Trump sounds not at all like an unhinged loon in this tweet from earlier today, right?
Pelosi gave a different account of the meeting that preceded the ranty, rambling Rose Garden rage-fest:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Thursday at her press conference that she watched President Donald Trump “pound on the table” and “walk out the door” during the infrastructure meeting planned for Wednesday.
“Next time, have the TV cameras in there while I have my say,” she said. “That didn’t work for him either. Now this time, another temper tantrum.”
“Again, I pray for the president of the United States,” she added. “I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country.”
Emphasis mine. Say whatever you will about Pelosi, but she knows how to push Rage Grandpa’s buttons.
At the same meeting, Pelosi also snubbed Kellyanne Conway so savagely that the chief purveyor of lies for Pussy Grabore ransacked her tattered bag of stock retorts and lamely implied Pelosi preferred to talk to the boss rather than the underling because Pelosi is sexist!
“I knew he was looking for a way out,” Pelosi said in response to Trump’s walkout, according to the Times. “We were expecting this.”
Conway then asked Pelosi if she had “a direct response” to Trump’s complaints.
The House Speaker told Conway that she was going to respond to the President, not his staff, the Times reported.
“Really great,” Conway shot back. “That’s really pro-woman of you.”
Conway whined about the snub some more this morning on Fox News:
“She treats me like I’m either her maid or her driver or her pilot or her makeup artist driver, and I’m not.”
Conway added that the House speaker is “not very pro-woman. She’s pro-some women.”
Asked about that comment today, Pelosi said:
“I’m not going to talk about her,” Pelosi said. “I responded as the speaker of the House to the President of the United States. Other conversations people want to have among themselves is up to them.”
In other words, “What part of co-equal do you not understand, you stringy-haired, rodent-faced motherfucker?”
She’s a dark horse, our Nancy.
rikyrah
A Black person’s take on the end of Game of Thrones:
What the Game of Thrones Finale Teaches Us About White Saviors
Michael Harriot
Monday 4:24pm
Chip Daniels
It is telling, isn’t it, that Republicans view a female Speaker of the House, third in line to the Presidency, as equal to a spokesperson.
Jeffro
Nancy Smash is soooo in trumpov’s head. Kellyanne’s too. ❤️❤️❤️
kindness
I love me some Nancy Smash! When Trump and half his administration are wearing orange jumpsuits I’ll feel a lot better for our Republic.
Villago Delenda Est
The Conway beeyotch needs to be kicked to the curb, and stomped on. Repeatedly.
The Moar You Know
Insist on it, Speaker Pelosi, or he’s going to keep pulling the same shit on you and Minority Leader Schumer.
rikyrah
Russia Wanted to Start a Race War and Create the Confederate States of Wakanda
Michael Harriot
Yesterday 11:30am
bbleh
So she definitely knows how to manipulate the guy (perhaps not that much of a challenge for her, but whatevs), and she clearly has decided to push his buttons hard and repeatedly (the remarks yesterday just before a F2F, which provoked exactly what she knew it would, plus that news conference today !!). My question is, why now? One reason appears to be, it strengthens her hand with her caucus (he’s already melting down, the strategy is working, stay the course). Kick him while he’s down (trade policy in shambles, 2 highly adverse court rulings)? Maybe. But I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something else going on …
ArchPundit
This needs to be a tweet: “What part of co-equal do you not understand, you stringy-haired, rodent-faced motherfucker?”
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: so, they had the exact strategic acumen of the Manson family.
Comrade Luke
It’s not the job of his family to stage an intervention, it’s the job of the House of Representatives.
Pelosi is terrible, and is doing long-term harm to the country.
The Moar You Know
@rikyrah: The absolute sneering contempt that the average Russian has for black people would blow your mind. This is exactly the kind of plan that they would jump on. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there’s people in Russia still trying to make this happen, because they think it would totally work.
No slaveholder back in the day had as low an opinion of blacks as most Russians do today.
West of the Rockies
Not to appearance-shame, but Conway has aged dramatically in two+ years. I hope that she and Sanders are enjoying the paychecks because the costs of staying on the job are brutal.
danielx
Well, he must be in a more-or-less constant state of rage at this point. Uppity women getting in his face, his usual negotiating technique a miserable failure, courts telling his legal team to go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut…
More of this, please, Madame Speaker.
Miss Bianca
Betty, your doodle on the Shitgibbon’s ugly Twitter mug always makes me laugh, but this one with the pinwheel-y eyes almost made me fall off my chair.
James E Powell
No, the Speaker treated you like the president’s toady.
Sab
@rikyrah: That take on it works disturbingly well. Also now I feel guilty for liking Sansa.
Major Major Major Major
Stable genius.
Bowling Green Survivor
I’m not sure what you mean by “dark horse” in this context.
I do agree that an “intervention for the good of the country” is needed. As others note, such an intervention is the responsibility of the House.
ETA: I think a lot of Pelosi as Speaker, but my view is that she needs to meet her responsibilities and impeach.
kindness
@Comrade Luke: Might I suggest you kindly go fuck off. Trolling won’t help you here.
Bowling Green Survivor
@James E Powell: Geeze Louise, makes me wonder how Conway treats HER maid, driver, pilot, and make-up artist. I guess, since she’s whiny that Speaker Pelosi treated her like shit, that Conway treats all those people like shit.
Classic Republican. Most people don’t even have personal staff like that. Conway apparently does and is STILL an asshole all of the time.
schrodingers_cat
OT: I am looking at the state by state results. The opposition just got slaughtered. BJP is going to win more than 350 seats with less than 50% of the vote. (273 needed for an absolute majority). I am speechless.
TenguPhule
Thirty fucking billion in central planning bailouts by Duh Führer.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Setting pie filter now because what would I be missing?
Doug R
@rikyrah: Hey, not all Powerpoint presentations are winners.
Millard Filmore
@The Moar You Know:
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe they think these gangsters are supermen, and when they are captured will hold out for YEARS. That none will spill the beans and confess. Yes … super soldiers that never lose, never get captured, never break. Just like on TV.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
The Russians don’t even need for these “proposals” to be realistic or serious. Just letting them get “uncovered” injects the ideas into the wingnuttosphere, where they will be amplified and take on a life of their own. “Negro radicals coming to kill us all! Eek!” Mission accomplished.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Bad time to be a Muslim, woman or a beef eater in India.
rikyrah
This is a great defense of Senator Warren’s legal work Good thread
Max Kennerly (@MaxKennerly) Tweeted:
Looking at her list, @SenWarren could’ve made more — much more — if she hadn’t been so selective, if she hadn’t stuck to work consistent with her principles. The vast majority of her work was standing up for consumers and small businesses.
/1 https://t.co/MVeCyIaUsw https://twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/1131566228714266624?s=17
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Let’s be fair, he’s good at shoveling it.
mrmoshpotato
@kindness: Only half? Have you been paying attention over the past 2 years? :)
TenguPhule
@kindness:
Half?
mrmoshpotato
@Major Major Major Major: Stablest geniusest!
tokyokie
Nancy Smash’s dismissal of Conway kind of reminds me of this (minus the girth, baldness, and insanity):
You are an errand boy …
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: Well, shit.
Is it normal for there to be a single-party majority?
TenguPhule
@TenguPhule: $28 billion in fucking bailouts.
/goddamn too early for this shit
rikyrah
???
Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) Tweeted:
New: Defending Trump’s plan to reprogram billions in federal funds for border construction, the Justice Department argued in court today that Congress can’t sue the administration, at all https://t.co/Y3Xxwnfs3n https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/status/1131617573349593088?s=17
schrodingers_cat
State by state breakup
I wrote a post yesterday about BJP, and will have a followup discussing and analyzing the results.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah: That’s some serious case of suburban white boy those Russians got going.
TenguPhule
Speaker Pelosi, you are good at your job. But you’re terrible at public speeches. Please delegate that.
rikyrah
Nancy Smash made sure that the Crypt Keeper knew that she was a muthaphuckin’ non-factor.
The Moar You Know
Correct, Kellyanne. Those people work and have purpose. You are..wait for it…literally useless. Really not the same thing.
Speaker Pelosi gave you far more respect than you deserve simply by acknowledging your presence.
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major: Well, he is a horse’s ass, so in a way yeah.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Shorter DOJ: ” Congress’s only role is to rubber stamp whatever the hell it is that Trump wants today.”
Sab
Maybe Pelosi is trying to manipulate Pence into using the 25th amendment to stage a coup. Might be easier than getting two thirds of the Senate to vote Trump out, since most Republican senators seem to be too close to Russia to risk an impeachment trial.
rikyrah
Damn….to be that smooth….go Nancy Smash :)
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: Yes and No. No other party other than Congress had managed it before 2014, now BJP has done it twice under Modi.
TenguPhule
@Sab:
Not a chance in hell of that.
Roger Moore
Generally speaking, direct responses are not made through intermediaries.
Aleta
Conway, who has never been someone’s maid, driver, pilot or makeup artist but receives such service daily, complained that Pelosi did not treat her as the President.
Conway added that the House speaker is “pro-some women.” When reporters questioned her support for former SoS Hilary Clinton and for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Pelosi herself, Conway left the interview “to take some calls.” From the next room she could be head yelling at her housekeeper about “my stupid cook” and “my useless” personal shopper and threatening to fire all the nannies.
TenguPhule
Disaster relief bill denies Trump his gulag money.
I expect him to steal it from other programs anyway.
humboldtblue
I spoke with our excellent congressman, Jared Huffman today, and he says there is a rapidly growing push to open impeachment inquiries.
He identified four areas he sees as key to the investigation: 1. Obstruction of justice. 2. Corruption and abuse of emoluments clause. 3. Financial conspiracy (Southern District New York) and the fact that Trump was actively participating in that conspiracy as president and was actually signing checks for the coverup in the Oval Office. 4. Abuse of power and the unwillingness to respond to Congressional oversight,
Huffman said there will be a breaking point and he expects it soon as more and more lawmakers recognize the perfidy.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: Sorry BJP will win 302 seats 350 is its tally with alliance partners.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
So many in the local Indian community are Modi supporters. I think it’s mostly because they are Gujarati and they don’t follow the details there so closely but the descriptors they use for him are things like strong and tough.
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: Did you say you were going to be doing a front-page post on the Indian election results?
ETA: Oh, I see – you linked to where you wrote about them. D’oh!
Mandalay
Trump uses the phrase “fake news” to automatically tag any news he doesn’t like as false. Perhaps Democrats could adopt the same approach whenever Trump shows signs of senility, or losing his composure, and talk about “intervention time”? Going after Trump on specific issues such as racism or tax returns or Russia is all fine and dandy, but such efforts are piecemeal.
Instead, just bring up the other I-word (“intervention”) whenever he demonstrates that he’s simply not up to the job. Repeated application is the key to successful messaging and there would be daily opportunities to use “intervention time”.
Change the argument from whether Trump is good enough to be president to whether he is even mentally capable.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Pelosi: You want a comment? Dracarys.
J R in WV
@Comrade Luke:
So, Comrade… who do you wish was in charge of the House of Representatives? Be specific, this is not a yes or no question. You have no idea, do you?
Nancy Pelosi was elected by her peers to manage them going forward, and I would believe the Democratic members of the House know who is best qualified to lead them in this dangerous enterprise.
Who do you prefer, Comrade troll?
Kent
@James E Powell:
Imagine if some Congressional staffer was getting all pissy on twitter because he didn’t get a face-to-face with the President to discuss national policy?
That is the EXACT equivalent to this little tantrum.
schrodingers_cat
@Miss Bianca: AL had asked me to, I did write it up and send her the link yesterday she seems to have not read her email yet. You can click my blue name to read it on my blog right now.
Steeplejack
@Miss Bianca:
On her blog, I believe.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: He is strong and tough, even I will admit to that.
Emma
@TenguPhule: Oh please. Impeaching him right now would make his base rabid and the fence-sitters uncomfortable. People need to be convinced that impeachment is worth it.
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
We’re not even sure Pence can count past twenty (and that’s only when Mother allows him to remove his shoes).
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat:
Disturbingly like the takeover in Hungary.
J R in WV
@Bowling Green Survivor:
Being apparently unaware of history, I’m not surprised that you don’t realize that “impeach” isn’t a single switch one throws to turn on a light.
Impeachment is a long and complex process, starting with gathering evidence and hearing witnesses! This process involves many committee hearings, subpoenas for witnesses and documents, court cases regarding those subpoenas, all before any votes on commencing formal impeachment are held.
That process is currently underway, you should try watching it.
I personally remember both Nixon’s very serious impeachment AND Clinton’s totally off the wall stupid impeachment. Nixon’s impeachment took many months, court cases decided by the Supremes, etc.
Remember who needed a pardon at the end of that process? Nixon did.
cain
@schrodingers_cat:
Cripes, BGP needs a serious check .. it seems fascism is taking root everywhere.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
My friend couldn’t stand him – but she was a Gandhi and from a different caste than her husband.
The Dangerman
Perhaps to please the Boss, in a Yeti kinda way…
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
So, is Perdue stupid enough to believe China is paying tariffs, or just lying to support Trump’s inability to grasp that the American consumers pay the tariffs? Why not both?
NotMax
@TenguPhule
As the ad says, “That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.”
schrodingers_cat
@Fair Economist: Silver lining BJP lost in two major states that had their assembly elections (Odisha and Andhra). They still don’t have a majority in the upper House or the Rajya Sabha.
rikyrah
Uh huh ?
Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) Tweeted:
Manafort to Jared Kushner in Nov 2016 recommends “black appointment” Vernon Parker as Deputy AG as a “visible answer to bogus racist charges.. leveled” against Sessions. Or as Asst AG for Civil Rts b/c the division will be “a hotbed.” https://t.co/xfMWfdDxRr https://twitter.com/Sifill_LDF/status/1131589777940262913?s=17
humboldtblue
As Huffman pointed out, the impeachment of Clinton stemmed solely from the Starr report. There were no hearings before the GOP brought it to the floor for a vote. “There were no deliberations, they got a partisan vote and that’s why it’s always been perceived as simply a partisan exercise and not a Constitutional action.”
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: BJP won every single Loksabha seat in Gujarat.
Someone wrote this poem on Twitter
Bapu hum sharminda hai
Aapke katil abhi zinda hai
Bapu (Gandhi) we are sorry
Your killers are still alive.
AnotherBruce
God that press conference was great. Nancy knows how to throw the shade. LOL Kellyanne
trollhattan
@J R in WV: @NotMax:
This is such a doppelganger of “Mexico will pay for the wall” I can’t even conjure the energy to point out how stupid it is. “Hey look, China is putting money in that big donation bucket we left out.”
Just read Sonny Perdue switched from Democrat to Republican. Did he surrender his IQ with the changeover or was he stupid before?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@AnotherBruce: The WH has stopped doing daily briefings. Pelosi does them regularly, though I’m not sure if they’re daily. IMHO, the WH has given her an advantage there.
AnotherBruce
@bblehT: Well, what was going on is that this was a very good example of Trump being a scorned child that takes his toys and goes home when he doesn’t get his way. Trump tries to be the the badass, but he’s really a coward. That was exposed yesterday. Run away Donnie, but next time, bring your homework.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
Unfortunately, reading the Buzzfeed article, DoJ may have a good chance of winning the first round, as the “judge” hearing the case was appointed by Trump and is a member of The Federalist Society, and has refused to recuse himself from the case.
I imagine if he does rule in Trump’s favor that it will be quickly overturned by the District court. I hope, anyway.
ETA… of course you’re correct about DoJ’s opinion of the purpose of Congress in a fascist state: Rubber Stamp or go home.
sukabi
Don’t know if this has been posted yet, but Mayor Pete is gonna leave a mark. Privileged draft dodged says wut?
The Moar You Know
@trollhattan: that was 1998. 21 years ago.
TenguPhule
@J R in WV:
Yes.
TenguPhule
@J R in WV: *Poke*
Your ramen flavor is Tonkatsu.
Gin & Tonic
@The Moar You Know: All the latest news here. That’s why I read this blog.
The Moar You Know
@sukabi: A shitton of people got deferments and quite a few of them who did would have, and still do, consider themselves “liberal”. My father went. He certainly wished he could have gotten a deferment and doesn’t have a problem with people who did. It was a fucked up war. The people who went did the right thing. So did the people who refused to. Slamming the people who didn’t go isn’t going to play well with quite a few of their demographic. You know. The one that votes the most.
trollhattan
@The Moar You Know:
Right. I never knew he was once a Dem. and being three time zones from Georgia, figured others may not also.
Bill Arnold
@TenguPhule:
Look at the bright side – trade wars fought with taxes paid by Americans are — paid for!!![1]. They’re not on the National Credit Card like typical Republican wars; they’re tax-and-pay-as-you-go wars. Also, they involve much less of the physical horrors of war.
[1] excepting possibilities of collateral damage to the economy, like economic slowdown/recession/depression.
Geeno
@rikyrah: That has an ad that never goes away right in the middle of the screen. Couldn’t read the article.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan:
Takes a while for the Pony Express to reach these parts.
tamiasmin
A rough translation. Very rough. And right.
Chyron HR
@Comrade Luke:
You make a very convincing argument, Pepe.
PaulWartenberg
Any person trying to claim they are the sane ones in any argument is losing that argument.
Bill Arnold
@Comrade Luke:
I’m reading that as a parody of trolling. Just because, and because the nym was saying interesting things 2010-2012.
Msb
“Slamming the people who didn’t go” won’t play well? What about slamming somebody who didn’t go, and who said STDs were “his Vietnam”?
PaulWartenberg
@TenguPhule:
And from what we’ve seen from the first bailout, most of that money are going into the pockets of trump’s cronies. NOT the actual farmers about three hours away from filing for bankruptcy.
burnspbesq
@J R in WV:
Perdue? He is absolutely that stupid.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
Tonkatsu… Thanks Hawaii guy!! Delicious flavor set!
snoey
@The Moar You Know: It’s the bogus letter his daddy forced the doctor to write to get the exemption that is the issue. Deferments were just that – you got 4 years undergraduate time and then you got drafted, which is what happened to Trump. He then went into the physical with then phony letter, failed it, and was exempted.
Dr Ronnie James DO
@rikyrah: Quentin Tarantino wishes he thought of this.
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Same here.
Aleta
@Aleta: got interrupted; that stuff I wrote was imaginary; prob. should have made that more obvious.
Aleta
@schrodingers_cat: thank you for that poem.
Bill Arnold
@Aleta:
Was pretty clear from the first sentence (“SoS Hilary Clinton” on) if paying attention, but yeah, Poe’s Law.
jl
Maybe I am missing something. As BillinGlendaleCA will point out ad nauseam, I am not the sharpest blade in the drawer.
But Pelosi just stated simple facts, and in a polite and understated way.
Pelosi could have said ‘Trump is orchestrating multiple cover-ups’. She could have said ‘Trump can’t deliver GOP votes for an honest infrastructure program because he is completely IMPOTENT as a party leader. The GOP and Trump want to turn a national infrastructure program into a mutli-trillion dollar crony corporate capitalist scam and theft of public money.”
And “the Mueller report explicitly referred Trump administration misbehavior to Congressional oversight. Trump and the GOP are trying to stop that.”
She could have said that. I think case can be made she was say too polite and elliptical in her comments, and Trump still blew up, and the media peed itself with BS mindless Kabuki theater drama that is its sole love in life.
If Nancy SMASH is really SMASH, then why don’t she SMASH? I guess she think she knows how to build up to big confrontations at a pace that will bring a critical mass of public sentiment along.
germy
Of course….
Dorothy A. Winsor
This Kos diary on women’s reproductive rights is quite good. The writer narrates her personal experience and her daughter’s, 26 years apart but not so different. In some ways, the daughter’s is worse because at least the writer could go to Planned Parenthood without being harassed.
Gravenstone
@Steeplejack: Hasn’t that pretty much been their nightmare fever dream since at least the 60’s? Not like the conservative swamp creatures need an outside influence to fear the ‘other’.
MaxUtil
@TenguPhule:
I probably don’t need to point this out, but China doesn’t pay tariffs, we do.
Brachiator
Pelosi also pushes the buttons of The Young Turks, who seem to need to diss her as part of their “all Wilmer all the time” support campaign. I was listening to Cenk(?) on a local public radio interview about impeaching Trump. He tried to criticize Pelosi, but was rebuked by a couple of callers.
She has Trump’s number. You can tell by the way he needs to try to deny that she has his number.
Martin
@The Moar You Know: Why you didn’t go does matter a bit. When my dad was drafted he went to the Navy and said he always dreamed of being on submarines. Made it through the training and then spent 4 years chasing Soviet boomers around the north atlantic. No, he didn’t get shot in a jungle, but he didn’t take the conscientious objector route either (he says there’s no way he could shoot another person), and he found a way to do his 4 years.
At the same time, he doesn’t spout off like a jingoistic asshole. He knows exactly what decision he made. The folks that I know personally that avoided Vietnam are all uniformly anti-war – there is a consistency to their view. What rubbed a lot of people the wrong way about Dubya was how he avoided service and still cheerled an effort to send others. John Kerry earned the right to make a military case. Bush and Trump didn’t, and I think it’s fair to call that out. Trump thinks we should torture people? So kind of him to avoid being put in a position that he could have been tortured himself.
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
There is a Planned Parenthood down the street from us. It’s usually quiet outside, but on nice summer days we’ll see a group of old men holding protest signs. Usually two or three old men (always men and always old). But only on nice days. They’re never around when it rains.
You’d think they’d brave a few raindrops, since this is supposed to be a matter of life and death and all.
Tony Jay
OT – Latest Brexit News – Just send in the Dothraki and start the lamentations already!
And yay verily, the Isle of the Britons didst enjoy a brief hiatus in its self-propelled tumble down the hillside of dystopia. By the benevolent will of Brussels the Day of Brexicution was pushed off into the mists of Future Time, and there ensued a blissful period during which the Mother of Parliaments disgorged her children and silence fell upon the nation, disturbed only by the faint peep of referee’s whistles and the empty cackling of mid-table also-rans as the Investment Arm of Abu Dhabi’s Sovereign Wealth Fund pipped Liverpool FC to the Premier League title by one solitary point, then celebrated its narrow triumph by singing songs glorifying the hospitalisation of Liverpool supporters and accusing the families of 96 murdered football fans of ‘playing the victim’.
Classy. Well suited to the times.
Anyway, where were we?
After the recent local elections delivered a truly brutal leathering to the Tory Party, saw Labour lose enough Remain votes to cost it about 80 seats nationwide, and allowed the formerly moribund Lib-Dems and Greens become the biggest winners on an openly Remain ticket, everyone agreed that the message from voters was clear and unmistakable. They wanted Brexit and they wanted it yesterdayyyyy……. Huh? What? Seriously? So intense was the festival of shameless gas-lighting that North Sea pipelines glowed white-hot and poor old Denmark spent three days blanketed in a haze of fishy steam (no one noticed, not even the Danes). The officially neutral BBC did its very best to catapult the Government’s propaganda, stuffing the airwaves with more pro-Brexit voices and stop-lossing their glassy-eyed correspondents into yet another tour of strategic Leave hamlets (“picturesque market-town, population 8359, 0.3% ethnic minority, loves hand-crafts, pogroms and fights in car-parks”), the same areas that have been so relentlessly vox-popped by our London-centric, metrosexual, latte-sipping, small-dog owning establishment media for the last few years that the economy of East Anglia is now wholly dependent on the Press-Pound and half of the children born there over that period will be able to point at the TV screen when Newsnight comes on and gurble “Dada!” without fear of correction.
What did this all mean? Well, basically, if the Grey Lady of Downing Street wanted to avoid an even worse collapse for the Tories in the fast-approaching European Elections, then she simply had to knuckle down and reach some kind of compromise in the last-ditch talks she’d requested with the Labour Party. Unfortunately, that clearly wasn’t going to happen on this or any other nearby Earth within this iteration of the Multiverse, the politics just weren’t there. On the Tory side whatever the opinions of the Parliamentary Conservative Party’s MPs, they mattered very little when put up against the bile spewing out of the Little Englander provinces where most of them had their seats, and the flavour of that bile had a distinctly ‘No Peace – No Surrender’ twang to it, fuelled by decades of tabloid hysteria and the more recent alt-Right propaganda pitching these 40+ thousand or so white, upper-middle class, financially comfortable morons as the last, best hope for a nation besieged by legions of swarthy cosmopolitans and scruffy Bolshevik wreckers. They’d already gobbled up the myth that ‘Leave = No Deal’ and that anything short of immediately mining the Channel to cut off the continent was a gross betrayal of 17.5 million patriotic heroes of the 2016 Liberation War, so you can imagine how well the idea of horse-trading any kind of softer Brexit deal with the Red Menace of Islington North would go over with them come reselection season.
On the Labour side, the clear intent was to be seen to be negotiating in good faith while arguing for a compromise that gave both of the major factions within the Parliamentary Labour Party something they wanted – the Remain majority a Confirmatory Vote (with an option to Remain), the Leave minority a form of soft-Brexit they could sell to their mostly Leave voting electorate – in full knowledge that this was just a pointless piece of political theatre, because, a) May wasn’t interested in compromising with ‘the Labour Party’, just in gauging how best to buy off a dozen or so Labour Leavers while she hoped for a miracle, b) May was already halfway out of the door of Number 10 anyway, and the next Tory leader was going to be a Brexiteerian shitgibblet who would immediately torch any agreement they hadn’t been party to and wipe his or her arse with the ashes, just because, and, c) even if they – did – manage to get something worthwhile out of the talks, the Lib-Dems, SNP, Greens, ChUkists and their allies-of-convenience in the national Media would apply the UK’s version of ‘Clinton Rules’ and base their reporting on the principle that whatever Jeremy Corbyn did, said, thought, implied, pondered and/or looked in the direction of today was Wrong! A Betrayal! Not Good Enough! Too late! And the same would be true tomorrow, and the day after that, ad infinitum, so it probably wouldn’t pass the House of Commons anyway.
Eventually, inevitably, the whole thing fell apart under the weight of its various internal contradictions. Members of May’s Cabinet began openly leaking that they would never vote for and certainly wouldn’t be bound by any of the compromises mooted in the talks, which left Labour no choice but to walk away. May came out and blamed the failure of the talks on Labour’s refusal to drop demands for a 2nd Referendum, which caused a momentary short-circuit in the minds of the ‘Corbyn Loves Brexit’ trolling community but was otherwise quickly ignored as being too contra-narrative for further discussion. The generalised sense of impending frustration that had flavoured the national psyche for over a year firmed up to a tumescent ragegasm on the Right when May, determined to prove once again that her deal-making skills were up there with the very best Mar-a-Lago had to offer, did a complete about-face and announced that she’d finally finished reshoots and post-production on her magnum opus E.U. Withdrawal Agreement Bill Part 4 – The One With Michael Ironside, and could confirm that a temporary Customs Union and a vote on a 2nd Referendum would be an integral part of the plot.
And boom, as they say, goes the dynamite.
It’s hard to express just how badly this new spin on May’s much hated Deal went over with everyone. And I do mean everyone. Tories who had spent years claiming that Brexit meant total freedom from Europe’s economic structures (i.e. liars and/or fools) were mad about the Customs Union offer, and even madder about the slink towards a 2nd Referendum, which even as a concept is up there in Right Wing iconography as akin to Communism, Feminism and Racial Intermingling. For Labour and the other Parties, well, it was obvious that a Customs Union that only lasted until the next General Election would be pointless, and what would be the use of a Parliamentary vote on a 2nd Referendum when the Government and its DUP allies would just vote against it? Literally (shut up, I don’t care) no one had a good word to say about it. It received worse reviews than The Iron Throne, hell, worse than The Bells. No, hang on, I’ll get this. Imagine if Adam Sandler and Hayden Christensen were announced as starring in a remake of Birth of a Nation, filmed on location in Russia, directed by Roman Polanski and produced by Harvey Weinstein, all profits going to Trump’s re-election fund, and the poster advertising it had the entire cast in blackface. It went down a bit worse than that would.
It went down so badly in fact that the tectonic plates of Tory Party loyalty shifted within the space of a few hours. Calls for May to firm up her plans for a ‘dignified’ departure from Downing Street morphed very quickly into demands for her to step down right the fuck now, with hardly anyone except her most cravenly loyal household retainers raising a peep in her defence. Hilariously the raging hypocrites who are most outspoken in denouncing the ‘democratic betrayal’ of a 2nd Referendum on Brexit are the loudest voices demanding a change in Tory Party leadership election rules so that they can rerun the vote that they lost resoundingly last year. Chances are she’ll have to resign as Tory Party Leader very soon after the European Polls close, maybe tonight, possibly tomorrow. Which would usually mean she stays in place as a total lame duck PM until the Tories stich-up a successor, but such is the anger among the (very) rank and file that she could, possibly, be made to step down from both Party Leader and PM roles immediately and be replaced by a temporary PM, though fuck knows who that could be. Who’s inoffensive and bland enough that the rival branches of House Blue could all stomach them for the time it would take for Boris Johnson, Michael Gove or some other pitiless scumbag to backstab their way to power?
Giles Brandreth, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you…. Nah.
All of this against the background of the European Elections, which are being held today, and which most pollsters are saying should see the ‘Brexit Party’ brand (no policies, no members, no questions asked) get between 30% and 40% of the vote nationwide. Once again the supposedly neutral BBC and the wider media, including the supposedly ‘centre left’ press, have been giving Nigel Farage and his hodgepodge of racists, loons and crackpots all the free coverage and media presence they could ever ask for, while steering clear of asking any difficult questions which might lead the frog-faced cockslap to throw them an indignant glare and ban them from his presence like he did to Channel 4 News. Sound familiar? Yeah, Nige is going the full-Trump and daring the Media to do anything about it, which they seem all too happy to accommodate. Eyeballs and clicks are, after all, all that matters in the world of competitive 24/7 infotainment, and you’ve got to keep the ‘talent’ happy.
So, what’s going to happen? As usual, I do not know. Except that whatever happens, the usual suspects will declare it a huge victory for Brexit, and everything bad will be blamed on Corbyn. Oh, and even if the pro-Brexit parties get 40% + (which I doubt, but I’m shit at prophesies) in what’s being billed as a de-facto 2nd Referendum, and the various pro-Remain parties get over 50%, it won’t be reported as a victory for Remain. That’s not the narrative. Milkshakes = Bullets, bricks and bottles, that’s the narrative.
Oh well, off to vote against fascism. Wish us luck.
Edited to add – And thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of European voters are being denied their right to vote because the local Governments who were supposed to mail out the forms they needed to fill in to get registered either didn’t get enough warning the elections were going ahead, didn’t get the forms themselves, received the forms but didn’t process them in time or a dozen other stupid, shitty little excuses that all end up denying European citizens their democratic rights. Fucking fuming about this. Odds on the vast majority of these ‘accidents’ have taken place in Tory run constituencies. Almost guaranteed that there’s going to be legal action, but it doesn’t get anyone their vote back, does it?
jimmiraybob
More like Trump’s maid. Or is there a fancier title for chief flung-shit cleaner upper?
(This comment was somehow transported to the previous thread. I’m not complaining. No really. It might have been me.)
Cheryl Rofer
Trump is now fulminating against Pelosi with his usual misogynist tropes. Not clear to me where he’s speaking from.
germy
The operatives are starting their “deep fake” efforts:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pelosi-video-drunk-social-media
Cheryl Rofer
oatler.
“Have you heard the news?” he said, with a grin
“The Vice-President’s gone mad!”
“Where?” “Downtown.” “When?” “Last night”
“Hmm, say, that’s too bad!”
“Well, there’s nothin’ we can do about it,” said the neighbor
“It’s just somethin’ we’re gonna have to forget”
bystander
@kindness: Boy howdy. Nancy has been right every step of the way. Her inability to wave the twinkling impeachment wand seems to bother a lot of magical thinking people. She knows what she’s doing because she is using the law – not tv jibber jabber – to guide her. Meeka B loves her some wimmen unless the woman is in actual power.
VOR
@Comrade Luke: Here’s the relevant portion of section 4 of the 25th amendment: “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
See anything in there where the House of Representatives or the Speaker initiates the process? The people who need to act are “the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide” – i.e. the VP and the Cabinet.
Sure, the House could pass a bill designating “such other body” but that would have to get through the Senate and almost certainly require a veto-proof majority.
I realize they probably don’t teach US constitutional law in Russia, but…
MisterForkbeard
@Cheryl Rofer: Maybe she can tell him that NAFTA 2 is NATFA 1, except with some of the stuff Obama and Hillary negotiated into the TPP agreement. She is just crazily under his skin.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Cheryl Rofer: Dear god. Kim Jong-Un couldn’t have done it better.
Litlebritdifrnt
@sukabi: Was just going to post that
Mayor Pete
Sab
@MaxUtil: Kind of like a VAT tax on Chinese goods. They make them . Our govt taxes them (i.e. our merchants) on the goods coming in. So our govt has the tax/tariff income to piss away on its projects?
snoey
@Martin: The conscientious objector route wasn’t available to most people. If you were a member of the recognized pacifist churches – Quaker etc. – you got 2 year of community service (bedpans) instead of infantry. If you were in the join but no guns sects you were drafted as a medic. Otherwise you had to try and convince your local draft board that you knew Christianity better than they did or that the cosmic woo you were spouting was sincere. Not many 18 year olds were able to pull that off.
MisterForkbeard
@germy: @Cheryl Rofer:
None of this is surprising in the least. It’s what they always do: Suck up to their obviously deranged leader, blame Democrats, and then lie about Democrats and dare people to tell them off.
jl
@VOR: Trumpsters have pushed ridiculous narrative that any previous discussion of invoking 25th amendment during Trump reign was treason and coup plotting. With little push back in our worthless corporate media that I’ve seen.
There are two constitutional avenues to get rid of unfit presidents, Congressional action through impeachment conviction and trial, and 25th amendment procedure.
Commenter Comrade Luke forgets that politicians in Congressional leadership positions have to manage public and Congressional caucus opinion as well as take votes. Pelosi is trying to do the former right now in many of her statements.
Cheryl Rofer
Cheryl Rofer
sukabi
@The Moar You Know: it’s stumped reaction to it that will turn those voters, because he will react with some unhinged rant.
Also, wouldn’t have mattered what kind of conflict it was, stumped is the type of person that would push his own mother and kids down a flight of stairs if he thought it would save his ads.
jl
@Cheryl Rofer: Very few people would deny that Trump is Special. Just some quibbles about exactly what kind of Special Trump is.
Cheryl Rofer
Oops, he did this one again. When I first saw the tweet, I thought someone was retweeting it from a couple of years back, but no.
This is not a well man.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
I have never said this, I have called you silly. That’s different.
Cheryl Rofer
The press availability continues in the same vein. Hard to believe he’s not going to stroke out or be reduced to crying and gibbering in a corner if Pelosi keeps this up.
Steve in the ATL
@The Moar You Know: lots of those round these parts. All the older republicans were southern democrats who flipped.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Cheryl Rofer: It’s genuinely painful to read those tweets.
It’s made worse by the way a large number of people are nodding and saying yes indeed, the Emperor’s Clothes are shiny!
Litlebritdifrnt
@Tony Jay: I am truly hoping that the Brexit party gets trounced royally today. I did my duty and went out and voted. I just hope there are enough people out there willing to throw milkshakes at Farage that it will keep him off the streets.
Baud
@germy:
Any president would have done the same, although the language would have been more … adult.
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I enjoy that, but the fact is almost every candidate we have in the primary would be able to stand up to Trump. Some are just more fun to watch.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
But we all know what you were thinking.
Sab
@Steve in the ATL: Modern Republicans in the South are former Dixiecrats.
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
This is the point. We’re not talking about your uncle, we’re talking about the person who sends people to war.
I was really impressed with Buttigieg in that clip. He is so funny, then he gets serious very quickly without it seeming fake. He is formidable, I don’t care what anyone says. His rhetorical gifts are amazing.
To be clear, I’m supporting your point about Dubya vs. Kerry
rikyrah
@Tony Jay:
thanks for the updates
Cheryl Rofer
Okay, this is what it was supposed to be about.
Martin
Shut them down and throw everyone in prison.
Purdue infiltrated WHO, manipulated opioid policies to boost sales, report finds
Tony Jay
@Litlebritdifrnt:
A to the Men. One of those tests of national character, innit?
Gulp.
sukabi
@jl: Pelosi might be working on option 3, make the fucker stroke out.
jl
@Baud: I’ve had the epiphany that Baud 2020! is worthless, and makes Trump look like Washington, Lincoln and FDR rolled into one.
mrmoshpotato
@Cheryl Rofer:
“What up Shinzo?! How you been dude? I’m bigly tremendous stable geeneeus!”
Cheryl Rofer
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes. It’s difficult for me to see someone in that much pain, even Trump, and so out of control that he broadcasts it to the world.
germy
@Martin:
Did you see this cringeworthy interview with Mrs. Sackler?
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a27289277/joss-sackler-jillian-sackler-interview-family-name/
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer:
“Donald Trump is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
jl
@Cheryl Rofer: Did Trump try to pry any testimony out of the farmers about how world historically great he is as president?
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
During Vietnam a fella had 4 choices.
Wait for the draft-take your chances.
Enlist-had at least a better chance.
Those were basically the same for a lot of people.
Canada-Nice place to live but if you don’t have a career what will you do?
Fight the draft-That is almost the worst solution.
sukabi
@sukabi: spell check on new device SUCKS. stumped should be drumpf, ads should be ass
Grrrrrr
Cheryl Rofer
@jl: As far as I’ve seen, all the farmers got to do was stand there.
Bill Arnold
@Tony Jay:
Thanks! That was quite good.
Martin
@snoey: No, and I don’t dispute that. If you skipped out on the draft – went to Canada, shit your pants, whatever, that’s fine. But for the rest of your breathing days do not ever suggest that others should go to war, when you know damn well you weren’t willing to yourself. That’s what being a conscientious objector is. I know plenty of people that walked that path and continue to this day. But Trump doesn’t get to claim both bone spurs and that the military needs to take the gloves off. His choices today are what invalidate his choices back then.
Cheryl Rofer
Nancy’s ON IT!
rikyrah
@Martin:
MUTHAPHUCKIN’ DEMONS!!!
Sab
@sukabi: That’s heartening, but he has been throwing epic tantrums his whole life and still nada. But brooding is also bad for blood pressure. I wish the White House chef would up the salt gradually every day.
Ella in New Mexico
@Comrade Luke:
Seriously don’t know who you are so I am gonna give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re a bit on the naive/underinformed side.
But since I seriously don’t know who you are and you sound an awful lot like all the other you professional pro-Trump, pro-Divide the Democrats Troll working for Russia I’m gonna use your statement as a teaching opportunity for how trolls are RIGHT NOW IN REAL TIME trying to split our party. People are pushing the “Nancy is failing us! Kick her to the curb! She’s betraying America for her own selfish reasons!” shit all over Twitter right now, including some I’ve considered to be otherwise relatively sane and reasoned.
And why we all need to be VERY careful right now not to get sucked into something because it feeds our deeply angry inner needs for Trump and his cronies to be destroyed. It’ll happen, but it won’t happen like it would make all of us cheer for it to happen.
Trust Nancy. It’ll all work out like it should.
mrmoshpotato
@Cheryl Rofer: No big, strong farmers blubbering like babies?
Baud
@jl:
If it took you that long to figure it out, Billin was right about you.
Martin
@Ruckus: Grad school or a really long undergrad, and try and outlast the war – at least early on. My institution was founded during Vietnam and we still have policies today that are rooted in helping students get deferments. Every now and then one comes up for review and all the young faculty ask ‘why do we have this policy in this way’ and I explain how it got people deferments. People don’t realize how institutionalized the effort was.
Just Chuck
@Sab: The 25th is actually harder to pull off than impeachment, since it requires not only a vote in congress (though only a simple majority), but also the concurrence of the cabinet. nagannahappen.
mrmoshpotato
@Sab: His McDonald’s hamberders dipped in water then doused with salt?
Mandalay
@The Moar You Know:
This.
There are a gazillion reasons I loathe Trump, but draft dodging the Vietnam War is not one of them. I also think less of Buttigieg for saying this:
Our “war” in Afghanistan was just as misguided as our war in Vietnam. Anyone who wants to burnish their credentials for political office and claim inherent superiority simply because they served in Afghanistan can fuck off.
Buttigieg is a better human being than Trump, and would surely make a better president, but his military bragging is just odious.
sukabi
@Sab: arsenic, belladona and salt peter.
Mike in NC
@Cheryl Rofer:
“Summon my cabinet immediately! My fat ass needs to be kissed after that mean lady from San Francisco said bad words!”
LuciaMia
Who was that first reporter at Pelosi’s presser.? Her question basically boiled down to “If you gave Trump enough of a tongue bath do you think you could then get him to do his job?”
raven
@Mandalay: Bullshit
J R in WV
@jl:
That’s not an epiphany at all, it’s a bare assertion with nothing cited to back it up.
I would vote for Baud 2020 in the Republican primary, IF I were a Republican, which ain’t ever gonna happen, and if Baud was silly enough to run in the Republican primaries, which he won’t either.
Nothing in this universe can make Trump look like any tiny fraction of Washington, Lincoln OR Franklin Delano Roosevelt, much less all three of them rolled int one — that’s silly on the face of it.
Will the site rebuild include an AI which can ID and reject Russian and Republican trolls? Never mind, not likely to work well anyway…
zhena gogolia
@Mandalay:
Have you heard of a thing called “politics”?
NotoriousJRT
“I responded as the speaker of the House to the President of the United States…”
Boom goes the effing dynamite. How ridiculous is Kellyanne Conway? The ridiculometer red-lined on her years ago. All her prevaricating and Trumpeting is shriveling her physically and mentally. You, go girl, Kellyanne.
Nelle
@James E Powell: just jumped to the end of the thread here to say this reveals how Conway treats service people. That she shouldn’t be treated the way she treats those she regards as her servants. She shows more of her despicable values than she knows. I’ll go back and read the rest of the thread now.
Raven
@The Moar You Know: “Slamming the people who didn’t go isn’t going to play well with quite a few of their demographic”
If they don’t know the difference between some motherfucker who used their power and influence to get out of it and then spout all this patriotic bullshit then fuck em.
zhena gogolia
@Raven:
Humping the flag, for example.
dww44
@TenguPhule: I so agree. If she’s not gonna delegate that part, please please do practice. Write notes on a piece of paper so as not fumble so much for the right words. Searching for the right words so weakens the effectiveness of what she’s saying.
snoey
@Mandalay: That’s what I was trying to say before. Taking a deferment was trying to wait it out is not something people should be condemned for.
“Failing” your physical with a phony letter and then playing warhawk is.
TomatoQueen
@Tony Jay: Ugh. Now I’m worried about Larry the Cat. And I had not heard the report about the Citeh fans’ behavior but having heard it, they can go fuck themselves, along with the erstwhile TOONsters who sold their tickets to the POOL contingent who acted out in response. Just shows you that everything is football.
Ella in New Mexico
@Mandalay:
That’s SUCH a simplification of a complex and nuanced part of American history and about the people like Buttigieg who chose to honorably serve this country that it almost doesn’t deserve to be dignified with a comment but, Jesus, you have to be hanging out in the Glen Greenwald-Tulsi Gabbard fly zone to make a stupid statement like that to so thoughtlessly.
Leto
@Martin: Thanks for this. It matters why/how someone deferred. The differences between Kerry and Trump (or say Max Cleland and Bolton) are stark and telling. And they should be pointed out every time they try to warmonger. We continually have chickenhawks trying to start wars and waste this countries most precious treasure. Fuck that forever.
@Ruckus: I do wonder what my gen will say when we really start taking the reins of power. Whether we’re going to smear people if they didn’t immediately jump to serve post 9/11. I can basically see the flag wrapping already. =/
trollhattan
@Ella in New Mexico:
What you said.
It’s a replay of Wilmerites and their, “You lost against the easiest candidate to defeat, ever, by running her!” Which merits a hearty “Here’s the door, now go master the exit technology.”
Tony Jay
@TomatoQueen:
It’s worse than that. The fuckers doing the singing were the Manchester City team and staff.
But yes, they can indeed fuck themselves.
Ladyraxterinok
@schrodingers_cat: Have Russians messed with the minds of the populace?
I apologize if you have already discussed this possibility. I have not been able to read every post.
I appreciate your comments very much.
Tony Jay
@rikyrah:
Venting makes me feel better about the horrifying shit so many people in my country seem happy to wallow in.
As a wise man once said, Fuckem.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Moar You Know: Are you still trying to argue that she and Schumer somehow got played?
Tony Jay
@Bill Arnold:
Thanks, Dad.
Steve in the ATL
@Martin: the Dick Cheney method
rp
@Mandalay:
Huh? We invaded Afghanistan because Osama Bin Laden was there. That was a pretty good reason and almost everyone in the country supported it. In fact, one of the major complaints about the invasion of Iraq was that it would pull resources out of Afghanistan when Bin Laden was still out there (and of course that’s exactly what happened, and it took another 10 years to find him).
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Luke: And she has girl cooties, amirite?
trollhattan
Nobody tell Donny about this, because he’ll get the bright idea of arresting everybody with a dog or cat named Butthead (you know who you are).
TenguPhule
@J R in WV: You’re welcome.
rp
@Mandalay:
Huh? We invaded Afghanistan because Osama Bin Laden was there. That was a pretty good reason and almost everyone in the country supported it. In fact, one of the major complaints about the invasion of Iraq was that it would pull resources out of Afghanistan when Bin Laden was still out there (and of course that’s exactly what happened, and it took another 10 years to find him).
les
Do you suppose Kelly Ann and the Possum Queen argue about who’s the First Assistant Liar?
Bill Arnold
ETA already covered up-thread.
Trump just had 5 aides explain how ‘calm’ he was during his meeting with Democrats
Demanding submission as takes large narcissism-sustaining bites from the souls of his aides again.
Seriously, that’s disgusting behavior on his part.
Steve in the ATL
@Ella in New Mexico: well said!
@raven: well said!
@Leto: well said!
Mandalay
@Ella in New Mexico:
That’s fine, even though I don’t believe that we had any damn business even being in Afghanistan when Buttigieg went.
But Buttigieg strongly implying that he is a superior candidate simply BECAUSE he served in Afghanistan is just poppycock. That kind of mindset is definitely not what I’m looking for in a politician at all, but good luck if it impresses you.
zhena gogolia
@Mandalay:
The question he was answering was, how are you going to deal with Trump bullying you on the debate stage. He said that after serving in Afghanistan he wasn’t going to be scared by Capt. Bonespurs. He did not say he was a superior candidate simply BECAUSE he served in Afghanistan. But I guess watching the clip would have been too difficult for you.
dww44
@TenguPhule: Actually, Perdue is NOT that stupid. He’s a politician and he’s sucking up to his boss. Perdue, himself a lifelong agri-business owner, full well knows who is actually paying those tariffs, but as long as the farmers he represents are getting their monies, whether from the taxpayer or China matters not because this will keep them in the Trump/GOP fold. These farmers only care that they got theirs and those less deserving brown people can still be looked down upon for their SNAP checks. Taxpayers be damned. See also Larry Kudlow and SHS below doing the same sycophantic act.
Raven
@Mandalay: Who gives a fuck what impresses you. It’s a part of who he is, it’s not everything and he doesn’t say it is. He needs to throw that shit up in this fat fucks face constantly.
Mandalay
@rp:
Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in 2011.
Eight years later we are still at war in Afghanistan, and it is the longest war in our history.
Bill Arnold
@Tony Jay:
TBH, not sure why I went with “quite good” without looking the usage up; meant it in the American sense. Oops. (Perhaps the subconscious was teasing.)
http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/the-trickiest-word-in-american
tobie
@Ella in New Mexico: @Mandalay: Didn’t Tulsi Gabbard serve in Iraq for a year? Does she refer to her service in interviews and on the stump? I wouldn’t know because she’s not a serious candidate for me, but I’m getting a little tired of Buttigieg’s frequent references to his time in the naval reserves. It feels a tad self-serving.
TenguPhule
@Tony Jay:
have I mentioned lately you are a goddamn genius at making words into poetry?
Mandalay
@zhena gogolia:
And that’s exactly the mindset I’m talking about. How have things worked out with Trump’s quartet of generals? They served a ton of time in the military and I haven’t seen any of them ever publicly challenging Trump.
The notion that you won’t be scared of Trump just because you served in the military is pure bunk.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mandalay:
I think the point is that Trump dodged the draft not because of some conscientious objection but because he was scared. Which would be fine if he weren’t a chicken hawk hypocrite
zhena gogolia
@tobie:
Again, politics. People running for president have to engage in it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tony Jay: Tangentially related question: Does Gove actually have a number of bodies in his basement or does he just give that impression?
Tony Jay
@Bill Arnold:
(rolls eyes) Daaaaad. You’re embarrassing me. 8-)
rp
@Mandalay: Yeah, no s***. Read some history. And the fact that the Bush admin. completely bungled the situation in Afghan. is a separate issue from the reason it began in the first place.
Miss Bianca
@Tony Jay: OK, I would say something serious about how much I have learned from your posts or how the only good thing to come out of Brexit as far as the jackals are concerned are your commentaries, but I’m still wheezing over “frog-faced cockslap” and I haven’t quite recovered yet.
Ella in New Mexico
@Mandalay:
@zhena gogolia:
Amen. And I’ll go further and say, FUCK YEAH he’s superior to Trump, and FUCK YEAH he impresses the HELL out of me.
I did not serve in the military. But some fine people dear to me, from my grandfathers to my Uncles to my father and husband, and now my niece, did. During “World Wars” and “conflicts” and “cold wars” all of which had their political arguments and detractors. Later, I saw a lot of fine young people that were friends of my kids have done the same. In my book it took guts because in order to do it and succeed they had to find all the best parts of themselves and be brave, strong, persistent and later, make it all make sense in a productive way for the reset of their lives.
The fact he served in the military, AS A GAY MAN, and was exposed to some pretty horrific and terrifying stuff and yet managed to maintain a Goddamned moral compass in order to help the men and women under his leadership do the same means–Pete Buttigieg just having the guts to do that and still care about every single political and social issue I do makes him a hero in my book.
chris
@Tony Jay: That was excellent! Thank you.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mandalay:
That was the reason why we were there. We’ve been trying to nation build since then to create a stable, democratic society in Afganistan. Or at least that’s how it should’ve been
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: There are three methods. The two you named and elections.
zhena gogolia
@Ella in New Mexico:
He impresses the hell out of me too.
Ella in New Mexico
@tobie:
He’s a gay man running for “Commander in Chief”, as in President. Who needs to make the case that he’s got the stuff to hold that office. That alone might be interpreted as self-serving, even arrogant.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mandalay: Jesus Christ,….
Trump does this fake macho man routine, Trump knows gangsters, he’s been on WWE, he has great golf scores! A f*g like Buttigieg better watch out or Trump will have flex some of that pure genius muscle. Buttigieg attacked that by underscoring that showing up on WWE isn’t the same as going to war, for real. So f-ing what if Buttigieg blew his own horn during it, that’s politics.
I mean I know Buttigieg doesn’t stand a chance in hell because he is a gay and a white man, the most awfullest thing ever in American culture, both the hard right and the hard left can find much fault there over Buttigieg ‘s poor birth choices, but let’s not re-fight the 1960s using a kid was born in 1982.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ella in New Mexico:
You mean like a black man named of all things “Obama”?
tobie
@zhena gogolia: Understood. That’s why I asked how often Gabbard mentions her military service. John Kerry did so during the convention and we all remember how that turned out. I think I know why he did it. He was a decorated war hero who served 4 years in one of America’s longest and bloodiest wars, and he was running while we were in the midst of two campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Were Buttigieg to bring up his service when discussing foreign policy, I could understand the reference. To do so when talking about debating Donald Trump feels off to me. YMMV.
zhena gogolia
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Haha, I get your frustration.
zhena gogolia
@tobie:
Oh, come on. Did you watch the clip? “Ooh, Trump’s a big scary guy! How are you going to handle him?” Buttigieg handled it perfectly.
TenguPhule
@tobie:
Often enough for the rest of us not in her county to be tired of it.
Tony Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
He gives me the impression that he – visits – an establishment that has factored the need for such a basement into its overhead and charges accordingly.
Cold eyed creep without the talent his ambition requires, so he fills the dead space with subservience to bigger beasts, but turn your back on him for a second….
Amir Khalid
@Tony Jay:
That rankles. I happen to believe Liverpool would never do that to another club.
Ladyraxterinok
@snoey: Boy, do I remember how hard it was to get conscientious objector status. There were groups who tried to help guys trying to get it.
Tony Jay
@TenguPhule:
No, but feel free to do so whenever the urge takes you. I mean needy doesn’t even begin to cover it… (glyph of Tom Selleck winking – before he became a prick)
zhena gogolia
All of us who were alive at the time knew guys who were desperate to get out of going to Vietnam.
This is a guy who used his father’s money to pretend to have a disability and is now commander-in-chief, with John Bolton as his sidekick, and pretends to have sex with the American flag at every public event. There is a difference.
Martin
@Steve in the ATL: A lot of people did it. But scant few of them thought a few decades later ‘hey, war is cool shit, let’s start one’. Those people specifically can DIAF.
Martin
@tobie:
You are aware that at this very moment transgender troops have been banned from service, and gay troops are only recently accommodated. I think any LGTBQ person is uniquely entitled to draw attention to their military service given that their right to even have a military service is still under debate.
Ella in New Mexico
@zhena gogolia:
This is why I’m not worried we don’t teach STEM subjects to every kid in high school. History and civics is WAY more important.
Tony Jay
@Miss Bianca:
That’s what his wife said!
Is that appropriate? I can never tell. It’s different when talking about non-humans, right?
Ella in New Mexico
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Who dared to bring up the issue of racism in America?
Yeah, same self-serving, arrogant dude. :-D
Cacti
I see the Mayor McCheese pom pom squad is out in full force today.
Ruckus
@Martin:
And school could be an issue in any event, as I remember a higher degree at some times didn’t even get a deferment. I may be misremembering though. Bodies were needed, it didn’t matter the body, any one will do.
Cacti
@tobie:
She uses it constantly as a shield for advancing the foreign policy goals of Vladimir Putin in US international politics.
snoey
@Ruckus: They tightened it up as the 60’s progressed. By 68 (when I graduated HS) it was 4 years undergrad only.
Tony Jay
@Amir Khalid:
Can you imagine a scenario where Liverpool pipped Manchester United to the title and the players and staff were filmed singing hilarious songs about the Munich Disaster, then the hubbub about it lasting a day, tops, then being forgotten about ASAP?
Nope, me neither.
And though I have a LOT of respect for the way Raheem Sterling has put himself out there saying what needs to be said about racism in football…. not a single question from the Press asking if he was involved? No comment from him distancing himself from the whole tawdry affair? (glyph of a side eye)
trollhattan
@Bill Arnold:
That’s hilarious–it’s almost as though there’s a parenthetical (not) in front of quite with the Brit version.
Don’t get me started on “knocked up.”
And Tony’s write-up is very good. ;-)
tobie
@zhena gogolia:If you like him, it felt perfect. If you’re getting to know him, you wonder why he’s invoking his military service in this context. I devoted god knows how many hours campaigning for the Democratic House candidate in my super conservative district this past cycle. The thing he mentioned in all his brochures and that we were told to mention when we were canvassing was that he had been an Army ranger. It always bothered me, as it did the members of the local Democratic club. It felt like the candidate was using his service to project strength, when strength should come from his personality and his convictions. We lost badly, which may have been inevitable given the makeup of the district, but I did wonder afterwards whether military service makes much of a difference in campaigns these days.
Ruckus
@Leto:
Some depends on the next few years, as to how people will be looked at. Remember, the Vietnam era had the draft and lots of guys either had to go in the military or find something to replace it. That pressure isn’t quite there any longer. And Vietnam was sold better- didn’t make it a better war.
Ladyraxterinok
@Ruckus: When they changed the rule re education deferments my now ex, a physics grad student, called ‘the national physics society. He was told all the science and engineering societies were getting similar freaked out calls. My ex hit his 26th (was that the one?) birthday that took him out of the draft pool before the paper work calling him up was complete.
Another thing those not alive then probably don’t know–each state (ot county ?) draft board was different. Some had extremely rigid people on the board deciding who met the criteria for CO or other exemption. Others had members who were much more lenient. This difference added to the anger of those fighting being drafted.
Bowling Green Survivor
@J R in WV: I, too, lived through both of those impeachments. Agreed, they took months and months, which is exactly what should be happening now. What is happening now is not impeachment, which seems to be a point of confusion. What’s happening is workaday Congressional oversight, which is being ignored by the Executive. That’s really bad, but worse, Speaker Pelosi’s approach is resulting in many people assuming that Trump must not have done anything impeachable since Pelosi has announced that, as an entirely political calculation, she isn’t allowing impeachment to proceed. Many people disagree with her stance, and several are Democrats in Congress and in the electorate. I’m one of them. I think that there is a responsibility here beyond pure partisan political calculation.
You disagree with this. That’s fine, of course, but your memories of how the Nixon impeachment happened differ from mine. I recall months and months of investigations and hearings under the “impeachment” umbrella. Not so? And, even as a purely partisan calculation, starting initial impeachment proceedings now would take us through the election.
Of course, if Speaker Pelosi waits just a little longer, she can soften her stance on disallowing impeachment, but then she’ll claim that it’s now too close to the election to start proceedings. She might surprise me, but I’ll bet that’s how it goes.
joel hanes
@Cheryl Rofer:
so out of control that he broadcasts it to the world
In this sense, Trump really *is* the most transparent President ever.
The most transparently dishonest.
The most transparently childish and vindictive.
The most transparently anxious about status and intelligence.
joel hanes
@Martin:
There were no student deferments at all for the last two years of the draft, 1971 and 1972.
My lottery number was 65 for the 1972 draft.
They took up to 83 in 1972.
In 1973, they took up to lottery number 3 and then stopped the draft.
joel hanes
@Bowling Green Survivor:
She might surprise me
I’d bet on it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bowling Green Survivor: Okay, if Pelosi is going out of her way to avoid impeachment in any and all situations, the question is why?
J R in WV
@snoey:
And in 1969 when we were sophomores in college they introduced the draft birthday lottery, and randomly picked something like 70% of people to be drafted according to when they were born. I was 72 out of 365, got my notice to report for a physical preparatory to being drafted in January, 1970.
There were no collegiate deferments after 1968… or perhaps ’69, it was a long time ago.
Enlisted in the USN March 1st if memory serves, and it does.
J R in WV
@Bowling Green Survivor:
Yes indeed. Do you also recall that the legislature belonged to the Democratic Party at the time? While Republican votes were needed for conviction, back then Republicans were willing to convict an obvious criminal President, and now they are not.
I suspect Pelosi intends to beat the impeachment drum loudlythrough the election season, perhaps until just a few weeks before the election. Then the Senate will either look complicit in high crimes or vote to throw Trump out. Either would be good for our party going into the election. Might even cost Trump the nomination.
In any case, I trust Madam Speaker Pelosi to be carefully charting the course. You need not do that, of course.
J R in WV
@joel hanes:
In 1970 they took well into lottery numbers in the 200s… I was 72, IIRC. Not sure now, but would have gone in mid March, so …
satby
@The Moar You Know: you didn’t read the link. It wasn’t about student deferments, it was about the spurious “bone spurs”.
sm*t cl*de
@TenguPhule:
Does this muppet really not know who pays a tariff, or is he just regurging the ignorance that falls out of his boss’s face-hole because it is not good to look smarter than the Moron-in-Chief?