Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

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

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

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

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The words do not have to be perfect.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

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

Bark louder, little dog.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

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Friday Morning Open Thread

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Speaking of Sharice Davids, and with gratitude to DougJ:

Goal Thermometer

Reader Interactions

167Comments

  4. 4.

    satby

    Anyone else notice that these side slide out add aren’t able to be closed via the x button until they’re over anyway? My constant clicks to close open the ad window multiple times. Cole better be getting decent ? out of these!

  7. 7.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Good news indeed. Probably will be healthy enough to do the Last Weekend thing, so have to check it out.

    In more immediate good news, I’m enjoying a lovely mani/pedi at a salon next to the hotel.

    As a Femme, my nails were one of my points of pride, and were quite long. But I had to remove the gels for the surgery, and cut the nails short so they wouldn’t break.

    So it’s been aggravating having stumpy, ugly nails for the past couple weeks. Amazing how getting back pretty nails is improving my head space.

  9. 9.

    debbie

    Fridays never get old. They still cheer me up as much as they did when I was in grade school.

  13. 13.

    A Ghost To Most

    Sitting here, sipping coffee, watching the carnage from last night’s Nuremberg rally, whiling away the time until I can safely wake my wife. The plan is to drive to Winter Park, then take the rock/dirt roads up to the Continental Divide. Shitler who?

  14. 14.

    bemused

    I love hearing good news in the morning too. I just have to keep reminding myself that there is good news being made by so many rational, intelligent, moral, principled people every day.

    Many thanks to Cole for posting link to John Pavlovitz, The Miserable People. Right on!

    Turned on msnbc this morning and saw a clip of trump rally. Normally I avoid watching or listening to this crap as much as possible but I kept watching the deplorables behind trump. They really pay very little attention to what trump is saying, just wait for their trump cues to cheer or jeer. When they aren’t waiting to wave their signs, their faces are vacant, blank. There is no there, there.

    It’s mindboggling that there are still reporters, cable show hosts and guests, etc. telling us we need to “understand” deplorables. They are empty shells devoid of humanness. Pavlovitz summed up trumpers/deplorables perfectly.

  16. 16.

    Platonailedit

    Kim jong spotted with his rocket in a cricket match in England.

    A man wearing a Donald Trump mask (while also wearing a Northampton Saints shirt) is now walking across the front the of the stand where Kim Jong-un and his bodyguards are sitting.

    The North Korea leader reaches out and pretends to shoot Trump with his rocket.

    Edgbaston: where cricket, fancy dress and geopolitics meet.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @rikyrah: It seems like the media post those stories every couple of weeks. Maybe they alternate those with paeans about Trump voters.

  21. 21.

    Quinerly

    @rikyrah: @Elizabelle: thanks for the kind words. He has had two lumps for awhile. Vet has kept an eye on them. The larger one tested as a fatty tumor and the smaller one in his sternum area tested “positive” when the vet took a needle sample and looked at it under the microscope, a couple of weeks ago. $800 and major surgery with a 6″ incision later, the vet school said it was just a fibroid tumor… similar to the two we have had to remove from his mouth. Very relieved but a bit miffed with the vet and her original test results. He seem to feel great. Winding up stuff here to get on the road for some beach time in NC.

  25. 25.

    raven

    @Quinerly: We had the “tie-back” surgery on Lil Bit a month ago coming in at $3000.. She’s way better except for her cough. We were worried it might be pneumonia or congestive heart failure so we took her into her regular vet Monday ($350) and heart vet yesterday ($150). She also had to go to her ophthalmologist for meds and a pressure test ($170). All the tests showed no pneumonia or congestive heart failure so we are just doing antibiotics for the cough and hoping.

  26. 26.

    Leto

    WaPo has a piece up by eternal shit stain Marc Thiessen about how the Clinton campaign sought Russian help with Trump via the Steele dossier. Dear WaPo: if your motto is going to be “Democracy Dies in Darkness”, stop trying to shove it into the darkness with these bullshit writers.

  28. 28.

    Platonailedit

    Afternoon: Trumps national security team says Trump administration sees Russian attack on US elections as a serious threat it is bent on countering.

    Evening: Trump says it's "hoax" and there's no reason to confront Putin.

    Reality does not matter.

    — David Corn (@DavidCornDC) August 2, 2018

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    An open letter from Victoria Barrett to Rep. Scott Wagner:

    Last month, a young environmentalist, someone like me, tried to hold you accountable for your actions, as we should with all public servants. At a town hall meeting, Rose Strauss, a Sunrise Movement activist, asked you why you accept fossil fuel campaign donations when we know climate change is going to harm young people at an unjust rate.

    But, instead of doing your duty as a politician and being transparent with your actions, you responded by calling her “young and naive”. Later, Rose wrote in an op-ed about that moment: “I felt a pang in my heart. I felt belittled. Insignificant. I wanted to scream.” Mr Wagner, you spoke without forethought or care and made a young person trying to think of solutions to big problems feel small.

    You call us young, but we will be disproportionately affected by climate change. You will be gone, but your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren – we will pay for your mistakes.

    You call us young, as if our shorter time on earth means we can’t see the suffering that exists because profit is put over lives, stories and experiences. As if our shorter time on earth means we can’t see what is right and what is wrong.

    You call us young, but we just want to be considered. We’re tired of the complacency we know is no longer an option. The greed of you and like-minded individuals holds back entire generations, and I don’t like faceless people controlling my future.

    And you call us naive. But we’ve been born into a world already headed towards climate disaster, with no other option than to fight to protect this planet which you and your fellow politicians have willingly put at risk with your apathy.

    You call us naive, as if climate change is happening in a far away future in a far away place. But it’s happening now, and it’s happening everywhere, and it’s happening to all of us. Wildfires rage on the west coast, uprooting and taking lives. Record high temperatures have developed new diseases for farmers in Central America. Coastlines all over the world continue to erode as sea levels continue to rise.

    You call us naive as we try to pick up the pieces of a breaking world so that we have the opportunity to build something when we get the chance. But instead you could be supporting our voices, considering our position as the future proprietors of the society your generation of lawmakers is molding.

    My understanding is that to be naive is to show a lack of experience, a lack of judgment and a lack of information. You are the naive one.

    You don’t have the experience to imagine a life harmed by your decisions to cater to fossil fuel interest, you don’t have the judgment to consider people you choose not to see and you ignore the information necessary for you to make the right choice.

  31. 31.

    Betty Cracker

    So at last night’s hate rally in PA, Trump was regaling the assembled goons with tales of how the press treats him unfairly. The example he used was from his recent UK visit. He said the Queen actually kept HIM waiting for 15 minutes and then extended what was supposed to be a 15-minute visit to “about an hour” because “we got along.” But he accused the press of reporting that Trump kept the Queen waiting for 15 minutes and characterized the hour-long meeting as short to make it seem as if the Queen didn’t want to hang with the Trumps.

    Good God. I mean, it’s not important in the scheme of things, and the Angry Circus Peanut lies constantly, so it’s not surprising that he’d lie about this. But this is such transparently false bullshit. There is video of the Queen standing around for 15 minutes waiting for Trump. It happened. We all saw it. Maybe there was a very good reason for it — some security thing, etc. But that it happened at all shouldn’t be in dispute among sentient beings. We. Saw. It.

    Also, the claim that the invitation to tea was originally scheduled for 15 minutes is just stupid. The fact that the Queen managed to hustle the Trumps out of the castle within an hour kinda does suggest she gave them the bum’s rush, and who could blame her?

  32. 32.

    Platonailedit

    David, correct, what he says should no longer matter. Unfortunately, while DC and the press chase the hourly Trump dog biscuit he throws them, real news and real policy is happening and they do not notice. For example, the undetectable guns issue. Thank you for saying this.

    — Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) August 2, 2018

    Jailed and abused kids anyone? Rethugs party has become the nazis party.

  33. 33.

    A Ghost To Most

    Watching the faces of the Stormtrumpers behind Shitler last night, I see a certain bewilderment creeping in.

  34. 34.

    Karen S.

    It’s to the point where every day there’s some fresh new reason to despise Trump and his supporters up and down the socio-economic ladder. The most recent I can recall was the news that Trump is gutting federal auto emissions standards. I’ve cut way down, temporarily, on my news consumption, but it’s inevitable that some seeps through anyway. Fortunately, I’m going to the first WakandaCon (https://wakandacon2018.com/). I hope it’ll be a fun escape.

  36. 36.

    Leto

    @Baud: I agree, it’s just irritating to see it pop up there prominently. Although this feels like another conspiracy theory that’s been pulled up from the darker corners of nutty-topia (Trumpov campaign rallies) to front page status, amplified via the WaPo. Bothsiderisms will not be infringed!

  39. 39.

    JPL

    @Betty Cracker: Yesterday I finally researched the queen choosing a brooch given to her from President and Mrs. Obama to wear. It’s not unusual for her to choose a brooch depending on the occasion. That alone would cause trump to have heart palpitations. sad

  40. 40.

    Quinerly

    @raven: So glad Lil Bit is doing better. I had followed some of your posts with great interest. My schedule has been so that I’m late to the threads for the last few weeks. We do what we have to do for them. And still never have them long enough. Back in 2011, my Buddy (Akita/Chow mix… gorgeous 100 lb rescue) was diagnosed with the very rare cancer of the tear duct. Vets, cancer specialist, the vet school… it consumed our lives for about 3 weeks. Sadly, fast growing… in a snap it had broken through to his brain in a matter of a week. And, then there was poor Leo, who had an undiagnosed tumor on his spleen when we started our 2014 New Mexico trip. It ruptured 3 days after we arrived. These big dogs and cancer… I can’t get one to live past 11 years old. I’ve had Poco 4 1/2 years… he’s several years older than Stray Rescue originally thought. He’s probably getting close to 10, if not a bit older.

  41. 41.

    Leto

    @Betty Cracker: He’s prepping his base to not accept either his removal via Congressional methods, or when he loses in 2020. “They stole the election from you! I’m the true leader! Don’t accept XXX!” At least this is what it feels like to me. People are worried we won’t have elections, but I’m worried that he won’t leave peacefully or that he’ll call on his base to keep him there via 2d amendment methods. We’ve had 45 peaceful transfers of power. Will there be a 46th?

  42. 42.

    MattF

    @Betty Cracker: Trump’s got a very long (probably infinite) list of resentments, and his fans have a full-time chore of remembering all the lies without tripping over the inconsistencies. Not as much fun as it used to be, and liberals are getting good at constantly banging on the sore spots.

  43. 43.

    BC in Illinois

    @satby:

    Actually, today was the first time I ever even tried to open one of the ads on the side.

    Someone trumpeting the GOOD NEWS!! that jobless claims in July rose LESS THAN EXPECTED!!

    Jobless claims rose to 218,000.
    They were “expected” to rise to 220,000

    “People should stop saying I weigh 220 pounds! I only weigh 218!!”

  44. 44.

    bemused

    @A Ghost To Most:

    They are just there for the “entertainment”. There really isn’t a whole lot of difference between Trump rally attendees and Maury Povich show audiences.

  46. 46.

    raven

    @Quinerly: Lil Bit had her tear glands removed (they should not have done it) before we adopted her and it’s meant 10 years of multiple eye meds twice, and now three times a day for all these years. She a miracle!

  47. 47.

    Schlemazel

    @Platonailedit:
    The Nice Polite Republicans ran a piece a couple of days ago about how Dump is disconnected from his cabinet & administration. He says one thing & they all say something else. They suggested no conclusions but I wish for all the times they said “Trump is disconnected from ‘x'” that at least once they had pointed out he is disconnected from reality.

  48. 48.

    Quinerly

    @Baud: The best I can tell, he does more actual physical campaigning than you. ? He’s struts his stuff around NC and NM and all the rest stops in between, meeting people and getting out his message.Shaking paws and licking babies…. Not to mention his signature “goose” which the ladies seem to love. You need him. ? Baud/Poco 2020!

  49. 49.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty Cracker: Even if Trump were telling the truth, this would be deep into “so the fuck what?” territory.

    You’d think at least a decent chunk of the MAGAts would have enough experience with normal human relationships to register this. (OK, maybe a year or so ago, I’d have thought that. I don’t any more. But it still just leaves me shaking my head. Are they so driven by resentment that this is who they are? Apparently so.)

  51. 51.

    Schlemazel

    @Leto:
    This
    The wingnuts media has been prepping fools for 30 years now & they are well primed for violence. This QAnon shit is a new low and specifically designed to cause murders.

  53. 53.

    Betty Cracker

    @Leto: That’s a reasonable concern, IMO. It was clear in 2016 that Trump was laying the groundwork to call Clinton’s legitimacy into question if she won, and here he was last week preparing his cult-followers to blame foreign shenanigans if Republicans lose the House in November:

    I hope and pray Trump is ousted before he finishes his term, but I don’t expect it. If he loses the election in 2020, there’s not a doubt in my mind he’ll refuse to concede and claim it was stolen, and Fox News will be feeding that bullshit to his base right along with him.

  58. 58.

    kattails

    @raven: Good morning. Glad to hear it’s not congestive heart failure, I dealt with that with two cats over the years and it’s awful. Hang in there, good thoughts to you.

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I don’t care what they believe either unless they act on it in a way that affects other people. That’s what’s concerning, not what the morons believe per se…

  62. 62.

    Leto

    @MattF: Again, it’s an Orwellian example of everything Trumpov is doing: “DON’T BELIEVE YOUR EYES! DON’T BELIEVE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING! TRUST ME! TRUST ME! I know that you’ve read reports that the Russians have already ramped up their campaign against Dems running for re-election, but that’s not true! They’re trying to help them! TRUST ME! TRUST ME!” And as Betty said, and as we know, they have their state run TV outlet to promote that 24/7/365.

    I keep thinking about how those books were meant to serve as warnings, not instruction manuals.

    Edit:
    @Betty Cracker: Same. They’ve believed absolutely bonkers shit for a long time, but they’re starting to act on it. Showing up at the pizza place to make sure there was no child sex ring there, the Capital Gazette shooting, terrorizing/killing abortion providers… we’re at a tipping point and I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to pull back in time. Hell, maybe it’s too late.

  64. 64.

    Elizabelle

    Sweet story out of the WaPost. 10 year old shelter hound with a bucket list. “Smoke” has been adopted, and just in time, because he’s got a mass on his face and a terminal prognosis. He’s in a home that is experienced with senior dogs.

    Hound dog with terminal cancer fulfills his No. 1 bucket list request. Finding a home.

    Shelter officials described Smoke in a July 26 post on Facebook as a “ridiculously handsome hound” who has been at the facility for about a month. But they got “sad news” about Smoke’s health.

    “We don’t know how long Smoke has left with us — it could be six months, or it could be just a few weeks,” they wrote. “What we do know is that Smoke deserves to live the rest of the time he has left in a home, with a family that loves him.” Then they posted his bucket list:

    Find a forever family.
    Go on a hike.
    Eat ice cream.
    Go to the beach.
    Have a birthday party.
    Ride in a firetruck.
    Eat a cheeseburger.
    Have breakfast in bed.
    Meet a celebrity.
    Ride in a police car and bay with the sirens.
    Get a full-body doggy massage.
    Go camping.
    Meet Santa.
    Be on TV.
    Jump in a big pile of leaves.
    Get a professional photo shoot.
    Go on a road trip.
    Get his own Instagram account.
    Ride in a convertible.
    Get a huge box of toys to play with and share with his shelter friends.
    Visit Washington Nationals Park. (Maybe throw the first pitch?)

    Smoke even has his own Twitter following. He uses the hashtag #SmokesBucketList and #FindSmokeAHome.

    Some of his bucket list wishes have come true. A supporter of the animal group bought him a cheeseburger. A video showed him wolfing it down. Smoke also likes spray cheese from a can.

    And Smoke crossed another item off his list — a ride in a firetruck.

    The Arlington County Fire Department took him on a ride. Like any good hound dog, he looked out the window and let his ears flap in the wind. And he got some pets from firefighters as he rode.

  66. 66.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Sweet Jeebus, just “No.”:

    New Age author Marianne Williamson was in Iowa earlier this week meeting with Democratic activists to explore the possibility of a presidential campaign.

    Tom Henderson, a prominent Democratic activist in the state, told the Guardian that Williamson said she was “just looking into it and not a candidate yet”.

    Williamson is a prominent New Age author who has written New York Times best sellers, most recently Tears to Triumph about “the spiritual journey from suffering to enlightenment”.

    One source said Williamson took meetings in the Des Moines area and also in Fairfield, Iowa, a rural town that is home to the Maharishi University of Management and has a thriving community of practitioners of transcendental meditation.

    I don’t have a particular problem with a lot of what fits under the label of “New Age”, if it helps you get thru life then fine (tho I do suspect 99% of it is just bullshit)(some of which is dangerous bullshit), but the idea that a “prominent New Age author” is qualified to be President is proof that RWNJs don’t have a monopoly on stupid.

  67. 67.

    Quinerly

    @Just One More Canuck: hadn’t posted on it until a tiny reply blurb yesterday and now today. Thanks! Since we are getting ready to travel, so the surgeon put the kind of stitches in that eventually fall out. Instead of the cone of shame, he’s rocking a red T shirt. He really looks handsome in it. Seems to love wearing it too.

  70. 70.

    Leto

    @Baud: That’s going to require a major reckoning from white people as the vast majority of our domestic terrorists are white dudes. But the first part is to get more Dems in office so we can actually address problems. Of course will the LTT/Bernibros actually want to do anything about that? It’s part of that icky “social issues” part that we neo-liberal sellouts just won’t stop talking about… /eyeshaverolledoutofmyhead

    @Elizabelle: Thanks for posting that :)

    @OzarkHillbilly: The grift ain’t exclusive to their side, it just doesn’t pay as much.

  72. 72.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I am getting paranoid (which is not a bad thing when Putin is out to get us) but this makes me ask, “Who put that bee in her bonnet?” Is she dense enough to have dreamed that up on her own or was the idea planted in her brain? Would be interesting to see who sends her money. Like Dr. J. Stain, we might see a common thread

  73. 73.

    burnspbesq

    Credit where credit is due: the TSA personnel who did the patdown at John Wayne were pleasant and professional (although they took a long damn time). Hopefully SFO will be as good tonight.

    The only downside so far of wearing a continuous glucose monitor is that the manufacturer recommends against going through the millimeter-wave body scanners.

  76. 76.

    rikyrah

    @Betty Cracker:

    Good God. I mean, it’s not important in the scheme of things, and the Angry Circus Peanut lies constantly, so it’s not surprising that he’d lie about this. But this is such transparently false bullshit. There is video of the Queen standing around for 15 minutes waiting for Trump. It happened. We all saw it. Maybe there was a very good reason for it — some security thing, etc. But that it happened at all shouldn’t be in dispute among sentient beings. We. Saw. It.

    I think it was all the post-Queen visit reporting.
    How he was a boorish oaf.
    How he was uncouth.
    I mean, the posts about the Queen’s broaches went viral, and we all understood.
    Betty Windsor didn’t even let their tea get cold before she got them out of her house.

    44 and Forever FLOTUS got a State Dinner and hosted the Queen and Duke of Edingburgh at the American Embassy. We have the pictures.
    We have the pictures of comparing him with the other Presidents not even 44 . It eats at him, so he has to make up more lies.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Schlemazel: A little deeper in the short article was this little nugget which gave me a bit of a sinking feeling:

    Williamson’s interest in a potential presidential bid is a sign of how broad the Democratic field in 2020 might be. Dozens of Democrats have been mooted as candidates and Williamson would have competition even for the “yoga vote”.

    Also this:

    Although a host of A-listers ranging from Oprah Winfrey to Mark Cuban to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have been floated as a candidates, none of them have been reported to be taking the necessary steps to consider a presidential bid.

    Who is doing the “floating”? These 3 seem to be self aware enough to know BS is BS even when it is about them but we all have an ego and some like to be stroked a little too much.

  79. 79.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @burnspbesq:

    another bad day for Manafort.

    THAT should be a rotating tagline, at least until his trials (but not his tribulations) are over. :-)

  81. 81.

    Leto

    @rikyrah:

    It eats at him, so he has to make up more lies.

    He’s not getting the respect he thinks he deserves. I mean, if that blackity black guy (who wasn’t even born here! Did you know my investigator in Hawaii is uncovering some great stuff, I mean, truely, bigly great!) and his lovely wife can get this big fancy dinner and all these honors, then… why can’t he? Doesn’t matter that he’s being the typically American tourist trope, he should be respected!

    Of course this boils down most conservative thinking for the past 40+ years, since Nixon and the “silent majority”. They feel they’re not getting the respect they should from people in power, the media, lie-bruhls… their fee-fees have been hurt and they’re going to make sure we all know that their fee-fees have been hurt!

  86. 86.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    The benign possibility is it is the pundits who just have to have something sensational to talk about. It might also be Democratic morons (yeah, we have them too) with their damned magical thinking that a fairy godmother can wave a wand and make it all better. A couple of those I would not put it past having their PR people float the idea just to inflate their ego.

  90. 90.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MattF: Could be.

    @Matt McIrvin: I have no idea, have never heard of a single political statement come out of his mouth. Which as much as I am disconnected from celebrity news is not surprising.

    @Schlemazel: As Matt F pointed out, the Great Mentioner.

  91. 91.

    Leto

    @Schlemazel: We need to start having horses for the eventual horse race coverage. Plus we’re getting bored with all this corruption. We want our normal horse race coverage!

  94. 94.

    Yarrow

    @Quinerly: So glad to hear that Poco’s tests came back clear. What a relief.

    @raven: Glad to hear Lil Bit is also doing well with no further complications.

  95. 95.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rp: No we wouldn’t, but you know the Koch brothers would love to paint us all as crystal gazing Yogis. Also, those 5%? They can be a real pain in the ass. They are sure the have found the secret to happiness and want to share it with you with all the zeal of a Born Again Evangelical.

  97. 97.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Who is doing the “floating”?

    Pundits. Note the comment about the ‘yoga vote.’ They know in their heart that the world is divided between air-headed hippies and tough but fair daddies. They’ve HEARD of minorities, but the name makes it clear those must not be important and are probably children.

  98. 98.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: And the media including TPM has not stopped fluffing generalisimo Kelly for being so tough as to brave it out as CoS for more than a year. The way the MSM treats T compared to how they treated Obama when he was President leads me to the conclusion that a significant percentage of the media is either blind to bigotry or pretty bigoted themselves.

  99. 99.

    Heidi Mom

    @Quinerly: My Dog-a-Day calendar photo for July 11 is of a big, fluffy shepherd mix named Hope, who is 16 years old and, to judge from the photo, still healthy and loving life. I’m saving the photo for inspiration. My 72-pound Heidi is 10 or 11 (rescue, so best guess) and healthy except for a touch of arthritis. Just knowing that there’s a big dog out there who’s lived to 16 gives me hope for a few more good years.

  100. 100.

    O. Felix Culpa

    As a semi-retired CPA, I am avidly following the testimony of Manafort’s bookkeeper and tax accountants. It gives me great pleasure that my professional cohort will help nail his ass to the wall. Plus, it’s vicarious revenge for all the asshole bosses I endured over the years.

  102. 102.

    MomSense

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    So happy to hear about your progress. Thanks for those links yesterday (?). I finally had a chance to look through some of them and there is so much good info for olds like me who want to learn.

  103. 103.

    Brachiator

    @Leto:

    People are worried we won’t have elections, but I’m worried that he won’t leave peacefully or that he’ll call on his base to keep him there via 2d amendment methods.

    People said this same shit in 2016 about possible Trump reaction to a Clinton victory. It was BS then and it’s BS now.

    I believe that Trump is working hard to be a populist authoritarian. But his base of supporters has never grown appreciably, and they are cowards, prone to believe nonsense, and lose all energy when the camera is not pointed at him.

    In short, they will act a fool for him at staged events, but they will not die for him.

  104. 104.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @schrodingers_cat:

    the media is either blind to bigotry or pretty bigoted themselves.

    Every time an unarmed black man is shot, the first thing the national news does is go hunting for why he deserved it. Terrorism by browns gets four times the news coverage while the large majority of terrorist acts in the US are by white conservatives. They wet their pants when they heard the word ‘ebola’ and actually entertained the idea ISIS might send ebola-infected agents to the US as if it were serious. ‘The black vote’ is discussed as if it were something Democrats bought in the store rather than the decisions made by real US citizens. They twist themselves into knots to avoid labeling anyone a racist when there are out-and-proud white supremacists in the White House. The vast majority of the national news media are ‘polite’ racists.

  105. 105.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “This high-temperature phenomenon is the largest, unprecedented natural disaster, but not an obstacle we cannot overcome,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. “Extreme high temperatures and droughts have begun affecting farming crops, including rice and corn. We should muster all our power and capacity to fight high temperatures and droughts.”

    Oooopps, my bad that was in a commentary in Rodong Sinmun, a North Korean newspaper.

  108. 108.

    rikyrah

    When I say that these muthaphuckas belong up on charges at The Hague:

    ………………………………………….

    Trump administration tells ACLU to find deported parents
    08/02/2018 11:33 PM EDT

    The Trump administration on Thursday informed a federal judge that it isn’t responsible for locating deported parents separated forcibly from their children at the southern border.

    DOJ said in a court filing that the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit over family separations, should instead take the lead in reunifying deported parents with their children.

    “Plaintiffs’ counsel should use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, NGOs, volunteers, and others, together with the information that defendants have provided (or will soon provide), to establish contact with possible class members in foreign countries,” DOJ said.

    The administration suggested that the ACLU find out whether the deported parents wish to be reconnected with their children, or whether they waive that option.
    [..]
    DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has stated repeatedly that no parents were deported without first being given the option to take their children with them. But a Trump administration official told POLITICO on July 25 that an estimated three-quarters of the parents who left the country alone left no record behind that they ever consented to leave their children in the U.S. “We don’t see it in the documentation,” the official said.

  110. 110.

    Platonailedit

    @schrodingers_cat:

    a significant percentage of the media is either blind to bigotry or pretty bigoted themselves.

    Oh, I believe it. Nothing else explains their sneering attitude for 10 years.

  111. 111.

    lamh36

    On board my JetBlue flight, soon to takeoff! Time for Miami VayKay and Janet Jackson SOTU tour!

  112. 112.

    Leto

    @Brachiator: So in 2016 he was a rabble rouser. In 2020 he will have had 4 years to truly inoculate his base from the truth, with the willing help of Faux News and Republicans in Congress. He’s still the most powerful man in the world even as he brings it all down around him.

    Pizza Gate, Charlottesville, and the Gazette. Two of those three resulted in deaths. It’s baby steps. It’s not one big leap into it, it’s baby steps. It’s like the frog in boiling water. Of course it might not happen. That’s entirely possible, but it’s better to be prepared for it than to just say: THIS SHIT AIN’T HAPPENIN! I will be more than happy to be wrong, to be labeled a nutter, but I also won’t be surprised when he’s saying the election was rigged and he’ll think about stepping down.

  113. 113.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    “If whoever saw me had a concern about me being there, they could have asked me. I speak four languages. I’m sure I could speak one of the languages they spoke.” – Smith College student Oumou Kanoute.

    This so-called “concern” of the anonymous employee is a bunch of bullshit. And Oumou Kanoute should never have to demean herself by having to “prove” that she belongs there.

    At least the college is saying the right things in supporting her.

  114. 114.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @rikyrah:
    BY ITSELF, the way the media reacts when an unarmed black man is shot by the police is blatant proof that they are racist as Hell.

    @schrodingers_cat:
    The bigotry is across the board, and yeah, the misogyny is also hardcore. I just was focused on the racism in this case. The way I figure it, the ‘polite’ bigot gravitates to opinions and actions that look deniable to someone who is untouched by the issue, but is screamingly obvious to anyone who has been on the receiving end.

  115. 115.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Leto: We cannot let their demented thoughts and actions determine what we do. As for the President, his bark is worse than his bite. 2020 is two years away, right now 2018 needs our focus.

  116. 116.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Leto:

    It’s like the frog in boiling water.

    The frog in boiling water is the process of half the whites in America getting increasingly extreme over the last 40+ years as minorities become more visible. The water is boiling now, and a lot of people are only finally noticing it.

    I also won’t be surprised when he’s saying the election was rigged and he’ll think about stepping down.

    I won’t be surprised, either, and the Secret Security will carry him bodily out of the building if they have to. They don’t work for him, they work for the system – fanatically. The exact same processes that let him become president when he was elected by fraud prevent him from staying president if he loses the official election.

  117. 117.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Talking about the record numbers of Native Americans running for office,

    Sighs and waits for the Dotard in chief to try and deport them.

  118. 118.

    Brachiator

    @Leto:

    It’s baby steps. It’s not one big leap into it, it’s baby steps.

    We kinda know what authoritarians have to do to gain power. They have to move beyond baby steps and have the backing of the military and the domestic security forces, and deploy this against the citizens. Trump would like to be there, but so far he has been inept at doing much more than keeping a small core of his base whipped up.

    BTW. I believe that a hard core of his supporters would happily tear up the Constitution for his sake. But he is not close to becoming his obvious role model, Putin.

  119. 119.

    Leto

    @schrodingers_cat: You’re correct, we can’t let it determine what we do. But at the same time, we need to stone cold aware of what they’re doing and still have a plan for it. Most of us here are. General public? I think they’re getting there. Similar to what Frankensteinbeck said below you at 115 in response to my frog boiling water comment.

    And yes, focus on the now. 2020 will be here soon enough.

    @Frankensteinbeck: We’ll see if that institution is strong enough. We’re testing all the rest, right? /s.. sort of

  121. 121.

    Yarrow

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The vast majority of the national news media are ‘polite’ racists.

    Truth.

    Also, they’re misogynists, as is a lot of the country. I knew it was true but it was something else to see it in action nonstop when Hillary was running.

  122. 122.

    NotMax

    Well, that’s different. Mom just received a tornado warning alert on her cell phone. On Lawnguyland.

  123. 123.

    Leto

    @Brachiator:

    BTW. I believe that a hard core of his supporters would happily tear up the Constitution for his sake. But he is not close to becoming his obvious role model, Putin.

    No, he’s not. We still have a lot of roadblocks in place preventing that but as we’ve talked about over the past 18+ months, we’re essentially stress testing every single part of our democracy at once. It’s why Nov is so essential, part of helping to right the ship. Maybe this is just the cumulative Trumpov effect since 2016 to just always expect the worst. When you think you’ve reached bottom, nope, just keep digging. Also this is just the pragmatist/military man in me: better to have plan, an idea of an issue you might face, than to be totally blindsided by it. It’s not dominating my thinking, but it’s a nugget back there to be aware of. Keep an eye out for what he’s signalling and what his people are doing.

    Edit:

    They have to move beyond baby steps and have the backing of the military and the domestic security forces, and deploy this against the citizens.

    I also think about this and how republicans have essentially turned our domestic security forces into paramilitary style services. When police talk about, essentially, being in warzones here in the states. The fact that a lot of cops are republicans who view most of us, especially POC, as a hostile force. Combine that with a military that’s still overwhelmingly republican in makeup… eh, first things first, Nov elections. We’ll get to everything else soon enough.

  124. 124.

    Karen S.

    @rikyrah: One of my best friends is a Smith alumna and is livid about this. She lived in the dorm where this incident occurred. She told me that she just got her invite to the annual Smith alumnae tea. She’s made her displeasure known on Facebook about what happened, but she’s also going to the tea, which is less than a month away, to express her concerns in person, too.

  125. 125.

    Brachiator

    FiveThirtyEight has an interesting post about the gender gap related to current politics. But once again, they miss a very important point.

    According to 2016 exit polls, women voted for Hillary Clinton by 13 percentage points, and men voted for President Trump by 11 points. That 24-point gap in the national popular vote was the biggest in the history of the presidential exit poll.

    This week, we got a poll showing that same 24-point gender gap in the only “national” election of 2018: the national popular vote for the U.S. House….

    If YouGov, Quinnipiac or Marist is correct, then just like 2016 broke a gender-gap record for presidential races, 2018 will have the widest gender gap in congressional elections since at least 1992.

    The big problem here is the failure to take race and gender into consideration. White women tend to vote Republican, when you look at national numbers. If there has been a shift, and there may be, you have to look deeper into the data. And obviously, congressional races are not national. This study is at best a starting point, and no one should depend on it as saying anything definitive about the midterms.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gender-gap-among-midterm-voters-looks-huge-maybe-even-record-breaking/

  126. 126.

    germy

    I’m thrilled to be joining forces with Steven Spielberg

    I’ve been out of the loop for a few days, unplugged from the news.

    But today I returned and now I understand why I see all these “Spielberg is a pedo” stories.

    Is Tom Hanks involved with HRC? Because he’s being attacked, too.

  127. 127.

    Mnemosyne

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The difference between us Democrats and Republicans is that I can safely predict that the response from a majority of De ocrats will be, “Oh, hell no.”

  128. 128.

    germy

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Talking about the record numbers of Native Americans running for office,

    Sighs and waits for the Dotard in chief to try and deport them.

    “Send the Native Americans back across the Bering Strait to the Siberian Highlands!”

  130. 130.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @lowtechcyclist:

    (OK, maybe a year or so ago, I’d have thought that. I don’t any more. But it still just leaves me shaking my head. Are they so driven by resentment that this is who they are? Apparently so.

    My experiance is; driven by pure dumbassary. When you try to get them to explain how any of it supposed to work they get frustrated and end up claiming you are just being mean for asking those questions. More of the “get the goverment out of Social Security” kind of thinking.

  131. 131.

    Karen S.

    @Frankensteinbeck: Well, journalism in the U.S. is still one of the whitest professions there is, so it’s not surprising about the “polite” racism practiced by our national news media. I think one of the reasons we see so many articles and features about “economically anxious” white working class Trump supporters is because those who run the media and pitch and assign stories are closer economically and socially to the voters who really helped put Trump over the top—white middle class, suburban and exurban—that it would be too much like holding up a mirror to themselves. Much easier to write stories and do profiles about people they view as unlike themselves.

  132. 132.

    Leto

    @germy: it’s the conservative trolls going through people’s old twitter postings, along with the Qanon trolls spinning conspiracy theory bullshit sixteen different ways from Sunday. Both groups are basically using any type of “controversy” to gin up a “BOTH SIDES!” in an effort to get high profile Dems fired from any type of work. They’re trying to do scalp for scalp type things.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    They know in their heart that the world is divided between air-headed hippies and tough but fair daddies. They’ve HEARD of minorities, but the name makes it clear those must not be important and are probably children.

    Very funny.

  134. 134.

    germy

    Fund managers from Federated Investors, OppenheimerFunds, and BMO Global Asset Management are among those who are repositioning their portfolios and seeing cash as more attractive with the Nov. 6 elections less than 100 days away.

    Chief among their concerns: a so-called blue wave of Democratic victories could end the Republican Party’s single-party control of the White House and Congress, leading to both more investigations into possible abuses by the Trump administration and more stock market volatility.
    … Such a move would also embolden Democratic presidential candidates to run on a platform in 2020 calling for universal health care, increasing the minimum wage, and repealing the Republican-led corporate tax cuts passed in December, all of which could slow economic growth, [Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors in New York] said.

    link Reuters

  136. 136.

    germy

    @rikyrah:

    Replying to @AFarray
    Sure. Everybody knows “Final Solution” was mistranslated from “Temporary Thingy Until Somebody Thinks of Something.”

  137. 137.

    Brachiator

    @Leto:

    Also this is just the pragmatist/military man in me: better to have plan, an idea of an issue you might face, than to be totally blindsided by it.

    Trump would have to do a lot more between now and the 2020 election if he wants to be a Dear Leader. Any plans would have to react to that.

    I’m not worried that he might pull a “I’m not going!” when November, 2020 rolls around. And even scarier than that is the idea that he might legitimately be re-elected.

    As always, your mileage may vary.

  138. 138.

    rikyrah

    @Brachiator:

    The big problem here is the failure to take race and gender into consideration. White women tend to vote Republican, when you look at national numbers. If there has been a shift, and there may be, you have to look deeper into the data. And obviously, congressional races are not national. This study is at best a starting point, and no one should depend on it as saying anything definitive about the midterms.

    Actually, Hayes had a panel on this topic this week, and the polling for women was broken down by race. One of the pollsters said that while the gender gap was always there, it was never explained that the reason for it was that NON-White women skewed so overwhelmingly against the GOP that it made that gap. Because, the Democrats had always lost White women. Some by larger margins than others, but yeah, the majority of White women voted GOP. The polling for College Educated White Women has gone off the cliff against the GOP since Dolt45. I’ll believe it when I see it, after all, I remember November 2016. I will welcome it, of course, but, these women are gonna have to step up and bring the goods in November 2018.

  139. 139.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Brachiator:

    We kinda know what authoritarians have to do to gain power. They have to move beyond baby steps and have the backing of the military and the domestic security forces, and deploy this against the citizens. Trump would like to be there, but so far he has been inept at doing much more than keeping a small core of his base whipped up.

    I am reading “Stalin: Waiting for Hitler” and it’s oddly comforting – being a dictator is hard work, 16 hour work days and all that and Trump doesn’t do hard work. I suppose if we had anyone to really fear it would be Kelly.

  140. 140.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    Netanyahu: Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews

    This is a despicable attempt to make Muslims responsible for the murder of Jews during World War 2.

    This is also from an OLD story, from 2015.

  141. 141.

    But her emails!!!

    @germy:
    Strange. I assume they would be moving torwards cash due to the increased probability of a trade war induced recession prior to the seating of the next congress.

  142. 142.

    germy

    New Jersey, in a first-of-its-kind initiative, has set aside millions to pay for community journalism.

    "It's not about saving journalism in New Jersey … It's about making sure our communities are engaged and informed." https://t.co/eAUL3W3T1w

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 3, 2018

  143. 143.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @germy: Soon, John will find a Native American family living in his front yard, because ICE sent the family back to were they came from,..

  144. 144.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: I saw that graph too. What proportion of white women are college educated. Another wrinkle is the regional breakup. Granular information is necessary to draw conclusions, aggregates for the entire country don’t really tell you much.

  147. 147.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @rikyrah: Charming. Well a Jewish Holocaust Denier was inevitable after Miller’s Anti-Semite Semite act.

  148. 148.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Brachiator: Trump has the full support of the customs/immigration authorities, but their jurisdiction usually only extends to non-citizens. So we’re seeing a push to deny citizenship to as many people as possible. I think the endpoint they’re going for may not be a totalitarian state so much as an apartheid state with a huge population of nominal internal aliens with no legal rights, just enough that the remainder stays white-majority and MAGA-wingnut forever.

  149. 149.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @schrodingers_cat:Actually if Kelly had kept his mouth shut one could see how could make himself dictor by being heroic insider who saves America from these terrible politicians. Since Trump is so useless Kelly could easy be the shadow president, then it’s matter of letting the evidence of Trump’s treason to pile up to create a demand for Trump removal and then use Trump and his bases’ childish behavior as an excuse to stage a coup and form some kind of emergency government.

  150. 150.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    Because, the Democrats had always lost White women.

    And again, this is true only for the aggregate national vote, which is skewed by results in the South. There were plenty of states where the majority of white women voted for Democrats in 2016.

    Also, as you note, there’s a big gap between how educated and non-educated white women vote. There also is often a gap between how married and single women vote. With this in mind, strong efforts to get college students registered and voting can only help.

    And it should be obvious, but the nonwhite vote should not be taken for granted. Alabama and the defeat of Roy Moore rightly shocked the world.

  151. 151.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Matt McIrvin: This is also an exaggeration, the atrocities make the front page not the people going about their jobs as usual. I have encouraged several of my friends who are permanent residents to apply for citizenship, something that I did myself following 2016. USCIS officers we have had the opportunity to deal with have been professional and helpful.
    All GC holders who are eligible to apply for citizenship, should.

  155. 155.

    Brachiator

    @Matt McIrvin:

    . I think the endpoint they’re going for may not be a totalitarian state so much as an apartheid state with a huge population of nominal internal aliens with no legal rights.

    I agree with you that this is Trump’s deepest dream, but he and his boy Sessions still have to find a way to strip the citizenship of all non-white citizens.

    That said, Trump’s use of immigration law to strip protections from people who previously had a settled residency status has been relentless and despicable.

  156. 156.

    Brachiator

    @Matt McIrvin: Also, I forgot to add that some immigration officials have resigned to protest Trump policies, and others follow current procedures which help people to obtain citizenship. Trump has not been able to reverse everything (yet).

  158. 158.

    rikyrah

    [email protected] & @PeterAlexander are making some key points right now about the functions/purposes of Russia’s social media influence operations. One of those purposes: creating controlled opposition.

    (“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”-Lenin)

    1/

    — Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) August 2, 2018

  159. 159.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Brachiator: The idea that the 14th amendment doesn’t say what it says about birthright citizenship has a lot of right-wing political support, and I expect it to gain ground in the judiciary.

  161. 161.

    rikyrah

    Arrested, jailed, charged with a felony — for voting.
    By Jack Healy Updated 8:00 am PDT, Friday, August 3, 2018

    GRAHAM, N.C. — Keith Sellars and his daughters were driving home from dinner at a Mexican restaurant last December when he was pulled over for running a red light. The officer ran a background check and came back with bad news for Sellars. There was a warrant out for his arrest.

    As his girls cried in the back seat, Sellars was handcuffed and taken to jail.

    His crime: Illegal voting.

    “I didn’t know,” said Sellars, who spent the night in jail before his family paid his $2,500 bond. “I thought I was practicing my right.”

    Sellars, 44, is one of a dozen people in Alamance County in North Carolina who have been charged with voting illegally in the 2016 presidential election. All were on probation or parole for felony convictions, which in North Carolina and many other states disqualifies a person from voting. If convicted, they face up to two years in prison.

  162. 162.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: I bet the stupid white people who are making these calls even know sometimes that the person is not a threat – I find myself wondering if they aren’t making the calls and then laughing out them later.

  165. 165.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    T is the end state of immigration policies pursued by Rs since Gingrich’s majority helped pass under Bill Clinton

    Trump goes way beyond this, although he obviously uses Latinos as a stalking horse as he goes after all non-white people.

  166. 166.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Brachiator: …also: Most local cops are pretty right-wing authoritarian, but they don’t work for Trump. So the worst abuses have been in places where the state/local government happens to be aligned with the federal regime. Elsewhere, the federated nature of the government helps.

  167. 167.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Brachiator: The R party has been playing from the Tanton playbook.
    Step:1 Make deportation the punishment for every and all immigration violations (achieved under Newt G and Bill C). Take away any latitude from immigration judges
    Step:2 Criminalize immigration violations ( IIRAIRA makes it possible, Tanton’s minions working for T admin have weaponized it)
    Step:3 Attack legal immigrants with criminal violations even misdimeanors (used to happen sporadically since IIRAIRA passed, and is now weaponized)
    Step:4 Get rid of entire categories of legal immigration (Refugee, diversity visa, family reunification: Rs are working on it, Cotton, Goodlatte etc., have bills to that effect)
    Of course the current administration is worse. That’s why I called it end state. But let’s not kid ourselves that he started this insanity. He has escalated it to heights not previously seen but the tools were there, waiting for a die-hard anti-immigrant to take office.

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