Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

So many bastards, so little time.

How stupid are these people?

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

So very ready.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

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

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Best President Ever / President Obama at the University of Illinois

Reader Interactions

190Comments

  3. 3.

    westyny

    Painful to listen to only because the contrast between President Obama’s rhetorical chops and Trump in Montana last night is so stark. Obama is Atticus Finch, Trump is the embodiment of the angry mob,

  4. 4.

    catclub

    Trump feels no envy for that. He would not understand it and would not want it.
    If you gave it to him his response would be: ” So, where’s my check?”

  5. 5.

    guachi

    It’s perfectly legal for the next Democratic nominee for President to choose Obama as his/her running mate.

    Just throwing it out there.

  6. 6.

    C. Isaac

    I will never stop being grateful to President Obama. The man handled the job with grace, dignity, and courage. The sheer contrast that Bush the Lesser and the Trumpster Fire also provide as bookends to his years of service only highlight how good of a president he was.

    He wasn’t perfect, and there were some things I definitely disagreed on, but by and large he left the US a better place than he found it, and for that I’m grateful.

  8. 8.

    FelonyGovt

    It’s Friday after Labor Day. I had been hoping for indictments this week. That would be the perfect end to the week…

  9. 9.

    Waynski

    He wasn’t perfect, and there were some things I definitely disagreed on, but by and large he left the US a better place than he found it, and for that I’m grateful.

    Well said, C. Isaac. Well said.

  11. 11.

    Jeffro

    OBAMA CALLING OUT “BOTH SIDES”…CALLING OUT MODERN GOP…”SYSTEMATICALLY ATTACKING VOTING RIGHTS”

    LOVE IT!

  15. 15.

    Elizabelle

    @FelonyGovt: It’s still early. And I don’t know that Mueller is going to be held to DOJ “guidelines” in a time when Trump is on war with the nation and legal standards.

    Excellent speech. Straightforward enough for even the obtuse to follow. If they cared to.

  16. 16.

    Jeffro

    I AM PUTTING A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS SPEECH ON A BUMPERSTICKER THAT WILL WRAP AROUND MY WHOLE CAR EIGHT TIMES, I DON’T CARE

  22. 22.

    SFAW

    He just received something Trump never will: an ethics in government award.

    Oh, bullshit.

    The Oval Office Squatter is the mostest ethicalisticest Preznit EVAH. Why, his ethicses are so far beyond the realm of current ethics, he’s “upended the norms” by which all future (um Gotteswillen) Presidencies will be measured. And he’s the most successful-est businessman ever, which is further proof of something.

    So, suck it, libtards.

    I long for the day that the Orange Shitstain is in jail, or forced to seek asylum on Peter Thiel’s Pipedream Island.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: I miss that he didn’t do this during the State of the Union in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, or 2016 when it might have made a difference.

  28. 28.

    Jeffro

    He really is going after Trumpov, in every way and on every aspect. I am shellshocked. Twitler is going to be berserk.

    Just called out Nazi sympathizers…hoo boy…”How hard can it be, saying that Nazis are bad?”

  29. 29.

    Cacti

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I miss that he didn’t do this during the State of the Union in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, or 2016 when it might have made a difference.

    Go jump up your own ass.

  30. 30.

    pamelabrown53

    @Adam L Silverman: #19.

    Listen. I’m happy that Jeffro is giving President Obama a MICROPHONE. I also appreciate his following the speech and relaying his enthusiastically info.

    You go Jeffro! Can’t watch the speech on my dying computer but am grateful for your posts.

  32. 32.

    Jeffro

    “Obama just wants me impeached!” – nickel bet this is Twitler’s first tweet once this speech wraps up.

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    He just noted that it’s a false choice between chasing WWC voters and POC voters

    “To make democracy work, we have to get inside the experiences of other people…even when it is frustrating…”

    Dinging GOP Congress for expecting Dems to agree to their positions 100%, no compromises…Dinging GOP Reps and Senators for ‘clucking their tongues when the president does something inappropriate but then actually doing nothing about it’

  34. 34.

    Aleta

    A Dallas police officer shot and killed a 26-year-old on Thursday night after the officer allegedly entered the victim’s apartment and mistook it for her own, according to police. The Dallas Morning News reports that the incident occurred at around 10 p.m. at the South Side Flats on S. Lamar St., just blocks away from police headquarters. But don’t worry, the Morning News also felt that it was appropriate to mention that the officer…you know, the same one who fired the shot, was not injured in the incident.

    According to the police department’s story, the female officer arrived at the apartment complex after working a full shift and strolled into Botham Shem Jean’s apartment, thinking it was the officer’s home. Officers declined to explain how the situation escalated and declined to say whether the officer, who remains unidentified, mistook Jean for an intruder.
    …
    Neighbors in the complex have much of the same questions.
    “How can you make a mistake like that, getting into someone else’s apartment?” an 80-year-old who only identified herself as Raquel told the Morning News.“Don’t they train police?” Raquel added. “Now, if something happens to me, I’m going to be too scared to call police because I’m afraid it will end in a tragedy.”
    …
    The officer involved reported Jean as wounded.

    –The Root

    The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office is also investigating the incident. … So far this year, at least 694 people have been shot and killed by police, according to a Washington Post database on police-involved shootings. However, those cases involve officers who were on duty* at the time of the shootings.

    –WaPo
    An organized group responsible for the deaths of 700 people across the country.
    *And who knows how many deaths caused by members, but unclaimed by the organization.
    Sounds like a national emergency and terrorism.

    WaPo

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    Now reminding young people that “better is good” – we don’t have to hold out for ‘perfect’. Somewhere in Vermont, a hot air balloon is deflating…

  37. 37.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jeffro: Good for him! One thing I don’t think has been highlighted enough: in Woodward’s book, Trump is reported to have fumed about having to waddle forth and say “Nazis are bad.” He considers that his greatest mistake — not having “both sidesed” a terrorist attack by a fucking Nazi but acquiescing to pressure to call out said Nazis.

  39. 39.

    Aleta

    @Aleta:
    Correction: An organized group responsible for the deaths of 700 people across the country this year alone, so far.
    *And who knows how many deaths caused by members, but unclaimed by the organization.
    Sounds like a national emergency and terrorism.
    (Correction: from me not from the Wa Po)

  41. 41.

    C. Isaac

    @Aleta: As a Dallas resident, this is scary as hell. It makes it so you feel unsafe without having a tension bar holding the door as well as your locks. I shouldn’t have to fear both criminals and the police breaking and entering and harming me, but there it is.

    How do you not know that you’re not in your own home unless you are either a) inebriated, b) intoxicated, or c) both? Any of those for an officer just coming off shift makes it sound like this is someone that should not be allowed within a mile of a badge or a gun.

  42. 42.

    TaMara (HFG)

    So is this a preview of what’s going to happen on the campaign trail. I’ve gotten two emails this a.m. saying he’s heading out and it’s going to be fierce.

  43. 43.

    Jeffro

    Just noted that some conservatives “might want a minimum of government, but that minimum most certainly includes making sure that 3,000 of their fellow citizens don’t die in a hurricane and its aftermath”

    O
    U
    C
    H

  46. 46.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Betty Cracker: He doesn’t think Nazis are bad, he identifies with them. My friend from college who is an air force vet almost had an anuerysm when I said that T was pursuing Nazi like strategies of separating children and infants from their parents at the border. That story wasn’t being covered by the national media then (in May).

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    “You can’t sit out because you’re not sufficiently inspired…this is not a rock concert, this is not Coachella…you don’t need a messiah”

    (jaw drop)

  49. 49.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rp: Partially. It is a great speech and I’m glad he’s making it. But the significant portions calling out that what the GOP is now doing and was doing during his administration wasn’t conservative or conservatism, but radicalism needed to be stated, forcefully and to their faces when he was still in office. The State of the Union would have been an appropriate venue.

  50. 50.

    Jeffro

    that sound you hear his him calling out Trump, the GOP congress, lazy Democrats, Russian hacking – all by name

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    Lowering the boom on the NRA, praising #MeToo, banging on the uselessness of “thoughts and prayers”…

    I might need a longer bumper sticker.

  55. 55.

    rp

    @Adam L Silverman: I wish he’d made this speech earlier, but not during the state of the union. he would have been absolutely blasted for it and the message would have gotten lost. The fall of 2016 or 2014 was the right time IMO.

  57. 57.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman: Despite my rampant fanboi-ism today, I do have to second what you’re saying. At any/all points during his two terms, and most especially the obstruction we saw after Nov 2012, he could and should have called them out every time. Hindsight being 20/20, I think most all of us could have done more.

    But this is nice, and perfectly timed, too. Just after Labor Day weekend, heading into the mid-terms after nearly two years of unending GOP corruption and insanity…this is great.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    @rp:

    Here you go.

    If you’ve been marching for criminal justice reform, that’s great. But you know what, you better vote for a President and a Congress who actually care about disrupting the pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails. (Applause.) Protests aren’t enough if you’re not voting. You’ve been marching for the environment and to do something about climate change — I’ve heard you. But you better vote for the next President and Congress believing in science, and who will protect the progress we’ve made so we can leave behind a world that we’re proud of for our children. (Applause.)

    If you want more good jobs, you want to have a higher minimum wage, you want help with respect to student loans — don’t just sit there and complain. Don’t just sit there in the barber shop and the beauty shop and watching the Tar Heels and say, you know, politics is all messed up, but what’s the score. No, no, no. You can watch the game after you vote. (Applause.)

  59. 59.

    Miss Bianca

    Just got the gal end of the speech, and all the students screaming with applause. I agree with Adam, I wish I had head this Obama while he was still in office, but damn…if coming out with it now gets young people “fired up and ready to go”, I’ll take it.

  60. 60.

    Elizabelle

    I could listen to another hour. Terrific speech.

    What else was I gonna say? But it’s true. It’s good to hear decency get some airtime.

    Elizabelle the Obot

  63. 63.

    Miss Bianca

    @Miss Bianca: Oh, frack…”tail end”, not “gal end”, Jesus God, between Safari’s fucking stupid auto-correct and no edit button, I am going to be in serious trouble some day.

  64. 64.

    Jeffro

    @balconesfault:

    Absolutely amazing speech. I hope that every 20-something in America listens to it.

    20, 30, 40-somethings but yes, the 20-somethings most especially. They’re the ones that went through their formative years with a REAL president in the WH and I hope each and every one of them hears Obama talking directly to them.

  65. 65.

    pamelabrown53

    @schrodingers_cat: #46.

    Maybe Trump’s nazi-like inhuman policy of child separation needs to be compared to a gut-wrenching movie: “Sophie’s Choice”. Hashtag: #Even Sophie had a Choice”. Too hyperbolic, too unfair? I don’t think the Trump admin. ismurdering the children…at least not intentionally.

  66. 66.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jeffro: No argument from me. This is an excellent speech. I am glad he’s making it. But the one thing that drove me nuts about President Obama when he was in office was his strategic communication approach.

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Miss Bianca: Excellent speech. Needed to be made. Glad he gave it. Just would have been nice from a strategic communication and information operations perspective if he’d given variants of it while still in office. He was going to be damned if he did/damned if he didn’t from the usual (and they’re really, to be honest, unusual) suspects whether he gave it or not while in office.

  72. 72.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t know. All he did was say that Dems are running on a “good new ideas, like Medicare for All.” I’m sure he wouldn’t oppose it, but it seems not quite an endorsement.

  73. 73.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    That’s why you and I wouldn’t make good presidents. We’d say appropriate things at the wrong time. Gotta be the president of everyone, even if not everyone likes it.

  74. 74.

    evap

    @guachi: Unfortunately, it’s not actually legal. The VP candidate is required to be eligible to be President and Obama is not. Too bad :(

  78. 78.

    Elizabelle

    @Adam L Silverman: I agree with you. I don’t think Obama used the bully pulpit as effectively as he could have.

    I wonder what he will say in his memoirs. Do you think we will get “statesman” Obama or “no fucks left to give, these morons installed Donald Trump after my presidency” Obama?

    In my bones, I do not feel that Trump was fairly elected. I think they screwed with the election. I don’t believe all the “Hillary ran a shitty campaign and let’s not show any curiosity beyond that.” I think they cheated.

  80. 80.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: a “good new ideas, like Medicare for All.” I’m sure he wouldn’t oppose it, but it seems not quite an endorsement.

    I was in-and-out of the car, but he also didn’t define it. As I’ve said often, I think MfA is a great slogan, and there are versions of it that I think are great politics, but if it becomes a litmus test for Single Payer…. that’s a little riskier.

  81. 81.

    TenguPhule

    Trump has decided on his mature response to Obama…..I’m just kidding.

    rump said on Air Force One Friday that he is ready to impose tariffs on $267 billion in Chinese goods in addition to an additional $200 billion that he said will likely be hit with tariffs in a matter of days.

    If eventually carried out, Trump’s latest threat would result in tariffs on all Chinese goods entering the United States, an unprecedented escalation of Trump’s trade war with China. The U.S. in July began imposing tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese industrial imports.

    “We’ve taxed them $50 billion — that’s on technology,” the president said. “Now we’ve added another $200 billion. And I hate to say that, but behind that, there’s another $267 billion ready to go on short notice if I want. That totally changes the equation.”

  82. 82.

    Roger Moore

    @PaulWartenberg:

    I WANT TO VOTE OBAMA FOR A THIRD TERM.

    I don’t. I want somebody who shares Obama’s humanity, competence, decency, and willingness to look for the best in all of us, but I like him too much to ask him to go in for another term of the shit he’d be facing. It’s somebody else’s turn.

  83. 83.

    Elizabelle

    For one thing, I don’t think saying that he never threatened to shut down Fox News is equivalent. We all remember how the fucking gasbag careerist media types (from MSNBC too) couldn’t throw enough shade at Obama for implying Fox was not a legitimate news operation.

    Which it is not.

    I don’t see how we maintain a functioning democracy with a brainwashing system like Fox News in place. You cannot reach its viewers. That’s intentional. This is not passionate pamphlets distributed in the 18th century and the more the merrier. This is brainwashing by mass media to achieve the goals of the plutocracy, and make them money in the meantime.

    The First Amendment does not seem to be up to that challenge, and it is fundamental.

  84. 84.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @Elizabelle: No, we really didn’t. We should have stood up and marched the way we did against Trump when Pres Obama was attacked day after day. Instead, we took him for granted and said, “He’s got this”. LIterally. We had a photo we’d post over and over here (and other places) saying just that.

  85. 85.

    Mnemosyne

    @Betty Cracker:

    Sorry, Betty, but every commenter in that thread tells me this was too little, too late from Obama, because Democrats in 2009-2010 TOTALLY had full control of both houses of Congress and could have passed MFA if only Obama hadn’t personally killed it on the orders of his corporate masters. ? So therefore he gets zero credit for this weak sauce. QED.

  86. 86.

    Jeffro

    @Elizabelle:

    We all need to call them out. No hiding. Stuff them back behind the rocks from which they emerged.

    Sunlight.

    You know, it’s funny you should mention that…not the calling them out part…’Sunlight’. I had been thinking of that too. The Dems could use something catchy, hopefully not just for this election but beyond. Something that instantly brings to mind that we are anti-corruption (most certainly to include being anti-white-collar-crime), anti-Nazi, anti-harrasser/pro #MeToo, and so on.

    Why not “Sunlight Democrats”?

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Elizabelle: We all remember how the fucking gasbag careerist media types (from MSNBC too) couldn’t throw enough shade at Obama for implying Fox was not a legitimate news operation.

    Jake Tapper was all but in tears.

    In fairness, that was before Megan Kelly’s passionate insistence that Santa Claus was white and (the far more important– and ridiculous– part that tends to get forgotten) so was Jesus. But it was after they referred to MRO as “Barack’s Babymama” and the whole “terrorist fist jab” moment

  89. 89.

    TenguPhule

    It was supposed to be a quick photo op with Trump.

    But the 44 sheriffs at the White House got a lot more than that when Trump conscripted them as unwitting bystanders in a withering assault Wednesday on a critical, anonymous essay about him in the New York Times.

    In a surreal setting, Trump turned to the uniformed law enforcement officers, assembled on a small riser in the stately East Room, for explicit support as he attacked the “dishonest media” as a “disgrace.”

    “Hey, I’ll ask the sheriffs: Can you imagine?” Trump said, responding to a reporter’s shouted question about the opinion piece. It was purportedly written by a senior official in the Trump administration who suggested a “quiet resistance” of fretful aides who were conspiring to protect the nation from an unstable madman.

    For the sheriffs, wearing gold badges and embroidered stars, it was a moment of truth: How would these elected officials — frozen in place in the background of a live television shot — react as Trump went on for another 840 words, slamming the anonymous author as “gutless,” predicting that the “phony media outlets” will go out of business and boasting of his accomplishments as if delivering a campaign speech?

    To them, it was a no-brainer: They gave Trump several rounds of hearty applause.

    ‘There’s a new sheriff in town’: Trump uses official events to wage campaign against press

    Everyone who supports Trump needs to go up against the wall. Every single last one of them.

  95. 95.

    guachi

    Fired Up and Ready to Go.. Vote!

    Though I’m in a California district where the only thing that is up for grabs is how much the Democrat wins by. But running up the score is still important.

  96. 96.

    Aleta

    Pres Obama’s two confirmed nominees to the Supreme Court: Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. (2009 and 2010.) Huge. The first president whose intelligence wasn’t weakened by the kind of prejudice that can’t recognize and rely on the intelligence of women and minorities. And I never saw him use his wife or mention other women and minorities in order to prove that, he just did it.

  97. 97.

    Elizabelle

    @TenguPhule: And things never change, do they TenguPhule?

    Could you do me a personal huge favor and avoid your tendency to dump on anyone’s new idea with a “it won’t work, because it’s been tried before and didn’t work then” schtick? It is so damned tiresome.

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Sure! The most classic one is “Screenplay” by Syd Field, but there are a million out there. “Screenplay” is a good place to start since it has all of the formatting laid out. If your public library doesn’t have a few copies, you should be to get a used one super cheap. If I think of other ones, I’ll email you.

  100. 100.

    Another Scott

    @Jeffro: The only way Obama was able to get as much done as he did was to never, ever appear to be the Angry Black Man. Either emotionally or rhetorically. His big wins had no room for error, and going all Samson on their asses (as I’m sure he wanted to do on many, many occasions), would not have helped. He had to always, always, look at the big picture.

    He wouldn’t have convinced anyone and would have risked losing the support on the margins that was critical.

    Coming out now is already breaking norms. But now is the right time, and he’s handling it very well (from my reads of the comments and reporting).

    YMMV.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  101. 101.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodingers_cat: That’s a plausible theory. When he was married to Ivana, he could just clear the hair off the shower drain and slap that clump on his bald pate. But since Melania is a brunette, he’s had to resort to scalping dolls!

  102. 102.

    Mnemosyne

    @Inventor:

    Didn’t you know? Joe Lieberman was just covering for Obama, because he and Obama are bestest buddies who get together and laugh uproariously about how they screwed everyone over with PPACA. It was secretly Obama who killed MfA the whole time!

    Jaysus, I hate these assholes.

  105. 105.

    Mai Naem mobile

    My president forevah! Ok,until Kamala Harris becomes POTUS anyway. I was beginning to think Harris wasn’t ready for prime time but her performance at Kavanaugh’s hearing has made me a believer.

  106. 106.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Adam L Silverman: Yes, I agree.

    But This feels like what happened with the science community and the creationist, it took a while for a scientists to realize you can’t have a measured debate with a pack of lying frauds and the only way to deal with frauds to call them the lairs they are. It seems like the last month the Democrats finally came to this conclusion.

  107. 107.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I googled “Obama calls out Republican obstruction”. Somebody with better google skills, or more time, or a copy of the Joy Reid/EJ Dionne collection of Obama’s speeches could probably find more

    Obama’s State of the Union leaves GOP enraged – The Guardian
    President’s speech avoided all-out triumphalism – but also an olive branch, as Republicans insisted ‘he needs to remember he’s lost the election’

    Obama rips Republicans for ‘obstruction’
    February 3, 2010 12:57 p.m. EST

    President Obama calls out Republican obstruction
    Pres. Obama, the most obstructed president in U.S. history, called out the “Party of No” for hurting the American middle class through their nearly 500 filibusters. Ed Schultz and Rep. Chris Van Hollen discuss.
    May.08.2014

  108. 108.

    Roger Moore

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I think MfA is a great slogan

    And I think that it’s mostly restricted to being a slogan at this point. It’s a great way of summarizing that we’d like a universal, government-run health insurance system, but I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting we completely replace our current health insurance system with an expanded but otherwise unchanged version of Medicare.

  109. 109.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    The other question I have is would a speech like this be possible previous to 2017? For all the damage the Me Too movement did it certainly cleared out a lot of pompous Brodian old boys from the press. The lack of fainting coaches and pearl clutching from the press over this salty talk from the Democrats has been quite amazing.

  110. 110.

    Jeffro

    @TenguPhule: We did? I’m not remembering that one.

    @TenguPhule: I’m just looking for a tag line here…’doomed’ strikes me as a bit much…

    Sunlight melts snowflakes…sunlight sends roaches scurrying…sunlight is clean power…come on TP!! You know it’s not half bad. ;)

  111. 111.

    Gin & Tonic

    My wife is in the middle of a long drive, with satellite radio, so she was listening to him and had to stop to text me “Man, I miss him.”

  113. 113.

    Jeffro

    @Mai Naem mobile: Seconded on all four points! (is that eighth-ed, then? I dunno) But I totally agree. Now back to printing up my Harris 2020 t-shirt that I can wear while driving around in my heavily bumper-stickered Obama SpeechMobile.

  114. 114.

    Roger Moore

    @guachi:

    Though I’m in a California district where the only thing that is up for grabs is how much the Democrat wins by.

    Sucks for you that you let a Republican get on the general election ballot. There Republicans here in CA-27 are in such disarray they didn’t even manage to get a candidate on the primary ballot, and the independent got shoved aside by the second place Democrat. Of course it’s pretty obvious the incumbent is going to cruise to victory, but no matter what happens we’re not going to send a Republican to Congress.

  116. 116.

    jl

    People have been complaining about Obama ‘not doing enough’.
    Obama is a politician who knows how to win, so if he thinks this is the best time to pitch in, I trust his judgment.
    We didn’t know if he would really pitch in, or whether he’ll keep it up, until we see it, of course. But this is a well-timed start.

  118. 118.

    TenguPhule

    @Jeffro:

    Sunlight melts snowflakes…sunlight sends roaches scurrying…sunlight is clean power…come on TP!! You know it’s not half bad. ;)

    At this point I’d suggest bleach. Disinfects and kills 99% of the germs and bacteria. //

  119. 119.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting we completely replace our current health insurance system with an expanded but otherwise unchanged version of Medicare.

    As far as I can tell, the Sanders bros are but, in their defense, they don’t actually understand how the current Medicare system works and what a kludgy mess it is.

    What drives me up the fucking wall about the sneering at PPACA is that, if you look at it before the Roberts court deliberately hobbled it, it was clearly designed to slowly drive for-profit healthcare out of business and replace it with Medicaid and employer-based healthcare. But nobody wanted to hear that, because Medicaid is for poor people and Medicare is for old, rich (mostly) white people, so it MUST be better by definition.

    I quite seriously would have fewer problems with “MfA” if the M stood for “Medicaid” instead of “Medicare.”

  120. 120.

    Brachiator

    @TenguPhule:

    Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

    People rarely learn anything from the past, or learn the wrong lessons, or forget the past entirely. The future sometimes turns out all right anyway.

    Peoples is strange, but resilient.

  121. 121.

    TenguPhule

    @Jeffro:

    We did? I’m not remembering that one.

    As I recall, the DNC campaign to get it mainstreamed didn’t work. It was put out there and quickly abandoned because the public didn’t really talk about it.

    It was basically a failed attempt to force a meme.

  122. 122.

    TenguPhule

    @jl:

    People have been complaining about Obama ‘not doing enough’.
    Obama is a politician who knows how to win, so if he thinks this is the best time to pitch in, I trust his judgment.

    i think the biggest complaint is that President Obama did the right things, followed the rules and was punished for it by Republicans who were consistently rewarded for their bad behavior.

    The sheer unfairness of it all is maddening.

  125. 125.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Roger Moore: I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting we completely replace our current health insurance system with an expanded but otherwise unchanged version of Medicare.

    But for the italicized parts, isn’t that pretty much what Bernie Sanders and his acolytes, chiefly AOC, are selling? And they don’t bother with “otherwise unchanged” because details are for neo-liberal sell-outs. I’ll grant you they’re a noisy lot overrepresented on twitter, but a relatively insignificant number of Jill Stein voters put trump in the White House, and generic polling notwithstanding, I think this mid-term will be a closer-run thing than many think (as always, I will be thrilled to be proven a gloomy crepe-hanger when the polls close in CA).

  126. 126.

    eric

    @jl: @jl: for those that think he should have done this or that sooner, when you TWICE win the presidency as a black man with the middle name Hussein, give me a call. I dont mean to be snide, but the man has pretty good political instincts.

  127. 127.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Yeah, I am restraining myself from screeching at Adam et al because, as usual, the exact thing that Obama gets criticized for not doing is the thing he actually did that no one paid attention to at the time. It gets fucking exhausting to have to re-prove that every. single. time., so I appreciate that you did the search.

  128. 128.

    TenguPhule

    Trump to Preside Over U.N. Security Council, Prompting Anxiety All Around

    Even the FTFNYT can be salty occasionally.

    It is not a revival of “The Apprentice,” or even a meeting of his cabinet. Mr. Trump will be presiding at the United Nations Security Council, a rotating role that falls to the United States this month. His star turn is prompting anxiety among people, inside and outside the administration, who worry that the president will bring reality-TV antics to the world stage.

    Exercising the prerogative of the chairman, Mr. Trump plans to focus on Iran and its malign activity around the Middle East. European diplomats said they fear that this will only underscore the disunity of the West, given the unpopularity of Mr. Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal.

    Goat Rodeo meets train wreck meets plane crash meets Sharknado.

  129. 129.

    Eric S.

    @Aleta: I wonder if you did a random sampling of Americans how many people they think police kill in the line of duty where that number would be?

    I fear they would think it must in higher and that 700 isn’t all that bad.

  130. 130.

    TenguPhule

    @Elizabelle:

    So everything is one and done, even when conditions change (and they do)?

    What I’m saying is that you can’t force these things. You can throw them out there but if it doesn’t catch on, it doesn’t catch on.

  133. 133.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Aleta:

    Officers declined to explain how the situation escalated and declined to say whether the officer, who remains unidentified, mistook Jean for an intruder.

    This has “substance intoxication” written in big bold letters all over it. I’m going with alcohol cuz that’s the most likely way to make someone this fucking unable to figure out the fact that this is not YOUR OWN FUCKING PLACE.

    Or wake up, get off the couch, stumble across the floor piss in the corner of the living room cuz you think that’s the bathroom, as my younger brother did one New Years night…:-D

  134. 134.

    El Caganer

    Sounds like Captain Ahab Obama has been sharpening his harpoon for a while, and has now found the moment to skewer the Great Orange Whale.

  137. 137.

    TenguPhule

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    This has “substance intoxication” written in big bold letters all over it. I’m going with alcohol cuz that’s the most likely way to make someone this fucking unable to figure out the fact that this is not YOUR OWN FUCKING PLACE.

    Simple Exhaustion can resemble intoxication symptoms.

  138. 138.

    Jeffro

    @TenguPhule:

    It was basically a failed attempt to force a meme.

    Oh…well, that is kind of me in a nutshell, LOL. (still gonna use it until I think of something better, though!)

    Let’s see, what are some other things that combine cleaning up GOP corruption with positivity in a single word…nope, not coming just yet…hold on…

  141. 141.

    Aleta

    @Adam L Silverman: He didn’t overestimate his abilities; he didn’t underestimate the seriousness of the country’s racism; and he didn’t analyze his decisions (how far he went was deeply considered each time) from a perspective of superiority. I felt he was as honest as he could be about the limitations. Our awareness of what went into them, incl. being a black male and a leader of children, can’t even be measured in microfractions.

    I respect his ability to make those decisions for himself, esp given the result — elected leader who’s still influencing children and the future. As productive as the right wing was during his term, we ignore whatever was avoided because he was careful. We also forget that he had to consider the effect, not on him but on black kids and others, of each additional increment of rage at his words.

  142. 142.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Ruckus:

    No one thinks he’s a good or even mediocre president.</blockquote
    I promise you that millions of Americans hear about ICE separating families at the border and think that Trump is the greatest president America has ever had. When Trump pardoned Arpaio for brutalizing Hispanics against a court order, the sheriffs he was talking in front of decided he is the greatest president ever. And whenever he delivers one of his incoherent, angry, dimwitted, self-obsessed diatribes, millions of Americans think "Finally, this guy tells it how it is." They've given similar rants themselves, after all.

  144. 144.

    jl

    @eric: The timing might show that Obama agrees with piddling obscure political junkies like me that only very strong election results can fix the mess the country is in.. So, I am biased.
    But most people are just tuning in to what they are going to do for the election over the last two or three weeks.
    Jumping in now will get Obama a lot of free media at just the right time. It’s not ‘old news’.

  146. 146.

    geg6

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    Or wake up, get off the couch, stumble across the floor piss in the corner of the living room cuz you think that’s the bathroom, as my younger brother did one New Years night…:-D

    At least it was your brother. Eons ago, when my sister and I were young and single and sharing an apartment, she was dating a guy and one night they went out and had quite a few alcoholic beverages. I was up when they got home but went to bed shortly afterward. I woke up in the middle of the night to see the silhouette of a large man in my room. I was still half asleep but about to start screaming bloody murder when he opened my closet door and made motions as he was going to start peeing. At that point I realized who it was and started screaming bloody murder because my sister’s stupid drunk boyfriend was going to pee all over my shoes! Thankfully, my screaming and her running into my room to grab him, finally woke him up enough to realize he’d made a very large wrong turn while drunk and still mostly asleep.

  147. 147.

    Mnemosyne

    @TenguPhule:

    If we don’t hear a peep about a drug or alcohol test on the cop, we’ll know she was drunk or high. If she was simply exhausted, they’ll tout her clear tox screen to the skies.

  148. 148.

    Eric S.

    @guachi: That is generally me, too, in the shade of Wrigley field, but with Rahm stepping aside next February (March? I should know this but I plead vacation.) will be very interesting.

  149. 149.

    TenguPhule

    @Mnemosyne:

    If she was simply exhausted, they’ll tout her clear tox screen to the skies.

    Given prior scandals of test fixing, I wouldn’t even trust a tox screen unless the FBI steps in.

  151. 151.

    Rommie

    @guachi: It is indeed. No one can be *elected* for more than two terms as President. Succession is not an election, unless you are a SC Justice trying to make it so. No one can be a VP who is constitutionally ineligible to be President. At the moment, that means natural-born citizen, 35 years old, and lived in the US for fourteen years. Just because a potential VP can’t be *elected* President doesn’t disqualify them from being a VP.

    But yeah, the argument is that it DOES disqualify them, so former two-term Presidents can’t be VP. It will ultimately be up to the SC to decide the answer if a former two-term President tries it – which leads to my barb about SC Justices above.

    Given the past year + nine months, the idea is only slightly outrageous now.

  152. 152.

    Mnemosyne

    @Eric S.:

    My brother in law and his boyfriend just bought a condo and moved into your ‘hood. Old-fashioned me is hoping that a wedding is imminent since I get nervous about non-married people owning property together. There are way too many ways to get screwed in a breakup or (god forbid) sudden death.

  153. 153.

    Aleta

    @Adam L Silverman: I realized I am basically saying that from ‘a strategic communication and information operations perspective’ he was very very good. There were just many more inputs than in the standard models. And no predictive model of the could-have should-have type incorporates all the actual real time conditions or the thousands of events hidden from view. Any judgement has to take that simplification into account.

  155. 155.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: No argument from me. If PBO were a character in a Greek tragedy, I’d say that his tragic flaw was a propensity to think too well of people – even his political enemies – and allow them the benefit of the doubt way, way longer than he should have.

  156. 156.

    gvg

    @Aleta: Actually this happened to me except I didn’t get shot, about 20+ years ago. It turned out that the locksmith company that did the complex I was living in, only used 8 different keys and since most buildings had 8 units (A-H) keys to apartment G tended to work on all G’s etc. The guy who walked into my apartment late at night had previously had my apartment and had moved a few buildings over to a bigger unit. He was working lots of overtime for months and that night he drove to his old apartment probably on a sleep deprived habit. Anyway, I woke up in the dark to someone unlocking my front door and said “whose there?” he responded in a tiny voice “sorry” and closed the door. I never saw him. I reported it to the management the next day and it turned out he had beat me to it. they investigated, and bought their own locksmith equipment and had my door already done, and everyone else in the complex by the weekend. I still had trouble sleeping that night though. Turns out chairs under door handles mostly don’t work because door handles are higher than most chair backs. I am so glad neither of us had a gun.

    PS I really miss Obama

  158. 158.

    catclub

    @Rommie: I agree with this analysis. If Obama were APPOinted to VP after anothe VP resigned, then he could serve. The Amendment says he cannot run since elected twice, does not say cannot serve.

  159. 159.

    gvg

    @Adam L Silverman: Adam, several other people have already also pointed out that he DID give speeches lie this while in office. It just wasn’t covered. Media didn’t always bother to even show his speeches. When they did, people tuned out. There was something that made him exciting for people and good TV while he was a candidate, but the minute he was sworn in, it wore off. As soon as we appointed competent officials, media quit covering other Democrats too and we couldn’t get our party’s message out. Don’t forget these important details.
    It will happen again too. I don’t know what to do about it, but I hope our experts have a plan.

  160. 160.

    catclub

    @El Caganer: after being skewered by Ahab’s harpoon, the Great White whale went ahead and destroyed the Pequod in a fit of pique ( but did not napalm Cheltenham).

  161. 161.

    Eric S.

    @TenguPhule:

    Simple Exhaustion can resemble intoxication symptoms.

    This is true. Also do not fully dismiss the job stress. I had a roommate who is a cop. He came home one night frazzled. Woke me up because he “needed a drink.” After staring at our drinks for a while he told me about a routine stop gone sideways. Tl;dr, three women in car jumped him and went for his gun. All 3 were arrested, no one died, but he was pushed into expressway traffic.

    For the record, I do not discount police violence. It is real and it is BFD. What happened in Dallas sounds inexcusable. Is inexcusable! I’m just saying don’t discount the reality of the job.

  162. 162.

    TenguPhule

    Tesla shares crashed 8% on Friday as two of its senior executives quit, just hours after the electric carmaker’s chief executive Elon Musk sparked concern by smoking marijuana on a live web show.

    Elon Musk may be the second or third dumbest person on the face of the Earth.

  164. 164.

    Aleta

    @Ella in New Mexico: Exactly. Had a young guy come in the front door around 2 am, walk through the LR w/o seeing me and the dog on the couch off to his side, walk through the kitchen and stand at the back door trying over and over to turn the knob. Told him he was in the wrong house, he agreed and went back as he came. He travelled in circles for awhile on my (short narrow) driveway, then returned to my front door (now locked) where he stood trying over and over to open it (thinking NOW he was home I guess).

    End of story:
    I called the police to keep him safe (emphasized he wasn’t dangerous). He was white. They put him on the ground (I was disturbed to see). (They later explained it to me as policy because he was much bigger than them.) He freaked out in terror, they took him home. He was so lucky he was white (whites don’t even understand that being drunk on the street is another piece of white privilege) and that he didn’t enter a different house.

    And what if the apartment resident had shot the police woman? Arrest jail conviction.

  165. 165.

    Roger Moore

    @TenguPhule:

    i think the biggest complaint is that President Obama did the right things, followed the rules and was punished for it by Republicans who were consistently rewarded for their bad behavior.

    I think the real complaint is that Obama didn’t respond to Republican rule breaking by breaking a bunch of rules himself in order to get what the complainer wanted. I understand this POV, but it’s wrong. You can’t get what you want by breaking the rules if part of what you want is a system based on everyone following the rules. The Democrats have to win by playing fair, because every time they try to win by breaking the rules, it further erodes the system and legitimizes Republican rule breaking.

  167. 167.

    Roger Moore

    @Eric S.:

    I fear they would think it must in higher and that 700 isn’t all that bad.

    There would be a substantial minority who thought 700 was too few. There are a lot of people who think we need to really turn the police loose and let them do whatever they think is necessary to stop crime, and those people will see failure to shoot more criminals in the line of duty (and why would the cops be shooting them if they weren’t criminals?) as a sign we’re not tough enough on crime.

  170. 170.

    TenguPhule

    @Roger Moore:

    The Democrats have to win by playing fair, because every time they try to win by breaking the rules, it further erodes the system and legitimizes Republican rule breaking.

    Its impossible to win by playing fair when the new rules are “I’m a Republican, fuck you.”

  171. 171.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @catclub: If a former POTUS who had already been elected twice & served 2 terms were to be appointed to fill a vacancy in the Vice Presidency, 5 gets you 10 that SCOTUS (upon the inevitable challenge) would rule that the confirmation vote in both houses of Congress to confirm the appointment qualifies as an election under the terms of the 22nd Amendment, & threfore void the appointment. Regardless of the political composition of the Court. That plays waaaay too fast & loose with the text.

  172. 172.

    Mnemosyne

    @Eric S.:

    To be fair, they probably do have one and I just haven’t asked. Most gay men (and lesbians) are more cognizant of the various non-marriage contractual ways there are to protect themselves than straight couples are.

    Still, a wedding would be nice when they’re ready. ??

  173. 173.

    Mnemosyne

    @TenguPhule:

    Elon Musk sounds like he’s having a psychotic break but no one is empowered to do anything to help him. This is some Howard Hughes shit.

  174. 174.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Mnemosyne:
    @TenguPhule:

    Now you two have done it. Now Bess is going to come and tell us all how Musk is totally not losing it and is going to be Emperor of Earth someday

  179. 179.

    Mnemosyne

    @TenguPhule:

    Howard Hughes never dressed in women’s clothing. I’m not sure who you’re thinking of with that.

    Howard Hughes wore empty Kleenex boxes as shoes and refused to cut his fingernails for reasons I forget other than being batshit crazy. So, y’know, totally normal.

  184. 184.

    JR

    @Elizabelle: actually, the royalists had their propaganda machines in the 18th and 19th century. Not fast enough or productive enough to match Paine, Sieyes, and especially Marat, but the cons learned their lesson by the time of the Bourbon restoration.

  185. 185.

    Ruckus

    @FlipYrWhig:
    VA for all isn’t a horrible idea, but you do need to understand how the actual VA works and what the problems currently are. As always funding is a huge issue. My understanding is that there are 50,000 openings nation wide that aren’t being filled because of lack of funding. At the LA hospital, all the non medical staff must leave at the regular end of their shift, even if patients are still waiting. My PCP retired months ago and there is no replacement.
    Congress is the main reason, but this maladministration sure as hell isn’t helping. If this was our nation’s healthcare, there would be rioting in the streets. But then most understand that Congress really isn’t about us, other than our votes.

  187. 187.

    Ohio Mom

    @catclub: Ann Landers and Dear Abby (whom I grew up reading in the daily paper) often had letters from distraught wives who had discovered their husbands wearing their lingerie.

    IIRC, both sisters recognized this as basically harmless. Nowadays, we look back and know the misgendered have always been among us.

  188. 188.

    Melusine

    @pamelabrown53:

    Uh, no. The choice was to have one child die immediately, or both die immediately. “Even Sophie Had a Choice” – NO. Just No. The closest analogy would be a parent having to choose between staying in a war zone or risking having their child stolen if they try to escape. Not much of a choice at all in either situation.

  189. 189.

    J R in WV

    @Eric S.:

    I wonder if you did a random sampling of Americans how many people they think police kill in the line of duty where that number would be?

    I fear they would think it must in higher and that 700 isn’t all that bad.

    Are you sure that 700 number is shot in the line of duty, or is the number of “innocent bystanders, driving while black, standing in my home shot down by a crazed cop” people??

    Cause I’m thinking the number of innocent people shot in cold blood, personally. Just sayin’!

  190. 190.

    AxelFoley

    @rp:

    @Adam L Silverman: I wish he’d made this speech earlier, but not during the state of the union. he would have been absolutely blasted for it and the message would have gotten lost. The fall of 2016 or 2014 was the right time IMO

    He actually did make speeches like this back then. Too many folks didn’t listen, so here we are.

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