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Open Threads

You are here: Home / Archives for Open Threads

‘Tales of Thrilling Adventure’ Open Thread: Chris ‘Mad Bitcher’ Cillizza & His Talking Points of Derpitude

by Anne Laurie|  December 10, 20193:16 am| 12 Comments

This post is in: Impeachment Inquiry, IOKIYAR, Open Threads, Trumpery, Assholes, Bring On The Meteor, Our Failed Media Experiment

WATCH: Democratic witness Daniel Goldman perfectly explain the entire Trump-Ukraine scandal in 1 minute.

He then warns that Trump is as we speak still trying to get Ukraine to influence the 2020 election.

This clip needs to be on every nightly news show tonight. pic.twitter.com/62SJzLSoNI

— Nate Lerner (@NathanLerner) December 9, 2019

The whole thing — even for someone like me who gets paid to watch this stuff — was, well, unwatchable.

A bunch of adults yelling at one another over matters that almost no one watching understood or cares about. https://t.co/i2Fn83a8cx

— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) December 9, 2019

There’s a lot of dumb, “That’s how we got Trump” takes, but cable news viewing him as an exciting, TV hot break from normal, boring politics actually fits the assertion.

— Schooley (@Rschooley) December 9, 2019

If only there were some sort of institution that exists to explain current events and politics to help people understand and care about what's happening. https://t.co/uhgNSxY3Yy

— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) December 10, 2019

The important thing is Democrats unveil their articles of impeachment in a manner that engages Chris Cillizza. Maybe with some close up magic.

— Schooley (@Rschooley) December 10, 2019

Someone asked me this afternoon what the point of the GOP’s strategy was today, and I said it was to generate this kind of coverage rather than coverage that provides information about the underlying conduct at issue. https://t.co/kHiXelkq8J

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) December 9, 2019

2/ The defense, such as it is, is to oscillate between "you don't have a smoking gun!" and "it was awesome to shoot him!" … Basically a separate article of impeachment for gaslighting the whole fucking country should be added to the list.

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 9, 2019

https://t.co/kvhxzok8M6

— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) December 9, 2019

—@JeffreyToobin: "Let's be clear about what happened today. For years and years, Donald Trump has said the FBI and the deep state was involved in an illegal conspiracy … and now after years of investigation, the inspector general said, 'Not true. Didn't happen.'" pic.twitter.com/F3t1Sg9Ylq

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) December 9, 2019

<em>‘Tales of Thrilling Adventure’</em> Open Thread: Chris ‘Mad Bitcher’ Cillizza & His Talking Points of DerpitudePost + Comments (12)

Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: “How did the Republican party arrive at this place?”

by Anne Laurie|  December 9, 201911:06 pm| 80 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Don't Mourn, Organize, Impeachment Inquiry, Media, Open Threads, All Too Normal, DC Press Corpse

People are asking me what I thought of this. I read it as a confession: We're out of ideas. "Both sides" and "so divided" is all we got. https://t.co/u6gvIB0ZdE

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 8, 2019

Sigh.

Again: the faux-naive stance of the paper’s national-politics framing is at odds w (a) the reality of this moment and (b) the sophistication of their coverage of nearly everything else.

No story about biz, arts, science, climate, books etc would be framed this way.

— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) December 8, 2019

Jesus H. Christ on deadline, the lede may be the worst thing I ever read. The WH is engaged in obstruction of a) justice and b) Congress, and it’s being defended in the latter by a collection of bums, yahoos, and tobacco auctioneers. But the D’s are abandoning “lofty traditions."

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) December 9, 2019

Which is why the watchword(s) of every Liberal must be…#BothSidesDont pic.twitter.com/nul6kBkyky

— driftglass (@Mr_Electrico) December 8, 2019

Good day to repeat my current rule of press criticism: News stories currently framed as "we're so divided," and "can't agree on a common set of facts" should instead be cast as "how did the Republican party arrive at this place?"

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 8, 2019

Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: <em>“How did the Republican party arrive at this place?”</em>Post + Comments (80)

Impeachment Inquiry Open Thread: Girl Power, Ivanka!

by Anne Laurie|  December 9, 20197:31 pm| 154 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Impeachment Inquiry, Open Threads, Trump Crime Cartel

BREAKING: ABC News can confirm that the Trump “family member” referenced in the Inspector General report who had a friendship with dossier author Chris Steele, was Ivanka. She met him in 2007 at a dinner in London when he was still working for MI6. https://t.co/W64i5GPqVK

— Julia Macfarlane (@juliamacfarlane) December 9, 2019

… The prior relationship came to light as investigators with the Department of Justice Inspector General’s office was looking into allegations of political bias at the origins of the Russia investigation since May 2018.

Steele gained notoriety as the investigator who ignited a firestorm by authoring the highly controversial 2016 dossier alleging links between the Trump Campaign and Russia, and embarrassing incidents involving Trump before he took office. Critics of Steele have argued that the former intelligence officer was biased against Trump and was inclined to produce a negative report on the presidential candidate – excoriating Steele on social media and elsewhere.

In 2007, Ivanka Trump met Steele at a dinner and they began corresponding about the possibility of future work together, the source said. The following year, the two exchanged emails about meeting up near Trump Tower, according to several emails seen by ABC News. And the two did meet at Trump Tower according to the source. The inspector general’s report mentions a meeting with a “Trump family member” there. They suggest Ivanka Trump and Steele stayed in touch via emails over the next several years. In one 2008 exchange they discussed dining together in New York at a restaurant just blocks from Trump Tower…

Members of President Trump’s family have never publicly discussed the interactions – and their past meetings with Steele went unmentioned as the Trumps leveled charges against the British intelligence expert in the wake of the controversial and hotly disputed memos he wrote about President Trump…

The inspector general’s report, which was released publicly today, briefly references these past dealings. In his discussion with investigators from the inspector general’s office, Steele cited his past cordial relationship with Ivanka Trump as reason to believe that he was not biased against her…

Ivanka’s never gonna challenge the sort of people who join Mensa, but she’s by far the brightest of the Donald/Ivana litter. And the firstborn, too. Yet she’s been told, since she could bang two blocks together, that she’d never inherit the Trump empire, because she was ‘just a girl’. On the one hand, she was taught that money and its acquisition was the only real measure of human worth; on the other hand, she’s complained that both her parents kept her chronically under-funded, requiring her from childhood to resort to ‘clever’ business measures like selling faked ‘Indian arrowheads’ to her childhood peers. The Trump ideology is that powerful people swing their weight around, take whatever they like, and brag about their taking… but Ivanka, as a girl, was required to be ladylike, not to fight, but to get what she needed by pleasing & manipulating people (especially Daddy, the source of all good things). As a Trump, she was told, she had the best heritage from the best family in a world of sheep and slackers — and yet: Her job was to be eye candy, and (secondarily) to trade her gifts for an allegiance with another family (almost) as powerful and rich as her own…

Spymakers, the story goes, have an acronym: M.I.C.E. You lure potential ‘assets’ through the judicious use of Money (to those who feel themselves undercompensated), Ideology (‘you & I both agree about what is truly important’), Compromise (blackmail, when targets or those important to targets — hellooo, Jared — have left evidence of lawbreaking), and Ego.

It’s not that Ivanka has necessarily been recruited by foreign power, but…

Reaching out to someone like Steele and trying to develop/maintain a relationship w him is the kind of thing one might do if you were a Russian asset. https://t.co/IrKOQ60KwM

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) December 9, 2019

… Being able to plausibly suggest that Ivanka might’ve been recruited is not nothing, for a sufficiently busy & mischievous foreign power.

WaPo matches @juliamacfarlane’s scoop https://t.co/87ioenmfsj

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) December 9, 2019

… In her role as a senior vice president of her father’s company, Ivanka Trump was particularly involved in its overseas real estate projects. In 2006, she traveled to Moscow to explore the possibility of a Trump Tower in Russia.

Impeachment Inquiry Open Thread: <em>Girl Power,</em> Ivanka!Post + Comments (154)

“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”…Modern Republican Update

by Tom Levenson|  December 9, 20196:31 pm| 79 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Crimes against humanity, Dolt 45, Israel, Open Threads, Racial Justice, Racist-In-Chief

The GOP today, and Trump himself, make a lot of noise about how much they love Israel.  What they really value, of course, is the racist and corrupt current Israeli government–and, some of them, the apocalyptic vision of Israel’s Jews massacred in a final confrontation on the plains of Megiddo, which would thus usher in the arrival of their god: Rambo Jeebus.

Trump is mystified — sincerely, I believe* — that his performative slobbering over Bibi hasn’t translated into support from American Jews, the overwhelming majority of whom interpret  the obligation to “Tikkun Olam” (heal the world) rather differently than does our presidential cager of children and patron of war criminals.

Over the weekend, Trump has explored this mystery, and has reminded us what Jews really are to him. Via Vanity Fair, here’s the shitgibbon speaking to the Israeli American Council in Hollywood, Florida:

He started off by once again invoking the age-old cliché about “dual loyalty,” saying there are Jews who “don’t love Israel enough. After that warm-up he dove right into the stereotype about Jews and money, telling the group: “A lot of you are in the real estate business, because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all,” he said.

"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"...Crayon Edition

“But you have to vote for me—you have no choice. You’re not gonna vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You’re not gonna vote for the wealth tax. Yeah, let’s take 100% of your wealth away!” (It feels beside the point that neither Elizabeth Warren nor any other Democratic candidate has proposed a 100% wealth tax.) He continued: “Some of you don’t like me. Some of you I don’t like at all, actually. And you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’re going to be out of business in about 15 minutes if they get it. So I don’t have to spend a lot of time on that.”

That’s us.  Jews aren’t really Americans, or not American enough — we’ve got Israel to take care of.  And Cash Rules Everything Around Us. (Not the best acronym, I know.)

You know, the old, familiar hate: the international conspiracy of world Jews, driven only by money, “not nice people at all.”

The Republican Party in any of its forms has not, as I write this, said anything about the shitgibbon’s remarks.

Silence = acquiescence.

That is: GOP is, until clearly demonstrated otherwise, home to and comfortable with exactly the same kind of anti-Semitism that underpinned persecution from pogroms to the Holocaust.  This kind of bigotry doesn’t have to end there, of course, but to avoid an escalation of the same hate that barely a year ago “inspired” the killer in the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh, those closest to the President have to respond forcefully.  They haven’t and on the evidence they won’t.

The Republican Party has been playing on white fears of black and brown humanity for a long time, and it has long been a shock to the conscience how readily so many in power have been to do so instrumentally, not because they “in their hearts” hate black people or whoever, but because it works.

Well, it has, too well — and now the next phase is unfolding: when you unleash hate, sooner or later, it always finds the Jews.

And every other vulnerable minority.  We really are in this together, and 2020 truly is an existential election.

Other than that, how was your day, all you Mrs. Lincolns?

*I think that Trump is genuinely mystified by a lack of Jewish support.  He’d do business with someone he loathes if it made him a couple of bucks. Wouldn’t everyone?

Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of a Rabbi, 1635

“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”…Modern Republican UpdatePost + Comments (79)

57 Million Down the Toilet

by 15 flush mistermix|  December 9, 20195:01 pm| 89 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Bloomberg’s campaign spent $57 million on advertising in his first week in the campaign. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen a single Bloomberg ad.

I probably don’t need to tell a politically sophisticated audience how stupid this is, but I’ll just hit the high points. First, he’s running in a primary, and the early primaries especially are won on organization and field work, not ads. Second, we’re in an environment where free media and social media sharing is just as important – if not more important – than paid ads. That kind of organic media has more credibility with the sophisticated primary voter audience it’s trying to reach.

Here’s an open thread.

57 Million Down the ToiletPost + Comments (89)

The DOJ Inspector General’s Report on the Origin of the DOJ’s & FBI’s Investigation of the President’s 2016 Campaign Has Been Released

by Adam L Silverman|  December 9, 20191:46 pm| 170 Comments

This post is in: America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Election Year, Foreign Affairs, Impeachment Inquiry, Open Threads, Politics, Russia, Silverman on Security

Michael Horowitz, the DOJ Inspector General, has released his long awaited report into the origins of the DOJ’s and FBI’s investigation into the President’s 2016 campaign. The report can be found here and I’m uploading it below.

DOJ_IG_Investigation_DEC_2019

The bottom line up front: the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the four related investigations, including those into Carter Page and George Papadapolous, were properly predicated and there was no political bias. So no bias and no corruption. No coup, no deep state conspiracy. Nothing, nada, bupkis.

Here’s the key findings from the Executive Summary (emphasis mine):

In Full Investigations such as Crossfire Hurricane, all lawful investigative methods are allowed. In Preliminary Investigations, all lawful investigative methods (including the use of CHSs and UCEs) are permitted except for mail opening, physical searches requiring a search warrant, electronic surveillance requiring a judicial order or warrant (Title III wiretap or a FISA order), or requests under Title VII of FISA. An investigation opened as a Preliminary Investigation may be converted subsequently to a Full Investigation if information becomes available that meets the predication standard. As we describe in the report, all of the investigative actions taken by the Crossfire Hurricane team, from the date the case was opened on July 31 until October 21 (the date of the first FISA order) would have been permitted whether the case was opened as a Preliminary or Full Investigation.

The AG Guidelines and the DIOG do not provide heightened predication standards for sensitive matters, or allegations potentially impacting constitutionally protected activity, such as First Amendment rights. Rather, the approval and notification requirements contained in the AG Guidelines and the DIOG are, in part, intended to provide the means by which such concerns can be considered by senior officials. However, we were concerned to find that neither the AG Guidelines nor the DIOG contain a provision requiring Department consultation before opening an investigation such as the one here involving the alleged conduct of individuals associated with a major party presidential campaign.

Crossfire Hurricane was opened as a Full Investigation and all of the senior FBI officials who participated in discussions about whether to open acase told us the information warranted opening it. For example, then Counterintelligence Division (CD) Assistant Director (AD) E.W. “Bill” Priestap, who approved the case opening, told us that the combination of the FFG information and the FBI’s ongoing cyber intrusion investigation of the July 2016 hacks of the Democratic Nat ional Committee’s (DNC) emails, created a count erintelligence concern that the FBI was “obligated” to investigate. Priestap stated that he considered whether the FBI should conduct defensive briefings for the Trump campaign but ultimately decided that providing such briefings created the risk that “if someone on the campaign was engaged with the Russians, he/she would very likely changehis/her tactics and/or otherwise seek to cover-up his/her activities, thereby preventing us from finding the truth.” We did not identify any Department or FBI policy that applied to this decision and therefore determined that the decision was a judgment call that Department and FBI policy leaves to the discretion of FBI officials. We also concluded that, under the AG Guidelines and the DIOG, the FBI had an authorized purpose when it opened Crossfire Hurricane to obtain information about, or protect against, a national security threat or federal crime, even though the investigation also had the potential to impact constitutionally protected activity.

Additionally, given the low threshold for predication in the AG Guidelines and the DIOG, we concluded that the FFG information, provided by agovernment the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) deems trustworthy, and describing a first-hand account from an FFG employee of a conversation with Papadopoulos, was sufficient to predicate the investigation.This information provided the FBI with an articulable factual basis that, if true, reasonably indicated activity constituting either a federal crime or a threat to national security, or both, may have occurred or may be occurring. For similar reasons, as we detail in Chapter Three, we concluded that the quantum of information articulated by the FBI to open the individual investigations on Papadopoulos, Page, Flynn, and Manafort in August 2016 was sufficient to satisfy the low threshold established by the Department and the FBI.

As part of our review, we also sought to determine whether there was evidence that political bias or other improper considerations affected decision making in Crossfire Hurricane,including the decision to open the investigation. We discussed the issue of political bias in a prior OIG report, Review of Various Actions in Advance of the 2016 Election, where we described text and instant messages between then Special Counsel to the Deputy Director Lisa Page and then Section Chief Peter Strzok, among others, that included statements of hostility toward then candidate Trump and statements of support for then candidate Hillary Clinton. In this review, we found that, while Lisa Page attended some of the discussions regarding the opening of the investigations, she did not play a role in the decision to open Crossfire Hurricane or the four individual cases. We further found that while Strzok was directly involved in the decisions to open Crossfire Hurricane and the four individual cases, he was not the sole, or even the highest-level, decision maker as to any of those matters. As noted above, then CD AD Priestap, Strzok’s supervisor, was the official who ultimately made the decision to open the investigation, and evidence reflected that this decision by Priestap was reached by consensus after multiple days of discussions and meetings that included Strzok and other leadership in CD, the FBI Deputy Director, the FBI General Counsel, and a FBI Deputy General Counsel. We concluded that Priestap’s exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision. We similarly found that, while the formal documentation opening each of the four individual investigations was approved by Strzok (as required by the DIOG), the decisions to do so were reached by a consensus among the Crossfire “Hurricane agents and analysts who identified individuals associated with the Trump campaign who had recently traveled to Russia or had other alleged ties to Russia. Priestap was involved in these decisions. We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations.

IG Horowitz did, as is the case in almost every IG investigation, found some low level wrongdoing and other minor errors. There are always decisions made or actions taken that, in hindsight, should have been made differently or not taken at all. Had IG Horowitz found nothing at all, then things would have looked as hinky as if he’d found the whole thing to be unpredicated and biased.

Attorney General Barr, however, is not happy with these conclusions. And he is once again, as he did with the Mueller Report, trying to place both hands on the scale to justify his ideologically driven priors.

Barr again in statement defending Trump: “It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.”

— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) December 9, 2019

Given that AG Barr isn’t going to let this go, because it interferes in his career long mission to establish the presidency as an unelected king who is free from all constitutional and statutory constraints, despite Inspector General Horowitz’s findings, AG Barr and his surrogates, as well as the President and his, will continue to try to undermine the findings, as well as the actual reasons for the investigation into the President’s 2016 campaign. It is important to remember that during AG Barr’s first appointment as the Attorney General he created a factually dubious predicate that was used to create the inquiry that would eventually become the Whitewater investigation into the Clintons. This was done while then Governor Clinton was running for president against President Bush (41), who was Barr’s boss and shortly after he advised President Bush (41) to pardon all of the Iran-Contra conspirators, which would make it impossible to actually ascertain how much or how little President Bush (41) was involved in that criminal conspiracy to subvert American foreign and national security policy. Barr is an old hand at fixing investigations as attorney general. Either to make them go away or to create them. And both for political benefit. Despite IG Horowitz’s findings, this is not over. And it is not over because Attorney General Barr doesn’t want it to be over. And he will only want it to be over when he is able to arrange the conclusions in line with his preferences.

Open thread!

The DOJ Inspector General’s Report on the Origin of the DOJ’s & FBI’s Investigation of the President’s 2016 Campaign Has Been ReleasedPost + Comments (170)

Monday Morning Open Thread: Seasons’ Greetings

by Anne Laurie|  December 9, 20195:22 am| 126 Comments

This post is in: Election Year, Immigration, Impeachment Inquiry, Open Threads, The Brown Enemy Within, All Too Normal, Lock Him Up...Lock Them All Up

I chatted today with the pastor of a Claremont church which erected a nativity scene depicting Jesus, Mary and Joseph as refugees separated in cages https://t.co/MGl82HTZ3n

— James Queally (@JamesQueallyLAT) December 9, 2019

… Ristine, who has served as the church’s lead pastor only since July, said the church often uses its Nativity scene to tackle a societal issue. Southern California’s homelessness crisis has been invoked in past depictions, she said. A more traditional Nativity scene, showing the Holy Family reunited, can be found inside the church, which serves a congregation of about 300 people, Ristine said.

“We don’t see it as political; we see it as theological. I’m getting responses from people I don’t know … I am having people tell me that it moved them to tears,” she said. “So if the Holy Family and the imagery of the Holy Family and the imagery of a Nativity is something you hold dear, and you see them separated, then that’s going to spark compassion in many people.”…

Rep Cicilline "all of the potential articles of impeachment are on the table." pic.twitter.com/t3E0PJ2M7J

— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) December 8, 2019


Dug out my copy of The Friends of Richard Nixon, written by former Assistant U.S. Attorney George V. Higgins, and found this in the introduction:

… Thinking ahead, in criminal business, is of surpassing importance, even more so than in legitimate commerce and in politics, where it certainly does no harm. The professional outlaw seldom loses sight of the possibility that he, or someone working for him, may make a mistake, or suffer some bad luck, or succumb to overconfidence and get hooked for something big because he bungled something small. He is on guard from the instant he begins to make his operational plans (he does not cause his conferences to be tape-recorded, and he invites to those discussions only those with a pressing need to know, and he does not confide this agenda to the uninvited). If something goes wrong, and the cops come, he is not reduced to frantic, random foraging in the early morning hours, for a willing though sleepy attorney, and a bail bondsman. Nor does he negligently permit his operatives to carry his phone number in their belongings, helpfully annotated to show that, yes, it is his number. The practical crook is a man of provident humility, who sees to it, in advance, that investigation will be arduous, protracted, dispiritingly unproductive, and, in the long run, unsuccessful. By that foresight in frustrating the orderly procedures of American criminal justice (by leaving nothing to chance, and very little to be found), he exonerates himself from the alternative, more difficult, and vastly more dangerous obligation to obstruct the processes of American criminal justice. There is no substitute for knowing what you’re doing…

It looks to be Rudy Giuliani’s week for going under the Trump bus. Mr. Giuliani, during his long career flirting with the romance of Big Crime, might’ve done himself better if his reading (okay, viewing) had included more narratives from the side of the prosecution, IMO.

And finally, a happy dream to start the week…

AP Interview: Elizabeth Warren says she believes Americans are ready for a presidential ticket with two women at the top, rejecting concerns from some Democrats that a woman can't beat President Trump. https://t.co/8wHcarzJTj

— The Associated Press (@AP) December 8, 2019

My dream ticket. pic.twitter.com/Jz4dtJIbQF

— Khashoggi’s Ghost (@UROCKlive1) December 9, 2019

Monday Morning Open Thread: Seasons’ GreetingsPost + Comments (126)

Bad Faith Open Thread: … “But the CHILDRUN!!!”…

by Anne Laurie|  December 8, 20194:49 pm| 124 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Post-racial America, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality

Alternate headline: Conservatives launch war on Christmas. https://t.co/WcukOmB6kn

— Donald G. Carder (@theangrymick) December 6, 2019


The first resort of the modern American “patriot”…

Grant only made Christmas a federal holiday as an overture to Southern Baptists. And this is how they pay it back. https://t.co/2rCF1G421u

— Malarksist Revolutionary (@agraybee) December 8, 2019


Per the Washington Post, “‘I feel so bad for the children’: N.C. towns cancel Christmas parades after demands to remove Confederate groups”:

… In a Wednesday night video message, Wake Forest Mayor Vivian Jones announced that the town’s downtown board of directors voted to cancel the Dec. 14 Christmas parade out of concern that “outside agitators” would show up to protest or defend the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, who planned to march in the event.

The decision in Wake Forest, located less than 20 miles outside Raleigh, comes almost a week after another nearby town, Garner, N.C., announced it was canceling its Christmas parade over possible protests of a float sponsored by a local Confederate group, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.

By the end of her video announcement, Jones was fighting tears…

Wake Forest Police Chief Jeff Leonard said in a statement that one group had notified the town of its plans to protest, but that the police department was worried that more agitators would “show up, wreak havoc then leave.” The town had received “credible information” about a “growing number of outside groups” planning to attend to either defend or oppose the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, according to a statement. The town had not received any threats, officials clarified, but Leonard and Jones said they still believed safety could be put at risk.

“We aren’t happy telling kids they can’t attend or participate in this year’s parade, but it’s better than trying to explain to a parent whose child was injured why we chose to proceed despite so many warning signs,” Leonard said. “No matter what side of this issue you are on, our focus is public safety and at this point, the risk of moving forward with the parade simply outweighs any possible reward.”…

Blaming the ‘outside agitators’ — another proud Suthrun tradition, of course.

Fun-fact: the actual All-American Christmas tradition of the Puritans was to spend the day working and then return home to houses with no Christmas tree.

Christmas trees are a European tradition we didn’t import until the mid-1800s. https://t.co/aydUt4EBSK

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 5, 2019


Our proud Puritan forebears actually banned the celebration of Christmas — it was considered ‘pagan’, i.e., Papist (Catholic). Christmas trees became an aspirational holiday accessory when hordes of desperate German refugees started producing tchotchkes cheaply enough for the American middle class to imitate Queen Victoria’s annual tribute to her German husband. (Which, of course, didn’t stop those good, patriotic Heartland Americans from vilifying the Germans as filthy disease-carrying criminals who couldn’t be bothered to learn English or teach their hordes of subnormal offspring decent behavior.)

show full post on front page

Americans during the period around the Civil War were desperate for “unifying” Kinder, Küche, Kirche “traditions” to plaster over the ugly realities of widespread social dissent. (Lots of us remember the sentimental Little Women Christmas scenes, but when you actually read Alcott’s bestselling children’s books, the backgrounds — even in New England — are of war widows desperate to feed their children, wandering ‘tramp’ veterans with PTSD, and 14-year-old orphans turned out to support themselves or starve.) Just in case you thought Fox News was the first to weaponize The War on Xmas.

"It is really a sad day for America. It is, I think, going to hurt people's Christmas experience because this is going to be playing in the background. Instead of Bing Crosby's Christmas album, we're going to have impeachment," Whitaker said.

— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) December 5, 2019

I mean, that’s my only Christmas wish.

— Kerri "I'm tired" Ann (@misskerriann) December 6, 2019

Bad Faith Open Thread: <em>… “But the CHILDRUN!!!”… </em>Post + Comments (124)

Seasonal Open Thread: Simple Gifts

by Anne Laurie|  December 8, 201911:36 am| 34 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Readership Capture, Trumpery

No pushing. No shouting. No assembly required. Just real news that matters.

With a digital subscription, you gain unlimited reading access to 2020 election analysis, in-depth investigative reporting, and coverage you need to stay informed.

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 26, 2019


Local news subs (assuming you have a local paper) make good gifts, too.

The Warren campaign has made cross-stitch patterns available featuring the slogan “Capitalism without rules is theft” and, of course, Bailey based on popular merch designs https://t.co/tKkdw4Xiwc pic.twitter.com/0FvcRhkXJx

— laura olin (@lauraolin) December 5, 2019


Free for downloading, at the link. The motto patterns are pretty simple — they could be worked up in a couple of hours, even by a beginner. You could even use waste canvas to cross-stitch them onto a sweatshirt or the back of a denim jacket…

(If I can ever find my cross-stitch pattern books, I may work up ‘Capitalism without rules is theft’ in a florid pseudo-Victorian script. Which is not the Warren style, but the concept pleases me.)

Anybody want to share gift suggestions?

******
Or if you’re looking for a *gag* gift… emphasis on the gag…

The undocumented housekeepers told us they had to check @realdonaldtrump's supply of orange face makeup. Now, the company that makes that makeup — @bronxcolors — is running a sale where you can get a discount on Trump's exact shade. ("BHC06").https://t.co/bGJfQs7Z8N

— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) December 5, 2019


(Not a big makeup consumer, but as I understand it, concealer is properly used for small areas, to disguise dark undereye circles or hide blemishes. Normal users would cover the patch with a dusting of foundation, like blending paint over spackle. If the Occupant is too lazy or too ignorant not to slather it on like street-mime slap, that would help explain why it looks so extraordinarily unnatural.)

Seasonal Open Thread: Simple GiftsPost + Comments (34)

Late Night Open Thread: Buttigieg Seeks Republican Votes

by Anne Laurie|  December 7, 201911:15 pm| 127 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Election Year, Open Threads

.@Lawrence looks at Pete Buttigieg’s strange comments in New Hampshire today about Democrats and deficits. https://t.co/fTzA999tag pic.twitter.com/B5mYV68O7Z

— The Last Word (@TheLastWord) December 6, 2019


(Can’t get the embed to work properly, but it’s worth five minutes to watch.)

Are you fucking kidding, Pete?!

Reagan took the deficit from $70 billion to $175 billion. Bush 41 took it to $300 billion. Clinton got it to zero. Bush 43 took it from zero to $1.2 trillion. Obama halved it to $600 billion. Trump’s got it back to a trillion.

Forget this guy. https://t.co/jtbaBSQoWu

— D’Ag due (@ag_due) December 5, 2019

Striving to impress the Never-Trumpers isn’t a bad move, for someone with Mayor Pete’s (admittedly slender) political credentials. But his dogwhistle wasn’t particularly well performed here, because it seems to have pissed off a lot of Democratic voters without impressing his target audience…

This is both a Republican talking point and, relatedly, factually untruehttps://t.co/5qLKLYX28Q pic.twitter.com/nfu1d764CY

— laura olin (@lauraolin) December 5, 2019

Barack Obama famously did not care one whit about the deficit. https://t.co/S5lnoHCrm2

— Mangy Jay (@magi_jay) December 5, 2019

And were I his Comms Director, I wouldn’t have “defended” my boss to Democrats by citing The Bulwark, which is… an outfit explicitly for Never-Trumper Republicans:

“What is it about ?@PeteButtigieg? that has melted the brains of his rivals and their Twitter stans? His policy agenda would be to the left of any platform ever put forth by a major party nominee.” https://t.co/eRGahizoSl

— Lis Smith (@Lis_Smith) December 6, 2019

It's a piece in a conservative publication written by a Republican for Pete's base: DINOs.

— Saucy Stacey (@DrSCubed) December 6, 2019


(Note: Dana Houle, professional political operative, has said that the more non-professionals know about a campaign’s press staff, the less likely that campaign is to succeed.)

show full post on front page

Positive spin: Mayor Pete’s a young, fresh face — not like the three old pols at the top of the primary polls right now! Negative response: Mayor Pete’s got very little experience, and not just in politics, which makes him susceptible to conspiracy theories…

there is a popular left conspiracy theory forming that Mayor Pete is CIA pic.twitter.com/KAGSCF8j9M

— zachary (@zatchry) December 7, 2019


Which is ridiculous; even when I was first introduced to McKinsey, some twenty years ago, it was widely known as the management consulting company that (like every other managing consulting company) invariably counseled that the proles be punished and the privileged be coddled — but with “seamless efficiency”, i.e., a particularly denatured detachment from human reality. This core competency meant that most of its field workers were short-termers — young credential-seekers snatched from the most prestigious graduate programs, putting in three to seven years of intensive travel and networking before they cycled elsewhere, sometimes for fear of ending up as one of the characters from that George Clooney movie, or because they’d been informed that they were not *quite* soulless enough for the permanent McKinsey echelons.

Buttigieg went to McKinsey because they offered him excellent global networking opportunities; he left McKinsey once he’d satisfied himself that he could withstand the rigors of his next credential-seeking position, in the Army Reserves.

This is ridiculous. First, nobody who supports him now will care if he was. They’re only going after him on things people who hate him will have problems with. There are serious legitimate issues with his campaign, and they’re ignoring them to play Alex Jones.

— I am Sancho (@1amsanch0) December 7, 2019

It would be a funny plot twist if the Pete is CIA thing was a plot by his campaign team to counter the obvious fact that the mayor of Literally Where has nowhere near enough experience to be president

— Botswana Starfish Totally Not Blackmailing POTUS (@IRHotTakes) December 7, 2019

Yup. It’s almost as if…he’d be a good candidate for the House!

— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) December 5, 2019

has anyone ever seen Paul Ryan and Peter Buttigieg in the same room at the same time? pic.twitter.com/Pz7CXsxCSb

— Pete Buttigieg is a Lying MF (@chhelenach) December 6, 2019

Late Night Open Thread: Buttigieg Seeks Republican VotesPost + Comments (127)

Open Thread: Trading SPACE FARCE! for Paid Parental Leave

by Anne Laurie|  December 7, 20197:20 pm| 84 Comments

This post is in: Military, Open Threads, Space, Trumpery

on the bright side, the aviation geek in me is excited for all the cool shit Trump will declassify when people make fun of him for not having any spaceships for the space force, tweeting out all the stuff from groom lake on his iphone

— Botswana Starfish Totally Not Blackmailing POTUS (@IRHotTakes) December 7, 2019

But seriously… I doubt it will happen, because the Repubs don’t want a bunch of ‘low-level bureaucrats’ (federal employees) to get ‘freebies paid from our taxes’, especially right before Christmas (because they can’t enjoy their holiday unless they know other people are suffering). But I would happily trade an expansion of paid family leave in return for, let’s be honest, years of scheduling Very Serious Hearings about a sixth branch of the military. The Washington Post is a good guide here, IMO, because they’re reporting on what they consider a local pocketbook issue:

… The deal is part of a defense authorization bill that is slated to pass this month. If consummated, the agreement could mark one of the biggest deals President Trump has cut with Congress. It would secure a massive expansion of benefits for federal workers, something Democrats have long sought, in exchange for a realignment of the U.S. military that Trump has sought to secure as part of his legacy…

One Democratic congressional aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the parties are “nearing agreement on a final deal.” The package could be voted on as early as next week, the aide said.

If it is approved, the extension of paid family leave to federal workers would represent a major benefit to more than 2 million federal civilian workers, who are only eligible for unpaid leave under federal law.

It would mark a reversal of sorts for the White House, which has sought to strip pay and benefits from federal workers since Trump took office in 2017. Instead, it would mark one of the biggest extensions of a new work benefit for the federal workforce in recent history…

Trump has become increasingly fixated on Space Force as his administration faces the House impeachment inquiry, according to one senior administration official. But it has not been clear if House Democrats would approve of his request.

The Pentagon has already reestablished a Space Command that will be headed by a four-star general. But the Space Force, if approved, would stand up an organization to train and equip specialized forces whose mission would be to accelerate the country’s response to the militarization of space…

A senior defense official with knowledge of Space Force discussions said Thursday that the Air Force convened a planning task force months ago and is weighing “myriad” issues, including how service members would be transferred from the Air Force to the Space Force, what Space Force uniforms would look like, and what rank structure would be used…

Still, there are a variety of more complicated issues that will take the Pentagon time to hammer out, the official said. They include logistical issues, such as where Space Force headquarters will be housed in the Pentagon, and practical ones, such as whether the Space Force will have its own security forces on the ground or rely on other branches of service.

For federal employees, the deal represents not just a rare new benefit, but a victory in a three-year war with the Trump administration that from the start was suspicious of the career bureaucracy of 2.1 million employees.

The White House has gone to war with unions that represent federal workers and won. In recent months it has gotten reprieves from the courts over a union challenge to a series of White House executive orders designed to weaken labor’s hand in collective bargaining.

The administration has slashed long-established benefits such as telework in many agencies and taken steps to more aggressively fire workers it deems poor performers. And while Trump has proposed a raise for the workforce for next year, he did not want an increase this year until Congress intervened, demanding it under the terms of a budget agreement that ended the partial government shutdown…

Open Thread: Trading SPACE FARCE! for Paid Parental LeavePost + Comments (84)

Pet Calendar: General Stuck, greennotGreen, efgoldman, Schlemazel… We Need Your Stories, Memories, Quotes

by WaterGirl|  December 7, 20195:03 pm| 72 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Pet Blogging, Pet Rescue

Speaking of the pet calendar, please get your entries in!  The first deadline was yesterday.

Look for Pet Calendar Info in the upper right, just under the balloon man; that’s where you’ll find the info if you’re on a computer or a tablet in landscape mode. If you’re on a phone, or on a tablet in portrait mode, look for it in the hamburger; that’s what some people call the 3 horizontal lines (top right) on a mobile device.

John is planning a couple of In Memoriam pages at the front of the 2020 BJ Pet Calendar, and we need your help.

Do you have a favorite comment by General Stuck or Schlemazel?  Stories from a meetup with efgoldman?  Something you learned from greennotGreen or Scotian?

Was there an epic fight between the General and Cornerstone?  You know, more than the usual.  A favorite Charlie story?  Words of wisdom from Schlemazel?  Something that greennotGreen shared that particularly touched you?

Do you know some charming thing about one of our beloved commenters that we would all love to hear about?  Something that would make us laugh, or wipe our eyes?

I searched for each person, and there are 461 pages of threads that match with efgoldman, 67 for greennotGreen, 217 for Schlemazel, 1302 for General Stuck, and 12 pages for Scotian.

There may be more for pages for General Stuck, but he changed his nym fairly frequently and I don’t remember all the nyms he used.  Searching for “stuck” gave the best results and found a couple of his nyms.  Do you guys remember any nyms for Stuck besides General Stuck and General Winfield Stuck? (edit: Stuck in the Funhouse, supplied by Librarian.)

Do you remember the spelling of the other nym was that was close to Schlemazel, but not exactly that? Or what his original nym was before he switched it to one of those? Satby did some sleuthing, and it was Schlemizel in 2012. That gives us a few more years of his comments.

I know he and I had a long conversation about why he changed his nym, but to find that one I need to know the original spelling before it became Schlemazel.  If I could find that conversation, I think we could find what his first nym had been.

Reminder: all of efgoldman’s original comments were somehow corrupted on the old site and were no longer there in the old database when we checked about year ago.  Any comments that efgoldman REPLIED to are in there.  So if EF wrote a comment about the awesome watermelon he found at the farmer’s market, that comment is not in the wordpress database.  But if YOU wrote a comment about the awesome watermelon you found, and efgoldman replied to your comment, his reply will be in there.

We have at least a couple of folks with great Google Fu – Steeplejack and Another Scott.   They did some efgoldman sleuthing last year, and I believe Steep is making a last ditch effort with a 2-year old backup to see if any of efgoldman’s comments can be found. If there’s something that was important  that you haven’t been able to find, maybe they can help us out?  Subaru Diane, I hope you see this, too!

In the meantime, if you have stories, memories, or quotes to share, jump right in!

Let’s take this great idea of John’s and turn it into something special.  Are you guys up for that?

Update:  We want everyone to have the opportunity to contribute ideas for the In Memoriam section, if you so desire.  Since the deadline is so short, if you think you might be proposing something over the next few days, please pipe up in the comments IN THIS THREAD to let us know that so we can plan for more input.  Or not.  Thank You!

Update 12/10: If you would like to contribute further to the In Memoriam portion of the calendar, please send email to WaterGirl at the balloon-juice address.  

Pet Calendar: General Stuck, greennotGreen, efgoldman, Schlemazel… We Need Your Stories, Memories, QuotesPost + Comments (72)

Open Thread – Saturday Afternoon Movies – Pearl Harbor and More

by Cheryl Rofer|  December 7, 20192:24 pm| 68 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Today is the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Here’s a short film of part of the actual attack. I don’t have information about its provenance, but it was tweeted by an account I trust, and it looks authentic by a number of markers.

Another anniversary is of President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Los Alamos on December 7, 1962, to be briefed on the Rover nuclear rocket program. With Russia developing a nuclear-powered cruise missile, there’s been renewed interest in the Rover program. It’s interesting to see how much less protection there was for a president back then.

Open Thread – Saturday Afternoon Movies – Pearl Harbor and MorePost + Comments (68)

Saturday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie|  December 7, 20195:19 am| 172 Comments

This post is in: Election Year, Excellent Links, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Right to Vote

VICTORY: With @repjohnlewis presiding, the House has passed #HR4 to fully restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – a top priority for the civil rights community.

The Senate must take up this legislation immediately. Our democracy depends on it. #RestoreTheVOTE pic.twitter.com/q13jQBBhOs

— Vanita Gupta (@vanitaguptaCR) December 6, 2019

BREAKING: @RepBrianFitz is the one and only House Republican that believes in voting rights. https://t.co/37aqHMYIMO

— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) December 6, 2019


If Fitzpatrick is your rep, you might want to send him a thank-you message.

===========

And a long read, because it’s Saturday morning and worth the effort:

Harry Reid on Biden saying he’ll be able to make deals with Senate Republicans:

“I’ve worked with Senator McConnell, and I wish him luck.”https://t.co/mpg1HvCyZB

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) December 6, 2019

… Harry Reid, who retired in 2017 after representing Nevada for 30 years in the U.S. Senate—a dozen of them as chair of the Democratic caucus, eight of them as Senate majority leader—was supposed to be dead already; his pancreatic cancer was forecasted to prove fatal within weeks. But he’s still here, which is how I came to be talking with him, not long before Thanksgiving, in a conference room at the Bellagio, asking him why he remains the person to whom many of the Democratic presidential candidates come for advice and anointment.

Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren have both stopped by for meetings and checked in via phone. Pete Buttigieg made a special pilgrimage to see him. Bernie Sanders welcomed Reid to his hospital room after his recent heart attack. Before Mike Bloomberg started filing the paperwork to enter the primaries, he didn’t alert many Democratic Party figures—but he did call Reid…

If defeating Donald Trump rests on the Democratic Party unifying early and strong around a nominee, then the current state of things looks ominous. Polling suggests a scenario in which four different candidates could each win each Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina—with a fifth candidate, Bloomberg, the one with the deepest pockets, only then entering the primaries. Not a recipe for rapid coalescence—and conceivably a situation in which the Democratic convention arrives next July with candidates still scrambling for delegates and no one in possession of a majority. In that case, who could play the role of party elder to mediate among the various factions?

Barack Obama would seem to be the natural choice; he’s not only the last Democratic president, and the only one since Franklin Roosevelt to be elected twice with majorities of the electorate, but he remains the most popular figure, by far, in the Democratic Party. Yet it would be hard for him to appear to remain neutral. He’s good friends with one top-tier candidate, Joe Biden, his vice president for eight years; he’s expressed public doubts and private annoyance about the socialism-inflected movement inspired by another, Bernie Sanders; he’s had an uneasy relationship with a third, Elizabeth Warren, since she briefly worked for him setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; and Buttigieg has explicitly tried to position himself as the next Obama. (Obama actually has deeper roots and a closer friendship with a fifth candidate, Deval Patrick, than with any of these four.) But beyond this, Obama doesn’t want to be the party mediator or convention broker. Part of why he’s retreated from the public is because he’s hoping the party will move past him, and he doesn’t think that his being seen to have handpicked Trump’s opponent would be good for Democrats’ odds in the general election. There’s also the more self-interested worry about his legacy: What would it say about him if he couldn’t get a deal done, or if his handpicked candidate loses to Trump?

So if not Obama, then who? Not Bill or Hillary Clinton—they’re too loathed by some of the very factions they’d be trying to soothe. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the de facto leader of the party, and people close to her hope and expect that she might be asked to mediate, based on her skill at steering the party toward the center-left. But she doesn’t have much of a relationship with any of the candidates or their campaigns aside from Biden, so she wouldn’t be able to exert personal suasion effectively.

That leaves the man, hairless due to chemotherapy, sitting across from me. Reid knows all the candidates who are within range of contention for the nomination; his former aides populate their campaign staffs. Perhaps most important, given the intransigent nature of Bernie Sanders and his supporters—who were notoriously reluctant to yield to Hillary Clinton last time around—Reid may be the only politician in America other than Sanders himself who’s trusted by Jane O’Meara Sanders, the senator’s wife and possibly most fight-hungry defender…

Reid said he agrees with Obama’s warning two weeks ago that the electorate was not as into progressive revolution as some candidates and Democrats on Twitter want to believe—but he also assured me that the party isn’t on a self-destructive bender. “You can go back and look at presidential primaries for as long as you want to go back, and candidates are always criticized in the primary for being too far to the left. But as time moves on, you wind up being more center. It’s going to happen this time, just like it always has,” he said.

Moreover, opposition to Trump will unite Democrats, he predicted, and heal the rifts among them. “We know that to say four more years of Trump will not be good for the country is a gross, gross understatement.”…

If the selection of the Democratic nominee does come down to Reid brokering a compromise, whom might he back? He won’t say, of course, and has promised not to make any endorsement until at least after Nevada’s primary, at the end of February. But he’s been talking up Warren since the 2016 election ended, and she was the candidate he was decidedly the most effusive about, calling her “one of the finest people I’ve ever worked with.” And many former Reid staffers occupy prominent roles on the Warren and Sanders campaigns and on lefty Twitter.

Does all this mean that you’re a secret liberal, or you’re more progressive than people thought? I asked Reid.

“I’m glad you think it’s a secret,” he told me…

Saturday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (172)

Late Night Open Thread: Floriduh Driver

by Anne Laurie|  December 7, 20191:54 am| 59 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Trumpery, Floriduh Man

Lamborghini spotted by my brother-in-law in Miami. pic.twitter.com/IOgHh5U5oJ

— Alexander Nazaryan (@alexnazaryan) December 7, 2019


(From the tags on the front, looks to be this guy — FL insurance adjuster & Trump fan)

A, and I cannot stress this enough, four hundred thousand dollar car, wrapped in a five cent Facebook post.

Wealth. Tax. Now. https://t.co/fMnrzRyvzM

— Zeddy (@Zeddary) December 7, 2019

It's like if the MAGAbomber had Bruce Wayne's budget.

— Zeddy (@Zeddary) December 7, 2019

What do we think the odds are that he's also claiming a good portion of the car's purchase price as a tax write-off (hence the company name)

— RWD-by-the-Sea (@RWD_by_the_Sea) December 7, 2019

I am unsurprised that a late model Lambo owner would be tasteless and also a Trump supporter. But not an expert in supercars. Maybe i'm missing a nuance.

— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) December 7, 2019

Late Night Open Thread: Floriduh DriverPost + Comments (59)

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Johngcole avatarJohn Cole@Johngcole·
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omfg the Watchmen was already amazing and now Jean Smart’s character and performance is taking it to the next level

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Johngcole avatarJohn Cole@Johngcole·
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I dunno but I bet they love the White Album

I dunno but I bet they love the White Album
Parker Molloy@ParkerMolloy

What’s the name of this band?

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New Post added at Balloon Juice - How Did They Do It? -

Balloon Juice | How Did They Do It?

One of the things that continuously amazes and depresses me is the success with which right wing politicians and media have successfully brainwashed m...

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New Post added at Balloon Juice - Cave Respite Open Thread -https://www.balloon-juice.com/2019/12/12/cave-respite-open-thread/

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#BeBest

Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump

So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill! https://twitter.com/RealRomaDowney/status/1204822160470093824

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can't think of a more perfect name for a company run by Rudy Giuliani than Fraud Guarantee

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Balloon Juice | Timely Content Open Thread: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

Everyone's talking about impeachment and Clinton & Johnson as the only presidents ever impeached. But most people don't know WHY Johnson was impeached...

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Balloon Juice | Crushed

The UK exit polls show a major win for the Tories – up 51 seats, while Labour is down 71 seats. The history of the poll is that it can be wrong, but...

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