Donald Trump and his toadies feel that the Mueller report, or the way they can spin the Mueller report, now allows them to go into full autocracy mode.
They have distributed a blacklist to the media.
The Trump campaign is sending this memo to TV producers: pic.twitter.com/yhr03LAI7N
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) March 25, 2019
Sarah Sanders is mocking, with government funds and megaphone, individuals she disagrees with.
Mueller Madness! Which of the angry and hysterical @realDonaldTrump haters got it most embarrassingly wrong? #YouDecide pic.twitter.com/IkzUesDdub
— Stephanie Grisham (@PressSec) March 26, 2019
The Department of Justice refuses to defend the ACA.
JUST IN: In a new filing, the Justice Department now says the courts should strike down the entire Affordable Care Act — not just its protections for pre-existing conditions. https://t.co/1YZiGp06x4
— Axios (@axios) March 26, 2019
The Acting Secretary of Defense is offering up some of the Department’s funding to pay for Trump’s wall.
The Department of Defense will spend up to $1 billion to build Trump's border wall along, according to acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahanhttps://t.co/IgsWOAuB3F
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) March 26, 2019
All of this is enraging. That is part of the point. We have to stay calm and act. Talk to like-minded friends to support each other and develop ways to deal with this and your mental health.
The House will continue its investigations. I think the administration is going to wildly overreach. Mock and laugh at them wherever you can. Call your members of Congress as appropriate to offer support or to vent.
FoxinSocks
If anyone’s in the DC area, we have regular protests in front of the White House. Next one is tomorrow, 7:30pm-9pm. Please join us if you can!
Here’s our site with more info – http://www.kremlinannex.org
Breitbart has started mocking us so I guess we’re pissing off the right people?
guachi
The only response to the blacklist is demand networks blacklist Trump. Loudly and repeatedly.
It’s not a fight Republicans can win. Invite a Republican on air then make him spend the entire segment acknowledging Trump’s lies.
Major Major Major Major
Wow, it’s like a switch was flipped. They are who we said they are—imagine that.
Cheryl Rofer
@FoxinSocks: Thanks. Participating in demonstrations is a good thing.
@guachi: Another good idea.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Thank you, Cheryl. It’s all pretty enraging. We gotta hang in there, and keep our eyes on the prize.
With that in mind, I donated to a 2020 pres campaign for the first time today (go Kamala!)
Major Major Major Major
@guachi:
While they will happily do this all day long, it would still be a big improvement.
rikyrah
They are who we thought they were???
guachi
Democrats need to launch a full-scale assault on the media and its failure to hold Republicans accountable for their lies.
Every member, every day. Over and over.
Work the refs.
It needs to be embedded in America’s conscienceness that Trump is a weak, serial liar when Americans walk into the voting booth.
Eolirin
What do we think the over under on Roberts deciding to kill the ACA the second time around is?
Of everything that’s the only thing that really scares me all that much, as it’ll lead to almost immediate and unnecessary loss of life. We can reverse the rest of the stuff if we get into power, but we can’t do anything for the people who die because they can’t afford their insulin shots anymore, or can’t get basic care for easily treatable conditions. It’s bad enough that that’s already happening, and we aren’t doing more to stop it. Yanking health care away from millions of people is beyond inhuman.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
They’ve gone full internet troll. Lovely.
NotMax
Teapot Dome was kiddy play. May as well be open about it and start up a dedicated cabinet level Department of Grift. //
sgrAstar
That blacklist is an honor roll.
There’s no question that there was collusion- we saw it playing out in real time. I think we should just keep reiterating that. Certainly, until the report hits the streets, no one actually knows what Mueller said…including those rats in the WH.
Power to the people.
Miss Bianca
Gah. Between this crap and the news about efg, maybe it’s just time to go to bed. Not that things will be better in the morning, but at least with any hope I’ll be able to forget about it all for a few hours.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard can only dream of having Putin’s ability to jail his critics or have them suffer fatal slips in the bathtub. 2020 can’t arrive soon enough to dislodge this grotesque parasite.
Fair Economist
The opinion manipulation is extreme. Usually the method is selective reporting of irrelevant facts. Barr’s “summary” is so far off reality they’ve resorted to selective reporting of distorted facts (claiming the report is an exoneration when it actually says there’s strong evidence of conspiracy and obstruction of justice), which is unusual. Even Fox News rarely puts out lies like that.
GregB
The ACA repeal shit and the reports that Trump is literally choking Puerto Rico economically are harbingers of how much worse this is going to get.
Ohio Mom
Thanks for this, Cheryl. I’ve been upset about the DOJ attack on the ACA for the better part of the last hour — it feels like there is no rule of law any more, and it is scary to see things dismantled so cavalierly.
It’s calming to hear a resolute voice, reminding me I can still do things. I’ll be annoying those swarmy interns at my congressmen’s offices tomorrow. It’s not much but given my regular Tuesday schedule, it’s accomplishable.
Jay
On the bright side, Needy Amin is destroying the US Military just like Putin asked,
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/03/21/politics/us-marine-border-warning/index.html
Raoul
@Eolirin: I’m just spitballing, but I think if Roberts swings and nukes the ACA, he’s ushering in a rapid move to Medicare for all. Because if scotus finds ACA is illegal, then there aren’t that many mechanisms available.
This court isn’t going to overturn Medicare just because Congress gets battered and passes an all-age extension. The over 65s would at that point somehow overcome their fears of browns, gays and ‘abortion on demand’ and manage to vote their pocketbooks, kicking the GOP in the teeth.
I do not want the interim loss of life, loss of financial security, and loss of dignity that the gap between the demise of ACA and the start of Medicare for All would entail. But unless we’re headed towards tinpot dictatorship (and, ehh, we might be), the collapse of ACA and the ensuing insurance chaos will not redound to the GOP’s benefit. Nope, no way, not happening.
Even with the sh*t sucking media hellscape we inhabit.
Lyrebird
Very much this.
Thank you Cheryl!
Can’t take in the title of your post, because I can’t dwell too much on how bad things are already, but I take hope from small things. I have heard tales of fighting blacklists back in the other McCarthy’s day, and back then, they did not have people like Chris Wallace, Nicolle Wallace, or Shep Smith – in the conservative camp but not buying all the lies – on TV. Even 10 yrs ago, Rush Limbaugh was untouchable. Probably Hannity, too, I just didn’t know anything about him. Not now.
Hug your loved ones,
say good things about your friends’ preferred primary candidates even if you’re not supporting them,
keep holding the line, I guess.
Jay
@Raoul:
Needy Amin’s “budget” slashing SS and Medicare didn’t cause the Deplorables and Gullibillies to even blink.
Boxes, bridges, sparrows and curtain rods.
Aleta
I don’t want coverage of the Mueller report to take attention away from the children and adults being held by ICE. Or dim coverage of gun control in NZ and here.
Cheryl Rofer
@GregB: Thanks for reminding me about Puerto Rico.
MoCA Ace
I have close family members who have struggled with depression and I can honestly say I haven’t been able to really sympathize with them because I just couldn’t imagine how their thought processes worked… until now. I have been an absolute wreck since yesterday, I spent most of the day staring at the computer because I’m unable to keep a coherent thought in my head. I can’t stand to watch or listen to the news because of all the republicans taking victory laps. I can’t even manage to scream at the TV or laugh at their obvious pathetic lies.
I just don’t have the energy anymore.
As for the ACA… if these fuckers throw my sons fiancee out to fight for herself she will die within a year or be forced to become a penniless ward of the state. If that happens I swear I’ll find the energy somewhere to make some of those fuckers pay.
I guess I can still manage anger after all. How the fuck did we get here?
Raoul
@Jay: That budget is not even getting out of the starting block (though as a roadmap to the moral crevasse of the GOP, it’s pretty accurate). Yes the Trumpers are going for broke this week. They’ve clearly been working on a Shock and Awe attack, probably since the day Barr was confirmed.
But to riff on Cheryl @top, we need not fall for the flash bombs and smoke. Nancy Pelosi’s House is not moving Rump’s budget. Nope. No way. The woman who rope-a-doped him on the shutdown isn’t in shock over Mueller. In fact, it would seem that her signaling on impeachment a few weeks ago that caused some on the left to want to grab pitchforks was probably her long and considered experience doing some expectation-setting.
We have fights ahead. Many of them. Donate to Dems who’s vision and voice you respect. Sign up with a campaign. Do some phone banking for the ACUL, NARAL, League of Conservation Voters, whatever. Invite your neighbors over for a Costco rotisserie chicken and just shoot the shit and be friendly.
It’s a long haul. Be tactical and self-caring about it.
Cheryl Rofer
@Aleta:
Mike in NC
I still want the odious Sarah Hagabee Sanders to live out her final years in an unheated log cabin in Siberia.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If that idiot Steyer really wanted to take trump down, he would run ads of trump’s repeated promises on health care (“something terrific… we’re gonna take care of everybody… it’ll be easy, believe me”)
Cheryl Rofer
My therapy kitties have arrived to tell me it’s time for their late night crunchies and for me to go to bed.
Thanks for all the positivity on this thread. I think it will get worse for a while, and then we will actually start to see some victories because the Trumpies will overreach. But that’s likely to be weeks at least.
HumboldtBlue
What I thought was another wonderful cooking video turned into a virtuosity performance from a trumpetist.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Cheryl Rofer: Look, just remember, Trump never fails to shoot himself in the foot the micro second things go his way.
Matt McIrvin
@Raoul: I think they’re using some bullshit non-severability argument, that repealing the mandate means it all has to be repealed. In which case it could be easily fixed by just passing an amended ACA with the mandate removed–assuming the ability to pass laws, which M4A would also require.
I’ve been seeing Twitter Berniebros saying this is Democrats’ fault for not passing single payer, which makes no sense to me: these are Republicans, of course they’d do the same thing to single payer.
Lyrebird
@Aleta: Hey this is not nearly as wholesome as Sens Harris and Warren charming little kids, but since you’ve provided some really helpful links on some of these discouraging evenings, I wanna make sure you have a chance to read utterly irrelevant but funny comments about dumb advertising photos for bath trays.
Ruckus said it was funny, too!
Laughter is good medicine, right?
Raoul
As to people feeling hard hit, walloped, disoriented etc. All very real. We really do need to hold one another close (hard online, I know, but in whatever ways we can, particularly in actual physical space, but on the ethers as well).
I may be on thin ice here… But I’ve been thinking about Sydney Aiello (and, ehh, freakin’ ghad, now a second Parkland suicide. Oh my.).
My wondering is, did Sydney see how swiftly New Zealand responded to the horrible mosque shootings there, and think: My country is useless. Unable to cope or care or react effectively. NZ points out how it could be done (raoul notes: in a rather different cultural and political context), and our country is failing us Parkland kids.
Or maybe just the news of the NZ shooting was re-traumatizing.
It is very likely that Sydney had PTSD and heightened risk of suicide irrespective of New Zealand’s tragedy, or its swift response. But I can imagine that a heightened sense of hopelessness is waving through Parkland grads and current students. I’m devastated to think that in any way that vile person in NZ may have even marginally contributed to anyone taking their life here. Gaaah.
eta: Sorry to be so down on a thread aiming to find some positivity. I do mean it about being in community and sharing care for one another.
Aleta
I think one thing we can keep doing is showing children ways to cope with stress (anger, despair) w/o harming ourselves or other people. Hard as that is for everyone to do.
NotMax
@Cheryl Rofer
There will be detours, there will be switchbacks; there will be gloom and dark of night. So long as we keep putting one foot in front of the other we will get to where we need to be, able to reconstitute a government and a country we deserve.
Miss Bianca
@Lyrebird: I laughed so hard at this, as one of those gals who loves her baths *and* loves to read in the tub…so I would really love one of those bathtub trays…but OMG, *WTF*?!?
Thank you for sharing!
Omnes Omnibus
Fuck ’em.
Aleta
@Lyrebird: Hey thanks for a big laugh. Smiling felt good.
Jay
@Raoul:
In know that Needy Amin’s “budget” is DOA, my point was that the Deplorables and the Gullibillies won’t care until their Medicare is cancelled and the SS deposits don’t arrive.
On the bright side, Needy Amin’s looting of the Pentagon for his fake “emergency” Wall, does create a precident for future Ddmocratic Party Presidents to use for real emergencies.
sukabi
@Cheryl Rofer: over reach is their game, but not without stomping their own dicks in the process.
How about a tiny pep talk from the liberal redneck.
MobiusKlein
@Raoul:
I’m not not smart enough to know the way out, but still wise enough to it’so not nihilism.
Thanks to all here for understanding despair and acknowledging it. And not letting it eat us.
Lyrebird
@Raoul:
Dunno if it helps at all, but I was thinking not the exact same thing but along the same lines. And I thought your earlier comments about interim losses were so well put… Hard not to get discouraged when brave but vulnerable people are indeed the ones getting hurt.
@Miss Bianca: @Aleta:
So glad to get to spread a grin or two. Needed that myself.
Jay
@Raoul:
There’s a lot of possible reasons for giving up. There’s a lot of damage to survivors of mass shootings and not a lot of coverage or community support after the event.
It, in the end, is just another reason for Gun Control.
Jay
“Douglass’s great gift, and the reason we know him of today, is that he found ways to convert the scars Covey left on his body into words that might change the world.”
David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Department of Grift you say?
Keith Olbermann on the Cabinet of Villains (before the inauguration)
Aleta
reposting
The Hoarse Whisperer @HoarseWisperer
matt
Look on the bright side, at least we aren’t taking over Alsace-Lorraine and the Sudetenland yet.
Debbie (Aussie)
@Cheryl Rofer:
That would be Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (name of party) I call it the PHONy party. She is a grifter, much like Trump.
J R in WV
@Cheryl Rofer:
Thanks for this Cheryl! I needed it in a moment of existential angst at 4 am.
So glad to have you back, don’t let the trolls byte. Just say fuck’em for EFG, which while not unexpected, was still a bad shock. I was surprised how hard that hit me.
The people running the Republican Party are despicable vile toads who appear to enjoy hurting people even at a distance. It’s stressing me out pretty bad.
J R in WV
@sukabi:
Oh, thanks, so funny and uplifting. I sent this to friends and neighbors!
SFAW
Where the fuck is Thanos when you need him? Just one little modified “snap,” that’s all I’m asking for. [“Modified” in that I want the 50 (plus or minus) percent to be more … targeted … shall we say.]
These motherfuckers are so corrosive and destructive of this country.
chopper
all this gloating coming from the WH has to be based on an assumption that the real mueller report is mild too, or that it’s never going to see the light of day. what are the chances of either being true?
artem1s
@chopper:
I agree. the gloating is infuriating but oddly the people who should be gloating the most, IF it does exonerate, are oddly quiet.
I’m hoping that the state AG’s will institute Indictment Friday starting this week. This news cycle is going to pass pretty quickly, IMHO. And the Dems in Congress are right. Their job is to make sure that they stem the damage to our country while legislative branches duke it out. And because they can walk and chew gum at the same time, I believe the House hearings will commence in earnest now. Don’t underestimate Nancy Smash.