Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

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

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

We still have time to mess this up!

Republicans in disarray!

“But what about the lurkers?”

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

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

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

In my day, never was longer.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

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

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Friday Morning Open Thread: Time’s Up

Friday Morning Open Thread: Time’s Up

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From Charlie Pierce’s latest sub-required ‘Last Call’ newsletter:

… The fight over the wall was the first indication that some gears were coming unsprung. At a now-famous photo-op with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the president* looked utterly at sea, obsequious at one moment and truculent the next, boasting that he would be “proud” to shut down the government if he didn’t get the money for his big, beautiful wall. This moment brought home starkly the change in politics that is going to come when the Democrats take over the House of Representatives in January. Hearing the president* take ownership of a possible shutdown on his own behalf and that of his party made more than a few Republicans puddle up in their shoes…

And now, a NYTimes op-ed from Elizabeth Drew, who made the journalist hall of fame with her coverage of Watergate — “The Inevitability of Impeachment”:

An impeachment process against President Trump now seems inescapable. Unless the president resigns, the pressure by the public on the Democratic leaders to begin an impeachment process next year will only increase. Too many people think in terms of stasis: How things are is how they will remain. They don’t take into account that opinion moves with events.

Whether or not there’s already enough evidence to impeach Mr. Trump — I think there is — we will learn what the special counsel, Robert Mueller, has found, even if his investigation is cut short. A significant number of Republican candidates didn’t want to run with Mr. Trump in the midterms, and the results of those elections didn’t exactly strengthen his standing within his party. His political status, weak for some time, is now hurtling downhill…

I don’t share the conventional view that if Mr. Trump is impeached by the House, the Republican-dominated Senate would never muster the necessary 67 votes to convict him. Stasis would decree that would be the case, but the current situation, already shifting, will have been left far behind by the time the senators face that question. Republicans who were once Mr. Trump’s firm allies have already openly criticized some of his recent actions, including his support of Saudi Arabia despite the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and his decision on Syria. They also openly deplored Mr. Mattis’s departure.

It always seemed to me that Mr. Trump’s turbulent presidency was unsustainable and that key Republicans would eventually decide that he had become too great a burden to the party or too great a danger to the country. That time may have arrived. In the end the Republicans will opt for their own political survival. Almost from the outset some Senate Republicans have speculated on how long his presidency would last. Some surely noticed that his base didn’t prevail in the midterms.

But it may well not come to a vote in the Senate. Facing an assortment of unpalatable possibilities, including being indicted after he leaves office, Mr. Trump will be looking for a way out. It’s to be recalled that Mr. Nixon resigned without having been impeached or convicted. The House was clearly going to approve articles of impeachment against him, and he’d been warned by senior Republicans that his support in the Senate had collapsed. Mr. Trump could well exhibit a similar instinct for self-preservation. But like Mr. Nixon, Mr. Trump will want future legal protection…

Nixon’s GOP backed Tricky Dick 110% — until they didn’t. The old crook was able to broker a soft landing, in no small part because so many other Repubs were complicit in his crimes. But Trump’s GOP is a lot dumber, crueler, and infinitely more self-centered than the early 1970s incarnation; I’m not sure they have the power, or the skill, to hustle their Dear Leader off to a gilt-plated exile without falling apart entirely. Or maybe that’s just what I hope.

Happy Friday, y’all!

Reader Interactions

144Comments

  2. 2.

    p.a.

    Let’s hope the process is slow enough and thorough enough to drag Pence down too. Irony that there is so much corruption, collusion, conspiracy, and treason that the individual crimes could get lost in the muddle in the public’s perception.

  3. 3.

    hells littlest angel

    Yup. When Republicans abandon Trump they will do it suddenly and all at once. In fact, it will be found that most of them never really supported him at all.

  6. 6.

    satby

    @NotMax: @rikyrah: Good morning ?

    @p.a.: a very healthy portion of the American public thinks all politicians are corrupt crooks anyway, so this will just confirm their beliefs. Pushing them further into the apathetic “non-voter because they’re all the same” demographic.

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    the current situation, already shifting, will have been left far behind by the time the senators face that question. Republicans who were once Mr. Trump’s firm allies have already openly criticized some of his recent actions, including his support of Saudi Arabia despite the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and his decision on Syria. They also openly deplored Mr. Mattis’s departure.

    The problem with this is that the Republican base, the ones who vote in the primaries couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Khashoggi and have already turned on Mattis. Republicans are stuck between a rocked primary and a hard election.

    It always seemed to me that Mr. Trump’s turbulent presidency was unsustainable and that key Republicans would eventually decide that he had become too great a burden to the party or too great a danger to the country.

    It has long been obvious they don’t give a rat’s ass about the country and their obsequious stance towards trump shows just exactly who the party belongs to.

    That time may have arrived. In the end the Republicans will opt for their own political survival. Almost from the outset some Senate Republicans have speculated on how long his presidency would last. Some surely noticed that his base didn’t prevail in the midterms.

    No, that time has not yet arrived. The Senate quislings (looking at you Lindsey, you Jeff) long ago gave up any attempts at push back against trump. It may come but I don’t see it’s arrival coming in the form of impeachment between now and the 2020 election. If it comes I see it in the form of a Mueller spawned electoral slaughter.that not even FOX can spin.

  8. 8.

    Betty Cracker

    OMFG, it’s so nice to have my house back now that all the guests and Christmas visitors have departed. My husband and I are both secretly hermits, and we literally did the happy dance in the yard after waving the last vehicle through the gate. I have friends coming for a New Year’s Eve sleepover, and to be honest, I’m sort of dreading it. But it’s just one night, and I’m hoping to be back in the mood for company by then. The mister has remarked more than once on the irony of being inundated with guests since we moved to the ends of the earth.

  9. 9.

    hells littlest angel

    @satby: Pushing them further into the apathetic “non-voter because they’re all the same” demographic.

    These people are beyond redemption and not worth worrying about. Unfortunately, you can’t have a free society that doesn’t support a percentage of free riders.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker:

    The mister has remarked more than once on the irony of being inundated with guests since we moved to the ends of the earth.

    Your mistake was telling them where you moved to.

  13. 13.

    satby

    @hells littlest angel:

    These people are beyond redemption and not worth worrying about.

    Some of them are, I would agree; but more of them are discouraged and overwhelmed just keeping their heads above water. This society hasn’t worked very well for a large number of people at the lower end of the income range by design. They’re struggling and not paying attention to the ins and outs of the news. And no, these aren’t the MSM beloved WWC, though they are working class people.
    If the details of this are challenging for us political junkies, just imagine how it’s all a blur to people who only sporadically pay attention.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    @JPL: Of course my friends don’t read this blog. The first rule of Balloon Juice is: You don’t talk about Balloon Juice, etc.

  15. 15.

    Elizabelle

    Last Friday of 2018. I think 2019 is going to be a better and happier year for us. Albeit, Midterm Election Night was plenty happy. With a few exceptions.

  18. 18.

    JPL

    Mueller was able to obtain a naked selfie as part of the russian investigation. 2019 will be interesting indeed.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @satby: There might be valid reasons for their apathy, but that doesn’t mean that there is a solution to their apathy. We need to focus on the most easily reachable IMHO.

  29. 29.

    TS (the original)

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    In the end the Republicans will opt for their own political survival

    Given that 7% of the population appear to blame republicans for the shutdown (c.f.33% democrats & 47% trump) republicans seem to be surviving quite well despite/because of, their unending support for trump.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    @JPL: The less known the better. That way, when they ask what did the President know and when did he know it, the answer will be nothing and never.

  34. 34.

    Betty Cracker

    Hate to subject y’all to this so early, but…

    Sanders yaps about “Wall Street Democrats” attacking his campaign before he’s even in the race and says:

    “Last time we ran, we made financial elites pay a price for their attacks on our progressive agenda. It is just as important we do it again today…”

    I have no truck with Third Way types, but I’m having a hard time interpreting the above line as anything but a threat to blow up the party again. Leaving aside the irony of Sanders’ own apparent membership in “the financial elite,” what price does Sanders think he “made financial elites pay” when he lost the nomination in 2016? The buffoonery at the convention and subsequent loss to Trump?

    I hope Tom Perez and Co. are up to the task of nipping this shit in the bud. There was talk about adding a requirement for primary candidates to release several years of tax returns. That needs to be enacted immediately.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    It’s underground so naturally enough I found it interesting: Chilling discovery: ice house discovered under London street

    Archaeologists have now uncovered a link to the capital’s lost ice trade with the rediscovery, under one of London’s most prestigious addresses, of an enormous 18th-century ice store, the existence of which had been almost entirely forgotten.

    The cavernous subterranean structure was built in the 1780s just to the south of Regent’s Park and is the earliest-known, large-scale commercial ice store, which has led to it being designated a scheduled monument by Historic England. There are plans to make it will be accessible to the public, once the development is completed, on certain dates during the year.
    ………………………………
    The egg-shaped cavern, 9.5 metres deep and 7.5 metres wide, had been backfilled with demolition rubble after the terrace was bombed during the war, requiring three months of careful excavation before its structure could be fully revealed.

    Once cleared, it revealed a wonderfully preserved brick void, built to a much higher standard than the stately stucco terraces that surround it, according to Sorapure, and still structurally secure, even as the Jubilee line thunders less than 10 metres beneath it.

  37. 37.

    hells littlest angel

    @satby: You are a kinder person than me. I think most people who are apathetic and ignorant have made a choice to be that way.

  38. 38.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: Yeah there isn’t a day that goes by that the financial elites don’t raise a glass to Bernie Sanders for what he did in 2016.

    And of course he’ll threaten to blow up the party. He has to appeal to his base just like Trump does.

  39. 39.

    JMG

    @TS (the original): Trump IS the Republican Party now. His approval rating in the midterms exit poll was 44 percent. Republicans got 44.8 percent of the national House vote. Add 47 to 7, you get majority disapproval of the GOP on this issue.

  44. 44.

    Betty Cracker

    The orange fart cloud is up and tweeting. He’s threatening to close the southern border if he doesn’t get his wall money. I’m sure that’ll be great for the economy.

  51. 51.

    NotMax

    Movie on in the background on TCM.

    Some men can carry of a pencil mustache. George Murphy isn’t one of them.

  52. 52.

    John S.

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I’m sure a fair amount of it was, but then there are folks like me. Never a Berniebro, enthusiastic Clinton voter, lifelong Democrat. And I’m not feeling the Beto.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @John S.: The issue isn’t whether you personally support Beto. The issue is that a number of lefty publications decided almost simultaneously to publish stories about why a person who hasn’t announced his candidacy is a bad choice. Coupled with Twitter activity, it has the feel of a coordinated hit job.

  59. 59.

    debbie

    @Amir Khalid:

    The key is to think of all the players in the game and figure out which of them thinks they’re a real tool and that a nekkid selfie was a good idea. I’m going with Trump, though I’m not sure he could extend his pudgy arm far enough for a photo to take in more than his pudgy gut.

  60. 60.

    satby

    @hells littlest angel: it’s very probable that people you know have chosen, and many may have; but I spent a lot of my life outside the IT world as a multiple low wage job holding single mother, and a lot of people in that boat (fathers too) just barely keep up with life. Add in a news media that often deliberately misinforms the public.
    Also add in scam artists like Wilmer who add in their own set of lies.
    @Baud: I agree, I just don’t want to underestimate the difficulties. We need a laundromat outreach program for politics too.

  61. 61.

    Geoduck

    FYI: if CenturyLink provides your phone service, your 911 attempts may not work. You will need to use a backup number for your specific county.

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    Now that the New Year’s gathering for our group has been brought back from the dead, thinking about dips to bring.

    This stuff sounds super yummy.

    Tradition dictates making mock chopped liver (it’s vegetarian!).

  64. 64.

    rikyrah

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    Does it really matter if it was Russian trolls?
    Not to me. The Bernie Bros have been attacking all the candidates.

    Which is why I will say again..
    We need to lay waste to Bernie, once and for all

  67. 67.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @OzarkHillbilly: Cool (no pun intended). The town where I lived in Iowa had an ice storage house you could tour. And when I was a kid, we used to rent this primitive cottage in my dad’s home town in Ontario. It had an ice box instead of a refrigerator. I don’t remember how often the ice man came, but when he did, he delivered a big block of ice that went in a drawer. I want to say the drawer was at the bottom but it might have been the top and the bottom had a tray that caught the melt. Maybe.

  69. 69.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In reading this, After year of deadly wildfires, who will pick up the tab for natural disasters? , I came across this come to Jesus moment:

    The path of destruction

    For the last eight years, California’s department of forestry and fire protection has had to take millions more out of the state’s emergency fund to put out the worsening wildfires – and expenditures have gone from $90m in 2010 to more than $947m in the last season. Federal fire suppression costs have increased just as sharply, with more than a 562% jump over the last 20 years.

    But even though more is spent on stifling the flames, fires continue to become more destructive – and accordingly, recovery has become more pricey. Seven of the top 10 most destructive wildfires on record in the state have occurred in the last two years. And this year alone, more than 6,200 fires burned through 876,200 acres –nearly triple the five-year average.

    The destruction is a mere fraction of the toll caused by disasters across the US. 2017 was a historic year for catastrophes, with 16 separate billion-dollar-plus level events occurring within months of one another. The costs to federal agencies topped $300bn and experts agree that climate change will cause superstorms and wildfires to worsen, busting budgets at all levels of government.

    The US Government Accountability Office has cited the disasters as a “key source of federal fiscal exposure” that will continue to worsen with climate change, and the federal government has been looking for ways to redistribute the financial burden. States and localities may soon be increasingly on their own to finance the recovery.

    WASF.

  75. 75.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    I mentioned this the other night, but it got rescued from moderation about the time the thread tapered off, so I don’t know whether anyone involved saw it or not.

    I want to thank germy, Mnemosyne, Steeplejack, SiubhanDuinne, and Ruviana for the recommendation to rewatch “Thomasina” to put to bed the experience I had as a 5-year-old watching it. It’s a sweet and complex story, and I like it at where I am now.

    Thanks, everyone, both for the recos and the knowledge that I’m not alone.

  78. 78.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @rikyrah: Bernie needs to be aware if he’s being supported by Russian trolls, and disavow them. Otherwise, he’s no different in that respect than Trump. I agree that from our pov, defeating him is the goal. But it’s one more thing that might be used against him.

  80. 80.

    Lapassionara

    @JPL: Hmmmm. There is still time for him to go. I’d prefer that he leave DC. He just looks for things to mess up when he is hanging around the White House.

  81. 81.

    hells littlest angel

    @satby: I know that there are people out there struggling. It’s one thing to struggle, and another to be cynical and decide that all politicians are alike. I realize there are parts of the country that are news deserts, dominated by Sinclair Broadcasting, but anybody who is getting their news from Fox is making a choice — I know of no TV subscription plan that gives you Fox but not MSNBC, or even CNN.

  82. 82.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: My Aunt and Uncle had a fishing camp on Lake of the Woods in Ontario. During the 60s all their cabins had iceboxes (the ice went into a box w/ a door and drainage tray at the top so the cold air could sink throughout the box). Every winter they drove out onto the lake to cut ice and fill the ice house for the 6 month fishing and hunting seasons.

    I have very vivid memories of “helping” my cousin, going to the ice house, digging thru the sawdust for the blocks of ice, and restocking all the cabins. The blocks were almost as big as I and I would stagger up the trails with one slung over my 8 yr old shoulder until finally my strapping 16 yr old cousin would relieve me of the burden, to my protests of “I can too carry it!”

  83. 83.

    Lapassionara

    @Cheryl Rofer: I for one want to know more about Tad Devine and his connection to the Russians. I feel like he has flown under the radar with respect to that issue.

  86. 86.

    RAM

    I just don’t buy the idea GOP senators will suddenly decide their political survival depends on ridding the nation of Trump. The GOP has made a living telling so many lies about so much during the past three decades that they now believe their own BS. These, for the most part, are not canny politicians who tell lies to the rubes. They ARE the rubes, who really no longer can differentiate between the truth and their own BS. Just about all the ones who could are gone. McConnell and Graham still can, and so can Colllins. It’s just that they are so unbelievably corrupt they won’t.

  87. 87.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JPL: And there will be a vote in the house refusing to seat him. Art 1. Sec 5:

    Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business;

    IIRC Pelosi has already stated this.

  88. 88.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: After a certain anti-war “riot” a few of us had our pictures plastered all over the front page of the local paper. One of the guys had a family cabin on Red Deer Lake outside of Kenora. We took off up there with Spartacus, a huge malamute, and a decent little stash. We got to Kenora and laid in provisions including a huge ham that was going to be our staple for the week. We had to uncover a row boat and row across to the island where the cabin was. There was no power so we made a little dam in a creek and put the ham in there to keep it cool. Ever try to catch a malamute with again ham in its mouth bounding through the north woods? He ate it all and we threw his big ass in that cold lake everyday b ut I don’t think he cared. Stupid fucking hippies.

  89. 89.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Trump is up and tweeting. I’ll give you only the last couple. Crazy old man is crazy.

    As a former Detroiter, I can tell you the auto industry will love this one.

    …..close the Southern Border. Bring our car industry back into the United States where it belongs. Go back to pre-NAFTA, before so many of our companies and jobs were so foolishly sent to Mexico. Either we build (finish) the Wall or we close the Border……— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2018

    Foolish!

    …..Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are doing nothing for the United States but taking our money. Word is that a new Caravan is forming in Honduras and they are doing nothing about it. We will be cutting off all aid to these 3 countries – taking advantage of U.S. for years!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2018

    What have those shit hole countries ever done for Donald J. Trump, huh? What???

  90. 90.

    SFAW

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I don’t believe Trump can work his phone well enough to take a selfie.

    Plus he’d need arms 15 feet long (even WITH a selfie stick), or an extremely-wide-angle lens

  91. 91.

    Patricia Kayden

    Really enjoying Morning Joe’s look back at significant historical moments. Great way to see how far we’ve fallen with Trump at the helm.

  94. 94.

    SFAW

    @NotMax:

    Many men find one woman but the iceman has his pick.

    I have come to expect better of you. Besides, I’m the one who does the stupid “jokes” here, bub.

  98. 98.

    SFAW

    @hells littlest angel:

    and another to be cynical and decide that all politicians are alike.

    Are you trying to tell us that St. Ralph the Pure was worng about Bush and Gore, and their respective parties, being the same? Shocked, I am.

  100. 100.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Cutting off aid to those three countries will only lead to more caravans. They are leaving their countries for a reason and not just because they love to take long treks to the U.S. If we had a decent President, he would work with the leaders of those countries to figure out how to ameliorate conditions and thus negate the need for caravans in the first place. But alas, we don’t.

  101. 101.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven:

    Ever try to catch a malamute with again ham in its mouth bounding through the north woods?

    HA! I was at an MVOR and somebody turned their backs on a (smaller) just cooked and cooling fried turkey on the picnic bench. Their dog, a schnauzer/beagle/whoknowswhat mix snatched it and took off across the field with it with their owner screaming bloody murder hot on it’s trail. I will never forget this little short legged dog hightailing it thru the grass holding this big ass turkey up in the air, dodging this way and that, and 200 hundred cavers cheering him on.

    The little fucker never did give it up and ate very well that night and probably the next morn.

  102. 102.

    raven

    @SFAW: He also saved our asses in Eau Claire. We stopped to eat in little diner and shoot the shit with some local kids. We was extreme long hairs and the coppers didn’t cotton to that. They pulled us over just outside of town and the big boy growled like mad and they didn’t search the car or we’d have been up the lazy river.

  105. 105.

    kindness

    Nice piece. Impeachment? Sure it would clear the House but the Senate? I think some one is giving Mitch McConnell far too much credit. I mean, Mitch knew Senate Republicans were taking Russian money for the 2016 elections when he refused to stand with President Obama & the Intel agencies issuing a statement about Trump taking Russian money & help. Mitch is dirtier and greasier than any of us would ever have imagined. And we can imagine a lot. No, it doesn’t matter what evidence Mueller has. This Senate majority only cares about power. They won’t convict the Donald for anything. Just sayin’.

  106. 106.

    hells littlest angel

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Next:

    Was offered Swedish love and French love…but not American love. American love; like Coke in green glass bottles…they don’t make it anymore …

  109. 109.

    NotMax

    @SFAW

    Strangely gratifying was seeing pictures of LBJ (that’s your cue, raven), post presidency, with hair cascading below his collar.

  112. 112.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    As a former Detroiter, I can tell you the auto industry will love this one.

    A year or so ago, I heard a talk by a state commerce official. Apparently the auto industry is now wrapped around the southern border, and partially-assembled cars or their parts make multiple trips back and forth across the border as they are manufactured. Both Texas and New Mexico benefit from this. I had no idea, and I’m sure Trump doesn’t and would refuse to believe it if someone informed him.

  114. 114.

    Raoul

    If the moment comes that Mitch McConnell thinks it is better for Mitch McConnell to be rid of Trump than keep him, the Kentucky turtle will strike with (surprising!) speed. That much should be obvious, though of course Trump isn’t smart that way.

  116. 116.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Betty Cracker: Well she who gave speeches to Goldman Sachs employees, lost, hence financial elites paid their price according to the Green Mountain Sage.

    My prediction for BS: He will run, he will perform worse than 2016 and spend the rest of the year complaining about rigged elections and cheating. Hopefully this time, it will have less traction than 2016. We will see.

  117. 117.

    Raoul

    @Patricia Kayden: Today’s GOP only has three policy prescriptions for everything: tax cuts, deregulate everything, and ban abortion (and maybe contraception). That, and voter suppression, is all they’ve got. Not exactly a party that would think that ‘helping’ Honduras would stem immigration. Moar jails. I forgot about that policy. Private, for profit jails.

  118. 118.

    schrodingers_cat

    We had guests for Diwali and we went to Connecticut for Thanksgiving so Christmas and New Year’s is kinda low key. Getting elebenty things in the house done, that need fixing, organizing, cleaning etc. It is in the 40s instead of bone-chilling cold like every year. So that’s nice.

  120. 120.

    Chyron HR

    @schrodingers_cat:

    If the purpose of his campaign is to gin up resentment among his supporters, wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to just not run in the first place and blame the Financial Elites?

  123. 123.

    KithKanan

    @NotMax: I’d never heard about long-haired post-presidency Johnson so I had to look that up, and the reason claimed in this 1973 Atlantic article is gratifying as well:

    The newspapers showed a startling picture of Johnson, his hair almost shoulder-length. Former aide Bob Hardesty takes credit for this development. “We were working together one day,” Hardesty recalls, “and he said, in passing, ‘Robert, you need a haircut.’ I told him, ‘Mr. President, I’m letting my hair grow so no one will be able to mistake me for those SOB’s in the White House.’ He looked startled, so I explained, ‘You know, that bunch around Nixon—Haldeman, Ehrlichman—they all have very short hair.’ He nodded. The next time I saw him his hair was growing over his collar.”

  124. 124.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Cheryl Rofer:We are living in a John Le Carre’ novel, or an episode of The Americans. I used to love that show before T was elected and was even sympathetic to some of the Russians , as opposed to their bumbling FBI counterparts. But post 2016 I just couldn’t enjoy the show like I did before.

  127. 127.

    JR

    @TS (the original): That’s just a lazy interpretation of a badly constructed opinion poll. Not to single you out, but I’ve seen this repeated a lot around these parts. Republicans and Trump are not mutually exclusive, but most people regard the president as the head of the party. If you eliminate “Trump” from the equation, most of those polled would shift their blame into the “Republican” category.

    Generally speaking, I detest opinion polls as they don’t really mean anything. The best measure of public support is candidate preference. Everything else is noise.

  129. 129.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Chyron HR:

    If the purpose of his campaign is to gin up resentment among his supporters, wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to just not run in the first place

    No. The ‘we were robbed’ narrative was crucial to his backstabbing the Democrats in 2016. He needed it to suck fresh young idealists out of the Democratic Party and convince them that Democrats are the real enemy, not Republicans who would have stampeded to vote for actual progress if they’d been given a chance.

  131. 131.

    Just One More Canuck

    @KithKanan: thanks for linking to that – very interesting article. I was surprised that he was only 64 when he died – he had always struck me as older than that.

  132. 132.

    J R in WV

    @kindness:

    Impeachment? Sure it would clear the House but the Senate? I think some one is giving Mitch McConnell far too much credit. I mean, Mitch knew Senate Republicans were taking Russian money for the 2016 elections when he refused to stand with President Obama & the Intel agencies issuing a statement about Trump taking Russian money & help. Mitch is dirtier and greasier than any of us would ever have imagined. And we can imagine a lot. No, it doesn’t matter what evidence Mueller has. This Senate majority only cares about power.

    Just one question… How much influence over the Senate will Mitch “Turtle” McConnell have from prison? Because if he’s that dirty, he’s going to be arrested and taken away, and then the impeachment may proceed with Mitch as a shining example of how to get caught and put away.

  133. 133.

    Gin & Tonic

    @J R in WV: There is zero chance McConnell ever sees the inside of a prison cell, just as there is zero chance Trump will be impeached and convicted. Take that to the bank.

  134. 134.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    @RAM:

    I just don’t buy the idea GOP senators will suddenly decide their political survival depends on ridding the nation of Trump.

    I’m with you on this view. I was in college when Nixon resigned over Watergate, and since that time Republicans (particularly the base of the party, and thus also the vast majority of elected Republican officials who can only attain office with support of that base) have become hardened into actual, American-style fascists. As a corollary to that, the main “lesson of Watergate” for commited, diehard Republicans has similarly hardened into “DO NOT abandon a sitting Republican president, NO MATTER WHAT” (otherwise “the liberals” win, and there is no worse result for our homegrown fascists than that).

    The “political survival” of some (very few, I think) GOP Senators may hinge on turning against Trump, but the political survival of almost all of them currently in office depends first of all (the primaries) on not pissing off the base (who will largely continue to support Trump till their dying breath). 67 votes to convict on impeachment will never happen. But the Democratic House should still write up articles of impeachment anyway, and hang that around the neck of the GOP in 2020 — I believe that will have a far greater positive effect for the Democratic Party than any negative effects due to alleged (by the GOP and much of the media) “overreaching”.

  135. 135.

    SFAW

    @opiejeanne:

    All he needs is a full-length mirror to take a selfie.

    It’s not the length that’s the issue, it’s the width. The angle subtended by his girth is such that the camera needs to be somewhat farther away than it would be for someone with a BMI of around 30.

  136. 136.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Gin & Tonic: Genug with the insistent debbiedownerism. You’re one intentionally-depressing post away from becoming the first & only person I’ve ever pied.

  139. 139.

    artem1s

    @Betty Cracker:

    Sanders yaps about “Wall Street Democrats” attacking his campaign before he’s even in the race and says:

    I read this as “the Dems aren’t extending me any help this time”. No mailing lists, no joint fundraising, etc. I also wonder how his fundraising is doing generally. He seems to perceive Beto and the rest of the young rock stars as being enough of a threat that he is already trying to out them as pro-Wall Street. He’s getting really desperate.

  141. 141.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    @Uncle Cosmo: Christ, this unhinged thoughtcrime bullshit again. It had mostly disappeared around here since the midterms, but obviously lives on with whiny-ass titty-babies such as yourself who find realistic takes in blog comments to be just soo depressing. Care to make the argument that, say, McConnell is destined for prison somehow, or that there’s more than the slightest chance (you know, given the actually-existing Republican Senators and their particular political situations) that Trump could be convicted under impeachment? Nah, of course not, much easier to just accuse someone on your own fucking side of poisoning the well – intentionally, at that – for having a less-rosy view than you.

    I highly suggest you avoid any online discussions (say, at LGM) about climate change. Pie someone? Shit, you’re liable to slit your wrists if you do.

  142. 142.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: You’re not “on my side” & you are cordially invited to take a long walk off a short pier. We’ll win this country back without, indeed in spite of, fucking arseholes like you accusing people like me of “poisoning the well” when it’s exactly what you & your buddy G&T are doing on a regular basis.

    TL;DR version: Fuck off & die, shithead.

  143. 143.

    Ruckus

    @Just One More Canuck:
    I often wonder if he knew he wasn’t in good health and that was part of the reason he didn’t run. 64 isn’t all that young, life time wise for someone born when LBJ was.

  144. 144.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    @Uncle Cosmo: You make cogent arguments. About on par with your reading comprehension, anyway (hint: it wasn’t fucking arsehole me accusing “people like (you)” of poisoning the well; try again). Ah well, see ya around next time! Unless I get pied by you, I guess (the horror!).

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