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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Picture Show: Breaking the Wall

Late Night Picture Show: Breaking the Wall

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63Comments

  1. 1.

    Keith P.

    Uh, yeah, Pence is definitely out for 2020. Reports will be out tomorrow about how Trump was pissed off at Pence for just sitting there, while “Chuck and Nancy” ganged up on Donald. Trump got chewed up from both sides, and Mike Pence just sat there looking like he didn’t want any part of that buzzsaw.

  5. 5.

    Mary G

    I can’t figure out what Twitler thinks he can get from Chuck and Nancy. They’ve got so much more experience in real deal-making that they’re bound to eat his lunch. And Republicans still have the majority until the end of the month.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Platonailedit: Fineman was taken to the woodshed in the replies:

    Exactly, and thank you for speaking up in the face of more man-splaining. This endless impulse by some men to tell women what they are allowed to say really tinkles me off.

    Just wow! Strong women really get under men’s skin. Sad! The irony is not lost here. Men get away with so much more and she said this in private

    We could’ve done without you telling a woman, who is good at her job, how to comport herself.

    Oh stop it. It doesn’t rise (or sink) even close to the level Trump and the Republicans have established. And it was a private event. Trump has TWEETED things a thousand times worse. Pelosi killed it today, she deserves to get a little chesty. Lighten up. Lyndon Johnson would too

    Get over it.

    I thought this pic was was rather fitting.

  7. 7.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    My first thought when I read the “tinkle” comment earlier today was who would wring their hands first, Fineman or Ruth Marcus.

    That’s their whole shtick.

  9. 9.

    JGabriel

    Eli Stokels via Anne Laurie @ Top

    Per source, Trump was “mostly aggravated with Schumer,” the fellow New Yorker, and his refusal to look at POTUS while directing his comments to the pool cameras.

    Wait, wait, wait, everyone just stop for a moment to appreciate the irony here: Donald Trump, Donald Trump, is pissed at someone for hogging the camera.

    That’s it’s Schumer doing the camera-hogging is just a bonus irony to all of us New Yorkers who are thinking, “The FSM finally found a use for Schumer’s camera-hogging! You go, girl!”

  10. 10.

    Sloane Ranger

    @JWR: Not Tony Jay but replying anyway. Not necessarily good news. This is not a Parliamentary vote of no confidence. It is a challenge to her leadership of the Conservative party. I don’t know who the 48 letters to the 1922 Committee have come from but I suspect the hard Brexiteers so, outcomes are at best neutral.

    May wins and remains Leader and PM – neutral.
    May loses, triggering a Tory leadership contest. As no Bremainer stands a chance in such a contest, this would lead to either a neutral outcome, she’s replaced by someone else wanting to leave with a deal, but a different one or she’s replaced with a frothing at the mouth Brexiteer.

    In both scenarios, the Tories remain in Government.

  12. 12.

    Sloane Ranger

    @OzarkHillbilly: Pretty much, only a potentially hotter fire. If there’s a leadership contest the UK will have a lame duck PM, potentially for weeks and all the time the March cliff edge keeps getting closer and closer.

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    @JWR:
    I think Tony Jay did mention this yesterday. A British jackal did, anyway.

    I don’t think anyone following this is surprised. Just about everyone in Blighty has thrown shade at May’s ineptitude and spinelessness — even the Queen.

  17. 17.

    Sloane Ranger

    @OzarkHillbilly: True. I try to comfort myself by remembering that we’ve gone through ups and downs before in our almost 1000 year history and will get through this particular down eventually, but that doesn’t help me personally a I live through it!

  18. 18.

    Marcus

    Over on twitter someone photoshopped the actor from ‘Weekend at Bernies’ for Pence. Spot on, I think…

  22. 22.

    JPL

    There was a small earthquake in eastern TN, that could be felt in the Atlanta. Although I woke about the same time, I didn’t feel it. It’s not unusual for me to get up between four and four thirty anyway.

    @OzarkHillbilly: not me

  23. 23.

    JWR

    @Amir Khalid:

    I think Tony Jay did mention this yesterday. A British jackal did, anyway.

    Yes, I think he did, about this. But with all the news going on over here, I don’t think all that much about British politics, other than I knew Brexit would turn out as ugly as it has.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JPL: Seems better now. This has been happening to me in the early hours for a week or so (it’s happened before) I suspect it’s just Alain taking advantage of the wee hours to tweek the site here and there, but who knows?

  26. 26.

    Tony Jay

    @JWR:

    I’m a little bit surprised by the timing, though I shouldn’t be. The Tories were in a bind. May had humiliated herself and angered many of them by pulling the vote on her Deal, then piled it on with her deeply embarrassing trudge around Europe begging for more meaningless kind words from national leaders who were all very clear that they’d given her the ‘best’ deal any country voting to leave the EU could hope for and she should just leave them alone. There was going to be no change in the Backstop protecting the Irish Border, full-stop, so the Deal was dead in the water.

    I think a lot of Tories were hoping that Labour would bow to pressure from the smaller parties and forward a no confidence vote in May, which would have given the Tory Party something to unite against (shoring up May’s authority) or the Extreme-Brexit cult would have voted against her (torching any future leadership hopes of Mogg, Johnson, etc). But fortunately Corbyn refused to give May a get Out Of Jail Free card and – that’s – when the no-confidence letters started coming into the 1922 Committee, crucially not just from the Extremists, but from Tory MPs who’d previously backed May and hoped she could finesse her Deal.

    As to what happens now, well…. these are Tories we’re talking about. May is so wedded to the title of PM that she’s likely to try and cling on even if she gets a substantial chunk of the Parliamentary Tory Party voting against her leadership, which leaves even Loyalists in a terrible position. The Deal May offers is already doomed and will not change, so keeping her in place risks a No-Deal disaster or the Party being forced to take on the responsibility of cancelling Brexit – both of which would probably blow up the Party for good. On the other hand voting against her would also alienate a fair chunk of the Tory electorate and run the risk of empowering the Extremists.

    The ‘best’ scenario for the majority of the Parliamentary Tory Party is that May steps down after losing or narrowly ‘winning’ the confidence vote and a ‘moderate’ from the soft-Brexit camp in Cabinet steps forward, protesting their obviously totally Oscar-worthy sadness that the leader they so respected has had to leave, blah blah blah, and unites enough of the Party around themselves to kick the Extremists to the fringes of the debate. That’s why the likes of Michael ‘Experts Are Elitists’ Gove (formerly a Hard Brexit ally of Boris Johnson) and Sajid ‘IGMFY Brown Scum’ Javid (Eurosceptic Remainer in the Thatcherite mould) have been so obsequiously loyal to May ever since (re)joining the Cabinet.Tories traditionally don’t elect the Wreckers to lead them, preferring someone who can do the crocodile tears and unity song-and-dance in public.

    What would it do to Brexit? Well, if May does go down (and that looks likely) and whoever replaces her is opposed to a No-Deal Brexit, they are going to have to either request that the EU extends Article 50 or ask Parliament to vote to scrap it unilaterally. This will blow things up with the Extremists, but if they’ve just lost a leadership election they’ll be ignorable. Will the EU extend Article 50? They might, they might not, depending on the reasons the new PM gives for the extension. If it’s just so they can renegotiate May’s deal it will be a clear ‘Non!’, they’ll want something a lot bigger than that. If it’s so a new Election can be held or a new Referendum put to the public, then probably ‘Oui!’.

    Either way, the ground is shifting rapidly under Westminster and the Tories are in a hell of a self-inflicted mess. Which is always nice, even if it’s terrifying for the future of the country.

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JWR: Kinda funny for me. If I make a comment everything acts normal and comes right up. If I just try to refresh the page, it locks up and I get the black page of limbo. The only way I can get out of it is to reload the website again.

  30. 30.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JPL:

    I felt it but when I looked for confirmation I couldn’t find any. Glad to know I wasn’t hallucinating! It was small and lasted only a few seconds, but was quite disconcerting.

  34. 34.

    germy

    Last night we watched CBS Evening News and this is how they framed the meeting:

    Both Trump and Pelosi/Schumer “got what they wanted” out of the meeting, which was to be seen fighting by the press.

    So in other words, good news for trump.

  35. 35.

    montanareddog

    @Tony Jay:

    I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the clarity of your analyses

    This is a very complex, fast-moving situation to game out. There is a cliff-edge in 3.5 months which is a nanosecond in bureacratic timescales. I hope the Labour Party are geared up for some very nimble footwork

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @germy:

    So in other words, good news for trump.

    I have to disagree. Since the beginning of his presidency, when has trump getting what he wanted ever been “good news” for him? I can’t think of a single thing at the moment.

  39. 39.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @germy: Ok CBS. That explains his flinging of the folder and the staff talking about how the toddler will be no good for nap time or milk and cookie time today. Just pure exuberance at how well the meeting went for him.

  42. 42.

    JPL

    @germy: The broadcast has moved further to the right since Jeff Glor took over. I watch NBC with Lester now. I still watch CBS this morning though.

  43. 43.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Tony Jay: Your conclusion ‘re the Tories is absolutely true but I think you are giving Corbyn too much credit. IMO he doesn’t want to call a No Confidence vote at this time because he will win and has a good chance of winning the subsequent General Election. This would lead to him holding the Brexit football and he knows a) the divisions within his own Party, which haven’t received a lot of publicity, will come to the fore and b) whatever he says publicly, he doesn’t have time to renegotiate any new deal, let alone one that is likely to command a majority within the Commons.

  44. 44.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Tony Jay:

    even if it’s terrifying for the future of the country.

    Comrade Vladimir Vladimirovich is not unhappy. US, France, Britain all in turmoil.

  47. 47.

    Tony Jay

    @montanareddog:

    You’re very kind, but all I’m doing is filtering the reporting on this side of the Atlantic into a form that makes sense to me. Plus, “Never trust a Conservative, they always lie” works as well over here as it does over there.

  49. 49.

    Ken

    Our pantspisser in chief clearly has his priorities in order. Trump stormed out of the Oval Office right after the Pelosi-Schumer meeting ended

    For a moment I thought these were connected, and he was having a bout of incontinence. (Which, speaking as a male who is getting older and starting to feel… urgency at times, isn’t funny. When it happens to me, at least.)

  50. 50.

    Tony Jay

    @Sloane Ranger:

    I hear you and agree that Labour would be crazy to want the turd of Brexit dropped into their laps at this exact point, but I don’t see the arithmetic backing up your confidence that the Opposition would win a No Confidence vote.

    As you said earlier a vote of No Confidence in the Government is a – very – different beast to a No Confidence vote in the Leader of the Tory Party. There is no way on this or any alternate Earth that Tory back-benchers of any stripe would – ever – vote with a Left-Wing Labour Party to kill off a Tory Government and give Jeremy Corbyn another crack at leading the country. Not going to happen. Enough of them have said that out loud and on the record to make it certain it was a non-starter. The Tories would have closed ranks, the DUP would have voted with them, May would have won a rare Parliamentary victory. Which is why Corbyn refused to do it.

    The Tories are pulling themselves to pieces right now and blindly clearing the ground for a delay in Article 50 and/or 2nd Referendum and/or a unilateral Parliamentary vote to cancel Article 50 before the Leave deadline. The last thing Corbyn and Labour should do is intervene in their bloodletting and make the whole process about them when this is a Tory mess that they should have to do the hard work of starting to clean up.

  52. 52.

    Robert (Nojay) Sneddon

    @montanareddog: It was a British politician that said “a week is a long time in politics”.

    Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn is being smarter than most observers have given him credit for. He’s one of the longest-serving MPs in Parliament today, he knows how things work in that Peculiar Institution and his well-deserved detestation of the Tories and first-hand experience of how they treat a wounded leader is a major factor in his planning.

    PM May is doomed, the fact the 1922 Committee (the executive branch of the Tories in Parliament) can get nearly 50 “letters” in opposition to her remaining PM means she can’t continue even if she won a vote to stay Leader of the Party (and hence stay Prime Minister). When she goes and after a new leader has travelled to Buck House to get the nod as the new PM THEN will come the vote of no-confidence in the government from Corbyn. The other smaller parties have signalled they’ll vote no-confidence too and the split Tories will slough off enough malcontents who will probably vote “present” or find something else to do that day like having their hair cut. The DUP will be in a cleft stick, knowing that if the Tories are defeated they lose their leverage since no-one likes them but they can’t face the prospect of the Withdrawal Agreement’s border arrangements.

    After that it’s General Election time, it doesn’t have to be even after a no-confidence vote (the sitting Government could rearrange the deckchairs and try again) but it’s the way things work in British politics. That will take a couple of months to arrange and carry out and maybe the EU27 will agree to an extension of Article 50 until the dust settles otherwise the clock will still be ticking to the March 29 2019 deadline.

    Interesting times indeed.

  53. 53.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Tony Jay: In normal times I think you would be right but these are not those. There are enough frothing at the mouth European Research Group members who have proved they are willing to see their own Party and the country crash and burn if that’s what it takes to get a No Deal Brexit (and they genuinely believe that is what they can get if they run the clock down on a deal). I think there are enough of these people to render the DUP irrelevant. Also, logically, if the DUP support the Government in a No Confidence motion, they have to show that support by also voting with them on policy issues. Of course the DUP are also profoundly stupid so they may not realise that until afterwards.

    Anyway, it’s all academic at the moment. Let’s see what happens tonight.

  58. 58.

    James E Powell

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Fineman (and all the “normalizing” Village scum) can fuck off and die.

    I see quite a few got in ahead of me. I am, after all, on the Left Coast. But, yeah. Fuck Fineman, fuck all of them. We knew this is whta would happen the minute Pelosi & the Democrats won the house.

  59. 59.

    artem1s

    Oh man, Pence’s body language in all of these photos! I’m surprised he managed not to fall out of his chair he’s leaning so far away from the Orange Dumpster Fire. We need to ratchet up the noise on the rumors about Pence’s imminent move into the WH. I want to see Dolt45 try to fire his VP and succeed. Would serve the GOP right.

  63. 63.

    bemused

    Schumer had this little grin on his face for most of that presser. I think Schumer might have been afraid he’d burst into laughter if he looked at trump for very long. I know I would have.

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