Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

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

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

“But what about the lurkers?”

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

This blog will pay for itself.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Usually wrong but never in doubt

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

You cannot shame the shameless.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / The GOP Is Exhausting – Now Updated With A Little Hope

The GOP Is Exhausting – Now Updated With A Little Hope

by | 245 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Updated because I knew you guys would come through for me.  This lifted me, along with some great comments. I’d hope to give us all a place to vent and feel better. Hope it’s working.

h/t waratah

=============================

I lived through the Nixon years – and while I was young, I remember feeling energized by it all. Because somewhere in the back of my young mind, I saw this as how strong our country was. We defeat bad guys.

I remember during the Shrub years, feeling discouraged. Wondering how people could be so stupid to elect this idiot who was responsible for sending my brother and many, many more people to war.

But it was nothing like this. This. Is. Fucking. Exhausting. I don’t recognize the government any longer. And I can only hope that come November we are a tsunami of change and begin to wash away this stain.

I’m afraid there will always be racists, misogynists, xenophobes, homophobes and other despicable people.  But for fucks sake, we shouldn’t be paying them with our tax dollars to destroy the country.  Or to be so cowardly as to not stand up for it.

I am officially discouraged this week.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

245Comments

  1. 1.

    Nicole

    I agree with you. I’m so tired of being anxious about the future of the g-damn nation. And I’m also really scared there’s going to be ratfuckery of the November elections on a large scale.

  4. 4.

    Major Major Major Major

    In a lot of ways, the 2010 election cemented in my mind America’s status as a has-been, unwilling and unable to address its own structural deficiencies and incapable of durable correct action on the world stage. I hoped Obama and then Hillary could manage this decline gracefully. Instead we have this.

  5. 5.

    mvr

    I’m fully in agreement with the exhausting bit. But maybe not as discouraged. I think that’s part of why I’m exhausted. I have enough hope to keep trying to track what’s going on.

  6. 6.

    Marcopolo

    Preach it!

    The only thing that really works for me now is to put my head down, try to block out all the noise, and take positive steps to affect the outcome in November. Today I’ve written 100 GOtV postcards to be sent to low turnout D voters at the end of October–my Indivisible group is within spitting distance of completing our 100K goal–and then I called both my Senators & Senator Grassley’s office. Calling Grassley is a first, but I hope a lot of folks are doing it right now because he is such an @sshole.

  7. 7.

    raven

    “His penis is distinctive in a certain way, and I sometimes think that’s one of the reasons he initially didn’t tweet at me like he does so many women,” Daniels wrote. “He knew I could pick his d*** out of a lineup. He knows he has an unusual penis. It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool.”

  8. 8.

    pat

    And I’m reading FEAR, by Bob Woodward.

    And I can tell you, the people who are “protecting” us from this moron are actually facilitating the destruction.

  9. 9.

    FelonyGovt

    I’m with you. I can’t believe Trump’s fitness and sanity has been openly challenged BY MEMBERS OF HIS OWN STAFF- and that was LAST week, and this week it all seems forgotten and we’re on to other things.

  10. 10.

    gene108

    I try not to think about the big picture. It is demoralizing. I canvass for our Democratic challenger to Rep. Tom MacArthur, in NJ-3, Andy Kim and hope it makes a difference.

    I just think Republicans have taken a hammer to what used to be civic norms, with the approval of many millions of Americans, that I don’t think we’ll ever fully recover.

    Used to be people disagreed, with regards to politics, such as how much welfare benefits should someone get, what rate people should be taxed at, how much should we spend on the military, etc., but they generally agreed on the rules of engagement, i.e. each side plays by the same rules. Republicans have changed the rules of engagement. They have deliberately tilted the playing field to their advantage, with the repeal of campaign finance laws via “activist” judges on the SCOTUS, gerrymandering, and voter suppression laws masquerading as voter ID laws.

    I don’t see a path forward, because so many Americans want to keep us on the path we are going on.

  11. 11.

    geg6

    #Me too.

    Was sick with some kind of respiratory virus last week. Started to recover over the weekend but went to the alumni golf outing that raises funds for campus scholarships. I am in charge of one of the beverage carts every year. It’s usually a fun day. But this Monday, it poured and I spent the day getting soaked, literally water pouring off me by the end of it. Then yesterday, presented at a high school counselor financial aid workshop all morning. Worked the afternoon and then went to give a presentation at one of our service area high schools which is in a rural area (Cole, I’m sure, has heard of Burgettstown, Washington County) about 45 minutes from my home from 6:30 until 8:15 pm. And trying to keep myself up to date on everything happening. As I should have known, I have promptly relapsed. I just feel sick despair with lots of phlegm. I just can’t today.

  12. 12.

    satby

    Lived through the Civil Rights movement as an older child, Viet Nam era as a teen, Nixon and Watergate, Dumbya and Darth Cheney as an adult. Compared to all of them this feels worse. The others divided the country, this feels like the country has been taken prisoner.
    Republicans lead the impeachment of their own president Nixon then; these current Republicans refuse to fulfil their Constitutional duty to remove a screamingly obviously corrupt and incompetent Oval Office occupant. I want them destroyed completely.

  13. 13.

    mali muso

    Agreed. I’m trying to do my part locally (vote, donate, encourage others), but I am also following through with the required steps to open an application for permanent residency in Canada. I’ve had my credentials evaluated for equivalency and am signed up for French and English language tests in the next few months. I figure that it can’t hurt to have a plan B for the sake of my daughter’s future. Things feel so grim.

  14. 14.

    catclub

    But it was nothing like this. This. Is. Fucking. Exhausting.

    the GWBUsh misrule was ( so far) orders of magnitude worse than Trump. 1/2 million dead iraqis at a cost of $2tr, then destroying the world economy. Also Katrina mismanagement. also torture, also incompetence before 911

    But GWBush was born to the GOP aristocracy, so it was not so bad, right?
    no.

  15. 15.

    wv blondie

    I mostly lurk, so forgive my presumption for offering advice, but here goes: We can all recover from exhaustion. We can work through discouragement. But we don’t quit. Do you think the men and women of the 1930s and ’40s wanted to fight Hitler? Do you think they got tired and discouraged?

    My favorite part of LOTR (sorry, it’s my inner nerd) is when Gandalf points out to Frodo that no one wants to go through dangerous, terrifying times – but that’s their responsibility nonetheless. We didn’t have to live through the Civil War, but we are eternally grateful to Mr. Lincoln and all the other brave people who made the ultimate sacrifice, to not only keep our country whole but to advance the goals of “forming a more perfect union.” We didn’t struggle to survive through the Great Depression, and we are thankful that our grandparents and great-grandparents were tough-minded survivors.

    Now it’s our turn to step up and make our contribution to strengthening the ideals of this dream, this United States. I am beyond sad that here, in the 21st century, it’s necessary, but I am willing to do my small part, knowing there are millions and millions of others who are doing the same.

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    I hear you, and I’m exhausted as fuck from previous “most important election of our lifetimes” — each of which legitimately was that in its turn! It’s like we said in 2016, “Don’t drive off the cliff — we’ll all die!” And they drove off the fucking cliff anyway, but miraculously, we landed on a precarious outcropping just below the cliff, crumbling toward the abyss, and now we’re saying, “Don’t drive off the outcropping, or we’ll all REALLY die this time!”

  17. 17.

    The Moar You Know

    In a lot of ways, the 2010 election cemented in my mind America’s status as a has-been, unwilling and unable to address its own structural deficiencies and incapable of durable correct action on the world stage.

    @Major Major Major Major: Took a trip to Britain in 2016 to realize that we have the political infrastructure of a third world country and are rapidly devolving towards being one in every other way as well.

    Can’t leave and that’s the only truly effective action I can think of.

  18. 18.

    Kia kaha!

    The response to this ongoing insanity – watched from a safe distance – is exhilarating. The relentless refusal by journalists, the judiciary, the PEOPLE to take this nonsense lying down has been absolutely brilliant.

  19. 19.

    gene108

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I hoped Obama and then Hillary could manage this decline gracefully. Instead we have this.

    Any Republican President would have done damage to our international standing. Maybe not as ham-handidly as Trump, but every Republican candidate was going to pull us out of the Iran nuclear agreement, for example.

    In a lot of ways, the 2010 election cemented in my mind America’s status as a has-been, unwilling and unable to address its own structural deficiencies

    I think there are generations, ending with mine (Gen X), who only know America as the unquestioned leader of the world, and people have taken this as a given, and no longer understand the work that was put into being the leader and the breaks we received to get there, like having 80% of the world’s manufacturing capacity at the end of WW2, because other industrialized nation had been bombed out.

    Republicans play to this sense of entitlement by attacking any attempt at structural change as somehow unpatriotic or unAmerican, and too many people view unquestioning devotion to tough talk, as the bench mark of true patriotism.

  20. 20.

    gene108

    @FelonyGovt:

    I’m with you. I can’t believe Trump’s fitness and sanity has been openly challenged BY MEMBERS OF HIS OWN STAFF- and that was LAST week, and this week it all seems forgotten and we’re on to other things.

    WE are in Trump Time. It’s like a unit of measure, where time moves at a different speed, with regards to political news than it does in other aspects of our lives. A week in normal time is a week, but in Trump Time it’s like 3 years, because more recent events overtake it immediately.

  21. 21.

    Major Major Major Major

    @gene108: In retrospect (which as a youngish person is how I must view the 20th century), this was all inevitable when we started to abandon our postwar commitment to citizen well-being in the late 60’s (around when women and black people started wanting to participate, hmm).

    @catclub: Imagine how bad Trump would be if he’d had a 9/11 though.

  23. 23.

    Brachiator

    But it was nothing like this. This. Is. Fucking. Exhausting.

    Yep. I swear to God, I wake up some mornings and say to myself, “What? Trump is president? WTF?”

    But it is heartening to see so many people not only resisting, but fighting back. I don’t know that victory is guaranteed, but at least we can give it a hell of a fight.

  25. 25.

    Gelfling 545

    And, fron you know who
    “This is a tough hurricane, one of the wettest we’ve ever seen from the standpoint of water.”
    I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  26. 26.

    Corner Stone

    @gene108:

    Any Republican President would have done damage to our international standing. Maybe not as ham-handidly as Trump, but every Republican candidate was going to pull us out of the Iran nuclear agreement, for example.

    Completely disagree. Romney, Bush, Rubio – none of them would have shit talked NATO and pulled us out of the Iran agreement in such an egregious and capricious way. Maybe sideways walked into new talks? Sure.
    But Muslim Ban, child separation, banning trans from military – any number of just world class stunningly stupid one-offs would not have happened. The closest we could have gotten to this kind of world level shaming would have been with Cruz.

  28. 28.

    Rommie

    I’ve been down this week, because the R’s see an opportunity to stick a knife into #MeToo, getting revenge against women who had the nerve to speak up, AND get their guy onto the SC at the same time. Win-Win!, and they are going for it. I hope to FSM there are more falling shoes and/or Giant Meteor inbound.

  29. 29.

    Ohio Mom

    @Marcopolo: Thank you for all those postcardS
    And,
    @gene108: Thank you for canvassing.

    I still manage, I don’t know how, to have some optimism that eventually things will right themselves. Maybe I am deluded. My day-to-day mood is melancholic though.

    I am absolutely sick of what is happening, even bored of it. If this was a movie, I would have walked out, if it was a book, it would have been returned to the library, unfinished.

    Trump and the rest of his administration, and this Congress, are horrible. I get it. I don’t need any more examples. I am ready to move on.

  33. 33.

    The Midnight Lurker

    Need so good news? According to a Reuters online poll, Beto has a two point lead. Other polls have him down by three, but this is good news anyway. And… I have sweaty Beto photos.

  36. 36.

    Betty Cracker

    @catclub: When people say Trump is worse, they’re not excusing the horrible things W did. Both Trump and W were and are terrible, but their awfulness manifests in different ways. It’s not an apples-to-applies comparison.

    Trump is erratic and unstable in ways W wasn’t. W was the garden variety GOP evil we’ve been dealing with since Reagan, only dumber and more impulsive. He did awful things. People were ruined financially, and people died in a useless, ruinous war.

    Trump hasn’t even been president for two years, and he’s already pretty much destroyed our international alliances, is busily undermining our economy with a trade strategy that doesn’t seem tethered to economic realities and appears to be operating as a stooge for a vicious foreign autocrat. He may very well end up causing even more ruin and deaths — give him time! (Or don’t — that’s my preference.)

  37. 37.

    Doug R

    trump voters trend older and meth-adlled. I think healthy liberals can take the stress better, especially with a healthy dose of Stephanie Miller. And a healthy dose of Mueller.

  38. 38.

    dww44

    Not only am I exhausted and weary and having difficulty summoning up enthusiasm for the upcoming election, I get doubly depressed when I see the GOP ads that are running in my red state. The newest one, product of a 45 Superpac (supporting Trump), is a slick well, done positive message sort of thing that all the voters around me will be influenced by. It’s narrated by a young and cheerful, almost certainly, white female about how the country is “back, thanks to a thriving middle class, reduced regulations, and tax cuts for same (no mention of the rich)”. All the while panning over videos showing a young black guy in front of a class room, and other minorities, i.e. women and African Americans mostly.

    Its misrepresentation of the policies and actions, not to say demeanor, of the current Administration borders on being criminal. I both mute and change the channel. Doesn’t help that we’ve not got any sort of counter message being shown as frequently as this one is. It really does matter how much money one side has and the Democratic party in this state is not flush with big money contributors.

  40. 40.

    Leto

    I just received in my work email a “Birthday Message from POTUS*”; Trumpov wished the USAF a happy birthday. In no fucking universe did Trumpov write this. It’s too coherent, and uses two many two syllable words for him to have penned this. It has complete sentences, expresses complete thought. It also uses phrases like, “Military families are the unsung heroes who help sustain our fighting force, and we owe them a debt of gratitude.” He has no clue wtf any of that means. His words towards Gold Star Families (the Khan’s specifically) shows that, for all eternity. The GOPs whole hearted embrace of all things Trumpov should expose the hypocrisy/lie whenever a Rethug claims to love the military, vets, or mil families.

    Long read on WaPo: Twelve years ago, Amber Wyatt reported her rape. Few believed her. Her hometown turned against her. The authorities failed her.

    Her name was Amber Wyatt, and she was.

    On and off over the next three years, I reviewed police documents, interviewed witnesses and experts, and made several pilgrimages home to Texas to try to understand what exactly happened to Wyatt — not just on that night, but in the days and months and years that followed. Making sense of her ordeal meant tracing a web of failures, lies, abdications and predations, at the center of which was a node of power that, though anonymous and dispersed, was nonetheless tilted firmly against a young, vulnerable girl. Journalists, activists and advocates began to uncover that very same imbalance of power from Hollywood to Capitol Hill in the final year of this reporting, in an explosion of reporting and analysis we’ve come to call the #MeToo Movement. But the rot was always there — even in smaller and less remarkable places, where power takes mundane, suburban shapes.

    There were personal reasons, too, for my investigation. I wanted to understand why it had to be as bad as it was — why she wasn’t just doubted but hated, not simply mocked but exiled — and why it had always lingered on my conscience like an article of unfinished business, something I had meant to do but hadn’t. I wanted to look directly at the dark things that are revealed when episodes of brutality unfold and all pretense of civilization temporarily fades, and I wanted to understand them completely.

    Otherwise, I thought, they could at any time pull me under. And I could watch mutely while something like this happened again.

  41. 41.

    wv blondie

    @gene108:

    I think there are generations, ending with mine (Gen X), who only know America as the unquestioned leader of the world, and people have taken this as a given, and no longer understand the work that was put into being the leader and the breaks we received to get there, like having 80% of the world’s manufacturing capacity at the end of WW2, because other industrialized nation had been bombed out.

    Yes, people may consider it the status quo and not understand our own history. But that also means, if they value that status quo, they will see they have to fight for it. I look to what I saw in DC on Jan. 21, 2017 – millions of people in the streets, not just there but around the world – to remind myself there are many, many allies in this struggle for our collective soul.

  42. 42.

    gene108

    I think the reason this feels different than Bush, Jr. or Reagan is that actual institutions are under assault by Trump and Congressional Republicans and even Republicans at the state and local level.

    Trump as demanding the FBI share information on an ongoing investigation into Trump. Trump is taking the emoluments clause of the Constitution and crapping all over it, and god only knows how much self-dealing he is doing, as he hasn’t divested himself from his business.

    Congressional Republicans have jumped in to demand the FBI undermine its own investigation into Trump and Russian election interference.

    Trump wants to use the DOJ as his personal police force, and has forced the resignation or termination of several career FBI agents.

    Congressional Republicans are doing nothing to address the weaknesses in our voting system, which has been repeatedly exposed, because it benefits them.

    Plus the whole right-wing media machine is cheering this on, as if it is normal.

  43. 43.

    bemused

    Hillary predicts “wholesale firings” by trump after the election. Bruce Bartlett agrees “mass purge” with only Pence safe. I would guess there are people who would leave on their own. If true, I shudder to think of the “best” people trump would want to appoint. No one with any brain cells would want a job there.

  45. 45.

    Hoodie

    @Rommie: Maybe, but I have a feeling they’re doubling down on stupid. There are probably a metric ton of white women who have experienced what Dr. Blasey experienced, in some shape or form. A bunch of old white dudes are poised to blow it off just to do a solid for a frat bro. That could have toxic repercussions for them in November. I kind of wonder I’d DiFi and others planned it that way, kudos if they did. The real answer for the Dems is not to block Kavanaugh in particular, it’s to eventually expand the Court beyond 9 to something more like 15 or greater when they get control of the White House and Senate.

  46. 46.

    Marcopolo

    @Ohio Mom: Thank you for the thanks. The cool thing about the postcards is we (my Indivisible group) had given ourselves till Oct. 15 to finish the 100K–we did it in half that time! Now we are revving up to write additional GOtV postcards to a different set of low turnout low income voters asking them to get out and vote for the minimum wage prop on the November ballot–and linking the fight for a higher minimum wage to voting D.

    At least in MO (and I suspect most places) this election is going to be all about turnout. In the interactive polling the NYT is doing with Sienna it already looks like there might not be a surge of hispanic voters coming to the polls in November, but it also looks like traditional polling methods may miss a fair number of voters who do not normally vote in the midterms who are energized this year. I would love to see McCaskill ahead in some poll/any poll in the next few weeks but actually suspect that won’t happen since polling models are looking to people who voted in 2016 & 2014 to come up with their numbers. Just hoping, like in Florida with Gillum that we can figure out what works to turn out a bunch of folks who heretofore haven’t bothered to vote in the midterms.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    Tamara, you have completely captured how I’m feeling today. I’m so weary. I’m so tired of white dudes who think they are logical and rational but the rest of us are irrational and just want handouts and favors. I really want to leave.

  50. 50.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    With hindsight we should have seen this coming with the Creationists. The fact they were so slick at convincing the uninformed their BS was science and how their believers will stick to it even when proved wrong is was the warning signs of Trumpism.

    Now we have Holocaust Deniers, White Holocaust Believers, Flat Earthers and the list of the willfully stupid just go on.

  52. 52.

    Uncle Cosmo

    [Robert A.] Heinlein gave a rough description of Nehemiah Scudder which made his reign easy to visualize—a combination of John Calvin, Girolamo Savonarola, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, and Huey Long…..

    He had muscle as well—a re-creation [sic] of the Ku Klux Klan in everything but name. “Blood at the polls and blood in the streets, but Scudder won the election. The next election was never held.”

    .

    IIRC sometime in the 1960s or ’70s – smack in the middle of what RAH’s Future History labeled “The Crazy Years” – someone (probably a SF fan) asked him how he felt about having been so wrong in his predictions for that time. Heinlein famously shot back something on the order of What makes you think I was wrong? Arrogant, but he had a point – most of the details were wrong but his take on the overall tenor of the times was uncomfortably close.

    I worry about Scudder. Lonesome Rhodes. “Meet John Doe.” Upton Sinclair’s “wrapped in a flag & carrying a cross” statement.

    I too am concerned re rodent fornication. That’s why we have to bust our butts to win these races by as much as possible. If nothing else, force the bastards to steal on a scale no logical person could ignore.

  53. 53.

    Marcelo

    I feel exhausted too, and then I remember that this perpetual exhaustion and despair about the state of the country, the enormity of the task of undoing the damage, the horrific daily reminders of how messed up it all is…that has been happening to black people and other marginalized for decades on the DAILY. It’s my white-ass privilege that let me feel like this urgency and exhaustion is new.

    So then I suck it up and deal with it and move forward, because if those communities can deal with it for decades, I need to be as strong as they are.

  54. 54.

    catclub

    @gene108:

    is that actual institutions are under assault by Trump and Congressional Republicans

    so condoning torture by the CIA (and twisting the Justice department to ok it) is not an assault on institutions? How about firing US Attorneys and making them run political investigations? How about the politicization of Justice department hiring?
    How about Dick Cheney refusing to answer subpeonas from Congress by claiming he is his own branch of government?

    Like I said before, Bush was already born to the GOP aristocracy, so gets a pass.

  57. 57.

    frosty

    @raven: FIDO indeed! Last weekend I signed up to canvass for Jess King every Sunday until the election. No polling, solid R district, long shot … FIDO!

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    First president of my lifetime who is wholly unqualified for the job, wholly uninterested in the job, proudly ignorant, belligerent with every fibre of his being, more easily bruised than a ripe peach, hates people and hates government other than that aspect of government that can enrich him and harm his enemies. You are his enemy.

    Yeah, I’m worn out.

  62. 62.

    Marcopolo

    @TaMara (HFG): Well, when I really feel worn out I look at the campaign contributions being made in real time at ActBlue. Back in January it was going up about $1M/day, now it is $6-7M an accelerating. The overall total reads at about $2,680,000,000 since 2004. $680,000,000 of that is just since January 1 and it will crack $3 billion before the midterms–all donations by individuals, the vast majority under $50. People are fired up.

    I gotta run but here is the link for the Red to Blue page for anyone who wants to add to it–just think of your donation as throwing some coin in a wishing well :).

  63. 63.

    James E Powell

    @dww44:

    Doesn’t help that we’ve not got any sort of counter message being shown as frequently as this one is.

    I get slammed for saying it here and elsewhere, but the Democrats really could use a small set of strong, thematic messages that every breathing Democrat would repeat at every opportunity in front of camera or mike.

  64. 64.

    catclub

    @Betty Cracker:

    When people say Trump is worse, they’re not excusing the horrible things W did. …..
    People were ruined financially, and people died in a useless, ruinous war.

    They are forgetting what Bush did.

    so what has Trump done that is worse than those? I am not seeing it. made people tired of dealing with his constant need for attention?
    made them tired of dealing people who deny facts? Those don’t really compare

  65. 65.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I felt like this during Vietnam, when Nixon was in office and the war and draft just kept on, and Kent State happened, and I felt like I couldn’t do a thing about it. You just have to keep on doing what you can do. I have hopes for November.

  66. 66.

    catclub

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    force the bastards to steal on a scale no logical person could ignore.

    these are not logical people.

    the response from Adlai Stevenson springs to mind “But I need a majority”.

  71. 71.

    Brachiator

    @catclub:

    the GWBUsh misrule was ( so far) orders of magnitude worse than Trump.

    Nope.

    But GWBush was born to the GOP aristocracy, so it was not so bad, right?

    Interesting, but no. Bush was bad, largely unqualified, but Trump is unfit in every way. Bush had Cheney. Practically every Trump cabinet appointee and staffer is incompetent or evil.

  72. 72.

    ruemara

    I’m afraid there will always be racists, misogynists, xenophobes, homophobes and other despicable people.

    Welcome. This is a fact. This is also why black people don’t fuck around about voting like white people do. If we did, we’d be in a nationwide Jim Crow still. You’re never going to get rid of those people, you just have to keep them curtailed.

  73. 73.

    Mike in DC

    @catclub:
    Muslim travel ban, Charlottesville, massive deregulation, stepped up deportations and cutbacks on refugees, rescinding DACA, child separation at the border, supporting the de facto coup in KSA, supporting the war in Yemen, starting a trade war with virtually every other country, coarsening the public discourse to its lowest level ever, blatant obstruction of justice, cozying up to the worst dictators in the world and alienating longtime allies…it’s been less than 2 years! Dubya was around for 8.

  74. 74.

    schrodingers_cat

    Rs are terrible and T is the worst President bar none. Our democracy is strong, here in MA we had great candidates at the local level. Rs are not winning they are in panic. Which country in the world is perfect? None of our problems insurmountable what is needed is political will. That is not true for most countries in the world. We have an opportunity this November to stem the tide. The locals Ds I volunteer with give me great hope.

  76. 76.

    Betty Cracker

    @catclub: Sounds like you’d rather gloat about the imagined superiority of your powers of recall than actually understand what people mean. Have fun with that.

  80. 80.

    catclub

    @Mike in DC: I hate Trump too, but Bush still has the body count: 1/2 million Iraqis 4 million plus Iraqi refugees. 9/11 oopsie. Also the ruined economy. I did mention so far.

    Bush would have done this: supporting the de facto coup in KSA, cozying up to the worst dictators in the world and alienating longtime allies
    (he did that with Putin and alienating allies over Iraq war),supporting the war in Yemen, massive deregulation (umm subprime bubble, anyone?)

    trump is trying to up his body count with deportations and child separation at the border, but he has a lot of catching up to do.
    I did mention so far.
    coarsening the public discourse to its lowest level ever, oh boo hoo, ask the Iraqis which they prefer.

    @Brachiator:

    but Trump is unfit in every way.

    So? I would rather have an unfit president and no failure to stop 9/11 than have Bush plus failure. plus torture.

  81. 81.

    JMG

    Anyone old enough to remember the TV western “Maverick”? It’s on some of the oldies cable channels. James Garner as Bret Maverick says in one episode, “my Pappy used to say ‘you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, and those are pretty good odds.” Those are good odds and that’s what we’re up against. But unless polls are off y 10-15 points instead of 2-4, Trump is not popular. Neither if the Republican Party. There are seven weeks until Election Day and I’d rather have our hand than theirs right now.

  84. 84.

    Gelfling 545

    @catclub: Trunp is bad. Very, very bad and completely unfit. No matter how bad Bush was, the fact remains that he is not the one currently in office. His ability to do damage is over. Trump can ans has expressed the desire to continue to damage this country and our institutions I do not see how recognizing the disaster that is Trump is giving Bush a pass.

  86. 86.

    NotMax

    @schrodinger’s cat

    Simplistic analogy, but here goes.

    W was someone who enters your orchard and steals all your apples.

    Dolt 45 is someone who enters your orchard, steals all your apples, cuts down the trees, absconds with the timber, then salts the earth in order to foreclose on your farmhouse.

  87. 87.

    catclub

    @TaMara (HFG):

    And you don’t need to attack people here to disagree with them.

    I agree. who did I attack – which post? I did say that people are forgetting how bad Bush was. Is that an attack?

  88. 88.

    MomSense

    I need some help from the leagles regarding some canvassing issues that have come up.

    We’ve had some canvassers who have been kicked out of an HOA for violating their ban on solicitation. Are there any citations or links I can reference to respond to this complaint?

  89. 89.

    Mnemosyne

    @catclub:

    More people died in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria than died in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

    So I would say the only thing holding Trump back from a body count as high as W’s is a lack of opportunity (so far), not a lack of desire.

  91. 91.

    JPL

    @catclub: Trump administration has lost 1500 migrant children, so I would think that’s a big deal.
    Today there were two mass shootings, one in Wisconsin, and one in PA that the news media is ignoring.
    The one thing that George W. did is he defined a patriot.
    This is a patriot. link

  92. 92.

    Rob Lll

    @wv blondie:

    Thank you. I’ve often thought of that LOTR passage and reflected that all over the world people have been through far worse than what we’re living through now and surmounted it. Perspective is key.

  93. 93.

    JPL

    @JPL: I should have said he tried to define a patriot. A patriot is not a lap dog, although most lap dogs are better than Trump and George W.

  94. 94.

    Mnemosyne

    @catclub:

    Also, this:

    oh boo hoo, ask the Iraqis which they prefer.

    How about we ask the American citizens who have been beaten or murdered because of their race or ethnicity how they feel about our public discourse? Or the woman who just had to go into hiding to avoid death threats because she’s derailing Trump’s preferred Supreme Court nominee?

  95. 95.

    Ohio Mom

    @NotMax: I used to say Reagan was the termites eating away at your houses’s framework unbeknownst to you, and Bush was the wind storm that knocked your weakened house over.

    Then you understood how much damage had been done when you weren’t paying attention.

    Where to put Trump in this analogy? He must be the con artist posing as a general contractor. He convinced enough Americans to pay the full amount up front and abscounded with it. Leaving us broke and homeless.

  96. 96.

    catclub

    @Mnemosyne:

    So I would say the only thing holding Trump back from a body count as high as W’s is a lack of opportunity (so far), not a lack of desire

    I agree. I have emphasized so far.

    but the body count from GWBush is still orders of magnitude worse.
    If trump wants a high body count but does not get it, I have to rate that better than somebody who gets a huge body count through his actions.
    I would even say that that somebody is ‘worse’

  97. 97.

    WaterGirl

    From Steve Benen:

    Migrant kids:“The Trump administration is unable to account for the whereabouts of nearly 1,500 migrant children who illegally entered the United States alone this year and were placed with sponsors after leaving federal shelters, according to congressional findings released on Tuesday.”

  99. 99.

    catclub

    @Ohio Mom:

    Leaving us broke and homeless.

    It may well turn out that way, but at present the economy is pretty good. Incompetence and good luck beats bad luck and incompetence.

  100. 100.

    Marcopolo

    @MomSense:

    I need some help from the leagles regarding some canvassing issues that have come up.

    We’ve had some canvassers who have been kicked out of an HOA for violating their ban on solicitation. Are there any citations or links I can reference to respond to this complaint?

    What’s Up with That? Campaigning is free speech, not solicitation

    Sorry, Mary Ann, but according to the First Amendment and a 2002 Supreme Court decision, soliciting and campaigning are different things….

    That’s in keeping with a 2002 decision where the Supreme Court found that the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of missionaries, politicians and activists to knock on your door and offer to tell you what they believe or why you should vote for them or care about their cause.

    Hope this helps.

  101. 101.

    TS (the original)

    @catclub:

    so what has Trump done that is worse than those

    Trump has alienated every world leader except 2 and those 2 are pleased to see him carrying out their plan. The impact of this over the next few years could be more horrifying than anything for the past fifty – unless trump is stopped.
    His tax breaks have taken away any possibility of stopping the continuation of the rich getting richer & living off the labors of the poor. The increase in racism and sexism under his administration will eventually lead to the next civil war. This is as Putin wants – trump is his happy pawn.

    And given I hope he will die or be defeated at the polls – I don’t intend to extrapolate the current misery by talking about how the norms of society and democratic government have disappeared with the end of the Obama administration. You know all this – or else you have been asleep for the past 18 months.

  102. 102.

    Ohio Mom

    @Pogonip: TBF, Congress should have insisted on a complete medical physical some time ago. Just like they should have insisted on seeing Trump’s tax returns.

  103. 103.

    Mart

    Charles Pierce at Esquire advertising this blog: “So, when a boisterous con-man comes to town and sells some balloon juice about how he, alone, can bring all of it back, they vote for him because they literally are at the end of their tethers.”

  105. 105.

    Kathleen

    @Marcelo: I think about that also. I also think about how African Americans have kept up the fight for hundreds of years. That is.where I see hope.

  106. 106.

    Mnemosyne

    @catclub:

    W didn’t invade Iraq until after the 2002 midterm elections. We have not yet had a midterm election. So if you want to do an apples-to-apples comparison, Trump has done FAR more damage and killed many more people than W did in the same stretch of time (presidential election to midterm election).

  107. 107.

    Ohio Mom

    @catclub: It’s a metaphor.

    Losing our status in the world and fraying our relationships with our allies is a kind of bankruptcy, even if the economy is fine for now. Some things are harder to earn than money.

  108. 108.

    schrodingers_cat

    As an immigrant there is simply no comparison who is worse T or W. I felt like the world had ended when T was elected. It was a gut punch. Nothing compares to the raw hatred T has spewed against immigrants from the first day of his campaign.

  109. 109.

    sheila in nc

    @MomSense: Canvassing is not solicitation. At least that’s what I have been told when I have canvassed. OTOH, it doesn’t help your cause to get everybody mad at you — pick your battles.

  113. 113.

    debbie

    @JPL:

    Like the story about the Turtle and Scorpion, it’s in this country’s nature to be bullies. We used to just bully other countries; now people seem intent on bullying other people.

  119. 119.

    The Pale Scot

    @gene108:

    but they generally agreed on the rules of engagement, i.e. each side plays by the same rules

    We’re doing politics, they’re doing Spiritual Warfare! That has been bombastically nurtured by wing nut media

  120. 120.

    KSinMA

    “I saw this as how strong our country was. We defeat bad guys.”

    THIS, 1,000 TIMES, THIS.

    And thanks for the video. It gave me home, too.

    Eyes on the prize. We will defeat bad guys again.

  121. 121.

    TenguPhule

    Nuck Fazis!
    @Johngcole

    Every time I have to spend a huge chunk of money on the house my father tries to make me feel better by telling me it is a good investment and what it simply boils down to is I am tired of investing and ready for some fucking dividends.

  124. 124.

    TenguPhule

    @gene108:

    . Republicans have changed the rules of engagement. They have deliberately tilted the playing field to their advantage, with the repeal of campaign finance laws via “activist” judges on the SCOTUS, gerrymandering, and voter suppression laws masquerading as voter ID laws.

    I don’t see a path forward,

    Its paved with good intentions and cemented by the corpses of every dead-end Republican.

  126. 126.

    TenguPhule

    @catclub:

    so what has Trump done that is worse than those?

    Destroyed the Federal Government and brought us to the brink of Civil War. And he’s not done yet.

  127. 127.

    Fleeting Expletive

    Have y’all read about Pompeo’s staff memos on the proper use of commas? Egregious grammar mistakes make my eyeballs itch but this is what we pay him for? (CNN)

  128. 128.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @gene108: Those people aren’t the future, they are literally dying out. Like Trump, end of life and batshit crazy.

  132. 132.

    B.B.A.

    And I am struck by the hollowness of it all. Bushism was a dystopian hellscape of megachurches, SUVs, Walmart, Nascar, and endless war, but if someone were sufficiently white and evangelical and Southern I can see how they’d think there was something to it. Trumpism is just transparent horseshit.

  133. 133.

    Steve in the ATL

    @debbie: sadly, that post hasn’t been made yet. She recovered from the nightmare pancreatitis, but still has the original abdominal pain that they caused the pancreatitis in trying to diagnose. Some progress but not enough!

  134. 134.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Another thing to take inspiration from; win lose Beto is the future. That means no more Nice Polite Democrats. Sure they can shove that Date Rape A-hole into the SCOTUS, then when the Dems take it they can do the investigation what should have been done and impeach his behind with Thomas, tell the Right to go stuff it.

  140. 140.

    TenguPhule

    @ruemara:

    You’re never going to get rid of those people

    To be fair, we’ve never actually made a serious effort to. This could be rectified.

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    @catclub:
    All of what you say is true.
    But, and it’s a big, round, firm but, they are differently bad.
    Betty laid it out well in her comment.
    My take is that GWB was a disaster of a president, but this guy isn’t your average republican disaster, he’s a human time bomb, with all the self control of a nuclear bomb that’s been armed and is just waiting for something, anything to set it off. And no one actually knows what that might be.
    He’s far more dangerous because the only way to contain the damage, is to remove him from office, and there is no way to get there from here.

  142. 142.

    trollhattan

    Republican stratigeriizing, bringing the A-Game: Roy Moore endorses Kavanaugh.

    In an interview with the pro-Trump One American News network [who?] failed GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore urged his fellow Republicans to vote with their “conscience” and support Brett Kavanaugh‘s Supreme Court nomination.

    “I think they need to take a stand,” Moore said. “I think they need to do what their conscience dictates. They know what’s happening.”

    Why yes, yes they do.

  143. 143.

    TenguPhule

    @catclub:

    So? I would rather have an unfit president and no failure to stop 9/11 than have Bush plus failure. plus torture.

    You did remember Trump is okay with torture and wants to double down by murdering the families of any suspects, yes?

    And that nobody is monitoring whether or not the CIA and military have reinstituted the GWB torture practices.

  146. 146.

    Betty Cracker

    @catclub: If you’re going to insist on body count and financial ruin as the sole metrics for terrible presidents, I guess LBJ and Herbert Hoover surpass W as the worstest.

  148. 148.

    TenguPhule

    @Rob Lll:

    and reflected that all over the world people have been through far worse than what we’re living through now and surmounted it.

    Only the ones who survived.

  152. 152.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    Reposting from below because I didn’t get any adequate answers:

    This came up last night on a thread:

    If 15 states are going to contain 70% of the population in the next 20 years, guaranteeing empty red states a majority in the Senate and the EC, then what’s the point of any of this? I’d go on to say I should come up with an exit strategy, but where would I flee to? Everywhere practically is going to shit. I don’t want to be around in 20+ years, as much as I hate to say that, if that’s the future I have to look forward to

  154. 154.

    TenguPhule

    Woman found dead the same day she was scheduled to appear in court with alleged abuser

    Navy Chief Petty Officer Andrea L. Washington was proud.

    She received her senior enlisted rank just last week in a ceremony, Navy officials said, an important milestone of her 17-year career as a sailor. A family friend, Phantom McClendon, told First Coast News that the recognition meant a lot to her. Celebrations were planned.

    But Washington, 37, had worrying troubles at home. She filed for a protective order, on Sept. 4, against a man she was in a relationship with and who lived with her, saying he assaulted her and threatened her with a gun, court documents say. The temporary order was approved a day later.

    Washington and the man were scheduled to appear in court Monday morning for a permanent order.

    He showed up, documents show, but she did not.

    Washington was found dead late Monday evening, Lt. Cmdr. Courtney Hillson, a Navy spokeswoman, told The Washington Post on Wednesday.

  156. 156.

    TenguPhule

    I am a horse. I know horseplay. That’s not what this is.

    To Whom It May Concern,

    I am a horse. I know horseplay. This, my friend, is not horseplay.

    Ask yourself: Was someone frolicking in a beautiful, verdant field? Was a mane billowing in the breeze? Did you feel a stirring of joy in your heart for the first time in months, like a crocus bursting from the winter soil?

    Was a long tail flapping freely in the breeze? Was it unbelievably majestic? Was Misty of Chincoteague there?

    Was anyone playing polo? Was anyone PRANCING? Did anyone canter wild and free across the prairie? Did you witness Rafalca jumping around, caparisoned in ribbons, displaying athleticism? Were you filled with a commingling of wonder and delight?

    Was it the controversial Broadway show “Equus”?

    All of these would have been horseplay, or at least horse play. This other thing is not. This sounds violent and awful.

  157. 157.

    ArchTeryx

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: Empty red states sometimes send Democrats to the Senate. Quite a few of our almost-majority are already from empty red states. That makes them Blue Dogs, sometimes in the extreme – but they still vote for a D for Majority Leader, and that’s the vote that counts most of all.

    Reapportionment partially nullifies the power of the empty red states. The problem isn’t that empty red states are red. The problem is a lot of very non-empty *blue* states voted for 46 minus one.

  158. 158.

    The Pale Scot

    @Ohio Mom:

    He must be the con artist posing as a general contractor. He convinced enough Americans to pay the full amount up front and abscounded with it.

    “Tin Men” Slap some aluminum on and the place will look new!

  160. 160.

    boatboy_srq

    I’m more than casually jobhunting, and one of my prime criteria for a new employer is an international presence that could be a migration point. For example, the international law firm with offices in London, Brussels, Paris, Hamburg and Sydney, or the overseas grocer moving in on the US market whose HQ is somewhere civilized. Getting out while staying on the payroll eliminates the two most difficult parts of fleeing: the job goes with you so relocating is easier, and your employer remains a known quantity and not something you have to find all over again.

    @Major Major Major Major: His first term isn’t over yet. Give him time.

  165. 165.

    TenguPhule

    Trump tells storm survivors ‘we will never leave your side’ as he tours the Carolinas

    As if North Carolina hasn’t suffered enough.

    “God bless you. We will never forget your loss. We will never leave your side. We’re with you all the way. And to all those impacted by this terrible storm, our entire American family is with you and ready to help. And you will recover.”

    Before he left the briefing, Trump asked a North Carolina official, “How is Lake Norman doing?”

    Told that the lake was fine, Trump mused out loud: “I love that area. I can’t tell you why, but I love that area.”

  166. 166.

    Ksmiami

    @MomSense: solicitation I thought meant business of a transactional nature. Political canvassing is first amendment/non financial which is why you get religious proselytizers ignoring those signs as well.

  168. 168.

    Schlemazel

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Yes but (and do not hold me to this 100%, I did the calculations in Nov 2016 so I may not have the states exactly correct)
    N Dakota, S Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho have a total population near Michigan’s. They have .18 EC votes to Michigan’s 16. States with 3 EC will never have fewer no matter how few people live there so it will only get worse

  169. 169.

    ArchTeryx

    @Major Major Major Major: Yeah. The Senate is an anachronism and really should be disbanded, but the blowback from that would be almost beyond imagination if it were even brought up. The small-population poorer states would go absolutely bugfuck, and not just the red ones, either. New England says ‘hi’. A parliamentary structure would basically leave those states powerless, and none of them would take that loss of power lying down.

  174. 174.

    Ksmiami

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: not to pile on your worries
    but literally within 20 years, if we stay on the current course, much of the south will be uninhabitable through global warming so I imagine things will be reset. Plus the millennials will start flexing political muscle in more creative ways. Minority rule like what we have rt now is not sustainable and it either collapses or it is violently torn down.

  176. 176.

    Mike in DC

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:
    The Senate is somewhat rigged, yes, but the electoral college still generally follows the overall popular vote. The National Popular Vote Initiative, if passed by enough states and held constitutional, would effectively undo the electoral college. Not much you can do about the senate without a Constitution amendment or a new convention.

  177. 177.

    TenguPhule

    Lagoons of Pig Waste Are Overflowing After Florence. Yes, That’s as Nasty as It Sounds.

    FTFNYT.

    Because of the storm, at least 110 lagoons in the state have either released pig waste into the environment or are at imminent risk of doing so, according to data issued Wednesday by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. That tally more than tripled the Monday total, when the department’s count was 34.

    When a pig in a large-scale farm urinates or defecates, the waste falls through slatted floors into holding troughs below. Those troughs are periodically flushed into an earthen hole in the ground called a lagoon in a mixture of water, pig excrement and anaerobic bacteria. The bacteria digest the slurry and also give lagoons their bubble gum-pink coloration.

    A shitty situation all around.

  178. 178.

    Patricia Kayden

    I’ll survive Trump but many won’t. His incompetence has already left hundreds dead in Puerto Rico and hundreds of migrant children in jails and separated from their parents.

    Sessions is trying to change asylum laws to make things even worse for Brown people and Trump asked if drones could be made silent.

    Sigh!!

  180. 180.

    Corner Stone

    @Rob Lll:

    Yes, well — you know what Keynes said about the long run.

    “No one can maintain a 4 minute mile pace for the entire 26.2 miles.” ?

  181. 181.

    TenguPhule

    @Ksmiami:

    Minority rule like what we have rt now is not sustainable and it either collapses or it is violently torn down.

    What do you mean or?

  182. 182.

    Gin & Tonic

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:

    I don’t want to be around in 20+ years, as much as I hate to say that, if that’s the future I have to look forward to

    Then you’re a fucking moron.

    Soviet dissidents persisted against overwhelming odds for decades; many gave their lives in the process. Eventually the USSR fell apart. Was it because of their efforts? Not exclusively, of course. Maybe not even mostly. But they didn’t give up.

    If you’re going to give up, then do us all a favor and STFU or go away.

  184. 184.

    TenguPhule

    . As of Wednesday the North Carolina Department of Agriculture reported that an estimated 5,500 pigs had died because of Florence. Chickens and turkeys, however, weren’t so lucky. An estimated 3.4 million birds were killed. The poultry producer Sanderson Farms said in a news release that they’d lost an estimated 1.7 million broiler chickens.

  185. 185.

    Chyron HR

    @TenguPhule:

    And that nobody is monitoring whether or not the CIA and military have reinstituted the GWB torture practices.

    Oh, I’m sure Glenn Greenwald would have notified us if that as the case.

  186. 186.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @catclub: I had do some work, so unable to get back to you directly. I am very sorry for you that you do not understand how to express an opinion without treating others as if they are somehow less than you. If this were my place and not John’s (who believes everyone should have a voice, even the trolls) I would have given you a timeout. Instead, Imma just gonna ignore you and go watch Scout play in the falling leaves.

  187. 187.

    trollhattan

    Knock me over with a feather. Libertarian hero 3-D gun dude up to his eyeballs in rape of an underage girl.

    The founder of a an alt-right crowdfunding site and a 3D-gun printing company was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a child.

    Cody Wilson, 30, became a favorite in fringe circles after he started selling blueprints for 3D printed guns, and launched Hatreon, the now-defunct platform he billed as “the #1 funding platform for the Alt Right.” But Wilson also used the internet to meet an underage girl for sex, Austin, Texas police allege. Wilson is currently in Taiwan, where he skipped a return flight back to the U.S., police announced Wednesday evening.

    Wilson allegedly used a sugar daddy dating site to contact the minor, whom police only describe as being younger than 17, KVUE first reported. The girl told police that Wilson, using an alias, played up his fame, telling her he was a “big deal.”

    Later they allegedly started communicating via text message and he identified as Cody Wilson, the controversial gun mogul.

    On August 15, Wilson met her in person, according to an arrest affidavit filed in the case. Surveillance footage shows them entering an Austin hotel, where Wilson allegedly sexually assaulted her and paid her $500.

    He was charged with a second degree felony count of sexual assault in which the perpetrator “intentionally or knowingly causes the penetration of the anus or sexual organ of a child by any means.”

  190. 190.

    Schlemazel

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Nebraska 1,920,076
    Kansas 2,913,123
    Idaho 1,716,943
    Montana 1,050,493
    South Dakota 869,666
    North Dakota 755,393
    Wyoming 579,315
    TOTAL 9,805,009

    Michigan 9,962,311
    EC
    MI 16 wilderness 18
    Senators
    MI 14 wilderness 16

    Lets say bot MI and the wilderness both lose 1 million people MI loses 1 or 2 EC and the wilderness loses nothing

  194. 194.

    Schlemazel

    @Schlemazel:
    Just realized I got the EC total wrong. The wilderness is 5 short. In theory NB and KS could lose a congressman if they lost population. Of the states on that list they are the least likely to lose population

  196. 196.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @TenguPhule: Then he said to a man who had a yacht wash up into his yard and destroy his deck “well at least you got a boat out of it” No I am not kidding.

  197. 197.

    Ksmiami

    @TenguPhule: collapse under incompetence like the phillipines or Poland or violently torn down like Italy in ww2 or Romania under ceacescu or- well you know most brutal governments are violently torn Down so you have a point.

  198. 198.

    TenguPhule

    According to Josep Borrell, Trumpbrushed off the scepticism of Spanish diplomats – who pointed out that the Sahara stretched for 3,000 miles – saying: “The Sahara border can’t be bigger than our border with Mexico.”

    It just never stops.

  201. 201.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Rob Lll: He didn’t actually say what is popularly (and also by that imbecile Niall Ferguson) attributed to him.

    The popular view is he said something like “hey, eventually we’re all dead, so {{shruggie}}”. In fact, he said that people who argue that something will transpire in the long run (e.g., “in the long run,markets self-correct”) are fools b/c meanwhile massive suffering can occur, and a theory that is useless to help understand and prevent that suffering is useless, full stop.

    In short, “In the long run we’re dead, so why do we care what you fucking theory tells us?”

    Keynes was *great*

  203. 203.

    TenguPhule

    A year after Hurricane Harvey, some cleanup workers are still unpaid

    One year on from Hurricane Harvey – and as the true scale of the mess left by Hurricane Florence emerges in the Carolinas – the cleanup work in Houston still continues. And workers still digging out from the mess are fearful that they may not get paid.

    “As a community, we have stepped up. We have restored people’s homes and restored their lives,” the Houston mayor Sylvester Turner told a crowd at a barbecue marking the first anniversary of Hurricane Harvey last month. Across town at the historically black Texas Southern University, activists paint a less rosy picture of recovery.

    At a meeting convened under the title “The People’s Tribunal on Hurricane Harvey,” Claudia, a middle-aged undocumented immigrant from Colombia struggling to pay her children’s college tuitions back home, told the crowd of working for a contractor on a hurricane cleanup project for a week, only to find that the contractor had disappeared when it came time to get paid.

    Lessons not learned.

  206. 206.

    TenguPhule

    She describes Trump’s pen1s as “smaller than average” but “not freakishly small”.

    “He knows he has an unusual pen1s,” Daniels writes. “It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool…

    “I lay there, annoyed that I was getting fucked by a guy with Yeti pubes and a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart…

    “It may have been the least impressive sex I’d ever had, but clearly, he didn’t share that opinion.”

    So this was what all the fuss was about.

  208. 208.

    Aleta

    L Tribe: The FBI clearly has jurisdiction, without any referral from the WH, to investigate the death threats, the hacking, and the harassment designed to prevent the alleged victim from appearing to testify before the US Senate. That would lead to investigating the alleged arrack itself

  212. 212.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    You mischaracterize the core, which is not the emptiness but the redness. So long as there continue to exist states as quasi-sovereign entities there needs to be an accompanying equity of some sort applicable to them as parts of a union. The road to purpledom is political dynamism – and demonstrable results – from the ground up, not power imposed from the outside in.

  213. 213.

    Leto

    Just remember, “NO COLLUSION”:
    In Secret Calls, Putin Cultivated Trump’s Anger at the “Deep State”

    Yet more evidence that Vladimir Putin has continued to ply President Trump with opposition to US intelligence and the so-called “deep state” during their conversations since President Trump entered the White House. Not surprising and yet stunning passage in this excerpt from Greg Miller’s new Trump book …

    Trump’s admiration for the leader of Russia was inexplicable and never wavered after taking office. He praised the Russian leader, congratulated him, defended him, pursued meetings with him, and fought virtually any policy or punitive measure that might displease him.

    A trained intelligence operative, Putin understood the power of playing to someone’s insecurities and ego. On cue, he reciprocated with frequent praise for the president he had sought to install in the White House.

    In phone conversations with Trump, Putin would whisper conspiratorially, telling the U.S. president that it wasn’t their fault that they could not consummate the relationship that each had sought. Instead, Putin sought to reinforce Trump’s belief that he was being undermined by a secret government cabal, a bureaucratic “deep state.”

    “It’s not us. We get it,” Putin would tell Trump, according to White House aides. “It’s the subordinates fighting against our friendship.”

    Why do we think President Trump insisted on a private meeting with Putin in Helsinki, with no aides present?

  214. 214.

    raven

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: “XIN LOI or XOINE LOI: pronounced by GIs as “Sin Loy,” meaning ‘too bad,’ ‘tough shit,’ ‘sorry bout that.’ The literal translation is “excuse me.”

    “

  217. 217.

    J R in WV

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Imagine how bad Trump would will be if he’d had will be when he has a 9/11 though.!!!

    Fixed that for you, unfortunately. These things always come around again, differently, but the same, kind of…

  218. 218.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Marcopolo: she’s a champ, and we don’t deserve her. I wonder if there’s any other senator who so fricken’ outperforms. I mean, sure Senator Professor Warren is a giant, a lion, a megalodon. But she’s from Massachusetts. Senator McCaskill is from MISSOURI, and she’s still amazingly stalwart.

    I sent her some more money today (had done so months ago). I really want her to stick around in the Senate.

  219. 219.

    Dan B

    @James E Powell: I’m in total agreement that Democratic messaging is nearly nonexistent. Most liberals come from academia which rewards complex and verbose (more words put together well means higher grades…). Also the delivery and the spokesperson(s) matter. Wilmer puts out a lot of words I agree with but what registers is ‘angry old man’.

    Maybe one day we’ll get some liberal communications consultants with real influence in the Dem leadership.

  221. 221.

    Kay

    Some members of my immediate family and extended family had bad times this summer. One was an actual catastrophe but the rest were just bad things happening to them that were making them unhappy and so worrying me.

    I started saying “it’s a bad summer for us” and for some odd reason I felt better- like it wasn’t permanent- but it felt good to just stop pretending it was FINE when it really wasn’t. My daughter was making fun of this “bad summer” thing I had latched onto – “oh, will it end Labor Day? Is there an end date?” but I did find it comforting. A variation on “this too will pass” I guess.

  222. 222.

    TS (the original)

    @JPL: From your link

    She later posted on Facebook: “To all media, I will not be doing anymore interviews. No more circus for me. To clarify my post: I do not have first hand knowledge of the incident that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford mentions, and I stand by my support for Christine. That’s it. I don’t have more to say on the subject. Please don’t contact me further.”

    The lady has realised what coming forward to support Christine will do to her. This is how men treat the victims of sexual assult and their supporters.

  226. 226.

    raven

    @frosty: I’ve been going back to Mad Dogs and Shelter People and Claudia Laneer and Kathi McDonald just blow me away. I know part of it that I saw them from that 20 feet away but, damn.
    Cry Me A River Are either of them in that film?

  228. 228.

    MisterForkbeard

    @TS (the original): Yep. Trump supporting assholes are claiming that she “retracted” her claims. Nope. Just said she and the school knew it happened and that Kavanaugh was a well-known drunk, and she doesn’t want to be attacked the same way Ford is.

  229. 229.

    TS (the original)

    @Litlebritdifrnt: and then we cried

    The fool has no empathy with anyone – no wonder his kids are such a disaster, living with that for years. If the dems don’t win in November, the world is just f….ed

  230. 230.

    FlyingToaster

    @catclub:

    so what has Trump done that is worse than those?

    Long term financial damage to rival the mess caused by Reagan*.

    The trade war has just started, and even if if the D’s take both houses of Congress, we have no way of stopping it. I won’t be able to afford to replace the aging Minivan nor the even older Washer and Dryer, let alone re-roof the house or replace the HVAC systems. And we’re the so-called middle class that every damn thing relies upon.

    *Aloud, at Chez Toaster, he’s referred to as “The Butcher of Guatemala”, because he caused me to have to take a year off college in order to pay for it, and he caused HerrDoktor a fuckton of grief and money. We (long before we met each other) took serious damage from GOP policies, and we don’t fucking forget, however prosperous we get up here in the People’s Republic.

  232. 232.

    smintheus

    Republicans are desperate. Fox just had Juanita Broaddrick on to declare that she thinks Christine Ford is lying. Her evidence? Ford didn’t tell people immediately about the attack, and Broaddrick cannot imagine why anybody would do that.

    They also had some idiot former prosecutor on to dismiss the idea that the FBI should investigate. She declared that she wasn’t going to say that Ford is lying (big of her), but there just wasn’t enough information known that she would feel comfortable prosecuting the case. Asked about the merits of actually investigating further, her attitude was ‘Well all you could do is interview Ford and Kavanaugh, there is no other way of learning anything’. The other witnesses have ceased to exist apparently in Fox world.

  235. 235.

    Chetan Murthy

    @catclub:

    so what has Trump done that is worse than those?

    Hannah Arendt wrote that fascism consisted in applying to the population of the metropole (the capital of the empire) the same methods as were applied in the colonies. I think this was a really profound observation. Shitlord brought fascism to America, in a way that Preznit Cheney only dreamed if. Yeah, if Cheney’d had his own 8yr, he’d probably have gotten there. But that’s not this timeline.

    So (from a purely, parochially American standpoint) this is what’s so much worse. B/c fascist regimes end up destroying the country and the economy, and often drag their counties into destructive wars. And lots of people (Americans) die.

    Now, it’s true that from the POV of the Iraqs, they might not be able to tell the difference. But they’ll be able to tell, if as a result of our misrule and mistakes in foreign policy, Iran and KSA and who-knows-who-else in the Middle East get nukes, and some nutjobs Salafist blows up Baghdad. That’ll be worse.

    What I’m saying is: as bad as Shrubya was, at least he understood the structure of the Western Alliance, and -tried- to work with it and keep it strong. And he wasn’t -actively- trying to bring fascism to America.

    Look: you think the Iraq war was bad? Imagine if Kaiser Yeti Pubes tries to deport 11m undocumented immigrants. If he abolishes birthright citizenship retroactively from their children. You’ll have mass civil unrest. Could go to a hot war fast. And -that- will be massive casualties.

  236. 236.

    Ruckus

    @Dan B:
    My inbox is full of dem messaging. It’s out there but it doesn’t make the news much for two reasons.
    1. It isn’t conservative news. That’s who owns the bulk of the new media, that’s the direction that they are going to go.
    2. Dems don’t generally want huge shinny things, WAR, HUGE TAX CUTS, END CRIME….. We want stuff that works better for everyone, a fairer and balanced policy. And that’s somewhat boring. Well not the arrest all the conservative traitors, thieves, perverts part……

  237. 237.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ruckus: Ruckus, I know you mean what you wrote in the best possible way, and for sure we agree 100%. But … just gotta say ….

    Dude, my Bronze plan is a HUGE SHINING THING! I LOVE IT. IT IS SO SHINY!

  238. 238.

    Jimmm

    @Steve in the ATL:

    he should know what “literally” means.

    I assumed because he was talking about mine safety that he was punning on the fact that miners wear tethers (to make sure that nobody gets lost or left underground during emergencies). If you’re at the end of your tether, you’ve gone as far as you can safely go.

  239. 239.

    Matt McIrvin

    @catclub:

    so what has Trump done that is worse than those?

    He’s putting mechanisms in place for a new Holocaust. That it hasn’t gone into full-blown operation yet shouldn’t be comforting.

  240. 240.

    J R in WV

    @Marcopolo:

    Ok, contemporary confirmation of Professor Ford’s accusation. “Judge” Kavanaugh is now truly fucked, should be impeached from his “judgeship” and disbarred from the lega profession. Then he can get a job at a grocery stocking fresh vegetables.

    Hurray for Ms King for coming forward to verify Prof. Ford’s tale of preppy horror!!

    Sorry Grassley, you toad!

  241. 241.

    J R in WV

    @FlyingToaster:

    The trade war has just started, and even if if the D’s take both houses of Congress, we have no way of stopping it.

    This is wrong. Congress has given the President the ability to levy tariffs himself, but that power is vested in Congress, and they can take it away from the President in a matter of days.

    IIRC, of course. I havn’t researched it, but that’s how I recall the situation.

  242. 242.

    Matt

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    My worst-case scenario for November: the blue wave rolls in, and then the GOP develops a sudden concern about “Russian election hacking” and declares the result invalid. They promise new elections “once the polls are secured”. Who would stop them?

    It’s common to talk about “democracy is fighting for its life”; IMO it’s more likely democracy is in a “walking ghost” phase like a person who’s been exposed to way too much radiation.

  243. 243.

    wv blondie

    @zhena gogolia: No, I’m not a better person. There are times I fantasize about re-education camps for Trumpistas when this is all over, and pulling Faux’ license to broadcast, and pursuing RICO (or treason) charges against the GOP. It’s just that those dreams do nothing to get us out of this mess.

  244. 244.

    wv blondie

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: That means those 15 states will utterly dominate the House of Representatives – which won’t help with Senate confirmations, but it sure as hell will help with legislative fights. Especially since ALL spending bills have to originate in the House.

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