Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

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

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Bark louder, little dog.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

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

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Battle won, war still ongoing.

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

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

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

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Monday Morning Open Thread: Where Trump Goes, the GOP Will Follow

Monday Morning Open Thread: Where Trump Goes, the GOP Will Follow

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Speaking of mocking those who #FallShort, let’s hear it for Repubs in Disarray!…

With a brutal finality, the extent of the Republicans’ collapse in the House came into focus last week as more races slipped away from them and their losses neared 40 seats.

Yet nearly a month after the election, there has been little self-examination among Republicans about why a midterm that had seemed at least competitive became a rout.

President Trump has brushed aside questions about the loss of the chamber entirely, ridiculing losing incumbents by name, while continuing to demand Congress fund a border wall despite his party losing many of their most diverse districts. Unlike their Democratic counterparts, Republicans swiftly elevated their existing slate of leaders with little debate, signaling a continuation of their existing political strategy.

And neither Speaker Paul D. Ryan nor Representative Kevin McCarthy, the incoming minority leader, have stepped forward to confront why the party’s once-loyal base of suburban supporters abandoned it — and what can be done to win them back…

House officials indicate that they will pursue an after-action report, but it is unclear how far it will go in diagnosing why they lost the popular vote by more raw votes than any time in history.

Many of the lawmakers who lost their races or did not run again say the party has a profound structural challenge that incumbents are unwilling to fully face: Mr. Trump’s deep toxicity among moderate voters, especially women.

With most of the Republicans who lost hailing from suburban seats, those who remain represent red-hued districts where the president is still well liked.

“Now the party is Trump,” said Representative Tom Rooney of Florida, who at 48 decided to retire, “so we follow his lead.”…

Special note from the guy who lost to Sharice Davids –


Maybe the Repubs can borrow some WWG1WGAll caps from their QAnon brethren — Where we go one, we go all. Because, yes, they are Trump and Trump is them.

(Lalo Alcaraz via GoComics.com)
.

Reader Interactions

196Comments

  3. 3.

    arrieve

    I hope the Republicans continue to believe it was all about Trump and not their abominable policies, right into 2020. They. Must. Go. Every last one of them.

  7. 7.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    So Wilmer held a big conference this weekend.

    He led an “International Roundtable” on policy. The panel didn’t have one person of color. Not one. And instead of focusing on the world it centered on ….. wait for it… rural Whites.

    m. mendoza ferrer
    ‏ @mgranville1
    Nov 30

    Just wondering how in a world of 7.5 billion people @TheSandersInst “Gathering” could host an International Roundtable that did not include one person of color today.

    m. mendoza ferrer
    ‏ @mgranville1

    Bernie continues to say that all coalitions must work to understand the pain and suffering in rural (ie “white”) America – that it’s something Dems don’t understand and why Trump elected. No mention of racism. Or discrimination of any kind.

    Oye

  8. 8.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Marcus H. Johnson
    ‏Verified account @marcushjohnson

    Bernie droning on about Dems & rural white voters is dumb. His electoral thesis was that Bernie politics would win these voters back. Candidates he backed in rural districts & states consistently lost to generic Republicans. Rural is GOP. Minorities & white burbs are Dem base

    77 replies 362 retweets 1,548 likes

    Tom Watson
    ‏Verified account @tomwatson
    Dec 1

    Tom Watson Retweeted m. mendoza ferrer

    Rural America. On an all white panel. In Vermont. Trump became President because Democrats couldn’t see the pain. (Only Bernie could). Folks, this is some presidential launch.

    157 replies 193 retweets 534 likes

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    Remember the recount controversy in South Florida? Republicans (most notably Rick Scott and Trump) ginned up baseless hysteria about fraud, prompting local wingnuts and perhaps paid crisis actors (it would be irresponsible not to speculate!) to demonstrate outside the offices where recounts were ongoing. No evidence of fraud was found, but the Broward County elections office did miss deadlines, misplace ballots, etc., and the election supervisor, Brenda Snipes, resigned under a cloud shortly after the recount was wrapped up.

    This weekend, Rick Scott, current governor and future senator (puke) suspended Snipes even though she would have left office in early January anyway. He installed a long-time crony who is a Republican operative, has zero experience running elections and is not a Broward resident. Snipes then rescinded her resignation and is suing.

    Scott is a malicious prick, but I suspect this move is about more than screwing Snipes out of her pension. I think Scott and the state GOP saw an opportunity to influence the 2020 election in a heavily Democratic county to prop up Trump’s reelection campaign (assuming the orange shit-stain is on the ballot in 2020). We’re going to have to watch this one closely.

  11. 11.

    Mustang Bobby

    Hey, didn’t the GOP go through all of this self-examination and shit in 2013 with their “autopsy” and promised to reach out to women, minorities, and stop being, to quote the immortal Bobby Jindal, “the stupid party”? How’d that work out for them?

  12. 12.

    danielx

    @arrieve:

    I hope the Republicans continue to believe it was all about Trump and not their abominable policies, right into 2020.

    Why can’t it be both?

  13. 13.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Then Wilmer’s spent his time attacking…. wait for it… Republcians Democrats — saying the Blue Wave was a failure.

    Tom Watson
    ‏Verified account @tomwatson
    Dec 1

    Even as Democrats won back the House of Representatives last month, some high-profile left-wing candidates fell short, a dynamic Sanders struggled with; he opened the weekend conference by saying the party could have done better.

    I mean….wow.

    91 replies 194 retweets 673 likes

    @armandodkos

    Bernie just held a conference featuring non stop attacks on Democrats with people who refused to endorse Hillary in 2016- Sarandon, West, Turner, de Moro. Do give me a fucking break with this bullshit.

    229 replies 782 retweets 2,239 likes

    On October 22, he gave an interview with “The Hill” were he joined Drumpf in saying there would be NO Blue Wave

    “I know a lot of people talk about this blue wave and all that stuff, but I don’t believe it,” Sanders told Hill.TV’s “Rising” co-host Krystal Ball during an interview that aired on Monday.

    Sanders said he believes that the outcome from Nov. 6 will be a “very, very close” situation and predicts that only a “handful of votes” will determine whether Democrats are able to regain control of the House or Senate. (link)

    So he was on record saying there would be no Blue Wave, that Dems would fail, at best, they would only win 20 seats. Instead they win 40 seats, they won by 9 million votes, the largest vote spread in history, bigger than any of the gop waves and he has to tear that down because the only way he can promote himself is by tearing everyone else down.

    Fucking pathetic.

  17. 17.

    Immanentize

    Good morning, All!

    Ok, so we have further confirmation of what we already knew — Sanders is going to troll the Democratic party until the last vote is counted in 2020. Nothing new, but still infuriating. Sarandon? West? Might as well be Limbaugh and Hannity.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @Immanentize: Yes. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him run as an independent if he does poorly in the primary. It’s his last chance at the presidency and the grift, and he knows it.

  21. 21.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: hmmm. Running as an independent is really hard work. Ballot access and all. He doesn’t seen sufficiently well financed or hard working enough to get that done.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    @Immanentize: He can raise money here and abroad, and he has people who can get him in the ballot. Rin Paul always got on the ballot.

    I’m not saying it will definitely happen, but it wouldn’t shock me.

  23. 23.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: Sanders is deluded enough to believe that 2016 was a vicious primary. Via a NY Mag piece from last week:

    But Sanders can’t believe a 2020 race will be any more cynical or negative than the last one. In his experience, the attacks against him and his wife were so raw that he hasn’t asked his advisers for the customary “self-research” that might surface new vulnerabilities. “Look, you don’t even need [opposition research],” he tells me. “If I were a choirboy, it doesn’t matter, because they lie all the time.” But Clinton’s team never ran television ads against Sanders that attacked him personally, and even people close to him fear the amount of potential material is considerable.

    He has no clue what’s coming.

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

    “Real change doesn’t take place on Capitol Hill,” Sanders said in a statement. “It takes place in grassroots America.

    Here’s an idea, why then don’t you leave Capitol Hill where you have done little more than squat these past few decades and go make these changes you say take place elsewhere?

  27. 27.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: I see what you mean…. But isn’t raising money abroad for a political campaign still illegal? And by abroad, do you mean mostly Russia? I think they would intervene on his behalf, money or not….

  28. 28.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: Democrats. He thinks the Democrats pilloried him in the last primary. He is completely aligned with the GOP talking points.

  31. 31.

    debbie

    Sigh. How long until PETA attacks Bronks for that video? :/

    @Immanentize:

    Independent is where he should be. Period. Tie it to things like participating in debates and maybe he will agree.

  33. 33.

    FlipYrWhig

    Sanders is such a plodding mediocrity who thinks he’s hot shit. And he’s as addicted as Trump to rallies and adulation from a small corps of passionate admirers he understands as, effectively, everyone who matters.

    BTW, you know what state has a Republican governor? Ver-fuckin’-Mont.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    The Sanders Institute looks grifty:

    Dr. Jane O’Meara Sanders
    FOUNDER/FELLOW
    Jane O’Meara Sanders is the Founder of the Sanders Institute and now serves as a Fellow pursuing bold, progressive solutions to economic, environmental, racial and social justice issues.

    It’s a think tank run by Jane Sanders.

  38. 38.

    Betty Cracker

    @FlipYrWhig: True. And there’s a related point of similarity: In the NY Mag article referred to above, the Sanders team thinks he can win the Democratic primary the same way Trump won the GOP nomination:

    Sanders’s advisers admit that his path to the Democratic nomination mirrors Trump’s in 2016. Facing what’s likely to be a historically large field, he’s been told, Sanders could start with his most loyal supporters from last time and go for a tight plurality victory in Iowa’s caucuses, followed by a slightly bigger one in New Hampshire’s primary. From there, advisers hope, his numbers could grow as the field dwindles. “There’s a 25 percent base of the party that isn’t going anywhere, and I think 25 percent, in a ten-person primary, is very formidable,” says a former adviser. But everyone recognizes that the strategy is tough — “It is the only thing you can tell yourself and draw a plausible route to the nomination,” says David Axelrod, Obama’s political architect — and everything will depend on who emerges as considerable rivals and how they chip away at his base of support.

    That is my biggest worry for 2020 — that Sanders will win the nomination and lose to Trump or lose the primary ugly again so we have a repeat of the convention disruptions, unfounded cheating accusations, etc.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    Dave Driscoll
    Executive Director at The Sanders Institute
    Burlington, VermontSporting Goods
    Current
    The Sanders Institute
    Previous
    The Sanders Institute, Burton Snowboards, Nike
    Education
    Websites
    Educational Organization

    Okay so according to Wiki Jane Sanders was married to a David Driscoll prior to Bernie. But THIS David Driscoll is too young to be her ex husband so it must be her son?

  43. 43.

    Kay

    @Platonailedit:

    The “outreach position” is kind of fake. It was “steering and outreach” and it was Amy Klobuchar. They divided it and gave Bernie “outreach” and Klobuchar kept steering. Also, I think Klobuchar might be running for President too.

  50. 50.

    satby

    @debbie: he’s already pretty irrelevant, and his age is working against him now with younger voters. Insist anyone running on a Democratic ticket release five years or more of tax returns and we can bid a not fond at all farewell to the left-wing Drumpf.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @satby:

    Jane Sanders screams “progressive grifter” to me and always has. This isn’t a pass through – it isn’t “pass funding to progressive orgs for on the ground projects”- it’s an “institute”- a think tank and they have a donate button. So what are they paying for? To send Cornell West to Vermont for the weekend?

  54. 54.

    rikyrah

    @Betty Cracker:
    The road to the nomination goes through Black folk…
    And, we ain’t studding that muthaphucka.
    His Black apologists are quite tiresome
    .

    Worst thing to happen to Bernie is November 2018.
    We won without him.

  59. 59.

    MomSense

    @Betty Cracker:

    He was interviewed on MSNBC in early 2017 by one of their hosts (can’t temember which) who asked him if he knew the Russians were helping him. After avoiding the answer for awhile he finally said that of course they knew. I’d like to know if that fucker did anything about it. He knew a hostile foreign power was interfering in the election to help him. Did he call the FBI?

  63. 63.

    Baud

    @Platonailedit:

    I love how the Dem establishment simultaneously tried to give Hillary a coronation and didn’t even
    try to prevent Sanders from participating in the primary.

    Perfectly encapsulates modern politics.

  65. 65.

    Kathleen

    Who in the fuck attacked His Whininess? Harvard media study concluded his coverage was most favorable.

  67. 67.

    Baud

    @JPL: Who knows? All we can do is go through the process and hope things work out.

    Protip: Be on the lookout for faithless electors.

  71. 71.

    Platonailedit

    @Baud: The second part is a fact which made dem establishment knee-jerky. The fucker wasn’t even a dem and the establishment let him piss inside the tent… from inside.

  72. 72.

    Elizabelle

    Thinking about those “yellow vest” riots in France. NPR was telling me they were “leaderless.”

    I am not so sure. Look for Vlad and his helpers. Macron and Merkel are among his biggest opponents. More destabilization underfoot.

  73. 73.

    Jeffro

    @MomSense:

    [Sanders] was interviewed on MSNBC in early 2017 by one of their hosts (can’t temember which) who asked him if he knew the Russians were helping him. After avoiding the answer for awhile he finally said that of course they knew. I’d like to know if that fucker did anything about it. He knew a hostile foreign power was interfering in the election to help him. Did he call the FBI?

    Here’s hoping that we find out the full extent of what the Russians did to help Sanders’ campaign, as soon as possible after January 3rd, 2019.

    Speaking of which, Charles Blow is asking the question, since we’re about to ask it as a country: What Happens If…?

    Otherwise known to Dems as, “Since They” and known to Republicans as “So What“?

    I no longer think that anyone in America, including Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters, can afford to put off the consideration of the central question of this administration: What if Donald Trump or those closest to him were compromised by the Russians or colluded with them?

    There have always been those of us on the left who viewed his presidency as compromised, asterisk-worthy if not wholly illegitimate, because of the Russian interference.

    A crime had been committed by Russia and Trump cheered the crime and used the loot thereof to advance his candidacy. That is clear.

    The Russians made repeated attempts to contact people in Trump’s orbit and in some cases were able to meet with members of the team, as evidenced by the Trump Tower meeting. That is clear.

    Members of Trump’s team were extremely interested in and eager to accept any assistance that the Russians could provide. That is clear.

    And since assuming office, Trump has openly attempted to obstruct justice and damage or impede the investigation into what the Russians did and whether anyone in his orbit was part of the crime. That too is clear.

    But for the people who support and defend Trump, this has already been absorbed and absolved. They may not like it, but they are willing to overlook it. Indeed, they are so attached to Trump that his fortunes and his fate have become synonymous with theirs. There is a spiritual linkage, a baleful bond, between the man and his minions.

    But what happens if the evidence that the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, uncovers reveals a direct link between Trump and the Russians? How do Trump’s boosters respond?

    Last week, when Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the timeline and the extent of Mr. Trump’s involvement in negotiations for a Trump Tower in Moscow, the political earth shifted.

    If Trump was lying to or misleading the American people about his efforts to do business in Russia while running for president and the Russians knew — and presumably had evidence — that he wasn’t being completely honest and forthcoming, then he was compromised.

    While it is by no means clear that the Russians ever used any information that they may have had to blackmail or otherwise pressure Trump, Cohen’s plea makes clear that they had the material to do just that.

    This brings ever more clarity to Trump’s curious inclination to go soft on Russia condemnation, to take Russian President Vladimir Putin’s word over that of his own intelligence agencies, and to drag his feet in acknowledging that Russia attacked our election in 2016 and may continue to do so in the future.

    How would Americans who support Trump now respond to evidence that Team Trump put their own personal and financial interests over the national interest? Would they break from their blind support and turn away from him and turn on him? How could they justify wearing the blinders for so long and countenancing so much? What language would they use to correct their complicity?

    There is a precedent in the Nixon investigation. When the evidence of wrongdoing was clear and incontrovertible, people began to peel away, tails tucked and full of shame.

    But that was a different time, one in which media wasn’t so fractured and partisan, before the advent of social media and our current dissociable mentalities.

    Nixon had no propaganda arm. Trump has one. It’s called Fox News. There is little daylight between the network’s programming and the White House’s priorities. If Trump goes down, so too does Fox, in some measure. So the network has a vested interest in defending Trump until the bitter end, and that narrative-crafting could impede an otherwise natural and normal disaffection with Trump.

    Furthermore, Trump does not strike me as a man amenable to contrition or one interested in the health and stability of the nation.

    I expect Trump to admit nothing, even if faced with proof positive of his own misconduct. There is nothing in the record to convince me otherwise. He will call the truth a lie and vice versa.

    I also don’t think that Trump would ever voluntarily leave office as Nixon did, even if he felt impeachment was imminent. I’m not even sure that he would willingly leave if he were impeached and the Senate moved to convict, a scenario that is hard to imagine at this point.

    I don’t think any of this gets better, even as the evidence becomes clearer. I don’t believe that Trump’s supporters would reverse course in the same way that Nixon’s did. I don’t believe that the facts Mueller presents will be considered unassailable. I don’t believe Trump will go down without bringing the country down with him.

    In short, I don’t believe we are reaching the end of a nightmare, but rather we are entering one. This will not get easier, but harder.

    The country is about to enter the crucible. This test of our republic is without a true comparison. And we do not have a clear picture of how the test will resolve. But, I believe damage is certain.

    Not much point in arguing about Sanders2020 when the whole landscape of our politics, the whole direction we go as a country, is about to change in just a few short weeks.

  75. 75.

    Baud

    @Platonailedit:

    We had to apologize to the privileged left because Hillary was far and away the best candidate we had in 2016. Let’s not pretend that Dems were in a political position to say no given the attitude people had going into 2016.

    Remember how Garland wasn’t good enough for us? Those were heady days.

  76. 76.

    satby

    @Platonailedit: yeah, totally their bad to attempt more inclusion. Though after putting up with his shouty ass all those years in Congress they probably should have been able to predict what a backstabber he turned out to be.

  77. 77.

    Baud

    @Jeffro:

    Not much point in arguing about Sanders2020 when the whole landscape of our politics, the whole direction we go as a country, is about to change in just a few short weeks.

    Let’s not obsess over Sanders, but he is topical today because of his recent conference.

  80. 80.

    Immanentize

    @JPL: although not zero, Kasich’s chances of winning the Republican primary are edging toward the outerbound zero.

  84. 84.

    germy

    If Susan Sarandon and Tulsi Gabbard are basically presented as experts on your immigration panel, maybe you don't really give a fuck about immigrants.

    — David D’Ag -#GunControlNow (@jackjonesbabe) December 2, 2018

  85. 85.

    Baud

    @germy: You can’t credibly oppose Trump if you’re hobnobbing with one of his most prominent enablers.

    I hope AOC doesn’t make that mistake again.

  87. 87.

    Platonailedit

    @Baud: And those ‘heady’ days are gone given the 2018 results.

    @satby: What inclusion? White supremacy/entitlement? In the end, that’s what he was all about and still is about.

  89. 89.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jeffro: You’re optimistic to think clear evidence of wrongdoing will change the direction of the country. Maybe you’re right. But as Blow points out, there’s no reason to believe proof of malfeasance will derail Trump. I hope it does, but we have to move forward as if our votes are the only force that can dislodge the treasonous shithead, so it matters a great deal whom the Dems choose as standard-bearer for 2020. Someone who hasn’t received campaign assistance from Russia (wittingly or not) would be ideal.

  90. 90.

    Platonailedit

    Weird denials.

    Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has denied a rumour claiming he had died and been replaced by a lookalike.

    Some people thought he had been “cloned”, but “it’s [the] real me, I assure you,” Mr Buhari said on Sunday.

    Rumours that he had been replaced with a body double called “Jubril” from Sudan had been widely shared online.

    Mr Buhari, who is seeking re-election in February next year, has been beset by ill health since coming into office in 2015.

  92. 92.

    Ken

    Republicans swiftly elevated their existing slate of leaders…

    Well, those who were still in Congress.

    Actually, anyone have numbers on how many leaders weren’t re-elected? Ryan obviously.

  94. 94.

    Brachiator

    A question. Do the Republican women cited fully support Trump? Does he still grab them as much as he did when he was first elected?

    Despite losses, the GOP seems happy to be the party of white power and voter suppression while pretending that they are only about the free market and conservative values.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    The Patrician President and the Reporterette: A Screwball Story
    My faithful correspondent, Poppy Bush, scribbling and typing notes through decades of history.
    Maureen Dowd
    By Maureen Dowd

    He loved her because he knew she was on his team, which is apparently now a point of pride with the NYTimes, their private, warm relationships with certain candidates and not other candidates. I’d love Maureen Dowd too if my opponent was Bill Clinton. She may as well have been on the payroll.

  100. 100.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Brachiator:

    the GOP seems happy to be the party of white power and voter suppression while pretending that they are only about the free market and conservative values.

    But then, you repeat yourself. (re today’s GOP)

  102. 102.

    Kay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    This is gross:

    “All of the sudden, what was once fringe politics is now mainstream. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that (Texas congressman) Beto O’Rourke and all these young candidates are running on the People’s Summit and progressive movement platform, but let’s not forget who broke us through.”

    For Sanders to claim credit for O’Rourke and the rest of the interesting, groundbreaking candidates in 2018 (Gillum, Abrams) is incredibly fucking patronizing and insulting to them.

  103. 103.

    Lapassionara

    @rikyrah: Yes. South Carolina has an early primary and this is where HRC’s expectations started to die in 2008. SC has an open primary, so depending on what is going on in the Republican side, the R’s may be able to affect the outcome of the SC primary. That is worrisome, but I don’t see Sanders getting a lot of traction there.

    What I don’t get is why his age is not a bigger issue. I am close to his age and don’t think I am slowing down much, but I am realistic that in 4 years, I could be a very different person in terms of physical stamina and mental acuity.

    And in no case should he get to run as a Dem if he doesn’t release tax returns. I think 10 years is the minimum, so he has to show things he should have showed in the last election.

    And good morning, everyone.

  106. 106.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    For Sanders to claim credit for O’Rourke and the rest of the interesting, groundbreaking candidates in 2018 (Gillum, Abrams) is incredibly fucking patronizing and insulting to them.

    All of whom lost by the way. I don’t blame them for the loss, but I also don’t blame blue dogs when they lose in tough districts and states.

  107. 107.

    MomSense

    So there was complaining about open enrollment in one of AOC’s twitter feeds yesterday where she said this will be another reason people will love M4all. So I asked about Medicare supplemental and co pays. Well Medicare for all will cover everything – prescriptions, vision, dental, and no co pays so we won’t have to buy supplemental plans. I asked how we will pay for this. Let’s see what kind of answers I get.

  113. 113.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    For Sanders to claim credit for O’Rourke and the rest of the interesting, groundbreaking candidates in 2018 (Gillum, Abrams) is incredibly fucking patronizing and insulting to them.

    SSDD. In Wilmer’s world, it’s always about him. Has he ever even set foot in Texas?

  115. 115.

    Kay

    @Platonailedit:

    I decided if you can’t beat ’em you should join ’em. I want the D nominee in 2020 to kiss their ass- luxe accomodations on travel, the whole works. It’s worth every fucking penny.

    That’s my advice- kiss their ass and you’ll get better coverage. Assign an aide JUST to the NYTimes reporter, since the rest of them seem to slavishly follow the NYTimes narrative lead. Write them love notes, whatever.

  118. 118.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    Nope. And I’m not against it. I just think it has to be done well and that is not easy with such a complicated system. I want the best universal health care we can manage.

  119. 119.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Speaking of grifters:

    The far right activist Milo Yiannopoulos was more than $2m in debt during 2018, according to a collection of documents assembled by his former Australian tour promoters and seen by Guardian Australia. Creditors listed in the documents include employees of his company, a wedding venue and his former sponsors, the billionaire Mercer family.

    The documents indicate that as of April 2018, Yiannopoulos owed $1.6m to his own company, $400,000 to the Mercers, $153,215 to his former lawyers, $76,574 to former collaborator and Breitbart writer Allum Bokhari, and $20,000 to the luxury jewellery brand Cartier.

    As of 2 October, Yiannopoulos owed sums of several thousand dollars to far right writers including Ian Miles Cheong, anti-Islamic ideologue Pamela Geller and science fiction writer Theodore Beale, aka Vox Day, the documents indicate, amongst others.

    They were published on the website of an Australian far right figure and United Patriots Front member, Neil Erikson, infamous for subjecting the former senator Sam Dastyari to a torrent of racial abuse in a Sydney pub.

    Consider my freude thoroughly schadened.

  120. 120.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    My sense of O’Rourke was he was much more of an Obama policy person than a Bernie policy person.

    I thought the most interesting and really BOLD races were the AA candidates in the state races in the south. That’s pretty exciting if you follow politics- something really new. Coming up slightly short in GA is big news. It’s great that Bernie got a liberal house member – and I like her- but it’s New York City. “The Democrat” was going to win there.

  122. 122.

    Jeffro

    @Betty Cracker: @Kathleen: I’m not sure where the ‘optimistic’ take came from (I’m not) nor why I’m being advised that Sanders is dangerous and compromised (I know/have known). I’m just using my 2 cents to say that getting wound up about Sanders seems like a waste of time at this point. I detest the guy as much as anyone, but I’m not going to expend much mental energy on him.

  123. 123.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Cartier are the only people who will get paid, and only then if the debt is secured by something they can repo.

    Milo’s a crook and a grifter but anyone who lent him 400k, unsecured, is a fool.

  125. 125.

    tobie

    @Baud: don’t forget Ben Jealous’s trouncing in Maryland. Sticker shock at the cost of his Medicare 4 All plan was one of the reasons.

  127. 127.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @rikyrah: IA getting back to where it was when we moved there August 68. State went crazy when Religious Right took over GOP late 70s, early 80s.

    They took over the IA GOP as well. I remember my neighbor, who was a GOP precinct chair. He simply didn’t know how to deal with the Fundagelical fanatics who overwhelmed the party.

    I grew up in OK in 40s and 50s, where–as my brother used to say ‘You know it’s election time when the politicians start showing up at all the churches.’

  128. 128.

    A Ghost To Most

    @HinTN:

    He is pathetic and I’m seriously regretting my vote for him in the 2016 primary the Democratic Party should tell him to STFU and go away.

  129. 129.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jeffro: I must have misunderstood when you said “the whole landscape of our politics, the whole direction we go as a country, is about to change in just a few short weeks.” I took that to mean the shift in control of the House would change US politics drastically, whereas I don’t think things will change much at all because no matter what the Democrats uncover with their investigations, Republicans will stick with Trump. That means our only shot at getting Trump out of the White House is through the 2020 vote.

  130. 130.

    satby

    @Platonailedit: in the early days of the 2016 primaries, this

    White supremacy/entitlement? In the end, that’s what he was all about and still is about.

    wasn’t as obvious, it became more obvious as the primaries went on. And has become a klaxon alarm in the two years since.

  131. 131.

    Citizen Alan

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    I am so embarrassed that I ever found that man credible. That I hesitated for even one second before voting for Hillary over him in the primary (let alone the genuine agonizing I did at the time before finally reaching the right conclusion).

  133. 133.

    Lapassionara

    @MomSense: What if we lowered the age for signing onto Medicare, by steps. Fund the expansion by raising income cap for FICA taxes to 150 at first, then to higher amounts. Don’t change Medicare itself. While doing this over some period of time, still have the ACA, hopefully improved.

  134. 134.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @HinTN:

    I’m seriously regretting my vote for him in the 2016 primary.

    AHA! So you’re to blame!! ;-)

    eta wrong you’re

  136. 136.

    Kristine

    @Baud: My fear in that case is that he draws off enough votes for the R to win. He wouldn’t care. It’s all about him. With more Russian money, he would evolve into what Tr*mp hoped he’d be after the election, a very well-financed professional PITA.

  137. 137.

    Platonailedit

    @satby: Agreed. The troll (yup, I said it) hijacked stole the standard dem platform early on and then it was too late to stop it in later stages. Hence, my FU to him right now.

  138. 138.

    Kraux Pas

    I’d like to see legislation to compel states with voter ID laws to make sure they can get those IDs, and all supplemental documentation, for free and with minimal hassle.

    We need to get start moving toward free and fair elections again.

  140. 140.

    Platonailedit

    @Kay:

    I decided if you can’t beat ’em you should join ’em.

    Et tu, Kay?

    Fuck the 3rd rate 4th estate of 5th columnists. They are the public enemy no. 1.

  141. 141.

    MomSense

    @Lapassionara:

    I definitely think there are ways to do it successfully but I don’t think the supporters of Medicare for all have a clue about what is involved.

  142. 142.

    Immanentize

    @Betty Cracker:
    I agree with you generally that Trump will still be the party and the Senate will be Trump. But O think if the House is careful, they will be able to peel off some corrupt Cabinet membres. Zinke and Carson are the most likely with DeVos a possible third. And I think we will see LOTS of retirements, “spend more time with family,” I can’t afford the lawyer costs in the next short term (6 months).

    If the Dems can hold their enthusiasm at strili g Trump directly, exposing the corruption I’m his administration over the next year plus will do lots of permanent damage to the Republican machine.

  144. 144.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Jeffro: Nixon didn’t have the cohesive, disciplined white Evangelicals (80+% for T in 16) being told 24/7 that he was God’s annointed. See youtube videos of guests on Jim Bakker shows.

    They are constantly told that opposition to T is demonic, from Satan. That no prez has ever been so attacked. And quoting scripture to ‘prove’ that the ‘world’ (democrats, secularists, ‘liberal media’, etc, etc –all parf of the ‘deep state’ ) is attacking them (the ‘true followers of Christ’) just like it/they attacked Christ. So this means tbey are God’s people following God’s annointed.

    I don’t know how we deal with tbeir ‘divine, holy anger’ when T goes down.

  146. 146.

    Tim C.

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: anectodotal, but my personal friends who loved wilmer last time are moving on. I think a lot of his votes weren’t so much about him as much as Democrats who, shamefully, bought into the idea that at least some of the lies about Hillary had some truth to them. Not to mention the kinds of stuff that happened in the WV primary. Wilmer is old news IMO.

  147. 147.

    Elizabelle

    It’s interesting that the FTF NY Times op ed page has woken up to the danger of Fox News World and alternative facts. In addition to Charles Blow’s column (see jeffro’s comment 73 above), this got a lot of attention this weekend:

    NY Times: Robert Mueller Is No Match for Fox News
    The evidence from the special counsel’s investigation is already damning, but it must contend with a haze of lies, confusion and “alternative facts.”

    By Quinta Jurecic (managing editor of Lawfare)

    NY Times: Charles Blow: What Happens If …
    The possibilities ahead in the Russia investigation suggest we are not reaching the end of a nightmare, but rather entering one.

  148. 148.

    Mary G

    WaPo is reporting that Hungary has expelled George Soros’ university there:

    Despite the Soros affiliation, CEU was also, for a time, even defended by the Trump administration. President Trump’s ambassador arrived in Budapest this summer on a mission, he said, to broker an agreement and keep CEU in the country.

    But last week, after it became clear there would be no deal, Ambassador David B. Cornstein broke with previous U.S. policy on the matter. In an interview with The Washington Post, he refused to criticize Orban — whom he described as his “friend” — and pinned the blame on Soros, who he said had been insufficiently acquiescent to the government.

    Cornstein — an 80-year-old New Yorker who made his fortune in the jewelry, gambling and telemarketing businesses and is a close friend of Trump’s — compared the university’s plight to his own experience selling jewelry at department stores.

    Echoes of the bad old days.

  149. 149.

    -bd

    @Gin & Tonic: The rationale is that since benefits are capped, so should the contribution. If you are going to sell the program as a federal pension that you have contributed to throughout your working life, then you have to have it look like and continue to look like a pension program. Hence the contribution cap for FICA. I’m not saying I agree…

  150. 150.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle: Seems to me that the Times is jealous of Fox News’ influence.

    If they were concerned about the dangers posed by Fox News, they would have done better investigation into Trump.

  152. 152.

    germy

    In my on-boarding to Congress, I get to pick my insurance plan.

    As a waitress, I had to pay more than TWICE what I’d pay as a member of Congress.

    It’s frustrating that Congressmembers would deny other people affordability that they themselves enjoy. Time for #MedicareForAll

    — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) December 1, 2018

  153. 153.

    germy

    Speaking of H.W…..

    People in the "never say anything mean about the recently dead!" crowd have clearly never seen a single news story about a Black person killed by police.
    — Steven W. Thrasher (@thrasherxy) December 1, 2018

  156. 156.

    lurker dean

    good morning, all.

    holy crap, missed this the other day:

    “Has the message of anti-racism become as harmful a force in American life as racism itself?”

    Has the message of anti-racism become as harmful a force in American life as racism itself?https://t.co/fD2DELPqIr— reason (@reason) December 1, 2018

    all libertarians need to be sent to north sentinel island to preach their gospel.

  157. 157.

    gene108

    @Lapassionara:

    Problem is the Medicare for All folks are selling a dream. You pay taxes and the rest of your healthcare is 100% free.

    I know Bernie doesn’t know crap about how other countries work, but nowhere is medical care 100% free and all you do is pay taxes.

    Current Medicare isn’t free. It is just not going to fuck around with you regarding claims processing and won’t raise premiums based on usage, unlike employer plans.

    And they have no clue how to go from here to their dream of “free” healthcare.

  159. 159.

    Betty

    @satby: Hi. Yes, that’s me.Thanks for asking. Things are improving. We were able to get electricity in July and wi-fi a few weeks ago. Some on the island are still waiting for both, and some homes remain uncovered. We had three near misses with hurricanes this year, but thank goodness not anything bad. Most folks are still getting over PTSD and couldn’t have handled a big one again so soon.

  160. 160.

    Elizabelle

    @Chyron HR, and Brachiator and Ms. S Cat:

    Indeed. Barn door, meet horse …. over there.

    It does seem the FTF NY Times has improved its, um, stable of opinion writers lately. Michele Goldberg is excellent, David Leonhardt has been writing some really strong pieces. Of course, it’s still home to Bobo and all the other GOP apologists, and a crack [whore] political staff straight outta Politico.

    NY Times: David Leonhardt today: American Capitalism Isn’t Working.
    Not so long ago, corporate leaders understood they had a stake in the country’s prosperity.

    Illustrated with photo of Elizabeth Warren, who has a lot more to say than one Senator from Vermont ever will.

  162. 162.

    Brachiator

    Maureen Dowd’s recent column (Curtins for the Clintons) is an especially egregious piece of bullshit. She revisits the old standards (the Clintons are greedy and corrupt, Hillary should go away), but also honks some new howlers, suggesting that Hillary’s supposed corruption made Trump possible.

    But a couple of points really pissed me off.

    It can’t be the money at this point. Have they even spent all the Goldman gold yet? Do they want to swim in their cash like Scrooge McDuck?

    The Clintons’ tin cup is worthy of the Smithsonian. They hoovered more than $2 billion in contributions to their campaigns, foundation and philanthropies.

    Really? There is the vile implication here that the Clintons personally benefited from this activity, and that their efforts to raise money for their Foundation must be fraudulent. Bullshit.

    Meanwhile, Trump has normalized the idea that a sitting president can enrich himself and his family during his or her time in office.

    After the White House, the money-grubbing raged on, with the Clintons making over 700 speeches in a 15-year period, blithely unconcerned with any appearance of avarice or of shady special interests and foreign countries buying influence. They stockpiled a whopping $240 million.

    Here we have to jump to a Forbes article.

    Since Bill and Hillary Clinton left the White House in 2001, they have turned political fame into a personal fortune, raking in more than $240 million, according to a FORBES analysis of 15 years of their tax returns.

    Hmmm. The Clintons have not amassed a “fortune” overnight, and the sources of their wealth are transparent. And they are not owned by Putin.

    Where are Trump’s tax returns? Or Bernie’s?
    Dowd tries to throw in some liberal asswipe to support her dreary accusations.

    “What scares me the most is Hillary’s smug certainty of her own virtue as she has become greedy and how typical that is of so many chic liberals who seem unaware of their own greed,” Charlie Peters, the legendary liberal former editor of The Washington Monthly, told me. “They don’t really face the complicity of what’s happened to the world, how selfish we’ve become and the horrible damage of screwing the workers and causing this resentment that the Republicans found a way of tapping into.” He ruefully worries about the Obamas in this regard, too.

    I reject the bullshit argument that Democratic Party leaders must take a vow of poverty in order to demonstrate their political virtue.

    ETA. Sorry. No links provided. A quirk of my mobile browser which I don’t know how to fix.

  166. 166.

    rikyrah

    @gene108:

    Problem is the Medicare for All folks are selling a dream. You pay taxes and the rest of your healthcare is 100% free.

    I know Bernie doesn’t know crap about how other countries work, but nowhere is medical care 100% free and all you do is pay taxes.

    I’ll say it again..

    IF HE WAS SERIOUS….he would find a group to research the financials of Medicare for All.

    Do you know that the only overarching financial study for Medicare for All…

    WAS PRODUCED BY THE KOCH BROTHERS???

    Uh huh
    Uh huh

  169. 169.

    Ohio Mom

    @Kay: If Kasich does run as an independent, and that helps the Democratic candidate, I’ll have to revise my policy of never thinking a nice thought about him.

    But I’m flexible, I could do it.

  170. 170.

    gvg

    Not all Sanders supporters are racists. My parents still think he would have won or Biden or several others. They are white privileged I would say, but IMO, a lot of it is a defensive crouch. Liberals have lost a lot of elections in their lifetime, especially people of color and women. They knew Hillary was hated, and wanted to win so, they wanted someone else. I can’t get them to admit his socialism past would have been a problem too but they definitely think Hillary being a woman was a problem. When Gillum won the Florida primary, my dad said, well I agree with his positions more, but I wanted the other one to win because I thought she was more likely to win (the general). I have made the same calculation many times in elections. Sometimes it was probably true but you don’t get to go back in time or view multiple universes so you never really know. When Hillary ran against Obama, that was one of the knocks against her, that she was too defensive because she had already been attacked so much. Voters are affected by their life’s experience too.
    My parents have been retired nearly 20 years. I think that they have not been encountering as many new people as before, and it’s leaving them behind. Mom at least is bothered by trans people and puts down the bathroom issues. I don’t think she has met one, to see the human side and the dangerous situations they encounter. I don’t know if I can convey that. not sure how much Bernie support was older. I have noticed they are still very tied to conventional media. they watch network news every night and get the local paper and the NYT. They spend a lot of time on the computer, but still mainly get news the old way.

  171. 171.

    tobie

    @germy: I’ve seen this tweet on several blogs. I don’t get why it’s clever. Members of Congress don’t get Medicare. They get a gold-level Obamacare policy with a 72% subsidy. This is close to classic employer-provided healthcare, which is what 55% of all Americans receive. America’s complex healthcare system comes closest to the German system which has universal coverage but is based on employer-provided insurance. Yes, they have a public option and private insurance companies; yes, the latter are for profit but they’re also highly regulated. We could do the same instead of revamping the entire system and risk chaos. I’ll never understand why the left is opposed to low-hanging fruit when it comes to healthcare policy. The Bismarck system works. Moving towards it would be fairly simple.

    ETA: There are other cost drivers for healthcare I’d like to see addressed like the cost of medical school and the surfeit of specialists as opposed to GPs that result; the cost of drug testing–maybe the FDA should do it; the patenting of chemical formulas produced thanks to NIH funding. Those formulas should be in the public domain. No one owns them but Americans themselves. They were invented with public funds.

  172. 172.

    Brachiator

    @lurker dean: What a dumbass “debate.” Message of anti-racism vs what, actual racism?

    Jesus H Cripes.

    What a bunch of dopes. Future Fox News conttibutors, no doubt.

  173. 173.

    Barbara

    @tobie: It bears repeating that most people on the “Medicare for All” bandwagon don’t have Medicare and don’t know how it works — how siloed the benefits are (as an artifact of the way Blue Cross/Blue Shield organizations were structured when Medicare was established) or that drugs are totally separate, or that most Medicare beneficiaries either also have retiree subsidies of some kind or pay a separate premium for a Medicare Supplement plan. That’s in the fee for service or original benefit. Other beneficiaries can get a more seamless experience by enrolling in Medicare Advantage. Integration of benefits and maximum out of pocket expenses are the main advantages of MA plans. Yes, there is a network, but CMS actually has pretty robust network adequacy standards.

  174. 174.

    Barbara

    @tobie: You can place the responsibility for a surfeit of specialists versus primary care physicians right at Medicare’s doorstep, in the crazy way it reimburses physicians, which, basically way overpays for procedures and diagnostic tests and way underpays evaluation and management. That’s why, in some places, your PCP’s main role is deciding which specialist to refer you to.

  175. 175.

    Barbara

    @gvg: I can agree with your parents on this point: No one should have informally cleared the decks so Clinton was all but ordained as the nominee. She should have had to fight just as she did in 2008. All presidential primaries should be contested, except, possibly, where the nominee is the incumbent. At which point, I think different dynamics come into play. Sanders wanted to primary Obama in 2012.

  176. 176.

    Brachiator

    @tobie: RE: health insurance.

    Some lefties are committed to the proposition that all private business is evil, especially for profit insurance companies, and that government as a bottomless source of money for benefits is the only solution.

    And frauds like Bernie love to point to Europe as the answer, but ignore the actual solutions that they have designed to deal with health insurance. Lets throw in Japan, Australia and New Zealand, as well.

  177. 177.

    Burnspbesq

    Reminder: the Special Counsel’s memorandum re Manafort’s breach of his cooperation agreement is due to the court on Friday.

    In the meantime, Cohen’s sentencing memorandum is a good read.

    In the event of a popcorn shortage, blue corn tortilla chips are a good substitute.

  178. 178.

    J R in WV

    @Platonailedit:

    The grifter is gonna grift. The question is will the kneejerky dem establishment allow this scammer to kneecap them again by letting him into their tent or will they kick him out in 2020?

    @Baud:

    @Platonailedit: Awesome how you’ve turned this against the Dem “establishment.”. 8/10

    @Platonailedit:

    @Baud:

    Awesome that’s how you chose to read it.

    And how is Baud supposed to read something other than what you typed, ass:

    will the kneejerky dem establishment allow this scammer to kneecap them again

    For the rest of your tour of duty here pushing falsehoods on the AMerican public, I’m gonna see platitudes about desserts, specifically pie. If the context seems amusing I’ll unpack your cheap Russian propaganda for the cheap laughs you can’t help but express.

    “…Kneejerky dem establishment…” indeed, bro~!!~????

  179. 179.

    tobie

    @Barbara: I’m not looking forward to the day when I have to figure out how Medicare works. It’s incredibly complex and if you don’t have good supplemental coverage, you’re kind of screwed. I gather progressives talk about new and improved medicare that would cover everything 100% but the only way I see that working is if we nationalized the entire healthcare system a la the VA. What’s frustrating with self-proclaimed True Progressives is that they never offer more than catchy phrases–Medicare4All, Abolish ICE, Free College, a Green New Deal. Yes, slogans are important but there’s got to be some heft behind the. I’m yet to see any.

  180. 180.

    tobie

    @Barbara: Interesting…wouldn’t it be great if we could have a national discussion about the drivers of healthcare costs and how to address them? Obama tried but the opposition in 2009/2010 to the Affordable Care Act was so strong the discussion never got off the ground.

  181. 181.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Over the next year, a number of Democrats are going to be on TV running or commenting on hearings into the Trump crime cartel. Sanders will not be one of them, and that will matter when the time comes for people to start thinking about the D candidates. Is Sanders doing something to end our nightmare on TV? No. But this other person is. I want that person to have more power!

  182. 182.

    Amir Khalid

    @gvg:
    Would Sanders, as Democratic nominee, have won in the sparsely populated, mostly white, heavily Republican states that tipped the electoral-college vote Trump’s way? That doesn’t seem likely to me.

  184. 184.

    JGabriel

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Hey, didn’t the GOP go through all of this self-examination and shit in 2013 with their “autopsy” and promised to reach out to women, minorities, and stop being, to quote the immortal Bobby Jindal, “the stupid party”? How’d that work out for them?

    They kept being the stupid party.

  185. 185.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

    I’d love Maureen Dowd too if my opponent was Bill Clinton. She may as well have been on the payroll.

    Maureen Dowd IS ON the Payroll for Republicans, laundered via the FTFNYT — don’t you think?!!!?

  187. 187.

    Matt McIrvin

    @gvg: Nearly all of the white liberals I know IRL were Bernie supporters. Not all of them are thrilled with where he’s gone.

  188. 188.

    Kraux Pas

    @Matt McIrvin: I voted for him in the primary in 2016, but was kinda meh at that point. There are a lot of names being mentioned for 2020 that I have way more excitement for.

  190. 190.

    Barbara

    @Kay: I never read Maureen Dowd anymore. Of course she is jumping up and down at the opportunity to talk about “Poppy” Bush, but that just shows how increasingly irrelevant she is to the world going on around her. She used to be important. She isn’t anymore.

  191. 191.

    MisterForkbeard

    @gvg: I have some BernieBro friends who definitely aren’t racist. What they ARE is conspiracy nuts who attack and tear down Democrats because they’re convinced all Democrats are corrupt and have bought into “The race was stolen from Bernie!” theories that are completely unmoored in reality but fit their own personal prejudices. Several of them are women who just couldn’t stand Hillary for some reason.

  192. 192.

    Ruckus

    @MomSense:
    Also the people who want Medicare for All don’t seem to know how it actually works at all. They seem to think it’s totally free from cost healthcare for seniors and that extending it to all will solve all problems/issues. It isn’t and it won’t.

  193. 193.

    Ruckus

    @gene108:
    The people who want “free” healthcare must also have no idea what taxes are for. Sure there are things we pay taxes for that we don’t care about or even want, but that of course is the cost of having a working government. And the cost of not having a working government is a lot higher than the cost of having one.
    They have never learned that     nothing is free.

  194. 194.

    Ruckus

    Someone help.
    That last comment was not supposed to be in all italics, only the last 3 words. And that’s what the commands were around. And of course FYWP will not let me edit.
    So sorry about that.

  196. 196.

    sukabi

    @rikyrah: it looks like he’s laying waste to himself. He’s using that rope that’s been extended and is demonstrating “how to hang yourself”.

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