Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

The willow is too close to the house.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Let there be snark.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Cash Hues Everything Around Them, Seemingly

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Cash Hues Everything Around Them, Seemingly

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C.H.E.A.T.S! While our attention was otherwise engaged…

Bess Levin, at Vanity Fair, “Fire Up the Shredders: Trump Family Sues Deutsche Bank to Keep Shady Finances Under Wraps“:

… The New York Times reports that Trump, Don Jr., Ivanka, Eric, and the Trump Organization filed a federal lawsuit late Monday against Deutsche Bank and Capital One, in an effort to stop the banks from responding to congressional subpoenas. In the suit, the president’s family and his private business—which he continues to profit from while running the country—argue that the House committees that issued the demands for information are engaging in a political fishing expedition. “This case involves congressional subpoenas that have no legitimate or lawful purpose,” the suit reads. “The subpoenas were issued to harass President Donald J. Trump, to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses and the private information of the president and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage. No grounds exist to establish any purpose other than a political one.”

The subpoenas in question were issued by the House Intelligence and Financial Services Committees roughly two weeks ago, demanding information about the German lender’s famous client, as well as documents related to “possible money-laundering by people in Russia and Eastern Europe.” In a joint statement, Representative Maxine Waters, the chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee, and Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, called the lawsuit “meritless,” saying it showed “the depths to which President Trump will go to obstruct Congress’s constitutional oversight authority. . . . As a private businessman, Trump routinely used his well-known litigiousness and the threat of lawsuits to intimidate others, but he will find that Congress will not be deterred from carrying out its constitutional responsibilities. This lawsuit is not designed to succeed; it is only designed to put off meaningful accountability as long as possible.”

If the president appears concerned about the prospect of Deutsche Bank telling lawmakers everything it knows about his financial history, it’s probably because he should be. Last month, a lengthy story by reporter David Enrich provided some insight on the relationship between the perennial bankruptcy artist and the German bank; the latter apparently had “a ravenous appetite for risk,” which meant it was happy to lend money to Trump when no one else on Wall Street would get within 200 feet of him, and to go along with his vast financial lies. For instance, in 2004, Trump asked the bank’s commercial real-estate group to lend him more than $500 million to build his 92-story skyscraper in Chicago; it did, but not before employees concluded he was majorly inflating his net worth, and were told he’d “worked with people in the construction industry connected to organized crime.” Ten years later, when Trump was trying to buy the Buffalo Bills and needed to prove to the league he had the funds to pull off a transaction that could exceed $1 billion, the bank agreed to vouch that his worth was $8.7 billion. His former fixer, Michael Cohen, told lawmakers this was an (obvious, extreme) exaggeration back in February…


… Welcome to the first salvos of the post-Mueller battle between the White House and Congress over the separation of powers, executive authority and the Pandora’s box of thorny, troubling problems stemming from the fact that Trump is the most financially conflicted president of the modern era.

Of course, politics are at work here. But principles are at stake as well. How this plays out will inform whether non-partisan and non-ideological values such as good government, ethical management, and, yes, transparency have institutional protection in the future regardless of which president and which party controls the White House.

In the here and now, we’re also seeing Washington’s gladiators move beyond what inspired Mueller’s investigation — the possibility that Trump and his team cooperated in a criminal conspiracy involving electoral sabotage and obstruction of justice — and into equally, if not even more crucial, questions about whether the Oval Office and policy-making are captives of Trump’s own greed and business relationships. In that context, what’s taking shape isn’t about voyeurism and improper peeking into the Trump Organization’s vaults. It’s about getting a clear grasp of whether Trump is financially compromised and if he is putting the presidency and the public interest at risk because of it…

The president clearly has issues with ethical and financial boundaries and, despite his lawsuit’s protests that his privacy is being violated, he’s not just your average American businessman or citizen; he’s someone clothed in immense power who, quite properly, needs to be held to a higher standard. In the years prior to the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations, Trump went on a spending spree that included golf course developments, the Trump SoHo Hotel and other projects funded in mysterious ways. Deutsche Bank, in particular, has been party to a substantial portion of decades of the president’s ventures and, as I’ve noted before, the bank has some important stories to tell.

Congress understands this…


 
And still more tsuris!

Reader Interactions

169Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    Glad to see Congressional Dems being aggressive and hope Nadler spends the time he has tomorrow to censure Barr for stiffing him on testimony, full Mueller report, and everything else.

  7. 7.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Wilmer is hitting the panic button. He went on CNN and started attacking Uncle Joe.

    Only 8 weeks ago, to much fanfare, Wilmer issued a statement pledging not to attack any opponent.

    Sad!

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: Hmmmm…. A vodka on the rocks with a generous wedge of freshly picked lime might be just the ticket for starting my day. It would certainly take the edge off any trump news.

  11. 11.

    plato

    This follow-up tweet is worrying given the corrupt rethugs they have put in place there.

    This one , though, is expected to be appealed and may go all the way to the Supremes.— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) April 30, 2019

  12. 12.

    RAVEN

    @OzarkHillbilly: After seeing my neighbor on a 6 hour rampage 2 weeks ago I’m not convinced it’s all that easy to deal with people in that condition. I talked with a retired cop I know and he said he’s seen people that a taser doesn’t impact at all.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @RAVEN: There is no requirement to arrest someone RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ETA Correction, there is no need… Patience is a virtue.

  14. 14.

    Raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yea, if he had broken into YOUR house I’m sure it would have been fine to wait him out. My neighbor was smashing shit and screaming in house own house for hours. He also, for some reason, attacked the house across the street but was never outside when the cops came so they didn’t arrest him. Someone here told me I should not have called the cops at all. Maybe next time I won’t call the non-emergency number.

    eta, we’re taking our walk so I’ll catch you later

  15. 15.

    Jay

    @RAVEN:

    There’s lots of restraint/descalate techniques that don’t involved a choke hold or a taser,

    There’s a viral video of a Finnish Cop on vacation in New York City doing just that with an armed person having a psycotic break.

    If it had been up to the NYPD, they would have deployed 9 tasers, 968 9mm rounds, 8 illegal choke holds and at least 1 “rough ride” to kill the “suspect”.

  18. 18.

    satby

    @RAVEN: @OzarkHillbilly: it isn’t easy to deal with people apparently having a psychotic break, but the police have the resources and manpower to contain the situation. Especially when the person is naked and is mostly a threat to himself.
    We have tranquilizer guns for dangerous animals, I always wonder why we don’t for situations like that.

  21. 21.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: I would tell people that too when they ask why I don’t have a gun, especially when I lived in the country. They always escalated to “but they could rape or kill you”.
    Crime rates are down, but modern news media has done it’s job of terrorizing the country well. And everyone thinks they’re the next Dirty Harry.

  22. 22.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax: I wish vodka, lime and coffee was a thing.

    But perhaps this evening. Just yesterday, the Immp and I were discussing ordering some Greenwell Farms Reserve or dark roast.

  23. 23.

    satby

    @Jay: you still have to get close to tase someone. And when I was training as an EMT we heard all the stories from our trainers (fire department guys) about the ones who weren’t subdued by a taser. As well as how to resuscitate someone who the taser dropped into a heart attack. I don’t like the things at all.

  25. 25.

    Jay

    @satby:

    I have guns,

    But the guns are in a safe,

    The bolts are in another safe,

    The ammo’s in a third safe,

    So, instead, I have a bokken handy.

  26. 26.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @satby:

    We have tranquilizer guns for dangerous animals, I always wonder why we don’t for situations like that.

    It’s because the application of a sedative can be unpredictable. There’s a reason anesthesiologists make the big bucks(also malpractice insurance).

  27. 27.

    Immanentize

    On the topic at hand, my understanding is that Deutche Bank has already set a trove of stuff to NY and to the DOJ. There really is no merit in this suit — the cat is out of the bag, as they say. It really is just a stalling tactic. Also, I think I recall DB was ready to comply immediately when subpoenaed. I wonder if Congress already has some stuff from some source?

  29. 29.

    Jay

    @satby:

    Yup, there’s a crap load of de-escalation and retstraint training out there, that’s non-fatal,

    In the other hand, trigger/gun/point/shoot, half hour “training”.

  31. 31.

    Immanentize

    @satby: Yes. Had a bit of the aches yesterday evening from the shot, but two Advil were enough to let me sleep peacefully. As for my angst — still unresolved and unrestrained.

    And, just before going to college, it ends up the oral surgeon must take all of Immp’s wisdom away as it seems whatever wisdom he grew in his life is somehow impacted in his jaws.

  33. 33.

    satby

    @Immanentize: DB was in a world of hurt in their own country for money laundering, and our allies probably shared some of the publicly revealed stuff already.

  34. 34.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: I had the Shingrix shot – mild reaction.

    Are you feeling better? Spring colds are never happy affairs.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby:To the best of my knowledge I have never witnessed someone having a “psychotic break”, or at least nobody having a violent one. But during the 80s I was “blessed” with a number of experiences of witnessing people losing their shit on Angel Dust/Whack//PCP. Extreme violence? Yes. Immunity to pain? Yes. Complete loss of reasoning? Yes. Yet, in each instance the cops managed to take the individual into custody without resorting to lethal force.

    I once spent an interesting, if that’s the word, 12 hours in the old STL Regional Hospital ER with a collapsed lung. The best entertainment to be had was the Whack Room, a special “detox unit” they had for people who were arrested on PCP, I’m not sure if “detox” is the right word for a room with gurneys designed specifically to restrain people in violent drug induced psychotic episodes until the drugs wore off, but it sure was entertaining to watch cops, orderlies, and nurses fight with these guys trying to get them strapped down.

  41. 41.

    rikyrah

    Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) Tweeted:
    New Q-poll:

    Trump obstructed investigation 54-42

    Muller *didn’t* clear Trump of wrongdoing 51-38

    Trump committed crimes before presidency 57-28

    Committed crimes while president 46-46

    Trump thinks he’s above law 56-41

    But: Don’t impeach 66-29

    Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) Tweeted:
    One interesting nuance in the Q-poll, though.

    When asked whether Congress should do hearings “to determine whether or not to bring impeachment charges against Trump” it’s much closer:

    47-51

    https://t.co/0CVvzBsefM https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1123894073536987136?s=17

  44. 44.

    trnc

    “The subpoenas were issued to harass President Donald J. Trump, to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses and the private information of the president and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage.”

    If it’s possible to scream “I’m financially corrupt” any more clearly without those actual words, I don’t know what it would be.

  45. 45.

    debbie

    I wasn’t out of bed more than a couple minutes before I’m yelling at the radio. Some GOP woman is on NPR beseeching Dems to stop investigating Trump and instead join with the GOP who is oh so very worried about Russian interference in the 2020 election. WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU IN 2016, YOU BITCH?

  46. 46.

    satby

    @Jay: after my time, thankfully. I only did the EMT training to have a usable license for my medical training after I got kicked out of nursing school. It came in handy for disaster services stuff, but I mostly volunteered on the ARC bloodmobile. So I never staffed on an abulance.

  48. 48.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: True story — but as they say, contains scenes of violence (and humor)

    when I was a PD in Miami during the time you describe, a guy had a PCP break while having kinky sex with his girlfriend. He cut her head off and went running around town, soaked in blood, carrying her head, shouting, “She’s the devil.”. Long story short, he ended up at a Metro monorail station where he was met by a spanking new rookie officer. The police officer called for back up and was trying to get the head back first. The guy was out of control, dancing around, finally throws the head at the cop. The guy is still yelling about the devil. The officer, stunned, doesn’t move fast enough and the guy gets the head back. Second officer gets on the scene, guys yelling and dancing around, head gets tossed again! This time the second officer is fast, opens the door to first cop’s squad car and the head goes right in.

    They finally get the guy after he twice wriggled free because blood on skin is slippery! They got the cuffs on him, but he was so messed up, he almost cut his wrists to the bone on the cuffs.

    When officer one came in for his deposition, he was asked, “How would you describe the defendant when you first saw him?”. And the poor kid, obviously coached to avoid the inevitable insanity defense, said, “A little uptight.”

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Living in the ass end of Washington Co, far away from any Sheriff’s deputy, we do have a pair of revolvers, but they are for the specific case of endangerment to “life or limb”, not for defense of property. The meth heads out here are notorious for their stupidity and their hair trigger tempers after all. To be sure, if I caught somebody trying to steal my shit, I would do what I could to keep them from leaving before the SDs eventually got here, or at least from leaving with my shit, (I can easily block any vehicle from leaving my property)

  51. 51.

    debbie

    @satby:

    A retired cop I was speaking with a few years wondered why no one seemed to shoot to incapacitate (like in the thigh) like they did when she was active.

  53. 53.

    Jay

    @satby:

    I lived for over a decade in the DTES, so,…..

    Hookers getting raped, od’s in alleys, mentally ill getting dumped on the streets with no more support than a welfare check,

    Helped build a community instead. Dr. Peters, Safe Injection, etc.

  58. 58.

    Nancy

    @Raven: My sympathies to you about that deeply distressing experience. I occasionally encounter people in my work who appear to be in the midst of what we call psychotic breaks. This can be disturbing and frightening and there is no denying that.
    Even having had training, I still may feel threatened and I’m working in a secure facility. At times, it has been possible to connect with the person inside the behavior. I try to remember how frightening being out of control could be for the individual. Crisis Prevention Intervention (CPI) training offers verbal de-escalation techniques and an understanding of what may be happening both with the individual and the person responding. Don’t know if that is still available or required of providers.
    If the person were in my house, I would have to get out, go out a window if nothing else is possible. Defending my stuff is not worth the risk to my safety. At work we try to get everyone else out of the area, to avoid frightening children and to avoid harm. Stuff is replacable.
    There are no easy answers and I won’t claim to have them, but force and threats escalate a situation, calm and de-escalation do not.

  59. 59.

    Immanentize

    @Raven: I told you before — the non-emergency number is a great public service announcement idea. I’ve already told a dozen folks.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby:

    So I never staffed on an abulance.

    My oldest would tell you, “You didn’t miss much.”

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Interesting that they’ve shifted though, huh? They must have bad polling or something- they went from “no interference” to “interference was minimal” directly to blaming Democrats for interference. Trump is sending fundraising emails “Obama Knew” – if they didn’t think anyone cared about it they wouldn’t be blaming Obama.

    It takes a long time for things to trickle down to “normal people”- they really don’t follow this closely. Maybe Mueller succeeded in sounding the alarm after all.

  64. 64.

    Another Scott

    @debbie: As a long-time Spiderman fan, it has seemed to me that every cop should have a net gun. Bezos or someone similar could use some pocket change to perfect them and make the world a safer place…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  66. 66.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize:

    “A little uptight.”

    Heh, that’s one way of putting it.

    A buddy of mine was stopped at a traffic light, 2 cops knocking on a door to his right. Door opens. Out flies this avg sized guy obviously on something, knocking them off the porch and literally kicking both their asses. Out come the billy clubs. They are beating this guy 7 ways till Sunday about the head and shoulders, forearms too when he tried to block a blow and nothing stopped the guy. Finally one cop, knocked to the ground for the 3rd time, took aim at the guys shins.

    Game over man, game over.

  70. 70.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: Also, isn’t it amazing what cowards these guys are? I mean not showing up for a hearing in the house because Barr didn’t get his favorite comfort toy?

    When did this happen? When did the men of the administration become such pants crapping, bed wetters? Compare, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @Jay:

    I think Democratic congressional candidates should point out that the interference in congressional races all went to benefit Republicans. That’s the ridiculously under-covered part of this story, to me. They didn’t just want Trump. They wanted Trump and a GOP Congress. Now that’s interesting, because to me that indicates the goal was much bigger than Trump’s personal business interests or Putin’s hatred of Clinton. I think there should be a separate law enforcement or congressional inquiry into it. The candidates who were the victims should testify.

  82. 82.

    Kay

    The National Rifle Association is traditionally one of the most powerful and financially intimidating interest groups in Washington. But a new third-party audit of the group’s finances obtained by OpenSecrets raises questions about its long-term fiscal health.
    The document offers the first look at the NRA’s finances in the wake of the 2016 elections. It shows that for the last two years, the NRA saw plummeting income from dues-paying members, and that has, in turn,

    fueled growing deficits

    .

    I love this idea that the NRA runs on a deficit. Now, maybe it’s a deficit and not a debt, so the difference between what they theoretically need and what they raised instead of “borrowed money”, but what the fuck? Why would they have a deficit? They had planned on giving X to Y candidate and now they don’t have that set sum? They had planned on running X numbers of expensive grifter events and now they don’t have enough to pay the required 15 hacks? It doesn’t work the other way? They look at how much they extracted from the rubes and then set the budget for that cycle?

  83. 83.

    Baud

    I’m sure Thomas Frank will blame Democrats.

    A majority of Kansas senators voted in favor of Medicaid expansion on Wednesday. It failed anyway.
    ….
    The move needed support from 24 of the 40 senators to succeed. It fell just short, garnering 23 votes.
    …..
    Support from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a presidential candidate, may have hurt Medicaid expansion’s chances in Kansas. After Sanders tweeted his approval of the House vote, Republican opponents in Kansas characterized the idea as a “socialist” one.

    “Socialist Bernie Sanders and his allies lost today, but Kansans won,” tweeted Dan Hawkins, the House majority leader.

  85. 85.

    JPL

    @debbie: I have company and I mentioned that I’m so tired of being angry. My little mutt no longer flinches when I let out the f bomb, which is not a good sign.
    We watched Cabaret last night and I forgot how depressing it was.

  86. 86.

    Patricia Kayden

    The fact that some of the federal courts are still holding Trump’s feet to the fire is a great thing but explains why McConnell and Republicans are packing the courts with rightwing extremists.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    I mean, one of the benefits to running a grift machine is it’s easy to expand and contract it, based upon X dollars extracted from Y rubes. It’s exactly as big as the money raised. If they raise 100 million they spend 100 million. The NRA somehow has fixed anticipated costs that exceed anticipated revenue, like an entity that actually produces something other than lies and bullshit. Aren’t these people supposed to be great at business? How does that happen?

  89. 89.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “Socialist Bernie Sanders and his allies lost today, but poor Kansans are stuck with the inevitable painful and penniless death.” tweeted Dan Hawkins, the House majority leader.

    FTFH, he’ll get my bill in the mail.

  97. 97.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Immanentize: It takes talent to tell a story that shows some real humor when actual psychosis is part of the tale. We had a guy here – younger brother of twin police officers – who was a butcher by training and killed his wife on Valentines’s Day. With much skill and appropriate knifeware. NGRI, and released after several years of treatment.

    He was not factually NGRI, it turns out, but a very good impostor. (Inside MH info; has it been adjudicated whether RUMINT violates HIPAA?) He’s unlikely to be a danger to anyone other than a romantic partner, however.

  105. 105.

    Chyron HR

    @rikyrah:

    how white nationalists have infiltrated conservative media

    …By representing mainstream republican thought? That’s not much of an infiltration.

  106. 106.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    The biggest indictment of the Left, to me personally, is their fascination with libertarians and it’s been true as long as I have interacted with them personally about politics. They can’t quit it. I think it goes to this horrible penchant they have to be self-consciously “correct” – they seek approval and they somehow see these guys as their intellectual betters. Remember at the height of the Obama opposition on the Left? The “socialists” were promoting an alliance with Grover Norquist. They get burned every single time but they always head in that direction again. There’s a stubborn refusal to admit that while libertarians are very groovy and mavericky, they are ON THE RIGHT. Almost always. 95% of the time. It’s not a productive alliance. It will not get them where they want to go. Do they listen to Rand Paul? WTF? He would rather die than support Medicare for all. He doesn’t even believe the commerce clause can be used to ground civil rights legislation. They cannot ground a social welfare state in that ideology, but they persist.

  107. 107.

    raven

    @Nancy: People with kids who live on the block came to me asking what to do. I’ve already posted what I did and how I followed up. I also know that when I talked directly to him I could see in his eyes that he was not right. I’m not trained at shit but I’ve talked down several people who were a danger to themselves and others including a marine sniper who had just returned from Afghanistan after his brother was killed. I’m just not ready to start making blanket judgments when I was there. Not a popular position but that’s where I am.

    eta. Last weekend was the 10th anniversary of a guy killing three people at a community theater picnic abut three block away. We got text alerts as it happened and, for the first time in many years, I loaded my pistol and we stayed in the house. I have a friend who got all fucking critical of me for doing that. Know what? Fuck him.

  108. 108.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Immanentize:

    I wish vodka, lime and coffee was a thing.

    Espresso with a shot of calvados. As the old Frenchmen at the (zinc) coffee bar put it: “avec de l’antigel” [put some antifreeze in there]. Though I might have gotten the Francais wrong — it was 30yr ago, after all.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    @Kay:

     I think it goes to this horrible penchant they have to be self-consciously “correct” – they seek approval and they somehow see these guys as their intellectual betters. 

    It’s because white progressives and white libertarians went to the same class of prep schools, where the libertarian mindset was more dominant, and where progressives learned to crave their approval.

  110. 110.

    Keith P.

    The key here is that Trump doesn’t have to pay for the lawyers to do this, ergo everything will get appealed to SCOTUS.

  111. 111.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: It’s also because a lot of these people think of their leftism mostly in terms of opposing interventionist US foreign policy, a habit picked up during either the Cold War or the post-9/11 era. They don’t actually care much about economics or domestic policy at all. The Democrats aren’t necessarily on board with limiting US military interventions–there have been times when they opposed some specific intervention, or general Cold War saber-rattling like Reagan’s, but the Democrats really have never been an anti-imperialist party, often to their genuine detriment. But libertarians and even Buchanan-style paleocons will often at least say they’re opposed, so the foreign-policy leftists are constantly tempted to ally with them.

    It’s also the tendency that led a lot of them to get suckered by Russian propaganda over Ukraine, and favor Trump over Hillary Clinton on “peace” grounds.

  114. 114.

    chopper

    @Immanentize:

    jesus h christ. i keep expecting some sort of paul harvey finish to that story.

    “and that young man grew up to found amazon.com”

  115. 115.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Immanentize:

    When did this happen? When did the men of the administration become such pants crapping, bed wetters?.

    When they were were guilty, guilty, guilty?

  116. 116.

    ProfessorBigfoot

    @Baud:

    white progressives and white libertarians

    It is so easy to skip over the one thing that these two groups of people have in common with each other… and to ignore how that affects how they see one another.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I watched the AOC doc on Netflix last night. I like her- I think she’s a great and talented pol and I like the joy she brings to this.

    However. Early in her campaign she’s pitching a small group and she says “this isn’t Left or Right, it’s up or down” (meaning the downtrodden versus the rich). No, AOC, it’s not. Because the entire constitutional grounding for everything you want to do is liberal and specifically, Democratic. She can’t regulate campaign finance on the Right because they believe the First Amendment bars it. She can’t put through a Green New Deal without FDR’s legal structure, which he had to accomplish to get the old New Deal. She can’t protect civil rights without LBJ’s laws. That comes ONLY from liberals and Democrats. She lives in the house that FDR built. The entire legal grounding for a modern welfare state came from liberals and Democrats. The Right had a different idea. They had Barry Goldwater. Now they have Betsy DeVos and Rand Paul. They do not believe the US Constitution allows AOC’s entire agenda.

    They can keep voting for Jill Stein. But they are going to wake up one day and find the far Right SCOTUS just overturned the legal basis and constitutional grounding for Medicare. And civil rights laws. And environmental regs. And every federal regulation.

  118. 118.

    mrmoshpotato

    @debbie: Great times we live in, eh? I really wish I could walk to the corner for a breakfast taco. *sigh*

  120. 120.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I had a little bit of worry about AOC based on some things she said before taking office. But she seems to have matured quickly in the role. It’s heartening. Now I just hope she doesn’t endorse Sanders.

    I agree with everything you said. The reason we are where we are is because our side has a long and tragic history of taking things for granted.

  122. 122.

    sukabi

    @OzarkHillbilly: also no reason at all to shoot an unarmed, naked person once, let alone multiple times.

    If your go to move is murder, maybe you shouldn’t be a cop.

  123. 123.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @OzarkHillbilly: Edmond is where there were 2 major tornados in recent yrs. IIRC some kids in school were killed. After 1st destruction in GOP in legislature voted down requirement for special tornado shelters in schools. Then 2nd torado hit Edmond, school too.

    Edmond has a major MEGA church, with satellites around the area.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Well, it makes me respect them less. Because libertarians put it right out there but you have to know how we got here to understand what they’re saying, and I guess I don’t understand a “movement” that ignores the entire constitutional and jurisdictional basis for the welfare state. That seems like a fatal omission to me.

    Rand Paul doesn’t support the ADA because Rand Paul thinks the Commerce Clause doesn’t reach private businesses. He actually took part in a senate campaign debate where that was the issue. So there goes the entire regulatory and administrative state. They can’t get there from here. It’s impossible.

    Where do they think Medicare came from? What’s the legal basis for a federal social welfare program? They think it just sprung up like a weed. It was a HUGE FOUNDATIONAL FIGHT – a BIG disagreement- and it continues today. We won! But we won’t keep it if they don’t even know where it came from.

  125. 125.

    Matt McIrvin

    @schrodingers_cat: An interesting thing about Bernie Sanders is that he’s actually not one of this kind of lefty–he’s all about the economic redistribution, until recently didn’t have much of a foreign-policy vision at all. Jill Stein is, though, and I think the Bernie-or-Busters who went to Jill Stein were mostly imagining that Sanders was a foreign-policy lefty. Noam Chomsky is one but he’s saner and more pragmatic than 99% of them.

  126. 126.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah:

    They didn’t read the whole report.
    They didn’t see ANY of the evidence.
    They don’t want Don McGahn to speak to Congress.
    They won’t release trump’s taxes.
    They don’t want us to see the FULL Mueller report.

    But they INSIST trump is innocent.

    Adding in a few here:
    – trumpov and co are suing Deutsche Bank to keep them from complying with a subpoena for trumpov’s records
    – trumpov hasn’t tuned over a single piece of paper to Elijah Cummings and his committee’s requests
    – trumpov won’t let Stephen Miller testify

    All so very, very innocent

  127. 127.

    JR

    @Kay: There’s a reason why the marxists revere the French Revolution. Without the establishment of modern liberalism there is no socialism.

  128. 128.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: These particular guys (and they are mostly guys) mostly don’t give a crap about the welfare state, what they want is to stop the CIA and end US wars. Steve Bannon’s “tear down the administrative state” actually doesn’t sound bad to them, or at least it’s an acceptable cost. A lot of them only got labeled “left” sort of by accident (I still see Julian Assange described as a far-leftist occasionally; he’s clearly alt-right).

  130. 130.

    Keith P.

    LOL at Jerry Adler bulldozing through the GOP’s morning theatrics about the Dems trampling on minority party rights. Totally unironically AFAIK, too. And then Matt Gaetz had his mic shut off mid-whine.

  131. 131.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Over the course of the depression, Roosevelt was pushing through legislation and, beginning in May 1935, the Supreme Court began to strike down a number of the New Deal laws. “Over the next 13 months, the court struck down more pieces of legislation than at any other time in U.S. history,” Woolner says.

    It’s Right and Left. She can’t get where she wants to go from the Right. They don’t believe her agenda is permissible under the US Constitution. Not ALLOWED. Unlawful.

  135. 135.

    Jeffro

    I know many of us have talked before about how, post-trumpov, we won’t be able to simply go back to the way things used to be. We’ll have to create something new, which will have to start with something like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (AFTER all the criminal trials and convictions and prison sentences for this dumb but dangerous bunch, AFTER!) =)

    Charles Blow put it out there yesterday that instead of being terrified or timid, Democrats should be bold and talk about Reimagining America.

    …Whereas the blue wave of the midterms filled Democrats with confidence and swagger, fear of placing a single foot wrong in the 2020 run against Trump has left too many diffident and mousy.

    Many of the candidates with the boldest vision for a more progressive, inclusive America are languishing in the early polls. I understand that those polls will change countless times before a nominee is chosen and rarely is the early leader the final winner. But, I still think some Democratic soul-searching is in order.

    I think it is sad and self-defeating to simply assume that the safest choice is the best choice, that inspiration doesn’t have an amazing power to sway. Just look at Trump himself.

    Prudence is antithetical to excitement.

    I’m not saying that every trillion-dollar progressive proposal is solid or trying to divine which ones have a chance in hell of making it through Congress.

    I am saying, however, that the best time to truly rebuild a thing is when it has been destroyed, when the slate is clear and people are champing for change.

    Democrats have an unbelievably wide berth here to be daring and inventive. The question is only whether they are willing to stick out their necks or if they would rather tuck their tails.

    We need to explicitly call out what we’ve been seeing these past three years: the GOP’s warm and open embrace of white supremacy, and its multiple-pronged assaults on democracy in the service of an unpopular, un-American, hateful, hurtful agenda.

    We need to talk about what can be put in place, what will be required, so that big money and dark donations don’t own our system of government. We need to ensure that our leaders are fully transparent about their financial interests (full tax disclosures and actual blind trusts of their assets) and will obey basic tenets of law (like complying with subpoenas and oversight) or immediately forfeit their office.

    We need to leave behind worries about ‘electability’ (and certainly any concerns about reaching out to trumpov supporters) and speak to the country about the things we stand for, with #1 being ‘them’ – the people.

  136. 136.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jeffro: At this point in the 2020 election cycle, the polls are reflecting name recognition. Reading anything else into poll results is dangerous.

  139. 139.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Kay: Thank you for pointing this out.

    Your statement should be printed and handed toeeryde Congress member and candidate.

  140. 140.

    rikyrah

    Nadler adjourns hearing, GOP furious. Matt Gaetz tries to talk but his mic gets cut off

    — Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 2, 2019

  143. 143.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I know. As you well know, I’ll forever carry a chip on my shoulder for the lack of seriousness on our side when facing an open Supreme Court seat in 2016 that McConnell held open for Trump.

    All so people could partake of the right-winf-inspired privilege of hating that awful woman.

  144. 144.

    tobie

    @Jeffro: I’m not supporting Biden but I do think his announcement video was bold, not in the sense of an overarching economic plan but in its articulation of a theme: we’re fighting for the soul of America. That resonated with people in a way individual policies don’t necessarily. It showed his maturity. Warren has a theme — it’s a vast overhaul of the American economy but I’m not sure how much it emotionally resonates with people. I thought Beto had a theme — the fight for immigrant rights is the civil rights struggle of our era — but now he’s gone in the direction of climate change. Buttigieg talks about values over policy minutiae but thus far has offered only vague rhetoric about freedom and rebooting democracy. Harris’ slogan ‘for the people’ has the potential to take off if she defines what it means. All this is to say…boldness comes in many forms and fighting for the soul of the country doesn’t seem like a modest proposal at all if you feel like we’re sliding into autocracy.

  150. 150.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    However. Early in her campaign she’s pitching a small group and she says “this isn’t Left or Right, it’s up or down” (meaning the downtrodden versus the rich). No, AOC, it’s not. Because the entire constitutional grounding for everything you want to do is liberal and specifically, Democratic. She can’t regulate campaign finance on the Right because they believe the First Amendment bars it. She can’t put through a Green New Deal without FDR’s legal structure, which he had to accomplish to get the old New Deal. She can’t protect civil rights without LBJ’s laws. That comes ONLY from liberals and Democrats. She lives in the house that FDR built.

    Tell it, Kay.

    Tell her where her bread is buttered!

  151. 151.

    tobie

    @Barbara: This was Buttigieg’s original campaign position. He then backtracked when he saw the uproar it created and issued a “clarifying statement”:

    Pete does support some exceptions, except during a public health emergency to prevent an outbreak,” a spokesperson for the South Bend, Indiana, mayor told BuzzFeed News.

    In particular, Buttigieg believes exemptions are appropriate for people who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons. Personal belief and religious exemptions should only be allowed in states that aren’t facing a public health crisis and where herd immunity rates of vaccination are maintained.

    “These exemptions include medical exemptions in all cases (as in cases where it is unsafe for the individual to get vaccinated), and personal/religious exemptions if states can maintain local herd immunity and there is no public health crisis,” the spokesperson said.

  152. 152.

    Cacti

    @tobie:

    And a straight line can be drawn from religious exemptions to the current measles outbreak in New York.

  154. 154.

    Cacti

    @schrodingers_cat:

    You’d probably enjoy this:

    A Rough Transcript of Every Interview With Pete Buttigieg

    Is it true that you speak Norwegian?
    Ja, I am evasive in seven different languages.

    How do you plan to tackle income inequality?
    If I may, I’d like to speak to that very specific issue with a few glittering generalities.

    Go on.
    Freedom. Democracy. Bridges.

    Care to elaborate?
    Optimism. Honesty. A child’s lemonade stand.

    You have my vote.
    I know. If this piece were any fluffier, it’d have a thread count.

    Here’s a question I would totally ask Elizabeth Warren: Phish or Radiohead?
    Phish covering Radiohead’s “Go to Sleep,” with a surprise cameo by Dave Matthews.

    All right, no more softballs…
    Uh-oh, my seat’s heating up! Reminds me of Afghanistan. Did I mention I served in Afghanistan?

    Several times, hero. What did you learn from your time in the Navy Reserve?
    The Middle East… (steeples hands) is complicated.

    More at link.

  156. 156.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Cacti: He needs to get a cat and an account on ICHC to get my vote. I loled! That was too funny.

    ETA: As if fluff pieces about PB are not enough, WashPost has a fluff piece about his husband.
    Chasten. Who names their child Chasten?

  158. 158.

    Michael Cain

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Finally one cop, knocked to the ground for the 3rd time, took aim at the guys shins. Game over man, game over.

    My father used to say that Navy Shore Patrol training (this would have been circa the early 1950s) identified two uses for the long baton: tapping a suspect sitting at a bar on the shoulder to get their attention while staying out of range, and whacking them across the shins.

  160. 160.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: Somebody with Chasten as a family name (as in, surname or last name)? My husband’s family has done this in prior generations but no the current one. That would be my guess.

    Thanks for the link. I am not going to randomly google every claim made in a blog. ISTM that if you say something like that you should link to the source if you have one.

  161. 161.

    joel hanes

    Anthony Kennedy’s son is a big shot at Deutsche.
    Deutsche was loaning Trump lots of money, in ways Trump is anxious to keep secret.
    Anthony Kennedy arranged to retire during Trump’s Presidency.
    Trump nominated the person Kennedy wanted as Kennedy’s successor.

    Appearance of …

  164. 164.

    rikyrah

    @Cacti:

    @tobie:

    And a straight line can be drawn from religious exemptions to the current measles outbreak in New York.

    Yep.

    He is SO cancelled

  165. 165.

    Barbara

    @gvg: I guess I have become less of a news junkie these days. I have to ration my exposure lest I end every day with a bottle of wine.

  166. 166.

    James E Powell

    @trnc:

    The subpoenas were issued to harass President Donald J. Trump, to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses and the private information of the president and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage.

    In other words, to treat him like he was a Clinton.

  167. 167.

    chopper

    @raven:

    man i know it. at 5:30 this morning some dude on what was clearly a psychotic break kicked my front door in trying to get away from the police, who were trying to talk him off my front porch.

    meanwhile i’m downstairs barricading the door to the part of the house my kids are sleeping in while my wife is on the horn with the po-po.

    so he busts in and the cops tackle him in my living room, and it takes 5 cops to cuff him.

    no tazer or anything. gotta say, the seattle PD did a pretty good job dealing with the guy, considering.

  168. 168.

    Procopius

    @debbie:

    A retired cop I was speaking with a few years wondered why no one seemed to shoot to incapacitate (like in the thigh) like they did when she was active.

    Now that’s interesting. I’ve only ever heard people (supposedly active and/or retired police) complain about how impossible it is to aim when you’re in a situation with everybody moving around like that. You certainly don’t want to be doing a lot of shooting, because who knows where the slugs are going if they aren’t stopped in your target, which is why police should never, never, never shoot at a fleeing suspect. Another thing, we never hear about innocent bystanders being shot by accident, and I’m pretty sure it happens often.

  169. 169.

    debbie

    @Procopius:

    She told me she once stopped a car on the highway and asked the guy to get out. He jumped out, knocked her down, and pulled out his gun. While still on the ground, she pulled out her gun and shot him in the thigh.

    I’d bet the training now isn’t what it used to be.

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