Karavai (the Russian spelling and pronunciation) is a traditional bread made by women and presented on a towel at weddings and other festivities by women in Ukraine (koravai), Belarus, Poland (korawaj), Bulgaria (kravai), and Russia. Russian state TV decided to memorialize the President’s meeting with Putin at the G20 summit this way:
#Russia's state TV revels in the idea that Trump arrived early & had to stand around waiting for Putin, along with Ivanka, Kushner, Bolton and Pompeo. To make fun of Trump, they show an Internet meme that depicts Trump welcoming Putin with Russian karavai on an embroidered towel. pic.twitter.com/Ruef0h2H8l
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) June 28, 2019
Insult to injury.
Open thread.
JAF Rusty Shackleford
He ha! The Russians think Trump is Putin’s bitch. Sad!
Emma
Well, I am saddened for my country but the truth is the truth.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Fuck Putin, and fuck his little lackey Trump too. Trump, thanks to his utter disregard for our great country and his oath of office, is our greatest national security threat.
I believe in the promise of America. We will overcome these adversaries and traitors. Make it so.
Adam L Silverman
@JAF Rusty Shackleford: Or his wife. The subtext could go either way. Could be both too.
Major Major Major Major
This is pretty niche but so so funny.
Mike in Pasadena
Do we know for a fact that he is not a woman in drag? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
smintheus
When can we start impeaching him?
dmsilev
An obvious fake; there’s no way Trump has the arm strength to hold that loaf.
Yutsano
Adam: any thoughts on the released Rex Tillerson transcripts? I just glanced through the Wonkette version but whoo doggy!
Jay
Lapassionara
When do the Republicans who are in his cult open their eyes to the danger he poses.
Imagine the outcry if Obama did this. Sigh
Adam L Silverman
@Yutsano: I read them yesterday. Things are as bad as we expected them to be.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: The most recent outbreak of this stupidity, last night’s, started with convicted felon Ali Alexander aka Ali Akbar. Alexander is one of Jacob Wohl’s partners in crime.
debbie
@JAF Rusty Shackleford:
Finally, we know Trump’s type. It’s Putin. //
ThresherK
@Jay: Somewhere, Chuck Todd is kicking himself for not asking Harris about that in the debate. I mean, “it’s out there”.
Yutsano
@Adam L Silverman: Well one does get the sense that Rex failed in his primary mission. To get the oil sanctions lifted. That has to be the only reason he hanged on for that long.
Mike in NC
He’d do pretty much anything to secure an illegal $250M campaign contribution from Putin.
Adam L Silverman
@Lapassionara: They won’t. There are two groups of his supporters. Those who got conned and those who are true believers because he validates their racism, bigotry, religiously driven intolerance, etc. For the first group doing so would require them to recognize and admit that they were conned, which is very, very hard for anyone to do as it is a massive psychological and emotional hit. The latter have no reason to do so. They believe that the President is doing exactly what they want, which is also what they’ve convinced themselves and been told, is what G-d wants.
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: I can just see the sawmill now, cutting gears. Or whatever it was doing.
Adam L Silverman
@Yutsano: Who knows. I’m not even sure that Tillerson could really articulate why he took the job other than two people he knew and respected, Condi Rice and Bob Gates, recommended him for it and encouraged him to take it because anyone else picked would be likely worse.
Jay
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/28/german-far-right-group-used-police-data-to-compile-death-list
debbie
@Jay:
Malcolm Nance is freaking out about this.
Ryan
@JAF Rusty Shackleford: Trump is Russia’s bitch. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
debbie
@Lapassionara:
He’s all they have. He’ll never lose them.
Major Major Major Major
@MattF: Sharpening saws, I think? Different song though…
NotMax
Just know that someplace in the suburbs of the web in Russia there’s a photo of the both of them shirtless.
Jay
https://qz.com/1490042/separated-at-the-border-the-contractor-making-millions-transporting-children-to-shelters/
Ruckus
@Lapassionara:
As Adam said, they won’t. It’s either can’t or refuse to.
Cult members will follow the cult to the end unless the cult gets exposed so harshly that it wakes up the cult members. Otherwise they hang on until the punchbowl comes out. Not being able to walk away in spite of all evidence is part of what makes it a cult.
Those that refuse are the ones that like what they see, in drumpf’s case it’s the racists that believe him to be their leader. They are cult like followers but if he came out and said it’s all a ploy to get elected and he doesn’t believe any of it they would sulk back to mom’s basement.
Ruckus
@MattF:
That sawmill has been only making sawdust for a long time. There’s sawdust everywhere, it’s gotten into every nook and cranny and has long ago gummed up the works.
germy
I’m not sure what’s worse: Russia’s state TV mocking trumpf without him knowing about it…
or trumpf finding out and launching WWIII.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Sure, put it on the shoulders of a French comedian.
;)
TenguPhule
@Lapassionara:
Five minutes after the last one of them is executed for treason after trial and conviction.
Jay
https://wearyourvoicemag.com/news-politics/companies-profit-migrants-detention
germy
It’s a cult and they won’t budge.
TenguPhule
@Yutsano:
Hung.
And he was not well.
Anonymous At Work
I think the best translation is “little bitch” for cultural reasons.
germy
They can’t be reached.
TenguPhule
@Jay:
They have to keep using modifiers to pretend the children aren’t human.
Mark my words, we will find mass graves before this atrocity is over.
Fair Economist
@JAF Rusty Shackleford:
Doesn’t everybody?
TenguPhule
@germy: I keep remembering those poor dumb turkeys behind Sarah Palin being thrown into that wood chipper.
Can’t imagine why. //
Jay
@germy:
Dolt 45 lives in terror of Putipute,
Finding out that Russian Media, or any Russians are openly mocking him, will just cause him to grovel and cower more.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Do both of them dare to leave the Continental US and risk international law being applied?
Baud
https://images.app.goo.gl/56V1GPLtbtnHXBxo9
debbie
@Baud:
Lovely that those two gentlemen have achieved their dream.
Jay
https://www.gofundme.com/f/lawyers-and-lawsuits
Baud
@debbie:
Better link.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2018/8/6/17656996/trump-republican-party-russia-rather-democrat-ohio
patrick II
This is not the first time Russian TV has mocked Trump openly. He was even called “our man” on the floor of the Russian parliament. They all know Putin owns Trump, meanwhile, we can’t even get more than 64 (at last count) Democrats in favor of impeachment hearings.
Jay
Wall Street Journal is now republishing a Nazi’s already disproven “Hate Crimes Hoaxes” bs to pander to the White Supremacy demographic.
NotMax
Jimmy Carter has NMFTG.
Martin
@Jay: Worth noting – non-competes are illegal in California. It’s part of why we have a functioning economy.
rikyrah
The video of this.???
Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) Tweeted:
This is the entire GOP boiled down to one clip. Absolutely unreal.
https://t.co/o9PCKf1gFL https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/1144687807819943936?s=17
J R in WV
What could possibly give the Russian media the idea that Trump is Putin’s lapdog?
What, really???
hahaha. so sad for the US to have a lapdog as President.
Jay
@debbie:
The Digital Anarchists/Social Justice Warriors like Gwen Snyder is Uncivil are crawling all over the “digital blackface”,
Unlike 2016, they are getting outed and doxxed in real time.
Funny how RavenOtherguy, last night seemed to be literally swimming in the digital blacface.
Kathleen
@NotMax: This should be a bigger story than it is. Didn’t Carter monitor elections in other countries? Maybe he could get the UN to do the same here.
SRW1
@Jay:
The guy who was the previous President of the Verfassungsschutz (Office for the Protection of the constitution), who’s job it would have been to watch out for this kind of activity got himself canned recently for systematically downplaying the danger from the right. He’s a member of Merkel’s conservative CDU and recommended a few days ago that the party prepare itself to form coalition governments with the extrem rightwing AfD (Alternative for Germany) in the East-German states where that party is particularly strong and where there will be state elections in the fall of this year. With such guys watching out, it’s no wonder that all sorts of Neo-Nazi folks feel free to plan political assassinations.
The Dangerman
@NotMax:
If Russia really wanted to fuck with us, they’d say “yeah, we did it” and show the evidence for all to see.
Of course, Trump, et al, would say “fake” and nothing would change, but it would be one hell of a development.
J R in WV
@Jay:
But never thought of renting a place closer to new job? Or buying a camper to stay in most nights? I guess this is why this person is a “piercer” which I suspect I know what that is, but ewww!
BR
@The Dangerman:
There’s a big risk that they will hack some random precincts somewhere in 2020 to zero out Trump’s vote total, leaving a really obvious marker that something fishy happened and giving him an excuse to contest any outcome he doesn’t like.
Kathleen
@rikyrah: This clip had me in tears. Blessings and love to Senator Muth!
Kathleen
Speaking of dodgy elections, Juicer Buckeyes may appreciate this stroll down Memory Lane where we revisit some, shall we say, “interesting” activities that took place during 2004 election:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republican-it-guru-dies-in-plane-crash/
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
OMG, Point of Order, over and over at the top of his lungs. The UMWA members have Robert’s Rules of Order (whatever the title really is…) memorized, and would not have put up with that disorderly monster for nearly that long. They would have “escorted” that SOB out of the room, and educated him as to how the Rules of Order actually work.
Then, after he recovered, they may have allowed him to attend another session… Piglets. All of them.
Jay
@J R in WV:
They spent what little they had saved, over a 6 month process of trying to find a job and accomodation outside side of the non-compete clause area, with out sucess.
But I understand, it’s Amerika, working poors are not supposed to take a stand, and if “inconvenienced” by taking a stand, are supposed to try to mitigate their poverty by sleeping in their car, or in a cardboard box, under a bridge, where the law allows it.
mrmoshpotato
@Major Major Major Major: Haha. That works so well.
TenguPhule
Pity that the best we can hope for from there is a slap on the wrist.
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: Or hands big enough to hold any size bread.
lamh36
Listen, I like Joe, but if he wants this then he needs to come out and come swinging. I don’t need him to coast on PBO’s record. We are NOT gonna get another PBO.
I think he’s too damn old…and he needs to get people to see past that.
Biden was NOT prepared. My mind tells me he has old white man syndrome, where these young whippersnappers can’t tell me what I should do. I’ve been in government for over 40 years.
He was NOT prepared.
Major Major Major Major
@mrmoshpotato: Marianne’s path is a strange and difficult one…
Jay
@SRW1:
Yeah, in Hamilton, the City Clerk waived a “manditory” background check 15 years ago so they could hire a notorious Nazi as IT Manager.
Have City Councillors playing online footsy with Nazis.
Didn’t police Pride.
Arrested ( now 4) nonviolent Pride Protectors while letting violent Nazis and Christofacists walk free,
And are now wondering why the LBGTQ community is being so “uncivil”.
Chris Johnson
From a few threads down, since it is just as relevant in this fresh thread. THIS IS WHY that is happening.
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.
Trump will not react to this goading, even though the Russians are now saying the quiet part out loud. It’s the truth. They own him, as if he was their bread-proffering babushka. They’re saying the quiet part more out loud now. Neither Trump nor Republicans are going to react to this stuff: they can’t.
lamh36
ugh!
been fuq’n trying all damn day to get back into my main twitter account, but all of a sudden twitter claiming my original account is unsafe, and I can’t get back in because the damn telephone number is my old number
So now I’m on my burner twitter account
https://twitter.com/Nell3776/status/1144723279472672769
eemom
Since this is an open thread, I would like to poll the “I Trust Pelosi on Impeachment” crowd as to whether they are still of that opinion after she lay down and let trump and mcconnell walk over her like a rug yesterday on their way to spitting in the faces of those tortured children.
NotMax
OT.
Can’t recall exactly who it was here who waxed lyrical about it (haven’t watched it myself) but thought a mention that Juliet, Naked is now available on Prime might be in order.
mrmoshpotato
Do I have to start calling Dump a fat, orange, fascist, Soviet shitpile mobster conwoman now? I thought that position was taken by KellyAnne Conjob (h/t Keith Olbermann). I’m so confused.
Al Z.
Moral gerrymandering. Republicans would rather have this Putin lickspittle over any Democrat.
TenguPhule
@mrmoshpotato: I thought that was Sarah Sanders.
chopper
@MattF:
now every time she talks i’m going to imagine her standing next to a 7-foot guy dancing with a horse under a stoplight or something.
prostratedragon
@Major Major Major Major: I might have gone for that thing with the faltering clarinets and a few stray drumbeats, that gets used for, e.g., Nadine Hurley. Don’t know its name, but I call it the “Good Lord” theme.
Millard Filmore
@TenguPhule: Last year I was going to make a comment about satellite images showing “disturbed earth”, but it was too grim, too soon.
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
Most of them won’t. The true believers probably won’t unless something independently causes them to give up their racism, bigotry, etc., but some of the people he conned will encounter some crisis that forces them to accept they were conned. For many of the ones who do that, the crisis will be Trump doing something that hurts them personally, like the soybean farmers who can’t sell to China anymore. The real key, IMO, is that Trump’s victory was by such a small margin that it won’t take many of those people changing their minds- or even just getting so discouraged they decide to sit the election out- to swing things back.
Another Scott
@Chris Johnson: FP:
Supposedly Donnie’s bookkeeper became a cooperating witness, but I don’t recall hearing anything more about him.
Lots and lots of people know what’s what, but they haven’t talked much (at least in ways that the public hears about).
Cheers,
Scott.
prostratedragon
@debbie:
Karl Rove:
“How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise.” —Louis Cyphre, Angel Heart
Jay
@eemom:
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/beta.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/a-betrayal-inside-the-bitter-rift-between-pelosi-and-schumer-over-border-bill/2019/06/28/26fbb3b8-99bf-11e9-8d0a-5edd7e2025b1_story.html%3foutputType=amp
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Jay:
Why don’t we try doing this to the GOP?
bluehill
@Roger Moore: That’s why repubs are going all-out to chip away votes in key swing states. It all adds up – reducing early voting, shutting down polling locations, overriding the ex-con voting bill in FLA etc. Plus the Russian social media campaign continues to try to discourage key dem voters from coming out and to stir the pot within the dem party. It could be easier to divided the ranks with all the people running and there could be no clearcut front runner going into the convention. Throw in the likelihood that voting systems have been hacked and parts of our government are openly encouraging Russian interference and well … a second term is not necessarily a longshot.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: I think Gates is likely safe to travel.
Baud
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
The only thing they care about is hate so you’d have to feed them even more hate to fool them.
TenguPhule
@Jay: Schumer has been a disgrace of a minority leader.
Adam L Silverman
@Chris Johnson:
That guy is constantly getting me in trouble.
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Challenge Trump’s whiteness?
Jay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Corruption leads to corruption. You become the thing you hate, when you adopt the enemies tactics as your own.
Becoming a Fake ReThug/Deplorable online would crush your soul.
8chan/4chan et al can do this, because they have no souls.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore: “He’s not hurting the people he needs to.”
MisterForkbeard
@eemom: The fun thing is that you see what happens when Democrats are fractured (They let the GOP win) and then you immediately turn around and say Pelosi should push something even more divisive with even less support from Dems in Congress – because somehow THAT will go completely differently!
This is dumb, even following your own version of events.
Scotian
I think I am almost glad I’m not going to have to watch the final victory of the right in NA, and to have it delivered by the Russians after decades of “better dead than red” only underscores that feeling. I’ve been warning of this for a solid quarter century since Gingrich made clear the true goal of the modern GOP. I hope you all can recover from this, but honestly from my POV I just don’t see how short of some very ugly and likely violent internal periods.
This latest with Putin and Trump only underscores that feeling for me, but I still believe the worst traitor to American core values is McConnell, Trump is nowhere the problem or threat that he is without Turtleman.
Sorry, feeling low and pained on multiple fronts tonight and feeling more than a little bleak. Try to have a good weekend all, and next week cherish your independence day, because I wonder how much longer you are going to have it and more importantly the values it truly represents.
Jay
@TenguPhule:
Yup, Schumer still thinks like Biden,
but it’s funny how certain trolls blame Pelosi for other Democratic Party members failings, regurgitating both the Purity Ponies and the RWNJ’s talking points.
schrodingers_cat
I got blocked on Twitter for the first time, by a RWNJ from India.
Jay
@Scotian:
Hug those you love, engage in self care, rewatch the puppy bowl, take care of yourself, take a break if you need it. Your time is important.
Adam L Silverman
@Scotian: Hang in there and feel better. We’re all keeping good thoughts for you.
Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
You got your first badge of honour.
Brachiator
@Jay:
So, what happened? Why did Senate Democrats back this bill?
Did McConnell promise somebody something?
Another Scott
@eemom: Yes, I’m still in the “I trust Nancy on impeachment” group.
Charlie says it’s all Chuck’s fault.
RollCall says it’s the fault of 15-20 House Democrats who feared the campaign implications of cutting ICE funding.
YMMV.
Nancy knows how to count votes, but she only has one vote herself.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
Emily, reacting to James Fields sentencing today.
She was one of the brave protesters at Charlottsville, one of those attacked and injured.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: No, they backed it because McConnell controls the entire Congress because he controls the Senate. No legislation can pass both chambers unless McConnell wants it to. The Democrats do not have the numbers to stop passage of anything, though they can slow things down by requiring cloture votes. What they can’t do is prevent McConnell from jamming them, as well as the House, and then preemptively blaming them, which the news media reports without comment or correction as to what is actually going on with the process. What the Senate Democrats didn’t want, was McConnell setting them up for bad coverage, and then damaging campaign ads, blaming them both for not helping to secure the border and not doing anything to help the children in being detained. Once McConnell made it clear it was his bill or nothing, and nothing also meant McConnell blaming the Democrats and the news media uncritically running with McConnell’s explanation for why there was no bill, they had two choices. 1) Absorb the abuse. 2) Pass the only bill that had any chance of becoming law. They went with the second. This then jammed the House. And put Pelosi in a similar position. Either move McConnell’s bill or dig in, amend it, and then demand reconciliation, which McConnell would refuse, leading to no legislation passing. Followed by McConnell blaming the Democrats and the news media reporting this without any challenge to McConnell’s account.
Jay
@Brachiator:
Another Scott sums it up.
Far too many Democratic Party Members in the House, Senate and elsewhere suffer from Biden Syndrome.( a variation of Stockholm Syndrome).
plato
@Lapassionara:
From 2008-16
Obama, do this.
Obama, do that.
From 2016
If Obama did this….
If Obama did that….
Matt McIrvin
@prostratedragon: Really, Karl Rove can’t imagine an omnicidal murder spree? Because that seems like a perfectly logical sequel to their current behavior to me…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@schrodingers_cat: Congratulations!
Jay
https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2019/06/27/report-shows-portland-police-officer-had-posted-in-extremist-facebook-groups-promoting-islamophobia-and-anti-government-paramilitary-organizations/
Another Scott
NPR – Biden supported Constitutional amendment to end mandated school busing in 1975.
Oh, but Kamala was mis-representing his position. How dare she do that!!11
Joe needs to go back home, sit in his rocker, and tell visiting historians stories about how great it was in Scranton.
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2019/02/20/portland-police-built-a-convincing-case-against-tusitala-tiny-toese-for-a-june-2018-assault-but-prosecutors-didnt-take-it-to-court/
Mike in NC
@Scotian:
They’re going to cancel Independence Day but to make up for that we’ll be required to celebrate Trump’s birthday (a la Lenin and Mao).
Suzanne
@lamh36: I agree with you re: Biden’s lack of preparation. I also think he just…..has spent the last few decades not really keeping up with challenges of younger generations. I would say it’s an age-related thing, but E. Warren is not much younger and she isn’t like that at all. She is someone who has very much made it her business to learn about other people’s lives.
Dopey-o
@Jay: why did you sign anything?
plato
J R in WV
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Because it is illegal and unethical. Much as I want to put Rs out in the cold without a coat, I’m sticking to legal moral methods.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy: The whole “if he is so sure of it, why does he need to say it?” They’re flinching.
Jay
@Dopey-o:
Not me. It’s somebody else who could use some help.
NDA’s and NCC’s have become an essential tool of Corporate Facism, few people are in the position of crossing out the illegal parts, and still getting the job.
Even “sandwich artists” are required to sign NCC’s to get the job.
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
Pelosi claims that she had been blind sided. Apparently, she didn’t think that there were only two choices.
sukabi
Enough with the insults let’s move on to the injury phase.
Jay
@Brachiator:
The MSM is in the bag for the ReThugs.
Chris Johnson
@Adam L Silverman: If McConnell is that sure he can have news media (and more?) spinning it exactly the way he intends, it’s for a reason.
I’m with Scotian: McConnell is the real traitor. Trump is a puppet and figurehead. It sounds like McConnell knows exactly what’s up and is prepared to tell Senate Dems exactly what he’s going to do… or what his masters will do. And he’s able to make the threat credible.
So he knows which news conduits (FYNYT, twitter bot swarms, etc) can be weaponized by Putin to do exactly what Mitch wants… so long as that still serves the interests of Mitch’s real bosses. Which, it seems, doesn’t worry him. But then he was never exactly burdened with a soul, that guy…
I also think he and Senate Dems are both far too trusting of the influence of these ‘sources’. I think Mitch believes everyone just plain trusts the NYT and so on. And you just can’t. Unfortunately this also gives rise to stuff like anti-vaxxers… the collapse of truth (we’re all in ‘The Zone’ now) leads to people doubting EVERYTHING. At least they should be doubting the MSM, and especially Twitter and Facebook etc.
BruceFromOhio
The first rule of Dunning-Kruger Club is not knowing you are in Dunning-Krueger club.
@Jay:
Happens every day that ends in ‘y’.
BruceFromOhio
@Adam L Silverman:
Seems to me in my simple mind that Pelosi can do the same, McConnell just got there first this time.
One of the benefits of doing jack fucking shit to do your job, and then clocking in and kicking it out at just the right time.
Jay
@BruceFromOhio:
The first rule of Dunning Kruger Club, is you don’t talk about Dunning Kruger Club.
James E Powell
@Adam L Silverman:
So, that means Pelosi controls the entire Congress because she controls the house. No legislation can pass both chambers unless Pelosi wants it to. And Democrats in both houses have to realize that if they don’t stand together against everything that Trump does, they are going to lose the presidential race, have no chance in the senate, and will struggle to hold the house. People who refuse to exercise the power they do have are losers. People who don’t take strong meaningful stands are losers. They inspire nothing but contempt. No matter how much they bow and scrape and kiss the asses of the RW, the RWers hate them and will never ever vote for them. This has been obvious for years now.
Enough with the grief and excuses. They were sitting in exactly the position they needed to be. Some days ago, a few of us were bitching about the fact that we didn’t elect a Democratic house to just sit there while Republicans mocked them and ignored their subpoenas. Responses ranged from heated derision to condescending remarks about there being two houses of the congress. Omnes asked if they should set themselves on fire.
No, they didn’t need to set themselves on fire. What they needed to do was refuse to support anything – and I mean not one D for anything – until the children are returned to their families and the concentration camps are closed. Just keep shouting that and showing the photos. They don’t have the balls to stand up for kids who are being mistreated.? Who are they going to stand up for?
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
I waxed lyrical about it. Great movie, criminally undermarketed. Highly recommended.
Jay
@James E Powell:
Nope.
Congress can pass legislation, with out the House.
Steeplejack
@Scotian:
Thanks for your words and compassion. Sending you healing energy. ?
Bill Arnold
@germy:
It’s a cult with the goal of destroying America. It can be fun to tell them this, but choose your targets carefully. :-)
Uncle Jeffy
@Lapassionara: I assume your question is purely rhetorical
eemom
@James E Powell:
Thank you. That is exactly where I’m at.
This “we can’t do x because we’re scaaaaared of how mcconnell and the media will spin it” is the most craven chickenshit I’ve ever seen.
Pelosi needs to grow a pair of balls and get out there and TAKE ON the lies. What the fuck IS she afraid of?
I’m so old I remember when pos Gingrich was speaker. That fucker knew how to control the media narrative.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: She thought Schumer could hold his caucus, allowing her to jam McConnell. She was wrong.
Adam L Silverman
@BruceFromOhio: She can, but only on certain things and even that’s limited to only if McConnell feels like he has something to lose as with the shutdown. This is why everything the House has passed, with the exception of the continuing resolution to reopen the government, has not and will not be brought up by McConnell. Unless he wants to use it, as he did with the green new deal, to beat up on Democrats and force the Senate Democrats to take pointless votes that McConnell and the GOP can use against them come reelection time because only what McConnell wants to pass, will pass the Senate. As a result, and despite what the Constitution says, McConnell, not Pelosi, is really the second most powerful person in the US government after the President.
eemom
@Jay:
If by troll you mean me, fuck you.
And your out of context quote from that WaPo article was deliberately misleading as to what it reported.
Adam L Silverman
@James E Powell: No, no she doesn’t. McConnell gets the last word. If something passes the House, McConnell has complete control over if it even gets taken up in committee in the Senate. He micromanages the Senate committee chairs, he has total control over the calendar, and over the floor of the Senate. He almost never initiates any legislation unless he absolutely has to or because he knows it will jam the Democrats in both the Senate and the House. It’s why there’s no budget on the Senate side and his appropriators aren’t doing anything. He made it clear he didn’t want any of his senators having to take hard votes with 22 of them up for reelection in 2020. Because of how the Senate rules were revised in the 20th century to make the leader of the majority caucus the administrator and boss of the Senate, and because McConnell’s caucus fears him and his donors/his ability to raise funds for them, McConnell has complete control.
Jay
@eemom:
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/world/europe/russia-looks-to-populate-its-far-east-wimps-need-not-apply.amp.html
Jay
@eemom:
LMFAO comrad.
Adam L Silverman
@eemom: It isn’t about Democrats being scared of McConnell, it is simply because McConnell has absolute, dictatorial control over the Senate. Because of the power the Senate rules give him as majority leader and because of the power his caucus gives him out of fear of him and his donor network. The only way legislative business gets done in the US is if McConnell wants it done. And only the legislative business that McConnell wants done gets done. And this will be the case as long as he is majority leader. And should he become minority leader again, he will simply try to do to whomever the new Democratic majority leader what he did to Harry Reid. The question is whether that new Democratic majority leader will let him.
eemom
@Adam L Silverman:
I disagree. The power of either position is exactly what is made of it.
Again, Gingrich. Who even remembers who the senate leader was at the time?
I do remember very intensely how omnipresent he was when he took office in early 1995 because I was home with my newborn daughter and desperate for contact with the outside world, so I watched the news all the time, those being the days before 24/7 was the thing. He was always, always on there swinging his dick in Clinton’s face.
eemom
@Jay:
Go fuck some goats, Canadian goatfucker.
Adam L Silverman
@eemom: Bob Dole was the majority leader at the time. He had no problem passing whatever his Republican colleagues in the House sent over to him. Dole especially appreciated Gingrich’s efforts because it softened up Clinton for Dole to run against him. When Dole stepped down to run for president, his deputy Trent Lott replaced him. Again, this is not comparable because the Republicans controlled both chambers and were coordinating across the chambers on legislation.
plato
@Adam L Silverman: Funny how mcturtle can control the agenda both as majority and as minority leader. Dems at least seem incapable of fighting him for over a decade now?
SWMBO
@Chris Johnson: I would quibble on the “Trump is a germaphobe” trope. I have trouble reconciling being afraid of getting germs with raw dogging a porn star. I can see where he might be afraid of blood (that’s a slightly different) but I really don’t think he’s a real germaphobe.
Jay
@eemom:
May be you can have some special time with Dolt 45 and his mushroom,
Maybe that will make you happy.
Jay
@plato:
Senate, # 1
House #2
Adam L Silverman
@plato: He takes as much as he’s allowed to. Reid gave him a lot of rope because Reid didn’t want to blow up the Senate, though what Reid did do was allow McConnell to undermine it by hollowing it out as a senate and turning it into a parliament. As majority leader he does the same thing. I’ve written about this on the front page at least twice.
Peale
Idk. Looking at who voted for the bill, it’s all over the place. Maybe we could ask Ted Lieu and Maxine Waters why they voted yes. Tom O’Halleran voted for it and his district is in the middle of the crisis. Maybe have him debate Raul Grijalva. Looks like most of the New Jersey Dems voted for it including two who’s districts are kind of more Central American citizen than many. In the Senate, Pick your favorite Senator and be disappointed.
Peale
Mike Lee….voted against it. Maybe he can be the new hero?
SWMBO
@eemom: Trent Lott. Succeeded by Tom Daschle. Remember him? He was Majority Leader and lost his reelection bid. A fate I fervently hope happens to McConnell.
SiubhanDuinne
@Scotian:
Just thinking of you so often with so much ❤️?❤️?❤️
Mnemosyne
I just got into an argument with someone on Facebook who insisted that people were unfairly smearing David Sirota when they said he was bashing Democrats on Bernie’s behalf while he was in talks to work for the campaign.
His proof? An article by Glenn Greenwald in the Intercept.
Jesus. I don’t get how someone that naïve manages to get through his day without a fatal injury.
James E Powell
@Adam L Silverman:
No, he doesn’t. His senators stick with him because they know that is how they win. That is how they have been winning for years now. They also know that if they don’t stick together they will lose. All it will take is one or two who stray and they will lose their grip. So no matter how corrupt. No matter how evil. No matter how much of they say is lies. They stick together. And they win.
Democrats are losers because they don’t stick together. The word put out there – by Democrats – is that senators were afraid to vote no. They should all fucking resign! If they can’t say no to evil then they are shit. Every one of those Democratic senators had the best case they will ever have for voting no. Children being abused! Like I said upthread. If they aren’t going to oppose that, what will they oppose?
Unless and until they change their ways, they are headed for a humiliating defeat in 2020.
eemom
@James Powell
I should like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Leto
@rikyrah: This is my state Senator, and also my next door neighbor. Very engaged in local constituent services. She’s pretty awesome.
ericblair
@plato:
Asymmetry. Much more difficult to build a country than to let it rot into pieces.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
So are you implying that the Traitor-in-Chief’s enormous gut isn’t from obesity, but because he’s been carrying Putin’s child for, what, 40-plus months now? I guess that would explain … something.
SFAW
@plato:
A large part of it was Reid being unwilling to destroy the “normal order” of the Senate to get things through. [“Normal order” meaning keeping the filibuster intact, personal privilege holds/votes (blue cards? blue slips? Something like that).] If the Dems ever regain control of the Senate, I would hope that the Majority Leader would be as vicious in restoring sanity as Traitor Turtle has been in destroying democracy. I don’t think Schumer would be up to the task, but off hand I can’t think of whom I’d prefer. Durbin?
One of the problems is that (I believe) Dems would continue to adopt the “we shouldn’t stoop to their level, because can’t we all be friends?” mindset. I hope I’m wrong, and I hope we’re given the opportunity to find out if I’m wrong.
Another Scott
@James E Powell: Calm down, please.
It was one appropriations bill. There are a few good things in it (see the links above), and several more good things didn’t make it. It’s not over.
People who do this for a living know when to take a temporary tactical loss. They’re not idiots, they’re not cowards, and they do the best they can with the hands they’re dealt.
Donate and support Democrats to increase their numbers, and then we won’t have McConnell acting as the Grim Reaper and Nancy will have more flexibility to take the loss of 15-20 members and still get bills through.
tl;dr – the problem is the Teabaggers and McConnell. The answer is more Democrats. Eyes on the prize.
Cheers,
Scott.
GideonAB
@AnotherScott
How is this “a temporary tactical loss”? If McConnell gets his way by threatening to attack Dems in the media, surely he can repeat the tactic for months to come. This makes it non-temporary. I agree that electing more Democrats could help in getting what we want through
Dr Ronnie James DO
@Major Major Major Major: Does anyone else think Williamson sounds like Judy Garland?