WATCH: Obama Scandals vs Trump Scandals pic.twitter.com/nUFmZ09Ap9
Credit: @AlexanderTrow
— Yashar (@yashar) May 24, 2017
FCC says there will be no punishment for late-night host Colbert's off-color Trump joke. https://t.co/kh6jUW58xo
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 24, 2017
… and Lord Smallgloves is too “exhausted” even to tweet angrily about it.
Can’t wait to hear how his audience with the Pope goes. Personal bet: ‘Rumor’ that Francis has to tell him, no, he can’t demand God grant his wishes — and if he could, “smite all Trump’s enemies, bigly” would not be on the list.
Side bet: The Swiss Guard will have to contact Trump’s entourage, post-audience, to get some number of shiny pocketable trinkets returned. No questions asked, Mr. Bannon.
jl
Obama was accused of using fancy mustard and lettuces, just like the effete John Kerry.
And also of committing the effete sport of body surfing.
And sneaking a few smokes before he really quit.
And vacationing in a weird little island in the middle of the Pacific with a strange foreign unAmerican culture.
Oh my God the list of Obama scandals actually just goes on and on and on, if you’re honest about it.
Corner Stone
@jl: Didn’t he also ask for OJ one time?
jl
@Corner Stone: Need to compile the complete list of Obama and Biden scandals. Obama scandals are all classier than Biden scandals, but the time Joe tried to pick up the biker chick at that roadside diner cannot be lost to history.
Edit: Question, should the Obama fist-bump scandals be listed out one by one, or all lumped together? So damn many scandals, hard to even list them out.
efgoldman
Is that why there was no Just In Time For The 600 News item today?
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Just for the record, Kerry wind surfed. You see how it connects, yes?
Exurban Mom
Called the FCC result. They had to do an investigation, knew it would result in nothing. Late night hour + bleeping = no problem. That part of the FCC is run by career civil servants–not partisans.
Peale
@jl: i think you do, though. Because sometimes the fist bump was a gang sign. Sometimes it was sympathy for the black panther party. And sometimes a signal to his Kenyan friends to start Mau Mauing white people. Depending on the day. So at least three scandals.
hilts
Most read article about the possibility of Trump showing signs of dementia:
h/t https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/23/donald-trump-speaking-style-interviews
Renie
Great News here on Long Island. A Democrat won a long held Republican seat in NYS 9th Assembly – a district Trump won by 20 points and in which Peter King endorsed the Republican. Huge effort was put into play to elect Christine and it worked.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I have a friend who is utterly convinced that any number of Democrats are going to be indicted any minute on all kinds of charges. Among them are Hillary Clinton, Elaine Farkas, John Podesta, Donna Brazile, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch and some others I forget offhand. He also thinks that James Comey is in real trouble and may be indicted, too. He hasn’t said anything about Obama or Michelle Obama, so I guess he thinks they’re going to skate for all their crimes.
The weird thing is that this guy isn’t an idiot. He’s pretty smart. He’s ignorant about a lot of things, and doesn’t think that going abroad or going to college can really teach anybody anything, so I guess that explains a lot of it. It’s kind of sad. He really thinks that Donna Brazile giving Hillary Clinton debate questions ahead of a debate–if she even did that–is a worse crime than Czar Manbaby firing the F.B.I. director for not shutting down an investigation into his campaign, which is, like, totally cool, ’cause that’s nothing more than a partisan witch hunt. The really sad thing is that Trump couldn’t give two shits about him or anybody else who voted for him.
opiejeanne
Haven’t read through the thread yet, so sorry if this has been mentioned, but did anyone else see an article about the Trump budget having a massive math error in it that any decent accountant would have caught? Not to mention any decent CEO? I mean this was a MASSIVE error, simply YUGE. Like $2 trillion or something.
I can’t find the article now, can’t remember who linked to it on Twitter this morning, and my google-fu is weak tonight.
ETA: Ok, I did find it. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/trump-budget-based-on-usd2-trillion-math-error.html
Corner Stone
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
You mean he has a specialty niche he is good at? Like restoring furniture, or repairing cabinet TV sets from the 60s and 70s?
Because otherwise all available evidence points to him being your garden variety idiot.
gratutious
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Your demented friend is totally persuaded of these crazy ideas? If you write them down and ask him to bet on a “will happen by” date, could you take a lot of his money (while having a series of really good laughs)? If he’s pretty smart as you say, he may even start to catch on after you’ve lifted a few hundred dollars from his wallet. A prime education costs money.
Corner Stone
@opiejeanne: That’s a category error. (The Budget) Has nothing to do with math or accounting clarity.
Shalimar
@opiejeanne: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/23/15680110/trump-budget-accounting-error
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Corner Stone: Well, no. What I mean by that is that he’s pretty eloquent and can argue things fairly logically. A lot of what he says makes sense, and holds together, if you assume all the underpinning premises are true. The hitch is that none of what he bases all his logical conclusions on are true, because he buys into a lot of horseshit. That’s what’s so frustrating. He’s smart enough to know better, but he chooses to buy into crazy shit.
Steve in the ATL
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): your best move here is to demote this person from “friend” to “acquaintance”
Corner Stone
My God, the Terrorist Fist Jab! I was honestly using sheets of plastic and duct tape to secure my bunker entrance on an almost daily basis when that son of a bitch was going around willy-nilly doing that shit.
Did we ever fully realize the signals he was sending back to terrorists around the world about how and where to strike next?
GregB
@Renie:
A NH special House election went deep red to blue tonight too.
amk
8 years of most redenculous media in the world => twitler.
fucking fifth columnists.
Steve in the ATL
@opiejeanne:
Dude, the thread was ten posts long before you posted this. Anyone with slightly more energy than trump could have read through that!
And I have violated my rule against posting after the second bottle of wine….
Did I say bottle? Ok, fine–second box.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: Could you post in English, please? Most of us can read it.
amk
@opiejeanne: It’s wasn’t effing math. It was an effing lie they tried to pull and got caught.
Another Scott
@hilts: Even in 2001 he seemed to have a non-demented brain (but there was some of that narcissism stuff going on). German TV interview on the street in NYC in September 2001 (11:38).
Cheers,
Scott.
efgoldman
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Asserts facts not in evidence.
Amir Khalid
@opiejeanne:
Donald Trump, we should all remember, has never been a competent CEO, or even a very ethical one. The only reason he’s never been fired is that he owns the company where he is chief executive.
opiejeanne
@Corner Stone: They counted the $2 trillion twice.
amk
@Omnes Omnibus: meh.
Cookie monster
Some may recall I was discussing the California Democratic Party conference that was last weekend.
There was an election for Chair of the party that became quite divisive, with the Wilmer-types mostly behind one candidate, Kimberley Ellis, (together with her Emerge “sisters” — their term, not mine!) who is mostly a party outsider and wants to “tear it down” (again, her words) and rebuild with her own people. The other side is a long time –
but pretty liberal – party insider. Not perfect, but not going to rebuild from scratch. Granted, I am exhibiting some bias on this, but I feel that the Cal dems, who have won every major statewide office and hold super-majorties in both Assembly and Senate are doing *something* right, which is a nice change compared to the rest of the country, and now is not the time to tear it apart with 2018 looming.
Ms. Ellis refused to concede when she lost, citing unspecified voter irregularities, and that she was “contacting her lawyers”. Yesterday, I heard rumblings that her camp wants to know how ex-officio members voted, with mutterings akin to “super delegates overruling the will of the people” in the offing (sing along if you know it….) — of course, if ex officio didn’t get representation, they’d run and win on name rec — although I’ve been told today that “simply isn’t true”. Yeah, not convinced…
Today, people in her own camp are admitting they had travel and hotel bills paid to attend — but money is, apparently, corrupting us all. Unless it’s spent by the “right” people, apparently….
Yeah. I’m cranky.
Shalimar
@amk: Assuming Mulvaney and his staff realize they counted it twice. Even Larry Summers called them out for being idiots.
efgoldman
@Corner Stone:
As the late Everett Dirksen said (updated): Two trillion here, and two trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.
Calouste
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): So Ron Paul basically. It makes sense for five minutes and then it completely goes off the rails. Or however Charles Pierce exactly described him.
John Revolta
@gratutious: You beat me to it. Yeah, tell this guy to put up or shut up. Either way, Smedley comes out ahead.
Morzer
@Corner Stone:
Perhaps he’s a garden furniture idiot. Good for birds to perch on, but not much when it comes to thinking.
opiejeanne
@Steve in the ATL: Dear Steve, note that I say this most sincerely: bite me. ;-)
I went back and read the thread immediately after posting. I have seen how some of these threads balloon up to 100 comments from 3 or 4 in a matter of minutes and wanted to get my comment near the top so I might expect a response. Then I asked google to find it using a different question and edited my post.
Also, I fear I may have what Trump seems to have: a deterioration of mental capacity.
Renie
@GregB: That’s great! Here, she won 60%-40% just unbelievable.
Mnemosyne
@Cookie monster:
Given that the guy who was pushing for CalExit just up and emigrated to Moscow, I can’t help but be suspicious of our new “revolutionaries” in CA.
Corner Stone
@opiejeanne: They also use 3% GDP as a way to achieve their “numbers”. It’s not a document about math or accounting. It’s a Marquis de Sade guideline in how the GOP wants to fuck the poor and working poor.
opiejeanne
@Shalimar: Thank you.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: Then tell me what this word means: redenculous. That was really my only concern. I understood the other words. As seen earlier tonight, typos happen. I just want to know what you were trying to say.
dmsilev
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
And yet the real culprits escape even a tinge of blame. We all know that Bo Obama was the mastermind of it all.
Calouste
@Cookie monster: Travel and hotel bills paid for a state party conference? (delegates to the national conferences have to pay their own way) As always, follow the money…
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Amir Khalid: It’s so nice to be posting when you are! You’ve been much missed, we need your calm and insightful thoughts. I hope you’re well and will have time to visit more soon.
opiejeanne
@Corner Stone: They want to practice Darwinist policies in the worst way, in the worst way. Dog eat dog.
Morzer
@dmsilev:
That dog was an illegal HISPANIC water spaniel! Deport! Deport! Deport!
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: There wasn’t anything because DCI Brennan testified this AM. That had enough breaking news to do it. At this point the information being pushed out to reporters is part of a PSYOP strategy. It is intended to cause panic. To instill and then heighten a sense of paranoia. To wind up the President, the people working for him, his family, and the people working for his business until someone breaks. What DCI Brennan stated in open/unclassified session was sufficient to for today.
dmsilev
@Calouste: Yeah, no kidding. The obvious follow-up is “who paid for it?”.
Another Scott
@Cookie monster: I think events like that is how new religions get started. :-/
Lots of the east-coast press is paying attention (Politico, TheHill, etc.).
NYMag:
Thanks for the reports. Hang in there – it’s important!
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@opiejeanne: You want this thread:
Morzer
@Calouste:
It seems to that there’s nothing wrong with ensuring that delegates, who may not have much money, are able to attend the conference. (If there’s clear evidence of votes being bought, that’s a different matter.) We’ve all seen how the GOP uses people’s poverty to stop them from voting by requiring IDs that are hard and expensive to obtain for a significant number of people – I don’t think we should be in the business of excluding people from conferences by making them pay for transport/rooms that they might not be able to afford, especially if they are going to give up work hours to be there.
Steve in the ATL
@opiejeanne:
Sadly, that’s one of the nicest things anyone has said to me all day.
@opiejeanne:
I get that too after my second box of wine!
Corner Stone
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): This makes no sense. When I was a child a friend of mine told me if I jumped off the arm of the couch enough times and practiced flapping my arms quickly enough eventually I would be able to fly.
efgoldman
@dmsilev:
It was Sasha, Malia and Bo, in the Oval Office with a candlestick.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think he misspelled “redonkulous.”
It’s a perfectly cromulent word these days.
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne: did you solve your cat food problem?
Morzer
@Corner Stone:
Some people claim that faith can move mountains. What they don’t tell you is that it takes an immense amount of faith and you may not be able to measure the actual amount of movement involved. Details!
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@efgoldman: Sunny watched the door.
Mnemosyne
@Another Scott:
Is there a third option who knows how to keep his goddamned pants zipped? Kee-rist.
amk
Mnemosyne
@Steve in the ATL:
Won’t know until 9:30 when I try the new prescription food. Even the vet seemed a little skeptical that they would eat it, but we’ll see.
opiejeanne
@amk: It is similar to a mistake a California school district made, Hayward in 1990? We were moving to the area and stopped looking at anything in that district once we heard about it.
They used the assumption that there would be enough new houses built in 1991 that their enrollment would increase by the same percentage of absent students in an average year: they projected attendance at 100% of their enrollment in 1990 for 1991.
On top of that their accountant either made or missed a large arithmetic error, and added at least a couple of million dollars to the projected budget which was already in error because of the attendance numbers. The following year the state caught it, $6 million dollars short, and in California a school district can not legally be in debt at all. So the state stepped in and cut everything they could: AP classes,band, art, team sports, drama, everything other than the absolute basic bare-bones minimum. Graduating seniors had a huge problem that year as did the next three classes of grads.
Our older daughter was in the 8th grade and we couldn’t have that, no time to recover for her. We bought in a nearby district and watched.
NotMax
Coming soon: P. U., at which YOU learn the secrets to becoming president!
Please have all checks made out to “Cash.”
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: I know this, but I also know that he didn’t write that budget. Not sure he had anything to do with it other than words of encouragement for the monsters who did.
amk
klannity’s please clap jebbie moment
opiejeanne
@Adam L Silverman: That’s the one! Thanks.
Felonius Monk
@efgoldman:
Do you remember “The Ev & Charlie Show”? When I was in college, we used to watch thie stuff just to laugh at Charlie Hallek who always came off as a real ass. These guys were conservative Republicans of the old school. They were truly full of horseshit, but never sounded mean and nasty like today’s conservatives.
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne:
these cats today are so spoiled….
opiejeanne
@Steve in the ATL: Even sadder, I haven’t been drinking. I’ve just noticed recently that I have trouble concentrating on reading books and I love to read. I have tried twice to get through the most recent “Expanse” novel and have stalled out at the same point again, and it’s not that the material hasn’t captured my attention. Maybe it’s the sense of impending doom that’s getting to me, and the fact that the bad guys have shown themselves to be total nihilists willing to destroy everything and everyone including making Earth uninhabitable (big mistake) but that’s their goal.
Adam L Silverman
@opiejeanne: You’re welcome. While I have some issues with the author of this piece in general, this actual piece in specific is also quite good:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-23/trump-budget-gambles-on-having-this-equation-right?utm_content=view&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-view
Cookie monster
@Mnemosyne you’re not alone…
efgoldman
@Felonius Monk:
Today they’d be blue dogs. Fiscally conservative, but Dirksen, particularly, was a supporter of civil rights, as most non-Goldwater Republiklowns of the day were.
opiejeanne
@Cookie monster: Every day I get at least one alert by email about some atrocity the Republicans are planning, and asking if I will please donate to a general fund for Democratic candidates. This week I’ve been getting them for my state senate district but even though they name the monster running as a Republican they don’t name the Democratic candidate who has been endorsed by the state Democratic Party and every other prominent Democrat you can think of. I find this odd and I won’t give that group a nickel even if they are legit.
When I first looked up the Republican, she was claiming to be an Independent but proudly announced she had endorsed Trump. I would think most of them would be running away from Trump as fast as possible here; I don’t see how she can win against the Democrat.
Felonius Monk
@efgoldman:
Indeed. His work on behalf of civil rights was A+. It almost redeemed his support of Joe McCarthy.
Cookie monster
@Morzer: the problem is when you only pay for your own delegates. At that point ou’re not giving the less well off people representation, you’re buying their votes.
Boussinesque
@Cookie monster: I had no idea this was going on (I’m not very plugged in to my local party apparatus). The NYMag article linked earlier only has a brief description of what happened, so I’m glad you’re reporting from the front lines, as it were.
And yeah, paying expenses for some but not all sounds pretty sketchy.
Millard Filmore
@amk: Was this leak from a careless professional? Or from one of Trump’s appointees?
Morzer
@Cookie monster:
Making sure your delegates can attend the conference isn’t remotely the same thing as buying their votes. Unless you can show clearly that a delegate or group of delegates changed their vote(s) in return for money, you should withdraw the accusation. The last thing Democrats need now is a futile civil war fueled by groundless accusations from either side of the Sanders/Clinton dead-ender divide.
efgoldman
@Morzer:
Which is why we have one
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: The source has so far been unidentified. The reporting I’ve seen from the British side is that this was just someone showing off for/in the press.
Morzer
@efgoldman:
I just wonder what the dead-enders on either side hope to accomplish. Sanders lost the primary, Clinton lost the election. Neither of them is going to be a credible candidate in 2020. I wish we could just be happy that Democrats are winning elections in some previously unwinnable country – and focus on taking the party forward, rather than rehashing old and stupid grudges.
Mnemosyne
@Morzer:
I wish I knew, because the Sanders deadenders refuse to stop pushing their “corrupt establishment Democrats” line.
Cookie monster’s partner was threatened with physical violence at the CA Democratic Party convention discussed in my link. The person who threatened her was wearing a “Berniecrats” t-shirt.
Both sides don’t do it. Only one side is demanding a civil war right now, and it ain’t the Hillary side.
Amir Khalid
@opiejeanne:
Der Trump very likely told his staffers who did draft the budget what he wanted them to write. So I reckon it’s a pretty safe bet that his footprints are on it even if his fingerprints aren’t.
opiejeanne
@Mnemosyne: Thank you. I’m so tired of this argument that the Democratic Party is unable to win elections unless we change to whatever non-Democrat Bernie wants,
efgoldman
@Morzer:
Neither should even consider it. And Biden makes three.
Nobody older than I am should even consider it.
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: Naw, he doesn’t really understand any of the budget other than the massive tax cuts for the rich. he didn’t tell them to cut Medicare, Meals on Wheels, After School Programs, etc. I doubt that he heard of Meals on Wheels before Mulvaney mentioned that it served no purpose/made no profits.
NotMax
FYI (emphasis added).
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
Have you even read the comments here? Not a day goes by without the Clinton dead-enders denouncing Sanders or his wife for whatever the latest allegations may be. Of course the Clinton dead-enders keep doing it. Pretending that they aren’t part of the problem is beyond preposterous. Both sides do it and both sides need to stop it before their idiotic squabbling wrecks the Democrats – just as the Democrats are starting to win elections in previously hostile territory. Sanders lost, Clinton lost. That should be the end of the story and we should be finding credible candidates for the future and winning, not going through endless rounds of The Mexican Poutrage Standoff between folks who actually agree on far more than they disagree. When they take the time to think about it.
efgoldman
@opiejeanne:
Mulvaney is a really evil, sick, twisted individual who should have no government job whatever; he’d have been perfect in Papa Doc’s Haiti or Idi Amin’s Uganda.
Morzer
@efgoldman:
If we exclude everyone over 35, it’s going to be a rather shallow candidate pool.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: The look on Jim Sciutto’s face during that press conference were amazing.
efgoldman
@Morzer:
Hah. My daughter is older than that.
Morzer
@efgoldman:
Come to think of it, how old IS Baud, anyway? And did we ever see his tax returns?
Mnemosyne
@Morzer:
I’m not taking about the comments here. I’m talking about REAL LIFE, where Cookie monster’s partner was threatened with physical harm AT THE CA DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONVENTION by another delegate because she did not pledge to support the candidate approved by the Berniecrats.
You need to get your head out of your ass and look at what just happened THREE DAYS AGO here in California. The civil war is already here, and, much as you want to pretend otherwise, BOTH SIDES DO NOT DO IT.
Cookie monster
@Morzer: I respectfully decline to change my opinion on this matter. There’s already a civil war – with one side refusing to accept the result of a close election.
One group constantly talks about the corrupting influence of money and how we cannot trust “establishment” Democrats because of it. I’m simply applying their standards.
Amir Khalid
@opiejeanne:
Are you quite sure of this? I am not so certain that he wouldn’t at least hint that they should propose such a thing.
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
As far as I am concerned, Clinton dead-enders like you are as bad as anything the Sanders dead-enders have to offer. Neither of your factions has the common-sense to let go of your grievances and neither of you thinks of what the Democratic party needs most – which is people working together, electing good candidates and turning the country around. Both sides do it – and the Democratic party suffers as a result. Sanders lost and Clinton lost – and we all lost. Time to move on.
efgoldman
@Amir Khalid:
More likely Mulvaney. or one of the other sick twisted bastards, asked him an elliptical question “shall we…” and he half heard it and said “sure.. go ahead, just make sure I get credit.”
LurkerNoLonger
@Mnemosyne:
I’m sorry but this sentence made me laugh so hard I think I pulled a muscle. Life is getting tough on Sesame Street.
Mnemosyne
@Morzer:
You can keep sticking your head in the sand, but both sides don’t do it.
Mnemosyne
@LurkerNoLonger:
Yeah, I know. But I’m pretty pissed that someone who claims to be a Democrat is ignoring shit that went down three days ago just so s/he can keep their Broderist “both sides!” credentials.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@LurkerNoLonger:
The Trump budget cuts have hit them hard.
Bobby Thomson
@opiejeanne:
Like the de facto Republican in the New York legislature that Ellison backed – and then doubled down in belligerent ignorance when New Yorkers called him on it.
dogwood
@Morzer:
Assuming that people here or anywhere else who can’t stand Sanders and his minions are Clinton dead-enders is disingenuous. I know that my disdain for these people has nothing to do with either Clinton, because I have no particular attachment to Bill or Hillary. They are democrats I’ve voted for like 90% of the people I pulled the lever for over my long voting history. Maybe 10% of the time, I’ve felt passionate about a candidate, but it’s not a requirement for me. My opinion of Sanders is about him and him alone.
opiejeanne
@Bobby Thomson: Oh geez, I missed that. How can they be so willfully ignorant? They yap about the evils of corporate moneys and then take money from Ben & Jerry’s. They think they can win without money? Oh, and by the way, what did Sanders do with all that money that was raised for his candidacy? I’ve never heard that he gave any of it to actual candidates, not even the ones he “supported”.
opiejeanne
@dogwood: I was passionate about HRC’s candidacy, after I had a chance to explore each candidate’s goals. I’ve only felt this way about one other candidate, and that was Obama.
I don’t think that makes me a dead-ender.
Morzer
@dogwood:
I’m sick of both sides and especially sick of the Clinton dead-enders pretending that they are somehow neutral in this dispute. Both sides of the dispute have fucked up and there’s no excuse for continuing their childish nonsense at a time when we need to beat Trump and the GOP for the sake of the country.
Aimai
@Morzer: so what? Comments on a thread are not the same as berniecrats trying to dismantle the dem party to take over for our own good.
bjacques
I hope the Pope lets Trump and Bannon read VERITAS.
Laura
@Mnemosyne: John Chaing! He’s already racking up labor support and early money.
My Union has endorsed his candidacy and we’ll be phone banking, door knocking and generally GOTVing.
TenguPhule
@Morzer:
If you’re looking for the problem, look in a mirror.