That gnashing of teeth you are hearing? Those wails? That's Bill Kristol as his pet flirts with Trump. https://t.co/LjQJ0WCs6U
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) March 20, 2016
From The Hill:
GOP White House hopeful Donald Trump huddled with Washington, D.C., Republicans in the shadow of the Capitol on Monday, an attempt by the political newcomer to appear more presidential as he zeroes in on his party’s nomination…
Not a single member of House or Senate GOP leadership attended the two-hour confab, however. Most attendees, like Hunter, were backbencher lawmakers who have already endorsed Trump. They include GOP Reps. Tom Marino (Pa.), Scott DesJarlais (Tenn.), Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) and Chris Collins (R-N.Y.).
Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) were on hand as well. Sessions has endorsed the real estate mogul, while Cotton not backed a candidate.
Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), now president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, also attended, as did former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), a failed presidential candidate in 2012, and his wife, Callista.
The Gingriches were later swarmed by reporters and TV cameras. Asked by The Hill for his main takeaway from the meeting, Gingrich replied: “The lunch was pretty good.”
Trump did pick up one endorsement after the gathering. Former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), who resigned from Congress in 1999 over an extramarital affair and is now a lobbyist, said he voted for another unidentified candidate but now is going all in for Trump…
The businessman also said he’ll release a list of seven to 10 potential choices for the Supreme Court to push back against concerns that he might not nominate a conservative — a charge made repeatedly by his main rival, Ted Cruz…
The Heritage Foundation is helping to draft the list of potential court picks, Trump said.
In case you’ve forgotten the details, Bob Livingston fled congress when Larry Flynt turned up evidence that he’d been calling for Bill Clinton’s impeachment while carrying on his own adulterous affair. I guess he admires Trump as a more successful hypocrite…
Poll: Majority of Americans want to punch Trump in the face https://t.co/KRwVwsc6g5 pic.twitter.com/FgukvynE4z
— The Hill (@thehill) March 21, 2016
(Okay, it was a SurveyMonkey web poll… but I couldn’t resist.)
Major Major Major Major
Self-promotion time: New chapter! Now with more hummus! https://imjustthisguyyouknow.wordpress.com/2016/03/21/the-fish-2-16/
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
When I saw “Hunter” in that second paragraph, my first thought was, “Hunter from Dailykos? Awesome, I can’t wait to read his post about it!”
LAO
How odious is Cruz, that DeMint and Heritage are backing Trump? Wrong thread, I know, but seriously.
BruceFromOhio
Crawling under a rock until September. The constant hits of Il Douche, Cruz, the Village, I have smoked myself straight and must now detox.
NotMax
Not a place I would normally link to, but thought this could be of interest (in a voyeurfreude type of way).
(Forced to use the brackets because the full name is an FYWP phrase due to a commenter banning.)
pseudonymous in nc
Newt? Minty Jim? Bob Livingston? A reminder that wingnut welfare is the grift that keeps giving to gits.
gf120581
It always is harsh for Kristol when his pets go rogue. Quayle and Palin went the same way.
BTW, Cotton is another prominent GOPer who gives off major serial killer vibes. He basically looks like Ed Gein gussied up in a suit.
Keith P.
I want to see “Are you a member of the Mar-A-Lago club?” an automatic question for Trump endorsers.
Princess
I can’t believe there hasn’t been more attention to the Trump WP interview. I have never seen anything so awful in my life. If you haven’t read it yet, here it is. Warning: can only be consumed in small doses:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/21/a-transcript-of-donald-trumps-meeting-with-the-washington-post-editorial-board/
And while we are arguing over who to blame for Trump, I’ll throw my idea in the ring. I blame John McCain. When John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his VP nominee, he gave legitimacy to the idea that a person could know absolutely nothing about anything and still be selected to be in line for the presidency as long as she scratched the right itches in her audience. An audience that was told Palin was worthy was primed for Trump.
Punchy
Heritage Foundation making his list? So should we expect Tom Delay, Sean Hannity, and Dick Cheney on it?
? Martin
@LAO: Cruz is that guy you encounter in life that you warn your kids to stay away from for reasons you can’t articulate – your lizard brain is just screaming ‘STAY AWAY’, so you do, and inevitably 5 years later you read in the paper that he molested kids or dismembered the neighbor.
jl
@Princess: That needs to be saved for posterity. A good chunk of the WaPo interviewers are almost as noxious as Trump.
Archon
A couple polls are out showing Trump at close to 50 percent with Republicans. This thing is over folks, Trump is going to be the nominee.
Princess
RYAN: This is about ISIS. You would not use a tactical nuclear weapon against ISIS?
[CROSSTALK]
TRUMP: I’ll tell you one thing, this is a very good looking group of people here. Could I just go around so I know who the hell I’m talking to?”
Chris
@Princess:
Funnily enough, I’ve read conservatives that try to turn this argument around and say that it was Obama who created the idea that a totally unqualified person could hold the job, because Obama had no experience or anything and was elected purely on his star power. Yada, yada.
jl
If we are required to assign blame, then the current debased and deranged incompetent con-persons running the GOP are to blame.
To blame for encouraging the environment in which a person like Trump could flourish.
To blame for being such incompetents, they forgot how to run their own damn con.
Past geniuses of soft demagoguery, masters of PR, bafflegab, distraction and dog-whistle handed them a finely tuned political social engineering machine, a work of art of the lowest order. And these goobers ran it into the ground.
No matter how you look at it, massive GOP incompetent pooh-bah fail. Question is whether they will take as all down with it.
Edit: the current GOP is what happens when pampered yes-people hacks and flunkies take over the controls.
LAO
@? Martin: from the thread below
Well done The Lodger!
jl
@LAO: The Cruziac should be his code name?
mclaren
Proof once again that all you cynics are dead wrong about the Republican party lining up behind Trump. There is some shit even Republicans will not eat.
And by the way…I blame electrophoresis for Trump.
Mike in NC
USA Today just featured an endorsement of space alien Cruz by Carly Fiorina which was utterly fact free, as one would expect.
Villago Delenda Est
@gf120581: I’d love to sit down with some of Cotton’s NCOs from Iraq over a beer or two and get the real skinny on him. Like how he managed to leave Iraq without being thrown down a flight of stairs in a wall locker.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
I ❤️ ? Nancy Smash (photo)
Technocrat
Holy shit that poll was posted on The Hill??
Man, this is truly crazy season.
jl
@Technocrat: It was an internet poll. But, still impressive results, even if not scientific polling;
Peale
@Princess: I don’t know. It’s as good of an answer as any to that question. I’d probably mumble on about the Prime Directive and talk about using the Hadron Collider to create a black hole that I’d have the air force push over places I thought ISIS might be.
chopper
@Technocrat:
honestly, that’s the first truly sane poll I’ve seen all year.
Redshift
@efgoldman: Same as always, we’re supposed to be impressed when Republicans who are out of office and don’t have to worry about paying a political price occasionally do the right thing or tell the truth about one of the GOP’s obvious lies.
Technocrat
@chopper:
I mean…it really is. That’s unbelievably funny.
NotMax
Enough already.
Friday’s mail: 2 different heavy stock, oversize glossy flyers from the Sanders campaign (both mailed from L.A., postage paid permit #75).
Saturday’s mail: 4 of them (duplicates of the same 2 received on Thursday).
Today’s mail: 2 more of the same.
None, BTW, on recycled paper. Plus I am registered with no party affiliation specified, thus can’t vote in the upcoming D caucus anyway.
chopper
@Technocrat:
I think we need to poll americans over who they’d rather punch in the face, trump or cruz.
mclaren
@NotMax:
Tomorrow you’ll wake up with a horse head in your bed and a warning to vote for Sanders.
Technocrat
@chopper:
Is it fair to make that an “OR”?
That seems cruel.
@mclaren:
Second actual LOL of the evening. I must be getting punchy.
chopper
@NotMax:
you’re not registered with the “death to trees” party?
chopper
@Technocrat:
I think the winning option would be “can’t it be both?” like line them up next to each other and do it all heck of three stooges style FROM THE DAY.
Eric U.
Trump is Reagan’s fault. I remember Republicans explaining Reagan’s hands-off style by saying that you can delegate the responsibility of the presidency. Then they tried to prove it with GWBush, and destroyed the hypothesis to anyone with a working brain. But they didn’t learn
NotMax
@mclaren
Hoping you meant next to a horse head.
Don’t recall Circe endorsing Sanders.
;)
? Martin
Ok, so the FBI now believes they can unlock the San Bernardino iPhone. Of course, they always had the means to do this given that the NSA is the biggest purchaser of zero-day exploits on the market. It’s almost a certainty that there’s an exploit in iOS that Apple doesn’t know about that the NSA paid big money to get. Problem is, the NSA doesn’t want to share that with the FBI because the FBI, being law enforcement (not intelligence), has to put their processes in court records rendering the unknown exploit suddenly known. The NSA doesn’t want that to happen, so they likely won’t share.
The FBI has to decide therefore what to do with the phone – unlock it via the NSA and make sure it never finds its way into an evidence trail (easy if they believe there is nothing on it), or let it go and continue to fight with Apple. Two law professors I talked to today think that Apple replied with a pretty strong case and that the FBI is on the losing side of this. Regardless, the FBI is most likely more interested in a proper legislative solution rather than deal with this crap all the time, and such a solution may be coming thanks to the FBI raising the profile of the issue.
I doubt the law will pass or if it does that it will take effect. Strong encryption is what makes online banking and commerce possible. It’s critical for almost every aspect of modern electronic life. Back doors will break damn near everything we rely on.
divF
@mclaren: I am LOL. Well struck !
randy khan
@? Martin:
It occurred to me a little while back that the FBI totally miscalculated. They thought they were dealing with a phone company – the phone companies always do what law enforcement wants so long as there’s a court order to protect them from lawsuits because the phone companies don’t care about their customers. Instead, they were dealing with a technology company, and those companies don’t really care if law enforcement likes them, but they do care – a lot – about what their customers think.
Also, and this is consistent with my experience in other areas, I think the FBI was totally outgunned on the technical issues.
WarMunchkin
@randy khan: I always wonder how much of cyber harassment and legal and policy issues involving the internet could be fixed just by having judges and legal professionals who actually understand what computers do. I’m not really convinced that that’s the case right now.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Totally different show, but suddenly have the urge to link to “Bottom’s Gonna Be on Top.”
? Martin
@randy khan:
Worse, they were dealing with Apple. Apple isn’t like most other tech companies because one of Apple’s core premises has always been trust with users. Devices are predictably (high) priced, predictably reliable, no surprises in terms of crapware, carrier influence, and so on. It’s a lot harder to stop being an Apple customer than it is to start. Google and Facebooks core premise is that everyone is a customer because it’s free – users have pretty low expectations when they aren’t paying anything. They measure their customer bases in % of humans alive. Both are approaching 25% of all humans.Their services are compelling because everyone uses them.
Apple relies on holding onto a smaller number of customers (still closing in on a billion, however) but having them come back year after year. That’s what the Apple stores do, and it drives so many of their decisions. Apple was going to fight to the death over this because they know from experience that trust is so hard to win back once lost, and because they have so much now invested in their security push (nobody else is designing custom hardware for security, and they’ve largely reinvented how to do secure transactions within ApplePay).
But Apple was also a bad target because Apple executives honest to god believe in this cause and they literally have more money than the US government to fight this. DOJ budget is ~$25B. That’s half a year’s profits for Apple. I know that they are working furiously to make sure that under no circumstances can they unlock the next iPhone (already pretty close with the 5S onward). I also believe that if the US passes a law mandating that they engineer a back door into the device that they will move the company abroad.
But that may also have been part of the FBIs plan. The FBI has to suspect that there is nothing of value on that phone, so winning or losing on that narrow issue is likely not important. What’s more important is gaining the means to unlock the next device, which might be a lot more urgent. Today this really felt like a play to force Congress to act. Not sure that’s going to work either, though.
? Martin
@WarMunchkin: Well, I agree that they don’t understand enough, but I’m not sure that would matter.
The first amendment + privacy laws makes social media predisposed to being a shithole. What would help is if companies had some responsibilities along the lines of California’s sexual harassment laws which makes supervisors liable for failing to deal with harassment. If you could sue Twitter for failing to ban/block known harassers, I think a lot of online behaviors would start to change.
I just don’t see any way for the courts to do much under the current set of laws. Congress is just too old, white, male, rich to understand most of the issues that plague the general public.
kdaug
@? Martin: Yep. He wears a yellow raincoat, and has pieces of old Mrs. Smithers in his fridge.
Prescott Cactus
@Mike in NC: I printed that on my Canon MX492 All in One printer.
The Lodger
@WarMunchkin: The first computer company I worked for literally owed its existence to a Federal judge who ruled that ROM couldn’t be copyrighted. Needless to say, he was overruled in about a year.
ruemara
@NotMax: well, he’s raising the most money, has the most staff, and isn’t spending anything down ticket. What else should he do but mass mailing the wrong targets?
NotMax
@ruemara
It’s also very, very unusual here to find campaign literature in one’s mailbox. In fact, hard pressed to come up with a previous such example. That’s how rare an occurrence it is.
rikyrah
@? Martin:
Interesting thoughts about the situation
SoupCatcher
@NotMax: I remember being gobsmacked, while canvassing for Jerry McNerney’s campaign in 2006, by a couple who said they sat down the night before the election and went through every single bit of campaign literature they had received in order to make their decision.
I’d always considered campaign literature to be on the order of spam e-mail, worthless except as recycling material, and more an example of penny ante patronage to direct mail companies than anything else.
Procopius
Since assigning blame for Trump is the game today, I’ll just say I blame Debbie Wasserman Schulz. Any head of the DNC who publicly sabotages three Democratic Party candidates to help “my friends” who happen to be Republicans should be made famous throughout the land. I don’t understand why that episode is mostly ignored by Democrats.
Dog Dawg
Okay, so how are we Hillary supporters expected to spin this “8 awful years” stuff from Bill Clinton? Just wanna get my marching orders right.
Nate Dawg
First time moderation thing. What kicks it off?
mclaren
@Procopius:
I blame Eozostrodons for Donald Trump. During the Triassic period, Eozostrodons were the earliest mammals, and, as we all know, one branch of mammals evolved into humans.
Without Eozostrodons we would not have Donald Trump. Therefore the entire Triassic period was a Bad Idea, and Eozostrodons should not have been allowed.
mclaren
@Nate Dawg:
If you type a diersis while it’s raining, moderation will kick in.
Using the subjunctive on Thursdays will definitely put you in moderation.
Referring to any form of blancmange during a period of high sunspot activity will lock you up hard in moderation.
Cacti
Breaking:
Apparent terror bombing near the American Airlines ticket counter at Brussels Airport. At least one death, multiple injuries.
Link
infovore
@Cacti: Updates talk about at least 13 dead and 35 injured. There was also an explosion in a subway station in Brussels, with 10 dead reported.
Zinsky
The lede for this article should have been, “Asylum inmates vote for biggest looney as their leader”. Sheesh. Who gives a f*ck what these losers think??
WereBear
@gf120581: The South at least lets one go Gothic. The Midwest offers no outlets whatsoever.
Mwangangi
Anyone covering the explosion in Brussels?
bemused
I’ve been watching live coverage on BBC online.
raven
@Mwangangi: MSNBS is .
infovore
There isn’t all that much to report.
The explosion at Zaventem Airport is now believed to have been a suicide attack. Reported casualties are at least 13 dead and 35 injured, but at this point these numbers are provisional.
The other site is Maalbeek subway station, where the casualties are reported to be 13 dead, with no indication of how many people have been injured. Again, treat these numbers as provisional.
Public transport in Brussels has been shut down, and people have been advised to stay indoors.
In the political area the usual suspects are saying the usual things.
raven
@infovore: Oh bullshit.
David Lloyd-Jones
@Princess: Hasn’t anyone blamed Bill Clinton yet?
In retrospect, he could have said, “If you go out and savage all those guys by saying how you bought and sold ’em, we’ll make you special envoy to Russia.”
-dlj.
raven
@David Lloyd-Jones: Obama better come back from Cuba or motherfuckers will have a stroke.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@raven: The President has Ø fucks to give.
Weaselone
@Dog Dawg:
I’d be more worried about coming up with a spin that justifies the Sander’s campaign eagerly feasting on the vile, dishonest horseshit fed to it by a Republican PAC. He’s supposed to be the honest, straight talking politician who is not a politician.
Applejinx
@NotMax:
That is interesting. Not even that surprising, in a way. Isn’t the charge against welfare that when you straight-up give people stuff, some of them double down and some get morose and feel worthless?
I don’t think it works that way for corporations except as they’re run by humans (which may be coming to an end as soon as they can devise an AI CEO: we’ll know that happens when they start beating the human-run corporations every time) but it doesn’t shock me to think that the uberwealthy are a little demoralized.
If the game is that rigged and they (obviously) can see it, it’s dispiriting because it means they didn’t win. They’re not gonna turn it down, but given that it becomes all about winning and losing (and not subsistence) it must be dispiriting.
This would translate into the constant pressure against progressive tax structure, etc, being more out of habit than it used to be. I think they won so hard they’re, as a class, kind of depressed and sulky about it. These people want to think themselves heroes, but the system makes them cheating assholes and I’m not surprised some of them are kind of pissy.
Uncle Cosmo
@NotMax: Tomorrow “mclaren” will wake up with a horse’s arse in his bed. Just like he does every other day. Even (especially!) when he sleeps alone.
Sondra
Just for fun I tuned into “Dancing with the Stars” last night and can you guess who turned up as a new contestant? Hint: she was catapulted to fame as the first marital infidelity of the Donald (that we knew about). That’s right – Marla Maples.
He got a half dozen mentions when they introduced her. We haven’t heard of her in all these years but voila! – here she is again. It was as if she had never disappeared, with her “sweaty lucre”, into the nicely financed obscurity of Mommyhood she so richly deserved.
She looks wonderful btw and she danced very prettily too. I’m predicting that she will get high marks and remain a contestant for as long as the show can take advantage of the free advertising associated with the Donald’s name remains high as well.
Did they ask her any questions about her ex? Yep. Her answer was…wait for it…”his hair is fine!”.
Was his teevee show on the same station I wonder? Will he sit in the audience with their daughter and cheer on the former Mrs. Trump? Stay tuned to find out.
raptusregailter
The funniest part of this story is that Callista tagged along with Newt. Knowing full well that he is a serial adulterer (heck, that’s how she got him), I imagine she never lets him out of her sight.
J R in WV
@Nate Dawg:
It’s like spam filters, it seeks words even if embeddded in other longer words, so male dis function drugs, games of chan ces or places where they are played will trigger it, or too many links embedded.
They will dig you out of the spam filter now that you have mentioned it. If you embed a pair of html commands into the word casino like so it can’t see the underlying word that will be displayed.
Are you in Bahstan?
catclub
@Princess:
and who gets major blame for Palin? Bloody Bill Kristol!
Shana
@NotMax: Another question is did they have the union “bug” indicating that they were printed at a union shop? No self respecting Dem here in Virginia would dare send out anything without one.