Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

He really is that stupid.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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

No Justins, No Peace

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

People are complicated. Love is not.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / You know the drill, we’re nine hundred sixty-one thou short of a mill

Reader Interactions

39Comments

  2. 2.

    Crashman06

    Adam, Cheryl, or any other foreign policy focused front pagers: any chance we could get some analysis on the Khashoggi situation? Apparently the Turks have tapes of the murder? Is there any chance this could actually result in us cutting off arm sales to the Saudis or is that too much to hope for?

  5. 5.

    Jeffro

    @Crashman06: the first thing out of Trumpov’s mouth when asked about it (sanctions) was “hey whoa they buy $100B plus of our weapons and other stuff* so hey whoa let’s not rush in here”

    So, SATSQ: ‘no’

    *by ‘other stuff’ I mean the way they are lining my pockets, both at the Trump DC hotel and otherwise

  8. 8.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Jeffro: He also said “it happened in Turkey and the guy’s not an American, so shruggie.”

    The chance of this affecting arms sales is about equivalent to my chance of being elected the next Pope.

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    Nice doggie.

    Alas, being foreign and not having billions of rubles to buy a crooked politician with, I am unable to donate.

  14. 14.

    Martin

    @Jeffro: I wonder how many guns the Saudis would need to buy to be able to kill and dismember someone from his family. Apparently we’re all for sale here.

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    @debbie: @Gin & Tonic: @Martin:

    Perhaps some enterprising young reporter…or Olivia Nuzzi…could follow up and ask Trumpov to explain at length what he meant about how spending big bucks on American arms means you get to beat and dismember a reporter you don’t like. That’s an interesting “plus” to buying our jet planes and stuff. Who knew?

  20. 20.

    PsiFighter37

    Donna Shalala is managing to lose a district we won by 20 points? What the fuck is wrong with her and her campaign?

    All of the last-generation Clintonites have got.to.go.

  22. 22.

    Timurid

    I just tossed some money in the kitty, as my actual vote won’t do much in one of the reddest parts of deep red Louisiana.

  23. 23.

    JoeyJoeJoe

    @PsiFighter37:

    Ignore that poll. Looking at the other numbers there, the poll has DJT with positive or almost positive approval numbers. In a district he lost by 20 points or so, that’s just a bad sample of voters. As others have pointed out, if either side actually thought that the race was close, you’d see a lot more ads and spending by the parties there.

  24. 24.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    Meanwhile in Texas a campaign worker is arrested after cops ask his party affiliation, he was delivering a letter to the courthouse about how the Dems might legally fight Texas college students being disenfranchised. Jacob Aronowitz works for Mike Siegel who is running in the Texas 10th.
    What the actual fuck…Oh the fun part is the guy he’s campaining for, Mike Siegel is a civil rights attorney

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/campaign-worker-arrested-after-iding-his-candidate-as-democrat

  26. 26.

    tobie

    @PsiFighter37: Can we bitch, moan, complain, tear our hair out and rend our garments about Donna Shalala without having to imply this is the Clinton’s fault? I really don’t think Bill or Hill told her she should run. She made this decision on her own. Vent all you like about Donna….but can we please keep Hillary out of this? Thanks.

  27. 27.

    H.E.Wolf

    @PsiFighter37:
    Dr. Shalala may indeed lose her race; though there’s no sense despairing until all the votes are counted next month. Whether or not she loses, there’ll be many other races we win this year. [ETA: altered previous sentence for clarity.]

    It needn’t be a referendum on hard-working, well-qualified older women with prior political experience… unless we choose to eat up that flavor of bologna.

  28. 28.

    Martin

    GOP is considering pulling money out of CA-45. Walters won this seat by 17 in 2016, now trailing by 5. That’s kind of amazing.

  29. 29.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Martin: I’ve seen Katie Porter ads on the TV machine, they’re quite good; I’ve also seen Mimi’s, they’re not all that good.

    ETA: I’ve also seen ads by a Dem PAC against Mimi tying her to Trump, they’re also quite good.

  30. 30.

    Mainmata

    Ok, I just gave to your site a big chunk of change. Factt is, I give to a lot of Dem candidates regularly in every election. And I aways vote.

  31. 31.

    eclare

    Such a sweet baby and dog picture! Gave to Heidi earlier, and now all my money is going to Bredesen (I live in TN).

    PS, love you Tay Tay!

  36. 36.

    Mainmata

    Election Kemp: the GA SoS is totally going to steal this gubernatorial election because he can because he’s rigged it. Watch and see.

  37. 37.

    Aleta

    @PsiFighter37: How about getting rid of the Russians first?

    From an interview w/ Craig Unger. Most of it we know, but he puts it clearly and concisely. (His book is “House of Trump, House of Putin”).

    (Salon) Donald Trump has had contacts with the Russian mafia for 35 years. His properties have laundered money for them. The Russian mafia are connected to Russian intelligence. They’re living and have been working in Trump’s building. Trump has even partnered with them. … As I explain in my new book, the Russians didn’t just go after Donald Trump: They went after the entire Republican Party. There is Russian money going into the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, the NRA, and then to Republican officials and candidates directly.

    Why has the American news media been largely unable to effectively explain to the public the threat Trump embodies to the country and the world?
    There are a great many different factors. The news media is so fractured and factionalized. Therefore there is no shared national narrative. … The Trump-Russia story is also complicated but the news cycle is too fast. Plus, it is fragmented by social media. So it’s very hard for people to draw back and see the big picture. The news almost never offers the deep background into how this whole Trump-Russia scandal began.

    Putin uses the Russian mafia as a weapon. This is part of the geopolitical conflict. This is many ways goes back to the ending of the Cold War. It wasn’t really over. Most Americans do not understand that fact. Yes, the Soviet Union crumbled but Russia didn’t give up. The KGB sat there and waited. They started various companies. You have at least four billionaires with those connections who ended up partnering with Donald Trump 25 years later.

    I think one of the powerful unseen forces here is that at the end of the Soviet Union, you suddenly have trillions of dollars that have to be laundered. It opened the floodgates for the Russian mafia and for the oligarchs. A good way to launder that money is through real estate. … Trump was $4 billion in debt after his casinos failed in Atlantic City. He came back thanks to the Russians.

    When (Russians) looked at Donald Trump back in the 1980s what did they see?
    First of all, the Russians had a history of looking at influential businessmen. It appears that Russian intelligence also saw him as a presidential candidate. That surprised me. I was here in New York as a reporter in the 1980s, and I didn’t think of Trump as a presidential candidate. When Trump first visited Russia in 1987, he immediately came back and took out full page ads in the New York Times, the Boston Globe and Washington Post. These ads were very anti-NATO, anti-Western alliance, and that was exactly what the Russians want. It is so striking that Trump would do that over 30 years ago. It is almost as if Trump had been channeling those ideas and serving the KGB’s aims way back in 1988.

    After the fall of the Soviet Union, Putin takes control. How does he develop a relationship with Donald Trump?
    It did not occur in a personal way at first. Everything happens through proxies. They are enormously important. Going back to 1984 — this was when Putin was still in the KGB — Trump had started laundering money for the Russian mafia. In ‘92, the Russian mafia had people like Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov, who was one of the key figures under the mob boss Mogilevich. The FBI was looking all over for him but he was actually in Trump Tower. A lot of the Russian mobsters were going to Trump Tower as well, presumably to launder money as well. So you saw this budding relationship. Trump was completely overextended in Atlantic City. He ended up $4 billion in debt. He had no future at all until the Russians came to his aid.

    … By 2002, a company called Bayrock Group LLC  had moved into the 24th floor of Trump Tower. They began partnering with him. They made Trump an offer that he could not refuse. It was a completely different paradigm from his old business relationships. Suddenly Trump started dealing with cash and he couldn’t get bank loans except some from Deutsche Bank. He was so bankrupt that almost no Western bank could loan him a dime.

    These were ways of laundering money that Trump had. The financing of building projects that involved $400 million or $500 million to build a skyscraper. Once the building was built, they could sell the condos through the shell companies, limited liability corporations and so forth. This was done anonymously in all cash transactions with the Russian oligarchs and other people affiliated with the Russian mafia. They owned Trump before he ever met Putin. Trump became close with the oligarchs who were in turn close to Putin. Of course, there are all the allegations regarding sexual activities and Donald Trump and Russia. They too go back to the early 1980s.

    What do the Russians want from Donald Trump? …
    This is why I think you have to look at the geopolitics and the history of the entire operation. If you go back to the Cold War, Americans simply thought we won. The Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union folded. Well, it’s not that simple. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, one Eastern bloc nation after another began tilting towards the West and joining NATO. When Putin came to power, he wanted to fight back, to regain some of that ground. … With Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin found one of the few Americans who wants to destroy the Western alliance. He has been quite consistent on this point of view. But somehow he and the rest of the Republicans have taken it to heart and that is the direction they’re moving in as well.
    Is Donald Trump advancing Vladimir Putin and Russia’s interests because he is afraid? … is Donald Trump being blackmailed in some way?
    I really can’t get inside Trump’s head. All I can do is trace what Donald Trump has done and what he has said. I talked to Gen. Oleg Kalugin, who directed counterintelligence for the KGB. Kalugin had actually been Putin’s boss at one point in time. Kalugin told me he believed that Trump was sexually compromised from that first trip to Russia in 1987.

    … Where is the brave person willing to share information in the public interest about Donald Trump and the Russia scandal? …
    Well, if it’s about releasing classified materials, I think someone will ultimately face legal jeopardy for doing that kind of thing. At the same time, you’ve had people like John Brennan speaking out, Michael Hayden, James Clapper and so on …

    What do we know about Paul Manafort and the other people in Trump’s orbit who are closely connected with the Russian mafia, Vladimir Putin and the oligarchs? 
    (Manafort and Trump) first met and started working together in 1980. Manafort helped him deal with some of the issues he was having with his real estate projects, later moving into gambling in Atlantic City. … Manafort and Roger Stone were known as the obvious choice for tyrants all over the world.

    Manafort … in the Ukraine was in essence working for Putin. He helped elect Viktor Yanukovych, very much a Putin puppet, as the president of Ukraine. In many ways, I see that as a dry run for what Manafort did 10 years later in 2016 in helping elect Donald Trump as president of the United States. … If you look at how Manafort was paid, he was paid nothing by Trump. He was getting money from the Russians.

    …

    We can’t turn this around and save the country from Donald Trump and his allies unless the Democrats win Congress in the midterms.

    I won’t speculate on the contents of Mueller’s final report. But I will say that we need to have a shared national spectacle. Everyone needs to see the same thing. That’s not happening right now. … Fox News has been incredibly successful in dumbing down a large part of the American electorate. That is something we’re going to have to change.

    Is Donald Trump a “useful idiot” or is he something else?
    I believe that Donald Trump is a Russian asset. The difference between an “asset” and a Russian “agent” is whether or not he’s knowledgeable. When it comes to laundering money, for example, I give a very specific example in my book where Trump is given $6 million in cash and doesn’t ask any questions. At that moment, I can’t tell you what’s going on in Trump’s mind. But I can tell you that that kind of transaction happens at least 1,300 times with Trump properties. That is, the sale of Trump-branded properties to anonymous shell companies and all-cash transactions. … If he did this 1,300 times then one might say that’s a pattern; he knew what he was doing. It’s hard to believe that Trump didn’t really know how much he was getting from the Russians.

  38. 38.

    ruemara

    @tobie: Naaaahhh. Shitting on the Clintons is de rigueur. It’s not the fault of our dumbass electorate or anything else, it’s the fault of the Clintons and definitely HRC.

  39. 39.

    Another Scott

    Donated++

    Come on folks, time is running out to have an impact before election day. Let’s get it done!

    25 days to go!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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