A picture is worth a thousand words:
3 liberals from California, 3 from New York, and 1 from Massachusetts.
The Democrats pushing impeachment couldn’t be more out of touch with most Americans if they tried! pic.twitter.com/1cWj0bL5h6
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) December 10, 2019
And its Very Woke enablers…
I made a joke that on the day they impeached Trump, Do Something Twitter would be too busy yelling do something to notice, but I don't think it's a joke now.
— Malarksist Revolutionary (@agraybee) December 10, 2019
Can you believe that they got Al Capone on tax evasion? Seriously. Those dummies just don’t understand political strategy
— ???????? ???????????? (@JoshuaGrubbsPhD) December 10, 2019
and Trump's being impeached for, essentially, trying to get the Russians off the hook! The Crowdstrike fever dream is insane nuttery that says all those Russian intelligence officers charged with hacking the DNC were somehow framed. That's what Trump wanted Ukraine to say!
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) December 10, 2019
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.
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…
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.
details and more at the link…
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!
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?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Could have been a spy in his spare time. //
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: I’ve been assured by the President that those 5,000,000 are voter fraud.
mrmoshpotato
So Mittens’ niece dunked on herself. Impressive.
debbie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Your president errs. He is the fraud.
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….
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: She’ll be starting for the Lakers tonight.
@debbie: Heh.
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?
Major Major Major Major
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.
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).
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
I remember when you was Time’s Person of the Year.
Jay
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.
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.
Baud
@TS (the original):
The media sucks but in fairness, too many Dems provoke it or, at least, eat up what’s offered.
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
Major Major Major Major
@TS (the original): in this particular case it was because supporters of other democrats demanded it.
Chyron HR
What state do they imagine their President is from?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
Is it possible to expose the individuals who create this disinfo?
Major Major Major Major
In other news, there was a senate hearing today on making american tech companies provide encryption backdoors. Turns out both parties are big fans!
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.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chyron HR: Well, he is out of touch will Americans.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
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.
Major Major Major Major
And if you want a candidate who’s never held down a job, Bernie’s got you covered!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
Isn’t holding an elective office for the last 40 years to grandstand count as a job?
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.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I find it hilarious how Trump’s supporters are willing to overlook that he’s from New Yawk City
Baud
@Jay:
Guilt by association doesn’t sit well with a lot of people.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): prior to entering politics, obviously!
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I said dunking on herself. 142 points is wild.
Neldob
@smintheus: thnk yew.
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?
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
This is a modern deformation of the language. But with English, usage trumps rules of grammar.
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.
Major Major Major Major
Lol, singular they is not modern, except in the “newer than Middle English” sense
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.
Brachiator
@Chyron HR:
State of confusion?
State of ignorance?
mrmoshpotato
@Brachiator: A former Soviet state?
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?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
U.S. Postal Service.
Baud
LGM
WaterGirl
@Baud: The real bad guys!
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.
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
zzyzx
I know that he’s just doing this because he somehow thinks it scores points with the Jewish community, but declaring Judaism to be a nationality, not just a religion is step one on a very terrifying road.
He’s stupid Hitler, agreeing to things that he doesn’t understand.
https://twitter.com/nytpolitics/status/1204533600537972736
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He’s Floriduh Man now!
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.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Oh that monstrous USPS. They got me my new shaver a few days early! Bastard!
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.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: State of Confusion was a pretty good Kinks album.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
The mail is all ads now!
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.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Good to know. Does the H stand for humble, or honest?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl:
I see someone that’s not shopped at Best Buy.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I think I bought my TVs there. Was that wrong?
zhena gogolia
@zzyzx:
OMG, that’s how it was defined in the USSR!!!!
Ken
@Brachiator:
I think the only languages where that’s not the case are the dead ones.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: All abs now? Ooolala.
You get no bills? No Cooks Illustrated? No random magazines that you never signed up for?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Not true, I got a Christmas card and a credit card bill today.
ETA: Yeah, there were also ads, but it’s Tuesday.
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.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: No, I had issues with their price match guarantee earlier this year, they’re on my personal shit list.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I don’t know.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Gold-plated HDMI cables are better! /s
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I occasionally get something of value, but it’s mostly ads.
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.
Sab
@WaterGirl: As a survivor of pre-Obamacare individual plan health insurance I have an issue with anyone who consults with any of the Blue Crosses.
Baud
@Ken:
Some countries like France actually have language police.
Mary G
@WaterGirl: Here’s my take: McConnell says he won’t bring up the USMCA vote until after the impeachment trial. So Nancy SMASH neuters the Republican argument that she’s stalling it and puts the blame on #MoscowMitch.
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.
“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
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.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
and the Court’s Stop Work order is being ignored.
https://remezcla.com/culture/conservative-group-ignores-judge-order-border-wall-texas/
Baud
@FlipYrWhig:
I see your problem.
WaterGirl
@Sab: What if he told them they were doing everything wrong, and needed to be better? :-)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
From your linked article:
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.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Hazy? Half-assed? High-minded?
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
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.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: I like that idea!
edit: OT thanks so much for digging out all those General Stuck quotes.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Hung-over.
WaterGirl
@Baud: laughing.
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.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Just following the example of ‘Dear Leader’.
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.
BBA
I can’t believe we’re losing to these people.
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.
TomatoQueen
@smintheus: Yes to both.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Roger Moore:
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.
Another Scott
@Jay: No Bob Loblaw jokes yet?
“Why should you go to jail for a crime someone else … noticed?”
rofl.
Cheers,
Scott.
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…
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.
Domestic short hair tabby
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Apparently, USPS has the highest approval of any part of the US government; over 90 percent of people surveyed have a positive opinion of it.
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.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Thanks, Pete!
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?
Baud
@Anya:
The traditional view is that Dem voters want to vote for something, not against something.
I don’t fall within that group.
Anya
@FlipYrWhig: I am legit disappointed in Mayor Pete but this line of attack seems like grasping at straws.
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?
Mary G
@TomatoQueen: Aww. That is much needed, especially that Mrs. Schlemazel is helping.
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.
Anya
@Baud: I am a single issue voter, anyone who’s for United Blue States.
Baud
I wonder if my history workng for Pablo Escobar will hurt me in the primary.
Baud
@Anya: Come sit by me, sister.
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.
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.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: It was my attempt at a price match with Costco, the Costco version is a different model number*(it included an extra charger).
*It was a Galaxy Watch(I had a gift card at Best Buy from the kid).
Patricia Kayden
The Pale Scot
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
By definition, conservatives were never for democracy, liberal or otherwise
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Do what again? Support what labor wants?
delk
He was 25.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The fine print gets you every time. Some people are letter of the law people; some are spirit of the law people. I am the latter.
?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.
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.
Sab
@TomatoQueen: What good news. If we didn’t already have five bickering cats I would envy you that beautiful boy.
Doug R
@Jay: Yeah, but the Loblaws bread price fixing was 2000-2014, before and after his 2007-2010 time at McKinsey.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Steve in the
ATL(wherever the hell he is) advises against that.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.
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.
Another Scott
@Jay:
Eh? Why would the Senate do anything about Donnie’s NAFTA 2.0 when Nancy said this? Speaker.gov :
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.
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
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.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
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]).
Roger Moore
@Baud:
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.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@Baud: Who doesn’t like fútbol (photo)
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.
Another Scott
@Jay: Nothing gets through the House without Nancy’s say-so. She’s Speaker.
Warning Politico (from December 2018):
She’s on-board, and that’s why it will pass the House in coming days/weeks.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
spudgun
@TomatoQueen: Ooh, this is exciting! Safe travels to everyone involved!
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.
JaySinWA
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Exactly what you would expect for a deep cover operative.//
Anne Laurie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
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.
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.
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl:
That is the McKinsey model, but you don’t know if it was before or after
@Sab: had issues.
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.
Gin & Tonic
@Jay:
Wilmer owes his political career to Wayne Lapierre.
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.)
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. //
phdesmond
@Anne Laurie:
there’s an interesting article on Washington Heights in the Virginia Quarterly Review:
https://www.vqronline.org/essays-articles/2019/12/ladder?utm_campaign=todays_worldview&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&wpisrc=nl_todayworld&wpmm=1
Anne Laurie
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?!!!!?
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…
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).
phdesmond
@Anne Laurie:
when my parents lived in Queens, i took the subway and bus up to the cloisters and enjoyed it very much.
see you in another thread.