What do you get when you cross an inanity with a pathetic attempt to paper over gaping ineptitude and a statement of the blindingly fucking obvious? This headline from your paper of record:
Trump keeps global rivals off balance with improvisational foreign policy, but it has risks https://t.co/uPyDhxCaaJ
— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) April 20, 2017
I realize “Hella dangerous clown baffles allies and adversaries, squanders U.S. prestige, endangers planet” might sound a tad partisan or even alarmist, but goddamn it, sometimes it’s more important to tell the truth than maintain your ironic distance.
Open thread!
kindness
Why so many of my moderate/progressive peers think I should be buying a NY Times subscription I can not fathom. Why should I pay for this?
Timurid
@kindness:
Because you hate yourself?
Daoud bin Daoud
I go to the NYT website twice a week to read Paul Krugman’s column. That’s it.
schrodingers_cat
@kindness: I discontinued reading NYT, which has been my daily read since forever since they doubled on HRC’s character assassination in the fall and helped elect T.
Kurzleg
And it implies that it’s a calculated decision to do foreign policy in this way rather than the inevitable (and unchangeable) result of an unqualified doofus in the presidency.
BobbyK
NYT is being hyper non-partisan. They can’t point out the obvious other wise they’ll be called liberal and they’re terrified of that.
Kurzleg
@kindness: Their Arts and Food sections are very good IMO. The political writing not so much.
Baud
Alternative title: The NYT is garbage.
zhena gogolia
@Kurzleg:
Arts is not what I’d call “very good” any more. Used to be.
Corner Stone
“Bold” ?
That’s all that needs to be remarked upon.
dmsilev
Improv, huh? Can random ambassadors shout out lets say different types of fruit and watch Trump construct a foreign policy based around kiwis and kumquats in real time?
StringOnAStick
Anecdote: my one very R friend, who previously was a “just the Dems do it, the Repubs are always right and pure” told me today that “it is all both sides acting stupid” and has stopped watching much news. I found that admission shocking given his past statements and behavior. Since he used to watch FOX exclusively, I think he is sincere when he says he is feeling less anger and happier these days by watching less news.
gene108
@BobbyK:
LOL, Wut?
They are already considered liberal by the conservatives.
They gain nothing from trying to placate conservatives. Conservatives consider the New York Times and every other MSM source, like CBS, ABC, et. al. as liberal ass-wipes, and have thought this for decades.
If the NYT’s wants to up readership, the only people willing to bite are liberals.
It would behoove them, from a financial standpoint, to cater to people willing to pay for good reporting.
hueyplong
NYT made up of collabos horizontales. They have earned the name Vichy Times.
ruemara
@StringOnAStick: Hey, maybe he’ll have an epiphany and realize it was the Republicans all along! It can happen.
Kurzleg
@zhena gogolia: I’m referring to the movie section, which I still think has some good writing. Can’t comment on the other stuff in that section.
Gvg
I don’t think they know how to write in the style of Betty Cracker. Probably within it’s own circles, the way they did write would seem as alarmist as th BC style, it’s just us non New Yorkers that can’t see it.
catclub
So what is up with Jason Chaffetz? Any heads on pikes?
catclub
@StringOnAStick:
I have Murray Perahia performing Bach Piano Concertos in the car CD.
germy
@catclub:
Somethin’ ain’t right.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/jason-chaffetz-oversight-chairman-retiring-congress-trump
Ajabu
A comedian friend of mine used to do a bit about a comic who was bombing & realized he had stayed on too long.
“So, to keep my front up, I did another 45 minutes.”
Reminds me of Shitgibbon.
Of course, the closer was: “When I finished, the audience was very quiet. No applause. Just got up & left. When I got to the parking lot, they were all crouched behind cars waiting for me.”
We can only hope for that result…
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@BobbyK:
The same can be said of most corporate, ie., Villager, media outlets other than those that are unabashedly right wing.
What kills me is that the Vichy Times only need to look down the proverbial street to what happened to Colbert since the election. He’s come out with incredibly material that just beats the Popular Vote Loser to a pulp. What’s the result? He went from being usually 3rd in late night ratings to 1st.
schrodingers_cat
@hueyplong: Vichy Times can’t even get their facts straight on movie reviews. From the last thread:
NYT is garbage for one more reason, their movie critic for Hindi movies has no fucking idea what she is talking about. I recently checked a review recently about Shahrukh Khan’s 2017 release Raees (Rich)
This wrong on its face, Shahrukh Khan made his name in negative roles, like really negative, a stalker who kills the family of the object of his affection, at the beginning of his career. The entire tone of her reviews is so damned condescending. Garbage NYT is garbage, Also, stop fucking calling it Bollywood
A Ghost to Most
FTFNYT.
On a related note, I subscribed to the WashPost for ~25 years, then stopped when I had had enough of Dan Froomkin leaving, and Jen Rubin arriving. This spring, I resubscribed to the WashPost (digital), in part because of the transformation of Rubin. Life is strange.
Citizen_X
“Yielding Foreign Policy to Enraged Baboon Has Risks.”
germy
schrodingers_cat
@BobbyK: You are being too kind. They helped T ascend to the Presidency, now that he is there, they are assisting him by being his mouth piece, portraying him in flattering light.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s up there with the NYT headline “Hindenburg fire increases the excitement of airship travel.” and is another data point as to why The Onion is no longer needed.
Mnemosyne
NYT can’t admit that, in their zeal to take down Hillary Clinton, they done fucked up and installed a dangerous clown as president that they knew full well was a dangerous clown, because he was a local celebrity.
So they’re going to keep playing “The Both Sides Do It Rag” while the Titanic goes down.
amk
schrodingers_cat
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: When T gave his incendiary immigration speech in September with the dog whistle of going back to Reed-Johnson Act, Vichy Times headline was T moderates his position on immigration, they changed it 3 times in its online edition, when they were pilloried on Twitter.
Iowa Old Lady
Weren’t there predictions we’d have indictments this week? Where are they???
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: They didn’t fuck up anything, they got what they wanted. It was a deliberate decision to take down HRC. No benefit of the doubt for Vichy Times, sorry.
liberal
They are off balance.
I mean, anyone who’s laughing that hard is going to have a hard time standing up straight.
Betty Cracker
@Iowa Old Lady: For the sake of my own sanity, I’m not waiting on the IC/FBI deus ex machina. If the Russia crap catches up with Trump, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
germy
@schrodingers_cat: Did you see Robert Costa took over at PBS’s ‘Washington Week’ ?
Kurzleg
@amk: Brilliant!
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker: Yeah. I’ve had to really reinforce my cynicism and skepticism gears the last couple weeks. I want justice to land like a boulder on these fuckers. But I don’t want to burn out 100% waiting on it. The reason I have so much trouble with Mensch. Besides her being nuts, I mean.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
Oh, they definitely did it on purpose, and they did it knowing full well what kind of person Trump is. But I think they vastly underestimated the consequences of their decision and how disastrous it would be.
It’s kind of like my 9/11 theory: I still think that the Saudis assured Bush Jr that Bin Laden was just some asshole religious fanatic living in a cave in rural Afghanistan, so Bush ignored all of the warnings he was getting. After all, what was a guy like that going to be able to do to hurt the United States?
Whoops.
catclub
@Iowa Old Lady:
Off celebrating Fitzmas. Scooter-tov!
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Why was Whory Woodruff not enough of a Republican whore for TPTB? I had stopped seeing it when Giggle sister Ifill used to host it and all Washington insiders would keep giggling non stop about clever Rs and stupid Ds. Its all a fucking game to them.
Patricia Kayden
@Kurzleg: That’s what is so annoying about this particular NYT article. It covers for Trump’s ineptitude and tries to make him seem decisive and presidential. He’s not. But here we go again with the NYT trying to normalize this doofus.
Dan
Yes, “improvisational”. He’s the freaking Robin Williams of foriegn policy.
schrodingers_cat
@Dan: Compare that to 8 years of how has Obama failed you today?
JTL
This post gets to something that’s been driving me INSANE. I swear that, if Trump made a public comment that “Angela Merkel has saggy boobs,” the newspapers and cable news would start discussing how his “posture towards Germany had become more aggressive” or some other tepid rubbish, completely ignoring the obvious. They constantly discuss his “policy direction” as if he has any concept of policy and/or that he has a long-term plan, rather than observing that he clearly lurches from one situation to the next based on impulse and impulse alone. His recent abandonment of his (idiotic) original positions has been hailed as “moderation” rather than a realization/admission that he was full of crap during the campaign.
Our failed media experiment indeed.
Hobbes83
They are really going out of their way to avoid calling him an incompetent fuckmouth who can’t help but step on his own dick every time he takes a step.
Wjs
Sometimes you have to call a stumblebum a stumblebum in front of people who are deeply ashamed they voted for a stumblebum.
ET
improvisational= chaotic, uncertain, uneven, etc.
No one like that from the U.S. or rogue states like N. Korea. It isn’t a responsible or effective way to illustrate power and influence. I know Trump & Co think it works but it won’t.
rikyrah
It’s a little late for Trump to say the 100-day metric is ‘ridiculous’
04/21/17 01:03 PM
By Steve Benen
We still have a week to go before Donald Trump’s presidency reaches the 100-day mark, but the Republican president is apparently coming to terms with the fact that he’s off to a dreadful start, and the 100-day coverage will be unflattering.
And so, Trump is doing something that, at first blush, seems quite rational: he’s telling everyone to ignore the metric, which he now sees as unimportant.
Note, the one accomplishment the president pointed to is the one that required him to do practically no work: he was encouraged to nominate Gorsuch; he did; and then Senate Republicans did the heavy lifting.
Nevertheless, there are basically three angles to Trump’s whining: (1) the broader significance of a president’s first 100 days in office; (2) what this president has to show for his first 100 days of effort; and (3) why it’s too late for Trump to pretend the standard is, as he put it, “ridiculous.”
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Think of the papers these motherfuckers could sell if they actually were the real liberal New York Times. They are the fucking worst.
rikyrah
Meet the SC Woman Running the Craziest, Most Racist, Homophobic Political Campaign Ever
Michael Harriot
Today 9:38am
A South Carolina woman vying for an open seat in the House of Representatives has reignited the debate over the Confederate flag, blasts acceptance of gays and doubles down on “Make America great again” in a series of ads that might be the most racist, homophobic and craziest campaign ever.
Sheri Few is one of seven Republican candidates running in the special election for South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District—a congressional seat vacated when Rep. Nick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) stepped down to join the Trump administration as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
In campaign ads and public appearances, Few has trumpeted her pro-Trump agenda, saying that she “will not only make America great again, but she will make America America again.”
I really don’t know what that means, because I’m black and the high-pitched racist dog-whistle politics are not meant for my ears, but I know it’s shady by the way the Caucasians in the crowd clap and nod their heads when she says it.
p.a.
NYT: All the News That’s Shit
Doug R
What doesn’t kill you only makes you… Stranger.
rikyrah
Bernie, Fix My Party: Why Are Democrats Treating Bernie Sanders as if He’s Their Iyanla Vanzant?
Michael Arceneaux
Today 11:42am
Why in the hell are Democrats still accepting lectures from Bernie Sanders? Although the Vermont senator deserves credit for certain accomplishments—pulling younger people into the political process and pushing the Democratic Party in a more progressive direction—it’s not as if the man had that great a shot at becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. Not when he was 3.7 million votes and hundreds of pledged delegates behind Hillary Clinton.
For all the fairy tales about the system being rigged and the “Mighty Morphin Power” Democratic National Committee going against the will of the people, the reality is that more people wanted Clinton as their candidate.
…………………………..
Sanders said so himself Tuesday night during an interview on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes. Sanders is currently on a unity tour with the new DNC chairman, Tom Perez, but when asked about party affiliation, he said, “No, I’m an independent.”
To quote Joseline Hernandez, “Ho, why is you here?”
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@rikyrah: Fuck Bernie Sanders:
p.a.
@rikyrah:
Sooooo… I’m guessing she’s not talking AmerIndian repatriation!
GxB
So the local storm sirens went off yesterday twice. They’re only tested at 9am on Wednesdays, and since there was only a slate gray drizzle going on with no chance for violent storms, I chuckled under my breath.
The first thing that came to mind was the saffron shart went and launched nukes.
I’ll try real hard to look shocked when this moron actually does get us into a genuine, unambiguous disaster – still he’ll deflect the blame and millions of knuckle-draggers will nod, ready to pull the lever for him again in 2020 even if they have to crawl through the rubble and fight irradiated mutant cockroach beasts to do so.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Good luck to her because the last time I checked, the U.S. is becoming more and more brown. I really want to be here when this country flips from majority White to majority Brown/Black. The freak out will epic for Conservatives. LOL.
mai naem mobile
I saw a story that the FCC loosened the rules further on ownership so Sinclair is going to buy up Tribune Broadcasting (41 stations)so I’m guessing CA Tribune stations are going to become FAUX like stations with. I also saw that Dolts Ethics Czar is a Federalist Society member who also happened to clerk with Clarence Thomas. An Indian AmerI can RWNJ like the FCC chair. I embarrassed to be Indian American.
Patricia Kayden
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: So Sanders is perfectly okay with throwing women’s rights into the buzz saw. Good to know because that is such a progressive stance. /s
sherparick
@StringOnAStick: Yep, dropping out of the Infotainment Industrial Media-complex, whether the Village editions or Right-wing screech is good for one’s mental health. I have found going to local newspaper sites through sites like http://info.dogpile.com/ give you more useful news and reading blogs like this, Lawyers, Guns, and Money, and following national and international news on “TheGuardian,com” is more than sufficent.
The NY Politics desk, which has been bad since 1988, keeps getting worse, and worse. In response to criticism that they are a cesspool of “horserace” and “theater critic” political coverage, with an absolute allergy to policy, they keep doubling down. After the election, Carolyn Ryan was kicked out as editor and they seem to gone into a huge “ass covering” so as to blame anyone but themselves for Trump’s ascendancy. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a54602/new-york-times-clinton-coverage-book/
Shalimar
Trump: “I want to thank you and I want to god bless America.”
That is weird, narcissistic sentence construction even for Trump. He wants to god?
The Lodger
@Corner Stone: Trump’s foreign policy is not bold, it’s ALL CAPS.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
I know just enough about Black culture for that headline to make me LOL at work. You are a very bad influence. ?
Kurzleg
@Patricia Kayden: I didn’t read the article, so I don’t know if they entertain the possibility that Trump simply can’t change if some of the risks implicit in his “approach” result in bad outcomes for the U.S. Is there anything known about Trump that would suggest he’s capable of changing? No, there isn’t. Which makes the headline even more irresponsible.
Betty Cracker
@GxB: “Saffron shart,” haha! I am SO stealing that!
James E Powell
@BobbyK:
The truth is, they could go full wing-nut and the great mass of Americans would still call them liberal & biased.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah:
God, I wish someone would actually ask Bernie Sanders that to his face. Particularly if it were Maxine Waters.
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/maxine-waters-meme.jpg
I would pay to witness her turn that look on BS. I mean, I would *pay*.
Baud
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Exactly what is Mello progressive on?
Villago Delenda Est
When The Revolution comes, the NYT gets burned down to the ground. Normalizing fascism needs to have serious consequences, such as those suffered by Pierre Laval.
daverave
@A Ghost to Most:
yup, when I was choosing between the WP and the NYT for my first digital subscription let’s just say that the NYT made it an EASY choice. That was confirmed with their recent hire of the climate change denier.
rikyrah
Does Trump Know What the Word ‘Steal’ Means?
by Nancy LeTourneau April 21, 2017 3:33 PM
Donald Trump sent out an fundraising email on behalf of Karen Handel, the Republican who will be facing Jon Ossoff in a runoff this June for Georgia’s 6th District House seat.
Notice that in the first sentence, he accuses Democrats of spending millions of dollars in an attempt to “steal a Congressional seat from Republicans.” He goes on to suggest that they “will stop an nothing to tear down Karen Handel.”
That last sentence is probably in reference to the fact that both Democrats and the media are pointing out that Handel is best known nationally for a failed attempt to take cancer screening funding from Planned Parenthood – a decision for which she was eventually forced to resign from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. But as Trump has certainly demonstrated, bringing up someone’s history is just the way the game of politics is played.
It is Trump’s accusation that the Democrats are trying to steal the election that is outrageous. You have to wonder whether or not someone as morally bankrupt as this president has a basic understanding of what that word means. However, it lines up with a lot of the things he’s said and done that indicate he really doesn’t have any idea what democracy is all about either.
bemused
@GxB:
You live in Duluth, MN? A Duluth relative texted me that happened there this week.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
Be one thing if he were actually a pragmatist whose shtick was “run what can win where it can win.” But he’s not, as you can see when he equivocates on anyone he thinks is “not a true progressive” by his lights. He just doesn’t give a shit about women’s issues. Or anyone’s other than straight white men.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Baud: I don’t know, but there’s this:
You know the guy Bernie Sanders (IPV) didn’t know anything about.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
He’s not accusing the Democrats of trying to steal the election. He’s accusing them of trying to steal a seat that should rightfully belong to Republicans in perpetuity because shut up, that’s why.
This isn’t a fucking aristocracy yet, Donnie. The president doesn’t get to hand out seats in the House like a king handing out titles to his favorites.
Chris Fisher
I wish I could post images, because I keep a picture of a mushroom cloud with the caption, “”But… both sides do it!” – NY Times” for just such an occasion.
Betty Cracker
@Chris: Did anyone figure out why Sanders waffled on Ossoff in the first place? (He has sense endorsed him — hopefully after hearing Democrats preparing to give him the heave-ho if he refused.)
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
Ah, wonderful. No, I don’t know the answer. But hey, at least he finally saw reason, or had it knocked into him more likely.
ruemara
@Betty Cracker: Ossoff worked for John Lewis, who Sanders wishes he had the bona fides of. Ossoff also supported Clinton, which is a big no-no for the tiny egoed delicate revolutionary. It’s about that simple. Which is why a guy who thinks that forced ultrasounds is A-OK is a progressive we can believe in. Although I’m not seeing proof he’s pro_DAPL, guys. He seems to be opposed.
@Baud: Busting up the banks, free college and Bernie as our lawd & saviuh! Hail Bern!
bemused senior
@Gvg: NYT fired Molly Ivins back in the day for writing that has a great resonance with our Betty Cracker, may she live forever.
— from the Guardian’s obit
Mike R
As a Nebraskan having Bernie campaign for Mello doesn’t give me heart burn, and Bernie is jerk as far as I am concerned. He may not be my idea of a perfect candidate, but this is Nebraska. Just north of Kansas, good grief look at our Senators and Reps, just about anything is progress. We aren’t far from being north Kansas, and are governor was a big Trump supporter, we need to go forward even if it is just a little.
WaterGirl
This uses a lot of the same words but is much more accurate:
Elizabelle
People: for that insane, gaslighting NY Times story, check out the readers’ comments. They were scolding the TImes over and over. Here are the top two comments, but they got dozens upon dozens like these.
and
An even more direct reader comment, on another fatuous NYT story today. Readers are telling the Times “stop this shit.” Will they listen?
Article: Trump Says Paris Attack Will Have ‘Big Effect’ on French Election
The top rated reader comment on that story:
So the Times readers are woke, even while the Times keeps shoveling this swill at them.
Mnemosyne
@Mike R:
Do you get why women are offended that a guy who voted to force vaginal ultrasounds on abortion patients is getting the full support of the party?
ruemara
@Elizabelle: I’m wondering if the narrative is for the times’ readers at all and more for the non-readers who’ll headline skim to conceive a viewpoint.
Geeno
I think the headline on every paper every day of this administration should be “National Embarrassment Embarrasses Nation”. They can keep changing the article to detail that day’s embarrassment, but the headline would always work.
cintibud
“Trump keeps global rivals off balance with improvisational foreign policy, but it has risks”
Hey, things worked out ok for Jar Jar Binks in SW1, right?
schrodingers_cat
Boycott the Times, hurt them where it matters in their subscriptions. No quotes and links enabling Vichy Times.
Miss Bianca
@Mike R: Well, when you’re a man it’s easy to say that we should be “moving forward” with a guy who advances anti-choice legislation. I, however, as a woman, don’t happen to view that as “moving forward”. Can you argue that an FDR, who allowed New Deal legislation to discriminate against African-Americans in order to court the Dixiecrat vote, and who allowed the internment of Japanese-Americans, was better than his Republican counterparts? Sure, but that doesn’t make those actions morally right or defensible, and you can’t expect the descendants of those who got screwed by that type of prejudice to say , “oh, goodie, look – we made progress!”
Could the guy be personally anti-choice and still be a worthy candidate? Sure. Can he advance anti-choice legislation and still be a worthy candidate? I’m going to say, “no”.
Elizabelle
@ruemara: Bingo. I think that’s it — it’s all headline bait for people who don’t read/parse the article — hell, people who don’t even subscribe and won’t see more than the headline and blurb — and it’s how they smeared Hillary right and left. Emails, emails, emails. Headline upon headline.
That reader warning them they were aiding and abetting fascism? He’s not wrong.
I appreciate the Times comment editors selecting the scolding comments as well. May be they don’t agree with Fuck the Fucking New York Times’ editorial judgements either.
NeenerNeener
@Doug R: What doesn’t kill you leaves you with a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms and a really dark sense of humor.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I’m sure we’re just being hysterical.
/head pat
Baud
I don’t think this would have blown up if Bernie hadn’t hesitated on supporting Ossoff.
ingressus sum
New York Times: Determined to preserve and protect our inability to find our ass while sitting on our hands.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Wait, I thought of a better one:
Why are you being so paternalistic by saying it’s wrong to support legislators who voted to force women to have vaginal ultrasounds?
Wjs
@Geeno: The NYT is proving on a daily basis that our ‘elites’ have failed us. All Trump had to do is show up rich, white and have a pulse.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: It wouldn’t have been as bad, perhaps, but the fact that both Bernie and Tom Perez appear to be saying, “well, now, wait a minute, we have to go to war with the Democrats we have, not the Democrats we wish we had”, when the subject is women’s reproductive freedom, would still be chapping MY ass.
@Mnemosyne: AAAAGGGHHH!!
(in my best “Charlie Brown misses the football” voice)
Mnemosyne
@Wjs:
Rich, white, and MALE. Hillary is both rich and white, but she has girl cooties.
Baud
@Miss Bianca: Would you have even heard about it? How many of us follow the mayoral endorsements of the DNC chair?
Miss Bianca
@Baud: i don’t necessarily hear it when a tree falls on my property and squashes a bunny rabbit, either, but that bunny rabbit sure feels it whether I hear it or not.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
“Vaginal ultrasounds” is one of those things that travels through feminist blogs like wildfire. That would have come out no matter what.
SWMBO
@Mnemosyne: Now let’s be fair here. I think men should have the same type of ultrasounds for prostate exams. Both sides, amirite?
Mnemosyne
@SWMBO:
I say we start with the legislators who voted for these laws. Can’t be too careful, fellas!
vhh
@BobbyK: The WaPo has the benefit of being back by someone worth a few billion, which buys a lot of independence.
Baud
@Miss Bianca: No need to go all Fatal Attraction on me.
@Mnemosyne: Fair enough. Bernie aside, however, this is a debate we’re going to have on a lot of issues as we try to expand the field. I agree that actually sponsoring a vaginal ultrasound bill seems way at the extreme of where the Dem party is.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
As I was saying last night, we’re probably in a position where we’ll have to accept some people as Democrats who supported parental notification laws or extra waiting periods. But supporting medically unnecessary vaginal probes? Nope. Bridge too far.
SWMBO
@Mnemosyne: It’s for their own good. We really have everyone’s best interests at heart. //
Baud
@Mnemosyne: I can also seeing this debate recur on gay rights issues in some of these red states.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
Very likely. But it’s the law of the land now, which gives those legislators an escape hatch.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Bernie doesn’t like to share the limelight, and that’s the most charitable explanation I can come up with.
Cacti
@Wjs:
Your forgot male.
Being white, rich, and having a peen forgives a multitude of sins.
Hillary OTOH was responsible for Bill’s infidelity, the frigid harpy.
SWMBO
@Mnemosyne: They are still trying to undo all the progress. If they think it’s icky, it has to be stopped. If we think it’s overreach, farther is better. They want us all to go back to kindergarten and have someone else tell us what’s right and wrong and then we take a nap.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: Right, but there are still issues about things like employment and housing discrimination that need to be worked through.
ETA: And don’t forget Bathrooms! (I should have said LGBT initially.)
Mnemosyne
@SWMBO:
Sorry, I should have been more clear — it gives the Democrats who may have voted against gay marriage an escape hatch. I voted against it, but obviously the Supreme Court ruled otherwise and I accept their decision. The issue is closed as far as I’m concerned.
El Caganer
He keeps them off-balance with his improvisational style? NYT is trying to make Trump out to be some sort of foreign policy Muhammad Ali? That’s disgraceful – I think of Ali as a hero, and that’s one thing for sure that Trump will never be.
Miss Bianca
@Baud:
Now, did I say *I* had felled the tree? I did not, sir!
ruemara
@Baud: Probably not. It could have been one more example of Bernie & the Dems having to cater to people for some seats. If he’d been moderately effusive for young up and comers just for joining the fight, it would piss women off, but it wouldn’t be the deep sense of hurt you’re noticing in the community of your female fellow progressives. It still wouldn’t make it right. Mello can be anti-abortion, but has no right to be opposed to choice and do the ultimate in abuse, allow a doctor to rape us with a transvaginal ultrasound. It’s a horrific betrayal and I’m as sick of being on the chopping block for power politically as I am of it in my personal life.
Mike R
@Mnemosyne: Absolutely, but this is nebraska look at the state it is dominated not just a slim majority but dominance by the republican party. Reality comes into play somewhere cause we aren’t going to get anything but a blue dog at best right now.
chopper
“local man drinks heavily, swings nunchucks at neighbors, but it has risks”
Mike R
@Miss Bianca: Okay your choice is a republican how much chance for advancing reproductive rights are you going to get with the R. Look this state is backwards, but fuck it let’s just wait for a liberal unicorn to run you aren’t going to get one here. So you are saying forget a 50 state strategy and abandon the field. Mello is what we have he sucks yeah, but he don’t suck as hard as what we will get. My point take something or get nothing ymmv.
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, or something else. It’s certainly getting interesting.
Did anybody else see the “news” that Russian TU-95 Bear bombers were seen where they haven’t been (according to reports) since 2015 as (OK, possibly) just another round of support of Trump from Russia? An attempt to provide distance, in the minds of news consumers, between Trump (and administration) and Russia. I get irritated that the Trump administration so readily feeds these thoughts.
Russian Planes Buzz Alaska Four Nights in a Row
Only mentioned because it was seen on CNN, a key part of Trump’s Stenography Service, at least for military stuff.
Miss Bianca
@Mike R: see what ruemara says above at 118. Pretty much says it all for me. You don’t have to be a “liberal unicorn” to refrain from advancing legislation that amounts to state-sanctioned rape. A guy who would do that might as well BE a Republican when it comes to “advancing reproductive rights”, because he’s not going to. Sorry – i live in a deep-red region so I’m as pragmatic as the next gal – I’m willing to give a blue-dog a pass on gun control legislation, for example – but not on this. You have to draw the fucking line somewhere when it comes to excusing blue-doggishness.
The Moar You Know
@Mike R: You are absolutely correct, of course. It’s a huge problem. I’m willing to accommodate a LOT at this point to stop the march of GOP domination. I think we all pretty much agree that a guy who thinks that transvaginal ultrasound rape is cool is a step too far.
Serious question for everyone: what are you willing to put up with? What compromises are you willing to accept? I bet every person here has a different pain threshold. Some will say “nothing, stand your ground!” Some will be willing to put a lot of their own and other’s sacred cows on the chopping block. I do not pretend to have any answers or even suggestions, to be clear. I don’t know what the fuck we should do, all I know is that we may have permanently fucked ourselves already, and if not now, then certainly we are screwed for good by 2020 if we can’t get at least one legislative branch back.
schrodingers_cat
@Bill Arnold: Even BBC’s Villager Katie Kay has a column where she praises T’s bold foreign policy. WTF?
GxB
@Betty Cracker: Take the gift I bring with my blessings.
@bemused: Close, about 3 hrs away as the crow flies. Maybe there was some regional thing screwed up, I heard some hackers got into a metro storm alert system recently.
Tazj
Really? Couldn’t anyone of us or just anyone at all pull that off? What difference does it make who is president then? They are the absolute worst.
What about how he lied about President Obama and then Susan Rice? That’s all swept under the rug now?
ruemara
@The Moar You Know: If people ever wonder how Social Security could exclude black folks, well, this thread should show you that people just are willing to compromise on basic rights to achieve their own goals, even when they have fairly progressive mindsets. If this guy supported mandatory prostate exams with a wand for, i dunno, every guy who wanted to have sex, I’d be horrified. It simply shouldn’t be lauded, even if that guy is the best choice. That a supposed bold risk taker who bucks politics as usual could stand there and say compromising over the sanctity of your body is fine, but a speech to Goldman Sachs is not, and so was not switching allegiance to me, well. That’s a huge font of hurt. Sorry if it’s a shock to some persons that it exists. You should see how the black women feel.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Baud: This is absolutely the issue right here !
satby
@SWMBO: @ruemara: let’s be clear about why women consider this state sponsored rape
patrick II
Credit where credit is due. Trump’s ignorance and resulting erratic policy is being sold as a genius “unpredictability” strategy. He may not be much of a president, but he is a hell of a con man.
Mnemosyne
@Mike R:
Dude, when you’re getting raped, it’s not better when it’s by a Democrat. And we are not speaking about metaphorical rape — rape with an object is rape in all 50 states.
If Mello wants to have a come to Jesus moment where he realizes that he supported something terrible and wants to publicly apologize, he can do that. If he wants to excuse his support for literal legalized rape while whining about other Democrats taking money from Wall Street, then he can take a vaginal probe and go fuck himself, preferably without lube.
Is that clear enough?
WafflesTasteGood
Are they still the paper of record? From what I hear their subscriber numbers have tanked.
WafflesTasteGood
@A Ghost to Most: Why would anyone ever accept a former right wing hack/grifter who transformed herself just because of the direction the wind was blowing???
I would not accept her and her opinion any more than I would any of the other hacks just because they changed their political religion.
Besides, if they can swing around 180 degrees like that so quickly that means it was all just an act anyways. Or as Alex Jones lawyer says, “performance artist”
geg6
@satby:
Yup, this is what we are supposed to overlook. I think men should be forced to have their prostate exams done with one of those fuckers.
I have no problem with people being what they call pro-life. My own senator calls his personal philosophy in abortion pro-life. But he doesn’t feel the need to impose his beliefs on the rest of us. And he certainly isn’t sponsoring legislation that requires state-sponsored rape.
Mnemosyne
@WafflesTasteGood:
There are some people who start off as hacks and have a genuine conversion. Example A, our gracious bloghost, who started his career as a conservative Republican who mocked liberals and Democrats and hated Hillary Clinton.
There is some indication that Rubin has had a genuine change of heart. We shall see.
TenguPhule
@Miss Bianca: Hell, we have to support Manchin, but this guy is going too far? What’s the alternative in his district then?
Please note, I’m perfectly fine with hating on both Manchin and this guy, but I’d just like to know what’s the current Balloon juice bar for saying “Screw you” to a candidate running for the party.
.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
The bar is introducing a bill to force women who want an abortion to get a medically unnecessary vaginal probe.
Why are you even asking this question when we’ve said multiple times exactly what the bar is? What is confusing about “mandatory vaginal probes” as a bar to supporting this asshole?
Miss Bianca
@TenguPhule: You know how you fantasize about ultra violence to those you consider have wronged the body politic?
How about “MALE ASSHOLES WHO DECIDE THAT THEY CAN BE GOOD DEMOCRATS AND MANDATE STATE-SPONSORED RAPE FOR WOMEN”? How about “they should get that transvaginal probe, heated to red-hot poker status and jammed up whatever orifice will take it, and if it can’t, ONE WILL BE PROVIDED FOR THEM?” How about “apologists who say, ‘gee what’s the bar for stuff that just affects those hysterical wimmenz?’ are subject to the SAME GODDAMNED TREATMENT if they refuse to acknowledge that those wimmenz might have a legitimate source of fucking grievance here”?
Have I put it into terms that will somehow appeal to whatever you call your heart and mind, Mr. Violence Pr0n? Go ahead and tell me that I’m somehow too *extreme* in my views, bud. Make my fucking day – I could use a laugh at some fool’s expense.
Miss Bianca
@Miss Bianca: Goddammit, I am in moderation for something. Unspring, please!
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Your post appeared. And, word.
WafflesTasteGood
@Mnemosyne: Funny you mention Cole as an example of changing political religion. He gushed over Griftwald (maybe still does) long after most here realized he was a grifter.
The fatal flaw is in their DNA. At the first sign of controversy Cole was crisizing Obama. He thought (thinks?) fat bastard Kristie was a heck of a guy. Thought (thinks) Rand Paul has some good ideas just because he was pandering to liberals once beaking off about drones. You can’t trust people like Cole. They are too easily influenced by BS artists, grifters, snake oil salesmen and the like.
I would put a lot of the Sandernistas in that flawed DNA category as well.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
.