.
In the spirit of staying upbeat for the new day, here’s the new National Legal Director of the ACLU, David Cole, on “The Way to Stop Trump“:
… There is no question that President Trump will be a disaster—if we let him. But the more important point is that—as the fate of American democracy in the years after 9/11 has taught us—we can and must stop him… [I]f we now and for the next four years insist that he honor our most fundamental constitutional values, including equality, human dignity, fair process, privacy, and the rule of law, and if we organize and advocate in defense of those principles, he can and will be contained. It won’t happen overnight. There will be many protracted struggles. The important thing to bear in mind is that if we fight, we can prevail.
If you think this is overly naive, consider the fate of George Bush’s “war on terror.” In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush acted as if he were entirely unconstrained. He had reason to think that he could get away with it. His popularity soared to its highest level. The Supreme Court had just voted to put him in office. He had a solid Republican majority in the House of Representatives, and the Democrats had only a razor-thin majority in the Senate (thanks to Senator James Jeffords’s decision in June 2001 to switch from Republican to Independent, and to caucus with the Democrats)…
For much of his first term, Bush did indeed get away with such tactics. But much to his dismay, Americans did not sit back and accept that the executive was above the law. As I describe in my recent book, Engines of Liberty: The Power of Citizen Activists to Make Constitutional Law, they protested, filed lawsuits, wrote human rights reports, lobbied foreign audiences and governments to bring pressure to bear on the United States, leaked classified documents, and broadly condemned the administration’s actions as violations of fundamental constitutional and human rights. Human Rights First organized retired generals and admirals; the Center for Constitutional Rights and Reprieve, aided by an army of pro-bono lawyers, brought the plight of Guantanamo detainees to the world’s attention; the Bill of Rights Defense Committee sparked a grassroots protest through local referenda on the Patriot Act; and the ACLU used the Freedom of Information Act to dislodge thousands of documents detailing the CIA’s torture program, which it and PEN American Center then disseminated in accessible form. The academy, the press, and the international community all joined in the condemnation.
As a result, the course of history changed. By the time Bush left office in 2009, he had released more than five hundred of the detainees from Guantanamo, emptied out the CIA’s secret prisons, halted the CIA interrogation program and extraordinary renditions, and placed the NSA’s surveillance program under judicial supervision. His claims of uncheckable executive power had been rejected, and the Geneva Conventions applied to all detainees…
So if Bush could be stopped, notwithstanding widespread popular support, a large-scale attack on US soil leading to a war footing, and a history of judicial and congressional acquiescence in similar prior periods, Trump is also stoppable. He doesn’t have anything like the popular support Bush had after 9/11. And the recent history of the repudiation of Bush’s abuses will make it harder to repeat them…
***********
Apart from preparing for the Resistance, what’s on the agenda as we (sorta) start the new week (year)?
OzarkHillbilly
It’s going to be a long 4 years.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Phylllis
@rikyrah: Good morning.
geg6
Ugh. Back to work after a 17 day break. Ugh.
RedDirtGirl
@geg6:
Yeah! Just spent 11 days on break and now it’s back to the grind. At least it’s a four-day week :)
Raven
I’ve had that same long break but working at home blurs the lines. My bride was to go to a training program in Rome, Ga for 2 days this week and turn around and go back all of the next week! It’s a 3,hour drive so coming home isn’t feasible.
Emma
Good morning all. Time to pick up our lives after a long break. I don’t think I am ready.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
BillinGlendaleCA
I’ve been taking an on-line Photoshop class, I’ve learned much. I’m still pissed that I didn’t get a good picture of the B-2 yesterday. Looks like I’m going to need to practice using auto-focus on moving objects.
Origuy
Thanks to one of my favorite websites, Atlas Obscura, I just found out that the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office has a souvenir store. The perfect gifts for someone on your list.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Origuy: They’ve had that store for years, interesting gifts.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: Try using a smaller aperture, it increases the depth of field, Of course that has the effect of slowing down the shutter speed too which, if the object you are trying to photograph is moving very fast will then blur. (a jet should be far enough a way that it’s relative speed would be lower) It’s a fine line to dance.
bemused
John’s house reno is interesting to watch and coming along pretty quickly no matter how long and tortured it must feel to John, imo. Could be a hell of a lot worse. I thoroughly endorse the kitchen faucet. We just, finally, switched out our decades old kitchen faucet for a faucet like John’s. Heaven. Best improvement in kitchen faucets ever. Wish we had done that a lot sooner but we, especially my spouse, doesn’t replace anything until it is falling apart, as long as it still works kind of guy.
evodevo
@Origuy: OMG. You couldn’t make this stuff up LOL
OzarkHillbilly
@bemused: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: I know that, the problem was that I probably was using the wrong auto-focus setting(I was using spot), and it wouldn’t lock on to the jet. It was probably closer that you might think it was, I’m guessing it was flying about 2000 feet(since I couldn’t see the top of the Verdugo Hills, it meant the ceiling was under 3000′) and was directly overhead. I was already challenged as far as shutter speed at f/5.6(maximum aperture at 200mm) and at ISO 400, since it was cloudy.
ETA: I’ll probably go to the busy street near here and practice with different auto-focus settings on trains and cars.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: I struggle with that with the redtail hawks that torment me.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: Cloudy days suck.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: I have this video photography class.The dude says “if you have a DSLR and you use auto you wasted your money”. Later he says “auto is correct 95% of the time”. What the fuck- over?
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I spent the first few months that I had the camera using it full manual(exposure and focus), now I’ll generally use the ‘Program mode’ and auto-focus. I’d agree that if you use “Auto mode” on a DSLR you’ve wasted your money, since you’re not capturing RAW. You could do just as well with a good point & shoot.
satby
Good morning all! I seem to have caught the nasty bug that’s going around, so if I can get through 5 hours of work today I will have 3 days to try to recover. My son is still here, which is nice because he helps with the critters, but he should hear today or this week if he’s going to get that contract job in Kentucky. If he doesn’t, I may have a roomie for a while ?
Baud
@satby: Feel better.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: @raven: @BillinGlendaleCA: So I’ll ask you guys: I also just signed up for a online Photoshop class, and was thinking of upgrading my camera, which is a good point and shoot, to a better model DSL. Any suggestions?
bystander
I have a confession. Despite months of not going anywhere near Moanin’ Joe, I turned it on today. In the few seconds I could,bear it, Joe was holding forth to his breathless audience to inform them that Joe noticed at dinner the other night (referencing his and Weaka’s pilgrimage for journalism to Mar a Lago) that He is much more calm, much more centered…and then I turned it off.
Oh yes, I’m sure Trump is just getting more presidentialer by the minute.
Anyhow, I deserve it.
satby
@Baud: thanks sweetie
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: You can shot RAW with everything else on auto, right?
satby
@bystander: stuff like that just demonstrates that Joe is in the propaganda business, not the news or even pundit business.
Baud
@bystander: Say three Hail Bauds! and you will be forgiven.
BillinGlendaleCA
@satby: If it’s the cold that’s been going around, it’s lasts a week(we’ve all had it here), get some rest.
debbie
@bystander:
Yeah, part of me was glad Glenn Beck was on vacation over the holidays so I wouldn’t feel obligated to listen and get pissed off.
raven
@satby: Try KEH, I bought my Canon T3i from them and am very happy.
BillinGlendaleCA
@satby: The kid got a Canon T6(18mp), seems like a pretty good camera. My camera is not a DSLR, it’s mirorless(Samsung and Sony). If you want something that works in Photoshop, get something(point & shot or DSLR) that shoots RAW. The other thing to consider is the sensor size, bigger is better.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: The kid got her’s at Costco(I think), $550 with 2 lens.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: I personally have seen little benefit from shooting raw except the ginormous file size.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Most of the (mirorless and DSLR’s) will have an “Auto Mode” that DOES NOT shoot RAW, they also have a “Program Mode” that does automate exposure and does shoot RAW.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yea, KEH sells used gear.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: You have alot more freedom in post and jpg’s have alot of compression. The camera does processing in it’s software to produce the jpg, but it’s more often than not suboptimal as far as what the image could look like. You can also correct for exposure problems and do bracketing in post.
bystander
@Baud: All Hail Baud! and I’m sticking with New Scandinavian Cuisine in the future.
satby
@raven: @BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks! I’ll take a look.
Central Planning
@Raven: 3 hours is certainly feasible. I regularly make a 3-hour trip (one-way) for work. Sometimes I’ll do it there and back in a day, but that makes for a long day, especially when leaving at 6am.
Patricia Kayden
@geg6: Me too. Sigh.
@OzarkHillbilly: The fox is guarding the henhouse, so to speak. Scandalous times ahead.
Central Planning
@Raven: To late to add, but the IRS rate for mileage reimbursement is 53.5 cents/mile for personal vehicle used for business.
Kay
I’m a liberal and I (literally) go further Left each year I get older, but this approach is just wrong-headed:
The most important position in the Party right now will be if they can elect a governor.
You can’t be a grassroots, state and local centered Party and spend all your time on the national Party.
They don’t need permission or validation to pull the Party Left. The way to pull the Party left is to win elections with liberal candidates. Specifically, OH, MI and WI because that was the claim- that centrist Democrats lost those. If liberals get them back there won’t be any more discussion of whether or not the Party should go Left. It will have gone Left. A Fact On The Ground.
It’s a shame because there seems to be some energy on the Left of the Party – Sanders had a lot of supporters- but they can’t get off this bizarre signalling and demanding validation. They can’t just get on with it– they seem to need recognition or validation or some stab in the back story and that just doesn’t mean anything in real life. The focus on DC will kill them but God almighty you cannot tear Democrats of ANY stripe or ideology or faction away from it.
.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m not up on the latest developments in autofocus technology, but I think fast action is the one place where you need to turn it off and focus manually.
For an airplane in flight, couldn’t you just set the focus to the maximum distance and fire away?
sunny raines
not to be pessimistic, but there really is no comparison of bush-the-lessor and trump. bush was/is a stupid frat-boy, but at times he was vulnerable to the kinds of pressures mentioned, and his family is mainstream. trump is a soulless, psychotic, extreme narcissist. There will not be any appealing to him – there is nothing there in trump except vile disgusting evil.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack (tablet): It probably would have worked better in hindsight; I’m going to try active auto-focus on trains and cars and see how that does. I tried manual focus last year, to varying degrees of success.
Baud
@Kay:
I assume this is bullshit.
Agree on all other points. How the DNC chair got to be the center of the party is bizzare.
Kay
@sunny raines:
Too, Trump is enticing the GOP with all kinds of goodies, because Trump doesn’t have any real opinions. He’s buying them off and they’re more than willing to be bought. He got Jeb Bush onboard with one nomination- he chose Bush’s education secretary. Bush is thrilled and all the nonsense about ethics and principles went out the window.
There’s this crazy assumption that Trump “believes” something and that will lead to some kind of push/pull in Congress. He’ll give them what they want and they’ll give him what he wants. It’s already happening.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: That’s true, as long as Trump doesn’t step on Congress’s toes; and he will.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Some of my camera habits are still rooted in the fact that I started with a Yashica 120 way back in the Bronze Age. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not.
Kay
@BillinGlendaleCA:
THEY have priorities. He doesn’t. They’ll give him free rein as long as their priorities are met. I just watched Jeb Bush fold completely – Bush happily traded away all his Principled Conservative positions for a privatizing ed secretary.
This is an ethics-free environment.
rikyrah
Life in Obamacare’s Dead Zone
Excluded from the Affordable Care Act because of
politics, thousands of poor Americans grapple with the
toll — physical and psychological — of being uninsured.
By INARA VERZEMNIEKS
DEC. 6, 2016
No one should have to live like this.
And, this is what the the Republicans want us to go back to.
They couldn’t take one vote on the Jobs Bill.
But, they voted to repeal Obamacare over 50 times.
This woman’s story. Multiply it by millions. The human destruction that will follow.
That is what they will do.
It’s why we have to fight.
Spanky
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll alert Homeland Security.
Feels more like coming off a 4-day weekend here, mostly because I worked T-W-Th last week. Or at least I was at work. Not a whole lot going on, but we were open, so no sense wasting vacation days. I spent a couple anyway on the Fridays before the holiday eves.
Kay
@BillinGlendaleCA:
You’ve already seen it with business leaders. Carrier was blunt – they wanted a regulation-free environment and tax breaks. They got that and Trump got them to campaign for him. This idea that these people are all going to become more principled as Trump gives them more and more of what they want is insane. It goes the other way.
GrandJury
There is reason for optimism, albeit for all the wrong reasons. He is historically unpopular for an incoming prez. He does not have a supermajority like Reagan did. Once people get a look at good look what a disaster he is for real then his unpopularity will only get worse.
We can just sit back and remind Repubs that “he does not have a mandate to govern”. That is the same bullshit they always throw at us even when Obama got more than 50% of the vote.
Spanky
@Baud:
The article heavily sources Politico and the NYT. ’nuff said.
raven
@Central Planning: It would be a nightmare going from Athens to Rome around the topside of Atlanta.
Emma
@satby: If it is your first time with a DSL try used equipment and look for one labeled “enthusiast.” It has enough bells and whistles and it’s a good entry point. On the other hand, I had to “downsize” due to arthritis in my hands and shoulders and find the NIKON megazooms to be great. I don’t fiddle with lenses but they have the RAW capability when I want to use it. Limited options, but fine for garden and flower photography.
Botsplainer
Let me repeat my mantra – don’t ascribe “thought”, “planning” or “strategy” to anything Trump does. He’s a racist idiot, but one born to significant, extravagant resources such that resulted in him being surrounded with fawning “yes” men throughout life. Every whim was indulged and every fleeting opinion validated. Every failure got smoothed over and excused.
And rather than go the usual trust fund route, he went into real estate so that he could make colossal mistakes.
Along the way, he absorbed some lesson that he could renegotiate after work was done or supplies delivered, so he became “that fuckin’ guy” (in the parlance of dirt lawyers) in the construction trade.
Failure and self-delusion about his business acumen is what he is – the core of his being. As last night’s Korea and China tweets demonstrate, he doesn’t have a clue about what he doesn’t know. His catastrophic foreign adventure early in his presidency is very likely to cut short the family grift, and I can readily see a war crimes trial in his near future. Any juicers who live in DC, lower Manhattan, central Missouri to Southern Illinois, Charleston SC or the vicinity of Malmstrom would do well to come up with some sort of personal evacuation and family/friends contact plan, to be kept on hand, on paper.
Spanky
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m kinda curious myself just what is being discussed when Pence goes up to Congress to discuss 2017 strategery. I’m guessing there’s been some talk about an “exit strategy”. There will come a time when Trump will try to steamroll the House and Senate, and everyone knows he’ll go too far.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I saw that article too, plus an article at Vox about how the Ellison vs. Perez contest has needlessly become a proxy Sandersite vs Clintonite scrap. Couldn’t agree more about the uselessness of the focus on the DNC. Might do a post about that later if I have time, unless you’re planning one.
Jeffro
@bystander: re: Scarborough on Trump
Um sure, Joe, absolutely. Hey that warm, wet feeling on my leg…that’s rain, right?
JMG
In 2009, when the Republicans were in much worse shape than the Democrats are now, did anyone notice a big fight over who was to be chairman of their national committee? Of course not, because that’s not where opposition centers. Schumer and Pelosi are the party’s leaders now for better or worse. Either Ellison or Perez would be a good choice. Maybe they should just cut cards for it to end this stupid bickering.
magurakurin
@Baud:
I’m pretty sure Barack Obama is going to be the center of the party once he gets going as a “private citizen.” They are dreaming thinking that the DNC Chair is some position of great power or influence. It’s all just silly.
Jeffro
@rikyrah:
I’m looking for the first D member of Congress who’ll ask one very simple question: why are we even talking about repealing Obamacare, again? 20M people with health insurance. The cost curve bent (and bent hard) for the first time in decades. No replacement plan in sight. Why o why would we even think about changing it, other than to make it even better?
Could it possibly have something to do with taxes on high earners that help pay for it? Hmm…it would be irresponsible not to speculate RIGHT THE HELL OUT LOUD. Let’s have at it, Chuck & Nancy.
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: Waves from New Mexico! Hope you recover quickly. Ms. O sends her greetings too.
Another Scott
@satby: It really depends on your budget. Bigger sensors are better (all things being equal) because they collect more light (and photography is all about light), but smaller sensors are much cheaper and smaller sensors enable much longer effective zoom with more compact lenses at much lower costs.
I had a Canon SLR years ago with ~ 4 lenses, but it was heavy and I couldn’t afford low-f# lenses.
I’m a big fan of “super zoom” P&S cameras now – they’re kinda amazing. J just got one of these for XMax. It’s a neat little box for not a lot of money. (She previously had a gray-market Casio that she loved, but spilled some lemonade on the zoom dial and the motion got sticky and it never worked right afterwards.)
If you really want a DSLR-like thing, (IMHO), the best compromise is still in the APS-C class camera range (rather than a full-frame or a mirrorless) – but you’ll get dozens of different opinions about that. Get a “kit” with a lens or two and experiment. Look at reviews at B&H and Amazon and DPReview and consider things like battery life (you may need multiple batteries). If you’re thinking about something for photos for your store, maybe think about additional lighting. Maybe something like this (haven’t tried it myself).
Bill’s comments about shooting RAW are spot on – it’s almost required if you want maximum flexibility in Photoshop. But note that RAW is slower to store than just normal JPEG shooting, and the file sizes are much bigger (so you may need additional memory cards).
I’m no expert, but try to keep up with this stuff a little. :-)
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
FlipYrWhig
@JMG: But then how will Sandersites get the thrill of feeling like they’re being stabbed in the back by THE ESTABLISHMENT, which is pretty much all they live for?
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Totally agreed. I’m excited about the infusion of energy into the Santa Fe County Democratic Party. We’re gearing up for legislative issues (we recaptured the State House in 2016) and for the 2018 gubernatorial election. I’m running for ward chair, a first ever for me. I know of other good people who are getting involved in their districts as well. Together we can make a difference locally and push that change upward to the state and national levels (not the other way around, as the stupid media seem to imply).
rikyrah
@sunny raines:
Nothing but the truth.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah:
AMEN!
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Is there some trick to turning on the comments with the new(er) system? When I do a test the comments are off and even if I hit the “comments on” box they stay off.
rikyrah
If It’s Not Treason, What Do We Call It?
by David Atkins
January 1, 2017 5:39 PM
When Donald Trump takes the oath of office, it will mark the third time in the last half century the United States has installed a Republican president who allegedly worked with a hostile foreign power to sabotage American interests and the sitting U.S. president, in order to get himself elected. Read that sentence again slowly and consider the implications.
In 1968, Republican candidate Richard Nixon worked behind the scenes to scuttle Vietnam peace talks. Nixon knew that if the incumbent president LBJ agreed to terms with the South Vietnamese government, the resulting peace would benefit not only American soldiers in danger but also his Democratic opponent Hubert Humphrey. So Nixon’s camp sent private messages to the South Vietnamese promising better terms if they waited until he was elected president. When LBJ learned of the sabotage, recordings show that he described it as treason. Nixon won the election, and the Vietnam War continued for years afterward.
…………………………………………….
In 2016, the entire American intelligence community, alongside private cyber-security firms, have been unanimous in accusing Russian intelligence services of hacking the private communications of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta–as well as over a dozen Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives. It was an electronic burglary of private campaign data that dwarfed the Watergate break-in by orders of magnitude. The resulting disproportionate media coverage of the released emails was crucial in helping to give Donald Trump a narrow electoral college victory, despite losing the popular vote by almost 3 million ballots.
We will not know the extent of the Trump campaign’s cooperation and involvement with this activity for months or even years. But we do already have some very disturbing facts. First and foremost, during his last press conference of the campaign Donald Trump explicitly asked Russia to hack 30,000 of Clinton’s emails (he later claimed to have only done it in jest.) There are reports that Russia has been cultivating Trump for years. There is the bizarre communication between a server in Trump tower and a Russian bank tied to the Kremlin that may or may not be innocent, but so far no one in the Trump organization has provided a credible explanation for it. Rather than condemn Russian interference in the election as it might have been wiser politically to do if he were the innocent beneficiary, Trump has taken the bizarre strategy of denying and minimizing it entirely. We know that Trump’s one-time campaign manager Paul Manafort worked for the Kremlin while living in Trump tower, and was only fired when the outrage over his Russian connections became too much to ignore. It’s possible that Trump is innocent in all this, but the preponderance of the evidence suggests otherwise.
SenyorDave
One thing to always remember is what I will call the Hastert Principle:
When you are dealing with a Republican politician on the national level, EVERY one of them is much worse than they seem. Hastert is a great example. On the surface a figurehead, hack Republican, in over his head. In reality a sick pervert.
Trump is scary because we already know he is a sociopathic sexual predator, racist, who can barely utter a single sentence without telling a lie. And he’s actually much worse than that. My personal guess is that Trump has at the very least raped multiple women, committed many felonies in his business dealings, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there literally are dead bodies in his skeleton closet.
I don’t see how any Democrats can think they can work with The GOP and trust them on anything.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Kay:
Yes, you can, and NCDP is getting started.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay:
THIS This this this-ity this-this.
Just win a fucking election, one you’re not expected to, in semi-hostile territory, and copycats will beat a path to your door.
rikyrah
@Kay:
First of all, this is absolute bullshyt.
I haven’t seen anyone doing anything underhanded.
I admit, I’m TeamPerez all the way. The man’s been on the RIGHT side of issues for pretty much his entire professional life. He’s always in the fight on the side of good.
And, I like what he’s presenting to Democrats for what’s important to him for the DNC.
I didn’t have anything personal against Ellison…but, the longer this has gone on, the more resistant that I have become to even remotely considering him for DNC Chair.
TeamPerez ALL THE WAY.
daveNYC
@BillinGlendaleCA: Chances are the autofocus didn’t work because you were pointing at a solid black object and autofocus likes to have some amount of contrast to work with.
To be clear, there are two stats that can come to mind when talking about sensor size. Resolution and actual physical sensor size. I’m a big fan of full frame cameras, but you’re talking real money to get one of those.
And shooting RAW is the way and the truth. I don’t get very complicated with the Photoshop, but just being able to tweak the exposure and fill lighting on the RAW is huge.
ArchTeryx
@rikyrah: Or they just want folks like me to die. “Poor and…” is basically a death sentence for anyone unlucky enough to be single and/or childless, and who happen to get sick.
I have my own story to tell about that, and it actually has nothing to do with me. I saw being uninsured cost someone their life directly, and cost his wife – a kind and very active artist in the convention circuit – her sight and her ability to work at all. She would have ended up homeless save for her sister (a Catholic nun) but the cost was her entire social circle. I haven’t heard anything from or about her in years.
It all went down a year before Michigan (finally) accepted the Medicaid expansion.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I did a post maybe a year and a half ago and the comments stayed off and there was all kinds of confusion until some nice front pager rescued me :)
So I don’t trust that they’ll be on if it says “on”
Denali
I am sorry, but Sanders was lucky that the Democratic Party accomodated him.
There is no question that the working class voters have deserted the Democratic Party. The Party needs to figure out to reach them. They need to get the message across that the Republicans are not working in their interests – just look at the billionaires selected for the Cabinet. Perez will be more appealing to them.
Kay
@rikyrah:
The writer admits Perez is a liberal but he sees some kind of devious intent there too- inciting a fight among liberals or something.
He puts a lot of weight on the fact that Ellison is Muslim, because Muslims are a targeted group under Trump, but isn’t a popularly elected Muslim member of Congress better for “signaling” (and actual power) than the head of the DNC?
It just reminds me of Howard Dean. They turned Howard Dean into this magic figure of “winning” and that just wasn’t true. I saw “the 50 state strategy”. There was nothing the slightest bit innovative or ground-breaking there.
You know who Democrats should hire to run organizing? The people who ran Fight for Fifteen. They are the best liberal organizers out there right now, by a mile. That was brilliant – they got an enormous amount of favorable press and they WON some battles at the local and state level. Hire them.
Yarrow
in terms of doing something, I saw this yesterday.
I’m up for a citizens impeachment!
FlipYrWhig
@Denali: If pissed-off white working-class voters want to vote for Republicans, it should be up to the Republicans to satisfy them. The Democratic Party can’t be responsible for solving everyone’s problems while the Republican Party does diddly-shit for anybody. I say we just do what we do and may God have mercy on the other side.
David Evans
@BillinGlendaleCA: Many cameras find it hard to autofocus on airplanes in flight. You might be better to use manual focus, and focus not on the plane but on a distant stationary object.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I feel like the fact they believe Ellison is better positioned as the head of the DNC than as an elected member of Congress is just typical of this wrong-headed thinking. They are willing to give up an elected liberal for this ridiculous signalling and validation. It’s like they’re creating a narrative rather than a political Party.
magurakurin
@Denali: funny how working class African-Americans and Latinos didn’t seem to have deserted the party. Or do you have to be white to be working class?
Joe Falco
Heard on the radio this morning that former Georgia governor, Sonny Perdue, is on the shortlist for Secretary of Agriculture. Given Sonny’s tendency to wear any kind of costume during his governorship, I would not mind so much if he had to show up on the job dressed in the same jester’s outfit I’m sure Trump would have required Christie to wear had he not been given the boot after the election.
germy shoemangler
Jaime Harrison is a candidate for DNC head.
Raymond Buckley is another candidate.
I don’t know enough about either of them to have an opinion.
If rikyrah is on team Perez, I’m leaning Perez. Simply because rikyrah is one of the commenters here who makes the most sense to me.
Anyone have any info on Harrison or Buckley? I haven’t seen much.
ArchTeryx
@FlipYrWhig: I’d rather they NOT let the entire safety net be torn to shreds. That will net them nothing except a mass casualty event among their own voting bases.
I really, really, REALLY don’t want to turn 2020 into a contest to see whose base has more deaths. It will, at best, led to demoralization on a scale not seen since the Civil War.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: They believe ideology precedes praxis, rather than the other way around. Or, to put it another way, they like being in charge but they _really_ don’t like earning it by besting competitors. They mostly just want to show up and be declared superior by acclamation.
Major Major Major Major
Yawn. Time to head back into the office, I suppose. Oh well. Good thing I don’t hate my job!
Over the weekend I started doing some reading for the new urban fantasy story I will be starting soon. Bumbled my way into a copy of Magic, Supernaturalism, and Religion, a general-audience survey of the history of the western occult by Kurt Seligmann of all people. (It’s got a bunch of very cool plates, as one would expect.) So I’ll be reading that on the train, as well as finishing Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang for a book club, which contains the short story that Arrival was based on. So far it’s good-but-not-great, though I really liked one of them, The Tower of Babylon. Oddly enough, my reading this coincided with having just finished the chapter on the Tower of Babel in the Seligmann.
Kay
@ArchTeryx:
I feel like that’s where we are, though. Elections have consequences and people have been somewhat sheltered from the consequences because we had two Parties and Democrats were protecting and expanding the safety net.
The reality is we just elected a one Party far Right government and there will be pain as a result of that.
I didn’t do this, I didn’t want it, but those are facts. There will be consequences. I can say “there should be consequences, they deserve it” or “there shouldn’t be, they don’t deserve it” and it doesn’t change what will happen.
raven
@Kay: I continue to hope they fuck the VA all up.
FlipYrWhig
@germy shoemangler: Perez and Ellison both seem like good guys to me. I have been _repulsed_ by the way that Perez has been treated by the so-called left, which has a habit of learning of the existence of something one day and then declaring it to be the most important litmus test that ever faced the American polity the next. They did the same thing to Tim Kaine, which was also foul. Fuck that.
Kathleen
@bystander: Be kind to yourself. Look at it as taking one for the Juicer Comment Team.
raven
Man the Y will be a zoo for the next month until the wannabes go away!
ArchTeryx
@Kay: Then let them own it completely. Don’t help them destroy millions of lives. Keep a death count. Whatever the hell it takes. Obstruction worked for them, why the hell shouldn’t it work for us – with millions of lives at stake?
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I just don’t know anyone at the local or state level who talks about, or listens to, the head of the DNC. There just isn’t this “support/validation/asking permission” thing going on. That isn’t how it works.
rikyrah
@satby:
Oh satby, feel better :)
Yarrow
@raven: It always is. The first three weeks are the worst. Gets a bit better by the fourth.
Spanky
@germy shoemangler: Back to mangling shoes, I see. Must be the change in seasons.
Kathleen
@magurakurin: Well, DWS singlehandedly denied Wilmer the nomination with her own diamond encrusted thanks to donations from eeebil corporations fingers. So there’s that.
Kay
@raven:
It’ll be impossible to tell if they fuck the VA all up because it will be privatized and fragmented. Big public agencies are an easy target because they’re big public agencies and they collect and publish data.
One of the things I like about Bernie Sanders is he called the VA Outrage as a deliberate campaign to privatize the VA. That’s what it was. This idea that private health care is somehow vastly superior is just bullshit.
germy shoemangler
@Kathleen: Fred Flintstone, yelling outside of his locked house: “Wilmer!!!”
Botsplainer
@Denali:
We can either have a 50 state strategy organized around centrism and incremental gains, or we can have an aggressive progressivism organized in urban blue strongholds.
We can’t have both.
The second strategy requires a major black swan to succeed, and is highly unlikely; it actually leads to major gains being undone.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: No shit. I go to a different gym, but the number of new faces you see in Jan-Feb is unreal.
Major Major Major Major
@Kay: Yeah, this is pretty much true. Anecdata here, but the huge Sanders fans I know who are getting involved in local party stuff now have been very disappointed to learn that it’s mostly registering voters in Oakland right now and fighting over land use. The only person I know who’s actually been happy to get his hands dirty doing the real work of a party is new to the whole political activism game since the election and pretty much only followed the primary by osmosis. So he knows that Hillary Clinton is an evil machine politician warmongering neoliberal shill, but he’s also amenable to learning the actual facts.
So, in summary, the hardcore Berners I know are completely uninterested in actually working with the party, but this guy is out there collecting signatures.
Yarrow
@Kay:
And EVERY time someone says something about it, say, “This is what the Republicans said they were going to do and now they’re doing it.” EVERY time. Pin it on them when you talk to anyone. Just keep linking together that this is what Republicans said they would do and the fact that it’s happening. Not everyone will hear you but some people will.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I would think the most important skill for a head of the DNC right now is “proven organizing ability” – that isn’t the most important skill as far as “the establishment”, fundraising is, but if that’s what we want to do then that’s who they should hire.
Neither of the candidates have proven organizing ability. So I don’t care which one gets it and “grass roots” liberals shouldn’t care either. It doesn’t matter.
germy shoemangler
@Gin & Tonic:
Gone in March…
rikyrah
@bystander:
That’s because his azz was busted by others in the Media for going there. He tried to get all huffy and puffy and indignant.
What you saw today was him trying to cover being busted.
daveNYC
@Kay: Elected member of Congress sounds good, but being a member of the House minority party means you have roughly zero power. Senators at least are a small group, and even minority Senators have some levers they can pull, but there’s way too many Congresscritters and the House is pretty straight up majority rule. Pelosi gets some love as the Minority Leader, but most everyone else is going to be off in ‘who fucking cares’ land.
Kathleen
@raven: Back in the 90’s we old timers called it “Amateur Hour”.
Major Major Major Major
@daveNYC: OK, so you’ve covered why Ellison as an individual might prefer being DNC head to being one in a sea of faces in the House, but, uh, there’s still the collective action problem where you need multiple people to have a majority.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: Hey, he just went there for *work*. How was he supposed to know there’d be a party going on?
Phylllis
@germy shoemangler: Jaime has been the South Carolina party chair for the past couple of years. He was Clyburn’s floor whip prior to that. I haven’t seen much from the SCDP since he took over, but in all fairness, a couple of years is hardly enough time to really build up any infrastructure here in Secessionville.
Botsplainer
@Gin & Tonic:
And gone by March 1…
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I don’t even see comments on or off as an option in the backroom posting template. Feel free to send me a screen shot at [email protected]; maybe we can sort it out!
Gin & Tonic
@daveNYC:
I guess the concept of providing services to the constituents who elected you is too old school to be cool?
Kathleen
@germy shoemangler: Also, sounds like that would be Fred Flintstone voiced by Jerry Springer, who as a WLWT news anchor referred to his co host Norma Rashid as “Normer”.
rikyrah
@Denali:
Lie Lie Lie
MUTHAPHUCKING LIE.
FIRST OF ALL…
The Black WORKING CLASS…
The Latino WORKING CLASS…
The Asian WORKING CLASS….
The Native WORKING CLASS…
HAVE NOT abandoned the Democratic Party.
Second of All..
In 2016….
Hillary Clinton WON a majority of the Archie Bunker vote.
It was NOT Archie Bunker who went for Cheeto Benito…
It was Archie’s College Educated Boss and his White Wife..
Yet, they are more than willing to push Archie out there as the ‘face’ of the Trump voter and scapegoat him.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Uh huh
Uh huh
Elizabelle
@rikyrah:
Agreed! Joining the rikyrah battalion. Go Tom!
rikyrah
@Kay:
Truth.
rikyrah
@ArchTeryx:
That’s how I feel.
There IS NO COMPROMISING WITH THEM.
PERIOD.
Spanky
@Kay: Meh. Just fire off an Open Thread and see what happens. No point hand wringing about it. If comments are off then at least you have a working thread to diagnose. (“You” may = “Alain”, though.)
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
And, be HOSTILE when you say it.
I have no patience for them.
I’m at the point where I’m like, ‘ What THE PHUCK did you think was going to happen? ‘
” They took over FIFTY VOTES to repeal Obamacare.
NONE on a JOBS BILL
But, FIFTY.
Who stopped them, each and everytime?
The Democrats!
But, both parties are the same…or some other bullshyt you use to coddle yourself for your stupidity.
Elections have consequences, muthaphucka.
Welcome to the Hunger Games.”
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Too true, at least in the blue North East most working class stiffs (white/black/latino etc etc) are Democrats. The Republicans are the wealthy who feel “oppressed” by the PC or so they say. I just think they are jerks and like to see people suffer. St. Sanders folks are the same way except you also get a dose of sanctimonious smug along with the stupid and mean.
germy shoemangler
@Spanky: When the wrist hurts (carpal tunnel) I don’t feel like typing out the whole nym
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: I fear that some people can only learn through a negative example. That happened with W and Katrina. The blinders came off.
People survive all sorts of things. We can survive this. Maybe it’s just one act of a multi-act play that will end much brighter than it looks right now.
Corner Stone
This is your daily “No shit, really?” reminder:
Tillman Fertita is a fucking asshole.
rikyrah
More Fake News about VA Hospitals
This time, the hapless New York Times is the culprit.
by Phillip Longman
December 30, 2016
Donald Trump met with the heads of several monopolistic private health care corporations in Palm Beach on Wednesday. Bloomberg reports that “A person close to Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter said he also participated.” Trump was soliciting their advice on whether he should force the Veterans Health Administration (VA) to outsource more of the care of our nation’s veterans to monopolistic health care corporations. The comic book executive at least had no apparent conflicts of interests.
America’s major veterans groups, including the American Legion, Vietnam Veterans of America, and Paralyzed Veterans of America, which all strenuously oppose any moves to privatize the VA, were not invited. Stay tuned for the rest of the story.
But meanwhile, let’s just dwell for a second on how we got here before it’s too late. In the New York Times‘ story about the meeting, reporter Michael D. Shear offered this background: “The Department of Veterans Affairs has struggled to provide timely care to many veterans….News reports in 2014 said that dozens of veterans had died while waiting for care at a V.A. hospital in Phoenix.”
Here we have the New York Times once again mindlessly repeating a devastatingly effective piece of fake news that may yet lead to the dismantling of the VA. It was put in motion by the Republican-controlled House Veterans Affairs Committee during hearings it staged over the summer of 2014. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Jeff Miller, claimed to have uncovered as many as 40 veterans who had died while waiting for care at the Phoenix VA, a claim that was endlessly repeated in the press and that did enormous damage to the image of the VA with the American people.
rikyrah
Even Glenn Greenwald And His Fans Should Fear the Trump-Putin Alliance
by David Atkins
December 31, 2016 8:00 AM
On December 19th Glenn Greenwald went on Fox News to do what he and his Intercept-libertarian acolytes have done since Trump’s victory: minimize and deny the evidence that Russia was responsible for the hacking of Democratic officials that helped deliver the election to Trump. But why the protestations?
Contrary to the assertions of many Intercept fans, the evidence that Russia was responsible is as damning as it can be in cases of international cyber-espionage. It’s true that it’s possible, as Matt Taibbi suggests, that blaming Russia is a bogus political play. But the Obama Administration has been nothing if not overly cautious in this arena, and flailing desperately and deceitfully isn’t this president’s style. Numerous intelligence services have confirmed Russian involvement, detailing as much evidence as they can without compromising their methods. The New York Times has its own comprehensive report. Russian intelligence services tried to cultivate Donald Trump for years. Donald Trump explicitly asked Russia to hack 30,000 of Clinton’s emails during a July press conference that turned out to be the last of his campaign–showing that at least at the time he believed Russia was behind the Watergate-style theft of private email data from Democrats. And we know that Putin has been openly backing Trump while mocking the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign.
In light of all this, continually and actively denying Russian involvement as Greenwald and crew have done goes beyond Taibbi’s healthy skepticism of government officials and smacks of ideological fervor. Even the Trump campaign has stopped questioning the unanimous judgment of American intelligence services, and moved on to a “who cares?” approach that is already falling apart under pressure and scrutiny. Pretty much only the Russians themselves, the conspiracy theorists at WorldNetDaily and the Intercept libertarians are actively objecting to the evidence against Putin.
Starfish
@germy shoemangler: A singular focus on racial identity wars will be the death of Democrats. Ellison is doing a good job where he is. There are people already trying to pick up Kamala Harris who will be in her first Senate term to run for president because she fits the superficial requirements of being multi-cultural.
Someone pointed out that the existing Democratic party is oldish, and Ellison may appeal to more young people than Perez will. The other two candidates you mentioned were from New Hampshire and South Carolina. Democrats won New Hampshire by such a thin margin that having someone from there might make sense. But a person from New Hampshire will be dismissed as East Coast liberal elite. The one from South Carolina may be able to focus on breaking up the red Southern states. But when you look at what the Republicans in North Carolina did, it sure feels a little hopeless.
Josie
@Gin & Tonic: This. My representative is a Democrat from Texas, which is a pretty powerless position to be in. I follow him on twitter, and he stays very busy working with other reps and local groups, trying to make things better for the people in his district.
rikyrah
Trump Is Calling His American Opponents “Enemies” While Praising Putin
by David Atkins
December 31, 2016 8:14 PM
Donald Trump took to Twitter on this New Year’s Eve to taunt his American opponents as “enemies”:
Baiting and trolling one’s opponents on a holiday after losing the popular vote by almost 3 million votes is just another sign of Trump’s narcissistic insecurity. No one lost “badly” to Trump; he won a very slim victory by virtue of a rigged and archaic electoral college system. The man is a sore loser, a sore winner and a terrible human being.
But he didn’t just taunt Americans who oppose him. He labeled them as “enemies”, which is unusual and alarming from a man who is about to control America’s surveillance and law enforcement apparatus. American presidents usually shy away from calling their domestic opponents “enemies” because that sort of rhetoric is the realm of dictators, not presidents who anticipate having to work with their opposition to pass legislation. It is reminiscent of Nixon’s “enemies lists” and other dark times in American history, and a very far cry from President Obama’s unifying rhetoric.
It’s even worse, though. Trump is using this language on his domestic opponents while simultaneously praising a foreign nuclear-armed dictator who allegedly committed a malicious electronic burglary of the private communications of Trump’s political opposition. This is beyond unprecedented to the point of surrealism. It’s not technically treason, but it’s definitely subversion of American democracy and the national interest.
Elizabelle
Also: props to Anne Laurie for the no-Tr*mp blogpost art. The cartoon is great.
Many thanks.
germy shoemangler
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: Greenwald, Assange and Snowden should be sharing adjacent cells at the Supermax.
FlipYrWhig
@Starfish:
Keith Ellison, voice of a new generation, is 53. Tom Perez, throwback oldster, is 55.
rikyrah
Obama’s Top 50 Accomplishments, Revisited
The comprehensive legacy of the 44th President.
by Paul Glastris and Nancy LeTourneau
In March 2012, we compiled a list of what were, at the time, President Barack Obama’s greatest achievements, to accompany our cover story, “The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama.” Today, at the end of his second term, Obama’s legacy is far more complete. Indeed, items from the original list—such as increasing national service opportunities, creating the Race to the Top education reform program, and expanding stem cell research—fell off in order to make room for new ones.
But his legacy is also under threat. Donald Trump and the new Republican-dominated Congress have pledged to undo much of what the president has achieved, including repealing the Affordable Care Act and reversing important executive actions on immigration and climate change. So it is with this caveat that we offer the following updated list of Obama’s top accomplishments.
Kathleen
@Gin & Tonic: Amen.
Botsplainer
@Gin & Tonic: I work (and was born and raised) in KY-03, ably represented by the extremely progressive and responsive John Yarmuth, who donates his entire congressional salary. I live in KY-04, which elects a red cheeked babyface ALEC fluffer by the name of Thomas Massie in a district that sprawls from Ashland-Huntington to the Cincinnati suburbs to the Louisville metro boundary. He has no clue about his constituents, their infrastructure or their economic needs, is invisible on the outer wings of the district, and simply follows a “guns-homos-abortion-tax cut” template that ALEC gives him, and those suburban-exurban Cincy psychos (with a great assist from my pustule red exurb) will happily keep him in congress. And it isn’t just middle to upper middle class whites voting it – large parts of the trucker cap contingent support it, too.
Starfish
@FlipYrWhig: Really? Wow.
rikyrah
Lips pursed.
Quick Takes: Trump and Obama on Lincoln
by Nancy LeTourneau
January 2, 2017 5:10 PM
POLITICAL ANIMAL BLOG
* There are times when it is hard to comprehend the distance this country will travel from Obama to Trump on January 20th. To illustrate, let’s take a look at how the two of them describe our greatest president. On the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, President Obama wrote this about what Abraham Lincoln means to him, and to America:
* Back in April 2016, Bob Woodward asked Donald Trump why Lincoln succeeded. Here is his response:
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: There is an internal logic to it, if you accept that Snowden is Greenwald’s $1M baby, and therefore, (employing Greenwald’s annoying AF signature capitalization for emphasis) anything that aids Snowden or places him in a positive light is Good, and anything that threatens of reflects negatively on Baby is Bad.
This explains the reflexive hostility to Obama and Clinton. It explains the excuse-making for Putin. If Putin up and clapped Snowden in irons (and why would he, propaganda coup that he remains), Greenwald would suddenly find the hacking evidence very compelling and rival Senator Joe McCarthy in the volume of his anti-Russian rhetoric. All without a nanosecond’s self-reflection.
Major Major Major Major
@Starfish:
Uh, by who, exactly? Nobody but us junkies could even name the DNC chair until March 2016.
MomSense
@Botsplainer:
The fact that he is tweeting his ignorance for the world to see while simultaneously telling the world that he doesn’t need intelligence briefings is making it clear to all potential threats that we are an easy mark.
Jeffro
@FlipYrWhig:
Who knew that two years could make such a difference?
LOL
germy
(Our president)
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: Yup. On LGM I said something similar when Greenwald/Snowden/Assange came up recently, and I further suggested that Greenwald at this point has a huge psychic investment in hacktivism and the concomitant notion that hacktivists are independent and conscience-driven and don’t work at the behest of states. So that’s how he pretty much HAS to view Russian hackers.
Yarrow
@MomSense: Yep. I’m sure China and Russia, among others, have taken good note of the fact that he’s an apparent narcissist and only listens to the last person he’s talked to. The fact that he indicates doesn’t believe the intelligence community is going to mean lots more terrorism attempts. Some will probably succeed.
I can only hope he’s so incompetent that it becomes apparent quickly that he’s a risk to the country. I guess it will only be if he’s a risk to the GOP that they’ll decide to remove him.
germy
FlipYrWhig
@Jeffro: I’ll concede from lived personal experience that being 45 feels significantly worse than 43 was.
germy
@FlipYrWhig: Wait til you’re sixty.
Jeffro
Btw – Trump engaging in Twitter-finger-wagging at the GOP Congress for gutting its Ethics Office.
That’s all, just questioning their priorities and scoring a few points with the rubes, not actually going to do anything about it. I’m sure Congress will repay the favor (if they haven’t already paid it forward by not concerning themselves with Trump divesting himself of anything)
Kabuki Presidency & Congress coming up in T-minus 17 days…
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: Donald Trump knows nothing about anything and he’s been bluffing-slash-blustering for 70 years.
germy
@Jeffro: Good cop, Bad cop
Yarrow
@germy: Make America Great Again! Send all the smart people to other countries.
magurakurin
@Major Major Major Major: and they didnt know who Bernie Sanders was until March 2015. Too much silliness. we’re fucked.
FlipYrWhig
@germy: You hush your mouth. :P
Belafon
@rikyrah: Trump couldn’t even be bothered to read the Cliff Notes version of history.
magurakurin
@Belafon: for Shitgibbon there is no past, no future just a never ending now where he is the center of universe.
germy
@FlipYrWhig: I still feel 18.
Yesterday I was walking down the street and passed a coffee shop with highly-reflective windows. Saw my reflection and wondered “Who is that old geezer?”
Jeffro
@Jeffro: Liz Warren is on the case, though, asking “Who thinks we have too many rules requiring government to act ethically?”
Now if she’d just take the next step and show how Trump & the GOP Congress are covering for each other’s scuzzy practices, we might be on our way for 2018
Spanky
@germy shoemangler: Glad your wrist is feeling better. Now don’t overdo the “someone is wrong on the internet” typing. That’s what I tell my wife when she looks up to see why I’m pounding the keyboard.
XKCD FTW
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Another great write up of President Obama’s legacy. Bookmarking them all.
Spanky
@rikyrah:
I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Major Major Major Major
@magurakurin: when the GOP tried to make the RNC a signaling position they got Steele. When they went for insidery competence they got huge wins at every level.
bemused
@evodevo:
He does carry it a wee bit too far at times, lol. When the previous washing machine stopped working, he spent a lot of time researching online and talking to company tech people to correct the problem, had the machine taken apart, ordered parts, still not working, more research. He really doesn’t have that much spare time to fuss with stuff like this anyway but I think it’s a challenge to a still good enough to fix guy. To sum up I had no workable washing machine for two weeks, forced to do basic laundry at mother-in-laws which I hated because she uses a laundry detergent with scent that makes me gag that clung to my clean laundry (she doesn’t see well so I think she uses too much to begin with) and we were running out of undies and socks. I’m fine with his handiness the majority of the time but this time I said this will never happen again. About a year later the many years old washing machine did give up the ghost plus it still wasn’t spinning as well as it used to. It was a happy, happy day when we got our new washing machine…very happy.
Denali
@Kay,
What was the Fight for Fifteen? My brother-in-law, a retired college president,was very active in the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina, and it was heart breaking to see was has happened in North Carolina recently.
@Rikrah,
Perhaps my phrase working class was the wrong one. Perhaps my take on Trump voters was wrong. I do think voter suppression affected the outcome of the election.
I am not saying that the Democratic Party should abandon its inclusiveness. I really don’t know what their strategy should be.
FlipYrWhig
@magurakurin: He’s like Bart Simpson during his Terrible Twos.
daveNYC
@Major Major Major Major: His district has been held by a Democrat since 1963 and he won re-election with 69% of the vote. That seat is about as safe as safe can be, so his resignation is not likely to cost the Democrats anything.
@Gin & Tonic: What, like helping someone wrangle getting a passport or navigate the USCIS or something? I mean that’s nice and all, but that’s not exactly high impact work. DNC head honcho is a pretty solid promotion, especially if it comes with a mandate to get shit sorted out between the national and state levels of the party. Is your position that anyone leaving an elected office mid-term is abandoning their constituents?
bemused
@bemused:
Oops, meant to answer Ozark Hillbilly.
Jeffro
@germy: Sorta. Reminds me a little more of two robbers razzing each other on the way out of the bank…”ooo, you rascal, takin’ all that dough! No, you crook, emptyin’ out those safe deposit boxes!” [laughs] [high fives exchanged]…and…scene.
Because that’s really what we’re looking at here. Just bad crook and bad crook, going through the motions while they make off with others’ assets.
dww44
@Joe Falco: To continue with the theme of Trump’s appointees, Sonny has a viable and profitable grain and fertilizer business ( I’ve a cousin who managed one of his grain buying enterprises until his retirement last year) which he’s probably not going to divest himself of.
Sonny became governor in 2002 when the entire state turned red. He himself was one of the many former Democrats who switched parties in the 90’s and 2000’s.
FlipYrWhig
@Major Major Major Major: Ooh, good point about Steele, although to be scrupulously fair, he presided over a fair share of victories himself. And IMHO Howard Dean was a signaling candidate too.
germy
WaPo headline:
Trump slams Republicans for voting behind closed doors to weaken ethics office
Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
raven
@dww44: Fucking idiot King Roy paved the way.
Belafon
@germy shoemangler:
This is slightly misleading, what Springsteen said is that he would do “his very, very small part” in that he will do what he can among the other 300+M people. That’s different than saying he’s going to do very little.
Spanky
@germy:
At 62 I’m a lot older than you are. A vast gulf divides 60 and 62.
Well, half-vast.
NR
@efgoldman:
Yeah, we should all just listen to the wise and mighty establishment Democrats, who clearly and demonstrably know how to win elections so much better than those stupid liberals. It’s not like establishment Democrats have lost the entire country to the Republicans over the last eight years or anything.
Major Major Major Major
@daveNYC: again, you’ve addressed why Keith might be bored as a congressman in the minority, but that is not a good reason for him to be DNC chair.
ETA: also, screw him if he’s bored with being a congressman, he shouldn’t have run for congress.
EATA: looks like the google alert went off, here comes our buddy. I’m off to read about Zoroastrianism!
PST
Two stories this morning make me feel a tiny bit better. I won’t make too much of them, truly, but cracks in the GOP facade are always good. First, a story in the New York Times says that the presumptive Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, actually has a demonstrably good record of opposing torture. A low bar, sure, but more than mere lip service in his case. Second, Trump tweeted some criticism of the house for weakening the Congressional Ethics Office, although it didn’t seem very sincere.
dww44
@raven: Because of his education policies that alienated so many teachers?
Jeffro
@germy:
Nope – just cover for their looting. Two crooks each pretending they care what the other is stealing. That WaPo headline could just as easily have been “Trump, GOP critique each others’ ethics, take no action”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@sunny raines:
That’s the thing – souless evil. He is going to anger a lot of people right and left and because it’s all about him even the GOP won’t back him up. I mean why, when they can have a President Peance?
Belafon
@NR: I pop in periodically and you’re still just as boring and repetitive as ever.
ruemara
@BillinGlendaleCA: you most certainly can shoot RAW in auto mode. So that’s bunk. And if you’re doing multi-venue locations like the last music festival I shot, it can be a lifesaver.
Re: ACLU. Well, good luck. Those 100+ judgeships being filled by the most partisan, venial and unethical president and congress don’t bode well for the courts as a method redress. We’ve got 2 years to vote in a new congress. Meanwhile, people are still trying to make Fetch Sanders happen. I’m not hopeful.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jeffro: He really can’t do anything. Congress impeaches the president, not the other way around. That’s why all the purity ponies talk of electing a president to drain the swamp is bs.
NR
@Botsplainer:
Yes, that is what people all across the country are clamouring for: centrism and incremental gains. You can tell by the way they’ve overwhelmingly voted for it over and over again for the last eight years.
Jeffro
@PST:
He questioned them making it a priority, not that they’re gutting their own ethics oversight. Just a free shot at Congress to put a smile on the rubes’ faces…Trump even made sure to hashtag it #DTS (drain the swamp). That Donald, he’s gonna shake things up! LOL
FlipYrWhig
@NR: LIBERALS WERE WINNING EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME UNTIL ESTABLISHMENT BACKSTAB
Belafon
@Jeffro: When the enemy hands you a knife and turns his back, don’t criticize the fact that it’s only sharp on one side. Stab him with it.
Channeling my inner Sun Tzu.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: people in southern Ohio and western Wisconsin are clamoring to vote for massive tax increases to create a new middle-class entitlement that will benefit everyone white dreadlocked kids in New Hampshire named Trey and Ryan know!
Jeffro
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
A president can’t do anything when Congress votes to gut its Ethics Office? Not officially, sure. But let’s not kid ourselves – any president, especially one with a backbone and ethics of his own, could make this a major issue, talk about what happened back in the DeLay/Abramhoff era, ask questions about why they’re getting rid of it, how they plan to police their own, etc.
The subsection that now prohibits the Ethics Office from talking to the press in any way…that ALONE is newsworthy…and of course a president could be bringing that up.
germy
@Jeffro:
Good cop Bad cop. Oldest game in the book.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
there are reporters, even TV personalities, who could get a very good and revealing piece out of a convicted criminal like Abramoff. I suspect Mrs Greenspan is not one of them.
NR
@Belafon: You want to talk repetitive? Wow, look, BJ commenters are trashing lefty “purity ponies” and blaming them for the demise of the Democratic party. Must be a day that ends in “y.”
germy
I know this: Cats forget nothing.
About six months ago we had the vet make a housecall. The woman decided to put our cat on top of her favorite tower “just to give her nails a clipping, no extra charge”. The woman was nice, but her assistant held our cat’s head down while she clipped the claws.
Six months later, our cat will NOT go on top of that tower. Used to be her favorite place to nap and lounge. No more. I put her up there and she jumps right off.
Do progressive have the same memory? I thought they’d have learned after King Ralph in 2000.
Jeffro
@Belafon: That headline is a half-sharp knife? Or is it the media just going along with pretend-oversight between these guys, reinforcing to most that Trump “slammed” Congress in some way?
Congress will no doubt “slam” Trump at some point, and they’ll both just laugh about it on the way out of the bank (see #178 above)
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Eight years ago on Election Day, the Oklahoma statehouse turned Republican for the first time in history. Whatever happened to that zealously liberal Oklahoma Democratic Party that at the beginning of that period could elect Dan Boren, an NRA board member who voted against Obamacare, cared nothing about the environment and was anti-abortion and anti-gay? Probably it was that milquetoast Democratic approach in the Obama years that demoralized all the erstwhile eager Borenites.
NR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Okay, we’ll try your approach: slowly and patiently explain to those people in southern Ohio and western Wisconsin that what they really need is more third-way centrist incrementalism, with a heaping helping of calling them racists on top of that. I’m sure they’ll flock to our banner after that
Major Major Major Major
News alert sez Ford cancels plans to build Mexico plant, will invest $700m in Michigan and create 700 jobs
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, for sure! Everyone loves liberalism, it’s just that The Man keeps them from having it!
Steeplejack (tablet)
@germy shoemangler:
Doesn’t your browser save your nym and e-mail address?
daveNYC
@Major Major Major Major: Hillary left the Senate halfway through her Senate term in order to become SoS, so I don’t really get what your point is. If it’s a better job that he thinks he can make a difference at, then I don’t see why he shouldn’t go for it. Dude’s been in that seat since 2007, so it’s not like he’s not put in time.
There’s reasons to prefer Ellison to Perez and vice versa, but the fact he’s a sitting Congressman isn’t really one of them.
geg6
@FlipYrWhig:
Forget it, Jake. Idiots like NR will tell you that FDR was a flaming socialist. Facts and history be damned when there’s a narrative about the evilosity of actual liberal Democrats to be waved about like a bloody shirt.
The fact is that the far left has never won a damn thing. Hell, even their patron saint is nothing more than your bog standard New England rep, so even he doesn’t deserve to be in their pantheon of far left gods. In fact, I see no one in that pantheon except a bunch of old hippies, philosophers and linguists and young white men who know nothing about anything. Certainly no one who ever won an actual election.
Jeffro
@germy: I thought good cop/bad cop was when one cop is bad to scare an informant, and the good cop tries to be the informant’s buddy, in order to get info out of the informant?
Here we have two clowns using each other to look better and/or look like they’re doing something about the other. So maybe instead of good cop, bad cop, it’s fake cop, fake cop? I think two robbers giving each other grief (with a wink and a nod) on the way out of the bank is closer to what we’ve got in Trump and Congress.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@NR:
Ever since Our Progressive Betters started sniping at blue dogs for being insufficiently pure somewhere around 2009, refusing to provide a counterweight to the tealiban at the townhalls or the conversations on the ACA (because they didn’t blow up every pension, 401k and mutual fund in the country), and dancing on the campaigns of the defeated blue dogs, it made that whole “50 state” thing difficult.
And fuck you.
Larkspur
@germy: Hah. I literally did this one time when I was house-sitting at a new place. I heard a noise in the guest house and thought I should investigate – it was in the day time, and I wasn’t scared – and as I explored the guest house (it was quite a spacious guest house) I turned a corner and came face to face with this strangely dressed, haggard-looking old woman, and thank dog I wasn’t armed or I would have shot the full-length mirror. I sure left the guest house feeling shaken. Holy crap, that’s me!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as to the DNC contest, I’ve heard Ellison say things that indicate he’s a very pragmatic person with an eye on state/local races, and other things that make him sound like a pious, Green Lanterny Sandernista. I’m willing to give him a chance, if only because his direct experience with electoral politics seems broader than Perez’s. I do wish he’d recognize that not everyone shares his (and Chris Hayes’ and Rachal Maddow’s) fascination with the Old Shouter.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@rikyrah:
Book report from sixth-grader who didn’t read the book.
Major Major Major Major
@daveNYC: I don’t see anybody making an issue about his being a sitting congressman here, and I guess I don’t see your point either. If, however, he’s bored as a congressman, he shouldn’t have run for congress as recently as two months ago. That’s the sort of shit we slag Rubio for.
Yarrow
@Belafon:
Speaking of Sun Tzu, how about “The Art of War” for a Balloon-Juice book club book?
Belafon
@daveNYC: I think either of them will be fine. I think it’s good that Ellison is willing to resign to take on the job full time.
I also think anyone looking at anything other than their abilities and what they plan on doing for state and local Democrats has their egos involved in their choice.
FlipYrWhig
@geg6: The thing that drives me up the fucking wall is the refusal to look at WHERE and WHO is in question here. These are actual people. We know the actual human beings who held office when there were Democratic majorities. This is recent history. I mean, this doesn’t involve poring over microfiche in a disused library or something. Conservative people in states that lean Republican and conservative at the presidential level used to elect conservative Democrats at the state level. Then they stopped. The evidence suggests that those people think the Democratic Party is TOO LIBERAL. Being MORE LIBERAL can’t possibly win back those voters.
If you want the Democratic Party to be more liberal, which is a great wish, and which I ALSO WISH, you absolutely cannot cite as evidence any of the things NR habitually cites. You have to be saying instead that a more liberal Democratic Party would win over different people and that there would be so many of these people that they would win in a new way that nobody has ever won before. I think the evidence is thinner than Flat Stanley. But you know what would prove me wrong? WINNING A MOTHERFUCKING ELECTION SOMEWHERE USING THIS SET OF IDEAS. Christ, man, Jesus not Charlie.
Yarrow
@geg6: When the far left starts winning local and state elections, or, hell, even consistently putting up candidates for them, we can listen to them. As Kay said, the best way to get people to pay attention to you is to win an election in a competitive district. So…go on, far left. Show us how it’s done.
Belafon
@Jeffro: Just because we know how the game is played, doesn’t mean we can’t use it against them. There are a lot of people who voted for Trump because they thought he would change things (I’ll leave alone exactly how they thought he would change them). And Washington being corrupt was one of those things they wanted changed. Those are the people you’re after. Tell them Trump is opposing Republicans in Congress on this issue. Then, when he backtracks, you can go after him.
Thoroughly Pizzled
I know that I would have voted Republican this election if not for Reince Preibus. The face of Ellison or Perez will be on all ballots for the next four years, so this is definitely the Most Important Thing for Democrats Regaining Power, Part Fifty-Six.
MomSense
@Belafon:
I do prefer Perez because of his record on civil rights and voting rights and the fact that he wants to make voting rights a major part of the DNC. I think that is exactly the direction we need to go in.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m thinking about renaming the housecat Bernie and then posting about Bernie in every thread.
FlipYrWhig
@MomSense: And labor rights.
hovercraft
@Steeplejack (tablet):
I take exception to that, my fourth grader can give a more cogent account of what made Lincoln our greatest president. He was the bestest, smartest, evah!! may be kindergarten level at best.
catclub
@sunny raines:
I have remained impressed that Bush is not going to the inauguration. I wonder about Romney.
catclub
@Belafon:
I just read an item noting how much of a ‘change’ election this was. The usual 95%+ of House re-elected, likewise no incumbent Democrats lost in Senate, only two GOP. A few state houses changed hands – 3 each way.
So not a change election.
Kathleen
@Botsplainer: those suburban-exurban Cincy psychos
You got that right! Those people suck souls for a living.
Kathleen
@germy: Just saw WAPO headline that the tweet caused GOP to “rethink” the move.
Another Scott
@catclub: Shhhhhush! Data confuses the narrative!!
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
I suppose this will make it easy for the Congress to stay in step with White House thievery.
Dobbs: “If you’re the Congress, then where are your ethics?”
Gold Hat: “Ethics? We ain’t got no ethics. We don’t need no ethics. I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ ethics!”
— The Treasure of the Mar-a-Lago
Kathleen
@FlipYrWhig: Or in the case of DWS and HRC, “The Woman”.
Kathleen
@Larkspur: I get the same reaction when I look in the mirror (especially if it’s magnified) and see my reflection. I’m all like, “Who the hell is that and where did those wrinkles come from?” I’m 67.
NR
@geg6: Well it sure is great that we have you sensible establishment Democrats to show us stupid liberals how to win elections. After all, you’ve been doing such a bang-up job of that lately, who could possibly question your wisdom?
NR
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Right, I forgot the mantra around here: establishment Democrats can’t fail, they can only be failed. Everything bad that’s ever happened is a liberal’s fault. How could I have forgotten that?
Brachiator
@catclub:
Romney will be handling coat check duties, and waiting tables later at the ball.
Lizzy L
CNBC reports:
rikyrah
@MomSense:
That’s why I’m TeamPerez
Brachiator
They’ll be back.
Kay
@NR:
I don’t care if you get Keith Ellison. I think this idea that “get Keith Ellison = liberals win elections” is nuts, though. You will have definitely won the “get Keith Ellison” race though.
I just think you’re on the wrong track – you’re on track that isn’t even anywhere near the road…
But congrats on that Keith Ellison versus Perez win, should you prevail. The enemy of your enemy is your friend, or something.
J R in WV
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Bill, for something like a flying aircraft, you can set the camera to manual and then focus at infinity, or very near to it. You don’t have to let the camera try to focus on something far away with odd circumstances. Same for birds, you can estimate the range and set focus manually, with almost all cameras with any ability to make settings changes.
I’m imagining yours is that capable, don’t really remember make and model off hand. Shame to miss a B-2 flyover, though.
tybee
@Joe Falco: every time i pass through Bonaire, i roll down the window and spit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: NR is the quintessential emo-prog, he’s been spewing his adolescent anger here for years. Bernie shouted things, Bernie likes Keith, therefore Keith is now the great Emo Hope. I’ll admit that part of the reason I think we should give Elison a shot– I do think he’s smart and committed and has given some indication of having ideas beyond shouting– is just to not give the NR-types somthing else to whine about.
Not NR him (I’m guessing) self. He’ll never shut up.
925
@NR:
Look everybody, it’s the “Voice of the People”™.
SFBayAreaGal
Troll #1 has arrived. Come on people stop feeding IT.
Larkspur
@Kathleen: I know. When you’re young, you don’t realize that when you’re old and you look in the mirror, you see not only what’s there, but everything that came before, It’s this multi-layered historical archive, but only you (and maybe a few people who love you and have known you for a long time) know that the old visage isn’t all there ever was. It’s interesting as heck.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Be prepared, if Ellison gets the gig, for NR et al. to bray at every setback REAL BERNIEISM HAS NEVER BEEN TRIED!
sukabi
@OzarkHillbilly: they quietly and unanimously pulled the bill this morning…doesn’t mean they won’t try it again…but apparently the public support for their wonton power grab just wasn’t there…bad optics is my guess. Even drumpf has enough cleverness to know that you don’t call the bank and give a heads up before you rob it.
NR
@Kay: Actually, to my recollection, I didn’t comment at all on the race for the DNC chair here. I simply spoke out against the stupid and ridiculous idea that “purity ponies” were the cause of the Democratic party’s demise.
I don’t have strong feelings either way about the race for DNC chair. I think Ellison and Perez both have their advantages and their problems. Also, I mostly agree with you that the real battle over the next two years will be at the state level.
Steeplejack
@sukabi:
Okay, that, especially with your nym, is hilarious.
Mnemosyne
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
If you never watch Fox News (I was sometimes forced to watch it with my dad), you might be surprised to hear that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was Public Enemy #1 on there. They constantly talked about how horrible and corrupt she was and by extension how horrible and corrupt the Democrats were for putting her in charge of the DNC.
That’s why all of the DWS hate from the Berniebros was so goddamned destructive — they were echoing what was already being said by Republicans and on Fox News, and it only amplified the relentless DNC and Democrats are corrupt drumbeat.
geg6
@NR:
I’ve got an outgoing president who won two terms in the face of the worst the GOP could throw at him.
What have you got?
NR
@geg6: 2009
2016
Yeah, it’s great that Obama won two terms. The rest of the party completely collapsed. And as I’m sure you’re aware, it’s not just the White House that matters.
geg6
@NR:
Still more than my progressive betters have managed.
NR
@geg6: Um, no. Losing the entire country to the Republicans outside of the northeast and the west coast is not “more” than anything. In fact, it’s quite a bit “less” than what you started with.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
So are you ever going to read the multiple links from the Brennan Center I’ve provided to you about the ill effects of Citizens United and Shelby County v Holder, or are you going to keep pretending this was all the Democratic Party’s fault because nobody liiiiiked them?
NR
@Mnemosyne: Are you ever going to acknowledge that money is not the end-all be-all in politics (see: this most recent presidential election, where Hillary Clinton spent twice as much $$$ as Donald Trump), and admit to the possibility that maybe the Democratic party leadership fucked up big time, Bad Jackie?
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Check how much the Koch brothers spent on Congressional races and come back to say that dark money doesn’t matter.
Though I do love how 2.8 million more Hillary voters have ceased to exist in your mind and it really was that mythical Trump landslide that he keeps tweeting about. Are you always this susceptible to Republican propaganda? So far, all signs point to yes, but I’m sure there’s some Republican meme somewhere that you didn’t fall for.
NR
@Mnemosyne: I’ve never said Trump won by a landslide. He didn’t. So I have no idea what you’re on about here.
But hey, if you want to keep unquestioningly supporting the same Democratic party leadership that lost the whole country to the Republicans, that’s your prerogative. Don’t change a single thing. You’re going to be very disappointed in 2018 and 2020, but I’m sure you’ll find someone else you don’t like to blame for that, too. Because as we all know, nothing that goes wrong is ever your fault.