Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

People are weird.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Timely

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Timely

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  2. 2.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    The amendment overturning Citizens United should be called the Alito Amendment. In the text itself, it should include a phrase referencing Scam Alito mouthing “not true” at Obama for predicting exactly what happened.

     

    Let the lying, mendacious, piece of shit corrupt cocksucker wear it for eternity, and to know about it while he’s alive.

  3. 3.

    Nicole

    @debbie: Me too. My big fear, if/when the Dems are in power again, is that they’ll assume it’s enough to govern well, and that the public just wants to put it all behind them. If the GOP never face consequences besides the ballot box, they will just keep doing what they’re doing, because clearly the ballot box is not a deterrent. Hell, they can just suppress the vote and steal the elections in that case.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    We need a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

    And one that says money isn’t speech and another that says corporations aren’t people and as such do not have the rights of people, much less the rights of citizens.

  5. 5.

    PaulWartenberg

    I am going in for surgery this morning.

    I hope to see you on the other side.

    If I don’t make it… AVENGE ME. Defeat trump. Vote out every Republican. Save the planet.

    Good luck.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    Today show has the ridiculous picture of Trump on the phone that they use to illustrate the “perfect” phone call.

  9. 9.

    MomSense

    @Nicole:

    Honestly it depends how bad things are when the Dem gets in. Let’s face it, the pattern is that we only elect Dems when there are massive crises.

  11. 11.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    NPR played part of Trump’s Davos farewell statement this morning. He was reading as if seeing the numbers for the first time. You could hear him turning away from the microphone to look at a quisling with an expression of “Wow! I am genius!”

  19. 19.

    LivingInExile

    Had shoulder surgery yesterday.  Fully torn rotator cuff plus other assorted problems.  Fun times.

  20. 20.

    daveNYC

    I’m not sure that electability (or lack of) is an argument that Warren, or anyone, can really win.  It seems to boil down to people saying “The candidate I like is more likable than the candidate you like, so you should vote for the candidate I like instead of the one you like.”  It’s trying to argue people’s feelings, which tends to go nowhere.

    Rather unfortunate that electability seems to be Biden’s greatest strength.

  22. 22.

    HalfAssedHomesteader

    After his age I think the thing that bothers me most about Biden is that he’s the one most likely to give Trump & Co. a pass “so we can heal”.

  27. 27.

    SFAW

    @PaulWartenberg:

    Best wishes for a problem-free procedure, and a full and speedy recovery!

    We’ll work on the other part for you, while you’re recuperating, until you can get back to lead us!!!!! Or something.

  33. 33.

    SFAW

    @montanareddog:

    Someone should do a Time “Person of the Year” fake cover, with Pennywise’s face, and “President” Donald Trump as the name. And if I knew how to Photoshop it, I’d do it myself.

    Or perhaps, just a generic clown face, with greasepaint tears rolling down his cheeks? I’m torn.

    Of course, having said that, I’ll probably find out someone already has done it.

  38. 38.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @MomSense: Let’s face it, the pattern is that we only elect Dems when there are massive crises.

    Finally someone on this misbegotten blog who gets it.

    FDR was an aberration. So was Obama – whose great failure was to leave in place the same “malefactors of great wealth” who decanted the “Tea Party” & made it impossible for him to govern & then blamed him for the failure. He set things up to bring the banksters & the health insurance gougers in for a soft landing & they said, Thank you very much for saving the system, now give us back everything we had – & when he didn’t or couldn’t they savaged him unmercifully.

  39. 39.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @PaulWartenberg: By Grabthar’s Hammer, we will avenge you. And best wishes. Give us a shout when you’re back

    Shakes fist at John S. at #30, who got there ahead of me.

  44. 44.

    Anya

    Good morning all!

    I find Hakeem Jeffries very impressive. But I haven’t really gone deep into his record so I’d appreciate your input as to why AOC and Justice Dems want to primary him? I think JD are an out of control destructive group but I trust AOC so I am hoping the reports are not true.

  51. 51.

    SFAW

    @MomSense:

    Let’s face it, the pattern is that we only elect Dems when there are massive crises.

    Many years ago, my brother noted that, in our home county, Rethugs would get elected, then turn everything to shit. Voters would sweep them out, leaving Dems to clean up the mess. Since “cleaning up the mess” usually involved various measures (e.g., tax increases) that voters didn’t like. the Dems would thereupon get voted out, then the cycle would start over.

  53. 53.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: The contrast between Schiff and Sekulow

    I was thinking Aragorn and the Mouth of Sauron.  Possibly Gandalf and Wormtongue but I don’t know who’d be Theoden in that case.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    greasy mendacious posturing

    Ordinary lawyers really aren’t allowed to blatantly lie in a hearing. It would be good if fancy lawyers were held to the same standard, instead of a much lower one.

  57. 57.

    Anya

    @rikyrah: I am not against primarying useless members. I think we need a new blood but why primary a young rising star? This is a really dumb move on AOC’s part of she’s behind this.

  59. 59.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: It really makes me crazy, listening to those guys.  As you know, in a real courtroom, even the suggestion that something was fabricated or even too heavily shaded beings everything to a halt until the issue is cleared up and apology in open court provided.  Sheesh.

  60. 60.

    Immanentize

    @Anya: It’s not happening unless you have information newer than 2018.  Even then, AOC never said any thing about supporting a primary of Jeffries.    This was shit stirring then and it is shit stirring now.  Please refrain unless you have something to add to the 2018 gossip?

  61. 61.

    Gin & Tonic

    Today’s dilemma. My daughter visited Peru, and brought me back some super-fancy chocolate, single-origin, fair-trade, organic, the whole nine yards (I love chocolate.) Sealed in a foil wrapper, as it should be (not wrapped, actually sealed.) I opened it and found several dead insects, look like typical Indian mealworms, two adults and at least one larva. So – do I brush off the insect stuff and eat the chocolate? I mean, people eat insects in Latin America (I have, too, when I visited.) Clearly they weren’t meant to be there, but this is good chocolate… I hate to toss it in the trash.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    Yesterday. I watched it happen yesterday. Younger lawyer- I like him and he’s not a liar- got a little agitated and made something up at hearing. I corrected him and magistrate ordered him to submit a doc to her to show what he said was true. He (wisely) admitted he had been mistaken immediately after hearing because there is no doc showing this- he made it up. A quick apology is the best fix. This is just a case management hearing at a county court in the middle of nowhere. These guys are in there lying their asses off in front of the chief justice at 1000 an hour and nothing happens. Is this how it’s supposed to work? Higher standards for the lesser beings?

  67. 67.

    SFAW

    @Immanentize:

    If sealed. Eat it.  Then turn your daughter into Customs for smuggling non-native bugs.

    Harsh, but fair? Should we now call you “Dinsdale”?

  68. 68.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: It is supposed to be higher standards for all.  A revolution of higher standards.  But the Republicans don’t believe in standards or truth.  Just power.  Even when I have been up against or partnering with some of the hootie hoos of the legal establishment, they adhered to real serious standards. They may have been crafty, but lying or fabricating facts or evidence really wasn’t part of their tool box. Because the personal stakes were so high for being called out and proven to be a liar. It was (still is?) career suicide.

  70. 70.

    Immanentize

    @SFAW: OK.  Maybe G&T should just threaten her with such an action and try to get another box of so-fine chocolate out of the affair?

  78. 78.

    Betty Cracker

    Last night, Kamala Harris made a good point about Trump’s lawyers’ blatant lying: the necessity of correcting the lies cuts into the limited time the Dems have to make their case. It’s strategic lying, and it shouldn’t be allowed, but of course they’re getting away with it.

  86. 86.

    daveNYC

    @Immanentize: It’s not just a story from 2018, it’s a Politico story based on two anonymous sources.  So… yeah…

    Otherwise there’s not much of note with regards to his positions, so if any primary challenge did happen it would be more on the basis that it’s a D+36 district so you could get a hard left candidate in there pretty easy, just as long as you win the primary.  Unlike Henry Cuellar who should be primaried because he’s got some pretty shit positions even before you consider he’s in a D+9 district.

  88. 88.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @O. Felix Culpa: I hate hate hate Airplane. It is one of the go to movies my wife will put on while she is knitting. I must have been subjected to it at least a thousand times, and yet every time she puts it on I have to sit and watch it yet again. I just can’t help myself.

  90. 90.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: I’m a hillbilly from the Ozarks of eastern Misery. If you think we slaughter the English language, you should hear what we can do to French. It drives my fluent in 4 languages wife nuts.

  96. 96.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: If he was calling balls and strikes he would have had to send Cipollone back to the dugout before he got halfway thru his opening argument.

  98. 98.

    Joey Maloney

    @WereBear: And beyond that, some new legal framework that overhauls the whole idea of the corporate charter. It’s not natural law that a corporation puts the shareholders first, last, and only. Make the grant of limited liability conditional on things like balancing the desires of all stakeholders, carbon neutral production, worker representation on the BOD, compensation limits for the C-suite, even (dare I say it) mandatory unionization.

  100. 100.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic: No, this is what I teach at home when fine chocolates are on the line.  Sadly, my love for them has infected the next generation.  I had a few very nice dark chocolate truffles squirreled away.   I thought. This morning there was naught but wrappers lying about near the Immp’s computer.

  101. 101.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Immanentize: “a stern warning”

    To both sides, of course.

    Ugh, the Chief Justice is such a hack. This charade is making another mockery of our Constitution. What makes the Senate so gaddang precious?

    What gives Roberts, as a leader of the judiciary, the right to declare one half of the legislature as “greatest in the world”, in a criticism of a leader of the other half?

    Thank God for Schiff and the other House impeachment managers. At least someone in Washington is doing the Constitution proud.

  102. 102.

    Immanentize

    If I were the House managers, I would go straight at the whole proceeding and make a motion to Roberts to subpoena three witnesses.

  104. 104.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah:

    God, grant me the opportunity to be as ready for ONE THING in my life as much as Adam Schiff is ready for this moment.

    Amen to that!

  108. 108.

    zhena gogolia

    Chris Murphy has been reporting on the proceedings in his tweets, it’s very helpful. He calmed me down about Roberts. He thought his intervention was helpful.

    They were there until 2 AM.

  111. 111.

    mrmoshpotato

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    And one that says money isn’t speech and another that says corporations aren’t people and as such do not have the rights of people, much less the rights of citizens. 

    And another constitutional amendment that calls Mitt Romney a fucking sack of shit for eternity for his “Corporations are people, my friend.” line of crap.

  114. 114.

    J R in WV

    @PaulWartenberg:

    I will make a donation to Senator Professor Warren in your honor, win or lose.

    Best of luck with everything, sorry to hear about everything. Getting old sucks, but it beats the alternative. Speaking as an old.

  116. 116.

    artem1s

    @debbie:

    I think Joe would choose to look forward. Maybe some reporter can ask him about this.

    this is my only caveat about Joe at this point. This was the reason I didn’t want him to enter the race.  If yesterday’s kangaroo court didn’t convince him that the GOP has decided corruption is just fine for their party, nothing will.  We need an answer on this from all the candidates now.  I’m glad Warren has forced the issue.

  118. 118.

    Wapiti

    @OzarkHillbilly: We probably need an amendment that spells out what rights corporations do have. It’s good that they have the rights against illegal searches, for example.

  120. 120.

    J R in WV

    @satby:

    sounds like the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is a hack since he’s presiding over the mess.

    My understanding is that Chief Justice Roberts has never been a simple, ordinary court judge presiding over a trial, so this is his first whirl at it. No wonder it isn’t going that well, he let the Rs get out of hand from the get-go, and it eventually led to the Dems blowing off steam, at which point he had to jump in.

    Hours too late and a million dollars short.

    I confess, I gave up on it around 11 and went to bed, knowing it was going to be the same shit all night long. Shame I missed the admonishment… shame he didn’t admonish the R lawyers for lying repeatedly in their first or second swing.

  121. 121.

    Gin & Tonic

    @mrmoshpotato: I found it amusing when I went in, that they had to mark the arm they were going to do. Yeah, it’s the one with the huge fucking cast you’re going to have to saw off before you start. But, you know, procedure.

  124. 124.

    J R in WV

    @Wapiti:

    We probably need an amendment that spells out what rights corporations do have. It’s good that they have the rights against illegal searches, for example.

     

    I’ll have to disagree with you on this one. Corporations don’t need any extra protection for their illegal acts. Much of their “research” is to produce dangerous chemistry, for example.

    I think health scientists should be all over Monsanto 24/7, for just one little example. Not to mention BP, Exxon/Mobile, etc…

    ETA: Imagine if you can, a Monsanto scientist conceives of a complex molecule, a wonderful pesticide, and under some circumstances it can be self-replicating, so nearly free to manufacture. Boon to Monsanto, death to the planet perhaps… how secret should that be?

  127. 127.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: I think of all the never-trumpres, she and Nicolle Wallace are the most likely to not go back. John Weaver– McCain and Kasich aide– also seems to have turned a corner, though he still worships Kasich.

    Twitter tells me MSNBC has had Peggy Noonan on all morning. I hope it won’t be all day, but then it might be better for my sanity to not even look today.

  128. 128.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Wapiti: Yeah, I know it’s a mess, a real mish mash, but at this point I’m going with “None.” Not because I think they should be fair game, but because once one starts giving them rights it WILL get out of hand. They already have rights actual citizens don’t have (when was the last time a corporation was sent to prison?) Deal with it thru laws regulating them.

  132. 132.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Immanentize: It was on just last night, and as wonderful as ever. Being able to anticipate every line doesn’t diminish any of the pleasure. Enhances it, in fact.

  134. 134.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Since breaking my arm and wrist in September, I can attest to that. It seems silly and rather superfluous, but if the protocol saves somebody’s limb or organ sometime, I won’t complain.
    Incidentally, I’m feeling quite chuffed with myself — I “graduated,” if that’s the word, from my physical therapy sessions yesterday, several weeks before either the P.T. or I anticipated! She put me through all the usual exercises, did all the measurements, realised I had met or exceeded every single goal, and said there was no point in my coming back!

  139. 139.

    WaterGirl

    @Immanentize: I see that you have discovered one more way for the Immp to be sure to get enough calories.

    [Note to self #5, on 1/22:  hide yummy foods from Immp.]

    *But isn’t he away at school???

  140. 140.

    WaterGirl

    @J R in WV: Roberts looks like a simple bumpkin up there, no better than if they had made Barney Fife (sp?) “judge for a day”.

    I can’t imagine that this will NOT bring Roberts down in status, going forward.  Couldn’t happen to a better person.

  141. 141.

    WaterGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: I think that’s unheard of!  Congratulations!

    Do YOU feel like are back to where you were before?

    Also, how did I NOT know that you broke your arm as well as your wrist???

  143. 143.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Haven’t had a chance to read Warren’s plan yet but I really hope it includes:

    • Human Rights/Ethics violations by ICE/CBP

    and

    • Instructing DOJ to investigate/pursue charges against any person or witnesses suspected of lying under oath before Congress (Ie- Barr, Sessions, Mnuchin, Devos, Kavanaugh, EVERYONE etc.)

  144. 144.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    Do YOU feel like are back to where you were before?

    Also, how did I NOT know that you broke your arm as well as your wrist???

    I didn’t know it myself until about three weeks in, and never bothered to mention it. The wrist was so distorted and distended that it got all the attention, and has really been the focus of PT. But yeah, radial fracture too.

    It looks a bit weird — I’m sure nobody else notices the funky wrist angle, and at my age I don’t really care — but I can once again do all the normal, taken-for-granted things I could do Before The Fall (opening jars, wringing out washcloths, carrying shopping bags, etc.*) and I’m in no pain. So all is serene on that front.

    * No cartwheels, though!

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