“[Pelosi’s] experience offers an irony & a warning: For women politicians to succeed, they must defeat & outmaneuver men. Yet the better at it they are, the more detested they become.” https://t.co/zaH30LGksc
— Sarah Lerner (@SarahLerner) March 16, 2018
I suspect that in some cases that bashing Dem leaders—esp when they’re women or minorities—has a modest benefit for GOP turnout. I suspect it costs the Dem zero votes. And if not Pelosi they’d demonize someone else https://t.co/w7LOMIU1ZH
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 16, 2018
The hiccup in all these stories about whether Pelosi is toxic and will destroy the Dem Party’s chances is this: GOP groups just spent $10m making that case in an R+11 district and… it didn’t work.
— Sam Stein (@samstein) March 15, 2018
.
*This* bullshit, again. Jonathan Chait, at NYMag, “Nancy Pelosi Is Good at Her Job and She Should Keep It”
… Would a different Democratic leader prove less of a liability? Probably for a while, yes. Republicans have spent years building up Pelosi as a hate figure, and a newer and less familiar Democratic leader would take longer for Republicans to promote as a target of fear and loathing. It’s also possible that a Democrat who was either from a less famously progressive locale than San Francisco, or not female, would be less threatening to some socially conservative voters. (The latter point is the most fraught: Do Democrats really want to let irrational fear of powerful women dictate their choice of leaders?) It is true, though, that deposing Pelosi would have at least a temporary messaging benefit in some tough districts this fall.
But the cost of throwing Pelosi over the side would be high. She has been an extraordinarily effective caucus leader. When Democrats last held the majority, she shepherded into law the most aggressive spate of liberal reforms since the Great Society: an $800 billion fiscal stimulus, health-care reform, Dodd-Frank….
Pelosi’s Democratic critics include both the left and right flanks of the party (which is itself a sign that she occupies its center). Attacks on her leadership try to simultaneously attack her as too moderate and too liberal, in an attempt to cobble together both irreconcilable strands. In part to cover up the incoherence of the criticism, the complaint is often expressed in vague generational terms. She is too old, and ought to give way to the new generation. (Whether this new generation will be more moderate or more liberal is a question that can be filled in as one desires.)
Yet there is zero sign Pelosi’s age has impeded her work. She has not lost her persuasive talents: Pelosi effectively rallied the party to unanimously oppose the Trump tax cuts. If some Democrats had supported the measure, Republicans could have touted its bipartisan nature, which would in turn help reduce its unpopularity. Instead the health care and tax cuts have been a millstone around Republican necks. (Republicans initially tried attacking Conor Lamb for opposing the tax cuts, but abandoned that message, a telling concession in a heavily Republican district.) Last month, Pelosi delivered an eight-hour speech defending the Dreamers, standing the entire time, in heels, without a break, a feat of stamina I could not have matched at any point in my life. It may have been a stunt to display her vitality, but it was a convincing one.
Replacing Pelosi as leader would create the ephemeral benefit of forcing Republicans to rotate in a new cast of villains to star in their attack ads — MS-13? hippies? antifa? — until they could build up the name-ID for her successor. It would bring the significant downside of firing an elected official who is extremely good at her extremely important job.
Serious question for the people who say she needs to go: who do you think would be as good (or nearly as good) at the job? https://t.co/Pc8m9QZP25
— Tom Hilton (@TVHilton) March 16, 2018
Who would be as good as Pelosi at enforcing discipline and keeping the party together? Who would be as good at getting bills to the floor & passed?
— Tom Hilton (@TVHilton) March 16, 2018
Probably 15 House Dems would answer “me.” Prob none who if Pelosi resigned tomorrow would have more than 5 votes confirmed by next Friday. https://t.co/eOJEN9Wxg3
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 16, 2018
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
rikyrah
They want to get rid of Nancy Smash. ….get the damn votes.
Until then…
STFU ?
Aleta
@rikyrah: Good morning. ?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Hahahha – He got shitcanned while sitting on the can.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@rikyrah: Morning!
NotMax
That such a headline, that such a story, is current in this day and age is yet another omen pointing to despair.
Tennessee legislators decline to pass resolution denouncing neo-Nazism
Betty Cracker
I was on media blackout for the past 12+ hours, so I’m just catching up on this McCabe thing. Jeebus. Rep. Swalwell brings the fire:
I like the cut of his jib…
danielx
@Betty Cracker:
From his lips to god’s ear.
gene108
@rikyrah:
Morning…
Newark Liberty Airport sucks balls, but they have a direct flight to San Francisco
They don’t have any signs for non-Precheck security from where I was dropped off. Oh well, got some extra steps in.
But they do have direct flights to San Francisco. Trade offs.
Aleta
@Betty Cracker:
Preet said
Once upon a time I thought Alberto Gonzales was the weakest and most craven Attorney General in modern times. I was wrong.
*
(To Tr gloating)
This is called lawsuit Exhibit A
*
Butt out. For once. For the country. For yourself too.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Have been sporadically trying to come up with a suitable bon mot using the title McCabe and Mr. Mueller as an homage of sorts to the Robert Altman film McCabe and Mrs. Miller but nothing has yet satisfactorily gelled.
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
Eric, tell us how you really feel…
Van Buren
I am wondering how dumping Nancy would help with the need to get more women to be active on our side. This train of thought leads me to believe that nobody who sincerely wishes the Democrats to succeed wants her gone.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?!
They’re so afraid that the first woman president may end up being Pelosi now that they knocked Hillary out of the ring. I hope their nightmare comes true.
satby
@Van Buren: exactly.
Derelict
I don’t get all the Pelosi hate, especially from Democrats. It’s like they have internalized all the Rightwing talking points about her. When I ask Democrats I know why Pelosi needs to go, the answer is always “because she’s hated.” By whom, I ask? “Well, everyone!”
No. Nancy Pelosi is hated and feared by Republicans because she’s supremely effective at her job. The fact that she’s managed to keep the House Democrats together as a block for the last 18 months with no defections is all the testimony you need on this.
I mean, think about that for a moment. She’s kept the Democrats together as a block.
Spanky
@Betty Cracker: Well he’s wrong, in that there are no studs in this administration.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
It is obvious that Nancy Pelosi is so loathed, hated, and demonized by the right because she is good at what she does. DEMs replacing her because of her status as the GOP’s favorite bogeyman of the moment is akin to the Patriots benching Tom Brady for a 5th round draft choice who’s been in the NFL for 2 years and thrown 3 regular season passes. OK, maybe that is a little unfair to Steny Hoyer, but there is nothing to say he is a lock to move up and no guarantee at all that he would be as effective.
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
More specifically.
PST
I have never talked to a Trump voter or other republican who could explain his hostility toward Pelosi in concrete terms. “Oh, she’s just awful,” they’ll say. No specific stands, or scandals, or character flaws — just a kind of received faith that she’s horrid. It’s nothing but the herd mind’s susceptibility to propaganda based on endless repetition. Have you ever seen anything as mindless as the anti-Lamb ads attacking Pelosi? The trick will be repeated with any leader, as was pointed out, so why let it screw with our heads? Nancy Smash belongs in the RBG pantheon of powerful older women we need to keep on keeping on.
Baud
@Derelict:
Do you recall the 2016 election? A lot of Dems are a sponge for right wing talking points.
lowtechcyclist
Firing McCabe has freed him up to tell his story, and he’s intensely motivated to do so, for obvious reasons. Trump’s gonna rue the day on this one.
And Nancy D’Alesandro* Pelosi, yeah, she’s the best. She even got a climate change bill through the House in 2009, with eight GOP votes even! People forget that because it died in the Senate due to the filibuster. (Which the Senate Dems shoulda had the guts to get rid of in January 2009. If they had, the whole landscape of the past nine years would have been different.)
*For all the ‘Nancy Pelosi = San Francisco liberal’ talk, never forget she grew up in a Baltimore political family.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Oh pleeeze oh pleeeze oh pleeeze oh pleeeze oh pleeeze ….
Quinerly
@rikyrah: Happy Saturday from Poco ? and his tribe of 2. Have a wonderful day. I’m going to try to take a break from all politics. Wearing me down….yet again.
Aunt Kathy
I adore Nancy Smash, but I do hope someone is being groomed in the background. In politics, I understand that the successor that you mentor would be the very one that stabs you in the back & walk over your body, but she IS up there in age, and if she were to get hit by a bus today, we need someone with the skillz ready to go.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: traveling lady, stay a while . . .
Elizabelle
Good morning, jackals.
Just heard about the McCabe firing. How petty and vindictive. I hope McCabe makes it hurt Sessions and Trump more. For one thing, couldn’t the administration push to have a lot of almost retiring senior servants terminated? Couldn’t this encourage falling into line? It is quite a corrupt practice.
Myself, I think we will see even more and more fervent voting by feds and those who work with them. Vote blue, all down the line.
Betty Cracker
Swalwell is on the House Intelligence Committee, so he’s seen the classified evidence. He blasted the GOP for prematurely shutting down the House probe into Trump-Russia:
Swalwell also excoriated Sessions for acting as Trump’s toady in the McCabe firing:
Awkward metaphor, but I agree with the sentiment.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: It gets lonely out on that rock in the middle of the Pacific.
Quinerly
A lot of back and forth on the night threads about McCabe’s pension and his upcoming 50th birthday…concise piece from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/16/politics/andrew-mccabe-pension-if-fired/
satby
So I got a new blowdryer, plugged it in to the wall outlet in the bathroom, and now my lights in there don’t work. If I play with the GFCI on the dryer the lights may come on, but they go out again. Obviously I need to have an electrician in to sort that out, but at the moment I have to wait until it’s light enough for me to take a shower ?
So annoying!
Elizabelle
And the cherry on the shit pie: McCabe was canned over press leaks? And it’s announced prematurely by Fox? That’s like a plot from the bad, bad movie we are living though.
Always projection with these fuckers.
Aunt Kathy
@PST: I would also like to see Dem voters start to challenge “Moderate” Dems on their Pelosi problem. If I were a PA-18 voter, I would have been happy to ask Conor Lamb, “As a lady voter, I’m asking exactly what is your problem with her? Please, be specific.” It’s a political ploy on rural Dems’ parts, and I have no patience for it.
Raven
@satby: isn’t the outlet GFCI?
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: It’s infuriating! Also, if I understand the allegations correctly, the “lock her up” crowd is saying McCabe and Comey deserved to be shit-canned for kneecapping Clinton! Mind-boggling.
satby
@Raven: no, just the plug on the dryer.
Edit: and basically a month almost to the day, I got over whatever that virus was. Glad you forewarned me, because it felt like it would never end.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
An entire life supporting republicans and this is what he gets.
He must feel like all those suckers who lost their life savings on Trump University..
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Clinton is the past. They are about protecting Trump now.
Baud
@Quinerly: I think people can relate to being fired just before your pension kicks in. Unless the evidence against McCabe is pretty solid, there’s going to be major blowback.
Quinerly
If you missed it, here’s McCabe’s statement last night: https://www.vox.com/2018/3/16/17132418/andrew-mccabe-statement
Gin & Tonic
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Leopards, faces, &c.
Gin & Tonic
CNN: OJ Simpson has a lot to say about Donald Trump and Colin Kaepernick
Me: Who the fuck cares?
Elizabelle
@satby: Virus is gone. Yea! Now, moar coffee before a shower once it’s light enough. (Or maybe lots of candles, scented or otherwise.)
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, too, to any O’Jackals out there.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:
To state the obvious, unplug the dryer. If that works, throw away the dryer and get a new one, this one’s fried. If that doesn’t work, you need a new GFI because this one got fried by the dryer. Then throw away the dryer and buy a new one cause this ones so crispy crittered it kills everything it comes into contact with.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic:
OzarkHillbilly
@Aunt Kathy:
It helps them to get elected. Do you have a problem with that?
Matt McIrvin
I understand Republicans hating Nancy Pelosi. What I don’t understand is Democrats, especially Democrats who consider themselves left of the party, calling for her head on the grounds that Republicans hate her. It’s as if they’ve internalized the opposite of Cleek’s Law.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Oh and when you get the new GFI outlet have them wire the lights around it, right now they are wired thru it.
Chyron HR
@Matt McIrvin:
Why isn’t she out there whipping votes for the health care bill that B*rnie hasn’t bothered to write yet?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: And of something truly egregious. People can relate to a molehill being turned into a mountain.
Quinerly
@Baud: You sound so sane and reasonable…dare I say, “presidential?” Poco gives your comment 4 paws up! (he’s lying on the bed, on his side, snoring and wiggling his paws in his sleep…Poco always dreams big…but I digress…..? ?)
Jeffro
Let’s go win the House in November for Democrats, not for/against Nancy Pelosi. She is surely last on the list of problems this country is facing at the moment.
Speaking of “problems facing the country” – here is what you get when you mainline Fox News all day long. I woke up this morning to this from my RWNJ dad. I guess firing McCabe is good for the wingnut soul?
He had copied in my “libertarian” brother, so my response was to tell bro that WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING – ALEX JONES HACKED DAD’S EMAIL ACCOUNT!
You have to laugh or you’ll cry…
Baud
@Jeffro: Maybe you’re adopted.
Frankensteinbeck
@Matt McIrvin:
I think 2016 demonstrates clearly that racism and sexism are thick on the Left. We certainly got overt misogyny from them here on Balloon Juice. The difference from Republicans is that they’re not so insane with it that they openly renounce their own material self interest. It’s the difference between “Will let the car run into a ditch rather than let minorities drive” and “Will drive the car deliberately into a ditch rather than let minorities ride at all.”
Lapassionara
@Baud: Let us hope so. My head is spinning, between the petty story about Tillerson (or maybe I should say potty story) and McCabe’s firing, I am losing confidence in the effectiveness of blowback.
Ramalama
@Aunt Kathy: I agree with needing a healthy backbench but if you get hit by a bus, you get hit by a bus whether or not you’re in your 30s or your 70s. A little less ageism. please. If the US of A is making people Pelosi’s age work jobs because their SS doesn’t cover living expenses, I’m looking at you, poultry plant workers, limo drivers, waitresses, then surely we can have a senior working in Congress. Especially one who is kicking everyone’s ass.
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: My sympathies. That is a lot of stupid, in one email. It’s so ugly.
oldgold
The question is not whether Pelosi has been a good leader. She has been.
The question is whether having Pelosi remain the leader makes it more or less likely that the Democrats achieve a majority in November’s election.
I think it is a question that informed individuals operating in good faith could legitimately have a different answer to.
JMG
I think I’ve posted this before, but the best legislative leaders are almost always unpopular with the public at large. Partisans of the other party hate their effectiveness. The bulk of the public dislikes the legislature in general, so its leaders are unpopular, too. Ryan’s favorability rating is the same as Pelosi’s. McConnell (also effective) has an even worse rating. It goes with the job.
Chyron HR
@oldgold:
Well, if you happen to know any, please send them over here to make your case for you.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
Morning to Poco and the tribe ??
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jeffro: Assume the reference to Adam Shiftless is to my Congresscritter, Rep. Schiff; please assure your father that we here in his district are really happy with his work.
Baud
@Lapassionara:
When you’re head starts spinning, go into a dark room, light a candle, close your eyes, and chant over and over, Tick Tock Motherfuckers.
JGabriel
I’m in my early – mid 50’s, and Pelosi is easily the best House Speaker / Dem. Minority Leader in my lifetime. One of the main reasons I haven’t be a big fan of Conor Lamb is his opposition to her (I’m glad he won, but only because he’ll obviously be better than any Republican that would fill the seat).
So, IMNSHO, Pelosi should be Speaker/Dem. Leader as long as she wants to, or if/when she proves to be ineffective at the job. Until then: NANCY SMASH FOREVAH!
Frankensteinbeck
@oldgold:
The problem is that once you get anywhere near that point, everyone with a bigotry axe to grind can shift into attacking the minority they hate. In 2018 I think the argument is toppled by how powerfully women and minorities have taken over the increase in enthusiasm and activism. Not only would it be morally wrong to bow to bigotry, it would be shooting ourselves in the foot to alienate them. I was surprised Lamb didn’t pay a price, but I admit we’ve seen that minorities are not dumb enough to think this is a game we can afford to sit out.
JGabriel
@oldgold:
I disagree. The question is whether any Democrat could be a more effective Dem. Leader in the House.
If someone who wants to replace Pelosi wouldn’t be more effective leading the House, then they aren’t going to be any more effective at getting us to a majority. And I posit that, at the moment, it’s unlikely anyone could be a more effective Democratic Leader than Pelosi.
Kay
It’s a media thing, though. I read Lamb’s campaign used Paul Ryan’s efforts to gut Social Security and Medicare effectively in his race although everyone in national media focused on Lamb saying he wasn’t taking Pelosi to the prom.
It can be done. They just have to stay focused. People love Social Security and Medicare and Paul Ryan wants to destroy those programs. Paul Ryan is also a sanctimonious prig who is a phony so that’s just sitting around waiting for someone to pick it up.
Pelosi doesn’t care if Lamb says he’s not a Pelosi Democrat. The whole “Pelosi Democrat” is a media invention anyway. Go back and look at what she had Democrats run on in 2006. It was 100% practical issues like health care and college help. In fact, she was way ahead of the curve in seeing the crisis in college affordability. Her “culture of corruption” framing in 2006 was also successful.
JPL
Who leaked the information to Fox news ahead of time? hmmm
JR
@Matt McIrvin: those guys are just trolls. They are less than worthless so don’t even pay them any heed.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I like the “storm gathering” myself.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: Orange Fart Cloud.
But her emails!!!
Nope. See Jeffro’s post. They’ve incorporated McCabe into the anti-Trump conspiracy. His spouse, connections to Mueller and Comey make him a deep state operative trying to take out Trump. His actions against Hillary have been reassigned to targeting Trump.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
I’m hoping for scathing satire on SNL tonight.
debbie
@satby:
No candles? Candlelight has worked for me in a pinch. Just don’t bend over the flame to see something better like I once did.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
Bookmark this for the inevitable “Why won’t the wussy Dems in Congress make a strong statement?!”
WereBear
The fact that Republicans vilify her is proof of her worth as a legislator. They have polarized the country to the point that they have all of their possible voters who would complain that Democrats are not “conservative enough.” No, we are not and we will never be.
I have always thought “but the Republicans will” is the weakest of all possible motives for change. They will scream about anything, including feeding starving children; ignore them.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
How long until Trump tweets he did this to protect Crooked Hillary?
Betty Cracker
Is there an electorally significant subset of people for whom Nancy Pelosi as House leader is a deal-breaker and vote-loser? I’m not talking about wingnut assholes like my neighbor down the street with a “Fire Pelosi” bumper sticker (nearly 3K miles from her district!). They weren’t ever going to vote for Democrats anyway. I’m talking about Democrats or independents who won’t support the party if Pelosi retains her leadership position. Never seen any data that suggests Pelosi harms the party more than she helps it.
debbie
@Jeffro:
I’m probably better off not speaking to my family at all. Emails like that would send me into a rage.
Quinerly
What the hell is wrong with people? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/03/16/turtle-euthanized-after-teacher-allegedly-feeds-puppy/433195002/
Betty Cracker
@But her emails!!!: This is one of the absurd wingnut conspiracy theories that falls apart upon the slightest scrutiny. The question is, will anyone with a big megaphone point out what a steaming load of horse shit it is. I mean, there’s a report and everything — sources can be cited.
debbie
@Kay:
The GOP is using this to say he’s really one of them.
Applejinx
I have to say I think of Pelosi as “I have to say, we’re capitalists, that’s just the way it is” when asked ‘how about a more stark contrast to right-wing economics’. That made a big impression in lefty circles. Two things about that: she followed it up rightly with “However, we do think that capitalism is not necessarily meeting the needs with the income inequality that we have in our country” to which I’d add a big Amen… and second, who else is even any different? They’re all millionaires or multimillionaires down to and including the Bird Saint of Vermont (I still love him and will keep him a Senator kthx, but might as well be realistic)
Maybe it’s like the kids being gunned down. “That’s just the way it is” is literally what Democrats say until the grassroots shake and rise, at which point it becomes ‘co-opt the energy at all costs’, and deny your past of doing any differently. Politicians gotta politic.
I would like to see Pelosi repudiate the ‘yay we’re capitalists, all hail Milton Friedman’ and accept a role providing a stark contrast to right-wing economics. Until that day, and as someone way too lefty for this crowd, I don’t see value in Pelosi being replaced. Challenged, sure, if only she could distinguish that from ‘russian-funded haters who are also racist’ which is the automatic reaction these days I guess. Challenged, yes, but replaced? Nah.
The only thing worse than a organized army of neoliberal scum governed by disciplined leadership that might (MIGHT) be able to interpret changes in the American experience but currently refuse to do so… is a disorganized rabble of neoliberal scum who still don’t recognize changes, so you have to get rid of all of them all while they grow steadily more right-wing and toxic. Keep Pelosi. (I also voted for Clinton, in the belief that she could see her self-interest in offering a stark contrast to right-wing economics, which never did quite happen… it was still ‘let’s try to win Republican soccer moms’ all the way down…)
Kay
I feel like the national crisis that is the Trump Administration is getting worse rather rapidly now. Picking up speed. It’s gotten worse every day he’s been in office but it’s not a smooth, consistent decline. There are dizzying interim drops along the steady downward direction. The difference between today and yesterday is Sessions. There’s no doubt now that he’s left Team USA and is on Team Trump. He chose. I think now we wait and see if Sessions abandoning his duties means the DOJ is gone as a “check”, as a practical matter. I know people hate to hear that but that is how it appears to me- that it just got measurably and profoundly crazier and more dangerous. I think part of why people hate to hear that is a LOT of people are invested in the idea that “the center will hold” – rightly invested in that!- but I never in my life took for granted that “the center would hold” so this isn’t that shocking to me. I knew it was fragile because “institutions” are just collections of people. That’s all they ever were.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
No.
Steeplejack
Only on Planet Democratic would the opponents’ hatred and fear of our leader be grounds for getting rid of her. SMH.
I don’t hear the Republicans talking about getting rid of Trump just because everybody hates him and they need to do a better job of reaching out to non-crazy voters.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Applejinx: What would you propose as an alternative to capitalism?
Kay
@debbie:
But that’s the national GOP and national media. In his district he was able to use Ryan to defend Soc Sec and Medicare. He could have gotten into some back and forth over The State of Conservatism and whether he’s a classical liberal or a Democrat or something, whatever they”re babbling about, but he didn’t. That’s what I mean by focus.
They have a limited time to get thru to voters – getting into some national “conversation” about the ideological status of the Democratic Party is a waste of time for them.
Jeffro
@Kay: you are correct things are speeding up and getting worse.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Lapassionara: It’s shitty what they did to Tillerson
Jeffro
@Baud: please FSM let it be so
Frankensteinbeck
@But her emails!!!:
As the email itself implies, as far as they’re concerned if you are not throwing Hillary in jail for her obvious crimes, you must be a wildly partisan liberal.
Omnes Omnibus
@oldgold:
Do you think that this issue affects any real person’s actual vote?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Voo Doo
Jeffro
@Elizabelle: when I have time later I might have to show you guys the response he sent back – White male supremacy is a hell of a drug I guess.
And after that last tidbit I told him that we may as well go back to not talking politics and quit kidding ourselves that there is any evidence of DJT’s guilt that his wingnut mind would accept. Fortunately, I have been reminding both my dad and brother every six months that Trumpov and his deeply corrupt administration have no bottom, and therefore question is, “what new low will you be defending six months from now?”
Eventually they will be rationalizing treason and/or tyranny, I have no doubt.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Good response.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: I think a lot of GOP voters lie about how they would vote for Dems if only Dems would change this or that, and a lot of the Dems take that at face value.
JPL
John Brennan is not a happy camper either
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/974993759137091585
Kay
@Jeffro:
I don’t like surprises so since he was elected I’ve had these thoughts about “what will it look like? What would be like A Warning Sign?” because I’m very conscious of the propensity for people to adopt a “new normal”- they change expectations in response to craziness. It won’t be like that though- it won’t be that easy and clear. It won’t be “when these 3 events occur then you should get worried” because it’s really going to be determined by the individual character of individual people. That’s where the rapid drops come in- you get a failure like Sessions folding and you drop a couple floors. If Sessions had held the line there wouldn’t be a drop. I knew he would fail- I considered his failure as just a matter of time but still when you see it you get a little frisson ‘o fear- “the attorney general is gone!” :)
hueyplong
Having the country natter incessantly about Nancy Pelosi is a major goal of the GOP right now.
Just saying.
So let’s stop doing it.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
Is your father clinically insane? Because his e-mail screed about Hitlary, Lynch, Rice, unmasking, gremlins, The (boogity-boogity-BOO!!!) Deep State, giant lizard people, etc., looks like the ravings of someone completely divorced from reality.
I realize it’s par for the course from Foxbots, however.
Baud
@hueyplong: Agreed. Let us speak of this no more.
OzarkHillbilly
@Frankensteinbeck: That’s because everyone knows Crooked Hillary is guilty… of something just not sure exactly what. It took 24 years but the RW Smear machine did it’s job rather well and in the end succeeded.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: That is what they believe, but they don’t get to simultaneously claim that Comey and McCabe were fired for bias against Trump when the wrongdoing for which they’re on the hook was bias against Clinton. Well, they CAN, obviously, but not with any logical coherence.
Trump is on record claiming Comey was fired because he treated Clinton “very unfairly.” It’s one one thing for deranged, Fox-huffing wingnuts to pretend that didn’t happen, but I’m seeing distressing signs that the Fox framing has gone mainstream.
SFAW
@JPL:
Not while Rethuglicans have all/most of the power.
Gotta keep working for the Bluenami.
WereBear
It was a major factor in my leaving corporate life. I saw all kinds of people being fired on pallid excuses right before being “vested.”
You put up with the crap for the benefits. If they won’t be there, what is the point?
Applejinx
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m not going to stick around for long, Bill, as it’s distracting and some posters flip out and try to get me banned and shit (or at least shunned by all right thinking individuals?). That’s also why I’d better not get long-winded (I type real quick!)
I think market capitalism is a terrific way to avoid having to do state-controlled organization of businesses, goods and services. You don’t have to go all Stalin or Central Committee, in fact that’s bad: central organizers will not have the imagination one discovers in blind market forces. You don’t have to put organizational energy into a market, or pay people to run it so long as you police its worst abuses (such as with FDA and so on)
However, this will not produce a society. The only thing wrong with how Democrats interact with market capitalism, is that they believe along with rightwingers that a market will produce an ideal society without outside input. It’s simply and self-evidently not true, and probably the best way to fix it is to seize a bunch of money with a wealth tax (ditch income tax if you like! It’s good for capital to be moving but very bad for it to pile up) and then redistribute it as unthinkingly as possible to all citizens, much like they get an ‘economic vote’ as well as their political one. It might be a rather substantial amount, would drastically increase buying power among citizens, and that opens up opportunity to use that ‘limited free-market’ system both as a seller to others, and as a consumer.
Do free healthcare and free college, and it would be incredibly enticing to become an entrepreneur. You would have customers. Every time conditions have been this way, we got something like the computer industry, or the automobile industry.
JPL
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Tillerson was further punished by Kelly, because Tillerson had the audacity to say he worried about our country.
Chyron HR
@Applejinx:
Your alleged messiah does the NRA’s bidding FOR FREE.
Just saying.
MomSense
Anyone else remember all those ads in 2010 with Dem candidate X voted with Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank 99% of the time with a bad picture of Nancy and Barney?
This whole thing is the Republicans playing up on who their base base hates and fears. Don’t pay any attention to them. Arguing about all of this nonsense only takes our focus and energy away from voter registration and voter persuasion. There are more of us and we are more motivated. Nancy doesn’t care if D candidates run against her and promise to rein her in. And once elected she will know exactly which votes the Blue Dogs cannot take for their district and work around them. She’s a pro. In some of these R + districts loyal Dems will realize that their vote for the Blue Dog is a vote for Speaker Pelosi.
My 2018 motto is Win First.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: No, it hasn’t succeeded, they want Hillary either in jail or dead.
OzarkHillbilly
I await the finding of prosecutorial misconduct in 3… 2… Never.
raven
@Applejinx: Fuck off nazi cocksucker.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: You are incredibly stupid. The problem with Pelosi is that she’s too conservative? What the fuck is in your head where a brain should be? Pudding?
Kay
@MomSense:
Pelosi (allegedly!) used to call Blue Dogs her “majority makers” which just cracks me up because it’s so much like a boss.
A political boss. Which is what she is. It’s not something to be ashamed of. They misread her. She leaves the pondering on direction or Who is a Real Democrat to others- I don’t think it interests her- it’s not what she’s good at and it’s not her job.
JPL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: yup!
Applejinx
@Chyron HR: He’ll change, he’s a politican. He’s still saying the things about billionaires that matter to me and that won’t change, but he will deny he ever knew the NRA, and is already covering up his past misdeeds (bear in mind Vermont’s tiny and full of hunters and deer: not really the same as big urban areas)
I was actually thinking of my Senator when I said that, though of course he’s not a Dem. They all act like this. I’m interested in the distinctions between them, and in the issues which most concern me (in fairness, even as a Vermonter, gun support is becoming a dealbreaker, so my Senator is having his come to Jesus moment just in time: he’d have been able to lose me if he stuck to making excuses for guns, but I’m pretty sure he’ll claim enlightenment and tone it right down)
ok, the typical Balloon Juice reception committee arrived. have fun playing in the swamp, laters.
Elizabelle
May I remind that, this time next week, Juicers and others will be turning out to support the valiant under 21 set as they march for gun safety. We are going to be huge in numbers, and we are going to roar.
And, of course, the MSM has the possible Stormy Daniels interview on Sunday night to obsess over. Because they know what’s important.
But, even as it gathers steam (as Kay pointed out above), we the people can battle back against the antidemocratic powers that be. And we do.
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: No, they don’t. If they got that they couldn’t keep screaming ” BUT, HILLARY!!!!!” They want their base foaming at the mouth and as long as she isn’t prosecuted they can continue to hold her up as the height of corruption every time trump does anything at all.
A dead bogeyman is…. well, dead.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
Lying about who you vote for and why is a great American tradition, and comes up a lot as the major obstacle to political studies.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Applejinx: Markets are not designed to produce an ideal society, markets simply produce a price that provide signals to producers and consumers. This generally produces and efficient outcome, however efficiency may not be optimal to a society at large so you might need regulation(consumer and antitrust) to prevent market failure and recognize that in some markets the market could produce non-optimal outcomes(education and health care). That’s not rejecting capitalism.
Jeffro
@JPL: that’s some kind of salvo there…holy cow
Kay
@Applejinx:
I don’t understand why you don’t get the idea of a division of duties. Pelosi is a legislative leader. She is in charge of getting a majority and holding them together and passing legislation. That’s her job. She’s not in charge of big picture ideological direction. This idea you have that current Democratic officeholders make it impossible for some other, Leftier notion of the Democratic Party to be somehow imagined is just strange. She controls our thoughts? WTF is that?
Put forward your theory. That’s not her area.
Chyron HR
@Applejinx:
When’s Messiah Bernie going to sit those silly kids down and explain to them that only blacks need gun control, because white people use their guns for hunting?
FlipYrWhig
The reason why wannabe lefties dislike Pelosi is “something something Establishment.” They’re not that bright.
stinger
If they replace Nancy Smash!, before she’s ready to go, with some generic white male, a lot of women are going to be pretty pissed off at the Democrats. This is slowly becoming a new country and a new party, and the leadership had better reflect that. They’d better remember, too, the millions of pink-hatted people who turned out to march, a large of number of whom then filed their own candidacies, and think hard about just how “unpopular” Pelosi is among the people who are surging toward the polls in all these special elections, and who will be again in the fall.
Now I’ll go back and read 100+ comments and see who else has already said that.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly:
There’s always zombies.
Lyrebird
@rikyrah:
Quoted For Truth.
The rabid right makes attack ads featuring Pelosi (may she get her gavel back SOON) because she is so flipping effective. I hope that many in the Dem caucus are training themselves to become the next generation of leaders, but ya don’t do that by whining to the misogynistic press and trying to appease haters.
GO NANCY GO!
Lyrebird
@stinger: Hey, some things bear repeating! Nicely put!
PPCLI
No doubt the Republicans exploit the fact that Pelosi is a strong older woman and from San Francisco, but as Dana Houle pointed out in a different tweet, the Republican hate machine managed to demonize an innocuous white North Dakotan air force vet Tom Daschle, for heavens sake. It doesn’t matter who the leader is, after Republicans + Fox News + Sinclair are done with him/her (repeated and amplified by clueless MSM’ers talking about the “controversial leader xx”), there will be a chunk of the population that accept it as obvious that the mere mention of that Satanic Demon-rat leader is reason to get angry: Just repeat over and over and over and over again that the person is awful, without indicating why.
So we might as well stick with the leader who has proven effective, since we’ll have a leader reflexively loathed by the deplorables no matter what.
Dog Mom
Good Morning and Happy St Patricks day to all! Enjoy it! In regards to Western NY meet ups, the suggestions are: Rochester – Tap and Mallet (South Wedge) – Wednesday, 3/28 – 5:30
and Buffalo – Founding Fathers – Wednesday, April 4 – 5:30
Barring crazy weather or crazy life, I plan to go to both. Don’t feel limited by geography if you are able to make one or the other or even both.
If you have other comments or suggestions, you can go back to the old thread linked below.
It would be good to have a count of folks, so that we have an idea who to look for. I will confirm we are coming with the Pubs prior to those dates.
I will also ask Anne Laurie to put up a new thread at her convenience.
Link to the old thread
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: He doesn’t have a theory. He is a crank. He half-absorbs incredible nonsense from bathing in a stream of faux-left idiocy and periodically belches out half-formed thoughts.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: Yup, I always see comments like “Why didn’t Nancy or Chuck scream about this or that”; you’re right, it’s not their job.
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Heh, yeah but “they move kinda slow.” (from Night of the Living Dead)
Ed 4 spelling
Matt McIrvin
@Ramalama: Where you get a healthy backbench is to have a blue wave. Especially, a blue wave in the states. Members of Congress need to come from somewhere.
MomSense
@Kay:
I loved it when her response to why Democrats should keep her as leader was to say that she is a master legislator and worth the trouble. It sent a bunch of men to the fainting couches and that was a bonus for me.
Dems are going to run on education, health care, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and fairness. The election is not going to be won or lost on Nancy Pelosi.
Everyone needs to buckle up because the Russian active measures are going to be worse than in 2016. Eyes on the prize. We all need to work our local and district elections like our lives depend on it. They do.
Ok I’m heading out to the farmers market and then to a St. Patrick’s Day parade. My dad tells me that one of the 12 marching bands is absolutely amazing and that I am going to lose it when I see them.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
They have really gotten to me. I like kids, not all of them, some of them are horrible, but in general I like them so I was primed to like these ones. I was looking last night at some of the vid of their protests and it’s just pure joy. There is video of a Brooklyn high school that went out. They’re out on a city street and they catch sight of a elementary school group across the street who are just heading out and they start cheering on the little kids. The little kids are thrilled that the high schoolers are noticing them but they’re being strictly reined in by teachers- they’re in a line- but they stop walking, break out of the line, and start cheering back. I watched it like 5 times.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: can you give a link?
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig:
Boy that sure is the official word on me. Let that be a lesson to the others, eh? God forbid anybody should have an economic narrative half an inch to the left of the richest and most powerful Democratic operative in the House.
Seems suspiciously like Democrats aren’t allowed to even talk about an economic narrative at all. I would just draw attention to the difference in tone here, and the coordinated response. Half a fucking year I just lurk, because I’m tired of this shit, peek back out for a moment for a brief window of decent and reasonable discussion, and wham.
Not a very good place, this. Certain topics get a reflex action, and this is actually not great for the Democratic Party going forward. What if all those shot-at kids suggest they’d also like a stark contrast with right-wing economics? What’re you going to do, shoot ’em?
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
GOS has the video. Be warned though, it can cause flash flooding in your eyes.
Baud
@Kay:
I would like this to be a rotating tagline, please.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I’d love to see that video.
And it’s great to see kids step up and be committed. On such an important issue. A lot of kids are natural idealists, and it’s good to see these kids, making a big difference, before they get taught
learnedpaid-for helplessness.OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: thanx,
Baud
@Applejinx:
FWIW, it’s the people, not the topic.
Jeffro
@SFAW: insane or Fox-addled…who can tell the difference anymore?
MomSense
@Applejinx:
Have you considered that your characterizations of what Democrats believe are not only incorrect but insulting?
I don’t know a single Democrat who thinks market capitalism can create an ideal society. Our party platform and every elected official thinks we need to regulate markets and regulate companies. Most of us see the benefits in a hybrid economy (we already have one) and we would like to expand it.
You keep coming here and telling us who we are and what we believe but you don’t really know the first thing about us.
Matt McIrvin
Reading this old Balloon Juice thread from 2012 on why John Cole switched parties, it strikes me that about 75% of the comments were actually about how shitty and wimpy Democrats were, what a shitty President Obama was, and there was one guy just going on about a bad leftist John Cole was. Things have changed around here, like it or not.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: not finding it.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: Feel free to take longer before resurfacing next time. Like a lot longer. Geological kinds of time would be just swell.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
When someone like Trump gets elected president, things should change.
That said, I moved here from Kos in 2010 because this place didn’t hate Democrats.
Applejinx
oh: Kay, Bill, I actually fully agree with both of you (division of labor/markets should not be expected to do more than price signaling). Didn’t mean otherwise, and in fact I read Pelosi’s wikipedia article (fact checking my remark that she was richest Dem in the house and almost in all of Congress), and it only confirms that Pelosi is good and worth keeping in her job. Go Pelosi.
Unfortunately it won’t be possible to continue this discussion without certain posters going to a LOT of effort to say stuff in a very different tone, for personal attacks, and the way Balloon Juice apparently works, it’s allowed to harass certain people off the blog with personal attacks and generally try to create the impression of a horde of Freepers. Since that sucks, I can’t really justify trying to stick around even to talk civilly, because it will only trigger this behavior. I think the behavior reflects very poorly on Balloon Juice, but then if I was that impressed by this crew, maybe my opinion on certain topics wouldn’t have diverged from the party line. And if it hadn’t, I might never have known how much like Freepers some folks could become… and how willingly other folks would go along with it.
Yay Pelosi, tick tock for Mueller, and for the love of God don’t set up go-fund-mes for career spooks worth ten million dollars, OK? He doesn’t need your money, and it makes ya look kind of like you can’t determine who needs go-fund-mes and who really really doesn’t. Cheers :)
Betty Cracker
@MomSense:
Nope. Some people here are mean to him (for no reason whatsoever, one presumes), so if he calls us a bunch of neo-liberal shills who center white Republican suburbanite women’s issues and implies we would advocate the gun murder of schoolchildren if their economic views diverged from ours, we’re supposed to believe that’s good faith criticism and shaddup about it. I’m with Flip — a geological age schedule of visits sounds ideal.
Applejinx
@Betty Cracker: Want my vote, for Democrats? Settle the hell down. We used to be able to snark here. Guess things change.
I’m rereading the 2012 BJ post. Man, this place did change. I guess that’s inevitable, especially in ‘geologic time’.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: I love this. “Hi everyone! The reason *I* don’t like Nancy Pelosi is that she’s filthy rich and loves capitalism like all of you.” Time passes. “Uh, it turns out I was utterly wrong, again, despite obvious facts easily available to me before flapping my lips, but why are you so MEAN about it?”
JGabriel
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Hard to feel sorry for the guy when he decimated the State Dept. in a similarly shitty manner.
Anotherlurker
@Raven: Unplug the hairdryer. Then try the lights. I suspect the short is in the appliance.
Just One More Canuck
@Applejinx: there’s no ‘co-ordinated response’, it’s simply the ability of people to know bullshit when they see it
MisterForkbeard
@Applejinx: “For a brief window of reasonable discussion” in which you called Pelosi and similar Democrats “neoliberal scum”.
I mean , maybe you should acquaint yourself with Pelosi’s politics or what neoliberal actually means before you start your self righteous defense.
Chyron HR
@Applejinx:
Hey, wow, something big happens in the news and multiple cranks magically reappear on the same day after being gone for months! Definitely you’re the one should accuse other people of engaging in a “coordinated response”
stinger
@Applejinx:
You never do. You flit in, drop a big stinky turd, and flit out again complaining that not everyone likes the smell.
Hope you like pie; I do.
stinger
BTW, the only reason I didn’t pie ITookAnEconClassOnce sooner is because all the great replies get pied too. I can read those independently, though.
jefft452
@Applejinx: “Want my vote, for Democrats?”
Not really, no
Chyron HR
@Applejinx:
Protip: On election day 2016 the alleged “left” demonstrated that they will NEVER vote for a Democrat, no matter how dire the consequences. Any possible leverage you could have had within the Democratic party was pissed away in a fit of pique. Bye, Susan.
jefft452
@Applejinx: “noooo body knows the trouble I’ve seen
nobody knows my sorrow”
Chip Daniels
It just amazes me, the idiocy of those suggesting that we Dems only put forward a leader that the Republicans find acceptable.
The fact that Pelosi is hated because she is effective makes her “divisive” nature a plus, not a drawback.
I shudder to think of what sort of Democrat the Fox News crowd would find congenial and easy to get along with.
A zombie George Wallace, maybe?
SFAW
@Jeffro:
Need a corollary to Poe’s Law.
My condolences, by the way.
Jeffro
@SFAW: ?
oldgold
This election is about turning 23 districts that for the past 4 House election cycles have been Republican to Democratic.
It is through that lens one needs to consider if Pelosi is a net plus or minus this fall.
Librarian
Actually, Rachel said last night that the Tillerson on toilet story is a lie, made to reinforce the myth that he knew he was going to be fired for a long time, when actually it was a surprise.
SFAW
@Applejinx:
Don’t you ever get tired of all your “oh woe is me!! You Juicers are all mean to any poor soul who tries to speak truth to something something” whining?
And as far as the “Demonrat capitalists are EXACTLY THE SAME as Rethugs on economics” [which you ever-so-primly put forth as “not providing a stark contrast to right-wing economics,” more or less]: that is what my father used to call “unmitigated bullshit.” As another commenter noted: Nancy Pelosi is an implementer and field marshal (for lack of a better term), not the platform author.
The only party that has attempted to do any serious regulation of so-called “unfettered capitalism” has been the Democrats — when they’ve been able to do so. Did all the Dems just say “fuck you, Nancy!” and get it passed by overriding her objections?
But thank FSM Bernie is here to make pronouncements, especially because his list of legislative accomplishments is getting to “Voyna y Mir” length, and who has time to read about all of them?
SFAW
@Applejinx:
Oh, grow the fuck up. I’d tell you to read “Your Mumia Sweatshirt …” but you wouldn’t get the point.
SFAW
@stinger:
I could use your rationale to claim that’s why I don’t pie people — no one, not even the usual suspects — but that would be bullshit. I’m just too damn lazy. But I really do like your reasoning.
Applejinx
Balloon Juice, Ten Years Ago (bookmarklet)
The code:
sukabi
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Maddow yesterday had a bit where she posited that Kelly’s toilet story was actually a diversion to cover up that Tillerson had no previous conversation with anyone about his firing. Which is why the guy that backed up Tillerson’s version got canned as well.
Citizen Alan
@Jeffro:
Everyday, I give thanks to God almighty that neither my 82 year old mother nor my late father ever spent a minute of their lives watching Fox News. It would break my heart if they had either of them been driven insane the way so many senior citizens in this country have been by that evil organization. And it would also have broken my heart to have had to cut either of them out of my life, which I absolutely would have done had they become RWNJs who spent all their time sending me long deranged propaganda pieces on Facebook.
fuckwit
@Frankensteinbeck: its obvious what “everyone’s” problem with pelosi is: she has tits. well, too fucking bad.
Citizen Alan
@Applejinx:
Do me a favor. Go back and read some of your comments to this blog in the summer and fall of 2016. Then go back and read what you just wrote. Then ask yourself honestly: “would the Applejinks of 2016 think that the Applejinks of 2018 was a neoliberal shill?”
Elizabelle
@fuckwit: My guess is that McConnell has tits, too.
Lower, my friend.
Ruckus
I think a lot of this is that a lot of people have no clue about leadership. Money doesn’t make a leader, although a lot of people will follow money. A dick doesn’t make a leader, although a lot of people will follow a dick. A leader is a person who can persuade you to do something you might not otherwise. It isn’t a person who brow beats you into that, it isn’t someone who beats you into that. It’s a person who can show you what and why something is important and how to do it best. Bobby Knight was a great basketball coach, in that he got results. But he was a horrible leader because he was a bully doing it. For people that respect results over leadership, he was great. For people that understand leadership, not so much.
Nancy P is a leader. Her gender is irrelevant. Her knowledge of how the house works, of how the politics are done, of how the sausage is made, is all first rate. Her knowledge of how to lead is even better. She doesn’t use brute force, she uses knowledge and, well leadership, not bullying, to get the job done.
We are lucky to have her and we should remain that lucky for as long as she is capable.
I’ve met a few natural leaders in my days, as most of us have. You want to follow them because they know what they are doing and importantly they care about you. You find these folks in odd places, places you don’t expect, these leaders. You find them when you aren’t looking because they don’t force you to look at them. And a leader can be someone who isn’t necessarily the best at a particular task but can get you to be your best.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Moobs?
Ruckus
@hueyplong:
This.
Republicans know their policies fuck over their constituents, they don’t care. As long as they can make dems the bad guys/gals, they can win or at least think they can win office and continue to fuck over everyone but their owners. Nancy is, right now, the leading dem. She has control over her side of the house and is gaining more with every special election. She stands to crush them after November as it is looking now. Of course they are going to demonize her.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
Insane or fox addled.
Is there a difference? Because I don’t see one.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and getting worse results. I show you drumpf and his entire maladministration. After shrub, who I considered among the worst 5 presidents. drumpf has blown all 5 of those out of the running as he is at least 5 times worse than all of them together. Insanity has taken over half our politics.
J R in WV
@satby:
Satby, I think your new blow-dryer is probably defective. Unplug it, reset your GFI circuit and/or circuit-breaker and see if that doesn’t fix things. If it does, just take the new defective dryer back and get a different brand. Electricians are necessary sometimes, but not necessarily for a defective device.