.
Day 27 of this reckless presidential temper tantrum. The American people are suffering. It’s time for Mitch McConnell to emerge from the witness protection program and DO YOUR JOB. pic.twitter.com/hxtTFuV2ok
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) January 17, 2019
While we wait, not so patiently, for Robert Mueller and/or other experts to further discuss Buzzfeed‘s big reveal from last night…
It’s revealing that when Pelosi put opening the government as a condition of the State of the Union Trump didn’t respond with, “I have confidence we can get solve this in the next two weeks.” He has no plan, no endgame in sight.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) January 18, 2019
From Vanity Fair, “Trump Doesn’t Understand Why He’s Losing the Shutdown”:
With each passing day, it seems less likely that Donald Trump will negotiate a speedy resolution to the ongoing government shutdown. Ordinarily, in the case of a political standoff, one side will concede after the consequences exceed their pain threshold, or once both sides grow tired of posturing and agree to compromise. Trump, however, appears to be lacking in any of the traits that might bring him to the negotiating table. He is, for one, largely apathetic to the 800,000 or so federal workers who are not getting paychecks (“most of the people not getting paid are Democrats,” he has said). He is arrogant enough to believe that the American people largely back his position, despite polling showing the exact opposite (58 percent of Americans told the Pew Foundation that they oppose the wall, and would also oppose a deal that included wall funding). And he lacks the political sophistication to understand what is motivating Democrats in Congress to hold firm.
The latest evidence comes via The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni, whose sources inside the White House portray the president as a man without any sort of plan for ending the shutdown, now in its 27th day. “We are getting crushed!” Trump recently told acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, according to the Times. “Why can’t we get a deal?”A large part of the reason, of course, is that Democrats in Congress are almost perfectly united behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who have been holding the party line against any funding for a physical border wall. White House aides tell the Times that Trump “believes he is still playing a strong hand,” but it’s not clear what leverage he really has…
How about ‘none’? Does ‘none’ work for you?…
Politico, bothsider-ing with all its might, “Shutdown breaks Congress’ spirit”:
…[W]ith most members headed home for a long weekend, the partial shutdown is essentially guaranteed to enter into its second month. It’s an unheard-of impasse even in a capital that’s seen debt crises, blunt budget cuts and scores of unprecedented political conflicts over the past decade.
But this one feels different, a shutdown where the dynamics are frozen. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) don’t want money for a border wall, and President Donald Trump wants $5.7 billion. Rank-and-file lawmakers can make noise and try to create momentum, but Trump has dismissed everything they’ve come up with — leading some members to wonder what they’re even doing.
“It’s very frustrating for me because my whole instinct is: Let’s find a way to get this solved. But so far anyway, his idea of negotiating is to say ‘here’s what I want, I’ll give you nothing,’” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who tried to forge an immigration deal a year ago. “I could sit down with Mike Pence for an afternoon and we might come to some agreement. And then [Trump would] blow it up.”…
Some Senate Republicans were also trying to give Trump an off-ramp, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio). They hoped to get as many as 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats to sign their letter to Trump, with the hopes that a substantial Democratic commitment to debating border security and a push from Trump’s own party could shift Washington’s stalemate.
But Republican support for the letter cratered this week amid a widespread belief that the president won’t support opening up the government without a border wall guarantee. The letter still might get sent, according to two people familiar with it. But nobody is super enthused.
“They came up with about nine or 10 Republicans. Which we didn’t think is enough to be convincing to the president,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)…
He’s already inconveniencing the Masters of the Universe…
I'm sure the split screen of Trump's delegation hob nobbing in Davos with the super elite and rich versus the Federal Workers in Food Bank lines in the rain and snow will look great. They aren't good at this.https://t.co/LWgALRLQEV
— Russell C. Lakey (@RussLakey) January 17, 2019
They announced the trip was still on this afternoon after breaching Pelosi's security.
The Keystone Kops looked like geniuses compared to this utter failure of an administration.
— Thorby, Son of Baslim of Jubbul. (@neoblaque) January 17, 2019
So… the president canceled the Pelosi trip to Afghanistan out of pique and then realized that meant he also had to cancel his own staff's trip to a Swiss ski resort? https://t.co/TYYz6spoE9
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) January 17, 2019
Maybe if someone showed Lord Smallgloves another Politico headline — “Shutdown has dropped grenade onto Trump’s 2020 team”?
… As polling turns increasingly against the president, and White House officials try to find a solution to what some consider a pointless standoff, Trump aides and advisers are worried that the president is doing his 2020 Democratic challengers an early favor.
“This is a really bad spot for him,” said one person familiar with Trump’s campaign, who fretted that Trump is not thinking strategically about how the shutdown might affect his reelection chances. “He may just be fighting because he doesn’t know what the hell else to do.”…
Others simply believe that, four weeks in, Trump has more to lose than to gain in what has become a high-stakes political gambit that could cost him with his base if he strikes a compromise.
“If it ends with some kind of capitulation, it could be the beginning of real fracturing in Trump’s core base of support. If it ends with a deal that can be plausibly sold as advancing the case for the wall, then Trump loses little but gains little. That’s a bad place to be,” said Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs, a leading conservative policy journal. “He’s fighting for something that voters outside his core coalition don’t value, so he has much more to lose than to win.”
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
JPL
Apparently the president was warned not to cancel Melania’s trip. She knows where the bodies are buried.
p.a.
All this because the shitstain doesn’t realize ‘wall’ was a mnemonic device in his campaign to talkimmigrant-fear-pR0n, and the deplorables gave him an applause line to run with.
JPL
I want just one f.king day where trump isn’t in the news. Supposedly the secret service has been preparing for a trump visit to Atlanta for the Super Bowl. I guess that plan is off for now.
raven
@JPL: Where’s you hear that? There is no way he’d do that.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Looks like we’re gonna “impeach the motherfucker” after all.
JPL
@raven: I assumed that it’s standard protocol to prepare just in case. Hey, I protect my sources… lol.
Tony Jay
Self-obsessed and floundering Government Executive stubbornly persisting with an unpopular policy in the wake of a stinging electoral defeat, sheltering behind a shield of cynical partisan loyalty while showing a complete lack of concern about the harm caused by their intransigence. An Opposition standing firm by refusing to make compromises until the most egregious and offensive parts of the Government’s policy are taken off the table, all the while being sniped at and shit on by a deeply biased 24/7 news cycle desperate to ‘both-sides’ a genuine national crisis into Infotainment.
But enough about Brexit. I hear you’ve got something similar going on in America?
JPL
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: The house democrats might not have a choice, but no way will Mitch even allow a vote in the senate.
He’s afraid of the tweet.
Marcus
Until the turtle agrees to let something on the floor, nothing is gonna happen. R’s in the Senate are gonna have to figure out if it is worth it to stick with McConnell, as he is the main sticking point in getting anything on 45’s desk. Let 45 veto it – then the House and Senate can override, and get the government funded again.
JWR
@Tony Jay: Bravo! (And well done, also too.)
Tony Jay
@JWR:
The parallels speak for themselves. It would just be nice if there was more of an appreciation of – how – similar the roadblocks to progress are. In Westminster as in Washington DC the problem is conservatives in power, not the party in Opposition.
poleaxedbyboatwork
May I humble-brag a minnit?
Playing in the bar down 100+ in scrabble with about 11 tiles to go to a dear friend who’s purty fucking good, found self with O-W-I-G-S-?-H. He’s just played Q-U-I-R-E in the upper left-hand corner, one row away from TWS. S-H-O-W-I-?-G is next play on upper row (starting atop quire for squire, course) over to midde-upper TWS for bingo and bout 97 if mem’ry serves. Rattled out remainder of the tiles betwixt the two, and final score after dedux for remainder were 382-381. Fun game.
TS (the original)
@JPL: She will, no doubt, cancel her trip back to DC – due to the shutdown.
HinTN
Inquiring minds might be interested to know Mr Mulvaney’s response, but no such luck from our MSM.
Immanentize
Happy Friday, All!
Not enough intoxicants for this crap. We had a furloughed party last Saturday with my friends at EPA. They are happy the back pay bill is signed, but the one-income families (especially the inspectors and investigators) are starting to feel the pinch. I’m going to feed them all again Sunday.
OzarkHillbilly
Today in dog bites man news:
Immanentize
@JPL: where is Melania going? By herself? Isn’t Barron in school?
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly:
Kutztown = Amish, no?
Did they buggy while drunk?
Barbara
@Immanentize: Holiday weekend?
Immanentize
@Barbara: that’s some school that gets some of Thursday and Friday off too! I have never been a fan of parents who extend their kids vacations like that…. But many do.
Lapassionara
Good morning everyone.
So I returned to the USA yesterday, and, in spite of my anxieties, all went smoothly at passport check and TSA. We were not asked to fill out a customs form, so I asked the guy checking my passport about it, and he said “we don’t require that anymore.” I think what he meant to say is “stopping smuggling is not an essential government function.”
Jet lag prevents me from writing something appropriately snarky.
OzarkHillbilly
@HinTN:
Pretty safe to say it was something along the lines of, “Oh no mr president, we are crushing them bigly. Those are all fake polls, our real polls show the American people are all behind your manly show of principal 100%!”
JPL
@Immanentize: Barron appears to be an after thought. The only time he’s been mentioned was to explain a cut on trump’s hand. He was horse playing with Barron.. Yeah that sounds plausible.
Waspuppet
@HinTN: “Because you literally don’t know the difference between a deal and a swindle.”
BruceFromOhio
@Tony Jay:
This made me laugh out loud. Meanwhile, the Russians are LOVING this whole shit show of western politics cocking up just about everything.
Waldo
Where the gambling analogy falls apart …
Conventional wisdom: The house always wins.
Failed casino magnate: Not in my experience.
Betty Cracker
Just catching up on the Buzzfeed story about Trump directing Cohen to lie to Congress. Seems like a pretty big deal, no? Especially since the evidence isn’t just Cohen’s say-so but emails, electronic evidence (recordings maybe?), etc. Also, in a hearing this week, AG nominee Barr affirmed that suborning perjury is a crime — “classic” obstruction of justice.
Also, according to CNN, Individual 1 was “startled” to learn that Barr and Mueller are such good friends. He really should get out of the Fox News bubble more often. No shot at finding an AG pick who believes PizzaGate conspiracies and thinks it’s okay to direct underlings to lie to Congress now.
plato
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Betty Cracker:
OK, fair enough. But me? Much as I’d like to feel reassured by Mueller’s professional comportment heretofore, gotta admit the weird connex betwixt Barr and Mueller (Bible school wifery! go you!) was, well, off-putting.
Specially when you consider: Barr tried to fast-track an investigation into Clinton (proto-Whitewater! go, baby!) on eve of elex in ’92, then alla the other stuff about which Barr seems like a gooper bagman (AG audition, don’t know shit under testimony, etc.), it’s … less than reassuring.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
Karma is a beach in DC.
Ken
I’d love to know if whoever asked that question knew the Cohen story was in the pipe.
clay
@Betty Cracker: The Barr pick is a complete mystery to me. Going back to GWHB’s cabinet seems so unlike Trump’s usual style. How did Barr even get on his radar? Who suggested Barr to Trump? What did Trump expect out of Barr? Was there even an interview? It’s just weird…
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: I think it’s a safe supposition that trump, a congenital liar, who has had every single person in his admin to lie for him on tv, in print, at press briefings, in cabinet meetings, in Congress, and many many more venues, would not stop at suborning perjury.
debbie
Stephen Colbert’s Late Night is taking preorders for this coffee mug. All of the proceeds will benefit World Central Kitchen, a group working to feed unpaid federal workers. Expecting to ship at the end of next week, it’s only $14.95!
poleaxedbyboatwork
@clay:
It ain’t weird if his job is to pull the fat outta the fire. (Which, imo, it is.)
Now, whose fat? That’s an inneresting question.
Trump don’t know shit. That’s a given.
My take: Barr’s job is to save Trump if he can, but above all else, make sure there’s a lifeboat for Republican dickheads.
He’s an establishment cleaner. imo
plato
@clay: I think it was a barr’s ass kissing ‘Mueller investigation is a witch-hunt’ opinion piece in some rw media that got the totus thug’s attention.
Tony Jay
@BruceFromOhio:
To be fair it’s a bit Bread and Circuses, isn’t it? Tsar Vladimir has ‘centralised’ every spare rouble the country has into his own personal bank-account, leaving a poverty stricken failed-state dotted with shiny bits of bling all owned by his KGBuddies and other suitably loyal oligarchs, but at least he can entertain the masses with rolling reports on how successfully Mother Russia is owning the West and – importantly – getting away with (most of) it.
How long before United Russia starts selling T-Shirts saying “Who Won This Cold War, Tovarisch?.”
Immanentize
@Ken: For Senators on Judiciary, they probably have known that Trump directed Cohen to lie for months.
Betty Cracker
@poleaxedbyboatwork: Didn’t mean to imply that I’m sanguine about Barr! I don’t trust any Bushie or ostentatious god-botherer. I remain deeply pissed off that it’s apparently now an unwritten rule that only Republicans can be appointed special counsel, regardless of which party is in power.
But it is somewhat reassuring that Barr is willing to state on the record the obvious fact that a president directing an underling to lie to Congress is a crime. It doesn’t make him one of the good guys, but it would seem to set him apart from that unqualified bullet-headed seat-warmer currently acting as AG, and I find it amusing that Trump was blindsided by the warmth of the Barr-Mueller friendship, confirming as it does that Trump is an idiot with no strategy to save his own ass.
@Ken: Get this — it was Lindsey Graham!
Immanentize
@clay: Barr was sending memos to the White House, met with The president about joining g his defense team, met with others at the WhiteHouse about the investigation (including Kushner). Barr has been auditioning for the part for a year.
Chris Johnson
In what way is Trump shutting down the United States Government for the benefit of his master Putin, FAILING for him?
This is not a failure, but exactly the purpose of the exercise. Wall got nothin’ to do with it.
How would this be handled differently in any way if Donald was actively in the pay of and taking daily instructions from Russia? You’d see the same failure to resolve the situation in any particular direction because the condition of shutdown is the payoff.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It’s ridiculous that Ivanka Trump is still operating within the federal government at this point. None of the process issues re: the President apply to her- she doesn’t have to be impeached. DC is crawling with smart lawyers. No one can figure out a way to reach her and get her out of our government, short of an indictment? She’s managed to protect herself by violating norms and ethical standards- she’s invulnerable BECAUSE she operates outside the rules as the relative of a powerful person. We’re rewarding her for her claiming her own special status.
When does she get held accountable? She skated in NY due to privilege and power. Now again in DC? This person is untouchable?
JoyceH
Hey, are we sure it was just Melania on that plane and not Trump sneaking down to Florida for some golf? Has he been seen since the plane left?
MomSense
@JPL:
Almost makes me miss “choking on a pretzel”
Ryan
Remember after 9/11 when they grounded all flights for a few days. Imagine 3 months without air travel once air traffic controllers and TSA quit en masse for jobs where the employer doesn’t lock out the labor force. The ranks of the unemployed aren’t exactly swelled at the moment.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Well see, won’t we? According to Politico’s palace intrigue coverage, the departure of Kelly and appointment of Mulvaney as ACTING CoS (he made them put “Acting” on the business cards!) made Kushner the de facto CoS, so it doesn’t look like anything but indictments will budge that pair of grifters. Bring on the indictments!
Among the many stupid things Giuliani has said and done, one that sticks out in my mind was an interview he did some time ago in which he expressed absurd reverence for Ivanka. (The interview was infamous because he said Kushner was expendable.) He seemed to think the whole country would turn on anyone who dared question the wisdom and honesty of that knock-off bag and shoe peddler. I think he’ll find the rest of the country doesn’t hold her in such high regard.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Betty Cracker:
Will say this: My impression of Barr’s testimony was that of a slippery douche willing to suavely say whatever was necessary to achieve his objective at closing time.
It *is* funny that Trump don’t know about Barr and Mueller. Granted. But by the same token, that ain’t exactly reassuring, to me anyways.
B/c Trump ain’t loyal to no one, no one is loyal to Trump. Happy to be wrong (delighted, actually), but very strongly get the sense (not that he’ll be successful necessarily, just that’s his mission) that Barr’s job is to try’n make sure Republicanism ain’t thoroughgoingly discredited. If possible, by saving Trump’s presidency, but irrespective of whether Trump gets saved ultimately (cuz no one is loyal to Trump).
Apologize if I come across too righteous, din’t mean to. Late, tired, stupid, alla the usual excuses.
montanareddog
@Betty Cracker:
Could be disinformation, so that they can feign surprise when Barr makes a move to shut down the SCO
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: My first grade teacher DIL gets worked up about parents who do that.
We got back from Florida last evening and I had trouble staying away until 9. Traveling wears me out these days.
JPL
Mediaite has a clip of Fox’s lead story which has to do with scary caravan crossing the border into Mexico. Don’t blink because you might miss the swarms of people. link
montanareddog
@montanareddog: or to try and sow complacency in some Democrat senators
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
You are good people.??
But her emails!!!
Trump: I just threw a sack full of kittens in to the river. Give me $50 to buy toilet paper to vandalize your house with and I promise to fish them out.
Pelosi: Hell no! Now go get the kittens out of the river you crazy motherfucker!
…………
Pelosi: OK. We have all the things we need to rescue the kittens. Let’s do this.
McConnell: Sorry. Can’t unless Trump gives the thumbs up.
Pelosi: WTF. This was your plan.
McConnell: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Schumer: You’re still wearing one of the customized US Senate kitten rescue squad wet suits you had made
McConnell: Ummm.
…………..
AOC: If anyone finds a lost turtle, can you please return him to the US Senate?
…………..
Media: Day 27 of the kitten crisis. With Trump refusing to allow the kittens to be rescued and Pelosi stubbornly refusing to pay for his toilet paper, both sides are responsible for the rapidly deteriorating state of the kittens.
Dorothy A. Winsor
We saw “Vice” while we were in Florida. I thought it was extremely well done–very creative use of non-realistic story-telling techniques and a gripping subject matter.
rikyrah
Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) Tweeted:
Here’s the real truth behind the Buzzfeed story.
Mueller knows everything.
https://twitter.com/CharlesPPierce/status/1086246937651830784?s=17
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning rikyrah?!
Having a wonderful time here, thanks for the good wishes yesterday!
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
Glad you see it too ????
rikyrah
Rev. Dr. Barber (@RevDrBarber) Tweeted:
A wall is not racist; it’s the the rationale, lies & philosophy behind Trump’s wall that is racist. Water fountains, buses & lunch counters were not racist, but they were segregated by lies, a philosophy & rationale that were racist.
https://twitter.com/RevDrBarber/status/1085999979431424002?s=17
Betty Cracker
@JPL: They’re basically just yelling “CARAVAN” at random pedestrians now. It would be comical if there weren’t millions of stupid people in America who fall for it.
Waldo
NPR’s lead story is the Buzzfeed Cohen report. So there’s that.
Wonder what’s on Rudy’s agenda for today.
rikyrah
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
Barr is there to save the Republican collaborators ??
Betty Cracker
@montanareddog: Possibly, but I am skeptical of any theory that attributes strategy to the pack of failed D-listers running this administration.
Immanentize
@Waldo:
Rudy decided he’s going to be drinking from home today.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: @Dorothy A. Winsor: I think it depends. I have some friends who extend at least one such holiday break every year, for the purpose of taking their children to: Iceland, Nicaragua, Belize (from whence their oldest returned with a pet embedded in her back) and more. At some time in the not too distant future they want to take a year and drive to the tip of South America.
Schools aren’t the only place one can get an education.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Immanentize:
On the upside for the sake a transparency, it’sa open coffin.
#ghoulianinosferatu
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly:
I agree, but Mar-a-Lago probably doesn’t qualify.
I totally agree that there are great places kids could go to learn things and an extra day here or there is not such a loss, but many do it regularly. Also, be honest — kids have lots of non-school time. Here they get almost two weeks at the end of the year, one week in February and one week in April (or like my son, two weeks in March instead), and two and a half months in the summer. Parents are usually thinking of their pleasure and their convenience when taking kids out of school.
SFAW
@Waldo:
800: Lie
830: Lie some more
900: Lie even more
930: Whine break
1000: Get his Depends changed
1030: Back to lying
1100: Grift
1130: Lunch
1430: Back from lunch. Lie some more
1500: Tell the Traitor-in-Chief how awesome he is
1600: Check in w/NY FBI office, see if they’ve buried the evidence
1630: Return to lying
etc.
Elizabelle
@But her emails!!!: Well done there.
zhena gogolia
@But her emails!!!:
Wow, spot-on.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Also, “pet imbedded in her back?” Parasite? Vampire bat? That braincell thing from Star Trek that attached to Spock?
Amir Khalid
@JPL:
If Barron was holding something sharp enough to cut his father’s hand, that wasn’t horseplay.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: As I said, it depends. Hauling 3 or 4 kids halfway around the world, chaperoning them thru 3rd world cities, jungles, mountains, and deserts is not for the weak, and it sure isn’t relaxing.
ETA on their last trip to China they got each of the kids GPS transponders so they wouldn’t lose any of them in Beijing
MattF
@SFAW: Infrastructure Week should be in there someplace.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This is like the trade war, with China, Trump set up off, made negotiating impossible and then walked away because resolving it is hard work.
rikyrah
@SFAW:
????
No lie told
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Bot fly. :-) she, an otherwise extremely fastidious child, grew vary attached to it, in more ways than one.
germy
Tenar Arha
@But her emails!!!: Too real. Too too real.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: GPS transponders for kids certainly beats kid-leashes (which I do understand but still freak me out, somehow). I got one of those TrackRs for my cat. It doesn’t work too well, sadly. I really wanted to know where he went when out.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ken: Politics is like magnets, something that’s just beyond human understanding (sure people bring of scientists, but what do they know?) I mean just because the Dems won a resounding victory with a specific mandate from the public to stupid crap like the wall, that’s not reason why they shouldn’t give Trump all he wants.
Seriously, this can’t be because Trump is a Russian spy, because the Russians would have told him to chill on the wall by this point. Trump is really this stupid and it boggles the mind.
SFAW
@MattF:
Infrastructure Week, like Elvis, is everywhere.
But it’s not a Ghouliani “deliverable.”
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly:
Botfly = Gadfly. Which I have been accused of occasionally around nice buffet spreads.
JPL
@Immanentize: Are you sure? Trump is proud that his buddies are helping run the government, and I imagine they can handle simple homework instructions.
Amir Khalid
@Immanentize:
I suspect that your cat takes the tracker off and disables it as soon as he is out of your sight.
SFAW
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
In the Chas Pierce tweet mentioned above, someone had a picture of a sign/poster/whatever:
“Trying to outsmart Mueller is like trying to outstupid Trump.”
OzarkHillbilly
@germy:
My wishes lean more towards amputation, but I’m just petty that way..
montanareddog
@OzarkHillbilly: Thank you! I so wish I had not gone to Wiki to find out what a botfly was!
artem1s
the media are idiots. Pelosi doesn’t give a fuck about the damn wall. She is holding class on how government works and demonstrating separation of powers to an idiot. And given Dolt’s tendency to fold when confronted with a true alpha, Pelosi has a good chance at owning this guy for as long as she wants to keep him in the WH. I’m betting she’s got him attaching Mitch and the GOP before all this is over. And once the Trump Crime Family is out, she will have an easy time of keeping Dence twisting in the wind.
rikyrah
Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) Tweeted:
Media framing of Trump-Pelosi battle is widely awful. The whole “Dems sinking to Trump’s level” meme is not only utterly false on its face. It also trivializes the seriousness of Trump’s ongoing misconduct and does not allow space for public officials to respond to it seriously:
https://t.co/EDMSjeIC0r https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1086233921329745925?s=17
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: But it still hasn’t left the building.
Ohio Mom
@Immanentize: The rumor is that Barron lives with Melania’s parents in the Virginia suburbs, and if that is true, he’s probably not missing school. He could be having a much more normal childhood than if he was living with his father. We can hope for his sake, anyway.
On the surface, not too different than what the Obamas did, recruiting Michelle’s mother to serve as a third parent, but after that, the analogy completely falls apart for reasons I hardly have to list here.
rikyrah
Mr. Weeks ?? (@MrDane1982) Tweeted:
Did Michael Cohen have Trump on tape when Trump directed him to lie to Congress about the Moscow tower project…?
And why haven’t one fucking commentator have the journalistic integrity to say Hillary Clinton was robbed and she should be President.
https://twitter.com/MrDane1982/status/1086118944384135168?s=17
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Immanentize:
Ha! When I brought my boat up to Sitka from SF Bay, hadda friend I met in the yard (Jack, Georgia Peach, Vietnam vet, deaf as a post like me) who followed my progress northward on AIS. (Lil — but not terribly — embarrassed to admit I dunno what it stands for, but you gotta getta MMSI # from FCC, and if you gotta transponder, which I did, it’ll send n receive discrete vessel locations onto chart software.)
‘Member when I got to Sitka (’bout 11 days later; had some pit stops for various reasons, some fun, some less so), Jack wanted to know what the hell I was doing offa Port Orford Rocks drifting atta half-knot toward shore.
Had to admit I had exactly the same reaction at the time.
(Jack sailed around the world inna boat similar to mine — mine’s a plastical tub, but Jack’s is a 56′ ferro-cement ketch — stainless-steel rebar he’ll have you know! Spent 7 years on his circumnav, but 3 of it continuous all over in Europe, went to Antarctica, purty much everywhere. If you met Jack at the grocery store, less you was highly attuned to Tennessee Wms’s slow waters run deep frequency, be easy to see thru but not into.)
OzarkHillbilly
@montanareddog: Some people have gone so far as to name their bot flies.
JPL
@Ohio Mom: Trump told Stern that he wasn’t fond of children until they turned 18. He allowed some time for Ivanka at an earlier age, but only he knows why.
rikyrah
Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) Tweeted:
These explosive @Buzzfeed revelations should cause soul-searching by those who have assisted @realDonaldTrump in attacking Mueller & the FBI. They should prepare themselves for the possibility they may have been wrong, they may have been used, and the President might be a crook.
https://t.co/yLEHvEf02M https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1086243156775952386?s=17
plato
@rikyrah: I saw that exact crap being spouted by some black reporter jeh johnson (?) on cnn international.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: She might remember if she got therapy for her PTSD.
rikyrah
@germy:
Womp womp ?
Tony Jay
What are the odds that the as-yet-undetermined ‘something’ that finally convinces a mass of GOP Senators that they simply – have – to get on board the Impeachment Train like, right now, will revolve around evidence that The Pustule remained true to the gutter tactics he’s always used to make problems like Mueller’s investigation go away, namely threats, bribery and blackmail?
I wonder which of his minions got tasked with playing the heavy, when they got caught, and how long they’ve been wearing a wire?
I also wonder if ‘someone’ was stupid enough to ask Russia for a little help in discrediting Mueller and his people, and if that request was made at some kind of off-the-record one-on-one meeting while external surveillance from a dozen countries was recording it.
That would do it, wouldn’t it? Not even Mitch McKompromat could get his caucus to ignore – that – kind of bomb, could he?
Miss Bianca
@Tony Jay: *golf clap, weeping*
Quinerly
4 tweets in less than an hour… Prayer rugs found at the border and hard to stop this caravan that’s forming right now without a Wall….
Who actually buys this shit anymore?
jimmiraybob
@MattF:
I’m glad you brought this up. I can’t remember, have I mentioned my shovel-ready development plan here? The Trump Mar-a-Guantanamo on the Bay? It’s a top flight luxury retreat that will be ideal for the chief executive of any international conspiracy or rogue nation with 1) open concept exercise facilities, 2) excellent security, 3) 24-hour attendants to cater to your every need, 4) food services, and 5) individualized accommodations starting with the Individual-1 Suite. And it’s located just a short drive to the beach.
JPL
@Tony Jay: But his tweets.
Quinerly
Anybody reading about McConnell trying to recruit Pompeo to leave State and run for the Senate in KS?
JPL
@Quinerly: Is it him? The prayer rug was used years ago, or at least it seems like it was years.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Having lived a hop and a skip from there for a couple of years, the answer in both cases is yes. Also too, it is a college town.
Personal note: Attended a party at a private home there once wherein someone, in a fit of pique, dramatically threw the contents of a glass of champagne into someone else’s face. Often seen in films, rarely viewed in the wild.
JPL
@Quinerly: Pompeo might want an out and Kansas could be a toss-up.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly:
My “neighbors”.
plato
@Quinerly: Is there a senate election coming up in KS?
rikyrah
????
Nothing but a phucking lie…..trying to change the narrative.
(((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) Tweeted:
To Trump and this border rancher we Muslims leave our prayer rugs behind to mark the territory. Or maybe we do it to claim the land as our own. In any event if someone was so religiously devout they brought a prayer rug they wouldn’t leave it behind since need it 5 times a day.
https://t.co/JASb2ltNo4 https://twitter.com/DeanObeidallah/status/1086259347460628480?s=17
Quinerly
@JPL: right wing outlets have been running stories for two years, at least, about border ranchers finding prayer rugs and/or prayer beads. Don’t think I have ever read an actual quote from a named person, though. Trump seems to have read these anonymous sourced stories
somewhere this AM.
Quinerly
@JPL: me thinks McConnell more concerned about keeping the Senate than Trump having a sycophant at State.
Quinerly
@plato: Pat Roberts retiring.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
Don’t they have 2 Senators in Kansas already?
Quinerly
@rikyrah: https://www-washingtonpost-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/powerpost/mcconnell-courting-pompeo-to-run-for-open-senate-seat-in-kansas/2019/01/17/aa29f4aa-1aaf-11e9-9ebf-c5fed1b7a081_story.html&freshcontent=1?amp_js_v=a2&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCCAE%3D#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fpowerpost%2Fmcconnell-courting-pompeo-to-run-for-open-senate-seat-in-kansas%2F2019%2F01%2F17%2Faa29f4aa-1aaf-11e9-9ebf-c5fed1b7a081_story.html
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
Oh..hadn’t heard about Roberts…
I bet Kobach runs…..
JPL
@Quinerly: Trump has no problem finding sycophants even on a temporary basis.
So I’m on my way out until one, so please no breaking news.
Quinerly
Sorry about that crazy formatted WaPO link about KS Senate. Just copied and pasted what I was reading on the smarty pants phone.
B.B.A.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
Morning to Poco and the tribe ??
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: @Quinerly: The rationale I read for this was that the last election showed trump was pushing KS to the left, so they need some middle of the road old school Republican not too closely associated with trump to run.
Yeah, you read that right.
Nelle
@Immanentize: I agree that so much can be learned outside of school. On the other hand, the teachers, underpaid and mocked, have the mission of educating a large group of students as best they can, and having students who need getting caught up because the parents choose to pull them out, can be in hair pulling territory.
When I was 10, I was quite ill and in quarantine for over a month. The units I missed created a hole that persisted for several years…I had a brilliant teacher and the class was fast paced (I was in an experimental classroom for gifted kids, back in the early 60’s). I don’t fault the teacher for not going over it..just too much and there was no mandate that she would be judged by how students performed on standardized tests.
Immanentize
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
I heard a story about Sitka on NPR last night — seems it’s an expensive place to live, with no excess jobs and a bunch of fed employees including coast guard. The Native community openned it’s food pantry to the fed. Employees.
PPCLI
@Quinerly: In particular, the Washington Examiner, a RWNJ operation, just published a story citing an anonymous rancher who claims to have seen such rugs. (The writer is clearly unaware of or uninterested in the fact that these rumors have been flying around for years, and have regularly debunked.) For the Trumpites, that’s enough to make the story new and fresh.
Immanentize
@Tony Jay:
? Says: answer unclear, ask later.
Immanentize
@Quinerly:
The man-boy that cried “terrorist.”
Erik Kropas
This is what the media CONSTANTLY misses. Regardless of who’s in charge of each decision point, what is actually happening during every single shutdown? Republicans are always demanding some major policy change and will only concede to let the government operate,and until the next artificial deadline, if it passes. No further concessions to the other side will be made.
Then the media asks why the Democrats won’t compromise. Bothsiderism is a hell of a drug.
Kraux Pas
This is what the media CONSTANTLY misses. Regardless of who’s in charge of each decision point, what is actually happening during every single shutdown? Republicans are always demanding some major policy change and will only concede to let the government operate, and only until the next artificial deadline, if it passes. No further concessions to the other side will be made.
Then the media asks why the Democrats won’t compromise. Bothsiderism is a hell of a drug.
Immanentize
@NotMax:
Drama! In the PA hinterlands. Doncha know.
Sebastian
Apologies if someone already mentioned this but it also shows what fucking idiots our Masters of the Universe are. All those “deals” they did in Trumps bankruptcies? They gave in to a toddler tantrum, not some complex business negotiations.
Billions, ladies and gentlemen. Billions.
MattF
@Quinerly: Well. Y’know what A-rabs do with prayer rugs? Pray.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Drama indeed, in every possible sense, as the party was to celebrate the end of the successful run of a play and was held at the house of the director (recipient of said champagne).
Yarrow
@rikyrah:
A crook? Sheesh. We’re already well over that low bar. The President is a traitor.
Kraux Pas
@Yarrow:
Yeah, well, wasn’t the last President who famously “[was]n’t a crook” a traitor as well?
Quinerly
@rikyrah: Tail wags, meows, and waves back at you! How’s the ankle?
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: I think it’s safe to say that this “border rancher” is as much a figment of trump’s imagination as the “crises” is.
SFAW
@Tony Jay:
SUCH a kidder, you are.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Immanentize:
Patch a rocky dirt’ll cost you, existing build higher’n most. Like lotta other places, here in Sitka we’re in the process of bein loved to death. City and state broke as a joke (oil rev down).
Fun fact: Sitka usedtawas largest city (by landmass) in world, but apparently has been supplanted by another; city and borough encompasses not just all 9K strong in pop. n our — count em! — 14 miles a road, but the entirety of Baranof island itself.
Young kid got swore into USCG at the Pioneer Bar tonight — even turnt down the juke for a hot minnit, which was the only way anyone knew to shut the fuck up for a sliver.
ANB Hall — Alaska Native Brotherhood — just up the dock from me. Got friends who’re dancers. Gotta lavish feed on T’giving and Xmas. Ha! Funny that you learned me sumpin I din’t know — i.e. about ANB strapping on the food bag for the Coasties.
Lotta fisherfolk are kinda salty about Coast Guard b/c of alla the regs (liferaft, EPIRBs, flares, immersion suits, etc.), but — ain’t no doubt them regs save lives, so I grit my teeth when I think they go overmuch cuz it’s for the greater good. I know that and accept that, but not ever’body does.
Buddy I played scrabble with tonight had his boat go down offa Kulichkof Rock just last spring. Coast Guard fisht him outta the soup. Know, personally, quite a few stories like that, n also a hefty number where folks din’t make it.
OzarkHillbilly
@B.B.A.: GOP: “What’s a crimea?”
Uncle Cosmo
@Tony Jay: Or in the immortal line delivered by Bette Midler in (IIRC) Beaches:
(Still awaiting the Trump Administration sequel, Sons Of Beaches…)
poleaxedbyboatwork
@OzarkHillbilly:
A River Runs Through It.
Uncle Cosmo
@poleaxedbyboatwork: See you & raise you:
A few decades & (for him) two marriages back I used to play Scrabble with my college bridge partner (now a college professor) & his (then-currrent) wife when I visited. He kept a humongous Unabridged dictionary on the side table for whatever new vocabularian outrage I attempted to perpetrate on the board. (Most all of which turned out to be perfectly valid, to his infernal chagrin.)
So one day I dropped this across a Triple Word Score: ZLOTY & he hit the ceiling (the roof being a couple floors up): You can’t expect to get away with that!
I think it’s a Polish coin, I said meekly. And so it was. (Well, that’s one of the things it was. More commonly, the fundamental unit of currency in Poland [still! – currently trading at 3.76 to the $].)
(10+1+1+1+5) x 3 = 54. Zinnnnnnng!
He would never play Scrabble with me again. :^D
sdhays
This made me LOL:
Really? Donald Trump failing to “think strategically”? Surely you jest!
Luthe
@Lapassionara: Nope, they were skipping the Customs forms at least as far back as the beginning of December when I got home from Paris. All I got was a quick quiz from the immigration agent asking if I was bringing back anything fancy. She was satisfied by my answer of “two bottles of wine” and asked no questions about animal products, so my French cheese and I waltzed on through.
There was an agricultural-sniffing dog on duty at the baggage claim, though. I refrained from petting because he was on the job.
Robert Bowsher
@poleaxedbyboatwork: Good play for you, but your opponent should have never left you that TWS, with an S and a blank out. That was just begging to get played on for big points.
My mamaw taught us to play when we were little kids, but she taught us the rules wrong. Multiplier spaces remained alive, so some freakazoid play over a triple-triple would get you the exact same score + 1 if you stuck an ‘S’ on it. That makes you play extremely defensively.
Throwing back tiles looking for bingos is a strategy, and might be the _right_ strategy, but to this day it feels unnatural too me. I have no problem winning 252-239.
MisterForkbeard
@But her emails!!!: What you’re missing from this is the media and Republicans saying “Look, the 13 years ago the Democrats authorized buying toilet paper after the President requested it for his restroom. Why are they being hypocrites about this?”
MomSense
@Immanentize:
Every September I have taken my kids to the Common Ground Fair. We volunteer doing set up and then stay for the several days of the fair before helping with the cleanup. It means missing two days of school. I think it’s worth it, though. We have learned so much from all of the farmers and participants. Sleeping on hay in an open tent is getting tougher for me, though.