Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

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

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

You are here: Home / Politics / Impeachment Inquiry / Friday Morning Open Thread: Be Prepared

Friday Morning Open Thread: Be Prepared

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As House Democrats geared up for their first impeachment hearing last month, Speaker Nancy Pelosi huddled in her office with her leadership team, downplaying expectations.

Don’t expect these hearings to trigger a massive shift in public support toward ousting President Trump, Pelosi (D-Calif.) told her colleagues the night before the hearing, according to Democrats familiar with her warning who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the encounter frankly.

Those words of caution — delivered as House Intelligence Committee members prepared in the Capitol basement for the next day’s hearing — reflected the innate skepticism that has influenced her every move as she has guided her Democratic majority through a tumultuous moment in the nation’s history…

But with a five-minute nationally televised address Thursday morning, she has become the ­reluctant face of the impeachment effort, donning a role she never wanted at a time when she’d rather be talking about anything else.

“I’m really sorry the president made this necessary by his complete disregard for the vision of our founders,” she told reporters Thursday. “An impeachment is not a pleasant experience. It can be divisive. We don’t take any glee in this at all. It’s heartbreaking. But the president gave us no choice.”.…

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA officer who was among the “national security freshmen” who pushed Pelosi toward supporting an impeachment inquiry, praised her handling of the process. From the beginning, she said, she asked Pelosi to ensure that the investigation was done in a strategic, efficient and serious manner, and she said Pelosi has followed through.

“I really can’t stand anything that celebrates this moment we’re in, because if you’re from a place like Michigan — swing state, you know, where your neighbors have different political views than you do — that tension is seeping into our everyday lives and no one’s happy about it,” she said. “I think she has set an important tone.”

Slotkin added that Pelosi has kept the moderate freshmen at the top of her priority list, making sure their bills are passing the House and tending closely to their political needs. Slotkin pointed to one of her top priorities — allowing patients to have immediate access to prescription drug prices from their doctors’ offices. The House passed the bill Oct. 29, two days before the House formalized its impeachment probe…

When the dust settles, there will still be legislation that needs to be made. Pelosi may or (Trickster forbid) may not be around to keep shepherding the Democratic cats, but she’s doing her best to make sure that the rules will not be forgotten and that somebody will be there to implement them.

We can hope Pelosi gets some credit in the history books, because she sure won’t get any from her very-woke “allies”…

Reader Interactions

236Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    The idea that Dems are dishonest and always act in bad faith is critical to maintaining the status quo and preventing progress.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Under the guise of giving its drivers more access to the banking and financial system, Uber has quietly been developing a loan program that may have the potential to trap drivers in cycles of debt, making them easier for the company to exploit.

    In early September, a number of Uber drivers in the US received a notification through their Uber app informing them that the company was developing an “exciting new financial product” to help them “in a time of need”. “If Uber provided access to affordable loans,” an accompanying questionnaire asked, “how likely are you to take advantage of this product?”

    What Uber was testing with drivers appears to be a payday loan program in which the company will offer drivers short-term credit of up to $500 or more. Drivers would presumably repay these debts by, well, driving for Uber. The program, versions of which have already been rolled out in India, Brazil and Peru, has not yet been launched in the US, and Uber has declined to discuss its details in the press. But the loans are clearly part of a broader push the company is making, through its new Uber Money subsidiary, into giving drivers access to financial products such as bank accounts and credit cards.

    Access, however, tends to come at a price. We don’t yet know anything about the terms of Uber’s loans. But given the company’s business model, the extreme financial pressures it is facing, and its history of exploiting workers, we should fear the possibility that its loan program will create a cruel new form of digital peonage. Peonage, which was used as a replacement for outright slavery in the post-civil-war American south, is a system of economic exploitation in which workers are compelled to work to pay off debts to their employers. Uber’s update to this system may be delivered via smartphone, but as the California state assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez recently tweeted, it could still be “f*cking feudalism”.

    The old ideas are still the best ideas.

    Uber Money claims it is driven by a “mission of giving people access to the type of financial services they were excluded from”,

    Whenever I hear the word “mission” I know the stench of MBA marketing bullshit to the “rubes” is soon to follow. The guillotine is too good for the scammers at the top of this ponzi scheme.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    It’s the NYT, but it’s Boule, so you can decide for yourself whether it’s worthwhile.

    Why the ‘Wokest’ Candidates Are the Weakest

    NYT > Top Stories / by Jamelle Bouie / 9min


    If the fantasy that Democrats are all zealots was reality, the primary campaign would have turned out quite differently.

    SHAREVISIT WEBSITE

  15. 15.

    Betty Cracker

    The Post has a piece on how the timing of the Senate impeachment trial might affect campaigning in Iowa, possibly harming the prospects of the senators who are in the race:

    “I don’t think it’s like a death sentence for many of the senators, but it’s certainly an opportunity for Biden and Buttigieg to make up some of the ground game and put some points on the board,” said Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Polk County Democrats.

    Giuliani is in Ukraine right now meeting with discredited crooks and Russia-aligned thugs to manufacture dirt on Biden, openly carrying on the dirty work the admin tried to do in secret via the extortion attempt on President Zelensky. That will be a factor too:

    For Biden, the impeachment trial presents a different kind of challenge. Some Republicans are looking to draw attention to Joe and Hunter Biden, as they seek to defend Trump’s decision to press Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “look into” the two. Senate Republicans have privately debated whether they should use the trial to scrutinize the Bidens, who have not been accused by any authorities of wrongdoing.

    Asked Wednesday whether Republicans should press for them to testify, Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said, “I don’t know if decisions have been made about that.”

    You hope it blows up in the bastards’ faces.

  16. 16.

    WereBear

    Why did Republicans impeach Clinton? To poison the well for their corrupt asses, that’s why. To taint it as just more political maneuvering.

     

    I think this influenced Democratic leadership, too. But tRump being the fool that he is, he actually created a situation where they had to, anyway.

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In the mid-1980s, Henry Lee Lucas was a star – at least in the context of America’s exploding fascination with serial killers. The subject of anxious news features and four feature films, Lucas confessed to murdering hundreds of people – at first 100, then 200, then about 600. An odd-jobs drifter with three teeth and a lazy eye, Lucas would recall, often on camera, precise and grisly details about each victim. Police officers from across the country interviewed him for more than 3,000 murder cases, to much fanfare; at least 200 cases were attributed to him, closing them to further investigation and making Lucas the country’s most prolific serial killer.

    Except that it was all a lie, one spun through a toxic brew of people-pleasing, power, and convenience on the part of law enforcement, and documented in the Netflix series The Confession Killer, directed by Taki Oldham and Robert Kenner.
    ………………………………..
    “the more we got into it, the more we began to realize it wasn’t a story about Henry”, Kenner told the Guardian, “because Henry was this cipher where all these people saw in him what they wanted to see, and Henry was willing to be that for everybody”.

    Looks like an interesting story.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    You make sixteen drives, what do you get?
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the Uber store

  23. 23.

    WereBear

    @OzarkHillbilly: It is, and I have been following it from the first day it broke. Was always skeptical, because this guy isn’t even functional, much less a criminal mastermind.

     

    There have been killers who are clever and don’t get caught, like the Golden State killer. Mostly because they were capable of actually stopping, like BTK. But this one wasn’t smart and the lure of closing cases kept law officials from realizing it.

     

    Shows how far you can get with rat-like cunning and motivated opponents.

  26. 26.

    germy

    Without Fox News’ cooperation, Bombshell production designer Mark Ricker had to use a system of “moles” to build the Fox News offices in the former Los Angeles Times offices. He used any photos he could find online, including selfies from employees and foot-fetish pics where you can see the office surroundings in the background. The female Fox News hosts all had to adhere to what costume designer Colleen Atwood called Roger Ailes’s “good girl but with a wink” look: tight dresses and tall stiletto heels. “[Ailes] had a clever kind of intuition about what people would notice — and especially, obviously, men,” Atwood said. “He branded that look in a way.” As a result, pictures of the anchors’ feet in high heels ended up on foot-fetish sites, helping Ricker re-create the offices in painstaking detail. “Ninety-eight percent of the people who see the movie aren’t going to know what the inner offices look like, but the other 2 percent of the audience will be the ones who worked there, and they will know,” Ricker said. “I just wanted them to think, ‘Oh my God, how’d they get it so right?’”

    https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/bombshell-movie-foot-fetish-websites-fox-news-offices.html#_ga=2.182109603.542913326.1575632794-1742957006.1575632794

  30. 30.

    zhena gogolia

    In a sane world, this whole thing would really help Biden. After all, the entire impeachment is about how Drumpf was so scared of big bad Biden that he tried to coerce the head of a foreign country into pretending to investigate him. And numerous government officials testified under oath that Joe Biden did absolutely nothing wrong and was always advancing the interests of the United States and not his own personal interests or those of his son. But it’s not a sane world, I guess. Drumpf can talk on cell phones to Ukraine with Rudy Giuliani and it’s AOK. But her e-mails.

  31. 31.

    germy

    A quote for Betty Cracker:

     

    <blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Birds are dinosaurs who shrugged off a couple apocalypses. Some eat bone marrow. Some drink nectar. They outswim fish in the sea. They smile politely at gravity’s demands. <br>I am grateful to see them. I am grateful to feed them. I am grateful to know them.</p>&mdash; The CryptoNaturalist (@CryptoNature) <a href=”https://twitter.com/CryptoNature/status/1201937950365360130?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>December 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
    <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

  33. 33.

    germy

    Let’s try again:

    Birds are dinosaurs who shrugged off a couple apocalypses. Some eat bone marrow. Some drink nectar. They outswim fish in the sea. They smile politely at gravity’s demands.
    I am grateful to see them. I am grateful to feed them. I am grateful to know them.

    — The CryptoNaturalist (@CryptoNature) December 3, 2019

  35. 35.

    debbie

    @WereBear:
    Everything the GOP is accusing the Dems of are what they themselves did during Clinton’s impeachment. They hated him from Day 1, they impeached more quickly, they minimized Dem witnesses, etc., etc.

    Next time Pelosi speaks, she should state very clearly that Dems are proceeding exactly as the GOP did, but with far more cause.

  41. 41.

    gene108

    @Betty Cracker:

     

    Would be interesting, if they get the Bidens to testify. Joe’s good, on things he really knows, like foreign policy, as seen in the VP debates, and I assume, what the fuck he did as VP.

     

    Not sure about Hunter, but as long as he doesn’t come off like a total shitheel, it should be a win.

  45. 45.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: IIRC, Biden’s numbers actually rose a bit after it became clear Trump’s Ukraine plot was designed to smear him. The increase might have been due to unrelated factors, but so far, at least, it doesn’t seem to have hurt Biden with Democrats.

  46. 46.

    germy

    @Betty Cracker:  One of my favorites:

    Your body travels further than your mind. The water within you has roared with the hurricanes and touched the sunless hush beneath the sea. Your blood’s iron swam through space and solid stone.

    And yet, your mind travels further than your body. It is not limited by what is real.

    — The CryptoNaturalist (@CryptoNature) November 11, 2019

  47. 47.

    Baud

    @germy:

     

    And yet, your mind travels further than your body. It is not limited by what is real.

    Maybe Trump IS a stable genius.

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie:  

    Next time Pelosi speaks, she should state very clearly that Dems are proceeding exactly as the GOP did,

    Both sides!

  51. 51.

    debbie

    Best of all is that it’s a woman who’s most in Trump’s face. He’s not used to not being able to intimidate a woman. All he has left to try is offer her $130,000. //

  53. 53.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @germy:   Clicked thru and the first one I read is

    I find depression is like weather. You don’t solve the weather. You prepare for it.

    Truth.

  54. 54.

    gene108

    @germy:

     

    One thing I learned in geology classes is that there is very little new water on the Earth.  The water we drink is the same water the trilobites and dinosaurs drank, since water keeps getting recycled.

  57. 57.

    Baud

    Meanwhile, her campaign has been plagued by questions about her “electability” and her personality — in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, 41 percent of voters who support Vice President Joe Biden in 2020 but not Warren agreed with the statement that women who run for president “just aren’t that likable.”

     

    “There’s just something about her that I just don’t like,” a woman who previously supported Trump told the Times of Warren.

     

    First of all, where have I heard that before.

    Second, why the hell is Vox asking a Trump supporter about Warren’s likeability?

  60. 60.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: Back in my Texas days, we represented Henry Lee.   The case that put him on death row (and into our hands) was overturned when the real killer was discovered/found.   My favorite quote that came out of that mess was a State Trooper — actually a decent guy — who said, “No one deserves to die for a crime they didn’t commit more than Lucas.”

    There were other real deaths — starting with his mother…..

  63. 63.

    gene108

    @debbie:

     

    Next time Pelosi speaks, she should state very clearly that Dems are proceeding exactly as the GOP did, but with far more cause.

    We can cry all we want about GOP’s bad faith, hypocrisy, etc. but to drill it into people’s consciousness, Democrats need a media apparatus that rivals what Republicans have.

    So much of our failing in messaging is the lack of “liberal” billionaires willing to burn a few million dollars to start media enterprises to counter Republican disinformation or to set a narrative, which Republicans are forced to answer questions about.

    Too bad, a guy like Bloomberg, with some experience in running a media company, couldn’t burn some pocket change on this, instead of running for President.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia:

     

    And Hillary should be president.  We have to learn we’ll never get an overwhelming support from the public on anything because of the GOP stranglehold on a large portion of the population.

  68. 68.

    Betty Cracker

    @gene108: It’s a structural disadvantage that we’ll have to live with since Democratic policies don’t benefit billionaires. The only reason Bloomberg jumped in was to protect his pile of cash.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    Pelosi’s first rule is probably when you have the votes, you vote. That’s a good rule.

     

    I really do wonder if every single decision she makes would be endlessly second guessed if she were a man. This process- impeachment in the House, reading her caucus and counting votes, setting dates, goes to the heart of what her job is. It’s what she does. If they think she can’t do this competently then they think she can’t perform the core functions of her job.

  72. 72.

    WereBear

    Too bad, a guy like Bloomberg, with some experience in running a media company, couldn’t burn some pocket change on this, instead of running for President.

    Bloomberg is about Bloomberg. What does creating a media empire do for him except getting him shunned at those gold-plated cocktail parties?

  73. 73.

    gene108

    @Baud:

    And Hillary should be president.

    And Democrats need to be reminded she got 3 million more votes, and Trump only won because of 77,000 votes across three states. His margin of victory in MI, WI, and PA was less than 1%.

    And he’s less popular in those states now, than he was in 2016.

    And we won big in 2018 and 2019.

    We should be optimistic about 2020, and not scared shitless.

    I think reminding Democrats about these facts would’ve helped a lot in bringing out or best, and not what is so far transpiring in the Presidential primary,

  74. 74.

    Immanentize

    @WereBear: It was a deserved killing, no doubt.  His childhood was horrific.  Henry Lee used to tell us that he didn’t kill anyone but his mother.  And in a way, that was true.  He just did it several times over the years.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    The only reason Bloomberg jumped in was to protect his pile of cash.

    I’m still amused by how scared they got. I don’t think it was Warren as an individual. I think it was probably the polling where 70% of people want them taxed more. A lot more! We’ve seen this once before- they also panicked after the financial crisis – that set off a whole round of whining and hurt feelings. None of them changed their behavior a bit- they were just really upset and therefore forced to create and fund the Tea Party as punishment for our being mean to them.

  76. 76.

    gene108

    @Betty Cracker:

     

    I know Bloomberg’s in it, because he scared of a tax increase.

     

    The structural advantage Republicans have really underscores how awful they are.  With a solid grip on the media, with the ability to flood the airwaves for any election, from President to dog catcher, with Koch, Adelson, etc. attack ads, they cannot do any better than they have.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    This is interesting: No sex in the bunkbeds! Tales from the most intimate sharing economy startup yet

    For $60 a day, each of us gets access to two community kitchens and two co-ed bathrooms inside a converted church building, plus one of the 38 wooden bunk bed “pods”. But this isn’t a youth hostel. Many of the “podestrians” are fully grown adults with full-time jobs – who choose to live semi-permanently in a 50-sq-ft – pod. There are six similar PodShare locations across Los Angeles and one in San Francisco.

    Each pod contains a bed, linens, an electrical outlet, a small Netflix-loaded HDTV, built-in shelving, one clothing hook and a dry-erase board. Atop the hospital-cornered beds are welcome kits consisting of one rolled-up hand towel, two energy drinks donated by little-known brands, and a pamphlet listing the PodShare rules:
    Share (Don’t take.)
    STFU (Quiet hours: 10pm – 10am.)
    No Privacy (Do not build a tent, fort or clothesline – we’re an open community space on purpose.)
    Friends (Make new ones – visitors may wait in the lobby for 20 minutes. Anyone staying longer should purchase a day pass for $15.)

    Certainly not for everybody, but even an inveterate introvert such as myself can see the attraction of staying in one for a few days or so:

    One guy lies on his lower bunk, reading. Another, freshly showered, walks past, quiet and shirtless. As dinnertime nears, chatter in the kitchen grows as new podestrians show up; a mixture of English, French and German floats through the air. While some are just passing through for a few days, others stay here long term. Some residents have been so committed to the lifestyle that they’ve branded themselves with tattoos of the company logo. One 27-year-old who did not want to give his name has lived here for eight months, after moving to the Venice neighborhood of LA from Oklahoma to pursue a job offer. (He tried a few Airbnbs first, then settled on this PodShare instead.)

    “I didn’t like living in small apartments, and the decent newer apartment buildings that don’t have asbestos and aren’t run-down go for triple the national average,” he says. “[PodShare is] five blocks from the beach, there’s a concert on site every two weeks by very talented acts, [it] has two full-size kitchens, and so on – lots of positives.” He also likes not being tied down by a lease and says that PodShare has been good for his personal growth – he used to order a lot of takeout, but a roommate here got him into cooking. When he’s not working, he plays basketball and watches movies with his fellow podestrians, and he’s met an assortment of folks from around the world. “Half the people that come through here are foreign, and it’s pretty cool getting to know them and their cultures – you learn a lot.”

    I suspect snorers aren’t exactly welcome tho.

    As one who is highly skeptical of the “sharing economy”, this one seems to be a viable business, at least in California where she (Elvina Beck,) has 8 (iirc) open now.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    “I think she’s good at her job, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that she does every core, narrow function of her job badly, including 1. counting votes and 2. setting dates”

     

    You know what’s not actually her job? Making sure Senators who are running for President have a clear calendar for every Iowa campaign event. Kind of goes against the whole “sacred oath” and “constitutional imperative” argument these same people were making 3 months ago.

  79. 79.

    gene108

    @Kay:

     

    I think part of the problem, right now, is Democrats don’t have a clear leader and she is in the highest political office of any elected Democrat.

     

    People expect her to not only manage the House, but set domestic policy, foreign policy, inspire the base, create attack plans against Republicans, generate enthusiasm for local elections, and so on.

     

    Part of this is because she is so good at her real job that people want her to do everything else, and are upset that she’s not able to everything under the sun.

     

    On the other hand, Boehner and Ryan, were so bad at being Speaker – couldn’t even pass a budget, which is the only job the House really has – no one expected much of anything from them, with regards to actual leadership.

  82. 82.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize:   The story starts with the killings of his housemate, Kate Rich, and girlfriend, Becky Powell, in Texas. He was not innocent but a lot of people just as guilty as he are walking around free, or died w/o ever facing charges.

  84. 84.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @OzarkHillbilly: If you see me coming, better run like crazy

    Pedestrians who don’t will be pushing up daisies

    With a foot of lead & a bumper of steel

    If the right turn won’t get you then the left turn will

  85. 85.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Exactly, and even if the billionaire snowflakes succeed in tanking Warren, tax increases are coming. Biden’s tax policy is pretty darned progressive, especially for someone who came up in the “third way” era.

  86. 86.

    Kay

    @Baud:

     

    What bugs me about them is they’re really chickens. They second guess as protection- they’re “in” something only to the extent that something works exactly as they imagined it would. Nothing ever does. I just loathe people who are like “jump with me!” and then halfway down they start saying “if we had jumped in June like I said…”

    In or out.

  90. 90.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: I’ve been living with it all my life. Went thru a really bad period in my early 20s that lasted for… Years. When I finally climbed out of the hole I knew I was lucky to be alive and that if I ever went back there again I probably wouldn’t be that lucky again. Started inventing strategies for dealing with it, #1 being to acknowledge it, #2 being to just flat out refuse to allow it to take over.

     

    It’s not an everyday battle but the war is never over.

  91. 91.

    Ocotillo

    @hells littlest angel:   Just for the heck of it I would like to plant the thought in right wing media’s head that the plan all along was to impeach both Pence and Trump, Nancy Smash assumed the presidency, appoints Hillary Veep, and then Nancy resigns and returns to the House and Hillary is president.  Those Clintons are geniuses.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Right and perhaps more astonishing Trump’s tax cut didn’t work. Not as a practical matter- I knew it wouldn’t “spur investment” or that bullshit, but as a political matter. The tax cut trick isn’t foolproof anymore. As far as voters it’s either a liability or a wash for Trump. You can tell it pisses him off to no end. Republicans probably all told him it would be wildly popular.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:  

    If they think she can’t do this competently then they think she can’t perform the core functions of her job.

    They all think they can do it better.

  96. 96.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @germy:

    BIRDS HAVE BEEN SEEN IN TOWERS AND ON ISLES,

    ALSO ON PRIVY TOPS, IN FANEUIL HALL;

    BIRDS HAVE SOME OF THEM NOT BEEN SEEN AT ALL;

    BIRDS, IF THEY CARE TO, WALK ALONG IN FILE.

    BIRDS DO NOT FEEL ESPECIALLY GOOD IN FLIGHT:

    LET’S TREAT THEM RIGHT!

    — Richard Wilbur, “In A Bird Sanctuary,” from The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems (1947). CAPS IN ORIGINAL, GODDAMNIT!

  98. 98.

    Elizabelle

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    I find depression is like weather. You don’t solve the weather. You prepare for it. … [I] Started inventing strategies for dealing with it, #1 being to acknowledge it, #2 being to just flat out refuse to allow it to take over.

     

    I like the original quote, and your comment.  Have a friend who is suffering mightily from depression (he has always had a melancholic personality), and it’s helpful.

    Good luck in your continued battle with “the black dog.”

  99. 99.

    Kay

    Brian Schatz
    @brianschatz
    13h
    Giuliani is still committing crimes on behalf of the President. Today.

    If I had told you a far Right international “movement” would be led in the US by people who are mostly from NYC you would have told me I was crazy. But that’s the truth.

    Trump hires these people because he knows them, and he knows them because they came up together. And this is what they are. They’re more racist and reactionary than the most rural southerner. In fact, our traditionally reactionary southerners are not extreme enough for this crowd – they had to jettison the southern AG and replace him with one of their own. The worldy and sophisticated and well-credentialed Mr. Barr. Every one of the leaders comes out of the same club.

  100. 100.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud@Baud: From the The USA Today:

    Mayor Vivian Jones said she was “angry, disappointed and heartbroken” that the parade was canceled and vowed to begin planning next year’s parade. In a teary video statement, she said that while she does not like the decision, the risk of hosting the parade outweighed the reward.

    Jones said the Christmas parade has been a cherished tradition in the community for more than 70 years.

    In its statement last week, the town described how the Sons & Daughters of the Confederacy typically participates with “period costumes and a banner that includes an image of the Confederate flag.”

    Stop the presses, the Internetz and life as we know it! Apparently the Union beat the tar out if the black-people-hating Confederacy less than 70 years ago!

    It’s too early for my eyes to roll out of my head.

  102. 102.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Musk is an idiot who hires idiot lawyers: Elon Musk’s lawyer asks cave explorer to apologize for insulting submarine

    Awwwwww… did that mean old Vernon Unsworth hurt the wittle sub’s feewings???

    Elon Musk’s attorney pressured a British cave explorer to apologize for criticizing Musk’s miniature submarine, in the third day of Vernon Unsworth’s defamation trial.

    “Do you believe Mr Musk is so cold-hearted that he was sending over this sub with no regard for the children’s lives?” Bill Price asked Vernon Unsworth in a Los Angeles federal court on Thursday. “Are you willing to apologize to Mr Musk for saying that it was just a PR stunt?”

    Unsworth, who brought suit against Musk after the Tesla and SpaceX chief referred to him as a “pedo guy” on Twitter, declined. “My insult was to the tube and not to Mr Musk personally,” Unsworth said. “I’m not sure how I need to apologize. It was my opinion at the time and I stand by that opinion.”

    If I’m not careful, his lawyers will start demanding apologies from me.

  106. 106.

    David ??Booooooo?? Koch

    Breaking: Active shooter on Naval Air Station Pensacola. “It’s going on right now,” Amber Southard Escambia County Sheriff’s Office tells CNN.

    Stand by for latest on @CNNnewsroom at 9a ET
    — Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) December 6, 2019

  107. 107.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @satby:  Even a fair hunk of people who hated the Clintons were uncomfortable with impeaching him over lying about a blowjob from a young adult woman:

    Shit yeah, I’d lie about that too – especially if I wuz married to a harpy who’d drag me into divorce court & take everything I owned!

    (But many others – particularly women of a certain age, religion & marital status –  were pissed off that Shrillary hadn’t dragged him into divorce court years before & just wanted to see both their arses burned…)

  108. 108.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Elizabelle: It’s easy to say, “just flat out refuse to allow it to take over” a lot harder to do. Every time is different, one has to adapt what worked the last time to the present situation. But it does start with the refusal.

     

    A day will come, and I accept that fact too, but I can’t submit till after my wife is gone. That’s a promise I have made.

  110. 110.

    kindness

    I’m gonna vote for whom ever the Democrats nominate in 2020, but the BernieBros are frying my ass once more.  With friends like this…..

  112. 112.

    DCrefugee

    Just ducking in to say:

     

    Nancy Pelosi is one of the most consequential politicians worldwide of this century.

     

    Right now, she is the best politician in the U.S.

  114. 114.

    Juju

    I want to get Cory Booker in the debate. I made, for me, a nice donation. If you want to see Booker, or for that matter Castro in the next debate, make a donation to their campaigns.

  116. 116.

    Sab

    @WereBear: I am going to start e-mailing Rob Portman on a weekly basis: You thought lying about fooling around with a consenting adult intern rose to the level of an impeachable offense. You do not think that lying about extorting an ally to interfere with our elections is an impeachable offense. You do not think that begging a hostile country (that is yourcandidate’s biggest creditor) to interfere in our elections is an impeachable offense. Sir, your values are skewed.

  118. 118.

    Baud

    The news media and all the cool lefty kids are trying to ding Biden for not taking shit, but I liked it.

  120. 120.

    Baud

    @Baud:

     

    And the old guy spouting Fox News talking points said he would support Biden if he’s the nominee, so good on him for that.

  122. 122.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think Biden’s group of voters will love it. Bill Clinton had the same kind of affection among ordinary Democrats. They knew his faults and they knew he was full of shit a lot of the time but they liked him. What media hated about Clinton they liked. Media and conservatives assumed they were fooled by Slick Willy but they weren’t at all- they knew him. They liked him anyway.

  124. 124.

    Baud

    @Kay:

     

    Frankly, IMHO any Democrat who ever said they wished Dems we’re tougher should appreciate it, even if they don’t support Biden’s candidacy.

  126. 126.

    chris

    Just a note to WaterGirl and the team. Thank you for dimming the front page! It was a little hard on these older eyes first thing in the morning.

     

    And for those who wish,Hillary and Howard on youtube.

  127. 127.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kay: Kinda like our old Buddy Cianci. Guy was as crooked as they come, and everybody knew it, but he was cheerful and friendly and stuff got done (as long as his palm was greased) so people elected him even after he was convicted.

  133. 133.

    rikyrah

    Joe Biden says Trump is ‘ripping the soul out of this country’ and ‘we’re likely to inherit a recession’ PUBLISHED FRI, DEC 6 20197:02 AM EST John Harwood Joe Biden sat down with CNBC’s John Harwood to discuss topics including trade, health care, taxes and Trump’s standing among world leaders. “I hope it’s not true, but we’re likely to inherit a recession, at least a significant economic slowdown,” Biden says while explaining he is no longer in favor of a balanced budget amendment. “He’s ripping the soul out of this country,” Biden says of Trump.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/biden-trump-is-ripping-the-soul-out-of-america-and-recession-is-likely.html

  136. 136.

    StringOnAStick

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’ve been taking an antidepressant for maybe 20 years, partly because it helped with the arthritis pain in my knees, a common side effect. I have new knees now so with my doctors help I’m trying to wean myself off them because I’m concerned about long term side effects but equally because they will be quite expensive once we retire and no longer have the insurance we have now.  I don’t know if I will succeed in this and at the time it was the right choice  but it is scary taking a drug that if you suddenly stop taking it, convulsions are a potential result.  I think I’m resilient enough now to make this change, I hope I’m right.

  139. 139.

    Kay

    @Sab:

     

    A lot of people did. I never minded Bill Clinton The Salesman. I generally like those people. Strivers. They’re right out there with what they want and what they’re doing. It was authentic to him too, he had to kind of hurl himself into access to power because he started so low. I was really mad at him for Lewinski though. It was both cruel and reckless. I just don’t approve. I have real sadness about how she was treated. I cannot imagine being that young and being subjected to that feeding frenzy. I’m amazed she survived.

  141. 141.

    Sab

    @Sab: Of course he likes Trump now, but his dementia is pretty severe. He likes the shouty guy.

    His seven month old grandson just visited. They were on the same intellectual level. They just grinned at each other.

  142. 142.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @StringOnAStick:   Good luck. I’ve tried antidepressants several times, each one with worse results than the last. I’ve given up on them. Even at my worst I am still functional, and I don’t let myself get anywhere near my worst.

  143. 143.

    StringOnAStick

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m going to look at the book that was just linked to here.  Have you checked our that link and does what it contains resonate with you?

     

    I’m the same about sticking around as long as my husband is alive. There aren’t enough drugs in the world to keep me here if he passed before me.

  144. 144.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: There haven’t been a lot of head to head general-election polls lately. The ones I’ve seen are all over the place: there was one from Emerson showing Trump beating all the Democrats nationwide, but I’ve also seen some that show Biden crushing Trump in Georgia and NC (but not in Wisconsin). Could this be the year that the Democratic base expands South to counter losses in the Great Lakes? Dunno.

  145. 145.

    Sab

    @Kay: You are way more tolerant than me. My mother taught me not to fool around with married men. My Catholic sisters in law agree, only more adamantly. She is an idiot who has learned nothing in an eventful life. I will never accept her as an innocent victim. I will always accept her as an idiot. Such an entitled background, and yet my stepson’s pet rabbit has more common sense and is less trustful of friendly strangers.

  146. 146.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @rikyrah: I don’t understand Buttigieg’s increasingly Republican-lite strategy. I was Mayor Pete-curious when he first announced, but the more I see and hear, the less I like. I strongly prefer Biden over him at this point. Biden’s not as progressive as I’d wish, but he’s a solid liberal, has extensive federal and international experience, and we’d know what we’re getting with him.

  147. 147.

    Kay

    @Sab:

     

    One of the reasons I’m convinced Hillary was treated differently because of sexism is I always thought Bill was nastier than she is. Meaner. He’d cut your throat if you got in his way where she has this whole secure upbringing, organic view that is really rooted in ordinary chamber of commerce “civics” and general midwestern Protestant ethos.

    That they were able to turn her into the wicked witch of the west is just pure bias. She is instantly recognizable to me. That whole vaguely religious thing she does about “service” is a real and common thing and it comes from how she was raised. It’s ordinary. The idea that it’s calculating and phony ignores that you find it in women of that age who came up like she did so often.

  148. 148.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Elizabelle: Bear with me & take this FWIW:

     

    I’ve had two true epiphanies in my life. The first at age 7, after my teacher realized I couldn’t read the blackboard & had my folks take me for an eye test. A few weeks later, riding home from the opticians in my first pair of glasses, I looked out at the passing city with utter amazement and delight: So that’s what the world looks like!

     

    The second happened in my early 40s. I’d been seeing one counselor after another, seeking relief from chronic depression through talk therapy, with little success. (Those well-meaning folks had about as much luck following my mind as NFL defenders trying to tackle Lamar Jackson – I left a trail of broken professional ankles across one psychological gridiron after another.)

     

    Then one of them referred me to a psychiatrist – you know, an MD who could prescribe drugs – who put me on Prozac. And in a few weeks it (slowly, gradually) dawned on me that I no longer felt like a monkey in the tree with the past like a forest burning behind me & the future aflame in front, trapped in an eternal agonizing present. That it had been weeks since I’d felt the “death spiral” when the bottom would drop out of my stomach & I fell endlessly toward “nothing, nothing, nothing – nothing at all.”

     

    And I thought: So this is what it feels like not to be depressed!

  150. 150.

    Kay

    @Sab:

    Oh, that is too harsh for me. I did a lot of ill-considered things at that age. I just happened to evade real consequences. I hate the pile ons. There’s something really barbaric about it. I had to drop out of following politics during Lewinsky. I could no longer stomach watching it. Her face. Jesus. She looked terrified. It was just enough. She was bleeding and stumbling around and they were still fucking hitting her. A mob.

  151. 151.

    Elizabelle

    @Uncle Cosmo:   I’m so glad that you found the right doctor.  Especially with mental health, the field seems to be as much an art as a science.

     

    Eyeglasses, antidepressants, insulin.  It all helps you find your world.

  153. 153.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Matt McIrvin: …correction: the Emerson one actually showed Bernie Sanders as the only candidate beating Trump in the nationwide popular vote (Warren was even, Biden did worse). Really different from every result I’ve seen before, though I’m sure the Sanders fans loved it, so I’d seek corroboration.

  154. 154.

    Sab

    @Kay: As a midwesterner I recognize her type. Just a midwestern methodist grandmother, but with more education. She is so typical. I would let her watch my kids or my pets. I am having a hard time accepting that other people find her threatening.

    My RWNJ brother does. He used to be normal, but then he got a job in the oil patch. Those folks are beyond insane.

  158. 158.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay:   You’re a kinder person than I am, Kay.  I hold Monica responsible for her choices and her actions, including her action of running her mouth to the deplorable Linda Tripp.  She was young and immature, but she could have been a lot wiser than she was, even at that age.  She was a bit of a dilettante, too.  Does not seem she was there for public service, as many young people her age were.  It was connections, connections, connections.  For a troubled girl from a privileged background.

    Bill Clinton is so lucky she was a starstruck intern and not an agent of some sort.  Further, his staff figured out Monica pretty quickly and took steps to remove her from WJC’s orbit.

     

    I am glad to see the more mature Monica, who seems like a much better person.  Definitely sadder and wiser.

     

    It is still incredible to me that (improperly and purely politically) impeaching Bill Clinton over a sexual relationship that he lied about took impeachment off the table for the next POTUS and VP.  Who truly deserved it, for sticking us into a war of choice in Iraq on false premises.

  159. 159.

    Sab

    @Kay: She is forty years old and still playing the victim. Hey girl, admit you were an idiot in your twenties and move on. Don’t pretend you were a victim of anything other than your own bad behavior and the Republican Congress. Nice girls do not repeatedly have affairs with married men. Clinton wasn’t the first or even the second, and I bet there have been more since.

  160. 160.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I’m with you on that — the Lewinsky mob. Good God. The older I get, the skeevier the whole thing seems. Maybe it’s having a daughter of my own, I don’t know. My daughter is 21, so legally an adult, as was Lewinsky. Lewinsky was 22. Bill Clinton was the most powerful man on the planet, but yeah, the 22-year-old was the predatory slut home-wrecker. Sickening.

  161. 161.

    Elizabelle

    @Sab:   Monica lets herself be used by people with spurious purposes, too.

     

    OTOH:  She’s recognizable by her first name.  That must be worth … something.

  162. 162.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Sab:  

    Nice girls do not repeatedly have affairs with married men.

    I gotta take exception with this. Nice girls do all kinds of things, for all kinds of reasons, some of which you may not approve of, but that doesn’t make them not “nice”.

  164. 164.

    glory b

    @OzarkHillbilly: As they said on Silicon Valley, “And to make the world a better place.”

     

    The launch of every stupid thing on the series was accompanied by this phrase.

  165. 165.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

     

    “It is still incredible to me that (improperly and purely politically) impeaching Bill Clinton over a sexual relationship that he lied about ”

     

    In his workplace. With a really young subordinate. There would certainly have been a feeding frenzy if it had been a relationship outside of those two things, but he handed them the weapon thru his own lack of self-discipline. He has to actually make an effort to defend himself or I’m not defending him. He went in there with a history of problems with this which almost tanked his campaign and then did it again.

     

    I felt he didn’t deserve his supporters by the time he left. The relationship is reciprocal. He has to hold up his end.

  167. 167.

    Sab

    @Kay: That was then, when she was in her twenties, but she just brought out a book in her forties, trying to cash in on the MeToo movement and her victimhood. Those girls, from very much less entitled backgrounds, and with very much worse consquences, just picked themselves up and moved on. She is still whining. She never should have been an intern in the first place. Entitled twerp.

  168. 168.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay:   I didn’t believe him when he lied.  He should have just owned up to it.  A lot of people took him for a horndog.  I think he could have survived the fallout.  Voters already knew about Gennifer Flowers from the primaries, and I forget who else …

     

    Monica and Bill were incredibly awful to Hillary, who I think was the real victim of this whole thing.  I had someone tell me this summer that she did not respect Hillary for staying with Bill, because she was doing it for her own political career.  Just no words for that.

  169. 169.

    glory b

    @Betty Cracker: They both need to own this, but as I recall, White House staffers who were on to this said they had to run interference and reprimand her when she would go into the Oval Office area (she didn’t work there) and send her back to do her job. She sought him out.

  172. 172.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I love how they always depict that photograph of her where she’s looking adoringly at him (the one where she’s wearing a hat- I think it’s a rope line) as this ruthless she-devil marking her prey. She just wasn’t that powerful. Horrible, cynical self-interested people used her, including him. They all sucked and they all should be ashamed of their behavior.

    You’ll notice none of this “she was an adult!” applies to their fucking coddled kids. The Trump “kids” are early middle aged and they’re treated like fragile preteens. Hunter Biden is a grown ass man and Joe Biden gets all weepy about “my SON”. I don’t want to be involved in their relationship. I have my own fucked up family, thanks. You keep yours.

  175. 175.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: There was something pathological about Bill Clinton’s self-destructive streak. I’m not excusing it — I’m sorry I ever spent a minute defending the bastard, which I believe cost us (Democrats and especially feminists) dearly down the line. But it was a symptom of how damaged he was.

  176. 176.

    James E Powell

    @O. Felix Culpa:

     

    Maybe because Republican-lite is the only lane open this cycle. Or maybe it’s his path out of South Bend?

     

    I never understood why he ran in the first place.

  177. 177.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Elizabelle – I have a friend who in 2016 basically said he would “hold his nose” and vote for Hillary but he could not stand her because she just stayed with Bill because she wanted to get into politics. We got into a shouting match until I realized it was useless and walked away. We are still sorta friends but I have lost a LOT of respect for him. Why did he think it was his business why someone stayed in their marriage? Why did he think someone(aka a woman) needed to “perform” their personal hurt and anger in public to his satisfaction?

  181. 181.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Sab:   Got it. Your personal perfection is wonder to behold. It’s nice to finally meet a person who has never made the same mistake twice. As far as values go, what makes you think yours are so universal and perfect?

  183. 183.

    Sab

    @OzarkHillbilly: May I repeat “repeatedly”. Friendly is not the same thing as nice. Lots of girls screw up once. Nice implies some moral groundings. She has never in her life shown any indications of that. Keeps doing the same bad things over and over. That may be friendly but it is not ” nice”.

  185. 185.

    glory b

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Oh, one can recognize what they did wrong, make amends to the best of their ability and go one from there, but otherwise, you need to find better friends.

  186. 186.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    There was something pathological about Bill Clinton’s self-destructive streak

     

    There was. I read his book one summer. All summer. It was too long. But there’s a real yearning to be accepted in fancy places there. I think that’s the root of it. He didn’t grow up secure like Hillary did and he was no bombthrower. He wanted IN to the system, not to blow it up. He completely accepted the class system. He just wanted out of the one he was born in. Striver who never felt he quite belonged where he ended up.

    I find it amusing to look back on it because NOW political media are all “rustbelt diner” but as far as Clinton? They were snobs. They like the idea of bootstrappy strivers but they want the fake version- like Trump. The real ones are hard people. They had to be.

  187. 187.

    Sab

    @OzarkHillbilly: I have lots of moral failings, but no, I do not cheat and have never  cheated with married men, especially those with children, and I have not repeatedly tried to break up married men’s marriages. This seems to me to be an extremely low bar. Sorry it is to high for you. She wasn’t fifteen. She was in her twenties.

  189. 189.

    JoeyJoeJoe

    @Elizabelle: In the middle of the whole impeachment process in December 98, Bob Livingston, the presumptive speaker after Gingrich resigned, resigned himself due to his own affair.  For the special election to replace him, a month or two later, one of the candidates was named Monica Monica.  It actually didn’t enough there; she came in fourth in the all party primary

  190. 190.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Sab: Yeah , I feel the same way, Monica  was young and maybe starstuck but she was also an idiot to think that the whole affair wasn’t going to blow up in her face.  He was a much older horndog and an idiot, and also in a position of great power, but he apparently thought that getting what he wanted was more important than his marriage or the country, he’s more at fault than Monica is.  He was the President, what the hell did either of them think was going to happen?? The President has people watching them almost 24/7 .  The only innocent victims in the mess were Hillary and Chelsea.

  192. 192.

    Citizen Alan

    @Uncle Cosmo:

     

    (But many others – particularly women of a certain age, religion & marital status –  were pissed off that Shrillary hadn’t dragged him into divorce court years before & just wanted to see both their arses burned…)

    Living in Mississippi my whole life, I’ve been consistently amazed at the number of women (including ostensibly liberal women) who don’t hate Bill as much for cheating on his wife as they do Hillary for not leaving her cheating husband.

  193. 193.

    Betty Cracker

    @Elizabelle: & @Spanky: I’m not aware of all internet traditions, not even on this blog. Are y’all implying that Served must be a Russian troll because he/she thinks all the dumping on Lewinsky is gross?

  195. 195.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Wow, some major vitriol toward Lewinsky.  I think she did some dumb things when she was young but turned out pretty well in the end.  And as for Bill, I don’t defend his affairs.  I have never cheated on a spouse of significant other, but I wasn’t a party to his marriage.  The only person aggrieved by the situation was Hillary, and we know how she responded.  Her marriage, her choice.  And as for the hypocrites and moral scolds who came after Bill, let’s just say that he wasn’t the first president of the modern era to have affairs; in fact, the only ones who I am convinced did not are Truman and Carter.*  Others’ mileage may vary and obviously does.

     

    *Obama as well, but he came after Clinton so he doesn’t really count in this discussion.

  196. 196.

    Tenar Arha

    @Kay: Yup. I too did some ethically inappropriate dating in my early 20’s; hanging out with a guy who is living w someone else is not cool, but sometimes learning requires the  experience. I swear, you can talk yourself into anything at that age without realizing what you’re risking for a bit of a thrill with a guy that you know intellectually won’t ever upend his life for you.


    Funny, I think that’s why, once I realized that Jake Tapper used a passing date with Lewinski  to get a byline, I simply couldn’t watch him wo wanting to smack his smarmy face off. I put myself in her shoes, & was furious on her behalf.

  197. 197.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Sab:  

    May I repeat “repeatedly”

    You can repeat it until you are blue in the face and my response is still going to be “So the fuck what?” It has absolutely nothing to do with me and never will. I have absolutely no idea of what she has been up to since… 199something or other because I just don’t care.

    Nice implies some moral groundings.

    Nice has different meanings to different people, and morality… WTF is that? Something different for each and every person.

    Keeps doing the same bad things over and over.

    With (for the purposes of this discussion I suppose) married men time after time who are getting exactly what they want and seek it out. Hmmmmm…

    You are free to hold whatever values you like and to judge other people by them, I certainly do and so does everybody else, BUT…

    I take exception when I hear a “holier than thou” attitude. What was it Jesus said? Oh yeah, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

  202. 202.

    StringOnAStick

    @Sab: Oil patch people are all way, way right in my experience, and if they aren’t when they start working in that industry, they soon will be.

     

    I’m still saddened about a close friend in Canada who was tons of fun and an interesting guy but became a Climate Change denier (for the stated dumb reason of “I like to take the less popular view”) now that he works in that industry.  The guy has a PhD in geography and I know he can read a frickin’ graph!  On our last trip to a backcountry ski lodge he got into it with the cook over forcing the Keystone pipeline through Canada instead.  The cook makes her summer living cooking on small ecotourism ships on the west coast of Canada and her husband is a Warden (Park Ranger is what we call it here); she was appalled at his change in views and quite frankly, so am I.

  203. 203.

    glory b

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’ll then presume they don’t knowingly and purposefully do things that hurt others, and when they do, they make amends and don’t repeat the same actions.

     

    I mean, you have to love them for a reason.

  204. 204.

    Elizabelle

    It’s kind of more fun to be talking about Bill and Monica than anything about TrumpWorld.

     

    WRT the affair:  I am a terrible person, but I was not so much aggravated with Monica for participating in the relationship (and she did chase him, not that he fled or eluded her), but for running her mouth.  No discretion whatsoever.  Which goes to how immature she was.  She was kind of ahead of the reality TV curve, no?  I remember her enthusiasm for being the second coming of Lucy Mercer (FDR’s inamorata), but it would seem discretion is an enormous part of the mix.

     

    Mostly, it seems to me a complete invasion of privacy to be discussing an ongoing sexual relationship with a third party.  Bad sexual manners, IMHO.

     

    As for Bill:  yes, an opportunist with an incredible destructive streak.  He was reckless.   He took his job as POTUS seriously, though, and was a pretty good one.  Same could be said for his idol, JFK.

     

    W and Cheney may have been as faithful to their marriages as one could be, but they got hundreds of thousands of people killed in a war of their choice, premised on their lies.

  205. 205.

    Sab

    @OzarkHillbilly: Not defending Bill, but Monica had already cheated with a professsor in college back in Oregan. This is who she was and this is what she always did. So if she has learned anything in her life, it would be not to write a book declaring her young (repeat offender self) a victim

     

    ETA: I have a 19 year old granddaughter. I really really want her to know this is not acceptable behavior, regardless of what middle aged men may tell her.

  206. 206.

    glory b

    @OzarkHillbilly: Forgetting where you put your keys is a mistake.

     

    Having sex with men (or women) you know to be married isn’t a mistake. It’s an on purpose.

     

    Maybe you might have hit a sore spot with some of us here?

  208. 208.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Sab: I am always amazed Chelsea turned out pretty good.  She had sitting Senators (John McCain) and TV personalities making “ugly” jokes about her looks from the time she was 12, she had 250 reporters show up to stalk her when she started at Stanford, who then claimed she was “hiding out” because she rarely left her room except for classes, then when she went to Oxford they claimed she was partying too much.

     

    And during/after her mother’s second Presidential run there were reporters and pundits DEMANDING she state she will NEVER, NEVER go into politics EVER.  I wish she would just because I hate that she can’t ever win with these people but I get the feeling that she would rather do ANYTHING else…

  210. 210.

    Miss Bianca

    @rikyrah: I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but to me it’s starting to look like Biden for the win, and if he keeps talking like this he will have my absolute and ungrudging support.

     

    And yeah, I know she’d likely be more useful in the Senate, but damn I want Harris for his VP. I think that would scare the shit out of some people I’d like to see scared.

  212. 212.

    Sab

    I cut Monica Lewinsky all kinds of slack for many years, until she wrote this stupid victimhood book in her forties. She was a stupid slut in her twenties. So okay, move on. But she hasn’t. She is still trying to play the victim, when she tried to break up a married guy’s marriage, and she failed.

  213. 213.

    Miss Bianca

    @Betty Cracker: Then apparently I’m a Russian troll too, because I too think the dumping on Lewinsky is gross. Any disdain I may have had for her has been overcome by pity. Bill was way more at fault than she was, no matter how dedicated a star-fucker she may have been.

     

    Or am I supposed to say “star f*cker” now, so we don’t offend an ad service’s sensibilities? I’m a bit behind on blog affairs

  214. 214.

    MomSense

    @Miss Bianca:

     

    I’m right there with you.   He does the best with the white working class (hallowed be their demo) and in the head to head match ups in those crucial midwestern states.  Wr really need to increase turnout by just a few points with POC voters in those same states and I think Harris will do that on the ticket.

     

    I also think she has the most executive experience and because she is in her 50s can easily be our next nominee in 2024 and/or 2028.

     

    I don’t see Biden having two terms in him, hoping he actually has one.

  217. 217.

    Searcher

    And he doesn’t understand that she means what she says.

    Insomuch as Trump has “mastered” an “art” of the “deal”, his approach has always been about the bluff.  Outright lies, sure, reneging on bargains, yes, but haggling requires marching up to a seller who is selling a car for $15,000 and saying “I’ll give you $11 and not a penny more, or I’ll walk”.

     

    It’s all about bluffing, about overstating or understating your position, about pretending you’re not interested in something or that you’re interested in something else.  One of the few times Trump legitimately — well, legitimately for him — made money was on pump-and-dump schemes where he would by stock of a company that was down, pretend like he was interested in a giant overpriced take-over, and then when the stock price shot up, sold.  It worked two or three times before people caught on.

     

    Bluffs are the only way Trump knows to “deal”, and he is utterly incapable of functioning without them.  He only understands bluffs, so he can’t understand that someone like Pelosi actually draws clear lines in the sand when she says things.  She must be bluffing, there’s a deal there.  He doesn’t understand more sophisticated forms of bargaining, like “consensus building”, where two sides discuss what they need in honest terms and what they can offer, and reach a mutually beneficial agreement, and so he blunders about our international relations, bluffing and attempting to demand better terms or he’ll walk.

  219. 219.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

     

    Kay,

     

    you do know that Bill wasn’t her first married man, don’t you?

     

    I was never that sympathetic towards her in the first place, but, once I found that out, years later, just confirmed my original suspicions.

  220. 220.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Miss Bianca:

     I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but to me it’s starting to look like Biden for the win, and if he keeps talking like this he will have my absolute and ungrudging support.

     

    And yeah, I know she’d likely be more useful in the Senate, but damn I want Harris for his VP. I think that would scare the shit out of some people I’d like to see scared.

    I never thought I’d say it either, but I’m moving in that direction too. I would have preferred a Warren/Booker or Warren/Castro ticket and – given that not one single vote has been cast yet in this interminable primary – it’s not outside the realm of possibility, but Biden is starting to look good to me compared to some of the alternatives.

  221. 221.

    Jay

    @Sab:

     

    I cut people under 25 a lot of slack in some regards because their brains have not fully formed.

     

    I cut some people of certain generations a certain amount of slack, because there was a huge amount of societal “norms”’changing rapidly, that really did a number on a lot of peoples headspace.

     

    I don’t cut Bosses any slack for trying to/having relations with a direct report because the Mad Men Culture had been dead for two decades and the bi-annual Sexual Harassment Seminars had been going on for a decade.

  223. 223.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

     

    my original suspicions.

    What original suspicions?  It may have not been her first affair but it wasn’t Bill Clinton’s either. What is this “married man” thing? Yeah, HE’S married. He’s the one who’s supposed to be committed. She, on the other hand, had no commitments.

  225. 225.

    senyordave

    I’m always surprised by the both sides ism when it comes to Clinton-Lewinsky.  In my working life I worked at various times for six publicly traded companies.  My brother is in tech sales and he has worked for probably 15 – 20 publicly traded companies due to takeovers, etc.

    We both are in 100% agreement that every one of these 20+ companies would have fired any CEO who was having a sexual affair with an intern working at the company.  Without question, quickly, and with no possibility of a second chance.

  227. 227.

    Gin & Tonic

    @senyordave: Hell, McDonald’s just fired their CEO after learning of a consensual affair he’d been having with an employee. Not an intern, not a direct report, just an employee of the company.

  228. 228.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

     

    The only way this works for me is if she’s married too. THEN they have the same duty. That actually would have been less sad and more interesting.

    A couple of months ago I said I was interested to see what would happen if a woman was in one of these and then I saw that with that House member and it was horrible and sexist and unfair. I should have known. Disappointing, as usual!

  229. 229.

    Jay

    @Gin & Tonic:

     

    were for me, but different country, different workplaces laws, different corporate attitudes, ( in my industry). We got the Inclusion and Tolerance Workshops around the same time. By then in Canada, the laws were already holding Employers liable for what happened in the workplace.

     

    by the early 90’s the presentations included LGTBQ and transitioning,

  232. 232.

    J R in WV

     

    I have a lot of pity for Monica, and some for Bill, but most of all for Hillary and Chelsea, who were both totally innocent and unrelated to the things they were attacked for. People attacking Hillary for staying with a damaged man whom she loved? So evil and wrong. And Bill lied in an unsuccessful attempt to protect Hillary, when really he should have protected her by not cheating on her.

     

    Like a tele-novella only real and in the White House. And still all of those folks in the Clinton administration were more honest, more competent and more appealing than the Trump White House is today. Which is why we see Impeachment going on as we speak!

  233. 233.

    wkwv

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    16 rides

    You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

  234. 234.

    Bill Arnold

    Just to be clear, James Rosen was asking Nancy Pelosi whether she was committing a grave (“mortal”) sin, and probably quite deliberately. An obviously inflammatory question; Sinclair’s statement appears to be a lie. (bold mine):
    Galatians 5:19-21 New King James Version (NKJV)

    19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: [a]adultery, [b]fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, [c]murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

    FWIW I disagree on a few of those; not a Christian let alone a Catholic, so feel free to correct me theologically.

    Also, more directly Catholic: Hatred.

    The second sort (odium inimicitiae, or hostility) aims directly at the person, indulges a propensity to see what is evil and unlovable in him, feels a fierce satisfaction at anything tending to his discredit, and is keenly desirous that his lot may be an unmixedly hard one, either in general or in this or that specified way.
    This second kind of hatred, as involving a very direct and absolute violation of the precept of charity, is always sinful and may be grievously so.

  235. 235.

    different-church-lady

    I think he’s bewildered by Nancy Pelosi. She’s centered, she’s grounded, she’s truthful and she’s focused. He’s erratic. He’s all over the place. And he doesn’t understand that she means what she says.

    He can’t manipulate her because she’s not running a con, nor wants to be in on his. Con men succeed by exploiting the greed of others. Manipulators assume everyone else manipulates, and think they must be first to the manipulation. Neither of these tricks work on Pelosi, so he can’t figure a way to get a hook into her.

  236. 236.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @nyrobbin: thank you. I lurk mostly but now Hillary and Chelsea got treated especially after the 2016 loss gets on my last nerve. May it hits too close,  lately every meeting I have to remind myself to just shut up. I got interrupted so much this week I thought I was going to stroke out. I am learning to stop trying so hard. I am too old for this crap.

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