If your best friend had a drug habit, would you give him or her money to go buy smack? Well, bothsides is a hell of a drug, and until the Times kicks, save your pennies. More from Steve M.
That all said, fuck this Nunes sideshow. Trump is going to fire Mueller at some point, and the Republican Congress isn’t going to do jack shit except put on their concerned faces. The only cure for our main ailment is the 2018 and 2020 elections. Let’s start with 2018.
You can give here to the Balloon Juice fund that is split equally among all Democratic nominees in House districts currently held by Republicans.
You can give here to Swing Left, which is promoting grass roots action against Republicans in 70 swing districts.
Hungry Joe
I’m late to the party, as usual, but here’s my Nunes memo contribution:
Yo memo so silent, John Cage wrote a 4′ 33″ piano piece for it.
Baud
I’m getting as tired of saying it as you are of hearing it.
debbie
Am I the only one to see symbolism in the fact that this memo was released on the same day that the market dropped 666 points? No evangelical alarm yet?
Bobby Thomson
She is laboring under the impression that Greenwald is “the left.”
Villago Delenda Est
The Vichy Times has decided to go for broke, it seems.
To quote the estimable efgoldman…
fuckem
Villago Delenda Est
OK, we’re through the looking glass, for sure:
https://screenshots.firefox.com/RlAapGZODx7KXVml/twitter.com
Roger Moore
@debbie:
Of course not. Their man Trump is still in charge. If they were actually Christians this might be a problem for them, but Mammonites are just fine with things as they are.
Corner Stone
I didn’t read the original article, just the summary by Steve M. But this part:
That has to be sarcasm, right? Asha can’t honestly believe that was the basis for the critique from “the left” all this time?
Suzanne
@debbie: I heard 665 points, but maybe that’s BS.
debbie
@Suzanne:
It was 665 point something more than 50, so I rounded up like any good salesperson would. Looking at you, Dollhands.
Corner Stone
Until I read Steve M.’s summary I thought this was just more NYT headline clickbaitery bullshit. But it seems they are actually trying to make the argument that Both Sides created the Nunes fauxmo.
Inventor
@Hungry Joe:
Burn!
MJS
@Villago Delenda Est: Walsh has been on this kick for awhile now. I think the clear case of treason that’s been laid out is too much for him to ignore, even as odious as he is.
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Uday uses “textbook McCarthyism” despite having no idea what “textbook” means. Winning!
p.a.
Have you seen the wingnut icon of tRump at the oval office desk with jeebus behind him leaning over to sign some, i guess, legislation. Caption: don’t worry, I got this.
holy fucking christ
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: reminds me of something their skeptical feminist columnist whose name escapes me wrote last week: That everyone agreed that Matt Lauer’s treatment of Hillary Clinton was misogynist, but where were all those people to stick up for Nikki Haley! Cole tweeted back at her to cite one example from her writing or the NYT that said that about Lauer. I don’t think she answered.
charluckles
Has there ever been such an imbalance between a groups power and the agency that people assign to that group? Republicans are at once in control of nearly everything, but are held responsible for nearly nothing. It’s bizarre.
Sab
@debbie: I am so glad we sold some stock last week to buy the spousal unit his last ever new Honda. He loves the bells and whistles on it, and we probably would have lost the sales price in the market this week. Usually the stock market crashes on Friday mornings and recovers by the end of the day. Intetesting that didn’t happen this week.
We always buy last years models in the January sale. This year was the first time he did it online. Lined up a car and then went to the usual dealer to actually buy it. Yikes, the price improvement was remarkable.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@charluckles: and it’s not just the right and the MSM. I heard someone on MSNBC yesterday, pretty sure it was Maria Hinajosa (sp?), blaming Dems for the failure find a solution to the Dreamers/DACA situation.
efgoldman
@trollhattan:
Or “McCarthyism” either. Apparently uncle Roy Cohn didn’t explain it well.
Doug!
Amen
rikyrah
Lawyers involved in probe: Mueller may indict Trump
A new report from Politico says two lawyers who have interacted with Mueller’s team think Special Counsel Robert Mueller could indict President Trump. Politico reporter Darren Samuelsohn and Paul Butler discuss with Joy Reid
No Drought No More
A former FBI agent (who regularly appears on MSNBC and whose name escapes me) said this morning that the raw nerve of deep fear evidenced by Trump’s conspirators informs him the scale of the conspiracy is as yet too vast for Americans to grasp, much less contemplate.
I paraphrase him, and perhaps took liberties in doing so. But I think not. Recall Ryan’s admonition to his known associates to keep silent about the remark about Russia owning congressman R. (whose name also escapes me) being on the Russian payroll. Then remember the Roberts decision.
The only question now is how many others will fall with Trump? This I know- Trump will destroy everyone he [possibly can before he’s finished. There’s precedent, you know. Early in the Watergate drama, Richard Nixon told an aide to let it be known that he was prepared to blow the lid off the “whole Bay of Pigs thing”. He never made good the threat but he never went to prison, either. Americans only did learn of the assassination plots against Castro because democrat Frank Church of Idaho forced the truth into the open.
I repeat: Trump and congressional republicans are traitors to the United States of America, and there are no exceptions. That’s why the GOP rats are deserting the sinking ship: they know the score. Just why congressional democrats remain mute about GOP treachery, much less still hesitate to go for their jugular and the kill, escapes me. Because I don’t need to read the Mueller report to draw fundamental conclusions about their treason. Not at this point, not with all we know. And I want to see the whole rotten lot of them hanged higher than Haman..
I
JMG
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: When someone says that, what they mean is “why won’t you do what the Republicans say? That way we could all get along.” It’s amazing how many political reporters are almost physically uncomfortable with the conflict that is, well, the whole point of politics.”
JR
@No Drought No More: it’s pretty clear that the Democratic party is making the strategic decision to not allow the Mueller investigation to be drawn in partisan terms. Being largely silent is part of that strategy. That might lead to some tactical losses but they probably accept those as worthwhile. I tend to agree.
Chris
Yeah. He doesn’t even have to fire anybody (although he certainly will want to) – no matter what’s released, the Republican Congress will ensure that nothing’s ever done about it. It’s been clear right from the start that that’s where this was heading, and that the only way to do anything about it is to take back Congress.
patrick II
Cause and effect. I was listening to some right wing radio show where a caller and the host agreed that, because Christopher Steele had stated he was scared to death of Trump being president, he created a dossier of false claims to harm him. This false and prejudiced dossier, funded by Hillary Clinton, should not be the basis for any legal action against Trump.
It is obvious to me, and probably too obvious for everyone here to mention, but I am a keen observer of the obvious — that they have cause and effect backwards. The caller asserted Steele prejudiced because the caller was unsophisticated and the smarter host because he’s found being a right wind idealogue is profitable. They say the cause is Steele’s dislike for Trump and the effect is the dossier. But the cause for Steele’s dislike are the things he found out as he assembled the dossier and the effect is his dislike of Trump.
Sab
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Who else can she blame? God knows the Republicans aren’t worried about the Dreamers. Put pressure on those inclined to help.
I know an amazingly large number of Americans who are one or two generations off the boat who sneer at Dreamers as “illegals.”
Also too, we need to hoot and sneer at “chain migration”. Who the phuck ever even heard the term two years ago? It’s called family reunification. We used to criticize the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain for separating families, and now that is our official immigratipn policy?
I sure as hell don’t want to live in a country populated by rich white guys from elsewhere who abandoned all family ties without compunction. Peter Thiel as our model citizen? Seriously?
rikyrah
Two ex-DOJ officials on Nunes memo: ‘a bad joke’
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell 2/2/18
Joy Reid talks with former DOJ lawyers Paul Butler and Harry Litman, who says that the Republican memo is a “disgraceful episode” that will damage institutional relations with the DOJ and FBI
Baud
@Sab:
That’s the sort of short sightedness that gave us a Republican controlled government in the first place.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
For starters: Dean Heller, Ted Cruz and Martha McSally, all of whom want to win Senate elections in eight months in states with significant and growing Latino populations
Marco Rubio and Cory Gardner, who both pay lip service to immigration reform and are from purple states with, again, significant and growing populations.
Every Republican House member from those states, plus California.
rikyrah
These muthaphuckas here!
Kyle GriffinVerified account @kylegriffin1
The Republican National Committee is siding with Trump on his order to bar transgender individuals from serving in the military, saying that being transgender is “a disqualifying psychological and physical” condition.
Another Scott
@Sab: Congratulations!
It’s probably a good time to buy a new car. Sales are off from the ~ 2015-2016 peak and the car companies are putting lots of money on the hood to try to keep sales up. The general economy softening isn’t helping them either.
TTAC:
Cheers,
Scott.
Sab
@Baud: I am not saying blame Democrats. I am saying pressure them. It’s a waste of time to pressure Republicans, because their donors are racists to the core. My idiot Congress critter (Tim Ryan, OH) came out against Syrian refugees a couple of years ago because he was worried about the WWC in his constituency. The rest of us deluged him with outraged comments, and now he is back on board. Calling Rob Portman was a waste of breath.
James E. Powell
@Baud:
Short-sighted or stupidly spiteful? Or is it just that putative liberals who blame the Democrats for things that the Republicans are doing are the ones who get invited to the Sunday & cable shows?
oldgold
File under: You can’t make this sh*t up.
Paul Ryan tweet from this morning.
Paul Ryan
✔
@PRyan
A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, PA, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week … she said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for the year.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@James E. Powell: the belief that Democrats can get around the Constitution with One Weird Trick (no one knows what that is, but a whole lot of people believe it’s out there, somewhere, if the Dems just had the BALLS! to find it and use it) is widespread on the left. I don’t know if it’s new, but it seems to have really taken root since ’09.
Baud
@Sab:
The only pressure is blame. Dems are in the minority. If Republicans are unreachable, Dems should cut their losses now and move on to the next issue.
rikyrah
But….it was gonna be criminals….REMEMBER?
Gabe #DreamActNow OrtízVerified account @TUSK81
A woman could be charged with interfering for trying to hug her husband as ICE dragged him away.
https://twitter.com/TUSK81/status/959838781527310337
catclub
@rikyrah:
Larry Hitman??
Corner Stone
@oldgold: I saw that off Cole’s twit feed. I went down the rabbit hole and surprisingly found a bunch of people dragging Ryan’s ass for this nonsense.
Just the Facts
Those of you politically aware & active in 2003-04 remember this feeling, but I just had it again now:
He is going to get away with all of it.
He is going to be re-elected.
Sab
@James E. Powell: Republicans are doing less than nothing for us. We can’t let Democrats off the hook because they are the only alternative. They need to know that we have values and positions, and a D after their name isn’t enough. They are susceptible to pressure. Rs aren’t unless you can write a five figure check.
catclub
@No Drought No More: I am not sure there is anything vast. Is lots of Trump money laundering vast?
Instead, Trump likes to get everyone on his side organized to support his latest lie/fantasy. The ‘Obama was wiretapping me in Trump tower’ one is the first major example. getting all of the GOP to deny he had any contact with Russians could be all that this is.
GregB
Just clarifying contemporary Republican logic.
Emails stolen by R**skie hackers and disseminated by W******ks are fair game for what they reveal.
Information gained legally through the American justice system is tainted and must be discounted.
Do I have that right?
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Just the Facts: Chin up. 2020 is a long way away.
Corner Stone
@charluckles:
Democrats are always expected to govern, be the “adult” in the room and give Republicans whatever they demand. Republicans are expected to act like children, try and burn shit to the ground and stick tight to their “principles”.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): GOP troll. Not sincere.
Sab
@Baud: Seriously? Move on from Dreamers? Why do I even want to live here if we abandon toddlers who happened to be born elsewhere and have lived here and loved this country all their lives?
schrodingers_cat
You have been asserting this since the day Mueller was appointed. The constant repetition is beyond tiresome. We remember and have memorized it like times tables.
Corner Stone
@Just the Facts: I thought we had a real chance in 2004, even with a homosexual loving Frenchman as our candidate. But when I woke up the day after I literally thought my room was twisting around me and I wasn’t sure what country I lived in anymore.
The election of Trump, aside from all the shenannies, was about a million times more devastating. And I’m no fan of GWB, nor on a PR rehab tour for his admin.
WaterGirl
@oldgold: Yeah, the year the university gave EVERYONE the same raise, $12 a month, the joke was that you could buy a CD a month, unless it was a double CD. The general feeling was that we would have almost preferred nothing than the university being able to pretend that we had all gotten a raise that could be presented by them as reasonable.
Baud
@Sab: Because your political theory of “pressuring” Dems demands it, because all it does it strengthen the GOP hand.
schrodingers_cat
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Please Ignore the R troll.
Corner Stone
@No Drought No More: I’ve read this a few times but am unable to find anywhere what Hillary did wrong?
Brachiator
@catclub:
Great point. Trump must always be the aggrieved one. He must always be seen to be standing up to his enemies. Of course, he always has to fabricate the enemy.
So, it’s his standard ploy to kinda drop Obama as the primary agent responsible for wire taps and swap in the FBI.
And how does this all play to his base? They see him as the brave outsider trying to fight for them against entrenched interests. They keep getting impatient and imagine all the great things that Trump could do if only people stopped opposing him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and I bet she was a two-time Obama voter before she got that buck-fifty!
Reminds me of an NPR interview with a Scott Walker supporting, anti-union public school teacher during the recall effort. She talked a lot about waste and taxes, and toward the end of the interview they mentioned that her husband owned the local Chevy dealership. No one mentioned that said dealership was still in business because of Obama and GOVERNMENT SPENDING!
patroclus
@Sab: Actually, “chain migration” is indeed a term that has been used in the social science literature describing migratory patterns of humans going back at least a century. It was used in the debates when family reunification was first added to the immigration laws in 1924, it was a term used by the House’s Tolan Committee which studied migratory patterns in the 30’s during the Depression and it was used in the debates surrounding the 1965 Immigration Act, which vastly expanded family re-unification as the cornerstone of American immigration policy. It wasn’t (and isn’t) used as a pejorative; merely a descriptive term, which social scientists used. Stephen Miller (and Trump) have endeavored to use it as a pejorative. Don’t be fooled. It’s just wordplay. Continue to talk about family re-unification because that’s what it is in human terms. But we also shouldn’t let the immigration debate devolve into an argument about word choices. That’s the Republicans’ game. We should point out the contradiction between Trump saying that “faith and family” are our highest values, while at the same time attempting to destroy family re-unification as the centerpiece of immigration policy.
Corner Stone
As an aside, I heard on MSNBC where Jay Newton Small said Hope Hicks was a “29 year old girl” who had no experience in anything so it was foolish to think she knew she was doing anything wrong.
schrodingers_cat
@patroclus: It has been used as a pejorative and a slur since the time I have been following these debates , which is at least over a decade. Its a term preferred by nativists who populate sites like VDARE.
Brachiator
@Baud:
You’re just being jokingly ironic, right?
patroclus
@Baud: Well, there’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with Democrats if they (individually or collectively) are wrong on any particular policy issue. That’s how we get change on all sorts of stuff, like, uh, marriage equality, a higher minimum wage, single payer systems, college funding. We can also disagree with Dems on tactics.
Demonstrating outside of Chuck Schumer’s house, however, just after he insured 8 million kids, is the epitome of stupidity.
Baud
@Brachiator: Nope. Deadly serious. I am intolerant of blame Dems first.
@patroclus: Exactly.
John Revolta
@catclub: Seems to me more like a half-vast conspiracy.
James E. Powell
@Sab:
My first impulse was to say something rude, but I don’t know you so I have to give you the benefit of the doubt. What you wrote was the kind of late 1990s thinking that gave us “Gore Bush No Difference!” but then we got Bush and it turned out there were huge differences that really mattered to the lives of millions of people, many of whom are now dead. All the horrors that followed, including the present dire circumstances, flowed from the failure to vote for Gore just because he had a D after his name.
There are people who either cannot or will not see that when the Republicans are in control of all three branches of the federal government and the governments of 34 states, then a D after their names really is more than enough reason to vote for them.
Blaming Democrats for what the Republicans do or refuse to do with DACA/Dreamers isn’t letting Democrats off the hook. It is blaming them for something the Republicans are doing. It really is that simple.
Democrats are well aware that we have values and positions and that’s why they have been arguing them in public every day.
Amir Khalid
@Corner Stone:
When Jay Newton Small herself was 29, would she have cared to still be called a girl? Hope Hicks may be unusually callow for a 29-year-old, but that’s still 11 years over 18 i.e. quite old enough to know right from wrong.
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: So I guess they will be issuing pardons and releasing everyone who was less than 30 years old when they committed whatever crime sent them to jail/prison. Good to know.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: They try kids as adults all the time. Now I guess they should try Hope Hicks in family court and send her to juvie? The stupidity is nearly impossible to bear, sometimes.
Tenar Arha
@Sab: It is working indirectly. It’s working to make being a GOP Representative or even a Senator like living inside an echo chamber where people are hollering at you all day.
Everyone is the hero of their own story, & even Reps like Issa & Senators like Flake like to think they’re “serving the public” even as they’re serving themselves. Their retirements are a sign that the pressure is working, because they cannot tell themselves their heroic story anymore with s
o many calling.
That’s going to create even more opportunities for Democrats by opening up more seats.
ETA Of course this doesn’t work on turtles or other reptiles. ?
Amaranthine RBG
The New York Times ran and editorial that does not repeat my own opinions back to me?
How dare they???
Amir Khalid
@James E. Powell:
Are you suggesting that Democratic voters shouldn’t exact that Democrats in Congress act and vote like Democrats? It seems to me that sab has it exactly right.
Another Scott
@James E. Powell:
We got Bush just as Ralph intended. OutsideOnline:
Purity kills.
Cheers,
Scott.
Millard Filmore
@Just the Facts:
The USA is not the only entity to be reckoned with. European ICs might leak some very damaging info, could be exciting political-spy stuff, or it could be sedate money laundering charges. Sanctions could quickly follow, assets seized, arrest warrants, embargoes, etc.
patroclus
@James E. Powell: Well, it’s that simple, but it’s also complicated. If we are willing to sacrifice family re-unification and a visa lottery for green cards, we could probably do a deal with Trump for the Dreamers. That’s his hostage-taking strategy – we had to choose between sick kids and Dreamers two weeks ago and now we have to choose between parents and other relatives of legal immigrants and Dreamers. Are the Dreamers more important than 60 years of family re-unification for legal immigrants? I think not. I am not in favor of compromising our entire immigration structure.
The best tactic is to keep doing short CR’s and force Trump and the Republicans to do something good each and every time they need money. It’s up to him to extend the DACA rules on 3/5; not the Dems. And if he starts deporting large numbers of the Dreamers instead of granting an extension, that’s on him. Not the Dems for failing to cave on family re-unification.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
This is the classic “White Girls are inherently innocent” defense. Not surprising to see it invoked in the age of Trump.
rikyrah
@No Drought No More:
Treason
Say it over and over
Brachiator
@patroclus:
What good will Trump have been forced to do if he starts deporting large numbers of dreamers?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: I myself am arguing that it would be more effective to put the energy spent on pressuring Democrats– not just the rally at Schemer’s house, but the sit-ins in the offices of allies like Bennet and Cortez-Mastro because their rhetoric is deemed tepid– would be better spent pressuring Rs like Rubio and a handful of MoCs (Diaz-Balart, Curbelo, even the retiring Ros-Lehitin) to put their votes where their mouths are, and scaring people like Cruz and Heller and McSally (who I believe is pretty much in the Steve King caucus on immigration) into doing the right thing, or even better, putting them out of work.
ETA: I’m trying to think if there are any openly anti-immigration Democrats. I can’t think of any.
HeleninEire
Ireland just beat France in some rugby match. The pub is going WILD. I say “some rugby match” cuz it seems like the rugby matches never end.
Also, too tomorrow is the Super Bowl? I didn’t pay attention in America so I have no clue now.
Enjoy your party Raven. Good thing Downton Abbey is no longer on and those losers won’t leave!
Also, also too. Damn my life here is good. COME VISIT!
Corner Stone
@oldgold: Ryan has since deleted that tweet. Wonder why?
patroclus
@Brachiator: Well, in the next go-round, I’m hoping for CDC funding, NIH funding, community health centers and disaster funding for Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the USVI.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
It’s funny. Nader was right about this. The GOP and the Democrats have diverged significantly.
But, as you also note, this is never good enough for the purity people. And Nader was just dead wrong about how his intransigence would affect the country.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “Schemer’s house”, that’s a good one.
I think we have to continue applying pressure on tepid D’s. Why not protest Schumer? He’s in a blue state with a seat for life. If not him it will be another D.
Brachiator
@patroclus:
Even if Dreamers are sacrificed?
Cheryl Rofer
@Corner Stone: Ryan’s tweet was taking pretty heavy incoming. So is the deletion.
Corner Stone
HAHAHAHAHA!
patroclus
@Brachiator: The Dreamers are currently being sacrificed by Trump and the Republicans. If they continue to be sacrificed, it’s clearly their fault. Hopefully, they will realize that at some point and agree to Durbin-Graham and allow a vote in the House. The basic position is that there will be no omnibus budget deal without the Dreamers. They will have to continue the short term CR’s unless that happens.
NeenerNeener
@Another Scott: I feel like I did pretty well last weekend when I went car shopping. They knocked a few grand off MSRP, gave me full Kelly Blue Book for my trade, and then there was almost 6k in federal and state incentives for buying an EV. I’d spent some time on one of those web sites where you put the numbers in to compute whether buying or leasing is the better option, and it was pretty much a wash, so I’ve got a 3 year lease for less than $100 a month and a nifty plug-in hybrid in my garage now. I might regret not buying it outright when the lease is up in 3 years, but then again the cars might be even better 3 years from now.
MJS
@schrodingers_cat: Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you. So tired of those who are seeing something absolutely unprecedented yet somehow still knowing exactly how it ends.
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
1. Being a woman.
2. Being a Clinton.
3. Being a woman.
4. Being a Rodham.
5. Need I add?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: I trust Schumer’s (that last one was an autocorrect) commitment on this issue, and I think he’s done about all he can– I’m sure he’ll need a push from time to time in the future. McSally and Heller should be running scared. There are (I think) a couple of R-held CDs in Texas that are minority-majority, I’d imagine there are a few others scattered around FL, AZ, FL, CO, or at least where non-voters are gettable. Maybe Long Island and New Jersey? I don’t know all the demographics, but I think voter registration drives would be more effective
MJS
@Corner Stone: Sure, why not protest Schumer? That way, the media can completely ignore Trump, and run with “Dems in disarray” and “Dreamers abandon Dems” 24/7
bemused
@p.a.:
Not surprised. When Ben Carson was running for prez, I saw a photo spread of Carson’s home interior which had a lot of Jesus paintings and decor. My favorite was the painting of Carson sitting while Jesus standing at his shoulder behind.
Several years ago in Minnesota there was small town bank started and run by evangelical freaks. Former Sec of State Mary Kiffmeyer, RWNJ, was on the board of the bank for a time. The bank displayed a painting, Jesus in the boardroom, depicting bank ceos in suits with Jesus among them. Oddly, the bank was forced to close in just a few years due to some unchristian banking behavior and Jesus couldn’t save them.
The hubris of these people thinking they have blessings from God and Jesus to be greedy assholes.
Baud
GOP note to self: By not dealing with immigration, I can help myself with my own base and hurt the Dems with their potential voters. Oh sure, I’ll be willing to work out a fair deal.
Jager
@oldgold:
Ryan didn’t comment on this one: “An investment banker in Westport CT said he was pleasantly surprised to find an additional $9341.22 in his monthly paycheck, it will easily cover his Net Jets subscription.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jager: Speaker Ryan, have you talked to the Koch brothers about how the tax bill affects them? How about Rebecca Mercer? Donald Trump? Do you think he should show us his taxes so we can do that math and help you show all the good you’re doing for him? How about the Large Adult Children? Your cousins at Ryan International?
Corner Stone
@MJS: You act as if the media need anything from us to not do their job. Being vocal about not only a vital constituency, but actual people in danger, seems to me to be not only a good policy but good works. How many times do you think the D’s can agree to CR’s before we burn whatever goodwill we may have had? And it’s not just Dreamers. It starts with obvious “outside” communities and then creeps inward. Everyone who is vulnerable or has a spidey sense tingling is looking at how D’s handle this obvious challenge.
James E. Powell
@Amir Khalid:
@patroclus:
I’m suggesting that whatever sab is trying to say is best left to a day when the Democrats control at least one branch of the federal government.
I’m suggesting that for the 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections everyone who objects to Republicans should vote for whoever has a D after his or her name unless the opponent also has a D after his or her name, i.e., in California or other similar states.
I’m suggesting that for ordinary people any other course of action is just jerking off.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The tax bill is “not good for me”, alright? It’s gonna hurt some, believe me.
Another Scott
@NeenerNeener: I’ve never leased, but there are a lot of changes coming in the electric car space in the next few years, so it would certainly make looking into a lease worthwhile. It’s hard to imagine driving a 2018 hybrid or electric for the next 20 years. ;-) . But I figure the car companies will always find a way to make more money on a lease than an outright sale, so it’s a bit of a risk at the end of the term. (My step-mom used to get a new car lease every 2-3 years via her company perks, so they effectively paid for it for her. Leases are great for companies and employees who get the benefit.)
I’ve got a 2004 VW Jetta TDI Wagon that i bought in late 2003. It’s still got a lot of life left in it (135,000 miles), but I’m probably going to have to decide in the next year or so whether I want to spend a few thousand on struts, etc., or whether I want to jump on the hybrid/electric wagon, and a car payment, and higher insurance costs, and maybe home wiring upgrades, etc., etc.
Trouble is, I hate SUVs and CUVs – I want a small, efficient, wagon. I want something that gets significantly better mileage than the 42-44 mpg I get commuting to work (~ 50 mpg on the highway if I stick to 60 mph). I’m pissed off at VW for their TDI cheating fiasco, also too. Dunno if something like what I want will be available when I actually start seriously looking, or anytime in the future for that matter…
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scot.
catclub
@Another Scott:
I really hate that GM, MB, and other makers can make great looking small wagons for European drivers, but not for (idiot?) US drivers.
MB makes a BIG wagon for US but not the small cute wagons they make for Europe.
MJS
@Corner Stone: Being vocal? Sure. Giving the media the opportunity to run video of the Senate Dems’ leader being protested by what’s supposed to be a Democratic constituency? Foolish, and it feeds right into the narrative of “voters angry at both parties.” You’re right, the media doesn’t need any help to return to their default “both sides” narrative. So why give them any? There are any number of ways of encouraging Dems to do the right thing. Choosing the one that simultaneously gives aid and comfort to the enemy is the wrong choice.
Corner Stone
@MJS: I am afraid the argument is not up to us to decide. It seems the people whose life and/or family is at risk have decided they are tired of not being heard. I somehow doubt they have a media “both sides” failure on their minds.
Corner Stone
Call me sexist, but I sometimes think that if you were an attractive, youngish, blonde woman you see the dollar signs and jump onboard the full-on nutjob crazy train. Every time I see one of these people spewing on MSNBC I think to myself there’s no way they actually believe this. It has to be for a paycheck, right?
Sab
@James E. Powell: I always vote Democratic, but I certainly speak my mind about what I think Democratic values are to Democratic officeholders. I want them to know that if they start pandering to the illusory Trump swing voter I will notice. I will probably vote for them, but I sure as hell don’t want them to think they can count on it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Keeping politics out of the pet thread
James E. Powell
@Corner Stone:
Hammering Democrats is invariably a RW story that hurts Democrats at election time. I can’t think of a single instance in the last 25 years where that was not the case.
The RW have been hammering the press/media every day since Nixon resigned. It seems to have produced a press/media that wears the liberal label, but consistently responds to RW pressure. Maybe we ought to try the same. And not for one week and not on one issue.
catclub
@MJS: ‘pulling a Jen Rubin’ might become more common to describe it.
Chris
@Brachiator:
Yes,. this is the worst part of “heighten the contradictions.” There are circumstances where you can, from a certain point of view, look at a series of events and go “well, you see, something good came of all this in the long run, so maybe it’s good that evil won in the short run…” But the same kind of people who say “heighten the contradictions” will never admit that the “good” results are actually “good.” They just go right back to square one whining about betrayal and impurity.
Another Scott
@Brachiator:
An airliner flying at 30,000 feet suddenly shooting up to 90,000 feet doesn’t do anything to change actual sea level even though the divergence between the plane and the ground has increased…
IOW, electing RWNJ Republicans isn’t going to make the Democratic Party more Liberal. If the latter is (generic) your goal and this is your tactic, then you’re doing it wrong.
If you want the Democratic Party to be more Liberal, elect more Democrats so that they have the voting space to gradually implement more lefty policies. (If the party can’t spare any votes, then the conservative wing has more power to stop progress.)
Ralph and too many like minded people don’t seem to understand that.
(sigh)
St. Ralph was mostly pissed at Gore because of insufficient fealty to his signature issue – auto policy. Purity and fealty on that mattered more than anything else to him.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
He won’t have done something good, and he won’t have money to run his government with, either, until he changes his intended actions.
See how that political pressure tactic works? Do what we want, Trump, or you don’t get any sweet monies to waste and steal.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
This is often the case. You see it with Bernie. You see it with Glenn Greenwald. These people claim to care about people and principles, but it is always about their egos.
sdhays
@J R in WV: The problem is that Trump doesn’t actually give even one shit about governing, and most Republicans give at best only one small shit about it. Shutting down the government and putting pressure on federal employees to just give up and leave is a win for them.
J R in WV
@HeleninEire:
The French have a Rugby team???? Who coulda knowed??? Amazeballs. No wonder the Irish team beat them, and what an excuse for a party. Don’t over do it,Irish Helen !!!
That Irish beverage material can sneak up on a body, it can. Ask a barkeep about Green Spot whisky, it’s pretty smooth.
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
I hope that the Democrats are learning how to “negotiate” with Trump. And how to stop fighting each other.
I think they need to look at how he backed down and dealt with his bankruptcies and various deal restructurings.
Trump wants what he wants and he wants to stick the Democrats with a bad deal. But he is more interested in getting his wall approved than in running the government.
But here’s some of the items at play.
The IRS is already hampered. They are slowly trying to understand and react to the new tax law. Congress is also sitting on a small, but significant tax bill that they had hoped to get passed and signed in early January. This bill affects 2017 taxes and has a big impact on people with foreclosures.
If another shutdown happens, tax refunds stop and payments to the government will slow. This intensifies the impact on the government.
Looks like we have to raise the debt ceiling.
The Dream Act expires March 6. Up to 30,000 people a month could lose their protected status. Could Trump be pressured to issue a new executive order helping Dreamers if Congress cannot act in time? Could the Democrats get Trump to chastise Republicans for their inaction in exchange for letting him take credit for protecting Dreamers?
Or is Trump intent on further demonizing nonwhite people and continuing to pander to his bases’ hatreds.
cain
@James E. Powell:
I don’t really believe this. I believe that with media being taken over by corporations and turned into “entertainment” there is some evidence that editors and those above journalists are republican leaning and thus control the conversation in some way.
cain
@Another Scott:
Well that and changing the perception. Reps from Red States are barely democrats. We had a super majority and still had to fight like hell to get the ACA enacted.
Villago Delenda Est
@sdhays: This is because government gets in the way of them preying on the weak. This is the sin of government.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: Wait I am confused wasn’t Asha Rangappa quoted on FP in glowing terms just this week, here on Tunch Blog.
Another Scott
@cain: True, it was a huge fight and every vote in the Senate mattered.
But, as we know, the end result is that policy moved left. And a 50+ year effort for quasi-universal health care in the USA finally was law of the land. And it serves as a foundation for further improvements.
I’ll get on my (well-worn) hobby horse again: A Reddish or Right-leaning Democrat is better than a Lefty-leaning Republican because Democrats (almost always) stick together when it comes time to vote for the Leadership. And it’s the Leadership of the bodies that decides what gets done – they decide who sits on committees, they decide the rules, they decide what legislation dies in committee and what gets upperdown votes on the floor.
Like it or not, what matters in the fall is not the person in front of the D or the R, but the vote for the party. (The time to fight like hell for the lefty candidate is before and during the primaries.) Because the parties run things in the legislatures.
And the way things stand now, only the Democratic party is going to move things forward rather than dragging us back to the 1830s…
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Isn’t that our friend UCC(aka Pravda)?
Cheryl Rofer
@schrodingers_cat: Asha Rangappa’s explanations of national security law, like the FISA process are great. Her politics, both-siderism in this op-ed, not so good.
Although I will say, without pointing the finger of blame, that the situation with regard to surveillance is very complicated and people have fallen on what seems to be both sides of the issue. For example, Republicans who were all #releasethememo also voted for surveillance under Section 702 a week or two ago.
Yutsano
@Brachiator:
For perspective on this: there are two sections to my office. There is the “front” part where myself and my co-worker are, and the “back” office that housed the collection people. There are 15 cubicles. Even 6 years ago they were all full along with the secretary’s desk and the manager. The secretary was the last one and she retired in November. The office is completely empty with no chance of hiring anyone back there soon. People are getting away with evasion all over because the managers at TE/GE got no real guidance when the flood of money after Citizens United came in. This is just one example. It’s like this all over the country.
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: Both siderism is a necessity to get an op-ed gig at Vichy Times or so it seems. Her op-ed goes beyond both-sides-do-it. She is blaming the Ds for the Nunes memo, more than the Rs who actually released the fucking memo, that is some deluded shit.
WaterGirl
@Yutsano: That’s one way of drawing government in a bathtub. They don’t care at all about their country, only their agenda.
WaterGirl
Major Major Major Major, if you’re here… how easy / fun would it be to run something that would compare how much we swear here on BJ compare to how much we swore before Donald Trump was elected? I would venture a guess that if you looked at 3 month increments, it would show a steady increase between Jan 20 last year and Jan 20 this year.
edit: I am pretty sure that personally would be a contributor to that trend.
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat: I do seem to recall a few recommends to check out her twit feed recently. I don’t go for long twit storms (threads) so I can’t say I checked out anything she tweeted.
I will say this op-ed is the garbagiest of garbage. I admit I did not click the article and read it all, just the Steve M. summary. If it was more of the same I am glad I saved my click finger the stress.
Corner Stone
@Cheryl Rofer:
That is not an example of “both sides”. That is complete and pure partisan hypocrisy. The 702 was fine right until it was not useful politically for them.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: I did check out one thread by her, it was too jargony and since I am no security expert, my eyes just glazed over. Paraphrasing Richard Feynman, that if you can’t explain a concept to a college freshman, lucidly, you don’t really understand it yourself. RF was talking about physics but I think it works for almost any subject.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl:
Would govt be curvy and fulsome or heroin chic?
James E. Powell
@Another Scott:
Which is strange because the Republicans argued that Gore was going to take away their trucks and manly muscle cars even before he came to take away their guns & golf courses.
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: ha ha. sorry. drowning, not drawing.
Corner Stone
I never know why Joy Reid invites this nutso balls out crazy Tea Party lady on to her show for a segment. Why? WHY?
joel hanes
@Corner Stone:
I thought we had a real chance in 2004
We did. But Kenneth Blackwell.
Another Scott
@Corner Stone: I always thought the “producers” of shows like that decided who the guests were going to be. Not the talking head hosts. Could be wrong though.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Yutsano:
Thanks for this. I’ve read about how the IRS has been losing talent for years and has had to deal with politically motivated hiring freezes, and your description provides a vivid picture of the result of past assaults on the IRS and its mission.
Trump and the Republicans have been so used to bashing the IRS that they forgot that the agency has to interpret congressional intent and enforce tax law. Buncha dopes. And clearly some Republicans wanted to cripple the ability of the IRS to investigate tax evasion. But now they are finding that you can’t have it both ways. And it is insane to blast the IRS, cripple the organization and also expect it to do its job effectively.
Also, the new section 199A deduction is going to sprout all kinds of evasion in the future. And perversely, the new rules may make it more likely that some evil employers will hire more undocumented workers and label them as independent contractors. Even more perversely, this may give undocumented workers who file tax returns a bit of a tax break.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: that’s my assumption. I’m a bit surprised the Bagger types are willing to go on JR”s show, since she doesn’t meekly nod and move on like most of their anchors
chris
A thread, germane to this discussion IMHO.
Corner Stone
@Another Scott: I think Joy likes having RWNJ’s on her air. She thinks she can slap them around or shut them down. But they still get 5 to 8 minutes to spew lies, bullshit and hateful shit. I don’t think the tradeoff is worth it. There is no market among people who tune in to Joy for this nonsense. I had this AM show on DVR and FF’d past that entire segment because I know what the nutter is going to say to every question.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: They don’t care. They like conflict. It’s how they make their money.
Every RWNJ outlet will tout how that person “destroyed” MSNBC’s liberal host.
Citizen Alan
@Corner Stone:
I remember the exact moment when I realized that shrub was going to be reelected. It was about 15 minutes after the polls have closed. Wolf Blitzer made the announcement that too early States had gone for Bush and one had gone for John Kerry. He then went on to show an exit poll indicating that the #1 concern for voters in that election was “morals and values.” It was at that moment that I knew immediately Bush was going to win, because I had long since realized that “morals and values” was simply a euphemism for hating gays and abortion.
chris
Woohoo! Until we see the next one…
Mike J
@chris: Teams is a better term than tribes because sports are dumb and anyone who enjoys them are dumb and you are dumb why aren’t you smrt like me?
Cheryl Rofer
@Corner Stone: I have to admit that I haven’t been following the 702 stuff closely. My sense is that the vote was not entirely along partisan lines, but yeah it’s mostly Repubs who are being hypocritical about this.
chris
@Mike J: Um, no, that isn’t what she says in the thread.
Sab
@Yutsano: I didn’t know you are with the IRS. I do tax prep. I always tell my clients who hate the IRS that they should try dealing with Social Security, or Immigration, where the rules are opaque or secret. The IRS is trying to help us understand rules that, for the most part, they did not write.
I’ve been doing this since about 1985. I hate periods when there is no enforcement. Tax preparers should be trying to help the client be law abiding. Otherwise eventually we and they end up in trouble. It gets really difficult when there are years of non-enforcement. We say “you can’t, because IRS”, and they say “Huh?”
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Ah, I see. Asha Rangappa is a right wing #NeverTrumper. Like Tom Nichols.
schrodingers_cat
@chris: I have said many times that MSM covers politics like a fucking game. They are mostly on team R.
Corner Stone
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: You mean she denies climate change science?
Corner Stone
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: I read a barf inducing portrait in some rag that calls itself India Abroad, which hailed her as the real life Priyanka Chopra character in Quantico.
chris
@schrodingers_cat: From the thread. Maybe if we weren’t so team-oriented…
Brachiator
@chris:
chris
Guess no one read the thread. Oh well…
Corner Stone
@chris: She’s living in a pre-GOP world.
chris
@Corner Stone: Sure, doesn’t mean she’s wrong.
Corner Stone
@chris: She’s wrong.
chris
@Corner Stone: As you wish.