“Independent” pic.twitter.com/gK1PJnDLKr
— Schooley (@Rschooley) November 17, 2019
I read Bill Barr’s speech to the FedSoc just now. I think it is best delivered while wearing a uniform and mirrored shades, and while standing on a balcony.
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) November 16, 2019
Provided some people only get 3/5 of a vote. https://t.co/mpCwVy8IYX
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 16, 2019
Attorney General William P. Barr on Friday vigorously defended President Trump’s use of executive authority and suggested that House Democrats were subverting the will of voters by exploring whether to remove the president from office for abusing his power.
Mr. Trump campaigned on a vow to upend Washington, and voters were aware of his agenda when they elected him president, Mr. Barr said.
“While the president has certainly thrown out the traditional Beltway playbook and punctilio, he was up front about what he wanted to do and the people decided they wanted him to serve as president,” Mr. Barr said in a speech at a conference hosted by the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group influential in Republican politics.
[Evergreen question: Who funds the Federalist Society?]
Mr. Trump’s opponents “essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple by any means necessary a duly elected government,” Mr. Barr added…
Speaking for an hour at the upscale Mayflower Hotel a few blocks from the White House, Mr. Barr hit back at the president’s critics on an array of fronts as he argued that Mr. Trump, in his capacity as president, has not overstepped his authority.
While Mr. Barr never uttered the word impeachment, he castigated those he sees as stalling Mr. Trump’s agenda. He defended the president’s right to set policies, steer the country’s diplomatic and military relations and keep executive branch conversations confidential from congressional oversight…Mr. Barr is known as an executive power maximalist and a believer in the unitary executive theory, which posits that the Constitution imbues the presidency with broad powers that are subject to relatively little oversight.
He has argued, for example, that Congress cannot make it a crime for a president to exercise executive powers corruptly; and that presidents have authority over law enforcement investigations even when investigators are scrutinizing their activity…
when Bill Barr was a young adult, eight in 10 Americans were white Christians
now four in 10 are white Christians
that’s the backdrop for Barr’s feeling of aggrievement and victimization https://t.co/AAKsHkNkQh
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) November 16, 2019
Trump has found his Roy Cohn. https://t.co/Y4jp0RSKnp
— Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) November 17, 2019
Possibly related news:
Trump talks Russia probe audit with attorney general and White House counsel in Oval Office meeting https://t.co/Vr3fGXE8Mx
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) November 15, 2019
From doing more crimes. https://t.co/mmD3Xux2Kx
— Schooley (@Rschooley) November 16, 2019
Extremely weird that Bill Barr leaked his Fed Soc speech to you of all people
— Matt Singer (@matthewjsinger) November 16, 2019
germy
Of course he gives a shout-out to Fisher Ames
germy
– Fisher Ames
zhena gogolia
I just read the Vanity Fair article on his father (the man who hired Epstein as a teacher for young people). He was a giant bastard as well, who sabotaged students’ college applications if they were too left-wing. (The article was far too kind to W. Barr, BTW.)
Baud
Projection. It’s what they do.
p.a.
Conservatives support laws that constrain others and protect themselves, but not the inverse.
Doug R
2,800,000 MORE voted AGAINST in 2016.
8,000,000 MORE voted AGAINST trump in 2018.
Impeachment IS the will of the people.
lapassionara
@Baud: This! The all-purpose explainer.
ps, my number disappeared.
Major Major Major Major
I saw that. Disgusting.
amazing how it’s always projection with these people
Calouste
So it’s the same argument that Boris Johnson used regarding Brexit, that the majority of Parliament (or the House), elected by the people, doesn’t represent the will of the people, but the PM (President), not elected by the majority of the people, does.
lapassionara
@Doug R: I thought there were almost 10 million votes against Trump in 2016, counting 3d parties.
lapassionara
@lapassionara: Nym
Amir Khalid
I was under the impression that Trump’s Roy Cohn was Roy Cohn. Bilbar the Ballcarrier strikes me as more of a willing servant.
Martin
Because I can’t remind people of this enough:
Jinchi
I thought it was the electoral college that subverted the will of the people.
Redshift
Is it just me, it has conservative whining about things being “religion” to liberals increased a lot lately? Climate change, politics…
Funny how demanding government obey the dictates of your “religion” is only a bad thing when liberals do it.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: Roy Cohn was Trump’s mentor; Barr is his Roy Cohn, the shameless hack political fixer.
Jinchi
@lapassionara: 54% voted against Trump and that was at the peak of his popularity.
Chetan Murthy
The *stones* on this fascist piece of shit: he has the temerity to invoke Kant’s Categorical Imperative back at us!
Mnemosyne
@Doug R:
That’s exactly what I clicked in to say: Barr has a set of brass balls to claim that the guy who LOST the popular vote is doing “the will of the people.” ?
jeffreyw
Jinchi
@Doug R: Don’t give him too much credit, 2.8 million more voted for Clinton, but Trump lost the popular vote by more than that.
63 million voted for him. 76 million voted against him.
Baud
@Redshift:
I don’t know if it’s increased, but it’s always been a rhetorical staple of the religious right.
Gravenstone
He said he was going to be a corrupt asshole, and you people are holding that against him? The nerve!
lamh36
Good Sunday evening BJ!
Goodness I’m tired. Came back from Paris feeling under the weather. Then I had a test like a week later that I barely studied for (still got a 90…not sure how, but I’ll take it). It took bout the entire week to get over this sinus thing. Then I had to work this weekend and now, I‘ve got one of 3 final test next week (seems like I’ve got a test every damn week, but more like every 2 weeks…ugh).
At least there is only a little over 3 weeks left in the Fall semester is over and I just have 2 regular tests in my other 2 classes and then and no final exams.
I’m looking forward to taking a break and FINALLY get to posting bout my Paris birthday trip. I’be been meaning to do it, but I just can’t find the energy. So, I’m pushing back my Paris blog post ’til I can find the energy to post up some pics and vids.
But here’s something I can share today, here’s the Eiffel Tower all lit up from one of my nights in Paris!
#ParisMemories
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/1196191883535486977
Baud
@Chetan Murthy:
He Kant do that!!!
Baud
@lamh36: Sparkly!
Jay
@Redshift:
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Srsly.
Mitch McConnell, John Bohner, Paul Ryan and the Republicans, 2009-2017. ✅
Jay
Well worth a read,
Or reading again,
Or bookmarking and regularly referencing it,
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Fixed.
Kay
It’s sad. It’s improper for a prosecutor to designate anyone who is not a Trump supporter as people he simply doesn’t serve or protect or indeed have any respect for- no one should have any faith he will be impartial and we who make up the group of “people who don’t support President For Life Trump” probably should be concerned he’ll launch political prosecutions. He has a lot of power.
This wouldn’t fly with a county court prosecutor and now it’s the best we can do in the top law enforcement official in the country?
It’s such a low standard. It’s just low quality work. You really could do better with a random selection of city or county prosecutors. Just pick one- chances are they’ll be better than this. They won’t be worse.
Gin & Tonic
I just happened to watch (via Twitter) Fareed Zakaria’s “Fareed’s Take” trying to explain away hi s involvement in the attempted extortion of Zelensky.
I’ve never liked him much, as he — even thought he’s got a funny name and brown skin — is about as edgy as American cheese on white bread with mayo. But this is a dude that needs to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. Now. He knows shit about Ukraine, and all through that segment I was saying to myself “who the fuck asked *you*?” There are real journalists, both Ukrainian and foreign, who have been doing real work in Ukraine for a long time — this in a country where journalists routinely meet horrible ends — and this asshole wants to parachute in and interview Zelensky? Fuck you, Zakaria, fuck you in your stupid ass.
Chetan Murthy
@Gin & Tonic: South Asia’s answer to Tom Friedman.
Jay
Shalimar
Is crippling a duly-elected government bad? I feel like someone should tell McConnell it is bad. Maybe he will let us do the Obama presidency over again once he realizes how bad he was.
Kay
What’s amazing to me is how fast it went. Trump won one election (and lost the midterms) and every far Right Republican immediately began to behave as if he is President For Life and we all must bow before their perpetual public mandate.
It was so easy to tip them into pure, anti-democratic authoritarian. They flipped in about 36 hours. One election. Imagine if they put two in a row together. They’ll be rounding up their political opponents.
Roger Moore
@Redshift:
And at the exact same time they’re literally trying to allow people to ignore the law when it conflicts with their religious beliefs.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
What is he, some kind of Kant?
Jay
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Saucy!
Kay
And he’s only won one election. Ever. Admittedly it was a big one but the confidence with which conservatives have…dispensed with all segments of the public who won’t kiss up to this conman seems, I don’t know, risky to me.
We have a lot of elections in the US. They are not, in fact, going to remain in power for life. They may regret announcing they serve no one in the public outside of those who attend Trump rallies and vowing to punish their political enemies.
They bet the whole wad on this piece of shit. They don’t have a Plan B.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Trump is doing the will of the people, as long as you accept that “the people” refers to straight white Christian men. It’s only when you get crazy ideas like counting the opinions of a black woman equal to a white man that you encounter problems.
mrmoshpotato
Welcome. Thanks for joining us for edition #umpteenthfuckingtime of “Wow. These fucking people!” where we say “Wow. These fucking people!” about the Russthuglican Trump trash party, and their blinding hypocrisy and projection.
We’ll have a new edition tomorrow, or in the next hour or in 15 minutes. Don’t believe us? You must be new. We envy you.
Jay
Baud
@Kay:
Their course was fixed when they went all in for Reagan. There was no other place they could end up.
Redshift
Peter Sagal, who wrote a book about the Constitution, had a great brief Twitter thread about Barr’s speech:
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Everyone in Dallas is gay except 2 people. That’s just science!
Shalimar
@Kay: They did this with Bush too, at least before Katrina. War president, can’t say anything bad about him, etc. Condi Rice even floated that they might have to cancel the 2004 elections if something bad happened. This cult leader worship has been coming on for a long time, at least since they deified Reagan.
TS (the original)
Don’t know if this has been mentioned I just read it in wapo
Seems Johnson knew what was going on & tried to convince trump to stop what he was doing.
As for the two branches of government, it he conceding that congress (well the GOP in congress) does nothing so it shouldn’t count, or has he merged together the administration & the judiciary?
Now I’ll try to link
NotMax
“Our problem is with these neoconservatives, the radical right, the religious extremists whose interpretation is very narrow, and who want to destroy everyone who doesn’t agree with them. I see them as betrayers of the fundamental principles of conservatism. A lot of so-called conservatives don’t know what the word means.”
– Barry Goldwater
“Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespeare it is simply disgraceful.”
– Aldous Huxley
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
I think Zakaria chose to opine because it was (purportedly) on his show that Zelensky was going to announce the Hunter Biden “investigation.”
Now, why Zelensky would choose Zakaria, I have no idea.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
The thing is that the Republicans have been at risk of losing lots and lots of elections for a long time. They represent a dwindling segment of the population, and their primary means of maintaining their grip on that segment has angered everyone outside it. They see undermining the democratic process as their best long-term play. They aren’t worried about future elections because they believe they’ll be able to rig them, or at least to rig enough of them (together with packing the courts) to maintain their grip on power indefinitely.
SFAW
I keep hoping that Speaker Pelosi or the House Judiciary Committee will announce that Shill Barr is under investigation for various impeachable crimes.
The icing on the cake would be Speaker Pelosi saying, when she makes the announcement, “These fucking guys, I swear … “
mrmoshpotato
@Gin & Tonic: A thread
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Mr. Zakaria, you and Jeff Zucker are gliding over WHERE you’d be conducting Zelenskyy’s extorted interview: at Ukrainian oligarch Viktor PINCHUK’s YES conference.<br><br>Let’s give people the true context. <a href=”https://t.co/QBPYlQxOj5″>https://t.co/QBPYlQxOj5</a></p>— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) <a href=”https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/1196149472675401731?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>November 17, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″>
Shalimar
@Jay: 100% male. I don’t think they know what straight means.
Kay
@Shalimar:
Deified Reagan is right. Yuck. The sappiness and insistence that we all pretend he was our father was gross.
I guess it just never occurred to me that Jeff Sessions was the highest quality prosecutor the Right could possibly produce. That’s not a real high ceiling and I’m not at all confident we’ve yet seen the floor.
Recall that Barr was trotting around Italy looking for something to charge an American Democrat with, any Democrat, apparently.
mrmoshpotato
@Gin & Tonic: Ugh. Dammit.
Here a link to the Twitter thread.
Barbara
Bill Barr, Kavanaugh and Cipollone have many things in common but the fear they have in common is seeing their religious identity becoming less and less consequential in society. That they somehow attached their star to someone like Trump, a man with zero discernible religious allegience, to help reinforce the case for religion would be amusing if it were not do dangerous for so many. Trump positively repels people and the fusion of religious identity to Trump makes that identity repellant to anyone who wasn’t already in the fold. God they are stupid.
Gravenstone
@TS (the original):
My Senator, everyone !
/hangs head in disgust
Seriously Ron, you’re old enough to have had civics in school. Did they not teach your ignorant ass that there are three co-equal branches? I mean, we all know you’re dumb as a post, but you don’t need to be showing it to all the neighbors.
Jay
@mrmoshpotato:
Not enough diversity to form one heterosexual couple,
mrmoshpotato
@SFAW:
Yes!
TS (the original)
I’m not up on embedding tweets yet – but this from Tedra Cobb
We just hit the $975,000 mark.
Kay
I actually think we could use some peaceful and huge demonstrations prior to the election. I’m fairly confident they’ll do something completely outrageous between now and the election, and that could inspire one, but since they no longer seem at all concerned about elections or voters I think a preemptive show of NON support could act as a check on their anti-democratic impulses.
Can’t hurt. Make it clear we WILL be out there if they try anything hinky and there are a lot of us.
Jay
Interesting stat, in 2011, 32% more Black males between the ages of 14-28 in NYC, than there are Black males between the ages of 14-28 in NYC.
mrmoshpotato
@Barbara:
Dump is his own god. He worships himself.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
It’s an old apocryphal story. Supposedly a Columbia philosophy professor was on the subway late at night and no one was in the car, so he lit up his pipe. A policeman said, “Hey, what would happen if everyone did that?” He said (in a thick German accent), “What are you, some kind of Kant?” and was arrested.
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW: The motherfucking *arrogance* of a dude who’s never (to my knowledge) been to Ukraine, speaks neither Ukrainian nor Russian, and thinks “I’m the right venue for this.” Fuck him. Nobody would think less of him if he came out and said “this is a country I’m not familiar with, so I’ve invited this experienced Ukrainian journalist on to tell you what’s what.” There’s no lack of English-speaking Ukrainian journalists, or Brits or Americans who’ve lived there for years and know what’s going on. Plenty of people have paid their dues. This stupid fuck hasn’t.
Kay
@Jay:
It’s incredible though. “I will now denounce the central reason I’m at all famous, besides my being rich as shit”
It just makes me not trust him more, and I didn’t think that was possible. I get changing your mind and I’m all for it but this just seems cynical.
NotMax
@Jay
Quasi-obligatory?
:)
Gin & Tonic
I need to have a glass of wine or something. This isn’t good for me.
Jay
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
Thinking about Barr makes me angrier than just about anything else.
Sloane Ranger
@SFAW: There’s been so much info released that I can’t be sure but I think someone said that Trump wanted Zelinski to announce the Biden investigation on CNN. Zakaria works for CNN and was seeking an interview, so…
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
When someone shows you who they are, believe them. These self-professed “Christians” show their true religious beliefs by backing Trump. They don’t believe a thing Christ taught; they believe in money, hatred of The Other, and maintaining their grip on power. Everything else is window dressing.
ruemara
@TS (the original): No, he’s setting the groundwork to say the 2 branches are the branches under total GOP control – the Executive & the Judiciary.
Jay
@Kay:
the time to apologize and remove it as a policy was over a decade ago, when it was debunked as a policing measure,
then about a decade ago, apologize again when it’s “outed” as a classist/racist policy be design,
Chetan Murthy
Might be a typo here?
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
Timed out before I could fix it,
Calouste
@Jay: 2 attendees? Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve?
Jay
Baud
@Sloane Ranger: That’s my understanding.
Kay
@Barbara:
I always wonder that about religious conservatives though. They (supposedly) own the whole concept of God and eternity and they’re more than willing to trade that and take something much smaller- one of hundreds of groups who lobby the GOP. They’re not AS powerful as the US Chamber of Commerce but are MORE powerful than the American Association of Manufacturers, and gun makers beat all of them.
Who makes that trade?
“Sure! Take my religion and fold it into a political party! Fine!” They made it so much smaller and pettier.
debbie
@lamh36:
Beautiful!
mrmoshpotato
@Gin & Tonic: Obligatory
Another Scott
@lamh36: Great picture. Thanks for sharing!
Welcome back to the old stomping grunds. Here’s hoping you’re back to your old self soon.
Cheers!
Scott.
gene108
The conservative problem with the Left is that we’re just more fun.
You don’t want to go to church every Sunday? Or synagogue on Saturday? Or mosque on Friday? No worries, you be you.
You want same sex marriage? Alrighty then
You want to die your hair multiple colors, young lady? Pick colors that match, ok
You want to live together and not get married? I’ll accept it.
Seriously, conservatives are mad that they made a big to-do about cultural changes in the 1970’s and 1960’s, with regards to being more open about sex, drugs, etc. and lost badly.
waysel
@Gin & Tonic: I believe he – and CNN- was chosen by Trumps gang to premier the investigation announcement because it would look less fake coming from CNN and a brown man. Trump/ Guliani/ Murdock logic. The interview with Zelensky had been scheduled, but the whistleblowers complaint was revealed 48 hours before the interview, so it all went poof.
Kay
@Jay:
I think the mass incarceration policy ruined police. They don’t know how to de-escalate anymore. They don’t talk to people. That’s a real skill and some of them used to have it. Now they go right to overwhelming force.
It’s zero to 1000 when they’re met with any resistance at all, including polite yet important questions like “why am I being detained?”
Jay
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
It’s always interesting how the same people who insist the US “is a republic not a democracy” try to use the Will of the People TM when defending their corruption. And no, Barr, the American people did not vote for Trump. Sarah Huckabee Sanders did that shit too. And it’s irrelevant anyway when the president has abused his office
PPCLI
@Major Major Major Major: It’s always useful to remind ourselves that the Republicans in Congress were revving up to impeach Hilary well before she was elected. Jason Chaffetz could hardly keep from drooling as he contemplated what he called the “target rich environment“.
Now these same people are simply shocked, shocked that Congress would dare investigate a president.
Calouste
@Jay: Bloomberg said he was going to spend $100 million to run ads against the shitgibbon. I might believe he is sorry about stop and frisk if he donates another $100 million to help black communities in NYC.
Wag
@gene108:
You’re right about almost everything on your list. My only quibble is your assertion about hair color. I don’t think that there is any consensus that it has to match.
Baud
@gene108:
Almost right. It’s that we’re both more fun and more moral. They believe that they traded fun for moral, but it turns out they got neither.
debbie
@Jay:
That second tweet’s right. The Republicans preceding these clowns were smart enough not to say what they were really thinking. Not these guys. Ever.
lgerard
@SFAW:
Now, why Zelensky would choose Zakaria, I have no idea.
Because he is the most recognizable “American” figure on the worlds largest news platform.
mrmoshpotato
@Wag: Tell me teal and pink don’t match.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie: Unsurprising with the “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.” guy heading their party.
Baud
@lgerard:
FWIW, you shouldn’t put quotes around American. He either is American or he’s a citizen of another country. No grey area.
PPCLI
@zhena gogolia: That may have been a true story; at least the person of whom it is usually told (Columbia philosophy professor Sydney Morgenbesser) said it was true. Morgenbesser was a jokester, and it could well be he made it up for the laughs.
My favorite Morgenbesser witty anecdote pertained to his examination during voir dire for jury duty in a trial involving police brutality. Background info: He had marched with the Columbia students during the 1960s. Also he was legendarily precise in his language, even for a philosophy professor.
Attorney: “Have you ever been treated brutally and unfairly by a police officer.”
Morgenbesser: “I’ve been treated brutally, but not unfairly.”
Attorney: (puzzled:) “How has a police officer treated you brutally?”
Morganbesser: “He hit me over the head with a nightstick.”
Attorney: (Still puzzled) “Why was that not unfair?”
Morganbesser: “He was hitting everyone else on the head with the same nightstick”.
debbie
@mrmoshpotato:
Trump made America safe for racist bigots. //
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: maybe a gin and tonic?
Yutsano
@Baud: Zakaria is a naturalised citizen. Therefore he is American. Scare quotes are unnecessary to the point of offensive.
PPCLI
It’s not just Barr to be worried about: the entire audience of Federalist Society members gave him a standing ovation.
lgerard
@Baud:
What I meant was he is identified with CNN America rather then CNN International, so it would seem that the story was being reported by the US media
I didn’t make that very clear though
PPCLI
Edit. Just saw Lgerards comment above.
James E Powell
@Roger Moore:
I keep looking for evidence that says they’re wrong, that says they’re crazy to do this, but all I’m seeing is hopes and speculations.
TS (the original)
@gene108:
Yet along came an atheist, adulterer, thrice married, misogynist and they welcomed him with open arms. It is all a farce.
Immanentize
@Baud: “American?”. America is not a country to which one can be a citizen. Contra West Side Story.
catclub
Translated, they knew he was a crook when they voted for him, so throwing him out just because he is a crook
is unsporting.
Chetan Murthy
@Immanentize: Au contraire, I think @Baud: has a point — we’re not “USians”, not to ourselves, not to Canadians, and not to people in other countries. We’re Americans. And so yeah, Baud kinda has a point.
When I read the comment asking why Zakaria was chosen, my INSTANT reaction was “because Anderson Cooper wouldn’t have played along with the gag nicely.” Zakaria’s your go-to guy who looks all worldly and shit, but is actually just as awful as Tom Friedman. He’s where you go to rainbow-wash your perfidy.
Ruckus
@Shalimar:
It was long before Ronnie.
Back when WF Buckley was pontificating on TV.
Back when Joe McCarthy was being Joe McCarthy.
And before that, the Civil War.
Conservatives haven’t changed from being against anyone else being in office as imperative one since day one. And that anyone other than them will destroy their way of life, which has been the same goal since day one. And that there is no other acceptable way of life other than they are best and everyone else has to suck it. And not complain.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
They made their religion small and petty a couple hundred years ago when they twisted it to justify slavery. This is just the logical consequence of that.
Patricia Kayden
@Doug R: And Trump has never had an approval rate of 50% or higher. The majority of Americans polled have always disapproved of him.
Deep down Trump knows dang well that his win in 2016 is murky to say the least. He’s not a legitimate President.
Immanentize
@Chetan Murthy: People in other American countries disagree with you strongly.
https://youtu.be/Jmm14g4cAFc: North American Scum
Kay
It’s so silly he won’t admit he went to the doctor, or maybe the equivalent of the emergency room. People do it all the time! You don’t get blackballed for it.
No one who loathes him would loathe him more if he admitted it and his fans don’t give a shit what he does. It’s just pure, petty ego and now so many people who work for him feel they have to lie about it and they really do “have to” unless they’re willing to quit their jobs. It’s all just such a stupid waste of time.
PPCLI
@zhena gogolia:
@PPCLI:
Followup: Here is the NYT obituary of Morgenbesser; it tells a version of the brutal/not unfair story, but apparently viewed the “Kant” story as a bit too risqué.
Barbara
@lgerard: According to Zakaria, he had previously interviewed Ukrainian officials in various parties and had been trying to use his good contacts to seek an interview almost as soon as Zelensky was elected. Naturally, he didn’t know whether Zelensky had been told to accept his invitation, and he assumed that many other journalists had requested interviews.
Roger Moore
@gene108:
I’m not sure that’s really true. I think a fair number of them genuinely believe that God is going to punish for our sins any day now, or that the punishment is already here in the form of the problem of the day. This is the essential difference between liberal and conservative worldviews. Liberals look and say, “we did X, Y, and Z and the world didn’t come to an end, so it’s fine if we keep doing them”, while Conservatives say, “we did X, Y, and Z, and look at how bad things are today. We’d better go back to the old ways or things will get worse.”
Neldob
@Kay: Yes.
Dan B
@Jay: It is possible that the two guys at Straight Pride may have been from Massachusetts. Zero Texans.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: But I thought Dump was tremendous bigly at health!
One of his whackjob doctors said he’ll live to be 200!
If that’s a lie, what else is a lie?!?!
Baud
@Immanentize:
What other country refers to their nationality as American?
Roger Moore
@James E Powell:
It worked for a good long time with Jim Crow, so it’s not unreasonable to believe they can keep it up. OTOH, that only worked because they were willing to expand their definition of who was Us to include people whose ancestors came from Southern and Eastern Europe. They show no signs of being willing to accept Hispanic and Asian Americans as being Us, which cuts down on their margins a lot. The can undoubtedly keep things going for a while longer, but there are limits to what they can do if the percentage of non-whites keeps increasing and they aren’t willing to accept some of those people as white.
Dan B
@Kay: It seems like Bloomberg did an own goal. Few people outside NYC would know about Stop and Frisk. Now hundreds of thousands do and they’ll hear about it because their cohorts who are outraged at the racism will be shouting from the rooftops. As in social media.
Mary G
I haven’t been able to read or listen to the video of Barr’s speech. It’s just too horrifying. It was enjoyable to see the long line of gowned and tuxedoed attendees having to wait in line in the street outside listening to protesters because the security checks were slow. Also, the truck with the giant video screen blaring Dr. Ford’s testimony at them.
Jay
Kay
@mrmoshpotato:
I love how the incredibly dishonest press secretary has now been drawn into a debate not just about whether she’s lying now but really whether she is, in fact, just a huge liar in general.
They’ll rule on this on Twitter I suppose but it occurs to me that Trump’s press secretaries spend an inordinate amount of their workday insisting they’re not liars. They can’t do anything else. That’s a full time job. It would be easier to tell the truth once in a while.
I could never work for him. I’d be enraged that I had to cover his ass every fucking day with these elaborate LIES. “You went to the doctor! Just say it for God’s sake. No one gives a shit”
Chetan Murthy
@Immanentize: So what are we? What do people from other countries call us? I mean, when they’re trying to be descriptive, and not merely pissed-off (which they have a right to be) at us. So “Yanqui” is out.
Jay
@Roger Moore:
and as ususal, while some are trying to hold the door open for new “club members”, other’s are busy kicking old club members out.
And the reality is, it’s not the sort of club you want to join.
Immanentize
@Baud: you have just perfectly defined appropriation.
I think “Yanqui” is the preferred term for us in other American countries south of us. That or “Assholes.”
Certainly you are not saying I am a citizen of the country “America?”. That I live under the Constitution of “America?”. That my passport says, “America?”. You were talking about citizenship. In that regard, quotes we’re actualy appropriate as a signifier of slang.
Look, you were trying to be righteous, but you were not accurate. Right?
Roger Moore
@Kay:
They can’t. The job of the press secretary today is to explain away Trump’s latest lie. Since Trump isn’t going to stop lying any time soon, his press secretary can’t, either.
Jay
Kay
@Dan B:
I don’t know what other people know but I think there’s broader recognition of stop and frisk than that. I think the opposite had happened- I think stop and frisk has been rolled into zero tolerance and “broken windows” and mass incarceration. It’s even discussed in the context of schools- the “school to prison pipeline” is an actual topic. I think Bloomberg may have missed that period, where that happened, where the whole broad theory was reconsidered. I think activist Democrats well outside NYC are very aware of it, and that’s his primary voters. It’s fair in a way too- if the crime bill is a problem for Biden (who Democrats know much better and generally trust) stop and frisk should be a problem for Bloomberg, who (nationally) Democrats don’t know at all.
Baud
@Immanentize:
In Spanish, they actually say, essentially, UnitedStatsian, estadounidense. but they also say Americano.
Regardless, the “appropriation” occured when we gave our country an unwieldy name. “American” is the historical term to describe our nationality.
Jay
Immanentize
@Chetan Murthy: that is easy. I am a citizen of the United States of America. And no other country in my case. I may refer to myself in a colloquial way as “American.” But that is no identification of my citizenship.
I do not pledge allegiance to the flag of “America.”
I thought that the complaint that started this discussion was one about American “citizenship” which does not exist. “Don’t jump people and be wrong” is a good way to live.
Immanentize
@Baud: Thank you for verifying my point.
debbie
@Kay:
Makes her the perfect bride for Stephen Miller. //
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: Wait. The press secretary finally held a press conference?
Baud
@Immanentize:
I still don’t know what your point was. My point was that Fareed should be described as American if he is American citizen, or not described as American. Either way, no quotes.
zhena gogolia
Somewhat OT, but with reference to Trump’s little trip to Walter Reed, somebody tweeted, “Cool. But why have all the radio stations been playing Swan Lake since yesterday?”
zhena gogolia
@mrmoshpotato:
Nah, I think it’s all happening on Twitter.
Chetan Murthy
@Immanentize: Two thoughts:
(1) it’s not about the official designation. It’s about what people refer to “citizens of the US” as in common parlance. And that is as “American” almost everywhere.
(2) As a fellow South-Asian-American (born in Bangalore), I also felt a little …. discomfort at seeing Zakaria characterized as an American in quotes. Unlike him, I have no discernible accent, and so people assume I was born …. in ….. America. But I did feel a little discomfort there. So for me, Baud was right.
But it’s not a big deal, eh.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Roger Moore:
It worked because American society was more overtly racist and oppressing a minority is easy. The modern GOP’s vision is not merely just about oppressing racial minorities, but “leftists” as well which translates to literally everybody else who doesn’t agree with them. That’s a lot of people and eventually a critical mass of those people will become fed up and try to remove the GOP from power when they see their lives materially becoming worse right before their eyes.
Keith P.
@Immanentize: A friend of mine who worked in Mexico for a while told me that the generic term for American women over there is “Jennifers”, as in “I heard that Hector has a Jennifer in El Paso.”
Kay
@Roger Moore:
Wouldn’t it be wild though if they all just got sick of it and started telling the truth? It’s a de facto resignation, so they’d know that going in, but it would just be one after another, for days. “Nope. No More. He went to the doctor, is hiding his taxes, strong armed Ukraine, got rolled by North Korea, Ivanka didn’t create 14 million jobs, it isn’t the lowest unemployment, you pay the tariffs, not him” and on and on. A LOT of people would have to resign.
They’d have to be appointing “actings” as replacements for a solid month.
Ksmiami
@Kay: exactly your words are perfect and honestly if they try to suppress us with violence it’ll redound on them
Immanentize
@Kay: I agree with this completely. Although the details of the NYC stop and frisk experience and the broken windows policing effects are not specifically understood, they have become part of an undrstandinf of a big mess of ideas that equal bad police practices.
Look at Deval. He is already caught up in a scandal in which he fired people on the Mass. Sexual predator review board to help his brother in law to avoid a SDP (sexually dangerous person) designation. Then his BiL committed a rape. Oopsie. The public defenders here knew that was going to be news and it only took 48 hours for it to hit the press. Think about what they did to Dukakis regarding Willie Horton who he actually had no connection with!
West of the Rockies
This may be too visceral or immature, but I take comfort in the fact that Barr is fat and aging badly. I hope he dies soon and in physical, emotional, and existential misery.
Jay
Immanentize
Repatriated
@Kay:
Not the first time I’ve said this: They don’t support Trump because of their being Fundies, they support him for the same reasons that they’re Fundies. Only then do they come up with justification for how Fundyism supports Trump.
Generic Fundy GOP support was tribal. This is different.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: “You want the truth on how badly he’s been Russia’s bitch for the past 30+ years? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! But we’ll tell you because fuck it, we’re all going to prison or worse anyways!”
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
And those things don’t have to have any connection whatsoever, they will still believe that 1+1 = Hell.
Kay
@Ksmiami:
I don’t take soft, wealthy conservatives like Bill Barr seriously as far as “suppressing us with violence”. I think Bannon pretending he’s some kind of revolutionary sleeping on mattresses in an apartment bunker with his rifle ready is just embarrassing, for him, not me. These people have spent half their lives in the back seat of a luxury SUV. They’re not making any personal sacrifices. They whined for days when millions of women “attacked” them with a peaceful protest march. Look at Newt Gingrich and tell me that person has even gone 500 feet on foot for the last 2 decades. They all look like smug, wealthy snowflakes to me. Half of them would look completely at home in a pumpkin coach, with rings on each finger.
But I would like to have a pre-election, massive and peaceful march. Just..because they may need a reminder that they’re accountable to voters. Show them.
seaboogie
@Martin: This.
TS (the original)
@Baud:
In Australia, we always use the term American, when referring to a citizen of the USA. When people speak of the 2nd amendment or similar, the usual response is
“that doesn’t apply to us, we are not American”.
I don’t really understand the reason for the discussion but in many countries (including mine) the United States, the United States of America, the USA and America are used interchangeably when speaking of your country. No other country in North or South America is referred to as America.
lgerard
@West of the Rockies:
Speaking of that, have you noticed that trump looks almost svelte when he is standing next to Pompeo?
I think it is a republican thing…hypocrisy makes the hips grow wider. I once saw Bill Bennett at the airport…..that guy was huge!
Ruckus
@Kay:
but this just seems cynical
Seems cynical?
It’s Bloomberg. It is cynical.
Jay
Ksmiami
@Roger Moore: eventually this approach ends quickly and likely violently as it’s always been through history
mrmoshpotato
Go on…
Seriously, is that even possible? I mean, someone too racist to become a federal judge had more sense of right and wrong than Bill Barr! Or at least Sessions had enough sense to try to limit his criminal liability (still lied to the confirmation committee).
Kay
@Immanentize:
Exactly. We even had this debate at the state level in Ohio. It’s the one good thing Kasich did. He reclassified a whole bunch of offenses and pegged them lower, by executive action. Because we were putting everyone and their brother into prison or on paper for years and years. It had to stop. We were going to have more young men incarcerated than in college. It was out of control.
Jay
@Kay:
Chauffeured limo backseat Nazi lardasses arn’t the ones who will be “doing” the violence, they will be the ones instigating the violence.
The ones doing the violence will be the so called “lone wolves”, who have organized and recruited on line.
Chetan Murthy
Ha! And it’s the one thing from his record that he *won’t* be running on, in his next campaign [spit].
Barbara
@Immanentize: He actually did that? Does he have some kind of alternative explanation?
Kay
@Immanentize:
I actually specifically recall when the fever kind of broke and even conservative judges started saying “wtf is going ON here? Why am I sending 10% of the county to prison and can I stop now?”
And the law enforcement in schools! “Fight in the hallway- arrest everyone!” It was nuts. I had one who his feet didn’t reach the floor seated in a chair. How dangerous can he be if I can carry him around? He was about 60 pounds, tops.
Jay
Immanentize
@Barbara: Not yet. His campaign, let us say, is not yet nimble.
My Side of Town
@jeffreyw: Just finished my monthly political donates. Spit my $100 equally between Tedra, Jamie, Sarah, Amy and Mark.
Jay
Bonnie
It seems to me that the electoral college subverted the will of the voters. Also, if you take the 3 million more votes that Hillary got OVER trump and add the 7 million more votes for “Others”, you get a total of 10 million more Americans who voted against trump than voted for him. I, for one, do not want to see the electoral college take my vote away any more. But, I see no one working on that particular unfairness.
Bonnie
ONE MORE TIME: The will of the voters was for Hillary Clinton to be President! She received three million more votes than the donald!!!!!!!
Another Scott
@TS (the original): $1M has been reached.
Excellent!
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@Bonnie: It didn’t subvert the will of the voters, as the Electoral College is how the system is supposed to work.
That said, losing the popular vote should certainly stop anyone dead in their tracks from asserting that they are doing the will of the voters. They’re doing the will of the Electoral College, not the voters.
Steeplejack
@lamh36:
Beautiful! Welcome back.
Kay
@Ksmiami:
I think I’m not afraid of them because I believe they won’t target me, which is awful but probably the reason.
I also think I would do okay in a dystopian nightmare scenario – ya know, be fine, raise chickens or something, but really I would probably be upset with no hot water (!) and I would hate to slaughter a chicken.
It’s just that they’re so paunchy and coddled and they love the sound of their own voices. They’re not physically intimidating.
Ruckus
@Bonnie:
That would require an amendment. That would be highly unlikely to pass, given that it gives power to states without large populations, just like limiting the number of members of the house or sticking with 9 members of the USSC, although that can be changed by congress.
Immanentize
@Kay: My LS friend was the chief of the juvenile division in the Miami PD office. That was his standard! If their feet don’t touch the floor, they are too young to send to (kiddy) prison. The 80’s cracked their brains. Talk of crack babies and super predators had judges crapping their pants. Then about 20 years later they said, wait. These are little more than babies.
Thank God for Justice Kennedy in this one space.
terben
That is, when we aren’t using the term ‘Yank’ or ‘Seppo’
Ruckus
@West of the Rockies:
Normally I’d say that might be going overboard a bit, except that is what he is trying to do is effectively murder many citizens so I’m OK with him dying a natural, painful and agonizing death and soon.
Chetan Murthy
@terben: Seppo
Immanentize
@terben:
With Seppo, I see we are right back to “North American Scum!”. Thanks, LCD Soundsystem.
(Where is Miss Bianca when I need her?)
West of the Rockies
@lgerard:
And yet they both look fit compared to Bannon. I bet you could hear his liver and arteries hardening.
Yutsano
@Ruckus: The size of the House hasn’t changed since 1929 when it was fixed at 435. That number is way too inadequate. It’s time to increase the House to something like 501 even if that means creating tiny districts in the middle of cities.
West of the Rockies
@Ruckus:
That’s my thinking… Conway, SHS, Kushner, DeVos, etc., are all greedy and dishonest. They are hurting people (tenants, students, etc), but Barr is enabling a man whose choices kill thousands.
Chetan Murthy
The best proposal I heard, was that we should fix the size of the House so that the least-population district in any state, is at least as populous as the least-populous state. [Sorry, that was dense and verbose to near-unintelligibility.] So, the least-populous House district should be Wyoming’s single district. This at least remedies the state-boundary-induced gerrymandering of the House, and in an automatic way.
ETA: say, after every national Census.
Kay
@Immanentize:
Those “panics” are fascinating. If I ever retire I would like to learn more about them- how periodically everyone in legalworld loses their minds and seem helpless to stop :)
There’s one a decade. Maybe we could skip a couple? Just decline to go crazy?
I’ve gotten better at spotting them. I saw the “juvenile sex offender” panic coming from a long ways away. I knew it was…overwrought and sure enough, it was.
Patricia Kayden
@Redshift: Conservatives have claimed that atheism is religion for goodness sakes. It’s ridiculous.
Jay
Jay
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: Not sure people would like that.
Consider WY at 580,000. CA at 40M people would have 69 districts – 12 more than currently. For every 8,000 people WV adds (something we can do in CA in a good week) then CA loses a district and the House loses a seat overall. That’s rough.
Immanentize
@Kay: how about:. Rampant sex abuse of many children in schools and daycares. That stuff was as Insane as the Salem Witch Trials.
With that happy thought, a Domani!
Kay
Trump reverses on vape ban. I knew he would. I don’t think people know how important vaping is to the small, dying rust belt town economy and lifestyle :)
LOTTA Trumpy vapers. It could almost be a stereotype. MAGA hat and a vape pen. My son’s high school friends actually imitate their parents vaping- they’re not actually vaping because it’s what olds do- they’re making fun of it.
Barbara
@Immanentize: I found a decent article. It sounds like the initial decision was not to make him register, and that was independent of anything Patrick did. Then, two appeals board members tried to circumvent the process in order to reverse the original decision, which they thought was wrong, but they were unsuccessful. It appears to have been subsequent to the process that Patrick intervened. So they could be faulted for their actions, but Patrick clearly was not a disinterested party and should have kept out of it. It does not appear he changed the outcome for his BIL, and since the charge was spousal rape and they were still married, it is not clear the subsequent incident would have been avoided by making him register. Not a good situation.
Mary G
Nancy SMASH giving a masterclass on fighting Republicans’ claims:
Just ignore ’em, cause they’re crazy.
waspuppet
The voters didn’t elect Trump. The Electoral College did. I know it hurts their feelings, but I am never, ever going to stop saying it.
Kay
@Immanentize:
I did a law school paper on it! They still do bad, leading interviews of kids, but less so than they used to do. Kids are not that powerful. They are diplomats because they have to be. If certain language is required to leave that room and make everybody happy they will provide it.
Chetan Murthy
@Martin: Uh, I don’t follow you. WY currently has a single district. If its population grows by 8k, that doesn’t change anything for CA. At some point, WY’s population might grow past the least-populous district in CA, right? [I didn’t state, b/c thought it was obvious, that one presumes state House districts are drawn to be roughly equal in population.] At that point, at the next redistricting, CA might lose a House seat. But this happens already today, and is unrelated to how MANY seats there are. The point of the idea I described, was that you use this method to fix the NUMBER of Congresscritters — not which states get how many. The latter, you apportion in the manner currently in-use.
I realize I was being unclear. I’m sorry about that. Sigh.
Jay
@Kay:
Dystopian Hot water is easy, gravity + black hose + sunlight in summer, gravity + metal pipe coil + fire in winter.
Dystopian Chicken requires just a sharp knife, a bowl, and a small traffic cone.
Nazi’s don’t just attack minorities, they also attack anyone who gets in their way, or these days, anyone who is slightly similar in online profile to someone who gets in their way.
Doug R
@Calouste: They do look like an old couple, don’t they?
Chetan Murthy
@Martin: Ah, maybe you mean that if state populations converge a little bit, then the # of Congresscritters in toto might decrease, by the method I described. That’s probably true, and perhaps the rule ough to be that the number can only be increased, not decreased, by this law.
Jay
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Forgotten Genocide: How a Quarter of Europe’s Roma Were Murdered by the Nazis, then Erased From History. “There was no reckoning, no recognition. At the Nuremberg War Crimes trials, crimes against Roma weren’t part of the indictments.” <a href=”https://t.co/Pw2eA3NbWG”>https://t.co/Pw2eA3NbWG</a> <a href=”https://t.co/wsCwaR7XAZ”>pic.twitter.com/wsCwaR7XAZ</a></p>— McKay Smith (@McKayMSmith) <a href=”https://twitter.com/McKayMSmith/status/1196055180896358400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>November 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
tomtofa
@TS (the original):
Some years ago (maybe 2 or 3?) I decided the easiest way to deal with this while overseas was to say “I’m from California” or “I’m Californian”. I find that many people get the point.
Citizen Alan
@Barbara: I have flat-out told evangelicals in my orbit that as far as I’m concerned, by voting for Fat Bastard, they have essentially taken the Mark of the Beast in every way that matters. And I stand by that.
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
With the increase in the population and the unequal representation that places like CA get, it is past time. There should be at least rough continuity of population size of representative districts among all the states. CA, the largest population, in the last census had 66 times the population of WY, the smallest, but only 53 reps.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Wow, full blown projection now from the GOP
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/trumps-actions-ukraine-solicitation-bribe-house-dem-intelligence-142040909–abc-news-topstories.html
How does Stewart function at all in life? Even the lead up to the Civil War wwasn’t this delusional.
Ruckus
@Martin:
CA has 53 reps, not 57.
Barbara
@Chetan Murthy: Every ten years the number of members in Congress will be based on the size of the smallest possible district that spans an entire state. If that is 600,000, then the number would be Total Census/600,000. It is not perfect, and thete would need to be guardrails to avoid certain other problems. Right now, the number is around 750,000, which shortchanges larger states. It is total census/435, with smaller states never losing percentage representation (will always get 1/435).
Steve in the ATL
@Barbara: thank you for using “disinterested” to mean “disinterested” and not “uninterested”!
Chetan Murthy
@Barbara: Thank you for remedying my incoherence. Yes, exactly this.
Barbara
@Barbara: I see that this should have been a reply to Martin!
Barbara
@Steve in the ATL: Uh, yeah, I do know the difference.
john fremont
@Shalimar: A conservative talk radio jock Charles Goyette had his show moved from primetime drive home to the later evening g in the Phoenix metro area back during the runup to the Iraq War. He criticized the Bush Administration’s evidence for Iraq violating the arms treaties. His show was later dropped by Clear Channel in 2003
Gin & Tonic
@Steve in the ATL: Good thing I’m not interested in this distinction.
Gvg
May I point out that all members of Congress were ALSO elected by the people, and the Constitution specifically intended for Congress to be a check on the executive branch. So the argument is nonsense. If Congress removes a President and the people don’t like it, they get to change Congress in the next election, and Congressmen know it. We have a near perfect example in living memory. Clinton was impeached, voters thought it was stupid, and republican’s lost badly in the next election. The polls made the people’s disagreement with the impeachment pretty clear too. I don’t recall if that had an effect on the Senates acquittal or not.
Zinsky
Hunter Biden was paid less for five months work on Burisma’s board than Donald Trump paid in hush money to a porn star and an ex-Playboy bunny in 2016!
Ruckus
@john fremont:
I had to work with Clear Channel employees for a number of years from about 1996 till 2005.
The low level employees were fine, normal people.
The mid level and above were complete fucking assholes. I’m convinced that those are the only traits that they hired for.
jeffreyw
@My Side of Town:
Citizen Alan
@Yutsano:
Hell, make it 3000 at least! That would instantly solve the problem of the Electoral College.
bluehill
Bill Barr is a scary mofo up there with Tom Cotton in my view. Smart enough to figure at how to get stuff done and twisted enough to do some really evil stuff. Barr’s speeches are laying the groundwork to justify some as yet unknown actions. I’m sure they won’t be constitutional.
jeffreyw
How the fuck did I do that?
Another Scott
@jeffreyw: You must have tickled the right bug!
Cheers,
Scott.
chris
@jeffreyw: Um, you clicked the TEXT tab on the comment box before you pasted the tweet, right?
jeffreyw
@chris: That was at least the fourth try at embedding the tweet. It was combined with a reply and it posted all the HTML. Fuck, says I I forgot to strip the script. Edited that out and reposted. No joy. Tried again, deled the script verbiage, remembered to click the text tab. Took me to the top, scrolled down and overshot the comment, saw it in the green blockquote box as I went by. Scrolled back up and it looked like I posted as a front pager.
Frankensteinbeck
@Repatriated:
This. Trump acts exactly like evangelicals do when they get the chance, like they believe is their right. It took them a little extra time because he doesn’t recite their shibboleths, but they loved him once they took a good look and saw the corruption, misogyny, self-absorption, juvenile lust, stupidity, homophobia, racism, knee-jerk cruelty, whininess, ranting, and self-congratulation that are the principles of their religion. After that, it was just a matter of finding the right way to congratulate themselves for supporting him.
Barbara
@Gvg: Not only elected, but elected more recently.
patrick II
If the executive can do whatever The F he wants any legislative branch is a waste of time and money.
And, while Barr complains about the constant subpoenas, he seems to have cause and effect confused. The cause constant subpoenas and investigation is constant crime. And I mean every fucking day.
chris
@jeffreyw: Yeah, I saw it as script until I refreshed. Click the Text tab and paste, I don’t think you have to strip anything.
ETA: Yup, Text tab and paste. Nice
hugely
@Gin & Tonic: im having one now :) thinking of @lamh36 in paris making me smile. Everything else makes me wanna say: “have you not heard of good faith arguments motherfucker?!?…” where have you gone edward brooke? william weld?
TS (the original)
@Another Scott:
Saw that a little late. Democrats are amazing people.
TS (the original)
@terben:
And at the minute a few other choice words – if they are of the MAGA variety – but I was being polite (forgot I was on BJ)
Roger Moore
@Citizen Alan:
My preferred plan is to do something like setting the number of seats according to the smallest state, but to require that state to have at least 3 representatives. If we set things so Wyoming gets 3 representatives, that gives about 1600 representatives. That might be a bit unwieldy, but I suspect some minor tweaks to the House rules would make it work.
moonbat
@Roger Moore: You are absolutely, f**kin’ correct, sir. I have rarely seen this truth stated this correctly and succinctly. Thank you.
debbie
@Kay:
Bannon couldn’t heave his carcass off a mattress on the floor without significant mechanical assistance.
AnotherBruce
@Jinchi: That makes 13 million voters that wasted their vote.
debbie
@Roger Moore:
Good god, quadruple the bodies and you also quadruple the cost of their upkeep, including the costs of their re/election campaigns!
billcinsd
@Barbara: It is a common misconception that the current House distribution situation disfavors large and Democratic states. However, currently, by population, of the 6 largest congressional districts, 4 are held by small population state Republicans (Montana, South Dakota, and both Idaho districts — MT has about 33% more population than the average CA district) and of the 5 smallest districts, 3 are held by Democrats in small northeastern states (Delaware and Rhode Island or Connecticut). Only the small population states get screwed and/or helped. As an example, Montana currently has the largest population district, but after the 2020 Census redistricting will have two of the smallest. The point being that the states just before and after the cutoff for going to 2 and 3 districts are the one’s that get screwed/helped and right now that may slightly favor Democrats
J R in WV
This short sentence packs two lies in so very tightly!
First, voters rejected Mr Trump resoundingly, he was duly elected by the electoral college, a few hundred people voting in their individual states with no debate about who to vote for on the record. Pretty much party line voting
Second, Mr Trump’s agenda was carefully kept secret until this very day — it has just begun to emerge in the testimony in the House — and is to steal as much as possible, accrete as much power as possible. His agenda has nothing to do with politics as such, he knows nothing about politics, the rule of law, how government is established by law. His agenda is self aggrandizement. Nothing else.
brantl
@Jinchi: DumOld Stump was certainly in there pitching.
brantl
@Steeplejack: 1960-∝ (closest that I could get to an infinity symbol).
brantl
@Baud: You can be both, actually. My brother is both a US and Canadian citizen, as are his children.
brantl
@Baud: They call themselves North Americans and South Americans, they weren’t dumb enough or egotistical enough to name themselves as residents of 2 continents……