The stock market is poised to open tomorrow morning down 400 points thanks to Gary Cohn running for the hills.
Wall Street hates Trump’s tariff stupidity. It hates the idea of Trump being unchecked even more.
Here comes the #TrumpSlump
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) March 7, 2018
Yeah, wrong time of day to contemplate this fustercluck, but I feel some weird responsibility to get it into the record before it’s overtaken by the next spate of Trump-fueled insanity…
SCOOP Gary Cohn to Resign as Trump’s Top Economic Adviser @maggienyt https://t.co/FwEtK6qaUS
— Michael Tackett (@tackettdc) March 6, 2018
How many days did Gary Cohn stay on beyond the one-year minimum tour for his Goldman stock sale to go through tax-free?
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) March 6, 2018
Will be making a decision soon on the appointment of new Chief Economic Advisor. Many people wanting the job – will choose wisely!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2018
Responding to Trump's claim that he has no trouble hiring White House staff, @JoshSchwerin is tweeting story after story on WH inability to hire staff for a range of jobs. https://t.co/s9D69s2HyV
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) March 6, 2018
And it's not universal. I'm on various right-wing mailing lists; they seem about equally divided between "Eek! Protectionism!" and "If Dear Leader does it, it must be wise and good." 2/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) March 6, 2018
Stock futures point to sharply lower opening after Wall Street-friendly Cohn resigns https://t.co/s0ByCr8Ary pic.twitter.com/ukgAi5oI9d
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) March 6, 2018
Gary Cohn Resigns In Protest Of Trump’s Bigoted Comments Towards Aluminum https://t.co/cm2smdHb0B pic.twitter.com/JoHjOCo1X2
— The Onion (@TheOnion) March 6, 2018
Cohn wrote a resignation letter after the president's Charlottesville comments but decided not to give it to Trump. Over tariffs, he gives the letter.
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) March 6, 2018
Gave himself a huge tax cut though https://t.co/fuuY9GJBJR
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) March 6, 2018
.@MickMulvaneyOMB's statement on the departure of Gary Cohn. pic.twitter.com/PgpOH6rcdE
— OMB Press (@OMBPress) March 6, 2018
Shorter Mulvaney: Gary's one of the (((good ones))) https://t.co/Nggcp9K3nw
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) March 7, 2018
Having the president denounce you before colleagues repeatedly as a "globalist" – which is both a mockery of your life's work and an unsubtle antisemitic slur — would no doubt reduce your desire to stick around https://t.co/dcOAWEUXpN
— Doug Saunders (@DougSaunders) March 6, 2018
Among those being considered for Cohn’s replacement, per people familiar: Andy Puzder, the fast-food executive who withdrew his labor secretary nomination last year after decades-old reports of domestic assault were resurfaced. https://t.co/2pylt8xre8
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) March 7, 2018
Look, it’s on brand. https://t.co/B1neNvUYQ9
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 7, 2018
Baud
I hope Cohn shorted the market.
As any good globalist would.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Fast food exec for the National Economic Council, well Trump does like fast food*.
*Per Wolffe, it’s because he’s afraid of being poisoned.
OzarkHillbilly
wasf.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
And it’s midweek.
Predictions on when we hit Dow 20000? How about 15000?
On CNBC, they’ll grin and talk about “great buying opportunities” as NATO dies in a whimper.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
raven
Georgia Lawmakers Did the Right Thing for the Wrong Reason on Delta and the NRA
OzarkHillbilly
Mr. Putin on line 3 for Mr Manafort:
“I will rape and kill your wife. Then I will disembowel your children while watch helplessly. Then, only when everything you love in this world has been taken from you, you will die a most excruciating death.”
Anne Laurie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
If it helps any, remember that during the early Watergate period, Garry Trudeau had a cartoon with his businessmen characters telling each other, Once the Dow hits [status minus 30%], get the dam’ rope!
Shalimar
Decades-old domestic assault allegations? Trump wants a fighter. Does Puzder still have it after all this time allegedly not beating up women?
OzarkHillbilly
“Will no one rid me of this troublesome Priest?”
NorthLeft12
Found this tweeted comment that seems appropriate for departing WH staff;
I have absolutely no sympathy for the abuse and humiliation these snivelling lickspittles endure….they signed up for this of their own free will.
Joyce H
I’ll probably also post to a later open thread, but you early risers can be the first to avail yourself of the opportunity to buy my newly released Regency romance:
A Town and Country Season
Twins! Impersonations! Misunderstandings!
Chyron HR
@OzarkHillbilly:
This just makes Wilmer want to vote against the Magnitsky act again.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Panorama from my shoot on Monday of DTLA with Mt. San Antonio.
I’m trying a new thing for very large panoramas, let me know if it works, thanx.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Worked great day for me. I like the airplane on the right. The whole panorama is fabulous.
Baud
OT. More Republicans running to Hillary’s left.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: It’s really, really detailed 33(x3 for exposure bracketing) 28 megapixel files.
Baud
I wonder what Devos’s position will be on this. (WSJ).
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I pulled it up on my phone with no problems.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
I knew I felt a great disturbance in the Force. It was as if thousands of puffy, pasty camo clad chinbeard cosplayers sobbed and cleaved their Emotional Support AR15s to their chest in worry…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I can upload a smaller version on to Flickr, but you really can’t zoom all the way to full size(or greater), with this site you can. I’ve got a couple more panos I’ll upload in the next day or so.
In that pano you can see: the Hollywood Sign, Griffith Observatory, Dodger Stadium, San Gabriel Peak, Mt. Lowe, Mt. Markem, Mt. Wilson, Mt. San Antonio, Mt. San Gregornio, and Mt. San Jacinto.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It looks really good. What are the building next to the Coliseum? We saw the towers on our 4 trips to Pasadena. Where would the Rose Bowl be on the shot, I know it’s down in the Arroyo but the general area?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
I’m loving it – “your scientifically designed and wholly accurate credit score and report that our affiliates have compiled in our favor don’t indicate that you should get this student loan at the low rate. We do, however, have a product available that can cover about 43% of your projected need at a 13% rate. You’ll just have to tighten your belt!”
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Getting banks out of student lending is one of the things that the Dems did when they passed the ACA.
raven
I got my framed Rose Bowl panorama yesterday but I don’t remember if I posted this one. We easily found ourselves.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: New soccer stadium for LA FC. You can’t see much of Pasadena, but if you draw a line straight down from the towers on Mt. Wilson that would be about where the Rose Bowl is, maybe a bit to the left of that line due to the angle of the shot.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Cool, thanks!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Looks like some Georgia fans are in my old seats.
Schlemazel
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
très sympa
Although I am reminded of a scene from “Amadeus”. “Too many notes. There are only so many notes one can hear at a time and this is too many.” You could spend all day looking at all the details of that picture.
Baud
@raven: That’s pretty cool too.
Elizabelle
Good morning, jackals.
Had a good laugh before coffee. CNN’s Headline News, with Robin “What, me a newscaster, sunshine?” Meade — ran a clip of Trump assuring a press conference that the White House had its pick of the top ten experts in any field for staffing, everyone wants to work in the White House; believe the overused word was “tremendous” — anyhoo:
Headline News ran a color photo of a group of White House staff being sworn in a year or so ago, mentioned the staff turnover (Bannon, Flynn, Hope Hicks, Spicer, etc.) and ran the same photo with the “departed” in B&W. It was hilarious.
As was Trump’s straight faced lying, which proceeded it. White House has no problem with staffing, everyone wants to work in the White House, staff are happy campers.
Actually, let’s go to the transcript. Yesterday’s joint presser, with Swedish PM Löfven: Trump used the word “tremendous” 8 times, and mainly about working conditions at the White House:
I never watch Trump, if I can manage it, but the grade schooler vocabulary level is striking.
Linky: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-prime-minister-lofven-sweden-joint-press-conference/
Baud
Some justice. (BBC)
WereBear
What, he thinks he’s a KING?
Or is it a Russian thing?
p.a.
The Apprentice: World Superpower Edition.
WereBear
@Joyce H: Congrats!
Elizabelle
More looking over the transcript word “very” appears 50 times. Trump himself uses it 40 times. And look at its use in his answer about Russian meddling:
Schlemazel
@WereBear:
The russian thing. SEE: @OzarkHillbilly:
WereBear
@Schlemazel: That belatedly occurred to me, and sounds legit :)
They may have long and opulent lives, this bunch, but it also comes with a level of posturing and stress that would give me a nervous breakdown.
No thanks. No outlaw life for me.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Schlemazel: Wait until you see the one shot from Mt. Lowe.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
Yes, but that was to hide the fact that they’re neoliberal corporate shills. Remember, Hillary gave speeches at Goldman Sachs, so vote for Doctor Saint Homeowners Association President Jill Stein.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: I can no longer afford to read or hear any words that exit trump’s mouth, because every time I do more of my brain cells commit ritual seppuku.
Lapassionara
@Elizabelle: Thank you for posting the transcript. I do not watch when he is on TV, as he is so detestable. Reading what he says is better.
And thanks for the cool Panoramas, BillinG and Raven.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: Asshole doesn’t understand that he’s still running on the gas Obama put in the tank and he keeps shooting at the tank.
Kay
Arizona!
Admittedly, “everyone wear red” is a baby step, but a step’s a step :)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Elizabelle:
When he uses vaguely modifying adjectives like “very”, “fabulous”, “tremendous” or others (I’ve not checked his adverb use), he’s lying. It’s an old promoter/developer trick – keep talking it up.
He’s a complete zero sum moron, and that is the only tool in his kit. The reason why it works is because he was born so wealthy that he never suffered the same consequences that most of them do – he always had a soft landing and a willing crowd of obsequious toadies who were willing to surrender their dignity for a short term paycheck.
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
It is worse to read because then I hear that annoying voice in my head. I find myself unable to ever forgive the people I know who voted for him. It borders on rage
Baud
@Schlemazel:
It’s especially easy not to forgive because they don’t feel sorry and aren’t apologizing.
MomSense
I keep thinking of what my grandmother used to say about the Great Depression. “If you had nothing when it started, you didn’t miss it when it was gone”
Elizabelle
Last, note Swedish PM Löfven’s more specific response to a question on election interference:
And Löfven’s background is interesting:
WereBear
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: So he ALWAYS lies! Makes sense.
rikyrah
What were the final numbers out of Texas?
Baud
@rikyrah:
https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/texas/
Elizabelle
@Lapassionara: Yeah. I can’t take much of Trump; have pretty much stopped watching news programs because of it. But had to laugh out loud last night when learned Cohn was abandoning ship. Top story on CBS, if memory serves.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Agreed. I think it’s a tell on lying.
And to Ozark and Schlemazel, my apologies to exposing you to Trump material so early in the day. I generally avoid as much as I can, but when I heard that CNN HLN excerpt, I got interested in the language and the puffing.
FWIW, the only reporter who was identified by full name in the transcript was some jerk from The Daily Caller. Yes, The Daily caller got one of very few questions. (It was a respectful one about North Korea.)
WereBear
Days like today makes me feel relief that I moved my pitiful 401k into non-Market harbors. I kept up with W and avoided big losses, but Trump is KAOS.
Baud
@WereBear: I did the same. Probably still a net loss but I have more peace of mind, and Trump isn’t done yet.
Schlemazel
@Baud:
damn, those are depressing numbers
Patricia Kayden
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Dr. Stein who pals around with Putin in Russia. Sure.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: Oh, no problem. You gave me a trigger warning and I was able to avert my eyes.
Baud
@Schlemazel:
Someone said the GOP turns out for the primaries because that’s really been where the election is decided. But yeah, not as great as the hype would lead you to believe.
MomSense
@WereBear: @Baud:
The good news for me is that I have a 20 more years to work and make it up.
Sigh.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
Driving home from work, I heard that clip about people lining up for WH jobs shortly after I heard Trump talking about how much he likes conflict and how it helps him do his best work. Taken together, there is no better reason to bar MBAs/CEOs/whatever from ever occupying the Oval Office, ever.
ETA: Couldn’t that reporter have pointed out how “conflict” and “difference of opinion” are not the same thing?
Waldo
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Pretty much any part of speech employed by Trump is an indication he’s lying.
Baud
@MomSense:
I don’t know how much time I have left. I don’t want to stress over it.
rikyrah
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Beautiful picture
Baud
@debbie:
The “conflict” strategy isn’t unreasonable if you have a strong leader at the top. Trump is not that, but he thinks he is.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Uh huh
Uh huh ??
debbie
@Elizabelle:
Also a limited vocabulary, which doesn’t speak well for his intelligence.
debbie
@Baud:
Strong leader, maybe, but that leader would need to be surrounded by sane people. There’s none of either at the moment.
rikyrah
@Kay:
A step is a step
WereBear
@Baud: Precisely. I also shared this plan at the time, in case it helped anyone.
Even the most bone-headed neocon should be able to see that the Republicans are bad for business. Bad for real business, of course, not the smash-and-grab it has become under their watch.
Baud
@debbie: Agreed.
rikyrah
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Zero Sum Moron
So apt.
So on point.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Thanks
Patricia Kayden
@debbie: But didn’t he boast about having “the best words” during the Republican primaries? He also claimed that he would pick “the best people” for his administration. **rolls eyes in derision**
Kay
Stormy Daniels lawsuit is interesting. It may just be boilerplate- the same hush money agreement the Trump’s make everyone sign in their sleazy wheeling and dealing- but it has paragraph after paragraph on tangible items she has to turn over. Images and text messages. Daniels had to list the people she told about this- there are 4 names.
Team Trump frantically set about shutting up Daniels at the same time as 18 other women came out and said Trump had assaulted them. But the other 18 women were ignored. So does Daniels have something they didn’t have? Photos or something?
WereBear
@Kay: Stormy Daniels (like the Parkland students) have the ability to muscle their way into the media conversation. That is the difference, sadly.
MomSense
@debbie:
He’s down to about 75 words. The other day when he went on and on about how people don’t ujnderstand the word comprehensive, some people don’t like things that are comprehensive, but I do like things that are comprehensive OK, because comprehensive is good I figured he had heard the word for the first time that morning. Don’t worry people who hate things that are comprehensive. He’s already forgotten that word.
OzarkHillbilly
All you need to know about today’s GOP:
@Baud: Maybe it’s just me but I always found “conflict” led to a poisonous environment full of backstabbing, lies, and deceit. And the person at the top? They were the main reason for it, either thru active participation or complete disinterest. The times when I found myself in such situations, I exited them post haste. Fuck that shit, life is too short.
Kay
I know this is rote at this point- but can you imagine if Obama had paid off a woman he was sleeping with weeks before the election?
It would be wall to wall coverage. The NYTimes would have 27 people on it.
Betty Cracker
Another tell that Trump was lying in response to the question about the rats deserting the sinking ship (I mean, aside from the fact he was flapping his gums): the detail he went into when describing how many people want to work at the White House. Top. Men.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Obligatory: We have top men working on it right now.
Kay
@WereBear:
Daniels had a multi-month relationship with him, too, which is easier to prove than “he assaulted me that one time I had the misfortune of meeting him”.
Baud
@Kay:
Fixed.
WereBear
@MomSense: Yes, and that is not the case for me, especially with my health issues pushing the deadline with a dozer.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Lapassionara: You’re welcome.
@rikyrah: Glad ya liked it, it can be a bit of a time sink though if you start looking at all the detail.
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
@MomSense:
Every single thing he’s said or done since the late 1970s has been a lie. Period.
rikyrah
@Kay:
No Kay…
I can’t.
I spoke with a friend last night, and he brought up Stormy. Then, he went on a tirade of how if this were any other President, this would be the end.
I told him, the TREASON overshadows everything. What’s a porn star when you have betrayed the country?
Baud
We’re imposing sanctions on North Korea because Kim assassinated his brother in Malaysia, but nothing on Russia?
Hmmm.
WereBear
Lord love a duck, I had a boss like that. “Darwinian Management,” red in tooth and claw. It sank his small business. It is sinking Sears now.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: Trump’s learned a new word. “Transshipping.” Used it twice. About the Chinese and steel.
And a definition:
(from an article in the Journal of Commerce)
Kay
@Baud:
You wonder how they justify it to themselves. Reporting on Harvey Weinstein’s serial offenses with women is more important to the public than reporting on the President of the United States on the same issue, at the same time?
It doesn’t make any sense. It is inexplicable that the Daniel’s story wasn’t reported in top tier media. It should have happened.
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t think they feel the need to.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
Could you imagine if Shrub had paid off a porn star? Of course, that would have to have been after he was born again to make an impact. Pre-saved, he could blame it on not knowing Jesus ??
Kay
@Baud:
The way to get Trump to do what you want is to flatter him. We’re not going to get into a war with a belligerent actor. We’re going to get into a war because someone flatters Donald Trump into joining them on some idiotic mission.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay:
More of a business relationship.
rikyrah
@Kay:
The thing that makes me smile is that it’s the money with Stormy that’s phucking them up and keeping this story alive.
He has no morals, Kay. That he cheated on his wife is no surprise. You can’t get him on morals. Those who voted for him don’t care about morals or character. But, the money…the money tells the story. Just like the money The Enquirer paid tells a story.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Russia doesn’t assassinate folk in Malaysia, just the UK. That’s the difference and it makes it OK.
WereBear
@Kay: Excellent point. And really, can our media resist a porn star making news? Not likely. Click bait central.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Probably easier to prove because of all the secret videos she made.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Joyce H:
Sounds Shakespearean! It’s on its way to my kindle.
rikyrah
@Kay:
You are correct, of course, with the Obama double standard. Just keep on collecting those receipts, Kay.
Kay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I agree. She’s got the goods, though. They went to a lot of trouble to shut her up UNLIKE the other 18 women.
Anne Laurie
@Kay:
According to some bloggers — via TPM, maybe? — there’s an unusual clause in that notorious contract about Trump retaining control of “all images, print and otherwise.”
Naughty twitterers’ minds immediately went to: DICK PICS! He sent her DICK PICS!
Since *everything* is projection with Trump, this is where we remember how he attacked ‘disgusting’ Anthony Weiner, and that ‘horrible’ HRC woman who employed Weiner’s wife…
MomSense
@Baud: @WereBear:
It was more of a woe is me joke about the number of years I still have to work. I am outwardly optimistic but I really haven’t enjoyed working since I stopped teaching. I loved teaching and was a first in the building, last to leave person even when I had to push a cart from room to room. Arts teaching is pretty much volunteer now.
Kay
@rikyrah:
The one that really sticks in my craw is the week-long freak out over Obama rebuking the police officer. They went nuts.
Trump insults people every day.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’d say it was 60-40 Dawgs but I may have been more.
different-church-lady
Krugman deserves a liberal Medal of Honor for what he goes through for us.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I was actually able to zoom in to where our seats were when we had season tickets to UCLA games, very cool.
Kay
@Anne Laurie:
I’m not sure it’s “unusual”, though. But I bet she has something, just because she caused such a frantic response and the rest didn’t. It’s a shame that these scumbags can use the legal system to hide their lives from the public, while insisting on doing things like running for office. I mean, honestly, fuck them. All other politicians lose all privacy – it’s part of the deal. These creeps want it both ways.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady: Krugman did work in the Reagan White House.
different-church-lady
@Kay: Can you imagine if he had merely ever cheated on Michelle once?
Can you imagine if he had ever kissed a white woman?
different-church-lady
The AP makes a funny:
Baud
@Kay: The one thing I hope is that we internalize all of this so that we don’t forget it once the Dems are in control again, like what happened in 2009-10.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
I don’t have to imagine. It was news. Here’s the Washington Post reporting on one of his past girlfriends.
Obama asked another woman to marry him but then “politics got in the way”. So regretful, Obama and his scheming Chicago ways. Tawdry, really, the fact that Obama was not a virgin when he got married.
WereBear
@MomSense: If it helps, you have time for the economy to turn around; my entry into the work world was around the time Reagan got his first term, and it has been literally downhill for me ever since, economically.
Left a corporate job when, in the space of three years, the new business mindset pared down a sweet benefit package and started firing people just before they would be pension-eligible; I saw the handwriting on the wall.
And I was right :(
Immanentize
@Kay:
I was thinking this exact thought yesterday:
Netanyahu –> Iran
Elizabelle
@WereBear:
It’s a tragedy. Caught a bit of Terry Gross’s interview with Jane Mayer yesterday. The Steele dossier information broke the same day the Access Hollywood pu$$y tape hit the news.
From an NPR recap of the program; will continue hunting for the full transcript and link. And do notice Wikileaks’ work. I hope they go down, hard.
I think a lot of our “flagship media” should go down hard, too. This is dereliction of duty, plain and simple.
I suspect Obama’s biggest regret is going to be not having gone public with the Russian interference, and Mitch Fucking McConnell be damned. It might have made a difference. Because big fucking media did not, and would not, do its job.
Kay
@Immanentize:
Yup. They told him exactly what he wants to hear, too- that he’s better than Obama. That’s all it takes. They’ll all figure it out if they haven’t already. He’ll be dancing like a puppet as long as they stroke him.
Elizabelle
Here’s the NPR Audio for yesterday’s Terry Gross Fresh Air interview with Jane Mayer. 42 minutes. Don’t see a transcript yet.
Also, note this cutesiness from NPR, from the recap story (link a few comments above):
I don’t pay much attention to NPR these days. It would seem that what one does is report, with full disclaimer that claim is unverified. They sure report a lot of unverified shit from Republicans — outright lies — and sit there with their yaps shut.
Good on the story for refuting the Trump/GOP lies about the dossier’s origin.
Another Scott
@WereBear: Sears may have been doomed as this guy kinda argues (note it’s 8 short pages), but the banksters certainly seem to find their ways to get their cut as the company bleeds. (The bits about Macy’s and BestBuy making their money on their store credit cards and extended warranties – and having actual stores and inventory is just a cost of business to keep people coming in to buy extended warranties – is kinda interesting.)
“… Montgomery Ward sent me a bathtub and a cross-cut saw! …”
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
Oh, bullshit. Just take you huge tax cut haul and go away. They all got what they wanted and it’s really insult to injury for them to be prattling on about “serving their country” They served themselves. Trump hasn’t done jack shit for anyone but the richest people.
danielx
If the Stormy Daniels lawsuit involves having to read or hear about Trump’s junk and sexual habits….I could just as soon do without.
rikyrah
@Schlemazel:
They should NEVER be forgiven
Kay
@danielx:
I think where they’re going with it is that Trump knew about the payment- authorized it. I know we all know he knew about it but they have to prove that.
Kay
@danielx:
They could reach the point where it’s a campaign finance violation. There’s a concept in that where one can’t use “conduits” to do something the person themselves wouldn’t be permitted to do. Most of the campaign finance issues are exactly that- conduits delivering money that the candidate can’t deliver.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So conservative economists are on the enemies list too?
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: Obama was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. There were no good choices. People will blame till time in memoriam because there are no consequences for them.
TS
@Elizabelle:
The media would have obsessed about him providing false information to support Hillary. Obama knew if he went public without support from republicans it would be seen as a partisan issue against Trump & he would not have been believed. It was a no win situation.
danielx
@Kay:
Probably true. On the other hand, Whitewater started out as a busted land deal and ended up with interminable discussion of the dreaded Clenis.
It was bad enough last night explaining “President being sued by porn actress” to the daughter unit last night. She was used to Obama, who she regards as “a nice man”.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle: I still don’t understand why the fuckity-fuck we were supposed to care about John Podesta’s emails, or why Big Media decided that the word “email” was treated as self-evidently more fascinating than anything else under the sun.
FlipYrWhig
@TS: I think it would have been something like “In an ever-tightening presidential campaign that may determine his legacy, President Obama warned of Russian interference to benefit Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton, an unusual move critics are calling an act of desperation to boost the floundering Clinton bid.”
danielx
@FlipYrWhig:
Yep. On and on and on, and fodder for unceasing investigation by the likes of Trey Gowdy.
MomSense
@WereBear:
I went to college right after Reagan decimated student loans and grants. We were handed off to loan sharks who made sure we had huge college debt just in time to enter the job market during a recession. Good times.
Baud
@FlipYrWhig:
And that would have been the lefty websites. Andrea Mitchell would have been much worse.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady:
He had a white girlfriend in college. Extensively reported on in Vanity Fair.
MomSense
@FlipYrWhig:
Crooked Obama is trying to save Crooked Hillary’s failing campaign. It’s rigged, believe me.
MomSense
@Schlemazel:
Some things are unforgivable. If you get the chance, Marc Maron does a funny take on this in his Netflix stand up special.
Weaselone
@danielx:
We were supposed to care about them because of what Republicans and other ratfuckers were saying was in them. The media is full of lazy, credulous morons when it comes Republican friendly spewage.
Jeffro
@Kay:
I’ll see your Obama comparison and raise you a Clinton one: just for giggles, picture if President Hillary Rodham Clinton
– had an affair
– shortly after the birth of her fifth kid, with her third husband
– with a porn star
– who she then paid off
– by having her lawyer set up a shell corporation
– a couple weeks before the election
Are. You. Kidding. Me? The GOP would have dropped her into a live volcano before we even got to bullet point #3
Elizabelle
@Weaselone: Yeah. The media is wired for Republicans. Period.
germy
@Jeffro:
germy
debit
@MomSense: Leaving without comment.
danielx
In other news, my man Dick Van Dyke is still rocking it at 92.
A national treasure.
Kay
@danielx:
When he was small my youngest just loved Obama. He really seemed to have some special appeal for kids.
For me, as a parent, I think he was a good role model. It’s as simple as that for me. If kids imitate what we do- and they do – then Trump is a lousy adult to imitate: mean-spirited, incurious, petty, dishonest, ungenerous. And he treats women like shit.
Jeffro
@germy: You can almost hear the volcano bubbling below, can’t you? I can.
danielx
@Kay:
All the above. It’s more than passing strange that Obama would seem to have been the Ideal president from an image standpoint – calm, steady, good family man, no hint of personal scandal, etc. – but Republicans hated and still hate him like the devil hates holy water. So to speak.
schrodingers_cat
@danielx: The awful treatment that President Obama got from both the prestige media and the elected Rs woke me up to the extent of racism in this country.
Kay
@danielx:
This is venturing dangerously into pundit territory, but I wonder if some of the white men who supported Obama connected with him as a father. We always bring that up with women – “she’s a mom, so mom’s love her!” but I wonder if there’s a connection that happens with fathers.
Then you have to think about what Trump supporters admire in a father and that’s too awful, so maybe best not go there.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: He is the bully they can never be. They live vicariously through him.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: I’d bet there’s HUGE overlap between people who like Donald Trump and people who are performatively nostalgic for the days when fathers beat their children.
MomSense
@Kay:
I think Chris Rock had it right in his special Tamborine. George Bush fucked up so badly we took a chance on a black guy.
Kay
We had three heroin overdoses last weekend. One was the kid of a prominent family. There are 7000 people in this town. I haven’t said anything to our Trump-supporting “community leaders” because I’m not an asshole but they have to be noticing that Trump hasn’t done jack shit to address this problem, that he palmed it off on another unqualified crony.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: What is his theory about the 2012 win?
Barbara
Trump has a reverse Midas touch. Whatever stimulus his tax cuts were going to give to the economy will be more than undone by his ad hoc idiocy on trade (even if you think there is a case for more thoughtful trade policy on manufacturing and other sectors, random tariffs that seem suspiciously devised and timed to help Russian oligarchs and Trump’s friends aren’t going to make that case), meaning that Republican strategy for the midterms has just been blown to bits. I don’t actually blame Gary Cohn for not resigning previously because he is, after all, the economic adviser, not in charge of some other policy. Watching Republicans acquiesce to anti-immigrant hysteria has been horrifying. Watching them sit back knowing, as they must, that Trump is animated by a desire to please his Russian masters makes me understand the appeal of revolutions.
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: How do these tariffs help Russians? I don’t immediately see the connection apart from the fact that this move is going to alienate our allies and trade partners and weaken us internationally.
David Evans
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Curses! My largest camera is only 20 megapixels. Of course I don’t have that gorgeous view either. Or, probably, the skill or the patience.
It’s a fine panorama.
rikyrah
Trump Plans to Blame Video Games for Gun Violence
Source: The Daily Beast
Industry officials feel like they’re being ambushed—set up to take the blame for the latest national tragedy.
LACHLAN MARKAY
ASAWIN SUEBSAENG
03.06.18 9:00 PM ET
President Donald Trump’s stated response to a mass shooting at a Florida high school last month was initially broad in scope. But in recent days, he and his aides have begun slimming down their ambitions, with a particular focus now on shifting more blame onto video games.
On Thursday, the White House is planning to meet with envoys of the video game industry to discuss how violent imagery on their platforms may desensitize young people to firearms—and even train them to be more effective killers. Industry sources tell The Daily Beast that they are worried the session will be an ambush—an effort to scapegoat them for shootings in schools.
The meeting comes after weeks of internal White House wavering on gun-related policy items, with the president endorsing a Democratic gun control wish list on live television, only to have the White House walk it back after Trump’s closed-door meeting with the National Rifle Association shortly thereafter.
Press secretary Sarah Sanders mentioned offhand at a press briefing last week that the president would be meeting with gaming industry representatives, signaling yet another shift in the internal policy discussion. But even that effort has been marked by disorder and internal confusion.
Matt McIrvin
@danielx: It made them angry that Obama did seem to be such a decent guy personally. That wasn’t supposed to be how it worked. The black Democrat couldn’t be the uncorrupt solid citizen.
So he pushed the other button: “Mr. Professor thinks he’s better than you”.
Elizabelle
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That is beautiful. The snow, the Hollywood sign, is that the Getty in the hills? I love LA and California.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@schrodingers_cat:
Weakens the economy and paints an economic target on our NATO allies (the shattering of NATO and trashing of transnational organizations that impede criminal money movement is Putin’s biggest goal).
Look at Assange priorities – ethnic division in the UK, ethnic division in Spain, anti immigrant fervor in Italy, the Netherlands, Deutschland, Denmark. Fomenting anti-EU, anti-status quo movements on both the left and right. All of this is working to grant Putinism a political victory over the Atlantic powers that he couldn’t get militarily or economically on his own steam. Assange is a big part of the tip of the spear, but make no mistake – the thing is wielded by Putin.
The thing that galls me most is just how cheaply they have gained this win – all they ever had to do is enlist our own right wing.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@rikyrah:
Best quote I saw came from LaPierre:
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: As annoyed as I usually am by moral panics over video games, I have to say I am looking forward to the Gamergater reaction.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: everything but the obvious…’harden’ the schools until they’re prisons, blame video game violence, arm teachers, make noises about ‘mental health’, blah blah blah. The problem is access to guns.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: Apparently the UAE in conjunction with one of the Russian oligarchs mentioned in these articles about the Seychelles began producing aluminum in the last five years. Don’t ask me to explain how, but apparently some people think the recent tariffs might redound to its benefit.
But her emails!!!
@Barbara:
The stimulus from the tax cuts was likely to be minimal in the short term and detrimental in the long term due to their impact on everyone below the top couple of percentiles, particularly once the Republicans began gutting things in the name of deficit reduction.
The tariffs regardless of whether they benefit Russia are plain stupid. They’re on inputs to for more important sectors of the economy than the ones they are propping up.
Solar Panels – protects jobs in domestic solar panel manufacturing and let’s be honest the real target: coal mining at the much larger number of jobs in solar installation
Steel and Aluminium – May protect a handful of steel and aluminum jobs, will cost jobs in the far larger automobile, machinery and even construction industries.
Barbara
@But her emails!!!: Totally agree, but the short term benefits of tax policy were being talked up immensely as a way to blunt Democratic momentum. The instant uncertainty that the tariffs impose (even if undone through legal action or reversal) will start influencing investment decisions almost immediately, although it might take longer for them to have an impact on people who are currently employed in sectors that use aluminum and steel (that’s a lot of sectors).
neldob
@?BillinGlendaleCA:Nice! I love panoramas so I’m not much of a critic (not much of one anyway so take with mountain of salt), but the dark building on the right looks like a black box.
Miss Bianca
@Joyce H: Sounds awesome!
Any thoughts/recommendations about devices for e-reading? I am a comparative Luddite who still prefers paper to pixels. I rather think I enjoyed the iPad the most, when I had a chance to take some devices for a spin. Going to be replacing the hard drive *and* the battery in my ancient Mac laptop, so maybe there’s a good Mac-based e-reader program?
Barbara
@Miss Bianca: I personally am on my third Nook. The most recent ones are Samsung devices. There is a simple one that is just around $100. My son uses an iPad for reading and it works well. I don’t really like the Kindle that we bought him probably because I was used to the Nook already, and I found the parental controls to be unintuitive and hard to use. It was also always pushing content at me and yet, it was strangely difficult to actually buy anything. If I really like an electronic book I sometimes buy it in hard copy if I think I want to read it again.
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: Interestingly, tho’, just as Sears online takes a massive dump, a new Sears bricks and mortar opened up in the next town over from me. This is a town where McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and the 7-11 all closed down in the past couple years (more because the locals seemed to prefer more localized alternatives), but they have a new Sears. Not sure what, if anything, that means.
Miss Bianca
@danielx: I’ve always had a soft spot for Dick Van Dyke, from the time I was a squeaker. First seeing him on his TV show, with the added benefit of Mary Tyler Moore, Morey Amsterdam, and Rose Marie, then Mary Poppins, and my all-time fave role of his, Professor Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which, altho’ running wildly divergent from the book plot, is still just an awesomely fun movie.
Corner Stone
@Miss Bianca:
It means that there is further proof that the scam artists running Sears continue to have no freaking clue what they are doing.