Trump to pardon National Thanksgiving Turkey at White House on Tuesday.
— Alan Rappeport (@arappeport) November 16, 2017
that's a very mean thing to call our attorney general.
— homosexualist gay space octopus (@OhMeadhbh) November 16, 2017
We’ll find out later the turkey had meetings with Kysliak & emailed w Assange https://t.co/0HU7A3ohIk
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 16, 2017
We’ll learn that the turkey was involved in a plot to kidnap Gulen. #tooeasy
— Brandon H. (@BHIndepMO) November 16, 2017
Reprising his role, Michael Flynn will be playing the turkey.
— Kristina Costa (@slashklc) November 16, 2017
Word is that the turkey cut a deal with Mueller and no longer needs a pardon.
— ghtenner (@gh10er) November 16, 2017
Pardons turkey, which Donald Jr. then kills and posts pictures on Instagram.
— Seth Masket (@smotus) November 16, 2017
doesn't show up for the pardoning; tweets about how hard he is working on "big, very big, important work stuff" and has no time for little things like turkeys
tweet location is Mar-a-Lago
— yes cat (@vegforward) November 16, 2017
Trump regales the turkey about his historic Electoral College victory, historic popular vote margin, historically productive first months in office and historic trip to Asia, driving the bird to kill itself.
— Robert Schlesinger (@rschles) November 16, 2017
turkey will bite pic.twitter.com/3XjiYcTmqV
— skroopels (@skroopels) November 16, 2017
JCJ
Yeah, but I remember when Sasha and Malia Obama rolled there eyes. Trump would never allow anything like that!!!11!!
lamh36
SMH…I guess this will certainly fly w/the dumb azz Deplorables…
debit
@lamh36: @lamh36: Buh? He said it on tape. He admitted it.
trollhattan
Possum Queen throttles logic and ethics, sends them running for the hills.
Corner Stone
God damn. The next time I want to hear about a “reckoning” for Bill Clinton is approximately either after the heat death of the universe or immediately after Trump resigns for his on the record sexual assault(s).
gene108
@lamh36:
Never admitting you are wrong is a hallmark of Republicanism. Bush, Jr., even to the bitter end, never admitted making a mistake.
@debit:
It was just “locker room talk”…he didn’t really mean it…like everything else he says…
lamh36
Roger Moore
There are so many turkeys in Trump’s Administration. How will he know which one to pardon?
TenguPhule
The turkey will vote for Thanksgiving.
Corner Stone
I am really having it up to fucking here with some of these fucking pollyanna academics on “the left” about Bill Clinton. What little respect I still had for Chris Hayes is vanishing.
TenguPhule
@lamh36: Fuck. Its Official. We are living in 1984.
eclare
@lamh36: That is a great way to put it!
MomSense
@lamh36:
He didn’t admit it, he bragged about it.
WTF Sarah Sanders is a monster.
jl
I for one am willing to cut the Thanksgiving turkeys some slack if they have a hard time remembering meetings with Russians.
But on the other hand, I understand their disclosure forms to be extremely basic and simple, so no excuse for not getting those right.
lamh36
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: That feeling you’re feeling is cognitive dissonance. It comes from trying to defend Bill Clinton, an indefensible man, while complaining about Trump, another indefensible man. We’re in a lucky position though- we don’t need Bill for anything. Throw him under the bus, we lose nothing and you’ll feel better.
SatanicPanic
What did the turkey defy court orders to stop targeting Mexicans?
sharl
Maryland’s favorite multi-millionaire, ladies and germs!
Truly a man of the people.
Julie
Um… Ohio governor candidate boasts of sexual history with ‘approximately 50 very attractive females’
Gin & Tonic
@SatanicPanic: Bill Clinton had actual accomplishments which benefited actual people. That makes him defensible, at least for me.
mike in dc
@lamh36:
We’re going to have to expand the SCOTUS to 25 members to undo all the fuckery.
FlipYrWhig
Here’s a new one for me: the bro-i-est of left-posturing bros on my FB feed is now guffawing about how liberal feminists are demeaning themselves by defending Franken. Admittedly I only know left-beardo culture from the lowlights that get shared, but isn’t that whole angry-left-bro crowd (e.g. Chapo Trap House, Matt Taibbi) _highly_ prone to sexualized and gendered dominance displays? Are we really going to have to suffer through the anti-identity-politics douchebags lecturing feminists about how they’re feministing wrong?
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic: The fuck it is. It’s not about defending Bill Clinton at all you purity pony morality scold. He was impeached. He also sat through thousands of hours of depositions related to other accusations.
We’ve got shit that’s real. Right here in the right now. Let’s handle our business instead of drudging up some shit that was adjudicated 20 years ago, against a figure who holds no office and never will again.
Kenneth Kohl
There are so many turkeys in Trump’s Administration. How will he know which one to pardon?@Roger Moore:
Blanket pardon is a possibility
gene108
@SatanicPanic:
I remember the 1990’s. The economy was great. The stock market was great. Income inequality actually went down. And it ended with a motherfucking budget surplus!!!
And also, too we got Family Medical Leave (which Bush, Sr vetoed), CHIP, The Brady Bill, the Assault Weapons ban (the last two major pieces of gun control legislation for the foreseeable future), got North Korea to shutter its nuclear weapons program,
There’s a lot to fucking defend Bill Clinton for!!!
He was a good President. He left this country in better shape than when he started his terms in office.
Patricia Kayden
Robert Schlesinger: Trump regales the turkey about his historic Electoral College victory, historic popular vote margin, historically productive first months in office and historic trip to Asia, driving the bird to kill itself.
SatanicPanic
@Gin & Tonic: Defensible as a president in the 90s, maybe. Defensible as a prominent person for the Democratic party in 2017? Nope. I mean if we could resurrect zombie FDR would you put him in front of a party trying to court Asian voters? I wouldn’t.
Miss Bianca
@FlipYrWhig: Yes. Because leftybros positively get off on douche-splaining to women how they ought to be feeling and thinking about the issues that affect them.
FlipYrWhig
@gene108: Yes, but you’re failing to take into account that Bill Clinton steered the Democratic Party away from the principles and strategies that had produced such memorable and influential presidencies as Humphrey, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis.
Tom
@lamh36: Indeed! A distinction that is entirely in Al Franken’s favor.
eclare
@gene108: Couldn’t agree more. The more time we spend on Bill Clinton is the less time we have to spend calling our senators, volunteering to register voters, or doing any more productive thing to fix this shitstorm that we are in.
Patricia Kayden
@SatanicPanic: President Clinton was a great president. The country did well economically under his administration. Those were some great years. The fact that he was a serial philanderer was a personal failing between himself and his family. I’m not throwing him under any bus especially in light of the fact that many of his Republican accusers were themselves serial philanderers.
Peale
@Corner Stone: Really? A whole segment devoted to Bill Clinton? Let me guess, they justify it as a “Debate that is long overdue. One that we should have had 25 years ago” when they really mean “We discussed this shit endlessly for four straight years in the 1990s and our side lost, but let’s see if we can win now, and pretend that its a current event.” For our next segment, we’ll delve into the world of music and discuss we were a bit hasty when we replaced Benny Goodman with Elvis Presley.
Amaranthine RBG
@SatanicPanic:
Yeah, it’s bizarre that anyone defends him
I posted about Gillibrand saying Clinton should have resigned at the time, and a bunch of people started picking nits apparently attempting in an inchoate and clumsy manner to imply that she really didn’t mean what she said. Strange.
SatanicPanic
@gene108: We also got welfare reform, the crime bill, Gramm-Leach-Biley, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, DOMA. Plus Dick Morris, Lanny Davis, James Carville and Mark Penn.
FlipYrWhig
@Peale: They were both guilty of “cultural appropriation” anyway. For principled left purposes, it would have been better for white music to stay white… um… wait, I’ll come in again.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: Sarah Sanders is a polished liar as is Trump. That’s the distinction between them and Franken who has taken responsibility for his inappropriate behavior. Being able to lie with a straight face or in an indignant voice isn’t a plus.
SatanicPanic
@Patricia Kayden: If Bill Clinton is a great president because of the economy then Donald Trump is a great president because of the economy, and I know no one wants to defend that. “Serial philanderer” is the most charitable way of putting it. The dude was gross.
SatanicPanic
@Amaranthine RBG: Have Republicans paid any price for shoving GWB down the memory hole?
Patricia Kayden
@Corner Stone: What reckoning? He’s out of office and a private citizen now. It’s interesting how Conservatives reach back to attack President Clinton and completely skip over President Obama. Shows how desperate they truly are.
Patricia Kayden
@SatanicPanic: I don’t need to argue with you about this since when President Clinton left office, his popularity ratings were high. Nuff said.
gene108
@SatanicPanic:
All of which would have been worse under a Republican President.
Bill Clinton put into effect the rule that forced abortion clinic protesters to be 30 feet away from abortion clinics. Can’t picture a Republican President pissing off the fundie base in doing something like this.
There were some bills that don’t look as good today as they did then, but overall he left things in better shape than he found them.
Amaranthine RBG
@Patricia Kayden:
Agree that he was generally good on policy- or at least clearly preferable to the Republican alternative- but there really is no excuse then or now for the most powerful man in the world to have sex with an intern – even if she did make googley eyes at him.
Far better ethically and tactically for Democrats to just say, yeah what he did was wrong and move on instead of trying to draw distinctions and prolonging the discussion.
SatanicPanic
@Patricia Kayden: OK don’t. I get that people like the guy and want to defend him for that reason. I just don’t see any logical reason beyond that.
Corner Stone
Robert Traynham (R consultant) just brought up the lie about Bill Clinton’s $200 Haircut on The Tarmac. Which is a lie that has been debunked for 20+ years. But it still sticks. Do we really want to give in and set a space for wingnuts to re-start another decade of lies against Bill Clinton? While we’re fighting to save our democracy and republic?
Ocotillo
@lamh36:
She makes a point there about the Supreme Court. 2018 is such a heavy lift to get a Senate majority due to the sheer number of seats that need to be defended but if Team Dem can get the Senate, McConnell has set the precedent that any vacancy on the court does not need to be filled until the next election. To the phones, organize, resist!
sharl
@FlipYrWhig: As during the Dem primary, the dude-bro label ignored the existence of a LOT of women who supported Sanders, and as someone who followed them, I can tell you they were PISSED about it, and they came to the conclusion that their erasure in social media was not an accident. Amanda Marcotte was particularly odious in this way, but she was far from alone. Most of the women like this who I follow on Twitter aren’t fans of Chapo Trap House and other testosterone-drenched podcast fare from lefty guys, though they may share drinks with those podcasters at a bar or exchange smartass tweets with them, including when the boys are being dumb-asses about the girls.
A lot of the young leftists/socialists, many if not most of them women, think that there needs to be a reckoning with the Bill Clinton thing if widespread improvements in the area of sexual harassment/assault are to take hold in any permanent way. More recently (starting yesterday) they are mad at Kate Harding for her tweet thread – since developed into the WaPo op-ed that was posted today – in support of Franken staying in office. As Harding has noted, her stance here is based on dealing with the reality of our existing shitty political situation, rather than her being OK with what Franken did (or supposedly did).
That gets into another aspect of young leftie thinking that I find fascinating, but doesn’t get the attention I think it deserves: what those Youngs refer to sneeringly as incrementalism, which in their view is settling for half a loaf rather than going for the entire thing. This was a big part of their beef with the ACA, and is a big part of their criticism of a lot of traditional politics. Sometimes I agree with them, but a lot of time I think this shows the fundamentally impatiencet and history-ignorant aspect of youth. It would be nice to have forums where they could be argued with on the merits of their arguments (or lack of same).
Amaranthine RBG
@SatanicPanic:
Not sure what you are getting at here.
gene108
@Amaranthine RBG:
But people want to jettison his entire Presidency and legacy and banish him to some remote island because he cheated on his wife.
That’s the distinction for me.
What he did in his personal life was wrong. That does not invalidate his Presidency.
The Moar You Know
@trollhattan: Possum Queen speaks the truth while having no intention of actually doing so.
Doug R
@SatanicPanic: CONSENSUAL sex between ADULTS. NONE of YOUR BUSINESS.
sharl
@sharl: Hahaha, dammit, someday I’ll remember to avoid words with C1AL1S character string; FYWP’d again!
{Shakes fist} Curse you WordPress, you’ve won today, but one day I’ll beat you and market my d1ckpills on this site!
FlipYrWhig
@Amaranthine RBG: But she wasn’t an intern anymore. There’s far less of a taboo surrounding, say, a professor having consensual sex with someone of legal age who USED TO BE his student, and having consensual sex with someone of legal age who’s a CURRENT student. I think the former is still a very bad idea that’s somewhere on the creepy spectrum — but it’s not improper-verging-on abusive the way the latter is.
gene108
@Corner Stone:
Yes we do.
Until we are totally pure and have purified ourselves of all wrong doing and all impure thoughts and deeds, we cannot have nice things.
And once we become pure and retake power, the first time we compromise our principles to get something done we will become impure, we must relinquish power to Republicans, and go off work on becoming pure again.
SatanicPanic
@gene108: Yes, he was better than a Republican would have been. That’s a very low bar. After the 2008 downturn I don’t think he left things better. De-regulation was done on his watch and he blew it bigtime. Welfare and policing were markedly worse. I give him credit for North Korea. I don’t think it makes sense to give him credit for the economy. He did manage to mostly to keep us out of wars, though I wasn’t happy with his response to Rwanda.
SatanicPanic
@Doug R: I don’t buy it.
The Moar You Know
@lamh36: Republicans understand that if you don’t win, you don’t get what you want.
Meanwhile Dems are ready to take their brightest Senator out back and shoot him like a rabid dog.
I have no hope for 2018 or 2020 or anything else. This has been a very demoralizing week. And not in any way because of Republicans. Democrats obviously just don’t get the big picture and worse, are willfully refusing to.
Ocotillo
Regarding Clinton and his neo-liberal policies, the guy had a GOP House from ’94 on. While Presidents can implement a lot of what they want they are restrained somewhat by the Congress they have during their administration. Obama could have accomplished so much more if he had not been hamstrung in 2010 and Reagan would have been even worse with a GOP Congress.
Performance-wise, Clinton was a good president. On a personal level, he hurt himself with his reckless behavior in regards to women. A lot of it was consensual but it gave the right a crack of daylight that they exploited with all sorts of sh*t.
Obama, they never laid a glove on the man due to his impeccable character.
geg6
@Amaranthine RBG:
She wasn’t a fucking intern at the time. She was previously an intern but was a low level staff member at the time. And she admits to this day that she pursued him, even after they moved her to another department because they were concerned about her pursuit. Quit making out that a grown woman had no agency. You dehumanize her more than Bill Clinton ever did, you dumb fuck.
Amaranthine RBG
@gene108:
I don’t want to banish him to an island. I still have a pic on my wall of me shaking his hand at some meet and greet but if the topic ever comes up I would promptly respond “Yeah, that was just wrong”
And, a Sorry having sex with a work subordinate is not a purely personal matter. If one of my employees had sex with a direct report, they are fired”
SatanicPanic
@SatanicPanic: I’m saying throwing BC under the bus is a cost-free win, just like throwing Al Franken under the bus is a cost-free win. Might as well do it. There’s no benefit to either guy- Bill will never run for office again, and Al is a dead man walking.
Colleeniem
@Corner Stone: If we’re going to have a unproductive retroactive discussion about presidential sexual impropriety/potential assault, can we also have a retroactive discussion about deceiving our way into a forever war? I think it might have the same result. Which is NOTHING.
I despair of the quickness with which we don our hair shirts, truly.
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic: There is no “cost free win” here. Anywhere. At all. You’re not going to gain anything by tossing Franken away. Nothing. Didn’t you see that the AL Gov is going to vote for Roy Moore even though she believes the accusers? Because she knows what winning means.
ruemara
@SatanicPanic: I’ll take the masher with the roving dick problem who, under investigation, got consent and managed to keep out of too many wars and grow the economy. That’s very defensible. He’s Hillary’s problem for that, not mine. The focus you have on wandering penii is too much.
@Ocotillo: The reason why white conservatives want to destroy Obama’s memory is because the best president we’ve had in decades and possibly since the beginning, is a black man.
Which is sadly quite an accurate history of this problem. See also, lynchings of black servicemen and destruction of black towns.
@The Moar You Know: Correct. They’re acting like scoring a moral victory for purity counts. and frankly, chasing Al Franken out over this story isn’t a moral victory.
Corner Stone
The last fucking thing I need is David French moralizing at me about Teh Moral High Ground.
hueyplong
@SatanicPanic: Al Franken is a dead man walking only if Democrats join with Republicans to make him one.
geg6
@SatanicPanic:
Go fuck yourself. I’m not throwing either one under the bus. Who are you to tell women how to feel and react to these situations and these men. Just love how you and AABG talk down to women and love posturing as pure “feminists.” This is why I despise the far left more than I despise Republicans. Sexist fakes.
Amaranthine RBG
@geg6:
Oh I see she was an employee, not an intern—- that really makes a difference
The disproportionate power between The most powerful person in the world and some intern, oh I’m sorry low level employee, makes it sexual harassment.
2017 will be here for you when you catch up.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: Of course we’ll gain something. Is Franken going to be effective going forward? Nope. Will we be in a better place to say “we don’t tolerate this from our politicians”? Yep. It’s not a huge win, but the cost is zero, so might as well take it.
EDIT- also, seriously, you’re defending voting for Roy Moore?
SatanicPanic
@geg6: I’m not telling you how to feel. I’m telling you I’m not defending a guy who is obviously gross and was only a mediocre president in the first place. If you want to, great, but there’s no practical reason to.
SatanicPanic
@hueyplong: That photo is electoral death and you know it.
geg6
@Amaranthine RBG:
Fuck off, you pig. I fucked my editor back in the day. Numerous times. Because I wanted to. It wasn’t sexual harassment. It was sex and it was fun. You don’t get to decide that. Monica does, just like I do. Quit condescending to adult women. Your paternalistic slip is showing, asshole.
Amaranthine RBG
@geg6:
Yeah Roy Moore as empowering teenagers to express their sexuality!!!!
I don’t particularly care that you are a twisted and disgusting person, but it bothers me that people might think you are typical of progressives or democrats.
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic: You’re a fool. Kick Franken to the curb and what happens next? Any D with any issue, reall or blown up, in an R state has demands that we have to, HAVE TO, Franken that mother fucker. If we don’t then what does that say about us? Political opportunists!!!
Yet, each and every single time an R Senator or candidate gets accused guess what? They not only stay on, they cast votes for the R agenda.
We will continue to get our ass kicked as long as we play the game by their rules. Purity ponies need to check into the self immolation line and shut the fuck up.
Colleeniem
@The Moar You Know: Seriously. I’m a sorta millennial/whatever woman in a profession dominated by men. The ONLY way you change the culture, AND achieve political success, permanently, is having the effective advocates on the inside. And not be willing to cut bait when it gets risky.
Did we freakin forget the 2016 election already? I thought when I left the Catholic Church I didn’t need to go searching for saints anymore.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
OMFG, I can’t believe I am seeing this shit on BJ of all places.
Logic, Facts, Sanity.
All fucking missing from the place all of a sudden.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
Wrong.
You’re letting Republicans CRIPPLE the Democratic effort to mobilize against the Tax Abomination in favor of FUCKING PURITY.
This is edging into Jill Stein Support Terroritory FFS!!!
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: Republicans are going to do that anyway. Better than waiting around for him to lose his next election.
geg6
@SatanicPanic:
Yes, you are. Telling me how we should react to Clinton (and I can’t believe I’m rehashing this shit again twenty years later) and Franken is very much condescendingly telling me and other women that our own perceptions and feelings about these matters are not correct and we should listen to the white man for how to react. Fuck you, you sexist pig.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
And some women wonder why they get thrown under the bus in politics.
Loyalty is a two way street.
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic: Let’s say it is Joe Donnelly. Now what do you do, purity pony?
edited
geg6
@Amaranthine RBG:
LOL! So a woman who has sex for pleasure and even initiates it and enjoys the hell out of it is disgusting and unworthy of being a liberal.
Yeah, some liberal feminist bona fides you have there.
SatanicPanic
@geg6: I wasn’t even responding to you, don’t try pulling that on me. I laid out my reasons for not liking the guy, if you want to argue the facts, do it. But I haven’t said anything sexist here.
Amaranthine RBG
@geg6: Roy Moore on line one for you!
NotMax
Given this administration’s track record on these things, will they bring before the cameras
a) a frozen Butterball turkey
b) a chicken
c) a cow
d) Don, Jr.
e) stack of DVDs of Ishtar
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: That would be different, obviously. It still might be the right thing to do, but it would come at a much steeper cost. We can set up trolley problems all day, but Franken is not that.
Scamp Dog
@SatanicPanic: There’s a big difference between consensual and non-consensual. Bill stayed on the acceptable side of that boundary, while Trump boasts about violating it. Also, Ms. Lewinsky was no longer an intern at that point, having moved into a paid position in December of 1995. She was 22 at the time, unlike Moore’s girlfriends in their mid-teens.
geg6
@Amaranthine RBG:
What does Roy Moore have to do with my relationship with my editor back in the 80s? I’m seriously missing the connection. And before you say it, it has nothing to do with Clinton and Franken either. Neither ever were hitting on underage girls.
SatanicPanic
@Scamp Dog: Maybe he did. There are two readings here:
A) Clinton ONLY had a consensual affair with a former intern and all the women who accused him of assault were liars.
B) Something worse than A.
I go with B. I just think there’s too much there to think the man wasn’t kind of gross. Other people, obviously, disagree.
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic: You’re a fraud.
geg6
@Corner Stone:
This.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: I’m a fraud now? Jesus. If you have an issue with my logic explain it, no need be name-calling.
And you edited after I responded so I’m not even sure which you want me to respond to.
hueyplong
@SatanicPanic:
I know no such thing.
Your advice to Democrats would be no less harmful if you were Roger Stone himself. If I respected your intelligence more, I’d assume you were a ratfucker. But your appearance on a not-quite top 10,000 blog just means you’re a wannabe pot-stirrer, no more and possibly even less consequential than the rest of us.
Franken should do what he’s doing, putting on the hair shirt over stuff he did before he became the political champion we like today and going into whatever ethics committee hearing that takes place with his head up, ready to fight. This ain’t exactly Chappaquiddick, and the people hunting him have all done far worse than he has.
He should be ready to rumble, and Vichy weasels like yourself will just have to whine about it.
NotMax
@NotMax
Amend choice d above:
Don, Jr. hidden inside a turkey costume
SatanicPanic
@hueyplong: I’ve been here since like 2010, sheesh. I have no claim to being more consequential than anyone anywhere.
Miss Bianca
@Corner Stone: A fraud, a tone-deaf, self-righteous fraud, and a sea lion to boot. Stop throwing fish to the sea lion!
SatanicPanic
So I’m a ratfucker, a sexist person, a fraud, and a sea lion (?) because I don’t defend gross Bill Clinton enough. Okay. Just waiting to hear that I’m a Russian or a sockpuppet.
ETA_ oh and a troll. That would be BINGO too.
Amaranthine RBG
@geg6:
This may come as a shock to you, but I really have no interest in your (no doubt very lively and empowered) sexual history.
While fucking some editor years ago is, apparently, a matter of a continuing importance to you- it really has nothing to do with generally accepted societal norms and laws regarding sexual harassment.
Your inability to disentangle these diverse matters seems to be clouding your thinking.
FlipYrWhig
@SatanicPanic: I think it’s entirely plausible that Bill Clinton slept with a lot of adult women and that he, at the same time, was sufficiently aware of the meaning of consent not to use force on any of them; and that he, ALSO at the same time, probably didn’t think through that there are ways for consenting women to think of themselves, in real time and even while consenting, as having been pressured. IOW he could have an absolute bright line between consent and nonconsent and still create situations that were creepy and pressure-packed. How we judge that is complicated. How we judge that when it gets all mixed up with politics is even _more_ complicated.
The Franken thing, though, I’m pretty astounded at the strength of some of my women friends’ negative reaction. To me it feels like bad taste at most and not at all like assault. But the people reacting are people whose views I trust. Maybe I have a lot to learn still myself.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Y’all need to pie some motherfuckers and keep it moving.
TenguPhule
@Colleeniem:
Judging by how half the commenters seem to want to go full Jill Stein on us, Yes.
geg6
@Amaranthine RBG:
It’s not sexual harassment unless the person who is in the lower level position thinks it is and if there are no job related issues. Neither Monica nor I were being pressured, our jobs did not depend on our affairs and we weren’t unwilling, in fact, we both initiated the relationship. It had nothing to do with work other than that’s where we met our lovers. The only difference between Monica and me is my editor wasn’t married. Other than that, we view our workplace affairs the same way. If we don’t see it as sexual harassment, it isn’t.
Andrew
Deja vu, Didn’t he already Pardon Joe Arpaio?
Josie
@Corner Stone: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with everything you have said in this thread. Seriously, we are at such a critical juncture in the life of our country at this point that we all need to take a good long look at what hill we are willing to die on. This purity crap does not make the cut for me.
Mnemosyne
@SatanicPanic:
You really need to stop showing off your total ignorance of how seniority works in the Senate, even for the minority party. It’s becoming embarrassing.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
Or we could throw all the purity scolds under a bus and thereby save a lot of time and effort because we would stop throwing our people under the bus after that!
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
becoming?
Corner Stone
@Josie: What?! I thought we were buddies, pals, amigos, sympatico, peas in a pod!!
hueyplong
@SatanicPanic: Excellent. Whine mode. Please stay there.
I am well and truly sick of the idea that we should get into a knife fight with Republicans armed only with sanctimony.
Corner Stone
@hueyplong: Worse, we are always either on our heels or in a defensive crouch.
SatanicPanic
@FlipYrWhig: Re: Clinton, I think that’s plausible too. Maybe the most likely. I don’t know the women that have accused him of assault are lying, but I don’t feel comfortable calling them liars. I just don’t know.
I talked to my GF about the Franken thing yesterday and she, fairly offhandedly said, “I’m not surprised” and we went about our day. This morning she saw the photo and was like “OH THAT’S BAD”. Obviously some other people don’t think it’s a big deal. I don’t think it’s politically survivable, but I guess we’ll see.
mai naem mobile
Dolt45 will badger the turkeys about thanking him for the pardons like he did with the UCLA players getting out of China.Hope somebody has calles them Boris and Natasha.
SatanicPanic
@hueyplong: pshaw ok dude. This isn’t about fighting with Republicans. This is about doing the right thing. but whatever.
@Mnemosyne: OK, explain it to me then. I’m skeptical why I should care about #49 on the list, the junior senator who doesn’t head any committees from a state I don’t live in should matter to me.
bobbo
Thanks for this. I get to see the best funniest twitter without actually having to be on twitter.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
FTFY.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
FFS, the right thing is FIGHTING THE FUCKING REPUBLICANS.
When the other side are literal fascists and Nazis, this shouldn’t even be in question.
Mnemosyne
@SatanicPanic:
Uh, there are NO Democrats who head any committees. That’s what being the minority party means.
Franken is on the Judiciary committee (as well as three others. You know, the one that’s currently investigating Sessions’ ties to Russia.
He’s currently the ranking member on only one committee but, hey, as long as you don’t think internet privacy is important, you’re totally in the clear:
Yeah, let’s just toss the guy. It’s not like internet privacy is important or anything.
ETA: By the way, that took me about 5 seconds to Google.
mai naem mobile
@SatanicPanic: Frankens seat is not a gimme. You don’t know the replacement process in Minnesota. And you’re defanging a good voice on the left.
mai naem mobile
My guessis they’ll be gunning for Mark Warner next because hes the ranking member on the Intel committee.
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne: Fine, I said head when I meant ranking. And I was wrong, he is ranking member on one committee. And yes, I know he’s on the judiciary committee. But again, why should that matter to me? If he leaves, someone else moves up. And when Democrats are in charge someone else will head that committee. Is he some sort of expert on this stuff? I doubt it. The questions he asked Sessions were very good and I have mentioned several times that his questioning skills in that arena are valuable. I don’t think that outweighs his dead-man-walking status, i.e. I think we’re better off ditching him now before we lose his seat entirely.
SatanicPanic
@mai naem mobile: Sure, but it’s not a gimme with Franken either. I think we’re better off with an interim person who can build up some good will than with sticking with Al because this is going to dog him when he runs. YMMV.
Mnemosyne
@SatanicPanic:
Yeah, who gives a shit about that whole ongoing treason investigation that Sessions is implicated in? It’s not like the president conspiring with a foreign country to cheat his way into office is a big deal. If that investigation gets derailed, it’s not like it’s important to anyone.
Jesus, man. Just admit you overreacted to an admittedly gross prank photo and move on. Let the Ethics Committee investigate and see what else turns up.
Bostondreams
@Amaranthine RBG:
How are you not removing agency here? She pursued him and has stated as such. Yes, what he did was idiotic, but he did not use his power to force her into a sexual relationship. She made the choice.
Whole lot more questions could be raised about the other women however.
Haroldo
Precisely how does a person invoke the pie filter? There are a few folks who have become beyond tedious and are well worth discarding. It is my understanding that this magic filter makes them effectively disappear.
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne: The treason investigation isn’t going to happen without Al Franken there?
I was asking specifically how his seniority should matter to me in California. Beyond his question asking skills I’m not seeing it. And no, I’m not going to admit I overreacted. That photo is going to haunt him forever now.
Haroldo
@Haroldo: I see…..it’s right down at the bottom of the comment form. Yippee! So long, lunkheads.
frosty
@Haroldo: ‘zactly. I just skimmed the comments. Sheesh. I only have 2 commenters delivering delicious pie, but a third is definitely in line if things don’t change.
Thanks Cleek and M^4!!
Balconesfault
@SatanicPanic: one of the dumbest things I’ve read here, and that’s saying a lot sometimes.
SatanicPanic
@Balconesfault: I was responding to Patricia’s formulation that Bill Clinton was a great president because the economy was great. It was a tad overboard, but really, it’s rare that a president has much of an effect on the economy while they’re in office. Obama with the stimulus package and Reagan with the Volcker shocks were a few, though I doubt Reagan understood anything Volcker was up to.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
For starters, that fucking tax abomination in the Senate.
Or do you not see a problem with kneecapping the Senator who was IN CHARGE of leading the push-back on that?
The Democratic Senators are not fucking cogs and not interchangable with each other. Some of them are more effective then others and Franken is very fucking effective at his job.
Corner Stone
@frosty: Who is it? You can’t just leave us hanging like that!
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: If it’s not me I’m going to be offended.
mai naem mobile
@SatanicPanic: you are either stupid or being obtuse. Franken isn’t up for reelection till 2020. There is no need right now for him to resign. Do you really want to defend another seat in 2018? I don’t .I am not willing to give the GOP another scalp when they can’t even give up Moore or investigate Dolt.
Balconesfault
@SatanicPanic: well, we differ there. I actually believe a President’s policies and have a great deal of effort in the economy particularly when he’s in office for 8 years. Clinton ran policies deliberately geared toward reducing the deficit, and while the tech boom was certainly to his advantage, I have no doubt that a Republican President obsessed with major tax cuts and defense spending increases could have squandered that prosperity and ended up the term with growing deficits and a moribund economy.
In fact, come to think of it, his successor did exactly that.
Future historians will look back at the 90s 2000s and 2010s as a series of fantastic stewardship by democratic Presidents, followed by horrible stewardship by their Republican successors. In each case the departing president teed up prosperous economies for their successors who proceeded to take it at all bundle it up and ship it to the top 1%.
SatanicPanic
@Balconesfault: maybe so. His signing Gramm-Leach-Bliley, did, however, turn out pretty badly for us.
SatanicPanic
@mai naem mobile: look I said I think he’ll have a rougher time getting relected than someone who replaces him. YMMV but I don’t think that’s obviously stupid or obtuse.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
Have you not been paying any attention to Senate races in the last 20 years?
fuckwit
@lamh36: party first, country last
Caphilldcne
@SatanicPanic: I’m sorry but there is a 2 vote margin in the Senate to repeal the ACA/pass tax reform. It could go down to a one vote margin if Roy Moore is defeated. That you would momentarily create a distraction from that means you are a goddamn fool. You are way out on a limb sawing it off and have no f’ing idea what you are doing. You are also up against a republican cabal that has spent half a trillion dollars over 40 years perfecting their message and you are currently parroting them. This is incredibly stupid.
Caphilldcne
Oh. I see you are Californian. Ok. You are literally surrounded by people who think the way you do. You have no goddam idea what is happening and you think you can just saw off the west coast and float off to sea in a fabulous bubble. I spend a lot of my time telling Californians that I love them and that they have no idea.
mai naem mobile
@SatanicPanic: it’s 2017 He’s not up till 2020. There are elections coming up in 2018 where there’s a slim chance we might take back the Senate. If there’s a slew of women who come up and say he groped them and kissed them anf the whole thing becomes a distraction then I would say let him resign. Otherwise he can an well wait till 2019 to make a decision. You do realize he can get his ass kicked out during the primary right???
satby
@Corner Stone:
Standing ovation.
satby
@SatanicPanic: and lets be clear, if we could have the peace and prosperity of the 90s while Clinton was President back, I’d blow the old guy myself.
Duane
Trump can pardon the Thanksgiving turkey, but his goose will soon be cooked.
SatanicPanic
@Caphilldcne: you don’t need 48 votes to filibuster. 47 (or 41) is enough. I don’t know what me being from California has to do with that. I was making that point in relation to committee assignments, which is when people should be concerned about what state they’re a senator is from. He’s not going to do anything special for my state so as far as I’m concerned there’s no reason to care what state any given committee member is from
SatanicPanic
@mai naem mobile: yes I realize that. That doesn’t really change my thinking.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic: We need to peel off as many as 3 Republican votes to stop this shit and you want to kneecap our efforts by REMOVING THE FUCKING GUY LEADING THE EFFORT IN THE SENATE.
FFS, its like telling the Navy in the battle of Midway you want to remove the admiral in charge as the planes are taking off with a ensign straight out of the academy.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
Proof of thinking not in evidence.
Elizabelle
@SatanicPanic: SatanicPie worthy.
tam1MI
@FlipYrWhig:
Just wait until Roger Stone throws the essay that Bernie Sanders wrote saying that women dig being raped on the table (it won’t be hard to find, it’s been out there in plain sight for decades) and demands HIS head on a platter. The douche-bros and their bro-hos will be singing a different tune then.