings- he seems to think he’s George Washington now.

    He talks too much. He created that problem and at every single fork in the road he made it worse. He shows poor judgment.

  204. 204.

    Fair Economist

    @WaterGirl: We don’t have any leverage on a shutdown. The Republicans will just let it drag on forever (remember they *want* to cut most of the programs that will be shut down), start deporting Dreamers anyway, and the media will blame it all on the Democrats. There’s no benefit in making 40 million people go hungry to fail to protect the Dreamers (remember they’ll still be getting deported).

    Schumer is counting on the fact that the Senate is actually very favorable for a immigration deal. Apparently 40 Senators, on both sides, are participating, and McConnell has let immigration reform through in the pass. Once it’s through it’s a matter of getting the House to do it, which is a hard lift, but which won’t be helped by a shutdown.

  205. 205.

    J R in WV

    I have to say I’m personally disappointed about DACA not being addressed prior to any action further funding the government. But the leaders of our Democratic party in the House and Senate are professional, and may be convinced that getting a vote on DACA after the budget bill passes will do for the Dreamers and for the Democratic Party what needs to be done.

    If the bill passes, well done. If it doesn’t, it will be the Republican Party’s fault, with no one else to blame. Harsh for the Dreamers, but if it hastens the fall of the Republican Party and its control over our government, maybe that’s the best outcome.

    Post Republican rule, the Department of State can be ordered to locate Dreamers and repatriate them to their home, here in America, with Green Cards and a scheduled path to permanent citizenship with no hidden gotcha rules the Republicans would want to install in any DACA policy they would approve. Think of the Executive Order Trump would issue to implement a Dreamer Path to Citizenship regardless of the actual bill passed into law!!!

    I have to have faith in our leadership or I would go crazier than I already am …

  207. 207.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Major Major Major Major: But the outrage machinery just doesn’t do it for me any more.

    I feel the same way. The only real leverage we have is the midterms, and I’m seeing a lot of twitter outrage about being done with Dems if they don’t find the One Weird Trick! that gets the party that actually controls the government to vote the way we want them to

  209. 209.

    tobie

    This is off topic but I was wondering if anyone else noticed that all the people sitting behind Trump in that Ohio speech/rally were white males–and with one or two exceptions middle-aged white. Does the factory where he was speaking not employ any women or people of color? Or did the few women and people of color at the rally site hesitate to be used as props for the Narcissist-in-Chief? We know he has the male, redneck demographic all tied up, and that that group thinks they are all America is, but c’mon, can’t one media representative point out how much larger America is than this?

  210. 210.

    eric

    @Kay: it was “us,” just that, in his mind, he was what was best for us. that is the story behind so many prideful people. To us it looks selfish and vain, to them it is selfless and generous because they are the instruments of our collective righteous salvation.

  211. 211.

    Dave

    @Kay: That’s exactly my problem with Comey. His only honest man schtick is self-serving and self-deluding. He deserved to be fired just not by Trump. That said if this makes it more difficult to suborn the FBI to the Trump for lack of a better term agenda than all to the better.

  212. 212.

    MomSense

    @J R in WV:

    I have to have faith in our leadership or I would go crazier than I already am …

    I’m trying to do this as well since they really have performed far better than I expected. I found the polling on DACA pretty discouraging. Yes, if you combine the percentage of people who blame trump with blame for GOP in Congress it is more than the percentage who blame Dems. However, the percentage of people who blame Dems is the highest at 39%. The polling is really discouraging about whether people feel DACA is worth shutting down the government. Overwhelmingly the choice is keep government open.

    It would probably help if our media covered this issue fairly but that is never going to happen. All I can do is continue to call and fax my congress critters.

  213. 213.

    Kay

    @Dave:

    I will never, ever understand why “the American people” needed to know Clinton was under investigation but they didn’t need to Trump was.

    Come on. That’s just bullshit. There were two candidates! They promoted the investigation into one and actively hid the investigation into the other.

  214. 214.

    Kay

    @eric:

    After September 11th I knew were doomed watching the Bush people march around with all that preening self-importance- they were part of History!

    I thought “oh, fuck. Crusaders“. You could see them replaying WWII movies in their heads. The striding. The firm resolve. Ugh. I wanted like a quiet beureacrat.

  215. 215.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    It was always bullshit. Comey assumed Clinton would win. He was trying to protect FBI funding from a vengeful GOP Congress who would certainly spend years on political theater with lots of show hearings about the FBI and all manner of trumped up Clinton scandals.

    So the press conference and the letter were intended to prevent accusations of treating Clinton too well after she took office.

    But the NYT story never made sense and I don’t think it came from Comey. I think it came from the fucking rogue New York office. They were also feeding Ghouliani info before making it public.

    I’ll never get over it.

  216. 216.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’m seeing a lot of twitter outrage about being done with Dems

    Fortunately that twitter outrage, like the endless stories about how the Democratic Base is unmotivated in the news, have had exactly jack shit effect on the unprecedented election swings we’ve seen over the last year. If anything, the resistance seems to be getting stronger and more determined.

  217. 217.

    Miss Bianca

    @Baud: Ha ha HA ha

    White supremacists gonna have to discriminate against THEMSELVES now.

    I was going to say “hate themselves now”, except I’m pretty sure that’s already the case.

  218. 218.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MomSense: He was trying to protect FBI funding from a vengeful GOP Congress who would certainly spend years on political theater with lots of show hearings

    Not just FBI funding. As somebody pointed out in the aftermath, he would have had to pay for his own lawyers for those hearings, that the poisonous little weasel Chaffetz would have drawn out to make Benghazi look fast and efficient.

    I think it came from the fucking rogue New York office. They were also feeding Ghouliani info before making it public.

    I believe it down to my bones, and will/would not be surprised to find out Russian mob money has been feeding Rudi, too.

  219. 219.

    But her emails!!!

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I feel the same way. The only real leverage we have is the midterms, and I’m seeing a lot of twitter outrage about being done with Dems if they don’t find the One Weird Trick! that gets the party that actually controls the government to vote the way we want them to

    One would think that people could at least try to vote Democrats back into power so they could actually do something, before giving up on them.

  220. 220.

    Gelfling 545

    @rikyrah: Looking forward to it but I will probably wait until the majority of the early rush subsides. I expect the crowds will be massive and I don’t do well in crowds. The review in Rolling Stone says it’s pretty much superb in every way.

  221. 221.

    Stan

    @Betty Cracker:

    I find all this genuflecting to “the troops” deeply unsettling, as does my USAF veteran hubby.

    This is the flip side of almost 40 years of an all-volunteer military force that is small (relative to our population). And I say that as one who served (peacetime only, and briefly) and who has dozens of family members who served in peace and war. I grew up surrounded by veterans, mostly from WW2.

    Military service is completely remote to most Americans. Most have never served and don’t know anyone who has. So at the same time that they have no idea what’s involved in service, the better-hearted folks respect service members ….but as this weird “out-of-the-ordinary” “you are different from us” type of thing.

    From a military point of view we absolutely do not need to draft people, but from a cultural/political point of view, I wish we would. I am convinced you’d see less extremism and less divisiveness if a significant percentage of the population had been forced to live together in barracks with people from different backgrounds and had to depend on each other for everything.

  222. 222.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    We shouldn’t get over it. No one has ever explained it. They don’t even bother to try.

    It’s not like it’s stopped, either. They went fucking insane covering the Nunes memo. They’re still doing this. They’re still letting the GOP lead them around.

  223. 223.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    Meanwhile the Russian security chiefs were all here meeting with Pompeo. No one has fucking explained that either.

  224. 224.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: somebody on our side, some media bigfoot, needs to do a deep dive on how Republicans manipulate the media. Not that it will change the world, but get it out there in one place that we can all point to. There are so many direct contradictions between trump coverage and Dems’ right now. Benghazi vs the missions in Yemen and Niger; Jarvanka’s private email networks; trump using an unsecure phone; trump paying off a mistress (which also corroborates the dossier that he is blackckmail-able), but the only sex life that can be discussed politically is Bill Clinton’s 20 year old dalliance; why can’t the Clintons prove they never profited from their foundation vs the constant cheap grift of lobbyists and candidates paying for space at trump hotels…

  225. 225.

    Ksmiami

    @Ben Cisco: I am to the point where an ending for trump along the lines of Mussolini’s would be the desired outcome. Ps I used to be a nice person

  227. 227.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kay: I’m gonna join the chorus here and say you should go back to front-paging, Kay. Have found myself borrowing phrases or concepts from your posts, my latest being, more than once lately about Trumpers, “they’re just bad judges of character“, in what I imagine as my “Kay-cadence.” (Kay-dence?)

    Yay, Kay!

  229. 229.

    Miss Bianca

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    It’s very easy to convince yourself that bashing someone is doing the right thing when you personally hate that person.

    That there might be the Quotable Insight Of The Day, for me.

  231. 231.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Miss Bianca: This is true, but it also doesn’t mean that Comey still violated the rules and inserted himself into a political situation (twice!), in order to damage the opposing political party. If his justification was “I wanted to protect my agency from inevitable Republican witch hunts, so I tried to help them out in the election” it’s STILL a giant fuck you to process and his oath. And in this case, it resulted in an unstable and corrupt narcissist getting the presidency.

    This is a situation where it’s okay to hate Comey for what he did. What he did was awful in every sense of the word.

  232. 232.

    Ruckus

    @Stan:
    Not only live together, but actually learn to work as a team with people you don’t know and who don’t look like you. And you get busted for not working together. Even just standing in line is a team event.
    America has as it’s founding principals individually and that is an issue when working as a team is necessary, which it is a lot of the time. Like now, for dems.

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