I understand the argument when people say Trump isn’t the worst president ever — or even the worst this century. In terms of body count through pointless military actions and the number of lives ruined through financial malfeasance and mismanagement, Trump doesn’t come close to George W. Bush (yet).
But Trump is in a class by himself in his willingness to recklessly gin up rage against entire groups of people and tell outrageous lies that endanger individuals. He eagerly and often does both for political gain, to get himself off the hook or to paint himself as less sleazy by comparison to others. It’s grotesque and repellent, and, as far as I know, it’s unmatched in US history. In this way, Trump has exposed countless people to crackpots and mobs and has caused death and mayhem, though not at scale…so far.
Two of his favorite targets are former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and agent Peter Strzok. Trump defames them not because they engaged in official misconduct (investigations turned up indiscreet behavior but nothing illegal) but rather because they were critical of Trump in text exchanges, which Trump latched onto as evidence of a “deep state” conspiracy. Trump has relentlessly mocked the two and called for their jailing, just like the tinpot authoritarian he aspires to be.
Trump’s behavior toward Page and Strzok is particularly disgusting to me because they aren’t public figures. The way he leers about “lovely Lisa” and lingers over the word “lovers” when talking about Page and Strzok at his hate rallies is grotesque because no one deserves to have their private business publicly mocked by a foul, degenerate hypocrite like Trump. (It’s also jarring to me because I once found it impossible to imagine Trump using the word “lovers” outside the context of a food order in which it immediately follows the word “meat.”)
Anyway, after remaining silent and hoping in vain that Trump would move on, Page has had enough of the shitgibbon’s shit, as she says in an interview with Molly Jong-Fast in The Daily Beast. Here’s an excerpt where Jong-Fast describes why Page decided to speak out:
I asked her why she was willing to talk now. “Honestly, his demeaning fake orgasm was really the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she says. The president called out her name as he acted out an orgasm in front of thousands of people at a Minneapolis rally on Oct. 11, 2019.
Ugh. That’s just so many shades of fucking cringe.
I hope Ms. Page gets some measure of relief from breaking her silence and highlighting the many ways Trump and his nasty sycophants have subverted our federal law enforcement institutions. The whole interview is worth a read.
Open thread.
SFAW
He may not be the worst (re: body count, etc.), but he’s certainly the vilest, most despicable piece of shit ever to occupy the Oval Office. His default behavior is the kind of stuff that would not only get him thrown out of shitbag bars — never mind “polite society” — but would get him pounded within an inch of his life before getting thrown out of those bars.
Mary Ellen Sandahl
I feel shy being first, as I’m essentially a lurker — but let me get the obvious out of the way by saying that, of the many, many things I don’t want to get out of this fine boat to see, Donald J. Trump simulating any sort of sexual state or act has to be at or near the top of the roster. BC’s “ugh” is more than enough. (I know providing the link is responsible journalism.)
Martin
That was the moment Trump grew into the Presidency.
Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.
Good for her. Every time we focus on the real people harmed by History’s Most Powerful Narcissist, instead of focusing on his 5 manufactured distractions du jour, it becomes a PR win.
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: True. And arguably, he’s done the most to subvert democracy and kowtow to a foreign power. No telling where that madness will lead.
zhena gogolia
@Mary Ellen Sandahl:
I have to admit I was going to watch it, but the link didn’t go to that. It went to a Rick Wilson article.
trollhattan
How’s everybody’s Infrastructure Week going so far?
brantl
Mary Ellen Sandahl
@Mary Ellen Sandahl:Well, it looked like I’d be first.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Body count is important, but Trump is a different category of bad. No one before rejected the basic tenets of democratic governance. Even Bush/Cheney and Nixon cared enough to give lip service to our norms.
Marcopolo
If Trump, or someone like him, had become president a hundred years ago he’d be just another awful president (and knowing what we know about Trump probably a pretty mediocre one as well). But because of a number of other developments: the R party throwing in the towel on democracy (it no longer allows them to keep power); the unchecked expansion of Executive branch power since WW2; the rise of the internet, social media, big data, & the ability to use it to inject just about anything into the public id without gatekeeping; the unprecedented accumulation of wealth in the hands of so few over the last few decades (and the related spending at all level of politics across political systems to institutionalize this disparity); and about 50 other things his wanton abuse of power and reflexive dedication to destroying the rule of law makes him the most dangerous person we have ever had in office.
I tell all my friends that 2016 was an existential election but that 2020, if it goes the wrong way is the lid on the coffin–game over for the country. Let’s all keep working our asses off to make sure this does not happen.
Also, definitely everyone go read that Lisa Page interview.
randy khan
The specific targeting of individuals he doesn’t like is, in my mind, the most fascist thing about his Administration and, really, the modern Republican Party. One reason that he and his folks want to out the Ukraine whistleblower is that they want to make sure the whistleblower is punished for coming forward.
The litany of people who have been punished by the right for speaking out is so long that we need to understand it’s a conscious tactic, not just a thing that happens.
hells littlest angel
There is the unsolvable mystery: not just that he has millions of supporters, but that there is anyone on Earth who isn’t repelled by this cruel, stupid and unbelievably petty man.
Jeffro
I’m glad she’s speaking out. He is one vile, revolting piece of trash. I’m surprised more folks (I’m looking at you, Dem candidates) don’t bring this up. He’s beyond gross both personally and in how he acts/talks.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: I put up our Christmas trees (yes, we have two) yesterday and shoveled snow today, so infrastructure week is going well. Thanks for asking.
Lapassionara
@SFAW: He is the worst of my lifetime. The Muslim ban, for starters, then the family separation policy at the border. His terrible foreign policy decisions, although policy is not the correct word to use with respect to any action he takes. I consider Bush 2 pretty terrible too, but I don’t know if the country will recover from Trump. His court appointments will have negative effects for years. What country will ever trust the US to be an ally in the future? I could go on and on.
geg6
I never saw the complete clip of him simulating the orgasm, but it came on my tv for about 2 seconds before I could hit the remote. So I saw a little bit of it. And yes, it was as vile and disgusting an act as I’ve ever seen by anyone, let alone the POTUS. He is just the most horrible person ever, but the really disgusting thing was seeing his fan club laughing and cheering and acting like this was the best and most normal thing in the world. I hate them even more than him, which is saying quite a lot.
Lapassionara
@Lapassionara: and Marco Polo said it better than I could.
Miss Bianca
Oh. man, I just got done reading that article and I feel a little nauseated. That poor woman! And the author is right on: none of us is safe from that sort of rabid doxxing now – the POSUS has set the example for the entire country.
Raven
Y’all understand that this is exactly what he wants?
mad citizen
@Jeffro: I totally agree about why don’t the Dem candidates for President bring up his lack of character more often? Harris comes the closest from what I’ve seen, but it’s from a “I can handle trumpov” viewpoint, not a “this guy has debased the office and our nation”, which it should be.
I don’t care if you think you can go head to head with the self-proclaimed tough guy. I continue to believe our candidate should not stand on the same stage and attempt a “debate” at all. Instead buy primetime network time and get your message out.
Martin
@Lapassionara: Apparently you’re wrong:
Better than Lincoln! I wonder if that would go up if he proposed reinstating slavery?
Senyordave
Trump is more repulsive than I thought possible. I used to feel guilty that I was hoping he would stroke out one day on the toilet. Now I think that would be too good for him, he should still do that but live on in some sort of vegetative state. Then a couple of times a day the kids could argue about whose turn it is to clean up the Donald.
I do not care what else happens during the campaign, the Democrats have to focus on what a disgusting human being Trump is, and do the American people want a piece of garbage like him running their country.
Yutsano
@geg6: He pwns the libs. That’s honestly all they care about. It’s seriously that petty. And now that it triggered Lisa Page they’re going to rally to him even more. I wish these people would just disappear sometimes. Let the machines do the farming.
delk
Trump sounded like one of those televangelist frauds.
Gin & Tonic
@Raven: Bingo. I feel very badly for Page and Strzok, but this is a no-win situation. Show an asshole like that, that something stung, and he’ll go back at it again and again.
laura
President Ham Head prioritizes any/every opportunity to act like the misogynistic bag-O-shite that he is. His fixation on Page& Strozk is creepy boner grandpa, the one you try and stay far far away from.
Marcopolo
@Lapassionara: Hey! Good afternoon. I’m about to spend the rest of the afternoon chauffeuring but in case you didn’t see this:
A St. Louis County Democrat is Ann Wagner’s likely opponent in state’s only swing district
If Jill Schupp does decide to run let’s plan on knocking one or two hundred doors for her in 2020. I am pretty sure that Helena Webb’s (my personal local 2020 candidate) race for the MO-100 state house seat falls inside the boundary of the MO-2 congressional district as well (probably the state senate seat Deb Lavender is contesting does too).
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: He’s not going to stop no matter what. Page waited for two years hoping he would. By speaking out, she might make more people aware of his disgusting behavior and its consequences (the volume of disgusting shit he does is so high a lot goes by the boards), but even failing that, if it makes her feel better, that’s enough, IMO. She’s entitled to fight back.
schrodingers_cat
He has zero redeeming qualities, not one as a human being.
Jeffro
@Martin: That’s exactly why they like trumpov better than Lincoln – Lincoln freed the slaves, trumpov does everything he can to make non-whites second-class citizens (or worse).
That poll needed a follow-up question, or at least several options for respondents to explain themselves. It would have been quite clear that they love him for his racism above all else.
Ruckus
@geg6:
Bush was a horrible president and a shit human but has been surpassed by trump in the worst ways. People are dying, if he gets his way with SS and Medicare many more will. Children are being separated from their parents for no reason other than pure hate. His name will forever be associated with torture and death of innocent people and by his position all of us.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
WTF is wrong that boy? Man law clearly states we men always have boners but never are excited. We don’t discuss them public or boast about them. What would Burt Renalds do and the answer is just no, not in public. That’s like talking in the Men’s Room. And what kind of damn fool sees that as leadership material. Times like this make me think Trump is really Sarah Palin in a fat suit and in drag the way Trump doesn’t get it.
Baud
@mad citizen:
Because it failed as a strategy in 2016.
waspuppet
Imagine looking at that screaming, wailing mess of a human being and thinking “That’s the kind of tough, strong guy we need in the White House.”
Ruckus
@laura:
He’s not the uncle everyone watches at family gatherings, he’s the uncle that 80% of the family calls the cops on when he shows up and 80% of the callers hope the cops shoot him on sight.
Senyordave
@Baud: Because it failed as a strategy in 2016.
I think it should be brought up again. He is now the president, is needs to at least occasionally pointed out how unpresidential he acts.
schrodingers_cat
OT from the last thread: I was watching the first legislative session of the Maharashtra Assembly where the Speaker, leader of the majority party (Chief Minister), Leader of the Opposition ( also a cabinet position) are voted and sworn in. People were speaking in Marathi and quoting poetry and actually being funny. Everyone spoke in full sentences and no one was simulating an orgasm like the gross fake tan and toupe man.
ETA: Husband kitteh thinks I am a huge nerd for watching the session.
ETA2: I am still smiling at the egg on the face of BJP’s duo (Modi and Shah) in Delhi and their representative in Maharashtra, the ex Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
He is a shit human, he was raised to be a predator by his predator dad but he’s not even good at that.
chris
Do we even know the body count? Remember that shitgibbon cancelled reports on drone strike deaths last spring and there are thousands of US troops all over the world.
We’ll be horrified when the numbers finally come out.
Jay
Baud
@chris:
Much like the deficit, we don’t care about drones unless there is a Dem in the White House.
Lapassionara
@Marcopolo: it’s Adela!
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
He’s correct.
chris
Shudder…
Seen, with caption, My inlaws have this five foot tall painting of Anne Coulter in their guest room.
Seen, cannot be unseen. Mildly NSFW
Lapassionara
@Lapassionara: a deal. Darn autocorrect
catclub
umm,… he got to be president. That is pretty high up the chain.
The Moar You Know
@hells littlest angel: My mother, a “crawl over broken glass” Trump fangirl since the day he descended from the Mount and told us the Holy Truth about Satan’s own race, The Diseased Raping Mexicans, finds this to be literally his most appealing quality. The pettiness. The personalization of grudges. The willingness to blow up anything good he has just for payback.
In that, she is truly just like him. He is everything she ever aspired to be.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, this.
catclub
@chris: I think there was a movie, titled “Get Out” which may apply.
chris
@Baud: Yep. I’m trying to imagine the reaction if Obama had pardoned “El Diablo” Gallagher, the Navy Seal.
Jay
Dolt 45 has r-u-n-n-o-f-t to the NATO Conference to avoid Impeachment Talk.
NATO is not doing well, and is probably toast, due to Dolt45, the ReThugs and Ergodan. As NATO goes, so does NORAD, ASEAN, etc.
SFAW
@waspuppet:
I’d have to run, headfirst, into a brick wall, multiple times, before (what’s left of) my “brain” could imagine that.
Martin
@chris: swastika is a nice touch. That really captures her.
opiejeanne
@chris: That’s awesome, but sleeping in a room with that might be difficult. Might bring nightmares.
chris
@catclub: Coulter’s in that? Christ, now I’ll never watch it!
Lapassionara
@Senyordave: I agree. Last time he was running against hisotry’s Greatest monster, and he was the “change” candidate. He won’t have that advantage in this next election.
Remember when people kept thinking he would start acting “presidential”?
geg6
@The Moar You Know:
My sympathies to you for having to deal with that. I am so lucky that I have no Trumpers in my family at all. It makes the holidays so much more pleasant than yours, I’m sure.
opiejeanne
@The Moar You Know: I am so sorry. No one should have a mother like that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker:
He’s not going to stop no matter what
Yeah, he can get his howler monkeys hooting and stamping their hooves about anything and anyone. Chuck Todd, the war on Thanksgiving, Nellie Orh… What Page or anyone else does makes no difference. Their rage is ever present, just waiting for him to tell them who to bark at.
Martin
@Jay: NATO meeting is Europe’s Thanksgiving. If they get through it without a stabbing, they’ll call it a success.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Et tu, Baud?
I don’t get to hear such good Marathi spoken in my RL.
Also the new CM has dropped charges against environmental protesters who were protesting against the late night slaughter of trees in the Aarey forest outside Mumbai for some stupid shed for the Metro.
He has also stayed the stupid bullet train project of Modi’s.
...now I try to be amused
I want Trump’s orgasm and many more un-Presidential moments shown in campaign ads. Nobody outside his deplorable base wants to see it, but many people in the mushy middle need to see it.
Martin
@Betty Cracker: BETTER THAN LINCOLN! THEY LIKE PRESIDENTS THAT AREN’T SHOT IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD, OKAY!
Jay
chris
@Jay:
Hard to make a white homeland when you’re bound by treaty to a bunch of funny looking people who don’t speak American like Jesus.
(A point I was making back when Steve Bannon’s star was ascendant.)
...now I try to be amused
@chris:
In their guest room? I almost admire their sick sense of humor for that.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: It was a complement, not an insult. At least from my perspective.
Martin
So that y’all don’t think I’ve gone off the deep end, ignore the poll above. 29% of voters are registered Republican and 53% of those means that 15% of the country thinks Trump is better than Lincoln. Since we’ve long baked in 27% as the magic number for that degree of lunacy, so 15% is pretty good all things considered.
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: I know he won’t stop voluntarily. I do wonder about his physical ability to maintain the kind of schedule he did last time.
Martin
@…now I try to be amused: Democrats will rue the day they didn’t invest in Roger Stones.
The Moar You Know
My sympathies to you for having to deal with that. I am so lucky that I have no Trumpers in my family at all. It makes the holidays so much more pleasant than yours, I’m sure.
@geg6: My wife and I leave the country for Christmas. Her mother is even worse, and I got a pretty high fucking bar for anyone to make it into that territory, but she is.
At any rate, people, if you’ve got family like this, don’t just sit there and suffer! Get the fuck out of town! Or at least lie about it. Don’t hang with people like this.
@opiejeanne: It’s bad but there’s plenty worse out there. I just curse that my mother was quite young when she had me, as the odds of her being around another decade are pretty good. I always look at the life of John McCain with a lot of dread; he died at 81 and his fucking mother was still around, cogent, and alive. Probably still bitching at him about his hairstyle or some such stupid shit while he lay dying. I am terrified this might be my future.
As a preventative, both my wife and I are seriously thinking about emigrating when we hit retirement in a few years. There are going to be issues with that, but neither one of us wants to be within easy flight distance of our families of origin.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Thanks Baud, I was just teasing. I knew it was compliment.
Jay
@Martin:
post Cold War, other than the Balkan Wars and the Declaration of Article 5, NATO Conferences used to be so boring that only the NATO Press Office covered them.
Now, with a few well placed grenades, the US has destroyed NATO.
geg6
@The Moar You Know:
That is so sad. My parents are both long gone, but I know they would have been as horrified by the Shitgibbon as I and all my siblings are. They brought up all six of their kids to be good, card carrying liberals.
Miss Bianca
@Yutsano:
You may just get your wish.
glory b
@The Moar You Know:
I’m so sorry for you. My parents are/were (my father is deceased) saints, for real. I feel incredibly privileged to have them in my life.
At least I can give my usual holiday advice to those who would like to be in non-Trumpist family gatherings, get adopted by an African American family.
Martin
@geg6: My mom and I have managed to find a kind of detente, but the rift between her and my kids is growing. To quote my daughter: “She had the nerve to argue gun control in MY house!”
I’m facing a John McCain situation myself. If my mom lives as long as her aunt (still going at 103) she’ll still be with me when I’m 82, and I really don’t want to last that long myself.
Miss Bianca
@The Moar You Know: Ugh. I am so sorry to hear that.
Miss Bianca
@chris: Eh – needs a glass of white wine, rather than red, to be truly representative. Apparently her tipple of choice. How appropriate, eh?
Steve in the ATL
@The Moar You Know: my sister invited everyone to her small red state town for thanksgiving. Told her we couldn’t make it because the kids had work and/or school. Oh, and because we are all uncomfortable with your right wing nutjob views and the number of guns in your house.
I enjoyed the nice, quiet day in the comfort of my own home with nary a gunhumper or trump lover in sight.
Emerald
@Omnes Omnibus: True. And I imagine that if even Huey Long had been elected, which was an actual possibility for a time, he would have respected the Constitution far more than tRump.
glory b
@geg6: I know, I’m blessed!
My parents are/were (my father is deceased) saints. In high school, my friends wouldn’t allow me to complain about them, like everyone else did about theirs.
Like I’ve suggested during previous holiday seasons, if you try to get adopted by a black family, you’re almost guaranteed to have no Trumpers in the group. Also, we are pretty generous with non-formalized adoptions, there were a few on both sides of my family.
nyrobbin
@The Moar You Know:
Holy crap! Being raised by a woman like that
catclub
@Lapassionara: I keep wishing Michael Bloomberg will plaster Trump’s failures wall to wall in his advertising.
1) Trade deficit highest ever under Trump
2)Coal barons get special treatment, coal miners worse off.
3)Economy under Trump grows slower than under Obama.
cckids
@mad citizen:
I think part of it goes back to the 2016 election; the media spent lots of time saying “why does Hillary only talk about how awful Trump is; she should talk policy”. Of course she did both, but that is one of the myths that has stuck. Also, no-one wants to fall into the “deplorables” trap – again, given our current media, any candidate that mentions in any way how much of a shitty human being you must be to worship Trump immediately becomes the enemy of duh common peepul.
Mike G
The president called out her name as he acted out an orgasm in front of thousands of people at a Minneapolis rally
And the “family values” cretins will carry on supporting him regardless. Imagine the self-righteous screeching about immorality and saving the children if a Dem Potus did this.
Just One More Canuck
How bad is it that Reagan is only the third worst president in my lifetime
Miss Bianca
@glory b: It’s your place for Thanksgiving next year! : )
Martin
@Miss Bianca: The thing that bothers me about this argument is that family farms are corporate farms. They’re the same damn thing. There’s nobody escaping the dust bowl to grow cotton in California any longer. The Joads died 75 years ago.
Farming has always evolved technologically. Hell, we fought a war to force that to happen. The problem is that capital costs routinely lift the minimal farm size with time. That got MUCH worse in 2008 with the financial crisis, and then Trump decides to throw a poorly considered trade war on top, which China and Mexico were far better prepared to use strategically against us.
James E Powell
@Baud:
I don’t think it failed so much as the press/media refused to acknowledge it because they were obsessively focused on smearing Hillary Clinton’s character. It was like the most important task they thought about first thing every morning.
Many people defended their Trump votes as a refusal to vote for the worst person ever – everybody says so, even the liberal NYT – Hillary Clinton. This year, the focus is on the incumbent and how he has performed. His despicable behavior ought to be brought up at every opportunity.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
tell it.
preach
catclub
@Miss Bianca: You know where they know how to protect family farms? Socialist Europe.
Jay
@The Moar You Know:
rural Indonesia is affordable, and the bemo’s kinda guarantee that even close proximity to an International Airport will restrict Wingnut visits.
germy
https://www.theroot.com/we-knew-it-melania-trump-reportedly-sleeps-in-the-gues-1840145097
Baud
@James E Powell:
I don’t disagree with what the media did, but I seem to recall a lot of post mortems in the progressive space about how attacking a populist on character was a mistake. Comparisons were drawn with Berlusconi in Italy.
Right or wrong, it’s likely that viewpoint has affected how our candidates are approaching 2020.
chris
Bwahahahahahaha!
germy
Being married to melania, I assume he’s an expert on fake orgasms.
rikyrah
Jane with the truth ?
Jay
Baud
@chris:
Witches 1 0 Asshole
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Marcopolo: I completely agree. POS Trump and all the issues you raise has created the Perfect Storm that can take down our ship.
Jay
Citizen Alan
@Martin:
My situation’s nowhere near that bad. My mom turns 84 in a week, but she’s no Trumper (or if she is, she hides it around me completely). But while I want her to have a long healthy life, I can’t help but feel slightly bitter over the fact that I made a promise not to leave the country while she was alive.
Jay
The Moar You Know
@nyrobbin:
Pros: makes you utterly immune to criticism
Cons: even when that criticism is justified
Luckily for all, I’m pretty fucking lazy. I just don’t have the energy to put in the kind of work that maintaining that level of hatred for everything and everyone in the world requires. And I’m quite serious about that.
rikyrah
@chris:
They only cared about DRONNEEEZZZZ when the Black Man was President.
UH HUH
UH HUH
rikyrah
@Jay:
BRING THOSE RECEIPTS!
Jay
How The Sausage Gets Made: Case #12,956
Martin
@catclub: Sorta. The Netherlands is the worlds 2nd largest agriculture exporter after the US. They got there through innovating.
California should look a lot like that, but we’re just not doing it. Cut water usage by 90% and increase yields? How is that not priority #1 in a state running out of water, but where only 9% of water goes to residences?
And Netherlands has roughly the same latitude as Calgary.
Martin
@Citizen Alan: My mom is still pretty light republican, but with age my parents keep racing to the extremes. She’s getting Trumpier while my dad is currently researching what is to the left of communism as Bernie is a big corporate sellout to him. I try not to think about what would have happened had they stayed married.
Gravenstone
@Martin: This should basically be construed as showing Republicanism, as currently configured, should be treated as a mental illness. Its sufferers have simply lost all concept of objective reality.
Baud
@Martin:
They would have bonded over a shared hatred of Hillary.
James E Powell
@Baud:
You may be right about 2016, but I don’t think the same applies now. We have to force the idea that Trump is unforgivably corrupt into the discourse. Plenty of people will respond with “I know he’s corrupt as hell, but . . . ” and we will have to live with that. In 2016, there was a considerable portion of the electorate that believed Hillary Clinton was more corrupt than Trump simply because it was repeated so many times it had to be true!
The sad thing is that the voters we need to reach are really stupid and they are not going to get smarter. Ever.
Martin
@Baud: Yeah, she’s better described as anti-democrat than pro-republican. She can’t see that she’s the product of 30 years of right-wing propaganda, but then all of us claim to be immune from the power of marketing, the lies we all tell ourselves.
mrmoshpotato
@…now I try to be amused: I see your point, but please no. Even with the very little TV I watch.
I still can’t forget Dump’s disgusting mocking of that report with the muscle disorder in his arm. The still from that is *runs to the toilet*.
clay
@Jay:
I’m sorry… how is the DOJ dictating to reporters what they can or cannot cite? What reporter with any professional pride would say, well I was going to print this but the DOJ won’t let me?
I know reporters will sometimes withhold information because of national security reasons, but in no way qualifies. I don’t get this at all.
germy
Betty Cracker
@catclub: Bloomberg is in the race to glorify Bloomberg and kneecap any Democrat who talks about billionaires paying their fair share of taxes. If Trump gets dinged in the process, it’ll be incidental.
Martin
@Baud: I should note, that after 25 years of government service, it’s just now dawning on her that her son is a government employee – a class of person that she routinely has derided. I routinely throw myself into whatever category of person that she’s trying to demean, and she waves that I’m not really a govt employee, even though I’m 100% a govt employee. I won’t let her elide by that. If she wants to say govt employees are worthless then she’s going to say that to my face and say that I’m worthless, and she can’t do that.
Even better, *she* is a govt employee, even though she can’t bring herself to recognize that. She’s retired but works part time for her state SHIP program. I noted that she’s paid by her state in exchange for her volunteers support costs being paid by the feds (their computers and such). Somehow that’s different.
In the end, I feel like I’m helping slow her descent into the quicksand. It’s inevitable her nose will eventually slip under, but I can draw that out as long as possible.
Martin
@clay: Because the DOJ will cut them off. Mention us and you’ll never get another source out of this agency.
It’s not that hard to figure out which organizations play this game (cough NYT) and which don’t.
trollhattan
@germy:
Donny should get himself an Ed McMahon-jester person to “Hey-oh!” these presidential-class zingers. Boy oh boy, is he ever the funny one.
PPCLI
@Martin:
Well, true, but misleading. Thanks to the Gulf Stream and other influences, the climate in the Netherlands is far milder than Alberta’s.
Jay
@rikyrah:
a lot of the anti-war sites still track and report what they can on the Drone War and the ever expanding, ever growing War of Terror, despite it’s current complexity. In Lybia for example, last eeek, 2 UAE operated Chinese Armed drones were shot down, one Turkish operated Israeli Armed drone was shot down, one armed US Drone was shot down and one Italian operated US made unarmed drone was shot down. Some 38 people were killed in Lybia by drone strikes, some hundred wounded, and while there are “suspects” for each of the strikes, there are no admissions or “proof”, (sort of).
The funny thing is, 98% of the Drone/Torture/War of Terror Critics when it was Dybya Dubya Me Too in the Presidency, shut up when President Obama entered office. Aside from the same 2%, a whole new cast and crew of Drone/Torture/War of Terror critics appeared once President Obama was in office.
Now of course, only the 2% remain, because 98% of the past critics, were completely partisan in their “objections” to bad and broken policy. Critic’s of the Dubya Drones can’t jump on Dolt 45 because of their silence during Obama’s Presidency. Tankie and Vegan Leftie critics of Drone Policy under President Obama, won’t dump on Dolt because the Tankies love Putin and the Vegans don’t want anybody digging into their past posts too deeply. Winger Critics of President Obama’s Drone Wars only ever had issue with Obama, not the robotic extrajudicial executions of POC.
And of course, the MSM almost never brings it up, because “complicity”. It’s akin to WWII at Fawlty Towers,…….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7xnNhzgcWTk
Martin
@trollhattan: He should bring Stephen Miller for that role. He could give a Hitlergruß every time he says it.
MisterForkbeard
@clay: It’s in Access.
You can get the scoop and play along, or not get the scoop and they’ll give it another reporter… and you’ll never get contacted again by DOJ.
It’s completely against journalistic ethics, but they won’t admit it publicly.
PPCLI
@clay: ; It is even worse. The spokesperson who held the DOJ meeting, Sarah Isgur Flores, is now an “analyst” at CNN.
Any legitimate news organization would require her to explain her actions on air as a condition of employment.
Martin
@PPCLI: True, but that doesn’t help with the hours of daylight.
But that’s what greenhouses are for – mitigating the temperature variations.
My point being that the largest European agriculture economy didn’t get there through socialist protectionism. In fact, part of the rise of dutch farming was the consolidation of smaller farms to cover capital costs for this kind of technological expansion. Now, I have no doubt that there’s government support for those farmers, but similar forces that are pushing small US farms are affecting small european ones as well. The dutch also benefit from having a free trade arrangement with the rest of the US, something that the US has now lost with Mexico.
Jay
@clay:
DOJ: we are leaking this fake dirt on the condition you can’t say it was us,
USMSM: OK
DOJ: The morons, when they realize it was fake news, they can’t say anything, because they were complicit in hyping it,…..
USMSM: We’re not “morons”, we know exactly what we are doing here, “All Hail Hydra!”,
DOJ: “All Hail Hydra!”.
PPCLI
@Martin: I agree with the overall point: Europe does much more with much less (less land, less sunlight,…) than the US bothers to try to do.
Jay
mrmoshpotato
@germy: Ugh. Why doesn’t this hack get some big boy insults?
Chief Oshkosh
I don’t know. I’m pretty sure the Brooks Brothers riot that led to the one-off Supreme Court decision that installed Shrub was a complete and utter subversion of democracy. And, Shrub kowtowed to anyone with oil but too big to invade and kick around.
I don’t know. It’s a close call.
Jay
@PPCLI:
or Canada in many regards. Alberta morons for example.
They could refine the tar sands at home:
– lots of “green” electricity for the job,
– save 25% of net costs and some global carbon reduction by burying the petcoke as fill in tarsands reclamation projects,
– save another 50% of net costs by eliminating the need for solvents,
– instead of getting a deeply discounted rate for product, (35% to 45% less than Brent), get market rates for refined product,
– add 30,000+ short term jobs ( roughly 5 years) to build the infrastructure and 3,000+ long term jobs in the refineries,
– eliminate some of the reasons other Canadians hate Albertans.
Jay
Miss Bianca
@PPCLI:
Any legitimate news organization wouldn’t have hired her, period. Looking at you, CNN!
Yutsano
@Jay: Hey! I’ll have you know I have a good friend who’s an Albertan. And he’s totally fine in my book. Okay so he’s a cashier at a bingo hall but still, no oil fields for him!
(Okay fine he’s in Calgary. It still counts!)
Citizen Alan
@Martin:
I had a friend back in 2016 who told me he planned to vote for Eugene Pureyear. I had to Google who that was and then gently explain to my friend that (a) the Party for Liberation and Socialism wasn’t actually on the ballot in his state and (b) Eugene Pureyear was running for VP despite being too young to hold the office of VP even in the absurd scenario where he won.
As I’ve said for years, BernieBros and their fellow travelers are just Leftwing Teabaggers with absolutely no understanding of how the American political system works.
Aleta
@Martin: “Netherlands has roughly the same latitude as Calgary.”
I never think of them that way. Wow, they’re as far north as the tip of Hudson Bay, and farther north than Newfoundland. Which would give them an advantage of long daylight hours in the summer. I wonder if Alska could make giant greenhouses work for part of the year—lots of land and lots of summer light. Netherlands is also in a good spot cause they’re at the tail end of the Gulf Stream.
karen marie
@geg6: He’s done this before, hasn’t he? I’m pretty sure I remember him doing this well before October of this year. I’m not going to watch it. I’ve blocked the fucker on twitter, and the only exception I’ll make to watching the orange fuckwit is either him announcing his resignation or his perp walk.
Miss Bianca
@Martin: Tried to click on the link you provided, but not sure I want to sign up for their newsletter in order to read the article.
RedDirtGirl
@chris: Holy fuck!
Citizen Alan
Because it cannot be said enough, imagine for one second (if you can) Barack Obama being so crude as to mock a Republican woman (any Republican woman) with a fake orgasm sound. Imagine any Democrat doing it. They would be unelectable for the rest of their lives and hounded out of the public sphere.
Aleta
From @Martin: ‘s link: A proposal from a Dutch researcher is to raise grasshoppers for livestock feed. “One hectare of land yields one metric ton of soy protein annually, a common livestock feed. That same hectare can produce 150 tons of insect protein annually.”
Question: How would you efficiently feed the 150 tons of grasshoppers? It would take more than yard clippings, cabbage leaves and fresh refuse from flower and vegetable growers wouldn’t it? Would you also have to raise 90 tons of grasses, clover, seeds, alfalfa, etc. for the 150 tons of grasshoppers? Or if you don’t have the space for those fields, do you import it?
mrmoshpotato
@Citizen Alan: Yup. Because we have basic human decency as Democrats.
Just One More Canuck
@Yutsano: Of Calgary and Edmonton, Edmonton is far more sane politically. The problem with it is that it’s Edmonton- the best thing about it is the road out of town
debbie
Finally! I’ve been waiting for her response since October 12.
Bill Arnold
@Aleta:
I got as far as this:
Insect Farming Is Taking Shape as Demand for Animal Feed Rises – As the world grows hungrier for animal protein, insects could be the new way to feed livestock. (Lauren Zanolli, Aug 20, 2014)
Still bouncing on the study ( http://www.proteinsect.eu/ has more though )
J R in WV
@Jay:
That is an awesome twitter thread, pure cornpone sales push over and over all the way from top to bottom. I don’t know who the blocked guy is, but he did the right thing if she blocked him. Pure money-grubbing for jesus, making money off a complete distortion of everything the Christ ever stood for, as opposed to the complete distortion the Evangelicals push to make money.
Friend who is an Episcopal minister once was seated beside a southern evangelical minister on an airline flight. So once they determined they were both in religion as a business, they talked shop. One of the first things the Fundigelical asked my friend was “So, what’s your take on the Sunday collection?” In other words, he got a percentage of the donations every Sunday. My friend is on a payroll, with benefits, medical, withholding, and a supervisor, the local Bishop. So was really surprised to learn the Evangelical fundys are on a commission, like car salesmen… plus no supervisor, which explains the pederasty problems in the SBC, Calvinists and similar patriarchal religions.
Ksmiami
@Gin & Tonic: the best response is something like it’s obvious that in addition to being a vile, loathsome, dipshit cokehead, the fake POTUS has To fake orgasms too because it’s as close as he’ll get to the real thing.
Heywood J.
@Ksmiami: That, and his rendition is extra cringe-worthy because he almost certainly has no idea what a real orgasm sounds like.
Ruckus
@catclub:
He’s not good at it because he admits exactly what he’s doing, and he does it in public.
Dad Fred was at least good at his chosen field, but his son is almost unbelievably bad at everything. His only skill is tweeting on the toilet. And he’s bad at that. Everything else he does he’s worse than his tweeting on the toilet.
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
I tried it for a short while and it burned me out. It’s too much work to be pissed at the world.