I've had to re-read this, on what Donald Trump Jr.'s "associates" proposed to shocked NSC staffers on Venezuela during the Flynn era, three times.
…what? https://t.co/Yf4aXP67OS pic.twitter.com/8fm0aZ7BYv
— Vera Bergengruen (@VeraMBergen) March 1, 2019
Just in time for the weekend, so the ForPol professionals can get down to some serious drinking. I’m sure other front-pagers will have much to say about this, but here’s my quick take: Murphy the Trickster God is *not* a subtle scripter!
NSC career staffers say they became objects of suspicion "because of language they used, such as saying “undocumented immigrants” instead of “illegals.”' https://t.co/Yf4aXP67OS
— Vera Bergengruen (@VeraMBergen) March 1, 2019
The day after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, White House national security adviser Susan Rice gathered her staff for a pep talk…
Rice said the NSC staffers should give Trump a chance, that he and his team deserved the benefit of the doubt. Their duty was to the country, she reminded them, and they should do whatever it took to help America — and Trump — succeed.
What Rice didn’t — couldn’t — tell these government employees was that the dawn of the Trump administration would be a time of extraordinary personal and professional torment for them; that they’d be asked to make ethically, and legally, dubious decisions while ignoring facts and evidence on basic issues to fit the president’s whims; that they would be vilified as “Obama holdovers” and treated like an enemy within, to the point where some of their lives were threatened; that they’d grow so paranoid they would seek “safe spaces” to speak to each other, use encrypted apps to talk to their mothers, and go on documentation sprees to protect themselves and inform history; that at least one career staffer would cry on the way home from work every night; and that another would call Trump a “dumpster fire” in a farewell message…
Now, two years into Trump’s tenure, current and former U.S. officials say they are worried about the long-term damage his administration is still doing to the way such critical decisions are made — with dangerous consequences that are not always easy to perceive. They worry Trump’s presidency has poisoned the relationship between career government staffers and political appointees, threatening the ability of a future president to make decisions based on nonpartisan expertise. Some were relieved after Trump’s first national security adviser, Mike Flynn, was fired; he’s still due for sentencing after getting caught up in the federal investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. And they were heartened that Trump’s second national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, einstituted traditional processes during his year at the helm, even if Trump disliked them. But because Trump’s current national security adviser, John Bolton, has largely scuttled those procedures, the fears have resurfaced over the past year…
Trump often seemed in disbelief that he, of all people, was now occupying such a weighty office. A former staffer recalls being in an informal meeting in Flynn’s office when the president burst into the room. Trump apologized for interrupting but said he wanted to show them something. An aide came in with a framed photo of the 16th president. “Abraham Lincoln. President Abraham Lincoln,” Trump said, according to the ex-staffer. “They’ve got all kinds of cool stuff here.”…Some Trump defenders dismiss the concerns about process, saying that too often the resulting policy is a mish-mash of milquetoast bureaucratic ideas.
“The purpose of the NSC is not to make the president conform to the NSC, but to make the federal government enhance the way a president gets to good decisions,” argued James Carafano, a foreign policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank friendly to Trump. “The president is a very outcome-focused guy. He is not worried about winning pretty. He’s just worried about winning. Not only do I think he doesn’t care about the process, he sees the process as potentially an impediment.”…
Numerous career staffers decided to document everything they could, what became known as “putting it in the record.” That often meant putting certain ideas and opinions in emails or copying other agencies on communications. Many staffers knew that by including the agencies, the information would more likely be subject to the Freedom of Information Act and could one day see the light of day or even land in history books. Some admit they hoped that people in the agencies would leak the information to reporters. And many acknowledge they wanted a record, somewhere, of themselves objecting to policies they thought could be illegal. One particularly useful tool was the “track changes” feature in shared documents in what is known as the NSC “portal.” Staffers would make sure to use that feature to log in legal or policy concerns they had about language in particular documents, especially if factual errors were involved. Many printed reams of material they could put in their “box” — the package of NSC staffers’ work material that is archived and eventually made available to the public. One person said that although he spent three times longer at the NSC under Obama than under Trump, he had only one “box” for Obama and three for Trump…
It’s not gonna disappear, Trumplodytes. You’ll never be able to run far enough fast enough to escape the reckoning.
Incredible pic.twitter.com/q3rEwg4IYo
— Joe Bernstein (@Bernstein) March 1, 2019
This is the 676th tweet in the #ToddlerinChief thread. Thanks to @nahaltoosi for making me choke on my morning coffee several times this AM. https://t.co/qLgMwrIffP
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) March 1, 2019
I'm being told this story of mine is "batshit crazy" — a high compliment these days. But after you read every word of this piece — and you should read it all — close your eyes and just imagine the stuff I was told that stayed OFF the record:https://t.co/KNBTVjTykb
— Nahal Toosi (@nahaltoosi) March 1, 2019
Chief Oshkosh
Fuck Politico with a rusty pitchfork. “…caught up…”??!! As if he wasn’t a MAJOR PLAYER in the Trump/Russia collusion. Judas Priest, what a bunch of assholes.
Another Scott
@Chief Oshkosh: “Mistakes Were Made”™, don’t ya know…
:-/
Seriously, Politico is horrible, but they do manage to break a bunch of stories before others.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
President Donald T. Adolescent.
Lapassionara
I’ve been wondering when we would start seeing stories like these. Thanks, AL
schrodingers_cat
@Chief Oshkosh: The press keeps giving these T regime apparatchiks a pass. Did you know that Kelly wrote a memo about his objection to giving Kushie a security clearance. As if that somehow exonerates him and makes him a good guy.
prostratedragon
A grab-your-eyebrows moment:
(Thanks AL, had swung by just to see whether this article had been picked up here.)
Old School
I’m not sure I can trust the rest of the article when there is a whopper like that in it.
Chief Oshkosh
@Another Scott: You’re right, it is good that they are reporting this, but seems like a day late and a dollar short.
clay
@Lapassionara: As soon as we had a Congress who gives a damn.
Mike in NC
I suspect Trump and his criminal children have been busy stealing everything in the White House that isn’t nailed down and shipping it to Trump Tower and Mar-A-Lago.
Chief Oshkosh
@schrodingers_cat:Well, since they’ve never even admitted to themselves, much less the public, that they had a hand in getting Trump elected, I don’t expect the mainstream press to ever really hold these assholes’ feet to the fire.
germy
Don’t worry. A shrewd Democratic candidate will save us:
Martin
The unravelling, it has begun.
Plato
Trump’s foreign policy is an oxymoron.
germy
Brachiator
@germy:
Bernie Sanders 2.0 very much like Bernie Sanders 1.0.
John Cole
jesus fucking christ
mrmoshpotato
“Inside the Chaotic Early Days of Trump’s Foreign Policy”
So it’s no longer a chaotic shitshow? Thank FSM!
Oh Politico. You’z funny.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Here’s CNN’s report on The View
A sample
Peale
@Dorothy A. Winsor: IF ONLY SHE’D SPENT MORE TIME IN WISCONSIN INSTEAD OF RUNNING UP THE SCORE IN CALIFORNIA!
Adam L Silverman
Heaven forbid that you use the precise, accurate, and legal terminology…
schrodingers_cat
@Plato: That’s because he is a moron, whose brain was deprived of oxygen.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: What about the ideologues? How are they supposed to be represented if people won’t use their slanted and dehumanizing language?
germy
Unlike…. Fox?
FlipYrWhig
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I will never get over how Bernie Sanders is ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that working-class people love Bernie Sanders always and forever. Because of the Democratic primary results. You know who won those Democratic primaries in 2008? Hillary Clinton. I guess their affection was fleeting. But that would never happen to him, right? Because of his holy nimbus of rectitude. He is such a toxic, obnoxious dick. Fuck that arrogant fuckface right in the ear.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Hoping that folloewing a good rest Mattis is ready to begin on a book.
Also too, Tillerson’s first name being pronounced the same as “wrecks” was far from entirely coincidental.
Steve in the ATL
@germy: unlike…the Intercept?
germy
youtube.com/watch?v=YyoSErErnCE
New trailer for Ava DuVernay’s Central Park Five
Adam L Silverman
@prostratedragon: This confirms what was reported during the transition: that the President’s people thought that everyone working at the White House stayed in place from administration to administration.
dmsilev
@FlipYrWhig: Also, please remember that for both Sanders and a large swath of the political media, ‘working class Americans’ really means ‘white working-class men’.
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman: Looking forward to your take on the article, sir!
Ksmiami
@FlipYrWhig: he’s such a fucking train wreck- I just can’t with the Bern at all
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: Bless their hearts!
A Ghost To Most
@Martin:
Yep. He’ll be lucky to make it to 9 August.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: A train composed of dumpsters on fire that has derailed and wrecked into a burning mountain of shit.
Happy now?
Uncle Cosmo
Why am I not surprised that Seborrhea Dorka rears his butt-ugly mug (or butts his mug-ugly rear) into this obscene saga?
(I continue my efforts to scrounge up sufficient & suitably vile epithets in magyarul to vomit in his general direction…)
prostratedragon
@Adam L Silverman: It also strikes me that if you want to take an organization down, or make it easier for someone else to do so, this is the kind of thing you’d want to know first.
A Ghost To Most
@germy: I thought GG would be too busy looking for a new country to hide out in.
Roger Moore
@germy:
Usually when you say somebody has a crack team, it’s not about what they’ve been smoking.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: What is your read on Imran Khan? For a novice politician, he masterfully beat Nautanki* at his own game.
*Practitioner of street theater like vaudeville, also PM Modi
FlipYrWhig
@dmsilev: The kicker is that we don’t even know it’s true OF THEM! Sanders thinks it’s true because his entire theory of politics is something something working class something, even though everyone I’ve ever known who was super into Bernie Sanders was a white dude with a beard, no ass, and an advanced degree.
Roger Moore
@mrmoshpotato:
No, just now we’re no longer in the early days.
Kent
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Clinton won more “working class” voters than either Sanders or Trump. By far. They just weren’t necessarily WHITE MALE working class voters so I guess they don’t really count for Sanders.
TS (the original)
@Mike in NC: That has to be more than a suspicion – who has the inventory list?
Sherparick
@FlipYrWhig: Please wake me up when the Democratic presidential primaries are over.
FlipYrWhig
@Kent: And Hillary Clinton won that very same demographic in the Democratic primaries in 2008. I assume that they might prefer Clinton to Obama but Sanders to Clinton. Fine. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t someone out there who they’d prefer to Sanders. I hope Sanders arrives at that realization as quickly and humiliatingly as possible and gets his face rubbed in it.
FlipYrWhig
@Sherparick: Remember when the fiercest battles in the blogosphere (Atrios, DailyKos, Yglesias, etc.) were between the Deanies and the Clarkies?
The Moar You Know
NEWS FLASH: too fucking late. Maybe next time more of them will force themselves to vote for a Democratic candidate.
I’m not impressed by the caterwauling of a bunch of largely Republican lawmen bitching because their voting choices are going to make them look bad to their grandchildren.
dmsilev
@mrmoshpotato:
No, now the shit is moving smoothly and continuously. So, technically it’s a laminar-flow shitshow.
Tenar Arha
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhh!
He’s making it way too easy for me to decide I’d rather go back to the dentist from 5 hours ago than vote for him in the primaries.
ETA typo
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I was informed by a very highly placed source in Pakistan on Tuesday night that the Pakistanis were going to deescalate. I wasn’t quite sure given the events on Wednesday, but my source appeared to be spot on. Which given the source is not surprising.
I know people…
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: I sent it to a friend this morning and said how can our allies ever trust us again. I fear that we are broken.
Chyron HR
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Why did Hillary force Bernie’s glorious white working
master raceclass to vote for the syphilitic nazi rapist?schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: You know Imran Khan? He was one of the great all rounders (batsman and bowler) of cricket when I was growing up in the 80s along with Kapil Dev (India), Richard Hadlee (NZ), and Ian Botham (England).
Gin & Tonic
@A Ghost To Most: I wish I shared your optimism.
WaterGirl
@Sherparick:
I assume you are talking about the 2016 primaries, because those don’t seem to be over yet, even as we move into 2020.
Steve in the ATL
@FlipYrWhig: you can throw in my stepsister from the northern suburbs of Chicago…who now lives off the grid in a yurt in Vermont. And of course voted Jill Stein because her bernista/Russian friends convinced her that Hillary was the devil.
Steve at Hobby on standby for an earlier flight out of this hellhole
Ruckus
@Chief Oshkosh:
More like 700+ days late and billions and billions of disasters short.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@JPL: You mean like how will Post-Britexit England in the midst of their self inflicted economic depression or Germany “Hey, stop calling us Nazis” and Japan “Let’s not talking about that rape of Asia thing” ever trust us again?
J R in WV
I’m not a big fan of Politico in any way, but that was a pretty interesting article. No surprise on the one hand, we all knew the Trump folks had no clue how to run a government from day one, but the amount of ignorance was stunning.
I’m not sure which ignorant assumption was most flagrant, perhaps that everyone who worked for the security establishment was an Obama appointee?
On the other hand, IIRC Trump expected folks in the Obama White House to show up on his first day in office… so who knows how ignorant the other folks were. No wonder no one knew how to turn on the lights.
Ruckus
@John Cole:
That’s a bold comment.
Or is this just an automatic reply to every post these days?
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: It’s the well-oiled shitshow they like to boast about!
A Ghost To Most
@Gin & Tonic: The wheels are turning now. He’s fucked, he knows it, and he is decompensating. It’s just a matter of time before he explodes.
MomSense
@John Cole:
? comment.
Every day all day long Jesus fucking Christ.
dmsilev
@mrmoshpotato:
I believe modern medicine can usually treat that.
J R in WV
@Steve in the ATL:
So you didn’t manage to find any excellent food in Hellhole, TX? We managed to eat well for the most part, which was a big part of maintaining. Bayou food, Mexican food, Asian food which was the nicest surprise, even in suburban strip malls it was really good.
Best of luck getting out asap!
smintheus
The Politico piece gives the misleading impression that the Trump crime syndicate left the national security apparatus in chaos because it doesn’t know what it is doing. But Politico is confusing chaos for KAOS.
CliosFanBoy
@Uncle Cosmo: “Dr” Gorka? We should all put his “Dr.” in quote marks. A bogus doctorate given to him by friends for a dissertation that would barely qualify as a Senior Thesis.
oldgold
Does it ever effing end? Day after damn day we are gish galloped and gas lighted by this Salvador Dali like painting of a presidency.
How much more of this can our Constitutional Republic take? In the last week there has been more chaos than Obama’s entire presidency.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@J R in WV:
What is shocking to me is how they view an unwillingness to learn as a virtue and those Trumpsters who do manage to figure it out are immediately fired.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Well. Since Wilmer won those states’ Democratic Party primaries, perhaps he could have leveraged his popularity among Democratic Party voters in Wisconsin and Michigan, and campaigned enthusiastically for the nominee of the Democratic Pa–
Oh yeah. Never mind, then.
jl
Trump excels at cooking up nonsensical, but dangerous, BS solutions to nonsensical, but dangerous, BS emergencies that he himself creates.
He is terrific at that, the best, the top president. We have to give him that.
A Ghost To Most
@Steve in the ATL: You do draw the “great” places to visit. Get home safe.
Baud
Hillary Clinton was, if anything, over prepared.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tenar Arha:
You spelled Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhh! wrong?
TS (the original)
@oldgold:
They passed that goal in the first week – and every week thereafter.
Steve in the ATL
@J R in WV: got on the earlier flight…and got upgraded! So it’s not all bad in trump’s Amerikkka.
Lots of good food in Houston, except of course for beef that they dishonestly call barbecue. Unfortunately, I never got out of the hotel.
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL:
Just like a honeymoon?
Dan B
@schrodingers_cat: Just the contrast between the images of Khan as a modern and pleasant man vs. Modi. Nautanki (sp?) looked like a raving Islamophobe. It reminded me of the old Civil Rights non-violence method: Don’t attack them or get angry at them. State what you want and what you believe, or demonstrate what you want, and they will show the world what they are. Modi / BJP breathe fear and anger. It’s not what most people want to see on the TV in their living room.
SiubhanDuinne
@A Ghost To Most:
I’ve seen several photos of him over the last few days, and he looks terrible. I mean, way more than usual. His face is blotchy and puffy to the point of being almost disfigured. His shuffling gait and stooped posture make him look like an unhealthy nonagenarian.
If I cared two hoots about his well-being, I’d be quite worried. Happily for my peace of mind, I don’t, so I’m not.
Dan B
@FlipYrWhig: So true, except the truest devotees I know have bubble butts. Exceptions that prove the rule. Not one Bernie sign in our 10% white neighborhood, except my honey’s…. aieeeee!
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman: Concise, and yet comprehensive!
schrodingers_cat
@Dan B:Modi is not helping India’s legitimate case regarding Kashmir. As for IK you should have seen him in his prime, he was handsome, movie star good looks. George Clooney has nothing on the young IK. Good looks don’t hurt at all in politics.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SiubhanDuinne: Jet lag alone has to have wiped him out.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Elections are coming up, right? Think Modi will lose now?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: His party lost pretty badly in the assembly (state) elections held recently. And has been doing pretty badly in the by elections. BJP will definitely lose seats from their high five years ago, but whether that will be enough to unseat Modi remains to be seen. Since it depends on the coalitions the other parties can come up with in different states. Indian politics can get way more complicated than ours, because of the many parties and shifting alliances. Partisan identification is not set in stone for most people like it is here.
Steve in the ATL
@WaterGirl: ha! Someone definitely got fucked, but it was probably the guy who ghosted on his drug test after submitting a cold sample….
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
Sounds like you know the right people.
I hope that the two countries continue to back away from doing something stupid.
And again, I find it odd that the US apparently had no position on this situation. At least nothing that bubbled up in any major news story.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: McMaster (full disclosure: LTG McMaster endorsed a proposal I submitted when he was Deputy Commanding General of TRADOC, has written a letter of reference for me, and who I have provided analytical support for) had instituted a proper Interagency process. I have this from a very reliable source. Flynn had established chaos and, as I wrote when he was appointed, Bolton has established his own version of chaos. The guy from Heritage is nuts if he thinks that the process doesn’t matter for this stuff. We instituted the National Security Council, National Security Staff, and the Interagency precisely because not having them and having no process and no continuity of process from one administration to another brought us close to the brink of ruin on more than one occasion.
ixnay
@dmsilev:
As a one time sailplane pilot and A & P mechanic, I (Mr. Ixnay) heartily endorse “Laminar Shit Show.” Wins my intertubes for the day.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: I am no fan of Orange T but the United States has never been a big player regarding Kashmir. India has always wanted to keep the United States at an arm’s length regarding Kashmir or any other issues with Pakistan. It also seems like the United States has little control over what Pakistan does either. Pakistan is sheltering Dawood Ibrahim the perpetrator of the Mumbai blasts in the 90s for decades now.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: No, I don’t know Imran Khan. Moreover, the last thing I’m going to do in a crisis, if I did know him, is email him asking how he’s doing and telling him we’re keeping good thoughts in the hope he’d email me back in short order telling me everything is fine and would be back to normal soon.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: You’re welcome.
Timurid
@schrodingers_cat:
An eerie resemblance to Richard Gere…
Baud
@Adam L Silverman:
Of course you wouldn’t do that. In this situation, protocol demands a tweet.
montanareddog
@schrodingers_cat: my wife, a Pakistani Christian, hated Imran Khan. When he made speeches to Western audiences about Pakistani minorities, she said he talked out of one side of his mouth in English, and the other side in Urdu. She now says he has been a far more impressive PM than she expected. AFAWK, Asia Bibi is still not free to leave though
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
As a rule, CEOs like chaos. Apparently, it is believed this will lead to better ideas and policies. I think this is now as discredited as trickle-down economics.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: We are very, very, very fortunate this did not become anything more than it was. Amazingly the President and his team, for lack of a better term for the merry band of misfit toys he’s assembled (and that’s insulting to misfit toys), have yet to actually face a real crisis. Heaven help us if our luck changes over the next two years.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: I was teasing.
whatsername
@FlipYrWhig:
Bernie was absolutely the Tonya Harding of presidential candidates in 2016. “Waaah, shoooooelaaace – um, suuuuuuperdelegates!” Sounds like he hasn’t changed.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: Harrumph!
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
The US still claims Pakistan as an ally and provides the country military equipment, including its F-16s. I would think that the US and the world would have an interest in nuclear nations playing nice.
ETA: I am not a big sports person, but cricket has always been particularly odd to me. I have never been able to figure out how the game works.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: As was the case with trickle down economics – originally doing business as horse and sparrow economics in the late 19th century – it’ll be renamed, rebranded, and marketed anew.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I know, I just wanted to be clear.
chopper
@Mike in NC:
not that this is the biggest issue in this country by a long shot, but i really, really hope that the WH custodial staff made extra sure to write up a good list of everything the place had before these shitbirds tanzed their way in cause yeah, otherwise so much shit is gonna get stole by the end of this administration. it’s gonna be like the looting of the antiquities of iraq.
“hey, wasn’t there a desk here in the oval office? famous one, right? resolute-something-or-other? where’d it go?”
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: To the Queen!
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Its has some similarities with base ball.
Two teams, batters (batsmen), pitchers (bowlers), bases (wickets), catcher (wicket keeper), home run (sixer)
In cricket, its one strike and you are out. They both have fielders and runs.
chopper
@germy:
wilmer is just one of those fucking guys who can’t let shit go. you see them on the internet, they just keep going. the kind of guy who’ll get in an argument at a guy’s funeral cause someone was wrong about something.
no tact. no awareness. no awareness of where he is. he’s like everybody’s crazy uncle or old father-in-law, we all have em, who is just completely unaware of his surroundings and just says shit.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: England’s cricket team is not so hot. They seem to lose against almost everyone.
ETA: Google tells that they recently beat the Indian team pretty badly. So the current Indian team must really suck.
Brachiator
@chopper:
It will look great at Mar-a-Lago. Trump will charge members $1,000 a pop to sit at the desk and have their picture taken. It will be $1,500 if they want to be shown eating a burger.
Adam L Silverman
It’s been a long time since I taught the New Testament course to undergraduates in Religious Studies, but I’m pretty sure this means someone is going to get crucified by the Romans.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: They don’t break for tea in baseball.
Uncle Cosmo
@WaterGirl: Did someone say honeymoon?
…rrrrrrimshot!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: They make break for tea. But the cricket ball can break your head. Imran Khan was a good fast bowler when he played for Pakistan.
chopper
@dmsilev:
my five year old son had a bit of the ‘well-oiled shit show’ just yesterday.
TruthOfAngels
@Brachiator: Well, it’s exactly like baseball, only we wear monocles, and if you get hit by the ball you rub the affected area and exclaim reproachfully ‘I say, old chap, that’s not cricket’, at which point you are the winner and get to be Emperor of India and the opposing side get deported to the colonies. So, harsh but fair.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Your file has been updated.
Brickley Paiste
@Adam L Silverman:
There was a mention of Gorka in this post.
Isn’t this a good time to repost your Gorka link fest? Some people may have missed it the first time around and I think it should be posted every time Gorka’s name is mentioned.
montanareddog
@Baud:
they don’t play for 5 days in baseball
WaterGirl
@Uncle Cosmo: That’s some mighty fine formatting! I had never heard that joke before, either.
rikyrah
@John Cole:
Say it again, Cole.?
Uncle Cosmo
@montanareddog: It only feels like 5 days.
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman:
They’ve already faced a real crisis.
Heaven didn’t help Puerto Rico.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
Sorry your Spellcheck is acting up. Happy to FIFY.
rikyrah
This is a good, informative post. Thank you.
Brachiator
@TruthOfAngels: The one thing I recall about the popularity of cricket is the cricket-obsessed characters Charters and Caldicott in the classic Hitchcock film “The Lady Vanishes.”
Uncle Cosmo
@WaterGirl: The punch line is modular – traditionally it invokes a salesman or marketing rep for whatever corporation the joketeller is particularly disgusted with at the moment. Alter to suit, wear it in good health, don’t spend it all in one place,….
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Once again, for the bleachers..
The number of regular Democratic voters who were denied the franchise due to VOTER SUPPRESSION was 2-3 times the margin of Dolt45’s ” victory” in those questionable states.???
Captain C
@schrodingers_cat: But did he ever play Silly Mid?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
what’s the state of White House furniture these days?
montanareddog
@Uncle Cosmo: The first time Donald Trump and Melania were intimate, he pulled her into the gold-plated bedroom and threw her on the bed.
He removed his shoes and socks. She squealed, “my God, what’s wrong with your feet?’. Shamefaced, he said, “It was a childhood disease, Tolio”. “You mean Polio?'” No, Tolio!”
He removed his trousers. She gasped, “my God, what’s wrong with your legs?”. Shamefaced, he said, “It was a childhood disease, Kneesles”. “You mean Measles?'” No, Kneesles!”
He then removed his y-fronts. “Don’t tell me”, she said. “Smallcox.”
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
He has no problem “writing out a check” for Trillions when most of it goes to whites. But if some pgm targets people of color, then he goes full Reagoon-welfare-queen mode.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
There is. NO REASON. we cannot have single payer health care free college a trillion dollar infrastructure package and I usually switch off his bellowing so I’m sure I’m missing a few big ticket items
Brachiator
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
What a piece of shit.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Wilmer is in NYC promoting himself on those horrible corporatists, multinational networks.
I wonder which hotel he’s staying at: The People’s Waldorf-Astoria or the The Worker’s Ritz-Carlton.
joel hanes
@Adam L Silverman:
originally doing business as horse and sparrow economics in the late 19th century
The Sparrow in the Zoo
No bars are set too close, no mesh too fine
To keep me from the eagle and the lion
Whom keepers feed that I may freely dine.
This shows that if you have the wit
To be small, common, cute, and live on shit,
Thought the cage fret kings, you may make free with it.
— Howard Nemerov
japa21
Wilmer is still of the belief that if he had been the nominee he would have beaten Trump. In all likelihood he would have been trounced by even more in the electoral college as well as the popular vote. And then he would have blamed it all on Clinton.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
Decades later, there was a brief series (six episodes, maybe?) on either Mystery! or Masterpiece Theatre — PBS, anyhow — about Charters and Caldecott in their twilight years. A totally delightful series.
Keith P.
@montanareddog: I’d assumed he just jerked off into a cup, handed it to a tech, and then Melanie finished up a few days later. Sexytime!
Gelfling 545
@oldgold: Speaking of presidential paintings a commentor posted cartoon on TPM based on Roger Stone and his tattoo. I was hesitant to link to it because once seen it could.cause nightmares and eeewww but, well anyway I found a link to it and view at your own risk. caglecartoons.com/viewimage.asp?ID={64644904-49DA-4E59-B051-BCF716F2ABDC}
TS (the original)
@Brachiator:
Have to be born to it. I heard it non stop on the radio at my father’s knee.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
Interesting. I knew they had become popular, so it’s cool to know that they earned their way into their own series.
TS (the original)
@montanareddog:
Each side only gets 2 innings in those five days. Sometimes they only play for 1 day – 1 innings each side.
rikyrah
The Fredo Corleone Memorial Presidency continues
thepeoplesview.net/main/2019/3/1/the-fredo-corleone-memorial-presidency-continues#.XHnRv__ZUew.twitt…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@TS (the original): I once had a student from England in a presentation making class. For a first assignment, they were supposed to showing how to do something, and he showed how to…I’d call it pitch. Throw the ball? Bowl? Anyway, it took up the whole front of the classroom. We were all agog by the energy of it.
FelonyGovt
My sister just texted me that she and her husband are at a restaurant and Bernie Sanders is at the next table. I told her to throw a hard roll at him for me.
Amir Khalid
@schrodingers_cat:
Imran Khan began in politics in the mid-1990s. He’s no novice.
.
Steeplejack
@Gelfling 545:
Fixed your bad link: Roger Stone eww cartoon.
dexwood
@FelonyGovt:
Have her tell her server Bernie is picking up the check.
Brachiator
@TS (the original):
His knee is a funny place for a radio. :)
Baud
@FelonyGovt: Or a dead bird.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Roger Stone is a crazy man, Episode elebenty eleben. He has a book coming out and did not tell the judge. The judge has issued an annoyed sounding order.
Emma
@Adam L Silverman: uh-oh. Mr. Cumming’s going hunting pasty little white bear…
randy-khan
@Brachiator:
The White How staff better check very carefully when Trump leaves to make sure he doesn’t take any cool stuff with him.
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid: Compared to PM Modi.
daize
@Baud: Like
Adam L Silverman
@Brickley Paiste: You mean this one?
balloon-juice.com/2019/02/23/this-week-in-the-promotion-of-stochastic-domestic-right-wing-terrorism-…
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: You’re right and I’m embarrassed to say I momentarily forgot.
Sloane Ranger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s called bowling.A run up to the crease with the ball delivered overarm with the elbow straight. The type of delivery usually controlled by the fingers.
Cricket has been described by an English humourist as a way to get the English, who have no imagination, to understand the concept of eternity.
schrodingers_cat
@Captain C: On or off?
Chief Oshkosh
@montanareddog: Pawsox say “here, hold my beer…”
Middlelee
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m reading “Ike’s Mystery Man” right now, about Robert Cutler who took over the not very effective NSC when Ike was inaugurated. Cutler turned it into an effective organization. Comparing Cutler’s NSC with what I’m reading about here is terrifying. I recommend the book.
Keith P.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I was just joking initially, but I’m starting to think that he really does want to be bound and gagged in court…or get his ass kicked jail.
Ken
@Sloane Ranger:
You have to stand in awe of a game that, by design, lasts five days and can still end in a draw.
Doug
“Now, two years into Trump’s tenure, current and former U.S. officials say they are worried about the long-term damage his administration is still doing to the way such critical decisions are made — with dangerous consequences that are not always easy to perceive.”
Reason #847 this administration is increasingly called The Project for a Post-American Century.