Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

He really is that stupid.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

This fight is for everything.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Republicans don’t trust women.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The willow is too close to the house.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: There Will Be Twitter-Tantrums

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: There Will Be Twitter-Tantrums

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172Comments

  4. 4.

    HeleninEire

    Morning, morning crew. Because of work and the time difference, I missed the John Cole/Lily posts. So I just want to send good vibes and luck to the both of them here.

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    Many of you still enduring wintry conditions, so a touch of off-season seasonal melody. :)

    Yes, aware that there’s oodles of dislike for the song, but it’s a pretty kickbutt rendition.

  6. 6.

    EveryDayIHaveTheBlues

    Quite frankly, this is good(ish) news. The more he’s fixated on this stuff, the less he can fuck up elsewhere. The Syria war will not start itself… although Bolton is certain to help.

  8. 8.

    raven

    @HeleninEire: We’ve been watching “Striking Out” on Acorn TV and I didn’t know that Eire was what Ireland is called until they showed a national seal in a courtroom! Now I know!

  9. 9.

    Jeffro

    I see on the Twitters that Richard Nixon is suggesting sites for Barbara Bush’s memorial service…

    …like the Astrodome. ???

    Ah, Tricky…

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    Trump’s goose is not yet cooked; but it’s sitting in the pot with the vegetables, while Mueller lights the stove. Trump is aware of this, that’s why he’s panicking. And we all know it was Mitch McConnell who put Gorsuch in the Supreme Court. Trump’s part was merely signing off on the done deal. POTUS is progressively losing touch with reality. It’s worrying to see, and not just to Americans.

    Meanwhile, I need to make a few purchases ahead of bringing Sister* home — strap locks, a roller bridge, a matching pickguard mounting bracket. But the site where I do my online shopping is borked today. I haz a sad.
    *JR in WV suggested the name, in honour of Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Elizabelle said it complemented The Girl nicely. They’re right.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    @HeleninEire

    BTW, good little Irish documentary on Amazon Prime, Ballyfin: Portrait of an Irish Country House. Considering the structural decrepitude the property had descended to, its restoration is only slightly short of miraculous. And every time the lake is shown, keep in mind it is not a natural feature, it was dug out entirely by hand.

    For SF buffs, if ever wondered where the design of the spice pilot survival chamber in the Dune movie came from, look no further than the conservatory of this Irish estate.

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    Way, way OT.

    Why keep on watching the Spanish time travelers on Netflix – lines like this:

    “The past is no place to have the runs.”

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I know everyone here will be shocked, just shocked, to learn this:

    An American citizen who has been held without charge in Iraq since last September by the US military now faces being moved to an unidentified foreign country under government plans that his lawyers are scrambling to challenge. A heavily redacted court document, released on Tuesday at the orders of a federal judge in Washington, reveals the intention of the defense secretary, Gen James Mattis, to move the detainee to a third country, having kept him captive for the past seven months in Iraq. The name of the receiving country is being kept secret, though reports have suggested it is Saudi Arabia.

    The American Civil Liberties Union plans to challenge the transfer, which it argues is unlawful. The detainee – whose identity is also being kept secret and who is referred to in legal papers only as John Doe – was held for the first four months with no access to any lawyer until the ACLU waged a fierce court battle and won the right to represent him.

    The judge in the case, Tanya Chutkan of the District of Columbia, called the government’s resistance to grant the man his basic right of a lawyer “both remarkable and troubling”. She has also forbidden the US military from moving the detainee without giving lawyers 72 hours to challenge the decision.

    I guess this is what happens when war crimes aren’t prosecuted.

  27. 27.

    Immanentize

    PS. The site is glitchy today for me. Anyone else having troubles? Won’t load, giving me weird version, won’t load, etc.

  28. 28.

    SectionH

    @NotMax: you win the cleverness award for Everything on the Tubes today. No, this year. For me anyway. Yes, comment #1.

    I will offer IQ45 in return. Not as good, but I thought it was funny enough when I read it.

    Aloha

  33. 33.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @raven: Not a crossword puzzler then, I gather. “Eire” is a pretty common answer in puzzle world.

  35. 35.

    germy

    The season finale of Black Lightning was excellent last night.

    WARNING: Spoiler follows

    What’s so great about “Shadow Of Death: The Book Of War” is how the whole family comes around to this idea of responsibility, both to each other and to their community. Jenn’s only seen her recently discovered powers as a burden, but when she saves her father’s life and restores his powers before Proctor’s armed force storms the cabin, she sees their purpose. She sees the good she can do. “Oh, so this is what we do,” she says with a smirk, and Jefferson flashes one back. Again, the Pierce family dynamic shines, especially in these small moments. Yes, there’s the heartbreaking emotion of Lynn pleading with Jefferson to wake up, but there’s also the shared glances and the freedom with which they smile at each other. Black Lightning has done a tremendous job of making the Pierce family feel real, and that makes their stand against Proctor, complete with Lynn toting a shotgun, all the more satisfying. The first season follows a true arc, as the Pierce family, splintered as the season began, finds a way to work together for the common good.

    The soundtrack for this series is amazing, by the way. Everyone from Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings doing “This Land Is Your Land” to Bob Marley to the O’Jays to Coleman Hawkins.

  36. 36.

    Lapassionara

    @OzarkHillbilly: Just another reason to sit on the aisle. Remember when Trump took credit for the fact that there were no commercial air travel fatalities last year? So, is this his fault?

    Good morning, everyone.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    @Immanentize

    Could be a wise ass and say he’s not in the picture because he had to trot off into the woods, but –

    As you asked, someone who who shows up well into the series, nicknamed Pacino.

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Lapassionara:

    The US National Transportation Safety Board chairman, Robert Sumwalt, said it was the first passenger fatality in an accident involving a US airline since 2009.

    Obviously Obama’s fault.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    This is a great interview w/Comey. I’m glad he’s being asked what to me are real questions:

    Inskeep: That’s your concern. And so that I guess was behind your decision to make a public statement about the case. Just so the people understand, how would you have closed that case in the ordinary way? Suppose it was an ordinary investigation, you weren’t concerned about perceptions of the FBI or the Justice Department, what would the FBI normally have done at the end of this case?

    In the ordinary case, we would most likely in writing prepare some sort of summary of what our investigation had determined and then send it over to the Justice Department, and they would in the ordinary case either say nothing, which is the most common case, or at most issue a letter to the target saying, or the subject saying it’s over, or some minimal statement about it.

    And this:

    Inskeep: Let me ask about another factor in your thinking as you describe it. You write in the book that there was classified information that you received about your boss, the attorney general, that made you concerned about involving her in your decisions. That that was a factor. You haven’t said what the information is. The Washington Post has reported that there was an email connected to Russia somehow about Attorney General Lynch that is believed to be fictitious. And I think you said you investigated and didn’t find anything there. But it was a factor in your thinking at the time. Looking back, do you feel that you were played by the Russians there?

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Icelandic boy’s Titanic Lego replica makes it safely across to US museum

    The model, previously displayed in Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Germany, has travelled to the Titanic Museum in Tennessee, where Brynjar will be making an appearance on 21 April.

    He said the experience had helped him with his autism. “Although I’m still autistic and will always be, I have trained myself to be ‘as normal as possible’ – whatever normal means,” he told the museum in an interview.

    “I was totally unable to communicate when I started the project and now I’m standing on stage and giving interviews. It has given me confidence. When I started the building process I had a person helping me in school in every step that I took, but today, I’m studying without any support. I have had the opportunity to travel and explore and meet wonderful people.”

    8 meters long.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    @Kay: That is excellent. Comey better hope Trump never goes down because then there would be no reason to ignore his destructive lack of judgment.

  45. 45.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    So I was looking at the Starbucks Twitter over the announcement of this unprecedented, super expensive training.

    Rose Twitter and the rest of the Bernie Bros seem upset that Starbucks isn’t addressing classism instead, that racism isn’t the real problem…

    I’m trying to figure out what that would even mean – does it mean that you’d train store managers to sit idly while aggressive panhandlers worked over the clientele? (and yes, I’m a bad corporatist neoliberal sellout that doesn’t fetishize the homeless by talking about the wisdom of the gibbering addict who wears shit in his hair as a fashion statement as he demands money).

  46. 46.

    Frankensteinbeck

    The Cohen raid seems to be different for Trump. He freaks out over any time he hears Mueller looking into his finances, but not this persistently or incoherently. He knows the FBI got something specific here, something that terrifies him. A narcissist doesn’t prioritize like the rest of us, so I don’t want to predict what it is. It could be hard evidence of crimes, or something that would make people laugh at him if it became public.

  49. 49.

    germy

    @Baud: Rose Twitter sits in starbucks, doesn’t buy, but is always allowed to use the restroom and is never asked to leave.

  54. 54.

    Chet Murthy

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Rose Twitter and the rest of the Bernie Bros seem upset that Starbucks isn’t addressing classism instead, that racism isn’t the real problem…

    I’m trying to figure out what that would even mean

    “All Lives Matter”, I believe, is the translation into English.

  59. 59.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Immanentize:

    I can usually guess the location of the most virulent among them by the extent of the spittle-flecked rage. They’re at their worst in a few zip codes of Brooklyn and San Francisco Bay.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I get rattled sometimes realizing how thorough the Russian interference was- how there were so many fronts.

    They planted a conspiracy about Lynch and it not only got all the way to the director of the FBI (and other intelligence services) it had a DIRECT impact on their actions. It was so easy to throw a wrench in the system. They found so many weaknesses, so many entry points. Comey was afraid that email would leak, too, he was afraid of “pundits”- so that raises the question- who would leak it? I’ve now read two interviews with him and there’s this missing “other” – a thread that runs thru his decisions- he was afraid certain people would do certain things but those people are never identified.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    @Kay: Spot on. The premise of his decisions is that the Republican mob is to be feared and the Democrats can be safely ignored, and behavior should conform to that reality.

    And our collective failure to elect Hillary proved him right.

  66. 66.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:

    I don’t know how that guy can go out in public without having people spit in his face.

  67. 67.

    Amir Khalid

    @frosty:
    Epi Les Paul Studio, in black. She’s a beauty. I would have brought her home last week, but the shop hadn’t kept the box and didn’t have a cheap enough gig bag in stock. I have to go there again with my own gig bag.

  68. 68.

    Kay

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

    I’m just relieved we’re getting to the meat of the thing. He looks worse with every interview because he’s now having to answer hard questions. That tends to happen – he looks worse because these were bad decisions- but it only happens if someone asks the questions.

    The book may be actually in the public interest. He’s putting himself out there and he’s answering these questions. That’s more than we’ve gotten from anyone else. I don’t like the answers – I think he was wrong, made really poor decisions- but at least there’s an opportunity to question a main player about something, publicly. I credit him with his willingness to be grilled.

  70. 70.

    Immanentize

    @Frankensteinbeck: I always considered it a double entendre because most of them are too young to know what a Sandinista was but they do understand the middle class hipster option of being a Barista.

    PS, I saw the Clash at the Ritz in NYC during their Sandinista tour. At one point, actual red-bereted Sandinistas dropped propaganda leaflets from the ceiling onto the dancing young-uns. Even then it was ridiculous.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    And they’re all convinced that the weakness WAS Clinton- that had she not done X there wouldn’t have been an entry point for Y, but that’s bullshit- this could happen to any of them. Imagine if the Trump campaign emails had been stolen and then released.

  82. 82.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: I am never sure what triggers his specific tweets. They seems to be the products of rage and anxiety. Is the tweet trying to help Cohen? Help Trump? Keep people in the fold? Because Trump sent the guy and Mueller already knows who it is?
    Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of that man…

  87. 87.

    SFAW

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    and yes, I’m a bad corporatist neoliberal sellout that doesn’t fetishize the homeless by talking about the wisdom of the gibbering addict who wears shit in his hair as a fashion statement as he demands money).

    Well, that ain’t James Joyce or Phil Farmer, but it ain’t bad.

  88. 88.

    Ken

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The Cohen raid seems to be different for Trump.

    Since we’ve established it’s always projection, my guess is that he’s been running a child slavery/sex ring out of a New York pizza parlor.

  89. 89.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Who would have thought that at a summit between the U.S. and North Korea, Kim would be the rational one.

    That’s been obvious for awhile, unfortunately.

  91. 91.

    oldgold

    In connection with the Cohen matter too little attention has been given to this.

    “Prosecutors revealed that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months, and that they have already searched the contents of several of his email addresses.”

    Then, after that, law enforcement convinces a magistrate to allow the search of the POTUS’s personal lawyer’s office, home, hotel room and bank box.

  92. 92.

    Wanderer

    Got the recommendation for the Time traveler series from a posting here. Watched that episode last night. Enjoying the series. Thanks for the tip.
    OT: get well wishes to Lilly.

  93. 93.

    rikyrah

    @germy:
    Yeah.. another Black Lightning fan. I love the show. I am always telling people about it. I don’t think that they knew that they were getting another season when they wrapped up, so if this had been it, it would have been satisfying. Now that we know that they get a second season, makes it even sweeter??

  95. 95.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: how thorough, how easily, and how relatively cheaply .

    I mean this probably cost them less than a pair a fighter planes, or a few tanks .

  97. 97.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @SFAW:

    Ever notice that whenever the center left (old labor, racial justice, proper regulation) is experiencing a bit of a tailwind and resurgence, the Brooklyn and Bay left start shrieking about their class war, grabbing the megaphone and sounding ridiculous to the point of driving interested people back to the GOP?

  98. 98.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: If the summit happens, which I doubt, I expect we will get so rolled. Japan and South Korea are going to HATE the deal Kim gets Trump to agree to.

  99. 99.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay:
    They identified the two biggest buttons America doesn’t want to admit control our politics – misogyny and racism – and pressed them. Or then again, maybe they didn’t have to. All they had to do was press any button they could reach, because those problems were ready to explode.

    @Immanentize:
    I admit, I know nothing about barista stereotyping or social connotations. It’s just a fast food job as far as I know.

  101. 101.

    Immanentize

    @Quinerly: Yes, that picture came from that meeting. That look was terror. I’ve seen it before in my client’s whole face, eyes and body.

  102. 102.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Kay: What is missing from the story, it seems to me, is a fuller report on the political atmosphere in the New York FBI office. Comey is a straight arrow, and while he has far too high an opinion of his ability to make ethical decisions, it looks to me like he was responding to a bunch of Hillary-haters there. That would have shifted his Overton Window to put a higher priority on not offending one side rather than the other, and to ignore the counsel of people in Washington.

    Or was he effectively blackmailed, in that he knew others would leak if he didn’t? He owes us the whole story.

  104. 104.

    satby

    @Immanentize: well, they’ve gotten away with openly murdering people in the UK and elsewhere, no reason for them to believe they can’t get away with it here. And Cohen realizes that, I bet.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Kucinich?

    Kucinich is bad- a dishonest person. A phony. He was an old-fashioned (white people) labor politician until that became not a winning combination so he transformed into a Lefty. He wasn’t ahead of his time. He was behind the times. The white ethnic European (immigrant) Democrats who he really represents moved out of urban areas and became Republicans. He represents a Democratic Party that no longer exists- not the ideological views, but the actual composition– the people in the Party. He’s Marcy Kaptur but without the honesty and ethical grounding.

  108. 108.

    Immanentize

    @Quinerly: Yes, her father is the one who got Cohen into the corrupt Taxi business (FiL was also once convicted for money laundering).

    Taxi businesses are great for money laundering because all you need to do is report more cash paid for transportation than actually occurred. Pay the reduced taxes — clean money!

  111. 111.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Quinerly: Cohen literally grew up in a world of organized crime.

    One of the abiding questions about Cohen is how he became so deeply enmeshed in the Ukrainian and Russian emigre communities from such an early age and moved so early into businesses heavily infiltrated by organized crime. He married a Ukrainian immigrant whose father got him into the taxi business and himself had at least one conviction for money laundering. Cohen was raised in the Five Towns area of Long Island, not far from Brighton Beach as the crow flies – just across Jamaica Bay – but worlds away culturally. The El Caribe seems like the logical locus which brought Cohen into this world.

  114. 114.

    Jeffro

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Rose Twitter and the rest of the Bernie Bros seem upset that Starbucks isn’t addressing classism instead, that racism isn’t the real problem…

    I’m trying to figure out what that would even mean

    It means they can’t conceive of walking and chewing gum at the same time?

    It means that before there can be any discussion of racism, every last bit of “classism” and every last concern of white folks in general must first be addressed to Bernie’s satisfaction? (Meaning, yes, that racism never hits the agenda as a topic)

    They need to be a little more subtle here…trying to make the Starbucks thing about class instead of race is so stupid and borderline evil, even the Repubs are jealous…

  115. 115.

    Immanentize

    @Quinerly: I hear ya. But I worry so that the general response is turning into a shrug instead of organized outraged opposition.

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    We have a sheriiff’s deputy here who I actually recruited for the county party who is now an uber Lefty. I see him almost every day so he’s been pressuring me on Kucinich. He’s a terrible gossip so I see him every day but I adroitly dodge his questions because he tells me HORRIBLE things about other people so I’m sure he’s taking this “intel” back to the camp :)

    I don’t have any power! None! I’m not fixing anything against douchebag Kucinich. I don’t even know how I would do that, if I had time, which I don’t.

  120. 120.

    sherparick

    Gorsuch vote on this case, as LGM’s Scott Lemieux points out, and illustrates from quote from Ian Milhiser, Gorsuch wants to gut Government regulation and the ability of Congress to grant discretion to regulators to interpret and implement laws.

    “….Then, in separate opinion joined by no other judge, Gorsuch launched into a rant against the Supreme Court’s decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

    Chevron is one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the last half-century. It provides that, when a federal agency pushes out a new regulation, and the statute which allegedly permits such a regulation is ambiguous, courts will typically defer to the agency’s reading of the statute unless that reading is outlandish.

    Though Chevron was uncontroversial for several decades, it became one of the conservative Federalist Society’s most hated decisions during the Obama years — no doubt because Chevron required a judiciary controlled by Republicans to defer to environmental and labor regulators in a Democratic administration. Gorsuch’s critique of Chevron largely mirrors that of the Federalist Society — that Chevron places too much power in the executive branch and not enough in the legislature and judiciary.

    The practical effect of a Supreme Court decision overruling Chevron would be to transfer power from whoever controls the presidency to a Republican-controlled judiciary. ”

    This is the reason McConnell wanted Gorsuch or someone like Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, because that is what his donors want, and McConnell is all about pleasing the donors.

  121. 121.

    Baud

    @Kay:

     I’m not fixing anything against douchebag Kucinich. I don’t even know how I would do that, if I had time, which I don’t.

    Happy to help. Just ask!

    (Or do nothing, and if he loses, that automatically means that the primary was rigged.)

  123. 123.

    Immanentize

    @Kay:

    I don’t have any power! None!

    If people around you think you have power.
    And then they act like you have power.
    You have power.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    There’s a better version of him available in Ohio. Marcy Kaptur. All the positions, none of the bullshit. NW Ohio (Kaptur) versus NE Ohio (DK).

    They should have run her. I’d happily support her. They wouldn’t because she’s anti-abortion but so is Kucinich- he just found it politically expedient to lie about it.

  125. 125.

    Manyakitty

    @Kay: Right??? So why on earth would the Plain Dealer endorse him? I’m pretty much set on voting for Schiavoni in the primary, and I expect Cordray in the general.

  126. 126.

    kindness

    Trump may want the credit for Gorsuch but I give that to McConnell, may he rot in hell for all eternity.

  127. 127.

    Kay

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I wonder if people (The Public) would benefit from some background on Russian oligarchs and US rich people, and the ties therein. There’s a larger story in play here and we don’t have that context. Trump was just ONE American con man working with Russia on various shady business deals, and Trump wasn’t even a big player because he exaggerates his wealth. The Mercers are bigger and there are others. I think if we got the context – that there are a group of people who see some financial benefit to working with Putin OR see some financial benefit to making the US look more like Putin’s Russia the story becomes less about Trump and more about the country. It’s bigger than Trump.

  128. 128.

    J R in WV

    @Amir Khalid:

    Thanks, Amir. An honor for me to have named your new guiltar.

    Now~! You need to send Alain snapshots of both guitars so we can admire them – few man-made things as attractive as a musical instrument made of wood. Or even a short video of you playing something… I’m excited now!

  129. 129.

    Kay

    @Manyakitty:

    I don’t know but it worries me because the Toledo Blade hates Cordray too. I feel like it’s intended to boost Republicans. DeWine is weak. He can be beaten. I feel like they’re attacking the D frontrunner to shore him up.

  130. 130.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Comey is a straight arrow, and while he has far too high an opinion of his ability to make ethical decisions, it looks to me like he was responding to a bunch of Hillary-haters there.

    Unfortunately, I think he was a straight arrow. From what he’s saying in his book and in the interviews around it, it sounds like he fell for his own hype and became more concerned with the appearance of honesty than honesty. Once you’ve slipped there, all kinds of personal biases get a fingerhold, and it’s amazingly easy to decide that it’s for the good of the country to take that bitch Hillary down a peg.

  131. 131.

    Kay

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Because that’s what I’m really afraid of. In my most conspiratorial moments I’m afraid a group of US wealthy people looked at Putin’s Russia with the corrupt oligarchs at the top and the vast (and desperately poor) peons at the bottom and said “THAT looks good! Let’s get that here!”

    I’m afraid that’s why they admire him. Because his population is destitute but the people at the tippy-top are making a fuck-load of money and are beyond the reach of laws. They’d like that here.

  132. 132.

    J R in WV

    @satby:

    Listening to the audio of the conversation between air traffic control and Captain of the aircraft drove me to tears several times. I had to listen in small sections. So calm and collected about an aircraft that has come apart!!!

    Someone explain the guy who was more focused on his selfie than on breathing – so he had is mask over his mouth, but not his nose????

  133. 133.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kay: They admire him because he hates the same people that they do, but he doesn’t have to hide it.

  134. 134.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I was skeptical of the usefulness of the Avenattie/Daniels suspect sketch, but it looks like somebody recognizes it

    Donald J. Trump
    A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!

  135. 135.

    Kay

    @Manyakitty:

    The Plain Dealer makes some sense- NE Ohio, Cleveland, etc.

    The Toledo Blade also makes sense. They are constantly warring with their own labor unions. They are anti-labor union. Cordray will get support from labor unions.

    I buy The Blade because 1. I love newspapers 2. they sometimes do great work but the truth is their editorial policies are driven by their OWN labor troubles, which is bad. I read their employee’s twitter sometimes and that is a contentious workplace, as far as wages and labor/management issues. They don’t get paid very much, local reporters. They’re very outspoken about it.

  138. 138.

    Kay

    @Manyakitty:

    It would just be so perfect if the liberals in the Democratic Party supported Kucinich and Ohio newspapers seized on that because they want to kill the labor unions who support Cordray. Good job, Lefties. Very clever.

  139. 139.

    Barbara

    @Immanentize: You are sure that’s not a parody? Because it sure doesn’t sound like it was written by anyone who has visited a Starbucks recently. ISTM, as someone who has been drinking at Starbucks for a long time, that Starbucks has actually become much less class conscious as it became a public company and needed to match growth forecasts. To the point that some coffee snobs won’t patronize it anymore. Working as I do in the center of a prime tourist destination, I can’t tell you how many desperate tourists from so-called flyover country have stopped me to ask whether they were walking in the right direction to the nearest Starbucks. Sure, McDonad’s and Dunkin Donuts have good coffee too, but “Starbucks” and “coffee” have fused into the imagination of members of all classes.

  140. 140.

    Quinerly

    @Immanentize: My outrage is outraged. But sometimes my outrage is just exhausted and wants to shrug and curl up. The average person, I suspect, doesn’t want to/can’t keep up.

  141. 141.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Kay: I agree that we need to know more about this. I keep wondering, for example, about the motives of the Republican Party and the rich people who support them. As many have noted here over the past 24 hours, Mitch McConnell’s actions don’t make sense in terms of the welfare of the country, but they do make sense in terms of making the rich richer and covering the trail.

    So let’s say that the Republican Party’s motives are keeping the American oligarchs wealthy and in power. What do those oligarchs want? Probably more money and power, although to a less-wealthy person like me, it seems bizarre to have money only for the purpose of diving around in it, like Scrooge McDuck. And power, yeah I guess, but to make what kind of world? Or is it all short-term thinking, just give me more?

  143. 143.

    Kay

    @Barbara:

    I would agree with you. There’s one at a turnpike rest stop here and a lot of locals go. If it was ever elite it isn’t now. I myself PREFER McDonald’s coffee because I’ve been drinking it since I’m 15 and it’s what “coffee” tastes like to me. It’s always exactly the same :)

  144. 144.

    Manyakitty

    @Kay: I can’t imagine why Cordray inspires so much negativity. He always struck me as pretty solid, in a slightly-more-corporate-than-Sherrod-Brown kind of way.

  145. 145.

    J R in WV

    @Quinerly:

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Republican-dominated House in Tennessee voted Tuesday to punish the city of Memphis for removing Confederate monuments by taking $250,000 away from the city that would have been used for a bicentennial celebration next year.

    Republican slave-catcher wanna-be motherfuckers! Nathan Bedford Forrest was among the worst terrorists this nation has ever seen in action. Founder of the KKK, a more despicable example of man’s inhumanity to man would be hard to find, except at the RNC convention, where bigots flock together. Robert E Lee broke his oath to the Constitution of the USA in order to join the CSA. Terrible news, but not a surprise.

    Perhaps in 6 or 8 months the Republican racists won’t be in charge of Tennessee! They are showing their true colors, now.

  147. 147.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Has no interviewer confronted him about that wild, out of control NYC branch of the FBI, which seemed to be in concert with Rudy G?

  148. 148.

    Manyakitty

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    So let’s say that the Republican Party’s motives are keeping the American oligarchs wealthy and in power. What do those oligarchs want? Probably more money and power, although to a less-wealthy person like me, it seems bizarre to have money only for the purpose of diving around in it, like Scrooge McDuck. And power, yeah I guess, but to make what kind of world? Or is it all short-term thinking, just give me more?

    Yes, that’s it. I think most of the US oligarchs are all driven by greed and acquisitiveness. Some, like the Mercers, Kochs, and the Princes also get excited about moving the tiny pawns around on their personal checkerboards.

  149. 149.

    Barbara

    @rikyrah: I read that Kucinich was forced to update his financial filings to reveal the source of income from this speech. I think what is happening in Syria is a true quandary for the U.S. Assad is now even if he wasn’t always a murderous thug. Without making any statement about what I would do or what should be done, I can safely say that no politician should accept money from a group with a goal of supporting Assad. And Kucinich’s speech gave them just what they wanted. I would refuse to vote for Kucinich on that basis alone. No doubt his supporters will construct some reason that makes sense only to themselves why accepting money for these kinds of overtly political speeches “isn’t the same thing at all” as talking to the employees of Goldman Sachs.

  150. 150.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: one of the currently under-discussed motivations for Comey in ’16– which was discussed in real time– was fear of Chaffetz, the idea that Wee Jasey and his subpoena power could lay waste to the Eagle Scout’s reputation and bank accounts. I hope Comey will be a cooperative witness to whichever Dem takes that gavel from Gowdy, and that Comey’s vindictive streak comes through.

    Once again, it’s all about November.

  151. 151.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Mitch McConnell’s actions don’t make sense in terms of the welfare of the country, but they do make sense in terms of making the rich richer and covering the trail.

    They also make sense if you’re a hardcore racist. America elected a black man to be his boss. America needs to be burned to the ground, and every step, no matter how extreme, taken to prevent that from ever happening again.

    I believe he is also corrupt, patrician, and generally a mean shit. These are all totally i sync.

    @Manyakitty:
    The rich are even more racist and generally bigoted than the poor. The Kochs are Birchers, for example. They’ve learned to talk ‘No, we’re just fiscal conservative libertarians!’ but they lean strongly to supporting the most wacked out cultural conservatives they can find. But that, too, combines just fine with their greed. They don’t have to choose either/or.

  152. 152.

    Manyakitty

    @Frankensteinbeck: Makes sense. At a certain point, though, what do they care? Those people are so rich that they’re insulated from reality. They have more money than they can possibly spend. We should bundle up the whole lot of them and send them to Gitmo.

  161. 161.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    You’re not a mean shit who gets off on the feeling of superiority from grinding someone else into the dirt. That is one of the favorite kicks of a large portion, possibly the majority of humanity. The best thing you can say about it is that most people try to align the thrill with their morality. Of course, if their morality is ‘black people are lazy’…

  164. 164.

    Spanky

    @Immanentize:

    If people around you think you have power.
    And then they act like you have power.
    You have power.

    Not only quoted for truth, but recommend for the rotating tag lines.

  165. 165.

    eclare

    @Quinerly: Had not seen that, but yeah, the state leg has been itching to punish Memphis ever since. I’m sure you will be shocked to find out that Memphis is a majority minority city, and the state leg is definitely not.

  167. 167.

    rikyrah

    @Immanentize:

    Taxi businesses are great for money laundering because all you need to do is report more cash paid for transportation than actually occurred. Pay the reduced taxes — clean money!

    Thanks for explaining that to me. I was wondering how criminals made money from it.

  169. 169.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    I’m afraid that’s why they admire him. Because his population is destitute but the people at the tippy-top are making a fuck-load of money and are beyond the reach of laws. They’d like that here.

    You are not wrong, Kay. Which is why they must all go to jail.

  171. 171.

    feckless

    Gorsuch is only trying create a picture of independence now that the shit is sticking to tRump’s wall.

    Gorsuch was appointed by an illegitimate president, and as a true fruit on the poison tree, his position on the Supreme Court is illegitimate.

    1) Impeach tRump 2) Impeach Gorsuch 3) Try and convict EVERYONE in the GOP who knew anything about the KGB/GOP 2016 ticket.

  172. 172.

    ohthatguy

    I really would like to see Garland go on Twitter and explain Gorsuch’s decision was wrong, and why he would have ruled differently. How hard can it be to make трумп get angry at the turtle?

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