My 4yo had the honor of meeting Elizabeth Warren before her Las Vegas event. She loved the “Dream Big, Fight Hard” sign & begged for it to be in her room. She carried it into the store, read it to anyone who would listen, chose the frame, & just helped hang it! #TheFutureIsFemale pic.twitter.com/NN08DpFKij
— lisa hendricks (@MsLisaHendricks) March 22, 2019
(If you click on that second image — that’s a Wonder Woman pillowcase!)
******
"Ron Clark brought his 7yo daughter Madison to Harris' event 'for obvious reasons': He wanted her to see 'someone who looks like her' poised to fight for the country's top job. She smiled from atop his shoulders, pink sneakers dangling and several teeth missing from the top row." https://t.co/ozqp9Qo1sR
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) March 23, 2019
*******
On midterms election night 2018 everyone was saying Trump and the GOP had prevailed. It was far too early to say, it turns out, and a blue wave ultimately crashed down on them. Have faith, and persist in the truth.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) March 24, 2019
Last month, we had to organize like never before for 2020.
Today, we have have to organize like never before for 2020.
And tomorrow, we have to organize like never before for 2020.
There's a Dem Congress because people built a movement. Build it stronger, better, bigger now.— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) March 25, 2019
NotMax
Don’t know what the usually keen Mr. Takei has been smoking but do not recall anyone outside the FOX bubble saying that, much less “everyone.”
Tony Jay
I emerge from my weekend crypt to find that the well-known Party hack appointed by the most corrupt Administration in modern American history to protect it from the report into its shenanigans has issued an extremely delicately worded cover-letter telling everyone that the report is so bad that they can’t see it but he’d quite like to win a few news-cycles for his boss.
How extremely unlike them. How bewilderingly out of character. I may have to go and lie down and re-examine my fundamentals for a few hours. Who, WHO, I ask you, could have possibly predicted this turn of events?
In other news. Tory Ministers announce that they are completely loyal to Theresa May and will in no way be maneuvering to replace her ASAP. They are also telling only the unvarnished truth. I’m sure.
JPL
@Tony Jay: Does that mean that May is gone by the end of the week?
JPL
Where is Ozark? Someone needs to get this party started.
Mart
I have a terrible track record. But I am all in on Warren 2020. My endorsement is certainly a death blow to her candidacy.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
As long as we’re talking about candidates:
Beto – literally being mobbed in Vegas (photo)
Moving Latino love (photo)
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: Blech.
bago
Why you need to fight:
“Even the Liberal New York Times”…
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s going to be a good day!
OzarkHillbilly
Asian stocks slump as US recession fears grip markets
All this analysis without a single mention of Brexit. Is that because as far as the world economy is concerned the UK is beside the point? Or do the commentators have a bit of a blind spot?
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: You’re awfully optomistic.
NotMax
Oh my. Is it Infrastructure Week again?
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
Take “market analysts” with a grain of salt. Some days, when they can’t figure out what’s going on or refuse to believe it, they just make shit up.
That said, fear of Brexit was factored in at the stock markets a while back. But the US economy’s post-Obamamentum has been slow to fizzle out. I think markets here consider a slowdown inevitable, and regard the Trump administration as neither really equipped nor really motivated to do anything about it.
JPL
@NotMax: Oh god no..
satby
I just read the entire previous thread and now am a bit depressed about 2020. And I’ve been studiously avoiding all the bloviating about Barr’s Cliff note on Mueller’s report. It feels like the whole country has dementia.
Raven
@satby: Wait till the vengeance tour starts.
OzarkHillbilly
“I don’t think that I’ve any wish to take over from the PM, who I think is doing a fantastic job, I tell you this: one thing that working closely with the prime minister does is cure you completely of any lingering shred of ambition to want to do that task.”
-David Lidington
MagdaInBlack
Wow. Some pre-coffee “fun.”
https://www.wonkette.com/forced-birth-enthusiasts-claim-vaccines-are-immunizing-us-all-to-their-prayers.
NotMax
Shall post this tax return related link with the caveat that I am skeptical – something just smells a bit off – and you should, natch, ALWAYS check with your own tax preparer.
Are you ‘Kondo’ing’ your home? There’s a hidden tax benefit to tidying up
OzarkHillbilly
@MagdaInBlack:
Speaking only for myself, I was inoculated against deities or any belief in them by the Catholic Church.
Immanentize
@NotMax:
Hello All!
It looks like with my mortgage interest plus my state taxes, plus all the clothes and books I donated last year, I will be itemizing again this year…. I’ll let y’all know how that works out.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: I don’t qualify. Again.
OzarkHillbilly
“Pulling out doesn’t work – just ask my parents”
-Sign at Saturday’s anti Brexit march.
Immanentize
@MagdaInBlack: @OzarkHillbilly:
I am certain that it is the fetal tissue in vaccines that makes prayer LESS likely to help patients facing serious medical events
Jerks.
Tony Jay
@JPL:
She might be, but this is part of the Curse of Brexit. All the usual suspects want the job, but because The Great British Brexit is such a comprehensive fact-splat disaster on every level no one wants the job right now. Everybody wants the post to open up after whatever indefinable thing that needs to happen for the whole thing to go away actually happens, and they want to be sure that they (as in the other ‘they’, which is anyone else but in particular anyone on the other side of the Quit/Stay debate) don’t get it.
So Zombie May shambles on, hoping to outlast the short-lived Tribes of Men and inherit a future utopia where church bells ring and nary a brown face is to be seen. What else is she going to do? Resign the post of Prime Minister? Admit she’s screwed up massively in every single way? Let someone else a bit less racist have a go? Nah. They’ll have to drag her out of there with twelve shire-horses and a meathook. The Lady is not for learning.
satby
@Raven: I’m irritated enough that I’m reposting my comment on the previous thread here. The purity police will get us all killed.
debbie
@satby:
Barr’s letter has as much credibility as Trump’s doctor’s letter extolling his fitness and health.
Trump’s strategy of investigating Democrats and the FBI will backfire. It will show there was in fact reason to begin an investigation. It’s a very long game ahead, but there’s zero reason to give up.
satby
@MagdaInBlack: I had a pitched battle with a forced birther in FB, because I reposted a meme about anti-choice people needing to adopt, pay higher taxes to expand health care and improve schools, etc for all the unwanted children they expect other women to birth for them. She immediately conflated late term abortion with birth control, and suggested that even women carrying fetuses doomed by genetics should carry them to term so that the resulting dying child “be cared for humanely” and at the inevitable death their usable organs harvested. These people are monsters.
Quinerly
@Raven: https://www.axios.com/mueller-investigation-donald-trump-reaction-38b664a0-a7cf-4ed3-9cce-2b4de08cef8c.html
satby
@debbie: I never said anyone was giving up. I said the state of things is depressing. And a lot of that is as much on the “progressive” side.
NotMax
@Tony Jay
No more kebabs? No curries? If overnight the cliffs of Dover crumbled into the sea it would be less dire.
;)
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
NPR reported yesterday that there are now as many “nones” (no religious preference) as there are Catholics or Evangelicals. We’re gaining on them!
satby
@Tony Jay: all my sympathies to my many friends across the pond. That march in London was impressive, but unfortunately it looks like your government is just as determined to ignore the common good of their citizens as ours is.
I can’t cope with the clusterfuck my own country is, much less yours.
Betty Cracker
@Tony Jay: What’s your guess? Do you think they’ll vote on May’s deal again, try to work up some new plan or choose to crash out next month?
Kay
@satby:
People forget that Trump didn’t run as a Republican. Voters believed he was reaching out to Independents and Democrats. Hell, he bragged about it constantly- that he had tons of Democratic voters. Political media believed it too- they were all speculating on whether he would appoint pro-choice justices and drop the anti-gay stuff in the GOP, even after he chose Pence. It was part of his appeal, that he wasn’t “really” a Republican.
Of course he’s far Right and he never did any reaching out at all, but it is part of how he got elected.
Obama too- Obama had “Obamacans” and liberals were thrilled when people like Andrew Sullivan supported him. It’s how they get elected. It’s consistent with people who win as far back as I can remember.
NotMax
@satby
We will survive. Battered and bruised perhaps, but we will survive. The future is on our side.
Kay
It is unseemly how thrilled these people are that their boy escaped prosecution. They are literally celebrating like it’s the re-elect.
If this were any other politician there would be 15 articles on “lingering clouds” and “questions”. Instead they’re announcing he’s been re-elected. Gross. I wonder if they’ll let us have a campaign or if we just crown him king for life.
germy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/parkland-youths-ballots-were-rejected-at-much-higher-rate-than-state-average-in-november-election-research-finds/2019/03/24/1745cdc8-3c31-11e9-aaae-69364b2ed137_story.html?utm_term=.97f7ca0f49f7
Elizabelle
@Tony Jay: re Theresa May:
LOL. Well done.
JPL
@satby: For me, I’m staying away from the news today. I’ll finish my taxes, and maybe read a book.
Kay
Interesting that she’s going after this vote. Education reporters on twitter said that none of the Democratic candidates were paying attention to K-12 education (which ranks high as an issue with Democratic voters). I don’t know if that’s true, but Harris is certainly talking about it now.
JPL
@Kay: He campaigned on tax cuts but not for the wealthy. In fact, he wouldn’t benefit at all. Fool me once….The democratic candidates need to mention that big lie everyday.
rikyrah
????
Dan Merica (@merica) Tweeted:
Buttigieg in South Carolina: “It’s time for a little more of a regional mix in the faces that our party puts forward in the highest level. We love our friends in the big cities, but it is time for us to confront the idea that” places will always be conservative https://t.co/fgPHhNOTWJ https://twitter.com/merica/status/1109587182010941446?s=17
Betty Cracker
Regarding yesterday’s events, I fit into the “give up” camp, I guess, if “give up” is defined as “acknowledge that events indisputably indicate that the rule of law does not apply to Trump and the Republican Party.” The Mueller investigation was always a slim reed upon which to hang hopes for our democracy, and I believe most folks here understood that from the beginning.
All that’s left now is a partisan knife fight during every future election, and I hope we win and will do whatever I can to make sure we prevail. But I confess to feeling pessimistic about this country’s future. As recently as my childhood, an openly criminal president, Nixon, was held accountable. But it’s been downhill ever since, with Republican presidents getting away with worse and worse crimes. Trump is only the latest, but he represents a real turning point, IMO.
It’s a turning point because Trump is a self-evidently corrupt, embarrassing, ham-handed lout who confessed to his epic malfeasance on camera, so we Americans had the best opportunity to come together and stop the rot that we’ll probably ever have. Half the country said nope, owning the libs is more important than democracy. So, Trump will get away with conspiring with a foreign autocrat and openly obstructing the investigation, and that will accelerate our decline. I admit that makes me sad.
rikyrah
Bodak Red ? ? (@AFarray) Tweeted:
Well, I refuse to wallow in despair. THe most efficient way to get rid of this president* is to vote him out. Focus should be on getting folks to the polls, make sure turnout is high enough that he can’t steal the next election even if he does cheat. https://twitter.com/AFarray/status/1109919008252485640?s=17
rikyrah
Mr. Weeks ?? (@MrDane1982) Tweeted:
They wanted to impeach President Obama for being Black.
They allowed, Hillary Clinton, the first woman presidential nominee to be treated like a criminal.
But Donald Trump is the epitome of white privilege, especially white male privilege.
Barr was corrupted & he proved it https://twitter.com/MrDane1982/status/1109939630818951169?s=17
satby
@Kay:
Thank you.
And acknowledging something exists and needs to be worked around is not the same thing as agreeing with or pandering to it.
Mayor Pete won 80% of the vote in a city that is only 60% white* when a significant number of those white folks are hard core racist, anti-gay Republicans that he knew he’d never get as voters. To imply that he doesn’t know or understand the demographics of the Democratic Party voters is ridiculous.
* According to census data, 60.5% of the population is white, 26.6% is black, 1.3% is Asian, 4.2% are mixed, and 13% are Hispanic or Latino.
rikyrah
Malcolm P. Johnson (@admiralmpj) Tweeted:
Apparently unpopular opinion:
If you trusted Mueller then, trust Mueller now.
Remember, you haven’t read the report.
Nobody has, except for the President’s* handpicked AG. https://twitter.com/admiralmpj/status/1109985075855187968?s=17
rikyrah
Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) Tweeted:
There’s a huge difference between the Barr Letter and Mueller Report. One took 2 days. One took 2 years. One we have seen. One a Trump political appointee hasn’t shared. If you don’t think this is a coverup, you aren’t paying attention. https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1109948161089568769?s=17
rikyrah
???
David Hogg (@davidhogg111) Tweeted:
Stop saying “you’ll get over it.”
You don’t get over something that never should have happened because those that die from gun violence are stolen from us not naturally lost.
Trauma and loss don’t just go away, you have to learn to live with it through getting support. https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/1109866752006074368?s=17
rikyrah
Ronald Klain (@RonaldKlain) Tweeted:
Since the decision — by his own admission — not to prosecute on obstruction was AG Barr’s (and NOT Mueller’s), this makes the case for a full release of the Mueller Report even more compelling (so Congress can assess Barr’s decision). https://twitter.com/RonaldKlain/status/1109907902033068032?s=17
satby
@rikyrah: We called that putting up a Democratic candidate in every race as far back as 2018, remember? Don’t let cherry picked quotes twist you all up. They’re trying to divide us.
Patricia Kayden
@satby: After the gigantic blue wave we experienced last year, I’m optimistic about our chances to sweep everything in 2020. Trump is his own worst enemy and he’ll do more than enough to continue ticking off and repulsing the majority of Americans.
The majority of our candidates are stellar, decent human beings. I have no doubt that they will crush Trump next November.
Kay
@satby:
They’re all doing it in some fashion or another. Corey Booker points to working with Chris Christie on education. Booker actually gave a speech for DeVos’ org, Stand for Children, 2 years ago. Warren talks about growing up in Oklahoma, which to me seems like an overt appeal to red staters, just like Obama brought up Kansas.
They’re objecting to something else other than outreach to Republicans because every single Democrat will reach out to Republicans, just like Trump assured Democrats he wasn’t really a Republican.
When Trump was elected people polled didn’t consider him a Republican. That was the appeal for all those wobbly Democrats and dumb Independents. That has changed- now he’s considered partisan, but he wasn’t then.
rikyrah
Wakandan War Dog (@Kennymack1971) Tweeted:
I’m breaking my Dem primary silence to say….this guy ain’t it.
The conditions that allowed Trump into the Oval Office are all tied to White Americans addiction to the myth of their supremacy. Trump coddles that. I’ll be damned if I support a Democrat who coddles that too. https://t.co/5g4qHW6TOl https://twitter.com/Kennymack1971/status/1109956639610818562?s=17
Kay
@rikyrah:
The suicides are heartbreaking. I was just so sad when I saw it. There’s this whole thread of research in school shootings that says the shooters are suicidal, and that’s an entry point into understanding them. I wonder about it. If approaching it from that angle would be worthwhile. Researchers treat both the shooters and the victims as kids, which is different than the law enforcement or media approach. I think the researchers are closer to the truth.
rikyrah
Wakandan War Dog (@Kennymack1971) Tweeted:
I’ll stand on this until my time here is done.
The majority of white citzens in the USA made Trump.
They made him a viable candidate and then they made him President.
The citizens who shoved their patriotism down our throats gave this country over to an idiot. Period. https://twitter.com/Kennymack1971/status/1109958222641807362?s=17
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax:
My future says I’m gonna die.
rikyrah
Wakandan War Dog (@Kennymack1971) Tweeted:
Any Democratic candidate coddling racist white voters hiding behind bullshit like “economic anxiety” and “politicians from both parties failing them” will never get any support from me. Get that bullshit out of here. https://twitter.com/Kennymack1971/status/1109958229868666880?s=17
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
That seems a little premature.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Oh, rikrah under this analysis Obama was “coddling” white people with his race speech, after the pastor incident. Her made an overt appeal to try to make white people understand his position, and that speech was considered masterful, which it WAS.
He didn’t go out and say “fuck you! no coddling!” – he SPOKE to them.
rikyrah
???
Tell it, Charlie
https://twitter.com/Green_Footballs/status/1110053163426430976
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I won’t go into my insane rage that powerful people always escape prosecution, because I believe you have heard it :)
I’m pissed about this! I want them prosecuted! I don’t feel that’s an unreasonable request, that they be treated as you or I would be treated.
Skepticat
Can someone please explain to me why the U.S. supposedly is considering military intervention in Venezuela?
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
My pink celery still isn’t up. The rest of the seeds are going gangbusters though. I gave away some broccoli starts yesterday I have so many.
Chris Johnson
From downthread, summarized:
Now, leading up to 2020, the roles are reversed and that is NOT in Trump’s favor. Now, he is the one who has to claim that everything is great. Now, after even MORE trashing and sacking of American infrastructure, even more collapse and ruin, now it’s TRUMP who has to go ‘no everything is fine, vote for me for more of the same’ and it’s available to the Democrats to argue ‘shit is fucked, throw the bastards out!’
More of the old Republican diehards will have literally died from our pathetic ‘health care’ system, all while our leaders claim it’s fine and the best in the world.
WE are in the position to call bullshit on our system as it stands, a system that has been wrecked since Reagan. Our system has been tilted towards the wealthiest special interests and companies for decades upon decades and it IS bullshit, and now we get to claim it is exactly that AND blame it on Trump and the Republicans who have always pushed hardest towards that state.
I would also add: we live in ‘the Zone’ now. Yes, the ‘narrative’ can and will claim the most heinous nonsense, say Trump is utterly exonerated thanks to a report we never see that literally says he cannot be exonerated in the few words we’re even allowed TO see. The ‘narrative’ will say America is amazing, that the Dems have to fight a terrible uphill battle because of how great everything is under Trump, yay us, more of the same.
And it will still be all lies. And people out there who are desperate, struggling, beaten down by the futility of all this, not dead yet… those people will know it’s lies.
And this time WE are the outsiders they can turn to, and we have many things to say that are actually not like what we’ve been doing for generations. We have new stuff to say.
Let’s act like it.
This narrative reveals weakness on the part of the ruling powers, even as it shows how much remains in their grip.
Chris Johnson
@rikyrah: Your boy can fuck off. Republicans wrecking this country for GENERATIONS and selling it off overseas, turning it all over to the rich in starkly obvious ways, and yet that has done NO damage? Are you insane or just pushing some kind of enemy narrative to stop Dems from reaching out for their natural allies?
Generations of Republican sabotage so pervasive that entire generations of Dems had to adopt their policies to not get shut out entirely (if you don’t like that, pretend I’m talking about New Labour in the UK, because I also am) and you’re claiming it is verboten to even talk about that shit. Get the fuck out. Some days I don’t think you’re a real person. How dare you?
satby
@rikyrah: my comments at 48 and 53.
And Kay’s at 62.
satby
@Chris Johnson: she is a real, and real fed up black woman. Her anger is understandable.
debit
@Chris Johnson: Aren’t you the guy who swore up and down that Trump was going to force Air Force 1 to take him and Melania to Russia during a summit?
Tony Jay
@NotMax:
I can’t imagine Theresa May enjoying anything more cosmopolitan than a cold cheese sandwich and a tub of low-fat coleslaw. All those E.U. catered luncheons with their moules this and carpaccio that must depress her even more than seeing Boris Johnson’s half-cooked scallop of a face gurning at her from the front pages of the ‘loyal’ Press each morning.
Tiny violin.
Chyron HR
@rikyrah:
Translation: “We now have the chance to recast the story of Donald Trump’s presidency, as long as he doesn’t literally assault Ivanka on stage at one of his rallies.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
This makes me see that Holder is right to be working on voter suppression issues. Not only do Rs screw the country, they do it after the last two R presidents failed to win the popular vote.
Chris Johnson
Also, funny that the guy calling out Democrats for “bullshit like economic anxiety” has numbers on the end of his name. Is that a real picture or is it some actor from somewhere, like so many troll farm accounts run by Russians? Are you propagating intentional troll divisiveness to make sure Dems don’t attempt to rescue people from the massive economic damage caused by generations of Republican and Republican-lite economic policies?
JUST when that becomes the most effective attack, as documented by the fact that Donald Fucking Trump got elected President while loudly insisting he was going to rescue everyone from the massive economic damage and give everyone their old jobs back?
But her emails!!!
@Chris Johnson:
Fuck you Chris. Rikyrah said piss all about that. White people aren’t voting for Republicans because they’re the champion of the working man.
Kay
@satby:
Some of this is Bernie. We’re all touchy about Bernies outreach, so that gets transferred. But Bernie has the same spiel Howard Dean always had. Dean was all guns and pickup trucks and how he was a fiscal conservative. Dean was almost Right-leaning, frankly.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: I am in total agreement with you, but I don’t believe trump is out of the woods yet. Even if he is able to halt all federal investigations, he can’t stop state investigations..
As far as Barr’s letter to congress, I said this about it over at Outside the Beltway:
I am disappointed that findings of fact will probably never be… found, but I always thought this was at it’s core a political battle first, a legal battle 2nd.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah I give up about the law. I see it every day. Child protection cases, parents with drug addictions, people who lost their kids because they went to jail for failure to make a 160-500 restitution payment. Then there are the parents who end up surrendering their parental rights because they legitimately can’t fucking afford a suitable place to live. I could go on and on and on. The more entrenched poverty becomes in our communities, the more chaotic and tragic life gets. 95% of the people I work with are white. If I were in Ferguson or any number of communities where law enforcement and the courts are harassing black people for fines and costs, the structural injustice would be 1000 times worse.
I admit, I really wanted some indictments to come out of this. The Manafort sentence was a sham. I’m under no illusions about justice in this country ever being truly blind or fair, but at least I felt like we were making progress even if in fits and starts. This is just crushing. The corruption is right out in the open. And the media seem so giddy about it.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Agreed with the War Dog and you. I was taken aback when BJers started going gaga over Mayor B. I was not terribly impressed by his both-sidery schtick when he was interviewed by NewHour’s Woodruff several weeks ago. So this latest interview doesn’t surprise me at all.
ETA: Also all this coastal elite stuff totally rubs me the wrong way. Most of America lives on the two coasts. Hey Pete, stop shitting on us, leave that to the Rs. Living in Midwest doesn’t confer virtue, for fucks sake.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: My brassicas are spotty. My tomas are growing an inch every day and need to be transplanted into larger pots. My peppers while still small are strong. Crossing my fingers for your celery.
Betty Cracker
@satby: IMO, her anger is understandable, and so is his. Here’s hoping we can move past that shit in time to pull the oars together next year.
Leto
@Tony Jay: This is the smallest aside but I miss bourbon biscuits! I brought a large pack with me when we moved back to the US which I made last for about a month and a half. I’d kill for some generic Tesco biscuits! Bourbons, ginger snaps, those raspberry cream filled ones…
Anyways, back to the slogging. Blech.
Chris Johnson
@But her emails!!!: I am not sorry. You do not get to say phrases like ‘bullshit like economic anxiety’ just because racism exists. More than one thing can be true at the same time. One factor that lost the election and gave us Trump was the fact that the man lied like a rug about how he was going to save everyone and bring back the good times, and far too many on the Dem side felt the need to insist that these were the good times and they were going to double down on what was working so well.
Almost everyone I know is either completely desperate and living on a shoestring, or a wealthy liberal who would not ever ever give a handout to such people (even if they are literal family) because it would be bad for them and they’re not really that hurtin’ and even if they are it means they obviously didn’t strive enough. It’s like a cult. I know so many people in one or the other category and it makes me very frustrated about the wealthy moralists. Many of them are extremely leftist but they just will not look at the larger system which they’re in.
satby
@Betty Cracker: I wouldn’t disagree.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly:
That’s the great thing about pessimism — it inoculates one against disappointment! ;-) I held out a slim hope that the law still mattered. It was naive of me. I’ll try not to make that mistake again.
@MomSense: Amen.
Tony Jay
@satby:
I know. It would be verging on the depressing if I didn’t know for a fact that this is all a simulation being run by a 400 pound Neanderthal teenager call Uunag-Tao in his Clan Mum’s basement. Once you know that, it’s no worries.
schrodingers_cat
@Leto: You can get bourbon biscuits at an Indian grocery store, if there is one near you.
oldgold
What cooperation did Flynn give that warranted Mueller recommending his sentence be dramatically reduced?
This whole damn enterprise seems nonsensical. 22 long months for this?
satby
@schrodingers_cat: he doesn’t say that. Try actually watching his town hall or reading the entire interviews instead of relying on carefully selected quotes tweeted by people who have an agenda.
I thought we would have learned this from 2016. Verify, don’t amplify.
MomSense
Ok, we have to stop fighting and listen more to each other. We are all really angry about what’s happening and that makes us vulnerable to lashing out horizontally. Let’s try to direct our ire where it belongs – with the Republicans and all their enablers.
None of our Democratic contenders will separate families and put the babies in cages. We can get past whatever differences we have to save the babies. Really it comes down to that as our choice.
But her emails!!!
@Chris Johnson:
Sorry about short responses, but I suck at typing on the phone. The reason economic anxiety is a bullshit reason for voting for Trump is because Trump’s voters in aggregate are and were more economically secure than Hillary’s voters. Economic anxiety as a basis for voting Trump is BS becauseb if only economically insecure people voted, Hillary would have won the election.
Leto
@schrodingers_cat: Oh man, you’ve probably just added 3” to my waist! :)
Edit: just googled it and there’s one right down the road from me, and about 4 within a 20 minute drive! My weekend plans are set!!! :)
debit
@Chris Johnson: So I’m guessing by your silence that yes, you’re the guy who swore that Trump was going to force his pilots to fly Air Force 1 to Russia.
Guys, why would you even engage with someone who is either a troll or a bona fide idiot? Who cares what he thinks?
Matt McIrvin
The thing about Mueller is… we knew he wasn’t going to indict Trump for anything, because he figured he couldn’t. And politically, I know my poll-watching is a little obsessive, but one thing I’ve noticed is that revelations and indictments from the Mueller investigation (and the various others spawned from it) do not move polling one inch. The most we could expect even from an utterly damning report would have been a hardening of partisan divisions; the only variable is how everyone ends up feeling about Mueller himself. So, while I want the truth to be exposed, I’ve never thought it was the central thing to getting Trump out of office.
The main question is whether we can unite Trump’s opposition. The thing that bothers me the most is how the hard Counterpunch/Jacobin/Berniebro left seems to be gloating right now over Trump’s non-“exoneration” as enthusiastically as the right is, which makes me think they’ve devolved from just being anti-anti-Trump to being outright pro-Trump. Or at least some sort of “Nach Trump, uns” sentiment is alive and well. I have to remind myself that this is not actually a lot of people.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Hope is never naive, it is that that gives us the strength to fight.
debit
@MomSense: Oh, you and your logic! It makes me mad!
(That was sarcasm, just to be clear)
Chris Johnson
@satby: Nothing Rikyrah can say will stop me voting for the Dem even if it’s her bestest favoritest pick and she gloats like mad over it and insists it’s a huge symbol of the bullshittery of economic insecurity. I will still vote for the Dem.
I am tired of my personal friends DYING in the society we have been bequeathed, as every economic system relating to us shrivels and dies. Most recent was a kid I knew, a fellow musician, who was trying to get clean. I know he’d had a certain amount of support as he’d been in a (overcrowded, chaotic) rehab. Even that he struggled to get in. It ran out, and he was on the outside, sometimes homeless, trying to find work rather than treating his drug addiction first and foremost. He turned back to getting high, scraped together a room to live in rather than being on the street, was working, and then the next thing you know he had overdosed. Heroin is a much cheaper and more powerful high than other things, fentanyl even more so, and the guy was on a very limited budget.
I’ve hugged this guy many times and I wanted to play music with him. I’ve lived a life like his and still face other kinds of decisions in that lens of ‘can I get a package of razor blades this week or will this be a month of re-using the one I’m on? Can I buy that piece of cheese or is that a bad mistake?’
His name was Sam. We miss him. I don’t know who will be next. Some of my friends also have medical concerns they can’t afford to take care of.
I want to know how many more of my personal friends will die thanks to people putting economic insecurity in ‘scare quotes’. I admit it makes me awkwardly angry sometimes, and I’ll work on stuffing those feelings down a little more for the sake of what we share… and who we’re collectively against.
satby
@MomSense: I binged on the latest season of Shameless last night and the last episode had me in tears from the middle on. Because though it’s a dramady, it perfectly captures what poverty and addiction does to a person, a family, a community. The desperation, the distorted thinking, the bad choices coming from that distorted thinking: all portrayed in ways I’ve witnessed IRL. And it was crushing to watch and remember real incidents that tracked it.
I think indictments will happen, but at the state level.
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin: My take on those people is they are anti-trump, but they hate DEMs just as much and blame DEMs even more.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: Try reading my comment before explaining it away and talking down to me.
OzarkHillbilly
@Chris Johnson:
Don’t we all.
debit
@satby:
Yep. And remember, there’s still his upcoming deposition for the Summer Zervos case. Does anyone think he’s going to be able to avoid lying while under oath?
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m just letting this coastal elite thing pass. My bank balance knows the truth. If my hunch about the probability of success for the real America 3.0 in the campaign for the Democratic nomination is correct, this will take care of itself by the time I get to caucus (which I don’t have time to do). Fortunately we can vote absentee for our caucus which probably doesn’t count but fuck it I’m petty enough to do it anyway. My preferred candidate is smart to go for the teacher vote. I’ve been to enough Democratic committee meetings to know who the movers and shakers are.
geg6
I believe that was one of the major things the Cullen book on Columbine made clear to me. For sure, Kleebold was classically depressed and suicidal. Harris is a tougher nut to crack, but I also believe he was suicidal. And he definitely makes clear that the media fucked up any possibility of exploring that for many, many years. Our media suck in varied and many ways.
satby
@schrodingers_cat: I read your comment and I wasn’t talking down to you. Jeezus.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: This continued obeisance to the mythical salt of the earth Midwestern voter (unspoken implication is that it is white Christian male voter) grates on my nerves because it says to me that feelings of this voter are considered more important by a person running for the nomination of the Democratic party than the actual fucking lives of people like me. Sorry hard pass in the primaries. I don’t care how many fucking languages he speaks.
MomSense
@Chris Johnson:
I’m really sorry about Sam. Musician mom here – and his struggle hits me hard. I think you’re both right. Economic anxiety is real – the way economic anxiety was used to excuse the racial resentment motive of trump voters was always bullshit. So we need a better term to describe the reality of the economic oppression and injustice that has too many of us just trying to survive day to day.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: You made the assumption that I did not read or see his interview only read the Twitter quotes.
satby
Let’s change the title of this post to “Why we keep fighting… amongst ourselves while the Republicans continue to win as an unpopular minority party”.
Might as well tell the truth.
FlipYrWhig
@Matt McIrvin: The “left” online is smaller than libertarians online. They egg each other on and act like a smug bunch of fuckfaces. Just ignore them.
@Chris Johnson: Snarking about “economic insecurity” doesn’t mean no one is actually economically insecure. It means that economic insecurity had fuck-all to do with why Trump or Republicans win any elections. IMHO you’re getting “awkwardly angry” about a mistaken impression of what the phrase means in discussions these days.
Raven
fuck all ya’ll
Betty Cracker
@Chris Johnson: I am sorry about your friend.
I think Kay was right at #77; a lot of the knee-jerk derision at the idea of “economic anxiety” is due to lingering bitterness about the Sanders campaign. I think there’s truth to what you said at #84 about Democratic complacency in 2016. I also think But her emails!! made a fair point at #92. These aren’t mutually exclusive points, IMO.
Clinton ran on the most progressive party platform in generations in 2016, but the reality is that she was running for a third Democratic term, and Trump was running as the “change” candidate (albeit racist, sexist, xenophobic “change”). Trump’s most die-hard supporters ARE wealthier in aggregate, and they ARE primarily motivated by racist, sexist, xenophobic demagoguery. But generalized “burn it all down” discontent can make an election close enough to steal when you add in voter suppression, etc.
So, you’re all correct, IMO. Our task going forward is to row in the same damned direction because otherwise, we’re all fucked.
satby
@schrodingers_cat: because that’s what you quoted.
Whatever. There’s plenty of good candidates to choose from, so move on by Pete.
satby
@Raven: right there with you today.
snoey
@geg6: Not just school shooters. A relative of a family friend of an inlaw pretty clearly went to commit suicide by cop. He only killed one other person before he was killed so he isn’t on the lists, but that’s just chance.
MomSense
@satby:
That’s why I said we have to resist directing our anger horizontally. Lateral violence is a real thing. Not saying we are violent but we do tend to lash out at each other when we are facing an oppressive and unjust power structure. If we can identify the pattern it might help us be less vulnerable to manipulation, too.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Not today, I’ve got a headache.
Tony Jay
@Betty Cracker:
May’s deal looks dead in the water, seriously and fatally this time. Bercow likely won’t even let it come to a vote again without real changes, and in the absence of any favours from the E.U. (Por Le Terre d’Rosbif? Non) all she can do is allow a confirmatory referendum to be tagged onto any vote, and while that might get it through it would also split the Tory Party for good, so no.
I’d imagine they’ll have a series of indicitive votes next Wednesday or thereabouts to see what Parliament can swallow. That’ll be the point when the Tories (and a small chunk of Labour MPs from Leave voting constituencies) will totally loose their shit and we’ll really see fireworks. It all comes down to those 50 to 80 Tory MPs pulling their heads out is their arses and voting for something realisistic.
After that? Oooh. God knows. I’m not even ruling out a peace keeping occupation by the Icelandic military because why the fuck not?
rikyrah
UH HUH
why wasn’t there instant media self-reflection like this after press relentlessly speculated for 18 months abt whether Hillary would be indicted over her emails? https://t.co/7gHfN0RIuN
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) March 25, 2019
rikyrah
@Skepticat:
oil
Nelle
It is worth distinguishing economic insecurity from economic anxiety. One is a practical, measurable situation. It looks like many of those may have taken a practical step of voting for Clinton. The other is an emotional state, possibly more subject to fear and manipulation, a fear of losing the toehold one has. Of course, you can have both.
Tony Jay
@Leto:
Oh Man, I love a bourbon. Who would have thought the French monarchy could bake like that?
Betty Cracker
@Tony Jay: So, same shit, different day. I’ve got your explainer from last week handy to post when the shit hits the fan.
@Nelle: That is an excellent point and describes many of my Trumpster relatives, who are economically secure but “anxious” because racism-sexism-homophobia-xenophobia.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly:
What I am telling my students today:
The Mueller Report is a legal document.
The Barr letter is a political work of advocacy.
tobie
In other news, Janet Yellen has now explained why she thinks modern monetary theory is bunk. It turns out interest on debt is not something you can wish away, even with a fiat currency.
Patricia Kayden
@debbie: Giving up can never be an option. I don’t see Trump wiggling out of this unscathed and unharmed. There’s a reason he and his sycophants don’t want Mueller’s findings released.
Skepticat
@rikyrah:
You’re right, of course, but I’m curious about whether they’ll at least pretend to have a rationale. It makes me nervous that Russia’s sending in troops, and as I understand it (not too well), they disagree with the U.S. on who should be president—as though it’s anyone’s biz but of those in Venezuela.
Tony Jay
@Betty Cracker:
Basically. Everyone knows what has to happen to avoid Brexit, it’s just getting them to put their votes in the ‘not a lunatic’ column that’s hard.
I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Parliament narrowly votes for some kind of half-arsed Norway Super-Plus option that would require a year or more to negotiate, May sees her life’s work of de-browning the UK wrecked, refuses to allow a proper vote on it, Labour tables a No Confidence vote, it passes, General Election, E.U. allows long extension, King Robert dies and the Kingdoms go to War.
Probably.
rikyrah
Soledad O’Brien (@soledadobrien) Tweeted:
This is so odd watching journalists run with a summary of a report, but call it THE REPORT, and leaving open no option that there might be some um… inconsistencies. Maggie is quoting Mueller from a letter Mueller did not write. It’s kind of odd. https://t.co/caeFhUPqCa https://twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/1110164894261764097?s=17
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Tony Jay: I have to admit I expected the UK to back out of Brexit because from across the Atlantic it just seemed like pointless creation of problems. So I’m shocked it’s still barreling toward them. Maybe they are too.
Barbara
Trump, or what elected him, is essentially a political problem that even the most dedicated law enforcement officials cannot solve. The idea that “vote for Trump because he didn’t collude with Russia” is going to be a slogan to enable his reelection is risible. No president in the history of the United States has ever even been suspected of colluding with a foreign power. It’s a totally “own the libs” kind of proposition. The response is: release the report, release your taxes and let us decide for ourselves. And then move on. Seriously, although it’s early days as they say, this was so predictably the outcome that I would not have put money on it because the odds of seeing a return were so low.
OzarkHillbilly
@Skepticat:
If you are looking for a rationale, read up on what John Bolton has been saying about it, just don’t expect it to be very rational.
Leto
Trump Has Slapped His Brand On Images Of The White House To Sell At His Trump Store
Just thought we might need a simple reminder of where to concentrate our fire. The corruption is never ending.
WaterGirl
@satby: I really appreciated what you wrote.
We have some really great candidates this time around. If we’re gonna shoot someone in the head or on the foot, please let it not be us.
Barbara
@rikyrah:
In other words, what has changed?
chris
@OzarkHillbilly:
This. Yes. Thank you.
WaterGirl
@Kay: If there’s ever a week when we all need our pink celery to come up (or whatever our pink celery equivalent is) this is definitely the week. Hope yours peeks its head up soon. We all need something to shore up our faith and hope.
zhena gogolia
I AM NOT LISTENING TO ANY CRITICISM OF ANY DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE. PERIOD. (Note I said “Democratic.”)
Leto
@Skepticat: @OzarkHillbilly:
-DickJohn CheneyBolton
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: I really appreciate you here on Bj, so please take what I am about to say in the best possible way. I took your comment in exactly the same way that satby did, and her reply perfectly captured exactly what I was thinking.
So I hope you won’t just dismiss what satby had to say.
Skepticat
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks, but my stomach probably isn’t strong enough for that, so I’ll just read about the eventual results and assume there is no sense to it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Leto: Wash, rinse, repeat.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: Not at all. I get it, you and satby want me to shut up and you will tone police me till I do. You win.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker:
Quoting for truth. What you wrote could only be improved if you had added a swear word in there, right before the word damned.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I laughed out loud. Thank you for that.
zhena gogolia
We’re on the verge of fascism, guys. Real fascism. We have only one tiny glimmer of hope left — that some Democrat beats Trump in 2020. THEY ARE ALL A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER THAN TRUMP (I mean the Democrats).
We should talk about their programs and how much improvement the country would see under them. I have zero interest in ANY CRITICISM OF ANY OF THEM. I’m just done. We’re in a fight for our lives and our “democracy.” This isn’t up for debate, I’m sorry.
tobie
As we’re all directing our ire at Barr, we shouldn’t forget what a piece of shit Rosenstein has proven to be these past two years. He used his office in the DOJ to help his fellow-Ken-Starr-graduate friend Kavanaugh in his confirmation hearing. He’s a partisan hack. This came out in the FTFNYT at the time:
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: You have just demonstrated that you don’t get what I was saying, at all. I am sad to see that.
rikyrah
@zhena gogolia:
I saw that…LOL
zhena gogolia
Write as much as you want about the great programs and positive qualities of your chosen (Democratic) candidate. I’ll read your comments with great interest. But I’m scrolling on by any criticism of any of them. SIMPLY NOT INTERESTED. And I’m not going to write any comments criticizing any of them. (as long as they’re Democrats)
rikyrah
Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) Tweeted:
Bill Barr writing a 4 page summary of the Mueller Report is like a presidential candidate promising he’ll release multiple years of tax returns before releasing a two page summary for just one year.
https://twitter.com/eclecticbrotha/status/1109958380091777024?s=17
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
Remember, the Repub Evangelicals are solidly behind a man who cheated on his wife with an adult-film star while she was pregnant. They just don’t care — it’s raw power they care about. And obviously the media is profiting from him, so they’re all in for him as well. We have to be just as ruthless in overlooking any of our candidates’ defects.
Tony Jay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
We’ve got a weak Tory Government in office, and leaving the E.U. is very, very popular with the aging, semi-rural, Daily Mail/Telegraph/Times/Express reading membership of the Tory Party. Other than the minority of Tory MP’s from Remain-voting constituencies, any who cross the Party membership on something as close to their grey, wizened, hate-filled hearts as Brexit will probably be deselected quicker than they can say “Blame the E.U!” OTOH, outside of the hardcore Brexiteer cult they know full well how dizzyingly stupid leaving the E.U. would be for Britain, and they know who will get the blame when the post-Brexit shit hits the fan.
They’ve spent three years desperately hoping something or someone comes along to shoulder the blame for ‘Stopping Brexit’ for them, but it hasn’t happened. Now it’s getting right to the crunch and it’s all on them. They won’t be able to fudge for much longer. Do they shaft their Party or shaft their Country?
They’re Conservatives, so who knows?
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Rubs me the wrong way, and I live in the Midwest, but, one of those pesky ‘ urban’ areas, don’t ya know.
Spanky
@Leto:
Barbara
@WaterGirl: It would be nice to have the thumbnail correction. I honestly can’t blame people at this point for not going and spending significant amounts of time listening to speeches and whatnot. It’s now around 10 months before the first primary and it’s already driving me crazy.
plato
@Chris Johnson: Lemme guess, white dude, right?
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
I find any argument around ‘economic anxiety’ and voting to be complete and utter bullshyt.
There is no group more truly economically anxious in America than Black people. We should be the poster children for it.
Even in the best of times, Black unemployment is TWICE the rate of White Unemployment.
When a White High School Graduate has a better chance of getting a job than a Black College Graduate….
I don’t find any ‘economic anxiety’ explanations for White voting patterns plausible. Period. No matter the candidate. And, I’m not going to give any consideration to a Democratic candidate who spouts that nonsense.
zhena gogolia
All that said, I can’t resist repeating NotMax’s delightful comment on Buttigieg that I missed last night as I went to bed wailing and gnashing my teeth:
zhena gogolia
Asha Rangappa’s twitter is on fire this morning, but I’m too depressed to read it.
chris
@MomSense:
Class war?
Barbara
@Chris Johnson:
I say this in the nicest possible way. I don’t even know exactly who you are referring to, but that phrase is totally out of line. The use of the word “boy” like that is so racially fraught that it should be avoided at all times when it is used in a sentence that disparages an actual man. Also too, I have no idea who you were referring to and so have no idea how to evaluate your comment.
OzarkHillbilly
@Skepticat: @Leto: encapsulated it perfectly.
Alien radio
@tobie: looking at that, reads more like “This is fine”. I think a there’s a lot of people who’s paycheck depends on being able to justify the existence of interest, and more to the point who are trying to avoid acknowledging that a scary amount of the world’s debt (In aggregate maybe almost all of it) is worth nothing.
germy
debit
@Barbara: All you need to know is that Chris Johnson is the guy who insisted that Trump was going to force Air Force 1 to take him to Russia during one of the summits. I know I keep beating this drum, but the dude was serious. Why anyone, after knowing this fact, still wishes to hear anything he has to say is a mystery to me.
Barbara
@Tony Jay: Right, as I have been following the live feeds the prospect of stopping Brexit is proving once and for all time that most politicians (not to mention voters) want to be free riders — getting the benefit of other people’s courage without showing any themselves. First and foremost, they are careerists and their main goal is to keep THEIR job, no matter what happens to the unemployment rate for the entire nation. They have maintained this position even as they are sitting on the precipice and looking down, and starting to feel the first stirrings of dizziness. I would like to say that they deserve what happens, but I am pretty sure they have ordered the world so that THEY never get what they truly deserve when it comes to negative consequences.
Barbara
@debit: Having “out there” views shouldn’t be seen as a justification for race baiting. And I know that wasn’t what you were doing, but when someone says something that is so racially provocative I think it’s important to call them on it.
rikyrah
@zhena gogolia:
They have shown themselves to be who a lot of us already knew they were- complete phonies
debit
@Barbara: No, I totally agree and I didn’t mean to imply you shouldn’t have spoken up. It just amazes me that sane and smart people interact with him as if he has otherwise valid points to make. I mean, if I went around insisting that I was married to Obama on the astral plane I would be shunned and ignored, and rightly so.
Mike R
@Raven: Yeah, sounds good don’t forget fucking LBJ, and let’s throw in McNamara for good measure.
WaterGirl
@Barbara: I have posted the entire Buttigieg quote — the one that was being taken out of context — 3 different times here, so I didn’t want to be a jerk and keep posting it.
But not everyone reads every BJ thread, or every comment in every thread, so you make a good point about a thumbnail but substantive response.
L85NJGT
The tell was how pissed Trump was after his staff disseminated the meat of the report to him.
Barr and their media toadies are in full on damage control.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Thread on how the claims in the Barr letter are being unraveled. I found it comforting.
chopper
@satby:
this. as much as it sucks to watch, outreach to the other side’s voters is a part of presidential electoral politics. to avoid it is campaign malpractice. some candidates aim for their party’s base and then shift gears after the primary, sure, but some try a more general appeal from the beginning. the latter strategy is good if you don’t feel you’re likely to win the primary but have a good chance being picked as a VP, which seems to me where pete is going here; he’s young so this isn’t his only shot, he has broad appeal, and he’s from a red state in the midwest.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I found that comment to be perhaps 100 times too dismissive of Buttigieg to be considered “delightful”.
plato
After fucking 42 point totus thug is ‘exonerated’ screaming headlines all day yesterday, bbc has zero, repeat zero, totus thug news today. What a relief and a delight.
Immanetize
@OzarkHillbilly: Maybe mentioned up thread? The Russians have sent a delegation which includes about 100 troops in Venezuela.
WaterGirl
@debit: I had seen the “out there” comments you refer to, and when I saw his comment on this thread I read it 3 times to make sure this wasn’t something similar. But what he wrote here made sense and I’m not going to dismiss a valid point just because I don’t care for the person making it.
Then he lost points again with his “fuck your boy” comment, but that doesn’t make his original point wrong.
Barbara
@WaterGirl: I was away all weekend. A link would work. Thanks.
plato
Barbara
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The obvious ploy here is to establish the conventional wisdom before the facts can catch up. And in that sense George Takei’s comments were spot on — a lot of people spent election night wringing their hands that the Dems had crapped out, mostly because the highest profile senate races did not go our way. Meanwhile, it took days and weeks for it to finally emerge how big Republican losses really were. For low information voters — which is to say, most voters and certainly most Trump voters — having a positive initial snapshot view is all Trump and Barr et al. really care about.
Leto
@Immanetize: They have, but it was reported that Bolton wanted us to invade Venezuela to
get the oillet freedom ringfree the peoples!!! We’re simply showing that the line of “helping the people suckle from the breast of freedom” has been used to justify all sorts of dubious/evil shit. Suggesting regime change in Venezuela simply because their *leader hates us isn’t a good enough reason. Personally I don’t like Russian troops being in this hemisphere, but this administration doesn’t take it’s orders from the American people. Putin is feeling emboldened and is projecting power.WaterGirl
I fell like there’s an ICE CREAM metaphor to be made here, but I can’t figure out how to express it.
All the real Democratic candidates are fucking ICE CREAM and Trump is a fudgesicle made of real poop — if we don’t stop talking about how much Rocky Road sucks we are going to end up with the end of our democracy.
I have been trying really hard for weeks to talk about what I like about various candidates and to keep my fucking mouth shut when someone talks about how they love candidate X for this quality or that quality, and I profoundly disagree.
We all need to take a page from Elizabeth Warren’s playbook. She earned my profound respect when she was on Colbert back in 2008 or 09 or 10 — when he was trying to get her to express anger/frustration with Barack Obama because he wasn’t going to make her head of the agency that was only in existence because of her vision and drive. She said, and I believe this is an exact quote:
For the next 18 months, we all need to channel Elizabeth Warren on this.
Tony Jay
@Barbara:
Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
Forget misrepresentation and leaving things out. Trump and his employees flat-out, bald-faced lie in every public statement. He started his presidency lying about the weather to people who had been there. THE WEATHER. Why would anyone believe that even the minimal, out of context votes from Mueller aren’t made up? We know less about the Mueller report than we did before the Barr letter.
Disclaimer: I never expected the Mueller report to fix things anyway. This isn’t a battle against Trump, it’s a battle against the white supremacist Republican voters. Only by voting can we win.
Mike R
@WaterGirl:Excellent advice.
Fair Economist
@OzarkHillbilly:
The newspaper title seems off because the index in question is an *EU* indicator.
WaterGirl
My reply on Wednesday, March 20:
Just putting it all together here so everyone can judge for themselves.
*Not sure if I found the right quote for what is being discussed here, but now the I found this I will go ahead and post it as an example of one way to counter the way “I heard on twitter that X candidate said this horrible thing…” can spread around the world before the truth can get its boots on.
rikyrah
Tell it, Mr. Blow??
https://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow/status/1110191447024779265
Immanentize
@Leto:
I’m not at all disagreeing with your Bolton analysis.
I told my son like three weeks ago that the end game for Venezuela would be that Russia would get us pretty committed to success and then step in and offer a “solution” that favors Maduro and preserves both Russian and Chinese debt interest. So far, this is playing out as I imagined.
chris
Bound to work this time!//
chris
Meanwhile,
Kay
I know you-all don’t want to look, but it’s worse then even I imagined it would be:
Political media are going back to the fucking emails.
That’s what they’re all promoting. Hillary Clinton’s alleged crimes.
We are going to get daily news on the fucking emails for the next 6 months. It’s like March of 2016 in media-land.
Kay
@chris:
They don’t want to cover the policy positions of the Democrats, so instead they announce their beliefs about what Democratic voters care about, from their desks.
It was the same in ’18 and we won anyway- they refused to discuss healthcare, which is what voters cared about, so maybe if we stick to what voters care about it won’t matter what political media care about. It might even be a benefit. They’re not covering themselves in glory reporting on the female candidates, so maybe we’ll be better off without their personal preference for old white men.
In “18 they covered The Caravan and voters were looking at health care. Now they’ll cover the Mueller Report and voters will probably care about health care again, or taxes, or infrastructure. It could work to our benefit.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
Well, other than this total and utter bullshit, you are right to a certain extent. I’m not very enthused about voting for anyone who want to peddle this load of garbage, though. Fuck him with his “we.” “We” didn’t do any of those things, nor did she. The media may have portrayed it that way because they are lazy and compromised, but “we” didn’t and neither did Hillary.
I live among the idiots who voted for him. I’m perfectly clear on why they voted for him. It definitely wasn’t economic anxiety. It’s because they are horrible, awful, disgusting people who should be shipped off to Russia so they can see how much they love a despot.
geg6
@chris:
He’s also screeching about an investigation into Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch’s tarmac meet and greet. Because of course he is.
chris
Here’s hoping.
chris
@geg6: Also looking forward to seeing the Steele dossier on the front pages again. Sure, Lindsey, that’ll help.
Gravenstone
@Kay:
No. Republican politicians are going back to her fucking emails. Which leads one to ask what are they so desperate to direct the public (and yes, media) attention away from? We all have a pretty good idea what that something might be. It’ll be up the House Democrats to make sure they can’t actually bury it.
dexwood
@chris:
Go for it Lindsey, you trump sucking asshole, that should open up a boat load of questions from persistent Democrats into Ivanka and Jared’s social media habits and emails. No matter who the Democratic presidential candidate is, Republican ghouls will do everything possible to make the election about the Clintons.
bemused
@WaterGirl:
I think what you were going for was trump is a shitcicle.
Kay
@Gravenstone:
Political media took direction from Republican politicians on the original months and months of email coverage and they’re doing it again.
They don’t have to cover this as if it’s news. There’s nothing new about Lynch on the tarmac, or whatever. These are decisions they’re making.
Ruckus
@Nelle:
An example.
I know of a couple that make 180 grand a year, their house is paid for, they have good pensions and SS and the man had an injury that he thought would make him have to retire and they wondered how they could possibly live on 80 grand a year in retirement. BTW he’s better and will be able to work for the next 5 yrs till they have enough time in they will retire.
They are economically anxious.
They are not economically insecure.
Ruckus
@Tony Jay:
You sound optimistic today!
Isn’t it strange that conservatives want a world that doesn’t exist, that they know doesn’t exist, that they know can’t exist and yet they will tie themselves in knots in attempt to create that world. Life must be weird for them, what with walking around with their heads so firmly jammed up their bung holes….
Kay
@Ruckus:
I’m more economically anxious with Trump as President. He’s a dope and he hires low quality people. I don’t believe a word any of them say.
It’s funny that my emotional response to the economy is always opposite that of Wall Street – if they’re happy I’m worried.
Alien Radi
@Ruckus: I believe that is the exact profile of most of trump’s Strongest supporters.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
What’s odd about it?
Journalists either are conservative or work for conservatives for the most part, they want and yes even need conservative bullshit to be true, no matter if it is or not. And as it really can not exist, because there really are non white people in this world and there really are abortions that are vital to the health and survival of already alive humans and all of us are economically anxious even when we don’t really need to be and a lot of us are or have been economically insecure, but not everyone needs to be economically anxious because we really do have more than enough, even if we don’t have far more than enough, so they are going to write about conservatism and try to put it in a positive light or from a positive direction.
They want their magic pony and they want it now! I’m coming around to the idea that conservatives really are humans that have never grown past about 6-8 yr old mentalities, that they want the world to be as it was in their minds when they were kids, because that was a time they didn’t have to have a job or really work hard or see others succeed far more than them, they lived in a world inside their heads. And of course not all 6-8 yr olds saw the same world, even then. But that’s a world a lot of kids saw. A magical, pony riding world. The real world is so much different and mostly not in good ways.
Tony Jay
@Ruckus:
They’ve got an entire multi-platform media and cultural ecosystem geared to telling them that they’re all true-blooded Lords and Ladies of Gondor defending the last glories of the Old World from rampaging hordes of Orcs, Easterlings and Southron invaders*. That’s an attractive conceit for people who don’t want to look too closely into how the world they’re voting for screws them over and who they’re really fighting so hard for.
And if I’m optimistic, it’s because there’s bugger all I can do except rely on the venality and cowardice of a few dozen Tory dipshits to take the easy option out of all this and throw the decision on whatever they eventually poop out back to the people. These are extremely venal and cowardly people. It’s basically their culture. They won’t let me down.
(* The worst traitors are Black Numenoreans. I think we all know what that means.)
WaterGirl
@bemused: That works!
Ruckus
@Kay:
That’s because you aren’t a money sucking zombie and realize that Wall St. is out to make/steal as much from everyone/every place they can. They aren’t in it to raise capital for business, to grow the economy, they are all totally self centered and fucking greedy. Some are worse than this. If they are happy it’s because they have a better than even chance to score, and that’s never good for everyone else. You are right to be worried when they are happy.
Ruckus
@Tony Jay:
Great description.
As always, best put it in terms that we all understand, fiction. For that is their ideal, something that doesn’t and can’t exist.
WaterGirl
@geg6:
If I didn’t know better, I would say that we are reading completely different words, because I couldn’t disagree more with your representation here. This is a crazy world we are living in.
We are not adversaries here on BJ – except for the trolls – and I simply do not understand why good democrats like the people on BJ would be attacking democratic candidates like this. It’s as though some people — good and smart democrats here on BJ, people I respect — are bound and determined to tear down democratic candidates if they don’t see them as perfect. It boggles my mind.
What the fuck is wrong with us? BJ has long been a respite for many of us, and it’s turning into gladiator city. It’s making me sick. I wish people would direct their anger against the Republicans not against imperfect democratic candidates.
Hint: All the democratic candidates are imperfect.
tobie
I posted a few times about the staff changes at the SDNY. I don’t know why this story is not getting more attention. It was announced on Friday, a few hours before the news that Mueller had turned in his report, that Robert Khuzami, the Deputy AG who prosecuted Cohen and was likely to prosecute other Trump related cases, was stepping down from his post “to spend more time with his family.” This follows on the heels of the reassignment of another key prosecutor. Correct me if I’m wrong but for a Deputy AG to step down from the BIGGEST case(s) of his life is like an Olympic athlete announcing a month before the Olympics that though she might have spent her entire life training for this one competition, she decided she needed to spend more time with her family. The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
Ruckus
@Spanky:
This can go on for ever. There have always been politicians who think that they can save the world with military power. Just because it’s happened once or possibly twice in the past. People want to be a leader. Many people who want to be leaders are not themselves leaders, they are wannabes. Real leaders are rare. I’ve met 3 in my lifetime. I’ve been in a position of leading, and I’m not a leader. Many/most people in those positions are not leaders. In my lifetime three presidents have been leaders. Ike, JFK and Obama. Ike was because he was conscientious, JFK was because he was charismatic and Obama is because he is a natural. Beto and Mayor Pete may be naturals because they inspire people. HRC, Warren and Harris I don’t believe are naturals. That does not make them great candidates, their ideals and hard work do. The reverse also applies, a natural leader is not necessarily a good leader if their ideas are shit. I think Stacy Abrams may be a natural leader, with good ideas.
Chris Johnson
@Barbara:
Whoof. You’re not wrong. Even if rikyrah is really a dude named Boris in Kiev, point taken. It didn’t even occur to me, I was seeing them all as trolling Russians and specifically thinking that guy with his ending-in-numbers name was a Twitter trollbot saying things I consider enemy action.
It would appear that rage is not a very safe emotion to feel if you wish to remain a decent human. crud.
Chris Johnson
@debit: You can shut the fuck up. Jesus fucking christ, the way some people try to crank up social pressure if you begin to make economic arguments and especially if you question neoliberal purposes.
These are the kinds of things that drove me to vote for Bernie Sanders in the primary, and this is the kind of shit I had to shrug off over and over and OVER in order to vote for Hillary Clinton in spite of my deep antipathy to her approach to policy and my distrust of everything she said. it’s people like you who stoke the fires of lib-bashers. Shun, shun! You must scorn this person because they are untouchable and poison the discourse!
You’re ALL fucking Boris in Kiev. Hell with the lot of you.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
I think you are confusing insecurity with anxiety. People with economic anxiety are not necessarily insecure. They are mostly unjustifiably anxious about becoming insecure. The couple I spoke about above are that way. A lot of black people really are justifiably insecure, they don’t have any real security that they will be able to continue to exist in a reasonable manner. They are both economically insecure and anxious.
One can be economically secure and anxious, one will very likely be economically anxious if they are economically insecure. People who are economically secure and economically anxious are idiots. People who are extremely economically secure and anxious are just fucking assholes.
Chris Johnson
@rikyrah: This part is 100% true and right. And a deadly danger, and too goddamn fucking easy in this stinking society. I would do well to not forget that part so easily even while I get into a rage about stuff other people are glossing over. Nothing I could focus on, no number of personal friends I have that die, will change that Russia intentionally weaponizes racism.
I don’t want to join them in any sense.
Barbara
@Ruckus:
Yes, mostly, although if you look at how their children are doing you will often find the cause of the anxiety. But mostly, the anxiety is just being cultivated by others for their own benefit and it’s free floating without any real basis.
Ruckus
@germy:
Maxine Waters is a national treasure. She has seen and taken shit her entire life and is able to rub it in the faces of those who have thrown it at her for her entire life, with gusto and style. And she can get mad with the best of us. I’m hoping she can get even with them. And just as a side note, I believe she can swear with the best as well and that’s a trait I heartily agree with, these are times that call for swearing.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
I think he’s pretty clear here. He’s saying that Clinton made the election all about herself. And Dems did nothing but run around screeching about how horrible a person Trump is. And the result of Hillary and Dems not addressing any issues important to these people is that they voted for Trump, who apparently did address their issues. I don’t know how you read it any other way. The fact is that none of this is true, except that maybe Trump was the only one who addressed their issues. But that’s only because the only issues they care about were racism and misogyny. I’m just not very interested in a take like this and I find it somewhat repellant. If by some miracle, he’s our nominee, I will crawl over glass to vote for him. But would I vote for him in a primary? No, and it’s not just this dishonest description of the last campaign. I just don’t think he’s ready for prime time and he doesn’t impress me the way he seems to impress so many here. But that’s nothing new. I often don’t think politicians, books or movies that people gush over here are all that. Very often.
texasdoc
@Kay: Being more economically anxious with Trump in office is entirely sane–he himself is economically illiterate, and he hires low quality, corrupt people. He is going to drive the economy into a ditch. It’s affecting a lot of people already (tariffs, anyone?) but too many of them are unwilling to admit it.
debit
@Chris Johnson: Honey, you’re kookoo for cocoa puffs. rikyrah has social capital here. I have, I assume, a modicum of the same. You, on the other hand, are a nutbar that thinks Trump is going to fly to Russia based on his body language. You said that, not me. Go ahead and attack me for an issue, not for calling you out and reminding people that you’re a member of the Raving Looney Party.
Gravenstone
@Chris Johnson: Way to ensure that no one listens to anything you might wish to contribute, going forward. Because nothing secures your “argument” like virulently attacking longstanding members of the community.
debit
@Gravenstone: To be fair, I was not kind. But he shouldn’t have attacked rikyrah.
WaterGirl
@geg6: Looks like we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Except for the part about crawling over broken glass to vote for the democratic nominee.