Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

We still have time to mess this up!

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

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

People are complicated. Love is not.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

No one could have predicted…

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

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

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

This really is a full service blog.

The words do not have to be perfect.

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

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

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Monday Morning Open Thread: Never A Slow News Day!

Monday Morning Open Thread: Never A Slow News Day!

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Murphy the Trickster God only knows what’ll happen by start-of-business hours, so here’s a bunch of snippets before they get overwhelmed by this morning’s revelations. (And if this jinxes the streak so that there *are* no media-capturing revelations, you may thank me later.)

Possible media metaphor…

Reader Interactions

155Comments

  1. 1.

    TenguPhule

    How the hell did we go from “He can’t possibly fire Mueller” to “Holy fuck, he’s gonna fire Mueller” in a year?

  2. 2.

    Manxome Bromide

    @TenguPhule: Preparations for these rapid response protests at least have been around for some time; I think at least since Indivisible started really getting going.

    (And yeah, I’m in the camp that’s saying “even if he does make a move to fire Mueller finally, the people freaking out about it will have successfully predicted 153 of the last 1 times he did”. YMMV.)

  3. 3.

    EBT

    Putin walking away with six more years is going to cause donnie to perform a show of force, to prove he will be around in six years too. Trying to end Mueller right now would be that kind of show of force.

  4. 4.

    TenguPhule

    @Manxome Bromide: Yes, but those were plans for something so slim that it was practically impossible to happen as so many of us here convinced ourselves. Hell, I was in that camp. But now it looks like Trump is finally trying to psyche himself and his supporters up to actually do it. This is like a finding a golden BB that turns out to be fool’s gold and radioactive.

    It also makes me a lot more worried about a shooting war with Iran and North Korea, something else that wasn’t supposed to be within the realm of realistic possibility.

  8. 8.

    TenguPhule

    @NotMax: When Adam Silverman conceded that Trump firing Mueller is not just DougJ being paranoid, that’s when I started to worry.

  16. 16.

    BC in Illinois

    In St Louis, we meet just west of the Old Courthouse (Kiener Plaza).

    I’ll be the old grey-haired guy, under a cardiologist’s care, with the “Veteran” cap with a Navy anchor, holding a sign that says:

    IMPEACH
    REMOVE
    REPEAT

    I want Pence gone, too.

    ( On the cardiologist thing: at the beginning of February, as a nurse was explaining the limitations on my activities, I asked her about participating in a street protest. I don’t think she had ever been asked that question before. She considered it and said, “Not for the first week or two.” So I’m good to go, now. )

  20. 20.

    satby

    I have two rapid response protests to choose from, either here in South Bend or in Chicago. Guess it depends on where I am and how much less time I have.

  21. 21.

    satby

    I miss less frenetic news too. I miss a semblance of sanity in the national psyche as well, but that’s been gone for much longer than just the Drumpf admin. We really need a way to rein in hate media.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Another bombing in Austin?

    AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Two people were injured in another explosion in Texas’ capital Sunday night, and police are not ruling out a connection to the three previous explosions that detonated earlier this month elsewhere in the city.

    The latest blast occurred around 8:30 p.m. in a suburban neighborhood known as Travis Country in southwest Austin — far from the previous three that were all in residential areas in the eastern part of the city — and investigators didn’t immediately confirm what caused it. But police Chief Brian Manley repeated previously issued warnings for residents not to touch any unexpected packages left at their homes.

    “What we have right now is a scene where it is obvious that an explosion has taken place,” Manley said at a hastily organized news conference near the site of the latest blast.

    Manley, responding to reports that the latest explosion may have been detonated by a trip wire, said it was a possibility that the device was “activated by someone either handling, kicking or coming into contact with a trip wire that activated the device.”

  25. 25.

    bemused

    In a previous thread, someone commented just imagine if trumpco had more self-control. My sib and I were discussing the daily horrors yesterday and similarly wondered how much worse it would be if they were actually intelligent.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    @satby

    So old can remember when keeping up with the news was not constantly accompanied with the din of teeth gnashing.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @bemused:

    In a previous thread, someone commented just imagine if trumpco had more self-control

    He’d be Ted Cruz. And perhaps our voters would have taken the election more seriously. I see no point in trying to envision a hypothetical scarier Trump.

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: This article said they aren’t even going to try to ascertain the scene until daylight, so a whole lot of unknowns at this time.

  32. 32.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: A quote from the police chief in The Austin Statesman:

    Manley also briefly described the explosive device, saying there was a suspicious package left on the side of the road, and that the victims were either riding or pushing bikes when it went off.

    That does sound different from the earlier attacks.

  33. 33.

    Lapassionara

    @TenguPhule: speak for yourself. I have always thought that a war would be on Trump’s agenda. He is not a president, he is a showman. A disrupter. He thrives on chaos and instability. Why have an army if you don’t use it. Why have nukes if you don’t use them.

    Good morning, everyone.

  36. 36.

    danielx

    What new horror will the day bring….

    ETA: already brought a minor one, waking up at five because I forgot to turn the furnace back on after housecleaning yesterday afternoon….brrrr.

  39. 39.

    danielx

    @Lapassionara:

    Why have an army if you don’t use it. Why have nukes if you don’t use them.

    Sounds remarkably like the Cheney Regency, doesn’t it?

  41. 41.

    different-church-lady

    But… but but… FACEBOOK IS A COMPLETELY BENIGN, BENEVOLENT EXPERIENCE THAT HELPS ME CONNECT TO PEOPLE I WAS TOO LAZY TO REMAIN IN CONTACT WITH ON MY OWN!!!!

  42. 42.

    debbie

    @Waldo:

    I think you’re right. Jonah Goldberg believes Trump now feels comfortable enough in his presidency to get rid of all his “training wheels” (as the Cabinet members are called) and go back to relying on his instincts (he thinks taking advice from others are what led to the difficulties of the past year).

    FSM help us all.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    Kobach represented himself in a trial on Kansas voting laws last week. It was a disaster:

    Mr. Kobach’s game may work with partisan lawmakers, but not with federal judges. At the beginning of the trial, Mr. Kobach, who is representing himself, tried to introduce what he said were new data on the number of Kansans whose voter registrations were suspended for lacking proof of citizenship. Judge Julie Robinson of Federal District Court said no, reminding him that the deadline for introducing pretrial evidence had passed the night before. “We’re not going to have a trial by ambush here,” the judge said when Mr. Kobach tried again a few days later.
    How does it feel to have your papers out of order, Mr. Kobach?

    It really wasn’t an ambush. He’s just a horrible lawyer. He was too lazy to prepare. He went in there completely unprepared to present evidence on anything. Kobach has been the “serious” voting rights expert on the Right for a decade. Mitt Romney relied on him for information. He just pulls this stuff out of his ass. This is the first time it’s ever gone to trial and he got destroyed. Kansas voting law. His specific state law- his supposed area of expertise.

    When the A.C.L.U.’s lawyer asked him about his methods for analyzing the state’s list of suspended voters, Mr. Richman said that, among other things, he flagged foreign-sounding names. What about a name like “Carlos Murguia,” the lawyer asked. Would he flag that one? Yes, Mr. Richman said. He was then informed that Carlos Murguia is a federal district judge who sits in the courthouse where the trial is being held.

    It is exactly as bad as we have accused it of being- worse. I thought they would have something, or at least attempt to present something.

    It isn’t enough that there’s a reckoning in court though. These claims were promoted as true in media for a decade. We need to ask what took them so long to verify them. You can’t help but think that it took them so long because they didn’t really care if certain people were denied a lawful vote, otherwise why would they just take his word on it?

  44. 44.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: This article said they also had a suspicious backpack nearby that, again, they are waiting till daylight to investigate.

    I would not be surprised if these attacks are perpetrated by the same person. The original MO was not going to be effective after the first 3 attacks were reported on so s/he may well have switched things up. If so, s/he’s probably had training on explosives and I would begin to suspect ex-military.

  45. 45.

    different-church-lady

    @bemused:

    …just imagine if trumpco had more self-control.

    If he did, he wouldn’t be president: his base likes unhinged, and voted for unhinged. A tempered, competent Trump never gets anywhere, because his base desires insanity.

  46. 46.

    jonas

    @Lapassionara: He’s essentially presidenting as if producing a reality TV show. He learned on the Apprentice that you always had to add some twist or conflict to keep the competition interesting — fire someone nobody expected; add an extra change-up to the weekly challenge; focus on a conflict between two contestants, etc. That’s how you get ratings! If he thinks bombing something or starting a war will be a ratings winner, he’d probably do it.

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    @satby

    Nice.

    Some toe tappin’ for the cat people.

    (Maybe someone here who understands Japanese can clue us in on who the group linked in #34 above is.)

  51. 51.

    different-church-lady

    I have got to believe Meuller has a “dead hand” mechanisim in place. Trump may be under the delusion that firing Meuller wraps things up, but I think it’s going to make the inevitable infinitely worse for himself.

  53. 53.

    James E Powell

    @Lapassionara:

    And the press/media response, since he began his campaign, has been to reward and encourage the chaos. The worse he is, the more people watch.

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I’ve been following the Kobach train wreck on TPM and have wondered if this wouldn’t be a bigger story in a more normal administration. Trump put this incompetent jackhole on a face-saving commission to validate his absurd lies about winning the popular vote. Seems relevant that he’s being exposed as a fraud.

    @OzarkHillbilly: Scary stuff. I hope they catch the killer soon.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    Today show covering Facebook scandal. Good. More people watch Today than read Balloon Juice.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    Because it doesn’t matter if Kobach was humiliated in court. It doesn’t matter if he couldn’t defend any of his bullshit. He’ll still be presented as a voting rights expert and he’ll still get equal time with actual voting rights experts. It will still be presented as a matter of opinion, so minority voters will never be out from under this “presumption of fraud” standard media applied to them, and ONLY them. The problem is bigger than state or federal law. They lag behind the facts so far on voting the truth doesn’t have a chance in hell of keeping up. It shouldn’t have to go to trial. It’s all public information. The standard isn’t “black people are presumptively guilty of voter fraud until there is a trial”. No one else gets that standard! Because it’s invented and then selectively applied.

  58. 58.

    Woodrow/Asim

    @Baud:

    I see no point in trying to envision a hypothetical scarier Trump.

    If I understand your point correctly — I disagree.

    We need to start considering that someone, somewhere, is learning a lot of lessons from this horror show. And that said person isn’t learning in our best interest — but in theirs.

    We’ve learned that there’s a path to power in Modern America that runs, with ease, thru fanning racist tension, thru promising favors to already-powerful people, thru maligning the most vulnerable. Do we really think someone isn’t out there, thinking they can do it better — and can?

    To decide it cannot get worse than Trump…well, I remember vividly how people said, over and again, that GW Bush was the worst. And although there was very, very valid anger at Bush’s antics, we had no experience, here in America, with the kind of shitshow that Trump has brought in. We spoke from honest anguish, but also lack of historical and cross-cultural awareness. We need to not do that, again.

    And I’ll say it here — it can be worse than Trump. It can be someone much better at manipulating the media, understanding how to flex the law to their benefit. Learning the lessons of the despots and strongmen who control too much, today. Someone who can placate the masses while demanding servitude.

    I hesitate, these days, to call out any scenario as too unlikely to be ready for. Not paranoid, not fretting, but aware of the possibility.

  59. 59.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    CNN reporting that the latest Austin explosion may have been a tripwire.

  61. 61.

    Baud

    @Woodrow/Asim: Great. You identified the risk. Now what do you propose people do with this newfound awareness? The reality is, no one ever proceeds to step two. They simply wallow in their fears or, if they want to be cool on the internet, blame Democrats for the current situation.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    TPM have been wonderful on voting rights for years. They understood that the context of Bush’s US attorney scandal was voter suppression. That’s WHY they fired those people. They wouldn’t bring false voter fraud charges. No one else covered that, and it was the motive.

    I love how we had 2 decades where voter fraud was presented as fact and them on or around 2012 media belatedly discovered they had been promoting a bunch of bullshit for 20 years so they quietly changed sides. No explanation. No apology. Just a quiet – and mass- side switch and an insistence they had always been standing there. The assumption they made about minorities committing felony voter fraud was racism, because the claims never made any sense. They were ludicrous on their face. Yet. They were accepted without proof of any kind. That’s ABOUT something. That happened for a reason.

  66. 66.

    NorthLeft12

    From Mr. Conaway-R, Texas of the House Intelligence report;

    When asked if he regrets that the committee attempted to draw a conclusion on whether the Russians colluded with the Trump campaign, Conaway denied that the committee drew a conclusion at all.

    “What we said is we found no evidence of it,” he said. “That’s a different statement. We found no evidence of collusion.”

    UPDATE!!!11!! The committee also found no evidence that American astronauts actually walked on the moon, Oswald shot JFK, the Earth is a sphere, and that the South lost the Civil War.
    How do credible journalists not break out laughing every time when one of these Republican morans speaks?

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: There’s supposed to be a broadcast in the UK (today, IIRC) about a journalist team that posed as prospective clients and met with Cambridge Analytica execs several times (including the CEO once), secretly taping the meetings. CA has tried to stop the broadcast. It’ll be interesting to see if Facebook data figures into that. CA is getting dragged all over Twitter for its shitty defense of its tactics. Facebook is in crisis management mode. It’s a big story that will get bigger, I think.

  69. 69.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I was disappointed that I could not find coverage of this trial at any of my other usual haunts.

  70. 70.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: All the stories will get bigger before we’re done.

    But enough frivolity, did you hear what Hillary said in India?! And what’s the deal with Pelosi sticking around?

  71. 71.

    danielx

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The lecture from the judge regarding the rules of procedure was…interesting.

    Q. Kobach is not a stupid man; how did he think he was going to get away with this?
    A. because much like Donald Trump, he is totally unused to situations in which his version of reality is overruled in favor of objective fact. An additional reason, be it noted, for Trump’s hostility to the judicial system and the rule of law in general – courts and judges are the only places and people in which and to which he has ever had to answer to anything.

  79. 79.

    bemused

    @Baud:

    Imagining a scarier trump administration wasn’t the focus. It was how mind boggling the trump administration is: the stupidity, gross incompetence, corruption of the self-serving, amoral, tacky lowlives.

  81. 81.

    Lapassionara

    @Baud: What I would want people to do with the new found awareness is to recognize propaganda when they see it and to stop viewing the Republican Party as fiscally conservative and better for the US in matters of defense. Where I live, people vote for Republicans because of something good John Danforth did 25 years ago. That is why Trump won. Not because of his base, but because regular people who have always voted Republican did not recognize the threat Trump poses to the country.

  86. 86.

    NorthLeft12

    @Kay:

    The standard isn’t “black people are presumptively guilty of voter fraud until there is a trial”.

    I think the specific problem here is that there is basically never a trial for this. The number of charges/convictions on “voter fraud” are so few that they cannot even point to them in any court where these laws are challenged.
    Although I do find the lack of evidence of voter fraud, evidence that these fraudsters are incredibly sophisticated and successful!!11!!

    BTW I agree with you about Kobach and that other maroon [something -sky] being invited onto TV shows as Voting Fraud experts until the day they die. Sickening.

  87. 87.

    Baud

    @different-church-lady:

    Ever. We’ve now gone from Nixon to Reagan to the two Bushes to Trump. When do people who are not already yellow dog Democrats have their a-ha moment about the Republican party?

  88. 88.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @different-church-lady:

    A guy in my office who had been a career special unit prosecutor in the AG’s office in KY described one “dead hand” method he’d once put in place (the prosecution was politically sensitive, the target of the investigation very connected). They’d done most of the work and were ready to pull the trigger, but wanted to lock down more facts. For the “dead hand” switch, he’d prepared an indictment and left it, IIRC, with the foreman of the Grand Jury with instructions to go ahead and issue it in the event he got fired. Turned out to be unnecessary, but he was on pins and needles in the days leading up to it, given the pressure he knew was being applied.

  89. 89.

    NorthLeft12

    @danielx: I don’t agree that Mr. Kobach has a different version of reality. He knows the data regarding voter fraud as well as anyone. He just chooses to lie and misrepresent it to support his [and the GOP’s] goal of denying the right to vote to the people that are most likely to vote for the Democrats. Full stop.

  90. 90.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: Ah, I had your point 180° backwards — I thought you we’re saying they never go further towards Nazism.

  91. 91.

    Woodrow/Asim

    @Baud: You made a statement that I disagreed with. I did so by laying out the case for that disagreement. If you agree with that case, I’m…unclear why you’d then saying it’s useless.

    I’ve been trying, since the election, to listen a bit more to the people who saw this coming. That includes my dad, who has lived thru worse — Jim Crow, in South Carolina.

    If he, who actually participated in the Civil Rights struggle in small ways, who actually dined with Dr. King, can see a path thru this shitstorm today…who am I to be swallowed up in loathing? I have a warm bed, a loving Life Partner of a skin color unthinkable in his time, and resources to participate in this struggle for the soul of America my Parents could only have dreamed of. Between him, and my Mon who kept fighting for what she belived (even when I disagreed) until her literal dying days…man, don’t even.

    I don’t comment here much, but this site is a nightly read for me. I care a great deal about many of you here, and have found your comments, Baud, to frequently be well worth the read. I don’t care to get into a pissing match on this; in engaging you I did not wish to “start a brawl”. I just wanted to point out, in this case, something I think it important to how we discuss Trump, and the future of America.

    But let me answer the question of “what do you propose people do with this newfound awareness?”.

    A significant amount of the work that’s gone into the GOP has been around gaming out scenarios in think tanks. They have been planning out how to transform the American Electorate for decades, now. Maybe, just maybe, we need grassroots efforts to do the same, to consider what happens if Democrats get any power, and to avoid the mistakes/issues of systems like OFA which got too bogged down to be truly effective in making change.

    If we don’t start considering what comes next, start planning for the good and bad, we will end up right back where we are today. I submit we can, and must, do better — and that it’s possible. I see signs of it now, with new orgs like Let America Vote.

    And that starts with opening the discussion on what our Future looks like. And that’s not always positive, sadly.

    If you think that work useless or naive…well, I’ve been both before.

  92. 92.

    zhena gogolia

    @satby:

    I just went to the link and started to sign up for a protest in my town (and I am NOT a marcher), but somehow I didn’t want to give some random person with only a first name and last initial all my contact info. So I just assume I’ll be able to find out what’s happening on the actual day it happens or doesn’t happen. If it’s truly at City Hall as it says, I can get there in 10 minutes.

  94. 94.

    Baud

    @Woodrow/Asim:

    If you agree with that case, I’m…unclear why you’d then saying it’s useless.

    I say it’s useless because I have yet to see fear of the right wing lead to productive actions.

    I don’t care to get into a pissing match on this; in engaging you I did not wish to “start a brawl”. 

    No brawling on my part.

    Maybe, just maybe, we need grassroots efforts to do the same, to consider what happens if Democrats get any power, and to avoid the mistakes/issues of systems like OFA which got too bogged down to be truly effective in making change.

    I don’t know about OFA, but I’m a fan of planning. Our problem is everyone has their own plan and don’t like to cooperate with people with slightly different plans.

  95. 95.

    Betty Cracker

    @different-church-lady: I read something the other day about Facebook banning cryptocurrency ads. Okay. But didn’t their lawyers testify before Congress that they were unable to control who placed political adverts on their platform because it’s all programmatic ad buying? Even when they received payment in rubles? Funny how when it’s in the company’s interest, they can wave a magic wand and shut down a very specific type of ad, but when a hostile foreign power uses their platform to subvert democracy, they’re all “shruggies — it’s the bots!”

  97. 97.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    I think the two of you mean something different by “step two.” I was confused myself. Is “step two” the Trump figure becomes a Hitler? or is “step two” people actually rise up and do something about it? Baud seems to mean the latter.

  98. 98.

    Baud

    @Lapassionara: I think we’ll do well in November and probably in 2020. And while those are must-wins, the real test will be 2022 and 2024. The voters have now twice in two decades run back to the GOP after giving Dems only two years to fix everything. That has to change.

  100. 100.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia: Right. How is thinking about some hypothetical worse Trump going to lead to productive action, as opposed to a circlejerk of fear mongering.

  101. 101.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Lapassionara: They don’t recognize the fact that Danforth could never win a primary in today’s GOP. Hell, Danforth doesn’t recognize that fact.

  102. 102.

    satby

    @Baud:

    Our problem is everyone has their own plan and don’t like to cooperate with people with slightly different plans.

    And no matter how many times it’s been proven that coalescing around one plan and one candidate gets better results, we have the same fracturing every single election.
    I mentioned the primary against Lipinski upthread; he sucks and isn’t popular in his district, but he has had up to seven challengers in every primary and holds his seat only because the purity ponies of all flavors won’t cooperate in one challenger and throw him out.

  103. 103.

    Another Scott

    In other news, there’s still no federal budget. TheHill:

    […]

    The sweeping, two-year budget deal that Congress passed in February hikes defense spending by $80 billion and nondefense spending by $63 billion for fiscal 2018.

    Appropriators and their staff have been working around the clock to wrap up work on the funding package, which would fund the government through the end of September. The text of the measure is expected to be released Monday night.

    The House is aiming to vote on the bill Wednesday, leaving the Senate just a few days to pass the bill and avoid a government shutdown on Friday at midnight.

    Government funding briefly lapsed last month after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) slowed down Senate proceedings over federal spending concerns.

    Lawmakers have expressed confidence that there won’t be another government shutdown or a continuing resolution (CR) of funding this week.

    “I think the real pressure here is probably from the defense hawks, who really went to get out of the cycle of CRs and sequesters,” Cole said. “So I think that actually pushes us through in some other areas that might normally cause you a problem.”

    But they aren’t out of the woods just yet.

    Since the omnibus is one of the last legislative trains leaving the station before the midterm elections, members have been scrambling to attach a variety of pet issues to the bill, holding up its release.

    One of the biggest outstanding issues is whether the omnibus will include over $900 million for a rail and tunnel project that is critical to the Northeast corridor.

    President Trump has threatened to veto the spending bill if it contains money for the multi-billion dollar Gateway project, which is a top priority for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

    […]

    A contentious dispute over abortion language — a perennial sticking point in the spending bill debate — has also stalled the omnibus.

    There has been talk of adding a bipartisan deal to stabilize ObamaCare to the spending measure. But Republicans are insisting that a rule known as the Hyde Amendment, which restricts federal money from being used to fund abortion and is included in annual spending bills, also be applied to any new funds aimed at lowering ObamaCare premiums.

    Democrats are pushing back, arguing this would represent an expansion of the Hyde Amendment to a new area of funding, preventing the government from offering money to any insurance plan that offered abortion coverage at all.

    With both sides at an impasse, it’s looking less likely that the funding bill will end up including any ObamaCare fixes.

    […]

    Another outstanding issue, according to Cole, is whether to include a so-called conscience protection clause, which would protect health care workers who have religious or moral objections to abortion.

    Cole also said funding for Trump’s border wall was still “in play.”

    Lawmakers have been lobbying leadership to attach a host of other issues to the omnibus, including an online sales tax measure, a narrow background check bill for gun purchases and an overhaul of Capitol Hill’s sexual harassment policy.

    But GOP leaders have been tight lipped about what provisions will make the final cut, though some lawmakers have dropped hints about the bill’s contents.

    Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) told The Hill that a four-month extension of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is likely to be included. The agency’s current legal authority expires at the end of March.

    Cole also suggested that the omnibus would significantly increase funding for school safety as part of their response to the mass shooting at a Florida high school last month.

    And Republicans have largely shot down the idea of attaching a fix for an Obama-era immigration program to the omnibus.

    But some conservatives have expressed concern that the funding package will end up leaning too far left, since GOP leaders know that a number of Republicans will be opposing the omnibus anyway.

    Republican leaders will attach “anything that leans to the left because at this point I believe they are going to count on more Democrat votes than Republicans,” Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, told The Hill.

    “At this point, I’m gonna have to struggle to get to yes. $63 billion over the [Budget Control Act] — man, that’s tough to ask. That’s a frustrating poison pill to swallow.”

    – Scott Wong and Peter Sullivan contributed.

    Interesting.

    I assume they’ll pass something, but there’s always a chance that Rand Paul or someone will throw a temporary tantrum.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  105. 105.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I think it’s putting the cart before the horse. Let’s deal with the trump we have before worrying about a trump that may never come.

  107. 107.

    Brachiator

    @Betty Cracker:

    But didn’t their lawyers testify before Congress that they were unable to control who placed political adverts on their platform because it’s all programmatic ad buying?

    Instead of talking to their lawyers they need to be talking to their programmers and software engineers.

  108. 108.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Another Scott:

    “At this point, I’m gonna have to struggle to get to yes. $63 billion over the [Budget Control Act] — man, that’s tough to ask. That’s a frustrating poison pill to swallow.”

    Because helping Americans is so much more distasteful than killing furriners of color.

  109. 109.

    zhena gogolia

    I thought of Trump yesterday when I read the obituary of Anthony Acevedo, Mexican-American who nearly died in a Nazi camp after being captured at the Battle of the Bulge, and recently died at 93. And I didn’t think of Trump in a good way.

  111. 111.

    bystander

    @Betty Cracker: One of the writers of the article on CA was on Moanin’ Joe this morning. She singled out Mr. Zoookerberg as deserving of investigation. Facebook’s attorney evidently lied about Facebook’s involvement with CA in some congressional hearing.

  112. 112.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I don’t think Mueller is cowed by their threats. Sessions is. He’s gone. Mueller isn’t.

    What sort of horribly interesting about what’s happening is as we watch institutions fail, the personal character of these individuals becomes much more important.

    If one can’t rely on rules and laws and process, one MUST rely on the individuals involved.

    We weren’t supposed to be here. The public weren’t supposed to be in a position where we’re relying on Mueller- this ONE individual- not being a chickenshit, but here we are. Anyway. I don’t think he is so we lucked out there.

  114. 114.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Kay: From everything I’ve read, Mr Mueller is CHARACTER personified. He may end up being The Man Who Saved America. From itself.

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    And I can’t prove it, but I think one of the ways Trump keeps people in line is he threatens to reveal damaging information about them.

    So the only people who will be in a position to oppose him will be people he can’t find anything on- another area where the individual’s PERSONAL character and conduct matters, where it might not matter so much if institutions were still functioning.

  117. 117.

    PPCLI

    @Another Scott:

    Another outstanding issue, according to Cole, is whether to include a so-called conscience protection clause, which would protect health care workers who have religious or moral objections to abortion.

    When the “conscience protection clause” includes that physicians at Catholic hospitals shouldn’t be prohibited from performing abortions (or referring for abortions, or prescribing birth control…) if their conscience demands they do it, we can talk.

  118. 118.

    Kay

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    Does it have to be “character” though? It could be but then you get people like Daniels. Trump can’t threaten her because she’s already revealed everything he might threaten to reveal.

    She’s untouchable for a different reason.

  121. 121.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: @Woodrow/Asim: I don’t think there is any need to focus on complex and ever scarier scenarios of how Rs are going to come up with to fuck us over. It will be moot
    1. If we present a united front
    2. Not pay attention to elite media headed by the Nazi Times and its acolytes like the The Atlantic, NPR, PBS etc. They are not our friends and they lean R or are R
    3. Always assume the worst from Rs.

    Because we outnumber them and are smarter them. If we do the first two, we will be able to counter 3. That’s what I would focus on if I were D think tank political consultant type person.

    ETA:
    4. Cremate bipartisanship and scatter its ashes in the water body of your choice.

  122. 122.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Mueller is “Keep calm and carry on” guy. He is well aware what he is facing and I feel certain he is well prepared for whatever comes.

    The funny thing about trump’s inability to impugn the reputations of either Mueller or Daniels is polar opposite. Mueller is as squeeky clean as they get, a long time professional admired by both left and right . Daniels on the other hand is a porn star. What’s he gonna say that isn’t even more damaging to him than it ever could be to her?

  124. 124.

    Jeffro

    @Kay:

    Stormy Daniels and Robert Mueller are the only two so far who have proven they aren’t afraid of Trump :)

    I love how odd that pairing is.

    If it were a movie script, it’d be rejected for being too unrealistic. Just like everything else involving Orange Crash.

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Headline at TPM: White House: No Plan To Fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller

    Oh well, I certainly feel better now given the trump admistration’s history of planning ahead with careful consideration.

    They must feel they have a lot more smearing to do before the odds are in their favor. Meanwhile, Mueller marches on. I’m convinced he is going to drop dozens of charges (if not hundreds) on these clowns all at once, possibly with state AGs following right on.

  128. 128.

    cosima

    @satby: That is one of the best. Up there on the list with tire rims & anthrax, naked mopping, mustard disaster, and eviscerating McArgleBargle’s kitchen equipment. Good times. And also still true. Someone should have been driving round in 2016 with a megaphone shouting ‘they fucking hate you! they call it love of jesus, protecting unborn babies, or free market love, but really it’s just that they hate everyone who isn’t straight white males — including the wives of those straight white males’ over & over & over.

  130. 130.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    This time don’t give cover to conservatives and say “it’s the GOP”. In the past, wingnuts and the wingnut-curious would say “I’m not a Republican; I’m a conservative and not responsible for this failure/disaster/corruption”, and then would vote straight GOP with the smug self-assurance of the dishonest.

    Time to make “I’m a conservative” into a phrase that inspires mockery and laughter.

  132. 132.

    zhena gogolia

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    It’s as if when Nixon was getting sloshed and ranting to his oprichniki, it was all being broadcast in real time by Walter Cronkite on the CBS evening news.

  134. 134.

    bemused

    @satby:

    So true. More than anything they hate people with inclusive values because they are exposed for the assholes they are. I got called a haughty elitist on a local blog yesterday. Made my day.

  135. 135.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Oh man. It’s starting already. Or maybe just hasn’t stopped since the big morning news dumps last week.

    I’m gonna try to ignore it all to write a rather philosophical post and practice piano.

  137. 137.

    Patricia Kayden

    @different-church-lady: Never been on Facebook and have had no problem keeping in contact with folks all around the world. How did we survive in pre-FB years? Funny how technology makes some of us so helpless.

  138. 138.

    Patricia Kayden

    @satby: Wow. John should reprint that since it is absolutely true and we need to remind ourself of that from time to time. There is no bipartisanship with those people.

  140. 140.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Baud:

    Our problem is everyone has their own plan and don’t like to cooperate with people with slightly different plans.

    Bangalore! Saw this as far back as the antiwar movement in my salad days (when I was a green vegetable swimming in oil & vinegar). The Far Wrong does intersections when the Left is struggling to do unions; i.e., once the elements of the Far Wrong can agree on who they all hate, they act, while Lefties gin up elaborate programs to cure all of society’s ills at once, & stalk off in a pique when anyone disagrees with any of the ‘lebentyseven points in the personifesto. We have to start doing intersections – find 2 or 3 points we can all get behind, hammer them home, & agree to leave the rest to be fought out only after we force the kochroaches we can’t convert or exterminate back under their rocks.

  145. 145.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Stormy Daniels and Robert Mueller are the only two so far who have proven they aren’t afraid of Trump :)

    I love how odd that pairing is.

    Have you seen Ms. Daniels’ new attorney?
    He amuses me..cause he’s not scared either.

  147. 147.

    rikyrah

    @Jeffro:

    Stormy Daniels and Robert Mueller are the only two so far who have proven they aren’t afraid of Trump :)

    I love how odd that pairing is.

    If it were a movie script, it’d be rejected for being too unrealistic. Just like everything else involving Orange Crash.

    This entire thing, if it were a movie script, would repeatedly be returned to the writer with, in the margins – TOO OUTLANDISH

    When this DOES come…it will have to be in a multi-part Netflix series.
    No movie
    Or even an HBO treatment like Game Changer will do. .

  152. 152.

    Miss Bianca

    @satby: wow, I remember that post! I’ve been hanging around this joint for a long time! : )

    What’s scary to me is that that post’s point was self-evident to me at the time, and things have only gotten worse since then. : (

  153. 153.

    J R in WV

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Nice pictures of LA’s Chinatown. But it look’s kind of Disneyfied to me, too clean and bright. I’ve been to Chinatowns in San Francisco, DC, Philadelphia, and they were all bright and shiny, but not so clean and new looking. Maybe because those stores in your pictures are closed, and all the piles of things for sale are inside… I remember half the business being conducted outside the stores, even the restaurants.

    But most of those visits to Chinatown were at least a decade ago, back when I traveled on business to meet with other Enviro systems people, so maybe the problem is my malleable memories and not the sparkling clean Chinatown in LA.

    We visited the Getty, it’s way too huge to spend just one visit there, it needs a week to just run through most of the exhibits. And it’s so bright and shining on top if that hill! Amazing place, good that he invested his huge pile of money in making his collections public forever. And the staff was helpful and everywhere to guide folks. Wonderful place!

  155. 155.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @J R in WV: Well, you’re correct, it’s partly because I was taking the picture after most of the businesses had closed, but there’s a bit more. LA’s Chinatown was originally east of the Plaza and was razed to build Union Station back in the mid-1930, so the Chinatown you see now isn’t an organic community. When the razed Old Chinatown they built 2 Chinese themed areas: China City, which was across Ord street from Phillipe’s and burned down; and New Chinatown which you see in the picture. China City was very disneyfied, New Chinatown less so, but both were trying to clean up what Old Chinatown was(gambling, brothels, and opium dens). So it’s partly disneyifiction in that area and partly that it was around 8pm on a Saturday night. The stretch of Broadway from there south* to Ceasar Chavez(fka Sunset in that area) is where you’ll find the atmosphere that you’ve encountered in other Chinatowns(as well as larger communities in the San Gabriel Valley).

    Glad you liked the Getty Center, it really is too big for one visit.

    *Compass directions in Downtown LA get a bit tricky because it was not laid out on an American North-South grid, it’s laid out at a 37 degree angle off North because it’s a Spanish city.

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