Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

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

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

White supremacy is terrorism.

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

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Come on, man.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

This really is a full service blog.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

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

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Infrastructure week. at last.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Monday Morning Open Thread: Don’t Startle Us Like That, Twitter

Monday Morning Open Thread: Don’t Startle Us Like That, Twitter

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Twitter needs to give its moderators a … But they’re fine! extension, to use whenever a public figure over a certain age is trending.

And on another front:

Reader Interactions

207Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    That Obama and Trump job growth charts also show a reality different from the one the media fed us.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    NBC’s Olympic coverage has always had its issues, but they really have dropped the ball this time. Feels like they are just phoning it in.

  4. 4.

    Percysowner

    And suddenly Comey’s  “Biden should just pardon Trump” declaration makes a LOT more sense.

  6. 6.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I have to smile every time I see Joe Biden’s/President Biden’s Twitter account, identifying him as “United States Government Official” — as though he’s some minor bureaucrat shuffling files around in the Department of Administrative Organization or something.

  7. 7.

    Butter Emails!

    Now if only Americans would realize how well Biden and the Democrats are doing instead of fleeing to Republicans.

  8. 8.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: NBC’s Olympic coverage has always had its issues, but they really have dropped the ball this time. Feels like they are just phoning it in.

    Isn’t that literally true, for most of the NBC commentors?

    I seem to remember the ‘celebrity’ sports-reporters were going to be working from outside China, because… pandemic quarantine.  (And also, not wanting to give the CCP government any more potential hostages than absolutely necessary.)

  9. 9.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    I think they literally are. I read somewhere a few days ago that NBC has relatively very few reporters and crew on the ground. They’re doing just about all their coverage from some studio in New Jersey.

    ETA: Or what Anne Laurie (aka “Jinx!”) said.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    One thing that has nothing to do with remote commentating is that NBC somehow made their streaming app worse.

  13. 13.

    Spanky

    @Baud:

    That Obama and Trump job growth charts also show a reality different from the one the media fed us.

    This is my shocked face.

  14. 14.

    James E Powell

    Comey should join a cloistered monastery & never speak again. One of Obama’s worst decisions.

  15. 15.

    PaulB

    Comey really needs to just STFU and go away.

    During an interview with BBC Newsnight this week, the former employee of President Donald Trump’s administration suggested that President-elect Joe Biden should consider pardoning Trump.

    “I don’t know, he should consider it,” Comey said. “Donald Trump, he’s not a genius, but he might figure out that if he accepts a pardon, that’s an admission of guilt, the United States Supreme Court has said, so I don’t know that he would accept a pardon.”

    Comey argued that a pardon from Biden would work to heal the country and get Americans “to a place where we can focus on things that are going to matter over the next four years.”

    Comey also told the BBC that he does believe Trump belongs “in jail,” but draws the line at prosecuting a former president because that’s not “in the best interest of the entire nation.”

    …

    Comey’s remarks come on the heels of The Guardian reporting on an early copy of his new book, “Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency and Trust.”

    The United States’ next attorney general under Biden should not “pursue a criminal investigation of Donald Trump,” Comey reportedly wrote in the book, “no matter how compelling the roadmap left” by special counsel Robert Mueller or “how powerful the evidence strewn across his history of porn stars and financial fraud.”

    The Huffington Post article also shows Comey getting eviscerated on Twitter for these remarks.

  19. 19.

    Baud

    If you can’t remember another year when so many people went to work in this country, there’s a reason: it’s never happened before.

    Last year was the biggest year for job growth in our history.

    “Why won’t Biden talk about his amazing job numbers?” in 3…2…1….

  20. 20.

    John S.

    Comey argued that a pardon from Biden would work to heal the country and get Americans “to a place where we can focus on things that are going to matter over the next four years.”

    I had no idea Comey was a sci-fi author. What color is the sky in Comey’s alternate universe of Earth-468? Is the planet ruled by apes on horseback? This is really fascinating stuff!

  23. 23.

    satby

    @Baud: on Twitter, the responses to that tweet were claiming it was people going back to work. Forgetting, I guess, that a LOT of businesses didn’t lay people off because they got PPP money for keeping them on the payroll.

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    A headline on the CNN website described the +467,000 jobs report as “shocking” — as though it were a calamity for Biden and his administration, rather than good news. I wondered what was up with that.

  25. 25.

    satby

    @Baud:  I’m made of sterner stuff than JGC. And less old injuries. ?

    I lasted 3 days without power in MI one winter. Plus, I really hate casinos.

  27. 27.

    satby

    @Baud: the (completely nonsensical) claim is that it’s not new jobs… Which hasn’t ever been an issue in previous rebounds after a contraction, but is now because it makes TFG look bad on that chart.

  31. 31.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Amir Khalid: IMHO, too many people who should know better aren’t sensitive to the connotations of words, so, frex, they’ll call someone “notorious” when they mean “famous.” So the headline writer says “shocking” when they mean “very surprising” or something.

    Also, if anyone cares, “fullsome” does not mean “complete” or “fully rendered” or “full.”

  37. 37.

    satby

    Outage map shows 2500+ customers affected and was just reported about 10 minutes ago.  Weird that it stayed up for three days of rain followed by over a foot of snow but goes down on a normal, no weather day.

  38. 38.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: J had it on last night.  The commentary takes value away.  “She needs to finish quicker than her opponent to win a medal!!1ONE”

    Really???

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  41. 41.

    Geminid

    Politico Playbook tells me that President Biden will participate in a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz starting 1:30pm, and he and Scholz will have a joint news conference at 3:15.

    Meanwhile, French President Macron is headed to Moscow to meet with Putin. Macron spoke to Biden before his trip.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    Jacqueline Alemany
    @JaxAlemany
    Scoop: National Archives last month had to retrieve boxes of Trump WH records from Mar-a-Lago that were improperly removed from the WH. The items included correspondence w Kim Jong Un.

    This will be front page news for months given the intense interest in records retention and storage among national political media.

    ⁩ ⁦
    ⁩

  43. 43.

    NotMax

    Someone yesterday opined “Smiles are rare in buffets.”

    Not always the case.

    (If not in the mood to watch in full, skip ahead to about 14:40. Duck legs!)

    ;)

  46. 46.

    jonas

    @Baud: Well, there are no spectators. They’re in 24/7 isolation bubbles. They can’t go anywhere or do anything. They can’t travel around the city with “athletes enjoying food in their downtime” pieces. They just have to sit there and — *sigh* — comment on the event.

  50. 50.

    jonas

    @Kay: Oh, and double that coverage anytime *new* misplaced files come to light, even if they’re totally innocuous.

    Next we’ll be finding out that Trump was in fact born in Kenya. That’s the only logical place this all could be heading.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @jonas:

    But two researchers, David Rothschild and Duncan Watts, took on an in-depth analysis of the mainstream media that will add to the 2016 debate. Their findings, published in the Columbia Journalism Review, focus on the New York Times’s election coverage. Their starkest discovery: “In just six days, the New York Times ran as many cover stories about Hillary Clinton’s emails as they did about all the policy issues combined in the 69 days leading up to the election.”

  52. 52.

    sab

    @John S.: We tried that pardon thing in my youth, and all it didn’t help. Ford/Nixon.  Everyone was angry. Their guys thought a pardon was a full exoneration ( proves they did nothing wrong!) and our side thought (proves there are no penalties for bad behavior if you are well-connected.)

    I am still angry, and obviously Comey didn’t learn a thing. Punishment is supposed to discourage other bad actors.

  53. 53.

    jonas

    @satby: ​
      Measuring things on a jobs-to-jobs or position-to-position basis is dumb. What matters is the unemployment rate and labor participation rate. There are going to be a certain number of job slots that just never come back because companies went out of business, automated their operations, or changed their business model to rely on fewer employees. A lot of people also retired early during the pandemic, and others decided to leave the workforce to care for children, volunteer in the community, etc., at least until wages go up more.

  54. 54.

    PaulB

    @Amir Khalid: How did so confused a man become director of the FBI?

    Obama, like Clinton before him, hoped that by appointing a few Republicans to key positions, he would pacify Congressional Republicans and they would work with him. As he put it:

    “You know, when I made a series of overtures to the Republicans — going over to meet with both Republican caucuses; you know, putting three Republicans in my Cabinet, something that is unprecedented; making sure that they were invited here to the White House to talk about the economic recovery plan — all those were not designed simply to get some short-term votes,” Obama said. “They were designed to try to build up some trust over time.  And I think that as I continue to make these overtures, over time hopefully that will be reciprocated.”

    We all know how that turned out.

    Comey had been an Assistant U.S. attorney under Clinton, a U.S. attorney under George W. Bush, and a Deputy Attorney General under Bush, among other positions in a fairly distinguished career. He was perceived as relatively competent, non-partisan, and a safe choice when Obama appointed him in 2013, and he was confirmed by the Senate in a 93 to 1 vote, with two other Senators voting present.

    It wasn’t until the horribly botched Hillary Clinton email investigation and his even worse comments about it that we got a good look at just who he really was and how he operated. It’s still not clear how much of what he did in 2016 was deliberate and how much was due to horrendous incompetence.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    @satby

    Power blinked off and on three times Sunday afternoon. Clear, sunny skies with mild wind. I can only assume they’re practicing for the upcoming Big Football thing. Lived here for 38 years. On at least 30 of the 38 days tucked under the belt here when it aired either the power or the cable has gone dark for an extended period while the pigskin extravaganza was being broadcast.

    (No never mind for me, I don’t ever tune in anyway.)

  57. 57.

    jonas

    @Gin & Tonic: Not trust how? Does Macron write checks he can’t cash, or that when push comes to shove, he doesn’t have les ballons to stand up to Putin? Macron doesn’t strike me that way, but I’m also not a Ukrainian staring down 100,000 Russian gun barrels at the moment.

  58. 58.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: probably. But you’d think it would take less than 1/2 an hour to “assess”. The center is quite a ways away from me too. Oh well, the phone is fully charged and I can always put perishable food outside to keep it cold.

  60. 60.

    Spanky

    If it were me interviewing Comey for BBC, after he’d opined that, I’d have asked “pardoned him for what?” and insisted that he start listing all the crimes he knew about. Then I’d start listing all the crimes *I* knew about. Between the two of us I suspect it would quickly become apparent what the value of that opinion really is.

  62. 62.

    VOR

    Re Comey. There is a big chunk of the country which believes the Muller Report exonerated Trump. Why? Because Barr said so and both their media outlets and their Orange god-king said so. We had two impeachments and there are probably a lot of people who don’t believe Trump tried to extort Ukraine or fostered an insurrection. IMHO a court case dealing in facts is the only conceivable way to get the truth thru to MAGAts.

  63. 63.

    opiejeanne

    @Baud: Also, mortified does not mean horrified but I’m seeing it used that way. A child was run down in front of his mother recently, and she said she was mortified.

  65. 65.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Our longest outage out here (6 days) came on a warm summer day (not even hot, the heat waited for the outage) and was caused by a blown transmitter. They didn’t have a replacement on hand, and had to have a new one shipped over from the other side of the Atlantic (or some other such horrendous distance). We’ve been pretty lucky with our outages and the Crawford Electric Coop is really good.

  68. 68.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @VOR: ​IMHO a court case dealing in facts is the only conceivable way to get the truth thru to MAGAts.

    That is an overly optimistic outlook.

  69. 69.

    PaulB

    @Baud: True. As did Barack Obama.

    But the Clintons…. My lord, what a clusterfuck centered around them. I don’t think we’ve ever seen such a concentrated, extensive, and extended effort to destroy two people. Over a quarter of a century, hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of person-hours, dozens of Congressional investigations, etc., etc. There are people who quite literally did nothing in their careers but investigate and attack Bill and Hillary Clinton, over and over and over again.

    50 years from now, there will still be some Republicans talking about “Killary” and the “Clinton Body Count.”

  70. 70.

    jonas

    @PaulB: It’s still not clear how much of what he did in 2016 was deliberate and how much was due to horrendous incompetence.

    Porque no los dos? Word on the street at the time was that he was trying to get out ahead of some threatened leaks from the NYC FBI office which was known to be staffed with a bunch of Clinton-haters. Whatever the case may be, it blew up in his face and, yeah, pretty much handed the election to Trump and nearly destroyed America. *Golf claps

  71. 71.

    PaulB

    @OzarkHillbilly: I have to agree. The dozens of court cases about the 2016 election have done nothing to change their minds. They’d find a way to ignore the data and the verdict.

    Mind you, that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done; just that it’s not likely to sway the MAGAdroids.

  74. 74.

    sdhays

    @Spanky: I suppose this is one of those things which would require a damn Constitutional amendment, but it would improve the pardon process for pardons not to be available until after a conviction. This nonsense where a President can just declare that all the Federal crimes committed between date X and date Y by person Y are hereby forgiven is a pathetic joke. I mean, you should at least have to itemize the specific crimes you’re pardoning.

    If Nixon had had to go through a trial or trials and then got a pardon so he didn’t go to jail, we would be a very different country, I think.

  76. 76.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @PaulB:

    It really comes down to the soft expectations of tragically mediocre white men who manage to put forth a good appearance in a middle priced tailored suit.

    He never was that great in the first place, yet was in the right place at the right time to catch promotions, probably due to the work of far better people beneath his position on org charts.

    Other examples – Michael Flynn, John Bolton, Dick Fuld (Lehman Brothers), Jared Kushner, Bill Barr, Donald Trump, Charles Atlas, Peter Navarro, Chuck Todd, Wolf Blitzer, John King, Mark Halperin, Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson, etc.

  77. 77.

    jonas

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
      I’m surprised more people, particularly the media, aren’t talking about how regular power outages really aren’t supposed to happen in a wealthy, modern country. We put up with the shittiest electrical grid in the western world. For some reason.

  78. 78.

    NotMax

    @OzarkHillbilly

    Methinks you mean blown transformer.

    Used to occur regularly here down at sea level. Salty layer from ocean breezes on the units during dry spells would trigger an outage when got wet from rains. Eventually the utility figured out it was cheaper to assign crews to spray them down to remove the salt deposits before they built up too much than it was to replace the transformers.

  79. 79.

    Soprano2

    @PaulB: It’s pretty shocking to hear someone who was the head of the FBI advocating for a ‘get out of jail free’ card for such a blatant criminal. He should just STFU about it.

  80. 80.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: Methinks you mean blown transformer.

    Duh! It was the spellcheck! Both times! Yeah, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

  84. 84.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: I think one thing this whole discussion often misses is that Republicans have a major cable network constantly pushing their talking points into the mainstream press. (In fact, many now consider their propaganda network part of the mainstream press!) Democrats have nothing like that at all. I wish a wealthy Democrat would found a cable news network to do that for us. The whole point of something like Fox News isn’t to make that much money (although it’s great for them if it does), it’s to get the talking points “out there”. Benghazi was a minor incident in the great scheme of things, but it became shorthand for “Hillary Clinton and Democrats are bad”. How did that happen? The constant drumbeat from Fox News and conservative talk radio, that’s how. That got it into the mainstream press, who reported on it extensively because the conservative press made it too hard for them not to. It’s hard to fight against that, especially when they hand stories to reporters on a silver platter. You know how much they love that!

  86. 86.

    Betty Cracker

    There’s evidence that the Comey view prevails among many still-employed powerful people I’ll call “institutionalists” for want of a better word:

    Comey also told the BBC that he does believe Trump belongs “in jail,” but draws the line at prosecuting a former president because that’s not “in the best interest of the entire nation…”

    The United States’ next attorney general under Biden should not “pursue a criminal investigation of Donald Trump,” Comey reportedly wrote in the book, “no matter how compelling the roadmap left” by special counsel Robert Mueller or “how powerful the evidence strewn across his history of porn stars and financial fraud.”

    From what I’ve read, the January 6th committee is building a case that Trump and his henchmen at the highest levels were up to their necks in the coup plot (possibly including members of congress) and that their activities were of a piece with the violent sacking of the Capitol. Dog bless the committee for trying to expose the putsch participants. Public revulsion — and please FSM political fallout for the party that abetted and in some cases participated in the coup — is the only justice we’re likely to see.   

  88. 88.

    sdhays

    @Soprano2: I know, right? It’s like he’s worried people will forget he was appointed FBI Director without understanding that he was supposed to protect the country from traitors and criminals.

    “Please don’t forget that I was really, really horrible at my job! A complete and utter failure!”

  89. 89.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @jonas: Rural electric is always stretched a little thin. Their costs per customer per mile are far higher. I don’t know what kind of subsidies they may (or may not) get from the state or Feds. Regardless, they just don’t have much in the way of excess money to spend on things that aren’t broke yet.

    Still, as a member I get a small “dividend” check from the coop every year.

  91. 91.

    Soprano2

    @satby: I don’t understand why they think that makes a difference. Look at the recovery after 2009 – it was really anemic because little support was provided to people. This shows how much faster the economy recovers if we prop it up some when things are bad. It’s not the great argument they think it is.

  92. 92.

    Soprano2

    @satby: I lasted 3 days without power in MI one winter.

    We went 12 days without power in the Great Ice Storm of 2007. We had a generator for the last several days, but it still wasn’t fun. I was taking showers and getting ready for work at work every day, because I had to dry my hair and put on makeup! I hope to never repeat that experience again.

  94. 94.

    sdhays

    @Betty Cracker: My head explodes when I read this shit. How on Earth is it healthy for the default position to be that the nation is too weak to be able to handle prosecuting a President?

    If the highest levels of law enforcement are convinced that certain people can’t be forced to have those apply to them (for the sake of “the country”!), then we’re simply not a nation of laws and we should stop patting ourselves on the back about being one.

  96. 96.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: This will be front page news for months given the intense interest in records retention and storage among national political media.

    Thanks, that’s the best laugh I’ll have today! You’d think, wouldn’t you. It’s amazing how transparent TFG made it that all their posturing was just bullshit.

  98. 98.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: We used to have a transmitter behind our house that would blow regularly two or three times in the summer. After several years of that they finally replaced it, and it hasn’t happened since. At my childhood home, a fuse would blow if we had the air conditioner on when they turned on the lights at the ballfield hear our house!

  99. 99.

    Soprano2

    @sdhays: If Nixon had had to go through a trial or trials and then got a pardon so he didn’t go to jail, we would be a very different country, I think.

    Seconded. I’ve always thought the Nixon pardon set a really bad precedent that enabled a lot of subsequent bad behavior. I’m still convinced that the January 6th insurrectionists thought TFG was going to pardon them. It’s why they were so careless with information about their activities.

  101. 101.

    schrodingers_cat

    I think the Orange person was gearing up to cast aspersions on HRC win had she won. He was not expecting to win at all. And our MSM would have gone along with that with Peter Baker and MAGA Haberman leading the charge.

    Also fuck Comey.

  102. 102.

    jonas

    @satby: Yeah, maybe after having to pay out multi-billion dollar settlements for starting wildfires with their above-ground transmission lines every couple of years, the cost-benefit analysis for putting utilities undergound will start to shift a bit.

  104. 104.

    Danielx

    @PaulB:

    Did I miss something? Aside from whether Trump should be pardoned (oh hell no), I do not think he has been convicted of anything – yet. Am I wrong?

    Yes, Comey does have his head up his ass.

  105. 105.

    Soprano2

    @NotMax: I don’t remember, I was a teenager at the time. All I remember was having to periodically open the box and replace a fuse. It was crazy!

  106. 106.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Danielx: Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon was in advance of any conviction. The one thing the courts do seem to disallow is pardoning someone for a crime they haven’t committed yet (it would be an effective license to commit crimes).

  107. 107.

    PaulB

    @Danielx: You didn’t miss anything. Apparently, Comey is against even an investigation of a former President (as long as that former President is Republican, of course).

    Personally (and sadly), I’m skeptical that Trump will ever be seriously prosecuted, despite the evidence that we’ve seen thus far. Comey’s remarks, though, are so over-the-top, particularly from a former head of the FBI, that he richly deserves all of the condemnation he’s receiving.

    (I should note, by the way, that Comey made those remarks three weeks ago. I missed them at the time, so thank you to Percysowner for the #4 comment above, which brought them to my attention.)

  108. 108.

    Baud

    The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday blocked the state’s new Republican-drawn congressional and legislative maps, ruling 4-3 that they violate the state constitution.

    “We conclude that the congressional and legislative maps enacted … are unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt under the free elections clause, the equal protection clause, the free speech clause, and the freedom of assembly clause of the North Carolina Constitution,” the court wrote in an order.
    “To comply with the limitations contained in the North Carolina Constitution which are applicable to redistricting plans, the General Assembly must not diminish or dilute any individual’s vote on the basis of partisan affiliation,” the order continued.

    ….

    While the court’s four Democrats supported the ruling, the three Republican justices dissented, writing that it “violates separation of powers by effectively placing responsibility for redistricting with the judicial branch, not the legislative branch as expressly provided in our constitution.”

  110. 110.

    Geminid

    Yesterday Politico put up a long article by Sabrina Rodriguez titled, “The GOP is gaining among Texas Hispanics. Women are leading the charge.”

    While Democrats still have an edge among Texas Hispanic voters, the 2020 election saw significant shifts in southern  border counties. For example, Starr County was won by Joe Biden 52-47, while in 2016 Hillary Clinton won it 79-19. Neighboring Zapata County was won by the Republican candidate for the first time since 1920.

    One factor may have been intensified voter outreach, by women:

            For so long people here never had Republicans knocking on their doors and calling in the way we did in 2020. The majority of us are women that did it then and are doing it now,” said Maya Florez, a leading candidate [for one of the area’s Congressional seats].

    Women are Republican party chairs in the four southenmost border counties.

    The RNC has 20 paid organizers in South Texas, and has set up four community centers in cities like Laredo and San Antonio:

      …not your traditional political offices but as places to hold workshops, have movie nights and engage with the community for more than just political events.

  113. 113.

    Another Scott

    @sdhays: A President having pardon powers is good – the courts make mistakes and there needs to be a remedy available – but how to constrain it to minimize abuse is a hard problem.

    I was a teenager at the time.  Ford’s arguments for a pardon weren’t totally laughable, but the next step wasn’t taken.  If the courts and a trial and the press would have “torn the country apart”, then the procedures in the courts (or the Congress) for a trial of a President should be revised.  Just letting one guy (or gal) decide that the previous guy is protected from trial and conviction just because people would get upset is not part of a sensible system of laws.

    And, of course, the infamous OLC Memo needs to be rebuked and replaced with a sensible procedure for indictment as well.

    It’s not surprising that we’re still in this no-man’s-land about Presidential accountability when nothing sensible has been done to codify the limits and procedures.  We don’t know how a trial of Nixon would have gone, and the results (he could have been acquitted for all we know), but at least it would have been done under a system of laws.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  114. 114.

    OldDave

    It took me way too long to realize Ozark meant transformer when he typed transmitter.  At least if we’re still discussing electrical power distribution.

  116. 116.

    James E Powell

    @Soprano2:

    The FTFNYT never needed any pressure to run anti-Clinton stories. Every rumor published as fact, every Republican claim assumed to be true.

  118. 118.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Amir Khalid:

    A headline on the CNN website described the +467,000 jobs report as “shocking” — as though it were a calamity for Biden and his administration, rather than good news. 

    People can pay their bills and buy food.  The! Horror!

  119. 119.

    JoyHC

    That Comey interview was in 2021. It found new life on Twitter recently and people seem to be retweeting it and reacting as if it is new.

  120. 120.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: This is not a surprise to me. I figured eventually Hispanics would start to see themselves as “white”, and vote accordingly. This is a never-ending phenomenon that we have to constantly work on. For one thing, Democrats need to be better at realizing that immigration isn’t the only issue Hispanics care about. I know many of them do, but too many still think Hispanics are a monolithic group who only care about one issue. Having “outreach centers” where people can socialize sounds like something Democrats would do!

  122. 122.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: I took my sons to see Norman Blake play at a small Maplewood playhouse, held maybe a hundred people. Norman always put on a really good show and the small venue only made it better. Until my rather bored youngest stuck a paper clip he found on the floor into the outlet next him.

    A real show stopper.

  123. 123.

    Chris T.

    @satby:

    Plus refusing to move a lot of overhead lines underground has cost billions in wildfires out west.

    Yes, well, that one’s a question of who pays. Cui bono? As long as PG&E doesn’t pay for the fires, why should they pay for undergrounding lines?

    (This is why forcing the power distribution co to pay for the fires is important.)

  124. 124.

    JoyHC

    @Baud: yeah, I’ve learned to always check the date. Same thing with Jimmy Carter’s comment about the Russian’s helping Trump. I think that article was 2019.

  125. 125.

    hueyplong

    This Comey nonsense is yet another sign that the public hearings are going to be brutal on Trump.

    It is a sign of nothing more to the 99.9% of the country that thinks Comey has no credibility on any subject.

  128. 128.

    chris

    @OzarkHillbilly: Old co-op boy here…They get access to extremely cheap $ from uncle sam via the USDA (RUS rural utility service) and that whole paying back your profits 20 years later (your dividend check) with no interest is also very helpful..

  131. 131.

    Soprano2

    @James E Powell: But I’m not talking about just the NY Times – I’m talking about all of it, NYT, WaPo, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS,  NPR, all of the other big city papers, and so on. Without Fox News and conservative talk radio constantly pushing it, what happened at Benghazi would have been a minor news story at best. Or look at birtherism. Without conservative media, it never would have been reported on in the mainstream press in any way other than being a joke. They have an effect on how all the other press reports on stuff-  it’s one reason, I think, why we hear so much Republican framing of questions and issues.

  133. 133.

    Soprano2

    @The Moar You Know: I’ve heard that too, but it’s not true, and we all know it. The “tell” is how even extreme conservative viewpoints are reported on as if they’re somewhat serious, while extreme liberal viewpoints never even get reported on except as an example of how extreme “the left” is. I don’t agree with a lot of the extreme left views, but they should be reported as as seriously as the Tea Party was reported on.

  134. 134.

    Soprano2

    @The Moar You Know: I follow Amanda Marcotte on Twitter. Last week she wrote a piece about how liberals used to be the “fun, cool” people, but now they’re a bunch of doomscrolling downers who are constantly moaning about how awful everything is. Now that’s an exaggeration, but there’s a grain of truth there. If you make everything seem bad, who is going to want to follow you or vote for you?

  135. 135.

    cain

    @satby:I think they are implying that they had no idea it was so bad .. that 400k people were unemployed! The economy was worse than reported!​​

  136. 136.

    Brachiator

    @Soprano2:

     I wish a wealthy Democrat would found a cable news network to do that for us.

    Why? Fox News and other Murdoch properties push lies, not just their own talking points. The same is true of other right wing media.

    This is what you want?

    A left or progressive publication will look weak and flabby by comparison to right wing media if it doesn’t go all the way on political bullshit.

  139. 139.

    cain

    @NotMax: imagine if Texas lost power during the super bowl .. that would be a real political blunder that people will not soon forget.

  143. 143.

    Central Planning

    @Baud: Agreed. We’ve been trying to watch on the NBC app and it totally sucks.

    I’m probably going to complain on twitter and threaten to take my business elsewhere.

  144. 144.

    satby

    @Soprano2: no generator, and no water because no pump without electricity. I did have a gas stove though, so I could cook and keep one room warm from that. The rest of the house got down to around 49-50° though. Couple of jugs of water because I buy distilled for the coffee pot.

    Being a tough beyotch has it’s advantages, but I miss electricity when I don’t have it.

  146. 146.

    Matt McIrvin

    @The Moar You Know: Republicans making headway among Hispanics is bad for the Democratic Party and for our policy agenda, but not necessarily bad in a larger historical sense–it means those Republicans aren’t doubling down on ethnically cleansing the US of Hispanics. Of course there’s always the old trick of mobilizing the last group of immigrants against the next ones and against African-Americans.

  148. 148.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kay:

    This will be front page news for months given the intense interest in records retention and storage among national political media.

    You know, it’s a good thing I was only eating oatmeal at the time I read this, rather than drinking my coffee, because at least oatmeal isn’t going to go up my nose.

  149. 149.

    Soprano2

    @Brachiator: No, of course I don’t want them pushing lies. I want them pushing the truth about the good things Democrats do, to make it easier for that stuff to break through the constant Republican framing of issues and use of Republican talking points in questions and punditry. The “puke funnel” is a real thing, and we’re constantly swimming upstream against it. I want them to make it easier for us to fight back.

  150. 150.

    Soprano2

    @zhena gogolia: Sure, but you know exactly what she means. We see it on this very blog – everything is bad, Biden and Democrats are doomed no matter what we do, and so on. Every good bit of news is met with the bad “spin”, it’s very dispiriting, and who wants to follow people who are constantly telling you that you’re screwed no matter what you do? Might as well give up, right? *rolleyes

  152. 152.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    If Comey wants to volunteer as tribute to keep Trump out of jail, I’d consider it.

    I’d be OK with that, as long as once Comey is behind bars (or whatever/wherever) Garland (or equiv) reveals he had his “fingers crossed behind my back” when he agreed to those terms, and TFG is still going to get prosecuted for violation of various laws and statutes, up to and including Treason.

  153. 153.

    Soprano2

    @satby: The no water thing does really suck, at least we didn’t have that! That’s one of the less “romantic” things about living in the country.

  157. 157.

    Torrey

    It annoys the hell out of me when people like Comey are allowed to comment in generalities (“not in the best interests of the entire nation”) and can get away without explaining exactly why something isn’t in the best interests of the nation, in detail and with specifics.

    (Actually, now I think of it, I could have just stopped that sentence after “comment.” Or, better yet, after “allowed.”)

  158. 158.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Well, some of what’s going on here is probably that many of these people identify as white–“whiteness” as a concept tends to expand to the degree that it can retain political power while continuing to divide people and especially mobilize them against Black Americans, a process that’s been going on for a long time. And that is not good.

    But it does at least mean that the Republicans in these areas have an incentive to attract/retain these people instead of going for suppression or elimination.

  159. 159.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @The Moar You Know: My RW brother seems to have a list of publications he won’t read…those that don’t tell him what he craves to hear (libtard this Hunter Biden libtard that Hunter Biden). I made his head explode when I told him I don’t read the FTFNYT either and if he thought it was a liberal rag, BWAHAHAHAHA. Fool.

  160. 160.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    Scoop: National Archives last month had to retrieve boxes of Trump WH records from Mar-a-Lago that were improperly removed from the WH.

    Improperly? Or illegally?

    Trump certainly has no shame.

  162. 162.

    lowtechcyclist

    @sab: We tried that pardon thing in my youth, and all it didn’t help. Ford/Nixon.  Everyone was angry. Their guys thought a pardon was a full exoneration ( proves they did nothing wrong!) and our side thought (proves there are no penalties for bad behavior if you are well-connected.)

    I don’t recall very many people being angry.  Nixon had resigned in disgrace, ahead of almost certain impeachment and removal. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, etc. were indicted and (when Ford pardoned Nixon) almost certainly going to prison (which they did).  We were deep into the economic crisis that the Arab oil embargo had kicked off, and that was more front and center by the time of the pardon.  We’d never had an instance of a President, present or former, being tried for crimes, and opinion seemed to be divided, even among people on the left side of the political spectrum, as to whether we’d already done enough.  My recollection is that Tip O’Neill said the pardon was the right thing.

    And since everyone involved in Watergate except for Nixon went to prison, it didn’t seem like a case of well-connected people avoiding consequences.  That didn’t really happen until Iran-Contra, when Bush the Elder pardoned everyone on his way out the door.  IMHO, that’s when the switch really got flipped: nobody involved in the high crimes of any Administration since has paid more than a trivial price.

  164. 164.

    Geminid

    @The Moar You Know: The Politico article cited analysis by Democratic voter data firm Catalist showing an 11% decline in Democritic voting among Nevada Latinas from 2016 to 2020, compared to a 6% decline among Latino men there.

    Politico had a very good article right around the 2020 election, about outreach in Arizona by a coalition of Latino unions and community groups. The title (I believe) was “Inside the campaign to turn out the Latino vote- and turn Arizona Blue.” It was a good and encouraging article. One thing the organizers emphasized was the importance of in-person, door to door outreach.

    That and today’s article were both worth reading, I thought. One obvious lesson is that Democrats cannot take any group of people for granted. Another would be that there are astute people within these groups that know how to reach out to them, and that all those people are not neccesarily Democrats.

  167. 167.

    laura

     

    @Chris T.:  The PG&E ratepayers did pay for under grounding and they paid for maintainence of the powerlines and generating facilities- but here’s the thing, PG&E did not perform the work of under grounding and they did not always do the work of maintenance and they sold off their generating capacity in a fire sale and when it all blew up in the Grand Enroning of the late last century, PG&E built a ring fence around the profits and spun off a fresh new PG&E Corp that had distribution, no access to the moneys and left the very same ratepayers with new and higher rates for service and still little of the maintenance and upgrades they’d been paying for and hadn’t received and then came the fires. I have zero respect for PG&E as a going concern – they stole all the golden eggs and then they killed the goose.

  168. 168.

    Kay

    raf bardigang cadet
    @rafaelshimunov
    Your free thinking hero Joe Rogan and his misogynistic tirade against an expert caller who calmly tried to correct a fake story he fell victim to.

    Screaming at her, yelling over her, never lets her finish a single response, calls her “stupid” over and over, then after they cut her off, Rogan and the guest imitate a woman saying “oooh, I have a vagina”

    I think what set him off is she laughed at him.

  169. 169.

    JanieM

    @Kay: (Disclaimer: I haven’t read the whole thread, so maybe this has been addressed.)

    But I have been wondering, and this makes me wonder even more: Are they going to take down several hundred more of his podcasts because of the blatant misogyny? And how many of his shows will be left after that? (Serious question, I have paid as little attention to his existence as possible.) Or … does it not matter when it’s women?

  171. 171.

    Brachiator

    @Soprano2:

    I want them to make it easier for us to fight back.

    Might be nice, but they don’t seem to care. Not that they really have to. Democrats need to move on.

    During BREXIT I saw that some of the major newspapers in the UK have long been biased in favor of The Establishment, and the Tories. They smeared the hell out of Corbyn. But this is what they do. People will choose newspapers which fit their biases, longstanding tradition.

    It is unfortunate, but there is no easy solution.

  173. 173.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: Hillary Clinton revealed the true selves of a lot of people.

    She revealed her own true self too: “Henry Kissinger is a friend of mine.”  She said that on Morning Edition in the summer of 2014.

    I supported her anyway, in both the primaries and the general election in 2016, because regardless of her friendship with a war criminal, Bernie Sanders was not fit to be President and would have lost worse than Hillary did, and of course I expected Trump to be a disaster as President (and he managed to be way worse than my expectations).

    But now that that election is well behind us, I do not have to pretend to think well of her anymore.

  175. 175.

    geg6

    @Another Scott:

    Ford’s arguments for a pardon weren’t totally laughable, but the next step wasn’t taken. If the courts and a trial and the press would have “torn the country apart”

    Beg to disagree.  Ford’s arguments for a pardon were the most laughable bullshit I’ve ever seen.  I liked his wife a lot, but Ford was a piece of absolute garbage and deserves all the mockery and anger he gets for all eternity.​

  178. 178.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Soprano2: I figured eventually Hispanics would start to see themselves as “white”, and vote accordingly.

    Hispanics remind me of Italian Americans (of which I am one) from several generations back – a socially marginalized group that once “godfathered” into respectability is “more Catholic than the Pope.”  (On that note, when Latin Americans abandon Catholicism they are more likely to end up in fundangelical sects than in more mainline denominations, or less churchly belief [or non-belief] systems).

    There is a reason that some years back the Bushes (Jeb and W) pushed very hard for a deal on immigration – they believed that once the issue was defused the Hispanic vote would (like gli italoamericani) become reliably GOP. I don’t think they were wrong about this. It’s the major reason I hesitate to contribute to Hispanic electoral outreach programs – I suspect that any increase in turnout among them is unlikely to do us Democrats much good, and may actually harm our prospects. (YMMV)

  179. 179.

    Chris T.

    @laura:

    The PG&E ratepayers did pay for under grounding

    Well, some did, in some locations. In particular Rockridge customers were paying for this in the 1990s. And then as you said PG&E stole all the money (legally of course).

    But this was a voluntary collection that Rockridge customers had agreed to. If PG&E had to pay for the fires they start—which is starting to happen—they’ll find a way to avoid starting fires when that’s expensive. Right now that’s “turn off customer power when it’s windy”, but eventually it will be “raise rates”.

  180. 180.

    geg6

    @lowtechcyclist: ​
     

    I don’t recall very many people being angry.

    You obviously weren’t anywhere near where I was. Lots and lots and lots of anger in my parents’ and all their friends’ houses. Pretty much everyone I ever knew up to that point was pissed off as hell about it.

  181. 181.

    Geminid

    @Baud: A January 31 story reported by Atlanta TV station “11Alive”:

    “Fani Willis, Fulton County DA, requests FBI security after comments by Trump.”

  182. 182.

    lowtechcyclist

    @VOR: IMHO a court case dealing in facts is the only conceivable way to get the truth thru to MAGAts.

    We had sixty of those in the wake of the 2020 election, and if it got through to more than a statistically insignificant handful of them, I’d be surprised.

    But court cases are the only way to mete out real consequences. We need to re-establish the notion that lawbreakers in high places can be convicted and imprisoned, and until it happens, nobody of importance will believe there will be any price to pay for crimes the next time.

    That’s why we’ve got to do this, even if it doesn’t convince a single MAGAt.

  183. 183.

    Kay

    @JanieM:

    I don’t care what Spotify does with the product they bought. I just don’t think most people knew how horrible he is and now maybe they will.

    Andrew Sullivan says the person you are listening to in that clip is the “best interviewer in America”. He wouldn’t let the caller speak at all. When she tried he yelled insults over her. Her laughing and him really dialing up the rage is interesting, though, huh? A lot of women will recognize that.

  187. 187.

    satby

    @laura: (blushes) ☺ gee, thanks!

    @Soprano2: a different time in the summer, a neighbor and I did a water run for a group of folks on our road, so that we could occasionally flush our toilets. But, no option to try to save food outside because it was warm. So, net loss overall.

    I don’t miss living in a rural area at all, tbh. Edit: and the power is back!

  188. 188.

    Brachiator

    @Geminid:

    Politico had a very good article right around the 2020 election, about outreach in Arizona by a coalition of Latino unions and community groups.

    This is good. But Hispanics are not a monolith.  Many don’t care about unions or see them as an answer. Community groups may or may not be seen as helpful.

    Democrats have to do the groundwork of finding out what various segments of Hispanic communities see as issues, rather than offer prepackaged solutions.

  189. 189.

    trollhattan

    @Kay: And yet people say he isn’t worth a hundred-mil. Why, talent doesn’t come along every day.

    I’m being told talent like that comes along every few minutes.

  190. 190.

    lowtechcyclist

    @geg6: You obviously weren’t anywhere near where I was. Lots and lots and lots of anger in my parents’ and all their friends’ houses. Pretty much everyone I ever knew up to that point was pissed off as hell about it.

    I was in college at the time, and I don’t remember anybody being agitated about it.  OTOH, I remember that they had a lot more people taking Econ 101 than they’d had in years.

    By the time I was back at my parents’ house, it was Thanksgiving and the world had moved on.

    I still don’t feel strongly about the pardon.  However, I strongly believe that Congress should have impeached and convicted him even after his resignation.  The votes in both houses would have been overwhelming, and would have forever ended the bullshit about how the Democrats hounded him from office.

  191. 191.

    Geminid

    @Kay: Rogan’s just a gullible, loquacious meathead. But Sullivan is not the only person who knows better that is coming to Rogan’s defense, including some on the “Left.” This is an expressionn of negative polarization. Those people see liberals bashing Rogan, and want to defend him on the principle, “the enemy of my enemies is my friend.”

  192. 192.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kay:

    Dear gods. I clicked through and listened to that, and now that my eardrums have stopped bleeding, I just want to know: Why is Joe Rogan?

  195. 195.

    Geminid

    @Brachiator: I think these groups were doing the groundwork you speak of. It sounded like about as close to grass roots organizing as we’re going to get. I expect those folks have a good idea of the issues their communities care about. It seems to me that the key is to make people believe that Democrats can deliver on those issues. That voting is worthwhile.

  198. 198.

    Brachiator

    @Geminid:

    I think these groups were doing the groundwork you speak of. It sounded like about as close to grass roots organizing as we’re going to get. I expect those folks have a good idea of the issues their communities care about.

    It depends and varies. There continue to be stories about how some of the outreach to Hispanic and Asian American communities is spotty and often misguided.

  199. 199.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    Spotify purchased Joe Rogan and they can do anything they want with his episodes, incuding pulling them. I don’t care what Spotify does with the wildly expensive garbage they purchase.

    But Rogan’s defenders on the Right and Left are insisting they’re defending the “marginalized voices” Rogan promotes, rather than Rogan himself. That defense falls apart when it’s Rogan himself speaking, as in this clip and others.

  200. 200.

    Geminid

    @Brachiator: The Politico article was titled “Inside the machine to turn out Arizona Latinos- and flip the state blue,” by Laura Barron-Lopez, November 1, 2020. The author just listened to people explain what they were doing and why they did it, and no claims were made as to efficacy or wider application. It’s still good as a stand-alone story, but a follow up article would have been nice. I guess Politico had more current stories for Ms. Barron-Lopez to follow.

  201. 201.

    Brachiator

    @Geminid:

    The Politico article was titled “Inside the machine to turn out Arizona Latinos- and flip the state blue,” by Laura Barron-Lopez, November 1, 2020.

    November 1, 2020? Before the election? Yeah, a follow-up might be interesting.

  202. 202.

    Geminid

    @Brachiator: I’d like to see Politico send Barron-Lopez back to interview these people, and find out what they have been doing since 2020. I expect they are working to reelect Mark Kelly, and put Governor candidate Katie Hobbs and others into office.

    As reported by Barron-Lopez, the efforts by groups making up the “MiAZ” coalition were substantial. One group, La Lucha, had knocked on 70,000 doors, while Unite Here, a hospitality industry union group, said they had visited 500,000 households. Until the last month of the campaign, the Democratic party discouraged door to door canvassing. These independent groups judged that in-person campaigning was a vital tool to reach their community and did what they believed was necessary.

  204. 204.

    TerryC

    @Soprano2: we have our new full-house automatic generator sitting outside waiting for the install ?. We live in the country and always lose water, too, when the power goes.

  205. 205.

    Brachiator

    @Geminid:

    Until the last month of the campaign, the Democratic party discouraged door to door canvassing. These independent groups judged that in-person campaigning was a vital tool to reach their community and did what they believed was necessary.

    Interesting. For some people, in-person campaigning makes them feel that the politicians really are interested in them.

    You can also vary the message. You can send an English language or Spanish language mailer to a household, but you can’t be certain that it will reach the right person.

  207. 207.

    Ancient Atheist

    James Comey gave an interview on BBC and we are not pleased. The crimes of 2016 were not just Trump’s. The entire Republican Party was awash with illegal Russian money. Since then, they have done everything they can to undermine our democracy. Their attempted coup failed; but they will be back.

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