Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Their freedom requires your slavery.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

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

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

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Open Thread: Charm City Pushback

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One of the many advantages of a vibrant urban area is that its residents learn to defend themselves, regardless of the power & weight of the attacker…


 
Speaking of TRASHY PEOPLE…

Reader Interactions

80Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Try to imagine a Democratic campaign manager snarking about the high opioid death rate in some rural area that votes Republican. You can’t. Your brain will explode. pic.twitter.com/t4R4DMqwpB

    — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 27, 2019

    Hillary Clinton couldn’t even call bigots deplorable without being ravaged by her own side, much less the media.

  2. 2.

    schrodingers_cat

    If anyone not lily white and Christian is in trouble it is their fault alone.
    Otherwise it is the fault of everyone else but their own.
    Oh and its not just the Orange Man in the WH
    See how the opiod epidemic is being covered vs. the cocaine epidemic of the 90s.

  3. 3.

    hells littlest angel

    Has John Waters been heard from yet? I’d expect him to have the perfect comeback.

  4. 4.

    Barbara

    I lived in Baltimore for a year. Basically, it’s a town built around neighborhoods that had too much of a rust belt economy not to be affected by industrial decline. It also isn’t very big, so it’s harder to get a critical mass of restaurants or shops that serve as anchors to draw others in. Still, it was a nice place to live and my biggest complaint was that it was tough as a single person in a town where everyone else seemed to have loads of family. I met my husband there.

  5. 5.

    Barbara

    @Baud: It’s true. I have heard more than one person state as a matter of fact about how hard it is to locate a business or factory in various places because so many people fail drug tests. Yet that never seems to be counted as one reaso why economic development is lagging.

  8. 8.

    HeleninEire

    Wonkette is now telling me that Trump has tweeted that Cummings is a racist. Please make it stop. Please.

  9. 9.

    Spanky

    @hells littlest angel: Not the most John Water-ish comeback, actually:

    Among those who came out in support of Cummings is beloved Baltimore artist and filmmaker John Waters, whose famous film Hairspray is considered a love letter to the city. In an email to ARTnews, Waters said, “Give me the rats and roaches of Baltimore any day over the lies and racism of your Washington, Mr Trump. Come on over to that neighborhood and see if you have the nerve to say it in person!”

  11. 11.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @HeleninEire:

    Yup, he did.

    If racist Elijah Cummings would focus more of his energy on helping the good people of his district, and Baltimore itself, perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess that he has helped to create over many years of incompetent leadership. His radical “oversight” is a joke!

  13. 13.

    JPL

    @SiubhanDuinne: The dems need to start calling him a sick and rabid cur.
    I actually think trump did this to appeal to his base and save Mitch from having to put forth funding to protect elections. Wasn’t that the lead news Thursday and Friday?

    He’s a master of changing the subject.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JPL:

    When I saw the tweets yesterday and today, even though I was outraged I was also thinking “What horror is he trying to distract us from this time?”

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I have no idea what this is about, but my cousin just posted this on FB:

    So Trump said this on Fox:

    “We have some very, very bad people in government that would be willing to do bad things and for bad reasons.”

    Anyone know what he’s talking about?

  20. 20.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @Baud: it’s even worse, not only are the Villagers not clutching their pearls and denouncing the remarks but they’re saying it’s a great idea.

    Nate Silver
    @NateSilver538

    But “#Actually, Trump’s strategy of stoking racial resentment is #smart politics!” isn’t a great take. The evidence for it is murky, and became murkier after the GOP/Trump’s bad midterm in 2018.

    Reporters and pundits shouldn’t go around spouting it like it’s a savvy take.

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SiubhanDuinne: @JPL: the fact that he called Cummings a bully and is whining about oversight suggests that the subpoena of the Princeling Jared and Lady Grifterella’s emails makes me wonder, as I so often do, just what he’s afraid of

    @SiubhanDuinne: see above, also his tax returns

  23. 23.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JPL:

    Well, yeah. And deep state career civil servants. I was wondering if something specific prompted it.

  24. 24.

    Yarrow

    @SiubhanDuinne: He wants to distract from lots of things but he’s particularly upset at Cummings because Cummings’ committee is subpoenaing Jared and Ivanka’s personal emails and communications from other online methods like WhatsApp.

  26. 26.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yarrow:

    I guess I had heard or seen that bit of news, but as so many things do, it just disappeared, swallowed up in the chronic black hole that is TrumpWorld.

  27. 27.

    Patricia Kayden

    The issue isn’t even Baltimore. It’s Trump attacking Cummings for investigating his sleaziness and criminality. Trump will not abide being investigated by Black people. And his attacks on four women of color last week shows that he won’t abide attacks on how he handles immigration by Black and Brown people.

    While he attacks White liberals too, it seems as if his most vicious attacks are saved for people of color.

  28. 28.

    Spanky

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    “What horror is he trying to distract us from this time?”

    Subversion of the intelligence community once he replaces Dan Coats with his own flunky.

  30. 30.

    JPL

    @Spanky: Thursday and Friday local news was focused on Moscow Mitch and his refusal to protect our elections. Whatever happened to that. That’s what trump did.

    If they protect elections dems win.

    trump does that all the time and MSM plays along.

  31. 31.

    Bill Arnold

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Anyone know what he’s talking about?

    It’s not any more clear in context, but has something to do with Presidential pardons for Trump-Russia players. (bold mine)
    Fox transcript of interview with Sean Hannity.

    TRUMP: Well, I don’t want to comment on that as far as the pardons are concerned. Yes, it is absolute and it’s a beautiful thing. I’ve had people, Jack Johnson, the heavyweight champion of the world in the early 1900s, and, he went to jail for, you know, no reason.
    And so many other things and Alice Johnson is another good example. You know, I really feel good about giving it, where people have been treated unfairly and abused, actually. But, I haven’t talked about it with respect to what’s going on now. I mean, it’s, you know, I think there’s a whole new day starting. I think I used to use and I still use drain the swamp.
    We have some very, very bad people in government. That would be willing to divert bad things and for bad reasons. So, I don’t mention, pardon, but I don’t say what is going to happen in the future. I just don’t comment on it.

  32. 32.

    MisterForkbeard

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’m starting to think Trump’s big plan is to basically be the hugest asshole ever, which he and his base will.enjoy immensely.

    And then he hopes that eventually somebody will threaten him or take a swing, and he’ll get to complain that he’s a victim and claim vindication.

  34. 34.

    glory b

    So, I can’t connect but, Ida Bae Wells on Twitter, posted tweets from Trump during the Obama Administration complaining that Obama wasn’t doing anything to help the people in Baltimore, and as president, he was obligated to do so.

    It’s true, if Trump tweets or says anything, he’s said the opposite earlier.

  43. 43.

    chris

    Weigel again. Interesting thread, I had forgotten how popular Nixon was after the ’72 election. In the end, of course, he broke the 27% barrier but he still had that hardcore.

    Failed impeachment is ALREADY the precedent! In both cases, the party that failed to convict the president in the Senate won the presidency and Congress in the next election. t.co/fy4T6EhnFN— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) 28 July 2019

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MisterForkbeard:

    And then he hopes that eventually somebody will threaten him or take a swing, and he’ll get to complain that he’s a victim and claim vindication.

    Ah, the old Westboro Baptist Church strategy.

  47. 47.

    hells littlest angel

    @Spanky: That is rather tame for him. Perhaps he has mellowed. Or perhaps he sees Trump as a real-life Raymond Marbles, and feels a pang of guilt.

  48. 48.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for the addition. I didn’t distinguish between the two, because its not a subject I know much about.
    My bigger point was if bad things happen to minorities its their fault
    If bad things happen to those the media considers the default, everyone else’s is to blame.

  49. 49.

    Chris T.

    People need to say this “the failed Donald Trump, whose businesses always go bankrupt, is trying to distract from his crimes and failures by shouting out more racist garbage”, or something along these lines. (I would but I don’t twit, er, tweet. I have no twitter and no book of faces.)

  51. 51.

    Raoul

    @Baud: David Roberts had an excellent thread on this today. Just so damned, ruefully true.

    The deepest foundational rule in US politics, so deeply rooted that it's practically invisible, is that rural & suburban whites — "real Americans" — must be held innocent. All political discussion is shaped around it.— David Roberts (@drvox) July 28, 2019

    When it comes to anything bad — what they say, the people they elect, their land use decisions, their economies, their social pathologies (opioid addiction, etc.) — they must be the victims, driven to it by nefarious urban elites. They are never responsible, never at fault.— David Roberts (@drvox) July 28, 2019

    etc…

  52. 52.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @BroD:

    Good for you. I’ve been wondering where Larry Hogan was in all this. I mean, until quite recently he was making noises about primarying Trump, so he’s evidently not a fan. And although he’s a Republican, you’d think he’d defend the largest city in his state against Trump’s despicable calumnies.

  53. 53.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I’d suggest the mirror in his bathroom. I mean if you looked at that too long (anything over about .01 of a second is too much for me) you’d become disgusted as well, anyone would, even a flaming narcissist looking in his own mirror. Hell that may be why he’s pissed so often, he walks in, sees that, sits for 2 hrs totally backed up with McDs crap he stuffed in the other end and he’s got to take it out on someone.

  55. 55.

    Raoul

    @JPL: Dems have to use Ratliffe’s utter shitheel-ness as a lever to talk extensively about election protection, Moscow Mitch, etc.

    DNI role is pretty damn crucial to at least understanding Putin’s moves, if not frunkin’ stopping them. Gaaah.

  56. 56.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Raoul: hear, hear. I am so pissed off at the idiots who want to bring Chick-FilA into the shopping complex by my HOA. And they posted up a poll on NextDoor about it, and the discouraging thing was that it’s running wildly in favor of bringing that nutjob-owned restaurant in. My initial response was cold-blooded businessman “why bother bringing in a restaurant that’s not going to be open all weekend?” And then my second response to the presumed RWNJ that’s arguing how good an employer they are that they can actually afford to shut down on Sunday was “what about those who take Friday or Saturday as their day of worship?” I’m at the point where I’m going to jump down his throat and explain that I don’t want a nutjob-owned, anti-gay restaurant in my neighborhood.

  57. 57.

    Raoul

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    via WaPo
    Hogan’s muted response to Trump comments about Baltimore stirs more anger
    By Antonio Olivo and Rebecca Tan
    July 28 at 2:33 PM

    The outrage in Maryland over President Trump’s attacks on Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) veered Sunday toward a new target: Republican Gov. Larry Hogan.

    Hogan, a frequent Trump critic who considered challenging the president in the 2020 primary, delivered a muted response on Saturday to Trump’s tweets, which Democrats and many Baltimore residents roundly condemned as a racist attack on African Americans in Maryland’s largest city.

  59. 59.

    Woodrow/Asim

    @Raoul: Yep. Was just writing — this is all about people like Trump learning how to use race to gain power — then using White folks, esp. “pure” rural White folks, as their shield…

    …as their racist ancestors did, manipulating poorer whites into supporting slavery with appears to “Christian morals” and what we now call Scientific Racism. That flows (EDIT: Post-losing a Civil War due in no small part to your lies to your poor white soldiers becoming obvious) into the downright “pure” indoctrination of The Lost Cause, paralleled with mainlining race disparities across the US, from Jim Crow to Redlining to the shitstorm that the Pacific Northwest started with (and still has!).

    And as long as poorer white folks, esp. in rural areas, are force-fed a stack of lies — via textbooks and shitty education and/or media (see Father Coughlin; we’ve had right-wing agitating media for a LONG TIME) — we’re going to keep having this issue.

    More to the point — as long as we aren’t having a serious, adult, mature discussion on topics like race, gender and sexuality, religion, climate, disabilities, and so on, then we’re 100% open, as a Country, to exactly the kind of Dixiecrat-era tactics that Trump and his minions are pulling, today. They are desperate to blame anyone but themselves, and the horrific part is the harm they bring today, and the risk they may succeed.

    As Adam says, the only way out is through.

  60. 60.

    Dan B

    @Kayla Rudbek: Very good to hear that you are pushing back on the Chick-filA support. As a gay man who came out in the 60’s the push to remove the protections we’ve earned is frightening. The pushback is usually worse than what was in place before. Hate crimes are up 400% in liberal, and second most LGBT city in the country. Chick -filA’s owners don’t lije the violence but they would love to have state sanctioned disappearance.

  61. 61.

    Jay

    "At her uncle’s urging, she and the other children hid behind a piano in his South Side home as a white mob drew closer. 'He stood in the window, pulled out his gun,' Mitchell said. “He was ready for the riot.'”t.co/k0EQY7Q5pj— wikipedia brown ||| abolish ICE. (@eveewing) July 24, 2019

  62. 62.

    Soprano2

    I listened to a program about the opioid problem last week where the person interviewing an affected family commented that they were “just a normal American family”. I posted a FB comment to the effect that they wouldn’t talk that way if it were an urban family. They didn’t read that comment, of course.

  64. 64.

    smintheus

    The attack on Baltimore isn’t really about Baltimore…

    True. It’s about a Republican president demeaning and attacking fellow Americans – specifically his critics.

    People like to pretend that this is new to Trump. What is certainly new is the extent, the degree of vitriol, and the menace that Trump is directing at other Americans. However Republican administrations have been broadly and routinely demonizing Democrats and liberals pretty consistently since Nixon (Ford being the only exception). Until now, the most vicious of those attacks were generally launched by the vice presidents (Agnew, Quayle, Cheney) given how ugly, unprincipled, and blatantly undemocratic it is for a president to demean the people he represents.

    Democratic presidents by contrast never ridicule their American critics – or even their political opponents in Congress. The U.S. news media, because of the “both sides” prism it views politics through, has never noted or been able to perceive that pattern of abuse of the American public by fifty years of Republican presidents.

  65. 65.

    Jay

    eventually our racist asshole president is going to slip and blurt out the n-word and you'll get to watch our cowardly media tie itself into fucking knots trying to explain why blurting out the n-word doesn't necessarily mean that our racist asshole president is a racist asshole— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) July 28, 2019

  66. 66.

    Jay

    America 2019, where the president's assault victim gets pushed out of the news by the president's concentration camps which gets pushed out by the president's sex-trafficking bestie which gets pushed out by the president's racism which gets pushed out by the president's treason— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) July 25, 2019

  67. 67.

    joel hanes

    I’m seeing speculation that Ratliffe’s first priority will be prosecution of HRC, Peter Strozek, Lisa Page, etc. for the nonsense that Gohmert shouted at Mueller during Mueller’s testimony.

    In other words, they’re actually going to attempt to lock her up.

  68. 68.

    Jay

    @joel hanes:

    Ain’t gonna happen. Ratliffe’s job is to ensure that Russia gets to nuke the USA with out consequence while blaming Devin Nunes Cow and the liberal media, while telling Putin about every US asset in Russia.

  69. 69.

    Jay

    it's so lucky for Hope Hicks that she's just a privileged white woman up to her eyeballs in conspiracy, perjury, contempt of congress and obstruction of justice, and not, say, a black man selling loose cigarettes on a street corner, because there are serious consequences for that— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) July 18, 2019

  71. 71.

    tobie

    @SiubhanDuinne: I don’t know if Hogan issued a statement today but his statement from a spokesman last night was truly despicable. Essentially he tried to lay blame on “both sides” for the toxicity of our political rhetoric while defending Baltimore:

    Thread
    Conversation
    The Baltimore Sun
    @baltimoresun
    ·
    Jul 27
    A spokesman for @GovLarryHogan said, “Baltimore City is truly the very heart of our state, and more attacks between politicians aren’t going to get us anywhere.”

  72. 72.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Dan B: my responses included that Chick-Fil-A is the one who’s chosen to wear their politics on their sleeve, that actions have consequences, and that from a business and safety perspective I don’t want them in my neighborhood. And thinking about it and reading the upstairs entry, I really don’t want a bunch of fundamentalists thinking that they can go around my neighborhood hating on people.

  73. 73.

    Citizen Alan

    @Jay:

    I never thought I would ask this with any degree of seriousness, but now I have to: Is there any mechanism in the US government that prevents the President of the United States from simply giving our nuclear launch codes to a foreign power?

  74. 74.

    J R in WV

    @tokyokie:

    Chick-fil-A’s food is terrible.

    Yes, it is terrible. I’ve eaten at that religious chicken place once, just so I would speak from personal knowledge. Sweet crust on the chicken, sweet coleslaw, sweet waffle fries… all terrible. Will never eat there again voluntarily… McD’s is better, which is saying something.

  75. 75.

    J R in WV

    @Citizen Alan:

    Is there any mechanism in the US government that prevents the President of the United States from simply giving our nuclear launch codes to a foreign power?

    SATSQ: Nope, nothing. But since he can’t remember that complex stuff, we’re OK as long as his sidemen with the football – aka the data necessary to launch a nuclear strike – aren’t willing to do it.

  77. 77.

    BroD

    @tobie:

    Yeah, I saw that–he’s totally hunkered down in the basement of the Governor’s Mansion. For all their posing, these guys are absolute cowards.

  79. 79.

    Ruckus

    @J R in WV:
    Same here. I refuse to eat there. McDs as well. The food is crap and we have In and Out here so if I want a quickish hamburger/fries that tastes like actual food, I go there.
    I actually try not to shop/eat anyplace that is owned by shitty people or serves shitty food. There are choices, at least here in the land of fruits and nuts there are and many of them aren’t shitty or at least obviously owned by shitty people.

  80. 80.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus:

    There are several locally owned and operated grills and bars that serve great burgers, fries, steak subs, etc. The Smokehouse is one, the Grill is another. Steak Escape has two locations, one of which is really good, one of which is just ok. If it’s more convenient there’s a Five Guys that does an acceptable burger and fries, but you can’t get a beer with there.

    One day we woke up and there were a couple of Mexican families opening up multiple Mexican restaurants. Some were OK, some were barely acceptable. More recently a genuine local place was opened up of someone from a different Mexican state, with a different flavor profile that we much prefer. They also get great Health Department inspection reports, which many of the other Mexican places do not. Bright Yellow reports with a lost of mold related violations doesn’t attract me to your kitchen’s output.

    We have all the traditional chains, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, etc, etc. We don’t eat at them, because we have locally owned Italian restaurants and good places that serve good seafood. We even have good Japanese sushi sit down restaurants. We could use some other Asian places, just the one good Thai place right now. Some of the “pan Asian” places claim to serve Thai, but that’s false advertising.

    Chick-Fil-A sucks ethically and their food is terrible… McDonalds sucks, but it’s better than Chick-Fil-A for an emergency.

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