As promised, the House committees are starting to release testimony from witnesses in the impeachment inquiry. You can find links to the testimony transcripts and highlights here. Trump tweeted this yesterday in anticipation of these releases:
If Shifty Adam Schiff, who is a corrupt politician who fraudulently made up what I said on the “call,” is allowed to release transcripts of the Never Trumpers & others that are & were interviewed, he will change the words that were said to suit the Dems purposes. Republicans… should give their own transcripts of the interviews to contrast with Schiff’s manipulated propaganda. House Republicans must have nothing to do with Shifty’s rendition of those interviews. He is a proven liar, leaker & freak who is really the one who should be impeached!
This is unsurprising since Trump doesn’t know what a “transcript” is and probably imagines the release of alt-transcripts like this from Jordan, Scalise, McCarthy, etc.:
“Donald Trump is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
Anyhoo, I’m still going through the material, but this from Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State Ambassador P. Michael McKinley jumped out at me:
Q: I think you’ve also said [in the opening statement] that part of the reason why you decided to resign was that you couldn’t be blind to what was happening, and what was happening was efforts to use the State Department to dig up dirt on a political opponent. Is that fair as well?
A: That is fair. And if I can underscore, in 37 years in the Foreign Service and different parts of the globe and working on many controversial issues, working 10 years back in Washington, I had never seen that.
Trump’s defense of, well, everything is to accuse his opponents of being just as bad if not worse than he is. Sadly, too many people are ready to believe that about the government. I hope the House Democrats can effectively communicate just how not-normal this shit is in the upcoming public hearings.
Villago Delenda Est
Donald needs to go.
jeffreyw
@Villago Delenda Est:
Trump Delenda Est
Roger Moore
It’s always projection, with Republicans, and Trump is like an exaggerated version of the rest of the party.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It’s (not) funny, because it’s true
Cacti
I wish they’d stop saying that Dotard was trying to dig up dirt.
He was trying to blackmail Ukraine into making shit up. It was far more sinister than the above description suggestions.
taumaturgo
“I hope the House Democrats can effectively communicate just how not-normal this shit is in the upcoming public hearings.”
Hope springs eternal.
opiejeanne
Once again, they weren’t supposed to “dig up dirt” on Biden and his son. They were expected to manufacture dirt on Biden and his son.
I get really tired of this phrasing by the MSM which suggests that there was something there to dig up. I have plenty of reasons to dislike Biden as a candidate for President, but this was about smearing him, not exposing him.
opiejeanne
@Cacti: Thank you. Amen. You were typing yours while I was typing mine.
rikyrah
Well played, Chairman Schiff.
JPL
@Cacti: True and they are still trying to do just that.
dmsilev
Gym Jordan already shot down Trump’s claim:
opiejeanne
@taumaturgo: Well, why not? Your name implies that you can perform miracles.
E.
Looks like Harris made the debate cutoff. I am really pleased with this — I feel that of all the candidates, she is most equipped to cut that fuckers legs off both during the campaign, and after it. She’s not going to let him go quietly in order to “move forward.” She knows we need to shut that shit down for real if this Republic is going to make it. Required Addenda: I will support, send money to, and vote for whoever the D candidate is. Any of them.
rikyrah
Trump may have worked a previous Ukraine quid pro quo: WaPo
Rachel Maddow looks a thesis put forward by the Washington Post’s David Ignatius that Donald Trump exacted personal favors related to the Paul Manafort case from the government of Ukraine in exchange for granting a June 2017 meeting to Ukraine’s then-president Petro Poroshenko.
JPL
@dmsilev: Odds are that Jordan will change his tune if trump tells him to.
rikyrah
Impeachment inquiry moves closer to Trump’s inner circle
Rachel Maddow reports on the first invitation for testimony before the Donald Trump impeachment inquiry by a member of Trump’s cabinet: outgoing energy secretary Rick Perry.
rikyrah
Flynn play for Trump sympathy not well suited to fact-based court
Rachel Maddow reports on disgraced former Trump NSA Mike Flynn’s embrace of right-wing conspiracy theories about his case and Fox News-style lawyers, likely as a means of setting himself up for a pardon from Donald Trump, but not helping his legal situation in court
gratuitous
What? The State Department isn’t Trump’s personal opposition research firm? How is that even constitutional?
rikyrah
Bad day in court for Giuliani associate Igor Fruman
Rachel Maddow reports on the difficult day Rudy Giuliani associate Igor Fruman had in court today as his lawyer tried to ease some of the restrictions of his bail with a less-than-convincing argument that Fruman’s one-way plane ticket was not an indication that he was trying to flee the United States.
MattF
Trump is openly and plainly telling Republicans that they should release doctored ‘transcripts’. As if the people who testified wouldn’t look at the doctored material and object. It’s just cray-cray. And State Department veterans saying they’d never seen anything like this is deadly to the ‘so what?’ argument.
Cheryl Rofer
A number of reporters are live-tweeting their exploration of the transcripts:
Alex Ward
Miriam Elder
Laura Rozen
John Revolta
Gawdamighty. When I read that statement from Trump I just can’t EVEN. When will this stupid movie be over?
I weep for our country.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cheryl Rofer: Do elected Republicans never feel the shame, the simple embarrassment, of knowing that the rest of the world sees this shit?
Roger Moore
@JPL:
Trump already told him to. Jordan is responding to a Trump tweet in which he claimed Schiff was going to release doctored transcripts and demanded the Republicans on the committee release the real ones that exonerate him.
John Revolta
@gratuitous: Course not, silly. You’re thinking of the Justice Department.
donnah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Natasha Bertrand @ NatashaBertrand
When Ambassador Yovanovitch sought advice from Gordon Sondland, he recommended that she tweet her praise of Trump.
And while this is not a surprise, it’s sickening proof that the president is so vain and self-absorbed that blatant flattery can distract him. And that he cannot be criticized or questioned by anyone without fear of huge retaliation. Jeez, what a nightmare administration!
Jeffro
I’m so confused. Help me out, GOP!
Wasn’t it just a week ago that there was no quid pro quo? Now we have Bob Bennet – he of the “Book of Virtues” (LOLOL) – among so many other trumpublicans, telling America that actually there’s good quid pro quo, and bad quid pro quo, and of course the prez* was only trying for the former.
Then why was he – why were they ALL – denying any quid pro quo last week?
And if it was about “corruption”, then why can’t they give us any other instances of trumpov going full throttle against “corruption” in any broad sense? Why was it always just the supposed “corruption” of Joe and Hunter Biden?
And I’m still unsure why the whistleblower must, absolutely, NOW MORE THAN EVER, testify in public…when the president* himself confirmed that the acts the whistleblower complained about took place. In fact, they were “perfect”, right GOP?
And I’m really confused as to how trying to commit a crime, but not getting away with it, abolves the criminal. That is novel, but GOP I’m sure you can tell me more about how that works.
And I guess it’s confusing to me why such a gang of innocents needs to defy subpoenas (remember those, GOP? Those things which no Democrat dare defy?), not show for testimony or depositions, take to Twitter all day every day to insult the chair of the very investigation that the trumpublicans should be welcoming, right?
Help me GOP. It’s all so very confusing…I’m sure you have all the answers, though. And I’m sure nothing worse is going to come out, say in 3…2…1…
rikyrah
@Roger Moore:
The Real ones?
BWA HA HA HA HA AH AHAHA HA HA HA
eric
@rikyrah: trump has not seen real ones since the 10th grade. pay for play donnie.
Cheryl Rofer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: One of the great mysteries of all this is what elected Republicans are thinking.
I keep wondering what endgame they want. It looks like if they were fully in charge, it would be the smoking ruins of our democracy.
The humiliation they are willing to endure themselves, for instance in Sonderland’s advice to Yovanovich to slobber up to Trump, is monumental. All politicians have to learn to take some embarrassment at times, but this is in the realm of that pathological.
So I guess after all that, it doesn’t matter to them if their country is humiliated too.
What do Republicans want?
lumpkin
@opiejeanne:
Yeah, that and calling it a quid pro quo. A qpq isn’t, per se, wrong but extortion is and that’s what trump was doing. Already the trump defenders are using this inaccurate characterization to exonerate trump.
Cheryl Rofer
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cheryl Rofer:
Judges, is my catch-all answer. And I honestly believe Romney is afraid to lose the racists for the ultimate goal of “the Mormon Kennedys”.
I can’t remember which of my too many political podcasts* was talking about the “surprise” of Will Hurd voting with trump. He’s young, and a Republican, an African-American from Texas. I’m sure he’s got at least one eye on the White House.
Jeffro
Oh great…I see that several other Nats players besides Doolittle have skipped the team’s WH visit and now I have to go buy like seven or eight jerseys instead of just Doo’s.
That’s okay, I was already in the process of having my son’s name legally changed to ‘Rendon’, so that’s one less jersey needed, I guess. ;)
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And yet, he voted against the Impeachment Inquiry.
Real profile in courage there.
Jay
James E Powell
@taumaturgo:
For the most part, the Democratic base understands that Trump is abnormal and needs to be removed. His supporters will never abandon him. That leaves a narrow band of people – a recent poll suggests that it is 10-14% – who are truly persuadable. Those are the people who have to be the target of Democratic messages and it is going to be very hard because those people are the way they are because they have trained themselves to ignore most political messages. What they are hearing is that Democrats don’t like Trump and since they already knew that they don’t listen any further and they don’t bother to inquire further.
We cannot reach this group with a “this is not normal” message because this group is so disconnected from politics that they really don’t know what is normal. We have to make the argument that what he is doing is wrong and we have to explain why it’s wrong. Yes, that is right. There are Americans who do not understand why it’s wrong to ask a foreign government to make up stuff and start a criminal prosecution of a political opponent.
This not going to be easy.
SFAW
@Cheryl Rofer:
Power.
The power to (as JFL noted) get a shitload of judges on the various federal courts.
The power to give their benefactors “unlimited corporate cash,” so to speak.
The power to make brown people go away (prison, their country of birth, whatever).
The power to prevent Demon-rats from ever gaining any semblance of governmental control again.
The power to rule, basically. Not govern; rule.
Aziz, light!
@Cheryl Rofer:
They want to get themselves re-elected, so must get him re-elected. Only after that will it be safe for them to take him out. Could they really want this clown around for another five ridiculous years?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SFAW:
well put
@James E Powell: that too
LongHairedWeirdo
Folks who live in Republican districts should really hit up their senators and reps and let them know that:
1) they know the President is a criminal
2) please *STOP* insulting the intelligence of your voters by saying otherwise, and
3) remember, you’re endorsing the idea that it’s okay for the President to use a foreign government to do something that’s illegal for him to do himself – start a criminal investigation on false premises.
(The last bit needs to be hammered home – “yes, we know precisely what this is about – Trump, who threatened to jail a political opponent, found the FBI will obey the law, and is therefore asking Ukraine to be his, uh, female breeder dog, since Barr can’t make the puppies..”)
Roger Moore
@Cheryl Rofer:
I assume most of them are concentrating on personal survival rather than broader strategy. That means hedging their bets on Trump while doing their best to look to his most ardent supporters as if they’re backing him as hard as possible.
Jay
Jay
Stuck in moderation at #43 for too many hash tags.
West of the Rockies
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The bulk of them do not and will never face the truth (that they are wrong, stupid, ignorant, and without integrity). They are too invested in the narrative that they are on the side of good and right, that they are the hard-working, salt of the earth, honest brokers.
I would LOVE to see them get their collective cosmic comeuppance. I don’t think we’ll see it.
Mandalay
@Jeffro: That Dr. Bill “Virtuous” Bennett appearance on FoxNews was a doozy. He went rogue and served up a delicious Palin word salad:
I think that clarifies the situation quite nicely.
Heidi Mom
(Since this is an open thread) Tomorrow I’m working three shifts as a Democratic poll greeter: 7-9, 11-1, and 6-8. I’d like to think that being chosen for the busiest shifts is a mark of respect, but it’s really more likely that no one else volunteered. I did this for the primary (one shift only) and it was actually more fun and less stressful than I expected it to be. Although Cumberland Co. (PA) is solidly Republican, the Democratic Pary has become much more active in recent years, and quite a few people were grateful for the handouts (and no one was rude)..
Barbara
@Mandalay: A quid pro quo for your fucking COUNTRY’s interest not for your president’s personal and political fortunes. “The Book of Virtue for Suckers and Losers.”
James E Powell
@West of the Rockies:
I believe they are even more invested in the narrative that Democrats and their voters are evil.
Baud
@Barbara:
L’etat, c’est Trump.
SFAW
@Heidi Mom:
Those minorities — always looking for a handout instead of a “hand up.” Fortunately, the Partei of Personal Responsibility will make sure that the undeserving do not get ANY benefit.
Thanks for the hard work, I’ll keep my fingers crossed that your work (and that of others, of course) makes a palpable difference tomorrow.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: did Rendon not go? good for him. Suzuki is wearing a MAGA hat (if you didn’t think trump was weird and creepy, here’s a picture) and Ryan Zimmerman thanked him for keeping America great. Not really surprising, most white pro-athletes are wingers, and a lot of them bible-thumpers. I tell myself trump will hear those boos when he’s alone at night.
Jesse Dougherty @ dougherty_jesse
Anthony Rendon, Javy Guerra, Joe Ross, Wander Suero, Wilmer Difo, Michael A. Taylor, Victor Robles and Sean Doolittle are not on the official attendance list for today’s ceremony at the White House.
Roger Moore
@James E Powell:
I think you’re oversimplifying a bit. There are two groups of hard-core supporters: hard core Trumpists and hard-core Republicans. Neither of those groups is likely to vote for a Democrat, and as long as things have gone their way they’ve both backed him. But the hard-core Republicans may be convinced to turn on Trump if/when it looks as if he’s hurting the party. And they have plenty of excuses to do so: he’s presided over massive deficits, sided with foreign dictators over our own intelligence community, raised tariffs, and done all kinds of other stuff that goes against Republican orthodoxy. Many of them have put down markers along the way about how they oppose stuff he’s done, and they can use that as proof that they were never completely in the tank for him.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
According to WaPo, Zimmerman didn’t quite repeat Trump’s slogan of Keep America Great.
Jay
Barbara
@Baud: It’s been a long time since anyone took Bill Bennett seriously, which probably just shows how few people want to be associated with this in public. Bill Bennett can always be counted on to be in need of some moolah to help pay off his gambling debts.
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
About the only thing surprising about that picture is that Fuckhead did not make Suzuki wear a blonde wig and an Ivanka mask. That would have made it even creepier, however.
geg6
@E.:
Not that I’m against Harris or anything (I’m uncommitted and it doesn’t matter because my primary is so late, I’ll have to take what I can get), but I keep seeing Harris supporters say this. So far, she has shown me no evidence of this conviction that she is the only Dem candidate who can fight or even is the best fighter. And I am quite sure that almost every other Dem candidate is quite well aware that shit need shut down if the Republic is going to survive. What I have seen from her is that she doesn’t seem to have a policy position on a lot of things that are going to matter to the public at large. She’s been playing (very) small ball. I think she’s polling exactly where she belongs based on her performances so far. She seems a lovely person and a good attorney, but she has not impressed me a bit as a candidate. And honestly, I am surprised by that. I thought she’d do better.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Barbara: He popped up a year or so ago, and I was honestly surprised that he was still with us. I hadn’t heard his name in I don’t know how long.
Jay
Jay
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
God doesn’t want him.
Zinsky
On Stephanie Miller’s Sirius XM radio show today, she had a guest on (didn’t write down his name) who was also talking about how abnormal the Trump Administration is. He specifically cited the inflated panda bear, William Barr, as he eats his way around the globe, validating right-wing crank fairy tales. What a hero! Rupert Murdoch must be so proud! I am also dying to hear more about the little vacation that Jared and Ivanka were on with an unnamed Russian oligarch and Wendy Deng, Rupert Murdoch’s hideous ex-wife, as noted here.
Don’t forget that the very first tenants in Trump Tower in 1984 were Russians connected to organized crime as noted here. Don Jr. bragged in 2009 that “money was flowing in from Russian sources”. This Trump criminality started decades ago and it is time to bring it crashing, on fire, to Earth!
Barbara
@geg6: I thought she would do better to. I think that candidates have to go big and go small — that is, they have to appeal to specific voting demographics while still providing something of a larger purpose for their candidacy.
grubert
The MSM isn’t going to bring up the fact that dirt can be manufactured whole-cloth, because that would hurt their business model
Jay
gene108
Democrats effectively communicating is not something usually effectively done.
Not Dems fault.
Rich conservative billionaires have been willing to lose money in print media, in order to advance their agendas, along with think tanks, PACs, etc.
This isn’t even counting the rise of conservative talk radio, Fox News, and internet “news” sites, like Breitbart.
I just hope this is so totally blatant all rational people will notice.
Duane
@Jeffro: Don’t forget the guy who played in that one game, Boo Lockemup.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Half the fun of having power is knowing that you can make your underlings say and do stupid things and nobody can do anything about it.
So in their minds, they’re exercising their power and don’t care what other people think because what are those losers gonna do about it, huh?
PJ
@geg6: I haven’t seen much of Harris in action, but her questioning of Kavanaugh during the confirmation hearing was not impressive – the other Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee came across as better prepared and more targeted on the actual evidence against Kavanaugh.
Mandalay
O/T
Since right wing scumbag Milo Yiannopoulos is no longer BFF with white supremacist Richard Spencer, he decided to “revenge audio” him, and it ain’t pretty. (The actual audio is at the end of the article.) [WARNING: IT’S REALLY VILE STUFF.]
Every day you read about speech that is dangerous and/or deranged, but Spencer’s rant is as bad as anything I’ve heard. I expect CNN will have Spencer on again, so he can explain to Anderson Cooper how his words are being deliberately misinterpreted by those with an agenda.
Looking on the bright side, Spencer taught me a new word: “octoroon“.
joel hanes
what was happening was efforts to use the State Department to dig up dirt on a political opponent
No.
What was happening was Donald Trump extorting the government of another nation to force that govenment to lie for Donald Trump’s political benefit. To collude in framing innocent persons for crimes they did not commit, because those persons are a political threat to Donald Trump.
The extortion — the withholding of funds lawfully allocated by Congress — was illegal regardless of Trump’s intent.
Trump’s intent — which if this were a criminal trial would be called “suborning perjury” — is despicable, and would be a felony charge in such a trial.
Jay
The Golux
@rikyrah:
Maybe he can hire OJ to find the real ones. I’m sure Dersh will be happy to help.
Mnemosyne
@Mandalay:
Octoroon? Man, you gotta love how these edgy, modern dudes immediately fall back on 150 year old slang to prove how they’re the wave of the future. ?
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s creepy as hell. Trump reminds me of a death eater and that Suzuki dude just lost his soul.
West of the Rockies
@Barbara:
He came across as a hypocritical, moralizing scold when that book came out. 25 years hasn’t burnished his charisma.
Jay
@Mandalay:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
If you don’t count the underage prostitution ring. Is Trump the bases for Captain Stern?
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Failed cookie brand from the 1940s.
rikyrah
The erasure of black women is real. Let’s talk about Kamala Harris.
RACE IN AMERICA, DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: He’s too virtuous for God.
topclimber
@geg6: No doubt I have bought into some hype but I believe she is one of our more dynamic choices. Iowa gives her a chance to shine in a caucus environment where polls mean nothing. Then comes South Carolina, where she will have an intense following and maybe enough votes to be a close second to Biden and wind up in the top 4 or 5 nationally.
Ella in New Mexico
@dmsilev: probably oughta check the times for Trump’s Tweet vs Gym’s statement–likely he hadn’t heard what today’s propaganda points were to be. He is so out of control even his most devoted bootlickers can’t keep up with the most current lies of the day.
Pretty soon we’ll hear he got summoned for a Trump tongue lashing because he’s not supporting him enough and so we’ll get a rollback/denial including a statement that he actually believes the transcripts are being doctored by Schiff. Then he’ll release his “own” transcript which will be shown to just be the official one.
Jay
Mandalay
@Jay:
Hate the sin but love the sinner I suppose.
Twitter is all about forgiveness and redemption.
Roger Moore
@Mandalay:
That’s ‘Dr. Bill “Virtuous Except the Compulsive Gambling” Bennett’.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: Wow, maybe Dion Boucicault can come back from the dead! Or at least, the land of theater history classes, which is close to the same thing!
Hey, as long as we’re dreaming big, why *not* a double bill of “Hamilton” and “The Octoroon”?
Chyron HR
@rikyrah:
Kamala is polling at three percent. She has limited support among every single type of American community.
trollhattan
@Jay:
At least they caught the bastard. Is there talk on the streets of Colorado Springs that Jews are taking over Colorado? I can’t keep up with these putzes.
JPL
@Jay: Imagine if you will the outrage if that happened under the previous president. Now MSM doesn’t bother to cover it.
Jay
Jay
topclimber
Biden I get. Sanders too. Warren three.
But Mayor Pete of Smallville over Harris, Booker, Castro (i.e, any POC)? Yeah I get that too. Must be the electibility of a gay man after women delivered the Dem wave in 2018.
I just hope Kamala hangs in there long enough to show her stuff in the debates among the finalists. Could be she doesn’t really have said stuff, but I would rather see for myself than watch what few portions of her we get to see via MSM.
rikyrah
Daringly deceptive: Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare-for-All financing plan is replete with mythical math, constitutional kabuki, and imaginary savings
By Spandan Chakrabarti
The rest of the article looks cold and hard at the numbers Warren presents to overhaul 1/6 of the American Economy.
Jeffro
@Mandalay: They’re all going to be reduced to insane babbling and flailing around like that if they stick with the Mango Menace and ride this sucker all the way in. Ah well
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Eww, that pic is gross.@SFAW: Double eww.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: The link to the garbage article is busted.
Jeffro
@Duane: but I LOVE that guy! LOL
I’m still torn between ordering a “Doolittle” #63 jersey or an “Impeach” #45 jersey…what the heck, I’m tired of it all being about trumpov, I’m going with ‘Doo.
Jay
Jay
germy
Richard Spencer
youtube.com/watch?v=IKICKcMU3MU
Aamer Rahman explains in this brief stand up routine.
LuciaMia
Isnt that a cookie?
Jeffro
Btw for folks who can stomach looking at it, the Suzuki/trumpov memes flying around on Twitter are pretty damn funny, as are the quips.
‘Trumpov getting to second base with a catcher’, etc etc.
Uncle Cosmo
@Duane: Do the Gnats do custom jerseys? How about one for the number 45 with the player name replaced by LOCK HIM UP? Seems like you could sell a bajillion of them, especially if the jersey maker pledged to donate say 10% of the profits to a worthy charity.
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
That is a difficult question.
Some just want the power to be the assholes they really are.
Some just want to get paid to be the assholes they really are.
Some want both.
Hey that wasn’t really all that difficult.
Just Chuck
Wouldn’t the transcripts released by the committee be certified as accurate by the members of the committee? That would include the Republicans on the committee.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Yanno, if Warren’s plan is as terrible as people claim, isn’t it good that she’s putting it out there BEFORE she’s the actual nominee?
Just sayin’. We have 365 days to go before Election Day 2020 and no actual nominee for at least another six months. Let’s have everyone put all of their policy proposals on the table, with numbers, and see what happens.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: Doolittle was a good guy long before he was a Nat. Good choice!
Jay
@rikyrah:
Any “analysis” of M4A is utter bs., no matter the plan.
Nobody’s proposed M4A plan is going to withstand the Corporate attacks and the “centerism” compromises.
What you will wind up with is a slightly better medical care treatment system with slightly more people covered, with slightly lower costs.
ACA 1.1
It will still be the most expensive Medical system in the Western world, covering the smallest percentage of population in the Western world, delivering the most inequality of care in the Western world, and creating the largest Corporate profits in the Western world.
And whole States will “opt out”.
Gump
@Jeffro:
I’d hold, quite honestly:
theguardian.com/sport/2019/nov/04/washington-nationals-white-house-visit-donald-trump-kurt-suzuki
Uncle Cosmo
@Roger Moore: Formerly semi-infamous author of The Book Of Vultures: How the GOP Can Ride Bigotry, Misogyny And Hatred of Liberals to Absolute Power – Also, I Have A Gambling Problem So I Need The Royalties From Your Buying This Book.
Ruckus
@Aziz, light!:
Are you new here?
Of course they really want this clown, first because most of them don’t see him as a clown, second because they like a president that tells it like he sees it. Even if it is a totally made up stack of lies and bullshit. That doesn’t matter, they don’t care if the republic stands, they aren’t trying to save it. They want the grift to continue, governing is miles above their heads and pay grade.
Jay
Noncarborundum
@LuciaMia:
It’s an eighth of a cookie.
Just Chuck
@Mandalay: Someone ought to mix that Bennett quote to a phat techno beat and release it.
Amir Khalid
@LuciaMia:
You must be thinking of a macaroon. An octoroon is a white-ish person who is 1/8 black. I’m not of getting out of the boat to see thow this 19th century word was used in the 21st. I can’t imagine that the context was anything but deeply racist.
Ben Cisco
@LuciaMia: You’re thinking of a macaroon – the term used here is an old slur against mixed race people (read slavers’ offspring) back in the Before Times (revered by Wussoliniites as the “Good old days.”)
As you might imagine, not necessarily fertile ground for jokes. In certain quarters.
germy
@Amir Khalid:
“Lorna Doones will not replace us.”
Sloane Ranger
Don’t know if anyone’s interested but the House of Commons has just elected Sir Lindsey Hoyle as the new Speaker. He is currently the Labour MP for Chorley in Lancashire.
He has promised to have a more low key Speakership than John Bercow but to continue to support backbenchers.
There were 4 rounds of voting and it came down to a choice between him and Chris Bryant, also a Labour MP. If Chris Bryant had won he would have been the first openly gay Speaker
Jay
Frankensteinbeck
@Cacti: and @opiejeanne: and @joel hanes:
No, he actually, sincerely believes he’s demanding real information. The last leaks to come out said Manafort told Trump ‘the server’ is in Ukraine, and that’s where this comes from. Look, I know it’s absolutely bizarre to think that trump thinks these conspiracy theories are real, since they contradict his own personal experience, but in what way is that inconsistent with Trump’s well established deranged idiocy? Where has there been any indication that he doesn’t believe these conspiracy theories? It certainly explains his also bizarre attempts to defend himself, which keep focusing on how he thinks the ‘transcript’ vindicates him. Apply Trump’s Razor. The stupidest explanation is that Trump believes there’s a physical object in Ukraine with 33,000 of Hillary Clinton’s emails on it that prove she’s a criminal who framed him, and also he heard somebody say Joe Biden extorted Ukraine to protect his son, so get him the dirt on that, too.
Just Chuck
@Jay: Well yeah, Trump still has an account, doesn’t he?
the Conster
@rikyrah:
All true. Warren in particular, who is my Senator, makes me want to pull my hair out when it comes to her civil rights *record* or lack thereof. At least Rachel Dolezal, while appropriating black culture for her own, DID THE WORK. She was executive director of the NAACP in Spokane. What has Warren done at any time for either the NA community or any other marginalized group? As a white woman I’m seeing a lot of dismissiveness of Warren’s lies about her family background, and it just reeks of white privilege. Her problematic family tall tales will also come back to haunt her during a GE, and she’s already scrubbed her website of that awful DNA nonsense. Klobuchar has a long solid record on women’s rights and LGBTQ rights, and Harris has a lifetime record of working on justice reform. What’s Warren done?
Jay
Sandia Blanca
@Jay: Thank you for posting this, Jay–I’ve been following the Rodney Reed case for years, and am horrified at the travesty of “justice” that is imminent. So clear that he did not do it!
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: It’s a quote from Richard Spencer, the Nazi who got punched out in the viral video from a few years back. (I don’t think the heroic attacker featured in that video was ever identified?) Spencer had a falling out with another famous Nazi, who released the tape of Spencer saying incredibly offensive shit that Nazis say. The only thing that sets Spencer apart from other Nazis is that he cleans up better than most of them, is educated and a dapper dresser. On the strength of that, CNN had him on their panel slap-fights a time or two, IIRC.
Steeplejack
@Heidi Mom:
Just checked my voter registration on line a while ago, mainly to find my polling place (different from last time) for tomorrow’s election here in Virginia. And it never hurts to make sure that I haven’t been purged by the forces of darkness.
Betty Cracker
@the Conster: You mean besides being an incredibly effective consumer rights activist who set up a federal agency that returned billions of dollars to consumers who were ripped off? For fuck’s sake.
germy
@Betty Cracker: He’s still on twitter:
Meanwhile, a cartoonist got kicked off of twitter for calling Ricky Gervais a dick.
the Conster
@Betty Cracker:
What does that have to do with civil rights? That’s my question. Her praxis was markets, which is how she explains her migration away from being a Republican – not the racist dogwhistles, not the anti-gay, not the assault on reproductive rights. Markets.
germy
@the Conster:
The test that revealed some Native American ancestry and proved the stories her parents told her?
If her grandparents hadn’t disowned her parents, maybe she would have had more financial security growing up.
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: the Conster has it in for Warren.
the Conster
@Barbara:
She’s my Senator, and I want her to stay in the Senate, but the day she said “I’m with Bernie” then yeah. She can’t win and we need to win.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
You monster!
the Conster
@germy:
No, it did not prove that. She had to apologize for claiming herself as NA, when she knew her parents were white.
germy
CBS News
Jay
joel hanes
@the Conster:
Warren’s lies about her family background
She didn’t lie.
She repeated family lore that is not contradicted by evidence.
She most likely does have one NA ancestor, six to ten generations ago.
Barbara
@the Conster: Her praxis is markets, but “markets” IS a civil rights issue. Whether it’s payday lenders or predatory mortgages, minority communities are disproportionately targeted and harmed, practically down to the zip code. She has only even been a politician for a little over a decade. Do you think she is soft on civil or reproductive rights? BTW, I am not sold on Warren and certainly not on M4A and my views are pretty well known but the piling on seems uncalled for.
germy
@joel hanes: The “lies” are republican talking points. We have commenters here who are using republican talking points to attack democratic candidates. Not just Conster, a few others.
the Conster
@germy:
There’s no genetic determination for tribal affiliation, and to base it on an ancestor that lived 6-10 generations ago? It’s ridiculous.
Betty Cracker
@the Conster: Since Warren specialized in bankruptcy law and did seminal research on how bankruptcy affects families, her focus on economic justice during her career isn’t all that surprising. Her views/votes/policies on civil rights issues as a public figure for the past decade are standard left-of-center views.
germy
@the Conster: So you really think Warren lied about her ancestry? That she believed she had no Native American ancestors, but cynically lied in order to… advance her career? Because that’s what trump says.
If Warren wins the primary, will you refuse to vote in the general election?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@the Conster:
Warren is not my first choice, either, but your assessment her record is not accurate. Have you heard of the Student Non-Discrimination Act, Paycheck Fairness Act, or Respect for Marriage Act?
Mike in NC
The media have their narrative: an old white man needs to run against Fat Bastard. Their first choice is non-Democrat Bernie Sanders, age 78, who could be easily goaded to get into a shouting match with him on the debate stage and quite possibly have another heart attack. That alone would keep Putin’s stooge in place for another four years. How did we get here?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@the Conster: meh, I don’t like her healthcare plan either, I think it’s bad for her and bad for Dems, but she never claimed tribal affiliation. She was clearly taken with the romance of the family story, and it’s cringe-inducing that she let Harvard list her as minority faculty, but she never known as the Native American law professor, she was the consumer advocate from Harvard.
Lots of people have these kind of family legends. I had an uncle who used to get drunk and talk about buying the castle Cromwell took from our alleged anglo-norman ancestors in Ireland. It’s a pile of bricks in north Galway, and my own half-interested googling can’t find any connection between my great-grandmother’s family name and that castle
the Conster
@Barbara:
Markets will always work better for whites first and most in our system that maintains white supremacy. Warren is smart, and maybe she’s learning how to be a Democrat now that she’s running for president, but every time she shits on Dems like Biden and Obama instead of Republicans like Bernie does it makes me wonder whether she understands what Democrats stand for. I’ll vote for her in the GE, but not in the primary.
germy
@the Conster: I’ll probably vote for Harris in the primary (if she’s still in the race) but I’ll vote for the Democratic nominee in the general election. And if that’s Warren, she’s got my vote.
the Conster
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
She passed herself off as a racial minority at critical times in her life. I find that offensive and to dismiss it just reeks of privilege, and I’m white.
Miss Bianca
@the Conster: WE HATES IT, WARRENSES, WE HATES IT FOREVER!!
Fuck, it’s gonna be a long year.
gene108
@rikyrah:
Isn’t Spandan Chakrobharti the Bernie or bust jackass, who was AOC’s chief of staff, until he tweeted out the Green New Deal would abolish air travel, hamburgers, or something similar?
I don’t trust him as an honest broker to evaluate Democrats. I think like a lot of Bernie or bust guys, he views Democrats as the primary obstacle to turning America into a liberal utopia
Baud
@gene108:
No, he hates Bernie.
Jay
@the Conster:
In Canada, the effective Politicians focus on 1-5 closely related things. That way, they can be focused “experts” as opposed to “stable geniuses”.
So for example, they might focus soley on trade issues, stick to legislation covering trade, sit on Commitee’s focused on trade, maybe even make it as head of an Agency focused on trade, or a Cabinet position focused on trade.
Their Human Rights record will consist at best, of asking the “right questions” or offering the “right defence” in Question Period, trying to tie Human Rights and Labour Rights to trade issues in Legislation, and making the appropriate comments in public on the “other” issues.
Given the levels of CEO, unregulated Corporate and unregulated Capitalism worship still existant on the Centerist to Right true believers and in the US MSM, that Warren walked away from it decades ago, is a Big F’n Deal.
Barbara
@the Conster:
So, we shouldn’t bother protecting people from predatory lenders because once we have racial equality all of that will take care of itself?
the Conster
@Miss Bianca:
I’ll vote for her in the GE, but I really don’t want to. I’m not going to defend some of the choices she’s made. I think she has terrible political instincts.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: That’s Saikat,
Butter emails!!!
@the Conster:
I love how certain people on this board seem to think the way to support their preferred candidate is to spend 90 percent of their time viciously attacking other candidates. You do realize that Warren could be the nominee, right? Adopting the Republican playbook on her isn’t going to help pry Shitgibbon’s buttcheeks from the toilet nearest the Oval Office.
the Conster
@Barbara:
Ugh I hate that kind of reasoning – we can’t fix everything so we shouldn’t fix anything.
No, I’m saying that focusing on making markets work better is better than not doing it, but that it’s not a substitute for acknowledging how white supremacy works from infancy on. Didn’t Warren, Bernie and Michael Moore go on an *economic anxiety* town hall tour just last year, pretending that it wasn’t racism that elected Trump? That the great moral issue of our time was income inequality, and not the fact that the white majority keeps voting to immiserate itself in exchange for white supremacy and has for the last 5 decades?
Miss Bianca
@the Conster: Yes, as you never fail to take the opportunity to remind us. Many, many times. Oh, so many times. So many variations on that one theme.
It would almost be tolerable if you ever brought anything else to Life’s Rich Pageant here on Balloon Juice except your endless reminders that Warren is the Antichrist, the Antimary, the Antijoseph, the Antitwelveapostles, the Antiantitrump, and probably likes smooth jazz in addition to her other manifold sins, wickednesses, and general failings.
But you don’t, so it isn’t.
Butter emails!!!
@the Conster:
Warren has made several appearances where she has specifically called out systemic racism and caught flack for calling our criminal justice system racist.
trollhattan
@Miss Bianca:
Truer words have seldom been written.
the Conster
@Butter emails!!!:
Like Republicans don’t want her to be the candidate, and have all the oppo on her ready to go like they do for every candidate? Really? I prefer Harris or Klobuchar or Castro, and at this point even Biden is looking pretty good. I want to win, and I don’t believe she’ll win.
the Conster
@Miss Bianca:
I just want to beat Trump. That’s it. I want the babies out of cages and to get our country out of the hands of the mob family. That’s it. We need to win the Senate and keep the House, at minimum, and I want the best candidate to do it, and hopefully there will be coat tails because we need them.
Butter emails!!!
I’m sorry, I can’t support Klobuchar because of the multiple credible allegations that she abuses her staff and engages in punitive measures if they leave her employ. I also can’t forgive her silence on the several high profile cases of police assaulting and/or killing unarmed African Americans in her state.
Jay
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Not smooth jazz!
PVDMichael
I think Speaker Pelosi should immediately announce that the public impeachment hearings will happen in the evenings. This will free up the House to be available to work with the President all day/any day on the budget. This will also address Republican concerns on transparency. What better way to be transparent than to have the hearings at a time when more people can view/participate!
Kraux Pas
@the Conster: Biden has decades of problematic views, actions, and utterances over decades of political life.
Iraq War vote, bankruptcy bill, tough on crime bs, USAPATRIOT Act was full of stuff we wanted to do for years, and apprently he was the only person who ever did anything at all in the Obama administration. And that was just since I came of age.
Biden is the most likely to lose. Im gung ho for any person making a serious run for the nom except Biden. Every four years the media tries to tell us who to vote for, who’s electable and most likely to win.
Every time we listen we lose.
Jay
@the Conster:
Biden polls at 2% in the 45 and under demographic.
google.ca/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/us/politics/iowa-poll-warren-biden.amp.html
Jay
Mary G
@the Conster: More than one of the white candidates is absolutely fucking up with black people. Wilmer hasn’t done anything more than last time, and Mayor Pete is catastrophic:
That’s his campaign manager calling a black pundit biased. And answering a question why he should be the Democratic nominee, Pete said the AA voters who know him best voted more for him in his mayoral reelection. This was partially true, as the fact checkers say. The black voters in mostly white neighborhoods went up 5%, but in the mostly black neighborhoods he was down as much as 12%.
ETA: WE CAN’T NOMINATE SOMEONE UNACCEPTABLE TO OUR MOST LOYAL VOTERS.
Butter emails!!!
@the Conster:
It’s true they have a bunch of Oppo research on Warren. The counter would be that everyone has already heard it and it hasn’t ultimately proved effective. The stuff about Klobuchar has kept her as a nonentity in this primary and the prosecutor smears against Harris seem to have been successful in keeping her numbers down and ultimately eroding her support with African Americans.
the Conster
@Mary G:
Ugh on Mayo Pete. He needs to try to win statewide in Indiana.
chopper
@Miss Bianca:
just this last month has been a long year.
Miss Bianca
@chopper: Shit, *today’s* been a long year already. Altho’ maybe that’s just due to the time change.
Jager
@Mnemosyne:
The first time I ever heard the word octoroon was from a black guy on my flag football team in college. The other team had a white kid with curly blond hair who was a wide receiver with all the moves and great hands. We went back to the sideline after the guy scored his 3rd TD. Wiley turned to me and said, “That mother fucker must be an octoroon.”
Mandalay
@Butter emails!!!:
A good start, but toss this in as well:
That is so fucked up; Klobuchar is just another cocksucker for Israel.
But more generally, it is a trivial matter to find odious and loathsome behavior from EVERY Democratic candidate.
So many litmus tests, so little time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I hope Ron Klein, or maybe a nutritionist, can help him to focus, cause he just might be our nominee
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Miss Bianca: Hmmm, reminds me to change my clocks.
Princess
All your faves are problematic. All of them.
chris
Jim, Foolish Literalist
ws Service @ DPRK_News
2h2 hours ago
Donald Trump gropes breasts of Kurt Suzuki, demonstrating lack of sexism.
Ella in New Mexico
@Barbara:
Please note and keep in mind for future reference that it is constant, unrelenting, and entirely too intensely angry for this point in the election–or for how anyone should feel about EW at all. Who, by the way, does poll a strong second right now in may places. As if it’s not enough to just promote the candidates with policies she thinks are preferable or more workable–she has to throw in a bunch of Republican talking points about what a racist, elitist (and now it wounds like she’s saying she’s anti-choice? I dunno it rambles) untrustworthy liar EW is to personally destroy her. Which was her same MO in 2016 when also getting intensely personally insulting towards anybody who said anything even minimally positive about Sander’s ideas.
@Miss Bianca:
PieFilter is great cuz it allows you to peek and see if maybe you were wrong but the your suspicions get confirmed all over again. Sometimes, though, it shows up in like 80% of the comments which gets really annoying. ;-)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve counted too many chickens in the past couple years but… one of the Ukrainian mobster-bagman who worked for Rudi, or for whom Rudi worked, has fired trump’s lawyer. We’ll see
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jayzus, *Steyer* is polling ahead of Harris and Klobuchar in NV? The gods look down and laugh. Or maybe they’re weeping.
West of the Rockies
It does get bloody boring: I hate Pete and I hate Warren…
Okay, who DO you like?
J R in WV
@lumpkin:
This is true, I did a quid pro quo this afternoon… I paid Jim’s Insurance Agency $3900 and they insured our 3 vehicles for another year. They got paid, I got insured. Nothing wrong about that, it’s a simple legal business transaction.
But holding up a foreign government’s military assistance while they’re at war with Russia, in exchange for that government fabricating dirt on one’s political opponent, that’s illegal. The fact that there’s a quid pro quo is just a tiny bit of the illegality.
James E Powell
@Roger Moore:
There was a time when I might have agreed with this, but Cleek’s Law is in full effect. There is only one tenet of Republican orthodoxy: never allow Democrats to have power.
Chris Johnson
@the Conster:
Trump openly, repeatedly, loudly lied to just the white economically anxious working class people in the states that swung the election that he was going to bring all the jobs back and get them factories, wealth, security. He was NOT telling them he’d give them poverty in exchange for them being able to beat on minorities. He was telling them he was the only one who would give them the glory days back again, at a time when Clinton (whom I voted for) was talking about retraining and sort of reinventing the economy along the lines of moving away from the old union jobs towards more new, technological, 21st-century employment.
Apart from the fact that the latter is scary as hell (good luck surviving working for something like Uber!), Clinton was not LYING to people that she was going to give them their old jobs and lives back. Trump was LYING to people repeatedly that he was going to do just that, and was the only one promising impossible refuge from what’s been happening in the global economy for most of our lifetimes.
You totally can’t say Trump was promising racism ‘even if it immiserates white people’. He loudly promised to make the white people wealthy, and in fact everybody wealthy. It was lies, and it was constant.
James E Powell
Aside from a handful of people who are noodges with troll-ish tendencies, I consider the people who comment here to be a pretty bright and sensible group. But what I’m getting from reading the comments, taken as a whole, is that there isn’t any candidate whose purity is sufficient. They each seem to have what people describe as disqualifying flaws. This troubles me.
J R in WV
@James E Powell:
You are probably correct about the group of the population who doesn’t understand “why it’s wrong to ask a foreign government to make up stuff and start a criminal prosecution of a political opponent” — this seems so strange to me, because I track politics and see politicians go to jail pretty often for illegal political shenanigans. Also lots of businessmen who go to jail for petty criminal plots.
Is this a total failure of education? A lack of moral training as youths? Are our Christian churches failing to teach right from wrong? — that one seems correct right off, we see so many youth ministers arrested for sexual predation on their young charges. Of course we have legislators who want to keep schools from teaching critical thinking… that’s pretty extreme to me.
J R in WV
@Mandalay:
I’ve heard and read some deranged rants, but that was special, bragging about how his ancestors enslaved those miserable dark people’s ancestors, and how they will always see him looking down at them. He can’t hide from his nasty ever again. On the twitter feed someone posted an 8 hour clip of Spencer getting punched in the face over and over again, which I found kind of cute.
What a despicable piece of excrement that poor boy is. I hope his family keeps him at arm’s length, for their own sake. He’s pretty dangerous sounding to me.
Mandalay
@James E Powell:
You seem to be conflating two issues:
– Yes, all of the Democratic candidates have flaws. (Who knew?)
– No, they are not disqualifying. I have read here a gazillion times comments along the lines of “I will vote for whoever wins the Democratic nomination” and “I really don’t like {x} but I will crawl over broken glass to vote for them if they get the nomination“, and “I just want a candidate who can beat Trump“.
I cannot understand how you concluded that the overall thrust of the comments was “there isn’t any candidate whose purity is sufficient“. The exact opposite seems to be the case to me.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@James E Powell: LOL. Every candidate ever when put under a microscope has a flaw at least one person considers disqualifying. There is no perfect candidate. There has never been a perfect candidate. There will never be a perfect candidate. However, all of them (even Bernie, whom I despise) is an order of magnitude better than Trump.
sgrAstar
@rikyrah: Right. Gotta make sure to weaken Warren as much as possible. Who the hell is this author? I’ll withhold judgement on Warren’s plan until people I respect have weighed in. Warren has the guts to address one of the most corrosive problems we have- income inequality. And consequently, she’s scaring the shit out of big political donors on both sides. ✊️
?
CatFacts
It is… interesting… how the comments that are basically “fighting words” about candidates just magically appear on threads about witness testimony for impeachment.
To get back to impeachment, thanks to those of you who’ve been trying to explain why Trump is so fixated on Ukraine. I had no idea what the reasons were and feel a little bit more educated now.
Shana
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, but Strasberg didn’t shake his hand, which is something.
Jay
@James E Powell:
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
It’s kinda like Public Transit. The bus might not take you exactly where you want to go, so you take the one that get’s you closest to your destination.
J R in WV
@the Conster:
She never asserted any Tribal Affiliation ! And, why do you continue to repeat Republican talking points here? It just shows what a tool you are!
J R in WV
@the Conster:
You are repeating Republican talking points again. She volunteered to counsel students who were members of the Native American community who needed a sympathetic person to talk with. That’s not the same at all.
Shana
@Steeplejack: Since we Dems hold the reins here in Virginia there’s a much reduced chance of crap associated with registration. You should be OK. And be sure to pick up a sample ballot because most of the candidates won’t be IDed by party, only the State Senate and House of Delegates candidates are identified by party. Everything else is technically non-partisan.
West of the Rockies
@J R in WV:
She probably ran with what she was told. I tell people I’m part Native American on my father’s side. It’s what I’ve heard my whole life. My dad looked NA: black hair, high cheek bones, little facial hair… But I’ve never had a genetic test, so I’m going on faith that my father was truthful and sincere. Probably just what EW did.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The bible-thumping thing is hilarious considering how ballpayers are notorious adulterers.
Villago Delenda Est
the Conster is just a troll. Pie filter if you must.
J R in WV
@the Conster:
Then you need to quit passing along Republican lies about Democratic primary candidates. THAT’S IT!!!!
J R in WV
@Villago Delenda Est:
The only problem with the pie filter, which I adore and use for some commenters, is that it slows down my survey of all the comments, I’m required to click on the tiny icon to convert the comment from pie to the original comment, pretty often.
So I try not to go overboard with it. Right now I have three nyms on my pie filter list.
1. BobS
2. Cacti
3. smintheus
I’m thinking the Constr is needing to be added…
Kraux Pas
@the Conster via Villago Delenda Est:
Feels good dont it?
James E Powell
@Mandalay:
No, I’m talking about people who say, for example, that Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar is just another cocksucker for Israel. Or maybe it was the person who compared Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren unfavorably with Rachel Dolezal.