Trump, May 2017: 100 days of [unintelligible]

So, the best remaining outcome would be that Gianforte is charged, tried, & convicted of assault and the judge is a hard-nosed bastard who comes down on him with both feet.

it's a misdemeanor tho

the best remaining outcome is that reporters shove tape recorders in gianforte's face every single day he spends in washington

that's about it

Surely the law should be that if you're arrested for anything, all bets are off re public office.

not sure we'd like how that would make our candidates look, given how we police here

i believe that all bets should be off for anyone in public office regardless of previous arrests

even if quist overperformed it's still a depressing result, the majority of people, conservatives and liberals alike, are simply going to see this as "progressive populist couldn't even beat the bodyslamming guy I keep hearing about". it's an easy and stupid narrative that can be exploited by people who want to keep propping up moderate/right-leaning dems. ossoff's gonna win an easier district with a boatload of dnc cash quist didn't get, and they'll be able to point to it and say "this needs to be our plan going forward"

I'm being pessimistic probably

i think you're totally wrong that the majority of people have spent one second thinking about an issue as fine-grained as "should dems run candidates more like rob quist or more like jon ossoff" -- i think among people who are not part of the hardcore right wing the narrative is going to be as simple as "man there are a lot of dirty / corrupt / criminal Republicans in office right now"

far from clear ossoff is gonna win btw though it would be a big surprise if his race isn't closer than this one

probably shouldn't have used ossoff as an example as i have literally no idea what kinds of policy he stands for

but i'm mostly talking about liberal blowhards using this loss as an argument, and indeed the first thing i did after reading your post was visit neera tanden's twitter, where her most recent post is a retweet of matt yglesias saying "Schweitzer Would Have Won" lol

and this idiot

Some activists misinterpreting this as an ideological point. I mean serious candidates - progressive, centrist, liberal. https://t.co/5cLkeU3uof

— Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) May 26, 2017

the reality of montana's votership doesn't matter if you don't want it to. also like every third U.S. representative out of the south is nothing more than a "quirky personality"

I'm being pessimistic probably

Nah, you'll never go broke betting on DNC incompetence

yay, progressive populist couldn't even beat the bodyslamming guy I keep hearing about!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/25/politics/montana-special-election-results/

over a quarter of the votes had already been cast by absentee ballots when the incident occurred

Gianforte won the election day vote as well, though. Though by less than expected. So it might have made an impact...

It was an extreme longshot, Rob Quist was not the best populist candidate imaginable, and he still came quite close. I'd say it's a moral victory in defeat, while the GOP won but only became even more morally abominable. If Ossoff doesn't win, though, after so many others has done so much better than expected, it will be very disappointing.

No one expected him to win: I was looking at margins and a possible symbol of decadence for 2018 elections.

first thing i did after reading your post was visit neera tanden's twitter, where her most recent post is a retweet of matt yglesias saying "Schweitzer Would Have Won" lol

I mean, yeah, professional liberals like Neera Tanden or M Yglesias or M Stoller or whatever are gonna be like BUT WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT BERNIE V HILLARY but that's their job, I think rank-and-file dems just don't care about this that much anymore? Or maybe it's just that I don't care. All I care about is that every race is contested and the party runs the best candidate it can in every race.

I guess this means a lot of right wingers are so fed up with the media they they think its ok to attack them.

All Republican candidates will now be required to ceremonially beat up at least one reporter on election eve. It worked, and why mess with a formula that works?

Interesting read:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/26/ukrainians-say-fbi-questioning-them-about-manafortat-last

Separately, more Nelson laughs!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/politics/health-care-senate-republicans.html

I think Ossoff is gonna lose.

His TV ads are smartly made and informative while Handel's are fear based garbage, so you're probably right.

I guess this means a lot of right wingers are so fed up with the media they they think its ok to attack them.

― Violet Jax (Violet Jynx), Friday, May 26, 2017 8:50 AM (forty-eight minutes ago

many Montanans hadn't even heard of the attack! Also 37 percent of the vote already cast.

I mean it's important to remember in all these cases that special elections are happening precisely because GOP members left to work in the admin. Ergo, uphill battle no matter what.

if the incident had happened a week ago instead of the night before an election in which two-thirds of the ballots had already been cast and Quist had lost, I'd grumble more loudly

The other thing to keep in mind, I think, is something which has been handily irritating me over the past few months: the assumption that Trump supporters are already turning on him for economic reasons. FAR too soon. It's when the amped up people who thought he was the solution to larger structural problems look at things potentially next November, but more likely in 2020, and ask themselves if things are better that you'll see a change. But this is why 2018 could provide its own problems for the right -- after two years of GOP control of Congress and the WH, if you're one of those voters still facing barely any change in your circumstances, you might rightly ask what's going on. As such, the Carrier announcement this week has been some useful cold water -- and a sign.

This one's amusing

Huh https://t.co/rEGQ7RhFdM

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 26, 2017

"He already had Russia mania in 1986, 31 years ago," asserts Bernard Lown, a Boston-area cardiologist known for inventing the defibrillator and sharing the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize with a top Soviet physician in recognition of their efforts to promote denuclearization. Lown, now 95 and retired in Newton, Mass., tells The Hollywood Reporter that Trump sought and secured a meeting with him in 1986 to solicit information about Mikhail Gorbachev. (Gorbachev had become the USSR's head of state — and met with Lown — the year before.) During this meeting, Lown says, the fast-rising businessman disclosed that he would be reaching out to then-president Ronald Reagan to try to secure an official post to the USSR in order to negotiate a nuclear disarmament deal on behalf of the United States, a job for which Trump felt he was the only one fit.

"He said to me, 'I hear you met with Gorbachev, and you had a long interview with him, and you're a doctor, so you have a good assessment of who he is,'" Lown recalls. "So I asked, 'Why would you want to know?' And he responded, 'I intend to call my good friend Ronnie,' meaning Reagan, 'to make me a plenipotentiary ambassador for the United States with Gorbachev.' Those are the words he used. And he said he would go to Moscow and he'd sit down with Gorbachev, and then he took his thumb and he hit the desk and he said, 'And within one hour the Cold War would be over!' I sat there dumbfounded. 'Who is this self-inflated individual? Is he sane or what?'"

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Gianforte is obviously a shithead and a garbage candidate for a million other reasons, but I do wonder how many liberals would really change their vote, or more likely, not vote at all, if their candidate bodyslammed a reporter the day before the election. As a resident of NC, I'd like to tell myself that if Roy Cooper had suplexed a beat reporter on election eve I would've just refrained from voting for that race altogether, but once I was in the ballot box it would've been mighty hard not to cast a vote towards kicking out McCrory.

The other thing to keep in mind, I think, is something which has been handily irritating me over the past few months: the assumption that Trump supporters are already turning on him for economic reasons. FAR too soon. It's when the amped up people who thought he was the solution to larger structural problems look at things potentially next November, but more likely in 2020, and ask themselves if things are better that you'll see a change. But this is why 2018 could provide its own problems for the right -- after two years of GOP control of Congress and the WH, if you're one of those voters still facing barely any change in your circumstances, you might rightly ask what's going on. As such, the Carrier announcement this week has been some useful cold water -- and a sign.

the Trump admin's inability to push any policy through or succeed on any of their anti-populist agenda is gonna wind up helping them in the end

xpost Also, if it was a Dem candidate tackling a Fox reporter asking questions about the latest Drudge Siren scandal, the guy would be just a little less popular on the left than Richard Spencer's puncher.

frogbs otm. Trump's budget and health care plan would literally kill millions of his voters.

I sometimes wonder if he *truly* understands that. Ryan and McConnell certainly do.

does ryan understand that? maybe but I don't think he cares since it's his health care plan

guys, they understand.

I sometimes wonder if I'll live to witness American elected officials bluntly (rather than obliquely, which is nothing new) state that it's more okay for some Americans to die than others. Y'know, like maybe if you're on welfare, you have less of a right to life than hardworking bootstrappers. I feel like there's a decent chance it'll happen.

And yes, I know that there's historical precedent for that very thing. I just wonder if there's an impending resurgence.

Saying he was "not proud" of his behavior, he added, "I should not have responded the way I did, for that I'm sorry. I should not have treated that reporter that way, and for that I'm sorry, Mr. Ben Jacobs."

Members of the supportive crowd shouted, "You're forgiven."

Some readers of this article then immediately yelled "FUCK ALL OF YOU!" in the general direction of their computer screens

I saw a clip of that on the news last night and had to turn the tv off

“Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die, but I seemed to bear an enchanted life. I accepted a commission as first lieutenant when it began. In the Argonne Forest I took two machine-gun detachments so far forward that there was a half mile gap on either side of us where the infantry couldn’t advance. We stayed there two days and two nights, a hundred and thirty men with sixteen Lewis guns, and when the infantry came up at last they found the insignia of three German divisions among the piles of dead. I was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decoration—even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!”

Little Montenegro! He lifted up the words and nodded at them—with his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro’s troubled history and sympathized with the brave struggles of the Montenegrin people. It appreciated fully the chain of national circumstances which had elicited this tribute from Montenegro’s warm little heart. My incredulity was submerged in fascination now; it was like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines.

He reached in his pocket, and a piece of metal, slung on a ribbon, fell into my palm.

“That’s the one from Montenegro.”

To my astonishment, the thing had an authentic look.

“Orderi di Danilo,” ran the circular legend, “Montenegro, Nicolas Rex.”

Schindler's Schindlering but there's some potential meat here re Mike Rogers of the NSA talking to staff:

This week’s town hall event, which was broadcast to agency facilities worldwide, was therefore met with surprise and anticipation by the NSA workforce, and Rogers did not disappoint. I have spoken with several NSA officials who witnessed the director’s talk and I’m reporting their firsthand accounts, which corroborate each other, on condition of anonymity.

In his town hall talk, Rogers reportedly admitted that President Trump asked him to discredit the FBI and James Comey, which the admiral flatly refused to do. As Rogers explained, he informed the commander in chief, “I know you won’t like it, but I have to tell what I have seen”—a probable reference to specific intelligence establishing collusion between the Kremlin and Team Trump.

Rogers then added that such SIGINT exists, and it is damning. He stated, “There is no question that we [meaning NSA] have evidence of election involvement and questionable contacts with the Russians.” Although Rogers did not cite the specific intelligence he was referring to, agency officials with direct knowledge have informed me that DIRNSA was obviously referring to a series of SIGINT reports from 2016 based on intercepts of communications between known Russian intelligence officials and key members of Trump’s campaign, in which they discussed methods of damaging Hillary Clinton.

NSA employees walked out of the town hall impressed by the director’s forthright discussion of his interactions with the Trump administration, particularly with how Rogers insisted that he had no desire to “politicize” the situation beyond what the president has already done. America’s spies are unaccustomed to playing partisan politics as Trump has apparently asked them to do, and it appears that the White House’s ham-fisted effort to get NSA to attack the FBI and its credibility was a serious mistake.

Pretty bold claims all in all.

"The other thing to keep in mind, I think, is something which has been handily irritating me over the past few months: the assumption that Trump supporters are already turning on him for economic reasons. FAR too soon. It's when the amped up people who thought he was the solution to larger structural problems look at things potentially next November, but more likely in 2020, and ask themselves if things are better that you'll see a change. But this is why 2018 could provide its own problems for the right -- after two years of GOP control of Congress and the WH, if you're one of those voters still facing barely any change in your circumstances, you might rightly ask what's going on. As such, the Carrier announcement this week has been some useful cold water -- and a sign."

American middle class is feeling angry at economic disenfranchisement yet they are voting for the very forces that have sent their jobs overseas, reduced their pensions, made them pay more for health care, let wages stagnate, supported reduced corporate taxes.

This is why Bernie was so viable - no one wants the status quo of Democrats OR republicans - no one cares if you body slam a reporter if you can put money back into their pocket in some way

It makes me wonder though, if Trump can win who else could be viable? Someone like Tom Hanks?

are you guys seriously crestfallen that Quist didn't win a District Democrats had basically no chance of winning? his margin there is p impressive and bad news a) this early into the Trump admin and b) for the 2018 midterms. It is no surprise that Trumpists haven't turned on the GOP (yet, if they ever will) and the Dems shouldn't be waiting on this to happen, they should be concentrating on registering and mobilizing other voters/portions of the electorate (which is v difficult to do in a random special election in a largely rural state on a Thursday before a holiday weekend).

xp

should say "bad news FOR THE GOP"

no one cares if you body slam a reporter if you can put money back into their pocket in some way

this is not how Trump voters think or vote btw. generally they operate in a fact-free environment where they vote for the GOP candidate because it reinforces vague notions/deeply held narratives/matches their media intake, not because of any principles or policy outcomes or personal situations

also they hate the MSM and body-slamming a reporter is totally a good look as far as they are concerned

I agree, they have been programmed to attack the media too Οὖτις,! Remember when the Trump pussytalk came out and everyone thought he was a goner and GOP was like "oh shit get away from him he's toxic now!" but then he just won anyway so they were like "shit! back to trump he won!"

How some money was spent in Montana--

Republican groups have spent almost four times as much targeting their opponent as Democrats have. That's $1.93 million against Quist and $442,450 against Gianforte in the past 20 days.

http://helenair.com/news/politics/republicans-outspending-democrats-in-final-weeks-of-special-election/article_7a1b04d5-5001-5b8b-a5de-9f10f001dd49.html

Problems problems

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fbi-probing-attempted-hack-trump-organization-officials/story?id=47652150

The FBI is investigating an attempted overseas cyberattack against the Trump Organization, summoning President Donald Trump’s sons, Don Jr. and Eric, for an emergency session with the bureau’s cybersecurity agents and representatives of the CIA, officials tell ABC News.

Law enforcement officials who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity confirmed the attempted hack and said the subsequent meeting took place at the FBI’s New York headquarters on May 8, the day before Trump fired FBI director James Comey. Spokesmen for the FBI, CIA and Secret Service all declined to comment.

Reached by phone, Eric Trump, an executive vice president of the family company, would not confirm or deny that he and his brother had met with the FBI but told ABC News that the company had ultimately not been infiltrated.

“We absolutely weren’t hacked,” Eric Trump said during the brief call. “That’s crazy. We weren’t hacked, I can tell you that.”

this is not how Trump voters think or vote btw. generally they operate in a fact-free environment where they vote for the GOP candidate because it reinforces vague notions/deeply held narratives/matches their media intake, not because of any principles or policy outcomes or personal situations

not saying i disagree but don't you live in a pretty blue area? that's a lot of assumptions to make about people you might not be in daily interaction with (or maybe you are, i don't know)