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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2018 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: All We Can Do Is Keep Fighting

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: All We Can Do Is Keep Fighting

by Anne Laurie|  September 5, 20186:13 am| 83 Comments

This post is in: Election 2018, Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, All Too Normal

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Democrats reach +14 in midterm election poll, with "59% of registered voters say[ing] it’s highly important to them to support a candidate who shares their opinion of the president."

Like it or not, November 6 is about Trump, not ideology.
https://t.co/w4XSkg3ki9 (via @ABC)

— David Jolly (@DavidJollyFL) September 4, 2018

Two months ahead of the midterm elections, Democrats hold a clear advantage over Republicans in congressional vote support, with antipathy toward President Trump fueling Democratic enthusiasm, even among those in the party who stayed home four years ago, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds.

The survey also points to broad unrest and frustration with the political system generally. More than 6 in 10 Americans say Trump and the Republican Party are out of touch with most people in the country. While Democrats fare better, a narrower 51 percent majority also judged them out of touch.

Registered voters say they favor the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate in their district by 52 percent to 38 percent. That is a marked increase from the four-point edge in an April Post-ABC poll but similar to the 12-point advantage Democrats enjoyed in January…

our years ago, when Republicans made gains in the midterm elections, the GOP enjoyed a 10-point advantage on this question in Post-ABC surveys that fall, 71 percent to 61 percent. The latest survey also asked whether people had voted in 2014, and among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who say they did not, 63 percent say they are absolutely certain to vote in November.

The past three midterm elections — 2006, 2010 and 2014 — produced substantial losses for the party that held the White House. In 2006, Republicans lost control of the House, but they regained it four years later. In 2014, they captured control of the Senate. Trump’s victory in 2016 gave them full control of the executive and legislative branches.

Presidential approval has become a strong indicator of which party voters will support in midterm elections. More than 8 in 10 voters who disapprove of a president’s performance have backed opposition party candidates in recent midterm elections…

Something tells me the “elections have consequences” people won’t interpret a mid term thumping as a rejection of all their programs.

— Schooley (@Rschooley) September 5, 2018


 
Meanwhile…

I feel like the insanity of that very matter-of-fact statement isn't really getting through.

This national anthem kneeling debate is total Trump catnip. He routinely uses the POTUS bully pulpit to hammer it.

He's not doing so here, because the company at issue is paying him.

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) September 4, 2018


 
#BEBEST

He’s gone from 4.9 lies a day to 8 lies a day and in last 3 months has actually hit 15.4 lies a day. Impressive! https://t.co/MJQt6dqkE9

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) September 4, 2018

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Previous Post: « Late Night Open Thread: FEAR of A Bob Woodward
Next Post: Five years now »

Reader Interactions

83Comments

  1. 1.

    rikyrah

    September 5, 2018 at 6:18 am

    Good Morning, Everyone ???

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 6:26 am

    Blech.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    September 5, 2018 at 6:26 am

    @rikyrah: Good morning!

  4. 4.

    Patricia Kayden

    September 5, 2018 at 6:28 am

    Mika is so annoying with her “I just don’t want to believe that Kavanaugh would turn his back on the poor father” nonsense. He did! It’s on video. Stop acting as if you don’t know that Kavanaugh is rightwing trash.

  5. 5.

    Schlemazel

    September 5, 2018 at 6:37 am

    @Patricia Kayden:
    I am not convinced that this debacle will move any GOPper Senator to vote no because GUNZ. It would be nice to be wrong but it seems unlikely. The sad fact is unless we can get at least 2 of them to vote no it will be ‘Associate Justice Rightwing Trash’ before the election. It would have been nice if people had recognized this as the likely outcome 2 years ago but too many spent the time pissing into the tent

  6. 6.

    Baud

    September 5, 2018 at 6:38 am

    @rikyrah: Good morning.

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 6:45 am

    The space station was obviously damaged by an errant drill bit. The question remains, who wielded it?

    A Russian MP who is a former cosmonaut suggested that a psychologically disturbed astronaut could have done it to force an early return home. “We’re all human and anyone might want to go home, but this method is really low,” said Maxim Surayev, who is from President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party.

    “If a cosmonaut pulled this strange stunt – and that can’t be ruled out – it’s really bad,” said Surayev, who spent two stints on the ISS. “I wish to God that this is a production defect, although that’s very sad too – there’s been nothing like this in the history of Soyuz ships.”

    Alexander Zheleznyakov, a former space industry engineer and author, told the TASS state news agency that drilling the hole in zero gravity would be nearly impossible in that part of the spacecraft.

    “Why would cosmonauts do it?” he asked.

    The hole is in a section of the Soyuz ship that is discarded in orbit and not used to carry people back to Earth.

    A space industry source told TASS the spacecraft could have been damaged during testing at Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan after passing initial checks and the mistake then hastily covered up. “Someone messed up and then got scared and sealed up the hole,” the source speculated, but then the sealant “dried up and fell off” when the Soyuz reached the ISS.

    It’s a mystery.

  8. 8.

    TS (the original)

    September 5, 2018 at 6:48 am

    Asked about the Nike-Kaepernick controversy, on which he has been conspicuously quiet, Trump says plainly: “Nike is a tenant of mine. They pay a lot of rent.”

    I have to keep hitting my head against a brick wall to remind myself that this is the president* of the United States.

  9. 9.

    Immanentize

    September 5, 2018 at 6:50 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: I am so on board with “Blech!” this morning.

  10. 10.

    p.a.

    September 5, 2018 at 6:52 am

    These polls will drive more overt voter suppression by Rethugs at the fed, state, and local level than the more subtle efforts of the last decade. They’re already seeding the ‘stolen election’ meme encouraging post-election violence. It’s the fascist way: one man. One vote. One time.

  11. 11.

    JPL

    September 5, 2018 at 6:54 am

    @Immanentize: Did little Imma narrow down his choices for college?

  12. 12.

    satby

    September 5, 2018 at 6:54 am

    @rikyrah: Good morning sweetie!

    @OzarkHillbilly: @Immanentize: to be honest, blech pretty much sums up how I feel too.

  13. 13.

    Schlemazel

    September 5, 2018 at 6:56 am

    @TS (the original):
    I wonder how much longer that will be true. It occured to me that the GOP could easily flip the conversation about the election if they moved now to enforce the 25th amendment and make that nice sane Mr. Pence POTUS. Sure, the loons would howl but they will still vote for their GOP representatives. Meanwhile the GOP got everything they have ever wanted out of the POSOTUS and with Pence they can pretend they are sane. Originally I thought they might try this after the election but if things keep looking as bleak for them as they do now they might consider kicking the game board over & taking their chances

  14. 14.

    rikyrah

    September 5, 2018 at 6:59 am

    Astead (@AsteadWesley) Tweeted:
    What an image in our story: Here’s Ayanna Pressley’s stepdaughter watching her mother claim victory and become the first black woman ever elected to Congress from Massachusetts.
    https://t.co/1K6KYIiteN https://t.co/XE3jtcx3wm https://twitter.com/AsteadWesley/status/1037183734301315074?s=17

  15. 15.

    TS (the original)

    September 5, 2018 at 7:01 am

    @Schlemazel: Given that the orange one will fight tooth and nail to keep the presidency (can’t say “to keep his job” – he doesn’t work) it would take a long time to enforce the 25th – & I don’t think the option would have enough starters to even be mentioned. He has turned Lindsay Graham – still don’t know how/why – and probably many others that we hear little about. It will only end at the polling booth or with his death.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 7:02 am

    There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

    Dorothy’s long lost ruby red slippers are going back home a decade after they were stolen.

  17. 17.

    Viva BrisVegas

    September 5, 2018 at 7:06 am

    The best Brisbane songs.

    Guardian Australia poll for the best Brisbane songs. You too can vote for your favourite Brisbane band/song.

    My vote went for Stranded by the Saints, one of the great, and earliest, punk bands. Bet you didn’t realise that the axis of punk went Brisbane-New York-London.

    Unfortunately for the Saints they couldn’t gain traction in the English punk scene because they could actually play their instruments and they made it plain that they thought people who put safety pins through their noses were pretentious wankers.

    If punk is not your thing, check out any of the Go-Betweens tracks.

  18. 18.

    Schlemazel

    September 5, 2018 at 7:08 am

    @TS (the original):
    That depends on why guys like Graham got turned. If Putin is calling the shots and he wants it done Donny whines a little but has no choice. OTOH, they may feel like they don’t need this if all their other work is going to pay off.

  19. 19.

    debbie

    September 5, 2018 at 7:08 am

    @TS (the original):

    Where are all the liberal bots? Why aren’t they saturating the RWNJ feeds shrieking that their Savior-in-Chief is putting profits over their beliefs?

  20. 20.

    Zinsky

    September 5, 2018 at 7:09 am

    Don’t ever give up. This fight is not over. Tony Benn, a liberal from the U.K., once said something to the effect that, “each generation has to fight the same fight and win the same battles to reclaim the same land as the previous generation”. The 2018 midterm is our fight and we must reclaim the land we lost to the Trumpers. Remember – Demographics is not on their side and it is only a matter of time before the GOP becomes a true rump, minority party!

  21. 21.

    Quinerly

    September 5, 2018 at 7:10 am

    @TS (the original): But Nike announced in December that it was closing the Trump Tower location. I guess it’s just something else Trump wasn’t told. https://amp.businessinsider.com/nike-is-leaving-its-iconic-niketown-property-2017-12

  22. 22.

    Quinerly

    September 5, 2018 at 7:12 am

    @rikyrah: ?

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 7:12 am

    @TS (the original):

    (can’t say “to keep his job” – he doesn’t work)

    Over the years I had to deal with a number of miscreants who managed to keep their jobs without ever doing any work.

  24. 24.

    Quinerly

    September 5, 2018 at 7:16 am

    @Quinerly: More on Trump Tower’s Nike store that closed in March. Looks like it was Trump’s largest tenant. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/12/06/donald-trumps-real-estate-business-is-losing-one-of-its-most-important-tenants/

  25. 25.

    TS (the original)

    September 5, 2018 at 7:16 am

    @debbie: He attacked Amazon, google, facebook, the media, the NFL, Sec Clinton, Pres Obama, Sen McCain, immigrants, the judiciary, the CIA, FBI, Dept Justice – anyone or any organisation who disagreed with him/ refused to bow down and worship him – but not Nike. That was so unexpected, maybe everyone is like me – 100% stunned.

  26. 26.

    TS (the original)

    September 5, 2018 at 7:20 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: I find the terminology wrong – “keep getting paid” is the better description. trump will depart the white house with the singular honor of knowing less when he left than when he entered.

  27. 27.

    debbie

    September 5, 2018 at 7:21 am

    @TS (the original):

    I don’t know why anyone’s surprised; all Trump’s ever been about is himself and his money. This needs to forced upon the peons so that they see at last that clown working the levers behind the curtain is playing them for fools.

  28. 28.

    Immanentize

    September 5, 2018 at 7:22 am

    @JPL: Not yet,. We did decide a few were out. Including, rather surprisingly, Hardey Mudd. The immediate question is what school will he apply to for early admission — October deadline?

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 7:24 am

    Beetlejuice is at it again:

    On Tuesday, however, BuzzFeed published two new emails from Beetlejuice, in which he called a journalist who has written about the dispute a “fucking asshole” and he launched new extraordinary claims against Unsworth, without providing documentation to support the allegations.

    Beetlejuice called Unsworth a “single white guy from England who’s been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years”, alleging that he had moved to Chiang Rai “for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time”. He asserted that the city was “renowned for child sex-trafficking”.

    BuzzFeed reported that it had investigated the allegations and Unsworth’s background, but could not verify any of the claims and said that it was unclear where the allegations originated.
    ………
    BuzzFeed said it could not locate any UK criminal records for Unsworth, 63, and also spoke with his girlfriend, who said she was 40 and had been with him for seven years.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    September 5, 2018 at 7:26 am

    I listen to local Right wing Christian radio sometimes in my car. Yesterday was Kavanaugh day. They think he and the rest of the far Right justices will overturn Roe – that this is their judge- the reward for their (overwhelming) support of Trump.

    I tend to disagree- I do think they will overturn Roe but that won’t be the main focus of the far Right court. The main focus will be further tilting the playing field towards wealthy and powerful people and gutting federal civil rights protections- gutting federal protections for voting rights will be the first order of business because they’ll need that to stay in power politically.

    Should be quite the showdown because as the far Right justices take us all the way back to 1920, here is what is happening in election news:

    Dave Wasserman
    ‏@Redistrict
    The share of House Rs who are white men is 86% and rising.
    The share of House Dems who are white men is 41% and falling. #MA07

  31. 31.

    montanareddog

    September 5, 2018 at 7:27 am

    @Quinerly: @TS (the original):

    So Donny Jr and Slabhead were to shit-scared to tell Mango Mugabe that Nike had bailed from Trump Tower. Once he knows, he start slagging Nike, too

  32. 32.

    Quinerly

    September 5, 2018 at 7:32 am

    More tidbits from “Fear.”

    https://www.axios.com/bob-woodward-fear-book-excerpts-donald-trump-9f7fa27f-7c8b-4f28-bcc1-99fcb22be315.html

  33. 33.

    rikyrah

    September 5, 2018 at 7:32 am

    Just exactly what were Democrats supposed to do? Cohen was not a surprise on our side.

    ,………..

    Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) Tweeted:
    I still can’t get over the fact that 2 weeks ago Trump’s longtime personal lawyer stood up in a federal courtroom and, under oath, said he COMMITTED TWO FELONIES WITH TRUMP and absolutely nothing changed.

    Nothing changed for Republicans or Democrats. It’s like it never happened https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1036707754654806017?s=17

  34. 34.

    Quinerly

    September 5, 2018 at 7:36 am

    @montanareddog: I did a search to see if there are any other Nike stores associated with Trump properties. Doesn’t seem to be. There’s a Forbes piece that basically said Nike didn’t want to be connected to Trump. Strange that Trump didn’t use the opportunity to attack Nike.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    September 5, 2018 at 7:37 am

    @rikyrah: The people that need to change are the people who ran away from Hillary in 2016.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    September 5, 2018 at 7:38 am

    @Quinerly: Nike is Greek for Putin.

  37. 37.

    rikyrah

    September 5, 2018 at 7:39 am

    @Quinerly:
    Morning to Poco and the tribe ??

  38. 38.

    Quinerly

    September 5, 2018 at 7:40 am

    @rikyrah: Waves, tail wags, and meow back to you!

  39. 39.

    Kay

    September 5, 2018 at 7:43 am

    @rikyrah:

    I actually feel like that part of “the system” is functioning- there is an investigation, there have been and will be indictments.

    What’s not being taken care of is the rampant corruption in the executive branch by Trump’s appointees and also the GOP Congress, but if Democrats take the House they can start some inquiries and get some information/transparency there.

    Trump focuses so much on the Mueller (and other federal prosecutors) investigations of him because he knows that part is functioning.

  40. 40.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 7:50 am

    Colin Kaepernick is out of the NFL but he is more powerful than ever

    The closing paragraph kills it:

    Which makes Monday’s announcement a triumph for clarity over obfuscation, for advancement over regression. For many, what it means to be an American is less and less some dude riding a tractor and more Kaepernick and Serena and LeBron. That’s what the people burning their shoes on Tuesday are upset about. For all the bluster about respecting the flag, they have never been more nakedly exposed: it’s quite obviously not about respecting anything at all.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    September 5, 2018 at 7:50 am

    I used to think Rand Paul was the biggest phony in the R Senate but I must say Ben Sasse has him beat.

    I actually prefer the blatantly corrupt servants of plutocrats on the Right to the sanctimonious, scolding patronizing frauds- if I have to choose.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    September 5, 2018 at 7:54 am

    @Kay: They all take turns lapping each other.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    September 5, 2018 at 7:55 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Good. I’m sick and tired of those Ford and Chevy truck commercials.

  44. 44.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 7:57 am

    @Baud: always with the flag waving in the background sooner or later.

  45. 45.

    Baud

    September 5, 2018 at 8:00 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Should be the Russian flag for the sake of truth in advertising.

  46. 46.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 8:01 am

    @Baud: Why did the image of 2 dogs cleaning each others bungholes pop into my head when I read that?

  47. 47.

    Baud

    September 5, 2018 at 8:02 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Because you want to get the image of Republicans out of your mind?

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    September 5, 2018 at 8:05 am

    @TS (the original): Some enterprising reporter should start asking real ‘Muricans how they feel about the prez’s non-response re: Nike and if they feel it might be linked to the prez’s getting paid by Nike. Come on, NYT, get on it! There’s nothing better you like than talking to real Americans (ie, Trumpov voters), right?

    Speaking of NYT: I read it so that you don’t have to, and reading Ross DoucheHat is just one of many special sacrifices I make for this place. Here he is, claiming he’s right, Trumpov hasn’t damaged America in any fundamental way:

    To what extent is Donald Trump an extraordinarily dangerous president whose authoritarian style is constantly enabled by his advisers and his party? Or, alternatively, to what extent is he an extraordinarily weak president, constrained by his appointees and his notional allies at almost every turn?

    I’ve made the case for the second narrative before, arguing that Trump isn’t really in charge of his own presidency, and that the Republican Congress — or at least the Republican Senate — has constrained his behavior more than many Resisters acknowledge.

    A year into his administration, I ran down the list of destabilizing or immoral moves that Trump promised during his campaign and pointed out almost none had actually happened — no return to waterboarding, no exit from NATO or Nafta, a hackishly implemented travel ban that only gestured at the promised Muslim-immigration shutdown, no change to the libels laws to shutter hostile newspapers, no staffing of the cabinet or the judiciary with unqualified cronies, no practical concessions to Vladimir Putin in Russia’s near abroad, and more. In general the Trump of early 2018 looked like a Twitter authoritarian but a practical weakling, hounded by a special counsel and unable to even replace his own attorney general because Senate Republicans said he couldn’t.

    Duuuuude: no staffing of the cabinet or judiciary with unqualified cronies? No practical concessions to Putin??

    Duuuuuuuuuude: do you really think he has held off from firing Sessions just ’cause Senate Republicans have said he couldn’t???

    Oh Ross, you cute lil’ naive thing you…

  49. 49.

    Baud

    September 5, 2018 at 8:07 am

    @Jeffro: Yeah, that’s nuts.

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 8:12 am

    @Baud: Now dammit, where did I leave that bottle of brain bleach?

  51. 51.

    Baud

    September 5, 2018 at 8:15 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Probably in the back of your Ford or Chevy truck.

    :-P

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    September 5, 2018 at 8:15 am

    @Kay:
    Why either/ or
    Let’s do both/and?

  53. 53.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 8:17 am

    @Jeffro: How come he didn’t mention the Gestapo…. I mean ICE, and their obsessive campaign of racial cleansing? It is after all one of trump’s “successes”.

  54. 54.

    SFAW

    September 5, 2018 at 8:19 am

    He’s gone from 4.9 lies a day to 8 lies a day and in last 3 months has actually hit 15.4 lies a day. Impressive!

    Back when I was an athlete, this was called ramping up, to peak at just the right time.

    [Well, OK, I was never an athlete, but I knew a guy who watched sports on TV, so that makes me an expert, right?]

  55. 55.

    Baud

    September 5, 2018 at 8:20 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: His goal is to ease the minds of white liberals by focusing on the things they care about.

  56. 56.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 8:20 am

    @Baud: I drive a dodge :<-

  57. 57.

    Jeffro

    September 5, 2018 at 8:22 am

    What’s amazing is that DoucheHat and so very many others on the right (no doubt, many of them are on cable TV right this very minute) are okay with saying, “It’s okay that the president* is mentally unstable, a complete moron, and utterly unfit for the job, because his staff/Congress/etc HAVE. HIM. CONTAINED.” That is just insane with a capital “I”.

    Translated: “It’s okay because…he’s a Republican”.

    Translated: “It’s okay because…he’s still able to sign our crazy-ass legislation and appoint judges”.

    Translated: “America, it’s up to you to stop us this November”.

  58. 58.

    Jeffro

    September 5, 2018 at 8:24 am

    For what it’s worth, here’s the end of DoucheHat’s column:

    All of this points to the case that Trump-skeptical Republican lawmakers can still offer, if pressed, in defense of their own approach to this strange presidency.

    Yes, they would say, the president is erratic, dangerous, unfit and bigoted. But notwithstanding certain columnist fantasies you can’t impeach somebody for all that — or for pretending to be a dictator on Twitter, for that matter. And by the standards of any normal presidency we still have him contained.

    Sure, the trade wars are bad, but every president launches at least one dumb trade war. We stopped the child migrant business, his other immigration moves are just stepped-up enforcement of the law, we’ve stepped back from the brink (however bizarrely) with the North Koreans, we’re still sanctioning the Russians.

    Meanwhile he’s nominated the most establishment Republican jurist possible to the Supreme Court, and we won’t even let him fire his own attorney general, let alone Bob Mueller.

    Look, we’re not enabling an American Putin here. We’re just babysitting the most impotent chief executive we’ll ever see, and locking in some good judges before the Democrats sweep us out.

    I could continue this ventriloquization, but instead I’ll just point to its most substantial flaw: It assumes that Trumpian weakness will never breed Trumpian desperation, and that this president will be content with his impotence even in the face of a Mueller indictment of someone in his inner circle or a Democratic House’s investigation that threatens disgrace and ruin for his family. It assumes that Trump will never, even in a desperate hour, put his party’s attempts to contain him gently to a firmer sort of test.

    It’s understandable that Republicans want to make this assumption. It’s understandable that they want to manage their way through this presidency, to prod and press and redirect rather than confronting and resisting. And so far that strategy has worked out better than one might reasonably have feared.

    But we still have two years and four months left of this administration. And before it ends, I suspect the harder test will come.

    Translated: “America, we’ve gotten lucky so far…”

  59. 59.

    Jeffro

    September 5, 2018 at 8:25 am

    @Jeffro: Translated: “It will be unthinkable until it happens”.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 8:26 am

    @Baud: He’s failing.

  61. 61.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 8:35 am

    @Jeffro: “When the shit hits the fan, I won’t be standing in front of it.”

  62. 62.

    Jeffro

    September 5, 2018 at 8:39 am

    Meanwhile, Trumpov’s animal cunning kicks in and realizes that calling Jeff Sessions “a dumb Southerner” is perhaps one of the riskiest things he’s done…

    Unfortunately, buried in the article about the Sessions insults, there are clear indications that the GOP will continue to roll over and has accepted that Trumpov’s going to fire Sessions:

    Republican lawmakers are typically cautious in their criticism of Trump’s latest remarks, but on Tuesday several senators who said they had not read the book still bristled at the president’s alleged slight.

    “I’m a Southerner, people can judge my intellect, my IQ, by my product and what I produce rather than what somebody else says,” Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) said in an interview.

    “We’re a pretty smart bunch. We lost the Civil War, but I think we’re winning the economic war since then . . . I’m not gonna get into name calling because I don’t think you should be allowed to call names — including the president,” he added.

    Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), who served alongside Sessions during his 20 years as senator for Alabama, said: “Well, I’m sure I’ve got that accent, wouldn’t you think?”

    He pointed out that Trump himself relied on Southern voters during the 2016 general election, warning: “I guess the president, he says what he thinks . . . I think the president’s probably got a lot of respect for the South, I hope so. He did well there. Without the South he wouldn’t be the president of the United States.”

    The vast majority of Southern states voted for Trump.

    Asked what he thought of Trump’s claim that Sessions was “mentally retarded,” Shelby, the fifth most senior Republican senator, added: “I think that’s strong words. I think Sessions is a very smart man and a man of integrity. I would disagree with the president on that.”

    Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) added to the chorus of disapproval, joking that Sessions was not a “dumb Southerner” but a “smart Southerner.” “Oh come on,” he said. “I’m a Southerner, too. I think it’s not at all appropriate. It’s totally inappropriate.”

    Sen. Thom Tillis (R- N.C.), who grew up in New Orleans and Nashville among other cities, also raised his Southern origins, saying: “As a Southerner, I have to say, Jeff Sessions . . . is bright, studied in the law and well-respected universally by the conference here, I think that speaks for itself. He is bright.”

    The comments come a week after it was revealed that Trump last month privately revived the prospect of firing Sessions, with whom he has clashed on issues including the Russia investigation and presidential interference in the judiciary.

    Republicans in Congress’s upper chamber have at the same time softened their rhetoric on Sessions, with some openly accepting he will now be replaced but urging him to stay on until the midterm elections.

    Said Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) on Tuesday: “I think we all know it’s likely he is going to terminate him after the midterms. In the interim I think it would be good if he stopped raving about Sessions. It’s unbecoming. Either do something or don’t, but these comments just continue to degrade our nation.”

    “He doesn’t have healthy respect for the democratic institutions we have here. I was down in Venezuela back in May and the characteristics are definitely the characteristics you get out there, where you award your friends and criminalize your enemies,” said Corker, who is retiring at the end of his term.

    Asked whether he thought Sessions could last until the midterms, Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) told The Washington Post: “I don’t know. It’s not my call, it’s the president’s.”

    So…people in his own party say outright that Trumpov is essentially a banana republic dictator wannabe…that he wants to ‘award [his] friends and criminalize [his] enemies’…and they. do. nothing. Same with preparing to fire the AG so that he can better obstruct an investigation into his own campaign’s conspiracy with a hostile foreign power.

    But hey…let’s not be insulting Southerners!!

  63. 63.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    September 5, 2018 at 8:40 am

    I see Rep Hunter and his wife appeared in court yesterday. I wonder what percentage of congress members have been indicted versus percentage of the general public. It seems high.

  64. 64.

    Patricia Kayden

    September 5, 2018 at 8:43 am

    And here comes Ben Sasse with his faux both sides are just as bad foolishness. He votes lockstep with Trump all the dang time but still gets kudos for weakly criticizing him from time to time. So annoying.

  65. 65.

    Leto

    September 5, 2018 at 8:45 am

    @Kay: @rikyrah:

    Democrats take the House they can start some inquiries and get some information/transparency there.

    This is the key here. Currently they have no ability to do anything: they can’t launch an investigation, they can’t subpoena people/information… they’re the minority party. During Kavanaugh’s hearing yesterday, there were a few Dem senators who directly referenced Trumpov being an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Cohen case as to why the Kavanaugh shouldn’t be held. They’re putting their voice/concerns on record, and at the moment it’s all they can do. So many people shout, “DEMS NEED TO DO SOMETHING!” but at this point I look at them like people who are always bitching without offering solutions. We tell our airmen all the time, “Don’t just bitch. Offer solutions. You can complain, but you at least try to think of a way to fix this.” If you want the minority party to do more, offer actual solutions that they can legally perform.

  66. 66.

    Patricia Kayden

    September 5, 2018 at 8:46 am

    @Jeffro: If Trump fires Sessions but replaces him with someone who promises not to interfere with Mueller’s investigation (directly or indirectly), that may be a good thing. Sessions is an awful AG.

  67. 67.

    danielx

    September 5, 2018 at 8:49 am

    Earlier thread made reference to White House staffers referring to Trump as Chauncey Gardiner.

    Chauncey Gardiner with rabies, maybe.

  68. 68.

    Jeffro

    September 5, 2018 at 8:50 am

    @Patricia Kayden: The replacement will promise whatever’s needed in order to get confirmed…just like Kavanaugh’s promising to be impartial. But both are/will be lying.

  69. 69.

    danielx

    September 5, 2018 at 8:52 am

    @Baud:

    I could so have done without that image.

  70. 70.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 5, 2018 at 8:53 am

    from I survived the Warsaw ghetto. Here are the lessons I’d like to pass on
    -Stanisław Aronson

    Third, do not underestimate the destructive power of lies. When the war broke out in 1939, my family fled east and settled for a couple of years in Soviet-occupied Lwow (now Lviv in western Ukraine). The city was full of refugees, and rumours were swirling about mass deportations to gulags in Siberia and Kazakhstan. To calm the situation, a Soviet official gave a speech declaring that the rumours were false – nowadays they would be called “fake news” – and that anyone spreading them would be arrested. Two days later, the deportations to the gulags began, with thousands sent to their deaths.

    Those people and millions of others, including my immediate family, were killed by lies. My country and much of the continent was destroyed by lies. And now lies threaten not only the memory of those times, but also the achievements that have been made since. Today’s generation doesn’t have the luxury of being able to argue that it was never warned or did not understand the consequences of where lies will take you.

    Confronting lies sometimes means confronting difficult truths about one’s self and one’s own country. It is much easier to forgive yourself and condemn another, than the other way round; but this is something that everyone must do. I have made my peace with modern Germany, and hope that all Europeans can do the same.

  71. 71.

    JPL

    September 5, 2018 at 8:57 am

    @danielx: That’s so true. I’m tired of waking up in the morning, and discovering that the republicans are still protecting the rabid human in office.

  72. 72.

    JPL

    September 5, 2018 at 9:02 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Early on Hitler was not viewed positively by the majority, but the night of long knives solidified his reign of terror. That was in 1934. Trump’s tweet criticizing Sessions for prosecuting his friends, and not going after Hillary and others is horrifying. Because of Woodward’s book, those comments have been swept under the rug.
    Every republican in office needs to be asked what they are going to do to contain him.

  73. 73.

    Leto

    September 5, 2018 at 9:04 am

    @Jeffro: Exactly; if it’s a Trumpov hire expect the worst, but don’t be shocked when it’s even worse than that.

  74. 74.

    bemused

    September 5, 2018 at 9:17 am

    I believe many, many trump supporters did know he was very unstable right from the start of the campaign, pretending he was not nuttier than a fruitcake. Having a president who is obviously insane is ultimately calamitous for just about everyone but his voters didn’t give a damn.

  75. 75.

    Kraux Pas

    September 5, 2018 at 9:26 am

    @Jeffro:

    “We’re a pretty smart bunch. We lost the Civil War, but I think we’re winning the economic war since then

    If what he means is “take advantage of the tax flow from blue states to prop up poor governance while going as far as generating regular constitutional crises to prevent the government from doing anything to help average working Americans,” then yeah, they’re winning,

  76. 76.

    Tazj

    September 5, 2018 at 9:32 am

    @JPL: Every Republican needs to be asked about Trump but somehow the press acts like he’s not a Republican and the Republican members of Congress aren’t responsible for him and have no power over him.
    Meanwhile, every Democrat must be asked if they endorse Nancy Pelosi for speaker and if Bernie Sanders endorsed them they must disavow being a radical socialist.

  77. 77.

    JPL

    September 5, 2018 at 9:46 am

    @bemused: They saw him on the Apprentice, and did you know he was a successful businessman.

  78. 78.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    September 5, 2018 at 9:51 am

    @JPL: I once had a college freshman comment on the old TV show “Fame,” saying the character played by Janet Jackson was wonderfully modest considering how famous Jackson was. She had completely merged the character and actor in her mind. I’m guessing a lot of people do.

  79. 79.

    The Moar You Know

    September 5, 2018 at 10:42 am

    Like it or not, November 6 is about Trump, not ideology.

    And once Trump is gone, most of those currently outraged into action will figure the problem has been solved and they can sink back into their personal morass of apathy.

    The problem isn’t Trump, it’s the 60+ million idiots who voted for him. That’s a problem that will decades to solve and it needs to be solved. We’ve been coddling these people since the 1920s – almost a hundred years, folks – fucking around, bothsidering them, pretending their arguments have merit or insisting that while we vehemently disagree, that their voices have a right to be disseminated and heard. THAT NEEDS TO STOP.

  80. 80.

    Calouste

    September 5, 2018 at 11:11 am

    @Patricia Kayden: The shitgibbon’s interview of Sessions’ replacement is going to exist of exactly one question: are you going to shut down the Mueller investigation?

  81. 81.

    DonL140

    September 5, 2018 at 11:17 am

    “Like it or not, November 6 is about Trump, not ideology.”

    Trump and the GOP ideology are indivisible. It’s about corruption, those who can see it and those who don’t. THIS is the modern GOP. They have the Presidency, the Senate, and the courts, and they are all corrupt. Trump lost by 3 million votes. The Senate represents 18% of Americans. And Merrick Garland should be a Supreme Court judge.

    This election is about corruption and that’s all it’s about.

  82. 82.

    J R in WV

    September 5, 2018 at 11:38 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Bletch, OzarkHillbilly!! Mornings are hard for me too…

  83. 83.

    Shana

    September 5, 2018 at 2:47 pm

    @TS (the original): I saw yesterday that Nike is building a new store on 5th Avenue in NYC and will be moving out of their current Trump-owned or managed space. And they said that the fact that it is a Trump building was a factor in their decision.

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