Mourning in America - Trump Year One: November '16 to

i mean unless you're counting the trump voters trying to vote twice, lol

so trump wants his kids to get security clearances? he can't read, right? thats what this is about?

either way I hope those hellspawn earn a clearance and aren't just given one

Trump the populist: http://qz.com/813976/you-will-never-see-the-populist-donald-trump-in-jeans-or-a-t-shirt/

― Fake Sam's Club (I M Losted), Tuesday, November 15, 2016 1:04 AM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's this photo:

http://static2.politico.com/dims4/default/548b9b2/2147483647/resize/1160x%3E/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2Fe1%2F09%2Fdcc9c1d74408b41b704a01d81df4%2F151014-ivanka-donald-aspen-gty.jpg

it is kind of jarring seeing him in something other than a suit or golf clothes, though

I've been feeling a lot better and more positive today (particularly after a long talk with a coworker who'd been out of the country)...and then I start watching Obama's press conference and I cannot in any reality imagine anything like this occurring again in the next four years. Like, just on a very basic level, an adult who's in charge speaking like an adult to other adults. It's not going to happen. We have a president-elect who is fundamentally incapable of inspiring hope or confidence in anyone but the most broken.

I'm just going to have to focus on doing what I can to make small differences on the local level for the foreseeable future because paying much attention to what's happening at the top will drive me to cirrhosis.

I have honestly found getting out to be very healthy, if only to see that I am not alone, that there are many people just like me, or not like me, and coping in their own way. But then, I live in a dense, diverse area that went for Clinton or, otherwise, was never going to go for Trump. If I lived in some other part of the country, I'd probably be even more depressed and dismayed than I am.

I remember (back when I was in a band) playing a gig that was literally in a guitar store in a strip mall in Vacaville, CA. It sucked, the band we played with couldn't have been more different (they had wireless guitars!). It was just the worst. But there was this one high school alterna-girl and her friend who showed up, not really for us but for anyone, anything , that was not them. And I remember thinking how sad it was that she literally had no alternative, nowhere to go, and just wanted something different, whatever that was, someone or anything closer to how she thought of herself.

If we take Obama's words today at face value -- that he can guarantee NATO that the rules will continue -- I suspect that the traditional President-elect's 'Here's What You Can't Do, Motherfucker' lecture from the CIA was moved up to last Wednesday or Thursday.

Anyway, what great timing for my first visit to the UK next week. It will be... good?... to get out of this madhouse for 6 days, into an older, more fatigued one.

I think he's been getting a lot of "Here's What You Cant Do," beginning with his request to check out the UFC match.

have fun morbs - first time I went to london was when ukip smashed the local elections around may 2013. a more innocent time when I had no idea wtf was a ukip.

What lots of people seem to be missing in the debate between mitigation and obstructionism is that, unlike the Republicans and Obama, the Democrats won't control a single lever of power come 2017. How do you obstruct when you are the minority in the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court? It's in this context, and this context only, where mitigation seems like the better political tactic. Trump and the party he leads can accomplish anything they choose to do; with certain issues, it makes lots of sense to try to work with them in the hope that some good can still get done.

i think we might be able to get some republican allies to block whatever racist policies might be coming from a white house where a chief advisor is neo nazi steve bannon

i am not optimistic about stopping the traditional republican agenda from getting through unless, for some reason, trump and ryan start feuding or whatever

There's always that hope when monstrous egos are involved.

Forget 'deplorables,' howbout answering the $675,000 Question with a shrug and "That's what they were paying"? Why that didn't create empathy with every single mother knocking her brains out working two jobs, I can't imagine. And there was more where that came from.

sean g otm

can't we filibuster tho?

GOP expected to abolish filibuster?

AP sez it's Giuliani at State. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhfuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

GOP expected to abolish filibuster?

lol that would be crazy and super risky/dumb. they would p much have to go fascist, after that.

the Democrats won't control a single lever of power come 2017

AHEM

https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gned/lapham_lights96.pdf

The permanent government, a secular oligarchy of which the company at dinner was representative, comprises the
Fortune 500 companies and their attendant lobbyists, the big media and entertainment syndicates, the civil and military
services, the larger research universities and law firms, It is this government that hires the country's politicians and sees
the terms and conditions under which the country's citizens can exercise their right--God-given but increasingly
expensive--to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Obedient to the rule of men, not laws, the permanent
government oversees the production of wealth, builds cities, manufactures goods, raises capital', fixes prices, shapes the
landscape, anti reserves the right to assume debt, poison rivers, cheat the customers, receive the gifts of federal subsidy,
and speak to the American people in the language of low motive and base emotion.

EXCEPT - and this seems important - since Lapham wrote this, in the nineties, we seem to have inverted his concept.
The permanent government is the one that believes in laws, not men. The provisional one, the one elected on a technicality, not by democracy, appears to believe in nothing.

flopson, recall the 'nuclear option' of 2013 that the Dems did not use

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/14/this-is-why-senate-republicans-might-not-go-nuclear/

Speaking of thte permanent Washington class:

Michelle Obama has burned off her date-night meals at Washington’s new generation of acclaimed restaurants by pedaling at SoulCycle. President Obama has shopped for Jonathan Franzen novels with his daughters at local independent bookstores. Obama administration staff members, their barhopping chronicled in the gossip pages, have hit the 14th Street hot spots hard.

Decades ago, Washington was broke and run by a mayor best known for smoking crack with a prostitute on a surveillance tape. Neighborhoods had not fully recovered from the 1968 riots, and an aging Georgetown elite still set the tone. The administrations of two Bushes and a Clinton in between hardly had an effect on the city.

But Mr. Obama’s arrival in 2009 coincided with an urban renaissance. Economic development, federal and private investment, and an influx of highly educated young, gay and diverse professionals gentrified neighborhoods, leading to an explosion in restaurants, bars and cafes. And the Obama family — African-American, youthful, attractive and urbane — were archetypes of a modern city on the upswing

Dems have the Senate filibuster and thats it. in 2008 that was all the GOP had too (well, and the SC)

Things are moving fast:
https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/798345065571774464

Here's a recent shot of California and Texas separatist leaders meeting in Moscow:

McConnell's recent comment about how "majorities dont last forever" + his past as minority leader would suggest he's not eager to abolish the filibuster. But we'll see.

but didn't Ds have a supermajority in 08?

jesus christ

The whole point of the senate is basically to allow the minority to grind things to a halt.

Xp

Dems never had 2/3rds iirc

Xp

In the House Pelosi should look for opportunities to exploit the division between Ryan and the Freedom Caucus, and engineer combining votes w the Freedom Caucus to oppose legislation where possible.

There are looming cracks and schisms in the GOP majority. When yr in the minority, those are yr weapons.

somehow I'm sure they'll all be able to find common ground

To what extent do the deep blue states gerrymander the hell out of districting like red states?

Dan Savage was advocating figuring out voter suppression for Republican voters which is crazy but if states at least stacked the deck a bit more for the House I wouldn't be mad.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/aftermath-sixteen-writers-on-trumps-america

the Dems are going to have to learn tactics that they've been too reluctant to learn out of (a) moral squeamishness (b) collusion

I think pelosi has it in her. Less confident about Schumer.

Gerrymandering favors the minority party. In most of the country, Republicans are still the minority party.

scott, I kinda thank you for sharing that, but I read almost all of it last night and it's pretty clear every one of them phoned it in and there was barely any editing at all (because "essays" don't need fact-checking etc); I was especially disappointed by Shteyngart, although I guess I shouldn't have been and he's probably right anyway we all live in hell etc. And I have no idea what point Gawande was trying to make, other than "we need to keep doing our jobs!" thanks I'm glad the medical profession needed to be reminded of that

"Nancy Pelosi brilliantly exploited tension between Senate Republicans torn apart on whether to starve the poor, hunt them down in the streets, or boil them alive before consuming their flesh."

"voter suppression for Republicans" = "actual democracy"

Pelosi is in the House flopson

that was an xp to milo
turnout, turnout, candidates we care about, register, show up, vote the line.

That too

But we have 2 years til next election. In the meantime legislative hardball is required. Sad to see ppl here suggest there should be compromise w GOP.

aww, i didn't know gwen ifill died. i just heard it from obama. she would have been a better president than trump. r.i.p.

xp otm. it's not even so much a political question as a moral one.

god, someone shared a Bill Burr-Conan interview on Facebook and I started watching it. I'm glad the rich white guy who screams constantly has nothing to fear from Trump.

lol that would be crazy and super risky/dumb. they would p much have to go fascist, after that.

― flopson, Monday, November 14, 2016 10:03 PM (one hour ago)

it's actually a great idea in terms of fairness and democracy, though it's a shame it'll happen in this context

but didn't Ds have a supermajority in 08?

― flopson, Monday, November 14, 2016 10:19 PM (forty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Dems never had 2/3rds iirc

Xp

― Οὖτις, Monday, November 14, 2016 10:21 PM (forty-five minutes ago)

need 60, not 2/3, which the dems had for a short time until ted kennedy died. it was all downhill from there

Oh right 3/5ths. My bad. I thought they only had 59 even w kennedy tho.

I will be surprised if mcconnell ditches the filibuster tbh. What does he care about democracy, he knows they're likely to be in the minority as soon as Trump fucks up.

Oh right 3/5ths. My bad. I thought they only had 59 even w kennedy tho.

― Οὖτις, Monday, November 14, 2016 11:22 PM (three minutes ago)

depends if you even wanted to count shitbags like evan bayh and joe lieberman

See my RIP Joe Lieberman thread for reference

need 60, not 2/3, which the dems had for a short time until ted kennedy died. it was all downhill from there

― k3vin k., Tuesday, November 15, 2016 4:08 AM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

president scott brown was the end of the honeymoon for the obama administration. obamacare could only pass through reconciliation and it all went to shit from there.