Check out this fat lazy bastard from last night:
I had to push him off the damned couch to get him to come to bed. If I hadn’t, as soon as my eyes closed he would be at the damned door bitching to get in.
by John Cole| 36 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Check out this fat lazy bastard from last night:
I had to push him off the damned couch to get him to come to bed. If I hadn’t, as soon as my eyes closed he would be at the damned door bitching to get in.
This post is in: Our Failed Media Experiment
It’s almost like sending Pence to Hamilton would distract our media into an easy to cover a clickbaity culture wars topic instead of discussing at length the fact that Trump admitted he screwed all his Trump U students.
by Hillary Rettig| 16 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
NYC MEETUP
Looks like we’re going to have a good crowd! Besides socializing, people are psyched to discuss some post-election strategy. Please join us!
Date: This Monday, Nov 21
Time: 6:30 P.M.
Where: Joe’s Shanghai, 9 Pell Street
2 blocks south of Canal Street and just west of The Bowery. People can take the J Z N Q or 6 trains to Canal, walk east to Bowery and then south to Pell St.
Note – if the restaurant is too crowded or noisy we will move to another nearby. Arrive before 6:30 so you don’t get left behind!
My email will be spotty till then so if questions or concerns please email both me (hillaryrettig at yahoo dot com) and commenter Edith Silver (edithsilver1 at me dot com).
MONTCLAIR, NJ MEEUP CANCELED!
No one signed up so this Meetup is cancelled.
ROCHESTER, NY QUASI-MEETUP
Not a Meetup per se: I’m giving a workshop on Joyful and Effective Vegan Activism at the Rochester Vegan Association and you’re invited!
Vegan potluck starts at 5 PM.
My talk starts at 7 PM.
Event is free but preregistration required; space is limited so do it asap. (Venue and other info at the link.)
Hope to see some Juicers at this event!
Monday New York City Meetup (Also News on Montclair and Rochester)Post + Comments (16)
This post is in: Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Daydream Believers
Via NYMag, “Here’s What President Obama Told Sasha and Malia After Trump Won the Election“:
… In a sprawling new interview in The New Yorker, President Obama shared with David Remnick what he told his own daughters, Sasha and Malia, in the aftermath of Trump’s win:
“What I say to them is that people are complicated,” Obama told me. “Societies and cultures are really complicated … This is not mathematics; this is biology and chemistry. These are living organisms, and it’s messy. And your job as a citizen and as a decent human being is to constantly affirm and lift up and fight for treating people with kindness and respect and understanding. And you should anticipate that at any given moment there’s going to be flare-ups of bigotry that you may have to confront, or may be inside you and you have to vanquish. And it doesn’t stop … You don’t get into a fetal position about it. You don’t start worrying about apocalypse. You say, O.K., where are the places where I can push to keep it moving forward”…
What’s on my to-do list for the day, and the weekend: chipping away at the physical mess that’s taken over my yard and my house over the past few months. This may be our last ‘nice’ outdoor-work weather for a while, and having a concrete accomplishment I can look at usually helps my mood…
***********
Apart from self-care, what’s on the agenda for the day?
This post is in: Hail to the Hairpiece, KULCHA!, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity
A fascist's deputy who believes in conversion therapy and stop & frisk went to a Hip Hop Musical about democracy. Guess what happened next!
— Zeddonymous (@ZeddRebel) November 19, 2016
Founding fathers like Hamilton, gave us freedom of expression, right to protest our leaders. I suspect Hamilton would be ok with the booing. https://t.co/YTjtYVprrd
— Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) November 19, 2016
he's helping assemble a White Nationalist government but let's make sure he feels comfy during his date night? I'll pass https://t.co/hmrtGSNJsn
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) November 19, 2016
Virtue signalling — and I don’t mean by the audience/cast. Per the Chicago Tribune:
Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Friday was the latest high-profile person to attend the Broadway hit “Hamilton,” but he became the first to get a sharp message from a cast member from the stage.
Actor Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, the nation’s third vice president, gave a speech Friday for his political descendant after the curtain call, telling Pence the multiracial and multicultural cast is worried about the Trump administration.
“We, sir, are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights,” Dixon said. “We truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. All of us.”
Pence ducked out before Dixon finished the unprecedented message. But a show spokesman said Pence stood in the hallway outside the entrance to the auditorium and heard the full remarks.
The vice president-elect’s appearance at the Richard Rodgers Theatre triggered both cheers and boos when he slipped into row F in the mezzanine.
“Vice President-elect Pence, I see you walking out, but I hope you will hear us, just a few more moments. There’s nothing to boo here, ladies and gentlemen,” Dixon said from the stage. “We’re all here sharing a story about love.”…
Mike Pence, Public Scold of All Immorality, showed up at Hamilton for two reasons. First, getting good seats at the most popular show in one of the world’s top theater cities shows that he, VP-Elect Mike Pence, is now a Very Important Person. (If you were Mike Pence, you wouldn’t believe it without outside confirmation, either.) Second — most important, I’m guessing — Hamilton is a musical about a bunch of New York City immigrants, played by a cast of not-white actors, many of them openly LGBT. People like Mike Pence go to Hamilton to confirm their conviction that New Yorkers have always been filthy immigrants who proudly mock God and “history” while celebrating their perversities with every variety of that noisy jungle music. Getting boo’d at Hamilton gives Mike Pence immense ‘street cred’ with the neo-Nazis clotting around Steve Bannon, official Trump strategist-in-chief; since Bannon has a lot more influence with Trump than Mike Pence will ever accrue, Pence probably enjoyed the public opprobrium more than he did the play itself.
Shortlist reminder of Pence’s governmental record to date, from Deadspin:
… Politicians do not deserve respect simply on the basis of the fact that they’re politicians. They do, however, deserve to be treated in accordance with their actions. And in the case of Mike Pence, he deserves nothing less than to be constantly—and publicly—criticized and humiliated. Because Mike Pence is a monster.
Mike Pence has opposed a bill that would protect LGBTQ employees from workplace discrimination, refused to address the HIV epidemic in his state because of “moral qualms,” and in the 90s, published articles attempting to find links between homosexuality and pedophilia while the editor of a conservative journal. It’s worth noting here that the current lead in Hamilton is openly gay and HIV-positive.…
Mike Pence also signed a “religious freedom” bill that allowed businesses to explicitly discriminate against LGBTQ customers. And he backed several “personhood bills” that granted legal status to zygotes (zygotes!) and which would effectively ban abortion outright—along with some types of birth control. Pence also wanted women seeking abortions to have to undergo forced ultrasound exams where the provider would “describe the embryo in detail to her.” And of course, there’s also that law he signed requiring women to bury or cremate their aborted fetuses…
If #Pence is upset about getting boos maybe he could try electric shock and praying to turn his frown upside down! #ConversionTherapy
— Shannyn Moore (@shannynmoore) November 19, 2016
I think maybe the theater should have expressed a religious objection to selling Pence tickets. https://t.co/MyKLJIRE2H
— Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox) November 19, 2016
Just a reminder: Mike Pence's administration jailed a woman for HAVING A MISCARRIAGE.
— Call Your Reps Daily (@katiemcvay) November 19, 2016
Mike Pence thinks it's fine to fire people for being LGBT but yeah sure booing is impolite
— Mazel Tov Cocktail (@AdamSerwer) November 19, 2016
He's also the VP-elect. A level of disrespect https://t.co/Xgfbb0EpBH
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 19, 2016
The act of booing is designed to disrespect the the target of said booing. I'd boo him at a funeral. https://t.co/Y7mQoKo8dy
— Elon James White (@elonjames) November 19, 2016
Did a single @nytimes reporter ever condemn Trump supporters chanting "Lock her up?" Maybe STFU now about some booing.
— Armando (@armandodkos) November 19, 2016
Mike Pence only has to deal with getting booed at @HamiltonMusical. Not getting deported, registered, or discriminated against. Lucky guy.
— Jacob Haren (@jacobdharen) November 19, 2016
Early Morning Open Thread: Mr. Pence Goes to <em>Hamilton</em>Post + Comments (66)
This post is in: Bernie Sanders 2016, Grifters Gonna Grift, I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Sanders Campaign, Open Threads
Bernie hammered Clinton on $15 min wage – but said today he is willing to work w/ Trump on going from $7.25 to $10. https://t.co/ZhhagExJN9
— Edward M. Davis (@TeddyDavisCNN) November 17, 2016
Sure, Hillary was a Wall-Street-Whore-Corporatist-Shill when she suggested haggling for a mere $12.50 hourly wage in those areas where the cost of living didn’t meet NY/San Francisco/Seattle standards as a bargaining tactic… but if it’s a (fellow) man, even a Republican, well, whole diffrunt kettle!… as ever with the More-Leftist-Than-Thou boys. CNN reports:
President-elect Donald Trump will find himself with an unlikely ally if he makes good on his promise to be an economic populist challenging corporate America, Bernie Sanders said Thursday.
“If Mr. Trump has the guts to stand up to those corporations,” said the former Democratic presidential candidate, “he will have an ally with me.”
The willingness on the part of Sanders, a longtime democratic socialist, to work with Trump on a series of economic issues underscores the unorthodox and strikingly populist message that Trump used during his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton.
Sanders, speaking with reporters at a Christian Science Monitor sponsored breakfast, said he is ready to embrace Trump on a handful of campaign promises. Those include protecting Social Security and Medicare, negotiating for lower drug prices, raising the minimum wage to $10, imposing tariffs on companies that ship jobs overseas, and re-regulating Wall Street by re-establishing Glass-Steagall…
Because if you can’t trust a notorious liar and deal-breaker like Donald Trump, who can you work with?
… By embracing Trump’s left-leaning stands, Sanders is hoping to make progress on issues of long-standing concern to the Vermont senator…
Foremost among those issues: What’s in it for Bernie?
… Sanders, who is promoting his new book, “Our Revolution: A Future To Believe In,” during a series of appearances across Washington, is stepping into the leadership vacuum of the Democratic Party.
He said it was not productive to look backward, waving off a question about whether he could have defeated Trump if he had won the Democratic nomination with a “who knows?” response…
The Sanders Revolution cannot fail — it can only be failed. Though St. Berie is far too humble to say so himself… explicitly.
… “At the end of the day, my candidacy ended up being helpful to her — if we believe candidates should not be anointed,” Sanders said. “I’m happy to say my campaign brought millions of people into the political process, the vast majority of whom ended up voting for Hillary Clinton. I think it played a very positive role.”…
“Does that mean she and I are going to agree on every issue?” Sanders said. “Frankly, we are not going to agree on every issue, but her voice is important to be heard.”…
Big of him, nu?
… Even as Sanders offers to work with Trump on the populist components of his economic program, critical differences remain…
But on a series of bread-and-butter issues, Sanders said that Trump’s campaign spoke to the concerns of the working class and promised to work with the President-elect “if Mr. Trump was sincere.”,,,
And Sanders knows this about sincerity: Once you learn to fake it, you’re golden!
Of course, we don’t know the Sanders family’s financial position — like Trump, he broke with tradition by refusing to release his tax returns while running for the presidency — but unless he’s got some as-yet-undiscovered expensive vice, a Senator with three properties and a wife sufficiently professional to earn a half-million-dollar golden parachute will no doubt stand to benefit from Trump’s proposed tax breaks for the prosperous.
And it’s true that, right now, Bernie has a book to sell (and a foundation — “Our Revolution” — to shill).
But I think what’s really driving St. Bernie into President-Elect Smallgloves’ greasy embrace is a new-found taste for media adulation. After all those years as a back-bench oddity, his countrywide campaign to keep That Woman from becoming president, no matter how terrible the alternative, has introduced him to a whole new market of ‘low-info voters’ with pet causes to promote and money to throw away.
Senator Sanders is already eliding the difference between his lifelong ‘democratic socialist’ “proudly” Independent status and his short-lived campaign as a Democratic carpetbagger presidential candidate. I’m sure he’s envisioning happy years of green-room adulation, as he explains to the Media Village Idiots that — despite his own speechified wishes! — the greater good requires him to bow his snow-white aureole and back-stab the actual Democrats striving to mitigate the Republicans’ worst assaults on women and people of color (even the working-class ones). He’ll feel very badly about it, of course, but (as the talk-show bobbleheads nod along) sometimes sacrifices have to be made (mostly by other people, coincidentally)…
There is zero about Trump's history, policies, or appointments that suggest he will do anything other than be a shill for big business https://t.co/PTW6vraWOh
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) November 17, 2016
Late Night Open Thread: White Male “Ally” Dives for the SpotlightPost + Comments (125)
by Adam L Silverman| 42 Comments
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
You try to take a night off and so, apparently, does everybody else! Overnight open thread. Have at it!
And a wee bit of the Dianic Cult or the followers of Miriam!