Tim Ryan just announced he’s dropping out of the race to be the Democratic presidential nominee and I just realized that Tim Ryan was still in the race.
— Caroline Orr (@RVAwonk) October 24, 2019
Buh bye
Reader Interactions
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mrmoshpotato
I thought he threw in the towel long ago. Anyway, hows about a few others follow his lead?
Mike in DC
Only 18 left. I’d hope at least 6 more exit stage left before Iowa. Ten more doing so would be ideal.
Betty Cracker
I could SWEAR he quit weeks ago. I must be confusing him with one of the other no-hopers.
Ohio Mom
Makes me wonder if there are other phantom candidates still officially in. I admit there were a bunch of white men I didn’t bother to learn the names/faces of.
The exception was Inselee. I thought he had potential.
trollhattan
Is he the guy from all those Tom Clancy books or the baseball player?
gorram
Who?
low-tech cyclist
No Tim Left For You
Miss Bianca
@low-tech cyclist: Tim to be going.
Yutsano
I can’t even call him the Martin O’Malley of this Presidential nomination cycle. Did he even qualify for any of the debates?
Soprano2
Michael Bennet is still in, for one. I didn’t know Tim Ryan was still in, either.
marklar
This is great news for John McCain!!!
Starfish
@Yutsano: I think he was in that first debate when no one could tell any of the white men with gray hair apart. I think it was Inslee, Ryan, and DeBlasio that everyone thought was possibly the same person, but I am not sure.
Martin
How horrible is Betsy DeVos? She turned a formerly terrible person into an apparently good one:
I’m guessing he never had to deal first hand with the people he was fucking over. One of the benefits of working is government is that you generally aren’t shielded from that. If you’re doing bad shit, it’s annoying. If you’re doing good shit, it’s pretty damn rewarding.
Marcopolo
@Soprano2: Bennet & Bullock, Delany & Sestak. That’s the white guys without a lot of traction. Then there are Messam & Williamson. All six of them should probably pack it in. I guess we’ll see how much of his own money Delaney wants to waste in toto. As for the rest, Castro is on the ropes atm. Beto may not be far behind him. Klobuchar just announced she’s qualified for the Nov debate so she’s in–I suspect all the way to IA. Actually, now that I think about it I suspect everyone else is in it till IA.
Just One More Canuck
There are those who call me….Tim
Kay
Bernie supporters issue threat to Democratic voters:
Imagine if any other candidates supporters did this- the Bernie people would be screaming.
cckids
Farewell to Mr. Ryan.
I’m as sighed-out as anyone about all the interchangeable dudes running for the Dem nomination, but I gotta say, thanks to the interviews with them all on the Pod Save America podcasts, all of them (not you, Marianne) are smart, savvy people who would run the country better in their spare time than Trump does.
Moulton, Ryan, Sanders, even Andrew Yang have some good ideas, solid beliefs, and compared to ANY Repub, are on the side of the damn angels.
Kay
I love that part. They’re going to direct how you think about your own actions.
burnspbesq
@Kay:
Fuck that. Democrats get to decide who the Democratic nominee is.
Inventor
Williamson is going to astral project herself on to the debate stage, blow everybody’s mind, and win this thing in a walk…or a float…drift maybe….whatever one does when astral projecting oneself, that’s what she’s going to win this thing in.
Just wait and see…Mariannementum is REAL!
mrmoshpotato
@low-tech cyclist: ?Tim has left the race. Yes he has.?
zzyzx
@Kay: And this is the problem with the Democratic coalition. It’s made up of several competing groups with different goals, none of which are big enough to win on their own but many of which are large enough to scuttle the election if they decide to.
Unfortunately there are people for whom this is still just a game, so they can try this shit. Hell, I’m surprised the article didn’t go there. “I’m not getting targeted by the alt-right so it’s no skin off my nose who wins, but if you want to stop being harassed by ICE for looking vaguely Hispanic, you better vote for my candidate!”
Kay
@burnspbesq:
Right? It’s a tad…authoritarian for my taste, frankly. They have a lot in common with Trump.
MuckJagger
Damn. He was like my 15th favorite choice!
rikyrah
Trump lawyers argue the absurd to protect Trump from tax probe
Chuck Rosenberg, former senior FBI official, talks with Rachel Maddow about the assertion by Donald Trump’s legal team that Trump can’t be the subject of any criminal investigation or prosecution while he holds the office of the president.
rikyrah
I keep on telling you….Dolt45 ain’t Nixon….He’s not a Team Player…he doesn’t give two shyts about the Republican Party. If he’s going down…
HE’S TAKING EEEERRRRBBOODDYYYY WITH HIM.
Rachel is the only one who keeps pointing this out about Pence and the bus…
Trump lawyers keep musing about a Mike Pence indictment
Rachel Maddow wonders at Donald Trump’s lawyers repeatedly, and without prompting, arguing that vice presidents are non-essential and totally subject to criminal investigation and prosecution without protection from their status. Mike Pence might also wonder why they keep doing that.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Ain’t nobody playing with these muthaphuckas.
Kay
@rikyrah:
He’s terrified of those tax returns. Good Lord. They must be an absolute shitshow considering all the other horrible things we already know about this family. Unimaginably bad.
rikyrah
Court order to State Dept sets up potential constitutional crisis
Rachel Maddow alerts viewers to a court’s order to the State Department to turn over documents related to the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine, noting that for all of the obstruction the Trump administration has committed so far, it has not yet defied a court order, and doing so would be a true constitutional crisis.
PAM Dirac
@Just One More Canuck:
? I can see you’re a busy man.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I don’t think they help their candidate. I mean, they’re not even identifying as Democrats while threatening Democrats, and it’s voters they’re threatening. Regular people.
Marcopolo
@Kay: Well, that’s too bad because I think the chances of BS becoming the D nominee aren’t all that high. But honestly I don’t know who this guy is (and for god’s sake I certainly have no clue as to who the hell are the folks leaving comments on the piece–looked at a few what a garbage bin) and there are political nutballs all over the place. So until this is his campaign’s position–which it is not–I am not gonna waste any energy on this crap–y’know, beyond writing this reply :). And, as most here know, I am not a BS supporter.
On a different topic, a few days ago I became so POed at the general stupidity (sadly both sides) permeating the article comment sections of my local newspaper (and they find also finally made it possible to comment without a FB or Twitter account) that I went ahead and signed up. I think I’ve been leaving folks gobsmacked because when I comment I often post quotes & links backing up my points–I have only very rarely ever seen this happen. And not just to stories in the fake news (CNN, NYT, WP), but to original documents like the report just out about the HRC email investigation. I even posted a link yesterday to Adam’s wonderful piece laying out all the felonies the R Congressmen committed yesterday when they breached the House SCIF. Anyways, long story short, while I am pretty sure I am not changing (m)any minds on the other side, I do hope I am maybe providing better, more in-depth info about various topics to like minded readers than the local paper does–hey, at least a couple folks clicked through to Adam’s piece.
Anyone else here participate in their local paper’s online commenter community. I am curious as to what your experiences have been.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
Oh for fuck’s sake! It’d be nice if Wilmer got crushed by the eventual nominee by 41 million votes this time.
“Waaahhhhh!!! Two is bigger than 20!” ?x♾
ETA – imagine if someone beat him in the primaries like a rented mule. They’d be screaming. Oh wait! She did! And they screamed.
Still tired of this shit 3 years later.
trollhattan
@Kay:
Cripes, it’s jerks all the way down. They’re the same ones who, rather than be chuffed at Medicare for All catching on demand that nobody else can champion it because their guy done invented it (a.k.a. “wrote the damn bill”) even if, as I suspect, he was hardly the first to proffer the idea.
Screw them and their Lord and Savior. We’ve had far too many personality cults for this century already. I’m calling for a moratorium.
gene108
@Kay:
If any other candidate did this, they would be ostracized from the Democratic Party.
But Bernie’s not a Democrat, so why should his supporters care…
Barbara
@Kay: There isn’t a person alive who likes the idea of being taken hostage. And, of course, if your candidate is legitimately better you don’t have to resort to threats to put them over the top. I assume that this is the kind of desperation tactic that two year olds use when they finally realize that Mommy really isn’t going to give them another cookie, and then hold their breath until they turn blue.
Noncarborundum
@Kay:
We believe that Bernie is the only person who can defeat Trump, and if Bernie doesn’t get the Dem. nomination, we’re going to do our damnedest to make sure that we’re right about that.
A whole bunch of people in this country are beneath contempt, and it’s not just Republicans.
Barbara
@Noncarborundum: Just additional confirmation that there is a whole set of people, usually on the left, for whom being right is far more important than winning.
Jesse
To echo Ohio Mom, I also supported Inslee and though he had potential, unlike several of the other people who are competing to get even 1% poll recognition. (After bailing out of the presidential race, Inslee switched gears to run for re-election as WA state governor.)
I think it’s important to support people you genuinely think are worth supporting, even if they’re not one of the obvious frontrunners. I support Warren and Harris, like a bunch of jackals. I support Klobuchar, too.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: Sounds like a lot of Berniebros went boom boom and won’t admit they need to be changed.
Kent
@Kay:
It would probably be dream material for an October surprise. He’s hidden them for so long that they would explode onto the campaign like the Comey bullshit if they come out late in the process. Which would his own damn fault and serve him right for trying to cover them up all this time. If he just put them out in 2016 it would all be old news now, no matter how bad. Just like all the access Hollywood tapes about sexual assault. One can only hope. But that would be my dream scenario. Information wants to be free. Someone somewhere is going to leak this stuff.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: There’s that Russian third-party splinter candidate funding we were warned about. Gee, I wonder who the “real progressive, third-party candidate” will be?
mrmoshpotato
@Inventor:
Don’t give her any ideas.
Gravenstone
@Betty Cracker: I think he “suspended” his campaign previously. So this is the more formal termination of the effort.
zzyzx
I bet this PAC has dozens of dollars in it. They could pay for upwards of one ad!
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah: It would be a bad idea to make a drinking game out of Trump trash arguing the absurd.
gene108
@rikyrah: @Kay:
Official document, in which you are not supposed to fib on and can go to jail for fibbing.
Also gives real, theoretically substantiated, evidence of where he got his money.
Either there’s enough back-up to the returns to prove he got money through not legal means or the lack thereof raises questions about how much fibbing he’s done on the returns.
Hillary released 39 years worth of tax returns, and instead of being heralded for transparency, paid speeches were used against her
Kay
@Barbara:
It’s not even “being right” though. It’s deciding that the Democrat lost because the Democrat wasn’t Bernie Sanders and then announcing they were “right”. The only ways this theory can actually be disproved is to nominate someone other than Sanders and that person wins, or to nominate Sanders and he loses.
It could literally continue every cycle until Bernie is dead if he never gets the nomination, because nominating a Democrat who then wins doesn’t even disprove it. Bernie woulda won TOO.
Marcopolo
@rikyrah:
From your (um fingers) lips to God’s ears.
But honestly, its not like most all the people that are still left around Trump aren’t a$$ kissing lickspittles who are pretty much neck deep in all the crimey stuff anyway. They all deserve to go down with him.
It’s hard to know when (if ever) to feel anything for the folks trying to prop up Trump. For example, yesterday Adam pointed out the 30 R MoCs who committed numerous felonies breaching the House SCIF will probably only get their wrists slapped because they are MoCs. However the kids working as their staffers who tagged along for the episode will fare much worse, perhaps having careers seriously derailed. Should I feel any sympathy/pity/regret (not exactly sure what the right feeling might be) for them? I’m hard leaning towards no cause if you are working for a jerk like Gaetz, or Jordan, or King then you are aware of who they are and you’ve decided that’s the bed you want to sleep it, as it were. Anyone here at BJ want to give a reason why we might care about these no name R congressional staffers?
Gravenstone
@Kay: I hereby invite Victor Tiffany to fuck right the fuck off back to “upstate New York”. Then fuck off some more. Fuck him and his horse!
Gravenstone
@rikyrah: Because they’re fucking idiots who are totally misunderstanding the history of Spiro Agnew and why he was indicted while in office – for actions he undertook prior to becoming VP. But that important little fact seems to elude them. Maddow should be all over that shit. She did she did whole series about Agnew’s downfall.
Marcopolo
@Jesse: I started off supporting Harris, Warren, Castro, and Inslee. Still three horses in the race, though I am a lot more partial to Warren atm. Supposedly she was going to lay out a simple easy to understand plan laying out her payfors for Medicare for All sometime soon. I am hoping that isn’t too high a mountain to climb. We’ll see.
Kay
To me, “Martin O’Malley would have won” is exactly the same as “Bernie Sanders would have won” because there’s no coming in second. There’s just the 1. primary and the 2. general. No one who loses the primary will win the general. They can’t. They lost the primary.
You could even take it further. “This other person who didn’t run in the primary would have won the general”
There’s no “would have”. “If I had completed medical school I would be a renowned surgeon”. That’s what it is to me. It’s just not within my understanding, how they get here :)
Shakti
I don’t understand the point of Tim Ryan’s run besides being an angry dad with sports metaphors. Is he up for reelection this cycle and did he raise significant money from his presidential run for that? [I tried to liveblog these debates. Couldn’t type fast enough.]
I guess all of these people looked at the Keystone Cops and the incompetent in the White House and thought, “If him, why not me?”
I haven’t started stanning any one candidate yet.
My issue is I’m not homing in on a single candidate who I feel is up to the game of Unfuck Our Government, Max Difficulty Level. Nobody really has answered the question of how they’ll deal with Mitch and the rest of these Republicans and their stink bomb judicial nominees. Or even how they’ll deal with the massive voter suppression.
mrmoshpotato
@Marcopolo: I can’t imagine what a NIMBY, only-black-people-live-in-Chicago, suburbanite-screaming cesspool the Tribune’s comment section is. I catch wind of it every now and then.
burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
That’s a plain-vanilla FOIA case. The government provides a list of the requested documents that it thinks it doesn’t have to produce, along with what exception to the general obligation to produce it is relying on (called a “vaughn index”). The court reviews it—sometimes the court orders the documents to be sent to the court for in camera review—and makes a decision. If the government doesn’t like it, it can appeal, the same way it can appeal any other adverse decision.
Ordering the parties to meet and confer in an attempt to narrow the scope of the disagreement is Case Management 101. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Refusing to meet and confer, or acting in bad faith in conference, is dumb, because it pisses off the judge unnecessarily. The relevant government officials can find themselves on the wrong end of an order to show cause re contempt. And they can find themselves in “do not pass go, do not collect $200” territory.
Rachel has a tendency to blow things that lawyers understand to be routine and vanilla out of proportion. There’s no constitutional crisis yet. If a judge orders somebody to jail for contempt and Barr orders the Marshal’s Service not to do it, then we’ll have a constitutional crisis. But we are quite a way from that, at least for now.
Mike in DC
@Kay: A number of possibilities, from most benign to least benign:
1. They’re embarrassing for him, show his debt level, that he’s not as rich as he says.
2. They will show a lot of tax dodging, just shy of actual evasion, and some income sources he’d rather people not know about, including how much he’s making from emoluments
3. They will show outright tax evasion and expose him to potential criminal liability
4. They will show that he’s been laundering money for shady people, including Russians.
5. They will show that he owes money or gets a lot of money from Russians et al(I..e, that he’s compromised by his finances)
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Heh. Teeheehee. Hahaha ha. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ACCCCKKKKK! SOMEBODY CALL ME AN AMBULANCE!!!!
Kent
@Kay: This is actually on Sanders and not the lickspittle fanatical Bernie Bots. He could actually show actual leadership and redirect them in a more postive direction. He’s running for one of the most difficult leadership positions on the planet. How about showing some as part of your audition? That he chooses not to do it basically means he endorses this bullshit. Or worse still, just doesn’t give a fuck.
These people really are the worst.
burnspbesq
@Gravenstone:
You giving the farrier a pass?
Chyron HR
@Kent:
As he said when asked to stop his followers from booing (actual) civil rights leaders leaders at the 2016 convention, “I don’t want to be associated with this narrative”.
Mike in NC
@Marcopolo: One of our local papers sensibly decided to eliminate about 90% of Letters to the Editor because they were mostly from geriatric cranks who were regurgitating garbage they saw on FOX News. Thus very few comments (which required a Facebook account to post).
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
You think they wouldn’t vote for Wilmer’s ghostly presence? He’d then be a martyr in some twisted way.
“You can’t feel the surge of Vermont Jesus’s ghostly presence in the polls because you’re not a true believer!”
Miss Bianca
@Mike in NC: I actually encouraged the editor of an online journal I work for to disable FB comments on the feed. Just a bunch of fucking garbage.
Kay
@Mike in DC:
This is what I think it is. I don’t think Trump has any real beliefs. It will all be money driving all of them at the end of this. I mean sure, the money is the basis of their self esteem, they’re all fucked up crazy people, all of that, but the crimes will be about someone – all of them individually- making, stealing, borrowing or laundering money. They won’t be about anything bigger.
zzyzx
@Marcopolo:
I’m definitely curious. At least it should be more honest than Sanders’ plan which gives costs by year and revenues by decade and hopes that no one notices that he made the switch.
Doug R
@Noncarborundum:
Marcopolo
@mrmoshpotato: The thing that gets me is that the discourse is just so damned dumbed down. Lots of conservatives regurgitating Fox News (or some other right wing news source) talking points, some folks on the other side arguing back but not in a particularly substantive way, and lots of playground/name calling remarks. Perhaps some of that is because the articles the comments are attached to rarely themselves provide any decent depth of knowledge or context about their subject matter. Perhaps it is just a reflection of our broader societal discourse. I dunno, I’ve given myself a week to see if it is something I want to spend any time on.
Ladyraxterinok
@rikyrah:
Pence’s older brother is a House Rep from Indiana. He is on one of the committees meeting in the room the GOPers crashed. So VP P we’re nice is getting all the info.
This was in same Buzzfeed that had the article about the crashing in.
I don’t think this info is really very well known!
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: You’re an ambulance.
Gravenstone
Totally unrelated, but holy fuck! I had blissfully forgotten what a howling loon BiP was here. Finally got around to reading (then browsing, then hurriedly skimming as the stupidity content increased rapidly) the thread that G&T had linked to a few threads down. And I feel so sorry for the commenters who made the mistake of earnestly engaging BiP in good faith.
Miss Bianca
@Gravenstone: I didn’t even click on it, I remember BiP very unfondly. He descended to over-the-top personal attacks with me quite swiftly when he felt undone in an argument, and I seem to recall he did so with other commenters as well.
ETA: And yeah, he was buggier than bat shit, so even tho’ there was a slight amount of entertainment value in engaging him, it really wasn’t worth the effort.
Cacti
I noticed yesterday that Andrew Yang hired Kremlin asset/Bernfeeler Tad Devine for his campaign.
Looks like Moscow has a new target for potential third party spoiler candidate.
Kent
@Mike in DC:
Probably all of the above. There are probably also a whole lot of other firms and people who have been cheated by Trump over the years and the proof of that is also in his taxes. I doubt it has just been the government he has been cheating all these years.
Also remember that it is inconceivable that Trump actually did his own taxes. Not with as complex as his financial and business dealings are. So there are accounting firms who have their signatures on every one of his returns. That has got to be freaking some people out. He no doubt treats them with the same combination of bullying and capreciousness that he treats all his other staff. I mean, this is where he got all the “asshole practice” that he now relies on.
Redshift
@Soprano2: And Bennett just got the coveted George Will endorsement!
Will follows the well-worn path of denying any responsibility for the smoking ruin he now believes his former party is, but still thinks we should be interested in his advice about how to beat them (by not opposing them too much, natch!)
Matt McIrvin
@Gravenstone: BiP was an omen of the future.
The Moar You Know
@Miss Bianca: I started a blog back in 2004. It had a comments section.
I disabled it after one day and never turned it back on. I didn’t want to be associated with the idiocy of even my friends, never mind the average cretin interwebs user. I don’t know why any journal or news outlet has comment sections. It makes them look bad. And were I an author being published in one of those outlets, I’d be pissed: user comments totally dilute, distracts from or negates what I’m talking about.
Redshift
@Kay:
Leaving aside the PAC part, they do scream whenever anyone suggests that they helped give us Trump by refusing to help elect a candidate they weren’t “inspired” by.
Seems kind of useful that they’re announcing a PAC that will attack the actual nominee, though. Gives us something to point to when they inevitably deny that they should beat any blame for their (at best) refusal to lift a finger to help defeat Trump.
mrmoshpotato
@Redshift:
And it’s been that way for years. “George W who? We’re the Tea Party!”
PJ
@The Moar You Know: Why would any website have a comments section, it’s just filled with the closed-minded opinions of ill-informed morons, he said as he posted his comment (ETA: thereby setting the world to right, for a brief, shining moment).
All of which is to say, hypocrite lecteur – mon semblable – mon frere!
Miss Bianca
@The Moar You Know: The worst part is when my editor and my friends wanted me to jump into a FB comment fracas. That was what prompted my “just shut it off” response – I didn’t want to get involved. Not sure whether it’s prudence or cowardice or both on my part. I just know that it’s truly better for me *not* to get involved in FB flame wars – or any comment section flame wars really (except for BJ. Somehow I haven’t quite learned my lesson *here* yet!)
@Redshift: You mean Michael Bennet, my one sane Senator? Wish he’d just be happy with staying in the Senate. It’s just embarrassing to be hanging out there at 1% support. At least Hickenlooper got the message.
Ella in New Mexico
@Marcopolo:
“Victor Tiffany is a progressive organizer in upstate New York, founder and chief administrator of the Bernie or Bust strategy. With Patrick Walker, he formed the Revolt Against Plutocracy organization and co-authored Bernie or Bust: Pioneers of Electoral Revolt.”
Sounds like a mighty powerful fella, we’d better heed his threats ;-)
Seriously, the piece is an op-ed at Newsweek with a TON of thumbs up clones agreeing with him…sounds like a bit of a troll farm experiment to me.
Chyron HR
@Ella in New Mexico:
Bernie sure could have used some progressive organizing in New York last time, when he forgot to register any of his supporters to vote in the primary.
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: I love how they just hand-wave away the reality that St. Bernard LOST THE DAMN PRIMARY. He couldn’t even sell himself as the superior candidate TO DEMOCRATS, let alone anyone else.
Oh, right, “rigging”, how could I forget the stock response? Clinton rigged the primary WITH VOTES!
@Chyron HR: *snerk*
Ruckus
@Kay:
I commented the other day that I got an email from Tom Perez -of the DNC, asking for money for BS. I answered him in the same voice I use to answer rethuglicans who send me any emails. And the email wasn’t as bad as what you posted.
But the balls on that guy.
Marcopolo
@Miss Bianca: BJ has its uncivil moments and our tendency towards a somewhat hostile rather than warm welcome to newcomers (you know verify then trust), but other than that we’re a pretty warm, fairly intelligent, occasionally helpful blog community :).
brantl
@Kay: they are behaving like the last 4 years of congressional replublican’ts
Ruckus
@Marcopolo:
I for one don’t give a good goddamn about republican staffers. To get that job they would have to know who they would be working for.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I know someone from my professional sports days who thinks he’s god’s gift. He’s never been even close in any professional event. But in his mind he’s unbeatable, best there ever was. And every time he’s screwed up, it’s someone else’s fault. And he screwed up often enough that he got a $5000. fine and a yearlong suspension.
There is no real explanation.
Amir Khalid
I am so isolated from the back of the grid in the Democratic race to nomination that when I see the name Martin O’Malley I think of Martin Mull.
Amir Khalid
@Gravenstone:
BiP tried very hard to convince my Malaysian self that Russia had nothing to do with shooting down MH17, when all the evidence being reported at the time was that Russia had plenty to do with it.
Richard Guhl
@Kay: IOW, pay up the ransom or the kid ends up in the landfill.
Kosh III
@Just One More Canuck:
Ni ni ni