Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Not all heroes wear capes.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

“woke” is the new caravan.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

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

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

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Everybody saw this coming.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Accountability, motherfuckers.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Dems Give Repub ‘Homebody’ Nightmares

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Dems Give Repub ‘Homebody’ Nightmares

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I’d say he was angling for an asylum deal, anywhere, but the Oval Office Occupant is too vain to admit he might be in trouble — even if he’s smart enough to understand this isn’t the kind of buy-his-way-out trouble he’s used to as a corrupt NYC real estate developer.

Reader Interactions

158Comments

  4. 4.

    Schlemazel

    got new meds & unless I am just fooling myself they may be working. First night in 6 months I have slept longer than 2 hours at a stretch.

    We got the first real snow of the season last night. About an inch. The place looks all clean & bright at the moment

  11. 11.

    Schlemazel

    Looking back I feel like all I talk about now is my heath, I’m sorry for that. The last year+ it has so dominated my life that I have lost perspective. Anyway, bear with me please

  12. 12.

    Elizabelle

    @Schlemazel: It’s terrible to count on something, and even take it for granted, and then it is removed or depleted.

    Good morning, jackals.

    40 seats is cause for celebration.

  13. 13.

    Raven

    @Schlemazel: Aside from the meeting Tuesday where the neuro and I met and she basically said she’s missed the stroke in the pons? I’m going to the ophthalmologist this morning and he has the MRI so it will be interesting to see what he says. Right now I have none of the risk factor that can be addressed except some bad cholesterol and I started statins and low dose aspirin.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    Argentine legal authorities took initial action Wednesday to consider a request from Human Rights Watch to prosecute Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for alleged crimes against humanity.

    The rights group’s move is apparently aimed at embarrassing the crown prince as he attends the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires this week.
    [snip]
    Argentina’s legal system allows cases to be brought against crimes against humanity allegedly committed elsewhere. But it is unlikely anything will happen soon, given the time it will take the judge to make a decision after the request for information from Yemen, Turkey and the International Criminal Court is filed by the Argentine foreign ministry. Source

  15. 15.

    Immanentize

    @Schlemazel: I don’t agree that you have talked too much about your health. Really, you add so much more here. But folks sharing a moment with us when there is an issue is somehow comforting to me. It makes you nyms out there real.

    @Raven: Good luck with the opthalmologist. I’m looking forward to hearing it’s all just a weird one off. Good luck!

  16. 16.

    Schlemazel

    @Raven:
    That sounds positive if a bit uncertain.

    Weird result I got after my heart attack, they measured the blockage of every artery in my heart, literally every one of them shows 0% blockage except the tiny ‘d2’ which was 90%. Sometimes this shit makes no sense. Maybe you have something like that going on. Hope you get better answers soon

  19. 19.

    NotMax

    News for the fruity folk.

    Reminder: Apple’s $29 iPhone battery replacement program ends December 31
    [snip]
    …There was also an issue that in theory Apple could test your battery, decide it was healthy and not issue you the discounted rate. That, too, appears to be gone: if you want a replacement battery even if it passes battery health tests, just ask and you’ll get one for that $29. Source

  33. 33.

    Betty Cracker

    Is anyone else listening to Rachel Maddow’s “Bag Man” podcast about the fall of Spiro Agnew? Fascinating stuff. I don’t remember much about Watergate, aside from being annoyed that my mom monopolized the TV to watch the hearings, so it’s mostly new to me. But evidently the Watergate scandal consumed so much oxygen that even folks who were following the news closely at the time have forgotten that Agnew’s crimes were wholly separate from Nixon’s and just as shocking in their own right.

    One impression I’ve gotten from the podcast is that Trump is Agnew’s true spiritual heir, whether the dumb bastard realizes it or not. Everything Trump is doing as he flails around to try to escape accountability — demonizing the press, playing solely to his base, accusing his own DoJ of engaging in a witch hunt against him, etc. — is straight out of the Agnew playbook. But Agnew was a smart and articulate criminal. Some folks call Trump’s omniscandals “Stupid Watergate;” it might be more accurate to call Trump “Dumb Agnew.”

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    Science FYI. Hell’s bells.

    “I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it,” National Geographic reports Colombia [sic] University seismologist Göran Ekström as saying. “It doesn’t mean that, in the end, the cause of them is that exotic.” Source

  36. 36.

    frosty

    @Betty Cracker: Us folks from Maryland know all about Agnew. Good to see the rest of you are getting a refresher. And yes, Trump’s using the same tired old playbook. Without the stupid alliteration and thesaurus this time.

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: All else aside, having Agnew as his VP should have been an impeachable offense. Most of that shit, if not known, was suspected before Nixon picked him for VP.

  39. 39.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    40!

    By comparison, the 2006 landslide netted 31 seats.

    Let’s remember, in 2006 we had 180,000 troops fighting and dying in a fraudulent war that was draining trillion of tax payer’s dollars; New Orleans had been drowned; Abu Ghraib; Terri Schiavo; bin Laden was allowed to escape; Valerie Plame scandal; the economy was stagnant, gas prices had doubled; the Abramoff corruption case; they tried to privatize loot social security; and it was 6th year of administration, when voter fatigue sets even in under the best of circumstances,

    This time, it was ALL on Drumpf. And it didn’t take 6 years for the public to revolt.

  43. 43.

    satby

    @Baud: Good morning ?!

    @Betty Cracker: old Spiro and his “nattering nabobs of negativism”. He was a crook, but compared to the Tangerine Traitor he was small time. And old news by the time Watergate blew open.

  44. 44.

    debbie

    @Betty Cracker:

    It was quite a time alright. A large part of the obsessive focus was the realization that politicians could be so sleazy on such a large scale. Now, it’s become ordinary and almost expected. :(

  45. 45.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker: A stupider Agnew. I guess.

    With his own leased jet. And going all George Wallace on us (Trump without the capacity for eventual regret and apologies).

  47. 47.

    Schlemazel

    @Pogonip:
    not insomnia, I have a condition that currently leaves me with a series of bacterial infections. It is pain & issues the infections cause I am not sleeping. Each infection is different & getting the right drug for it sometimes is luck of the draw. I could explain the whole thing but people are having breakfast & the details don’t help you with your issue. Sorry I can’t help

  49. 49.

    kd bart

    Somehow, he’ll reignite The Falklands War this weekend because there must be some profit in it.

  50. 50.

    satby

    @debbie: the Republicans made it ordinary and expected by deliberately downplaying that history while projecting the idea that the social safety net is the real theft of your tax dollars.

  53. 53.

    Divf

    @NotMax:

    Nattering nabobs of negativism

    Was actually due to William Safire, who was Agnew’s speechwriter. Safire went on to greater fame as a NYT (spit) columnist, specializing in conservative drivel and grammatical nitpicking.

  55. 55.

    Schlemazel

    @Betty Cracker:
    I remember many things about good ol Spiro. My fav was the confession of the mob bagman who said he was on his way to drop off a payment “And I started thinking to myself, HOLYCOW, I am delivering a bribe to the White House!”

  58. 58.

    Mr. Mack

    @Schlemazel: I feel ya. Fighting this stupid cancer makes me be hyper focused on my health and my needs, and I’m generally not wired that way. It’s one of the reasons I have not let many people know, because then every conversation becomes about THAT. Anyway, I chose to out myself here because over the years I have noticed that even the most vicious, loud, gnarling jackals find it in their hearts to offer support and even great ideas to those dealing with health issues.

    I’ll just update those interested by saying that halfway thru chemo and radiation had me frantically looking for a way to consume enough calories to stay alive thru the rest of it. It will be mostly (and eventually totally) liquid diet. Luckily, I found something called Boost Breeze. It “tastes” like a juice box but packs 250 a serving. I drink like 8 of them a day. Everything else on the planet tastes like paste, and painful paste at that. Ok enough about my troubles.

    Politically, what keeps me up at night is that I am worried our stupid response to the caravan (kind hate that descriptor) of asylum seekers is that actions like that are how people become ripe for radicalization. Others will exploit that. Is it possible that Northern Mexico and Southern US becomes something akin to the Gaza strip? Is this the new normal? Anyone want to talk me down?

  59. 59.

    NotMax

    @satby

    When “Nixon’s the one” was trundled out as the campaign slogan for the ’68 election, the immediate rejoinder from the left was “Yeah, and Agnew’s another one.”

    A couple of other less well remembered phrases jammed into sticky-fingered Spiro’s mouth by William Safire:

    1) an effete corps of impudent snobs
    2) the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.

  60. 60.

    Schlemazel

    @Baud:
    The real untold story of Watergate was how Nixon’s people destroyed the candidacy of every Dem who would have beaten tricky dickless and forced the guy they wanted on the DNC.

    Somewhere around here I have a very good book written by a couple of reporters from newspapers in the UK. The combed through the details that came out & showed a string of dirty tricks used to undermine Muskie, Jackson, Humphrey. Nixon chose his opponent

  62. 62.

    kd bart

    @Betty Cracker: I remember as a kid, around that time, my family was driving thru Maryland on the way down south to visit my sister when my dad got pulled over for speeding by a Maryland trooper. He was issued a ticket and told to pay it by mail.. My dad never did pay that ticket. His rationale was that “he’ll pay for his crimes against the State of Maryland when Agnew pays for his.”

  71. 71.

    Elizabelle

    Breaking news from the FTF NYTimes:

    One hundred seventy officers searched the headquarters of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and five other sites as part of an inquiry related to the so-called Panama Papers, a trove of files that put a spotlight on global money laundering.

  72. 72.

    Schlemazel

    @debbie:
    Yeah, that didn’t come out till later & never got the attention it deserved. The guy was a traitor to the US and got 10s of thousands of people killed just so he could be POTUS. This needs to be made a big part of his library and its own monument

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    More from the Grey Lady’s story on the Frankfurt Deutsche Bank raid:

    Two employees, who were not publicly identified but whose ages were given as 50 and 46, and other “unidentified people in positions of authority” are suspected of failing to report possible money laundering for transactions worth 311 million euros, or more than $350 million.

    The money flowed to organizations in the British Virgin Islands before spring 2016, prosecutors said in an emailed statement.

    The German bank confirmed in a statement that the police were investigating several of its offices in Germany and said the investigation related to the Panama Papers, a trove of files that put a spotlight on global money laundering. “We are cooperating fully with the authorities,” Deutsche said in the statement.
    In April 2016, news organizations in cooperation with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released the Panama Papers, which revealed how some of the world’s wealthiest individuals, including more than 900 customers of Deutsche Bank, dodged taxes in their home countries by transferring money to offshore accounts.

    Prosecutors said the documents indicated “that Deutsche Bank helped customers found offshore organizations in tax havens by transferring illegally acquired money without alerting authorities to suspected money laundering.”

    Paper and electronic documents were gathered during Thursday’s raid, they said.

    I hope some of those papers say Trump or Kushner on them.

  75. 75.

    Lapassionara

    @Betty Cracker: I wish Trump was a “dumb Agnew.” I think Trump has a basic sense of self preservation and a deep sociopathy that allows him to say and do things even Agnew-level corrupt officials would not do. This makes him very dangerous. He would not hesitate to destroy the country if he needed to to protect himself.

    I remember the day Agnew resigned. He had been Nixon’s anti-impeachment insurance. With Agnew gone, the way was clear to remove Nixon. Today, it is corruption all the way down the line of succession, at least until January.

  78. 78.

    OzarkHillbilly

    New interactive death map breathes life into medieval London

    It kicked off at a urinal in Cheapside, and ended in a bloody and brutal murder. Poor aim has been responsible for many unexpected deaths, but perhaps none more so than that of Philip of Ashendon.

    One of a brutal range of fatal scuffles, revenge killings and infanticides recorded by London coroners in the early 1300s, Philip’s demise is among those to feature in a new interactive map that uses death to breathe life into medieval London.

    “Many homicides in contemporary society start out of altercations that are of a very trivial nature,” said Prof Manuel Eisner, an expert in the history of violence who compiled the map. The same, he said, is true of the past.

    On 8 December 1321 a man named William Roe visited a urinal at the top of St Vedast Foster Lane. “He cast the urine into the shoes of an unknown young man, and as the latter complained, William struck him with his fist,” records known as the “coroners’ rolls” reveal, adding that the unnamed young man’s poleaxe clattered to the pavement in the fracas.

    Philip of Ashendon then entered the fray. “[Philip] scolded William, who got angry, picked up the poleaxe and struck Philip over the forehead, inflicting a wound that penetrated to the brain.”

    ………………………………..

    The new map is based on coroners’ rolls from the time, for which copies covering nine separate years between 1300 and 1340 survive. “Neither before nor afterwards are there records that describe violent events in such detail,” said Eisner, adding that the coroners recorded unnatural deaths ranging from suicides to murders and unfortunate accidents.

    ……………………………..

    “Almost every act of homicide was committed with a weapon that likely was either designed for conflict or a weapon that could easily be used in a conflict,” said Eisner. “Very few cases were done by hands or something else that just happened to be around.”

    But Eisner said developments in technology and medicine meant it could be tricky to compare homicide rates with those of modern society. “Clearly many of the victims that we see in these records would have survived if there had been an emergency service around the corner,” he said.

    “One of the fortunate things for the middle ages was that they didn’t have any guns. Because I think they would quickly have wiped each other out.”

    Interesting stuff. Map here.

  79. 79.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    but I tell you our farmers shafted veterans are great patriots,” Trump said. “They understand that they’re doing this for the country. We’ll make it up to them. In the end they’re going to be much stronger than they are right now.”

  83. 83.

    Schlemazel

    @Lapassionara:
    I sort of remember, I think it was one of the tapes, aids claiming Ford was impeachment insurance because Congress knew he was a moron & would never allow him to be POTUS. Don’t remember if Nixon said it or just agreed

  86. 86.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Schlemazel: Thanks! I had no idea there was an assn of editorial cartoonists and that’s something I need to know.

    You do not discuss your health too much, and I’m happy to read that you’re sleeping for longer stretches, finally. Sorry to read of those who are envious because they don’t.

    I’m very relieved that your vision issue has resolved, raven, and hope it’s a one off that the opthamologist can explain as seasonal double vision or some such.

    Good morning everyone!

  89. 89.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Elizabelle:

    Two employees, who were not publicly identified but whose ages were given as 50 and 46, and other “unidentified people in positions of authority” are suspected of failing to report possible money laundering

    “We are cooperating fully with the authorities,” Deutsche said in the statement.

    Prosecutors said the documents indicated “that Deutsche Bank helped customers found offshore organizations in tax havens by transferring illegally acquired money without alerting authorities to suspected money laundering.”

    I love that, “We are cooperating fully with the authorities,” buried in the middle. “Unlike all the other times in the past when we weren’t, this time we really are cooperating fully with the authorities.”

  90. 90.

    artem1s

    @Betty Cracker:

    Dumb Agnew

    I’m perfectly fine with Dolt45=Agnew=gone first and Pence=Nixon=gone second.

    I’d say he was angling for an asylum deal, anywhere,

    Maybe he can take up residence at the compound in Paraguay that the Pentagon built for the Bushes just in case The Hague decided to prosecute their war crimes. JEB deserves to get stuck with that moron for the rest of eternity. Kavanaugh can hang out there too after he’s impeached for obstruction.

  91. 91.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Patagonia, the outdoor gear company, is passing along the $10 million it saved from tax cuts to non-profit environmental groups.
    ……………………………..
    The California company said Wednesday that the donation is in addition to 1 percent of sales it gives to environmental groups every year. The donation is being made on the heels of the recent National Climate Assessment, which Patagonia cited in its announcement.

    “Our government continues to ignore the seriousness and causes of the climate crisis. It is pure evil,” said Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia’s founder. “We need to double down on renewable energy solutions. We need an agriculture system that supports small family farms and ranches, not one that rewards chemical companies intent on destroying our planet and poisoning our food. And we need to protect our public lands and waters because they are all we have left.”

  92. 92.

    Lapassionara

    @Schlemazel: I have not heard that. Ford at least was a mostly decent guy. The war in Vietnam ended on his watch, finally, after so much death and destruction. I am so old, I remember the headlines when the French pulled out of Indo-China. Then we thought we could succeed militarily where they could not. Such hubris.

  94. 94.

    Ken

    pack in eight high-level meetings with foreign leaders

    What’s the over/under on whether he skips some of them? Or, we could start a pool – I’ll say he only attends three before disappearing into his hotel suite to sulk and tweet. (Does Argentine cable have Fox News?)

  97. 97.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Past four years hottest on record, data shows

    Global temperatures have continued to rise in the past 10 months, with 2018 expected to be the fourth warmest year on record.

    Average temperatures around the world so far this year were nearly 1C (1.8F) above pre-industrial levels. Extreme weather has affected all continents, while the melting of sea ice and glaciers and rises in sea levels continue. The past four years have been the hottest on record, and the 20 warmest have occurred in the past 22 years.

    The warming trend is unmistakeable and shows we are running out of time to tackle climate change, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which on Thursday published its provisional statement on the State of the Climate in 2018. The WMO warned that, on current trends, warming could reach 3C to 5C by the end of this century.

    “These are more than just numbers,” said Elena Manaenkova, the WMO deputy secretary general. “Every fraction of a degree of warming makes a difference to human health and access to food and fresh water, to the extinction of animals and plants, to the survival of coral reefs and marine life.”

  99. 99.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Lapassionara:

    Then we thought we could succeed militarily where they could not. Such hubris.

    Hmmmm…. And several decades later we thought the same with Afghanistan.

  100. 100.

    NotMax

    @OzarkHillbilly

    Triggered buried memory of this from, of all people, Calvin Coolidge:

    “Of course, the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence. But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well-nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it… But it calls for additional effort to avoid even the appearance of the evil of selfishness. In every worthy profession, of course, there will always be a minority who will appeal to the baser instinct. There always have been, probably always will be, some who will feel that their own temporary interest may be furthered by betraying the interest of others.”

  101. 101.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Baud: Not going to happen in our lifetimes, if ever. All opinion polls show the vast majority of actual people living in the Falklands want to remain with the UK.

  102. 102.

    Schlemazel

    @rikyrah:
    Adam Ruins Everything just did an episode on gun/NRA/2nd. Granted his style is not everyones cup of tea, I love his work dearly but he can be annoying (a fact he freely admits which makes him more loveable IMO)

    There was a segment specifically about how PoC are not protected by the 2nd, how gun control laws were targeted at black citizens, Shoot Yer Gun laws do not protect them and part of the mass incarceration of African Americans efforts. It is a show I wish everyone would watch because he has stuff in there that will piss everyone off but also would form a great foundation for an honest debate about guns. Something we have not has in the US since 1980 or so

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: Philando Castille is another black permitted gun owner shot and killed by police, tho in his case he never got the chance to “brandish” his weapon.

  111. 111.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Schlemazel: Having attempted to make peace with these people for far too long, I no longer believe an honest conversation is possible. They need to be shunned back under their rocks.

  112. 112.

    Betty Cracker

    @Gin & Tonic: Compared to the current crop of Republican idiots, most notably the POTUS, Agnew was Cicero. If he merely read a script, at least he did so competently. He was a wily sumbitch too. He enlisted people like GHW Bush into his obstruction of justice scheme and damn near succeeded in burying the whole thing and becoming POTUS.

  115. 115.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Remember the cube shaped wombat fecal matter study by Patricia Yang? It has some Ig Nobel competition:

    Shit a brick: doctors swallow Lego to allay parents’ fears

    A team of doctors who swallowed Lego and timed how long it took to pass through their bowels say the results of their research should reassure concerned parents. In a paper published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, six researchers from Australia and the UK swallowed the head of a Lego figure – roughly 10mm by 10mm – in the “noble tradition of self-experimentation”. Toy parts are the second most common foreign object that children swallow, and frequently cause anxiety among parents, but usually pass in a matter of days without pain or ill-effect.

    For the special Christmas edition of the journal, which frequently features quirky studies, the team decided to put their own bodies on the line. “[We] could not ask anything of our test subjects that we would not undertake themselves,” they wrote in their paper.

    They developed their own metrics: the Stool Hardness and Transit (Shat) score and the Found and Retrieved Time (Fart) score.

    The Fart score – how many days it took the Lego to pass through the bowels – was between 1.1 days and three days, with an average of 1.7 days.

    Using the Shat score, the researchers also found the consistency of their stools did not change. They compared Shat and Fart scores to see if looser stools caused quicker retrieval but found no correlation.

    “We see your wombat shit and raise you two SHATs and one FART.”

  116. 116.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: He’s his own best writer. He writes from the gut things that most people don’t even have in their brains.

  118. 118.

    David Evans

    @NotMax:

    Science FYI. Hell’s bells

    Ever since I read (and re-read, and re-read) Greg Bear’s The Forge of God, news items like that give me the shivers.

  123. 123.

    waratah

    @Mr. Mack: I would make a pot of beef vegetable soup then added homemade pesto but any pesto would work for my mother in law after her treatments. The pesto added a lot of flavor and was the only thing she could eat at that time. She was a home economics teacher and knew she needed to eat something healthy.
    I would probably throw in red pepper flakes now. Hope this helps.

  124. 124.

    Barb 2

    @A Ghost To Most:

    Read Troll Nation. The Trump followers are a cult. They believe. The Evangelicals are all in for trump. Either Slate or Salon has a long article now the Evangelicals have sold out – no longer being “real Christian”.

    You can’t have a rational conversation with the Trump cultists. Cognitive dissonance should have overwhelmed the cultists. Trump doesn’t lie – he tells the truth – he said so in his bible – you know that book The Art of the Deal. His true believers can quote Trump’s bible. Using Trump’s words as if it were the holy scriptures.

    Fox is the daily holy message from and about Trump.

    We probably all have family and/or friends who are under the influence of the cult. He speaks to his followers on twitter.

    Who among us could have imagined 10 years ago the rise of a Hitler/Nixon cult in America?

  127. 127.

    Jeffro

    I’m sitting here just trying to picture what would happen if President Hillary Clinton, under investigation by a Special Counsel for conspiracy against the United States in concert with a hostile foreign power to get herself elected president, threatened Republicans with declassifying investigation documents that would “hit them so hard, like they’d never been hit before” if they dared to continue investigating her.

    It’s more a question of would they draw and quarter her, then hang the pieces, or hang her, and then draw and quarter the corpse?

  128. 128.

    MomSense

    @Mr. Mack:

    Sending you a big hug. Try and be as gentle with yourself as you can.

    The treatment of the asylum seekers is disturbing because it reveals that the center of the trump cult is a hatred for the ideals of America- the ideals we keep trying to make more honest and inclusive. The trump cult is anti democratic and based in cruelty rather than equality.

  129. 129.

    Kay

    When he was a US attorney in Florida, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta gave accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein the “deal of a lifetime,” the Miami Herald reported Wednesday.
    In a sweeping review of the politically connected multimillionaire’s case, the Herald explained how Acosta made an agreement with Epstein to avoid major repercussions for the hedge fund manager, even though a federal investigation identified 36 underage victims.
    The report said Acosta forged a deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys where he pleaded to two state prostitution charges, ultimately serving only 13 months and avoiding a federal trial. The agreement, the Herald said, “essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe” and further granted immunity to “any potential co-conspirators” in the case.

    The prison time for this for a not-wealthy person in Ohio would start at 8 to 10 years and probably end closer to 20 depending on how many victims they could produce and prove, and that would just be Epstien, they would also go after the co-conspirators.

    So corrupt.

    Compare:

    In July 2017, Nassar was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to child pornography charges. On January 24, 2018, Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in a Michigan state prison after pleading guilty to seven counts of sexual assault of minors.

  130. 130.

    The Pale Scot

    From a Guardian article on banking leaving London due to Brexit

    But Frankfurt Main Finance believes that up to 10,000 jobs could move to Frankfurt by 2022.
    This month Germany moved one step close to loosening its labour laws, which have been seen as a hurdle in attracting a larger number of banking jobs.
    The changes were first proposed as part of a government coalition agreement after the German elections in March, and will make it easier to firms to sack high-earning bankers.

    I would welcome the panzers with flowers if that’s the attitude over there

  131. 131.

    Kay

    No state charges in Epstein? Unfuckingbelievable. Was that the corrupt Trumpster AG’s doing?

    If you had done this you would never again leave prison. You would die in there. Like Nassar will.

  132. 132.

    Yarrow

    @Barb 2:

    Who among us could have imagined 10 years ago the rise of a Hitler/Nixon cult in America?

    Uh, me, at least. And not 10 years ago but at least 30 years ago with the Reagan cult. Same people, same attitudes. Probably further back than that. It does not surprise me.

  133. 133.

    frosty

    @Baud: I got Nixonland from the library. I couldn’t read it – too painful. I lived thru it and couldn’t deal with it again.

  135. 135.

    The Pale Scot

    National Geographic reports Colombia [sic] University seismologist Göran Ekström as saying…

    ALIENS!!

  136. 136.

    Mr. Mack

    @waratah: Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately, spicy is out. The doc wants as bland a diet as possible, but with mega calories. She said she doesn’t care if I eat nothing but ice cream for the next month, but to consume 2-3 thousand calories a day. So, basically I’m eating hummingbird food. Or drinking it rather.

    @Momsense: Thanks! Yes I agree with that, but I’m speaking to the long term repercussions on both sides of the border. My family is from Northern Mexico.

  139. 139.

    Humdog

    @Mr. Mack: My husband has an odd condition that he cannot swallow solid food in the mornings. He’s been on protein shakes for bfast since 2003. There are several different protein sources for the different shakes. We add half a frozen banana but that may make it too thick for you. Hope you find a couple of things that work. Wishing you the best.

  142. 142.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Schlemazel: NH editor wrote really nasty stuff about Muskie’s wife. In his statement to the press about it and defending his wife, Muskie was seen with tears in his eyes. That’s all that was reported. It was a humongous deal because at the time white men simply did NOT cry in public. They were were to be reserved and super unemotional in public.

    The first time I remember seeing grown men cry in public (and it was acceptable) was seeing the univ faculty in their academic robes marching in to main quad for a memorial right after JFK’s assassination

  144. 144.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Elizabelle: Another state and local raid–this time on chancery of Galveston-Houston Archdiocese. Searching for and seizing material on clergy accused of sex abuse. Posted yesterday at Wm Lidsey’s blog bilgrimage.blogspost.com. post has link to Houston news station video. Wm states this is important because the cardinal there is head of the US bishops’ conference. Also IIRC it’s the 1st police/district atty raid on a diocexe in US searching for diocese records of crimes kept ‘in house’.

  145. 145.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Elizabelle: Deutsche Bank was one of the 3 or so ‘big banks’ I would go to to change travellers checks. (Then discovered post office often had better exchange rate. I thought maybe it was because they were slower to update the rates. That was a summer when rates changed almost daily.) It’s so bizarre to see them in the news for such crimes.

  147. 147.

    Mr. Mack

    @Humdog: That is odd. Yup I can stick a banana in the Bullit machine with some of this Ensure stuff and get it down. Need the potassium. I’m a bit of an athlete so I cramp up without it. But damn this sugar water is wreaking havoc on my system! Thanks for the well wishes.

  151. 151.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Lapassionara: Anyone else remember The Senate Republicans’ White Paper on Vietnam from1968?

    There I learned Ho Chi Min appealed to England and US to help the Vietnamese when France came back in after the war to retake its colony. This after the Vietnamese had fought against Japan. When US and England refused to block France’s retaking of its colonies, Ho turned to the only other possible help–Soviet Russia.

  154. 154.

    J R in WV

    @rikyrah:

    So now they’re stealing from the Vets, as well as welching on reup bonuses for serving troops. These monsters have no limits to their hatred and evil, none!!!

  155. 155.

    Elizabelle

    @Ladyraxterinok: Glad to hear that. RICO for the Catholic Church too, if need be.

    I say that as a lapsed Catholic who wishes Pope Francis all the best. He did not build this.

  157. 157.

    PJ

    @Ladyraxterinok: DB pled guilty to money-laundering for the Russians to the tune of $10Bn. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/31/deutsche-bank-fined-630m-over-russia-money-laundering-claims. They have been the only major bank to lend to Trump since the ’90s (Justice Kennedy’s son was Trump’s banker there for a while). Josef Ackerman, the CEO who oversaw the money-laundering, later landed a job as CEO of Bank of Cyprus (through which many Russian oligarchs also launder their money) through the auspices of Wilbur Ross, now Trump’s Sec. of Commerce. They are extremely dirty.

  158. 158.

    Procopius

    @Lapassionara: What I thought was worse, we did exactly the same things they did, and wrote about, and thought we would succeed because we could do more of those things than they did. I know there are some smart, thoughtful, well-read officers, but somehow the dolts, blockheads, and self-promoters always end up in charge. If we’re going to have an empire we just need to re-institute the draft. This strategy of impoverishing the people until they have to join the military is never going to work.

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