Like Hemingway’s bankrupt, the Squatter-in-Chief is losing even Fox News:
John Roberts: "This hour we've got to do your favorite emoji, ¯\_(?)_/¯, because we're not exactly sure what the president is talking about." pic.twitter.com/4355NZoeGs
— Lis Power (@LisPower1) April 4, 2019
Not saying Trump would never ignore the terms of a deal, but it seems like relevant context
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) April 4, 2019
Which makes the still-to-be-rleased Mueller Report that much more dangerous…
"it is with some sadness that I say, Barr did absolutely the wrong thing, in the wrong way, and one can certainly infer bad reasons in his handling so far of the special counsel's report." https://t.co/7yycTnX0cK
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 4, 2019
Oh, you say that the Trump campaign didn't collude with Russia because that implies they knew what they were doing and weren't witless hacks? That sounds… familiar. https://t.co/6EhTlIxi9K https://t.co/qgG2srIc0D
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 4, 2019
If I understand the reporting, Barr’s excuse for not releasing the Mueller team’s own summaries—written expressly for public release—is that these somehow remained so riddled with classified or grand jury information that this was impossible. That is not credible.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) April 4, 2019
It also makes the need for review & redaction, which I’d accepted as legitimate in theory, sound like a stall tactic. How long would it have taken to review the summaries? If we still can’t see those, why should we think we ever get to see anything substantial?
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) April 4, 2019
Et tu, Check?
I support release of the Mueller report
— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) April 4, 2019
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: @pourmecoffee’s responses to Trump tweets are ?? pic.twitter.com/0M9ryEr68N
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 4, 2019
Jeffro
I’m curious: if Trumpov knew all along he was so innocent…why fire Comey? Why fire Sally Yates? Why fire Preet Bhahra?
And on that note…please see NYT story about Trumpov pushing hard to get his guy in as IRS legal counsel (to protect his tax returns) just as he did with Barr (to protect him from Mueller report) and Kavanaugh (to protect him from Congress as matters like subpoenas are appealed up to SCOTUS)
Now we have frickin Moore and Cain nominated to the Fed, to goose the economy once more leading up to the election
Not good
Jeffro
Uh oh and we have the commandant of theMarine Corps leaking memos about how building the wall was damaging military families and combat readiness?
debit
Didn’t want to derail the thread downstairs, so I’m taking advantage of the open thread here. Kitten went to the vet today, checked out in every way and was cleared for travel. His transport is due here sometime before noon and he will be traveling in style with a puppy for a companion.
Thank you all again for making this possible.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I went up to take pics of the Bald Eagles yesterday and they increased the radius from the nest that you can enter. So I did a Google search on “San Gabriel Canyon Bald Eagles” and learned two things: their nest last year collapsed killing an eaglet, and the first image on the images tab links to Balloon Juice(the picture looked very familiar).
Anne Laurie
@debit: Excellent news! Please email me when you get the chance — I’ve been holding off on sending the latest jackals your PP addy because I didn’t want to deluge your inbox…
Damien
Man, this would be so much harder to deal with if our opponents were to ever stop stepping on their own dicks
B.B.A.
@Jeffro:
Because it pisses us off. Trolling the libs is the only thing he’s any good at, and the only thing that brings him any joy in life.
I’m convinced that Il Douche’s activities with Russia fall a millimeter short of illegality. He will never be impeached or indicted for anything, and he will die smugly thinking he was the greatest president ever. I believe this because God hates me and wants me to suffer.
Jeffro
First Dem candidate to tie all of these *technically* legal appointments (Barr, Kavanaugh, Desmond, Moore, Cain) together and just pound the living shit out of the GOP for the next 19 months gets my vote.
(oh who am I kidding – any Dem is going to get my vote). But still.
I expect it’ll be Nancy Smash, as usual
Jeffro
@B.B.A.: trumpov most definitely not fire these three just to own the libs. Appointing EPA chiefs who hate the environment and Education dept chiefs who hate public school kids, sure. But these are different.
I’m wondering where he is getting his specific guidance on who and which offices to place his most loyal loyalists in. It’s not something the Addled One could have come up with on his own.
dexwood
@debit:
Nice. A kitten and puppy travel adventure.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@B.B.A.:
This is not true, Trump gets great joy from Quarterpounders and buckets of KFC.
mrmoshpotato
@debit: Woo hoo! Great news!
B.B.A.
@Jeffro: Stephen Miller is the brains of the operation. God help us all.
mrmoshpotato
@Damien: Or stopped walking around kneeing themselves in the nuts.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Jeffro:
What could they do?
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro:
I just started a monthly donation to “Ditch Mitch” — have you heard of it? I’m hoping it’s legit. But I just felt like anyone who sends me an e-mail with the subject line “Merrick Garland” every single day deserves my support.
JaySinWA
@Jeffro:
Always wrong Steven Moore goosing the economy is not likely to help anyone. And 999 Cain isn’t likely to help either.
SiubhanDuinne
I need to put in a good word for reporter John Roberts (full disclosure: I learned, not all that long ago, that my cousin — at the time, news director of CFOS in Owen Sound, ON — hired JR for his first broadcasting job, many decades ago).
I met John a few times in ATL when I was still working for the Canadian Consulate — he came in once to renew his CDN passport, and I arranged for him to be a guest speaker at an Atlanta Press Club event.
He would never say so out loud, of course, but he basically took a job with FOX in Atlanta so he could be close to his partner, CNN’s Kyra Phillips without violating CNN’s nepotism guidelines. Kyra has moved on to one of the non-cable networks now, but JR has a good gig at FNC, yet — as far as I know; I never watch FOX — has managed to avoid being FOXified in his reporting. But it’s years since I’ve seen him on camera, so things might have changed. Hope not, though.
Leto
@Jeffro: What, you can’t wait to have the 9-9-9 Little Caesars Federal Budget?!? But it’s square!!!
Also, keep pissing off the Marines. Only the Marines can make their own people miserable (it’s a fundamental way of life for them). Someone else fucking with their Marines? Keep that shit up, see what happens.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Leto:
Someone here shared a Military Times survey and his support had already fallen among active duty soldiers quite a lot. Approval was evenly divided, but this was before the shutdown, so who knows what it is now
debit
@Anne Laurie: Done!
Everyone is so generous, but we’re covered. Here, you may watch a short film of pathos and drama in one act. I call it: the heartbreak of car rides to the vet. Please ignore the grotty pet carrier. We had to go and I couldn’t find my nice one, so dug out the old one. Please don’t judge.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Beto is a shrewd negotiator
(photo 1)
(photo 2)
mrmoshpotato
@Leto: Hey now. It was Godfather’s pizza. The founder of Little Caesars (pizza! pizza!) paid for Rosa Parks’ Detroit apartment for a decade plus.
piratedan
@Jeffro: c’mon now, stop asking questions that would be readily apparent to anyone attempting to follow this is any possible non-partisan way.
His followers DO NOT CARE, he was absolutely correct when he said that he could get away with murder on a crowded 5th avenue…..
what matters is that HE WON (no matter how he won, enough of America bought the bullshit (or were turned away from the pools, never allowed to vote and for all we know, a few of us may have never had our votes counted or even flipped, we simply don’t know)…
and now Trump is allowed to be the Tyrant that they always claimed Obama was, what one President giveth, another can take away, and a little more because I’m the Prez and I need to dip my beak….
The rest of this bullshit is just gravy as Mitchy is doing his part to tilt the judicial playing field and Trumps minions are busy polluting the remainder of the government as if they were working for Coal Mine mogul Don Blankenship.
Will he end up going down for this? We can only hope (and I am full of hope)
zhena gogolia
@debit:
Haha, is that heart-rending violin music just incidental, or did you do that on purpose?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: I liked Godfather’s Pizza when I was in grad school, but that was before Mr. 999’s tenure with the company.
debit
@zhena gogolia: Totally accidental. I laughed so hard when I watched it. His sad little meow! The heart-rending violin!
tobie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: He’s also good at organizing. I live in Maryland, which won’t have a primary till late in the season, and have already gotten several emails and text messages about local campaign events.
geg6
@tobie:
Yes, me too. Only candidate who has contacted me at all. He’s got a good team, I think. I’m in PA.
Ohio Mom
@tobie: The thing I just learned about Beto that is sticking in my caw is that he voted against Pelosi for speaker (?!!!).
What was his reasoning I wonder. A show of terrible judgement.
Required disclaimer, (sigh) If he wins the nomination, of course, I will yada, yada, yada.
geg6
@debit:
That’s an epic video with the music. Bravo, even if serendipitous.
Amir Khalid
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
You can tell that from a photo?
tobie
@Ohio Mom: I agree. It was the wrong decision. Like a lot of people, I guess he’s wizened up. Up till December 2018 AOC and Tlaib were threatening to withhold support for Pelosi. It seems like it took quite a bit of time for a number of Congresscritters to learn what we’ve known all along –when it comes to leadership in the House, no one is better than Pelosi. I imagine all those who scoffed at Hillary for running a terrible campaign or neglecting to speak to the concerns of working people (Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg, Warren) will also soon learn what it’s like to have the press against you. As Stacey Abrams said today (I’m paraphrasing): to demand perfection in any candidate is to shoot yourself in the foot. We can’t afford that right now.
Ohio Mom
@Amir Khalid: If you look at both pictures, it’s a joke. Maybe you could say he’s quick on his feet.
smintheus
Barr is acting as if he were Trump’s personal lawyer, not the AG of the United States. Personal lawyers can get away with trying to block or delay the release of damaging info about their client and usually won’t go to jail for it because it’s a privileged relation. But a government employee who acts like a personal lawyer can be convicted of obstruction of justice because running interference for other government employees is not part of his job. I have to hope that Barr spends some real quality time in the John N. Mitchell wing of the Federal Prison Camp.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
It was the two photos taken together/sequentially, I think.
Gin & Tonic
@Ohio Mom:
He won’t.
Aleta
@debit: That’s pure wonderful. I don’t know how to thank you for all the work to do this.
SFAW
@smintheus:
Oh, that is SO-O-O-O last century.
The only chance of your pie-in-the-sky scenario happening is if Traitor Turtle gets 200 percent of everything he wanted in his wettest of wet dreams, re: judges, tax cuts, etc.
I’m joking, but this maladministration, combined with Traitor Turtle, has shown that the norms that kept this country on a relatively even keel for 200 years have been flushed. Thanks, Rethug voters!
Marcopolo
@zhena gogolia: I actually started a monthly donation to Run For Something
I have given to 4 of the current D presidential candidates, a couple of D house candidates for the next cycle and a couple of local folks who ran (and won) races this past Tuesday but the idea of a group solely focused on recruiting progressive candidates for every one of the 500,000 down ballot offices in the US is the kind of ambitious goal I can get behind!
I would love to hear from other BJ jackals about grassroots groups they know of who are invested in recruiting & electing progressive candidates at the state & local level.
Oh, and not that I needed a dealbreaker for Wilmer but this is a total deal breaker for me:
Bernie Sanders declines to say when he will release tax returns
And I will go further and say it will be a presidential primary candidate deal breaker for me for supporting anyone who cannot release their taxes. I mean WTF is he hiding?
Jeffro
@B.B.A.: Someone or someones smarter than Miller…they are putting key pieces in place to block, delay, rule against, deny, etc. It’s (almost) really well done, except for the fact that the facts are against them.
Aleta
@debit: What a beautiful love. I’m blown away by what you did here. Thank you AL and everyone. Lots of pictures as time goes by.
Jay
@Ohio Mom:
Kerry Pickett a Daily Caller, ex Washington Times, (aka Moonie Times), Still Dead Briebart contributor.
Nancy Smash was being blamed by part of the House Caucus for their 6 years in minority. 38 Democratic Representatives voted against Nancy Smash.
Lots and lots of ratfucking and framing going on, this time it’s not mostly Russians. Our Trolls is Learnin. Beware.
debit
@Aleta: It’s nothing. I can’t wait until he’s home with you.
tobie
@Gin & Tonic: A pity for us as he’s the only candidate to link the civil rights movement with the immigrant struggle in a way that I actually found inspiring. It’s a pity that anytime you express enthusiasm for any candidate besides Warren or Harris on this website, you are immediately shot down. If things keep going this way, in a few weeks BJ will be one venomous pit, and that’s too bad given the monster we have to fight in the White House.
Jeffro
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: They could influence whether or not the Fed raises interest rates, keeps them steady, or lowers them in the hopes of goosing the economy (and trumpov’s re-election chances). The tax cut scam sure didn’t work.
Jeffro
@zhena gogolia: I haven’t heard of it. I’d probably wait to see who The Turtle’s primary and general election challengers are, and donate to them directly.
jl
What was Barr thinking? That this would be like working as a humble flunky stooge for a competent crook like Poppy Bush? (too soon? Sorry.., late Poppy Bush).
Anyway, the things you learn on this here miserable lefty almost top 10,000 blog.
So, Mueller staff wrote summaries designed for public release? Huh… damn. Good to know.
I would assume Barr knew that when he wrote his bogus letter. Looks like Barr was in desperate situation as soon as he or his staff did a skim of the report itself.
Release the Mueller summaries! Will be a hoot if Barr tries to redact those. If he does redact chunks of them or tries to hide them, those seem like prime candidates for leaking.
Jeffro
@Leto: Here’s hoping that the blowback is at least some order stronger than all the other blowbacks we’ve been expecting…right now the RWNJs in the GOP just keep doubling down on their support for the Orange Emperor with No Clothes.
jl
@zhena gogolia: Thanks for info on that. I’ll take a look at the site.
plato
@Jeffro: Amazing how the totus thug is getting away with all these unethical and corrupt appointments just to protect him and his crooked business.
H.E.Wolf
@tobie:
As a first-generation American myself, I found Kamala Harris’s autobiography – which is dedicated with love to her late mother, an immigrant who took her young daughter(s) to civil rights marches in the 1960s – to be very inspiring on those intersecting issues.
Other peoples’ mileage may vary, of course; and there’s nothing wrong with that. May we all resist not only the Republicans, but the impulse to fight with one another.
Leto
@mrmoshpotato: Mea culpa! Totally right, Godfather’s pizza. Sorry I brain farted on that. Like Bill, I remember liking Godfather’s pizza but the last time I had it, it was close to twenty years ago.
@Jeffro: If it can be portrayed that it’s affecting military readiness in tangible ways (beds, beans, bullets) then it’ll be effective. I’ve learned to gtfo of the way when a Marine is hard charging. They’re usually off to make bad things happen to bad people. ?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Marcopolo: Jane’s still working on them, she’s got her green eye-shades on and gone though 6 pencils, a 3 packs of unfiltered Camels, and 2 fifths of scotch.
jl
@plato: I read that at least one news organization banned Moore as a contributor for repeated dishonesty and incompetence in his submissions. I forget which one. And a few others debated whether he should be banned for stinking up their joint, and used him only as a last resort when couldn’t get another Trumpster pundit on to defend indefensible nonsense. Anyway, at least one article on how horrible Moore is, and how bad his reputation is.
Edit: Cain has a history of being a consistent hard money gold bug. So, if he wants low interest rates now, he is simply changing his mind for no other reason than to get a skanky Trumpster appointment. Cain prolly smarter than Moore, but just as ignorant and sketchy.
Kay
@jl:
I love that there was a summary that was prepared for us, a real summary, and we can’t have that. We get the shitty summary done by the low quality Trump hire. I want the one I was supposed to get.
It doesn’t belong to Mr. Barr. He needs to release it to its rightful owners, immediately. It shouldn’t be requested. It should be seized.
Jay
@Jeffro:
It’s actually not well done.
ReThugs have been living inside their own bubble so long that they have gotten sloppy.
After 2 Scaramucchi’s worth of review, Barr released his “Executive Summary” and The Ususal Suspects spent 2 Scaramucci’s doing an endzone dance. 1 Scaramucci later, there was push back. 1 Scaramucci later, Barr’s “Executive Summary” lost 2 paragraphs and was now “just a letter”. 1 more Scaramucci later, and it was “just a memo”.
Now subpena’s are dropping on Barr.
Had Barr been “smart”, or the “no collusion obstruction” been smart, Barr would have come out on the Monday, noting the size of the Meuller Report, concern that the Executive Summaries might contain classified information, information that might interfer with or expose ongoing investigations and possibly, Grand Jury testimony.
And that the DOJ was undertaking a careful review of the Report and the Executive Summaries, but because of the size and details of the report, that will take quite a bit of time, and the DOJ might have to write it’s own Executive Summary.
tobie
@H.E.Wolf: As the daughter of two immigrants and the wife of an immigrant, immigration is a big issue for me, too, and I’m happy to hear Harris spoke about that experience and its connection to the civil rights movement in genuine and moving ways in her autobiography. In some ways, she had the immigrant experience herself as an African-Asian American growing up in Canada.
SiubhanDuinne
@debit:
That kitty has the pinkest nose in the history of pink-nosed kitties. And that plaintive little mew, awwww.
You have a lovely, soothing voice. If I were a kitty in a grotty cage heading to the vet, I’d be glad to hear you saying comforting words.
B.B.A.
I don’t comment from work, but I did read the shitshow earlier today. Suffice it to say that the only thing I want Biden in the running for is the sex offender registry.
jl
I found this from TPM interesting. Looks like active duty Marine general allowed leaks showing Wall was BS nonsense that hurt military readiness. I guess if it stays low profile, he’ll keep his job? Or not?
Anyway, a toast to Smedley Butler. Shirley Temples acceptable.
Report: Marine Gen. Allowed Leaks To Show How Border Wall Was Hurting Military
Kate Riga, TPM
Gen. Robert Neller, the commandant of the Marine Corps, let internal Defense Department memos leak recently to show the damage President Donald Trump’s wall obsession is doing to military families and combat readiness.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/marine-chief-allowed-leaks-show-damage-trump-wall-money-military-families
jl
@Kay: Barr was a very high quality corrupt flunky, a top flunky, terrific, the best, until he drew a classic crazy boss. Sad!
B.B.A.
@tobie:
No it’s not. Every other candidate is a no-hoper or a misogynist. Or both.
debit
@SiubhanDuinne: He was a brave little trooper. I think he’s going to travel well. And thank you. [blush]
plato
debbie
@Jeffro:
That’ll sting. How can he mean-tweet vets?
Jeffro
@Jay: my ‘well done’ comment wasn’t just about how they handled the Barr (Cover) Letter…it was about orchestrating these various appointments in order to protect their mob boss.
I mean at this point, they’re really going all in to protect a guy from having to make his tax returns public, from having to make his “exoneration” from conspiring with a hostile foreign power public, from having any accountability at all. It’s stunning and shame should be one of our best weapons here. That, plus subpoenas. ;)
Kent
@Ohio Mom:
What are you talking about? Beto resigned his Congressional seat to run for Senate in 2018 so he wasn’t in the House this January when the speaker was elected. Were you talking about previous Congresses? If so, Pelosi wasn’t running for speaker but for Minority Leader. Beto wasn’t in Congress last time Pelosi was elected speaker in 2008.
Mary G
@debit: Aw, poor baby. The end with the huffy “well, I’m turning my back and going to the other end of the carrier to ignore your very existence” is very familiar.
Jeffro
@jl: thanks for the link! I was too lazy up at comment #2 ;)
@debbie: how can he mean-tweet vets? He’s already bashed McCain both pre- and post-mortem…he’s already run down a Gold Star family…he’s already knocked his own generals (he knows much more than they do, BELIEVE ME). He doesn’t give a sh** about the military or vets and I think folks are catching on, even some fraction of his numbskull supporters…
jl
@Jay: As I noted, Barr has the reputation of being a top flight, quality, very competent, corrupt flunky. So, wonder if Trump went apeshit and ordered Barr to put something out immediately, so Trump, the dope, could do a victory dance, and launch himself into a pleasurable manic stage.
Omnes Omnibus
@B.B.A.: I’ve been wondering about something. Since you have been such an advocate for white men sitting down and shutting up, don’t you think it might be a good idea to lead by example?
Kay
@B.B.A.:
The groping is just the beginning. Wait until we all go over the Iraq vote, again, and the bankruptcy bill (which will be great for the youngs- they’ll be interested to hear how he disallowed discharging private student loan debt in bankruptcy, which caused it to grow 10x what it was prior to the bankruptcy bill) and the whole rest of his 500 other horrible votes. Oh, it’ll be great. Super.
You’ll be begging for the mayor of south bend or the loser of the Texas senate race or the prosecutor who enforces truancy laws when this really gets rolling. “Come back! All is forgiven!”
jl
@Jeffro: Oops, sorry. I inadvertently skimmed past your comment. Because, I am a slob.
Anyway, interesting that active duty brass are getting an insubordinate itch they feel they gotta scratch.
B.B.A.
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s a collective action problem. I also think my taxes should be higher, but there’s no point in me cutting a bigger check to the Treasury.
Marcopolo
@H.E.Wolf: To echo this comment, I also find what Julian Castro has to say about immigrants & immigration inspiring. Hearing him talk about his grandmother crossing the border into Texas in the 20’s after her parents died in the Mexican Revolution is powerful. And he has laid out a detailed concrete plan for how he would reform our national approach to immigration. But Castro doesn’t hop up on tables or exude whatever it is that Beto exudes that gets scads of reporters following him around and hanging on every word. While I agree Beto is a very inspirational speaker, let’s also look to candidate’s policy proposals & accomplishments and try to weigh it all together.
Kay
@jl:
It didn’t even work, the fake summary ruse. Now that we’ve wasted 2 weeks on Mr. Barr’s dumb games, can he turn over the property that doesn’t belong to him?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Ohio Mom: Where did you see that?
It’s Not true
He voted for Nancy all four times. Here are all roll call votes for Speaker
2013 (scroll down – link)
2015 (scroll down – link)
2015 [special election] (scroll down – link)
2017 (scroll down – link)
catclub
@JaySinWA:
Cain was chair of aregional Fed Reserve bank. He is probably more qualified to be on the Fed than Rick Perry is to be in charge of the security of our nuclear arsenal
(among other things)
at DOE. But Slate says ‘God Help us’ on Cain appointment.
I am not saying that Cain is actually qualified.
tobie
@jl: My take is that Barr wrote his letter at breakneck speed not to protect Trump but the Republican Party itself, which has tied its fortunes to Orangemandias. He knows full well that if Trump goes down, the Republican Party goes down. What he didn’t anticipate was the pushback helped in large part by digital media.
Jay
@Jeffro:
The Senate handles the confirmations and Yurtle the Turtle runs the Senate.
All they have to do to find the “right” appointee is wiki past ReThug scandals to find their bag man, hatchet man, cover up artist.
Rosenstien’s career is toast. Barr’s probably going to jail.
FlyingToaster
@tobie:
A. Lighten up, Francis.
B. That’s not true. I — and a large proportion of the Jackals here — think all of the “serious” “Democratic” candidates are amazing. Beto, Buttigieg, Harris, Gillibrand, Klobchar, Warren are all bringing their A games, and it’s a delight not to be embarassed by the major candidate slate. I do think Beto’s a little light on policy (as in he doesn’t wish to be pinned down so much as figure out what people are actually asking), but that will fix itself as he has to face the other candidates. The others are very concrete, even if I think they’re wrong (Warren, who is my favorite, is not right about BigAg, and she’s getting an earful from Iowa agriculture academics).
Wilmer, OTOH, ain’t no Democrat. He should release his taxes, or get off the grift and go back to Vermont.
We have a certain number of gadfly candidates (Howard Shultz, for fuck’s sake) who hopefully won’t last long.
And Tim Ryan can go fuck himself, and take Seth Moulton along for the ride.
Kent
@catclub: Cain was chair of aregional Fed Reserve bank. He is probably more qualified to be on the Fed than Rick Perry is to be in charge of the security of our nuclear arsenal
(among other things)
at DOE. But Slate says ‘God Help us’ on Cain appointment.
I am not saying that Cain is actually qualified.
Wapiti
@H.E.Wolf: Just got that today from the Seattle library quick-pick shelf.
catclub
@SiubhanDuinne:
For cats, of course.
Get Fuzzy had Satchel with a dog saying ” Even a trip to the vet includes a car ride.” (Every cloud has a silver lining.)
catclub
@Jay:
I would be amazed at that.
No one in the Office of Legal counsel went to jail for approving torture.
Marcopolo
@Kent: Beto supported Tim Ryan over Pelosi for Minority Leader in 2016. Ryan actually got 63 votes to Pelosi’s 134. It was a fairly strong backlash against Pelosi by Blue Dogs & other more moderate D’s. And honestly, if you look at Beto’s voting record in the House over three terms he was a center right D not “progressive.” There is a pretty cool graph of Beto vis a vis all other House members on the left/right & leadership axes here. Maybe that is who he is, maybe he was just representing his district & he actually leans a little more left. I dunno. Still waiting to for him & his team to put more meat on the bones of his candidacy.
Jay
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Daily Caller’s Moonie Times, Still Dead Briebart allumni is shitstirring.
See comment #43.
Rules for surviving to 2020, google the ratfucker before you believe your bias.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@tobie: @Jay:
Not true. He voted every time for Nancy. Here are links to his votes (link)
Ohio Mom
@Kent: thanks for the correction! I’m actually relieved to hear that.
cain
@Jay:
Who is going to send him there? The courts are being filled with right wingers.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Jay: Thanks.
jl
@Kent: Cain was chairman of Kansas City Fed Reserve bank. District Banks are in charge of mechanics of Fed Res bank regulation duties, clearing functions, and the local research division (though different branches have taken widely different views on scope and breadth of research they should do). Chairman not the most powerful or technically demanding governing position. Cain couldn’t do much damage there in 2 years he held the position.
So, not really much of a job recommendation.
Edit: but Cain slightly less awful nomination than Moore.
debbie
@debit:
The tiny pink-padded paw, raised in supplication!
Jay
@catclub:
The political mood does not seem to support “look forward, not backwards”,
but more Tumbrel rides and guillotines, and it’s going to get a lot worse before Orangemandius is out of the White Supremacy House.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
marcopolo
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: The vote that is being mentioned was in the 2016 D caucus for selecting the D nominee for Speaker. Once Tim Ryan lost the vote against Pelosi in the caucus Pelosi was put forward for the Speaker vote.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Marcopolo: That graph shows him being clustered with Jim Clyburn and Peter Welch of Vermont. To me, being side by side with Clyburn and Welch means main line progressive.
tobie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Thanks for the correction.
@FlyingToaster: I agree that the candidates are speaking powerfully to a number of different issues. I just checked out O’Rourke’s, Klobuchar’s, Booker’s and Castro’s websites and, in terms of policy, they all have roughly the same amount of text. Gillibrand has more, as I’m sure Warren does. I imagine that within a month’s time O’Rourke’s website will fill out –he’s already spoken in detail about his health policy and Central American aid package — if not, I’ll be concerned.
Marcopolo
@jl: Apparently the only qualification that really matters is that you be for tighter monetary policy when a D is president & looser monetary policy when an R is president. I mean c’mon, who cares what the actual facts regarding the economy say in regards to what to do. Both Cain & Moore fit that bill.
Jay
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
My point was that Kerry Pickett is a right wing nut job who floated this Conspiracy Theory through the Daily Caller.
I didn’t need to check Beto’s voting record to recognize ratfuckery is afoot.
jl
@Marcopolo: I haven’t seen Cain’s nearly certain flip flop on his long standing hard money stance, but probably I’ll see it soon enough. I follow Krugman’s twitter.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
This is true.
Jay
@cain:
Not all courts.
Aleta
@debit: and gang,
So my partner just sat down so that I could scroll him all the comments on the threads about Operation Infinite Kitty (quote, debit) and then your kind words on Charlie. Then I showed him the video. Now we both have good tears in our eyes. (Been crying a lot here the last two days.)
?❤️??
I don’t know what to say. We’ve had a rough few years personally. Thank you for helping the kit cat come here and for blowing my mind.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It is a known known, as Rummy might say.
Jay
@Marcopolo:
You forgot Gold Bug under D’s,
Free dollar bills under ReThugs.
Marcopolo
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Did you note that during that timespan the Ds farthest towards the Rs were Peterson (no longer in the House), Cuellar (who is one of the folks who AOC wants to primary) & Sinema, now the AZ senator? Of course, the Justice Ds have also talked about primarying Hakeem Jefferies, which from a voting/ideological perspective makes no sense (see the chart)–but I think they “feel” he is too tied to the D establishment etc… And this is why I would not call myself a Justice Dem. I am no purist.
NotMax
@Leto
The horse head and pineapple pizza was a loser.
:)
Lyrebird
@Aleta: Well I’ve been somewhat out of the loop, but saw the kitty bleg, and I gotta say – you’ve been doing so much to bring some positive light, some words of useful truth, and some reasonableness in a time of national distress. I am sending good travel prayers for the travelers and may kitty enjoy many years of love and playtime and naps in your home.
Will say a prayer for Bixby, Mnem’s kitty, and Raven’s elderly pups as well.
J R in WV
@Jeffro:
But really, one of the problems in the last recession, (you remember, the Bush Crash that Obama rescued the nation from, saving 2 out of 3 auto makers, etc) was that the Fed had very little ability to “goose the economy” and the legislature refused to provide more than, what, $900 billion, a drip in the national economic huge tank, not just a bucket.
So good luck trying to save the world economy with the Fed’s capacity for economic control, in the face of Brexit on the other side of the pond at the same time..!!!
Kent
@jl:
I’m not arguing for Cain by any stretch. Honestly all I really remember of him was the brilliant Bad Lipsync parady of him during the campaign. I’m just making the point that we tend to automatically assume that the grey-haired white businessmen who usually take these positions are automatically competent and experienced. I’m just wondering how much that is actually the case versus having these non-chair positions get doled out like patronage ambasadorships or something. It’s not my area so I don’t really know. But is he really substantially less qualified than the average white nominee? According to his wikipedia page:
The Dangerman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Not sure how the paywall thingy works but I’ll send along a link of nice colors.
I had been planning a trip to the Carrizo since SoCal, but my visit was kinda unplanned (had some business in New Cuyama and just kept going because, well, why not, not exactly exciting things to do in New Cuyama)
Marcopolo
@jl: here is Vox talking about Cain’s nomination:
@Jay: Fuck. Yeah I forgot that Cain was advocating going back to the gold standard (or something like that when he was a part of the Fed). Looney Tunes.
Jay
@J R in WV
Yeah, a quarter of a point ain’t gonna prevent the Twitler Recession.
jl
@J R in WV: The Federal Reserve System did not have much capacity to goose the recovery. It did have a lot of power to prevent a worldwide financial panic that would have facilitated, smoothed and generally greased the way for something similar to the Great Depression.
You can read about it in the longest, most endless, short book, I think, every published. Very exciting thriller chapter on role of Fed in stopping international dollar crisis spreading from Eastern Europe after first stage of world financial crisis was stabilized.
International Liquidity and the Financial Crisis
by Dr William A. Allen
Cambridge U Press, 2013
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: The Taco Pizza was yummy.
Redshift
@catclub:
Actually, no. He served on the board of directors, and was chair for a while. The Board of Governors are the ones who actually run the regional Fed. Despite the name, the board of directors is an advisory board of bankers and businessmen.
He’s still slightly more qualified than Perry, because he had a low-level position where he got some exposure to how the Fed works. But only slightly.
Dan B
@H.E.Wolf: Yes please, resist fighting each other. I like to review candidates’ records and previous candidates campaigns. Its valuable to review what was good with previous campaigns and to check out our current crop of candidates. Each has strengths and shortcomings but almost all of them seem capable of growth and improvement. There are only a couple that seem like they would set back the progressive brand.
It seems as though the jackalatiat gets overheated when their most important issue is not in a candidate’s top three list. We need to know their full list before we make any final judgements.
I was just reflecting on Obama’s shortcomings. He and Michelle are always at the top of my list of people I’d want to have at a dream dinner table (I’d watch from a distance. I am not worthy…) Despite all his great service he was a deporter, handled Wall Street with kid gloves, and hung onto bipartisan kumbaya for far too long. I think our crop of candidates are fantastic and we need to persuade the public that they will do their best to restore America’s promise.
Jay
@Kent:
He’s a Gold Bug Rothschilds Conspiracy Theorist.
Another victim of the ReThug Prion Disease.
ThresherK
@debbie: Remember, the pinker the nose and toe beans the more likely they’re sweating. Personal experience.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@The Dangerman: Madame and I are planning on going there either next week or the week after, depending on weather.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Never eaten there, never seen one, never even heard of them until Cain’s craptacular campaign.
jl
@Kent: I readily admit that Cain nom not as bad as Moore. I mean, Cain could run a business, and he might be a good on board of directors of a regional Fed. Moore’s never been anything other than a professional right wing hack, on wingnut welfare dole.
Fed Reserve Bank presidents are the real bosses of their district banks. Each Fed has a three tier board of directors whose main job is to give local private banker advice to Fed staff on local operations and regulation policy.
So, being chairman of the board, or a board member not much of a qualification for any policy position. I’d say the same about similar resume for any other nominee.
Edit: and hell yeah, Cain more qualified than Perry, for anything. But being better than Moore and Perry not much of a recommendation.
NotMax
@Jay
Hey, he meets the height requirement. //
ealbert
O have been reading comments all day long of how we can’t be so hard on Uncle Joe because he is from a different generation and he just didn’t realize that his behavior was a problem. For that to be true he would have had to be unaware of the decades of talk that he was “handsy”, to not notice the fact that these women and girls were tending up, to not see the “deer in the headlights” look of these women and girls in the photos.
The fact is that if he was working on a business, he would have been pulled aside by HR because what he has been doing is called sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment.
I and many other women are tired of being told that we need to put aside our unimportant little concerns and pay attention to important factors (and somehow our concerns are never the important ones. Is this the only thing I have against Biden? No, my first thing is his age, he is just too old. And no, I am not a Bernie supporter, I thought he was too old back in 2016. Somehow, when it comes to things that concern women, it is never the right time to talk about them. Women are told (correctly) that we need to consider how things intersect but black activists never need to consider that half of them are female and will face discrimination that way. We recently had teams written about how terrible it was that people were at a party in black face 30 years ago (and no, they shouldn’t have done so). But we currently have shows on tv with men in drag and no one has a problem with that. When anyone says anything about it we are told that we should we should be happy about it that somehow they are honoring women. I am sorry, all I see are caricatures and demeaning stereotypes.
Sorry to rant but I have seen too much of this.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: ” The Taco Pizza was yummy.”
Takes one to know one. Slob-wise.
Jay
@NotMax:
They were low dollar bulk volume crap quality. Then, when Cain was outed as a RWNJ, they lost a lot of business.
Dan B
@Marcopolo: Agreed about Beto vs. Castro. Beto seems too centrist for my taste but he seems to be “evolving”. At the same time we will need a cheerleader to get us through the next election and the decade it takes to get back on track.
Waaaaah! I want a hybrid of all the best qualities of this impressive slate of candidates. (A few have much less to contribute.) I’m hoping they’ll all elevate each other’s game. Imagine that!
Jay
@ealbert:
How do you feel about political operatives weaponizing #Me Too to destroy #Me Too.
Marcopolo
@Dan B: I’m in agreement with this. My main beef with Obama, despite my general adoration of him, was the way his Treasury Dept dealt with the foreclosure crisis. I still do not understand why we couldn’t have bailed out individual homeowners with some kind of loan guarantee program instead of bailing out the banks who made the loans. So many people lost so much of their life savings because it was tied up in their homes. Geithner can roast on a bed of red hot coals for that approach–at least I think he was the key architect of it.
But the other thing watching Obama during his presidency has make me keenly aware of: to get stuff done after you are elected you really have to have rock solid plans in place well ahead of getting elected, you have to know the ins and outs of the federal bureaucracy so you can fully leverage what can be accomplished solely through the executive (particularly in the current environs), and you need someone who is willing to fight tooth & nail to get stuff done against institutional inertia, all the power of the moneyed interests, and the desire of the media to turn everything into a lowest-common-denominator partisan-yet-both-sides-have-valid-points circus in the hopes of attracting stupid monkey brain eyeballs.
Time for me to get along to other things but in case anyone cares the Women’s National Soccer Team just finished beating Australia 5-3. It was a lovely game to watch.
NotMax
@DanB
The first debate of Democratic candidates will be held in June. And into July.
:)
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Marcopolo: Rapinoe’s score was wicked!
jl
@Marcopolo: ” I still do not understand why we couldn’t have bailed out individual homeowners with some kind of loan guarantee program instead of bailing out the banks who made the loans. ”
That is quite a mystery. Especially since good macro and financial economists across ideological spectrum thought it was a good option (GOP economists rewarded by GOP establishment and Trump do not belong to that group). McCain, Obama (and in primary HRC) economic advisers pushed it periodically. I guess power of financial industry was a key factor. Obama’s unfortunate choice of Geithner to head Treasury was definitely a big factor. Geithner was convinced that saving the banking system was the same thing as preserving the large mega-banks. Most good macro and financial economists very strongly disagreed.
Jay
@Marcopolo:
It actually was the largest wealth transfer in history, upwards, since Gengis Kahn.
The poor, middle class and Minorities lost 4 generations of accumulated wealth in just 2 years, and it’s still ongoing.
The Dangerman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Awesome. Weather to start next week is supposed to be awesome but it’s the king of microclimates around here, so Carrizo can be fairly different from the city reports. If you enter from the south (off 166), the road in is reasonably well marked by out in the middle of nowhere standards. The road goes to dirt fairly quickly but, oddly, the dirt road is much better than the paved (latter has some pothole issues). All the 42 or so miles is pretty glorious.
jl
@Jay: That is true. Not much heard of that in the news. Really devastated poor and working class, blacks and Hispanics, lower income Whites. A wipe out of over 20 percent of pre-Great Recession wealth for those groups. Some groups, over a third lost. I think explains quite a bit of anger against the system that the recovery has not seemed to assuage, since the loss of wealth outweighs gains due to recovery.
Dan B
@FlyingToaster: Well put. But there are a few commenters who let their displeasure with some candidates turn into condemnation without enough research. We each have our own way of expressing our preferences and of making up our minds. We’re human and so are the candidates. Reading your list makes me proud. Hillary may not have won the electoral college but she paved the way for an amazingly diverse crowd.
I’d add Abrams and Castro to the list even though they’re not getting traction or haven’t declared. Then again Buttegieg hasn’t either.
Jay
@jl:
It also trashed millions of credit ratings that will never recover.
AOC, Perez and other’s of the Freshmen class have been covering how it affects the precariate, from credit to car insurance, and how punitive it is. They’ve also exposed how much Credit Ratings are bullshit.
H.E.Wolf
@tobie: @Marcopolo:
I agree with you, and with other commenters who’ve mentioned it, that policy is where it’s at. (You bet your sweet bippy it is.)
@Wapiti:
@Dan B:
Hello to you both!
And good night all….
Ivan X
@debit: what card offers the best vet category bonus?
tobie
@jl: We could have and should have issued a cram-down rule for mortgages once the economy stabilized in the second half of 2009. But with a skyrocketing Libor rate in late 2008 and early 2009, and all commercial lending coming to a halt, I think the bank bailouts were a necessary, if painful, measure. What was infuriating was that the CEOs of the financial firms that had been bailed out suddenly claimed that we couldn’t bail out homeowners because of the the moral hazard that would entail.
jl
@tobie: Moral hazard is OK for me, but not for thee. Especially when I’m rich and you’re not.
Jay
@tobie:
The interbank lending rate crashed, not because Banks didn’t have the money, but instead because Banks didn’t trust the solvency of other Banks.
Mnemosyne
@debit:
Our cat Annie (the one who is sick right now) actually enjoys car rides, especially on the freeway where she can feel like she’s going fast.
I got stuck in traffic driving home from the vet’s office today and I could tell that she was terribly disappointed that we were creeping along. What was the point of putting her in the car if we were going to go slow? ?
Dan B
@Marcopolo: Yes, the lack of mortgage relief was awful. Entire neighborhoods and communities were nearly gutted. It’s a good point that whoever is elected has to hit the ground running – in the right direction. Also know who to appoint, not Geithner. His Teflon is strong but his love of “successful / elite” money men is horrifying.
tobie
@Jay: I think you’re right but in terms of policy it still meant you had to figure out how to restore that trust. Commerce was grinding to a halt because of the real or perceived insolvency of the banks. It was the arrogance of Wall St. after frittering away trillions and being bailed out by taxpayers facing hard times that was so appalling. Still is. Plus ca change…
Mnemosyne
@tobie:
I would be more enthusiastic about Beto if he had actually won his election. Sad but true.
I don’t feel the same way about Stacey Abrams because I honestly believe she was cheated, and in a very open and contemptuous way.
JoeyJoeJoe
@Marcopolo: Collin Peterson is actually still there, re-elected 52-48 last year. Did you know that his 1990 election was like his fourth try? In the 80s, he ran often enough, usually losing badly, that he was considered a joke candidate according to old political almanacs that I have
Jay
@tobie:
The Feds had lots of tools at hand.
After the Bailout a bunch of the Banksters were caught gloating on hiw they had deliberately sat on billions to force the Bailout. Others were caught rigging the Libor,
It would have been better to let the Bad Banks crash and save the Homeowners.
Think of the billions in CEO bonus’s saved.
Jay
@Mnemosyne:
Yup, Stacy was robbed, so were voters,…..
tobie
@Mnemosyne: I think she was cheated, too. As we’ve learned in recent months, voter suppression was rampant in both Georgia and Texas. Both states in fact have more in common than one would expect. They’re red states trending blue because of large African American and Latino communities and they have urban centers doing well because of an influx of educated professionals, whereas the traditional industries are faring poorly, and this has led entrenched power interests to violate just about every standard of fair Democratic process. I like Abrams a lot. She and Beto both had coattails even if they lost their respective bids. I would have much preferred for both to win. Abrams was robbed and dealt with this with a strength I find almost unimaginable.
ealbert
Jay
I assume you are talking about Franken. I believe there were 8 women who had complaints against him. How many do you think would be sufficient? And regarding the photo of Franken pretending to feel up his costar, I flashed back to the photo of the 2 Obama staffers feeling up a cut-out of Hillary. I think if you talked to Hillary supporters, they remember how much that bothered them. I am done with thinking it is funny to see men pretend to assault women. When it comes to Me-Too, it seems that men were very supportive as long as we were just taking about Hollywood, but when it involves things that most women are likely to encounter suddenly we need to realize that “Hey, it wasn’t really that big a deal” and we should just make one for the team.
Another Scott
@tobie: Yup. The crash after the bursting of the housing bubble, was, as Dean Baker often reminds us, entirely predictable. I’m not sure what should have been done about saving people’s homes, but what was done wasn’t enough.
Bagehot said in the 1800s that central banks should (roughly) “lend freely at a penalty rate” to prevent a crash. The Fed did the “lend freely” stuff, but often not so much the “penalty rate” stuff (for reasons outlined in the link). The big banks (and the shadow banks) got bigger and their management didn’t pay much of a price at all for causing the mess in the first place.
Cheers,
Scott.
Uncle Cosmo
@NotMax: But in any case, more tootsome than the horse’s head & eels calzone…:^p