• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Everybody saw this coming.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

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

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Let there be snark.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Mobile Menu

  • Four Directions Montana
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2024 Elections
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / Racism: The Very Gross Elephant in the GOP’s Room (Part I)

Racism: The Very Gross Elephant in the GOP’s Room (Part I)

by Anne Laurie|  August 1, 201911:36 am| 300 Comments

This post is in: Post-racial America, Racist-In-Chief, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, All Too Normal, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, DC Press Corpse

FacebookTweetEmail

(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
.

Is this going to be the pattern from now till November 2020? "Amid Outcry, President Spends Weekend Tripling Down on Racist Tweets"?

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) July 28, 2019

1. In 1971, Richard Nixon got a call from Ronald Reagan, complaining about African delegates at the UN. "To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” https://t.co/SZmPj8omUy

— Yoni Appelbaum (@YAppelbaum) July 30, 2019

I'd be interested to know what definition of "privacy" embraces "hiding the racist views of public figures" | "the racist portion was apparently withheld to protect Reagan’s privacy" https://t.co/ZPoAbe3pPD

— Eric Rauchway (@rauchway) July 31, 2019


Answer: A vestigial sense among the keepers of St. Ronnie’s legacy that the time for public celebration of blatant racism was not yet ripe.

Historical documentation is always nice, but anybody with the most nominal political awareness knew Ronald Reagan was a racist. He famously started his campaign in a Mississippi town best known for the KKK murder of civil-rights activists. It was widely reported during the campaign that his father-in-law’s John Bircher cronies deliberated groomed Reagan as a prettier, more trainable version of Pat Buchanan or Bill O’Reilly — the ‘old-fashioned blue-collar working-class guy’, aka, someone who’d promote racism as a public virtue.

By the time he was in the Oval Office, the openly racist ‘conservative’ media like National Review were publicly exulting that ‘Morning in America’ was code for ‘send the colored and their commie-liberal supporters back where they belong’, and the squishy-moderate publications like Fred Barnes’ New Republic were half-heartedly suggesting that Ronnie wasn’t *really* a racist, he just pretended to be one to please the ‘hardcore’ Republican voter.

Nixon’s infamous ‘Southern Strategy’ was the HIV infection of the Republican party; Reagan’s success, followed by the Bush terms, was the emergence of full-blown political AIDS; Trump is just the Kaposi’s sarcoma that announces the disease in the most public way possible.

Noteworthy: @WSJ has joined @washingtonpost in calling Trump’s “go back” tweets simply “racist.” Not “allegedly.” Not “opponents say.” Just, these are racist. pic.twitter.com/N4NI5ow1xX

— Jack Newsham (@TheNewsHam) July 28, 2019

It is also jarring to see @WSJ news stories call Trump’s tweets racist, without qualification, and for @WSJopinion to run things like this in the meantime: pic.twitter.com/akgrS5fLvP

— Jack Newsham (@TheNewsHam) July 28, 2019

******

Interesting. And why would overt racism be appealing to his base? https://t.co/r4zkAq3Icz

— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) July 27, 2019


When — not if — he says the N-word, or it comes out that he did, he and his enablers will find a way to say that the target deserved it, or that it’s justified. It will then become a rally chant. There is no red line, people. The only line left is each individual’s moral compass. https://t.co/Bd0UBNd1YC

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) July 18, 2019

It's always been wrong to argue that Trump's racism took over the GOP; the correct interpretation is that Trump is a culmination of extant racism. However, w/ every tweet, every statement, Trump is entrenching his party &, indeed the whole country, even deeper in this evil muck.

— Mangy Jay (@magi_jay) July 27, 2019

It’s interesting that after all the hot takes, Trump and his team are very clear that they believe racism (rather than anything to do with the economy) is the core of his electoral appeal. https://t.co/fcAzeusVmu

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 27, 2019

No, it's because Trump is a fucking racist who holds a wide variety of overtly racist beliefs and who who says racist things.

Try to keep up, you slackwit. https://t.co/Xa2K0MUom4

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 27, 2019

Re upping given the racist demagoguery by Trump. https://t.co/O7hQ5Rsind

— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) July 29, 2019

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Republicons in Disarray!
Next Post: You be the referee »

Reader Interactions

300Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 11:59 am

    Pence will be put out to pasture and Nicky Haley will save the day.

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    August 1, 2019 at 12:06 pm

    Jesus, this is exhausting. Had a coworker rant about the “religion” of diversity the other day. The good news is that being accused of bias makes them uncomfortable, so progress I guess.

  3. 3.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 1, 2019 at 12:07 pm

    @JPL: Nicki Haley may offer a fig leaf to the I-am-not-a-racist crowd but that will win over negligibly small # of minority/immigrant votes. We are not that stupid. Kthx bai.

  4. 4.

    Jerzy Russian

    August 1, 2019 at 12:09 pm

    @JPL:

    Pence will be put out to pasture

    As long as he does not have to graze alone with a cow it should be fine.

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 1, 2019 at 12:10 pm

    @JPL: I don’t think Haley wants the job. She and Christie have a strategy of being– for lack of a better phrase– a little bit pregnant with trump. Never going all in on either side, but clean enough for Chuck Todd and Jake Tapper in 2024

  6. 6.

    Jeffery

    August 1, 2019 at 12:11 pm

    @JPL:
    They will pick Ben Carson to run with trump.

  7. 7.

    Yarrow

    August 1, 2019 at 12:13 pm

    Of course he’s doubling down on the racism. The cruelty and hatred are the point.

    @schrodingers_cat: Nikki Haley who said, “I can’t say enough good things about Jared and Ivanka. Jared is such a hidden genius that no one understands.” The campaign ads practically write themselves.

  8. 8.

    Steve in the ATL

    August 1, 2019 at 12:13 pm

    @Jerzy Russian:

    The good news is that being accused of bias makes them uncomfortable

    And at work there can be actual consequences to that, which is good

  9. 9.

    Anonymous At Work

    August 1, 2019 at 12:14 pm

    Small detail about Reagan’s Mississippi speech on “states’ rights” (ghost-written by Lee Atwater): Mississippi voted DEAD-LAST in the Republican primary that year. Smallest state on the last day and you give your first speech there? Hmmm…..

  10. 10.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    August 1, 2019 at 12:15 pm

    Re: Applebaum on twitter: if anyone ever doubted Reagan’s bone deep racism, his first speech after becoming the GOP nominee should have destroyed all doubt. Philadelphia Ms as the location was a less than subtle dog whistle, regardless of how abstract Atwater claimed to have altered the message to become.

  11. 11.

    MattF

    August 1, 2019 at 12:15 pm

    @Jeffery: Very unlikely, IMO. More likely is some hard-right Freedom Caucus congressperson.

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 1, 2019 at 12:16 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: it’s not about minority and immigrant voters, it’s about the white suburban college-educated people who voted for trump in ’16, are getting squeamish, but theoretically could tell themselves, “How can I be racist if I voted for Nikki Haley?” But like I said, she’s smart and cynical and I don’t think she wants the job.

  13. 13.

    Cathie Fonz

    August 1, 2019 at 12:16 pm

    The Washington National Cathedral has a “response to trump” open letter:
    https://cathedral.org/have-we-no-decency-a-response-to-president-trump.html
    Dare I think that the response might finally FINALLY be turning against Trump?

  14. 14.

    David Hunt

    August 1, 2019 at 12:16 pm

    Nixon’s infamous ‘Southern Strategy’ was the HIV infection of the Republican party

    I’d argue that Goldwater’s campaign showing that racist positions could get you the Southern states would be that point. Then again, it seems that there’s always another racist moment the further back you go. It isn’t turtles, but racists all the way down.

  15. 15.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 12:18 pm

    “Trump’s advisers had concluded after the previous tweets that the overall message sent by such attacks are good for the president among his political base – resonating strongly with white working-class voters.”

    Really? Do they really believe that? Or are they just saying it because they know Trump is going to tweet out racist and bigoted garbage every time a Fox News segment riles him up, and that is what they need to say to themselves to get through the day without getting boozed up to ease the pain and stress. Or maybe the ‘Trump’s advisers’ was Miller and his gang, who think exactly like Trump does.

    One reason Trump’s GOP approval rating stays very high is that the GOP is shrinking to be just the hard core Trump base of nutcases and hard core bigots and xenophobes. And as I noted in previous thread, if I understand recent polls correctly Trump is underwater with every major demographic group except poorly educated young Whites, and that is slim, only 52 percent approve.

    Thing is, among Trumpsters, this stuff can’t be limited to racial and ethnic minorities. It will spread to Jews first, then anyone who does not slavishly believe every toxic and false fantasy that Trump spews out. It is very dangerous and ugly, but if they are telling themselves this nonsense, I guess that is the silver lining, for us, to dark clouds that they are summoning.

  16. 16.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 1, 2019 at 12:18 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: So the NPR totebagger crowd that likes movies like Green Book and Christopher Kimball appropriating immigrant recipes. Has anyone noticed how he usually has white people as experts on Vietnamese, Chinese and other cuisines on his Milk (White) street show?

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 12:19 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Nikki Haley, Kash Patel, Bobby Jindal, Ajit Pai, Avik Roy, Seema Verma, Dinesh D’Souza, etc, etc, etc.

    Your community does indeed appear to be that stupid.

  18. 18.

    Kay

    August 1, 2019 at 12:20 pm

    I just don’t understand why we all have to pretend this isn’t a political strategy. They had a dilemma, a choice, after their 2012 loss. It was widely discussed and covered by all the major media outlets. They could 1. enlarge their base by attracting a more diverse set of voters or 2. boil down their base by driving up white GOP turnout. Trump picked #2, won by a hair, and they all went along with it. Except Amash. One person defied the rest.

    Trump is a perfect spokesperson for them because he is 1. a racist and 2. he has no inner character or ethics or decency to get in the way of blurting out hateful and mean-spirited things, and neither do any of his bottom of the barrel hires. They earned Donald Trump. He is, in fact, their leader.

  19. 19.

    Emerald

    August 1, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    At this point, whoever agrees to run as his veep has to know that s/he’ll be tarred with the association forever in History.

    If there is history. Which may be what they’re counting on.

  20. 20.

    Suzanne

    August 1, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    Interesting. And why would overt racism be appealing to his base?

    If the Trumpy people and/or the media think that “it’s not racist, it’s just appealing to his base!” is exculpatory….. that is telling AF.

  21. 21.

    Eric U

    August 1, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    It was pretty obvious at the time that Reagan was racist. I never bought the amiable shtick, his nastiness was also pretty evident.

    I can be slow on the uptake, but I didn’t realize until Bush the lesser that all Republican policies are racist at their core. Particularly lower taxes and smaller government.

  22. 22.

    bemused

    August 1, 2019 at 12:22 pm

    @jl:

    They’ve got nothing else.

  23. 23.

    Suzanne

    August 1, 2019 at 12:23 pm

    @Jerzy Russian:

    The good news is that being accused of bias makes them uncomfortable, so progress I guess.

    Are you kidding? They think being called racist is about the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone ever.

  24. 24.

    schrodingers_cat

    August 1, 2019 at 12:23 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: No more stupid than Adelson, Steven Miller and company. As a demographic South Asians vote about 70 to 80 percent D. These careerist assholes are not representative although they are indeed in your face and visible.

    Your community does indeed appear to be that
    stupid.

    You are judging an entire demographic on the basis of a few R assholes.

  25. 25.

    rikyrah

    August 1, 2019 at 12:24 pm

    ‘He was pure happiness and pure joy’: The Descendants stars Dove Cameron, Sofia Carson, and Booboo Stewart talk about Cameron Boyce following his tragic death at age 20
    Cameron’s co-stars and the show’s director Kenny Oretga appeared on Good Morning America on Thursday
    They talked about what a beacon of light and happiness the late actor was
    ‘This was the first time I ever dealt with anything like this,’ said Booboo, 25
    ‘If you could bottle up happiness, that was Cam,’ added Sofia, 26
    Cameron died unexpectedly from an epileptic seizure on July 6
    By CARLY STERN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

    PUBLISHED: 11:08 EDT, 1 August 2019 | UPDATED: 11:44 EDT, 1 August 2019

  26. 26.

    laura1

    August 1, 2019 at 12:25 pm

    Preznit Ham Head is just this election cycle’s pageant winner. As much as I despise Bush the lesser, I think (and I could be wrong) that he’s the sole non-racist republican elected official.
    Racists all the way down, infecting the body politic since for freaking ever.

  27. 27.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 12:25 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Every group has a few ruthless cynics or nutcases (or both) who decide to go grifter. Doesn’t say much about the majority of the group. And Avik Roy is not stupid, he has to really and thoroughly understand the stats and case studies in health care to twist them so completely in order to give a plausible veneer to outlandish conclusions.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 12:25 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m all too aware. The problem isn’t the reliable and self aware 70 tp 80% it’s the lickspittle 20 to 30%.

  29. 29.

    rikyrah

    August 1, 2019 at 12:26 pm

    Her mother’s double her age and looks better than her…..

    Tiffany Trump, 25, swaps her billionaire boyfriend for mom Marla Maples and soaks up the rays on a Mallorca beach as she continues her European summer break
    Tiffany Trump, 25, and her mother Marla Maples, 55, are spending time together on the Spanish island of Mallorca
    The duo were spotted heading to the beach with friends on Wednesday, before Marla took to Instagram to gush over her only daughter
    Tiffany is making the most of her well-earned summer break before she resumes her studies at Georgetown Law School in the fall
    The blonde socialite has been jetting back and forth between Europe and the United States since she finished her second year of classes back in May
    By ANDREW COURT and CHARLIE LANKSTON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

    PUBLISHED: 02:29 EDT, 1 August 2019 | UPDATED: 09:10 EDT, 1 August 2019

  30. 30.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 12:27 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: There’s that 20 to 30% in every group.
    I’ll try to dig up some stats on the political leanings of the body builder community.

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 12:27 pm

    @jl: Actually if you’ve read anything he’s written or listened to any of his media hits it is very clear he has no understanding of the analyses he’s referring to. It is all ideologically driven gish galloping.

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 12:28 pm

    @jl: I’m not a body builder.

  33. 33.

    MattF

    August 1, 2019 at 12:30 pm

    Gun store billboard:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/01/how-hell-is-this-not-inciting-violence-gun-store-erects-billboard-with-minority-lawmakers-faces/?utm_term=.1dafd892f858

  34. 34.

    Yarrow

    August 1, 2019 at 12:30 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: To be accurate, it’s 27%.

  35. 35.

    john not mccain

    August 1, 2019 at 12:31 pm

    They won’t just be chanting “nwords!” The word “kill” will immediately precede it.

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 12:32 pm

    @jl: Also:

    Consider this my good deed of the day:

    Back in 2008 two bodybuilders were arguing on the Internet about how many days are in a week.

    It is one of the greatest Internet threads of all time.

    If you haven't read it, stop what you are doing and read it: https://t.co/cKO59ryh7q

    — ☁️ David Ulevitch ☁️ (@davidu) July 31, 2019

  37. 37.

    A Ghost To Most

    August 1, 2019 at 12:33 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    We are not that stupid.

    You need to spend some time with the “common clay of the new West”.

  38. 38.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 12:33 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: OK, guys who spend more time than average working out in the gym. IIRC, Mark Penn ID’d that as an up and coming critical voter demographic.

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks. But too early in the day for that. I’ll listen to it before I go to bed, and have 8 hours for he disorientation to wear off.

    Edit: couldn’t resist. Now I am trouble. I have to do some counting for my job today, and now I’m in trouble.

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 1, 2019 at 12:34 pm

    and what those trump-supporting minorities and Jews and white suburbanites have in common: Most of them wouldn’t want trump in their houses, they think he’s a short-fingered vulgarian, and worse. But he gets all those quaint people who go to those odd churches and drive old cars and brag about not having passports vote for our tax cuts.

  40. 40.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 1, 2019 at 12:34 pm

    I love Neera’s tweet. Defeating Trump will take another huge blue wave to compensate for the voter suppression tactics and foreign interference that will be unleashed on the electorate. We should all be donating to organizations which are engaged in registering voters and protecting our voting rights. That’s how we win.

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 12:35 pm

    @MattF: It’s not incitement because there’s no call to action or explicit threat. It is also protected 1st Amendment speech, no matter how stupid.

  42. 42.

    Jerzy Russian

    August 1, 2019 at 12:35 pm

    @Suzanne: Well yes, there is that too.

  43. 43.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 12:37 pm

    @jl: I don’t know Mark Penn.

  44. 44.

    rikyrah

    August 1, 2019 at 12:39 pm

    @jl:

    And Avik Roy is not stupid, he has to really and thoroughly understand the stats and case studies in health care to twist them so completely in order to give a plausible veneer to outlandish conclusions.

    can’t stand him, and I wish that Joy Reid would STOP HAVING HIM ON TO DISCUSS HEALTHCARE!

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 12:40 pm

    @jl: It’s a hysterical forum. You had two chuckleheads fighting over, based on how they were dividing their splits, how many days were in a week. And they were talking completely past each other. One was arguing because of his workout/versus non workout days per week, that a week was not seven days. The other was arguing that it doesn’t matter how you divvy up your workout verses non workout days, a week is always seven days. In some ways it was really a conversation about two separate things, but neither would let it go.

  46. 46.

    MattF

    August 1, 2019 at 12:41 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: A fine line. When the chants get to ‘Shoot them’ is it merely owning the libs?

  47. 47.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 12:43 pm

    The signs are, since Trump can’t help himself from going on insane hate tweet binges for days on end, he’s going to single handed drag the GOP into tripling and quadrupling down on their failed 2018 strategy of smearing immigrants. Except the next nets of fear loathing and hate they throw out will catch ever expanding groups of people that Trump perceives as being unfair or opposed to him.

    It is very dangerous and ugly, of course, but it has also failed in the past and I think will fail even more in the future. The Trumpster flunkies will have to spin ever more transparent BS excuses and explanations for Trump’s racism and bigotry that look just bad or worse than the racism and general bigotry itself. Not a good look for winning elections.

  48. 48.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 12:44 pm

    @MattF: I’m not saying it isn’t stupid, especially given the current conditions in the US for someone acting out, I’m just explaining why it isn’t technically incitement.

  49. 49.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 12:45 pm

    @jl: Expect the violent parts of our long running low intensity domestic war to spike a lot between now and inauguration day 2021.

  50. 50.

    Timurid

    August 1, 2019 at 12:45 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The bigger problem is that for white people those ratios are almost completely reversed…

  51. 51.

    rikyrah

    August 1, 2019 at 12:45 pm

    GOP’s Kennedy helps prove Buttigieg’s point about Republican rhetoric
    08/01/19 09:21 AM—UPDATED 08/01/19 09:29 AM
    By Steve Benen

    At a presidential primary debate this week, Mayor Pete Buttigieg made an argument that generated some applause from the audience. “It is time to stop worrying about what the Republicans will say,” the candidate said. “Look, it’s true that if we embrace a far-left agenda, they’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists. If we embrace a conservative agenda, you know what they’re going to do? They’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists.”

    Buttigieg added, “So let’s just stand up for the right policy, go out there, and defend it.”

    I don’t know if Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) saw the mayor’s comments, but soon after, the Republican lawmaker helped demonstrate Buttigieg’s point.

    “I’m not buying the storyline of progressive versus moderate,” Kennedy said during an interview on Fox News, weighing the dynamics of the Tuesday night debate in Detroit.

    “I would remind you that the lesser of two socialists is still a socialist,” he continued. “Even from the less liberal candidates, I heard a job-killing, soul-crushing socialist agenda.”

  52. 52.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 12:46 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: dude, to give a detailed analysis like that of that batshit insane discussion, you got at least a tiny bit of body builder in your psyche. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

    But I do too, Takes one to know one.

  53. 53.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 12:52 pm

    @rikyrah: You mean that she is dating a foreigner… hmmm

  54. 54.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 1, 2019 at 12:53 pm

    @Eric U:

    all Republican policies are racist at their core. Particularly lower taxes and smaller government.

    Yes. Race started the abortion war, and continues to be a major part of it because of demented stereotypes evangelicals believe about black women. Race drives a lot of stuff about cutting regulations and handing more power to the rich to abuse their workers, because the racists want no restrictions on the ability of the strong to hurt the weak. Plutocrats and white supremacists are an easy alliance to make. Of course, it helps that racism flourishes thick and hot in the economic upper classes.

  55. 55.

    Just One More Canuck

    August 1, 2019 at 12:54 pm

    @Suzanne: Yes, being racist is okay with them, but being called a racist is beyond the pale

  56. 56.

    Steve in the ATL

    August 1, 2019 at 12:54 pm

    @rikyrah: translation: her grades are so bad that she couldn’t get a 2L summer associate job

  57. 57.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 12:54 pm

    To play off of Andrew Gillums wonderful statement “Now, I’m not calling Mr. Desantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.”

    We don’t need to say we believe Trumps base is racist, Trump believes his base is racist. He wouldn’t be saying these things and claiming that it’ll turn out his vote if he didn’t think they were all racists. It’s up to voters to demonstrate whether they agree with him or not.

  58. 58.

    Roger Moore

    August 1, 2019 at 12:56 pm

    @JPL:

    Pence will be put out to pasture and Nicky Haley will save the day.

    Count me among those who thinks that if Pence is put out to pasture some member of the Trump clan- either Ivanka or possibly Jared- will replace him on the ticket. Trump wants to turn the Presidency into a monarchy, and I don’t expect him to accept anything less than being succeeded by his progeny as the end state of the process.

  59. 59.

    germy

    August 1, 2019 at 12:56 pm

    @JPL: Isn’t the Daily Mail sort of a racist, far-right newspaper?

  60. 60.

    MattF

    August 1, 2019 at 12:56 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I understand what you’re saying. But it raises the oddly quantitative question of just how many idiots need to be motivated to action before it becomes incitement. After all, there’s always a group who have just quit taking their meds.

  61. 61.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 1, 2019 at 12:57 pm

    @rikyrah: I remember presidential daughters going to Spain with their mother and it was a scandal…. what’s different now? trying to remember….

  62. 62.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 12:58 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: IMHO, most of major longstanding public debates in US are twisted by racism, often on both sides. Hard to thnk of a major political movement in US history over last 140 years, that at one time or another, has not been influenced by racism and bigotry. Racism and bigotry is the social and political sea we all swim in, sadly.

  63. 63.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 12:58 pm

    Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

    That can be implemented as a racist policy, a sexist policy, or tons of other variations. I sometimes wonder if the GOP has so deeply internalized the proposition that when you point out the particular implementation they get angry because they could have chosen other formulations that would be called something other than racist.

  64. 64.

    Roger Moore

    August 1, 2019 at 1:02 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    You are judging an entire demographic on the basis of a few R assholes.

    This. Whatever group you’re talking about, there will always be a few opportunists who are willing to take the benefits from being the token member of their group to stand with the people oppressing them. Those people should be seen as the tokens they are, not as representative of the group.

  65. 65.

    Ladyraxterinok

    August 1, 2019 at 1:03 pm

    @Suzanne: Family member during GOP 2016 primary said ‘I’m a racist and proud of it!’

    Came as no surprise!

  66. 66.

    Immanentize

    August 1, 2019 at 1:08 pm

    I thought it was interesting how Joe Biden argued about criminalization of border crossings. He got rather passionate and said something like “it’s a crime, they are criminals.”. This just tells me internally he believes -+ deeply — that the criminal justice system is the best way to handle unwanted people, just like he did in 1992. No change internally regardless of his soften language on mass incarceration (“unintended consequences”).

    Who will be the first to say, “Joe, those are old ideas and this country needs new ideas if we are going to advance”?

    ETA emphasizing, “OLD.” I wish I had time to scour his record for comments on those with HIV or AIDS.

  67. 67.

    The Moar You Know

    August 1, 2019 at 1:08 pm

    Also:

    @Adam L Silverman: That…that bodybuilders thread is the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever read. We are fucked as a nation. Those people can (and hopefully don’t) vote.

  68. 68.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 1:08 pm

    @germy: It’s seldom that I click to them because I thought it was similar to the enquirer.

  69. 69.

    Roger Moore

    August 1, 2019 at 1:10 pm

    @jl:

    There’s that 20 to 30% in every group.

    Not in every group. It’s more like 5-10% among blacks.

  70. 70.

    The Moar You Know

    August 1, 2019 at 1:10 pm

    Isn’t the Daily Mail sort of a racist, far-right newspaper?

    @germy: By British standards, yes. By ours, it would be banned and burned as liberal filth.

  71. 71.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 1:11 pm

    @Immanentize: In the past if an immigrant crossed illegally and turned themselves in they could ask for amnesty. Joe’s comment concerned me, not as much as trump’s desire to return to pre World War II immigration policies though.

  72. 72.

    Mike in NC

    August 1, 2019 at 1:11 pm

    Saw some poll just today where 83% of Fat Bastard’s cult think using the N word is perfectly A-OK.

  73. 73.

    Yarrow

    August 1, 2019 at 1:12 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: Does she need or even want a summer job? She’s the daughter of the president born into a family of grifters and dating a 25 year old billionaire. Doubt she’s going the regular route when she graduates from law school.

  74. 74.

    Brachiator

    August 1, 2019 at 1:14 pm

    @Martin:

    He wouldn’t be saying these things and claiming that it’ll turn out his vote if he didn’t think they were all racists.

    Huh? Trump has been saying shit like this all his life.

    Trump is a racist who, beginning with his father, has worked all his life to hurt, denigrate, oppress and mistreat people of color. As president he has pursued a racist, nativist agenda because this represents his core beliefs.

    His racism resonates with and is the same as his base. This is not political opportunism. There is no alternate reality in which Trump would not be racist, or would even downplay it.

    Worse, as a president without any sense of morality or ethics, he encourages white people to be as openly racist as they like.

  75. 75.

    chris

    August 1, 2019 at 1:16 pm

    Holy crap!Have you seen this? Tulsi needs to go. Now. Far away!

    I'm sorry but am I the only one that finds this TOTALLY CREEPY AND WEIRD? pic.twitter.com/lS6i3WMmov— Chris Stein (@chrissteinplays) August 1, 2019

  76. 76.

    Ladyraxterinok

    August 1, 2019 at 1:18 pm

    @Roger Moore: Have said for a long time that if I were black and wanted to make it big in politics I’d become a hard-right activist/spokesperson

  77. 77.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 1:19 pm

    @Immanentize: Besides the mind set, I see two problems with Biden’s answer that puts into question his understanding of the issues.

    First, if I understand the law correctly, the physical act of crossing the border without proper authorization is a criminal offense, but once they get across, undocumented residency is almost always a civil offense. We gonna go try to try criminal cases for crossing the physical act of illegally crossing the border for the vast majority of immigrants who probably did that in the past? No, it is an infeasible and ridiculous idea.

    Second, under Trump, the big issue is with asylum seekers. The majority of them who committed the criminal offense of physically crossing the border without authorization did so, because the Trump administration itself was not following the law in refusing to follow established lawful procedures for admitting asylum seekers at ports of entry. So Biden’s response misses the critical point that the complete entirety of the current immigration crisis is fraudulent. It is entirely due to Trump administration lawlessness and malfeasance, used to create a fraudulent crisis for partisan political purposes and not one single thing more.

    Several of the big fights in the very bad no good waste of time night 2 debate yesterday was due to moderators throwing out red herring issues, that are minor points in the bid policy debates, and trying to make a big deal out of them. I don’t know if that was due to moderator incompetence and ignorance, or attempt to work up sensational gotchas, or laziness (they just repeat what some motivated and interested suggestion some pundits or GOP operative fed them).

    Biden was supposed be a sophisticated knowledgeable wonk-nerded out expert dude like Obama, but maybe not so much. Some have attributed Biden’s flat footedness to age, but to me, it’s just the same old pre-Obama Biden, who has been that was his whole career.

  78. 78.

    Chief Oshkosh

    August 1, 2019 at 1:19 pm

    @Jeffery:

    They will pick Ben Carson to run with trump.

    Maybe. But if he was REALLY a stable genius, he’d pick Clarence Thomas, so that he could then seat yet another USSC Justice. Of course, he’d have to sweeten the deal for Thomas. Maybe a new mega-motorhome gilded in gold?

  79. 79.

    Southern Goth

    August 1, 2019 at 1:22 pm

    @Kay:

    There might be a lesson there about discounting persuasion in favor of base turnout.

    Then again, it worked so I’m not sure the right one will be drawn.

  80. 80.

    Yarrow

    August 1, 2019 at 1:22 pm

    @chris: Tulsi has a primary challenger, Kai Kahele. You can donate to his campaign.

  81. 81.

    MattF

    August 1, 2019 at 1:25 pm

    @chris: There’s a not-entirely-absurd claim that Gabbard is a Russian troll. I guess this makes that claim somewhat less absurd.

  82. 82.

    JGabriel

    August 1, 2019 at 1:25 pm

    Anne Laurie @ Top:

    … the squishy-moderate publications like Fred Barnes’ New Republic were half-heartedly suggesting that Ronnie wasn’t *really* a racist, he just pretended to be one to please the ‘hardcore’ Republican voter.

    I’ll say the same thing to this that I say to people who suggest Trump, and Republicans in general, are just “pretending” to be racist to appeal to racist voters, which is:

    Any politician who is indifferent enough to racism to “pretend” to be racist … isn’t pretending.

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 1:25 pm

    @Timurid: Unfortunately.

  84. 84.

    Immanentize

    August 1, 2019 at 1:26 pm

    @Yarrow:
    You are right. Tiffany will probably go from graduation straight to clerking for Alito.

  85. 85.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 1:27 pm

    @The Moar You Know: It’s something.

  86. 86.

    chris

    August 1, 2019 at 1:28 pm

    @Yarrow: Nah, my donation would only get him in trouble. Canadian, eh?

  87. 87.

    Adam L Silverman

    August 1, 2019 at 1:29 pm

    @Yarrow: The divorce settlement, provided her mother maintain’s the NDA, gave Maples a couple of million plus child support until Tiffany was 21. I have no idea if the President is paying for her to go to law school.

  88. 88.

    JaySinWA

    August 1, 2019 at 1:30 pm

    @Yarrow:

    To be accurate, it’s 27%.

    That is more precise, not necessarily more accurate. /pedant

  89. 89.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 1:34 pm

    @Immanentize: Think big! If Thomas retires next year, trump could nominate her to the Supreme Court.

  90. 90.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 1:34 pm

    @JGabriel: More Whites than we like to think bought the rubbish ‘research’, on inherent inferiority of some minorities that was being pushed out back them. That includes supposedly high minded and sophisticated people who didn’t know enough to see that stuff like ‘The Bell Curve’ was very poor quality research.

  91. 91.

    Another Scott

    August 1, 2019 at 1:39 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh: If you believe LOLGOP, Pence is already President. Kinda like Donnie supposedly promising Kasich that he could run the government and domestic policy if he’d agree to be VP.

    Donnie wants all the trappings of being God-Emperor. He doesn’t want to actually do the work – so he doesn’t.

    Anyone Donnie picks to replace Pence will have some governing experience. It won’t be Thomas (and probably not Carson[)]. I don’t think it would be one of his kids, either (it’s easier for them to steal stuff working in the background). I would expect it to be another boring “Christian” white guy. Maybe Scott Walker. (Shudder!)

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  92. 92.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 1, 2019 at 1:39 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Man, he’s a cheap, broke-ass fuck. Wasn’t there something in the Cohen tapes about covering up his divorce settlement with Ivana?

    Until proven otherwise, I will continue to believe that Melania used the election to renegotiate her pre-nup, and she’ll get a fat pile of cash when she only files for divorce after he leaves the White House. Or maybe there’s a separate maintenance clause that includes haute couture widow’s weeds. Slightly tin-foil hat corollary: That’s where that missing inauguration money went.

  93. 93.

    Bill Arnold

    August 1, 2019 at 1:42 pm

    @chris:

    Tulsi needs to go.

    At the very least, be seriously probed for Russian and/or Republican ties.

  94. 94.

    Steve in the ATL

    August 1, 2019 at 1:48 pm

    @Yarrow: good point, but then what’s the point of going to law school? What will be an unsuccessful attempt to gain respectability?

  95. 95.

    Chief Oshkosh

    August 1, 2019 at 1:51 pm

    @Another Scott: Uh, I was joking about Unka Klarence…
    But interesting thought that Dence is actually running the Executive. I don’t see it. Dence is just as dumb and lazy as Donny. I’m pretty sure that nobody overall is running the Executive. I think there’s a handful of self-dealers that are setting policy in their very narrow areas of interest (e.g., Miller on immigration/torturing POC) and then a general office pool that sit around all day screaming at each other because they’ve been tasked by one of the overlords with fixing the latest fuck-up. They come up with mediocrity, start down the road of executing, but Dumb Donny blows it all up with the next tweet. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

  96. 96.

    sdhays

    August 1, 2019 at 1:51 pm

    @chris: They should start calling her Twitter-bot Tulsi since that’s her only constituency.

  97. 97.

    SFAW

    August 1, 2019 at 1:51 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Good Christ, “TheJosh” (in that bodybuilders string) is a fucking moron. I’m amazed we haven’t read about him “winning” a Darwin Award. [Not that we’d know, of course.]

  98. 98.

    Immanentize

    August 1, 2019 at 1:52 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: I ask myself those questions every day.

  99. 99.

    Matt

    August 1, 2019 at 1:52 pm

    @Jerzy Russian:

    Had a coworker rant about the “religion” of diversity the other day.

    I’d bet a hundred dollars that same cow-orker thinks businesses should be able to discriminate “because mah religimous FREEDOM”.

  100. 100.

    SFAW

    August 1, 2019 at 1:53 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    gilded in gold?

    Umm …

  101. 101.

    Another Scott

    August 1, 2019 at 1:55 pm

    @SFAW: No, no. Gilded in Radner.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  102. 102.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 1, 2019 at 1:56 pm

    as twitter Nixon often reminds us, Jackie Robinson was a Republican stalwart until 1964

    profloumoore @ loumoore12
    Jackie warned us.
    1968, Jackie Robinson on Ronald Reagan.
    “If the GOP should nominate Nixon or Reagan, it would be telling the black man it cares nothing about him or his concerns.”

    in the linked screenshot, “Reagan– even more so than Nixon–” is the candidate of “white backlashers”

  103. 103.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 1:56 pm

    @Immanentize: lawyers? Respectability? I don’t get that one. Good lawyer jokes have been big hits at least since Shakespeare’s time. Probably back to ancient Rome and Athens, but I’ll have to go check.

  104. 104.

    rikyrah

    August 1, 2019 at 1:58 pm

    ???

    Charlotte Alter (@CharlotteAlter) Tweeted:
    Talked to a gentleman last night who said he supports Biden but could never forgive Hillary for creating mandatory minimums and 3 strikes laws.

    When I told him those policies were actually in Biden’s 1994 crime bill, he said “We all make mistakes in life.” https://twitter.com/CharlotteAlter/status/1156934702193958912?s=17

  105. 105.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 1:59 pm

    @SFAW: “gilded in gold?”

    Just shows that the commenter really understands Trump. Gilded in gold is a lot classier and more terrific than just gilded. Just gilded is for betas, cucks ad losers.

    Edit: I thought I typed the correct word, ‘crassier’, but I’ll let the typo stand.

  106. 106.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 1, 2019 at 2:00 pm

    @rikyrah: among Bernie supporters, polls show their second choice is Biden.

    TBF, this was before Warren went all in on single payer, so that may change. I wouldn’t bet on it, but it might.

    ETA: This is from June 10, but googling to find it I see some headlines suggesting that is changing. We’ll see in a week or so where things shake out.

  107. 107.

    clay

    August 1, 2019 at 2:00 pm

    @john not mccain: If the Dems were truly willing to go down into the muck, they should send some people to infiltrate a Trump rally and see if they could get an “n-word” chant to start in the crowd.

  108. 108.

    Just One More Canuck

    August 1, 2019 at 2:02 pm

    @The Moar You Know: That was ….. special.

    Those people can (and hopefully don’t) vote.

    I hope they don’t breed

  109. 109.

    Betty Cracker

    August 1, 2019 at 2:03 pm

    @jl: I was just running an errand in town and heard live coverage of Biden talking to reporters in Michigan. Twice, he used the not-word “expedentially” when he meant “exponentially.” Then, he was talking about getting a benefit for veterans whereby they don’t have to prove exposure to “acid rain.” From the context, I’m sure he meant “Agent Orange,” but again, he said the wrong thing, twice.

    Gotta admit, it shook me a bit. Biden has always been gaffe-prone, and I never got the impression he was the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was affable and capable enough, and I didn’t worry he was going to fuck up a consequential election. I thought he sounded okay on the stage last night. I didn’t agree with much of what he said, but he seemed fully in control of his faculties.

    Today, he sounded addled. That worries me. A lot.

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    August 1, 2019 at 2:04 pm

    @Yarrow:

    Does she need or even want a summer job?

    According to the Daily Mail (quoted earlier here), she has that most envied and coveted non-job: socialite.

    The blonde socialite has been jetting back and forth between Europe and the United States since she finished her second year of classes back in May

  111. 111.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 2:05 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh: Stephen Miller..

  112. 112.

    Another Scott

    August 1, 2019 at 2:05 pm

    @Yarrow: Thanks for the pointer.

    Donated.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  113. 113.

    joel hanes

    August 1, 2019 at 2:06 pm

    @Eric U:

    It was pretty obvious at the time that Reagan was racist.

    It was very obvious while he was Governor of California, and was part of his appeal to California Republicans of the time.
    Dogwhistled, mostly.

  114. 114.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 1, 2019 at 2:08 pm

    @Betty Cracker: hen, he was talking about getting a benefit for veterans whereby they don’t have to prove exposure to “acid rain.” From the context, I’m sure he meant “Agent Orange,”

    Oy. That is not good. And I’m one who’s been dismissive of concerns about Biden’s age.

    People age differently. I hate Bernie, but I don’t see any signs of slow down or fatigue, and he’s a year older than Biden. I have seen grief, in particular the grief of a parent losing a child, take a physical toll.

  115. 115.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 2:08 pm

    @Betty Cracker: IMO Biden will put forward a sharp team, so the worry should be whether or not he listens to them.

  116. 116.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 1, 2019 at 2:09 pm

    Nixon’s infamous ‘Southern Strategy’ was the HIV infection of the Republican party; Reagan’s success, followed by the Bush terms, was the emergence of full-blown political AIDS; Trump is just the Kaposi’s sarcoma that announces the disease in the most public way possible.

    This is an excellent analogy, Anne. Bravo!

  117. 117.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 2:10 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Huh? Trump has been saying shit like this all his life.

    Trust me, I know. But only now does he claim that saying it is what will bring his voters to the polls. Before the argument was that Republicans would vote for him despite his racism. Now his argument is that they’ll vote for him because of the racism. There’s a big difference in attitude there.

  118. 118.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 1, 2019 at 2:12 pm

    @JPL: I think Ron Klain is Biden’s brain, and from what I read he’s a legend among DC staffers. When people give Biden credit for implementing the ARRA, or when they say the ‘glitches’ in the ACA launch wouldn’t have happened if Biden had been in charge, they’re talking about Klain.
    Whoever’s talking to Biden when the doors are closed, they couldn’t get him to stop talking about James Fucking Eastland (as I believe his headstone reads), so who knows….
    And I am far from being never-Biden, but this shit– the stubbornness, the senior moments, some degree of entitlement– is worrying

  119. 119.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 2:12 pm

    @Eric U: What you think launching his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi might have had motives other than securing the votes of the [Googles] 7,400 residents of that fine town?

  120. 120.

    joel hanes

    August 1, 2019 at 2:13 pm

    @JPL:

    In the past if an immigrant crossed illegally and turned themselves in they could ask for amnesty.

    In the past, asylum-seekers were allowed to enter legally at ports of entry.
    Trump/Border Patrol seek to close off that course, diverting would-be immigrants into illegal crossing, since that’s the only avenue that is available from where they stand. The Trumpists have deliberately created this “crisis” to use as tinder for the flames of xenophobic demagoguery.

  121. 121.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 2:13 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Could be age (though whether you like him or not, don’t hear many flubs like that from Sanders) , or we need to go back and look at old clips of Biden to see exactly how mediocre his performances were in the past.

    OTOH, it could just be lack of preparation. I think he thought he could run and win no prob on his Obama era ‘Uncle Joe’ persona and a cover band nostalgia tour campaign. Biden camp didn’t put out any policy proposals until they were more or less forced to because of all the attacks on his record, which I think in large part were due to fact that there really wasn’t anything else to talk about wrt to his campaign. And his proposals are not all that impressive or innovative compared to several other candidates, in addition to Warren. A couple of them look stuck in the 90s. Lack of preparation will mess a person up good during extemporaneous talks.

    But, what you heard is concerning, whatever the reason.

  122. 122.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 2:13 pm

    Steve Liesman
    ✔
    @steveliesman
    Probably needs to be stated again: Trump is increasing tariffs the day after the Fed Chair (whom Trump chose) warned that tariffs represent the single biggest threat to the us and global economies. And he said it repeatedly.

    463
    7:43 AM – Aug 1, 2019

    Wheeeeeee!

  123. 123.

    Chetan Murthy

    August 1, 2019 at 2:15 pm

    @joel hanes:

    In the past, asylum-seekers were allowed to enter legally at ports of entry.

    Furthermore, IIRC the mere fact of having crossed at a not-official-port-of-entry does not debar an an immigrant from claiming asylum. The method by which they arrived on our soil is irrelevant to the claim of asylum.

  124. 124.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 2:15 pm

    Abby D. Phillip
    ✔
    @abbydphillip
    Pretty big news here: Trump announcing new tariffs on China starting Sept. 1 AND acknowledging that the concessions the admin has been touting that they got from China never actually materialized. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1156979443900067841 …

    Donald J. Trump
    ✔
    @realDonaldTrump
    Our representatives have just returned from China where they had constructive talks having to do with a future Trade Deal. We thought we had a deal with China three months ago, but sadly, China decided to re-negotiate the deal prior to signing. More recently, China agreed to…

    498
    7:30 AM – Aug 1, 2019

    Called it. Trump lied about everything. Now China is going to eat our lunch.

  125. 125.

    SFAW

    August 1, 2019 at 2:16 pm

    @jl:

    I thought I typed the correct word, ‘crassier’, but I’ll let the typo stand.

    To-MAY-toe, po-TAH-toe

  126. 126.

    joel hanes

    August 1, 2019 at 2:17 pm

    @MattF:

    a not-entirely-absurd claim that Gabbard is a Russian troll

    In my estimate, an unwitting tool.
    It is quite noticeable that, immediately after she’s in the news, comment sections and social media threads are flooded by Gabbard stans with very very short comment histories.

  127. 127.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 2:18 pm

    Jennifer Shutt
    ✔
    @JenniferShutt
    Seeing a lot of tweets and stories saying this bill averts the threat of a government shutdown.

    It doesn’t.

    Congress needs to pass and the president needs to sign all 12 spending bills (or a continuing resolution) to avoid a shutdown when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. https://twitter.com/JenniferShutt/status/1156967779632898048 …

    Jennifer Shutt
    ✔
    @JenniferShutt
    Two-year budget pact clears Senate https://bit.ly/2ZoYpr5

    22
    6:49 AM – Aug 1, 2019

    But I’m sure we won’t regret giving Trump and McConnell what they want. //S

  128. 128.

    germy

    August 1, 2019 at 2:19 pm

    @Immanentize:

    Tiffany will probably go from graduation straight to clerking for Alito.

    Too much work. She’ll got right from graduation into her new role as Television Political Pundit.

  129. 129.

    gene108

    August 1, 2019 at 2:19 pm

    Unapologetic use of the N-word in public has already begun.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wral.com/i-would-say-it-again-says-woman-who-used-racial-slur-in-north-hills-restaurant-confrontation/18530118/%3fversion=amp

  130. 130.

    joel hanes

    August 1, 2019 at 2:19 pm

    @Another Scott:

    Donnie wants all the trappings of being God-Emperor

    Ah. I’m in favor of conducting the biological experiment in which he tries to incorporate sandworm tissue into his exterior surface.

  131. 131.

    SFAW

    August 1, 2019 at 2:21 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    My head just done a-sploded. Powell’s probably already did.

    I keep waiting for someone to tell the Dumbfuck-in-Chief that Obama NEVER drank antifreeze, because he believed it would harm him.

  132. 132.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 2:23 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: To me, it’s the attitude that the political fights of the 80s and 90s are still the fights we’re having today. We have an entire generation of people afraid to have kids because they don’t think there will be a habitable planet for them to grow into.

    Not only are the politics very different, the urgency of those politics is completely different. Michael Moore was on MSNBC last night and I think got it completely right. 40 million young people have turned into voters since Obama got elected. 20% of the electorate has no concept of politics pre-2008. Over a third of the electorate couldn’t vote on 9/11. They don’t give a single fuck about how compromise was reached in 1978, or how incrementalist approaches worked post-war. Their entire political experience is trillions dumped into unjust wars, and ideological wars fought over the free market and role of government that can be measured in human lives. They want healthcare. They don’t fucking care how it happens.

    Generally I like Joe, and I’m not saying he isn’t liberal enough or whatever, I’m saying he has no understanding of how half the 2020 democratic electorate and all of the 2040 democratic electorate see the world. He thinks his DC experience trumps the world these people have seen through their own eyes. It doesn’t.

  133. 133.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 2:24 pm

    @SFAW: DOW looks like an iceberg off of Greenland.

  134. 134.

    Chief Oshkosh

    August 1, 2019 at 2:24 pm

    @Another Scott: Gave me a chuckle, thanks. Hey, they’re not ALL home runs. Or even bloopers.

  135. 135.

    joel hanes

    August 1, 2019 at 2:25 pm

    @jl:

    I would have to fake being upset if Trump were to be crowned with a golden crown — in exactly the same manner as was Viserys Targareyn

    WILLY WONKA : Stop. Don’t. Come back.

  136. 136.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 1, 2019 at 2:27 pm

    @joel hanes: Ayup.

  137. 137.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 2:29 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That along with labeling anyone who crosses the border as a criminal is worrying. If he is the one that can beat trump, I’m all in.

  138. 138.

    joel hanes

    August 1, 2019 at 2:29 pm

    @Martin:

    To be scrupulously fair, Reagan spoke at the Neshoba County Fair, which is a huge deal, one of the premier yearly events for white people in that entire region of Mississippi.

  139. 139.

    Bill Arnold

    August 1, 2019 at 2:30 pm

    @SFAW:

    My head just done a-sploded. Powell’s probably already did.

    Mine too. I was sorta-hoping that they’d back off a bit from trade war with China once they got a rate cut from the Fed.
    No such luck. Now, it’s either just breathtaking DJT[or ear-whisperer] stupidity or [Trump or some Trump ear-whisperer] with a short position on the US economy. Or maybe both. Any alternate explanations?
    Who (if anyone) has DJT’s ear on trade war matters these days? I’ve lost track.

  140. 140.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 2:32 pm

    @TenguPhule: Home construction is once again gonna stall because of the cost of goods, isn’t it.

  141. 141.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 1, 2019 at 2:32 pm

    @joel hanes:

    To be scrupulously fair

    Thankfully, we now have audiotape of Reagan calling African UN delegates monkeys, so we don’t have to be fair at all.

  142. 142.

    joel hanes

    August 1, 2019 at 2:33 pm

    @Chetan Murthy:

    having crossed at a not-official-port-of-entry does not debar an an immigrant from claiming asylum.

    You are arguing the law.
    Trump/BP/ICE are bellowing while pounding the table brown people.
    I’m pretty sure that, now, in practical reality, illegal entry is treated as completely disqualifying, at least until that day, years from now, when an immigratinon “court” gets a chance to rule on the application (assuming that the would-be immigrant is even allowed to apply).

  143. 143.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 2:33 pm

    @JPL:

    Home construction is once again gonna stall because of the cost of goods, isn’t it.

    Magic 8-Ball says: Outlook Cloudy.

  144. 144.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 2:35 pm

    @TenguPhule: So, here’s a realtime take on Trumps actions.

    My wife and I have been discussing selling off a bit of our investments to buy a new car as they’ve been up the last two weeks. We were chatting about it 2 hours ago, probably would make the decision this evening. Since 2 hours ago, our investments fell $35K, so now we’re not buying a new car.

    Sorry Ohio blue collar workers, no money going your way after all.

  145. 145.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 2:35 pm

    @joel hanes:

    at least until that day, years from now, when an immigratinon “court” gets a chance to rule on the application

    You haven’t been keeping up. They’re dispensing with due process. No courts, just straight to deportation.

  146. 146.

    Chetan Murthy

    August 1, 2019 at 2:36 pm

    @JPL:

    Home construction is once again gonna stall because of the cost of goods, isn’t it.

    Not sure what you mean, but I remember all those stories right after the last boom, about the shitty shitty Chinese gypsum drywall that outgassed H2S and had to be ripped-out.

  147. 147.

    Another Scott

    August 1, 2019 at 2:37 pm

    @Bill Arnold: Donnie’s idea of negotiation is for the other guy to completely capitulate.

    Remember his supposed “10 times harder” mantra.

    He’s not going to give up on attempting to punish China, Huawei, European auto exporters, Amazon/Bezos/WashingtonPost, Iran, etc., etc. He thinks that he has the stronger hand, and doesn’t care if the US and world economies are damaged by his petulance. He wants fealty – that’s all he care about.

    Of course, other countries have their own interests and power centers that he doesn’t understand…

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  148. 148.

    joel hanes

    August 1, 2019 at 2:37 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I was being sarcastic.
    Please note the words “white” and “Mississippi” in my comment.
    Should have used the font or the tag. apologies.

  149. 149.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 2:37 pm

    @Bill Arnold:

    Who (if anyone) has DJT’s ear on trade war matters these days? I’ve lost track.

    Peter Navarro. He’s a fucking idiot, and has been a fucking idiot for decades. He’s the Art Laffer of trade policy.

  150. 150.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 1, 2019 at 2:39 pm

    @joel hanes:
    I completely missed your sarcasm, so you have MY apologies.

  151. 151.

    Just One More Canuck

    August 1, 2019 at 2:39 pm

    @jl: @SFAW: how about “gelded in gold”

  152. 152.

    joel hanes

    August 1, 2019 at 2:40 pm

    @Another Scott:

    He wants fealty

    This.
    Trump wants everyone else to bend the knee, and surrounds himself with Kettleblacks and Slynts who are only too eager to do so.
    He’s a much-less-intelligent Cersei.

  153. 153.

    Bill Arnold

    August 1, 2019 at 2:41 pm

    @joel hanes:

    Ah. I’m in favor of conducting the biological experiment in which he tries to incorporate sandworm tissue into his exterior surface.

    The God-Emperor in Dune at least had some deity-like capabilities, namely the ability to select/bake-in history in a not-inconsiderable part of the universe. D.J. Trump has no such talent. (He thinks he does have some such talent, though. Which is amusing; not sure the Abrahamic monotheistic fundamentalists truly realize this.)

  154. 154.

    Chetan Murthy

    August 1, 2019 at 2:41 pm

    @joel hanes:

    I was being sarcastic.

    I thought that was plennnty obvious. No need for sarc tag.

  155. 155.

    joel hanes

    August 1, 2019 at 2:41 pm

    Cersei Joffrey

    fixed

  156. 156.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 1, 2019 at 2:42 pm

    @Immanentize: Biden did draw a very clear line between asylum seekers and ordinary immigration.

  157. 157.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 2:42 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: True.. Maybe it won’t be too bad because most lumber and steel comes from Canada..right?

  158. 158.

    kindness

    August 1, 2019 at 2:44 pm

    I’m not shocked to see Trump running on racism & white nationalism (and fascism). I’m shocked that our media is so caught up in ratings they aren’t paying attention to the actual racism, white nationalism and neo-fascist behaviours of not only Trump but the entire Republican party. They are giving this a pass as they proclaim Democrats are trying to make a campaign issue of it.

    This isn’t going to end well. The only way we come out of it OK is if there is a massive landslide against Trump and Republicans. That media of ours? They want to appear as ‘balanced’, no matter that one of the points of balance is the Klan.

  159. 159.

    jl

    August 1, 2019 at 2:45 pm

    @TenguPhule: The Fed chair Powell (whom Trump chose because a competent person was slipped past him somehow) also stated that interest rate cuts could not beat additional tariff war nonsense, and trying to compensate for them would create a dangerous situation in the next downturn. Also, Powell’s rationale for the interest rate cuts (downturn in investment and weakness in manufacturing, and lack of increase in real worker compensation) is another way of saying that the Trump rich man’s tax cut did not do one damn thing the GOP claimed it would in terms of increasing US productivity or increasing workers’ income.

    Not sure if Powell was so explicit because he wanted to make public dig at Trump. I think Trump is too oblivious and ignorant to notice, but let’s watch his tweets. But then Trump also may not notice because he will be still rampaging around with his race hate tweets.

  160. 160.

    germy

    August 1, 2019 at 2:46 pm

    Warped Flip-Flop Tomi Lahren Apologizes for Tweeting Sen. Kamala Harris Slept Her Way to the Top

    Tomi Lahren, America’s unwashable mayonnaise stain and host of some shitty show on Fox News, couldn’t stand watching California Sen. Kamala Harris on stage. It messed with all of her sensibilities. It ruined her spidey senses.

    So what did America’s most dog chewed pair of Keds do? Well, she went on Twitter and struck the lowest blow she could think of and claimed that Harris became the attorney general of California because she slept her way into the position.

    https://www.theroot.com/warped-flip-flop-tomi-lahren-apologizes-for-tweeting-se-1836883780

  161. 161.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 1, 2019 at 2:47 pm

    @kindness: I’m not surprised about the media reaction at all. They’re all ratings whores, and all should be summarily deported to the sun on Space-X.

  162. 162.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 1, 2019 at 2:48 pm

    @Another Scott:

    He wants fealty – that’s all he care about.

    Under the thumb of a pathological liar who changes his positions every five minutes, we have had time and a chance to see what Trump actually believes and cares about, by the things he is consistent on and indeed doubles down on over time. He wants concentration camps, specifically wants children separated from their parents at the border, and wants to end all Southern border immigration. He believes tariffs, and specifically punishing tariffs, are the best tool for trade negotiation. He likes murderous dictators on a personal level. He likes Nazis on a personal level.

  163. 163.

    Bill Arnold

    August 1, 2019 at 2:49 pm

    @Martin:

    Peter Navarro. He’s a fucking idiot, and has been a fucking idiot for decades. He’s the Art Laffer of trade policy.

    But does he whisper sweet trade-war-related-praises in D.J. Trumps’s ear?
    I’d managed to forget about this (from 2018):
    After Defeating Cohn, Trump’s Trade Warrior Is on the Rise Again
    (Peter Coy 2018/03/08) (bold mine>

    Speaking to Bloomberg on March 7, Navarro heaped praise on his boss and described his own role as that of an enabler.
    “This is the president’s vision. My function, really, as an economist is to try to provide the underlying analytics that confirm his intuition. And his intuition is always right in these matters,” Navarro said. He compared the White House to the successful New England Patriots football team. “The owner, the coach, and the quarterback are all the president. The rest of us are all interchangeable parts.”

  164. 164.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 2:52 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I’m not surprised about the media reaction at all. They’re all ratings whores, and all should be summarily deported to the sun on Space-X.

    Once again, Venus is closer and more affordable.

  165. 165.

    opiejeanne

    August 1, 2019 at 2:53 pm

    @rikyrah: That poor child takes after daddy, in looks anyway.

  166. 166.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 2:54 pm

    Trump officials pitch immigration deal to skeptical Guatemalans with talk of visas, investment and aid

    Under the deal signed with the Guatemalan government, the United States would reroute large numbers of asylum seekers to Guatemala.

    This outsourcing of asylum processing will not end well at all.

  167. 167.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 2:56 pm

    Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill that she would release a statement later today on launching an impeachment inquiry.

    Congressional reporters shouted questions to the House speaker about whether her position on impeachment has changed now that a majority of her caucus backs an inquiry.

    Representative Ted Deutch of Florida announced his support of launching impeachment proceedings today, becoming the 118th House Democrat to do so, according to Politico. His endorsement means a majority of the 235-member caucus now back an inquiry.

    Fingers crossed.

  168. 168.

    Betty Cracker

    August 1, 2019 at 2:57 pm

    @germy: IMO, the whole thing was staged — Tami’s dumb tweet, her Fox colleagues’ fake outrage, and now the phony apology.

  169. 169.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 2:57 pm

    @TenguPhule: What?

  170. 170.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    August 1, 2019 at 2:57 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: For future reference, “to be Scrupulously Fair” is usually used both here and on LGM for bits of “mitigating” evidence that don’t actually mitigate a thing. It’s almost always a sign of sarcasm, much like // at the end of posts here or monospaced text on LGM.

  171. 171.

    germy

    August 1, 2019 at 2:59 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    Does Tomi Lahren now realize you can get too toxic for even Fox News? She used to work for Glenn Beck after all.— Schooley (@Rschooley) August 1, 2019

    It’s easy to feel bulletproof when you still have your parents health insurance.— Nunes’ Sheep (@DevinSheep) August 1, 2019

  172. 172.

    germy

    August 1, 2019 at 3:01 pm

    There are now 117 members of the House who favor starting an impeachment inquiry against Trump, according to NBC News. https://t.co/a3mZVwE3Co— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 1, 2019

  173. 173.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 3:03 pm

    @JPL: Asylum seekers passing through that country will be sent back there for processing should they be picked up at the US border.

    Yes, its as bad as it sounds.

  174. 174.

    Betty Cracker

    August 1, 2019 at 3:03 pm

    @Martin: I turned to MSNBC briefly after the debate and saw Michael Moore babbling about Michelle Obama running for president, so I changed the channel. I can’t stand that fucking gasbag. But I agree with your paraphrase of his remarks about how younger folks see politics. It’s true of my daughter, who barely remembers the GWB era at all (except her father and me cursing at the TV) and has zero memory of the 20th century, which she caught the tail end of as an infant.

  175. 175.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 1, 2019 at 3:04 pm

    @jl: Trump’s overall approval isn’t dropping, though. It’s pretty much flat. (Right now it appears that both his approval and disapproval are rising slightly– the few who hadn’t taken sides are taking sides– but the movement is so small it could just be noise.)

  176. 176.

    JPL

    August 1, 2019 at 3:06 pm

    @TenguPhule: Trump still won’t hand over documents. He’ll let it play out and court and count on Kavenaugh to save him.

  177. 177.

    Ellen R

    August 1, 2019 at 3:09 pm

    @Martin: Where is this quote from? Who and when? Thanks –

  178. 178.

    chopper

    August 1, 2019 at 3:11 pm

    @germy:

    wow, harris ‘slept her way’ into the AG job? that’s a hell of a lot of voters to have sex with.

  179. 179.

    Another Scott

    August 1, 2019 at 3:12 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh: Joke here often go over my head. ;-)

    For completeness, LOLGOP’s opinion piece at USAToday (from June 9):

    […]

    One argument does ring true for many on the left, especially those who enjoy the significant advances in rights for LGBTQ people under President Barack Obama. It goes like this: If we got President Mike Pence, we’d be begging to have Trump back, as former White House aide and Trump apologist Omarosa Manigault Newman insisted.

    This could be the worst argument against holding the president accountable for the many high crimes and misdemeanors documented in the Mueller report, Trump’s Twitter feed and wherever anyone still cares about the rule of law.

    This shallow fallacy ignores a reality that too few have recognized: When it comes to the issues that matter most to the religious right, we already have President Pence. The danger is now we have President Pence plus Trump’s criminality, obstruction and aspiring authoritarianism on top of the extraordinary costs and shame of subsidizing Trump’s businesses and family.

    Pence’s domination of our domestic policies became even more obvious last week when the administration escalated its assault on science. The Department of Health and Human Services imposed new restrictions on the use of fetal tissue from abortions for research — research that has led to vaccines for rubella and rabies and that scientists say is still needed to develop other life-saving treatments.

    HHS also canceled a contract to find new treatments for HIV. This makes sense because ideological decisions that lead to an increase in HIV risks are Pence’s trademark move. As governor of Indiana, his opposition to Planned Parenthood and needle exchanges helped lead to the worst HIV outbreak in the state’s history. This malign neglect echoes the shadow president’s well-documented antipathy to LGBTQ rights and existence.

    […]

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  180. 180.

    chris

    August 1, 2019 at 3:12 pm

    So I go out for a walk in the heat, come home to get my swimming gear on the way to the river and see that the shitgibbon has mangled the markets again. On the bright side, cheaper gas, RBOB gas futures off 10 cents a gallon, crude oil off $4+ a barrel. Can someone subpoena the stock trading records of Wilbur, Mnuchin, Jarvanka et al? Some folks made out like bandits the last couple of days.

  181. 181.

    germy

    August 1, 2019 at 3:14 pm

    @chopper: You know how republicans project. Every accusation… etc.

  182. 182.

    eclare

    August 1, 2019 at 3:17 pm

    @Betty Cracker: He fucked up naming his own web site last night. I’m sorry, going from 74 to 76 is not like going from 68 to 70, as most people get older, aging is not linear. At least that is what I observed with my parents.

  183. 183.

    sdhays

    August 1, 2019 at 3:19 pm

    @TenguPhule: I find it bizarre and really fraudulent that we call them “courts” when they’re actually Justice Department tribunals and aren’t part of the actual Federal court system. It’s a lie. If the Attorney General gets to fire you if you don’t interpret the law his way, you’re not actually a judge.

  184. 184.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    August 1, 2019 at 3:22 pm

    @Martin: They tried to pass single payer in deep, deep blue Vermont three short years ago and it failed. They replaced the Democratic governor with a …. wait for it… a republican. It used to be a liberal value that those who do not heed history are condemned to repeat it.

  185. 185.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 3:25 pm

    @Ellen R: Comment here: http://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

    The whole comment is spot-on.

  186. 186.

    joel hanes

    August 1, 2019 at 3:27 pm

    @germy:

    There are now 117 members of the House who favor starting an impeachment inquiry

    So only 111 (at least) to go before a resolution will pass, and we’d want a couple more for safety.
    It’s no wonder that whip-count Pelosi has not been publicly enthusiastic about an immediate assault on the citadel.

  187. 187.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 3:27 pm

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: It failed because Vermont is too small to pull it off. That is not a condemnation of the idea.

  188. 188.

    The Moar You Know

    August 1, 2019 at 3:30 pm

    Peter Navarro. He’s a fucking idiot, and has been a fucking idiot for decades.

    @Martin: Used to hear him on KNX a lot. He was your typical conservative economist. Made sense most of the time, within the genre of course. Then in late 2008, FOR NO REASON, he seemed to go completely insane. I quit listening to KNX a few years later, because oddly enough, most of the other folks at the station seemed to go from straight news to one step below Fox, FOR NO REASON I AM SURE.

    Last time I heard him, and I stopped listening to KNX for good right after the 2012 elections, he was one step below Glenn Beck in the “lost my shit completely” department.

    It’s a damn tragedy what happened to KNX. Their old management would never have allowed them to become what they are.

  189. 189.

    Sab

    August 1, 2019 at 3:31 pm

    @Yarrow: chris is Canadian. He cannot legally donate and they cannot legally accept his money.

  190. 190.

    Baud

    August 1, 2019 at 3:32 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    Whether your daughter understands it or not, the old days still hamper us through the mechanism of high-turnout old people.

  191. 191.

    germy

    August 1, 2019 at 3:32 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    Then in late 2008, FOR NO REASON, he seemed to go completely insane.

    Hmm. What was it that happened in late 2008? I’m stumped. What sent him around the bend?

  192. 192.

    sdhays

    August 1, 2019 at 3:32 pm

    I don’t understand why the fraudulence of our current medical system doesn’t get more discussion. There are no prices for anything. Everything is about gaming the system. Supposedly it all evens out eventually, but it’s expensive and EXHAUSTING (and it doesn’t even out for everyone). The insurance companies won’t tell you what you have to pay for something, even though they know. There is so much skimming waste that makes the system difficult to navigate and clearly wasteful that it’s just disgusting. Why does it have to be this way? It’s not even clear who benefits from it because many times it’s not the hospitals or the insurance companies even pocketing the waste. But they protect it. Why?

    I would think a simplification argument could be compelling for a lot of people.

  193. 193.

    Roger Moore

    August 1, 2019 at 3:34 pm

    @Another Scott:
    I think there’s another mistake buried in the whole “if we impeach Trump we’ll have President Pence” nonsense: the assumption that Pence wouldn’t be politically damaged by the process. Seriously, if Trump becomes so politically that Moscow Mitch and 19 other Senate Republicans vote to throw him out of office, everyone around him is going to be untouchable, too. The only way Trump leaves office before the election that doesn’t damage Pence is feet first.

  194. 194.

    sdhays

    August 1, 2019 at 3:35 pm

    @Roger Moore: Yep.

  195. 195.

    LeeM

    August 1, 2019 at 3:35 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: To be fair, she had lined up a job at Cohen & Associates.

  196. 196.

    Shana

    August 1, 2019 at 3:37 pm

    @rikyrah: What kind of law student doesn’t have a summer associate job? Especially after the 2nd year of law school when everyone’s trying for a prestigious summer job that they can hopefully turn into an offer of a real job after their 3rd and final year of law school?

  197. 197.

    catclub

    August 1, 2019 at 3:37 pm

    @Sab: establish a corporation, have corporation give to National chamber of commerce, or NRA, and tell them to send it where ‘it isn’t legal for non-US citizens to contribute’

  198. 198.

    Brachiator

    August 1, 2019 at 3:39 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Biden did draw a very clear line between asylum seekers and ordinary immigration.

    And Trump is trying to shift the terms of the debate. Pushing it further than even anti-immigrant Republcans originally wanted.

  199. 199.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 3:43 pm

    9 in 10 counties that voted for Trump have received subsidies to fight the trade war

    Wapo headline.

  200. 200.

    Barbara

    August 1, 2019 at 3:47 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Agreed — it’s definitely painting with way too broad a brush. I mean, seriously. I think what Seema Verma, Nikki Haley and Bobbi Jindal have in common is that they are ambitious, believe in the free market, and realized pretty quickly that given the states they live in, the only path forward was through Republican politics. I don’t think by any means they are guarding some kind of secret liberal view of the world, but they have also tried to cultivate a reputation for being policy wonks and pragmatists not barn burners. I almost never agree with the logic of their policy positions, and tolerating racism in their midst underscores their lack of moral courage. But they aren’t stupid.

  201. 201.

    Roger Moore

    August 1, 2019 at 3:48 pm

    @sdhays:
    My gut feeling is that a lot of the waste in our medical system is an example of a market failure. There’s a whole arms race between medical offices trying to figure out how to maximize their billing and insurance companies figuring out how to refuse to pay. The net result is that every medical office needs to hire a billing specialist and every insurance company needs an office full of counter-specialists. It’s incredibly inefficient and completely a result of the inherently adversarial nature of the relationship between medical practices and insurance companies. IMO it’s one of the huge advantages of integrated payer/provider organizations like Kaiser.

  202. 202.

    Betty Cracker

    August 1, 2019 at 3:49 pm

    @Baud: Neither group can afford to treat the other as irrelevant.

    @eclare: Oof, you’re right — I forgot about that.

  203. 203.

    Brachiator

    August 1, 2019 at 3:49 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    … and has zero memory of the 20th century, which she caught the tail end of as an infant.

    This makes me feel so old!

    But you’re exactly right. My niece and nephew are children of the 21st century. What came before is ancient history.

  204. 204.

    EthylEster

    August 1, 2019 at 3:50 pm

    @laura1:

    As much as I despise Bush the lesser

    which is the lesser?
    I thought the earlier one was better than his clueless son.

  205. 205.

    Baud

    August 1, 2019 at 3:53 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    Agree. It’s why I think intergenerational warfare is counterproductive for people on the left. (The right doesn’t really have this because they are unified by a common hatred of us.)

  206. 206.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 3:54 pm

    After passing the budget deal, the Senate has joined the House in adjourning for Congress’ summer recess.

    No votes will be held in either chamber until Sept. 9.

    What could possibly go wrong? //s

  207. 207.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 1, 2019 at 3:55 pm

    @Betty Cracker: My daughter is almost a teenager; the first President she remembers is Obama, and 9/11 is a historical event from before she was born that she learned about in school, roughly equivalent to my experience of the JFK assassination.

  208. 208.

    Hoodie

    August 1, 2019 at 3:57 pm

    @Martin: Said something to the same effect on LGM a few days ago. The comment you cite says “anti-conservatism” could be boiled down to “The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” That really amounts to justice, right? I’ve been thinking that the straightest road to beating Trump and what he represents is attacking corruption, and everything else is a bit of a sideshow. Sanders and Warren seem to be channeling that theme the most, but they seem to get caught up in the details of particular plans.

  209. 209.

    Another Scott

    August 1, 2019 at 3:59 pm

    One for OO and the lawyer-types – GovExec:

    A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday reintroduced a bill that would place administrative law judges back in the competitive service, effectively overriding a 2018 executive order.

    In July 2018, President Trump signed an executive order moving administrative law judges from the competitive service to the excepted service. At the time, the White House claimed it was necessary to comply with the Lucia v. SEC Supreme Court decision, which found that administrative law judges are “inferior officers” under the Constitution, limiting their authority.

    The order shifted the method for hiring new administrative law judges. Previously, candidates’ qualifications were vetted by the Office of Personnel Management before they were forwarded to agencies for final selection, but the order changed their selection to a more traditional presidential appointment process.

    Lawmakers and groups representing administrative law judges have disputed the administration’s rationale, saying that the Lucia decision does not apply to the vast majority of the 1,900 administrative law judges across the federal government, and accused Trump of using the ruling as a pretext to politicize the ALJ corps.

    On Wednesday, Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, reintroduced the ALJ Competitive Service Restoration Act (S. 2348) to reverse the Trump administration’s executive order and restore administrative law judges to the competitive service. The lawmakers first introduced the bill in August 2018, but Congress did not act on the measure.

    […]

    Good, good. We have to support push-back on every attempt by Donnie’s minions to destroy previous norms.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  210. 210.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    August 1, 2019 at 4:02 pm

    speaking of the budget, just two weeks ago bloggers were saying it was the worst deal evah! Turns out AOC, Tlaib, Barbara Lee, Sherrod Brown, Merkely all voted for it. Bunch of neoliberal sell outs

  211. 211.

    Brachiator

    August 1, 2019 at 4:05 pm

    @Martin:

    Before the argument was that Republicans would vote for him despite his racism.

    This was denial. This was part of the lie that Republcan voters were economically anxious. Also, people didn’t know full Trump. So, people were going to vote for him despite his racism, sexism, lack of real religion, etc. Some Republicans weren’t even sure that he was a “true” conservative.

    Now his argument is that they’ll vote for him because of the racism. There’s a big difference in attitude there.

    The pundits and Republican politicians pretend that they don’t know what is happening, but Trump is more blatantly racist than before. Neither Trump nor his base have to pretend any more.

  212. 212.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 1, 2019 at 4:07 pm

    I didn’t even know Waddles was having another 60 Minute Hate tonight (in Cincinnati)

    Elaina Plott @ elainaplott
    Currently at a bar next to the Trump rally where people are ripping double shots of Maker’s before heading in.

    MSNBC just said trump said on his way out of the White House (have they stopped live coverage of his lie-filled driveway bloviations?) that he said when asked about chants, if they do it, “we’ll see what happens”. Yamiche Alcindor reporting that attendees say they like the chant.

  213. 213.

    Ruckus

    August 1, 2019 at 4:07 pm

    @Kay:
    I’d use spokesperson rather than leader, but that’s just details.

  214. 214.

    Mike in NC

    August 1, 2019 at 4:09 pm

    Wrapped up our quicky coach tour of Dublin today without so much as a glass of Guiness or a souvenir T-shirt. The tour guide was great, however, and had us singing along to “Molly Malone” before we finished up.

    Underway shortly for the Welsh port of Holyhead (pronounced Holly Head) 500 nm directly across the Irish Sea where some tour options offer 20-50 mile drives to check out castles and/or ruins. Uh, no. We’ll stick closer to the port. Then on to Belfast and Liverpool. I’m a bit too young to remember the Beatles, so will they be on hand to sign autographs? /s

  215. 215.

    Brachiator

    August 1, 2019 at 4:13 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    and 9/11 is a historical event from before she was born that she learned about in school, roughly equivalent to my experience of the JFK assassination.

    I guess I am an old geezer. I was a school kid, in Dallas, when JFK was assassinated. This event is a memory, not history.

  216. 216.

    EthylEster

    August 1, 2019 at 4:13 pm

    @Martin:

    We have an entire generation of people afraid to have kids because they don’t think there will be a habitable planet for them to grow into.

    I guess I missed that memo.
    An entire generation, you say?

  217. 217.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    August 1, 2019 at 4:14 pm

    WASHINGTON (AP) – US construction spending falls 1.3% in June, biggest decline in 7 months, reflecting widespread weakness.

    Gary Cohn: Trump’s trade war with China is hurting the US economy

    Gary Cohn tells the BBC the U.S. can’t win a trade war with China.

    The former top economic advisor to President Trump says tariffs are particularly painful to America’s farming and auto sectors.

    hoooooooooooooooooocoooonode that tariffs were a bad idea.

  218. 218.

    Tehanu

    August 1, 2019 at 4:15 pm

    Trump’s advisers had concluded after the previous tweets that the overall message sent by such attacks are good for the president among his political base – resonating strongly with white working-class voters.

    That quote leaves out “white suburban voters with fairly decent jobs and assets who pretend even to themselves that they’re not racists.” There are letters in the LA Times practically every day from these people, who mostly live in affluent pretty-much-all-white areas like Santa Clarita and Newport Beach, decrying the “unfairness” of calling Dump a racist and claiming there’s no “real evidence” for it. (And I use the word “people” advisedly….)

  219. 219.

    Steve in the ATL

    August 1, 2019 at 4:17 pm

    @Mike in NC: I thought Liverpool was best known for Echo and the Bunnymen. I’ll have to look into this Beatles outfit; maybe they’re on Spotify.

  220. 220.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    August 1, 2019 at 4:19 pm

    #BREAKING: Congressman Elijah Cummings home was burglarized last week, per Baltimore City Police…More on this developing story tonight on @wjz at 5 & 11… pic.twitter.com/X8pcRasEga— Rick Ritter (@RickRitterWJZ) August 1, 2019

  221. 221.

    A Ghost To Most

    August 1, 2019 at 4:20 pm

    @Brachiator:
    Oh yeah. I was in 2nd grade.
    Many memories have faded, but not that one.

  222. 222.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 1, 2019 at 4:21 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: Gerry and the Pacemakers.

  223. 223.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 4:22 pm

    @The Moar You Know: I’ve known him for 25 years. He’s always been batshit. The econ dept disowned him ages ago. He just knew how to put on a good show on the radio.

    When he was announced everyone here cheered, and then realized what the cost of getting rid of him was. Sorry y’all.

  224. 224.

    PaulWartenberg

    August 1, 2019 at 4:22 pm

    By the by, around 1:30 PM today trump announced a $300 billion tariff on China starting on September 1.

    You can see the exact moment the word reached the New York Stock Exchange by how steep the drop on the Dow tracker is.

    Remember when people laughed at George Lucas’ writing about the start of the Star Wars saga was a trade war over Naboo in the Phantom Menace? We are living in the Clone Wars phase of the Fall of the Republic, people.

  225. 225.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 4:23 pm

    @PaulWartenberg:

    Remember when people laughed at George Lucas’ writing about the start of the Star Wars saga was a trade war over Naboo in the Phantom Menace? We are living in the Clone Wars phase of the Fall of the Republic, people.

    This is how a democracy dies, to thunderous applause.

    Lucas was shit at writing plot, but he managed some epic quotes.

  226. 226.

    PaulWartenberg

    August 1, 2019 at 4:25 pm

    @Brachiator:

    By the time we get to high school, it’s ancient history to us.

    I was born in 1970 but by the time I was in the 11th grade we were learning the Moon Landing and Woodstock like they were happening closer to World War II than the Iranian hostage crisis.

  227. 227.

    chris

    August 1, 2019 at 4:25 pm

    @Sab:

    He cannot legally donate and they cannot legally accept his money.

    Are we sure about the legal thing any more? I mean, it’s not like I’m a Russian.

  228. 228.

    EthylEster

    August 1, 2019 at 4:26 pm

    @Martin:

    We have an entire generation of people afraid to have kids because they don’t think there will be a habitable planet for them to grow into.

    I guess I missed that memo/article.
    An entire generation, you say?

  229. 229.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 1, 2019 at 4:28 pm

    @Brachiator: I am not sure how that relates to my comment.

  230. 230.

    EthylEster

    August 1, 2019 at 4:29 pm

    @germy:

    What sent him around the bend?

    There was an election in November of that year, IIRC.
    But maybe you’re snarking.

  231. 231.

    lurker dean

    August 1, 2019 at 4:31 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: that’s pretty hilarious. i’d hate to be his employer trying to figure out vacation days :D

  232. 232.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 4:31 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    My gut feeling is that a lot of the waste in our medical system is an example of a market failure.

    It is the definition of a market failure. The whole theory behind the free market is that the lightly or unregulated market, open to any and all, will generate a collective wisdom and efficiency through experimentation and failure. If after a century the medical system can’t get its shit together, then it never will. And it never will for fairly apparent (once you learn to look for them) reasons. For one, half the industry is rent seeking on human lives.

    A fundamental element of a free market is one that consumers are free to not participate in. Consumers are not morally or in some cases legally free to not participate in the health care system. Try not taking your kid to the doctor when they’re sick and see how long they remain your kid. Because we can’t opt out, it’s a captive market which hospitals and some other providers can basically charge whatever they want for care. Basic free market principles say that the health care market cannot function, and it has had all of the room it needs to prove them wrong, and failed.

    That’s why single payer is inevitable. Either we’ll discover the political will to do it, or we’ll bankrupt ourselves avoiding it.

  233. 233.

    James E Powell

    August 1, 2019 at 4:32 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I see your Ferry Cross the Mersey and raise you Space Age Love Song

  234. 234.

    Yarrow

    August 1, 2019 at 4:35 pm

    @Sab: Others may find the link interesting and useful even if chris cannot donate.

    @chris: But are you a billionaire?

  235. 235.

    The Moar You Know

    August 1, 2019 at 4:36 pm

    I guess I am an old geezer. I was a school kid, in Dallas, when JFK was assassinated. This event is a memory, not history.

    @Brachiator: You’d be right about my parent’s age. I wasn’t born for six more years. I know about Kennedy for two reasons: the “we shall put a man on the moon before this decade is out” quote, and him getting shot. That’s it.

    If you can put your head into the lived experience of an 18 year old kid today, you’d have a lot fewer reasons to be hopeful about the future of this country and the world then we do.

  236. 236.

    Ruckus

    August 1, 2019 at 4:38 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    It’s really worrying this far away from the election and thinking about 4yrs after that……
    Joe isn’t much older than me and I see me slowing down. Sure some are great over a decade older than Joe but that’s a pretty small sample size to risk the chance that he’s in it. And BS? All he does is shout. That could be just a case of bad hearing. Hmm…. He was really doesn’t listen much at all does he?

  237. 237.

    Martin

    August 1, 2019 at 4:39 pm

    @EthylEster: https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-americans-worry-about-kids-children-climate-change-poll-2019-3

  238. 238.

    The Moar You Know

    August 1, 2019 at 4:40 pm

    I’ve known him for 25 years. He’s always been batshit. The econ dept disowned him ages ago. He just knew how to put on a good show on the radio.

    @Martin: None of these things surprise me. The people who lost their shit when Obama got elected just didn’t suddenly decide to become racists.

  239. 239.

    Ruckus

    August 1, 2019 at 4:41 pm

    @The Moar You Know:
    How much of that is exposure of modern life, against a far slower and less wide exposure of 50-60 years ago?

  240. 240.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    August 1, 2019 at 4:42 pm

    New: 10.7 million total viewers tuned into night two of CNN’s Democratic debates, up 24% from night one. 3 million viewers were in the 25-54 demo. CNN digital live stream also had 3.1 million live starts.

    So about 11 million watched on tee vee and another 3 million watched online, with another combined 10 million watching the first night. That means 24 million watched the combined debates. Pretty good.

  241. 241.

    Betty Cracker

    August 1, 2019 at 4:43 pm

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: God willing, we’ll all still be around to marvel about that deal’s awesomeness when Congress dumps a load of shit on Madam President’s head in 2021.

  242. 242.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    August 1, 2019 at 4:43 pm

    @germy: it’s well know that tan suits trigger people.

  243. 243.

    The Moar You Know

    August 1, 2019 at 4:44 pm

    that’s pretty hilarious. i’d hate to be his employer trying to figure out vacation days :D

    @lurker dean: I have had an unbelievably shitty last couple of weeks and your comment about Josh’s vacation days is the first thing that has made me laugh out loud in quite a while, so thank you.

  244. 244.

    MisterForkbeard

    August 1, 2019 at 4:53 pm

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Not quite, right? There’s going to be a substantial overlap between the audiences for each debate. Probably only 12-14 million unique viewers.

  245. 245.

    CarolDuhart2

    August 1, 2019 at 4:53 pm

    @Martin: It can’t be for another reason. There’s no way to calibrate it to income. If I need a car, I don’t have to buy a Porsche. A used Subaru or Toyota is fine. And of course, in a lot of places, there’s still a transit system of sorts. But if a heart transplant is needed, there’s no substitute for that., no cut rate possible. And the need is indifferent to income, age or any of that. Also a lot of medical stuff is immediate-there’s no way to shop around even if it were a thing. And you have to trust your providers that they are reasonable competent.

    Now there way be something in primary care. In long-term stuff where one can compare and ask around for quality. But cost? Who knows? And a lot of cases are different and have complicating factors as well.

  246. 246.

    chris

    August 1, 2019 at 4:54 pm

    @Yarrow: Nope, but for few more days I’m a hundredaire.

  247. 247.

    The Moar You Know

    August 1, 2019 at 4:54 pm

    How much of that is exposure of modern life, against a far slower and less wide exposure of 50-60 years ago?

    @Ruckus: I’m not sure how to answer this and will probably not say it properly, but here’s my go:

    I don’t think that they’re suffering cognitive overload, let’s put it that way. They’re better at tuning things out than people my age, which is good. They need to be good at that. They have different challenges but not more of them. Just different.

  248. 248.

    Sab

    August 1, 2019 at 4:59 pm

    @Yarrow: I agree. Thank you.

  249. 249.

    Gelfling 545

    August 1, 2019 at 4:59 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: When I was teaching the school district was in a quandary about state mandates requiring x number of minutes weekly for “special” subjects, i.e. not English & math. They would have had to hire additional teachers to meet the mandate. What to do? What to do? Easy. They redefined the week as having 6 days – A-F instead of Mon-Fri. Got away with it too.

  250. 250.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    August 1, 2019 at 5:00 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Increasing discretionary spending by $324 Billion over 2 years used to be awesome.

    What’s that FDR quote, “judge me by my opponents”. Bill must be awesome if it’s opposed by Tom Cotton and Rick Scott.

  251. 251.

    Sab

    August 1, 2019 at 5:03 pm

    @chris: That’s why you can’t donate.

  252. 252.

    Brachiator

    August 1, 2019 at 5:06 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    If you can put your head into the lived experience of an 18 year old kid today, you’d have a lot fewer reasons to be hopeful about the future of this country and the world then we do.

    I don’t know. The McCarthy era was a time of fear and oppression. This was followed by an era of activism. By many measures, 1968 was one of the most pivotal years in the modern era, and not just in America, but globally.

    This miserable era of Trump, and now Boris Johnson, is a very challenging time. And even though I think he is an annoying piece of crap, I find it interesting that so many young people are still drawn to Bernie, and are fired up. And a lot of young women have been and continue to be energized and politically active.

    The kids are still alright.

  253. 253.

    pinacacci

    August 1, 2019 at 5:11 pm

    @rikyrah:@rikyrah: love you but must call you out on this one: Don’t looks-shame a girl who’s chunkier than her mother. Just don’t do that.

  254. 254.

    David Evans

    August 1, 2019 at 5:11 pm

    @jl: It’s in Shakespeare too. King John Act 4 Scene 2

    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
    To throw a perfume on the violet,
    To smooth the ice, or add another hue
    Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
    To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
    Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

  255. 255.

    Betty Cracker

    August 1, 2019 at 5:20 pm

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: It’s pointless to argue about it now; just pointing out (since you brought it up with customary graciousness) that this bill that was negotiated from a position of maximum leverage expires just in time to hog-tie the newly inaugurated Democrat. We damned well better get Congress too.

  256. 256.

    Mandalay

    August 1, 2019 at 5:24 pm

    Nobody could have predicted the first 20 minutes of Wolf Blitzer this evening: Why do all the Democratic candidates except Joe Biden hate the legacy of Barack Obama?…

  257. 257.

    burnt

    August 1, 2019 at 5:25 pm

    Delurking to write I avoided reading the body-builder days-in-a-week thread. I tried. I really tried. However, after reading all the comments referencing it I dived in. It was worth it. I think my understanding of the world has been fundamentally altered–and I laughed as well. Thank you TheJosh. I believe body building is not your calling. I believe the construction of koans is your one true path. I was never a body builder but as someone who lifted a lot in the service of other sports I must say TheJosh made more sense to me than he might have otherwise.

  258. 258.

    Kay

    August 1, 2019 at 5:28 pm

    4 years later the Cincinnati Enquirer still believes Trump and the low quality hires will actually do some work:

    The president made news this week with his criticism of Democratic U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings because of the poor conditions in parts of the congressman’s district in Baltimore. Cincinnati, represented by two Republican congressmen and a senator, suffers from many of the same challenges as Baltimore – gun violence, poverty, blight, gentrification – just to a lesser degree. In fact, some of the most impoverished areas of our city border downtown where the president will be addressing a crowd of thousands.
    Instead of casting blame and hurling insults at Democrats, the people of the Cincinnati region would appreciate hearing the specifics of the president’s plan to address urban renewal. We would covet his insight on how to attract more businesses and investment to urban areas without displacing black, brown and, yes, white residents who call those places home. What are your ideas for creating more affordable housing? How can we all share in the prosperity of making America and our poorest neighborhoods great again? Surely, Thursday night’s crowd would be interested in your thoughts and plans for these pressing issues, Mr. President.
    Here’s another pretty big topic the people of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky would love for you to delve into deeper: The Brent Spence Bridge. You promised voters back in 2016 that you would fix the crumbling bridge, perhaps the most crucial piece of infrastructure in the region, carrying 160,000 vehicles a day on Interstates 71 and 75 over the Ohio River between Covington and Downtown Cincinnati. Those still holding onto hope that you will live up to your campaign promise would love a status update on the bridge while you’re in town. For local companies and commuters, replacing that bridge is just as important as building that wall.
    Finally, our region – indeed our country – needs a unifying voice right now, not a divisive one. For example, making U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley a target once again because you’re in her hometown would not be a good move, Mr. President.

    He’ll probably lie and say he replaced the bridge.

  259. 259.

    Suzanne

    August 1, 2019 at 5:29 pm

    @Brachiator: Tiffany is looking to marry well. She doesn’t need need a summer job for that. There are lots of women who have rich parents who go to law school and never have significant careers. Maybe they work until they get married, maybe they never work at all. It has nothing to do with intellect or grades. They go to law school to expand their social network and to stay busy in a status-y way.

    Shit, this actually sounds like a great life path. If I could just go to school and then be a full-time home person, I would do it in a heartbeat.

  260. 260.

    Kay

    August 1, 2019 at 5:33 pm

    Cincinnati Trump supporters are still waiting for “the builder” to build them a bridge. “In 2 weeks!” For the last 4 years.

    That contractor you hired isn’t coming. You paid him upfront and he’s down the road.

  261. 261.

    debbie

    August 1, 2019 at 5:34 pm

    @JPL:

    I think it’s Ivanka.

  262. 262.

    Kay

    August 1, 2019 at 5:40 pm

    The complete failure of the low quality Trump hires to do infrastructure is really the dumbest thing. Had they passed an infrastructure bill something would have gotten built, even despite their incompetence and corruption. They could point to projects all over the country and even if you hated them the thing would EXIST- there would be no denying it.

    Instead they did tax cuts and racism and corruption, and 44,000 tweets.

  263. 263.

    Steve in the ATL

    August 1, 2019 at 5:44 pm

    @Suzanne: my college roommate’s mother did this!

  264. 264.

    J R in WV

    August 1, 2019 at 5:47 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    “How can I be racist if I voted for Nikki Haley?”

    How about because Nikki doesn’t have even that single drop of African blood, being the child of parents from the south Asian nation of India? Just a wild guess on my part…

  265. 265.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 1, 2019 at 5:49 pm

    @Suzanne: There were several people following that path in my law school class. It gave them something to do while their fiancé finished his residency and the announcements in the paper look better too

  266. 266.

    Steve in the ATL

    August 1, 2019 at 5:49 pm

    @Sab: what if I were Chinese? I don’t recall St. Reagan getting in trouble when Chinese nationals brought suitcases containing millions of dollars in cash to his campaign headquarters in California.

  267. 267.

    Roger Moore

    August 1, 2019 at 5:51 pm

    @CarolDuhart2:
    What’s supposed to happen in our system is that consumers shop for insurance and the insurance companies shop for medical providers. That kind of indirect comparison shopping can work, provided there is reasonable regulation. It seems to work in countries like Germany that achieve universal coverage by requiring everyone to buy it. I don’t think it’s as efficient as single payer or NHS, but it certainly can work.

  268. 268.

    frosty

    August 1, 2019 at 5:51 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: Echo and the Bunnymen? Never heard of ’em. Gerry and the Pacemakers, now, they’re totally Liverpool. Ferry Cross the Mersey and all that.

    ETA I think these Beatles chaps might have had a Liverpudlian song or two. Wasn’t Penny Lane somewhere around there? /s

  269. 269.

    MisterForkbeard

    August 1, 2019 at 5:53 pm

    @Suzanne: Yep. I knew a child development major who was basically doing this. She went to a really good liberal arts & business college, and her plan was to learn something useful for her life as a wife/mother while she met additional people and broadened her social circle to find a good husband.

    Her fallback in case of not finding anyone was to work with children with disabilities and keep up the social aspect with the connections she’d made at school. She was very open about it. It worked, too – she married a pretty cool dude and they’re living in Chicago last I heard.

  270. 270.

    Roger Moore

    August 1, 2019 at 5:57 pm

    @Kay:

    Had they passed an infrastructure bill something would have gotten built, even despite their incompetence and corruption.

    It’s amazing how greedy they are. For well over a century, machine politicians have understood there are two parts to the equation. First, you do stuff the public wants done. Second, you find ways to skim money from the process and use it to pay for your political machine. People will put up with it as long as you actually get worthwhile stuff done. But Trump couldn’t bother with anything that complicated. He just wants to steal everything that isn’t nailed down and doesn’t realize the importance of actually providing something to his constituents.

  271. 271.

    Brachiator

    August 1, 2019 at 6:04 pm

    @frosty:

    Echo and the Bunnymen? Never heard of ’em.

    Really? Never heard of them? Good group.

    Gerry and the Pacemakers, now, they’re totally Liverpool. Ferry Cross the Mersey and all that

    1960s Gerry and the Pacemakers

    2019 Gerry’s got a Pacemaker

    I checked and saw that Gerry Marsden is still with us. He had a long career and even started a couple of new bands. He had a couple of heart surgeries and retired in November 2018.

  272. 272.

    zhena gogolia

    August 1, 2019 at 6:17 pm

    My little tour of twitter and youtube seems to indicate that the Russians are directing their efforts against Harris and for Gabbard. There are a lot of tweets and comments from “black people” that are in a kind of Amos-and-Andy-in-Vladivostok patois.

  273. 273.

    Ruckus

    August 1, 2019 at 6:26 pm

    @The Moar You Know:
    Certainly life is different today than 60 years ago, but how really different is it? The big change in day to day life, in my experience is far faster communication and far denser information. In the bigger picture what else has really changed? Healthcare has saved people from diseases and injuries that would most likely have killed them then, myself included and more infants and moms died young, the civil rights act and Medicare happened.

  274. 274.

    J R in WV

    August 1, 2019 at 6:31 pm

    @Immanentize:

    I wish I had time to scour his [Joe Biden’s] record for comments on those with HIV or AIDS.

    You think he is aware of the difference between those with HIV and those with AIDS? I think the mission of looking into Biden’s record on HIV/AIDS would be wasted time. He’s probably unaware of his own record on HIVAIDS, or of any facts about HIV/AIDS, except to vaguely recall that both are icky sex diseases of gay men. I’m being harsh here, but there it is.

    Sad, but that’s my suspicion. Similar to his suspicions about “them illegals,” which don’t really exist as seeking asylum isn’t illegal. Not that he appears to know that, which is sad as he must have voted on the treaty regarding asylum that the US adopted while Joe was a Senator.

  275. 275.

    SFAW

    August 1, 2019 at 6:40 pm

    @Just One More Canuck:

    how about “gelded in gold”

    If only Fred Trump Sr. had tried that on himself 80 years ago.

  276. 276.

    J R in WV

    August 1, 2019 at 6:47 pm

    @chris:

    Holy crap!Have you seen this? Tulsi needs to go. Now. Far away!

    I’m sorry but am I the only one that finds this TOTALLY CREEPY AND WEIRD? pic.twitter.com/lS6i3WMmov— Chris Stein (@chrissteinplays) August 1, 2019

    I don’t find it creepy and weird at all. It’s a string of lies from beginning to end. Mueller said himself, under oath AND in the report, that the investigation didn’t look into collusion because there is no such concept under law.

    Mueller also said the reason Trump wasn’t indicted was because there is DoJ policy that prohibits the indictment of a sitting president, and that Trump could be indicted after leaving office.

    Nothing weird about it, it just proves that Congresswoman Gabbard is bought and paid for by Russian interests and supports Trump more than she supports the American system of government. I guess that part is pretty creepy, really.

    But she’s just as big a Russian tool as Mike Flynn, Jilil Stein, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump or the Russian NRA woman. Maybe a little more open than some of those, but still… She’s a little cuter than the Russian NRA woman, but way more treasonous, she’s working for Russia while posing as a loyal American member of government. Prison time, baby!!!

    ETA: to add

    That video is one hell of a good piece of propaganda work. She had a ton of professional help with the script and delivery of that piece of Trumpian propaganda!! I’m glad she has no chance of winning a democratic primary as a Trump candidate in disguise.

    Ye gods people, she’s running as a Trump delegate to the DNC.

  277. 277.

    Amir Khalid

    August 1, 2019 at 6:50 pm

    @The Moar You Know:
    Well, it’s just the one moron vs. a bunch of people trying to teach him that two weeks =/= 15 days.

  278. 278.

    karen marie

    August 1, 2019 at 6:54 pm

    @rikyrah: I have to respect Tiffany insofar as it appears that she has not had plastic surgery to fix the unfortunate Trump features, unlike her half sister who’s had her entire face reconstructed.

    Also too, why are you picking on her in the first place? She’s the only one who isn’t begging to be booked into The Hague.

  279. 279.

    karen marie

    August 1, 2019 at 7:01 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Thank you!

  280. 280.

    Mandalay

    August 1, 2019 at 7:02 pm

    @J R in WV: I don’t know about Biden’s knowledge of HIV and AIDS, but I found this recent comment about cancer borderline offensive:

    “I promise you, if I’m elected president, you’re going to see the single most important thing that changes America — we’re going to cure cancer.”

    Now of course “curing” cancer would be a wonderful thing, but just the fact that he chose those words suggests that he has no clue about the nature of what he is promising. And while campaign promises are made to be broken, like Trump’s “cheaper, better healthcare”, there’s something odious about promising to “cure” cancer when it’s just not going to happen, and doubly so when the implication is “President Biden, and only President Biden, can oversee cancer being cured by 2024!”.

    Biden is just as free as any other politician to make silly promises he won’t deliver on, but he really shouldn’t be promising stuff he can’t possibly deliver.

  281. 281.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 7:05 pm

    @Kay:

    Had they passed an infrastructure bill something would have gotten built, even despite their incompetence and corruption

    You are seriously underestimating their incompetence and corruption.

  282. 282.

    karen marie

    August 1, 2019 at 7:06 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: Why would she need to ruin her summer with “work experience”? She’s going to finish law school and then hired by the Trump organization for a no-show job.

  283. 283.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 7:08 pm

    @Kay:

    For local companies and commuters, replacing that bridge is just as important as building that wall.

    Fuck Cincinnati.

  284. 284.

    Amir Khalid

    August 1, 2019 at 7:10 pm

    @Mike in NC:
    I hear John and George are not currently available, but Sir Paul and Sir Ringo might be.

    @frosty:
    A few years ago, it came out that Penny Lane is named after a slave trader, John Penny, and some people said it should be renamed. Also, Gerry and The Pacemakers’ most Liverpool song has to be their cover of You’ll Never Walk Alone. At every one of the annual memorial services for the Hillsborough 96, held from 1990 to 2016, Gerry Marsden led the singing of YNWA.

  285. 285.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 7:10 pm

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    Increasing discretionary spending by $324 Billion over 2 years used to be awesome.

    That was before the Supreme Court ruled that Trump doesn’t actually have to spend that money the way Congress tells him to.

  286. 286.

    Karen

    August 1, 2019 at 7:11 pm

    I think one of the issues is that there is the red line of the N word. As long as they don’t cross it, they can claim they’re not racist. The narrowness of that definition is the point. What will happen when he says it in public or tweets it?

    I would like to think it will be straw that breaks the camel’s back. I know better.

  287. 287.

    Jinchi

    August 1, 2019 at 7:11 pm

    @Yarrow: Wait Tulsi is running for president and the House at the same time?

  288. 288.

    Miss Bianca

    August 1, 2019 at 7:14 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Dear God, my brain started to hurt trying to follow all that.

  289. 289.

    J R in WV

    August 1, 2019 at 7:15 pm

    @jl:

    “…stuff like ‘The Bell Curve’ was very poor quality research.”

    IT wasn’t really research at all. When you form your conclusions first, and spend all your time looking for support of those conclusions, that isn’t what we call “research”…

  290. 290.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 1, 2019 at 7:15 pm

    @TenguPhule: That’s not what the ruling was.

  291. 291.

    karen marie

    August 1, 2019 at 7:17 pm

    @germy: “Unwashable mayonnaise stain” is the best!

  292. 292.

    SFAW

    August 1, 2019 at 7:20 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Well, it’s just the one moron vs. a bunch of people trying to teach him that two weeks =/= 15 days.

    Well they ARE equal (within an order of magnitude).

  293. 293.

    zhena gogolia

    August 1, 2019 at 7:21 pm

    @chris:

    That is horrifying!

  294. 294.

    SFAW

    August 1, 2019 at 7:23 pm

    @J R in WV:

    When you form your conclusions first, and spend all your time looking for support of those conclusions, that isn’t what we call “research”…

    Well, technically, I believe it’s called “The Jonah Goldberg Method of Research.”

  295. 295.

    TenguPhule

    August 1, 2019 at 7:33 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That’s not what the ruling was.

    Its the effective result of the ruling since nobody can challenge Trump’s actions without both House and Senate in agreement.

  296. 296.

    J R in WV

    August 1, 2019 at 7:36 pm

    @Martin:

    We have an entire generation of people afraid to have kids because they don’t think there will be a habitable planet for them to grow into.

    I was born in 1950, and wife in 1949, and we didn’t have children because we believed we were all going to die in a nuclear holocaust. I was 11 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and attempted to dig a shelter in our crawl space, in hard sandstone ridge top caprock.

    Can’t be done, but I made progress every evening after, what, 5th grade let out. Kind of resented Dad not helping, but figured he had knowledge that led him to give up already, which was probably correct.

    I think JFK saved the world that time. Don’t know who is going to do it this time, if at all. Then in 7th grade I got to see my science teacher grin when he heard that Kennedy had been shot. Grim world back then too.

    Not too late for that, either.

  297. 297.

    Ruckus

    August 1, 2019 at 8:34 pm

    @Mandalay:
    He can’t promise to go to the moon within the decade.
    He can’t promise to pass a landmark healthcare bill, his ex boss already did that.
    He can’t promise to come up with anything better because this is how he rolls.
    He can’t promise, really anything else because they would all be as over the top stupid.
    All he can do is the same as every other time he’s run, keep loosening the lug nuts till the wheels fall off. That’s his specialty.

  298. 298.

    J R in WV

    August 1, 2019 at 10:22 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    @Brachiator: You’d be right about my parent’s age. I wasn’t born for six more years. I know about Kennedy for two reasons: the “we shall put a man on the moon before this decade is out” quote, and him getting shot. That’s it.

    You kids should really look up a good book about the Cuban Missile Crisis, which happened not long after JFK was inaugurated. Could have been the trigger of a nuclear war…. wasn’t.

    Mostly because of JFK’s ability to stay calm and negotiate with the Russians, as opposed to allowing Curtis LeMay and SAC to destroy the world.

    Also Bay of Pigs invasion, which was a CIA plot from stupid. Failed, may have been why Kennedy was shot… both were big events during Kennedy’s short term in office.

  299. 299.

    J R in WV

    August 1, 2019 at 10:35 pm

    @Mandalay:

    when the implication is “President Biden, and only President Biden, can oversee cancer being cured by 2024!”.

    And of course, cancer is really a huge cluster of diseases that have little actual relationship to one another. Curing one type of leukemia has nothing to do with the other 1024 types of leukemia, same for breast cancer, same for prostate cancer, etc, etc.

    A painful lie aimed at people either with cancer themselves or with loved ones with cancer.

  300. 300.

    SWMBO

    August 2, 2019 at 2:41 am

    @Steve in the ATL: Not even with Kavanaugh?

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Comments

  • Baud on Late Night Weekend Wrap-Up Open Thread: Journamalism, Not A Dependable Profit Center (Apr 15, 2024 @ 5:06am)
  • SpaceUnit on Late Night Weekend Wrap-Up Open Thread: Journamalism, Not A Dependable Profit Center (Apr 15, 2024 @ 5:03am)
  • Chet Murthy on Late Night Weekend Wrap-Up Open Thread: Journamalism, Not A Dependable Profit Center (Apr 15, 2024 @ 5:02am)
  • Aussie Sheila on Late Night Weekend Wrap-Up Open Thread: Journamalism, Not A Dependable Profit Center (Apr 15, 2024 @ 4:54am)
  • Baud on Late Night Weekend Wrap-Up Open Thread: Journamalism, Not A Dependable Profit Center (Apr 15, 2024 @ 4:49am)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Balloon Juice Meetups!

All Meetups
Talk of Meetups – Meetup Planning
Proposed BJ meetups list from frosty

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8
Virginia House Races
Four Directions – Montana
Worker Power AZ
Four Directions – Arizona
Four Directions – Nevada

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
Positive Climate News
War in Ukraine
Cole’s “Stories from the Road”
Classified Documents Primer

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Political Action 2024

Postcard Writing Information

Balloon Juice for Four Directions AZ

Donate

Balloon Juice for Four Directions NV

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2024 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!