Remember that gauche “give me money to spend 45 minutes with my sister” scam Uday (or is it Qusay?) Trump was running? Yeah, that shit’s been shut down:
WASHINGTON — An auction offering a 45¬ minute private meeting with Ivanka Trump in exchange for a charitable donation was abruptly canceled Friday after questions were raised about the process by ethics experts, who said it appeared to offer bidders special access to the next first family.
Ethics concerns — hoocoodanode? Eric Trump, whose stubborn case of “resting sociopath face” is perhaps a factor in the decision to recruit his famous sibling for the auction rather than representing his eponymous foundation himself, was none too pleased about the derailment of the annual sister-hustle:
Eric Trump issued a statement as well, expressing regret that the charity effort had to be called off. “Today, the only people that lost are the children of St. Jude,” his statement said.
Then write a check to St. Jude yourself, cheap-ass Little Lord Fauntleroy. Oh, right — Trumps never open their own wallets, preferring instead to funnel other people’s money into charities that double as private slush funds.
This tacky-ass horde of parasitical grift-mavens will be so mired in scandal by March that Comrade Putin might be forced to take things into his own iron fists lest his new BFF Republican Party-Before-Country Party become unelectable for 10 generations.
Baud
That would have made the irony complete.
OzarkHillbilly
“Hey Meeester, ju want to buy my seeester? She virgin.”
JPL
@Baud: Fox news would normalize that. (whatever that is)
BillinGlendaleCA
Gawd, this family’s worse then the Bushes, I really didn’t think that possible. On that note, I’m headed to bed. I’m going to make another attempt at getting the color on my tat(if I don’t chicken out yet again).
Raven
Lawrence Colburn, an Army helicopter gunner who along with two comrades intervened in the U.S. slaughter of unarmed villagers in My Lai during the Vietnam War, an act of heroism for which he received the Soldier’s Medal three decades after the fact, died Dec. 13 at his home in Canton, Ga. He was 67.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lawrence-colburn-soldier-honored-for-intervening-in-my-lai-massacre-dies-at-67/ar-AAlF7K3
bemused
Jr and Eric look like mobsters with their slicked back hair.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: thanx
Shalimar
@OzarkHillbilly: He really did seem to think he was auctioning off time with his really hot, married sister. I’m not sure it ever occurred to the idiot that people would see it as cheap access to get ideas to daddy Trump, or Eric would have done it himself.
Jeffro
There was a funny Tweet about it: something like “If only there was a Foundation that the Trump family was able to endow, that could then make charitable donations to St. Jude. Hmm.”
Would have been doubly funny if there had been room to add: “Ah well…better call the Clinton Foundation.”
The Pale Scot
@bemused: eric looks like the guy central casting sends over when the script call for “a Nazi looking guy, like in those Harrison Ford movies”
Really, who the hell under 70 slicks back their hair in 2016? I think it’s to hide the Mark of the Beast growing on the back of his head.
I’m going to start not capitalizing the trumpkin’s names, it’s weak and pathetic , but
I’m just the guy to do it.
Botsplainer
So how much does 20 minutes with Lucretia cost? She is physically appealing to me, and it would be abou 10 times longer that’s the “a few grunts and release” lovin’ that Donald undoubtedly provides….
Fester Addams
Inappropriate. She’s a big girl, she can peddle her own access.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Even in a hellhole like that there were people who stood up.
OzarkHillbilly
@bemused: The 2 most slappable faces in America.
Botsplainer
By the way – io Saturnalia.
satby
@Botsplainer: sometimes you’re twisted, you know that? I love that about you.?
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Yep.
satby
@Raven: An actual hero, may be rest in peace.
Fuck LBJ
satby
@Raven: An actual hero, may he rest in peace.
Fuck LBJ
Jeffro
Btw it is icy as all heck here in NoVA…had to walk the dog in circles in our front & back yards because the sidewalks are impassable. Should clear up in a few hours but still. Folks in the area, be careful and stay off of the roads until lunchtime at the earliest.
Elmo
Don’t solicit for your sister, that’s not nice;
Unless you get a good percentage of her price.
-Tom Lehrer
bemused
@The Pale Scot:
Your comparison fits better, definitely nazi-ish.
I saw some of Trump FU rally on one of the msnbc shows last night. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t seen him performing for his Trumpbots lately but man, he sounds even more unhinged now. Anyone else think he’s not going to make it much longer without having a full blown mental meltdown? Maybe it’s just my wishful thinking.
Immanentize
I am at my Mom’s house (where I grew up) in upstate New York. It is snowing and sleeting. But today is the day my brother and I must move her furniture to her new independent living apartment. I sweat 2016 has just been full to the top With depressions and barriers. Merry Christmas, y’all. ???
On the other hand, this move is a really positive step in her life and the family’s constant worries will be greatly reduced. So, Merry Christmas!! ?
JPL
@Raven: Thank you for posting this.
Immanentize
@Raven: Thanks for sharing. 67 is very young but they say the good die young.
That would have made him only 19 when he tried to stop the horror. Brave.
azlib
Grifters gotta grift. Its the law of the universe.
JPL
@bemused: From Sopan Deb’s twiiter feed
Trump exists on junk food and adulation from the crowd. Without both of those, he would have a meltdown.
Botsplainer
@satby:
Want twisted? Made a Christmas ditty I posted downstairs a bit ago, after some pre-Christmas Family Court drama. One of the biggest guilty party lawyers (who loves to file “emergency” motions over petty Christmas shit) actually blew up and defriended me over the mockery of it. I had to delete his comment,LOL
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Step lightly.
geg6
@Raven:
RIP. A true hero.
Botsplainer
“Suck it, Tiny Tim, you moocher”.
#MAGA
Botsplainer
I’m experimenting with bumper sticker phrases.
“Full Day’s Work for a Full Day’s Pay, Cratchit”
#MAGA
Spanky (ex P-man)
@OzarkHillbilly:
Ted Cruz still lives.
Sadly.
Botsplainer
“Are There No Workhouses?”
#MAGA
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer: “Got Vaseline?” is on the back of my truck.
Debbie(aussie)
@Raven:
A person of courage and integrity. The worldneeds many more of them. May he rest in peace.
Botsplainer
@OzarkHillbilly:
I like it when they’re dripping with sarcasm. The stock families with a missing figure or being chased by an axe murderer. Darwin fish. “My kid beat up your honor student”…
JPL
@Botsplainer: I’d go with Tiny Tim is a moocher MAGA
debbie
@Shalimar:
Or that he was pimping her in general.
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky (ex P-man): Ted Cruz now bows down before before Trump. I can think of nothing more emasculating.
debbie
@Raven:
Yes. It shouldn’t have taken 3 decades to hear them.
debbie
@Elmo:
I just finished watching the first season of Game of Thrones. This reminds me of the Targaryen siblings. Perhaps Eric will experience the same outcome.
Mai.naem.mobile
@Jeffro: it actually would be funny if either Clinton or some famous rich liberal came in and paid whatever amount they had raised. A rich NYr like Bloomberg would be the best just to needle Eric and Lumpy
OzarkHillbilly
Heh, just found this pic of a sculpture in Copenhagen which I’m sure many of you already know of:
Baud
@debbie: #WakeTheDragon
Grung_e_Gene
@bemused: every man who wears that hair style is axiomatically a douche or an asshole.
debbie
@Baud:
I want one.
Baud
@Raven: A lesson in there somewhere.
Botsplainer
@JPL:
That’s more in the spirit – yeah, I see it.
Spanky (ex P-man)
@OzarkHillbilly: True, but you were saying they were the 2 most slappable faces in America, and Cruz’s face immediately came to mind. Especially since he’s 2-faced as well as highly slappable.
bemused
@Grung_e_Gene:
Lol, I have to agree. My immediate impression of a guy choosing that hair style is that he’s a punk who has an overinflated and undeserved opinion of himself.
debbie
@bemused:
Which is why that’s the cut of choice on Wall Street.
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky (ex P-man): For some reason I find those 2 more slappable. I think it is the smug smirks on their $1,000 a week, young, flawless faces with their perfectly coiffed hair.
tybee
@OzarkHillbilly: lol
JMG
@OzarkHillbilly: You’d think they’d look at Dad and see the unhappy eventual fate of that hairstyle.
bemused
@debbie:
Ha! I hadn’t made that connection but you’re right.
Davis X. Machina
@Raven: I have a history teacher colleague who has a thing dedicated to Colburn. He does it when th English classes read What They Carried. Kids need to know about him.
I’m guessing there isn’t a Legion post named after him.
Botsplainer
I think I found footage of the auction of Lucretia!
kindness
Who here has heard rumors that the CIA was in on Kennedy’s assassination?
Use the board game Clue as a similie to describe what might happen to Trump, but open it up to a worldwide place setting.
Kay
I like Perez but I may change my mind if Ellison succeeds in getting them to pay attention to a state:
They can do a lot more than “lawyers”. They can send money to the state Party to hire North Carolina organizers and political people. Locals. Not 22 year old recent college grads they bring in. People who live there and will stay on after the crisis is over. They already have “experts”- they have the Democrats in the state legislature who run for election NC over and over again. North Carolina public school teachers are a big part of the resistance in NC, so much so that Barber is invited to speak to their groups. Hire a retired AA teacher to organize an AA rural county on a one year contract. It’s like 30k. How much did they just spend on a national election? They could cover the whole state for half a million dollars. Stop treating these places like remote outposts where saviors have to parachute in. Local, local, local.
Botsplainer
@Kay:
Inflict some beatings, light some homes and businesses and plant some car bombs among the demographic of puffy, pasty NCGOP legislators and they’ll be too scared to pull a stunt like this ever again.
cmorenc
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Did you ever think it possible to find yourself agreeing with that meme where underneath a profile pic of George W Bush, it said “miss me yet?” It’s surreal that Trump is so many orders of magnitude worse than Bush, that offered the choice (and only that choice) of Bush (perhaps in the form of Jeb) – you’d seriously consider taking it? Geez this is surreal – like that children’s perverse game of “would you rather slide down a bannister made of razor blades or have to swim across a lake of bloody snot”.
OzarkHillbilly
Ventana Jack’s Cabin.
A longish read, but worth it.
Kathleen
@Raven: Those 3 men were heroes. May he rest in peace. I believe the helicopter pilot died a few years ago. I would hope a movie would be made about them.
JPL
@Kay: That’s a great suggestion, and hopefully you email Ellison and Perez. Someone needs to act now.
Raven
@Davis X. Machina: The Things They Carried, Tim was in the same Division, The Americal, and he knew the score.
Kathleen
@kindness: I have. I still believe there was a rogue faction involved. JFK gets short shrift with younger Democrats/progressives in my opinion. ETA I don’t think modern history has been kind to him. I think he posed a danger to a powerful faction in the “Deep State”. Not nuking Cuba in 1962 was a courageous decision. He pissed off many powerful people.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: It’s a great book. Disturbing.
ETA: Uncomfortable might be the better word, left me feeling unsettled.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
I keep telling wingers that they elected the criminal enterprise that the puke funnel told them they were voting against.
The are in denial so far.
Botsplainer
@cmorenc:
I’ve been telling people this all week. Regardless of how awful he was as an executive (highly manipulable), W at least never seemed like a personally obnoxious man, and his wife and kids were perfectly nice. His dad was pleasant enough.
Shit, cold and conniving as Nixon was, the guy wasn’t obnoxious.
Kay
@Botsplainer:
Right, well, as you know lawbreaking is against the law :)
Democrats supposedly have all these creative people but the answer is always “send lawyers now that this crisis has already occurred!” They need infrastructure, not a crew to survey the damage and issue a report. If we’re going to be the working persons Party we should probably hire some workers. We have enough managers. Too many. No more free interns either. Stop skimping on the bottom tier. They’re the most important, and demanding people work for free is gross and greedy and it devalues work.
They could actually model what they talk about in their own organization.
tybee
@OzarkHillbilly: cabin porn
Botsplainer
As I think about it, when some awfulness occurs, Trump’s obnoxiousness is likely going to drive away that “rally round the President” factor, particularly if it involves an attack on a family member or his business interests. We’ll be in some uncharted territory here.
Botsplainer
@Kay:
The interface with the consumer is at the bottom tier – may as well give that a shot.
Schlemazel
@Botsplainer:
Ah, the majesty of the law.
JMG
@Kay: You are completely right. Another group of people as possible recruits for such organizing are retirees. No age group is more politically active as voters, and they include Democrats.
Kay
@JPL:
I say it at meetings of Ohio Democrats so they know :)
I incessantly harangue them. I may be a crank at this point.
There is something blocking this, some capture of some kind, some reluctance to part with control or money. It’s not just the mainstream Party either. Bernie Sanders creatively raised all that money and then he dumped it into back to back tv ads in Ohio. He sent it all to media outlets. We have lazy managers – they only know how to do a couple things.
catclub
This caught my eye.
haha – the Democrats in 1865 – the true forebears of today’s GOP, went only 12 years before getting back in the saddle. They lost a war and hundreds of thousands of lives. The under for their vote percentage is now known. 46%
rikyrah
I loved your commentary BC???
catclub
@Davis X. Machina:
But probably plenty after Bob Lee, Jeff Davis, Bedford Forrest, or Hood.
Kay
@JMG:
Right. People who already know people. It doesn’t make any sense to hire someone from out of state every 4 years who has to start over. We don’t even need a political Party for that. That’s ” a campaign”. It;s like they follow the most horrible corporate model- permanent well-compensated managers who are out of touch and far away and low or no pay temps to do all the work. Their own organization doesn’t reflect their values or the workplace model they promote.
danielx
@Jeffro:
Same in central Indiana, my driveway is a ski ramp. As are the local interstates..actually they’re more like parking lots, with people running out of gas after sitting still for hours. Any plans to go out are on hold, essential traffic only, etc etc.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay, Perez had already commented on North Carolina and how it was an affront to democracy. Funny how Ellison also comes forth with a statement.
Uh huh
Baud
@Kay: The right runs a permanent campaign through their media and churches. We don’t yet, clinging instead to a platonic ideal of governing and policymaking. That screwed us IMHO.
OzarkHillbilly
@tybee: One of my favorite sites.
Schlemazel
@Raven:
I cannot imagine being in his position, not as a kid, not as an old man. I am sure there are many people who feel the war was lost because of him (aiding and abetting Hanoi Jane, of course). While the killers went on with their anonymous lives and their superiors advanced in their careers. Some even as far as Secretary of State. I hope he found peace before he died, he deserves to be honored
Dadadadadadada
@bemused: If he had such a meltdown, how would that look different from what he’s shown us for the last year and a half? Who would even notice?
tybee
@OzarkHillbilly: i’ve spent many an hour wandering through that site. thanks for posting the link to it months ago. the video of jack talking about his cabin and his life is outstanding.
Mike in NC
Sopranos in the White House would be a step up from these imbeciles.
Kay
@rikyrah:
We back Perez but we have to be “open minded’ Wink, Wink :)
The first one who hires 100 North Carolinians gets my support! They better get cracking.
Van Buren
@Kay: We need to make previous boycotting and sanctions look like child’s play. NC must feel the consequences of this coup.
Spanky (ex P-man)
@Kay:
You are. That’s what we love about you. Don’t ever stop.
Botsplainer
@Kay:
That traditional Democratic kind of campaign runs on a pathetic template – overly produced triangulated commercials on TV for statewide offices,senate races and congressional elections and a slew of yard signs. Little engagement.
All it does is enrich the media players.
Frankly, Democrats for those races do much better when they treat it like a judicial or municipal election – lots of shoe leather, appearances at genuine local events (big Catholic parish picnics and community festivals). You have to take beatings a lot – very rarely do you bat it out of the park the first shot out, it usually takes about six years while you build critical mass.
bemused
@Dadadadadadada:
I was thinking a meltdown on the scale where there would be no choice but admit him to a hospital for mental evaluation. He’d have to start raving bad enough that even his supporters couldn’t ignore it. I can dream, can’t I?
Kay
@Baud:
Having observed this for ten years in a swing state and giving it a ridiculous amount of thought, the mechanics are less noble than that. Purely as a management approach I would say that Democrats are relying on data collection to replace Party building. They think they can parachute in and have no infrastructure because they have data- they can find their voters. But that’s not a relationship, it’s not what political Parties are for- that’s what campaigns are for. They don’t have an ongoing local relationship with their base. You hear it at state Party meetings. They’ll say “we polled and blah blah blah”. They POLLED? Why don’t they know what their base is interested in? Couldn’t they talk to them in between campaigns? It’s like this ultra-savvy model, over-managed, over-thought. There’s some premium on “cleverness” in the Democratic Party, an attraction to quick fixes. Frankly, they need to value WORK more.
They’re not limousine liberals. They’re Uber liberals. It’s a bad model and it contradicts what they say they value. It’s based on bad private sector models. Invest in the lowest tier. They’re the local face of the Party.
dr. bloor
Yeah, it took the country all of eight years to forget Shrub’s clusterfuck.
You’re a dreamer, Betty, I’ll give you that.
Baud
@Kay: Not that I disagree, but I don’t feel like the base is one thing. We seem to have many bases, each calling itself The Base.
Davis X. Machina
@Van Buren:
If the regime is odious enough, and people don’t mind being beaten or shot, you can accomplish a lot. Like ending Jim Crow.
You can make a state ungovernable. Or make the apparatus of the state largely irrelevant.
Sometimes — East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary — it works.
The state police, and the National Guard, I believe, are even after the recent legislation, still under the control of the new Democratic governor.
hovercraft
@Baud:
See that’s why Qusay took it down, the shitgibbon kept bidding for this tremendous ‘opportunity’. General outrage is never reason enough for this klan to not bare their asses in public, proof of his ‘close’ relationship with his favorite daughter on the other hand…..
MazeDancer
@Baud:
That is such an important point. The GOP has a built-in network, GOTV, permanent army in the churches.
There is no separation of church and state in the GOP. In fact, they don’t want a separation. And “Christians” of every stripe and income level believe they are supposed to “turn over” every aspect of their lives to “the Lord”. Not just “His Will Be Done”. But that making choices about their own lives, by themselves, is sinful.
Many, many, many communities – including most of the prosperous white South – exist around “the Lord’s will” and their church. They are already authoritarian societies. They believe their job is to bow “to Him” and spread that bowing among the sinful.
Maybe Dems gotta go back to the old, old, old school of being part of the fabric of society. Potluck dinners, meetings, fun events of the Democratic Party. Make membership be an active, community-oriented thing. Because having it be a, maybe, every 4 year vote isn’t working on the local level at all.
Kay
@Baud:
In places like Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin Democrats essentially relied upon labor unions to stay in touch with working people. Labor unions made it possible for them to hear from them. As there were fewer and fewer labor unions they didn’t replace that link. My county group of Democrats meets in a Steelworkers hall. “Democrats” and “labor” are essentially interchangeable here.
As labor got weaker Democrats got weaker too- there was nothing to replace ” a local”. They need “locals”. They have to stop believing they can skip the hard work and pull a rabbit out of a hat every 4 years. These models of organizing have survived for decades for a really good reason- no one has ever replaced them with anything better. “A local” is just what the name says.
germy
@Baud: It’s all about The Base, no treble.
Kay
@Baud:
No, it’s not that complicated. Stop looking at it nationally. No big theories.
On a local level the base are the people who show up. Everyone else is not the base. It’s easy.
The base will be different in rural NC and NC urban centers, but that’s OKAY, that’s as it should be.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ellison has talked about this, it’s one of the reasons I tend to lean Ellison in spite of seeming inability to either see, or do something about, the counter-productive sanctimony of one of his significant surrogates, whom I shall call Wilmer.
Baud
@Kay: I agree. We’ve lost a lot of our local organizing structures. I think some of that was done in the name of democratization (no more party bosses making deals in the back room). But we don’t have a solid replacement for that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
It’s hubris Kay. People at the top (of any organization) always think they are the smartest person in the room, and everybody else is just there to do what they’re told.
Baud
@Kay:
Only if they work together on statewide and presidential candidates.
Davis X. Machina
@OzarkHillbilly: You must work in education…
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I haven’t done a deep review of candidates, but from what I know, none are really offensive to me. I like Perez because I have always liked him, but I can’t say for sure he’s the right person for this job.
I’m glad that it looks like he or she will be a full time person, however.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The ObamaBros podcasters– a group of young-ish Obama speechwriters who talk politics, Keepin’ It 1600– were saying, back when thy e election was over and the only question was would Tim Kaine have to go to the Senate to get HRC’s nominees confirmed, before the Dark Day they were ranting about how people want campaigns to be a novel, but campaigns are science, they’re all about numbers and data. They’ve admitted they got it all wrong since, and that had they been in the HRC HQ, they wouldn’t have seen the problems coming, but I haven’t seen them address that specific point, that it’s not, in fact, all about data.
Kay
@Baud:
You don’t have to define the base. The base of the GOP just voted for Donald Trump. Does it matter that they fit no definition of the GOP base? This is the reason I think the Bernistas have the wrong approach. They think it works the other way- they think if they define the base that creates one. “Bases” are just collections of people. The composition is determined by the people in them, not a dictionary definition.
Davis X. Machina
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s never not been about data, albeit not about just the data.
Jim Farley, FDR’s fixer-cum-Postmaster General, used to win bets by having people name a town on the East Coast, and a town on the West Coast. He’d then rattle off the names of all of the counties a line connecting them would cross, and the Democratic party chairman in each. First campaign manager to make wide use of polling, too.
Baud
@Kay: You can say it, Kay. Our base is neoliberal. :-)
But what I’m saying is that those collection of people have to buy into the overall system, which includes other collections of people who might have diametrically opposed policy views. Dems need to be able to take policy positions without it being a “betrayal” to some group of Dem voters.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
What Big Data does is make it possible to ignore relationships. We found this out with policing. The data was telling them to pick up hundreds of people! It was fucking INSANE but they kept doing it because that’s what the data said!
We’re finding it out with education- another Big Data project. Schools aren’t about data sets. They’re about relationships between human beings. You cannot cheat people on this. They know it. People rebel against it- they know it’s not a relationship. It cheats people. It’s a short term fix.
debbie
@Kay:
Relying on data for anything, even marketing, is a mistake. Data is no substitute for common sense and knowing your market (as in, voters). even at its very best, you’ll just be chasing conditions that have already changed.
PaulWartenberg2016
By March?
These Randian oligarchical con artists are already mired it and it’s DECEMBER.
The problem is NO ONE in a position of authority to do something about it WILL DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.
we’re screwed.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
My son’s test scores always tell me something I already know. Because I know him. I pay attention to him. The state and federal government need his “data” to track giant trends. I don’t. His English teacher reads his essays. She doesn’t need his score. If we had local people they won’t need data except for GOTV, and GOTV happens after the hard person to person work is done.
Davis X. Machina
@Baud:
The Bernie-NotBernie battle at one level had nothing to do about Bernie. It was a fight over whether the Democratic Party should be a vanguard Party, or a mass party. Leaving this to fester unresolved for another 4 years is sowing the seeds for disaster.
Baud
@Davis X. Machina: Yeah, it’s like “50 State Strategy” but “Purge the Blue Dogs.” Which is it?
Botsplainer
Big Data failed badly.
tobie
@Kay: I like the distinction you’re making between a party and a campaign. It makes sense to me, and it clarifies what the differences are in the responsibilities of the DNC (building strong local chapters, stating the values of the party as a whole) and state-wide and national campaigns. We’ve turned the DNC into an arm of the presidential campaigns rather than treating it as a separate entity, which is active even in off years.
I don’t see local organizing as opposed to data collecting. I think we can do both.
Baud
@tobie:
I may be wrong, but I don’t think that has ever been seen as a responsibility of the national committees of either party. But maybe it should be.
Corner Stone
@Baud:
YOU RANG??
Davis X. Machina
@Baud: State parties traditionally performed this role.
DNC is at base an aggregation of state-level people, seconded to national headquarters.
National Committee members tend to be state-level people, too, together with some mostly ex-officio office-holders.
Hellbastard
@Raven: It’s heroes like that that motivate me not to give up no matter how dark it gets around here.
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina:
Can you flesh that out a little? Doesn’t a party have to consist of a collection of special interests?
Corner Stone
@bemused:
That whole gross family is stuck back in the Reagan era and when Wall Street came out.
OzarkHillbilly
@Davis X. Machina: Nope, a union carpenter (now semi retired)
O. Felix Culpa
@Davis X. Machina: Good morning! You mentioned recently that you’re reading up on successful resistance movements of the past several decades – any recommendations?
Right now I’m reading Résistance by Agnes Humbert, which is a worthy memoir of courage and helps put our situation in perspective.
ETA: Résistance is from the diary of a woman who helped form one of the first resistance cells after the fall of Paris. She was arrested and sent to labor camp in Germany, which she survived. Most of her compatriots were shot.
Aleta
@Raven: A strong, strong man.
RSR
hahahahahahaha…
IOKIYAR, wrong, but for the right reasons, etc.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The douchebag son in law is out meeting with elites bragging about his genius campaign. He wears sneakers and a suit, so he’s very innovative.
ANYWAY, it’s all “we manipulated media and used our own media and Facebook”. No organizing. No relationships. I feel like we can beat that with hard work because it’s just a variety of quick fix. It’s more genius cage-busting bullshit. Business people are incredibly vulnerable to faddish management nonsense. They’re really pretty shallow and easily fooled.
Mike in NC
@Corner Stone: Trump family motto: “Greed is Good”
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
You are right that the local organizing structures have been moribund in many places for a long time. I wonder if this election is the opportunity to revitalize – and restructure – them. We’re working on that in my county. I’m running for election as Ward Chair in my district and others who were active in the campaign are doing the same in their wards. We’re also working on plans to attract more grassroots involvement assuming we get elected. Our thought is to focus more on issues-based activism than on pure “ward” structures. I don’t expect much help from the DNC. We have to do this ourselves.
ETA: I don’t expect any help from the DNC…and I am not giving them any money until they show me they have a workable plan to win elections. My small sums will go to the local party and organizations like the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Oldgold
We need a leader to resist this onslaught.
Schumer nor Pelosi are not even close to the larder we need.
Who?
Baud
@Oldgold: You rang?
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa: I don’t know how the DNC became thought of as this kind of Politburo that controls everything that happens in the party. To my knowledge, it’s never had that role.
Botsplainer
@Kay:
Theory – big data and big media have a powerful constituency among party operatives and campaign management hangers on of BOTH parties, due to the spend. They were a big part of the impetus to rid us of “the smoke filled room” (which, with some small graft, actually worked).
They will be a problem moving forward, a big problem. Their addiction to sweet cash requires a constant fix.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: I’m not sure how it happened either, but maybe it’s the result of people becoming disconnected from their local party organizations and assuming that the national committee takes care of everything. That’s the mindset we need to change, as well as offer people real opportunities to make a difference.
Kelly
I have found the underlying plan that explains the horrifying appointments, the sharks circling Medicare, Social Security, Obamacare all of it. Trump is setting up Season 1 of the Pro Wrestling Presidency. If he is to be a popular Hero he must have many hateful Heels to defeat. All this stuff now is to draw the regular Republicans into roles as his Heels. He will spend 2017 crushing the Paul Ryan and all the granny starvers to the screaming of mouth breathing crowds. It’s my straw and I’m clutching it.
Botsplainer
@Kay:
Outstanding.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: it kind of like the right wing, and sometimes left wing, contradictory caricature of Obama, simultaneously a ruthless tyrant and a feckless, incompetent coward. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was both a half-witted cretin who would screw up a two car parade, and master criminal (yes, criminal!) who used her dark arts to stop the unstoppable Wilmer
I have a half hunch, half hope that Ellison, or Perez, can revitalize the DNC toward something what people think of when they talk about a fifty state strategy. But that’s gonna take, among other things, money.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa: Well, once again, we need to decide whether to make the DNC more powerful or less. I don’t see how we can do both.
gene108
@Baud:
A lot of liberals / Democrats are not church going types. They shy away from places that seem to have central points of authority, like a pastor is to a church service. So it is hard to recreate the right-wing model.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There’s always some evil figure. Rahm, DWS. It’s annoying.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Hmmm, I don’t see it as a dichotomy like that. Perhaps the question is how to make the DNC more useful and effective. I like Kay’s suggestion to hire local organizers at $35k/year to build relationships and do nitty gritty work like voter registration and GOTV. The DNC can help train folks and provide them with materials and other supports to do the job. AND, the local folks can function as a pipeline to communicate local concerns/issues back up the chain to the national organization.
ETA: The two-way communication is important. There must have been something off with the information the HRC campaign had on states like Florida, Pennsylvania, etc. A good local organization should have noticed that trouble was a-brewing and developed a counter-offensive. Those states should not have been surprises.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: and now Obama, who first failed to win an election he wasn’t on the ballot for, and now can’t even come up with a platinum coin strategy to undo that election. Fucker has no balls!
Kay
They’re going to cover the Trump campaign rallies for the next 4 years, just like they covered his political launch- the racist birther campaign. He doesn’t do press conferences but they cover his political rallies.
You’re all donors to the Democratic Party. Tell them to stop pouring small dollar donations into media outlets thru political ads. We shouldn’t be supporting what is a particular business model of campaign coverage. It isn’t working for regular people and we’re funding it.
Botsplainer
Another thought – rooted in a query.
Who all decided that Bernie could be allowed to run as a Democrat? I know he switched registration at some point.
Had his ego deflated at the time of mathematic elimination and he’d dropped his bullshit, you get none of the irritated emails from the hack. DWS and the other scalps stick around post convention, damage contained. And I do think she did a good job – the convention was perfect,!and the GOP shits she was protecting in Florida were basically being protected on the right flank, as no D had a chance. They would be the best that could be had.
That leaves Wiener’s device. Why was the FBI investigating somebody sexting a 15 year old (very unusual), and why has nobody killed him yet as a basic service to humanity?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: One last “I blame Obama” for the road.
debbie
@Baud:
Pretty shameful. Et tu, Dems?
Baud
@Botsplainer: It was a wonderful convention.
As to Wilmer, I’d imagine it’s up to the state party to decide who they allow to compete.
CarolDuhart2
@gene108: Ad hoc meetings. Have them at places where liberals feel comfortable-NAACP, Planned Parenthood, community centers. And have people just show up.
A model to use is AA. Meetings every day, every week, to talk about things that matter. Anyone who is interested can come and listen and share. Books about who we are and what we want and how to contact the National Party.
Xenos
@Botsplainer: I think they are just daring the Democratic Party to form a military wing at this point.
These fire-breathers have some experience at triggering civil wars. It shows.
Baud
@CarolDuhart2: “I’m Baud! And I’m a Democrat!”
Botsplainer
@Xenos:
Conservatives always talk about going to the bullet box ? when they don’t get satisfaction or “Liberty” at the ballot box. I think this qualifies.
Brachiator
@Botsplainer: Bernie wasn’t your problem back then. He certainly is not your problem now.
Redleg
I am convinced that the Trump family has absolutely no understanding or concern of business ethics and that they truly are surprised (and angry) when they are called out on their unethical behaviors.
This boorish clan has gotten used to having their own way in the world that they can’t imagine having to think beyond their own narrow selfish interests. And then they have the audacity to tell us “trust us that there won’t be any conflicts of interest.” I do trust them. In their minds, there are no conflicts of interest so long as they pursue their own interests.
Larkspur
@Raven: Thank you for linking to this.
@Davis X. Machina: Thank you for letting me know about this teacher.
@Kathleen: The other two men were Hugh Thompson Jr., the pilot, and the chopper’s crew chief, Glenn Andreotta. Andreotta, according to the article, was killed in action less than a month after the massacre. Thompson died in 2006. There should be high schools named after these guys, but as Colburn was quoted in the article: “We’re not popular,” he told the Baltimore Sun years later. “The Army doesn’t admit mistakes.”
The whole thing breaks my heart all over again.
sukabi
@bemused: there has been speculation that he was hospitalized in the 90’s during his big bankruptcy for a breakdown…which is why he won’t release his medical records.
sukabi
@Dadadadadadada: would probably include more screaming, sniffing coke, and possibly a stroke.
Kay
@Botsplainer:
The FBI has decided they will intervene in an election and then turn around after the election and claim they’re not political so they enjoy all the benefits of norms and rules and none of the constraints.
It’s beautiful, really. They can be partisan when intervening, thus violating a norm and then no one is allowed to question them on partisanship after the election because that violates a norm.
They’re a lot like their candidate. He’s protected by the same norms and rules he violates too. Quite the racket they have going, really.
Kay
Are we ever going to get a complete list of the Congressional candidates who were hacked?
I think we need to know which members of Congress are Putin-backed. Christ. Can we get a bare minimum of the information we need? A list. How hard can that be? Please don’t tell me this is the FBI’s job. Can we hire a contractor? Raise money on the internet to conduct a real investigation? Can we have some hope of ever finding out what we need to know just as citizens?
CarolDuhart2
@Baud: Tee Hee! But seriously, it looks at times like people are looking for someone to grant permission. Just do it-announce a meeting and go. And the announcing is easier these days than when I did it. Not just radio and flyers, but social media and so much more. People will respond if it looks safe, legit and is convenient.
There are almost no obstacles to where to hold a meeting. Rooms are ridiculously easy to get for anything these days if its not a restaurant. Your local liberal church. Community Centers. I remember for a long time we met in a gazebo with picnic benches-when the weather was good-it was, after all, free and available anytjme. Park boards are usually pretty lenient about these things as long as the space is not reserved for other people. +
Jeffro
Hey – guess who’s going to Frisco, TX in a couple weeks?? Woo-boo!!! ???
debbie
@Kay:
Their votes will give them away. We just need to point that out loudly and often.
Zinsky
There’s never been a more certain one-term president than this film-flam man.
Kathleen
@Larkspur: Probably too late to reply but it breaks mine, too. This gentleman is my age. I was in college enjoying my life. He stood for honor in the face of hell. I doubt I would have had that level of courage then.
Mnemosyne
@Botsplainer:
Since this whole goddamned election is making me paranoid, it’s awfully convenient that the most powerful Democrat in Florida got defanged by Russian hackers, and then the Democrats lost Florida.
But I’m sure that only happened because DWS’s utter suckitude got exposed and not because the Russians and Republicans knew that taking her out would tip the state to Trump.
Chris T.
No problem. The Trumps just declare moral bankruptcy, dissolve the previous auction, and start another new one!
Major Major Major Major
eta: nm
wuzzat
@Zinsky: We all said that about Dubya in the beginning, too. Can’t get complacent.
Spinoza is my Co-pilot
“Republican Party-Before-Country Party become unelectable for 10 generations”.
You’re kidding, right? I mean, it would be pretty to think so, but it looks like the very opposite is the reality now in full-fascist America.
It’s so rigged in their favor that even when we get more votes, we still lose. Voter suppression will get worse, much worse, and the future federal judiciary (very much including the SCOTUS) will be predominantly far-right for the next generation, so any serious opposition to that suppression will die in litigation.
Most state and county gov’ts across the country are solidly controlled by the fascists, with their lock on both houses of Congress set for at least the next 4 years to go along with the Trump admin, and more likely far beyond that.
Most media that most people absorb will become even more right-tilted, so they will be able to blame anything and everything on the Democrats and get away with it.
There are simply more committed rightwingers in America than committed leftwingers, and they are far better funded and much more given to working in lockstep. The massively moronic and mushy middle will go where that lockstep army takes them or simply check out and do nothing (as at least half of them do already).
White people still very much rule in most important sphere’s of influence in America, and having freaked the fuck out over non-white/non-male/non-straight progress the majority are now solidly in Camp Fascism in order to hang onto white (male-and-straight-dominated) supremacy and strive for some idealized America that never really was (“make America great again”) that is always the right’s siren song. We know what tremendous damage will be done in our coming Randian dystopia, but the left will be the scapegoat for that damage.
Because we have already entered an Orwellian world where the truth means nothing and lies obtain.
I wish I could believe otherwise, but this time their victory is so complete and pervasive that I think we are well and truly screwed for good. I suppose I’ll learn to love Big Brother in the end.
Davis X. Machina
@gene108: Rev. William Barber II seems to have avoided that problem.
Davis X. Machina
@O. Felix Culpa: Timothy Garton Ash’s books are excellent: The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of 1989 covers all the former satellite states. And The Polish Revolution: Solidarity, 1980–82 is a worm’s eye view of how they did it.
Applejinx
@Kay:
On the contrary, people project their values FROM observing this behavior in the campaigns. It’s you, not me, that said ‘most horrible corporate model’ but I vehemently agree. They don’t know any other way, and the values CAN be expected to conform to this model. We were faced with two bullets and dodged arguably the least harmful one to get hit by the really nasty one, but they’re both still bullets.
And that IS the workplace model they promote, because in macroeconomic terms it boosts the US GDP possibly more, or at least that’s how it looks from inside the boardroom.
Tehanu
@Kay:
Truer words, etc. Especially this particular family, if they’re as much like Dad as they seem — convinced of their own superiority and completely closed off to learning anything new.
@Larkspur:
I’m with you. These guys were real heroes.
Steve M.
Great post, but I quibble with the assumption that there’ll actually be elections in the future.