I was going to draft a post on some alarming developments that haven’t received the attention they deserve due to the furor over the “Fire and Fury” book, but this tweet pretty much sums it up:
People who GOP have called for jailing or launched criminal investigations of in last 48 hours:
1. Hillary Clinton
2. Gov. Jerry Brown
3. Christopher Steele
4. Jim Comey
5. Huma AbedinIf autocracy doesn't bother you, here are some guys who follow that technique: pic.twitter.com/OZn2nACs0L
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) January 5, 2018
To be clear, I’m not suggesting the would-be autocrats will succeed, just pointing out that they are trying. It is our job to stop them.
Also, Angry Black Lady is absolutely correct here:
Shorter: Kirsten Gillibrand is an opportunistic harpy. This article is garbage. | The Trouble With Kirsten Gillibrand https://t.co/87g7dz5pjn
— Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) January 5, 2018
I realize some folks are pissed off at Gillibrand for calling on Al Franken to resign. But if you read the article ABL calls out above and can’t recognize that it’s positively dripping with the exact same brand of sexism that tore Hillary Clinton down at every turn, I don’t know what to tell you.
Yutsano
I read the article. It’s a total dumpster fire of illogical statements and general misogynistic sniping.
MisterForkbeard
Two things:
1) I can’t honestly believe congressional republicans officially are recommending prosecution of Steele for… giving his own research dossier to the press. What complete and utter nutbags. It’s openly trying to legally intimidate anyone who might uncover dirt on Republicans.
2) I can disagree with Gillibrand about Franken and still think she had her heart in the right place. It is absolutely awful that some of the attacks on her from the left have the same kind of “assume the worst and also she’s a screeching whore who’s relentless ambitious and totally insincere” attacks that Hillary went through. Maybe this kind of attack on women isn’t a good idea? Or at all moral?
Gin & Tonic
@Yutsano: WTF do you know, you sexist pig?
geg6
The article is full of misogyny. However, I still won’t vote for her because I, too, find her opportunistic and don’t trust her one little bit. Doesn’t mean I hate my own gender. There are other women who I would happily vote for.
Derelict
Gillbrand is so opportunistic that she was pushing back against sexual harassment years before it made the national news! But, you know, she’s a woman, so it’s just the same as if she hadn’t said anything at all until last week. Or something.
ByRookorbyCrook
I am starting to see a bit of pro-Cuomo stuff from the same voices who are trashing Gillibrand. Especially in reaction to Cuomo’s State of the State the other day. The road to 2020 is being paved in these stupid articles.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
The same author has a 2016 article on how Trump is like Liberace, which is exactly as bad as you think it is.
kindness
I got pilloried over at LG&M yesterday for saying that I would vote for Gillibrand for President if she was the nominee but didn’t like what she did to Al Franken. After the treatment that post got I am thankful I didn’t say I also didn’t appreciate that Gillibrand tried to throw President Bill Clinton under the bus for his time in office too. I like Kristen but she should understand she isn’t going to get the big Kahuna by standing on the bodies of good Democrats. I have yet to see that in her.
Fair Economist
I was very unhappy with Franken’s railroading, but if Gillibrand gets nominated, I’ll crawl over broken glass to vote for her, and you’d better too.
MisterForkbeard
@Derelict: I mean, it’s clearly not an opportunistic thing for her in general, and her early attempts at unmasking and defeating sexual assault in the military was difficult and caused her a lot of problems – she should be commended for it.
I suppose the worst thing you can say about her is that she believed so strongly she wasn’t willing to give Franken the benefit of the doubt and let the ethics process play through. Which isn’t good, but it’s not anywhere near a dealbreaker either.
germy
I expect to see attacks on Gillibrand ramp up as we get closer to the next presidential race. It’ll come from everywhere. Left, right… also from stealth conservative moles who write for liberal news outlets.
I expect to see a bunch of new commenters with unfamiliar names here when that time comes. Maybe it’ll be one troll with ten different names, or ten trolls. But they’ll all be sharing their concerns about Gillibrand.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: If she’s the Democratic nominee in 2020, you damn well better vote for her. Or go sit next to Susan Sarandon.
geg6
@MisterForkbeard:
They are in a panic. They are flailing. They are going to try everything to keep the whole shebang from coming down on their heads. Christopher Steele is the greatest ally of America ever. It kills them that this is true.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
What?
hmmm….
Yeah, I’m done.
In other news, and as much fun as the book is, I’m bothered by how little press coverage I’m seeing outside of legal twitter of the fact that last night Paul Ryan basically told Devin Nunes to go after Meuller with everything he can find. Galloping autocracy indeed.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@germy: Were the previous trolls/jackasses all banned? The only one I’ve commenting here on a regular basis in the last three months was Amaranthine.
@ByRookorbyCrook: I can count the number of Democrats I’ve seen aching for Cuomo 2020 on one hand.
Miss Bianca
Goddamnit, here I was still feeling pissed off at Gillibrand over the Franken thing and now I feel forced to defend her because sexist media bro-ho’s be all sexist-media-bro-ho’ing all over her for it! THANKS, Daily Beast!
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure she isn’t the nominee. If she is, I’ll vote for her, but that’s all I’ll do. She won’t get a penny of my cash or a minute of my time.
Ruckus
I’d like to know who is perfect?
Just for the record, it isn’t me.
Also for the record, it isn’t anyone I know personally or have ever run across in my very close to 7 decades.
I don’t like that Gillibrand jumped on the Franklin bandwagon straight away. But she has, as @Derelict: noted, been outspoken on this issue for a long time. Is she zero tolerance? Should she not be? Should she be slower to judge? Perhaps, but is there anything wrong with her stance about abuse? Hard to complain that someone else’s house is filthy, when you live in a pig sty.
kindness
@ByRookorbyCrook: Screw Cuomo. You know outside NY no one cares about him. I only care about him as I’m an ex-NYer and Cuomo has been instramental in keeping the NY Senate in Republican hands. Fuck Cuomo. He will never win a national election because he’s a skank.
Major Major Major Major
Wow, that Gillibrand article is terrible, and I do think she was something of an opportunist in 2017. Unlike many, I don’t think her response to the Franken allegations is part of the opportunism, since it’s consistent with her approach to… the same thing every other time.
MJS
@geg6: It’s not the “voting/not voting for” decision that’s the problem. It’s the “Democrats ripping a Democratic candidate to shreds during the primary and then wondering why the media harps on those themes in the general” that’s problematic.
Another Scott
@MisterForkbeard: Re your #1.
TheHill:
Emphasis added.
It’s political posturing and trying to distract the press from what else is going on with the Trump/Russia Conspiracy.
IMHO, of course.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: Beautiful. I’m sure that’ll work wonders with the “special relationship”.
ByRookorbyCrook
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
He is dangerous. If only for the fact that he will crawl over political bodies of good Democrats to get what he wants. And he has many enablers in the state to do his work. Look at the Gang of Five who caucus with Repugs to give control of the State Senate to the opposition.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I almost closed the tab when I got to that nonsense in your first blockquote but I decided to endure so I could make an informed comment here. I know, weird priorities.
gvg
Actually all the articles examples of gillibrands ah hem opportunistic calculations involved her holding a consistent position of attacking anyone accused of abusing a woman. I don’t agree with her because I think she is over reacting and not being slow enough and waiting for evidence plus I think she isn’t being calculating enough! I do think she is sincere though and strongly suspect it is personal for her. so I am arguing tactics and strategy but not goals.
For an example, I recognized at the time that there was…an irony in my preferring Bill to a republican or a less reliable vote for woman’s rights. Bill was clearly at best a womanizer and that bothered me for a personal friend but he vetoed several bills that I feared and defended abortion rights. That’s also when I became immune to things like purity politics and third party candidates.
I don’t see a link to read ABL except the quoted tweet. Is that all there is? Because I couldn’t really get what her point of view was….tweets aren’t my thing.
Joyce H
@MisterForkbeard:
Actually, I think it’s something very different. I think this is because someone ALREADY uncovered dirt on these guys. Good lord, Graham has practically undergone a personality transplant!
Remember, it wasn’t just the DNC that got hacked. Someone has Kompromat on Grassley and Graham and they’re using it. They’re simply following the orders of their Russian overlords. We are now a client state.
Yarrow
@kindness: Gillibrand leading the call for Franken to step down, along with what she said about Bill Clinton, give insight into her political instincts. None of that is a deal breaker for me, but I’ll keep it in mind when looking at the primary field. I want a nominee who is a strong Democrat. Those things lead me to question her loyalty just a little bit. In the sort of arched-eyebrow, “Huh. What’s that about?” kind of a way. Again, not a deal-breaker for her. But I’ll remember
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@ByRookorbyCrook: Only Rahm and Lieberman are as universally loathed. (Feinstein is probably fourth).
Gin & Tonic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Trump is as genuine as a three-dollar bill.
JMG
It is my theory that the actions of Grassley and Graham fit into a new GOP pattern in which congressional Republicans search frantically for ways to create “news” that will be picked up big time by Fox, not in the hope of swaying public opinion, but in the hope Trump will see it and be happy, or at least less raving mad.
schrodingers_cat
Rs are going down with the T-tanic, we have to get into life boats before they drown all of us.
zhena gogolia
@Fair Economist:
My sentiments exactly.
? Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Right. If Democrats want to be credible on this issue, and if we actually want things to change, then we have to be consistent. I love Franken, but there needs to be a cost to behavior that we seek to eliminate, and his cost was his seat, as it should have been, as it should be for anyone else who does the same thing. Democrats didn’t even lose a vote over it. Now that he’s paid that price, I’m happy to see him run for office again.
People need to understand that until those in positions of authority realize that they will need to pay a price for their actions, they won’t change their behavior. And their popularity or what have you can’t be something that saves them.
The Simp in the Suit
An opportunistic harpy? Maybe; very few politicos aren’t. It’s just the nature of the beasties.
Willing to toss process and justice out the door if the right buttons are pushed? Definitely. And that’s a kind interpretation of her actions.
Democrats are very good at knee-capping other Democrats. Silly Gillie is one of those. Not that it’s the same, but the whole sorry episode reminds me of how it turned out in the end that Gephart’s and Kerry’s people teamed up to kill Dean’s run for the nomination, but neither of those Einsteins could beat a moronic perfumed prince who’d just taken us into a war based on lies. Again, we Dems are very good at taking one another out, but not so good at beating the other guys. Silly Gillie continues that great tradition. If she wins the Democratic nomination, I’ll support her, but with nowhere near the vim and vigor I did for Hillary or Obama. She’s just run-of-the-mill to me now.
It’s another reason I miss Obama. He’s not a saint, nobody is, but even when he was beating up on Hillary in their primary, he kept it relatively clean. In my opinion (of course). There were barbs back and forth, but I think those two are just head and shoulders above most of what’s out there now.
Now get off my lawn!
eclare
Does anyone know if Cory Booker has plans for 2020? I’ve always liked him.
Gravenstone
@Another Scott: At some point, if this shit keeps up, Fusion GPS will just dump the raw data they have, for all to see. Fuck Congress and the Republicans therein for playing games.
ByRookorbyCrook
@kindness:
I agree he has no national standing, but he can anchor Gillibrand here at home. Never underestimate his delusions of grandeur. I don’t understand his appeal among the political elite in the state. He almost lost a primary as Gov to Teachout.
John Revolta
The article can be crap and Giilibrand can still be wrong about Franken.
@kindness: They’re kinda nuts over there on the Franken issue. I don’t get it but I do know they skew younger over there and the kidzdeezdaze have lower tolerance for this kind of stuff.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I kind of hope so, because if the Russians have it maybe the British have it and maybe this will piss off friends of Steele, but Occam’s Razor suggests these are two old partisan hacks, one of whom is ruthlessly and relentlessly ambitious for himself and for constant war, and knows that even if he really is a straight loner, the closest he’s going to get to the Big Chair is a cabinet meeting.
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m not too concerned about that. As Adam Silverman noted, Rosenstein’s meeting with Ryan was the courtesy meeting. If Nunes doesn’t back off things are going to become very uncomfortable for Nunes. And Ryan, although maybe he’s too dumb to have understood that from the meeting. Ryan’s up to his eyeballs in the Russian treason stuff. If he thinks they don’t have dirt on him he’s even dumber than I thought.
Ruckus
@gvg:
She shortened the Daily Beast article to a short sentence. And then offered her learned opinion.
The article shortened – Kirsten Gillibrand is an opportunistic harpy.
The learned opinion – The article is garbage.
She’s right by the way. It is garbage.
trollhattan
@kindness:
That thread has achieved 1.3 TBogg Units, so it appears that this topic is A Thing despite our despot’s current shitstorm of Things that are Genuinely Horrible.
Focus people, focus.
Suzanne
@Fair Economist:
PREACH.
Betty Cracker
@gvg: Yeah, it was a series of tweets. You can click the one above to read the rest.
Major Major Major Major
@eclare: i seem to remember kos and a bunch of my friends saying they would never support him after a vote on a pharma reimportation bill.
schrodingers_cat
You missed another important story.
The DACA negotiations are going nowhere.
R strategy is to offer DACA recipients a temporary reprieve in return for many poison pills for legal immigration along with the “wall” and then blame Ds for walking away.
Ruckus
@Yarrow:
Is it possible for him to be that dumb, and still breathe? I know autonomic functions and all that but even those functions need a brain that has minimal function.
Gin & Tonic
@ByRookorbyCrook: How much of his appeal extends beyond old people who listen to Andy and hear Mario?
Miss Bianca
@John Revolta: Someone pointed out to me not too long ago that kidsdeezdaze have grown up with the idea of “zero tolerance” in school, and they’ve kind of absorbed that ethos even if they, or their peers, suffered for it – they just see as the way things are.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Gillibrand isn’t at the top of my list of people I’d like to see as president, but it’s awfully hard for me to see how “She wants to be president” is any kind of disqualification. Do people who say this kind of shit think that it’s a problem when men want to be president? Does that take them out of the running, morally speaking?
germy
@Gin & Tonic: Andy is the Prince of Darkness. If he runs for president I hope he gets stomped by a real progressive.
The Simp in the Suit
@? Martin: So they did have an investigation and we have actual data now? Man, how did I miss that.
“People need to understand…” blah blah blah. The only thing that was truly revealed here is that Democrats are just as quick to toss out process and justice as Republicans are if the right topic is at hand. I know, that sucks. None of what you wrote justifies tossing Franken out without a fuller hearing. Arguably, all of the goals you appear to set, and which I think I agree with, would have been better served via a process of investigation, and if warranted, censure and possibly more.
As it stands, now and forever, we’ll never know what happened. If you’re old like me and still can freshly remember the many antics of Roger Stone (and those are just the ones that made the newspapers), I wonder if you’d be a lot more circumspect about the whole Franken imbroglio.
Kay
Sherrod would have won but it would have been close – within 5 or 6- because Mandel is a Trumpster/wingnut/loony tune.
Also- Democrats would have had to spend a ton of money. So, good news.
eclare
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, I remember that. He is a senator from NJ, god forbid him from looking after his state. Same thing will happen with Gillibrand and Wall Street. I really want to throttle some people.
geg6
@MJS:
Well, I’m not the media, but I can tell you that I will have little good to say about her. I don’t like people who throw people under the bus to fulfill their visions of glory. And she’s done it too many people I like and admire. Fuck her.
Betty Cracker
@The Simp in the Suit: “Silly Gillie”? FFS.
@kindness & @John Revolta: I didn’t see the article in question. What “kind of stuff” do they have a lower level of tolerance for over there?
Peale
@ByRookorbyCrook: I would actually vote for Lawrence Lessing before voting for Cuomo in a primary. Yeah, I’ve voted for him for governor. But in a primary? Nope.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: his sweaty debut on MTP– Obama makes me sick and Bain Capital is good!– was a fucking disaster, and all the stunts as mayor reminded me of a Letterman observation about Leno: “It’s great that Jay happened to be passing in his 1922 Stanley Steamer when the old couple on a back road needed their tire changed, but how did the press know to be there to get pictures?” Also, he signed on to Melendez’s trolling of the Iran deal (oddly enough, his old college buddy Rachel omitted his name during her segment scolding the D’s who signed that letter). But his convention speech last year was pretty good, and people seem to like him and if, him, nominee, me, broken glass, vote etc
Major Major Major Major
@eclare: and these are the same people foaming at the mouth for Joe Biden…
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: @Fair Economist: Yeah, I’m on board with that. All Dems, any Dems, all the time, no matter whether I ‘like’ them or not.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker:
I know I for one am finished reading that commenter’s contributions on the topic.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
realbtl
Wait a minute, expecting a politician to not be opportunistic is like expecting a cat to be a vegan. It is what they do. We have to pick the good ones despite this.
chopper
@gvg:
given her being a crusader of sorts against sexual harassment, i imagine her being instead quiet about franken’s accusations would have also gotten her accused of being “not genuine”.
Gin & Tonic
@eclare: I got a fund-raising e-mail from him, using the pot issue, probably two hours after the Sessions policy became public. I’m breathlessly awaiting the Daily Beast article arguing he’s overly ambitious or opportunistic.
Mnemosyne
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Trump is the gay son of an immigrant factory worker who worked his way out of Wisconsin despite his mother’s hatred of music and musicians?
Say what you will about Liberace, but his life story is really kind of fascinating.
schrodingers_cat
BTW guys, Miller drafted that infamous travel ban EO using an internet search on how to draft EOs, as his source material.
Peale
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Its a lazy, outsider view that persists among a large swath of the Democrats that they can find this innocent candidate who has not been corrupted by the system but who at the last minute has decided that they would win because of their moral purity. Then that candidate will have to don a suit to give a speech and they’ll stop supporting him for being to “corporate”.
Ruckus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
It is when it’s a woman, they are not supposed to have aspirations for power. Barefoot/pregnant/in the kitchen don’tca know. It’s OK when it’s a horrible deluded asshole, like the current asshole in our house, but a woman? How horrible would it be if woman learned they were equal. They might stop sleeping with assholes. What would the assholes do if no one would fuck them? The world would end for what, 50% of the male population. That’s just a wild ass guess though, that % could be off by quite a bit. If it was I’d guess it’s in the wrong direction for women.
Another Scott
@Yarrow: Gillibrand is a smart politician and has changed (or at least nuanced) her position on some issues to suit those she represents – as smart politicians do (you can’t do anything if you don’t win elections). But she’s always (AFAICS) been strongly for increased attention and decreased acceptance of sexual harassment and assault against women. E.g. this 2013 profile in Defense One:
It’s a good read.
She’s still fighthing the Pentagon, and other Senators, on this stuff.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who is also disturbed by her jumping on Franken (seemingly) so early. But who understands where she’s coming from.)
chopper
@Major Major Major Major:
now we all know what trump is gonna call her on twitter.
The Simp in the Suit
@ByRookorbyCrook: Life would be so sweet if Teachout had whupped him. I’m sure she has her own bag full of craziness, but Cuomo is just scum. Evil, vindictive, opportunistic (now THAT’s a shoe that fits), scum. He and Chris Christie should be tied together and tossed into the river.
eclare
@Major Major Major Major: All I know is, and this is one of the best quotes I’ve read recently, if we don’t win, we don’t get what we want. Good grief, voters in fucking Alabama have learned that.
Mnemosyne
@MisterForkbeard:
It’s not a dealbreaker yet, but I’m keeping an eye on the tendency. People who get so blinded by their pet crusade that they can get snowed by people who seem to support it don’t make great executives.
jl
I think almost all GOPer elected officials at the federal level are lashed to Trump for survival until after their primaries. Reliable GOP primary base that will turnout has now shrunk to almost exclusively die-hard Trump loyalists. So, they are going to have to become increasingly insane in hopes of surviving the primary.
And I have to wonder whether, with tax scam passed, and gutting of regulations at EPA, HHS and other agencies, the big money cares less and less whether Trump stays, and cares less and less whether current GOP office holders are there after 2018 (they only care that there are enough GOPers to fight back repeal of Trump moves).
So, I think things will get increasingly weird. We are witnessing a political crisis in US, and I hope forces of sanity can hold things together for another ten months.
I hope that the Trumpsters’ sheer incompetence continues to help us. Collapse of bogus voter fraud commission has to be a set-back. If punting voter suppression to DHS rather the DOJ is not a head fake, that means they didn’t have a workable plan B to get things moving again in a timely way.
low-tech cyclist
1) I’m going to wait until after the midterms to worry about the 2020 race.
2) One reason is that we really need to win, and win big, this November. I’d hate to see intra-party fights over 2020 cause us to get distracted from that. Plenty of time in 2019 to argue about the 2020 nominee. All year, really.
3) Another reason is that it seems like we lefties spent most of 2017 rehashing Hillary v. Bernie. I’m so goddamned tired of this shit – can we please give it a rest in 2018 before we jump back into it?
4) I don’t see any perfect or even near-perfect candidates out there. If we dismiss any potential candidate with a visible flaw, we won’t have anyone we can run. (Feel free to dismiss genuinely horrible possibilities like Andrew Cuomo, though.)
5) Finally, the GOP nominee, Trump or not, will be downright horrible. Whoever he is, he’ll probably be as bad as Trump, just in different ways if he’s not Trump. We don’t want to leave our nominee so damaged by the pre-primary fighting that s/he looks even worse than the Republican to all those low-information voters. And we can’t afford another Hillary v. Bernie-style enmity that threatens to sink our nominee in the general because people have come to be so deeply entrenched in their hatred for the nominee.
6) Goddamn it, let’s us lefties be on the same page for the next ten months and one day. Then fire at will.
geg6
@? Martin:
Actually, we don’t know what he did. Because there was no due process that was followed. So I do not agree with this statement one bit.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker:
Thank you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne: I didn’t see the trump/Liberace column, and all due respect to the latter who always struck me as a good soul, but if you look at this picture the resemblance is pretty strong, the only surprising thing is you’d think both of them would use a lot more gold paint.
schrodingers_cat
@low-tech cyclist:
Word.
Miss Bianca
@chopper: I think the thing that got me with Gillibrand (and jeez, I can’t believe I’m actually getting into this again, but here goes) is her “Now is not the time for nuance” stance wrt Franken. I happen to think that there’s *always* time for nuance, particularly in a case where you’re talking about a colleague who’s had a pretty sterling reputation for integrity since getting to the Senate. Makes me wonder if she’s going to be pleading for ” a time for nuance” once she gets slammed (as inevitably she will) for her husband’s dreaded WALL STREET connections.
MJS
@The Simp in the Suit: Can someone tell me why Franken turned out to be so weak he couldn’t come to his own defense? If this was all ratfucking, why didn’t Franken tell everyone, Democrats and Republicans to sit down and STFU until the investigation was complete? By agreeing to an investigation, he did all he needed to do to protect the Democrats from charges of hypocrisy. Why wouldn’t HE let that play out?
Ridnik Chrome
@Major Major Major Major: I saw on another thread that you were at the Moorish castle in Sintra. I was there in 2014. Pretty amazing view, huh?
Just One More Canuck
Speaking of Angry Black Lady, congratulations on her win in the Tucker Awards for Excellence in Swearing
https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2017/12/30/presenting-the-3rd-annual-tucker-awards-for-excellence-in-swearing/
“Chicken-fried fuck” will be hard to live up to but I’m sure Betty and John are up to the task
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@low-tech cyclist: @schrodingers_cat: Thirded, we need to remind ourselves of this every now and again.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: Well, you’re going to force me to admit that in that presentation I made to senior staff on Wednesday, I relied on some source material from the Internet. I think I even copied a slide without direct attribution.
Peale
@ByRookorbyCrook: He represents a faction of the party that thinks New York City should be the center of the Democratic party and hasn’t gotten it in its thick skull that one of the reason we have lost so much is that we haven’t developed ways to develop ideas outside of New York. These were the folks who worked with the New York Times to try to get “Harold Ford” to run in a primary against Christine Gillinbrand because she couldn’t represent their interests because she came from upstate. That crowd.
Major Major Major Major
@Ridnik Chrome: yeah, very!
Ruviana
@kindness: I haven’t read the rest of the thread but thank you for this. I was at that thread at LGM yesterday and was so angry that I’m going to take a little LGM breather for awhile. I’d also note that one could say Gillibrand was opportunistic and it wouldn’t be sexist! I read lots of critiques of opportunistic male politicians all the time. I found some of the observations in the Daily Beast article compelling. I’d also note that Gillibrand wouldn’t be the first politician to either change her politics or to have them evolve. I’m going to read the rest of the thread now. It’ll probably piss me off.
Yarrow
@Another Scott: I’m aware of all that. I admire her stance on sexual harassment and remember hearing an interview with her after a bill dealing with sexual assault in the military failed. I agree with her on it.
I can admire her for that and still disagree with how she handled the Franken situation and what she said about Bill Clinton. There were smarter ways of handling both of those. Like I said, her actions are instructive of her instincts. For a president, instincts actually matter. It’s what will they do in pressure situations. How will they handle complicated situations. You learn bits and pieces along the way. I’ve learned some things about how she’ll treat allies and friends.
Frankensteinbeck
@JMG:
I think Graham is just a mean shit being a mean shit, honestly. He likes to grandstand, have his name on the news, and he seems to believe that every problem can be solved by hurting someone.
@? Martin:
This. I, too, love Franken, but there’s a photo of him groping an unconscious woman, and it’s not all that old. I even respected the Hell out of his apology, but at best that left me deeply torn about his resignation. If we give up our values, we become Republicans, and anyone who thinks Franken should have resigned over what he did has a good point.
@Yarrow:
That is a good point. Ryan is pretty damn stupid, a man who’s had everything in his life handed to him. Other people gave him his high paying jobs because of his family, and his status as a Representative, the media picked him as a ‘wonk’ because they like his looks and his unsupported bullet points don’t confuse them, and Boehner picked Ryan as his successor because nobody in the House really gave a damn about Ryan one way or the other. ‘Ryan is too stupid to…’ is always going to be a reasonable argument.
kindness
@John Revolta: – sorry for the late reply but I’m supposed to be working. Yea the LG&M people completely ignored the ‘I will vote for Kristen if she is the nominee’ part and wholly told each other I was protecting rapist Democrats. Franken’s actions did offend me but he denied having done anything to half the 7 people who accused him. He admitted to acting poorly with the others. I would have been happy with an Ethics Committee investigation as he had asked. And wrt Bill Clinton, the big dog used really bad judgement having an affair with a staffer but it was not impeachment material or rape. I don’t think Democrats should be helping Republicans trash the Democratic name when it isn’t needed. Curiously enough in the LG&M thread they slagged Balloon-Juice as a bunch of Bernie haters.
Amir Khalid
@Ruckus:
Gillibrand’s commitment to fighting sexual predators is a good thing. Her rush to condemn Franken as one was not; it was premature and suggests she believes those accused of certain misdeeds should be considered guilty unless proven innocent. She would of course still be a better choice for POTUS than whichever affront to humanity the Republicans might nominate; but that attitude in a candidate is cause for concern.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I actually wouldn’t be surprised if Trump was inspired by Liberace, but Trump is the rich boy imitating the real thing.
John Revolta
@Betty Cracker: Well, social injustice- real or imagined.
I guess I was trying to say that their knees jerk pretty easy, and they don’t do nuance too well.
ETA: Or, as Miss Bianca put it, “Zero Tolerance”.
The Simp in the Suit
@Betty Cracker: Well, “silly” is kind. It’s hard to take someone seriously who demands process and justice for everyone right to when it doesn’t suit her. Which is exactly what she did here, and in doing so, weakened an important movement.
So, “silly” is being nice.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruviana: I think anybody who cosponsored Bernie’s single payer “legislation” is opportunistic.
The Simp in the Suit
@Major Major Major Major: Well, I got that goin’ for me.
Amir Khalid
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’ve seen that photo too, and that’s not what he’s doing.
Frankensteinbeck
@geg6: and @MJS:
He did have a photo of himself taken squeezing an unconscious woman’s breast, and he does not contest that. By itself, that’s pretty bad.
EDIT – @Amir Khalid:
…you know, I haven’t actually seen the photo. Maybe I should, and it will change my opinions. Is there a link?
EDIT EDIT – Okay, I found it. It’s pretty damn bad. There’s very little touching, but it’s unquestionably offensive as Hell and serious sexual harassment.
glory b
@MisterForkbeard: I think we have to always fall on the side of encouraging due process. I don’t hate Gillibrand, but her inability to see that disturbs me.
I’ll also note that Clinton’s accusers denied he did anything when they were under oath. What are we to make of that?
Also, the base of the party are African Americans (someone wrote that the results for African American women in Georgia sounded like they were North Koreans, LOL). Didn’t she ever consider that her pushing Franken out might not sit well with people whose history includes a tragic lack of due process after accusations of sexual misconduct?
She was amazingly tone deaf on this.
Miss Bianca
Not an open thread, but I thought this might be the place to drop a righteous rant that jackals here will appreciate:
2017 was the year I became fucking furious
geg6
@MJS:
He was told he had to go, that the Dems weren’t going to stand up for due process. Chuck Schumer, Gillibrand’s mentor (I’m guessing), had him in to put the gun in his hand.
Fuck both Schumer and Gillibrand. If a Dem can’t stand up for due process, then what the fuck is the difference between them and any other authoritarian?
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: That first travel ban was anything but funny, even people who had green cards from the affected countries could not get back. More than a 1000 had to surrender their GCs under duress.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Oh, FFS.
He.
Was.
Not.
Actually.
Touching.
Her.
You can disagree that the joke was funny, but it was very obviously a gag photo staged for the camera, not documentary evidence of Franken being caught sexually assaulting a woman. If the picture was of him using a Sharpie to draw dicks on her face while she was sleeping, would you also demand that he resign?
Lee
The article can be crap (I didn’t read the entire thing as it seemed pretty boiler plate ‘here is a politician being a politician’) and Gillibrand wrong.
I don’t care who the Democrat is in 2020, I’ll vote for them.
@MJS: Because he had 38 of his colleagues calling for him to step down putting him in a no win situation. If he calls for ‘letting the investigation continue’ he looks like a shit-heal for ignoring them. It pretty much played out exactly as Roger Stone wanted it to play out.
Hungry Joe
I could never work for, much less vote for Gillibrand. She’s opportunistic, unlike everyone else who will be running; she’s done some things I disagree with, while there are plenty of other candidates whose positions track mine exactly; where most presidential candidates are humble and self-effacing, she appears to be ambitious; she has changed her mind about some things, and a qualified office holder should stake a claim to a belief/position and never, ever re-think it. So in the end there’s no difference between her and whoever the GOP hawks up in 2020. I just hope Jill Stein will give it another go. This time for sure!
MJS
@Frankensteinbeck: That picture led to him asking for an investigation. So the question remains, why didn’t Franken let/demand that investigation play out?
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
I just looked at the photo. His hands are poised over her breasts while she’s unconscious in a groping motion so close I can’t tell if he’s touching or not. Yes, it’s bad enough I would consider a call for his resignation reasonable. It is definitely serious sexual harassment.
Ridnik Chrome
@Peale:
Funny you should say that, since as governor he’s made a point of screwing New York City (and particularly our Democratic mayor) on a regular basis.
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
That is a completely false description of the photo. It is obvious in the photo that he is not actually touching her. Her breast is nowhere to be seen because she’s wearing a flack jacket. And people on the scene say she was not actually sleeping and was in on the joke.
glory b
@Amir Khalid: You’re right, others there said he pretended to do so, taking advantage of the perspective in the shot to make it look like he did.
Fishy too, because Stone knew about it before she came forward, she changed her story to admit he didn’t touch her, and when it looked like due process and testimony would result, quickly said it wasn’t a big deal and she didn’t want him to lose his job.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, I was really sad to see Harris and others helping Wilmer move us toward a litmus test
@Amir Khalid: I agree, the photo is bad, but it’s a gross act of mugging and miming of assault, not assault
Gravenstone
@Frankensteinbeck: Scroll down a bit to find the photo. It’s of Al mugging for the fucking camera as he holds his hands a couple of inches above a sleeping Tweeden’s breasts (you can see the damned shadows).
Miss Bianca
@geg6: According to the Bright Young Legal Things at LGM, “due process” doesn’t mean what we think it means, and certainly not wrt Franken.
realbtl
@Hungry Joe: Yup.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
And the fact that she’s wearing body armor didn’t clue you in to the fact that it’s a staged gag photo? The leering expression strikes you as the expression of a guilty man caught in the act, not a comedian pulling a prank on a sleeping colleague?
Frankensteinbeck
@geg6:
It was not obvious to me at all. Yes, she’s wearing a flak jacket. So what? It is definitely obviously a joke. A LOT of unacceptable sexual harassment is in the form of jokes.
Now, if she was awake and in on it, that changes things completely, but she says she wasn’t.
Chip Daniels
Please, DOJ, don’t throw Steele into that briar patch of discovery, investigation, and disclosure!
eric
The Democrats are the “No True Scotsman” party. To many, Biden is still the Senator from MBNA; Gillibrand has her Franken to bear, etc. Are they generally liberal and do they fight, and generally avoid GOP media tropes about issues and persons. Cuomo fails this test, as he has helped the NY Senate GOP. Gillibrand is a reliable (generally liberal) democrat. Opportunistic? Maybe, but no more so than the other 99 senators. so, lighten up francis.
geg6
@Hungry Joe:
Fuck off. Wanting a candidate with respect for due process is hardly Jill Stein territory.
I’ll hold my nose and vote for her if I have to. But I will be working my ass off to make sure I don’t have to.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: I should have known better than to even attempt humor on that.
Mnemosyne
@geg6:
Meh. I find it plausible that it was a practical joke they pulled while she was asleep, and that she was still pissed about it years later.
I still find it hard to believe that anyone can look at the photo and think it’s a genuine photo of him being interrupted in the middle of sexually assaulting her. WTF?
Ruviana
@Major Major Major Major: Lol, touche!
marcopolo
Great, a thread ostensibly about how we should all be worried about the authoritarian activities of Trump and his Rethuglican enablers hijacked into a re litigation of Franken. Fucking look in the mirror folks. Move on. Franken has (and hopefully he will return to the fight later this year in a new great way I can’t imagine). We have work to do. I just made a contribution to the guy running against Ryan. Join me. Here’s the link:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/randy-bryce-for-congress-1?refcode=home
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: The true extent of evil that T-tanic presidency represented became clear then.
MJS
@Lee: 38 of his colleagues, but only one gets the invective. And you think there was no opportunity for Franken to get ahead of that, meet privately with his colleagues, and say, “This is a Roger Stone operation, and that will come out in the investigation”?
kindness
@Frankensteinbeck: That photo of Al in the transport….you know he isn’t actually touching her breasts there right? He was being a dick and should be called out for acting like an immature boy. All I’m saying what he did was wrong but don’t go saying he was molesting her, as he did no such thing. He was making fun of the idea which was a really dumb idea I will admit.
On that note – If Kristen is the nominee I will do everything I can to help her get elected. OK?
MuckJagger
@Fair Economist: Yup. I live in KCMO, and I stood in line an hour-and-a-half to vote for a woman I knew had absolutely no chance of winning Missouri — and I was pretty fucking proud of all the other folks who did the same. The precinct, IIRC, was only open from something like 6 am to 6 pm, so those of us more or less around the bottom of the totem pole had to vote at some unkindly hours.
Gillibrand’s only my seventh or eighth favorite choice, but she’ll be #1 *if* she wins the nomination.
Amir Khalid
@Frankensteinbeck:
I seem to remember that the photo was frontpaged here, perhaps in one of Betty Cracker’s posts on the issue, and that’s where I saw it. I distinctly remember that the shadow cast by his hands indicated they were some distance from the woman’s chest rather than touching it. Taking that picture was a crass schoolboy stunt, but it did not provide evidence that Franken was a sexual predator.
Chip Daniels
WRT Gillibrand- When you follow politics, you kind of have to get used to vicious infighting and sharp elbows, especially among people we admire.
We need to develop the ability to keep our eyes on the prize, and let past grudges fall.
Or at the very least, not where the other side can exploit them.
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
You have got to be kidding. You think that’s a real act of sexual assault? You’ve obviously not familiar with sexual assault.
tobie
@Mnemosyne: Irony is dead. Hence no one seems to understand the difference between a dirty vicar and the parody of a dirty vicar, which is what the Franken photo is.
Gelfling 545
I was not too thrilled with Gillibrand being the most visible proponent of removing Franken’s fate from any type of process. Does more harm than good in the long run, imo. Still, she has been a superlative senator and I honestly cannot think, off hand, of anyone I’d prefer to support among those likely to run.
Betty Cracker
@The Simp in the Suit: Thanks for the explanation, Pimpy Simpy. ;-)
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
Of course it’s a staged gag photo. Taking a staged gag photo miming grabbing an unconscious woman’s breasts is disgusting, unless she approved of it. That is EXACTLY the kind of thing sexual harassers do that is unacceptable and leaves the victim feeling violated and powerless, while the perpetrator takes advantage of ‘Hey, it’s a joke.’ Anybody who did that to a work colleague should lose their job, in their private life should get serious Hell for it, and it’s viable to judge it an uncrossable red line in a politician.
Bobby Thomson
@Yarrow:
That would be more convincing if immediately after the meeting, Rosenstein hadn’t given Nunes (a corrupt legislator who is openly obstructing justice) all the documents that Mueller had collected.
eclare
@marcopolo: Huzzah! Again, if we don’t win, we don’t get what we want. Republicans have learned this, Democrats have not.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
And, to be clear, one (1) incident of sexual harassment is that took place before he was a senator means he should be forced to resign even though there were no other credible accusations?
Yeah, that’s right, I’m saying that anonymous accusations that he put his arm around women in photos are not credible. And I’m saying that a woman who was traumatized because Franken squeezed her waist during a photo needs psychological help.
Do you really not find it at all odd that the accusations magically dried up as soon as he announced he was resigning? I’m still seeing new accusations about Weinstein, but not a single new accuser has come forward about Franken?
It was a set-up. A Roger Stone ratfuck. And we fell for it.
Frankensteinbeck
@geg6:
The fact that it gets one Hell of a lot worse than this doesn’t mean this is acceptable.
EDIT – @Mnemosyne:
I consider all the other accusations highly suspicious. I personally came down on the ‘wait for the investigation and I can’t decide if what I know means he should resign or not.’ But I’m certainly sympathetic to anyone who thinks it’s unacceptable.
Bailey
Two things can be true: that can be a poor article but at the same time Gillibrand can be nakedly opportunistic.
I would consider that while she is unquestionably on a low/no tolerance agenda, and has been, her previous work on the reporting structures in the military still aimed for some sort of due process. Her rampage against Sen. Franken allowed for none. What changed? And as I, am a voter, expected to go along with that change and reward her for it?
I am not saying it is a deal breaker for her, but she is no longer one of my top choices as 2020 candidates.
eemom
Looks like I fell asleep and woke up a month ago. ?
I don’t find this at all complicated. I think Gillibrand is a craven opportunistic twat for shitting on Franken and Bill Clinton, and that she FUCKED us big time wrt Franken, and I despise her for those reasons.
However, come 2020 — assuming there’s still an election, or a country, or a world — if she’s the nominee, I’ll drink some amnesia juice and work myself into a frenzy of enthusiasm for her. If it kills me.
Gravenstone
@Amir Khalid: It was Cole’s post. Wherein he called for Franken to immediately step down. Getting ahead of the zero tolerance/due diligence train by some miles.
Major Major Major Major
@geg6: pretty sure that was sarcasm.
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
So, apparently and according to you, Franken should never have been elected in the first place. Because, not only did this take place before he was elected, but his entire career as a comedian and comedy writer is full of jokes and sketches that aren’t safe for work.
Good to know that puritans still run wild here in the USofA.
marcopolo
@Yarrow: You are a little behind the times:
Did anyone here really think that Ryan would rise above being a partisan hack and Trump enabler? Anyways, in my first comment on this thread (#126) I posted a link to fundraising page of Ryan’s 2018 Dem opponent. Feel free to contribute to him it is only an R+7 district.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m fuming about Ryan’s defense of Nunes and I wrote to my rep to say so. Ryan is compromised, complicit, or both. He’s always been the Republican I dislike the most for his sociopathy and arrogance and he never fails to prove my assessment correct.
tobie
@Major Major Major Major:
Franken signed on, too, though to his credit he said that the bill was “aspirational” and in the form it was drafted could never be implemented. I’ll say it till I’m blue in the face but anyone who thinks we can move swiftly from a primarily employer-provided health system to a single payer system is not serious about policy. Switzerland and Germany offer good examples of a universal coverage with employer-provided insurance.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
So if a photo came out tomorrow that you did a similar gag photo at a job where you worked 10 years ago, you should be immediately fired from your current job, no exceptions?
Again: he was not a senator at the time. He wasn’t even a politician. So any photo like that, no matter how long ago, should be an immediate firing offense at a new workplace even in the absence of any other allegations?
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: He is the worst. T-tanic will sink him too, I am pretty sure.
Peter
@Mnemosyne: This. In related news, I’m reading Hyperion and found the source (?) of your nym.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
I do agree but then I’m not Gillibrand. Nor a woman. I’ve never been groped. At least never unwillingly. And I think that is part of the point. Should everyone be considered innocent until proven guilty? Yes. No only is that not unreasonable, it is supposed to be a part of our judicial system. But, and this is one of those huge, firm, round buts, in the real world in the US, it doesn’t work that way. Rich people buy their way out of a lot of problems, blacks get arrested and punished, sometimes with their lives, for doing nothing. I can certainly see that going overboard to possibly equalize that would be an option for some (and think that on this issue, one of those people might be Gillibrand) and that is wrong but I can sure understand her point here, especially given she is a politician and a woman. Did Franklin need to be the poster boy for cleaning house as it were? I don’t think so but can see that Gillibrand might not see it that way. This is a humanity issue. Women have been treated as second class humans for most all of history, blacks at least as bad in this country for it’s entire history. How does that change if not forced? Over time? How many lifetimes are there in an over time?
Ruviana
@Frankensteinbeck: Okay, here’s a good example of some of what gets people (like me) all stirred up and and some of what transpired with perhaps more intensity at LGM yesterday. Yes, it’s a stupid picture. Yes, humor is used as a form of sexual harassment. But this happened in, I think 2006. Norms change. People change. Are we not talking about Gillibrand changing some of her views? I believe Franken said he was ashamed or embarassed by the picture now, because some of his own views of his earlier behavior had changed. This has been a major source of my frustration and my anger at losing a very good Senator. There was enough lack of clarity in the accusations for me to see the senate action as a rush to judgment.
tobie
@Gelfling 545: Chris Murphy? I think he’s been a great senator and i really liked his videos to supporters during the healthcare debate.
Frankensteinbeck
@geg6:
My point was that I am personally torn, and I would not look down on anyone who thinks he should resign just because of the photo. That is far from what you just said.
They’d better not include actually taking advantage of unconscious women, which is far beyond even making jokes about that. There was an actual sleeping woman there who he’s miming groping her breasts. In what way is that not disgustingly offensive and sexually humiliating for her, unless she was actually in on it?
artem1s
my problem with Gillibrand is she gave into the temptation of trial by media. Women need to be hear and take seriously on this issue by courts of law and law enforcement agencies. Keeping Franken out of hearings did not help the #MeToo movement one bit. It will just perpetuate the reality that no one will ever have to face real, criminal charges as long as they resign or manage to cover up their behavior. If Gillibrand was serious about zero tolerance she wouldn’t have had a problem with actual hearings or even a trial. Now there will never be hearings on Franken’s behavior. The accusers will always be held under a cloud of suspicion and they will never be heard. She
isn’t a judge or jury. She has no business leading a charge to get someone fired. She should be focusing on getting the facts heard and the VICTIMS heard. Not her version of their story. Their version of their story.
Also, she set herself up for this article. What makes her think she is immune to the same sorts of attacks? Now the GOP can use this to split the Democratic vote. This will become her ’email’ scandal that they can hang around her neck for the rest of her career. It’s the same strategy they have been using forever. She was stupid to believe that her opinion is so special that she gets to decide who is fit to lead and who isn’t. Stein and Bernie and every rightwing pundit will spend all their time bloviating to the media about how unlikable She is. They were going to do it anyway. They are going to do it to Biden. they are doing it to Warren. If Gillibrand can’t take this or 10 hours sitting in front of one of Issa’s idiotic hearings, then she’s not up for running for President. This is her world now. She better learn how to deal with it.
charon
@Joyce H:
Recipients of Russia money (in order of contribution size) as listed at link
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/15/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns .
Mitch McConnel
Marco Rubio
Scott Walker
Donald Trump
Lindsay Graham
John Kasich
John McCain
Peter
OT for the Franken thread, but in line with the post subject, I posted my very first (hand-crafted, artisanal, free-range) Twitter thread today.
glory b
@Suzanne: Oh sure, of course, goes without saying.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@tobie: I agree with you on the substance, and to pick on Franken, but any Dem who thinks they can get away with a nuanced half-embrace of Wilmer and his screeching hordes is making a big mistake.
Ridnik Chrome
@tobie:
I think everybody knows what Franken intended with that photo, but they’re pretending otherwise, either because it benefits them politically, or they feel they have to toe the party line on sexual harassment (and to be fair, the party line among Democrats is pretty much the right one).
FWIW, Gillibrand is my senator, and I’d been pretty well pleased with her, up until her stand on Franken. I’m willing to write that one off as an error in judgement.
Leto
@Frankensteinbeck: Here, I’ll make it easy to tell if he’s grabbing her. She’s wearing Kevlar. Her breasts are under the Kevlar. Not only will the Kevlar stop a 7.62 round, they’ll stop anyone from grabbing your breasts. I honestly don’t understand wtf is wrong with people who say he’s grabbing her breasts without acknowledging this fact. Bad photo? Yup. Touching her breasts? Nope.
@marcopolo: On point.
marcopolo
Quoting Josh Marshall: “They’re on board with the cover-up”
GOP Congress’ First Criminal Referral In Russia Probe: The Trump Dossier Author
Mnemosyne
@Peter:
It’s from Greek mythology, so I can’t really say it has a single literary source. Bullfinch, maybe. ? It was so long ago that I can’t remember anymore.
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
There is dispute about this among people who were there. Either way, I’m a woman who has actually been groped dozens of times against my will. I’ve also been raped. And this doesn’t even put a blip on my radar. I have joked like this with friends many times (albeit, when I was younger and more of a party girl than the old woman I am now). I wouldn’t want any of those people fired for it. Of course, I’m not being paid by Roger Stone.
Frankensteinbeck
@Ruviana:
Yes, what made the most difference to me was that I’ve never seen such a sincere apology that hit all the right points. I was really torn.
@Mnemosyne:
You are taking my argument, again, beyond where I made it. How a politician treats women is completely reasonable, even important for judging whether he/she should represent us. And Franken is not exactly a friggin’ spring chicken here. A joke he made 11 years ago is not foolishness of youth. These are arguments we use ALL THE TIME against Republicans, and I am not going to let them go just because I personally like Franken. I didn’t fall on the ‘he should immediately resign’ category, but anyone who does feel that way I don’t think is holding an unreasonable position, even if I disagree with them.
Fair Economist
@Frankensteinbeck: He is out of plane with her and much closer to the camera. It’s like one of those pics of somebody holding up the Pyramids.
Miss Bianca
@Frankensteinbeck:
Which, according to some sources, she was. Until she wasn’t. I can see where she’d want to disavow it now, because that would make her accusations a tad…untrustworthy, shall we say.
Cacti
GQ goes there on the librul media:
Michael Wolff did what every other White House reporter is too cowardly to do:
Leto
@Bobby Thomson: According to Maddow’s reporting last night, around 9:10pm, Nunes hadn’t received anything. They (DOJ) were going to turn over material, but then didn’t. Do you have an article saying otherwise?
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
And here’s where it gets even more complicated for me — it’s not like it’s a new thing for Jewish men to be accused of assaulting Gentile women. It’s one of the oldest anti-Semitic tropes in the book. Leo Frank was lynched for it in Georgia in 1913, and he was not the only one in our history.
So having a prominent Jewish politician get unceremoniously shoved out of office based on flimsy accusations after neo-Nazis marched around an American city chanting “Jews will not replace us!” felt very wrong to me.
marcopolo
Well, I’ll keep trying to keep this an open thread…
Good news:
Leading Republican drops out of Ohio race to oust Sen. Sherrod Brown
I suspect there is a more pressing reason for Mandel dropping out than his wife’s health. That would be 2018 is setting up to be a Dem wave year, and Sherrod looks like he will win re-election over any R in a cakewalk.
randy khan
@kindness:
I’m a fan of Gillibrand (as I said at LGM yesterday), but that is not one my favorite things she’s ever done. That said, she has a long history on the issue of sexual harassment, and I don’t think I would treat what she did with Franken as opportunism for that reason.
I’d also note that she did a very good job lining up the other female Senators on this – that kind of political skill is worth something in my mind.
Frankensteinbeck
@Fair Economist:
An interesting technical point, and I honestly am glad you pointed it out, because while some of his fingers are definitely not touching, I couldn’t tell with some others. It does not actually change whether or not this is acceptable, since the point is an unconscious woman being the target of a degrading sexual joke by an authority figure.
@geg6:
I was beaten regularly for the first ten years of my life, but I still disapprove of slapping a child even once. Hell, I’ve done that, when I was in my early teens and could not possibly be expected to have reasonable self control, and it haunts me as one of the most unacceptable things I’ve ever done. Yes, you’ve been through nightmarishly worse. This is still completely wrong.
Spanky
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
There were layoffs in the St. Petersburg (the Russian one) internet shops after the November election (the US one).
I bow to no one in my disdain for Gillibrand’s opportunistic trashing of fellow Democrats and will be looking for a more palatable primary candidate in 2020. But if she becomes the nominee you can be damned sure she’ll be getting money and votes from the Spanky household.
SiubhanDuinne
Why are we obsessing about 2020 this far out? I’m far more inclined to throw my support right now to Democratic candidates for Senate, House, governorships and state legislatures around the country — in 2018, which is this year.
In January 2014, nobody had the faintest idea who the opposition/Republican nominee would be in 2016. We are right now just as far away from the 2020 general, and I don’t think anyone has the first clue who the opposition/ Democratic nominee will be then.
Let’s work on elections we can do something about this year, and put aside the hand-wringing and pledges to crawl over broken glass for at least the next 12 months, okay?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@marcopolo: that’s big news, isn’t it? from what I’ve read around the tubes, Madnel was a very strong candidate
Another Scott
@marcopolo: Not me. Paulie hasn’t fooled me.
– Paulie Blue Eyes.
Of course he’s going to back Nunes.
My donations will start up again this weekend, or so. Thanks for the reminder. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
marcopolo
@Leto:Here you go.
Ryan backed Nunes in spat with Justice Dept. over Russia documents, sources say
Kay
@marcopolo:
It’s good unless Kasich runs. Then it’s not so good.
Stan
@kindness:
And here IN New York, we mostly hate the dumb bastard.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
It is a reasonable thing to take into account. That’s why I took into account the statements from multiple other women who worked with him over the past 30+ years who said he never acted in a way they felt was disrespectful or harassing. The fact that there was no other woman who stepped forward after Tweeden to say he had harassed her in his career as a comedian was also instrumental in my deciding it was a set-up.
Don’t get me wrong — the picture is gross, and he rightly made a humble apology for it. But I don’t think he should have been forced to resign his Senate seat because of what seems to have been a one-time error of judgment in what he thought a colleague would find funny.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
And I think your position is completely reasonable. I waffle on the issue. I also don’t think anyone who does think he should be should be judged as wildly out of line. That is the point I have been making since the beginning.
marcopolo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Big good news. He was the consensus 2018 Ohio R senate opponent to Brown and had run (and lost a fairly close race) before. Now they will have to go back to the drawing board.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ruckus:
I am sorry, I was reading about Session wanting the restart the war on drugs. What was that about zero tolarance as an excuse to attack one’s political rivals?
Should she have mercy if she wants to be president and see nuance? Damn fucking straight.
Do we want a female liberal Trump who runs with her guts?
You sound unsure. I mean she only fucked her own cause over in her little tantrum.
Is it to fucking much now to ask of the people who want to control the biggest pile of death machines in human history to show some goddamn self control and think things threw?
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Cacti: Drew brings the pain to Maggie.
charon
@Leto:
Here is CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/04/politics/paul-ryan-nunes-justice-department/index.html .
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
Well, we don’t agree. And neither do many of the people who were actually there. I defer to their eye witness judgment.
Ruviana
@Mnemosyne: It had not escaped my notice that the only two Democratic MoCs to resign were African-American (Conyers) and Jewish (Franken). Also more Republicans have been named but I believe only one has actually resigned.
Immanentize
@tobie:
Yeah, but how about a Vicar in a tutu? Huh?!
1) I think Franken should not have resigned for these allegations
Until
2) He had to resign because his colleagues told him he had to.
It saddens me, but I hold out some hope that the Democrats are working on a long game (at least a year long game ) here in which they know they will take some hits, but that Republicans up and down the ballot are much more likely to be abusers. But I have no idea of this will work. People — even older republican people who are not Foxholes — hate the whole Roy Moore thing. Because they are actually conservative religious types.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Yeah, I don’t know Ohio politics, but this development kinda struck me as an opportunity to put up a stronger opponent against Brown.
The Simp in the Suit
@Mnemosyne: “It was a set-up. A Roger Stone ratfuck. And we fell for it.”
Who is “we?”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: Just switched on MSNBC to see if we were at war or if cholesterol had delivered us from evil. A guest was trying to make the point that the stock market is not the economy and we still have problems with… an near giddy Chris Lansing interrupts: But did you see those numbers today? More than 200 points! Can we put those up again?
I don’t know whether to be furious or seize this moment to liquidate
marcopolo
@Kay: You really think Kasich wants to be a senator? He still wants to be Prez, and I see him running again for that in 2020. While Romney could conceivably get away with running for Senate from Utah in 2018 then bailing out to run for Prez in 2020, I don’t think Kasich can run that play. Of course, you are in OH with your finger on the pulse so your opinion has more weight than mine.
AnonPhenom
@kindness:
*This*
Even in his own State. I’ll remind everyone that the last time Cuomo ran, as a sitting Gov., he was primaried. By a relative unknown with the unlikely name of Zepher Teachout. who had no money and little organization. She received 35% of the vote because: Cuomo …Phuck him, the douchebag.
.
Immanentize
@tobie:
Forgot the Vicar link before…
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Kasich’s person says it won’t be Kasich, so that’s good. Now they’re saying Mary Taylor. Mary Taylor isn’t any stronger than Mandel was- she’s a Right wing nut too.
If they had a really strong candidate they would have run him or her already instead of Mandel.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@marcopolo: I’m not ready to predict Kasich will primary trump, but I won’t be surprised if he does. I could see him running for Senate as the noble anti-trump, but not if he thinks Romeny is gonna get there first (and I think Romney will show trump as much rea resistance as Flake and Corker. Or Sasse and Collins. )
randy khan
@geg6:
I’m going to say this as nicely as I can: There is no due process in politics. If there were due process in politics, we’d be talking about HRC’s agenda for the second year of her Presidency because everyone would have agreed to drop the emails thing after Comey determined there was no crime there.
As noted above, I’m not entirely thrilled with what Gillibrand did with Franken, although if you’re going after her you need to go after the rest of the Democratic women in the Senate, too. But as a matter of grasping how the politics of the situation were playing out, she probably had a pretty good sense of how it was going to go. Among other things, the constant drip-drip-drip of accusations was becoming a problem, whether they were valid or not.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
And that is the point of our disagreement: based on what is public knowledge and the statements of women who worked with him in the past, I think that demanding his resignation was a gross overreaction that will hurt Democrats in the long run.
The Republicans are going to do this again in 2018. Will you also call for Sherrod Brown’s resignation if the same kind of flimsy and/or anonymous accusations are made? Adam Schiff’s? We’ve set the bar to “anonymous allegations of hugs during photos,” so pretty much any Democrat who’s ever taken a photo with a constituent is on the hot seat now.
marcopolo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ll admit I am starting to get the feeling I had back in 1999-2000 (when my stock portfolio dropped about 45-50%). Talk about frothy markets. While not liquidating, I have been very slowly reducing my equity weighting since late December. It seem the prudent thing to do.
Kay
@marcopolo:
I thought Kasich might but his campaign person is saying no. Sherrod will do fine against Mary Taylor- she’s awful.
Mnemosyne
@The Simp in the Suit:
Democrats who forced Franken to resign.
Another Scott
@artem1s: I too would have liked the Ethics Committee to look at the charges against Franken and issue a report, but we have to remember that that Committee is also broken. It took, what, nearly 3 years for them to investigate Bob Packwood? And that was 25 years ago. Imagine how much of a circus it would potentially be now… :-(
Gillibrand’s statement on Facebook is well reasoned (as one would expect). She makes a good case. And ultimately, as was pointed out above, it was 38 Senators who wanted him to go – not just her.
I do think that we need to expect the highest standards of conduct of people in our national government. But none of us can change our past, and all of us have made mistakes, so I do worry about how we should handle these issues going forward. And how are we supposed to find out what the truth is without reform to the Ethics Committee process??
Cheers,
Scott.
The Simp in the Suit
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Is this a trick question?
Immanentize
Re:Opportunistic — Anyone who aspires to be President is opportunistic to the max. I know people want it to only be a pejorative when it comes to women, but it is a critical quality to solid leadership.
Kay
@marcopolo:
Sherrod runs really good campaigns. We’ve already been contacted – they plan and they work really hard. He never takes anything for granted.
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: Excellent piece by Magary. The last paragraph is my fave:
Troof.
trollhattan
@Fair Economist:
I want to relitigate Franken like I want a root canal, but wish to add that she accepted his apology and wanted the thing dropped. As I/we knew they wood, the Republicans, smelling blood sent enough resources to Minnesota to scare up a few victims–real or imagined seems very much in question. Without the “He touched me at the state fair” accusatoins I think he’d still be in the senate. We’ll never know.
In the meantime: Trump-Zinke want offshore drilling for everybody. WTF!?!
Yarrow
@Bobby Thomson: As Adam noted again, the documents will have small but logged differences so that all leaks can be traced. Again, Ryan is an idiot. Nunes is even dumber, if one can imagine such a thing.
NotMax
@marcopolo
Maybe dropped out due to having to deal with the sudden onset of puberty?
(Any pic I’ve seen of Mandel he looks about 12.)
;)
Patricia Kayden
This GQ article from Drew Magary is a must read about how other journalists/reporters should be following Wolff’s lead vis-a-vis the Trump regime.
eemom
@Mnemosyne:
Familiar with the musical Parade? I assume most people wouldn’t be, but you would.
I know about it because my daughter did a Theatre Lab in DC one summer about 5 years ago that produced it. When she first told me what it was about I was like “That’s a MUSICAL?” It is actually quite good.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
There is a big difference between the unsupported accusations and the actual physical proof Franken did something unacceptable that he did not dispute. That picture is gross, sexual harassment on that order does need to be taken seriously, it’s relevant to how we judge our politicians since we’re supposed to be the party against sexual harassment, and Franken was already a grey haired old man at the time and 2006 is not a period when nobody knew it was wrong. All by itself this picture is a big deal. How big a deal, fine, but it’s a long way from a flimsy, anonymous accusation. The picture does make the accusations less flimsy, but I would not have supported acting on them alone, especially since some of them were dubious as Hell.
Immanentize
@Another Scott:
I have been thinking a lot about past actions and current punishments (I am a criminal defense lawyer after all). It seems difficult to hold people today to standards of today that simply did not exist when they transgressed. I have shied away from the biography of artists for this very reason. Sometimes biography can illumoinate our understanding of an artist, but sometimes it infects art by folks who simply failed to rise above the times.
I first experienced this idea when a good friend of mine in college (a woman who is still a friend) said, “Aroistotle is such an asshole (because he was a misogynist)”. Hmmm, I thought….
And I am NOT suggesting this about Franken, to be clear.
marcopolo
@Kay: If only McCaskill had such luck here in MO. Unfortunately the R Attorney General is running against her (along with the usual nutbags), and he comes across as a reasonable Republican. I just spoke with her campaign yesterday–I am hoping they have some productive work for volunteers like me to start doing before the end of January.
And for BJers who occasionally find themselves sitting around with a little free time might I recommend visiting Postcards to Voters
Immanentize
@Kay: I really like Sherrod. My friend in Cleveland was an early adopter. But he just doesn’t seem like a person who wants to do the presidential dog and pony enough. And more power to him!
My prediction is that the next President will again be a Governor.
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
They can judge however they want. I don’t give a shit. What is wildly out of line was for her and her allies to force him out of his seat without due process. She’s fine with punishing people without allowing them to defend themselves against their accusers. I’m not. Who is the one who is wrong here? According to my own values and that of the Constitution, I am not. She’s completely in the wrong and shows instincts that are un-American and unbecoming in any candidate I would want as president. Hell, I wouldn’t want her as my senator.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Immanentize: “Opportunistic” is awfully close to being just another word for “uppity”.
les
Random thoughts:
Al Franken, a bright guy and no fool, resigned pretty easily and hasn’t bitched about it. Could he possibly know more than blog commenters about the facts and the political situation?
The Dem Senate caucus, except for a couple old MEN after the fact, hasn’t much bitched about it. Could they possibly know more than blog commenters about the facts and the political situation?
“Only he can save us!!!” bullshit is bullshit.
A US Senator with higher aspirations is opportunistic???? Jeeves, my fainting couch, stat!
Another Scott
@Immanentize: Yup.
Reposting (via Capt. Mnemo, I think?) – How to be a fan of problematic things.
Cheers,
Scott.
eemom
@randy khan:
That’s a bunch of bullshit. They became a problem because Democrats MADE them a problem, instead of ignoring them and going about their business like republicans do.
Need I remind any sentient being that a fucking tsunami of accusations of horrible shit, from sexual abuse to treason to corruption, being done 24/7 in broad daylight by the trumps and congressional republicans, spews forth every single fucking day, and so far none of THOSE have been “a problem”?
geg6
@eemom:
For real.
I find it endlessly fascinating that the women of BJ are more pissed about Franken getting treated like he was Charles Manson and all these men here are all outraged on behalf of Roger Stone’s puppet.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Maybe next the Congressional GOPers will make a criminal referral to DOJ on UK, French, German, Dutch etc. governments, or their intelligence agencies. That would be way cool. And not that much more insane than their referral for Steele.
Mike in NC
Thanks to the Bannon freakshow I finally saw photos of Rebekah Mercer, who resembles a space alien posing as a human being.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: FWIW, I think the fact that there was a photo made it such a huge deal. No photo, no resignation, most likely. It was incredibly damaging, as Franken himself acknowledged. Also FWIW, I agree with you on the broader issue; I’m not sure forcing Franken out was the right thing to do, but I do see it as an issue on which reasonable people can disagree. It’s a political issue, not a legal one.
Immanentize
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: That is sorta my point, too.
les
@eemom:
Because certainly no one but Democratic Senators ever mentioned it.
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It think that if you read all I’ve written here you will find that I don’t agree with Gillibrand’s actions. I do understand them. You will also notice that I didn’t endorse her for anything.
We have to take people for who they are and what they do overall. No one is perfect, including Gillibrand. Is she perfect enough? To me she acted irresponsibly on this issue. Once again I can see her side without agreeing with it. But given everything else about her can she be trusted, will she learn from this or will she do the wrong thing over and over? I think that we can use this as a learning experience, it may be possible to grow from this, even for Gillibrand. Would that be better than throwing her under the bus as she did with Franken? A side note, Franken has said in the past that stuff he has done as a comedian might/would limit or even prevent a national political career. Why and what are my questions, keeping in mind that if we only look for perfect candidates, we will have none/zero/zip. In our bid for perfection we will always fall short, how will that work for us in the long run?
Calouste
@Patricia Kayden: Wolff was willing to torch his access because he (rightly) estimated that his book would give him such a payday that he wouldn’t need it anymore.
Immanentize
@Mike in NC:
But red hair! I am sure many GOP pundits see Starbursts.
Another Scott
@eemom: “DC is wired for Republicans.” – Josh M (I think).
One has to pick one’s battles – especially in politics. Maybe Roger Stone won one, here. But the seat didn’t flip, and Al tells us he’s not done fighting.
Remember that preventing Warren from being the first head of the CFPB seemed to be a big win for the Teabaggers and the Banksters. We (the USA) got her as a Senator instead….
Cheers,
Scott.
AliceBlue
@geg6:
In general, women have better built-in bullshit detectors.
Hungry Joe
@geg6: Please, geg6, don’t tell me to fuck off. I batted out a tongue-in-cheek anti-Gillibrand gibe that in no way implied — or at least, I didn’t mean for it to imply — that those who disagreed with me are Jill Stein types. And I say “please … don’t tell me to fuck off” because 1) I like your style and what you say about 99% of the time, and 2) I never, ever, get into insult/flame-war exchanges with, or even attack anyone on this site — or anywhere else. Not that I disapprove of others doing it — it’s just not my style/demeanor/whatever. So when you tell me to fuck off, I probably take it a lot more personally than I should.
I’d end by saying, “Now, fuck off,” a la Billy Batts’ “Now go get your shine box” in “Goodfellas,” but I’m afraid someone would think that I meant it.
terabye
@geg6: Good, it’s never too early to start kneecapping a rising Dem star.
trollhattan
@Immanentize:
Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry…
Dear lord, his sell-by date makes this impossible but the sheer joy of watching him dismember Trump and feed him his own viscera while on camera would be a thing of wonderment, and an amuse-bouche we deserve, damnit.
trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
Time to repurpose the “I ran into Tammy Faye” tshirts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Nicole Wallace teasing a segment about the Steele criminal referral. Is a never-trumper (and McCain acolyte) at long last gonna call out Lindsey Graham by name?
efgoldman
@Just One More Canuck:
I need to enter next fucking year. Maybe fucking Ruckus and I can go as a dual fucking entry
Fuckem
randy khan
@eemom:
It’s interesting that you think that ignoring them was an option. I think we disagree on that point.
Jeffro
Not understanding why we’re talking about Gillibrand, Franken, Warren, Cuomo, or any of that: Crunch Time is coming. This is exactly what they want you to do – waste time arguing about the minor flaws of various Dems now that the wholesale unfitness of Trumpov and complicity of his Koch-fueled enablers has been revealed
frosty fred
@geg6: I, for one, consider it more seemly that the Franken discussion be dominated by women–if there had to be one, and for another one I’m about ready to move on.
Bobby Thomson
@Leto: no one has disavowed the deal that Nunes announced.
TS
@marcopolo: This is how the GOP sees democracy. They have a divine right to rule. No-one has any right to investigate them – only democrats and others can be investigated by congress committees.
GOVCHRIS1988
I’ll say this about Gillibrand, she didn’t do anything any other politician with aspirations for the big chair wouldn’t do, so hell being “opportunistic” is just par for the course. Of course, she is also a woman, so don’t be shocked that they would use the same playbook they used against Hillary (Both Republicans and the Bernie Sanders coalition). Gillibrand isn’t my first choice though, I’d rather see Kamala Harris, Cory Booker or someone I haven’t heard being talked about, Catherine Cortez Masto, Senator of Nevada. I’ve heard her speak, and she isn’t bad.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4656575/senator-cortez-masto-mnuchin-floor-speech
Plus, even though the Clinton’s are pretty much finished in electoral politics (At least Bill and Hillary are), there are people who feel a little raw with Senator Gillibrand saying that Clinton should’ve resigned over the allegations and that may hurt her more than Franken being ousted from the U.S. Senate.
jl
@trollhattan: Jerry Brown says he’ll be retired to his ranch and he ain’t running for anything.
But, maybe he’ll have some time to do some campaigning? He has the appropriately dismissive attitude towards GOP/corporate media games.
I’m probably conflating two of Brown’s snarks but I remember him taunting his press pool over a Rick Perry stunt with something like ‘That was barely a burp, barely a fart, but you people go run and sniff everything the GOP pumps out it like little lapdogs,’
Miss Bianca
@efgoldman: I’m still shaking with laughter over this particular tidbit, where Malcolm Tucker eviscerates Boris Johnson as
Now THAT, my friends, is shade in the finest fucking British style.
Bobby Thomson
@Yarrow: leaking isn’t the problem. The problem is that Nunes will know enough of what Mueller knows to know how to muddy the waters.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Jerry Brown is too old to run for president, and he’s actually quite centrist when it comes to economic policy. I’m happy to have voted for him, but IMO he’s too combative and stubborn to be a good president.
A talking head on the teevee, now … ?
TS
@marcopolo:
If he was a democrat every media outlet would be researching this point of view – but a republican – of course he’s dropping out because of his wife’s health.
Mnemosyne
@Bobby Thomson:
I hope that both Rosenstein and Mueller are smarter than that.
Ruviana
@Jeffro: I’m not sure what exactly we can do at this exact minute. Also, folks here seem to be able to think about more than one thing at a time. Several things, since I’m not really trying to bust your chops: it does seem like the Franken defenestration is still raw for some of us. Some of the people you mentioned are right now possible 2020 candidates so people will talk about them. I think most of us know what we need to do and when. For what it’s worth, while I’m no fan of Gillibrand I’ll absolutely vote for her in 2020 if she’s the party nominee.
SFBayAreaGal
@Mnemosyne: Well, yes I would
John Revolta
@Hungry Joe:
You kidding? That’s be worth 20 Jackal Points!
jl
@Mnemosyne: I was just suggesting Jerry Brown would be good have around for campaigning.
Matt McIrvin
@The Simp in the Suit:
Quick, let’s knee-cap her!
Patricia Kayden
@Mike in NC: Like Mnuchin, Sanders, Bannon, Goehmert and so many other Conservatives. They’re not a good looking bunch. But I have always hoped that aliens would be nicer folk than they are.
Jeffro
@Ruviana:
Me either, other than stay focused on our real enemies.
Eh, mildly insulting but I’ll let it pass…kind of a lame excuse for some of the comments (not yours) that I’ve seen up above.
Good (the not-busting-my-chops thing…) Never a good strategy.
Ok, well, get over it or do something. Just doesn’t seem like a good hill to die on or stay ‘raw’ about.
Talking about 2020 Dem candidates is great – getting overly invested (or anti-invested) in any of them seems like a waste of time. We’re three years out; meanwhile, the GOP seems to be preparing to ride this flaming dirigible all the way down, regardless of what happens to the country. But yeah, we can walk and chew gum, unlike our opponents who need Fox to help them ‘think’ at any given moment.
lgerard
Crazy wingnut Josh Mandel drops out of the Ohio Senate race
Another Sloppy Steve candidate bites the dust
John Revolta
@Jeffro:
Imma tuck this safely away for when we lose the fucking Senate by one guy in ’18………………….
Brachiator
Wait. What? WTF?
I don’t know if this is sexism or stupidity, or some special combination of both.
I’ve been super busy, so haven’t been following the political rumblings in great detail, but damn, bullshit is already flying at warp speed, and we are barely into 2018.
ETA: And it seems that every time I take a peek at the Internets, the Trump Justice Department or Congress is about to investigate the shit out of Hillary Clinton for … something. As tiring as this shit is to read about, it must be wearying to the bone for Clinton and her family. And id does nothing but keep the right wing nutjobs inflamed.
Ruviana
@Jeffro: Well, in the spirit of mild insults, I’m not sure what I can do to fix or get over feeling raw about something. Perhaps bitching on a blog thread will help. My feelings are my feelings and I can’t just switch them off, and I’m not sure what beyond that I can actually do. For what it’s worth when I read the Daily Beast article this morning I reminded myself that we are about 2 years out and many things can change. People that seem important now can fade and people no one really knows much about can appear. I’m talking about no specific person, just in some sense agreeing with you that it’s early days to become over-invested or under-invested. In that sense, I’m watching to see what happens next.
ETA: Props for the Faux Noos observations!
Nicole
@geg6:
You’re going to need to cite proof for this. Because I heard this too, when the story first broke, and I went googling for support and all I could find was an unsubstantiated claim on… Democratic Underground, I want to say it was, which is not the most reliable of sources. As far as I know, no one has ever actually come forth to say on the record that she was in on the joke, and that seems to me the sort of thing one would be willing to do. Hell, somebody was holding the damn camera. You may have an actual source, and if so, please post it, but I looked for one at the time the rumor started and couldn’t find one. And I really, really, really wanted it to turn out to be staged.
And I really, really, really didn’t want him to resign, but I can live with it, because he did what he felt was in the best interests of the party.
Also, here’s the full list of Senators who called on Franken to resign. Gillibrand got the bad press for it (probably because she’s a woman who clearly wants to be President) but it wasn’t just her. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren are on the list.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/06/full-list-senators-call-for-al-franken-to-resign-282175
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@MisterForkbeard:
My big issue with her is that I think that attitude should be disqualifying for the job of President.
She’d still be the lesser evil if she got the nomination. But she won’t be my first choice.
Mnemosyne
@Nicole:
I’m pretty pissed at Kamala Harris, too, FWIW, and I can actually tell her so because she’s my senator.
Brachiator
@Ruviana:
Back when the argument was hot, I was definitely in the “Al should stay” camp and thought the Democrats were fools for their supposed “no tolerance” stance. And I was as hot as anyone about it.
But right now, I don’t know if Franken is even still in the Senate. Whatever was decided, it’s done. I’m far more interested in what the Democrats do tomorrow than what they did yesterday. And I am not going to single out any particular woman politician for blame unless somebody can provide detailed information about how they decision to dump Franken was made. And you better have some video and transcripts available.
Also, if I had to bet money on it, I would guess that there are a lot more politicians, Republicans and Democrats, who acted much worse than Franken, and that both sides are thinking about who they might save, and who they might have to sacrifice if they cannot put a lid on harassment problems. And I would also bet good money that there are state and local scandals brewing and ready to pop.
Aimai
@Betty Cracker: cosigned
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Deal.
My time in machine shops and the navy will finally come in handy.
SFBayAreaGal
More to the left than the constituents she represents
The above link shows a careful analysis of Gillibrand’s record, which again has always been to the left of whatever constituency she’s represented.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
I agree that J Brow is too old to run for president. But he has had a hell of a second act in politics. And I think he is far from being stubborn and combative. I give him a bunch of points for being a cool headed pragmatist, and reining in the excesses of Sacramento Democrats who sometimes got too headstrong with power, knowing that the Republicans here are politically toothless. Brown vetoed a lot of stupid shit, and helped craft state budgets that were reasonable and which also took future needs into account.
Brown was also good in dealing with a great president, Obama, and has been good in not taking the bait put out by a terrible president, the Trump beast.
I will grant, though, that he has been stubbornly wrong about the pointless high speed rail project.
celticdragonchick
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Paul Haggis is outspoken former Scientologist and has been on the Leah Remini show several times. The church does stuff like this. First find out if the women are scientologists.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I’d bet lots that they are. They also have a lot more info than he does, while Nunes only really knows his side of the story. And I’d bet they can bury him with that alone.
Ruviana
@Brachiator: He formally resigned at 1:00 p.m. on January 2nd and is back in Minneapolis is what I’ve heard. I can’t go digging up cites but I recall that when the story picked up steam Gillibrand kind of functioned as the point person and people signed on with her. I’m not too happy with any of them. It’s probably relevant that Franken’s resignation announcement happened before the Alabama election and some of the urgency was to have him gone before people began dealing with Moore as they expected to have to do. I’m delighted with Jones. That was a wonderful thing so we slowly move forward. But it doesn’t mean I still don’t get pissed about it.
Mary G
@eemom: Godalmighty, I have been trying to read the comments to this thread six or seven times now and can’t get through it. Every thread with Franken involved here seems to turn into a playground fight. Let’s talk about anything else.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator:
Bullshit.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
Are you seriously asking that?
eemom
@randy khan:
Again: what do republicans do with unpleasant accusations??? And it takes a whole hell of a lot more than something like the Franken accusations for something to become a “problem” for them.
Indeed, as noted above, the utterly mind boggling mess they’ve made of the entire federal government hasn’t done it yet.
schrodingers_cat
These Franken threads are the ultimate in mansplaining, men explaining to women how to be properly outraged about sexual assault.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Very early on in the GOP primaries, I think that the other Republicans thought that Trump would follow the rules, not be to hard on his fellow candidates, but he shot that shit down early, when he mocked GOP heir apparent Jeb Bush. After this, the GOP leadership appeared to be stunned. But in the end, they fell for Trump hard, and gave into his every bullying whim.
Discussion about how the Democrats tried to deal with Trump is best left for another day, because her you gotta factor in the sabotage and dirty dealing and dirty tricks.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I think that HRC has learned over the last at least 25 yrs to laugh it off, unless it’s semi official, say a congressional hearing. At which time she studies up and puts her attackers to absolute shame. And I don’t think she has to study up all that much. I also bet her neck gets a good workout, shaking it at the stupidity that is aimed at her constantly. If it was me I’d take it as a complement that they are that scared of me that they spend way too much time making up bullshit. I’d have a much harder time not laughing at them and then calling them fucking moronic assholes.
Fuckem. H/T EFG
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: …or just turn the page to the next thread.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Bullshit back at ya.
The money could be spent more wisely on local and regional transit.
California high speed rail is a 19th century solution to 21st century problems.
GOVCHRIS1988
@Brachiator: I keep saying that the 17 person circus was what REALLY gave it to Trump. I doubt if there were just three candidates, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, that he would have made it out of that. It wasn’t until he all but had the nomination that he even cracked 50% in every contest. Before, you keep seeing he had 38%, 42%, 34%, etc. If most of the candidates had whittled themselves down to 5 and backed each candidate before Super Tuesday, he probably wouldn’t have had a shot. But, just like in the general, Trump slid in with not winning the pop. vote. Probably the first true president a HUGE majority of the country didn’t really want.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Oh, I agree that this stuff is a waste of time, easily brushed aside by HRC. But it is a wasteful, political distraction.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
What else you got?
I’ve done planes, trains and automobiles. In several countries. Most of the trains in this country can’t hold a candle to systems in other countries. Even in a lot of countries decades ago. Now that said they can be expensive but so is building more planes, airports and systems to handle the load. We need more than one approach and right now trains are a very viable answer. Will they forever be the only answer? No. But in your and my lifetimes, yes. But we need to separate passenger and freight lines so that trains are more reasonable.
Brachiator
@Ruviana:
Thanks very much for the update.
There was a lot of background and context to the decision.
I have a lot of respect and affection for Franken. But he decided to accept the judgement of the other Democrats. And if he and the people of his state are at peace with what went down, I am ready to move on to other political fish that needs frying.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
What part of politics that any republican is involved in isn’t?
What part of politics that any 100 people are involved in isn’t?
Scotian
@Nicole:
With respect, she also got it because she LED as in was the FIRST to do so and organized the remove Franken grouping, and that is a worthwhile thing to be noting too. She got the bad press because like any nail she was the one that stuck out first as well as farthest so the hammer hits her. If she wants to play big league politics as she did here (and I am not in this agreeing or disagreeing about it being the right call or not, just noting what should be obvious to all that she did play such, whatever the nobility or lack where motivation is concerned) then she must expect big league blowback too, as should her defenders/supporters. Actions have consequences, and life is inherently unfair, especially in politics sadly. Stating that it is more likely than not she is being treated so because of her gender as well as her possible Presidential ambitions I find actually a little on the sexist side. My own problem with her actions at the time, as I noted at this blog when all this first broke, was this was the one and only pattern that stunk in ALL the cases, that there was major qualitative differences between what he was accused of being lumped into far worse offences, and that it was curious that the single most effective Senator at holding Sessions and the WH to task was the one being targeted.
Not to mention the slight feel of her “clearing the field” for her own potential Presidential ambitions (something which was such a sin for HRC as I recall, yet here seems ignored by too many from my distant observation) that came off in her actions with Franken and her Bill Clinton commentary. I thought that for Dems to truly own this issue they needed to not only be “pure” but also shown to show the value of due process, and she clearly decided that was not the way to go. Therefore she owns the blowback, even if she was 100% correct in her assessment. It also weakens the Dem position on rule of law mattering, which given the actions of Trump and the GOP should matter even more at the moment, but I guess that wasn’t worth enough consideration at the time either.
General:
I so love watching this trip down insanity lane once again, all the while while the Clintons are yet again being made a political football and distraction to protect GOP skullduggery. Americans wonder what the rest of the free world thinks of what is going on? Take my reaction as one of the more moderate one. Watching Gillibrand set up a standard which I am certain will be used against her down the road for short term political gain was and is risky politics, AT BEST. If I can see that up here in Canada from watching your politics for so many years, what does it say about her true skills in this regard that either she did not, or seemed to feel it was worth it despite the clear ownership of the media on the Dems get double standard treatment for all sins. None of this is new, it has after all been the de facto norm for a couple of decades now. This is why Dems get trashed, this is the same sort of short term purism first insanity I watched with Wilmer just refocused,. Personally, especially if Trumpco is shown to have colluded with Russia to win I think the Dems should renominate HRC only and demand the public be allowed to have the real winner of 2016, the one supported by Americans, not Russians. That is me though.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
Yes, I am seriously asking that, because taking a photo where he pretended to touch her while comically leering at the photographer is on the same level of childish harassment.
SWMBO
@geg6: Come sit next to me.
@geg6: Kirsten Gillibrand led the mob (much to the glee of Republicans) to get rid of Franken. No due process for him. If she gets stomped by the mob seeking justice, she can’t claim she doesn’t understand how this bullshit works. Purity is a lovely thing but I think she’s going to find she’s the next Wilmer. She has one note and she played it badly here. If you like her page on facebook, she’s always asking for folks to tell her what they think of Trump. Should she fight him (yes you idiot). Get to the comments on that and the voters (especially NY and MN) are PISSED. The NY voters say they’ll vote for anyone else in the primary because of Franken. And the MN voters say if she runs for President, they’ll vote for her in the general but they’ll vote for anyone else in the primary. They took away their choice for Senate without due process or asking them what they wanted. She has built up a lot of enmity and these people hold grudges.
Turgidson
@Kay:
Awesome. Now he can get a head start on his presidential campaign.
StringOnAStick
@MJS: I just finished reading Franken’s last book, and it was obvious that senate D leaders never wanted him to run and weren’t supportive when he did or helpful with the lessons he had to learn about institutional norms and behaviors. i personally think it chapped more than a few senate egos that a guy with his background and history had invaded “their” sacred institution and was a good and effective senator.
Reading about the emotional and financial roller coaster that was his first election with the incredibly drawn out recount against Coleman (who is now a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia) sounded very draining. The amount of time a non-Koch sponsored senator has to spend raising cash is insane, plus doing the work to be prepared for each day of senate work is intense (and I have to wonder how many Senators and Congresspeople bother to take that seriously or even bother). Al is in his late 60’s, maybe he decided it just going to be even harder than all that came before so he agreed to resign. I do hope he does what he said he would do in his resignation speech, which was that he was not going to give up his voice. A part of me is hoping for a big reveal from Al on being rat fucked, with Roger Stone getting dragged into much deeper mud.
NotMax
@Brachiator
And, for the sake of completeness, his replacement was sworn in the next day.
Brachiator
@GOVCHRIS1988:
Trump took on the strongest GOP competitors and took them down early. He made the Republican Party blink. When he was just winning pluralities, the Party could have stood up to him, made him agree to their policies and platform. But they didn’t. And this only made him stronger. In the end, the GOP voters came around. That’s kinda all that matters.
Ruviana
@Brachiator: I came back to see if you responded and I’ll just note that Minnesotans are generally fairly upset about what happened to Franken and he maintains fairly good polling numbers. Which could be a plus down the road. A link is here. There are other reports on this.
Elie
Y’all slay me.
I will be thrilled to vote for Gillibrand or any Democrat who righteously wins a fair nomination. MY worry is will we have enough of a system left by them to nominate her or anybody and have a fair democratic electoral process for president. These people are taking a wrecking ball to our government and there appears to be no obviously visible way to stop it. That is what I want.: HOW DO WE STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!!!!! Gillibrand, or whoever — that is the FUTURE. We have to save our asses right now and I want to talk about that and think about how to make sure we have a system left beside waiting for Moeller – who can’t by himself do anything. When do we move and how do we move? What trip wires do we need to be educating ourselves about? Are we prepping for the right stuff — not for elections two years from now? What kind of leadership do we need in the worst case scenario and how do we get them ready? I ask myself this shit everyday … every.day. We have to get ready for the reality — not pretend everything is gonna just be like it was…
IvankaThrowUp (AKA RedDirtGirl)
Ugh! What a horrible article. And I am one of the people pissed at her for being the driving force behind the Al Franken “removal”. I called her office to say that I thought an ethics hearing would have been a fantastic educational and growth opportunity for this country. But that is some bullshit right there.
Mnemosyne
@Ruviana:
I agree that it was probably a political calculation that the Democrats needed to sacrifice someone on our side to draw the best contrast between us and the Republicans. If that was the calculation and Franken fell on his sword like a good soldier, I’ll still be pissed, but that would at least be understandable.
But if a Republican wins even one of the two Minnesota senate seats in 2018, I will go right back to being royally pissed, because it will mean that their calculation failed and ended up screwing us after all.
Another Scott
@Ruckus: Yup.
The future is electric. Toyota has said as much.
We’re not going to have 400 passenger electric planes anytime soon, but we know how to build 300+ mph electric passenger train systems right now.
Trains aren’t a 19th century solution, they’re a reasonable solution for problems we have rnow (including – transportation capacity expansion and redundancy, stratospheric air pollution, etc., etc.).
200 years from now trains will still be an important mode of transportation. It doesn’t hurt to speed that future toward us.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Europe and Japan are stuck in the 19th century with transit? You may need to get out more.
IvankaThrowUp (AKA RedDirtGirl)
@Miss Bianca: Well said!
Ruviana
@StringOnAStick: As someone who will turn the same age as Al in exactly one month, can I just say 66 is not late 60s? :)
Chip Daniels
@Brachiator:
What I like, and have always liked about Brown is that he is so pragmatic and fiscally sensible. He has always stressed the importance of building a surplus in good times to prepare for the bad.
This years Governor’s budget actually has this endearing cover page message:
“For Sutter Brown
Save Some Biscuits For A Rainy Day”
Sutter was of course, his beloved dog who passed away last year.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
In California, the high speed rail project is a waste of time and money. A huge waste. And I keep hearing from some that trains are a viable answer, but it really seems to be a solution is search of a problem.
Even light rail in Southern California is problematic, a mixture of successes and failures.
I don’t think this will ever happen again. Land and rights of way are too expensive.
SWMBO
@Lee: I note that there are no more accusers coming forward now that he’s gone. They stopped the day after Gillibrand called for his resignation. The mob got what they wanted, Republicans were happy and due process got fucked.
GOVCHRIS1988
@Mnemosyne: And there is the risk. If Tina Smith fails to win election to that seat, either being ousted by Pawlenty or worse, Bachmann, then Gillibrand is going to be in a heap of hell with Democrats in the 2020 primary.
Brachiator
@Chip Daniels:
That is righteously cool.
randy khan
@eemom:
Well, what Republicans actually do when they’re accused is deny allegations until the cows come home or until there’s photographic evidence corroborated by three eyewitnesses. When Democrats are accused, Republicans keep bringing up the accusations, sometimes even after the accusations are definitively disproved. The media go along in many cases because it gets eyeballs (or so they think). So I’m skeptical that Franken’s problems would have disappeared if he’d ignored them.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Why? It would relieve a lot of our airport problems if people could take high-speed trains from LA to SF in 2 hours rather than meandering all day on Amtrak.
The people who are pouring the most money into killing high-speed rail are the airlines. Ever wonder why?
IvankaThrowUp (AKA RedDirtGirl)
@? Martin: I feel like an ethics investigation would have been more productive than Franken’s quick resignation. It might have been a watershed event for the entire country. And would have made a lot of people verrrrry uncomfortable, as an added bonus.
SWMBO
@Frankensteinbeck: But it isn’t an uncrossable line. Trump is in the WH. Purity is for those who can walk on water.
SWMBO
@Ruckus: How does it fix the inequality over time if we let mob justice supplant due process?
SWMBO
@artem1s: I think I love you.
El Caganer
@Jeffro: True. Why start fighting the 2020 primary when there is still so much vitriol to be thrown over the 2016 one?
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne: RE: California high speed rail is a 19th century solution to 21st century problems.
Again, I said that California high speed rail is a waste of time, and a 19th century solution to 21st century problems.
This crap is like Bernie Sanders continually talking about how we need to do things like they do in Europe, without providing convincing numbers. I do not know whether the systems in Europe and Japan went hugely over budget and hit tremendous delays. I don’t know the degree to which they are subsidized by the government or their overall costs. And in general, no one who swoons about high speed rail knows this either.
I do know that Southern California desperately needs better local and regional transportation. I do know that despite the relative success of some metro rail lines, ridership is down overall against projected ridership. I do know that Los Angeles has sacrificed bus service to prop up the metro rail service, to the detriment of both systems. I know that Metrolink service is failing, eliminating scheduled runs (and part of this is a sad residue of the massive amount of money that they had to pay for a derailment some years ago). I do know that the success of the Gold Line expansion has probably made at least one Metrolink station irrelevant, and again points to a need for a regional transportation solution. This is where the money should be spent.
I do know that the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center – aka ARTIC, the city’s new Metrolink/Amtrak station, is already a white elephant, built too early and meant to serve high speed rail travelers decades from now. Only problem is, it cost $185 million and its operating costs are $4 million annually, and practically no one uses it. And hell, they missed an opportunity here, maybe, to kinda connect it to Disneyland.
But hell, this is Los Angeles, where the Green Line light rail bypasses the airport. We’re used to monstrous stupidity when it comes to transportation.
.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
California is the perfect place for high-speed rail, because we are made up of several large megapolises separated by big chunks of land.
What we’re running into is the typical Southern California “you’re not the boss of ME!” problem where the city, county, and state all end up fighting over who gets to put what where and who has to pay for it.
For a smaller-scale example, take a look at the LA River Bike Path. Should be a no-brainer, right? There’s unused land along the river, let’s build a bike path. Unfortunately, that path runs through multiple cities and unincorporated areas, all of which are owned by those cities that may or may not feel like paying for a stupid 19th century bike path. Long Beach and its surrounding communities have managed to create about half a path, but it dead-ends near Downey and doesn’t pick back up again for miles EVEN THOUGH THE RIVER IS RIGHT THERE!
So, no, the problem isn’t that high-speed rail is “19th century technology.” It’s that cities and counties in California can easily block state or county improvement projects that they don’t want to support and the state doesn’t have much power to force the issue.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Flights to SF are plentiful. People try to sell high speed rail on the idea that oil and jet fuel are gonna run out soon.
And California high speed rail has been shifted to include stops in places no one wants to go.
$64 billion to go to San Jose? WTF?
And hell, the first leg of this thing omits both SF and LA
And despite promises of a 220 mph cruising speed, this is logically impossible with all the stops along the way. I have not seen anything that specs out a series of pure LA to SF express runs.
Nope. There ain’t a chance in hell that rail service, even if it were fantastic, would dent airline operations. Part of this is because the train fares will not be competitive without massive subsidies.
Ruckus
@SWMBO:
Read my comment at @230. @Ruckus:
I think that might answer your question.
If not then this might, It doesn’t. As I’ve stated, I understand it, not agree with it. But there are also other comments on here that maybe the timeline wasn’t just she went after him tooth and nail. Maybe it got to the point of enough is enough. Not good enough but just enough. This is not a court of criminal law it is the US Senate. Where laws are made and broken, not necessarily observed.
Elie
@charon:
Herein lays the problem: We will need to get rid of possibly half the Congress — not just the President and key members of his administration. This has got to be clear to folks, even as we talk about selecting good candidates and next elections. I have no doubt at all that Moeller is gonna expose a very deep and broad cancer in our government — the scope of which might shock us but must be tackled nevertheless as aggressively, directly and as quickly as we will be able to. I am sure he and his team are carefully planning how to roll this all out… obvious that all at once won’t be feasible or safe. There are a lot of enemies. ( I know that I must sound like I have gone off the deep end. I am not abandoning the political process we have, and pray that I am totally wrong, but I have had in my gut for weeks now, that this just whole catastrophe aint gonna clean up with a nice tied in a bow outcome — we are in for it and I have just been stewing with how to prepare)
ItAintEazy
@MJS: Because you and the rest of the lynch mob would accuse Franken of victim blaming and slut shaming. He had to walk a delicate tightrope, of calling for an investigation while not publicly denigrating women’s right to make accusations.
Unfortunately, that tightrope was pulled out from under him by Gillibrand and the rest of the turncoat Democrats.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
We agree that there should be rational regional transit. Including bikes. But none of this needs to be high speed rail. Especially in Southern California.
IvankaThrowUp (AKA RedDirtGirl)
@eric: Not just MBNA. Uncle Joe weren’t no friend of women, or due process, during the Clarence Thomas hearings.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
And yet I’ve taken a ten hour train/bus ride over an airplane ride on several occasions. The plane itself is not slow but the getting to the airport and more importantly getting from SFO or any other bay airports to your destination is. Yes this does add fuel to your complaints about local transportation. But I work 2 blocks from a metrolink station and I won’t take it because of the time. I can take a metro light rail and a bus and get to work or home a lot faster. And almost as fast as I can drive, especially if the traffic is bad, which of course it can be on any one day.
So what is your answer? More roads? More airplanes? SFO is limited by weather, fog especially, which of course never happens around the bay. So are all the other airports. Most of southern and northern CA is already fully controlled airspace, there are too many planes. We’d have to build more airports and all of them farther away from the pop centers and then build the transportation to get back and forth. Where is the money for that?
At some point in any system there has to be compromise and some who won’t be as well served. We are there in driving to/from the bay, we are there flying to/from the bay, where we arn’t there is in trains. Yes they have issues, mainly right of ways and access. But trains work. They are cost effective and efficient, especially all electric trains, considering that we at getting close to or better than half our energy needs from wind and sun here in CA. Up that and start running into the limits of oil reserves, fracking, world politics……….
Also I ride the metro system a lot and that shows me that so do a lot of people. It is faster to take the train from WLA to Pasadena than drive during rush hr. And that involves me standing up for about 2 hrs. It’s faster and cheaper.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
And the massive airport expansion projects for LAX and Burbank to accommodate those flights are free of charge?
And while flights from SF to LA are plentiful, flights from San Jose to Bakersfield are much less plentiful, not to mention much more expensive. That’s, y’know, the “regional transit” part. LA and SF are not the only cities in California that people need to travel between, or even the only metro areas.
IvankaThrowUp (AKA RedDirtGirl)
@artem1s: Thank you for saying that so well.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
More roads. More airplanes. Much more cost effective than the proposed high speed rail project, which is not going to be high speed, never going to be affordable without massive subsidies.
Give me the cost of alternative projects.
This is not an argument for the current high speed rail project.
I love Metro. Most routes are declining in ridership. Facts is facts.
It’s not always faster, not even during rush hour. But it is definitely cheaper. And the Expo Line, which is otherwise marvelous, has reliability problems. Still, I think that light rail is part of the solution.
More light rail. To hell with the stupid, pointless, too expensive high speed rail project.
@Mnemosyne:
Still cheaper than the high speed nonsense.
But nobody is going from San Jose to Bakersfield high speed. The train will have to slow down. Seems to defeat its supposed purpose to be SF to LA high speed. You can’t have something for everyone and just throw money at it.
Is there a regional solution for San Jose to Bakersfield? Probably. But don’t try to claim that the high speed BS needs to be part of it. Hell, maintaining and expanding BART is more important.
Also, and this is too obvious, the money being wasted on high speed rail could be used for state water projects. A hell of a lot more important. There ain’t infinite amounts of money. What there is should be spent more wisely.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
You seem to have read the Metro report wrong: bus ridership is down, which is causing knock-on effects on the rest of the transit system.
More of the same is causing more of the same problems. More planes and more cars will just make our existing problems even worse. That’s why we need to add in a different transportation mode to get folks from one population center to another. The current ones are overcrowded and don’t work.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
If you think LA to SF and SJ to Bakersfield are remotely the same route, you need to take a look at Google Maps.
JR
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): curious to know if these happened before the break with Scientology or after
Ruckus
@JR:
Knowing the L Ron types like I do, it could easily be before. They gang together and think the rest of the world is out to get them because of their “ideals.” Which of course easily makes them a religion. Along the lines of Jim Jones but still……
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
We gave it a shot. Several in fact. Save your breath.
Adria McDowell
@kindness: This ex-NYer shares your sentiments re: A. Cuomo.
geg6
@terabye:
You see a star. But you’re fine with her kneecapping Franken. I see a person who doesn’t value due process, especially if it gets her attention from suckers like you. There are many stars in the sky who don’t feel the need to do their best to ruin their allies’ careers to achieve their stardom.
mapaghimagsik
@Frankensteinbeck:
You might want to take a closer look at that photo. That’s not what happened.
Mutaman
Gliiibrand graduated from UCLA Law School and took a job defending Phillip Morris. Phillip Morris also happened to be her dad’s #1 client while he was one of the biggest lobbyists in New York.
Corry Booker graduated from Yale and took a job at the Urban Justice League.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/senator-designate-kirsten-gillibrand-tapped-dad-lobbyist-connections-article-1.422309
Another Scott
@Brachiator: Long dead thread, but …
Etc., etc.
(Almost) Everything costs more than expected. There are (almost) always delays and cost overruns on big transportation projects. But you know what? It’s always even more expensive later, and once you build the first version, it’s easier and cheaper to make improvements later.
Have you ridden the Shinkansen in Japan? Every train doesn’t stop at every station. Multiple trains run on the tracks. Some are more local, some are more express. Some are fast trains, some are really, really fast trains (Nozumi). This isn’t fusion research. Other countries have shown how to run high-speed rail system in ways that address the needs of the riders.
Yes, the proposed high-speed rail system is expensive. But it’s not a 19th century solution to a 21st century problem. It’s the most cost-effective long-term solution for California’s city-to-city transportation needs when all the costs are considered (efficiency, reliability, pollution, safety, sustainability, etc.).
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.