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Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

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

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

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rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

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Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

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Hot air and ill-informed banter

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Russiagate “Saturday Morning Serial” Open Thread: Blackwater & Its Princes

Russiagate “Saturday Morning Serial” Open Thread: Blackwater & Its Princes

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… Joseph Schmitz approached the FBI and other government agencies about material a client of his had discovered that Schmitz believed might have been Clinton’s missing 30,000 emails from her private e-mail server, sources say. The material was never verified, and sources say they ultimately believed it was fake.

His push is the latest example of Trump advisers who were mixed up in efforts to find dirt on Clinton during the presidential campaign. Schmitz was one of the first people Trump named to his campaign’s national security and foreign policy team. The team, showcased in a March 2016 photo, was thrown together early in Trump’s successful run as he faced mounting pressure to prove his ability to pull in high-level advisers who could help prepare him for the White House.

Another adviser pictured in the photo, Trump’s foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, was told by a Kremlin-connected professor that the Russian government had damaging material on Clinton. Six weeks later, Donald Trump Jr. got a message from a business associate offering similar information, leading to the Trump Tower meeting that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort attended…

Schmitz met with officials at the FBI, the State Department and the Intelligence Community Inspector General — the watchdog tasked with investigating Clinton’s alleged mishandling of classified information. He claimed a source he called “PATRIOT,” an unidentified contractor he was representing, had discovered what he believed was likely material stolen from Clinton that could contain classified information. Both the client and Schmitz were afraid that going through the material without permission could jeopardize their security clearances, though there is no indication their actions were illegal.

Schmitz then took a memo outlining his claims and concerns to the House Intelligence Committee. One cybersecurity expert outside the government who also saw the material on the dark web said the emails appeared to be fake, based on his review and the forum where they were posted.

“I’m pretty sure they were posted on the (dark web) equivalent of Reddit,” the source said…

Maybe Schmitz can plead the political equivalent of the ‘affluenza’ defense — he had no idea how ethics work, because he was raised by professional Republicans…


.
Extract from the Daily Caller, March 2016, so you don’t have to click:

…Schmitz, a former inspector general for the Department of Defense and a former employee of security services company Blackwater, is the brother of Mary Kay Letourneau, the legendary former Seattle-area elementary school teacher who molested her 12-year-old student Vili Fualaau in the 1990s…

Joe Schmitz, Trump’s new foreign policy adviser, and Letourneau are the son and daughter of the late John G. Schmitz, a Republican congressman and state politician from Orange County, California, whose career notoriously ended after he was revealed to have fathered two children in an extramarital affair with Carla Stuckle, an immigrant from Sweden. John G. Schmitz’s affair was discovered when Stuckle showed up with his infant son, John George Stuckle, at an Orange County hospital in 1982 because the child had a piece of hair wrapped very tightly around his infant penis.

John Schmitz admitted to being the father of the boy — and another child he had already sired with Stuckle. News of the incident brought an end to Schmitz’s political career, but not his marriage.

John Schmitz was also the national director of the John Birch Society and, in 1972, he ran for the U.S. presidency under the banner of the American Independent Party. In 1968, noted racial segregationist George Wallace had been the American Independent Party candidate…

.

Meanwhile, Betsy deVos’s brother, Mercenary Prince of Blackwater Xe Academi Frontier Services Group…

… Well-connected Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, a key witness given limited immunity by Mueller, has been interviewed seven times by prosecutors on a wide range of subjects. He told investigators that he set up a meeting in the Seychelles between Prince and Russian sovereign wealth fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev, mere days before Trump was inaugurated, sources familiar with the investigation said this week.

Nader has submitted to three interviews with special counsel investigators and four appearances before a federal grand jury in Washington since agents stopped him at Dulles International Airport in January, served him with a grand jury subpoena and seized his electronic devices, including his cell phone. Documents obtained by Mueller suggest that before and after Prince met Nader in New York a week before the trip to the Seychelles, Nader shared information with Prince about Dmitriev, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News, which appears to be inconsistent with Prince’s sworn testimony before a U.S. House of Representatives investigative panel.

“I didn’t fly there to meet any Russian guy,” Prince told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in November. He testified that he travelled to the Seychelles for a meeting with United Arab Emirates officials about possible business opportunities, and they introduced him – unexpectedly – to Dmitriev. …

Sources say Nader — who worked at the time for the Emirati leader, known as “MBZ” – tells a different story. According to multiple sources, the U.A.E., an important U.S. ally increasingly eager to be seen as a global powerbroker, wanted to bring a Russian close to the Kremlin together with someone Nader believed was a trusted confidant of members of the incoming administration.

Sources tell ABC News Nader met with Prince at New York’s Pierre Hotel a week before the Jan. 11, 2017 meeting in the Seychelles, and later sent Prince biographical information about Dmitriev, which, according to those sources, noted that Dmitriev had been appointed by Putin to oversee the state-run sovereign wealth fund.

Nader says he then facilitated and personally attended the meetings, including one between Prince and Dmitriev, at a resort owned by MBZ off the coast of East Africa, the sources told ABC News. One of the primary goals of the meeting, Nader told investigators, was to discuss foreign policy and to establish a line of communication between the Russian government and the incoming Trump administration, sources told ABC News…

A spokesperson for Prince told ABC News on Thursday that “Erik has said all there is to say to the committee and has nothing further to add.” Prince has said that the Seychelles meeting was leaked to the news media last year in an illegal “unmasking” of his identity in U.S. signals intelligence intercepts….

Reader Interactions

190Comments

  1. 1.

    satby

    Prince is one of the ones who I hope is out away for life when this is all over.I

    It’s a freezing 22° out, going to a high of 39°, with snow starting tonight and temps back in the teens. If you read about mass seppuku in Indiana, that’s why.

  2. 2.

    MattF

    So, these trolls, liars, thieves, ratfkers, RWNJs, etc.– were all out there, waiting for a chance at the big time. And then Trump showed up.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: We’re supposed to hit 22 also, a high of 41 today and 23 tonight. We were supposed to get snow but that apparently is staying to our south. What is left of my much bedraggled magnolia blossoms will be long gone after this. I suspect the same can be said of the daffs that have already bloomed. I have my fingers crossed for my lilac, which is just beginning to show it’s flower buds.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    Nostalgic for the days (well, nights) of foodie/recipe thread(s) at the end of each week on a regular basis.

    (Another norm which the emergence of Dolt 45 has pulverized?)

  8. 8.

    Betty Cracker

    It’s 66 degrees here now, and our high is projected to be 80.

    I’m heading to a relative’s birthday party later. This particular branch of the family includes two people I dislike intensely. They are not my blood relatives but rather ex-relatives by marriage. Anyhoo, these two hate each other’s guts to the extent that both refuse to be in the same room together, so only one will be at today’s gathering. The mystery is which one.

  10. 10.

    MattF

    @satby: Here in the DC area we had a little weather-related fuss earlier in the week when some of the weather apps made predictions of 8-10 inches of snow over the weekend. Then some actual meteorologists showed up and said (in so many words), ‘Um, no’. So, it’s chilly, and maybe some wet flakes here and there, but nothing ridiculous.

  11. 11.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Good morning ?!

    @OzarkHillbilly: I now have a tiny magnolia and dwarf burning bush as well as three raspberry bareroots to plant, all waiting for Wednesday, which will be the first day that it won’t drop to freezing overnight (light frost maybe, but not a hard freeze). I may just pot the two shrubs for the sumer and plant them in the fall. I was planning to put the raspberries in large pots too, just to control their invasive tendancies, but I don’t have the pots yet. I’m so aggravated that these companies sent this stuff out now, last frost date here is in May even in normal winters.

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    @Betty Cracker

    Reminded by tales such as that of a sidebar storyline mentioned in the BBC mini-series behind the the scenes at the Royal Opera house in London, The House.

    The bar in the main lobby was staffed by two bartenders, working together there for twenty years or more. Something had occurred early on (never explained) and since then they each refused to utter so much as one word to the other.

  13. 13.

    satby

    @MattF: I don’t even mind spring snows because they usually fall when the low temp is in the 30s and melt off the same day. Low temps in the teens in April is just so wrong.
    At least I left most of my plants covered over the occasional seasonal days we’ve had.

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Any thunder and lightning in the forecast? I mean in the sky, not on the greens from a missed Rahm put.

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby:

    I’m so aggravated that these companies sent this stuff out now,

    Yeah, not good. They should’ve known better.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Kareem nails the NFL’s hide to the wall:

    Witches, man. Just when you thought we were safe from their malignant influence on America’s virtue, the NFL has proven we are still in real danger from their dark powers. It is fortunate for our country’s moral fiber that the NFL has kept current in their reading, channeling Heinrich Kramer’s 1487 tome, Malleus Maleficarum (“The Hammer of Witches”), which was the go-to DIY text in many countries for conducting witch trials and public executions. As a result, an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 witches were put to death, about 80% of which were females. Why so many women? Kramer explains that it’s because a woman “is more carnal than man, as is clear in connection with many filthy carnal acts”. He believed that the sexual desire men felt when looking at a woman who was not their wife was due to the vixen casting magic spells to tempt them. As punishment, these sexual sirens must be, if not beheaded, drowned, or hanged, at least fired from their cheerleading jobs.

    Bailey Davis, the 22-year-old former New Orleans Saints cheerleader, was recently fired for violating team social media rules by posting an Instagram photo of herself in one-piece lingerie that shows as much skin as a one-piece swimsuit in a Nordstrom’s ad, and a lot less than their cheerleading outfits. She has since filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for gender discrimination. When she spoke to a representative from the Saints’ human resources department, he complained that in her photo she had a “dirty face” (clear proof she was casting her spell compelling virtuous men to “filthy carnal acts”) and that he’d never allow his granddaughters to post something like that.
    …………………….
    The country would be outraged if a team’s rules stated that if a black player was eating at a restaurant and a white player walked in, the black player would have to leave the restaurant. Yet, those are the rules for Saints’ cheerleaders, who must leave a restaurant they are eating at if a Saints player arrives. We would be equally outraged if a company demanded that office personnel address top executives only with “hello” and “you’re wonderful”. Yet the Saints’ cheerleaders are restricted to saying only “hello” and “great game” to players. Other restrictions about weight, makeup, body hair, tampon use and forbidding sweatpants in public make it seem as if the Saints watched The Handmaid’s Tale and thought, “They just don’t go far enough.” In other words, shut up and jiggle.

    These highly trained and skilled women are being told that the NFL just wants to protect them from sexual predators, particularly NFL players. Like the grumpy grandpa in human resources who wouldn’t “allow” his granddaughters to post photos he doesn’t approve of, the NFL wants to be their (creepy? pimpy?) daddy. These are adult women who should be permitted to make their own decisions about who they contact and who they don’t, especially since the players have no such restrictions. A cheerleader poses in modest lingerie and she’s fired; a player knocks out his wife on video and is suspended for two games. Boys will be boys, but girls must be what the NFL tells them to be.

    For necessary movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp to thrive, Americans have to recognize that how we treat females in high-profile entertainment contributes to the detrimental perception that walls them in and diminishes their contribution to society. Less pay communicates less value. Forcing rules that treat them like children demeans their intellect. Yet, the NFL doesn’t mind exploiting the sensual attributes of these women for financial gain. Because nothing says wholesome family entertainment than lithe young women in skimpy shorts and plunging tops doing the splits. I’m sure 13-year-old Jimmy and his leering father are watching their energetic performance thinking only the purest of thoughts. So, this moral umbrage over an Instagram photo is the height of hypocrisy.

  29. 29.

    Steeplejack

    @MattF:

    My recollection is that the TV weather people overpredicted snow all winter here in the DC area.

    Currently 41° and gray here in Threadkill Lane.

  32. 32.

    hueyplong

    I am enjoying KAJ’s second career.

    Was deathly afraid of him during his first (especially in college).

  33. 33.

    MomSense

    Maybe we should construct a penal colony in a horrible location, surround it with a yuuge transparent wall, and install cameras everywhere. Then we can put them all in there together and see what happens.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WereBear: I love this line from Jan at the bunny ranch in True Detective:

    “Girls walk this earth all the time screwing for free. So why is it you add business to the mix and boys like you can’t stand that thought? I’ll tell you: It’s ’cause suddenly you don’t own it the way you thought you did.”

    (the scene is about an underage girl working there, but it brings the hypocrisy of Woody’s character into sharp focus)

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Raven: I read a rather confusing headline recently that the Rams might be hiring male cheerleaders… Or not. Didn’t bother reading the article because I just don’t care.

  38. 38.

    Betty Cracker

    @NotMax: I am capable of treating both with icy courtesy on the rare occasions we meet, but they are incapable of extending that courtesy to one another. Because they’re both assholes. :)

  41. 41.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    It occurs to me that I’m unsure what people are talking about when they say 30k missing emails. I have so many bits of story floating in my head about this. She deleted some before she handed them over. Or the State Dept told her she could. Or, no, they didn’t, someone else did. Or the company that maintained the server destroyed them. But why would they then be all in one place that someone could discover like the Lost Ark?

    This is what the conspiracy people do until we’re all Andrea Mitchell saying “something” just doesn’t feel right.

    It’s lunacy. And I just did my morning run through my emails and deleted most. Because of course I did.

  44. 44.

    Kay

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

    It occurs to me that I’m unsure what people are talking about when they say 30k missing emails. I have so many bits of story floating in my head about this. She deleted some before she handed them over. Or the State Dept told her she could. Or, no, they didn’t, someone else did. Or the company that maintained the server destroyed them. But why would they then be all in one place that someone could discover like the Lost Ark?

    The point of saying there were 30k missing emails over and over (and like you I have no idea if it’s true or what it means, if anything) was not that emails might fall into the wrong hands, but to plant the idea that there was something damning in the emails.

    That’s what the email story was really about. National security had nothing to do with it. It was about alleging over and over that Clinton was hiding something. That’s what people were supposed to get from it, and that is what they got from it. The facts didn’t matter at all.

  45. 45.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Chyron HR: One of the rooms in the dorm I was in for my first two years of college had been modified by cutting off a portion of the desk and increasing the length of the bed, that used to be Kareem’s room.

  47. 47.

    bemused

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Kareem is a damn good writer. I pay very little attention to football so NFL rules so I was floored reading the NFL cheerleader rules. Almost medieval. This country has a long way to go before women stop getting treated like evil temptresses or wayward children.

    Recent New Yorker cartoon of Salem pilgrims about to drop an accused witch into a river: “If she floats, she’s a witch. If she sinks, maybe she had a point about women’s rights.”

  48. 48.

    Kay

    I read the clownish, corrupt, fake-prosecutor Trey Gowdy is “investigating” Pruitt. Why do they bother with this? Imagine being on his staff- they have to run another fake investigation? Christ, it must just be so demoralizing. Pretend work.

  54. 54.

    debbie

    @satby:

    We got snow last night. Not tons, but with the colder weather and a very weak sun, windshields will need scraping.

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I just imagine all that effort to avoid finding something and it makes me tired. Gowdy himself says he wasted his years in Congress. Has it occurred to him that’s because he spent 5 years running show investigation(s)? Was that not voluntary on his part?

  56. 56.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    The fluffing of Gowdy as some sort of principled conservative who went to Washington to accomplish good things is such horseshit. He presided over the Benghazi show trial that was designed to destroy Hillary Clinton’s popularity. And for such a skilled prosecutor, Clinton certainly handed him his ass during questioning.

    He is a perfect example of what is wrong with Republican controlled Congress so this whole rehabilitation tour he’s on makes me want to barf.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    I hope this is true, that the tax cuts are a political loser for them:

    Dave Wasserman, a top analyst of House races at the Cook Political Report, draws a striking conclusion from the failure of ads touting tax-cuts to save the Republican seeking that Pittsburgh-area seat. Public support for the tax cuts is weak enough, he says, that attention on tariffs or even the president’s relationship with porn star Stormy Daniels helps Trump’s approval ratings, and his Republican allies, more

  60. 60.

    Cheryl Rofer

    I would like to know who put together, and how, the list of “foreign policy advisors” for Trump in March 2016. It was Schmitz, Carter Page, Walid Phares, and one or two other worthless people. I believe it’s been attributed to Sam Clovis, who has connections to Jeff Sessions. JD Gordon may figure in it too. I want to know more about how all those heartland boys got mixed up with them Russkies.

  61. 61.

    MomSense

    Oh hey in a separate topic, apparently one of my ancestors kept meticulous records when he was in charge of the local militia – pre standing army. My dad has his record books including all the fines for failure to show up at muster, clean the muskets properly, etc. The well regulated militia part was real and we have detailed accounts. When he’s back in Maine we are going to figure out how to make these logs useful.

  62. 62.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    I heard this morning that about ten conservative groups, both Tea Parties and Evangelicals, wrote to Trump and urged him to keep Pruitt on. Pharisees all.

    On an unrelated tangent, I also heard this morning that there are concerns that the intensifying rivalry between Cordray and Kucinich are going to cause the Dems to lose in November. This would be criminal. Where’s the party leadership to mediate this?

  63. 63.

    Schlemazel

    We went and saw the movie “The Death of Stalin” last night. I have a feeling I know how the Dump campaign offices operated and what the atmosphere is like in the building with no name.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Where’s the party leadership to mediate this?

    Because Kucinich wants them to lose in November. That’s why he’s running. His entire fucking career is based on bitterness and resentment that he’s not more powerful, which he attributes to mysterious forces within the Democratic Party keeping him from the power he deserves.

    Kucinich is an asshole. He’s an asshole on a personal level, too. Condescending and arrogant and an absolute attention hound. I personally think he’s legit unstable – has some kind of mental disorder- but apart from that go back and look at interviews and his statements and his whole career- it’s ALL nasty attacks on other people and demanding attention and deference to his superior intelligence.

  68. 68.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

    It will be airing a lot of dirty laundry. My dad will probably have all the ancestry dot com genealogy buffs as well as the NRA fools mad at him. That revolutionary war hero of theirs was always drunk and late for muster. I think it establishes that the 2nd amendment meant well-regulated with standards and consequences for failure to meet them.

  70. 70.

    Schlemazel

    @MomSense:
    You might see if U Maine was interested. They could digitize the records and make them available online. I bet a bunch of genealogists would love to find names in that book. It would be pretty neat to find an ancestor’s name there.

  71. 71.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Roger, Roger. Over, Unger.

    Those guys have wonderful comedic insight. They could have beaten that joke to death a hundred times but used it just enough.

  72. 72.

    WereBear

    @Cheryl Rofer: I want to know more about how all those heartland boys got mixed up with them Russkies.

    I was a child during the Cold War, but was still supposed to be impressed with how Republicans were always on guard again the Red Menace. Now that there is a real one who pays in cash… not so much.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    The winner of the primary should settle the fight, because that’s how this is supposed to work. You lose the primary you’re not the candidate in the general. There shouldn’t have to be “mediation”. What is the point of having primaries if the loser essentially stays in and carries his primary campaign into the general?

    If Cordray loses he will back Kucinich. Can you say the same for Kucinich? No, of course not, because he’s special.

    You can’t have a political party composed of individuals pursuing their own individual agendas. The point of the thing is strength in numbers. Also- every single member can’t run it.

  76. 76.

    MattF

    @Cheryl Rofer: I don’t watch Fox News, so I can’t confirm this– but there just might be a correlation between ‘appears on Fox’ and ‘appears on list of Trump’s faves’.

  77. 77.

    Barbara

    @Kay: He has a lot in common with Lieberman. They’re angry that others are unwilling to step aside and shield their eyes in the presence of their brilliant leadership. When the real deal in the form of Obama showed up they just doubled down.

  81. 81.

    Barbara

    @MomSense: My husband’s family has Maine ancestors going back to the 17th century. I would love to see if there are matching surnames.

  84. 84.

    MomSense

    @Schlemazel:

    All of his rare books and papers are spoken for after he dies so I’m not sure where these are supposed to go. It’s proabbly a good time to review the list with him, anyway.

  86. 86.

    Kay

    @Barbara:

    Kucinich defending Ron Paul while attacking Obama really sealed the deal for me. The truth is he isn’t even that liberal. He used to be pro-life before he decided it was better to lie and say he was pro-choice. His thing in Congress was ranting about foreign policy. He’s running for governor. Foreign policy doesn’t matter.

  87. 87.

    MattF

    @Kay: My 2017 taxes look a little higher. But it’s a small difference– went from getting a small refund to making a small payment. My guess is that most people will see a similar change– there’s nothing unusual about my taxes.

  89. 89.

    glory b

    @NotMax: Reminds me of my brother, the middle school assistant principal, who said that kids with beefs against each other can trace their issues to an incident at nap time in kindergarten.

    Unfortunately, he said they are almost always girls. Boys are too distractable to keep those kind of things going for that long.

  90. 90.

    MomSense

    @Barbara:

    I’m going to call you cousin Barbara from now on. It’s become a joke with my kids. My son had a gig with some musicians and one of them turns out to be a cousin. The barista at my local coffee shop is a sixth cousin two different ways. So if your husband’s family goes back har far then we are probably related.

  91. 91.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!”

    Though, to be honest, I have said that about once a week every week since last January

  92. 92.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    I don’t dispute the primary system, but I do hate the thought that with this real opportunity, Dems will screw themselves over again.

  94. 94.

    debbie

    @MomSense:

    I sure hope this becomes an issue and that this willful misinterpretation of the Second Amendment finally ends.

  96. 96.

    Amir Khalid

    @MomSense:
    I suspect the kind of assault-weapon lovers who call their group a “militia” would assert that well-organised means whatever the hell they say it means. But it would still be instructive to show how a properly run militia worked in the day, and expose them as poseurs.

  98. 98.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    My company slyly instituted raises at the same time as the tax changes. I can’t figure out the math at all now.

  102. 102.

    debbie

    @MattF:

    Enjoy that last year of taking exemptions for yourself and dependents. My taxes aren’t going to go down at all when the changes go into effect.

  105. 105.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The inability to work as a team on the Left of the Democratic Party is weird. Their whole political philosophy is supposedly centered on the common good, yet they’re all rugged individualists leading factions here and there. How is “you’re not the boss of me” going to work out with single payer? They’re not all getting a special individualized social safety net in Denmark. I don’t think their personalities align well with their policy preferences. This “he doesn’t oppose fracking so I’m out!” doesn’t really gibe with everyone paying for free college. God, they could bolt at any time! How can one depend on these people to support universal health care? What if it doesn’t cover their particular needs?

  106. 106.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    Is t Kucinich in that category with people like Cornel West of “progressives” who attack Democrats from the left? The media and other Republican entities love to have them attend conferences and give talks.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I think that is going to be a nasty surprise for people. I don’t understand it and I sat thru a 2 hour presentation on it.

  109. 109.

    WereBear

    @debbie: Back in the early Bush years, I agreed with the meme going around that Dems are people with learned helplessness from decades of abuse.

    Time for everyone to grow a spine.

  115. 115.

    glory b

    @OzarkHillbilly: There is a reality show about the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders on the country and western channel. It’s on a higher cable tier now, so I haven’t seen it in a few years.

    I kind of liked it, it wasn’t about anything but making the team, no interpersonal drama, etc. The stars of the program are actually the coach and the coreographer. He’s right, they are amazingly skilled, and go through a lot. and, even if their dancing skills are superb, if you’re too heavy, too thin, too tall or too short, you can’t make it.

    Also, they sacrifice a lot for little monetary reward, all of them have to keep regular day jobs. If I recall correctly, none of them can cheer for more than 4 years, just like the players, they have to compete to keep their positions from year to year.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    Does Cornell West actually get a hefty paycheck from Fox news? Because Kucinich does. He has that in common with Kasich, who also worked for Fox news. I’m sick of cable celebrities running US politics. I’m sick of that whole thing. I want regular public servants who aren’t yelling all the time and sitting in green rooms. Trump’s entire presidency is being directed from a cable tv show. It’s ridiculous and it makes us into a ridiculous, low quality country.

  118. 118.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    Even if our taxes do go down a smidge, health care, education, student loan repayment and other costs are increasing by so much as to make those tax cuts insulting.

    And can Democrats please start making the connection between Republicans cutting federal spending on education and other basic services with the increased state and municipal fees and property taxes to make up for it?

    Feds slash money for schools and roads and voila your property taxes go up 30%.

  120. 120.

    Baud

    @Kay: You are on point today.

    I think the idea is that everyone should support their policies because they are awesome but they do not have to work with others who are less awesome.

  122. 122.

    germy

    Palestinian journalist in vest marked ‘PRESS’ shot dead by Israeli troops in Gaza

    Are they going to shoot the illegals? Just standing there doesn't do a thing. We need to do what Israel does: immediate detention and removal. https://t.co/byXxDbG2po— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 4, 2018

    Video and photos of Yasser Murtaja, 31, being treated after sustaining a bullet wound to the lower abdomen, including one shot by Agence France-Presse news agency, show him wearing a blue and white protective jacket with “PRESS” emblazoned on the front.

    Murtaja, who worked for a Gaza-based news agency called Ain Media, was one of six Palestinian journalists shot, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, which said they were all clearly identifiable as media. The Israeli military has maintained that the shooting into the border crowds is carefully targeted. It could not immediately provide a comment on how six journalists could have been shot.

    After the first day of unrest at the border a week ago the Israel Defense Force’s official spokesman account tweeted that the military knew where “every bullet landed.” However, the tweet was later deleted.

  123. 123.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    I didn’t get any of Kasich’s tax cut because my property taxes went up- well, “went up”- I actively campaigned to raise them with a school levy. It’s all cost-shifting. From federal to state to local to the individual. That’s they whole conservative plan in a nutshell. They move costs around.

  124. 124.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Here’s a pdf I came across issued by Congress which explained the changes. The beginning sections give an overview of the then-current tax structure, the House proposed version, the Senate proposed version, and the compromise.

    I found it very understandable, and I’m no math whiz.

  126. 126.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The tiering of THEIR issues above anyone else’s seems to me to be fundamentally incompatible with universal social programs. Universal social programs involve sacrifices and trade-offs and paying for things you don’t use or even don’t support. This propensity on the Left for demanding to opt out of shit they don’t like wouldn’t work in Denmark. They ARE a tragedy of the commons.

    I saw it here when I posted as a front pager. I would say “well, what about community health centers!” and I would get “I want to keep my doctor” or “I’m not going to some crap clinic”. Honestly I think they would all peel off before we reached the goal and start following Ron Paul.

  127. 127.

    clay

    @MattF: That’s exactly what happened with us. We went from getting a refund of usually about $1500 to having to make a payment of $500. Thanks Trump!

  128. 128.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    The presentation was about how state law will be crafted to “enable” the federal law, because it intersects. That’s where the bugs in the federal law come in.

  129. 129.

    Baud

    @Kay: Maybe we have an explanation of why we aren’t more like Europe when it comes to social welfare.

  131. 131.

    Kay (not the front pager)

    @Kay:

    go back and look at interviews and his statements and his whole career- it’s ALL nasty attacks on other people and demanding attention and deference to his superior intelligence.

    So in other words, Sanders is Kucinich 2.0.

  132. 132.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    “I want to keep my doctor”

    I wanted to stay with my local pharmacist but the new company insurance plan said if I did my $65 a month blood thinner was going to cost me $500 a month. So now I have a mail order pharmacy with 3 month scrips.

    “You can’t always get what you want”

  134. 134.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    How does Bernie Sanders align his supposed beliefs with not contributing or belonging to a political Party but using it to run?

    He can’t do that with single payer. He’ll have to join, no matter if it doesn’t cover dental care or something. They have to align their rugged individualism with their supposed goals of collectivism. If they can’t even stick with a fractured, messy coalition like the Democratic Party to get someone elected will they stick with free college as it goes thru the sausage machine?

  135. 135.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Do you like the long scrip? When I worked at the PO that’s how the VA sent medicine. Veterans seemed to love it. We would get a special parcel sack from Detroit with all of their scrips and they got to know when it was coming.

  136. 136.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    I think the statistic about LePage’s tax cuts was that they were targeted mostly for 89 families. We’ve done the same thing here with raising our taxes for our schools and we still had massive cuts in teachers and programs.

  138. 138.

    Baud

    @germy: Is he still a thing? Can’t recall that I’ve heard his name in a while, but I don’t keep up with pop culture.

  139. 139.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I think he feels he is entitled to pick and choose how he relates to the party. From what I’ve heard, we are lucky to have him.

  140. 140.

    germy

    @Baud: He seems to have a loyal following of white people who show up every time his road show passes through town.

  141. 141.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    So this is my birthday weekend AND Orthodox Easter (Pascha). Got the house dressed up, groceries laid in, a brilliant plan of activity and cooking a decorative fun laid in. Two daughters are here – one living in town and staying over, the now-switched-from-her-genuine-talent-of-archaeology-and-who-is-going-to-get-a-worthless-masters-in-womyn’s-grievances daughter from Cincinnati came in with her partner.

    Went to the Lamentation service last night – a very pretty service. Followed up with a fun pizza place, the youthful ones saying they were going out. We said “make no noise”, and bid them well.

    They came in at 3:45, arguing. The youngest one’s boyfriend was super wasted, and the ride home was apparently a hell ride, according to eldest. They woke the dog, our cat and eldest’s cat; I retired to the living room so eldest could talk – she was really upset. She finally went to bed, I dozed off. Somewhere around 7 am, all hell has broken loose. Boyfriend had been laying in bed sobbing (keeping the Countess awake), then apparently fell out of the bed AND pissed on the floor. Apparently daughter was angry and in his face, then he tried smacking/choking her. Wife intervened at that point, and I propelled him to the front door.

    He was so wasted he couldn’t form words. Daughter was getting something, I’m demanding to know if he’s high and I took some liberties with discussing his behavior while holding his collar in the corner. Daughter of course flipped out at me, claimed he’s just a loser drunk and how dare me not just engage him verbally and it has been a LOVELY fucking morning (the kid has managed to bend my new glasses, shatter the shit out of my *new* phone as I was starting to call 911 and has hit everyone in the house defending this bum).

    About 45 minutes in, she hits a kernel of thought that she passed him a drink that somebody handed her at the club, and he may have been micked, because he has no recollection of anything. The Countess is telling them to please stay; she’s worried about the relationship if they leave.

    I just want to spend the weekend somewhere else, alone and away from all of these people. I had been looking forward to it – now, I just want to be alone.

  142. 142.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    We lost field trips which I think is really sad because they’re a “leveler” and we’re 50% lower income. They’re a way for low income kids to have the experiences of higher income kids- museums, science exhibits- all the stuff higher income people take their kids to. I’ve come to believe it isn’t “stuff”- material goods- it’s experiences. Going places. Seeing things. I went on one of the museum trips as a chaperone and some of the low income 6th graders had never been to Toledo. It’s 60 miles away. Their parents don’t have the time or inclination or money to TAKE them places. They are ridiculously excited on these trips. It’s a big deal and a big loss.

  144. 144.

    Tenar Arha

    @MomSense: re: you family log books. As others have mentioned, if you scan them (carefully) & either post transcripts yourselves or maybe end up crowdsourcing transcribing them. But when you donate the records provide those html/css files as part of the donation…the archivists will kiss you.

    @MomSense: Re: tax cuts & services/roads/college tuition/fees Kansas’ parlous state is instructive if the people listening are remotely influenced by evidence. Unfortunately I can’t think of a simple tag line that isn’t attacking one state/city’s citizens or reinforce stereotypes of clueless coastal dwellers to fix it. The closest I could get would be something like the following. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

    You put up a photo of a rich white guy on a yacht, play ominous music & say “While his federal taxes went down after last year’s tax bill passed, your state & local taxes and fees went up….Who do you think could afford it less?”

    ETA typo

  146. 146.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    If I advised the Gates Foundation on what to do for low income students it would be “take them places”. Physically. Trips. To a national park, to a museum, to a sit down restaurant. Let them learn something extra- glass blowing or private music lessons or tennis- something “extra”. Gates wouldn’t have to enter schools at all- he could run the whole thing after school. It’s an experience deficit and schools are just sort of a convenient place to organize those. That’s the class difference.

  152. 152.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    Do we know where the most faithful Wilmer supporters are located geographically? It seems to me lots of them are in consistently blue states. They take D rule for granted.

    Actually, I think single party dominance tends to promote splitting. People look for things to better.

    It may also promote corruption since the dominant party protects its own, thus making it easier to attack.

    I’m spitballing here. Presumably there’s data somewhere.

  154. 154.

    Miss Bianca

    @germy: @germy: true fact (as opposed to fake news): my ex-husband’s cousin was a huge Dave Matthews fan. To the point where she wrote him a long and detailed fan letter about what his music meant to her. (This was, obviously, back in the day when people still wrote letters). Then one day, as she’s coming home from the grocery store, wrestling with the door and multiple bags, she hears the phone ringing. By the time she gets in the door, the answering machine picks up. It’s…Dave Matthews. Calling her to thank her for her letter. Apparently it made quite an impression.

    anyway, the whole point of telling this story is that I’ve always hated the guy’s music, but decided i couldn’t think badly of *him* because of that one demonstrably cool thing he’d done for Denise. I am so relieved to be able to go back to thinking, “your music SUCkS, dude, and so do you!” //

  156. 156.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    If Cordray loses he will back Kucinich. Can you say the same for Kucinich? No, of course not, because he’s special.

    You can’t have a political party composed of individuals pursuing their own individual agendas. The point of the thing is strength in numbers. Also- every single member can’t run it.

    Funny. Kucinich sounds a lot like Bernie Sanders.

    I didn’t know much about this political infighting or Kucinich’s problematic behavior. I really appreciate your insight and background analysis on this stuff.

  158. 158.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Grad school.

    Alas, not just there. We have far too many rabid white (natch) retirees in our area who also drank the Wilmer koolaid and are doing their best to drag the Democratic Party down, just when we have a chance to win some important state and local races. Mucho frustrating.

  159. 159.

    RedDirtGirl

    @Kay: Re: Kucinich. I remember someone, maybe Jon Stewart, back in ‘08, saying it was an historic democratic primary. First African-American candidate, first female candidate (D), and first Leprechan-American candidate.

  161. 161.

    Ridnik Chrome

    …the legion of freaking doom of ratfuckers…

    Why the euphemism? If you’re going to use the word “fuck” once, you might as well use it twice.

  162. 162.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)

    Do we have any bets on who’ll be the first one to flee the country? My guess is Prince.

  164. 164.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I hate it because it makes me dislike people I like. I went to a Dem event last week and there was a local woman there I have known for 20 years and just the silly, facile evaluation of Kucinich as our life-long dream made me have less respect for her. Okay, she was slightly annoying prior to this but I do like her husband :)

    Kuchinich’s name is like a term of art- it means more to them than to people outside that circle. It encompasses this whole set of policies and attitudes and grievances- just fucking exhausting, bothering to DECODE this talk and realizing there’s nothing there.

  165. 165.

    Brachiator

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

    Do we know where the most faithful Wilmer supporters are located geographically? It seems to me lots of them are in consistently blue states. They take D rule for granted.

    The Democratic Party may be a big tent, but there have always been left-wing challengers. Maybe this intensified with Gene McCarthy’s challenge to LBJ in the 60s.

    Sanders is just the flavor of the month. But the political sentiment is much larger than he is.

  166. 166.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    It’s been going on forever, too, in Ohio anyway. I think of these things as “shortcuts”- ways to declare your general position.

    NAFTA went from being about a trade deal to being a phrase that means “the decline of the working class”. It no longer has anything to do with THAT trade deal. We’re now talking in generalities – planting flags.

  167. 167.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @FlipYrWhig: Nicely put. There’s an astonishing number of women in that bunch too, who display a disturbing pattern of hatred towards an array of female candidates. Of course these true believers would dispute any charges of internalized misogyny, but sexism is as sexism does….

    Edited.

  168. 168.

    Groucho48

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

    Before turning her official SoS emails over, Clinton hired a team of lawyers to go through all her emails to separate out personal emails. They used a key word search and found 30000 emails that didn’t contain any of the key words, so, were presumably not official emails. Those emails were deleted and the rest were turned over.

    The FBI was able to recover the 30000 and had the manpower and time to read all of them. They found a handful that did contain SoS stuff. Nothing especially notable in that handful, though, possibly, some had stuff in them that was later classified by the intelligence community.

  169. 169.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Now I’m trying to come up with a good way to say “holidays can be you, me and eldest daughter. I don’t want the others ruining the time.”

  171. 171.

    cynthia ackerman

    @Amir Khalid:

    My local redneck brain trust is very adamant that the 2A “militia” is actually the US government, and the “well regulated” part refers to a check on said govt by citizens whose right to keep and bear arms is unrestricted.

    And, too, motor vehicles kill more people than do guns, yet “there’s no such thing as motor vehicle control.”

    I wish I was kidding.

    Those really are the “facts” according to a plurality of my neighbors.

  172. 172.

    No Drought No More

    @satby: Sounds like a federal lock-up in Indiana would serve perfectly well to warehouse Prince until he dies, i.e., if convicted, of course. If convicted for a parking ticket so far as I’m concerned, but convicted.

    The fair minded (heh-heh) should strive then to emulate Mueller Inc., by adhering to a strict observance of all legal proprieties unto conviction, after which Americans should hang Prince and every other treasonous conspirator higher than Haman.

  173. 173.

    smintheus

    Schmitz wanted to lock Clinton up over deleted emails. Schmitz himself was sent scurrying from his job as Bush’s DOD Inspector General (into the arms of Blackwater) when Sen. Grassley informed him that Schmitz was under investigation for blocking Pentagon investigations of two wrong-doers.

    The investigations Schmitz blocked were into Air Force general counsel Mary Walker, who lied under oath about rapes at the Air Force Academy and about a Boeing bribery scandal; and into the corruption of Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John Shaw, who used his office to give contracts in Iraq to a friend’s company.

    “He’s a person who did not put the appearance of ethics above all else,” said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight. “That is not the way the government should function. These are the kind of things that make the general public distrust government.”

    Schmitz should have been indicted for those acts of obstruction. But instead he went to work for Erik Prince, and now he’s an adviser to Trump. Who could’ve predicted.

  175. 175.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    The facts didn’t matter at all.

    The heart of the matter when discussing republicans.
    Facts? We don’t know no stinking facts
    Facts get in their way because they are always wrong about everything. They have to lie. If their lips are moving you know that lies are all you will hear.

  176. 176.

    Ruckus

    @BillinGlendaleCA:
    In the navy we had a guy in the engineering crew who was 6’8″
    I’m 5’11” and was the max length of a bunk. Most of the bunks were between a wall and a stack of lockers so this guy had to sleep in a top bunk with an access opening at one end. His legs/feet hung out in the air nearly a foot. Of course if you walked by durning the night you had to duck or smack your head on them. I have no idea how he managed to walk around inside the ship, if I wasn’t careful I could hit my head on things hanging below the ceiling.

  178. 178.

    Ruckus

    @MomSense:
    I’ve gotten a couple of notices from some shit head republican running for gov of CA about lowering taxes. I emailed him back about how the taxes we have is what allow us to have a state that works, that people want to live in, it’s how we pay for modern life and one of the reasons we are the worlds sixth largest economy. Of course I threw in a few swear words of encouragement about his personal attributes throughout my response and his possible moving to Mississippi because he couldn’t fuck that up any more than it is now.

  179. 179.

    Ruckus

    @germy:

    The Israeli military has maintained that the shooting into the border crowds is carefully targeted. It could not immediately provide a comment on how six journalists could have been shot.

    The second sentence contradicts the first. Six journalists were shot because the were carefully targeted. But you knew that. Ahhhh, conservatives. Wonderful people who think that the solution to every thing is to kill off everyone but the person holding the gun and magic will happen and everything will be flowers and skipping.

  180. 180.

    Ruckus

    @germy:
    A line? To see DM do a concert for DK? Are they holding this in a local bar that holds 12 people so that when it’s half full it won’t look so pathetic?

  181. 181.

    Bill Arnold

    @Kay:

    If I advised the Gates Foundation on what to do for low income students it would be “take them places”. Physically. Trips. To a national park, to a museum, to a sit down restaurant.

    It might be worth trying to get this idea in front of him, and for that matter to get it significantly more in vogue with philanthropists. Many mean well but are astonishingly ignorant about the realities of class differences in America.

  182. 182.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:
    I like getting my VA meds in the mail. It beats sitting 3 hrs waiting at the pharmacy at the local clinic after having to wait an hour to get cleared with the pharmacist, the one in the flowered shirt who never discusses any medication but wants to discuss anything/everything else.

  183. 183.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:
    VT single payer failing wasn’t his fault. Nothing is ever his fault. It wasn’t his fault people didn’t vote for him in the primary, so he had to keep running for something. It isn’t his fault that he renounced his membership in the democratic party after we kicked his ass to the curb so he’s going to keep telling us how to run the party that he doesn’t want to be a part of. He is nice enough to tell us how bad we are and if we’d just listen to him all would be well.
    If you just remember that Nothing Is Ever His Fault, all will be understandable.

  184. 184.

    Bennett

    John Schmitz was the author of Prop. 6 in California in 1978, which would have banned all homosexuals and anyone who advocated civil rights for gay people from teaching in California public schools. He stumped for this while committing bigamy.

  186. 186.

    Gretchen

    @MomSense: Ancestry.com might be interested also. That sounds very interesting. It sounds like something that’s important to preserve.

  188. 188.

    Origuy

    @MomSense: From Article VI of the Articles of Confederation (Constitution V1.0) :

    No vessel of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any State, except such number only, as shall be deemed necessary by the United States in Congress assembled, for the defense of such State, or its trade; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any State in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judgement of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defense of such State; but every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage.

  190. 190.

    1000 flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @Kay: Was he actually competent as mayor of Cleveland, 40 years ago? Has he had any successful managerial experience since, in either the public or private sector?

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