May the NYT burn in hell for all eternity for their election coverage. That said, they published a good editorial yesterday on Secretary Kelly of DHS, asking where the sensible man who gave sane and occasionally compassionate answers during his cabinet confirmation has gone now that he’s making policy.
I think we know what happened to Kelly; it’s the Trump Effect. Whoever comes into contact with the vile shitgibbon comes away diminished, which is why all the talk about the moderating influence of [Insert Beltway Favorite Appointee Here] rings hollow in the context of Trump. An excerpt from the editorial:
The Homeland Security Department is considering separating Central American children from their mothers at the border, a shocking abuse of traumatized families who — as Mr. Kelly himself admits — are fleeing for their lives. He defended the policy as a way of deterring migrants from the dangerous trip. That is cruelty disguised as compassion.
His plan to create an office to publicize crimes by unauthorized immigrants — shaming and demonizing the entire population — is more nakedly vicious, guilt by association, a reflection of the old strain of American intolerance that brought us internment camps and miscegenation laws.
Is Mr. Kelly — a tough, sensible general — being silenced? If he can’t get the message to Mr. Trump directly, why doesn’t he get booked on “Fox & Friends,” the morning talk show that doubles as the president’s daily intelligence briefing? If he won’t speak the truth, he’s misusing his power.
The policy of separating mothers and children is worse than cruel; it is monstrous. The plan to publicize crimes by undocumented people — who have a lower crime rate as a group than native-born Americans, BTW — amounts to a blood libel, and Trump already has innocent blood on his hands on that score.
Whether the association with Trump leeched Kelly’s virtue away or whether he had none to begin with is immaterial at this point. But kudos to the NYT for calling him out.
PS: Regarding that jibe in the editorial about “Fox & Friends” doubling as Trump’s daily intelligence briefing, did any of y’all see Chris Hayes’ piece about TrumpCare, in which Hayes noted that a weirdly specific and lengthy provision in the bill addressed combating fraud committed by lottery winners who continue to accept subsidies?
Hayes noted that analysts wondered where that came from and found that it was a trope flogged on Fox News as a criticism of the ACA. And that Fox trope made its way into the GOP’s famously SHORT bill, likely on orders from Trump himself. Those of us who have ever idly wondered what it would be like if our idiot Fox-watching elders ran the country are now discovering that it’s every bit as stupid as we thought.
James Powell
It’s like the McCarthy Era, the Jim Crow century, and the internment of Japanese-Americans: in the future, there will be movies showing how ashamed America is of the things they did during these years. The movies will be nominated, one or two will win. But now, when it’s going on, not enough people have the empathy or morals to see that it’s wrong, to make them stop.
Elizabelle
Hello there. FTFNYTimes. They occasionally have good content. On rare days, now. I find I am reading their contributors 10:1 over their reporters.
Surfing the net while having my hair bleached white. Why not? Hoping not to look like an extra from Hamilton, but I guess that’s a look too.
schrodingers_cat
T chose him because he knew Kelly would do his bidding and provide necessary gravitas. At best he is a prop.
Thru the Looking Glass...
Or as I like to call them, the Creamed Corn & Spittle Brigade…
However, as Captain Bligh once famously opined, the floggings will continue until moral improves!
Seriously… just how bad do things have to get in this country before a majority of us come to the realization that as a majority, we can stop this shit?
Mike J
schrodingers_cat
No h/t? I mentioned this op-ed in one of the morning threads along with Kelly’s utterances about separating mothers from their children.
ETA: I am glad you posted this on the FP.
TenguPhule
An illusion only there long enough to get confirmed. Then the monster could stop pretending to wear a mask.
Yutsano
When it comes to the New York Times: yeah they do a couple of good things every now and again, but they still ain’t getting my money.
Weaselone
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Has to be an electoral majority and we won’t get another chance until 2020. Winning in 2018 is probably wouldn’t put a stop to it.
TenguPhule
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Civil War.
At this point, I expect nothing less will get enough attention.
Elizabelle
@James Powell: I don’t feel particularly ashamed, because this is being done completely against our wishes.
I hope it blows up so badly that it takes down the rightwing and plutocrats and Fox World.
We need to get rid of Fox News. It’s Rwanda’s Radio Mille Collines, destroying this country from within. I don’t think the First Amendment is sufficient protection against Joseph Goebbels level propaganda. We are learning it may be impossible to deprogram Fox News etc viewers without incredible collateral damage.
This debacle was decades in the making. We can’t just “out-good” them. They have radicalized the electorate — a lot of it — and make intelligent, reasoned discourse impossible. On purpose.
TenguPhule
@James Powell:
In the original Russian or Mandarin?
John Revolta
Florida lawyer’s pants catch fire during arson trial
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
Please note that this means an actual Civil War. The rot has gone too deep.
Kay
I know I’m bitter about the election coverage but I feel as if newspapers wrote sternly worded editorials on Trump which covered for their shitty coverage of Trump.
Maybe instead of all that time editorializing on him they coulda just gotten the tax returns or the business records or interviewed people who know him.
It’s particularly disturbing for the NYTimes because Trump’s whole career was in their backyard. I know it’s 2 different divisions or whatever, but shouldn’t they be the experts on Donald Trump?
It’s the NY Times, it’s Donald Trump, a NY’er, and Clinton, who was a NY Senator and it was like they just encountered these people. It’s very disappointing.
Baud
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Things haven’t gotten bad for most people, especially with Obama’s economy continuing to go well. As we learned in the election, most people don’t care that much about moral choices that don’t impact themselves.
Baud
@Kay: The NYT is garbage.
Humboldtblue
B…b…bbbbut I thought we were supposed to reach out to these people and those who voted for them so we can get their votes?
Isn’t this whole “gang up on the immigrants and dirty foreigners” thing just another one of those instances? I mean, red state rubes have fucked the country and now you damn dirty libtards just want to turn away from the folks who support this? We should be empathetic to people who voted for and support Trump, right?
RIGHT?
Because, la, we’ll never win without them, at least that’s what I’ve been reading in the comments. Just because they voted for the people implementing horrific policies doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to reach out to motherfucking racist shitbags, right Brachiator and whoever that fucking Sylvain person is?
People are going to die because of these policies whether they are related to medical care, pollution of the environment, the elimination of work place safety regulations or just simply being sent off to invade yet another majority — Muslim country, but that’s OK, we just need to work harder to convince people WHO FUCKING AGREE WITH EVER FIBER OF THEIR BEING THAT THESE ARE FUNCTIONAL AND WORTHY POLICIES — right?
RIGHT?
Jerzy Russian
Keep in mind that is possible to come to the correct conclusion for the wrong reasons or by chance. Until the NYT has a much longer streak of not sucking, don’t expect much.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Word. For all their sternly worded editorials they were both-sides-do-it, at best and at worst HRC is the she-devil
BTW ICE is signalling that they are going to round up DACA recipients for removal, next.
efgoldman
@TenguPhule:
Loves ya’ some violence p0rn, ya’ does.
Jerzy Russian
@Thru the Looking Glass…: I think the Leopards will have to eat enough faces of their party members so they membership in the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party declines substantially. The problem is, people outside that party may also have their faces eaten.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Am I off the hook now?
Brachiator
Yes. Trump is exactly who he said he would be. He is the stern boss giving orders. All the pundits who were looking for a “pivot,” some sign that Trump would govern like a moderate, or that he would listen to the pragmatic advice of some of his cabinet appointees ignored what was plainly in front of them all the time.
It is absolutely monstrous, but it is having the desired effect. It is scaring illegal immigrants in this country, discouraging those who might seek to come across the border.
And most of all, it is making undocumented people into The Other, who can be hated, despised, hunted and disposed of by “real Americans.”
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
And people see the editorials and say “they’re very tough on Trump!” Yeah, not really. “Tough” would be getting some documents or interviewing people. Editorials are just rants.
They raided a dairy here yesterday. The dairy workers children go to my son’s school and I’m worried about them. The owner is himself an immigrant so maybe they were after him, I don’t know.
Elizabelle
@Kay: and then they promoted the woman who presided over their shit-tastic coverage as national editor. I hate that I still have a FTFNYTImes sub — its damaged goods trying to pass itself off as premium and courageous. It has a whiff of urine and cowardice about it. I keep it for the nonpolitical stuff. They make me question that decision constantly, but I get curious what they’re up to.
The Moar You Know
@Elizabelle: And we let it happen, thinking we could “out-good” them or “go high” or some stupid shit like that, while they were chopping the foundation out from under our society.
Think it’s too late to fix. I, myself, am searching desperately for a way to leave. I don’t think the United States is fixable.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Weaselone: Well, gaining control of at least chamber of Congress in 2018 would sure help…
At the rate the Trump Shit Show is going, Lord knows where we’ll be by 2020… taking healthcare away from at least 10 million people and making it more expensive for the rest us whilst making sure the rich get another round of massive taw breaks doesn’t seem like a good plan for the next POTUS election…
eclare
@John Revolta: Thank you so much, I needed that!
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: I think your perspective will be different. Of course its your call whether you want to do a post on it. I think this is intimidation pure and simple. These policies. State terror.
Cermet
@Thru the Looking Glass…: The majority has and did but that isn’t how our slave based electorial system works!
Elizabelle
I wish the Fuck the Fucking New York Times would give us a “hate-reading” discount. Because they devalued their own subscription value.
They put Trump reporting up under “45th President.” They have branded him. Meanwhile, there is noticeably less national reporting. It’s almost all politics, all Trump.
rikyrah
I cannot and will not get past this. That someone purses their lips to try and justify this.
These people are my enemy.
Period.
cain
FTFNYTImes ?
mai naem mobile
Dolt 45 is a seriously sick sick sadistic mofo and he joins Dick Cheney in the very select group of people who I have no guilt saying bad stuff about when they die.
aimai
@Kay: I am waiting for the other shoe to drop at the school where i work–we don’t know the immigration status of the parents or the children and no one tells us anything so if a child stops coming in we wouldn’t know the reason.
Also, this whole idea that there’s another Kelly there, an occult, suppressed, Kelly just really makes me gag. “Oh, if the Tsar only knew!” is always answered by “The Cossacks work for the Tsar.” In other words–lets not pretend that Kelly doesn’t know exactly what he is doing and choses to do it.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Did you see my footnote to my post the other night?
jl
You can be tough, sensible and competent, and still be an overly reliable yes-man, and you can still have conveniently flexible ethics.
Why would there be a mystery about Kelly if there is none about Colin Powell?
The Moar You Know
@Humboldtblue: We can’t win without them. We don’t have the electoral college numbers, nor the Senate seats, nor the House seats. That’s the problem. And it’s not solvable. Because I agree with you, that the people who voted for this monster, and his Senate of idiots, and his House of imbeciles, are not ever going to vote for anyone who embodies a commitment to sane and civil society. They were grudgingly willing to twenty years ago, but that was twenty years ago. So it’s load up the guns and go out shooting (not really to my taste, I don’t want to die with a bullet in my guts) or leave.
cain
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Tempted to be an asshole and not run a Democrat to run so that we can continue to get rid of the blight of Trump voters that expensive healthcare will fix.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: They have not yet looked into T’s hiring practices, including immigration compliance, which should be available publicly. Tells you everything you need to know
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
Prepare for a pile-on by the lawyers and First Amendment absolutists, but I agree with you. The Founders did not anticipate Fox News and a political party working hand-in-hand with virtually no opposition. It’s basically become the state-sponsored religion that they were trying to avoid.
efgoldman
@Brachiator:
A lot of those orders go out into the ether to die.
He yam what he yam, what’s all that he yam.
None of his cabinet can or will give him pragmatic advice; with the possible exception of Mattis at DoD, because they are all ideologues without pragmatism (Price) or don’t know a goddamned thing about the job they were hired to do, or both. Hell, even Mattis is hamstrung because there are no service secretaries for the Army and Navy.
Anyway, Tangerine Tumor neither requests nor accepts advice, He doesn’t need to – he knows everything. Just ask him.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Can they honestly say that the Obama “vetting” equaled the Trump vetting? Because I knew an awful lot about Obama. I knew the details of his home mortgage. I knew his wife’s entire life history including her immediate family. I know a ridiculous amount about Reverend Wright and Bill Ayres. Way too much! More than I wanted to know!
Trump is absolutely surrounded by this entire cast of weirdos and the man himself is a complete mystery, as far as PAPER- documents. I had an acquaintance ask me the other day “do you think he has a driver’s license?”
I have no fucking idea. I wouldn’t bet 20 dollars that 70 is his real age. Does Melania have, I don’t know, PARENTS? Why were Michelle Obama’s parents vetted to within an inch of their lives and with these Trump people it’s like “oh, you KNOW them”.
No, I really don’t. Ivanka Trump’s business holdings? Mystery to me! Her husband is running the country and I never set eyes on him until last year.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: That’s why I think we need to start floating how to do this now. It will take years, but we cannot have a democracy attempting to co-exist with propaganda and other purposely misleading content.
You are not far off with the “state religion” comment. I would bet it’s a lot of the same pathways as religious conditioning. And depends on faith rather than facts and reason.
Meanwhile, work is disappearing, the middle class is disappearing, and propaganda is trying to distract with a war on Islam and nonwhite culture.
John Revolta
@eclare: De nada.
Elizabelle
@Kay: They cannot. He was in their back yard, and they were afraid of him. You are right about the anti-Trump editorials being so much hot air to obfuscate their neglect.
Betty Cracker
@Kay & @aimai: I’ve seen denials from ICE officials that they’re stepping up raids, but they’ve gotta be lying. The playgrounds around here that are usually filled with migrant workers’ kids during strawberry season are silent and empty. There’s fear in the air unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
Lawsuits! Hundreds of them! Reams of public records. Remember how Lynne Sweet was like the Chicago expert on Obama? That made sense to me. Chicago paper, Chicago expert. With Trump I’m supposed to watch old Apprentice episodes?
Doug R
@The Moar You Know: We do when our people vote.
Jay S
@efgoldman: Yes, a civil war in our current state of affairs is likely to hand victory to Trump. It’s a lot like the right wing fantasies under Obama. But even if the guard and the military stood aside, I suspect the Trump supporters are better armed and more dangerous.
Cacti
Working with fascists never moderates their worldview. It just poisons whoever comes in contact with them.
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know:
First rule of Civil War.
Don’t fight fair.
Don’t make yourself a target. Let the Trumpers declare themselves boldly by day. Then find their corpses out on the lawn overnight.
trollhattan
@mai naem mobile:
Weirdly enough, SecDef Cheney did a decent job for HW and either was repressing his freak flag waiting for the opportunity to unfurl, or went nuts between HW and W.
Trump, OTOH, has never once been a good and decent, or even competent person. Never.
Still, to hell with them both. Add Kissinger while we’re at it.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
People were shocked. This county went 70% for Trump. They can take their “shock” and stuff it. Hope they enjoyed the hate rallies and that reality tv show of a campaign. Now it’s real. Our students.
JGabriel
Betty Cracker @ Top:
Just imagine how long the AHCA would be if House Reps gave the same amount of attention to, y’know, health insurers instead of lottery winners. I suspect it would be longer than the ACA. But it is much more important to regulate the health care options of the few lottery jackpot winners each year than the fairness, quality, and usefulness of insurance corporations, because the GOP is all about individual freedom.
TenguPhule
@efgoldman: Polly Anna much?
Recognizing the obvious isn’t pron. And recognizing that its going to get worse and all signs are pointing to much worse is all you can ask for these days.
Doug R
@Jay S: You’d think trump supporters would be more dangerous, but only up to a point. Privilege only gets you so far and we ain’t standing for it.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle:
A rabidly partisan press is the historical norm in the US, not a recent exception. We may have talked about David Fahrenthold getting a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting, but, yeah, um … Joseph Pulitzer? Ring any bells? William Randolph Hearst?
hovercraft
@Elizabelle:
I don’t think you can get rid of their propaganda machine, it’s penetrated too deeply. Where we fix this is by fixing our education system, we are by far the most ignorant OECD country in the world, and I’m not referring to test scores, I mean general knowledge about the world, FFS way to many Americans don’t know who Hitler was or why describing anyone or anything in those terms was bad, I overheard one of the kids friends asking who the Civil War was between, they know nothing os they are ripe to be propagandized with this filth.
I say we fix the education system and income inequality, and we take away the need for people to seek answers for their plight and scapegoats. Nationalism always raises it’s ugly head in times of strife. I know that the majority of people who voted for Twitler were not the most economically insecure amongst us, but rather the most concerned about losing their white privilege, still the wage stagnation that’s been going on ever since the Reagan era, provided an entry point for this poison.
Lizzy L
I am not interested in demonizing Trump voters, but neither am I interested in reaching out to them politically. We don’t need their votes. We need the votes of that 43% of the electorate that could have voted in 2016, and didn’t. We get those people, or a sizable chunk of them, in the right districts and the right states, and we have good chance to get either the Senate or the House in 2018, and the WH in 2020. It can be done if the Democratic party and liberal voters are ready to go all out and do it.
The people who voted for Trump — we’re stuck with them, we share the country with them, but we don’t need them. The apathetic, unengaged, BothSidesDoIt people — those are the ones we need to draw into this. And this POS health bill is so bad, it may help do that for us.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: very honestly, its worse with television and the internet. The delivery system — the immediacy and sense of connection– is beyond what Hearst and the pampleteers could have dreamed of. It’s gone malignant in a way the printed word cannot. Delivered on the fly, often by one’s friends, associates, congregants. Not filtered for accuracy.
Video is far more effective, and truncates all nuance.
efgoldman
@Jay S:
So the fear fantasy is that civil authority will either stay home or come out shooting on the side of the RWNJs? And who’s going to organize the militias – most of whom are cowardly fat beer drinking fantasy pretending armchair soldiers – into some kind of fighting force?
Yes, I expect more of the racist cowards to attack defenseless people, or burn buildings, or make threatening phone calls, especially in those states which actively encourage assholes to arm themselves. I don’t expect them to be able to organize in any meaningful fashion.
Also at the first sign of serious militarization, the RWNJs in state houses and DC, up to and including Coral Coward in the WH and his boss president Bannonazi, will run away and hide.
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
That’s a 40 year long term solution. Which still needs a short term solution to the current filth in office to be doable.
TenguPhule
@efgoldman:
Enough “lone wolves” and organization becomes a moot point. Then it becomes terrorism and revenge terrorism. Which is where this is all sliding down toward.
At some point, the victims start striking back. Or flee.
efgoldman
@TenguPhule:
I don’t fantasize about gettin’ me a shootin’ arn an’ goin’ out at night to plink RWNJs. I might have when I was eight or ten, but I grew up.
If you were able actually to do it, you’d be dead in a week.
Elizabelle
@hovercraft: How do we fix education and income inequality in the face of rabid dis- and misinformation? Yes, we have to work towards improvement every day, every one, but must it be in face of a hurricane of propaganda? And when its proponents characterize accurate reporting as “fake news” and “liberal media.” Because it is empirical, or can be defended. Unlike their fantasies.
ruemara
@TenguPhule: I’m in your camp. Not because I desire it, but because I keep seeing this get worse as the left tries to reason with the monsters of America’s past, present & future. They won’t go away without a real knock down, drag out fight. They’ve finally gotten all the reigns to power to do as they wish to whom they please and as long as the right people suffer, they have supporters. All those nice quiet people who don’t talk politics but slipped into a booth to vote for Trump, they’re still here. They don’t talk about how angry they are at people telling them how shameful trump voters are. They’re in red, blue, purple, whatever states. And the “both sides are bad” lefty cynics are still here too, willfully preventing truth and reality from entering on the far left side. They’re getting the destruction of “establishment” America. That’s their goal, too. This will be bloody and I’m real tired of people who claim to be sensible not seeing that, no, we’re not going to just talk our way out of this. The other side has been trying to get here for 50 years or longer. Even though I don’t see them ruling very long, I also know that when beasts like this lose, they take it out on the vulnerable around them. Your choice is whether or not to move as fast as you can to prevent the greatest amount of destruction.
We’re going to need a truth & reconciliation committee to remove the burrowed in nazis and seditionists.
@The Moar You Know: HELP BLACKS VOTE! YOU FUCKING HAVE THE NUMBERS, YOU’VE BEEN WASTING TIME IGNORING THE SUPPRESSION. Jesus fucking christ.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Threats of tumbrels and guillotines across three generations for the top 400 families in wealth, unless complete divestiture down to the clothes on their backs would probably make the point.
SenyorDave
@Elizabelle: e need to get rid of Fox News. It’s Rwanda’s Radio Mille Collines, destroying this country from within.
I’ve been telling friends for years that Murdoch and Ailes are modern-day versions of Himmler and Goebbels. With all the damage these two have done to America and the world, there can’t be a hell bad enough for them when they mercifully (for us) leave this earth. If Prometheus had a crow picking at his liver for eternity for giving us fire, what should Murdoch/ Ailes get?
Brachiator
@Humboldtblue:
Let’s see.
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
— A. Lincoln
“The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states-red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.”
— B. Obama
But this is just empty rhetoric, right? It’s us vs them. The Good vs the Devils. Always has been. Always will be. This is exactly how Trump and the Republicans think.
The people who have been suckered by Trump are going to end up suffering along with the official targets of the Republican agenda. If these people remain stuck in their madness, it is no loss. But we are going to need many people on our side if the Republicans are to be defeated, including perhaps some chastened Deplorables.
The Republicans in Congress are revealing themselves to be as nasty as they want to be. The few Trump cabinet appointees with a few brain cells are revealing themselves to be loyal, complacent lapdogs; the rest are eager to go along with the plan. And Trump himself really is “the great, gray man whose daughter licks Policemen’s buttons clean.”
These are the people I want to stop.
hovercraft
@Kay:
They knew that Twitler is a white man, just like the other 43 white men who came before him. He is who is supposed to run this country, the black guy was a black guy, and everyone knows that those people can’t be trusted, it was important to examine every aspect of his life and the lives of everyone who has ever been in contact with him. Twitler is just another white man and since we’ve had so many before him and survived, how bad could he be. Hillary is a woman, women are emotional and weak, nough said.
efgoldman
@Elizabelle:
You live near DC. Ever been to the Newseum? Look at some of the old papers. Hearst effectively started the Spanish American war. Look at the German papers of the 1930s.
Every time there’s a major technical advance in media – newspapers => radio => TV => cable => intartoobz => whatever comes next – there’s probability of misuse. We can’t uninvent technology. The difference now is the size of the megaphone; very few people can spread a message everywhere with very little effort.
trollhattan
@hovercraft: When Rupert kicks the Kiwi bucket (make it so, Jerry, make it so) his spawn (if I understand the succession) have an opportunity to reel in Fox News. I’m not predicting it, but every improvement requires change and Rupert ain’t changing squat so long as he’s making money.
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
We had a rabidly partisan press all through the days of slavery, legal discrimination, and Jim Crow.
That may not have been a coincidence.
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: i am thinking very much of Germany in the 1930s. We need to put a brake on, but we have the same elites that think they can control and contain.
gvg
The problems with our education system seem to me to have been mostly caused by people who said they were going to fix the problems they saw decades ago. I think a lot of people like myself may want to fix the schools but we have a learned dread of anyone who says they want to so we can’t really get started.
I am not impressed with the leave the US choices. It seems to me that the rest of the world has been getting just as crazy and right wing as the US and started earlier. Brexit is evidence and the Russians are funding other right wing fascist movements that are threatening to win elections in Europe. All during Obama’s terms, the EU stubbornly resisted growth spending and chose austerity. As a result their economies did poorly compared to ours. Germany punished Greece and other poor countries badly. It wasn’t nice or smart of them. France and some other countries have non equal immigrant communities that haven’t been allowed to melt into them and it’s endangered them. Our commenters have told us about India, etc. Climate change is going to make it all worse. I have been to Australia and New Zealand and they aren’t better than us with even a quick look. If the US falls and stays fascist, it’s going to be a threat to all the rest anyway. I can see people with urgent medical issues bailing because they have no margin for waiting for improved results, but the rest of us must succeed in pushing this down.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Cermet: Well then I guess we’re gonna need a bigger majority…
Baud
@ruemara:
Did you see this?
Kay
Also, can we dispense with the fiction that Trump hates the media? He loves them. He considers them players in the same game he’s in. He slavishly follows every word they say on cable and has been using them for self-promotion for 40 years. He thinks they are fellow celebrities- important people, like HIM.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: By some estimates nearly one-fourth of the USA’s population were readers of Arthur Brisbane’s columns/editorials in the Hearst papers. O’Reilly, on a good day, gets one percent. Sure, the nature of the media is different, but the sheer reach of 19th century newspapers is hard for us to understand.
TenguPhule
@ruemara: I’m not thrilled to be here either. I was looking forward to a normal retirement in the not too distant future. But I can see the writing on the wall and its when, not if, now.
Honestly, I don’t expect to live through this. I’m afraid most of those I know will not either.
But we didn’t start this. The Republicans did.
Jay S
@efgoldman:
While Trump is in charge, who do you think civil authority will back? The default will be status quo, not rebellion for large parts of the country. The situation may change over time, but for now, in civil war the rebels likely lose.
And yes most of the civilian Trump supporters will be disorganized, but could function as terrorists in local settings, The civil authorities would probably put them down along with any other armed resistance, but might well tacitly support them if they are seen as putting down civil unrest.
sherparick
@Jerzy Russian: Whether this was a promotion or putting her in a place where she could no longer due damage, but Carolyn Ryan is no longer the political editor of the Times, where “What About Her E-mails” was the lead story up until 9 Novemeber, I guess is open for debate. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/business/media/new-york-times-editor-recruitment-carolyn-ryan.html
Mickee
Seeing the same trope applied to Huntsman if he takes the Russian ambassadorship. He’ll be a rational and mderating influence on the WH. Bullshit. If you take a bar of soap into a mud puddle to clean the pig, you’re going to end up dirty.
Kay
@hovercraft:
Bill Ayres! ONE person who Obama had at best a tangential relationship with. Trump is surrounded by hinky, shady people and weird marginal Right wing operatives and they just yawn.
OMG that Flynn character. Turns out he’s some kind of lobbyist for Turkey. Boy, that was extreme vetting, huh?
Where, exactly, did Bannon come from? Why is he running the United States?
chris
@Brachiator: OT: Thanks much for the Rolling Stones reference. Had to look it up because I haven’t heard it in at least thirty years. It wears well.
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
I read somewhere that all the spokespeople authorized to speak are now his people, everyone else has been muzzled, so only liars.
Elizabelle
@Mickee: Maybe Huntsman will get some of the Obama stink off him.
Baud
@Kay: Rezko!
Millard Filmore
@TenguPhule: I think an economic collapse will do the trick. Or gas prices up to 5 dollars. The fracking technology is great, but gets diminishing returns in short order.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: This.
I also like to say that Voltaire never met Joseph Goebbels, or Reinhard Heydrich.
Or Donald Trump.
Villago Delenda Est
@Millard Filmore: Every country is three missed meals away from a revolution.
A country as dependent on a transportation system to deliver meals as we are has more things to worry about.
Iowa Old Lady
I will be in Oklahoma City for just under a week, visiting a friend. One thing we will do is go to the museum that’s now on the site of the Murrah Bldg, the one McVeigh blew up. IMHO, there’s a good chance we’re heading for something like that. I only hope it sobers some people up
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@TenguPhule:
I’m with ruemara, and see things rapidly sliding in the direction you describe. Wingnut pundits, pols and shiftless wealthy people have been pushing the envelope on their conduct. Thing is, there are an awful lot of people who are going to lose their health insurance coverage, their possessions and their families, and a number of those have conditions that would siphon off any remaining fucks to give while delivering a motivation to inflict some pain before they pop into oblivion.
I wouldn’t sob tears over a reappearance of the Weathermen or something analogous. Some wealthy folks and connected pundits need to be spending some of their money on food tasters, household security teams and people to sweep the undersides of their limos for IEDs – it is only fair.
Brachiator
Have people following the path of the Republican health care plan already commented on this little provision (LA Times and other reporting)
The Republicans don’t really care whether millions of people actually get health insurance. But they will make damn certain that they find administrative ways to outlaw abortion. Shit, they may not have to get rid of Roe v Wade as settled Supreme Court law.
The fight continues…
Ridnik Chrome
@SenyorDave:Hear, hear. For the sheer amount of damage he has done to our republic, Murdoch is right up there with Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover.
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
True, the short term solution is that fortunately/unfortunately they are doing their damnedest to screw as many people as quickly as they can right now, people tolerate this shit when it’s not affecting them personally. Trumpcare if enacted will screw a huge number of people very quickly. The GOP trope about the bill being so long that no one could possibly have read it, was projection, they never read it, and only now as they try to unravel it are they discovering that it’s like Jenga, pull out one piece and it all comes crashing down on them. After 2005, Rove was talking about the permanent majority, but they screwed up so bad that Nancy Pelosi became speaker a year later. Yes it looks bleak right now and they will fuck us up royally, but their arrogance and hubris will be our best ally.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
The California state constitution guarantees legal abortion. This could get really interesting in the courts.
And the “pro-life” crowd has really had the mask ripped off their posturing now. It’s obvious that they don’t give a shit about anyone’s actual life, only about outlawing abortion. They don’t care how many people have to die to get to that goal.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Keep in mind, these “voter ID” shenanigans in states that voted for Obama were Round 2 of the fight for a permanent Republican majority. This was Rove’s plan since 2008, and they executed it perfectly.
StringOnAStick
This election wasn’t Republicans vs. Democrats, it was the global oligarchy vs the non-rich, with Putin as the main string puller. He’s the one financing Brexit, le Pen, and all the rest of the right wing movements in the world; in addition, plenty of the $ that went into our election comes from our wealthy bastards like the Mercers, Aldeson, etc. The republicans have always worshiped the rich, and are now able to shower them with their adulation in the form of tax breaks and kicking the crap out of the non-rich; they could care less that Putin bought this election for them.
And all of it has been done to make Putin the leader of an even bigger and better Russian state, plus getting the sanctions lifted so he can pump oil like there is no tomorrow. That will crash the price of oil, so the oil industry of other countries will suffer (Canada, Mexico, OPEC, etc) while Russia climbs to the top of the pile. That this will kill a ton of oil jobs in red states, that are inevitably done by hard core Rush-loving rethugs is one bit of cheer. One side effect is crashing the economics of renewables, so it really is a technological race right now, with just the future of a habitable planet on the line. Jesus, no wonder I wake up every morning at 4 am and can’t get back to sleep.
efgoldman
@Brachiator:
Cantaloupe Caligula’s solicitor general is going to have to hire several thousand additional lawyers> There isn’t a goddamned order he’s issuing, nor any legislation the RWNJs are going to push thru, that isn’t at least constitutionally questionable. There are already dozens of suits from dozens of states working their way thru federal courts.
efgoldman
@hovercraft:
Don’t forget malice, incompetence, and outright stupidity.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: Forced birthers. Sluts must be punished. Out of the womb, you’re on your own, kid.
efgoldman
@StringOnAStick:
Pootie Kazootie can’t live forever, and history shows that the inheritor of a criminal enterprise usually can’t keep it going, for various reasons.
gene108
@hovercraft:
Two things need to change: (1) adopt the metric system and the Celsius temperature scale. We isolate ourselves from the world by not adopting it. The whole world talks in kilograms, centimeters, kilometers, degrees Celsius and we are using an antiquated system. The only reason we can get away with it is we are a Superpower, and the rest of the world has to cater to us. But taking that small step towards integrating with the rest of the world will help.
And (2) do a better job in teaching foreign languages. The USA is really bad at getting people fluent in other languages. This will at least get people to read, talk, etc. about other countries, authors, and cultures.
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: Yup. They always overreach.
Brachiator
@chris:
Oh, Memo From Turner comes up a lot when I think about Trump.
Weren’t you at the Coke convention
Back on nineteen sixty-five
You’re the misbred, gray executive
I’ve seen heavily advertised
You’re the great, gray man whose daughter licks
Policemen’s buttons clean
You’re the man who squats behind the man
Who works the soft machine
Come now, gentleman
Your love is all I crave
You’ll still be in the circus when I’m laughing
Laughing in my grave
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@efgoldman:
You mistakenly think the courts will prove an adequate bulkhead.
They’re not. They’re reliant to a great extent on voluntary cooperation by the executive branch on compliance.
Bill Arnold
@Brachiator:
A lot of the moves that the Trump administration is making related to immigration can be, no should be, interpreted this way; as deliberate moves with intent to cause fear among illegal immigrants (both potential and real), with fear among legal immigrants and tourists and similar, including the resulting economic damage to the US, as necessary collateral damage.
Evil, with an additional side of damage inflicted to the US.
Wingnuts would argue that it is not evil because it is targeting law-breakers.
They would then violate the speed limit during their commute, run red lights and blow through stop signs when nobody is around, and cheat (a little bit, because all their friends do it so it’s ok) on their taxes. Some of them would drive drunk and/or smoke pot where it’s illegal.
gene108
@hovercraft:
Yeah, but not enough to change the political equation.
The problem with healthcare reform is 80% of Americans have insurance, either through Medicare or their employer.
As long as the employer coverage does not go tits up, there are not going to be enough people suffering to really have an impact.
The RWNJ engineer, doctor, lawyer, accountant, construction manager, etc. working for Big Evil Corp will not feel the pain and therefore will not care. And there are a lot of them.
Aleta
The NYT needs to report truthfully on why they failed the country and printed lies and slant from Trump and the FBI. Apologize for helping bring Trump into power. NBC and the rest too. Until they do that the press is contaminated. I still read and support the writers who are 100% committed to fighting the Republicans though.
Millard Filmore
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Or make the corporate officers personally responsible for any wrongdoing by their company. Eliminate the corporate veil. Put them on the hook for company debs … make it like student loans, not dischargable through bankruptcy. Lets get rid of socialism for the rich.
germy
@gene108: Yes, but those of us on our employers’ health plans would like to retire someday, and we’re wondering what we’ll do about insurance once we walk out the door marked “employees only” for the last time.
A Ghost to Most
@TenguPhule:
First rule of partisans club; don’t talk about partisans club. Second rule: prepare.
gene108
@Bill Arnold:
Outside of Disneyworld, foreign tourists end up in NYC, L.A., or Las Vegas or other big cities. Maybe they’ll go to a National Park. They aren’t going to bumfuck Kentucky or other places Trump voters live.
Fucking up NYC or L.A. or other big city tourist destinations is just an added bonus to stick it to “those people”.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Villago Delenda Est:
Wealthy white women will always be able to get abortions.
When I was in my teens, it wasn’t a big deal, even among Louisville Catholics. A long reign by that dickhole Wotyla and his unglynside, Ratzinger, and the world gets fouled up. If UN directed family planning efforts of the 70s been allowed to continue, there’d be 500,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 fewer people on earth today, maybe less. That unholy trinity of JPII, Ronald Reagan and the Muslims destroyed those efforts and set us all on a worse course.
I find myself wondering what the world would have looked like had John Hinckley and that Turk been more successful. Probably better, in a whole lot of ways.
germy
@gene108: There are parts of Bumfuck I wouldn’t want to drive through. My complexion doesn’t match the local population, and my out-of-state plates would be a bullseye on my back. And I was born in this country.
germy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Or if Sirhan had been less successful.
Brachiator
@efgoldman:
Yep. Good point.
This also makes all of the Obama judicial appointments that the Republicans blocked, and the Supreme Court nominations, loom so much larger.
But day by day, it is becoming increasingly clear how desperate the GOP is to push their agenda hard, and the degree to which people voting for Trump had no clue what was really in store for them.
And, as always, the dopes who kept bleating “Hillary, Trump, no difference” are some pitiful, deluded fools.
efgoldman
@gene108:
There are obviously at least 22 million people who use and count on the ACA. This is not a negligible number. Some percentage of them are on the ACA because their employers don’t provide coverage. Some percentage of those had employer coverage which was cancelled and have the ACA instead.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Truth Kay.
Keep on bringing it up.
efgoldman
@Aleta:
Hope you’re not holding your breath; I like you and would hate for you to pass out.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
But but but…they were going after the CRIMINALS..
Which was a goddamned lie.
Going to churches and shelters and schools….
THEY ARE PHUCKING LYING.
Aleta
@Bill Arnold:
Their tactics are intended to decrease resistance and increase compliance with orders in immigrant communities, yes, and in every person in the entire country.
efgoldman
@Brachiator:
On their best days, maybe. Most of the time they’re just burn it down assholes, no matter how they try to disguise it.
Elie
I never bought that Kelly or any of the other “Generals” were to be trusted to temper this administration. The way I saw it is that Trump’s campaign message would have been repugnant to most people with a normal sense of values and respect for our country. You could only work for something like that if your own values were synchronous — or if you had no values or very superficial values. They also must have assessed that he would have a fair chance of success to implement the horrors we see — or why else would they jump aboard and risk their reputations or worse? Naw — don’t trust or like a single one unless like Rommel with Hitler, one of them detonates a briefcase with a bomb at one of their next meetings with the great orange one. I don’t expect that.
Aleta
@efgoldman: I appreciate reminders to keep on breathing. Thanks!
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
It’s more fair to say that wealthy women, of any ethnicity, will have more options. You always had some super Catholic women, like actress Loretta Young, who had Clark Gable’s child in secret. And there are still some buildings standing in California that were the places where Eastern and Midwestern women of means came to give birth to babies born out of wedlock.
Other women also had the options of abortion. Hell, there are Republican politicians right now working hard to ban abortion whose wives, daughters, mistresses had abortions. But if pressed on this issue, they would probably smile and claim that they’ve been washed clean by the tears of Jesus.
Cermet
@Elizabelle: So we need to eliminate both blight’s upon the the body politic in the US of amerika – the fake news organization and religion; both are vile and beyond redemption.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
A 1968 Kennedy Administration probably winds down Vietnam by 1971, with no Linebacker bombings and no Cambodian incursion. Might even avoid the Yom Kippur war and subsequent fuel price shock. Domestically, you get Great Society expansion, a humane form of ERISA, no HMO push. Also positive – a more muscular program of environmental protection and earlier ABM and START treaties. Nixonism would be a dead issue, and without Nixonism, Reaganism recedes. You’re probably looking at somebody like Lowell Weicker representing the median GOP in 1976, Henry Jackson or Sam Nunn on the D side.
Would have been a better country, a better world. Imagine it – no Afghan invasion by the USSR,
Elizabelle
@Aleta: I wonder if the Columbia Journalism Review could ever force atonement on the NY Times. Concur that NBC is compromised, too.
CBS was shrill before the election, and since. What little I see of them. Not a broadcast news consumer.
mouse tolliver
@Kay: Yeah, so much bullshit is happening at once we don’t even have time to talk about how Donald Trump literally had a foreign agent working on his campaign, and he brought this person into the White House.
And Flynn is only admitting this now.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/michael-flynn-registers-foreign-agent-earned-530k-lobbying-article-1.2993217
Republicans would be running around like their hair was on fire screaming about impeachment if this happened under a Democrat.
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
Except that Florida is a HUGE destination for European travelers, and not just Disneyworld. Ft. Myers was the nearest airport to where my late brother lived in Florida, and they had a daily nonstop to and from Munich.
If Europeans stop going to Florida, Florida’s economy is fucked.
Mnemosyne
@mouse tolliver:
I’m not the only one who suspects this is partially a smokescreen for his Russia ties, am I? Trying to remember how close the current Turkish PM is to Putin.
sukabi
@schrodingers_cat: I think contact with drumpf is tantamount to having a morality lobotomy.
Elie
@efgoldman:
I think its a waste of time to try to get all the publications etc who were stupid during the election to recant and spell out their sins. If they seem to be in a place that recognizes our current dangerous situation, I say, lets all figure out how we can use their arousal and awareness to help us NOW. In my comment in the last post, I say that we need to figure out how to use the people who finally wake up, praise them and get to work instead of bashing them over the head. Yeah, they fucked up but here we are, our house is on fire and we need lots of firefighters and people willing to recruit other firefighters from the ranks of the apostates. We have to get free of this thing any way we can and I am past wanting to relive the past if someone is showing up with a bucket and/or water, figuratively speaking. My only question is how to make it easy for more to join us.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Brachiator:
I’m willing to bet that there are a number of conservative opinion drivers who would, once prodded, be able to justify requiring doctors to
1. List all pregnant patients on a government registry, along with due dates;
2. Require that the doctors report the dispositiin of those pregnancies; and
3. Require the Secretary of State to suspend the passports of pregnant women, in case they might exit the territorial boundaries of the Republic of Gilead (er, make that the United States) during the pregnancy for the purpose of obtaining an abortion.
Part of me wants to go to right wing sites to start demanding that this happen, and part of me is horrified that they’d follow through.
efgoldman
@Elie:
No one, unless they have a hypodermic and roll of duct tape in their hand, was going to tame Citron Shitheel. Wasn’t and isn’t gonna’ happen.
The best hope was that somebody experienced and sensible (Mattis?) could temper the madness as it worked it’s way down the line.
efgoldman
@Brachiator:
They all have said exactly that, praise de lawd :::ptui:::
Cermet
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Sorry but all that will achieve is a police state that even Stalin would envy and Hitler would admire …we can take back the government by the same means that the rich did but we have to convince the non-voters to vote; then, maybe, we can retake congress and the presidency and pass a law that if one does not vote one pay’s a large fine. Then the state houses will quickly become democrat.
efgoldman
@Elizabelle:
They have made it a point to call out President Prevaricator every single night. I suppose you could call them “shrill”, but I enjoy it.
Elie
@Brachiator:
I must add that performing a safe surgical abortion is a skill that not every doctor has. It takes training and experience to do well.
There has been a real improvement in the options available for terminating pregnancy, including medical abortions that use specific medications with monitoring of the patient to safely end the pregnancy and also very effective interventions to prevent early pregnancy such as emergency contraception pills (Plan B). I can tell you that many regular gynecologists may or may not have experience and knowledge about how to dispense this care.
jl
@Cermet: priority number one is protecting the right to vote and the access to vote in elections.
In furtherance of that priority, need to keep asking why Sessions still has his current job, since he lied his way into it.
That is one good thing that came from Sessions blowing himself up by lying at his confirmation hearings.
mouse tolliver
@Mnemosyne: It’s definitely part of a pattern. I first heard about Flynn’s lobbying for Turkey a few months ago in a story about Trump’s ties to people who work for authoritarian regimes.
WereBear
That’s right. Aren’t we the party with all the smart people?
Let’s use those brains.
Elie
@efgoldman:
I don’t trust Mattis either for the reasons I mentioned. No one with a normal moral makeup would want to be anywhere near this administration. It is, after all, not just the orange shitgibbon, but equally horrid Bannon, Pense, Tillerson, and others. So please please — he just has a smoother MO.
Calouste
@efgoldman: Mattis was a member of the board of the massive fraud that is Theranos. The man is not sensible, he is just a plain grifter.
Brachiator
@Bill Arnold:
I think that there was a recent story of a father who was deported because he “broke the law.” He had a DUI 25 years ago, so obviously a hardened criminal.
But there is one talk radio host out here (whose father is a famous comedian) who has bragged about driving drunk, but getting off with a lecture or a ride home because he is a good, regular guy who loves and supports cops.
Another talk radio host, a woman, once said that undocumented people who come here shouldn’t break any laws at all, not even get a parking ticket. I get the impression that some of these people actually get off on the idea of illegal immigrants having to jump through hoops to prove their worth.
ruemara
I’m hopped up on percoset, working an 8 hour day with no breaks – again – only 10 days out from having surgery, as my director keeps making small tweaks & copy changes and snide commentary on each video, adds more to my workload. I didn’t even get a full 7 straight days away from my workplace. I didn’t have a lot of choices about returning so quickly and it’s only through a level of grace and strong physicality I’m able to be doing this at all. Painkillers and medical brace stuffed with clean gauze. My boss is a microcosm of America. Snidely wrinkling the nose, finding new things to nitpick while ignoring that not paying attention to this project that started over a year before me is what’s caused this mess, so; you can either pitch in to help do some work so we meet the deadline; or you can stop finding new things to critique while other people fix this crap as best as possible before it explodes.
Baud
@ruemara: Ugh. Feel better.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Too bad you’ve probably healed too much already to accidentally bleed on your boss’s desk or in a public area of the office. Though spilling a few drops of cranberry juice might have the same effect.
Just sayin’. ?
Neldob
We need to see the tax returns. At least.
Elie
@ruemara:
Hey, please take it easy. You have my complete empathy and sympathy having worked in similar situations with soul-less bosses and situations. Whatever, don’t turn it inward — causes great spiritual and physical harm. I send you a hug and my very very best thoughts….
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Cermet:
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, you never change your socks, and little streams of alcohol come trickling down the rocks….
I’d rather think of the results a dozen Charlotte Cordets can accomplish on guys like Limbaugh, Adelson and Hannity, an evil caretending nurse on Rupert, a clever car mechanic for the likes of the Mercers and Koch brothers. Maybe somebody well trained by the Borgia line for Kushner pere…
gene108
@Cermet:
You assume people forced to do something they did not want to do will vote for the people forcing them to do it. Forcing people to vote will create a backlash towards the Party pushing the idea and all those voters, who are forced to get up off their ass and vote, maybe for the first time in their lives, will deliver a big Fuck You to that Party by voting for their opponents.
Resentment is a huge driving force in American politics, maybe the biggest factor their is.
joel hanes
@Ridnik Chrome:
For the sheer amount of damage he has done to our republic, Murdoch is right up there with
Osama Bin Laden
Yamamoto Isoroku
Ronald Reagan
Grover Norquist
Karl Rove
Richard Bruce Cheney
worse than
British Major General Robert Ross
who burned the White House during The War of 1812
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: She’s cautiously avoiding looking at me hobbling stooped over in the office. If I’m gonna work for a person who’s like this, I might as well be working in Hollyweird and getting the better pay. & projects. Look at me! I’ve managed to retool, re-edit, animate and title the equivalent of a 22 episode series all by myself! In 4 months. Now, with extra drugs!
@Baud: I’m getting there. Roundabout fashion.
@Elie: Danke. I won’t. I think I’ve let it go already.
JPL
OT Earlier today I mentioned Ali Velshi’s interview with Jim Jordan challenging him to name one country where the free market approach worked. here’s a link
Jordan is a big phony
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
It’s all fodder for your portfolio. Make copies.
trollhattan
@Elie:
Agree, editorial and op/ed post-election soul-cleansing is of no value in March ’17.
What I’d like brought front and center for the duration are the hollow claims from news media and politicians and the voters themselves that 1. Trump was “acting that way” to gather camera attention and votes, and he didn’t really mean what he was saying. It was no act and he meant everything. “He’s from New York, that’s just how they talk.” said by dozens of non-New Yorkers I heard interviewed. 2. The politician and analyst claims that a Republican congress and the courts would keep him reined in. It would have been the first time had that occurred; we all knew they would capitulate and abet faster than they can tie their shoes.
Hence…all this and I’m committed to keep harping on the above.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Also, too, FWIW, you can probably milk some sympathy from your co-workers. My old boss once made me come back to work in the afternoon after having a root canal that morning and the other people in the meeting thought I was a frickin’ rock star. Just make sure you hobble with a saintly, slightly put-upon expression on your face and an air of willing sacrifice.
Goku
Dr. Kelly and Adolf Hyde
Kay
@Neldob:
Everyone wants to see the tax returns. It’s not just us. Most people want to see the tax returns.
Attach the tax returns to an email and send it to Hillary Clinton.
Brachiator
Dont know if this has been mentioned already. The results of the hate that Trump and the GOP have stirred up.
From NBC New reporting. If you ain’t standard issue white, you cannot be a “real” American
Assholes.
Baud
@Brachiator:
True. But not in the way he intends.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
B.O.B (remember him?) used to brag about stalking Somali immigrants. Such nice people.
debbie
These people could at least have the integrity to wear their brown shirts when performing their job functions.
aimai
@ruemara: I am so sorry, Ruemara. Please take care of yourself. Do the least you have to to survive. Because its not worth the wear and tear on you. And you are very special to us.
debbie
@Brachiator:
Interesting that this has failed to make the local news in Columbus, OH. I have several angry emails in my future if I don’t see something tonight, especially from the NBC affiliate.
Elie
@trollhattan:
Naw man… we already see that all that stuff is bullshit. When we hear or read someone that has “woke up”, lets talk to them and figure out 1), what woke them up, 2) who else they know in the industry that is close to awakening and how we can get them to do and say more.
Why oh why is spending time on the questions that you list important? If they are not awake yet, they just ignore you. If they have just awakened, why piss em off talking about what they used to think or write? I want their input and ideas on how to fight this thing with more opposition, not worthless post mortems that don’t teach you anything or do anything about our current predicament. We need a lot of information on who we are fighting as well and what might work. I don’t want to spend one second on shit we can’t do anything about any more and that won’t help us address what has to be done.
For the people who want revenge, to take all the names for posterity, we can have an auto-da-fe afterwards and we can then behead or burn at the stake all the traitors —
jl
@Mnemosyne:
” Trying to remember how close the current Turkish PM is to Putin. ”
I think a wild stretch to say that they are allies. And it’s Erdogan, the pres, who alternatively shoots down Russian military planes, and plays footsie with Putin, depending on what is on the immediate agenda.
I don’t see the point of trying to see everything going on with the Trumpsters as leading back to Russia.
Conflicts of interest in our government that arise from collaborating or profiting from any foreign government, or foreign political factions, are very bad, and there are many laws designed to address the problem.
Trumpsters, and Trump, very close to people like Farange and LePen. In their own ways, just as dangerous to be suborned by those two as by Putin. In some ways worse, since they don’t even give the ceremonial lip service to humanitarian civic principles that Putin does.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator: Cameras today. Knives and Bullets in the near future.
debbie
@ruemara:
Can you talk to HR? This will only prolong your recovery. Plus, he’s piling up all kinds of bad kharma.
WereBear
@ruemara: I’ve had that kind of boss. They feel fine!
Miss Bianca
@ruemara: you are a rock star (or did video kill the radio star?) Be well!
Captain C
@SenyorDave:
Direct stimulation of the pain centers of their brains, with the intensity set up to vary randomly over time.
sukabi
@JPL: phony indeed…his last feeble word was “we have a mandate”
To which I say bullshït. Be interesting to know if he’s one of the cowards who refuses to have a town hall and face his constituents.
Elie
@debbie:
My experience with HRs in the past has not been helpful. While her boss may be warned about any reprisals should she report her, it is very very difficult to stop. Unfortunately there are a thousand ways to make someone’s life hell while not breaking any obvious rules. For a contract or project worker, for example, its not getting the assignments or only getting rotten assignments or projects. It is finding fault with every little thing and blowing it up to a big deal and keeping a record of all the “big deals”. Trust me. I know. It is really difficult now with many people working from home and not having their treatment observed by others. Also.
To me, the best thing is to do as good a job as she can, stay safe, sane and healthy and when possible, look for another job.
Mnemosyne
@Elie:
I don’t think we have to behead all the traitors, or else none of us would be hanging out here on ex-Republican John Cole’s blog. However, I do think we need to get some kind of affirmative, “Wow, I really fucked up by trusting the Republicans — I won’t do that again!” rather than just an anti-Trump statement from people who want to be allies, or else we’ll end up right back in this situation when the Republicans manage to nominate someone slightly more competent than Trump.
Bill Arnold
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
:-) Made me laugh.
However, this is the USA, with guns, lots of guns. And some have skill at using them[1]. (Remember the DC snipers.) So realistically, some of the retaliation by the condemned-to-death-by-“conservatives” would be of that sort. (And that’s assuming no deliberate flame-fanning, e.g. by viral memes.)
I suppose that provoking such retaliation and providing an excuse for a police-state clampdown could be one hidden bonus motivation (besides tax cuts for the rich) for gutting health-care-for-most among a (hypothetical) devious deep-forward-planning subset of the right. Have not seen any convincing evidence for it so far though.
[1] Would be interested to learn what percentage of the USA population can hit a target with a gun at reasonable range. Military training, hunting training, general gun-fun-loving, etc. And how the skill is distributed in political belief space.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
That is who they are.creep.
Kay
But CNN sent a team to Obama’s grade school on “suspicion of being Muslim”
Please. This is exactly what people mean when they say “privilege”. It’s breezing into places and no one asking if you belong there.
TenguPhule
@Bill Arnold: More likely would first be an increase in Iraqi-style kidnappings for ransom to pay medical bills. I wish I was joking. But if people get desperate enough…and the GOP supporters keep on parading around like heartless rich folks…..
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
But what if…. what if the cost of a medical (drug induced) abortion was $5, and a surgical abortion, dilation and curettage cost $50. That would make insurance irrelevant to reproductive health care.
TenguPhule
@SenyorDave:
Eaten alive by blowflies every day and reformed from their maggot droppings every evening to begin the cycle again.
J R in WV
@StringOnAStick:
I’m glad (not really, but you know what I mean) that I’m not alone with that waking up a 4 am and getting up because I know there isn’t any more sleep in the night for me. Unfortunately, my dad worked nights, and Mrs J and I worked nights when we were young.
So I can stay up reading until 2 or 3, which makes getting up even way after dawn a short night’s sleep, depending on the time of year we’re talking about. My doctor is understanding and helpful, but I don’t really care for chemically induced sleep. It IS better than NO sleep, though…
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Now, now, come on rickyrah!!
You know as well as I do that criminals go to school and church! And so do their kids. Right?
/sI agree with you totally. They lie by instinct. As quickly as their mouths open the lies spill out.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: Sounds like a guy with a lot of “economic anxiety” that the Democrats should develop innovative new programs to assist.
Chris
@mouse tolliver:
Any Democrat with this much baggage would’ve already been forced to resign. No, that’s not hyperbole.
Of course, any Democrat with this much baggage would never have risen to this level in the first place. He’d never have risen to being a national level politician in the first place, and if he somehow had, and had become one of the two general election candidates, the press would’ve opened fire on him with both barrels until he went home with less than 40% of the popular vote.
Chris
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Corday. Charlotte Corday.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: Yup.
Confirmation hearings are almost always just a show these days. There’s no consequence for saying whatever the nominee thinks the committee wants to hear (look at CJ John “Stare Decisis” Roberts), or not knowing anything at all about the position (look at Betsy “Growth = Proficiency” DeVos).
Being Shocked, Shocked that Kelly is a mean old crank is silly. Only a mean old crank would take the position under Trump.
In other news, water is wet.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@Aleta:
True, but so far at least the attendant outrage (among those who are outraged) is dominating in non-immigrant communities. (Not solid, just from news reports of protests, and among my direct acquaintances.)
J R in WV
@Mnemosyne:
GOOD! Couldn’t happen to a nicer state.
Ian
This is all part of “Making America Great Again”, right?
FlipYrWhig
@Chris: A Democratic Trump would be something like a cross between Rod Blagojevich, Anthony Weiner, and Roseanne Barr.
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
If such a drug existed, the Republicans would ban it, and make its sale and use subject to conviction with life imprisonment. A huge black market would develop and women would die from the use of impure versions of the drug.
After the New Civil War, things would get better for the survivors and the drug would become easily available.
evodevo
@Millard Filmore: Unfortunately, Sarbanes/Oxley (SOX) was supposed to do that… however, it requires an administration who will enforce it …
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
Well, I read a lot of fiction, ya know, so….
I did read Handmaid’s Tale, which isn’t what we’re about to get, but it’s uncomfortably close. Yetch!
No One You Know
@Brachiator: Huh. I wonder what his foreign wife thinks of this. Wasn’t she spouting about children as one of her causes?
Our was she just talking about her own son?
That must be it. It’s institutionalized bullying based on class and origin that’s OK; and white males are exempt. I get it now.
Darkrose
@ruemara: Oh man, I’m so sorry. That sounds all too much like my last couple of years at that place. If there’s anything I can do, like run to the store for you or something, let me know, okay?
J
@efgoldman: