Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

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

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

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

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

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

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

Second rate reporter says what?

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The words do not have to be perfect.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

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

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Are The Worms Turning?

Are The Worms Turning?

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It may be that crabby Grandpa’s craziness has broken the trust between him and the media. I’m seeing more and more like this in my tweetstream.

A bunch are also dragging AP every time they emit a “BREAKING – President Trump said [Trump’s words, no indication of truth value]”

Even Maggie

 

Reader Interactions

182Comments

  1. 1.

    TenguPhule

    Will GOP leaders continue to shrug this off? Bury their head in the sand?

    Yes. SATSQ.

  3. 3.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Interesting in a train-wreck for of way that Trump is doing EXACTLY what McCarthy did. Will it be instructive to the press?

    Ahahahaha! HA!

    I crack myself up sometimes.

    ETA: Although, Todd and Lizza seem to get it… Will their headline editors get it?

  4. 4.

    TenguPhule

    This is a bizarre, pathological, obscene, enormous, mind-numbing, frightening lie.

    Or as we’ve come to call it, Friday.

  5. 5.

    Elizabelle

    Wheels starting to come off the bus. Are we at the end of the beginning, the beginning of the end, the middle?

    Mitch McConnell urging Mueller to wrap it up. No doubt, before fucking Turtle himself does the perp walk.

    Jonathan Chait, NY Mag:

    Special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election interference has been moving with lightning speed, and has already produced indictments of 20 people. It is, apparently, not fast enough for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who tells the Washington Examiner, “What I think about the Mueller investigation is, they ought to wrap it up. It’s gone on seemingly forever and I don’t know how much more they think they can find out.” [Mueller to McConnell: just watch me, treason.]

    … since Mueller’s investigation reached its first anniversary, “wrap it up” has become the slogan of choice for Republicans seeking to support Trump’s war against the special counsel without incurring the reputational embarrassment of endorsing his most deranged conspiracy theories about the deep state plot. Mike Pence was chanting “wrap it up” in March.

    McConnell’s purported rationale is especially comic — he doesn’t know how much more they can find out. Nobody knows. But probably a lot! Which is exactly why he wants to stop the investigation. [Kay could have written this exact sentence.]

    McConnell so far has held back from joining Trump’s effort to make the Justice Department into a palace guard at his personal disposal. At times he has flashed the yellow light to Trump’s most aggressively lunatic threats. That he is now mouthing the same anti-Mueller slogans as Mike Pence indicates the Republican party’s continued devolution into a full-scale Trump cult and its disintegrating willingness to defend the rule of law.

    They see the strong candidates they’re gonna be up against in the midterms. Life in the majority is not assured for our traitorous turtle.

  6. 6.

    Scott

    I would like the televised news media to do the following. Everytime he insults them as fake news, refuse to put his face on the air. Just cover his tweets on the crawls. Like a child, take away the attention until the child behaves.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    At this point, we really need to go to the UK and ask them as a special favor to dig up William Shakespeare so the chronicles of these days can be properly written. It’s like a mashup of King Lear, Julius Caesar, Richard III, and (special for the media’s obsession with Noble Savage Trump Voters) the “rude mechanicals” section of A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

  8. 8.

    TenguPhule

    @JPL:

    things might get cleaned up with some presidential pardons

    You’d think at some point it would dawn on these idiots that destroying the public’s respect for the rule of law would not be in their long term best interests.

  10. 10.

    schrodingers_cat

    I want one of these overpaid hacks from our most prestigious publications to ask the Orange Man one question, Mr President why are you such a liar. You lie all the time, clear and demonstrable lies. Why?

  11. 11.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I don’t know who Peter Hamby is, but that was a good catch on his part, the Halberstam page-long passage on McCarthy and the reporters.

    Now I want to track down a copy of The Fifties and read it.

    Edited to correct autocorrect.

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    This metaphor is by no means original to me, but we’ve been climbing the first big hill of a rollercoaster since November of 2016, and we’re starting to hear the clanking sounds as the car’s brakes start to release for that first big drop.

    Hang on tight, and keep your hands and arms inside the car at all times. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

  13. 13.

    Elizabelle

    WaPost, Greg Sargent, Plum Line:

    How the conventions of political journalism help spread Trump’s lies

    One of the most important but overlooked lessons in the bombshell report on the handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation is that bad-faith, right-wing ref-working, via purely instrumental attacks on institutions, works. Buried in the report by the Department of Justice’s inspector general is evidence that former FBI director James B. Comey undertook actions that damaged Clinton’s candidacy, in part, because he had been spooked by such attacks.

    Right on cue, the news media’s coverage of the inspector general’s report is also confirming the same lesson: Bad-faith ref-working is producing its desired results once again.

    The report’s core finding is that the FBI’s decision not to prosecute Clinton was untainted by bias or politics. This lays waste to one of the most important narratives pushed by President Trump and his allies in the quest to undermine special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation by claiming law enforcement is riddled with anti-Trump corruption.

    But in many of this morning’s accounts about the report, you find versions of this additional claim: The IG report nonetheless provides fodder and ammunition to Trump and his allies to discredit Mueller’s probe.

    Trump’s allies have widely cited the inspector general’s findings about the now-infamous texts between an FBI agent and lawyer — which do show animus towards Trump’s candidacy — as not just proof of anti-Trump bias at the FBI during the Clinton investigation, but also to bolster Trump’s argument that the Mueller probe into Russia-Trump campaign collusion is suspect.

    Many news accounts inadvertently grant these arguments credibility, not just by quoting them, but also by claiming as fact that the conduct in question actually does lend support to those arguments. Yes, they also convey that the inspector general’s overall conclusion undercuts the Trumpian narrative. But the straddle itself is the problem. It showcases a convention often relied upon in political journalism — the use of the “lends fodder” formulation to float false claims alongside true ones — that has to go.

    Sargent: Bad faith attacks are getting rewarded. This has to stop.

  14. 14.

    Yutsano

    @TenguPhule:

    You’d think at some point it would dawn on these idiots that destroying the public’s respect for the rule of law would not be in their long term best interests

    I already see the problem.

  17. 17.

    sukabi

    @JPL: Rudy is angling for his own pardon, he knows that it’s just a matter of time before his part in this is exposed. That would explain his sudden re-emergence from under the rocks to spew Bullshit faster than a cow with colic.

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, too, happy birthday to me! We’re getting ready to head down to the Happiest Place On Earth for a weekend at their fanciest hotel. I’m very happy that the universe presented me with Paul Manafort’s perp walk on this special day. ?

  19. 19.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    [Mueller to McConnell: just watch me, treason.]

    I am tickled by the way you’ve taken to that anagram. You’ve used it a lot in the last few days. Nice!

  20. 20.

    Mnemosyne

    @dmsilev:

    One of my all-time favorite ghost stories is Fritz Leiber’s “Four Ghosts In Hamlet.” Leiber comes up with a very interesting notion about how Shakespeare was able to write what he did.

  24. 24.

    catclub

    @JPL: I sure want someone to ask him why pardons will be necessary if there is no collusion and no coverup.

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    Halberstam was a good writer. And since I was alive for the entirety of the decade, I expect to recognise many of the references ?

  27. 27.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne: (1) McConnell is a traitor. (2) He is not a beloved or popular person. He has got to be seeing a rather bleak future for himself. Who will come to his defense? He works among a bunch of divas and backstabbers.

    Mueller is relentless. And McConnell’s had a long career. There have to be records, and surprise witnesses to pop up.

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne: I had a lovely, unread copy that I donated to the library during last move, and am kicking myself for it. Got to acquire another copy.

    Apparently a broad overview; auto manufacturing to McCarthy to who knows what else. The decade may not have been as quiet as people think (given it was bookended by a World War and the turbulence of the 60s.)

  31. 31.

    MattF

    Speaking of McConnell– over the weekend, I saw my old friend who worked as a Democratic staffer in the House in the ’90s. She had a good word for him– ‘snake’.

  33. 33.

    sukabi

    @dmsilev: I don’t know, I think the team of Daniel Glover and Lin-Manuel Miranda could make a very compelling account of these times.

  34. 34.

    Mike in DC

    @JPL: The same day Manafort goes to jail for witness tampering, the President’s lawyer commits witness tampering in public. Nice!

  36. 36.

    Ruckus

    @Yutsano:
    Yes.
    First, they can’t see it. They don’t have the tools and skills to see it. They were never trained that way. In fact they have trained themselves not to look, for fear of what they might see.
    Second, they have been getting away with their bullshit forever. Why should they see it, it’s always worked before, even in drumpf’s case, when it so often didn’t.
    Someone up thread said we need a truth and reconciliation hearing. Why? All of the people we are discussing have little to no attachment or understanding of the truth, other than to just know it doesn’t benefit them in the most profitable way. Hell conservatives just make up “truth” as they go along. It’s irrelevant to them. As the old saying goes, “They would’t know the truth if it walked up and hit them upside the head.”

  37. 37.

    Mike J

    The Associated Press Verified account @AP
    20 minutes ago

    We’ve deleted a tweet from earlier today that did not meet AP standards. It imprecisely quoted President Donald Trump’s remarks on the Justice Department inspector general’s report, and failed to put those comments into clear context.

  39. 39.

    chris

    Is the worm turning? Maybe. This is related to Brexit but appropriate.

    If I’m right, then over the next four to eight weeks the wrath of the British press is going to fall on the heads of the Brexit lobby with a force and a fury we haven’t seen in a generation.
    Charles Stross

  40. 40.

    catclub

    @Elizabelle:

    The decade may not have been as quiet as people think

    The Dulles brothers were fucking things up all around the world, with overt and covert ‘diplomacy’

  42. 42.

    sukabi

    @Mnemosyne: happy birthday????. It would be nice if you could celebrate the day with a potus perp walk, but his campaign manager in the gray bar is pretty sweet.

  43. 43.

    Elizabelle

    @catclub: Yes. And it takes 30 to 70 to 100 years for events to play out. History is a long, long arc.

    No doubt a lot of refugees and migrants today have the Dulles family to thank.

  44. 44.

    dopey-o

    @Mnemosyne:

    One of my all-time favorite ghost stories is Fritz Leiber’s “Four Ghosts In Hamlet.” Leiber comes up with a very interesting notion about how Shakespeare was able to write what he did.

    The same Leiber who wrote “Springtime for Hitler”? One of Hair Furor’s favorite plays!

  45. 45.

    catclub

    @Mike J:

    It imprecisely quoted President Donald Trump’s remarks on the Justice Department inspector general’s report, and failed to put those comments into clear context.

    I could pretend that Greg Sargent’s “How the conventions of political journalism help spread Trump’s lies”
    had an instant impact. But I figure it is an anomaly.

  46. 46.

    Roger Moore

    The most fundamental thing that needs to change is for the media to rediscover the idea of credibility. You have to consider how generally truthful somebody is when evaluating how much to trust what they say and whether to publish it without investigating first. When somebody has shown as little regard for the truth as Trump has, you can’t simply repeat what he says, or even broadcast his statements in real time, without first checking to see if what he says is true. If it’s not true, you need to report that as close to the statement as possible. You can’t hope to inform people by reporting his lies with a little disclaimer at the end saying they’re lies. You have to make a point about him lying up front.

  49. 49.

    Elizabelle

    @Roger Moore: So true. Because we as a nation are short on critical thinkers, and it’s confusing to them to see the “view from nowhere” reporting we are seeing now. We’ll spew all this shit out there, and YOU decide.

    It’s not working.

  50. 50.

    sukabi

    @Elizabelle: not so sure it’s not an attempt to pull the wool more fully down…without context to what was pulled and why it didn’t meet their standards there’s not much to go on.

  52. 52.

    Mnemosyne

    Thanks, everyone, for the birthday wishes! My next comment will probably be with a celebratory drink in my hand. ???

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    @TenguPhule:

    You’d think at some point it would dawn on these idiots that destroying the public’s respect for the rule of law would not be in their long term best interests.

    For them to think that, they’d first need to consider the long term. Not gonna happen.

  55. 55.

    chris

    US worm needs to turn faster!

    Exclusive: I’ll be interviewing Steve Bannon on @ThisWeekABC Sunday morning. His first live Sunday show interview ever.— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) 15 June 2018

    Mild Kudos to Katy Tur who just spent an hour on the preznit’s lies. It’s a start.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    @Mike J: Was glad to see that AP retraction/correction. Context is so important in an age where many folks get their news almost exclusively from Twitter, headlines and mobile alerts (God help us). Philip Bump of The Post did a great article on that earlier this week.

  57. 57.

    Roger Moore

    @catclub:

    I sure want someone to ask him why pardons will be necessary if there is no collusion and no coverup.

    To protect those innocents from Mueller’s awful witch hunt. They’re totally innocent, but Mueller is concocting false charges against them, forcing them to capitulate to avoid spending their life in jail, and then to help him invent the lies needed to get the next person. Only pardoning them so Mueller can’t force them to cooperate with his railroading can break the cycle.

  58. 58.

    TenguPhule

    Police worked with violent pro-Trump activist to prosecute leftwing group

    A pro-Trump demonstrator who admitted hitting protesters at a far-right rally received help and support from California police, who worked with him to prosecute leftwing activists, records show.

    Documents and testimony in a trial surrounding a rightwing demonstration in Berkeley reveal that police and prosecutors pursued charges on behalf of Daniel Quillinan, a conservative activist who has posted fascist memes and came to the event with Kyle Chapman, now a celebrated figure amongst the “alt-right”. The authorities consistently treated Quillinan as a victim even though he was visibly armed with a knife, a wooden “shield” and a “flagpole” – and had told law enforcement that he “hit someone in the head”, according to court files.

    WTF is wrong with Berkeley’s cops?

  60. 60.

    Jeffro

    @Mike J: I just saw that! Oliver Wills is reminding everyone to keep the pressure on media organizations so that things like this will keep happening. “They. Hear. You.”

    Working the refs; it’s not just for Republicans anymore…

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:

    Philip Bump: Why untrue tweets from Trump shouldn’t be unchallenged in headlines

    Unwieldy headline, isn’t it? Three negatives in a row. Kind of wimpy, really.

  62. 62.

    Xenos

    Wot, no soccer blogging? We have a 3-2 game written Spain ahead of portugal, with 30 minutes left, and prior are going bonkers at this street fair.

  63. 63.

    dmsilev

    @TenguPhule:

    WTF is wrong with Berkeley’s cops?

    A lot of college towns, local law enforcement and the university community really really don’t get along well. That could be a big part of it.

  65. 65.

    MomSense

    Didn’t Nunberg tell Ari Melber that he knew Don Sr knew about Trump Tower meeting because he heard him talk about it before it happened?

    Granted, I was enjoying an adult beverage while watching that spectacle but I hadn’t had enough to miss the significance of that detail.

    School is winding down and I just dropped my youngest off downtown where he met several young women. They are playing lacrosse and going for ice cream. I remember how much I loved the beginning of summer when I was that age. Too young for a crappy job and the promise of a whole summer of fun with friends.

  69. 69.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @TenguPhule:
    Conpensating for all those hippies in the late 60s? I mean, it must be bad enough for these assholes that they’re in California.

  71. 71.

    efgoldman

    @MomSense:

    the promise of a whole summer of fun with friends

    And spending my whole summer camp salary, which was supposed to go to tuition, on beer and pizza..

    ETA: Only a few hundred bucks, but still….

  73. 73.

    James Powell

    That page from Halberstam is put out like a cautionary tale but the money quote for our press/media is “I wasn’t off page one for four years.” That’s how Maggie Haberman thinks. That’s how the program directors and reporters on every cable and broadcast news show think.

  76. 76.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Roger Moore:

    Then the question is, “Where’s your evidence of that? Why would a Republican, appointed by another Republican, who was appointed by you, be engaged in a witch hunt of you? The burden of proof is on you, Mr. President. You made a claim and you have to support it. That’s how arguments and evidence work.”

  78. 78.

    Calouste

    @Elizabelle:

    The report’s core finding is that the FBI’s decision not to prosecute Clinton was untainted by bias or politics.

    Sargent slips there himself. The report said that the process was untainted by political bias. It didn’t say anything about personal bias or sexism.

  79. 79.

    James Powell

    @Roger Moore:

    The most fundamental thing that needs to change is for the media to rediscover the idea of credibility.

    The press/media will change exactly one hour after the next Democrat is elected president. They will definitely abandon the “We can’t say whether it’s truth or not, we can only republish what they say” method of steno-journalism.

  81. 81.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @TenguPhule:
    What else can GOP leaders do? Impeach Trump? Why would they? It offers them no political advantage. They agree with him on most issues. Good governance is against their political philosophy, so the things they disagree with him on aren’t a big deal. Most importantly, they define America as ‘white Republicans.’ Impeaching Trump would be treason

  83. 83.

    Roger Moore

    @TenguPhule:

    WTF is wrong with Berkeley’s cops?

    They’re as right wing as a typical police department but forced to deal with the DFHs from Cal and Black Block anarchists. I’m sure they’re happy to side with anyone who’s willing to bust a few lefty heads.

  88. 88.

    Major Major Major Major

    OT: Haven’t heard back from big NYC company about interview travel yet. I assume it is normal that this takes a number of days. Still, my anxiety! But it’s not like they’d offer and then rescind, that would be ludicrous.

  90. 90.

    Groucho48

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    It’s a fun read. Has sections on a cross section of America in the 50’s. McDonald’s, Levittowns, Mariyn Monroe. Elvis Presley, General Motors, Civil Rights, etc. Lots of interesting stuff.

  93. 93.

    trollhattan

    @sukabi:
    Avenatti will know where all of Alex Jones’ myriad buttons are and how to push them. America’s Finest Rage Monster ™ will not be able to contain himself, not one bit.

    Hilarity awaits, and perhaps a burst embolism. Let the games commence!

  94. 94.

    Cheryl Rofer

  95. 95.

    chris

    Fcking molepeople.

    The White House has issued a trollish Miller-ian press release decrying "CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS’ FAMILY SEPARATION POLICY." Its explanation: "Too many American families have been permanently separated from loved ones lost to illegal alien crime."— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) 15 June 2018

  97. 97.

    Yarrow

    I have been out all day and barely able to keep up with the news but today’s developments are fantastic. Tick tock, motherfuckers!

  99. 99.

    rikyrah

    Just back from Ocean’s 8- TOTALLY worth a matinee ticket.
    Peanut was bummed that Incredibles 2 was sold out, but she told me- that was a good movie ?

  103. 103.

    efgoldman

    @chris:

    Fcking molepeople.

    Nobody buys their bullshit other than the flying monkey mouth breathers, and they’re lost to us forever.
    I guess Weasel Face and Rudi911 keep telling themselves and each other, too, in a circle jerk.

  104. 104.

    Calouste

    @chris: Or we can talk about the NRA family separation policy. Which has seen a heck of a lot more people separated from their families than crime by undocumented immigrants.

  105. 105.

    Elizabelle

    @rikyrah: Goes on the list. I bought that moviepass thing and have not even used it.

    I love the Byrd Theatre in Richmond, VA. Old 1928 movie palace, with chandeliers, old organ, all the trimmings. Showing Fritz Lang’s Metropolis this Sunday afternoon. Would love to see that on a big screen.

  107. 107.

    Elizabelle

    @chris: If that doesn’t scream “grasping at straws, not even a good attempt to distract”, I don’t know what does.

  109. 109.

    jl

    CR is talking about hich worms? One’s eating up the country, the media, our institutions.
    I am avoiding corporate media news right now, since infuriated by brainless headline announcements that are simply repetitions of Trump’s and the GOP’s outrageous obvious bald faced lies. Our national affairs corporate media is a disgrace.

    Edit: and also avoiding all the concern trolling. Idiot quibbling over secondary nuances and insinuendos that are pretexts for outrageous lies. I, primary Bernie voter, want HRC to sue for defamation. Retain Avenatti and send out a couple of hundred cease and desist orders.

    To think these stupid rancid clowns could take down this democracy!

  110. 110.

    randy khan

    @Elizabelle:

    Mitch McConnell urging Mueller to wrap it up. No doubt, before fucking Turtle himself does the perp walk.

    Jonathan Chait, NY Mag:

    Special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election interference has been moving with lightning speed, and has already produced indictments of 20 people. It is, apparently, not fast enough for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who tells the Washington Examiner, “What I think about the Mueller investigation is, they ought to wrap it up. It’s gone on seemingly forever and I don’t know how much more they think they can find out.” [Mueller to McConnell: just watch me, treason.]

    … since Mueller’s investigation reached its first anniversary, “wrap it up” has become the slogan of choice for Republicans seeking to support Trump’s war against the special counsel without incurring the reputational embarrassment of endorsing his most deranged conspiracy theories about the deep state plot. Mike Pence was chanting “wrap it up” in March.
    McConnell’s purported rationale is especially comic — he doesn’t know how much more they can find out. Nobody knows. But probably a lot! Which is exactly why he wants to stop the investigation. [Kay could have written this exact sentence.]
    McConnell so far has held back from joining Trump’s effort to make the Justice Department into a palace guard at his personal disposal. At times he has flashed the yellow light to Trump’s most aggressively lunatic threats. That he is now mouthing the same anti-Mueller slogans as Mike Pence indicates the Republican party’s continued devolution into a full-scale Trump cult and its disintegrating willingness to defend the rule of law.

    They see the strong candidates they’re gonna be up against in the midterms. Life in the majority is not assured for our traitorous turtle.

    McConnell is – correctly – afraid that if the probe continues the way it is through the midterms his team could have a bad November. He remembers 1974.

  111. 111.

    Ohio Mom

    @Mnemosyne: I graduated high school on the day John Dean starting spilling the beans; the guest speaker started by saying while he was sure we would remember walking in our caps and gowns, he wondered if we would remember that other history was also being made this day. That guaranteed we would all remember it.

    It’s fun to be connected to an historical event, however remotely. Enjoy your day!

  113. 113.

    Elizabelle

    Rene Boucher, Rand Paul’s long-suffering neighbor, sentenced today to

    30 days behind bars, supervised probation, and public service.

    Prosecutors had wanted 21 months. (Jackasses.)

  114. 114.

    Elizabelle

    @efgoldman: We are always all ears for any of your curmudgeonly, uh, crap, whatever.

    You wuz missed. I think you are golden with whatever you say for quite a while now.

  115. 115.

    dmsilev

    @Elizabelle:

    Showing Fritz Lang’s Metropolis this Sunday afternoon. Would love to see that on a big screen.

    Totally worth doing. That’s a great film, especially now that most of the lost bits have been recovered.

  118. 118.

    randy khan

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    What else can GOP leaders do? Impeach Trump? Why would they? It offers them no political advantage.

    This is their dilemma, like the Republicans in 1974 (up until the end of July) – if the primaries show anything, the remaining Republican base is totally in the tank for Trump, and you deviate from that position at your peril. It may kill them in the general election, but it’s a risk they have to take.

  119. 119.

    Annie

    @Elizabelle:

    I’ve read The Fifties, and it’s really good. I was born in 1955 and the thing that struck me the most about the book was that all the Sixties stuff did not come out of nowhere but was clearly starting in the 1950s.

  122. 122.

    Elizabelle

    @Annie: Yes. Exactly. The Fifties birthed the 60s. Beginning of the space age, jet travel. Catching a breath before the next set of cataclysms. The French in Viet Nam …

  123. 123.

    jl

    @randy khan: Ryan and McConnell in many ways just as bad as Trump. They are just more competent at political fraud and lying. Only better, slightly, in that they know not to push things too far too fast. But they produce a rot just as dangerous, just more gradual.

  124. 124.

    Elizabelle

    @dmsilev: I am eagerly awaiting it. Some of those old movies really take one’s breath away.

    Metropolis is so stylized. Will have to come home and play some Be-Bop Deluxe. They stole a lot of their cover art from Metropolis, or so it seems … (with proper attribution, I would guess…)

    Linky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woyYQDKa3ZE

    I love Sister Seagull.

  125. 125.

    jl

    efg has been at summer camp? Good to hear. People were worried. I want pics and stories.

  127. 127.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Rick Wilson is outdoing himself.

    Sorry, I’m all out of passes in the “He’s new at this” or “He’s joking” or “That’s just Trump being Trump” categories his enablers have gotten away with using for far too long. After the last week, Trump is clearly a man who puts the dick in dictator.

    Donald Trump’s authoritarian impulses have never exactly been a state secret. The entire Trump leadership oeuvre is a grotesque, bubbling slurry of reality TV star egomania and crap-tier nationalist nostrums that sound like Pat Buchanan and Lyndon LaRouche had a love child.

    A gloriously illiterate cretin with a reading level routinely bested by simple, non-digital household appliances and talented flatworms on his best days, Trump’s interior intellectual life has never been, well, visible without the use of highly sensitive lab equipment.

    And more

  128. 128.

    Elizabelle

    @jl: I hope Ryan and McConnell both end up in serious legal trouble, and end up behind bars.

    They are probably awash in illegal campaign money, and coordinating with the NRA and Russians and what have you.

    Burn it all down.

  131. 131.

    chris

    @efgoldman: Good to see you!

    I cling to the fact that one hundred million people didn’t vote in 2016. It will only take a small percentage of those people to reduce the Republican party to a really bad memory.

  134. 134.

    J R in WV

    @Mnemosyne:

    Well, it’s been a couple of hours… you’re probably not there yet, but when you get there, you can see this grateful request that you have a great happy birthday down at that Happy Place. And many happy returns, also tooooo!!!

    And Trump: Fuck’im!!

  138. 138.

    sukabi

    @Elizabelle: Ex-Trump campaign officials are now appearing with pro-Moscow separatist leaders

    Late last week, a series of reports from local outlets across Bosnia and Herzegovina reported that a pair of former Trump campaign officials met with Zeljka Cvijanovic, the current prime minister of Republika Srpska (RS), a Bosnian Serb enclave whose local leadership has spent the past few years advocating for the breakup of the country.

    According to reports in both Alternativna TV and N1, Cvijanovic met in Banja Luka with Jason Osborne and Mike Rubino, a pair of American political consultants. It’s unclear why Cvijanovic elected to meet publicly with Rudino and Osborne, both of whom had key roles on Trump’s campaign and have worked closely with Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager.

    “It could mean that [Republika Srpska’s leaders are] trying to reach people around Trump,” Reuf Bajrovic, a former Bosnia and Herzegovina energy minister, told ThinkProgress. “They’ve certainly been trying.”

    Whatever the specific reason, the meeting is the latest in a strange series of appearances from former Trump campaign officials with members of anti-democratic governments in the region — some of whom, like Cvijanovic, work directly for individuals sanctioned by the U.S. government, and are building secession movements with the help of Russia.

  140. 140.

    Dorothy Winsor

    It finally dawned on me what Trump means when he complains that the Mueller investigation included people who worked for Obama. He doesn’t think they just worked for the govt during the Obama administration. He thinks they worked FOR Obama, the way Cohen worked for him. He thinks every organization is Trump Inc.

  141. 141.

    geg6

    @dmsilev:

    I think a better idea is to go with one of our own. The only American writer I can think of who could possibly do justice to this particular moment in history…

    The venerable and (sadly) deceased Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

  142. 142.

    J R in WV

    @Elizabelle:

    The Fifties birthed the 60s. Beginning of the space age, jet travel. Catching a breath before the next set of cataclysms. The French in Viet Nam …

    The French in North Africa, Algeria specifically. Much of the prejudice against “ze Arabs” in France stems from a very brutal revolution against French colonial rule there, which was met with just as fierce and brutal opposition by the French. Think torture in desert camps with no one watching, anywhere.

    And while I personally knew a former French soldier who fought in Algeria and had comrades murdered while captive, I’m also sure that that action went both ways. Fannon wrote the definitive books on that resistance movement and the political implications. IIRC.

    Anyway, given the stage set in Algeria, the wars in Vietnam were no surprise. The Stupidity of our nation taking the stupid over from the failed French, that could have been a surprise. I was like 6 or 8 when that happened, so I don’t recall exactly.

    When the French surrendered, the Vietnamese leadership hoped to achieve recognition and support from America but in McCarthy’s era that was not to be. The world would be very different if we had bought into that Vietnamese offer!

  145. 145.

    Jager

    I’m catching up on all that’s come down (so far) today on a laptop outside of a little restaurant in downtown Ventura, The weather is fantastic, the news is making me feel good, the food here is outstanding. I’m washing my Cubano panini down with a Topa Topa IPA. Why yes I will have another, thank you.
    http://jimmyssliceventuracrafteats.com/menu/

  146. 146.

    Gin & Tonic

    @geg6: When my kids were taking American Gov’t in high school, I gave them extra reading: Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail 1972. No truer book about Us Presidential politics has been written.

  150. 150.

    catclub

    @J R in WV:

    The world would be very different if we had bought into that Vietnamese offer!

    I wonder if Obama was considering swapping alliances with Saudi Arabia and Turkey for alliance/cooperation with Iran in the middle east?

    I think it is impossible due to the geography that Turkey has, but I still wonder.

    Turkey is always in the running these days for worst ally. They want to buy Russian anti-aircraft missile systems.

  151. 151.

    PJ

    @J R in WV: At the end of WWII, Ho Chi Minh, who had lived in the US and, I think, understood at least its ideals, drafted a Declaration of Independence for Vietnam based on the US model, and asked the US to keep the French from coming back to rule and to support an independent Vietnam. We know how well that went over, and what followed.

  152. 152.

    J R in WV

    @Elizabelle:

    Philip Bump: Why untrue tweets from Trump shouldn’t be unchallenged in headlines

    Unwieldy headline, isn’t it? Three negatives in a row. Kind of wimpy, really.

    How about: Why Lies from Trump Should be Challenged in Headlines!

    I don’t even claim to be a headline writer, and I can fix that one…

  153. 153.

    arrieve

    @Elizabelle: I remember liking The Fifties a lot. It’s episodic — doesn’t try to create any overarching theory of the decade, but he covers things from the French in Indochina to McCarthy to Levittown. My favorite chapter, oddly enough, was about Rick Nelson, the child star who was starring in a sitcom with his own family members, so grew up playing a fictionalized version of himself, with a monster for a father.

  154. 154.

    Roger Moore

    @Annie:

    all the Sixties stuff did not come out of nowhere but was clearly starting in the 1950s.

    The 60s counterculture movement was rebelling against conformist 50s culture.

  156. 156.

    Elizabelle

    @J R in WV: Quite good!

    I am bewildered why the WaPost went with that headline. Did a lawyer write it? It was extraordinarily dense.

    Don’t Repeat Lies in your headlines
    (subhead: a lot of people will never see anything else)

    ETA: yikes — not slamming the lawyers here. But headline had that “Don’t hit me” quality that made me curious ….

  158. 158.

    Elizabelle

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Because he’s never been part of anything else, since college.

    Did Trump ever even sit on actual boards, maybe earlier in his career?

    One huge tell on what a bullshitter he is: man did not have to quit any corporate boards to take on the presidency, if memory serves. Shouldn’t that tell us something? No one was seeking him out for his advice, credibility, acumen …. if he was on a board, it was likely for notoriety ….

  159. 159.

    Miss Bianca

    @dmsilev:

    At this point, we really need to go to the UK and ask them as a special favor to dig up William Shakespeare so the chronicles of these days can be properly written. It’s like a mashup of King Lear, Julius Caesar, Richard III, and (special for the media’s obsession with Noble Savage Trump Voters) the “rude mechanicals” section of A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

    And here I thought your posts *couldn’t* get better than the “I get emails” stuff! : )

  160. 160.

    Chyron HR

    Well, there’s only so many times you can get phone calls from people screaming “I’ll kill you fucking fake news jew rats!” before you become concerned.

    The number of calls is probably in the triple digits, but it was bound to happen eventually.

  162. 162.

    J R in WV

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Between this and the Lambda court win, and Manafort in jail, lots of good news dump this Friday. Thanks for rounding so much of it up for us!! Between you and Adam I feel well informed. Globally!

  163. 163.

    ruemara

    @TenguPhule: They’re right wing authoritarians trapped in a left wing hellhole. OF COURSE THEY’D DO THIS. Not all of them are like that, yes, but enough of them come from more conservative areas. File it under disappointed, but not surprised.

  164. 164.

    Miss Bianca

    @randy khan: McConnell wants the Russian investigation to get to “wrap it up”. Funny, I want it to get to “lock him up.” Wonder which one will come first?

  165. 165.

    efgoldman

    @MomSense:

    I bet you enjoyed every minute of that summer.

    I was 20, senior councilor without title. middle of nowhere, upstate NY (gorgeous!). The bar was called The Crest. One guy had a van….
    I conducted summer production of Kiss Me Kate in the town hall.
    Only part i didn’t enjoy was the hurling, until I learned.

  167. 167.

    WaterGirl

    @Roger Moore:

    Only pardoning them so Mueller can’t force them to cooperate with his railroading can break the cycle.

    As I understand it, once they are pardoned, they can’t plead the 5th, so the way I see it, Trump is in even more jeopardy if he DOES pardon them.

    edit: Am I wrong?

  168. 168.

    Jager

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Shoot some shots of the downtown at night…great old fashioned signage, etc. There’s a bar called Leashless Brewery, dog friendly and damn good beer. Ventura is a great town and I glad they didn’t tear down the old hillside neighborhoods and build condo complexes. My wife has a web designer who lives in old Ventura and has no car by choice, she gets along just fine.

  170. 170.

    WaterGirl

    @Major Major Major Major: Ooh, what did I miss? Do you have an offer you like in NYC? Or is this an interview with high hopes? Offer by phone and the in-person interview is pro forma?

    Any and all of those would be exciting, thought I admit, some more than others.

  171. 171.

    Miss Bianca

    @Cheryl Rofer: you know, I can’t stand Rick Wilson, and I wouldn’t trust him as an ally an inch farther than I can throw him. That being said, it is amusing on more than one level to watch him spray his admittedly witty vitriol on a truly deserving target for a change.

  172. 172.

    Dev Null

    @Ruckus:

    First, they can’t see it. They don’t have the tools and skills to see it. They were never trained that way. In fact they have trained themselves not to look, for fear of what they might see.

    Haven’t read all the comments, so someone else might have noted this already, but this is a functional definition of Dunning-Kruger syndrome.

  173. 173.

    Gelfling 545

    @TenguPhule: Same thing that’s likely to be wrong nationwide before long. It’s getting to be a job eschewed by respectsble people.

  174. 174.

    waysel

    Failed attempt to link to a Matthew Miller tweet re: Comey Oct 5 email to Brennan and Clapper. Seen at LG&M post today.

  176. 176.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    It’s his only frame of reference, he knows NOTHING ELSE.

    And he doesn’t know that very well. He only hires the weak and willing and he fucks them in several ways so they work their damnedest for him and then he only has two of the human emotions, greed and avarice and that goes along well with his IQ of a houseplant.
    So all in all a winning combination. As we all are getting a way too close look at.

  178. 178.

    Ruckus

    @Dev Null:
    Yes.
    And they are such obvious examples that one doesn’t even need to open a text to find the actual definition. Just observe and report.

  179. 179.

    Dev Null

    @Miss Bianca:

    you know, I can’t stand Rick Wilson, and I wouldn’t trust him as an ally an inch farther than I can throw him.

    This.

  180. 180.

    Dev Null

    @Dev Null: The Spousal Unit – who knows much more about theology than I – tells me that, although J-Rube has written a great op-ed, and although it’s unusual for arguments of this sort to appear in the M$M, this is what anyone with an understanding of Holocaust theology would write.

    Guessing that no-one is still reading the comments to this post, but …

    … that’s where we’re at today: Trump Admin spokespeeps are using the same Biblical text that Nazis used to justify the Holocaust, and American slave-owners, slavery.

  181. 181.

    Groucho48

    @Elizabelle:

    Just got home after a night out, but, speaking of David Halberstam and the Korean War, I highly recommend “The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War”

    My opinion has been that the right has always been what it is, but, it didn’t become virulent until FDR was President. That’s because they already had everything going their way. Yes, the Civil War was a set back, but, they were able to put black folks in their place pretty quickly, and, of course, there was little or no check on oligarchs running rampant over the economy. Teddy Roosevelt was a bit of a set back, but, didn’t really mess things up too badly. But, FDR!!!. He real put it to them.and, worse, enabled and protected non-rich folks. For the first time ever, in this country.

    So, they went all out to destroy him, including the closest we have ever come to a coup in this country. But, he was charismatic, people loved him and his abhorrent policies worked. The Horror!!! Then, he masterfully conducted a war.

    But then, the war was over, he died. Truman, a fairly unknown was in charge. The right cast around for an attack, realizing he was vulnerable. CHINA!!! The right declared Truman had lost China, and, like today, the MSM went along with it. Truman pushed back, but, was definitely on the defensive. This is about where “The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War” starts. Events are almost scarily familiar. A faux pas by the State Department left Korea out of our protective umbrella. NK was in dire straits and took the usual dictators’s solution…start a war. They asked China for permission and assistance. China asked Stalin for assistance and permission. Both parties agreed, but, Stalin was pretty much lying and China wasn’t as committed as it claimed.

    On the US side, MacArthur was happily in Japan and he couldn’t care less about Korea. Read the book, and, whatever opinion you have about MacArthur, this book will make you lower it.

    The rest of the story is predictable and incredibly depressing. Truman didn’t really want to go to war with NK but, the nascent right wing noise machine was flexing its muscle, now that FDR was gone. The media was full of horror stories about how we (Dems) had “lost” China and was about to lose NK. Dominoes!!! Truman had little support from either fellow Dems or the media. He caved.

    So, that’s the overarching theme of the book. But, it does get in to the actual war. And, there are incredible acts of courage, ingenuity, endurance, etc. And you want cheer and applaud and honor them, but, they were for a completely unnecessary war.

    Anyway. his book, The 50″s is a fun and interesting read. His book, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, isn’t. They are good companion books.

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