My sense of drama and my stress systems are currently tuned to jaw-dropping breaking news several times an hour.
If what you say is true, I might have to go to the ER to have my sense of manic urgency tuned down a bit.
PS For how long can our President stand staying “carefully managed” before he must break free on Twitter or elsewhere, such as with the Ambassador of an adversarial country?
@f00l Just now, in Jerusalem, he’s quoted as saying ‘I never mentioned Israel during (that) Oval Office meeting with Russian diplomats.’ I’m still curious what Tillerson’s presser was about, the one where he excluded U.S. media.
According to MSNBC, Netanyahu had to literally order or threaten cabinet members and other political leaders to get them to be present on the airstrip for the arrival of Air Force One.
I presume that’s how angry many among the Israeli leadership are about the Oval Office leak to Russia.
I presume Israel has pulled its operatives back out of danger in some manner by now. But that hurts intelligence collection, and it won’t stop ISIS and others from threatening, kidnapping, torturing, or killing people while they hunt the intelligence source. And it gives ISIS an excuse for a new series of “media events”, if they wish.
Also (according to CNN, I think), the various NATO foreign are planning how best to structure their meetings and conversations to accomplish things, given Trump’s personality and attention span.
One of them - don’t know which - said something about hoping to have at least 10 seconds on a single topic.
According to reports, it was supposed to be a Saudi Foreign Minister press conference only. Tillerson was invited to participate at the last second and agreed.
No idea why US reporters were not invited to be present in the first place.
European reporters present shared transcripts with American journalists,and various Saudi news sources and the Saudi foreign ministry have supposedly provided full transcripts.
For the native, objectivity is always directed against him.
Frank Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
I just bought a book after listening to CNN’s Brian Stelter on the media-focused news show Reliable Sources interview Brooke Gladstone, from WNYC’s similar show broadcast nationally on NPR, On the Media.
(Show date May 17 this year)
If could be that the gist of the book was well covered in the interview, and I don’t actually stand to gain that much by reading it, but it sounded interesting.
This book was also discussed on the show On The Media, on May 16th.
Both these shows are available as podcasts. They’re both good.
Brooke Gladstone The Trouble with Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time
Newly published, e-book and PPB. Both are under $7. The book is short. She calls it “almost a pamphlet”.
The book discusses how media and “reality” have each always been a bubble (true enough); and draws on perspectives from diverse spices: Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Swift, Walter Lipmann, among others.
She also brings some brain and cognitive science into it, discussing research on how people deal with, or try not to deal with, info contrary to their accepted models of reality. (This applies to everyone), I’m sure re she just touches on brain science, but still. Might be good stuff.
So I thought it sounded pretty interesting, and worth either reading, or getting the Kindle to read to me.
Reality. It used to seem so simple—reality just was, like the weather. Why question it, let alone disagree about it? And then came the assault, an unending stream of “fake news,” “alternative facts,” and lies disguised as truths that is overwhelming our notions of reality. Now we can’t even agree on what a fact is, let alone what is real. How on earth did we get here?
Every week, the award-winning journalist Brooke Gladstone, along with her co-host Bob Garfield, reaches 1.2 million listeners through more than 420 NPR affiliate stations with WNYC Studios’ On the Media, a shrewd and witty newsmagazine that analyzes media and how it shapes our perceptions of the world. With her front-row perch on the day’s events and genius for making insightful, rapid-fire connections, Gladstone is ideally suited to explain The Trouble with Reality.
Reality, as she shows us, was never what we thought it was—there is always a bubble, people are always subjective and prey to stereotypes. And that makes reality more vulnerable than we ever thought. Enter Donald J. Trump and his team of advisors. For them, as she writes, lying is the point. The more blatant the lie, the easier it is to hijack reality and assert power over the truth. Drawing on writers as diverse as Hannah Arendt, Walter Lippmann, and Jonathan Swift, she dissects this strategy straight out of the authoritarian playbook and shows how the Trump team mastered it. She analyzes Trump’s preferred method of communication—Twitter— and the various types of Trump’s tweets including the “diversion tweet,” the “trial balloon tweet," the “deflection tweet.”
And she offers hope—the inevitable reckoning history tells us we can count on—and a way to recover both our belief in reality and our sanity.
About the Author
Brooke Gladstone is the co-host and editor of the Peabody Award-winning radio show and podcast On the Media from WNYC Studios, heard by well over a million people each week. She’s also author of The Influencing Machine, a comic book treatise on two millennia of media madness. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Fran’s Fanon wrote a number of books on analyzing objectivity while being the native. (He was a physician and psychiatrist working in colonial Africa):
Gaw, how long has it been? One hundred years? How long have we been alive for this administration and how many more times may we fling ourselves upon fainting couches, shocked — shocked — by the fact that, say, a White House official has been identified as a person of interest in the Russia probe?
(Refreshes Twitter screen.)
@KDemo That article is so last weekend. Now Bannon and Priebus have left 45’s entourage and returned to the states, with an assortment of reasons given.
@OldCatLady, perhaps the Trump-focused news isn’t the big news right now.
But the insanity never stops.
Sigh.
From BuzzFeed News:
US Officials Keep Talking About The Manchester Attack And It’s Freaking Out European Allies
Even some officials in Washington were frustrated by the fact that the information was coming from the US rather than the UK, calling it “unprofessional.”
@f00l That’s odd; the ‘Foundation for Defense of Democracies’, where Joscelyn works, is identified as neocon. Yet he’s criticizing the current administration.
Buzzfeed or no, it looks legitimately sourced. And it appears that Americans did step on common protocol in going out first with information they had gotten from the UK intelligence and police services.
All the neocons I know of absolutely despise Trump. Esp the academics, think-tankers, writers, and the retired. The politicians and the “permanent government” have to soften their public stances a bit and go silent, while they wait for Trump to destroy himself.
Neocons were the Republican party adherents who are still anti-Trump and holding out. They think Trump’s a liar, stupid, uneducated, impulsive, infantile, incredibly dangerous, with zero worthwhile possibilities of ever gaining a useful worldview, and is to be opposed whenever possible.
They regard the Trump core fanbase as being uneducated, gullible, and susceptible to lies and marketing; and feel the overall R party capitulation to Trump is completely corrupt and craven, and purely opportunistic, and a betrayal of every conservative principle, including the conservative principles that neocons don’t necessarily agree with.
Many of the neocons (esp the writers) are, at least historically, often rather centrist or possibly even liberal on domestic policy. Some of them have been pretty socialist at home; others are more like Buckley. Their focus is foreign policy and the military, on which they are kinda fanatic; and when they get too much power and run amok, you get the W years, where they tried to run the table in terms of US power exercised in the world.
They tend to really love the historical and military theories that spring from the the philosophies of the great powers and from the great wars. The idea that Cheney put forth:
… on September 14, 2003 Vice President Cheney said to Tim Russert on Meet the Press that, “I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators.”
is neocon thinking taken too far. Neocons are a bit impatient sometimes when the local populations who are dealing with the US don’t behave according to the prevailing geopolitical theories in DC.
As an opposition force, out of power, making noise and casting warnings, they’re more to the good than not. Their arguments and POVs are likely to be well-reasoned and well-researched enough to be worth a listen, at the very minimum, even when they go too far, left on their own. They are just too extreme and mono-focused to have good judgment when totally in charge. As a group, they tend to lack self-doubt on military intervention.
(In case that reminds you of anyone in 43’s admin.)
@f00l If I knew any neocons like that, I’d be much more hopeful. At least I could enjoy good arguments. (I need new friends.) Keeping heads down and waiting for 45’s self-immolation applies to the moderate liberals, too.
This includes a list of prominent neocons. The politicians and political appointees tended to be standard republican issue conservative, including some holding with fairly extreme social conservative positions.
The writers and thinkers tended to be much more diverse in terms of domestic policy.
Some of them have been known as “Liberal Hawks”.
Re foreign policy, they have ranged from fairly reasonable all the way over to Goldwater. They do tend to be more interventionist and American Exceptionalist than not, although many not anywhere close to as foolishly and blindly as W, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.
Pres from Truman onward have, more often than not, been fairly neocon in FP. Obama is the biggest notable exception. The degree to which he is philosophically somewhat pro-interventionist himself is unclear to me; as he was extremely wary of getting into another endless situation after W’s adventures that have no endpoint; and Obama is known to have the habit of repeatedly talking himself into, and then out of, various military options, right up until the moment last moment he could cancel, then calling an operation off.
Watch carefully as the dark haired fellow sitting on viewer’s right converts a facepalm into straightening his hair. Ron White got it right, you know. You really can’t fix stupid.
@PlacidPenguin The moron even interrupted the President of Israel he just can’t shut up. But more than an eye roll I would have liked one of those coughs where someone says asshole or I’ll even take <cough> idiot. @fOOl I love when you get on a topic you’re passionate about!
Cable News Ratings Upheaval: Maddow and Cooper Dominate, Fox Slips With Rare Week at No. 3
A week filled with developments from the Trump administration has MSNBC leading primetime and CNN boasting total-day demo victories.
There hasn’t been a horse race like this in cable news in quite some time … if ever.
A week of humbling headlines for the embattled Trump administration proved to be ratings paydirt for CNN and MSNBC, each of which scored significant victories in different dayparts. Simultaneously, Fox News Channel posted its first five-day streak at No. 3 in primetime since 2000.
Both CNN and MSNBC nabbed big wins among adults 25-54, with CNN winning total day in the key demo for the workweek and MSNBC scoring in primetime. Though it was a tight race between 8 and 11 p.m. throughout the week, FNC ranked below the other two for the first time in almost 17 years.
Primetime Averages for May 15-19
MSNBC: 611,000 adults 25-54; 2.44 million viewers
CNN: 589,000 adults 25-54; 1.65 million viewers
FNC: 497,000 adults 25-54; 2.41 million viewers
Standout telecasts include CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360. With Bill O’Reilly now out of play in the 8 o’clock time slot for more than a month, Cooper placed No. 1 for the hour Monday through Friday. (The last time CNN had such a streak in the hour was during coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.) MSNBC and FNC traded off the No. 2 slot, with O’Reilly replacement Tucker Carlson coming in at No. 3 on several nights.
Rachel Maddow remains the biggest story in cable news. Her nightly dominance now a safe bet, the anchor’s MSNBC show topped the week among adults 25-54 with an average 760,000 viewers in the key news demo. The Rachel Maddow Show is driving MSNBC to a record streak. Last week marked its second consecutive one atop the demo in primetime, and the first ever with a win among total viewers.
It’s been hours since the last ‘BREAKING NEWS’ banner. This gives me time to watch Lawrence O’Donnell, and made me miss Tim Russert too. Then I heard ‘Defining Deviancy Down’, and it rang a faint bell. Oh yes, from 2015. How Drumpf is ‘defining deviancy down’ in presidential politicshttp://wapo.st/1Xmh2Di?tid=ss_tw-bottom&utm_term=.7935eba06c8e
Morning Joe has a casual but fairly respectful atmosphere normally.
This morning is was difficult for them to hold the line on that:
They pointed out that Trump’s lawyer for the Russia prob has done Trump almost no good dealing with adverse news (total FAIL), but has been a lead lawyer for Rissia’s biggest bank!
And another law firm for Trump says on the web site that they are the most important US firm working in Russia!
(Also Lieberman is part of the first firm. So a completely non-partisan choice for the FBI spot.)
Joe: “Trump makes it so hard … to connect the dots.”
Later:
Joe: “in the words of Aristotle, ‘this is all such a whole lot of dumb’. Really. What a lot of stupid.”
…
“I just see a guy who’s clueless. He’s like Mr Magoo, but Mr Magoo trying to shred the US Constitution.”
Joe quoting Trump in a super dumb voice: “Duh. I did not mention Israel. I just accidentally admitted that I handed out Israel’s secret intelligence. I did not mention Israel to the Russians.”
The people on the show mentioned that they wished they could have seen the expression on Ambassador Ron Dermer’s face. Dermer must be thinking “I’m working with this guy???”
That’s in the first 20 min of the Morning Joe, as far as I have gotten yet.
The rumor is that Trump is upset about the discipline McMaster brought in to the NSC, and he wants Flynn back. Great idea. Esp now that there’s supposedly proof (NSA captures) that that Russia thought they had Flynn on s string.
Trump not only clearly doesn’t understand the job of a President or the government, or the Constitution, or how to work with serious people,he doesn’t understand he’s in legal jeopardy with the most formidable guy ever (Mueller) on his scent.
The Trump Presidency is likely already over. Trump just doesn’t know it yet.
@f00l I want to watch it, but it’s difficult when I stay up to watch U2 on Kimmel, McCain on Late Night with Seth Meyers, and then sleep in. I’ll catch up online.
Speaking of Joe and Mika’s engagement announcement, he said (paraphrase):
“I want to congratulate both of you. And especially you, Joe. You finally found someone willing to try to love you almost as much as you love yourself.”
McCain later told Mike that if she needed an escape route, it wasn’t too late, people would help.
@OldCatLady
And you said nothing big would happen this week.
MILITARY. Trump Just Revealed Where He Has Nuclear Submarines To Philippines’ Duarte
He really shouldn’t let everyone know that. Limit the info to extra-judicial mass murderers, perhaps? Trump needs company, so where can the WH find more of those for him to whisper to?
@f00l I said ‘should’. This all started when we were gleefully awaiting Sally Yates’ testimony on May 8. So much has happened since then that it feels like a different world. I’ve sworn off popcorn totally; every time I mentioned it, the news went insane. Like shouting ‘Beetlejuice!’.
Trump shares classified into with some oligarch’s housepet?
Trump tried to get the UN and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Illuminati and the Borg to discredit the Russian election interference investigation?
Odds, anyone?
I would go for the body slam/Montana election, but it’s still morning on the East Coast, so who can say?
Expectations have already been underachieved on this amazing trip. However, today marks a new level. He is at NAS Sigonella, where they have runways for AF1. He has to travel via copter to Taormina, which sits on the side of a Very Steep Volcano. It has a helipad. The Commander in Chief doesn’t even know the name of the military installation where he landed.
The Montana R “body-slammer” Gianforte seems to have won the Montana Congressional race with 73% of the vote counted.
However, the story of the day relates back to last Friday’s WaPo story which stated that a person of interest related to the Russian election interference investogation was a member of the White House staff, and close to the President.
More reporting from WaPo and other news organizations have confirmed that the name of the “person of interest” in the White House is Jared Kushner.
Obviously, Kushner has not been named as s suspect, or a target of the investigation, to anyone’s public knowledge. Kushner had also previously volunteered to speak to the various Congressional Intelligence and Judiciary committees. No one going public seems to believe that Kushner has spoken to the FBI at this time.
Apart from any contact Kushner had or may have had with various persons and organizations linked to the Russian leadership during or after the election, he seems to have exhibited extremely bad judgment in some very large areas since last November.
Immediately after Trump won, given the generally terrible quality of many Trump advisors, I was hoping that perhaps Conway and the Kushners would add a dose of sanity to Trump’s general circle of close advisors. I found out I was way way wrong about Conway very quickly.
At the time (right after the election), I thought that Conway had taken Trump as a client only for the money. She may have gone to Trump for that reason, but she seems to have added insanity, not sanity, to the Trump circles and the West Wing. They seem to being her out only when they need a non-stop shameless spinmeister and liar; and they seem don’t care at those times whether she is believed or not; otherwise, according to rumor, her main West Wing assignment seems to be that of “Chief Official Presidential Personal Flatterer.”
I still hoped for some months that the Kushners, who are frequently described as closet Democrats, would add a degree of reason, consideration, and sanity to Trump’s bubble. We know so little of JK that no one seems to know what his voice sounds like. (I presume this is one of the reasons Trump likes his son-in-law so much. Kushner is clearly not a media hog.)
But recently I hear that JK was completely for the hiring Flynn for the National Security post, and also that Kushner resisted the firing of Flynn. And I hear that Kushner was very much for firing Comey. Without even speculating on JK’s private political philosophy, those POV’s are just plain terrible judgment. Utterly and predictably terrible. What politically clueless person could have known the facts that people in the WH group should have known, and not predicted how badly thse actions would go?
Also, if I am giving the Kushners the benefit of the doubt, if the Kushners are trying to help Trump toward any appearance of credibility and stability, they’re either completely ineffective, have terrible judgment, or aren’t trying very hard. The Kushners are reputedly reasonably intelligent people. I would have believed that the Kushners would have at least have understood how to try to make things appear to be not so catastrophic in the West Wing. But it seems I was wrong. If the Kushners have done anything positive and meaningful in the West Wing, they’ve done so in the “qt”.
So I suppose the “best hope” is that the Trump White House will follow their common political path to date, and will continue to be so reliably imbecilic and impromptu that they keep destroying almost everything they touch.
On another topic; I hear that, behind the scenes, the US State Dept, DOD, Treasury, and Intelligence communities are privately communicating to our allies that, yes, they are aware that Trumo is an intellectual and emotional child, and is possibly sliding toward visible cognitive decline compared to, say, 5 years ago, but the the best parts of the “permanent government” intend to keep things functioning, mitigate his worst impulses, and try to preserve the possibility of a continued strong, viable, and respected US version of a constitutional democracy for the a future, for a better government and for a less gullible citizenry.
The Morning Joe Show opened with alternating Trump clips, cutting back and forth:
Trump in Saudi Arabia announcing that he wasn’t there to lecture.
Trump at the NATO netting, showing aside the leader of Montenegro, and lecturing, as the other ministers grow insulted and embarrassed for his state of mind and intelligence (of lack of).
Then cut to the show hosts, who can’t speak. They are simply laughing, appalled.
Finally, Joe: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …”
And then recounting Trump’s various other insults, esp to the Germans. And other Trump “pro wrestling” style moves.
In other domestic news:
Melanie’s $51,500 Dolce and Gabbiana jacket: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAxN9W5V0AEXyYp.jpg:large
(I have some pity for Melania. I imagine she pays for her privileges every day in ways I’m happy not to know the details of.)
A day after the Manchester bombing, from USA Today: , Texas — A number of teachers in a Texas school district are being disciplined after naming a student “most likely to become a terrorist.”
Can we just go ONE FLAMING WEEK without a flurry of 5 PM bombshells PLEASE? Malcolm Nance does not mince words, and Jared Kushner is so clearly guilty, and 45 won’t do anything.
Just returned from Europe. Trip was a great success for America. Hard work but big results!
It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media.
Whenever you see the words ‘sources say’ in the fake news media, and they don’t mention names…
…it is very possible that those sources don’t exist but are made up by fake news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!
Does anyone notice how the Montana Congressional race was such a big deal to Dems & Fake News until the Republican won? V was poorly covered
British Prime Minister May was very angry that the info the U.K. gave to U.S. about Manchester was leaked. Gave me full details!
For an alt POV
from The Washington Post
Following Trump’s trip, Merkel says Europe can’t rely on U.S. anymore
LONDON — German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday declared a new chapter in U.S.-European relations after contentious meetings with President Trump last week, saying that Europe “really must take our fate into our own hands.”
Offering a tough review in the wake of Trump’s trip to visit E.U., NATO and Group of Seven leaders last week, Merkel told a packed Bavarian beer hall rally that the days when Europe could rely on others was “over to a certain extent. This is what I have experienced in the last few days.”
It was a stark declaration from the leader of Europe’s most powerful economy, and a grim take on the transatlantic ties that have underpinned Western security in the generations since World War II. Although relations between Washington and Europe have been strained during periods since 1945, before Trump there has rarely been such a strong feeling from European leaders that they must turn away from Washington and prepare to face the world alone.
Even VOA reports that last week’s visit was a disaster.
…success isn’t a word being used…Headlines all week have been providing a counterpoint to the White House version of meetings. Belgium’s Le Soir headlined one front-page story: “Drumpf shoves his allies.”
And Germany’s financial newspaper Handelsblatt dubbed him “Boor-in-Chief.”
High School Criticized by Betsy DeVos Fires Back: She ‘Messed With the Wrong District’
Who told DeVos that just because she managed to snag a cabinet position, it implies that someone has given her a brain?
Supposedly her nick in the West Wing is “Betsy DeVoid”.
From Time Magazine
Teachers, students and parents at a Connecticut high school are fighting back Tuesday after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos criticized the school as an “adult daycare.”
“Betsy DeVos messed with the wrong district,” Annie Irvine, president of the East Hartford Education Association, a teacher’s union, said at a rally outside the high school Tuesday morning, according to the Hartford Courant. In a statement last week, Irvine called DeVos’ recent remarks “demoralizing”.
Speaking of adult daycare …
What up next in the bullpen at the WH? A twitter war with a school district? That outta play well.
GOP Congressman: God Will ‘Take Care Of’ Climate Change If It Exists
From HuffPost:
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) told a constituent last week that God can solve the problem of climate change if the global phenomenon truly exists.
AFAIF, Rep Walberg did not mention whether this “Divine Climate Change Repair Plan” would include wars sparked in part by economic and social stress related to climate change, planetary devastation, or the continued existence of many diverse species, including our own.
Perhaps Rep Walberg is not privy to all the plan details.
So we’re exiting the climate accords.
Do Trump’s people not get that Mar a Lago is at sea level? That this will eventually cause wars, floods, mega storms, crop failures, famine?
What was I thinking???
Of course they don’t. Although Trump is more flexible than his idealogues. He might get a diff shiny new set of idealogues if someone offers him “a great deal” on a new philosophy and support personnel to go with.
When will the Congressinal R’s start to peel away? Will they?
And possible revolution in the Philippines, or is it terrorism? What’s going on at the Manila hotel? ISIS?
Life in the Philippines may be about to remind us of life in Argentina or Chile or South Africa a few decades ago.
@f00l I read that some experts recommended we exit because there is no way we can reach the cuts we agreed too, and that blowing off our responsibilities would be worse than stepping back, at least for now.
We could negotiate climate change accord issues and everyone would work with us. They are actually eager to.
And apart from that, by exiting the accords we are almost certainly throwing away economic, technical, and job growth leadership in that area. Other countries will take this and run with it.
Possibly, bye-bye, major future high-wage high-growth industry we could have owned. Perhaps the business innovators and universities won’t let this go, in spite of Trump. Perhaps we can still be a major player.
Trump has a thing about climate accords and Midwest jobs (he’s exactly wrong).
Plus he erroneously thinks we got ripped off in the negotiations.
And the extremists who supported him are avidly against it, as are most of his domestic appointees and the Bannen crowd and alt-right alt-facts crowd.
Plus he got votes in coal country that way. (Those jobs aren’t coming back anyway, and if a few of them do, it will be a tiny #, and the wages/bennies of those few jobs may be way down.)
Plus, although Trump may understand - or may have once understood - branding deals and construction deals and real estate operation deals, aside from that it appears he’s never had a sound or viable macroeconomic thought in his life.
And Trump has zero capacity for any form of scientific, or rigorous thought, or attempted objective thought or understanding. I believe he’s never had that capacity or any interest in it. I’m not sure he believes those are genuine ideals worth striving for or that he even understands the goals and the processes.
And I think he’s likely in mental decline.
He appears just to like certain myths, slogans, and soundbites, and dislike others, based on his gut “marketing” reaction to a slogan’s appeal to his people in Red Country.
If something can’t be conveyed to him within 2 seconds, or it can be be, but Trump’s gut doesn’t like it, either the subject doesn’t exist or it’s wrong.
It’s as though we were basing public policy on a Clint Eastwood script, based on which actor got the snappiest 140-character-limited lines from the screenwriters.
Right now, Trumps policies are terribly anti- the American tech economy. Fortunately, that economy is so strong, they can just keep going on in spite of him for the moment.
But China is aiming at us on that. They want to be, in 20-50 years, technically and militarily, what we are now. If Trump’s crowd screws things up here badly enough, China may get what it wants. He is certainly making it easier for them. He has already handed them a huge shot at regional overwhelming economic and policy dominance in the Pacific, a shot they would never have received if any one of the alternate nearly 20 candidates for President had won.
Now that the Chinese see his reality-destruction and anti-intelligence in process, they must be thrilled. In their shoes, I would be.
Trump thinks that if he believes something or says something, no matter how crazy, that makes it true. The Chinese and other competitors are a little more in touch with how to actually do things.
@f00l Pittsburgh’s mayor just ripped 45 a new asshole.
Peduto fired back, tweeting, “Fact: Hillary Clinton received 80% of the vote in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh stands with the world & will follow Paris Agreement.”
…45 also referenced Youngstown, Ohio, and Detroit in his speech as cities that he is prioritizing by withdrawing from the agreement. Clinton won each of the counties by wide margins.
Low expectations are one thing. Now 45 has started tunneling underground. Even the Episcopal Church is weighing in. This is fairly unusual, BTW. I hope the Pope will consider something similar.
The Bilderberg Summit, conference or whatever, currently taking place in Chantilly, VA, is full of people who are not notably friends of 45. Four members of his team will be attending, plus a couple of his paid-for elected officials. I’d like a summary, but they don’t do such things. https://www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7620
I got the audiobook, which Sen Franken narrated himself.
From reading reviews and hearing snippets of promotional interviews, I had feared that the book would be a bit too snarky for a sitting Senator to published, although still quite mild for an ex-SNL cast member.
If you read the book as a sane person should, as opposed to as a member of a propaganda and spin machine might, this turns out to be not a problem.
The few snark phrases oh-so-quoted by the media in the past week regarding Sen Cruz tend to be the only ones.
And better yet, Franken spends the entire “Sophistry” chapter explaining exactly why Sen Cruz exactly deserves all this and far more, not for political reasons, but rather, because Cruz is and chooses to be and choose to exploit being a total jackass.
Oh, dear.
Excuse me!!!
Sen Cruz is not a jackass!!!
That’s so unfair and judgmental of me. I apologize here and now to Sen Cruz. Let me correct the record.
No, Sen Cruz is not a jackass, per se.
Rather, Sen Cruz is a dishonest, disingenuous, supercilious, cynical, full-of-himself, lying, ultra-arrogant, insulting, friend-backstabbing. deliberate fact-denying, completely hypocritical, misrepresenting, extreme manipulative sociopath, disgrace, and jackass, of hideous soul.
I think I bent over backwards trying to be fair here.
You can say this much for Sen Cruz: he has less native talent in mamy pthese areas than our current President.
He’s only #2 or #3 on these qualities in DC nowadays.
How awful does a brilliant and talented sociopathic Senator have to be, for his own colleagues from his own party to refuse to give him a Secret Santa gift?
And that’s how much everyone is Washington DC who is not on Sen Cruz’s staff hates Ted Cruz.
100 Senators
1 Senator Ted Cruz
1 Senator Al Franken
= 98 Senators other than Franken and Cruz.
Coincidentally, 98 happens to be the number of US Senators in Washington DC who are thrilled that the “Sophistry” chapter was published, esp if they happen to be a Republican Senator.
I’m sure there’s no connection. Just coincidence.
The great Ted Cruz Joke, which originated with Sen Cruz’s Republican Senatorial colleagues:
Q: Why is it very important to intensely dislike or better yet, utterly hate, Sen Cruz at the moment you first meet him?
A: Saves time.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Sorry about the diversion, I get way more news of Sen Cruz than I wish to get.
The rest of the book covers Franken’s growing up (in brief), his time as a comedy writer and performer, a few aspects of his personal life, how he became more and more activist, why he first ran for Senator, what it was like during “the longest recount”, being a Senator, backroom stuff, comedy embarrassments, political and personal philosophies, operating as a workhorse Senator, how the Senate works, getting re-elected, and the previous and current Presidents.
All good stuff.
And perhaps in this book, in the combo of comedy, and the honest, the fair, the intelligent, and the candid, there is some sort of seed that will grown into a method to combat “Sophistry”.
Wherever such sophistry might happen to originate …,
@f00l Since we’re reading, I just added this to my list. Found on the Chatham House website, which is a most worthy rabbit hole. 'Ivan Krastev, Chair, Center for Liberal Strategies Sofia; Author, In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don’t Trust Our Leaders? - See more at their forum.
/giphy rabbit alice
@OldCatLady
I think many other folk on Meh are prob trying to avoid the endless instant political shocks to our systems. I suspect the regulars who want these comments know to look here.
I kinda hate to start another topic that might draw in people who didn’t realize it was political; unless you think it’s time for one anyway, because New Week, New News.
@f00l I guess the original sarcastic lead still works. It’s not like anyone can predict the headlines, except that C-SPAN will have a spike in viewers. Congressional committee schedules have suddenly become popular.
I think the world will be tuned in to those hearings. Some people are describing Thirsday as the interest-level equivalent of the testimonies of people like Anita Hill, Ollie North, and John Dean.
I certainly hope there is no alternative lead story for the day - an alternative lead story would likely have be some event of utter human horror.
The CNN podcast “The Daily DC” from Fri June 2 (David Chalion interviews Gloria Borger about Trump’s recent moods and methods as Trump communicates to people close to him) is pretty interesting.
They also discuss things Comey might consider in preparing for his Senste testimony and some questions that will almost certainly be central to the hearing.
They’ve done a great job of photoshoping Karen Handle and making her look decidedly less miss piggy like. Unfortunately she’s on live TV a lot this week and blows the whole thing. She’s great got the mannerisms and everything. She should stick to being appointed to finish partial terms.
@cranky1950
I remember her vividly from the controversy over the Komen Foundation/Planned Parenthood controversy.
She was the person at the Komem Foundation who engineered the whole thing and tried to pretend it had some to do with healthcare, instead of being pure right-wing agenda.
After all that blew up, she made loud claims that all the protests and bad reaction were more or less the result of a radical left-wing conspiracy paying off and duping ordinary women to take the left-wing side by being manipulative.
To listen to her, it was obvious that if ordinary women didn’t choose to agree with her anti-Plamned Parenthood ideology, then obviously, these women must have been lied to by the evil radical left.
The idea the ordinary women might be capable of thinking for themselves and reaching different conclusions than she did; or that ordinary women might be horrified that an organization as well-known as the Komen Foundation had suddenly gone from promoting awareness of breast cancer screenings to hard right-wing politics was and is beyond her ken.
During those days, the depths of her belligerent intellectual dishonesty - and sometimes her belligerent outright factual dishonesty - were simply breathtaking.
The Komen Foundation has other issues besides their “dump Planned Parenthood” disaster. But … that episode was simply disgraceful, ugly, and dishonest from start to finish. And she was the originator, political justifier, strategist, tactician, and mouthpiece all the way.
Karen Handle is not my favorite politician, to put it very mildly.
They would work with her if she won. But I think she could make even the Koch brothers feel sleazy, like they had done a deal with the devil.
I remember the Komen thing so well, because it’s all local here, and a lot of people know, like, and respect Nancy Brinker, even if they thought the Planned Parenthood debacle was horrible and indefensible.
So all the high-ups at Komen were in the papers or on TV constantly firing the controversy.
Brinker and a few others who were visible came off as basically decent people who are very conservative, and who didn’t quite get that they couldn’t force the Komen org into those kind of political maneuvers without it all blowing up. They were genuinely apologetic.
Karen Handle, was the outlier. I heard people on the street or at gas stations talk about her being the most condescending, lying, distorting person ever.
One women i had never seen before, and who had worked with Komen and who claimed to be a conservative Republican herself; and who claimed that she herself had always been a decent and calm person, a mediator and peacemaker; said that she wanted never to be in the same room with Handle again.
She said Handle was so sneering, self-righteous, superior, blind to others, supercilious, and condescending, that the woman telling the story had to leave the room.
She said it was “leave the room, throw something, scream, or face an assault charge”.
She said Handle was the only person she ever had that reaction to in her entire life. She said that before she met Handle, she didn’t even know she was capable of feeling any kind of impulsive rage, let alone that level of incandescent madness.
And she and Handle were, politically, more or less on the same side!
So I don’t think Capitol Hill really needs someone like Handle.
Watching the recording of today’s Morning Joe at the moment.
Trump appeared to be live-tweeting the show (his tweets about the SC “travel ban” case directly followed their remarks, and then after they read his tweets, he would appear that respond to their responses again.)
That all got some sardonic responses that contains a little pity, considering the legal implications of his tweets.
Also, supposedly the special prosecutor is opening a new criminal financial prob. Rumor says this investigation is directed at Manafort.
Haven’t gotten to the new NSA report just leaked on Russia yet.
I can barely keep up swimming in the flood. Can’t tell whether head is above water or not.
One more thing. According to rumors, the more decent-type people who might have considered taking admin positions a few months ago, out of a sense of duty if for no other reason, will no longer do so. They believe that they will accomplish nothing, and their careers will be destroyed.
So the admin, way behind on staffing, now can’t staff up with who they want, and will have to leave the positions empty or go to some D level picks.
@f00l The acting ambassador at our embassy in Beijing just resigned. His conscience would not allow him to ’ formally notify the Chinese that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord.’
@f00l U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Michelle Lee has resigned. She was at Google for about ten years, and the tech world was pleased with her in this job. It’s possible she may take a White House post, perhaps as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, but the Commerce Department didn’t announce a next step for her.
Former director of National Intelligence, ADM Clapper, just spoke with the Press Club of Canberra, Australia. ‘…This is beyond Watergate, Watergate pales in comparison with what’s going on here.’ His reputation was for complete impartiality. It’s getting a certain amount of news coverage. And nobody has even testified yet today. It’s 7:30 EST, and it’s going to be a lively day. Tomorrow will be an all-out circus.
@KDemo
Many of them are legit, for strategic purposes.
Supposedly, for instance, the S Korean govt, intelligence, and military services each have special units that study his tweets and every other utterance that comes from him or the WH, trying to figure out what’s up.
And I figure a lot of people who despise him follow him for entertainment, or to find out when the world might end.
Popcorn has already started, 3 PM EST. Comey has released his opening statement, and it is much, much, much harsher than I was expecting. I hope he stays healthy tonight; maybe he should eat canned food and bottled water for awhile.
I watched all I could take of today’s hearing. Many members of Congress asking the same questions over and over with the same non-answers repeated each time.
No Republicans would come as guests on Morning Joe this morning. They weren’t ready to try to either trash the President and the WH, or defend them.
Susan Collins will be on Morning Joe tomorrow morning.
As informative and possibly explosive as things may be today, right now I am kinda fixated on, and rather worried about, what happened yesterday.
The refusals of the current heads of the DNI, CIA, and FBI to openly answer questions on non-classified topics is very disturbing, esp as it seems coordinated.
Perhaps all these people “made good” in closed session. Perhaps there is substantial legal justification for the way they refused to answer simple questions yesterday, given they they neither mentioned the 5th Amendment, or Executive Privilege.
To me, their refusals not only risked being in contempt of Congress, it also possibly flirted with a constitutional issue, in the the Executive Dept may have been actively obstructing the constitutional functions of the Legislative Dept.
I wonder what path the Committee with take on the refusals to answer, which appeared to be in direct violation of the oaths of office these persons swore.
So in public, right now, in dramatic and publicity terms, it’s Comey vs the Trump and the WH.
In private, I suppose, Mueller vs Trump and the WH. And this WH has made enemies across all the intelligence and investigatory agencies.
Even since Trump rode down the escalator in summer 2015, people have been underestimating his ability to stay alive and stay fighting, even if he threw everyone else under the bus along the way, or after continually showing the worst possible conduct and most intellectually vacuous POV.
@f00l MSNBC discussed the fine points of this stonewalling, and if I understand correctly, the consensus was that it was a deliberate legal maneuver. There will be no full response given in closed session, and they will get away with it because it’s an R world right now.
Of all the days to sleep late. I’ve missed an hour of unprecedented entertainment. Comey is punching very hard, and unless those ‘tapes’ that 45 blustered about can contradict him (if they exist), it’s going to take the 2018 elections to a whole new level.
@PlacidPenguin His timing and phrasing are very careful, and so far I haven’t heard any truly antagonistic questions. I wish I could be in that closed session, though.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The White House was on lockdown Thursday morning after a television was hurled out of a window, the Secret Service reported.
The incident, which occurred shortly after 10 a.m. E.S.T., caught the attention of the Secret Service after agents heard the sound of smashing glass emanating from the Oval Office.
“The sound was consistent with that of a large object, such as a television set, being thrown through a closed window,” a Secret Service spokesman said.
The television, which crashed to the ground outside the Oval Office, injured no one, the Secret Service confirmed.
A group of fourth-grade students from Bethesda, Maryland, was on a White House tour when the incident involving the television occurred.
“I heard someone screaming lots of swear words and then, like, this big crash,” Zach Dorrinson, a student on the tour, said. “It was messed up.”
What today made clear is that Comey has far more control over the public Presidential and Washington narrative that anyone else in Washington.
Far more than Trump.
What I want from Comey and the intel community is a little bit every day.
Combine that with Trump’s lack of intellectual capacity, or ability to self-reflect, and with his lack of self-control, and with the total incompetence in the West Wing, and this issue will never grow smaller or go away.
And I do believe that there is plenty left to subpoena or leak.
Such as tapes and tax returns.
I want to see Flynn and Manafort in the stand, either taking the 5th or implicating someone else.
@KDemo I noticed that; after CSPAN stopped the Comey Show, they switched to the House, where that was the topic. I viewed with alarm, but it’s a done deal.
@KDemo
Supposedly the journalistic “take” is that getting this through the Senate is a near impossibility.
I’m sure the House wanted to do their end of this on the downlow tho. They have made public “circuses of idiots” out of themselves at least once a month so far.
So far, the voters can blame the House for supporting the healthcare disaster, and now this. I hope the voters remember this in a year and a half.
@f00l AFAIK she is staying with the company, but responsibilities may change. This is the exerp from another staff member - “TT is not going anywhere. And she loves you all very much”
@OldCatLady I’m not sure how accurate the “half” numbers are, just what I have heard from a few places, one of which was @snapster via twitter
Also, there is going to be a “transition period”, which I guess is supposed to be somewhat comforting to the people affected.
@f00l …battle of wits with an unarmed man… The chess pieces secretly leak, and most of them are on the Comey side. They get up and move when you least expect it. It must be like trying to put shoes on a worm. Or a two-year-old.
However, he’s still president.
/giphy dance worm
I don’t know how to “read Washington moves” the way the pros do. But those pros go straight to the media, so …
One of Comey’s little tantalizers: he was asked if he thought the Valentine’s meeting w Trump was an attempted obstruction of justice.
His answer was that a prosecutor had to decide that. More to the point, he was sure the Special Investigation would resolve the issue of obstruction of justice. Hint hint hint.
The Special Investigator position was appointed to study Russian election interference, not the behavior of the WH apart from that. But there was some flexibility in the Justice Department document assigning their mandate.
Gosh, I wonder if Comey is well-informed about Washington? I wonder how broad Mueller’s investigation is now?
Gosh, I wonder if either the Senate Intelligence committee or Mueller’s group will find out for certain whether the Oval Office has a taping system?
I wonder if either Sessions or Rosenstein will long survive in their present jobs?
Trump has exactly zero friends and many enemies (whom the Admin deliberately insulted) within the D.C. Intelligence and law enforcement communities.
@f00l If a child is accustomed to having free rein of his own floor of a penthouse with gilt everywhere, understated Federal style is not likely to be appreciated. I haven’t looked into the wife’s lifestyle, but she has completely neglected her job as First Lady, so I don’t think it will change.
In public both their postures appear to be “avoidant” toward the President, and they appear not to enjoy being in public with him.
Perhaps I’m over-reading. That’s easy to do. I am as guilty as most (not as guilty as the Pres tho) of (sometimes or often or always) always distorting what I think I see.
“Word has it” that, even within the bounds of his private school, Barron is more or less completely isolated from other students during learning; he supposedly does not attend any regular classes, but instead meets privately with several educators dedicated to working with him. These educators appear to be of high quality, and are in the school payroll, but the school is reimbursed by the Trumps for the cost.
I have no way of knowing if that’s true, and it’s an ugly rumor in the sense that it targets the well-being of a child who has no choice about being a public figure.
But if it is true, there may be stress-related reasons as to why Melania and Barron have not moved to the WH until now.
@f00l Discussion of presidential children is not done. I reserve my wrath for the lazy, greedy wife. Currently reading ‘Upstairs At the White House’, a truly fascinating and witty description of the operations of the White House by a former Chief Usher. Worth noting: 45 fired the most recent Chief Usher on 5 May and has not replaced her.
@OldCatLady
I don’t have much against Melania. Perhaps she is a gold-digger; perhaps not. Perhaps she is quite shy and really dislikes being in the public eye and having to speak, as opposed to being a pretty, smiling, well-dressed mannequin. Perhaps the two have a viable, genuine, strong relationship. Doesn’t appear so from the public view we have, but I don’t want to speculate further about that.
I am pretty sure that DT would have run for Pres with all his personal energy, regardless of what she preferred. I have some sympathy with the idea of not being thrilled about the work and perqs and requirements of a job she must assume by virtue of being married to someone, when she was almost certainly given no say about it other than opting for the possibility of a separation.
So far she seems to have been absent a lot, but has behaved with nearly silent dignity when making appearances. I hope she finds a productive way to use her WH time.
She is said to be the reason that DT never speaks ill of Michelle Obama. I suppose I am happy about that: a small favor.
Whatever gilded-cage bargains she made along the way, however she may have - or may not have - “sold her soul”, my sense is that she pays a large daily price for her privileges.
I suppose my worry and contempt are focused elsewhere.
@f00l After reading ‘Upstairs at the White House’, I understand better what the duties and responsibilities of the First Lady are. It’s a full-time job, and relying on staff to take the initiative is not an option. I personally think she’s lazy and a liar, based on her plagiarism of Michelle’s speech, her false claim to have graduated from a university (her former classmates outed her on that, big league), her ‘closet’ religion and a few other things. She has been living in NYC, doing absolutely nothing. I am not inclined to cut her a single inch of slack. I think the frosting was when she explained how she used caviar moisturizer on Barron ‘from head to toe’, to keep his skin smooth. He was 7.
@OldCatLady
OK, she may well be a rich, uninformed, gullible, entitled idiot who “misrepresents facts”. Caviar moisturizer and non-existent degrees do make a good case for that. If she’s that nuts, I have some pity for Barron.
But she still doesn’t bother me much. She’s not the prob.
There are multiple variations of this quote floating around out there. Edward Grim, who actually witnessed Becket’s death in 1170, quoted Henry’s words as, “What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?”, leading the knights to take action. Other versions have Henry saying troublesome priest or turbulent priest. But the most widespread version of the quotation, as quoted by Comey and paraphrased by King, was popularized by the 1964 movie Becket, starring Richard Burton as Becket and Peter O’Toole as Henry II.
“Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”
— Henry II of England
An Evil Empire, Repressive Dictator, Government Conspiracy or even a Corrupt Corporate Executive has sinister plans. Where will the hero find an ally? In The Church.
A Turbulent Priest is a member of the clergy who will resist the plans of somebody with power. Usually their fight is with a secular authority who threatens the Church or general morality, but struggles against other clergy attempting to subvert what the Church stands for is just as viable a cause.
This trope can be depicted in either a positive or a negative light. If the Turbulent Priest is portrayed as in the right, his opponent is usually interested in money or power, and will quite gladly engage in animal cruelty and other immoral behavior to get it (sometimes said opponent will also attack the church to try and remove any opposition). They could also just be someone who has money or power and thinks this gives them the right to kick anyone in their way, with this often being Truth in Television regarding such situations. If he’s in the wrong, the Secular Authority is generally trying to improve society, and the Priest is afraid of change. The Trope Namer (see below) is actually quite neutral by most understandings.
How the Turbulent Priest conducts himself depends on his rank and standing. If he is the equivalent of a Monk or Parish priest, he may offer sympathies to the hero. If the work is set in The Evil Empire or similar, expect him to be part of La Résistance and usually given more freedom than the average citizen, because the Church retains some power and would not like to see its clergy picked on. If the Turbulent Priest is a bishop or other high-ranking member of the Church, expect him to publicly decry the plans, and encourage resistance. If his beef is with one person, sometimes questioning whether his soul is as safe as he thinks is an effective deterrent. Both styles may overlap with a Badass Preacher or a Church Militant; the antagonist one is usually a Sinister Minister.
Named for Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who spent most of his tenure arguing with King Henry II over his plans to exercise increased royal control over the Church in England, leading Henry II to utter the quote at the top of the page. There was no real right or wrong side from a modern perspective, as Henry saw clergy abuse the Ecclesiastical Legal system to escape secular punishment, and Becket saw the sovereignty of the Church as being threatened; in summary, both were convinced the other was going to make a power-grab then abuse that power. Interestingly, what Henry actually said about Becket is not exactly known, though several of his knights apparently took the quote as a royal execution order, and murdered the Archbishop at the altar of his own cathedral, getting their king in trouble with the Pope.
Barry 's big 100 day scandal. Bush got the twin towers blowed up. Clinton did modern things in the oval office. Trump is trying to remake governing into bad performance art. and Barry well he – Big 100 Day Scandal
The President’s Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents
by David Priess (Author), George H. W. Bush (Foreword)
The President’s Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents Kindle Edition
by David Priess (Author), George H. W. Bush (Foreword)
I own it but have not yet listened to it.
“David Priess, a CIA officer who served as a daily intelligence briefer during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, has written a thoroughly engaging account of how ‘The Book,’ as it is known in Agency parlance, came into existence, and how presidents used (or ignored) it.”
Know of, yes. Have not read. I did, however, read ‘Playing to the Edge’, in hard copy, with copious Post-its. I knew a couple of the names, and some of the details. It’s not particularly well written, but the viewpoint is unique. Hayden has been a frequent guest on news shows lately, as have most prominent members of the intelligence world. They are all sounding the alarm, and explaining just how bad things REALLY are.
What I REALLY want to read isn’t out yet. It’s Katy Tur’s book ‘Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History’. from AMZN: ‘…Trump tried to charm Tur into providing fawning coverage. When that didn’t work, he stooped to berating and shaming her, stoking the rage of his legion of supporters—many who threatened Tur and other penned-in reporters at his events…’
@OldCatLady
I saw that one listed as upcoming today on Amazon when I was wandering thru his bios. Looked potentially quite good. Was trying to decide whether to pre-order.
I hear that Michael Moore has just announced some sort of “Trumpleaks” website and is working on a Fahrenheit 11/9 (no release date) film about Trump and life under Trump.
Given that he saw and went public on the likelihood of Trump’s win before the rest of the commentariat, I really look forward to his next public media piece.
White House orders agencies to ignore Democrats’ oversight requests
Trump’s aides are trying to shut down the release of information that could be used to attack the president.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, under fire over contacts with Russians and his actions prior to President Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey, will testify in public Tuesday afternoon before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
I don’t know if you are quite giving credit where credit is due here.
In some areas (perpetual chaos, moral and practical blindness, ultimate bubble-thinking, lack of reasoning and planning, etc) my expectations are quite high.
I vote him (hopefully) Most Mesmerizing Reality TV Host for the now and for all the millennia yet to come.
Richard Nathan Haass (born July 28, 1951) is an American diplomat. He has been president of the Council on Foreign Relations since July 2003, prior to which he was Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State and a close advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Senate approved Haass as a candidate for the position of ambassador and he has been U.S. Coordinator for the Future of Afghanistan. He succeeded George J. Mitchell as the United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland to help the peace process in Northern Ireland, for which he received the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award. At the end of 2003, Mitchell Reiss succeeded him as special envoy. In late 2013, Haass returned to Northern Ireland to chair inter-party talks aimed at addressing some of the unresolved issues from the peace process such as parades, flags and “the past”.[3]
@KDemo It’s exactly what his heroes would do. The best I can come up with is that this is an object lesson. There must be new controls and checks on the chief executive, and since Nixon’s behavior didn’t do it, perhaps 45’s will.
There must be new controls and checks on the chief executive, and since Nixon’s behavior didn’t do it, perhaps 45’s will.
Which means the Dems must take Congress, or the near complete replacing of Republicans with new Republicans (who might, in their ethics, remind us more of James Schlesinger, Howard Baker, and Lowell Weicker) would have to take place.
@kdemo
If Trump fires Mueller, his hope for his presidency to ever accomplish anything at all other than total ongoing scandal dies at that moment. The idea of doing it might not bother Trump, but I suspect many in the West Wing and perhaps the cabinet would consider resigning, he would be in even more trouble with the courts, and many R’s in Congress would turn on him.
And any R’s who either supported the action or who continued to stand by by Trump would be out in the next election.
I keep wanting to post this image somewhere, and this is the thread I keep coming back to. I was startled to see the photo credit on this; it’ll probably make the dictionary next year, I suppose.
It was in the newspaper this morning, as part of an article on a road rage incident.
Police Arrest 8-Year-Old Florida Girl And Charge Her With Felony Car Burglary
It was just your typical 3 a.m. street fight outside of a bar in Tampa until Florida Man went and ran everybody over.
But when you’ve got people like this Orlando man, who fell out of a truck on the way home from the strip club, ran over his own leg and then ran off after the truck crashed into a house, there’s not much we can do to help you.
Florida Woman Drives Into A House Because She Was Driving While Praying With Her Eyes Closed
23 minutes of turn-by-turn orchestrated praise offered by members of the cabinet, directed toward the the great achievements of President Trump.
Can anyone name another US President who would not have been nauseated at the thought of doing this?
I wonder what those among the various cabinet officials who joined because they preferred trying to work from within to watching the nation go to hell think of themselves as they watch this footage later?
@cranky1950
I expect the trip will not be cancelled (admission of defeat), but rather postponed, or put on hold.
Teresa May’s office was almost surely the leak source in the Trump phone call memtioned. Also, with 2 million sigs on an anti-Trump petition and protestors organizing a mass mooning, Trimp will find some crisis that will mean he’s too busy to go.
@f00l - OMG, I couldn’t watch much, but that Cabinet meeting was completely vomit-inducing. It reminds me of some dystopian scenario that I can’t quite identify - It’s haunting me.
@f00l
Actually, I heard that Trump is scheduled to drop by Bethesda to have the Cabinet surgically removed from his ass. Trump’s surgeon said it would be a minor procedure involving suction as is appropriate for an invertebrate parasite.
The surgery, however, has caused a postponement of White House plans to have the President declare himself a National Monument to be named Mt. Tweetmore.
An interesting article from today’s NYT on the split in the Dem Party between progressives and what might be called the center and center-left, or possibly might be called “pragmatists”.
@f00l The talking heads don’t get it. It wasn’t Mr Sanders success so much as it was “Not Hillary’s” success. McGovern killed the democratic party, Bernie would finish the job. Democratic socialism stands about as much a chance here as free market capitalism.
@cranky1950
The US is nowhere near ready to be Sweden. If the more progressive portions of the Dem party try to force very progressive change too quickly, rather than gradually, they will hand victory back to the Republicans.
The areas where, if the Dems take back the House, the progressives might be able to move faster, would seem to be anti-hate, healthcare, min wage, jobs, infrastructure, possibly environment. Poss education finance reform.
If hard liberals try to go too far too fast, the corporations and hard conservatives will take it all back.
The Dems and Reps both used to be big-tent parties. We still need that.
What would actually happen if the President had a full blown breakdown? Trump has always been able to slink off and hide and emerge 6mo later after his messes are cleaned up. Now he has constant hostile oversight and very indepth media exposure.
@cranky1950 I have a fantasy that someone hacks the White House intercom system (if it’s still there) and makes Voices tell Dear Leader that he’s doing a bad job, he lost the election, his inauguration crowds were the smallest ever, someone HAS been recording everything he’s doing etc. Or that those screaming staff meetings can somehow get broadcast live to the mainstream media. Or both.
@cranky1950 - Section 4 of the 25th Amendment allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to send a letter to Congress stating that the President is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” This letter would immediately initiate a transfer of power to the Vice President, subject to additional Congressional review.
As we saw today, it’s unlikely a majority of the Cabinet would do this, so . . .
. . . a little-known provision in Section 4 empowers Congress to form its own body to evaluate the President’s fitness for office, eliminating the need for the Cabinet’s involvement in the process.
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Yawn. JBS has redefined the purpose of the hearing to suit his definition. He is shocked, shocked and deeply hurt that his colleagues- nay, his former colleagues, since he is no longer a member of that august body- would even consider such a detestable charge about events that never happened. He has no knowledge etc… The logic behind why he recused himself is circular, and charming as an interwoven crochet pattern, and just as full of holes. He made quite a few gulps during the reading of the charges; either he has indigestion, or he nearly tossed his cookies. In his summation, he bounced in his seat for emphasis.
WTF do overdose deaths and a murder rate up 10% (is it really?) have to do with the matter at hand? Oh, he will not be deterred, and he will not be distracted from his great job.
What a whiner. I’m so sorry to hear that his dignity was insulted.
(Session’s dignity was esp insulted when he first decided to support Trump in the first place. Wonder who was responsible for that little insult?)
I just want to know if Sessions will swear, under oath, to resign if any move is made within the administration to fire Mueller.
If Trump does try to fire Mueller, whatever Sessions does or does not do at that moment will define his career and reputation forever.
He can forget anything else he’s ever tried to accomplish. Whether or not he, at that moment, has the guts that Elliott Richardson had, will be the only thing anyone ever remembers about him.
@f00l I have a crystal ball. He won’t. Check out @EricGarland’s running commentary; it’s the best thing I’ve seen in ages. Be careful if you drink anything while reading.
As of a new Gallup poll, Trump’s approval rating is at a record low and trending down at 36%; his disapproval rating is at record high 59% and trending up.
That Stalinist “praise the Glorious Leader” cabinet meeting didn’t play well around here, even with people who certainly liked him (or hated him less than they hated the Dems) last fall.
I heard people describing it as a humiliating display worthy of a North Korea media set piece.
And that happened after Gallup did its polling. I believe there is hope.
Mostly I find that Trump still can’t be discussed except with very select persons. People still get angry or defensive or feel like they’re being looked down on or intellectually bullied by the “elite”.
But the declining approval ratings seem to give a kind of permission:
Sort of: “Other people who think like me and resemble me don’t like Trump so much now either. So it’s cool that I like him a lot less. We’re not just kowtowing to the people who think they’re so superior about everything.”
@f00l@KDemo His base includes many high-SES whites, for reasons I find distasteful, and I think those are the ones slip-sliding away. I haven’t talked with any of my neighbors, who are fervent Trumpists, because reasons. They only watch Fox and sports. They like Fox and talk radio because it tells them they’re not paranoid, the gummint really is out to get them. They don’t reason from A to B.
@OldCatLady
Tarrant County is a very conservative county. Far more so that Dallas. Here’s my very informal readout:
Here, as far as I could tell, the most pro-Trump group statistically, and the most fiercely pro-Trump fans are non-college degree whites. Those seem to be mostly silent about it all right now, from my very limited ability to catch conversations. They’re seriously not happy with him, tho many of them are not ready to give up on him either. They often still hate or distrust all media except Fox and “Fox-like” sources. Some few are openly no longer supporting Trump.
The local white college degree crowd tends pretty conservative, tends to hate the Clintons, and voted in large for Trump. They may or may not also strongly dislike mainstream media. They are starting to talk openly about their disgust with Trump, but they are largely still very conservative and anti-Dem. They are finding Trump to be random, undisciplined, childish, vain, impulsive, cruel, dishonest, lacking judgment, incapable of acknowledging reality, manipulative, egocentric, bullying, and to be not capable of taking the job seriously, and to be incapable of appreciating the American heritage and legacy.
The local white graduate-degree crowd were mostly appalled by Trump during the entire election. Some may have voted for Trump in Nov as an anti-Clinton or anti-liberal vote at the time; they now mostly seem to almost uniformly despise Trump.
Some of them have mentioned watching with some degree of combined amusement, horror and contempt as Gingrich sells what’s left of his own honor and his own soul for an ambassadorship.
@f00l It is. It’s in a separate building on the same compound as the United States Embassy in Rome, and it’s a ‘reward’ posting, like Paris and the Court of St. James. Interesting: I can’t find any mention of a nominee to be ambassador to Italy.
11 minutes of today’s opening on "Morning Joe*; deconstructing yesterday’s cabinet meeting, and the philosophical and moral values on exhibit in the cabinet room.
The footage alternates being serious and beautifully snarky.
@OldCatLady
One of the weirdest things is that, before Trump went totally birther, Brzezinski and Scarborough socialized frequently at events with Trump present, knew him reasonably well, and considered him to be a decent “social friend”. He came on their show all the time after he announced, until they started tearing him apart (which started quickly). After than, he called in. After than, he sent KellyAnne or someone else, but for a long time still called them personally, off the air. He almost never speaks to them anymore on the phone, but they are clearly very close to people in the West Wing.
It was on their show that KellyAnne used to defend Trump in her mile-a-minute fashion, and then, once off the air, talk about how she couldn’t stand his politics and his chaos, and was working for him just so that she could have a nice retirement.
And it was Morning Joe who not only banned KellyAnne from the air as a guest, but said so publicly on air: the reason given on air was that she would come on the show and lie, and kept doing it after being explicitly being warned not to do that again.
And Trump wants them to get married at the WH! He wants to officiate! They have declined.
@f00l Wow. Today’s Morning Joe is full of Scalise’s shooting. Amazingly, by 0805, Scalise’s wiki page had been updated to report that he was hit by gunfire. Somebody must have been editing at the time. And 45 seems to have some affinity for weddings; he’s crashed some, he’s had three of his own.
US AG Jeff Sessions has some memory issues (under 2 minutes):
For the sake of AG Sessions’s future legal and reputational well-being, it would be good if there turned out to be no tapes made of any of the matters that have temporarily(?) slipped his mind.
I really didn’t want to see him do what he did yesterday.
/s
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—An Alabama man whose brain was ravaged by severe amnesia is somehow able to function in an extremely demanding legal job, leading neurologists reported on Tuesday.
The man, whom neurologists are calling a “medical mystery,” has performed highly exacting tasks in one of the country’s top legal positions despite having virtually no short- or long-term memory.
Special counsel is investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, officials say
By Devlin Barrett, Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima, Sari Horwitz
The Washington Post
June 14 2017 6:21PM ET
The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.
The move by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump’s own conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said.
I have not seen anything to make me fairly sure that (by court of law/prosecutorial standards) that the President is guilty of either collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice.
But there’s plenty of smoke, and the smoke was pretty much all created by the WH and WW, and by Trump’s campaign and his associates.
I would not be surprised to find out that Trump personally never colluded or intended to collude at all with Russia or anyone else. I would also not be surprised to find out that he was deliberately steered toward people like Manafort and Flynn, who were deliberately steered toward him.
I would also not be surprised to find send to find out that the Soviets/Russians have seen Trump to be a cultivatable resource for possibly the last 5 decades, and have done their best to befriend him and those around him, on the qt; and have quietly done their best to encourage him to be a disrupter. The Soviets were masters of that art, and the Russians in power inherited their skills. And Russians never minded waiting decades for a payout or a fruition, even if their “project” had no idea s/he was being cultivated, and was fundamentally uncontrollable as a personality.
wild crazy insane speculation follows
I would also not be surprised to see that the Soviets/Russians have stepped up their effects to make sure the Trump brand and family stayed very profitable and very healthy, financially. And at the same time, they could have acquired a path to potential money laundering, wheeling and dealing, information, and a social and power entree to the capitalist world.
I have been wondering for some time exactly where is the admin, biz, development, and mgmt genuis inside Trump’s skin who could keep such an empire as his family’s afloat. Such a person would need considerable self-control and analytic and behavioral discipline, none of which Trump has now, tho he once had all these in spades (decades ago).
It’s possible that his empire stayed profitable with a little outside (Russkie) help, and that he has no idea. In this case, it would be easier and easier over the years for him to exist, intellectually and emotionally, in his own bubble with little external challenge, because the biz stays afloat without needing his serious efforts. He could also be easily tempted in this way, given his “effortless” success, to believe he personally has the solution to every problem.
Suppose permits and deals and financing that others can’t get come easily to him.l? Suppose plenty of clients purchase his properties and book at his hotels? Suppose he regularly is able to buy insanely low and sell at unheard-of valuations? (Documented).
Suppose all sorts of people with Russia connections want to offer him very profitable deals that no other American developer can get anywhere near? And suppose his kids all believe that he really is that smart?
No company can afford to prop Trump’s company up like that. But a country with Russia’s resources and treasury could, easily, thru a thousand or more “friends and associates”. Nice work if you could get it.
His biggest two recent lenders are supposed to be Deutche Bank and Bank of Cyprus. These two banks, being, coincidentally, two of the western banks most famous in law enforcement circles for extreme $ laundering for the Russians.
These two banks both are said to have have strong connections to Wilbur Ross, our current Secretary of Commerce. He was on the board of one, perhaps both. Ross first worked with Trump when Trump’s casinos were in trouble, and he arranged a partial rescue that left Trump in control.
If any portion is this entirely nutso fantasy of mine has anything to do with reality, then someone knows. A good many someones - at least they might know bits and pieces. Some probably faceless folk in Trump’s org and empire (who are both silent and very well paid). Some international bankers. Some Russian oligarchs, and some wealthy persons with close Russian friends. Quite a few, possibly, in government finance and intelligence within Russia. All of them warm and cozy with Putin’s power structure.
People, perhaps, like Trump’s lawyer, with all his notable Russian connections, who, reportedly, managed to get Preet Bharara, US Attorney for Manhattan, fired after warning Trump that Bharara could take Trump down. People, perhaps, like some of Trump’s other “name” law firms, all of whom do an astounding amount of work for Russia.
It is quite possible that when Trump says the Russian connection is bunk and fake news, he entirely believes that; and that to the best of his knowledge or to the knowledge of anyone in his family, it’s true; and yet it could be simultaneously true that the Russians have been cultivating him for decades without his knowledge.
I want the investigators to see all Trump’s tax reforms and business and banking records. I would love to see the results of that. Esp the Russian results.
If any of these imaginary scenarios of mine even touch somewhere ever so slightly against reality, then much can be said about how useless our current vetting procedures are for high government offices, when persons connected to extreme wealth or if high finance are involved. And how deeply into the western financial systems the Russians may have managed to reach.
Of course, we haven’t been big on financial disclosure and regulation of huge $ organizations and persons for some time. And such laws that were created in the wake of 2008 were there to protect overall prosperity, not to protect against a financial organization being corrupted over to foreign purposes.
And away from wild speculation and back to the WH:
Talk about a self-inflicted series of wounds.
Regardless of the reality of an overt or covert Trump/Russia connection, the WH craziness seems to be all Trump’s.
If the WH and the WW had simply behaved professionally, they could be running the table with their legislation on Capitol Hill right now.
The constant flow of inane and obviously self-destructive conduct from the WH and WW is why it seems to me that the President is suffering either from some organic or psychiatric disorder, is affected by extreme stress and lack of sleep, or is suffering from cognitive decline. (In addition to his other long-standing or lifelong personality disorders.)
None of which means he is or isn’t personally guilty of anything impeachable.
All of which means that this reality series is in no danger of having its ratings drop.
I want to know: who introduced Trump to Flynn? To Manafort? And other, similar parties? To Russian-connected money people? When Trump has done his documented real estate and business deals with Russians, who introduced the parties to the deal or to each other? Who was the grease? The in-between or cut-out? Who did the loans and bridge financing? Thru what bank?
The Russians are the legendary masters of the long game.
I hear NK has a brand new ferry shuttle and perhaps a new air route to the Russkies?
The Chinese could do a lot about NK if they were sufficiently “motivated”.
It might be seen in China’s own v selfish interest to do something. And I think they have the means, economic, overt, covert, and possibly path. If they wanted him gone, I think they could pull that off.
I don’t understand enough to grasp their considerations here.
Right now the other world powers appear to be learning that our President has the attn span of a flea.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow Congress to block any efforts by the president to scale back sanctions against Russia, and to strengthen those sanctions in retaliation for Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 election and its actions in Syria.
Woo hoo!! First sign in a long time that the Senate has some scruples!
Hope it is a sign of things to come.
The vote of 97 to 2 is a sharp rebuke to President Trump’s posture on Russia and his resistance to the intelligence community’s assessment that the country was behind efforts to influence the election he won.
@f00l - I’ll just start calling you Pollyanna now.
I am so far from feeling good about the state of things - I don’t think it’s likely we’ll recover in my lifetime.
I am allowed to feel briefly and stupidly happy (even about our completely horrible political situation) once in a while for a few seconds.
More seriously (what follows is stupid and pompous and self-serious and all that):
/Begin Extraordinary Idiocy
Long term (like after 2 minutes) I am back to being “determined in a very bad situation” mode.
I get to enjoy small positive events now and then. Don’t rain on that.
Yes it still sux. Bit I have met a fair number of people who have endured so much worse than this, for so very long, and kept their hope, their dignity, their ability to keep doing positive things.
I could claim that they made a better world, and that I am their grateful beneficiary. I seriously believe that I am.
What should they have done? Lived in depair? I am lucky that they didn’t. And since they didn’t, I can’t either.
I suspect they lived thru long times during which it looked like things would never, ever get better. I know of no guarantees.
We don’t recover from life itself, we instead make what we can of it; and politics is part of life, and sometimes politics is nothing but awful and evil.
Perhaps we (the US and the good things here, politically) may not recover in our lifetimes. Or perhaps we, or others, will achieve gains of great worth.
Of course I want everything political to be far better than it is, on a path toward honorable decency. To have a sense that we are going toward something good.
I have little of that right now. But … the avenues and paths of possible progress are not closed off. I refuse to assume that the hope is pointless.
@f00l - I almost softened my comment, sorry. I’m really glad that you can find the positive in the hopeful moments that are so rare these days. I wish I could be more like that, not so cynical.
I know people that don’t even pay attention, they’re wrapped up in their small world and don’t care about what’s happening in politics. Are they better off? Maybe, for the moment. They’re in for a rude awakening, though, as the trickle-down reaches them personally.
Perhaps the hardest part is the feeling of no control. It’s completely unjust, cruel, and damaging, and nothing I can do now seems to help.
Grab those rays of light and shine them on the darkness.
(HA HA HA. This was short when I started. HA HA HA. )
Here’s the short answer:
Hope is a choice and an intention. A personal orientation. It’s deliberate.
As in, what’s the advantage or point of living in another manner - providing one can figure out this one. (I’m way way way late to the game.)
I don’t think it’s self-deluding, as practiced consciously.
(Or I’m wrong and delusional. In which case, Bite Me. ).
It’s only partially a combo of rationality and philosophical orientation (if one even grants it that much rational credence). It also has to be hard-learned intellectually and emotionally into the fucking brain, or has to become, mentally and emotionally, the dominant habit. And it has to be well-practiced or it gets delusional or silly or whatever.
It’s also (deliberately chosen) learned behavior, and can be an absolute fuckwad to learn if your brain wasn’t consistently and strongly trained that way during your first 10 years (as mine was not).
If someone didn’t grow up in an environment where, as a very young (pre-school I would think) child, where one learned this sort of hope, as a part of natural persona development, it’s really tough for some of us to learn. If one didn’t learn it at that age, one doesn’t even know what other people are doing with their brains and attitudes to generate a rational or useful sense of potential positivity or opportunity.
It’s not thinking, per se. It’s thinking plus resilient emotional orientation in a realistic sustainable way. The neural pathways have to be “carved”, so to speak. And they have to become the dominate habit.
And the person trying to learn doesn’t even know what they are trying to learn (you “feel you way”, it almost feels like “you can learn this till you learn this”, as some kind of “zen-based koan torture”), and one’s habitual thinking is desperate to take over and mess one up again, so it’s a form of “learning in the dark”.
It’s an absolute bitch to learn, late in life. Much harder than learning physics, in a way, and a very diff sort of learning. But it can be done. Or this has been is my stumbling, foolish experience.
And even if you learn the “how’s and whys” as a child, it usually seems to take endless work and refinement to make “the true good stuff” extend properly into adult lives and bring true resilience and value.
I managed to learn to do it just a few years ago, and I still can’t explain to self quite how I got here. That’s more than 6 decades without, first.
What fun that was. I mean, shit.
I’m posting this from the phone.
If someone wants to read my mental dribblings, I’ll post the insanely long castastrophic unsanity I wrote v late last night about all this, if it’s still in the clipboard in the chromebook.
About all this and what might be the /reasons.
PS
re politics everyone here is thinking about it all the time. Practically obsessed. They usually have the good sense not to wanna talk much about it in public tho.
Hey, it all sux. Ok?
Now I’m gonna go order me some fried hope at the drive thru.
@f00l - My normal reaction to problems is
a) to head them off in advance, or
b) not to accept them, but to jump in and fix them.
It drives me crazy when I am helpless to do so.
At the time, I was amused, what with his hired crowds. I guess I got that one as wrong as possible.
Morning Joe:
“Everyone underestimated Trump”.
The Morning Joe Show, which has strong sources in both red states and blue states, said, starting out, that Trump might win.
(They meant “underestimated” him as a contender, counter-puncher, and rabble-rouser, not as a force for quality or decency or goodness or strength or the best of American values. They were explicit about that.)
We’ve got 42 more months, depending.
Those tax returns are coming out tho. Eventually someone will leak. I am hearing some reputable reporters, not given to conspiracy, wild speculation, or fact stretching, say they expect to see all sort of Russian money all over the returns.
Trump had to go shopping for money somewhere. US based banks would not lend to him.
And Bannon is trying hard to throw Kushner under the bus. So is Priebus.
If I had a “Las Vegas politics book” betting agency handy, right now I’d be more inclined to put $ on Kushner surviving.
Even tho I think Russian money and connections are likely all over Kushner too.
@KDemo
Yeah, the commentariat were kinda wondering why Rosenstein came out with that weird, no-contextual-reference warning at the same time his WH boss was trashing him.
One hopes someone has something. A good circus has three rings of action, doesn’t it?
At least, after 5 months of chaos, I’m getting a little better at the life-work-sleep-newsflash balance.
@f00l@KDemo I’m not getting any better at it, and I’m retired. The only adjustments I have made are to stop attending indignation meetings and unfollow some unproductive FB groups. The Rosenstein blurb was somewhere past bizarre. Perhaps it’s what was required of him, in lieu of a Cabinet testimonal.
@OldCatLady - According to that article, there may be an impending release of compromising tapes from an unnamed US ally. That could explain the statement.
A lot of unknowns, I guess we’ll see . . .
Re HOPE: I just wrote some kinda random paean to hope a few days back, didn’t I? Perhaps I’m full of hypocrisy…
In this case: first I applaud the persons who resigned. At least a few have principles.
But: if they didn’t reach out to the WH several times before resigning, emphatically and forcefully, they’ll get pilloried for it.
And they’ll get pilloried anyway. I presume Twitter is currently full of snowflake insults directed st them.
And then this admin will likely appoint some people who might tend to be philosophically somewhat punitive or judgmental toward the entire subject.
The admin won’t spend a dime no matter what. This admin will cut funding. Or perhaps Pence or someone who reminds us of DeVoss will be put in charge of policy.
And then it will all be forgotten in an instant because 5 other wildly dramatic things will happen each day.
Right now all my hope centers in the leakers, and the reputable congressional committee hearings, and the Mueller inquiry. And did I mention the leakers? And perhaps stuff sourced from intelligence projects run by our traditional allies.
Or perhaps I’m wrong, and these individuals’ protests will do some tangible good toward helping HIV infected persons and doing something about the ongoing world-wide health catastrophe.
I guess I hope I’m wrong.
A salute to the former members of the HIV/AIDS council.
@KDemo I’m afraid to hope. Last time I did that it really hurt. I note with interest the articles about GA being one of the states whose voting system was easy to hack. I will, however, be watching the exit polls.
@KDemo I think Karen Handle is gonna take it. It is a truly miserable day and that usually does not bode well for the democrat get out the vote effort.
@cranky1950 I saw a traffic map somewhere, it really is bad. But are you saying Dems are weather wimps??
Never thought I’d say this, but you are cranky.
Don’t get hopes up with early returns. Those are the high Dem areas and early voting which will strongly favor Ossoff. Late counts will tend to favor Handel.
Parts of three counties. 1 Dem (urban), 1 Rep (semi-rural), 1 mixed (suburban).
Ossoff must take 2 of three.
Hoping, tho. And even if he loses, I want it to look like a scary thing to the R’s. Perhaps then they’ll run away from Secret Committee TrumpCare.
@OldCatLady No, it’s kind of a waste for a small race where the numbers will come up before press time anyway. Media is not reporting exit poll numbers anymore since the republicans got all whiny after one of the midterms where they call the race 3 hours before the polls closed.
@cranky1950 I was more interested in getting actual voters to say how they voted. I don’t trust any electronic system now, or in the immediate past, and certainly not in the future. It’s the Golden Rule: them as has the gold (in this case the control of the software) makes the rules. And I am not referring to the Republicans.
Live on Capitol Hill: ‘Putin behind U.S. election meddling.’ Gowdy is asking specific, carefully worded questions. Jeh Johnson (former Homeland Security Chief) is doing a certain amount of dancing about when the intelligence products re the election were available. There may be triple negatives involved. ‘What more could we have done before the election?’ Johnson: ‘Hindsight is 20/20… the scale and scope was unprecedented… In the late summer/fall this had the attention of my people…’ The current DHS chief is a retired 4-star, Kelly.
@cranky1950 or someone who listened to the news last night or this am after the race was called, as I did not:
What (in more detail) was wrong it Ossoff’s advertising? Did his campaigning match more to what would work in Georgetown or Silicon Valley than to what would work in Georgia?
Why didn’t Ossoff and fiancé just move back into the district amd made that issue go away? That seems like it should have been possible.
It is my impression that the spontaneous contributions received by Ossoff were kinda largely matched by official RNC donations to Handel. Is this true?
It seems that Ossoff’s spontaneous organization was matched by the entrenched R organization. Is this true?
How much did the rainstorm affect turnout?
It seems that the R’s did a very effective get-out-the-vote thing in their areas. How did turnout look in the D areas?
This seems to be a district that is far less R that two years ago or 1 year ago. What are the odds that it could go further toward purple? (Of course that depends in part on what Trump and Congress do for the next year and a half)?
Ossoff plus D’s plus People who despise Trump rallied strongly for this. Any idea:
Will they lose heart, or will they double-down and learn to fight?
It seems to me that the D’s desperately need a few alt leadership faces.
The Clintons carry all that Clinton baggage.
Obama has stepped back, as ex-presidents are supposed to. And he was never a street fighter. He has always been more inspirational.
Pelosi dies not know how to counter the R abuse of her own image. She may be great in Congress and great for fundraising, but she’s death to D’s in R districts.
Sanders is inspirational to D’s and brings new people into the process. But I think he would also be death to D’s in most areas of traditional red country. He can too easily be lied about, negatively spun in ways that suite the local conservative mythology.
Schumer is decent as a public face, but only decent.
None of these people (Pelosi, Sanders, the Clintons, Obama, Schumer) is among the faces the party needs.
The D’s need someone who can be somewhat inspirational, but would can also be a down and dirty politicians.
Someone who knows how to turn the words of a Gingrich or Trump or McConnell back against the speakeramd shive them down his throat. (I listened to a recording of McConnell lying thru his teeth about the D’s and the healthcare bill yesterday. This is what the R’s have as Senate leader.)
Someone who lives to fight. The D’s keep fighting and campaigning as tho they spent their entire lives in coffee bars. This may work well in blue areas and some purple areas. It won’t do much in historically red areas.
If the D’s keep campaigning as they have been, it seems to me that either the D’s will have to hope the R’s just screw up so badly that the R base turns purple: or the D’s will simply have to wait for more slow demographic and generational change.
The D’s seem not to know how to talk to traditionally conservative voters in R areas and get them to listen.
I tend to think this is not just an educational gap or a national “deep divide”; but also of political style.
In red areas, do the the D’s tend to run candidates who come across to the locals as ideologically way-out purist? Have the D’s lost so much of their local organizations that they have forgotten locally how to be political and mainstream as well as idealistic?
Possible silver lining:
The R’s are prob feeling pretty pleased right now. This will embolden the R’s in Congress. Trump will feel more self-satisfied than ever.
I have a fear that Trump will start to learn to be President, that he and Congress might accomplish a lot (of bad things), and that would look good to many voters coming into the elections.
If the R’s think they are “winners”, and Trump continues to be delusional, perhaps they will do stuff so self-destructive and over-the-top that they go right over the cliff with their actions. The hope is that they don’t take the entire country, the future, and the world with them.
I have seen slight shifts in his conduct in the last two weeks. Tiny and uncertain. Fewer pieces of public idiocy. Could be my imagining or misinterpretings, easily.
I theorize that several semi-rational someones are following him around non-stop. Also Melania is there.
Hell, mebbe someone fucked with his meds.
Dunno if this will sustain (if it’s even real). Seems unlikely. He’s too likely to slip whatever leash. Amd too impulsive and too delusional about his own “genuis”.
But he likes success a lot. He might be about to modify his public persona for that. Dunno.
I think the Dems could seriously use new faces with new perspectives. Kamala Harris looks good, so do some others. All of them need to find the right “public touch”.
But what they really need is someone who is a theoretician, a leader, an idealist, likeable, and a serious political operator all in one. And really really good in public and likes being there.
Esp the “public” and “operator” bits.
Pelosi should have never let herself be defined as the permanent enemy by the R’s. But it happened. The D’s misread the effectiveness of the tactics of the opposition. They have been doing this since 1980.
Now we need someone who sees how to step past all that and put the R’s onto the defensive for once.
It’s pretty clear the “let Trump be Trump” is not gonna do it for the D’s.
They kept the same ads throughout the campaign, they did little to adjust to the Handle, especially during the last weeks. There’s a difference between spending money and effectively spending money . The main democratic message was Karen Handle will spend money on herself and cut everyone else. Handle’s message, was Ossoff will be a Pelosi puppet, he’s soft on crime, he’s a liar, he’ll defund the military, he’ll raise taxes and spend the money on silly stuff he’s soft on terrorism. Response Karen Handle used state funds to buy a Lexus SUV. No Handle and Ryan want to kill your healthcare, no Handle and Ryan want to cut you social security etc. The guy has the charisma of a moldy sponge, and he is video team did little to punch that up. He had no hook other than I’m not Republican. Shit I’m not God’s gift to PR and I can see these things.
Something or someone gets labeled as “liberal” and so it’s bad.
Something or someone gets labeled as “conservative” as so it’s good.
It’s like they have conditioned themselves to be habitually closed off in self-destructive ways. It reminds me of a voluntary version of mass group self-brainwashing toward presumed phony “virtue”.
Then you give them something that makes sense. Like Obamacare. And all the sudden they don’t want to lose it. They see its value. They need it. They know that. They get angry over it.
But still they tend to vote red.
Sigh.
I really hope the 6th district voting progression you listed is a little predictive. I really hope.
. . . the underlying reality revealed by the four elections taken as a whole is actually more bullish for Democrats than the one the party’s leaders thought they were in. If the basic pattern holds up — with Democrats pocketing Clinton’s gains and the GOP not consolidating Trump’s — they are well positioned for the future.
That article is good stuff. I had never heard of Buchanan
Interesting to me: I’m not sure my various “Buckley-styled conservative” family members are much aware of this aspect of the far/alt-right agenda either.
WASHINGTON — Senate >Republicans, who have promised a repeal of the Affordable Care Act for seven years, took a major step on Thursday toward that goal, unveiling a bill to cut Medicaid deeply and end the health law’s mandate that most Americans have health insurance.
The 142-page bill would create a new system of federal tax credits to help people buy health insurance, while offering states the ability to drop many of the benefits required by the Affordable Care Act, like maternity care, emergency services and mental health treatment.
The Senate bill — once promised as a top-to-bottom revamp of the health bill passed by the House last month — instead maintains its structure, with modest adjustments. The Senate version is, in some respects, more moderate than the House bill, offering more financial assistance to some lower-income people to help them defray the rapidly rising cost of private health insurance.
But the Senate measure, like the House bill, would phase out the extra money that the federal government has provided to states as an incentive to expand eligibility for Medicaid. And like the House measure, it would put the entire Medicaid program on a budget, ending the open-ended entitlement that now exists.
This bill seems so had that I wonder if they wrote it intending it to go down in flames so that they could go home for summer recess and say they tried.
U.S. Capitol Police officers removed several people protesting Thursday morning in front of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office, shortly after the Senate GOP released its ObamaCare repeal bill.
The protesters, some of them in wheelchairs, had planned to stage a “die-in” protest to oppose the bill.
Tweets from the scene show Capitol Police officers blocking the hallway outside McConnell’s office, as protesters gathered to protest the new healthcare bill. Another tweet shows police carrying a protester who refused to leave on her own.
One protester in a wheelchair wearing a breathing apparatus wore a blanket that said “Medicaid” and “life and liberty 4 disabled Americans.”
All the President’s Men, Revisited
Documentary on the Watergate era, the reporting, and the Redford/Bernstein film. This is the special that ran on MSNBC recently.
My sense of drama and my stress systems are currently tuned to jaw-dropping breaking news several times an hour.
If what you say is true, I might have to go to the ER to have my sense of manic urgency tuned down a bit.
PS For how long can our President stand staying “carefully managed” before he must break free on Twitter or elsewhere, such as with the Ambassador of an adversarial country?
/giphy tweetstorm
@f00l Just now, in Jerusalem, he’s quoted as saying ‘I never mentioned Israel during (that) Oval Office meeting with Russian diplomats.’ I’m still curious what Tillerson’s presser was about, the one where he excluded U.S. media.
@OldCatLady
According to MSNBC, Netanyahu had to literally order or threaten cabinet members and other political leaders to get them to be present on the airstrip for the arrival of Air Force One.
I presume that’s how angry many among the Israeli leadership are about the Oval Office leak to Russia.
I presume Israel has pulled its operatives back out of danger in some manner by now. But that hurts intelligence collection, and it won’t stop ISIS and others from threatening, kidnapping, torturing, or killing people while they hunt the intelligence source. And it gives ISIS an excuse for a new series of “media events”, if they wish.
Also (according to CNN, I think), the various NATO foreign are planning how best to structure their meetings and conversations to accomplish things, given Trump’s personality and attention span.
One of them - don’t know which - said something about hoping to have at least 10 seconds on a single topic.
@OldCatLady
According to reports, it was supposed to be a Saudi Foreign Minister press conference only. Tillerson was invited to participate at the last second and agreed.
No idea why US reporters were not invited to be present in the first place.
European reporters present shared transcripts with American journalists,and various Saudi news sources and the Saudi foreign ministry have supposedly provided full transcripts.
@f00l They’ll probably have the most success with puppets and felt boards.
Frank Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
I just bought a book after listening to CNN’s Brian Stelter on the media-focused news show Reliable Sources interview Brooke Gladstone, from WNYC’s similar show broadcast nationally on NPR, On the Media.
(Show date May 17 this year)
If could be that the gist of the book was well covered in the interview, and I don’t actually stand to gain that much by reading it, but it sounded interesting.
This book was also discussed on the show On The Media, on May 16th.
Both these shows are available as podcasts. They’re both good.
Brooke Gladstone
The Trouble with Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time
Newly published, e-book and PPB. Both are under $7. The book is short. She calls it “almost a pamphlet”.
The book discusses how media and “reality” have each always been a bubble (true enough); and draws on perspectives from diverse spices: Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Swift, Walter Lipmann, among others.
She also brings some brain and cognitive science into it, discussing research on how people deal with, or try not to deal with, info contrary to their accepted models of reality. (This applies to everyone), I’m sure re she just touches on brain science, but still. Might be good stuff.
So I thought it sounded pretty interesting, and worth either reading, or getting the Kindle to read to me.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/152350238X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=
From the AMZ blurb:
Fran’s Fanon wrote a number of books on analyzing objectivity while being the native. (He was a physician and psychiatrist working in colonial Africa):
The Wretched of the Earth
Published 1961
https://smile.amazon.com/Wretched-Earth-Frantz-Fanon/dp/0802141323/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495474569&sr=8-1&keywords=the+wretched+of+the+earth
His AMZ author page:
https://smile.amazon.com/Frantz-Fanon/e/B001HPZVZ6/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1
Written during the Algerian Revolution against France.
Promise? I’m so ready for a break.
. . .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sick-of-being-shocked-by-the-news-dont-worry-it-will-get-worse/2017/05/20/b4d15972-3cc9-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html?utm_term=.11f1419b3719
@KDemo That article is so last weekend. Now Bannon and Priebus have left 45’s entourage and returned to the states, with an assortment of reasons given.
@OldCatLady
@kdemo
“A person or persons of interest”. Hmmmm.
@OldCatLady
@OldCatLady Probably tricked them into an in appropriate response while playing the panzer song.
Oh those Israelis. Such jokers.
A Top Israeli Company Just Greeted Drumpf With A Hilarious New Ad Mocking Him
@OldCatLady As an Israeli Meh.
@PlacidPenguin
What? I LOVE peaches!
Peach soda, peach ice cream, peach colors, baby do you wanna shake my, the list goes on and on.
@PlacidPenguin
@therealjrn
You do cobbler?
/image “peach cobbler”
Want cobbler.
@f00l
@PlacidPenguin
; )
@f00l
Fort Worth. Still working on a date and time.
@cinoclav I’m borrowing this. It’s great.
@PlacidPenguin Can we promote the
possibility of lastingimpeach?@narfcake
/giphy peach impeach
@f00l Me too - peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.
@PlacidPenguin Blackberry cobbler would be good too. With vanilla ice cream.
@Kidsandliz
If you find me and join the blackberry eating party, sure, I’ll get blackberry cobbler & vanilla ice cream.
@PlacidPenguin So where do I look to find you?
@Kidsandliz
Well since I don’t have to worry about you telling the f00l…
@PlacidPenguin and…?
@OldCatLady, perhaps the Trump-focused news isn’t the big news right now.
But the insanity never stops.
Sigh.
From BuzzFeed News:
@f00l
…
@PlacidPenguin ^^^THIS^^^
@f00l That’s odd; the ‘Foundation for Defense of Democracies’, where Joscelyn works, is identified as neocon. Yet he’s criticizing the current administration.
@PlacidPenguin
Buzzfeed or no, it looks legitimately sourced. And it appears that Americans did step on common protocol in going out first with information they had gotten from the UK intelligence and police services.
@OldCatLady
All the neocons I know of absolutely despise Trump. Esp the academics, think-tankers, writers, and the retired. The politicians and the “permanent government” have to soften their public stances a bit and go silent, while they wait for Trump to destroy himself.
Neocons were the Republican party adherents who are still anti-Trump and holding out. They think Trump’s a liar, stupid, uneducated, impulsive, infantile, incredibly dangerous, with zero worthwhile possibilities of ever gaining a useful worldview, and is to be opposed whenever possible.
They regard the Trump core fanbase as being uneducated, gullible, and susceptible to lies and marketing; and feel the overall R party capitulation to Trump is completely corrupt and craven, and purely opportunistic, and a betrayal of every conservative principle, including the conservative principles that neocons don’t necessarily agree with.
Many of the neocons (esp the writers) are, at least historically, often rather centrist or possibly even liberal on domestic policy. Some of them have been pretty socialist at home; others are more like Buckley. Their focus is foreign policy and the military, on which they are kinda fanatic; and when they get too much power and run amok, you get the W years, where they tried to run the table in terms of US power exercised in the world.
They tend to really love the historical and military theories that spring from the the philosophies of the great powers and from the great wars. The idea that Cheney put forth:
is neocon thinking taken too far. Neocons are a bit impatient sometimes when the local populations who are dealing with the US don’t behave according to the prevailing geopolitical theories in DC.
As an opposition force, out of power, making noise and casting warnings, they’re more to the good than not. Their arguments and POVs are likely to be well-reasoned and well-researched enough to be worth a listen, at the very minimum, even when they go too far, left on their own. They are just too extreme and mono-focused to have good judgment when totally in charge. As a group, they tend to lack self-doubt on military intervention.
(In case that reminds you of anyone in 43’s admin.)
@f00l If I knew any neocons like that, I’d be much more hopeful. At least I could enjoy good arguments. (I need new friends.) Keeping heads down and waiting for 45’s self-immolation applies to the moderate liberals, too.
@OldCatLady
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
This includes a list of prominent neocons. The politicians and political appointees tended to be standard republican issue conservative, including some holding with fairly extreme social conservative positions.
The writers and thinkers tended to be much more diverse in terms of domestic policy.
Some of them have been known as “Liberal Hawks”.
Re foreign policy, they have ranged from fairly reasonable all the way over to Goldwater. They do tend to be more interventionist and American Exceptionalist than not, although many not anywhere close to as foolishly and blindly as W, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.
Pres from Truman onward have, more often than not, been fairly neocon in FP. Obama is the biggest notable exception. The degree to which he is philosophically somewhat pro-interventionist himself is unclear to me; as he was extremely wary of getting into another endless situation after W’s adventures that have no endpoint; and Obama is known to have the habit of repeatedly talking himself into, and then out of, various military options, right up until the moment last moment he could cancel, then calling an operation off.
In the office of the President of Israel, 45 got basic global geography mixed up.
Watch carefully as the dark haired fellow sitting on viewer’s right converts a facepalm into straightening his hair. Ron White got it right, you know. You really can’t fix stupid.
@Shrdlu
It gets better once you realize that that is Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer.
/image Ron Dermer
@PlacidPenguin
I block FaceBook stuff in this browser, here is a youtube link.
Maybe Trump thinks that Saudi Arabia is in the Middle East, and Israel is in Middle-Earth or something.
@PlacidPenguin I think I love Ron Dermer. If we could see him doing an Anderson Cooper eyeroll, I’d be sure.
@PlacidPenguin The moron even interrupted the President of Israel he just can’t shut up. But more than an eye roll I would have liked one of those coughs where someone says asshole or I’ll even take <cough> idiot. @fOOl I love when you get on a topic you’re passionate about!
Here’s what I hope is a sign of a sea change:
From The Hollywood Reporter:
More from The Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-fox-news-ratings-20170523-htmlstory.html
More from Variety:
https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/msnbc-fox-news-ratings-cable-news-cnn-1202440320/
It’s been hours since the last ‘BREAKING NEWS’ banner. This gives me time to watch Lawrence O’Donnell, and made me miss Tim Russert too. Then I heard ‘Defining Deviancy Down’, and it rang a faint bell. Oh yes, from 2015. How Drumpf is ‘defining deviancy down’ in presidential politics http://wapo.st/1Xmh2Di?tid=ss_tw-bottom&utm_term=.7935eba06c8e
Morning Joe has a casual but fairly respectful atmosphere normally.
This morning is was difficult for them to hold the line on that:
They pointed out that Trump’s lawyer for the Russia prob has done Trump almost no good dealing with adverse news (total FAIL), but has been a lead lawyer for Rissia’s biggest bank!
And another law firm for Trump says on the web site that they are the most important US firm working in Russia!
(Also Lieberman is part of the first firm. So a completely non-partisan choice for the FBI spot.)
Joe: “Trump makes it so hard … to connect the dots.”
Later:
Joe: “in the words of Aristotle, ‘this is all such a whole lot of dumb’. Really. What a lot of stupid.”
…
“I just see a guy who’s clueless. He’s like Mr Magoo, but Mr Magoo trying to shred the US Constitution.”
Joe quoting Trump in a super dumb voice: “Duh. I did not mention Israel. I just accidentally admitted that I handed out Israel’s secret intelligence. I did not mention Israel to the Russians.”
The people on the show mentioned that they wished they could have seen the expression on Ambassador Ron Dermer’s face. Dermer must be thinking “I’m working with this guy???”
That’s in the first 20 min of the Morning Joe, as far as I have gotten yet.
The rumor is that Trump is upset about the discipline McMaster brought in to the NSC, and he wants Flynn back. Great idea. Esp now that there’s supposedly proof (NSA captures) that that Russia thought they had Flynn on s string.
Trump not only clearly doesn’t understand the job of a President or the government, or the Constitution, or how to work with serious people,he doesn’t understand he’s in legal jeopardy with the most formidable guy ever (Mueller) on his scent.
The Trump Presidency is likely already over. Trump just doesn’t know it yet.
They’ll try to save what face they can.
@f00l I want to watch it, but it’s difficult when I stay up to watch U2 on Kimmel, McCain on Late Night with Seth Meyers, and then sleep in. I’ll catch up online.
@OldCatLady
McCain was a guest on Morning Joe the other day.
Speaking of Joe and Mika’s engagement announcement, he said (paraphrase):
“I want to congratulate both of you. And especially you, Joe. You finally found someone willing to try to love you almost as much as you love yourself.”
McCain later told Mike that if she needed an escape route, it wasn’t too late, people would help.
@OldCatLady
And you said nothing big would happen this week.
MILITARY. Trump Just Revealed Where He Has Nuclear Submarines To Philippines’ Duarte
He really shouldn’t let everyone know that. Limit the info to extra-judicial mass murderers, perhaps? Trump needs company, so where can the WH find more of those for him to whisper to?
http://politicaldig.com/trump-just-revealed-where-he-has-nuclear-submarines-to-philippines-duarte/
Good thing Trump is Pres. We need a Pres who can handle classified info properly.
@f00l I said ‘should’. This all started when we were gleefully awaiting Sally Yates’ testimony on May 8. So much has happened since then that it feels like a different world. I’ve sworn off popcorn totally; every time I mentioned it, the news went insane. Like shouting ‘Beetlejuice!’.
For domestic political news today, what will win?
Trump’s budget?
CBO’s healthcare package analysis?
Hearings in Congress?
Trump blowback on something weird?
Kushner as landlord stories?
As yet unpublished leaks?
Someone else hired or fired?
Spicer rumors?
Bannen vs The Universe?
Who is or isn’t good enough to meet the Pope?
The Econ summit?
The NATO meeting?
Montana election?
Body slams?
Trump shares classified into with some oligarch’s housepet?
Trump tried to get the UN and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Illuminati and the Borg to discredit the Russian election interference investigation?
Odds, anyone?
I would go for the body slam/Montana election, but it’s still morning on the East Coast, so who can say?
@f00l
I could easily tell you who WON’T win.
Note:
Just because a person doesn’t win, it doesn’t always automatically mean that they lost.
(This isn’t a sports game where there are usually only 2 possible outcomes.)
@PlacidPenguin
Yeah, got it.
Politics makes for strange bedfellows, strange wins and losses, and strange “wins” and “losses”.
That part of what makes it so fascinating, and often so depressing, to watch.
Not to mention “buy a Congessman or three”, and “buy a political party” and “buy a billionaire” strategies.
@PlacidPenguin At this point, with 19% of the vote in, the R is ahead, 47.6% to 46.7%.
@OldCatLady @f00l
22% in. R has 47.3%, D has 46.9%.
Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld the ban on the revised travel ban announced by 45.
Expectations have already been underachieved on this amazing trip. However, today marks a new level. He is at NAS Sigonella, where they have runways for AF1. He has to travel via copter to Taormina, which sits on the side of a Very Steep Volcano. It has a helipad. The Commander in Chief doesn’t even know the name of the military installation where he landed.
@OldCatLady
@PlacidPenguin
The Montana R “body-slammer” Gianforte seems to have won the Montana Congressional race with 73% of the vote counted.
However, the story of the day relates back to last Friday’s WaPo story which stated that a person of interest related to the Russian election interference investogation was a member of the White House staff, and close to the President.
More reporting from WaPo and other news organizations have confirmed that the name of the “person of interest” in the White House is Jared Kushner.
Obviously, Kushner has not been named as s suspect, or a target of the investigation, to anyone’s public knowledge. Kushner had also previously volunteered to speak to the various Congressional Intelligence and Judiciary committees. No one going public seems to believe that Kushner has spoken to the FBI at this time.
Apart from any contact Kushner had or may have had with various persons and organizations linked to the Russian leadership during or after the election, he seems to have exhibited extremely bad judgment in some very large areas since last November.
Immediately after Trump won, given the generally terrible quality of many Trump advisors, I was hoping that perhaps Conway and the Kushners would add a dose of sanity to Trump’s general circle of close advisors. I found out I was way way wrong about Conway very quickly.
At the time (right after the election), I thought that Conway had taken Trump as a client only for the money. She may have gone to Trump for that reason, but she seems to have added insanity, not sanity, to the Trump circles and the West Wing. They seem to being her out only when they need a non-stop shameless spinmeister and liar; and they seem don’t care at those times whether she is believed or not; otherwise, according to rumor, her main West Wing assignment seems to be that of “Chief Official Presidential Personal Flatterer.”
I still hoped for some months that the Kushners, who are frequently described as closet Democrats, would add a degree of reason, consideration, and sanity to Trump’s bubble. We know so little of JK that no one seems to know what his voice sounds like. (I presume this is one of the reasons Trump likes his son-in-law so much. Kushner is clearly not a media hog.)
But recently I hear that JK was completely for the hiring Flynn for the National Security post, and also that Kushner resisted the firing of Flynn. And I hear that Kushner was very much for firing Comey. Without even speculating on JK’s private political philosophy, those POV’s are just plain terrible judgment. Utterly and predictably terrible. What politically clueless person could have known the facts that people in the WH group should have known, and not predicted how badly thse actions would go?
Also, if I am giving the Kushners the benefit of the doubt, if the Kushners are trying to help Trump toward any appearance of credibility and stability, they’re either completely ineffective, have terrible judgment, or aren’t trying very hard. The Kushners are reputedly reasonably intelligent people. I would have believed that the Kushners would have at least have understood how to try to make things appear to be not so catastrophic in the West Wing. But it seems I was wrong. If the Kushners have done anything positive and meaningful in the West Wing, they’ve done so in the “qt”.
So I suppose the “best hope” is that the Trump White House will follow their common political path to date, and will continue to be so reliably imbecilic and impromptu that they keep destroying almost everything they touch.
On another topic; I hear that, behind the scenes, the US State Dept, DOD, Treasury, and Intelligence communities are privately communicating to our allies that, yes, they are aware that Trumo is an intellectual and emotional child, and is possibly sliding toward visible cognitive decline compared to, say, 5 years ago, but the the best parts of the “permanent government” intend to keep things functioning, mitigate his worst impulses, and try to preserve the possibility of a continued strong, viable, and respected US version of a constitutional democracy for the a future, for a better government and for a less gullible citizenry.
Friday of Low Expectations Week
The Morning Joe Show opened with alternating Trump clips, cutting back and forth:
Trump in Saudi Arabia announcing that he wasn’t there to lecture.
Trump at the NATO netting, showing aside the leader of Montenegro, and lecturing, as the other ministers grow insulted and embarrassed for his state of mind and intelligence (of lack of).
Then cut to the show hosts, who can’t speak. They are simply laughing, appalled.
Finally, Joe: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …”
And then recounting Trump’s various other insults, esp to the Germans. And other Trump “pro wrestling” style moves.
In other domestic news:
Melanie’s $51,500 Dolce and Gabbiana jacket:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAxN9W5V0AEXyYp.jpg:large
(I have some pity for Melania. I imagine she pays for her privileges every day in ways I’m happy not to know the details of.)
A day after the Manchester bombing, from USA Today:
, Texas — A number of teachers in a Texas school district are being disciplined after naming a student “most likely to become a terrorist.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/05/26/us/terrorist-award-junior-high-school-backlash-trnd/index.html
(Google amp link)
I’ve just barely started on the news today.
And abroad, the usual genocide and horror, a terrorist attack, and all the things China and Russia are doing that we know nothing of. And N Korea.
To quote Dickens:
“Sux.”
More fun Friday news. Gotta love Texas politicians.
TEXAS GOVERNOR GREG ABBOTT MAKES JOKE ABOUT SHOOTING REPORTERS
By Alexander Nazaryan On Friday, May 26, 2017 - 13:28
Google amp link to Newsweek’s story:
https://www.google.com/amp/www.newsweek.com/texas-governor-greg-abbott-makes-joke-about-shooting-reporters-616403%3Famp%3D1
File photo of the illustrious Gov:
@f00l
@PlacidPenguin
We can’t all live in Colorado. Tho I have a bit of temptation that way …
/image pikes peak
Can we just go ONE FLAMING WEEK without a flurry of 5 PM bombshells PLEASE? Malcolm Nance does not mince words, and Jared Kushner is so clearly guilty, and 45 won’t do anything.
He’s BACKKKKK!!!
Tweetstorm:
For an alt POV
from The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/following-trumps-trip-merkel-says-europe-cant-rely-on-us-anymore/2017/05/28/4c6b92cc-43c1-11e7-8de1-cec59a9bf4b1_story.html
Even VOA reports that last week’s visit was a disaster.
…success isn’t a word being used…Headlines all week have been providing a counterpoint to the White House version of meetings. Belgium’s Le Soir headlined one front-page story: “Drumpf shoves his allies.”
And Germany’s financial newspaper Handelsblatt dubbed him “Boor-in-Chief.”
High School Criticized by Betsy DeVos Fires Back: She ‘Messed With the Wrong District’
Who told DeVos that just because she managed to snag a cabinet position, it implies that someone has given her a brain?
Supposedly her nick in the West Wing is “Betsy DeVoid”.
From Time Magazine
Speaking of adult daycare …
What up next in the bullpen at the WH? A twitter war with a school district? That outta play well.
GOP Congressman: God Will ‘Take Care Of’ Climate Change If It Exists
From HuffPost:
AFAIF, Rep Walberg did not mention whether this “Divine Climate Change Repair Plan” would include wars sparked in part by economic and social stress related to climate change, planetary devastation, or the continued existence of many diverse species, including our own.
Perhaps Rep Walberg is not privy to all the plan details.
@f00l Pretty sure he’s playing for the other side anyway.
/giphy devil
So we’re exiting the climate accords.
Do Trump’s people not get that Mar a Lago is at sea level? That this will eventually cause wars, floods, mega storms, crop failures, famine?
What was I thinking???
Of course they don’t. Although Trump is more flexible than his idealogues. He might get a diff shiny new set of idealogues if someone offers him “a great deal” on a new philosophy and support personnel to go with.
When will the Congressinal R’s start to peel away? Will they?
And possible revolution in the Philippines, or is it terrorism? What’s going on at the Manila hotel? ISIS?
Life in the Philippines may be about to remind us of life in Argentina or Chile or South Africa a few decades ago.
Shit.
@f00l I read that some experts recommended we exit because there is no way we can reach the cuts we agreed too, and that blowing off our responsibilities would be worse than stepping back, at least for now.
@sammydog01
We could negotiate climate change accord issues and everyone would work with us. They are actually eager to.
And apart from that, by exiting the accords we are almost certainly throwing away economic, technical, and job growth leadership in that area. Other countries will take this and run with it.
Possibly, bye-bye, major future high-wage high-growth industry we could have owned. Perhaps the business innovators and universities won’t let this go, in spite of Trump. Perhaps we can still be a major player.
Trump has a thing about climate accords and Midwest jobs (he’s exactly wrong).
Plus he erroneously thinks we got ripped off in the negotiations.
And the extremists who supported him are avidly against it, as are most of his domestic appointees and the Bannen crowd and alt-right alt-facts crowd.
Plus he got votes in coal country that way. (Those jobs aren’t coming back anyway, and if a few of them do, it will be a tiny #, and the wages/bennies of those few jobs may be way down.)
Plus, although Trump may understand - or may have once understood - branding deals and construction deals and real estate operation deals, aside from that it appears he’s never had a sound or viable macroeconomic thought in his life.
And Trump has zero capacity for any form of scientific, or rigorous thought, or attempted objective thought or understanding. I believe he’s never had that capacity or any interest in it. I’m not sure he believes those are genuine ideals worth striving for or that he even understands the goals and the processes.
And I think he’s likely in mental decline.
He appears just to like certain myths, slogans, and soundbites, and dislike others, based on his gut “marketing” reaction to a slogan’s appeal to his people in Red Country.
If something can’t be conveyed to him within 2 seconds, or it can be be, but Trump’s gut doesn’t like it, either the subject doesn’t exist or it’s wrong.
It’s as though we were basing public policy on a Clint Eastwood script, based on which actor got the snappiest 140-character-limited lines from the screenwriters.
Right now, Trumps policies are terribly anti- the American tech economy. Fortunately, that economy is so strong, they can just keep going on in spite of him for the moment.
But China is aiming at us on that. They want to be, in 20-50 years, technically and militarily, what we are now. If Trump’s crowd screws things up here badly enough, China may get what it wants. He is certainly making it easier for them. He has already handed them a huge shot at regional overwhelming economic and policy dominance in the Pacific, a shot they would never have received if any one of the alternate nearly 20 candidates for President had won.
Now that the Chinese see his reality-destruction and anti-intelligence in process, they must be thrilled. In their shoes, I would be.
Trump thinks that if he believes something or says something, no matter how crazy, that makes it true. The Chinese and other competitors are a little more in touch with how to actually do things.
@f00l Pittsburgh’s mayor just ripped 45 a new asshole.
Peduto fired back, tweeting, “Fact: Hillary Clinton received 80% of the vote in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh stands with the world & will follow Paris Agreement.”
…45 also referenced Youngstown, Ohio, and Detroit in his speech as cities that he is prioritizing by withdrawing from the agreement. Clinton won each of the counties by wide margins.
@OldCatLady Dude ran the only part of Eastern Airlines the consistently made money bankrupt in 3 years. He’s a great businessman.
From HuffPost
TRUMP TO PLANET:
DROP DEAD
Low expectations are one thing. Now 45 has started tunneling underground. Even the Episcopal Church is weighing in. This is fairly unusual, BTW. I hope the Pope will consider something similar.
The Bilderberg Summit, conference or whatever, currently taking place in Chantilly, VA, is full of people who are not notably friends of 45. Four members of his team will be attending, plus a couple of his paid-for elected officials. I’d like a summary, but they don’t do such things. https://www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7620
@OldCatLady
Quiet. Ssssshhhh.
“They’re draining the swamp.”
But it’s a secret, OK? So no telling.
My Little Book Review
By @f00l
Giant of the Senate
By Al Franken
I got the audiobook, which Sen Franken narrated himself.
From reading reviews and hearing snippets of promotional interviews, I had feared that the book would be a bit too snarky for a sitting Senator to published, although still quite mild for an ex-SNL cast member.
If you read the book as a sane person should, as opposed to as a member of a propaganda and spin machine might, this turns out to be not a problem.
The few snark phrases oh-so-quoted by the media in the past week regarding Sen Cruz tend to be the only ones.
And better yet, Franken spends the entire “Sophistry” chapter explaining exactly why Sen Cruz exactly deserves all this and far more, not for political reasons, but rather, because Cruz is and chooses to be and choose to exploit being a total jackass.
Oh, dear.
Excuse me!!!
Sen Cruz is not a jackass!!!
That’s so unfair and judgmental of me. I apologize here and now to Sen Cruz. Let me correct the record.
No, Sen Cruz is not a jackass, per se.
Rather, Sen Cruz is a dishonest, disingenuous, supercilious, cynical, full-of-himself, lying, ultra-arrogant, insulting, friend-backstabbing. deliberate fact-denying, completely hypocritical, misrepresenting, extreme manipulative sociopath, disgrace, and jackass, of hideous soul.
I think I bent over backwards trying to be fair here.
You can say this much for Sen Cruz: he has less native talent in mamy pthese areas than our current President.
He’s only #2 or #3 on these qualities in DC nowadays.
How awful does a brilliant and talented sociopathic Senator have to be, for his own colleagues from his own party to refuse to give him a Secret Santa gift?
And that’s how much everyone is Washington DC who is not on Sen Cruz’s staff hates Ted Cruz.
100 Senators
= 98 Senators other than Franken and Cruz.
Coincidentally, 98 happens to be the number of US Senators in Washington DC who are thrilled that the “Sophistry” chapter was published, esp if they happen to be a Republican Senator.
I’m sure there’s no connection. Just coincidence.
The great Ted Cruz Joke, which originated with Sen Cruz’s Republican Senatorial colleagues:
Q: Why is it very important to intensely dislike or better yet, utterly hate, Sen Cruz at the moment you first meet him?
A: Saves time.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Sorry about the diversion, I get way more news of Sen Cruz than I wish to get.
The rest of the book covers Franken’s growing up (in brief), his time as a comedy writer and performer, a few aspects of his personal life, how he became more and more activist, why he first ran for Senator, what it was like during “the longest recount”, being a Senator, backroom stuff, comedy embarrassments, political and personal philosophies, operating as a workhorse Senator, how the Senate works, getting re-elected, and the previous and current Presidents.
All good stuff.
And perhaps in this book, in the combo of comedy, and the honest, the fair, the intelligent, and the candid, there is some sort of seed that will grown into a method to combat “Sophistry”.
Wherever such sophistry might happen to originate …,
@f00l Since we’re reading, I just added this to my list. Found on the Chatham House website, which is a most worthy rabbit hole. 'Ivan Krastev, Chair, Center for Liberal Strategies Sofia; Author, In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don’t Trust Our Leaders? - See more at their forum.
/giphy rabbit alice
“The Comey Show”, as it is being called by news hounds, will be carried live just about everywhere, it seems.
All the broadcast networks:
ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS, NPR; all the network apps. YouTube streaming (you can start from pbs.org for a link,
All the cable news networks, of course.
For all I know, perhaps the BBC and other news networks from abroad will carry it.
No word on whether Russian state controlled RT network, or other Russian news networks will carry it.
This is the Comey live public testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
10AM EDT Thursday June 8, 2017.
One streaming source is here:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/rundown/watch-live-james-comey-testify-senate-hearing-russia
@f00l So start a new topic. Don’t forget that NSA director Rogers will be testifying before the same committee on Wednesday.
@OldCatLady
I think many other folk on Meh are prob trying to avoid the endless instant political shocks to our systems. I suspect the regulars who want these comments know to look here.
I kinda hate to start another topic that might draw in people who didn’t realize it was political; unless you think it’s time for one anyway, because New Week, New News.
Which way do you wanna go?
@f00l I guess the original sarcastic lead still works. It’s not like anyone can predict the headlines, except that C-SPAN will have a spike in viewers. Congressional committee schedules have suddenly become popular.
@OldCatLady
I think the world will be tuned in to those hearings. Some people are describing Thirsday as the interest-level equivalent of the testimonies of people like Anita Hill, Ollie North, and John Dean.
I certainly hope there is no alternative lead story for the day - an alternative lead story would likely have be some event of utter human horror.
@f00l I’m sure the orange sh-, the toddler-in-chief will throw some tantrum to try to grab headlines.
The CNN podcast “The Daily DC” from Fri June 2 (David Chalion interviews Gloria Borger about Trump’s recent moods and methods as Trump communicates to people close to him) is pretty interesting.
They also discuss things Comey might consider in preparing for his Senste testimony and some questions that will almost certainly be central to the hearing.
22 min.
They’ve done a great job of photoshoping Karen Handle and making her look decidedly less miss piggy like. Unfortunately she’s on live TV a lot this week and blows the whole thing. She’s great got the mannerisms and everything. She should stick to being appointed to finish partial terms.
@cranky1950
I remember her vividly from the controversy over the Komen Foundation/Planned Parenthood controversy.
She was the person at the Komem Foundation who engineered the whole thing and tried to pretend it had some to do with healthcare, instead of being pure right-wing agenda.
After all that blew up, she made loud claims that all the protests and bad reaction were more or less the result of a radical left-wing conspiracy paying off and duping ordinary women to take the left-wing side by being manipulative.
To listen to her, it was obvious that if ordinary women didn’t choose to agree with her anti-Plamned Parenthood ideology, then obviously, these women must have been lied to by the evil radical left.
The idea the ordinary women might be capable of thinking for themselves and reaching different conclusions than she did; or that ordinary women might be horrified that an organization as well-known as the Komen Foundation had suddenly gone from promoting awareness of breast cancer screenings to hard right-wing politics was and is beyond her ken.
During those days, the depths of her belligerent intellectual dishonesty - and sometimes her belligerent outright factual dishonesty - were simply breathtaking.
The Komen Foundation has other issues besides their “dump Planned Parenthood” disaster. But … that episode was simply disgraceful, ugly, and dishonest from start to finish. And she was the originator, political justifier, strategist, tactician, and mouthpiece all the way.
Karen Handle is not my favorite politician, to put it very mildly.
@f00l The perfect Koch Bros senator
@cranky1950
They would work with her if she won. But I think she could make even the Koch brothers feel sleazy, like they had done a deal with the devil.
I remember the Komen thing so well, because it’s all local here, and a lot of people know, like, and respect Nancy Brinker, even if they thought the Planned Parenthood debacle was horrible and indefensible.
So all the high-ups at Komen were in the papers or on TV constantly firing the controversy.
Brinker and a few others who were visible came off as basically decent people who are very conservative, and who didn’t quite get that they couldn’t force the Komen org into those kind of political maneuvers without it all blowing up. They were genuinely apologetic.
Karen Handle, was the outlier. I heard people on the street or at gas stations talk about her being the most condescending, lying, distorting person ever.
One women i had never seen before, and who had worked with Komen and who claimed to be a conservative Republican herself; and who claimed that she herself had always been a decent and calm person, a mediator and peacemaker; said that she wanted never to be in the same room with Handle again.
She said Handle was so sneering, self-righteous, superior, blind to others, supercilious, and condescending, that the woman telling the story had to leave the room.
She said it was “leave the room, throw something, scream, or face an assault charge”.
She said Handle was the only person she ever had that reaction to in her entire life. She said that before she met Handle, she didn’t even know she was capable of feeling any kind of impulsive rage, let alone that level of incandescent madness.
And she and Handle were, politically, more or less on the same side!
So I don’t think Capitol Hill really needs someone like Handle.
Watching the recording of today’s Morning Joe at the moment.
Trump appeared to be live-tweeting the show (his tweets about the SC “travel ban” case directly followed their remarks, and then after they read his tweets, he would appear that respond to their responses again.)
That all got some sardonic responses that contains a little pity, considering the legal implications of his tweets.
Also, supposedly the special prosecutor is opening a new criminal financial prob. Rumor says this investigation is directed at Manafort.
Haven’t gotten to the new NSA report just leaked on Russia yet.
I can barely keep up swimming in the flood. Can’t tell whether head is above water or not.
One more thing. According to rumors, the more decent-type people who might have considered taking admin positions a few months ago, out of a sense of duty if for no other reason, will no longer do so. They believe that they will accomplish nothing, and their careers will be destroyed.
So the admin, way behind on staffing, now can’t staff up with who they want, and will have to leave the positions empty or go to some D level picks.
@f00l The acting ambassador at our embassy in Beijing just resigned. His conscience would not allow him to ’ formally notify the Chinese that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord.’
@OldCatLady
Wow. Good for him.
@f00l U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Michelle Lee has resigned. She was at Google for about ten years, and the tech world was pleased with her in this job. It’s possible she may take a White House post, perhaps as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, but the Commerce Department didn’t announce a next step for her.
Former director of National Intelligence, ADM Clapper, just spoke with the Press Club of Canberra, Australia. ‘…This is beyond Watergate, Watergate pales in comparison with what’s going on here.’ His reputation was for complete impartiality. It’s getting a certain amount of news coverage. And nobody has even testified yet today. It’s 7:30 EST, and it’s going to be a lively day. Tomorrow will be an all-out circus.
Bob Costa of NBC and The Washington Post and other have reported that Trump may live-tweet the hearings today and tomorrow.
This is not supposed to be a joke.
Additional reports place Trump’s mood as very, very angry.
@f00l The Union Bar, in D.C., is offering free drinks every time he tweets during Comey’s testimony.
@OldCatLady
Do they WANT to go out of business?
(Alternatively, people could have drinking games with the knowledge that they’ll end up drunk.)
@OldCatLady
Would that I were there!
@PlacidPenguin @f00l Perhaps we can get @CaptAmehrican to check it out. Who else is in that area?
@f00l - Did you see that 49% of his Twitter followers are fake accounts? Fake news, indeed!
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-twitter-followers-fake-617873
@KDemo
Many of them are legit, for strategic purposes.
Supposedly, for instance, the S Korean govt, intelligence, and military services each have special units that study his tweets and every other utterance that comes from him or the WH, trying to figure out what’s up.
And I figure a lot of people who despise him follow him for entertainment, or to find out when the world might end.
@OldCatLady
I heard that 45 didn’t tweet during the testimony, though I heard that Donald Trump Jr. (can’t call him 45 Jr) more than made up for it.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/06/08/watching_the_comey_hearing_at_a_d_c_bar.html
Popcorn has already started, 3 PM EST. Comey has released his opening statement, and it is much, much, much harsher than I was expecting. I hope he stays healthy tonight; maybe he should eat canned food and bottled water for awhile.
Standup Comey starts at 7 a.m. Pacific. ugh
Better be worth the price of admission.
I watched all I could take of today’s hearing. Many members of Congress asking the same questions over and over with the same non-answers repeated each time.
@KDemo
The Watergate hearing was better about this.
Yesterday’s dragged,I think, because of the stonewalling.
No Republicans would come as guests on Morning Joe this morning. They weren’t ready to try to either trash the President and the WH, or defend them.
Susan Collins
will be on Morning Joe tomorrow morning.
As informative and possibly explosive as things may be today, right now I am kinda fixated on, and rather worried about, what happened yesterday.
The refusals of the current heads of the DNI, CIA, and FBI to openly answer questions on non-classified topics is very disturbing, esp as it seems coordinated.
Perhaps all these people “made good” in closed session. Perhaps there is substantial legal justification for the way they refused to answer simple questions yesterday, given they they neither mentioned the 5th Amendment, or Executive Privilege.
To me, their refusals not only risked being in contempt of Congress, it also possibly flirted with a constitutional issue, in the the Executive Dept may have been actively obstructing the constitutional functions of the Legislative Dept.
I wonder what path the Committee with take on the refusals to answer, which appeared to be in direct violation of the oaths of office these persons swore.
So in public, right now, in dramatic and publicity terms, it’s Comey vs the Trump and the WH.
In private, I suppose, Mueller vs Trump and the WH. And this WH has made enemies across all the intelligence and investigatory agencies.
Even since Trump rode down the escalator in summer 2015, people have been underestimating his ability to stay alive and stay fighting, even if he threw everyone else under the bus along the way, or after continually showing the worst possible conduct and most intellectually vacuous POV.
So it begins …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-director-rogers-and-intelligence-director-coats-said-they-wont-discuss-specifics-of-private-conversations-with-trump/2017/06/07/e74f7fbe-4b88-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html?utm_term=.3da626df2315
Intelligence officials Rogers and Coats said they won’t discuss specifics of private conversations with Trump
@f00l MSNBC discussed the fine points of this stonewalling, and if I understand correctly, the consensus was that it was a deliberate legal maneuver. There will be no full response given in closed session, and they will get away with it because it’s an R world right now.
@OldCatLady
I suspect that the matter of whether questions got answered Wed in closed session might get leaked, even if the answers don’t.
Hope so.
If no answers were given, then I think this conduct in a Congessional hearing is unprecedented?
It seems like the legislative branch is asking cabinet officers something legit, and the executive branch is kinda saying:
“No. And you can’t make me.”
I would expect Congressional R’s to be upset about that.
I hope they make an issue over it. This one seems too important to get swept aside by the daily headline circus.
@f00l - Didn’t they have to swear to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”? Does anything else constitute perjury?
Gawd, those Rs need to find a conscience. Just noticed “conscience” has “science” in it.
We’re still doomed.
Watch it live here:
Of all the days to sleep late. I’ve missed an hour of unprecedented entertainment. Comey is punching very hard, and unless those ‘tapes’ that 45 blustered about can contradict him (if they exist), it’s going to take the 2018 elections to a whole new level.
Today’s Bloom County. Such an innocent place.
Impartial (if there is such a thing) live blog by pollster Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight’s staff: http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/comey-testimony/
He was asked if firing the Director of the FBI is the best way to make an investigation go away.
His response: "No, but I’m overly biased given that I was the one fired.
Hehe.
@PlacidPenguin His timing and phrasing are very careful, and so far I haven’t heard any truly antagonistic questions. I wish I could be in that closed session, though.
@OldCatLady
Even if this wasn’t a hearing, if he’s generally careful with timing and phrasing, then that’s something to appreciate.
/s
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The White House was on lockdown Thursday morning after a television was hurled out of a window, the Secret Service reported.
The incident, which occurred shortly after 10 a.m. E.S.T., caught the attention of the Secret Service after agents heard the sound of smashing glass emanating from the Oval Office.
“The sound was consistent with that of a large object, such as a television set, being thrown through a closed window,” a Secret Service spokesman said.
The television, which crashed to the ground outside the Oval Office, injured no one, the Secret Service confirmed.
A group of fourth-grade students from Bethesda, Maryland, was on a White House tour when the incident involving the television occurred.
“I heard someone screaming lots of swear words and then, like, this big crash,” Zach Dorrinson, a student on the tour, said. “It was messed up.”
Andy Borowitz
Uh, didn’t McCain’s questioning go off the rails? That was quite strange.
@sligett McCain has acknowledged his lack of focus, and blamed it on staying up to watch a late Diamondbacks game. They won.
@sligett Today they had a day game and walloped the Padres, so he should be good for tomorrow.
https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=99CC344D-985C-4575-801D-9FBA8043A24B
@OldCatLady
Yeah, upon listening, I wondered if Sen McCain had problems that we hadn’t seen in him previously. I’m glad to hear that’s not true.
What today made clear is that Comey has far more control over the public Presidential and Washington narrative that anyone else in Washington.
Far more than Trump.
What I want from Comey and the intel community is a little bit every day.
Combine that with Trump’s lack of intellectual capacity, or ability to self-reflect, and with his lack of self-control, and with the total incompetence in the West Wing, and this issue will never grow smaller or go away.
And I do believe that there is plenty left to subpoena or leak.
Such as tapes and tax returns.
I want to see Flynn and Manafort in the stand, either taking the 5th or implicating someone else.
This from Rogue feed makes sense.
No real sign the destruction is slowing.
@KDemo I noticed that; after CSPAN stopped the Comey Show, they switched to the House, where that was the topic. I viewed with alarm, but it’s a done deal.
@OldCatLady - That’s why many Rs still support him, just to further their sickening agendas.
What will tomorrow bring?
@OldCatLady well y;know that was 2009 and we’uns have learned our lesson we truly have. It’ll be different this time.
@KDemo
Supposedly the journalistic “take” is that getting this through the Senate is a near impossibility.
I’m sure the House wanted to do their end of this on the downlow tho. They have made public “circuses of idiots” out of themselves at least once a month so far.
So far, the voters can blame the House for supporting the healthcare disaster, and now this. I hope the voters remember this in a year and a half.
@f00l - Oh yeah, that rose garden health care annihilation beer celebration will be perfect campaign fodder.
(Fodder is such a weird word)
@KDemo
How about the “exiting the Paris Accords” Rose Garden announcement, complete with jazz trio?
/giphy cocktail?
Just to add to the angst, now woot has laid off half their workforce, including (apparently) their writers.
@OldCatLady
Saw this thread?
I is sad.
@PlacidPenguin Yes, and the Stalker’s FB page etc. Sigh.
@OldCatLady @lichme
I’m assuming it’s the same as the post on the main Stalker page?
Edit: Yup.
@OldCatLady
Dammit.
What about @del?
@f00l AFAIK she is staying with the company, but responsibilities may change. This is the exerp from another staff member - “TT is not going anywhere. And she loves you all very much”
@OldCatLady I’m not sure how accurate the “half” numbers are, just what I have heard from a few places, one of which was @snapster via twitter
Also, there is going to be a “transition period”, which I guess is supposed to be somewhat comforting to the people affected.
There is another post on this topic via meh here
@lichme
I fear Woot prob won’t be “just getting better and better” as a place to work.
My heart goes out to all who are losing their jobs, to their families, and to their surviving co-workers.
not anything comforting about ANY of this…
Note to political Washington DC:
Do Not Play Political Chess
Against James Comey
/giphy "bad idea"
@f00l …battle of wits with an unarmed man… The chess pieces secretly leak, and most of them are on the Comey side. They get up and move when you least expect it. It must be like trying to put shoes on a worm. Or a two-year-old.
However, he’s still president.
/giphy dance worm
@f00l That gif is not what I had in mind, but it’s so good I’m keeping it. If only he were orange.
@OldCatLady
I don’t know how to “read Washington moves” the way the pros do. But those pros go straight to the media, so …
One of Comey’s little tantalizers: he was asked if he thought the Valentine’s meeting w Trump was an attempted obstruction of justice.
His answer was that a prosecutor had to decide that. More to the point, he was sure the Special Investigation would resolve the issue of obstruction of justice. Hint hint hint.
The Special Investigator position was appointed to study Russian election interference, not the behavior of the WH apart from that. But there was some flexibility in the Justice Department document assigning their mandate.
Gosh, I wonder if Comey is well-informed about Washington? I wonder how broad Mueller’s investigation is now?
Gosh, I wonder if either the Senate Intelligence committee or Mueller’s group will find out for certain whether the Oval Office has a taping system?
I wonder if either Sessions or Rosenstein will long survive in their present jobs?
Trump has exactly zero friends and many enemies (whom the Admin deliberately insulted) within the D.C. Intelligence and law enforcement communities.
“Permanent Washington always wins”.
On the 14th, 45 will be joined by his wife and Barron.
I read that there’s a hope that this will improve the mood of 45, as well as curtail some of his tweeting.
@PlacidPenguin
I am not sure that either Melania or Barron will become happier by living in the WH rather than in Manhattan.
This doesn’t seem to be what either would prefer, had they other options.
@f00l If a child is accustomed to having free rein of his own floor of a penthouse with gilt everywhere, understated Federal style is not likely to be appreciated. I haven’t looked into the wife’s lifestyle, but she has completely neglected her job as First Lady, so I don’t think it will change.
@KDemo
In public both their postures appear to be “avoidant” toward the President, and they appear not to enjoy being in public with him.
Perhaps I’m over-reading. That’s easy to do. I am as guilty as most (not as guilty as the Pres tho) of (sometimes or often or always) always distorting what I think I see.
“Word has it” that, even within the bounds of his private school, Barron is more or less completely isolated from other students during learning; he supposedly does not attend any regular classes, but instead meets privately with several educators dedicated to working with him. These educators appear to be of high quality, and are in the school payroll, but the school is reimbursed by the Trumps for the cost.
I have no way of knowing if that’s true, and it’s an ugly rumor in the sense that it targets the well-being of a child who has no choice about being a public figure.
But if it is true, there may be stress-related reasons as to why Melania and Barron have not moved to the WH until now.
@f00l Discussion of presidential children is not done. I reserve my wrath for the lazy, greedy wife. Currently reading ‘Upstairs At the White House’, a truly fascinating and witty description of the operations of the White House by a former Chief Usher. Worth noting: 45 fired the most recent Chief Usher on 5 May and has not replaced her.
@OldCatLady
I don’t have much against Melania. Perhaps she is a gold-digger; perhaps not. Perhaps she is quite shy and really dislikes being in the public eye and having to speak, as opposed to being a pretty, smiling, well-dressed mannequin. Perhaps the two have a viable, genuine, strong relationship. Doesn’t appear so from the public view we have, but I don’t want to speculate further about that.
I am pretty sure that DT would have run for Pres with all his personal energy, regardless of what she preferred. I have some sympathy with the idea of not being thrilled about the work and perqs and requirements of a job she must assume by virtue of being married to someone, when she was almost certainly given no say about it other than opting for the possibility of a separation.
So far she seems to have been absent a lot, but has behaved with nearly silent dignity when making appearances. I hope she finds a productive way to use her WH time.
She is said to be the reason that DT never speaks ill of Michelle Obama. I suppose I am happy about that: a small favor.
Whatever gilded-cage bargains she made along the way, however she may have - or may not have - “sold her soul”, my sense is that she pays a large daily price for her privileges.
I suppose my worry and contempt are focused elsewhere.
@f00l After reading ‘Upstairs at the White House’, I understand better what the duties and responsibilities of the First Lady are. It’s a full-time job, and relying on staff to take the initiative is not an option. I personally think she’s lazy and a liar, based on her plagiarism of Michelle’s speech, her false claim to have graduated from a university (her former classmates outed her on that, big league), her ‘closet’ religion and a few other things. She has been living in NYC, doing absolutely nothing. I am not inclined to cut her a single inch of slack. I think the frosting was when she explained how she used caviar moisturizer on Barron ‘from head to toe’, to keep his skin smooth. He was 7.
@OldCatLady
OK, she may well be a rich, uninformed, gullible, entitled idiot who “misrepresents facts”. Caviar moisturizer and non-existent degrees do make a good case for that. If she’s that nuts, I have some pity for Barron.
But she still doesn’t bother me much. She’s not the prob.
From Slate:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/06/08/from_no_fuzz_to_meddlesome_priest_a_glossary_of_james_s_comey_s_colloquialisms.html
“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
Cnn notes:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/06/08/politics/will-no-one-rid-me-of-this-meddlesome-priest/index.html
The scene where O’Toole says the line is on the Slate linked page below. The video is from Brightcove, and I can’t get it to embed.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/06/08/from_no_fuzz_to_meddlesome_priest_a_glossary_of_james_s_comey_s_colloquialisms.html
And, of course, tvtropes has a section on this:
Turbulent Priest
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TurbulentPriest
“Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”
— Henry II of England
@f00l But I need escapism, not historical parallels. I’m sure Comey is careful about his personal safety. It’s going to be a long summer.
@OldCatLady
I’ll try to raise your expectations for a sec then. ; )
Barry 's big 100 day scandal. Bush got the twin towers blowed up. Clinton did modern things in the oval office. Trump is trying to remake governing into bad performance art. and Barry well he – Big 100 Day Scandal
@cranky1950 No-drama Obama seems like a distant dream now.
@OldCatLady
I presume you know about this one?
The President’s Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents
by David Priess (Author), George H. W. Bush (Foreword)
The President’s Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents Kindle Edition
by David Priess (Author), George H. W. Bush (Foreword)
I own it but have not yet listened to it.
—The Washington Times
https://smile.amazon.com/Presidents-Book-Secrets-Intelligence-Briefings-ebook/dp/B00PSSCUCA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1497137059&sr=1-1&keywords=president's+intelligence+briefing
Know of, yes. Have not read. I did, however, read ‘Playing to the Edge’, in hard copy, with copious Post-its. I knew a couple of the names, and some of the details. It’s not particularly well written, but the viewpoint is unique. Hayden has been a frequent guest on news shows lately, as have most prominent members of the intelligence world. They are all sounding the alarm, and explaining just how bad things REALLY are.
What I REALLY want to read isn’t out yet. It’s Katy Tur’s book ‘Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History’. from AMZN: ‘…Trump tried to charm Tur into providing fawning coverage. When that didn’t work, he stooped to berating and shaming her, stoking the rage of his legion of supporters—many who threatened Tur and other penned-in reporters at his events…’
@OldCatLady
I saw that one listed as upcoming today on Amazon when I was wandering thru his bios. Looked potentially quite good. Was trying to decide whether to pre-order.
I think you tempted me over the edge.
I hear that Michael Moore has just announced some sort of “Trumpleaks” website and is working on a Fahrenheit 11/9 (no release date) film about Trump and life under Trump.
Given that he saw and went public on the likelihood of Trump’s win before the rest of the commentariat, I really look forward to his next public media piece.
Conjones
Selling out the country is ok according to Trump
Yet another outrage. Compounding daily.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/02/federal-agencies-oversight-requests-democrats-white-house-239034
It must be a new Monday
A public session with Sessions:
USA Today:
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.usatoday.com/story/102776652/
WaPo columnist*
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/06/12/trump-is-likely-to-get-much-much-worse-here-are-a-few-big-things-to-watch-for/?utm_term=.22e19cba7c1c
USA Today:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/12/president-trump-crashes-wedding-his-n-j-golf-club/388354001/
TheHill.com:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/337421-trump-says-hes-accomplished-more-than-anyone-but-fdr-in-six-months
CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/11/politics/preet-bharara-donald-trump/index.html
TheHill.com:
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/337205-trump-upends-the-global-order
WaPo:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/12/the-trumps-are-complaining-about-the-viciousness-of-politics-irony-is-dead/?utm_term=.d65e7ba3f0ed
USA Today: (editorial)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/06/12/will-republicans-ever-desert-donald-trump-column-bruce-bartlett/102546626/
Time:
http://time.com/4814180/republicans-trump-comey-tapes/
And, of course, we have healthcare, job export, Dodd-Frank, tax “reform”, infrastructure, and Russia.
@f00l - This looks exactly like my computer history.
@KDemo @f00l Mine too. Although I throw Drudge in, to see what fresh hell is brewing.
@OldCatLady
I don’t know if you are quite giving credit where credit is due here.
In some areas (perpetual chaos, moral and practical blindness, ultimate bubble-thinking, lack of reasoning and planning, etc) my expectations are quite high.
I vote him (hopefully) Most Mesmerizing Reality TV Host for the now and for all the millennia yet to come.
At least, I hope, no-one ever tops him.
@f00l But my heart will always belong to Captain Kangaroo.
@OldCatLady
I kinda liked Mr Green Jeans myself.
Where to Go From Here
Rebooting American Foreign Policy
By Richard N. Haass
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-06-11/where-go-here
Wikipedia
https://www.amazon.com/World-Disarray-American-Foreign-Policy/dp/0399562362
This book is loaded into audible, but have not yet listened.
: /
(am a slacker)
Trump could conceivably fire Mueller. It would create lots of backlash, but when has that ever bothered him?
https://thinkprogress.org/prominent-trump-supporters-are-pushing-for-firing-of-special-counsel-robert-mueller-3b6bde47ebcf
@KDemo It’s exactly what his heroes would do. The best I can come up with is that this is an object lesson. There must be new controls and checks on the chief executive, and since Nixon’s behavior didn’t do it, perhaps 45’s will.
@OldCatLady
Which means the Dems must take Congress, or the near complete replacing of Republicans with new Republicans (who might, in their ethics, remind us more of James Schlesinger, Howard Baker, and Lowell Weicker) would have to take place.
@kdemo
If Trump fires Mueller, his hope for his presidency to ever accomplish anything at all other than total ongoing scandal dies at that moment. The idea of doing it might not bother Trump, but I suspect many in the West Wing and perhaps the cabinet would consider resigning, he would be in even more trouble with the courts, and many R’s in Congress would turn on him.
And any R’s who either supported the action or who continued to stand by by Trump would be out in the next election.
I keep wanting to post this image somewhere, and this is the thread I keep coming back to. I was startled to see the photo credit on this; it’ll probably make the dictionary next year, I suppose.
It was in the newspaper this morning, as part of an article on a road rage incident.
I know how they feel.
@Shrdlu Why is it always Florida Man?
@OldCatLady Because Florida.
http://jalopnik.com/tag/florida
@OldCatLady
23 minutes of turn-by-turn orchestrated praise offered by members of the cabinet, directed toward the the great achievements of President Trump.
Can anyone name another US President who would not have been nauseated at the thought of doing this?
I wonder what those among the various cabinet officials who joined because they preferred trying to work from within to watching the nation go to hell think of themselves as they watch this footage later?
@f00l Who did he fire?, I can’t wait till next week.
What was the competition this week?
@cranky1950
I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch the entire thing yet. Just heard snippets.
Perhaps the cabinet is trying to make Trump feel that “he is good enough, he’s smart enough, and doggone it, people like him!”
/giphy Stuart Smalley
@f00l There was an article that has since vanished, that Trump was considering canceling his trip to the UK because not enough people there like him.
@cranky1950
I expect the trip will not be cancelled (admission of defeat), but rather postponed, or put on hold.
Teresa May’s office was almost surely the leak source in the Trump phone call memtioned. Also, with 2 million sigs on an anti-Trump petition and protestors organizing a mass mooning, Trimp will find some crisis that will mean he’s too busy to go.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/11/donald-trump-state-visit-to-britain-put-on-hold
@f00l - OMG, I couldn’t watch much, but that Cabinet meeting was completely vomit-inducing. It reminds me of some dystopian scenario that I can’t quite identify - It’s haunting me.
On a lighter note, have you seen Schumer’s response?
@KDemo Schumer is great. He’s a reliable voice of reason. The term for the Cabinet members is ‘lickspittle’.
@OldCatLady
@cranky1950
@KDemo
Here are the mini-speeches transcribed, and ranked from “least fawning” to “most fawning”.
Source is CNN
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/06/12/politics/trump-cabinet-ranked/index.html
@f00l
Actually, I heard that Trump is scheduled to drop by Bethesda to have the Cabinet surgically removed from his ass. Trump’s surgeon said it would be a minor procedure involving suction as is appropriate for an invertebrate parasite.
The surgery, however, has caused a postponement of White House plans to have the President declare himself a National Monument to be named Mt. Tweetmore.
(Stolen from comments on a Daily KOS story)
An interesting article from today’s NYT on the split in the Dem Party between progressives and what might be called the center and center-left, or possibly might be called “pragmatists”.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us/democrats-midterm-elections.amp.html
@f00l The talking heads don’t get it. It wasn’t Mr Sanders success so much as it was “Not Hillary’s” success. McGovern killed the democratic party, Bernie would finish the job. Democratic socialism stands about as much a chance here as free market capitalism.
@cranky1950
The US is nowhere near ready to be Sweden. If the more progressive portions of the Dem party try to force very progressive change too quickly, rather than gradually, they will hand victory back to the Republicans.
The areas where, if the Dems take back the House, the progressives might be able to move faster, would seem to be anti-hate, healthcare, min wage, jobs, infrastructure, possibly environment. Poss education finance reform.
If hard liberals try to go too far too fast, the corporations and hard conservatives will take it all back.
The Dems and Reps both used to be big-tent parties. We still need that.
What would actually happen if the President had a full blown breakdown? Trump has always been able to slink off and hide and emerge 6mo later after his messes are cleaned up. Now he has constant hostile oversight and very indepth media exposure.
@cranky1950 I have a fantasy that someone hacks the White House intercom system (if it’s still there) and makes Voices tell Dear Leader that he’s doing a bad job, he lost the election, his inauguration crowds were the smallest ever, someone HAS been recording everything he’s doing etc. Or that those screaming staff meetings can somehow get broadcast live to the mainstream media. Or both.
@cranky1950
I think there is some sort of constitutional provision now for incapacity, but I don’t understand the law or how it would work.
@cranky1950 - Section 4 of the 25th Amendment allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to send a letter to Congress stating that the President is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” This letter would immediately initiate a transfer of power to the Vice President, subject to additional Congressional review.
As we saw today, it’s unlikely a majority of the Cabinet would do this, so . . .
. . . a little-known provision in Section 4 empowers Congress to form its own body to evaluate the President’s fitness for office, eliminating the need for the Cabinet’s involvement in the process.
More details: http://time.com/4692507/congress-remove-donald-trump-impeachment/
Got popcorn? The Sessions session is going to start in 9…8…7… Brian Williams said they’ll ‘…come out, get sworn in, and go to their corners.’
Yawn. JBS has redefined the purpose of the hearing to suit his definition. He is shocked, shocked and deeply hurt that his colleagues- nay, his former colleagues, since he is no longer a member of that august body- would even consider such a detestable charge about events that never happened. He has no knowledge etc… The logic behind why he recused himself is circular, and charming as an interwoven crochet pattern, and just as full of holes. He made quite a few gulps during the reading of the charges; either he has indigestion, or he nearly tossed his cookies. In his summation, he bounced in his seat for emphasis.
WTF do overdose deaths and a murder rate up 10% (is it really?) have to do with the matter at hand? Oh, he will not be deterred, and he will not be distracted from his great job.
@OldCatLady
What a whiner. I’m so sorry to hear that his dignity was insulted.
(Session’s dignity was esp insulted when he first decided to support Trump in the first place. Wonder who was responsible for that little insult?)
I just want to know if Sessions will swear, under oath, to resign if any move is made within the administration to fire Mueller.
If Trump does try to fire Mueller, whatever Sessions does or does not do at that moment will define his career and reputation forever.
He can forget anything else he’s ever tried to accomplish. Whether or not he, at that moment, has the guts that Elliott Richardson had, will be the only thing anyone ever remembers about him.
@f00l I have a crystal ball. He won’t. Check out @EricGarland’s running commentary; it’s the best thing I’ve seen in ages. Be careful if you drink anything while reading.
Read somewhere this morning that if Drumpf fires Mueller, Congress can essentially rehire him.
@KDemo
They can. But it’s not entirely easy or certain. The Reps have to go along (in this Congress).
Some surely will. Enough? Dunno …
Anyone know what the polls are showing for the House of Representatives race in Atlanta?
Oh, here is it:
Exclusive new 11Alive poll: Handel and Ossoff tied with one week to go
https://www.google.com/amp/www.11alive.com/amp/news/politics/elections/ballot/race-to-replace-tom-price-handel-and-ossoff-tied-with-one-week-to-go/448120182
As of a new Gallup poll, Trump’s approval rating is at a record low and trending down at 36%; his disapproval rating is at record high 59% and trending up.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/201617/gallup-daily-trump-job-approval.aspx
@f00l It’s updated: 60+/36- as of the 12th.
@f00l - What’s promising is that his base (less educated whites) is diminishing.
@KDemo
That Stalinist “praise the Glorious Leader” cabinet meeting didn’t play well around here, even with people who certainly liked him (or hated him less than they hated the Dems) last fall.
I heard people describing it as a humiliating display worthy of a North Korea media set piece.
And that happened after Gallup did its polling. I believe there is hope.
Mostly I find that Trump still can’t be discussed except with very select persons. People still get angry or defensive or feel like they’re being looked down on or intellectually bullied by the “elite”.
But the declining approval ratings seem to give a kind of permission:
Sort of: “Other people who think like me and resemble me don’t like Trump so much now either. So it’s cool that I like him a lot less. We’re not just kowtowing to the people who think they’re so superior about everything.”
@f00l @KDemo His base includes many high-SES whites, for reasons I find distasteful, and I think those are the ones slip-sliding away. I haven’t talked with any of my neighbors, who are fervent Trumpists, because reasons. They only watch Fox and sports. They like Fox and talk radio because it tells them they’re not paranoid, the gummint really is out to get them. They don’t reason from A to B.
@OldCatLady
Tarrant County is a very conservative county. Far more so that Dallas. Here’s my very informal readout:
Here, as far as I could tell, the most pro-Trump group statistically, and the most fiercely pro-Trump fans are non-college degree whites. Those seem to be mostly silent about it all right now, from my very limited ability to catch conversations. They’re seriously not happy with him, tho many of them are not ready to give up on him either. They often still hate or distrust all media except Fox and “Fox-like” sources. Some few are openly no longer supporting Trump.
The local white college degree crowd tends pretty conservative, tends to hate the Clintons, and voted in large for Trump. They may or may not also strongly dislike mainstream media. They are starting to talk openly about their disgust with Trump, but they are largely still very conservative and anti-Dem. They are finding Trump to be random, undisciplined, childish, vain, impulsive, cruel, dishonest, lacking judgment, incapable of acknowledging reality, manipulative, egocentric, bullying, and to be not capable of taking the job seriously, and to be incapable of appreciating the American heritage and legacy.
The local white graduate-degree crowd were mostly appalled by Trump during the entire election. Some may have voted for Trump in Nov as an anti-Clinton or anti-liberal vote at the time; they now mostly seem to almost uniformly despise Trump.
Some of them have mentioned watching with some degree of combined amusement, horror and contempt as Gingrich sells what’s left of his own honor and his own soul for an ambassadorship.
@f00l Gingrich’s wife was nominated to be Ambassador to the Vatican, which is hilarious enough. Is he also angling for his own post?
@OldCatLady
No. He that badly wants to live in Rome with all the official ambassadorship trappings.
What’s a little lickspittle and lying and trashing the reputation of honorable people (Comey, Mueller) in exchange for that?
Rome is a fine and great place to live as a half of an Ambassadorial couple.
@f00l It is. It’s in a separate building on the same compound as the United States Embassy in Rome, and it’s a ‘reward’ posting, like Paris and the Court of St. James. Interesting: I can’t find any mention of a nominee to be ambassador to Italy.
11 minutes of today’s opening on "Morning Joe*; deconstructing yesterday’s cabinet meeting, and the philosophical and moral values on exhibit in the cabinet room.
The footage alternates being serious and beautifully snarky.
@f00l That is going to win some award this year, because it captures perfectly the split between what we’ve been normalizing, and absolute hilarity.
@OldCatLady
One of the weirdest things is that, before Trump went totally birther, Brzezinski and Scarborough socialized frequently at events with Trump present, knew him reasonably well, and considered him to be a decent “social friend”. He came on their show all the time after he announced, until they started tearing him apart (which started quickly). After than, he called in. After than, he sent KellyAnne or someone else, but for a long time still called them personally, off the air. He almost never speaks to them anymore on the phone, but they are clearly very close to people in the West Wing.
It was on their show that KellyAnne used to defend Trump in her mile-a-minute fashion, and then, once off the air, talk about how she couldn’t stand his politics and his chaos, and was working for him just so that she could have a nice retirement.
And it was Morning Joe who not only banned KellyAnne from the air as a guest, but said so publicly on air: the reason given on air was that she would come on the show and lie, and kept doing it after being explicitly being warned not to do that again.
And Trump wants them to get married at the WH! He wants to officiate! They have declined.
@f00l Wow. Today’s Morning Joe is full of Scalise’s shooting. Amazingly, by 0805, Scalise’s wiki page had been updated to report that he was hit by gunfire. Somebody must have been editing at the time. And 45 seems to have some affinity for weddings; he’s crashed some, he’s had three of his own.
Not a man for all seasons:
US AG Jeff Sessions has some memory issues (under 2 minutes):
For the sake of AG Sessions’s future legal and reputational well-being, it would be good if there turned out to be no tapes made of any of the matters that have temporarily(?) slipped his mind.
I really didn’t want to see him do what he did yesterday.
/s
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—An Alabama man whose brain was ravaged by severe amnesia is somehow able to function in an extremely demanding legal job, leading neurologists reported on Tuesday.
The man, whom neurologists are calling a “medical mystery,” has performed highly exacting tasks in one of the country’s top legal positions despite having virtually no short- or long-term memory.
Special counsel is investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, officials say
By Devlin Barrett, Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima, Sari Horwitz
The Washington Post
June 14 2017 6:21PM ET
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/world/national-security/special-counsel-is-investigating-trump-for-possible-obstruction-of-justice/2017/06/14/9ce02506-5131-11e7-b064-828ba60fbb98_story.html
@f00l
I have not seen anything to make me fairly sure that (by court of law/prosecutorial standards) that the President is guilty of either collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice.
But there’s plenty of smoke, and the smoke was pretty much all created by the WH and WW, and by Trump’s campaign and his associates.
I would not be surprised to find out that Trump personally never colluded or intended to collude at all with Russia or anyone else. I would also not be surprised to find out that he was deliberately steered toward people like Manafort and Flynn, who were deliberately steered toward him.
I would also not be surprised to find send to find out that the Soviets/Russians have seen Trump to be a cultivatable resource for possibly the last 5 decades, and have done their best to befriend him and those around him, on the qt; and have quietly done their best to encourage him to be a disrupter. The Soviets were masters of that art, and the Russians in power inherited their skills. And Russians never minded waiting decades for a payout or a fruition, even if their “project” had no idea s/he was being cultivated, and was fundamentally uncontrollable as a personality.
wild crazy insane speculation follows
I would also not be surprised to see that the Soviets/Russians have stepped up their effects to make sure the Trump brand and family stayed very profitable and very healthy, financially. And at the same time, they could have acquired a path to potential money laundering, wheeling and dealing, information, and a social and power entree to the capitalist world.
I have been wondering for some time exactly where is the admin, biz, development, and mgmt genuis inside Trump’s skin who could keep such an empire as his family’s afloat. Such a person would need considerable self-control and analytic and behavioral discipline, none of which Trump has now, tho he once had all these in spades (decades ago).
It’s possible that his empire stayed profitable with a little outside (Russkie) help, and that he has no idea. In this case, it would be easier and easier over the years for him to exist, intellectually and emotionally, in his own bubble with little external challenge, because the biz stays afloat without needing his serious efforts. He could also be easily tempted in this way, given his “effortless” success, to believe he personally has the solution to every problem.
Suppose permits and deals and financing that others can’t get come easily to him.l? Suppose plenty of clients purchase his properties and book at his hotels? Suppose he regularly is able to buy insanely low and sell at unheard-of valuations? (Documented).
Suppose all sorts of people with Russia connections want to offer him very profitable deals that no other American developer can get anywhere near? And suppose his kids all believe that he really is that smart?
No company can afford to prop Trump’s company up like that. But a country with Russia’s resources and treasury could, easily, thru a thousand or more “friends and associates”. Nice work if you could get it.
His biggest two recent lenders are supposed to be Deutche Bank and Bank of Cyprus. These two banks, being, coincidentally, two of the western banks most famous in law enforcement circles for extreme $ laundering for the Russians.
These two banks both are said to have have strong connections to Wilbur Ross, our current Secretary of Commerce. He was on the board of one, perhaps both. Ross first worked with Trump when Trump’s casinos were in trouble, and he arranged a partial rescue that left Trump in control.
If any portion is this entirely nutso fantasy of mine has anything to do with reality, then someone knows. A good many someones - at least they might know bits and pieces. Some probably faceless folk in Trump’s org and empire (who are both silent and very well paid). Some international bankers. Some Russian oligarchs, and some wealthy persons with close Russian friends. Quite a few, possibly, in government finance and intelligence within Russia. All of them warm and cozy with Putin’s power structure.
People, perhaps, like Trump’s lawyer, with all his notable Russian connections, who, reportedly, managed to get Preet Bharara, US Attorney for Manhattan, fired after warning Trump that Bharara could take Trump down. People, perhaps, like some of Trump’s other “name” law firms, all of whom do an astounding amount of work for Russia.
It is quite possible that when Trump says the Russian connection is bunk and fake news, he entirely believes that; and that to the best of his knowledge or to the knowledge of anyone in his family, it’s true; and yet it could be simultaneously true that the Russians have been cultivating him for decades without his knowledge.
I want the investigators to see all Trump’s tax reforms and business and banking records. I would love to see the results of that. Esp the Russian results.
If any of these imaginary scenarios of mine even touch somewhere ever so slightly against reality, then much can be said about how useless our current vetting procedures are for high government offices, when persons connected to extreme wealth or if high finance are involved. And how deeply into the western financial systems the Russians may have managed to reach.
Of course, we haven’t been big on financial disclosure and regulation of huge $ organizations and persons for some time. And such laws that were created in the wake of 2008 were there to protect overall prosperity, not to protect against a financial organization being corrupted over to foreign purposes.
And away from wild speculation and back to the WH:
Talk about a self-inflicted series of wounds.
Regardless of the reality of an overt or covert Trump/Russia connection, the WH craziness seems to be all Trump’s.
If the WH and the WW had simply behaved professionally, they could be running the table with their legislation on Capitol Hill right now.
The constant flow of inane and obviously self-destructive conduct from the WH and WW is why it seems to me that the President is suffering either from some organic or psychiatric disorder, is affected by extreme stress and lack of sleep, or is suffering from cognitive decline. (In addition to his other long-standing or lifelong personality disorders.)
None of which means he is or isn’t personally guilty of anything impeachable.
All of which means that this reality series is in no danger of having its ratings drop.
I want to know: who introduced Trump to Flynn? To Manafort? And other, similar parties? To Russian-connected money people? When Trump has done his documented real estate and business deals with Russians, who introduced the parties to the deal or to each other? Who was the grease? The in-between or cut-out? Who did the loans and bridge financing? Thru what bank?
The Russians are the legendary masters of the long game.
@f00l You left out the Russians have filled any gaps in aid to N Korea that the Chinese have stripped away, and Trumpsky has not said a word.
@cranky1950
Well yeah. There’s always more.
I hear NK has a brand new ferry shuttle and perhaps a new air route to the Russkies?
The Chinese could do a lot about NK if they were sufficiently “motivated”.
It might be seen in China’s own v selfish interest to do something. And I think they have the means, economic, overt, covert, and possibly path. If they wanted him gone, I think they could pull that off.
I don’t understand enough to grasp their considerations here.
Right now the other world powers appear to be learning that our President has the attn span of a flea.
Woo hoo!! First sign in a long time that the Senate has some scruples!
Hope it is a sign of things to come.
Take cover - impending tweetstorm predicted!
@KDemo
Sometimes I feel very good about the state of American politics in spite of all the obvious mess and obstruction.
/giphy 97-2
I don’t really want Putin to be a Very Happy Camper right now.
@f00l - I’ll just start calling you Pollyanna now.
I am so far from feeling good about the state of things - I don’t think it’s likely we’ll recover in my lifetime.
@KDemo
Aw, c’mon.
I am allowed to feel briefly and stupidly happy (even about our completely horrible political situation) once in a while for a few seconds.
More seriously (what follows is stupid and pompous and self-serious and all that):
/Begin Extraordinary Idiocy
Long term (like after 2 minutes) I am back to being “determined in a very bad situation” mode.
I get to enjoy small positive events now and then. Don’t rain on that.
Yes it still sux. Bit I have met a fair number of people who have endured so much worse than this, for so very long, and kept their hope, their dignity, their ability to keep doing positive things.
I could claim that they made a better world, and that I am their grateful beneficiary. I seriously believe that I am.
What should they have done? Lived in depair? I am lucky that they didn’t. And since they didn’t, I can’t either.
I suspect they lived thru long times during which it looked like things would never, ever get better. I know of no guarantees.
We don’t recover from life itself, we instead make what we can of it; and politics is part of life, and sometimes politics is nothing but awful and evil.
Perhaps we (the US and the good things here, politically) may not recover in our lifetimes. Or perhaps we, or others, will achieve gains of great worth.
Of course I want everything political to be far better than it is, on a path toward honorable decency. To have a sense that we are going toward something good.
I have little of that right now. But … the avenues and paths of possible progress are not closed off. I refuse to assume that the hope is pointless.
/End Extraordinary Idiocy
Back to usual crap.
@f00l - I almost softened my comment, sorry. I’m really glad that you can find the positive in the hopeful moments that are so rare these days. I wish I could be more like that, not so cynical.
I know people that don’t even pay attention, they’re wrapped up in their small world and don’t care about what’s happening in politics. Are they better off? Maybe, for the moment. They’re in for a rude awakening, though, as the trickle-down reaches them personally.
Perhaps the hardest part is the feeling of no control. It’s completely unjust, cruel, and damaging, and nothing I can do now seems to help.
Grab those rays of light and shine them on the darkness.
@KDemo
(HA HA HA. This was short when I started. HA HA HA.
)
Here’s the short answer:
Hope is a choice and an intention. A personal orientation. It’s deliberate.
As in, what’s the advantage or point of living in another manner - providing one can figure out this one. (I’m way way way late to the game.)
I don’t think it’s self-deluding, as practiced consciously.
(Or I’m wrong and delusional. In which case, Bite Me.
).
It’s only partially a combo of rationality and philosophical orientation (if one even grants it that much rational credence). It also has to be hard-learned intellectually and emotionally into the fucking brain, or has to become, mentally and emotionally, the dominant habit. And it has to be well-practiced or it gets delusional or silly or whatever.
It’s also (deliberately chosen) learned behavior, and can be an absolute fuckwad to learn if your brain wasn’t consistently and strongly trained that way during your first 10 years (as mine was not).
If someone didn’t grow up in an environment where, as a very young (pre-school I would think) child, where one learned this sort of hope, as a part of natural persona development, it’s really tough for some of us to learn. If one didn’t learn it at that age, one doesn’t even know what other people are doing with their brains and attitudes to generate a rational or useful sense of potential positivity or opportunity.
It’s not thinking, per se. It’s thinking plus resilient emotional orientation in a realistic sustainable way. The neural pathways have to be “carved”, so to speak. And they have to become the dominate habit.
And the person trying to learn doesn’t even know what they are trying to learn (you “feel you way”, it almost feels like “you can learn this till you learn this”, as some kind of “zen-based koan torture”), and one’s habitual thinking is desperate to take over and mess one up again, so it’s a form of “learning in the dark”.
It’s an absolute bitch to learn, late in life. Much harder than learning physics, in a way, and a very diff sort of learning. But it can be done. Or this has been is my stumbling, foolish experience.
And even if you learn the “how’s and whys” as a child, it usually seems to take endless work and refinement to make “the true good stuff” extend properly into adult lives and bring true resilience and value.
I managed to learn to do it just a few years ago, and I still can’t explain to self quite how I got here. That’s more than 6 decades without, first.
What fun that was. I mean, shit.
I’m posting this from the phone.
If someone wants to read my mental dribblings, I’ll post the insanely long castastrophic unsanity I wrote v late last night about all this, if it’s still in the clipboard in the chromebook.
About all this and what might be the /reasons.
PS
re politics everyone here is thinking about it all the time. Practically obsessed. They usually have the good sense not to wanna talk much about it in public tho.
Hey, it all sux. Ok?
Now I’m gonna go order me some fried hope at the drive thru.
@f00l - My normal reaction to problems is
a) to head them off in advance, or
b) not to accept them, but to jump in and fix them.
It drives me crazy when I am helpless to do so.
@OldCatLady
You remember this?
Gil Scot-Heron
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_whole_world_is_watching
The devolution will be streamed
/giphy devo
@f00l Not in detail. Wonderful sidetrack, though.
Not his finest moments. Newt must really want to live in Rome with the embassy trappings.
Actually, I think he believes this stuff.
@f00l Newtie a scumbag? NAWWWWWWW
@cranky1950
Newtie is my personal nomination for “most Trump-like national well-known elected politician or former elected politician”.
Ahead of Christie, Sessions, Giuliani.
Who are our other main contenders?
Their motto:
I will lie any lie for the cause!
Two years ago today:
Short clip
47 minutes
At the time, I was amused, what with his hired crowds. I guess I got that one as wrong as possible.
Morning Joe:
“Everyone underestimated Trump”.
The Morning Joe Show, which has strong sources in both red states and blue states, said, starting out, that Trump might win.
(They meant “underestimated” him as a contender, counter-puncher, and rabble-rouser, not as a force for quality or decency or goodness or strength or the best of American values. They were explicit about that.)
We’ve got 42 more months, depending.
Those tax returns are coming out tho. Eventually someone will leak. I am hearing some reputable reporters, not given to conspiracy, wild speculation, or fact stretching, say they expect to see all sort of Russian money all over the returns.
Trump had to go shopping for money somewhere. US based banks would not lend to him.
And Bannon is trying hard to throw Kushner under the bus. So is Priebus.
If I had a “Las Vegas politics book” betting agency handy, right now I’d be more inclined to put $ on Kushner surviving.
Even tho I think Russian money and connections are likely all over Kushner too.
If only this were a fictional reality show.
@f00l Bannon is not endearing himself to the staffers. Imagine that. I have visions of him in the DC jail. http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/steve-bannon-obstruction-white-house-staff/3486/
@OldCatLady
I hope.
We got an official special independent investigation early in the Presidency, at least.
Who’s watching All The President’s Men Revisited tomorrow night?
@OldCatLady
The special on MSNBC? Recording it.
Was considering a rerun of the movie also.
@f00l
Now I’m po’ed. I told Sling to record both parts. It only recorded the first half. Dammit.
I can get it if course. Just annoying.
This has lifted my spirits tremendously, not least because of my new favorite term: vulgar talking yam. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a55668/mueller-trump-money-russia/?src=socialflowFB
Chasing rumors . . .
Clues seem to be adding up?
http://ir.net/news/politics/125349/compromising-trump-tape/
I agree that Rosenstein statement was oddly without context.
@KDemo
Yeah, the commentariat were kinda wondering why Rosenstein came out with that weird, no-contextual-reference warning at the same time his WH boss was trashing him.
One hopes someone has something. A good circus has three rings of action, doesn’t it?
At least, after 5 months of chaos, I’m getting a little better at the life-work-sleep-newsflash balance.
@f00l @KDemo I’m not getting any better at it, and I’m retired. The only adjustments I have made are to stop attending indignation meetings and unfollow some unproductive FB groups. The Rosenstein blurb was somewhere past bizarre. Perhaps it’s what was required of him, in lieu of a Cabinet testimonal.
@OldCatLady - According to that article, there may be an impending release of compromising tapes from an unnamed US ally. That could explain the statement.
A lot of unknowns, I guess we’ll see . . .
@KDemo Which of our allies has he insulted lately? UK, Germany, France, Italy, Mexico, Canada, Australia…
@KDemo
Don’t you love the Russia-connected ones they’ve got so far?
A little something for Dear Leader to shout at when it’s reported on TV: http://news.groopspeak.com/breaking-six-trump-advisers-resign-release-unprecedented-statement-against-the-president/
@OldCatLady Oh. My. God. You are trying to give me a coronary…or a little hope. You choose.
@Shrdlu I hope it’s like an iceberg calving. So beautiful to watch.
@OldCatLady
@shrdlu
Re HOPE: I just wrote some kinda random paean to hope a few days back, didn’t I? Perhaps I’m full of hypocrisy…
In this case: first I applaud the persons who resigned. At least a few have principles.
But: if they didn’t reach out to the WH several times before resigning, emphatically and forcefully, they’ll get pilloried for it.
And they’ll get pilloried anyway. I presume Twitter is currently full of snowflake insults directed st them.
And then this admin will likely appoint some people who might tend to be philosophically somewhat punitive or judgmental toward the entire subject.
The admin won’t spend a dime no matter what. This admin will cut funding. Or perhaps Pence or someone who reminds us of DeVoss will be put in charge of policy.
And then it will all be forgotten in an instant because 5 other wildly dramatic things will happen each day.
Right now all my hope centers in the leakers, and the reputable congressional committee hearings, and the Mueller inquiry. And did I mention the leakers? And perhaps stuff sourced from intelligence projects run by our traditional allies.
Or perhaps I’m wrong, and these individuals’ protests will do some tangible good toward helping HIV infected persons and doing something about the ongoing world-wide health catastrophe.
I guess I hope I’m wrong.
A salute to the former members of the HIV/AIDS council.
C’mon Ossoff!!
@KDemo I’m afraid to hope. Last time I did that it really hurt. I note with interest the articles about GA being one of the states whose voting system was easy to hack. I will, however, be watching the exit polls.
@OldCatLady - Understandable. It’s a really red district, and the Rs are without scruples.
Doesn’t hurt to chill the champagne, though, just in case.
@KDemo I think Karen Handle is gonna take it. It is a truly miserable day and that usually does not bode well for the democrat get out the vote effort.
@cranky1950 I saw a traffic map somewhere, it really is bad. But are you saying Dems are weather wimps??
Never thought I’d say this, but you are cranky.
And if she wins, it’ll be your fault.
@KDemo No Ossoff’s wimpy ad campaign, you’d think the gu y was running for pres of junior league.
@KDemo hysterically in the south that is the case. Whenever the turnout is low the the Repugnacants seen to win.
@cranky1950 - I forgot, you’re in Georgia, aren’t you? I bow to your superior knowledge.
Still keeping my fingers crossed, though.
@cranky1950 There appears to have been a large early vote, with many new voters. Hope on, hope ever.
@OldCatLady
@cranky1950
@KDemo
According to tv gurus:
Don’t get hopes up with early returns. Those are the high Dem areas and early voting which will strongly favor Ossoff. Late counts will tend to favor Handel.
Parts of three counties. 1 Dem (urban), 1 Rep (semi-rural), 1 mixed (suburban).
Ossoff must take 2 of three.
Hoping, tho. And even if he loses, I want it to look like a scary thing to the R’s. Perhaps then they’ll run away from Secret Committee TrumpCare.
@f00l - Honestly, the just the fact that it’s so close in a previously reliably red district should send a message to that shameful group.
@KDemo Hate to make everyones day, but he’s getting blowed away 69 to 31% Oh, 32000 to 15000 so far.
Honestly, he really does need to win an award for the most pitiful media campaign by a wishywashy candidate.
@cranky1950 98% in Handle won figure 55 to 45% of the vote.
I need the champagne now just to be drinking.
@KDemo I’m not seeing any exit polls at all. Is it that dangerous?
@OldCatLady No, it’s kind of a waste for a small race where the numbers will come up before press time anyway. Media is not reporting exit poll numbers anymore since the republicans got all whiny after one of the midterms where they call the race 3 hours before the polls closed.
@cranky1950
Damn.
@f00l This morning at 5:15 there was an Ossoff campaign ad. His media people sucked to the extreme.
@cranky1950 I was more interested in getting actual voters to say how they voted. I don’t trust any electronic system now, or in the immediate past, and certainly not in the future. It’s the Golden Rule: them as has the gold (in this case the control of the software) makes the rules. And I am not referring to the Republicans.
@OldCatLady Not dangerous, just really yucky. I wouldn’t want to have to be out in that crap all day.
How about a little entertainment?
@OldCatLady
Somehow that didn’t cheer me up much.
I’ll try harder. What else is there?
Live on Capitol Hill: ‘Putin behind U.S. election meddling.’ Gowdy is asking specific, carefully worded questions. Jeh Johnson (former Homeland Security Chief) is doing a certain amount of dancing about when the intelligence products re the election were available. There may be triple negatives involved. ‘What more could we have done before the election?’ Johnson: ‘Hindsight is 20/20… the scale and scope was unprecedented… In the late summer/fall this had the attention of my people…’ The current DHS chief is a retired 4-star, Kelly.
Someone who knows pls enlighten?
@cranky1950 or someone who listened to the news last night or this am after the race was called, as I did not:
What (in more detail) was wrong it Ossoff’s advertising? Did his campaigning match more to what would work in Georgetown or Silicon Valley than to what would work in Georgia?
Why didn’t Ossoff and fiancé just move back into the district amd made that issue go away? That seems like it should have been possible.
It is my impression that the spontaneous contributions received by Ossoff were kinda largely matched by official RNC donations to Handel. Is this true?
It seems that Ossoff’s spontaneous organization was matched by the entrenched R organization. Is this true?
How much did the rainstorm affect turnout?
It seems that the R’s did a very effective get-out-the-vote thing in their areas. How did turnout look in the D areas?
This seems to be a district that is far less R that two years ago or 1 year ago. What are the odds that it could go further toward purple? (Of course that depends in part on what Trump and Congress do for the next year and a half)?
Ossoff plus D’s plus People who despise Trump rallied strongly for this. Any idea:
Will they lose heart, or will they double-down and learn to fight?
It seems to me that the D’s desperately need a few alt leadership faces.
The Clintons carry all that Clinton baggage.
Obama has stepped back, as ex-presidents are supposed to. And he was never a street fighter. He has always been more inspirational.
Pelosi dies not know how to counter the R abuse of her own image. She may be great in Congress and great for fundraising, but she’s death to D’s in R districts.
Sanders is inspirational to D’s and brings new people into the process. But I think he would also be death to D’s in most areas of traditional red country. He can too easily be lied about, negatively spun in ways that suite the local conservative mythology.
Schumer is decent as a public face, but only decent.
None of these people (Pelosi, Sanders, the Clintons, Obama, Schumer) is among the faces the party needs.
The D’s need someone who can be somewhat inspirational, but would can also be a down and dirty politicians.
Someone who knows how to turn the words of a Gingrich or Trump or McConnell back against the speakeramd shive them down his throat. (I listened to a recording of McConnell lying thru his teeth about the D’s and the healthcare bill yesterday. This is what the R’s have as Senate leader.)
Someone who lives to fight. The D’s keep fighting and campaigning as tho they spent their entire lives in coffee bars. This may work well in blue areas and some purple areas. It won’t do much in historically red areas.
If the D’s keep campaigning as they have been, it seems to me that either the D’s will have to hope the R’s just screw up so badly that the R base turns purple: or the D’s will simply have to wait for more slow demographic and generational change.
The D’s seem not to know how to talk to traditionally conservative voters in R areas and get them to listen.
I tend to think this is not just an educational gap or a national “deep divide”; but also of political style.
In red areas, do the the D’s tend to run candidates who come across to the locals as ideologically way-out purist? Have the D’s lost so much of their local organizations that they have forgotten locally how to be political and mainstream as well as idealistic?
Possible silver lining:
The R’s are prob feeling pretty pleased right now. This will embolden the R’s in Congress. Trump will feel more self-satisfied than ever.
I have a fear that Trump will start to learn to be President, that he and Congress might accomplish a lot (of bad things), and that would look good to many voters coming into the elections.
If the R’s think they are “winners”, and Trump continues to be delusional, perhaps they will do stuff so self-destructive and over-the-top that they go right over the cliff with their actions. The hope is that they don’t take the entire country, the future, and the world with them.
@f00l He hasn’t changed since age 11. No way will he learn anything now.
@OldCatLady
Re Trump.
I have seen slight shifts in his conduct in the last two weeks. Tiny and uncertain. Fewer pieces of public idiocy. Could be my imagining or misinterpretings, easily.
I theorize that several semi-rational someones are following him around non-stop. Also Melania is there.
Hell, mebbe someone fucked with his meds.
Dunno if this will sustain (if it’s even real). Seems unlikely. He’s too likely to slip whatever leash. Amd too impulsive and too delusional about his own “genuis”.
But he likes success a lot. He might be about to modify his public persona for that. Dunno.
I think the Dems could seriously use new faces with new perspectives. Kamala Harris looks good, so do some others. All of them need to find the right “public touch”.
But what they really need is someone who is a theoretician, a leader, an idealist, likeable, and a serious political operator all in one. And really really good in public and likes being there.
Esp the “public” and “operator” bits.
Pelosi should have never let herself be defined as the permanent enemy by the R’s. But it happened. The D’s misread the effectiveness of the tactics of the opposition. They have been doing this since 1980.
Now we need someone who sees how to step past all that and put the R’s onto the defensive for once.
It’s pretty clear the “let Trump be Trump” is not gonna do it for the D’s.
@f00l In fact, we need a hero.
@OldCatLady
Yeah
They kept the same ads throughout the campaign, they did little to adjust to the Handle, especially during the last weeks. There’s a difference between spending money and effectively spending money . The main democratic message was Karen Handle will spend money on herself and cut everyone else. Handle’s message, was Ossoff will be a Pelosi puppet, he’s soft on crime, he’s a liar, he’ll defund the military, he’ll raise taxes and spend the money on silly stuff he’s soft on terrorism. Response Karen Handle used state funds to buy a Lexus SUV. No Handle and Ryan want to kill your healthcare, no Handle and Ryan want to cut you social security etc. The guy has the charisma of a moldy sponge, and he is video team did little to punch that up. He had no hook other than I’m not Republican. Shit I’m not God’s gift to PR and I can see these things.
#GA06 historical margins
'02: R+59
’04: R unopposed
’06: R+45
’08: R+37
’10: R unopposed
’12: R+29
’14: R+33
’16: R+23
’17: R+04
Just sayin’ maybe they should temper their celebration?
@KDemo Ha are you kidding in the Trumpverse its a mandate.
@cranky1950 Wonder what Pence calls it, homophobe that he is.
@KDemo
In much of red country:
Something or someone gets labeled as “liberal” and so it’s bad.
Something or someone gets labeled as “conservative” as so it’s good.
It’s like they have conditioned themselves to be habitually closed off in self-destructive ways. It reminds me of a voluntary version of mass group self-brainwashing toward presumed phony “virtue”.
Then you give them something that makes sense. Like Obamacare. And all the sudden they don’t want to lose it. They see its value. They need it. They know that. They get angry over it.
But still they tend to vote red.
Sigh.
I really hope the 6th district voting progression you listed is a little predictive. I really hope.
@f00l - If you’d like a reasoned positive spin from another source -
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/21/15846464/republicans-are-in-trouble
@KDemo thx ; )
@OldCatLady - Conversion?
Big tape Twitter tease, reveal is boring and flat.
No tapes. All Washington already knew that threatening people with non-existent tapes us a standard Trump ploy.
Reality TV, you’re losing your skills.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-22/trump-said-to-not-have-recordings-of-conversations-with-comey
All is explained. You won’t like the answer.
What does the far right want? A society that suppresses the majority: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2017/06/james_mcgill_buchanan_s_terrifying_vision_of_society_is_the_intellectual.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top via @slate
@OldCatLady
That article is good stuff. I had never heard of Buchanan
Interesting to me: I’m not sure my various “Buckley-styled conservative” family members are much aware of this aspect of the far/alt-right agenda either.
@f00l Nor had I, but it turned up an interesting sidetrack. Note this was published in 2014; https://www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-behind-koch-brothers-secret-billionaire-summit/
Senate Health Care Bill Includes Deep Cuts to Medicaid
The New York Times
(Google Amp link)
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/politics/senate-health-care-bill.amp.html
WASHINGTON — Senate >Republicans, who have promised a repeal of the Affordable Care Act for seven years, took a major step on Thursday toward that goal, unveiling a bill to cut Medicaid deeply and end the health law’s mandate that most Americans have health insurance.
This bill seems so had that I wonder if they wrote it intending it to go down in flames so that they could go home for summer recess and say they tried.
@f00l
Police remove protesters opposed to ObamaCare repeal from McConnell’s office
Including protesters with disabilities and in wheelchairs.
From TheHill.com
(Google amp link)
https://www.google.com/amp/thehill.com/policy/healthcare/338985-police-force-protesters-staging-die-in-over-obamacare-repeal-from%3Famp
All the President’s Men, Revisited
Documentary on the Watergate era, the reporting, and the Redford/Bernstein film. This is the special that ran on MSNBC recently.
1 hour 26 minutes