Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

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

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

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

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

We still have time to mess this up!

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

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

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

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

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

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

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

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Friday Morning Open Thread: T(Murphy the Trickster)GIF

Friday Morning Open Thread: T(Murphy the Trickster)GIF

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  2. 2.

    Schlemazel

    I used to read Turley’s site regularly, he seemed smart and particularly gifted at making a case even if I did not always agree with him and his regular commenters were a lot of fun as well as educational (like the crowd here except much smaller). But about 2 years into the Obama administration he took a dark turn & instead of making good cases he was intent on diminishing everything Obama did. I have tried a couple of times since the tangerine terror has taken over but there is something wrong with him now.

  4. 4.

    geg6

    I know Rick Wilson is a disgusting GOPer ratfucker who I despise being temporarily allied with, but he does make me laugh.

  5. 5.

    Amir Khalid

    “The President is a racist, horny old burger goblin who literally steals children from poor people.”

    It actually surprised me a little to realise that every word of this is the literal truth.

  7. 7.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Blech.

    WTF? Is this your new equivalent of rikyrah’s “Good Morning”? Or is that some arcane carpenter’s term, like “The lintel didn’t match evenly with the blech, so I had to frazzon the labaziner”?

    In any event, good morning, I guess.
    Also, re: your truck mishap the other day, I didn’t see your response when someone asked: was it the other driver being clueless (meaning unintentional)? Or an asshole (meaning intentional)?

  8. 8.

    Platonailedit

    “They’re dead to each other [now],” said a source close to Trump who also knows Cohen.

    Trump allies are already gaming out how to, in the words of one outside Trump adviser to The Daily Beast, “bury” Cohen.

    https://t.co/rSkb5fLzqD— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 27, 2018

    Just to reiterate, they said a woman would be too emotional, and yet here we are watching the live version of "Mean Girls" cast almost entirely with white men.

    — Crista (@MadMommaC) July 27, 2018

  9. 9.

    Platonailedit

    I found that Sam Bee’s piece showing how far down the press has fallen depressing.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A $40m yacht, with no one at the helm, set adrift and leaving destruction in its wake: some might see it as an apt metaphor for the Trump administration. It’s also what happened over the weekend when the Seaquest, a superyacht owned by the US education secretary, Betsy DeVos, was reportedly untied from its dock by vandals in Huron, Ohio.

    Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.

    The potential act of vandalism against DeVos’s yacht followed the destruction of Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame earlier this week. And it follows a series of attempts by protesters around the country to harass members of the Trump administration in public. If smashing valuable things up is the next step for members of the resistance, they have their work cut out for them before they will make a real impact: Trump’s cabinet has a combined worth of at least $4bn.

    Heh.

  11. 11.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: ? Good morning!

    @SFAW: it’s his preemptive response to all the cherry good mornings, and my kissy face is my response to his ?. Just our way of saying howdy. It amuses us. Good
    Morning to you too, BTW.

  12. 12.

    Chyron HR

    “You can’t take anything the president says seriously because he’s cray-cray,” is an interesting defense, to say the least.

  14. 14.

    evodevo

    @Schlemazel: Yes. I listened to him all the time during the dark Bush years, but he has turned to the crazy side. Does anyone have a clue what happened?

  16. 16.

    satby

    @satby: “cheery good mornings” sigh.

    Our new front pager better get on fixing the edit button on mobile
    (Welcome to the big time M^4)

  17. 17.

    debbie

    @Amir Khalid:

    I doubt you can access his show, but Colbert has really been brilliant in regard to Trump and his Trumpie doings. It’s been wonderful being able to end a day with a good laugh.

  18. 18.

    SFAW

    @Platonailedit:

    Just to reiterate, they said a woman would be too emotional, and yet here we are watching the live version of “Mean Girls” cast almost entirely with white men.

    — Crista (@MadMommaC) July 27, 2018

    As with all smarty-pants libtard comments of this nature, the correct response is: BUT HER E-MAILS!!!

    ETA: If I could figure out how to transcribe a raspberry or a Bronx cheer, I woulda done that.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Matt Ortega
    ‏@MattOrtega
    22h22 hours ago
    More Matt Ortega Retweeted Haley Britzky
    DeVos’ yacht was merely given the choice to shop around for a better pier.

  26. 26.

    satby

    So I can’t keep up with the night threads, but in happy news (for me) I was able to finally connect with a former exchange son living on Long Island and will be meeting him, his wife, and young sons Sunday for lunch before the jackal meet up that evening!

    Joe was from China and only 16 when he lived with us for a year during high school, he stayed to attend college and grad school getting his green card along the way, and now is a U.S. citizen raising his own family here. So proud of him!

  27. 27.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: “Blech” is my response to the mornings news nearly every day now. I suspect you feel the same.

    The other driver was a 19 yo kid driving too fast on a gravel road going into a super tight blind S-turn. At his speed there was no way he could hold the corner so he was taking it wide. This particular road has very little traffic (maybe a dozen and a half residences over it’s 4.5 mile length) and normally he would meet no one there. This time he met me. Guano happens.

    He was a really sweet kid who felt horrible about the whole damned mess (not the least of which was the fact that he was driving the patriarchs truck). Other than our initial contact, it was about as pleasant an experience one can have under those circumstances.

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: You people are just too damned depressingly cheery in the mornings. Somebody has to inject some reality into the conversation around here.

  31. 31.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I for one like your counterbalancing when I get here every morning. And I agree with you. Already, I’ve confirmed Peter Navarro is a real dick. The day can only get worse.

  33. 33.

    debbie

    @satby:

    Wow, you’ve got a great weekend lined up! Plus, I think the weather will be great (at least I hope so). Enjoy all of it!

  39. 39.

    Platonailedit

    The #WalkAway campaign on Twitter is an absolute joke. For weeks, our team has been attempting to find Democrats who are so sick of their party that they have decided to “walk away” and join the Republican party. It turns out, socially-aware individuals really don’t want to join a political organization that rips babies and children away from their parents, regularly attacks the LGBT community, tweets disparaging remarks at U.S. companies, and hands out billions of dollars in tax cuts to the rich, among many other misdeeds.

    It turns out, the fake #WalkAway campaign, launched most likely by Russian operatives, has also been creating incredibly fake #WalkAway ads. In each ad, people of various races and backgrounds are featured with a simple message about why they’ve left the Democratic party.

    The problem with these ads? The people telling their deeply personal stories are actually models who posed for Shutterstock-featured photos.

    The ads were first spotted by Michele Stapleton, a Brunswick, Maine-based photographer. Michele posted a simple warning on Facebook: “Don’t be fooled by the #Walkaway campaign. All the ‘people’ in their ads were purchased at Shutterstock.”

    It turns out the ads are not just lies, they are also illegal.

  42. 42.

    TS (the original)

    So watching a little MJ – whenever they have a democrat in the discussion, they ask attacking questions – they start with “Republicans say …”
    They never seem to do this when talking with GOPers – simply accept all they say at face value.

  43. 43.

    rikyrah

    Am I the only one who thinks that this week has changed the dynamic?
    And, we haven’t even had a Mueller indictment this week.But, here’s to hoping that we can end the week with that cherry on top of the sundae ?

  44. 44.

    Ken

    Trump thinks that his tweets are evidence of his intent. Hell, he uses them to announce new government policy. In fact by a funny coincidence, just a year ago on July 26 (according to the “Today in the Year…” feature printed with my Sudoku):

    President Donald Trump tweeted that he wants transgender people barred from serving in the U.S. military “in any capacity”; the next day the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Pentagon policy would not change until the White House issued Trump’s directive through formal channels – not on Twitter.

    (Well, I say funny coincidence, but maybe there’s something to this karma thing.)

  47. 47.

    Kay

    Cuomo Prime Time
    ‏Verified account
    @CuomoPrimeTime
    Follow Follow @CuomoPrimeTime
    More
    “He has lied all his life… a person who is found to be an incredible liar, he’s got a tremendous motive to lie now… I don’t think anyone believes that.” Rudy Giuliani

    Giuliani is a cartoon lawyer. All the Trump people love those words “incredible” “tremendous” – they can’t just say things without amplifying them into ridiculousness. It makes them LESS credible, not more credible.

    On or about July 20th Giuliani did a cable news tour where he demanded Cohen “tell the truth” about the Trump Tower meeting. So Cohen did :)

  49. 49.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Could this whole Cohen episode have been avoided if the Trumps had just paid for Cohen’s legal defense?

    The lesson here is “pay your co-conspirator’s legal bills in a timely manner” – they’re cheapskates.

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The ACLU used the same facial recognition system that Amazon offers to the public, scanning for matches between images of faces. The group built a face database and search tool using 25,000 public arrest photos, then cross-referenced that data with public photos of every member of the US House and Senate.

    Of the 28 people misidentified by the ACLU’s test, 11 of them were people of color, nearly 40% of those wrongly matched, despite the fact that people of color make up only 20% of those in Congress. Six members of the Congressional Black Caucus were included in the false matches, including the civil rights leader John Lewis.

    “The ACLU’s test demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt what many of us already know – that Amazon’s facial recognition tool is discriminatory … and therefore dangerous to democracy,” said Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice. “They need to roll it back immediately.”

    Amazon defended its technology in a statement, saying the ACLU’s results could “probably be improved” if the test had increased the “confidence thresholds”, meaning the likelihood that Rekognition found a match. The ACLU used an 80% confidence threshold, but Amazon said in its statement, “When using facial recognition for law enforcement activities, we guide customers to set a threshold of at least 95% or higher.”

    The ACLU, however, has pointed out that it used the default match settings that Amazon has set for Rekognition, and that the company currently references an 80% confidence metric for recognizing faces on its own website.

    Amazon’s response seemed to admit that its technology would not work well in its default mode, Snow said in an interview: “Essentially, they are saying their product is broken out of the box.”

    Dog bites man. If it really worked at identifying criminals 85% of the 28 congress critters would have been Republicans.

    An Amazon spokesperson asserted that Rekognition had beneficial applications, such as “preventing human trafficking” and “inhibiting child exploitation”, adding: “We remain excited about how image and video analysis can be a driver for good in the world, including in the public sector and law enforcement.”

    Amazon has not disclosed the police agencies that may be using the software and did not respond to questions about its law enforcement partners on Thursday.

    Yeah, because being “a driver for good in the world” is all they really care about.

  53. 53.

    Amir Khalid

    @Kay:

    Giuliani is a cartoon lawyer.

    Which makes him the legal counsel your cartoon President deserves.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    Of course he knew. His campaign manager and son in law knew but Trump didn’t know? It was an obviously blatant lie from the get-go and at least 20 different people knew it was a lie, because they were involved in it. It was just a matter of time until one of them said it.

    Don Jr. lied to Congress. Which we knew. Because he lied to the NYTimes about the meeting the first time he was asked.

    If we know this much just from published news reports imagine how much Mueller knows.

  58. 58.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Alain the site fixer: I’ll see what I can do but this may yet be another side effect of having so many pieces kludged together. Hopefully something’s changed and I can fix it. I fear that the paid for support for the mobile site was wasted money; company was bought and after a few months of no changes, all support resources stopped working or vanished a few weeks back which is why the iPad issue remains unsolved.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    @Amir Khalid:

    I actually get a twinge of sympathy watching him because the thing is you have to say something if you’re in the position he’s put himself in, where you’re defending (guilty) criminals. That’s literally the job :)

  62. 62.

    Alain the site fixer

    @rikyrah: I told Adam after Helsinki that I felt the winds change. The tone and topics and attention shifted ever so slightly but to me it was perceivable. I think for all kinds of folk, seeing him next to Putin made the words and accusations and rumours concrete and thus began a new phase. There are subtle things that can lodge an idea deep in the subsonscious that takes root and changes your perspective. I’ve seen it in relationships, business, culture, academia, politics. It’s quiet but grows, and I think that’s what happened.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    I’m doing 2 hours with the voter registration people Saturday. I saw “them” at a fair a couple of weeks ago and there was only one woman at the table and she had no takers so I figured I’d go and at least make it look more “popular”. My political activities revolve around what I learned in the 7th grade school lunchroom.

    Very sophisticated “optics” :)

  64. 64.

    Platonailedit

    @Kay:

    Misplaced sympathy, Kay. These corrupt to the core thugs deserve jail, not sympathy.

  65. 65.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    He was a really sweet kid who felt horrible about the whole damned mess (not the least of which was the fact that he was driving the patriarchs truck). Other than our initial contact, it was about as pleasant an experience one can have under those circumstances.

    Because he was so “sweet,” you only hit him with your 24-oz framer 10 times, instead of the usual 50?

    Glad to hear it was stupidity, not malice.

  66. 66.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    I actually get a twinge of sympathy watching him because the thing is you have to say something if you’re in the position he’s put himself in, where you’re defending (guilty) criminals. That’s literally the job :)

    A job which no one forced him to take.

    Giuliani is racist, fascist scum, and has been for a while. That he’s working for Shitgibbon is not a sign of altruism, or anything else other than greed and self-interest. [Note: “Greed” need not be for money, since Giuliani probably knows he’ll never get paid his full bill.] He deserves more than scorn, he deserves to be deported, because his father was a criminal, and we can’t allow that chain immigration, right? (Yeah, I know that argument makes no sense.)

  67. 67.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW:

    you only hit him with your 24-oz framer 10 times, instead of the usual 50?

    It’s funny you say that because I only hit his left rear outside tire and rim (aluminum rim, broke that sucker like the cheap piece of shit they are). Literally did not touch any other part of the truck. In my minds eye I can see the accident play out in frame by frame detail and I still have no explanation for the lack of damage to his truck.

  68. 68.

    gvg

    @Kay: My understanding is that Trump can’t legally pay someone else’s legal bills, that it’s bribery or undue influence or something. Supposedly this came up when Bill Clinton’s investigation and impeachment was happening. I can see how if you are paying someone’s defense, that there is an implied threat if they are going to say something you don’t like. I am not clear if that also holds for the RNC but it might. Now you are the lawyer not me, but I read this awhile back and it made some sense to me. On the other hand even if it’s correct, the staffer’s might still resent that. this was before Cohen was center stage in the news, it was about all the ordinary white house staffer’s having to get lawyers and pay themselves. I suppose it also relates to them having opposing interests too.

  69. 69.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @OzarkHillbilly: He’s lucky. An episode like that didn’t do him much damage but maybe scared him into a little more caution.

    Speaking of which, it turns out I have to take a road test to get my Illinois driver’s license. If they try to make me parallel park, we are going to have problems.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    If they try to make me parallel park, we are going to have problems.

    You must be one of them couuuuuntry folk. People around here have no idea how to parallel park. It is quite amusing to watch them try. ;-)

  72. 72.

    Platonailedit

    Several congressional Democrats are proposing legislation that would make it a federal crime to knowingly and intentionally publish false information about elections.

    https://t.co/5dzxMgUjxF— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 27, 2018

    Subpoena the ass off of zuckerberg, the twitter guy all the time. These assholes kiss the chinese ass all the time and ‘follow their rules’. Stick is the only one they understand.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @Platonailedit:

    It’s just the desperation of it. They talk too much. It’s like they believe a barrage of words is magical.

    Maybe if Guiliani had kept his big mouth shut and not challenged Cohen to “tell the TRUF!” in another ridiculous dick-measuring contest Cohen wouldn’t have opened HIS big mouth. Tough guys gotta tough guy, I guess.

    I love the faith they have in the idea these fucking reckless, egomaniacal blabbermouths with no self discipline that they surround themselves with will keep a secret. Forget “20 people”. Probably 100 people know Trump knew. A thousand. They all talk constantly.

  75. 75.

    B.B.A.

    Matthew Yglesias
    ‏Verified account @mattyglesias

    I think it’s important to understand that even if incontrovertible proof of collusion and lawbreaking emerges, 97% of the folks who are still with Trump today will keep supporting him after the pivot to an explicit “collusion is good because it helped us win” message.
    11:26 PM – 26 Jul 2018

    Jeet Heer
    ‏Verified account @HeerJeet

    Trump could hold on to power with this line: “Sure, I go Russian help to defeat Crooked Hillary. I did what was necessary to win and it worked.” 90% of GOP will be okay with that & it’ll give him a firewall in the Senate.
    11:57 PM – 26 Jul 2018

    This has been my fear since the beginning, that there will be indisputable proof of collusion, corruption, and possibly worse, but it won’t matter. Between the Trump dead-enders, the Republican primaries that favor the Trump base, and the electoral system that they’ve stacked in their own favor, they can just ignore all this and stay in power indefinitely.

    This has been your daily dose of doom and gloom. Please throw your rotten vegetables at me now. We now return to your regularly scheduled sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.

  76. 76.

    Immanentize

    Hi All. A little late joining you today.
    Ozark, please keep Bleching.
    Ozark and Satby — tendon update. Went Tuesday, got a cortisone shot in the elbow. As I mentioned, my doctor adds a little nerve blocker to the shot. Instant relief! Then, as Ozark predicted, hurt like hell for a day. Now, pretty much all better! I’m much happier now that I can again use my right arm.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    @SFAW:

    I really loathe him. I always thought he was a phony and a profiteer. I thought his “leadership” after 9/11 was grossly exaggerated in the same way Bush’s was exaggerated, and I thought that at the time.

    I have really come to hate the “tough on crime” people who go after low level criminals but either participate or look the other way on white collar crime- we have a white collar crime WAVE in this country. They are completely out of control. We have banks that go into people’s accounts and STEAL their money. Wells Fargo robbed their customers. They should all be in prison.

  78. 78.

    Platonailedit

    @B.B.A.:

    Dems have enough votes to beat these treasonous thugs in many states and thwart them. The question is will the dems turn out on the day it counts?

  80. 80.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    People around here have no idea how to parallel park.

    Easiest thing in the world. In fact, it’s SO easy that, years ago, I declared victory over it, and decided I didn’t need to do it any more.

  81. 81.

    Platonailedit

    Climate change made the current Europe-wide heatwave more than twice as likely to occur, finds a preliminary scientific report.

    Researchers compared the current high temperatures with historical records from seven weather stations, in different parts of Europe.

    They found that in this summer’s heat the “signal of climate change is unambiguous.”

    They also say the scale of the heatwave in the Arctic is unprecedented.

    “The logic that climate change will do this is inescapable – the world is becoming warmer, and so heatwaves like this are becoming more common,” said Dr Friederike Otto, Deputy Director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford

    “What was once regarded as unusually warm weather will become commonplace – in some cases, it already has.” she added.

    While acknowledging that the current heatwave in the Arctic is unprecedented in the historical record, the researchers were not able to clearly resolve the impact of human influence.

  83. 83.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    Yesterday, someone here posted a link to a Dave Chappelle sketch, where “Law & Order” had the (white) white-collar criminal treated the way non-whites often are by the police and criminal justice system, and the (black) coke dealer treated as if he were a rich white guy.

    I’d like to see that model applied to Shitgibbon, Giuliani, Shitgibbon’s entire maladministration (past and present), Ryan, Traitor Turtle, and a host of others. As someone once said — I can’t seem to remember who, but I think it’s some Rhode Island old fart (waves at efg) — fuckem.

  85. 85.

    Eric S.

    @Kay: over at LGM yesterday the wasd a post outlining how Cohen and others have been on the hook for paying off Trump’s mistresses. Thre proposed theory, Trump is flat as broke.

  86. 86.

    lowtechcyclist

    Tucker Carlson: “I know we’re supposed to think that Alex Jones is way more radical than, like, Bill Maher, or Michelle Wolf, or Rosie O’Donnell, but he’s got a point of view.”

    Guess that’s Tucker’s attempt to match “say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @B.B.A.:

    but it won’t matter.

    It does matter. Process matters. Investigations and indictments matter. If it doesn’t lead to impeachment or whatever the desired goal is it still “matters”.

    This is part of how we got here- not “you”- I know you’re just one person and I think you’re allowed to get gloomy – it’s a gloomy time! BUT- criminals need to be investigated and prosecuted. This is (IMO) how we ended up with this white collar crime wave, where they pay fines and never go to trial. The process matters. In many ways the process is the point.

    People deserve an airing and transparency and whatever that leads to – trials, hearings, lists of facts in indictments, reputational damage, whatever. We’ve gotten so “goal oriented” that we dismiss the whole value of learning things, public debate, etc.

    It is important that Trump be held accountable and part of being held accountable is being SUBJECT to the giant justice machine because everyone else is subject to it. You are. I am. The millions of people shuffling thru courtrooms in ankle chains and plastic slippers are. This is hell for Trump. It’s no fun being the subject of a inquiry. It consumes his every waking minute- bet on it.

    Media and Trump defenders have set this up so it “doesn’t matter” unless Trump is frog marched from the Oval Office. That’s bullshit. That’s NOT the standard. The standard is higher than that.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @Eric S.:

    We don’t know anything about the President’s finances. That’s unique in modern Presidents, and it’s outrageous.

    I’m excited about the SDNY investigation not because Cohen will or will not be “frogmarched” but because we will FINALLY get some real information on what the President OWNS and what and whom he OWES.

    The bankruptcy trustee here uses this sort of slogan- she says “I need everything you own and everything you owe, a document for each” Regular people TURN IT OVER because they HAVE to. They don’t want to! It’s private and it can be humiliating, but they turn it over.

    I want the President to TURN IT OVER. He’s not special. He’s not a king.

    We DESERVE basic financials on the President, and we should have gotten them.

  91. 91.

    Platonailedit

    @Kay:

    I really, really hope the SDNY gets the turd’s bookkeeper to flip. Amazing how the IRS, FBI, SEC and other 3 lettered govt agencies have continually and probably wantonly dropped the ball for decades on this money launderer’s case.

  92. 92.

    donnah

    I hope there is a tidal shift in Trump/Republican power. I always hold out hope that the change in dynamics will swing back to the Democrats, the humans in the political realm, and away from Trump. I’m holding my breath for revelations by the Mueller panel and the investigation of so much wrongdoing.

    But I remember feeling hopeful when Trump got some backlash when he campaigned on the hatred of Mexicans, on the “grabbing pussy” tape, on mocking a disabled man. Every time he insulted and demeaned others, I felt like it would turn the tide against him.

    But it didn’t. And now when it seems like crimes are catching up to him, I wonder how he and his cronies are going to get out from under the proof of his criminal acts. He has successfully bullied and blustered his way out so many times that I can’t help but worry.

    So it comes down to us and the vote in November. It comes down to us calling our representatives and telling them what we want. I just got an email from my Senator, Sherrod Brown, in reply to an email I wrote to him about Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court appointment. Brown said he will be tough and ask hard questions, and I believe him.

    I believe the tides will turn when we turn them. And November isn’t that far away.

  93. 93.

    satby

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: it includes which way you turn the wheels on hills (both up and downhill), at least my last road test years ago did. Don’t remember parallel parking, but it is a needed skill in the greater Chicagoland area.

  94. 94.

    Kristine

    I may be responding in the wrong thread, but I get the bulk of my news–or the leads for where to go to read up–here on BJ. Adam, Cheryl, commenter Kay, thank you for taking the time to lay out the deep dives. David Anderson wrt the ACA.

    Also finding myself following folks on the Twitter who I never expected, internet security and defense analysts and economists and even the odd conservative-who-I-know-will-turn-on-us-the-split-second-T***p-is out-of-office-but-for-now-they’re-allies-of-a-sort. Sometimes I watch Rachel, but for the most part I get my news from unconventional sources.

  95. 95.

    Jeffro

    @B.B.A.:

    This has been my fear since the beginning, that there will be indisputable proof of collusion, corruption, and possibly worse, but it won’t matter.

    It won’t matter to the much-shrunken GOP base…but it will (already does) matter to “independents”, and it will surely fire up & solidify Democrats even more. No worries and full steam ahead!

  96. 96.

    MomSense

    @Alain the site fixer:

    A few years ago you did a post wondering how climate change might be affecting us psychologically and I agreed with you that it is a factor even if we aren’t aware of it. A study came out recently that I think you will find interesting. I’m not going to discuss the content because it is a sensitive subject, but check it out. Nature, The Atlantic, etc. all have stories out.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    It does matter. Process matters. Investigations and indictments matter. If it doesn’t lead to impeachment or whatever the desired goal is it still “matters”.

    This is part of how we got here- not “you”- I know you’re just one person and I think you’re allowed to get gloomy – it’s a gloomy time! BUT- criminals need to be investigated and prosecuted. This is (IMO) how we ended up with this white collar crime wave, where they pay fines and never go to trial. The process matters. In many ways the process is the point.

    Yes, Kay. It does matter.

    Thanks for reminding us why.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Platonailedit:

    Trump is the best argument for a crack down on white collar crime. This would be popular!

    I picture billboards, like they have for drunk drivers in MI. “If you see something say something”

    They’re out of control. They’re forming criminal gangs – they probably have a secret tattoo.

    I once was audited by the OH Sec of State based an a partisan bullshit complaint lodged by a weak-willed GOP Bd of Election member- they pressured her into bothering me. I had a good relationship with the election finance lawyer at the Sec of State’s office – I was calling him asking what he needed from me to do his job- and he told me he was ridiculously overworked- they had cut his unit in half.

    Let’s hire some prosecutors. I want cops on the white collar crime beat. I should be able to put money in a bank and not worry about the overpaid CEO stealing it. Right? Let’s have investigations and trials – they need a deterrent to their criminal ways.

  101. 101.

    schrodingers_cat

    One third of the children stolen from their parents at the border still remain separated. Legal immigration is under attack right now using bureaucracy manned by alumni of anti-immigrant racist think tanks. I am out of snark.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    Our school starts earlier and earlier nearly every year and it is upsetting me. My youngest has to see his family members and they are not available until August which is sort of traditional vacation time for people with jobs. I like to see more of him in the summer too. I feel they have taken 3 weeks away from me, making planning impossible :)

    What about his “social/emotional” learning? I believe I am in charge of that! They’re horning in on my area and I resent it.

    I’m tempted to pull him out for the whole vacation period, but I know him and he hates to miss anything. he may miss out on essential high school drama if he’s not present, and since that’s basically his incentive for going to school at all – socializing- it’s a dilemma.

  104. 104.

    rikyrah

    @gvg:

    I am not clear if that also holds for the RNC but it might.

    How can it hold for the RNC, who paid Dolt45 and Jr’s legal bills for months?

    And what about the ‘legal fund’ that they set up for Dolt45 staffers?

  107. 107.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @OzarkHillbilly: We applied for senior rail passes that allow us to ride the Metra into Chicago at half price. Driving into the city would only give us both heart attacks.

    ETA: My voter registration arrived yesterday. Yay! My rep is apparently Roskam. My district was just moved to leans R.

  109. 109.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Kay: What are they doing with the early start? I assume they have a specific number of days/hours they have to hold class. Are they protecting against snow days, aiming for a longer winter or spring break, trying to be done sooner in June?

    Iowa theoretically banned school starting before Labor Day because resorts and the State Fair wanted the workers, but most school districts got exemptions.

  110. 110.

    Gin & Tonic

    From Twitter, this captures perfectly what Kay was saying above:

    Junior, Manafort, and Kushner have a meeting with half the cast of Eastern Promises in Trump’s building on a day Trump’s there and we’ve spent the last year pretending it’s not a sure fucking thing Trump knew all about it.

  111. 111.

    Quinerly

    Trump really winded/out of breath trying to get through these prepared remarks. I would love to slap Pence… he is doing that adoring gaze thing.

    Never knew I could hate people this much.

  112. 112.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    We applied for senior rail passes that allow us to ride the Metra into Chicago at half price. Driving into the city would only give us both heart attacks.

    Wise move.

    My wife had to travel to Chicago once to visit the Spanish Consulate once and got totally lost. Had to call me to figure out where she was and how to get to where she was going. I’ve never let my directionally challenged wife live that down.

  114. 114.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lowtechcyclist: Tucker Carlson: “I know we’re supposed to think that Alex Jones is way more radical than, like, Bill Maher, or Michelle Wolf, or Rosie O’Donnell, but he’s got a point of view.”

    Everything else about this aside, does Rosie O’Donnell even have a regular TV gig anymore? I’ve seen a few tweets here and there, but other than that, why is she on anyone’s radar?

  115. 115.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah:
    There is an ethical rules on point — Rule 1.8(f):

    (f) A lawyer shall not accept compensation for representing a client from one other than the client unless:

    (1) the client gives informed consent;

    (2) there is no interference with the lawyer’s independence of professional judgment or with the client-lawyer relationship; and

    (3) information relating to representation of a client is protected ….

    So, it can be done, but it has to be tightly regulated, particularly when the client’s interests might diverge from that of the payor (like a corporation paying for an employee’s lawyer or Trump paying for Cohen’s)

  116. 116.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Our school starts earlier and earlier nearly every year and it is upsetting me. My youngest has to see his family members and they are not available until August which is sort of traditional vacation time for people with jobs. I like to see more of him in the summer too. I feel they have taken 3 weeks away from me, making planning impossible :)

    This is public school?

    Around here, it’s the Catholics and the Private schools that start earlier. The public school tried for a few years to do that August thing, but, they went back to the tried and true – day after Labor Day.

  118. 118.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: This is part of how we got here- not “you”- I know you’re just one person and I think you’re allowed to get gloomy –

    Also– and everything you say is right and important– but too-smart-for-the-room, adolescent cynicism is kinda that poster’s schtick.

  119. 119.

    Alain the site fixer

    @MomSense: thanks, I’ll look for it. I still think our collective worldwide craziness right now is just the beginning and that scares me. We’re into the Age of Migration now and I expect none of us will know times again without major migration issues occurring. I fear it will, like Trump, bring out the worst in us when we need to shine.

    Ok. Off to an appointment. I will be back later. I did submit a ticket for the edit comments not working on mobile site but no idea if the plugin is the problem, the mobile site, or the caching plugin. Or something else entirely.

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    @Immanentize:

    Glad to hear that you are feeling better.

    I have to chuckle at your pointing out the ethics of it…this group doesn’t know how to spell ethics, let alone what it means..LOL

  121. 121.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Alain the site fixer: We’re into the Age of Migration now and I expect none of us will know times again without major migration issues occurring. I fear it will, like Trump, bring out the worst in us when we need to shine.

    Yup, among the other reasons trump is awful is that he drives the climate crisis off the front pages, not that the majority of Americans can be shaken out of their complacency on the issue anyway.

    Here’s an article for those who aren’t depressed enough about everything else.

  122. 122.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    @Kay: What are they doing with the early start? I assume they have a specific number of days/hours they have to hold class. Are they protecting against snow days, aiming for a longer winter or spring break, trying to be done sooner in June?

    I’m not Kay, but two years ago, here in Maryland, our idiot governor did ban classes beginning before Labor Day, and AFAICT, there are no exemptions. He claimed he was doing it for the families, but everyone knew it was about providing customers and staffing for Ocean City businesses.

    What’s gone away is vacations during the year. We used to have a week’s spring break after Easter, now we just have that Friday and Monday (which IIRC are state-mandated). Last year, Christmas break was just Christmas week; classes ran through Dec. 22, which didn’t give much flexibility for traveling if you were having Christmas with relatives elsewhere.

    Since the idiot governor also mandated that classes had to end by 6/15, that meant they couldn’t keep the vacations and push the school year further into June. Also takes away flexibility for dealing with snow days, of course – thank goodness we had almost no snow this past winter.

    There’ve been plenty of studies correlating longer summer vacations with students losing what they learned the previous year. So this is moving in the wrong direction.

  123. 123.

    rikyrah

    Michael Cohen said he was present ‘with several others’ when Trump approved the meeting with the Russians – so we will see if any of those others will speak out and support his storyhttps://t.co/q0SxjQSHMr pic.twitter.com/VxcBSTxmfq

    — Wendy Siegelman (@WendySiegelman) July 27, 2018

  125. 125.

    rikyrah

    FINALLY!!!

    BREAKING: Youtube has just Banned @RealAlexJones from livestreaming and removed InfoWars videos from their platform.

    I can not love this enough.

    You see that Alex Jones, lying and hate gets you nowhere.

    YOU LOSE!!

    — Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) July 26, 2018

  128. 128.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah:
    I bet some of the lawyers do. Which is why they are either leaving their clients or staying far far away. I think the most complicated one is McGahn. He is NOT Trump’s lawyer although all the news plays it that way. He is like a general counsel for the office of the presidency. He and Trump probably have no attorney/client privilege (there is a bit of a split on this question) But they probably share some “executive privilege” regarding some things they discuss.

  130. 130.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: YouTube is helping monetize a lot of hate channels in India too. All the focus has been on Twitter and FB but YouTube and Google tracks you even when you are not signed into your Google account and have explicitly chosen all the options to not be tracked or your searches saved.

  132. 132.

    Kay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I know it’s bad but I like an after Labor Day start.

    They need 180 days in Ohio (minimum) but they want to “extend” the year so they’re counting things like test days as not part of the 180 so making the school year longer.

    He’s learning…stuff!
    My God, think what he’s learning hanging out with me! So much wisdom to impart, so little time! :)

    I like having them around. I used to get sad thinking of them going to school when they were little. They change, when they’re in the big school machine. You send off this cheerful, quirky little person and you get back a machine cog who is telling you they have to turn in papers.

  134. 134.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rp: Glenn Greenwald deleted 27,000 tweets the same day Ecuador announced it would withdraw asylum from Assange:

    thinking back to GG’s blogging days…. that’s what? One day’s worth?

  136. 136.

    Yarrow

    @Kay:

    August which is sort of traditional vacation time for people with jobs.

    What? Not in my world. June and July are vacation times. August is for thinking about getting back to school. The stores already have their back to school displays out–have for the last week or so.

  138. 138.

    Yarrow

    @Alain the site fixer:

    I still think our collective worldwide craziness right now is just the beginning and that scares me. We’re into the Age of Migration now and I expect none of us will know times again without major migration issues occurring. I fear it will, like Trump, bring out the worst in us when we need to shine.

    I agree with you. The most basic things in life–food, clothing, shelter–are at risk. People will move to try to get access to them. Smart people will be looking at where the best places to live will be with the climate warming…and move there now.

  139. 139.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Yarrow: I don’t have kids and am thirty=plus years out of school, but from what I kind of notice with relatives and neighbors, the school year ends and starts earlier. My recollection of my day is the ten feet of snow had barely melted when school let out in mid-June. Now it seems like HS graduation is right around Memorial Day, and the lower schools get out around the same time. Also there seem to be more “fall breaks”– unheard of!– and T-giving break has gotten longer, the Wednesday off or even a full week, as schools yield to the fact of parents pulling their kids out.

  140. 140.

    Aleta

    DJ’s twitter looks hyper with desperation today, rapid listing all the usual subjects one after another after another. Ten in 23 hours, and each is a different favorite distraction. So “Cohen lies” Cohen always lies” is kind of sounding like another one.

    Then about Cohen he writes “someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam.”

    The jam might be the announcement of three more women whose relations with DJ had to be covered up, and one possible pregnancy/abortion. (These women will be viciously attacked. And the theme of women as ugly scheming dirty harpies will rise again.)

  143. 143.

    frosty

    @lowtechcyclist: It’s not just the new R governor. Schaffer tried the same thing about Labor Day starts and OC, decades ago. I never understood MD’s week of Spring Break. Growing up in PA it was just a couple of long weekends.

  144. 144.

    Original Lee

    @Schlemazel: This. He used to be a go-to legal quote for reporters I know, and they dropped him completely about 6 or 7 years ago.

  145. 145.

    Ruckus

    @Gin & Tonic:
    No, if you add in the shitgibbon it drops to 3 billion.
    There’s a reason he won’t show us his tax returns. And it isn’t because he’s being audited or because of his privacy, it’s because it would show how far underwater he is and who he’s borrowed from and how much.
    It would show him to not only be “The President is a racist, horny old burger goblin who literally steals children from poor people.” but also a fraud.

  146. 146.

    Ruckus

    @gvg:
    Illegal or not think about it from how much one might have to pay, especially in this case. shitgibbon doesn’t have that kind of money and vlad isn’t going to give it to him. vlad wants something positive (to vlad of course) for his return and given shitgibbon’s proclivity for fucking up everything within his anti midas touch, which turns everything/everyone he touches to shit, he ain’t getting any.

  147. 147.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    The standard is higher than that.

    It certainly should be higher, but I differ from you, I think this is the current standard. It of course shouldn’t be but changing that will change our entire society, which it badly needs. People/entities with money don’t have the same legal system as the vast majority. They buy their way out of any and everything. (That’s not to imply that money is evil, it’s the misuse of it that is) And more than that, they get rewarded for doing so. I’m among the many that lost everything in the last recession but the people that caused it? They got rewarded. Not only did they make money off of screwing all of us, they got bailed out 100% when it all hit the fan. Now that may have been necessary to a degree, because we all depend so much on banks but it seemingly gave them carte blanche to continue to act in their own best interests with no regard for society. It’s the corporations can do no wrong bullshit, that they even have rights in the first place. If they are equal to people then they are criminally liable, just like individuals and can have those rights taken away.
    The banks and financial institutions failed miserably and paid nothing for it.
    The rich can do the same thing. If the shitgibbon and his associates, who are failing far worse than miserably, get away with it, I think it will end our country. It’s the worst of the worst getting rewarded for being exactly that.
    Strive for the bottom, you can’t go wrong, laws are for those losers who couldn’t steal enough money to buy their way out.

  148. 148.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    …Trump’s cabinet has a combined worth of at least $4bn.

    In reading about the set sail independently yacht of Betsy DeVos, the local story informed me that Betsy and her sweet hubby have a combined net worth of about $5B between them. So the $4bn guestimate in what I guess was a Guardian story is woefully inadequately low.

    Although many of them may be far less wealthy than previously supposed,once you scrape off the illegal foreign bank accounts and open bribes. Maybe some have a negative net worth? Once all the money laundering is flushed through…

  149. 149.

    lollipopguild

    @Ruckus: There is the same sort of attitude in the GOP/Conservative circles of we can say and do anything because it makes us successful and there is no downside. It all started with rush and fox news and so many have become wealthy off of hate/fear today that it is a career track for right-wingers.

  150. 150.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus:

    ….People/entities with money don’t have the same legal system as the vast majority. They buy their way out of any and everything. (That’s not to imply that money is evil, it’s the misuse of it that is) And more than that, they get rewarded for doing so. I’m among the many that lost everything in the last recession but the people that caused it? They got rewarded. Not only did they make money off of screwing all of us, they got bailed out 100% when it all hit the fan. Now that may have been necessary to a degree, because we all depend so much on banks but it seemingly gave them carte blanche to continue to act in their own best interests with no regard for society. It’s the corporations can do no wrong bullshit, that they even have rights in the first place. If they are equal to people then they are criminally liable, just like individuals and can have those rights taken away…..

    I agree with you completely. My wife and I have been double-income no kids and were thus able to save a lot in IRAs, 401k and similar vehicles for long careers. We planned my retirement after wife won total permanent disability and needed company up the holler. Then Bush and the bankers and real estate people blew the economic bubble sky high. My investments lost nearly 50% of their value, although none of the companies went belly-up.

    Fortunately we didn’t need to sell investments at that absurd bottomed out market. I wish we had been able to buy more equities at that bottom to ride back up over the past 10 years. Our story isn’t a bad one, as holding those investments until they climbed back past their previous highs has been good for us.

    But those real estate executives, brokers, bankers, appraisers, and rating agencies should have been shut down. Moodys shouldn’t have been shut down, even though they knew those investment instruments weren’t worth a dime! Same with the other investment rating agencies, they were complicit, they made a fortune out of their fraud. The individuals who aided and abetted those schemes should still be in jail and every stick and rag they owned should have been confiscated to repay those who lost out in that crash.

    Strongly recommend the film “The Big Short” which not only is informative about the illegalities of that giant vast fraud, it is also totally gripping suspense with LOL funny moments. Strippers who own multiple beach front mansions with NO principle payments on any of them, for example. I was hoping they would make out OK actually, they were the least offensive people diving in head first who weren’t actually doing anything illegal.

    The guys who went short big nearly didn’t make it, it crashed just in time to make most of them billionaires. They had a hard time making the investment houses create their short investments, the investment houses knew damn well what was going on.

    But letting everyone off, that was the worst decision Obama made. Saving banks is one thing, saving the criminal executives who created the crash was a completely different thing, and very harmful to the nation going forward. Risk needs to be part of the economy, as Mark Zuckerburg is learning !

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