Great video—50 yrs after becoming 1st woman to officially run the Boston Marathon, Kathrine Switzer finishes again. pic.twitter.com/SR46bw8YUB
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 17, 2017
She’s seventy years old. (I couldn’t have finished a marathon when I was twenty!)
Georgia special election today, finally…
Georgia’s Special Election: What to Watch For https://t.co/l71JxP5e63
— Michael Tackett (@tackettdc) April 18, 2017
Apart from that, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Oh, yeah, one less glibertarian in California…
The leader of the Calexit campaign, Louis Marinelli, just announced he's settling in Russia permanently & withdrawing his ballot petition. pic.twitter.com/zHwtUjcm5p
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) April 17, 2017
You tried to put this guy in a satirical novel, any decent editor would reject him as “entirely too broad.”
… Marinelli, who campaigned for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders but said he ultimately voted for President Donald Trump, described Yes California as a progressive initiative aimed at establishing a “liberal republic” independent of the United States. But his decision to align Yes California so publicly with Russia alienated him from the other, albeit smaller, California separatist movement known as the California Nationalist Party…
He added that he hopes that “after the false allegations about me vanish, and after this period of anti-Russian hysteria subsides,” it will be “said of this campaign that we spoke the truth” and “set in motion a series of events that led California to independence from the United States.”…
RedDirtGirl
Good morning, Balloon Juice!
Elizabelle
@RedDirtGirl: Good morning Red Dirt Girl!
HeleninEire
@RedDirtGirl: Good morning! Good to see you.
amk
campaigned for bs.
voted for the bs’er
now wants to go to putinland.
and this guy was/is given importance why?
amk
and may goes for polls in june.
democrazy..
satby
@RedDirtGirl: @Elizabelle: Good morning to you both, and to rikyrah, who began this genteel start to our days!?☕
As for Marinelli, hope the door hits him hard enough in the ass to cause a concussion.
Betty Cracker
So, Theresa May calls for early elections. Fascinating.
RedDirtGirl
@Elizabelle: Good morning to you in Barthelona! I was there in the eighties with my dad (a professor of Spanish literature), and as we drove by one of Gaudi’s apartment buildings he noticed a To Rent sign. We went in and got a tour of the place. I still remember the amazing design of that place!
RedDirtGirl
@HeleninEire: Hey, Helen! How’s life in Ireland?
p.a.
good morning!
Marinelli… stupid, or undetected brain lesions?
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: A pox on the lot of you.
OzarkHillbilly
@p.a.: Both.
HeleninEire
@RedDirtGirl: Great. I am loving it. And we are coming up to the beautiful weather. For the next 5 months the temp won’t go below 55 or above 80. Soon it will be light from 5 am until close to 11 pm. Absolute heaven.
I am being lazy as all get-out. Not really looking for work too aggressively. Just enjoying my new home and all the new friends I’m making. This can’t last forever; eventually I’ve got to get back to work, but for now it is like a fabulous extended vacation!
Gvg
Cal exit was never going to happen. Impractical. Anyone know how many verified signatures it got?
He might actually be completely serious and honest since he explained openly but if so he is deluded and a fool. I don’t see what the open moving to Russia does for Russia’s interests so that probably is their doing on purpose. People are weird.
Tokyokie
Nothing demonstrates one’s lack of fealty to Влади́мир Влади́мирович more than pushing a ballot initiative to undermine a rival republic then moving to Russia when it draws scant support. Marinelli should embrace his newfound freedoms by adopting the cause of Chechen independence.
R-Jud
@Betty Cracker: I’m sure Jeremy Corbyn will have a strong opinion about that when he hears about it next week or so.
At least the locals will stop asking me about Trump for a few weeks.
Schlemazel
@Gvg:
It is too bad the US can’t withdraw his citizenship.
I am stuck at the airport this AM. Forced to listen to CNN and clips of motherfuckingtrump. Really, is deafness such a horrible thing? Seems currently like it would be a blessing.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I’d bet she’s looking for a way to cover her ass after supporting it like she did.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: and a very good, no excellent morning to you too, sir! ?
Major Major Major Major
Have we talked about this?
http://www.avclub.com/article/alex-jones-performance-artist-playing-character-at-253829
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
I would compare Jones’s “character” to Steven Colbert’s “character” and call bullshit.
Ben Cisco
This is funny.
As in smells funny.
As in “stinks to high heaven.”
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
p.a.
@Ben Cisco: Smells Like Libertarian Spirit waiting on the Crazy Al Yancovic cover.
rikyrah
@RedDirtGirl:
Morning RedDirtGirl?
rikyrah
@amk:
Uh huh
Uh huh
Ask those questions
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
I wondered about that myself.
rikyrah
@Major Major Major Major:
All fun and games until the lawsuit comes??
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: His wife’s lawyer has him by the balls. In a deposition (can’t find the article I read) he said of his on air antics, “This is who I am.” He even put his son on his show.
amk
@Betty Cracker: According to the limey talking heads (and sturgeon, who will now want her own mandate), she wants a ‘mandate’ for herself. And she will get it given that corbyn is also a brexit clown.
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: I mean, that’s not surprising, the truth has a way of coming out when one has thousands of hours of air time and books of writing.
TheMightyTrowel
@amk: all my brits are very depressed about this election. See no clear opposition since lab ceded the moral high ground and the lib dems are almost wholly immolated by their coalition with the tories. Maybe some ground for the snp to move south but no clear indication it’s happening.
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: The fact that these idiots think they can hide behind the “I’m just an entertainer.” lie boggles my mind.
Iowa Old Lady
@Schlemazel: I don’t know why public places don’t use close captioning rather than have the sound on. And I hate Trump’s voice.
He’s tweeting this morning. It’s too stupid even to repeat, and I can hear his voice in my head as I read the crap. BAD!
RedDirtGirl
@rikyrah: Good Morning, Rikyrah!
?
Davebo
@TheMightyTrowel:
Well my Brits (Scotts) would like to see the SNP move to the central Atlantic, preferably deep underwater.
Kay
But, actually, no one knows what the Trumps do because there’s zero transparency about their business dealings so we’re really just relying on Ivanka and Jared when they say they have determined that they are special and unique and above any conflict of interest ethical norms:
This is gross and it’s a new low for ethics and transparency. It’s now the norm for every President after Trump. They can pack their administrations with nepotism hires and everyone can immediately cash in the day after the election.
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: Limbaugh does that right?
Taylor
@TheMightyTrowel: This is a fight between May and Sturgeon for the future of the UK. Labor are probably never going to recover from the disaster that is about to happen to them. No sympathy for Corbyn, plenty of evidence that he sabotaged the Remain campaign rather than being honest and admitting he was for Brexit.
No sympathy for the English, frankly, they are now reliable Little Englander voters. If I was Scottish, I’d be strongly for breaking with the Union, after personally favoring union during their last referendum. England is becoming a very ugly country.
lollipopguild
@OzarkHillbilly: Many years ago when Rush was taking heat over something he went on his show and said “I am just a harmless fuzzball.” Jones was fine when the money and attention was rolling in but now he is just an “actor”?
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: Yep.
Major Major Major Major
The French election is looking… fun, too.
lollipopguild
@Taylor: England is also going to become a smaller less important country. Eventually a lot of businesses and jobs are going to leave for Ireland or Europe. England is going to resemble the kid who is on the outside looking in. They will have no one to blame but themselves.
Hunter Gathers
@Kay:
Fixed that for ya. Any future Dem POTUS will have to give up their salary, renounce their children, send their spouses to Mongolia and sell everything they own before stepping foot in the White House. And we’ll still get daily stories about how Trump voters are offended by the actions of the Dem POTUS, since that poor soul will be vilified for not re-instituting slavery, for not abolishing taxation of all kinds and for not bombing the shit out of brown people.
Quinerly
@Iowa Old Lady:
He was tweeting at some point yesterday that Rasmussen had him at 50% approval. Think it was also a Drudge headline. Looks like he’s calling in to Fox and Friends this AM, and talking about himself on Twitter in the third person re his WI trip later today. I feel like I’m in an unending nightmare. Honestly, sometimes I just blank out and then it hits me that he’s president. Maybe I’m still in shock?
rikyrah
@Kay:
Keep on pointing this out Kay.
Kay
Susan Rice has been found not guilty of the crimes she was accused of, which is a relief I guess since there was absolutely no evidence she did anything “wrong” in the first place.
She’s one of the intrinsically “bad people” who is always up to something malicious and possibly illegal. Some people get “strict scrutiny” and others get no scrutiny at all. Entirely arbitrary. Some Presidents are badgered until they release everything and then other Presidents get a complete pass.
rikyrah
@Taylor:
Corbyn was for Brexit?
Major Major Major Major
I saw a tweet going around that said
I don’t know if I’d say enjoying, though…
Taylor
@lollipopguild: Brexit is going to be tough for Ireland, because they trade so much with the UK.
Even worse for NI. The future of the peace process is up in the air, not helped by the death of Martin McGuinness. Nobody in Westminster gives a damn, that’s clear. The last thing the South wants is reunion with the North. Perhaps they can work out a federation between the Republic, NI and Scotland, as part of the EU. Not if May can help it, obviously.
Kay
@Hunter Gathers:
I read that the Obama’s didn’t refinance their mortgage because they were concerned it might appear bad.
The Washington Post would have filed 800 words on the front page so we would have known everything about it anyway.
Glad we dispensed with that foolishness! Why shouldn’t Ivanaka and Jared make big bank off the Presidency? They’re sacrificing so much for their country!
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: many lefties were pro-Brexit.
Taylor
@rikyrah: He never admitted it, but he and his puppet master McDonnell have always been Euro-skeptics. His performance during the Brexit referendum was a big reason why he was challenged for the leadership after the referendum. Cameron said famously that he wouldn’t like to see Corbyn not trying, if that was his best effort.
The ultimate absurdity was his tweet after getting his party to vote for Article 50 that “the fight starts now.” Sorry chum, the fight was yesterday, but you never showed up.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I love how they pretend there’s no choice. I guess it never occurred to Ivanka that she could have opted to not take the nepotism position in the White House. She has agency. She has the ability to do the right thing, if not the will.
Actual royalty behave better. We would be better off with a real royal family.
amk
@rikyrah: He was a closet brexiter. A fucking coward.
Hunter Gathers
@Kay: It didn’t have to be that way, but black people continue to stubbornly exist. Which is offensive to Trump’s base, and therefore the Villagers.
The most offensive thing (to white people) to ever come out of any POTUS’s mouth was ‘If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.’
Because of that, because Obama dared to express sympathy for a teenager executed by a loser wannabe cop, this country has gone completely apeshit. It’s not ‘economic anxiety’, it’s pure fucking racism.
SFAW
@amk:
Seems to be a lot of that going around.
Last night, Mrs. SFAW told me she wanted a “man date” with this guy from work. She said she already “knew” him, so I guess it’s OK right?
efgoldman
@p.a.:
Yes
lollipopguild
@amk: Part of the problem in England is that many people in both of the major parties thought that they could leave the EU and keep all of the good things while getting rid of all of the things that they did not like. Life does not work that way as they are finding out.
amk
Funny to see the PM’s of the
countryempire, where the sun apparently never sets, hold their PC’s right on the road.Anya
@Betty Cracker: She’s being an opportunist. She wants to get her majority while the Labour Party is in such a disarray.
pk
It’s as if I wanted to eat ice cream, but then decided that Drano was better.
Chyron HR
@pk:
It’s as if he wasn’t particularly interested in policy but just wanted to strike a blow at the Democratic party.
germy
Kay
@Hunter Gathers:
But how to excuse the lack of transparency and the conflicts? It’s ludicrous. The municipal court across the street has stronger ethical guidelines and rules that the Trump Administration. MUCH stronger.
This is pure privilege. It’s “we’re better than you so the rules don’t apply”. There’s no other reason for the exceptions that are being made. They’re better people. Special. In other words- privileged. So ultra-valuable that we all must contort norms into pretzels to benefit from their genius.
I read that Jared told Trump family members couldn’t be fired. This is why there are rules about not hiring them. That’s it. He’s mistakenly stumbled upon the public interest in the norm he’s flouting.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
What are you talking about? First, she’s a woman. Even worse, she’s a black woman. She’s guilty alright.
Tripod
@Major Major Major Major:
He’s representative of old line industrial labor Labor. Arthur Scargill still thinks they can reopen the pits. It’s not so much an ideological driven soci-economic platform as much as old farts feeding a line of bullshit. You know… like Wilmer.
Kay
@Hunter Gathers:
This is twice Rice has been exonerated for unspecified crimes. God almighty. One would think at some point she would get ordinary process before they launch the bullshit indictment.
Susan Rice has gotten 10X the scrutiny that Donald Trump has and she doesn’t even work there anymore.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Questions remain”. Eternally. Because Rice is bad, bad, bad.
Has anyone heard anything on that “Russians interfering with elections” thing? We’re holding elections right now. I hope we don’t find out 3 months after that every political reporter heard from every campaign that Russia was interfering. The voters were the only people left out of this loop.
OzarkHillbilly
@lollipopguild: There’s a lot of that magical thinking going around.
Elmo
@Kay: When I was a lawyer in a small ski town in California, the local Superior Court judge was the former law partner and roommate of my boss. They had been friends for thirty years.
He wouldn’t let my boss buy him a cup of coffee if they were in line together at the coffee shop.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: It won’t happen, but I truly long to see that pair of parasites hauled off in manacles. IMO, they’re a thousand times worse than Bernie Madoff, who, bad as he was, ripped off a relatively small circle of investors. These greed-head grift-mavens are scamming every citizen of this country and defiling government property with their presence, all the while demanding to be praised for doing us a favor!
@Major Major Major Major: It really is almost eerie, how there’s an old Trump tweet bashing Obama for doing things Trump is now doing — when Trump does something that is fairly within the realm of normal presidenting, such as playing a round of golf or failing to label the country that holds most of the national debt a currency manipulator. It’s almost like he had no idea what the job to which he aspired entailed!
ThresherK
Dang! I’d like to have seen that. I have a shelf full of Boston Marathon volunteer jackets, but I didn’t volunteer for Boston this year owing to other priorities.
My pre-race ritual this year? See what color the volunteer jackets are this year, and hope the weather cooperates.
The yellow and blue is a classic look. Weatherwise, I think there was mention of a trailing wind (good), but I’ve been there when it’s warm, and the back-channel communcations becomes about optimizing / moving water supplies and the medical personnel being more in demand.
Sometimes there are 5-gal water jugs sitting unopened. Yesterday was likely not one of those days.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Corbyn is the British Bernie.
Betty Cracker
@germy: Brava!
Ohio Mom
@Major Major Major Major: A “performance artist,” eh?
There’s a difference between art and propaganda; art invites and demands dialogue, propoganda is a monologue (yes, once upon a time, I was an art major).
So maybe there is an argument that Alex Jones is a “performance propagandist”?
Gin & Tonic
@Elmo: I’ve found in life that people either have ethics or they don’t. There’s a clear line and no middle ground.
schrodingers_cat
Paraphrasing Curzon, without India, Britain went from being a superpower to a second rate power, what will be its status without Scotland ?
Ohio Mom
@germy: I’d say Ouch but assume some underling reads the mail and shelters Ivanka from being confronted thusly.
Still, it’s good to have this small example of the truth circulating.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Good for her. She has principles and moral convictions, unlike many brave armchair liberal warriors who are eager to toss immigrants to wolves to try and win T voters.
edited for clarity.
sherparick
@Kay: Well, some people are Black, women, and Democrats. Hence, guilty by definition. Where if you are white, rich, Republican, and male, your motives are a pure as the driven snow.
Trump’s administration is the most openly corrupt administration in American history. Warren Harding’s and George W. Bush’s administrations (notice how they were both Republican, business men dominated administrations) are pikers compared to the looting that is going on now.
Another Scott
@TheMightyTrowel: I was surprised when I saw the news this AM, but I really shouldn’t have been. Brexit is a disaster, but UK politics is even moreso, so of course (from her point of view) she should try to strengthen her position while she can. An even stronger Tory party in the UK will only make things worse, but, hey, let’s all jump into the pit together!!1 It’ll be fun!!11
Here’s hoping that Nicola will find a way to rally the sensible people to prevent it. The Guardian:
She’s right.
Will Labour finally manage to get its act together and throw out Corbyn and put up some sensible candidates? I’m not holding my breath.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who really hates these slow-motion train wrecks…)
germy
We don’t get HBO, but I learned this morning they’ve made a film based on the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Broadcast date will be April 22, for any juicers out there with cable TV who are interested.
We’re hoping it’ll show up on DVD at our local (well-stocked) public library at some point.
rikyrah
@Major Major Major Major:
huh?
why?
rikyrah
sugar-free jelly is a bad idea.
you don’t use a lot of jelly on toast or biscuits….
ruined a good piece of toast this morning with sugar -free jelly :(
will never happen again.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: To heighten the contradictions and teach neoliberals a lesson? (Just extrapolating from our cray cray leftie fringe)
Dupe70
@amk: The best tag line I read was : In April, May requests June elections.
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: Corporate neoliberal something something anguished working class something, as is their usual explanation for everything.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Do you have an Aldi’s where you live? They have very good jams and fruit preserves made with sugar and not too sweet and that don’t cost an arm and a leg unlike regular grocery stores. I am fan of their fig preserves and blackberry preserves.
Cookie monster
@rikyrah: Immigration.
They don’t like “bloody foreigners”.
Much of the media has demonized the EU for the last thirty years, too, with stories of how EU law requires bananas to be straight and other such silliness – the outrage machine.
As such, everything people dislike had become “it’s an EU law” – regardless off reality.
ruemara
@rikyrah: Destroy the “Establishment”. Without much of a clue what that is, what replaces it, etc., etc., etc.
Ian
@Schlemazel:
I usually hear that from the right, it does not sound any better from the left.
sibusisodan
@rikyrah
The very short answer is that the EU makes historically socialist policies harder to implement: competition rules make public monopolies trickier.
This is obviously a barrier UK govts bounce off all the time.
schrodingers_cat
@Cookie monster:
That’s rich, especially in the light of the history of their glorious Empire.
Taylor
@rikyrah: Edward Heath took Britain into the EEC. Thatcher (with Jacques Delors, an unlikely partnership) was an architect of the Single Market that removed obstacles to trade in goods and services between EU members.
Corbyn has been opposed to placing restrictions on immigration from other EU countries, but advised people during the Brexit referendum that if they wanted such restrictions, they should vote for Brexit.
rikyrah
In The 1920s, A Community Conspired To Kill Native Americans For Their Oil Money
April 17, 20174:44 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
Generations ago, the American Indian Osage tribe was compelled to move. Not for the first time, white settlers pushed them off their land in the 1800s. They made their new home in a rocky, infertile area in northeast Oklahoma in hopes that settlers would finally leave them alone.
As it turned out, the land they had chosen was rich in oil, and in the early 20th century, members of the tribe became spectacularly wealthy. They bought cars and built mansions; they made so much oil money that the government began appointing white guardians to “help” them spend it.
And then Osage members started turning up dead.
In his new book, Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann describes how white people in the area conspired to kill Osage members in order steal their oil wealth, which could only be passed on through inheritance. “This was a culture of complicity,” he says, “and it was allowed to go on for so long because so many people were part of the plot. You had lawmen, you had prosecutors, you had the reporters who wouldn’t cover it. You had oilmen who wouldn’t speak out. You had morticians who would cover up the murders when they buried the body. You had doctors who helped give poison to people.”
On how the conspiracy worked
What makes these crimes so sinister is that it involved marrying into families. It involved a level of calculation and a level of betraying the very people you pretended to love. And the way these murders would take place is that people would marry into the families and then begin to kill each member of the family. … That’s exactly what happened to [Osage woman Mollie Burkhart]. She had married a white man, and his uncle was the most powerful settler in the area. He was known as the King of the Osage Hills … and he had orchestrated a very sinister plot played out over years where he directed his nephew, who had married Mollie Burkhart, to marry her so that he could then begin to kill the family members one by one and siphon off all the wealth.
Cookie monster
@schrodingers_cat: That’s more a working class thing – and the Empire years weren’t exactly kind to them, though obviously not as bad as outside the UK. The great lie told to the poorest Brits back then was how lucky they were to be part of it, all while being screwed economically.
This may sound familiar…
rikyrah
If you want to change the Democratic Party…
THEN BECOME A DEMOCRAT!!!!
Bernie Sanders kicks off cross-country tour, wants change
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders gained roars of approval from a friendly crowd on Monday as he called for a radical transformation of the Democratic Party into a grassroots movement founded on the tenets of his unsuccessful Democratic presidential campaign: fighting against the billionaire class and rigged economic and political systems.
Sanders, of Vermont, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, who faced some boos as he spoke, launched a cross-country tour together in Maine, where Sanders won the Democratic presidential caucuses. The tour will take them from Maine to eight other states, including Florida, Arizona, Montana and Nevada.
Sanders, who ran as a Democrat against Hillary Clinton but returned to the Senate as an independent, said the Democratic Party must stop ignoring half the nation’s states and take on corporate greed on behalf of the working class. Perez urged attendees to resist Republican President Donald Trump by winning seats in Congress, statehouses and school boards.
Sab
@Taylor: I am so old that I remember when the UK was trying to get into the EU and couldn’t because France kept saying no.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Democrats need to kick Bernie to the curb. ASAP.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@SFAW:
Ugh. Sorry, man.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
there are people who say one of Clinton-Mook’s biggest mistakes was chasing AZ and IN at the expense of WI and MI, but of course supporting a $12/hr national minimum wage instead of $15 is just sucking up to Wall St and the Koch Bros, so…
rikyrah
@ruemara:
pony and unicorn crowd…uh huh
rikyrah
Trump White House struggles with questions about transparency
04/18/17 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
During Barack Obama’s presidency, Donald Trump whined incessantly about transparency, calling the Democrat, among other things, “the least transparent president ever.” Trump asked in 2012, “Why does Obama believe he shouldn’t comply with record releases that his predecessors did of their own volition? Hiding something?”
Soon after, the Republican added, “Obama thinks he can just laugh off the fact that he refuses to release his records to the American public. He can’t.”
At the time, Trump’s preoccupation with transparency had a rather specific focus: Trump, championing a racist conspiracy theory, called for the disclosure of “records” such as Obama’s college transcripts.
Now that Trump is himself the president, the Republican has adopted a dramatically different posture. The New York Times reported:
There are basically four elements to this: (1) Trump’s secret tax returns; (2) the White House’s now-secret visitor logs; (3) disclosure of Trump’s excessive golf outings; and (4) White House readouts of the president’s conversations with foreign leaders.
HeleninEire
@Taylor: As someone watching from the ground over here I can tell you that both the Republic and the NI governments are ON IT. They are planning and negotiating like I’ve never seen govts do before. And reunification is not on the table except in Gerry Adams’ fantasies. And Scotland? Not even a small part of the conversation.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Here’s what I fault Clinton’s campaign with. They knew they were 5 points back in Ohio. Ohio is part of a group of states that often move in the same direction. So if they’re 5 points back in Ohio they may be even in PA and MI- a real risk,just like if they’re 5 points up in Ohio PA and MI are safe as houses.
How could they miss that? Why would they ever think it was limited to Ohio? No one ever thinks that. Everyone says “9 points up in PA so 3 up in Ohio”. There are REGIONS, groups of states that move along the same lines.
And then Indiana! They were in trouble in Ohio so they focused on Indiana? WTF? Indiana isn’t even in the first tier of midwestern/Great Lakes state they need.
amk
@SFAW: what didja do to piss her off?
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They had the information on Ohio. That to me is proof positive of incompetence because that should have told them they were weak in the other states that are LIKE Ohio in some ways.
It doesn’t even matter if they had polling in MI. All they need is OH polling to see where MI will land.
rikyrah
District Says 24 Credits and a D-minus Average Aren’t Good Enough
Focusing on family buy-in, a Connecticut district shifts to mastery-based learning
by Tara García Mathewson
April 17, 2017 10:52 PM
WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. — When Kylie Jones brings home her report card, it doesn’t have any A’s, B’s or C’s. The Windsor Locks High School freshman belongs to the first cohort of students going through middle and high school under a new system. Traditional grades no longer exist, children get extra help based on their individual learning needs and classrooms run very differently.
The small Connecticut town, just south of the Massachusetts border, is in its fifth year under a system that asks students to master specific skills in every subject. They can’t just do all their homework and ask for extra credit projects to obscure the fact that they didn’t truly learn something.
Superintendent Susan Bell likes to say 24 credits and a D-minus average — what used to be the cutoff for graduation — is not enough.
Kylie’s class is known as the guinea pigs. They will be the first to graduate with a mastery-based diploma. And, more important to many parents in town, the first to find out how this new system will affect their college applications.
Some families have not stayed in the district long enough to find out. Indeed, five years into the shift, there is still organized opposition to it — even though 69 of the region’s colleges have said students with diplomas from mastery-based schools will not be discriminated against in their application processes. Some families have left for magnet schools and private alternatives. Some teachers have departed for more familiar work or taken advantage of offers for early retirement.
rikyrah
I like the phrase ” Swamp of Corruption”
Sums them up perfectly.
…………………
How Trump Is Filling the Swamp of Corruption
by Nancy LeTourneau April 18, 2017 8:00 AM
Throughout the campaign, one of Trump’s biggest applause lines came from his promise to “drain the swamp” of corruption in Washington. As we near his 100th day in office, much will be made of the fact that on January 28th he signed an executive order on ethics that will be touted as proof that he kept that promise. But the Washington Post has labelled it a promise broken.
For a while now I’ve been saying, “Who needs lobbyists when Trump’s entire cabinet consists of foxes who have been hired to guard the henhouse?” Not only are they the richest cabinet in U.S. history, the New York Times reports that the swamp is being filled by corporate interests.
Gin & Tonic
@amk: I took that post as attempted humor.
rikyrah
Alex Jones’ ‘performance artist’ claim leaves Trump in awkward spot
04/17/17 12:40 PM
By Steve Benen
Alex Jones has earned a reputation for being a bellicose conspiracy theorist who routinely shares some deeply odd ideas with his broadcast audience. For most of the American mainstream, watching Jones push some of his most offensive theories – the idea that the Sandy Hook massacre was a staged “false flag” event, for example – gives the impression that he may not be altogether stable.
It’s against this backdrop that Jones finds himself in a legal fight with Kelly Jones, the host’s ex-wife who is seeking custody of their children. Not surprisingly, she and her attorney are pointing to Alex Jones’ InfoWars content as proof of his unsuitability as a parent.
The Austin American Statesman reported over the weekend, however, that the host’s lawyer has a specific defense in mind to explain away his client’s over-the-top tirades.
rikyrah
Despite Benghazi focus, Trump looks past diplomatic security
04/18/17 09:34 AM
By Steve Benen
Donald Trump’s lax approach to filling key posts throughout his administration is becoming one of the president’s more glaring missteps. As of yesterday, of the 544 top positions requiring Senate confirmation, the White House hasn’t nominated anyone for 473 of those offices.
As Politico reported, that includes the office responsible for diplomatic security abroad.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Also. The national Democratic Party didn’t notice they lost governor’s races in every single Great Lakes state including Illinois? This was not a bad sign to them? My God, they got slaughtered in the whole region!
They stuck with the “ladders of opportunity” theme after that?
rikyrah
Why is Trump celebrating Turkey’s democratic crisis?
04/18/17 08:43 AM
By Steve Benen
During yesterday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about Turkey’s referendum, and allegations of election irregularities in a process that’s given Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers. Spicer was circumspect.
“My understanding is there’s an international commission that is reviewing this and issues a report in 10 to 12 days,” Spicer said. “And so we’ll wait and let them do their job.” Asked what Donald Trump would like to see Erdogan do, Spicer added, “I think we’d rather not get ahead of that report and start to make decisions without knowing. There were observers there, as there routinely are, and I’d rather wait and see.”
A few hours later, Donald Trump decided not to wait and see.
germy
@Kay: Apparently a book is coming out, covering all the gory details:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/18/hillary-clinton-to-president-obama-on-election-night-i-m-sorry-i-lost.html
I don’t blame “Clinton herself” to quote the book. I blame the derangement syndrome noise machine. And the noise was coming from both right and left sides. And I know two nickels and the popular vote will get me a dime, but she still beat the cheeto by millions.
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/17/17
Real Trump anti-immigrant plan seen in arrests of innocents
Joy-Ann Reid contrasts the Donald Trump White House explanations of its priorities for deportation with reports of arrests for deportation of mothers of American children with no criminal records.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/17/17
Trump ignores oppression in congratulatory call to Erdogan
Joy-Ann Reid reports on the questions about the legitimacy of a Turkish referendum election and the authoritarian power grab seen in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s win, none of which stood in the way of Donald Trump making a congratulatory phone call.
The Moar You Know
Calexit was a magnificent idea, but fuck that guy and fuck his initiative. I’ll wait for a legit one.
rikyrah
@germy:
Who are the authors of the book? What are their reputations?
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Yet there are people ostensibly on our side that think that compromise on immigration is possible with a regime that has Sessions as AG and Deporter-in-Chief as President.
The Moar You Know
@germy: No, actually, it wasn’t. A lot of people busted their vile asses to make sure of that.
Take away the Russian-funded Sanders campaign, Comey’s interference, and the media standing on the scales…then it was winnable. Still not guaranteed.
germy
@rikyrah: One of them writes for The Hill and quotes axios in twitter a lot.
So a healthy dose of skepticism is in order. They’re described as “longtime Clinton chroniclers” which to me sounds fishy.
Elizabelle
@The Moar You Know: yeah. I cannot stand the “Clinton was her own biggest obstacle” crowd. Fuck ’em. How stupid, incomplete, and cruel.
Barbara
I spent all of last week in California, first San Diego and then Mammoth Lakes, and I for one hope that California never leaves the United States. I sometimes joke that what needs to happen is for any state with population below 2 million (or some number) to combine with its politically most compatible neighbor (or neighbors — part can go one way and part the other) so that there are fewer states and ultimately less regionalism. Canada has nine provinces for nearly the same land mass. Factionalism always becomes an increasing impediment to progress as communication and technology makes distance less important. It was true for the German principalities that ultimately unified into Prussia and it’s true for us. I know, fat chance.
Elizabelle
@germy: Axios. Butt stupid attention grabber crowd. Where journalism goes to die. Both sides!
Ryan
@germy: “aims to be the definitive answer to the question millions of hungover Americans asked on Nov. 9, 2016: “What the hell happened?””
Hungover is right, daydrinking in the Trump Era. At least trump didn’t kick any puppies or kill any kids at the Easter Egg Roll. There’s an anchor somewhere who said “on Monday, Trump truly became President.
Elizabelle
@Barbara: Sounds like a good idea to me. Won’t happen in our lifetimes, but would be more governable.
JPL
I’m taking a coffee break from waving signs. The two polling places that I have been at, have had a heavy turnout for a special election so far. That’s good for council, not sure it’s great for Ossoff. The polling places overwhelmingly went for Trump. There was a sign waver for Ossoff.
germy
@Elizabelle: After spending the entire campaign (and previous 20 years) kicking her, they’re now kicking her after her loss.
They’ll be kicking her long after she’s dead and gone, I suspect.
rikyrah
@germy:
Uh huh
Uh huh
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Long time Clinton haters would probably be more accurate.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: prexactly. Fuck them.
rikyrah
Judge orders Secretary of State Kobach to produce plan taken to Trump
By Associated Press
Published: April 17, 2017, 4:24 pm
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) – A federal judge has ordered Kansas’ top elections official to turn over a proposed changes to federal voting rights laws that he took to a meeting with President Donald Trump.
After privately examining the documents, U.S. Magistrate James O’Hara ruled Monday that parts of documents from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach are “unquestionably relevant” to a lawsuit challenging a state law requiring voters provide proof of their U.S. citizenship when registering.
The order also instructs Kobach to produce a related internal document about proposed changes to the National Voter Registration Act. The ruling allowed him to redact parts of the plan that did not involve the voting rights issues.
An Associated Press photo of that November meeting showed Kobach holding a paper outlining homeland security issues.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: they wrote a bio of HRC, the title, a couple of years back that I haven’t read but was sympathetic enough to get the Clintons (the family and the political clan) to cooperate. I haven’t read it but I’ve seen Allen on TV and… there are worse.
that’s great. And, yeah, Axios was formed by the worst elements of Politico, Van de Hei and Mike Allen
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
ACLU seeks copy of proposed changes to US election law
By Associated Press
Published: January 24, 2017, 11:47 am Updated: January 24, 2017, 12:15 pm
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal court to force Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to turn over proposed changes to the nation’s voter registration law that the conservative Republican was photographed bringing to a meeting in November with Donald Trump.
That draft document — which is partially obscured by Kobach’s left arm and hand in the photograph taken by The Associated Press — is being sought as part of the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging Kansas’ restrictive voter registration law. The ALCU filed its request for the proposed amendments late Monday.
Kobach has championed Kansas’ proof-of-citizenship requirement as an anti-fraud measure that keeps noncitizens from voting, including immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. Critics argue such requirements suppress voter turnout, particularly among young and minority voters, and that there have been few cases of fraud.
The ACLU contends the photographed document is relevant to its lawsuit because lobbying by Kobach to change the central provisions of the National Voter Registration Act may show that there’s no problem with noncitizen registration in the state.
The ACLU argued that the proposal could provide “key evidence” that Kobach cannot rebut the presumption that existing federal law that requires people registering to vote to attest under penalty of law that they’re citizens is enough. Kansas requires people to provide documents, such as a birth certificate, naturalization certificate or U.S. passport.
Kobach’s attorney argued in a Jan. 20 email to the ACLU that the document is subject to “executive privilege” because “it was created and is maintained in Kobach’s capacity as a Trump advisor.”
“Additionally, to the extent you are now asking about the document seen in that photo, it is clear that the request is designed to harass, as opposed to actually obtain documents relevant to a claim or defense in this case,” wrote Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Garrett Roe.
gene108
@rikyrah:
One (of many) problem with Bernie is he will not admit a competent politician can walk and chew gum at the same time.
You can be a man or woman of means, you can rack up big dollar donations, you can mingle with the wealthy, and still be committed to working people.
Change will be incremental and there will be no working class revolution, such as Russia 100 years ago, but you can still make things better for people.
And sadly too many would-be Democrats buy into his crap, so any Democrat, who gets corporate donations, is not sufficiently poor, etc, will run into similar problems that Hillary ran into, with regards to a loud faction of people, who want to undercut the Democratic Party.
amk
@Gin & Tonic: I know.
Iowa Old Lady
@rikyrah: When I listen to Sanders, I think of Tina Fey talking about the rules of improv. She says when you’re working with another comic, you always say, “Yes, and…” You don’t work by opposition. Sanders seems stuck in oppositional terms.
hovercraft
@lollipopguild:
Unfortunately not just England, scapegoating and something for nothing are reliable staples all over the world. Just look at Twitlers voters who cheered his promises to eliminate all of Obama’s “giveaways” to the undeserving, only to find out that they were the undeserving.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@germy:
Despite unprecedented, treasonous behavior by every American institution except the Democratic Party, it is all Hillary’s fault.
germy
@Thoroughly Pizzled: “She should have foreseen!”
rikyrah
Now, riddle me this…
WHAT IF…the same line about the mills was uttered from, say Gary, Indiana, about the steel mills, and the people in the story were Black?
What would be said?
Would it be PIECE AFTER PIECE AFTER PIECE on trying to ‘ understand’ them…
or would the people in Gary be labeled WHINERS, and be told to ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps’.
That ‘ times change’
Uh huh
………………………..
The Associated Press@AP
Coming Wednesday: @AP explores how resentment over influx of African refugees turned reliably Democratic county in Maine into Trump country.
……………………………………………………….
Once again…
Thank you, Mayo Nation, and go phuck yourself.
hovercraft
@germy:
I think I’m in love. So what if I have to change my sexual orientation, I’m turning 50 this year, why not try something new. This is the only positive of the Twitler era, people are woke!
rikyrah
I have said it for awhile…
they long for the delusional days of Mad Men.
they long for White Socialism
…………………………………………
My friend @Kris_Benny wrote this excellent analysis that “economic anxiety” actually stems from racism. Everyone should read it. pic.twitter.com/X63WWCTsrz
— Sally Albright (@SallyAlbright) April 17, 2017
Barbara
@Iowa Old Lady: I don’t like to bash Sanders for the same reason I don’t like to bash anyone I mostly agree with when it comes to voting record (except for guns). But I find his lionization to be a clear case of double standards when it comes to gender, if not outright misogyny. A woman who ran around shrieking and bellowing and insulting others the way he does would be driven off the stage. His record in Congress runs from mediocre to non-existent and his biggest claims are either aesthetic (Wall Street sucks!) or have the effect if not the intention of entrenching white privilege (free college tuition with no plan at all for hugely inegalitarian K-12 education). No one needs to worry about me. I am going to show up and work and vote no matter what but it really frosts me that someone like him actually has the nerve to think he is more representative of the working class than someone like me.
germy
“Those lazy moochers are stealing our jobs!”
Barbara
@hovercraft: One of the virtues of taking care when responding to a request like this is that it is impossible to dismiss it. Huge props to Ms. Dimayuga for speaking her mind without resorting to ad hominem attacks.
hovercraft
@Kay:
I have said it here before, on the right, there were three consistent targets during the Obama presidency other than the man himself.
Michelle Obama
Valerie Jarret
Susan Rice
All three are highly educated, very successful, mothers, and of course black women. They’ve followed the rules society set out for them, done everything that was asked, and yet they were the targets of the most vitriolic attacks from the right wing, I wonder why.
MomSense
@germy:
Tell me about it. I’m still fuming and filled with anguish. I’ll never get over the horrors I heard on my phone calls.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@rikyrah: What the everloving hell is Perez thinking, having Bernie along? He’s (Bernie) not a Democrat, he never will be a Democrat, so why are we STILL pandering to him? (And my deluded SIL still insists he would have won. I need to go hit my head on my desk now…)
Jeffro
@Barbara:
Wouldn’t fewer states lead to more regionalism, a la “The Nine Nations of North America”? (which I’m ok with, actually)
Anything that weakens the power of small states is fine by me. Getting rid of the Senate (or at least its legislative functions) and the EC are tops on that list.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
trying to stop him and his followers from peeing on and into the tent, which I get, but it’s time and past time for Ellison, Wyden and Warren to talk to him about his aim
hovercraft
@Barbara:
That’s what I love about her response, she could have given them an emotionally satisfying GFYS, and left it at that, but as a veteran of 17 years in retail management, doing it politely actually pisses people off more, they leave feeling smaller because you’ve told them where to go, but in such a way they have nothing to complain about. She wields that scalpel well.
Gelfling 545
@Kay: “She has agency. She has the ability to do the right thing, ”
She has the desire to not be written out of Dad’s will.
Barbara
@Jeffro: There would still be regionalism, as there is in Canada, but blocks of power would be better aligned with actual population. People in farm states would object that they would lose relative power federally, but they would benefit at the state level where they actually live by gaining economies of scale for things like transportation and other infrastructure. They would also be in a better position to compete with larger states for grants and research funding, which disproportionately go to larger states, as well as avoiding threats grounded in regulatory arbitrage (I am moving my factory to Nebraska if you don’t do what I want!). The more states you have, the easier it is to divide and conquer. The smaller the state is, the harder it is to win that game.
bemused
@germy:
Thanks for the heads up. I loved the book.
Barbara
@Gelfling 545: Meaning that here failure to wield her agency says a lot more about her than just about anything else she does or says.
Jeffro
@hovercraft: I have to second this, especially in regards to Valerie Jarrett. RWNJs read all kinds of sinister motives into any & every thing she did, especially the stuff that they made up.
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
As I said yesterday in response to Tiffany’s prayers for her sperm donor, they are all comtemptable. The diety protected me from Jr. stupidity yesterday, but Goddess help me do these people think any of this shit is really helping?
Trump Jr’s ‘Fake News’ T-Shirt Gets the Photoshop Treatment: ‘Rich Dumb Ass’
My favorite is the last one:
DO YOU
LOVE ME YET
DADDY?
Gelfling 545
@Kay: Well, sooner or later it’s going to become unproductive to keep attacking Hilary and they need to have someone else lined up to fill the gap.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hovercraft: Before they leave the White House, Eric and/or Junior is going to show up drunk on the lawn at two in the morning in a blonde wig screaming “Is this what you want? Is this enough?”
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, this.
Barbara
@Jeffro: When POC, but especially African Americans, actually do what white people tell them “they are supposed to do” — go to college, work hard, succeed in a profession or business — they seem to earn more not less opprobrium from certain segments of the population. Basically, there is an entrenched belief among some people that POC and African Americans CAN’T actually do those things, and that makes people feel safe telling them that’s what they should do. When they succeed at a level that is higher than many white people, it makes those white people feel bad about themselves. That’s my working hypothesis as a white person.
hovercraft
@Gelfling 545:
This is what shows her true character, this is a woman who is supposedly worth 150 million dollars, she’s married to the son of a billionaire, who himself is worth million and will inherit millions more, but she feels the need to stuck with her idiot of a father as he destroys everything he touches to safeguard her inheritance? If that’s true that makes her almost worse than him, selling out the world for her own personal greed. No. I think she’s just like her father, an entitled spoiled brat who thinks she’s earned everything she’s got and that she should have everything she desires because she’s Ivanka.
The Moar You Know
@rikyrah: Yeah, that’s a crock of shit. I’ve been to Maine. No black people in Maine that I ever saw to even get “resentful” about.
Will freely confess I did not understand why black folks were so pissed off until I saw how Obama got treated. GOT IT NOW.
Barbara
@hovercraft: Look, the whole family has a case of collective Stockholm Syndrome. Melania is the least affected and she looks miserable every minute she appears in public with her husband. Even Kushner was groomed to allow himself to be walked over by a narcissistic father. You underestimate how conditioned they are to see this evidently pathologic freak show as somehow a normal family life. Which does not mean they shouldn’t be criticized out the wazoo for it.
Just One More Canuck
@Jeffro: I have that book around here somewhere – I will have to dig it up and re-read it. It was quite interesting as I recall
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Barbara:
He keeps poisoning the well. Obama inspired a generation. Bernie has done his best to turn us into cynics.
Major Major Major Major
@germy:
Well, yeah. Classic symptom of economic anxiety.
amk
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Yup. Constant bitching & whining from the sidelines is always the easy part.
amk
Jeffro
@Barbara: I think you’ve got it. Some white folks just can’t help but keep moving the goal posts on women and people of color, in order to try and maintain their unearned privilege. It’s pretty easy to call them on it in terms of basic fairness – I’ve never had a winger dig in too hard when the shifting goal posts get pointed out.
Anyway, in the specific case of Jarrett, seeing her as some sort of lefty mastermind with a radical agenda, it’s not only insulting to Jarrett herself but it’s also insulting to Obama – he’s weak, he’s controlled by a woman, etc.
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
Jarrett’s OKOP background truly drove them up a wall. Jarrett didn’t pay them any mind because she was raised by Uppity Nigras who didn’t pay them any mind -during the 1940’s and 50’s.
bemused
@Barbara:
They also refuse to believe that non-white people have made successes out of their lives without a lot of affirmative action type “privileges” which enrages them.
@hovercraft:
Most of the Trump family are pretty dim bulbs, imo. Tiffany Trump posting that Jesus/Trump painting on her FB made me almost embarrassed for her. Rich, entitled dumbasses raised by rich, entitled dumbasses.
Jeffro
@Just One More Canuck: It is interesting, and still applies today. Kay was talking about how OH and MI tend to move in very similar patterns…it’s true, and both are part of “The Foundry”
Peale
@The Moar You Know: I believe the wretched governor of Maine was complaining about the vanloads of Somalis that that the Democrats were moving around Maine to commit vote fraud against him.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I suspect that Kay’s short analysis above about how staffers screwed up reading the polls in the Great Lakes states is more useful and incisive than that entire book.
rikyrah
@Barbara:
One of the strongest receipts collected during the years of 44 was the treatment of 44 and First Lady Michelle Obama.
They did EVERYTHING White folks chide Black people to do, they did.
Both from humble beginnings. Used education and worked hard. Nobody handed them anything.
The former First Lady’s parents graduated high school. She lived in an apartment above a Chicago Bungalow. And, in one generation, their daughter lived in the White House.
They WERE an American success story.
They were the best the Black community had to offer this country.
And, we saw how they were treated.
Which told US just what you think about US, if you could treat THEM that way.
When they would actually purse their lips to say that ‘Black kids need role models’, while denying that the best example for role models lived at 16000 Pennsylvania Avenue from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017….
Uh huh
Uh huh
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: no doubt.
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
It also bothered them that Jarrett had the implicit trust of the President AND First Lady. Jarrett was Michelle Obama’s eyes and ears in the West Wing, and there was nothing that they could do to filter what she told FLOTUS.
Aleta
Every single act of the four Truskateers is about expanding their empire. They live in crooked mirror houses where even a military campaign looks like a sales campaign to them. Trump imagines his name on bombs. Ivanka puts up videos of her kid that are designed to look like everymom’s cute kid on youtube, but they’re stone cold quid pro quo for favors and sales from Japan and China.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: DNC needs to hire Kay like yesterday. Her commentary on the Presidential campaign has been spot on compared to any MSM pundit.
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
Oh god, why did I read this. I’m so ANGRY. This is why Sanders is a net evil who has a big chunk of responsibility in Trump’s election. It’s not that he ran against Hillary. It’s that he used that platform to convince vast swathes of idealistic young people that the Democratic Party was a corrupt institution deliberately fucking them over. Yeah, he energized the youth. He energized them to think Democrats are the bad guys. AND HE’S STILL DOING IT.
hovercraft
@rikyrah: @Barbara: @Jeffro:
This is something that JD Vance admitted to the Guardian.
Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance on Barack Obama: ‘We dislike the things we envy’
He came out and said it, but still certain people keep insisting that economic anxiety is the issue. Even Vane tries to downplay the racial aspect, but we all know race is the original sin.
ThresherK
@Frankensteinbeck: I’m ready for Wilmer to give it up. The proverbial camel was a figure that one had to choose: Do I want him outside the tent pissing in, or inside the tent pissing out?
For no real political reason Wilmer has been the best example of the camel inside the tent pissing in since Joltless Joe Lieberman.
Barbara
@rikyrah: It’s infuriating.
Aleta
@RedDirtGirl: Did you ever see the movie Gaudi Afternoon with Judy Davis, Marcia Gay Harden, directed by Susan Seidelman?
ETA Forgot to say it’s set in Barcelona. Looked up the rest of the cast: Lili Taylor and Juliette lewis.
Barbara
@hovercraft: It is impossible to take race out of this equation, but I believe that hatred for Bill and Hillary Clinton embodies some of the same themes. Bill Clinton had a hillbilly-esque upbringing, complete with single parent (father died), an abusive stepfather and a beautician mother. And yet, he manged to get to Yale and Oxford and become president, and there are many people who hated him because they envied him. Hillary Clinton created the same kind of revulsion, except that it was even stronger because she did these things as a woman. That is why many people can find Trump less objectionable than the Obamas or Clinton because he inherited wealth. They can never rearrange the circumstances of their own birth but they could have worked harder in school, they could have gone to college, they could have moved away from home and been more like the Clintons or Obama and that makes them feel bad. In times past, people like this would not have exhibited as much envy, but would have directed their yearning at their children and driven them to emulate the Obamas or the Clinton. That’s what has changed. They are stuck with their envy and too willing to be satisfied by negative emotions.
ETA: What is particularly remarkable about the Clintons is that they were hated by elites for the same traits that so-called hillbillies prize in themselves. They were trashy and low, etc.
Divf
@Frankensteinbeck:
This. Also, regarding the money / corruption thing, here are our choices in a nutshell. Renaissance Technologies (a hedge fund) produced two a-list billionaires. Mercer bankrolled Trump and is Bannon’s patron. James Simons is the fifth-largest donor to the Democratic Party. Rejecting Simons’ dirty money amounts to unilateral disarmament.
(Simons is also a brilliant mathematician and a public-spirited person. Another part of his fortune is being used to fund science research.)
MomSense
@SFAW:
Ugh. Sorry, SFAW.
Barbara
@Frankensteinbeck: Bernie has been stuck in 1955 for a long time. In Bernie’s world, there are noble workers who can be collectivized to take control of their own destiny through unions, all wealthy people are parasites of one kind or another and he of all people is noble because in true J. J. Rousseau fashion he managed to get by without really working at all — by having a working spouse, by collecting welfare, and finally by being elected. Never mind that many affluent liberal people achieved wealth by working without losing their spirit of generosity for or identification with the people they grew up with, and try with varying degrees of success to balance collective and self-interest. Never mind that Bernie and his wife enjoy the good life as much as any wealthy person I know. Never mind that an increasing number of people work in the gig economy that mostly defies unionized solutions, and so on.
hovercraft
@SFAW:
I’m so sorry, and sorry I missed your comment earlier.
Monala
@hovercraft: I recall seeing a Vance quote in which he said that he was sure the Obama’s strong marriage was fake. Again, the idea being that if the white folks in his Appalachian community had only failed marriages or no marriages, then certainly a black couple couldn’t have something stronger. And he watched, year after year, for the cracks in the Obama’s marriage and family to come out — and he was shocked when they didn’t.
Monala
@Monala: Ah, it’s actually in the article cited in the one hovercraft linked.
Barbara
@Monala: I would love to see that quote. Because I find that to be simply outrageous and probably one of the most racist sentiments I have ever heard expressed about the Obamas. His drug addled mother and appalling childhood are not typical or normal even in Appalachia. It might be too common but it’s not normal.
Monala
@Barbara: Here it is, and it’s better than I remember it, in that he allowed the truth of who Obama is to challenge his thinking:
Ab_Normal
@Jeffro: If I recall correctly, I’d end up lumped in the Empty Quarter; DO NOT WANT! We already have chuckleheads who want to lump Eastern Washington together with North Idaho to make the new state of Inner Mayo-stan (hat-tip rikyrah). Nope nope nope nope nope. I like having public services, thanks.
schrodingers_cat
@Monala: I have seen Vance interviewed by Whory Woodruff of Pure BullShit Newshour, what was fake was his affected manner.
Barbara
@Monala: So Vance doesn’t seem able to grasp the difference between having a single mother who is bogged down by self-destructive impulses and a mother with a PhD who was adventurous and free spirited. Yes, it was probably a bummer not to have an involved dad, and Obama’s situation probably felt a little insecure or unstable at times, but having a mother willing to take risks and act on her dreams probably set the best kind of example for her son. Not all single family situations are identical.
TenguPhule
@Taylor: Corbyn wasn’t the problem. He campaigned remain. The English media is completely conservative shit though and knifed him repeatedly. FFS, they even did a study that EVERY SINGLE newspaper and tv outlet was biased as hell against him in practically every story they did. I lost count of the non-scandals they raked him over the coals over. He’s the Hillary Clinton of Britain.
No fire, just lots of reporters with gasoline and matches.
Jeffro
@Ab_Normal:
LOL
Don’t complain to me, I’m too busy trying to keep the NoVA suburbs from having to be part of “Dixie”!
Another Scott
@Frankensteinbeck: Deadish thread, but …
The AP piece just seemed like more of the same to me. Wilmer (seemingly) gave his standard stump speech that he’s give 30,000 times before. The reporting was pretty much a standard (lazy) piece about “both sides” (Tom and Wilmer) and a few “typical” (not typical) man-on-the-street reactions.
Wilmer’s an old man who found a speech that resonated with a lot of people and got him a place in the lime light. He’s not going to give it up now.
I noticed that the AP piece said that they’re going to several states together: “The tour will take them from Maine to eight other states, including Florida, Arizona, Montana and Nevada.” I wonder what the other 4 are (but not enough to look). One could easily imagine that this “cross-country” tour of 9 states is the DNC and Tom humoring Wilmer.
I wouldn’t get upset about this. Wilmer’s not going to change, and he really doesn’t have that much influence. I expect him to gradually fade away, kinda like Pat Paulsen.
But we’ll see.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@Jeffro: My idea is to combine whole states. No carve outs.
Ab_Normal
@Jeffro: My sympathies :D