President National Embarrassment is humiliating us abroad again at the G-20 summit in Japan. This brief exchange is almost as revolting as Trump’s obsequious performance in Helsinki. Trump, goaded by reporters to confront Russia about election interference, briefly wags a finger at the Russians and fulfills that brief with mock-stern sarcasm. So much incompetence, treason, self-pity and hubris is packed into this 20-second clip:
A reporter asks President Trump if he would tell Russia not to meddle in the 2020 US presidential election.
As President Putin, Sec. Pompeo and others smile, President Trump turns to the Russian delegation, points and tells them not to meddle in the election. pic.twitter.com/lfcBwDJ1r6
— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 28, 2019
Putin smirks the whole while, like a blood and feather-coated fox licking its chops outside a newly emptied hen house. And why wouldn’t Putin smirk? The head of a third-rate, failing petrostate, Putin has pulled off perhaps the greatest foreign policy coup in the history of the planet by helping his geopolitical rival render itself utterly ridiculous with the ignorant, malevolent clown seated at his left.
Then the camera pans back, revealing the grin of the lumpish crackpot Pompeo as well as the vapid smirks of Ivanka and Jared, who are now running US foreign policy, dog help us. Truly a repugnant spectacle.
Baud
Yeah, but how will Dems pay for their programs? Huh? Huh?
plato
gop – group of parasites
ET
Putin has known a few things about tRump that he uses (quite successfully) to manage someone so obviously ill-prepared to operate in an arena where decisions do matter and have global impact.
that it is easy to con a con
he is the opposite of self-critical
he is sort of stupid and definitely clueless to nuance and undercurrents
he is narcissistic and responds well to flattery and toadying
Dorothy A. Winsor
When you put it that way, Betty, it sounds bad.
chris
Today’s antidote to despair: Chilean police puppies! Cute AF
Betty Cracker
@ET: There’s such a disturbing vibe from Trump whenever he’s in the presence of the Russians, and not just for the obvious reasons. It’s always terrible when he cozies up to dictators, but he seems to consider himself at least a peer if not the superior of people like Kim and BoneSaw. But there’s a terrible eagerness from him when he’s with Putin or Putin’s minions, like he’s a sad, pudgy rich kid who’s longing to join violent gang because he thinks they’re cool.
donnah
@Betty Cracker:
I agree. It’s like when Chuckles Todd interviewed Trump. He’s like one of those little dogs who assumes the minor role and piddles on itself while wiggling under the feet of the big dog. Trump is all bluster until he’s in the presence of true power.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker:
I have a feeling (a hope? no, I think it’s more than a hope) that Harris or Warren or whomever will note this to his face in a debate. Looking forward to that!
Also looking forward to the ads that can be run here: clips of Mueller talking about Russia’s ‘systematic efforts to undermine our election and elect Donald trumpov’ interspersed with cuts of him smirking, him coming out of the Helsinki meeting, etc.
Kay
@Baud:
My favorite part of the debate. No more. No more pretending they give a shit about what gets paid for and what doesn’t. The recipients of the top 10% Trump tax cuts – which every one of the moderators is- do not get to lecture me about budgeting.
Kay
@Baud:
In addition. The awful Andrea Mitchell is no longer permitted to feign concern about secure communications and national security. That doesn’t matter. I know it doesn’t matter because it stopped being an issue the moment Trump won.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: ‘Lickspittle’.
rp
Wow — you’ve perfectly captured his essence in ~20 words.
Jeffro
@Baud:
LOL. This, along with the constant refrain of “SOSHULISM!!!1!”, just kills me. (Hickenlooper and Delaney, please pack your shit and get. out. btw) Republicans have proved over and over that they give not even the slightest of fcks about the deficit or responsible governance. Reagan was bad, W was horrible, trumpov’s tax scam was exponentially worse.
People don’t realize that the GOP actually has very nearly “starved the beast”, and that’s why the 1% and especially .01% have so much money, such outsized power. It connects to everything: low teacher pay, students’ need to take on so much student loan debt, poor infrastructure, a military stretched past the breaking point, etc. Roll back all those tax cuts and things start to get much better for the vast majority of this country.
oatler.
@donnah: Hey , quit trashing Chuck Todd. That’s my bit!
chris
@Jeffro: Denmark, I tell ya! Denmark! They want to turn us into Denmark!!!11
donnah
@oatler.:
There is room for all.
Betty
@chris: Thanks. So much sweetness!
Steeplejack (phone)
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Okay, first laugh of the day. Thanks.
SFAW
He saw W’s performance at the WH Correspondents’ Dinner*, and said “Hold my beer.”
* [“Hmm, where are those WMDs? Not under here! Nope, not under this table, either”, followed by “Tee-hee-hee-hee aren’t you the funniest/coolest Preznit EVAH” from the WH Press Corpse]
Kathleen
@donnah: What a wonderful image! You could make it into a quilt. I’ll bet you could charge a hefty price!
rikyrah
Folks say that they don’t want a coronation. In order for that not to happen, you have to have a primary fight.
The attacks on Biden have seemed off because some were off, and then folks went overboard.
Folks don’t believe Biden is a perv. A touchy person, yes, but, we all know touchy people, and know if their intent is malicious. That’s why the ‘ accusations’ didn’t go anywhere.
The whole Anita Hill thing is….well, he was Obama’s VP, why not bring it up then? And, especially folks having more smoke for Biden, than the muthaphucka who has been torturing us from the bench for nearly 30 years.
Let me say from the outset, that I find the entire, ‘ I can work across the aisle’ spiel to be complete bullshyt, because I know the other side of the aisle. It just irritates me to no end.
But, for folks to say that Kamala shouldn’t push back on something out of Biden’s own mouth? That’s garbage. He could have picked any of a number of Senators. He picked who he picked, and folks are fine with pushing back about that.
Jeffro
Btw for those who are interested (especially if you want to post the tweets, which I don’t know how to do)…Judd Legum has an excellent Twitter thread up about how the trumpov campaign is using stock photos of young folks along with pro-trumpov ‘testimonials’ in their under-the-radar social media campaign.
God, rooting these horrible people out of power is going to be one helluva fight…but (obviously) so necessary and worth it.
Jeffro
@SFAW: I’ll never forgive him for that. He doesn’t care either, I know, but still. The things Republicans get away with never ceases to amaze me.
Baud
@rikyrah:
More accurately, folks say that don’t want whatever it is that the Democratic Party happens to be doing at the moment.
Quinerly
Just for you, Ms. Cracker!
https://www.boredpanda.com/chicken-harness-amazon-yesito/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=BPFacebook
chris
@Jeffro: Time to post this again.
There is a downward arrow in the top right corner of every tweet. Click it, copy the green text and paste it here. That’s it except for the despair…
Hoodie
Trump’s behavior is completely at odds with what the presidency has traditionally represented, as he thinks it’s him being the boss like the country is part of the Trump Organization. That makes him more comfortable with personality cult types like Putin and Kim, who have the same role in their respective countries. Putin represents the only thing that Trump values, which is personal power, so Trump is like an adoring disciple in the presence of the master. There has never been someone in the White Office who is so ill-suited to the core mission of the presidency to protect the United States from foreign adversaries.
It’s evidence of how fundamentally weak and corrupt people like McConnell and the rest of the GOP leadership have become that this appears to be ok with them. Their predecessors, whatever their other numerous flaws, would never have put up with an asshole like this and would have strangled him in the crib. The fact that they couldn’t probably stems from the mutated ideological base of the GOP, which has devolved to an authoritarian death cult. The issue in 2020 will be whether the rest of the country is will affirm that this is ok, and that includes both marginal Republicans (“independents”) jettisoning their remaining patriotism and Democrats functionally doing the same by not bothering to show up because Biden, Harris, Warren or whomever doesn’t properly massage their particular errogenous zone.
Cacti
@rikyrah:
Honest question.
What’s your take on those within the AA community who are wary of Harris because of her career as a prosecutor? In other words, how wide of an issue do you think it actually is?
Steeplejack (phone)
@Betty Cracker:
The Russians own Trump In a way the other dictators don’t. Putin and the oligarchs have some dirt on Trump—real, documented, smoking-gun stuff—that they can use whenever they want, and it terrifies* him. Maybe it’s
the pee tape or some such, or just his long history of money-laundering for them, or a combination of things. I hope I live long enough to see it all come out.
* Trump is terrified, but he doesn’t often show it, because the narcissist’s default mode is “I can bully, bellow and bullshit my way through anything.” He can’t do that when he’s right there with Putin, so he sort of collapses in on himself.
(Jeez, I’m sounding slightly spittle-flecked even to myself.)
Cacti
@Steeplejack (phone):
With Putin, he acts like a little boy in the presence of his Dad.
chris
@Cacti: Indeed, Trump’s afraid of Putin. There probably is serious kompromat but I think it likely that Putin has bluntly threatened Trump. Trump is a coward and a physical threat would keep him in line.
“Very nice penthouse, Donald. It would be very sad if you fell out of the window, no?”
Immanentize
@Baud:
Nail. Head.
It is an intraparty version of Cleek’s Law
trollhattan
I suspect the Rooskies know how to effectively flatter Trump better than anybody, in addition to the various bidnez and moral entanglements. And here they are, on full display.
One would think other nations have this ability too, but they perhaps can’t fathom how base Trump really is so are ill-equipped to go all in with manipulating him. Putin’s KGB days keep paying yuge dividends.
TS (the original)
@Cacti:
And he looks like the chicken in the link from Quinerly (comment #25)
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack (phone): That’s certainly a plausible explanation for his behavior, and it’s bolstered by the fact that Trump is notably obsequious and out to impress in the presence of people like Kislyak and Lavrov too, not just Putin himself. I hate “body language analysis,” but it’s impossible to ignore how differently Trump behaves around Putin, who is physically short and unimposing. If it were anyone else, Trump would take every opportunity to loom over him and emphasize the height difference — he does that shit all the time. But he SHRINKS around Putin.
BretH
Slightly off topic but it’s not every day we see writing like this (Charles Pierce on Democrats since Reagan):
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a28208505/first-2020-democratic-debate-julian-castro-policing-reform/
plato
@Hoodie: The worst possible immoral racist conman thrust on to the entire world at the worst possible moment in the world. Fuck the ‘wwc’ aka the racist scums.
rikyrah
@Cacti:
More upsetting to people on the under side of 40 who actually didn’t live through the era of crack. I just can’t see her being a prosecutor as an issue for anyone 40+.
I have always been of the thought that we need MORE, not less Black folk in those ‘Halls of Justice’.
hells littlest angel
@donnah: This meeting with Putin was truly Trump at his most obsequious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVNHcob3oJg
Immanentize
@Cacti:
I’m not rikyrah and I don’t answer for her, but in the criminal justice world in which I travel, none of the minority community leaders I work with (black, asian, latinx) thinks her past as Attorney General of California is a problem. We want Attorney Generals working with us and she did work with communities of color. But they are worried she might not be able to beat Trump because of the unleashed racism and sexism in the country.
The only people I met who professed to care about her past in a prosecutor’s office or as the AG only said that when promoting another candidate. And that other candidate has never been Warren or Booker, but Sanders.
ETA Like rikyrah suggests, my contacts are mostly lawyers and activists who are at least in their 30s. They know where power to make change sits. That’s how Rachael Rollins got elected
rikyrah
@Steeplejack (phone):
That’s how I see it too.
rikyrah
“This is not about money. This is about cruelty.” @ElieNYC, editor of @atlblog, talking with @DeanObeidallah about Trump’s cruelty towards children at the border. pic.twitter.com/8Sa9ov1YKM
— SiriusXM Progress (@SXMProgress) June 27, 2019
errg
@Betty Cracker:
That captures it brilliantly, as jeffro also said, please let someone say this to his face….
Kay
@Hoodie:
It’s amazing what a bad leader he is. He does none of it. He hasn’t addressed or taken responsibility for a single problem that has occurred since he was elected. Whatever else the migrant crisis is, it is HIS. Immigration is a federal issue. He’s in charge of those camps. They’re not going to run them any better with more funding. They didn’t “run out of money”. That wasn’t the problem. They were paying too much for the contract services anyway. 700 a day per person wasn’t enough? That was the problem? That’s nonsense. The problem was the kids IN the camps, who were by definition supposedly receiving services because they were THERE. The situation won’t get better if they flood it with funding. There will just be more kids being treated inhumanely in camps. If they can’t care for 500 at 700 a day they can’t care for 1000 at 1000 a day. He hired bad managers and we don’t have an actual President.
patrick II
@Steeplejack (phone):
I think the pee tape, or something like it, exists. When Faith Hill testified to congress she told the committee how urgent it was to track down more than rumors — they thought TMZ had some sort of evidence which they, according to Hicks, sent Cohen to get. You don’t panic that much and try to get back something that doesn’t exist.
Immanentize
@chris:
As to police pups. I love how police woman number two is looking so serious while her puppy is looking up, just before deciding to lick her chin.
Jeffro
Oh hey, look, it’s my Wingnut Dad weighing in with me on the debates:
1. This is a 70+ year old man thinking he’s clever – ‘Jellobrand’? (Gillibrand) The entire GOP has been reduced to a bunch of name-calling six-year-olds.
2. Also, he used to be able to spell. I mean, it’s weird…do they all do this, as kind of an homage to the Ill Douche? (‘soshulism’ was my edit to get past the filters but ‘boarders’ is all his)
I just told him that if the entirety of the case for trumpov’s re-election is “OPEN BORDERS! SOSHULISM!”, I’m pretty sure America’s going to go “um if it’s that or Russia, rape, racism, and ranting, soshulism it is!” And there’s no Demon Hillz to run against this time.
Another Scott
ICYMI, Doktor Zoom at Wonkette on what really happened with the border bill:
Much more at the link.
It was a loss, but only so much could be done with this appropriations bill. Look for Nancy and Team D to put forward policy bills addressing the issues in the near future.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Hoodie:
The three people who were making the decision on whether to attack Iran did not agree. Yet. They were in the process of attacking before one of the three called it off. They can’t even get their shit together to attack or not attack another country. He delayed a decision until it was in process and his own low quality hires almost overrode him and did what they wanted. He hasn’t fired any of them. It is completely possible that he could inadvertently launch a war. He just almost did, and nothing and no one has changed since that happened.
rikyrah
Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) Tweeted:
Okay, the Census case is weird, but my read is Roberts saying: “Yo, @realDonaldTrump if you want me to allow your racism you simply MUST give me better cover than this. Maybe you’re comfortable wearing a hat, but I really need my *hood*, brother.” https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1144255139114627072?s=17
ruemara
@Cacti: Um, they’re idiots. It’s as stupid as calling Obama deporter in chief because he followed the laws he was sworn to uphold. It’s a very dumb, very racist argument that white people are making to black people and those who have other reasons they don’t like Harris are pretending it’s a good one.
raven
Kamala Harris announcing her run for presidency on MLK Day is disrespectful to King’s legacy and is a spit in the face to the Black radical tradition. Her announcing on MLK day is propaganda. It’s meant to fool Black people that she’s actually for us, despite her actions terrorizing the Black community through her role as a prosecutor. It shows us how Black liberals will weaponize the aesthetics of a freedom fighter in order to strengthen the united states colonial empire.
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott:
Does anyone else see the flaw in this negotiating tactic, I mean aside from the ghastly flimsiness of the “protections”?
rikyrah
.@JulianCastro speaking now outside Homestead after he and other 2020ers were refused entry. “It makes you wonder,” Castro says. “What in the hell were they hiding?” Overcrowding? Sexual abuse? Emotional damage?
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) June 28, 2019
rikyrah
Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) Tweeted:
@JosephPatrice I thought I was going to end up calling the Roberts gerrymandering decision “willfully ignorant.” But it’s not. He’s not pretending not to understand how gerrymandering works, he’s straight up saying that he doesn’t give a good goddamn. https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1144248528958631936?s=17
Cacti
It’s been two days now. Has AOC decided what her position is on her pal Bernie saying he wouldn’t close the detention centers?
Immanentize
@raven:
Interesting. It seems that is the only thing “Blake S” has ever contributed to that site. It got 69 thousand “picks” (which seem to be “likes”) on a sight whose average post gets a few hundred “picks.”
I smell a rat.
rikyrah
@Kay:
PUTIN called it off, Kay.
Bolton,Pompeo, Cotton, Graham, etc…have had a hard on about attacking Iran for at least a decade.
Shrub lied us into TWO wars, yet wouldn’t touch Iran…
Dolt45 is stupid enough to think that he would become popular if he started a war…but, his paymaster Putin told him to sit down and STFU.
Immanentize
@Cacti:
Have you written to her or called her office? Or tweeted that Q at her? Or are you just stirring shit here for grins?
Baud
@raven:
I guess the cat is out of the bag now.
Cacti
@Immanentize:
You might find this one a little more informative. As in it’s not an obvious ratfuck.
From The Root.
I trust rikyrah’s take on the issue.
Raven
@Immanentize: I dunno, a prof here who is solely focused on African American issues posted it. I’m interested to know what’s what with the issue. ABL sure thinks there are a lot of Anti-Kamala bits. On the other hand I’m seeing plenty of criticism from California .
Cacti
@Immanentize:
I was just wondering how the cat suddenly got her tongue on that, since she’s never been shy about having a hot take on Democrats she doesn’t like. (vs. non-democrats that she does)
Al Z.
One of the NC republican reps stated flat out: “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats…So I drew this map in a way to help foster what I think is better for the country.” To me that also encapsulates republican thinking on Trump; it doesn’t matter how vile, narcissistic, treasonous, bigoted he is as long as he’s a republican. Support for Trump is the equivalent of moral gerrymandering.
flyingwatertanker
Dear Betty, it seems surreal that you can use the words you used to describe our faux king pee resident and his adminionstration, and 1) it’s not the least bit shocking, and B) your descriptions seem rather inadequate.
Is there anyone working on making better words?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I liked how KH shut that white nationalist enabler Savannah Guthrie up.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Mass graves.
Baud
@Cacti:
I agree with you FWIW.
@schrodingers_cat:
I haven’t watched the recording of the debates yet. What did Guthrie say that enabled white nationalism?
RAVEN
@schrodingers_cat: Hey, did you see that the Red Sox and Yankees are playing in London this weekend?
Immanentize
@Cacti:
My sincere guess? AOC is learning and moving away from Sanders and his gang. She is seeing what has to be done to get things done. She strikes me as a hard working dedicated representative of her district. And that is who she will fight for. Not Bernie.
I saw a picture of Bernie with Omar the other day and I my thought was where is Omar’s growth and that AOC was just a better politician than either of them.
Raven
Jimmy Carter was just shown saying the ruskies gave shithead the election!
Brachiator
@Cacti: From the Root
Let me see if I have this right. A huge chunk of the Balloon Juice commentariat say “Fuck Trump’s base! Fuck ’em. The Democrats don’t need their vote and should not cater to them”
And then you cite some moron who declares that Kamala Harris needs to kiss up to sexist or racist black men. Seriously?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Not yesterday. I was referring to her soft ball interview of the Kentucky Catholic school kid. Also the way she asked the question about decriminalizing undocumented entry. Didn’t sit well with me. After Castro suggested the repeal of article 1395 of the immigration act.
Immanentize
@Raven: I think the link @Cacti: gave is a much more thoughtful one. The set up sounds Harris negative, but in the end everyone says that the prosecution stuff is not what is moving people. But in the end of the article, everyone seems to agree that she is excellent although maybe not sufficiently “natural?”
I think the point in the article that political and community (like religious) power in most black communities is still held by black men is a good one to ponder.
Baud
@Raven:
I hope he actually said shithead.
Kay
@rikyrah:
If The President doesn’t want to start a war why doesn’t he fire the employees he hired who almost did and will try again?
No one is running it. Any of it. He denies he’s responsible, so that leaves, I guess, any random one of the bottom of the barrel hires. The solution to that is to give them more money for their bad policy and inept, corrupt child camps? That won’t help. It isn’t the problem.
They have more money for the military. Much more. It’s all borrowed, but whatever. They almost inadvertently invaded a country. The problem is at the top.
Raven
@Immanentize: Religious power in the African American community is held by men?
Baud
@Immanentize:
I don’t think she wins the primary unless she wins the black vote, so it seems like this problem will take care of iteself.
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat:
1325
Ksmiami
@rp: and you can tell that Putin has nothing but contempt for Trumpov- the pathetic fat kid hanger on
schrodingers_cat
@RAVEN: No I didn’t see that.
Baud
@Immanentize:
Maybe he should have used the citation more often.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Even if Pence did say that, Nancy’s smart enough to know that he and Donnie will try to do what they want once they get their mitts on the money.
RollCall has more.
FWIW.
The issue of the border isn’t going away, and more legislation is coming.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Immanentize: Thanks. I should have checked.
Gelfling 545
@Cacti: She is responsible for her defending own position. Sanders for his.
Brachiator
@raven:
From the article you cite.
I presume that the author does not vote at all, and believes that there is no difference between Hillary and Trump, or even Obama and Trump.
Kinda useless. And probably a stealth Wilmer supporter.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Talk about a woman who knows how to stick it to Trump. Here’s Megan Rapinoe re not going to the effing WH.
Immanentize
@Raven: not held by but at least often has a male front person, no? Although there certainly are black women ministers, up here most black churches are still led by men. (And that’s separate from the Latinx relationship to males in the community and in church.) And most of the elected black officials — especially state wide — are men?
Sloane Ranger
BBC reported this morning that Putin declared, in an interview, that liberalism is dead and Populism its replacement.
So, he’s now doing victory laps.
Immanentize
@Baud: That’s what the primary is all about. But the question today seems to be how much of the subset of black vote — namely the black male vote — might she not win.
Brachiator
Jimmy Carter is on fire. From a recent Guardian story.
rikyrah
@Baud:
I agree with you. She has to win the Black vote. The only way to win the Black vote is to win the White vote in Iowa or New Hampshire.
After 2016….White voters are suspect. …for reasons that you can all understand.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@rikyrah: Exactly. You could feel that shift in 2008.
ruemara
@rikyrah: I think a lot of white voters are not understanding that we’re watching them, because so many in their demo screwed us. Sorry guys, but that’s the facts.
Immanentize
@Brachiator:
Actually sounds like a quote from Cornell West.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: I thought it was funny given our conversation about baseball and cricket.
Kay
@Another Scott:
I was disappointed but she’s imperfect and she will fail occasionally. She did not succeed. It’s as simple as that.
Hoodie
@Kay: Trump doesn’t know how to run anything. The guy is singularly unqualified. His father leaves him a fortune, he squanders it on stupid vanity projects and ends up going bankrupt in a business (gambling) that is a profit machine for anyone else. He re-emerges from the bankruptcy with mystery financing from a convicted Russian money laundering bank. His public image is resurrected by Mark Burnett, not by anything he did himself. His late life political career is a Roger Ailes creation. A bunch of idiots voted for a fiction.
Steeplejack
@Jeffro:
Don’t get me started. My Facebook page is almost nonexistent, but I get notifications from my RWNJ brother (because that’s how he communicates when he’s on his motorcycle trips and I’m housesitting for him) that are a steady drip, drip, drip of this kind of bullshit, either from him or forwarded from some other genius.
Usually I grit my teeth and ignore them, but one forwarded item was so bad recently that I debunked it hard and publicly on his page. His response: “Snopes? Really?” If they can’t throw up some bullshit, they redefine anything they don’t like as “fake news.”
The latest one was a forward of someone tweeting about the first Democratic debate to “ask them about corruption!,” and some other nitwit piled on with “Does that include Hillary’s $500,000 speech to the Russians?!”
Well, it was Bill Clinton, not Hillary, and it was in 2010. The nuts are still frothing over two sidelined retirees. Meanwhile the entire Trump administration is tits-deep in blatant corruption on a daily basis, but, yeah, we sure dodged a bullet by not electing crooked Hillary. Whew.
Brachiator
@Immanentize:
Black women voters are the heart of the Democratic Party base, not a presumptive black patriarchy.
And wouldn’t the need to appeal to black men be a problem for Elizabeth Warren? And a possible boost for Biden?
Kay
You know you would vote for either of them. I sure would. I pick Yang, just because I expected him to be an arrogant tech person and he was not.
MattF
@Brachiator: Every now and then I remind myself that Carter was mocked for saying that he’d never lie. Sigh. He was wiser than we knew.
Brachiator
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I guess that Rapinoe doesn’t like hamberders.
She is wonderful, and I hope she keeps sticking it to the Orange Dirtbag.
Immanentize
@Brachiator:
I’m sure you have seen that many of the black elected officials — hell, John Lewis, one of my heros! — are supporting Biden. Even on the segregationist issue. So yes, it is definitely a boost for Biden.
But none of them have taken a swipe at the other candidates that I recall.
plato
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
“My mom would be very upset about that.”
lol. Who gives a shit about the totus thug and his leg humpers
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: Damn! Good for him.
Kay
@Hoodie:
It’s just funny that we get no “leadership!” analysis anymore. I have been hearing the leadership thing applied to Presidents my entire adult life. It’s just gone. He says “Obama did all that at the border and none of it is really happening anyway” and they all turn to Pelosi to fix it, like “next!” All they’re doing is providing more funding. They may as well pile it up on the sidewalk and burn it if nothing else changed. Pelosi doesn’t hire any of these people or make these decisions. It’s the President’s job.
Brachiator
@Immanentize:
And West was a big Wilmer supporter.
NotoriousJRT
@Jeffro:
I give you credit for interacting at all. I can’t take this kind of shit from family. I just avoid it.
raven
@Brachiator: Well fuck, I guess I shouldn’t have posted it at all.
plato
@Brachiator: Yup, some shouty garbage. Fuck that noise.
plato
@Brachiator:
Go Jimmy, tell it like it is.
plato
Guess this will raise the rwnj’s hackles.
feebog
@Brachiator:
I have an acquaintance who is close to Carter and attends this conference every year. The strange thing is that he is a pretty conservative Republican. I think I send him a message via Facebook and get his reaction.
plato
Brachiator
Coming back around to the opening post.
I really had to stop and think about this. I don’t feel particularly embarrassed or humiliated by Trump’s surreal behavior. But I certainly do not feel safe. I don’t get any sense that Trump understands or cares about the country’s security.
And I don’t know whether Putin has blackmail material to hold over Trump. But as noted, the Orange Dirtbag seems to be psychologically dependent on Putin. He exhibits a strange need to want to please Putin, to be his lapdog. If Putin threw a stick, Trump might go running after it.
Kathleen
@Brachiator: He went there. Will be interesting how the village courtesans “report” this. Or if they do.
Litlebritdifrnt
Being a bit dense here, can anyone explain to me the “Kamala isn’t black” horseshit? I have seen several black commentators (mainly right wingers) saying it on Twitter and I don’t get it.
Bill Arnold
@Jeffro:
Here’s the Judd Legum thread for anyone interested:
And yeah, this stuff (and all blatant propaganda) needs to called out instantly and loudly. With lawyers, if they try to pull copyright BS.
Brachiator
@raven:
Why not? It is part of the political discussion.
When Colin Powell considered running for president, he had to contend with criticism that he was not an authentic black man.
Some self styled black radicals were, hell still are, suspicious of Obama because he was not descended from African Americans. This was part of a persistent, nutty fringe. And even some white conservatives tried to run with some of this crap.
Some of the criticism of Harris may be valid. But it is tough to tease out the valid stuff from the sexism and weird political nuttiness.
Mandalay
If you have never agreed with Chris Christie on anything….
BR
@Kay:
As I wrote on the overnight thread, I was disappointed Yang didn’t make a better case for the universal basic income. To quote myself so I don’t have to type it again…
Harris is running on a small version of this, and she could make the case if she wanted. Yang should have, but he seems to have forgotten that most people are seeing him and this idea for the first time.
ruemara
@Litlebritdifrnt: It’s the latest Russian disinfo, bot-driven campaign. Namely that since her mom was Indian and her dad was Jamaican, she’s not really black. Which is pissing me, a Jamaican American, right the fuck off. It’s not like American blacks don’t believe they are the sole black people & culture in the world and that they don’t have anti-immigrant sentiment. It reminds me a lot of what it was like when I arrived here and went to school. It’s bullshit & should be slapped down repeatedly. Preferably with a mallet.
Steeplejack
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Getting ready to go out, so I can’t look up citations, but I think it’s that she’s allegedly not “African-American,” because she is of half Indian and half Jamaican descent. It sounded like a complete crock of shit from the get-go, so I confess I didn’t follow all the details.
MattF
@Brachiator: Keeping an asset under control is the sort of thing one would expect a KGB agent to be very good at. It’s an art, and Putin has evidently mastered it.
Another Scott
@Litlebritdifrnt: Her ancestry (Tamil mother, Jamaican father) isn’t directly via slavery in America. Therefore… :-/
It’s nonsense.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack
@Mandalay:
Okay, open season on Chris Christie fat jokes.
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
FWIW Putin could beat the shXt out of (AKA kill) Trump; he’s documented to be a decent Judo practitioner, plus probably had some H2H combat training related to his time with the KGB, and D.J. Trump is without a clue re H2H fighting – he only recently learned how to make a proper fist if i’m reading photos correctly.
I don’t think is a significant partial explanation for DJT’s obsequiousness but who knows, maybe Putin playfully mentioned it in one of DJT’s one-on-one performance reviews with limited or no bodyguard presence. (Other more esoteric threats to well-being could well have been made too.)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Steeplejack: When I get that “what about Hillary” or “what about the Ds” crap, I say I am now putting on my Mom Hat. I am talking to my kid about something s/he did, and s/he says “what about what Billy up the street did?” Then of course, I say “I am not talking about Billy up the street. I’m talking about you.” What Hillary or the Ds did might be worth discussing at some point, but let’s finish this discussion first.
The Mom Hat is often very clarifying because everybody knows what the answer is.
SiubhanDuinne
Am currently listening to a call-in discussion with Charles P. Pierce. The fellow conversing with him is a Poli Sci professor, whose name escapes me. There was a reference to a recent Bobo column, and professor asked CPP “What’s going on with David Brooks these days? Is he even a conservative?”
Charlie’s response made me laugh:
“David Brooks is a fundamentally ridiculous person and has been for a very long time. . . And I include Andrew Sullivan in the same category.”
(He also has no use for Chuck Todd.)
Betty Cracker
@Bill Arnold: I’m pretty sure I could beat the shit out of Trump, and I’m a middle-aged woman who hasn’t punched anyone in the face since 8th grade. :)
Litlebritdifrnt
Thanks all for your responses. I was confuzzled as hell when I saw these claims. Seeing as “African American” is a silly term to begin with (for instance did you know that Charlize Theron is African American? She was born in Africa and is now American). So they are claiming because Kamala isn’t an authentic “African American” she isn’t black? I am sure the RWNJ’s will view her as white then huh? *snickers*
(BTW it would probably be churlish of me to point out that the only reason the black people were in Jamaica was BECAUSE OF THE FUCKING SLAVE TRADE YOU MORONS!
Kay
@BR:
I think he was nervous. Not in an obvious way but at the start it was like he was thinking “what am I doing here- this is wild”
I liked that! It is bizarre, this debate tradition. So show-bizz-ey. My son’s friends like him. They’re 16 and 17 and 18. That range. They have listened to him on a podcast.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: I sadly conclude I’d have to be careful. He weighs more than twice what I do, even by the preposterous numbers the WH released. If he fell on top of me, he could break some fragile old lady bird bones.
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I don’t have a Mom Hat. [sniff] Also, our mom is sort of out there on the Trump spectrum, but in a clueless, “I’m almost 90” kind of way.
Bill Arnold
@raven:
Who is Blake S. ? Serious question. That is some weaponized rhetoric.
BR
@Kay:
That makes sense.
I think there’s a really powerful case to be made for combining a carbon fee and dividend scheme (like Inslee and others support) with a universal basic income. The basic idea is that we all share the skies, so polluters should pay us for the damage they do. So 100% of the carbon fees should be collected and then sent out as checks. The carbon fee should be set to be whatever amount will produce $1000 / month per person, with the fee adjusted monthly. They can phase it in over the first two years.
raven
@Bill Arnold: Beats me, like I said it was posted by a faculty friend and I though it was interesting since I’ve seen a couple of other California people post “she’s great until you look at her record” type stuff. After another preson called bs he said
“I’ve got no favorites. Just taking it all in. We’ll need to share and wade and sift perspectives (many hyperbolic, most of them motivated complexly or less-so) from as wide a range as possible.”
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
E.g. there is a early first person shooter game (perhaps more than one) called “Blake Stone”.
Brachiator
@ruemara:
This crap is stupid and inconsistent. Consider the background of some very politically engaged black folks.
Sidney Poitier was the youngest child born to Evelyn and Reginald James Poitier, Bahamian farmers Poitier was born in Miami while his parents were visiting. Poitier grew up in the Bahamas, then a British Crown colony. Because of his birth in the United States, he automatically received American citizenship
Harry Belafonte’s mother was born in Jamaica, the child of a Scottish white mother and a black father. His father also was born in Jamaica, the child of a black mother and Dutch Jewish father of Sephardi origins.
Louis Farrakhan’s mother was born in Saint Kitts and Nevis, while his father was Jamaican.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
THIS THIS THIS THIS
chopper
@Bill Arnold:
donald trump gets winded licking stamps. literally trying to walk in a stiff breeze would probably do him in.
rikyrah
@Litlebritdifrnt:
But, she’s not a ADOS – American Descendant of Slaves
There are some who believe that we are a distinct ethnic group, which I don’t even disagree with, because we have been here almost half a millenia, and, we are different, culturally, from others around the diaspora.
My issue with them – the ADOS – outside of them being scammers, is that they are anti-immigrant, and Black immigrants, particularly those from the Caribbean, have contributed a great deal to Black American history.
Kay
@BR:
I wish he would have explained a VAT. He can’t just say it. No one knows what that means. The second largest employer in this town wants a VAT. He’s who explained it to me. He was very persuasive!
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
Don’t forget Shirley Chisholm and Marcus Garvey – both of Caribbean origins.
germy
@Kay: Isn’t a VAT regressive?
I keep seeing conflicting stories about his plan. I’ve read it’s a general VAT on everyone, but then other reports say the VAT is only on tech companies.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
With the blood of billionaire fascists. /no not literally
Ladyraxterinok
@Immanentize: Always heard women held the power in the black church. Was that just an assumption made by outsiders??
TenguPhule
@chris:
We’re gonna party like its 1929.
TenguPhule
@Steeplejack:
Pretty sure he’s over the bag limit.
TenguPhule
@Mandalay:
Fuck, this timeline has me agreeing with Chris Christie.
rikyrah
@Ladyraxterinok:
They fill the pews, and do a lot of the work, but the church hierarchy is still overwhelmingly male even today.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
I’m sorry, no matter how many laws Trump has broken, Physics will not be one of them.
Kay
@germy:
The argument is it’s impossible to dodge, so revenue goes up. It’s a formula to tax at each step of the chain, so everyone has to pay. The argument of the business owner here is not that it’s fairer to individuals but that it’s fairer to smaller businesses as compared to larger businesses. His is smaller and privately held. He thinks his company pays US taxes and huge multinational entities don’t, which puts him at a disadvantage and just plain isn’t fair. Maybe that’s Yang’s perspective. That it evens the playing field for competition so behemoths can’t crush smaller competitors.
chris
@germy: VAT is a sales tax and therefore regressive. In Canada we have a 5% Goods & Services Tax which is added to the provincial sales tax so in Nova Scotia most things cost 15% more than the display price. That includes things like lawyers and, say, a mechanic’s labour. The regressive part is mitigated by quarterly rebates for those on modest incomes.
chris
@TenguPhule: Read the piece. Atheists are even more despised.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Did they have similar objections to Obama too?
TenguPhule
@chris: Of course we are. Consistently the least trusted and most loathed demographic.
TenguPhule
Friday Headlines.
Gee, guess I won’t need that coffee today.
Matt McIrvin
@chris: Yeah, but speaking as a white straight cis male culturally-Christian atheist, the thing about atheism is that it’s so easy to pass without really trying. We’ve long been theoretically more openly despised than a lot of these groups–people who knew better than to vocally hate Jews would rag on atheists like no tomorrow–but the practical significance is low.
chris
@TenguPhule: I wear my “A” with pride.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
That’s bullshit. VAT can be dodged. Any tax can be dodged if you don’t have enough auditors and investigators to enforce it.
Kay
@germy:
Here’s Yang:
His point is we’re not capturing the value of the US infrastructure to them. That they’re relying on a system they’re not paying for.
TenguPhule
@Matt McIrvin: Trying to openly run for office as one in America even today still gets the godbotherers upset.
chris
@Matt McIrvin: True, I can pass as a white xtian male. Until I open my mouth anyway.
Kay
@TenguPhule:
Well, it does seem much harder to dodge to me. Each point in the process takes something in and turns it into something else. They’re paying it on receipt. If I have to pay it when I get the yeast and flour – in that transaction- I don’t know how I avoid it if I wanna make bread. I suppose I could buy my yeast and flour in a black market but that’s probably not practical for volume.
Kay
@TenguPhule:
He doesn’t want you to think of it as just an end purchaser, because you’re paying the last value add in a whole prior chain of value adds. That’s the points he wants to capture. Between raw material and you. You too, but all the interim steps.
Immanentize
I am an old, and in the words of LCD Sound System — I am losing my edge.
I went to a pretty radical law school (we called it the Montessori School of Law — no grades, no law review, coops, etc.) which has produced some of the nations most important gay rights lawyers, policy makers and now just leaders. When I was in law school, there was a “Queer Alliance” which encompassed both gay AND lesbian students! One of the big debates of that decade was whether “Bi” folks should ever be allowed into the Queer alliance as they were about sexuality, not identity. Anyhoo, we have now embraced LGTQ and now it is LGTQ+. But I was just reading some articles where we have now moved to LGBTQI+ and even LGBTQIA+. It is a consortium of folks with very different legal and community challenges, but one community in exclusion. I get it.
But my question is a serious one, do any of the folks in that expanding alphabet of identifiers actually object to “Queer?” Because I am old and I can’t keep up.
As I said, I’m losing my edge — but I was there!
Miss Bianca
@raven: WTF is this shit?
TenguPhule
@Kay: The suppliers don’t record the sale on their official books, typically the purchaser in turn gives them a kickback that is less then the tax would have been. In turn they can sell their product at a lower cost then a VAT paying competitor.
Works mainly for smaller companies.
But where VAT really fails is most of what America sells dollar wise now is services.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
Don’t look at me. I was told that this is the best the Speaker could do. //
Immanentize
@Miss Bianca: That was magic! I link LCD SS and you appear.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, but Michelle Obama did a lot to smooth things over and assure people.
James E Powell
@raven:
Is this the African American version of the Lefty Purity Party? Every one of these things needs to be met with the same response: This is what they did to Hillary. This is how Trump won. Do you want him to win again? Do you?
mrmoshpotato
@James E Powell:
Agree wholeheartedly.
TenguPhule
Trump official blames migrant father for drowning with daughter
There are no words.
prostratedragon
@Another Scott: “directly via slavery in America”
One does indeed hear stuff like this, as if the people spent several centuries merely basking in the Jamaican sun.
prostratedragon
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Oblique-angled kicks to the legs are a pretty good equalizer.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
These vile fools are sticking to their stories. Absolutely despicable.
trnc
Winner, winner, chicken dinner from the Kruse perp-walk thread:
“He’s not even Trump’s type.”
mg_65
@Betty Cracker: I was just trying to understand his behavior with the Russians and I couldn’t quite grasp it — you NAILED it perfectly.
dww44
@MattF: He was and is certainly wiser than we ever give him credit for. Such innocent times, those!
Chris Johnson
Pee tape is a sideshow. I think the real story is this:
Back in the 80s, Trump burned through a lot of money making bad real estate decisions and went to Russia for more (commonly known)
Having done so, he was arrogant and thought he could refuse to pay them (very likely, and in character)
And they beat the shit out of him, back then (I think that would be in character for Russian mobsters around the collapse of the USSR)
To the point where (this one’s an unproven Adam Silverman idea) he dropped out of sight (I think that’s documented but would be heavily covered up) to have facial reconstructive surgery, using family money, and putting his face back together again until it didn’t look like he had been obliterated and maimed. Silverman thought this might be why he snuffles, since he apparently is not a cocaine addict. I think that’s plausible since Trump is far more fucked up than a simple drug addict or alcoholic, and completely bonkers about staying in control no matter what.
If he’s a pervert (beyond wanting his daughter) he’ll be a BDSM pervert, which would tie in with the pee thing without him having to be in contact with body fluids (he is wildly frightened of germs and, apparently, stairs? Maybe the Russians threw him down stairs until he was broken, and then some more, in the 80s)
The big concern for Trump is this: since he is body and soul owned by Putin and the Russian mob, and finally went all-in on running for President at the right time and they set him up with a ‘win’, he served his purpose of completely sabotaging the US government. The Republicans were more than happy to go along as they were on the verge of getting demographically blown out: they’d negotiated themselves into a corner where they were going to fade from relevance, their moment passed. Cheating would fix that.
But here’s the problem: these are not smart people (as Deep Throat famously and correctly said of the Nixon people). They’re easily persuaded that Russia will happily help them cement their dominance over America, perhaps for trinkets and international support for Russia’s global interests. Even if that’s ‘melt the world so that Siberia is the new green pastures of the world’ (which is in fact colossally stupid because climate violence will undo any gains they’d make)
BUT.
Russia doesn’t want or need the USA to be powerful.
The Republicans forgot this at their peril… and now they are trapped. They took the fruit of the poison tree right down to the roots, so it doesn’t matter whether they realize Russia is only working to reduce the USA. They have to fool themselves and console themselves with ‘political victories’ as Putin calls the shots, or be done up for treason, which would be literally true of them. They fucked up and are out to protect themselves.
This doesn’t worry Trump as Putin is his BDSM master (or boss of his master, whatever) and his only fear is that Daddy will stop loving him. So he will do the best his fried, demented brain can muster, to put forth two goals:
1) NO PUPPET! Trump (note the third person) is strong! He will make America great again!
2) Serve his real master, so that he won’t be punished. ‘Pee tape’ is nothing compared to the real truth of the situation. It’s way, way worse than that.
I don’t always get stuff right: at one point I thought Trump was gonna run away to Russia and his master. I was wrong, but I think HE thought that would happen, because at that meeting Putin only wanted to be friends with Arab leaders and cut him dead, and Trump was the saddest, most sullen man I’ve ever seen, far beyond what any event at that meeting would suggest. If Putin doesn’t love him, Trump is absolutely gutted. And if Putin plays him along, Trump is the happiest little boy ever.
And we keep seeing this dynamic play out, over and over, right in front of us, but people don’t recognize it for what it is. They behave like Trump is a powerful guy. And he is not. He has been a fake for decades, with his only value being to his formerly-Soviet masters. And oh, how valuable that has been.
J R in WV
@raven:
This has got to be a Russian mole/bot team planting dis-information. Gotta be.
No sentient person in America could possibly believe that the second black person who might very well become president is “disrespectful to King’s legacy” [speaking of Reverend Dr King in that way seems at least as disrespectful to the good Doctor as Senator Harris’s chosen date to announce] by announcing her candidacy on MLK Day !
If they believe that, it proves they aren’t sentient !!!
J R in WV
@Raven:
Yeah, the literal Bible says that “Ye shall Not Place Women above Men — somewhere in that fiat old Testament.
I was calling for a WV Senate candidate when I learned that matters to the Theocratic voters, both parties had women running, this guy informed me he couldn’t cast a vote in that race. I just said “Well, you do what you feel you have to do, then…” and hung up.
J R in WV
@Steeplejack:
Yes, because the only pure true African Americans are descended from slaves that worked cotton and tobacco for slave masters in the deep south of the CSA, If you were a slave for a British slave master raising sugar cane to make rum, that doesn’t count, even tho the death rate for cane workers was way higher than for cotton pickers.
Yeah, right…
Skepticat
@germy: We have a 12% value-added tax in the Bahamas, and it’s extremely regressive. Just a few months ago, they finally exempted some (but not all) prescription drugs, but it’s levied on pretty much everything else, including all tangible items, food and beverages, and fuel; delivery; and even customs duties. It also covers all personal services.
Skepticat
@Litlebritdifrnt: I don’t happen to care whether she–or anyone else–is purple with green spots, but I guess I’m missing something.