Well, it looks like President Trump finally found his Roy Cohn.
Congrats, @LindseyGrahamSC. You’ve secured your place in history.https://t.co/bPSyq6M7wU
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) July 15, 2019
I just donated to the campaign of Graham’s Democratic opponent. I don’t know his chances (yes, it’s SC, voter suppression, gerrymandering, ratfvcking et al), but it was good for my blood pressure.
I do care, Senator Graham. And your apathy is disgusting. These are children and families seeking a better life. They deserve to be treated fairly and humanely. https://t.co/L9Br8FYOjc
— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) July 14, 2019
Want to #SendLindseyHome? Join Jaime: https://t.co/PtstK8dj18
— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) May 29, 2019
lamh36
NH poll has BS in 5th. But more importantly to me… Kamala Harris is #2 to Biden but within statistical error from #1
Listen…all the focus on bussing and bullshit and Kamala Harris is quietly and practically under the radar building her campaign apparatus up in those early states.
Biden folks got him doing more ole sckool…speeches and what not. I guess, they’re banking on PBO coalition just following along I guess?
Are they not trying to expand and keep up their coalition?
Biden needs more of this meet and greet stuff
TenguPhule
I for one, look forward to Graham either in prison or dead in the near future. I’m not picky at this point.
TenguPhule
Te lo dije.
Baud
@lamh36:
Excellent news.
JPL
@TenguPhule: A clip from the view on Mediaite appears to have McCain agreeing with you. Maybe not as strongly but the sentiment is there.
Baud
Lindsey Graham is no Mitt Romney.
Sloane Ranger
You know Lindsey Graham reminds me of that weak kid in school who seeks out a stronger kid and becames his loyal sidekick, carrying their satchel and laughing at their jokes. All so they can bathe in the other kid’s reflected glory, get protection and hope their reputation rubs off on them.
Graham did that with McCain but now he’s not there any longer, he has moved on, without so much as a backwards look, to the new tough kid in the school.
debbie
Even if the Dem opponent sucks at Manchin-level suckage, it’s worth supporting him just to see Lindsey lose.
debbie
@lamh36:
Biden is no Barack Obama.
Baud
@lamh36:
@Baud:
Also weird that Warren isn’t doing better there.
jl
@Sloane Ranger: Graham more or less admitted that was his tactic to stay in the spotlight and remain influential (or more accurately, lie to himself that staying close to the spotlight by any means necessary made him influential),.
Martin
@Sloane Ranger: Given the magnitude of his reversal, sounds like someone who’s been presented with information from the National Enquirer blackmail safe.
JPL
@debbie: lol no shit/
Ohio Mom
@Sloane Ranger: Yeah, I can see that.
I only recently started paying attention to Lindsey Graham. He gives me the willies, there is something deeply untrustworthy about him.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
He does have that serial killer vibe.
TenguPhule
@Ohio Mom:
Pretty sure the problem is he’s giving his willy to the wrong people.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
I thought serial killers were supposed to make people trust them?
Baud
Add Jim Newell to your bullshit list.
Lyrebird
@lamh36:
TBH I thought she exuded graciousness and collegiality while she also spoke her truth.
I have love for Uncle Joe and I hope he RETIRES with maybe 1/50th of that grace.
Sen. Harris and Sen. Warren are the contenders. May they both win over even more people with their messages, and may one of them become our next president!
TenguPhule
Oh and meanwhile this happened.
Ohio Mom
@Baud: Londsey Graham reminds me of the sort of character in Southern literature who has a secret, unsavory backstory that finally comes out in the last chapter and explains oh so much.
Even from a distance, he makes the hair off the back of my neck stand up. It’s different from how I feel about most Republicans, which is simple disgust and repulsion.
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
My impression is that the Russians are really going after her now, pretending to be black Americans who just hate her!
TenguPhule
@Ohio Mom:
He singlehandedly upended the Kavangh hearing by going full metal Fascist.
chris
@Martin:
Or Putin’s safe.
gkoutnik
@Ohio Mom: William Faulkner, oh, yeah.
Graham’s opponent should just plaster the state with Graham’s picture with “I don’t care”, big, over his face.
Still – SC. I know.
Mike in NC
Mike Pence and Lindsey Graham must have made a pact on which of them could outdo the other in polishing Fat Bastard’s tiny dick.
Ohio Mom
Based on the not at all scientific sampling of how I feel, which is see-sawing rapidly between Harris and Warren — I like her better, Ooh, look what the other just said/did, now I like her better, Nah, I think I’ll go back to liking the other one better — I continue to worry that the two of them are going to cancel themselves out.
They will split a big chunk of the total vote and we will end up with someone else who is not as strong a candidate and will not be as effective a president.
If there was only a magic way to meld them together into one super-candidate.
lamh36
Because of course… Bernie fundraising off the 4 Congresswomen.
split contribution to bernie’s campaign and the Congresswomen…
https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1150902460883619842
Martin
@chris: Either works. Graham had a streak of humor to him before Trump’s inauguration. That’s gone. He always seemed like an actor (moreso than the usual politician) who occasionally allowed his true self to show through. There was always a dimension to Graham that would never be revealed willingly, which is why the gay rumor sticks so strongly.
Now he’s just a straight up fictional character. He’s hostage to something, and making the most of the very limited space he can operate in.
Jay
Luciamia
@TenguPhule: the man definitely needs a spit valve.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@lamh36: If Kamala wins NH she wins the nomination. Period.
What’s hilarious is Wilmer sinking to 5th. NH is his neighboring state. He won it 3 years ago. With 60% of the vote. Now he’s on the verge of sinking to a single digit.
Ohio Mom
@Martin: I wonder if we will ever find out what the secret is that drives Lindsey’s behavior.
The ensuing thread would be full of jackals exclaiming, I knew, I called it, I told you so!
Raven
@Ohio Mom: Who would know when one person dominates every fucking thread?
Jay
Gelfling 545
@Sloane Ranger: I think he was repressing a lot in order to hang around with McCain. Trump is bringing out his hidden depths.
James E Powell
Does South Carolina’s junior senator have any thoughts on this? Has anyone asked him?
Another Scott
@chris: There’s something on DocumentCloud that claims there’s lots of evidence of Graham receiving Russian money in his 2016 Presidential campaign and afterwards.
Pictures of Graham (and Dershowitz!) with a Russian “oligarch”, also too.
The grammar in the report is very, very poor, so I’m skeptical, but maybe there’s something worth investigating there.
(That report turned up in less than a minute in a Google search for “lindsey graham scandal” (without the quotes) but I don’t recall hearing anything about it before. (Though Adam probably wrote about it here!))
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I think so too. I think she’s a lock for SC. She should do well in Nevada. So even if she doesn’t do great in Iowa, she’d have a strong showing into Super Tuesday, which California and Texas will dominate. And the Texas candidates aren’t exactly setting the world on fire right now.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
Oh. That’s nice. So each of the five campaigns gets an equal 20%, right?
Ha ha ha, I made a funny. It’s 12-1/2% (if that) for each of the four Congresswomen and 50% (if not more) for Wilmer. That skeeze.
seefleur
@TenguPhule: Full mental fascist… imho
TenguPhule
@Mike in NC:
Graham is winning, hands down.
chris
@Another Scott: Could be money or it could be a couple of large Slavic gentlemen told him what to do and told him what happens to those who disobey. Graham is more a bully than a brave man. Like most “conservatives.”
ETA: The report is from Scott Dworkin, apply salt as needed.
Anne Laurie
@Baud:
Granite Staters hate Massholes on principle. Also, the Live Free or Die Trying crowd (especially the ‘Taxachusetts refugees’) blame Warren for ‘cheating her way into office’ at the expense of their manly idol Scott Brown.
James E Powell
@Anne Laurie:
But didn’t those same Granite Staters have the opportunity to make him their very own senator?
Josie
@Raven:
So you’ve noticed that too?
Steeplejack
@lamh36:
Bernie is a lowlife. At this point he’s giving grifting a bad name.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven: @Josie: I’ve been commenting a lot less lately, you bastards.
lamh36
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Even if she gets in top 3 or higher in Iowa or NH…then roars into SC…she’s on a good track!
Unlike Biden, ever since the debate, Kamala Harris and her campaign have been all over NH, Iowa, and SC. Basically stumping at house parties, backyards, auditoriums and speeches. She and her camp have been putting in the work for sure and now the polls in places like NH are showing how well that hard work is going. Also too, there was some fake rumour aobut Harris coming to Utah…it wasn’t true, but the fact that there was good buzz in Dem circles about Kamala, seems like a good thing for the campaign.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: @Raven: @Josie: I was going to point that out too, that I have been not been commenting much in the past few weeks. Giving everyone a well earned respite from the hectoring bully.
TenguPhule
Pelosi torpedoes White House debt limit plan, throwing budget talks into chaos
FInally! Speaker Pelosi takes a stand.
Anne Laurie
@Ohio Mom:
Don’t wanna jinx my personal fave, but if Harris looks to be *the* candidate (or if she’s contesting the lead with, uh, let’s say Tulsi)… I can see Warren dropping out & encouraging her stans to switch to Kamala. Just my opinion, which may or may not be realistic…
Anne Laurie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Those self-styled ‘Taxachusetts refugees’ I mentioned? Those are Wilmer’s people — not his trustafarian ‘base’, but the poujadist quasi-libertarians who just want Tha Gubmint to stop interfering with a man’s right to cheat his employees and beat his kids. I think they’ve yet to choose, this year, between the dozen single-digit white male candidates; I know Seth Moulton (& to a lesser degree, Tim Ryan) have been all over the state for the last couple months, as duly highlighted in the local media. They went hard for Bern-it-down in 2016 because, uch, Hillary, but apart from the cranky personality they don’t have much in common politically.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Anne Laurie: Harris/Warren 2020!
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Is that a comment about Graham’s technique?
Ohio Mom
@Anne Laurie: I’ve actually had that same thought but I can’t tell if it is a reasonable prediction or wishful thinking.
Every now and then when I get in too deep I stop and remind myself that what I think doesn’t matter. Yes, my vote matters, my volunteering and contributing matters, but the scenarios playing in my head? No. They don’t predict or influence anything, except maybe my mood.
Still, I think that Harris is a more certain bet because she comes across as a warmer, more responsive personality than Warren.
Warren deserves a lot of credit for her ground-breaking policy proposals. She’s moved the Overton window singlehandily, and that allows whoever ends up running a wider, clearer path forward.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
And then Ms Pelosi said “Your problem, Secretary Mnuchin, NOT mine!”
If her team stands with her, she’s got them between a rock and the hard place!!
Bill Arnold
Was wondering how the POTUS Trump rates on the Ten Commandments checklist.
(1)You shall have no other Gods but me.
Check. He worships himself.
(2)You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it.
Check. He worships anything (positive, to him) to do with himself, including (flattering) images of himself.
(3)You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
Check. Turning the Christian Right (even) more evil for personal political gain.
(4)You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.
Check.
(5)Respect your father and mother.
Dunno. Perhaps he’s OK on this one.
(6)You must not commit murder.
Dunno.
(7)You must not commit adultery.
Check.
(8)You must not steal.
Check. Plenty of documented examples.
(9)You must not give false evidence against your neighbour.
Check. Plenty of documented examples. (WaPo maintains a list of simple falsehoods, some of which are false witness level. Also, looks like he lied to Mueller in his written responses. Later remains to be proven.)
(10)You must not be envious of your neighbour’s goods. You shall not be envious of his house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbour.
Check.
8 out of 10, not bad.
Anne Laurie
@James E Powell:
See the first sentence of my comment there; Granite Staters hate MA ‘carpetbaggers’ even worse than they hate uppity Democrat wimmin. Especially the ‘tax refugees’ who only moved to NH in the last few years!
L85NJGT
He is running for the VP slot.
Bill Arnold
@J R in WV:
I hope any deal involves his compliance with that subpoena….
VOR
@Bill Arnold: Trump is the 7 deadly sins personified, in an ill-fitting suit. Greed. Lust. Wrath. Pride. Sloth. Envy. Gluttony I wondered about, then I thought about 2 scoops of ice cream and well-done steaks.
JR
@lamh36: this is why it’s hard to win when you’re old. Not sure Biden has it in him.
Bill Arnold
@TenguPhule:
I hope she sarcastically said that she was surprised, that Mnuchin had promised to the American People that the Tax Cuts For The Rich would pay for themselves.
RAVEN
@schrodingers_cat: The dude hasn’t a clue.
japa21
Just a small gripe re the debt ceiling. IIRC, there was a lot of anger at the GOP for playing games with the debt ceiling while Obama was President and asking budgetary demands, etc. Is it now okay to copy their behavior?
Bill Arnold
@japa21:
There wasn’t a lot of negotiation. Just a sudden and rather late ultimatum from Mnuchin saying that tax revenues were less than expected (IIRC). I say let them sweat for a bit. He can always ask Rich Americans to give back some of their sweet tax cut monies.
ETA yeah:
Mnuchin Warns Pelosi U.S. May Run Out of Cash in Early September (Erik Wasson, Saleha Mohsin, 2019/07/12?)
Matt McIrvin
No matter who gets the nom, there are some people I’m going to have to stop following online for the sake of my mental health. Which ones depend on who it is.
Another Scott
@japa21: Repost: GovExec:
Mnuchin is trying to short-circuit budget negotiations and make the House surrender rather than allow the House and Senate to negotiate in good faith. (McConnell has said that the Senate isn’t going to do anything about the budget until the White House comes to terms with the House.)
Obama didn’t do that.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: From your mouth to God’s ear.
Wapiti
@japa21: If the Repubs didn’t want the Democrats to do this, they could have negotiated doing away with the debt ceiling while Obama was in charge.
Steeplejack
@L85NJGT:
Speaking of the V.P. slot, gold from Twitter:
Redshift
I would be happy if Pelosi said the only bill she’ll consider for dealing with the debt ceiling separately is one that abolishes the debt ceiling.
Suzanne
@Ohio Mom:
Agree. He is exceedingly creepy.
And that is the case irrespective of his toadying, dishonesty, and bigotry.
Bill Arnold
@Redshift:
That would be good. She has leverage; I hope she wields it like a knife, twisting it as appropriate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ohio Mom: @Suzanne: Pence, Graham, Santorum, Tom Cotton… they all set my that-boy-ain’t-right detector spinning.
Another Scott
@Redshift: The 2019 House Rules addressed the debt ceiling and a bunch of other things. It brought back a version of the Gephardt Rule (passing a budget automatically increases the debt ceiling the necessary amount). But it only applies if there’s a budget resolution, and that hasn’t happened yet.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Agreed. And when Pompeo was a MoC, I got the same vibe from him.
Well, I still do, but I mean it was pretty obvious even all those years ago.
Not gay, necessarily. Lots of GL folks who never set me off like that. Not necessarily even sexual or gendered. Just a bit off.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ohio Mom:
Faulknerian.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: right, it’s not necessarily sexual, still less necessarily gay. Cotton… he’s done some stuff.
ETA: as in, did the squirrel and rabbit populations dramatically decline in the time and place he was in middle school
Another Scott
@SiubhanDuinne: I liked it better when you called Pompeo a ZmoC. (Whatever that is.)
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack:
Oh, that’s wonderful! Precious, even!
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Exactly. Can we also bring the Huckabees into the mix?
SiubhanDuinne
@Another Scott:
(Whatever that is.)
dww44
@TenguPhule: I recommend a donation to his Democratic opponent,Jaime Harrison via Act Blue and help to turf him out of office. If that happens, South Carolina would have 2 African American Senators! That would indeed be historic and sweet schadenfreude for all people of color.
Relatedly, has anyone noticed how actually mean and ugly Graham’s facial expressions are when he goes on his rants, as he did against the 4 Congresswomen and memorably, too, during the Kavanaugh hearings? Anyone who can look that ugly and mean is revealing a lot about his lack of a moral core.
Another Scott
@dww44: Is Harrison a better candidate than Gloria Bromell Tinubu?
It’s great that several people are running in the primary. I want to know more about them before going all-in on either of them (though I sent a small donation to Harrison when he announced).
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
dww44
@Another Scott: Can’t speak to the Bromell Tinubu candidacy, but I do know that Jaime Harrison has an actual page on Act Blue already and he’s been interviewed on tv several times, including on the RM Show. I find him to be an appealing and viable candidate. As a Georgian, I’ve never heard of Bromell Tinubu.
Another Scott
@dww44: Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.