There are four living ex-presidents. President Trump says "some of them" have told him we should have built a border wall in the past. pic.twitter.com/ReFDDlmKmp
— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) January 4, 2019
If you’re old & cynical like me, you remember the Watergate-era rumors about a drunken Nixon talking to the presidential portraits in a darkened Oval Office. Donald Trump doesn’t even drink, but apparently he’s taken the paranoia to the next level…
Trump claims other presidents told him they wanted a wall. Even Reagan didn't want a wall. Cannot fathom who he is talking about. @realDonaldTrump
— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) January 4, 2019
With so many of them, it'll be tough to nail this down https://t.co/WmUStYVWvk
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 4, 2019
Vladimir Putin and the ghost of Andrew Jackson. https://t.co/Aual5UmbqF
— Schooley (@Rschooley) January 4, 2019
$50 says if he’s ever pressed about this Trump will name George H.W. Bush because since he died he can’t rebut it anymore. https://t.co/AEIp3ot63G
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) January 4, 2019
Srsly, GOP dudes, this is Not A Good Lewk…
Top Trump aides tell the Post that the president is irritated by reports of GOP offers and knows Dems see the offers as a sign of weakness. So, the stalemate continues even as the VP huddles. https://t.co/6EBhJtBies
— Robert Costa (@costareports) January 5, 2019
It really feels like Pelosi should cut out the middle-man and open direct negotiations with the cast of Fox & Friends to find out what kind of face-saving “border security” fudge they’d go for.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) January 5, 2019
Donald Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, lost the House in 2018, and his big idea now is to double down on an unpopular policy by forcing an extended government shutdown.
There's this belief out there that Trump's political instincts are gold. They're not.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) January 4, 2019
Mary G
I’m not sure if this is a victory lap or the opening for a presidential campaign, but it’s very well done, even if, as he tends to do, it goes on way too long:
A Twitler vs Moonbeam deathmatch is strangely appealing, but he is just too old.
rikyrah
There are 4 former Presidents.
3 are Democrats.
????
Van Buren
Trump would have to name the time and place Bush Sr. told him that he should have built a wall.
The idea that 42% of Americans still support this psychopath ought to alarm the rest of the world.
Frankensteinbeck
Trump has already corrected and said he didn’t mean American presidents.
Brachiator
Trump is a liar, a fraud and a cowardly con man. One of his go to moves when criticized is either to deny responsibility or to falsely claim that other people agree with him.
He has been working this shit overtime with respect to the wall and the shutdown.
Mike in DC
At some point sheer political panic is going to push Republicans to pass a clean CR. The shutdown is going to cause increasing pain with each passing week. At some point it will be their voters ox getting gored. And as a matter of principle, you certainly don’t pay the ransom for the hostage while getting nothing in return.
Dems should stick to their guns for up to 3 months, then offer 2 billion in generic border security in exchange for a DACA extension (and no family separation) that stretches to the end of 45’s first term.
clay
@rikyrah: And the fourth is a Republican who, for all his many faults, tried to make his party more open to non-white, non-Christian people.
Funny how the people who actually live near the border are less likely to wet their pants over the scary brown horde.
patrick II
Presidents Putin, Kim, and Erdoğan all agree.
Ruckus
It’s like every other thing that’s gold about him, it’s spray paint from the dollar store. But spray painting his political instincts has back fired upon him, because huffing cheap spray paint has turned his tiny, malfunctioning brain into even less effective mush. And it won’t get any better.
hells littlest angel
A Grand Dragon is like a president, almost.
MisterForkbeard
I mean, the sum total of Trump’s political instincts are “be racist”, “own libs”, and “never apologize for anything ever”. That’s great for Republicans, but is pretty limited with everyone else.
Brachiator
@Mary G:
Jerry Brown, and his family, have devoted their lives to making California a state of promise and opportunity.
And Brown has had a hell of a second act in politics. He leaves a hell of a legacy, and I applaud him for all that he has done.
I don’t know if he is going to retire from all politics, but he has certainly earned a rest.
dmsilev
From that Post story,
Trump could “capture the attention of the political world” by entering into a fugue state, stripping naked, and going for a walk down Pennsylvania Avenue while reciting a soliloquy from Macbeth, but few beyond drama critics with very perverse fetishes would describe that as “a win”. In terms of who actually has the stronger negotiating position, I will simply note that there are Republicans (in both the House and the Senate) who are publicly in favor of the Democrats’ position, but there don’t seem to be any people in the reverse position.
Corner Stone
Just wanted to say that I have no idea how the news did it, but 90% of the furloughed govt workers they have interviewed all said some variation of, “Well, if it wasn’t hurting me specifically, I would be all for the wall. But since it’s going to touch me or my family then Congress needs to find a way to settle this now.”
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Frankensteinbeck:
Vlad: “Donald, you should build that wall. It totally won’t cause internal political strife or bankrupt your great country. It will show off your manliness.”
Trump: “Oh Vlady baby, you always know what to say to me.”
Brachiator
@MisterForkbeard:
Trump has been a Democrat, an Independent, and a Republican. He has always been an asshole.
chris
Is there an economic formula that shows how many people are directly or indirectly affected by the loss of 800,000 government paycheques? It’s got to be at least ten, ie. 8,000,000 people, and maybe as high as 50-100. That’s a big hole in the employment numbers and the ballyhooed GDP.
sukabi
Drumpf says he doesn’t drink. Drumpf lies about EVERYTHING.
It’s only a matter of time till he’s stumbling around the WH lawn in his underwear ranting about his fucking wall.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Jerry will continue supporting his key issues (climate especially) while scrupulously staying out of Gav’s way. He now has time and doubtless feels encouraged to poke at Donny, which we can all agree will be awesome.
But, imagine how great California would be if only Meg Whitman had won?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Brachiator:
At his core, I think he has always been an authoritarian as well; he can’t stand when he doesn’t get his way and attempts to go after those he sees as opposing him, with bullying, abusive rhetoric. Of course, most authoritarians tend to be assholes, anyway.
sukabi
@Corner Stone: they’re either paid actors, the speed dial nazis they’ve interviewed endlessly over the last 2 years or some WH interns that have been promised a huge off book payday to play furloughed govt. employees.
Capri
If Trump really did hear from an ex-president, it would be the first time he wasn’t lying through his teeth. The fact anyone in the media is spending a second on speculating who it might be rather than immediately dismissing the statement is disturbing.
Ken
@Frankensteinbeck: I’m old enough to remember when Republicans criticized presidents for listening to the opinions of foreigners. Of course so’s my five-year-old niece.
trollhattan
@sukabi:
Snorting Adder all is technically not drinking.
p.s. Add that drug to the FyWP naughty not nice list. Fuckers.
A Ghost To Most
Presidents of the NRA, Liberty U., Southern Baptist Convention, …
Impeach the motherfucker already.
Mary G
@Brachiator: That video had me weepy by the end. When you put it all together from how much danger the state faced in 2009, through all the laws and vetos and sheer hard work he put in persuading people, to where he’s saying that if Twitler takes down the weather satellites, California will put up their own damn satellites, it is impressive as fuck.
Brachiator
@dmsilev:
Trump’s powers of denial are central to his psychological sell-image.
Very true. But the Republican leadership is demanding that everyone stay on message and support Trump.
The dilemma for the GOP is to find a compromise that also soothes Trump’s fragile ego.
chris
Pro tip: Stock up on snacks and beverages, beanball is over. Thompson’s, um… blunt letter attached to tweet.
RepubAnon
Satire, or prediction?
FlipYrWhig
@dmsilev: There’s something profoundly broken about a guy who takes this much pride in the proposition that people who already like him… continue to like him. But it’s just like his rally fixation. He appears to genuinely believe that if the carefully-selected people he sees like and cheer for him that everyone (who matters) likes and cheers for him.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Corner Stone:
It’s almost like it’s deliberate, isn’t it? Why can’t the President, who’s fault this is, be the one to be demanded to compromise?
After all, 69% of Americans don’t believe the border wall is a priority
Over 50% of those surveyed don’t even think that the border wall should be a priority at all. So the pressure to end the shutdown should be all on Trump. He, and McConnell, are the real blocks to progress.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@chris: IMHO, Nielsen belongs at the Hague.
evodevo
@Mike in DC: Sounds like a good strategy to me … be nice if the Dems could do this…
Mr Stagger Lee
So now it is Bloomberg, doing stories about the Trump voter and it is rural Clay County Kentucky, where there are large numbers of residents on food stamps. And how the shutdown will kick that backside. Maybe Jeeeeezzzzzuuuss will fly down and spew golden fairy dust on the Rubes and Boobs.
Cowboy Diva
@dmsilev:
You win today’s internet.
khead
@sukabi:
Nah, they are legit. You’d be surprised how many of these people there are working for Uncle Sam. In my office it’s wannabe Tech Bros and other (mostly older) white guys.
Yarrow
Related to Trump’s personality “issues,” this is a good thread on Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Burnspbesq
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Dick Cheney did Nielsen a solid by ensuring that the Senate never got to vote on ratifying the Rome Statute.
Burnspbesq
@Mary G:
MSNBC should give Jerry an hour once a week. That would be appointment teevee.
Kathleen
@Mr Stagger Lee: I’m sure Mitch McConnell will get right on that.
Patricia Kayden
Ezra Klein:
Only his deplorables believe that Trump’s political instincts are gold. We need to stop speaking as if they represent a majority of Americans.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Burnspbesq:
Don’t forget the Invasion of the Hague Act of 2002. That should be repealed pronto the next time Dems get unified control over the government.
Kathleen
I’m sure Mitch McConnell will jump right on that.
Aleta
Two days ago a request was delivered to the DOJ to investigate Ivanka’s involvement in a program that benefits Kushner. Yesterday Mueller’s federal grand jury was extended instead of expiring this weekend — 6 more months to investigate and potentially indict.
Years of shutdown, commandeering the DOD–Trump doesn’t gaf what he says. I hope he’s seeing the walls of Attica closing in whenever he tries to sleep.
raven
@Aleta: Attica means, FIGHT BACK!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@raven:
Yup, even if it means destroying the country in a flailing effort to avoid facing consequences for the first time in his life.
Baud
That’s funny. All the ex- presidents have told me that they think the Wall is stupid and Trump is a poopooh head.
I wonder who’s lying.
tobie
@Burnspbesq: Agreed. I heard Jerry Brown the other night talking about what he would do to tackle climate change and immediately thought he should run for President. A regular TV show is a potential compromise.
In 1992 friends and I in Berkeley tried to form a Draft Brown movement. It didn’t get off the ground but we had tons of fun taking famous Presidential speeches and modifying them to convince Brown to run in letters.
James E Powell
@Patricia Kayden:
It’s not just his cult members, an fairly large portion of the press/media have been going all Revelations 13:4 since Nov 2016.
Gex
@Corner Stone: They use the same rolodex they use to find all the white nationalists we’re supposed to sympathize with and the farmers who seem not to mind their crops rotting in silos.
Mary G
@Burnspbesq: I’d pay to see that. @tobie: The part in the video where he’s talking to people mostly off-scene and starts yelling “I’m not here about some cockamamie legacy that people talk about! This isn’t for me! I’ll be dead! It’s for you, and it’s damn real” got me cheering. I’m still wondering about the purpose of that video. He isn’t the type to take victory laps.
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
I’m fairly sure that some of the voices in DJT’s head are not voicing approval.
@Yarrow:
That trollhuntress twitter thread (about NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder)) is quite good, thanks. The comments were also interesting.
schrodingers_cat
Yesterday’s Snooze Hour’s Shields and Brooks segment was even worse than usual. Mark Shields who is supposedly there to give a Dem POV, was trying to give credit to Rs for the civil rights legislation, and called Ds the party of special interests. I was going to throw something at the TV. Why is the fat jowly bastard even there? Isn’t one liar (Brooks) in the service of Rs enough? WTF PBS.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Gex:
I’d like to see some investigative journalism on these farmers. At least some of them have to actually be heads of major ag corps instead of small-time farmers, who can absorb the losses.
Corner Stone
@Gex:
The many I have seen so far all look to be paycheck types, and not fancy hipster nazis – which the media love. I just wrote it off as the ” Screw them there gay type losers! Oh…my daughter is gay, going to be fired and have to live here again? To the walls for rights for gays!”
Nothing matters until it hits them in the face.
The farmers, on the other hand. Those fucking people. It costs more to plant than you can get back, no subsidies coming, and a market in China that took two+ decades to open is now all gone gone.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@schrodingers_cat:
I couldn’t stand watching the Snooze Hour when I tried 5 years ago. On top of then being R-lite it was incredibly boring.
What civil rights legislation was he giving them credit for? The ones that the GOP has been dismantling, like the VRA? And “special interests” is just another term for “identity politics”. Complete horseshit.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in DC: DHS still hasn’t spent about 90% of what they appropriated for border security for the last fiscal year.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Corner Stone: I don’t know what the percentages are, but in Iowa, a lot of farmers sign contracts with distributors in the spring before they plant. The contract says the distributor will buy the crops at a certain price. So this year, those farmers are protected but the distributors are losing their shirts. Next year is a different and uncertain world.
Bill Arnold
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
My father used to watch it. (Also had a daily cover-to-cover NYTimes habit.) Better than FoxNN, a lot better.
I would have had to intervene (with mysterious tech glitches) if he had started watching FoxNN.
The GOP is not the party of civil rights. Never has been, though honorable mention for Lincoln.
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
At this point they’re effectively wholly owned subsidiaries of Cargill, ADM, Monsanto-Bayer, Tyson, John Deere, et al. They’re clamped at the balls and led by the nose, and their opinions are whatever they’ve been told this week.
Adam L Silverman
I’ll just leave this here:
gene108
@MisterForkbeard:
Trump’s political instincts trumped the Beltway chattering classes idea of what it takes to win the Republican Presidential nomination, even though every poll from just after his announcement and from Iowa and New Hampshire onwards showed he had the largest plurality of support in the primaries, therefore Trump is a super genius, with the best brain and best words.
I mean, if the chattering classes just believed the polls their employers ran, they might’ve taken Trump mores seriously.
Bill Arnold
Since we’re talking about a narcissist’s pathetic attempts at self-reflection, Vox piece on self-awareness/meta-cognition/etc from a different standpoint, intellectual humility:
Intellectual humility: the importance of knowing you might be wrong – Why it’s so hard to see our own ignorance, and what to do about it. (Brian Resnick Jan 4, 2019)
Bereft of any helpful technique though. My father (RIP) taught me as a sprout to assign probabilities to all beliefs. That’s a good first step. Just don’t bother much (except for entertainment) with any possibilities that are lower than the possibility of being crazy. (“I know you’re not allowed to assign probability zero to anything, but a rule of thumb I use is to ignore anything that has a lower chance than me being crazy.“ And yeah, there’s a few jokes there. Also, “Fair Betting, and Glitches in the Matrix”. )
tobie
@Mary G: True. Brown is a no nonsense kind of guy, so it is a bit unusual to see him honk his horn. Then again when he took over the state, Republicans nationwide were laughing about California. They sure aren’t any longer.
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi:
Corner Stone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I know a lot of them do a kind of re-insurance but not sure not an Act of God/Nature is going to cover this. As you mention, guess we’ll see. IMO, hard to buy stock when you know 60% of you’re market isn’t coming back.
Adam L Silverman
@Dorothy A. Winsor: What did the people in the Hague ever do to you?
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: so a drunk on addera11, checks out✔
???
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Bill Arnold:
That paper is super thick, even the non-Sunday editions; thicker than most daily newspapers.
Lincoln wouldn’t even be able to get elected the governor of a red state as a Republican.
Adam L Silverman
Ouch!
zhena gogolia
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
It’s extremely thin and flimsy (both physically and intellectually) now. I can remember when it was thick. And I drool when I see the extra-wide newspapers in old movies. Now they’re like a letter-sized piece of paper.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
Holy [redacted]. That wins the thread. How to best exploit it?
https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-rome/hadrians-wall (hey we/US did invade Mexico :-)
schrodingers_cat
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: As a percentage of their caucus more Rs voted for civil rights legislation than Ds, he said.
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: This isn’t news. Sam Nunberg and that guy with no chin who had an affair during the campaign and has now gone scorched earth in court against the woman he impregnated in order to get their son and prevent her from ever seeing him again have both been blathering about it forever.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: jason miller of the face camo goatee? Nasty piece of work.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
Disturbingly plausible. He keeps progressively deteriorating before our eyes and the GOP resolutely stands by him. All this shutdown will accomplish is further making the US look ridiculous, as well as bankrupting federal employees, not to mention the economic impact of this. I bet nowhere else in the world do countries have government shutdowns due to political disagreements except the US.
trollhattan
@Bill Arnold:
Is that why Nielsen “want wall”? Weirdest public appearance by somebody not named Trump all year.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: I think it was Joshua Green in Devil’s Bargain– which I didn’t read but I heard him interviewed about it– said trump thought wall was stupid but it started getting applause at his rallies and that, of course, hooked him
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: That’s him.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve seen both Nunberg and Miller say that during interviews as well.
Ladyraxterinok
@dmsilev: @schrodingers_cat: I think it was after the 88 election that Shields on PBS did a ‘meditation’ on the media’s stories on the election. He said that he now thought that there had been way too much focus on the horse race and not near enuff attention to policy questions.
I just screamed st the TV–you were part of the media. So what were YOU doing?
He was all ‘the media’ did xyz. NOT we–let alone I–did NOT do xyz.
As always media people take no responsibility for their actions or non actions.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: True, but meaningless given how small the Republican caucuses were at the time. And that there were no southern Republicans at that time. And Goldwater, a southwestern Republican, voted against the bill and he was the most recent Republican presidential nominee. All the Democrats that voted against were from the south.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@zhena gogolia:
Really? I could have sworn it was still thick. I guess compared to other newspapers I sometimes see on the racks at work, it is.
I’ve always really enjoyed looking at glossy magazines, so I know how you feel.
@schrodingers_cat:
Did he give a time period? Perhaps R’s did many years ago when there was a strong progressive wing, but that obviously no longer exits today. These guys need to stop fantasizing about moderate Northeast R’s who voted for the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Susan Collins is a fake and always has been. The GOP has become a far-right authoritarian party, hostile to liberal democracy.
zhena gogolia
If anyone wants an amusing distraction, I’ve been laughing to tears about this thread I stumbled on via L. M. Miranda’s twitter.
https://twitter.com/_roryturnbull/status/1080183740637241344
It’s all the cliches in movies, starting with the professor who only gets to the main point of the lecture at the end of class as the students are leaving, and then yells out to them the next assignment as they depart. I’d love to see a montage of all the movie scenes in which a college professor is giving a class. My favorite is Woody Harrelson in Indecent Proposal, where he’s giving an architecture lecture that consists of flashing slides and shouting out “Frank Lloyd Wright! Louis Kahn!” as the students nod sagely.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Exactly my point. Why trot out that meaningless statistic to muddy the waters about what is happening right now.
zhena gogolia
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
It’s THIN compared to what it used to be. Granted, a lot of the difference is ads, but the articles, especially in Arts, have become really minimal.
Brachiator
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Belgium’s government has collapsed over the issue of immigration. Previously, they went 589 days before they could cobble together a stable coalition government.
The Republicans have introduced an unfortunate degree of obstruction and instability into the US government. Previously, foreign governments were worse.
Ladyraxterinok
@Bill Arnold: Possibly talking about dems opposition to the CivilRights Act of the 60s and that most GOP senators supported it.
The GOP ‘historians’ carefully omit the fact that those dems became Republicans shortly thereafter.
The same ‘historians’ love to ‘shock’ with the fact that the governor of Arkansas who worked to block the integration of the Little Rock HS was a Democrat. Also move to the GOP.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t think I’ve watched more than a handful of complete episodes of the News Hour in my entire life. There was something about the set and the lighting that reminded me of a funeral parlor; and the hosts and guests seemed like the dullest people in the world, determined to bore viewers into submission.
Burnspbesq
Interesting: Bethany College is starting a women’s lacrosse team this year.
Maybe Cole could volunteer as an assistant coach.
Adam L Silverman
@Burnspbesq: Cole’s Misadventures With Title IX: An Ongoing Balloon Juice Series…
PPCLI
@Adam L Silverman: Yes, that’s an infuriating factoid, beloved of Dinesh D’Sousa that Shields is moronically recycling.
Among the ways it distorts the situation is the one you indicated: If you subdivide the Congress into two culturally somewhat homogeneous subsets (Southerners and non-Southerners), in both subsets a larger percentage of Democrats than Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act. (This is an instance of what statisticians call the Simpson Paradox.)
Ken
@Burnspbesq: “Oh go on Cole, ride the bicycle.” “Why not try coaching women’s lacrosse?” “Plant the willow tree next to the house, it will look nicer.” “I heard llamas make wonderful pets and are good with dogs.”
Sometimes I fear that not all of us have Cole’s best interests at heart.
Another Scott
@Mary G: Thanks for that.
I wish that the whole country would watch that short video.
We know how to solve the problems with our politics. We know how to address and make real progress on climate change, on infrastructure, on economic issues, on immigration, on education, on retirement security, on affordable quality health care for everyone, and more.
All we have to do is elect sensible people to office. That’s it. We don’t have to invent transparent aluminum or cold fusion or mass drivers or confiscate the means of production. We just need sensible policies enacted by sensible people.
(sigh)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: @PPCLI: Shields is a hard core Catholic and I’m sure there are aspects of today’s Democratic Party that… trouble him. I suspect “interest groups” is his way of saying “identity politics”. I’m kind of surprised he’s still on the TeeVee, and googling him, kind of surprised to see he’s only 81
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Adam L Silverman: For some reason, Nielsen appalls me in a cold, vengeful way. Eva Braun springs to mind.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@zhena gogolia:
I’d say that’s too bad, but the NYT has always been a pretty crappy paper. I remember seeing stories that presented Hitler in a good light published by them.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: They have newer shinier set now. I used to watch it, because network news was too superficial.
Adam L Silverman
@PPCLI:
Adam L Silverman
@Ken:
Ya think?
LuciaMia
Yup, four former Presidents agree with him, just like all those unpaid federal workers agree with him. Must be nice to have so many imaginary friends.
Lordy, when is this guy gonna be dragged out of the White house in a straight jacket?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Brachiator:
Didn’t know that. Still, aren’t presidential systems like ours, historically prevalent in Central and South America, prone to devolving into dictatorships? And that’s why don’t export our form of government and set up parliamentary democracies?
Adam L Silverman
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I have it on good, first hand authority that she has been both highly unqualified for every political appointee job she’s had in both the Bush 43 and the current administration, and that she’s completely amoral – she’ll say or do anything to advance herself.
azlib
@clay:
That is because the scary brown horde are their customers.
sukabi
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: pretty sure he was 81 back in the 70’s when he was on bleating about Nixon.
Same old fossils have been spewing the same old bullshit for the last40+ years. When one of them kicks they’ve got another one lined up.
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: It was a really strange headline for their reporting too:
Pencil Mustaches: Best Mustache for This Season or Best Mustache Ever?
Mary G
@Dorothy A. Winsor: She seems like a real monster.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Another Scott:
By the way, thanks for your investing advice from last night. It helped point me in the right direction. However, I think I’ll wait a year or so before doing any CDs or index funds like the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF until I get my actual career started. All of that stuff will still be there. Hopefully. Unless Trump starts a nuclear war.
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: We set up parliamentary democracies because they tend to be more stable over time. Because any time you have at least two factions or parties, it is almost impossible to maintain a separation of powers congressional system without having, as we have now with the congressional Republican caucuses, one party evolve into a parliamentary party, which breaks the legislative branch.
Barb 2
@Yarrow:
So true about how living with family members with this disorder gives you insight and the ability to explain mental health issues to others. The Trump type of crazies are living in their own reality. He really doesn’t understand how you can’t see his “logic”. I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t hearing voices.
One professor was interviewed on Rawstory. He stated a fact – the sicker these folks are means it is unlikely that they can recognize that they are bat sh*t crazy. How much more harm will the GOP get away with?
Is GOPness a mental disorder?
MomSense
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
And then the gallows.
jl
Why don’t people just go with the simplest and by far most likely explanation: Trump is lying again.
I don’t see where it’s noted in post or comments above, but Bill Clinton GW Bush and Obama all said that they never said any such thing, and all added that they haven’t spoken with the vile crook since the inauguration.
And news reports I’ve heard say, in agreement with one tweet in the post, that talks aren’t going anywhere because House Dems can’t get a firm commitment from WH on terms for a deal and ending the shut down. So, the WH position is, ‘let’s make an agreement, and we’ll let you know later if we like enough to keep it.” What BS. Maybe if the shutdown situation gets bad enough, we can impeach the dishonest idiot over this.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ken:
You forgot one from earlier today (but destined to be a classic): “Propose to Claudia.”
Bill Arnold
Just for fun, for all you NYTimes haters, Noam Chomsky (2018/12) :-)
Noam Chomsky: Social media outlets have ‘become major forces for undermining democracy’
(bold mine) Best to avoid articles about things that you know more about than the writer, though.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Remember when “national security” types on the right liked to accuse Dems of “hollowing out the military”?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
Why didn’t the Founders do a parliamentary system? Anglophobia?
Also, what do you mean by the GOP evolving into a parliamentary party? And what are the Dems in comparison?
Amir Khalid
I’m not sure why everyone is assuming that the former POTUS who allegedly told Trump that they too wanted to build Wall was alive when they said it. I wouldn’t put that kind of delusion past him.
Brachiator
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
No. It’s much more complicated than that.
Many South American countries deliberately tried to give power to the church, the military and European elites, no matter what kind of democracy they formed. And while the US system has its problems, there is nothing superior about parliamentary systems.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: Nixon got drunk and talked to Lincoln’s portrait. trump snorts adder all (leaving that as in case of word press block) and talks to Andrew Johnson because he thinks it’s Andrew Jackson.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
What’s so fucked up is I had to stop and think if it was Joshua Green or that RNC guy Broidy.
sukabi
@jl: of course he’s lying. ‘News’ orgs not bluntly stating that are still working to maintain their access, and are ‘smoothing his rough edges’. They did the same thing with W, cleaning up his more incoherent ramblings. I think they (the media owners) view the government as a wealth extraction tool and if they cover it in a way to maintain the status quo their world won’t change.
Brachiator
@jl:
That’s what I said. Trump has admitted that he lies his ass off. He thinks it is a successful negotiating tactic. He also uses lies as a psychological crutch.
He also understands that as president and he facto leader of the Republican Party, he has people at his disposal whose job is to lie for him and to support his lies. This is paradise for someone as psychologically damaged as Trump.
jl
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: ” Why didn’t the Founders do a parliamentary system? Anglophobia? ”
The current form of parliamentary democracy in the UK emerged in the 1830s and 1840s. Until then, the monarchy retained a lot of actual power, though the boundaries were being fought out. The power of parliament to appoint its prime minister was not established, for example.
So, there was no modern parliamentary system, not tainted with too much power in hereditary monarchy, to copy or adapt.
Edit: IIRC, after decades of sometimes violent social turmoil, there was an act in the 1840s that finally produced more or less the parliamentary system we see in the UK today. And IIRC, it let in so much riff raff into Parliament, that the Duke of Wellington resigned in disgust. He wouldn’t lower his dignity by trying to legislate among such common rabble.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Brachiator:
@jl:
Thanks for the info! I learn a lot around here : )
Though in retrospect, I feel like I should have been aware of at least some of this.
joel hanes
@Adam L Silverman:
begs Wilmer to put “principle above ego”
He will find this puzzling, because the main principle he has is “Wilmer’s ego must be fed”
I’m putting the odds at 3-to-1 that he’ll run.
Wild Cat
@schrodingers_cat: People still watch that shit? Seriously?
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Yep. It really is as uncomplicated as that. Part of the power of being a narcissist is lying to people’s faces and watching them struggle to comprehend that you just lied about something simple and easy to disprove. The lying is a manipulation in and of itself, and that’s why the actual truth doesn’t matter to them.
When caught in a lie, the narcissist will just tell another lie, or a different lie, because they have no sense of objective “truth.” It’s all about how to get what they want.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@jl:
The first Duke of Wellington? It just so happens he was a Tory, so that makes sense.
Yarrow
@Bill Arnold: It is a really good thread. Lots of stuff I didn’t know and like you said the comments are really informative.
@Barb 2: That’s a good question. I’ve said for years now that a lack of empathy is a key characteristic of Republicans. It seems also to be a key characteristic of people with NPD. So….
debbie
Pretty stupid to care only about your core supporters, when there aren’t enough of them to win you an election.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If Trump was using a stimulant, he would be a lot calmer and more coherent. I think the problem is more that he’s stopped taking his ADHD meds and nobody can coax him into re-starting them.
Plus the increasing dementia, of course. One wonders if Republicans are going to be able to prop him up as successfully as they did Reagan.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
The day I mastered the M-fold and so could read the paper on a city bus!
jl
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I checked wiki, and not sure he ever resigned over the Reform Acts, which were in the 1830s, not 1840s. , maybe he just griped about them endlessly. Wellington got so conservative compared to popular mood, he became very unpopular and focus of protests. Wiki bio says
Wellington was never reconciled to the change; when Parliament first met after the first election under the widened franchise, Wellington is reported to have said “I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life”.
I should check wiki before I type stuff, but usually don’t.
Mary G
@Mnemosyne: I remain convinced that the State of the Union is going to be awful, because it starts at 9 p.m. Kind of doubt the handlers can find the right mix of meds to keep him coherent.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Did you see the thread on NPD I linked above? It’s got some info I hadn’t really seen before.
jl
Don’t know why this blog randomly swallows comments. Try again.
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I checked wiki, and not sure he ever resigned over the Reform Acts, which were in the 1830s, not 1840s, maybe he just griped about them endlessly. Wellington got so conservative compared to popular mood, he became very unpopular and focus of protests. Wiki bio says
Wellington was never reconciled to the change; when Parliament first met after the first election under the widened franchise, Wellington is reported to have said “I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life”.
I should check wiki before I type stuff, but usually don’t.
J R in WV
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Neilsen is worse, Eva Braun never held an office in the SS nor the administration of the death camps. Neilsen is head of our concentration camp management! She needs tried for those kidnappings of children, the deaths of children, the organized concentration camps, all of that.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@debbie:
Well, it is Trump. And I doubt he’s going to be able to win the same exact way last time via the EC. I hope he goes down in 2020, not just because he’s an evil would-be autocrat, but because I want to see the meltdown he’ll go through when he loses.
He’ll be carted off in a vest, Hannibal Lector-style, from the White House.
jl
@Mnemosyne: I think the add_er_all habit rumor got going again after someone who used to work with him on Apprentice show said that you can tell when he’s taken a shitload of it: he starts snuffling.
I guess we’ll have to go an a Trump ‘shuffle watch’ and compare his behavior with and without constant snuffling.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@jl:
What’s really bad is the dude was Anglo-Irish and the Irish Potato Famine was going on while he was alive. But wealth and privelidge inoculate.
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: The founders basically tried to replicate the system they knew, but with safeguards. This was not the modern parliamentary system that evolved in the the mid 19th century, but rather its predecessor where the monarch still wielded vast powers as head of both state and government despite having a parliament with a prime (first) minister of government. So the presidency, for all their protestations, is essentially the monarchy incorporating both head of state and head of government functions. The House of Representatives is basically the House of Commons and the Senate the House of Lords. The Supreme Court are the Law Lords separated out from the House of Lords. They changed the name of the parts of government, built in tensions, competing, and balancing powers, and naively decried factions and parties as they went about establishing them. They also distributed a lot of power, or, at least, left a lot of power ambiguous, so that states would claim it and serve as a further check and balance. Finally, most of the framers, including Jefferson who was among the most radical, never expected the structure and constitution they established to last more than a few generations before it became necessary to make major reforms to both to account for changes over a 45 to 65 year period. Some things they simply couldn’t envision, such as life expectancies well into the 70s and for those best off often the 80s or 90s when they designed positions that came with lifetime tenure.
As for the current Republican caucuses in both chambers of Congress having evolved into parliamentary parties, what I mean is that they are largely coherent and homogenous legislative caucuses. And they share almost nothing in common in regards to ideology, political, and/or economic goals with the Democratic caucuses, which are far more diverse. The result is that when the GOP is in the majority in both chambers, it functions as if it has absolute control and can do whatever it wants because it has the majority. This started in the House with the Gingrich revolution and has been far harder to replicate in the Senate. McConnell, however, has found a way to do so largely by bending and/or breaking every rule, tradition, and/or norm of the Senate as he sees fit.
Adam L Silverman
@joel hanes: He’ll run. And when it becomes very clear very quickly that he won’t be the nominee, there will be incredible pressure from his supporters for him to run as an independent. I’m not sure how to handicap that, but I think there’s a good chance he would do so. And if he doesn’t, I fully expect Nina Turner to shiv him in the back and do so herself. With Konst, Zogby, and his other merry band of mischief makers cheering her on the entire way.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: There are enough, distributed in the necessary states, to win in the electoral college though. Especially if you wind up with one or more candidates running as independents who will wind up functioning as spoilers producing a back to back overwhelming Democratic popular vote win and a narrow electoral college majority reelection for the President.
John Revolta
@Brachiator:
Well, you have to admit he’s done pretty good with it………………………
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
I saw it a couple of days ago when it was first posted. I think I came across that Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers site when I first started researching this stuff in 2015 because that’s exactly the situation my nieces are stuck in.
zhena gogolia
@J R in WV:
I think they’re confusing Eva Braun with Ilse Koch.
kindness
Trump didn’t say if they were American ex-Presidents. He just said former President. Could be anybody.
BR
@Adam L Silverman:
This is quite concerning. What would be a path or set of possible paths that avoid this outcome?
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
He’s not going to get the same number of votes this time. A significant chunk of his numbers in 2016 were from anti-Hillary, not pro-Trump, voters.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
Kind of funny since Jefferson lived to be 83 and Adams 90, both passing the same day, July 4, 1826.
Adam L Silverman
@BR: Having a strategy ready to go to neutralize what the political news reporters have already started doing with Senator Warren, which is what they’ll do to each Democrat in turn. This needs to be combined with being forewarned that this is still a possibility and having a strategy in place to minimize the potential damage. Jill Stein is going to run again. I expect at least one, if not two or three more independents who would potential pull votes from the Democratic nominee much more than from the President. A voter mobilization strategy that seeks to activate the nearly half the eligible potential voters who never actually vote will also be necessary. And, of course, given all of these realities, candidate quality matters.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: We shall see. And time will tell.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: They were the elite of the elite. But the average Federal judge served somewhere between 12 and 18 years, not 35 or more.
Ruckus
@kindness:
Wasn’t individual 1 the president of one of his bankrupt companies?
American – unfortunately, check.
President – also unfortunately, check.
Talks to the voices in his head, check.
Listens to the voices in his head, also unfortunately, check.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I’d almost say GW said yes in some vague “yes, we talked about the wall went I was president” kind of wayll just get Trump off the phone at midnight but knowing Trump, that’s more lies from him.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Thanks for that. That thread is hilarious! And I noted Dorothy Winsor’s contribution.
Procopius
@Corner Stone: When I was in about the third or fourth grade, my school had some event which attracted a reporter from the Akron Beacon Journal. I was really excited to read the paper to see what they said. I did not recognize the event at all from the story. Not one single fact that I knew about the event was reported accurately. Since then I have tried to be skeptical about anything important that was reported in the media. In my opinion, the last 40 years has been even worse, but looking at old newspapers it wasn’t really any better in Benjamin Franklin’s day.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
Oh, I didn’t see her! I don’t know how to find it.
Procopius
@Bill Arnold: I greatly admire Lincoln, but he was not concerned with Civil Rights. We’ll never be able to know what he would have done if it had not been for the treasonous bastards in South Carolina, but he did say clearly that he would accept slavery in some states and not in others if that would help restore the Union. He was the victim of events outside his control. It was the traitors who made it impossible for slavery to continue. Maybe we should celebrate Jeff Davis for destroying the “peculiar institution.” I think Lincoln’s biggest mistake was not bringing at least Jeff Davis and Bobby Lee before Congress, giving them a fair trial, and then hanging them. When I’m in a bad mood I think that’s what he should have done with every Confederate officer who broke his oath to the Constitution down to the rank of lieutenant.
Procopius
@Dorothy A. Winsor: She makes me think more of Ilse Koch, although that’s probably because I was seven or eight when Life magazine ran it’s collection of photos from Buchenwald. Wonder what Nielson’s hobbies are. Then again, I always felt Eva Braun was the stereotypical dumb blond and got a bad rap for loving Hitler.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
She has two in that thread:
“Hello, I’m a professor in a movie. I have a secretary and an office with a fireplace.”
“Hello, I’m an Assistant Professor in a movie and I murdered another Assistant Professor because I wanted a tenured job and my department hired more tenure track people than it has tenured slots.”
That second one sounds a little close to home.
hugely
@Adam L Silverman: adam this is worth a post because i am not sure i understand this and i would like to. I just think that the GOP is so bereft of good faith that is the main reason leg branch is broken. If there is something more structural i would love hear about it