Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

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

Everybody saw this coming.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

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

This really is a full service blog.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

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

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

The willow is too close to the house.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

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

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

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Impeachment Open Thread: Our Failed Republican Party

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149Comments

  1. 1.

    zhena gogolia

    The replies to that McDaniel tweet are a thing of beauty.

    I wish Swalwell, Neguse, or Barry Berke could be front-paged. Sigh.

  2. 2.

    WereBear

    What else they got? It’s like a defense lawyer whose client pleads not guilty and then confesses. Drags him into a room, coaches him, and it happens again! Only this time his mom speaks up and says, yeah, he did it…

  3. 3.

    Major Major Major Major

    Buttigieg had a sit down about his McKinsey years now that they released him from the NDA. Turns out he’s not a spy, who knew.

    Yesterday, his campaign announced that he would be publishing his list of McKinsey clients today at 6:30 p.m. eastern time. Those clients are Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan; Loblaws, a Canadian supermarket chain; Best Buy; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Department of Energy; the Energy Foundation, an environmental nonprofit; the U.S. Postal Service; and the U.S. Department of Defense.

    details and more at the link…

  4. 4.

    Jeffro

    Who ya gonna believe, America – the Russian foreign minister, or 17 of your own intelligence agencies?

    All in the service of a guy who just paid out $2M for using his “charitable” foundation as a front for lining his own pockets (after paying out $25M for defrauding hard-working Americans w/ trumpov ‘university’)

    Go big, Dems.  Offer to host a town hall every night from now ’til the election.  Dare Fox to air any of them.  Keep pounding!

  5. 5.

    debbie

    I am entirely tired of conservatives insisting they are “The American People,” as if 5,000,000 more of us than them didn’t even exist.

     

    (Jeez, 10+ refreshes/browser reloads to get the edit box?

  10. 10.

    Zinsky

    God, we let this Russian asshole come to our country and he tries to blow his Bolshevik bullshit smoke up our collective asses!  F*ck him!  Throw his ass out and never let him back in….

  12. 12.

    smintheus

    Some help please with gaps in the old memory: Wasn’t it the same William Barr who just the other day said that people who don’t support law enforcement shouldn’t expect to be protected by law enforcement? And Lavrov who was seen laughing in Trump’s face the last time he visited the White House?

  14. 14.

    HalfAssedHomesteader

    Procedural question: Is the vote to remove independent of guilt/innocence votes?  I can see them voting guilty on both counts then turning around and voting NOT to remove as an extra-amped F.U to the libs.

  15. 15.

    West of the Rockies

    Collect damn near any five Republicans…  You’ll have five fat, aging white men.  (Defending them you’ll have 50 more white guys, 6 white women, 3 black men, 2 black women, and one self-hating Log Cabin Republican (probably white).

  17. 17.

    Jay

    Informative thread showing how a false narrative about a “staged photo” spread across social media and gained traction by targeting influencers in an effort to disseminate the falsehood more widely — a manipulation tactic that mirrors “source hacking” in many ways. https://t.co/4e9j0UiEYo— Caroline Orr (@RVAwonk) December 10, 2019

    On the bright side, citizen researchers are now able to map these disinfo influence networks in real time,

    The bad news, they arn’t all bot networks or Foreign Disinfo anymore,

    Other bad news, Social Media companies are loath to do anything about it,

    Even more bad news, the MSM continues to be played for suckers because “clickbait” and a non-apology, apology only costs a few electrons.

  18. 18.

    TS (the original)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I do not understand why democrats are continually having to release every last iota of information about their past while republicans ignore each & every request for any information. Why is there not a never ending investigation by the media of trump’s links to Epstein – as an example.

    Apparently no democrat is allowed to have a job prior to nominating for election – guess that keeps Joe in a good place, they can only attack his family members.

  20. 20.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @debbie:

    They’re fully aware of that. The argument then shifts to if the EC didn’t exist then politicians running for President would be free to ignore rural, sparsely populated states and that Dems are “hypocrites” or something for wanting to abolish the EC. I’m not joking.

    On a Tumblr post, some RWNJ claiming to live in Virginia was giddily suggesting that Virginia should be broken up into more states. When I pointed out to them, in earnest (not knowing they were a wingnut yet), that this would give the GOP even more of anti-democratic advantage in the EC than they do now, they replied, “You must be new around here.”

    I eviscerated them afterwards for it. They didn’t reply back, I noticed. Most of the time, when I go for the jugular, wingers tend not to reply back, which really infuriates me. They’re cowards.

     

    But yeah, they know exactly what they’re doing and don’t give a fuck. Conservatives have given up on liberal democracy

  23. 23.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jay:

    The bad news, they arn’t all bot networks or Foreign Disinfo anymore,

    Is it possible to expose the individuals who create this disinfo?

  25. 25.

    Jay

    @TS (the original):

    Buttigieg‘s McKinsey background was under question, because of whom McKinsey is.

     

    For example, McKinsey consulted with ICE and recommended that refugees be held in rural jails and prisons to reduce costs and expenses including medical care and food,

     

    and it was then done.

    the CIA thing started as snark/joke based on one of the CIA cover paths but then the idiotocracy ran with it.

  30. 30.

    Jay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    yup, that’s what the citizen researchers do. Map the networks from node to node. Sadly, the key nodes are often the Ususal Suspects, ( Shapiro, Ngo, Wahl, etc) and at least one cut out away from a bot or inauthentic behaviour, so the Social Media companies will do nothing.

  36. 36.

    Jay

    @Baud:

    McKinsey’s rep is about as good as the NRA’s.

    If a Democratic Party Cantidate worked for the NRA and their work was covered by an NDA, would you not consider that work worthy of public scrutiny for a Democratic cantidate?

  37. 37.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I find it weird that some people have a problem with the singular they. If you don’t know the gender/sex of someone, I always refer to them as “they”, until I know.

    This is a modern deformation of the language.  But with English, usage trumps rules of grammar.

  38. 38.

    WereBear

    The taproot of bigotry is the seeking of unfair advantage. So their arguments are never sincere or in good faith, and libs are suckers for thinking otherwise.

  40. 40.

    Baud

    @Jay:

    I don’t agree with your premise comparing the NRA to McKinsey.

    And the NRA connection hasn’t hurt Bernie, so I don’t think Pete’s early employment will make a big difference to anyone except haters.

  43. 43.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Do you see anything concerning in the list of his clients?  Some pedestrian places, like Best Buy, but no real bad guys.  Or didn’t I skim the list carefully enough?

  45. 45.

    Baud

    LGM

    Erik has been beating this drum on Twitter today, but I’ve been amazed at how many otherwise smart people think House Dems taking advantage of Trump’s desperation to get a trade deal that apparently won huge concessions for organized labor is a bad thing because optics or something. As Matt Ford observes, this makes no sense:

  47. 47.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: What’s your take on this?  I read an argument from one side and I agree.  Then I read that, and I agree.  My head is on swivel today, apparently.

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): 

    Yeah, there was a brief bit in the news (Post and also VA local papers) about how some a-hole was looking to create an “electoral college for Virginia” now that it has finally sunk in with the racists that their last bit of election fixing (ie, gerrymandering) has fallen here in Virginia.

    I say, let the cold water of non-gerrymandered, non-voter suppressed, non-voter-roll-purged democratically conducted elections hit them smack dab in their RWNJ fever dreams. And in a couple of years, when Armageddon hasn’t arrived, maybe we Dems should remember to ask them (loudly!): so…how’s this well-run not-all-that-socialist Commonwealth working for you? Did anyone get ya gay married yet? Did taxes go to 99%? Abortions being performed on your front lawn? No? THEN STFU

  51. 51.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    All I really know is that unions seem to be supporting this so I don’t know why Dems would continue to oppose it if they want to build union support.

    There’s a valid point about whether it should have been announced today, but that’s a small potatoes thing IMHO.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    @zzyzx: Trump is somebody’s puppet.  Or everybody’s.  Either way, he clearly doesn’t come up with these ideas himself.

    It’s long past time for Anonymous to stand up, go public, and take a stand.

  56. 56.

    Jay

    @Baud:

    Wilmer never worked for the NRA,

    and McKinsey’s rep, even in the business community is like pre-Enron Arthur Anderson’s.

     

    it’s always a good idea when “your” Corporation announces they are bringing in McKinsey, to fire up your resume and contacts lists, update your LinkedIn and start surfing Indeed and ZipRecruiter.

    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street speeches attracted scrutiny ( over nothingburger) because of Wall Street post Global Economic Collapse and HDS, but she didn’t work for Wall Street.

    Elizabeth Warren’s Corporate work has attracted review as well, with again, nothingburger.

    It’s about bonafides.

  62. 62.

    mrmoshpotato

     

    @Baud: All abs now?  Ooolala.

    You get no bills?  No Cooks Illustrated?  No random magazines that you never signed up for?

  64. 64.

    Baud

    @Jay:

     

    Wilmer was endorsed by the NRA.  That’s worse!

    If you see something problematic with what Pete actually did, let me know.  If all he did was work for McKinsey, it’s a nothingburger for non-haters.

  69. 69.

    Jay

    @WaterGirl:

    Loblaws, maybe. At the time Loblaws was price fixing bread and tiering work, both of which they got busted for, a couple of years later. It is unclear if McKinsey was involved or not. Loblaws leaks like a sieve now, so if there is any “dirt” there, it will turn up soon.

  73. 73.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Meanwhile, in other news, remember Kolfage and We Build the Wall? A Texas state district judge has issued a temporary restraining order on the work being done to build the privately-funded border wall that is destroying the National Butterfly Center.

    Thursday’s federal injunction prevents Neuhaus and Sons,the landowners, Fisher Industries and its parent company, Fisher Sand and Gravel, from excavating and clearing more land, or constructing any permanent structures until the IBWC determines whether it could cause flooding or redirect the water flow in violation of the 1970 binational treaty.

    The North Dakota-based Fisher companies are owned by Tommy Fisher, who has made regular appearances on Trump’s favorite TV channel, Fox News, to boast about how he could build the wall, faster, better and cheaper than anyone else.

    Earlier this week, Fisher Sand and Gravel was awarded a $400m Pentagon contract to build 31 miles of wall in Arizona – despite a history of environmental and tax violations

    The chair of the House committee on homeland security, Bennie Thompson, has called for an investigation to determine whether Trump unduly influenced the military’s decision to award the contract to Fisher.

    Multiple requests to Tommy Fisher for comment have not received a response.

    The Trump administration has suspended 28 laws relating to clean water, public lands, endangered species and the rights of Native Americans in order to speed up construction of the border wall.

    But such waivers only apply to the official government wall; rogue private projects must obey all laws and treaties.

    The Texas lawsuit in which the butterfly center is a plaintiff also includes a defamation claim, because Kolfage has repeatedly accused Marianna Treviño-Wright, the head of the butterfly center, of criminality.

    Kolfage responded: “There’s no defamation. The open border policies of the butterfly people 100% enable the cartels and humanitarian crisis. No one crosses the border without paying the cartels.”

    “The open border policies of the butterfly people.”

    So, it’s “criminal” apparently that Treviño-Wright doesn’t want the butterfly sanctuary she heads to be destroyed by a stupid wall that won’t stop the humanitarian crisis Kolfage pretends to care about and that Trump has partially caused. Kolfage is a fascist nutjob in addition to a grifter who I’m sure would love nothing more than to imprison people like Treviño-Wright for merely disagreeing with him

  74. 74.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Jay: I see a lot of Sanders fans trying to push the McKinsey thing.  Wouldn’t the same logic (McKinsey has been involved in bad things; Buttigieg worked for McKinsey; ergo let’s presume Buttigieg did bad things) apply to Sanders?  To wit:  the U.S. government has been involved in bad things, Sanders has worked for the U.S. government, ergo Sanders must be concealing his personal involvement in war, environmental despoliation, and cruel treatment of dark-skinned people?  It’s a fundamental logical fallacy, and yet Left Twitter is all in, because they think they can take another candidate down a peg like they did with WALL STREET SPEECHES!.  SMH.

  78. 78.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jay:

    From your linked article:

    Despite the block, Brian Kolfage, a military veteran who founded We Build the Wall in December of 2018, said construction was ongoing. He added that neither he nor the group had been served with the order.

    Additionally, the Guardian reports that construction workers told a local sheriff’s office “they are not going to stop.”

    So they think they’re above the law. I didn’t see it mentioned what law enforcement agency is responsible for enforcing the order. This needs to be stopped.

  80. 80.

    Roger Moore

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    If you don’t know the gender/sex of someone, I always refer to them as “they”, until I know.

    Using “they” to refer to generic person whose gender is thus unknowable is standard English and has been since forever, even if some nitpickers want to pretend it’s a weird modern innovation.  Using “they” to refer to a specific person because they don’t identify as male or female is new, and it’s understandable that people are having some trouble adapting to it.

  84. 84.

    Honus

    @Jeffro: yeah well, that and all the rednecks running to board of supervisors meetings to declare individual counties “second amendment sanctuaries” which is just another horsehit secession.

  86. 86.

    Jay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    asking about McKinsey is just due dilligence, given who McKinsey is, how they work, etc. The tell that there was no there, there was that McKinsey pulled the NDA and released a work history.

    but until that was done, it’s “iffy” because of McKinsey’s rep. There are a bunch of corporations, Bechtel, Acadami nee Blackwater, Ledcorp, Wells Fargo, etc that raise flags.

    Often, when there is dirt there, the Cantidate elects to withdraw.

    Sometimes, the dirt stays hidden for a long time.

    unlike the Reich, a career history like Romney’s is almost disqualifying for the Democratic Party outside of Red States.

    Yes, the Wilmerites, Leftier than Thou and the Tankies are going to try to beat it to death but they were going to do that anyway, thats what they do.

    Putting it out in the open, limits its traction to the already committed.

  88. 88.

    TomatoQueen

    OT UPDATE: As of 8 pm EST, Merlin is resting comfortably at the vet after his snip. Meanwhile, Laura’s car did the dead parrot thing, so her auntie, Schlemazel’s wife, will retrieve Merlin and take him and Laura to the airport in the morning. Steeplejack will do the honors from National to me to Dulles. Merlin will sit in his carrier to decompress for a little bit, then I’ll let him out. All the moving parts are meshing together, in the face of this that and the other and of course snow here overnight, which is promised by the CBS affiliate to be gone by 9 am tomorrow.  It’s happening. Reposted from the main bleg thread. My big big big thanks to everyone involved.

  90. 90.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Roger Moore:

    Using “they” to refer to a specific person because they don’t identify as male or female is new, and it’s understandable that people are having some trouble adapting to it.

    That’s fine. I’d argue that phenomenon itself actually isn’t new, but people are speaking out about it now. My problem isn’t with people who are well-meaning and trying to adapt, but with those who refuse to make the minimal effort to be nice to others and think “jokes” like “I identify as an attack helicopter lol” are funny.

  92. 92.

    Jeffro

    @Honus: you know, it seems like any politician worth her/his salt would be able to deal with that nonsense.  Multiple ways to do it and not necessarily convert them into Dems but certainly defuse them/win the blessed “independents”/lose nothing from the left.

    It’s all about listening very publicly and letting them spin out and…then no one comes for their guns…and then revisit that in several months, about why that is, and who got them all spun up.

    Easy for me to say, of course, but still…

  93. 93.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Jay: I dunno, it’s coming close to “Obama taught courses at University of Chicago law school, the economics department of Univ. of Chicago used to be known decades before that for a certain approach to markets and freedom, ergo he must have absorbed it by proximity, ergo he’s guilty of neoliberal wrongthink.”

    And frankly OMG MCKINSEY feels to me like it’s being stirred up by people with elite educations who want to sneer at how the people they didn’t like at *their same elite college* got sellout corporate jobs like that, instead of the only real jobs that matter, writing and podcasting.

  96. 96.

    Jay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    for certain classes of people and enforcement, the Law moves slowly. The Wallites are counting on it, then will Derp State the hell out of it in fundrasing from the Gullabillies over it. In the end, the value of the grift will greatly exceed the penalties, kinda like robosigning or other white collar crimeing.

  98. 98.

    Anya

    There is nothing I hate more in our political discourse than this idea that some Americans are more Americans than others. California and New York are the places the Republicans collect their campaign money and get they shit on it every chance they get and the Dems let them. Why don’t they exploit that? Why don’t they call out Repubs on the way they divide Americans?

  99. 99.

    Baud

    @Anya:

    The traditional view is that Dem voters want to vote for something, not against something.

     

    I don’t fall within that group.

  101. 101.

    WaterGirl

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: That would be annoying.  I did the price match thing with them for my sound bar and it worked like a charm.  Maybe it’s all about the managers at each individual store?

  103. 103.

    Sab

    @WaterGirl: I actually found his client list reassuring, although I do hate Anthem Blue Cross with a passion. ( I know, he worked with a different Blue Cross.)

    I think wanting to see the list is just vetting. Just because the Republicans don’t vet doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.

  107. 107.

    WaterGirl

    @Sab: It feels more like an attempted “gotcha” effort by supporters of other democratic candidates, but I that’s only a gut feeling so I have nothing to support it.

    I think this Warren-Buttigieg thing is really stupid and short-sighted; it should be beneath both of them.  Dumb dumb dumb.  We are all on the same fucking team, the people at the top should act like it.

  108. 108.

    Amir Khalid

    @TomatoQueen:

    I am sorry to learn that Laura’s car has joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. But I am also heartened to learn that Merlin is doing well and on his way to his forever home.

  110. 110.

    Patricia Kayden

    Given GOPs lies, conspiracy theories and demonizations, is there anyone who does *not* fear at some level:1. Indictments of FBI/CIA officers (they tried with McCabe.)2. Arrest of political opponents2. Cancelation/reversal of election if Trump loses based on "emergency."— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 11, 2019

  112. 112.

    Immanentize

    Why do people accept Buttigieg’s description of his clients without a full McKinsey charge sheet?  Just wondering what vetting means regarding our candidates?  Like Warren?  Or Harris?

  113. 113.

    Jay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    the big traction is that it’s McKinsey.

    As an example, they consulted with ICE on reducing costs for illegally detaining refugees, so that ICE could detain more refugees illegally, and as a result, recommended that rather than using existing vacant urban detention facilities, ICE could save costs on labour, food, medical costs and overhead by building concentration camps in the desert and subcontracting rural jails and for for profit prisons. This would also have the added advantage of limiting protests and cutting the refugees off from family, support and legal representation.

    Yes, McKinsey also consulted for the UPS, but they also consulted for Enron, Valient, Sawdi Arabia including lists of dissidents, China, ( detention camps), Turkey, ( unknown) and has the “ususal” litany of insider trading and fraud scandals.

  114. 114.

    Sab

    @WaterGirl: I dunno. I was holding his McKinsey experience against him. Now not so much. With Warren I already knew a lot about what she was doing in her legal career, but others might not know.

    Touchy subject, but initially I had a lot of issues about Kamala Harris that I don’t have anymore. I wish she had been given the opportunity to address them earlier. But without the vetting those “issues” would still be hanging over her for any future political opportunities.

  115. 115.

    Jeffro

    Btw something like 20-25 straight tweets and retweets from trumpov re USMCA or whatever the not-NAFTA-but-really-NAFTA2.0 deal is called.

    All of them slamming Pelosi for doing nothing for over a year while ‘American workers suffered’.

    “BUT WE GOT IT DONE! PROMISESMADEPROMISESKEPTARGLEBARGLE!!!1!”

    Not sure of the strategery here but let’s not do this again plz House Dems

  116. 116.

    Jay

    @Immanentize:

    because the dirt will out, and soon. ReThugs come back from “that was my wife”, “okay that was my sister”, Democratic Party Cantidates don’t.

  117. 117.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Jay: I dunno, IMHO if you work for General Electric but in the light bulbs part rather than the precision armaments part, I don’t think you’re guilty by association.

  121. 121.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @WaterGirl: The worst part was the waste of time, I went to customer service and they said OK, then went to buy the watch, they got the watch out and then said it had to be the exact same model number.  I did end up buying it at Best Buy when they had a sale a couple of weeks later, but was still pissed.

  122. 122.

    Jay

    @Jeffro:

    it’s Trumpian bs. NAFTA 2.0 was “hung up” in the US Senate by a  shortage of support, long since Canada and Mexico signed off on it. An almost year long process of arm twisting and sweetening was required to get it through the Senate.

  126. 126.

    Jay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    and how do you know that my time at GE was spent in the Lightbulb Department and not the Kill All Humans Dalek Department when it just says Lead Engineer, General Electric on my resume?

     

    As as a result of the recent releases and info, the McKinsey thing is now a nothingburger, other than amongst the ususal suspects, who were/are going to use it anyway.

  127. 127.

    Barbara

    @Jay: It seems to me that McKinsey crossed a certain threshold in the last decade, although they have always been the highest priced and snootiest of consultants.  I assume Pete was one of the worker bees, not the guy developing the strategy.  Google McKinsey and opioids and see what you turn up.  Or try McKinsey and bankruptcy.

  128. 128.

    Another Scott

    @Jay:

    Eh? Why would the Senate do anything about Donnie’s NAFTA 2.0 when Nancy said this? Speaker.gov :

    MAY 18, 2017 PRESS RELEASE

    Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement after the Trump Administration sent Congress a notification letter on plans to initiate negotiations with Canada and Mexico over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA):

    “The President’s vague NAFTA letter is a stark contrast with the aggressive promises he made to hard-working families during the campaign. For all his rhetoric, President Trump looks to be sorely disappointing American workers on trade.

    “Our trade agreements must be judged by whether they create jobs and grow the paychecks of hard-working Americans. Any changes to NAFTA must put America’s working families first, and recognize the fundamental connection between commerce and climate.

    “Democrats have spent years fighting to rework NAFTA and other trade agreements to put America’s working families first. We will continue to press this Administration for real action to create good-paying jobs and strengthen America’s workers.”

    She sat on it for over a year until Donnie and his minions got serious about negotiating. And it got done because everyone knows that if it doesn’t pass this Congress (which ends in ~ 10 days), then there’s a good chance that it won’t get done at all (for US and Mexican internal political reasons).

    The Senate had almost nothing to do with it.

    (At least that’s my understanding.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  129. 129.

    Roger Moore

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I’d argue that phenomenon itself actually isn’t new, but people are speaking out about it now.

    I can accept that.  I would say that it’s not completely new, but that it’s happening at a scale and with a degree of publicity that is genuinely new.  Nobody when I was growing up felt it was necessary to specify their preferred personal pronouns.  Most people didn’t even think it was possible; you were stuck with the ones society assigned you at birth.  These days it seems to be standard practice among the woke set.  That’s the change that people are really reacting to.  That some people choose to use they rather than he or she as their preferred pronoun is just the most glaring example of the broader trend of being allowed to specify.

  130. 130.

    David ??Booooooo?? Koch

     

    @FlipYrWhig: Sanders must be concealing his personal involvement in war

    Truth is Sanders has voted/supported most wars (Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Droooooooooooooones, and even a neo-con plot to install a dictator in Iraq [link]).

  131. 131.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    The traditional view is that Dem voters want to vote for something, not against something.

    I would much rather vote for a candidate who is for the things I’m for than one who is only against the things I’m against.  That said, I will happily vote for the candidate who’s against the things I’m against if the alternative is someone who’s for them.

  133. 133.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    Mexico, Canada and the US agreed to NAFTA 2.0, September 30th, 2018. Mexico ratified the agreement June 19, 2019. Canada started the official process on May 21, 2019 but then the election got in the way of ratification.

    since November 30th, 2018 there have been continual and ongoing negotiations in the US, to try to arm twist agreement and add sweetners to get enough votes to add it to Yurtle’s to do list. That happened Monday.

    The hold up wasn’t Trump, wasn’t Nancy, it was the House and Senate.

  134. 134.

    Another Scott

    @Jay: Nothing gets through the House without Nancy’s say-so.  She’s Speaker.

    Warning Politico (from December 2018):

    House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi cast doubt Thursday on the likelihood that the new North American trade pact could win congressional approval without changes to bolster its labor and environmental protections.

    President Donald Trump’s top trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, met with Pelosi for just over 30 minutes Thursday to discuss the new agreement, which will need Democratic support to give Trump a chance to sign it into law. The pact is already expected to face a fiery debate as some Democrats are already coming out in opposition to its labor and environmental provisions.

    “While there are positive things in this proposed trade agreement, it is just a list without real enforcement of the labor and environmental protections,” Pelosi, who is expected to become House speaker in the next Congress, said in a statement after the meeting.

    […]

    She’s on-board, and that’s why it will pass the House in coming days/weeks.

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  136. 136.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    Nancy knows how to count.

    The process of adding “sweeteners” to get the needed votes to pass, was slow, as it would be, because not only did Reps and Senators have to agree to add their votes, but Canada and Mexico had to agree to the changes, and then Trumps turds had to agree.

    Nancy also knew what changes would be agreeable to all responsible parties, and worked to get it done.

     

    NAFTA as signed, back in the day, also wasn’t the same NAFTA that was ratified.

    Nancy actually surprised me. I was pretty sure that Dolt 45 and his Minions in the House and Senate would blow it all up with Trade Warz or would run out the clock.

    Nancy got the final changes through and the vote count Monday morning and both Canada and Mexico agreed by Monday afternoon.

     

    Dolt 45 is just yelling because he’s a moron and he’s blaming Nancy because she lives rent free in his head.

  138. 138.

    Anne Laurie

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I find it hilarious how Trump’s supporters are willing to overlook that he’s from New Yawk City.

    NYC native parochialism:  “Well, only if you count Queens as part of The City… “

    I grew up in the Bronx (but, FWIW, was born in Manhattan).  Because NYC is a large & populous place, with a long history by American standards [Europeans & Asians insert smirk emojis here], it has a particularly intense version of the split-up-by-districts prejudice.  Although all five boroughs are technically NYC, Manhattan is ‘the city’, to the locals.  Some of the Bronx, and the more proximate parts of Brooklyn, are sometimes referred to as part of ‘the city’ (the way a garage or a walk-in basement may or may not be treated as part of ‘the house’ in real-estate documents).  Queens is a bedroom suburb — the entry to Long Island, as Yonkers is the entry to Upstate (i.e., emphatically Not NYC).  And Staten Island is a rural enclave, like Appalachia but with Italians, glued by legislative fiat to the city, to the annoyance of both parties.
    If you look at a map of the boroughs, or even better the subway system, you can see the unspoken logic. Trump’s ‘home town’ in the far-western Jamaica portion of Queens is a longer trip than most suburban commuters make into their workplaces every day. And in a city like NY, most people don’t have to leave their neighborhoods, except for jobs. Apart from work, lots of my Bronx (University Heights) neighbors only went into ‘the city’ (Manhattan) once every few years, if that. Back in the late 1960s, most of my high school classmates had only been to Queens for the 1964 World Fair (unless they had relatives out there), and only a handful of us had *ever* set foot on Staten Island (although another group had ridden the ferry, round-trip, as a special outing). Trump, growing up at approximately the same time in Queens, only came into ‘the city’ to follow his old man around muscling tenants and cheating contractors. His bitterness at not being considered a real New Yorker by real New Yorkers (rich people in downtown Manhattan) is a pathologically exaggerated version of the way a *lot* of outer-borough natives feel.

  139. 139.

    Sab

    @Anne Laurie: I am in NE  Ohio here. I love your description to GOKU of the complicated place that is New York city.

    My favorite aunt was from Queens. Her parents were immigrants. She went to City College when it was free, then went on to get a Masters in Social Work from Case Western Reserve in Cleveland. She was the only actual saint I have ever met. Wonderful woman: kind but also fierce and determined.

    She stayed in Ohio for the last 50 years of her life, but she always had her Queens accent. She only cared about it when she was doing Democratic phone banking. I don’t think it mattered. Her soul and personality always shone through our accent prejudices.

  141. 141.

    Anne Laurie

    @Sab:

    I left the Bronx with a real nasal honk of an accent, but it’s just about completely vanished after almost 50 years.  Only comes back if I’m talking to someone with a Bronx accent… or, confusingly, if I’m talking to my younger sister, who also escaped NYC decades ago, and normally sounds like her high-plains peers.

    The Spousal Unit’s parental grandparents were from Ohio.  Sometimes, when he’s not being careful, he says ‘wursh’ instead of ‘wash’… and it tickles me every time I get to point that out.

  143. 143.

    Anne Laurie

    @mrmoshpotato: Brighton Beach / Coney Island give you a hard look.  (very NYC joke: that’s where a lot of the 70s-era Soviet refugees ended up clustering — lots of Cyrillic lettering on storefronts in those neighborhoods.  But BB/CI are on the *opposite* side of Queens from the birthplace of the Occupant.)

  144. 144.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Anne Laurie:  I’m curious, does the Ohio accent turn the “i” in “milk” to an “e,” so sounds like “melk”? Ms. O is from Ohio and we have (mostly) good-natured discussions about that abomination of a mispronunciation. I, on the other hand, am from New Jersey and do not have an accent and pronounce all things as the language deities intended. //

  146. 146.

    Anne Laurie

    @FlipYrWhig: And frankly OMG MCKINSEY feels to me like it’s being stirred up by people with elite educations who want to sneer at how the people they didn’t like at *their same elite college* got sellout corporate jobs like that, instead of the only real jobs that matter, writing and podcasting.

    BINGO!  You are correct, sir!

    He’s not my first-choice candidate, but this is one way Buttigieg really *does* resemble candidate Obama — he really pisses off those among his peers who’ve done far less with the expensive educations / enrichments that their parents gifted them.

    He’s the nerd in the front row, waving his hand frantically at the professor.  They’re the Cool Kids slouching across chairs in the back, trading sexist / homophobic barbs with each other in stage whispers.  HOW DARE HE GET ALL THIS ‘SUCCESS’ WHEN THEIR DADS STILL NAG THEM EVERY TIME THEY NEED A LITTLE HELP WITH THE RENT THIS MONTH?!!!!?

  147. 147.

    Anne Laurie

    @phdesmond:
    Thanks, I’m looking forward to reading that!
    I’m so old, I remember Washington Heights as the place where my Nana & her fellow Irish-American immigrants were stubbornly resisting the incursion of Puerto Rican immigrants. And, of course, as the Cloisters (in Fort Tryan Park) — some of the few childhood photos I salvaged were taken of us on the grounds of the Cloisters…

  148. 148.

    Anne Laurie

    @O. Felix Culpa: Dunno; even if my ear were that sensitive, the Spousal Unit mostly doesn’t sound like he’s from Ohio (barring that one archived pronunciation, which he plausibly claims migrated from the Appalachians unchanged from Shakespeare’s English).

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