Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

This fight is for everything.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

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

How stupid are these people?

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

In after Baud. Damn.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Agonize - Organize / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Proud to Be A Democrat

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Proud to Be A Democrat

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From the party that can walk *and* chew gum!

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118Comments

  5. 5.

    plato

    To the Mark Meadows of the world:Stop wheeling out your ONE Black friend as proof that you, or someone else, is not racist.It AIN'T working. If you weren't doing or saying racist shit in the first place, you'd never need to prove it.#CohenHearing— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) February 27, 2019

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    Found on Amazon Prime, Origins, a French police series. Interesting enough to stick around for the short season of six episodes, although the string of coincidences within each episode reaches so long as to challenge credulity. Premise revolves around a hotshot police homicide detective who is teamed with a professional genealogist/anthropologist/historian.

    Not as engaging (nor as in your face gritty and grisly) as was the French police series Spiral, but not chopped goose liver either.

  10. 10.

    TS (the original)

    Today, I was proud to once again introduce a resolution …. to establish the John S. McCain III Human Rights Commission, which will examine human rights violations through regular hearings and briefings and promote human rights.

    Didn’t think I see the day when the US needed a Human Rights Commission.

  13. 13.

    Jay

    @NotMax:

    John McCain had a strong record on Human Rights, Chaired often and left behind a Human Rights Foundation. It’s a good “nym” to choose, if only to ratfuck and left foot the ReThugs.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    @Jay

    Spotty record. Let us not forget he voted against creating an MLK Jr. holiday, consistently opposed Dreamers legislation as well as the instigation of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and other LGBTQ matters.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Heh:

    To be clear, the House Republicans thought they were doing a fine job for their Great Leader by trashing his former lawyer at every turn. Cohen is undoubtedly a proven liar who lied to Congress: we know this because he confessed to doing just that in his guilty plea last year.

    Trump’s loyalists in the House seemed to think that was the end of the story. Who could believe a proven liar like Michael Cohen? The only snag is that he was lying on behalf of his client, one Donald Trump. So the more they talked about his lies, the more he talked about his lying client.

    Like so many things in Trumpworld, this line of questioning is several diopters worse than shortsighted. It is the kind of brilliant argument dreamed up after several beers: a bar-room brawl masquerading as political strategy.

    – Richard Wolffe

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    Heh.

    Among the B-est of 1930s B movies running in the background (anything from Chesterfield Studios falls into that category). Scene is the meeting place of the lodge of the order of Whales. The password to gain entry?

    Sperm.

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: I am almost sympathetic to their plight but then I remember, they picked trump in the full knowledge of who and what he is. The arc of history may be long but the arc of karma appears to be short and brutal.

  23. 23.

    Betty Cracker

    House Dems also issued a metric fuck-ton of subpoenas yesterday to get to the bottom of the family separations atrocity.

    Meanwhile, the local newspaper in my little town posts weekly online polls about various topics. The current one asks people to weigh in on the greatest threat to the U.S. Choices include Russia, China, North Korea, US-based hate groups, Middle Eastern terrorists, and “illegal immigrants” from Central and South America. The latter is winning by a mile.

    Friends, I live among the very stupid.

  26. 26.

    BlueDWarrior

    @OzarkHillbilly: Johnny Manziel is a human tragedy in the vein of self-destruction. He had enough talent, IMO, to be a good NFL QB, in the vien of Russell Wilson. But his own vices and demons just won’t let him properly exploit his talent.

    My only hope he doesn’t end up doing 10-20 in a State Pen. somewhere..

  30. 30.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Immanentize: thought of you yesterday—when I got off the plane in Houston there was a giant “RICE” banner hanging in the airport. I assume the school and city are launching a marketing campaign based on the Immp’s imminent (heh) arrival.

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @BlueDWarrior: shrug… My reaction to most Manziel news tends toward pointing and laughing. My depth of empathy is limited and it doesn’t reach to whatever demons he is battling. I think that is partly (mostly?) due to the fact that I was married to such a person for 5 years and finally left when I got it thru my thick skull that I couldn’t save her. I even predicted she would end up in prison. It took a while, but she ended up doing 6 years at Chillicothe.

    From what little my sons tell me, that 2nd kick in the head has finally got her attention. Mind you, I ain’t buying the act, but there is a very small part of me that hopes for her sake, as well as my sons who still love their mother, that she really is a better person these days.

    I guess I hope the same for Manziel and most days am able to resist the urge to P&L and just pass on the sad news.

  37. 37.

    Baud

    Vox

    President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un won’t sign a deal in Vietnam after all.

    In an abrupt change, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said that Trump’s press conference, originally scheduled for around 4 am, will now start two hours earlier. But that’s when Trump and Kim planned to host a signing ceremony for a potential agreement like they did last year in Singapore. About an hour after that, Sanders told reporters in Hanoi that “No agreement was reached at this time, but their respective teams look forward to meeting in the future.”

    The sovereignty of the United States is safe for now.

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

    The sovereignty of the United States is safe for now.

    I’m not so certain of that. Was there anybody besides the interpreters in the room with them? Do we have their notes?

  49. 49.

    randy khan

    @Baud:

    President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un won’t sign a deal in Vietnam after all.

    So much winning.

  50. 50.

    Betty Cracker

    @Immanentize: True, and I knew what I was getting into since my family has inhabited this swamp for generations, but it still amazes me to be confronted with hard evidence of the stupid. I can only conclude these dimwits are listening to Trump and watching Fox News because there certainly isn’t a local Central and South American immigrant crime wave in these parts, just the usual white meth heads burning down trailers and shooting at each other. It’s right there in the crime report, dummies!

  51. 51.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It’s ok. Juicers aren’t credible. My allies in Congress will destroy him with taunts like “Liar, liar, pants on fire” and “I know you are but what am I?”

    ETA: And, of course, “he who smelt it, dealt it.”

  57. 57.

    satby

    @Betty Cracker: We won’t get a better country until we get a news media that’s better. Our little experiment with having a propaganda channel masquerading as a news channel has brought destruction on our democracy.

  58. 58.

    Betty Cracker

    @Patricia Kayden: I’ve wondered that too. They allowed Trump to use them as political props when he was talking tough about Kim. I didn’t blame them for it since they were trying to get their son back. Now Trump is making excuses for their son’s murderer. I hope they call him out for it. It’s outrageous.

  60. 60.

    satby

    @Baud: anyone who remains a Trump supporter now is all in on either the grift or the treason. Don’t care how they feel, they need to be sidelined.

  62. 62.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    So Trump moves his press conference up by two hours into the slot where there was supposed to be a signing ceremony because apparently there’s no agreement to sign “this time” (says Huckabee Sanders). My guess is he wants to hurry home where he can tweet in real time about Cohen and his long list of enemies, all of whom are Americans.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    @IvanCNN
    6h6 hours ago
    More
    “The whole world was waiting for an agreement and so we were. We’re as perplexed as the world now. We’re in the process of figuring it out” — South Korean government official tells CNN after abrupt early end of US-North Korean Summit in Hanoi

    Are you perplexed? I’m not. I just assumed everything Trump and his low quality hires told us about this summit was a lie. Maybe this is how diplomats have to talk.

  68. 68.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Kay: I think the ROK(South Korean) government thought these negotiations would be done in a normal way. Lower levels hash out the details and when the summit happens it’s just more of a signing ceremony. I guess they haven’t read ‘The Art of the Deal’.

  70. 70.

    Baud

    Dallas Morning News (“Sources: Beto O’Rourke won’t challenge John Cornyn for Senate, paving way for presidential bid“):

    Beto O’Rourke has decided not to run for U.S. Senate next year against Texas Republican incumbent John Cornyn and likely will announce a campaign for president soon, people close to the former El Paso congressman told The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday.

    Numerous people close to O’Rourke said they expect him to announce his presidential campaign within weeks. O’Rourke on Wednesday wouldn’t reveal his political plans except to say he has made up his mind

    https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/beto-orourke-apparently-running-for-president/

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Donald J. Trump
    ‏Verified account
    @realDonaldTrump
    29 Dec 2014
    More
    Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.

    One of my sisters is making fun of Cohen’s accent. “Cohen: Mizzda Dtrumpp” :)

  72. 72.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Betty Cracker: my RWNJ sister, who lives in rural Tennessee, is deeply concerned about attacks on white farmers in South Africa.

    And she wonders why we only speak once a year.

  78. 78.

    rikyrah

    Just wanted to thank the fellow jackals for the great Cohen threads. As someone who has been involved with a work project that doesn’t allow us to have our phones or outside internet connection, the threads we’re a great way to catch up ???

  83. 83.

    satby

    NPR just said that TOTUS is already on his way home. After wasting more millions of tax $$ on a bullshit trip designed to distract the “news” media in this country from his increasing legal peril here.

  90. 90.

    rikyrah

    @Baud:
    Not sinister. Just security. Good kind of security. Only have a week more on the project. It’s been tough to be disconnected for such a long stretch of time everyday. Thank goodness for lunch ?

  92. 92.

    Jeffro

    @Baud:

    I don’t think the youngs do hookers and blow. As I understand it, they’re into hookers and avocados.

    That’s Tinder and avocado toast, actually.

    Or so I’ve been told.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I like his big hangdog, droopy face. I felt overall he came off as a sympathetic character. I thought his most effective parts were when he told Republicans he knows what they’re doing because he’s done it himself and where he warned the public not to do it- not to believe Trump or follow him or “you will pay”. I’ve felt exactly that since the beginning. That we, and specifically I, will pay for this.

  96. 96.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @satby: Shoot. It’s better when he’s not here. Even though he was in a supposedly big deal nuclear negotiation, he didn’t dominate the air waves (thank you, Cohen) the way he does when he’s just hanging around the WH watching TV and tweeting.

  100. 100.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Exactly right. It was so striking when Cohen was describing his role as Trump’s thuggish protector and the Republicans at the hearing were acting exactly like Cohen used to act.

    Also, this guy:

    Jesus Christ. WaPo explains that Calamari first came to Trump’s attention by body-slamming hecklers at a tennis match. According to a book on Trump, Calamari and Trump reportedly had this conversation in a limo:

    “You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you, Matty?” Trump asked from the back of the limo, according to Harry Hurt III’s 1993 biography, “Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump.”

    “Yes, sir, Mr. Trump,” Calamari replied.

    Moments later, Trump upped the ante: “Would you kill for me, Matty?”

    Calamari’s answer came quickly. “Yes, sir,” he said.

    We really are living in the worst mafia movie ever.

  104. 104.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: The US never didn’t need a Human Rights Commission. Our treatment of suspects and prisoners alone reveals that. It’s just that most of the time we made anodyne noises on the world stage (which were generally regarded as hypocritical).

  105. 105.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: Going back to the earliest days, before we were a country at all, all the way to the present day, we have repeatedly shown ourselves to be incapable of the slightest bit of self reflection much less policing ourselves.

  106. 106.

    Tenar Arha

    @Betty Cracker: Keeps on reminding me of an anecdote I vaguely remember from the book tour for Nixonland about the election of 1966. (may not be accurately quoting bc I cannot find it via google) The people expressing the most fear of some kind of “black crime wave” reaching their towns were people with no experience of black people at all, esconced as they were in their sundown towns and rural enclaves. It’s why today, people who are far away from the southern border are ignorant & ignoring everything that everyone from there tells them, including that every congressional representative, Republican or Democratic, doesn’t want a wall.

    (And there is sociological evidence: there’s those commuter rail studies based on the suburbs of Boston that used Spanish speakers to prime certain regular trains & then surveyed those passengers. Basically anyone on a line which ended in a lily white burb was more primed to report with negative attitudes towards immigrants simply by hearing people sp@Betty Cracker: Keeps on reminding me of an anecdote I vaguely remember from the book tour for Nixonland about the election of 1966. (may not be accurately quoting bc I cannot find it via google) The people most afraid of some kind of “black crime wave” reaching their towns were people with no experience of it, esconsced as they were in their sundown towns and rural enclaves.

    The relatively recent Boston commuter rail studies that interviewed community sensitivity to immigration by simply priming passengers by hearing two people having a conversation in Spanish to each other were sad, but instructive.

  107. 107.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker: Amazing, and not in a good way. Steep price to pay for your awesome view, but what a view!

    You will most certainly need to build a tiki bar in your new place as soon as it is warm enough to do so. Unless it actually came with a tiki bar???

  109. 109.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl: You will most certainly need to build a tiki bar in your new place as soon as it is warm enough to do so.

    She’s in Florida. When is it NOT warm enough to build?

  110. 110.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: I just saw on Lawfare that they have a new “no bull” podcast up. It’s an hour and it includes Cohen’s testimony but edits out all the bullshit. I watched the whole thing yesterday and I’m still planning to listen to this. I found it really difficult to listen to all the Republicans bloviating and acting like the traitors to their country that they actually are.

    https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-bonus-edition-michael-cohen-vs-committee-no-bull

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    People always think they will be great witnesses, but they rarely are, because most people aren’t accustomed to speaking publicly and they have difficulty coming across. The best most people can do is speak in order- “this happened and then this happened” – that can be tutored. What can’t be invented is their personality- their general way of being- I thought he might be good because he’s theatrical- that’s his personality- and he was.

  112. 112.

    VOR

    @rikyrah: I bet Trump was completely distracted by the Cohen thing. Probably wanted to bail on the summit to go watch Cohen on TV. The summit was doomed anyway, but Cohen’s testimony probably prevented Trump from making concessions like last time.

  113. 113.

    chopper

    @rikyrah:

    exactly. kim gets more international standing and recognition by telling the great almighty US to get packing than he does making a deal, and the US aint putting anything else on the table.

  115. 115.

    Kay

    @VOR:

    Trump believes his international (fake) deal making is beneficial as far as marketing, and Trump knows his base better than anyone.

    Cohen’s right. It’s all about marketing the brand. It’s kind of depressing really. No grand plan, no big goals- just pure greed, self-interest and pettiness. These aren’t big villains. They’re small. Cohen is a two bit crook and so is his boss. Entertaining, but average. There are thousands of Cohens. The fact that they have all this power is a real indictment of voters.

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @VOR:

    Think about all the trouble Trump went to to fix that stupid portrait auction. The big “dealmaker” spends endless amounts of time and energy on this petty bullshit. That was Job One. The whole team was on it. They’re small.

  117. 117.

    Miss Bianca

    @WaterGirl: Now *that* I would listen to – thanks for the tip! I was working on grant applications yesterday and just trying to keep up with the action via BJ comments. So sickened by GOP crap that I couldn’t bear to listen to history in the making. Tho’ I do like the image of Cohen going all memento mori on their asses – “As I was then, you are now. As I am now, so you shall be.” Too bad most of them are either so fucking stupid or so fucking compromised – or, hey, los dos – that they likely won’t take heed till way too late.

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