I just wanted to let all of you know that Cheryl Rofer has been given a set of keys. Be nice.
Also, discovered that the fan on my air conditioning unit outside is dead. Wonder how much that will cost. Home ownership is a kick in the dick.
This post is in: Open Threads
I just wanted to let all of you know that Cheryl Rofer has been given a set of keys. Be nice.
Also, discovered that the fan on my air conditioning unit outside is dead. Wonder how much that will cost. Home ownership is a kick in the dick.
This post is in: Go Fuck Yourself
This is great:
The Trump administration this week launched a new hotline called the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) for people to learn more information about crimes that have been committed by undocumented immigrants.
However, the hotline was quickly flooded by pranksters who called up to report their close encounters with a different kind of “illegal alien” — namely, space aliens who fly around in saucer-shaped ships.
Fusion on Thursday asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a response to the people who called them to talk about space aliens, and an agency spokesperson angrily lashed out by calling everyone who participated in the prank “despicable.”
“I hope you won’t dignify this group with the attention they are seeking,” the spokesperson told Fusion. “But if you choose to do so… this group’s cheap publicity stunt is beyond the pale of legitimate public discourse. Their actions seek to obstruct and do harm to crime victims; that’s objectively despicable regardless of one’s views on immigration policy.”
Fuck you, Nazi scum. The next President is going to have to resurrect the Allied Control Council and engage in denazification of these fucking brownshirts at ICE.
It Was a One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People EaterPost + Comments (153)
This post is in: Open Threads
by Betty Cracker| 321 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Politics
There was some discussion at the tail-end of the wee-hours thread about how the efforts to rebuild the Democratic Party are going so far. The Perez-Sanders unity roadshow is widely seen as a flop since there hasn’t been a whole lotta…unity. But was the purpose to display unity or try to get there by airing differences?
I dunno. As I mentioned in that thread, Perez has successfully run large, focused organizations, so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. As for the next phase, rebuilding, Kay said something in that thread that resonated with me:
I haven’t witnessed this finely-tuned Democratic machine that effectively excludes progressive candidates and slots in centrist candidates. It is NOTHING like that. In some ways I wish it were like that because that’s a defined problem that could be fixed or changed.
I have been involved with House candidates ranging from a former minister who was anti-abortion to an out and out labor candidate- he was basically “the candidate the Steelworkers gave us”. I didn’t discern the slightest bit of difference in how these two people were “supported” by the “national Party”. I put “national Party” in quotes because I feel like it’s almost an exaggeration to give them that much influence in these races.
It doesn’t matter because as I said I’m not in Bernie’s “movement” and even if I were I hate visioning sessions, but looking at it from the outside I think it operates from a flawed assumption- that The Problem is a command and control centrist Democratic Party. I have never seen evidence of this coordinated effort to hold down progressives. I don’t think it exists. They’re organized around a problem that isn’t the problem, doesn’t exist. For some reason Bernie people LIKE this problem, this is the one they want to solve, but you don’t get to settle on the problem you want to have and then pretend it’s the central issue and solve that.
It’s easy for Perez to accommodate them on the problem they’re presenting him with because it doesn’t exist so he doesn’t have to change anything.
Kay’s description of how the party functions tracks with my experience as an extremely insignificant local-level party member. I know some of y’all are meeting-attending Democrats as well. What have you seen on the ground?
Anyhoo, we need to figure this shit out, and fast. Something valued commenter Kindness said in that thread rang true to me as well:
As a nation I propose we don’t do what Maine did twice in electing LaPage.
Yep. I’ll add Florida’s example to the mix as well since this purplish state twice elected ambulatory dildo / obvious crook Rick Scott with less than 50% of the vote total. We’ve got to be up to the job — us, not some vague, faceless “them.”
by DougJ| 253 Comments
This post is in: Election 2018, I wish a motherfucker would!
Not sure why Dems are trying to stop Republicans from voting on health care tomorrow. I don’t always wish a motherfucker would hold a vote on destroying millions of people’s health care but there’s no way on earth this thing passes the Senate. I mean, look at these poll numbers:
Public sentiment is particularly lopsided in favor of an aspect of the current health-care law that blocks insurers from charging more or denying coverage to customers with medical conditions. About 8 in 10 Democrats, 7 in 10 independents and even a slight majority of Republicans say that should continue to be a national mandate, rather than an option for states to retain or drop.
These Tuesday group moderates, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days, are correct:
The latest changes, hammered out by Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows (R-NC), and one of the moderates’ own, Tuesday Group co-chair Tom MacArthur (R-NJ), allows states to opt out of ACA insurer mandates in a way that would essentially gut its pre-existing conditions protections, the Holy Grail of the promises many Republicans made about their replacement.
“I spent the whole work period hearing from people pissed about pre-existing conditions,” one moderate lawmaker told CNN on Wednesday. “This isn’t helpful.”
Another moderate was overheard by the Hill telling a staffer: “If I vote for this healthcare bill it will be the end of my career.”
If these idiots walk the plank on this unpopular piece of shit…
by Betty Cracker| 248 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Assholes
I miss the good old days (2008-2016) when a person could unplug for 12 hours and not find evidence of traitorous behavior in the highest levels of government and multiple instances of chief executive buffoonery upon reentering the media stream. Here are a few things that caught my eye:
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was warned by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 against accepting foreign payments as he entered retirement, according to new documents obtained by the House oversight committee…
“These documents raise grave questions about why General Flynn concealed the payments he received from foreign sources after he was warned explicitly by the Pentagon,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, in a statement. “Our next step is to get the documents we are seeking from the White House so we can complete our investigation.
This stinks to high heaven, y’all. This specimen simply must be questioned under oath.
I’ve read a theory that Trump die-hards in the wingnut media are recognizing that this Russia business has the potential to bring the orange fart-sack down, so they’re creating an alternative narrative that, while the Trump campaign was thoroughly infested with Russian operators, he was personally clueless about it during the campaign but has now turned wily spy-hunter. That’s the line taken by tabloid trash purveyor David Pecker, Trump friend and aptly named publisher of the National Enquirer.
In another curious turnabout, Trump favorite and notorious Hillary-hater Judge Napolitano of Fox News published an op-ed questioning FBI Director Comey’s handling of the Russia investigation before the election:
How could Comey justify the public revelation of a criminal investigation and a summary of evidence of guilt about one candidate for president and remain silent about the existence of a criminal investigation of the campaign of another? How could he deny knowledge of surveillance that was well-known in the intelligence community, even among his own agents? Why would the FBI director inject his agents, who have prided themselves on professional political neutrality, into a bitterly contested campaign having been warned it might affect the outcome? Why did he reject the law’s just commands of silence in favor of putting his thumb on political scales?
I don’t know the answers to those questions. But the American public, and Hillary Clinton, is entitled to them.
Truth from an unlikely source. Will the fact that even Fox News bigwigs are questioning his precious integrity and impugning his self-cherished aura of bipartisan competence spur Comey to attempt to unshit the bed he so thoroughly shat in 2016? We’ll see.
It also appears that Trump got pantsed by Canada and Mexico after blustering about NAFTA yesterday. He’s agreed to “renegotiations” rather than following through on threats to unilaterally withdraw. Possibly Peña and Trudeau simply explained how the treaty works, just as President Xi held an impromptu “North Korea for Dummies” seminar at Trump’s private club, clueing Twitler in on the complexities of that situation.
Were I a citizen of Canada or Mexico, I’d be dancing with glee at the prospect of the upcoming negotiations with such an easily provoked, idiotic ass. The upside for us? Maybe we’ll get taco trucks on every corner after all, with a Tim Horton’s across the street!
There are at least half a dozen more news items that would be screaming headlines for weeks in a normal administration, such as Trump’s idea to break up the 9th Circuit Court because he doesn’t like its rulings. I didn’t need to read about that after watching the first three episodes of “A Handmaid’s Tale” yesterday.
Anyhoo, I miss the days when a tan suit could cause a media furor. Open thread!
by David Anderson| 29 Comments
This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance, Domestic Politics, Election 2018, Organizing & Resistance, Get Angry
GOP looks short on repeal vote https://t.co/MD1Mrks5G4
— POLITICO Pulse (@POLITICOPulse) April 27, 2017
Keep on swimming, keep on calling
Update 1
Keep on calling:
Mario Diaz-Balart, who was a yes on previous AHCA, now wavering with MacArthur amendment.
"At this stage, I'm not seeing much that I like."
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) April 27, 2017
The vulnerable Republicans are getting squeezed hard, so time to pop them like a zit three days before prom.