Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The revolution will be supervised.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

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

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

The words do not have to be perfect.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

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

The willow is too close to the house.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Late Night Transatlantic Open Thread: Leave Means Leave!

Late Night Transatlantic Open Thread: Leave Means Leave!

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CHEESE MEANS CHEESE!



 
Elsewhere: Count on the Oval Office Occupation Administration to have opinions, and on Ambulatory Cream Cheese Sculpture HH to say the quiet parts out loud…


(Hewitt has not yet deleted his tweet.)

Reader Interactions

84Comments

  1. 1.

    Scott Starr

    Wasn’t there a 90’s album called sailing the seas of cheese? Maybe by Primus? Never thought it would be … topical?

  2. 2.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    That Rifkind thread was great

    I thought Brexit was gonna fuck the world’s economy all over again, and I still think the shit’s gonna hit the fan blow all over the place.

  4. 4.

    dnfree

    Roger Angell Law of Probability Dispersal : Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.

  6. 6.

    Highway Rob

    I’ll admit I haven’t been lurking here of late as regularly as I normally do, so this may’ve already been shared, but just in case it hasn’t…

    Serkis as May

    Priceless. Precious, even.

  8. 8.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Platonailedit: There was an idea to build an aircraft carrier out of ice.

    ETA: And, yes it was a British idea.

    a plan by the British during the Second World War to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice)

  9. 9.

    Ruckus

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    It will for sure fuck the British economy, it won’t do the EU a lot of good but it really shouldn’t do that much harm to the rest of the world. Yes a number of goods are still made in the UK, and so are people going to just build different factories? Not the non EU world. There is a lot of world finance done in the UK but what will that do to the rest of the world? Will it continue or will it just die off?
    I’m not having a hard time to see that the UK benefitted a lot more from being part of the EU than the EU did by having the UK in it. Sure a lot of trade happened easily, but it will be difficult to convince me that will all stop.

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Christmas at the Conways’ house is gonna be…. cozy

    Mike Memoli @ mikememoli
    Comey: “All of us should use every breath we have to make sure that the lies stop on January 20, 2021”

    George Conway @ gtconway3d
    George Conway Retweeted Mike Memoli
    I am increasingly optimistic that we can do better than this.

  12. 12.

    The Dangerman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Christmas at the Conways’ house is gonna be…. cozy

    Nah; I’m pretty sure when Kelly Anne comes home and they draw the curtains and turn on the running water, she calls Trump a piece of shit, too. But, so far, the checks have all cleared so she keeps going to work.

  15. 15.

    sukabi

    @The Dangerman: of course the checks have cleared, the small one comes from the US Treasury the larger one comes from the Mercers…if drumpf were responsible for paying no one would get paid.

  18. 18.

    MSB

    Cheese submarine analogy is really good.
    Brexit is another of Putin’s successes. Tories keep sayingit will be totally great, but they’re lying, as usual. Only one example: EU banks are relocating to Frankfurt, so £800 billion has moved out of the City of London. Another: the NHS, which Brexiteers said would benefit, depends on foreign staff, who are leaving because nobody can tell them if they will be able to keep their jobs/homes.

  19. 19.

    Suzanne

    I don’t understand these naive fools who think that they can get everything they want out of a negotiation—without anything they don’t want. Like, why do they delude themselves that a better deal is possible? God, this is so fucked.

    See also: people who buy nothing but Chinese- and Bangladeshi-made goods at rock-bottom prices at stores with employees who have to collect food stamps to live even though they do nothing but work and who want their industries protected and to stop offshoring jobs!

  23. 23.

    Mnemosyne

    The Hoarse Whisperer on Twitter has been keeping me caught up on the latest shenanigans by the last remaining Sanders dead-enders against Beto O’Rourke, and it has been quite a sight to behold.

    Basically, David Sirota mistook donations from private citizens in Texas who work in the oil and gas industry as donations from oil and gas companies to Beto O’Rourke, and then doubled down when people pointed out his error.

    And then his buddies all got together to insist that the fact that about 8 (eight) percent of those specific donations came from people who said they were executives in the oil and gas industry was OMFG THE HUGEST SCANDAL IN THE HISTORY OF SCANDALS!

    They are … not covering themselves in glory, to say the least.

  27. 27.

    Martin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I thought Brexit was gonna fuck the world’s economy all over again, and I still think the shit’s gonna hit the fan blow all over the place.

    It would have, but Trump is doing May a solid and blowing it up on his dime. Nobody will ever even notice Brexit after thee dipshit Trade war of 2018.

  33. 33.

    hervevillechaislounge

    @Mnemosyne:

    So what’s the deal?

    Pro-Russian forces trying to sully Beto and Kamala Harris so Bernie can be the lone left-leaning candidate in 2020?

  36. 36.

    Martin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Conways are playing the game. No matter how this plays out, one of them will come out in the good graces of the GOP ruling class. They’ll rise up, the spouse will be reformed, and they’ll continue taking that welfare.

  40. 40.

    Aleta

    Work is fucked up, country is fucked up, family is fucked up, house needs repairs, friend is in intensive chemo, young niece is dying. I can’t sleep. Again tonight.

  42. 42.

    Sloane Ranger

    I am somewhat sympathetic to May on Brexit. I think she gets a lot of stick she wouldn’t get if she were a man.

    The situation 2 years ago was that a majority of the British people made an incredibly stupid decision. The problem then was that all political parties had publicly stated they would abide by the decision whatever it was. So given our long history of respect for the democratic process everyone had to take Brexit forward. As everyone sensible agrees that crashing out as per Brexiteers wet dreams is a disaster, May, in my opinion, is trying to leave in a way that mitigates the disaster.

    This made sense 2 years ago but where she falls down is refusing to accept that public opinion may have moved on. Probably the sunk cost fallacy.

  43. 43.

    J R in WV

    why@Kelly:

    Yes, “Cheese submarines explains so many political things” is a part of my life too!

    O — wonder if that explains why roads can’t be fixed? Can’t fix roads with cheese, not and expect it to last….

  44. 44.

    Aleta

    @Amir Khalid: Thanks. Sorry to break down like this. Surgeries and chemo for 4 years, and her son is 5. Three weeks ago they said she’d die in 1-10 days, no more. It’s been day to day since then.

  45. 45.

    daveNYC

    Couple things about May that weren’t in those FP tweets:
    1) She was Home Secretary back in the day running the Home Office. It’s a cabinet level position that involves immigration, among other things. She really was not a fan of immigration, and there were a few scandals under her watch that were known at the time and a few that happened under her that came out later.
    2) There was a personality profile in a British magazine (or newspaper, I forget which) a year or so ago. One of the things that came through was her commitment to a course of action once it has been decided, or even if it was decided for her.
    3) She gave a few hella wishy-washy speeches during the campaign for the referendum, despite ostensibly being pro-remain.

    Upshot is that she doesn’t like immigrants, which is why Freedom of Movement has been a pretty solid red line, she’s not exactly fond of the EU in general, and she’s the type for whom ‘Brexit means Brexit’ actually means something. Because the people wanted Brexit (all 52% of those who voted, which is like 30% or something silly of the actual population) and they’re going to get it good and hard.

    This isn’t just a situation where she glommed onto Brexit as a way to get into Number 10, which would be bad enough as Brexit is a horrible policy. She’s actually supportive of at least some of what Brexit would mean (basically screwing over immigrants, never mind the actual details of the immigration situation in the UK mean that leaving the EU wouldn’t change a damn thing). Add in that nobody in British politics is willing to make a stand for remaining in the EU (best there is is support for a second referendum, something that is not nearly guaranteed to go the way they want it to), and things are pretty borked. Not even the Lib-Dems have made a stand for Remain, and it’s not like those idiots have anything to lose at this point (they’re down to like 9 seats or so after screwing up their partnership with the Conservatives, and by screwing up I mean trusting the Conservatives and partnering with them).

  47. 47.

    J R in WV

    @Aleta:

    I am sorry to hear about your niece, and the other things. It can work on any of us this time of night. We bump into things on line. Sometimes I can go back to bed after say 30 minutes.

    Good luck with the roof, too. Important… you can start with a blue tarp

  48. 48.

    JWR

    @Mnemosyne:

    .. David Sirota mistook donations from private citizens in Texas who work in the oil and gas industry as donations from oil and gas companies to Beto O’Rourke, and then doubled down when people pointed out his error.

    Thank you for following this huge nothingburger of a scandal. Last week, on my local Pacifica station, one of my favorite hosts, (Ian Masters), was on vacation, and one of his fill-ins, (I don’t remember if it was Sirota, but a true BernieBro nonetheless), used this argument against Beto. He actually said, out loud, that these were donations from employees of the oil and gas industries, but he soldiered on, arguing that this proved Beto was dirty. Pissed me off, big time!

  49. 49.

    Aleta

    @Sab: @J R in WV: Thanks. What broke me tonight is our new director. I’m not very affected yet, but she’s being unnecessarily disrespectful to two excellent people, I guess to establish authority and restructure according to a theory, in a dept that has always worked as equal colleagues and family-like. She hasn’t gotten to know anyone. But has a mold that everyone must fit into. The new administrative mindset (‘I direct, you do it’) finally arrived here, and it seems like the end of a world.
    Exaggerated by the night.

  50. 50.

    Cermet

    What most amerikans don’t understand about UK is that being an Island, it imports many critical items that say the EU doesn’t have too. For instance, a minor commodity called food. Most of the UK depends on the EU for the majority of its food – raw, processed and bulk. Being out of the EU means all those items are now “imported” meaning more expensive AND not just because of crossing a “border”; the EU subsidizes food production and its members get that break – the UK no longer will. This means Brit’s will pay more for food. This ripples across their economy. Ditto for most raw materials. And just like the U S of A, they depend on the cheap labor that (use) to cross (not) so freely before; now, most of that will be stopped. Labor costs will go up across the board for the Brits. The list goes on. These events will happen suddenly (on a time scale of a few months) so their economy will get a shock that it will have little time to adjust. As for banking, since it is digital, most will quickly x-fer over to Germany and the UK will take another (smaller, somewhat slower) hit here in the same time frame. Just a lot of minor to significant hits at once. Hardly a danger of major depression for them but certainly a heavy hit that will take many, many years to smooth out and get use to.

  51. 51.

    Van Buren

    This resonates with me, because in this country we have a leader who could insist on building a wall out of cheese and 40% of us would totally support it. One cable channel would promote it nonstop, and all the others would have supporters on every day to push the cheesewall view.

  54. 54.

    Tony Jay

    It’s a genuine testament to how shitty Teresa May’s political instincts are that she started her Premiership with the Tory Press and BBC basically writing odes to her Thatcherian magnificence and cleverly (so it was thought at the time) giving all of the responsibility for actually negotiating an exit deal with the EU to the likes of Boris ‘Blond Shambition’ Johnson and David ‘Blithe Stupidity’ Davis. The Brexiteers had got her, the Party and the country into this situation with their pick-and-mix of shifting promises, now they could show everyone how easy it was to bend the EU to Britain’s will. She’d stay in the background, let them shit the bed, then stroll out at a convenient time to pick up the pieces and be crowned Queen of Brexit.

    What could go wrong?

    Everything. She couldn’t leave well enough alone. The obvious move was to give the Brexiteers a time-limit of, say, a year in which to make their dream deal with the EU, and only take over herself when they had obviously and completely been seen to fail. But when she held a snap Election to boost her majority and control over the Tory Party (as a prelude to taking over the deal-making) she almost lost the first, did lose the second, and ended up weakening the third to such a degree that she had to pay a billion pound bribe to the Greysouls of Ulster to stay in Number 10. From then on she was under the whip of the Extreme-Brexit cabal led by Jacob “Edwardian Evil’ Rees-Mogg and forced to shoulder all of the responsibility and blame for failing to achieve the mythical ‘True Brexit’, which was whatever the Brexiteers said it was, updated daily.

    So here we are. With a failed Government that quite simply can’t do anything because its widening splits over Brexit are taking all of its time and energy, stuck waiting for a deluded PM to fail, again. She won’t step down, none of her rivals want to unseat her and get left with the poisoned sippy-cup of Brexit, and it doesn’t look like enough sensible Tory MPs will back a vote of no confidence that would open the way for a Government of National Unity or another Election – yet. So we glide closer to a No-Deal deadline, watching in horror as the Maybot lurches from humiliation to humiliation, clutching the key to Number 10 in her rusty claw.

    The 2nd Referendum can’t come soon enough. We need to end this farce and get on with the important job of putting a stake through the heart of Tory Government for a generation.

  56. 56.

    Sab

    @Tony Jay: Thank you for posting about this. It’s hard to follow on this side of the Atlantic.

    I was last in the UK in 1976. I cannot believe that a generation of work can be erased by one referendum and one parliamentary election where the “winning” party didn’t even get a majority.

  57. 57.

    slightly_peeved

    @daveNYC:

    The big problem – which actually makes Brexit even stupider than a cheese submarine – is that ending free movement (via the channel) is a red line, but preserving free movement (via the NI border) is simultaneously a red line. Which is why the sticking point of Brexit is still the very first topic that was discussed in Brexit negotiations – the Northern Irish border. The British have been arguing for A and ~A for two years, complaining at EU ‘intransigence’ when the EU point this out.

  58. 58.

    Tony Jay

    @Sab:

    It’s hard to follow on this side as well, but it boils down to those few problems we both have.

    Murdoch Media.
    Right-Wing sabotage of the social safety-net.
    Misplaced fear of The Other.
    Foreign interference and dark money

  59. 59.

    JDM

    @MSB:

    Only one example: EU banks are relocating to Frankfurt, so £800 billion has moved out of the City of London.

    Americans may not remember that Montreal was not so long ago the financial and commercial capital of Canada. Separatists changed that. Everything that could ,ove – ie. most things – moved. Toronto and Calgary benefited enormously. Montreal never got it back.

  61. 61.

    trnc

    @Martin:

    It would have, but Trump is doing May a solid and blowing it up on his dime.

    Uh, that would be our dime. President Individual 1 never pays for anything.

  63. 63.

    Barbara

    @Sloane Ranger: No, I think you are being too charitable. The problem is that she would face mayhem in her side of the aisle were she to endorse a second referendum. She might honestly think remaining as PM is the best thing for the country, but it also coincides with her own self-interest.

  64. 64.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Aleta: that’s awful. Unfortunately I know how you feel – my nephew passed away from cancer in August at 21

  67. 67.

    CliosFanboy

    @Aleta: I am so sorry. many of of us have been know and know what it’s like. Saying it sucks is such an understatement.

  69. 69.

    Ken

    @Cermet: So you’re saying the UK will have to pay more for Camembert, Limburger and Gorgonzola, so they might not even be able to build the cheese submarine?

  72. 72.

    daveNYC

    @slightly_peeved: It gets better. Allowing free movement between NI and the RoI, while setting up a border between NI and the rest of the UK would sort out the whole Good Friday situation, but since the Tories teamed up with DUP in order to form the government, that’s a complete non-starter.

    Good times.

  74. 74.

    Another Scott

    @Tony Jay: Excellent.

    Just great.

    You should send that to the papers of record, The Economist, etc., etc.

    Really well done. Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  75. 75.

    Sherparick

    @Ruckus: What drove Briexit was one part provincial British tribalism that resented having to hear other people speaking Polish or Romanian while they were waiting in line at the shops, one part Midlands and Northern English resentment with the destruction of their industries and mines by 30 years of Thatcher Conservative and NeoLabour Governments, and one part a bunch of Media Billionaires, led by the Prince of Darkness himself, Rupert Murdoch, who got high on their own supply of Ayn Rand and believe that a UK out of the EU could be turned into “Galt’s Gulch” (which makes the joke/lie about Briexit giving more to the NHS once out of the EU particularly rich.) Also, like all true ideologies, Briexit is very much “it cannot fail, it can only be failed” stage.

  78. 78.

    Barbara

    @Sherparick:

    Briexit is very much “it cannot fail, it can only be failed” stage.

    Article in the NYT this morning that was not much more than an interview with Nigel Farage really highlights the truth of this statement. He just KNOWS someone else — who he doesn’t say — would be able to negotiate a better deal. He thinks Bernier has simply outsmarted May. It’s just pathetic. Meanwhile, the only position that Farage has been able to get himself elected to is some EU legislative body, which will of course stop having reps from the UK if Brexit occurs.

  79. 79.

    stan

    @Cermet: What most amerikans don’t understand about UK is that being an Island

    Um, the UK is not ‘an’ island. Northern Ireland exists…..

    That said, you’re right, the UK has not been self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs for a century if not longer.

  83. 83.

    J R in WV

    @Cermet:

    If you think the impact of Brexit on Great Britain is “Hardly a danger of major depression for them…” you have never taken an economics class, nor studied the origins of major economic depressions over time and space.

    The people of GB will wind up depending upon relief from the UN and other nations to eat, as they won’t have money to buy their own food, of even pay for its shipment into their island. IF anyone is capable and willing to send help after this fiacso. I think those willing will be unable and those able will be unwilling.

    The end of a once proud nation.

  84. 84.

    Barry

    @Sloane Ranger: So given our long history of respect for the democratic process everyone had to take Brexit forward.”

    What was the largest share of the vote which the Torres got under Thatcher?
    IIRC, it was ~40% or less.

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