Andy Serkis reading Trump tweets as Gollum is pure genius. pic.twitter.com/yOPbFxFKwv
— Tom Butler (@TomButler) July 12, 2017
Enjoy
Open thread
by David Anderson| 147 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Andy Serkis reading Trump tweets as Gollum is pure genius. pic.twitter.com/yOPbFxFKwv
— Tom Butler (@TomButler) July 12, 2017
Enjoy
Open thread
Comments are closed.
Gravenstone
I think Serkis and Mark Hamill should trade responsibility for reading Trump’s Twitter emissions in the appropriate character voice. Both can be used to quite good effect.
TenguPhule
@Gravenstone:
The voice of the Joker should not be sullied by Donald Trump.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SLS2D_UREQE
Sorry, but it’s pretty awesome and scary. It’s fits really with Trump’s deranged mind
PaulWartenberg
Gollum voice for the word Covfefe: classic.
PaulWartenberg
The sidebar ads for dating sexy foreign women have been popping up with Russian ladies a little too often…
Catherine D.
Andy Serkis said that he came up with the Gollum voice by listening to his cat hack up a hairball.
J R in WV
We watched that short performance earlier this morning, and Serkis jumped right into character and did a great job. That’s how I will always hear Trump from now on. Trump’s despicable character makes that voice perfect for him.
Laughed our asses off!!!
Here’s hoping Trump hears and sees that and pops a vein! Or a bile duct, maybe, which ever is more important to his metabolism.
Emerald
If we can’t get him out any other way we can destroy him with laughter.
It’s really the one thing he can’t stand.
germy
Yarrow
@J R in WV: Watched it this morning too. And Serkis really did jump right into character—jumped right onto the chair seat to get started.
Major Major Major Major
@PaulWartenberg:
If you click on ’em and earn Cole some money maybe he’ll get rid of the fucking autoplay video.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: The one with Larry King is so annoying.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: That’s the one I’m talking about, he won’t remove it because it makes money.
Miss Bianca
OK, I actually had to put on the headphones so I could listen to this at work. Worth it!!
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Quit now: Get the fuck out of here, Eyeore. We don’t have to be miserable all the time. Sometimes you just gotta laugh. And the times are changing. To the pie filter with you!
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: The autoplay video is awful. I watch it call out on the bottom taskbar (or whatever it’s called) all the time as it reloads. Seems like every 5-10 seconds or so. I hate that it’s doing that and slowing everything down.
Hildebrand
@Quit now: Right. Because walking and chewing gum at the same time is unpossible. Sheesh.
Miss Bianca
@Quit now: Who’s this “we”, troll?
rikyrah
An anecdote
Liberal Librarian
July 12, 2017
When all you have is:
” At least I’m not a Nigger”…
And, the answer to the question:
” What do you call the President of the United States?”
Is “Nigger”
Then Yes, your entire worldview is shook.
You, and those like you, were played for fools, for GENERATIONS, with nothing to show for it.
and, rather than admit that you were played for a fool..
you cling to the Whiteness and double down.
pitiful and pathetic.
They think somebody’s playing with them.
NOBODY is playing with them.
We are SO not going back…so, they best get ready for more hurt feelings.
AND….
They better understand that people like me, and scores more..
Don’t give two shyts about ‘ understanding’ why they voted for Dolt45.
Because their vote for him shows their LACK OF CHARACTER.
germy
“The problem with us is we have no hope” says commenter named Give Up All Hope
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: It must be a real problem for people with bandwidth limits.
ETA: OK, question: if BJ put up a donate button (at least for people who use adblock), do you think it would make enough to offset server costs? Whatever those might be.
scav
@Miss Bianca: Yeah, the poor dear. Hard to pretend everyone’s not laughing at you behind your back when they’re laughing at you in your face.
Albert Z.
@PaulWartenberg: But can you run an 8 minute mile?
Yarrow
Hope this happens:
Look out, Megyn Kelly: Tamron Hall’s comeback is happening
Brachiator
As an aside, the upcoming movie, War for the Planet of the Apes, which features Serkis as the ape leader Caesar, has been banking some impressively favorable reviews. And Serkis’ performance is still getting lost in reductive criticism which wants to make him merely the outline for CGI animators. As far as I’m concerned, it obviously a collaborative process. And, Serkis is striking in the brief trailer for the upcoming Black Panther movie.
I love this particular reaction video for Black Panther.
And, yup, Serkis and Hamill kill it with their readings of the Trump Twitter rants.
Albert Z.
@Quit now: I agree. Pie is good!
germy
@Brachiator: Matt Reeves will be directing The Batman. He’s been promised creative control by the studio.
He’s done an excellent job with the Planet of the Apes saga.
That Black Panther reaction video is excellent.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Probably not. I make a point of using the Amazon link from Balloon-Juice to help out. I wish there was another solution besides that awful video ad. Even if it played once and quit it wouldn’t be so bad. The reloading over and over uses a lot of bandwidth. And for some people (I’m one of them) it’s very distracting visually. I find it reloads so quickly it kind of hurts to read that bit of the page. I’ve actually put something over it–like a folder or piece of paper.
Quinerly
Great Digby piece with great links: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/07/eric-prince-for-viceroy.html
oatler.
Sirkis should have used his “gollum, gollum” croak when he said “covfefe”.
meander
A non-directly political item: I follow the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Encyclopedia of Life and a few other nature feeds on Twitter, and therefore ran across a remarkable thing: #nudibranchweek. Nudibranches are soft-bodied creatures that live in salt water environments around the world, and are sometimes called sea slugs. Their colors and shapes are surprisingly varied and ‘inventive’ — the writer I cite below said that one of them could be a Miyazaki character.
Here’s a Twitter thread with many of these amazing creatures: https://twitter.com/blprnt/status/884817350696087554
Uncle Cosmo
@Emerald:
Redacted for general applicability.
Mock them. Mock them with everything you say & everything you do, including breathing & elimination. Forward & retweet the mocking.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Quinerly: Glad the Defense Department refused to follow their shit. Viceroy Eric Prince…
Yuck!
rikyrah
Donald Trump Jr. Was So Far Out of His League
by Martin Longman
July 12, 2017 2:54 PM
If, as seems likely, Julia Ioffe is correct that Yury Chaika, the prosecutor-general of the Russian Federation, is the “Crown Prosecutor” referred to in Donald Trump Jr.’s email chain, everyone involved should be concerned about their physical safety.
According to Ioffe, Chaika should be considered the Russian equivalent of Jeff Sessions, the U.S. Attorney General. That might not seem so scary, but Russia’s government is so violent and so intertwined with organized crime, that crossing their Attorney General is a perilous decision.
This is important for understanding why Rob Goldstone is insisting without the remotest plausibility that he was referring in his email to Trump Jr. to Natalia Veselnitskaya when he said that “the Crown prosecutor of Russia met with … Aras [Agalarov] this morning and in their meeting offered to provide some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.”
Put simply, Mr. Goldstone doesn’t want to be killed and if he confirmed that he was referring to Mr. Chaika his death would be a distinct possibility.
Ioffe does an excellent job of explaining this. Chaika was apparently close to gangster Sergei Tsapok whose organization was was responsible for the Kushchyovskaya Massacre in 2010. His two adult sons have amassed vast fortunes through outright thuggery including the murder of at least one victim who was strangled to death.
Here’s a bigger taste of what kind of individual Trump Jr. was getting in bed with when he said he’d “love” to collude with the Russian government.
rikyrah
Commentary: Trump’s plan to make voters older, wealthier and whiter
Scott Lemieux
………
There isn’t a single state in which a majority favors the GOP’s proposals. In a starkly polarized political environment, it’s almost impossible for a major proposal to be this widely hated. So why would the House pass a similar bill, and why didn’t McConnell immediately bury it?
Many Republicans legislators are insulated from even the fiercest political backlash because the political playing field is tilted strongly towards the GOP side. Now the White House is about to make it even more so with a scheme to shrink the electorate and skew it towards the GOP.
In late June, the Trump administration announced a series of measures to constrict the body politic, making it older, whiter, and wealthier – and therefore more Republican. The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity is asking for detailed state data about voters. There already is evidence that merely asking for the data is stopping people from registering. Voting rights experts say that because voter rolls inevitably contain errors, such as still listing voters who recently moved, the Trump administration is likely planning to use these discrepancies to justify vote suppression efforts such as onerous identification requirements. (On Monday, while awaiting the outcome of legal challenges to the request and the refusal of some secretaries of state to comply, Trump’s commission put the request on hold.)
Major Major Major Major
Woohoo! I used my master’s degree for several hours today at work.
JPL
This is front page worthy.. just sayin
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/885224186494369793
Trump: “It was a great G20. We had 20 countries.”
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
You are right about absolutely everything except this. They played themselves. Nobody had to tell them everything would be perfect if they could shove blacks back in a can. They made up that bullshit and convinced themselves. Other people just noticed how to make money repeating it.
@meander:
Too late. Nintendo got there first.
joel hanes
@Yarrow:
I wish there was another solution besides that awful video ad.
1. Donate directly to BJ, enough every year that you won’t feel guilty skipping the ads.
2. Firefox with adblockPlus and noscript
no ads at all. no flash unless you specifically enable it. no sounds. no popovers, popunders, scrolling; just the HTML/CSS for the site.
Major Major Major Major
@meander: Nudibranches are awesome. Here is a tumblr that compares various nudibranches to various David Bowies.
@joel hanes: Of course, noscript will block the pie filter…
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: Eh? How so?
Brachiator
@germy:
With all the directors hired and fired for various film franchises, I didn’t know or had forgot about this. But Reeves is a great choice, especially if the studios let him do his thing.
Mike J
@germy:
The problem is we have no pie, says the commenter who only ever talks about pie.
germy
Major Major Major Major
@Miss Bianca: Data mining!
@Mike J: That’s weird, he seems to me to have a great deal of pie.
satby
Just want to update everyone that the Juice community has come through again for another sick, needy animal. Gary the cat has his surgery scheduled for removal / biopsy of the tumor on his foot. I didn’t set up the funder, the org president did, but she assumed it would take a couple of weeks to raise the $500. She and I and the rest of our motley rescue group, thanks you!
Edited to add: you can deduct donations on your taxes, BTW, for those of you who contributed. Thanks so much again.
Yarrow
@joel hanes: Yeah, I know all the adblock and noscript solutions. I meant I wished there was another ad option that wasn’t so intrusive.
bystander
Why am I hoping Uday the Younger double crosses Yury Chaika?
Yarrow
So apparently there was a press briefing today. Because our timid media won’t stand up to the WH and bring the cameras in anyway, it’s an audo-only press briefing. So what does TV news do? They put up a slide with “White House Press Briefing” and “Audio Only Briefing” on it. This time it was the odious Sarah Huckabee Sanders, so they put her name on the screen and an image of her–smiling this time.
If they had even half a spine they wouldn’t play along. Either go in with cameras or don’t cover it and just play relevant bits later. Or maybe put “THIS IS NOT NORMAL” on the screen along with “Why doesn’t Sarah Huckabee Sanders want to be on camera?”
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Sounds like a made up person. Is he talking to himself now?
satby
@Major Major Major Major: just like NR! That guy is a pie glutton!
MomSense
@Catherine D.:
Trump is pretty much our nation’s hairball.
MattF
Just wondering… is there a ‘perp walk’ emoji?
ETA: Possibly OT, possibly not.
satby
@Yarrow: I honestly can’t believe those spineless fucks go along with that. What’s the worst that would happen if they just turned on the cameras anyway? Either they would be removed which would be riveting video, ir the press secretary would stomp off in a huff, which would also be great video.
The press corpse is such a failure in this country. Chicken pluckers have more integrity.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
I don’t think that Putin would be rash enough to have an American killed.
Now, Hillary, on the other hand…. I kid!
But it’s good to call attention to the fact that Putin is not simply a brutal authoritarian leader. He has been directly or indirectly responsible for some truly despicable acts.
And as always, this calls more into question Trump’s swooning over brutish dictators.
rikyrah
@MattF:
A challenge for the computer literate!!
rikyrah
Breitbart Readers Display Frightening Racism Towards Michelle Obama
The writers at Breitbart have managed to create a site that attracts some of the most vile racist, misogynistic malcontents who appear more ideologically inline with the KKK than the ‘Alt Right’ movement they claim to represent.
BEN COHEN
4 HOURS AGO
Last month, Breitbart editor Alex Marlow went on Real Time with Bill Maher to explain to the HBO host why Breitbart wasn’t a cesspool of racial hatred and misinformation. “The Breitbart editors are the most wonderful, diverse, influential journalists on the planet, and no one is interested in their real story because they’re so quick to want to call people ‘racist,’” said Marlow when Maher confronted him about the site’s rampant xenophobia. If Marlow is correct, then these wonderful, not-racist and diverse journalists should not be attracting virulent racists to the site, right?
A cursory glance through the comments section of a random Breitbart article dispels this notion astonishingly quickly. Contrary to Marlow’s claims, the writers at Breitbart have managed to create a site that attracts some of the most vile racist, misogynistic malcontents who appear more ideologically inline with the KKK than the ‘Alt Right’ movement they claim to represent. In an article posted on July 11th about Michelle Obama’s new book named “Chasing Light”, a collection of White House pictures of the former First Lady, Breitbart readers weighed in on the book with what can only be described as truly frightening racism. These were the first comments that appear on the article (and no, we don’t link to Breitbart.com):
Frank McCormick
@Catherine D.: Actually he pretty much matches Tolkien in his recording of the riddle scene.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: Someone give America some Laxatone, on the double.
Yarrow
@satby: Yep. It’s telling that they haven’t even tried it. And don’t forget, there’s even an official White House Correspondents Association–they’re the ones that hold that stupid dinner every year, the one Trump was too afraid to attend this year. I guess we know what their standards are–access journalism above all else. Pathetic.
Mike J
Ladbrokes odds on Trump leaving office before his first term is over, either through impeachment or resignation, are 11/10 (2.10 decimal). That is, almost even money. A £1 bet will return your £1 plus £1.10.
Paddy Power’s question is, will trump be impeached in his first term, and it’s at 5/4, 2.25 decimal.You £1 will return your bet plus £1.25. Note that Paddy Power’s bet doesn’t require conviction. This may be because they don’t understand US politics as well as they need to.
Mike J
@MattF:
? ?
Officially, the hands in the first one are raised in celebration, but just as easily could be surrender.
lapassionara
This seems like a good time to ask “what is a pie filter”? (Cringe, hunch, squinch)
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
I’m not seeing the point here. Wouldn’t they be stopped at the door?
I suppose that they could just not show up. But this would cede the press briefings to Fox News and the deplorable right.
Some variation of this might be just the thing.
LurkerNoLonger
@Yarrow:
If I looked like Sarah Huckabee Sanders I wouldn’t want to be on camera either. Mike had some ugly children.
Steeplejack (phone)
@lapassionara:
It is a feature that allows you to block the comments of people that you find obnoxious. Instead of their comments, you see statements about pie. Hence the term “pie filter.”
The instructions are at the bottom of the page. Just put in the offending nym and you’re good to go.
clay
@germy: Huh. I was just in Paris. Had a great time. No foreign extremists in sight.
Unless… I was the foreign extremist!?!
Yarrow
WSJ.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
At least one judge and prosecutor in the US have been found dead under circumstances that seem rather similar to how Putin removes his victims.
Major Major Major Major
@lapassionara: At the very bottom of the light gray part of balloon-juice, if you’re running the right kind of browser, you’ll see a little form that says ‘pie filter’. If you type in a commenter’s name or a comment number in there, like in the example, and then select ‘add’, it puts them into a list that’s stored locally on your browser; from then on, any time they comment or somebody replies to one of their comments, it is replaced with a possibly-humorous quote about pie.
lapassionara
@Steeplejack (phone): Thanks.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
What do you mean possibly?
MisterForkbeard
@Yarrow: That’s interesting, but wasn’t Trump trying to get “Trump Tower Moscow” going at the time? We’ll need more than “Officials were talked about Trump and with Trump associates just before his campaign launched”.
lapassionara
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks. Now I want to try it just to check out the quotes about pie.
Yarrow
@Brachiator:
The video on people’s phones of the press being stopped at the door would be worth it. Make the Trump administration stop them. Don’t comply in advance.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: Perhaps ‘hopefully’ is a better word.
scav
@TenguPhule: Well, there are rumors that sometimes entire pie recipes are provided for especially long-winded trolls — along the lines of the Loch Ness Monster Pasty or the Great Pumpkin Pie. Dedicated pie watchers live in hope.
bystander
If you need a laugh, this slap fight between Tucker Carlson and Ralph Peters is hilarious.
I will never confuse Anthony Shaffer with Ralph Peters again. This week has been very educational.
Yarrow
@MisterForkbeard: Also from the article:
My guess is that this is a leak designed to make the Trump crime administration freak out even more. In and of itself it’s not a huge thing, but the article indicates they’re going back and reviewing all of this to see how it might fit in with what they now know.
Tick tock, motherfuckers.
Divf
@Major Major Major Major: Big deal. I use my Ph.D. Thesis to prop up the short leg of my desk.
bystander
@Yarrow: When asked about Don Jr’s Russian Adventure, Sarah launched into a gish gallop through all those rwn talkingpoints about Hillary selling our uranium stock to Russia while Vlad paid Bill millions and millions. Why couldn’t someone have asked why she had time to memorize that b/s but had no time to find out what Trump is doing on healthcare?
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
I found a New Yorker article that notes that Putin has had people killed in Europe and the Middle East, but does not put him behind any US killings.
It’s not that I don’t think he is capable of this; I don’t know that anyone in the US has been a significant threat to him, or an obstacle to his plans.
At least, not until this Trump mess started blowing up.
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
UH HUH
UH HUH
DRIP DRIP DRIP
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
THOUGHT I was the only one who noticed.
bystander
Is anyone talking about the fact that the Russian lawyer Don Jr met with that day in 2016 was in NYC then to appear on behalf of the Russian money launderer whose trial was to begin in May, 2017? But somehow, two days before the case against the Russian money launderer was to go to trial the US decided to settle this $230,000,000 case for $6,000,000. Oh and this was under new AG Sessions and after Preet Bahrara had been fired.
MisterForkbeard
@bystander: The Uranium thing should be instantly laughed off by every reporter worthy of the name. It’s been debunked so many times (And even here by Adam) that if an elected official ever repeats it, the only response from the press should be: “What are you hiding, by trying to repeat a made-up story about Hillary Clinton?”
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
I am aware of all dark internet traditions.
Keith P.
Jim Acosta is subbing in for Wolf Blitzer today! F’n sweet! (Blitzer and Burnett are damn near unwatchable for me)
TenguPhule
@bystander:
Talking, No. Listening, Yes.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: You’re not the only one.
@Brachiator: Even if these murders have been solved and Putin is responsible, that information may not be released at this time given the other ongoing investigations.
To be clear, we don’t know if Putin is responsible. I hope everyone working on the Trump/Russia case is taking extra precautions, though.
TenguPhule
Trump: QUICK I NEED AN OBVIOUS DISTRACTION!!!
Gee, I wonder what changed over a month.
japa21
@MisterForkbeard: Actually, the best response is “Why are you continuing to lie about the Clinton’s?”
dmsilev
@TenguPhule:
We won’t like him when he’s angry.
Of course, that’s mostly because we don’t like him, period.
A Ghost to Most
@LurkerNoLonger:
I don’t think she’s unattractive, but once she starts talking, she is one fugly woman.
Patricia Kayden
@germy: Every House Democrat should join the measure to impeach Trump. What more evidence do they need that he has engaged in treasonous behavior?
A Ghost to Most
@Patricia Kayden:
At least the ones in safe districts should.
Davebo
@bystander:
Well Preet Bahrara did congratulate the acting USA Joon H. Kim how took his place and Magnitsky’s law partner isn’t horribly upset with the settlement.
Patricia Kayden
@LurkerNoLonger: His son strung up a stray dog and stoned it to death so it’s not even about physical ugliness.
Yarrow
Quotes from their letter to Sessions:
Because Jeff Sessions is owned by Russia. Traitor.
Iowa Old Lady
@LurkerNoLonger: This seems like a petty argument to me compared to her willingness to serve in a corrupt administration.
Patricia Kayden
@A Ghost to Most: Yeah because Democrats need to be more aggressive in the way they handle this regime. If the shoe was on the other foot and a President Obama had done half of what Trump has been accused of doing, Republicans would shut down the government until he stepped down. Look how they treated him even though he was scandal free.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@germy: Trump’s imaginary friend, Jim. He never grew up
Yarrow
@bystander: The House Judiciary Dems are. I tried to link a tweet but FYWP won’t let me. They sent a letter to Sessions asking for explanation. That would be Russian owned Jeff Sessions, Traitor.
Yarrow
@Patricia Kayden: Completely agree. The Dems need to stop ALL Congressional business except for essential tasks–debt ceiling, that kind of thing. Otherwise, shut it down.
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: The fascist doesn’t fall far from the… fascist… tree… that one got away from me.
@Patricia Kayden:
Didn’t we generally agree that this was bad?
germy
@Patricia Kayden:
that family’s ugliness radiates outward from within. Just like dolt45 and his clan.
Mel
@TenguPhule: Is the federal prosecutor found murdered in Florida the one to which you’re referring? That news caught my attention as well. It made me wonder a bit.
Apparently he was an up-and-comer with excellent investigative skills and a rep for being very tenacious and ethical – he was reported to have been working on international visa and passport fraud cases at the time of his death. Hmm.
I find it a little odd that the story was initially reported by multiple outlets, but that there has been almost no follow-up coverage since a couple of days after his body was found. You’d think that the investigation of the murder of a federal prosecutor would be considered noteworthy and unsettling enough to merit some media follow through.
Barbara
@TenguPhule: I am sure they are quaking in their boots. There is a reason U.S. presidents try hard not to squander their first 100 days, because even six months in they are usually less popular than they were. In Trump’s case, he has become so radioactive that making him angry might be in the best interests of certain senators.
Yarrow
@Mel: If it turned out he was murdered by Russians because he was working on something to do with them, the FBI might decide to keep that quiet for the time being. It could be part of a larger case. There are tons of Russians in south Florida. Trump’s got some building down there where all the apartments have been bought by Russians. Money-laundering vehicle plus possible housing for Russian FSB or mafia or something. Shady.
Chyron HR
@TenguPhule:
Yeah, just like Al Bundy did.
Patricia Kayden
@Major Major Major Major: When Republicans shut down the government, it was for foolishness. If the Democrats shut down the government in protest of Trump’s treason, that would be completely justified. We’re talking about a President and his sycophants who have collaborated with a foreign enemy to influence our elections. Shut down the government and stop acting as if nothing happened and conducting business as usual. How the hell are Democratic Senators calmly sitting through a hearing to replace the FBI Director who was fired to stop the investigation into Russian interference?
Shut it down.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule: Hope he gets so angry he has a stroke
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: Fair enough!
ETA: What about the debt ceiling?
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: The way things are going you may well get your wish.
bystander
@Yarrow: I learned of this by fb posts by my rep, Jerry Nadler, who signed the letter along with Conyers and 12 other reps. The Hill is covering it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah: I think the correct and truely viscious reply to the old lady “And what would you be doing arround a real man?”
bystander
@MisterForkbeard: No such pushback was in evidence. Since we can’t see them, I assume the press corps looks like the audience at opening night of Springtime for Hitler. Slackjawed and wide eyed in disbelief.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Essential tasks like the debt ceiling would obviously be exempt from the shut down. And if the Republicans want to cooperate on a nice infrastructure bill that raised taxes on rich people, I”m sure the Dems would be happy to go along with that too. And expanding Medicaid. Those sort of things. Otherwise, shut it down. Traitor government shouldn’t be allowed to govern.
Speaking of traitor government, just how many of the “elected” Republican members of Congress are there because they had Russian help? Just how legitimate is Congress? Why should they even be allowed to do anything outside of essential tasks? We don’t even know if their elections are legitimate.
Yarrow
@bystander: I saw the letter on Twitter. Good letter. Jeff Sessions is bought and paid for by the Russians. Traitor.
debbie
@Yarrow:
Maybe we got rid of the Cone of Silence too soon, Natasha.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Something I’ve seen today is that Republicans are saying that this Vaselnitskimbolimbolalabamashabalabadingdongov shouldn’t have been let into the U.S., and that the real scandal here is that Obama let her into the U.S. without a visa, presumably to ensnare poor Czarevich Manbaby by dangling a conspiracy before him. Has anybody else heard anything about this? Does anybody have the first damned clue this is all about? I’ve seen them bring Preet Bharara into the story as some kind of nefarious evildoer in this story, too. What the fuck is this all about? Can somebody help me here?
rikyrah
This is from Frum.
Is this real?
Did Dolt45 actually say this???
https://mobile.twitter.com/davidfrum/status/885251664713834498
rikyrah
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Maddow covered this on her show last night that this was what the GOP, in trying to cover for Dolt45 would do.
LurkerNoLonger
@Iowa Old Lady: Yeah, I realized it was kind of mean and petty when I typed it, but it was a twofer; a shot at her and her terrible father.
Brachiator
@Patricia Kayden:
No. The US government does not belong to, and is not the plaything of either political party. There are ways to deal with Trump, if the leaders have the constitutional gonads to do it.
I hate the Trump administration with a furious passion. I hate what Trump has done to the government. But I was disgusted by the racists who wanted to obstruct or shut the government down because Obama was president. As slimy as Trump is, you can go around him, if necessary. But the government belongs to the people. For now, at least.
James Powell
Loved Gollum. Now I want to hear Harry Shearer as Montgomery Burns read them.
Patricia Kayden
@Yarrow: I love Tamron so I’m glad she will be back on t.v. Will look out for her show — especially if she’s airing against Megyn “Jesus was White” Kelly.
bystander
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I linked a Hill article that covers how Miss Alphabits fits into the picture. She’s the tie to the money laundering oligarch.
Brachiator
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Sounds like some bullshit, with an implied twist of “see, this is why Trump needs to extremely vet them dirty Mooslims.”
Patricia Kayden
@Brachiator: So we’re supposed to all pretend that the current government led by Trump is normal and therefore business should continue as usual? Is that the way to handle a treasonous usurper in the White House who colluded with a foreign enemy to secure his current position? Naw. Shut it down. There is no reason to pretend that this is normal and that we owe any respect whatsoever to the White House Occupant. The government belongs to those of us who didn’t vote for this fraudulent man and we should be encouraging our side to stop going along to get along.
Shut it down. Or at the very least support all measures to impeach Trump. I really don’t care which action is taken. No way should the hearing to replace Comey have taken place today as if the prior FBI Director wasn’t fired under improper circumstances.
efgoldman
@Patricia Kayden:
Look at the NBC Sunday nite football schedule. That’s when Ms Megyn will likely disappear from the network without fanfare or announcement. She’ll end up on CNBC or maybe MSNBC until her contract runs out.
Patricia Kayden
@Major Major Major Major: Republicans played chicken with the debt ceiling with zero consequences for their party. They shut down the government with zero consequences to their party. Democrats should take a page out of their book.
ruckus
@rikyrah:
How about this one?
?
That’s as close as I can find on my phone.
Patricia Kayden
@efgoldman: I would love for her to disappear altogether from t.v. After her stunt with Alex Jones (where she revealed that she’s a fangirl of his) which appears to have backfired on her, she really needs to go back to Fox News. Pushing Rightwing fantasies seems to be her strong point and her Boy President needs her right now.
Brachiator
@Patricia Kayden:
The president is not the government.
When Newt and his crew moved to shut down the government, they only ended up hurting the Republican Party. So, go ahead, urge the Democrats to shut the government down. The Democrats will only end up kicking themselves in the butt.
Nobody is going to shut the government down. Find another tactic to support.
jimmiraybob
My new hypothesis is that COVFEFE is an operation code name used by Putin’s Russian intelligence agency in charge of capturing and/or fucking America. Or not. But, I won’t be surprised when it drips out. Maybe Don Jr., will leak an email revealing all.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Yarrow: What’s there to stand up to? One would think Trump gets people want to see images, it’s basically a pointless press conferance. Keep in mind those press conferances are so the adminstration can control the news story, not about giving factual information.
This sounds like Banons idea since he runs a website.
Anne Laurie
@Brachiator:
Goldstone’s not American; he’s a Brit who got his start as a tabloid writer, and is now a fixer in the -stans.
The Russians have been killing Brits, and Russian nationals on British soil, since Le Carre was an actual intelligence agent.
Cain
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
He did a more recent one with the seriously bad comment about Mika and the facelift comment.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie:
I noted that in my comments and the link to the New Yorker article on the people Putin has had killed. The article makes this general point.
The article goes on to note that Putin appears to have no respect for the old rules. Still, killing an American in the US because of a Russian connection is a risky move. Putin seems relatively risk averse.
Anne Laurie
@A Ghost to Most:
Think of it in Trump terms: Huckabee Sanders showed up when the news got bad enough they couldn’t find a slender blond woman (like KAConway) or a white man (like Spicer) to stand behind the podium and mouth the latest ‘spin’.
You’re their emotional opposite: You don’t mind her looks, but you hate her lies. The Trumplodytes hired her to lie, but she doesn’t come close to meeting their usual standards for female attractiveness.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Uncle Cosmo: The Scottish writer Hal Duncan has been referring to Trump and his ilk generally as “kleptofascists”. I found that a terribly apt formation, because it’s not just the authoritarianism, it’s also the grift–always the grift.
AnonPhenom
@bystander:
Today.
…and a few days ago
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: YES. I have proposed this multiple times and I believe it would be a great alternative to the awful ads. For those o limited bankdwidth, those ads are a HUGE problem.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Amazing. This is the president of the United States, he’s like an 8-year-old pretending to be in charge. He looks at the G20 and thinks “all the kids came to my party.” What a narcissist.
edited to fix typos and autocorrect.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
Nobody is doing anything to avert the government shutting down. That’s the problem.
No scheduled vote for the debt ceiling and the unofficial deadline is the end of THIS MONTH.
WaterGirl
@Patricia Kayden: Maybe they want the impeachment to be for much more than that?
J R in WV
@satby:
I’m glad I’m not the only one to pie NR… what a dork!
i wonder how long it takes someone to figure out that they’ve been pied by the vast majority of folks on the blog? And will it make them stop? Naaa, I knew that it wouldn’t stop them…