KY Sec. of State Alison Grimes to @MSNBC on the reception to Trump's Election Commission: "About as welcoming as a breeze off an outhouse." pic.twitter.com/LDZC8VO57u
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 5, 2017
Good news (if we can keep it) — looks like the Trump administration’s Voter Suppression Act of 2016 is not garnering the kind of respectful reviews and/or general lack of interest for which Kris Kobach and his GOP kobolds were hoping. Doesn’t mean we can take our eyes off the bastids, of course…
Apart from continuing to #Resist, what’s on the agenda for the day?
***********
Nearly all 50 states are now partly or fully refusing to hand over info to Trump's voter fraud panel https://t.co/UuqnEjE1e0 via @markberman
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) July 5, 2017
In this press release, the White House is essentially crowing about 20 states agreeing to give them information already deemed public. pic.twitter.com/gOwC5CVMim
— Byron Tau (@ByronTau) July 5, 2017
#BREAKING: Trump voter fraud commission may have broken federal law https://t.co/TqWNG0FrZQ pic.twitter.com/JtpMlDe2Dd
— The Hill (@thehill) July 5, 2017
satby
Deplorable was the wrong word for them. Hillary should have called them despicable.
Mustang Bobby
The best part of this charley-foxtrot is that Kobach’s own state, Kansas, refused to turn over the data, too.
On the nature front, my A/C went toes-up on the 4th of July, so for the last couple of nights I’ve been sleeping with the windows open and the calming hum of ceiling fans. Last night I heard the distinctive hoot of a Barred Owl (thanks to my 1962 edition of Field Guide to the Birds and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for the confirmation). Now I can add him to my life list. This denizen of old forests and treed swamps was pretty close, too. Hearing that in the suburbs of Miami may seem like an oddity, but I’m in a part of town with that kind of nature around me.
OzarkHillbilly
Ashcroft defends Missouri’s cooperation with Trump voter-fraud probe, as other states decline Yes, son of that Ashcroft.
debbie
i’m waiting for Kobach to break into his Jeff Sessions impression.
debbie
@Mustang Bobby:
Oddities abound in the bird world. I see seagulls in central Ohio. I can’t imagine what it is they think they’ll find in the creeks around here.
Derelict
Kobach broke the law? Say it ain’t so! He’s a conservative’s conservative, so it’s theoretically not possible for him to break the law. After all, the law is whatever conservatives say it is at any given moment.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Gin & Tonic
In the meantime, in unscripted remarks in Poland, Trump (again) belittles the US intelligence community, attacks the (US) free press, and criticizes his predecessor.
I’m so fucking old I can remember when politics stopped at the water’s edge.
I’m also so fucking old that this inability to sleep is becoming a fact of life, but that’s another story.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ? ??
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: Seagulls are rats with wings.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Putin foreplay.
rikyrah
@Gin & Tonic:
Tell me how you really feel ????
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Around here, we reserve that designation for pigeons.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
bystander
Dave Bratt’s tweet that Hilary should be our ambassador to Libya has to be a new low with its implicit violence. I find myself unable to stomach their evil any more.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: If there’s anything more pathetic than a fascist, it’s a failed fascist. And that’s what Trump will be.
debbie
I don’t know much about Grimes, but I like her attitude!
Baud
@bystander: I’ve been on a need blackout for the last two weeks. Like after the election, but this one wasn’t triggered by anything.
Iowa Old Lady
@Gin & Tonic: I was just reading an account of his speech and answers to reporters. For some reason, his weakness stands out more sharply when he’s out of the country and standing next to the leader of the country he’s in.
Immanentize
@debbie: You mean that people are offending his “honor?”
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic:
You get used to it. Kinda…
Iowa Old Lady
@bystander: Bratt’s tweet is disgusting. Either he’s convinced himself that Clinton let people die in Libya or he knows it’s a crock and doesn’t care. I’m inclined to think he’s convinced himself it’s true. That would be the right combination of stupid AND evil.
Immanentize
@Baud: Failed fascist is the only kind I like.
Bruce K
About the only good thing I’m seeing out of the Koback Commission is the language being used in the various rejections that needs an “I Am Not Making This Up” disclaimer. My favorite so far is the “go jump in the Gulf of Mexico” one (bonus for being an official statement).
As for His Royal And Imperious Cheetoness, a quote from Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga comes to mind: “A rational government wouldn’t allow him possession of a pocket knife…”
debbie
@Immanentize:
Kobach’s wide-eyed Bambi look in response to the responses to his request is similar to Sessions’ fainting couch routine. They’re both full of shit.
Immanentize
@Baud: Not being snarky — what’s a need blackout?
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
They’re all just looking to top each other for the Most Outrageous Tweet Award.
Baud
@Immanentize: Ugh. News blackout.
Immanentize
@debbie: Both are bad men who obtained too much power. I wish them both failure! Let’s toast to their inability to succeed!
Baud
@debbie: AKA The Road to the White House.
Immanentize
@Baud: oh — of course. I must admit I was hoping you really meant “need” blackout I need to free myself of needs right now.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
Why does POTUS hate America?
Baud
@Immanentize: I hear ya. That’s a whole other set of comments.
MJS
@debbie: I see them in Central PA. They love parking lots, especially grocery store parking lots. They come for the trash, I think.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: I wish I knew.
Baud
@Amir Khalid: Why do so many American voters hate America?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@debbie:
According to Our Progressive Betters, Alison is a neoliberal corporate shill, a sellout to the corrupt status quo.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: That’s obviously why she lost. Kentucky is waiting for a real socialist.
debbie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’m sure they go over real well in KY.
rikyrah
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
She lost because, like most Kentucky Democrats…they wouldn’t defend Obamacare. She went along with the ruse that Kynect wasn’t Obamacare, so GOP muthaphuckas could run on getting rid of Obamacare, but you can Keep Kynect ?
Kathleen
@debbie: Good Morning All Grimes ran against McConnell and away from Obama.
Jerzy Russian
@Immanentize: He goes two weeks without needing a hug?
debbie
@Kathleen:
And how would she have done if she hadn’t? You have go work with the electorate you have.
Baud
She had no path to victory. The fact that Rand Paul is Kentucky’s other senator should tell you how committed they are to the GOP, at least while Obama was president.
Gin & Tonic
I’ll wait to watch actual video and/or read the transcript, but apparently Trump explicitly mentioned Article 5 in his prepared remarks.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@debbie:
Yeah, that’s about it. For 8 years, out in the state, you could run (and win) on a platform that would explicitly and candidly include statements of “my policy preferences will make your lives a lot worse, but colored folks will get even less. Fuck Obama.”
Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog
@Amir Khalid:
He hates our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.
Iowa Old Lady
I heard someone on the radio talking about the NK missile launch and saying one lucky thing was that all the countries who’d be most concerned (SK, US, Japan, China) would be at the G20 meeting so they could meeting to talk about responses, whereas it would have been hard to set up a such a meeting on its own. I thought, yeah, the Obama State Dept would be organizing that meeting. Trump and his pals? No.
Lapassionara
@OzarkHillbilly: just my luck, to move from one solidly red state to another.
Cheryl Rofer
@Gin & Tonic: “The US has demonstrated not merely with words but with actions that we stand squarely behind Article 5”
But paired with another complaint that Europe has to pony up more protection money and questioning whether “the West has the will to survive.”
I’m waiting for the transcript, too, but short instant analysis: The Article 5 statement would have been stronger if he had been more concrete, ie something like “We will stand with our NATO allies as they stood with us after 9/11.” And shut up with the protection racket already. The “will to survive” thing has echoes of a leader whose name I will not mention. It’s also the kind of thing Vladimir Putin says about his crusade to bring back Christian/Orthodox values.
OzarkHillbilly
South Korean coffee artist recreates Munch’s The Scream in cream – in pictures Starry Night too. Pretty cool pics.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Dynasty!
OzarkHillbilly
@Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog: No, he just hates you.
schrodingers_cat
Translation: Will to declare war against random peoples who don’t conform to their definition of whiteness and Christianity, am I right?
OzarkHillbilly
@Lapassionara: You’re learning why I call this place the State of Misery.
Ian G.
@Mustang Bobby:
I’ve heard Barred Owls numerous times while camping in the northeast, always near water. Heard a chorus of 3 of them last summer while camping near a lake in the Catskills.
I feel like I always hear them in the east, and Great Horned Owls out west.
Cheryl Rofer
@schrodingers_cat: I want to see that in context, but the short Twitter thread I saw from a reporter didn’t look good, especially in the light of what Trump has said about North Korea.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: Because you are miserable?
SFBayAreaGal
@Gin & Tonic: So are pigeons
Cheryl Rofer
OzarkHillbilly
@Ian G.: Come to the Ozarks and you can hear both!
@schrodingers_cat: Because I am surrounded by miserable assholes. They’re everywhere.
Cheryl Rofer
Some historical errors here, although no real screamers. The 1920 reference approaches that.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: Now I know why you like caves.
Lapassionara
@OzarkHillbilly: yes. I realized before the election that a fair number of the people I had met and thought were liberals were actually Republicans and solidly so. Talk about “knee jerk.” They love Danforth and have evidently not realized that their party is now full of people who would uproot every part of the New Deal, including Social Security and Medicare.
schrodingers_cat
@Lapassionara: The media never covers them but JC is not the only R that became D after Bush II. I know a fair number of them, former Rs who just couldn’t keep up with the cray cray.
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: At least underground the denizens have a good reason for being so batty.
ThresherK
@Cheryl Rofer: “Just when Clay Higgins said the stupidest thing in Europe about Nazis this year, Trump keeps talking.”
Another Scott
I think OO has made some good points about this voter data stuff – if it’s public information, then there really isn’t much basis to deny (a properly formulated and directed) request (that pays the necessary fees and so forth). However, there’s this concept from the IC that says that information that is not sensitive on its own suddenly becomes sensitive when collected together. Similarly, having public lists of voter information in eleventy seven thousand separate locations is very different from having it in one central, easily searched location that is likely to be 1) poorly secured, 2) access restricted by partisan actors, 3) being collected for the obvious purpose of enabling the disenfranchisement of millions of legal voters.
Their incompetence is making their task easier, luckily, but I’m not sure what else sensible people can do to stop them. But we have to fight.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: We fight them, every step of the way, in every way we can. Leave the gaming to the horse race bookies of the media.
Oldgold
@Cheryl Rofer:
Two bad hombres
OzarkHillbilly
(via -K Drum)
Aimai
@Bruce K: isnt that said about Miles though? Not about prince serge or arals old boyfriend or anybody vile/stupid?
Another Scott
In other news, TheHill:
It’s not going to be easy for them to pass something, but McConnell and Ryan are going to try to force something through. We have to keep fighting them.
Cheers,
Scott.
bystander
@Baud: Glad you clarified “news blackout” for Immanenitize. I wish I could make myself do something more than turn off the sound/change channels when Trump comes on, but I can’t turn away from the trainwreck.
@Iowa Old Lady: I think you got the chemistry right.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s immaterial if you think President Bannon is doing a good job.
O. Felix Culpa
@Lapassionara:
One of my criteria in deciding where to live upon (semi) retirement was “not-a-red-state.” It’s amazing how few states are left when another top criterion is “lower-cost-of-living,” plus “natural beauty,” “good food,” and “some reasonable semblance of a cultural life.” That’s how I ended up in New Mexico.
JPL
@Another Scott: Many states including GA have regulations on what the insurance companies can offer. Cruz’s plan would change that also.
d58826
@Another Scott: Quote from Byron York that the info is being sold anyway. Now he doesn’t say exactly what is being sold
True which raises the issue of should the state be in the business of selling this kind of info in the first place.. Same with motor vehicle/drivers license info.
Back in the day when accumulating large scale databases was hard maybe it was of but today with the vulnerability of this information then not so much.
Plus they want the information for voter suppression not the non-existent voter fraud.
https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/882942685295906817
Gin & Tonic
@Ian G.: I hear them nearly every night around my house – “who cooks for you?”
Gin & Tonic
@Cheryl Rofer: Such eloquence: “that’s tough.”
O. Felix Culpa
@satby:
contemptible, loathsome, hateful, detestable, reprehensible, abhorrent, abominable, awful, heinous; odious, vile, low, mean, abject, shameful, ignominious, shabby, ignoble, disreputable, discreditable, unworthy; informal dirty, rotten, lowdown, lousy; beastly; archaic scurvy.
All of them, Katie.
Aleta
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: How embarrassing, isn’t treason a capital offense? And wait for the patriot movement to come to their defense.
d58826
@Another Scott: In a normal world, the R’s who believe this
would work with the D’s and plug the known holes in Obamacare and declare victory. Really Fixing Obamacare starts with 48 votes in the Senate so all you need is 3-4 Gop moderates. In the House you need to peel off enough reasonable Goopers to get to 218. Would Der Fuhrer sign it? Well if you package it as a BIG WIN for MAGA then probably yes.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: Around here, we say “Who hoots for you all”.
JPL
@d58826: The Trump administration is using Obama’s plan to defeat ISIS. They want to add something so Trump can declare it his own plan. Maybe just add an adjective or two, and he’ll be happy.
JPL
@Aleta: IOKIYR
Kathleen
@debbie: Yup. That’s what. is so sad. KY benefitted so much from Obamacare and they hate him so much. Makes me sick.
d58826
@JPL: yep. He wants that Rose Garden signing ceremony. The legislation that established the interstate highway system was named the Nation Defense Highway Act. It let the conservatives to vote for it knowing that the average voter wasn’t really into the details.
I must admit that my 8 year old at the time mind found it very confusing. Why would we spend all that money building all those highways just top move tanks and army trucks around? Besides wouldn’t the tank threats tear up the roadway?
Bruce K
@Aimai: Yeah, it was said about Miles by his own mother, for different reasons, but be honest, would you trust any of the current crew in DC with a pocket knife?
rikyrah
Zainab Ahmad joins Mueller’s team—she takes down terrorists and has never lost. Read Bill Finnegan’s Profile: https://t.co/Q4933QQP2N
— Sean Lavery (@SeanLavery) July 6, 2017
rikyrah
Activists cry cowardice as Republican senators shut doors to healthcare town halls: Pat Toomey’s closed-door talk… https://t.co/tT1teBNIT1
— WhiteBoard Animation (@GboruM) July 6, 2017
rikyrah
When Trump says Obamacare is exploding,he means Republican governors have managed to wreck exchanges in their states https://t.co/W9Ns4x0cIQ
— Dean Baker (@DeanBaker13) July 4, 2017
rikyrah
If you or I steal 5,000 of something, we’d be on our way to jail.
Hobby Lobby steals 5,000 artifacts, and they get A FINE?
Tenar Arha
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks. (I think I needed something beautiful like drinkable art this AM).
bystander
@rikyrah: Yes, but they stealing (while Americans were dying for their thievery) Christian artifacts. Why do you feel compelled to persecute Christians?
d58826
@rikyrah: I saw a tweet that they were buying this stuff from ISIS? But they are doing God’s work so it’s ok.
d58826
@Gin & Tonic: And in his speech he is endorsing the clash of civilizations.
There was a lot of speculation on MSNBC last night about what Der Fuhrer would say when he meets with Putin. If his remarks today are any indication it is going to be a bad day for team USA.
Putin is going to need a bigger airplane to carry all of the vodka and caviar for his victory party tomorrow.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kathleen:
There was an old joke that made the rounds among white Kentuckians from the shabbier areas of town when I was briefly shunted to a Pentecostal private school in the 8th grade (that was only a year – dad finally prevailed over RWNJ mom). Anyway, this one was a real knee-slapped then (not), and sadly reflects the mindset of the WWC, particularly as to their attitude toward Obama:
There it is, in brutal print, and it got too many chuckles of agreement, instead of being a Mel Brooks style reflection on the shitty attitudes of white people. Nowadays, it is a wry statement on the social pathology of white folks. No matter how accomplished, brilliant, humane, wealthy, elegant or tasteful, all that a large cohort of white people see is someone to mock, degrade and humiliate.
No matter how good a person of color is at life, they’re just a n****r. You have to be SO much better to even rise to the level just beneath the worst white mediocrity.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
Great news.
d58826
from twitter
Who says you can’t sum up the past 6 months in 140 characters or less.
https://twitter.com/miltchocklit/status/882953368833998848
NotMax
@Cheryl Rofer
Dollars to donuts the first draft read “the will to triumph.”
Bruce K
Saw a report on TPM that Scalise’s back in the hospital.
I’m terribly conflicted; I still can’t forgive the man for voting to kill me, but at the same time I don’t want to wish misfortune on him or his family. And I have this sense that ignoring politics is something I can’t afford any more these days.
d58826
@Cheryl Rofer:
If he had said it in May at the NATO conference. Here it looks like a five year old to his Mom -‘ok I’ll drink my milk’ and then makes gagging noises.
d58826
@Bruce K: I saw that he was transferred back to ICU due to concerns about an infection. Condition still listed as serious
condorcet runner-up
Love this! Except kobolds are more clever …
Major Major Major Major
@condorcet runner-up: Yeah, that’s an insult to kobolds.
Cheryl Rofer
@d58826: That is the way Trump always sounds when he is saying something even mildly positive about anything besides himself.
rikyrah
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Which is why the election of 44 so destroyed the psyche of huge swaths of White America.
When what you keep in your heart is..
‘At least I’m not a Nigger’…
Is what you hang you hat on….
And a Black man not only becomes President, but it successful at the job…
It just blows your world apart.
It’s also why they’re so upset at our response to Dolt45.
Their vessel for White Supremacy isn’t just a national embarrassment, but an INTERNATIONAL embarrassment.
Also, folks are bringing 8 years of receipts on their azzes, and informing them that their vote for Dolt45 defines them, and shows their LACK OF CHARACTER.
Ain’t nobody going back for these muthaphuckas. Not in the least.
Elizabelle
@Bruce K: I am good with Scalise leaving this mortal coil. He’s an awful congressman.
Since the shooter gave his life, I wish his aim had been better. I have no sympathy, frankly, for GOP assholes getting shot. I think we are safer without them.
No crocodile tears for Scalise, as there were none for Scalia. These are terrible, awful people. I do not wish them well, and I do not see enough humanity in them.
bystander
@Bruce K: I’m not wishing anything on him except the realization of how much he facilitated his own shooting. The rest of us don’t have the opportunity to keep mentally unstable people and spousal abuse perpetrators from free access to guns.
Kathleen
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Yup. Interesting that that virulent hatred will result in some of these people dying because they have chosen hatred over their health care.
The worst to me are the affluent, arrogant, entitled uber Catholics in No Ky. Some of the most loathsome people I’ve ever met.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: I hope he lives, I don’t want him to become a martyr.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: I honestly do not care whether he lives or dies. He’ll be a martyr, either way. That ship has sailed.
bystander
@Elizabelle:
Exactly what I thought when I saw David Brat’s tweet about Clinton.
I just read a post on facebook that Scalise’s doctor is a Hillary donor and that explains the relapse. Killary is everywhere! I’ll bet the nursing staff voted for Obummer.
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: I totally agree with that. Media would make him a martyr which would be so annoying.
Elizabelle
@Kathleen: They are going to do that, no matter what. Democrat gets shot: mental health issues.
Republican: patriotic martyr!
Kay
Labor organizers call this “at the tablism” which is just perfect. It’s when you are flattered into lending your name and presence to garbage and you insist it is better you be “at the table”. It’s usually personal- the invitee is personally approached and likes the person who invited him or her. Dunlap says he likes Kobach, so maybe that’s it.
Anyhow- it shouldn’t matter who Dunlap “likes”- he’s not supposed to be serving himself. It’s not the middle school lunchroom table.
Aleta
OT, have you seen this ?
https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football
What football will look like in the future
It’s a sci fi like read.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Fuck the media, I am not going to change my moral code depending what they do or don’t do.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Was Dunlap dropped on his head as an infant? Is he the only D in this shit show, or are there others?
d58826
Here we go again. The right is going full bore on the CNN ‘fake news’ report that 17 intell. agencies agree on the Russian hack.
They are linking to this NYT correction from a couple of weeks ago that it was really only 3 agencies.
Now I have no idea how many it was but every story I have seen since before the election has referenced the number 17. But 3 or 17 doesn’t change the fact that Russia hacked the election and the ongoing attempt to discredit the media plays into Putin’s hands.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/a-rather-large-new-york-times-correction/article/2627527
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kathleen:
They’re the worst. Youngest daughter dated one a bit – I warned her. Told her that Northern Kentucky Catholics aren’t like Louisville Catholics (Louisville Catholics are all about fish fries, gambling, drinking and sinning their way around their smaller, contracepted families). Northern Kentucky Catholics man the Louisville abortion clinic protests that Louisville Catholics won’t bother with (most of the clinic protestors here are from out of town AND mostly evangelicals).
Turned out I was right – it was a huge culture clash (we raised our kids Greek Orthodox).
d58826
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Wonder how many sneak in the back door for a quick abortion before manning the picket line again:-)
Patricia Kayden
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Shouldn’t this be bigger news? If true, this could be the smoking gun. It feels as if the MSM is slow walking crucial information about Trump-Russia collusion for some reason.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@d58826:
I define a Nothern Kentucky Catholic as somebody who can shriek “you filthy fucking slut babykiller” at an impoverished pregnant woman while counting beads on a rosary.
Cheryl Rofer
Here’s the text of Trump’s speech. I’m getting ready for a trip, so I probably won’t have time to work through it.
The Moar You Know
@Bruce K: Bullets are serious business.
Shame he had to get shot and crippled for life/die (jury’s still out, it will be one or the other) to figure that out.
The Moar You Know
@Patricia Kayden: Frog & pot of water. And America is not noticing that the water is getting hotter, as by design.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: Dunlap “likes Kobach” despite Kobach’s zeal to purge Democratic voters (especially those of color) from the voting rolls. Good to know.
Wyatt Derp
@d58826:
Plus it’s so much easier for Putin’s minions to hack one unsecured database than 50 separate ones.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: He was openly racist. Whatever happens to him, it will be “No comment” from me for that reason alone. There are so many people for whom I’ll weep when they leave this earth. He’s not one of them. He wouldn’t weep for any of my kind either.
Barbara
@O. Felix Culpa: I would humbly suggest my own state of Virginia as a possibility. Much bluer than it used to be, with a lot of cultural resources in places you might not expect, including some with a reasonably low cost of living. Although many of these places, when combined with natural beauty, tend to be in redder parts of the state, some are not — Staunton and Roanoke, for instance.
Major Major Major Major
@Elizabelle: Scalia wasn’t assassinated.
japa21
Penzey’s Spices is at it again. Go to their FB page. Here is part of the latest:
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I want Scalise to live long enough for lifetime caps on healthcare to be re-instituted so that he and his family go bankrupt trying to pay for his pre-existing condition. But I’m kind of an asshole that way.
Another Scott
@Cheryl Rofer: Personally, I’m not going to read it, and I flipped the station when they were playing excerpts on the radio today.
If it’s a sensible speech, it means that someone else wrote it and he’s just making mouth noises. If it’s a horrible speech, it just means that he’s continuing to make horrible mouth noises. In either case, it will have no impact on US policy because there is no US policy any more. It’s all his thoughtless lizard-brain reactions and Twitter noise.
If anything good comes out of this trip, it will be by accident.
Grrr.
We can’t be distracted. The Democrats in Congress and elsewhere have to keep their eyes on the prizes: 1) Protecting Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. 2) Protecting voting rights. 3) Laying the foundation to vote these monsters out of office this fall and in every election going forward. 4) Working to fight gerrymandering and every other anti-democratic policy and law that disenfranchises voters and weakens the expression of will of the people. 5) Insisting that Congress re-assert its control over war powers.
And that’s just for starters. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Aleta
He’s a walking violation of the Constitution.
Niwot, CO Fourth of July parade
-Jessica Pieklo at Rewire
japa21
@Aleta: At first I read that as Nitwit, CO. After reading what followed, I realized my misreading was, in fact, correct.
Kathleen
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: So you know exactly what I’m talking about. “Pro Life” but only too happy to see The Poors and Those People suffer. No Ky has the most virulent. Tea Party supporters in Ky.
Aleta
Financial Times
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Amir Khalid: “Autocrat elected in a dubious election dismisses American democracy in speech in Easter Europe” hot on the heels of July 4th’s “Document from costal intellectual elite calling for the violent overthrow of government read on NPR”
Cheryl Rofer
@Another Scott: A perfectly reasonable response.
gene108
@Another Scott:
I wonder how much of this aggregation is to make the life of Russian hackers easier for microtargeting likely Democratic voters, in the 2018 election, with fake news to get them to sit out and not vote.
randy khan
@Another Scott:
What really struck me from that excerpt is that nobody in the GOP seems to know for sure what the CBO score would look like. I know the purpose of the CBO is to provide expertise on this sort of thing, but you would think that any competent governing party would have someone who could at least come up with a ballpark number on staff so that you don’t get embarrassed. (Yes, I realize that “competent” is doing a lot of work here.)
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
Oh, it’s going great. So glad he is “at the table”:
I found out presidential commissions have to follow some transparency rules, so there’s already a lawsuit for all the communications- emails, etc.
He’s going to look like an idiot by the time this is over.
They are livestreaming their first meeting. Only invited “experts” may ask questions, so I’m sure it will be a joke.
Kay
@Aleta:
Don’t you just know Eric Prince is in this somewhere? That would explain Trump hiring his sister- the completely unqualified Betsy DeVos.
trollhattan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Actual traitorous former generals are my usual go-to source for interpretation of presidential fitness for the job.
To think he once had presidential potential himself, in the eyes of many….
Gin & Tonic
@Aleta: I wrote to Adam about this, hoping maybe for a FP post.
Interesting additional fact – Mueller has hired the former prosecutor who cut a plea deal with Felix in a fraud case back in 1998.
Kay
If you’re a competent sec of state don’t you have to know what they plan on doing with the information before collecting it and turning it over?
One would think they would want to at least cover their ass. Voters will blame the state official who didn’t do any due diligence if this all goes south, which it will, because they’re incompetent.
Aleta
Peter Daou @peterdaou
randy khan
@Mnemosyne:
As my general opinion is that every death diminishes the world (some much more than others, of course), I do not want him to die. But I kind of want his recovery to take a very, very long time so that the House Republicans don’t have his vote.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: Adulterous birds of a feather, stick together.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Elizabelle: eh, goverment by assassination is never good. You end up with in the same place Japan was in WWII.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
We have a group of Barred Owls in our neighborhood, they nest up on the ridge in the big twisted oaks that grow up there. We first met them when they started picking chickens off the cedar tree outside the kitchen door when we lived in the old farmhouse.
Now I can hoot with them, not carry on a conversation, they know I don’t really speak Barred Owl, but out of courtesy they will answer back a couple of times, then go on to more complex conversations with each other.
I don’t know if all owls do this, but once 2 or more Barred Owls have established contact with their standard “bird book” call – they then go wild with very complex hooting and crying with each other. In the pitch dark woods, it’s quite eerie to hear a group of Barred Owls talking amongst themselves.
Is that where the word hootenanny came from?
ruemara
@Aleta: He’s not wrong. I blame them entirely.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major: Scalise got what he deserved. Sorry, if that sounds horrible, but it’s true. This is karma
O. Felix Culpa
@Barbara:
I like Virginia – but for the humidity. Have taken numerous vacations there. Love the vineyards, rolling hills, and historic sites. Appomattox Court House is one of the most beautiful, deeply moving places I’ve ever visited. But the hot, humid heat! ;)
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
this this this.
amen.
rikyrah
@Aleta:
He’s been protected in the past, if the writings have been correct.
If this is true, that means that The Spooks have told him that they no longer care about his services because they have bigger fish to fry.
glory b
@Bruce K: As I understand it, he never left the hospital, he’s been downgraded from stable to serious condition and returned to ICU.
Uncle Cosmo
@Baud: Reminds me of my conceptual bumpersticker for the Boy Bush years:
Mnemosyne
@randy khan:
Oh, I definitely don’t want him to die. I want him to live a long, unhappy, pain-filled life filled with financial struggle to pay his medical bills because of the policies that he chose to support.
Or, to put it another way, fuckem.
J R in WV
This is a very interesting article on Ms Zainab Ahmad, newly joining Bob Mueller III’s team of prosecutors. She has a long and distinguished record of convicting foreign terrorists attacking or attempting to attack Americans and our allies. She managed a team of 60 prosecutors, and had never lost a court case against a terrorist.
So I find it really interesting that Special Prosecutor Mueller needs her expertise. Is he planning to accuse and convict members of the Republican party of terrorism, or of working with foreign terroristic organizations? I guess a woman experienced in the most difficult prosecutions there are, with many foreign witnesses and anonymous witnesses in disguise, would be qualified to prosecute domestic criminals conspiring with foreign interests just as well.
I recommend the article to everyone with any interest in the real war on terror, or the war on democracy in America. She sounds like a real professional for Mr. Mueller’s staff. Able to conduct a trial on the most difficult cases, and never lost a case so far.
Elizabelle
@J R in WV: Bookmarked it. She sounds interesting, and more power to her. Interesting pick by Mr. Mueller. Hmmmm…..
The Lodger
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Yep. He got the consequences of the kind of society he worked hard to create. He just didn’t think his side would take any bullets.
pluky
@Bruce K: not unexpected. injuries such as his typically require multiple successive surgeries.
J R in WV
@bystander:
Why do you assert that the artifacts are Christian? Why would that make the theft better? I think these artifacts are from long before the earliest known versions of even the Old Testament, and have nothing to do with early Christianity, which couldn’t have started before around the year 1.
I don’t actually believe the Hobby Lobby folks are really Christian at all, because they don’t follow the teachings of Christ, at all. Calling yourself a Christian while being un-Christian to your fellow beings doesn’t get it done for me.
workworkwork
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve had trouble sleeping since I was a kid. (I’m turning 59 this month)
The most recent time I actually got some rest was when I was in the hospital last fall getting my spleen removed. Needless to say, I don’t recommend this as an insomnia cure.