Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

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

No one could have predicted…

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Everybody saw this coming.

T R E 4 5 O N

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

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

Optimism opens the door to great things.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

The willow is too close to the house.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Friday Morning Open Thread: Thick Mick Mulvaney Knows What His President Likes

Friday Morning Open Thread: Thick Mick Mulvaney Knows What His President Likes

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… Pre-sorted Starbursts, free money, and the wholehearted defense of even his dumbest moves.

Problem is, the guy with this kind of single-minded dedication to Lord Smallgloves’ whims is not necessarily an intellectual heavyweight.

Everyone’s free to choose the name by which they’re known, but as I have been pointing out for some time, Mick is generally not the cognomen of someone renowned for his wisdom.

Voiceover: Later, that same day…

SRSLY?


Little late on that walkback, Mick…

Reader Interactions

271Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “There never was any condition on the flow of the aid related to the matter of the DNC server.”

    “So we never did that thing I just admitted we do all the time.”

  2. 2.

    WereBear

    SCHIFF responds: “Mr. Mulvaney’s acknowledgment means that things have gone from very, very bad to much, much worse.”

    This is going to make me laugh all day.

  3. 3.

    WereBear

    One thing I do like about social media, at least on my favorite, Twitter, is I get so many different perspectives, and glorious pushback, from the media narrative. It doesn’t stop the propaganda, but it does get noticed and decried.

    We need to move the mushy middle. Fortunately, you don’t have to be politically acute to notice the dumpster fire here.

  5. 5.

    Betty Cracker

    We need a phrase other than “walk back” to describe what Mulvaney is attempting here. “Gaslight” fits the bill.

  7. 7.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “That long set of exchanges where I made admissions and was combative in justifying them? Yeah, I was taking a lot of cough syrup at the time. None of what I was saying was true.”

  8. 8.

    TS (the original)

    I think MJ has stopped both siding the Clintons when attacking trump. It appears Syria & saying (at the rally) “I saved the Kurds” – was one step too far.

  13. 13.

    Leto

    Ladies and gents, Mick Mulvaney, our former congresscritter. His office did help speed up Avalune and spawn’s passport and visa when the Air Force messed that up, but past that singular incident… When Rethuglicans redrew the maps in 2010 we were taken out of Clyburn’s district and placed in the 5th where Mick won on a special election. They redrew Sumter to place all of “those people” into Clyburn’s new district and the “right” people, as well as the Air Force base, into the new district.

    @Betty Cracker: You used a term a few days ago that fits the bill: “Huffing his own farts”

  14. 14.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Just once, I’d like to see a journo say to one of these clowns:

    “Are you high? Really? That’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in the public policy realm”.

  21. 21.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WereBear: What I see on Twitter is mostly people on our side viciously attacking each other and tearing our own politicians and voters down. By the time it’s a real confrontation with the bad guys we’ll all be pre-wounded.

  23. 23.

    Kay

    The sweeping 24,000-square-foot Donald J. Trump Ballroom features flexibility for a multitude of configurations for events such as weddings, conferences and banquets. The White & Gold Ballroom accommodates up to 1,200 seated guests, and the 8,100- square-foot Ivanka Trump Ballroom welcomes up to 1,000 guests.

    Gross.

  25. 25.

    Immanentize

    @Betty Cracker: But intoxi-briefing just means he told the truth! When will Mulvaney or Pompeo start weeping at the podium and telling the assembled that he really really loves them?

  27. 27.

    Jeffro

    Hey how ’bout that Mattis, finally speaking up…to crack a few jokes at the Al Smith dinner?

    Thanks, “Mad Dog”! You’ve really done the Republic a favor, yukking it up about being the ‘world’s worst general’ and taking a pot shot or two at Cadet Bone Spurs. That’s helpful. That’s good evidence for the impeachment inquiry. That’ll really help wake up the soft GOP supporters.

  33. 33.

    Kay

    @TS (the original):

    Right. Turkey said it was a lie 15 minutes after Pence announced it. The lies unravel faster now, I’ve noticed.

    I have some hope the lies Chief of Staff Mulvaney told yesterday about the “search” for an appropriate venue will collapse fairly quickly because they were specific- he claims they looked at 12 sites.

  34. 34.

    Immanentize

    I like Pierce’s take on the Mulvaney scenes:
    “Mick Mulvaney throws Mick Mulvaney under the bus where he meets Mick Mulvaney.”

  38. 38.

    Immanentize

    @debbie: or a ceasefire because, according to the Turks: “that would require a legitimate party on the other side.”. So they just kept shelling.

  39. 39.

    TS (the original)

    @debbie: Indeed – And Pence thought he would get the kudos – sitting in the wings waiting for the impeachment/resignation.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    It’s kind of interesting, though, that Pence was worried enough about the religious Right to go all that way and pretend to negotiate something. That he bothered to trick them.

  42. 42.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kay:

    “Coincidentally, 8 of the properties reviewed are owned by the Trump Organization….”

  44. 44.

    Leto

    @Immanentize: “Trumpov said if we gave MOTHER! A nice photo op, along with buying out a floor of Trumpov Mar-a-LaGoFundMe (h/t Volitale Mermaid), we could keep up with our ethnic cleansing. Hand shaksies, no take backsies!!!” – Erdogan

  48. 48.

    TS (the original)

    Eugene Robinson – there is no bottom here – it just gets worse and worse … unstable erratic unfit man who is doing incredible damage to this country.

  51. 51.

    Immanentize

    @Kay:
    There will be a night of prayer for the Kurds, possibly featuring Pence? At the Trump hotel in Washington D.C. no, I am Not making this up.

  53. 53.

    TS (the original)

    @debbie: I don’t know if I am paralysed with fear or filled with incredible rage – directed at those who would support this imbecile. Boris Johnson could do anything in regard to brexit at the minute & no-one would even look. All eyes are on the US wondering what will happen next.

  55. 55.

    Immanentize

    @Immanentize:

    In light of the tragedies we are seeing towards the Kurdish people, FAI has called for an emergency Night of Prayer for the Kurds and will be hosting the evening at Trump Hotel in Washington, DC.

    Not linking

  57. 57.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: The Doral is one of the WORST possible sites unless they intend to order the Miami International Airport closed for a week. Doral is like 1/2 mile from the runways (i.e. plane bombs)

  59. 59.

    Leto

    @Kay: Reporters asked Mick if, to show the admin is above board, they’d release the documents showing how they got to this decision. Mick said, “No”. Of course they’re lying. Trumpov will come out saying, “They came to me, they came to me, and said, “Sir, sir, we looked everywhere and Doral was the best”. That’s what they said!” It’s corrupt, gross, and at this point they’re grabbing as much cash as they can to fuel the defense fund for when he’s out of office. What I want to know is, can the other G7 members object to this? Simply refuse to come as long as it’s being held there? Granted that would be another nail in the the coffin of America, but at this point I see outside influence like this as the best pressure.

  60. 60.

    Amir Khalid

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    The sub-head explains it was the last house designed by FLW before he died. If there wasn’t room to mention that alongside its being in Arizona and its selling price, the headline writer should have left one of those facts out. I would have gone with

    Last home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright sells for $1.7m

    I notice the story doesn’t actually state whether Frank designed any fancy homes post mortem. He probably didn’t, but I would have liked confirmation.

  61. 61.

    Searcher

    One of the ways Trump is small, stupid and incompetent is that he can’t actually delegate or compartmentalize.

    Everyone who works for him has to be involved in everything he does or wants done. He can’t say, “Giuliani, get this done.” and move on to other things. He focuses on it, and he expects everyone else to focus on it and contribute.

  62. 62.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker:

    “you misheard that thing I said repeatedly and with maximum snotty arrogance”

    “We have tapes.”

    The administration’s entire strategery seems to be premised on the belief that no one can remember anything from more than five minutes ago, and there’s no other way of checking what happened.

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    What a world, what a world.

    This summer, word hit the digital street that a St. Louis city government employee was planning to open a bar called Open Concept that charged patrons by the hour rather than by the drink. Surely, some skeptics figured, this unique payment structure would never actually clear the necessary hurdles and actually open its doors. Well, Open Concept has proved the skeptics wrong.

    The bar launched [this month] and plan to charge guests $10 per hour for access to premium beer, wine, and liquor; and $20 per hour for access to top-shelf beer, wine, and liquor. Owner Michael Butler tells The Takeout the first option includes mostly draft beer, draft wine, and draft cocktails, while the second option includes all those in addition to straight pours of alcohol.

    Open Concept bills itself as an “open bar” to which guests pay to gain access; its website says “for an average price of $10 per hour you can drink as much as you can handle.”… Source

  67. 67.

    danielx

    @Leto:

    “they’re grabbing as much cash as they can”
    pretty much provides the simplest explanation for everything Trump does, has done or will do. If there was ever an administration where “follow the money” is sort of the unified field theory….

  68. 68.

    zhena gogolia

    @Amir Khalid:

    There have been homes that have been built according to his designs long after he died. So not the same as a project he himself was involved in at the time of death, like the Marin County Civic Center.

    What’s your position on Henry Golding? I think he’s the Cary Grant of our time. I just saw A Simple Favor on Amazon Prime and I loved him!

  70. 70.

    Barbara

    @NotMax: I think it’s a great idea because I don’t mind paying to occupy space where I am having a good time but I really hate overdoing it and feel guilty when I don’t run up a big enough tab.

  71. 71.

    Immanentize

    Does anyone want to buy a copy of my new bumper sticker?

    Susan Sarandon Killed The Kurds

    Where is Baud when we need him?

    Our nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you…

  75. 75.

    Barbara

    @danielx: What seems to have happened, in part, is that Trump was holding back on the more obvious grifting until the denouement of the Mueller report and testimony. He basically said so when he started being criticized over the Ukraine quid pro quo. “I thought I won.” Like some kid who expects a lollipop for being good. “You mean I have to be good all the time?”

  77. 77.

    Immanentize

    The cleaning folks are coming today so I have to run around cleaning the house before I go to work. What a life!

  78. 78.

    Leto

    @Barbara: That’s a good point. “I thought I won.” Was the tell. A few of the candidates were talking about, “The day after Trumpov”, and what that would be like for the American people… the day after Trumpov is when all the investigators will descend to find out the true extent of the corruption. Legislation needs to be passed, but IG’s need to be unleashed upon their respective cabinets/departments to find out the true scope of the corruption. And then indictments need to rain like singles at a strip joint.

  80. 80.

    Leto

    @Immanentize: “I have to clean before the cleaners get here so they don’t think I’m a total slob!” What I’m reading is that it’s BJ John Cole Frat House- East :P

    Edit: @OzarkHillbilly: it is a thing. It’s like when company comes over and you tidy up beforehand. Except different.

  82. 82.

    Sanjeevs

    Lev Parnas the recently arrested friend of Trumpov and Rudy:

    On Oct. 25, 2008, the owner of a property in Florida in which Lev Parnas had been living told Parnas to leave. When the men began to argue and the owner told Parnas he would call the police, Parnas told the man, “If you call the cops, they are not going to find you ever,” according to a petition for a restraining order filed by the landlord in Miami-Dade county court and obtained by POLITICO.

    Three days later, the men met to discuss the matter again. According to the petition, Parnas held a gun to the man’s head and said, “This is my last warning to you,” then got into his car, a dark blue Porsche Cayenne, and drove off. Three days after that, on Halloween, the police seized from Parnas a .38 revolver, a 9mm pistol, an automatic pistol, and a .40-caliber Glock pistol, according to a court motion filed later by Parnas seeking return of the firearms.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/17/lev-parnas-giuliani-ukraine-past-049677

    No wonder Rudy looks terrified in that video with Parnas.

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Experience: I’m nine years old and won an adult 10km race by mistake

    An hour after the official start time, even though it was still raining, the race organisers said we could go. The starting line was crowded, but I positioned myself at the front and in the middle because I like to get out ahead.

    That morning, I was running confidently and feeling strong. The route went through a neighbourhood and there were quite a few people cheering us on, but I didn’t see any faces I knew. It started to pour again, but I love running in the rain: it keeps me cool and I can keep going for longer, even when I get tired. When I run, I don’t wear a watch or look to see what distance I’m at; I just focus on moving, breathing and how my body feels.

    At one point, I came to a split in the course. A woman who was directing us blocked off the route I thought I was meant to take and told me to go the other way, so I followed her directions. I was confused, but just kept running. I knew I must be close to finishing the 5km, but I couldn’t see the finishing line.

    After a while I saw route directions for a 10km race. I was worried and thought I was lost, but had to keep going. My body started to get tired and my muscles a little sore. I said to myself, “You’re almost there. Just keep breathing.”

    Eventually I saw the finish line and spotted my mum. She looked angry. I got past the line and she was yelling, “Why did you do this, Kade? You are in so much trouble.”

    I got flashbacks reading that bolded part.

  85. 85.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WereBear:

    Fortunately, you don’t have to be politically acute to notice the dumpster fire here.

    No dumpster. No dumpster. You’re the dumpster. Sad!

  86. 86.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Betty Cracker: How about instead of “walks back,” they use “lied their asses off and are now trying to cover their ass, back and sack?”

    Yes, sack because – the balls on these people.

  87. 87.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @NotMax:

    Not to brag, but I could get my money’s worth on the premium stuff about 10 minutes in. After that, they’d lose big.

    Can’t imagine how long they think they can keep that going, once every functional alcoholic in St Louis finds it. There’s also that little nagging issue of dramshop liability.

  88. 88.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Leto: I know it is, but it goes beyond “tidying up”. Tidying up, to me, means putting things where they belong, like taking the dirty sweatshirt from the kitchen chair and putting it into the laundry hamper or taking the books from the coffee table and putting them back on the shelves, or throwing away the magazines that have been read.. But I know people who literally clean before their cleaners show up. Like scrubbing the toilet or vacuuming the carpet so they don’t think one is a total slob. I find it a little ridiculous and I can’t help pointing it out.

  89. 89.

    Leto

    @OzarkHillbilly: I remember reading that a month ago and was really happy that the kid won. Haven’t read that particular article, from his perspective, but I love his perspective on running. I also understand the mom’s point-of-view. She expected her kid at the 5k finish, so wtf is he? That mix of anger/relief when you find them.

  90. 90.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Amir Khalid: A collection of Frank Lloyd Wright furniture was at the first museum where I got a job. New staff was allowed to sit in the chairs. Most uncomfortable piece of furniture EVER.

  91. 91.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack (phone): Frontier Alliance International. Founded in 2012 by Dalton Thomas. Lives in Iraq. Has a media outfit, makes “documentaries”. Supports the “fastest growing church in the world”. Etc.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  92. 92.

    Ken

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Can’t imagine how long they think they can keep that going

    They have venture capitalist investment to cover the brief period they’re losing money, before their disruptive paradigm-breaking model gains market traction. Then they’ll start raking in money hand over fist and giving a 228% rate of return. It’s all in the PowerPoint.

  96. 96.

    Leto

    @OzarkHillbilly: No no, I know where you’re coming from and I’ve known those people too. I pointed out the same thing: “But you’re paying someone to come do what you’re doing right now…” :P

  97. 97.

    JMG

    A little political story, maybe a bit long, so please bear with me. Today the US hit EU products with $7.5 billion in tariffs. For once, this is not all Trump’s fault, it’s part of the endless Airbus-Boeing war. Among the tariffs is a 25 percent one on French wine, which has caused the wine industry there considerable consternation. At ground zero of the issue is my daughter, who lives in Bordeaux and whose job is to sell high-end wines to the US. She noted that among the French products NOT subject to the new tariffs were Champagne, Cognac and leather goods, the primary products of luxuries firm LVMH, one of France’s biggest companies. She developed a conspiracy theory (she’s getting more French by the day) that LVMH had somehow reached Trump to get that exemption. At least it was a theory until yesterday, when Trump attended some LVMH ribbon cutting in the States. Is there any doubt the company just straight up bribed the President of the United States?

  98. 98.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Let me get this straight: You clean your house before the cleaners come to clean your house?

    I do. If I didn’t, the cleaning ladies would call the EPA, ask it to be declared a HAZMAT site.

    Or they would have, before this Maladministration.

  99. 99.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Another Scott: Those were the chairs I sat in. At the time, the Robie House was the alumni office for the University of Chicago, so all of its contents were at the U of C Smart Museum of Art where I worked.

  100. 100.

    Leto

    @Cheryl from Maryland: @Another Scott: I’ve seen some of the furniture from Taliesen West and thought, “Who… who sits in those?” Because while they’re interesting to look at, I couldn’t see how they could be comfortable. The Robie House dining chairs are from the period of, “You sit straight, but your back never touches the back of the chair” style dining. An upper crust custom that never caught on with the masses.

  102. 102.

    ThresherK

    @NotMax:

    plan to charge guests $10 per hour for access to premium beer, wine, and liquor; and $20 per hour for access to top-shelf beer, wine, and liquor

    Wait, there’s a difference between premium and top-shelf when it comes to wine, beer and spirits? Or is premiium a 21st century word for rotgut?

    The above sentence reveals a lot about my drinking habits, doesn’t it?

  104. 104.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Leto: I lost my youngest for about 3 minutes at the Forest Park Balloon Race one year. It is absolutely terrifying.

  105. 105.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @JMG: The part of this that’s most depressing is how the Rs in Congress and the MAGA fanatics don’t care and won’t act. One corrupt person is something we could deal with. A corrupt party and large segment of the population is much harder.

    I am toying with the idea that Fox News is most responsible for this.

    On another topic, we pick up before the cleaners come. I don’t want them doing it because we’d never find our stuff.

  107. 107.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Spanky: I’ve heard the same thing said about Charles Rennie Mackintosh furniture like his dining-room chairs. You can sit in them, well modern reproductions in places like the Willow Tea Rooms in Glasgow.

  108. 108.

    Immanentize

    @Spanky:
    Also, all those houses and buildings that were so beautiful are built for shit. Not one of them doesn’t/didn’t leak like crazy. Seems the modernists hated engineers.

  109. 109.

    Jeffro

    @NotMax: They better not open one of those near my alma mater.

    And by “near” I mean within ten hours’ driving time…

  112. 112.

    Leto

    @OzarkHillbilly: Considering his split times, I think he was “lost” for about 15 mins. Def scary. His mom will probably make him carry his phone, with gps tracker, next time ;)

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It goes back to cleek’s law, and whatever will “own da libz” as the guiding principle. Doesn’t matter that the country is falling into ruin, and that we’re a laughing stock to the world, nope, gotta “own da libz” no matter what!

  113. 113.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    My parents lost me at the ’64 world’s fair. Entirely their fault! I was checking out a cool transportation diorama and they just kept going. I have suspicions they would have kept going if my brothers hadn’t noticed….

  117. 117.

    Citizen_X

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Can’t imagine how long they think they can keep that going, once every functional alcoholic in St Louis finds it. There’s also that little nagging issue of dramshop liability.

    That’s where they introduce them to the sign saying “We reserve the right to refuse service to anybody.”

    That doesn’t work, they indicate the door to them.

    That doesn’t work, the bouncers introduce them to the pavement.

  119. 119.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Yes, it’s beautiful! I love mid-century modern. But at Gropius they had to do a bunch of roof work (my architect friend told me this). Likewise, the Gropius dorms at Harvard had all sorts of structure problems. Likewise most of the modernists homes in West Concord and Lincoln….

  120. 120.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Ken:

    In true Silicon Valley VC fashion, the PowerPoint shows how the bar is cashless and runs via an app which facilitates payment and tips and tracks time and tier.

    MoviePass for heavy drinkers….

  121. 121.

    Immanentize

    @Fair Economist: There is an original arts and crafts Stickley about four blocks from where I live. That was built solid (although it is very dark — small windows, overhangs, etc.). But solid!

    ETA. STICKLEY not Saltonstall….

  122. 122.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Citizen_X:

    “Hello, Chase? I need you to reverse some charges….”

    Now, where are those Yelp and TripAdvisor review submission pages…..

  123. 123.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Leto: Some friends of mine went to China recently to pick up their 2nd adopted child (cleft palates for both), their 3rd or 4th trip there. They got GPS trackers for each of their kids because Beijing is a nightmare.

    @Immanentize: My parents “lost” me a # of times. Problem was, I kept coming back.

  124. 124.

    chopper

    Mulvaney walks back today’s press briefing: “There never was any condition on the flow of the aid related to the matter of the DNC server.”

    i like how he mentions this magical server bullshit so matter-of-factly as if it’s a real thing. even when they’re backpedaling they’re bullshitting.

  127. 127.

    Frankensteinbeck

    trump actually thought mick did a good job until someone had to tell trump that in fact mick did not do a good job

    This is like the “very fine people” incident. Trump is a whiny child. He is incapable of denying something he likes. At best, he’ll do it if his arm is twisted, then walk it back. In this case, we’re beyond ‘everyone does it’ or ‘I can do no wrong.’ Trump is zeroing in on the proof that Hillary is a criminal so he can lock her up, and he’s pissed as Hell that he’s not getting acclaimed as a hero for doing something that noble. Mulvaney’s ‘of course we did it, fuck off’ is exactly the tone he thinks is appropriate.

  129. 129.

    Leto

    @OzarkHillbilly: @Immanentize: My grandparents lost me at Disney World, Florida for a while. They had taken me, my sister, and older cousin down for a few days. I was maybe 6-7 at the time? My cousin and I had gone on the car ride (it was cars on rails), got off, and went over to where my grandparents and sister were in a pavilion. My cousin decided he wanted to go again, so ran off, and maybe about 30 seconds later I wanted to go again too. I ran off after him, confident I knew where the ride was. Nope. Tried to find my way back to my grandparents. Turns out there’s a good number of geodesic pavilions that all look the same. I tried finding both the ride and my grandparents for a while, couldn’t find either, and when I had worked myself up into a good lather, finally found a park cop. They took me to their security area, where they proceeded to locate my grandparents. It took long enough that it went from day to night, and a guard took me out to watch the nightly fireworks show. The relief on both me and my grandparents was quite a sight. This was circa ‘82-‘83?

  133. 133.

    Gin & Tonic

    @chopper: The thing is, the more you look at that “server” theory, the deeper the bullshit is. Somehow the fact that one of the founders of a very well-known (in the computer security field) company that was hired to investigate the DNC breach was born in Moscow, morphed into Ukraine being involved. I wish I knew how that leap was made – Dmitri Alperovitch has no known connection to Ukraine, and doesn’t seem ever to have been there. He came to the US as a child before the breakup of the Soviet Union, went to school here, got his BS and MS from Georgia Tech (Georgia the US state) and has been a Silicon Valley security guy his entire career. Neither he nor the company, Crowdstrike, have any connection to Ukraine. It’s completely banana-pants, Comet Pizza-level bullshit.

  137. 137.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    When I was 4, we were getting ready to go somewhere. Mom wasn’t working yet, so they only had one car – dad’s entirely reliable and practical TR3 Roadster (if they had speed dial back then, Dad would have had a tow service and mechanic on it). Anyhow, I disappeared, and the entire neighborhood hunted for me for an hour and a half – turned out, I had climbed into the car in this little back storage area where I usually sat (user a ledge), and mom had taken so long getting ready that I fell asleep.

    I have vague memories of waking up and a lot of people standing around….

  139. 139.

    germy

    @Leto:

    Mel Brooks predicted this presidency and made a movie about it…

    Mel Brooks made a film in 1991 (“Life Stinks”) and his character looks like he’s based on Trump.
    Bad hair, bad attitude. But he seems to learn a lesson in the end, so it’s definitely a work of fiction.

    Goddard Bolt (Mel Brooks) is the callous CEO of Bolt Enterprises. Bolt shows little regard for other people’s needs, or for the environment.

  140. 140.

    BR

    I watched Yang on Maddow last night and wow, he didn’t come off as serious at all. I’ve been sympathetic to him because I think the universal basic income in some form is worth considering, but Yang hasn’t been the right messenger. When asked which countries he thinks the U.S. has interfered with over the years — Maddow asked him this gently a couple times — he clearly had no idea and tried to bluff his way through it. It was like Perry with “one, two, oops”, but Yang didn’t even come up with one.

  142. 142.

    geg6

    @Immanentize:

    Hmmmm, not every house. Not nearly as famous as Fallingwater, Kentuck Knob (just down the road from Fallingwater) is a home that was used as a home for decades by the Hagans who built it (the Hagan ice cream people, if you get that where you live) and for several years by the Palumbos, who own it now. And if you look at it, it is definitely more comfortable than most of Wright’s homes and more practical. It was done just five years or so before he died. I’ve been to both many times (a benefit of living nearby) and I actually prefer Kentuck Knob. Fallingwater definitely had issues and some of those issues will never be fixed due to the design. Like mold being a huge issue what with it being on top of a waterfall. And the cantilevers not having proper support, though they keep propping them up. But Kentuck Knob seems to have avoided almost all of that. You can read more about it and see some photos here:

    https://pittsburghquarterly.com/pq-lifestyle/pq-homes/item/1028-kentuck-knob-the-other-frank-lloyd-wright.html

  144. 144.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Bingo.

    I have used the “when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for XX years” crack more than a couple of times, but I had forgotten where I first heard it.

  145. 145.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Ken:

    Oooh, you have surfaces? I have strata…

    My motto is: “A toppling heap for everything, and everything in its toppling heap.”

  146. 146.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: When I was 2 and my brother 3, my mother got on a first name basis with all the cops, she had to call them so often for help in finding us. It was rather embarrassing for the cop who once had to serve us with papers for wanton destruction of property (he couldn’t cuff me, my tiny little hands just slipped right out //).

  147. 147.

    SFAW

    @eric:

    better yet, Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez…..

    Doesn’t he have a brother who’s a priest (or a brother) in a monastery?

  150. 150.

    RSA

    Laws are for little people.

    Disqualifying Financial Interests. Under the criminal conflict of interest statute, 18 U.S.C. § 208, an employee is prohibited from participating in an official capacity in any particular matter in which, to her knowledge, the employee or certain other persons have a financial interest, if the particular matter will have a direct and predictable effect on her own or that person’s financial interests.

    SUMMARY – EXECUTIVE BRANCH STANDARDS OF ETHICAL CONDUCT

  153. 153.

    germy

    I remember the National Lampoon spoof of modern architecture: “The Fall Of The House Of Bau” as a pulp horror comic. An architect inherits some money and builds his dream home, a starkly minimalist and modern house. We see him sitting stiffly upright in an uncomfortable hard chair, “relaxing” in his home. His houseplant is one cactus.

    The horror comic ends with the house haunted, and all these tacky decorations appear on the modern house. The joke is, once the decorations are added, it looks like every 1970 boxy raised ranch in every exurb in America.

  154. 154.

    cynthia ackerman

    @Amir Khalid:

    I grew up next to a post-mortem FLW adapted from original plans.

    The owner claimed it as authentic FLW, and no doubt continues to make that claim. He encountered comic design/build problems which argue strongly against.

    The plans were flipped and scaled down, resulting in a high traffic hallway that was about five feet high and less than two feet wide. If memory serves, this resulted in an expensive redesign and retrofit which stuck out like a sore thumb.

  155. 155.

    Leto

    @SFAW: If you want me to tell that story, meet me at that $10 dollar bar! Best $5 you’ll ever spend! ;)

    @germy: We need to drop the “comic” label when we describe his genius. He was just an f’ing genius.

    @BR: Haven’t been impressed with him this entire time. Another dipshit tech bro, though it has been interesting to see how many on our side respond to the grift message. He, Bernie, and Tulsi have really been able to make that segment more visible. I agree that UBI is something to consider, but not from this clown.

  156. 156.

    germy

    Alma Mahler:

    She became the wife of composer Gustav Mahler, who did not approve of her continuing to compose music. Eventually she fell into depression from being artistically stifled.

    Christ, he was an asshole.

  158. 158.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Leto: That ride is right around the Tomorrowland area, which has always been a bit confusing, I imagine particularly for a little kid.

  159. 159.

    Hoodie

    @Gin & Tonic: Of course it is. The whole point is to just to draw morons further into the black hole of insanity that surrounds Trump. But those morons are not limited to members of the cult. It’s been driving me nuts that people, including reporters and even some Dem politicians, keep saying Trump was withholding aid to get Ukraine “to start an investigation of” THE SERVER or “dig up dirt on” Biden. No, Trump was extorting them to make up a bunch of bullshit . There is and never would be an actual investigation, as if a corruption-ridden place like the Ukraine could conduct such a thing. Why would anyone believe an “investigation” conducted by that government or, for that matter, by the Chinese?

  161. 161.

    PPCLI

    I expect that most if not all of the other G7 countries have anti-corruption laws that preclude offering bribes to foreign leaders, and that these laws could plausibly be understood to preclude attending the G7 at Trump’s hotel. (IANAL) My current (unrealistic) fantasy is that several of the main G7 countries will indicate that they are prevented by anti-corruption laws from staying at the Doral resort.

    Obviously nobody will actually refuse, since alienating the US when it is ruled by an insane toddler is too much of a risk economically, but it would be nice to see big headlines announcing that opposition parties in those countries are pointing to the specific laws and making a big stink about it. So for example, I can imagine the headlines in the Globe and Mail, etc.: NDP presses government on violating anti-corruption laws with Trump hotel.

  163. 163.

    FlipYrWhig

    @BR: I felt similarly. He just seems like… some guy. Not that smart, not charismatic, not interesting. You’d meet him at a party, chat idly, and forget him immediately afterwards.

  164. 164.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @geg6:

    Like mold being a huge issue what with it being on top of a waterfall. And the cantilevers not having proper support,

    Cantilevers, properly sized for the material and constructed according to spec don’t need support.

    I helped survey a cave with a “home” inside it that had once been a domicile of ill repute. It had a stream running thru it. I’m sure it was comfy during the hot humid Arkansas summers back in the days when it was a thriving business but it was hell on fabrics. The Owners went out of town for a week and while they were gone they lost power. No dehumidifiers for 4 or 5 days destroyed all the carpets, draperies, stuffed furniture, etc etc.

  165. 165.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: I love Leher. I find myself singing his songs quite often, or as best I can remember them anyway, especially National Brotherhood Week.

    ETANational Brotherhood Week
    National Brotherhood Week
    New Yorkers Love the Puerto Ricans ’cause it’s very chique
    Stand up and shake the hand of
    someone you can’t stand
    you can tolerate him if you try.

    Oh the protestants hate the catholics
    and the catholics hate the protestants
    and the hindus hate the muslims
    and everybody hates the jews,

  166. 166.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Frankensteinbeck: Trump is consistently impressed when a person mouths off to people he hates. Every time he thinks someone in the news did well advancing his cause, it’s from their attitude: yelling, sneering, and general contempt. Kavanaugh, Graham, Lewandowski, Mulvaney, etc. I’m not sure how much he understands the content of what people are saying when they’re not talking directly to him, or even then.

  167. 167.

    Betty Cracker

    @Patricia Kayden: A memo must have gone out because all the Never Trumpers are wringing their hands over Warren in unison today. Those assholes should focus on the denazifying their own damned party and let the Democrats hash out their nomination. Never Trumpers don’t have a single thing to add to the discussion; every viewpoint is well represented within the Democratic Party.

  169. 169.

    PPCLI

    @germy: Random amusing observation: for a time, the University of Toronto Faculty of Music intra-college hockey team was called the Gustav Mawlers. After every goal they scored, they would play the slow part of the opening of the First Symphony.

  170. 170.

    Leto

    @OzarkHillbilly: Welcome to MS post-Katrina! When I was able to make it back to our apartment (roughly 3-4 days after the storm), one of the main living walls had mold all over it. We were right below what used to be the roof, water had gotten in, ran down one of our walls. Had to pull the book cases away, grab the Tilex, and went to town on that wall and the back of the bookcases. We were very fortunate because we lived on the same road as the TV station, newspaper, and hospital, so had power back on after a week. Ugh, reminder of of 900 people trapped in our building with no power and no ventilation. Gah.

  172. 172.

    Eunicecycle

    @BR: I thought the same thing. He spewed out the bit about us intervening in elections then couldn’t back it up.

  174. 174.

    Just One More Canuck

    @JMG: “This is my neighborhood. You and your friends should show me some respect. You should let me wet my beak a little… Tell your friends I don’t want a lot. Just enough to wet my beak.”

  176. 176.

    lethargytartare

    @ThresherK:

    Wait, there’s a difference between premium and top-shelf when it comes to wine, beer and spirits? Or is premiium a 21st century word for rotgut?
    The above sentence reveals a lot about my drinking habits, doesn’t it?

    at least in beer, “premium” describes the alcohol content, not the quality or rarity. this explains a lot of cognitive dissonance from my youth.

  177. 177.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Eunicecycle: He was vaguely aware the sketchy elections had to do with Central and South American countries, but he wasn’t 100% sure he would say the right ones, so he hedged to avoid embarrassment.

  178. 178.

    Gvg

    @OzarkHillbilly: yes, and it’s not just the slob thing. Cleaners cost money and we generally want them to do things we can’t or hate doing. Deep cleaning, expert window washing, carpet cleaning, waxing floors, dusting all the Knick knacks, getting up on ladders and doing things high up. So clearing away all the clutter and just putting things where they go makes having cleaners in more efficient. They can get on with the real work or heavy stuff.
    My mom worked so we had a cleaning lady every few weeks since I was a child, and we always “cleaned up” before she came.

  179. 179.

    Fair Economist

    @Betty Cracker: The Never Trumpers are obviously terrified of Warren, and with good reason. She knows how to slip the shiv in to kill corporate dominance without needing a supermajority we won’t have.

  181. 181.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    HRC has a warning about an American politician and Russian interference. I wonder if people will listen this time

    Ken Thomas @ KThomasDC
    “I’m not making any predictions but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians,” Hillary Clinton to davidplouffe

  183. 183.

    ThresherK

    @lethargytartare: Hmm. I didn’t know. There’s a couple places I go to with large beer selections and all the selections have ABV listed. I’ll have to look to see if “premium” is used for some of them.

  186. 186.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @bemused: Mick The Knife. I read this in real time, I may skim over it this weekend to see what the author means by this

    Michael Grunwald @ MikeGrunwald
    One thing I learned: Mulvaney is happy to play Trump’s game but he is not a Kool-Aid drinker. He’d be dangerous to throw under the bus.

  188. 188.

    Gvg

    @Immanentize: Arts and Crafts style was all about how wonderful craftsmanship was. It was a backlash to mass production which they thought was “soulless”. I love the look, but think the best craftsmanship should be mass produced so ordinary people can afford it. It’s when they copy bad craftsmanship that mass production is horrible.

  189. 189.

    The Moar You Know

    “I’m not making any predictions but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians,”

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Gosh I just wonder who this could be.

  190. 190.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Another Scott: Huh. We overlapped. I was in grad school there 79-81 and then worked at the Court Theatre for a while. And yes, Wright’s furniture is famously uncomfortable.

  194. 194.

    Leto

    @mrmoshpotato: Oh sit; you ARE a genius, Mel! /knocksonallthewood

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: As OMB Director, he knows where the money is going. But when push comes to shove, he’ll be a lickspit toady like the rest of the shit-heels. I’m 99% certain that subpoenas have been sent to him to produce documents and he’s failed to do so.

  199. 199.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Hoodie:

    No, Trump was extorting them to make up a bunch of bullshit.

    No, he wasn’t. He believes the server and Biden’s crimes are real. The incensed and whiny way he talks about it makes crystal clear that Trump actually, truly thinks there’s a DNC server containing Hillary’s 30,000 deleted emails that prove she’s guilty of everything and especially framing him.

    Why would anyone believe an “investigation” conducted by that government or, for that matter, by the Chinese?

    Because he thinks there’s an actual, physical hard drive full of emails that could be handed to him and he can show the public and go “SEE? She’s the one who belongs in jail and I’m a hero!”

  200. 200.

    jimmiraybob

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Mick needs to learn the phase “my previous comment is inoperative”.

    The classics. What can you say? They just never get old. I don’t think that the new stuff is going to age as well: “Yes we did it but lots of people do it so get over yourselves and f*ck you anyway” takes deep breath, “No we didn’t do it.” I could be wrong. Maybe it just needs some spicing up.

  201. 201.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @bemused: I wonder to what degree Mulvaney knew exactly (or mostly) what he was counting on Barr to be corrupt and Willard et al to be cowards. Not a horrible bet. Confess and say that it’s old news and the American people aren’t interested. It’s worked for them for a while.

    I don’t watch FoxNews so I’m not sure, but it seems to me Kellyanne, whom I would qualify as smart and soulless, has been very quiet for the last couple of weeks.

  203. 203.

    BR

    @rikyrah:

    I think I partly agree and partly disagree. Yang is a left libertarian, not a capital-L Ron Paul-style Libertarian that we typically see in politics. But left-libertarians are pretty common in Europe, especially in Scandinavia, and they believe in a social safety net and such but also want to simplify government (the universal basic income is a perfect example). So he basically wants to encourage small government and small business. The problem is that he’s incoherent about it — it’s really too bad there wasn’t someone better informed who would run on his platform, because it’s important to get the ideas out there.

  204. 204.

    Leto

    Jury awards Sandy Hook father $450,000 for defamation by local conspiracy theorist

    A Dane County jury on Tuesday decided a village of Oregon conspiracy theorist must pay the father of a boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings $450,000 for falsely claiming that the father circulated fabricated copies of his son’s death certificate.

    It took the jury nearly four hours to decide on the amount James Fetzer must pay Leonard Pozner, whose son, Noah, 6, was the youngest victim of the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. The award follows Circuit Judge Frank Remington’s ruling in June that Fetzer defamed Pozner with four false statements about the death certificate. The statements appeared in a book Fetzer co-authored and edited, and in his blog.

    In his own statement after the jury delivered its decision, Pozner thanked the jury “for recognizing the pain and terror that Mr. Fetzer has purposefully inflicted on me and on other victims of these horrific mass casualty events, like the Sandy Hook shooting,” and emphasized that his case was not about First Amendment protections.

    “Mr. Fetzer has the right to believe that Sandy Hook never happened,” he said. “He has the right to express his ignorance. This award, however, further illustrates the difference between the right of people like Mr. Fetzer to be wrong and the right of victims like myself and my child to be free from defamation, free from harassment and free from the intentional infliction of terror.”

  205. 205.

    Gin & Tonic

    @BR: Not that he will be the Democratic nominee, but he’ll get approximately zero votes in RI.

    (Del’s is a local delicacy that you do *not* consume with a straw. Yang supposedly went to Brown for four years, so the fact that he failed to learn this does not reflect well on his intelligence.)

  206. 206.

    Mart

    Trump dug it because Mick said we break the law all the time. As SNL’s Kenan Thompson noted, “Ain’t nothin’ gon’ happen”. So get over it you hosers. Music to Trumps ears.

  207. 207.

    Gelfling 545

    @Spanky: Which is not designed to be lived in by humans. We have a few of his houses in my area, 2 of which are open to the public. Nice as art; impossible for actual living.

  209. 209.

    Another Scott

    @BR:

    BOOKER: Well, first of all, the one point I wanted to make about the UBI conversation — and I hope that my friend, Andrew Yang, will come out for this — doing more for workers than UBI would actually be just raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. It would put more money in people’s pockets than giving them $1,000 a month.

    There are lots of details, but in general I think Booker’s right. And Warren is right that increasing Social Security and SSDI payments $200 a month will have a huge impact on poverty.

    OnE ThOUsaND DoLLaRs (ht Wonkette) is a gimmic that will not pass. There’s too much baggage and whataboutism with it.

    We’ve seen what happens when a guy who claims to be rich and different and has never held any elected office gets the big chair…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  210. 210.

    Miss Bianca

    @Ken:

    Oooh, you have surfaces? I have strata…

    You too?!?!

    I would love to get a cleaner up here to the Mountain Hacienda, but considering the terrifying Driveway of Doom, plus strata on every surface, I don’t think it’s going to happen any time soon…

  212. 212.

    Ruckus

    @WereBear:
    It’s pretty difficult to be stuck in the dumpster that is on fire and not notice that it’s burning. You’d have to be extremely drunk or extremely stupid not to notice. Or have set the fire because you thought you were cold, in the middle of a heat wave.

  213. 213.

    bemused

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’d say the entire trump cadre have an overinflated confidence they can get away with anything forever. It’s like watching stupid criminal tv shows except starring nefarious, amoral people with lots of money and power.

    I know Kellyanne is laying low because I haven’t seen any pieces on her in rawstory for weeks, lol.

  214. 214.

    nyrobbin

    @Leto:

    Speaking as someone who does that: you sometimes need to clear areas, tidy up, and put things away. Cleaners are not your (my) momma ;) They’re there to clean things and they need a clear path.

  215. 215.

    trollhattan

    Today’s dead tree news informs us that Devin Nunes is lavishly rewarded for his bizarre behavior, having accumulated the largest campaign fund of any House member: $7 million.

    Gonna be hard to pry him from the tony Fresno suburbs, short of an indictment.

  216. 216.

    germy

    buttigieg’ s turn toward aggressive attacks on anyone left of joe biden might attract some support but is also confirmation of his critic’s view that he’s an opportunistic careerist with no values other than what could help him win. https://t.co/h6CHSXRpYB— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) October 18, 2019

  218. 218.

    J R in WV

    @Amir Khalid:

    I notice the story doesn’t actually state whether Frank designed any fancy homes post mortem. He probably didn’t, but I would have liked confirmation.

    I dunno, Frank was pretty mysterious… maybe lots of modern stuff is coming from him over the ether waves?

    We visited both Falling Water and a nearby home on Kentuck Knob. Falling Water was never intended to be lived in full time, it was a retreat in the country for a wealthy family, and shows it; the Kentuck Knob home was designed to be lived in, and while a little odd (no 90 degree angles, all 120s) it seemed to be very livable.

  220. 220.

    trollhattan

    @germy:
    After his debate performance I told my starry-eyed Mayor Pete fan kid he’s lost me. The gun thing in particular. Shove your upper Midwest flyover country “values” where the sun does not illuminate, dude.

    Hrrumph.

  221. 221.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Cheryl from Maryland: Some years back a friend & I drove from Baltimore to Wright’s “Fallingwater” SE of Pittsburgh. On the way back we stopped at a small restaurant for supper & ran into a contractor who claimed he’d been called in to replace the hot water heater at the place – & that the famed architect had designed the access door to the alcove where the heater stood too narrow to remove it or to get a replacement in. Chacma!

    (Years later I toured the Villa Müller in Prague, whereupon Adolf Loos – whose house showed all of FLW’s design chops plus an engineer’s feel for the practical and pragmatic – immediately became my favorite modern architect.)

  223. 223.

    James E Powell

    @Another Scott:

    Super-majorities of white Americans will angrily oppose any plan that gives money to non-whites without punitive conditions like drug testing, etc.

  224. 224.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @SFAW: If the housing inspectors got a good look inside Casa Zio Cosimo, they’d go directly to the courthouse & ask for the death penalty. So there.

  227. 227.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @SFAW:

    Alma, tell us!
    All modern women are jealous!
    Which of your magical wands
    Got you Gustav & Walter & Franz?

    Fun fact – Alma’s grave is in Grinzinger Friedhof in the outskirts of Vienna not far from Mahler’s – a row over & half a row down IIRC. My significant-ex had found a bio of Alma in her local library which ended with Lehrer’s lyrics, so as Tom Lehrer fans we naturally had to visit it.

    (Just FTR if she’d been born half a century or so earlier with the same penchant for collecting the intellectuals of Central Europe as lovers/husbands, a certain Hungarian virtuoso pianist & composer might just have ended up as –

    wait for it –

    Schindler’s Liszt!)

    :^p

  229. 229.

    J R in WV

    @mrmoshpotato:

    I don’t even know what DNC server they’re babbling about anymore.

    The one with the emails on it. They’re so stupid they think the Russians / Ukrainians had to physically steal the hardware to steal the email data.

    They’re too stupid to make up a crime to replace the crime their Russian handlers committed. That’s why the whole Ukrainian conspiracy doesn’t make any sense, they’re too stupid to make up a realistic story!

  230. 230.

    Kelly

    @Sanjeevs:

    the police seized from Parnas a .38 revolver, a 9mm pistol, an automatic pistol, and a .40-caliber Glock pistol,

    What’s with these guys that carry multiple firearms with incompatible ammunition? Sebastian Gorka claimed to carry 2 handguns with different ammo.

  231. 231.

    Aleta

    91
    Another Scott
    “Frontier Alliance International. Founded in 2012 by Dalton Thomas. Lives in Iraq. Has a media outfit, makes “documentaries”. Supports the “fastest growing church in the world”. Etc.”

    Sounds like a moving van company. For equipment cases packed with cash, antiquities…. …
    .

  232. 232.

    Ruckus

    The number of us that talk about republican bullshit like it’s strange or something.
    Bullshit is all they do. Everything about the republican party is bullshit. They are trying to hide what they are really about. Misdirection, except that trump hired the lamest bullshitters ever because they work cheap. trump is all bullshit, all the time. Always has been. He knows nothing but bullshitting, which is why (and how) he does it. He only recognizes bullshit, which is why he can’t have anyone working for him that might be anything but a bullshitter. It is his razón de su existencia, his sole lot in life, to bullshit. There isn’t anything he doesn’t bullshit about.
    He tries to do other things but bullshitting is his only skill.
    And he’s as bad at bullshitting as he is at anything else he’s ever tried to do. He couldn’t even inherit a fair bit of money and do anything but lose all of it. He had one job, to be wealthy and he didn’t even have to earn that, he just had to not fuck it up.

  233. 233.

    The Moar You Know

    Gonna be hard to pry him from the tony Fresno suburbs

    @trollhattan: Either you’ve never been to Fresno, which makes this funny, or you have, which makes it even funnier.

  234. 234.

    Mandalay

    John King on CNN just told us “You have to have some empathy for Republicans on Capitol Hill…” because of constantly changing stories from the Trump Administration.

    Except we don’t. They are enablers of Trump who need to be thrown out of office. There’s no good reason for anyone to empathize with them.

    Of all the see-both-sides-of-every-issue dimwits in the media, King is the absolute worst of the worst.

  238. 238.

    Mandalay

    @J R in WV:

    They’re so stupid they think the Russians / Ukrainians had to physically steal the hardware to steal the email data.

    Exactly, and the media are even worse because they blindly reproduce the claim without pointing out that it makes no sense.

  239. 239.

    CarolDuhart2

    @J R in WV: Even if they believe it, it’s been three years and she hasn’t needed to access them. Plenty of time to delete whatever completely, including hardware. Or at least move it somewhere else. The fact they still think its somewhere in Ukraine unmoved shows you how dumb they are. With everyone looking for it, the word has been out for months. How hard would it be to move something to some undisclosed location? The world is wide.

    But I bet Trump thinks computers are still Batman era sized and requires a tractor trailer to go anywhere.

  243. 243.

    dww44

    @Betty Cracker: We watch CNBC every morning, as this is the spouse’s thing, and I’ve noticed how absolutely petrified Jim Cramer is of Elizabeth Warren’s getting the nomination. He thinks it is the end of the world. David Faber often gently sticks a pin in.

    Seriously, though, I spent a career in the financial/brokerage industry, and it has long been evident that the industry honestly believes anything that helps corporations and the markets will help everybody. They see no need for someone like Warren to speak up for policies that help the middle and working classes. I’ve long known that the pendulum has swung too far in the free market direction for quite some time. Some moderating forces are needed.

  244. 244.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ruckus:

    Bullshit is all they do. Everything about the republican party is bullshit.

    That needs to go into the text rotation.

  245. 245.

    glory b

    @Amir Khalid: I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this, but, to be fair, Wright also designed models for affordable and low income housing as well.

  246. 246.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mandalay:

    Except we don’t. They are enablers of Trump who need to be thrown out of office. There’s no good reason for anyone to empathize with them.

    Amen. Hallelujah. Hosanna.

  247. 247.

    catclub

    @J R in WV:

    The one with the emails on it

    In their minds, the emails are the 30,000
    emails of Hillary the Beast, which I believe were deleted in 2015, from a server in her house, which, by the way, was NEVER hacked.
    It also has nothing to do with the DNC server (which had John Podesta’s emails) that Crowdstrike had something to do with. But they don’t really care. I care more about those details
    than they do.

  249. 249.

    Barbara

    @zhena gogolia: That’s your view. It might very well be accurate when the history books are written, but in my view it is not the basis upon which Trump is acting and what happened in that July phone call is not being investigated by Mueller or his team.

  250. 250.

    Elizabelle

    @dww44:

    The cover of a recent (or current) National Review, spotted at the library yesterday:

    “She’s got a wretched plan for that.”
    The Elizabeth Warren Agenda

    Points to them for not calling it the Vagenda. You know they joked about it.

  251. 251.

    Mandalay

    @dww44:

    it has long been evident that the industry honestly believes anything that helps corporations and the markets will help everybody.

    Well that’s the rising tide lifts all boats argument that has been completely debunked. It’s pablum that superficially sounds plausible and wonderful, and of course those with skin in the game will spout that nonsense.

    But where is there any evidence that anyone “honestly believes” that canard?

  252. 252.

    catclub

    @Mandalay:

    Well that’s the rising tide lifts all boats argument that has been completely debunked.

    But they believe instead that a rising tide for the super wealthy lifts all boats. Somebody else already noted that ‘for reasons that are too stupid to go into” is a widely applicable explanation. The tea party revolt was started by a rich guy (some stockbroker?) whose rant was that ANY forgiveness
    of mortgage debt would lead to dogs and cats living together – or worse. They are huge scaredy cats about the mobs coming for their ( emphasis on their) money. When all the evidence is that they are heavily protected by all of society’s apparatus and arms. Kind of like white fears that reparations will come out of their pocketbooks – yeah, right.

  253. 253.

    rikyrah

    I cannot remember a time when the world saw the United States this unsteady, adrift, corrupt, or incompetent.

    — Dan Rather (@DanRather) October 17, 2019

  255. 255.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Fair Economist: Utter wishful thinking. Even with a landslide victory & both houses of Congress, it’s at least as likely that a Warren Administration would spin its wheels for two years in the teeth of incessant MSM opposition, scrambling to placate the remaining Blue Dogs, dividing its attention (unlike Obama) & probably failing to pass anything of consequence. To be followed by Tea Party 2.0 wave in 2022 & complete gridlock, & abandonment by the party lefties because she couldn’t deliver on any of her promises. In which case President Warren would go down in history as a one-term POTUS as well-meaning & ineffective as Jimmy Carter – & probably as the last democratically-elected Chief Executive, once the Thugs storm to victory behind plutocrats’ billions & complicit media to elect a cryptofascist nominee who’s actually smart enough to hollow out the Federal government in his/her first couple of years & turn it into nothing more than ATM funneling citizens’ tax dollars into the moneybins of the global oligarchy.

  256. 256.

    Elizabelle

    @Uncle Cosmo: Stop rabbiting on like that. The MSM opposition will occur no matter which Democrat is in the White House.

    God you are a depressing SOB.

  257. 257.

    rikyrah

    They need to stop this FOOLISHNESS.

    Trump to attend 2020 candidate forum at historically black South Carolina college

    President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to participate in a presidential candidate forum focused on improving the criminal justice system in the United States.

    His participation will bring him to the historically black Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, where he will share billing with half a dozen Democrats vying to replace him in 2020.

    The lead-up to Trump’s decision to join the program at Benedict the weekend of Oct. 25-27 was closely-guarded by organizers, who feared the president would either change his mind or alienate those who had already committed to attending or participating.

  258. 258.

    dww44

    @Mandalay: Anecdotally, I’ve lots of personally observed evidence that many have bought into the meme that Wall Street and corporations are the rightful rule makers in our economic lives. They believe all government regulations are bad. Even those family members who benefit directly from government programs will still vote for Republicans who will do everything possible to take away their access and to dismantle those programs. They do not see the disconnect even when Social Security and Medicare are what keeps them afloat. That’s because Wall Street and Big Business dominate the marketplace of ideas. We have yet to successfully counter that dominance.

  260. 260.

    James E Powell

    @bemused:

    I’d say the entire trump cadre have an overinflated confidence they can get away with anything forever.

    Are we sure they’re wrong? Corrupt right-wingers getting away with everything forever is almost a constant in America.

  261. 261.

    Mohagan

    @Immanentize: Yeah, FLW may have been a genius at design, but I stopped admiring him when I learned the Falling Waters house leaked like a sieve. Houses are supposed to work (i.e. keep the elements off)! Otherwise, they are just useless objects d’art.

  262. 262.

    Fair Economist

    @Uncle Cosmo: Nah, the thing about Warren is that she can propose good governance finance and incorporation reforms that will get substantial support even from corporate types and yet substantially improve outcome. She can split the corrupt from the merely greedy. She’s been doing this back to the housing bubble.

    Remember the banks used to pay her to tell them to be more honest and fair. She has quite a gift.

  263. 263.

    Mohagan

    @OzarkHillbilly: me too! Did you ever see the segment of some talk show where Elijah Wood did The Elements perfectly? It was so sweet – just the kind of thing a nerd in college would think was really cool. I can say that because I’m a nerd too, although I can’t recite The Elements!

  264. 264.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Elizabelle:

    God you are a depressing SOB.

    I suspect the reason you find me “depressing” is that somewhere deep inside you suspect I’m not that far from correct.

    I am so sorry you (along with much of the clientele here) choose to inhabit a virtuous reality with barely more resemblance to the world as it is than the one populated by Twitler’s toxic-narcissist reptile brain. I would much rather have you helping make absolutely sure of the minimum result necessary to stave off incipient fascism – & proceeding from there as you wish – rather than chasing a will-o’-the-wisp & falling over a cliff not looking where you were headed.

    (Yeah, I mix metaphors. Talk to my Guangdong lawyer, Suu Mi.)

    (Re “SOB”, I will take great offense on behalf of my late mother, a lifelong homemaker with an 8th-grade education, beloved by all who knew her & universally mourned when she gave up the ghost on her way to 103.)

  265. 265.

    Mnemosyne

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    I suspect the reason you find me “depressing” is that somewhere deep inside you suspect I’m not that far from correct.

    I can’t speak for Elizabelle, but the reason I find your screeds depressing is that they seem to be proof positive that liberal white men have learned NOTHING since 2016 and are fully prepared to destroy the United States because the mere thought of a woman having power over you causes your balls to retreat inside your body.

    It’s depressing that you claim to be a liberal but still allow unthinking misogyny to influence your opinions.

    So, yes, you’re probably right that men will flip their shit over a woman president just like white people flipped their shit over a Black president.

    And the saddest part is that you’re proud of your bigotry and insist that you’re going to destroy the country if we don’t cater to it.

  266. 266.

    Elizabelle

    @Uncle Cosmo: No, I don’t think you are “not far from correct.”

    I think you like to hear your own voice. The whole thing is a supposition.

  267. 267.

    snco

    I don’t know . . . The (at least liberal) conventional wisdom (at least since Reagan) has generally been that the Rs are organized and evil and win, and the Ds are idealistic, infighting, and only win by a fortunate fluke (at least that’s how I’ve interpreted it). I think this is changing, and I think that the Trump fiasco is hastening that change.

    As I learned in my college political science class, every so often the “dominant” and the “also ran” party has switched places in American politics – and I think we are about have another one of those switches. This isn’t just on idealistic hope (on my part) but also by watching what happened in prior cycles. . . . I suspect that when the Gilded Age was nearing its end, depressed progressives were about as demoralized as they could be – and didn’t see the dawning of the Progressive Era. Likewise, when Hoover was elected president in 1928, who would have foreseen the advent of Roosevelt and the New Deal?

    All the tropes that the Rs used from Reagan to Bush Jr. to sell their snake oil have been blown sky-high by the idiocy of the Trump years. Fiscal Conservatism? Strong on Defense? Upholding the Rule of Law? Personal Responsibility? . . . Who (other than true believers) can give these any credibility after the blithe and blind support for Trump? I think we may end up with something like the post-Pete Wilson California collapse-of-the-Rs model repeating itself most places in the US (with a few holdouts, of course, most likely in the former Confederacy).

  268. 268.

    jimmiraybob

    @Mnemosyne:

    …liberal white men have learned NOTHING….

    Woah there! Too wide a net. I voted for Hill in the Primary when she was running against Obama who I voted for in the election. I fully supported Hillary in 2016 and have had no regrets and would support her presidential candidacy in 2020 if possible. As it is I’m thrilled with the Democratic women already elected to offices, running for president, and those who serve in all other government and private entities. I’m a white guy. An old one to boot. And just the
    other day I was called a stupid leftist. I rest my appeal.

  270. 270.

    J R in WV

    @jimmiraybob:

    I’m with jimmiraybob here. I worked my tail off for Hillary back in 2016, call banking into Ohio until the very last couple of days of that election. Plus donations to many, many Democratic candidates.

    And also, look at the 2018 elections, the groundswell of Blue winners in the House of Representatives. With any luck, and a little law enforcement, we should throw Trump out of the White House, and Mitch out of the Senate Majority Leader’s office, if not the Senate completely.

    @James E Powell:

    There IS a Chance!!!

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