Trump on…
Kim Jong Un: smart cookie
Putin: brilliant and talented
Assad: deserves an A
Hussein: so good
FBI director: nut job— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) May 19, 2017
Yes Trump gave classified info to the Russians but that was just locker room treason.
— Ian Boothby (@IanBoothby) May 19, 2017
When you're the tsar, they let you do it.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 19, 2017
Alexandra Petri, at the Washington Post — “The president is not a child. He’s something worse:
We were wrong, it turns out. Anyone cannot be president. Anyone can be elected president (any man, that is), but not anyone can be president…
The Trump presidency is the discovery that what you thought was a man in a bear suit is just a bear. Suddenly the fact that he wouldn’t play by the rules makes total sense. It wasn’t that he refused to, that he was playing a long game. It was that he was a wild animal who eats fish and climbs trees, and English words were totally unintelligible to him. In retrospect, you should have suspected that after he just straight-up ate a guy. But at the time everyone cheered. It was good TV. Also, he was your bear.
Okay. So you have spent 200 years building a fragile snow globe, and now you have given it to a bear. The animal doesn’t care. You cannot even explain to him what the thing is. To him, all your words are just sounds. He looks at you when you are making them and he looks away when you are finished. You can only hope the bear becomes bored and sets the snow globe down and wanders off looking for food.
(Again, this is an insult to bears, who have fewer places to live than Trump and do not do so at the taxpayer’s expense.)…
He’s a human Failure to Read the User’s Manual…
Professor Krugman, “What’s the Matter With Republicans?“:
… It has become painfully clear… that Republicans have no intention of exercising any real oversight over a president who is obviously emotionally unstable, seems to have cognitive issues and is doing a very good imitation of being an agent of a hostile foreign power.
They may make a few gestures toward accountability in the face of bad poll numbers, but there is not a hint that any important figures in the party care enough about the Constitution or the national interest to take a stand…
The Democratic Party is a coalition of interest groups, with some shared views but also a lot of conflicts, and politicians get ahead through their success in striking compromises and finding acceptable solutions.
The G.O.P., by contrast, is one branch of a monolithic structure, movement conservatism, with a rigid ideology — tax cuts for the rich above all else. Other branches of the structure include a captive media that parrots the party line every step of the way. Compare the coverage of recent political developments on Fox News with almost everywhere else; we’re talking North Korea levels of alternative reality.
And this monolithic structure — lavishly supported by a small number of very, very wealthy families — rewards, indeed insists on, absolute fealty. Furthermore, the structure has been in place for a long time: It has been 36 years since Reagan was elected, 22 years since the Gingrich takeover of Congress. What this means is that nearly all Republicans in today’s Congress are apparatchiks, political creatures with no higher principle beyond party loyalty…
In a perverse way, we should count ourselves lucky that Trump is as terrible as he is. Think of what it has taken to get us to this point — his Twitter addiction, his bizarre loyalty to Flynn and affection for Putin, the raw exploitation of his office to enrich his family, the business dealings, whatever they were, he’s evidently trying to cover up by refusing to release his taxes.
The point is that given the character of the Republican Party, we’d be well on the way to autocracy if the man in the White House had even slightly more self-control. Trump may have done himself in; but it can still happen here.
Apart from waiting for the next shoe(s) to fall, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker (and Anne Laurie/anyone who knows): Did we ever hear anything further from greennotGreen’s family? If they’d share, I would appreciate seeing the obituary and any bio info on the late, great Ms. green …
I’ve been holding off making my contributions in memory, because I’d love to attach a real world name to the donation. However, if the family prefers anonymity, that’s cool too.
From Betty’s post, May 18, Rest in Peace, greennotGreen: — the blogpost has links to the 3 charities.
Betty: I’d love if we put up a donations reminder (with links) in the early morning threads, or in On the Road (where it won’t get lost in 100+ comments) for the next three weeks or so. Show those charities some love, and get the word out about green’s passing. Make it easy for Juicers to find the online links.
So, if we can ever attach a name to the charity request, that would be primo ….
Spanky
In other not-news, here’s what happens when an AI program creates paint colors and names them.
Turns out Cole painted his room Stanky Bean.
amk
matt left out turkish tyrant. damn the 140 letters limits.
bystander
Petri goes into Veronica Geng territory. Hilarious.
Frankensteinbeck
That first article is less a commentary on Trump, who we already knew, than on national journalism. Good TV? That’s why you didn’t get that Trump is senile and deranged? How could anyone listen to Trump say the absolute worst thing possible and think he’s playing ‘the long game’? But if they’re in the process of waking up, that at least is a good thing. If it goes on long enough, maybe they’ll actually look at the Republican Party, voters and elected.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Quinerly
My morning laugh. I needed a morning laugh: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/low_concept/2017/05/my_first_big_boy_trip_by_donald_j_trump.html
Manyakitty
@rikyrah: Hey, good morning! I finally caught your post early enough to respond!
rikyrah
Still smiling at the thoughtof the major papers waiting until Dolt45 was airborne before pulling out the Friday evening scoops ???
rikyrah
Krugman does not lie in his piece
Spanky
@rikyrah: ‘Morning, Sunshine! I’m actually a little surprised he didn’t tweet while in the air.
Or did he?
Spanky
Something from earlier …
BREAKING NEWS!!!!! MUST CREDIT … uhhhhh ….. Jersey Man, I guess.
So much for the party plans for the weekend, Jersey Man.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Spanky
Also too, ad at the top of Balloon Juice this morning is “Discover Dubai”.
Ehhhhh, no thanks.
Elizabelle
Yeah, I loved the Petri and Krugman columns. That’s how you bring down a Trump. Along with the late night comedians (Jimmy Fallon of NBC need not apply.) They are giving cover to the “serious” journalists, the very important people, without whose silence, normalizing and enabling a Trump presidency would not have been possible.
Petri had another funny (with truth in there) column too: WaPost: Is Donald Trump a witch?
Kay
I was so cheered by Democrats’ bluntness on Joe Leiberman!
Absolutely not. They should have held a press conference, said “no” in unison and filed out of the room.
The long-running myth of how awesome he is comes crashing down. Progress is possible in this world. People ARE capable of learning.
amk
that old curse of twitler living out every one of his tweets continues. sad!
Spanky
In the spirit of never-too-soon, the WaPo has an opinion piece by CNN’s Jon Klein titled “The dark source of Roger Ailes’s power”, a sort of alt-obit from one of Ailes’ competitors. And at the bottom are links to other pieces:
Bold! Now that the subject is safely dead, WaPo.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: No. Krugman does not lie. About the Republicans’ role.
We need to burn them to the ground. For our own protection, and to protect our country and the Constitution the Republicans espouse but apparently don’t respect.
Never forget this. We are sheerly lucky Trump turns out to be such a jackass with so little competence. A Hitler could absolutely rise to power here, especially if he presented himself like that nice blue eyed boy wonk, Paul Ryan.
Elizabelle
@Spanky: Yeah. That’s been so noticeable, the kicking Ailes now that he is a literal corpse.
Must have manned up once they saw what their readers were saying in the comments section.
Trump in the White House would be impossible without Fox News to cultivate the way. Would that we could inter the evil he did with Ailes’ bones.
Steeplejack
@amk:
Thanks for looking that up. I was thinking it.
Kay
And the Joe of 2000 was terrible so imagine how bad he is now. It’s okay to make mistakes! You just can’t keep making the same ones for 20 years.
Elizabelle
@Kay: One note about all the Joe Lieberman derision here: isn’t he likely the least (!) bad choice Trump would make?
Personally, I think Democrats should stonewall any major appointments out of the Trump admin, and especially the FBI while Trump’s White House is under active federal investigation. Go with a well-respected (by actual people who know) career type.
I think Trump’s days are numbered. No further 10-year appointments, and dog forbid a Supreme Court appointment open up.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: At this point, I must invoke Monty Python.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
No. He could at least pick someone with some sort of law enforcement experience and a demonstrated ability to be independent.
efgoldman
@Kay:
You couldn’t have made a better human simulacrum of Droopy Dog (Look and voice) if you’d designed and built it from scratch
efgoldman
@debbie:
Oh, old Droopy Holy Joe has shown lots of independence: independent from his party, independent from the state that elected him, independent from the needs of voters, independent from the senate….
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Well, Democrats are capable of learning, but they aren’t Real Muricans ™ so they don’t count.
randy khan
“Apparatchiks” is so apt.
NotMax
@Spanky
There’s something strangely endearing about the name Clardic Fug.
Sounds like a name Harlan Ellison would have come up with after dropping LSD.
debbie
@efgoldman:
But a total remora on the whale that is the Grand Old Party.
Jeffro
@bystander: she’s awesome
Jeffro
@amk: it’s just weird
Petri wrote another great column which she noted that Trump was a man out of time
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
We are lucky there, but part of it is built into the problem. The voters that made a monster like Trump possible specifically want an incompetent. In his bumbling, narcissistic hate they see themselves. He validates them. They don’t want an intelligent planner. They resent having to vote for people who can even pretend to be smarter than themselves. Heaven knows they had options in the primary.
OzarkHillbilly
Because President Manbaby gets cranky without his nappy time
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Funhouse mirror version of the Life cereal commercial.
“You wake him.”
“No, you wake him.”
“I know, let’s get Mikey!”
Jeffro
@Frankensteinbeck: seconded here. They wanted someone to do their “politically incorrect” venting for them
Oldgold
Last night Bill Maher had Cornel West on as a guest. In my opinion Cornel West is in terms of intellectual and grifting ability equivalent to Sarah Palin.
Cornel West trotted out hIs affected Bernie Bro patter. Bill Maher was having none of his vapid nonsense and called him out. It got very hot very quickly.
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/watch-hbos-bill-maher-gets-into-epic-shouting-match-with-cornel-west-over-hillary-versus-trump/
Elizabelle
@debbie: Agreed. I think he should go with a career professional.
But Trump does not want “demonstrated ability to be independent.”
It’s why that nutjob Comey is flying coach these days.
Kay called it. We are not going to get any good appointments out of Trump. He is the original bad hire.
(And I have my doubts he was “hired.” My fingers are crossed that evidence piles up that 2016 was an illegitimate election. And that it sees the light of day. I cannot stand this President Orrin Hatch crap. At that point, you need to overturn the election. It’s not precedent that Russia elected an American president and his enablers either.)
HRA
@Kay:
Joe Lieberman was an attempt at distraction from the news. Joe is not liked by both parties. .
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: I don’t think Mikey will like it.
Keith P.
I’m paying more attention to Trump’s appearance than usual. 9 day overseas trip that’s going to me mostly work, and no golf. I wouldn’t be surprised if the stress of this trip pushes his heart over the edge. We’ll see how much his face sags and how squinty/puffy his eyes are by Tuesday.
amk
@Kay: Are dems supporting joe for fbi? Not understanding the context here.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Sounds good on paper except that there exists no mechanism for overturning the election, nor any hint of a delineated power to do so.
The judiciary would be the only option and that would instigate a Constitutional crisis of epic and more than likely extremely deleterious proportions.
Starfish
@Elizabelle: No. This position needs to go to someone with a career in the FBI and not a politician. Most people have realized the Trump administration has gone nuclear so John Cornyn eliminated himself from the candidate pool. The Goldman Sachs dude being considered for a position under Mnuchin also eliminated himself.
hoodie
@Frankensteinbeck: More likely they don’t understand what competence is because it’s an extinct creature in their culture narrative. Trump voters come out of an experience in which competence has been annihilated by events. Belief in competence came out of the Depression and WWII, which help developed a narrative that cast competence in a particular manner. It was fairly robust and was bolstered by the Cold War, but it contained the seed of its own distraction because it relied heavily on fairy tales and heuristics (e.g., gender) that don’t necessarily correlate with actual skill. Itsinevitable decline began almost immediately with the Korean War, and continued through Viet Nam, Watergate, and was accelerated by the greed and accompanying magical thinking that arose in the Reagan era. Now, real competence is vested in women (e.g., Pelosi is a far better legislator than Ryan) and people like Barack Obama, who, although not perfect, was a really good executive. Republicans are most older white males who aren’t doctors but play them on television.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
All you need to know about Trump is that first Tweet up top. We couldn’t have gotten a more un-American president if we had tried.
hoodie
@OzarkHillbilly: You know, I wouldn’t have a problem if he were simply an older, wise person who genuinely needs down time. But rest actually makes Trump worse. Arguably, he less dangerous when he’s in tired toddler meltdown mode.
OzarkHillbilly
@amk: We aren’t making that mistake again.
TS
@Spanky:
Quote of the day
OzarkHillbilly
@hoodie: You have a point. Kind of like, “Which is better, the frying pan or the fire?”
Kristine
Heading off to the Chicago Botanic Garden for a bonsai exhibit. Getting into them in a small way. I have one that needs serious maintenance–honestly, I’m lucky the poor thing is still alive–and want to start another. So, I need to buy some tools, soil, etc.
Rain/t-storms on tap for most of the day. Gonna be wet.
laura
This showed up in the comics this morning.
I’ll be sharing it widely.
I first thought of greennotGreen, and then scrolling down saw boxer rescue Florida and wondered if it was on Betty Crocker’s radar.
https://www.tailsofjoy.net/
Wiley Miller was a friend back in the late 80’s and was very kind to draw some cartoons for my older brother when he had cancer.
He married a wonderful woman and they are wonderful people.
Baud
@Kay:
Maybe sing it a cappella.
No. NO. No. NO.
HRA
@Elizabelle:
There is a good piece in the Atlantic by David A. Graham on illegitimacy regarding presidents.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/what-happens-when-a-president-is-declared-illegitimate/513473/
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think the counter point to what Krugman describes is Trump is the logical end result of the Conservative Monolith – all the politicians are just good little faceless minions who were selected for their ability to follower order and aren’t able to think for themselves like Ryan. That means it has to be one the Conservative master be president and as we are seeing with Trump, they are all delusional kooks.
kindness
I love the smart snark of those tweets. God knows I don’t have time to actually do Twitter but appreciate others sifting through it for me. Thanks.
Fair Economist
@Kristine:
I see what you did there.
debit
I think I’ve achieved crisis fatigue. And I worry how the news media will handle a future president who doesn’t provide an endless buffet of shitshows for them to feast on. Because Trump has been a ratings bonanza.
debit
@Baud: I would like them to do it like this.
Kristine
@Fair Economist:
Believe it or not, I did not realize I did that until you pointed it out.
My backbrain is better at this blogging thing than I am.
Brachiator
I watched Cornell West furiously rationalize not voting for Hillary Clinton on the Bill Maher show. It was pathetic. Maybe there’s a YouTube clip of this segment. West recognizes that Trump is a catastrophe, but he cannot pull himself out of the swamp of false equivalence. He also clings to “Brother Bernie would have won” bullshit.
West and others are also stuck in ideologically based objections to Trump. But Clinton nailed it, but may have stated it too mildly. Trump is intellectually and temperamentally unfit to be president. It’s not just that he is a mentally confused old coot. Every new leak of his behavior confirms that he is ignorant, cannot grasp the fundamentals of the office of the president, and makes egregious errors of judgement. In this he exhibits the same flaws that we’ve seen all his adult life.
But if it helps with a 25th Amendment solution, let’s label him mentally incompetent.
ETA. Jared Kushner is the Michael Corleone of the Trump crime family. He is quiet, but is a willing co-conspirator.
Alain the site fixer
@Kristine: ooh, send pics! I’m having trouble with two bonsai, one much worse than the other. So good luck on that front!
randy khan
@Kristine:
*groan*
Elizabelle
@HRA: Thank you. Calling bullshit on that article, though. Speed-skimmed, and it appears to be prime Villager concern trolling. Some of those situations are nothing like the others.
At a cafe w slow internet, and all manner of Barcelonans and their pets parading by, so will do a careful read tonight. But, thank you for the link.
japa21
@Kristine: Have a good time. Not making it there this year, too much to do around the house, but go to this exhibit almost every year.
different-church-lady
Lest this brilliant subtly of Petri’s essay be lost: the bear is the mascot of which country?
japa21
@different-church-lady: Very good. Didn’t think of that.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
O god Sanders is going out to Montana to campaign for Quist. Nothing says Montana quite like an old white socialist Jew from Brooklyn who wants to expand government into vast sectors of the economy.
Quinerly
Pres Manbaby get his well done steak and little cup of ketchup on the side: https://apnews.com/5e7e20245bc744fc8a6e71745239f56a/Worldwide-effort-set-to-keep-Trump-happy-on-1st-trip-abroad
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Brachiator:
Cornel West is a cartoon buffoon. Hell is spending eternity with Trump, Bernie Sanders and West.
Baud
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I assume it Quist didn’t think it would be helpful, he would have asked Sanders to stay away.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Baud:
Heath Mello probably thought the same thing.
Baud
@Brachiator: West is pretty much a real life troll at this point.
Baud
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Probably. Although it seems he wouldn’t have won regardless. I don’t see an option other than trusting the local candidate.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Baud:
This is a test of what Sanders brings to the table, although Montana does have his demo- white, rural, and a couple of college towns filled with white kids.
geg6
@Baud:
Yeah, much as I despise Wilmer, I would think Quist has better judgment as to what works in Montana than any of us do.
Corner Stone
Ok! Time for some AMJoy Truth and Non-Reconciliation!
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: Very good! That went over my head, I missed that completely.
Baud
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Agreed. Montana is willing to elect Dems, and Trump should be a negative for the GOP candidate. If Sanders has juice, I’d expect to see it here.
OzarkHillbilly
@different-church-lady: nice catch.
Immanentize
@geg6: @Baud: You all are assuming the Quist requested Sanders to show up. The time-line looks like Sanders, on a national tour, said the Dems weren’t doing enough for Quist so he will go to Montana to campaign for him. Now, the Quist campaign is pegging it as a GOTV effort. That seems like the right spin for Quist. If Quist wins, Bernie wins.
Baud
@Immanentize: No, I’m assuming that Quist had advance notice of the visit and would have spoken up if he thought Bernie would not be helpful.
Schlemazel
@Spanky:
BJ is being visited by that pasta-awful “off the grid” video ad. The Cryptkeeper interviewing somebody on one and Jessie “The Boobie” Ventura from the “command Center” is the other. Ah well, watta ya gonna do?
Jeffro
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: that sounds about right … maybe with Lou Dobbs interrupting them every 30 minutes or so
Immanentize
@Baud: That is true. And there seems to be coordination now. Funny how the special election is after colleges mostly close for the summer…..
Baud
@Immanentize: That’s unfortunate, but I haven’t heard of anything hinky about the timing. (I have heard of other shenanigans in this race by the GOP there.)
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: To my knowledge, gnG’s family haven’t visited since they let us know of her passing. Anne Laurie and Alain handle the early threads, so they’re the ones to ask about the links. Alain could probably figure out how to automate it even! ;)
Corner Stone
I am tired of hearing about Watergate. Tired of having these has beens blather on about how awesome and expert they were. This isn’t Watergate.
Fair Economist
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
The white rural folks voting for Sanders were often conservatives trying to get a weaker candidate nominated. He’s not going to get them to vote for Quist.
Immanentize
@Baud: There has been a pretty concerted effort around the country to disenfranchise student voters. This isn’t probably the reason for the timing in Montana, but it is a plus for the Republicans
Also one of my voting representation pet peeves:. Montana has twice the population of Wyoming but, like WY, only gets one Representative. All because of the decision in 1918(?) to set the house number at 435. I think this is probably unconstitutional under current voting law, but who has time to work on that project?
Ian G.
@Oldgold:
Maher is an asshole, but fuck that pseudo-intellectual poseur West. He was riding Trump’s Dick all of last year, and now he needs to fucking deal with it.
Iowa Old Lady
@OzarkHillbilly: Remember all the stuff about how Hillary had no “stamina”? It’s always projection.
sdhays
It occurs to me that now, while Twitler is off insulting other countries with his presence, there is a window of opportunity for Mike Dense to get together with Ryan and McConnell and make a plan for invoking the 25th Amendment without the Preznit’s interference. To invoke the 25th Amendment (based on my reading of it), Dense would have to get 8 out of the 15 Cabinet Secretaries to sign a letter to Congress that the Preznit is unable to fulfill the duties of his office. If the Preznit then writes a letter saying, “Nuh, uh! I can too Preznit!”, then they have to send another letter and then Congress decides – they need a 2/3 majority to sustain the removal.
I was curious about how plausible that is, so I did a quick rundown of the Cabinet Secretaries on likely personal loyalty to the Preznit. I think Tillerson, Sessions, and Devos will never sign up for defenestrating President Dump. I think the generals (Mattis and Kelly) are likely up for it, and I think that Perry, Price, Perdue, and Chao are likely up for anything that Ryan and McConnell are up for. Shulkin seemed normal, so I count that as a yes. That’s 7. Carson is just weird, so I couldn’t possibly guess what he would do. I also can’t guess how Acosta, Zinke, and Mnuchin would vote, but if McConnell and Ryan say they’re ready, I’d expect that one of them would be willing to pull the trigger – probably Mnuchin since Twitler is making the job of tax cuts so much harder. So I think there’s a plausible path if Congress is ready.
That leaves us with 2/3 of both Houses of Congress. Assuming 100% of Democrats vote to keep Dump out of the Oval Office (and I think that’s a reasonable assumption), that means 19 Republican Senators and 91 Republican Representatives (there are currently only 431 seated Representatives) voting against Trump. I think 19 Republican Senators would already be a tough lift, but possibly doable, but 91 of the rabid House Republican Caucus? That’s not happening until things get so bad that 91 of them plausibly believe that if they don’t, they won’t be returning to Congress in 2019.
I don’t see how Twitler stays in office with his clear unfitness and all the building scandals, but with the treasonous political rigidity of Congressional Republicans, it’s hard to see how he doesn’t leave in a box or by riding out his term.
StringOnAStick
@Immanentize: I have wondered before if the way House seats are apportioned somehow violates the equal protection clause, since there is such a wide disparity in how many actual voters each House member represents. Then I look at the Senate and kick myself for trying to act like I know something about law with zero actual training in that field. There definitely should be more House members than there are though, I just don’t know how we get there. What’s in place now further cements the dominance of the rural areas in representation.
Aleta
This is good, from New Yorker. Explains some of Tr-Russian business connections. And also (as efgoldman explained last night) what’s different about Mueller’s ability to wade through Tr’s protective giant mess of international business agreements.
Betty Cracker
@Oldgold: “A disaster is better than a catastrophe.” What a fucking clown West is.
StringOnAStick
@Aleta: That is some interesting insight into how to get at what IMO is the most likely thing to take out Dump. We’ve seen how sloppy the whole family is in cashing in on the grift (Kushner’s sister basically selling green cards in China shocked me), so it stands to reason that this sloppiness is SOP. Sloppiness means a prosecutor with enough resources will find plenty of threads to pull. Thanks for posting that, it is heartening in many ways.
dance around in your bones
@Schlemazel:
That was torturing me yesterday. I have Adblock Plus though, so I just clicked on filter preferences and blocked it. Problem solved.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kristine:
I saw what you did there.
ETA: Curse you, Fair Economist @58!
Wyatt Derp
The problem is Trump is misunderstood by the lying media. Look at this quote from the campaign:
As you can see he is delivering bigly.
Ridnik Chrome
@Spanky: “Burble Simp” sounds like someone who makes electronic dance music. Or a name for a synth-pop band…
father pussbucket
@OzarkHillbilly: Except Newt didn’t get better.
Ian G.
@Betty Cracker:
Per West’s “logic”, Hillary’s Attorney General would have been equally as atrocious as Preston Brooks Nathan Bedford Forrest Sessions.
The Lodger
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Now I’m hearing “cartoon buffoon” in Elton John’s voice.
Mike in NC
USA Today on my iPad: “Sleepless Trump arrives in Saudi Arabia”.
Because the 70-year-old man-baby can only sleep in his special own bed. By the time he gets to Rome, he’ll punch out the Pope for not serving ketchup with his burnt steak.
dmsilev
@Mike in NC: “Sleepless in Riyadh” wasn’t anywhere near as good as its prequel movie.
Elizabelle
@dance around in your bones: helloooo there.
Corner Stone
@Ian G.:
What’s funny is that makes it no worse than if you just use his real name. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.
kindness
Those who fund the Republican party/Conservative Media didn’t prefer Trump but figured they could whip the vitrol against Hillary (or Bernie or whomever we put up) to the point it wouldn’t matter. They thought they could control & use Trump. The Republicans in Congress serve those families/corporations. Republicans will carry out no oversight until their masters start feeling they are going to lose everything. This will happen. I thought it’d take a couple years but it turns out it’ll only take a couple of FBI investigations and a media that goes after it like they went after Hillary’s e-mails. That last part was a bad joke as the MSM won’t do it. They are puppets/whores to the same masters.
Corner Stone
@Mike in NC:
The problem is that because the plane is moving it can make it a little more difficult for the aliens to attach the Dementing Ray precisely. If he doesn’t get a full night’s dose then he starts to become micro-aware of his surroundings. He has no idea how he got there or why, and just wants to escape. So each night he gets more and more frustrated.
Miss Bianca
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Wilmer, do us all a fucking favor and STAY HOME. Don’t go out and give the kiss of death to Quist. Montana is actually one of the few Interior Western states that has successfully elected Democrats.
Another Scott
@Elizabelle: Unfortunately, there’s no mechanism to “overturn the election”. There were several checks designed to prevent the result we got:
1) State/Local control of the election process (making a national conspiracy to fix the result difficult)
2) The recount / legal appeals process
3) The Electoral College (a layer of people who can vote differently from the state result [but almost never do])
4) The Certification of the EC results by the House and Senate (they could refuse to certify the results [but almost never do])
5) Impeachment and Conviction and removal from office. (And the 25th Amendment.)
Unfortunately, the Framers assumed that most of the people in elective office would respect norms and their oaths and precedents. They didn’t imagine that a bare majority in any of the steps above would trash the system if/when they got power.
Those 5 options are our only protections (short of extra-constitutional actions). The SCOTUS can’t call a new election.
#1-#4 are over and done with. If we want Trump out of office before January 2021, #5 is the only option (unless he can be pressured via the threat of #5 or other legal action to resign).
Cheers,
Scott.
Kristine
@japa21: I’m here in the parking lot, getting set to walk out into the rain. Really wish the weather was better. Got a raincoat and brollie, but still.
Kristine
@Alain the site fixer: Will do. I’m also enrolled in a 6-week class–if I blog about lessons learned I will send you a link.
dance around in your bones
@Elizabelle: Hi Elizabelle! Once again, I’m always around, just lurking away in Lurkistan. I need the snarling jackal exposure to keep me sane in these trippy times o.O
Miss Bianca
@Kristine: You know, if you had told us that you were getting into bonsai in a big way, we’d have to have let you in on a little secret…
scav
@Kristine: On the iceberg principle of blog commenting, for every expressed comment of interest, there are 9+ interests lurking. So share any link widely — it’s all gardening, so there’s even a hospitable larger thread. Greetings to the ChiBotGard and enjoy!
MomSense
@Another Scott:
I was going to say that we have blown through all the fail safe mechanisms.
It comes down to voting and raising money for Democratic candidates. I do mean Democratic candidates. Flirting with bullshit independents and greens is a luxury we cannot afford.
Corner Stone
@scav: Isn’t this also known as “The Bronie Theorem” ?
scav
@Corner Stone: And likely 10 other names on the meta-Bronie-Iceberg principle!
and, BJ needs this. Photos of Under-Dogs.
HRA
Almost ready to hit the road to my youngest grandchild’s graduation at my university. It is a special day in many ways. I was able to know her more closely when I took care of her when her Mom (my youngest daughter) went out of town for work seminars. Remember the 1st time when she said “Hey Nan can you help me with my homework? Scary stuff! :)
You all have a good day! I will be happy to get this reprieve from the news.
Alain the site fixer
@Betty Cracker: I’ll get in that a bit later today for tomorrow morning and forward.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Miss Bianca:
Seriously – keep him away from Ossoff FFS. Shouldn’t he back in Burlington trying to keep Jane out of jail and helping her with their financial disclosures they missed the filing deadline on, again?
Alain the site fixer
@Schlemazel: it was malfunctioning and is fixed. Hate it you may, but it generates a lot of revenue for the site…
Another Scott
@StringOnAStick: Another problem with expanding the numbers in the House is – where do you put them? The chamber would probably have to be expanded. And the Senate would probably want similar floor-space (the houses hate each other institutionally). So that means rebuilding/expanding the Capitol. And expanding the House and Senate office buildings.
I see arguments for increasing the numbers in the House, and making DC a state, and so forth, but that’s not the big problem with our national government. The big problem is that House districts are gerrymandered to such an extent, and voting is so difficult for so many people, that Representatives and Senators do not reflect the will of the people. Incumbency is such a huge advantage that once someone wins a gerrymandered district, or in a state with a party lock on a Senate seat, they can usually stay there for life. And they become captive of rich interests that fill their campaign war chests that make their reelection nearly a foregone conclusion.
Being able to elect people who are responsive to voters, and having a voting system that was easy and fair to everyone, and having a campaign finance system that didn’t give the rich and corporations and the owners of the media overwhelming influence, would fix a lot of the problems in DC even if the numbers of representatives and senators didn’t change.
But that’s a heavy lift, too…
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Percysowner
From the people who wouldn’t know ethics if they came up and bit them on the ankle.
White House looking at ethics rule to weaken special investigation: sources
Miss Bianca
@HRA: congratulations to your granddaughter!
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I keep wondering why the financial hinkiness of the Sanders duopoly isn’t getting more traction and blowback. I guess IOIYNAC (It’s OK If You’re Not A Clinton).
Jeffro
@StringOnAStick: @Another Scott:
1) house districts created by computer for compactness
2) eliminate the senate (at least for legislation…they could still approve appointments)
3) overturn Citizens United
4) candidates for House, Senate, Presidency must release min. 10 years (most recent) tax returns
Another Scott
@MomSense: Werd. Purity arguments are deadly.
And when we win, we have to celebrate our victories and incremental improvements and do what we can quickly. Real political progress is always incremental.
Obama had 2 years to pass his agenda and do his best to make things better. He did what he could as quickly as he could when he could. Being timid after winning in hopes of building a consensus with the Teabaggers won’t work. We have to show voters that there are huge differences between the parties now, demonstrate results, and hammer the good news that we create.
I’m generally a huge fan of consensus and compromise and don’t think any single person or party has a monopoly on virtue. But not at this time. The Teabaggers fight for every single bit of advantage. We have to do so as well, while rebuilding the governmental systems and protections, at least until a sensible party in opposition to the Democrats rise from the ashes of the GOP/Teabagger party.
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@Another Scott: by definition — being that they are elected at-home by State, don’t Senators represent the will of (at least) the State electorate? Same for one-Representative States.
I agree that increasing the number of house members will not “fix” everything, but it would cause sufficient disruption in the processes that some things might indeed get fixed.
Booger
@Corner Stone: shouldn’t that be Jefferson Beauregard Electric Boogaloo III: The Campfire Sessions?
Corner Stone
@Booger: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III: The Cock That Jim Crowed Thrice
Another Scott
@Jeffro: On your #1, a lot more needs to enter into the drawing of district boundaries than compactness, IMHO. People in cities often have different interests than those in suburbs or rural areas.
This WP article makes a good point that one measure of “fairness” is – if a party wins, say, 60% of the vote, do they get 60% of the seats? Quite often these days results are hugely skewed the other way (losing the total vote percentage but still winning the vast majority of the seats) because the redistricting is controlled by the party in power immediately after the Census.
I haven’t studied that proposal carefully, but the devil’s in the details. I would not want a system that, for example, ossifies the political system that the Democrats and Republicans continue to be the only viable political parties for the next 200 years. Drawing boundaries that mainly depend on which party wins might introduce issues along those lines.
But yes, compactness, and the parties not being able to egregiously twist the boundaries to pick their voters in exclusion of all other measures of fairness, are both things that need to be part of reforms to the process.
The SCOTUS really needs to step up and reign-in these abuses. But I’m not optimistic it will happen until a Democrat is able to replace Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and/or Kennedy.
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Corner Stone
Rex and the Crown Prince: A rom-com about a Secretary of Oil and an Oil Gazillionaire thrown together in the most unlikely of ways. He wants to sell him arms in exchange for oil exploration rights, but he just wants to buy arms and sell oil exploration rights.
Can they see past their differences and learn to express how they feel about each other before it’s too late?
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
Wipe them out.
All of them.
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: #1 is really problematic. Don’t know how to improve the Senate short of dissolving it, but you can’t do that while any example of gerrymandering in the House can still be found. Am onboard for #3 and #4.
Another Scott
@Immanentize: Yes, but it depends on how you define “electorate”, doesn’t it? If only certain people are able to vote (rather than the full set of previously-qualified adults in the state) because the party in power has put in bogus voting restrictions, or restricted access, or made other changes to exclude voters they don’t like, then the result is not representative of the true will of the people.
Just because US senators can’t draw their districts doesn’t mean that they can’t also find ways to “pick their voters”. The voting system is too subject to manipulation for them as well.
Cheers,
Scott.
JPL
@Corner Stone: Excellent analysis.
rikyrah
@debit:
Only because they have been dragged to it, debit. Let’s not pretend that without Maddow and LarryO beating the nightly drumstick about the wrongs with this WH, we never would have gotten to this point. The rest of the media was ready to normalize Dolt45. aS it is, with all the fires poppingup, Fox news is still in another universe. Don’t think that they will be forced to tell the truth until people are put in handcuffs.
Ella in New Mexico
@Spanky:
That’s hilariously awesome! Just had a big rant with the hubster the other day about an NPR show we heard where the expert was claiming “AI is so perfect it’s going to take over the human race”.
Yeah, well. Has anyone else ever noticed computers are only as smart as the crap that we program them with? They’ll always be at the mercy of our very flawed human errors.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
West,like others of his ilk, will not apologize for what they did.
Phuck them.
debbie
Seeing this, I’m betting Sheriff Clarke will fit right in.
Quinerly
Standing by her man: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/20/melania-trump-white-house-leaks-media-238620
Corner Stone
@rikyrah:
And CNN hiring as many Trump campaign officials and surrogates as they could snatch off the street.
Corner Stone
I sure hope she has a CHL because Stephanie Ruhle is packing a couple of guns today!
Quinerly
Comey’s hometown backs hometown boy. His father is convinced Trump is “nuts:”http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/columnists/mike-kelly/2017/05/19/hometown-allendale-james-comey-no-nut-job-but-principled-career-man/327287001/
rikyrah
@HRA:
Congratulations!!!
A proud moment for the family.
Immanentize
@Another Scott: totes agree. But these problems are not either/or and need to be addressed constantly and with vigor!
I think Kennedy might be willing to give us a good gerrymandering decision before he leaves the Court.
ruemara
@debbie:
It does seem like the entire GOP has completely betrayed America.
Aleta
Jeffro
@Another Scott: @Corner Stone: #1: it would be difficult to make it happen but I don’t see how compactness makes things any worse than they are today … much more likely to end up with a much higher number of competitive districts and thus more moderate candidates
Immanentize
@Quinerly: That reads like another, “poor Trump, everyone is undermining his greatness except his loyal family” PR jobs. With bonus Stone quotes! “She loves him, she is true-blue, and wicked smart too!”
That all makes me expect a divorce filing soon.
Jim Parene
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: There is a strong disconnect between his preception and reality.
Jeffro
@ruemara: with a very few exceptions that’s correct
the Conster, la Citoyenne
The only good thing about this shit show fail parade is the Dems are finding their voices and building a bench. I’ve been so impressed by Seth Moulton and Ted Lieu and Adam Schiff in the House. They’re all on it, every day, especially Lieu. For a national profile though, Seth Moulton has everything – he’s a vet, handsome, woke and smart. Lieu’s righteous. Schiff is statesmanlike, measured but solid and surefooted. Then we have Cummings whose screaming about the receipts he has on Pence and the last ditch nature of saving the country here and now, and Waters and Green pushing that impeachment word. Franken, Merkley, Gillibrand and Kamala Harris – all pushing w/ the Resistance, not trying to brand themselves or grandstand it **cough**Wilmer**cough**. Joe Kennedy needs more seasoning (he’s my Rep.), but he’s a comer, and Katherine Clarke from eastern Mass. is awesome too. Time for all the white male Dems to get Cummings’ back though symbolically and otherwise – he’s the one who’s got the goods.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good, she can make sure he knows that someone in the White House called him a moron.
@Corner Stone: I’d heard about the Ford lay-offs, but not GM. 4,000 jobs? that’s gonna hurt. I get a strong feeling that things are gonna crash, then I wonder if I’m not ghoulishly confirming my own biases.
Miss Bianca
@Quinerly: I’M NOT THE NUTJOB! *YOU’RE* THE NUTJOB!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Brachiator: I saw he had on West and Boris Epshteyn. I spared myself the aggravation. I wouldn’t mind Maher trolling his own audience so much if he were as sharp and quick all the time as he is once in a while
Citizen Alan
@Another Scott:
Its the 21zt fucking century! Increase the House to 4350, let the 435 most senior work in DC, and let everyone else telecommute! Honestly, is not the biggest problem with our representatives the fact that they spend all their time in DC away from their constituents?
Aleta
From NYT Dec 2016

the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Jim Parene:
He looked and sounded like he was off his meds. What a clown. Figures he and Wilmer would have a mutual attraction since they both seem to have let Obama’s mere existence wound their mediocre egos. Pathetic.
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: It’s the issue with our systemic policies of disenfranchisement that make me wary of a compactness resolution. I’m not lecturing anyone on this but the “compactness”, as I understand it, happened for a variety of reasons not all of which are all that desirable.
Kristine
@Ella in New Mexico: I attended a talk a little over a week ago about “The Future of Intelligence.” AI was discussed. You would agree with the conclusions of the speaker. It ain’t there yet. http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2017/05/15/future-of-intelligence/?doing_wp_cron=1495237680.5055119991302490234375
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Corner Stone
Trump just looks like he doesn’t know how to control a human body. His arms stay fully limp and droopy at his sides and he swings his entire torso from side to side, with full shoulder turns. Like a child waiting for the priest to ask him what he has done wrong now.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good fucking luck. They went into this with eyes wide open. No sympathy.
LurkerNoLonger
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Jason Kander too.
Aleta
(The Kushner spokesman he’s referring to is Josh Raffel, a horror film publicist and PR exec, just hired to lead Kushner’s communications team.)
Corner Stone
Oooo, nice catch Jake Sherman:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: Odds are trump won’t pay his own lawyers
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I want somebody to ask him, on TeeVee, “do you think people don’t know the whole story about the inauguration tickets?”
ETA: and trump fucking curtsied to the King of SA
Corner Stone
@LurkerNoLonger: I like that Jason Kander kid, also too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Video of Trump’s curtsey. I assume it’s something to do with the lighting, but it looks like he shellacked on a couple of coats of fake tan during the flight.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Has Chris Hayes asked his co-host Wilmer what’s up with Jane and that little bank fraud thing?
Barbara
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Cummings is awesome.
Another Scott
@Citizen Alan: Heh.
“Sorry, I can’t see your screen. Just a minute…”
“What was that again? The audio broke up there. Could you repeat that?”
“Wait! No! You’re not supposed to see that!!11”
“Sorry, my kid is playing ‘Kill All the Monsters With Everyone Else on the Planet’ so I’ve got too much lag. I’ll have to connect later.”
“Where’s Tech Support! It’s not working!!11”
Etc.
;-)
New Hampshire has 400 legislators – one for every 3300 people. I don’t think it somehow makes their government work that much better.
;-)
Seriously, 435 people is plenty. More would be fine. But there are benefits to having the group be fairly small (Dunbar’s number is just 150).
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
If he tried that, Wilmer would never return.
Это курам на смех
@Corner Stone: Worse is how he sits in every chair like he is on the toilet.
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: They are one and all people who have never had to think about the prospect of a hard landing, a fall without anyone there to catch them. Raiding the college fund or taking out a loan or just foregoing a vacation to pay for legal expenses because your boss is an idiot — that’s what Republicans get to impose on Democratic staffers. Karma isn’t a bitch it is a feral child in a man’s body.
Cckids
@debit: Excellent. Or the “Go F*ck Yourself” chorus from the Stewart Daily Show.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You know what we need? A story about a PA steel town where even Democrats turned to trump
chopper
@Corner Stone:
it’s gonna be consequential all right.
Gin & Tonic
The Twitter machine is reporting that Enes Kanter, a center for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the NBA, who is Turkish, and an outspoken opponent of Erdogan, has been detained at the airport in Bucharest and told that his Turkish passport has been canceled.
Gin & Tonic
@germy: I fail to see a downside there.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: WaPo:
Erdogan is a monster. And he’s just getting worse. It’s what monsters do.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kristine
@scav: Will do!
Rain ☔️ continues off and on. Still a pretty place to be.
Corner Stone
@Это курам на смех: He reminds me of what I imagine a bored orangutan sitting in a chair would look like. Except you could easily believe the orangutan has a better understanding of the situation he is in.
Kristine
@Miss Bianca: it’s such a complex medium, though–I think there are many little secrets.
Fair Economist
@Spanky: The color name that really made me lose it was Stoner Blue. Which is kind of a blue, but not really, because “Hey, it’s all alright man!”
germy
this is the stuff his “base” never hears about, because it’s never reported on fox or their favorite talk radio stations:
ET
I have been trying to figure out why the Trumpsters all over America seem to still be so gung-ho about him or are taking all the Russia stuff (and other things) so lightly and haven’t really come to a conclusion. I don’t think it is just Republican loyalty and I don’t think it is just loyalty to him – though both are real.
But after reading something over at NBC News and USA Today, I have to wonder if good portion of this is that all of those supporters are just so limited by that closed conservative news circle/feedback loop/echo chamber/epistemic closure, that still reports that Trump really isn’t as bad as that fake news and evil Libs say he is. They talk about the challenges Trump is having but all with the its not Trump, its ‘them” plot line using that as an excuse to bash their usual enemies list. Some of this is typical partisan skewing but more of it strikes me as head-in-the-sandism with a strong does of distraction (look at the left hand so you can see the right picking your pocket).
It isn’t doing any of their viewers any good but then they don’t care about that at all because they really are in the business of lying to people to scare them and keep them in line.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t think he believes the leaking is from his staff. Every statement I’ve heard him make seems to point to the IC.
Aleta
But that’d eliminate all the hires who are business law majors from the same college frat as the Congressman, come to DC to make contacts and learn how lobbying and gravy trains work. And then our reps might have to hire people who want to make a working government.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That might explain the reported lack of sleep. It takes time for paint to dry.
Immanentize
@Another Scott:
Population of Wyoming: 586.000
Population of Montana: 1,033,000
Both get one member of the House of Representatives — But Hey! 435 seems like a fab number! So much for one-person-one-vote.
If we applied that analysis within states, rather than across states, counties could have the same number of State Legislators regardless of population. Thankfully, the Constitution (via the Supreme Court) prohibits that pernicious practice.
There are some complicated voting equality principles at play. One (and the most important, just re-ratified by the Sup. Ct.) is that representative districts must be drawn based on population rather than eligible voters. This runs up the count on prison counties, for sure, but it also insures that all people — immigrants and the disenfranchised included — count toward representation. The second is an odd 10% deviation rule which allows states (within states) to deviate from equal population counts by 10% before the district is deemed presumptively over or under representative. This concept does NOT apply to US House district seats where states (within the State) really must make every district as equal to every other district in population terms as possible. That number is currently 700,000. But unless you get to 1,400,000 the State only gets one Rep.
That is simply undemocratic. Period. Regardless of the architecture of the Capital.
ETA — One suggested solution would be to set the population number for the House at the population of the least populous State plus 10% and allow the 10% rule to work between States, but not within States. This would increase the house by around 70-100 members. Not such a terrible result .
BUT — This discussion is one reason the 2020 census is SO VERY CRITICAL and must be fully funded.
japa21
@Kristine: The CBG is one of our favorites. We like to hit botanical gardens whenever we travel, but still love this the most. And it is truly a 4 season delight.
germy
@Corner Stone: Pence says he never received the Cummings letter about Flynn, but there’s this:
GregB
They turn in clusters.
Rat-fuck Roger Stone throws Kushner under the bus.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@ET: Worth keep in mind a lot of the Trumpster are evangelicals who have been brainwashed since childhood to be suckers and run screaming from critical thinking.
GregB
@germy:
Fake mail, not REGISTERED!
Mnemosyne
@Immanentize:
California has a nonpartisan redistricting committee that looks at every district and determines how it should be drawn. It’s one of the things that got us a Democratic supermajority in our state legislatures — once the districts were drawn more fairly, it was easier to get Democrats elected.
I think Arizona has one as well, though their Republicans have been fighting hard against it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Roger Stone on trump’s Saudi medal
??? Martin
The dynamic a lot of people are still missing is that the GOP represents a demographic (white Christians) that for 400 years had a demographic majority in this country and could afford to take positions that would lose some of that demographic and still keep power. They could compromise. But somewhere during Obamas term they slipped into demographic minority status, and having a minority elected signaled that the were now a political minority group as well. Everything for the GOP since 2008 has been an exercise in how to retain power when your demographic trend is incompatible with a democracy. That’s why the GOP is so unified even with Trump in office, why they are so blatant in their efforts (NC and TX gerrymandering and voter suppression) and why they are becoming more and more open to authoritarian rule. Authoritarians usually spring out of some demographic minority that cannot reliably hold onto power through accepted means. And the effect is broader than most people realize:
This is why evangelicals lined up with Trump and why the GOP will stick with Trump right up to the moment they can’t confirm judges. They don’t care about tax cuts – that’s just there for campaign contributions. The real fight is to lock up the federal courts with white Christian defenders with life terms. If they can successfully do that, they’ll accept losing the other two branches while they regroup politically as they’ll have left behind an army of advocates with lifetime terms to turn court cases in their favor.
StringOnAStick
@ET: I was stuck listening to FOX news as I was awaiting an MRI. The waiting room had the innocuous HGTV on, but where I had to sit and wait for the tech to come and get me had that crap on, and loud. I couldn’t find the remote, which pissed me off so when the tech came to get me I complained about it.
It was interesting to see just how closed the FOX News universe is though, they actually were reporting about Dump’s problems, but only to say sarcastically that the “Democrats were calling for impeachment, so let’s just roll over, he’s done, right?” to some panel. The panel of course was all gung ho for Dump, saying how great he was and how “thin and weak” this made up story from the Democrats was. It really is a different reality in FOX world.
I have one conservative friend, and I was shocked right after the election when he said he was sick of watching any news, which I know means he isn’t mainlining FOX like he used to. He railed even harder on “the news” this last week. I know he’s been considering therapy because he has anger issues, and I have to wonder if it didn’t dawn on him (consciously or unconsciously) where a lot of his anger is being generated from.
Kay
@ET:
Some of them think Michelle Obama’s mother gets a federal pension. They’re hard to talk to, because I get lost. I start with “but WHY would she get that?” I end up with “I don’t even think there ARE ‘federal pensions’ anymore! I was in something like a 401k – a TSA- and that was a long time ago”
I think they would need like a personal witness- an aunt who SAW Donald Trump take a big wad of cash from a Russian. It’s exhausting.
Elizabelle
I agree. There’s no magic reason to have 435 congresscritters. Give the cities and suburbs a lot more representatives. They’re where the population and the action is, not the rural fields of Thomas Jefferson’s imagination.
The rural, conservative voters’ stranglehold on our politics needs to stop.
I also think we should increase the number of Senators, for the most populous states. California and New York and Illinois, etc. should get a lot more say. Ridiculous that senators from Wyoming and California’s have the exact same number of votes. It’s past its time.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
I find it completely plausible that Pence received Cummings’ letter and just threw it away. After all, what could a Democrat (and one of Those Democrats, to boot) have to say that would be important?
StringOnAStick
@??? Martin: Wise words, Martin. The judiciary is their ultimate goal, but they can’t get there if we turn out and reduce their ability to make those appointments.
D58826
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Just reading some of the twitter feeds and it sounds like the Saudi welcome would make King Louis XIV blush. I don’t want to do a reverse ‘how embarrassing that Obama did ….” but it does seem somewhat excessive. On the bright side, since he is being so well treated he might not want to come back to the US.
Mnemosyne
@japa21:
We have a couple of very nice botanical gardens near us in So Cal, including Descanso Gardens and Huntington Library and Gardens (usually just known as the Huntington).
I grew up on the North Shore and when we go home to visit family in the summer, we usually stay at a Courtyard that’s within walking distance of CBG.
Baud
@??? Martin:
Next thing you know, we’ll be treating people who commit crimes as criminals.
@D58826:
They got the memo on how to influence Trump.
Aleta
@GregB: Everybody knows the transition team mailroom was staffed with nut jobs. A complete mess.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@D58826: I gather that his supporters think all the vulgar, over-the-top and calculated flattery from the radical Islamic despots trump used to blame for ISIS, AQ and 9/11 is a bigly winning for MAGA
Felonius Monk
@Elizabelle:
I guess this is why the state of Montana has only ONE congressional district and New York City has close to a dozen. Those damn Montanans — they are so overly represented in Congress. :)
bemused
Trump got a medal from Saudi’s? What on earth… Is it some kind of participation trophy?
I don’t get why Bill Maher would bother having West on as a guest anymore. West may have been on awhile ago but I seem to remember that didn’t go so well either. It’s Cornell West. All you get is massive disruption, incoherence and watching him inflate is own ego.
D58826
@Baud: Yep which mean NATO will have to conduct a nuclear war to outdo the Saudi’s and pump up his ego even more.
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
If any country is going to know how to stroke the ego of a self-important princeling, it’s Saudi Arabia.
Corner Stone
@germy: I’m pretty sure if you asked Pence about right now he would deny ever having met anyone named Flynn. Trump? That reality TV show guy? Never met him.
D58826
@bemused:
FSM protect me that I’m ‘defending’ Der Fuhrer but I read one one account that the Saudi’s have given the last 3-4 presidents this or a similar medal.
bemused
@D58826:
Ha, so it is a participation trophy of sorts. Every visiting leader gets a crackerjack box prize.
Immanentize
@bemused: It is a participation trophy — For participation in ethnic cleaning in Yemen. It is made out of the scrap metal from the recently removed New Orleans participation trophy of Robert E. Lee.
D58826
@bemused: yep.
What is even more interesting is that as Trump is being treated like a visiting vassel, the Iranians held an election. Now the election wasn’t totally free but the reformist slate lead by Rouhani seems to have won a very big victory.
Immanentize
@Felonius Monk: The House needs to re-balanced, for sure. But the Senate, unless dissolved, will forever favor small population (rural) states over populous (urbanized) states. There is a reason that no country has been able to emulate our version of the bicameral constitutional system. It doesn’t work very well.
Major Major Major Major
@Felonius Monk: they are–they have two senators.
??? Martin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: They’re not suckers or poor critical thinkers. Democrats got as far as they did by having African Americans take an even stronger stance with the Democratic Party as it was literally a matter of demographic survival for them. White Christians now see themselves in the same position, not because liberals are lynching them and tossing them in jail, merely because young white people arent buying the religious thing any more. Their position isn’t justified in its magnitude, but it is in the sense that they can’t rely on the sort of natural voting monopoly that they once possessed.
Felonius Monk
@Immanentize:
Maybe things would be different if Rhode Island had bothered to send delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
Another Scott
@Immanentize: Yes, there are corner cases. DC is another one – 672,000 people who don’t get any representation at all in the Senate, and only marginal representation in the House (E.H. Norton has no vote on the floor).
There are some problems with scaling the number of representatives based on the smallest districts’ population:
Yeah, a way can be found to make the math work out, but we know from calculus that approximations to a smoothly varying curve require lots of small, uniform intervals (lots of seats) to minimize errors in the approximation. If we had 1 Representative per 30,000 like when we started, there would be 10,833 or so Members of the House now.
Cheers,
Scott.
bemused
@D58826:
Sigh. Another day in bizarro world.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott:
We could just have them vote on representatives. There, problem solved. Can’t tell if I’m joking.
Quinerly
Trump just can’t quit Flynn. WH staff says Trump “loves” Flynn and wants “warm” messages passed to him: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/reports-trump-regretted-firing-flynn-supports-him
Felonius Monk
@Major Major Major Major:
The Senate was never intended to be representative of a state’s population. It was to represent the interests of a state’s government. That’s why senators were initially chosen by state legislatures. The 17th Amendment allowing the popular election of Senators came about because the original process had become so corrupt that it wasn’t working properly.
El Caganer
This should be good news, but given who’s running the show in DC, it probably won’t be.
http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2017/05/20/us-iran-ties-will-continue-to-be-problematic/
Major Major Major Major
@Felonius Monk: I know. That doesn’t mean they aren’t over represented, it just means they are intentionally so.
ETA: we must never forget that this was a sacrifice made so the slave states would join up.
rikyrah
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Add Kandor to this list. I have been so impressed with him.
Bobby Thomson
@Felonius Monk:
Why? As a small state like Connecticut, Rhode Island was predispositioned to like Roger Sherman’s compromise.
Elizabelle
@Major Major Major Major: You know, I think some fine legal minds should start informing us a little more of what great American traditions are there, maybe for too long by now, necessitated by cooperating with slavery, which no longer exists.
I am gratified to see the Confederate monuments coming down in New Orleans.
I think we need to de-Confederate some of our Constitutional provisions too. If they no longer serve any purpose for the U.S. as a whole (never mind Wyoming; I guess it’s dump on Wyoming day, but they did just elect Liz Cheney to their sole congressional office, so …)
El Caganer
@Another Scott: Still, it’s time to expand the House. UK and German legislative bodies are each over 50% larger than ours, but their population is far less. If we can’t get rid of the electoral college, we need to find some other means of expressing the majority of the population’s will in the government.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@germy: I disagree. Wilmer is nothing, if not a camera hog. He lives to be on tee vee. You could do anything to him and he still come back for his tee vee fix.
Thru the Looking Glass...
And like all bears, shits wherever he wants to… whenever he wants to…
No One You Know
@NotMax: Definitely belongs in the Chocolate Alphabet.
Jeffro
@Immanentize: hear, hear…its time for the Senate to go. And the EC too.
No One You Know
@dance around in your bones: Hi! Good to see you.
Morzer
@bemused:
Maher likes guests who make him look smart and edgy. Personally, I think Cornel West hasn’t been credible for years, but Maher is often a bit behind the times.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Aren’t there several halls in the DC area that could hold 10,000 people? I mean, Greatful Dead shows attract more people than that. Prince got bigger crowds than that.
So take a hall that holds 20,000 people, put in desks, big screen TVs, a PA system, WiFi from Gawd, etc, etc, and set up a House with 10,000+ Congresspersons. Done.